We are all arguing over whether its alright for Tito to pay the Russians to take him up there. But here's a bigger question: as people come closer to winning the x-prize, what happens if one of those entries winds up on the docking port of the ISS one afternoon? It is an international space station, and you'd think anyone would be allowed to come and goas they please...
"Christian ideals" is exactly what the world does not need. However, it does need some generic religious ideals. Before you think anything, let me explain.
First, i am not a Christian. That said, i have studied several religions in depth, and understand that there are several basic ideas, some of which people like to call "Christian Ideals" common to almost all religions. What the english call common law, or civil law in france, are derived from these basic ideals, which generally include:
-not killing, stealing, raping, etc
-respect for the beliefs of others
-community involvement (i don't mean prayer)
-respect for people of authority (leaders, people older then you, etc)
These are essentially generic ideals which almost anyone in the world can agree upon. They have nothing to do with jesus, mohamed, buddah, or place relegious icon here. I don't believe religion should be taught or promoted in public schools. I don't believe prayer has a place in the classroom. What i do believe is that a few generic, inter-religious ideals do have a place there, and should be taught and reinforced.
The kids going through todays schools are being raised in a highly compeditive atmosphere. In elementary school up into highschool, kids have his idea that everything they do must be the best acceptable thing: the top mark, the newest clothes, be popular with everyone. And if they're not? Well, kids get made-fun-of/tormented if they don't look/act "normal", and if a school gives a kid 39/40, the parent goes and yells at the teacher.
It wasn't that long ago that i was in school. Granted i got made fun of a little for being "nerdy", but i coped with it. I also remember it not being so compeditive. In fact (and i don't mean to start a US/Canada debate), but in terms of university entrance, it seems far more compeditive in the US then up here in Canada.
Anyways, the point i'm making is this: if these kids are compeditive and eliteist as kids, then imagine what it will be like when they are the community, political, and business leaders of tomorrow. If you think George W is rough, just wait....
Couldn't you argue that the US owns the moon?
I mean, they were the only ones to land there, and place a flag there (which is whats traditionally done when claiming newly explored land).
I don't think this should be the case (i wonder if i could own my own planetoid if i moved there...). Anyways, if it was US land, then why did they have to fill out a customs form when returning from the fifty-first state?
you can copy it. Yes, i know, someone's going to scoff at my because its not the original digital copy. By remember, audio, and more importantly sound, is an analog medium. Vibrating strings are not binary. So like i said, if you can listen to it, you can copy it. Any until that changes, none of these schemes will succeed. Besides, people wanna be able to play CD's on the same old cd players, right?
Alright. Granted that DNS is heiarchicalew (i can't spell) and centralized. Without a central authority, and their central root servers, the system wouldn't work (or at least, DNS caches couldn't be reliably updated). That said, was the internet not designed to be completely decentralized? Wasn't DARPA's design goal to create a non-centralized (ie, peer-to-peer) network between its installations, designed to that military strikes would only disable single nodes, leaving the rest of the network operational? That WAS the design concept the internet was based on. However, with centralized DNS, and a few HUGE central backbones here and there, it has become more spoke-and-hubish then peer-to-peerish. Yes, a central IP-assignment/DNS authority is required. However, is not our beloved network becoming more and more dependant on a few telcos/providers? I mean, what'd happen if, for example, MCI's network suddenly went down?
Except that when you have millions of people stuck in a country with no naturally arable land, with one majorly-poluted river nearby, and no proper sanitation, and no one to tell them any differently, there's not much you can do. People don't choose to live where there are no natural resources, but they usually can't just pick up and leave. Granted, you can move from Canada to the US to Britain to Germany without much of a problem. But when was the last time you tried migrating from the Congo to the US when your family earns >$500 / year? No, you can't blame people in "underdeveloped countries". Often things are way out of their control. The world does need a wakeup call. That $1.6 billion tax cut you Americans are looking forward to is bigger then the GDP of most of the world's countries. In fact, $1.6B would feed 100million people for over 40 years! -MR
Five or six years ago, when the internet WAS entirely content produced by people for the benefit of others, sans ads, this same thing arose, except people though 'well, them ads will give us money'. The concept of paying to use websites, on top of paying for bandwidth, moves the internet to being a peer-to-peer aol. Being someone who supports, and creates, free content, I think that both positions may prevail. People tend to tolerate ads, which is why ads don't earn money. Hopefully we will wind up back in a time where the web is full of RESOURCES. Websites with research papers, HOWTOs, support documents, and manufacturers websites with useful info are wonderful. But i doubt anyone really cares about some 'portal'.
When was the last time that microsoft actually innovated or invented a product? To review, Word Perfect existed before Word, Excel wasn't the first spreadsheet (Visicalc, 123), DOS was actually a stolen versino of CPM, they didn't invent basic (just wrote a version for the IBM-PC), and the windowed-interface was invented by Xerox in the 70's. So whats all this about innovation? What they call innovation, i call sticking a microsoft sticker on a recently-bought company.
Jurassic Park had a great line. In one of Malcolm's rants, he says something about "scients are so busy trying to see if they can, that they never stop to think if they should".
The same is true here. With the exception of cloning ORGANS (and by organs i mean individual pieces, not a fully working human for harvest), what possible reason could there be for cloning a person? There isn't one...
Since when is unix a phenomenon?
Linux, maybe... but unix has been around almost 20 years longer then Windows?
On another note, if we want to see a version of Microsoft Linux one day, why don't we all just go out and buy a few shares of Microsoft stock? Slowly but surely, Microsoft will be ours... {evil grin}
Its very simple. This kid is causing a problem for several ISP's, their users, and many Undernet users. Trace back some of his smurf attacks as far as you can with reasonable certainty, call up the ISP, and politely ask them (since they apparently don't have root on their own boxen anyways) TO UNPLUG THE #(*(@*& THINGS!
As my brother demonstrated to me a few months ago, computers don't run without power. -MR
A lot of people in ER's, especially the nurses, are using PDA's to keep track of patients. One person I know uses a little palm app to quickly jot down all the incoming patients for triage, and then hotsyncs to her computer to produce initial patient records. She then keeps track of who is where the same way.
If you add on wireless connectivity and a durable piece of hardware (ie, spillproof, drop-proff), PDA's in ER's would work really well for everyone (no more paper charts till they leave!) -MR
... is great!
To explain, we are both similar and dis-similar to our American neighbors to the south. First off, many people think that Canadians are hugely affected by US media. While that is true, Americans and Canadians are distinctly different (not just because we will always beat you at hockey). There is almost a different personality, in that generally, Canadians are more polite then Americans, and the average Canadian is far more leftist in their political views then Americans.
Now, Canada has much higher taxes then the US, and with good reason. That extra 15% goes to universal health care, which while often criticized, is the single greatest asset for any country (Kudos to all other countries with such a system). I know, I can already hear Americans saying that "it violates my right to get whatever treatment i choose!!". That said, it means that every single Canadian can walk into a hospital anywhere in the country (well, with a bit of paperwork), and get the same treatment as someone anywhere else in the country, for free. It means that whether rich or poor, you have to wait equally as long, and receive the same level of treatment. People don't get turned down because they don't have insurance here. Much as people say "well i don't wany my tax dollars supporting someone else's sickness", just let them wait until they are in a serious accident, and need intensive care. It aint cheap.
The other major difference between Canada and the US is how we regard our environment. In general, the Canadian government is far more environmentally aware then americans. Not as much as they should be, but still far better. I mean, Canada developed the Candu reactor, which can "burn" used nuclear material from American Nuclear weapons.
The Tradeoff
The one thing Canada trades for our healthcare and smaller, simpler government is freedom. Now, you don't hear as much complaining over constitutional freedoms here are you do in the US. However, things like hate literature and guns are primarily outlawed here. You simply don't see guns in Canada. Hunting rifles, yes, but not handguns and assault rifles. They just aren't around. I don't think i know a single family who has any sort of gun at all! While we do have a declaration of rights and freedoms, its not as ironclad as the US constitution. Not that you're going to be arrested by the though police, but there are slight limitations to free speech. That said, the laws against child porn were somehow overturned by the Canadians courts...
HTML was originally written, what, over 10 years ago. It was intended as a simple way of formatting web pages, allowing a little variety in text, as well as hyperlinks and images. Although it has been updated, it was never intended for all the scripting, image maps, and everything else people have done with it today.
Simple HTML is still 100% compliant on all browsers!
If only 10% of the functionality of the average application gets used, then the problem with making a scaled-down version is that if you have 10% of the original features, then users will only use 10% of the reduced features, or 1% of the original features. -MR
TLC has only been advertising the junkyard wars marathon for about 3 weeks! I'm dissapointed in Malda, for a big fan, he didn't get that up very quickly (although i suppose as a remeinder its well timed).
I'm getting together some other local geeks who enjoy it to drink beer, eat pizza, and watch with me after school on Friday. Anyone in the Winnipeg area is welcome. Junkyard wars is fantastic show, and its about time that a purely entertaining show is on that involves contestants with a unique, not-purley-knowledge-based skill on rather the the usual gameshow or sports stuff (i'm not bashing hockey, just every other sport).
And remember, the one big thing that our taxes pay for that Americans don't have is universal health care. While cracks are forming, you won't be refused treatment at a hospital because you can't pay. Our health-care isn't up to the standards of the finest private American clinics, but anyone in our country can go to a doctor for any reason at any time. While private clinics are being illeagally opened, the government claims to be fighting that. EVERYONE in our coutry gets the same great, FREE healthcare. We aren't as good as Britain, but what can ya do? -MR
Lets see... most major computer manufacturers won't let you buy a machine without a Microsoft OS (Dell, compaq, gateway, others). Microsoft Office will now "time out" if you don't keep paying for it. And windows will only run Microsoft-approved applications. I don't know about you, but it seems as though Wine will be gaining a lot of popularity with people running old (ie, '97) versions of office, and other Windows applications in Linux or other OS's. I mean, at what point does Windows cease to be an operating system, so much as a Microsoft Interface? -MR
Slashdot Mirror
AOL instead of the internet already? At this pace, they'll own every ISP and internet service in under 3 years!
-MR
We are all arguing over whether its alright for Tito to pay the Russians to take him up there. But here's a bigger question: as people come closer to winning the x-prize, what happens if one of those entries winds up on the docking port of the ISS one afternoon? It is an international space station, and you'd think anyone would be allowed to come and goas they please...
-MR
"Christian ideals" is exactly what the world does not need. However, it does need some generic religious ideals. Before you think anything, let me explain.
First, i am not a Christian. That said, i have studied several religions in depth, and understand that there are several basic ideas, some of which people like to call "Christian Ideals" common to almost all religions. What the english call common law, or civil law in france, are derived from these basic ideals, which generally include:
-not killing, stealing, raping, etc -respect for the beliefs of others -community involvement (i don't mean prayer) -respect for people of authority (leaders, people older then you, etc)
These are essentially generic ideals which almost anyone in the world can agree upon. They have nothing to do with jesus, mohamed, buddah, or place relegious icon here. I don't believe religion should be taught or promoted in public schools. I don't believe prayer has a place in the classroom. What i do believe is that a few generic, inter-religious ideals do have a place there, and should be taught and reinforced.
-MR
The kids going through todays schools are being raised in a highly compeditive atmosphere. In elementary school up into highschool, kids have his idea that everything they do must be the best acceptable thing: the top mark, the newest clothes, be popular with everyone. And if they're not? Well, kids get made-fun-of/tormented if they don't look/act "normal", and if a school gives a kid 39/40, the parent goes and yells at the teacher.
It wasn't that long ago that i was in school. Granted i got made fun of a little for being "nerdy", but i coped with it. I also remember it not being so compeditive. In fact (and i don't mean to start a US/Canada debate), but in terms of university entrance, it seems far more compeditive in the US then up here in Canada.
Anyways, the point i'm making is this: if these kids are compeditive and eliteist as kids, then imagine what it will be like when they are the community, political, and business leaders of tomorrow. If you think George W is rough, just wait....
Quebec City 2000: Speak out against globalization
-MR
The RIAA spends all their time bitching and moaning about napster, and yet can't seem to do anything effective about it.
Get all those record companies together AND BUY NAPSTER. I wouldn't support this, but from the RIAA point-0f-view, it would make sense.
-MR
Couldn't you argue that the US owns the moon?
I mean, they were the only ones to land there, and place a flag there (which is whats traditionally done when claiming newly explored land).
I don't think this should be the case (i wonder if i could own my own planetoid if i moved there...). Anyways, if it was US land, then why did they have to fill out a customs form when returning from the fifty-first state?
-MR
didn't they want PS1's to network to build a cheep, large computing system?
Maybe the US govt will make PS2's a munition if this is true...
-MR
you can copy it. Yes, i know, someone's going to scoff at my because its not the original digital copy. By remember, audio, and more importantly sound, is an analog medium. Vibrating strings are not binary. So like i said, if you can listen to it, you can copy it. Any until that changes, none of these schemes will succeed. Besides, people wanna be able to play CD's on the same old cd players, right?
-MR
Alright. Granted that DNS is heiarchicalew (i can't spell) and centralized. Without a central authority, and their central root servers, the system wouldn't work (or at least, DNS caches couldn't be reliably updated). That said, was the internet not designed to be completely decentralized? Wasn't DARPA's design goal to create a non-centralized (ie, peer-to-peer) network between its installations, designed to that military strikes would only disable single nodes, leaving the rest of the network operational? That WAS the design concept the internet was based on. However, with centralized DNS, and a few HUGE central backbones here and there, it has become more spoke-and-hubish then peer-to-peerish. Yes, a central IP-assignment/DNS authority is required. However, is not our beloved network becoming more and more dependant on a few telcos/providers? I mean, what'd happen if, for example, MCI's network suddenly went down?
-MR
So, these comments would be open to the public the same way that ICANN voting was open to the public, right?
ie, you can email them whatever you like, but their server is "down" 99% of the time.
If microsoft is in trouble for having a monopoly, shouldn't ICANN be too?
-MR
Except that when you have millions of people stuck in a country with no naturally arable land, with one majorly-poluted river nearby, and no proper sanitation, and no one to tell them any differently, there's not much you can do. People don't choose to live where there are no natural resources, but they usually can't just pick up and leave. Granted, you can move from Canada to the US to Britain to Germany without much of a problem. But when was the last time you tried migrating from the Congo to the US when your family earns >$500 / year? No, you can't blame people in "underdeveloped countries". Often things are way out of their control. The world does need a wakeup call. That $1.6 billion tax cut you Americans are looking forward to is bigger then the GDP of most of the world's countries. In fact, $1.6B would feed 100million people for over 40 years!
-MR
Five or six years ago, when the internet WAS entirely content produced by people for the benefit of others, sans ads, this same thing arose, except people though 'well, them ads will give us money'. The concept of paying to use websites, on top of paying for bandwidth, moves the internet to being a peer-to-peer aol. Being someone who supports, and creates, free content, I think that both positions may prevail. People tend to tolerate ads, which is why ads don't earn money. Hopefully we will wind up back in a time where the web is full of RESOURCES. Websites with research papers, HOWTOs, support documents, and manufacturers websites with useful info are wonderful. But i doubt anyone really cares about some 'portal'.
-MR
When was the last time that microsoft actually innovated or invented a product? To review, Word Perfect existed before Word, Excel wasn't the first spreadsheet (Visicalc, 123), DOS was actually a stolen versino of CPM, they didn't invent basic (just wrote a version for the IBM-PC), and the windowed-interface was invented by Xerox in the 70's. So whats all this about innovation? What they call innovation, i call sticking a microsoft sticker on a recently-bought company.
-MR
Jurassic Park had a great line. In one of Malcolm's rants, he says something about "scients are so busy trying to see if they can, that they never stop to think if they should".
The same is true here. With the exception of cloning ORGANS (and by organs i mean individual pieces, not a fully working human for harvest), what possible reason could there be for cloning a person? There isn't one...
-MR
Since when is unix a phenomenon? Linux, maybe... but unix has been around almost 20 years longer then Windows?
On another note, if we want to see a version of Microsoft Linux one day, why don't we all just go out and buy a few shares of Microsoft stock? Slowly but surely, Microsoft will be ours... {evil grin}
-MR
And cut the line till you can sort things out.
Its very simple. This kid is causing a problem for several ISP's, their users, and many Undernet users. Trace back some of his smurf attacks as far as you can with reasonable certainty, call up the ISP, and politely ask them (since they apparently don't have root on their own boxen anyways) TO UNPLUG THE #(*(@*& THINGS!
As my brother demonstrated to me a few months ago, computers don't run without power.
-MR
A lot of people in ER's, especially the nurses, are using PDA's to keep track of patients. One person I know uses a little palm app to quickly jot down all the incoming patients for triage, and then hotsyncs to her computer to produce initial patient records. She then keeps track of who is where the same way.
If you add on wireless connectivity and a durable piece of hardware (ie, spillproof, drop-proff), PDA's in ER's would work really well for everyone (no more paper charts till they leave!)
-MR
... is great! To explain, we are both similar and dis-similar to our American neighbors to the south. First off, many people think that Canadians are hugely affected by US media. While that is true, Americans and Canadians are distinctly different (not just because we will always beat you at hockey). There is almost a different personality, in that generally, Canadians are more polite then Americans, and the average Canadian is far more leftist in their political views then Americans.
Now, Canada has much higher taxes then the US, and with good reason. That extra 15% goes to universal health care, which while often criticized, is the single greatest asset for any country (Kudos to all other countries with such a system). I know, I can already hear Americans saying that "it violates my right to get whatever treatment i choose!!". That said, it means that every single Canadian can walk into a hospital anywhere in the country (well, with a bit of paperwork), and get the same treatment as someone anywhere else in the country, for free. It means that whether rich or poor, you have to wait equally as long, and receive the same level of treatment. People don't get turned down because they don't have insurance here. Much as people say "well i don't wany my tax dollars supporting someone else's sickness", just let them wait until they are in a serious accident, and need intensive care. It aint cheap.
The other major difference between Canada and the US is how we regard our environment. In general, the Canadian government is far more environmentally aware then americans. Not as much as they should be, but still far better. I mean, Canada developed the Candu reactor, which can "burn" used nuclear material from American Nuclear weapons.
The Tradeoff
The one thing Canada trades for our healthcare and smaller, simpler government is freedom. Now, you don't hear as much complaining over constitutional freedoms here are you do in the US. However, things like hate literature and guns are primarily outlawed here. You simply don't see guns in Canada. Hunting rifles, yes, but not handguns and assault rifles. They just aren't around. I don't think i know a single family who has any sort of gun at all! While we do have a declaration of rights and freedoms, its not as ironclad as the US constitution. Not that you're going to be arrested by the though police, but there are slight limitations to free speech. That said, the laws against child porn were somehow overturned by the Canadians courts...
Just my $0.02
-MR
HTML was originally written, what, over 10 years ago. It was intended as a simple way of formatting web pages, allowing a little variety in text, as well as hyperlinks and images. Although it has been updated, it was never intended for all the scripting, image maps, and everything else people have done with it today. Simple HTML is still 100% compliant on all browsers!
-MR
If only 10% of the functionality of the average application gets used, then the problem with making a scaled-down version is that if you have 10% of the original features, then users will only use 10% of the reduced features, or 1% of the original features.
-MR
What is the world coming to?!?!?
-MR
at least with the registrar i tried (easyhosting.com). There may, however, be someone to reject it later on.
-MR
TLC has only been advertising the junkyard wars marathon for about 3 weeks! I'm dissapointed in Malda, for a big fan, he didn't get that up very quickly (although i suppose as a remeinder its well timed).
I'm getting together some other local geeks who enjoy it to drink beer, eat pizza, and watch with me after school on Friday. Anyone in the Winnipeg area is welcome. Junkyard wars is fantastic show, and its about time that a purely entertaining show is on that involves contestants with a unique, not-purley-knowledge-based skill on rather the the usual gameshow or sports stuff (i'm not bashing hockey, just every other sport).
-MR
And remember, the one big thing that our taxes pay for that Americans don't have is universal health care. While cracks are forming, you won't be refused treatment at a hospital because you can't pay. Our health-care isn't up to the standards of the finest private American clinics, but anyone in our country can go to a doctor for any reason at any time. While private clinics are being illeagally opened, the government claims to be fighting that. EVERYONE in our coutry gets the same great, FREE healthcare. We aren't as good as Britain, but what can ya do?
-MR
Lets see... most major computer manufacturers won't let you buy a machine without a Microsoft OS (Dell, compaq, gateway, others). Microsoft Office will now "time out" if you don't keep paying for it. And windows will only run Microsoft-approved applications. I don't know about you, but it seems as though Wine will be gaining a lot of popularity with people running old (ie, '97) versions of office, and other Windows applications in Linux or other OS's. I mean, at what point does Windows cease to be an operating system, so much as a Microsoft Interface?
-MR