Are you saying that people should adapt to technology instead of technology adapting to people?
Despite all the protestations that technology should adapt to people, the fact of life is that technology inevitably changes the way people work. If it didn't and your email program worked like a fax machine (scan a paper copy and send the bitmap), there would be no incentive to invest in new technology.
It's called progress, and yes I know people hate change, but those who don't end up sleeping on park benches.
I think an important counter argument can be made against each of your points:
1. Manageability. If you think that Windows is unique and UNIX/Linux doesn't have comparable tools, it's because you have not worked with a comparable sized UNIX installation. Rdist and LDAP can do everything and more that SMS and Active Directory can. Furthermore they do it cross platform using open standards that are interoperable across a wide range of platforms.
2. Accountability. Baloney. Microsoft isn't accountable to ANYONE, including the Department of Justice. Sure, you can BLAME them, but that is not the same thing as accountability. What you are talking about is the old 'Nobody got fired for buying IBM' which is of course a dead letter these days. Accountability means that you can recover damages from somebody when it breaks, or you can switch to a different supplier. The former is impossible, and the latter is only possible if you are using open standards (i.e. Linux).
3. It's cheaper. Microsoft is cheaper? Have you factored in the costs associated with license compliance, the poor stability of Microsoft platforms compared to Linux, the forced site licensing that requires you to buy TWO licenses per employee for every software package? And hardware is cheaper? Since when? Linux uses the same hardware. The only real advantage Microsoft has with cost is due to vendor lock-in of their user base. And you know what? You PAY and PAY and PAY for that because Microsoft has you by the short hairs. License 6.0 is the shot across the bow. Microsoft got away with a major price increase in the middle of a recession, and they KNOW it. Wait 'till you see License 7.0.
People are not switching to Linux for fun. They are doing so because it gives them an advantage.
I think you really need to look at the ToS for your particular provider. I am on the aforementioned Cablevision, and my ToS says nothing about NAT, or Windows only. It is also far faster for the money than other alternatives. On certain servers I see throughput of 10 Mbps.
ISPs sell you connectivity, what right do they have to tell you what you can't do with it?
Maybe the fact that the ISP owns that network you are using gives them the right.
Does your electric company tell you what you can and can't plug in
The regulations on electrical devices are long and comprehensive. Read NEMA, CFR, NFPA, NEC etc. In many places you can't work on your own wiring without being a licensed electrician.
CVS is tolerable when you just need a place to store your files while retaining a history of changes.
CVS may be the worst version control software in wide use. However using CVS vs. using no version control system is akin to flying in an airplane vs. being in free fall at 30,000 feet with no parachute.
Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to this. If you have a mission critical enterprise level application like a source code repository you really should run it on a very robust platform.
You wouldn't keep your corporate financials on a simple Windows box, so why would you keep the crown jewels (source code) on the same thing?
Anyone who is in business knows all to well that the primary concern of a business executive is figuring out how to game the system so he can rake in a bundle of loot by whatever means possible. His tools are fraud, lies, double-dealing and partnerships with like minded people, as the employees of American Airlines just found out.
It makes it easier to divide a circle by 3, 4, and 5 (and multiples of) and end up with whole-unit measurements.
Decimalization is crucial when it comes to doing calculations - look at what happens when you try to convert measures in English units - a cubic yard is how many cubic inches? While if we look at a system where the units are powers of the numeric base we can easily write that a cubic meter is (10^2)^3 or 1 million cubic centimeters.
Now if you wanted to argue that we should be using base 12 math for everything, and a circle should be 100 base 12 degrees (this would be divisible by 2,3,4,6 just fine) then I would sympathize somewhat.
It seems to me that we should get rid of the concept of seconds altogether. The second was devised in the Sumerian culture, along with such bizarre ideas as a circle having 360 degrees.
The French of course stole the concept of decimalization from Thomas Jefferson and applied it to a variety of measurements, but failed to carry it to a good conclusion by decimalizing time (it seems everything French starts off well but is never really completed).
It seems to me that real progress should be made by dividing the day up into decimal units of time, and the circle into decimal units of arc, thus eliminating the second as a unit of measure.
Ringworld included a description of something essentially the same as the Magog worldship - the Puppeteer Kemplerer Rosette which was clearly going somewhere. Since Ringworld was written well before Andromeda I think you should give it priority.
If you get the ANR version of the Mobo for $100 more you will get a SATA RAID controller. That should give you a lot better disk performance when SATA drives are more common without the high cost of SCSI.
The problem with this is clearly that companies are now using the DMCA to protect trade secrets. This sort of strengthening of the ability of companies to keep technology secret has the potential to have very dire consequences to innovation. Why wouldn't the next step be for Microsoft to use DMCA to squash reverse engineering of a file format or network protocol?
While many/. readers dislike patents, at least with this as the primary mechanism to protect IP you have time limits, disclosure of the technology and some sort of review to determine if the technology is worthy of a protected status. Patents have to be greatly preferred over the DMCA.
I did not say it was 'curve fitting'. Any model that is extended to areas beyond where there is experimental data to validate the prediction is extrapolating.
There are serveral problems trying to make sense of this data in this context:
-Numerical differentiation is equivalent to subtracting two large numbers to get a small number - the error in the small number will be a very large percentage of the small number.
-We do not have good data for anything older than 150 years. This is too short.
-Statistical measures do not prove causality, so we cannot infer anything like burning fossil fuels is the reason for temperature increases IF we were certain that the temperature is actually increasing.
-People are trying to model the effects of greenhouse gasses and then extrapolate the results of the models to regions where there is no data. Extrapolation is notoriously difficult.
On the other hand there is the compelling argument that we are shooting craps with the ecosphere on the table. Not a wise move.
Personally I think that burning fossil fuels to obtain energy is ok IF you are using it to bootstrap a civilizationto a level where such crude technology is not needed, and you are sure that it isn't going to lead to an eco-disaster. Since we don't seem to be making much progress on the bootstap front (the land of Hammurabi The Law Giver is governed by a despost and embroiled in war) and we certainly have no assurance that an eco-disaster isn't in the offing, we should really try to limit fossil fule use until we know a bit better what we are doing.
A good first step would be to tighten up patent claims to be as concrete as possible.
You are confusing two parts of a patent - the claims and the description of the invention. The description of the invention, by law is supposed to allow anyone skilled in the art to reproduce the invention. Most inventions live up to this,
The claims are a very different thing - the value of the patent is really directly related to how broad the claims are. The breadth of the claims is determined (at least ideally) primarily by how innovative the claimed invention is - something really new and you get broad claims.
When you have a situation where patent claims are read narrowly, you have the situation where a patent covers only a small part of the art - so you have to file a LOT of patents to cover an invention fully. This is the case in Japan, and it is a MESS. In Japan the only real value of the patent system is to prevent foreign companies from introducing innovation into Japan.
Even a strong supporter of IP should agree to that.
Given what I know about other countries who read claims in a narrow fashion, I disagree very strongly with your proposal.
Are you saying that a story derived from northern european myth laced with themes derived from Shakespeare, Beowulf etc. should be directed at a non-western audience??????
Slashdot Mirror
And keyboards!
Gack! There is only the One True Keyboard.
Are you saying that people should adapt to technology instead of technology adapting to people?
Despite all the protestations that technology should adapt to people, the fact of life is that technology inevitably changes the way people work. If it didn't and your email program worked like a fax machine (scan a paper copy and send the bitmap), there would be no incentive to invest in new technology.
It's called progress, and yes I know people hate change, but those who don't end up sleeping on park benches.
only eclipse is close
Eclipse is better and can be used to develop in langauges other than Java. I've used it for Java, C, PHP and Perl.
I think an important counter argument can be made against each of your points:
1. Manageability. If you think that Windows is unique and UNIX/Linux doesn't have comparable tools, it's because you have not worked with a comparable sized UNIX installation. Rdist and LDAP can do everything and more that SMS and Active Directory can. Furthermore they do it cross platform using open standards that are interoperable across a wide range of platforms.
2. Accountability. Baloney. Microsoft isn't accountable to ANYONE, including the Department of Justice. Sure, you can BLAME them, but that is not the same thing as accountability. What you are talking about is the old 'Nobody got fired for buying IBM' which is of course a dead letter these days. Accountability means that you can recover damages from somebody when it breaks, or you can switch to a different supplier. The former is impossible, and the latter is only possible if you are using open standards (i.e. Linux).
3. It's cheaper. Microsoft is cheaper? Have you factored in the costs associated with license compliance, the poor stability of Microsoft platforms compared to Linux, the forced site licensing that requires you to buy TWO licenses per employee for every software package? And hardware is cheaper? Since when? Linux uses the same hardware. The only real advantage Microsoft has with cost is due to vendor lock-in of their user base. And you know what? You PAY and PAY and PAY for that because Microsoft has you by the short hairs. License 6.0 is the shot across the bow. Microsoft got away with a major price increase in the middle of a recession, and they KNOW it. Wait 'till you see License 7.0.
People are not switching to Linux for fun. They are doing so because it gives them an advantage.
Correct me if I'm wrong
Consider yourself corrected. FAT is *not* a journaling file system.
and charge an arm and a leg for it.
They have that one covered.
One thing that you can bet Longhorn will be way ahead of Mac OS X and Linux on is obnoxious license terms, activation woes and spyware.
Read a typical cable modem service ToS some time
I think you really need to look at the ToS for your particular provider. I am on the aforementioned Cablevision, and my ToS says nothing about NAT, or Windows only. It is also far faster for the money than other alternatives. On certain servers I see throughput of 10 Mbps.
ISPs sell you connectivity, what right do they have to tell you what you can't do with it?
Maybe the fact that the ISP owns that network you are using gives them the right.
Does your electric company tell you what you can and can't plug in
The regulations on electrical devices are long and comprehensive. Read NEMA, CFR, NFPA, NEC etc. In many places you can't work on your own wiring without being a licensed electrician.
So what happened to the theory that only megacorps could use patents? Seems like one guy named Charley can do it.
CVS is tolerable when you just need a place to store your files while retaining a history of changes.
CVS may be the worst version control software in wide use. However using CVS vs. using no version control system is akin to flying in an airplane vs. being in free fall at 30,000 feet with no parachute.
I know, I know. But someone was bound to say it.
Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to this. If you have a mission critical enterprise level application like a source code repository you really should run it on a very robust platform.
You wouldn't keep your corporate financials on a simple Windows box, so why would you keep the crown jewels (source code) on the same thing?
Anyone who is in business knows all to well that the primary concern of a business executive is figuring out how to game the system so he can rake in a bundle of loot by whatever means possible. His tools are fraud, lies, double-dealing and partnerships with like minded people, as the employees of American Airlines just found out.
Visualization software? Not bloody likely.
It makes it easier to divide a circle by 3, 4, and 5 (and multiples of) and end up with whole-unit measurements.
Decimalization is crucial when it comes to doing calculations - look at what happens when you try to convert measures in English units - a cubic yard is how many cubic inches? While if we look at a system where the units are powers of the numeric base we can easily write that a cubic meter is (10^2)^3 or 1 million cubic centimeters.
Now if you wanted to argue that we should be using base 12 math for everything, and a circle should be 100 base 12 degrees (this would be divisible by 2,3,4,6 just fine) then I would sympathize somewhat.
But 360? It makes no sense.
It seems to me that we should get rid of the concept of seconds altogether. The second was devised in the Sumerian culture, along with such bizarre ideas as a circle having 360 degrees.
The French of course stole the concept of decimalization from Thomas Jefferson and applied it to a variety of measurements, but failed to carry it to a good conclusion by decimalizing time (it seems everything French starts off well but is never really completed).
It seems to me that real progress should be made by dividing the day up into decimal units of time, and the circle into decimal units of arc, thus eliminating the second as a unit of measure.
set your MX record to a IPv6 address
:-0.
:-0.
Better yet, set it to localhost
And when you fill out that registration form at xyzcorp, be sure to list your email address as sales@xyzcorp.com.
Eclipse + Tomcat + JBoss is a pretty decent free combination that offers a lot of capability.
Ringworld included a description of something essentially the same as the Magog worldship - the Puppeteer Kemplerer Rosette which was clearly going somewhere. Since Ringworld was written well before Andromeda I think you should give it priority.
If you get the ANR version of the Mobo for $100 more you will get a SATA RAID controller. That should give you a lot better disk performance when SATA drives are more common without the high cost of SCSI.
The problem with this is clearly that companies are now using the DMCA to protect trade secrets. This sort of strengthening of the ability of companies to keep technology secret has the potential to have very dire consequences to innovation. Why wouldn't the next step be for Microsoft to use DMCA to squash reverse engineering of a file format or network protocol?
/. readers dislike patents, at least with this as the primary mechanism to protect IP you have time limits, disclosure of the technology and some sort of review to determine if the technology is worthy of a protected status. Patents have to be greatly preferred over the DMCA.
While many
there is no extrapolation involved
I did not say it was 'curve fitting'. Any model that is extended to areas beyond where there is experimental data to validate the prediction is extrapolating.
1 line of APL.
Here is some data starting at 1850 or so.
There are serveral problems trying to make sense of this data in this context:
-Numerical differentiation is equivalent to subtracting two large numbers to get a small number - the error in the small number will be a very large percentage of the small number.
-We do not have good data for anything older than 150 years. This is too short.
-Statistical measures do not prove causality, so we cannot infer anything like burning fossil fuels is the reason for temperature increases IF we were certain that the temperature is actually increasing.
-People are trying to model the effects of greenhouse gasses and then extrapolate the results of the models to regions where there is no data.
Extrapolation is notoriously difficult.
On the other hand there is the compelling argument that we are shooting craps with the ecosphere on the table. Not a wise move.
Personally I think that burning fossil fuels to obtain energy is ok IF you are using it to bootstrap a civilizationto a level where such crude technology is not needed, and you are sure that it isn't going to lead to an eco-disaster. Since we don't seem to be making much progress on the bootstap front (the land of Hammurabi The Law Giver is governed by a despost and embroiled in war) and we certainly have no assurance that an eco-disaster isn't in the offing, we should really try to limit fossil fule use until we know a bit better what we are doing.
I don't think he would have gotten that $134,000 musket contract as just another 33 year old Yale graduate with big ideas.
Why not? Bill Gates didn't invent anything, didn't graduate and he was worth MUCH more at age 33.
I didn't say he made any money from the cotton gin. I said he became wealthy and famous.
Give me a break. You didn't even know the inventor's name.
Yet the invention was wildly successful and the inventor became wealthy and famous. This implies that the inventor's monopoly need not be perfect.
Baloney. Eli Whitney never made a nickel off the cotton gin. Copiers drove him out of the cotton gin manufacturing business.
A good first step would be to tighten up patent claims to be as concrete as possible.
You are confusing two parts of a patent - the claims and the description of the invention. The description of the invention, by law is supposed to allow anyone skilled in the art to reproduce the invention. Most inventions live up to this,
The claims are a very different thing - the value of the patent is really directly related to how broad the claims are. The breadth of the claims is determined (at least ideally) primarily by how innovative the claimed invention is - something really new and you get broad claims.
When you have a situation where patent claims are read narrowly, you have the situation where a patent covers only a small part of the art - so you have to file a LOT of patents to cover an invention fully. This is the case in Japan, and it is a MESS. In Japan the only real value of the patent system is to prevent foreign companies from introducing innovation into Japan.
Even a strong supporter of IP should agree to that.
Given what I know about other countries who read claims in a narrow fashion, I disagree very strongly with your proposal.
flick that is directed for an US/western audience
Are you saying that a story derived from northern european myth laced with themes derived from Shakespeare, Beowulf etc. should be directed at a non-western audience??????
That would work. NOT.