Yeah, thank God that the Washington Post wasn't able to publish that sensitive private information about the Watergate break-in which would have been terribly damaging to Nixon.
What private information? Nixon was fair game as a public official, and the Watergate crime was clearly a matter for the public record. Apple is a private entity, conducting legitimate business (development of products) with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality.
First of all, Apple can't violate the First Amendment, since it applies to Congress.
Second, this is about unauthorized publication of private information. Certainly nobody believes that "the press", in any of its traditional or more modern forms, has the unfettered freedom to publish private information, especially if the release of the information is potentially harmful to someone.
Consider the (admittedly imperfect) analogy of a blogger publishing your private medical information, or financial records. Nobody would claim that the first amendment extends to malicious release of private data.
A reasonable person might argue that a corporation is not entitled to the same protection as a an individual, and it is certainly the case that ThinkSecret's actions were not malicious (although they were arguably harmful). OK, we have the basis for a discussion, but not histrionics about a corporate evil empire trashing our constitutional rights.
I can't believe Forbes published that drivel. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple's actions are reasonable or constructive, but this was an inexcusably sloppy start.
And, oh, by the way, my pre-iPod MP3 player (a Creative Nomad II) is currently loaded with mostly iTunes-purchased songs. I guess I failed to notice the Apple-logo'd chains around my neck when I loaded it...
What TV shows did Neil Armstrong and Gene Kranz get inspired by to ACTUALLY GET TO THE MOON!?
In those days, people got their inspiration from things called "books" and sometimes "magazines". I refer you to Robert A. Heinlein and his contemporaries for examples. (Heinlein, for example, was memorialized in a ceremony at NASA shortly after his death.)
The worst that can happen is that the experiment doesn't work, and we've "spoiled" the planet for a better experiment that we don't think of until it's too late. Planets free to experiment on are in short supply these days.
Not that I'm going to lose sleep over this tonight...
[In response to:] Now the complaint from Microsoft users was that Apple required you to keep one hand on the keyboard.
Regrettably, though it does add charming symmetry to your fable, that was never a complaint from "Microsoft users" as far as I remember. Cite please?
One example is, regrettably, Dvorak's widely quoted review: The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things. But I'm speaking mainly from my experiences working for Lotus, where people were tightly focused on the PC experience, starting in late 1983; the merits of the mouse were widely debated as it appeared on the Mac and later showed up as first an optional, and later a standard, component of Windows installations. The absence of keyboard equivalents for all mousable actions was a parallel debate.
That isn't the point, is it? Some people who drive cars are comfortable riding bikes or walking; that doesn't mean walking, riding bikes and driving are equally capable means of transportation.
I prefer the analogy of standard and automatic transmissions. I drive a standard, and I'm encouraging my kids to learn. My wife can't be bothered, and she gets where she's going just as effectively as I do. I am more competent across a wider variety of vehicles and perhaps in a broader range of conditions (which is equally true on computers), but my advantages are meaningless with respect to her needs.
One-button apologia is sickening. Nothing that you've said matches anyone's experience in reality, even yours.
I don't know what amuses me more; that you're so confident that you understand my "experience in reality" better than I, or that somebody can get so angry that someone else doesn't share their preferences in trivial things.
When the Mac first came out, many people (typically Microsoft users) sneered at having a mouse at all because it required removing one hand from the keyboard.
Then Microsoft eventually adopted the mouse, and made the design decision they often do, that if one is good, more is better, and two-button mice became common. As GUI applications adopted contextual menus off the right mouse button, Apple adopted CMs via control-click. Now the complaint from Microsoft users was that Apple required you to keep one hand on the keyboard. (Assuming they didn't need two hands to use the mouse, I wonder what they needed the other hand for.)
One advantage to using the keyboard modifiers for the mouse clicks is that a meticulously designed application can provide visual clues about what will happen if a modified click is performed ahead of time. For example, when the Control key is down, Apple's Finder decorates the cursor with a small menu graphic to indicate the availability of the contextual menu.
Look, a user is not brain-damaged or deficient for not caring to remember the function of alternate mouse keys. A large number of users (probably 0% of the/. crowd) view the computer as an auxiliary device that's supposed to assist them at their Real Job while distracting them as little as possible with the need for special training and knowledge.
Even some of us who are power users and unafraid to learn non-intuitive gestures (I used to "fat-finger" bootstrap code into PDP-11 consoles using binary switches) are just as comfortable with a single-button mouse and alternative techniques to accelerate our work. It's neither better nor lamer; it's just another way of getting things done.
Finally, Apple is perfectly accommodating to those of you who prefer something other than what they offer as standard. If you prefer another mouse with 2, 4, or 7 buttons, the online store will sell you one, and the OS will support it. No, you won't get a credit for deleting the standard mouse (where offered), but last time I checked (three minutes ago), neither does Dell.
My problem with your example is that, as I understand it, new shares are not magically created when options are granted, so there is no "invisible" dilution of value; shares are issued (if necessary) and set aside for options by a vote of the shareholders. This is a explicit "dilution" event no different (in its effect on current shareholders) from new shares issued to raise capital.
So, unless I am wrong about my assumption that shares are only created and reserved for options explicitly by shareholder vote, I assert that there is no invisible dilution of value.
Now, I would expect a net expense to be recorded when an employee exercises his/her options, which means the company is now selling shares out of the option reserve for less than then-market value. This seems to be a more accurate measure of the ebb and flow of value.
As to the extent of exposure that current shareholders have to the stock price being influenced by option exercises, I put this in the same category of a company noting substantial holdings by single investors, which I see noted in quarterly reports all the time. I would have no issue with making the rules for reporting outstanding option obligations clearly, but this strikes me as more realistic than recording an expense at a point in time when nothing is really changing hands.
In the past, companies could issue stock options to employees essentially at no cost to themselves. This would tend to understate employment costs, making them look more profitable than they really were. In addition, the exercise of these options would dilute the value of the stock held by shareholders.
Except that a stock option is not really a "cost"; it does not deplete the company's assets to issue them. If any dilution occurs, it is when shares are issued and/or set aside for the purpose of issuing stock options, and, as I understand it, this is something the shareholders have to explicitly approve and is therefore duly noted in the company's financial records.
Now they have to expense them using "fair value", which is what an investor would currently pay for an equivalent option. This, in theory, will more effectively represent employment costs.
My only problem with this is that, as the FAQ points out, there is not really an exact equivalent available to the general investor. Which means the calculation of the "value" of an option is something of a fiction, which is not accounting as I thought I understood it (and I never thought I did...).
I would have considered it more accurate to regulate how shares that are set aside for options are accounted for. If I'm worried about options, I would be able to figure out how vulnerable the stock price is to sudden shifts in ownership due to option exercises, just like I can figure that out based on company reporting of large blocks of outright ownership.
Maybe it has something to do with the Power Chip Alliance they announced the other day?
My thinking exactly. Cut loose the standard now dictated by Microsoft anyway, and establish a new one around Power and Linux. IBM could define a new generation of personal computer that complements its server line better than Windows and still, hopefully, embraces open standards and put the world on a better interoperative (sic), *nix-based footing. Leaving Microsoft out in the cold would just be a (sweet) side bonus.
A Power/Linux offering would appear to be direct competition for Apple, but I suspect they'd retain (or strengthen) their consumer niche if the business world shifted toward Linux, especially on the Power architecture.
Delayed help would probably work out. Leave your mouse over the grayed out option for more than 2-3 seconds and a little "click here to find out why this has been disabled" could be useful.
Apple's "balloon help", introduced in (Mac OS) System 7, IIRC, had a provision for the equivalent of a tooltip on every menu item, with an additional annotation to explain why the menu item is dimmed (if it is). Thus, if implemented completely, "Print" would normally be annotated with "Print the current document", and, when disabled, would be something like "Print the current document; the item is not enabled because no document is open".
Balloon help had a lot of flaws that could have and should have been quickly corrected, the principle one being that balloons/tooltips were typically always on or always off, and required a preference setting to toggle the state. But the need to communicate the reason for disabled items was identified and provided for, and might have even been generally utilized if balloon help hadn't developed a bad reputation so quickly.
If we're going to strip mine the moon, might as well extract iron, aluminum, and any other available metals and build the damn thing on the spot for a one-way trip to Earth.
In Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, he postulates lunar catapults launching containers equipped with only maneuvering thrusters to deliver grain grown on the moon to earth orbit. Same principle could be applied here.
Of course, in the book, when the loonies get mad at earth (for depleting their natural resources), they load up the containers with rock and use them as kinetic weapons. If the payload is already an energy source, it'll be that much less work for them...
The purchase of NeXT was far more a purchase of Jobs than it was of the actual technology.
Given how close they came to acquiring BeOS (and Gassee) instead of NeXT/Jobs, plus how much of NeXTStep ended up in OS X and the role Tevanian was given, I think the purchase was about a lot more that Steve. (And that's a lot...)
System7 was supposed to be the last non-memory protected, cooperative multitasking MacOS, but then they released 8 and 9 while their new projects floundered.
Nostalgia trip: I still have T-shirts and coffee mugs promoting the OS "8" that Copland was supposed to be released as...
f the only applictaion is high performance aircraft (Air Force Fighters) why isn't it being developed by DARPA, leaving NASAs (much smaller) budget for projects that might actually benefit space exploration?
Well, NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration; this is well within the original (1915) charter of the organization, which was called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) before space exploration was added to their role along with the name change in 1958.
Besides, this project is in the tradition of the X-1 thru the X-15, all NASA projects, IIRC. NASA drives the research, but it's private industry (Lockheed, Douglas-Martin, Boeing) that figures out how to build 'em, and we end up riding in better airliners, eventually.
If they were to start off with a new design they could apply modern techniques/materials to create a lighter, stronger, more reliable system (i.e. a carbon monocot frame, carbon heat shield skin, computers that have more than 640k of ram, etc)
Yeah, but they should probably re-think the mission requirements, too. The shuttle had too many mission requirements for one vehicle; it had to bring reasonably large crews (seven people) to orbit and back, deliver relatively large payloads to orbit, and, by the way, be able to bring fairly large payloads (although not as large) from orbit back to earth. And they had to invent much of the technology to do it. And, unlike Mercury/Gemini/Apollo, they didn't have the budget to investigate every alternative technology as exhaustively as they would have liked to.
NASA had hoped that the shuttle would become the DC-3 of space travel, but, surprise, the first effort was more like the DC-1; in retrospect, not a big surprise. But, in spite of all the hindsight, a big accomplishment.
We have learned a lot about operating in space through operating the shuttle, and it is time to apply those lessons -- positive and negative -- with a relatively clean slate.
And I like your response to those who say "You can always buy a multi-button mouse". Yea. I have a Logitech USB scrollwheel mouse that I use, but why did I have to buy one??? Why didn't I just GET one that came with my Mac?
Maybe because once you start caring about what you get for a mouse, you're better off choosing the one you really like. Presumably you chose your Logitech mouse because it had a balance of features and price that suited you.
In my experience, people with a strong preference in mice have some bias about what they want to see in a mouse: right- or left-hand contoured, extra buttons, etc. Rarely do those people use the mouse that their machine shipped with.
Apple could undoubtedly build a two button mouse (or scroll wheel mouse, or a trackball, or...) that would win design awards, but it would almost certainly still be rejected by a large percentage of those who have a strong preference, as well as by those (such as my wife) who perceive the second mouse button as superfluous for their simple needs. I doubt that a product line of mouse options would generate much in the way of gross margin, and that market is very nicely served by third parties.
As a Mac user, I'm annoyed that I have to "Option-Click", "Control-Click" and "Command-Click" --- i.e. make motions which require two hands...
This observation always slays me. Back in 1984, MS-DOS users derided the mouse because it required them to take one hand off the keyboard. Now the rap against the one button mouse is that it requires you to leave one hand on the keyboard.
Hell, this episode may well have helped Bush; he's somewhat inoculated against any further abuse from this story because it now looks like a vast, left-wing conspiracy...
Back in the 80's, I worked for Lotus, and we heard much about how much many of our customers had invested in spreadsheet models implemented in 1-2-3. I saw it myself, when I provided some assistance to our town accountant in submitting a report to the state that was to be filled out using a 1-2-3 template.
Through some combination of Lotus mis-steps and Microsoft strategy, Microsoft was able to wean the market off their dependence on 1-2-3. OpenOffice is a good start (not quite there yet) in providing part of the alternative.
Some people have suggested that the Linux platform needs to do more than just mimic Windows applications to offer a compelling reason for people to switch. I agree. But OpenOffice is a necessary, if not sufficient, element in making it a viable alternative.
It sounds like it is software that translates one machine language to another? Pretty sweet idea!
There was a translation solution in place back in the early 90's: Apple was working with a company called Echo Logic (probably not in existence today; please don't/. the logical URL!), a spin-off of Bell Labs, that could convert 68K binaries to PowerPC as an approach to migration to PowerPC.
I worked with them for a while to see if we could port our application (which would have required tons of work to re-compile for PowerPC); the technology was impressive, but aspects of our code gave it fits (trap patching, and dispatch tables that were effective self-modifying code).
The EL technology identified code blocks in the binary, built an intermediate representation of all the effects of each code block, and translated it back to binaries in the target architecture. Theoretically feasible, but computationally very expensive. In some test cases, the translated code was in fact more efficient from the original, because the software was able to detect unused output of a code block, and re-code the block to eliminate the unused "side-effects."
Ten+ years later, maybe somebody has more of the gnarly problems worked out. But I would bet there are issues that can't be solved with technology; i.e., the binary software on the "source" system. Presumably you can find and translate the system binaries to build a translated app, but wouldn't this constitute "reverse engineering" that most software licenses prohibit?
A lot of posters have missed the point that it's not about forcing a 50/50 balance; it's an observation that computer science is lagging behind other "traditionally male" fields in terms of percentage of women. That's a curious phenomenon, IMHO, because (in my experience) computer/software organizations tend to be younger, with less "baggage" carried over from to 50's. But the evidence suggests that women are less comfortable settling into such companies.
I attended a fairly highly regarded engineering school in the 70's, which had started admitting women only a few years before and where women represented only 10% of the student body. One thing my female friends consistently cited as a factor making the school uncomfortable was the fact that there was never the ability to choose when be noticed vs. fading into anonymity; for example, they were always the woman in the class, and their presence or absence was always noticed. In short, they lost the ability to control their "presence" which we all usually take for granted.
I suspect that it is possible to try too hard to attract women (or any demographic group, for that matter) and consequently make the situation uncomfortable simply because it becomes the center of sometimes unwanted, even if well-intentioned, attention. Which is not to say that it is not worthwhile to figure out what the negative factors in the environment are and try to remove them.
...you flip yourself around so that the sail is pointing towards the destination, and you use the radiation pressure from that star to kill your velocity.
Another option is to use gravitational effects; i.e., the same "slingshot effect" used to boost Galileo to Saturn. IANARS, but I'm pretty sure the same principle can be applied to kill off velocity. (Takes a long time, but what's a couple of years after an interstellar voyage?)
There's also aerobraking, if you know there's a planet with an atmosphere available. Although I'm not sure I'd want to kill off that much speed with friction. Ouch.
All of this assumes a awfully fine degree of maneuvering precision using just a sail. It's hard enough with sailboats on water, and they have the benefit of a rudder and keel. I suspect some kind of reaction-based propulsion system (ion drive?) would be desirable for the end game.
Here's one more cancer survivor who believes that humor can be a healthy coping strategy.
For the record, my kids were 14 and 12 when I had surgery and started chemo. My son (the 12-year-old) and I had a running joke about some of my methods for dealing with chemo (it's a too long story), and I value those laughs more than anything in the world.
I appreciate that humor is not called for in the case of a child with cancer -- and I extend my best wishes to your nephew -- but I'm fairly confident that Steve and his family would not be offended by the humor here, especially considering the source.;-)
I have an iPod, and have over a week's worth of music on it, all in MP3 format. Any device or program that can spit out MP3s is compatible with the iPod. There is no lock in.
...and I have a Creative Labs NOMAD II MP3 player (flash-based), that I load from iTunes. The iPod is not the only player you can use with iTunes.
Yes, I do have to stand on my head to convert purchased (DRM'd) songs to MP3, but I am not locked out. Or in. Whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
What private information? Nixon was fair game as a public official, and the Watergate crime was clearly a matter for the public record. Apple is a private entity, conducting legitimate business (development of products) with a reasonable expectation of confidentiality.
Second, this is about unauthorized publication of private information. Certainly nobody believes that "the press", in any of its traditional or more modern forms, has the unfettered freedom to publish private information, especially if the release of the information is potentially harmful to someone.
Consider the (admittedly imperfect) analogy of a blogger publishing your private medical information, or financial records. Nobody would claim that the first amendment extends to malicious release of private data.
A reasonable person might argue that a corporation is not entitled to the same protection as a an individual, and it is certainly the case that ThinkSecret's actions were not malicious (although they were arguably harmful). OK, we have the basis for a discussion, but not histrionics about a corporate evil empire trashing our constitutional rights.
I can't believe Forbes published that drivel. Reasonable people can disagree about whether Apple's actions are reasonable or constructive, but this was an inexcusably sloppy start.
And, oh, by the way, my pre-iPod MP3 player (a Creative Nomad II) is currently loaded with mostly iTunes-purchased songs. I guess I failed to notice the Apple-logo'd chains around my neck when I loaded it...
In those days, people got their inspiration from things called "books" and sometimes "magazines". I refer you to Robert A. Heinlein and his contemporaries for examples. (Heinlein, for example, was memorialized in a ceremony at NASA shortly after his death.)
The worst that can happen is that the experiment doesn't work, and we've "spoiled" the planet for a better experiment that we don't think of until it's too late. Planets free to experiment on are in short supply these days.
Not that I'm going to lose sleep over this tonight...
may I ask if you've completed high school yet?
Yes, as well as a BS and MS in Computer Science (the last of those conferred 18 years ago this month).
Regrettably, though it does add charming symmetry to your fable, that was never a complaint from "Microsoft users" as far as I remember. Cite please?
One example is, regrettably, Dvorak's widely quoted review: The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things. But I'm speaking mainly from my experiences working for Lotus, where people were tightly focused on the PC experience, starting in late 1983; the merits of the mouse were widely debated as it appeared on the Mac and later showed up as first an optional, and later a standard, component of Windows installations. The absence of keyboard equivalents for all mousable actions was a parallel debate.
That isn't the point, is it? Some people who drive cars are comfortable riding bikes or walking; that doesn't mean walking, riding bikes and driving are equally capable means of transportation. I prefer the analogy of standard and automatic transmissions. I drive a standard, and I'm encouraging my kids to learn. My wife can't be bothered, and she gets where she's going just as effectively as I do. I am more competent across a wider variety of vehicles and perhaps in a broader range of conditions (which is equally true on computers), but my advantages are meaningless with respect to her needs.
One-button apologia is sickening. Nothing that you've said matches anyone's experience in reality, even yours.
I don't know what amuses me more; that you're so confident that you understand my "experience in reality" better than I, or that somebody can get so angry that someone else doesn't share their preferences in trivial things.
Then Microsoft eventually adopted the mouse, and made the design decision they often do, that if one is good, more is better, and two-button mice became common. As GUI applications adopted contextual menus off the right mouse button, Apple adopted CMs via control-click. Now the complaint from Microsoft users was that Apple required you to keep one hand on the keyboard. (Assuming they didn't need two hands to use the mouse, I wonder what they needed the other hand for.)
One advantage to using the keyboard modifiers for the mouse clicks is that a meticulously designed application can provide visual clues about what will happen if a modified click is performed ahead of time. For example, when the Control key is down, Apple's Finder decorates the cursor with a small menu graphic to indicate the availability of the contextual menu.
Look, a user is not brain-damaged or deficient for not caring to remember the function of alternate mouse keys. A large number of users (probably 0% of the /. crowd) view the computer as an auxiliary device that's supposed to assist them at their Real Job while distracting them as little as possible with the need for special training and knowledge.
Even some of us who are power users and unafraid to learn non-intuitive gestures (I used to "fat-finger" bootstrap code into PDP-11 consoles using binary switches) are just as comfortable with a single-button mouse and alternative techniques to accelerate our work. It's neither better nor lamer; it's just another way of getting things done.
Finally, Apple is perfectly accommodating to those of you who prefer something other than what they offer as standard. If you prefer another mouse with 2, 4, or 7 buttons, the online store will sell you one, and the OS will support it. No, you won't get a credit for deleting the standard mouse (where offered), but last time I checked (three minutes ago), neither does Dell.
So, unless I am wrong about my assumption that shares are only created and reserved for options explicitly by shareholder vote, I assert that there is no invisible dilution of value.
Now, I would expect a net expense to be recorded when an employee exercises his/her options, which means the company is now selling shares out of the option reserve for less than then-market value. This seems to be a more accurate measure of the ebb and flow of value.
As to the extent of exposure that current shareholders have to the stock price being influenced by option exercises, I put this in the same category of a company noting substantial holdings by single investors, which I see noted in quarterly reports all the time. I would have no issue with making the rules for reporting outstanding option obligations clearly, but this strikes me as more realistic than recording an expense at a point in time when nothing is really changing hands.
Except that a stock option is not really a "cost"; it does not deplete the company's assets to issue them. If any dilution occurs, it is when shares are issued and/or set aside for the purpose of issuing stock options, and, as I understand it, this is something the shareholders have to explicitly approve and is therefore duly noted in the company's financial records.
Now they have to expense them using "fair value", which is what an investor would currently pay for an equivalent option. This, in theory, will more effectively represent employment costs.
My only problem with this is that, as the FAQ points out, there is not really an exact equivalent available to the general investor. Which means the calculation of the "value" of an option is something of a fiction, which is not accounting as I thought I understood it (and I never thought I did...).
I would have considered it more accurate to regulate how shares that are set aside for options are accounted for. If I'm worried about options, I would be able to figure out how vulnerable the stock price is to sudden shifts in ownership due to option exercises, just like I can figure that out based on company reporting of large blocks of outright ownership.
My thinking exactly. Cut loose the standard now dictated by Microsoft anyway, and establish a new one around Power and Linux. IBM could define a new generation of personal computer that complements its server line better than Windows and still, hopefully, embraces open standards and put the world on a better interoperative (sic), *nix-based footing. Leaving Microsoft out in the cold would just be a (sweet) side bonus.
A Power/Linux offering would appear to be direct competition for Apple, but I suspect they'd retain (or strengthen) their consumer niche if the business world shifted toward Linux, especially on the Power architecture.
I used to track my stock options, but I guess I'll have to find something that pays now...
Apple's "balloon help", introduced in (Mac OS) System 7, IIRC, had a provision for the equivalent of a tooltip on every menu item, with an additional annotation to explain why the menu item is dimmed (if it is). Thus, if implemented completely, "Print" would normally be annotated with "Print the current document", and, when disabled, would be something like "Print the current document; the item is not enabled because no document is open".
Balloon help had a lot of flaws that could have and should have been quickly corrected, the principle one being that balloons/tooltips were typically always on or always off, and required a preference setting to toggle the state. But the need to communicate the reason for disabled items was identified and provided for, and might have even been generally utilized if balloon help hadn't developed a bad reputation so quickly.
In Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, he postulates lunar catapults launching containers equipped with only maneuvering thrusters to deliver grain grown on the moon to earth orbit. Same principle could be applied here.
Of course, in the book, when the loonies get mad at earth (for depleting their natural resources), they load up the containers with rock and use them as kinetic weapons. If the payload is already an energy source, it'll be that much less work for them...
Given how close they came to acquiring BeOS (and Gassee) instead of NeXT/Jobs, plus how much of NeXTStep ended up in OS X and the role Tevanian was given, I think the purchase was about a lot more that Steve. (And that's a lot...)
System7 was supposed to be the last non-memory protected, cooperative multitasking MacOS, but then they released 8 and 9 while their new projects floundered.
Nostalgia trip: I still have T-shirts and coffee mugs promoting the OS "8" that Copland was supposed to be released as...
Well, NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration; this is well within the original (1915) charter of the organization, which was called the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) before space exploration was added to their role along with the name change in 1958.
Besides, this project is in the tradition of the X-1 thru the X-15, all NASA projects, IIRC. NASA drives the research, but it's private industry (Lockheed, Douglas-Martin, Boeing) that figures out how to build 'em, and we end up riding in better airliners, eventually.
Yeah, but they should probably re-think the mission requirements, too. The shuttle had too many mission requirements for one vehicle; it had to bring reasonably large crews (seven people) to orbit and back, deliver relatively large payloads to orbit, and, by the way, be able to bring fairly large payloads (although not as large) from orbit back to earth. And they had to invent much of the technology to do it. And, unlike Mercury/Gemini/Apollo, they didn't have the budget to investigate every alternative technology as exhaustively as they would have liked to.
NASA had hoped that the shuttle would become the DC-3 of space travel, but, surprise, the first effort was more like the DC-1; in retrospect, not a big surprise. But, in spite of all the hindsight, a big accomplishment.
We have learned a lot about operating in space through operating the shuttle, and it is time to apply those lessons -- positive and negative -- with a relatively clean slate.
Maybe because once you start caring about what you get for a mouse, you're better off choosing the one you really like. Presumably you chose your Logitech mouse because it had a balance of features and price that suited you.
In my experience, people with a strong preference in mice have some bias about what they want to see in a mouse: right- or left-hand contoured, extra buttons, etc. Rarely do those people use the mouse that their machine shipped with.
Apple could undoubtedly build a two button mouse (or scroll wheel mouse, or a trackball, or...) that would win design awards, but it would almost certainly still be rejected by a large percentage of those who have a strong preference, as well as by those (such as my wife) who perceive the second mouse button as superfluous for their simple needs. I doubt that a product line of mouse options would generate much in the way of gross margin, and that market is very nicely served by third parties.
As a Mac user, I'm annoyed that I have to "Option-Click", "Control-Click" and "Command-Click" --- i.e. make motions which require two hands...
This observation always slays me. Back in 1984, MS-DOS users derided the mouse because it required them to take one hand off the keyboard. Now the rap against the one button mouse is that it requires you to leave one hand on the keyboard.
Hell, this episode may well have helped Bush; he's somewhat inoculated against any further abuse from this story because it now looks like a vast, left-wing conspiracy...
Through some combination of Lotus mis-steps and Microsoft strategy, Microsoft was able to wean the market off their dependence on 1-2-3. OpenOffice is a good start (not quite there yet) in providing part of the alternative.
Some people have suggested that the Linux platform needs to do more than just mimic Windows applications to offer a compelling reason for people to switch. I agree. But OpenOffice is a necessary, if not sufficient, element in making it a viable alternative.
There was a translation solution in place back in the early 90's: Apple was working with a company called Echo Logic (probably not in existence today; please don't /. the logical URL!), a spin-off of Bell Labs, that could convert 68K binaries to PowerPC as an approach to migration to PowerPC.
I worked with them for a while to see if we could port our application (which would have required tons of work to re-compile for PowerPC); the technology was impressive, but aspects of our code gave it fits (trap patching, and dispatch tables that were effective self-modifying code).
The EL technology identified code blocks in the binary, built an intermediate representation of all the effects of each code block, and translated it back to binaries in the target architecture. Theoretically feasible, but computationally very expensive. In some test cases, the translated code was in fact more efficient from the original, because the software was able to detect unused output of a code block, and re-code the block to eliminate the unused "side-effects."
Ten+ years later, maybe somebody has more of the gnarly problems worked out. But I would bet there are issues that can't be solved with technology; i.e., the binary software on the "source" system. Presumably you can find and translate the system binaries to build a translated app, but wouldn't this constitute "reverse engineering" that most software licenses prohibit?
I attended a fairly highly regarded engineering school in the 70's, which had started admitting women only a few years before and where women represented only 10% of the student body. One thing my female friends consistently cited as a factor making the school uncomfortable was the fact that there was never the ability to choose when be noticed vs. fading into anonymity; for example, they were always the woman in the class, and their presence or absence was always noticed. In short, they lost the ability to control their "presence" which we all usually take for granted.
I suspect that it is possible to try too hard to attract women (or any demographic group, for that matter) and consequently make the situation uncomfortable simply because it becomes the center of sometimes unwanted, even if well-intentioned, attention. Which is not to say that it is not worthwhile to figure out what the negative factors in the environment are and try to remove them.
Another option is to use gravitational effects; i.e., the same "slingshot effect" used to boost Galileo to Saturn. IANARS, but I'm pretty sure the same principle can be applied to kill off velocity. (Takes a long time, but what's a couple of years after an interstellar voyage?)
There's also aerobraking, if you know there's a planet with an atmosphere available. Although I'm not sure I'd want to kill off that much speed with friction. Ouch.
All of this assumes a awfully fine degree of maneuvering precision using just a sail. It's hard enough with sailboats on water, and they have the benefit of a rudder and keel. I suspect some kind of reaction-based propulsion system (ion drive?) would be desirable for the end game.
For the record, my kids were 14 and 12 when I had surgery and started chemo. My son (the 12-year-old) and I had a running joke about some of my methods for dealing with chemo (it's a too long story), and I value those laughs more than anything in the world.
I appreciate that humor is not called for in the case of a child with cancer -- and I extend my best wishes to your nephew -- but I'm fairly confident that Steve and his family would not be offended by the humor here, especially considering the source. ;-)
Yes, AC, and I also understand that there's a world of difference between the circumstances and that I need have no fear of being sued.
Yes, I do have to stand on my head to convert purchased (DRM'd) songs to MP3, but I am not locked out. Or in. Whatever.