A parallel is saying "I'm American" - While not technically correct, this is understood in the vernacular to mean "I'm a citizen of the United States." Canadians like me have to say "I'm Canadian" even though I live in the Americas. It's the understood vernacular.
A well kept secret is how many Canadians like you have immigrated to America... Maybe we should start a swap program - say 1 Canadian for 2 Americans? You still have a lot a of space...
Oh, yes, and if the cell isn't defective, laptop-style Lithium ion batteries shouldn't experience thermal runaway until somewhere in the 250-300 degree Fahrenheit range. Even a sealed automobile in 125 degree outdoor heat won't get much hotter than about 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Put simply, unless the battery is being charged at the time, a non-defective Lithium ion cell should never explode unless you toss it in an oven.
The problem being is ensuring all the cells are not defective. In the absence of that; taking precautions when loading them into aircraft, where failure can have undesirable side effects, is prudent.
As I pointed out, the contractor insisted the weapon system they developed was fine, for example:
With the September 2007 winter trials, the Indian army deemed Arjun's performance unsatisfactory, including at least four engine failures.[46] DRDO, on the other hand, insisted the tank was a viable choice for adoption and suggested the unsatisfactory performance of the engine during the winter trials was due to sabotage.
Interestingly enough, the Indian Army decided they wanted T-90's:
Subsequently in September 2008, the Indian Army signed a deal with Russia to import 347 T-90 tanks and license build a further 1000. Transfer of key T-90 technologies has also been agreed upon as a part of the deal.
I don't know if export T-90s are the same as Russian Army versions, even so the MOD PR qouted in wiki makes no statement about beating the T-90's:
After many years of trial and tribulation it has now proved its worth by its superb performance under various circumstances, such as driving cross-country over rugged sand dunes, detecting, observing and quickly engaging targets, accurately hitting targets – both stationary and moving, with pin pointed accuracy. Its superior fire-power is based on accurate and quick target acquisition capability during day and night in all types of weather and shortest possible reaction time during combat engagements.
It goes on to say they Indian decided not stop production of the Arjun and instead build a variant of the T-90. All in all it looks like a typical defence procurement game, which is not limited to any one country - contractor builds item, military says it doesn't work; eventually the government decides it really does work and buys them in enough quantity to keep their buds in business happy. Same game, different location.
Arjun MBT is one of the finest tanks in our part of the world. The problem with its development is not because of just DRDO. It has to do with the govt policy, the army constantly changing its requirements and finally the penetration of Russian arms agents in the Ministry of Defense. All these factors have delayed the induction of a tank that kicked Russian T-90s in every environment that the Indian Army fights in. The comparative field trials of the Indian Army a few months ago showed Arjun MBT has consistently performed better than T-90. So, DRDO came out with a better tank that Russians who have decades of tank-building experience.
The real question is:"Who ran these tests?" In my experience, I have never seen a military or defence contractor (from any nation) run test that did end up with "Hooray for our side. We won."
In general, someone who says "Wait a minute. Things aren't as good as they seem" generally gets marginalized and run out of town. See Boyd, John.
How hot are we talking about? The safe maximum operating temperature for discharging a Lithium ion battery is typically 140 degrees Fahrenheit. There's no place on Earth that gets that hot naturally....
Other than, say, the interior of a car in the sun...
So, when I get an email with a link to www.Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.de, should I avoid clicking the link, or what?
No, just think about what you are having for dinner and be sure you prepare and eat it within the rules.
In what universe? Yes, you can sell it but then you no longer own it. Unless it's stolen or you sell it or it rots away you can pass it down to your descendants forever.
Copyrights, patents, and and leases run out. Property rights do not.
Sure they can. Having a property right does not imply any period of ownership.
Actually a renter does not have exclusive rights to the property;
It depends on his contract with the landlord. With content creators' contract with "we, the people", you don't own a copyright, you hold a copyright.
"We, the people" also limit the rights of the property owner and tenant through contract and other law; just as in copyright law.
If you own something it's yours forever unless you lose it, sell it, or are robbed. If you have a limited time monopoly you have no ownership rights, only a limited time control.
Ownership does not imply owning it forever, but merely the ability to exert control over the property, whether it's tangible like an apartment or intangible like a copyright. In both cases, you can sell it, rent it, let is sit fallow - as the owner of the property it's your choice.
All that means is that copyright can cover things which are technology.
That does not mean it spurs technological advancement.
You can copyright your code all you want but without patents on any inventions or innovations in it I'm free to re-create it with my own code and own style.
Saying copyright has anything to do with tecnological advancement is simply wrong.
If your view is only those things which cannot be replicated due to patent protections are driving technological improvement I think you are sadly mistaken.
Your statement concerning copyrighted material
I'm free to re-create it with my own code and own style
supports my contention - someone can look at a copyrighted work, improve on it and drive technological advancement. Hardware and software are both technology, and as such both spur technological improvement; as you have admitted in your argument.
Again, "exclusive right" does NOT mean ownership. A renter has exclusive rights to his apartment, a "property right", but he doesn't own it. Neither do I own the works covered by my copyrights. The people own it, I just rent it; the rent paid is my effort in creating it, but I'm still renting.
Actually a renter does not have exclusive rights to the property; the owner does, just as an owner of a copyright does.
Problem with warrior leaders is they live for the war. Any and all situation will be an call to arms, especially against "an axis of evil".
Tell such a man of an intrusion, and he will go into fits and bouts.
Actually, my experience is that warriors are the last to want to go to war; after all it's their blood that is shed. Warriors realize that war is a messy business with uncertain outcomes and difficult to stop once started; so a peaceful solution is much better.
I'm not sure what your "history lesson" points out.
I might think that a warrior, who has to learn or die, learns at a quicker pace than most people, and is more adept at problem solving.
Bullshit. Sad but true, soldiers are taught two contradictory things: "return fire" and "follow the Rules of Engagement." This leads to all sorts of trouble, especially since the "Rules of Engagement" for Iraq and Afghanistan are thicker than a copy of Tolstoy's War And Peace in 10-point font.
Actually, they aren't contradictory; one defines when you can do the other; and you are over-simplifying the situation. The military has leaders who guide actions and troops that do things.
Add to that the fact that this is not a front-line duty. They're not going to be sitting there personally shot if they don't get something right. What's needed is specialists adept at detecting network intrusion, checking over the logfiles, ensuring that there aren't holes in security in the first place. This isn't reflex action, this is deliberative effort.
The key point is, as with any situation, you need someone who identifies what is happening (the geek grunts) and someone who can put it into context (the warrior leaders). In this situation, the geeks are doing the grunt work and leaders deciding interpreting what has happened and deciding what to do next; as in any military situation.
Working near nuclear missiles doesn't expose you to higher levels of radiation.
That depends on how near to which parts of them.
For example, you are actually exposed to less radiation while onboard a US nuclear sub than you would receive on the surface.
That's true - so long as you don't spend any time near the reactor compartment or any nuclear weapons that may be onboard. </neitherconfirmnordeny>
Why yes, I *am* a former SSBN crewman - why do you ask?
If you take prototype readings as a proxy for normal ops you probably do get less; since we subtracted background from our TLD readings which resulted in almost zero exposure; since the boat would lack normal background readings and our exposures were extremely low it's not unreasonable to think background would be greater than operational exposure. Of course, teh artilce just confirms teh opinion that most USAF types are crazy anyway - who wants to live in an fixed concrete silo when you could go to sea instead?
It is most certainly NOT their property, at least not in the US. They have a "limited time" monopoly on its use, just like a renter has a limited time monopoly on "his" house. The renter doeesn't own his house, and the copyright holder doesn't own the creative work. IP is owned by the public, not the "content creators".
I say this as a holder of two registered copyrights, and uncounted unregistered ones. Read Article 2, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which grants congress the power to pass copyright and patent legislation.
You do NOT own the books or software you write. Nobody does, and everybody does.
Sure you do - (except in the sense you don't own the physical copy someone buys) - since you can exercise control over how it is used; even if it is for a limited period. Limiting the period does not make it any less a property you own. As for the US Constitution, it only requires a limited period without defining what that period is, and gives the author the exclusive rights in their writings; i.e. a property right. The Congress could give them rights for a million years or one day without changing their ownership of that property.
Copyright has sweet fuck all to do with technological advancement.
That's patents you're thinking of which are a completely different thing which for some reason people love to mix together with copyright and trademark law and pretend they're all the same thing or even more than vaguely related in any way other than being about intangible imaginary things.
Copyright certainly has a significant role in technological advancement - unless you believe software has no impact on technology. Without software hardware is pretty much useless; and most software is protected by copyright. Patents play a significant role as well but to say copyright doesn't is simply wrong.
the industry shills who come to slashdot equating copyright infringemet to theft and terrorism with their "think of the artists" and "it's MY property" twisted logic.
It is their property and they have a right to decide how it can be used; the same law that protects them protects the GPL. While you and I may not like the copyright suits and how they are used; property rights play an important role in technological advancement.
Actually, a one time pad would be no more effective than any other randomly generated set of keys. A one time pad is effective because you are coding a message that has no real clues to its content; with an unlock code you know you need to generate an x digit value that matches the one in the chip. Brute force would work; it's just a question of how long would it take. Intel could make it hard by varying the number of digits so that a brute force attack might take longer than the chip's useful life. By randomly assigning codes, rather than use an algorithm to generate them, is what makes it harder to pirate.Even if you knew what went into generating the codes and their makeup (length, use of special characters, etc.) it's the matching of the unique set that makes it hard.
Of course, in the end this is just a way to make more profits - companies sell machines at price points and feel that they make more money selling X machines at P1 and Y machines at P2 (where P2 has a faster chip) than they would selling X+Y at P1 with a faster chip. Intel could have simply delivered the chips and not offer an upgrade at retail; but they're trying to see if some group of Z customers will decide to upgrade and if it's worth the cost of selling upgrades. The danger is customers may decide to buy a lower priced machine and upgrade rather than the more expensive machine (assuming equal features in both otherwise) making the upgrade price the max price differential you can charge. You may see companies simply sell a base machine plus upgrade codes in the future - lowering their costs because they only need one base machine MB+chip for a wider range of performance.
Not sure how much snark is in your post, so apologies if this is a whoosh.
The goal here is to *save* money. You can buy a decent PC (and servers) with all the Microsoft licenses for less than the Mac hardware alone.
While there was a small amount of snark; the ease of setting up an OSX network and maintaining it compared to others makes up for lot of the initial cost. There is a value to not worrying if things will work, as a small business owner I am willing to pay a bit more upfront for less headaches later.
As for costs, quality PC's are not all that cheaper than Macs. Tech support is another plus - I've had a lot better support from Apple than Dell. At least Apple's first suggestion isn't to reformat the hard drive.
I will admit I also like being a bit different from others; so using a Mac is one way to stick out and be remembered.
As a side note, not sure why you got moderated troll other than the/. view that a dissenting opinion must be a troll or flamebait. Sigh...
Now, for a different scenario, consider an organization that is just getting started. There are only a few people there, and the whole IT infrastructure still has to be set up. This, I think, is a scenario where free software can be very successful. It's also an interesting scenario to think about. Suppose you wanted to set up the IT infrastructure for at least a few hundred users, most of whom would have jobs where they have to use computers, without necessarily having any affinity for computers themselves. Assume you would need some common infrastructure: e-mail for everyone, calendaring would be very useful, and at least some desks will have computers that any among a group of people will have to be able to log into and get to work with (i.e. they won't have their own desk and their own computer). How would you do it?
You are modded as funny, which is a sad reflection of the value judgment of the slashdot community. I type this from my desk as a director of IT, managing a department of 50+ computer science graduates and computer engineers -- my degreee is double major in english/history.
My boss, who is scary smart, has a masters in philosophy.
Sadly, technical degrees still do not provide very valuable training in the world of evaluation and judgement. "How to do this" is rarely more important that the ability to formulate an argument on why you should do it. I'd argue humanities, teaching you how to evaluate shades of gray and formulate arguments on subjects that don't have objective right/wrong answers, provide the ability to understand context -- and as a result is a better training ground for future managers and leaders.
Your anecdotal evidence aside; I'd argue that a good engineering education includes learning how to analyze a problem; develop an approach to solving it; and then testing wether the solution worked. Engineering is about understanding what impacts the issue and determining an approach to addressing those issues; valuable skills in any work environment. Other disciplines teach that as well; there is no one path to success and to claim otherwise based on anecdotal evidence shows a lack of ability to evaluate shades of gray and understand context.
Engineering is also a very exact science. The component will either bear the load or it will not. There's not a whole lot of grey area there, so it tends to be a very black and white disciplne. Zealots of any stripe, terrorist or otherwise, view the world in stark terms. My way is right, everyone else's is wrong. So it is not all that surprising that people who see the world in black and white terms get caught up with black and white causes.
That depends on what type of engineer you are - in Aero; there are many shades of gray. You can't always calculate what will happen; you need some intuition and a sense of "what looks right" to get it right. Dealing with ambiguity is part of being a good engineer.
He makes some outlandish statement and gets tons of free press in return; all focused in on how cheap it is to fly Ryannair because of all their schemes.
Slashdot Mirror
A parallel is saying "I'm American" - While not technically correct, this is understood in the vernacular to mean "I'm a citizen of the United States." Canadians like me have to say "I'm Canadian" even though I live in the Americas. It's the understood vernacular.
A well kept secret is how many Canadians like you have immigrated to America... Maybe we should start a swap program - say 1 Canadian for 2 Americans? You still have a lot a of space...
Oh, yes, and if the cell isn't defective, laptop-style Lithium ion batteries shouldn't experience thermal runaway until somewhere in the 250-300 degree Fahrenheit range. Even a sealed automobile in 125 degree outdoor heat won't get much hotter than about 150-160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Put simply, unless the battery is being charged at the time, a non-defective Lithium ion cell should never explode unless you toss it in an oven.
The problem being is ensuring all the cells are not defective. In the absence of that; taking precautions when loading them into aircraft, where failure can have undesirable side effects, is prudent.
And I repeat: There's no place on Earth that gets that hot naturally.... A car is not natural.
Green house effect is a natural means of heating, which is what I interpreted your natural as meaning.
If you mean temperatures of over 140 from a natural phenomena not involving man made objects there are plenty examples of that as well.
My point was things can heat up even if the surrounding environment are cool.
In my experience, I have never seen a military or defence contractor (from any nation) run test that did end up with "Hooray for our side. We won."
See https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Arjun_MBT#Trials_and_exercise The army openly released test results that claimed that DRDO's Arjun did not meet their requirements. Its only in 2010, that the Indian Army results showed that Arjun performed better than Russian tanks.
As I pointed out, the contractor insisted the weapon system they developed was fine, for example:
With the September 2007 winter trials, the Indian army deemed Arjun's performance unsatisfactory, including at least four engine failures.[46] DRDO, on the other hand, insisted the tank was a viable choice for adoption and suggested the unsatisfactory performance of the engine during the winter trials was due to sabotage.
Interestingly enough, the Indian Army decided they wanted T-90's:
Subsequently in September 2008, the Indian Army signed a deal with Russia to import 347 T-90 tanks and license build a further 1000. Transfer of key T-90 technologies has also been agreed upon as a part of the deal.
I don't know if export T-90s are the same as Russian Army versions, even so the MOD PR qouted in wiki makes no statement about beating the T-90's:
After many years of trial and tribulation it has now proved its worth by its superb performance under various circumstances, such as driving cross-country over rugged sand dunes, detecting, observing and quickly engaging targets, accurately hitting targets – both stationary and moving, with pin pointed accuracy. Its superior fire-power is based on accurate and quick target acquisition capability during day and night in all types of weather and shortest possible reaction time during combat engagements.
It goes on to say they Indian decided not stop production of the Arjun and instead build a variant of the T-90. All in all it looks like a typical defence procurement game, which is not limited to any one country - contractor builds item, military says it doesn't work; eventually the government decides it really does work and buys them in enough quantity to keep their buds in business happy. Same game, different location.
Arjun MBT is one of the finest tanks in our part of the world. The problem with its development is not because of just DRDO. It has to do with the govt policy, the army constantly changing its requirements and finally the penetration of Russian arms agents in the Ministry of Defense. All these factors have delayed the induction of a tank that kicked Russian T-90s in every environment that the Indian Army fights in. The comparative field trials of the Indian Army a few months ago showed Arjun MBT has consistently performed better than T-90. So, DRDO came out with a better tank that Russians who have decades of tank-building experience.
The real question is:"Who ran these tests?" In my experience, I have never seen a military or defence contractor (from any nation) run test that did end up with "Hooray for our side. We won."
In general, someone who says "Wait a minute. Things aren't as good as they seem" generally gets marginalized and run out of town. See Boyd, John.
How hot are we talking about? The safe maximum operating temperature for discharging a Lithium ion battery is typically 140 degrees Fahrenheit. There's no place on Earth that gets that hot naturally....
Other than, say, the interior of a car in the sun...
So, when I get an email with a link to www.Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.de, should I avoid clicking the link, or what?
No, just think about what you are having for dinner and be sure you prepare and eat it within the rules.
Ownership does not imply owning it forever
In what universe? Yes, you can sell it but then you no longer own it. Unless it's stolen or you sell it or it rots away you can pass it down to your descendants forever.
Copyrights, patents, and and leases run out. Property rights do not.
Sure they can. Having a property right does not imply any period of ownership.
Actually a renter does not have exclusive rights to the property;
It depends on his contract with the landlord. With content creators' contract with "we, the people", you don't own a copyright, you hold a copyright.
"We, the people" also limit the rights of the property owner and tenant through contract and other law; just as in copyright law.
If you own something it's yours forever unless you lose it, sell it, or are robbed. If you have a limited time monopoly you have no ownership rights, only a limited time control.
Ownership does not imply owning it forever, but merely the ability to exert control over the property, whether it's tangible like an apartment or intangible like a copyright. In both cases, you can sell it, rent it, let is sit fallow - as the owner of the property it's your choice.
All that means is that copyright can cover things which are technology. That does not mean it spurs technological advancement.
You can copyright your code all you want but without patents on any inventions or innovations in it I'm free to re-create it with my own code and own style.
Saying copyright has anything to do with tecnological advancement is simply wrong.
If your view is only those things which cannot be replicated due to patent protections are driving technological improvement I think you are sadly mistaken.
Your statement concerning copyrighted material
I'm free to re-create it with my own code and own style
supports my contention - someone can look at a copyrighted work, improve on it and drive technological advancement. Hardware and software are both technology, and as such both spur technological improvement; as you have admitted in your argument.
Again, "exclusive right" does NOT mean ownership. A renter has exclusive rights to his apartment, a "property right", but he doesn't own it. Neither do I own the works covered by my copyrights. The people own it, I just rent it; the rent paid is my effort in creating it, but I'm still renting.
Actually a renter does not have exclusive rights to the property; the owner does, just as an owner of a copyright does.
Problem with warrior leaders is they live for the war. Any and all situation will be an call to arms, especially against "an axis of evil". Tell such a man of an intrusion, and he will go into fits and bouts.
History lesson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Operations_Administration
Actually, my experience is that warriors are the last to want to go to war; after all it's their blood that is shed. Warriors realize that war is a messy business with uncertain outcomes and difficult to stop once started; so a peaceful solution is much better.
I'm not sure what your "history lesson" points out.
I don't see why the trend exists to see geeks as being harmless when Einstein and other geeks built all these weapons of mass destruction.
Actually, they didn't do all the building and were lead by a military man - Gen Leslie Groves.
I might think that a warrior, who has to learn or die, learns at a quicker pace than most people, and is more adept at problem solving.
Bullshit. Sad but true, soldiers are taught two contradictory things: "return fire" and "follow the Rules of Engagement." This leads to all sorts of trouble, especially since the "Rules of Engagement" for Iraq and Afghanistan are thicker than a copy of Tolstoy's War And Peace in 10-point font.
Actually, they aren't contradictory; one defines when you can do the other; and you are over-simplifying the situation. The military has leaders who guide actions and troops that do things.
Add to that the fact that this is not a front-line duty. They're not going to be sitting there personally shot if they don't get something right. What's needed is specialists adept at detecting network intrusion, checking over the logfiles, ensuring that there aren't holes in security in the first place. This isn't reflex action, this is deliberative effort.
The key point is, as with any situation, you need someone who identifies what is happening (the geek grunts) and someone who can put it into context (the warrior leaders). In this situation, the geeks are doing the grunt work and leaders deciding interpreting what has happened and deciding what to do next; as in any military situation.
That depends on how near to which parts of them.
That's true - so long as you don't spend any time near the reactor compartment or any nuclear weapons that may be onboard. </neitherconfirmnordeny>
Why yes, I *am* a former SSBN crewman - why do you ask?
If you take prototype readings as a proxy for normal ops you probably do get less; since we subtracted background from our TLD readings which resulted in almost zero exposure; since the boat would lack normal background readings and our exposures were extremely low it's not unreasonable to think background would be greater than operational exposure. Of course, teh artilce just confirms teh opinion that most USAF types are crazy anyway - who wants to live in an fixed concrete silo when you could go to sea instead?
It is their property
It is most certainly NOT their property, at least not in the US. They have a "limited time" monopoly on its use, just like a renter has a limited time monopoly on "his" house. The renter doeesn't own his house, and the copyright holder doesn't own the creative work. IP is owned by the public, not the "content creators".
I say this as a holder of two registered copyrights, and uncounted unregistered ones. Read Article 2, Section 8 of the US Constitution, which grants congress the power to pass copyright and patent legislation.
You do NOT own the books or software you write. Nobody does, and everybody does.
Sure you do - (except in the sense you don't own the physical copy someone buys) - since you can exercise control over how it is used; even if it is for a limited period. Limiting the period does not make it any less a property you own. As for the US Constitution, it only requires a limited period without defining what that period is, and gives the author the exclusive rights in their writings; i.e. a property right. The Congress could give them rights for a million years or one day without changing their ownership of that property.
Copyright has sweet fuck all to do with technological advancement.
That's patents you're thinking of which are a completely different thing which for some reason people love to mix together with copyright and trademark law and pretend they're all the same thing or even more than vaguely related in any way other than being about intangible imaginary things.
Copyright certainly has a significant role in technological advancement - unless you believe software has no impact on technology. Without software hardware is pretty much useless; and most software is protected by copyright. Patents play a significant role as well but to say copyright doesn't is simply wrong.
the industry shills who come to slashdot equating copyright infringemet to theft and terrorism with their "think of the artists" and "it's MY property" twisted logic.
It is their property and they have a right to decide how it can be used; the same law that protects them protects the GPL. While you and I may not like the copyright suits and how they are used; property rights play an important role in technological advancement.
I presume mysidia was thinking of the concept of the 'One Time Pad' stored in a database: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad/URL
Actually, a one time pad would be no more effective than any other randomly generated set of keys. A one time pad is effective because you are coding a message that has no real clues to its content; with an unlock code you know you need to generate an x digit value that matches the one in the chip. Brute force would work; it's just a question of how long would it take. Intel could make it hard by varying the number of digits so that a brute force attack might take longer than the chip's useful life. By randomly assigning codes, rather than use an algorithm to generate them, is what makes it harder to pirate.Even if you knew what went into generating the codes and their makeup (length, use of special characters, etc.) it's the matching of the unique set that makes it hard.
Of course, in the end this is just a way to make more profits - companies sell machines at price points and feel that they make more money selling X machines at P1 and Y machines at P2 (where P2 has a faster chip) than they would selling X+Y at P1 with a faster chip. Intel could have simply delivered the chips and not offer an upgrade at retail; but they're trying to see if some group of Z customers will decide to upgrade and if it's worth the cost of selling upgrades. The danger is customers may decide to buy a lower priced machine and upgrade rather than the more expensive machine (assuming equal features in both otherwise) making the upgrade price the max price differential you can charge. You may see companies simply sell a base machine plus upgrade codes in the future - lowering their costs because they only need one base machine MB+chip for a wider range of performance.
Not sure how much snark is in your post, so apologies if this is a whoosh.
The goal here is to *save* money. You can buy a decent PC (and servers) with all the Microsoft licenses for less than the Mac hardware alone.
While there was a small amount of snark; the ease of setting up an OSX network and maintaining it compared to others makes up for lot of the initial cost. There is a value to not worrying if things will work, as a small business owner I am willing to pay a bit more upfront for less headaches later.
As for costs, quality PC's are not all that cheaper than Macs. Tech support is another plus - I've had a lot better support from Apple than Dell. At least Apple's first suggestion isn't to reformat the hard drive.
I will admit I also like being a bit different from others; so using a Mac is one way to stick out and be remembered.
As a side note, not sure why you got moderated troll other than the /. view that a dissenting opinion must be a troll or flamebait. Sigh...
Now, for a different scenario, consider an organization that is just getting started. There are only a few people there, and the whole IT infrastructure still has to be set up. This, I think, is a scenario where free software can be very successful. It's also an interesting scenario to think about. Suppose you wanted to set up the IT infrastructure for at least a few hundred users, most of whom would have jobs where they have to use computers, without necessarily having any affinity for computers themselves. Assume you would need some common infrastructure: e-mail for everyone, calendaring would be very useful, and at least some desks will have computers that any among a group of people will have to be able to log into and get to work with (i.e. they won't have their own desk and their own computer). How would you do it?
With a Mac.
"Death to all infidels who do not use green on black displays! Monochrome CRT Akbar!"
If it weren't for the great Text Editor Schism, we'd be doomed.
Vi or Emacs? Answer now!!!
You are modded as funny, which is a sad reflection of the value judgment of the slashdot community. I type this from my desk as a director of IT, managing a department of 50+ computer science graduates and computer engineers -- my degreee is double major in english/history. My boss, who is scary smart, has a masters in philosophy. Sadly, technical degrees still do not provide very valuable training in the world of evaluation and judgement. "How to do this" is rarely more important that the ability to formulate an argument on why you should do it. I'd argue humanities, teaching you how to evaluate shades of gray and formulate arguments on subjects that don't have objective right/wrong answers, provide the ability to understand context -- and as a result is a better training ground for future managers and leaders.
Your anecdotal evidence aside; I'd argue that a good engineering education includes learning how to analyze a problem; develop an approach to solving it; and then testing wether the solution worked. Engineering is about understanding what impacts the issue and determining an approach to addressing those issues; valuable skills in any work environment. Other disciplines teach that as well; there is no one path to success and to claim otherwise based on anecdotal evidence shows a lack of ability to evaluate shades of gray and understand context.
Engineering is also a very exact science. The component will either bear the load or it will not. There's not a whole lot of grey area there, so it tends to be a very black and white disciplne. Zealots of any stripe, terrorist or otherwise, view the world in stark terms. My way is right, everyone else's is wrong. So it is not all that surprising that people who see the world in black and white terms get caught up with black and white causes.
That depends on what type of engineer you are - in Aero; there are many shades of gray. You can't always calculate what will happen; you need some intuition and a sense of "what looks right" to get it right. Dealing with ambiguity is part of being a good engineer.
He makes some outlandish statement and gets tons of free press in return; all focused in on how cheap it is to fly Ryannair because of all their schemes.