Better?? I've had IE crash when trying to load a web page with one static picture on it, much less a Flash animation.
Frankly, I don't like either. But I am using Netscape 4.7 currently and there's no problems with that version. Yet.
What is it with the IT software industry anyways? Let's promote a new version even before we've worked all the bugs out of the old version, stop supporting the old version so the End Users have to get the new version, and repeat until rich? Is that all there is to it?
Am I surprised by Netscape/AOL/whoever doing this? No. But I would be pleasantly surprised if one company would release a new browser or OS that wasn't buggy as Hell(tm).
Probably. I've seen the same thing happen at a few different companies I've interviewed at. Replacing desks, chairs, buying those stupid little pads you put in front of keyboards to rest your wrists on.
I have to wonder, if complying with OSHA costs your business X dollars, can you claim that as a tax write-off? Because from what I've seen, the OSHA standards seem to hurt small businesses a lot more then it hurts the big boys...
I thought a neutron star had the density of an atomic nucleus, but was not compressed into one nucleus. Of course, this link doesn't seem to indicate whether I'm wholely correct or not. It does support my statement on the density, but doesn't say whether or not it's compressed into one nucleus.
Of course, if it's compressed into one nucleus, it would help to explain the immense amount of x-rays this sucker is putting out.
Don't look for it to happen any time soon. Many of the world's leaders can probably barely understand e-mail, let alone the Internet. Clinton may be the most Internet-savvy President to date, if for no other reason then looking for hot Asian babes, but he's still scraping the bottom of the barrel. (In more ways then one.)
To have the Internet treated like international waters means that it would exist outside all countries' laws and therefore be immune to certain scare tactics from lawyers and such. The problem lies in the fact that the servers that house web-based content are not physically located more then 12 miles off the shore of every country. They are within the bounds, and therefore the laws, of a country. I cannot see the U.S. or any other country for that matter, ceding most legal rights to any dink with a server. Furthermore, I do not want to see extra-legal powers for AOL, as given them the same status as international waters would do. (Instead of dealing with U.S. law, they would get to go to the U.N., that bastion of common sense and understanding.)
It probably won't be too long. Hrm... a wired desk with uber-Plug-and-Play.... hey, as long as they come in colours that are not fruity pastels, I got no problem.
Seriously though, I doubt that it's too far off. There has been a lot of focus, MS notwithstanding, towards integration and backwards compatibility. Software and hardware companies are realizing that there is little point to putting out a new product every six to nine months if it won't run the old stuff. (Okay, software companies already knew this. Hardware companies? Who can tell.)
What needs to be done, in combination with these advanced methods of storing data, is one disk with every single device driver ever written on it. (Yeah, like that will happen.) Computer design can only go so far when the End User cannot use the devices he has because the drivers aren't there. And in some cases, it is difficult, if not almost impossible to procur the drivers you need, especially if the drivers are needed to boot the system and they won't fit on a disk. ZIP drives and CDRs helped majorly with this, but is my idea that far-fetched? (I'll answer myself. Yes, it is.)
What I also wouldn't mind seeing is a software system that allows you to disk-swap these 140GB disks as a floating hard-drive. Maybe install one of those 12-CD changers you see in cars as an uber-drive. (Now checking Drives C-N)
But.. they're 5 inches across still. When are we going to get something smaller? Why not stick 30Gb on a 2 inch disc? That'd be a killer for portables.
As soon as it's financially feasible for companies to make them. Let's face it, right now there are way too many choices for hand-held geek toys for any one format of a 2" disc to be financially feasible. Now, odds are that some of these geek toys won't be around in six months, while some more will have been added. But once the market for the geek-toy-of-the-week calms down and standards can actually be predicted, we should have a 2" disc for data storage. There's no reason other then money and standards not to do it.
No doubt it will have to be a specially configured drive for the OAS-ROM (using an acronym given in a post below). Hopefully, it will be possible for it to read DVDs and CDs as well, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Functionality is nice, but the hardware industry seems to enjoy making us buy as many different toys as possible.
It begs the question, how big are towers going to get for End Users? With this tech, you could have a tower with drive bays for 3.5" disks, ZIP disks, CDs, DVDs, and this new one. If this keeps up, the silly thing is going to either be taller then I am, or it will go double-wide.
Of course, that assumes that all of those methods of storing data stay around. If this new media is not vapourware and it takes off, I could really see current CD drives being dropped. And with a few more years, I don't think we'll be seeing 3.5" drives either.
I think the point of the original quote of 37 characters max is the 'old' number of characters in the symbol set that were allowed, not the length of the actual URL. And your article from 2600 lists a maximum URL length of 63, not 67.
BTW, are hyphens and tildes inter-changeable? Because I've seen a lot of web-pages with tildes, and only some of them turn into hyphens when reloading.
Well, I know that some of the Oriental 'alphabets' have numerous different ways to represent the same concepts, but hwo would using glyph composite symbols help (if I understand what you mean)?
Just because there exists in a language two symbols 'blah' and 'thingy' so that 'blahthingy' means something else doesn't mean that this standard will adopt it. It's much more likely to use the 'common' kanji. (Ob note: There's only about 50 different Japanese characters for dragon from a quick search on lycos... or some really poor kanji writers).
That being said, it would be impossible to set up all possible configurations where composite symbols would redirect to the 'obvious' site. (i.e. www.golddragon.com, no matter how it's spelled in kanji or whatever would not necessarily all go to the same site.) It would be a neat trick if it could, but it would require registering dozens of permutations.
Well, if you look closely at the returns, Bush is ahead in the number of votes in Florida, but somehow Gore is the winner there. Just like in New York, where Lazio is ahead by 14,000 votes (10% of the precincts reporting) but Clinton is somehow the 'declared' winner.
On yeah, and CNN is equally as bad. They gave Delaware to Gore when 1% of the precincts had reported in. On the "good" side, Missouri went from a Gore state on their map to undecided.
I believe that it is law now. However, I hadn't heard about this before, so no doubt that both major candidates had any idea how it would play to their constituents, so it got no media coverage. Since it affects H1-B visas and the INS, it's not surprising that it may not have gotten any air time. Of course, in the RTP area, it may have aired... there's a lot of H1-B workers there...
Anywho, it's a law now. Wonder if this will help me, a good old American citizen with two B.S.es get a job in a related field. (You'd think with a Mech. E and a Comp. Sci. degree, I'd be working somewhere other then Kinko's.)
Maybe slightly OT, but I seem to recall that generally, Wierd Al gets an okay from the artists he parodies. From what I understand, all but one of the artists (Coolio) he's done song parodies of have agreed beforehand.
Now, legally, he I don't believe he has to get permission, but it is probably a nice thing to do. Same thing with the spoofs like Troops, which is both a Star Wars and a Cops parody. Legally, they don't have to get permission, but it is usually a wise choice to let them know you're doing it, and that it is legal under Fair Use rules.
BTW, Fair Use also governs quoting copyrighted material in a limited form or format. For instance, Fair Use could let me quote the chorus to a song I didn't own the rights to, but not necessarily the whole song. Same with code, although not proprietary code, etc. (Mind you, just because it's published does not mean it's open for Fair Use. Check with someone who is much better on Fair Use and Freedom of Speech.)
Or if the candidate themself is not the one making the web-page. Somehow I really can't see most of the candidates out there taking time out of their 'busy' schedule of politicing, lobbying and lying to voters to learn HTML or make their own web page.
Thus, they rely on staffers, quotes, and existing stands on positions. Now, given the propensity of politicians in the last several months to bash Hollywood for too much sex and violence, I can easily see why it might be filtered out. Of course, it is also possible to manually set some of the filters so that certain sites, even if they don't fall under the filter, will be blocked anyways. But that takes far more effort, and I can't see a conspiracy of staffers going around to all publicly accessible computers to block the other guy's sites.
Well, I don't have kids, I'm not married, and I'm currently sans girlfriend, so I really can't see how this is an issue for me.
But, daycare seems to work just fine for lots of kids, so why would it be different for techies? Other then the fact that they tend to work a lot more hours a week, have incredibly odd schedules, can take a lot of trips to deal with on-site problems, and are generally lacking in social skills...
Why nothing at all... actually daycare may be the best thing for them... gives them time with normal people...
Oh, and telecommuting is not an option for everyone. A lot of businesses don't have the option, or severely restrict it.
Yeah, I think (IANAL) that it's called a suit in the public's interest. Although how providing free copies of games that are no longer available is against the public's interest is beyond me.
Again, this does delve into copyright law, and ownership issues. This could all be solved by various software and game companies releasing stuff into public domain, but I really can't see that happening on a large scale. Maybe you'd get a few games into public domain, but that's it. Of course, I'd love to see a lawyer read this on/. and take up the defense of the Underdogs. But I don't see that happening either.
More hours definitely does not always equal better code. I believe it was Microsoft who planned to have world-wide programming on a project going 24/7, with each group of programmers ending their work day by sending the code they had written to the next group of programmers who were just starting their work day. It failed horribly, obviously, because so much time was spent dealing with understanding the code the other guys had written, dealing with differing programming styles, and of course, having to deal with the MS proprietary code, which must be horrid to begin with...
It is far easier to get good code by not over-working your people. If they want to work 70 hours a week, that's fine for them. But more and more businesses are insisting that their programmers have a social life so they don't get burned out and move on. It's pretty savvy of the businesses, as they look better in the eyes of their employees and can retain their workers. Because as we all know, nothing tanks the productivity of a project like having to hire people to fill the group up. Mmm... re-training in the middle of a deadline... such fun...
cool... this, if nothing else, shows the power of advertising... I haven't heard anything about this, and I've seen so many ads for Playstation games and consoles it hurts.
Is Indrema advertising anywhere other then this site? I want to know if have actually missed the ads or I am buying the "wrong" computer magazines...
And it's selling on eBay for upwards of $1000(US) per unit. I know if I had been able to buy one at the normal price, I would have sold it right now.
Now, face it, with all the hype and sales, Sony is pushing this as far as it will go. They want this console to be selling like gangbusters, which it is. Not only are they trying to get the game console crowd, but they can get people who maybe wouldn't buy one except that you can also watch DVDs on it.
Mind you, when a game console comes out that you can program in Linux on as well as play games, I figure 90% of/. will be hooked immediately...
Actually, it still can be a contract without conditions. The conditions I was referring to were for use or for information gathering. I should have made that more clear.
And I have heard of corporations giving away computers, scott-free, but still setting up a contract which spells out exactly what shape the computers are in, and that the school agreed not to sue the corp for anything that happened to or with the computers that could not be satisfactorily laid at the corp's feet. (I.e. if little Johnny hacks into a goverment server using one of these computers, it's not the corp's fault for donating the computer that was used.)
Yeah, a lot of that is common sense understood, but corps like spelling it out anyway. Gives corporate lawyers something to do when there are no lawsuits pending.
The only place corporations should have withing schools is donating equipment on a unconditional basis for the betterment of the students. They'll get good press off of doing so, name recognition with the students, and that should be it.
No garnering of personal information, no conditions on use, etc. I'd love to see more corporations donate computers that they don't use any more (a lot of corps buy new computers all the time and just dump the old ones) to help students out. Unfortunately, we have dingbats like Zap...
I hope they get everything that is coming to them. (Vindictive? Moi?)
If the contract between the school and the corporation was for free computers, no conditions, then they can't turn around and charge for the computers, no matter what. It's called Breach of Contract, or something like that.
Now, mind you, if the contract had some agreement that the ads would be available for students to use at their discretion, then they still shouldn't be able to charge for the computers, because freedom of choice lets the students answer the ads or not answer the ads at their choice.
Finally, if the contract said that X percentage or X many students had to fill out the ads, then I believe it is patently unenforceable, because a contract between two parties cannot govern a third party who is not a signator of the contract. Which means that the contract would have been made in Bad Faith and is null. Whether the computers have to be returned or not, I don't know, but the schools still shouldn't have to pay for them.
Again, IANAL.
Kierthos
Re:Interesting depth or too much caffeine?
on
Candle
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· Score: 1
I'd say too much caffiene. (But then, I'm drinking Irish Creme coffee myself, so...)
Obviously, ideas (memes) shape our understanding of our surroundings and how we view everything. We each have our one memetic filter. You can't convince a staunch Democrat to vote for GWB, just like you couldn't convice Buchanan to not be a Nazi-esque thug. (My opinions, of course, which are coloured by my own memes.)
So, in a sense, we are within a meme. Our ideas and viewpoints colour how we see everything. But a meme within a meme? No. Underneath our own perceptions of the world around us, the world still exists. It itself is not a meme. A rock is not changed into something else just because something thinks it is a beach ball. Our perceptions shape how we view reality, but they do not shape reality itself. For that, go play Mage: The Ascension.:P
Kierthos
Re:Sounds like a good book.
on
Candle
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· Score: 2
The thing is, has this universal theme been done to death? The idea of a single controlling entity, whether it be a world government, a viral meme, or a collective intelligence, has been used a lot lately, and most of the dealing with it, heck all of the dealings with it have the rebel against the norm.
Now, I realize that without the rebel, the concept would be pretty boring. ("What do you want to do today, Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky, work for the good of the controlling power that has our best interests at heart.)
I have to ask anyone who'd had a peek at the book. Does the 'main character' the hunter of the rebel, become a rebel himself? Does he ever question the authority or validity of his own position? Frankly, I have problems with books where the character stays exactly the same throughout the whole book. I don't like cardboard characters.
I also have to question whether the controlling meme in this case would count as a religion. I didn't get the impression from the synopsis that the meme is worshipped by anyone. Rather I see it as the entity which has 'absolute' control. More of a dictator then an icon. (More of a "The Meme is the Boss." then "The Meme is the One True Way." kind of thing.)
I'm not saying it's going to be a bad book. Frankly, I think it's going to be quite good. But I have to question whether or not we really need another book like this?
Oh well, it could have been worse. It could have been another neo-Luddite vision of the present or future like Dean Koontz is so fond of.
Slashdot Mirror
Better?? I've had IE crash when trying to load a web page with one static picture on it, much less a Flash animation.
Frankly, I don't like either. But I am using Netscape 4.7 currently and there's no problems with that version. Yet.
What is it with the IT software industry anyways? Let's promote a new version even before we've worked all the bugs out of the old version, stop supporting the old version so the End Users have to get the new version, and repeat until rich? Is that all there is to it?
Am I surprised by Netscape/AOL/whoever doing this? No. But I would be pleasantly surprised if one company would release a new browser or OS that wasn't buggy as Hell(tm).
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
Probably. I've seen the same thing happen at a few different companies I've interviewed at. Replacing desks, chairs, buying those stupid little pads you put in front of keyboards to rest your wrists on.
I have to wonder, if complying with OSHA costs your business X dollars, can you claim that as a tax write-off? Because from what I've seen, the OSHA standards seem to hurt small businesses a lot more then it hurts the big boys...
Kierthos
I thought a neutron star had the density of an atomic nucleus, but was not compressed into one nucleus. Of course, this link doesn't seem to indicate whether I'm wholely correct or not. It does support my statement on the density, but doesn't say whether or not it's compressed into one nucleus.
Of course, if it's compressed into one nucleus, it would help to explain the immense amount of x-rays this sucker is putting out.
Kierthos
Don't look for it to happen any time soon. Many of the world's leaders can probably barely understand e-mail, let alone the Internet. Clinton may be the most Internet-savvy President to date, if for no other reason then looking for hot Asian babes, but he's still scraping the bottom of the barrel. (In more ways then one.)
To have the Internet treated like international waters means that it would exist outside all countries' laws and therefore be immune to certain scare tactics from lawyers and such. The problem lies in the fact that the servers that house web-based content are not physically located more then 12 miles off the shore of every country. They are within the bounds, and therefore the laws, of a country. I cannot see the U.S. or any other country for that matter, ceding most legal rights to any dink with a server. Furthermore, I do not want to see extra-legal powers for AOL, as given them the same status as international waters would do. (Instead of dealing with U.S. law, they would get to go to the U.N., that bastion of common sense and understanding.)
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
It probably won't be too long. Hrm... a wired desk with uber-Plug-and-Play.... hey, as long as they come in colours that are not fruity pastels, I got no problem.
Seriously though, I doubt that it's too far off. There has been a lot of focus, MS notwithstanding, towards integration and backwards compatibility. Software and hardware companies are realizing that there is little point to putting out a new product every six to nine months if it won't run the old stuff. (Okay, software companies already knew this. Hardware companies? Who can tell.)
What needs to be done, in combination with these advanced methods of storing data, is one disk with every single device driver ever written on it. (Yeah, like that will happen.) Computer design can only go so far when the End User cannot use the devices he has because the drivers aren't there. And in some cases, it is difficult, if not almost impossible to procur the drivers you need, especially if the drivers are needed to boot the system and they won't fit on a disk. ZIP drives and CDRs helped majorly with this, but is my idea that far-fetched? (I'll answer myself. Yes, it is.)
What I also wouldn't mind seeing is a software system that allows you to disk-swap these 140GB disks as a floating hard-drive. Maybe install one of those 12-CD changers you see in cars as an uber-drive. (Now checking Drives C-N)
And once you make them scratch-resistant...
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
But.. they're 5 inches across still. When are we going to get something smaller? Why not stick 30Gb on a 2 inch disc? That'd be a killer for portables.
As soon as it's financially feasible for companies to make them. Let's face it, right now there are way too many choices for hand-held geek toys for any one format of a 2" disc to be financially feasible. Now, odds are that some of these geek toys won't be around in six months, while some more will have been added. But once the market for the geek-toy-of-the-week calms down and standards can actually be predicted, we should have a 2" disc for data storage. There's no reason other then money and standards not to do it.
Kierthos
No doubt it will have to be a specially configured drive for the OAS-ROM (using an acronym given in a post below). Hopefully, it will be possible for it to read DVDs and CDs as well, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Functionality is nice, but the hardware industry seems to enjoy making us buy as many different toys as possible.
It begs the question, how big are towers going to get for End Users? With this tech, you could have a tower with drive bays for 3.5" disks, ZIP disks, CDs, DVDs, and this new one. If this keeps up, the silly thing is going to either be taller then I am, or it will go double-wide.
Of course, that assumes that all of those methods of storing data stay around. If this new media is not vapourware and it takes off, I could really see current CD drives being dropped. And with a few more years, I don't think we'll be seeing 3.5" drives either.
Just my 2 shekels.
Kierthos
I think the point of the original quote of 37 characters max is the 'old' number of characters in the symbol set that were allowed, not the length of the actual URL. And your article from 2600 lists a maximum URL length of 63, not 67.
BTW, are hyphens and tildes inter-changeable? Because I've seen a lot of web-pages with tildes, and only some of them turn into hyphens when reloading.
Kierthos
Well, I know that some of the Oriental 'alphabets' have numerous different ways to represent the same concepts, but hwo would using glyph composite symbols help (if I understand what you mean)?
Just because there exists in a language two symbols 'blah' and 'thingy' so that 'blahthingy' means something else doesn't mean that this standard will adopt it. It's much more likely to use the 'common' kanji. (Ob note: There's only about 50 different Japanese characters for dragon from a quick search on lycos... or some really poor kanji writers).
That being said, it would be impossible to set up all possible configurations where composite symbols would redirect to the 'obvious' site. (i.e. www.golddragon.com, no matter how it's spelled in kanji or whatever would not necessarily all go to the same site.) It would be a neat trick if it could, but it would require registering dozens of permutations.
Kierthos
How are you supposed to be able to type all 40,000+ new characters? Are we going back to Escape-Meta-Alt-Shift for an upper case 'Q'?
Kierthos
Well, if you look closely at the returns, Bush is ahead in the number of votes in Florida, but somehow Gore is the winner there. Just like in New York, where Lazio is ahead by 14,000 votes (10% of the precincts reporting) but Clinton is somehow the 'declared' winner.
On yeah, and CNN is equally as bad. They gave Delaware to Gore when 1% of the precincts had reported in. On the "good" side, Missouri went from a Gore state on their map to undecided.
Kierthos
I believe that it is law now. However, I hadn't heard about this before, so no doubt that both major candidates had any idea how it would play to their constituents, so it got no media coverage. Since it affects H1-B visas and the INS, it's not surprising that it may not have gotten any air time. Of course, in the RTP area, it may have aired... there's a lot of H1-B workers there...
Anywho, it's a law now. Wonder if this will help me, a good old American citizen with two B.S.es get a job in a related field. (You'd think with a Mech. E and a Comp. Sci. degree, I'd be working somewhere other then Kinko's.)
Kierthos
Maybe slightly OT, but I seem to recall that generally, Wierd Al gets an okay from the artists he parodies. From what I understand, all but one of the artists (Coolio) he's done song parodies of have agreed beforehand.
Now, legally, he I don't believe he has to get permission, but it is probably a nice thing to do. Same thing with the spoofs like Troops, which is both a Star Wars and a Cops parody. Legally, they don't have to get permission, but it is usually a wise choice to let them know you're doing it, and that it is legal under Fair Use rules.
BTW, Fair Use also governs quoting copyrighted material in a limited form or format. For instance, Fair Use could let me quote the chorus to a song I didn't own the rights to, but not necessarily the whole song. Same with code, although not proprietary code, etc. (Mind you, just because it's published does not mean it's open for Fair Use. Check with someone who is much better on Fair Use and Freedom of Speech.)
Kierthos
Or if the candidate themself is not the one making the web-page. Somehow I really can't see most of the candidates out there taking time out of their 'busy' schedule of politicing, lobbying and lying to voters to learn HTML or make their own web page.
Thus, they rely on staffers, quotes, and existing stands on positions. Now, given the propensity of politicians in the last several months to bash Hollywood for too much sex and violence, I can easily see why it might be filtered out. Of course, it is also possible to manually set some of the filters so that certain sites, even if they don't fall under the filter, will be blocked anyways. But that takes far more effort, and I can't see a conspiracy of staffers going around to all publicly accessible computers to block the other guy's sites.
Just my 2 shekels....
Kierthos
Well, I don't have kids, I'm not married, and I'm currently sans girlfriend, so I really can't see how this is an issue for me.
But, daycare seems to work just fine for lots of kids, so why would it be different for techies? Other then the fact that they tend to work a lot more hours a week, have incredibly odd schedules, can take a lot of trips to deal with on-site problems, and are generally lacking in social skills...
Why nothing at all... actually daycare may be the best thing for them... gives them time with normal people...
Oh, and telecommuting is not an option for everyone. A lot of businesses don't have the option, or severely restrict it.
Kierthos
Yeah, I think (IANAL) that it's called a suit in the public's interest. Although how providing free copies of games that are no longer available is against the public's interest is beyond me.
/. and take up the defense of the Underdogs. But I don't see that happening either.
Again, this does delve into copyright law, and ownership issues. This could all be solved by various software and game companies releasing stuff into public domain, but I really can't see that happening on a large scale. Maybe you'd get a few games into public domain, but that's it. Of course, I'd love to see a lawyer read this on
Sad, really.
Kierthos
Where's NL? I mean, what does NL stand for? North London? *feels he's missing something important here...*
Kierthos
More hours definitely does not always equal better code. I believe it was Microsoft who planned to have world-wide programming on a project going 24/7, with each group of programmers ending their work day by sending the code they had written to the next group of programmers who were just starting their work day. It failed horribly, obviously, because so much time was spent dealing with understanding the code the other guys had written, dealing with differing programming styles, and of course, having to deal with the MS proprietary code, which must be horrid to begin with...
It is far easier to get good code by not over-working your people. If they want to work 70 hours a week, that's fine for them. But more and more businesses are insisting that their programmers have a social life so they don't get burned out and move on. It's pretty savvy of the businesses, as they look better in the eyes of their employees and can retain their workers. Because as we all know, nothing tanks the productivity of a project like having to hire people to fill the group up. Mmm... re-training in the middle of a deadline... such fun...
Kierthos
cool... this, if nothing else, shows the power of advertising... I haven't heard anything about this, and I've seen so many ads for Playstation games and consoles it hurts.
Is Indrema advertising anywhere other then this site? I want to know if have actually missed the ads or I am buying the "wrong" computer magazines...
Kierthos
And it's selling on eBay for upwards of $1000(US) per unit. I know if I had been able to buy one at the normal price, I would have sold it right now.
/. will be hooked immediately...
Now, face it, with all the hype and sales, Sony is pushing this as far as it will go. They want this console to be selling like gangbusters, which it is. Not only are they trying to get the game console crowd, but they can get people who maybe wouldn't buy one except that you can also watch DVDs on it.
Mind you, when a game console comes out that you can program in Linux on as well as play games, I figure 90% of
Kierthos
Actually, it still can be a contract without conditions. The conditions I was referring to were for use or for information gathering. I should have made that more clear.
And I have heard of corporations giving away computers, scott-free, but still setting up a contract which spells out exactly what shape the computers are in, and that the school agreed not to sue the corp for anything that happened to or with the computers that could not be satisfactorily laid at the corp's feet. (I.e. if little Johnny hacks into a goverment server using one of these computers, it's not the corp's fault for donating the computer that was used.)
Yeah, a lot of that is common sense understood, but corps like spelling it out anyway. Gives corporate lawyers something to do when there are no lawsuits pending.
Kierthos
The only place corporations should have withing schools is donating equipment on a unconditional basis for the betterment of the students. They'll get good press off of doing so, name recognition with the students, and that should be it.
No garnering of personal information, no conditions on use, etc. I'd love to see more corporations donate computers that they don't use any more (a lot of corps buy new computers all the time and just dump the old ones) to help students out. Unfortunately, we have dingbats like Zap...
I hope they get everything that is coming to them. (Vindictive? Moi?)
Kierthos
If the contract between the school and the corporation was for free computers, no conditions, then they can't turn around and charge for the computers, no matter what. It's called Breach of Contract, or something like that.
Now, mind you, if the contract had some agreement that the ads would be available for students to use at their discretion, then they still shouldn't be able to charge for the computers, because freedom of choice lets the students answer the ads or not answer the ads at their choice.
Finally, if the contract said that X percentage or X many students had to fill out the ads, then I believe it is patently unenforceable, because a contract between two parties cannot govern a third party who is not a signator of the contract. Which means that the contract would have been made in Bad Faith and is null. Whether the computers have to be returned or not, I don't know, but the schools still shouldn't have to pay for them.
Again, IANAL.
Kierthos
I'd say too much caffiene. (But then, I'm drinking Irish Creme coffee myself, so...)
:P
Obviously, ideas (memes) shape our understanding of our surroundings and how we view everything. We each have our one memetic filter. You can't convince a staunch Democrat to vote for GWB, just like you couldn't convice Buchanan to not be a Nazi-esque thug. (My opinions, of course, which are coloured by my own memes.)
So, in a sense, we are within a meme. Our ideas and viewpoints colour how we see everything. But a meme within a meme? No. Underneath our own perceptions of the world around us, the world still exists. It itself is not a meme. A rock is not changed into something else just because something thinks it is a beach ball. Our perceptions shape how we view reality, but they do not shape reality itself. For that, go play Mage: The Ascension.
Kierthos
The thing is, has this universal theme been done to death? The idea of a single controlling entity, whether it be a world government, a viral meme, or a collective intelligence, has been used a lot lately, and most of the dealing with it, heck all of the dealings with it have the rebel against the norm.
Now, I realize that without the rebel, the concept would be pretty boring. ("What do you want to do today, Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky, work for the good of the controlling power that has our best interests at heart.)
I have to ask anyone who'd had a peek at the book. Does the 'main character' the hunter of the rebel, become a rebel himself? Does he ever question the authority or validity of his own position? Frankly, I have problems with books where the character stays exactly the same throughout the whole book. I don't like cardboard characters.
I also have to question whether the controlling meme in this case would count as a religion. I didn't get the impression from the synopsis that the meme is worshipped by anyone. Rather I see it as the entity which has 'absolute' control. More of a dictator then an icon. (More of a "The Meme is the Boss." then "The Meme is the One True Way." kind of thing.)
I'm not saying it's going to be a bad book. Frankly, I think it's going to be quite good. But I have to question whether or not we really need another book like this?
Oh well, it could have been worse. It could have been another neo-Luddite vision of the present or future like Dean Koontz is so fond of.
Kierthos