Do we have to go into space right now? Do I have time to go home and change?
This joke, like many, is funny because there's a grain of truth in it. Do we have time? No one knows. The Big Disaster could happen tomorrow, or it might not be for a thousand years. If we wait until we *do* know about it, it may be too late to avoid it.
1) How many IPods can you buy from your one month salary?
2) How many IPods can the Chinese woman buy from her one month salary?
There are a *lot* of American factory workers who couldn't buy an iPod a month either. I certainly couldn't at my last job. I'm self employed now, just started a web hosting company. (shameless plug) My job before that was in a call center for $8/hour. After rent and food (for which I paid *far* more than half my monthly income), about the only luxury item I could afford was broadband internet access.
So if you speak how much they can buy then it is easy to pick up the "right" goods for comparison, right?;-)
That goes both ways. It's easy to pick an obscenely expensive luxury item like an iPod, and point out that they can't afford it, if you want to "prove" how "poor" someone is.
I'd be far more concerned with working conditions and hours. But even there, I'm looking through American eyes, so there's a certain amount of cultural bias. There's no way in hell I'd work for 15 hours/day for someone else, or live in a 100-person dorm. But I'm not Chinese; perhaps in Chinese culture these things are perfectly acceptable. I worked with a few Chinese when I lived in Boston - they were by far the hardest-working people I've ever met. 15-hour days were not at all unusual for them, even the ones that were on salary instead of an hourly wage. When we discussed living arrangements, they mentioned having several roommates, and were shocked to learn that I lived alone. (I got the impression that they took pity on me because of that. In their culture, having no family around, no one to talk to, etc. is considered a horrible way to live.)
What it amounts to in my view is simple: Is that factory safe and sanitary, and are the women who work there happy to do so? If they are, then who am I to say they shouldn't be?
- Reports about someone earning "X" per month are meaningless out of context...
I think that this is maybe business logic but it is immorall. Does it mean that the work of the people on the other side of the world is valued less?
No, it means that you need to consider the buying power of "X" per month, which varies from place to place. You can see that right here in the US - compare salaries in WV & NY states, for instance. People in WV make a *lot* less than those in NY, but they're not necessarily worse off, because their bills are a lot lower too.
It's impossible to tell if Apple is running a sweatshop by looking at the "$50/month" figure alone. What you have to look at to determine that is what kind of living standard the workers can afford for that amount in the place where they're actually living. Pointing out that they couldn't survive in New York City on that wage is meaningless because they're not actually in New York City.
Other's have only been able to install Vista on Intel-based Macs by wiping out the EFI boot partition.
Bold text is mine - it's an important distinction to make. VPC emulates a traditional PC, not an Intel Mac with an EFI boot partition.
it shows that Contrary to rumors, Vista is not crippled against running on macs or under virtual systems.
How seriously did anyone take the tinfoil hat brigade and their conspiracy theories anyway?
it shows Virtual PC running on PPC G5 macs meet the minumum specs for Vista
Again, the bold text is mine, and it's an important distinction to make.
it means you can do comparisons of Vista and mac osx.
Once the final Vista release is booting on an Intel Mac and running natively, we can compare it to Mac OS X on the same hardware. Trying to compare the two with a Vista beta running in a virtual machine with an emulated CPU is absurd.
VPC emulates a traditional PC with a BIOS. An Intel Mac is an entirely different beast. Getting Vista to boot in VPC is no more difficult than getting it to boot on a generic "white box" pc, and has just as much relevance to the Intel Mac. That is, none at all.
One might reasonably be inclined to think that those in charge of a democracy have some duty to listen to their citizens
In theory, yes. In practice, there's no way a senior official can personally meet each and every citizen and discuss his or her concerns with them. That's why different levels of government and "official channels" exist - you start with the secretary (or whatever) and someone at each level decides whether the matter can be handled at that level, or kicked up to the next. You'd be amazed how many nutjobs want to go directly to the President to discuss issues that would be more appropriate for their city's Mayor. It's almost like a DDOS attack on the bureacracy - it makes it much more difficult for a legitimate request to work its way through.
All told, only an idiot would seriously expect to receive an appointment with a senior official on two weeks notice, and I don't think RMS is an idiot. This looks to me like he knew full well he wouldn't get in, so he made a cheap publicity stunt out of it. Unfortunately for the "movement", this stunt puts him on about the same level as the guy who climbed Buckingham Palace in a superhero (Batman, I think...) costume.
A letter was send 15 days before, and no one answered.
Fifteen days? Little wonder no one's answered it yet. The letter is probably still working its way through the beaurocracy to someone who can make a decision on it. Heck, in some cities you can't get an appointment the mayor on two weeks notice.
Then read the article again. RMS didn't make a meeting, he decided on a date and informed the PM that he would be arriving. And he wrote his "grievance" down on a yards-long banner, and arrived to the "meeting" dressed like a hobo. This was not an attempt to start a serious dialogue about a political issue, it was just cheap theatrics.
Well, it's true at WGBH Boston - having worked there, I know that much at least. 86% from non-government sources sounds about right, but something on the order of 86% of *that* came from places like the NEA, NSF, or the Park Foundation, or major corporate underwriters like Exxon. They've committed to funding projects like Nova for years to come. A relatively small part of their budget comes from pledges, and about the only thing it's used for is "wish list" projects - pilots for new shows, experiments in interactive TV, etc.
You're probably right about smaller stations though, come to think of it. WGBH isn't exactly a small-town station.
Pledge drives have never been a big part of PBS' funding. About 85-90% of its programming is funded by grants, which are applied for and budgeted a year or more in advance. Individual pledges are generally put into a discretionary budget that's used to fund "wish list" projects that haven't gotten any grant money.
Precisely my point. If I *could* eat and pay the rent with open source, I wouldn't need another occupation. And if I didn't have another occupation, I'd have time to write more oss. As much as some would like to deny it, economic considerations very often do get in the way of FOSS participation.
Or, at least, I decide what part(s) of the internet to show on my screen, what apps to view them with, and in what format they're presented. That's enough "control" for me. Damn bloody shame there are power-mongers in the world who feel the need for more than that.
It is human nature to want to control or stop things you do not agree with.
Likewise with things you don't understand. Unfortunately, the internet falls into both categories where many of the world's politicians are concerned.:-(
I've been playing first person shooters since the original wolfenstein
A stupid nit to pick, I know, but... the original Wolfenstein wasn't a FPS. It was a top-down shooter for the Apple ][. Gameplay was essentially Berzerk with powerups.
Win32/DirectX should be supported environments within XCode
Obviously it's not an officially-supported environment, but there's nothing stopping you from writing Win32/DirectX code in Xcode right now. Just install the Cygwin cross-compiler from DarwinPorts and set up an "external makefile" target. I've also used it to build SDL & Qt apps for Windows.
Next stage? More like the stage before last - these chips aren't even visible except for a really tiny scar. There are people who have implanted stuff into themselves until their penii look like sex toys. (Fair warning - the "extreme" section of that site is... well... extreme. Don't go there unless you're prepared to view examples of "modified" genitals of both genders. You have been warned!)
Inplantable RFID tags are just not for me. Sounds a little to, well, end-times-ish.
Revelations is pretty specific about that mark - it's supposedly going to be on the forehead or right hand. So if that's your concern, just get your chip somewhere else.
Taking a razor and slicing my arm open to get rid of the tag is just not cool for when you want to be annonymous.
You *already* need to take yourself apart to foil biometric ID. You'd need to get rid of your fingertips, retinas, and all your teeth, to begin with. The tiny cut that's used to insert and/or extract a chip is trivial - I've cut myself worse than that in the kitchen.
Slashdot Mirror
That goes both ways. It's easy to pick an obscenely expensive luxury item like an iPod, and point out that they can't afford it, if you want to "prove" how "poor" someone is.
I'd be far more concerned with working conditions and hours. But even there, I'm looking through American eyes, so there's a certain amount of cultural bias. There's no way in hell I'd work for 15 hours/day for someone else, or live in a 100-person dorm. But I'm not Chinese; perhaps in Chinese culture these things are perfectly acceptable. I worked with a few Chinese when I lived in Boston - they were by far the hardest-working people I've ever met. 15-hour days were not at all unusual for them, even the ones that were on salary instead of an hourly wage. When we discussed living arrangements, they mentioned having several roommates, and were shocked to learn that I lived alone. (I got the impression that they took pity on me because of that. In their culture, having no family around, no one to talk to, etc. is considered a horrible way to live.)
What it amounts to in my view is simple: Is that factory safe and sanitary, and are the women who work there happy to do so? If they are, then who am I to say they shouldn't be?
It's impossible to tell if Apple is running a sweatshop by looking at the "$50/month" figure alone. What you have to look at to determine that is what kind of living standard the workers can afford for that amount in the place where they're actually living. Pointing out that they couldn't survive in New York City on that wage is meaningless because they're not actually in New York City.
Other's have only been able to install Vista on Intel-based Macs by wiping out the EFI boot partition.
Bold text is mine - it's an important distinction to make. VPC emulates a traditional PC, not an Intel Mac with an EFI boot partition.
it shows that Contrary to rumors, Vista is not crippled against running on macs or under virtual systems.
How seriously did anyone take the tinfoil hat brigade and their conspiracy theories anyway?
it shows Virtual PC running on PPC G5 macs meet the minumum specs for Vista
Again, the bold text is mine, and it's an important distinction to make.
it means you can do comparisons of Vista and mac osx.
Once the final Vista release is booting on an Intel Mac and running natively, we can compare it to Mac OS X on the same hardware. Trying to compare the two with a Vista beta running in a virtual machine with an emulated CPU is absurd.
Because it's there, and they can.
VPC emulates a traditional PC with a BIOS. An Intel Mac is an entirely different beast. Getting Vista to boot in VPC is no more difficult than getting it to boot on a generic "white box" pc, and has just as much relevance to the Intel Mac. That is, none at all.
One might reasonably be inclined to think that those in charge of a democracy have some duty to listen to their citizens
In theory, yes. In practice, there's no way a senior official can personally meet each and every citizen and discuss his or her concerns with them. That's why different levels of government and "official channels" exist - you start with the secretary (or whatever) and someone at each level decides whether the matter can be handled at that level, or kicked up to the next. You'd be amazed how many nutjobs want to go directly to the President to discuss issues that would be more appropriate for their city's Mayor. It's almost like a DDOS attack on the bureacracy - it makes it much more difficult for a legitimate request to work its way through.
All told, only an idiot would seriously expect to receive an appointment with a senior official on two weeks notice, and I don't think RMS is an idiot. This looks to me like he knew full well he wouldn't get in, so he made a cheap publicity stunt out of it. Unfortunately for the "movement", this stunt puts him on about the same level as the guy who climbed Buckingham Palace in a superhero (Batman, I think...) costume.
A letter was send 15 days before, and no one answered.
Fifteen days? Little wonder no one's answered it yet. The letter is probably still working its way through the beaurocracy to someone who can make a decision on it. Heck, in some cities you can't get an appointment the mayor on two weeks notice.
Then read the article again. RMS didn't make a meeting, he decided on a date and informed the PM that he would be arriving. And he wrote his "grievance" down on a yards-long banner, and arrived to the "meeting" dressed like a hobo. This was not an attempt to start a serious dialogue about a political issue, it was just cheap theatrics.
Well, it's true at WGBH Boston - having worked there, I know that much at least. 86% from non-government sources sounds about right, but something on the order of 86% of *that* came from places like the NEA, NSF, or the Park Foundation, or major corporate underwriters like Exxon. They've committed to funding projects like Nova for years to come. A relatively small part of their budget comes from pledges, and about the only thing it's used for is "wish list" projects - pilots for new shows, experiments in interactive TV, etc.
You're probably right about smaller stations though, come to think of it. WGBH isn't exactly a small-town station.
Pledge drives have never been a big part of PBS' funding. About 85-90% of its programming is funded by grants, which are applied for and budgeted a year or more in advance. Individual pledges are generally put into a discretionary budget that's used to fund "wish list" projects that haven't gotten any grant money.
Precisely my point. If I *could* eat and pay the rent with open source, I wouldn't need another occupation. And if I didn't have another occupation, I'd have time to write more oss. As much as some would like to deny it, economic considerations very often do get in the way of FOSS participation.
Hmmm... Shouldn't that be more like Ford's Law?
We also like to eat and pay rent.
Starting to get out of hand? Where have you been?
Or, at least, I decide what part(s) of the internet to show on my screen, what apps to view them with, and in what format they're presented. That's enough "control" for me. Damn bloody shame there are power-mongers in the world who feel the need for more than that.
It is human nature to want to control or stop things you do not agree with.
:-(
Likewise with things you don't understand. Unfortunately, the internet falls into both categories where many of the world's politicians are concerned.
I've been playing first person shooters since the original wolfenstein
A stupid nit to pick, I know, but... the original Wolfenstein wasn't a FPS. It was a top-down shooter for the Apple ][. Gameplay was essentially Berzerk with powerups.
Win32/DirectX should be supported environments within XCode
Obviously it's not an officially-supported environment, but there's nothing stopping you from writing Win32/DirectX code in Xcode right now. Just install the Cygwin cross-compiler from DarwinPorts and set up an "external makefile" target. I've also used it to build SDL & Qt apps for Windows.
why does the Slashdot headline say that it's them suing him?
Two words: Clueless. Editors.
I'm not sure our global neighbors would like us stomping all over entire swaths of the international spectrum.
The Bush administration hasn't shown one bit of concern about our global neighbors' opinions so far. What makes you think they care about them now?
Cha cha cha chia!
Next stage? More like the stage before last - these chips aren't even visible except for a really tiny scar. There are people who have implanted stuff into themselves until their penii look like sex toys. (Fair warning - the "extreme" section of that site is... well... extreme. Don't go there unless you're prepared to view examples of "modified" genitals of both genders. You have been warned!)
Inplantable RFID tags are just not for me. Sounds a little to, well, end-times-ish.
Revelations is pretty specific about that mark - it's supposedly going to be on the forehead or right hand. So if that's your concern, just get your chip somewhere else.
Taking a razor and slicing my arm open to get rid of the tag is just not cool for when you want to be annonymous.
You *already* need to take yourself apart to foil biometric ID. You'd need to get rid of your fingertips, retinas, and all your teeth, to begin with. The tiny cut that's used to insert and/or extract a chip is trivial - I've cut myself worse than that in the kitchen.