e.g. Apple ripped it off in OS X 10.2, most Linux desktops now use a very poor imitation of it, Adobe has their own ripoff, etc.
>> NO, I think Apple was "ripping off" Display Postscript, which was from Adobe. The NeXT boxes used display postscript to render everything -- but even THAT I think, came from a NeXT innovation in conjunction with Adobe's postscript printing language that they were trying to bring to the screen, but Adobe had the patents on Postscript so tight, they had to collaborate. DP was very resource intensive, and required NeXT to shell out real bucks for every computer that used it to Adobe -- hence, it didn't have much appeal to them when Apple bought NeXT (and was then taken over by NeXT). So it took some time to reproduce all of that in Quartz on MacOSX but this prompted an even bigger innovation by Apple to move these processes to the graphics card (though, AMIGA did all this right years before anyone by breaking down all sorts of CPU-bound functions into specialized components -- but I digress).
Anyway, anti-aliasing to the screen has been around a lot longer than you suggest. The "ripp-off" of clearer font display on OS X, was just the growing pains of Apple trying to re-invent what they had done years before in their previous OS, and also with NeXT computers.
The "Clear-type" technology, cannot compare at all to the quality of Display postscript. It basically rasterized all the vector data to the screen as though "printing" to it. Clear-type just used an efficient anti-aliasing technique that works better "in some situations." And people are confused by the issue because OS X did it wrong for a few years -- whereas NeXT had it PERFECT years before that.
And then there might be some SGI fans who will chime in that NeXT might not have been the first to market with Display Postscript.
"I guess I am the only person that thinks Microsoft's perpetuation of "Proud Ignorance" is troubling.
I find it rather ironic that this was posted by someone who appears to be proud of his own ignorance."
That is really, really Ironic. I'm guessing the previous poster meant; "Proud Ignorance" to mean that; "people think Microsoft Innovates all the time, because they don't know the real history."
They didn't invent DOS -- it was a knock-off of CP/M.
They totally ripped off VisiCalc from a man who didn't understand the need for lawyers to create Excel.
Word from MacWrite.
Etc.
>> Anyway, this is an old, old debate. MS doesn't have the "Pioneer" business model -- and that I can understand and I don't fault them for that. I think this discussion should really be; "Does Microsoft hurt real innovation" and I would have to say; Yes, more than any other company in the computer field.
But hey, I'm much more worried about politics in the US over the past few years to even have worries about Microsoft on my radar anymore.
I read a very extensive discussion about the history of Font aliasing technology. Short story; They didn't innovate anything, except perhaps for some tweak that works better on some laptops. I think the Pro-Microsoft guy might have been talking about TrueType -- which was an Apple/Microsoft "innovation" only in that it helped them get away from Adobe copyrights (which strong-armed Adobe into just making things cheaper and sane) and made the bitmap and vector of a font one file.
I think it's fairer to say that "Microsoft brings Mediocrity to the Masses." They discover things that are decent, and not in wide distribution (which just means, that a behemoth like Microsoft hasn't bundled it yet), and then make it ubiquitous. This isn't such a bad thing -- Madonna does it all the time. Nobody would have heard about "Voguing" if she hadn't brought it from New York "alternative" clubs.
But I'm annoyed that, once Microsoft dominates a field -- it then stagnates. I think MS standards are the principle "drag" on computer technology of our age. That may not be bad culturally, but who knows? Take a look at PowerPoint -- Persuasion was light years ahead in most respects, but everyone KNEW about PowerPoint and besides, it was bundled with Word and Excel. It took them about 8 years to add an eyedropper tool to grab colors -- that's the most innovative/useful thing I noticed in that application (not counting the rearranging of palettes every version). Keynote is the only thing bringing back any innovation in the presentation market -- and it may yet dominate by a surprise attack by running on iPods (I plan to take a look at our next presentation "platform" being 6G iPods at the company I work at). But the unique occurrence, of someone coming back into a Microsoft dominated market and actually innovating is so rare, it points out how toxic Microsoft (and we could argue much of the IP squatters out there as well) is to true innovation.
Not to be Partisan, but everything that IS a personal computer that we rely on today, was done first by Apple, Xerox, Next and AMIGA (and perhaps one or two things from UNIX/VAX) -- I cannot think of one thing that Microsoft ever "pioneered" or even improved once they dominated a market. And that even goes for BASIC, which Bill ripped off from other's in his user group those many years ago.
I would say, however, that Microsoft has been innovative and "best of class" as far as developers go. But a lot of stuff I saw from them (and I AM NOT A WINDOWS PROGRAMMING EXPERT) kind of depend a lot on look up in a library of functions for this pre-made Windows call. I was always fond of some of the "components" that NeXT used to build more complicated programs and was attempted in OpenDoc. Much of that "large object" component strategy has eventually seeped into things like JAVA, Quartz and probably C# (by emulating JAVA). Yet, overall, Microsoft seems to have "gotten" developers, and created lots of supporting documentation and libraries and a subscription model for updates (which I think they were first on, and then LINUX) -- but I'm treading out of my comfort zone on that opinion.
It's just that so much of MS software seems made by committee, so that their might be three ways to do something, but none of them are consistent with how you might find the other three ways to do something else. There isn't much "logic" to their products -- you just have to know how they do it. Try programming their automation in Word for a mail-merge that goes beyond the basics sometime. Ugly mess -- just more bullet points on a feature list.
Mode 10101001 10101001 up -- you said it how I wanted to.
Further I would add, that sitting here trying to defend the pure frontal assault on Liberty in the past six years -- by comparing it to "dog and pony" morality shows by Tipper Gore (took me a while to forgive Gore for that nonsense) pales in comparison to Patriot Act I, II, and every other thing Bush has done.
Warrantless and massive spying... who wants to continue to pretend that ANY of this has anything to do with "bad guys." Where are they and where are the trials? Why do I feel that they've done more to cover up 9/11 than to investigate it? A few weeks into office, and the first attack happened while Clinton was in charge. His response was swift and immediate that day. The FBI was put in charge. A couple years later the blind Mullah was in prison with his cohorts. No changes in law, case closed. It was all open and seemed pretty straight-forward, even with a negative press.
So all this nonsense about "defending America" was to get dirt on political opposition. They aren't defending kids from molesters, their finding Mark Foley, and then blackmailing him to do their bidding. In fact, if they catch you at something really bad, I'm sure that the NeoCon machine wants you in charge of a committee, or in a position of power -- so that they can control you. This administration has shunned honest people of ethics and is run like the Mob.
So the discussion is Bogus, and Newt as the absentee father of this deformed NeoCon movement, needs to do some pennance and start outing those who would abuse Liberty if he ever wants credibility again. Otherwise, he's pretending to be some sort of honest bystander, musing about "how could such a crime happen?" Newt didn't do the mugging, but he sprayed paint on the cameras, sold the "stolen" and unmarked gun, and sent the police to the wrong building.
He's just begging to be relevant again, as we swop one set of crooks for another. Go get another $4 Million book deal from Rupert Murdoch again while you sit on a committee reviewing his consolidation of media ownership Newt, and then muse some more about how this corruption got started. Some people have no memory of the past -- and that is your base.
That's because they've been very busy being, very, very bad.
If I blamed a crime spree on a bank robber who robbed like twenty banks... would that be whinning?
The only controversy here, is that these people haven't been arrested or even investigated.
I don't know if anyone could prove the idea about the New Orleans levees... but if you wanted a rhetorical argument, you should have thrown in Big Foot... that always seems to be just far fetched enough to make people think that our Crim Lord in Chief wasn't involved. The bombings in Spain and England do have some possible connections to NeoCons, however... so I wouldn't throw those in. The WTC... heck, Marvin Bush took over the security company that started "securing" the WTC buildings that year... what's the worst that could happen?
Doesn't matter what "HE" posted. America can defend itself. "America bashing" only occurs when you allow our standards to drop, and allow Americans to perpetrate evil.
We've had three good wars; the War for Independence (fighting royalists), WW II (fighting fascists), and Kosovo (fighting genocide). Under Bush, we seem to be fighting for those three things to win. That might be why we need this war on Terror that seems to cause more collateral damage on Truth than it does on Terror.
Our CIA had a lot to do with supporting the "Russian Mafia" during the Cold War... perhaps there are still ties. It's one of the reasons that the CIA got involved in the drug trade here in the US -- so that no foreign nation could. If it didn't, how could it be possible with all the enemies our country has had, that no foreign government has ever assasinated a US politician? (Except of course, for JFK, but that's another story and was our own doing). So I don't necessarily HATE that the CIA runs our drug trade -- just that why is this stuff illegal at all? If we cannot stop foreign infiltration of this lucrative crime, cannot stop its use without a worse police state, then why stop drugs at all? So our drug trade has corrupted the CIA and has now corrupted our own government.
Our standing military complex, has influenced politicians, and so has created MORE wars that the US finds necessary. When there is more war -- they get more money, it's that simple.
Now Afghanistan is exporting a lot of Opium again, and that is being passed from our Afghani allies (who were just the drug lords who the Taliban crushed in the first place), to our special forces, and then is passed on to the Russian-Israeli Mafia... at least according to www.waynemadsenreport.com which is my pick as "BEST SOURCE FOR WHAT IS GOING ON."
Wayne Madsen is all over this story, and it seems it is another attempt to discredit Putin. The NeoCons are hip-deep allied with the Russian-Israeli mafia, and because of election-rigging in the Ukraine, and other Oil Resource Wars, are now no longer friends of Putin, it stands to reason that making Putin look bad will be the story line for Western (NeoCon fascist-controlled) Media, and other friendly NeoCon states.
But before I get into that,.. I find it interesting WHY he was poisened this way -- HOW is going to be too tough of a question, he hung around with a lot of people who traded nuclear material. I remember reading that during the cold war, the Russian spies liked to put radioactive elements on shoes and in people, to allow them to track movement. If this guy had so much radioactivity in him, either it was to send a message, or to create a person who could be tracked from space. But most likely, to silence a person who knew too much, was expendable, and make Putin look bad.
Here's what Wayne Madsen has to say; " November 28, 2006 -- In addition to Russian-Israeli Mafia, Litvinenko radiation poisoning now linked to Iraqi oil business and military occupation. British police have discovered traces of polonium 210, the radioactive substance sued to kill former Russian FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, in the office of wanted Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. London sources confirmed that traces of the radioactive substance were found at 7 Down Street in London's Mayfair district, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.
An Internet search shows that the Interpark House office building at 7 Down Street also houses the headquarters of the coal, oil, and energy hedge fund firm Starsupply Tullett Energy; offices of Metro International, the global media firm; Nichiei, Ltd., a Japanese consulting firm; and Capital Corporation plc, which owns three London casinos, Crockfords and the Colony Club in Mayfair and the Cromwell Mint in Kensington.
Although British police were on guard at Berezovsky's office, the Russian-Israeli businessman who is wanted for a variety of crimes in Russia, told the Guardian, "I don't know anything about police at my office," and refused any further comment on the case. Berezovsky was a colleague of Litvinenko and were working jointly to topple the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian President has made it a hallmark of his administration to crack down on the Russian mobsters and oligarchs who looted the Soviet and Russian treasuries, consorted with Chechen terrorists and engaged in "true flag" bombings involving Chechens in Moscow and other Russian cities, and then fled to Israel.
We get more people killed by botched police raids in this country... why should terrorism be so feared, when you have a greater chance of slipping and falling and killing yourself in the bath tub? Are we spending Billions to invade porcelain, or creating safety winches to reduce THAT risk?
We CHOOSE to have more people die. More people are killed in the "war on drugs." And the PR-backed "Patriots" all are such experts that they never assume we need to have dialog with nations that might have a beef with us. The other side just wants to conduct terror.
What was once a minor annoyance for law enforcement, has become a nightmare with tanks. And yet, the expensive "war on terror" has only increased the number of terrorist acts. This while our own government is one of the larger terror sponsors in the world -- but we don't recognize that, because we don't fell it's effects. We backed all sorts of "terrorists" in latin America, to scare the people and governments into adopting Globalization. And we have the "School of the Americas" which we can thank for training many on both sides of this "war." This isn't on the evening news -- but it is documented.
Republicans who don't believe in the value of oversight, good government, and social supports have done a great job illustrating what NO GOVERNMENT looks like.
Look at the Katrina disaster; FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA... which is no big deal, since they didn't seem to think FEMA was much more than a check machine for Florida hurricanes. So the fat government deal given to the former head of FEMA, get's outsourced to other companies... because he doesn't do the work, just gets the profits. Unfortuneatly, this great experiment in "outsourced" government, went awry when an actual disaster occured. No buses were available. We all know about the smoke-screen cover arguing about how New Orleans was too corrupt or lazy to save themselves -- but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived.
What was FEMA thinking, when they stopped 400 fanboat rescue volunteers from Florida? Either it was CYA or there was an interest in getting rid of troublesome New Orleans squatters... but if you assume that it was merely incompetence, we come to the other failure in government; Jobs. Haliburton was contracted, in a no bid deal, to fix up a lot of homes. They've outsourced that job to "guest workers" from Mexico while still retaining huge sums to do the work. So, in order to save Americans from the burdens of Socialist projects that use citizens for public works, we spend more to get less, and keep more citizens too impoverished to better themselves.
I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts.
They spent $13 Billion subsidizing big oil, which has made record profits. $13 Billion could provide a lot of school lunches and books, or healthcare for every kid in this country. $13 Billion is apparently, chicken feed, when we urgently need it for 6 weeks of the Iraq war... but too much when actually helping Americans who didn't "work" for it.
Well that's crap -- what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value. One Oil CEO getting a Billion $ a year, or a minimum wage worker making $12,000 a year is an arbitrary value. It's just a lot of corporate-BS in people's heads that has them convinced that somehow these values reflect any true value of the person working. IF so, then CEO's would get paid less, or perhaps outsourced to INDIA. I'm sure I could lose GE money for a lot less than their current CEO -- I could perhaps even make them a profit.
If we allow everything to be driven by what corporations want, then no bar will go too low. As soon as Burger King hires "guest workers", McDonalds will have to fire their workers and do the same.
So Newt shutting down the government, would have had greater effects the longer it lasted. And we've seen how important Congressional oversight can be -- with the lack of it these last 6 years and a total failure in government.
We have an EPA that protect polluters. While the level of Mercury in pregnant women has doubled.
We have an FDA that protects bad drugs on behalf of drug companies.
Our government has been stood on its head... and the repercussions of that are just beginning to be felt. We will have a generation of poorly educated test-takers, who have developed asthma, diabetes and Autism in epidemic numbers. Eating all manner of modified foods, breathing adulterated air in some grand experiment. The solution will not be for everyone to be an expert in health, and to test their own foods, and teach their own kids -- this is
Since when is Newt and his fascist, crooked friends "America?"
Every time we talk about Corrupt leaders, THEY talk about "hate speach" and terrorist propaganda.
This from a group, that didn't conduct an investigation into actual suspects and money trails... and has yet to make a credible arrest. So where is the "protection?"
The Democrats had to force them to start taking port security seriously... and then the Republicans went ahead and sold the ports to Dubai when nobody was looking. Remember Dubai of the UAE? BCCI? How is allowing our port security to be run by the same government that launders terrorist money "sercurity".
It seems that when Newt is saying "terrorist recruiting" what he means is "NeoCon Opposition speech." All the "sky is falling" chicken littles fail to realize that the widespread NSA wiretaps started BEFORE 9/11... and yet how much security did they provide?
So while Grandma gets swiped and probed for bombs, we have little port security, where we have millions of tons of cargo that could contain something a lot bigger than a shoe bomb arrives every day.
Oh, and this same group, which is riddled with War Profiteers, Incompetent Chicken-Hawk war mongers, and people of questionable loyalty (just look at how many get money from foreign nationals or are compromised by NeoCons who know who they've slept with), also sold 7 military industrial plants to Dubai. So you now have the UAE making weapons on our soil, with some of our technology.
Does that make you feel safe? Or are we going to scan every web page for suspect comments -- just incase it has some info from Bin Laden. Look, if I were interested in doing something wrong, and sending a message to someone else, I could send them a picture with the data encoded, and only they would have the origina picture without the data. It's a simple technique but impossible to thwart. So -- the only possilbe use for controlling the internet to get "bad guys" is to control the internet. The only possible use for a database of all my purchases, is to have a database of all my purchases to sell to PR agencies, marketing companies, and election promoters -- because Al Qaeda is going to use cash.
No, Newt is just a corporate shill. And America attacked two countries for oil and genocide, who had nothing to do with 9/11. Please note, that none of the hijackers were from either country. There are no credible NeoCon leaders, and they have never shown any ability other than to get elected and steal our tax dollars for private gain.
That "investment" was when Jobs had Gates over the barrell with a sawed off shotgun aimed at his head. Microsoft was found guilty of stealing the API of Quicktime in its Video for Windows 1.4c (if memory serves) - the rip-off was so blatant, the compiled binaries matched up (on Windows, of course). It was either give Apple some marketplace credibility with this "investment" or finally get caught red-handed being software pirates. The second option would have hurt Microsoft a lot more, but helped Apple, their stockholders, and any chance at getting Office compatibility.
So the one example you found, of Microsoft "doing the right thing" is because it was a backroom deal.
Please note, that Microsoft almost destroyed Java by "embrace and extend" and their "niceness" was after years of legal battles. They stole lots of design and API ideas from Apple to create Windows -- but through legal loophole, used a developer agreement to create a competing product -- so a combination of Jobs being too trusting, and a lousy Judge. So while not fatal is like saying; some people survive cancer... I don't know of anyone who wants to contract it, just because some people survive.
Microsoft has benefitted greatly by stealing ideas, embrace and extend, monopoly bundling, and anti-competitive practices... the slaps on the wrist they've received have never equaled the profits created. So I don't see any reason for them to change. Perhaps they can grab a lot of LINUX patents, and ruin the corporate marketplace with a lot of lawsuit FUD. I'm willing to bet, that they helped another prominent company attempt to do the same thing a few years ago.
And SUN is GPLing Java -- they are not Microsoft... and again, that "Deal" was because Microsoft had to due to their anti-competitive behavior with Java.
Please come back with some actual examples, of good business practices by Microsoft where it concerns a competitor. I don't know of any. Though I think they might have done OK for the group that made SoftImage, because they abandoned 3D development.
So, for business to get more productivity, they can increase work done for each hour (which is what is now limited according to this article by computer progress, but not so much for Protein Folding scientists), they can increase the time we work (not likely, as people are working two jobs or already sacrificing all the family time they would like), or reduce wages.
So you now understand the immigration issue. Either the US will move back towards pro citizen labor standards, and quit this "Corporate Measure" of productivity, or we are going to just keep getting lower real wages. You may not even notice it at first. One way to NOT TAX, and NOT LOWER WAGES but effectively give you less, is to keep printing money at the Fed. If You and me don't get juicy raises each year, we actually fall behind, because the amount of money in circulation dilutes the value of what we are paid or hold.
So, Productivity CAN INCREASE, at least according to business, if our government just keeps printing it's fiat currency AND raising interest rates so that foreign governments will want to keep buying our money. Being that it's a huge came of global chicken, everyone MUST invest in America -- because otherwise the whole cookie crumbles and the Trillions already invested would become worthless.
Personally, I would trade a nice, shiny CD-Player for air that wasn't like breathing second-hand smoke, and food that wasn't processed within an inch of being plastic. I pay a premium on Organic food -- which is a fancy term for; "stuff that hasn't been IMPROVED by all the economic productivity miracles we've come up with the last 50 years." When Organic and Eco-Friendly, and Bio-Diverse undevelopments become more common place, will there be a new metric for productivity that entails NOT DOING SOMETHING? The food additive professional, will be replaced by the "wholesomeness" professional, who will then find cheap ways to replace the cheap saw dust that replaced the cheap wheat, with even cheaper hemp, and thereby do LESS work for a more expensive, yet wholesome product.
Can we pay anyone to FORGET STEROIDS? The Organic milk I buy, did not require scientists to discover HGH or inject calves with massive doses of antibiotics, nor did it require the amazing discovery that dead cows could be ground up and fed back into the food chain, nor the fatter and faster growing genetic hybrid cows. The Organic Milk I pay a premium for, is much like the milk that was improved upon 40 years ago. Now to add an even greater wrinkle to the NEW PROGRESS DYNAMIC, you must realize, that our government now uses a "Hedonistic value" on durable goods, in order to say that a $25 toaster did not INFLATE 25% from a $20 Toaster -- but it added a new dial and timer for the consumer, thus making it a better toaster. So, by that same measure, by reducing the amount of "STUFF" in my food, and by adding 80% to the cost on average -- then I've inflated costs by 200%.
I imagine, they will just work just as disingenuously in reverse, such that inflation will still be posted at 4.5% and unemployment will still be 4.5%, as long as the public keeps buying this nonsense.
>> I would much rather have MORE THINGS I REALLY WANT and MORE THINGS THAT I NEED becoming cheaper as the measure. But this should always be factored with Quality of Living, because without that -- what is the point of all this Productivity? If our lives are getting shorter, the amount of paperwork and nonsense and stress we cope with ever more annoying. The pressures and lack of stability in work more precarious... meh. Being a geek, I'm tempted by our modern world to become a Luddite.
I hope the next "production wave" in the US will be towards green technologies. I saw Intel's move towards Instructions per Watt as a good step in that direction. We have to change the values that we are measuring -- because only then can we measure the "improvements" that we want.
Right now, PRODUCTIVITY, is a measurement of Corporate happiness, and that comes at the expense of American work hours or wages.
There is always going to be the guy who wants his slasher picture and to hell with you.
Or the Little Blue Haired church lady or evangelical who thinks you are going to hell because it's something on Cartoon Network -- take your pick.
99% of what I watch would offend at least half of the people on any given plane.
>> I think a better option is to use technology. Flat panels have been working hard to make the grills on their screens thinner to increase the field of view on the displays. It should be easy to reverse the process, and make a thicker grill so that anything 5 degrees or more "off axis" will not be seen.
So nobody in the seat next to you can see.
What can we do for the people behind you? Or the kids who want to peak? Perhaps add a paralax, or create a focal length to the screen -- though this would be a bit trickier. Not so hard if they adopted real 3D screens that have been designed.
I suppose you can make the grills deep and thin, and angle them at a region 2" to 8" wide (range for the two eyes in a moving head) so that any view beyond or closer than the "sweet spot" will have most of the view obscured by tilted grills -- so two feet behind, someone would see only a vertical strip comprising 10% of the screen.
Either that, or bring back the liquid crystal glasses that flash in sync to the screen -- or just put a privacy screen between seats (cheapest of all).
>> Anyway, technology is going to introduce an annoying situation, so technology must be tasked with solving it. Otherwise granny is going to have an issue with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (of course, so would I).
as someone just said; 4 different ways to make your penis stiff.
The placebos in the Cold Symptom isle at the drug store are part of a multi-billion dollar market. Couple this with the rise in spending on advertising and lobbying -- and we have a drug industry that already knows where profits lie.
There is already technology, to reduce the length of time to create an immunization from the 12 to 15 months that the "injected egg" technique uses, to something like 3 months (I believe I read that on slashdot). Why isn't it being used? Because drug companies already sell immunizations as fast as they can -- even though they are usually so out of date a new flu variant has spawned. They wait for another manufacturer to make it cheaper or the government to subsidize.
While I'm on my rant... I remember watching UCTV about stem cell research. While the hype and fictions were being dispelled (no magic bullet), an interesting graph about Cancer outcomes was put forth. Over the past 50 years, the survival's of Cancer patients has gone up 1% (down from 2% around the 1980's). I suspect new cancers are coming forward due to some environmental conditions... but that can't be all of it. When you factor out better tests than only show cancer earlier, you realize that we have made almost NIL headway on this disease. Wow, Billions of $ towards a modern science -- it's a good thing we don't use mercury like the quacks of yester-year. No, we use modern chemo-therapy and radiation, impoverishing desperate families, with no discernible change in outcomes. I'm beginning to think that Faith healers are just saving us money.
While there are some wonderful medical advances, I think that the machine is broken. Government money should only be subsidizing CURES, not treatments -- because there is no incentive for cures to Business. Not that I suspect a conspiracy, just that money goes to research based on market profitability. If the government ends up subsidizing that sort of research, it's only adding to profits on a balance sheet -- not promoting the public good.
Take a good look at stem cell research for example. The research is still going on... just not publicly. I suspect, that Bush and the paid lobbyists, could care less about moral issues -- they may just not want public funded research that would allow many discoveries to be in the public domain. Stop funding stem-cell research, and it becomes a profitable patent. The Health Industry must want to preserve all the easy to get patents for themselves.
I think we need to look again at what works and what doesn't. The concept of the free market achieving great things, without a strong vision in government forcing it too seems to be a wash.
If I had the mod points, I'd put you up another 100.
There is NO BIGGER ISSUE than the voting scam. There is no possible way, for the lackluster, ethically challenged, morally bankrupt Republican party to win this election OTHER than by vote-rigging. Besides the 2% with a trust fund -- who has benefited? OK, the 2% and people who secretly hate everyone different. Willfully trying to keep most of America poor and stupid.
There isn't much that is more important to our future right now, than if we can get rid of the Republicans in this mid-term election. Why am I paying taxes, if I have no representation?
This is not Liberal bias -- this is Democracy bias. Right now we are at the last chance to get rid of fascism. After this, we won't be able to vote Bush out of power. There is no Habeus Corpus so the Constitution is dead. The VERY LAST CHANCE FOR A CIVIL CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT is this election. Congress gets subpoena, Bush and company get impeached, war crimes trials and real investigations -- other than that, we are doomed.
Next will be an censored Internet, and people won't be bothered by our complaints about the government and corporations.
Don't let paid shills and greater fools trick you.
...things have finally gotten to the point where any statements against Diebold are as knee-jerk or fashionable as the rampant anti-Microsoftism and anti-republicanism that we all see. They're almost as cliché as the "overlord" and "you insensitive clod" comments.
>> Because lord knows, all those examples are of principled, innocent companies that have shown the utmost integrity.
We should start over-reacting more about homeless people, who are really behind our voting problems, monopoly contracts for mediocre software, and tempting the Republicans with their powerful musky scent.
Because fascism is just another cliche. I guess I've been over-reacting about $9 trillion in debt, total shame on our war conduct, and attacking two innocent nations to put in oil pipelines and ship illegal drugs. And, that whole thing with throwing out Habeus Corpus -- trust us, we will never abuse power with "Good Americans."
Let's totally ignore the many real examples of hacking the Diebold machines, or the two Diebold programmers who admitted to fixing elections. Or so many of the Elections Overlords have proven to be ethically challenged crooks -- that has no affect whatsoever on elections.
And Republicans are our moral champions because they are moral and great with economies because all the really, really profitable companies tell us so.
Sony is either smart or very dumb. The jury is still out (despite what most/. members think, like myself).
However, we need to look at it like this... what would have happened if Sony did NOT put blu-ray in their PS3? HD-DVD would have garnered a large early lead against Sony and probably would have killed of Blu-Ray. ... now if Sony were as smart and sneaky as Microsoft, they would never have bothered with Blue-Ray beyond the product announcement. They would then negotiate with HD-DVD and offered to licence their technology in a gesture of open standards -- but of course at a discount, because they could burry them with this Blue-Ray thing, and that would just confuse the market-place.
So, armed with a discount on HD-DVD licensing, they could start selling them into the market. Only they would quickly offer an "enhanced" HD-DVD, perhaps with a 1gig Flash drive to record position and settings and a list of all DVDs played. They could quickly extend the HD-DVD and make sure that some Sony products didn't work as well with other non-Sony HD-DVD players. Before the dust settled, Sony would have both the cheapest and the most preferred HD-DVD on the market. They could then slowly introduce standards drift while still playing other HD-DVDs from other vendors.
And who would want to buy a vanilla HD-DVD when you could have an HD-DVD + Plays-Sony-For-Sure + the way kewl DVD-Explorer?
Embrace and Extend.
Sony just took the old Apple position of trying to create their own technology, and then to launch a brand-new platform based on that unfinished technology, for no discernible profit motive.
Sony's game system needs to run with the best, most proven technology -- as if the rest of Sony doesn't exist. This was the same issue they had with an MP3 player that couldn't play MP3s and then insisted on the home-built and horrible A-Track compression that nobody else used.
Using their own platform to make Blue-Ray a standard was a big risk. I don't know what the profits for the BlueRay were going to be when you look at licensing, but they sure are risking a big cash cow to make it happen.
# They interviewed 1725 teenagers and adults. # Of that group of people, they threw out all of them who said they were not likely to buy an MP3 player in the next 12 months. If I were a loyal, satisfied ipod owner, I would be completely discounted from this survey. Furthermore, they give no indication of how many people actually made it to this point. It's entirely possible that out of the initial 1725, only 200 were looking to buy a new mp3 player. Out of the remaining 1525, 1000 could have no interest in MP3 players at all, and the remaining 500 could be raving lunatic apple fanatics, for all we know.
I think you make a good point. If this was done by a third party, being used to create marketing "news points" for Microsoft, then all they would have to do is do a survey of 1725, find what qualities show the loyal iPod owner, and then remove that group. -- I'm not saying that is what they did, but I'm a skeptic. I don't trust most surveys unless they go out of their way to show the data and don't bias the results.
If I have an iPod already -- then would I say I was going to buy a new one inside of a year? That isn't very likely if I'm already satisfied with the iPod I have. If I have an mp3 player, and I'm buying a new one in 12 months, I'm more likely to be dissatisfied -- I think that's a fair assumption. There is a portion of any group that will crave New and Kewl -- they'll be the group more likely to be buying in 12 months.
It's a good example of how to make a point by confusing people. There isn't enough data here. They threw out a large group of the sample -- so it removes the random nature of the sample.
I would EXPECT that iPod owners are less loyal, because it is a device that just does a few specific tasks well. I'm not loyal to my toaster... but we haven't learned if this expectation is true or not with this fudged survey.
It really sounds like someone trying to get the market to think the Zune has a chance. If you attached one to a toaster and didn't raise the price of the toaster -- hey, it's a deal.
"14erCleaner" proves the point that others make; People need to read about candidates.
Actually, you're proving your own point, since you didn't read my post carefully. Dean did make a public outburst,
>> The blog world seems full of people like yourself who can't get a point if they get knocked in the head with it. A "public outburst?" Is yelling at a campaign rally a reason to get rid of a candidate? You've just every possible candidate in the history of the planet. I'm sure Dean also makes offensive noises on the toilet -- if CNN broadcast that for a month, I'm sure it would make news.
And all those sneaky paparazzi -- you don't want people intruding on the private affairs of people if it happens to be two consenting pages and a Republican Senator?
Once might point out that Nixon was eventually elected to two terms as President (despite not shaving in 1960), and that he turned out to be a rather disappointing President ethically, so one could then conclude that the 1960 TV debate fiasco was actually revealing his true character... Only to an idiot who isn't paying attention. Sorry to get personal, but you are definitely trying to fit reality to justify basing opinions on superficial impressions. How does anyone know why Kennedy won a TV debate? That's just horse-race conjecture, perhaps Nixon looked shifty. Either way, none of that has anything to do with what sort of president Nixon became.
I only commented on your point because I was using it of an example of someone who strings together words without the use of logic -- I really didn't want to engage you in discussion. Sorry.
Ford and GM aren't selling as many cars either, perhaps they need to crack down on those people buying Toyotas or the cheaper imports.
I'd also like to make a $100k per year selling buggy whips, perhaps I can get the government to guarantee the success of my business model?
I'd also like to make it illegal for people to share water. They must buy it from a legitimate bottler, otherwise they make it impossible for those hardworking water bottlers to make a living. Some people mix lemons and sugar in their illegitimate water and make a product that competes with the patented product from Welch's. It's absolutely theft.
Once we solve that, we have to get after the parents who tell children stories -- those are copyrighted works, so reproducing them, however inexpertly, is infringing on copyright.
I disagree. The fact that "YouTube" sounds like "uTube" but sells a totally different product is unfortunate. Copyright, is to protect consumers from confusion in the marketplace -- not for company sales. They didn't put a Line over the U to stress it's long vowel form, so for all we know, it's pronounced "ugh-too'B".
Due to the use of every two syllable combination for a URL on the web -- it's impossible to NOT step on someone else. Is "sale4you.com" supposed to pay "saleForYou.com" or just "saleFourYou.com" or even "sale4u.com" or the p0rn site "sally4you.com" ? Or should Google just pay for that, since all of them were found on google with a poor description that confused the consumer?
The only difference here is that YouTube.com is popular -- otherwise, UTube.com would still have YouTub.com, uTub.com, and YooToob.com (I suppose for TellyTubby fans).
A quick fix would be for UTube.com to change their URL. Then make a real funny video about the whole mess, and put their new URL on it and post it to youTube.com.
Problem solved.
Make sure you have some hot chicks, and some silly dancing dog in the video.
Of course, there is not solution if you are just going out of business and nobody besides confused youTube freaks are your only accidental customers.
"Hey, this Vacuum Tube doesn't show any of the funny clips of Colbert cutting bears with his light saber!"
It's more likely that they are failing to convince China to respect IP law. Ownership of patents, copyrights, and entire genomes with armies of lawyers is perhaps the only business model for the Future of the USA.
If Microsoft and Disney can't arrest people in China for copying their stuff -- what's the point in doing business?
And maybe that whole "human rights thing" might be an issue, but did they just wake up and notice that? "Hey, where'd Tibet go?"
But the first two cores lift the stubborn code, and the next two cores separate the task and the next two cores do out of order execution of the code. The Final two cores are necessary because Bic has a 6 core razor and managed to convince the Patent office that was somehow not an obvious thing to do after the quad-core thingy.
A case in point. Look at all the data thefts that have occured over the past few years of unprotected government databases.
One or two look like an "oops." But hundreds? Either there is a disregard for public records, or perhaps the Government WANTS the data released -- so that a private sector company can do what they can't with the data, and there is plausible deny ability about the source.
Slashdot Mirror
e.g. Apple ripped it off in OS X 10.2, most Linux desktops now use a very poor imitation of it, Adobe has their own ripoff, etc.
>> NO, I think Apple was "ripping off" Display Postscript, which was from Adobe. The NeXT boxes used display postscript to render everything -- but even THAT I think, came from a NeXT innovation in conjunction with Adobe's postscript printing language that they were trying to bring to the screen, but Adobe had the patents on Postscript so tight, they had to collaborate. DP was very resource intensive, and required NeXT to shell out real bucks for every computer that used it to Adobe -- hence, it didn't have much appeal to them when Apple bought NeXT (and was then taken over by NeXT). So it took some time to reproduce all of that in Quartz on MacOSX but this prompted an even bigger innovation by Apple to move these processes to the graphics card (though, AMIGA did all this right years before anyone by breaking down all sorts of CPU-bound functions into specialized components -- but I digress).
Anyway, anti-aliasing to the screen has been around a lot longer than you suggest. The "ripp-off" of clearer font display on OS X, was just the growing pains of Apple trying to re-invent what they had done years before in their previous OS, and also with NeXT computers.
The "Clear-type" technology, cannot compare at all to the quality of Display postscript. It basically rasterized all the vector data to the screen as though "printing" to it. Clear-type just used an efficient anti-aliasing technique that works better "in some situations." And people are confused by the issue because OS X did it wrong for a few years -- whereas NeXT had it PERFECT years before that.
And then there might be some SGI fans who will chime in that NeXT might not have been the first to market with Display Postscript.
"I guess I am the only person that thinks Microsoft's perpetuation of "Proud Ignorance" is troubling.
I find it rather ironic that this was posted by someone who appears to be proud of his own ignorance."
That is really, really Ironic. I'm guessing the previous poster meant; "Proud Ignorance" to mean that; "people think Microsoft Innovates all the time, because they don't know the real history."
They didn't invent DOS -- it was a knock-off of CP/M.
They totally ripped off VisiCalc from a man who didn't understand the need for lawyers to create Excel.
Word from MacWrite.
Etc.
>> Anyway, this is an old, old debate. MS doesn't have the "Pioneer" business model -- and that I can understand and I don't fault them for that. I think this discussion should really be; "Does Microsoft hurt real innovation" and I would have to say; Yes, more than any other company in the computer field.
But hey, I'm much more worried about politics in the US over the past few years to even have worries about Microsoft on my radar anymore.
I read a very extensive discussion about the history of Font aliasing technology.
Short story; They didn't innovate anything, except perhaps for some tweak that works better on some laptops.
I think the Pro-Microsoft guy might have been talking about TrueType -- which was an Apple/Microsoft "innovation" only in that it helped them get away from Adobe copyrights (which strong-armed Adobe into just making things cheaper and sane) and made the bitmap and vector of a font one file.
I think it's fairer to say that "Microsoft brings Mediocrity to the Masses." They discover things that are decent, and not in wide distribution (which just means, that a behemoth like Microsoft hasn't bundled it yet), and then make it ubiquitous. This isn't such a bad thing -- Madonna does it all the time. Nobody would have heard about "Voguing" if she hadn't brought it from New York "alternative" clubs.
But I'm annoyed that, once Microsoft dominates a field -- it then stagnates. I think MS standards are the principle "drag" on computer technology of our age. That may not be bad culturally, but who knows? Take a look at PowerPoint -- Persuasion was light years ahead in most respects, but everyone KNEW about PowerPoint and besides, it was bundled with Word and Excel. It took them about 8 years to add an eyedropper tool to grab colors -- that's the most innovative/useful thing I noticed in that application (not counting the rearranging of palettes every version). Keynote is the only thing bringing back any innovation in the presentation market -- and it may yet dominate by a surprise attack by running on iPods (I plan to take a look at our next presentation "platform" being 6G iPods at the company I work at). But the unique occurrence, of someone coming back into a Microsoft dominated market and actually innovating is so rare, it points out how toxic Microsoft (and we could argue much of the IP squatters out there as well) is to true innovation.
Not to be Partisan, but everything that IS a personal computer that we rely on today, was done first by Apple, Xerox, Next and AMIGA (and perhaps one or two things from UNIX/VAX) -- I cannot think of one thing that Microsoft ever "pioneered" or even improved once they dominated a market. And that even goes for BASIC, which Bill ripped off from other's in his user group those many years ago.
I would say, however, that Microsoft has been innovative and "best of class" as far as developers go. But a lot of stuff I saw from them (and I AM NOT A WINDOWS PROGRAMMING EXPERT) kind of depend a lot on look up in a library of functions for this pre-made Windows call. I was always fond of some of the "components" that NeXT used to build more complicated programs and was attempted in OpenDoc. Much of that "large object" component strategy has eventually seeped into things like JAVA, Quartz and probably C# (by emulating JAVA). Yet, overall, Microsoft seems to have "gotten" developers, and created lots of supporting documentation and libraries and a subscription model for updates (which I think they were first on, and then LINUX) -- but I'm treading out of my comfort zone on that opinion.
It's just that so much of MS software seems made by committee, so that their might be three ways to do something, but none of them are consistent with how you might find the other three ways to do something else. There isn't much "logic" to their products -- you just have to know how they do it. Try programming their automation in Word for a mail-merge that goes beyond the basics sometime. Ugly mess -- just more bullet points on a feature list.
Mode 10101001 10101001 up -- you said it how I wanted to.
Further I would add, that sitting here trying to defend the pure frontal assault on Liberty in the past six years -- by comparing it to "dog and pony" morality shows by Tipper Gore (took me a while to forgive Gore for that nonsense) pales in comparison to Patriot Act I, II, and every other thing Bush has done.
Warrantless and massive spying... who wants to continue to pretend that ANY of this has anything to do with "bad guys." Where are they and where are the trials? Why do I feel that they've done more to cover up 9/11 than to investigate it? A few weeks into office, and the first attack happened while Clinton was in charge. His response was swift and immediate that day. The FBI was put in charge. A couple years later the blind Mullah was in prison with his cohorts. No changes in law, case closed. It was all open and seemed pretty straight-forward, even with a negative press.
So all this nonsense about "defending America" was to get dirt on political opposition. They aren't defending kids from molesters, their finding Mark Foley, and then blackmailing him to do their bidding. In fact, if they catch you at something really bad, I'm sure that the NeoCon machine wants you in charge of a committee, or in a position of power -- so that they can control you. This administration has shunned honest people of ethics and is run like the Mob.
So the discussion is Bogus, and Newt as the absentee father of this deformed NeoCon movement, needs to do some pennance and start outing those who would abuse Liberty if he ever wants credibility again. Otherwise, he's pretending to be some sort of honest bystander, musing about "how could such a crime happen?" Newt didn't do the mugging, but he sprayed paint on the cameras, sold the "stolen" and unmarked gun, and sent the police to the wrong building.
He's just begging to be relevant again, as we swop one set of crooks for another. Go get another $4 Million book deal from Rupert Murdoch again while you sit on a committee reviewing his consolidation of media ownership Newt, and then muse some more about how this corruption got started. Some people have no memory of the past -- and that is your base.
That's because they've been very busy being, very, very bad.
... so I wouldn't throw those in. The WTC... heck, Marvin Bush took over the security company that started "securing" the WTC buildings that year... what's the worst that could happen?
If I blamed a crime spree on a bank robber who robbed like twenty banks... would that be whinning?
The only controversy here, is that these people haven't been arrested or even investigated.
I don't know if anyone could prove the idea about the New Orleans levees... but if you wanted a rhetorical argument, you should have thrown in Big Foot... that always seems to be just far fetched enough to make people think that our Crim Lord in Chief wasn't involved. The bombings in Spain and England do have some possible connections to NeoCons, however
Doesn't matter what "HE" posted. America can defend itself.
"America bashing" only occurs when you allow our standards to drop, and allow Americans to perpetrate evil.
We've had three good wars; the War for Independence (fighting royalists), WW II (fighting fascists), and Kosovo (fighting genocide).
Under Bush, we seem to be fighting for those three things to win. That might be why we need this war on Terror that seems to cause more collateral damage on Truth than it does on Terror.
Good point.
Our CIA had a lot to do with supporting the "Russian Mafia" during the Cold War... perhaps there are still ties. It's one of the reasons that the CIA got involved in the drug trade here in the US -- so that no foreign nation could. If it didn't, how could it be possible with all the enemies our country has had, that no foreign government has ever assasinated a US politician? (Except of course, for JFK, but that's another story and was our own doing). So I don't necessarily HATE that the CIA runs our drug trade -- just that why is this stuff illegal at all? If we cannot stop foreign infiltration of this lucrative crime, cannot stop its use without a worse police state, then why stop drugs at all? So our drug trade has corrupted the CIA and has now corrupted our own government.
Our standing military complex, has influenced politicians, and so has created MORE wars that the US finds necessary. When there is more war -- they get more money, it's that simple.
Now Afghanistan is exporting a lot of Opium again, and that is being passed from our Afghani allies (who were just the drug lords who the Taliban crushed in the first place), to our special forces, and then is passed on to the Russian-Israeli Mafia... at least according to www.waynemadsenreport.com which is my pick as "BEST SOURCE FOR WHAT IS GOING ON."
Wayne Madsen is all over this story, and it seems it is another attempt to discredit Putin. The NeoCons are hip-deep allied with the Russian-Israeli mafia, and because of election-rigging in the Ukraine, and other Oil Resource Wars, are now no longer friends of Putin, it stands to reason that making Putin look bad will be the story line for Western (NeoCon fascist-controlled) Media, and other friendly NeoCon states.
But before I get into that,.. I find it interesting WHY he was poisened this way -- HOW is going to be too tough of a question, he hung around with a lot of people who traded nuclear material. I remember reading that during the cold war, the Russian spies liked to put radioactive elements on shoes and in people, to allow them to track movement. If this guy had so much radioactivity in him, either it was to send a message, or to create a person who could be tracked from space. But most likely, to silence a person who knew too much, was expendable, and make Putin look bad.
Here's what Wayne Madsen has to say;
"
November 28, 2006 -- In addition to Russian-Israeli Mafia, Litvinenko radiation poisoning now linked to Iraqi oil business and military occupation. British police have discovered traces of polonium 210, the radioactive substance sued to kill former Russian FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, in the office of wanted Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky. London sources confirmed that traces of the radioactive substance were found at 7 Down Street in London's Mayfair district, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper.
An Internet search shows that the Interpark House office building at 7 Down Street also houses the headquarters of the coal, oil, and energy hedge fund firm Starsupply Tullett Energy; offices of Metro International, the global media firm; Nichiei, Ltd., a Japanese consulting firm; and Capital Corporation plc, which owns three London casinos, Crockfords and the Colony Club in Mayfair and the Cromwell Mint in Kensington.
Although British police were on guard at Berezovsky's office, the Russian-Israeli businessman who is wanted for a variety of crimes in Russia, told the Guardian, "I don't know anything about police at my office," and refused any further comment on the case. Berezovsky was a colleague of Litvinenko and were working jointly to topple the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Russian President has made it a hallmark of his administration to crack down on the Russian mobsters and oligarchs who looted the Soviet and Russian treasuries, consorted with Chechen terrorists and engaged in "true flag" bombings involving Chechens in Moscow and other Russian cities, and then fled to Israel.
We get more people killed by botched police raids in this country... why should terrorism be so feared, when you have a greater chance of slipping and falling and killing yourself in the bath tub? Are we spending Billions to invade porcelain, or creating safety winches to reduce THAT risk?
We CHOOSE to have more people die. More people are killed in the "war on drugs." And the PR-backed "Patriots" all are such experts that they never assume we need to have dialog with nations that might have a beef with us. The other side just wants to conduct terror.
What was once a minor annoyance for law enforcement, has become a nightmare with tanks. And yet, the expensive "war on terror" has only increased the number of terrorist acts. This while our own government is one of the larger terror sponsors in the world -- but we don't recognize that, because we don't fell it's effects. We backed all sorts of "terrorists" in latin America, to scare the people and governments into adopting Globalization. And we have the "School of the Americas" which we can thank for training many on both sides of this "war." This isn't on the evening news -- but it is documented.
Republicans who don't believe in the value of oversight, good government, and social supports have done a great job illustrating what NO GOVERNMENT looks like.
Look at the Katrina disaster; FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA... which is no big deal, since they didn't seem to think FEMA was much more than a check machine for Florida hurricanes. So the fat government deal given to the former head of FEMA, get's outsourced to other companies... because he doesn't do the work, just gets the profits. Unfortuneatly, this great experiment in "outsourced" government, went awry when an actual disaster occured. No buses were available. We all know about the smoke-screen cover arguing about how New Orleans was too corrupt or lazy to save themselves -- but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived.
What was FEMA thinking, when they stopped 400 fanboat rescue volunteers from Florida? Either it was CYA or there was an interest in getting rid of troublesome New Orleans squatters... but if you assume that it was merely incompetence, we come to the other failure in government; Jobs. Haliburton was contracted, in a no bid deal, to fix up a lot of homes. They've outsourced that job to "guest workers" from Mexico while still retaining huge sums to do the work. So, in order to save Americans from the burdens of Socialist projects that use citizens for public works, we spend more to get less, and keep more citizens too impoverished to better themselves.
I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts.
They spent $13 Billion subsidizing big oil, which has made record profits. $13 Billion could provide a lot of school lunches and books, or healthcare for every kid in this country. $13 Billion is apparently, chicken feed, when we urgently need it for 6 weeks of the Iraq war... but too much when actually helping Americans who didn't "work" for it.
Well that's crap -- what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value. One Oil CEO getting a Billion $ a year, or a minimum wage worker making $12,000 a year is an arbitrary value. It's just a lot of corporate-BS in people's heads that has them convinced that somehow these values reflect any true value of the person working. IF so, then CEO's would get paid less, or perhaps outsourced to INDIA. I'm sure I could lose GE money for a lot less than their current CEO -- I could perhaps even make them a profit.
If we allow everything to be driven by what corporations want, then no bar will go too low. As soon as Burger King hires "guest workers", McDonalds will have to fire their workers and do the same.
So Newt shutting down the government, would have had greater effects the longer it lasted. And we've seen how important Congressional oversight can be -- with the lack of it these last 6 years and a total failure in government.
We have an EPA that protect polluters. While the level of Mercury in pregnant women has doubled.
We have an FDA that protects bad drugs on behalf of drug companies.
Our government has been stood on its head... and the repercussions of that are just beginning to be felt. We will have a generation of poorly educated test-takers, who have developed asthma, diabetes and Autism in epidemic numbers. Eating all manner of modified foods, breathing adulterated air in some grand experiment. The solution will not be for everyone to be an expert in health, and to test their own foods, and teach their own kids -- this is
Since when is Newt and his fascist, crooked friends "America?"
... and yet how much security did they provide?
Every time we talk about Corrupt leaders, THEY talk about "hate speach" and terrorist propaganda.
This from a group, that didn't conduct an investigation into actual suspects and money trails... and has yet to make a credible arrest. So where is the "protection?"
The Democrats had to force them to start taking port security seriously... and then the Republicans went ahead and sold the ports to Dubai when nobody was looking. Remember Dubai of the UAE? BCCI? How is allowing our port security to be run by the same government that launders terrorist money "sercurity".
It seems that when Newt is saying "terrorist recruiting" what he means is "NeoCon Opposition speech." All the "sky is falling" chicken littles fail to realize that the widespread NSA wiretaps started BEFORE 9/11
So while Grandma gets swiped and probed for bombs, we have little port security, where we have millions of tons of cargo that could contain something a lot bigger than a shoe bomb arrives every day.
Oh, and this same group, which is riddled with War Profiteers, Incompetent Chicken-Hawk war mongers, and people of questionable loyalty (just look at how many get money from foreign nationals or are compromised by NeoCons who know who they've slept with), also sold 7 military industrial plants to Dubai. So you now have the UAE making weapons on our soil, with some of our technology.
Does that make you feel safe? Or are we going to scan every web page for suspect comments -- just incase it has some info from Bin Laden. Look, if I were interested in doing something wrong, and sending a message to someone else, I could send them a picture with the data encoded, and only they would have the origina picture without the data. It's a simple technique but impossible to thwart. So -- the only possilbe use for controlling the internet to get "bad guys" is to control the internet. The only possible use for a database of all my purchases, is to have a database of all my purchases to sell to PR agencies, marketing companies, and election promoters -- because Al Qaeda is going to use cash.
No, Newt is just a corporate shill. And America attacked two countries for oil and genocide, who had nothing to do with 9/11. Please note, that none of the hijackers were from either country. There are no credible NeoCon leaders, and they have never shown any ability other than to get elected and steal our tax dollars for private gain.
That "investment" was when Jobs had Gates over the barrell with a sawed off shotgun aimed at his head. Microsoft was found guilty of stealing the API of Quicktime in its Video for Windows 1.4c (if memory serves) - the rip-off was so blatant, the compiled binaries matched up (on Windows, of course). It was either give Apple some marketplace credibility with this "investment" or finally get caught red-handed being software pirates. The second option would have hurt Microsoft a lot more, but helped Apple, their stockholders, and any chance at getting Office compatibility.
... I don't know of anyone who wants to contract it, just because some people survive.
So the one example you found, of Microsoft "doing the right thing" is because it was a backroom deal.
Please note, that Microsoft almost destroyed Java by "embrace and extend" and their "niceness" was after years of legal battles. They stole lots of design and API ideas from Apple to create Windows -- but through legal loophole, used a developer agreement to create a competing product -- so a combination of Jobs being too trusting, and a lousy Judge. So while not fatal is like saying; some people survive cancer
Microsoft has benefitted greatly by stealing ideas, embrace and extend, monopoly bundling, and anti-competitive practices... the slaps on the wrist they've received have never equaled the profits created. So I don't see any reason for them to change. Perhaps they can grab a lot of LINUX patents, and ruin the corporate marketplace with a lot of lawsuit FUD. I'm willing to bet, that they helped another prominent company attempt to do the same thing a few years ago.
And SUN is GPLing Java -- they are not Microsoft... and again, that "Deal" was because Microsoft had to due to their anti-competitive behavior with Java.
Please come back with some actual examples, of good business practices by Microsoft where it concerns a competitor. I don't know of any. Though I think they might have done OK for the group that made SoftImage, because they abandoned 3D development.
Productivity has a lot to do with
Work X Time / Wages = Productivity.
So, for business to get more productivity, they can increase work done for each hour (which is what is now limited according to this article by computer progress, but not so much for Protein Folding scientists), they can increase the time we work (not likely, as people are working two jobs or already sacrificing all the family time they would like), or reduce wages.
So you now understand the immigration issue. Either the US will move back towards pro citizen labor standards, and quit this "Corporate Measure" of productivity, or we are going to just keep getting lower real wages. You may not even notice it at first. One way to NOT TAX, and NOT LOWER WAGES but effectively give you less, is to keep printing money at the Fed. If You and me don't get juicy raises each year, we actually fall behind, because the amount of money in circulation dilutes the value of what we are paid or hold.
So, Productivity CAN INCREASE, at least according to business, if our government just keeps printing it's fiat currency AND raising interest rates so that foreign governments will want to keep buying our money. Being that it's a huge came of global chicken, everyone MUST invest in America -- because otherwise the whole cookie crumbles and the Trillions already invested would become worthless.
Personally, I would trade a nice, shiny CD-Player for air that wasn't like breathing second-hand smoke, and food that wasn't processed within an inch of being plastic. I pay a premium on Organic food -- which is a fancy term for; "stuff that hasn't been IMPROVED by all the economic productivity miracles we've come up with the last 50 years." When Organic and Eco-Friendly, and Bio-Diverse undevelopments become more common place, will there be a new metric for productivity that entails NOT DOING SOMETHING? The food additive professional, will be replaced by the "wholesomeness" professional, who will then find cheap ways to replace the cheap saw dust that replaced the cheap wheat, with even cheaper hemp, and thereby do LESS work for a more expensive, yet wholesome product.
Can we pay anyone to FORGET STEROIDS? The Organic milk I buy, did not require scientists to discover HGH or inject calves with massive doses of antibiotics, nor did it require the amazing discovery that dead cows could be ground up and fed back into the food chain, nor the fatter and faster growing genetic hybrid cows. The Organic Milk I pay a premium for, is much like the milk that was improved upon 40 years ago. Now to add an even greater wrinkle to the NEW PROGRESS DYNAMIC, you must realize, that our government now uses a "Hedonistic value" on durable goods, in order to say that a $25 toaster did not INFLATE 25% from a $20 Toaster -- but it added a new dial and timer for the consumer, thus making it a better toaster. So, by that same measure, by reducing the amount of "STUFF" in my food, and by adding 80% to the cost on average -- then I've inflated costs by 200%.
I imagine, they will just work just as disingenuously in reverse, such that inflation will still be posted at 4.5% and unemployment will still be 4.5%, as long as the public keeps buying this nonsense.
>> I would much rather have MORE THINGS I REALLY WANT and MORE THINGS THAT I NEED becoming cheaper as the measure. But this should always be factored with Quality of Living, because without that -- what is the point of all this Productivity? If our lives are getting shorter, the amount of paperwork and nonsense and stress we cope with ever more annoying. The pressures and lack of stability in work more precarious... meh. Being a geek, I'm tempted by our modern world to become a Luddite.
I hope the next "production wave" in the US will be towards green technologies. I saw Intel's move towards Instructions per Watt as a good step in that direction. We have to change the values that we are measuring -- because only then can we measure the "improvements" that we want.
Right now, PRODUCTIVITY, is a measurement of Corporate happiness, and that comes at the expense of American work hours or wages.
There is always going to be the guy who wants his slasher picture and to hell with you.
Or the Little Blue Haired church lady or evangelical who thinks you are going to hell because it's something on Cartoon Network -- take your pick.
99% of what I watch would offend at least half of the people on any given plane.
>> I think a better option is to use technology. Flat panels have been working hard to make the grills on their screens thinner to increase the field of view on the displays. It should be easy to reverse the process, and make a thicker grill so that anything 5 degrees or more "off axis" will not be seen.
So nobody in the seat next to you can see.
What can we do for the people behind you? Or the kids who want to peak? Perhaps add a paralax, or create a focal length to the screen -- though this would be a bit trickier. Not so hard if they adopted real 3D screens that have been designed.
I suppose you can make the grills deep and thin, and angle them at a region 2" to 8" wide (range for the two eyes in a moving head) so that any view beyond or closer than the "sweet spot" will have most of the view obscured by tilted grills -- so two feet behind, someone would see only a vertical strip comprising 10% of the screen.
Either that, or bring back the liquid crystal glasses that flash in sync to the screen -- or just put a privacy screen between seats (cheapest of all).
>> Anyway, technology is going to introduce an annoying situation, so technology must be tasked with solving it. Otherwise granny is going to have an issue with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (of course, so would I).
What incentives to Drug companies have now?...
... but that can't be all of it. When you factor out better tests than only show cancer earlier, you realize that we have made almost NIL headway on this disease. Wow, Billions of $ towards a modern science -- it's a good thing we don't use mercury like the quacks of yester-year. No, we use modern chemo-therapy and radiation, impoverishing desperate families, with no discernible change in outcomes. I'm beginning to think that Faith healers are just saving us money.
as someone just said; 4 different ways to make your penis stiff.
The placebos in the Cold Symptom isle at the drug store are part of a multi-billion dollar market. Couple this with the rise in spending on advertising and lobbying -- and we have a drug industry that already knows where profits lie.
There is already technology, to reduce the length of time to create an immunization from the 12 to 15 months that the "injected egg" technique uses, to something like 3 months (I believe I read that on slashdot). Why isn't it being used? Because drug companies already sell immunizations as fast as they can -- even though they are usually so out of date a new flu variant has spawned. They wait for another manufacturer to make it cheaper or the government to subsidize.
While I'm on my rant... I remember watching UCTV about stem cell research. While the hype and fictions were being dispelled (no magic bullet), an interesting graph about Cancer outcomes was put forth. Over the past 50 years, the survival's of Cancer patients has gone up 1% (down from 2% around the 1980's). I suspect new cancers are coming forward due to some environmental conditions
While there are some wonderful medical advances, I think that the machine is broken. Government money should only be subsidizing CURES, not treatments -- because there is no incentive for cures to Business. Not that I suspect a conspiracy, just that money goes to research based on market profitability. If the government ends up subsidizing that sort of research, it's only adding to profits on a balance sheet -- not promoting the public good.
Take a good look at stem cell research for example. The research is still going on... just not publicly. I suspect, that Bush and the paid lobbyists, could care less about moral issues -- they may just not want public funded research that would allow many discoveries to be in the public domain. Stop funding stem-cell research, and it becomes a profitable patent. The Health Industry must want to preserve all the easy to get patents for themselves.
I think we need to look again at what works and what doesn't. The concept of the free market achieving great things, without a strong vision in government forcing it too seems to be a wash.
If I had the mod points, I'd put you up another 100.
There is NO BIGGER ISSUE than the voting scam. There is no possible way, for the lackluster, ethically challenged, morally bankrupt Republican party to win this election OTHER than by vote-rigging. Besides the 2% with a trust fund -- who has benefited? OK, the 2% and people who secretly hate everyone different. Willfully trying to keep most of America poor and stupid.
There isn't much that is more important to our future right now, than if we can get rid of the Republicans in this mid-term election. Why am I paying taxes, if I have no representation?
This is not Liberal bias -- this is Democracy bias. Right now we are at the last chance to get rid of fascism. After this, we won't be able to vote Bush out of power. There is no Habeus Corpus so the Constitution is dead. The VERY LAST CHANCE FOR A CIVIL CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT is this election. Congress gets subpoena, Bush and company get impeached, war crimes trials and real investigations -- other than that, we are doomed.
Next will be an censored Internet, and people won't be bothered by our complaints about the government and corporations.
Don't let paid shills and greater fools trick you.
...things have finally gotten to the point where any statements against Diebold are as knee-jerk or fashionable as the rampant anti-Microsoftism and anti-republicanism that we all see. They're almost as cliché as the "overlord" and "you insensitive clod" comments.
>> Because lord knows, all those examples are of principled, innocent companies that have shown the utmost integrity.
We should start over-reacting more about homeless people, who are really behind our voting problems, monopoly contracts for mediocre software, and tempting the Republicans with their powerful musky scent.
Because fascism is just another cliche. I guess I've been over-reacting about $9 trillion in debt, total shame on our war conduct, and attacking two innocent nations to put in oil pipelines and ship illegal drugs. And, that whole thing with throwing out Habeus Corpus -- trust us, we will never abuse power with "Good Americans."
Let's totally ignore the many real examples of hacking the Diebold machines, or the two Diebold programmers who admitted to fixing elections. Or so many of the Elections Overlords have proven to be ethically challenged crooks -- that has no affect whatsoever on elections.
And Republicans are our moral champions because they are moral and great with economies because all the really, really profitable companies tell us so.
Sony is either smart or very dumb. The jury is still out (despite what most /. members think, like myself).
... now if Sony were as smart and sneaky as Microsoft, they would never have bothered with Blue-Ray beyond the product announcement. They would then negotiate with HD-DVD and offered to licence their technology in a gesture of open standards -- but of course at a discount, because they could burry them with this Blue-Ray thing, and that would just confuse the market-place.
However, we need to look at it like this... what would have happened if Sony did NOT put blu-ray in their PS3? HD-DVD would have garnered a large early lead against Sony and probably would have killed of Blu-Ray.
So, armed with a discount on HD-DVD licensing, they could start selling them into the market. Only they would quickly offer an "enhanced" HD-DVD, perhaps with a 1gig Flash drive to record position and settings and a list of all DVDs played. They could quickly extend the HD-DVD and make sure that some Sony products didn't work as well with other non-Sony HD-DVD players. Before the dust settled, Sony would have both the cheapest and the most preferred HD-DVD on the market. They could then slowly introduce standards drift while still playing other HD-DVDs from other vendors.
And who would want to buy a vanilla HD-DVD when you could have an HD-DVD + Plays-Sony-For-Sure + the way kewl DVD-Explorer?
Embrace and Extend.
Sony just took the old Apple position of trying to create their own technology, and then to launch a brand-new platform based on that unfinished technology, for no discernible profit motive.
Sony's game system needs to run with the best, most proven technology -- as if the rest of Sony doesn't exist. This was the same issue they had with an MP3 player that couldn't play MP3s and then insisted on the home-built and horrible A-Track compression that nobody else used.
Using their own platform to make Blue-Ray a standard was a big risk. I don't know what the profits for the BlueRay were going to be when you look at licensing, but they sure are risking a big cash cow to make it happen.
# They interviewed 1725 teenagers and adults.
# Of that group of people, they threw out all of them who said they were not likely to buy an MP3 player in the next 12 months. If I were a loyal, satisfied ipod owner, I would be completely discounted from this survey. Furthermore, they give no indication of how many people actually made it to this point. It's entirely possible that out of the initial 1725, only 200 were looking to buy a new mp3 player. Out of the remaining 1525, 1000 could have no interest in MP3 players at all, and the remaining 500 could be raving lunatic apple fanatics, for all we know.
I think you make a good point. If this was done by a third party, being used to create marketing "news points" for Microsoft, then all they would have to do is do a survey of 1725, find what qualities show the loyal iPod owner, and then remove that group. -- I'm not saying that is what they did, but I'm a skeptic. I don't trust most surveys unless they go out of their way to show the data and don't bias the results.
If I have an iPod already -- then would I say I was going to buy a new one inside of a year? That isn't very likely if I'm already satisfied with the iPod I have. If I have an mp3 player, and I'm buying a new one in 12 months, I'm more likely to be dissatisfied -- I think that's a fair assumption. There is a portion of any group that will crave New and Kewl -- they'll be the group more likely to be buying in 12 months.
It's a good example of how to make a point by confusing people. There isn't enough data here. They threw out a large group of the sample -- so it removes the random nature of the sample.
I would EXPECT that iPod owners are less loyal, because it is a device that just does a few specific tasks well. I'm not loyal to my toaster... but we haven't learned if this expectation is true or not with this fudged survey.
It really sounds like someone trying to get the market to think the Zune has a chance. If you attached one to a toaster and didn't raise the price of the toaster -- hey, it's a deal.
"14erCleaner" proves the point that others make; People need to read about candidates.
Actually, you're proving your own point, since you didn't read my post carefully. Dean did make a public outburst,
>> The blog world seems full of people like yourself who can't get a point if they get knocked in the head with it. A "public outburst?" Is yelling at a campaign rally a reason to get rid of a candidate? You've just every possible candidate in the history of the planet. I'm sure Dean also makes offensive noises on the toilet -- if CNN broadcast that for a month, I'm sure it would make news.
And all those sneaky paparazzi -- you don't want people intruding on the private affairs of people if it happens to be two consenting pages and a Republican Senator?
Once might point out that Nixon was eventually elected to two terms as President (despite not shaving in 1960), and that he turned out to be a rather disappointing President ethically, so one could then conclude that the 1960 TV debate fiasco was actually revealing his true character...
Only to an idiot who isn't paying attention. Sorry to get personal, but you are definitely trying to fit reality to justify basing opinions on superficial impressions. How does anyone know why Kennedy won a TV debate? That's just horse-race conjecture, perhaps Nixon looked shifty. Either way, none of that has anything to do with what sort of president Nixon became.
I only commented on your point because I was using it of an example of someone who strings together words without the use of logic -- I really didn't want to engage you in discussion. Sorry.
Ford and GM aren't selling as many cars either, perhaps they need to crack down on those people buying Toyotas or the cheaper imports.
I'd also like to make a $100k per year selling buggy whips, perhaps I can get the government to guarantee the success of my business model?
I'd also like to make it illegal for people to share water. They must buy it from a legitimate bottler, otherwise they make it impossible for those hardworking water bottlers to make a living. Some people mix lemons and sugar in their illegitimate water and make a product that competes with the patented product from Welch's. It's absolutely theft.
Once we solve that, we have to get after the parents who tell children stories -- those are copyrighted works, so reproducing them, however inexpertly, is infringing on copyright.
I disagree. The fact that "YouTube" sounds like "uTube" but sells a totally different product is unfortunate. Copyright, is to protect consumers from confusion in the marketplace -- not for company sales. They didn't put a Line over the U to stress it's long vowel form, so for all we know, it's pronounced "ugh-too'B".
Due to the use of every two syllable combination for a URL on the web -- it's impossible to NOT step on someone else. Is "sale4you.com" supposed to pay "saleForYou.com" or just "saleFourYou.com" or even "sale4u.com" or the p0rn site "sally4you.com" ? Or should Google just pay for that, since all of them were found on google with a poor description that confused the consumer?
The only difference here is that YouTube.com is popular -- otherwise, UTube.com would still have YouTub.com, uTub.com, and YooToob.com (I suppose for TellyTubby fans).
A quick fix would be for UTube.com to change their URL. Then make a real funny video about the whole mess, and put their new URL on it and post it to youTube.com.
Problem solved.
Make sure you have some hot chicks, and some silly dancing dog in the video.
Of course, there is not solution if you are just going out of business and nobody besides confused youTube freaks are your only accidental customers.
"Hey, this Vacuum Tube doesn't show any of the funny clips of Colbert cutting bears with his light saber!"
Meh.
It's more likely that they are failing to convince China to respect IP law. Ownership of patents, copyrights, and entire genomes with armies of lawyers is perhaps the only business model for the Future of the USA.
If Microsoft and Disney can't arrest people in China for copying their stuff -- what's the point in doing business?
And maybe that whole "human rights thing" might be an issue, but did they just wake up and notice that? "Hey, where'd Tibet go?"
I've got dibbs on the Schick 8-Core Razor.
OK, so you've heard the joke before.)
But the first two cores lift the stubborn code, and the next two cores separate the task and the next two cores do out of order execution of the code. The Final two cores are necessary because Bic has a 6 core razor and managed to convince the Patent office that was somehow not an obvious thing to do after the quad-core thingy.
It's really not for Windows users... it's for 3D rendering shops and iTV so that we can compress/decompress video on the fly, and play itunes.
Then we have two cores to spare to run a windows based game.
I guess all that threaded Code and OpenGL are finally paying off.
Yippee!
A case in point. Look at all the data thefts that have occured over the past few years of unprotected government databases.
. htm
One or two look like an "oops."
But hundreds? Either there is a disregard for public records, or perhaps the Government WANTS the data released -- so that a private sector company can do what they can't with the data, and there is plausible deny ability about the source.
http://attrition.org/dataloss/
http://www.gcn.com/online/vol1_no1/40840-1.html
but when you look at the civil sector, it's not much better;
http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches
Of course, ChoicePoint is a part of the BushCo government. They helped rig elections in Florida and more recently in Mexico.