International Incident... Bombing... WWIII
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First Man To Mars?
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· Score: 1
That would have led to war... You don't go bombing the military installations of countries that you are at "peace" with. However, in the midst of a war you can definately bomb enemy installations that might, or might not, be holding the remains of one of your fighter/spy planes.
Of course, it probably would have been really cool to have started WWIII over something like a spy plane, right? I mean, we have come closer with Nuclear Subs that nobody ever heard about until a movie, "Crimson Tide", was made about the event.
Going to war over a Spy Plane that everyone had heard of would make a helluva lot more sense, right? What's the lives of a few billion people compared to the cost of lost Spy Technology and one aircraft?
The world is becoming more Cyberpunk, than Shadowrun. IMHO Cyberpunk is more about reality than Shadowrun will ever be...
Of course, that is unless magic, dragons, elves, dwarves, Ogres, Trolls and the such start appearing all over the place.
Until that day, the world is becoming more Cyberpunk, with the rampant corporate control of the governments, the use of cybernetics, computers and the loss of basic freedoms for the people. The only thing that I don't see happening in our Cyberpunk future is regular firearms fights in the streets.
By the angle that the 17" (?) monitor is sitting on the tiny platform of your chair. I can imagine the fun you would have if you were sitting the whole day in that chair, being comfortable, when someone that is pissed with you enters the room and simply pushes that monitor forward.
That thing sorta looks about as safe as bench-pressing without a spotter.
I wouldn't attempt to sell that thing to anyone unless you do some serious re-engineering to make sure that there is NO possible way for the monitor to come flying at the user of that chair/desk.
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Have you ever seen strong guys heft one of...
on
MIT vs. Las Vegas
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· Score: 1
...those mallets? More than half of them have no idea that it is a leverage thing. They grab the mallet by the end of the handle and swing away, getting it barely up to the top.
What they need to do it grab the mallet with one hand alsmost at the mallet end and the other at the end of the handle. Then swing and allow the hand next to the mallet to drop down to the end of the handle. This creates much more force and allows thin "weak" guys the power to be able to ring the bell.
The next time you are at a carnival or someplace that has one of those. Take a look at how people swing away at that thing.
The what you have to do is really simple. Convince Microsoft to open up EVERYTHING regarding how they setup the DOC, XLS, PUB and all other MS Office file formats. Oh, you also have to convince them to never change the formats without first publishing all of the changes, at least 6 months in advance of releasing the next Office Release. This of course must include free to use royalty-free consent for those file formats.
Once that information is open, then there will nothing holding back the creation of fully MS Office compatible office suites. Then, MS Office will have to win by the merits of its technical superiority. (Which I grudgingly have to state, it does have.)
Okay, one thing to prove it's superiority...
In Excell, since at least the 2000 release, you can create drop down menus within cells. These are very usefull for creating reusable charts that contain very regular use information within them. Things like vendor price comparison charts and Role-Playing Game Character Sheets. (Those are two things that I currently use that feature for.) I would LOVE to see that within Star Office or Open Office, it just doesn't exist and I haven't the time nor current skills to work it into Open Office myself.
If you buy from an auctioneer that is getting rid of government or government contractor Surplus, you won't be getting any Hard Drives. Those are detroyed and melted down in furnaces to keep the data that was on them protected.
Have you watched SCSI drive auctions on Ebay? They get rather pricey because there are always limited quantities.
What if you buy a machine that lists that RAM is missing. I run into people that believe that they can put DIMMs into 166Mhz Intel machines. Yeah, while they may have put a 166Mhz into a newer board, I am talking about STOCK Packard Bells, Compaq Presarios and other consumer end pre-built machines.
Buying memory for an old Sun machine can be difficult to do, from what I understand.
Besides, the whole point of my post was to state that Solaris x86 should be used as a stepping stone without making you spend more money than you need to spend. If you have a spare machine laying about, put it to work and learn Solaris.
Then, perhaps you have a chance to move around in the corporate environment, if you have one of those entry level jobs.
It would be nice if they released it like they did with Solaris 8. Maybe they will do so down the road. In the meantime, Solaris 8 is still available. I understand that it is only $20 to be able to download it from Sun's servers.
My writ was assuming that one already had a spare old PC lying around. You are just frothing at the mouth for no particular reason. Sure, I could buy an old Sparc Station for 200 bucks off of Ebay. What if the graphics adapter is missing? What if the RAM is missing? What good is the machine if it was from a government building and thus no longer has a SCSI hard drive?
Are any of those pieces cheap? Tell me what is less expensive.
1. A spare PC that you already own and haven't used for much recently.
2. A Sparc station off of Ebay, with hardware that you have NO IDEA about. Something that might cost you hundreds more just to find pieces that will work with it?
Here is a hint, OPTION 1 is less expensive. I am talking on the cheap.
If I was going to buy something new to run Solaris on and spend close to $700, why not spend and extra $400 and pick up a new Sun workstation with a 17" monitor? Check out Sun's web store they exist fairly inexpensively.
As a stepping stone for those geeks that want to learn and work on Solaris, but are unable to afford real Sun hardware and don't want to take the risks associated with second-hand-could-be-missing-important-pieces-of-h ardware Sparcstations from Ebay.
For instance, I personally used Solaris 8 x86 for this purpose. I loaded it up on an old 200Mhz system that I had laying around. Granted the installation took way to long, the boot process took way to long. However, in the end, I had a functioning Solaris running box to play with.
I started learning the Solaris commands. The files in/etc. How to configure it for a network. How to setup services. A variety of things that I simply would have been unable to do, if Solaris x86 didn't exist.
Why knock Solaris x86 as slow? As a Solaris learning platform, it is more than perfect for someone on a budget who may have a spare PC, but little dough to blow on Ebay. Personally, I wouldn't use it in a production environment, on the hardware that it came with.
I am quite certain that it will be faster with specially provided drivers for hardware that has the "blessing" of Sun.
If you ignore a tool for the other uses it has, does that make the tool less usefull or you less usefull?
Sorry to say it, but buddy, you don't know anything about small business.
The story was about dotcom people opening up their own businesses. Not leaving hi-tech to work for McDonald's.
In a small business, you have even less time to take vacations with. Your small business, is your life. Without it, you have nothing.
If you open up a small business, there is little to no chance of you being able to take a vacation until you have at least moved past that 4 year mark. Then and only then, you can probably take a weekend or two off. That is, IF you have someone that you can trust with your life manning the place while you are gone.
Again, I say that, because a small business is the life of that business owner. Now, if that small business becomes larger and starts to branch out, like Starbuck's and a number of other companies. You have less to worry about as you will be moving into more of a CEO position.
However, from your statements. You haven't the drive to do that sort of thing. Stick to your job, it's thte only way that you will be able to live comfortably.
There is simply one thing that we can. Locate and determine which artists are signed with recording labels that are part of the RIAA. I believe that there are a number of smaller labels that aren't members.
Perhaps I am wrong. Anyway, instead of buying the music provided for by RIAA members, simply buy music produced by those smaller labels or your favorite local band that turns out their own stuff.
Get your friends to do it, if you can get them to turn of MTV and the radio, that is. Sure, it sucks! There are more than a few bands that I enjoy and would love to own the music they create. However, I have to give it up.
I suppose that makes me one of the few (perhaps less than 5%) that ACTUALLY votes with my dollar. If you feel that the RIAA is bad, simply stop buying the music they create.
We are all mostly geeks, right? Being geeks, we should be able to locate information as to what bands are with labels that are members of the RIAA.
Someone can provide a list a web-site, something that will help people in buying the music that supports freedom. I would, I am just to damn busy and quite frankly music is just not all that important to me.
However, it is not designed, implied or even hinted at, that the protections of that profit are to last forever.
Under the old copy protections laws, Mickey Mouse and a number of other characters would have been put into the public domain to do with as anyone pleases.
Is there a reason that Disney should be allowed to keep Mickey Mouse "protected" forever? What of works that are long since out of print, that have no "official" copy right owners yet have been denied entrance into the public domain because the "protection" put on them has been extended? What of out of print material that has little to no value, except to some hobbyists and academics that are held hostage by the twice removed relatives of an obscure author that died decades ago?
How does that benefit the original holder? There is no monetary gain for that long-dead author/creator/writer. Just a potential monetary gain for greedy relatives.
How does that continue to protect the creative expression of a long-dead author/creator?
I believe that they did a story about this in the first or second season. There was this one guy who was unable to join into the group mind due to some childhood accident. He wasn't slow, just a normal person like most of us.
Anyway, he did his best to keep up with most everyone else reading archaic books, nobody needed to read anymore since they could simply think about the book and it would appear, fully in their mind.
What ended up happening was that there was a computer virus that attacked the network and started killing the nodes, which were the people that were connected to the network. Apparently, everyone, but a few people were connected into this world-wide network.
The virus began to cascade across the network killing off people and the protagonist was left more or less alone to stop this virus from continuing.
I never saw the episode myself, but it sure would be interesting to see how things could have been resolved in a world with a problem like that.
If such a network were to be created... there will be people that simply have no wish to become one with the group mind. This could actually lead us down some Borg-like path. I doubt that would really be good for humankind.
I value my individuality and do what I can to avoid becoming "One" with any group. I feel that my varied interests and activities make me a better person. Becoming a huge group mind, being able to experience the experiences of everyone else could take that all away. Why would anyone want to do that?
Society and life in general would become boring. So what if we could become stronger, live longer and learn more. If all we became were machines to service the group mind, what kind of fun would we have in our lives?
This sort of thing could happen. If the group mind wishes to experience something, it would compel pieces of itself to experience that for all of the other minds. Once that experience was done there would be a next one. Once all of those experiences were completed, what would be next?
Would the group mind wish to work on perfecting the human body and human technology? Why not, if you have experienced everything that can be experienced by the time you are 6 years old, the only thing left to do is become perfect, immortal, omniscient and indestructable.
I imagine that if Paramount decided that a story about how Star Trek's Borg were born, it would very closely resemble that.
Sure, all of this is pure conjecture, until it happens. Sure, I am talking SciFi, but aren't those scientists talking SciFi?
Personally, I would have nothing to do with jacking into a group mind. However, something along the lines of a cyberpunk netjack would be soemthing that I would be interested in.
These scientists seem to be advocating peace by giving up our individuality. For that alone, they should be locked away.
That's right. You are SUPPOSED to denigrate and belittle your entire family. Especially the ones that if they had not existed, then you would not have existed.
Grow up you little snot.
So, he calls his Grandfather, "Grandfather"
Guess what? So do most people that respect their elders. I call my grandfather, "Grandfather" even though he is not the kind of person that most people would be proud of. However, he helpded create my mother and gave her reason to strive for a better life, which has given me a reason to strive for a better life.
...this was done with Windows. Although, I have to say that it would be harder, if not impossible, to perform with Windows. The reason is that you simply do not have the source-code to muck about with.
With the source code you can a variety of things, like getting the OS to run on platforms not originally intended to run that type of OS. Is it even marginally possible to get Windows to boot on anything other than a x86 or Itanium based system these days? (Note: I am only talking about modern releases of Windows, not NT4.0 and its Alpha support. This is not counting XP Embedded or WinCE/PocketPC releases, which again are limited to one maybe two processor types.)
Replacing 'our' with 'are' is a very common pirate thing to do. Of course, even that was slightly misspelled since 'arr' is the most correct usage, matey...
You are thanking them for creating standards to protect against Electro-Magnetic Interference... Oh, and the satellite communications network that a decent portion of the internet does use.
With the manufacturing of parts, if I wanted to make a piece that was non-standard for my own uses. That wouldn't affect anyone else's manufacturing process. It would cause someone else's piece of equipment to fail simply by existing, unless it was used as a replacement part within that equipment.
However, if I was able to create my own radio, using whatever frequency that I wanted to use. Then I would be able to interfere with and potentially cause grave harm to many people. Think of pacemakers, many of those have tiny recievers and transmitters for being checked at the doctor's office. Without knowing it, I might end up causing those devices to race out of control, or stop altogether.
Thus, the need for a regulatory body that has true Federally backed protections for the citizens. There exists no ANSI or ISO police that could come after me if I made a screw that was non-standard. If they did, I would laugh at them and tell them to go away. Of course, you can't do that to the FCC, they will just beat you down with the FBI and take you to prison. Thus, most people listen to what they say, which is a VERY good thing.
Unless I am sorely mistaken. All electronic devices that can produce EMI, must be approved at some Class-level by the FCC. Without that approval, I believe that those devices are unable to be legally sold within the borders of the United States.
Also, the FCC has many mandates that control what frequencies a device is able to operate within. They did mandate that all Remote Control units for RC cars be altered to a lower frequency a few years back. In fact, if you are caught running an Radio Controlled toy with one of those older sets, you are fined quite severly.
I believe that those old sets affect Cell phone signals or something very similar to that.
Also, without those mandates, people with pacemakers would probably have to be kept in radio signal proof boxes since the endless interference that is cheaper to allow to exist, would exist.
All computers and electronic devices give off Electro-Magnetic Interference. If you look at the back, typucically near the power supply, of virtually all electronics devices sold in the United States. There is a FCC label stating that it is a Class- device that meets FCC Standards for EMI.
Without that, your TV would probably interfere with your neighbors TV, 6 BLOCKS away. Your cordless phone could affect your computer, even if you lived in a mansion and had those devices several hundred feet apart.
That is why the FCC is important to me being able to post to Slashdot. Heck, the FCC even governs how much EMI is allowed to pass from flourescent light bulbs in offices. If they didn't then I believe that most, if not all offices, would be unable to operate computers and other electronic devices.
I have some personal experience with EMI myself. When I was the lead technician at a computer lab. This guy across from me turned on a computer that made a loud buzzing noise and I had this wierd feeling, like being inside a Microwave. One of the monitors nearby me had the screen get all scewy and my hair stood up on end.
I yelled, "Shut it OFF NOW!!!"
I just hope that I can still have children someday... That must have been a highly unhealthy dose of EMI.
You see there is this part of the government called the Federal Communications Commission. It is their job to make sure that all of those nifty wireless devices; like Radios, Walkie-talkies, Cell Phones, Wi-Fi Internet Access points, Cordless Phones, Television Signals, Very Low Frequency Transmissions, Satellite Signals and just about every other way to communicate wirelessly are able to do their thing without interfering with one another.
No matter what they do, they are simply unable to create new frequencies. There are only so many frequencies available. So, they have to limit and control those frequencies, otherwise the next time you turn on your cell phone, you might end up getting nothing but an old "I Love Lucy" show, or end up having to help a Jetliner land at a landing strip 60 miles from your home.
Without the government regulating and controlling the airwaves, what kind of Electro-Magnetic Interference is tolerable from your computer and other things. Many, if not most, of the communications devices that we take for granted would simply not exist.
Everyday that I can turn on my car radio, make a cell phone call. Heck, even connect to the internet and post a message here on Slashdot, is another day that I should thank the FCC and the people that made the FCC possible.
BS about how "Market Forces" and other blah-blah crud would simply be much better than government regulations regarding communications, would have left us with a wasteland of commmunications devices that simply wouldn't be able to communicate.
I have no doubt that without the FCC, we simply would not have the same level of technology that we have today. Most everything with electronic control devices would have trouble operating properly, if they operated at all. There would be little to no chance that we would have been able to see the Moon Landings, let alone even travel to the Moon.
The world would certainly be a different place without the regulation of the airwaves. I have to admit that I am unable to claim being an expert when it comes to radio signals and wireless communications, but from my limited readings, it is very easy to interfere with the radio signals that are in use in most devices. Just remember that the next time you enter a tunnel while on your cell phone.
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A "Paradigm-Shift" is the last thing that we need.
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GUIs for Everyone
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· Score: 1
I must ask why everyone feels that they must succumb to market-speak, boardroom-speak and whatever kind of business speak that they can think of when they are talking about a user interface for a computer.
Why are computer user interfaces so difficult to figure out? Why do people always ask these questions? Why do they say we need something "new" when all they can come up with are highly convoluted, very complicated, yet pretty looking interfaces?
A computer interface needs to be as simple or as complex as the needs of the individual user or the needs of the tasks that they must complete with that computer system.
That is the only "Paradigm-Shift" that is needed. We don't need flashy, round, biological looking flame-covered interfaces. There is no need for soft candy-coated fluffy cloud amorphous mass interfaces.
All that is needed is a specially configurable interface... Oh wait, we already have that... Here is where I name a few examples...
On Microsoft Windows:
As an Administrator, you can create special desktop configurations, using registry editing tools, access policies and a number of other simple tools. Sure, there will still be a few minor issues for some users, but the following types of desktops can be created:
Office Worker Desktop:
Features a clock in the bottom right corner of the screen, or top right corner since the bar can be moved by the user. On the desktop are the following icons; My Documents, Word Processor, Spreadsheet Application, Database Application, E-Mail Application. Other than the possibility of a few other Job specific applications, nothing else is needed. Sure, there will be a "Start" button, but that can be made to only display the few icons that are on the desktop. No confusing configuration settings are available to the user, just the applications he or she needs to perform their task.
Home-Gaming Machine:
This can be a seperate Desktop that can be logged into from the login prompt. The principle of the above desktop will remain, only with the following changes; CD-ROM Icon on Desktop, Media-Application Icon, Games Location.
I am positive that similar features exist on Linux, as I have set those up before, but I am unsure about that existing on MacOSX.
All that is needed is consistency between applications. Ie.; A right-click pulls up the same menu, that might have a special application specific sub-menu attached to it. At the top, right, left-side or bottom of each application, there should be the SAME types of menu options. It should always follow a consistent format. Each of those menu choices must also have the same options listed beneath them.
Ie.; A Menu-heading that has "Help" on it, should look identical regardless of the application, it should always have the same options underneath it.
If an application must have special app-specific menu options, then those need to be kept away from the "Standard" menu options. They should NEVER mix. If the "Standard" menu resides on the top of the application windows, then the App-specific menus should be mapped to the right, left or bottom of an application window. Consistently across all applications.
The User Interface also needs to grow or shrink with the user. What does this mean? It simply means that if the user is or becomes a power-user, then those power-user options should become available. These of course, can be turned on at any time by a SIMPLE process.
To help the greatest amount of people, a consistent GUI must be created and conformed to. Something that is the same across all platforms. Of course, there should also be the ability for complex users of computers to modify and tweak whatever they wish within THEIR own computer. If they want to have their own, or use someone else's highly complicated and convoluted organic interface, then they should be able to do so.
Forcing that upon everyone else is the same as forcing everyone to use bad GUIs without consistency.
To recap, the only "Paradigm-shift" needed in Graphical User Interfaces is a Flexible-Consistency. Anything else will just give us the same garbage result, even if it "looks" prettier.
Those pick-up and go cell phones you can get at 7-Eleven and other convenience stores. Except that they are even cheaper and WILL give people the following ability...
Disposable Cell Phone Super Power:
Truly Anonymous Phone calls. If these are to be treated like disposable cameras, then each phone probably has its own phone number attached to it. This would be interesting...
Never again to kid-nappers, terrorists and other world-domination minded hackers have to resort to "traceable" cellular phones! Now, all they need to do is go down to ANY convenience store and pick one of these babies up.
Hmm... I suppose that when that TIPS thing goes into action, everyone can just call and turn in every single one of those disposable cell phone users. I mean, who would want to use such a device? If it can be anonymous, only terrorists, kid-nappers and world-domination minded crazed hackers would use them!
Is dwelling on the past so much that you are unable to move forward. I remember what happened 10 months ago, but if I let that run my life. My life will have no meaning.
You sir, or madam, are the sick one. Go get some help for yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
That would have led to war... You don't go bombing the military installations of countries that you are at "peace" with. However, in the midst of a war you can definately bomb enemy installations that might, or might not, be holding the remains of one of your fighter/spy planes.
Of course, it probably would have been really cool to have started WWIII over something like a spy plane, right? I mean, we have come closer with Nuclear Subs that nobody ever heard about until a movie, "Crimson Tide", was made about the event.
Going to war over a Spy Plane that everyone had heard of would make a helluva lot more sense, right? What's the lives of a few billion people compared to the cost of lost Spy Technology and one aircraft?
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The world is becoming more Cyberpunk, than Shadowrun. IMHO Cyberpunk is more about reality than Shadowrun will ever be...
Of course, that is unless magic, dragons, elves, dwarves, Ogres, Trolls and the such start appearing all over the place.
Until that day, the world is becoming more Cyberpunk, with the rampant corporate control of the governments, the use of cybernetics, computers and the loss of basic freedoms for the people. The only thing that I don't see happening in our Cyberpunk future is regular firearms fights in the streets.
-.-
By the angle that the 17" (?) monitor is sitting on the tiny platform of your chair. I can imagine the fun you would have if you were sitting the whole day in that chair, being comfortable, when someone that is pissed with you enters the room and simply pushes that monitor forward.
That thing sorta looks about as safe as bench-pressing without a spotter.
I wouldn't attempt to sell that thing to anyone unless you do some serious re-engineering to make sure that there is NO possible way for the monitor to come flying at the user of that chair/desk.
-.-
What they need to do it grab the mallet with one hand alsmost at the mallet end and the other at the end of the handle. Then swing and allow the hand next to the mallet to drop down to the end of the handle. This creates much more force and allows thin "weak" guys the power to be able to ring the bell.
The next time you are at a carnival or someplace that has one of those. Take a look at how people swing away at that thing.
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The what you have to do is really simple. Convince Microsoft to open up EVERYTHING regarding how they setup the DOC, XLS, PUB and all other MS Office file formats. Oh, you also have to convince them to never change the formats without first publishing all of the changes, at least 6 months in advance of releasing the next Office Release. This of course must include free to use royalty-free consent for those file formats.
Once that information is open, then there will nothing holding back the creation of fully MS Office compatible office suites. Then, MS Office will have to win by the merits of its technical superiority. (Which I grudgingly have to state, it does have.)
Okay, one thing to prove it's superiority...
In Excell, since at least the 2000 release, you can create drop down menus within cells. These are very usefull for creating reusable charts that contain very regular use information within them. Things like vendor price comparison charts and Role-Playing Game Character Sheets. (Those are two things that I currently use that feature for.) I would LOVE to see that within Star Office or Open Office, it just doesn't exist and I haven't the time nor current skills to work it into Open Office myself.
-.-
If you buy from an auctioneer that is getting rid of government or government contractor Surplus, you won't be getting any Hard Drives. Those are detroyed and melted down in furnaces to keep the data that was on them protected.
Have you watched SCSI drive auctions on Ebay? They get rather pricey because there are always limited quantities.
What if you buy a machine that lists that RAM is missing. I run into people that believe that they can put DIMMs into 166Mhz Intel machines. Yeah, while they may have put a 166Mhz into a newer board, I am talking about STOCK Packard Bells, Compaq Presarios and other consumer end pre-built machines.
Buying memory for an old Sun machine can be difficult to do, from what I understand.
Besides, the whole point of my post was to state that Solaris x86 should be used as a stepping stone without making you spend more money than you need to spend. If you have a spare machine laying about, put it to work and learn Solaris.
Then, perhaps you have a chance to move around in the corporate environment, if you have one of those entry level jobs.
-.-
It would be nice if they released it like they did with Solaris 8. Maybe they will do so down the road. In the meantime, Solaris 8 is still available. I understand that it is only $20 to be able to download it from Sun's servers.
That's not to bad of a price to me.
-.-
My writ was assuming that one already had a spare old PC lying around. You are just frothing at the mouth for no particular reason. Sure, I could buy an old Sparc Station for 200 bucks off of Ebay. What if the graphics adapter is missing? What if the RAM is missing? What good is the machine if it was from a government building and thus no longer has a SCSI hard drive?
Are any of those pieces cheap? Tell me what is less expensive.
1. A spare PC that you already own and haven't used for much recently.
2. A Sparc station off of Ebay, with hardware that you have NO IDEA about. Something that might cost you hundreds more just to find pieces that will work with it?
Here is a hint, OPTION 1 is less expensive. I am talking on the cheap.
If I was going to buy something new to run Solaris on and spend close to $700, why not spend and extra $400 and pick up a new Sun workstation with a 17" monitor? Check out Sun's web store they exist fairly inexpensively.
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As a stepping stone for those geeks that want to learn and work on Solaris, but are unable to afford real Sun hardware and don't want to take the risks associated with second-hand-could-be-missing-important-pieces-of-
For instance, I personally used Solaris 8 x86 for this purpose. I loaded it up on an old 200Mhz system that I had laying around. Granted the installation took way to long, the boot process took way to long. However, in the end, I had a functioning Solaris running box to play with.
I started learning the Solaris commands. The files in
Why knock Solaris x86 as slow? As a Solaris learning platform, it is more than perfect for someone on a budget who may have a spare PC, but little dough to blow on Ebay. Personally, I wouldn't use it in a production environment, on the hardware that it came with.
I am quite certain that it will be faster with specially provided drivers for hardware that has the "blessing" of Sun.
If you ignore a tool for the other uses it has, does that make the tool less usefull or you less usefull?
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Sorry to say it, but buddy, you don't know anything about small business.
The story was about dotcom people opening up their own businesses. Not leaving hi-tech to work for McDonald's.
In a small business, you have even less time to take vacations with. Your small business, is your life. Without it, you have nothing.
If you open up a small business, there is little to no chance of you being able to take a vacation until you have at least moved past that 4 year mark. Then and only then, you can probably take a weekend or two off. That is, IF you have someone that you can trust with your life manning the place while you are gone.
Again, I say that, because a small business is the life of that business owner. Now, if that small business becomes larger and starts to branch out, like Starbuck's and a number of other companies. You have less to worry about as you will be moving into more of a CEO position.
However, from your statements. You haven't the drive to do that sort of thing. Stick to your job, it's thte only way that you will be able to live comfortably.
-.-
There is simply one thing that we can. Locate and determine which artists are signed with recording labels that are part of the RIAA. I believe that there are a number of smaller labels that aren't members.
Perhaps I am wrong. Anyway, instead of buying the music provided for by RIAA members, simply buy music produced by those smaller labels or your favorite local band that turns out their own stuff.
Get your friends to do it, if you can get them to turn of MTV and the radio, that is. Sure, it sucks! There are more than a few bands that I enjoy and would love to own the music they create. However, I have to give it up.
I suppose that makes me one of the few (perhaps less than 5%) that ACTUALLY votes with my dollar. If you feel that the RIAA is bad, simply stop buying the music they create.
We are all mostly geeks, right? Being geeks, we should be able to locate information as to what bands are with labels that are members of the RIAA.
Someone can provide a list a web-site, something that will help people in buying the music that supports freedom. I would, I am just to damn busy and quite frankly music is just not all that important to me.
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However, it is not designed, implied or even hinted at, that the protections of that profit are to last forever.
Under the old copy protections laws, Mickey Mouse and a number of other characters would have been put into the public domain to do with as anyone pleases.
Is there a reason that Disney should be allowed to keep Mickey Mouse "protected" forever? What of works that are long since out of print, that have no "official" copy right owners yet have been denied entrance into the public domain because the "protection" put on them has been extended? What of out of print material that has little to no value, except to some hobbyists and academics that are held hostage by the twice removed relatives of an obscure author that died decades ago?
How does that benefit the original holder? There is no monetary gain for that long-dead author/creator/writer. Just a potential monetary gain for greedy relatives.
How does that continue to protect the creative expression of a long-dead author/creator?
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I believe that they did a story about this in the first or second season. There was this one guy who was unable to join into the group mind due to some childhood accident. He wasn't slow, just a normal person like most of us.
Anyway, he did his best to keep up with most everyone else reading archaic books, nobody needed to read anymore since they could simply think about the book and it would appear, fully in their mind.
What ended up happening was that there was a computer virus that attacked the network and started killing the nodes, which were the people that were connected to the network. Apparently, everyone, but a few people were connected into this world-wide network.
The virus began to cascade across the network killing off people and the protagonist was left more or less alone to stop this virus from continuing.
I never saw the episode myself, but it sure would be interesting to see how things could have been resolved in a world with a problem like that.
If such a network were to be created... there will be people that simply have no wish to become one with the group mind. This could actually lead us down some Borg-like path. I doubt that would really be good for humankind.
I value my individuality and do what I can to avoid becoming "One" with any group. I feel that my varied interests and activities make me a better person. Becoming a huge group mind, being able to experience the experiences of everyone else could take that all away. Why would anyone want to do that?
Society and life in general would become boring. So what if we could become stronger, live longer and learn more. If all we became were machines to service the group mind, what kind of fun would we have in our lives?
This sort of thing could happen. If the group mind wishes to experience something, it would compel pieces of itself to experience that for all of the other minds. Once that experience was done there would be a next one. Once all of those experiences were completed, what would be next?
Would the group mind wish to work on perfecting the human body and human technology? Why not, if you have experienced everything that can be experienced by the time you are 6 years old, the only thing left to do is become perfect, immortal, omniscient and indestructable.
I imagine that if Paramount decided that a story about how Star Trek's Borg were born, it would very closely resemble that.
Sure, all of this is pure conjecture, until it happens. Sure, I am talking SciFi, but aren't those scientists talking SciFi?
Personally, I would have nothing to do with jacking into a group mind. However, something along the lines of a cyberpunk netjack would be soemthing that I would be interested in.
These scientists seem to be advocating peace by giving up our individuality. For that alone, they should be locked away.
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That's right. You are SUPPOSED to denigrate and belittle your entire family. Especially the ones that if they had not existed, then you would not have existed.
Grow up you little snot.
So, he calls his Grandfather, "Grandfather"
Guess what? So do most people that respect their elders. I call my grandfather, "Grandfather" even though he is not the kind of person that most people would be proud of. However, he helpded create my mother and gave her reason to strive for a better life, which has given me a reason to strive for a better life.
With the source code you can a variety of things, like getting the OS to run on platforms not originally intended to run that type of OS. Is it even marginally possible to get Windows to boot on anything other than a x86 or Itanium based system these days? (Note: I am only talking about modern releases of Windows, not NT4.0 and its Alpha support. This is not counting XP Embedded or WinCE/PocketPC releases, which again are limited to one maybe two processor types.)
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Been to Pirate Training School?
Replacing 'our' with 'are' is a very common pirate thing to do. Of course, even that was slightly misspelled since 'arr' is the most correct usage, matey...
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You are thanking them for creating standards to protect against Electro-Magnetic Interference... Oh, and the satellite communications network that a decent portion of the internet does use.
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What is so different about the FCC mandating Digital recievers and them mandating a change in Remote Control toy frequencies?
Both were MANDATED to provide extra "air-space" for another piece of technology. What logic are you using to deduce a difference?
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With the manufacturing of parts, if I wanted to make a piece that was non-standard for my own uses. That wouldn't affect anyone else's manufacturing process. It would cause someone else's piece of equipment to fail simply by existing, unless it was used as a replacement part within that equipment.
However, if I was able to create my own radio, using whatever frequency that I wanted to use. Then I would be able to interfere with and potentially cause grave harm to many people. Think of pacemakers, many of those have tiny recievers and transmitters for being checked at the doctor's office. Without knowing it, I might end up causing those devices to race out of control, or stop altogether.
Thus, the need for a regulatory body that has true Federally backed protections for the citizens. There exists no ANSI or ISO police that could come after me if I made a screw that was non-standard. If they did, I would laugh at them and tell them to go away. Of course, you can't do that to the FCC, they will just beat you down with the FBI and take you to prison. Thus, most people listen to what they say, which is a VERY good thing.
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Unless I am sorely mistaken. All electronic devices that can produce EMI, must be approved at some Class-level by the FCC. Without that approval, I believe that those devices are unable to be legally sold within the borders of the United States.
Also, the FCC has many mandates that control what frequencies a device is able to operate within. They did mandate that all Remote Control units for RC cars be altered to a lower frequency a few years back. In fact, if you are caught running an Radio Controlled toy with one of those older sets, you are fined quite severly.
I believe that those old sets affect Cell phone signals or something very similar to that.
Also, without those mandates, people with pacemakers would probably have to be kept in radio signal proof boxes since the endless interference that is cheaper to allow to exist, would exist.
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All computers and electronic devices give off Electro-Magnetic Interference. If you look at the back, typucically near the power supply, of virtually all electronics devices sold in the United States. There is a FCC label stating that it is a Class- device that meets FCC Standards for EMI.
Without that, your TV would probably interfere with your neighbors TV, 6 BLOCKS away. Your cordless phone could affect your computer, even if you lived in a mansion and had those devices several hundred feet apart.
That is why the FCC is important to me being able to post to Slashdot. Heck, the FCC even governs how much EMI is allowed to pass from flourescent light bulbs in offices. If they didn't then I believe that most, if not all offices, would be unable to operate computers and other electronic devices.
I have some personal experience with EMI myself. When I was the lead technician at a computer lab. This guy across from me turned on a computer that made a loud buzzing noise and I had this wierd feeling, like being inside a Microwave. One of the monitors nearby me had the screen get all scewy and my hair stood up on end.
I yelled, "Shut it OFF NOW!!!"
I just hope that I can still have children someday... That must have been a highly unhealthy dose of EMI.
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You see there is this part of the government called the Federal Communications Commission. It is their job to make sure that all of those nifty wireless devices; like Radios, Walkie-talkies, Cell Phones, Wi-Fi Internet Access points, Cordless Phones, Television Signals, Very Low Frequency Transmissions, Satellite Signals and just about every other way to communicate wirelessly are able to do their thing without interfering with one another.
No matter what they do, they are simply unable to create new frequencies. There are only so many frequencies available. So, they have to limit and control those frequencies, otherwise the next time you turn on your cell phone, you might end up getting nothing but an old "I Love Lucy" show, or end up having to help a Jetliner land at a landing strip 60 miles from your home.
Without the government regulating and controlling the airwaves, what kind of Electro-Magnetic Interference is tolerable from your computer and other things. Many, if not most, of the communications devices that we take for granted would simply not exist.
Everyday that I can turn on my car radio, make a cell phone call. Heck, even connect to the internet and post a message here on Slashdot, is another day that I should thank the FCC and the people that made the FCC possible.
BS about how "Market Forces" and other blah-blah crud would simply be much better than government regulations regarding communications, would have left us with a wasteland of commmunications devices that simply wouldn't be able to communicate.
I have no doubt that without the FCC, we simply would not have the same level of technology that we have today. Most everything with electronic control devices would have trouble operating properly, if they operated at all. There would be little to no chance that we would have been able to see the Moon Landings, let alone even travel to the Moon.
The world would certainly be a different place without the regulation of the airwaves. I have to admit that I am unable to claim being an expert when it comes to radio signals and wireless communications, but from my limited readings, it is very easy to interfere with the radio signals that are in use in most devices. Just remember that the next time you enter a tunnel while on your cell phone.
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I must ask why everyone feels that they must succumb to market-speak, boardroom-speak and whatever kind of business speak that they can think of when they are talking about a user interface for a computer.
Why are computer user interfaces so difficult to figure out? Why do people always ask these questions? Why do they say we need something "new" when all they can come up with are highly convoluted, very complicated, yet pretty looking interfaces?
A computer interface needs to be as simple or as complex as the needs of the individual user or the needs of the tasks that they must complete with that computer system.
That is the only "Paradigm-Shift" that is needed. We don't need flashy, round, biological looking flame-covered interfaces. There is no need for soft candy-coated fluffy cloud amorphous mass interfaces.
All that is needed is a specially configurable interface... Oh wait, we already have that... Here is where I name a few examples...
On Microsoft Windows:
As an Administrator, you can create special desktop configurations, using registry editing tools, access policies and a number of other simple tools. Sure, there will still be a few minor issues for some users, but the following types of desktops can be created:
Office Worker Desktop:
Features a clock in the bottom right corner of the screen, or top right corner since the bar can be moved by the user. On the desktop are the following icons; My Documents, Word Processor, Spreadsheet Application, Database Application, E-Mail Application. Other than the possibility of a few other Job specific applications, nothing else is needed. Sure, there will be a "Start" button, but that can be made to only display the few icons that are on the desktop. No confusing configuration settings are available to the user, just the applications he or she needs to perform their task.
Home-Gaming Machine:
This can be a seperate Desktop that can be logged into from the login prompt. The principle of the above desktop will remain, only with the following changes; CD-ROM Icon on Desktop, Media-Application Icon, Games Location.
I am positive that similar features exist on Linux, as I have set those up before, but I am unsure about that existing on MacOSX.
All that is needed is consistency between applications. Ie.; A right-click pulls up the same menu, that might have a special application specific sub-menu attached to it. At the top, right, left-side or bottom of each application, there should be the SAME types of menu options. It should always follow a consistent format. Each of those menu choices must also have the same options listed beneath them.
Ie.; A Menu-heading that has "Help" on it, should look identical regardless of the application, it should always have the same options underneath it.
If an application must have special app-specific menu options, then those need to be kept away from the "Standard" menu options. They should NEVER mix. If the "Standard" menu resides on the top of the application windows, then the App-specific menus should be mapped to the right, left or bottom of an application window. Consistently across all applications.
The User Interface also needs to grow or shrink with the user. What does this mean? It simply means that if the user is or becomes a power-user, then those power-user options should become available. These of course, can be turned on at any time by a SIMPLE process.
To help the greatest amount of people, a consistent GUI must be created and conformed to. Something that is the same across all platforms. Of course, there should also be the ability for complex users of computers to modify and tweak whatever they wish within THEIR own computer. If they want to have their own, or use someone else's highly complicated and convoluted organic interface, then they should be able to do so.
Forcing that upon everyone else is the same as forcing everyone to use bad GUIs without consistency.
To recap, the only "Paradigm-shift" needed in Graphical User Interfaces is a Flexible-Consistency. Anything else will just give us the same garbage result, even if it "looks" prettier.
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Those pick-up and go cell phones you can get at 7-Eleven and other convenience stores. Except that they are even cheaper and WILL give people the following ability...
Disposable Cell Phone Super Power:
Truly Anonymous Phone calls. If these are to be treated like disposable cameras, then each phone probably has its own phone number attached to it. This would be interesting...
Never again to kid-nappers, terrorists and other world-domination minded hackers have to resort to "traceable" cellular phones! Now, all they need to do is go down to ANY convenience store and pick one of these babies up.
Hmm... I suppose that when that TIPS thing goes into action, everyone can just call and turn in every single one of those disposable cell phone users. I mean, who would want to use such a device? If it can be anonymous, only terrorists, kid-nappers and world-domination minded crazed hackers would use them!
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Is dwelling on the past so much that you are unable to move forward. I remember what happened 10 months ago, but if I let that run my life. My life will have no meaning.
You sir, or madam, are the sick one. Go get some help for yourself.