Following your argument, microsoft hadn't a chance when they (finally) got into the internet hype and launched Internet Explorer. They were very late to acknoledge the importance of internet, and netscape had by then achieved a pretty dominant position. However, they did succeed in displacing Netscape, and didn't succeed in displacing Apache. Obviously, there are other reasons why IIS never really got any foothold, Apache being open source and a really good product being the most import one, I think.
Then we have longer term studies that show that the US has far stronger job creation than Europe, and in fact the unemployment measurements in Europe are artificially low because of training programs, early retirement, workweeks limited to 35 hours, etc.
Dude, what's artificial about a shorter workweek? I work 32 hours a week, make a good income out of it, and wouldn't even think about working more hours. And yes, I do consider myself employed.
The screenshots look just as beautiful ...
on
State of the E-nion
·
· Score: 1
... as half a year ago when I saw them, which means they are either still the same or not up to date.
I know Microsoft is still churning out updates to Flight Sim, but I used to spend hours and hours flying around, doing imaginary missions and such, and I haven't seen any new simulators come out for years.
it's just kinda comatose. Really, I shiver with nostalgia just thinking about all the Infocom games I played. As long as we have fond memories of the text adventures of old, they can't possibly be called dead.
Darn, I'm getting old. Anyone want to get together and chat about the great global wonders of MUD playing?
As far as I understand it, the profit is in the efficiency. A power plant is, due to its large scale, much more efficient in converting chemical energy to electrical energy than a single car engine is. From the power plant on, you've pretty low loss due to resistance etc. Moreover, it's easier and cheaper to de-polute the gasses coming from a big power plant, also due to scale, than to de-polute the gasses coming from a single car. Also, a big advantage is you get to decide where the polution is released; aka not in the city.
The author is saying 'Mozilla is innovative, Apple is going with KHTML instead of Gecko, which is not a bad thing, but do come join us!'. I'd have to read the article a few times more, but the subtext to me here is basically that the author finds it very disappointing that Apple is going for a KHTML based closed source solution, instead of a Gecko based open source solution.
If you only copy the object to disk once a day, then what's the big advantage over copying the object to a database once a day?
All this is saying, as far as I can see, is, "oh look, if we only save the object once a day, we'll be much faster than when we dump it to a database several times per minute". Never mind reliability.
Yeah, that'd be great. I'd like to ask him if and what special tactics he uses when playing computers. I figure he studies his opponents previous games, regardless of whether his opponent is a man or a machine, but how would his preparations be different when preparing to play a computer?
I wonder if anybody knows which company does the actual transactions, a.k.a. who was actually hacked? I know of one large credit card transaction processer, Firepay, but I'm not sure if they're the official one for VISA/MC.
This might actually be good for Philips
on
Hacking the Streamium
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
My dad works for Philips, and as long as I can remember, they've been putting out products with reasonable or good quality and ofttimes a very nice technological edge, only to have them fucked up by some marketing droid imposing rediculous limitations on them. Hell, that the software is put out only for windows I can understand: Philips has a pretty good relation to microsoft and has, afaik, never even bothered to look at alternatives, but I just can't understand why they limit the Internet-radio part to just a few 'philips-certified' stations. No brainer! It's probably something to do with philips large interests in media groups (they have large stocks in some recording companies, and also in Vivendi, which does this kind of stuff too I think) and some marketing guy thinking this is a smart way to combine the two. Anyway, to make my point, someone making this thing useable, and removing stupid restrictings on it might actually make it *interesting* for consumers.
This is typically a catch 22 situation. Sure, if your employer doesn't pay you overtime even if he is required to by law, you're fucked either way. Or you don't make a point out of it, and get paid less than you deserve. Or, do make a point out of it, sue the guy, get your pay and leave your job. Because, face it, the boss is going to be pissed off about you taking him to court, and you're never going to be able to reestablish a normal working relationship with him. He'll get you in his own way, either buy making your life miserable or by looking for a reason to fire you, which he'll always be able to find.
The only reason to do really pursue the issue is to help your co-workers, because if you win the court case your employer would be crazy to risk other cases with the other employees, and if he has some brains in his head he'll start paying them overtime as he should. So, as some other poster already said, do this when you've found another job anyway, sue the guy for backpay, and leave your ex-co-workers with a nice present.
I couldn't care less about the price, and I think the majority of OSS users isn't motivated by the low price. Hell, I can get windows for free just as well, just talk to my l33t h4ck0r neighbour kid and ask him to burn me a copy. The price argument is old & tired: get off it!
Even companies don't or shouldn't use OSS for it's price; dozens of researches have shown that the TCO (total cost of ownership) for windows and e.g. linux don't differ that much. They should use, as should individuals, OSS because they believe in the OSS philosophy and because the OSS style fits their own style of computer usage.
For me, it's about these things: - From kernel to application, I can see exactly what it's doing and why - If it doesn't work the way I like it, I can change it or try to find someone who already has - I'm not a newbie, I know computers and I don't want to be treated as such - If the configuration changes, I want to be the one who does it, not the OS itself
All these things add up to a package microsoft can't compete with, even if it would cost me more, not less that propriety software. And I wish everyone would stop hoping every last computer user starts using OSS, because it's just not going to happen, and it's just not necessary. Some people want ease-of-use, and others want power. Just so.
And most importantly ...
on
KDE 3.1 Released
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· Score: 4, Informative
... the new drop down shadows for the menu's!
And a hefty decrease in startup and rendering time for konqueror, and a limit to the gif-animations allowed per second.
I agree almost totally with your argumentation on the differance between homicide rates in the UK and the US, the funding thing (and thus the different statistical methods) will probably even out much of the gap. However, the UK also has specific high crime-rate area's, so leaving these out of the comparison will not make the comparison any clearer, I think. On a related note, I guess it would be a pretty safe assumption to say that the higher the density of population is in an area, the higher the crime rates will be. This probably slants the comparison slightly in favor of the US, as I'm pretty sure Europe as a whole is more densely populated, and I'm absolutely positive the Netherlands are.
1. I guess Japan just is a pretty strange country with regards to their attitude to suicide (amongst many many other weird things =) 2. Dude, swimming does have inherent advantages: for one thing, it's fun! But apart from that, I agree that it's normal to allow a sane degree of risk in any activity that's either fun or purposeful or both. One remark: I think Kleck estimation was 800,000-2,000,000 crimes averted by gun use, not lives saved. This number does not have any real relation to the number of child lives saved by guns. However, I do agree that using the 'for the childrens sake' argument is cheap. 3. There's a specific part I want to emphasize here: "Also, if a life is taken in a legal and moral self defense situation, that is not a bad thing, and should not be considered in a negative light. Whose death does society benefit from? The would-be mugger/rapists death, or the death of the woman he attacked? Don't try to tell me that their lives are equally valuable, because the dead robber no longer terrorizes society, and that's a good thing." You make two very important implicit assumptions here: 1. It's a life or death situation. Rape and muggings are very seldomly life or death situations. It's not a question of who dies, it's a question of must somebody die. This is typical, because if you carry a gun for defense, you'll have to make a decision along the way if the person threatening you is actually going to kill you. Shooting a gun to kill is always a preemptive action, or you must think it morally justifiable to kill for a crime like rape or mugging. And this is where the cultural differances between Europe and America show themselves. On a whole, Europeans don't believe in killing people over crimes, even murder ( see death penalty discussions ), whereas americans, on a whole, correct me if I'm wrong, have no moral objections to killing criminals. I personally think noone deservers to die at the hands of another human being, even if he made a mistake. I don't like calling people rapists; I think it gives a better perspective to say 'a person who commited a rape'. Yes, it's disgusting, yes it should be punished, but there are other ways of preventing the person to do it again, and the ultimate way of doing this should be imprisonment, not death. The best way is to prevent the conditions that caused the person to do it in the first place. But this is my personal opinion, and yes, I am in American terms, a bleeding heart liberal =), and yes, I'm proud of it. Anyway, thanks for enlightening my standpoint on gun control. Actually, I have read almost all of the comments, and I've changed my mind on one thing: I do think civilians carrying guns does lower crime rates (except for murder) overall, however I takes away a lot of the imperative to combat crime in a more social, less lethal way. Cheers.
For one thing, if guns weren't so readily available, do you think this nut-case would have had access to one?
For another, do you think that this pregnant 20-year old woman would have lived if she was carrying a gun? I think not.
Basically, you are propagating a situation where the best-armed best-trained person would kill the other person, and damn, you might be well trained, but I bet your wife and kids aren't and you can't be with them always. Also, there'll always be nuts around that are better trained than you -- providing everyone with weapons will just mean the strongest will prevail. Very civilized indeed.
Really? You should look at England where since the total ban the crime rate has skyrocketed. Infact the per capita rate of crimes involing guns is higher than in the states.
Yeah, and the rates for murder are over 5x as high in the states as in the UK, according to the American Department of Justice ( find the link in one of the other comments ).
Then how about the Swiss nearly every household has a full auto gun. This is because every of age male is in the reservers. They have very low crime rates.
Yeah, and as another poster pointed out, they have to account for every single bullit the have. Also, this means that only trained military men have a gun, not any idiot like in the states.
My point is, if you have more guns, as in the States, you'll have more death by guns. I'm not really interested in the crime rates, I don't believe anyone deserves to die for a crime, punished yes, die no.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn, what civilization advances did I need for space elevator again? I'm gonna lose out on the space race!
Following your argument, microsoft hadn't a chance when they (finally) got into the internet hype and launched Internet Explorer. They were very late to acknoledge the importance of internet, and netscape had by then achieved a pretty dominant position. However, they did succeed in displacing Netscape, and didn't succeed in displacing Apache. Obviously, there are other reasons why IIS never really got any foothold, Apache being open source and a really good product being the most import one, I think.
I haven't heard the simplest objection to taxes yet:
if you tax software imports, other coutries will tax U.S. exports, thus hindering your export.
Then we have longer term studies that show that the US has far stronger job creation than Europe, and in fact the unemployment measurements in Europe are artificially low because of training programs, early retirement, workweeks limited to 35 hours, etc.
Dude, what's artificial about a shorter workweek? I work 32 hours a week, make a good income out of it, and wouldn't even think about working more hours. And yes, I do consider myself employed.
... as half a year ago when I saw them, which means they are either still the same or not up to date.
I know Microsoft is still churning out updates to Flight Sim, but I used to spend hours and hours flying around, doing imaginary missions and such, and I haven't seen any new simulators come out for years.
to the bubble gum chewing hour =)
it's just kinda comatose. Really, I shiver with nostalgia just thinking about all the Infocom games I played. As long as we have fond memories of the text adventures of old, they can't possibly be called dead.
Darn, I'm getting old. Anyone want to get together and chat about the great global wonders of MUD playing?
If this thing is limited to certain internet music stations like its predecessor, you can write it off without thinking twice.
As far as I understand it, the profit is in the efficiency. A power plant is, due to its large scale, much more efficient in converting chemical energy to electrical energy than a single car engine is. From the power plant on, you've pretty low loss due to resistance etc.
Moreover, it's easier and cheaper to de-polute the gasses coming from a big power plant, also due to scale, than to de-polute the gasses coming from a single car. Also, a big advantage is you get to decide where the polution is released; aka not in the city.
The author is saying 'Mozilla is innovative, Apple is going with KHTML instead of Gecko, which is not a bad thing, but do come join us!'.
I'd have to read the article a few times more, but the subtext to me here is basically that the author finds it very disappointing that Apple is going for a KHTML based closed source solution, instead of a Gecko based open source solution.
Or am I missing something?
Can't wait to see what a beowulf cluster of these will do!
Missed the part about serializing the commands that change the object -- must learn to read.
If you only copy the object to disk once a day, then what's the big advantage over copying the object to a database once a day?
All this is saying, as far as I can see, is, "oh look, if we only save the object once a day, we'll be much faster than when we dump it to a database several times per minute". Never mind reliability.
Get some help from a German-speaking friend or soldier Gib mir T-DSL oder Ich schiess dir!
The Irish are out to get us!
Yeah, that'd be great. I'd like to ask him if and what special tactics he uses when playing computers. I figure he studies his opponents previous games, regardless of whether his opponent is a man or a machine, but how would his preparations be different when preparing to play a computer?
I wonder if anybody knows which company does the actual transactions, a.k.a. who was actually hacked? I know of one large credit card transaction processer, Firepay, but I'm not sure if they're the official one for VISA/MC.
My dad works for Philips, and as long as I can remember, they've been putting out products with reasonable or good quality and ofttimes a very nice technological edge, only to have them fucked up by some marketing droid imposing rediculous limitations on them.
Hell, that the software is put out only for windows I can understand: Philips has a pretty good relation to microsoft and has, afaik, never even bothered to look at alternatives, but I just can't understand why they limit the Internet-radio part to just a few 'philips-certified' stations. No brainer!
It's probably something to do with philips large interests in media groups (they have large stocks in some recording companies, and also in Vivendi, which does this kind of stuff too I think) and some marketing guy thinking this is a smart way to combine the two. Anyway, to make my point, someone making this thing useable, and removing stupid restrictings on it might actually make it *interesting* for consumers.
This is typically a catch 22 situation. Sure, if your employer doesn't pay you overtime even if he is required to by law, you're fucked either way. Or you don't make a point out of it, and get paid less than you deserve. Or, do make a point out of it, sue the guy, get your pay and leave your job. Because, face it, the boss is going to be pissed off about you taking him to court, and you're never going to be able to reestablish a normal working relationship with him. He'll get you in his own way, either buy making your life miserable or by looking for a reason to fire you, which he'll always be able to find.
The only reason to do really pursue the issue is to help your co-workers, because if you win the court case your employer would be crazy to risk other cases with the other employees, and if he has some brains in his head he'll start paying them overtime as he should. So, as some other poster already said, do this when you've found another job anyway, sue the guy for backpay, and leave your ex-co-workers with a nice present.
I couldn't care less about the price, and I think the majority of OSS users isn't motivated by the low price. Hell, I can get windows for free just as well, just talk to my l33t h4ck0r neighbour kid and ask him to burn me a copy. The price argument is old & tired: get off it!
Even companies don't or shouldn't use OSS for it's price; dozens of researches have shown that the TCO (total cost of ownership) for windows and e.g. linux don't differ that much. They should use, as should individuals, OSS because they believe in the OSS philosophy and because the OSS style fits their own style of computer usage.
For me, it's about these things:
- From kernel to application, I can see exactly what it's doing and why
- If it doesn't work the way I like it, I can change it or try to find someone who already has
- I'm not a newbie, I know computers and I don't want to be treated as such
- If the configuration changes, I want to be the one who does it, not the OS itself
All these things add up to a package microsoft can't compete with, even if it would cost me more, not less that propriety software. And I wish everyone would stop hoping every last computer user starts using OSS, because it's just not going to happen, and it's just not necessary. Some people want ease-of-use, and others want power. Just so.
... the new drop down shadows for the menu's!
And a hefty decrease in startup and rendering time for konqueror, and a limit to the gif-animations allowed per second.
And a brand new splash screen!
Much compliments to the KDE-team!
I agree almost totally with your argumentation on the differance between homicide rates in the UK and the US, the funding thing (and thus the different statistical methods) will probably even out much of the gap. However, the UK also has specific high crime-rate area's, so leaving these out of the comparison will not make the comparison any clearer, I think.
On a related note, I guess it would be a pretty safe assumption to say that the higher the density of population is in an area, the higher the crime rates will be. This probably slants the comparison slightly in favor of the US, as I'm pretty sure Europe as a whole is more densely populated, and I'm absolutely positive the Netherlands are.
1. I guess Japan just is a pretty strange country with regards to their attitude to suicide (amongst many many other weird things =)
2. Dude, swimming does have inherent advantages: for one thing, it's fun! But apart from that, I agree that it's normal to allow a sane degree of risk in any activity that's either fun or purposeful or both. One remark: I think Kleck estimation was 800,000-2,000,000 crimes averted by gun use, not lives saved. This number does not have any real relation to the number of child lives saved by guns. However, I do agree that using the 'for the childrens sake' argument is cheap.
3. There's a specific part I want to emphasize here: "Also, if a life is taken in a legal and moral self defense situation, that is not a bad thing, and should not be considered in a negative light. Whose death does society benefit from? The would-be mugger/rapists death, or the death of the woman he attacked? Don't try to tell me that their lives are equally valuable, because the dead robber no longer terrorizes society, and that's a good thing."
You make two very important implicit assumptions here:
1. It's a life or death situation. Rape and muggings are very seldomly life or death situations. It's not a question of who dies, it's a question of must somebody die. This is typical, because if you carry a gun for defense, you'll have to make a decision along the way if the person threatening you is actually going to kill you. Shooting a gun to kill is always a preemptive action, or you must think it morally justifiable to kill for a crime like rape or mugging. And this is where the cultural differances between Europe and America show themselves. On a whole, Europeans don't believe in killing people over crimes, even murder ( see death penalty discussions ), whereas americans, on a whole, correct me if I'm wrong, have no moral objections to killing criminals.
I personally think noone deservers to die at the hands of another human being, even if he made a mistake. I don't like calling people rapists; I think it gives a better perspective to say 'a person who commited a rape'. Yes, it's disgusting, yes it should be punished, but there are other ways of preventing the person to do it again, and the ultimate way of doing this should be imprisonment, not death. The best way is to prevent the conditions that caused the person to do it in the first place. But this is my personal opinion, and yes, I am in American terms, a bleeding heart liberal =), and yes, I'm proud of it.
Anyway, thanks for enlightening my standpoint on gun control. Actually, I have read almost all of the comments, and I've changed my mind on one thing: I do think civilians carrying guns does lower crime rates (except for murder) overall, however I takes away a lot of the imperative to combat crime in a more social, less lethal way. Cheers.
For one thing, if guns weren't so readily available, do you think this nut-case would have had access to one?
For another, do you think that this pregnant 20-year old woman would have lived if she was carrying a gun? I think not.
Basically, you are propagating a situation where the best-armed best-trained person would kill the other person, and damn, you might be well trained, but I bet your wife and kids aren't and you can't be with them always. Also, there'll always be nuts around that are better trained than you -- providing everyone with weapons will just mean the strongest will prevail. Very civilized indeed.
Really? You should look at England where since the total ban the crime rate has skyrocketed. Infact the per capita rate of crimes involing guns is higher than in the states. Yeah, and the rates for murder are over 5x as high in the states as in the UK, according to the American Department of Justice ( find the link in one of the other comments ). Then how about the Swiss nearly every household has a full auto gun. This is because every of age male is in the reservers. They have very low crime rates. Yeah, and as another poster pointed out, they have to account for every single bullit the have. Also, this means that only trained military men have a gun, not any idiot like in the states. My point is, if you have more guns, as in the States, you'll have more death by guns. I'm not really interested in the crime rates, I don't believe anyone deserves to die for a crime, punished yes, die no.