While I tend not to argue with Einstein, especially a very dead Einstein, I submit for your approval that any war being fought with sticks and stones won't be a world one. Yeah, I'm just being anal. I'm sure he meant "bronze age" or something:p
"Once at that altitude the power supply unit would take several hundred years before it reentered the Earth's atmosphere.' Wow. So... our great-grandchildren can expect a lovely day, partly cloudy with the occasional nuclear reactor plummeting down from outer space.
Well here's a clue for the terminally short-sighted: Do you think maybe- just maybe -we'll have a better way to deal with it in several hundred years??? I mean for cryin' out loud, the damn things safe in parking orbit. It's not going anywhere for the next few centuries! Could the submitter be anymore of an alarmist if he tried? Heads up, Chicken Little, the sky is falling!
Re:Information Super Highway... TO HELL
on
ICANN Meets Annan
·
· Score: 1
"Because, clearly, the U.S. government is free of all these faults" _______________________________
Wow, that was amazingly predictable. I didn't specify the US government or a US company. I didn't specify a a Uguandaranian company for that matter. I just said there's got to be a better organization than the UN to handle this. It could be a company in Genevafor all I care. You think they've gotten a bad rap, but nobody respects them because they have a demonstrated repeated inability to not follow through. Oh--:)
" Dr. Schwartz examines the problem of too much choice in our society. Maybe Microsoft has it right after all?"
Um, Microsoft being right or wrong doesn't really factor in here. It's the lack of effective competition that's creating a lack of choice. Apple OS has more or less limited themselves to their own platform, which is generally more expenisive than the average computer user is willing to pay, while Linux is still too obscure for the average user to screw around with. It's not that Windows is a spectacular product that by nature crushes all competition in it's path, it's the fact that what competition exists has been limiting itself in one form or another, giving MS free reign on the PC. As such, most products now cater to it, which makes it more popular.
Too much competition doesn't even begin to enter into the PC OS market, because there never has been that amount of competition. MS won by default, which has nothing to do with them being right or wrong.
Information Super Highway... TO HELL
on
ICANN Meets Annan
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I'm sure this will inevitably be interpreted as flamebait, but do we really want them dictating policy on the internet? Maybe some other 3rd party, but the UN???? This organization doesn't have a spine. It's corrupt. It happily changes it's tune when politically expedient. Surely there's somebody better out there...
"Fundrace 2004 lets you enter any street address and see what people at or near that location have contributed to a presidential candidate, along with their addresses and occupations. The data is based on reports that campaigns regularly file with the Federal Election Commission. You can also look up a name and get the same information."
Wait, wait, wait.... You're worried about political pop-ups (not exactly new news or specific to only Bush) but this isn't on your right to privacy radar warning buzzer?? Nice to know where our priorities lie...
"We simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking'."
Ladies and gentlemen, get used to this statement and others like it, because you'll never here the end of it. There are just some people who will never be satisfied that the sensitive evidence they're seaking will be found, or that mars must preserved at all costs, etc, etc, etc. You think it's bad here with actual life to preserve? Let's "destroy" an entire planet!!!
It may sound incredibly callous, but if they happen to find some microbe on mars, record it, preserve it and move on with the terraforming. We've done it with dams and hydroelectric power (benefits vs. environmental preservation), so lets just nuke the icecaps and get it over with.
"He doesn't say how, or who's going to pay for it, or who's going to build it, but hey, isn't almost good enough?"
I'm noticing a lot of people don't seem to have a problem believing we'll all be watching hi-def TV's by 2005, but somehow this is beyond the realm of possibility. Not that buying a new hi-def TV will cost you any, right? Ask yourself the same damn questions posed here about Hi-def and you'll probably get answers that can easily be applied to braodband here. I mean, is it really such a leap, or does somebody bare a political grudge???
Yeah, thought so.
Kinda expensive cruise missile, donchathink?
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Interesting in how they mentitoned we probably won't be seeing this in the civilian sector for some time because of size constriants (ie; more unstable the larger the craft is), but it has potential crusie missile applications and other military stuff.
Now reconissance I can see. A small mach 7 spy plane is going to be damn hard to hit. but cruise missile? That is one expensive shot. I mean, a tomahawk is something like $500,000 a piece, right? You gotta be having something awfully important to be hitting in a hurry to be shooting of an X-Missile. And what kind of warhead are you mounting on it to make it worth the while?? I guess for first strike shock value, they'll work. Instant retaliation. But damn, you'd better have a good reason....
Damn, I wish these people would stop crying wolf for once. The gaming industry has doomed for over a decade and now, oh my gosh! It might shrink! Ok, lets break it down for the doomsayer-- Every market goes through phases, which are normally driven by what sells. If FPSs sell in the gaming industry, guess what you'll be seeing a lot of????? GASP! First Person Freakin Shooters!!! Eventially people will get tired of FPS. A new cycle begins. Something else sells. I mean think about it logically, do you think they would continue to make it if people weren't buying???
Come on, people, let's pull out heads out of our short term asses and realize: -The Gaming Industry isn't doomed -PC Gaming will not die out because of console competition -The industry goes through cycles and there's no shortage of creativity
Oh yeah-- We'll be running out of oil in 25 years too.
Lets face it, when the government controls the ins and outs of any given form of communication, it effectively becomes useless as a method to insite change or revolution. Honestly, you're better off with lower tech methods, such as leaflets or "freedom radio" to communicate your intentions.
"All of this is a far cry from using electronic spy tools to secretly monitor the children's activities. What kind of message does it send to the kids? "Be good! Because if you don't, we are always watching."
Like in class, like at lunch, like at recess... Sorry, but I fail to see the cause for massive paranoia here. It's not as if they're devoting an entire department to the electronic monitoring of these kids. It's more than likely just one, maybe two people at most who probably have other jobs. Child oversight is a fact of life for schools. No part of it is designed to be private. The whole notion that there is should be any privacy on campus is absolutely ludicirs.
Yes, they will be watching. THAT'S THERE JOB. To give ou an eductaion and keep you out of trouble. You can have privacy off campus or be smarter than the watchers. I was. But to actually expect any is stupid.
"Is the console destined for superiority, or will the ubiquitous need and superior user input of the PC keep it as a viable game platform?"
Well, the superior input device is only part of the reason. Budget is another. Quite frankly, you just can't get the omph out of a console you do out of a nice PC. That omph translates into a better game in most cases.
Take Ghost Recon for example (Xbox/PC). Not were the controls just a bit jacked (managable but not wholey intuitive), but the game had to be noticably scaled down because of the budget hardware consoles are forced to operate at in order to be viable products. No team Charlie, smaller maps, limited multiplayer potential. We're not even talking about newer games like UT2k4 whose HDD footprint is 6GB. Likewise, these games are more complex and might very well require patching, and unless you have a Live-like connection, you're SOL.
I think there'll always be a market for the PC, because it represents high end, complex gaming, not something you can normally find on your average budget console. For that same reason, I think the console market will always be larger, but it won't by any means threaten to kill off the PC gaming market.
Good to hear that Big Brother is alive and well in our schools. This kind of thing just makes me sick
Oh, get off it. It's a school. "Big brother" monitors them during recess, during sports and during class. It's called SUPERVISION. Teachers make sure you don't bring toys and knives to school or otherwise screw off during class. This is the same damn thing. YOU AREN'T GUARANTEED A RIGHT TO PRIVACY WHILE YOU'RE IN SCHOOL, nor should that be the case quite frankly. You're there to learn on your parents dime using school property, not surf pr0n.
For cryin out loud, you'd think people would know this already...
Having just remembered a quote that relates to yours: Figures lie and Liars figure.
I never said the internet won't be around, just that it might very well not be around in the form you're seeing now, that's all..com may not mean a damn thing for Internet x.0 100 years from all.
Beyond the fact that whether the company will be around in 100 yesrs, do you think the internet will be around in a hundred years? It's very possible that what we see now is nothing but an evolutionary process that will give way to bigger and better things. Forget the company... Will.com mean anything in a hundred years, period??? 100 years is a lot of time for changes and revolutions to happen.
"Meanwhile, Apple is taking its own tack, buoyed by the phenomenally successful iPod."
Wait, this is a story on the Battle for the Living Room, right? Apple isn't "taking their own tack" in this. They're not even involved! their sole product besides the PC is a piece of portable audio hardware, otherwise known as a walkman, generically speaking. How you can make the jump from walkman to BATTLE FOR THE LIVING ROOM is not only ridiculous, it's absolutely absurd. Ok, people are looking to supposively looking to apple for the next revolution. Fine. But it hasn't happened yet. The iPod isn't it. They have no presence in the living room. What plans do they have??? Tell us that! You just don't have anything substantial to say here, except to mention Apple and iPod in a sentance.
Cripes, just yell "FANBOY!" and get it over with...
You wouldn't deny a chihauhau a place among dogs because it is too small,' and 'if your brain was so completely full of names of people that it just couldn't take any more, would anyone new who you met after that, therefore not be a person?'"
Mmmmmm... Somebody who likes the sound of his own voice way too much.
As far as planet vs planetoid goes, I'd think the difference relies on how much influence is imparted on what body of mass. For instance, the majority of influence imparted on asteroids comes from the planets and stars they revolve around, whereas the planets principle influence is the sun.
So which influnces these celetial bodies more? The sun or other planets around it? Does the body influence other celetial bodies a great deal? Does it have it's own bodies trapped in orbit around it? If this body careened through the solar system close to a planet (say, earth), how much influence would it impart on us??
I'm leaning more toward planet, especially in the case of Pluto. Sedna, I'm not so sure about given the lack of hard data, but I'm pretty sure a near pass from Pluto would seriously screw things up here. Besides, all this crap is relative anyway. I'm sure if you had a huge enough planet, Earth could be considered a moon or something.
Honestly, if you can sue P2P "search engines" for finding music in which they ultimately do not control who downloads or not, why not sue a normal search engine for all the pirated material, warez and serialz? Why not sue them for libel since they're propagating false and slanderous information while you're at it?
It's always a riot to see hypocrisy and lawsuit abuse come head to head. What a wonderful standard the RIAA has set for us.
Um, let's see... With obscure interfaces and structuring that the average user can't easily understand and use?...Wait for it. You'll get it eventially.
"Is there any chance it will offer a decent treatment of the issues Open Source advocates worry about today? If he's so positive, could he possibly know anything about software patents to say nothing of SCO?"
Will you get a life??? WHAT SHOW on TV today gets into detail on any of the issues you just described???? PLEASE tell me you were joking... For some reason, I don't think you were.
WHAT IF the non-nuclear powered probe malfunctions and crashes, killing the only organisim on the planet? What if it lands successfully... On said organisms?? What if while taking samples it destroys that organism? What if it has to drill through ice, drilling through the very thing we're trying to discover?
Slashdot Mirror
While I tend not to argue with Einstein, especially a very dead Einstein, I submit for your approval that any war being fought with sticks and stones won't be a world one. Yeah, I'm just being anal. I'm sure he meant "bronze age" or something :p
"Once at that altitude the power supply unit would take several hundred years before it reentered the Earth's atmosphere.' Wow. So ... our great-grandchildren can expect a lovely day, partly cloudy with the occasional nuclear reactor plummeting down from outer space.
Well here's a clue for the terminally short-sighted: Do you think maybe- just maybe -we'll have a better way to deal with it in several hundred years??? I mean for cryin' out loud, the damn things safe in parking orbit. It's not going anywhere for the next few centuries! Could the submitter be anymore of an alarmist if he tried? Heads up, Chicken Little, the sky is falling!
Sigh.
WOW! I't a good thing somebody stated the obvious by informing us that The Web Won't Topple Tyranny .
Optimistic, but ultimately naive.
"Because, clearly, the U.S. government is free of all these faults"
:)
_______________________________
Wow, that was amazingly predictable. I didn't specify the US government or a US company. I didn't specify a a Uguandaranian company for that matter. I just said there's got to be a better organization than the UN to handle this. It could be a company in Genevafor all I care. You think they've gotten a bad rap, but nobody respects them because they have a demonstrated repeated inability to not follow through. Oh--
" Dr. Schwartz examines the problem of too much choice in our society. Maybe Microsoft has it right after all?"
Um, Microsoft being right or wrong doesn't really factor in here. It's the lack of effective competition that's creating a lack of choice. Apple OS has more or less limited themselves to their own platform, which is generally more expenisive than the average computer user is willing to pay, while Linux is still too obscure for the average user to screw around with. It's not that Windows is a spectacular product that by nature crushes all competition in it's path, it's the fact that what competition exists has been limiting itself in one form or another, giving MS free reign on the PC. As such, most products now cater to it, which makes it more popular.
Too much competition doesn't even begin to enter into the PC OS market, because there never has been that amount of competition. MS won by default, which has nothing to do with them being right or wrong.
I'm sure this will inevitably be interpreted as flamebait, but do we really want them dictating policy on the internet? Maybe some other 3rd party, but the UN???? This organization doesn't have a spine. It's corrupt. It happily changes it's tune when politically expedient. Surely there's somebody better out there...
"Fundrace 2004 lets you enter any street address and see what people at or near that location have contributed to a presidential candidate, along with their addresses and occupations. The data is based on reports that campaigns regularly file with the Federal Election Commission. You can also look up a name and get the same information."
Wait, wait, wait.... You're worried about political pop-ups (not exactly new news or specific to only Bush) but this isn't on your right to privacy radar warning buzzer?? Nice to know where our priorities lie...
"We simply cannot risk starting a global experiment that would wipe out the precious sensitive evidence we are seeking'."
Ladies and gentlemen, get used to this statement and others like it, because you'll never here the end of it. There are just some people who will never be satisfied that the sensitive evidence they're seaking will be found, or that mars must preserved at all costs, etc, etc, etc. You think it's bad here with actual life to preserve? Let's "destroy" an entire planet!!!
It may sound incredibly callous, but if they happen to find some microbe on mars, record it, preserve it and move on with the terraforming. We've done it with dams and hydroelectric power (benefits vs. environmental preservation), so lets just nuke the icecaps and get it over with.
"He doesn't say how, or who's going to pay for it, or who's going to build it, but hey, isn't almost good enough?"
I'm noticing a lot of people don't seem to have a problem believing we'll all be watching hi-def TV's by 2005, but somehow this is beyond the realm of possibility. Not that buying a new hi-def TV will cost you any, right? Ask yourself the same damn questions posed here about Hi-def and you'll probably get answers that can easily be applied to braodband here. I mean, is it really such a leap, or does somebody bare a political grudge???
Yeah, thought so.
Interesting in how they mentitoned we probably won't be seeing this in the civilian sector for some time because of size constriants (ie; more unstable the larger the craft is), but it has potential crusie missile applications and other military stuff.
Now reconissance I can see. A small mach 7 spy plane is going to be damn hard to hit. but cruise missile? That is one expensive shot. I mean, a tomahawk is something like $500,000 a piece, right? You gotta be having something awfully important to be hitting in a hurry to be shooting of an X-Missile. And what kind of warhead are you mounting on it to make it worth the while?? I guess for first strike shock value, they'll work. Instant retaliation. But damn, you'd better have a good reason....
Damn, I wish these people would stop crying wolf for once. The gaming industry has doomed for over a decade and now, oh my gosh! It might shrink! Ok, lets break it down for the doomsayer-- Every market goes through phases, which are normally driven by what sells. If FPSs sell in the gaming industry, guess what you'll be seeing a lot of????? GASP! First Person Freakin Shooters!!! Eventially people will get tired of FPS. A new cycle begins. Something else sells. I mean think about it logically, do you think they would continue to make it if people weren't buying???
Come on, people, let's pull out heads out of our short term asses and realize:
-The Gaming Industry isn't doomed
-PC Gaming will not die out because of console competition
-The industry goes through cycles and there's no shortage of creativity
Oh yeah-- We'll be running out of oil in 25 years too.
Lets face it, when the government controls the ins and outs of any given form of communication, it effectively becomes useless as a method to insite change or revolution. Honestly, you're better off with lower tech methods, such as leaflets or "freedom radio" to communicate your intentions.
"All of this is a far cry from using electronic spy tools to secretly monitor the children's activities. What kind of message does it send to the kids? "Be good! Because if you don't, we are always watching."
Like in class, like at lunch, like at recess... Sorry, but I fail to see the cause for massive paranoia here. It's not as if they're devoting an entire department to the electronic monitoring of these kids. It's more than likely just one, maybe two people at most who probably have other jobs. Child oversight is a fact of life for schools. No part of it is designed to be private. The whole notion that there is should be any privacy on campus is absolutely ludicirs.
Yes, they will be watching. THAT'S THERE JOB. To give ou an eductaion and keep you out of trouble. You can have privacy off campus or be smarter than the watchers. I was. But to actually expect any is stupid.
"Is the console destined for superiority, or will the ubiquitous need and superior user input of the PC keep it as a viable game platform?"
Well, the superior input device is only part of the reason. Budget is another. Quite frankly, you just can't get the omph out of a console you do out of a nice PC. That omph translates into a better game in most cases.
Take Ghost Recon for example (Xbox/PC). Not were the controls just a bit jacked (managable but not wholey intuitive), but the game had to be noticably scaled down because of the budget hardware consoles are forced to operate at in order to be viable products. No team Charlie, smaller maps, limited multiplayer potential. We're not even talking about newer games like UT2k4 whose HDD footprint is 6GB. Likewise, these games are more complex and might very well require patching, and unless you have a Live-like connection, you're SOL.
I think there'll always be a market for the PC, because it represents high end, complex gaming, not something you can normally find on your average budget console. For that same reason, I think the console market will always be larger, but it won't by any means threaten to kill off the PC gaming market.
Good to hear that Big Brother is alive and well in our schools. This kind of thing just makes me sick
Oh, get off it. It's a school. "Big brother" monitors them during recess, during sports and during class. It's called SUPERVISION. Teachers make sure you don't bring toys and knives to school or otherwise screw off during class. This is the same damn thing. YOU AREN'T GUARANTEED A RIGHT TO PRIVACY WHILE YOU'RE IN SCHOOL, nor should that be the case quite frankly. You're there to learn on your parents dime using school property, not surf pr0n.
For cryin out loud, you'd think people would know this already...
"Is anyone else reminded of the blipverts from the Max Headroom series?"
Considering bliperts were clandestine advertising schemes that inadvertantly resulted in sponaneous combustion of brain matter, no.
Having just remembered a quote that relates to yours: Figures lie and Liars figure.
.com may not mean a damn thing for Internet x.0 100 years from all.
I never said the internet won't be around, just that it might very well not be around in the form you're seeing now, that's all.
Beyond the fact that whether the company will be around in 100 yesrs, do you think the internet will be around in a hundred years? It's very possible that what we see now is nothing but an evolutionary process that will give way to bigger and better things. Forget the company... Will .com mean anything in a hundred years, period??? 100 years is a lot of time for changes and revolutions to happen.
"I'm sure if you had a huge enough planet, Earth could be considered a moon or something."
:p
"If someone considered the sun a planet, Earth would be a moon. (As would Jupiter.)
I'm pretty sure we just said the same thing
"Meanwhile, Apple is taking its own tack, buoyed by the phenomenally successful iPod."
Wait, this is a story on the Battle for the Living Room, right? Apple isn't "taking their own tack" in this. They're not even involved! their sole product besides the PC is a piece of portable audio hardware, otherwise known as a walkman, generically speaking. How you can make the jump from walkman to BATTLE FOR THE LIVING ROOM is not only ridiculous, it's absolutely absurd. Ok, people are looking to supposively looking to apple for the next revolution. Fine. But it hasn't happened yet. The iPod isn't it. They have no presence in the living room. What plans do they have??? Tell us that! You just don't have anything substantial to say here, except to mention Apple and iPod in a sentance.
Cripes, just yell "FANBOY!" and get it over with...
You wouldn't deny a chihauhau a place among dogs because it is too small,' and 'if your brain was so completely full of names of people that it just couldn't take any more, would anyone new who you met after that, therefore not be a person?'"
Mmmmmm... Somebody who likes the sound of his own voice way too much.
As far as planet vs planetoid goes, I'd think the difference relies on how much influence is imparted on what body of mass. For instance, the majority of influence imparted on asteroids comes from the planets and stars they revolve around, whereas the planets principle influence is the sun.
So which influnces these celetial bodies more? The sun or other planets around it? Does the body influence other celetial bodies a great deal? Does it have it's own bodies trapped in orbit around it? If this body careened through the solar system close to a planet (say, earth), how much influence would it impart on us??
I'm leaning more toward planet, especially in the case of Pluto. Sedna, I'm not so sure about given the lack of hard data, but I'm pretty sure a near pass from Pluto would seriously screw things up here. Besides, all this crap is relative anyway. I'm sure if you had a huge enough planet, Earth could be considered a moon or something.
Honestly, if you can sue P2P "search engines" for finding music in which they ultimately do not control who downloads or not, why not sue a normal search engine for all the pirated material, warez and serialz? Why not sue them for libel since they're propagating false and slanderous information while you're at it?
It's always a riot to see hypocrisy and lawsuit abuse come head to head. What a wonderful standard the RIAA has set for us.
How Not To Sell Linux Products
...Wait for it. You'll get it eventially.
Um, let's see... With obscure interfaces and structuring that the average user can't easily understand and use?
"Is there any chance it will offer a decent treatment of the issues Open Source advocates worry about today? If he's so positive, could he possibly know anything about software patents to say nothing of SCO?"
Will you get a life??? WHAT SHOW on TV today gets into detail on any of the issues you just described???? PLEASE tell me you were joking... For some reason, I don't think you were.
WHAT IF the non-nuclear powered probe malfunctions and crashes, killing the only organisim on the planet? What if it lands successfully... On said organisms?? What if while taking samples it destroys that organism? What if it has to drill through ice, drilling through the very thing we're trying to discover?
Yeah, don't you sound silly?