The main point is that this quote from the article referenced by Slashdot, "Commercial biofuel from algae still 7 to 10 years off", is a lie. It cannot be predicted when a scientific breakthrough will occur, if ever.
Exactly. Plants make their bodies from cellulose, a chemical that is extremely stable. Giving a time of 7 to 10 years, as the story did, is entirely fiction.
It's not Orwellian. Orwell was intelligent. This is likely just foolish
or dishonest. This:
"Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash
prizes up to 1,000."
should be, in my opinion, translated as this:
"CCTV cameras have so far been a huge waste of money. The reason is
that it takes 1,000,000 hours of looking at cameras to find one illegal act. [I'm guessing.]
Criminals are not so stupid that they perform for the cameras. So, we will try
to get the work done without paying. We are wording the announcement so that
we won't have to pay at all if someone catches only one illegal act."
This is the last paragraph of the story: "Last month it was
revealed that Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras - the equivalent of one per
14 people - one-and-a-half-times as many as Communist China."
It would require 36,792,000,000 hours, 36.8 billion hours, each year to watch 4.2 million cameras. Booo-ooo-ooordom.
What's happening in the British government? Things seem to be becoming
crazy.
The story says it is a scheme by a "former restaurant owner". Quote: "He will
charge those who use the service, which could eventually include local
authorities and even police forces as well as shop owners, £20 a week per
camera to have their CCTV included on the site - amounting to thousands each
year." Who will pay 1,040 pounds each year to possibly have someone watch one camera?
Seriously: If you feel you must spend money to be involved with a woman, she is not your friend. Why try to get close to someone who is not your friend?
At one of the banks, I talked with the top manager of IT. The work would benefit the banks. I got the impression that there weren't many people under him who did anything more than repair computers and routine updates.
"You'd think the banks would have been smart enough not to buy their own BS and not own those MBS's themselves..."
Those who were making millions of dollars a year did not care if buying trashy securities would eventually bankrupt their banks. First, they didn't care about the company for which they worked, only about themselves.
Second, they often talked of "moral hazard" and laughed about it. They knew the U.S. taxpayer would pay for their damage.
The recent financial fraud was only a continuation of the Savings and Loan kind of fraud. Both were deliberate schemes.
They're in denial because they are not aware of the full seriousness of the
issue.
I discovered something that amazed me. I was trying to resolve a
client's quite simple software issue. I worked with managers of two large
banks (tens or hundreds of thousands of commercial accounts). I discovered
that one of the banks had no technically-knowledgeable employees,
except for computer maintenance staff. They used contractors for everything
else. The contractors with whom I talked had little technical knowledge.
The other bank had either no one who was technically-knowledgeable or
just a few people.
They don't have just have problems with fraud, they have problems in
every area where technical knowledge is needed. They cannot resolve modern
problems because they have little or no knowledge of them, and they don't want
to learn. Technically knowledgeable people are apparently seen as an annoying
necessity.
With employees of a third large bank, at which I have personal and
business accounts, I found that I could get a laugh by saying I saw their web
site and thought that high school students should not write web sites for
banks. Later the web site was improved.
Those who are not willing to do research cannot say they love the
United States. Can you say you love a woman if you aren't interested in
anything about her? Can you say you love a woman if you don't want to know
anything about her that you don't like? Can you say you love a woman if you
live in a fantasy world about who she really is?
One magazine collected 210,000 signatures against adoption of Windows
Vista and for keeping Windows XP: The campaign to save Windows XP.
The fact is that we are not seeing the kind of weaknesses in Linux, OS
X, or BSD that are commonly found in Windows. Windows XP was an expensive
hassle for us until SP2.
Here is an interesting fact: The latest version of Firefox, and all
the versions before it, have a bug which causes Firefox to crash when there
are too many windows and tabs. That bug corrupts Windows; sometimes Windows
crashes, also. It is always necessary to re-start the computer.
Linux remains stable when Firefox crashes, however.
The vulnerabilities are apparently the result of Microsoft release policies:
It was widely reported that Windows 2000 was released with 63,000 known defects.
It was widely reported that Windows XP was released with more than 100,000
known defects. (I don't have time to find a better link.) Microsoft
reported that Windows XP Service Pack 2 fixed several hundred bugs, several of
them very serious.
Windows Vista was released against the wishes of some Microsoft
managers, who said it was not ready for release. There was a court case that revealed emails saying that. (Again, I
don't have time to find a better link.)
The best way to stop malware is to audit code so that it doesn't have vulnerabilities. The OpenBSD volunteers have been doing that for many years.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, the vulnerability of Microsoft products to malware is a result of Microsoft managers not allowing Microsoft programmers to finish their jobs.
When people have problems with their computer, they often buy a new computer. Then Microsoft sells another copy of Windows, which, of course, still has huge security risks. For examples, see the New York Times article Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster. Vulnerability to malware is very profitable for Microsoft and its main customers, who are computer manufacturers.
Solving the problems with malware will not be fully successful if Microsoft managers do not want it to be successful. Vulnerabilities are profitable when a company has a virtual monopoly.
I'm guessing that, due to the way it constructs its servers, Google has lots of disk space. Each server has its own hard drive. The smallest hard drives have larger and larger capacity. As old servers are replaced with more energy-efficient servers, the hard drives are replaced, also.
Also, those scanners are VERY expensive. Using a camera would be MUCH better,
if the problems can be solved. It doesn't matter how big the camera images
are, since the ABBYY FineReader PDF-making software we use OCRs the image and makes searchable PDFs.
The Fujitsu fi-6230 Sheet-Fed and Flatbed Scanner gets good reviews and the flatbed scanner is fast, but it
costs $1,200, and the sheet-fed and flatbed scanners are weirdly and
unnecessarily connected.
Less expensive Fujitsu scanners lack TWAIN or ISIS driver support.
Fujitsu uses proprietary drivers for the less expensive scanners, meaning that
it can make them obsolete for some future operating system merely by not
providing drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
The main point is that this quote from the article referenced by Slashdot, "Commercial biofuel from algae still 7 to 10 years off", is a lie. It cannot be predicted when a scientific breakthrough will occur, if ever.
From the University of Texas: Algae as tools in studying the biosynthesis of cellulose, nature's most abundant macromolecule.
Exactly. Plants make their bodies from cellulose, a chemical that is extremely stable. Giving a time of 7 to 10 years, as the story did, is entirely fiction.
"... people who don't want the Oracle/Sun merger to happen."
Who are they, and why?
I'm happy he is taking action.
Too often, technically-knowledgeable people don't recognize or accept the need for them to be social leaders.
"... 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan..."
How can a man who is actively involved in killing other people win a peace prize?
It's not Orwellian. Orwell was intelligent. This is likely just foolish or dishonest. This:
"Players who help catch the most criminals each month will win cash prizes up to 1,000."
should be, in my opinion, translated as this:
"CCTV cameras have so far been a huge waste of money. The reason is that it takes 1,000,000 hours of looking at cameras to find one illegal act. [I'm guessing.] Criminals are not so stupid that they perform for the cameras. So, we will try to get the work done without paying. We are wording the announcement so that we won't have to pay at all if someone catches only one illegal act."
This is the last paragraph of the story: "Last month it was revealed that Britain has 4.2 million CCTV cameras - the equivalent of one per 14 people - one-and-a-half-times as many as Communist China."
It would require 36,792,000,000 hours, 36.8 billion hours, each year to watch 4.2 million cameras. Booo-ooo-ooordom.
What's happening in the British government? Things seem to be becoming crazy.
The story says it is a scheme by a "former restaurant owner". Quote: "He will charge those who use the service, which could eventually include local authorities and even police forces as well as shop owners, £20 a week per camera to have their CCTV included on the site - amounting to thousands each year." Who will pay 1,040 pounds each year to possibly have someone watch one camera?
Seriously: If you feel you must spend money to be involved with a woman, she is not your friend. Why try to get close to someone who is not your friend?
If you have 60 women friends in 60 countries, it saves money.
Maybe conditions are different in the U.K.?
At one of the banks, I talked with the top manager of IT. The work would benefit the banks. I got the impression that there weren't many people under him who did anything more than repair computers and routine updates.
"You'd think the banks would have been smart enough not to buy their own BS and not own those MBS's themselves..."
Those who were making millions of dollars a year did not care if buying trashy securities would eventually bankrupt their banks. First, they didn't care about the company for which they worked, only about themselves.
Second, they often talked of "moral hazard" and laughed about it. They knew the U.S. taxpayer would pay for their damage.
The recent financial fraud was only a continuation of the Savings and Loan kind of fraud. Both were deliberate schemes.
They're in denial because they are not aware of the full seriousness of the issue.
I discovered something that amazed me. I was trying to resolve a client's quite simple software issue. I worked with managers of two large banks (tens or hundreds of thousands of commercial accounts). I discovered that one of the banks had no technically-knowledgeable employees, except for computer maintenance staff. They used contractors for everything else. The contractors with whom I talked had little technical knowledge.
The other bank had either no one who was technically-knowledgeable or just a few people.
They don't have just have problems with fraud, they have problems in every area where technical knowledge is needed. They cannot resolve modern problems because they have little or no knowledge of them, and they don't want to learn. Technically knowledgeable people are apparently seen as an annoying necessity.
With employees of a third large bank, at which I have personal and business accounts, I found that I could get a laugh by saying I saw their web site and thought that high school students should not write web sites for banks. Later the web site was improved.
Thanks. Good point.
I often wonder if "re-certified" sometimes means "new, but we want to get rid of them".
Good point.
I meant to say, $140? Why are so many routers now 2 1/2 times the previous prices?
"If you can settle for G instead of N then you might want to look at the Asus WL-520GU for only $45."
Why are so many routers now 2 1/2 times the previous prices?
I bought 4 of the Netgear WGR614NAR 802.11b/g for $15 each, delivered. They seem fine.
Read the book, Fast Food Nation The U.S. government allows abuses that are far, far worse and more extensive than mentioned in this New York Times article: E. Coli Path Shows Flaws in Ground Beef Inspection.
"Recent evidence suggests not only has Wall Street survived, but it is essentially unchanged."
"The US government does have issues with corruption, but it's not any worse that most places."
I guess that you are not someone who reads books. I suggest that anyone who loves the U.S. do some serious research.
The U.S. has more people in prison than farmers. The U.S. has 6 times the percentage of its citizens in prison as European countries.
In the U.S., prisons are a big business.
Those who are not willing to do research cannot say they love the United States. Can you say you love a woman if you aren't interested in anything about her? Can you say you love a woman if you don't want to know anything about her that you don't like? Can you say you love a woman if you live in a fantasy world about who she really is?
Windows Vista was released before it was ready. Even Microsoft middle managers complained about that. Customers rejected Vista; here is one of the hundreds of articles about that: Corporate America's rejection of Vista: Many companies delay or denounce Microsoft's flagship product.
One magazine collected 210,000 signatures against adoption of Windows Vista and for keeping Windows XP: The campaign to save Windows XP.
The fact is that we are not seeing the kind of weaknesses in Linux, OS X, or BSD that are commonly found in Windows. Windows XP was an expensive hassle for us until SP2.
Here is an interesting fact: The latest version of Firefox, and all the versions before it, have a bug which causes Firefox to crash when there are too many windows and tabs. That bug corrupts Windows; sometimes Windows crashes, also. It is always necessary to re-start the computer.
Linux remains stable when Firefox crashes, however.
The vulnerabilities are apparently the result of Microsoft release policies:
It was widely reported that Windows 2000 was released with 63,000 known defects.
It was widely reported that Windows XP was released with more than 100,000 known defects. (I don't have time to find a better link.) Microsoft reported that Windows XP Service Pack 2 fixed several hundred bugs, several of them very serious.
Windows Vista was released against the wishes of some Microsoft managers, who said it was not ready for release. There was a court case that revealed emails saying that. (Again, I don't have time to find a better link.)
IF the programmers of Apple OSX, Linux, and BSD can make mostly malware-free software, Microsoft can also.
Those operating systems have fewer vulnerabilities because they were designed to be secure.
The best way to stop malware is to audit code so that it doesn't have vulnerabilities. The OpenBSD volunteers have been doing that for many years.
In my opinion, and the opinion of many others, the vulnerability of Microsoft products to malware is a result of Microsoft managers not allowing Microsoft programmers to finish their jobs.
When people have problems with their computer, they often buy a new computer. Then Microsoft sells another copy of Windows, which, of course, still has huge security risks. For examples, see the New York Times article Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster. Vulnerability to malware is very profitable for Microsoft and its main customers, who are computer manufacturers.
Solving the problems with malware will not be fully successful if Microsoft managers do not want it to be successful. Vulnerabilities are profitable when a company has a virtual monopoly.
"... it's eating disk space."
I'm guessing that, due to the way it constructs its servers, Google has lots of disk space. Each server has its own hard drive. The smallest hard drives have larger and larger capacity. As old servers are replaced with more energy-efficient servers, the hard drives are replaced, also.
Also, those scanners are VERY expensive. Using a camera would be MUCH better, if the problems can be solved. It doesn't matter how big the camera images are, since the ABBYY FineReader PDF-making software we use OCRs the image and makes searchable PDFs.
The Fujitsu fi-6230 Sheet-Fed and Flatbed Scanner gets good reviews and the flatbed scanner is fast, but it costs $1,200, and the sheet-fed and flatbed scanners are weirdly and unnecessarily connected.
Less expensive Fujitsu scanners lack TWAIN or ISIS driver support. Fujitsu uses proprietary drivers for the less expensive scanners, meaning that it can make them obsolete for some future operating system merely by not providing drivers.
The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner is excellent for what it does, we have one, but it doesn't do books, of course.