Aren't secret laws something that the SS used in Nazi Germany?
While I understand in an abstract way that showing ID when getting on an airplane is a sort of security measure, my experience is that it is not really being used that way. They take your ID several times as you go through the check-in process yet from what I have seen, they don't do much besides look at it and verify that the name is the same as the name on the ticket.
How is this positive identification? There are thirteen people in the phone book with the same name and middle initial as me in my home town. My tickets are purchased on a corporate account that isn't associated with me directly.
So, what I am saying is that this system is not really designed to be foolproof or failsafe. This tells me that it is a system designed more to mollify the traveling public than anything else. Most people think that security has really gotten much better but the truth of it is that real security has only marginally improved. The show just makes us all feel better (until we think about it).
Blogs are very nearly the ultimate in free speech! Each of us (Mr. Gorman included) have the right to their opinion and the right to share and express that opinion. It is my personal opinion that Mr. Gorman is wrong, in the sense that he just doesn't get it, or perhaps he gets it and is afraid of it. Maybe, if he had a blog I could get inside his head and understand him a little bit better!
Libraries are brick and mortar buildings that organize and categorize people's knowlege, observations, imaginations, and opinions. In a sense, blogs do much of the same thing although they are virtual and they are far less structured (there is no Dewey Decimal System for blogs). While libraries have traditionally been a cornerstone of a certain type of freedom in our country, blogs are becomming a different type of cornerstone of freedom. Blogs don't require editors nor do they require fact-checkers, they are less accurate and unedited. That doesn't make them dangerous, or wrong - but it does set them apart from the print world - it makes them "affordable" to the common man - who is free to publish whatever it is he desires. It also gives the reader a little more responsibility, they aren't reading information that has been filtered by editors, checked by fact-checkers, and approved by some sort of review board.
In a very real sense, filtering by anyone is a form of censorship. I have a brain and I can decide for myself if the information I am reading is valid and worthwhile. I especially appreciate forums like Slashdot where I can read comments from others who can put their two cents worth in. Between the story, my own opinions, and other people's comments I come up with something better than I can find in a library (on a narrow subject).
We have a Republican President and a Republican House, and a Republican Senate. They don't give a rip about things like civil rights or privacy. As long as someone can make a buck, it's allright by them. Unless of course, it costs them money.
I love to hate Microsoft, really. My gut reaction to this announcement was that Microsoft will do to anti-spy vendors what they have done to web browsers and I assume that I will be correct on this observation.
Still, the Microsoft monoculture is what got us into this trouble and it is only right that they get us out of it. By offering it for free and by providing regular updates - they can help to fix the problem. My only question about this is: "Why is this different from virus problems?"
I've harped on this before and will probably harp on it again. The biggest problem is the fact that when so many computers share so many similarities, they can get exploited. In one sense, Microsoft isn't the problem, it is the herd like mentality of the public and corporations. Microsoft is simply giving "us" what "we" want (kinda like the friendly neighborhood drug dealer). Still, there isn't enough choice out there in the market; we need more than a couple of choices. Some of those choices should probably be restricted to people/computers with specific needs (hardened OS's for military, police, banking, and so on would be an example).
No, the obvious solution is to value freedom and to not allow paranoia erode what most of us view as a basiC human right, FREEDOM.
I'm not going to call this a quote; but I believe that Thomas Jefferson said something like: "Those who value security above freedom will soon be without either."
Paper (or in this case plastic) identification didn't stop the French underground in Vichy France nor would it stop Al Queda in the US. There are too many ways around it.
Except for at the airport, it has been years since I showed my ID to anyone in actual authority. At the airport they do not scan it, they just look at it. And if I wanted, I could bypass the airport for virtually all of my travel needs.
If all of a sudden every credit card terminal required you to swipe your national ID card into it, the system could be used to track anyone and everyone although, I would imagine the courts would find that an invasion of privacy and would require a warrant (or, I would at least hope it would).
No, this isn't about fighting terrorisim, it is about the dark side of law enforcement, commercialisim, and privacy. It is about collecting data on you and I. It is in a word; Orwellian.
Your point is well taken, and the truth is that the negitive ads work all too often. Still, simplicity and truth are the right way to go. Ignoring the propoganda only makes it seem more valid and fighting back with similar B.S. only reduces us to their level. So what's it gonna be?
FUD, in all of it's manifestations is a sort of propoganda that can be easily equated to the negitive political ads that we in the United States see every time there is an election. When it comes to talking about all of the confusion that forking creates, it probably should be fought with answers that are real, simple, and above all logical.
Forking is a system that mimics "natural selection." When two camps have differing ideas they are both welcome to try it, whoever comes out with the "better" product is the "winner." The weaker of the two products may either "die on the vine" or continue to exist for those people who need the feature's it offers. If it dies, then the product that is being offered is clearly better. If both products continue to exist, then the user has more choices. Either way, the end user wins.
Most of today's modern automobiles have grown from "forks" of the original designs. There is no real reason why they have four wheels and symetric design other than that is what people favor. They have their humble starts with the Ford Model "T" and a few of it's fore-runners. Nobody complains that today, we have too much choice! Why is software any different?
In nature, we see that mono-cultures are almost always vunerable to some outside threat. Sadly, with the pervasivness of Microsoft Windows, we can see that the virtual world is also close to being a mono-culture. Is it any suprize that this operating system's vunerabilities have made things like viruses, trojans, spyware and other vunerabilities so wide-spread (and so dangerous)?
Forking is healthy. It works like natural evolution to both strengthen and diversify. It gives choice, and advances software's strengths and brings out it's weaknesses allowing developers to fix and improve. These are all good things!
1. It costs less in raw matterials to busild something smaller. 2. It costs less to ship smaller, lighter devices. 3. The devices can be built to accomidate a larger market by adding features that offer extra value without costing a lot to build in.
3A. By offering a feature laden product that can't be internally accessorized easily, they build a market that will want to replace their computers more frequently. Building future market for the manufacturer (planned obsolecence). Note: this will also create a market for USB style accessories.
4. Less space for retailer's stock.
Look for computers to evolve into machines that don't have sockets to add RAM (it will be soldered on the motherboard) and are fabricated more like the new PS/2 from Sony. All the ports will be USB and or Firewire. Much of the design will be borrowed from Notebooks and use "mobile technology" including power-bricks, 2.5" HDD's, and thin style accessories. Things like internal speakers and fans will go away. The CPU heat sink will be a large aluminum panel which will double as a part of the case.
Just cuz they have a patent doesn't mean they (or anyone else) will actually make it - or that if they make it anyone will buy it. This is just another thing to add to their portfolio.
The biggest problem that I see is that it is an abuse of the patent system. Big companies are patenting even lousy ideas simply so that their patent portfolios are bigger. Somehow, the USPTO should only patent good ideas.
I'm starting to get an uneasy feeling about Google. I still think they are an awesome and ethical company and I understand that their recent IPO left them flush with cash allowing them to expand their horizons. Let me be perfectly clear that I do not think they are out to do evil. Of all the companies out there, I think Google is one of the more ethical ones.
What is Google up to? Their indexing of video using closed captioning is a great and wonderful concept and I can see the value in it. With broadband connections being so common today, I can see how this will be very convenient for professionals and lay people alike. The fact that they are looking at "dark fiber" has me more curious. Is it possible or even likely that they will be building an international telecommunications company, taking on companies like AT&T directly? It seems likely to me. It seems like the established telecomm carriers are in a very fragile position today. The technology exists and the infrastructure is in place to litterally topple them at not too great a cost.
I don't see this as a bad thing, I see it as Google creating a new world order, one that forces companies to re-evaluate their "cash cow" operations and make them more competitive in order to avoid the attention of companies like Google who may step in and simply take away all the business with a new, hard to compete against business model. One where a product or service is delivered at low cost, with a markedly simple, low margin but mass market business plan.
In some ways, Google is set to become the WalMart of the information industry!
Chew on that for a moment. Is that bad or is it good? Will there still be room for the smaller services that provide a niche product? Or will the other guys go the way of Main Street when WalMart comes to town?
Living in Minnesota, having seen about two inches of snow this winter (Las Vegas has had more snow than Minneapolis this year but that is about to change). I can tell you we have a very nice streak of moderate winters going here. Yes, we have had a couple of nasty cold days but nothing like we saw years ago.
I believe in global warming, all I have to do is litterally step outside to see it and feel it.
Still, I'd suspect that this is less a man made thing than it is some sort of natural change that happens every few eons. I don't believe that I or my children have anything to fear from global warming. When the artic ice caps start to melt, then we can worry.
The other day a co-worker was reading an article and chuckled at one of the comments: "Outsourcing is like a bad habit, fun at first but it'll eventually kill ya."
First, keep in mind that this is indeed "beta" software (that was born out of a mature non-M$ product). It was pretty good, then Microsoft got their hands on it and now it is "beta" software.
First I'll give Microsoft some credit. They are trying something. Then I'll dis 'em a bit and observe that it has by and large been their poor concept of security that has led to all the virus, worm, trojan, and spyware problems. Finally I'll suggest that anti-spyware should have the same kind of "spyware summary" as anti-virus software typically gives access to. If all of the anti-spy companies did this, it would be downright easy to see who is better at what. It would seem to me that these librarys could be great selling points!
For now, I've added Microsoft's anti-spyware to my arsenal. I'll see what it does and doesn't do. It did find something on my computer that Ad-Aware and Yahoo Anti-Spy missed so I'm at least partly pleased. But I've also read the warnings and will be careful at what I let it kill off.
Maybe I'm just getting old and crochety but why do we want to reinvent the wheel? It seems to me that the current technology is more than adequate and has advantages that the tweel will never match. First, I can buy wheels, and tires that meet my needs and offer combinations of style, price, and performance that would take many, many different stock numbers of tweels to even approximate! Second, the modest tire is a proven comfortable technology. Frankly, it would be hard to sell me on something else.
I drive a 4X4 with what I would describe as very modest tires that carry a 60,000 mile rating! They cost less than $150/tire installed and they are running on "alloy wheels" which came from the factory. For less than $600 I can replace them and run them for another 60,000 miles which equates to almost four years of my daily use! That is a negligible cost when you think about it.
My tires perform just fine on dry pavement, dirt roads, snow-covered roads and even on wet roadways. Hell, I don't hardly think of them which when you think about it, is about the best compliment that you can pay tires.
My tire dealer gives me free rotation of the tires and it does them good too because I always get an oil change and safety check when I come in for a rotation. So, to me, in essence my current tires are all but maintence free.
This has been my experience for years and years. Tires have become that good. Why would you want to give up this kind of reliability? I can't think of one good reason.
I don't know where you are getting your information from. Both Oregon and Washington are in the 13th Coast Guard District and both have numerous stations up and down the coast. Having been stationed there, I can tell you that there are more than one state trooper assignged to the PCH. More than one of 'em gave me tickets!
I do not know if there have been threats on tankers but that does not mean that there is no risk to them. Also, the system being put in place may have other benefits, especially for search and rescue efforts.
To try to equate the system to something we know a bit more about, it is similar in concept to the Air Traffic Control system where controllers know what is supposed to be happening and can see what is happening. Red flags are raised when they see something that looks wrong. Same thing here. The large ships have to say where they are going, when the will be there and what they carry. Their route is charted and then watched to see if anything is happening that shouldn't be.
You are correct. Crude oil probably wouldn't go boom and if my post made it sound like I thought it would, I am sorry - I did not mean for it to sound that way. However it would still create a disaster that would have significant environmental and economic consiquences. Especially if the attack managed to catch a ship off-loading and it damaged the terminal as well.
I agree with the basis of what you are saying. The extra cost of extra security that is the result of terrorisism does reduce productivity and causes extra (and frequently unnecessary) costs. These things cause inflation.
But using electronic systems mounted on bouys (many of which already exist) to extend our view or "expand the umbrella of protection" - is a reasonable and cost effective solution. It may result in a moderate increase in manpower but will not come anywhere near the cost of using naval power to escort the ships into port (which is what the alternitive would have been in the old days).
It sounds to me like this is a very reasonable solution to a problem that has existed long before 9/11.
This technology will also be used by the Coast Guard to augment their traditional roles of searc and rescue and interdiction. Searching seas for small boats is a difficult proposition in bad weather or at night. Adding this technology means that lives will be saved. The Coast Guard will be able to see further out to sea and locate small boats in trouble in severe weather faster and more efficiently.
Sigh, perhaps this is one place where I think our tax dollars are well spent. The money we are spending in Iraq right now is creating people who hate the United States, and I can hardly blame them - when another country comes into your country and kills your son, your brother, your uncle, or your dad on false pretenses, I can hardly blame them for hating us.
We have had porous borders forever, we have so much coastline it is nearly impossible to secure them. But the threat of terrorisim is real and the most obvious targets should get their share of protection. Our ports (as much as the shipping itself) represents a capital investment not just by companies but by the nation itself. It is infrastructure that helps us maintain our standard of living and helps us economically as well making both the import and export of products economically possible. It isn't just a big corporate thing either. While big companies may have a bigger stake in it than small companies, even your corner store sells plenty of things that come in and out of these ports. It is far-reaching and vital to our economy that these ports be protected.
Think I'm kidding? Close your eyes, reach out and pick up the first thing you touch. Pick it up, look at it. Where was it made? If it came in from overseas, it probably came in through a port.
Perhaps we have little to fear, perhaps we have won the war on terrorisim but I don't think that is the case. Osama Bin-Laden is out there, he has followers and even if we get rid of him and all his henchmen, we still have to worry about the new terrorists we have created and our old enemies that are still out there.
Shipping (especially "supertankers" is a very attractive target for terrorists. The system is largely designed to protect the ships and their ports of call. It is an expensive proposition to install these bouys but it is far cheaper than what we did to protect shipping before. In WWII we used naval escorts to protect civilian shipping as it approached our ports. In today's money this would be prohibitivly expensive.
All it takes is a single terrorist with a small plane or a small boat laden with explosives. The USS Cole disaster would be a minor inconvenience in comparison to the economic and environmental disaster caused by a supertanker being blown apart in or near a U.S. port.
If the attack were cooridinated and a number of US ports were attacked in this manner at the same time, the consiquences to the American economy would be disasterous. It could make the importation of oil grind to a halt for long enough to cause oil prices to sky-rocket and our economy to suffer.
This article is nothing more than another forward looking year end article about the PC and what it may possibly become. Don't we kind of expect to read this kind of dross every year about this time. The author really has no special insight because, nobody does. The winds of change are fickle and blow at their own speed on their own terms.
Do I doubt that the PC will change? No. Do I expect that this article will be an accurate prediction of what we will see? Hell no.
I hope that the PC will remain a general device that can do many different things. To me, the versitility of the PC is the key to making it personal. Once you start integrating it with other things, it becomes less general and more specific to specialized tasks. When you integrate a PC with entertainment functions, it becomes a specific kind of tool - likely to be used for entertainment. If that is what you want, fine but I still like pulling up a spreadsheet in one window and surfing the net in another. Nobody else uses a PC exactly like I do and to me, that is what puts the "P" in PC.
I can see the value in different machines to record TV shows, play games, and to do "office work" but I see another side to it too. About the only way that I can explain it is to compare it to a collection of tools. A few years ago, when I was single living in an apartment, I kept my tools in a bucket under the sink. I had everything I needed, a hammer, a crescent wrench, a couple of screw drivers and a couple of pairs of pliers. Today, I own a home. I own woodworking tools, mechanic tools, yard tools, an air compressor, power tools, and many other specialty tools. My investment in tools must come to thousands of dollars. Yet most of these tools sit idle until I need them. I'd rather not have a bunch of computers that sit idle until I actually need them.
I want a more general single device to call a PC! More like that simple bucket of tools that did everything I need. If I don't have that, I see a huge investment in machines that I won't use nearly as often - kinda like my tool collection I have today.
You are pretty close to right. I've been in the position where I've had an idea that showed a great deal of promise. I sold the idea to my bosses and had the opportunity to present it to managment. The idea was obvious and stood a great chance of working; the risk to the company was utterly zero, and the profit potential was very high.
The first question the managers asked me was: "Why isn't anyone else doing it?" The second question was: "Can you show us real numbers?" They actually looked for excuses not to do it.
They didn't adopt the idea. They laid off salesforce and eventually went out of business. Their closest competitor now does exactly what I proposed and is quite successful.
Slashdot Mirror
Aren't secret laws something that the SS used in Nazi Germany?
While I understand in an abstract way that showing ID when getting on an airplane is a sort of security measure, my experience is that it is not really being used that way. They take your ID several times as you go through the check-in process yet from what I have seen, they don't do much besides look at it and verify that the name is the same as the name on the ticket.
How is this positive identification? There are thirteen people in the phone book with the same name and middle initial as me in my home town. My tickets are purchased on a corporate account that isn't associated with me directly.
So, what I am saying is that this system is not really designed to be foolproof or failsafe. This tells me that it is a system designed more to mollify the traveling public than anything else. Most people think that security has really gotten much better but the truth of it is that real security has only marginally improved. The show just makes us all feel better (until we think about it).
Blogs are very nearly the ultimate in free speech! Each of us (Mr. Gorman included) have the right to their opinion and the right to share and express that opinion. It is my personal opinion that Mr. Gorman is wrong, in the sense that he just doesn't get it, or perhaps he gets it and is afraid of it. Maybe, if he had a blog I could get inside his head and understand him a little bit better!
Libraries are brick and mortar buildings that organize and categorize people's knowlege, observations, imaginations, and opinions. In a sense, blogs do much of the same thing although they are virtual and they are far less structured (there is no Dewey Decimal System for blogs). While libraries have traditionally been a cornerstone of a certain type of freedom in our country, blogs are becomming a different type of cornerstone of freedom. Blogs don't require editors nor do they require fact-checkers, they are less accurate and unedited. That doesn't make them dangerous, or wrong - but it does set them apart from the print world - it makes them "affordable" to the common man - who is free to publish whatever it is he desires. It also gives the reader a little more responsibility, they aren't reading information that has been filtered by editors, checked by fact-checkers, and approved by some sort of review board.
In a very real sense, filtering by anyone is a form of censorship. I have a brain and I can decide for myself if the information I am reading is valid and worthwhile. I especially appreciate forums like Slashdot where I can read comments from others who can put their two cents worth in. Between the story, my own opinions, and other people's comments I come up with something better than I can find in a library (on a narrow subject).
We have a Republican President and a Republican House, and a Republican Senate. They don't give a rip about things like civil rights or privacy. As long as someone can make a buck, it's allright by them. Unless of course, it costs them money.
I love to hate Microsoft, really. My gut reaction to this announcement was that Microsoft will do to anti-spy vendors what they have done to web browsers and I assume that I will be correct on this observation.
Still, the Microsoft monoculture is what got us into this trouble and it is only right that they get us out of it. By offering it for free and by providing regular updates - they can help to fix the problem. My only question about this is: "Why is this different from virus problems?"
I've harped on this before and will probably harp on it again. The biggest problem is the fact that when so many computers share so many similarities, they can get exploited. In one sense, Microsoft isn't the problem, it is the herd like mentality of the public and corporations. Microsoft is simply giving "us" what "we" want (kinda like the friendly neighborhood drug dealer). Still, there isn't enough choice out there in the market; we need more than a couple of choices. Some of those choices should probably be restricted to people/computers with specific needs (hardened OS's for military, police, banking, and so on would be an example).
No, the obvious solution is to value freedom and to not allow paranoia erode what most of us view as a basiC human right, FREEDOM.
I'm not going to call this a quote; but I believe that Thomas Jefferson said something like: "Those who value security above freedom will soon be without either."
Paper (or in this case plastic) identification didn't stop the French underground in Vichy France nor would it stop Al Queda in the US. There are too many ways around it.
Except for at the airport, it has been years since I showed my ID to anyone in actual authority. At the airport they do not scan it, they just look at it. And if I wanted, I could bypass the airport for virtually all of my travel needs.
If all of a sudden every credit card terminal required you to swipe your national ID card into it, the system could be used to track anyone and everyone although, I would imagine the courts would find that an invasion of privacy and would require a warrant (or, I would at least hope it would).
No, this isn't about fighting terrorisim, it is about the dark side of law enforcement, commercialisim, and privacy. It is about collecting data on you and I. It is in a word; Orwellian.
Your point is well taken, and the truth is that the negitive ads work all too often. Still, simplicity and truth are the right way to go. Ignoring the propoganda only makes it seem more valid and fighting back with similar B.S. only reduces us to their level. So what's it gonna be?
FUD, in all of it's manifestations is a sort of propoganda that can be easily equated to the negitive political ads that we in the United States see every time there is an election. When it comes to talking about all of the confusion that forking creates, it probably should be fought with answers that are real, simple, and above all logical.
Forking is a system that mimics "natural selection." When two camps have differing ideas they are both welcome to try it, whoever comes out with the "better" product is the "winner." The weaker of the two products may either "die on the vine" or continue to exist for those people who need the feature's it offers. If it dies, then the product that is being offered is clearly better. If both products continue to exist, then the user has more choices. Either way, the end user wins.
Most of today's modern automobiles have grown from "forks" of the original designs. There is no real reason why they have four wheels and symetric design other than that is what people favor. They have their humble starts with the Ford Model "T" and a few of it's fore-runners. Nobody complains that today, we have too much choice! Why is software any different?
In nature, we see that mono-cultures are almost always vunerable to some outside threat. Sadly, with the pervasivness of Microsoft Windows, we can see that the virtual world is also close to being a mono-culture. Is it any suprize that this operating system's vunerabilities have made things like viruses, trojans, spyware and other vunerabilities so wide-spread (and so dangerous)?
Forking is healthy. It works like natural evolution to both strengthen and diversify. It gives choice, and advances software's strengths and brings out it's weaknesses allowing developers to fix and improve. These are all good things!
Smaller desktops will happen and here's why:
1. It costs less in raw matterials to busild something smaller.
2. It costs less to ship smaller, lighter devices.
3. The devices can be built to accomidate a larger market by adding features that offer extra value without costing a lot to build in.
3A. By offering a feature laden product that can't be internally accessorized easily, they build a market that will want to replace their computers more frequently. Building future market for the manufacturer (planned obsolecence). Note: this will also create a market for USB style accessories.
4. Less space for retailer's stock.
Look for computers to evolve into machines that don't have sockets to add RAM (it will be soldered on the motherboard) and are fabricated more like the new PS/2 from Sony. All the ports will be USB and or Firewire. Much of the design will be borrowed from Notebooks and use "mobile technology" including power-bricks, 2.5" HDD's, and thin style accessories. Things like internal speakers and fans will go away. The CPU heat sink will be a large aluminum panel which will double as a part of the case.
Just cuz they have a patent doesn't mean they (or anyone else) will actually make it - or that if they make it anyone will buy it. This is just another thing to add to their portfolio.
The biggest problem that I see is that it is an abuse of the patent system. Big companies are patenting even lousy ideas simply so that their patent portfolios are bigger. Somehow, the USPTO should only patent good ideas.
I'm starting to get an uneasy feeling about Google. I still think they are an awesome and ethical company and I understand that their recent IPO left them flush with cash allowing them to expand their horizons. Let me be perfectly clear that I do not think they are out to do evil. Of all the companies out there, I think Google is one of the more ethical ones.
What is Google up to? Their indexing of video using closed captioning is a great and wonderful concept and I can see the value in it. With broadband connections being so common today, I can see how this will be very convenient for professionals and lay people alike. The fact that they are looking at "dark fiber" has me more curious. Is it possible or even likely that they will be building an international telecommunications company, taking on companies like AT&T directly? It seems likely to me. It seems like the established telecomm carriers are in a very fragile position today. The technology exists and the infrastructure is in place to litterally topple them at not too great a cost.
I don't see this as a bad thing, I see it as Google creating a new world order, one that forces companies to re-evaluate their "cash cow" operations and make them more competitive in order to avoid the attention of companies like Google who may step in and simply take away all the business with a new, hard to compete against business model. One where a product or service is delivered at low cost, with a markedly simple, low margin but mass market business plan.
In some ways, Google is set to become the WalMart of the information industry!
Chew on that for a moment. Is that bad or is it good? Will there still be room for the smaller services that provide a niche product? Or will the other guys go the way of Main Street when WalMart comes to town?
Living in Minnesota, having seen about two inches of snow this winter (Las Vegas has had more snow than Minneapolis this year but that is about to change). I can tell you we have a very nice streak of moderate winters going here. Yes, we have had a couple of nasty cold days but nothing like we saw years ago.
I believe in global warming, all I have to do is litterally step outside to see it and feel it.
Still, I'd suspect that this is less a man made thing than it is some sort of natural change that happens every few eons. I don't believe that I or my children have anything to fear from global warming. When the artic ice caps start to melt, then we can worry.
Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
I couldn't agree with you more.
The other day a co-worker was reading an article and chuckled at one of the comments: "Outsourcing is like a bad habit, fun at first but it'll eventually kill ya."
I couldn't agree more.
Get a cheap old junk machine and keep all of your data and stuff on your regular computer, then use your shop computer as a client.
Blow the dust out of it every six months and yer good to go!
Kinda looks like a salt mine doesn't it?
First, keep in mind that this is indeed "beta" software (that was born out of a mature non-M$ product). It was pretty good, then Microsoft got their hands on it and now it is "beta" software.
First I'll give Microsoft some credit. They are trying something. Then I'll dis 'em a bit and observe that it has by and large been their poor concept of security that has led to all the virus, worm, trojan, and spyware problems. Finally I'll suggest that anti-spyware should have the same kind of "spyware summary" as anti-virus software typically gives access to. If all of the anti-spy companies did this, it would be downright easy to see who is better at what. It would seem to me that these librarys could be great selling points!
For now, I've added Microsoft's anti-spyware to my arsenal. I'll see what it does and doesn't do. It did find something on my computer that Ad-Aware and Yahoo Anti-Spy missed so I'm at least partly pleased. But I've also read the warnings and will be careful at what I let it kill off.
Maybe I'm just getting old and crochety but why do we want to reinvent the wheel? It seems to me that the current technology is more than adequate and has advantages that the tweel will never match. First, I can buy wheels, and tires that meet my needs and offer combinations of style, price, and performance that would take many, many different stock numbers of tweels to even approximate! Second, the modest tire is a proven comfortable technology. Frankly, it would be hard to sell me on something else.
I drive a 4X4 with what I would describe as very modest tires that carry a 60,000 mile rating! They cost less than $150/tire installed and they are running on "alloy wheels" which came from the factory. For less than $600 I can replace them and run them for another 60,000 miles which equates to almost four years of my daily use! That is a negligible cost when you think about it.
My tires perform just fine on dry pavement, dirt roads, snow-covered roads and even on wet roadways. Hell, I don't hardly think of them which when you think about it, is about the best compliment that you can pay tires.
My tire dealer gives me free rotation of the tires and it does them good too because I always get an oil change and safety check when I come in for a rotation. So, to me, in essence my current tires are all but maintence free.
This has been my experience for years and years. Tires have become that good. Why would you want to give up this kind of reliability? I can't think of one good reason.
I don't know where you are getting your information from. Both Oregon and Washington are in the 13th Coast Guard District and both have numerous stations up and down the coast. Having been stationed there, I can tell you that there are more than one state trooper assignged to the PCH. More than one of 'em gave me tickets!
I do not know if there have been threats on tankers but that does not mean that there is no risk to them. Also, the system being put in place may have other benefits, especially for search and rescue efforts.
To try to equate the system to something we know a bit more about, it is similar in concept to the Air Traffic Control system where controllers know what is supposed to be happening and can see what is happening. Red flags are raised when they see something that looks wrong. Same thing here. The large ships have to say where they are going, when the will be there and what they carry. Their route is charted and then watched to see if anything is happening that shouldn't be.
You are correct. Crude oil probably wouldn't go boom and if my post made it sound like I thought it would, I am sorry - I did not mean for it to sound that way. However it would still create a disaster that would have significant environmental and economic consiquences. Especially if the attack managed to catch a ship off-loading and it damaged the terminal as well.
I agree with the basis of what you are saying. The extra cost of extra security that is the result of terrorisism does reduce productivity and causes extra (and frequently unnecessary) costs. These things cause inflation.
But using electronic systems mounted on bouys (many of which already exist) to extend our view or "expand the umbrella of protection" - is a reasonable and cost effective solution. It may result in a moderate increase in manpower but will not come anywhere near the cost of using naval power to escort the ships into port (which is what the alternitive would have been in the old days).
It sounds to me like this is a very reasonable solution to a problem that has existed long before 9/11.
This technology will also be used by the Coast Guard to augment their traditional roles of searc and rescue and interdiction. Searching seas for small boats is a difficult proposition in bad weather or at night. Adding this technology means that lives will be saved. The Coast Guard will be able to see further out to sea and locate small boats in trouble in severe weather faster and more efficiently.
Sigh, perhaps this is one place where I think our tax dollars are well spent. The money we are spending in Iraq right now is creating people who hate the United States, and I can hardly blame them - when another country comes into your country and kills your son, your brother, your uncle, or your dad on false pretenses, I can hardly blame them for hating us.
We have had porous borders forever, we have so much coastline it is nearly impossible to secure them. But the threat of terrorisim is real and the most obvious targets should get their share of protection. Our ports (as much as the shipping itself) represents a capital investment not just by companies but by the nation itself. It is infrastructure that helps us maintain our standard of living and helps us economically as well making both the import and export of products economically possible. It isn't just a big corporate thing either. While big companies may have a bigger stake in it than small companies, even your corner store sells plenty of things that come in and out of these ports. It is far-reaching and vital to our economy that these ports be protected.
Think I'm kidding? Close your eyes, reach out and pick up the first thing you touch. Pick it up, look at it. Where was it made? If it came in from overseas, it probably came in through a port.
Perhaps we have little to fear, perhaps we have won the war on terrorisim but I don't think that is the case. Osama Bin-Laden is out there, he has followers and even if we get rid of him and all his henchmen, we still have to worry about the new terrorists we have created and our old enemies that are still out there.
Shipping (especially "supertankers" is a very attractive target for terrorists. The system is largely designed to protect the ships and their ports of call. It is an expensive proposition to install these bouys but it is far cheaper than what we did to protect shipping before. In WWII we used naval escorts to protect civilian shipping as it approached our ports. In today's money this would be prohibitivly expensive.
All it takes is a single terrorist with a small plane or a small boat laden with explosives. The USS Cole disaster would be a minor inconvenience in comparison to the economic and environmental disaster caused by a supertanker being blown apart in or near a U.S. port.
If the attack were cooridinated and a number of US ports were attacked in this manner at the same time, the consiquences to the American economy would be disasterous. It could make the importation of oil grind to a halt for long enough to cause oil prices to sky-rocket and our economy to suffer.
This article is nothing more than another forward looking year end article about the PC and what it may possibly become. Don't we kind of expect to read this kind of dross every year about this time. The author really has no special insight because, nobody does. The winds of change are fickle and blow at their own speed on their own terms.
Do I doubt that the PC will change? No. Do I expect that this article will be an accurate prediction of what we will see? Hell no.
I hope that the PC will remain a general device that can do many different things. To me, the versitility of the PC is the key to making it personal. Once you start integrating it with other things, it becomes less general and more specific to specialized tasks. When you integrate a PC with entertainment functions, it becomes a specific kind of tool - likely to be used for entertainment. If that is what you want, fine but I still like pulling up a spreadsheet in one window and surfing the net in another. Nobody else uses a PC exactly like I do and to me, that is what puts the "P" in PC.
I can see the value in different machines to record TV shows, play games, and to do "office work" but I see another side to it too. About the only way that I can explain it is to compare it to a collection of tools. A few years ago, when I was single living in an apartment, I kept my tools in a bucket under the sink. I had everything I needed, a hammer, a crescent wrench, a couple of screw drivers and a couple of pairs of pliers. Today, I own a home. I own woodworking tools, mechanic tools, yard tools, an air compressor, power tools, and many other specialty tools. My investment in tools must come to thousands of dollars. Yet most of these tools sit idle until I need them. I'd rather not have a bunch of computers that sit idle until I actually need them.
I want a more general single device to call a PC! More like that simple bucket of tools that did everything I need. If I don't have that, I see a huge investment in machines that I won't use nearly as often - kinda like my tool collection I have today.
You are pretty close to right. I've been in the position where I've had an idea that showed a great deal of promise. I sold the idea to my bosses and had the opportunity to present it to managment. The idea was obvious and stood a great chance of working; the risk to the company was utterly zero, and the profit potential was very high.
The first question the managers asked me was: "Why isn't anyone else doing it?" The second question was: "Can you show us real numbers?" They actually looked for excuses not to do it.
They didn't adopt the idea. They laid off salesforce and eventually went out of business. Their closest competitor now does exactly what I proposed and is quite successful.