The frequency of collisions told scientists about the electromagnetic forces that affect how neutrinos behave -- the so-called weak forces.
Actually, since neutrinos have no charge, electromagnetic forces have NO effect on them. The second half of the sentence is correct, it is the weak force that is acting here, which is a nuclear force, not an electromagnetic one.
Phyisics primer for the interested: there are 4 fundamental forces of nature (in increasing order of strength): gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear (keeps electrons in orbit around atomic nuclei), and strong nuclear (keeps atomic nuclei from flying apart).
Here's an email I sent to Bob. He used to do decent writing for InfoWorld - is that what happens when you get on the public dole?
Hi Bob,
I've enjoyed reading many of your columns over the years, but you really seemed to have missed the mark in the Java/C# battle, if it can even be called that.
A few problems with C# world domination:
1. C# Apps are tied to Windows, Windows, Windows. While this is fine and wonderful for windows developers, there are thousands of UNIX/Mac/mainframe/PalmOS/etc developers out there that will be left high and dry. And let's not forget, Java runs on everything from mainframes to smart cards.
2. The "Java is slow" myth. More recent JVMs can actually perform as well as or BETTER than natively compiled code. This is because they do just-in-time compilation, making the Java code as fast as native machine code.
Also, there is only so much optimization the compiler can do when you compile a program, having no idea how it will actually be used when it is run. At runtime, there is a lot more information available to the system as to what parts of the code are the real bottlenecks. Recent Java implementations employ *dynamic* runtime optimizations, where parts of the program that run more frequently are actually recompiled in an optimized manner to improve performance.
These dynamic optimization schemes are a very exciting new field for compiler and virtual machine engineers - and they are totally lacking from poor old statically compiled C#. The very way that C# gets compiled ties you to Windows, so dynamic optimization of running C# code will be all but impossible to implement. In the long run, Java has the potential to seriously outperform all statically compiled languages.
3. Java is open. Sun develops Java APIs and technologies in conjunction with hundreds of other companies and individuals around the world. Anyone in the world can implement most Java APIs without paying Sun a dime (now if you want that little coffee logo on your product, that's a different story, the make you pay for interoperability test for that).
While Microsoft seems willing to "standardize" C#, they will probably open up the language itself while holding the runtime libraries close to the vest. Imagine: what good would C have been if the standard C runtime libraries were vendor-specific? What this means for developers is a single-vendor solution, just like Windows.
A large part of Java's success comes from the fact that you can put together applications by mixing and matching pieces from multiple vendors and be guaranteed easy interoperability. For example, you can build an ecommerce website by buying a Servlet engine from Allaire, an EJB app server from BEA, and Java database drivers from Oracle - and they will all work FINE together - AND you can pick any kind of hardware and operating system! Want your developers to work in Windows, but deploy the app on UNIX? No problem. Want to upgrade from your Intel-based Dell servers to Sun's new 64-CPU UltraSPARC machine? Your code requires NO changes! You don't even need to recompile it, because Java is not statically compiled!
What's Microsoft's answer to this? Run everything Microsoft: ASP, IIS, ADO, etc. Develop the app on Windows. Deploy the app on Windows. Stay with Windows forever, and hope Microsoft is good about fixing the plethora of bugs and security holes that will inevitably arise. With C#, who will supply the runtime libraries? The clustering and high availability support? The windowing toolkit? Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft.
Developers have learned long ago that single-vendor lock-in solutions are a recipe for disaster. If you can't swap out a buggy piece with a functionally correct one from a different vendor, you're tied to the poor-quality vendor (like Microsoft).
Do not discount Java simply because you don't see lots of consumer applications written in Java. Java has serious momentum on the server side, where interoperability, distributed computing, and high availability make Microsoft-centric solutions very problematic.
I could give more technical with reasons why C# applications will be inherently more unstable than theit Java counterparts (access to pointers and raw memory, unchecked exceptions are legal, Microsoft-grade security, etc.) but I think I might lose you:)
So the moral of the story is: do some better research before you write a hype-filled article like you just did - a column that is so misinformed belongs on ZDNet, not PBS.
You make a valid point about standardization, but then go on to assume that standards can only emerge through a "globally acknowledged standards body".
The fact is that industry consortia pop up all over the place to develop standards outside of ISO and ANSI - in fact, you often cannot go straight to ISO/ANSI, you have to standardize at a "lower" level, then submit your stuff to them to get their "standardized" brand applied.
And often, people ignore them altogether - look at OMG, they have done some wonderful work with CORBA and UML, with literally hundreds of companies providing input into the process.
I really don't see this as a "sun-controlled" effort. Certain members (ASF et. al.) would likely have not gotten involved if that was how Sun envisioned this thing.
These are groups that I would trust in creating a secure, distributed, decentralized identity system.
Let's face it folks, some kind of worldwide identity system is going to happen. Instead of whining about whether Sun or Microsoft is more evil, start thinking about how something like this WOULD work; it's an amazing challenge, and I am far more comfortable with a consortium of companies developing it than a single one.
If there was ever a reason for geeks to have a picnic, barbecue, and put back some beers...
a "Billion Seconds of Unix" party sounds like a great idea to me....
....ok, actually many other people thought of it first, I've actually heard of a couple of such parties planned in the SF bay area -- you should plan one in your neighborhood!
I just read something about this in the Palo Alto newspaper:
Disney asked Sting to do a bunch of songs for its upcoming flick.
Sting gets all excited because this is his chance to beat Elton John's crap for the Lion King. Sting writes 6 songs for the film.
Halfway through production, PHBs at Disney decide the don't like the way things are going, and order major changes.
The first thing to be scrapped is the plot, followed shortly by most of the characters.
Sting is upset because now all his songs have nothing to do with the film.
Disney throws Sting a bone and includes 3 songs on the soundtrack.
IMHO, The Emperor's New Groove is just another lump of manufactured Hollywood bullshit.
And, no, I haven't seen it, but come on, it's Disney for chrissakes -- it will always be:
A safe bet to take the kids to
Have some really cheesy cute animals and beautiful boys and girls.
Have a silly love story that is
totally implausible.
You will leave the theatre with that candy-coated "feel-good-fuzzy" feeling.
Generally, all other things withstanding, be designed from the ground up as a moneymaking machine. How well it performs is somewhat dependent on how many fast-food chains pick up the promo goods for the flick.
OK, it's early, my cynicism runs a bit hot before I've had my coffee...:)
"For the protest movement," Brick notes, "the debates symbolize the restrictions on
political life enforced by two parties closely wedded to powerful, self-interested
donors." The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) -- a private
organization constructed by the two parties themselves -- have taken over these
public events since the more disinterested League of Women Voters withdrew in
protest in 1988. This year the CPD set unreasonably high thresholds (15 percent
support registered in polls of voting preference) to keep third-party candidates out
of the debates, even though large majorities have told pollsters they would like to
see Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan at least join the discussion. (Ross Perot had
less than 10 percent when he joined the 1992 debates, and Minnesota governor
Jesse Ventura had only 10 percent when he gained entrance to gubernatorial
debates in that state.)
Click on the "Share Your Reactions To The Debate." link
Let them know that you DID NOT FIND THE DEBATES USEFUL, and that YOU WOULD LIKE TO HEAR WHAT [Harry Browne|Ralph Nader|Your Favoriate Candidate Here] HAS TO SAY ABOUT SOME OF THE ISSUES.
Trust me, you'll feel better having at least done something than having done nothing at all
Warning, this post began coherently but later turned into a rant. I apologize....
The difference is that Nader and Browne are splitting the geeky 10% of the votes, and Gore and Bush are splitting the mundane 90%:-(
My first reaction was LOL:) But seriously, this is very interesting -- it is significant that some of us geeks can recognize and are totally turned off by Bush/Gore FUD/BS (and that's all I've seen in the debates, let me know if I was on the wrong planet).
Even though, as you say (and I agree) Nader and Browne are in many ways completely idealogically opposite, they speak with sincerity.
OK, I'm revealing my bias now... I'm a Browne fan, but no matter how much the Nader folks piss me off with their socialist policies (and they ARE socialist) and infringements on personal choice, this does not change the fact that I RESPECT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO MAKE THEIR VOICE HEARD...
Let me ask you all one question: would you prefer going to dinner and seeing a menu with 2 entrees on it? What about coming home after a long day, and picking one of two TV stations to watch (imagine the worst of WB + UPN...) ? How about
beer? cars? websites?
The world is BETTER whenever there is MORE CHOICE. Yes, sometime is can be annoying when you try to manage those choices (surfing thru 500 cable stations...) but would you rather have no choice?
My own personal opinion: any candidate who is ON THE BALLOT in ALL 50 STATES should be included in the debates. But this would be dangerous because then the Demopublican-controlled debate commission would actually be allowing Americans to hear what other people had to say. We can't have that! What happens when Nader and Browne are onstage to call Bush and Gore on all the FUD!?!? It would be hilarious, it would be great, and that's why it will NEVER HAPPEN.
SO, if at this point you are even remotely as pissed off as I am about how the major political parties and the mass media have conspired to turn the election into an advertising platform, I URGE YOU to:
Click on the "Share Your Reactions To The Debate." link
Let them know that you DID NOT FIND THE DEBATES USEFUL, and that YOU WOULD LIKE TO HEAR WHAT [Ralph Nader|Harry Browne|Your Favoriate Candidate Here] HAS TO SAY ABOUT SOME OF THE ISSUES.
Trust me, you'll feel better having at least done something than having done nothing at all
Fair enough -- your party choice is up to you. However, I should point out that a party sworn to never "exert moral force" on another person (see your membership card, if you have one) would have an awfully hard time controlling crime, given that punishment (the main way to stop crime effectively) is a kind of moral force...
Just thought I'd set the record straight for ya:
libertarians are against the use of force ONLY when it is used offensively, that is, use of force against someone else, not to defend oneself.
The sole job of a government is to preserve the liberties of its citizens from those who would violate them -- this includes external foes (why we have national defense) and internal foes (why we police, civil and criminal courts).
So... our national defense and police systems have the power to use force to defend citizens who are subject to the offensive force of others. Of course those citizens also have the right to use force to defend themselves, in the absence of the police.
Secret #2: Before the game starts, when you're on the any of the level-select screens (1,2,3), pull the joystick towards you while pulling back and forth from left to right. Hitting the buttons sometimes helps. After a few seconds, let go. You will be in the room! OK, so you can't do anything but bump into the level number, but hey...
Secret #3: Not really a secret, but fun: Get eaten by a dragon on some screen where you know that bat will come flying by. Hope that the bat picks up the dragon -- if he does, you're flying with the bat! You can see how the rooms are all connected as the bat flies from screen to screen.
You said it yourself: "they have done some very illegal things"
If you kill someone do you think your rights will be diminished?
Well, in the US a convicted felon loses their right to vote -- I could see removing M$ reps from all standardization bodies...:) Nevertheless, my point was simply that there are many possible (better) remedies that don't require a breakup.
I admit that my argument is based on the assumption that capital punishment is wrong; that punishments for any crime cannot include murder, even if the original crime was murder. Putting the power to LEGALLY KILL SOMEONE in the hands of a government is (IMHO) a frightening concept. If you differ with me here, then this argument could go on forever...
But to elucidate a bit further, this whole thing reeks of something like this:
"Well, Mr. Gates, Uncle Sam will now teach you the difference between MONEY and POWER. You have the money, but we have the power to take it all away. You may now bend over..."
I see a lot of people here being a bit exhuberant about this ruling. I tend to take everything with a grain of salt..
I'm very far from being any kind of M$ advocate, but splitting up any company is just wrong. It is one thing to punish a company, it is wholly another matter to forceably split it in two. It is like capital punishment:
the government decrees that this entity shall no longer exist, and poof! it longer exists. I hate microsoft, but this concept is scary to me.
While I agree that they are not really that innovative, and that they have done some very illegal things, and that they might even be a monopoly, but a split-up is not the right way to go. There are a myriad of other remedies (opening the windows source code, fines, forcing them to port office to other platforms) that would benefit the marketplace much more than a breakup.
Also, tell me what good does being required to publish interfaces do if they can still keep putting in secret hooks for their apps. Yes, their apps company will know about these hooks, and other apps companies won't... this will never change and it's futile to try to change it... If you force them to open up their IMPLEMENTATION, their SOURCE CODE, then you have actually transferred some power to the end user.
Well, don't flame me just because I'm not all "yeah yeah let's dance in the streets" about this... I'd be curious to hear what rational people have to say...
The reason this bug hit so hard is simple: genetic diversity. Populations that are more diverse tend to have more stability, and are able to adapt to new situations and conditions.
At my office, we run a heterogenous environment (as far as email clients go, anyway). Some people check mail with Outlook, some Netscape, some Eudora. I feel bad for the one guy who got nailed by the bug, but things would have been much worse if not for our mail-client diversity. That said, we're an NT shop, so I still worry about the lack of diversity there...
I have a similar solution. I'm using mysql to develop a large-scale commecial website with gnujsp and apache jserv.
My problem is this: This is a database of commercial real estate data. There is really only one main table, but it has lookup fields that reference as many as 7 other tables, most with funky outer joins. Performing even simple queries on it is horrific.
My hack is this: Every night, at 3am, do a GIGANTIC 7-way merge of all the relevant tables, and insert the results into a MAMMOTH SINGLE TABLE, the cache table. Lookups are lightning fast, and the data is at most 24 hours old (this is reasonable in my case). Building the cache actually only takes 15 seconds or so --- abominable if you're waiting for a web page to load, but no so bad at 3am:)
This technique may or may not be available to you, depending on your circumstances. I find it to work quite well with mine.
What is this Active Directory thingy that seems to be getting so much marketing hype? On the surface, it's just a network-aware directory system right? Does it do anything that NIS/NIS+ can't do?
It seems to me that the only way to truly expose the facts on LinuxOne is for this story to break in the mainstream media.
It may be a blemish on Linux, but if we make sure the story covers the strong scepticism to LinuxOne found in the Linux Community, I think we can turn this into Good Thing: The message is that the Linux Community, by virtue of its openness, ensures a safer world (insert warm fuzzy here).
Any takers? Come on,/. and Andover -- get this story on 60 Minutes!
I think MS did this for the reason they do anything: bring more people into their lock-in fold. Apparently they're going after IT security people, but I wonder how many of these people take MS security seriously. (The poll seemed to indicate a slashdot effect).
Anybody have good numbers on OS usage in IT security (firewalls, secure web servers, etc.) ?
- jonathan.
'Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!' allen ginsberg
Anyone who says "XML is one of these words everybody's talking about yet no-one really knows how to use it in specific applications or server technologies." has probably not noticed the whirlwind of activity (including many bona-fide commercial ventures) surrounding XML.
Hundreds of site today buy syndicated news from central sources (iSyndicate.com and newsreal are two that come to mind) and receive their news feeds via XML. Also, check out webmethods.com -- here's a phenominally successful company whose entire business model is based on XML-enabling businesses.
hmmm... some good points but a bad conclusion
on
AOL Nation
·
· Score: 1
I don't claim to have all the answers but...
You make some very good points:
Litigation and court fines can indeed affect the bottom line. Shareholders sole risk is the value of their stock.
Yes, it sometimes makes sense to spend more money to crush a smaller competitor, because that competitor could become a threat in the long run.
But I'll have to disagree with you on these...
The maximum profit a monopoly can draw out of a market is a higher than the total profit that a large group of competing companies can draw out of the same market. I'll have to disagree here, I think you're assuming a static market. The revenues of a monopoly may be greater than that of a competitive market of the same size, but a competitive market will tend to grow much more rapidly than a monopolized one, and in the long run market-wide revenues will be higher.
...where the EULA could say anything they wanted and it would be 100% enforceable? Well, technically the EULA is a legal document, so they really can say anything they want. It's a contract: you want to use our software, here's our conditions. The essence of a free market is that the consumer is free to say "I don't like those conditions, what else is out there?" The fact is, as bad as M$ is, even they know that after a certain point, restrictive licensing will damage sales, customer satisfaction, etc.
...if they weren't afraid of government reprisal. Hmmm... while many corporate decisions are made with governmental interests involved (mostly tax-avoidance strategies), the vast majority of decisions are made based on whether consumers will see value in them, and thus buy more product. A free market dictates that ultimate judgement come not by mandate from some third party (govt) but rather from the consumers themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Just a minor clarification:
The frequency of collisions told scientists about the electromagnetic forces that affect how neutrinos behave -- the so-called weak forces.
Actually, since neutrinos have no charge, electromagnetic forces have NO effect on them. The second half of the sentence is correct, it is the weak force that is acting here, which is a nuclear force, not an electromagnetic one.
Phyisics primer for the interested: there are 4 fundamental forces of nature (in increasing order of strength): gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear (keeps electrons in orbit around atomic nuclei), and strong nuclear (keeps atomic nuclei from flying apart).
- jonathan.
Actually, last time I checked the HP/Compaq deal had fallen apart....
- jonathan.
Anyone know a place (online) that sells these chips?
Motherboards for them?
Any SMP motherboards out there?
- jonathan.
Here's an email I sent to Bob. He used to do decent writing for InfoWorld - is that what happens when you get on the public dole?
:)
Hi Bob,
I've enjoyed reading many of your columns over the years, but you really seemed to have missed the mark in the Java/C# battle, if it can even be called that.
A few problems with C# world domination:
1. C# Apps are tied to Windows, Windows, Windows. While this is fine and wonderful for windows developers, there are thousands of UNIX/Mac/mainframe/PalmOS/etc developers out there that will be left high and dry. And let's not forget, Java runs on everything from mainframes to smart cards.
2. The "Java is slow" myth. More recent JVMs can actually perform as well as or BETTER than natively compiled code. This is because they do just-in-time compilation, making the Java code as fast as native machine code.
Also, there is only so much optimization the compiler can do when you compile a program, having no idea how it will actually be used when it is run. At runtime, there is a lot more information available to the system as to what parts of the code are the real bottlenecks. Recent Java implementations employ *dynamic* runtime optimizations, where parts of the program that run more frequently are actually recompiled in an optimized manner to improve performance.
These dynamic optimization schemes are a very exciting new field for compiler and virtual machine engineers - and they are totally lacking from poor old statically compiled C#. The very way that C# gets compiled ties you to Windows, so dynamic optimization of running C# code will be all but impossible to implement. In the long run, Java has the potential to seriously outperform all statically compiled languages.
3. Java is open. Sun develops Java APIs and technologies in conjunction with hundreds of other companies and individuals around the world. Anyone in the world can implement most Java APIs without paying Sun a dime (now if you want that little coffee logo on your product, that's a different story, the make you pay for interoperability test for that).
While Microsoft seems willing to "standardize" C#, they will probably open up the language itself while holding the runtime libraries close to the vest. Imagine: what good would C have been if the standard C runtime libraries were vendor-specific? What this means for developers is a single-vendor solution, just like Windows.
A large part of Java's success comes from the fact that you can put together applications by mixing and matching pieces from multiple vendors and be guaranteed easy interoperability. For example, you can build an ecommerce website by buying a Servlet engine from Allaire, an EJB app server from BEA, and Java database drivers from Oracle - and they will all work FINE together - AND you can pick any kind of hardware and operating system! Want your developers to work in Windows, but deploy the app on UNIX? No problem. Want to upgrade from your Intel-based Dell servers to Sun's new 64-CPU UltraSPARC machine? Your code requires NO changes! You don't even need to recompile it, because Java is not statically compiled!
What's Microsoft's answer to this? Run everything Microsoft: ASP, IIS, ADO, etc. Develop the app on Windows. Deploy the app on Windows. Stay with Windows forever, and hope Microsoft is good about fixing the plethora of bugs and security holes that will inevitably arise. With C#, who will supply the runtime libraries? The clustering and high availability support? The windowing toolkit? Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft.
Developers have learned long ago that single-vendor lock-in solutions are a recipe for disaster. If you can't swap out a buggy piece with a functionally correct one from a different vendor, you're tied to the poor-quality vendor (like Microsoft).
Do not discount Java simply because you don't see lots of consumer applications written in Java. Java has serious momentum on the server side, where interoperability, distributed computing, and high availability make Microsoft-centric solutions very problematic.
I could give more technical with reasons why C# applications will be inherently more unstable than theit Java counterparts (access to pointers and raw memory, unchecked exceptions are legal, Microsoft-grade security, etc.) but I think I might lose you
So the moral of the story is: do some better research before you write a hype-filled article like you just did - a column that is so misinformed belongs on ZDNet, not PBS.
Cheers,
- jonathan.
You make a valid point about standardization, but then go on to assume that standards can only emerge through a "globally acknowledged standards body".
The fact is that industry consortia pop up all over the place to develop standards outside of ISO and ANSI - in fact, you often cannot go straight to ISO/ANSI, you have to standardize at a "lower" level, then submit your stuff to them to get their "standardized" brand applied.
And often, people ignore them altogether - look at OMG, they have done some wonderful work with CORBA and UML, with literally hundreds of companies providing input into the process.
I really don't see this as a "sun-controlled" effort. Certain members (ASF et. al.) would likely have not gotten involved if that was how Sun envisioned this thing.
- jonathan.
Did you notice that their member list included the Apache Software Foundation and O'Reilly?
These are groups that I would trust in creating a secure, distributed, decentralized identity system.
Let's face it folks, some kind of worldwide identity system is going to happen. Instead of whining about whether Sun or Microsoft is more evil, start thinking about how something like this WOULD work; it's an amazing challenge, and I am far more comfortable with a consortium of companies developing it than a single one.
Just my $0.02
- jonathan.
If there was ever a reason for geeks to have a picnic, barbecue, and put back some beers...
....ok, actually many other people thought of it first, I've actually heard of a couple of such parties planned in the SF bay area -- you should plan one in your neighborhood!
a "Billion Seconds of Unix" party sounds like a great idea to me....
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
I just read something about this in the Palo Alto newspaper:
IMHO, The Emperor's New Groove is just another lump of manufactured Hollywood bullshit.
And, no, I haven't seen it, but come on, it's Disney for chrissakes -- it will always be:
OK, it's early, my cynicism runs a bit hot before I've had my coffee...
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
From http://debate.wustl.edu/faculty/brick.html:
"For the protest movement," Brick notes, "the debates symbolize the restrictions on political life enforced by two parties closely wedded to powerful, self-interested donors." The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) -- a private organization constructed by the two parties themselves -- have taken over these public events since the more disinterested League of Women Voters withdrew in protest in 1988. This year the CPD set unreasonably high thresholds (15 percent support registered in polls of voting preference) to keep third-party candidates out of the debates, even though large majorities have told pollsters they would like to see Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan at least join the discussion. (Ross Perot had less than 10 percent when he joined the 1992 debates, and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura had only 10 percent when he gained entrance to gubernatorial debates in that state.)
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Trust me, you'll feel better having at least done something than having done nothing at all
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
The difference is that Nader and Browne are splitting the geeky 10% of the votes, and Gore and Bush are splitting the mundane 90%
My first reaction was LOL
Even though, as you say (and I agree) Nader and Browne are in many ways completely idealogically opposite, they speak with sincerity.
OK, I'm revealing my bias now... I'm a Browne fan, but no matter how much the Nader folks piss me off with their socialist policies (and they ARE socialist) and infringements on personal choice, this does not change the fact that I RESPECT THE FACT THAT THEY ARE ACTIVELY TRYING TO MAKE THEIR VOICE HEARD...
Let me ask you all one question: would you prefer going to dinner and seeing a menu with 2 entrees on it? What about coming home after a long day, and picking one of two TV stations to watch (imagine the worst of WB + UPN...) ? How about beer? cars? websites?
The world is BETTER whenever there is MORE CHOICE. Yes, sometime is can be annoying when you try to manage those choices (surfing thru 500 cable stations...) but would you rather have no choice?
My own personal opinion: any candidate who is ON THE BALLOT in ALL 50 STATES should be included in the debates. But this would be dangerous because then the Demopublican-controlled debate commission would actually be allowing Americans to hear what other people had to say. We can't have that! What happens when Nader and Browne are onstage to call Bush and Gore on all the FUD!?!? It would be hilarious, it would be great, and that's why it will NEVER HAPPEN.
SO, if at this point you are even remotely as pissed off as I am about how the major political parties and the mass media have conspired to turn the election into an advertising platform, I URGE YOU to:
Trust me, you'll feel better having at least done something than having done nothing at all
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
Fair enough -- your party choice is up to you. However, I should point out that a party sworn to never "exert moral force" on another person (see your membership card, if you have one) would have an awfully hard time controlling crime, given that punishment (the main way to stop crime effectively) is a kind of moral force...
Just thought I'd set the record straight for ya: libertarians are against the use of force ONLY when it is used offensively, that is, use of force against someone else, not to defend oneself.
The sole job of a government is to preserve the liberties of its citizens from those who would violate them -- this includes external foes (why we have national defense) and internal foes (why we police, civil and criminal courts).
So... our national defense and police systems have the power to use force to defend citizens who are subject to the offensive force of others. Of course those citizens also have the right to use force to defend themselves, in the absence of the police.
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
The linux cuecat driver is still listed on tucows.
You may want to go to tucows directly and search for cuecat (that way you'll get a local/faster tucows mirror).
In any case, it is definitely available here: http://fundy.linu x.t ucows.com/conhtml/adnload/78480_19532.html
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
Fellow Adventure/Atari Freak Here....
Secret #2: Before the game starts, when you're on the any of the level-select screens (1,2,3), pull the joystick towards you while pulling back and forth from left to right. Hitting the buttons sometimes helps. After a few seconds, let go. You will be in the room! OK, so you can't do anything but bump into the level number, but hey...
Secret #3: Not really a secret, but fun: Get eaten by a dragon on some screen where you know that bat will come flying by. Hope that the bat picks up the dragon -- if he does, you're flying with the bat! You can see how the rooms are all connected as the bat flies from screen to screen.
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
You said it yourself: "they have done some very illegal things"
:) Nevertheless, my point was simply that there are many possible (better) remedies that don't require a breakup.
If you kill someone do you think your rights will be diminished?
Well, in the US a convicted felon loses their right to vote -- I could see removing M$ reps from all standardization bodies...
I admit that my argument is based on the assumption that capital punishment is wrong; that punishments for any crime cannot include murder, even if the original crime was murder. Putting the power to LEGALLY KILL SOMEONE in the hands of a government is (IMHO) a frightening concept. If you differ with me here, then this argument could go on forever...
But to elucidate a bit further, this whole thing reeks of something like this:
"Well, Mr. Gates, Uncle Sam will now teach you the difference between MONEY and POWER. You have the money, but we have the power to take it all away. You may now bend over..."
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
I see a lot of people here being a bit exhuberant about this ruling. I tend to take everything with a grain of salt..
I'm very far from being any kind of M$ advocate, but splitting up any company is just wrong. It is one thing to punish a company, it is wholly another matter to forceably split it in two. It is like capital punishment:
the government decrees that this entity shall no longer exist, and poof! it longer exists. I hate microsoft, but this concept is scary to me.
While I agree that they are not really that innovative, and that they have done some very illegal things, and that they might even be a monopoly, but a split-up is not the right way to go. There are a myriad of other remedies (opening the windows source code, fines, forcing them to port office to other platforms) that would benefit the marketplace much more than a breakup.
Also, tell me what good does being required to publish interfaces do if they can still keep putting in secret hooks for their apps. Yes, their apps company will know about these hooks, and other apps companies won't... this will never change and it's futile to try to change it... If you force them to open up their IMPLEMENTATION, their SOURCE CODE, then you have actually transferred some power to the end user.
Well, don't flame me just because I'm not all "yeah yeah let's dance in the streets" about this... I'd be curious to hear what rational people have to say...
- jonathan.
The Moral Majority was disbanded in 1989
- jonathan.
well spoken.
i think this may be a good time for people to remember what Thoreau's Civil Disobedience essay is all about.
- jonathan.
Virginia is also one of the few states that passed the UCITA into law.
Is this a trend? Note to conspiracy theorists: AOL (now AOL-TW) headquarters is in Dulles, Virginia, isn't it?
- jonathan.
The reason this bug hit so hard is simple: genetic diversity. Populations that are more diverse tend to have more stability, and are able to adapt to new situations and conditions.
:)
At my office, we run a heterogenous environment (as far as email clients go, anyway). Some people check mail with Outlook, some Netscape, some Eudora. I feel bad for the one guy who got nailed by the bug, but things would have been much worse if not for our mail-client diversity. That said, we're an NT shop, so I still worry about the lack of diversity there...
Did that make any sense? I need some sleep
I have a similar solution. I'm using mysql to develop a large-scale commecial website with gnujsp and apache jserv.
:)
My problem is this:
This is a database of commercial real estate data. There is really only one main table, but it has lookup fields that reference as many as 7 other tables, most with funky outer joins. Performing even simple queries on it is horrific.
My hack is this:
Every night, at 3am, do a GIGANTIC 7-way merge of all the relevant tables, and insert the results into a MAMMOTH SINGLE TABLE, the cache table. Lookups are lightning fast, and the data is at most 24 hours old (this is reasonable in my case). Building the cache actually only takes 15 seconds or so --- abominable if you're waiting for a web page to load, but no so bad at 3am
This technique may or may not be available to you, depending on your circumstances. I find it to work quite well with mine.
- jonathan.
What is this Active Directory thingy that seems to be getting so much marketing hype? On the surface, it's just a network-aware directory system right? Does it do anything that NIS/NIS+ can't do?
- jonathan.
It seems to me that the only way to truly expose the facts on LinuxOne is for this story to break in the mainstream media.
/. and Andover -- get this story on 60 Minutes!
It may be a blemish on Linux, but if we make sure the story covers the strong scepticism to LinuxOne found in the Linux Community, I think we can turn this into Good Thing: The message is that the Linux Community, by virtue of its openness, ensures a safer world (insert warm fuzzy here).
Any takers? Come on,
- jonathan.
I think MS did this for the reason they do anything: bring more people into their lock-in fold. Apparently they're going after IT security people, but I wonder how many of these people take MS security seriously. (The poll seemed to indicate a slashdot effect).
Anybody have good numbers on OS usage in IT security (firewalls, secure web servers, etc.) ?
- jonathan.
'Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!'
allen ginsberg
Hey all,
Anyone who says "XML is one of these words everybody's talking about yet no-one really knows how to use it in specific applications or server technologies." has probably not noticed the whirlwind of activity (including many bona-fide commercial ventures) surrounding XML.
Hundreds of site today buy syndicated news from central sources (iSyndicate.com and newsreal are two that come to mind) and receive their news feeds via XML. Also, check out webmethods.com -- here's a phenominally successful company whose entire business model is based on XML-enabling businesses.
You make some very good points:
- Litigation and court fines can indeed affect the bottom line. Shareholders sole risk is the value of their stock.
- Yes, it sometimes makes sense to spend more money to crush a smaller competitor, because that competitor could become a threat in the long run.
But I'll have to disagree with you on these...I'll have to disagree here, I think you're assuming a static market. The revenues of a monopoly may be greater than that of a competitive market of the same size, but a competitive market will tend to grow much more rapidly than a monopolized one, and in the long run market-wide revenues will be higher.
Well, technically the EULA is a legal document, so they really can say anything they want. It's a contract: you want to use our software, here's our conditions. The essence of a free market is that the consumer is free to say "I don't like those conditions, what else is out there?" The fact is, as bad as M$ is, even they know that after a certain point, restrictive licensing will damage sales, customer satisfaction, etc.
Hmmm... while many corporate decisions are made with governmental interests involved (mostly tax-avoidance strategies), the vast majority of decisions are made based on whether consumers will see value in them, and thus buy more product. A free market dictates that ultimate judgement come not by mandate from some third party (govt) but rather from the consumers themselves.
- jonathan.