Look at a population map of china. Now look at one of the US. Half of china has a population density of less than 2.5 people per square mile, and the other half has more than 500. Getting a large section of the country wired very quickly is pretty easy. The US population, on the other hand, is spread really thin. So it's not surprising that China could overtake the US quickly.
Through-line series like Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Alfred Gough's and Miles Millar's "Smallville" have raised our expectations of what episodic sci-fi and fantasy ought to be.
Microsoft doesn't have the best record in this area, having been caught astroturfing numerous times. At least when you read an 'official' blog, you are aware that you are getting cooperate propaganda.
You have to remember that Sean O'Keefe was a bean counter, who gave top priority to saving his own skin. His statement makes perfect sense when you bear that in mind.
Your attempted to access taiwan.gov.ta has been logged. Reeducation teams are now en route to your location. Please do not flee, you traitorous capitalist.
Well, Mills has been doing work lately to get NTP working with VERY high latency (on the order of hundreds of seconds), to facilitate communication with satellites on/orbitting Mars. (Remember - power conservation is absolutely critical in these circumstances, so you have to make sure the transmission timing is right). If I had to guess, this was probably related to that.
Dave Mills (inventor of NTP) told me that on the last Columbia shuttle mission, they were running some experiments with NTP in space. And, thankfully, they transmitted all their data before landing. But apparently, they were so overworked, they didn't have time to calibrate the machine properly, so sadly, the data is useless.
When I got my new laptop in September, I decided to try it with open office instead of MS office. As a graduate student, I deal with LOTS of powerpoint files (both making them and reading others'). I was sincerely disappointed by the experience. First, the files it produced inevitably had formatting errors (if someone else tells you they are fully compatible, they are lying). Graphics tended to display differently, with different color schemes, 'etc. Second, it was so slow as to make it unsuable. On a top-of-the-line Pentium 4, there was a 30-45 second load time for the program, a 10-15 second lag between slides, and a really annoying 1-3 second lag between mouse clicks. After a semester, I gave up and went back to MS office. I'll be staying put until I see these issues resolved.
His first sentence is right on the money - "Linux is established and has a niche". So the question is - what is holding it back? And here, he misses the bleeding obvious - every single one of his points (from TFA - the reasons to keep unix or windows around, the cost analysis, etc) is flatly wrong or misses the mark. The answer is, I think, obvious --- Linux is the OS designed by geeks, for geeks. It's the classic example of overengineering the wheel. The problem is, I have yet to see an interface for *nix that does as good as job as windows does of 'packing everything under the hood' and making an operating system that (as a friend of mine, the chief sysadmin for Connectiv would say) "protects users from their own stupidity". When someone can come up with an interface that is as intuitive and user-friendly as windows, then (and only then) can linux hope to compete in the desktop market.
The write up understates it, I think. From TFA: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's movie.
Yes - Intel is deathly afraid of major vendors offering AMD as an option (or worse, switching entirely) and those vendors are obviously exploiting that fear
Just listen to what you are saying - anyone with a camera in a public place is now a suspected terrorist! That is a VERY DANGEROUS attitude to have - that is how dictatorships are born.
On a trip to Washington, I toted along my brand new digital Camera. (I later put them on Wikipedia). This one got me into a wee bit of trouble. While I was waiting for a friend of mine to arrive, I took a couple of pictures of the waiting area in Greenebelt station of the Washington Metro. A minute or two later, a security guard comes up and asks what I'm doing. I tell him I was just taking a picture. He tells me that I need permission to photograph, and that if I want permission to take pictures, I need to get permission from "downtown".
Right, and that's true for the occasional editor who happens to notice a misprint and wants to fix it. What you are describing is akin to picking up a piece of litter you see on the street.
But if you want people to invest any significant amount of time you have to give them something to believe in. As a long time Wikipedia contributor, I can say that pretty much all the other long term users contribute because of a large sense of altruism -- of using their time for the public good, because they think that Wikipedia is a "Good Thing". On the other hand, this is a transparent attempt by Microsoft (a company not known for its good will and charity) to make money (to sell more copies of Encarta and/or make their advertisment laden site more popular). Why would anyone spend any amount of time helping out Encarta when a bigger, better, much less evil project already exists?
a good idea, but there is no way an admin will be able to go over every page in wikipedia and mark a good version, i would take years - perhaps I should have beem more clear - it would not be a single person doing it, it would be *all* admins who would be able to do it (400 or so last time I checked). This would be akin to the image tagging project which recently completed.
As someone who is heavily involved with WIkipedia, I have to ask myself - why the hell would anyone want to contribute to Encarta? People contribute to Wikipedia because it's (a) free (libre and gratis) and (b) because we've established a reputation of not being evil. So why would someone contribute to Encarta? To boost Microsoft's bottom line? I'm sorry, but I think they're going to have a very hard time attracting anyone willing to help, because I can't really see much incentive to do it.
I consider Whyami's and OldakQuill's work to be mine -- Whyami I a prof at Witchita state U who I talked into putting up his music (basically I spent 4 weeks walking him through the process); OldakQuill offered to help me uploading so I gave him a couple websites I found to plunder:)
Slashdot Mirror
Look at a population map of china. Now look at one of the US. Half of china has a population density of less than 2.5 people per square mile, and the other half has more than 500. Getting a large section of the country wired very quickly is pretty easy. The US population, on the other hand, is spread really thin. So it's not surprising that China could overtake the US quickly.
...And so the Trekkies were executed in the manner most befitting virgins - they were thrown into volcanoes -- Futurama
Through-line series like Joss Whedon's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Alfred Gough's and Miles Millar's "Smallville" have raised our expectations of what episodic sci-fi and fantasy ought to be.
Fantasy, yes... science fiction, no.
Microsoft doesn't have the best record in this area, having been caught astroturfing numerous times. At least when you read an 'official' blog, you are aware that you are getting cooperate propaganda.
You have to remember that Sean O'Keefe was a bean counter, who gave top priority to saving his own skin. His statement makes perfect sense when you bear that in mind.
Your attempted to access taiwan.gov.ta has been logged. Reeducation teams are now en route to your location. Please do not flee, you traitorous capitalist.
John Conner? Is that you?
Well, Mills has been doing work lately to get NTP working with VERY high latency (on the order of hundreds of seconds), to facilitate communication with satellites on/orbitting Mars. (Remember - power conservation is absolutely critical in these circumstances, so you have to make sure the transmission timing is right). If I had to guess, this was probably related to that.
Dave Mills (inventor of NTP) told me that on the last Columbia shuttle mission, they were running some experiments with NTP in space. And, thankfully, they transmitted all their data before landing. But apparently, they were so overworked, they didn't have time to calibrate the machine properly, so sadly, the data is useless.
Uh, it looks like it's not so much a slide show program as it is a slide show scripting language. And I misinterpreting this?
When I got my new laptop in September, I decided to try it with open office instead of MS office. As a graduate student, I deal with LOTS of powerpoint files (both making them and reading others'). I was sincerely disappointed by the experience. First, the files it produced inevitably had formatting errors (if someone else tells you they are fully compatible, they are lying). Graphics tended to display differently, with different color schemes, 'etc. Second, it was so slow as to make it unsuable. On a top-of-the-line Pentium 4, there was a 30-45 second load time for the program, a 10-15 second lag between slides, and a really annoying 1-3 second lag between mouse clicks. After a semester, I gave up and went back to MS office. I'll be staying put until I see these issues resolved.
His first sentence is right on the money - "Linux is established and has a niche". So the question is - what is holding it back? And here, he misses the bleeding obvious - every single one of his points (from TFA - the reasons to keep unix or windows around, the cost analysis, etc) is flatly wrong or misses the mark. The answer is, I think, obvious --- Linux is the OS designed by geeks, for geeks. It's the classic example of overengineering the wheel. The problem is, I have yet to see an interface for *nix that does as good as job as windows does of 'packing everything under the hood' and making an operating system that (as a friend of mine, the chief sysadmin for Connectiv would say) "protects users from their own stupidity". When someone can come up with an interface that is as intuitive and user-friendly as windows, then (and only then) can linux hope to compete in the desktop market.
Pdfs are Unfit for human consumption
If memory serves, you have to be a brick and mortar research institution (a university, a laboratory, etc) in order to get an official hookup.
The write up understates it, I think. From TFA:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's movie.
Yes - Intel is deathly afraid of major vendors offering AMD as an option (or worse, switching entirely) and those vendors are obviously exploiting that fear
you might have an mp3, but by posting a link to it on slashdot, you no longer have a server
That comment is both insightful and tragic.
Just listen to what you are saying - anyone with a camera in a public place is now a suspected terrorist! That is a VERY DANGEROUS attitude to have - that is how dictatorships are born.
I'm white (of Italian descent)
On a trip to Washington, I toted along my brand new digital Camera. (I later put them on Wikipedia). This one got me into a wee bit of trouble. While I was waiting for a friend of mine to arrive, I took a couple of pictures of the waiting area in Greenebelt station of the Washington Metro. A minute or two later, a security guard comes up and asks what I'm doing. I tell him I was just taking a picture. He tells me that I need permission to photograph, and that if I want permission to take pictures, I need to get permission from "downtown".
Right, and that's true for the occasional editor who happens to notice a misprint and wants to fix it. What you are describing is akin to picking up a piece of litter you see on the street.
But if you want people to invest any significant amount of time you have to give them something to believe in. As a long time Wikipedia contributor, I can say that pretty much all the other long term users contribute because of a large sense of altruism -- of using their time for the public good, because they think that Wikipedia is a "Good Thing". On the other hand, this is a transparent attempt by Microsoft (a company not known for its good will and charity) to make money (to sell more copies of Encarta and/or make their advertisment laden site more popular). Why would anyone spend any amount of time helping out Encarta when a bigger, better, much less evil project already exists?
a good idea, but there is no way an admin will be able to go over every page in wikipedia and mark a good version, i would take years - perhaps I should have beem more clear - it would not be a single person doing it, it would be *all* admins who would be able to do it (400 or so last time I checked). This would be akin to the image tagging project which recently completed.
As someone who is heavily involved with WIkipedia, I have to ask myself - why the hell would anyone want to contribute to Encarta? People contribute to Wikipedia because it's (a) free (libre and gratis) and (b) because we've established a reputation of not being evil. So why would someone contribute to Encarta? To boost Microsoft's bottom line? I'm sorry, but I think they're going to have a very hard time attracting anyone willing to help, because I can't really see much incentive to do it.
I consider Whyami's and OldakQuill's work to be mine -- Whyami I a prof at Witchita state U who I talked into putting up his music (basically I spent 4 weeks walking him through the process); OldakQuill offered to help me uploading so I gave him a couple websites I found to plunder :)