Everything you've said about Europe being better basically has to do with the difference in the size of the US vs. Europe---both in people and in area. For example:
1) It's alot easier to be better in telecommunications when your country is the size of one of our states. We're still trying to get cell towers to every part of the US, because its so big.
2) Public transit only works if you have a large number of people in a small area (see New York). In the US, most people prefer to spread out and live in the suburbs---doing things like owning their own house.
3) Television. To upgrade us to HDTV you have to upgrade the facilities of each and every local network in every big and small town. That's not a small task
Frankly, I can't believe how quickly intelligent people want to go down this stem cell road. Come on, did you read Brave New World and think it was a *good* idea? Did you see Gattaca and say "I want a society like that!". Don't you want to take a small step back and look at the ethical ramifications of using stem cells, with their own distinct DNA, as fodder for whatever experiments we want to conduct? Don't you realize this is not an end, but a beginning of some huge ethical situations?
And not to mention that embryo stem cells have a big disadvantage over adult ones---namely the fact that they have different DNA and will be as prone to rejection as any other transplant. Adult stem cells, of course, don't have this problem.
Read this disclaimer from the website of one of the sources for this article
The only reason we include the following disclaimer is because our legal department says we must. DISCLAIMER: All of the officers and support personnel mentioned below are innocent of any criminal, civil, procedural, or administrative wrongdoing until proven guilty or liable in a court of law or other properly constituted tribunal. These parties are encouraged to submit rebuttals to these charges. All of the following material consists solely of the personal opinions of the author, Al Shemonia, and such opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Copwatch.com or its board, associates, affiliates, or members. This material is not currently presented as fact.
So I guess for copwatch, that whole "innocent until proven guilty" is only for them and not for the cops. Goodness forbid that they practice what they preach.
I think the biggest advantage for HDTVs will be when we get consoles that support the higher-resolution. My biggest gripe with the Playstation and PS2 is the crappy resolution. Who wants to play a cool 3D game in something that looks like 320x200 resolution, no matter how many polygons you have.
a) It is in the casino's interests to have restrictions on minors. If you are under 18 you are not legally bound to a contract, so their parents could sue to get any money the kid lost back. Of course, if the kid wins noone is going to find out. So it is lose/lose for the casino. Not to mention the bad press.
b) As a Christian, we generally don't like gambling not because it is "the work of the devil" but because it generally takes the money of those who can least afford it. Yea, sure, your educated and understand probability. But gambling (especially state lottos) takes the money of poor uneducated people who don't understand probability.
Personally I don't think the government should be in the gambling business. And I think that it is OK to restrict gambling to Vegas and Atlantic City. I mean, if you have enough money to gamble it shouldn't be a big deal to travel to do it. And if your so addicted to gambling that you need to do it constantly, you need help.
I think that they need to stress the fact that broadband is often as cheep or cheaper than a dialup plus a second phone line. People see $40 for broadband vs. $20 for dialup and they think it is twice as expensive and not worth it.
What they don't seem to realize is a second line is often ~20, so if your online enough to need a second line you might as well go broadband.
Bull****! You know and I know that most Napster users are pirates, plain and simple. It isn't about sharing, it's about stealing. Where is the business plan for paying the artists anything for their hard work, not to mention all of the production staff, ad agencys, etc.
Oh, I'm sorry, geeks don't have business plans...
BTW, those "evil" corporations are responsible for just about everything we have and own. See that computer your typing on? You think some mom and pop company is going to be able to finance the multi-billion dollar facility necessary to produce your microprocessor?
So quit listening to those Socialists. And always remember that right now that the Netherlands has a larger economy than Russia because Russia thought that corporations were evil too.
Brian Ellenberger
Labor Unions can get too powerful too!!!
on
Coder on the Cross
·
· Score: 1
If this is so true, why are so many states now passing right to work laws just to protect workers from the unions???
The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human beings. Whenever an organization gets big and powerful for whatever reason it seems to take on a life of its own. The people who end up running the big organization get big heads, become power hungry, and end up forgetting all about anyone else.
My mom and her hospital were just reciently the victims of a union. 150 nurses just left two months ago. The union came in, took their dues, and then did nothing. Now they can't get out of their contract till 2002 and are screwed. Thank you union.
The main problem is that unions are monopolies. When a company "unionizes" there can only be one union and everyone has to work for that union. This SUCKS!!! Why not have freedom to work? Why not have freedom to choose not to be in the union, or have three different unions to choose from? Why? Because the monopolies benefit the higher ups in the union. Not because it in any way benefits the workers.
Not to mention unions could give a dam* about the company itself. As long as it gets those union dues...
>The American Family Association was present, >accusing the American culture of violent >pedophilic homosexual atheist liberals of >ruining society, and they are "happy to see one >of the horribly persecuted Christians standing >up for family values against Satan." When >someone pointed out that this had absolutely >nothing to do with any of those issues, they >responded "See? They're trying to censor us! >They're evil, they're evil!"
Christians are probably the largest group of homeschool kids because they are the #1 targeted group. Try and do a report or make a graduation speech mentioning Christ and see how far you get.
In fact just a year ago people who calling homeschooling just a fad among Christian fundamentalists who couldn't deal with the real world. Maybe now people are waking up to the fact that school nowadays are horribly broken.
>"The opposite sides of the universe have not had >enough time to communicate with each other. Yet >throughout the sky we find the universe to be >extraordinarily homogeneous," Steinhardt said.
>It is as if two chefs on opposite sides of the >Earth inadvertently cooked up the exact same >dish.
>"You would think that they cheated to come up >with exactly the same thing," he said.
Hmm, sounds sort of like God. But of course, scientists can't believe in stuff like that...
From this little outburst we can tell who the real intolerant ones are here
BTW, why don't you look up the real meaning of freedom of speech? By spamming and trolling Free Republic's website, you are violating the Free Republic's right to free speech. What next, DoS attacks are free speech?
Come on, Slashdot stands up and gets angry when Scientology does this stuff! They should do the same here.
Re:Editorial Right Wingedness
on
Republic.Com
·
· Score: 1
>"environmental terrorists who spike logging >areas" -- hmm, do I detect a hint of bias? Maybe >just an eensy weensy bit?
I think a good definition of a hate group is one that wants to inflict bodily harm upon another group.
For example, an organization devoted to killing gays is a hate group. A church that believes homosexuality is wrong but follows Christ's example of non-violence is not a hate group.
An environmental organization that tries to save woodland areas through political pressure is not a hate group. An environmental organization that spikes logs to kill those who don't agree with them is a hate group.
One of the biggest dangers in the United States right now, especially in academia, is the bridging of speech which "hurts" someone's feelings to the level of bodily harm. Saying something is wrong/immortal/etc is what free speech is about.
All of the examples such as fire in a theater and "I'm going to kill you tomorrow" letter involve direct bodily harm. Saying people should have the right to own guns or that sex before marriage is wrong is not direct bodily harm. If we keep elevating it to such, we are going to see the end to free speech.
Under the leadership of the French? Maybe the Brits or the Germans, but the French? They haven't made any waves in civilization since the 1800's, except as Germany's punching bag.
Anyway, as to the outmoded idea of a nation state the Chinese seem to be relying on it a great deal to brutally repress their population.
As for the U.S., well, what do you think all that NAFTA stuff was about?
Matthew 5:18 - For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Christ was mocking the Pharisees making up their own laws and rules, not for following the Bible. In fact, he made many laws more strict (adultery, murder).
Most Christians don't have a problem with magic. One of the great Christian apologists is C.S. Lewis, whose Narnia series is both Christian and magical. You can go to most Christian stores in the deep south and buy such books as the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew.
The problem Christians have with D&D is all of the praying to pagan gods! If you are a cleric, you have to pray to some god for your powers! Most of the books have a ton of stuff on pagan gods.
If they are going to include pagan gods in role-playing, I'd like to see them include the one true God as well. There is a little bit of a hint of this in the Athar faction of Planescape. Personally, I just change the rules and pretend those pagan gods don't exist.
It's amazing how features that you can't implement become "minor".
What the heck kind of modern "multimedia" system doesn't have DVD and especially CD-RW support??? Didn't Jobs just come out and say the next big thing was DVD-RW? And now he is releasing a system that can't even burn simple CDs? Isn't Mac releasing commercials about how cool it is to burn your own music CDs? I guess they were really taking about how cool it would be to burn music CD's if you used a Windows machine.
Can you imagine if the next version of Windows didn't have CD-RW and DVD support and just gave you a copy of Windows 95 and told you to dual boot? But of course they had programmers that could figure out memory protection and true multitasking SEVEN years before Mac!!
If they can't even figure out how to get this stuff working, why am I supposed to have any confidence in the rest of their OS?
This is simple personal email---to his mother and stuff. It isn't military secrets or anything. Maybe some minor political stuff (so and so is an a@@hole, etc):) But just B.S. emails.
The problem is that even *IF* Bush did a 1024 bit PGP encription and *IF* the courts said he could keep it secret, politically it would not fly. He is trying to not be Bill Clinton, not emulate him!!
Basically this is all Clinton's fault. Clintons strategy when he pulled something unethical was to drag his heals as long as possible refusing to cooperate in any way. Then he complains bitterly about how long the investigation is taking and how much money it is taking. Then he finally reveals something 2 years later after everyone is tired of the whole thing. Because of stuff like this, Congress tried to clamp down---this email policy is one result...
Brian Ellenberger
I don't care what you say about the color palette of Doom, that game is the only game that has ever elicited such strong emotion out of me---specifically fear! I've played alot of games, but Doom is the only one that has scared the crap out of me.
I remember one specific instance. It was 2:00am and the only light in my room was coming from my monitor. In the game, I was going down this long nearly dark passageway. The only light was some small flashing beacons. It was quiet--too quite. All of a sudden a pack of those beast things jumps out. It scared me so much I screamed and flew backward out of my seat.
For some reason, there was just something special about the atmosphere of that game. I hope Doom III can live up to it.
> - but I look at it this way, when speech is
> as 'free' as it is in the US, it basically
> becomes meaningless.
Not to us Americans! I think Americans would be surprised to hear what the rest of the world thinks about free speech.
For example:
Canada is not bereft of free-speech advocates, but they have actually been told by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council: "In Canada, we respect freedom of speech, but do not worship it."
from http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0031/hentoff.sh tml
I've been following the Canada for a while now because as a born-again Christian they are scaring the heck out of me. Their equivalent of the FCC regularly bans any programming that does not meet their "standards". Their government is trying to revoke the rights of Christian universities that teach beliefs which are against what they government wants people to believe. See http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/008/7.19. html
This stuff is pushing into the United States. Look at "hate crime" legislation. Guess what that is? Pretty soon, you say the wrong joke or believe in the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and you will be fined and put in jail.
The problem is people who force their beliefs on other people through the law. For example, right-wing anti-homosexuality laws (Which Alan Turing was a victim of). These laws tried to physically force people to not be homosexual. They failed and were very destructive. However, we have swung the other way and now have left-wing "hate crime laws" and "tolerance" initiatives. They are just as bad. If you want to fight for free speech, start with fighting against things like trying to force the Boy Scouts to accept athiests and homosexuals---even if you think they should. Because you never know if you might be the next target of some government official or special interest group who does not like the way you think
The biggest problem that Microsoft is facing right now is that Word and Excel are pretty much "finished" products. There is nothing revolutionary or even evolutionary that they could possibly add to them in the forseeable future that will make people want to go out and buy a new verson. Other than some polishing and bug fixes, there isn't much left to do.
So in the long term, Microsoft's profits are going to go down and down to barely a trickle of what they once were for Office. Thus a subscription based method of revenue is the only way they are going to be able to maintain their profit margins.
Microsoft's problem may not be unique. What happens in the future when more and more products are "finished"? Unlike manufacturing, code never gets "old". If you get a product working pretty much perfectly with all possible features, what do you need programmers for? Of course it may take 30, 50, or 100 years but how long can you possibly work on a Word Processor? Sure you can change things around the edges like processors, OS's, etc to force you to reprogram apps. But fundamentally products may get to the point where they are 99% complete for all time and any other revisions will be a case of severely diminished returns.
We dug up the carbon from the ground, why not just put it back there! It didn't seem to hurt anything for the million years it was down there forming coal, why should it harm anything if we put it back?
Go ahead and try to make a fat client Java applet or even an application that does not take 30 megs of RAM to run or crash every 10 seconds.
Even Weblogic changed its console from a java application to an HTTP based one.
The biggest difference so far between Java and.NET is going to be the battle between thin client and fat client and the philosophies of Sun and Microsoft.
Sun thinks in terms of big servers and small clients. This is because Sun sells lots of big expensive servers. Thus, Java works best when most of the computing is done on the server and the client is thin and dumb. This is why applets suck and Sun is pushing J2EE as the internet solution. With servlets/JSP/EJB's the client becomes a dumb HTML viewer and Sun gets to sell lots of big expensive machines to run all that stuff.
Microsoft sells on PC's. The more PC's are sold, the more money Microsoft makes. Thus Microsoft thinks in terms of making the PC do as much as possible. From what I've seen of.NET, it will allow Microsoft to do what applets were supposed to do---that is run and be indistinguishable from any other application. Of course this will only be true if you are running on Microsoft's OS.
While I make a living off of Java and J2EE, I'm hoping Microsoft shakes up Sun with this.NET. It makes more sense in terms of computing to do the fat client model and is much more economical for a company to push processing out to users running Pentium 2 and Pentium 3 computers than to buy more and more expensive Sun boxes.
It also will make Web-based UI's better if Sun goes this route. Right now making a complicated user interface with HTML+JavaScript is like making a house with bubble gum and duck tape. It just plain sucks. Even basic UI components such as Trees are painful in JavaScript when compared to just making a Win32 or JDK call.
Microsoft can come up with a good idea now and then (Sun stole ASPs, for example). Hopefully Sun will steal some ideas from.NET.
Brian Ellenberger
Slashdot Mirror
Everything you've said about Europe being better basically has to do with the difference in the size of the US vs. Europe---both in people and in area. For example:
1) It's alot easier to be better in telecommunications when your country is the size of one of our states. We're still trying to get cell towers to every part of the US, because its so big.
2) Public transit only works if you have a large number of people in a small area (see New York). In the US, most people prefer to spread out and live in the suburbs---doing things like owning their own house.
3) Television. To upgrade us to HDTV you have to upgrade the facilities of each and every local network in every big and small town. That's not a small task
Frankly, I can't believe how quickly intelligent people want to go down this stem cell road. Come on, did you read Brave New World and think it was a *good* idea? Did you see Gattaca and say "I want a society like that!". Don't you want to take a small step back and look at the ethical ramifications of using stem cells, with their own distinct DNA, as fodder for whatever experiments we want to conduct? Don't you realize this is not an end, but a beginning of some huge ethical situations?
And not to mention that embryo stem cells have a big disadvantage over adult ones---namely the fact that they have different DNA and will be as prone to rejection as any other transplant. Adult stem cells, of course, don't have this problem.
Read this disclaimer from the website of one of the sources for this article
The only reason we include the following disclaimer is because our legal department says we must. DISCLAIMER: All of the officers and support personnel mentioned below are innocent of any criminal, civil, procedural, or administrative wrongdoing until proven guilty or liable in a court of law or other properly constituted tribunal. These parties are encouraged to submit rebuttals to these charges. All of the following material consists solely of the personal opinions of the author, Al Shemonia, and such opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Copwatch.com or its board, associates, affiliates, or members. This material is not currently presented as fact.
So I guess for copwatch, that whole "innocent until proven guilty" is only for them and not for the cops. Goodness forbid that they practice what they preach.
Hypocracy at its finest.
Brian EllenbergerI think the biggest advantage for HDTVs will be when we get consoles that support the higher-resolution. My biggest gripe with the Playstation and PS2 is the crappy resolution. Who wants to play a cool 3D game in something that looks like 320x200 resolution, no matter how many polygons you have.
a) It is in the casino's interests to have restrictions on minors. If you are under 18 you are not legally bound to a contract, so their parents could sue to get any money the kid lost back. Of course, if the kid wins noone is going to find out. So it is lose/lose for the casino. Not to mention the bad press. b) As a Christian, we generally don't like gambling not because it is "the work of the devil" but because it generally takes the money of those who can least afford it. Yea, sure, your educated and understand probability. But gambling (especially state lottos) takes the money of poor uneducated people who don't understand probability. Personally I don't think the government should be in the gambling business. And I think that it is OK to restrict gambling to Vegas and Atlantic City. I mean, if you have enough money to gamble it shouldn't be a big deal to travel to do it. And if your so addicted to gambling that you need to do it constantly, you need help.
I think that they need to stress the fact that broadband is often as cheep or cheaper than a dialup plus a second phone line. People see $40 for broadband vs. $20 for dialup and they think it is twice as expensive and not worth it.
What they don't seem to realize is a second line is often ~20, so if your online enough to need a second line you might as well go broadband.
Bull****! You know and I know that most Napster users are pirates, plain and simple. It isn't about sharing, it's about stealing. Where is the business plan for paying the artists anything for their hard work, not to mention all of the production staff, ad agencys, etc.
Oh, I'm sorry, geeks don't have business plans...
BTW, those "evil" corporations are responsible for just about everything we have and own. See that computer your typing on? You think some mom and pop company is going to be able to finance the multi-billion dollar facility necessary to produce your microprocessor?
So quit listening to those Socialists. And always remember that right now that the Netherlands has a larger economy than Russia because Russia thought that corporations were evil too.
Brian EllenbergerIf this is so true, why are so many states now passing right to work laws just to protect workers from the unions???
The problem isn't capitalism. The problem is human beings. Whenever an organization gets big and powerful for whatever reason it seems to take on a life of its own. The people who end up running the big organization get big heads, become power hungry, and end up forgetting all about anyone else.
My mom and her hospital were just reciently the victims of a union. 150 nurses just left two months ago. The union came in, took their dues, and then did nothing. Now they can't get out of their contract till 2002 and are screwed. Thank you union.
The main problem is that unions are monopolies. When a company "unionizes" there can only be one union and everyone has to work for that union. This SUCKS!!! Why not have freedom to work? Why not have freedom to choose not to be in the union, or have three different unions to choose from? Why? Because the monopolies benefit the higher ups in the union. Not because it in any way benefits the workers.
Not to mention unions could give a dam* about the company itself. As long as it gets those union dues...
>The American Family Association was present, >accusing the American culture of violent >pedophilic homosexual atheist liberals of >ruining society, and they are "happy to see one >of the horribly persecuted Christians standing >up for family values against Satan." When >someone pointed out that this had absolutely >nothing to do with any of those issues, they >responded "See? They're trying to censor us! >They're evil, they're evil!"
Christians are probably the largest group of homeschool kids because they are the #1 targeted group. Try and do a report or make a graduation speech mentioning Christ and see how far you get.
In fact just a year ago people who calling homeschooling just a fad among Christian fundamentalists who couldn't deal with the real world. Maybe now people are waking up to the fact that school nowadays are horribly broken.
>"The opposite sides of the universe have not had >enough time to communicate with each other. Yet >throughout the sky we find the universe to be >extraordinarily homogeneous," Steinhardt said. >It is as if two chefs on opposite sides of the >Earth inadvertently cooked up the exact same >dish. >"You would think that they cheated to come up >with exactly the same thing," he said. Hmm, sounds sort of like God. But of course, scientists can't believe in stuff like that...
From this little outburst we can tell who the real intolerant ones are here
BTW, why don't you look up the real meaning of freedom of speech? By spamming and trolling Free Republic's website, you are violating the Free Republic's right to free speech. What next, DoS attacks are free speech?
Come on, Slashdot stands up and gets angry when Scientology does this stuff! They should do the same here.
I think a good definition of a hate group is one that wants to inflict bodily harm upon another group.
For example, an organization devoted to killing gays is a hate group. A church that believes homosexuality is wrong but follows Christ's example of non-violence is not a hate group.
An environmental organization that tries to save woodland areas through political pressure is not a hate group. An environmental organization that spikes logs to kill those who don't agree with them is a hate group.
One of the biggest dangers in the United States right now, especially in academia, is the bridging of speech which "hurts" someone's feelings to the level of bodily harm. Saying something is wrong/immortal/etc is what free speech is about.
All of the examples such as fire in a theater and "I'm going to kill you tomorrow" letter involve direct bodily harm. Saying people should have the right to own guns or that sex before marriage is wrong is not direct bodily harm. If we keep elevating it to such, we are going to see the end to free speech.
Check out this link for an example of your rights going away.Brian Ellenberger
Under the leadership of the French? Maybe the Brits or the Germans, but the French? They haven't made any waves in civilization since the 1800's, except as Germany's punching bag.
Anyway, as to the outmoded idea of a nation state the Chinese seem to be relying on it a great deal to brutally repress their population.
As for the U.S., well, what do you think all that NAFTA stuff was about?
Matthew 5:18 - For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Christ was mocking the Pharisees making up their own laws and rules, not for following the Bible. In fact, he made many laws more strict (adultery, murder).
Most Christians don't have a problem with magic. One of the great Christian apologists is C.S. Lewis, whose Narnia series is both Christian and magical. You can go to most Christian stores in the deep south and buy such books as the The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Magician's Nephew.
The problem Christians have with D&D is all of the praying to pagan gods! If you are a cleric, you have to pray to some god for your powers! Most of the books have a ton of stuff on pagan gods.
If they are going to include pagan gods in role-playing, I'd like to see them include the one true God as well. There is a little bit of a hint of this in the Athar faction of Planescape. Personally, I just change the rules and pretend those pagan gods don't exist.It's amazing how features that you can't implement become "minor".
What the heck kind of modern "multimedia" system doesn't have DVD and especially CD-RW support??? Didn't Jobs just come out and say the next big thing was DVD-RW? And now he is releasing a system that can't even burn simple CDs? Isn't Mac releasing commercials about how cool it is to burn your own music CDs? I guess they were really taking about how cool it would be to burn music CD's if you used a Windows machine.
Can you imagine if the next version of Windows didn't have CD-RW and DVD support and just gave you a copy of Windows 95 and told you to dual boot? But of course they had programmers that could figure out memory protection and true multitasking SEVEN years before Mac!!
If they can't even figure out how to get this stuff working, why am I supposed to have any confidence in the rest of their OS?
This is simple personal email---to his mother and stuff. It isn't military secrets or anything. Maybe some minor political stuff (so and so is an a@@hole, etc) :) But just B.S. emails.
The problem is that even *IF* Bush did a 1024 bit PGP encription and *IF* the courts said he could keep it secret, politically it would not fly. He is trying to not be Bill Clinton, not emulate him!!
Basically this is all Clinton's fault. Clintons strategy when he pulled something unethical was to drag his heals as long as possible refusing to cooperate in any way. Then he complains bitterly about how long the investigation is taking and how much money it is taking. Then he finally reveals something 2 years later after everyone is tired of the whole thing. Because of stuff like this, Congress tried to clamp down---this email policy is one result...
Brian Ellenberger
Hmmm, this sounds alot like the algorithm for how memory works in our brain.
I don't care what you say about the color palette of Doom, that game is the only game that has ever elicited such strong emotion out of me---specifically fear! I've played alot of games, but Doom is the only one that has scared the crap out of me.
I remember one specific instance. It was 2:00am and the only light in my room was coming from my monitor. In the game, I was going down this long nearly dark passageway. The only light was some small flashing beacons. It was quiet--too quite. All of a sudden a pack of those beast things jumps out. It scared me so much I screamed and flew backward out of my seat.
For some reason, there was just something special about the atmosphere of that game. I hope Doom III can live up to it.
Not to us Americans! I think Americans would be surprised to hear what the rest of the world thinks about free speech.
For example: Canada is not bereft of free-speech advocates, but they have actually been told by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council: "In Canada, we respect freedom of speech, but do not worship it." from http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0031/hentoff.sh tml
I've been following the Canada for a while now because as a born-again Christian they are scaring the heck out of me. Their equivalent of the FCC regularly bans any programming that does not meet their "standards". Their government is trying to revoke the rights of Christian universities that teach beliefs which are against what they government wants people to believe. See http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/008/7.19. html
This stuff is pushing into the United States. Look at "hate crime" legislation. Guess what that is? Pretty soon, you say the wrong joke or believe in the wrong thing or say the wrong thing and you will be fined and put in jail.
The problem is people who force their beliefs on other people through the law. For example, right-wing anti-homosexuality laws (Which Alan Turing was a victim of). These laws tried to physically force people to not be homosexual. They failed and were very destructive. However, we have swung the other way and now have left-wing "hate crime laws" and "tolerance" initiatives. They are just as bad. If you want to fight for free speech, start with fighting against things like trying to force the Boy Scouts to accept athiests and homosexuals---even if you think they should. Because you never know if you might be the next target of some government official or special interest group who does not like the way you think
The biggest problem that Microsoft is facing right now is that Word and Excel are pretty much "finished" products. There is nothing revolutionary or even evolutionary that they could possibly add to them in the forseeable future that will make people want to go out and buy a new verson. Other than some polishing and bug fixes, there isn't much left to do.
So in the long term, Microsoft's profits are going to go down and down to barely a trickle of what they once were for Office. Thus a subscription based method of revenue is the only way they are going to be able to maintain their profit margins.
Microsoft's problem may not be unique. What happens in the future when more and more products are "finished"? Unlike manufacturing, code never gets "old". If you get a product working pretty much perfectly with all possible features, what do you need programmers for? Of course it may take 30, 50, or 100 years but how long can you possibly work on a Word Processor? Sure you can change things around the edges like processors, OS's, etc to force you to reprogram apps. But fundamentally products may get to the point where they are 99% complete for all time and any other revisions will be a case of severely diminished returns.
We dug up the carbon from the ground, why not just put it back there! It didn't seem to hurt anything for the million years it was down there forming coal, why should it harm anything if we put it back?
Go ahead and try to make a fat client Java applet or even an application that does not take 30 megs of RAM to run or crash every 10 seconds. Even Weblogic changed its console from a java application to an HTTP based one.
The biggest difference so far between Java and .NET is going to be the battle between thin client and fat client and the philosophies of Sun and Microsoft.
Sun thinks in terms of big servers and small clients. This is because Sun sells lots of big expensive servers. Thus, Java works best when most of the computing is done on the server and the client is thin and dumb. This is why applets suck and Sun is pushing J2EE as the internet solution. With servlets/JSP/EJB's the client becomes a dumb HTML viewer and Sun gets to sell lots of big expensive machines to run all that stuff.
Microsoft sells on PC's. The more PC's are sold, the more money Microsoft makes. Thus Microsoft thinks in terms of making the PC do as much as possible. From what I've seen of .NET, it will allow Microsoft to do what applets were supposed to do---that is run and be indistinguishable from any other application. Of course this will only be true if you are running on Microsoft's OS.
While I make a living off of Java and J2EE, I'm hoping Microsoft shakes up Sun with this .NET. It makes more sense in terms of computing to do the fat client model and is much more economical for a company to push processing out to users running Pentium 2 and Pentium 3 computers than to buy more and more expensive Sun boxes.
It also will make Web-based UI's better if Sun goes this route. Right now making a complicated user interface with HTML+JavaScript is like making a house with bubble gum and duck tape. It just plain sucks. Even basic UI components such as Trees are painful in JavaScript when compared to just making a Win32 or JDK call.
Microsoft can come up with a good idea now and then (Sun stole ASPs, for example). Hopefully Sun will steal some ideas from .NET.
Brian Ellenberger