There have been a series or articles in the last few years in the Economist about how having mobile phones helps to lift people out of poverty in the developing world. Their view, and I have to say I agree, is that its more important to get people a communication network (mobile phones) than it is to get them a computer.
Its a genuinely good thing that this is taking off in the developing world to help people create small businesses and to reduce barriers.
Its another great example of the US deciding that its perfectly okay to have their laws apply to people from other countries, but the idea of an international criminal court that might try CIA and US Soldiers for torture and crimes against humanity then the answer is no.
Remind me again why people think the US is imperialist?
And as long as you are happy for the NYT journalist to be arrested and charged as he reports FROM the UK then that is fine. That is the difference between the Yahoo case and what the NYT is doing, in one it was purely remote reporting, in this case its reporting from inside the country in question, with the journalist being the person responsible.
I've got the Acer 8204 (Dual core at 2Ghz) and a MacBook Pro (Dual core at 2Ghz) the Acer has legendary battery life when you put in power consumption mode. I've managed to get over six hours worth of work when on a plan having forgotten my adaptor, even with WiFi on I've managed to get well over 3.5 hours and upwards by turning the LCD brightness down. The MacBook isn't quite as impressive, its over 3.5 hours when using WiFi, but doesn't last above 5 when I'm trying to conserve power.
My old Intel Celeron M was about 2 hours without WiFi and 1 and a bit with WiFi on.
So in my experience the battery life on the new Core Duo is stunning.
Some people here have been saying "what about the abuse" well seeing as they will know who is reporting the abuse then if you are just pratting about then those same police who are looking for predators can also send a threating response for wasting police time (a punishable offence). Unlike making crank calls from a telephone box this is very traceable.
but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.
Are you sure? Okay so TVs don't look back at you but equally they will track you when you take a train out to the country. They will know the books that you get from the library, and the most important thing they have created (which is what enabled the goverment in 1984 to do what it did). They have created a war that cannot be won with a constantly changing enemy. Its perfect, since 2001 we've had
1) Its Osama 2) Its Afghanistan 3) Its Iraq 4) Its North Korea 5) Its Iran 6) Its Syria
Somalia surely has to be pretty high on the list too right now. Its perfect. Its even BETTER than 1984 because being "asymetrical" they can introduce things that even Big Brother couldn't find an excuse for straight off, so you introduce a law aimed at making extradition of terrorists easy... then you just use it against white collar criminals. Its a brilliant plan that Orwell would have been proud of, its got lots of advantages over the remote war of 1984
1) "They are everywhere" - so you get to crack down at home 2) "They don't respect our laws or way of life" - so we have to play the game using "their" rules = torture, renditions, detention without representation or trial 3) "We have to hit them in their heartlands" - Invade other countries 4) "Its us or them" - So what if some of "their" civilians die 5) "You are either with us or against us" - Debate is not allowed 6) "You don't understand what they can do" - So we must do things you can't believe we would 7) "We have to destroy them at all costs" - More dead civilians 8) "We must support those who are with us against this menace" - India gets Nuclear help, Iran gets condemned for doing less than India.
Orwell would have looked upon the current situation and thought "damn, asymetrical war... what a brilliant plot device that would have been"
And before anyone flames me about being "anti-capitalist", I'd remind them that when people lose their jobs and, say, private health care benefits, they turn to the government for unemployment handouts and public healthcare - both of which are financed from our taxes.
Err yes you are anti-capitalist. People lose their jobs all the time (hell I've been redundant twice, fired once) the key is whether the economy as a whole grows, which it has been. And the richer the poorer companies get the more they will need finished goods and services which you can supply back to them. You're probably one of those muppets who thinks that subsidising farmers is perfectly acceptable because it only makes people in Africa die.
Welcome to the 21st Century, where 1st World countries stamp on the hands of the poor.
From the article "There are plenty of examples in the software engineering realm that demonstrate blatant disregard for Fred Brooks's sage advice asserting that there are no silver bullets"
And oddly your claim that This is why he put's the term in quotes I can't quite find the bit in the article that says "Silver Bullet" in quotes.
Hello! Welcome to idiot town... population you. You'll want the train to Cluesville, it leaves at seven.
Most of these Silver Bullets are great ideas
A silver bullet is something that will produce an order of magnitude increase in project performance. I take it that you have read the world's best book on Software Development haven't you? I'd recommend the 25th aniversary edition with the Silver Bullet essays in it.
Sure there are good technologies, and idiots who implement them badly. The whole point of the article with in reference however to technologies that make claims that contradict Fred Brooks's essays and the muppets who keep thinking "hey it must be true, its on a poster". They are NOT Silver Bullets, there are no such things as Silver Bullets.
If you haven't read Brooks you shouldn't be in IT.
but it's worth mentioning that SQL injection is a real pain for web developers
Which web developers would these be? MuppetsR'US ? SQL injection is a pain if you take the input and lob it directly to the database without doing any sort of validation that the information is sensible.
Its a great example of all those people who scream "THIS IS SO MUCH QUICKER TO DEVELOP IN THAN THE OLD WAY" and then bite it after the system goes live.
SQL injection isn't a pain, except for those who think they've found a new quick magic bullet that solves all the problems and the old fuddy duddy practices are now all redundant.
Not to defend ASBOs, which are being used like candy rather than as a last ditch effort to restrain individuals (the worst bit is that if you violate the ASBO you can go to jail, which is very harsh). But are we really that suprised that a goverment has introduced legislation that enables "soft evidence" to be introduced and be used to curtail what someone is doing? The purpose of an ASBO is for the majority to be able to stop a minority doing something it doesn't like, not nice, not pretty.
But hell over with Mr Blair's favourite friend in Washington people are being sent to a "camp" which is beyond the juristriction of all law and can come from much less evidential grounds than the ASBOs and people are trying to avoid basic decency provisions such as the Geneva convention.
Its saying that a company with desktop applications isn't going to make a profitable business selling those applications on Linux, nor should an application company sell its own OS as a core focus (they aren't big enough to be MS).
All of the Open Source software will be written outside of the US where US patent law doesn't hold. And as Open Source people aren't SELLING the software into the US its going to be tough to sue them.
This would of course be bad news until we think that Linus and Alan Cox aren't from the US anyway and Open Source is really taking off in European Govs.
Come on folks, move to Europe, claim political asylum.
As his cash-rich firm snaps up thousands of patents, fears emerge that it will become a leader in litigation - not innovation...
If you have a lot of money right now and are looking for the next easy buck you don't get much better than IP ownership at the moment. You know that Congress, Senate and the President are all gunning for greater IP protection and longevity, and you know that a large and growing proportion of the current patent stock are for either obvious ideas or taking of "real-world" ideas and putting an "e" infront of them.
Its hard to critisise it as a money making venture, but as low-life pond scum go its right up there with being a convicted monopolist.
I will need to wait until I can buy a spindle of 100 Blu-Ray disks for 9.99 before I go out and buy one of these things.
Ummmm 25GB per disk, that is 2,500 GB or 2.5 TERRABYTES of storage for $10 dollars, which gives a price per Megabyte of 0.0004c. Current CompUSA own brand is $24.99 for a $100 spindle CR-R (700Mb) which is 0.0357c, so you are asking for something almost ONE THOUSAND TIMES cheaper.
First goal was scored by a player who can only hit the ball with his left foot, the defender didn't force him onto his right, didn't close down and Brazil scored. Everyone in the world knows Adriano is only left footed, you would have thought the technology would have stressed this a little more.
And yesterday the US (by any reasonable ranking system about the same level as Australia) played Italy to a standstill and a draw with one less player on the park.
Technology helps in coaching, but what really helped the Australians and the US was guts and effort from the players.
As one commentator said today
"Imagine the talent of Brazil with Australia's work ethic"
This is why I play with the cheats on. I work hard for a living and I play to relax, the last thing I want is a game where I have to concentrate for hours and worry about tiny details and collecting millions of keys. In simple terms
1) If its a shoot-em-up I want heavy artillery 2) If its a military game I want to get to the fighting bits quickly 3) If its a strategy game I want to be able to decide that I want to skip a bit
Does this "ruin" the fun for me? Hell no, because I play games to relax not to demonstrate my intelligence or for a challenge, I have a full-time job and kids that are more than enough.
Best game ever is "State of Emergency" with all the cheats on, there is nothing more relaxing than running round a shopping mall beating people to death with someone elses bloody arm, then using rockets to see how many things you can blow up.
The only games where cheating doesn't matter is in the sports games, because if you want a challenge you put it on the hard level, if you want to destroy the computer team you put it on easy.
So at the same time as the US Goverment is trying to reduce people's rights around copying the UK goverment is critisising exactly these moves and demanding more visibility and rights.
Errr you know that bit about throwing off the yoke of tyranny in 1776.... Whose goverment would you _really_ want at the moment?
Last week the EU declared the information sharing of people of flights to be illegal because the US GOVERMENT couldn't guarentee the privacy of the information. What is becoming very clear is that in the privacy v terrorism war there will be more business friendly legislation in the US which makes such private information more readily available.
Put it this way, can you imagine George W Bush NOT saying that My Space needs all this information to PROTECT its users from threats from crimial scary group X and to PREVENT My Space being used by terrorists to plan attacks....
LIBEL is FALSE allegations
on
Online Revenge
·
· Score: 2, Informative
If its true then its NEVER LIBEL. Calling Jeffery Archer a liar and a criminal may damage his reputation but that is okay because its true and has been proven in a court of law.
So if this bloke did sell a broken laptop and did have all this content on there, then the only question would be invasion of privacy, which is a civil not a criminal matter.
As they appear to be suggesting that the IEEE "leant" on ISO to stop the Chinese Wifi standard becoming accepted. Because a large part of this was from Intel, and lets face it suing the IEEE is going to look REAL dumb, they've decided to go after the big bad wolf.
I love the idea of clandestine meetings around ISO and IEEE meetings, more people would go if that was true!
Slashdot Mirror
Ahhhh Child Porn, the Web's version of Usenets "Invoking Hitler" rule. Oddly enough child porn is illegal in the US so your argument is 100% bogus.
There have been a series or articles in the last few years in the Economist about how having mobile phones helps to lift people out of poverty in the developing world. Their view, and I have to say I agree, is that its more important to get people a communication network (mobile phones) than it is to get them a computer.
Its a genuinely good thing that this is taking off in the developing world to help people create small businesses and to reduce barriers.
Its another great example of the US deciding that its perfectly okay to have their laws apply to people from other countries, but the idea of an international criminal court that might try CIA and US Soldiers for torture and crimes against humanity then the answer is no.
Remind me again why people think the US is imperialist?
And as long as you are happy for the NYT journalist to be arrested and charged as he reports FROM the UK then that is fine. That is the difference between the Yahoo case and what the NYT is doing, in one it was purely remote reporting, in this case its reporting from inside the country in question, with the journalist being the person responsible.
I've got the Acer 8204 (Dual core at 2Ghz) and a MacBook Pro (Dual core at 2Ghz) the Acer has legendary battery life when you put in power consumption mode. I've managed to get over six hours worth of work when on a plan having forgotten my adaptor, even with WiFi on I've managed to get well over 3.5 hours and upwards by turning the LCD brightness down. The MacBook isn't quite as impressive, its over 3.5 hours when using WiFi, but doesn't last above 5 when I'm trying to conserve power.
My old Intel Celeron M was about 2 hours without WiFi and 1 and a bit with WiFi on.
So in my experience the battery life on the new Core Duo is stunning.
and a complete cessation of brain function is a characteristic of death
I thought it was a characteristic of a MySpace user? Or becoming US Defence Secretary.
Some people here have been saying "what about the abuse" well seeing as they will know who is reporting the abuse then if you are just pratting about then those same police who are looking for predators can also send a threating response for wasting police time (a punishable offence). Unlike making crank calls from a telephone box this is very traceable.
Good idea, and well done Microsoft.
but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.
Are you sure? Okay so TVs don't look back at you but equally they will track you when you take a train out to the country. They will know the books that you get from the library, and the most important thing they have created (which is what enabled the goverment in 1984 to do what it did). They have created a war that cannot be won with a constantly changing enemy. Its perfect, since 2001 we've had
1) Its Osama
2) Its Afghanistan
3) Its Iraq
4) Its North Korea
5) Its Iran
6) Its Syria
Somalia surely has to be pretty high on the list too right now. Its perfect. Its even BETTER than 1984 because being "asymetrical" they can introduce things that even Big Brother couldn't find an excuse for straight off, so you introduce a law aimed at making extradition of terrorists easy... then you just use it against white collar criminals. Its a brilliant plan that Orwell would have been proud of, its got lots of advantages over the remote war of 1984
1) "They are everywhere" - so you get to crack down at home
2) "They don't respect our laws or way of life" - so we have to play the game using "their" rules = torture, renditions, detention without representation or trial
3) "We have to hit them in their heartlands" - Invade other countries
4) "Its us or them" - So what if some of "their" civilians die
5) "You are either with us or against us" - Debate is not allowed
6) "You don't understand what they can do" - So we must do things you can't believe we would
7) "We have to destroy them at all costs" - More dead civilians
8) "We must support those who are with us against this menace" - India gets Nuclear help, Iran gets condemned for doing less than India.
Orwell would have looked upon the current situation and thought "damn, asymetrical war... what a brilliant plot device that would have been"
And before anyone flames me about being "anti-capitalist", I'd remind them that when people lose their jobs and, say, private health care benefits, they turn to the government for unemployment handouts and public healthcare - both of which are financed from our taxes.
Err yes you are anti-capitalist. People lose their jobs all the time (hell I've been redundant twice, fired once) the key is whether the economy as a whole grows, which it has been. And the richer the poorer companies get the more they will need finished goods and services which you can supply back to them. You're probably one of those muppets who thinks that subsidising farmers is perfectly acceptable because it only makes people in Africa die.
Welcome to the 21st Century, where 1st World countries stamp on the hands of the poor.
From the article
"There are plenty of examples in the software engineering realm that demonstrate blatant disregard for Fred Brooks's sage advice asserting that there are no silver bullets"
And oddly your claim that This is why he put's the term in quotes I can't quite find the bit in the article that says "Silver Bullet" in quotes.
So you've read neither the article nor the book?
Hello! Welcome to idiot town... population you. You'll want the train to Cluesville, it leaves at seven.
Most of these Silver Bullets are great ideas
A silver bullet is something that will produce an order of magnitude increase in project performance. I take it that you have read the world's best book on Software Development haven't you? I'd recommend the 25th aniversary edition with the Silver Bullet essays in it.
Sure there are good technologies, and idiots who implement them badly. The whole point of the article with in reference however to technologies that make claims that contradict Fred Brooks's essays and the muppets who keep thinking "hey it must be true, its on a poster". They are NOT Silver Bullets, there are no such things as Silver Bullets.
If you haven't read Brooks you shouldn't be in IT.
but it's worth mentioning that SQL injection is a real pain for web developers
Which web developers would these be? MuppetsR'US ? SQL injection is a pain if you take the input and lob it directly to the database without doing any sort of validation that the information is sensible.
Its a great example of all those people who scream "THIS IS SO MUCH QUICKER TO DEVELOP IN THAN THE OLD WAY" and then bite it after the system goes live.
SQL injection isn't a pain, except for those who think they've found a new quick magic bullet that solves all the problems and the old fuddy duddy practices are now all redundant.
Not to defend ASBOs, which are being used like candy rather than as a last ditch effort to restrain individuals (the worst bit is that if you violate the ASBO you can go to jail, which is very harsh). But are we really that suprised that a goverment has introduced legislation that enables "soft evidence" to be introduced and be used to curtail what someone is doing? The purpose of an ASBO is for the majority to be able to stop a minority doing something it doesn't like, not nice, not pretty.
But hell over with Mr Blair's favourite friend in Washington people are being sent to a "camp" which is beyond the juristriction of all law and can come from much less evidential grounds than the ASBOs and people are trying to avoid basic decency provisions such as the Geneva convention.
ASBOs... sad yes, unbelieveable? Certainly not.
Its saying that a company with desktop applications isn't going to make a profitable business selling those applications on Linux, nor should an application company sell its own OS as a core focus (they aren't big enough to be MS).
Sensible chap.
All of the Open Source software will be written outside of the US where US patent law doesn't hold. And as Open Source people aren't SELLING the software into the US its going to be tough to sue them.
This would of course be bad news until we think that Linus and Alan Cox aren't from the US anyway and Open Source is really taking off in European Govs.
Come on folks, move to Europe, claim political asylum.
As his cash-rich firm snaps up thousands of patents, fears emerge that it will become a leader in litigation - not innovation...
If you have a lot of money right now and are looking for the next easy buck you don't get much better than IP ownership at the moment. You know that Congress, Senate and the President are all gunning for greater IP protection and longevity, and you know that a large and growing proportion of the current patent stock are for either obvious ideas or taking of "real-world" ideas and putting an "e" infront of them.
Its hard to critisise it as a money making venture, but as low-life pond scum go its right up there with being a convicted monopolist.
I will need to wait until I can buy a spindle of 100 Blu-Ray disks for 9.99 before I go out and buy one of these things.
Ummmm 25GB per disk, that is 2,500 GB or 2.5 TERRABYTES of storage for $10 dollars, which gives a price per Megabyte of 0.0004c. Current CompUSA own brand is $24.99 for a $100 spindle CR-R (700Mb) which is 0.0357c, so you are asking for something almost ONE THOUSAND TIMES cheaper.
Muppet.
First goal was scored by a player who can only hit the ball with his left foot, the defender didn't force him onto his right, didn't close down and Brazil scored. Everyone in the world knows Adriano is only left footed, you would have thought the technology would have stressed this a little more.
And yesterday the US (by any reasonable ranking system about the same level as Australia) played Italy to a standstill and a draw with one less player on the park.
Technology helps in coaching, but what really helped the Australians and the US was guts and effort from the players.
As one commentator said today
"Imagine the talent of Brazil with Australia's work ethic"
I'd like to thank the US for these restrictive laws that prevent US companies making money out of internet gambling.
Ahh the wonder of the US... legal to buy a gun... illegal to bet $10.
Keep up the good work, why not try prohibition again as well?
but the utterly non-scientific way it is presented in the media
You don't have to watch Fox.
This is why I play with the cheats on. I work hard for a living and I play to relax, the last thing I want is a game where I have to concentrate for hours and worry about tiny details and collecting millions of keys. In simple terms
1) If its a shoot-em-up I want heavy artillery
2) If its a military game I want to get to the fighting bits quickly
3) If its a strategy game I want to be able to decide that I want to skip a bit
Does this "ruin" the fun for me? Hell no, because I play games to relax not to demonstrate my intelligence or for a challenge, I have a full-time job and kids that are more than enough.
Best game ever is "State of Emergency" with all the cheats on, there is nothing more relaxing than running round a shopping mall beating people to death with someone elses bloody arm, then using rockets to see how many things you can blow up.
The only games where cheating doesn't matter is in the sports games, because if you want a challenge you put it on the hard level, if you want to destroy the computer team you put it on easy.
So at the same time as the US Goverment is trying to reduce people's rights around copying the UK goverment is critisising exactly these moves and demanding more visibility and rights.
Errr you know that bit about throwing off the yoke of tyranny in 1776.... Whose goverment would you _really_ want at the moment?
Last week the EU declared the information sharing of people of flights to be illegal because the US GOVERMENT couldn't guarentee the privacy of the information. What is becoming very clear is that in the privacy v terrorism war there will be more business friendly legislation in the US which makes such private information more readily available.
Put it this way, can you imagine George W Bush NOT saying that My Space needs all this information to PROTECT its users from threats from crimial scary group X and to PREVENT My Space being used by terrorists to plan attacks....
If its true then its NEVER LIBEL. Calling Jeffery Archer a liar and a criminal may damage his reputation but that is okay because its true and has been proven in a court of law.
So if this bloke did sell a broken laptop and did have all this content on there, then the only question would be invasion of privacy, which is a civil not a criminal matter.
As they appear to be suggesting that the IEEE "leant" on ISO to stop the Chinese Wifi standard becoming accepted. Because a large part of this was from Intel, and lets face it suing the IEEE is going to look REAL dumb, they've decided to go after the big bad wolf.
I love the idea of clandestine meetings around ISO and IEEE meetings, more people would go if that was true!