I also came away with the thought that Zion was a matrix. But the problem that I keep struggling with, besides the whole zapping-the-sentinels-with-his-mind trick, is the Zion council members. If Zion is in fact a matrix, why not just kill 'em all, and reboot that Matrix? Eliminates the "anomalies" and yet still keeps the real power-producing matrix up and running. Taking out the trash.
BUT - then why the charade? And why are there (at least approximately, to my eyes) 24 council members, the leader of which (who took Neo to look at the machines) was obviously supposed to be the Neo from the previous Zion, thus providing evidence (falsified or not) that this exact situation had in fact happened before?
None of the solutions presented here make sense at the moment. If it's real, then human nature would likely dictate that at least one of the previous 5 Neos would have held onto hope to stay and fight. But if it's a matrix, then why even do the machines need their cooperation? Just nuke 'em and reboot.
I have a feeling we'll get a lot of interesting information from the lead councilman in Revolutions.
Here's the previous/. article. The people that did this posted a pretty detailed FAQ of how exactly they went about it - pretty interesting read. There's also some mention of their encounters with the FCC, which may be useful in helping your community project avoid legal pitfalls.
Who does the email reporting? A single email will inevitably be routed through several mailservers. Are all of them responsible for reporting the email? And how is it personally identifiable for tax purposes (and if it is, what does this mean for privacy concerns)? Or, if the cost is to go to the ISP for bandwidth/infrastructure improvements, who gets the penny? The first relay? The last? Split evenly? How do relays avoid charging each other for the service of forwarding an email?
This is laughable - not even worth a discussion. When also taking into account all the additional valid reasons listed above, there is no possible way any perceived "benefit" to consumers could ever outweigh the very slight hindrance it would provide to spammers.
The most amusing part of this article is the fact that right now, I am looking at a rather large advertisement at the top of the page trying to sell me Office 2000.
Boy, did that advertiser not get their money's worth...
-j
Re:What if another coutry did the same ?
on
Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
I came across an interesting article about yet another motivation for the war. If you are like me in believing that Bush is destroying years of foreign relations that we will have to start from scratch to rebuild once he finally gets kicked out of office, read the last two pages of this article - it paints a relatively positive picture of how the US will have to abandon its arrogant unilateral foreign policies and become a respectful and democratic member of international society again.
Mod this as off-topic if you will, but as long as we're on the subject of what it will take to get consumer acceptance of desktop linux, I've gotta throw in my two cents. Call me petty, but consumers in general ARE petty.
This is for KDE developers: desktop linux is not going to be taken seriously by consumers as long as you continue to use asinine naming conventions for all your core apps, and most other apps as well. Konqueror, KMail, KControl, Konsole, KOffice... give it a rest. First impressions are everything in the consumer market, and when you're making up or mis-spelling words (which I'm sure you call "branding" them) for every application you make, it looks immature and unprofessional. Yes, the apps are for KDE. Yes, KDE contains a K. Let it go!
GNOME is guilty of the same conventions at times (i.e. Gnumeric), but overall they do a much better job of coming across as a professional UI.
People don't want use something that sounds like it was marketed by kindergartners as their primary OS for productivity in the office. Maybe it's not very purist of me to say so, but mass acceptance of desktop linux will have a lot less to do with quality than with appearances, impressions, and MARKETING. If you don't think so, stick your head out of your foxhole for a few minutes and look around. How did Windows get so popular? Microsoft wasn't always a monopoly - they gained that power because they were effective in making their product look attractive and professional to consumers.
I know Microsoft isn't a very popular model to aspire to around here, but from the beginning they knew their shit when it came to software marketing. The functionality of desktop linux is coming around now, but if the linux community doesn't borrow a page or two from Microsoft's book of marketing, they'll never replace them in the consumer market.
You're limiting your scope to the software industry again. The situation couldn't get worse for us, perhaps. But in other industries this is not the case.
With regard to fining the employees - how many people do you think would work at a patent office if you're expected to:
be able to transform lawyer-speak in patents into common english
based on this translation, be able to say WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that prior art doesn't exist
pay out of your own pocket if you happen to mess up on #2 and there is a small obscure piece of prior art that you missed
do all this for government pay
Doesn't sound fun to me. When you look at it that way, it seems like being a patent officer is (or should be) a highly skilled job that requires quite a bit of education. Perhaps the government should just raise the education requirements and salaries of patent officers and the problem would take care of itself over time by generating more competition for the jobs, and consequently more qualified people.
Before Google was started it was assumed that internet search was either "a solved problem or not very interesting". Google proved them wrong; why is it inconceivable that another company could beat out Google now?
You don't need a bubble to keep you afloat if you've got a useful product and a good business plan. The fact that the.com bubble has burst doesn't mean that everyone should stop exploring viable online business opportunities.
Yes, the process has got to change - but we can't just threaten the patent office with penalties for redundant patents. If we do, you know what will happen - rather than granting every patent that comes in, they'll deny every application that comes in that looks remotely like a prior patent or idea.
As much as software patents are disliked (especially by Slashdot readers), other industries rely on patents to stay profitable - and any sudden and major change in patent law can and will hurt those businesses dramatically.
The next time we think we have it figured out, let's try to remember that the entire world isn't composed of Slashdotters. Patent laws shouldn't be changed until their impact is fully known for all industries.
Besides the obvious Hollywood bullshit (i.e. being able to instantly broadcast on all available networks, including the jumbovision in times square) my biggest problem with AntiTrust is this:
I don't care how good you are - you can't glance at a page full of mathematical algorithms without any code comments and immediately realize (without compiling and testing it, mind you) that it's the compression breakthrough you were looking for.
Although - and I think most/.ers would agree - it was very realistic how the only reason claire forlani was dating the guy was because she was paid to...
"Actual speed will vary based on range, connection rate, and other factors.*"
* Other factors may include (but are not limited to) the color of your hair, current antartic wind patterns, and whether or not you are wearing clean underwear today.
Honestly though - actual speed depends on the connection rate? Talk about covering all your legal bases...
It seems that Finnish equivalents of American RIAA, Teosto, which represents songwriters and publishers, and Gramex, which represents music producers and artists, want to force Finnish day nurseries to pay royalties every time nursery staff sings along with kids.
...but since it has proved too hard to enforce, they are trying plan B - sending children to these day nurseries who just repeatedly sing the choruses for five minutes.
Maybe this is why Jeff Bezos said "cities would be designed around it" (let's not start an argument about whether Segway is or isn't Ginger). Pedestrians think it's too fast, and drivers think it's too slow. And if that's not enough, every state seems to have their own ideas about where the Segway should be used. We could have them ride in bike lanes I suppose, but those are not very widespread in all areas (and even if they were, you know there are going to be bikers that take offense).
Bezos almost had it right. But instead of cities being built around it because of its popularity, I would imagine that it won't become popular until someone builds a city around it. Catch-22.
I believe the poster is referring to changing options in the installation process, not the application itself. As a system administrator, I can definitely see the advantage of forcing the user to install the default options I have chosen.
Obviously you can't prevent the user from changing preferences in the browser after it is installed (nor would you want to), but starting with a common baseline for all users simplifies support concerns immensely.
Wireless companies rely on the same marketing machine as everyone else. When they can't produce a product that works as well as it should, they start adding features and draw the focus away from the quality of service. They need to maintain some degree of hype to keep the subscriptions climbing (we're obviously very easily distracted).
I'd be ecstatic if a wireless company created a network and sold phones that just focused on two big features: high speed digital connections (read: better voice AND data service), and PAN connectivity (such as bluetooth or 802.11b) for mobile devices. Other features like color screens, cameras and arcade games are pretty add-ons that should be implemented AFTER they get the basics right.
To the best of my knowledge (flame me if I'm wrong), the only place where this could conceivably endanger pharmacists' jobs is in the US. When you go to a doctor in Korea (and from what I hear, many other countries as well), they'll just diagnose you. You then go to the pharmicist, give them the doctor's diagnosis, and the drug prescription is left entirely to the pharmacist's judgement.
It's a shame that here in the US we make pharmacists go through so much school, and then don't even bother to use that training to the full extent.
A summary of the above link: Junkscience.com, which it seems you got all of these items from, was intially created and funded by Philip Morris to create doubt in our minds that cigarettes were bad for us. Its purpose has always been to discredit scientific findings that were harmful to its funder's business interests. It has no interest whatsoever in maintaining the "integrity of science".
Slashdot Mirror
I also came away with the thought that Zion was a matrix. But the problem that I keep struggling with, besides the whole zapping-the-sentinels-with-his-mind trick, is the Zion council members. If Zion is in fact a matrix, why not just kill 'em all, and reboot that Matrix? Eliminates the "anomalies" and yet still keeps the real power-producing matrix up and running. Taking out the trash.
BUT - then why the charade? And why are there (at least approximately, to my eyes) 24 council members, the leader of which (who took Neo to look at the machines) was obviously supposed to be the Neo from the previous Zion, thus providing evidence (falsified or not) that this exact situation had in fact happened before?
None of the solutions presented here make sense at the moment. If it's real, then human nature would likely dictate that at least one of the previous 5 Neos would have held onto hope to stay and fight. But if it's a matrix, then why even do the machines need their cooperation? Just nuke 'em and reboot.
I have a feeling we'll get a lot of interesting information from the lead councilman in Revolutions.
-j
Here's the previous /. article. The people that did this posted a pretty detailed FAQ of how exactly they went about it - pretty interesting read. There's also some mention of their encounters with the FCC, which may be useful in helping your community project avoid legal pitfalls.
-j
Who does the email reporting? A single email will inevitably be routed through several mailservers. Are all of them responsible for reporting the email? And how is it personally identifiable for tax purposes (and if it is, what does this mean for privacy concerns)? Or, if the cost is to go to the ISP for bandwidth/infrastructure improvements, who gets the penny? The first relay? The last? Split evenly? How do relays avoid charging each other for the service of forwarding an email?
This is laughable - not even worth a discussion. When also taking into account all the additional valid reasons listed above, there is no possible way any perceived "benefit" to consumers could ever outweigh the very slight hindrance it would provide to spammers.
-j
The most amusing part of this article is the fact that right now, I am looking at a rather large advertisement at the top of the page trying to sell me Office 2000.
Boy, did that advertiser not get their money's worth...
-j
I came across an interesting article about yet another motivation for the war. If you are like me in believing that Bush is destroying years of foreign relations that we will have to start from scratch to rebuild once he finally gets kicked out of office, read the last two pages of this article - it paints a relatively positive picture of how the US will have to abandon its arrogant unilateral foreign policies and become a respectful and democratic member of international society again.
Amen. I've bitched about this before, but it was slightly offtopic. Please read it again.
-j
Mod this as off-topic if you will, but as long as we're on the subject of what it will take to get consumer acceptance of desktop linux, I've gotta throw in my two cents. Call me petty, but consumers in general ARE petty.
This is for KDE developers: desktop linux is not going to be taken seriously by consumers as long as you continue to use asinine naming conventions for all your core apps, and most other apps as well. Konqueror, KMail, KControl, Konsole, KOffice... give it a rest. First impressions are everything in the consumer market, and when you're making up or mis-spelling words (which I'm sure you call "branding" them) for every application you make, it looks immature and unprofessional. Yes, the apps are for KDE. Yes, KDE contains a K. Let it go!
GNOME is guilty of the same conventions at times (i.e. Gnumeric), but overall they do a much better job of coming across as a professional UI.
People don't want use something that sounds like it was marketed by kindergartners as their primary OS for productivity in the office. Maybe it's not very purist of me to say so, but mass acceptance of desktop linux will have a lot less to do with quality than with appearances, impressions, and MARKETING. If you don't think so, stick your head out of your foxhole for a few minutes and look around. How did Windows get so popular? Microsoft wasn't always a monopoly - they gained that power because they were effective in making their product look attractive and professional to consumers.
I know Microsoft isn't a very popular model to aspire to around here, but from the beginning they knew their shit when it came to software marketing. The functionality of desktop linux is coming around now, but if the linux community doesn't borrow a page or two from Microsoft's book of marketing, they'll never replace them in the consumer market.
-j
With regard to fining the employees - how many people do you think would work at a patent office if you're expected to:
- be able to transform lawyer-speak in patents into common english
- based on this translation, be able to say WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that prior art doesn't exist
- pay out of your own pocket if you happen to mess up on #2 and there is a small obscure piece of prior art that you missed
- do all this for government pay
Doesn't sound fun to me. When you look at it that way, it seems like being a patent officer is (or should be) a highly skilled job that requires quite a bit of education. Perhaps the government should just raise the education requirements and salaries of patent officers and the problem would take care of itself over time by generating more competition for the jobs, and consequently more qualified people.-j
Before Google was started it was assumed that internet search was either "a solved problem or not very interesting". Google proved them wrong; why is it inconceivable that another company could beat out Google now?
.com bubble has burst doesn't mean that everyone should stop exploring viable online business opportunities.
You don't need a bubble to keep you afloat if you've got a useful product and a good business plan. The fact that the
-j
Yes, the process has got to change - but we can't just threaten the patent office with penalties for redundant patents. If we do, you know what will happen - rather than granting every patent that comes in, they'll deny every application that comes in that looks remotely like a prior patent or idea.
As much as software patents are disliked (especially by Slashdot readers), other industries rely on patents to stay profitable - and any sudden and major change in patent law can and will hurt those businesses dramatically.
The next time we think we have it figured out, let's try to remember that the entire world isn't composed of Slashdotters. Patent laws shouldn't be changed until their impact is fully known for all industries.
-j
Besides the obvious Hollywood bullshit (i.e. being able to instantly broadcast on all available networks, including the jumbovision in times square) my biggest problem with AntiTrust is this: I don't care how good you are - you can't glance at a page full of mathematical algorithms without any code comments and immediately realize (without compiling and testing it, mind you) that it's the compression breakthrough you were looking for.
/.ers would agree - it was very realistic how the only reason claire forlani was dating the guy was because she was paid to...
Although - and I think most
"Actual speed will vary based on range, connection rate, and other factors.*"
* Other factors may include (but are not limited to) the color of your hair, current antartic wind patterns, and whether or not you are wearing clean underwear today.
Honestly though - actual speed depends on the connection rate? Talk about covering all your legal bases...
-j
Maybe this is why Jeff Bezos said "cities would be designed around it" (let's not start an argument about whether Segway is or isn't Ginger). Pedestrians think it's too fast, and drivers think it's too slow. And if that's not enough, every state seems to have their own ideas about where the Segway should be used. We could have them ride in bike lanes I suppose, but those are not very widespread in all areas (and even if they were, you know there are going to be bikers that take offense).
Bezos almost had it right. But instead of cities being built around it because of its popularity, I would imagine that it won't become popular until someone builds a city around it. Catch-22.
I believe the poster is referring to changing options in the installation process, not the application itself. As a system administrator, I can definitely see the advantage of forcing the user to install the default options I have chosen.
Obviously you can't prevent the user from changing preferences in the browser after it is installed (nor would you want to), but starting with a common baseline for all users simplifies support concerns immensely.
Nah, it's just that most of us don't have 15 friends.
I would think it would be simpler to just increase the existing gasoline taxes at the pump, don't you?
Wireless companies rely on the same marketing machine as everyone else. When they can't produce a product that works as well as it should, they start adding features and draw the focus away from the quality of service. They need to maintain some degree of hype to keep the subscriptions climbing (we're obviously very easily distracted).
I'd be ecstatic if a wireless company created a network and sold phones that just focused on two big features: high speed digital connections (read: better voice AND data service), and PAN connectivity (such as bluetooth or 802.11b) for mobile devices. Other features like color screens, cameras and arcade games are pretty add-ons that should be implemented AFTER they get the basics right.
To the best of my knowledge (flame me if I'm wrong), the only place where this could conceivably endanger pharmacists' jobs is in the US. When you go to a doctor in Korea (and from what I hear, many other countries as well), they'll just diagnose you. You then go to the pharmicist, give them the doctor's diagnosis, and the drug prescription is left entirely to the pharmacist's judgement.
It's a shame that here in the US we make pharmacists go through so much school, and then don't even bother to use that training to the full extent.
Do me a favor and check your references next time.
A summary of the above link: Junkscience.com, which it seems you got all of these items from, was intially created and funded by Philip Morris to create doubt in our minds that cigarettes were bad for us. Its purpose has always been to discredit scientific findings that were harmful to its funder's business interests. It has no interest whatsoever in maintaining the "integrity of science".