They have utter disregard for the law, they do not care who they destroy in their quest for power, and we do not seem to be able to stop them no matter how hard they try.
Redmond is like Kandahar, the home of Al Quaida, and Osama Bill Gates is the fundamentalist lunatic in charge of the carnage.
I expect I'll be modded down for saying it, but it needed to be said. If we cannot deal with our own home-grown atrocities such as Windows, how can we hope to win the greater war against terrorism ?
I think the potential for this kind of game is nowhere close to being fully realised. I can imagine a networked version of 'the sims' where each character is autonomous and can wander from machine to machine, powered by its own AI and guided by its creator.
Combine this with the strong story element of games like Ultima and the strategy/rpg of Command and Conquer, and we would have a winner.
imagine your sim goes to the airport to fly a plane, and you are instantly put into a flight simulation which is completely accurate. We haven't even scratched the surface of computer based entertainment!
I cannot help thinking that Transmeta's innovative technology has been overlooked. The cool thing about the transmeta architecture is not its low power consumption, rather it is the way it can do all kinds of translation on the fly. I hope this does not get buried just because people think transmeta is all about low power, and Intel come along and transmeta sinks without a trace.
Whilst not claiming to be an expert on libertarian 'philosophy', I do know coercion when I see it. A simple search of the internet reveals several instances. One of which I reproduce here for your enlightenment.
Use of Indonesian soldiers to provide "security" at the Nikomas Factory in Indonesia
Members of the Indonesian army are frequently employed as "security" in factories in Indonesia during periods of industrial unrest to prevent industrial action. In September 1999 a US student delegation observed Indonesian soldiers stationed at the Nikomas factory at a time when wage negotiations were being conducted. Following the publicity the issue received the soldiers were replaced by non-military security (police and security guards) who were playing an appropriate role. Subsequently however, during peaceful strike action by workers at PT Nikomas, police from Brimob (an armed police brigade) equipped with guns entered the factory and together with factory security guards and hired civilians they threatened and provoked workers. We repeat our call for Nike to ensure that Indonesia's armed forces are never called in to prevent or interfere with peaceful industrial action.
You go on to say: and, a little note: they hate us because we're the rich, good-looking kid on the playground who is smart enough not to give his lunch away everyday to the kids who are too stupid to find their own money.
You clearly do not know what you are talking about. Ask anyone who has visited the free trade zones in China, or the sweatshop labor factories in Indonesia.
Apart from anything else, these people are forced to work ludicrously long hours for peanuts. It may make you feel better if you can pretend that everything is OK and that these people are being exploited by choice, but it simply is not true.
As a libertarian, you should realise that coercion cannot play a part in any civilised society, so why then do you think people are working 20 hour shifts ?
It is this dumb Amrerican 'head in the sand' attitude which shows no knowledge of the world outside our comfortable fat consumerist existance which makes the rest of the world hate us.
Note, I said HATE. Not dislike, they actually hate us, and the exploitative money hungry moral-free value system we represent.
Just try starting a branch of the 'libertarian party' in China and see how far you get.
As Naomi Klein said in her bestselling book on the subject, 'No Logo' the problem with globalization is that corporations simply move to the country with the weakest labor protection laws.
If we are going to have globalization of business profit making, should we not also have globalization of ethical awareness too ?
It is easy to dismiss this because it happens far away in another country, but the events of September 11th should have given us a heads-up that we need to pay close attention to the poorer parts of the world if we are to avoid our own destruction.
There are 34 pages from 'No Logo' available by following the Amazon link I have included above. Read them. You might not agree, but you will be better informed.
When the likes of IBM have 100GB consumer hard drives on the market, why should we put up with 40GB ? The electronics on this thing must add up to about $350 retail. So there is one hefty mark-up there.
Having said that, imagine ripping all your CDs onto this thing and having them go with you wherever you go.
I wonder if the RIAA know about this ? You can bet they will get their panties in a bunch about it:-(
Although distros come and go, there is no doubt that Linux is here to stay. I think as Linux goes more and more mainstream, there will be a shakeout of the distros, and the fittest will survive.
The reason for having a distro is to differentiate one Linux from another. These days, people are more interested in standardization a la RedHat, than having the most bang up to date kernel.
Probably we will see the market split into a few big name 'play-it-safe' distros like RedHat, and several specialist distros for people who want the bleeding edge features.
So in short, although its sad if slackware dies, that does not mean the end of linux. Roll on world domination!!!
Re:Perl 6 is the way forward - Fat Chance
on
Perl6 for Mortals
·
· Score: 1
I have worked on other's perl code and found it perfectly comprehensible. I think there is a culture amoung both the perl fans and the perl haters to claim that perl is more difficult than it really is. Once you understand references, perl is as easy as falling off a log. It really is an easy language to use.
Leonardo's methods are the way forward
on
Da Vinci Bridge Built
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Leonardo DaVinci invented many other things apart from bridges. He was one of the first anatomists to draw pictures of the insides of human bodies. He invented the helicopter. He was truly the canonical 'renaissance man'.
While his designs may not be right for the modern world, the way he dabbled in every form of science was amazing. If only more scientists could see beyond the tunnel-vision of their specialism to get a grasp of the 'big picture' the way Leonardo did.
Modern scientists such as Professor Stephen Hawking are truly geniusses, but they lack the all round scientific insight to be productive. How many bridges have been built by theoretical physicists ?;-)
I think the problem is the education system which forces us by the 'major' system to specialise rather than follow our interests. This has to change as we move forward into the 21st century.
Its best to let the process run its course.
If they have 200 applicants to deal with, then they do not want to deal with an over-enthusiastic person calling them all the time.
Also, there is no such thing as a dream job. You will hate it within a few years. So remember to keep it in proportion. Also remember stock options are not cash, so do not fall for that one either.
Perl 6 is the way forward.
on
Perl6 for Mortals
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Why is it that people dislike change (read: progress) so much ? Its not like anyone ever said 'perl is perfect - leave it just the way it is'. So why all the sad faces when Larry tries to improve on what is already a great language ?
If you don't like a particular feature of the language don't use it. After all, the motto of perl is 'there's more than one way to do it'.
It seems to me that we should be praising the perl developers for perl6, not criticizing them. And I bet most of the moaners and whiners never wrote a line of open source code in their lives.
I am sure I read somewhere that BSD is dying. I think I read it here in fact. So does this mean that BSD has a future ? Or is this sort of like one last heroic release before BSD files for chapter 11 ?
I have to admit, I used to be a NetBSD user. I used to run 0.8 and 0.9 on my 486 DX2 66Mhz gateway. Man I used to think I was a real 'hacker'. The hardest thing in those days was getting it to recognize my non-standard sony cdu31a cdrom drive.
It's all plug and play these days. Kids today don't have a clue what we went through:-)
This whole area of physics seems to be full of anomalies and singularities. I had hoped that Professor Stephen Hawking would come up with some kind of unified 'theory of everything' but so far, no luck.
I wonder what this discovery means for the arguments of Roger Penrose ? Some of his stuff in the 'Emperor's new Mind' seems to hint that quantum effects may hold the key to consciousness, and could explain why strong AI is so difficult to achieve.
I believe Bruce Sterling wrote a short story about some sort of computerised battle robot that believed in Islam. It was pretty good, but I cannot remember the name right now. I think it is in the 'globalhead' book of short stories.
It would be unfortunate if one of these robots ran amok and killed human beings. No doubt the DoD is investigating this technology in the hope of finding some military application.
I imagine if these things could be made much smaller, and consume less power, then they could be ideal to use as battlefield spies. Simply strap a cheap webcam on the top, add a cheap PC and an 802.11b network card and away you go!
But I can't help wondering how long it will be before the morons arrive with their stupid and predictable '*BSD is dying' troll.
I wouldn't mind the trolls so much if they were original, but cutting and pasting the same stupid rant every time an article mentions BSD is just plain unfunny.
Anyway, its good to hear some positive news from the BSD camp. Lets hope they clear up the problems with their license so BSD can match RMS's definition of 'open source'
Imagine if it had hit a major populated area. The results could have been devastating.
I wonder if there is any possibility of harnessing these things as weapons. Maybe you could blow one off course using a nuclear tipped missile, and cause it to land on one of your enemies cities. I expect the DoD are investigating this concept!
I tried one of these, before I had done any research on the subject. I had a headache and a feeling of nausea after using it for 45 minutes.
I threw it away when I read about the damage a normal mobile phone can do. You sure as hell do not want to increase the amount of radiation entering your cranial cavity.
There is the reverse problem as well. I complained to websense about that hateful adequacy.org site. They were kind enough to classify it as 'obscene/tastelss without any redeeming qualities' or something.
But it seems that someone else disagreed with me, and now it is categorized as 'satire'. Exactly how a site with such poor standards of journalistic integrity is allowed in that category amazes me.
I have now added adequacy.org to my junkbuster file, so I never have to see it again.
Can we stop the Bill Gates bashing please ? It is getting so old and boring.
Bill Gates sucks. Yeah and Microsoft Windoze sucks too. Monopoly. Unfair. Netscape. Browser wars. Crap technology. Blah blah blah.
The incessant juvenile whining and whinging has GOT TO STOP. Otherwise, reading slashdot will become unbearable, as the sheer weight of boring posts, troll posts, karma whoring posts, first posts etc gives it the worst signal/noise ratio of any weblog on the internet.
Hell, sometimes I would be better off reading inadequacy than slashdot.
It seems that the more we learn about our Universe, the less we can be certain about it. I remember when they first detected the background radiation from the 'big bang'. That was a big upset because it wasn't behaving how astronomers thought it should.
Then there was the whole 'dark matter' brouhaha. It seems to me that Astronomers need to formulate some new models of space and time, to account for all these anomolies, Perhaps professor Stephen Hawking holds the key to this...
It is clear that wireless is going to be the next big thing. Whatever Nicholas Negroponte says about 3G, it will take off, and the consumer will want it. Imagine being able to watch "Star Trek - TNG" on your mobile phone!
The real problem with wireless at the moment is security. WEP notwithstanding, it is still far to easy to take an 802.11b equipped laptop outside a large corporation, and to gain acess to its network with little more effort than clicking a mouse.
The way the CIA and FBI act on encryption now could see wireless thrive, or kill it off completely. Nobody would want an insecure wireless service, but if the CIA and FBI get their way, that's all that will be on offer.
So, encryption (and governmental attitudes toward it) is the key to all this.
Slashdot Mirror
Redmond is like Kandahar, the home of Al Quaida, and Osama Bill Gates is the fundamentalist lunatic in charge of the carnage.
I expect I'll be modded down for saying it, but it needed to be said. If we cannot deal with our own home-grown atrocities such as Windows, how can we hope to win the greater war against terrorism ?
Combine this with the strong story element of games like Ultima and the strategy/rpg of Command and Conquer, and we would have a winner.
imagine your sim goes to the airport to fly a plane, and you are instantly put into a flight simulation which is completely accurate. We haven't even scratched the surface of computer based entertainment!
I wonder what Linus would think ?
We've come a long way since then !
Use of Indonesian soldiers to provide "security" at the Nikomas Factory in Indonesia
Members of the Indonesian army are frequently employed as "security" in factories in Indonesia during periods of industrial unrest to prevent industrial action. In September 1999 a US student delegation observed Indonesian soldiers stationed at the Nikomas factory at a time when wage negotiations were being conducted. Following the publicity the issue received the soldiers were replaced by non-military security (police and security guards) who were playing an appropriate role. Subsequently however, during peaceful strike action by workers at PT Nikomas, police from Brimob (an armed police brigade) equipped with guns entered the factory and together with factory security guards and hired civilians they threatened and provoked workers. We repeat our call for Nike to ensure that Indonesia's armed forces are never called in to prevent or interfere with peaceful industrial action.
You go on to say: and, a little note: they hate us because we're the rich, good-looking kid on the playground who is smart enough not to give his lunch away everyday to the kids who are too stupid to find their own money.
Again, I feel I must correct you: they hate us because we are a genocidal nation of gun-crazy psychopaths and lunatics.
Apart from anything else, these people are forced to work ludicrously long hours for peanuts. It may make you feel better if you can pretend that everything is OK and that these people are being exploited by choice, but it simply is not true.
As a libertarian, you should realise that coercion cannot play a part in any civilised society, so why then do you think people are working 20 hour shifts ?
It is this dumb Amrerican 'head in the sand' attitude which shows no knowledge of the world outside our comfortable fat consumerist existance which makes the rest of the world hate us.
Note, I said HATE. Not dislike, they actually hate us, and the exploitative money hungry moral-free value system we represent.
Just try starting a branch of the 'libertarian party' in China and see how far you get.
If we are going to have globalization of business profit making, should we not also have globalization of ethical awareness too ?
It is easy to dismiss this because it happens far away in another country, but the events of September 11th should have given us a heads-up that we need to pay close attention to the poorer parts of the world if we are to avoid our own destruction.
There are 34 pages from 'No Logo' available by following the Amazon link I have included above. Read them. You might not agree, but you will be better informed.
Having said that, imagine ripping all your CDs onto this thing and having them go with you wherever you go.
I wonder if the RIAA know about this ? You can bet they will get their panties in a bunch about it :-(
The reason for having a distro is to differentiate one Linux from another. These days, people are more interested in standardization a la RedHat, than having the most bang up to date kernel.
Probably we will see the market split into a few big name 'play-it-safe' distros like RedHat, and several specialist distros for people who want the bleeding edge features.
So in short, although its sad if slackware dies, that does not mean the end of linux. Roll on world domination!!!
I have worked on other's perl code and found it perfectly comprehensible. I think there is a culture amoung both the perl fans and the perl haters to claim that perl is more difficult than it really is. Once you understand references, perl is as easy as falling off a log. It really is an easy language to use.
While his designs may not be right for the modern world, the way he dabbled in every form of science was amazing. If only more scientists could see beyond the tunnel-vision of their specialism to get a grasp of the 'big picture' the way Leonardo did.
Modern scientists such as Professor Stephen Hawking are truly geniusses, but they lack the all round scientific insight to be productive. How many bridges have been built by theoretical physicists ? ;-)
I think the problem is the education system which forces us by the 'major' system to specialise rather than follow our interests. This has to change as we move forward into the 21st century.
Its best to let the process run its course. If they have 200 applicants to deal with, then they do not want to deal with an over-enthusiastic person calling them all the time. Also, there is no such thing as a dream job. You will hate it within a few years. So remember to keep it in proportion. Also remember stock options are not cash, so do not fall for that one either.
If you don't like a particular feature of the language don't use it. After all, the motto of perl is 'there's more than one way to do it'.
It seems to me that we should be praising the perl developers for perl6, not criticizing them. And I bet most of the moaners and whiners never wrote a line of open source code in their lives.
I have to admit, I used to be a NetBSD user. I used to run 0.8 and 0.9 on my 486 DX2 66Mhz gateway. Man I used to think I was a real 'hacker'. The hardest thing in those days was getting it to recognize my non-standard sony cdu31a cdrom drive.
It's all plug and play these days. Kids today don't have a clue what we went through :-)
I wonder what this discovery means for the arguments of Roger Penrose ? Some of his stuff in the 'Emperor's new Mind' seems to hint that quantum effects may hold the key to consciousness, and could explain why strong AI is so difficult to achieve.
I believe Bruce Sterling wrote a short story about some sort of computerised battle robot that believed in Islam. It was pretty good, but I cannot remember the name right now. I think it is in the 'globalhead' book of short stories.
I imagine if these things could be made much smaller, and consume less power, then they could be ideal to use as battlefield spies. Simply strap a cheap webcam on the top, add a cheap PC and an 802.11b network card and away you go!
I wouldn't mind the trolls so much if they were original, but cutting and pasting the same stupid rant every time an article mentions BSD is just plain unfunny.
Anyway, its good to hear some positive news from the BSD camp. Lets hope they clear up the problems with their license so BSD can match RMS's definition of 'open source'
I wonder if there is any possibility of harnessing these things as weapons. Maybe you could blow one off course using a nuclear tipped missile, and cause it to land on one of your enemies cities. I expect the DoD are investigating this concept!
I threw it away when I read about the damage a normal mobile phone can do. You sure as hell do not want to increase the amount of radiation entering your cranial cavity.
But it seems that someone else disagreed with me, and now it is categorized as 'satire'. Exactly how a site with such poor standards of journalistic integrity is allowed in that category amazes me.
I have now added adequacy.org to my junkbuster file, so I never have to see it again.
Bill Gates sucks. Yeah and Microsoft Windoze sucks too. Monopoly. Unfair. Netscape. Browser wars. Crap technology. Blah blah blah.
The incessant juvenile whining and whinging has GOT TO STOP. Otherwise, reading slashdot will become unbearable, as the sheer weight of boring posts, troll posts, karma whoring posts, first posts etc gives it the worst signal/noise ratio of any weblog on the internet.
Hell, sometimes I would be better off reading inadequacy than slashdot.
Then there was the whole 'dark matter' brouhaha. It seems to me that Astronomers need to formulate some new models of space and time, to account for all these anomolies, Perhaps professor Stephen Hawking holds the key to this...
Amongst the intellectual inadequates at those two well known mental masturbation sites, it certainly does.
The real problem with wireless at the moment is security. WEP notwithstanding, it is still far to easy to take an 802.11b equipped laptop outside a large corporation, and to gain acess to its network with little more effort than clicking a mouse.
The way the CIA and FBI act on encryption now could see wireless thrive, or kill it off completely. Nobody would want an insecure wireless service, but if the CIA and FBI get their way, that's all that will be on offer.
So, encryption (and governmental attitudes toward it) is the key to all this.