Sure, going up against a clapped out country like Iraq makes the USA army look good. But what about a mightier foe? Say China?
The USA military relies so heavily on advanced technology these days, that I think it could be disadvantageous in a battle with a foe more of its equal. Imagine a battle situation where the enemy is cunning and understands your technology. You think that, for instance, the Chinese are not capable of disrupting GPS signals on a battle field (or any other type of signal for that matter)? You think they are not capable of making energy bombs (can't remember what they are called) that will distroy electronics equipment? If the Chinese took steps to wipe out the USAs technological advantage on the battlefield, and then had troops that were well trained to fight without these technologies, it wouldn't surprise me if China could win.
The USAs biggest weakness is over-confidence in itself.
Me too, I'm buying a lot of PS2 games now, the ones in the games site top ten lists.
I brought a PSP when it was first released (in Japan). It is only now that a couple of games have come out that I actually like. I'm going to wait several years before going next gen., then there might be some decent games at a fair price.
The latest technology timeline released by BT suggests hundreds of different inventions for the next few decades including:
* 2012: personal 'black boxes' record everything you do every day
* 2015: images beamed directly into your eyeballs
* 2017: first hotel in orbit
* 2020: artificial intelligence elected to parliament
* 2040: robots become mentally and physically superior to humans
* 2075 (at the earliest): time travel invented
So, according to BT research, in 14 years time we are going to have computers sitting in parilament, in 34 years time there are going to be robots that are mentally superior to us and I may see time travel invented in my lifetime. Sorry if I don't take this stuff seriously. Wasn't it fashionable to predict this kind of thing in the 1950's?
Yes, some of their shorter term predictions are better, but I can make good short term predictions too.
Having been to one of Peter Cochrane's talks before, and having spoken to him, I know this guy is many years ahead of the rest of us.
I've been to one of his talks as well. He is not years ahead of the rest of us, he is full of bollocks. Have you read one of BT's future predictions documents? (Which I believe come out of Cochrane's department) They are full of things like "in 20 years time, we will control computers with our minds, and we won't have lunch, we'll eat a pill!" If you find the stuff he says to be visionary, you don't have much imagination...
I would hardly call it "very limited". I've been using my Sony projector to watch films about every other day for about three or four years and I haven't had to change the bulb yet.
I have both a projector and a big TV. The projector is great for movies, however, who wants to watch the news, for instance, on a big screen in a darkened room? Also, I get motion sickness if I play video games on the projector, but not with the TV.
Today, in a surprise statement, a Microsoft spokeman announced that the TCO report they had previously published was incorrect. He said "We looked at the figures again, and realised we had made a mistake. The Microsoft solution is actually more expensive. We don't want to deceive anyone so we went public with this immediately, it was the right thing to do."
Admittedly, the report was done by Microsoft itself
Doesn't this mean that the report is useless and should be totally disregarded? I mean, do you really think that if their findings had been that they were more expensive, they would still have published?
Well, I mentioned it because I have some experience with languages and have found it to be the case that some English speakers think they are not important. Sorry if that annoys you.
Given that some societies have used non-Latin characters for thousands of years, is this a bit late in coming?
Let's be clear. The domain name system only uses English characters. There are lots of languages in Europe (Italian, Spanish, French...) which are closer to latin than English (which isn't really a latin language at all) which are not currently represented, because you can't use accents in domain names, or other letters such as the spanish Enye (n with a squiggle, actually a distinct letter). English speakers often think accents aren't important but they can completely change a word's meaning.
Get them an iMac or a Mac Mini with a 24 or 30 inch screen from Dell.
Set the system up to auto-update.
If they have vision problems there are settings on the Mac to help.
You might consider getting an additional keypad - for instance you can get one from x-keys and set it up with all the things they normally want to do - opening and closing the web brower for instance, you could even set it up for different keys to open different sites. Then clearly label the keys.
May??? This has to be the dumbest title ever. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about evolution knows that behavior has a huge influence on how an organism evolves.
Come on Slashdot editors, if you know nothing about a subject then please don't write about it.
This is the great misunderstanding about Bill Gates. Many people think of him as a brilliant technologist, but he is actually a brilliant businessman with a good understanding of computer technology. Unfortunately I expect he will go into the history books as a brilliant technologist.
When Macromedia started, they made great tools. They looked at what professional web developers wanted, and made neat tools to fulfil their needs. Unfortunately, for a while now they have been operating in an entirely different manner - they have been deciding where they want the technology to go, and then trying to push tools that fulfil their vision onto web developers.
This has meant that their core products, such as Dreamweaver and the Flash development application, have been rapidly becoming crappier. Dreamweaver is now annoying as hell to use, and does work well with some of the technologies that developers like to use (PHP, for instance) because those are not technologies Macromedia/Adobe what to promote. And for ages they have been trying to get developers to use Flash to develop applications, which just isn't happening.
Personally, I think Macromedia/Adobe are going to suffer as developers reject their tools and start using open source ones.
Is anyone else convinced that this will be the last version of Windows as we know it?
If they have any sense they will realize that the idea of completely rewriting everything from the ground up each time is just dumb. Much more sensible to do it the way Apple does - a big incremental upgrade each year.
Of course, Microsoft's problem has been that they've had to completely rewrite because their code has been so crappy. Hopefully the vista code isn't crappy, and so in that sense you're probably right - this is the last version of Windows. From now on they'll be just regular incremental upgrades, if Microsoft has any sense.
I'm not sure that this is really happening for any rational reason.
It is happening for a perfectly rational reason. War.
Do you think that in the event of a war between the USA and China, it would be sensible of China to rely on a US system? Obviously not. With regards to Europe, if you'd have asked me ten years ago I would have said that replicating the US system was stupid as we are allies. Unfortunately events since then have changed, and I think it is wise for Europe to have it's own system as well. You never know what the future will bring...
Except that in the UK the news about a "drought" every year is just bullshit. The UK is drowning in fresh water compared to many countries. Did you know that the UK only uses about 10% of the fresh water available to it each year?
I don't understand why a big fuss is made every year about this. Perhaps it is an attempt by the water companies to get tax breaks from the government or something, I don't know. But I find it a bit sad that so many people in the UK seem to swallow it every year.
India has one of the world's largest gaps between the richest and the poor.
And the USA is a very rich country in which many people can't get medical treatment because they can't afford it. As my grandma used to say - sort your own house out before criticising others. According to your logic, the USA should divert funding from NASA to national health programmes.
I've travelled in India and I find the homeless on the street in many big cities in the USA more of a disgrace than those in India. The USA is rich.
Slashdot Mirror
and by now everyone except the UK is pissed of with how the US brings immense problems to the world
Just so you are aware, most people in the UK are very pissed off with the US (or more accurately, Bush and his cronies) as well.
Think about it, for a few million
I think you mean "for a few billion".
Ah I see, spending all that money is actually a cunning plan to confuse the enermy. Clever!
It's true it can't lose
Like the Titanic couldn't sink.
Sure, going up against a clapped out country like Iraq makes the USA army look good. But what about a mightier foe? Say China?
The USA military relies so heavily on advanced technology these days, that I think it could be disadvantageous in a battle with a foe more of its equal. Imagine a battle situation where the enemy is cunning and understands your technology. You think that, for instance, the Chinese are not capable of disrupting GPS signals on a battle field (or any other type of signal for that matter)? You think they are not capable of making energy bombs (can't remember what they are called) that will distroy electronics equipment? If the Chinese took steps to wipe out the USAs technological advantage on the battlefield, and then had troops that were well trained to fight without these technologies, it wouldn't surprise me if China could win.
The USAs biggest weakness is over-confidence in itself.
Ironically, I hate those ads so much that it's rather put me off buying DVDs.
Ironically, I copy the movies off DVDs just so I don't have to watch that crap.
This is a satirical news story, isn't it? It certainly reads like one.
Me too, I'm buying a lot of PS2 games now, the ones in the games site top ten lists.
I brought a PSP when it was first released (in Japan). It is only now that a couple of games have come out that I actually like. I'm going to wait several years before going next gen., then there might be some decent games at a fair price.
From this article on the BBC website:
The latest technology timeline released by BT suggests hundreds of different inventions for the next few decades including:
* 2012: personal 'black boxes' record everything you do every day
* 2015: images beamed directly into your eyeballs
* 2017: first hotel in orbit
* 2020: artificial intelligence elected to parliament
* 2040: robots become mentally and physically superior to humans
* 2075 (at the earliest): time travel invented
So, according to BT research, in 14 years time we are going to have computers sitting in parilament, in 34 years time there are going to be robots that are mentally superior to us and I may see time travel invented in my lifetime. Sorry if I don't take this stuff seriously. Wasn't it fashionable to predict this kind of thing in the 1950's?
Yes, some of their shorter term predictions are better, but I can make good short term predictions too.
Having been to one of Peter Cochrane's talks before, and having spoken to him, I know this guy is many years ahead of the rest of us.
I've been to one of his talks as well. He is not years ahead of the rest of us, he is full of bollocks. Have you read one of BT's future predictions documents? (Which I believe come out of Cochrane's department) They are full of things like "in 20 years time, we will control computers with our minds, and we won't have lunch, we'll eat a pill!" If you find the stuff he says to be visionary, you don't have much imagination...
Video projectors have a very limited bulb life.
I would hardly call it "very limited". I've been using my Sony projector to watch films about every other day for about three or four years and I haven't had to change the bulb yet.
I have both a projector and a big TV. The projector is great for movies, however, who wants to watch the news, for instance, on a big screen in a darkened room? Also, I get motion sickness if I play video games on the projector, but not with the TV.
Today, in a surprise statement, a Microsoft spokeman announced that the TCO report they had previously published was incorrect. He said "We looked at the figures again, and realised we had made a mistake. The Microsoft solution is actually more expensive. We don't want to deceive anyone so we went public with this immediately, it was the right thing to do."
Admittedly, the report was done by Microsoft itself
Doesn't this mean that the report is useless and should be totally disregarded? I mean, do you really think that if their findings had been that they were more expensive, they would still have published?
People aren't total morons.
Actually, when it comes to computers, most people are.
Well, I mentioned it because I have some experience with languages and have found it to be the case that some English speakers think they are not important. Sorry if that annoys you.
Given that some societies have used non-Latin characters for thousands of years, is this a bit late in coming?
Let's be clear. The domain name system only uses English characters. There are lots of languages in Europe (Italian, Spanish, French...) which are closer to latin than English (which isn't really a latin language at all) which are not currently represented, because you can't use accents in domain names, or other letters such as the spanish Enye (n with a squiggle, actually a distinct letter). English speakers often think accents aren't important but they can completely change a word's meaning.
Get them an iMac or a Mac Mini with a 24 or 30 inch screen from Dell.
Set the system up to auto-update.
If they have vision problems there are settings on the Mac to help.
You might consider getting an additional keypad - for instance you can get one from x-keys and set it up with all the things they normally want to do - opening and closing the web brower for instance, you could even set it up for different keys to open different sites. Then clearly label the keys.
Sorry, but that the fact that he was a fast programmer doesn't prove he is brilliant technically. They are different things.
Behavior May Influence Evolution
May??? This has to be the dumbest title ever. Anyone who knows the slightest thing about evolution knows that behavior has a huge influence on how an organism evolves.
Come on Slashdot editors, if you know nothing about a subject then please don't write about it.
Yes, he knows some tech, but does he get it?
This is the great misunderstanding about Bill Gates. Many people think of him as a brilliant technologist, but he is actually a brilliant businessman with a good understanding of computer technology. Unfortunately I expect he will go into the history books as a brilliant technologist.
When Macromedia started, they made great tools. They looked at what professional web developers wanted, and made neat tools to fulfil their needs. Unfortunately, for a while now they have been operating in an entirely different manner - they have been deciding where they want the technology to go, and then trying to push tools that fulfil their vision onto web developers.
This has meant that their core products, such as Dreamweaver and the Flash development application, have been rapidly becoming crappier. Dreamweaver is now annoying as hell to use, and does work well with some of the technologies that developers like to use (PHP, for instance) because those are not technologies Macromedia/Adobe what to promote. And for ages they have been trying to get developers to use Flash to develop applications, which just isn't happening.
Personally, I think Macromedia/Adobe are going to suffer as developers reject their tools and start using open source ones.
a perk for his patrong
That's my phrase of the day!
Is anyone else convinced that this will be the last version of Windows as we know it?
If they have any sense they will realize that the idea of completely rewriting everything from the ground up each time is just dumb. Much more sensible to do it the way Apple does - a big incremental upgrade each year.
Of course, Microsoft's problem has been that they've had to completely rewrite because their code has been so crappy. Hopefully the vista code isn't crappy, and so in that sense you're probably right - this is the last version of Windows. From now on they'll be just regular incremental upgrades, if Microsoft has any sense.
I'm not sure that this is really happening for any rational reason.
It is happening for a perfectly rational reason. War.
Do you think that in the event of a war between the USA and China, it would be sensible of China to rely on a US system? Obviously not. With regards to Europe, if you'd have asked me ten years ago I would have said that replicating the US system was stupid as we are allies. Unfortunately events since then have changed, and I think it is wise for Europe to have it's own system as well. You never know what the future will bring...
Except that in the UK the news about a "drought" every year is just bullshit. The UK is drowning in fresh water compared to many countries. Did you know that the UK only uses about 10% of the fresh water available to it each year?
I don't understand why a big fuss is made every year about this. Perhaps it is an attempt by the water companies to get tax breaks from the government or something, I don't know. But I find it a bit sad that so many people in the UK seem to swallow it every year.
India has one of the world's largest gaps between the richest and the poor.
And the USA is a very rich country in which many people can't get medical treatment because they can't afford it. As my grandma used to say - sort your own house out before criticising others. According to your logic, the USA should divert funding from NASA to national health programmes.
I've travelled in India and I find the homeless on the street in many big cities in the USA more of a disgrace than those in India. The USA is rich.