I watched this show when it aired last night. I'd actually been looking forward to it quite a bit since seeing a preview for it a week or so ago. Is it just me, or is Nova possibly the best show on television? I don't get so interested in every subject they cover, so I don't watch it all the time, but, I must say, every episode I have seen has been excellent. We could use more television like this, and a lot less American Idol and other BS.
There was nothing quite like seeing, for the first time in my life, real vehicles, weighing multiple tons, driving completely by themselves. Awe-inspiring stuff to catch a glimpse of the future like this. Even my wife (who is not geeky at all) really got interested in this show and was practically cheering when Stanley passed Highlander.
All this robotic car stuff is pretty slick. But, you know, I would have been so much more impressed to have seen one of the teams pull up in just a regular car with no special equipment, sensors, or modifications, and then watch they put a humanoid-like robot in the driver's seat to drive the car. How much longer before the tech advances to this step?
Don't you see? This is the beginnings of a grand scheme to unite all of mankind by creating a common enemy which will attempt to destroy us all. East and West, Communist and Capitalist, Arab and Israeli, Muslim and Christian -- all will have to unite against the evil that will be machines. And after the dust settles, we'll all live happily together. Or something.
Yes. The theory is that you'd get twice the amount of use from the same amount of CO2 emissions -- once to generate electricity, and again to drive some cars (or something else). End result is total CO2 emissions are reduced because driving the cars only emitted the CO2 that the electicity generation plant would have already emitted otherwise.
So, who's up for starting the new Seigenthaler article on Wikipedia. This whole incident would probably be notable enough to get a mention. Now his name can be associated with a Kennedy assasination plot and it wouldn't be libel... just the facts ma'am.
Can I be the first to please request the revocation of Mr. Carrigan's "junior physicist" badge and secret decoder ring?
I for one hope this is all just a left-over April fools joke or something. It's far too scary to me to believe that someone who would actually publish such nonsense -- and mean it -- could manage to get hired by Fermilab.
Or skip the Web-Developer plugin and just use Firefox's native ability to strip the style: View -> Page Style -> No Style
Incidentally, both the Onion and Slashdot look horrible with no style sheet. This is a good indicator that their documents' structures are either very broken or completely nonsensical.
Repeat after me everybody: HTML tags provide the structure, CSS the style, and everything else is the content. Though it seems like a simple concept, not even supposedly highly successful web professionals seem to get it right.
O.O OH boy, those ARE slashdotters' comments! Guys, we're on FOXnews!:D
That's all fine and good. Glad to see we made the news. But please, oh please, don't let this sort of thing ever go beyond technology reporting... the last thing the "regular" world needs is exposure to Slashdot's political group-think.
Yeah, it's not really wireless power at all. It's more of a fancy new universal power adaptor (which happens to be contactless).
And here I was hoping, "Yay! Finally someone has figured out a way to (safely) beam power over (fairly) long distances." Feh. "Wireless power"... give me a break.
I'd like to see them try to land UN troops on US soil.
By "force" I don't think the author means literal physcial force, like bullets and bombs. I think he means diplomatic "force". As in, "If you don't amicably agree to give up unilateral control now, then we'll get a large group of other coutries' diplomats together and demand that you give it up, and probably give your desires less pull when we as a group decide how things will be done in the future."
Personally, I just don't see how that will work. What if the US govt insists? Are they going to just create their own root servers and start handing out their own IP address segments? That would just fracture the Internet effectively cutting the two nets off from each other. Doesn't seem like a sound tactic to me.
To be honest, I didn't fully expect them to respond or take any action. To my most pleasant surpirse, they did respond (in a timely manner no less) and actually took corrective action. Color me amazed. I have to give FOX News credit for actually listening to my complaint and for filling in the ommission. The easy way out would have been to just ignore my letter. Kudos to them.
Thank you for writing. The column "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170724,00.html > that appeared on FOXnews.com Sept. 28 identified author James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, but failed to disclose that Microsoft is a founding member of that organization.
ATL is a coalition of technology companies, professionals and organizations that advocates for limited government regulation of technology and for competitive market solutions to technology policy. In addition to Microsoft, ATL's founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA, Citizens Against Government Waste, CompTIA, Small Business Survival Committee, Clarity Consulting, Cityscape Filmworks, Association for Competitive Technology and 60Plus Association.
Mr. Prendergast's affiliation with Microsoft should have been stated clearly in the article.
I'd like to refine some of your points, if you don't mind (I am not a lawyer and do not intend for any of this to be legal advice -- oh, the irony).
Let's look at the hypothetical commercial (sold) banking software. If a hacker is somehow able to break into the software and steal your account numbers, should the manufacturer really be liable, just because they sold the software as opposed to having given it away for free? It depends. If the manufacturer had claimed that the software was "totally secure", and unhackable, then yes they probably ought to be liable. But so long as the software does what the manufacturer claims it can do, without any grossly negligent defects like formatting your harddrive every third sunday, they shouldn't be held liable. Much like car companies shouldn't be liable if your vehicle is stolen.
And the same holds for products given away at no cost. If the person giving a product away materially misrepresnts what the product can do, they probably run afoul of consumer protection laws. Cost should not be, and probably is not, a factor.
Applied to the Apple iPod nano case, this might imply that Apple is off the hook if the screens are easily scrathed, since they probably don't claim anywhere that the screen is scratch-resistant. However, if normal use of the player results in the screen becoming so scratched that it is unreadable, then perhaps Apple has some liability. This would be particularly true if Apple claimed that the iPod was specifically suitable for being carried around in pockets, but it turns out that carrying it in a pocket will almost certainly result in the screen being scratched to the point of unusability.
The author claims that computer software usually has these types of "limitation of liability" clauses in the software licenses. He also seems to imply that other industries, publishing for example, don't play these "tricks" on their customers.
Interesting... I happen to have a book in front of me right now. Let's open it up and see what it says inside, shall we?
The author and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or ommissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the information contained herein.
Sounds an awfull lot like a "limitation of liability" clause to me. *shrug*
The poster has taken care in the preparation of this post, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility if it turns out that the poster was actually wrong about what his opinion really is.
I find your sig particularly ironic. You'd be right if you believe this line they are feeding people who ask about the incompatibility. But if you scrutinize their answer a little, you'll find that something is fishy about it. I for one, give Microsoft's story little credence:)
The/GS option basically causes the compiler to insert extra code into each compiled function. But that extra code does not need to cause a change to the library format. All it does is add additional instructions and data in the object file. You could actually write your own code that does exactly the same thing, without using the/GS compiler switch. The compiler switch makes it lot easier, because otherwise you'd have to add this code to every function you write.
But it should not change anything from the linker's perspective. It should be able to link an object file regardless of whether this extra code is present or not (and libraries are just collections of object files). From the linker's perspective, it shouldn't matter whether this extra code is generated by/GS or was written by hand by the programmer.
Sure, Microsoft may have chosen to implement the/GS switch in a way that's not backward-compatible -- but they didn't need to and if they really did care about VC6 users, they would have opted to use a backward-compatible approach.
Want proof that this can be done in a backward-compatible way? Read about StackGuard a patch created circa 1998 that brings this exact same functionality to GCC. It is available in some hardened versions of GCC. Another similar GCC patch, ProPolice is also in other hardened versions of GCC (that used by OpenBSD and Hardened Gentoo Linux, for example). Eventually, one of them will be chosen to be included as a standard feature of GCC. Both generate "protected" code that is compatible with unprotected libraries compiled with other compilers.
Upon reading the article and researching Mr. Prendergrast's background I was astounded to find that his organization is backed, in fact founded in part, by Microsoft (the primary lobyist against the move to OpenDocument by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is, of course, none other than Microsoft). This relationship between the author and Microsoft was not disclosed anywhere in the article.
As a resident of Massachusetts who is ardently in favor of the move to OpenDocument format I felt obliged to point this ommission out to FOX News (I have nothing against FOX News or Microsoft, but this was just too big an ommission for any reasonably ethical news organization to make).
Dear Sir or Madam,
Recently I happened across an opinion piece on the FOX News website about the decision made by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to adopt the OpenDocument format for its electronic documents. I was dismayed to find a distinct lack of full disclosure, a principle of journalism I would fully expect to be followed by any ethical news organization, accompanying this opinion piece.
The author of the article, Jim Prendergrast, is, as you should be well aware, the president of an organization founded in part by Microsoft Corporation. Now, I have nothing against Microsoft. It is a fine company run by a fine group of people. I am a professional in the technology industry and I would always be happy to work for or with Microsoft. They make excellent software and I personally use many of their software titles on a daily basis.
However, Microsoft has been, as you should also be well aware, the primary lobbyist against the adoption of OpenDocument by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Given the relationship between Microsoft Corporation and Mr. Predergrast's organization, this is something that should have been disclosed by FOX News, but it was not mentioned at all.
The failure to fully disclose Mr. Predergrast's affiliation with parties interested in the outcome of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' decision is a collosal ommission on the part of FOX News. As the news organization publishing his work, it is FOX News's sole duty to fully disclose Mr. Prendergrast's affiliations. FOX News's failure to do so prevents readers from being fully illuminated about the source of the article and therefore limits readers's ability to discern the writer's biases, and judge for themselves whether he is "fair and balanced".
My personal opinion is that FOX News should take more precautionary steps in the future to avoid this type of misstep. In this case in particular, I would like to see a correction issued containing the full disclosure statement. If this is something you feel FOX News cannot or should not do, I would appreciate a response letting me know why it cannot or will not be done.
Yes. Well, it's not actually anything intrinsically wrong with VC6, but Microsoft has managed to cripple it. All new Platform SDKs are now using a library format that is incompatible with VC6's linker.
So now if an application wants to take advantage of some of the newest Platform SDK functionality (e.g. stuff that's new in Vista), VC6 will likely not be able to link with the required libraries.
I doubt that there was anything that absolutely needed to be changed with regard to the library format. I'm of the opinion that this was a carefully crafted Microsoft strategy to force developers to stop using VC6 (which is the oldest Visual Studio release that still has a large number of active users).
But maybe Nuclear Weapons research is developing sources of energy. Perhaps the DoE's plan is to turn the entire Middle East into a solid sheet of glass and then go and steal all the oil.
If you'd bothered to read the article, you'd know that the quote you are attributing to "Slashdotters" and their inability to grasp simple economic principles was actually straight from the "motherfuckinarticle".
If anything, this goes to show that it's the suits that suck at economics. In-Stat, according to their own website, are the "leading provider of actionable research, assessments and market forecasts of semiconductors and advanced communications equipment and services". If I didn't know better, I'd think this whole thing was just a brilliant farce. But, no, I think they're really just that stupid.
Goddamn suits. This is but one of the reasons why I hate 'em.
This cost does not include money spent on marketing or development...
Then the average cost obviously isn't really just $40, which is pretty much the premise of the whole freaking article. You might as well say their cost is 40 cents per chip, because they only pay some guy $10 per hour to push the button that makes the chip-making machine "go".
I propose a new headline for this story: In-Stat a Group of Morons, according to In-Stat.
Slashdot Mirror
I watched this show when it aired last night. I'd actually been looking forward to it quite a bit since seeing a preview for it a week or so ago. Is it just me, or is Nova possibly the best show on television? I don't get so interested in every subject they cover, so I don't watch it all the time, but, I must say, every episode I have seen has been excellent. We could use more television like this, and a lot less American Idol and other BS.
There was nothing quite like seeing, for the first time in my life, real vehicles, weighing multiple tons, driving completely by themselves. Awe-inspiring stuff to catch a glimpse of the future like this. Even my wife (who is not geeky at all) really got interested in this show and was practically cheering when Stanley passed Highlander.
All this robotic car stuff is pretty slick. But, you know, I would have been so much more impressed to have seen one of the teams pull up in just a regular car with no special equipment, sensors, or modifications, and then watch they put a humanoid-like robot in the driver's seat to drive the car. How much longer before the tech advances to this step?
I think this syndrome is frequently referred to as, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
That's what I love about cliches: they become cliches because they're true.
So, who's up for starting the new Seigenthaler article on Wikipedia. This whole incident would probably be notable enough to get a mention. Now his name can be associated with a Kennedy assasination plot and it wouldn't be libel... just the facts ma'am.
Can you please point me in the direction of a better free encyclopedia? I think you'll be hard pressed. But I'll be delighted if you prove me wrong.
Also, your argument works against the Internet as a whole as well. Would you consider all of it the "Worthlessnet"?
Can I be the first to please request the revocation of Mr. Carrigan's "junior physicist" badge and secret decoder ring?
I for one hope this is all just a left-over April fools joke or something. It's far too scary to me to believe that someone who would actually publish such nonsense -- and mean it -- could manage to get hired by Fermilab.
That's so twentieth century. I've long ago said "goodbye" to the small round silvery discs, and said "hello" to iTMS.
... means Miles Per Gallon... the analog to kilometers per liters in a certain more sensible system of units and measures.
Did you rip this off straight from Eddie Izzard, or from some place else?
Or skip the Web-Developer plugin and just use Firefox's native ability to strip the style: View -> Page Style -> No Style
Incidentally, both the Onion and Slashdot look horrible with no style sheet. This is a good indicator that their documents' structures are either very broken or completely nonsensical.
Repeat after me everybody: HTML tags provide the structure, CSS the style, and everything else is the content. Though it seems like a simple concept, not even supposedly highly successful web professionals seem to get it right.
Yeah, it's not really wireless power at all. It's more of a fancy new universal power adaptor (which happens to be contactless).
And here I was hoping, "Yay! Finally someone has figured out a way to (safely) beam power over (fairly) long distances." Feh. "Wireless power"... give me a break.
Personally, I just don't see how that will work. What if the US govt insists? Are they going to just create their own root servers and start handing out their own IP address segments? That would just fracture the Internet effectively cutting the two nets off from each other. Doesn't seem like a sound tactic to me.
Light - Particles or Waves?
Which Came First - Chicken or Egg?
Nuclear Chain Reactions - Good or Bad?
Religion - Boon or Bane?
Discussing any of the above would be just as useless and pointless, yet somehow probably would be more interesting.
I'd like to refine some of your points, if you don't mind (I am not a lawyer and do not intend for any of this to be legal advice -- oh, the irony).
Let's look at the hypothetical commercial (sold) banking software. If a hacker is somehow able to break into the software and steal your account numbers, should the manufacturer really be liable, just because they sold the software as opposed to having given it away for free? It depends. If the manufacturer had claimed that the software was "totally secure", and unhackable, then yes they probably ought to be liable. But so long as the software does what the manufacturer claims it can do, without any grossly negligent defects like formatting your harddrive every third sunday, they shouldn't be held liable. Much like car companies shouldn't be liable if your vehicle is stolen.
And the same holds for products given away at no cost. If the person giving a product away materially misrepresnts what the product can do, they probably run afoul of consumer protection laws. Cost should not be, and probably is not, a factor.
Applied to the Apple iPod nano case, this might imply that Apple is off the hook if the screens are easily scrathed, since they probably don't claim anywhere that the screen is scratch-resistant. However, if normal use of the player results in the screen becoming so scratched that it is unreadable, then perhaps Apple has some liability. This would be particularly true if Apple claimed that the iPod was specifically suitable for being carried around in pockets, but it turns out that carrying it in a pocket will almost certainly result in the screen being scratched to the point of unusability.
Well, at least that's the way I see it.
Interesting... I happen to have a book in front of me right now. Let's open it up and see what it says inside, shall we?
Sounds an awfull lot like a "limitation of liability" clause to me. *shrug*
The poster has taken care in the preparation of this post, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility if it turns out that the poster was actually wrong about what his opinion really is.
I find your sig particularly ironic. You'd be right if you believe this line they are feeding people who ask about the incompatibility. But if you scrutinize their answer a little, you'll find that something is fishy about it. I for one, give Microsoft's story little credence :)
/GS option basically causes the compiler to insert extra code into each compiled function. But that extra code does not need to cause a change to the library format. All it does is add additional instructions and data in the object file. You could actually write your own code that does exactly the same thing, without using the /GS compiler switch. The compiler switch makes it lot easier, because otherwise you'd have to add this code to every function you write.
/GS or was written by hand by the programmer.
/GS switch in a way that's not backward-compatible -- but they didn't need to and if they really did care about VC6 users, they would have opted to use a backward-compatible approach.
The
But it should not change anything from the linker's perspective. It should be able to link an object file regardless of whether this extra code is present or not (and libraries are just collections of object files). From the linker's perspective, it shouldn't matter whether this extra code is generated by
Sure, Microsoft may have chosen to implement the
Want proof that this can be done in a backward-compatible way? Read about StackGuard a patch created circa 1998 that brings this exact same functionality to GCC. It is available in some hardened versions of GCC. Another similar GCC patch, ProPolice is also in other hardened versions of GCC (that used by OpenBSD and Hardened Gentoo Linux, for example). Eventually, one of them will be chosen to be included as a standard feature of GCC. Both generate "protected" code that is compatible with unprotected libraries compiled with other compilers.
Upon reading the article and researching Mr. Prendergrast's background I was astounded to find that his organization is backed, in fact founded in part, by Microsoft (the primary lobyist against the move to OpenDocument by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is, of course, none other than Microsoft). This relationship between the author and Microsoft was not disclosed anywhere in the article.
As a resident of Massachusetts who is ardently in favor of the move to OpenDocument format I felt obliged to point this ommission out to FOX News (I have nothing against FOX News or Microsoft, but this was just too big an ommission for any reasonably ethical news organization to make).
Dear Sir or Madam,
Recently I happened across an opinion piece on the FOX News
website about the decision made by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
to adopt the OpenDocument format for its electronic documents. I was
dismayed to find a distinct lack of full disclosure, a principle of
journalism I would fully expect to be followed by any ethical news
organization, accompanying this opinion piece.
The author of the article, Jim Prendergrast, is, as you should be
well aware, the president of an organization founded in part by
Microsoft Corporation. Now, I have nothing against Microsoft. It is a
fine company run by a fine group of people. I am a professional in the
technology industry and I would always be happy to work for or with
Microsoft. They make excellent software and I personally use many of
their software titles on a daily basis.
However, Microsoft has been, as you should also be well aware, the
primary lobbyist against the adoption of OpenDocument by the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Given the relationship between
Microsoft Corporation and Mr. Predergrast's organization, this is
something that should have been disclosed by FOX News, but it was not
mentioned at all.
The failure to fully disclose Mr. Predergrast's affiliation with
parties interested in the outcome of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts' decision is a collosal ommission on the part of FOX
News. As the news organization publishing his work, it is FOX News's
sole duty to fully disclose Mr. Prendergrast's affiliations. FOX
News's failure to do so prevents readers from being fully illuminated
about the source of the article and therefore limits readers's ability
to discern the writer's biases, and judge for themselves whether he is
"fair and balanced".
My personal opinion is that FOX News should take more
precautionary steps in the future to avoid this type of misstep. In
this case in particular, I would like to see a correction issued
containing the full disclosure statement. If this is something you
feel FOX News cannot or should not do, I would appreciate a response
letting me know why it cannot or will not be done.
Respectfully Yours,
[Name and Contact Informaiton]
So now if an application wants to take advantage of some of the newest Platform SDK functionality (e.g. stuff that's new in Vista), VC6 will likely not be able to link with the required libraries.
I doubt that there was anything that absolutely needed to be changed with regard to the library format. I'm of the opinion that this was a carefully crafted Microsoft strategy to force developers to stop using VC6 (which is the oldest Visual Studio release that still has a large number of active users).
If anything, this goes to show that it's the suits that suck at economics. In-Stat, according to their own website, are the "leading provider of actionable research, assessments and market forecasts of semiconductors and advanced communications equipment and services". If I didn't know better, I'd think this whole thing was just a brilliant farce. But, no, I think they're really just that stupid.
Goddamn suits. This is but one of the reasons why I hate 'em.
I propose a new headline for this story: In-Stat a Group of Morons, according to In-Stat.
Oh, and thanks for reminding me to forward my URL elsewhere. My experiment with epinions is done ;)