I think what we're getting at here is post-superpower syndrome. The French have, in their history, enjoyed a period of dominance - and their language and culture has found its way to many parts of the globe.
My feeling is that they now feel marginalised and impotent in world affairs (like the Germans who also dominate the EU), leading to their obsession with making the EU a dominant player geopolitically. I think that's the major factor in their stance on Iraq - you (USA) didn't involve them, and basically they (EU) feel snubbed, as they want to be as geopolitically dominant as you.
This makes sense to me, because I'm British. If it wasn't for the domination of our language (sorry guys, but it is - hence 'English') in the commercial world, and our close ties with the USA, I think we (the Brits) might feel the same. Close enough to a period of world influence to have the history, pomp and ceremony, commercial and political ties, material trappings and respect, but increasingly marginalised in world affairs, and dependent on our superbloc partnership (USA for us, EU for them) to feel that we still have a bearing on global affairs.
This basically explains the reluctance of ~ 50% (a VERY rough figure) of Brits who are suspicious of closer EU integration, because we basically have a foot in both camps (and our balance of trade shows this, although it's tipped towards non-EU trade). And from an emotional (albeit tabloid press) perspective, there's a lot of bad feeling about the French veto on our membership of the European Common Market in '72, despite the part we had to play in their liberations during WW1 and WW2.
Just my $0.02 - shoot me down, any new perspectives welcome. Shit - just realised the flames I'm going to get from the French and Germans...:-)
I'm surprised that Diageo tried this after IBM got its wrists slapped for (albeit conventional) marketing graffiti. But I suppose that to a marketeer, any publicity is good publicity.
What exactly is "the point"? Your point? Not sure if you are the same Anonymous Coward as before.
Meaning that in most cases this stuff could be recreated in toto
But it won't be.
so it's a complete waste of money to put it in accomodation that people could use instead.
That's entirely another issue. Surely you could argue that about any museum?
Get some fucking perspective! I see the other guy expressing this opinion got a Flamebait almost instantly - well good for you, liberal fuckwad culture vultures.
I might be wrong, but in all probability I stopped caring about./ karma before you stumbled along here, and I'm not responsible for other peoples' moderation anyhow. And if you knew the slightest thing about me before slinging around your limp generalisations, you'd never consider calling me a Liberal.
Enjoy bullshitting to each other over a glass of chardonnay
I'm more of a Shiraz man, but my real passion is decent beer. Relevance?
I hope one day you find yourself down in the gutter looking at a computer museum you can't afford to enter, then maybe you'll find that perspective.
The vast majority of my local museums in London are free, so perhaps I'm spoiled. But best of luck finding a therapist who can address that monumental chip on your shoulder.
Who's to say that the rise of eBay and other commodity trading mechanisms won't preserve these machines?
As my post made clear, I was talking in the context of a couple of hundred years. Are you sure Ebay will be around then?
They'll just become more valuable, collected by geeks of private means.
And private collections have been such good news for public museums and galleries.
Eventually when they die they'll be bequeathed to museums, in a process we've seen over and over again with paintings and other works of art.
Many collectable works have found their way into galleries and museums via wealthy benefactors such as the Gettys' (no *nix reference implied) from equally wealthy private collectors. Better to stockpile the stuff on the cheap now, yeah? Just in case?
Why any government would seek to waste money on crap like this I don't know.
Perhaps you should open your eyes and see what crap your Government is REALLY wasting its money on. I say this with confidence, because it's an axiom wherever you live.
Were an actual museum in need of funds, it'd be a different story, but come on, these are just computers. I may be a nerd, but these are useless pieces of junk, any historical value of them can just as easily be served by photographs.
Bet you wouldn't say that about the artifacts in any "actual museum".
The bias is there because this is recent history. People might have felt the same way about Jacquard looms circa 1804 in the 1840's... but now they're of interest to schools, modern historians, Industrial Revolution enthusiasts, computer geeks etc.
Who's to say that the beginning of the Information Age won't be seen as an important period of history in a couple of hundred years time, and that these machines won't have a valid place in an "actual museum"?
Not quite so glamarous thinking about pissing yourself, is it? You would think with a $400m budget they could sort that out!
Given that the forces for even a gear change are described as "like being hit on the back of the head with a hammer", would you really want a plastic hose attached to your genitalia?:-)
That's the default broadcast feed, but there's a Pay Per View offering from the FIA offering all the data and car-cam shots you want (IIRC).
From what I've read, Formula 1 PPV has been a bit of a flop, so the "free" broadcasts seem to be getting better every year with better camera angles, etc.
Go back just ten years and you'd see how different the wheel is. Just a couple of buttons. Now it's like the flight deck of a fighter.
Yeah, but you could argue that some F1 cars were MORE "advanced" ten years ago or so. They had advanced traction and driver aids which were eventually banned, to put more emphasis on driver skill.
I remember a lot speculation ten years ago about the Williams which many claimed could "drive itself" with data streamed from the pit wall. Since then, of course, the aerodynamics have been revolutionised, and more and more horsepower is squeezed from the 3 litre V10 engines each season. But the current crop of F1 cars would be improved even further by things like computer controlled variable ride height (banned) and ground effect technology (pioneered in F1 by Lotus in '77). This probably won't happen due on the grounds of safety.
I'm ex military (australia) and the last thing you want or need is velcro on your uniform. Waiting quietly in an ambush, just need to carefully and slowly remove a pen from my pocket RRRRIIIIPPPPPPPPP
In London, at least, new laws mean that being caught with a knife on the streets carries a mandatory custodial sentence. The cops made a big effort publicising it a little while back. Don't know how strictly it's enforced.
Whatever nice life the French can have was bought and paid for in American blood. I dare you to deny it. Sprechen sie Deutsch?
And the blood of other nations before America got off the fence to help remove a problem threating the entire world. Reminder : it started in '39, not '42.
historically-ignorant commentary is a bit much to stomach.
Don't tempt me.
You mischaracterize the level of safety that your average Londoner feels in strolling about as versus your average New Yorker (I was just there! I know).
So you're comparing your experience as a tourist (London) to your experience as a resident (NY)? Smart.
I'm not certain what London laws are concerning carrying swords; don't you have to be in one of the guilds or something to get away with it? but if that's an option.....
If you decided to wave it around in a public place, you'd be shot at by an armed response unit as if you had a gun. Also considered a deadly weapon.
For the first - I'm probably just arguing about semantics. If Bill's trickery amounted to illegal deception, I would argue that Tim would have a valid claim against all derivative products. If not, QDOS would be legally Microsoft's. Either way, I didn't get how they "stole DOS". [Although I think there is a valid argument that Bill, via Tim, "lifted" some parts from Gary Kildall's CP/M]
For the second - if Xerox couldn't see a use for either a graphical OS or a mouse, why did they plough money into manufacturing and marketing the Xerox Star in '79, before Jobs brought out the Lisa?
They gave the PC to anyone who wanted to clone it.
IIRC, they wanted the basic components of the PC to be mass produced by anyone and therefore dirt cheap, but wanted to retain control of the architecture through the copyright they held on the BIOS.
Worked well until Compaq reverse engineered a legitimate version of the BIOS, and others like Phoenix followed.
(ps. A quick Google to check my memory reveals that a company called Columbia Data Products produced a clean room version of the BIOS shortly before Compaq in '82).
Slashdot Mirror
I think what we're getting at here is post-superpower syndrome. The French have, in their history, enjoyed a period of dominance - and their language and culture has found its way to many parts of the globe.
:-)
My feeling is that they now feel marginalised and impotent in world affairs (like the Germans who also dominate the EU), leading to their obsession with making the EU a dominant player geopolitically. I think that's the major factor in their stance on Iraq - you (USA) didn't involve them, and basically they (EU) feel snubbed, as they want to be as geopolitically dominant as you.
This makes sense to me, because I'm British. If it wasn't for the domination of our language (sorry guys, but it is - hence 'English') in the commercial world, and our close ties with the USA, I think we (the Brits) might feel the same. Close enough to a period of world influence to have the history, pomp and ceremony, commercial and political ties, material trappings and respect, but increasingly marginalised in world affairs, and dependent on our superbloc partnership (USA for us, EU for them) to feel that we still have a bearing on global affairs.
This basically explains the reluctance of ~ 50% (a VERY rough figure) of Brits who are suspicious of closer EU integration, because we basically have a foot in both camps (and our balance of trade shows this, although it's tipped towards non-EU trade). And from an emotional (albeit tabloid press) perspective, there's a lot of bad feeling about the French veto on our membership of the European Common Market in '72, despite the part we had to play in their liberations during WW1 and WW2.
Just my $0.02 - shoot me down, any new perspectives welcome.
Shit - just realised the flames I'm going to get from the French and Germans...
Oh FFS, anyone could toddle off to Yahoo Groups to create their "closed and proprietry" discussions instead.
Google provide a fantastic service and doesn't charge the majority of users a penny.
Jesus, what does it take to please you people?
Sir, I am intrigued by your views, but do not want to subscribe to your newsletter.
It should therefore be possible to have your iPod read you any text file you wish in a cool, monotone computer voice :)
:-)
Cool! I'll start with Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time"...
(-:
Tagging an illegible nickname on a wall beside a road is just. well. scrawling your name on something. Big Deal
:-/
...not the first thing that occurred to me when some little local miscreant chose my doorway....
I'm surprised that Diageo tried this after IBM got its wrists slapped for (albeit conventional) marketing graffiti. But I suppose that to a marketeer, any publicity is good publicity.
You almost, but not quite, grasp the point.
./ karma before you stumbled along here, and I'm not responsible for other peoples' moderation anyhow. And if you knew the slightest thing about me before slinging around your limp generalisations, you'd never consider calling me a Liberal.
What exactly is "the point"? Your point? Not sure if you are the same Anonymous Coward as before.
Meaning that in most cases this stuff could be recreated in toto
But it won't be.
so it's a complete waste of money to put it in accomodation that people could use instead.
That's entirely another issue. Surely you could argue that about any museum?
Get some fucking perspective! I see the other guy expressing this opinion got a Flamebait almost instantly - well good for you, liberal fuckwad culture vultures.
I might be wrong, but in all probability I stopped caring about
Enjoy bullshitting to each other over a glass of chardonnay
I'm more of a Shiraz man, but my real passion is decent beer. Relevance?
I hope one day you find yourself down in the gutter looking at a computer museum you can't afford to enter, then maybe you'll find that perspective.
The vast majority of my local museums in London are free, so perhaps I'm spoiled. But best of luck finding a therapist who can address that monumental chip on your shoulder.
Who's to say that the rise of eBay and other commodity trading mechanisms won't preserve these machines?
As my post made clear, I was talking in the context of a couple of hundred years. Are you sure Ebay will be around then?
They'll just become more valuable, collected by geeks of private means.
And private collections have been such good news for public museums and galleries.
Eventually when they die they'll be bequeathed to museums, in a process we've seen over and over again with paintings and other works of art.
Many collectable works have found their way into galleries and museums via wealthy benefactors such as the Gettys' (no *nix reference implied) from equally wealthy private collectors. Better to stockpile the stuff on the cheap now, yeah? Just in case?
Why any government would seek to waste money on crap like this I don't know.
Perhaps you should open your eyes and see what crap your Government is REALLY wasting its money on. I say this with confidence, because it's an axiom wherever you live.
Were an actual museum in need of funds, it'd be a different story, but come on, these are just computers. I may be a nerd, but these are useless pieces of junk, any historical value of them can just as easily be served by photographs.
Bet you wouldn't say that about the artifacts in any "actual museum".
The bias is there because this is recent history. People might have felt the same way about Jacquard looms circa 1804 in the 1840's... but now they're of interest to schools, modern historians, Industrial Revolution enthusiasts, computer geeks etc.
Who's to say that the beginning of the Information Age won't be seen as an important period of history in a couple of hundred years time, and that these machines won't have a valid place in an "actual museum"?
Not quite so glamarous thinking about pissing yourself, is it? You would think with a $400m budget they could sort that out!
:-)
Given that the forces for even a gear change are described as "like being hit on the back of the head with a hammer", would you really want a plastic hose attached to your genitalia?
That's the default broadcast feed, but there's a Pay Per View offering from the FIA offering all the data and car-cam shots you want (IIRC).
From what I've read, Formula 1 PPV has been a bit of a flop, so the "free" broadcasts seem to be getting better every year with better camera angles, etc.
Go back just ten years and you'd see how different the wheel is. Just a couple of buttons. Now it's like the flight deck of a fighter.
Yeah, but you could argue that some F1 cars were MORE "advanced" ten years ago or so. They had advanced traction and driver aids which were eventually banned, to put more emphasis on driver skill.
I remember a lot speculation ten years ago about the Williams which many claimed could "drive itself" with data streamed from the pit wall. Since then, of course, the aerodynamics have been revolutionised, and more and more horsepower is squeezed from the 3 litre V10 engines each season. But the current crop of F1 cars would be improved even further by things like computer controlled variable ride height (banned) and ground effect technology (pioneered in F1 by Lotus in '77). This probably won't happen due on the grounds of safety.
I'm ex military (australia) and the last thing you want or need is velcro on your uniform. Waiting quietly in an ambush, just need to carefully and slowly remove a pen from my pocket RRRRIIIIPPPPPPPPP
:-)
You ambush the enemy with just a pen?
You guys must be REALLY tough...
Howmany people know what VisiCalc was? How many people know what excel is? I'd say they succeeded.
Like a lot of great computer scivement, VisiCalc lacked good marketing.
It was flying off the shelves in its heydey.
Excel is ubiquitous (at least partially) because it is part of the de facto office suite, and preinstalled on so many machines.
my geek-gear is carried in the same gear-bag as my gun, ASP baton, handcuffs, etc.
I think you must be either a cop, or a security concious fetish freak...
Hmm... more like :
Me : Okee man, chi...
THUD.
In London, at least, new laws mean that being caught with a knife on the streets carries a mandatory custodial sentence. The cops made a big effort publicising it a little while back. Don't know how strictly it's enforced.
Whatever nice life the French can have was bought and paid for in American blood. I dare you to deny it. Sprechen sie Deutsch?
And the blood of other nations before America got off the fence to help remove a problem threating the entire world. Reminder : it started in '39, not '42.
historically-ignorant commentary is a bit much to stomach.
Don't tempt me.
You mischaracterize the level of safety that your average Londoner feels in strolling about as versus your average New Yorker (I was just there! I know).
So you're comparing your experience as a tourist (London) to your experience as a resident (NY)? Smart.
I'll have to assume you're aiming all of this at visitors who are unmistakeable as tourists...
I live, work, and (of course) socialise in central London, and your post seems like a huge generalisation.
You're still ahead on the generalisation stakes...
I'm not certain what London laws are concerning carrying swords; don't you have to be in one of the guilds or something to get away with it? but if that's an option.....
If you decided to wave it around in a public place, you'd be shot at by an armed response unit as if you had a gun. Also considered a deadly weapon.
Interesting points, thanks for the reply...
For the first - I'm probably just arguing about semantics. If Bill's trickery amounted to illegal deception, I would argue that Tim would have a valid claim against all derivative products. If not, QDOS would be legally Microsoft's. Either way, I didn't get how they "stole DOS". [Although I think there is a valid argument that Bill, via Tim, "lifted" some parts from Gary Kildall's CP/M]
For the second - if Xerox couldn't see a use for either a graphical OS or a mouse, why did they plough money into manufacturing and marketing the Xerox Star in '79, before Jobs brought out the Lisa?
We are talking about the same company that stole DOS
Um, bought the exclusive rights in 1981 to QDOS from Seattle Computer Products' Tim Patterson (who later went to work for Microsoft)
backcoded the Mac OS
Borrowed heavily from the look and feel, which had borrowed heavily from the work at Xerox PARC
I'm by no means a MS fanboy, but am I the only one worried about Slashdot memes becoming accepted "history"?
err... like a minute?!
They gave the PC to anyone who wanted to clone it.
IIRC, they wanted the basic components of the PC to be mass produced by anyone and therefore dirt cheap, but wanted to retain control of the architecture through the copyright they held on the BIOS.
Worked well until Compaq reverse engineered a legitimate version of the BIOS, and others like Phoenix followed.
(ps. A quick Google to check my memory reveals that a company called Columbia Data Products produced a clean room version of the BIOS shortly before Compaq in '82).