With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre. The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses.
I don't even like people knowing what side of a street I'm on from my current postal code.
Even as Altnet launches its ambitious new service, parent Brilliant Digital is struggling on the edge of financial survival. In a federal securities document filed in late May, the company said it had "negative working capital of approximately $4,165"
The agency was also six months behind on completing its biennial review. Under a congressional law, the FCC is supposed to revisit its media rules every two years.... and some urged the agency to ignore its deadline.
Revisiting the rules so frequently gives too much opportunity for rules to relax to quickly.
It's like continually asking the question "were we right?", then rolling the dice.
It's a complex issue, requiring lots of information to be collected and assessed. If this is rushed, it makes it too easy to make a bad call.
To badly paraphrase "the progress of a society cannot be increased just by speeding it up".
I agree. Rather I think their point was that the money should be diverted from advancement in supercomputer computing speed to solving large-scale data problems.
Mr. Grey's presentation from May 20th has many solutions, and none lead directly to a Microsoft database.
He seemed inclined towards a distributed solution.
I'm sure Grey and Bell have earned the freedom to speak freely, and continue to earn this every time they do. (I've just looked at some of their online presentations - thought provoking)
And in this instance it doesn't hurt Microsoft, because right now the government money is going to a poker table that Microsoft isn't sitting at - the "big iron" table.
Microsoft doesn't lose by saying Linux wins at a game it isn't playing.
Better to attract the high roller (the gov't payor) away to a game you're good at (the database table).
Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to sound superior - not my intent at all.
Actually an exchange student from South Korea who's with our family right now told me that in his country _some_ people play a MMORPG as a part-time job, and some can make as much as people with traditional part-time jobs. Supposedly castles in this game are worth many thousands of dollars in the real world, and some people will pay real money for virtual money at some multiplier. I had no idea that there was a market exchange rate on this kind of thing.
Crap, my writing style must be really bad - I didn't mean to insinuate that I was attacking anyone personally.
Your suggestion is balanced. Otherwise the increase in power is only in one direction: towards general security and away from individual freedom.
It's a trade-off between these two. Your suggestion would arguably increase both.
But I could just imagine: 1. people trying to find out famous peoples' license plates to follow them 2. police keeping a list of activists' plates so they could be rounded up before any summits 3. data mining for evidence of potential criminals
I'd be more inclined to believe damage to virtual goods could be sued for and that there was a real loss if before the loss, the people holding these assets did the following:
1. claimed the increase in these assets as "capital gains" or "other income" on their tax returns 2. included them in their list of assets they showed a bank when applying for a loan 3. paid property insurance premiums on them
prompts an innocent question
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Wonder about their webcast too - could have made a good phone-in question this past week.
Something like "You're running this webcast on Linux - why is that?"
Good question... their secrecy seems illogical unless they have more than one goal.
By keeping the details secret, they can avoid an early end to their business venture. This maximizes: 1. length of the FUD attack 2. duration of bankrolling by M$ via license fees. I think this is SCO's primary revenue base now. 3. time for other companies to get unnecessary SCO licences. They may want time to build inertia here.
It's possible SCO and M$ know the lawsuit will probably fail, but I think it'll be a couple of years until the case even starts in court. Some open source progress can be diverted by this focus.
M$ may be using SCO tactically. They don't want their weapon to fizzle too quicky.
By the way, if you ever decide to lob a tear gas cannister back at the cops, think twice. They are extremely hot when they land, so unless you handle them the right way you will just burn yourself.
A university professor used to tell us stories about his times at Berkley during the student riots in the early '70's. The National Guard was called onto the campus and students weren't allowed to gather in groups more than two or three.
He'd tell us about how the students wore oven mitts to protests. That way when the police or national guard threw tear gas, the students could pick them up and lob them right back. Turned into a bit of a tennis match at times.
The timing for last night's Voyager episode was perfect in its parallel to today's NSA story.
*spoilers below* (but it's only a Voyager episode)
7of9 makes a machine to download hoards of the ship's records (including all archives) down to her while she sleeps/regenerates.
Over a series of days, each time she awakes from this, she comes up with more and more elaborate conspiracy theories about the crew and the past 5 years to try to put order to the overwhelming mass of information which comes to her without order.
She gets irritable and starts pacing a lot (which isn't a bad thing necessarily) and starts telling certain people in secret what her theories are.
Eventually she has a theory about virtually everybody she knows (even Naomi Wildman).
The parallel breaks down though since she wasn't paranoid initially but became that way with overwhelming amounts of data to sift. But the NSA started out paranoid before they got overwhelmed.
... so I can play Age of Kings after a hard day at work.
Seriously though (sort of), might I suggest one of the books you productively read be by Henry David Thoureau. It may shift your point of view a little.
You don't have to be productive all the time. Moderation (no!, not slashdot moderation - geez) in this too is good.
(from metamute): "Fantasy games, although more graphically gory, do not conceal any implicit political agenda."
I don't know, after playing Age of Kings if I ever see a high-ranking Teuton walking down the street, I'm going to use my portable trebuchet on them: http://www.iinet.net.au/~rmine/cheese.html
That is if they'd just stay still while I do some calculations.
Disclaimer: I don't really own a trebuchet. It's some guy's on the other side of the planet.
Slashdot Mirror
With 10 characters, it can represent a specific area measuring one square metre. The proposed 10-digit universal address could be used for both homes and businesses.
I don't even like people knowing what side of a street I'm on from my current postal code.
Even as Altnet launches its ambitious new service, parent Brilliant Digital is struggling on the edge of financial survival. In a federal securities document filed in late May, the company said it had "negative working capital of approximately $4,165"
How many prize cars does -$4,165 buy?
The agency was also six months behind on completing its biennial review. Under a congressional law, the FCC is supposed to revisit its media rules every two years. ... and some urged the agency to ignore its deadline.
Revisiting the rules so frequently gives too much opportunity for rules to relax to quickly.
It's like continually asking the question "were we right?", then rolling the dice.
It's a complex issue, requiring lots of information to be collected and assessed. If this is rushed, it makes it too easy to make a bad call.
To badly paraphrase "the progress of a society cannot be increased just by speeding it up".
I think the Ents had it right.
I agree. Rather I think their point was that the money should be diverted from advancement in supercomputer computing speed to solving large-scale data problems.
Mr. Grey's presentation from May 20th has many solutions, and none lead directly to a Microsoft database.
He seemed inclined towards a distributed solution.
I'm sure Grey and Bell have earned the freedom to speak freely, and continue to earn this every time they do. (I've just looked at some of their online presentations - thought provoking)
And in this instance it doesn't hurt Microsoft, because right now the government money is going to a poker table that Microsoft isn't sitting at - the "big iron" table.
Microsoft doesn't lose by saying Linux wins at a game it isn't playing.
Better to attract the high roller (the gov't payor) away to a game you're good at (the database table).
Okay I've mixed enough metaphors.
See slide 12 of his presentation a couple of weeks ago:
S TB _SuperComputing_Study_Group.ppt
http://www.research.microsoft.com/~Gray/talks/C
What company would like to supply database software worth a potential $1b per year?
Just waiting for the other shoe to drop...
Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to sound superior - not my intent at all.
Actually an exchange student from South Korea who's with our family right now told me that in his country _some_ people play a MMORPG as a part-time job, and some can make as much as people with traditional part-time jobs. Supposedly castles in this game are worth many thousands of dollars in the real world, and some people will pay real money for virtual money at some multiplier. I had no idea that there was a market exchange rate on this kind of thing.
Crap, my writing style must be really bad - I didn't mean to insinuate that I was attacking anyone personally.
Wonder what skills this game (or later ones down the same road) will improve?
1. ability to lessen blood pressure
2. ability to trick lie detectors
3. ability to slow breathing
They mentioned the breathing. Years ago I used to meditate a fair bit. Counted my breaths at about 85 in 35 minutes one time.
The game concept sounds interesting though. It may make some people learn far afield skills despite themselves.
Yeah that "law-abiding" quote gave me a shiver.
Your suggestion is balanced. Otherwise the increase in power is only in one direction: towards general security and away from individual freedom.
It's a trade-off between these two. Your suggestion would arguably increase both.
But I could just imagine:
1. people trying to find out famous peoples' license plates to follow them
2. police keeping a list of activists' plates so they could be rounded up before any summits
3. data mining for evidence of potential criminals
I'd be more inclined to believe damage to virtual goods could be sued for and that there was a real loss if before the loss, the people holding these assets did the following:
1. claimed the increase in these assets as "capital gains" or "other income" on their tax returns
2. included them in their list of assets they showed a bank when applying for a loan
3. paid property insurance premiums on them
Wonder about their webcast too - could have made a good phone-in question this past week.
Something like "You're running this webcast on Linux - why is that?"
Good question ... their secrecy seems illogical unless they have more than one goal.
By keeping the details secret, they can avoid an early end to their business venture.
This maximizes:
1. length of the FUD attack
2. duration of bankrolling by M$ via license fees. I think this is SCO's primary revenue base now.
3. time for other companies to get unnecessary SCO licences. They may want time to build inertia here.
It's possible SCO and M$ know the lawsuit will probably fail, but I think it'll be a couple of years until the case even starts in court. Some open source progress can be diverted by this focus.
M$ may be using SCO tactically. They don't want their weapon to fizzle too quicky.
By the way, if you ever decide to lob a tear gas cannister back at the cops, think twice. They are extremely hot when they land, so unless you handle them the right way you will just burn yourself.
A university professor used to tell us stories about his times at Berkley during the student riots in the early '70's. The National Guard was called onto the campus and students weren't allowed to gather in groups more than two or three.
He'd tell us about how the students wore oven mitts to protests. That way when the police or national guard threw tear gas, the students could pick them up and lob them right back. Turned into a bit of a tennis match at times.
especially if they were paranoid to begin with.
I could just see an FBI agent making note in his pad that a suspect had a copy of Walden in his backpack.
His ideas mightn't fit with what many people consider a normal productive life. Anything other is suspect.
a lovely book.
BTW I scored 7/8 on the test.
maybe we'll reestablish the underground railway and move geeks up here in droves.
maybe this'll reverse the brain drain that's been going on.
Lots of jobs in Ottawa and Toronto I think.
btw I met all but 2 of them myself.
Good job I'm in Canada!
darn.
From the Pioneer site.
The timing for last night's Voyager episode was perfect in its parallel to today's NSA story.
*spoilers below* (but it's only a Voyager episode)
7of9 makes a machine to download hoards of the ship's records (including all archives) down to her while she sleeps/regenerates.
Over a series of days, each time she awakes from this, she comes up with more and more elaborate conspiracy theories about the crew and the past 5 years to try to put order to the overwhelming mass of information which comes to her without order.
She gets irritable and starts pacing a lot (which isn't a bad thing necessarily) and starts telling certain people in secret what her theories are.
Eventually she has a theory about virtually everybody she knows (even Naomi Wildman).
The parallel breaks down though since she wasn't paranoid initially but became that way with overwhelming amounts of data to sift. But the NSA started out paranoid before they got overwhelmed.
... so I can play Age of Kings after a hard day at work.
Seriously though (sort of), might I suggest one of the books you productively read be by Henry David Thoureau. It may shift your point of view a little.
You don't have to be productive all the time. Moderation (no!, not slashdot moderation - geez) in this too is good.
(from metamute): "Fantasy games, although more graphically gory, do not conceal any implicit political agenda."
I don't know, after playing Age of Kings if I ever see a high-ranking Teuton walking down the street, I'm going to use my portable trebuchet on them:
http://www.iinet.net.au/~rmine/cheese.html
That is if they'd just stay still while I do some calculations.
Disclaimer: I don't really own a trebuchet. It's some guy's on the other side of the planet.
we're already spread all over the earth, so it ain't so long a trip for anyone to check out the situation in their own backyard.
... tender and juicy on the inside.
I expect Microsoft to still claim that their total cost of ownership is still lower for a business to use Windows rather than Linux.
It's puzzling how many pricy items they consider to be a negligible part of the total cost calculation.