Just because the alarm is put in a boat doesn't mean it has be to be activated for a boating accident.
Why do you think they currently react to "emergencies" like this leaking tv? Because if they don't someone could die.
Rescue services have to respond to every call even if they know it is false. Because if they guess wrong peoples life are at stake.
They also can't just send a clerk on a moped to find out because if it is real that would loose time.
It says a lot about politicians that in these days of cutbacks no-one is doing anything to cut down on the money wasted by deliberate false emergcengy calls. Send the kids to a few months of re-education. Post 9/11 it should be easy to label them as the terrorists they are.
And no I never made a crank emergency call as a kid. There are just somethings you don't do.
60 years ago 20yr old boys were dropping out of aircraft or running up beaches handling lethal tools while reading maps, scanning for thousands of visual clues, remembering several orders and tasks, keeping track of the rest of their team, calculating the trajectory of ballistic objects in flight ALL AT THE SAME TIME AND WITHOUT SLEEP.
Todays 20yr old boys can barely control a desktop without it getting invested and complain bitterly when they got to press forward for to long in their shooter or bullets don't end up exactly where they are pointing.
Oh and as any cop can tell you, yes people think that they can drive and talk on a phone at the same time. They also can tell you how many people get killed each year while doing that.
Simple use for such a device. Order pickers. Now they need to have a viewscreen in their hand wich makes it hard to get info and handle gooods at the same time. Use this, a laser scanner on the finger and voila, you can have your order details and goods at the same time.
Compared to other portable solutions this isn't even that expensive and since it is on the head and not constantly being put down and picked up it will suffer less abuse as well.
Lets face it we are talking the NIC here yes. When someone got access to the physical machine they got full access anyway.
As to the email client. Ehm, we are talking default gentoo installation. What email client?
This port is not open UNTIL I TELL IT TO OPEN. Very different from the windows where ports are open for no good reason by default.
Rememeber that code red or whatever? That had a lot of people finding out that their windows box had IIS installed by default? that is what I am talking about. Windows doing stuff you don't need or know about.
It doesn't have ANY ACTIVE OPEN PORTS. Not one. That is the way any OS should be. Unless I tell it to open a port a desktop doesn't need any open. Come on, prove me wrong. Tell me wich port needs to be open on the default install of a home desktop.
And if you say one is need for file shares your an idiot. Since file shares are not enabled by default (only when you share folder) there is no need to have the service open before I start sharing.
Explain all the security holes, the crap performance, the constand delayes, promised features moved to the next version, still no 64bit support in non-beta etc etc etc etc.
You claim your a top programmer but why ain't we seeing this then? We hear this constantly that MS is has the best (small reminder SCO has the best lawyers, we all know how well they are doing) but we ain't seeing the evidence.
Why is there still no PNG support in IE. Why is IE so full of holes. Why does every single fucking windows version still crash for no reason with a fresh install?
Wich wonder kid did decide that file explorer should read every movie files in a directory no matter how many there are? And totally hang if it happens to be a broken avi.
Why can't windows media player play broken avi's but mplayer can?
Why did windows media player report wich dvd's you watched along with your ip?
There is a huge difference between being a top programmer and delivering good work. As I said. MS has the best, I didn't deny this. But somewhere something is going wrong. If not please explain the above.
Oh and you going to your boss to make your point heard is not the same as he listening. Geez, your so smart and you don't even get this?
That is also unremovable although all you have to do is remove the skin. Most people however would still call a tatoo for live.
Anyway they don't say where they insert it. No reason to put it under the skin when you are in a hospital anyway. Put it inside the ribcage. Good luck then eh?
We get the same stupid people over here but we have no michael moore. We have had a politician killed (by a pacifist) who was saying things that couldn't be said and was really turning up a storm by making people question things that were just accepted before. Immidiatly everyone turned into sheeps again and voted for the most boring party.
Now protest are starting with a huge strike yesterday but that doesn't matter because come next election the sheep will elect the same party again. People don't like to think. It hurts.
You can see this very well with the american elections. A majority thinks kerry is the better candidate. There feelings tell them bush is more likable. So in the same interview they will say kerry is the better candidate with the better policies but they will vote bush anyway because he seems to really believe what he says. (They don't agree with what he says, they just like the way he says it)
What the fuck can you do then eh? Democracy is fucked.
Maybe we should split the world. Not according to race or religion but according to "has got a clue or not." Where is the B-ark when you need it.
The car industry, well mostly the american car industry, was extremely reluctant to do anything about safety in cars. Safety studies might give the audience the idea that driving wasn't safe.
They tried everything to stop people from doing safety studies and stopping laws making safety devices mandatory. It did not fit their marketing image to have to put safety features in.
Sounds very similar eh? Gates blames insecurity on bad users. The car industry blamed it on bad drivers (this fits marketing as noone thinks of themselves as a bad driver).
Until enough studies came out showing how dangerous cars were (things like the steering column being a spear aimed at your chest) and the public started to get aware and goverment was starting to take action ONLY then and very slowly did the car industry do something. That still won't do anything until laws enforce the use of seatbelts and even then you will have idiots claiming using seatbelts is unsafe. Same as I have met person (not heard about, actually talked to myself) who didn't use anti-virus software because it was reading their files.
So don't hold your breath waiting for MS to move on its own. SP2 was already a huge achievement. Anything more will only come after a long long struggle.
Or a very short one if you install the flippered OS. Or the horned one if your into necrophilia. Then again, that is like driving a volvo. Not cool. Sure your kids might survive an accident but who cares about that eh?
Simply put, MS can't see the trees through the woods, the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
MS is big. Really really really big. Gigantic. This means that often things are not going to be moving all that fast but worse still it allows for a real danger off management explosion. 10 progammers need 1 manager. 100 programmers need 10 manager and a manager to manage the managers. 10.000 programmers need 100 managers plus 10 managers of managers and 1 to manage all them and so on right?
WRONG. It is more like 100 programmers need about 10 technical officers, 10 project leaders, 5 project supervisors, a human resource staff, marketing, etc etc etc. To lazy to type it all out but I been in situations where software development had me the programmer reporting to well over a dozen managers all who had their own agenda. So I spend less time programming then doing meetings.
Worse a really good programmer who just spends his time developing will be quickly out of the loop and unable to find an audience for his ideas.
MS probably has several teams who could easily do this. They are just lost somewhere in the management jungle.
Why not find them? Well why should they? Management is doing okay, windows keeps selling the bonusses keep coming in. Why should management go after those creepy skilled programmers when they can deal with nicely suited once who speak their language and deliver the next point upgrade not to much past the deadline?
Lets be honest (ms apologists cover your ears) MS has never been an inovative company at the leading edge. For crying out loud, it started as a unix company after every one else already had done unix and then turned it into dos.
it added a gui only after only everyone else had done one and stole the design. it only got a somewhat 32bit OS by stealing it from IBM and the final irony (someone else pointed this out to me recently) only got that 32bit after others had already had gone to 64bit.
MS can do it 5 times faster, if it wanted. It doesn't. So far playing catchup has worked extremely well. What you don't like the MS search function? Your not that bright are you? The only reason you don't like it is because you paid MS to use it. They got your money wether you like it or not. Your confused and poor, Billy isn't.
The game has gone gold. What this means that the game as it will be sold in the box in the shop is ready for publication.
This doesn't mean the game is completly finished. For instance localization, translating to different languages. Age verification. Box cover printed. Manual translated and printed. And of course the game image created and cd's pressed.
Then all the parts got to come together and be shipped all over the place.
This all takes time and the real potential of delay. Say you discover that the final image your ready to press has a flaw. Have to do it all over again. Then telling the audience that, sorry it gonna be delayed 2 days is impossible. All those ads "on sale on XXXX-XX-XX" will be wrong.
Just because a game is ready for sale does not mean it is immidiatly in a shop.
I don't know if this is true but I have gotten the impresion that americans favor giving birth in hospital under sedation. Medical threathment is therefore involved so tag them. Every person tagged at birth. Oh yeah. I can't possible forsee any misuse for that.
Watch band of brothers again. It is a short bit and doesn't get mentioned at all in the last episode where the real soldiers talk. In fact the ep that contained the bit opens with the soldiers talking about how they could be friends with nazis. Oh wait I forgot. The german citizens didn't know. Except that even the dumb GI getting food for the people in the bit knew that wasn't true.
There are plenty of easy arguments for tagging people and of course it is really no different from a social secuirty number or a passport or anything that identifies you. EXCEPT THIS CAN'T BE REMOVED.
Those who try to pacify you with how this wouldn't be abused in a democracy with all kinds of safety's and balances think about this. The person who "ordered" that bit was elected by the people who claimed later they didn't know about that bit. He was supported for almost a decade before the bit was really put into effect. Plenty of time to protest yet none did. The bit didn't affect them. Until things changed and it became better to claim not know about it.
Oh the guy didn't get elected in fair elections? Gee, what guy recently didn't get elected fairly and is apparently doing the same thing again?
There is no secret plot by an evil mastermind to control the world. There is just a bunch of old people who don't see other humans as their equals and the rest who let them.
The potential here is just so great that its use cannot even be considered. Any arguments about how easy it is are 100% correct. Yes it is easy. Easy to lead to a future where we will once again have a series with a bit in it for our childerens childeren to watch. Well those childerens childeren who aren't in the bit.
Yes and wearing a yellow star makes certain you are not accidently served non-kosher food at places by conveniently barring entry.
There is only one reason to put a number on people and that is to seperate them. In hospitals there is good reason to seperate people, even if sometimes that seperation is into one group who gets aid and one who does not (something called triage or discrimenation depending on the criteria being used).
American hospitals still got to get rid of the stigma of segregation, where your color decided what kind if any service you would get. Oh you think that is to long ago? I got news mate, the junior trainee may well be a member of the board now.
Could this possibly be used to determine at the door who you are in an emergency ward? Like say a person with no insurance to pay for the threathment? Who skipped on his last bill? Would doctors still help you knowing that? Don't forget, these are the same doctors who didn't obey their oath when it came to helping those of a different color/religion/etc before.
Current medical bracelets are good enough. If you loose it? Well though mate. Your the patient, take care of yourselve. What next? Wiring your medicine to you body to avoid forgetting your pills?
Funny thing is that americans for all their supposed stupidness actually are questioning this thing. In holland there was a "news" (HAHAA news, that is joke) item on a bar duplicating what been done in italy, a RFID tag as a wallet. The "journalist" never even thought to ask about possible abuse. Neither did any of the recipients. Even those who opted out only did because of the size of the needle.
Europe as mindless slaves tagging people. Oh america, are you ready to come over yet again? Third time is a charm.
Far simpler and far more reliable, since it consumers less power and doesn't need to transmit it needs very towers.
Set it to vibrate. When it goes off the doctor leaves the theather and makes the call. All problems solved. Just like they do it already and did it long before cell phones existed.
Apparantly not and many others like him don't get it either. Read the comments below and weep for what once was/. home of the nerd/geek who understood math jokes.
It is a joke people. No need to question who did it or what school they went to or discuss the merits of trying to explain the nature of probability in a formula.
A FUCKING JOKE. If you need it simpler it is like the old "You can have it fast, good or cheap. Pick two" but with more braces.
Seriously read the comments. A lot just don't seem to get it at all. Those few who did. Thank god. All hope is not lost. To those who didn't go I recommend suicide. Make the world a happier place.
Or the guards or those who feed the guards or who provide a home for them or those who deliver the prisoners to the deathcamps.
Evil great and small can happen because people turn their back because it is to inconvenient to deal with it right now.
But microsoft is an easy evil. You are not going to be shot for going after ms or any other cooperation that has gotten out of control. Yet.
But leave it like this and the common american Sci-Fi theme of evil cooperations controlling the world, odd that in capatalist america hollywood movies often have cooperations as the evil enemy, will become true.
Your strategie seems to be that Longhorn will suck. I got news for you. Every fucking windows release ever has sucked. Note that all the MS apologists are saying stuff like "Well this new release is less crap then the old one" but mostly are pointing out how good the next one will be and that all your current troubles are your fault anyway.
So go right ahead and keep supporting MS with your computer tax and blind obedience. Others are fighting by not giving MS a penny and supporting those who help break out, (Have you bought your copy of Doom3 and Opera yet?)
For those objecting to the nazis being brought in to this discussion lets not forget that they and their kind (what is the difference between "gein juden" and "whites only") were in power and doing their petty hatred and corrupting long before the famous "final solution" was put into effect. All those years people cried out in protest and people like the above poster silenced them by saying they shouldn't make a fuss and let people get on with their jobs and that it all would work out okay.
I am not saying that MS will be rounding up people or anything similar. I do foresee a future were cooperations like MS but also like media have such a huge amount of control that being critical about them becomes impossible. Already controversial movies are being boycotted and tv series cancelled because the powers that be don't like them.
MS will not be the evil but may easily be an instrument. Just as radio tv and the newspapers have become controlled by a tiny handfull of rightwingers (the same families that gave contributions to the nazis) we might loose the net as the last bastion of free expression that can be heard.
Why else should MS be pushing to make DRM into every piece of media made? Exactly why should my home movies have DRM? To protect my interests or to make sure a protest movie can be easily traced?
Tin foil hat time or not but MS was caught recording what DVD's people watched. MS said it was a mistake when people found out and asked questions. It was a mistake alright. People never should have found out or am I just paranoid?
But that is the weird thing about paranoia isn't it. Your only paranoid if your wrong. Like those people who warned of the nazis and the many other horrors before until it is to late people like you have the majority. Afterwards you cry out, why did nobody do nothing.
No big business deciding what can and what cannot be shown. Oh dear, yeah that is such a big prise to pay.
Oh and quality TV. Oh I forget the free station HBO in america makes quality tv as well. Oh you gotta pay for it?
The BBC as well as the dutch belgian and german public tv stations are totally alien to the american consumer. Quality programs (and a load of crap one) uninterupted by commercials and without business control.
Over here in holland I get to watch them all. The american stations are by far the worst. The HBO programs I rather watch on a license fee payed european channel without any bloody commericals then on the couple of commercial channels.
But hey, some people like the stuff the commericial channels offer. Go live in america. Me I like it. Although I am glad that in holland they shifted the license fee to the general tax. No need for a seperate collection agency when everyone owns a tv anyway. Those freaks who don't, well who cares eh? I pay taxes for maternity wards and I am a geek dammit!
The line is blurred. A high end PC can easily outclass a low end server.
What is usually the difference is form factor, quality of hardware, cooling, and type of hardware.
A serverroom is usually cramped so the smaller the case the better. Or at least a case that doesn't need open areas all around it. Those 9inch racks ain't just there to look cool. It is just more efficient then stacking PC towers.
Not all motherboards/hds/fans/etc are equal. Almost all can run 24/7 if your lucky but being under full load 24/7 is a different thing. I have had zero problems with HD's except the few IDE's that against my advice were used in a server wich put a pretty heavy load on them, because again agianst my advice they had far to little memory.
Cooling is important to. Servers run 24/7 so there is no cooling off period. They also stand next to others and so can only cool through the fans, not by radiating heat from the sides. In short, PC's placed in a cramped enviroment tend to run a little hotter then under your desk. (of course all depends on your desk and serverroom)
But most important is the type of hardware. Yes stuff like hardware raid, ECC memory, SCSI, no fancy crap Motherboards, real PSU, dual/quad CPU really do make a difference on your typical server application. Will you need that extra performance? I don't know.
I once had a low budget website that while taking a lot of hits would take them on a pretty small content base. So we could spend some extra on memory and save on the HD's, the idea being that all the content would be in memory with the HD's sitting pretty much idle.
It worked fine apache cached and the HD's idled. Then the users decided since the machine worked so well they could put more content on it. Then the HD's blew up. The IDE disks could easily handle just the few OS writes and reads (no logging) with apache using a memory cache but when that became full because there was to much content to serve the HD's suddenly had to handle hunderds of thousands of hits. I was amazed they even held out for two months before we started getting weird errors.
Next to it an other customer has a properly setup hardware raid SCSI and it handles a far greater load while barely being stressed.
It is not that the IDE disks were bad. They performed extremely well in fact. Until some idiot decided to use them for something they weren't intended.
So it all depends on what kinda use your machines will see. Just remember one thing, smarter people then you have been trying to save money ever since the bubble has burst. Yes sales of PC servers has gone up and sales of Server servers has gone down. There certainly were more then a few companies during the bubble who spend way to much on their server park but equally there are now companies experiencing downtime because that cheap PC box just ain't cutting it.
There was/is a patent on for instant all of the internal combustion engines HOWEVER there is no patent on the internal combustion engine. Confused?
Previous engines were external combustion engines, namely the steam engine were the fire was outside and the force of the fire through steam was put inside the engine.
So someone thought Hmmm wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we could remove all the steam and hot water and boiler and get the fire inside the engine.
The various ways in wich this has been done have been patented, giving the inventor of the way to do the idea several years protection BUT the idea itself could not be patented.
That is the original idea behind patents. To allow inventors a small amount of time to recoup their investment while at the same time making sure the invention would soon be available to the entire world. We now think that 1 year is a long time but when patents were tought up people thought in decades.
of course since then the patent system has gone to hell with ideas now being patented but that is because it is being abused.
After all it doesn't really matter how much taxes you pay. [pause to hear all the idiot republicans cry out] What matters what you get in return for those taxes.
Simple example, in holland we used to have a license fee for radio and tv. Payable for each receiver although it was usually just a standard tax, not like anyone really paid more for having two tv's. For this fee the tv was funded in a very complex way (basically we have broadcasters who get an amount of money and an amount of air time on the available channels, 10 or so broadcasters on 3 channels).
Anyway it ensured that the broadcasters were not totally reliant on advertising incomes and that minority broadcasters could get airtime.
This has changed as the fee was cancelled and it is now paid from regular taxes.
So american pay taxes + their HBO subscription, we pay taxes and get the HBO. Yes I know it is not as simple as that and we both still got to pay cable subscription but that is my basic idea.
If you pay high taxes but get free quality medical care, free quality education, a safe enviroment, a good legal system, affordable housing, free public transport etc etc are you then better or worse off then someone with low taxes but who has to pay himself from the medical bills, the education of his childeren, needs two cars, has to bribe the cops and have heavy insurance on everything etc etc?
Good goverment isn't about cutting taxes. It is about making sure the taxes are spent without waste and that they benefit the whole of society, not just the few priviliged rich.
But shouting "I am gonna cut your taxes" sounds good. To few people are capable of really doing their math and check that the X you get is not offset by Y you will have to spend extra. Where Y is always higher but to subtle for most people to see.
First there has been a huge influx of new net users and can I say that most of them have next to no knowledge about computers and related subjects? To me it seems like there are more clueless users around then during the last "war". Since these users all use IE by default MS has a huge advantage. When you got your ISP subscription you had to download your browser before and many suggested netscape.
Granted mozilla/firefox has slowly been winning and the time that ISP's would only know about IE seems to be gone but the manuals still talk about IE as far as I have seen.
So before there was a war between the leader Netscape and the "we come default" newbie IE. Now it would be between the Default AND leader IE and the newbie Mozilla. Not exactly the same thing eh?
More people without a clue and a different power balance. I wish Mozilla/firefox all the lucm in the world but I been hearing to long that MS is going to lose or even have a fight.
This post done on Linux/Opera, the choice of real small furry creatures from alpha centauri.
Lets see, what can goverment do. How about things like you mentioned various taxes. Not just the basic tax but how about extras like extra tax on companies outsourcing and tax cuts for companies that get jobs into the country involved.
Things like extra tariffs on certain products. Working with foreign goverments on trade deals. Investing in education to make certain that the companies still employing in your country can actually hire the people they need. Investing in healthcare so people can be cured fast to minimize downtime. Investing in infrastructure to make certain goods and people can move about.
Investing in research to make give your companies an edge they need but can't afford.
Investing in security, not just police but things like a navy to make sure pirates are kept under control or even eliminated (you don't think the real pirates stopped because they got bored?)
A goverment can do plenty to either hurt or benefit the economy. Bush has helped the economy of the rich but not that of the common american. Outsourcing is great for management and share holders. The worker loosing his job is worse of, but hey, who cares eh?
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Then again that cigaret was an icon of WW2. Might as well claim that the whole show is an ad for Jeeps.
Why do you think they currently react to "emergencies" like this leaking tv? Because if they don't someone could die.
Rescue services have to respond to every call even if they know it is false. Because if they guess wrong peoples life are at stake.
They also can't just send a clerk on a moped to find out because if it is real that would loose time.
It says a lot about politicians that in these days of cutbacks no-one is doing anything to cut down on the money wasted by deliberate false emergcengy calls. Send the kids to a few months of re-education. Post 9/11 it should be easy to label them as the terrorists they are.
And no I never made a crank emergency call as a kid. There are just somethings you don't do.
Todays 20yr old boys can barely control a desktop without it getting invested and complain bitterly when they got to press forward for to long in their shooter or bullets don't end up exactly where they are pointing.
Oh and as any cop can tell you, yes people think that they can drive and talk on a phone at the same time. They also can tell you how many people get killed each year while doing that.
Compared to other portable solutions this isn't even that expensive and since it is on the head and not constantly being put down and picked up it will suffer less abuse as well.
As to the email client. Ehm, we are talking default gentoo installation. What email client?
This port is not open UNTIL I TELL IT TO OPEN. Very different from the windows where ports are open for no good reason by default.
Rememeber that code red or whatever? That had a lot of people finding out that their windows box had IIS installed by default? that is what I am talking about. Windows doing stuff you don't need or know about.
Lets face it, your uncle could have survived with a seatbelt and or collapsble steering column.
Wasn't MS response to its lack of security that until recently the public didn't want to pay for it? Sounds an awful lot like this.
And if you say one is need for file shares your an idiot. Since file shares are not enabled by default (only when you share folder) there is no need to have the service open before I start sharing.
You claim your a top programmer but why ain't we seeing this then? We hear this constantly that MS is has the best (small reminder SCO has the best lawyers, we all know how well they are doing) but we ain't seeing the evidence.
Why is there still no PNG support in IE. Why is IE so full of holes. Why does every single fucking windows version still crash for no reason with a fresh install?
Wich wonder kid did decide that file explorer should read every movie files in a directory no matter how many there are? And totally hang if it happens to be a broken avi.
Why can't windows media player play broken avi's but mplayer can?
Why did windows media player report wich dvd's you watched along with your ip?
There is a huge difference between being a top programmer and delivering good work. As I said. MS has the best, I didn't deny this. But somewhere something is going wrong. If not please explain the above.
Oh and you going to your boss to make your point heard is not the same as he listening. Geez, your so smart and you don't even get this?
Anyway they don't say where they insert it. No reason to put it under the skin when you are in a hospital anyway. Put it inside the ribcage. Good luck then eh?
Now protest are starting with a huge strike yesterday but that doesn't matter because come next election the sheep will elect the same party again. People don't like to think. It hurts.
You can see this very well with the american elections. A majority thinks kerry is the better candidate. There feelings tell them bush is more likable. So in the same interview they will say kerry is the better candidate with the better policies but they will vote bush anyway because he seems to really believe what he says. (They don't agree with what he says, they just like the way he says it)
What the fuck can you do then eh? Democracy is fucked.
Maybe we should split the world. Not according to race or religion but according to "has got a clue or not." Where is the B-ark when you need it.
They tried everything to stop people from doing safety studies and stopping laws making safety devices mandatory. It did not fit their marketing image to have to put safety features in.
Sounds very similar eh? Gates blames insecurity on bad users. The car industry blamed it on bad drivers (this fits marketing as noone thinks of themselves as a bad driver).
Until enough studies came out showing how dangerous cars were (things like the steering column being a spear aimed at your chest) and the public started to get aware and goverment was starting to take action ONLY then and very slowly did the car industry do something. That still won't do anything until laws enforce the use of seatbelts and even then you will have idiots claiming using seatbelts is unsafe. Same as I have met person (not heard about, actually talked to myself) who didn't use anti-virus software because it was reading their files.
So don't hold your breath waiting for MS to move on its own. SP2 was already a huge achievement. Anything more will only come after a long long struggle.
Or a very short one if you install the flippered OS. Or the horned one if your into necrophilia. Then again, that is like driving a volvo. Not cool. Sure your kids might survive an accident but who cares about that eh?
MS is big. Really really really big. Gigantic. This means that often things are not going to be moving all that fast but worse still it allows for a real danger off management explosion. 10 progammers need 1 manager. 100 programmers need 10 manager and a manager to manage the managers. 10.000 programmers need 100 managers plus 10 managers of managers and 1 to manage all them and so on right?
WRONG. It is more like 100 programmers need about 10 technical officers, 10 project leaders, 5 project supervisors, a human resource staff, marketing, etc etc etc. To lazy to type it all out but I been in situations where software development had me the programmer reporting to well over a dozen managers all who had their own agenda. So I spend less time programming then doing meetings.
Worse a really good programmer who just spends his time developing will be quickly out of the loop and unable to find an audience for his ideas.
MS probably has several teams who could easily do this. They are just lost somewhere in the management jungle.
Why not find them? Well why should they? Management is doing okay, windows keeps selling the bonusses keep coming in. Why should management go after those creepy skilled programmers when they can deal with nicely suited once who speak their language and deliver the next point upgrade not to much past the deadline?
Lets be honest (ms apologists cover your ears) MS has never been an inovative company at the leading edge. For crying out loud, it started as a unix company after every one else already had done unix and then turned it into dos.
it added a gui only after only everyone else had done one and stole the design. it only got a somewhat 32bit OS by stealing it from IBM and the final irony (someone else pointed this out to me recently) only got that 32bit after others had already had gone to 64bit.
MS can do it 5 times faster, if it wanted. It doesn't. So far playing catchup has worked extremely well. What you don't like the MS search function? Your not that bright are you? The only reason you don't like it is because you paid MS to use it. They got your money wether you like it or not. Your confused and poor, Billy isn't.
This doesn't mean the game is completly finished. For instance localization, translating to different languages. Age verification. Box cover printed. Manual translated and printed. And of course the game image created and cd's pressed.
Then all the parts got to come together and be shipped all over the place.
This all takes time and the real potential of delay. Say you discover that the final image your ready to press has a flaw. Have to do it all over again. Then telling the audience that, sorry it gonna be delayed 2 days is impossible. All those ads "on sale on XXXX-XX-XX" will be wrong.
Just because a game is ready for sale does not mean it is immidiatly in a shop.
Watch band of brothers again. It is a short bit and doesn't get mentioned at all in the last episode where the real soldiers talk. In fact the ep that contained the bit opens with the soldiers talking about how they could be friends with nazis. Oh wait I forgot. The german citizens didn't know. Except that even the dumb GI getting food for the people in the bit knew that wasn't true.
There are plenty of easy arguments for tagging people and of course it is really no different from a social secuirty number or a passport or anything that identifies you. EXCEPT THIS CAN'T BE REMOVED.
Those who try to pacify you with how this wouldn't be abused in a democracy with all kinds of safety's and balances think about this. The person who "ordered" that bit was elected by the people who claimed later they didn't know about that bit. He was supported for almost a decade before the bit was really put into effect. Plenty of time to protest yet none did. The bit didn't affect them. Until things changed and it became better to claim not know about it.
Oh the guy didn't get elected in fair elections? Gee, what guy recently didn't get elected fairly and is apparently doing the same thing again?
There is no secret plot by an evil mastermind to control the world. There is just a bunch of old people who don't see other humans as their equals and the rest who let them.
The potential here is just so great that its use cannot even be considered. Any arguments about how easy it is are 100% correct. Yes it is easy. Easy to lead to a future where we will once again have a series with a bit in it for our childerens childeren to watch. Well those childerens childeren who aren't in the bit.
There is only one reason to put a number on people and that is to seperate them. In hospitals there is good reason to seperate people, even if sometimes that seperation is into one group who gets aid and one who does not (something called triage or discrimenation depending on the criteria being used).
American hospitals still got to get rid of the stigma of segregation, where your color decided what kind if any service you would get. Oh you think that is to long ago? I got news mate, the junior trainee may well be a member of the board now.
Could this possibly be used to determine at the door who you are in an emergency ward? Like say a person with no insurance to pay for the threathment? Who skipped on his last bill? Would doctors still help you knowing that? Don't forget, these are the same doctors who didn't obey their oath when it came to helping those of a different color/religion/etc before.
Current medical bracelets are good enough. If you loose it? Well though mate. Your the patient, take care of yourselve. What next? Wiring your medicine to you body to avoid forgetting your pills?
Funny thing is that americans for all their supposed stupidness actually are questioning this thing. In holland there was a "news" (HAHAA news, that is joke) item on a bar duplicating what been done in italy, a RFID tag as a wallet. The "journalist" never even thought to ask about possible abuse. Neither did any of the recipients. Even those who opted out only did because of the size of the needle.
Europe as mindless slaves tagging people. Oh america, are you ready to come over yet again? Third time is a charm.
Of course only a tiny handfull of people need to really be on call. How many cell phone calls have you overheard or even had that were important?
Set it to vibrate. When it goes off the doctor leaves the theather and makes the call. All problems solved. Just like they do it already and did it long before cell phones existed.
It is a joke people. No need to question who did it or what school they went to or discuss the merits of trying to explain the nature of probability in a formula.
A FUCKING JOKE. If you need it simpler it is like the old "You can have it fast, good or cheap. Pick two" but with more braces.
Seriously read the comments. A lot just don't seem to get it at all. Those few who did. Thank god. All hope is not lost. To those who didn't go I recommend suicide. Make the world a happier place.
Evil great and small can happen because people turn their back because it is to inconvenient to deal with it right now.
But microsoft is an easy evil. You are not going to be shot for going after ms or any other cooperation that has gotten out of control. Yet.
But leave it like this and the common american Sci-Fi theme of evil cooperations controlling the world, odd that in capatalist america hollywood movies often have cooperations as the evil enemy, will become true.
Your strategie seems to be that Longhorn will suck. I got news for you. Every fucking windows release ever has sucked. Note that all the MS apologists are saying stuff like "Well this new release is less crap then the old one" but mostly are pointing out how good the next one will be and that all your current troubles are your fault anyway.
So go right ahead and keep supporting MS with your computer tax and blind obedience. Others are fighting by not giving MS a penny and supporting those who help break out, (Have you bought your copy of Doom3 and Opera yet?)
For those objecting to the nazis being brought in to this discussion lets not forget that they and their kind (what is the difference between "gein juden" and "whites only") were in power and doing their petty hatred and corrupting long before the famous "final solution" was put into effect. All those years people cried out in protest and people like the above poster silenced them by saying they shouldn't make a fuss and let people get on with their jobs and that it all would work out okay.
I am not saying that MS will be rounding up people or anything similar. I do foresee a future were cooperations like MS but also like media have such a huge amount of control that being critical about them becomes impossible. Already controversial movies are being boycotted and tv series cancelled because the powers that be don't like them.
MS will not be the evil but may easily be an instrument. Just as radio tv and the newspapers have become controlled by a tiny handfull of rightwingers (the same families that gave contributions to the nazis) we might loose the net as the last bastion of free expression that can be heard.
Why else should MS be pushing to make DRM into every piece of media made? Exactly why should my home movies have DRM? To protect my interests or to make sure a protest movie can be easily traced?
Tin foil hat time or not but MS was caught recording what DVD's people watched. MS said it was a mistake when people found out and asked questions. It was a mistake alright. People never should have found out or am I just paranoid?
But that is the weird thing about paranoia isn't it. Your only paranoid if your wrong. Like those people who warned of the nazis and the many other horrors before until it is to late people like you have the majority. Afterwards you cry out, why did nobody do nothing.
Oh and quality TV. Oh I forget the free station HBO in america makes quality tv as well. Oh you gotta pay for it?
The BBC as well as the dutch belgian and german public tv stations are totally alien to the american consumer. Quality programs (and a load of crap one) uninterupted by commercials and without business control.
Over here in holland I get to watch them all. The american stations are by far the worst. The HBO programs I rather watch on a license fee payed european channel without any bloody commericals then on the couple of commercial channels.
But hey, some people like the stuff the commericial channels offer. Go live in america. Me I like it. Although I am glad that in holland they shifted the license fee to the general tax. No need for a seperate collection agency when everyone owns a tv anyway. Those freaks who don't, well who cares eh? I pay taxes for maternity wards and I am a geek dammit!
What is usually the difference is form factor, quality of hardware, cooling, and type of hardware.
A serverroom is usually cramped so the smaller the case the better. Or at least a case that doesn't need open areas all around it. Those 9inch racks ain't just there to look cool. It is just more efficient then stacking PC towers.
Not all motherboards/hds/fans/etc are equal. Almost all can run 24/7 if your lucky but being under full load 24/7 is a different thing. I have had zero problems with HD's except the few IDE's that against my advice were used in a server wich put a pretty heavy load on them, because again agianst my advice they had far to little memory.
Cooling is important to. Servers run 24/7 so there is no cooling off period. They also stand next to others and so can only cool through the fans, not by radiating heat from the sides. In short, PC's placed in a cramped enviroment tend to run a little hotter then under your desk. (of course all depends on your desk and serverroom)
But most important is the type of hardware. Yes stuff like hardware raid, ECC memory, SCSI, no fancy crap Motherboards, real PSU, dual/quad CPU really do make a difference on your typical server application. Will you need that extra performance? I don't know.
I once had a low budget website that while taking a lot of hits would take them on a pretty small content base. So we could spend some extra on memory and save on the HD's, the idea being that all the content would be in memory with the HD's sitting pretty much idle.
It worked fine apache cached and the HD's idled. Then the users decided since the machine worked so well they could put more content on it. Then the HD's blew up. The IDE disks could easily handle just the few OS writes and reads (no logging) with apache using a memory cache but when that became full because there was to much content to serve the HD's suddenly had to handle hunderds of thousands of hits. I was amazed they even held out for two months before we started getting weird errors.
Next to it an other customer has a properly setup hardware raid SCSI and it handles a far greater load while barely being stressed.
It is not that the IDE disks were bad. They performed extremely well in fact. Until some idiot decided to use them for something they weren't intended.
So it all depends on what kinda use your machines will see. Just remember one thing, smarter people then you have been trying to save money ever since the bubble has burst. Yes sales of PC servers has gone up and sales of Server servers has gone down. There certainly were more then a few companies during the bubble who spend way to much on their server park but equally there are now companies experiencing downtime because that cheap PC box just ain't cutting it.
Buyer beware.
Previous engines were external combustion engines, namely the steam engine were the fire was outside and the force of the fire through steam was put inside the engine.
So someone thought Hmmm wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if we could remove all the steam and hot water and boiler and get the fire inside the engine.
The various ways in wich this has been done have been patented, giving the inventor of the way to do the idea several years protection BUT the idea itself could not be patented.
That is the original idea behind patents. To allow inventors a small amount of time to recoup their investment while at the same time making sure the invention would soon be available to the entire world. We now think that 1 year is a long time but when patents were tought up people thought in decades.
of course since then the patent system has gone to hell with ideas now being patented but that is because it is being abused.
Simple example, in holland we used to have a license fee for radio and tv. Payable for each receiver although it was usually just a standard tax, not like anyone really paid more for having two tv's. For this fee the tv was funded in a very complex way (basically we have broadcasters who get an amount of money and an amount of air time on the available channels, 10 or so broadcasters on 3 channels).
Anyway it ensured that the broadcasters were not totally reliant on advertising incomes and that minority broadcasters could get airtime.
This has changed as the fee was cancelled and it is now paid from regular taxes.
So american pay taxes + their HBO subscription, we pay taxes and get the HBO. Yes I know it is not as simple as that and we both still got to pay cable subscription but that is my basic idea.
If you pay high taxes but get free quality medical care, free quality education, a safe enviroment, a good legal system, affordable housing, free public transport etc etc are you then better or worse off then someone with low taxes but who has to pay himself from the medical bills, the education of his childeren, needs two cars, has to bribe the cops and have heavy insurance on everything etc etc?
Good goverment isn't about cutting taxes. It is about making sure the taxes are spent without waste and that they benefit the whole of society, not just the few priviliged rich.
But shouting "I am gonna cut your taxes" sounds good. To few people are capable of really doing their math and check that the X you get is not offset by Y you will have to spend extra. Where Y is always higher but to subtle for most people to see.
Granted mozilla/firefox has slowly been winning and the time that ISP's would only know about IE seems to be gone but the manuals still talk about IE as far as I have seen.
So before there was a war between the leader Netscape and the "we come default" newbie IE. Now it would be between the Default AND leader IE and the newbie Mozilla. Not exactly the same thing eh?
More people without a clue and a different power balance. I wish Mozilla/firefox all the lucm in the world but I been hearing to long that MS is going to lose or even have a fight.
This post done on Linux/Opera, the choice of real small furry creatures from alpha centauri.
Things like extra tariffs on certain products. Working with foreign goverments on trade deals. Investing in education to make certain that the companies still employing in your country can actually hire the people they need. Investing in healthcare so people can be cured fast to minimize downtime. Investing in infrastructure to make certain goods and people can move about.
Investing in research to make give your companies an edge they need but can't afford.
Investing in security, not just police but things like a navy to make sure pirates are kept under control or even eliminated (you don't think the real pirates stopped because they got bored?)
A goverment can do plenty to either hurt or benefit the economy. Bush has helped the economy of the rich but not that of the common american. Outsourcing is great for management and share holders. The worker loosing his job is worse of, but hey, who cares eh?