With attitude like this the only thing we - all other people on Earth - can do is download off the "Pirate Bay" and other sites like this. Region lockings and limitations like this one are insane, especially now with worl being interconnected. Someone, who thinks digital content can be limited to a teritorry is so detached from reality of Internet it is pathetic.
And btw in case you haven't noticed there is much more people elsewhere than in the US - interesting that US companies fail to notice that. But that has its advantages too. For example, Amazon Kindle is not available outside the US, which means alternatives will be developed and entrenched before they will get their act together to move to new markets.
Either freedom and free speech or political correctness, hate speech, hate crimes - next thought crimes. You choose.
This is really frightening to see how much freedom in the civilized countries has eroded over the last few decades. But this erosion was of course rather selective. So a pastor got jailed in Sweden for preaching that homosexuality is a sin and is bad (which it is according to his book), now this guy will be jailed for saying Islam is bad. Why the outcry is not equal in both cases? Both cases is free speech being eliminated because someone might be offended. Idiocy is reaching our legal system (well, Canadian system...).
It's nice there is lots of resources out there, but sending probes there to haul them here and burn as fuel would have been utter stupidity. Unless you find another planet with huge reserves of oxygen we could bring to Earth to try to keep the balance. Overall, this is great news for building a base in the future and probably processing them on-site into something useful - unless the mysterious people behind this occult monument succeed in reducing human population so far that those left won't need much resources anyway.
There's a lot of very talented GLBT* hackers out there, and the military will have to crawl into this century with its attitudes if it wants this century's warriors. Else civilian contractors it is. Many talented hackers have mental problems of all kinds - after all the guy who made ReiserFS was accused of killing his wife and his private life, as revealed on that occasion, was just one huge mess. However, not all hackers have mental problems and I'd prefer the ones having access to weapons of any kind to be of this kind, not the other.
Introspection is much too big a word for this. This is rather a model that through tries learns its physical configuration. Introspection is looking into ones self, which implies a "self" - in other word: a self-consciousness. While this robot is cool and looks very like a living thing it is definitely not self aware.
Since when this is news. I don't think I could even count all the times in the recent thirty years when someone was announcing they will build a base on Moon, go to Mars or just LEO. Not much happens in most cases. I'll be moved when they finally do launch anything even remotely capable of reaching the Moon. For now it's just PR, propaganda or whatever...
Open source model is great, but everyone has to eat and most want much more than that. So the real point is not closed or open source, but the fact that if you have a new, exciting and possibly revolutionary technical idea then there is huge monetary incentive to sell it. That's why even most Slashdot geeks would form a startup and queue for VC injection the day they invent The Next Big Thing.
That is not to say that open source developers and community are not an important part of technology landscape or even modern society as a whole. I would even say that their existence is an indicator of society's health in the area of technology, IT etc. However, open source has its place in the "technological food chain" and it is clearly not bringing breakthroughs. It's rather perfecting the known and making it ubiquitously available to everyone.
First of all how can the be the richest man in the world's office? Bill Lumberg's office was nicer than that! Geez, cheap basic apartment blinds, a cheesy plant, particle board desk, etc. Maybe that's an attempt to endear him as an average joe.
Why should that suprise you? Gates is very competitive and intelligent but he lacks class and finesse. His environment must reflect the man as much as his products do.
BTW, this gradual change did start with the need to prove someone's identity - with the advent of transportation people venturing outside their village needed to be identified by people other than their family and neighbors. This is the reason for paper documents which now more and more take the shape of a plastic card.
It seems that a reliable method of establishing someone's identity is indeed necessary for a modern society to function. The problem is how to achieve this goal while limiting the probability of all the Orwellian scenarios occurring. So far on sites like/. I've heard mostly outcry for RFID chips, which is understandable, outcry about biometrics (like the mass-fingerprinting of everyone crossing the US border), which is understandable and all other kinds of outcry but no proposals of solutions.
I would argue that the real question here is not this or that technical solution but the ethics of those operating them, not the tools but the hand that holds them. The most horrible totalitarian regimes were built without any RFIDs or nothing we consider today advanced technology. True, the more advanced the technology the more damage can be done with them - that's why we should worry more whether as civilization we are becoming more ethically mature with time at least as fast as we are more technologically capable.
Apple is shifting more and more towards consumer electronics and entertainment, which is worrying. It's not where the company's roots and core competencies are. Of course, it's possible to change the market or expand into others, but it's not easy as many companies discovered already. So far they were able to pull that off with iPods, however the Nano and this Motorola phone are being called "disappointing" by market analysts. With the PowerBook and PowerMac lines updates long overdue but nowhere in sight I think they try to swim across the holiday shopping season on entertainment alone. And you know what? As much as I hate it - it might work.
I guess a new specialty in the public relations field must be emerging - PR types capable of hyping up someone's book or product (like that keyboard) by getting it posted on Slashdot.
People are not machines. We can't work 9 hours straight with a short pause for refueling, we can't be focused all the time. But human mind is not a computer, the moments when someone looks out of the window admiring clouds and apparently doing nothing might be just this precious moment, when some of ideas, facts and questions in his mind come together bringing about something significant.
I don't think it has anything to do with laziness. And I don't think people did change that much over time. Remember, our bodies are biological entities, they don't evolve as fast as our technology. What I think is happening is that the fact that we use computers more and more in our workplace makes it easier to observe in detail what employees do. And there is some degree of dehumanization in the workplace going on, especially in large corporations. So, performance of "human resources" is being reduced to numbers just with all other resources and the time spent at work gets arbitrarily and mechanically divided as "productive" or "unproductive".
The real question is whether they have more to hide or whether it's just the good old Parkinson's Law at work. I think it's the later, seriously.
Possibly the whole state bureaucracy, whole state machine is just like a Windows installation. It degrades over time and at some point you have to re-install from scratch.
The deeper we get into nonsense and stupidity of those legal limitations the sooner something will be done about that. Remember, to have a chance of changing that all those restrictions have to become a nuisance for the average American.
After the recent dicussion on their reaction to Google I can't help but wonder what Steve Balmer threw across his office this time.
But seriously, we are seeing what was predicted with Netscape in the late 90-ties slowly becoming real. When Netscape decided to open their source code many believed (including me) that the open bazaar of OS developers would wipe out then clunky and not to be taken seriously IE. It turned out we were wrong, but only about the timing. Look at the situation now - it's IE which has to catch up.
Back 6 years ago, when I tried Star Office for the first time it clearly wasn't a match for MS Office '97. It simply wasn't good. Now I'm using Open Office 2 beta and I must say it is closing very fast on Microsoft. It's not as polished and not as smooth to use, especially if you are accustomed to MS Office's way of doing things but it improved immensely since Open Office 1 - and that was pretty usable already. I think that now for most of your average office or home word processing or calculations etc. you just don't need MS Office anymore.
And, furthermore, we are dealing here with the same phenomenon that many other industries went through. Word processing and all the other components of office software are becoming common place, just like plumbing, transistor radios or cars. It's not high tech anymore, it's not a big deal, anyone can do it. It's commonplace. And for that you just don't pay premium prices, especially in the field that doesn't deal with material goods.
So the problem Microsoft has with Open Office is twofold. On one hand it's the normal evolution of the technology's acceptance in the society that makes them less and less indispensable. On the other it's the same problem they had with Mozilla - it's not a company, so they can't hurt them by throwing piles of money on the problem. Worse, it's not animated by greed. And, let's be frank, MS guys don't think beyond money - software is their tool for making money, not a way of making a difference. That is a cultural barrier that makes it hard for them to understand those who have different motivation.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean, the only thing we could do if there is a major solar outburst is (cue funny music): "duck and cover!"
With attitude like this the only thing we - all other people on Earth - can do is download off the "Pirate Bay" and other sites like this. Region lockings and limitations like this one are insane, especially now with worl being interconnected. Someone, who thinks digital content can be limited to a teritorry is so detached from reality of Internet it is pathetic.
And btw in case you haven't noticed there is much more people elsewhere than in the US - interesting that US companies fail to notice that. But that has its advantages too. For example, Amazon Kindle is not available outside the US, which means alternatives will be developed and entrenched before they will get their act together to move to new markets.
This is really frightening to see how much freedom in the civilized countries has eroded over the last few decades. But this erosion was of course rather selective. So a pastor got jailed in Sweden for preaching that homosexuality is a sin and is bad (which it is according to his book), now this guy will be jailed for saying Islam is bad. Why the outcry is not equal in both cases? Both cases is free speech being eliminated because someone might be offended. Idiocy is reaching our legal system (well, Canadian system...).
It's nice there is lots of resources out there, but sending probes there to haul them here and burn as fuel would have been utter stupidity. Unless you find another planet with huge reserves of oxygen we could bring to Earth to try to keep the balance. Overall, this is great news for building a base in the future and probably processing them on-site into something useful - unless the mysterious people behind this occult monument succeed in reducing human population so far that those left won't need much resources anyway.
OK, one obvious question: why the heck does SETI Institute sends people to watch a meteorite shower? They expect to see alien ships there or what?
Introspection is much too big a word for this. This is rather a model that through tries learns its physical configuration. Introspection is looking into ones self, which implies a "self" - in other word: a self-consciousness. While this robot is cool and looks very like a living thing it is definitely not self aware.
Apple basically doesn't give a damn about other markets than US, with the exception of Japan and the UK.
It's quite simple - something everyone has can't be cool anymore. Coolness stems (also) from uniqueness or rarity.
Since when this is news. I don't think I could even count all the times in the recent thirty years when someone was announcing they will build a base on Moon, go to Mars or just LEO. Not much happens in most cases. I'll be moved when they finally do launch anything even remotely capable of reaching the Moon. For now it's just PR, propaganda or whatever...
Open source model is great, but everyone has to eat and most want much more than that. So the real point is not closed or open source, but the fact that if you have a new, exciting and possibly revolutionary technical idea then there is huge monetary incentive to sell it. That's why even most Slashdot geeks would form a startup and queue for VC injection the day they invent The Next Big Thing.
That is not to say that open source developers and community are not an important part of technology landscape or even modern society as a whole. I would even say that their existence is an indicator of society's health in the area of technology, IT etc. However, open source has its place in the "technological food chain" and it is clearly not bringing breakthroughs. It's rather perfecting the known and making it ubiquitously available to everyone.
The point of open source is not that you have or need to recompile everything, but that you can.
And all profit from the fact that someone will.
Stop eating today. Accept personal death.
Why should that suprise you? Gates is very competitive and intelligent but he lacks class and finesse. His environment must reflect the man as much as his products do.
It seems that a reliable method of establishing someone's identity is indeed necessary for a modern society to function. The problem is how to achieve this goal while limiting the probability of all the Orwellian scenarios occurring. So far on sites like /. I've heard mostly outcry for RFID chips, which is understandable, outcry about biometrics (like the mass-fingerprinting of everyone crossing the US border), which is understandable and all other kinds of outcry but no proposals of solutions.
I would argue that the real question here is not this or that technical solution but the ethics of those operating them, not the tools but the hand that holds them. The most horrible totalitarian regimes were built without any RFIDs or nothing we consider today advanced technology. True, the more advanced the technology the more damage can be done with them - that's why we should worry more whether as civilization we are becoming more ethically mature with time at least as fast as we are more technologically capable.
Apple is shifting more and more towards consumer electronics and entertainment, which is worrying. It's not where the company's roots and core competencies are. Of course, it's possible to change the market or expand into others, but it's not easy as many companies discovered already. So far they were able to pull that off with iPods, however the Nano and this Motorola phone are being called "disappointing" by market analysts. With the PowerBook and PowerMac lines updates long overdue but nowhere in sight I think they try to swim across the holiday shopping season on entertainment alone. And you know what? As much as I hate it - it might work.
I guess a new specialty in the public relations field must be emerging - PR types capable of hyping up someone's book or product (like that keyboard) by getting it posted on Slashdot.
Congratulations. You are more polite and mature than one of the prominent personalities in the OS movement.
I don't think it has anything to do with laziness. And I don't think people did change that much over time. Remember, our bodies are biological entities, they don't evolve as fast as our technology. What I think is happening is that the fact that we use computers more and more in our workplace makes it easier to observe in detail what employees do. And there is some degree of dehumanization in the workplace going on, especially in large corporations. So, performance of "human resources" is being reduced to numbers just with all other resources and the time spent at work gets arbitrarily and mechanically divided as "productive" or "unproductive".
Possibly the whole state bureaucracy, whole state machine is just like a Windows installation. It degrades over time and at some point you have to re-install from scratch.
But there is surely some point in time beyond which further secrecy about past events is pointles?
The deeper we get into nonsense and stupidity of those legal limitations the sooner something will be done about that. Remember, to have a chance of changing that all those restrictions have to become a nuisance for the average American.
Because it brings nostalgic memories. For some.
Well, don't wonder - look at the Keynote and compare it to Powerpoint.
But seriously, we are seeing what was predicted with Netscape in the late 90-ties slowly becoming real. When Netscape decided to open their source code many believed (including me) that the open bazaar of OS developers would wipe out then clunky and not to be taken seriously IE. It turned out we were wrong, but only about the timing. Look at the situation now - it's IE which has to catch up.
Back 6 years ago, when I tried Star Office for the first time it clearly wasn't a match for MS Office '97. It simply wasn't good. Now I'm using Open Office 2 beta and I must say it is closing very fast on Microsoft. It's not as polished and not as smooth to use, especially if you are accustomed to MS Office's way of doing things but it improved immensely since Open Office 1 - and that was pretty usable already. I think that now for most of your average office or home word processing or calculations etc. you just don't need MS Office anymore.
And, furthermore, we are dealing here with the same phenomenon that many other industries went through. Word processing and all the other components of office software are becoming common place, just like plumbing, transistor radios or cars. It's not high tech anymore, it's not a big deal, anyone can do it. It's commonplace. And for that you just don't pay premium prices, especially in the field that doesn't deal with material goods.
So the problem Microsoft has with Open Office is twofold. On one hand it's the normal evolution of the technology's acceptance in the society that makes them less and less indispensable. On the other it's the same problem they had with Mozilla - it's not a company, so they can't hurt them by throwing piles of money on the problem. Worse, it's not animated by greed. And, let's be frank, MS guys don't think beyond money - software is their tool for making money, not a way of making a difference. That is a cultural barrier that makes it hard for them to understand those who have different motivation.