Not long had the exercises finished when the media in both countries painted the exercises as a 'rude shock' for the USAF and the Washington establishment. According to respected media reports, Indian pilots outflew the Americans, right through the exercise. "On the first day all four American planes were shot down. Never once did the Indians come off second". According to United States media, the F-15C's were defeated more than 90 percent of the time in direct combat exercises against the IAF. It should be noted that the IAF did not field its newest "near fifth-generation" Sukhoi-30MKI air-dominance fighters and if it did so, the results may have been even more favourable to the IAF. Nevertheless the IAF had the benefit of operating the two-seater Sukhoi-30MK/K "four plus-plus-generation" fighters.
USAF officers said India's Su-30's had a clear advantage over the F-15 in long-range flights, and even though the US and Indian pilots were "seeing" each other at the same time on their radars, the Indian pilots were able to "fire" the simulated first shot with their R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) AAMs (Air-to-Air Missiles) and often winning the long-range BVR engagements. This, they said, meant that the Indian radars were more advanced, which came as a real shocker for the USAF. It should be noted that Sukhoi-30's inherently have a very respectable internal fuel capacity to enable them to make generous use of afterburners and establish kinematics advantage. Similar advantage is enjoyed by the Russian R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) series of BVR AAMs with powerful motors, especially the 130 kilometres extended-ranged models.
While the superb performances of the Sukhoi-30's were somewhat anticipated, the performance of the MiG-21 Bisons came as a major "unpleasant surprise" to USAF officials. The Bison with new powerful R-25 engines, latest radar, missiles and EW (Electronic Warfare) were credited with "jackrabbit" acceleration and great dog-fighting ability. It also validated the claim of Russian officials that they are capable of successfully converting "second generation" late-model MiG-21 bis fighters into "fourth generation combat platforms".
Col. F. Greg Neubeck USAF exercise director for Cope India, emphasized the fact that US forces were always outnumbered in these exercise scenarios, but said the missions proved more difficult than expected. "What we faced were superior numbers, and an IAF pilot who was very proficient in his aircraft and smart on tactics. That combination was tough for us to overcome. One reason the Indian pilots proved so formidable is that their training regimen does not include a concept of 'red air'. Instead, they fly pretty much 'blue-on-blue' - a full-up airplane with no restrictions against somebody else's airplane with no restrictions, and that leads to more proficiency with your aircraft. The service probably needs to take off the handcuffs that we put on our red air training aids and allow them to be more aggressive and make the red air tougher than we have in the past."
The Russian craft are not as good as the F-22 but they're better than F-15s and the Chinese have hundreds of them and the Indians are also building up a huge force. The US has constantly reduced the number of F-22s because of price.
including applying for permission with the government prior to firing the person.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head when I read crap like this. It's no wonder you americans are so fucking disconnected from reality when even your schools spread propaganda FUD.
FWIW: Yes, bonehead, you can get fired here and no, the employer doesn't have to ask anyone for permission, but, just like in the glorious (halleluya, motherfucker) usa, you can sue for wrongful dismissal.
If there was ever a company that managed to fuck up every single advantage it ever had, purely out of greed, it is Sony. I have never ever seen any other company suffer such satanically huge incompetence despite having a treasure trove of products which are market leaders. For example
1. The Sony Walkman. It was an enormous success, the first portable, stylish casette player. some 25 years later, Sony is still trying to capitalise off their sucees by calling their poor imitation iPods and CellPhones (and fucking CD players and radios and everything) "Walkman". Here's a clue, you brainless bunch of fuckers: My generation, the ones that bought the walkman back then, is not the same as the one buying iPods today. Today they have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
2. The playstation. Another enormous sucess, followed by the PS2, which, very uncharacteristically of Sony, was also a success. But now, Sony is starting to do its usual trick of fucking up a phenomenally successful product by trying to screw the consumer over with greed in the way the Blue Ray crap is implemented.
Congratulations Microsoft. You just won the race to market leadership.
I don't think that Microsoft is as worried about Apple as they are about screwing over yet another long time partner, Intel. I am not trolling when I say that Microsoft really seems to enjoy screwing over long time partners, and their getting cozy with AMD over the x86-64 extensions in favour of the Itanium has been a case in point. Microsoft has, since then, been doing just about everything they can to screw Intel and favour AMD. EFI comes from Intel. AMD can use it but it's still an Intel spec and Microsoft will do what they can to kill it, thereby killing (from their POV) two birds with one stone: Intel and Apple.
The sad reality is that AMD is being plainly stupid to get into bed too much with Microsoft. Microsoft will almost certainly screw them over in the future some time. It's MS' way of doing business.
Fortunately, I think Apple has enough sway in the market to force PC makers to switch over to EFI, just like they did with USB, which was also used by nobody and not properly supported by Windows at the time. Give it time and PC makers will start pestering Microsoft to make a Windows version that boots with EFI and they will start making motherboards that use EFI in legacy BIOS mode to boot Windows.
I'd say you're as full of shit as the southern dodos in the US who were too stupid and inflexible to adapt to change and are still trying to make a case for stupidity and interbreeding.
Like many here, I have programmed in lots of languages, from pocket computer Basic variants in the 80's and UCSD Pascal (My first "real language") to Java, C, Perl, PHP, javascript, Lingo, VB (vba, vbs etc as well) and I wouldn't know what to really say.
I could act like I know for sure what the One True Beginner's Language(TM) would be, based on my own experience, as many do here, and forget that other people learn things differently to the way I do. I could go for a language which is easy to learn and there which will "hook" the newbie coder (as if there aren't enough coders around already). I could say VB (.Net) is crap because it makes a newbie used to having an IDE and not understanding what goes on underneath.
I won't. I think newbies should make their own mistakes and learn their own way. If they really want to code, they'll found out about alternatives to whatever they're doing if they're not happy with their current language. Or perhaps they won't. I don't know.
Are you reading this Mr. Gorog? I bet you are. Here's something you said: Mr Gorog insisted that despite Apple's dominance, the competitive landscape would be far different "in the next 12 to 24 months".
The iTunes store and Apple have been around for some 5 years now. If anything, Apple's share has gotten bigger, not smaller, although many dozens of other devices and stores have come..... and gone. Judging by the losses your crap show is making, you'll be one of those who will be gone in the the next 12 to 24 months.
I used to admin and produce company reports for a Navision installation and did s stint debugging an Axapta application installation last year. While I liked the ease of use of Navision (and axapta) over competing tools, I was a bit shocked at how much was missing on the infrastructure side of things, especially with Navision. Microsoft gave both Axapta and Navision a big GUI makeover when they bought the Navision company a few years back in 2002, but, maybe typically, they ignored things like DB backup and other admin tools. This newest venture sounds very much along the same lines: funky toys but ignoring or paying too little attention to the nuts and bolts which make an application's reputation.
Here in Switzerland (and in Europe in general), Navision is fairly popular, but nowhere else really. I think the company made their name back in the days when Navision still ran on AIX and is basically, as is Axapta, popular because of the Navision solution center philosophy, and the huge amount of ready made modules.
I think someone could make a kllling building up a similar module library on Postgresql using some or other GUI or web front end kits.
Suckers not flaming one another enough? Need more page views to convince the mother ship you're doing your job of spreading fud, rumours and wild sensationalism? Post some troll bait to get the flames stoked.
Notice to Microsoft: If you thought that publishing documents would somehow sway some kind of public opinion in Europe agains the commision, you have some very serious problems. The majority of Europeans can't speak English, and a good 99,999% of them couldn't give a fuck if they're running Linux or BSD or Windows.
What you will do, for playing the arrogant american card (telling a European court to look at the way US courts do things makes my blood boil, the bunch of scum fucking bastards, and I'm not even European) will certainly not make them any friends amongst the population or the courts.
It is why I think Apple is doomed longterm. Because the users subconsciously believe it and they are closest to the situation. For some reason computing platforms create a LOT passion.
You're a fucking idiot. That translates into brand loyalty, which is worth more than its weight in gold because you can't buy it. All manufacturers of any product would kill for this type of loyalty. But I sure as shit wouldn't give you a job if you didn't even realise something as simple as that.
This is the sanest reply I've yet to read in this dreamfest. Oracle would not buy DB software to compete against what they already own. Oracle would buy DB software to kill a competitor in the application space, since SAP is squarely where Oracle wants to be but doesn't look like they'll be getting because of the chaos of their peoplesoft and siebel takeovers.
However, all is not lost. SAP can continue to run on Oracle, MS SQL server and DB2, none of which Oracle is going to kill in the near future, and SAP could certify Postgres if they wanted a free/open alternative.
It's looking very polished. In the looks department it certainly is good enough for corporate users. It might not be 100% of where OSX is or have the fancy glass effects that Vista will have, but it's certainly light years ahead of what it was just 5 years ago.
I just wish for one thing, and that is that the Gnome and KDE people would cooperate on clipboard and drag and drop standards so that software from one would work in that department at least in the other.
While the pundits are thanking MS for undercutting the telcos, who are even bigger bloodsuckers than MS itself is, this is, IMO, simply Microsoft trying to grab a niche in the smartphone market where it has been performing terribly, even after the famous Microsoft 3rd Try(TM), where they usually finally make the product good enough to compete. The handset makers realised pretty early on that Microsoft's partnerships were terribly one-sided, and generally stayed with Symbian which is generally far less onerous than MS/Windows.
MS tried everything. They threw their Smartphone OS at various small operators in the hope that it would undercut the established giants, such as Sony-Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, but no one wanted the phones from unknown makers. In that market, brand is important.
Of the telcos, the only large operator that took MS' Smartphone OS on, was Orange and it proved to be a disaster. The phones were unreliable and Orange treated potential developers as badly as everyone else did. The Orange smartphone tanked.
By this time, VOIP had taken off, and Skype was first to the post and has continually expanded its userbase to the tune of Skype now having something like 300 million customers. That's pretty big. Slashdotters tend to only see the value of Skype in a technogeek kind of way, in that they only think it's worth it because they can perhaps use a Wifi enabled PDA or smartphone with a presumably free access point (at home and a few cities if you're lucky) to circumvent mobile operators. What they don't see are the uncounted millions of poor foreign guest workers and 3rd world internet cafe visitors who use Skype to avoid the high prices of overseas and long distance calls. Those people are the ones who really benefit from Skype.
And they sure as fuck are not interested in buying Microsoft enabled Smartphones and Office. Microsoft is still trying to grab a niche in the smartphone market, but I'm pretty sure they'll fall flat on their faces once again.
You know, if you were less inclined to hide behind the anyonymous posting, perhaps people would take you more seriously.
I honestly don't know what it is with you guys. You complain bitterly about Slashdot being leftist but are too scared to post using an ID instead of being AC, or is it that you simply are too stupid to sign in?
I don't really know, of course, and I have yet to try his software out, but the ability to even do simple spreadsheets in a webapplication opens up so many doors that I think this will become as large as wikis itself. The real innovation here is that Briklin is using the flexibility of web apps to have it run locally, on the web, distributed or possibly any mix thereof. It can be huge for all those millions of people who have no need of the advanced features of excel, but need simple functions on data or theability to adjust various parts of a sheet without touching the original data. Can you imagine how much scientists would like something like this as a front end to various data heavy research back end apps, or how finance or sales could use it to colate data?
What makes me laugh is that all the excel fundis here feel somehow threatend by this or suggest ridiculous alternatives like MS sharepoint server which isn't exactly cheap.
Mmm, maybe I shouldn't be laughing. Maybe this will eclipse excel over time.
Sorry to get attention with that title. As others have posted, oil is not really the problem. Energy can be provided via coal, solar, wind, tides, ethanol, biodiesel, nuclear you name it.
The real problems stem from the numerous other products that we get from oil, plastics being the most important one. Right now, plastic is incredibly cheap. The problems will become apparent when plastics cost too much to be used in everyday appliances. Imagine that: Your compter case, keyboard, mouse, all the plastic wiring, all the plastic goods in your house, your car, the shops etc, too expesnive to replace.
Now, while I'm pretty sure that alternative sources of plastic raw materials can be found, either from biological matter or elsewhere, the costs of retooling for new lastics would be enormous.
So what about recycling?
For years, here in Europe, and I'm pretty sure in the US and Asia too, I've seen computers and electrical gear used for landfills and plastics burnt for energy (part of the energy policy here in switzerland).
Just think how much of an opportunity it would be to start recycling plastic (like they do with PET containers, but with all plastics) and electrical goods for the metals and other components. At the moment it's not cost efficient to recycle electrical goods, but since even copper is getting rare (article on/. a few weeks ago) it would be an excellent idea, as it would help stem the tide of rising plastics costs and it would provide employment opportunities for many who would do the recycling and separation.
I'm pretty sure that Neuromancer would be filmable, and Count Zero even more so, since Count Zero has more action, which audiences like. But it would take both a very special script writer and director (not to mention a willing producer and an excellent casting director) to make it into a success.
The fact is that it is neither the CGI effects, nor the sheer amount of action etc that make a good film. Take a look at Firefly/Serenity. There wasn't much in the way of expensive CGI, but people were riveted because of the story. And the screenplay script needs someone who has enough vision to distill the elements of the book without trying to follow the book slavishly (won't work due to the length of the book) or ignoring the book completely (as happened in Johnny Mnemonic). It's also not a single theme (The Island had an extremely good set and CGI but an incredibly bad director who wasn't above Dukes of Hazzard kind of thing).
The thing that makes Blade Runner so convincing is the feeling. The story is full of allegory but is otherwise actually quite simple. Ridly Scott took the basic elements of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and used them for his own very different story.
In that sense the director is almost as creative and important as the original author.
All that said, it is rare these days that anything good comes out of Hollywood. Huge amounts of money are spent on movies that don't make any return which only frightens the meek little kittens of studio bosses more than they already are.
I'm pretty sure the next good SciFi movie will come from an indie producer on a minimal budget.
While this anti-trust suit makes my blood boil, I think the best thing would be to counter sue, but not only Mr. Sluttery. Sue Microsoft because their "Pplays for Sure" does not play on my iPod. Sue Napster because their music does not play on my iPod (and their crapshit store doesn't even work on my Mac).
Come on you brave Americans, do it the good old American way: Countersue.
While I think Apple may very well be releasing an iPod with the screen covering the whole face of the machine, I doubt it. Firstly 3,5 Inches (diagonally?) is really small, and using that for touch sensitive input is going to be difficult. It might well happen, but it won't be that revolutionary if Apple can't make the touch sensiive user interface worthwhile.
Rather, as has been inferred in a number of articles on Apple's touch sensitive scroll wheel patent recently, is that Apple also bought out a company that makes devices that have touch sensitive input for more than one finger or touch point at once. This allows far more in the way of gestures than a single touch point. Combine this with a scroll wheel, which may or may not need multiple touch points (it would make it easier to use), and you have an idea of where Apple is going.
Personally, I'm still hopinng for the day when Apple makes a simple digital scratch pad that replaces a block of writing paper. Lighter and smaller than a tablet PC (which are too heavy, too big and too complex), this would be the ultimate dream of students the world over.
This is an idea I've had for years, and one that was even considered on a European level back in the early 90's. The idea was to pump sea water from the mediterranean to the sahara and use solar power, either through photovoltaic panels, or through a more robust sunlight focussing mirror farm.
The sahara is pretty big and provides plenty of unused area.
I think the idea was mainly dropped for political reasons back then in that it owuld be the same politically instable areas providing the hydrogen as now provide oil.
As the companion article at CNet rightfully notes, Bill Gates is mostly launching this out of spite, not out of any well thought out product strategy. He is upset that Negroponte chose Linux over Windows CE for the device because of what that entails: If the device is successful in those countries participating, it will mean more orders for the laptop, further development to make it even cheaper and have even more clever features (the wind up handle is brilliant for those countries where electricity is not guaranteed, the built in wireless networking is even better for making ad hoc networks where there is no internet), but above all it will give desktop Linux an insane boost and create, virtually overnight a third massive participant in the desktop OS sector after Windows and OSX (Linux has simply been too small up until now to be noticed). There will suddenly be a massive and huge market for Linux software and it could very well spell the death of Windows in developing countries.
All of this is obvious. The idea to make a computer out of a cellphone is certainly not a bad idea as you can get cell phone service in loads of developing countries where you can't even get electricity, and cell phones are very cheap. But there are numerous problems with Bill Gates' idea of using WindowsCE, i.e. Smartphone OS for this: 1. The dominant cellphone OS, by far, is Symbian. Symbian is less restricted than Windows, and the cellphone industry is highly suspicious of Microsoft's attempt to enter this industry, the result of which is that there are almost no phones with Windows on them and the Windows Smartphone OS has a poor reputation. Bill G is painfully aware of this, as well as the fact that this is in fact probably where the future of personal computing is headed. 2. The fact that users of this cellphone PC would need a keyboard, adapter and TV means that people would be restricted to only using their computers when they had those devices with them, as opposed to a laptop where they have everything with them. The Cellphone is definitely the future as far as PC's are concerned but the hurdles of data entry (good speech recognition or good virtual keyboards are needed) and large enough screens (virtual screens or eye jacks or glasses with lcds etc) have not yet been overcome. When they have been overcome you can kiss PC's goodbye and Bill G knows this, but at the moment having to lug around a keyboard and adapter is too much for a device that is supposed to be rugged.
Man, Judith Miller writes in a newspaper and has been proven to be wrong on numerous accounts in whole WMD saga, and this by the officials sent there to find the fucking WMDs. And she still won't admit it. She is part of the whole fucking media problem, i.e. that lying is ok and you can get away with it as long as you have friends in high places.
Slashdot Mirror
Q. What's the difference between John Howard and an Orang Utang?
A. Orang Utangs come from Idonesia.
From here and other places
Not long had the exercises finished when the media in both countries painted the exercises as a 'rude shock' for the USAF and the Washington establishment. According to respected media reports, Indian pilots outflew the Americans, right through the exercise. "On the first day all four American planes were shot down. Never once did the Indians come off second". According to United States media, the F-15C's were defeated more than 90 percent of the time in direct combat exercises against the IAF. It should be noted that the IAF did not field its newest "near fifth-generation" Sukhoi-30MKI air-dominance fighters and if it did so, the results may have been even more favourable to the IAF. Nevertheless the IAF had the benefit of operating the two-seater Sukhoi-30MK/K "four plus-plus-generation" fighters.
USAF officers said India's Su-30's had a clear advantage over the F-15 in long-range flights, and even though the US and Indian pilots were "seeing" each other at the same time on their radars, the Indian pilots were able to "fire" the simulated first shot with their R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) AAMs (Air-to-Air Missiles) and often winning the long-range BVR engagements. This, they said, meant that the Indian radars were more advanced, which came as a real shocker for the USAF. It should be noted that Sukhoi-30's inherently have a very respectable internal fuel capacity to enable them to make generous use of afterburners and establish kinematics advantage. Similar advantage is enjoyed by the Russian R-27 (AA-10 Alamo) series of BVR AAMs with powerful motors, especially the 130 kilometres extended-ranged models.
While the superb performances of the Sukhoi-30's were somewhat anticipated, the performance of the MiG-21 Bisons came as a major "unpleasant surprise" to USAF officials. The Bison with new powerful R-25 engines, latest radar, missiles and EW (Electronic Warfare) were credited with "jackrabbit" acceleration and great dog-fighting ability. It also validated the claim of Russian officials that they are capable of successfully converting "second generation" late-model MiG-21 bis fighters into "fourth generation combat platforms".
Col. F. Greg Neubeck USAF exercise director for Cope India, emphasized the fact that US forces were always outnumbered in these exercise scenarios, but said the missions proved more difficult than expected. "What we faced were superior numbers, and an IAF pilot who was very proficient in his aircraft and smart on tactics. That combination was tough for us to overcome. One reason the Indian pilots proved so formidable is that their training regimen does not include a concept of 'red air'. Instead, they fly pretty much 'blue-on-blue' - a full-up airplane with no restrictions against somebody else's airplane with no restrictions, and that leads to more proficiency with your aircraft. The service probably needs to take off the handcuffs that we put on our red air training aids and allow them to be more aggressive and make the red air tougher than we have in the past."
The Russian craft are not as good as the F-22 but they're better than F-15s and the Chinese have hundreds of them and the Indians are also building up a huge force. The US has constantly reduced the number of F-22s because of price.
including applying for permission with the government prior to firing the person.
Sometimes I just have to shake my head when I read crap like this. It's no wonder you americans are so fucking disconnected from reality when even your schools spread propaganda FUD.
FWIW: Yes, bonehead, you can get fired here and no, the employer doesn't have to ask anyone for permission, but, just like in the glorious (halleluya, motherfucker) usa, you can sue for wrongful dismissal.
Fuck.
If there was ever a company that managed to fuck up every single advantage it ever had, purely out of greed, it is Sony. I have never ever seen any other company suffer such satanically huge incompetence despite having a treasure trove of products which are market leaders. For example
1. The Sony Walkman. It was an enormous success, the first portable, stylish casette player. some 25 years later, Sony is still trying to capitalise off their sucees by calling their poor imitation iPods and CellPhones (and fucking CD players and radios and everything) "Walkman". Here's a clue, you brainless bunch of fuckers: My generation, the ones that bought the walkman back then, is not the same as the one buying iPods today. Today they have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
2. The playstation. Another enormous sucess, followed by the PS2, which, very uncharacteristically of Sony, was also a success. But now, Sony is starting to do its usual trick of fucking up a phenomenally successful product by trying to screw the consumer over with greed in the way the Blue Ray crap is implemented.
Congratulations Microsoft. You just won the race to market leadership.
Intel did develop USB, but Apple made it popular by making it the default peripheral bus on the iMac and later macs.
I don't think that Microsoft is as worried about Apple as they are about screwing over yet another long time partner, Intel. I am not trolling when I say that Microsoft really seems to enjoy screwing over long time partners, and their getting cozy with AMD over the x86-64 extensions in favour of the Itanium has been a case in point. Microsoft has, since then, been doing just about everything they can to screw Intel and favour AMD. EFI comes from Intel. AMD can use it but it's still an Intel spec and Microsoft will do what they can to kill it, thereby killing (from their POV) two birds with one stone: Intel and Apple.
The sad reality is that AMD is being plainly stupid to get into bed too much with Microsoft. Microsoft will almost certainly screw them over in the future some time. It's MS' way of doing business.
Fortunately, I think Apple has enough sway in the market to force PC makers to switch over to EFI, just like they did with USB, which was also used by nobody and not properly supported by Windows at the time. Give it time and PC makers will start pestering Microsoft to make a Windows version that boots with EFI and they will start making motherboards that use EFI in legacy BIOS mode to boot Windows.
Don't panic.
I'd say you're as full of shit as the southern dodos in the US who were too stupid and inflexible to adapt to change and are still trying to make a case for stupidity and interbreeding.
Like many here, I have programmed in lots of languages, from pocket computer Basic variants in the 80's and UCSD Pascal (My first "real language") to Java, C, Perl, PHP, javascript, Lingo, VB (vba, vbs etc as well) and I wouldn't know what to really say.
I could act like I know for sure what the One True Beginner's Language(TM) would be, based on my own experience, as many do here, and forget that other people learn things differently to the way I do. I could go for a language which is easy to learn and there which will "hook" the newbie coder (as if there aren't enough coders around already). I could say VB (.Net) is crap because it makes a newbie used to having an IDE and not understanding what goes on underneath.
I won't. I think newbies should make their own mistakes and learn their own way. If they really want to code, they'll found out about alternatives to whatever they're doing if they're not happy with their current language. Or perhaps they won't. I don't know.
Are you reading this Mr. Gorog? I bet you are. Here's something you said: Mr Gorog insisted that despite Apple's dominance, the competitive landscape would be far different "in the next 12 to 24 months".
..... and gone. Judging by the losses your crap show is making, you'll be one of those who will be gone in the the next 12 to 24 months.
The iTunes store and Apple have been around for some 5 years now. If anything, Apple's share has gotten bigger, not smaller, although many dozens of other devices and stores have come
Idiot.
I used to admin and produce company reports for a Navision installation and did s stint debugging an Axapta application installation last year. While I liked the ease of use of Navision (and axapta) over competing tools, I was a bit shocked at how much was missing on the infrastructure side of things, especially with Navision. Microsoft gave both Axapta and Navision a big GUI makeover when they bought the Navision company a few years back in 2002, but, maybe typically, they ignored things like DB backup and other admin tools. This newest venture sounds very much along the same lines: funky toys but ignoring or paying too little attention to the nuts and bolts which make an application's reputation.
Here in Switzerland (and in Europe in general), Navision is fairly popular, but nowhere else really. I think the company made their name back in the days when Navision still ran on AIX and is basically, as is Axapta, popular because of the Navision solution center philosophy, and the huge amount of ready made modules.
I think someone could make a kllling building up a similar module library on Postgresql using some or other GUI or web front end kits.
Suckers not flaming one another enough? Need more page views to convince the mother ship you're doing your job of spreading fud, rumours and wild sensationalism? Post some troll bait to get the flames stoked.
Notice to Microsoft: If you thought that publishing documents would somehow sway some kind of public opinion in Europe agains the commision, you have some very serious problems. The majority of Europeans can't speak English, and a good 99,999% of them couldn't give a fuck if they're running Linux or BSD or Windows.
What you will do, for playing the arrogant american card (telling a European court to look at the way US courts do things makes my blood boil, the bunch of scum fucking bastards, and I'm not even European) will certainly not make them any friends amongst the population or the courts.
It is why I think Apple is doomed longterm. Because the users subconsciously believe it and they are closest to the situation. For some reason computing platforms create a LOT passion.
You're a fucking idiot. That translates into brand loyalty, which is worth more than its weight in gold because you can't buy it. All manufacturers of any product would kill for this type of loyalty. But I sure as shit wouldn't give you a job if you didn't even realise something as simple as that.
This is the sanest reply I've yet to read in this dreamfest. Oracle would not buy DB software to compete against what they already own. Oracle would buy DB software to kill a competitor in the application space, since SAP is squarely where Oracle wants to be but doesn't look like they'll be getting because of the chaos of their peoplesoft and siebel takeovers.
However, all is not lost. SAP can continue to run on Oracle, MS SQL server and DB2, none of which Oracle is going to kill in the near future, and SAP could certify Postgres if they wanted a free/open alternative.
It's looking very polished. In the looks department it certainly is good enough for corporate users. It might not be 100% of where OSX is or have the fancy glass effects that Vista will have, but it's certainly light years ahead of what it was just 5 years ago.
I just wish for one thing, and that is that the Gnome and KDE people would cooperate on clipboard and drag and drop standards so that software from one would work in that department at least in the other.
While the pundits are thanking MS for undercutting the telcos, who are even bigger bloodsuckers than MS itself is, this is, IMO, simply Microsoft trying to grab a niche in the smartphone market where it has been performing terribly, even after the famous Microsoft 3rd Try(TM), where they usually finally make the product good enough to compete. The handset makers realised pretty early on that Microsoft's partnerships were terribly one-sided, and generally stayed with Symbian which is generally far less onerous than MS/Windows.
MS tried everything. They threw their Smartphone OS at various small operators in the hope that it would undercut the established giants, such as Sony-Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, but no one wanted the phones from unknown makers. In that market, brand is important.
Of the telcos, the only large operator that took MS' Smartphone OS on, was Orange and it proved to be a disaster. The phones were unreliable and Orange treated potential developers as badly as everyone else did. The Orange smartphone tanked.
By this time, VOIP had taken off, and Skype was first to the post and has continually expanded its userbase to the tune of Skype now having something like 300 million customers. That's pretty big. Slashdotters tend to only see the value of Skype in a technogeek kind of way, in that they only think it's worth it because they can perhaps use a Wifi enabled PDA or smartphone with a presumably free access point (at home and a few cities if you're lucky) to circumvent mobile operators. What they don't see are the uncounted millions of poor foreign guest workers and 3rd world internet cafe visitors who use Skype to avoid the high prices of overseas and long distance calls. Those people are the ones who really benefit from Skype.
And they sure as fuck are not interested in buying Microsoft enabled Smartphones and Office. Microsoft is still trying to grab a niche in the smartphone market, but I'm pretty sure they'll fall flat on their faces once again.
You know, if you were less inclined to hide behind the anyonymous posting, perhaps people would take you more seriously.
I honestly don't know what it is with you guys. You complain bitterly about Slashdot being leftist but are too scared to post using an ID instead of being AC, or is it that you simply are too stupid to sign in?
I don't really know, of course, and I have yet to try his software out, but the ability to even do simple spreadsheets in a webapplication opens up so many doors that I think this will become as large as wikis itself. The real innovation here is that Briklin is using the flexibility of web apps to have it run locally, on the web, distributed or possibly any mix thereof. It can be huge for all those millions of people who have no need of the advanced features of excel, but need simple functions on data or theability to adjust various parts of a sheet without touching the original data. Can you imagine how much scientists would like something like this as a front end to various data heavy research back end apps, or how finance or sales could use it to colate data?
What makes me laugh is that all the excel fundis here feel somehow threatend by this or suggest ridiculous alternatives like MS sharepoint server which isn't exactly cheap.
Mmm, maybe I shouldn't be laughing. Maybe this will eclipse excel over time.
Sorry to get attention with that title. As others have posted, oil is not really the problem. Energy can be provided via coal, solar, wind, tides, ethanol, biodiesel, nuclear you name it.
/. a few weeks ago) it would be an excellent idea, as it would help stem the tide of rising plastics costs and it would provide employment opportunities for many who would do the recycling and separation.
The real problems stem from the numerous other products that we get from oil, plastics being the most important one. Right now, plastic is incredibly cheap. The problems will become apparent when plastics cost too much to be used in everyday appliances. Imagine that: Your compter case, keyboard, mouse, all the plastic wiring, all the plastic goods in your house, your car, the shops etc, too expesnive to replace.
Now, while I'm pretty sure that alternative sources of plastic raw materials can be found, either from biological matter or elsewhere, the costs of retooling for new lastics would be enormous.
So what about recycling?
For years, here in Europe, and I'm pretty sure in the US and Asia too, I've seen computers and electrical gear used for landfills and plastics burnt for energy (part of the energy policy here in switzerland).
Just think how much of an opportunity it would be to start recycling plastic (like they do with PET containers, but with all plastics) and electrical goods for the metals and other components. At the moment it's not cost efficient to recycle electrical goods, but since even copper is getting rare (article on
I'm pretty sure that Neuromancer would be filmable, and Count Zero even more so, since Count Zero has more action, which audiences like. But it would take both a very special script writer and director (not to mention a willing producer and an excellent casting director) to make it into a success.
The fact is that it is neither the CGI effects, nor the sheer amount of action etc that make a good film. Take a look at Firefly/Serenity. There wasn't much in the way of expensive CGI, but people were riveted because of the story. And the screenplay script needs someone who has enough vision to distill the elements of the book without trying to follow the book slavishly (won't work due to the length of the book) or ignoring the book completely (as happened in Johnny Mnemonic). It's also not a single theme (The Island had an extremely good set and CGI but an incredibly bad director who wasn't above Dukes of Hazzard kind of thing).
The thing that makes Blade Runner so convincing is the feeling. The story is full of allegory but is otherwise actually quite simple. Ridly Scott took the basic elements of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and used them for his own very different story.
In that sense the director is almost as creative and important as the original author.
All that said, it is rare these days that anything good comes out of Hollywood. Huge amounts of money are spent on movies that don't make any return which only frightens the meek little kittens of studio bosses more than they already are.
I'm pretty sure the next good SciFi movie will come from an indie producer on a minimal budget.
While this anti-trust suit makes my blood boil, I think the best thing would be to counter sue, but not only Mr. Sluttery. Sue Microsoft because their "Pplays for Sure" does not play on my iPod. Sue Napster because their music does not play on my iPod (and their crapshit store doesn't even work on my Mac).
Come on you brave Americans, do it the good old American way: Countersue.
While I think Apple may very well be releasing an iPod with the screen covering the whole face of the machine, I doubt it. Firstly 3,5 Inches (diagonally?) is really small, and using that for touch sensitive input is going to be difficult. It might well happen, but it won't be that revolutionary if Apple can't make the touch sensiive user interface worthwhile.
Rather, as has been inferred in a number of articles on Apple's touch sensitive scroll wheel patent recently, is that Apple also bought out a company that makes devices that have touch sensitive input for more than one finger or touch point at once. This allows far more in the way of gestures than a single touch point. Combine this with a scroll wheel, which may or may not need multiple touch points (it would make it easier to use), and you have an idea of where Apple is going.
Personally, I'm still hopinng for the day when Apple makes a simple digital scratch pad that replaces a block of writing paper. Lighter and smaller than a tablet PC (which are too heavy, too big and too complex), this would be the ultimate dream of students the world over.
This is an idea I've had for years, and one that was even considered on a European level back in the early 90's. The idea was to pump sea water from the mediterranean to the sahara and use solar power, either through photovoltaic panels, or through a more robust sunlight focussing mirror farm.
The sahara is pretty big and provides plenty of unused area.
I think the idea was mainly dropped for political reasons back then in that it owuld be the same politically instable areas providing the hydrogen as now provide oil.
As the companion article at CNet rightfully notes, Bill Gates is mostly launching this out of spite, not out of any well thought out product strategy. He is upset that Negroponte chose Linux over Windows CE for the device because of what that entails: If the device is successful in those countries participating, it will mean more orders for the laptop, further development to make it even cheaper and have even more clever features (the wind up handle is brilliant for those countries where electricity is not guaranteed, the built in wireless networking is even better for making ad hoc networks where there is no internet), but above all it will give desktop Linux an insane boost and create, virtually overnight a third massive participant in the desktop OS sector after Windows and OSX (Linux has simply been too small up until now to be noticed). There will suddenly be a massive and huge market for Linux software and it could very well spell the death of Windows in developing countries.
All of this is obvious. The idea to make a computer out of a cellphone is certainly not a bad idea as you can get cell phone service in loads of developing countries where you can't even get electricity, and cell phones are very cheap. But there are numerous problems with Bill Gates' idea of using WindowsCE, i.e. Smartphone OS for this:
1. The dominant cellphone OS, by far, is Symbian. Symbian is less restricted than Windows, and the cellphone industry is highly suspicious of Microsoft's attempt to enter this industry, the result of which is that there are almost no phones with Windows on them and the Windows Smartphone OS has a poor reputation. Bill G is painfully aware of this, as well as the fact that this is in fact probably where the future of personal computing is headed.
2. The fact that users of this cellphone PC would need a keyboard, adapter and TV means that people would be restricted to only using their computers when they had those devices with them, as opposed to a laptop where they have everything with them. The Cellphone is definitely the future as far as PC's are concerned but the hurdles of data entry (good speech recognition or good virtual keyboards are needed) and large enough screens (virtual screens or eye jacks or glasses with lcds etc) have not yet been overcome. When they have been overcome you can kiss PC's goodbye and Bill G knows this, but at the moment having to lug around a keyboard and adapter is too much for a device that is supposed to be rugged.
Man, Judith Miller writes in a newspaper and has been proven to be wrong on numerous accounts in whole WMD saga, and this by the officials sent there to find the fucking WMDs. And she still won't admit it. She is part of the whole fucking media problem, i.e. that lying is ok and you can get away with it as long as you have friends in high places.