An open source alternative to Exchange is the single most important project the open source community could develop to allow IT managers to migrate away from Microsoft.
I agree wholeheartedly. Our office of around 20 people uses almost exclusively open source applications (though we still run on Windows as games support for us is a must as it is our industry). I recently had to bite the bullet and install Outlook because I desperately need it's calendar functions, both because the open source alternatives just aren't as feature complete and because our clients (and every frickin' one else in the world) uses it.
I have high hopes for Sunbird, the Mozilla project, but development on it is way too slow at the moment.
Unless, of course, you block yahoo/gmail/hotmail - which is what we do. Granted that's not for everyone but we're only interested in users that have a 'legitimate' ISP email address.
I'm interested to hear what the Slashdot crowd has to say about them patenting this. Six years is a long time to spend researching something. I'm sure they dumped a truck of money into it. (Without reading the article,) I'm guessing that it's probably relatively reverse engineer a nail and knock it off in a Chinese factory.
While it is true that areas closer to the equator see more power generation capacity from solar, even areas farther away still benefit from solar's ability to mitigate peak demand in summer and winter.
I think this is one of the biggest things about solar power that is sadly most often overlooked. Sure, it'd be hell nice to drop all our coal burning plants and replace them with PV panels or thermal Stirling engines or whatever - but noone really expects that to happen overnight.
But dropping a few panels on rooves would make a massive difference - where I am in Australia we're having issues with power during summer because it's like 35 degrees celcius all day (dropping to like mid 20's if we're lucky at night), so everyone's firing up their air conditioners. Having solar power supplementing the grid during the middle of the day - when airconditioners are fired up the most to help deal with the summer heat - would be pretty awesome and reduce the peak demand.
The arrogance of suggesting the internet supercedes items such as newspapers, phones (remember those things? No IP, just voice -> voltage -> voice), hell, even a decent postal service is laughable.
Shrug, I'd probably argue that Internet access is probably somewhat more useful to citizens of a country to get a slightly more objective look at it than a state-run newspaper.
I agree that basic services like water and electricity are probably more important, but there's a reason they don't have free, unfettered Internet access - and that reason is control.
Arguably, the wellbeing of a state might be massively improved if it's citizens had unfettered Internet access. "The outside world looks like WHAT?"
The problem these schools are seeking to resolve is this: They have all the responsibility for what happens to your little angel/monster but none of the parental immunity that comes with it.
Great summary of the issue.
To solve problems like this it basically must be legislated that schools aren't liable for things unless it is as a result of a direct act of negligence. Letting kids play at lunch time isn't negligent (I'd argue that it's almost criminal to take that freedom away). Leaving a board with nails in it in the middle of the playground after a contstruction job is.
Well, a lot of operating systems already have mechanisms in place to allow this sort of thing. It's a little inconvenient, but you could (for example) create a user just for web browsing/email, and another one for games.
Unfortunately, most games developers (especially EA) are either too lazy or too arrogant to let this happen - most games you need to install with administrative access (at least, on Windows).
Interesting post - I don't think fat people are dumb. I just think they're lazy.
My friends and I have an ongoing argument about 'metabolism'. I've always been had a relatively skinny/athletic build, and my friends keep saying it's only because I have a 'high metabolism', and that I'm lucky I'm not like them because otherwise I'd be fat.
I take exception to this because from my perspective, I'm really careful not to get fat. I eat a balanced diet - sure, I have a Big Mac now and then, but much more often I'm eating Subway. I drink a bit, but not every night and rarely to excess. I excercise several times a week - lots of soccer and when I'm not to tired from work (a relatively demanding IT job, which I think also helps) pushups and stuff.
Most of the fat people I know aren't dumb - they just don't care that they're fat. Sure, they're prepared to whine and complain and blame heaps of different things, but at the end of the day - they're just not actually prepared to do anything about it. Fad diets, half-assed excercise regimes - none of that crap is EVER going to work unless you WANT to lose weight, and until you get to that point, nothing will happen.
So the trick to not getting invaded is to definitely say you are working on something, and not say that you're not working on something? I hope other evil dictators don't figure this one out!
If you don't like what the car makers are doing either A) don't buy from them or B) use the power of democracy to force them to change. There isn't even the semblance of an excuse for this sort of bullshit. We have two completely effective ways of dealing with the problem.
Most people just don't care about the problem, or at best just pay it lip service. Until "global warming" and "environment meltdown" actually starts impacting people's lives, they're just Not, Going, To, Care.
Those that do are, sadly, in the minority, and their responses to a) and b) in your suggestion have minimal effect.
Unfortunately, most of the big, powerful, wealthy, industrialised nations who are in a position to actually make a difference don't want to, for whatever reason (China: massive growth, USA: political lobbying (?), etc). Hopefully it won't be too late when they decide to step up!
I don't really see the point in slapping the best UI in the world on your application if it isn't stable and secure. UI is definitely important, but unless your application actually does what it is supposed to I'd certainly give it the back seat!
What's the budget of NASA vs the budget on the War on Terror?
I'd much rather see the money going into figuring out ways to get us off this rock and take advantages of the vast resources of the rest of the solar system.
Every single thing I've ever installed from Google that reports back to Google is either off by default, or asks me whether I want to let it report before letting it.
I can't imagine this'd be any different. But let's panic anyway!
However, BitTorrent is an extremely important tool that has many uses other than what everyone assumes it is good for, namely movie piracy
Sure, but that doesn't the change the fact that what it's mostly used for is, in fact, piracy.
Here in Australia we have set quota limits on most plans. Once you've hit that limit, you're shaped (or have to pay extra). I quite like this idea, because it means my ISP isn't going to get whaled on by a few users that are downloading hundreds of gigs a month.
That is interesting to me - except probably not in the sense that you mean. I'm looking for something similar, except performance is a key issue and BitTorrent-as-python (I run the mainline BT tracker and client and it really struggles performance-wise with some of the more popular files).
This system sounds really great; I'd love to see it as a tightly written C application for maximum performance! I will keep waiting for utorrent for linux in the meantime:)
I'd like to see them start their OWN distribution!
Then offer course credit incentives for students to work on it writing open source code and contributing however else they can. Surely out of 22,000 students there has to be a couple of coders, a couple decent graphic designers, a couple people that can write documentation... I would have killed for the opportunity to write useful code that might have gone somewhere in some of my CS courses at uni.
I don't think you can blame the actors or the films. I blame the people that keep going out and seeing these movies. I've seen maybe three movies I've really enjoyed in the last two years, and have made the conscious choice to just STOP GIVING THESE JERKS MY MONEY. I've switched almost entirely to TV series (mostly HBO stuff) which I'm finding I enjoy way, way more.
I think it's simple - if people stop shelling out $15 a head to go see the latest remake of a 70s TV series, or the next cash-in sequel, studios might be a little more willing to stop handing us the same old crap.
- have anywhere near the range of the old one? - ship us DRMed files that aren't compatible with all our devices? - cost less, the same or more than iTunes? - be adware sponsored to keep costs of music down?
Unless there are favourable answers to all these questions (and more, no doubt), what possible incentive is there going to be to use this service.
I'd happily pay $50 a month (or whatever, some reasonable monthly fee / bandwidth even) to download whatever mp3s I wanted from Kazaa that anyone wanted to share. I'd happily let my downloads be tracked so it could go into a big database somewhere so royalties could be paid to artists and labels.
I would add to the last one "... or requires administrative access to install".
This has been pointed out elsewhere in the comments, but the vast majority of userspace applications shouldn't need administrative access to install. I've installed GAMES which have required a reboot (...although usually because they were installing StarForce or other spyware without my knowledge or consent).
Slashdot Mirror
I have high hopes for Sunbird, the Mozilla project, but development on it is way too slow at the moment.
Unless, of course, you block yahoo/gmail/hotmail - which is what we do. Granted that's not for everyone but we're only interested in users that have a 'legitimate' ISP email address.
I'm interested to hear what the Slashdot crowd has to say about them patenting this. Six years is a long time to spend researching something. I'm sure they dumped a truck of money into it. (Without reading the article,) I'm guessing that it's probably relatively reverse engineer a nail and knock it off in a Chinese factory.
I think this is one of the biggest things about solar power that is sadly most often overlooked. Sure, it'd be hell nice to drop all our coal burning plants and replace them with PV panels or thermal Stirling engines or whatever - but noone really expects that to happen overnight.
But dropping a few panels on rooves would make a massive difference - where I am in Australia we're having issues with power during summer because it's like 35 degrees celcius all day (dropping to like mid 20's if we're lucky at night), so everyone's firing up their air conditioners. Having solar power supplementing the grid during the middle of the day - when airconditioners are fired up the most to help deal with the summer heat - would be pretty awesome and reduce the peak demand.
I agree that basic services like water and electricity are probably more important, but there's a reason they don't have free, unfettered Internet access - and that reason is control.
Arguably, the wellbeing of a state might be massively improved if it's citizens had unfettered Internet access. "The outside world looks like WHAT?"
Great summary of the issue.
To solve problems like this it basically must be legislated that schools aren't liable for things unless it is as a result of a direct act of negligence. Letting kids play at lunch time isn't negligent (I'd argue that it's almost criminal to take that freedom away). Leaving a board with nails in it in the middle of the playground after a contstruction job is.
Well, a lot of operating systems already have mechanisms in place to allow this sort of thing. It's a little inconvenient, but you could (for example) create a user just for web browsing/email, and another one for games.
Unfortunately, most games developers (especially EA) are either too lazy or too arrogant to let this happen - most games you need to install with administrative access (at least, on Windows).
Interesting post - I don't think fat people are dumb. I just think they're lazy.
My friends and I have an ongoing argument about 'metabolism'. I've always been had a relatively skinny/athletic build, and my friends keep saying it's only because I have a 'high metabolism', and that I'm lucky I'm not like them because otherwise I'd be fat.
I take exception to this because from my perspective, I'm really careful not to get fat. I eat a balanced diet - sure, I have a Big Mac now and then, but much more often I'm eating Subway. I drink a bit, but not every night and rarely to excess. I excercise several times a week - lots of soccer and when I'm not to tired from work (a relatively demanding IT job, which I think also helps) pushups and stuff.
Most of the fat people I know aren't dumb - they just don't care that they're fat. Sure, they're prepared to whine and complain and blame heaps of different things, but at the end of the day - they're just not actually prepared to do anything about it. Fad diets, half-assed excercise regimes - none of that crap is EVER going to work unless you WANT to lose weight, and until you get to that point, nothing will happen.
So the trick to not getting invaded is to definitely say you are working on something, and not say that you're not working on something? I hope other evil dictators don't figure this one out!
Those that do are, sadly, in the minority, and their responses to a) and b) in your suggestion have minimal effect.
Unfortunately, most of the big, powerful, wealthy, industrialised nations who are in a position to actually make a difference don't want to, for whatever reason (China: massive growth, USA: political lobbying (?), etc). Hopefully it won't be too late when they decide to step up!
... by the words "Warner Brothers engineeres"?
The thought of the media companies creating the hardware on which we'll have(*) to use to to buy their content worries me.
* Of course, "have" just means "until someone hacks a way around it".
I don't really see the point in slapping the best UI in the world on your application if it isn't stable and secure. UI is definitely important, but unless your application actually does what it is supposed to I'd certainly give it the back seat!
What's the budget of NASA vs the budget on the War on Terror?
I'd much rather see the money going into figuring out ways to get us off this rock and take advantages of the vast resources of the rest of the solar system.
Every single thing I've ever installed from Google that reports back to Google is either off by default, or asks me whether I want to let it report before letting it.
I can't imagine this'd be any different. But let's panic anyway!
Sure, but that doesn't the change the fact that what it's mostly used for is, in fact, piracy.
Here in Australia we have set quota limits on most plans. Once you've hit that limit, you're shaped (or have to pay extra). I quite like this idea, because it means my ISP isn't going to get whaled on by a few users that are downloading hundreds of gigs a month.
allofmp3.com, baby!
That is interesting to me - except probably not in the sense that you mean. I'm looking for something similar, except performance is a key issue and BitTorrent-as-python (I run the mainline BT tracker and client and it really struggles performance-wise with some of the more popular files).
:)
This system sounds really great; I'd love to see it as a tightly written C application for maximum performance! I will keep waiting for utorrent for linux in the meantime
I'd like to see them start their OWN distribution!
Then offer course credit incentives for students to work on it writing open source code and contributing however else they can. Surely out of 22,000 students there has to be a couple of coders, a couple decent graphic designers, a couple people that can write documentation... I would have killed for the opportunity to write useful code that might have gone somewhere in some of my CS courses at uni.
Don't have time to double check but at first glance this appears to be a dupe:
1 3/1654200
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/
Time to stop voting in governments that are prepared to trample your privacy!
What actually happens to water that is soaking up radiation from waste?
Haha, "real world threat" made me laugh. That's what I thought they'd been telling us terrorism was for the last few years.
I don't think you can blame the actors or the films. I blame the people that keep going out and seeing these movies. I've seen maybe three movies I've really enjoyed in the last two years, and have made the conscious choice to just STOP GIVING THESE JERKS MY MONEY. I've switched almost entirely to TV series (mostly HBO stuff) which I'm finding I enjoy way, way more.
I think it's simple - if people stop shelling out $15 a head to go see the latest remake of a 70s TV series, or the next cash-in sequel, studios might be a little more willing to stop handing us the same old crap.
Cool - will the 'new Kazaa'...
- have anywhere near the range of the old one?
- ship us DRMed files that aren't compatible with all our devices?
- cost less, the same or more than iTunes?
- be adware sponsored to keep costs of music down?
Unless there are favourable answers to all these questions (and more, no doubt), what possible incentive is there going to be to use this service.
I'd happily pay $50 a month (or whatever, some reasonable monthly fee / bandwidth even) to download whatever mp3s I wanted from Kazaa that anyone wanted to share. I'd happily let my downloads be tracked so it could go into a big database somewhere so royalties could be paid to artists and labels.
I would add to the last one "... or requires administrative access to install".
This has been pointed out elsewhere in the comments, but the vast majority of userspace applications shouldn't need administrative access to install. I've installed GAMES which have required a reboot (...although usually because they were installing StarForce or other spyware without my knowledge or consent).