since the Reagan era has dismantled the whole concept and returned to a 19th century model of driving down wages.... (snip)... the point is there should be many US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, as well as TV's, radios, iPods, whatever. Nope, off-shore tax-free manufacturing plants don't count.
You inadvertently have pointed out a tension of the modern age which must be faced. Each society must strike a balance between high wages and benefits for its workers and low prices and availability of its goods and services. You cannot have both, unless every competing country agrees to your wage and employee treatment standards. The solution to this fundamental tension is not obvious, but it implies that in a zero-sum game, we will have a race to the bottom.
The fact is, the Chinese and Indians are hungry for our jobs, just as the Japanese were. We are getting lazy and complacent. We need to put resources into education and try to pump up engineers and sciences in general, but instead we glorify consumption and entertainment. Therefore, we will squander our wealth and end up with little of substance while the Chinese and Indians win the prize in about 10-20 years.
Note that to wring your hands about the lack of US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, mention offshored plants, then demand higher wages for workers shows the incoherence of your mental processes. Try to see the big picture.
The fundamental problem is not how much IE is tied into the operating system. The fundamental program is that, as another poster has said, the operating system it is tied to violates the principle of least privilege repeatedly in a way that more secure systems do not, and security is layered onto it instead of being built into it, making securing it an eternal effort consisting of filling holes that never go away. A big part of this is the whole concept of ActiveX.
If IE were not tied into the OS, MS would find another way to force "remote administration capabilities" on users without their actively enabling them, which is what most of the problems stem from, I think.
I'm sorry, but that is the worst and most indecipherable explanation I've ever heard.:-) What turns into what, now? What square is made up by what blocks?
I'm sure it would be easy to make picture and post it somewhere, but I don't understand why drawing squares off to the side of the triangle made it obvious to pythagorus that their sum was equal.
Personally, I prefer Proofs #3, #4 and #9 from here.
Anybody know if I can Skype from my land line to get long distance with my local-only land line service? That would be GREAT. There is no benefit to me to use my cell phone with Skype, as many have said, it looks like a glorified bluetooth mic adapter to me.
The only advantage to electric vehicles is that they open up the possiblity of using alternate enery sources, such as Solar and nuclear power, which currently would not allow you to mount the original power plant on the car itself.
Sounds like a pretty big advantage to me! If you look at this issue, the main argument I think is a so-called "hydrogen economy" that uses hydrogen as the energy transport and the "electric economy" that uses the existing electrical grid to run plug-in electric cars. The main drawback of these schemes is cost and in the case of hydrogen, INFRASTRUCTURE. When the cost is fairly close to fossil fuels and the bugs in the hybrids/electrics are worked out, I'm in! I'm no "commie green," LOL, but personally, I'm tired of oil. It's dirty and it funds dictators.
It's a new kind of tension developing in the modern world: nationless corporations (not multinational) vs. geographical interest groups known as nation-states. Corporations and companies have no loyalty to any state, and you could argue they should not., and states have interests contrary to the good of the globe as a whole at times. Nobody is blameless; it's just an issue we have to sort out.
By the way, it is Gandhi, not Ghandi. I don't know why westerners keep mis-spelling his name. Why is that?
Nobody will be able to answer authoritatively, but I would guess it's because
a) Ending a word with "hi" (pronounced "hee") looks really weird to us
b) Using a "gh" combination looks familiar to us; we do it often in our language.
It is unlikely that Lexmark will bring a patent infringement suit against an individual end user for refilling his or her printer cartridge, but that does not mean that they are unable to do so.
But isn't it very LIKELY that they will sue the pants off businesses who offer cheap refill kits, as they can only be used for infringing purposes, and the businesses who refill cartridges for cheap? Thus the consumer suffers and the courts have again taken the Stupid Road WRT patents. Or am I wrong?
First, let me say, I guess maybe "gramps" wasn't wrong, I'll concede that.:-)
I think you're looking at it as an automatic bump in age rather than being a factor in the average lifespan.
No, it's not automatic. Even if it only bumps up one person's maximum age, the mechanism is very different than decreasing mortality. Your word "average" is the key here.
The GP was spot on with listing factors that have increased the average person's lifespan (I don't care how you want to phrase it)
True, but that's not relevant to my criticism, although I think I jumped into the middle of the wrong argument with it. The point I am making is that there is a difference between increasing the maximum age and decreasing mortality.
Example: How many people live to be 200? None. But if a gene therapy comes along that makes it possible to live to be 200, that is increasing life span. You can decrease mortality from diabetes, heart disease, etc. all you want, but nobody will live to be 200 because it is genetically determined that we will not live that long, period. The body basically just falls apart and repair is not sufficient.
So my point is that people do not live longer by decreasing mortality. They just die later.:-) I can see that this is a bit of a fine point, especially in the context of the current thread.
Sorry, but that is just wrong. Many factors from hygeine to nutrition are actually making people live longer (not just he bump to the average cause by the decrease in infant mortality you mention).
No, YOU are wrong! (Not trying to be a troll here):-) The things you mention are not making people live longer. They are preventing them from dying early! Sophistry, you say? No. The difference is important. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method except this gene therapy I have heard of), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
Sorry for the redundant post here, folks. I just think this is an important point.
Could the issues that these mice are having be similar to what we as humans are experiencing by exceeding the lifetimes that generations previous had?
No, this about extending the maximum lifespan of people, not reducing their mortality. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method that I have heard of, amazingly), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
Could the issues that these mice are having be similar to what we as humans are experiencing by exceeding the lifetimes that generations previous had?
No, this about extending the maximum lifespan of people, not reducing their mortality. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method that I have heard of, amazingly), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
Will the promise of the same feature set and the same tools (for Windows, Mac and Linux) mean the future of cross-platform development is here?"
Yes, if you define "cross platform" as being restricted to Windows, Mac and Linux. Also, this does not include PPC, which is another platform that Mac runs on. I am not optimistic that this is any sort of harbinger of great things, but it will be very nice to have three platforms that share the *same* hardware architecture, roughtly speaking.
Patents are supposed to encourage innovation, but they are now used mostly in negative ways to block and control innovation. The "positive" goal is merely to maximize corporate profits with a special kind of monopoly,
But doesn't your rant against "corporate profits" ignore the fact that the "supposed to encourage innovation" part works by guaranteeing the inventor exclusive rights to profit from their invention? The profiteering is the encouragement. You should be blocked if you are going to infringe on another's patent.
To me, it seems the problem is not profits by big corporations; the problem is the ridiculous patents being awarded, so that if I invent something I have way to know whether it infringes without a lawyer. Maybe it infringes because part of it is a circle and Microsoft patented the use of circles in 1999. The whole system is out of order!
A few points:
1) Nobody claims it is a panacea. Settle down. But nobody can credibly deny it is a promising avenue of research that gives hope to millions of sick people for a cure to their disease.
2) Do you think that the government should not fund any research, only corporations? Do you think the government should not fund research for a cure for cancer? Or any other disease? Or are you trying to say embryonic research is not promising? If the latter, then do you know how much private funding is being done on this subject? (I don't)
3) I agree and you are right that many people have ethical, moral and philosophical objections to embryonic stem-cell research that have absolutely nothing to do with religion.
Um, is Blockbuster the only video store you have in town? They have always been short on old classics. Traditionally, there is another store in your area that does that niche of the market. But I believe that brick-an-mortar for digital content is an idea whose time will inevitably expire fairly soon. Or should, if they lawyers don't somehow ruin it.
If they profit, can we slap a class-action suit on them for misleading us? I have contributed because I thought they were doing something for the good of all. In that spirit, I gave freely. Had I known there was money, then I would have been less apt to spend my time lining their pockets.
Well, I don't think this gets put on people, just on the vehicles of foreigners. Put your mystical crystals and Bible away, nutcase.
OTOH, there are obviously privacy issues here to deal with. But my real question is: how easy is this for the supposed targets to circumvent? Can't they just leave the chip in a ditch somewhere?
Yes, you're free to be foolish. We do NOT need to cherish worldviews that are foolish. Art is one thing, science is another. If your "knowledge" is so private and should not be criticized, maybe you shouldn't have offered it up in a public forum for examination.
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You inadvertently have pointed out a tension of the modern age which must be faced. Each society must strike a balance between high wages and benefits for its workers and low prices and availability of its goods and services. You cannot have both, unless every competing country agrees to your wage and employee treatment standards. The solution to this fundamental tension is not obvious, but it implies that in a zero-sum game, we will have a race to the bottom.
The fact is, the Chinese and Indians are hungry for our jobs, just as the Japanese were. We are getting lazy and complacent. We need to put resources into education and try to pump up engineers and sciences in general, but instead we glorify consumption and entertainment. Therefore, we will squander our wealth and end up with little of substance while the Chinese and Indians win the prize in about 10-20 years.
Note that to wring your hands about the lack of US manufacturers of cheap cell phones, mention offshored plants, then demand higher wages for workers shows the incoherence of your mental processes. Try to see the big picture.
I recommend Thomas Friedman's book, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312 425074/qid=1127143355/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-9994 916-3919362?v=glance&s=books&n=507846>The World is Flat.
The fundamental problem is not how much IE is tied into the operating system. The fundamental program is that, as another poster has said, the operating system it is tied to violates the principle of least privilege repeatedly in a way that more secure systems do not, and security is layered onto it instead of being built into it, making securing it an eternal effort consisting of filling holes that never go away. A big part of this is the whole concept of ActiveX.
If IE were not tied into the OS, MS would find another way to force "remote administration capabilities" on users without their actively enabling them, which is what most of the problems stem from, I think.
I'm sure it would be easy to make picture and post it somewhere, but I don't understand why drawing squares off to the side of the triangle made it obvious to pythagorus that their sum was equal.
Personally, I prefer Proofs #3, #4 and #9 from here.
A security flaw in Internet Explorer! Stop the presses! Oh my God! This is such BIG NEWS!
Anybody know if I can Skype from my land line to get long distance with my local-only land line service? That would be GREAT. There is no benefit to me to use my cell phone with Skype, as many have said, it looks like a glorified bluetooth mic adapter to me.
Sounds like a pretty big advantage to me! If you look at this issue, the main argument I think is a so-called "hydrogen economy" that uses hydrogen as the energy transport and the "electric economy" that uses the existing electrical grid to run plug-in electric cars. The main drawback of these schemes is cost and in the case of hydrogen, INFRASTRUCTURE. When the cost is fairly close to fossil fuels and the bugs in the hybrids/electrics are worked out, I'm in! I'm no "commie green," LOL, but personally, I'm tired of oil. It's dirty and it funds dictators.
It's a new kind of tension developing in the modern world: nationless corporations (not multinational) vs. geographical interest groups known as nation-states. Corporations and companies have no loyalty to any state, and you could argue they should not., and states have interests contrary to the good of the globe as a whole at times. Nobody is blameless; it's just an issue we have to sort out.
Nobody will be able to answer authoritatively, but I would guess it's because a) Ending a word with "hi" (pronounced "hee") looks really weird to us b) Using a "gh" combination looks familiar to us; we do it often in our language.
But isn't it very LIKELY that they will sue the pants off businesses who offer cheap refill kits, as they can only be used for infringing purposes, and the businesses who refill cartridges for cheap? Thus the consumer suffers and the courts have again taken the Stupid Road WRT patents. Or am I wrong?
I'll drink to that!
I think you're looking at it as an automatic bump in age rather than being a factor in the average lifespan.
No, it's not automatic. Even if it only bumps up one person's maximum age, the mechanism is very different than decreasing mortality. Your word "average" is the key here.
The GP was spot on with listing factors that have increased the average person's lifespan (I don't care how you want to phrase it)
True, but that's not relevant to my criticism, although I think I jumped into the middle of the wrong argument with it. The point I am making is that there is a difference between increasing the maximum age and decreasing mortality. :-) I can see that this is a bit of a fine point, especially in the context of the current thread.
Example: How many people live to be 200? None. But if a gene therapy comes along that makes it possible to live to be 200, that is increasing life span. You can decrease mortality from diabetes, heart disease, etc. all you want, but nobody will live to be 200 because it is genetically determined that we will not live that long, period. The body basically just falls apart and repair is not sufficient.
So my point is that people do not live longer by decreasing mortality. They just die later.
No, YOU are wrong! (Not trying to be a troll here) :-) The things you mention are not making people live longer. They are preventing them from dying early! Sophistry, you say? No. The difference is important. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method except this gene therapy I have heard of), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
Could the issues that these mice are having be similar to what we as humans are experiencing by exceeding the lifetimes that generations previous had?
No, this about extending the maximum lifespan of people, not reducing their mortality. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method that I have heard of, amazingly), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
No, this about extending the maximum lifespan of people, not reducing their mortality. When you reduce mortality by healthy living, etc., you increase the average lifespan of a population, but when you actually extend the lifespan of a population (as happens when you reduce calories and through no other method that I have heard of, amazingly), you increase the average without affecting early mortality, by increasing the maximum ages.
Yes, if you define "cross platform" as being restricted to Windows, Mac and Linux. Also, this does not include PPC, which is another platform that Mac runs on. I am not optimistic that this is any sort of harbinger of great things, but it will be very nice to have three platforms that share the *same* hardware architecture, roughtly speaking.
But doesn't your rant against "corporate profits" ignore the fact that the "supposed to encourage innovation" part works by guaranteeing the inventor exclusive rights to profit from their invention? The profiteering is the encouragement. You should be blocked if you are going to infringe on another's patent.
To me, it seems the problem is not profits by big corporations; the problem is the ridiculous patents being awarded, so that if I invent something I have way to know whether it infringes without a lawyer. Maybe it infringes because part of it is a circle and Microsoft patented the use of circles in 1999. The whole system is out of order!
What a troll post! "Everyone who disagrees with me is stupid." Uh, huh.
A few points:
1) Nobody claims it is a panacea. Settle down. But nobody can credibly deny it is a promising avenue of research that gives hope to millions of sick people for a cure to their disease.
2) Do you think that the government should not fund any research, only corporations? Do you think the government should not fund research for a cure for cancer? Or any other disease? Or are you trying to say embryonic research is not promising? If the latter, then do you know how much private funding is being done on this subject? (I don't) 3) I agree and you are right that many people have ethical, moral and philosophical objections to embryonic stem-cell research that have absolutely nothing to do with religion.
Damn, who modded parent down as flamebait? Dork! It was a joke! Sheesh. Get a sense of humor.
(first post?) Yes, clearly this is literally the Holodec. And I am Captain Kirk.
Um, is Blockbuster the only video store you have in town? They have always been short on old classics. Traditionally, there is another store in your area that does that niche of the market. But I believe that brick-an-mortar for digital content is an idea whose time will inevitably expire fairly soon. Or should, if they lawyers don't somehow ruin it.
If they profit, can we slap a class-action suit on them for misleading us? I have contributed because I thought they were doing something for the good of all. In that spirit, I gave freely. Had I known there was money, then I would have been less apt to spend my time lining their pockets.
OTOH, there are obviously privacy issues here to deal with. But my real question is: how easy is this for the supposed targets to circumvent? Can't they just leave the chip in a ditch somewhere?
This is not the book of Revelations 666 come to pass. Settle down.
Yes, you're free to be foolish. We do NOT need to cherish worldviews that are foolish. Art is one thing, science is another. If your "knowledge" is so private and should not be criticized, maybe you shouldn't have offered it up in a public forum for examination.