If you had read the article, you may have noticed it said they detected these by a dimming of the star's light as they passed in front. In those cases, the light will pass through the atmospheres of the planets, and change the specra of the light reaching earth, er, Hubble. The differences will be slight, but after filtering out these differences, we may gain some insight into the atmospheres of these planets.
And if they are the only ones releasing during these years that will increase their profits, because there will be no competition, people will always buy whats new even if they already have something similar.
You see, the problem isn't selling consoles, it is selling games. As noted in many other posts, MS loses a significant amount on every console sold, and hopes to regain this loss on game sales.
However, as you note above, people will buy the new thing and ignore the old thing. MS may sell a boatload of consoles, and have a year or two at the most to sell games before the competition comes out. Usually something that comes out a year or two later is going to be more advanced. If at that point, people move to PS3, the XB2 could be a huge loss for MS.
Sure, you say, MS will just come out with their next generation earlier. Possibly, but if they haven't recouped their investment and loss on the consoles, then it would look silly and possibly predatory.
Finally the big issue here isn't the hardware, it is the games. Games make the money, and developers make the games. Developers like to sell as many games as possible, and the Sony has a huge lead in total market share. A non-compatible XB2 will not help too much, as people may get angry that their XB is obsolete so soon, when the older PS2 is still viable. If I were shopping for a system, I don't think I'd consider the XB3 when my old games are obsolete, and the upgrade cycle is far shorter.
But hey, that's just my opinion as a consumer.
Dean G.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."
-- Mark Twain
No, Mr. Gates, I couldn't possibly say that. I'd look like an idiot, and I'm not willing to sacrafice my reputation on... Did you say one hundred million dollars ? Those BASTARDS !
But, But, <whine>But it has to be hard!</whine> They may need to write (as has been mentioned) 10,000 lines of code in a year. That would be, gasp !, almost 28 lines of code per day. What programmer could possibly write that much code ? </SARCASM>
Personally, I've had programming exams that required me to write far more than 28 lines in an hour. And I do mean FAR.
First, how do you know that science can't explain it ? Consider that science often starts with, hmm, that's funny, and then proceeds to explain something, but that isn't really what I'm talking about.
The part about volcanoe experts should be a clue. I'll bet if it isn't a hoax, there is a reason that can be explained without anything new.
Consider a volcanic region, with a large amout of molten metal coursing through a tunnel not to far from the surface. Add a few metalic geographic features (a couple circular copper veins -- that is to say a natural helmholtz coil), and suddenly you have a potential explanation.
There are all kinds of possible explanations, none of which require any kind of new theory or supernatual agents.
Have you ever told a non-geek to install Windows on his or her PC ? Have them start from scratch, and see how far they get. Have them install all the drivers and such for the specific hardware, just as you mention above for Linux. Yes, Windows will often find a generic driver for many of the components, but then it may well lead to decreased performance and/or instability. Have them install a similar number of applications onto Windows that you get with the typical Linux distro. I don't even want to get into the number of reboots that will be needed. From scratch, apples compared to apples, it isn't much more difficult to install Linux than Windows, and it is certainly faster to install Linux than Windows this way.
Too many of the people saying Linux is too difficult because of the installation and setup should try buying a Linux PC like they buy a Windows PC : already installed and setup. Then see how much more difficult it is(n't).
Sure kernel sounds threatening to new users, but so does registry, device manager, and default gateway. Technical jargon isn't limited to Linux.
That still doesn't negate the fact that value generally comes at a price.
Value does come at a price. This is because money is a tool we use to represent or express value. In the era of fiat money, this should be more obvious. However, the price can be paid by volunteers, and the highest price is often measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and years, and not dollars. Another overlooked cost is freedom. Selling your freedom to save a few dollars is rarely a good bargin.
I initially misread your post as "enlarge their three inch hard dicks". From the crap that my mail server blocks, the spammers have been trying to enlarge their three inch hard dicks for a long time...
I did this at home, and now my 3" HD is now a 3.5" FD.
Quick note about silly consitutional matters : The president cannot "fund" anything. The US Constitution expressly gives that power (funding) to Congress alone. Given that, perhaps you should write your congress-critter and ask them to fund any space ambitions.
Of course the president could divert existing funds to a space program, but such a plan as this would require more funding that could easily be diverted.
Finally, many think such a program will not be funded, and normally I would concur, but China is now looking at a similar program and this, from a government standpoint, is the greatest motivation. Too bad that kind of motivation leads to flag and footprint missions....
As much as I hate to say this again, the justice system isn't going to do a thing against MS as long as they don't commit massive frauds or something similiar.
Of course they won't. The government loves MS and hates Chrysler, IBM, Novell, AutoZone, Bank of America, and all those other small time looneys. Only MS matters to "the man".</sarcasm>
If "the government" had any clue, and say this administration wanted a healthy economy so they could get re-elected, they would realize that causing chaos in the economy to benefit one major contributor is a bad policy. Redmond may generate a few votes, but IBM and Diamler-Chrysler could pull away far more votes than MS could generate.
As for MS, now instead of just a few tech companies calling for their break up, it seems that even companies outside of the tech sector are going to take notice and start to put pressure on their boug^H^H^H^Helected officials to do something about MS.
In some jurisdictions it is illegal. In others it is not. The term is maintenance, which is similar to champerty.
For example, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that: Saladini v. Righellis, ---N.E.2d--- (1997 WL 751609, Sup. Jud. Ct., Mass.)
or
687 N. E. 2d 1224 (Sup. Jud. Ct., Mass., 1997)
We rule that the common law doctrines of champerty, barratry, and maintenance no longer shall be recognized in Massachusetts.... We also no longer are persuaded that the champerty doctrine is needed to protect against the evils once feared: speculation in lawsuits, the bringing of frivolous lawsuits, or financial overreaching by a party of superior bargaining position.
What idiot would give SCO more than a million dollars for a worthless license?
The idiot who was smart enough to realize it only takes one idiot judge to sign a court order that does far more than a million dollars of damage to your business. Ev1 is a business. They are not into playing the lottery with their futures. A law suit, even if EV1 won could well cost far more than the sum they paid. A loss would of course be far worse. So they took
1) pay several million in lawyer fees and other expenses to win a case against SCO
2) possibly loose the case and go out of business
and turned it into
3) pay a fixed price far lower than any other possibility and know you are going to not only be in business next year, but proffitable
It sounds like a good strategy to me. They have minimized their maximum loss. I you don't understand that logic, call me when you start your own business, because I want to be one of your competitors.
Dean G.
P.S. The interesting thought is that EV1 was going to be the end user that SCO sued until they signed the deal. Think about that for a moment. Also, since the deal in NDA'd, we would never know if EV1 go a sweetheart deal on this. They very well may have gotten more than just the useless IP licenses that SCO is publicly peddaling.
Hmm. I guess I'll have to give up many things. I don't use a hair dryer or electronic shaver, but I do start my car every day. The solenoid puts off a fairly strong EMP. No more cars for me. Also My TV and microwave have to go. I'll get rid of my phone, computer, and stereo as well. Those speakers with gigantic magnets can't be doing me any good. Hmmm, isn't sunlight a form of low level EM radiation ?
Maybe I should just disconnect myself from the so called grid, move out into the country and orienteer in the dark for entertainment. All I'll need is matches and a compass... (?).... AAAAIIIRRRGGH !!!
My God, I'm doomed....
In many ways I agree with you, but the best programmers I know didn't start with anything in their comp sci courses. They already knew several languages. This is the big problem : programming should start much earlier than the university years.
I'd say pascal is still a very good starting language. It teaches you not only how to code, but it also forces you to think about types and organization. You can also write very readable code in pascal, which is something too few programmers learn (particularly perl programmers. -ha ha, dont shoot me) Pascal even has pointers, so it can be used to teach stacks, queues, and other basic conceptes of comp sci. However this should be high school era, not first year comp sci.
First year comp sci should be assembly and OO. The OO language doesn't matter. The course should pummel the students with the OO concepts. Student should not only write working programs, but be FORCED to defend their choices of stuctures and data types. This is something we see in other degrees, but sadly lacking in comp sci. Not only would this improve design level decisions, but it would also help a future programmer hanlde criticism in the real world, and also be able to distinguish constructive criticism from criticism of lesser value. Also lacking and very needed is a class where students don't write any new programs, but simply update and "maintain" old code written by other people. If you don't understand why readable and well organized code is important, then working with an poorly designed program with many separate modules will teach you this.
At the same time, students should take digital combination logic. Learn how to build a serial port (for example) and you will have a much better understanding of what the driver is doing. Build a few reasonable complex circuits with nothing but registers, flip flops, and a few other basic parts will also be a good intro into more advanced circuit design, and also give programmers a better understanding of what is actually going on inside the CPU.
Finally, I believe a compiler writing course or project should be mandatory. It may be at some schools, but certainly not all of them. This ties the knowledge of asm into high level languages.
The lawyers have a duty to their clients to be thorough. The lawyers were probably saying "Did we cover all our bases ?" instead of laughing. Remember, if IBM would loose the case because the lawyers forgot to reqest something significant, then IBM could possibly sue them for malpractice.
As for where they are going, again, the lawyers will need to review this material before they know where the strategy should go. I believe they will have additional opportunities to request additional info under discovery rules, but even the initial request should cover everything they think they could possibly need.
Yes, I did notice that Microsoft and SUN were mentioned, as well as stock info. SCO will be under a very powerful microscope, but do not forget that SCO probably will also file a similar discovery request against IBM. It works both ways, in the interest of fairness. Indeed, if you remember what SCO said, they will try to use discovery to audit IBM customers, so the SCO request may be even broader that IBM's. Fortunately (hopefully) any decent judge will keep an eye on the participants to make sure the process is not abused.
The internet service I experienced while I was there lead me to believe I was on a 128k ISDN line. Not until I went to the server room did I realize that I was, infact, on a T1. Now this is during the middle of summer, mabye four other persons were in the building, three of which were in the same room as myself.
This doesn't surprise me. Certainly you don't expect the school to be paying for full T1 service when not in session. That would be ignorant and expensive. I probalby would have contracted for very limited service in the summer, perhaps exactly the 128k it felt like. Depending on the schools usage while in session, I might also only contract for fractional T1.
Schools have limited budgets. Wasting money on needless bandwidth would be a breach of fudiciary duty.
"...That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
But of course, anyone who believes such drivel is a right-wing nut (as opposed to a right wing-nut, in which case you were born to be screwed.)</humor>
Slashdot Mirror
More info at this site.
Dean G.
You see, the problem isn't selling consoles, it is selling games. As noted in many other posts, MS loses a significant amount on every console sold, and hopes to regain this loss on game sales.
However, as you note above, people will buy the new thing and ignore the old thing. MS may sell a boatload of consoles, and have a year or two at the most to sell games before the competition comes out. Usually something that comes out a year or two later is going to be more advanced. If at that point, people move to PS3, the XB2 could be a huge loss for MS.
Sure, you say, MS will just come out with their next generation earlier. Possibly, but if they haven't recouped their investment and loss on the consoles, then it would look silly and possibly predatory.
Finally the big issue here isn't the hardware, it is the games. Games make the money, and developers make the games. Developers like to sell as many games as possible, and the Sony has a huge lead in total market share. A non-compatible XB2 will not help too much, as people may get angry that their XB is obsolete so soon, when the older PS2 is still viable. If I were shopping for a system, I don't think I'd consider the XB3 when my old games are obsolete, and the upgrade cycle is far shorter.
But hey, that's just my opinion as a consumer.
Dean G.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."
-- Mark Twain
Dean G.
But,
<whine>But it has to be hard!</whine> They may need to write (as has been mentioned) 10,000 lines of code in a year. That would be, gasp !, almost 28 lines of code per day. What programmer could possibly write that much code ? </SARCASM>
Personally, I've had programming exams that required me to write far more than 28 lines in an hour. And I do mean FAR.
Dean G.
One DNS to rule them all,
One DNS to find them,
One DNS to bring them all,
And in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Internet, where shadows lie.
Dean
Those who say "Never say never" are clearly hipocrites.
Dean G.
Dean G.
The part about volcanoe experts should be a clue. I'll bet if it isn't a hoax, there is a reason that can be explained without anything new.
Consider a volcanic region, with a large amout of molten metal coursing through a tunnel not to far from the surface. Add a few metalic geographic features (a couple circular copper veins -- that is to say a natural helmholtz coil), and suddenly you have a potential explanation.
There are all kinds of possible explanations, none of which require any kind of new theory or supernatual agents.
Dean G.
Have you ever told a non-geek to install Windows on his or her PC ? Have them start from scratch, and see how far they get. Have them install all the drivers and such for the specific hardware, just as you mention above for Linux. Yes, Windows will often find a generic driver for many of the components, but then it may well lead to decreased performance and/or instability. Have them install a similar number of applications onto Windows that you get with the typical Linux distro. I don't even want to get into the number of reboots that will be needed. From scratch, apples compared to apples, it isn't much more difficult to install Linux than Windows, and it is certainly faster to install Linux than Windows this way.
Too many of the people saying Linux is too difficult because of the installation and setup should try buying a Linux PC like they buy a Windows PC : already installed and setup. Then see how much more difficult it is(n't).
Sure kernel sounds threatening to new users, but so does registry, device manager, and default gateway. Technical jargon isn't limited to Linux.
Dean G.
It really isn't a good idea to reward them by increasing the value of their shares.
Dean G.
Value does come at a price. This is because money is a tool we use to represent or express value. In the era of fiat money, this should be more obvious. However, the price can be paid by volunteers, and the highest price is often measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and years, and not dollars. Another overlooked cost is freedom. Selling your freedom to save a few dollars is rarely a good bargin.
Dean G.
Outside of a dog, books are man's best friend.
Inside a dog, it's too dark to see -- G. Marx
while [[ `date +%H` < 17 ]]
wget 'http://slashdot.org'
sleep 5
done
Dean G.
I did this at home, and now my 3" HD is now a 3.5" FD.
Dean G, er I mean Anonymous Coward....
1,000,000 Turkish Lira = approx. 0.76 US dollars, or 0.61 Euros.
Dean G.
Quick note about silly consitutional matters : The president cannot "fund" anything. The US Constitution expressly gives that power (funding) to Congress alone. Given that, perhaps you should write your congress-critter and ask them to fund any space ambitions.
Of course the president could divert existing funds to a space program, but such a plan as this would require more funding that could easily be diverted.
Finally, many think such a program will not be funded, and normally I would concur, but China is now looking at a similar program and this, from a government standpoint, is the greatest motivation. Too bad that kind of motivation leads to flag and footprint missions....
Dean G.
Of course they won't. The government loves MS and hates Chrysler, IBM, Novell, AutoZone, Bank of America, and all those other small time looneys. Only MS matters to "the man".</sarcasm>
If "the government" had any clue, and say this administration wanted a healthy economy so they could get re-elected, they would realize that causing chaos in the economy to benefit one major contributor is a bad policy. Redmond may generate a few votes, but IBM and Diamler-Chrysler could pull away far more votes than MS could generate.
As for MS, now instead of just a few tech companies calling for their break up, it seems that even companies outside of the tech sector are going to take notice and start to put pressure on their boug^H^H^H^Helected officials to do something about MS.
Dean G.
In some jurisdictions it is illegal. In others it is not. The term is maintenance, which is similar to champerty.
For example, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that:
Saladini v. Righellis, ---N.E.2d--- (1997 WL 751609, Sup. Jud. Ct., Mass.) or 687 N. E. 2d 1224 (Sup. Jud. Ct., Mass., 1997)
Um, yeah, right...
Dean G.
AutoZone shares slipped 1.4 percent to $88.40.
Also Diamler-Chrysler DCX Last:44.14 Change: -0.77 -1.71%
and the good news:
SCO shares fell 11.25 % (down 1.51 to 11.91.)
Perhaps this wasn't the result they were expecting.(giggle)
Dean G.
The idiot who was smart enough to realize it only takes one idiot judge to sign a court order that does far more than a million dollars of damage to your business. Ev1 is a business. They are not into playing the lottery with their futures. A law suit, even if EV1 won could well cost far more than the sum they paid. A loss would of course be far worse. So they took
1) pay several million in lawyer fees and other expenses to win a case against SCO
2) possibly loose the case and go out of business
and turned it into
3) pay a fixed price far lower than any other possibility and know you are going to not only be in business next year, but proffitable
It sounds like a good strategy to me. They have minimized their maximum loss. I you don't understand that logic, call me when you start your own business, because I want to be one of your competitors.
Dean G.
P.S. The interesting thought is that EV1 was going to be the end user that SCO sued until they signed the deal. Think about that for a moment. Also, since the deal in NDA'd, we would never know if EV1 go a sweetheart deal on this. They very well may have gotten more than just the useless IP licenses that SCO is publicly peddaling.
Maybe I should just disconnect myself from the so called grid, move out into the country and orienteer in the dark for entertainment. All I'll need is matches and a compass ... (?) .... AAAAIIIRRRGGH !!!
My God, I'm doomed....
Dean G.
Dean G.
I'd say pascal is still a very good starting language. It teaches you not only how to code, but it also forces you to think about types and organization. You can also write very readable code in pascal, which is something too few programmers learn (particularly perl programmers. -ha ha, dont shoot me) Pascal even has pointers, so it can be used to teach stacks, queues, and other basic conceptes of comp sci. However this should be high school era, not first year comp sci.
First year comp sci should be assembly and OO. The OO language doesn't matter. The course should pummel the students with the OO concepts. Student should not only write working programs, but be FORCED to defend their choices of stuctures and data types. This is something we see in other degrees, but sadly lacking in comp sci. Not only would this improve design level decisions, but it would also help a future programmer hanlde criticism in the real world, and also be able to distinguish constructive criticism from criticism of lesser value. Also lacking and very needed is a class where students don't write any new programs, but simply update and "maintain" old code written by other people. If you don't understand why readable and well organized code is important, then working with an poorly designed program with many separate modules will teach you this.
At the same time, students should take digital combination logic. Learn how to build a serial port (for example) and you will have a much better understanding of what the driver is doing. Build a few reasonable complex circuits with nothing but registers, flip flops, and a few other basic parts will also be a good intro into more advanced circuit design, and also give programmers a better understanding of what is actually going on inside the CPU.
Finally, I believe a compiler writing course or project should be mandatory. It may be at some schools, but certainly not all of them. This ties the knowledge of asm into high level languages.
Dean
The lawyers have a duty to their clients to be thorough. The lawyers were probably saying "Did we cover all our bases ?" instead of laughing. Remember, if IBM would loose the case because the lawyers forgot to reqest something significant, then IBM could possibly sue them for malpractice.
As for where they are going, again, the lawyers will need to review this material before they know where the strategy should go. I believe they will have additional opportunities to request additional info under discovery rules, but even the initial request should cover everything they think they could possibly need.
Yes, I did notice that Microsoft and SUN were mentioned, as well as stock info. SCO will be under a very powerful microscope, but do not forget that SCO probably will also file a similar discovery request against IBM. It works both ways, in the interest of fairness. Indeed, if you remember what SCO said, they will try to use discovery to audit IBM customers, so the SCO request may be even broader that IBM's. Fortunately (hopefully) any decent judge will keep an eye on the participants to make sure the process is not abused.
Dean G.
This doesn't surprise me. Certainly you don't expect the school to be paying for full T1 service when not in session. That would be ignorant and expensive. I probalby would have contracted for very limited service in the summer, perhaps exactly the 128k it felt like. Depending on the schools usage while in session, I might also only contract for fractional T1.
Schools have limited budgets. Wasting money on needless bandwidth would be a breach of fudiciary duty.
Dean G.
But of course, anyone who believes such drivel is a right-wing nut (as opposed to a right wing-nut, in which case you were born to be screwed.)</humor>
Dean G.