The oil price is defined by the procuting countries - in the EU, it's defined by the IPE (in London) index, which uses the Brent variant of crude oil (the most relevant others are the WTI and the Opec Basket). But each variant's price is expressed in dollars.
So, if a country in the EU buys oil - of any variant - it will buy it using the dollar reference price. The conversion euro -> dollars is implicit.
At the moment, for us right-pondist, buying oil is relatively convenient, since the euro/dollar ratio is favourable for us - but the conversion happens nonetheless.
The US would *love* to get rid of the oil dependency
No, the GP is pretty much right: the US just want the whole "oil situation" to stay the way it is right now.
Right now, US economy is pretty much sustained by the fact that, if you want oil, you must purchase it in dollars - thus you are buying a small part of the left-pondist's debt each time.
So, the world dependency on oil is, actually, an advantage for the US.
In my strictly personal opinion, Miguel fell in love with the.Net framework - almost literally. It's never a good thing when a programmer falls in love with a tool: he'll try to make everything work with that tool, even if it's not the right one, or if there already is an implementation based on something else. You know, the hammer/nail thing...
Not that choice is bad: I do prefer two or more similar implementations of an idea, in order to chose for the best one.
Seventy years ago, Einstein estimated that there were only two people in the world who understood general relativity, and he was one of them.
Einstein said that, at that time, only three people in the world understood General Relativity. When a reporter asked Arthur Eddington (the second best person that, in fact, did know general relativity) for confirmation, he replied that he could not recall the third one.
IIRC, they had to bring Michael Dorn (Worf) onto DS9 before the ratings started to climb back up.
Nope: the authors of DS9 had to write the whole super-plot of the Dominion Wars, to which Worf was a nice (and logical) addendum, before the ratings started to climb back up.
You might go as far as saying that they had to actually write good stories, in order to get good ratings, but that would be hardly a news (even though having good stories does not mean having the show renewd for another year - see Futurama and Firefly).
If the ribbon fails, what do we do with 62,000 miles of ribbon?
Given the size of the ribbon, and the fact that carbon nanotubes simply burn out re-entering in the atmosphere, this is a non-issue: the lower part of the severed "cable" would vaporize, the higher part would still be orbiting, attached to the counterweight.
The real question is: what happens when some kilo-miles worth of vaporized carbon nano-tube is released in the atmosphere? Is this stuff ecologically-compatible?
You would be lucky if a GNOME app for GNOME 2.0 even compiles for 2.6. It will most certainly not run if it's already compiled.
I call for BS on this one. Now, if you'd have said "GNOME app for GNOME 1.4", then you'd have been right; but, you know: API breaking does happen, from time to time, especially when an API overpasses the point of being sucky enough to be unextensible.
On the other hand, a GNOME 2.0 app will run, without the need for recompilation, under GNOME 2.6. Flawlessy. In fact, I'm using apps written, tested and compiled with libraries released for GNOME 2.0 under GNOME 2.6.
Another point worth to be noted is that, under Un*x, the DLL Hell is a non-issue, as we've had libraries versioning since day 1. So, I might as well install multiple versions of a library, and yet do not have the need to recompile an application.
IE is, for what 98% of the world, the best browser out there.
Good Lord, a browser with a support of a 1998 standard (CSS2) that could be described with the phrase "sucks bigtime" is not, and could never be, defined as "the best browser out there". Not even for the 2% of the world.
Have you ever tried doing a page that rendered correctly on each browser without having to use techniques of the pre-2000 age? The fact that most sites renders acceptably on IE is due to the fact that there are many monkeys behind them; monkeys who do not know better than using tables for layout control.
And this should be the main reason why that pathetic excuse for a browser which is IE should be wiped out with acid from user's disk drives; the other reasons being its pathological lack of security and its shortcomings in user interface.
but I would merrily risk two or three people in an entire population dying because genetically modified super corn gives them an allergic reaction then watch a few hundred thousand people die because their refuse to grow in the barren land that they live.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I Call For Bullshit(R) here
The agricoltural assets are just about enough to feed every living person on this planet, given a fair redistribution of those assets (in fact, in the EU, the goverments pay the farmers not to go in "full production mode"). The "GMO will feed the hungry" BS has been spread essentially by the same industries that create Genetically Modified Organisms in the first place.
GMO are indeed useful in reducing the needed chemical anti-cryptogamic compounds used for boosting the output; or to enrich a plant with minerals or vitamins needed for a balanced diet (see Golden Rice in China).
Several million years of history have shown that the risks involved are relatively low.
Indeed, several thousands of History have shown that the risks involved in multiplicating humans are relatively high (for both humans themselves and for the other species as well).
After how they managed the Iraqi Oil-for-food program (Kofi Annan's family is doing very well from all that, thank you)
Ironically enough, all the voices about the bribery and Annan's son involvement in this matter has come from Ahmed Chalabi, the now-not-so-in-friendly-terms buddy of Dubya.
At least they are accountable to _someone_.
To "someone" who, please? [poll]I live in the EU, you insensitive clod.[/poll]
In final analysis, the UN should be the right solution to this problem. Unless, obviously, you count the Internet Central Administration, at 1060 West Addison St., Chicago, IL.
Do they really have enough EU projects to make this worthwhile?
You are assuming a lack of technical and marketing skills from one of the largest space agencies of the world. Space agency that, currently, has a large market for commercial launchers. So, if ESA says that there's enough space for competition, I'd tend to trust them and not Joe Random Slashdotter.
Well, some distros *cough*Slackware*cough* have software that's stable AND current.
Sorry, but the concepts of stable and current (as in "latest release") are mutually exclusive, unless you make a peer review of each and every new package. This peer review takes time, and - lo and behold - it might imply that a newer released is unleashed while the package is still in review.
Where? Primarly in the US. I'm sorry, but I don't think EU would like to financially help Lockeed-Martin. Yes, there are some LEO/low-cost vectors actually developed in China, Brazil and India, but the same reasoning applies.
Try that on eleven (11!) different architectures, each one with its own hardware access/naming/whatever policy (and with its own nuances), then you will be allowed to express your (poorly crafted, if I may say) sarcasm.
I love debian but they are just too far behind
Same old, same old. I think this meme will only die somewhere in the way to the 30th century.
If you want to use up-to-date, so-over-the-edge-that-bleeds-like-a-firehose software, use SID (unstable) or Sarge (testing). Stable is meant only for what the name implies: stable environments.
Anyway. If you want a key-value registry, look at gconfd of GNOME. (Even that isn't a single monolithic database, it is actually stored as a folder hierarchy on disk, and the file format is based on XML)
Although it has some shortcomings (it does not support complex data structures), GConf is the Windows registry done right. Not only it has a filesystem backend, its keys are self-descriptive (no HKEY_WHATEVER/SomeApp/Some Key) and every key/value pair should (if programmers aren't lazy) have a XML schema associated to it, with a description (localized to the user's locale), a default value and the application that owns that value.
It also permits to lock-out settings in a network.
No, since they do not use some form of lock-in mechanism to prevent the users for using other products.
Nor does WMP.
Please, then, show me a media player (for multiple platforms) that could play Windows Media files (which is the only reason one should use WMP).
An example of lock-in in WMP is its proprietary file formats, which require at least some kind of licensing for other players to use (and decent API documentation, which is mostly missing). Another form of lock-in is the fact that is installed by default, and thus most users will not look for another competiting products. This technique is called "predatory tactic", in a monopolistic market.
Many distributions ship with software such as XMMS, mplayer and the gimp. Should Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and the like be fined for carrying this software?
First: no one of those distributions has a de facto monopoly in the OS market and it's trying to abuse that position to get the monopoly in other markets, such as the media players one.
Second: on the average Linux distro, you have twenty different text editors, a dozen media players, and another dozen graphic manipulation programs.
Slashdot Mirror
The oil price is defined by the procuting countries - in the EU, it's defined by the IPE (in London) index, which uses the Brent variant of crude oil (the most relevant others are the WTI and the Opec Basket). But each variant's price is expressed in dollars.
So, if a country in the EU buys oil - of any variant - it will buy it using the dollar reference price. The conversion euro -> dollars is implicit.
At the moment, for us right-pondist, buying oil is relatively convenient, since the euro/dollar ratio is favourable for us - but the conversion happens nonetheless.
European countries actually use the euro to buy oil.
No, they don't.
There's some turmoil, lately, since Russia is considering switching to euro - and if Russia switches over, the OPEC countries will follow.
The US would *love* to get rid of the oil dependency
No, the GP is pretty much right: the US just want the whole "oil situation" to stay the way it is right now.
Right now, US economy is pretty much sustained by the fact that, if you want oil, you must purchase it in dollars - thus you are buying a small part of the left-pondist's debt each time.
So, the world dependency on oil is, actually, an advantage for the US.
You want to allow Bin Laden to continue to exist.
I believe that the OP actually wanted him "executable", more than "runnable".
I, for one, would like him to be moved in a chroot'ed mount point for the rest of the system's uptime.
If he supports options, anyone can use him against any target they deem fit
[Obligatory tin-foil hat reference] Ah! As if this didn't ever happen!
In my strictly personal opinion, Miguel fell in love with the .Net framework - almost literally. It's never a good thing when a programmer falls in love with a tool: he'll try to make everything work with that tool, even if it's not the right one, or if there already is an implementation based on something else. You know, the hammer/nail thing...
Not that choice is bad: I do prefer two or more similar implementations of an idea, in order to chose for the best one.
Seventy years ago, Einstein estimated that there were only two people in the world who understood general relativity, and he was one of them.
Einstein said that, at that time, only three people in the world understood General Relativity. When a reporter asked Arthur Eddington (the second best person that, in fact, did know general relativity) for confirmation, he replied that he could not recall the third one.
IIRC, they had to bring Michael Dorn (Worf) onto DS9 before the ratings started to climb back up.
Nope: the authors of DS9 had to write the whole super-plot of the Dominion Wars, to which Worf was a nice (and logical) addendum, before the ratings started to climb back up.
You might go as far as saying that they had to actually write good stories, in order to get good ratings, but that would be hardly a news (even though having good stories does not mean having the show renewd for another year - see Futurama and Firefly).
If the ribbon fails, what do we do with 62,000 miles of ribbon?
Given the size of the ribbon, and the fact that carbon nanotubes simply burn out re-entering in the atmosphere, this is a non-issue: the lower part of the severed "cable" would vaporize, the higher part would still be orbiting, attached to the counterweight.
The real question is: what happens when some kilo-miles worth of vaporized carbon nano-tube is released in the atmosphere? Is this stuff ecologically-compatible?
You would be lucky if a GNOME app for GNOME 2.0 even compiles for 2.6. It will most certainly not run if it's already compiled.
I call for BS on this one. Now, if you'd have said "GNOME app for GNOME 1.4", then you'd have been right; but, you know: API breaking does happen, from time to time, especially when an API overpasses the point of being sucky enough to be unextensible.
On the other hand, a GNOME 2.0 app will run, without the need for recompilation, under GNOME 2.6. Flawlessy. In fact, I'm using apps written, tested and compiled with libraries released for GNOME 2.0 under GNOME 2.6.
Another point worth to be noted is that, under Un*x, the DLL Hell is a non-issue, as we've had libraries versioning since day 1. So, I might as well install multiple versions of a library, and yet do not have the need to recompile an application.
IE is, for what 98% of the world, the best browser out there.
Good Lord, a browser with a support of a 1998 standard (CSS2) that could be described with the phrase "sucks bigtime" is not, and could never be, defined as "the best browser out there". Not even for the 2% of the world.
Have you ever tried doing a page that rendered correctly on each browser without having to use techniques of the pre-2000 age? The fact that most sites renders acceptably on IE is due to the fact that there are many monkeys behind them; monkeys who do not know better than using tables for layout control.
And this should be the main reason why that pathetic excuse for a browser which is IE should be wiped out with acid from user's disk drives; the other reasons being its pathological lack of security and its shortcomings in user interface.
but I would merrily risk two or three people in an entire population dying because genetically modified super corn gives them an allergic reaction then watch a few hundred thousand people die because their refuse to grow in the barren land that they live.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I Call For Bullshit(R) here
The agricoltural assets are just about enough to feed every living person on this planet, given a fair redistribution of those assets (in fact, in the EU, the goverments pay the farmers not to go in "full production mode"). The "GMO will feed the hungry" BS has been spread essentially by the same industries that create Genetically Modified Organisms in the first place.
GMO are indeed useful in reducing the needed chemical anti-cryptogamic compounds used for boosting the output; or to enrich a plant with minerals or vitamins needed for a balanced diet (see Golden Rice in China).
Several million years of history have shown that the risks involved are relatively low.
Indeed, several thousands of History have shown that the risks involved in multiplicating humans are relatively high (for both humans themselves and for the other species as well).
After how they managed the Iraqi Oil-for-food program (Kofi Annan's family is doing very well from all that, thank you)
Ironically enough, all the voices about the bribery and Annan's son involvement in this matter has come from Ahmed Chalabi, the now-not-so-in-friendly-terms buddy of Dubya.
At least they are accountable to _someone_.
To "someone" who, please? [poll]I live in the EU, you insensitive clod.[/poll]
In final analysis, the UN should be the right solution to this problem. Unless, obviously, you count the Internet Central Administration, at 1060 West Addison St., Chicago, IL.
Do they really have enough EU projects to make this worthwhile?
You are assuming a lack of technical and marketing skills from one of the largest space agencies of the world. Space agency that, currently, has a large market for commercial launchers. So, if ESA says that there's enough space for competition, I'd tend to trust them and not Joe Random Slashdotter.
but I also don't want software from 1999
That is why official and non-official APT repositories exists.
Dump a repository on seven CDs, and call it "Debian Rollup 3.0-2004", if you really want an image.
Well, some distros *cough*Slackware*cough* have software that's stable AND current.
Sorry, but the concepts of stable and current (as in "latest release") are mutually exclusive, unless you make a peer review of each and every new package. This peer review takes time, and - lo and behold - it might imply that a newer released is unleashed while the package is still in review.
BTW: this is exactely what happens in Debian.
Vega is a LEO (Low Earth Orbit) launcher. There isn't a commercial market for low earth orbit satellites.
Yes, there is a market. Universities and small companies, for instance.
I would go with the cheaper reliable Chinese launcher
What part of "competition" you did not understand?
In fact, there's a glut
Where? Primarly in the US. I'm sorry, but I don't think EU would like to financially help Lockeed-Martin. Yes, there are some LEO/low-cost vectors actually developed in China, Brazil and India, but the same reasoning applies.
Automatic hardware detection? And it's only 2004!
Try that on eleven (11!) different architectures, each one with its own hardware access/naming/whatever policy (and with its own nuances), then you will be allowed to express your (poorly crafted, if I may say) sarcasm.
I love debian but they are just too far behind
Same old, same old. I think this meme will only die somewhere in the way to the 30th century.
If you want to use up-to-date, so-over-the-edge-that-bleeds-like-a-firehose software, use SID (unstable) or Sarge (testing). Stable is meant only for what the name implies: stable environments.
Anyway. If you want a key-value registry, look at gconfd of GNOME. (Even that isn't a single monolithic database, it is actually stored as a folder hierarchy on disk, and the file format is based on XML)
Although it has some shortcomings (it does not support complex data structures), GConf is the Windows registry done right. Not only it has a filesystem backend, its keys are self-descriptive (no HKEY_WHATEVER/SomeApp/Some Key) and every key/value pair should (if programmers aren't lazy) have a XML schema associated to it, with a description (localized to the user's locale), a default value and the application that owns that value.
It also permits to lock-out settings in a network.
No, since they do not use some form of lock-in mechanism to prevent the users for using other products.
Nor does WMP.
Please, then, show me a media player (for multiple platforms) that could play Windows Media files (which is the only reason one should use WMP).
An example of lock-in in WMP is its proprietary file formats, which require at least some kind of licensing for other players to use (and decent API documentation, which is mostly missing). Another form of lock-in is the fact that is installed by default, and thus most users will not look for another competiting products. This technique is called "predatory tactic", in a monopolistic market.
since they compete with similar products on the market
.No, since they do not use some form of lock-in mechanism to prevent the users for using other products.
I'm sure the average windows user wouldn't want to have to play around with selecting/installing $SOFTWARE
Then the average windows user shouldn't have bought a computer.
Many distributions ship with software such as XMMS, mplayer and the gimp. Should Mandrake, SuSE, Debian and the like be fined for carrying this software?
First: no one of those distributions has a de facto monopoly in the OS market and it's trying to abuse that position to get the monopoly in other markets, such as the media players one.
Second: on the average Linux distro, you have twenty different text editors, a dozen media players, and another dozen graphic manipulation programs.
So, your is, indeed, a non sequitur.
Is GTK for Win32 actually viable now?
The stable releases (2.0.x/2.2.x) are pretty much usable under win32.
Oh and yeh, I can't stand writing GUIs in C.
You don't have to "write GUIs in C": just use one of the bindings (C++, Python, Perl, ...).