There was an old British law written many years ago when the automobile was first becoming popular. Horseless carriage manufacturers pressured law makers to create a law that required all automobiles to have a person CARRY a flag ahead of the automobile! This was done under the guise of public safety.
Disruptive technologies are the key to progress in a technologically advanced society. When a disruptive technology is introduced it is typically fought by the "old guard"...companies that have built their very existence around old technology, and will use every means to keep that existence.
Let's say you develop a "transporter" technology that could reliably and safely move objects to anywhere in an instant. Would you wait to release the technology? Your invention would cause global turmoil...over-night your device would destroy the shipping business, the automotive industry, the oil industry, the airline companies, most businesses that service those industries and many others.
But think of the benefits...lower pollution, eliminate traffic accidents and deaths, more free time for people who travel alot...etc. It would be unethical and irresponsible to not release this technology.
I know of a few people out there who run diskless machines....you know...network boot images. Do these people still have to buy a Microsoft OS even though their machines are physically incapable of hosting the OS?
Doesn't this piss you off? You've just PAID for a product to throw it in the trash!!! Microsoft now earns revenue on unwanted products! What other company on the face of the planet makes money on unwanted products that are purchased and thrown right into the trash?????
No, not active server pages....ASP in business lingo stands for Average Selling Price. The ASP for a microsoft product is somewhere in the $200.00 range (excluding server products). What is the ASP for Linux products?....i'd guess somewhere near zero.
Hmm....reducing the gravitational constant....I guess I can't say it is impossible since I really don't know. That must be they call "thinking outside the box".
I just assumed that the gravitational constant was just that....constant.
Even if these laws are passed, are there enough lawyers and policemen to actually prosecute the 150-200 million music listeners in this country? How about the entire world?
Congress has bent over so far to accomodate the music/movie industry, that they are now creating laws that can't possibly be enforced.
These guys just don't get it...the pirates will still go about their activities and the DRM crap will just make life hard for the paying consumers.
I always thought that two objects with mass always have gravitational attraction. I also thought that two objects can never get far enough appart to have their gravatational attraction go to zero.
F = G * m1 * m2 / d^2
This equation shows that the gravitational attraction can never go to zero.
That said, does anyone have any idea how this guy got two objects with mass to not have any gravitational attraction? It seems impossible.
I always thought it would be a good idea to put a generator on all the workout machines in the cardio room at my local gym. You could probably recapture alot of the spent energy in a gym this way and put it back into the electrical grid.
Exactly who pushed congress for the H1-B visa expansion? Technology company OWNERS and MANAGERS!
By the late 90's many HR people in corporate America were complaining that tech employees were very expensive. CEOs realized that the only way to decrease the cost of technology employees was to increase the supply. Many of these companies told congress that there was a technology worker shortage in this country. Congress believed that if they didn't allow the workers to come here, the companies would go offshore.
So what did congress do? Congress extended the H1-B visa program. A classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
Sue Herera is now reporting on CNBC that the SEC is now investigating AOL-TW for accounting "irregularities". Lots of people doubt this merger will remain intact.
Accounting fraud is a symptom of a much bigger problem in a company.
Maybe not for long. The AOL acquisition of Time Warner severely dilluted shares of Time Warner (just ask Gerald Levin). AOL-Time Warner may decide to divest itself of the AOL "division" to try and prop up the stock price. AOL is a money loser, and the combined company (AOL-TW) is worth less now than it was as an old-economy company.
I believe eventually the shareholders will have had enough and re-separate the companies.
AOL is a dinosaur and their days are numbered. Every person that asks me to hookup their broadband connection, eventually arrives at the conclusion that their connection is always on (no dial up), a web browser can be something other than AOL's terribly cluttered software (Netscape, Opera, IE..etc.), and that their IM software is freely downloadable!
Inevitably, the broadband customer figures out they don't need to give AOL $10.00/mo just to host their AOL spam.
Mark my words, as the dial-up market shrinks, so will AOLs market share. AOL should just open up IM, before someone else does it for them.
We've got uber spygear in cars now...it's only a matter of time before the insurance guys and their lobbyists pressure the auto industry and congress to mandate cars that can't break the law. Imagine, cars that won't go over the speed limit (based on GPS and databases of local speed limits); cars that won't start if your seatbelt isn't buckled, or if you've blown a high blood-alcohol content. How about cars that won't allow you to turn your steering wheel unless you've signaled first???
Hell, why don't we just outlaw the damn things right now and force people to use public transportation....freedom be damned.
Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This clearly gives Bruce Perens and his audience the right to ASSEMBLE and DISCUSS any "grievances" they may have.
Congress may as well go piss on the graves of our founding fathers as they violate our bill of rights one by one.
Are any free software companies BSA members? Why would the BSA account for software created by non-members?
Now that business auditor integrity is being questioned by congress post-Enron, I'd love to see the BSA's practices put under the microscope. These guys are enforcing copyright law, and are supported by their very members. I'd hardly call the BSA an impartial auditor. It wouldn't suprize me if BSA members pressure the BSA for "results" or threaten to not support ($$$) the BSA.
RMBS if you are a shareholder....and if you are a shareholder you've seen what excessive litigation does to the bottom line. Rambus shareholders may have started to realize that the way to profitable technology is not via litigation, it is via great technology.
Liquid Audio has not figured this out...it is only a matter of time before the attorneys suck every last dime out of Liquid Audio. We can only hope.
"Now when a machine hardlocks (say, due to hardware that is overheating due to heavy load - a common scenario if you're using standard PC hardware and your webserver gets slashdoted)"
Huh? I've built hundreds of servers out of commodity PC hardware and i've yet to run into this behavior.....even 1u rackmount stuff.
So will ATI actually make this MAXX product work in the Windows NT/2000/XP line of products? Or will they pull that windows 98 only crap that shafted alot of previous MAXX owners when windows 2000 was released?
I've owned a MAXX product that didn't work in NT/2000/XP. I've had a USB ATI TV wonder that wouldn't work in XP for about a year, and i've had drivers on many other ATI products that either sucked or didn't work at all.
ATI has a long way to go to get my confidence back. Getting screwed three times without vaseline makes one a little apprehensive.
The school I work for recently purchased new 30 new windows XP workstations and found that many of our educational apps wouldn't run under XP. I called my vendor (Dell) and they verified that I can "downgrade" the OS license to windows 98 and "upgrade" to windows XP whenever I am ready...at no cost (assuming I have the installation media).
OK, it wasn't diff eq's completely that made me go to computer science. In high school, I really enjoyed my pascal programming class, and my AP computer science class (data structures). I made the mistake of listening to my guidance counselor and went into EE. I got through three years of it, and almost graduated...but one day in one of my circuits classes, I was doing nodal analysis on a circuit the size of a cafeteria table and I decided that I had enough. I decided that I liked algorithms and writing code better.
I don't regret the EE background. It helped me make a really cool 110 AC switchbox that was switchable from the web for my senior project. The faculty was impressed that I actually knew how to build the hardware (as well as write the software). Unfortunately, some of the people that I presented the project to had no idea what an optically isolated transistor is, or how to build a power supply. Regardless of that, I did get an "A" on that project.
A local community college is your best bet. You can pay for classes "a la carte".
Here's a good starting point:
You need algebra to start....without algebra you can't do anything. After that:
Calculus I & Calculus II: Integration and differentiation.
Statistics: Very important...means, medians, confidence intervals...etc.
Like computer science? Take discrete math. This is extremely important if you want to understand the "digital" world, and the foundations of logic...truth tables etc.
That should be plenty to keep you busy. Calc III and differential equations are really hard-core engineering maths. I was an EE major before switching to CS...let's just say that Diff EQs, helped me make the switch.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The constitution framers wanted two things regarding religion and the state:
1. They didn't want a government established religion like the Church of England.
2. They didn't want any laws created that prohibited the free practice of the religion of your choice.
Our Pledge of Alegiance roughly impacts the second point. If you are an atheist in a public school, you are forced to recite something contrary to your religious beliefs, effectively prohibiting you from practicing your religion.
Slashdot Mirror
There was an old British law written many years ago when the automobile was first becoming popular. Horseless carriage manufacturers pressured law makers to create a law that required all automobiles to have a person CARRY a flag ahead of the automobile! This was done under the guise of public safety.
Disruptive technologies are the key to progress in a technologically advanced society. When a disruptive technology is introduced it is typically fought by the "old guard"...companies that have built their very existence around old technology, and will use every means to keep that existence.
Let's say you develop a "transporter" technology that could reliably and safely move objects to anywhere in an instant. Would you wait to release the technology? Your invention would cause global turmoil...over-night your device would destroy the shipping business, the automotive industry, the oil industry, the airline companies, most businesses that service those industries and many others.
But think of the benefits...lower pollution, eliminate traffic accidents and deaths, more free time for people who travel alot...etc. It would be unethical and irresponsible to not release this technology.
-ted
I know of a few people out there who run diskless machines....you know...network boot images. Do these people still have to buy a Microsoft OS even though their machines are physically incapable of hosting the OS?
-ted
Doesn't this piss you off? You've just PAID for a product to throw it in the trash!!! Microsoft now earns revenue on unwanted products! What other company on the face of the planet makes money on unwanted products that are purchased and thrown right into the trash?????
There is something very wrong with this.
-ted
No, not active server pages....ASP in business lingo stands for Average Selling Price. The ASP for a microsoft product is somewhere in the $200.00 range (excluding server products). What is the ASP for Linux products?....i'd guess somewhere near zero.
-ted
Hmm....reducing the gravitational constant....I guess I can't say it is impossible since I really don't know. That must be they call "thinking outside the box".
I just assumed that the gravitational constant was just that....constant.
-ted
Even if these laws are passed, are there enough lawyers and policemen to actually prosecute the 150-200 million music listeners in this country? How about the entire world?
Congress has bent over so far to accomodate the music/movie industry, that they are now creating laws that can't possibly be enforced.
These guys just don't get it...the pirates will still go about their activities and the DRM crap will just make life hard for the paying consumers.
-ted
I always thought that two objects with mass always have gravitational attraction. I also thought that two objects can never get far enough appart to have their gravatational attraction go to zero.
F = G * m1 * m2 / d^2
This equation shows that the gravitational attraction can never go to zero.
That said, does anyone have any idea how this guy got two objects with mass to not have any gravitational attraction? It seems impossible.
-ted
I always thought it would be a good idea to put a generator on all the workout machines in the cardio room at my local gym. You could probably recapture alot of the spent energy in a gym this way and put it back into the electrical grid.
-ted
Exactly who pushed congress for the H1-B visa expansion? Technology company OWNERS and MANAGERS!
By the late 90's many HR people in corporate America were complaining that tech employees were very expensive. CEOs realized that the only way to decrease the cost of technology employees was to increase the supply. Many of these companies told congress that there was a technology worker shortage in this country. Congress believed that if they didn't allow the workers to come here, the companies would go offshore.
So what did congress do? Congress extended the H1-B visa program. A classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
-ted
Sue Herera is now reporting on CNBC that the SEC is now investigating AOL-TW for accounting "irregularities". Lots of people doubt this merger will remain intact.
Accounting fraud is a symptom of a much bigger problem in a company.
-ted
Maybe not for long. The AOL acquisition of Time Warner severely dilluted shares of Time Warner (just ask Gerald Levin). AOL-Time Warner may decide to divest itself of the AOL "division" to try and prop up the stock price. AOL is a money loser, and the combined company (AOL-TW) is worth less now than it was as an old-economy company.
I believe eventually the shareholders will have had enough and re-separate the companies.
-ted
AOL is a dinosaur and their days are numbered. Every person that asks me to hookup their broadband connection, eventually arrives at the conclusion that their connection is always on (no dial up), a web browser can be something other than AOL's terribly cluttered software (Netscape, Opera, IE..etc.), and that their IM software is freely downloadable!
Inevitably, the broadband customer figures out they don't need to give AOL $10.00/mo just to host their AOL spam.
Mark my words, as the dial-up market shrinks, so will AOLs market share. AOL should just open up IM, before someone else does it for them.
-ted
We've got uber spygear in cars now...it's only a matter of time before the insurance guys and their lobbyists pressure the auto industry and congress to mandate cars that can't break the law. Imagine, cars that won't go over the speed limit (based on GPS and databases of local speed limits); cars that won't start if your seatbelt isn't buckled, or if you've blown a high blood-alcohol content. How about cars that won't allow you to turn your steering wheel unless you've signaled first???
Hell, why don't we just outlaw the damn things right now and force people to use public transportation....freedom be damned.
Uggh....now i'm starting to sound like Stallman.
-ted
Amendment I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This clearly gives Bruce Perens and his audience the right to ASSEMBLE and DISCUSS any "grievances" they may have.
Congress may as well go piss on the graves of our founding fathers as they violate our bill of rights one by one.
-ted
Are any free software companies BSA members? Why would the BSA account for software created by non-members?
Now that business auditor integrity is being questioned by congress post-Enron, I'd love to see the BSA's practices put under the microscope. These guys are enforcing copyright law, and are supported by their very members. I'd hardly call the BSA an impartial auditor. It wouldn't suprize me if BSA members pressure the BSA for "results" or threaten to not support ($$$) the BSA.
Wouldn't it be funny if they went chapter 7 and the attorneys didn't get paid?
-ted
RMBS if you are a shareholder....and if you are a shareholder you've seen what excessive litigation does to the bottom line. Rambus shareholders may have started to realize that the way to profitable technology is not via litigation, it is via great technology.
Liquid Audio has not figured this out...it is only a matter of time before the attorneys suck every last dime out of Liquid Audio. We can only hope.
-ted
"Now when a machine hardlocks (say, due to hardware that is overheating due to heavy load - a common scenario if you're using standard PC hardware and your webserver gets slashdoted)"
Huh? I've built hundreds of servers out of commodity PC hardware and i've yet to run into this behavior.....even 1u rackmount stuff.
So will ATI actually make this MAXX product work in the Windows NT/2000/XP line of products? Or will they pull that windows 98 only crap that shafted alot of previous MAXX owners when windows 2000 was released?
I've owned a MAXX product that didn't work in NT/2000/XP. I've had a USB ATI TV wonder that wouldn't work in XP for about a year, and i've had drivers on many other ATI products that either sucked or didn't work at all.
ATI has a long way to go to get my confidence back. Getting screwed three times without vaseline makes one a little apprehensive.
-ted
The school I work for recently purchased new 30 new windows XP workstations and found that many of our educational apps wouldn't run under XP. I called my vendor (Dell) and they verified that I can "downgrade" the OS license to windows 98 and "upgrade" to windows XP whenever I am ready...at no cost (assuming I have the installation media).
-ted
OK, it wasn't diff eq's completely that made me go to computer science. In high school, I really enjoyed my pascal programming class, and my AP computer science class (data structures). I made the mistake of listening to my guidance counselor and went into EE. I got through three years of it, and almost graduated...but one day in one of my circuits classes, I was doing nodal analysis on a circuit the size of a cafeteria table and I decided that I had enough. I decided that I liked algorithms and writing code better.
I don't regret the EE background. It helped me make a really cool 110 AC switchbox that was switchable from the web for my senior project. The faculty was impressed that I actually knew how to build the hardware (as well as write the software). Unfortunately, some of the people that I presented the project to had no idea what an optically isolated transistor is, or how to build a power supply. Regardless of that, I did get an "A" on that project.
-ted
I guess I just assumed he got trig out of the way.
You are correct. Without an understanding of the simplest sine functions, calculus becomes very difficult.
-ted
A local community college is your best bet. You can pay for classes "a la carte".
Here's a good starting point:
You need algebra to start....without algebra you can't do anything. After that:
Calculus I & Calculus II: Integration and differentiation.
Statistics: Very important...means, medians, confidence intervals...etc.
Like computer science? Take discrete math. This is extremely important if you want to understand the "digital" world, and the foundations of logic...truth tables etc.
That should be plenty to keep you busy. Calc III and differential equations are really hard-core engineering maths. I was an EE major before switching to CS...let's just say that Diff EQs, helped me make the switch.
Have fun and good luck!
-ted
Demand for storage will not increase until backup methods can scale up.
What good is that 120 GB hard drive in your machine if you can only backup 40-60 GB?
Disk storage has been really cheap for years, yet backup systems like tape and DVD are either too small or too damn expensive.
Anybody check out prices on DDS4, AIT, and other tape drives....way too expensive.
Our ability to store stuff is not dictated by hard drive space, it is dictated by backup space.
-ted
"Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
The constitution framers wanted two things regarding religion and the state:
1. They didn't want a government established religion like the Church of England.
2. They didn't want any laws created that prohibited the free practice of the religion of your choice.
Our Pledge of Alegiance roughly impacts the second point. If you are an atheist in a public school, you are forced to recite something contrary to your religious beliefs, effectively prohibiting you from practicing your religion.
God belongs in churches, not in government.
-ted