And that source would be...what, exactly? Other sources are either less accurate, more expensive, or both. GPS availability directly impacts not just what is possible but what is practical. You seem to believe practicality has nothing to do with an end product, that the mere possibility of it rules all. Let's hope you're not a product engineer.
I never said they weren't, in fact I never mentioned those uses. But Important != necessary. Columbus managed to cross the Atlantic without it. The Egyptians built fairly accurate pyramids without it. Kids today are just soft.
Columbus crossed the ocean without it -- and took months to do so, didn't know where he was when he got here, and risked death merely by voyaging in the first place. The Egyptians built their pyramids with great mathematics and an inexhaustible supply of brutal slave labor. Are you suggesting that we should regress to a less "soft" period where death is more commonplace and grinding slavery is a means to achieve great monuments to dead pharaohs?
Of course not, and I never said otherwise. But cable TV has been around a long time, and it's not that long ago that the satellite links had to be booked in advance and were very expensive, hence they were only used for really special events. That's if they worked at all. In other words, satellites are not a necessary prerequiste for cable TV as Mr Soon-to-be-homeless stated. For some of the content, obviously yes, but that's a different issue. You might as well say that the internet won't function without a camera, because you need one to make pr0n.
Again you confuse possible with practical. There are thousands -- perhaps millions -- of ideas out there that are possible but not practical. They will never reach fruition unless some breakthrough in practicality comes to fruition first. The space program has led the way on many such innovations that have made our everyday lives -- computers, cell phones, batteries, lightweight materials, etc. -- richer, and it's done it by dint of making things practical moreso that making them possible in the first place.
Seriously, could we get any more fawning over President-elect Obama? I don't recall Slashdot carrying this level of minutiae for either of the prior Bush terms.
What is it exactly that I'm buying when I purchase a DVD or CD ?
In the case of a DVD, you're buying the right to watch the movie in standard definition when playing off the physical disc. Legally, you have no right to copy the disc, rip it, or duplicate its content in any way.
Why should you pay for a Blu-ray movie when you already own a DVD? Perhaps you think high-def remastering is done for free by beneficial elves? Or how about Blu-ray menu programming, which I assure you is no cake walk?
The price of a DVD, Blu-ray, or even a CD is not just the price of the content recorded or stamped on it. It's also the price of everyone who mastered the disc, the facility that stamped it, the art department that designed the disc and jacket label, the shipping, the warehousing...and a small profit for the retailer who sold it to you so they can keep people employed and the lights on (or the website up as the case may be).
The problem with a crusade against "Big Media" is it's going to hurt a lot more people than just the big boy fat cats people loathe so much. There are plenty of working stiffs out there who don't make millions of dollars a year. For that matter, I'm sure there's a sizable geek presence throughout the industry maintaining the production networks, storage, and compute clusters. Care to see them unemployed? It could just as easily be you.
And if you want to get really pedantic, you can throw in the concept that spacetime itself is constantly expanding. Thus, two points anywhere in the universe are actually "moving" further apart even though their positions are not changing.
I'm going to assume you've never heard of Alcubierre.
You should read the article, but in a nutshell it says this: relativity may not allow an object to exceed c, but spacetime itself can. If you can warp spacetime ahead of and behind your spacecraft, it will both "fall" forward and be "pushed" forward by contracting (fore) and expanding (aft) spacetime. The object itself experiences zero movement and acceleration, but the spacetime bubble does move...and it can move at any arbitrary speed including in excess of c.
There are issues to be sure. We don't know how to manipulate spacetime in such a fashion. Even if we figure it out, it may require more energy than we can practically produce. But neither general relativity nor quantum mechanics prevents such a concept.
Yes, relativity is a well-known, well-tested theory. But relativity allows for spacetime to exceed c. Any object within that particular bubble of spacetime will be carried along with it at superluminal speeds. Causality need not be violated in this case.
Can we create exotic matter to warp space in such a fashion? Is the energy required to do it practical for us to generate? Nobody knows. But Einstein's equations say it can be done if we can answer these two questions.
There is no corresponding example of super-luminal travel. It is not possible given the current knowledge of physics, and that knowledge has been stable for a century. You are as likely to see violations of conservation of energy, or momentum, or baryon number (this is the one that nixes star-trek transporters) as you are a violation of the speed of light in vacuum.
Correction: it is not possible for any object to exceed the speed of light, but relativity does allow for spacetime itself to go faster than light. Alcubierre came up with this idea some time ago. Oddly enough, it's darn near identical in concept to the technobabble spouted on Star Trek. You don't try to move the ship, you "move" the space the ship sits in. This is convenient in that it not only sidesteps relativistic effects but also gets around inertia. You could go from zero to "warp nine" in an instant and no stresses would be placed upon the ship or its occupants.
I'll grant that it's very possible such a drive is impractical. We may be unable to generate exotic matter. If we can generate it, we may find it takes too much energy. And if we can generate that much energy, we may find the tidal forces at the edge of the bubble preclude use anywhere near a solar system. But the physics say it's not impossible.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
I doubt the teacher is spouting a union-sponsored line (although that is a fairly typical mindset). Instead, the teacher is most likely ignorant of Linux and FOSS in general. She's not, however, ignorant of piracy thanks to ads from folks like the BSA, MPAA, and the infamous RIAA. Thus, when she sees software being handed out on home-made discs, she assumes it's piracy. She's been conditioned to that response like the good union myrmidon she is.
There was a time when I'd be shocked at this level of idiocy in a government school, but no more. I'd have been more shocked had she understood and condoned what the student was doing.
It is irrelevant how many customers actually switch to OpenOffice.org.
I love it when you move the goalposts. First you claim OO is murdering MS. Then you say it's merely taking chunks of revenue. Now you say it's "irrelevant" whether people actually switch or not. Brilliant! You do realize, of course, that you're making a fool of yourself, don't you?
As of Firefox it is now the better browser. IE users take the IE because it comes preinstalled and is good enough. IE does not generate any profits for Microsoft.
I prefer Firefox myself and agree it's a better browser. I also agree IE is "good enough" for most people, thus they never switch from the pre-installed solution. As for IE not generating any profits, I don't think Mozilla is making much money these days, either. Hey, I think I found something "irrelevant" in your point! However, I don't think it's what you had in mind.
Executives who can chose a MAC these days, custom applications are dependent on the www browser. You can more easily switch. You don't depend on the platform anymore.
Apple's overall market share remains under 10% as of the latest data in Q1 2008. It's even lower if you remove "educational" users and strictly look at commercial businesses. So, although Mac use is on the rise, it still represents a tiny fringe of the overall market. Wait! Let me guess! You're going to say that's irrelevant, too, aren't you?
New markets Microsoft enters mean new opponents. They go into web advertisment and meet Google. They go into game consoles and meet the established manufacturers like Nintendo etc etc.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. I'm sorry, did you have a point you were trying to make with this statement?
The IE monopoly is gone and the same will happen to more valuable products.
Actually, there never was an IE monopoly. As any intelligent person knows, Mosaic was the first browser to have a monopoly, followed later by Netscape. Netscape, which you may recall if you are old enough to have been out of kindergarten back then, charged money for their browser. An actual money grubbing monopoly! Curse those greedy bastards! So MS countered with the utterly ridiculous Internet Explorer 1.0, which everyone chuckled at and then went back to Netscape. But MS steadily improved IE, and since it was both bundled and free, they ran Netscape out of business and into the arms of AOL. Note at no time did MS have a monopoly on browsers. Theirs was just cheaper (free, actually) and bundled. Netscape was not. After Netscape failed, Mozilla picked up the banner, so IE still didn't have the monopoly as you claim. Now we join the present, where Firefox goes head to head with IE, both are free, and neither has a monopoly. So, far from IE "losing" its monopoly, it never had one. If anything, Netscape had and lost a monopoly. And it's a good thing, too, if you consider how pathetic the later versions of Netscape were.
So, having debunked your dubious claims and made good fun of you in the process, do you care to embarrass yourself further with half-truths, fabrications, and fairy-tale wishing? Or can you just admit your emotions got the better of you and you temporarily lost your hold on reality?
If you're referring to the beginning of the commercial Internet, you're right. If you're referring to current events, you're wrong. MS has a huge presence on the Internet. Its Internet Explorer, for all its foibles and shortcomings, is the most popular browser in the world by a factor of two or more over Firefox. MS may not be as net savvy as you'd like, but they're not nearly as bad as you claim.
they failed with search and for the same reason will fail with the cloud.
You really must tell me where you bought your crystal ball. I'd like to know what next week's lottery number is. Can you prognosticate that for me? I'll give you half the winnings.
OpenOffice is a low investment effort for its competitors and eats quite a chunk of their market
According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Office has 95% of the productivity software market as of August 2007, the most recent period sampled. If OO is eating "quite a chunk of their market" then you seriously need to re-examine your definition of "quite a chunk." OO adoption is almost small enough to be considered a margin of error. Now, do you really want to keep going down this road of unsubstantiated hyperbole?
Netbooks now offer the opportunity to put Microsoft under pressure on the Desktop and offer cheaper deals.
According to IDC, netbooks sales comprise 7.3% of all "laptop or other mobile computing device" sales worldwide. If you consider that laptop sales are roughly equal (for now) to desktop sales, then netbooks comprise perhaps 4% of overall computing platform sales. So, put another way, 96% of all computing sales are not affected by this fanciful death throes scenario you keep trying to paint. Is MS in a good position to exploit netbooks? No, it is not. Is it something MS should be worried about? Yes it is. Is it something that's going to kill MS anytime soon? Not a chance.
I'll also point out that Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.x are eating into revenue from RIM and Symbian. True, Apple's iPhone is closing in even faster, but unlike Apple, MS depends on OEM's to make phones. Apple's ability to meld an excellent OS with gee-whiz hardware is something MS simply can't match without getting into the hardware business.
In many other markets the company actually buys market share at the expense of established competitors that fiercely fight back.
You mean like Netscape? Yeah, they "fought back" so effectively they're no longer around. Face up to reality, bub: the list of companies that have successfully fought MS is a helluva lot shorter than the list of those crushed to tiny, insignificant pieces. I'm not passing any judgments on whether it's right or wrong, but it is true. Unlike you, I don't let wishful thinking shape reality.
My question is, if no claim about gods stands up to scrutiny, why should I believe any of them? After all, the world is full of mutually contradictory religious claims, none better supported than the next. Should we each just draw a god out of the bag, and then argue vociferously for its existence?
Absolutely correct, which is why I take such umbrage with people who vociferously argue that "their" concept of God is the one true God and everybody else is wrong.
But remove the "vociferously argue" part and suddenly things change. Suppose we all just pulled whatever God out of the bag we believed in (or no God at all, if it suits you) and shut the hell up about it afterwards? Faith, religion, and lack thereof is a personal matter. Whether I believe in God or not should be utterly immaterial to anyone else in the universe. If I choose to spend time on it, donate to religious charities, and so forth, that's my business. Similarly, I have no right to try and "convert" you to my religion, and it should be considered bad taste for me to try. If you're an informed, intelligent person then you can find out all you care to about any religion in the whole of human history. You certainly don't need me haranguing you about it.
Methinks your core objection to religion is not that someone else believes in something you do not. I'm betting it's more rooted in those who "argue vociferously for its existence" in an attempt to "convert" you.
The difference is, science admits it. Science says, "we have no idea about anything before a few tiny fractions of a second after the big bang. But what I can tell you is that the universe isn't 6000 years old." Whereas religion says, "well, I know we used to say that the universe is 6000 years old, but obviously we didn't mean it; that part of our scripture is supposed to be taken figuratively. But *this* part is the literal, Gospel truth."
This old canard again? Tell you what: you quit using extremist, lunatic views from ultra-religious nuts to illustrate the problems of religion and I won't bother looking up the innumerable examples of discredited, extremist, lunatic scientists pushing similarly idiotic views. Every organization has its fringe that, if allowed, besmirches the more sane whole.
Not all religion believes the universe is only 6,000 years old. In fact, a disproportionately small number of sects actually cling to that concept. The vast majority of the "religious" people of the world do not interpret the Bible as literal truth. Genesis is viewed metaphorically, as is most of the rest of the Bible. If you knew anything at all about religion or religious people you'd know this, so either you're ignorant of what you're posting on or your deliberately misinterpreting things to try and bolster your argument. Either way, your not doing yourself any favors.
Now all competitors know that Microsoft as a business is going to die. Because the main cash cows, Office and Windows are under fierce attack.
Your statement is correct insofar as all things happen if given an infinite time span. Excluding an infinite time span, your statement is really, really reaching.
Office and Windows are huge cash cows for Microsoft. Office alone commands more than 90% of all office productivity software in the world. If you think that's going to be replaced en masse by OpenOffice or Google apps anytime soon, you're delusional in the extreme. It may work fine for you, but the vast majority of the business world does not agree with you. You can argue the merits of OO vs. Office all day long, but in the end it comes down to where businesses place their faith. Despite the huge price, despite the bugs, despite the bloat...they choose Office. They do it not only because it's the devil they know but because it's the devil everybody else uses as well. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum, and they must be able to reliably and accurately exchange documents and data with other businesses. With Office they are assured of this. With anything else it's a crapshoot unless you're dealing with only the most basic types of documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.
As for cloud computing, the idea will gain traction over time, but Microsoft isn't sitting idle. Do you think Microsoft isn't investing in cloud computing? They are, and quite a bit at that. If and when cloud computing becomes a panacea, Microsoft will control a healthy chunk of it. Maybe more, maybe less, but there is no doubt they'll be a sizable player.
It seems rather obvious that you're letting your anti-MS stance interfere with objectively judging the situation. Microsoft just finished hugely profitable -- in some cases, record profits -- for the last couple of quarters. The company has cash reserves eclipsing pretty much every competitor on the planet. You obviously want Microsoft to fail, but that does not mean they're anywhere near failing. Quite the contrary, actually. You need to stop letting your bile skew your judgement.
I wonder if it's possible to consider the following without devolving into a flame fest:
So the multiverse theory postulates there are innumerable universes, each with different conditions, and ours happened to be the right conditions to support life as we understand it. How does this rule out the possibility of an intelligent creator? It can be argued that the structure of the multiverse itself is the creation of an intelligent being, thus abstracting the concept one level beyond our universe. Granted, this might be difficult for conventional organized religions to explain, but beyond dogma it does not rule out the possibility.
This whole "there is no God" argument of science versus spirituality is actually quite tiring. No matter how advanced science gets, it will never be able to disprove -- or prove, for that matter -- the existence of a God or gods. The very concept of a supernatural being does not lend itself to being explainable by science. The sooner science quits preoccupying itself with trying to prove an impossible proof, the sooner we can get back to doing real science and not starting arguments with people's personable beliefs (or lack thereof). Let people believe what they want to believe about the supernatural, and let's focus a bit more on what we can prove. Let's start with a Mr. Fusion for my time machine, shall we?
At the very least advertising a non-existent job should be punishable under "false advertising" laws.
False advertising laws are in place to protect consumers from abuse. Advertising a job interview is not the same as advertising a product. It's perfectly legal for me to invite as many people as I want to my office for an interview -- and no job need exist for me to do that. I can interview them all, get all their resumes, and never follow up with a single one of them. It's not illegal, nor should it be. After all, if it were illegal, why would it be illegal? Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property? I have not. If people came and wasted their time, they did so voluntarily.
You need to get out of this mindset that something "ought to be illegal" just because you don't like it.
Personally, if the press actually went "deeper" into Bill Ayers, etc., my opinion of them would be even lower than it is now, given how insubstantial many of the allegations were.
Insubstantial? You mean "insubstantial" in that Obama and Ayers spent years on a board together, yet Obama claimed to have almost never heard of the man? You mean "insubstantial" in that Obama was responsible for funneling millions of dollars to Ayers' pet education projects (which profited Ayers quite a bit more than his "students")? Or perhaps you mean "insubstantial" such that Obama's first political "coming out" party was held in Ayers' living room, as Ayers had quite a lot to do with Obama's transformation from obscure Chicagoan laywer to budding politician?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
That Obama had a relationship with Ayers is not what's disturbing. What's disturbing is how ready Obama was to lie about that relationship in order to try and avoid being smeared by it. You know, the same way he sat in a church with a virulently racist preacher for 20 years yet never heard him say anything anyone else would consider offensive, then threw the preacher under the bus when it became obvious he was a nutjob.
Obama has used people like Rezko, Wright, Ayers, and Khalidi to get where he is today. Or they've used him. Or both. Regardless, Obama seems the type that will associate with anyone regardless of their temperament or principles just so long as his political career keeps moving forward. That kind of casual disregard for principles makes me very, very concerned about our new President-elect. It should concern you, too, but you're too busy gulping the Kool-Aid to notice.
You still think that, because the Democrats have more seats in congress, they'll be able to push whatever they want through, eh?
Like I said, let the excuse-making begin! If Obama succeeds, you'll say it was because he had superior positions on the arguments. If he fails, you'll blame Republican obstructionism. It's heads-you-win, tails-I-lose. But that's OK. We're used to dealing with liberal double standards. It's the only way you guys can make sense to yourselves.
And it's not crying over spilt milk. You guys wanted to run the country, fine. It's yours. Have at it. I expect a perfect worker's paradise in eight years. And while you're at it, pay for the gas to fill up my car and pay for my mortgage. Pay pay pay! Pay it all. Pay everything that I want because I think I deserve it. Steal it from someone who has more than me and give it to me! Mine mine mine! Gosh, it sure is fun being a liberal Democrat! I can live a responsibility-free, consequence-free, freeloading lifestyle, all on someone else's dime! Why didn't I switch parties sooner?
I don't get it, first you guys complain that Obama came out of nowhere and we don't know anything about him, but then you complain that the media is biased and spending more time on Obama than McCain. You're never happy are you?
No, it's more like we're unhappy that, given the voluminous quantity of articles written and news segments made about Obama, none of them delved too deeply in any subject that would've caused harm to the Obama campaign. They were fluff pieces full of softball questions. They rarely -- if ever -- forced Obama to take a genuine stance on any controversial subject. When he reversed his stance on something he'd said earlier -- like public campaign finance, for example -- the press said little or nothing about it.
Hundreds of reporters were sent to Wasilla, AK to dig through Sarah Palin's trash cans, but Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, "spread the wealth" and "bankrupt the coal industry" were largely ignored by the mainstream press until they couldn't be ignored without completely dispensing with the illusion of impartiality. Even the, with the possible exception of Jeremiah Wright, these issues were glossed over. Obama made to election day without ever being vetted by the press. They loved him unconditionally from day one, and they weren't going to to try and find anything out about him that would dispel his aura.
If the press wants to be biased, let them. But let's quit pretending they're not, that way people can judge the info they receive accordingly.
For what it's worth, Finland is one of the few countries in Europe with an army strong enough to withstand a direct onslaught. They never joined NATO because they have their own defense covered and proved their mettle by driving the Russians back twice. The idea that welfare states only exist because the US is picking up the defense tab is therefore false. Welfare states and strong armies can coexist just fine.
First, you failed to address one of the GP's points, namely that of nobody calling on the Finnish military to defend someone else. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but America has been called upon more than a few times to pull someone else's ass out of the this past century. Perhaps we should've taken the Finnish stance and said "hey, you're own your own Mein Herr/Comrade/Minion Of Dear Leader-to-be." But I digress.
Regarding Finnish military prowess versus the Russkies, Finns did not "[drive] the Russians back twice." Here, allow me to quote a bit from the Wikipedia article on Finland:
During World War II, Finland fought the Soviet Union twice: in the Winter War of 1939â"40 after the Soviet Union had attacked Finland and in the Continuation War of 1941â"44, following Operation Barbarossa, in which Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following German losses on the Eastern Front and the subsequent Soviet advance, Finland was forced to make peace with the Soviet Union. This was followed by the Lapland War of 1944â"45, when Finland forced the Germans out of northern Finland.
The treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included Finnish obligations, restraints, and reparations as well as further Finnish territorial concessions (cf. the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940). Finland ceded most of Finnish Karelia, Salla, and Pechenga, which amounted to ten percent of its land area and twenty percent of its industrial capacity. Some 400,000 evacuees, mainly women and children, fled these areas.
So, while the Finns fought courageously and inflicted severe losses on an under-equipped, under-trained, poorly-led enemy while fighting from home soil in a purely defensive war, Finland was forced to sign a "peace" with the Russians that pretty much gave Uncle Joe what he wanted in the first place. Sure, the Russian's would've preferred taking the place by storm and massacring everyone they could, but the Moscow treaty was a close second.
As for being able to "withstand a direct onslaught," presumably by Cold War Soviet forces, that I doubt. Russian battle plans called for tactical nukes to be used if the enemy went turtle and couldn't be cracked conventionally. The only thing Finns could do to "withstand a direct onslaught" of thousands of Red Army tanks would be to turn turtle. That strategy would've been about as effective as the Maginot Line was against Panzers. In fact, the only thing preventing the Soviets from doing just that was the threat of -- drum roll please -- a reprisal from the United States. Don't think the Russians would've ever done such a thing? Ask a Czech who was there when the tanks rolled in. Russian aspirations were held in check by one thing and one thing only, and that's the threat of American military intervention.
Yes, it's nice to think the world doesn't need the big, bad, mean, greedy Americans, but you damn sure don't mind calling on us to bail you out whenever you get in over your heads, do you? Militarily and economically, America does more for the rest of the world than any of the next two or three developed nations combined. No, don't bother saying thanks, we already know you hate us. We'll keep looking out for you despite it, although sometimes I wonder why we bother.
most of us understand the value of altruism, how it actually helps us out in the end, instinctively. others, like you, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to common sense
Most of us have no problem with altruism when it's truly altruism as defined in the dictionary. I give to charity, and I bet I give a damned sight more than you do. But -- and here's the point you seem to miss -- I decide when I give. I decide how much. I decide who I give it to. In short, it's a voluntary thing I do because I feel moved to do it.
What Obama wants is for all of us to give (well, not really, just those who won't vote for him), but he wants to choose when, to whom, and how much. And if we disagree, he comes and takes it from us anyway. That is not altruism. That is not even close to altruism. That is "spreading the wealth around a bit."
So, far from your "you...have the desire that you don't have to help the poor at all," I do have a desire to help the poor. I don't believe in handouts as a way of life because it breeds dependency, but I have no problem voluntarily helping someone who may be down on their luck. Even better, if I can help someone find a job and become independent, I do so. I do not, however, have any compassion for those who are in a permanent, self-made cycle of dependency on others to pay for their poor decisions, their thoughtless actions, or their general laziness. Obama, on the other hand, seems to want to give to anyone who will vote for him and to take from those who wouldn't vote for him.
Joe the Pedo cares a lot about getting free untraceable internet access. I care a lot about not getting my house raided because someone abused my network.
Can you reference a single incident where such a raid has taken place? On a lark I decided to Google around for such an incident and couldn't find a single damned thing.
Given the hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of wireless devices in operation in homes across the U.S., the lack of any such raid seems to suggest your fear is either overblown or based on paranoia.
The shit Bush & Co. has done will take far longer to unravel, but he can start the process.
Thus the excuse-making begins. Hey, even though we control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, we won't be able to get anything meaningful done because of those darned Republicans! Change we can believe in!
They sure keep a lot of them in stock at Walmart, Frys, Office Max, and every department store I've been in lately. I would think they wouldn't do that for such rapidly depreciating merchandise unless it was moving quickly. Do you have figures? Citation please.
Can you not read? You stated 4TB NAS's are flying off the shelves, and you stated it while referring to home-based use of video. The inference you were trying to make is that 4TB NAS's are selling like hotcakes because people are busily filling up their drives with legal (and illegal) content.
I stated these NAS devices are flying off the shelves not due to average consumer demand but instead because of demand from businesses of all stripes. Small businesses in particular are snapping up NAS units at a record pace. I consult for a living so I see this, but if you want exact figures, Google is your friend. I found this in about ten seconds. There's far more where that came from if you care to look.
Slashdot Mirror
just last week I spent about ten minutes walking up close to some and then backing off to see how the view changed.
You don't get out much, do you?
And if it didn't exist, they'd use another.
And that source would be...what, exactly? Other sources are either less accurate, more expensive, or both. GPS availability directly impacts not just what is possible but what is practical. You seem to believe practicality has nothing to do with an end product, that the mere possibility of it rules all. Let's hope you're not a product engineer.
I never said they weren't, in fact I never mentioned those uses. But Important != necessary. Columbus managed to cross the Atlantic without it. The Egyptians built fairly accurate pyramids without it. Kids today are just soft.
Columbus crossed the ocean without it -- and took months to do so, didn't know where he was when he got here, and risked death merely by voyaging in the first place. The Egyptians built their pyramids with great mathematics and an inexhaustible supply of brutal slave labor. Are you suggesting that we should regress to a less "soft" period where death is more commonplace and grinding slavery is a means to achieve great monuments to dead pharaohs?
Of course not, and I never said otherwise. But cable TV has been around a long time, and it's not that long ago that the satellite links had to be booked in advance and were very expensive, hence they were only used for really special events. That's if they worked at all. In other words, satellites are not a necessary prerequiste for cable TV as Mr Soon-to-be-homeless stated. For some of the content, obviously yes, but that's a different issue. You might as well say that the internet won't function without a camera, because you need one to make pr0n.
Again you confuse possible with practical. There are thousands -- perhaps millions -- of ideas out there that are possible but not practical. They will never reach fruition unless some breakthrough in practicality comes to fruition first. The space program has led the way on many such innovations that have made our everyday lives -- computers, cell phones, batteries, lightweight materials, etc. -- richer, and it's done it by dint of making things practical moreso that making them possible in the first place.
Seriously, could we get any more fawning over President-elect Obama? I don't recall Slashdot carrying this level of minutiae for either of the prior Bush terms.
What is it exactly that I'm buying when I purchase a DVD or CD ?
In the case of a DVD, you're buying the right to watch the movie in standard definition when playing off the physical disc. Legally, you have no right to copy the disc, rip it, or duplicate its content in any way.
Why should you pay for a Blu-ray movie when you already own a DVD? Perhaps you think high-def remastering is done for free by beneficial elves? Or how about Blu-ray menu programming, which I assure you is no cake walk?
The price of a DVD, Blu-ray, or even a CD is not just the price of the content recorded or stamped on it. It's also the price of everyone who mastered the disc, the facility that stamped it, the art department that designed the disc and jacket label, the shipping, the warehousing...and a small profit for the retailer who sold it to you so they can keep people employed and the lights on (or the website up as the case may be).
The problem with a crusade against "Big Media" is it's going to hurt a lot more people than just the big boy fat cats people loathe so much. There are plenty of working stiffs out there who don't make millions of dollars a year. For that matter, I'm sure there's a sizable geek presence throughout the industry maintaining the production networks, storage, and compute clusters. Care to see them unemployed? It could just as easily be you.
And if you want to get really pedantic, you can throw in the concept that spacetime itself is constantly expanding. Thus, two points anywhere in the universe are actually "moving" further apart even though their positions are not changing.
I'm going to assume you've never heard of Alcubierre.
You should read the article, but in a nutshell it says this: relativity may not allow an object to exceed c, but spacetime itself can. If you can warp spacetime ahead of and behind your spacecraft, it will both "fall" forward and be "pushed" forward by contracting (fore) and expanding (aft) spacetime. The object itself experiences zero movement and acceleration, but the spacetime bubble does move...and it can move at any arbitrary speed including in excess of c.
There are issues to be sure. We don't know how to manipulate spacetime in such a fashion. Even if we figure it out, it may require more energy than we can practically produce. But neither general relativity nor quantum mechanics prevents such a concept.
See Alcubierre.
Yes, relativity is a well-known, well-tested theory. But relativity allows for spacetime to exceed c. Any object within that particular bubble of spacetime will be carried along with it at superluminal speeds. Causality need not be violated in this case.
Can we create exotic matter to warp space in such a fashion? Is the energy required to do it practical for us to generate? Nobody knows. But Einstein's equations say it can be done if we can answer these two questions.
There is no corresponding example of super-luminal travel. It is not possible given the current knowledge of physics, and that knowledge has been stable for a century. You are as likely to see violations of conservation of energy, or momentum, or baryon number (this is the one that nixes star-trek transporters) as you are a violation of the speed of light in vacuum.
Correction: it is not possible for any object to exceed the speed of light, but relativity does allow for spacetime itself to go faster than light. Alcubierre came up with this idea some time ago. Oddly enough, it's darn near identical in concept to the technobabble spouted on Star Trek. You don't try to move the ship, you "move" the space the ship sits in. This is convenient in that it not only sidesteps relativistic effects but also gets around inertia. You could go from zero to "warp nine" in an instant and no stresses would be placed upon the ship or its occupants.
I'll grant that it's very possible such a drive is impractical. We may be unable to generate exotic matter. If we can generate it, we may find it takes too much energy. And if we can generate that much energy, we may find the tidal forces at the edge of the bubble preclude use anywhere near a solar system. But the physics say it's not impossible.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
I doubt the teacher is spouting a union-sponsored line (although that is a fairly typical mindset). Instead, the teacher is most likely ignorant of Linux and FOSS in general. She's not, however, ignorant of piracy thanks to ads from folks like the BSA, MPAA, and the infamous RIAA. Thus, when she sees software being handed out on home-made discs, she assumes it's piracy. She's been conditioned to that response like the good union myrmidon she is.
There was a time when I'd be shocked at this level of idiocy in a government school, but no more. I'd have been more shocked had she understood and condoned what the student was doing.
It is irrelevant how many customers actually switch to OpenOffice.org.
I love it when you move the goalposts. First you claim OO is murdering MS. Then you say it's merely taking chunks of revenue. Now you say it's "irrelevant" whether people actually switch or not. Brilliant! You do realize, of course, that you're making a fool of yourself, don't you?
As of Firefox it is now the better browser. IE users take the IE because it comes preinstalled and is good enough. IE does not generate any profits for Microsoft.
I prefer Firefox myself and agree it's a better browser. I also agree IE is "good enough" for most people, thus they never switch from the pre-installed solution. As for IE not generating any profits, I don't think Mozilla is making much money these days, either. Hey, I think I found something "irrelevant" in your point! However, I don't think it's what you had in mind.
Executives who can chose a MAC these days, custom applications are dependent on the www browser. You can more easily switch. You don't depend on the platform anymore.
Apple's overall market share remains under 10% as of the latest data in Q1 2008. It's even lower if you remove "educational" users and strictly look at commercial businesses. So, although Mac use is on the rise, it still represents a tiny fringe of the overall market. Wait! Let me guess! You're going to say that's irrelevant, too, aren't you?
New markets Microsoft enters mean new opponents. They go into web advertisment and meet Google. They go into game consoles and meet the established manufacturers like Nintendo etc etc.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. I'm sorry, did you have a point you were trying to make with this statement?
The IE monopoly is gone and the same will happen to more valuable products.
Actually, there never was an IE monopoly. As any intelligent person knows, Mosaic was the first browser to have a monopoly, followed later by Netscape. Netscape, which you may recall if you are old enough to have been out of kindergarten back then, charged money for their browser. An actual money grubbing monopoly! Curse those greedy bastards! So MS countered with the utterly ridiculous Internet Explorer 1.0, which everyone chuckled at and then went back to Netscape. But MS steadily improved IE, and since it was both bundled and free, they ran Netscape out of business and into the arms of AOL. Note at no time did MS have a monopoly on browsers. Theirs was just cheaper (free, actually) and bundled. Netscape was not. After Netscape failed, Mozilla picked up the banner, so IE still didn't have the monopoly as you claim. Now we join the present, where Firefox goes head to head with IE, both are free, and neither has a monopoly. So, far from IE "losing" its monopoly, it never had one. If anything, Netscape had and lost a monopoly. And it's a good thing, too, if you consider how pathetic the later versions of Netscape were.
So, having debunked your dubious claims and made good fun of you in the process, do you care to embarrass yourself further with half-truths, fabrications, and fairy-tale wishing? Or can you just admit your emotions got the better of you and you temporarily lost your hold on reality?
Microsoft never understood the internet.
If you're referring to the beginning of the commercial Internet, you're right. If you're referring to current events, you're wrong. MS has a huge presence on the Internet. Its Internet Explorer, for all its foibles and shortcomings, is the most popular browser in the world by a factor of two or more over Firefox. MS may not be as net savvy as you'd like, but they're not nearly as bad as you claim.
they failed with search and for the same reason will fail with the cloud.
You really must tell me where you bought your crystal ball. I'd like to know what next week's lottery number is. Can you prognosticate that for me? I'll give you half the winnings.
OpenOffice is a low investment effort for its competitors and eats quite a chunk of their market
According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Office has 95% of the productivity software market as of August 2007, the most recent period sampled. If OO is eating "quite a chunk of their market" then you seriously need to re-examine your definition of "quite a chunk." OO adoption is almost small enough to be considered a margin of error. Now, do you really want to keep going down this road of unsubstantiated hyperbole?
Netbooks now offer the opportunity to put Microsoft under pressure on the Desktop and offer cheaper deals.
According to IDC, netbooks sales comprise 7.3% of all "laptop or other mobile computing device" sales worldwide. If you consider that laptop sales are roughly equal (for now) to desktop sales, then netbooks comprise perhaps 4% of overall computing platform sales. So, put another way, 96% of all computing sales are not affected by this fanciful death throes scenario you keep trying to paint. Is MS in a good position to exploit netbooks? No, it is not. Is it something MS should be worried about? Yes it is. Is it something that's going to kill MS anytime soon? Not a chance.
I'll also point out that Windows Mobile 5.x and 6.x are eating into revenue from RIM and Symbian. True, Apple's iPhone is closing in even faster, but unlike Apple, MS depends on OEM's to make phones. Apple's ability to meld an excellent OS with gee-whiz hardware is something MS simply can't match without getting into the hardware business.
In many other markets the company actually buys market share at the expense of established competitors that fiercely fight back.
You mean like Netscape? Yeah, they "fought back" so effectively they're no longer around. Face up to reality, bub: the list of companies that have successfully fought MS is a helluva lot shorter than the list of those crushed to tiny, insignificant pieces. I'm not passing any judgments on whether it's right or wrong, but it is true. Unlike you, I don't let wishful thinking shape reality.
My question is, if no claim about gods stands up to scrutiny, why should I believe any of them? After all, the world is full of mutually contradictory religious claims, none better supported than the next. Should we each just draw a god out of the bag, and then argue vociferously for its existence?
Absolutely correct, which is why I take such umbrage with people who vociferously argue that "their" concept of God is the one true God and everybody else is wrong.
But remove the "vociferously argue" part and suddenly things change. Suppose we all just pulled whatever God out of the bag we believed in (or no God at all, if it suits you) and shut the hell up about it afterwards? Faith, religion, and lack thereof is a personal matter. Whether I believe in God or not should be utterly immaterial to anyone else in the universe. If I choose to spend time on it, donate to religious charities, and so forth, that's my business. Similarly, I have no right to try and "convert" you to my religion, and it should be considered bad taste for me to try. If you're an informed, intelligent person then you can find out all you care to about any religion in the whole of human history. You certainly don't need me haranguing you about it.
Methinks your core objection to religion is not that someone else believes in something you do not. I'm betting it's more rooted in those who "argue vociferously for its existence" in an attempt to "convert" you.
The difference is, science admits it. Science says, "we have no idea about anything before a few tiny fractions of a second after the big bang. But what I can tell you is that the universe isn't 6000 years old." Whereas religion says, "well, I know we used to say that the universe is 6000 years old, but obviously we didn't mean it; that part of our scripture is supposed to be taken figuratively. But *this* part is the literal, Gospel truth."
This old canard again? Tell you what: you quit using extremist, lunatic views from ultra-religious nuts to illustrate the problems of religion and I won't bother looking up the innumerable examples of discredited, extremist, lunatic scientists pushing similarly idiotic views. Every organization has its fringe that, if allowed, besmirches the more sane whole.
Not all religion believes the universe is only 6,000 years old. In fact, a disproportionately small number of sects actually cling to that concept. The vast majority of the "religious" people of the world do not interpret the Bible as literal truth. Genesis is viewed metaphorically, as is most of the rest of the Bible. If you knew anything at all about religion or religious people you'd know this, so either you're ignorant of what you're posting on or your deliberately misinterpreting things to try and bolster your argument. Either way, your not doing yourself any favors.
Now all competitors know that Microsoft as a business is going to die. Because the main cash cows, Office and Windows are under fierce attack.
Your statement is correct insofar as all things happen if given an infinite time span. Excluding an infinite time span, your statement is really, really reaching.
Office and Windows are huge cash cows for Microsoft. Office alone commands more than 90% of all office productivity software in the world. If you think that's going to be replaced en masse by OpenOffice or Google apps anytime soon, you're delusional in the extreme. It may work fine for you, but the vast majority of the business world does not agree with you. You can argue the merits of OO vs. Office all day long, but in the end it comes down to where businesses place their faith. Despite the huge price, despite the bugs, despite the bloat...they choose Office. They do it not only because it's the devil they know but because it's the devil everybody else uses as well. Businesses do not operate in a vacuum, and they must be able to reliably and accurately exchange documents and data with other businesses. With Office they are assured of this. With anything else it's a crapshoot unless you're dealing with only the most basic types of documents, spreadsheets, or presentations.
As for cloud computing, the idea will gain traction over time, but Microsoft isn't sitting idle. Do you think Microsoft isn't investing in cloud computing? They are, and quite a bit at that. If and when cloud computing becomes a panacea, Microsoft will control a healthy chunk of it. Maybe more, maybe less, but there is no doubt they'll be a sizable player.
It seems rather obvious that you're letting your anti-MS stance interfere with objectively judging the situation. Microsoft just finished hugely profitable -- in some cases, record profits -- for the last couple of quarters. The company has cash reserves eclipsing pretty much every competitor on the planet. You obviously want Microsoft to fail, but that does not mean they're anywhere near failing. Quite the contrary, actually. You need to stop letting your bile skew your judgement.
I wonder if it's possible to consider the following without devolving into a flame fest:
So the multiverse theory postulates there are innumerable universes, each with different conditions, and ours happened to be the right conditions to support life as we understand it. How does this rule out the possibility of an intelligent creator? It can be argued that the structure of the multiverse itself is the creation of an intelligent being, thus abstracting the concept one level beyond our universe. Granted, this might be difficult for conventional organized religions to explain, but beyond dogma it does not rule out the possibility.
This whole "there is no God" argument of science versus spirituality is actually quite tiring. No matter how advanced science gets, it will never be able to disprove -- or prove, for that matter -- the existence of a God or gods. The very concept of a supernatural being does not lend itself to being explainable by science. The sooner science quits preoccupying itself with trying to prove an impossible proof, the sooner we can get back to doing real science and not starting arguments with people's personable beliefs (or lack thereof). Let people believe what they want to believe about the supernatural, and let's focus a bit more on what we can prove. Let's start with a Mr. Fusion for my time machine, shall we?
At the very least advertising a non-existent job should be punishable under "false advertising" laws.
False advertising laws are in place to protect consumers from abuse. Advertising a job interview is not the same as advertising a product. It's perfectly legal for me to invite as many people as I want to my office for an interview -- and no job need exist for me to do that. I can interview them all, get all their resumes, and never follow up with a single one of them. It's not illegal, nor should it be. After all, if it were illegal, why would it be illegal? Have I deprived anyone of life, liberty, or property? I have not. If people came and wasted their time, they did so voluntarily.
You need to get out of this mindset that something "ought to be illegal" just because you don't like it.
Personally, if the press actually went "deeper" into Bill Ayers, etc., my opinion of them would be even lower than it is now, given how insubstantial many of the allegations were.
Insubstantial? You mean "insubstantial" in that Obama and Ayers spent years on a board together, yet Obama claimed to have almost never heard of the man? You mean "insubstantial" in that Obama was responsible for funneling millions of dollars to Ayers' pet education projects (which profited Ayers quite a bit more than his "students")? Or perhaps you mean "insubstantial" such that Obama's first political "coming out" party was held in Ayers' living room, as Ayers had quite a lot to do with Obama's transformation from obscure Chicagoan laywer to budding politician?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
That Obama had a relationship with Ayers is not what's disturbing. What's disturbing is how ready Obama was to lie about that relationship in order to try and avoid being smeared by it. You know, the same way he sat in a church with a virulently racist preacher for 20 years yet never heard him say anything anyone else would consider offensive, then threw the preacher under the bus when it became obvious he was a nutjob.
Obama has used people like Rezko, Wright, Ayers, and Khalidi to get where he is today. Or they've used him. Or both. Regardless, Obama seems the type that will associate with anyone regardless of their temperament or principles just so long as his political career keeps moving forward. That kind of casual disregard for principles makes me very, very concerned about our new President-elect. It should concern you, too, but you're too busy gulping the Kool-Aid to notice.
You still think that, because the Democrats have more seats in congress, they'll be able to push whatever they want through, eh?
Like I said, let the excuse-making begin! If Obama succeeds, you'll say it was because he had superior positions on the arguments. If he fails, you'll blame Republican obstructionism. It's heads-you-win, tails-I-lose. But that's OK. We're used to dealing with liberal double standards. It's the only way you guys can make sense to yourselves.
And it's not crying over spilt milk. You guys wanted to run the country, fine. It's yours. Have at it. I expect a perfect worker's paradise in eight years. And while you're at it, pay for the gas to fill up my car and pay for my mortgage. Pay pay pay! Pay it all. Pay everything that I want because I think I deserve it. Steal it from someone who has more than me and give it to me! Mine mine mine! Gosh, it sure is fun being a liberal Democrat! I can live a responsibility-free, consequence-free, freeloading lifestyle, all on someone else's dime! Why didn't I switch parties sooner?
I don't get it, first you guys complain that Obama came out of nowhere and we don't know anything about him, but then you complain that the media is biased and spending more time on Obama than McCain. You're never happy are you?
No, it's more like we're unhappy that, given the voluminous quantity of articles written and news segments made about Obama, none of them delved too deeply in any subject that would've caused harm to the Obama campaign. They were fluff pieces full of softball questions. They rarely -- if ever -- forced Obama to take a genuine stance on any controversial subject. When he reversed his stance on something he'd said earlier -- like public campaign finance, for example -- the press said little or nothing about it.
Hundreds of reporters were sent to Wasilla, AK to dig through Sarah Palin's trash cans, but Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, "spread the wealth" and "bankrupt the coal industry" were largely ignored by the mainstream press until they couldn't be ignored without completely dispensing with the illusion of impartiality. Even the, with the possible exception of Jeremiah Wright, these issues were glossed over. Obama made to election day without ever being vetted by the press. They loved him unconditionally from day one, and they weren't going to to try and find anything out about him that would dispel his aura.
If the press wants to be biased, let them. But let's quit pretending they're not, that way people can judge the info they receive accordingly.
For what it's worth, Finland is one of the few countries in Europe with an army strong enough to withstand a direct onslaught. They never joined NATO because they have their own defense covered and proved their mettle by driving the Russians back twice. The idea that welfare states only exist because the US is picking up the defense tab is therefore false. Welfare states and strong armies can coexist just fine.
First, you failed to address one of the GP's points, namely that of nobody calling on the Finnish military to defend someone else. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but America has been called upon more than a few times to pull someone else's ass out of the this past century. Perhaps we should've taken the Finnish stance and said "hey, you're own your own Mein Herr/Comrade/Minion Of Dear Leader-to-be." But I digress.
Regarding Finnish military prowess versus the Russkies, Finns did not "[drive] the Russians back twice." Here, allow me to quote a bit from the Wikipedia article on Finland:
During World War II, Finland fought the Soviet Union twice: in the Winter War of 1939â"40 after the Soviet Union had attacked Finland and in the Continuation War of 1941â"44, following Operation Barbarossa, in which Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Following German losses on the Eastern Front and the subsequent Soviet advance, Finland was forced to make peace with the Soviet Union. This was followed by the Lapland War of 1944â"45, when Finland forced the Germans out of northern Finland.
The treaties signed in 1947 and 1948 with the Soviet Union included Finnish obligations, restraints, and reparations as well as further Finnish territorial concessions (cf. the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940). Finland ceded most of Finnish Karelia, Salla, and Pechenga, which amounted to ten percent of its land area and twenty percent of its industrial capacity. Some 400,000 evacuees, mainly women and children, fled these areas.
So, while the Finns fought courageously and inflicted severe losses on an under-equipped, under-trained, poorly-led enemy while fighting from home soil in a purely defensive war, Finland was forced to sign a "peace" with the Russians that pretty much gave Uncle Joe what he wanted in the first place. Sure, the Russian's would've preferred taking the place by storm and massacring everyone they could, but the Moscow treaty was a close second.
As for being able to "withstand a direct onslaught," presumably by Cold War Soviet forces, that I doubt. Russian battle plans called for tactical nukes to be used if the enemy went turtle and couldn't be cracked conventionally. The only thing Finns could do to "withstand a direct onslaught" of thousands of Red Army tanks would be to turn turtle. That strategy would've been about as effective as the Maginot Line was against Panzers. In fact, the only thing preventing the Soviets from doing just that was the threat of -- drum roll please -- a reprisal from the United States. Don't think the Russians would've ever done such a thing? Ask a Czech who was there when the tanks rolled in. Russian aspirations were held in check by one thing and one thing only, and that's the threat of American military intervention.
Yes, it's nice to think the world doesn't need the big, bad, mean, greedy Americans, but you damn sure don't mind calling on us to bail you out whenever you get in over your heads, do you? Militarily and economically, America does more for the rest of the world than any of the next two or three developed nations combined. No, don't bother saying thanks, we already know you hate us. We'll keep looking out for you despite it, although sometimes I wonder why we bother.
most of us understand the value of altruism, how it actually helps us out in the end, instinctively. others, like you, have to be dragged kicking and screaming to common sense
Most of us have no problem with altruism when it's truly altruism as defined in the dictionary. I give to charity, and I bet I give a damned sight more than you do. But -- and here's the point you seem to miss -- I decide when I give. I decide how much. I decide who I give it to. In short, it's a voluntary thing I do because I feel moved to do it.
What Obama wants is for all of us to give (well, not really, just those who won't vote for him), but he wants to choose when, to whom, and how much. And if we disagree, he comes and takes it from us anyway. That is not altruism. That is not even close to altruism. That is "spreading the wealth around a bit."
So, far from your "you...have the desire that you don't have to help the poor at all," I do have a desire to help the poor. I don't believe in handouts as a way of life because it breeds dependency, but I have no problem voluntarily helping someone who may be down on their luck. Even better, if I can help someone find a job and become independent, I do so. I do not, however, have any compassion for those who are in a permanent, self-made cycle of dependency on others to pay for their poor decisions, their thoughtless actions, or their general laziness. Obama, on the other hand, seems to want to give to anyone who will vote for him and to take from those who wouldn't vote for him.
Joe the Pedo cares a lot about getting free untraceable internet access. I care a lot about not getting my house raided because someone abused my network.
Can you reference a single incident where such a raid has taken place? On a lark I decided to Google around for such an incident and couldn't find a single damned thing.
Given the hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of wireless devices in operation in homes across the U.S., the lack of any such raid seems to suggest your fear is either overblown or based on paranoia.
The shit Bush & Co. has done will take far longer to unravel, but he can start the process.
Thus the excuse-making begins. Hey, even though we control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, we won't be able to get anything meaningful done because of those darned Republicans! Change we can believe in!
Millions of Obama voters are counting on your paycheck to subsidize them!
They sure keep a lot of them in stock at Walmart, Frys, Office Max, and every department store I've been in lately. I would think they wouldn't do that for such rapidly depreciating merchandise unless it was moving quickly. Do you have figures? Citation please.
Can you not read? You stated 4TB NAS's are flying off the shelves, and you stated it while referring to home-based use of video. The inference you were trying to make is that 4TB NAS's are selling like hotcakes because people are busily filling up their drives with legal (and illegal) content.
I stated these NAS devices are flying off the shelves not due to average consumer demand but instead because of demand from businesses of all stripes. Small businesses in particular are snapping up NAS units at a record pace. I consult for a living so I see this, but if you want exact figures, Google is your friend. I found this in about ten seconds. There's far more where that came from if you care to look.