I understand what you mean, but overtaking (technically) in this fashion would also mean making it as easy or easier to move to linux than stick with the current or next Windows version people are on. This obviously has external factors, such as companies porting software over, but could be accomplished in the community via Wine/other.
For example, people who only use the company to browse the web and write stuff could move to Linux completely almost without exception (though there are those annoying websites that refuse to work with anything but Windows for no good reason besides lazy developers).
Mac OSX may be wonderful technically, shares similiar adoption problems with linux, but it's small marketshare also stems from the fact that it's hardware is only sold by one provider. Linux does not have this problem.
With more and more announcements like these, does anyone else think it is inevitable that Linux will overtake Microsoft on all bases one day? I mean, it's starting to show Microsoft is only one company devoting a portion, large but just a portion, of it's resources to its OS while Linux is an entire industry with a bunch of diverse people working on small parts seperately.
I wonder if the Vista's voyage is any kind of vindication to the Linux side, who was always ballyhooed as having "too many distros" earlier, but at least we could depend on someone, somewhere releasing some small update with some type of progress (small but frequent steps) rather than the monolothic approach of large but infrequent steps.
Before we talk and bitch about this company and how obvious it is, this is just another example to show broken the system is - this company is simply taking advantage of it.
Bureacracies always reach out and try to take more power - once patents simply protected implementations - now the patent office is reaching out to get a stranglehold on stuff like "business methods" and algorithms (math) and essentially ideas - many of them common sense to the problem being solved.
Patents are for society, not the individual. It's supposed to push progress forward by opening non-obvious ideas for everyone for a limited time. Not MONOPOLIZE obvious ideas for the benefit of one person against the rest of society.
To fix patents, we don't need more patent clerks (federal employees), we need to:
1. Go back to old way patents were done - which includes working implementation upon application. Thus ideas become unpatentable. Same with business methods. It will also render 90% all the unreadable legalese to obscure what you are patenting obsolete.
2. Punish non-English application. No, I don't mean application in a foreign language, just the ones that read like they are. Plain english is a must. Jail time in Gitmo otherwise.
3. Raise price to apply for patent to $5,000-50,000 depending on whether it is an individual, small company or large corporation (refundable only on recieving a patent) - while it may seem to screw the "little guy" it actually will kill corporations trying to patent every little thing. Even a little operation will be able to afford to patent 1 WORTHWHILE application, but will corporate America still be able to afford to apply for 10's of thousands of trivial patents?
4. Part of application fee (say 1/2) will go as a bounty to anybody who can disprove it - in other words show prior art, etcetera. This could be anybody - college students, professors, employees of another company. This will also lower amount of patents applied and speed up patenting time.
Why hire clueless clerks when you could flocks of knowleable people examining patents because of a profit motive to turn them down? They won't have the power to deny a patent, they bring the case against it.
5. No renewable patents. Lower patent length from 17 years to 9-10 years or so. Back in the 1700's, business and the pace of life overall was slower, let's reflect that.
How is DRM going to keep it to background level noise when one crack is all it takes to spread it to the internet?
DRM is less than useless right now because all it succeeds in doing is annoy real paying customers and teaching them the cracked versions are better after all. It's bad enough I am forced to watch the blue FBI screen everytime I watch a DVD (actually, on most anime, they are smart enough not to include that from what I have seen, but not Hollywood), and be dragged through several commercials if they are really sadistic - sometimes I have the feeling that the companies are intentionally promoting copyright-infringement with these tactics.
That may change with TPM, but I have given up so much media by this point (TV, most Hollywood movies, RIAA Music, etc) that I won't bother buying anything more than anime unless they start producing an inferior product and blaming the audience for lousy sales. My time can be better spent learning, coding or doing some sport in the future.
All else being equal, I wonder if this will turn more companies to Linux-BSD-whatever/OpenOffice. I mean, Microsoft/BSA seems to be your worst enemy right now even if you have real licenses so why even bother with pay-for software if it's not absolutely mandatory?
BTW, what proves a real license right now if not the CoA? A CD doesn't prove it either anymore (or so I read) in some cases so I assume this ruling will be effective in stopping the transfer of second hand licenses period (legal wise). And for those people say "duh, it's a CoA, not a CoL" - well isn't that just semantics? One should be as good as the other.
We watched Futurama on TV. For free. Thieves are we? Deadbeat hippies? We taped Futurama for free. Were we stealing? Communist infiltrators of Hollywood? We Tivoed for free. We stole the shows? (Are any missing?) We downloaded the shows. HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT?
The difference between the first and second is that the company got paid in the first example by the network, who then reaped their investment back by selling commercial space to companies. Perhaps you didn't watch all the commercial or perhaps only a few, but other people out there undoubtedly did. There is some chance for the company to recoup it's inventment.
OTOH, downloading the show doesn't offer the company the same chance to recoup their investment. It's pretty simple, no? The other two examples are in the middle.
Now, I am not on the side of Disney with eternal copyrights, but as my company sells software, I can recognized when a shell game is being played in terms of argument. 1 and 4 is not the same. Pretty soon, other than with sites like youtube, simply capturing eyeballs will not be enough if that cannot be translated into profit. We'll be at step 1 and figuring out how to get to step 3. Commercials were once great for this, but now the consumer managed to get around this and it's become as effective as the honor system. I know the honor system does not work in software, if not forced to pay, over half of the people using your software will find an excuse why they can't afford to pay (while still using said software).
It won't be a surprise that if shows can't turn a profit, they won't be subsidized by networks any longer. Look at what happened to evening TV - there the costs went out of control - this time on the other side of the fence with sitcom actors demanding more and more money if a show dares to be successful. More than 1 sucessful sitcom ended their run because of such a thing. In turn, networks have turned to reality shows because they are cheap to make, there is no cast to pay much to, and a new cast is expected every so often anyway. Look at the quality of TV the last five years versus the '90's, especially sitcoms.
Now that was the fault of cost going up on the side of the content makers, imagine when the audience squeezes from the other side. This stuff isn't created in an idealogical vacuum.*
*Not I really don't care if TV networks go out of business. The internet is the future in media. In 10-20 years, I can see shows being made for the internet being financed by online viewership directly. I suppose themes/plots/everything will be pervaded by product placement so that there will be no commercials per se. For instance, the Simpsons will have to move out of their house because of flood damage and stay at the Marriot for the week, while Homer gets drunk on Budweiser (sorry Duff, you don't pay enough), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And while we're at it, what's the point of an OS in a car in the first place? I would think that the number of items that a computer has to deal with are fixed (I'm sure there's a lot, but it's not like you're going to install software on a car) and presumably the OS is some unbelievably simple scheduler a la the DSKY of the Apollo days... a simple interrupt mechanism, a priority queue, and lots of inputs...
The only type of OS you want in a car, if any and as in any mission critical application, is a microkernel os. No, nothing else, not even linux.
Microkernel OSes for made for mission critical, have a small number of lines and are mathematically proven.
It's especially outrageous for Office, as that is an application that can be completely replaced by OpenOffice.
The usual arguments against OpenOffice don't work in a school. It isn't a business and doesn't have to work 100% with MS Office, because schools are usually self-contained. Documents are internal and they don't have a ton of "clients" and what not where they would have to import documents in or out all day.
And if you start using OO, you might as well use Linux/BSD/Other free OS.
There may be a few objections:
1. Educational software isn't written for linux. Too true, but most educational software I have seen is crap anyway, seemingly bought just to have it rather than providing any tangible benefit to the students. Usually the areas are covered by good web applications anyway in the meantime so there are alternatives.
2. Teacher tools. True, I have seen some teacher tools in Windows but they have web application equivalents as well. The thing that can go wrong here is if the web apps use Windows, but as in many things, there are choices.
1. The fine has to be big enough to sway the company receiving it. A billion dollar fine would be overkill for most companies, but MS isn't most companies. Consider that they made much more than this from the European Market in the meantime.
2. And also to be fair, from what I have seen, MS has been bobbing and weaving like an aging boxer to avoid most of the spirit of the rulings. The commission gave them, up to now, 1.5 years to comply. And the company has been dragging its feet in every direction. This didn't come out of the blue.
3. If you think this is harsh, consider that an American judge had ordered to split the company up completely.
BTW, I am not for the commission completely (as I am not pro-EU, the EU tries to get into every aspect of European life which I abhor) but MS doesn't have to do business in Europe. I don't know if this will finally pass but it just has the balls to do what the US Justice Department was too corrupt (from up top) to finish.
Your talking about human power vehicle. It's not like we humans are updated with new engines with a few more horsepower every year:/
Recumbent bikes are cool and faster than regular bikes because the legs are set up near the chest if you look at it horizontally (the long way) and cut down on wind resistance dramatically even without wind flairs and all that.
And they have been setting records for years but unfortunately they have been banned by the UIC (they define the standard bike as a bike). It is said a mediocre (professional) cyclist could beat someone like Armstrong in a normal one day race due to the inherent advantages of the recumbent.
According to the wiki:
Then on 7 July 1933 at a Paris velodrome, Faure rode a Velocar 45.055 km (27.9 miles) in one hour, smashing an almost 20-year-old hour record held by Oscar Egg. Since the one hour record was one of the most important in all of cycling, that accomplishment attracted a great deal of attention. Less than two months later, on 29 August 1933, Maurice Richard, riding an upright bicycle, also bettered Egg's one hour record.
When the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) met in February, 1934, manufacturers of upright bicycles lobbied to have Faure's one-hour record declared invalid. On 1 April 1934, the UCI published a new definition of a (racing) bicycle that specified how high the bottom bracket could be above the ground, how far it could be in front of the seat and how close it could be to the front wheel. The new definition effectively banned recumbents from UCI events and guaranteed that upright bicycles would not have to compete against recumbents. For all intents and purposes, the ban is still in effect.
I wanted a recumbent for years (long wheel base) but because of their low production, they tend to be more expensive, are also heavier, and most look funny.
There are some damn fine looking ones but they cost $$$$, like the Calfee Stiletto, which incidently was codesigned by Calfee and the guy in the article Freddy Markham before the two had a falling out:
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe in Japan there is the role of Character Designer. And depending on circumstances (he may be the producer as well), the CD can make character designs for an anime and keep the designs and may decide to withhold them if he's not happy with how the anime is going (I have watched several anime where the following episodes had completely different designs, specifically with a hentai drama called Masquerade). That doesn't mean the studio can't use the characters again, but they would have to have different designs done.
What you are describing is unorthodox, but hey, this is supposed to be a free country, there is no one right way to do things. But I would also add that you need leverage because an producer is unlikely to negotiate with you over an unproven character. You would have to be self-employed/entrepreneur or do this on your own time, not on some companies hours. Become a cartoonist (Garfield got made into a movie, soon two bad movies) or release a couple of CG movies/shorts on the internet (ala In the Pirkinning) and hope your character(s) builds a following. Then you have leverage and then you can negotiate. (Nobody said it would be easy:)
No, not 99%. 5% would be nice. 10% even nicer but maybe that's reaching.
Personally, I consider something like Ubuntu (once Easy Ubuntu upgrades it:) a superior platform to Windows but that's because of all the free software I can download.
That would be the number one reason I think Linux will eventually win - central repositories will be a huge strength to people tired of hunting down freeware/shareware to get the most basic apps.
I had a number of people switch on this reason alone. They are casual computer users without the demands of app X or Y. So even though they weren't "power" users, they were the easiest to convert.
Plus, I'd imagine there'd be a fair of people pissed off at MS for switching off their Windows in the first place.
Of course, you may be correct and no significant amount will convert. That's okay, just gotta keep doing what we are doing. I don't think all of Ubuntu's success though is just from old time Linux hands - lots and lots of linux newbs on the forums since it came out.
And then there are a lot of other good distros out there, I just think Ubuntu is the best for the beginner.
The thing is, it sounds like in the article it didn't come on line till later, after September 11. According to the article they abandoned the original plan but it was unclear how it evolved.
The sad thing is that Bush can win points with the average Joe by pointing and saying, "Look, even my enemies are saying it! I tried to bring security to this country 7 months before 9/11 even happened but the NSA just didn't get the system up and running by then. Imagine only that it was and that the tragedy on 9/11 would have been averted."
BTW, I know that the FBI already had the evidence of something wrong by August 2001 but couldn't connect the dots. I think this whole phone tracing thing is just going to add a mountainous workload on top of thing and ain't going to predict diddly shit while we all have our rights infringed.
lettin a car let me drive. The article goes on to state an experience in 1991:
Everything worked perfectly until Pomerleau got to a bridge. The Humvee swerved dangerously, and he was forced to grab the wheel. It took him weeks of analyzing the data to figure out what had gone wrong: When he was "teaching" the car to drive, he had been on roads with grass alongside them. The computer had determined that this was among the most important factors in staying on the road: Keep the grass at a certain distance and all will be well. When the grass suddenly disappeared, the computer panicked.
And that bug is probably fixed by now, but the problem is, how do we determine we worked out all the bugs? We can't even do that with Linux/Windows/Anything. The closest we come to that in the OS world is a microkernel with only a few thousands lines of code and controlled input.
But how do we ever determine a program that learns and is subject to varying, uncontrolled data inputs is bug free? You can't and I wouldn't want to see the first literal blue screen of death when it happens.
I don't want to sound like a luddite, but the article mentions that planes have been flying autopilot (did they forget to mention landing/taking off is still done by the pilot) since the 1970s. But I believe we'll have flying cars before self-driving* cars because the problem is several hundreds of a magnitude easier in empty 3D space where all you have to do is stay high enough off the ground and avoid collisions via radar/whatnot.
*The only way is I see anything coming close to a self-driving car is on highways where lanes get marked magnetically and driving problem gets reduce to the car having to stay X feet behind the car in front of it.
Every other post that talks about being modded down gets modded up on/. I see it as a cheap tactic to get points regardless of the merit of what is being said.
No, because I'm talking about 3rd parties making decision based on what you say, not the governement cracking down on you.
But if you want to get technical, if you threaten the president here or make a bomb threat in the US, you will be arrested just as well for just "exercising" your freedom of speech.
How often is someone going to come up to you in real life and attack you for something written online? Probably not very often. However, people still enjoy the freedom of being able to post AC. The issue here is not the probability of such an event occuring but rather the fact that it is possible.
Depends what you mean attack? I mean, I heard of people being denied jobs after their prospective employer googled their name and found things they posted that were objectionable (political or otherwise) online - and in one case it wasn't even the same guy, but someone that happened to share the same name. There was a Slashdot article to this effect about this but I'm too lazy to find it.
Freedom of Speech in this case doesn't mean that you are free of consequences if people decide to deny you based on it.
If you mean a violent attack, well, that depends. You'd have to be writing about something highly controversial (and I don't mean Ubuntu, Mac OS, or Windows suxxors attacks). I haven't heard of any such violence lately but that isn't the only way to censor someone.
How often is the government going to look through your browsing habits?
I don't know because the government is not one entity but hundreds of departments of various powers made up of thousands of individuals. I don't know if I want to put my blind trust any of them in any country for whatever reason. And with the current information sharing objective of Homeland Security, as well as the Umbrella effect of that department, I won't necessarily think that type of info is only restricted to the CIA, FBI, NSA. I simply don't trust the current government not to abuse their power nor believe it's all about fighting terrorism. J. Edgar Hoover kept his opponents silence (and was in power for so long) because he collected information (dirt) on others with a similiar vorarious appetite.
when you ISP disclose your browsing habits to the government anyway? Depending on open-wifis and the kindness of some public computers connected to the net (like in community colleges or local libraries) is sketchy at best, assuming they don't record your presence their through some other means.
Eldavojohn has a point but I fundamentally disagree with some aspects. Grade Point Averages do not determine your life, or rather you shouldn't let it determine your life. If a C (2.0) from English or History or some long ago class is pulling down your grade, will the Robotics community in the real world really care? My answer: maybe but there are always other places to go to and companies to work for that are involved in this type of thing.
But the point is, if this is something you truly want, you can get involved in it in some way. Not having the perfect grade will be an obstacle, but most obstacles can be overcome with desire - just have a strategy; for example if the academic community won't take you just yet, work for a company that will give you good experience and get you one step closer to this goal. Keep up on the latest trends and find out what works and better yet, what didn't work and why.
In this type of thing, you are only beaten when you admit defeat. Robotics is a field ready for a lot of input from people simply because no one has gotten a whole lot of things "correct" yet. Innovation may come from distinguished professors in the field, entreprenuers, or the industry as a whole (think Honda). The only question is, do you really have the desire to put the work and dedication in?
Living in fear is not the way to live. Besides, one murder was the victim taking it out on a random (?) Nigerian - so the danger isn't one sided. The second murder was a man who went to Nigeria pursuing his money. I think, like terrorism, while these crimes are tragic, that the statitists are low actually experiencing them. But incidents like this make me think of Twain's essay "The Damned Human Race."
OTOH, many Nigerian scammers think westerners are stupid and assume we are all easy money - they deserve to be taught otherwise with these pranks. I won't live in fear of thieves.
From the wiki you linked to.
One American was murdered in Nigeria in June 1995 while pursuing his lost money.[8]
In February 2003, a scam victim from the Czech Republic shot and killed Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague.[9] [10]
A Greek man was murdered in South Africa after responding to a 419 scam.[11]
I disagree - deployment is used in a bunch of business speak. You are correct and that there was some information, but it's a more interesting experiment in how people's minds fill the gaps with their own speculation. After all, they didn't have to think the worst, but they decided to anyway. That's the kind of irrational fear filling the world today.
A paralell (but with even more "information" designed to make a person feel a certain way) to this in the movies would the original "Blair Witch Project." There was no monster ever seen, but that's what most people conclude from the inconclusive, even though it could have been just as easily a kidnapper at the end spooking them.
That was a mistake on your part, true (I was a collectible's seller on the fleamarket once). What people don't relize is that there are other costs than production/acquisition - your time and salary (nobody does it for the fun of it, you could be working for a "real" job or overtime), cost of selling venue (table and booth), cost of getting there (gas & misc.), etcetera. For a company like Apple - cost of production is besides the point - the first iPod costs the most - R&D, sales staff, etc.
When I buy something, I don't try to figure out the other guy's cost of production because that doesn't help me any (unless I'm a bigtime purchasing manager). I try to figure out if the price is the best one I can get on the market, if I can haggle him down for whatever reason, and if it's worth it for me to shop around further or if I'll get a better price elsewhere economically. If it's for resale, then I figure how much I can make realistically.
Those people who haggled you down from $50 (you should have told them it cost you 40, people rarely try to get you to sell under cost) did the right thing from their POV but those people who refused to buy from you because of "obscene" profits and then went out and bought it at $120 retail are a couple short of a six pack.
People are funny (too emotional) and should use simple logic. I've seen people waste hours of their life, gallons of gas, etcetera, go around and shop/bargain for a single $20 item in order to save $2.99 but when the same people buy cars, they go up to the dealer and timidly (or enthusiastically) agree to the sticker price.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand what you mean, but overtaking (technically) in this fashion would also mean making it as easy or easier to move to linux than stick with the current or next Windows version people are on. This obviously has external factors, such as companies porting software over, but could be accomplished in the community via Wine/other.
For example, people who only use the company to browse the web and write stuff could move to Linux completely almost without exception (though there are those annoying websites that refuse to work with anything but Windows for no good reason besides lazy developers).
Mac OSX may be wonderful technically, shares similiar adoption problems with linux, but it's small marketshare also stems from the fact that it's hardware is only sold by one provider. Linux does not have this problem.
With more and more announcements like these, does anyone else think it is inevitable that Linux will overtake Microsoft on all bases one day? I mean, it's starting to show Microsoft is only one company devoting a portion, large but just a portion, of it's resources to its OS while Linux is an entire industry with a bunch of diverse people working on small parts seperately.
I wonder if the Vista's voyage is any kind of vindication to the Linux side, who was always ballyhooed as having "too many distros" earlier, but at least we could depend on someone, somewhere releasing some small update with some type of progress (small but frequent steps) rather than the monolothic approach of large but infrequent steps.
That's interesting and scary, thanks for taking the time to respond.
Before we talk and bitch about this company and how obvious it is, this is just another example to show broken the system is - this company is simply taking advantage of it.
Bureacracies always reach out and try to take more power - once patents simply protected implementations - now the patent office is reaching out to get a stranglehold on stuff like "business methods" and algorithms (math) and essentially ideas - many of them common sense to the problem being solved.
Patents are for society, not the individual. It's supposed to push progress forward by opening non-obvious ideas for everyone for a limited time. Not MONOPOLIZE obvious ideas for the benefit of one person against the rest of society.
To fix patents, we don't need more patent clerks (federal employees), we need to:
1. Go back to old way patents were done - which includes working implementation upon application. Thus ideas become unpatentable. Same with business methods. It will also render 90% all the unreadable legalese to obscure what you are patenting obsolete.
2. Punish non-English application. No, I don't mean application in a foreign language, just the ones that read like they are. Plain english is a must. Jail time in Gitmo otherwise.
3. Raise price to apply for patent to $5,000-50,000 depending on whether it is an individual, small company or large corporation (refundable only on recieving a patent) - while it may seem to screw the "little guy" it actually will kill corporations trying to patent every little thing. Even a little operation will be able to afford to patent 1 WORTHWHILE application, but will corporate America still be able to afford to apply for 10's of thousands of trivial patents?
4. Part of application fee (say 1/2) will go as a bounty to anybody who can disprove it - in other words show prior art, etcetera. This could be anybody - college students, professors, employees of another company. This will also lower amount of patents applied and speed up patenting time.
Why hire clueless clerks when you could flocks of knowleable people examining patents because of a profit motive to turn them down? They won't have the power to deny a patent, they bring the case against it.
5. No renewable patents. Lower patent length from 17 years to 9-10 years or so. Back in the 1700's, business and the pace of life overall was slower, let's reflect that.
The key word is purchased, not leased. Can you explain to me how purchasing a piece of software does not legally entitle me to use it into eternity?
The rest of your post really makes it sound like the mafia == BSA.
How is DRM going to keep it to background level noise when one crack is all it takes to spread it to the internet?
DRM is less than useless right now because all it succeeds in doing is annoy real paying customers and teaching them the cracked versions are better after all. It's bad enough I am forced to watch the blue FBI screen everytime I watch a DVD (actually, on most anime, they are smart enough not to include that from what I have seen, but not Hollywood), and be dragged through several commercials if they are really sadistic - sometimes I have the feeling that the companies are intentionally promoting copyright-infringement with these tactics.
That may change with TPM, but I have given up so much media by this point (TV, most Hollywood movies, RIAA Music, etc) that I won't bother buying anything more than anime unless they start producing an inferior product and blaming the audience for lousy sales. My time can be better spent learning, coding or doing some sport in the future.
All else being equal, I wonder if this will turn more companies to Linux-BSD-whatever/OpenOffice. I mean, Microsoft/BSA seems to be your worst enemy right now even if you have real licenses so why even bother with pay-for software if it's not absolutely mandatory?
BTW, what proves a real license right now if not the CoA? A CD doesn't prove it either anymore (or so I read) in some cases so I assume this ruling will be effective in stopping the transfer of second hand licenses period (legal wise). And for those people say "duh, it's a CoA, not a CoL" - well isn't that just semantics? One should be as good as the other.
The difference between the first and second is that the company got paid in the first example by the network, who then reaped their investment back by selling commercial space to companies. Perhaps you didn't watch all the commercial or perhaps only a few, but other people out there undoubtedly did. There is some chance for the company to recoup it's inventment.
OTOH, downloading the show doesn't offer the company the same chance to recoup their investment. It's pretty simple, no? The other two examples are in the middle.
Now, I am not on the side of Disney with eternal copyrights, but as my company sells software, I can recognized when a shell game is being played in terms of argument. 1 and 4 is not the same. Pretty soon, other than with sites like youtube, simply capturing eyeballs will not be enough if that cannot be translated into profit. We'll be at step 1 and figuring out how to get to step 3. Commercials were once great for this, but now the consumer managed to get around this and it's become as effective as the honor system. I know the honor system does not work in software, if not forced to pay, over half of the people using your software will find an excuse why they can't afford to pay (while still using said software).
It won't be a surprise that if shows can't turn a profit, they won't be subsidized by networks any longer. Look at what happened to evening TV - there the costs went out of control - this time on the other side of the fence with sitcom actors demanding more and more money if a show dares to be successful. More than 1 sucessful sitcom ended their run because of such a thing. In turn, networks have turned to reality shows because they are cheap to make, there is no cast to pay much to, and a new cast is expected every so often anyway. Look at the quality of TV the last five years versus the '90's, especially sitcoms.
Now that was the fault of cost going up on the side of the content makers, imagine when the audience squeezes from the other side. This stuff isn't created in an idealogical vacuum.*
*Not I really don't care if TV networks go out of business. The internet is the future in media. In 10-20 years, I can see shows being made for the internet being financed by online viewership directly. I suppose themes/plots/everything will be pervaded by product placement so that there will be no commercials per se. For instance, the Simpsons will have to move out of their house because of flood damage and stay at the Marriot for the week, while Homer gets drunk on Budweiser (sorry Duff, you don't pay enough), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
The only type of OS you want in a car, if any and as in any mission critical application, is a microkernel os. No, nothing else, not even linux.
Microkernel OSes for made for mission critical, have a small number of lines and are mathematically proven.
It's especially outrageous for Office, as that is an application that can be completely replaced by OpenOffice.
The usual arguments against OpenOffice don't work in a school. It isn't a business and doesn't have to work 100% with MS Office, because schools are usually self-contained. Documents are internal and they don't have a ton of "clients" and what not where they would have to import documents in or out all day.
And if you start using OO, you might as well use Linux/BSD/Other free OS.
There may be a few objections:
1. Educational software isn't written for linux. Too true, but most educational software I have seen is crap anyway, seemingly bought just to have it rather than providing any tangible benefit to the students. Usually the areas are covered by good web applications anyway in the meantime so there are alternatives.
2. Teacher tools. True, I have seen some teacher tools in Windows but they have web application equivalents as well. The thing that can go wrong here is if the web apps use Windows, but as in many things, there are choices.
1. The fine has to be big enough to sway the company receiving it. A billion dollar fine would be overkill for most companies, but MS isn't most companies. Consider that they made much more than this from the European Market in the meantime.
2. And also to be fair, from what I have seen, MS has been bobbing and weaving like an aging boxer to avoid most of the spirit of the rulings. The commission gave them, up to now, 1.5 years to comply. And the company has been dragging its feet in every direction. This didn't come out of the blue.
3. If you think this is harsh, consider that an American judge had ordered to split the company up completely.
BTW, I am not for the commission completely (as I am not pro-EU, the EU tries to get into every aspect of European life which I abhor) but MS doesn't have to do business in Europe. I don't know if this will finally pass but it just has the balls to do what the US Justice Department was too corrupt (from up top) to finish.
Recumbent bikes are cool and faster than regular bikes because the legs are set up near the chest if you look at it horizontally (the long way) and cut down on wind resistance dramatically even without wind flairs and all that.
And they have been setting records for years but unfortunately they have been banned by the UIC (they define the standard bike as a bike). It is said a mediocre (professional) cyclist could beat someone like Armstrong in a normal one day race due to the inherent advantages of the recumbent.
According to the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recumbent_bicycle
I wanted a recumbent for years (long wheel base) but because of their low production, they tend to be more expensive, are also heavier, and most look funny.
There are some damn fine looking ones but they cost $$$$, like the Calfee Stiletto, which incidently was codesigned by Calfee and the guy in the article Freddy Markham before the two had a falling out:
http://www.rbr.info/calfee.html
BTW, Markham is known as the Armstrong of recumbents. Getting a record at his age is a surprise, but will add to his legend.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe in Japan there is the role of Character Designer. And depending on circumstances (he may be the producer as well), the CD can make character designs for an anime and keep the designs and may decide to withhold them if he's not happy with how the anime is going (I have watched several anime where the following episodes had completely different designs, specifically with a hentai drama called Masquerade). That doesn't mean the studio can't use the characters again, but they would have to have different designs done.
What you are describing is unorthodox, but hey, this is supposed to be a free country, there is no one right way to do things. But I would also add that you need leverage because an producer is unlikely to negotiate with you over an unproven character. You would have to be self-employed/entrepreneur or do this on your own time, not on some companies hours. Become a cartoonist (Garfield got made into a movie, soon two bad movies) or release a couple of CG movies/shorts on the internet (ala In the Pirkinning) and hope your character(s) builds a following. Then you have leverage and then you can negotiate. (Nobody said it would be easy:)
No, not 99%. 5% would be nice. 10% even nicer but maybe that's reaching.
Personally, I consider something like Ubuntu (once Easy Ubuntu upgrades it:) a superior platform to Windows but that's because of all the free software I can download.
That would be the number one reason I think Linux will eventually win - central repositories will be a huge strength to people tired of hunting down freeware/shareware to get the most basic apps.
I had a number of people switch on this reason alone. They are casual computer users without the demands of app X or Y. So even though they weren't "power" users, they were the easiest to convert.
Plus, I'd imagine there'd be a fair of people pissed off at MS for switching off their Windows in the first place.
Of course, you may be correct and no significant amount will convert. That's okay, just gotta keep doing what we are doing. I don't think all of Ubuntu's success though is just from old time Linux hands - lots and lots of linux newbs on the forums since it came out.
And then there are a lot of other good distros out there, I just think Ubuntu is the best for the beginner.
The thing is, it sounds like in the article it didn't come on line till later, after September 11. According to the article they abandoned the original plan but it was unclear how it evolved.
The sad thing is that Bush can win points with the average Joe by pointing and saying, "Look, even my enemies are saying it! I tried to bring security to this country 7 months before 9/11 even happened but the NSA just didn't get the system up and running by then. Imagine only that it was and that the tragedy on 9/11 would have been averted."
BTW, I know that the FBI already had the evidence of something wrong by August 2001 but couldn't connect the dots. I think this whole phone tracing thing is just going to add a mountainous workload on top of thing and ain't going to predict diddly shit while we all have our rights infringed.
Duh, I meant to say I don't feel comfortable letting a car drive me. Yes, I'm up to late as it is.
And that bug is probably fixed by now, but the problem is, how do we determine we worked out all the bugs? We can't even do that with Linux/Windows/Anything. The closest we come to that in the OS world is a microkernel with only a few thousands lines of code and controlled input.
But how do we ever determine a program that learns and is subject to varying, uncontrolled data inputs is bug free? You can't and I wouldn't want to see the first literal blue screen of death when it happens.
I don't want to sound like a luddite, but the article mentions that planes have been flying autopilot (did they forget to mention landing/taking off is still done by the pilot) since the 1970s. But I believe we'll have flying cars before self-driving* cars because the problem is several hundreds of a magnitude easier in empty 3D space where all you have to do is stay high enough off the ground and avoid collisions via radar/whatnot.
*The only way is I see anything coming close to a self-driving car is on highways where lanes get marked magnetically and driving problem gets reduce to the car having to stay X feet behind the car in front of it.
Every other post that talks about being modded down gets modded up on /. I see it as a cheap tactic to get points regardless of the merit of what is being said.
But then, I'd probably get modded down:P
No, because I'm talking about 3rd parties making decision based on what you say, not the governement cracking down on you.
But if you want to get technical, if you threaten the president here or make a bomb threat in the US, you will be arrested just as well for just "exercising" your freedom of speech.
Depends what you mean attack? I mean, I heard of people being denied jobs after their prospective employer googled their name and found things they posted that were objectionable (political or otherwise) online - and in one case it wasn't even the same guy, but someone that happened to share the same name. There was a Slashdot article to this effect about this but I'm too lazy to find it.
Freedom of Speech in this case doesn't mean that you are free of consequences if people decide to deny you based on it.
If you mean a violent attack, well, that depends. You'd have to be writing about something highly controversial (and I don't mean Ubuntu, Mac OS, or Windows suxxors attacks). I haven't heard of any such violence lately but that isn't the only way to censor someone.
I don't know because the government is not one entity but hundreds of departments of various powers made up of thousands of individuals. I don't know if I want to put my blind trust any of them in any country for whatever reason. And with the current information sharing objective of Homeland Security, as well as the Umbrella effect of that department, I won't necessarily think that type of info is only restricted to the CIA, FBI, NSA. I simply don't trust the current government not to abuse their power nor believe it's all about fighting terrorism. J. Edgar Hoover kept his opponents silence (and was in power for so long) because he collected information (dirt) on others with a similiar vorarious appetite.
when you ISP disclose your browsing habits to the government anyway? Depending on open-wifis and the kindness of some public computers connected to the net (like in community colleges or local libraries) is sketchy at best, assuming they don't record your presence their through some other means.
Eldavojohn has a point but I fundamentally disagree with some aspects. Grade Point Averages do not determine your life, or rather you shouldn't let it determine your life. If a C (2.0) from English or History or some long ago class is pulling down your grade, will the Robotics community in the real world really care? My answer: maybe but there are always other places to go to and companies to work for that are involved in this type of thing.
But the point is, if this is something you truly want, you can get involved in it in some way. Not having the perfect grade will be an obstacle, but most obstacles can be overcome with desire - just have a strategy; for example if the academic community won't take you just yet, work for a company that will give you good experience and get you one step closer to this goal. Keep up on the latest trends and find out what works and better yet, what didn't work and why.
In this type of thing, you are only beaten when you admit defeat. Robotics is a field ready for a lot of input from people simply because no one has gotten a whole lot of things "correct" yet. Innovation may come from distinguished professors in the field, entreprenuers, or the industry as a whole (think Honda). The only question is, do you really have the desire to put the work and dedication in?
OTOH, many Nigerian scammers think westerners are stupid and assume we are all easy money - they deserve to be taught otherwise with these pranks. I won't live in fear of thieves.
From the wiki you linked to.
I disagree - deployment is used in a bunch of business speak. You are correct and that there was some information, but it's a more interesting experiment in how people's minds fill the gaps with their own speculation. After all, they didn't have to think the worst, but they decided to anyway. That's the kind of irrational fear filling the world today.
A paralell (but with even more "information" designed to make a person feel a certain way) to this in the movies would the original "Blair Witch Project." There was no monster ever seen, but that's what most people conclude from the inconclusive, even though it could have been just as easily a kidnapper at the end spooking them.
That was a mistake on your part, true (I was a collectible's seller on the fleamarket once). What people don't relize is that there are other costs than production/acquisition - your time and salary (nobody does it for the fun of it, you could be working for a "real" job or overtime), cost of selling venue (table and booth), cost of getting there (gas & misc.), etcetera. For a company like Apple - cost of production is besides the point - the first iPod costs the most - R&D, sales staff, etc.
When I buy something, I don't try to figure out the other guy's cost of production because that doesn't help me any (unless I'm a bigtime purchasing manager). I try to figure out if the price is the best one I can get on the market, if I can haggle him down for whatever reason, and if it's worth it for me to shop around further or if I'll get a better price elsewhere economically. If it's for resale, then I figure how much I can make realistically.
Those people who haggled you down from $50 (you should have told them it cost you 40, people rarely try to get you to sell under cost) did the right thing from their POV but those people who refused to buy from you because of "obscene" profits and then went out and bought it at $120 retail are a couple short of a six pack.
People are funny (too emotional) and should use simple logic. I've seen people waste hours of their life, gallons of gas, etcetera, go around and shop/bargain for a single $20 item in order to save $2.99 but when the same people buy cars, they go up to the dealer and timidly (or enthusiastically) agree to the sticker price.