Interesting that you used the term midwife because I've suggested the same analogy with regard to Al Gore and the Internet. No, Al Gore isn't the father of the Internet, but given that for several decades it was developed nearly 100% on government money and that Al Gore was the politician that best understood and supported it through those early years, I for one believe that Al Gore does deserve the title midwife of the Internet
concluded that each member of the plaintiff class -- at least 65 million computer buyers -- would receive as little as $10 in a settlement or court victory. That would be less than the cost of identifying class members and sending payment, meaning most of the money from Microsoft would be swallowed by administrative costs -- and attorney fees.
IANAL, but how can this be considered a reasonable settlement?!! How about punitive damages of three or four times the actual damages plus MS pays the administrative costs.
But given what's been decided, can someone come up with a Scarlet "M", as in MONOPOLY, to use as the Window's splash screen and an explanatory note to the effect that Microsoft provided the computer as punishment for criminal behavior.
I wondered about this too, but the more I read the more it rang true. I've lived in Africa and India and let me tell you, people know what they want and find ways to get it.
I only wish that Katz had posted the email, rather than just talking about it. His comments don't always ring true. For example: nobody in Asia would think of martial art's movies as coming from America. Think Bollywood, not Hollywood!
For better or for worse, this once again proves that once Pandora's box is open you can't shut it, no matter how hard you try.
Having lived in Africa, I've seen firsthand how quickly, frighteningly so, things can change during a coup d'etat. People whose constraints have been mostly external for some time, lose control very quickly when those constraints are lifted, but within a few days things settle down and they regain their internal control/balance.
Every society draws limits for itself and develops mechanisms to enforce them. Usually these mechanisms start with social constraints backed up by law for more egregious cases.
Take public nudity for example. If I would walk downtown nude, I'd expect to be shunned/ostracized by most and helped "Here, wrap this around you!" by a few. I probably wouldn't be arrested unless I was being lewd or threatening. However, if I did it repeatedly I'd be explaining it to a judge pretty quickly. My freedom of expression would be curtailed by both social constraints and the law.
Should my town's government be allowed to do this? Absolutely! But thats not really the point.
The point is that we as a society have the right to agree to the standards that we want to live by. And its not really a matter of whether we should or can do restrict ourselves, its that we do, for the sake of society.
The problem with the Saudi Internet policy, IMHO, is that they haven't arrived at it through a democratic process. They are a repressive government which stays in power, in part, through the restriction of information.
Matteo Ricci (he's listed in a bibliography; there is no info to speak of)
While I have occasionally found a source I needed from a hit on a bibliographic entry, one of my pet-peeves, even on Google, is long lists of nothing but bibliographic entries. Usually it's a pretty clear sign that there isn't much on the topic available on the Internet, but sometimes I just need to change my search terms slightly.
But I think nonword is a bad idea. If the website's editors decide to keep a word, and Google's page-rank technology shows it to me, I'm willing to check it out.
(Original all caps, lameness filter encountered) Until an automated solution has been evaluated and approved for use in the USMC, classification markings will be done MANUALLY.
"Um Sarge, when can I clean all these ink stamps off my monitor"
All things are imperfect. Nothing that exists is without imperfections. When we look closely at things, we see the flaws. The sharp edge of a razor blade, when it is magnified, reveals pits, chips, and variegations. And as things begin to break down and approach the primordial state, they become even less perfect, more irregular, and perhaps more lovely.
First, I can pay taxes online and register a child for a state school. I don't need to be reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time since we don't do that here, but I can pay my car's taxes online.
According to the article, only about 20% of households have internet access. We're at, what?, about 60%. They need to place terminals in town halls. We already have them in virtually every public library.
We don't need to have a big government-pushed internet infrastructure because we already have a big internet infrastructure.
While I'm ranting, its all about the cost of local telephone calls. There are no free calls in Britain or France, so everyone pays by the minute for internet access. In the so-called free internet schemes that they do have, the calls are paid for by advertising.
There are alot of things I don't like here, but the USA has the best internet system in the world!
I just want to know how...
on
MAME On Xbox
·
· Score: 1
I went to the site and was bummed. A bit of talk about a free weekend and bunches of screenshots of Donkey Kong taken last summer.
If he hasn't written the HOWTO yet, it ain't ready for slashdot!
Before anyone puts much time into this questionable effort ask Alex one question, "Where is the money?"
Maybe he's for real, I hope so, but most of these PRIZES either come from a well known philanthropist or foundation, or are the announcement of a fund to distribute money under certain conditions. For example the Clay Mathematics Institute in announcing their Milennium Prize for unsolved math problems stated The Board of Directors of CMI have designated a $7 million prize fund for the solution to these problems.
A number of you've been checking this guy out. Has anyone found the money yet?
Since I got modded Off-topic on my first attempt I'll risk another point or two of karma and try again for a (score:3, Funny).
He would take it and then revise it repeatedly so there were many files.
"As soon as he wrote anything he would say, 'Oh, God that's terrible'. He was a very, very self-critical author and so had a lot of trouble writing. He was a perfectionist."
Which sounds like so many Open Source projects which never make it to rel. 1.0. If we could set it up as an Open Source project, we'd have a chance of getting to 1.0 in maybe 3 or 4 years.
So he had a bunch different branches, publish it as an Open Source project and lets the readers sort it out / choose the story they want to read.
Long live 42!
Bunches of comments are being posted regarding gasoline engines are faster, fuel cell are the future, solar is impractical, etc. Totally correct. Totally off-topic.
These vehicles are not cars in any conventional sense of the word. They are an engineering challenge to see who can best balance weight, aerodynamics, PV efficiency and energy storage. They have to make strategic decisions. Last year the University of Missouri - Rolla team actually benefited from cloudy weather because they had a package that ran further on stored energy than the other cars. This actually slowed them down a bit compared to the other cars when it was sunny.
I think its great to get a bunch of engineering students together in a friendly competition.
While the rowers say they are grateful for the wireless perks like GPS and satellite phones, Vose says the gadgets are not giving the rowers an unfair advantage.
Both Wired and Slashdot seem to emphasize the technology. This is an amazing, grueling physical trial. The tech is for us to follow them and rescue if necessary. Their main tech tool is the business end of an oar.
stating that the addition of the terms "sucks" and ".com" to the Bloomberg mark does not have the effect of escaping confusing similarity
"Microsoft sucks"
"Why do you like MS?"
"Huh??? I hate MS?"
"Oh... It's all so confusingly similar."
Harry not cool in 7th grade...
on
Review: Harry Potter
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I substituted in a 7th grade classroom yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to ask them about Harry Potter. The results surprised me. Only 4 or 5 of 27 were planning to see the movie this weekend, and only 3 or 4 more expressed any interest in ever seeing it.
I'm guessing its been over-hyped, so that cool twelve-year-olds are no longer interested.
Your argument is valid for (optimistically) 90% of parents. But for the other 10% money spent on early prevention, intervention is a real bargain compared to the costs of violence in society. Kudos to the Dad who was able to see what was happening and admit he was wrong!
However it has been marketed, the moratorium is less a ban in Internet sales tax and more an extension of a long-standing Federal policy to not require mail-order companies to collect taxes for every state and city in the country. Companies are required to collect these taxes from purchasers who live in jurisdictions in which the company has brick and mortar stores whether or not the the transaction was over the Internet.
The problem is what to do with pure Internet retailers. Which jurisdictions do they collect taxes from? Does it matter where their servers are? Where their distribution centers are? The confusion surrounding these issues has so far made collecting sales tax on impractical. So the politicians have decided to make hay while the sunshines; taking credit for suspending taxes that have never existed.
Not sure this makes any sense economically, but it sure is good politically. But why single out Internet commerce...which is essentially mail-order with an online catalog. Not all that much different than Sears and Roebuck pioneered over 100 years ago.
There are other safe programming languages, including Java, ML, and Scheme. Cyclone is novel because its syntax, types, and semantics are based closely on C. This makes it easier to interface Cyclone with legacy C code, or port C programs to Cyclone. And writing a new program in Cyclone ``feels'' like programming in C: Cyclone tries to give programmers the same control over data representations, memory management, and performance that C has.
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon, show some gratitude... its almost Thanksgiving.
Interesting that you used the term midwife because I've suggested the same analogy with regard to Al Gore and the Internet. No, Al Gore isn't the father of the Internet, but given that for several decades it was developed nearly 100% on government money and that Al Gore was the politician that best understood and supported it through those early years, I for one believe that Al Gore does deserve the title midwife of the Internet
concluded that each member of the plaintiff class -- at least 65 million computer buyers -- would receive as little as $10 in a settlement or court victory. That would be less than the cost of identifying class members and sending payment, meaning most of the money from Microsoft would be swallowed by administrative costs -- and attorney fees. IANAL, but how can this be considered a reasonable settlement?!! How about punitive damages of three or four times the actual damages plus MS pays the administrative costs. But given what's been decided, can someone come up with a Scarlet "M", as in MONOPOLY, to use as the Window's splash screen and an explanatory note to the effect that Microsoft provided the computer as punishment for criminal behavior.
I wondered about this too, but the more I read the more it rang true. I've lived in Africa and India and let me tell you, people know what they want and find ways to get it.
I only wish that Katz had posted the email, rather than just talking about it. His comments don't always ring true. For example: nobody in Asia would think of martial art's movies as coming from America. Think Bollywood, not Hollywood!
For better or for worse, this once again proves that once Pandora's box is open you can't shut it, no matter how hard you try.
Having lived in Africa, I've seen firsthand how quickly, frighteningly so, things can change during a coup d'etat. People whose constraints have been mostly external for some time, lose control very quickly when those constraints are lifted, but within a few days things settle down and they regain their internal control/balance.
Every society draws limits for itself and develops mechanisms to enforce them. Usually these mechanisms start with social constraints backed up by law for more egregious cases.
Take public nudity for example. If I would walk downtown nude, I'd expect to be shunned/ostracized by most and helped "Here, wrap this around you!" by a few. I probably wouldn't be arrested unless I was being lewd or threatening. However, if I did it repeatedly I'd be explaining it to a judge pretty quickly. My freedom of expression would be curtailed by both social constraints and the law.
Should my town's government be allowed to do this? Absolutely! But thats not really the point.
The point is that we as a society have the right to agree to the standards that we want to live by. And its not really a matter of whether we should or can do restrict ourselves, its that we do, for the sake of society.
The problem with the Saudi Internet policy, IMHO, is that they haven't arrived at it through a democratic process. They are a repressive government which stays in power, in part, through the restriction of information.
Matteo Ricci (he's listed in a bibliography; there is no info to speak of)
While I have occasionally found a source I needed from a hit on a bibliographic entry, one of my pet-peeves, even on Google, is long lists of nothing but bibliographic entries. Usually it's a pretty clear sign that there isn't much on the topic available on the Internet, but sometimes I just need to change my search terms slightly.
But I think nonword is a bad idea. If the website's editors decide to keep a word, and Google's page-rank technology shows it to me, I'm willing to check it out.
Well, I blew that link
From MARKING CLASSIFIED EMAIL MESSAGES ON SIPRNET
(Original all caps, lameness filter encountered)
Until an automated solution has been evaluated and approved for use in the USMC, classification markings will be done MANUALLY.
"Um Sarge, when can I clean all these ink stamps off my monitor"
All things are imperfect. Nothing that exists is without imperfections. When we look closely at things, we see the flaws. The sharp edge of a razor blade, when it is magnified, reveals pits, chips, and variegations. And as things begin to break down and approach the primordial state, they become even less perfect, more irregular, and perhaps more lovely.
--Exquisite Decay
Ah yes, I remember an enjoyable evening using anonymizer. Then a few days later I had the chance to look through our server logs and there it was:
...
www.anonymizer.com?url=barely18.com
www.anonymizer.com?url=teenvixens.com
First, I can pay taxes online and register a child for a state school. I don't need to be reminded that their regulatory car inspection is due in a month's time since we don't do that here, but I can pay my car's taxes online.
According to the article, only about 20% of households have internet access. We're at, what?, about 60%. They need to place terminals in town halls. We already have them in virtually every public library.
We don't need to have a big government-pushed internet infrastructure because we already have a big internet infrastructure.
While I'm ranting, its all about the cost of local telephone calls. There are no free calls in Britain or France, so everyone pays by the minute for internet access. In the so-called free internet schemes that they do have, the calls are paid for by advertising.
There are alot of things I don't like here, but the USA has the best internet system in the world!
I went to the site and was bummed. A bit of talk about a free weekend and bunches of screenshots of Donkey Kong taken last summer.
If he hasn't written the HOWTO yet, it ain't ready for slashdot!
Before anyone puts much time into this questionable effort ask Alex one question, "Where is the money?"
Maybe he's for real, I hope so, but most of these PRIZES either come from a well known philanthropist or foundation, or are the announcement of a fund to distribute money under certain conditions. For example the Clay Mathematics Institute in announcing their Milennium Prize for unsolved math problems stated The Board of Directors of CMI have designated a $7 million prize fund for the solution to these problems.
A number of you've been checking this guy out. Has anyone found the money yet?
Since I got modded Off-topic on my first attempt I'll risk another point or two of karma and try again for a (score:3, Funny).
He would take it and then revise it repeatedly so there were many files. "As soon as he wrote anything he would say, 'Oh, God that's terrible'. He was a very, very self-critical author and so had a lot of trouble writing. He was a perfectionist." Which sounds like so many Open Source projects which never make it to rel. 1.0. If we could set it up as an Open Source project, we'd have a chance of getting to 1.0 in maybe 3 or 4 years.
So he had a bunch different branches, publish it as an Open Source project and lets the readers sort it out / choose the story they want to read. Long live 42!
Bunches of comments are being posted regarding gasoline engines are faster, fuel cell are the future, solar is impractical, etc. Totally correct. Totally off-topic.
These vehicles are not cars in any conventional sense of the word. They are an engineering challenge to see who can best balance weight, aerodynamics, PV efficiency and energy storage. They have to make strategic decisions. Last year the University of Missouri - Rolla team actually benefited from cloudy weather because they had a package that ran further on stored energy than the other cars. This actually slowed them down a bit compared to the other cars when it was sunny.
I think its great to get a bunch of engineering students together in a friendly competition.
While the rowers say they are grateful for the wireless perks like GPS and satellite phones, Vose says the gadgets are not giving the rowers an unfair advantage.
Both Wired and Slashdot seem to emphasize the technology. This is an amazing, grueling physical trial. The tech is for us to follow them and rescue if necessary. Their main tech tool is the business end of an oar.
stating that the addition of the terms "sucks" and ".com" to the Bloomberg mark does not have the effect of escaping confusing similarity
"Microsoft sucks"
"Why do you like MS?"
"Huh??? I hate MS?"
"Oh... It's all so confusingly similar."
I substituted in a 7th grade classroom yesterday. I thought it would be interesting to ask them about Harry Potter.
The results surprised me. Only 4 or 5 of 27 were planning to see the movie this weekend, and only 3 or 4 more expressed any interest in ever seeing it.
I'm guessing its been over-hyped, so that cool twelve-year-olds are no longer interested.
Your argument is valid for (optimistically) 90% of parents. But for the other 10% money spent on early prevention, intervention is a real bargain compared to the costs of violence in society. Kudos to the Dad who was able to see what was happening and admit he was wrong!
However it has been marketed, the moratorium is less a ban in Internet sales tax and more an extension of a long-standing Federal policy to not require mail-order companies to collect taxes for every state and city in the country. Companies are required to collect these taxes from purchasers who live in jurisdictions in which the company has brick and mortar stores whether or not the the transaction was over the Internet.
The problem is what to do with pure Internet retailers. Which jurisdictions do they collect taxes from? Does it matter where their servers are? Where their distribution centers are? The confusion surrounding these issues has so far made collecting sales tax on impractical. So the politicians have decided to make hay while the sunshines; taking credit for suspending taxes that have never existed.
Not sure this makes any sense economically, but it sure is good politically. But why single out Internet commerce...which is essentially mail-order with an online catalog. Not all that much different than Sears and Roebuck pioneered over 100 years ago.
Here it is from the User's Manual
There are other safe programming languages, including Java, ML, and Scheme. Cyclone is novel because its syntax, types, and semantics are based closely on C. This makes it easier to interface Cyclone with legacy C code, or port C programs to Cyclone. And writing a new program in Cyclone ``feels'' like programming in C: Cyclone tries to give programmers the same control over data representations, memory management, and performance that C has.
The Cyclone compiler will rewrite the code or suggest fixes to avoid potential bugs
I don't mind suggestions, but I'm not sure I like the idea of having my code rewritten.
Couldn't the same error-checking be incorporated into a pre-processor rather than developing an entirely new compiler/language?