How about they release their own distribution of Linux/BSD/whatever, and then make all of their other apps work great on that (as well as backwards compatible). They can make it look like XP---but without having to pay for developers to support all sorts of obscure system level stuff. They can do the same as IBM: benefit from it, instead of competing with it.
The OS itself is becoming less and less relevant---to have a company spend billions on developing a NEW one is mind boggling. Look at how quickly Apple caught up in this business; without putting in nearly as much effort as MS!
There are -way- more computational problems that we cannot (and will not) solve via quantum computers (or even computers that come after quantum computers). Just base the encryption scheme on one of those. ie: SAT will still be NP-Complete, even with quantum computers. Though if we -could- solve any sized SAT in an instant, we'd truly have godly powers over matter and energy (though by that time, security is unlikely to matter).
The laptops aren't intended for places where there's a lack of food; they're intended to help build nations where roads, electricity, and food are taken care of.
Why does everyone think they need to seek out permission from some higher power to do anything? When did everyone's mind become so enslaved? It's the moon. Just go there.
Well said!
Same goes for businesses. From some book: when speaking to lawyers, `real leaders' don't say ``is this legal? can I do this?'' they say ``I'm doing this. make this legal.''
It's interesting how they twist the argument; users stealing bandwidth, etc. How about: advertisers stealing your attention, and you're just stopping that theft?
People think Quantum Physics is spooky, but I don't get it -- I really don't. Can anyone please explain to me (or point me at a link) that will tell me how this is any different than having two billiard balls, one is red and one is blue. Without looking at them, you put them both into boxes and ship them off to opposite sides of the globe. Now, one box is opened, and the ball is blue. So you know when the other box is opened, the ball they got will be red.
It's ``spooky'' to some since the ball decides -randomly- at the point of observation which color to display. The color is not known or set (or defined), in any way, before that observation. (so the `other' ball has no way of knowing what that -random- choice was, but somehow still manages to choose the proper color). [ie: in your example, the balls already have their color before they're separated; in quantum mechanics, they randomly choose the color upon observation].
First thing that pops to mind is ``how do they -know- that it's random?''; maybe the balls had their colors pre-set all along (like in your example). Well, there are various logical puzzles you can play where if things are -random- you'd get one result, and if things are pre-set, you'd get another result---and it does appear like the choice is -random- and not pre-set.
Google for ``Free Will Theorem''; it's a fun read:-)
There's a lot of stuff about "no hidden variables" (ie: it's not that ``there's something [a deeper knowledge of things] we don't understand yet'' that's hidden from us... it's that the choice truly is random (there are no `hidden variables'); and somehow the other particle knows about that random choice at faster than speed of light). You cannot use this to send information though (since the choice is random---you only know what the other particle's choice is... but you can't force it to choose something in particular).
To resolve the confusion (and how I like to view things), it helps to picture the two particles as really being different sides of the -same- particle, that, from our perspective, just exists [we can observe] at two different locations. Picture the world from the particle's perspective---if you're moving at the speed of light, time stands still for you, therefore, from your perspective, you can traverse the universe at infinite speed---from your perspective, you can instantly react to events anywhere in the universe (from the outsider's perspective, they just see you as moving at the speed of light...). I guess it's one of those things that are hard to explain, but easy to visualize.
The worth of the car is determined by the price of negotiated pension, health benefits, and mortgage amounts that the members of the auto workers union have. All of which are, in part, determined by the price of transportation, oil, food, etc., which are all in part determined by the price of a car. There's no objective `value' or `worth'.
That being said, many service industries exist by leaching value from others. Examples would include lawyers, brokers, etc.
Something like three percent of the US population produces and processes enough food fo r the entire US population, when it took 70% when the country was founded. Thanks to technology, non-renewable energy, and better business organization. Farmers use GPS, Google Maps, wireless, spreadsheets, etc. to manage their operations now.
Which prompts the question, what do the other 97% of the population are doing? Supervise? 'cause it doesn't appear the US ``produces'' much of anything now a days (besides...food).
I remember when Solaris was going open source and everybody was saying how they would over take Linux...
'cause they did it wrong! all wrong! they've made major mistakes in just about everything they did in the last decade (or more). opening source should've been GPL-ing it and letting the world download it! Not via some stupid signup. Not via mailing CD. Certainly not via some `different' license (I don't care if it's `open source'; make it GPL!). Same goes for Java.
And as a corp behind such things, it's still -their- business to ensure stuff works with it (not only GPL code and forget it, but to ensure most modern hardware is support it---a few years of this hand-holding the open source might've made a difference). The open source ``community'' doesn't just happen out of nutn... there needs to be interest!, and Sun did their best to make it as cumbersome as possible to work with them.
There's no monetary advantage for Sun to do this though, that's why they haven't. Open source isn't about making money for them. It may be about saving money (on development) long term; maybe good-will too, but it's not something that shows up as a revenue item.
They also killed Java by having it become bloated, and losing web-browser support. What is stopping Sun from building a java applet plugin that actually works across all browsers and major platforms (like Linux!)? If they released it early enough, Java would've been ``standard'' on all web-browsers (including IE, Firefox, etc.)... kinda like it was ``standard'' on Netscape3, and IE3, etc., but they couldn't get licensing out of their head, and lost the game altogether. It could've been Java instead of Flash that everyone was using! (granted some major tweaking early on might've been necessary---but it's not impossible; Applets were around since 1995, plenty of time for change---which never happened due to stupid closed-mindedness).
Exactly! Patents may be a pain, but for large corps, they don't really `cost' much (even if the occasional one settles for millions)---and it probably provides more benefit in preventing small players and hurting competition.
Lets imagine Google can settle (or license this `technology') this for 100k or so. Microsoft does the same. All of a sudden you have two big players, and very few little guys who can even risk being sued (now that settlements gave $$ and power to the troll). Small price to pay for such a `monopoly' against small startups.
(also, it would likely cost lots more to fight than to settle; and you can't beat'em all anyway).
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How about they release their own distribution of Linux/BSD/whatever, and then make all of their other apps work great on that (as well as backwards compatible). They can make it look like XP---but without having to pay for developers to support all sorts of obscure system level stuff. They can do the same as IBM: benefit from it, instead of competing with it.
The OS itself is becoming less and less relevant---to have a company spend billions on developing a NEW one is mind boggling. Look at how quickly Apple caught up in this business; without putting in nearly as much effort as MS!
There are -way- more computational problems that we cannot (and will not) solve via quantum computers (or even computers that come after quantum computers). Just base the encryption scheme on one of those. ie: SAT will still be NP-Complete, even with quantum computers. Though if we -could- solve any sized SAT in an instant, we'd truly have godly powers over matter and energy (though by that time, security is unlikely to matter).
...and avoiding contact with girls.
Now it all becomes clear... it's all about population control in developing nations!
The laptops aren't intended for places where there's a lack of food; they're intended to help build nations where roads, electricity, and food are taken care of.
Kinda like...US?
Stop depressing me!
Why does everyone think they need to seek out permission from some higher power to do anything? When did everyone's mind become so enslaved? It's the moon. Just go there.
:-)
Well said!
Same goes for businesses. From some book: when speaking to lawyers, `real leaders' don't say ``is this legal? can I do this?'' they say ``I'm doing this. make this legal.''
Obviously easier said than done
This device doesn't allow you to see any dead people. Not even a little bit.
Depends if you use it for something critical, and it malfunctions. Then someone will need a 6th sense to see you.
But it only comes with enough ink for one patch and refills are $1000.
And every time you clean the printer heads, you get a drug overdose.
So when they get it wrong, and the police storm my front door instead of my neighbors, will it still be "cool"?
Your lucky neighbor might think so!
It's interesting how they twist the argument; users stealing bandwidth, etc. How about: advertisers stealing your attention, and you're just stopping that theft?
People think Quantum Physics is spooky, but I don't get it -- I really don't. Can anyone please explain to me (or point me at a link) that will tell me how this is any different than having two billiard balls, one is red and one is blue. Without looking at them, you put them both into boxes and ship them off to opposite sides of the globe. Now, one box is opened, and the ball is blue. So you know when the other box is opened, the ball they got will be red.
:-)
It's ``spooky'' to some since the ball decides -randomly- at the point of observation which color to display. The color is not known or set (or defined), in any way, before that observation. (so the `other' ball has no way of knowing what that -random- choice was, but somehow still manages to choose the proper color). [ie: in your example, the balls already have their color before they're separated; in quantum mechanics, they randomly choose the color upon observation].
First thing that pops to mind is ``how do they -know- that it's random?''; maybe the balls had their colors pre-set all along (like in your example). Well, there are various logical puzzles you can play where if things are -random- you'd get one result, and if things are pre-set, you'd get another result---and it does appear like the choice is -random- and not pre-set.
Google for ``Free Will Theorem''; it's a fun read
There's a lot of stuff about "no hidden variables" (ie: it's not that ``there's something [a deeper knowledge of things] we don't understand yet'' that's hidden from us... it's that the choice truly is random (there are no `hidden variables'); and somehow the other particle knows about that random choice at faster than speed of light). You cannot use this to send information though (since the choice is random---you only know what the other particle's choice is... but you can't force it to choose something in particular).
To resolve the confusion (and how I like to view things), it helps to picture the two particles as really being different sides of the -same- particle, that, from our perspective, just exists [we can observe] at two different locations. Picture the world from the particle's perspective---if you're moving at the speed of light, time stands still for you, therefore, from your perspective, you can traverse the universe at infinite speed---from your perspective, you can instantly react to events anywhere in the universe (from the outsider's perspective, they just see you as moving at the speed of light...). I guess it's one of those things that are hard to explain, but easy to visualize.
The worth of the car is determined by the price of negotiated pension, health benefits, and mortgage amounts that the members of the auto workers union have. All of which are, in part, determined by the price of transportation, oil, food, etc., which are all in part determined by the price of a car. There's no objective `value' or `worth'.
That being said, many service industries exist by leaching value from others. Examples would include lawyers, brokers, etc.
Something like three percent of the US population produces and processes enough food fo r the entire US population, when it took 70% when the country was founded. Thanks to technology, non-renewable energy, and better business organization. Farmers use GPS, Google Maps, wireless, spreadsheets, etc. to manage their operations now.
Which prompts the question, what do the other 97% of the population are doing? Supervise? 'cause it doesn't appear the US ``produces'' much of anything now a days (besides...food).
Amen. Same for AMD in general. Come on... actually release -SOMETHING-!
Eh, if only I had mod points...
I happen to think that talking unsubstantiated nonsence and practising extortion and fraud is a hallmark of all religion...
Which is why other religions are pissed... scientology seems to be more efficient at that.
Oooooh....L. Ron Hubbard must be spinning in his grave....
...see what science can accomplish?
They should strap magnets to him, and wrap a coil around the casket. Free electricity!
I remember when Solaris was going open source and everybody was saying how they would over take Linux...
'cause they did it wrong! all wrong! they've made major mistakes in just about everything they did in the last decade (or more). opening source should've been GPL-ing it and letting the world download it! Not via some stupid signup. Not via mailing CD. Certainly not via some `different' license (I don't care if it's `open source'; make it GPL!). Same goes for Java.
And as a corp behind such things, it's still -their- business to ensure stuff works with it (not only GPL code and forget it, but to ensure most modern hardware is support it---a few years of this hand-holding the open source might've made a difference). The open source ``community'' doesn't just happen out of nutn... there needs to be interest!, and Sun did their best to make it as cumbersome as possible to work with them.
There's no monetary advantage for Sun to do this though, that's why they haven't. Open source isn't about making money for them. It may be about saving money (on development) long term; maybe good-will too, but it's not something that shows up as a revenue item.
They also killed Java by having it become bloated, and losing web-browser support. What is stopping Sun from building a java applet plugin that actually works across all browsers and major platforms (like Linux!)? If they released it early enough, Java would've been ``standard'' on all web-browsers (including IE, Firefox, etc.)... kinda like it was ``standard'' on Netscape3, and IE3, etc., but they couldn't get licensing out of their head, and lost the game altogether. It could've been Java instead of Flash that everyone was using! (granted some major tweaking early on might've been necessary---but it's not impossible; Applets were around since 1995, plenty of time for change---which never happened due to stupid closed-mindedness).
As for SUNW's vaunted professionalism... Now SUNW is going to take on Linux?...
:-)
s/SUNW/JAVA/g
gives a whole new meaning, no?
That is so 1990s... :-)
Exactly! Patents may be a pain, but for large corps, they don't really `cost' much (even if the occasional one settles for millions)---and it probably provides more benefit in preventing small players and hurting competition.
Lets imagine Google can settle (or license this `technology') this for 100k or so. Microsoft does the same. All of a sudden you have two big players, and very few little guys who can even risk being sued (now that settlements gave $$ and power to the troll). Small price to pay for such a `monopoly' against small startups.
(also, it would likely cost lots more to fight than to settle; and you can't beat'em all anyway).
How do the lawyers sleep at night knowing that their victims have just had their life savings wiped out?
Very well I'd imagine.
It started when they became an entertainment corp, rather than a technology corp.
Ah... startrek...
That's quite a bit to spend on one pixel...