As you should. This isn't a news story: it's a press release. it has no place on slashdot, and shouldn't be presented as anything other than marketing puffery elsewhere.
Hell, the company in question doesn't even have this trumpeted "real AI" on th efront of the website. Even THEY know it's bullshit.
The main ethical problem isn't the utility of the whole thing -- I agree with you that the need was obvious and the donation clear. Where ethics comes into play here, as I understnad it, is that this operation is not likely to be entirely successful.
The recipient *might* keep the face. That's a big MIGHT: skin is notoriously difficult to transplant. If the transplant fails, the paitient will almost certainly die. There's not much of a second chance here.
Even if the facial transplant succeeds -- and nobody really knows how well it will work, or how a patient might mentally deal with what surely will amount to a shift in self-identity -- the immunosuppressant drugs are so dangerous that cancer or death from some opportunistic infection is almost a given. The patient is (presumably) well-informed of this possibility, and has decided the short-term improvement in quality of life outweighs the long-term risks. Perhaps she's also being altruistic, knowing her experience will benefit future transplant recipients.
Whoever this patient is, godspeed. All Travolata-Gage jokes aside, this is a dire procedure with daunting risks. And a person's life is in the balance.
To live a normal length life with a horrible disfigurement, or to choose the possibility of a more "normal" appearance for a few years -- or more, or much less -- that's an authentic ethical dilemma. Let's all be glad it's not ours to decide.
I completely understand why the project prefers an Open Source operating system.
At the same time, it's a bit of a shame this didn't work out. The primary objective of the $100 laptop is remote education, and there sure is a LOT of excellent Mac-based learning software out there.
I'm running OS X on several older machines these days, including two 300MHz G3s. Panther works quite tolerably under these circumstances -- so long as you've no expectations of quick graphics. Basic video streaming, sure, but don't expect the latest Apple codecs to be anything other than painful to watch.
But this is with 256MB + of RAM. 64MB? You're gonna have a LOT of disk caching going on. More than I'd be able to stomach, though your mileage may vary. If you're really running OS X on 64MB, add a bit of RAM and see what a difference it makes.
I did find a G3 that wasn't happy with OS X: a beige Powermac. OS X is supported through Jaguar, but the Powermac just wasn't interested in playing at 266Mhz with its stock 64MB RAM. I reloaded OS 9 until I can scrounge up a 256MB stick or two. Then I'll add a PCI video card and load Panther. It'll be fine.
Panther must be the second-biggest bargain in OS these days, right behind Linux. $50 new at Amazon, and it runs pretty much everything you can do with Tiger.
This isn't a consumer "time saver." It's a weapon for corporations to police the internet.
Plug in this sort of technology and you can keep track of your blogging employeees. Are they bad-mouthing the boss? Obviously engaged in something that the company could claim as intellectual policy? Organizing a union? Busted.
This will automate the troll for IP and trademark infringments. More amusingly, though: now corporations can keep a sharp eye peeled for misbehaving customers. Bitch abour Mega-Mart's pricing or shoddy products, and you might get a Cease and Desist. Or a slander suit.
Ah, technology in the service of the powerful! How it warms the hearts of lawyers everywhere.
Apple getting its new laptops in the field early is less meaningful if Adobe and Microsoft aren't ready.
In particular, there's no point getting pro-level Mactels into the wild unless Office and Creative Suite are ready to go Intel-native. Maybe MS and Adobe have quietly moved into high gear on the conversion. But last I read, Adobe was thinking late 2006 to get its Carbon-based apps ready for market.
No pro user will rely on Rosetta. On the other hand, one would assume Apple with have its iWork and iLife suites flipped, along with the applications which come with OS X. That will allow home users to make the switch in fairly short order. I'm sure the rumored widescreen iBooks will sell well right out of the box.
But a Mactel Powerbook makes no sense without pro applications. If Apple is really pushing advance release, they must have convinced their major software partners to get a move on.
> You could fund this program by selling "designer" vesions in wealthy nations.
Here's an even better idea: let's have it play commercials. Boot it up, and here comes a Nike ad. Just "do it," little developing nation tyke. Communism and Democracy are passe. Welcome to the New World Order of international consumerism.
Here are the products you should aspire to purchase as you sit among your family's sheep, laptop at the ready. Even if you can't afford $200 basketball shoes or a watch that's twice your parents' accumulated net worth, you can always count on these multinational corporations for a substandard manufacturing wage and 10-hour workdays. Study hard.
Everyone who actually thinks there will be G5 PowerBooks at this point, please stand up.
Crickets?
No, even the crickets are sitting this one out.
I'm ready for a new laptop, and these are very nice machines. But I'll nurse my iBook alsong until Intel. Those PowerMacs, though: wow. Well worth buying TODAY. If this is a peek at the next generation of Macs, they're going to be both muscular and modern.
ISS dropping out of orbit wouldn't be a bad thing. It's a giant money hole in the sky, producing little science while sucking up funds better used back on earth or through more productive projects.
We obviously want the station properly decommissioned. But it needs to come down. What a waste.
It's not that Apple is up-specing the Mini, which it needs, so much as they've run through their stock of low-end parts. It's also profoundly embarrassing to have the same 1.5 GHz processor in entry-level desktop as in your $2,500 Powerbook.
Expect a final PPC-based Powerbook revision almost immediately. THEN they'll own up to the Mini upgrade.
Oh, you want the GenTernet. It took a while to compile all those Top Level Domains and things, but once I got it all built, my beigebox Celeron 2.4 TOTAL FLIES online. It's amazing!
I upgraded to Web 2.0, and -- wow -- the web really feels quite a bit snappier now!
Windows open and close much faster. In my OS X dock, the Safari icon hardly has a chance to bounce more than once before the web loads right up. I don't know what Google has done "under the hood," but Web 2.0 is TONS better than Web 1.0.
The only thing which doesn't work faster is Orkut, which chugs along and randomly barfs server errors just as always.
"They're really fat, Paul. Say -- you guys build Palm's processors, right?"
"Sure do. What you got in mind?'
"Well, I've been saying Apple would never produce another PDA. But I was wondering -- you could help us get a version of OS X running on a Palm, right?"
"You bet. It'd be easier than getting Adobe to port Creative Suite over to yet another Mac platform. Ha-ha-ha... uh, you still there, Stevie? You're not laughing."
"No, I'm not. Look, I'm sending over some code. Get it going, or I'm calling AMD."
"Whoa! No need to get your designer jeans in a wad. We're on it."
It sure is hard to remain a Palm customer these days.
Not only has Palm failed to advance the performance and features of their product since the M-series days, their customer support and quality control has declined to the most rudimentary level.
Call Palm Support and you'll speak to a shoddily trained offshore rep of dubious English skills who knows little more than how to find your PDA's hard reset button. Return your Palm under the Advance Replacement program, and you're likely to receive a worn, half-functioning unit hardly better than the one you sent in.
i have gone through THREE replacement Tungsten Cs in this manner. My current unit powers up arbitrarily, burning battery life every time I touch its protective case.
Now we combine poorly manufactured hardware, crap customer support, and Microsoft's Crayola interface. What ever happened to simplicity and reliability?
I wish it weren't true, but I'm done.
My next PDA will be a Blackberry. It will work; I can get service; and my device won't look as if it's been ripped from a 1999 product catalogue.
What a shame. I've owned at least a half-dozen Palms (and bought many more as gifts) since the Palm Professional. But the value is gone.
Oh, goodie: yet another Windows-only Google application.
So that's Windows-only Google talk (the client, at least); Windows-only Google Desktop 2; Windows-only Google Web Accelerator; Windows-only Google Video Viewer; and Windows-only Google Earth. Now its Windows-only Google Secure Wi-Fi.
Admittedly, I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. These services are all provided free, and Google is under no obligation to support Mac or Linux.
But for a company sworn to do no evil, they're sure in bed with a company which has, in the past, been rather naughty.
NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion during the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018.
OR... we could take half of that money (as if we had it in the first place) and put humans back on the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Yeah, a courtesy note -- not a request -- from the company would have been appropriate. Hell, maybe they sent one.
But feddhead over there posted his game to the internet. Surprise! It's getting hit. I'm no fan of corporate America, but nothing particularly unethical is happening here. Further, no real harm is being done.
What a dick this dude is, hoping to scotch some webmaster's job by reacting with such venom.
"The Department of Commerce has received nearly 6,000 letters and e-mails from individuals expressing concern about the impact of pornography on families and children," Gallagher said in a letter that was made public on Monday.
Yeah, before you know it you'll actually be able to find pornography on the internet.
Worse yet... pretty soon people will be confusing internet porn and the Gospel! Oh... wait...
> I personally think the county would have been better off finding a way to distribute them to low income families and possibly offering classes in their use, but what do I know.
Absolutely, especially at that spec. And it would have been easy, too: are you eligible for free school lunches? Then you're also eligible for a free, low-end iBook. Sign up: a lottery determines the winners.
Any extras should have been sold on eBay, and the funds returned to the school district's computer science budget. or they could have donated the whole lot to a group like FreeGeek.
Geez, they missed a real opportunity. They could even have required successful completion of a computer course to get a machine for keeps. Duh.
Guess Henrico really does "Think Different," even if they're going to Dull computers. Of course, different isn't always good.
It requires *we* change, however: seeking out the best Indie music, promoting it, listening to it, supporting the artists, and developing our tastes beyond the,ainline music industry.
You know, there's a lot of great Indie music out there. I'm going to begin exploring some Indie artists and posting their music -- with permission -- to my weblog next month.
Let's get after it. As the Joker said, "Let's expand our minds."
Slashdot Mirror
As you should. This isn't a news story: it's a press release. it has no place on slashdot, and shouldn't be presented as anything other than marketing puffery elsewhere.
Hell, the company in question doesn't even have this trumpeted "real AI" on th efront of the website. Even THEY know it's bullshit.
The recipient *might* keep the face. That's a big MIGHT: skin is notoriously difficult to transplant. If the transplant fails, the paitient will almost certainly die. There's not much of a second chance here.
Even if the facial transplant succeeds -- and nobody really knows how well it will work, or how a patient might mentally deal with what surely will amount to a shift in self-identity -- the immunosuppressant drugs are so dangerous that cancer or death from some opportunistic infection is almost a given. The patient is (presumably) well-informed of this possibility, and has decided the short-term improvement in quality of life outweighs the long-term risks. Perhaps she's also being altruistic, knowing her experience will benefit future transplant recipients.
Whoever this patient is, godspeed. All Travolata-Gage jokes aside, this is a dire procedure with daunting risks. And a person's life is in the balance.
To live a normal length life with a horrible disfigurement, or to choose the possibility of a more "normal" appearance for a few years -- or more, or much less -- that's an authentic ethical dilemma. Let's all be glad it's not ours to decide.
Right. I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that Apple is dumping PowerPC for Intel (fat chance!) or that Dell is getting into bed with AMD.
At the same time, it's a bit of a shame this didn't work out. The primary objective of the $100 laptop is remote education, and there sure is a LOT of excellent Mac-based learning software out there.
But this is with 256MB + of RAM. 64MB? You're gonna have a LOT of disk caching going on. More than I'd be able to stomach, though your mileage may vary. If you're really running OS X on 64MB, add a bit of RAM and see what a difference it makes.
I did find a G3 that wasn't happy with OS X: a beige Powermac. OS X is supported through Jaguar, but the Powermac just wasn't interested in playing at 266Mhz with its stock 64MB RAM. I reloaded OS 9 until I can scrounge up a 256MB stick or two. Then I'll add a PCI video card and load Panther. It'll be fine.
Panther must be the second-biggest bargain in OS these days, right behind Linux. $50 new at Amazon, and it runs pretty much everything you can do with Tiger.
This isn't a consumer "time saver." It's a weapon for corporations to police the internet.
Plug in this sort of technology and you can keep track of your blogging employeees. Are they bad-mouthing the boss? Obviously engaged in something that the company could claim as intellectual policy? Organizing a union? Busted.
This will automate the troll for IP and trademark infringments. More amusingly, though: now corporations can keep a sharp eye peeled for misbehaving customers. Bitch abour Mega-Mart's pricing or shoddy products, and you might get a Cease and Desist. Or a slander suit.
Ah, technology in the service of the powerful! How it warms the hearts of lawyers everywhere.
Damn, this aluminum beanie gets warm fast.
In particular, there's no point getting pro-level Mactels into the wild unless Office and Creative Suite are ready to go Intel-native. Maybe MS and Adobe have quietly moved into high gear on the conversion. But last I read, Adobe was thinking late 2006 to get its Carbon-based apps ready for market.
No pro user will rely on Rosetta. On the other hand, one would assume Apple with have its iWork and iLife suites flipped, along with the applications which come with OS X. That will allow home users to make the switch in fairly short order. I'm sure the rumored widescreen iBooks will sell well right out of the box.
But a Mactel Powerbook makes no sense without pro applications. If Apple is really pushing advance release, they must have convinced their major software partners to get a move on.
Here's an even better idea: let's have it play commercials. Boot it up, and here comes a Nike ad. Just "do it," little developing nation tyke. Communism and Democracy are passe. Welcome to the New World Order of international consumerism.
Here are the products you should aspire to purchase as you sit among your family's sheep, laptop at the ready. Even if you can't afford $200 basketball shoes or a watch that's twice your parents' accumulated net worth, you can always count on these multinational corporations for a substandard manufacturing wage and 10-hour workdays. Study hard.
Swatch them, indeed.
Congrats to whoever designed such a clean and thoughtful theme.
Crickets?
No, even the crickets are sitting this one out.
I'm ready for a new laptop, and these are very nice machines. But I'll nurse my iBook alsong until Intel. Those PowerMacs, though: wow. Well worth buying TODAY. If this is a peek at the next generation of Macs, they're going to be both muscular and modern.
We obviously want the station properly decommissioned. But it needs to come down. What a waste.
I concede the error. And no doubt the extra 170 MHz are worth the money. That's power to burn! ;-)
It's not that Apple is up-specing the Mini, which it needs, so much as they've run through their stock of low-end parts. It's also profoundly embarrassing to have the same 1.5 GHz processor in entry-level desktop as in your $2,500 Powerbook.
Expect a final PPC-based Powerbook revision almost immediately. THEN they'll own up to the Mini upgrade.
Oh, you want the GenTernet. It took a while to compile all those Top Level Domains and things, but once I got it all built, my beigebox Celeron 2.4 TOTAL FLIES online. It's amazing!
Windows open and close much faster. In my OS X dock, the Safari icon hardly has a chance to bounce more than once before the web loads right up. I don't know what Google has done "under the hood," but Web 2.0 is TONS better than Web 1.0.
The only thing which doesn't work faster is Orkut, which chugs along and randomly barfs server errors just as always.
Anyway: thanks, Google! That's twice you've Changed Everything (tm) this week!
Strict enough. If you don't have an amateur license, stay the hell off the air.
"Paulie! Steve Jobs."
"Stevie! How those Universal Binaries coming?"
"They're really fat, Paul. Say -- you guys build Palm's processors, right?"
"Sure do. What you got in mind?'
"Well, I've been saying Apple would never produce another PDA. But I was wondering -- you could help us get a version of OS X running on a Palm, right?"
"You bet. It'd be easier than getting Adobe to port Creative Suite over to yet another Mac platform. Ha-ha-ha ... uh, you still there, Stevie? You're not laughing."
"No, I'm not. Look, I'm sending over some code. Get it going, or I'm calling AMD."
"Whoa! No need to get your designer jeans in a wad. We're on it."
*click*
*click*
Not only has Palm failed to advance the performance and features of their product since the M-series days, their customer support and quality control has declined to the most rudimentary level.
Call Palm Support and you'll speak to a shoddily trained offshore rep of dubious English skills who knows little more than how to find your PDA's hard reset button. Return your Palm under the Advance Replacement program, and you're likely to receive a worn, half-functioning unit hardly better than the one you sent in.
i have gone through THREE replacement Tungsten Cs in this manner. My current unit powers up arbitrarily, burning battery life every time I touch its protective case.
Now we combine poorly manufactured hardware, crap customer support, and Microsoft's Crayola interface. What ever happened to simplicity and reliability?
I wish it weren't true, but I'm done.
My next PDA will be a Blackberry. It will work; I can get service; and my device won't look as if it's been ripped from a 1999 product catalogue.
What a shame. I've owned at least a half-dozen Palms (and bought many more as gifts) since the Palm Professional. But the value is gone.
So that's Windows-only Google talk (the client, at least); Windows-only Google Desktop 2; Windows-only Google Web Accelerator; Windows-only Google Video Viewer; and Windows-only Google Earth. Now its Windows-only Google Secure Wi-Fi.
Admittedly, I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. These services are all provided free, and Google is under no obligation to support Mac or Linux.
But for a company sworn to do no evil, they're sure in bed with a company which has, in the past, been rather naughty.
OR ... we could take half of that money (as if we had it in the first place) and put humans back on the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Yeah, a courtesy note -- not a request -- from the company would have been appropriate. Hell, maybe they sent one. But feddhead over there posted his game to the internet. Surprise! It's getting hit. I'm no fan of corporate America, but nothing particularly unethical is happening here. Further, no real harm is being done. What a dick this dude is, hoping to scotch some webmaster's job by reacting with such venom.
... am REALLY glad to welcome our moron, utterly clueless law-enforcement overlords!
Yeah, before you know it you'll actually be able to find pornography on the internet.
Worse yet ... pretty soon people will be confusing internet porn and the Gospel! Oh ... wait ...
Absolutely, especially at that spec. And it would have been easy, too: are you eligible for free school lunches? Then you're also eligible for a free, low-end iBook. Sign up: a lottery determines the winners.
Any extras should have been sold on eBay, and the funds returned to the school district's computer science budget. or they could have donated the whole lot to a group like FreeGeek.
Geez, they missed a real opportunity. They could even have required successful completion of a computer course to get a machine for keeps. Duh.
Guess Henrico really does "Think Different," even if they're going to Dull computers. Of course, different isn't always good.
Actually, this is realistic advice.
It requires *we* change, however: seeking out the best Indie music, promoting it, listening to it, supporting the artists, and developing our tastes beyond the ,ainline music industry.
You know, there's a lot of great Indie music out there. I'm going to begin exploring some Indie artists and posting their music -- with permission -- to my weblog next month.
Let's get after it. As the Joker said, "Let's expand our minds."