Funny thing about starvation is that it has more to do with geo politics and much less with the amount of food produced. People, in particular economist, have predicted that populations would surpass food production for quite some time. In the 1950's and 1960's it was called "The Dismal Science" which is the title of a an economic journal now I believe.
Why so many are dying in the third world is due to problems in distrubution which range from lack of basic infractructures to on going warfare. Often times the food aid ends up in the hands of corrupted governments or warlords and used to control the local popluation.
Would we be able to wipe out starvation 100% world wide in a perfect world...probably not, but chances are we could make vast improvements. No matter how hard one tries under any economic system, some are going to loose. Welcome to Darwin's world.
Diesease has a much better chance of doing some major harm. It did in 1918.
However, do not underestimate the power of a large volcanic eruption causing massive problems. Chances are such an event wiped out the great Minoan civilization. And if Yellowstone would blow, yes Yellowstone National Park is basically one big semi active superdome volcano, kiss your ass good bye.
I will beg to differ with that assesment. The federal government should staying the hell away from standardizing anything when it comes to primary schools. Why many school districts are hacing issues now are because 80%+ of their budgets are strangled by federal and/or state mandates. If most of the funding comes from locally collected taxes, there should be some kind of basic standards in math, reading, and writing for each grade level nationally, then let the local community figure out how to best go about the tasks.
Not saying that all those on school boards should be, as with any elected office, but the fact that these are typically locally elected members means that the community can still kick them out if they do a bad job. Ever try to fire anyone in the Federal Government? Or better yet, has any burocrat ever listened to you? Federalize the system and the very same people that control policy now, aka the lobby groups with money, will control the schools as well. Is that really what you want? One lobby gets powerful enough and poof, evolution is gone from the biology books. Probably a bad example, but...
My gradfather served on his local school board just after consolodation from one room country schools to larger districts. He was a farmer, but they fired bad people and did the best that they could. Many of that generation, like my parents, were the first in the family to attend college. What made school boards, and many other organizations back then, more effective was that people in the community gave a damn about the community. They didn't run for school board to hold an office, they did so because of a genuine desire to make sure their kids and others' kids got the best education that was possible with the resources.
Actual, global tempatures have been rising (on average) since the last Ice Age some 10k years ago. Sure there have been global dips and rises for a few years, but the general trend has been upwards without any human intervention.
The atlantic conveyor has broken before with no man made help. As George Carlin said: (Paraphrase) "The earth has been here a long time. Its survived astriod impacts, etc. People say 'save the earth', I say the earth is going to be here long after we are. Its not save the earth, its save the humans".
Personally I find many in the enviromental movement that can't seem to understand that 98% of all species that has ever existed are no EXTINCT. Rather arrogant to thing we will be any different. Climate changes happen, impact from astriods happen, and we will either adapt or die. Its really that simple. Something to be said for "Eat, Drink, and be Merry for tomorrow we may all die".
And there was a Supreme Court Case in 1956 to parts of the NATO treaty which basically said that the Consitution shall be upheld above treaties signed with foriegn governments. Kinda off-topic, but just an interesting fact.
technically, new and different would be an invention. Innovation is an improvement on an exiting medium. Creating a tabulating machine is a basic mechanical computer. Using transisters instead of vaccum tubes, while a giant leap, would be an innovation.
How about we look at the consitution. (forgive spelling, 3AM on 4 hours of sleep night before).
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution empowers the United States Congress "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
Okay, with that said let's look at what the Supreme Court has ruled over the years. While the Consitution may outline our rights and system of government, what it means is ultimately determined by the justices of the Supreme Court in accordance to Common Law.
There have been cases like this before only in the 1800's it was the railroads that served as the vital link of communications. Let's just see what some of the rulings have been shall we:
Fletcher vs. Peck (1810)
A new state administration had passed a law voiding a land grant made by the previous administration. When the landowners sued, Marshall ruled that the contract had to stand. Article I, Sect 10 of the Constitution forbid state laws "impairing" contracts. Thus the contract law was created making written contracts legal and binding.
Munn v. Illinois (1877)
In the case Munn v. Illinois (1877) Midwestern farmers felt that they were being victimized by the exorbitant freight rates they were forced to pay to the powerful railroad companies. As a result, the state of Illinois passed a law that allowed the state to fix maximum rates that railroads and grain elevator companies could charge.
The Supreme Court of the United States upheldthe Illinois law because the movement end storage of grain were considered to be closely related to public interest. This type of economic activity could be governed by state legislatures, whereas purely private contracts could only be governed by the courts. The Court held that laws affecting public interest could be made or charged by state legislatures without interference from the courts. The Court said, "For protection against abuse by legislatures, the people must resort to the polls, not the courts."
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois (1886)
An Illinois statute imposed a penalty on railroads that charged the same or more money for passengers or freight shipped for shorter distances than for longer distances. The railroad in this case charged more for goods shipped from Gilman, Illinois, to New York, than from Peoria, Illinois, to New York, when Gilman was eightysix miles closer to New York than Peoria. The intent of the statute was to avoid discrimination against small towns not served by competing railroad lines and was applied to the intrastate (within one state) portion of an interstate (two or more states) journey. At issue was whether a state government has the power to regulate railroad prices on that portion of an interstate journey that lies within its borders.
The Supreme Court of the United States held the Illinois statute to be invalid and that the power to regulate interstate railroad rates is a federal power which belongs exclusively to Congress and, therefore, cannot be exercised by individual states. The Court said the right of continuous transportation from one end of the country to the other is essential and that states should not be permitted to impose restraints on the freedom of commerce. In this decision, the Court gave great strength to the commerce clause of the Constitution by saying that states cannot impose regulations concerning price, compensation, taxation, or any other restrictive regulation interfering with or seriously affecting interstate commerce. [One year after Wabash, Congress enacted the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). This commission had the power to regulate interstate commerce.]
People seem to still think the internet is somehow "different", new, and it is not. It is just an innovation using an electronic medium to tranmit information as opposed to paper and ink. Cyberlibal is no different than had this man made flyers from his computer and posted them around town. It is still defamation in written form. As for faking stmp headers, etc. etc., that is why there are courts and burdens of proof.
Slashdot got one thing correct using the term, "Anyomous Coward". It takes just as much courage to write and stand behind those words as it does to face bullets in battle. And sometimes standing up for what you write involves facing bullets.
After actually reading the artice I noticed something interesting. They had a third quarter loss of about USD 300k, yet profits of over USD 9M for the year. This is the 90 day US market mentality on why so many businesses get in trouble. I take a look at why they loss money in a single quarter, and the answer looks to be investment into new employees and marketing. Typically that will pay off down the road. The artice stated they had a some 7-fold increase in revenue for the quarter over last year. Hmmm...
Company is European. (Nordic if I remember correctly). Typically European businesses, in particular German companies (I studied International Business and German in collge) tend to have an out look of 15 years. If there are a couple off quaters or even off years finicailly because of marketing or R&D expenses, then typically that is expected and over the long term one should come out ahead. Classic example: European Steel industry putting in efficent plants and equipement. Hell of an up front cost, but here 30 years later when energy prices have increased, put a hurt on the inneffecient US steel industry.
Boeing usually goes to Japan to finace projects like the 777 because Japan has almost a life time "Where do we want to be in 50 years" approach.
Not to say all good/bad/indeffierent, but too often US companies slash marketing and R&D to improve quarterly or yearly numbers and find themselves out of business 5 or 10 years down the road because someone else with forsight developed the better mouse trap or marketing trap.
I really hate this "good guys" (opensource) vs. "Bad guys" (closed source) defining of the software industry. There are good opensource apps, and a hell of a lot of crapola. There are good closed source apps and lots of crapola. This whole duelist approach of opensource = good and closed source = bad mentality stinks. If its anything I learned from philosophy classes it was to red flag anything duelistic.
For the on topic part: iTunes intrensically is neither good nor evil. What happened was Apple created an easy to use interface and a common sense balanced approach to DRMed-digital music. The iPod also happens to be the most prevelent digital music player on the market as well. Not because Apple is "evil" or "good", but because they created a gadget that's easy to use. You don't have to be a nerd to use an iPod. Then they made iTunes and the iPod work together extremely well on both Mac as well as Windows. kudos to Apple for creating what the market wanted: keep easy downloadable music and what the industry wanted: some form of DRM. IMHO fair use by downloaders and copyright protection is well served by the iTunes store.
I know this is slahdot where there is a vocal minority that loves to scream that everything should be free as in speach and/or beer. But Apple made a program that is easy to use by the masses along with a music player that is easy to use by the masses along with music with a fair comprimise between DRM and fair use. And that was exactly what people wanted.
I still hate to break this to Linux users outside of a server room: but Linux is still in the vast minority of desktop users. Then within the sub-set of Linux users you get people clammering for Ogg Vorbis or this or that and that, oh and that too.
that power may only seem relvant to gamers, but there is another industry that can use all that power it can get and primarly uses Macs: graphics and video production. While it may not be relvant for photoshop users, those doing renderings in programs like Maya can use any and all CPU and GPU power one can spare.
also in the industry, the lower the rendering times, the quicker you can move onto the next job thus increasing revenues and hopefully profits as well.
Actually his point about getting in trouble with the FCC is technically valid even if you misuse/abuse/modify the equipement. Most devices are supposed to have hardware limitations. Those limitation can be altered.
Offtopic example: Dish model 6000 HD receiver required a new updated module for reformatted HD broadcasts. For what ever the damned reason, they provided a sticker to place over the accecory jack for IR-extenders. For whatever reason, was against FCC regulation to use the new HD module with the IR extender and it said in the book several time the "adheive patch"/(sticker) had to placed over the jack to make it FCC compliant. Why? Beats the hell out of me and our neighbor thats an installer for Dish. For whatever reason too, legally Echostar/Dish could get in trouble for the patch not being there just as much as you could. Again, why the hell that accessory jack had to have a sticker on it (we weren't using it anyway) is beyond me, but the installation booket stressed several times that IT HAD TO BE THERE BECAUSE OF THE FCC.
Now does the FCC really give a shit? Not unless its interfering with something and someone complains. But FCC like any government agency can be really bitchy from time to time.
Once took a course in college taught a couple ex-NASA and JPL scientist called "Design your own space mission". Our team chose Mars and was shocked to see many of the needed technologies existed on the shelf including nuclear rockets. Main problems still are with the Human body like radiation exposure and the effects of long duration space travel.
Anyway, here is the big problem with nuclear rockets: getting them into LEO. At some point you have to launch the fuel. That tends to attract a lot of protesters. To early in the morning to google the exact mission, but there was a deep space problem launched by NASA from Cape in the last 5 years that used Plutonium as its fuel source much like the Voyager probes. Green Peace and other groups protested the launch because of potential dangers if the self-destruct had to be employed because the launch failed in the atmosphere. People living in Denver get higher doses of radiation on a daily basis then would have been released if the rocket had to be destroyed for any reason. But still it garners a lot of political pressures.
Also, if I remember correctly, there are parts of the Moon treaty which prohibit (at least potentually) deploying such engines in space because the amounts of Uranium could be considered as a bomb/weapon in space. At least according to the treaty.
Even if the Russians, Americans, and others decided to allow fission reactors in space (which is a real possiblity in today's world), there would still be political protests against the move just because the shipment of radioactive materials into space.
Nah, now its a race between China vs. Rutan to see who can put a man in space longer. So far China's ahead, but Rutan got a man in space twice in 2 weeks on a USD 25M budget. Now that's impressive even if it was just sub-orbital. Also proves that Dual Stage to Orbit vs. NASA's Single Stage to Orbit pipe dream is more cost effective.
Some people are gifted with languages. It was hard enough learning German as my second language (native English Speaker) through 4 years of high school and 4 years of college including spending a year in Germany. Even to this day I can carry on a conversation in German about politics and business, but I am netorious for speaking German with an English accent. Also I miss my fair share of adjetive endings as well, but that's due to the fact I'm out of practice not having to use it everyday. However, I get my points accross and the Germans seem to generally understand what I'm saying in German enough to be considered fluent. Am I native fluentcy? Hell no, not even close.
Now reading and writing are different. I can pick up just about any German newspaper and understand 95%. Always run across new words or vocab I've just forgotten, but also why I have a dictionary handy. Writing, takes a bit longer than in English because I tend to actually proof read the text (unlike on slashdot).
Real time translation also isn't a strong suit. I don't function well having to go back and forth between German and English quickly. Almost like my keyboard toggle, its either in English or German. Drove my Dad nuts when he was visiting me. He speaks absolutely no German. He'd ask me what they were talking about on TV and I could tell him the topic and give a cliff notes version of what was being said, but not a real time exact translation even though I knew exactly what they were saying.
I am not a lingust. Topic is fasinating, but I have a hard enough time with 2 languages as it is...
I worked for a short time for a company that had a legit product, but one that was going to be replaced by Wifi within 18 months (was my predictiom, turned out to be more like 8 months). Anyway, the guy was defrauding his clients and lying through his teeth. Maybe it was his sales background or what. Anyway, I was hired on as the IT guy and he wanted me to write scripts that would make it "look" like he was getting more hits than he really was. I refused, was fired/quit, and he never bothered to pay me my last 3 weeks pay. Total sum was about $3000. It would have taken more than that to hire a lawyer. I didn't worry about it because I knew that he would be out of business in less than a year.
Sure enough, about 9 months later, all his products were out of their locations and I drove by what used to be the offices and his space was for rent/lease. Justice was served just because I was right, he was out of business in a short time.
Past year I've been working as a consultant and made enough to pay bills and such while looking for a full-time job. Ran across someone looking for my skills and just had an interview with him. After about 10 minutes of poking around on the internet found out his business is an Amway front. So go figure. In fact as I write this from a St. Louis Bread Co. (Penera Bread Company anywhere but St. Louis) he just walked by with some blue prints saw me and left as if he had some kind of "real" business to look at. This world is full of scammers and schisters.
Eventually they get what they deserve...well I say that I get to choose between Tweedle-Dumb and Tweddle-Dumber part II just like in 2000 tomorrow...fun, fun.
2 things, rarely does ANYTHING get back fixed in politics.
Second off: when dealing with terrorists, expanding police powers with laws like the Patriot Act have been effective. Examples: UK, France, and Germany all inacted ease dropping laws due to terrorism from the IRA, Algerian Seperatists, and the Red Army Faction (Baader Meinhof Gang) respectively.
Some how, those countries have not decayed into facist olice states again.
Yes and no. Go to any college campus and Mac users will have Photoshop, Office, and half a dozen other apps pirated. Why? Because most applications on Mac require a simple drag and drop of the folder from one computer to another via the network. Its extremely easy to pirate materials.
In the real world its a different senerio. The two main people that use Macs today in business are still graphics and video editing folks. In those industries, if you are caught using pirated software then you are blacklisted in the local art community. Galleries won't display your work, others won't return your phone calls, etc.. The reason being that if everyone else spent the $5000 or so for all the pro tools and adobe suite and one pirated the copies and there for only had the cost of hardware (still expensive) then you could see where people get irate.
That's not to say that people that own 2 or 3 macs and work out their house buy one copy and install on all don't do it. I know many that have and most will turn a blind eye to that so long as they purchased a copy. Again, college/art students can get away with the use of pirated software as well, but as soon as your out of school, you'd better pay for the next upgrade or risk your livelyhood.
Easier to pirate: yes. However, generally less of an incentive.
we were suposed to have moon bases, LEO space hotels with simulated gravity, commerical flights into space all by 2001.
In 2004 well, we now have one of the three thanks to SpaceShipOne possibly by 2010 for the ueber rich, but rarely do I pay much attention to any predictions in technology more than about 18 months out.
At the end of the day, the lines of communication are owned physically by someone somewhere. Whether it be the high speed backbone fiber lines, the satilites, routers, servers, etc. someone owns it. Countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Cuba have been effective at filtering contents. Now can governments ever be 100% effective, none ever has. How many people ever read an underground newspaper? I did in college, also might have written an article or two also.
However the nature of the internet has changed in the last 8 - 10 years. I remember designing simple webpages back in high school 10 years ago and even my first couple years in college when search engines, especially Google in the early days, brought a wealth of research information. However one had to be careful and double check facts because like every medium, not everything publish on the net is accurate. That has only gotten worse. I can remember the dates of people's birth being wrong. Although most likely due to editing/typing error rather than intentional misinformation.
Today, I find the internet an increasing annoyance, not a convience. Granted, I've made a pretty decent living as a consultant in IT because the world of the internet has gotten a lot darker. Even with Spamassassin and Junk filtering, 50% of my email or more is still spam or viruses. I even switched to Macintosh for my daily use. Partely because I fix everyone's Windows machines all day, partley because its a Unix OS with application support from major commercial vendors, and because it works. But I've gone from website design to helping businesses deal with Spam, viruses, spyware, etc. etc..
Searching on google anymore is oftentimes annoying as the first 20 results are someone trying to sell me something that's spent lots of $$$ for SEO. Not only that, but there is a lot of crap on the internet these days and a lot of it is Opinion. If I want to get opinions, and a good laugh, I'll watch Bill O'Riley for the first 10 minutes or so.
Anymore I check my email, visit a couple sites on a routine basis, and get off. Even my dad picks up a dozen or so spyware cookies just going around visiting his couple sites a day every week.
I work with more average joes than geeks or lawyers and people are fed up with it. They don't care if it does take government intervention to do so. They don't really want government to be involved, but to them clearly the internet cannot regulate itself has was the popular belief 5 years ago.
Something has to give, and generally people (for better or worse) will turn to government.
I enjoy computer and console games. Played them for hours since age 5 or so, but it seems like I go through phases. Recently I've gone through some of my old DOS games. I had about a month between moving and starting a new job, but I find it goes in sperts.
I used to play rogue spear a lot during college, especially online. However, I seemed to always manage to get homework and papers completed well enough to finish 158 hours in 4.5 years including summers. But the thing I liked about Rogue Spear was I could get on and play against the computer or others in games that typically lasted less that 10 - 15 minutes. So after reading a chapter or a handout, I'd play a game or two, then get back to work. Or read while people were messing around and the game loaded. Play, get killed and go back to reading until the game was finished.
Last year I used to hang out with people every saturday night that would Role play from about 6PM until 9 PM. I never saw the point and usually played Risk, watched a movie, shot the bull with others that didn't RPG and then they would order out pizza and break out HALO about 9 - 10PM and we'd play 4v4 halo until midnight or 1PM.
However, two people that continueally played online games and halo failed out of school. (most had graduated and had full-time jobs or worked part time and were in Grad school). They both ended up selling their X-boxes and one got to come back this fall. His present from his grandparents: an Alienware Laptop. A $1000 Dell would have been fine for school use, but Alienware is designed for gamers.
I was engaged at one point. I worked as a free-lance web designer during college and continued to do so to pay bills, but I was burned out of doing it after 8 years. I kept applying for jobs in the morning. Sending out resumes online and in paperform to local companies hiring, then in the afternoon I'd sit, watch TV, and play Rogue Spear: Black Thorn. Oftentimes forgetting to do chores like vaccuum. Ticked off my fiance (that worked a part-time job and was trying to start a wedding planning business that I helped with in the evenings and on weekends) to no end. Sometimes when she had a big wedding or was sub-contracting with someone else, I'd spend my nights playing the online game.
In pre-marital counsiling (required by the Church), she would bring it up. Ultimately it really wasn't a factor in our break-up. That was due to my Majors being International Business and German and to find a job meant leaving Springfield, Missouri which she didn't want to do.
Its something I watch out for. I like to play computer games, but anymore I get extremely board playing the same games. Its been fun dragging out TIE Fighter this past week. I've been thinking of getting an X-box, but I even hooked up my old Sega Gensises to the 65" HDTV I have and played it for about 4 hours one night just for kicks. (Okay two-nights, an old friend came over and we drug out mortal kombat).
I can remember playing Knights of the Old Republic and it logging I spent 48 hours playing the game over about 3 months at my friends. Then someone said I needed to play it again and do it dark side and I said, "Yeah, just tell me what happens because I've spent about 40 hours too long playing this game." I know someone else that spend the combined total of 120 days straight of EQ and had to quit. That certainly becomes and addiction.
At least when your playing Basketball, or in my case ice hockey, you are interacting with real people and getting excercise. I'm sure a lot of childhood obeseity these days are linked to kids doing nothing but watching TV, playing video games, as well as diet.
What really broke me was I spent 1 semester in Europe, Germany specifically. I had my iBook, no games, no TV in my apartment (I wish I had a TV so I could have listen to more German), but went out almost everynight for dinner from 7PM - 10PM and either watched Soccer or revived the lost art of conversation and debate over a smoke, tea and/or wine.
Was the multiplayer. We'd often have X-box parties at a friend's house where we'd drink and play 4v4 or 8v8 Halo as well as other games just about all night. People would bring over DLP projectors and their X-boxes and it was a blast.
I've recently moved and thus far, most of the people I've met have really no desire to play X-box. Yeah, I have a 65" HDTV and thought of buying an X-box, but I got to thinking about it and realized that I liked to play X-Box, but it was the multiplayer stuff that was fun...and funny especially after a couple rum runners.
Call me getting old, but I have a couple classic games I still like to play on the PC, but that's about it.
My Dad really only uses word processor and spreadsheet to keep track of his stocks. So after a crash and reinstall last year I installed OO on his machine. Only complaint is that it takes a few seconds to load the first time. I have discs to MS office 2000 and XP with XP never have been installed before.
However, I use MS Office V.x for Mac over OpenOffice. Why? I find that it works better than on windows and I actually like using it over other applications. But mainly PowerPoint. Keynotes is nice and I could survive with Apple Works for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, but still I find PowerPoint for Mac extremely hard to beat. Same with Word for Mac. It just seems cleaner than Word XP or 2000. Excel I don't use often enough really to go one way or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
Why so many are dying in the third world is due to problems in distrubution which range from lack of basic infractructures to on going warfare. Often times the food aid ends up in the hands of corrupted governments or warlords and used to control the local popluation.
Would we be able to wipe out starvation 100% world wide in a perfect world...probably not, but chances are we could make vast improvements. No matter how hard one tries under any economic system, some are going to loose. Welcome to Darwin's world.
Diesease has a much better chance of doing some major harm. It did in 1918.
However, do not underestimate the power of a large volcanic eruption causing massive problems. Chances are such an event wiped out the great Minoan civilization. And if Yellowstone would blow, yes Yellowstone National Park is basically one big semi active superdome volcano, kiss your ass good bye.
spankings as a kid seemed to get the message across
Not saying that all those on school boards should be, as with any elected office, but the fact that these are typically locally elected members means that the community can still kick them out if they do a bad job. Ever try to fire anyone in the Federal Government? Or better yet, has any burocrat ever listened to you? Federalize the system and the very same people that control policy now, aka the lobby groups with money, will control the schools as well. Is that really what you want? One lobby gets powerful enough and poof, evolution is gone from the biology books. Probably a bad example, but...
My gradfather served on his local school board just after consolodation from one room country schools to larger districts. He was a farmer, but they fired bad people and did the best that they could. Many of that generation, like my parents, were the first in the family to attend college. What made school boards, and many other organizations back then, more effective was that people in the community gave a damn about the community. They didn't run for school board to hold an office, they did so because of a genuine desire to make sure their kids and others' kids got the best education that was possible with the resources.
The atlantic conveyor has broken before with no man made help. As George Carlin said: (Paraphrase) "The earth has been here a long time. Its survived astriod impacts, etc. People say 'save the earth', I say the earth is going to be here long after we are. Its not save the earth, its save the humans".
Personally I find many in the enviromental movement that can't seem to understand that 98% of all species that has ever existed are no EXTINCT. Rather arrogant to thing we will be any different. Climate changes happen, impact from astriods happen, and we will either adapt or die. Its really that simple. Something to be said for "Eat, Drink, and be Merry for tomorrow we may all die".
And there was a Supreme Court Case in 1956 to parts of the NATO treaty which basically said that the Consitution shall be upheld above treaties signed with foriegn governments. Kinda off-topic, but just an interesting fact.
technically, new and different would be an invention. Innovation is an improvement on an exiting medium. Creating a tabulating machine is a basic mechanical computer. Using transisters instead of vaccum tubes, while a giant leap, would be an innovation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
Okay, with that said let's look at what the Supreme Court has ruled over the years. While the Consitution may outline our rights and system of government, what it means is ultimately determined by the justices of the Supreme Court in accordance to Common Law.
There have been cases like this before only in the 1800's it was the railroads that served as the vital link of communications. Let's just see what some of the rulings have been shall we:
Fletcher vs. Peck (1810)
Munn v. Illinois (1877)
Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway Co. v. Illinois (1886)
Slashdot got one thing correct using the term, "Anyomous Coward". It takes just as much courage to write and stand behind those words as it does to face bullets in battle. And sometimes standing up for what you write involves facing bullets.
Company is European. (Nordic if I remember correctly). Typically European businesses, in particular German companies (I studied International Business and German in collge) tend to have an out look of 15 years. If there are a couple off quaters or even off years finicailly because of marketing or R&D expenses, then typically that is expected and over the long term one should come out ahead. Classic example: European Steel industry putting in efficent plants and equipement. Hell of an up front cost, but here 30 years later when energy prices have increased, put a hurt on the inneffecient US steel industry.
Boeing usually goes to Japan to finace projects like the 777 because Japan has almost a life time "Where do we want to be in 50 years" approach.
Not to say all good/bad/indeffierent, but too often US companies slash marketing and R&D to improve quarterly or yearly numbers and find themselves out of business 5 or 10 years down the road because someone else with forsight developed the better mouse trap or marketing trap.
For the on topic part: iTunes intrensically is neither good nor evil. What happened was Apple created an easy to use interface and a common sense balanced approach to DRMed-digital music. The iPod also happens to be the most prevelent digital music player on the market as well. Not because Apple is "evil" or "good", but because they created a gadget that's easy to use. You don't have to be a nerd to use an iPod. Then they made iTunes and the iPod work together extremely well on both Mac as well as Windows. kudos to Apple for creating what the market wanted: keep easy downloadable music and what the industry wanted: some form of DRM. IMHO fair use by downloaders and copyright protection is well served by the iTunes store.
I know this is slahdot where there is a vocal minority that loves to scream that everything should be free as in speach and/or beer. But Apple made a program that is easy to use by the masses along with a music player that is easy to use by the masses along with music with a fair comprimise between DRM and fair use. And that was exactly what people wanted.
I still hate to break this to Linux users outside of a server room: but Linux is still in the vast minority of desktop users. Then within the sub-set of Linux users you get people clammering for Ogg Vorbis or this or that and that, oh and that too.
also in the industry, the lower the rendering times, the quicker you can move onto the next job thus increasing revenues and hopefully profits as well.
Offtopic example: Dish model 6000 HD receiver required a new updated module for reformatted HD broadcasts. For what ever the damned reason, they provided a sticker to place over the accecory jack for IR-extenders. For whatever reason, was against FCC regulation to use the new HD module with the IR extender and it said in the book several time the "adheive patch"/(sticker) had to placed over the jack to make it FCC compliant. Why? Beats the hell out of me and our neighbor thats an installer for Dish. For whatever reason too, legally Echostar/Dish could get in trouble for the patch not being there just as much as you could. Again, why the hell that accessory jack had to have a sticker on it (we weren't using it anyway) is beyond me, but the installation booket stressed several times that IT HAD TO BE THERE BECAUSE OF THE FCC.
Now does the FCC really give a shit? Not unless its interfering with something and someone complains. But FCC like any government agency can be really bitchy from time to time.
Anyway, here is the big problem with nuclear rockets: getting them into LEO. At some point you have to launch the fuel. That tends to attract a lot of protesters. To early in the morning to google the exact mission, but there was a deep space problem launched by NASA from Cape in the last 5 years that used Plutonium as its fuel source much like the Voyager probes. Green Peace and other groups protested the launch because of potential dangers if the self-destruct had to be employed because the launch failed in the atmosphere. People living in Denver get higher doses of radiation on a daily basis then would have been released if the rocket had to be destroyed for any reason. But still it garners a lot of political pressures.
Also, if I remember correctly, there are parts of the Moon treaty which prohibit (at least potentually) deploying such engines in space because the amounts of Uranium could be considered as a bomb/weapon in space. At least according to the treaty.
Even if the Russians, Americans, and others decided to allow fission reactors in space (which is a real possiblity in today's world), there would still be political protests against the move just because the shipment of radioactive materials into space.
Nah, now its a race between China vs. Rutan to see who can put a man in space longer. So far China's ahead, but Rutan got a man in space twice in 2 weeks on a USD 25M budget. Now that's impressive even if it was just sub-orbital. Also proves that Dual Stage to Orbit vs. NASA's Single Stage to Orbit pipe dream is more cost effective.
Now reading and writing are different. I can pick up just about any German newspaper and understand 95%. Always run across new words or vocab I've just forgotten, but also why I have a dictionary handy. Writing, takes a bit longer than in English because I tend to actually proof read the text (unlike on slashdot).
Real time translation also isn't a strong suit. I don't function well having to go back and forth between German and English quickly. Almost like my keyboard toggle, its either in English or German. Drove my Dad nuts when he was visiting me. He speaks absolutely no German. He'd ask me what they were talking about on TV and I could tell him the topic and give a cliff notes version of what was being said, but not a real time exact translation even though I knew exactly what they were saying.
I am not a lingust. Topic is fasinating, but I have a hard enough time with 2 languages as it is...
Sure enough, about 9 months later, all his products were out of their locations and I drove by what used to be the offices and his space was for rent/lease. Justice was served just because I was right, he was out of business in a short time.
Past year I've been working as a consultant and made enough to pay bills and such while looking for a full-time job. Ran across someone looking for my skills and just had an interview with him. After about 10 minutes of poking around on the internet found out his business is an Amway front. So go figure. In fact as I write this from a St. Louis Bread Co. (Penera Bread Company anywhere but St. Louis) he just walked by with some blue prints saw me and left as if he had some kind of "real" business to look at. This world is full of scammers and schisters.
Eventually they get what they deserve...well I say that I get to choose between Tweedle-Dumb and Tweddle-Dumber part II just like in 2000 tomorrow...fun, fun.
Second off: when dealing with terrorists, expanding police powers with laws like the Patriot Act have been effective. Examples: UK, France, and Germany all inacted ease dropping laws due to terrorism from the IRA, Algerian Seperatists, and the Red Army Faction (Baader Meinhof Gang) respectively.
Some how, those countries have not decayed into facist olice states again.
In the real world its a different senerio. The two main people that use Macs today in business are still graphics and video editing folks. In those industries, if you are caught using pirated software then you are blacklisted in the local art community. Galleries won't display your work, others won't return your phone calls, etc.. The reason being that if everyone else spent the $5000 or so for all the pro tools and adobe suite and one pirated the copies and there for only had the cost of hardware (still expensive) then you could see where people get irate.
That's not to say that people that own 2 or 3 macs and work out their house buy one copy and install on all don't do it. I know many that have and most will turn a blind eye to that so long as they purchased a copy. Again, college/art students can get away with the use of pirated software as well, but as soon as your out of school, you'd better pay for the next upgrade or risk your livelyhood.
Easier to pirate: yes. However, generally less of an incentive.
In 2004 well, we now have one of the three thanks to SpaceShipOne possibly by 2010 for the ueber rich, but rarely do I pay much attention to any predictions in technology more than about 18 months out.
However the nature of the internet has changed in the last 8 - 10 years. I remember designing simple webpages back in high school 10 years ago and even my first couple years in college when search engines, especially Google in the early days, brought a wealth of research information. However one had to be careful and double check facts because like every medium, not everything publish on the net is accurate. That has only gotten worse. I can remember the dates of people's birth being wrong. Although most likely due to editing/typing error rather than intentional misinformation.
Today, I find the internet an increasing annoyance, not a convience. Granted, I've made a pretty decent living as a consultant in IT because the world of the internet has gotten a lot darker. Even with Spamassassin and Junk filtering, 50% of my email or more is still spam or viruses. I even switched to Macintosh for my daily use. Partely because I fix everyone's Windows machines all day, partley because its a Unix OS with application support from major commercial vendors, and because it works. But I've gone from website design to helping businesses deal with Spam, viruses, spyware, etc. etc..
Searching on google anymore is oftentimes annoying as the first 20 results are someone trying to sell me something that's spent lots of $$$ for SEO. Not only that, but there is a lot of crap on the internet these days and a lot of it is Opinion. If I want to get opinions, and a good laugh, I'll watch Bill O'Riley for the first 10 minutes or so.
Anymore I check my email, visit a couple sites on a routine basis, and get off. Even my dad picks up a dozen or so spyware cookies just going around visiting his couple sites a day every week.
I work with more average joes than geeks or lawyers and people are fed up with it. They don't care if it does take government intervention to do so. They don't really want government to be involved, but to them clearly the internet cannot regulate itself has was the popular belief 5 years ago.
Something has to give, and generally people (for better or worse) will turn to government.
I used to play rogue spear a lot during college, especially online. However, I seemed to always manage to get homework and papers completed well enough to finish 158 hours in 4.5 years including summers. But the thing I liked about Rogue Spear was I could get on and play against the computer or others in games that typically lasted less that 10 - 15 minutes. So after reading a chapter or a handout, I'd play a game or two, then get back to work. Or read while people were messing around and the game loaded. Play, get killed and go back to reading until the game was finished.
Last year I used to hang out with people every saturday night that would Role play from about 6PM until 9 PM. I never saw the point and usually played Risk, watched a movie, shot the bull with others that didn't RPG and then they would order out pizza and break out HALO about 9 - 10PM and we'd play 4v4 halo until midnight or 1PM.
However, two people that continueally played online games and halo failed out of school. (most had graduated and had full-time jobs or worked part time and were in Grad school). They both ended up selling their X-boxes and one got to come back this fall. His present from his grandparents: an Alienware Laptop. A $1000 Dell would have been fine for school use, but Alienware is designed for gamers.
I was engaged at one point. I worked as a free-lance web designer during college and continued to do so to pay bills, but I was burned out of doing it after 8 years. I kept applying for jobs in the morning. Sending out resumes online and in paperform to local companies hiring, then in the afternoon I'd sit, watch TV, and play Rogue Spear: Black Thorn. Oftentimes forgetting to do chores like vaccuum. Ticked off my fiance (that worked a part-time job and was trying to start a wedding planning business that I helped with in the evenings and on weekends) to no end. Sometimes when she had a big wedding or was sub-contracting with someone else, I'd spend my nights playing the online game.
In pre-marital counsiling (required by the Church), she would bring it up. Ultimately it really wasn't a factor in our break-up. That was due to my Majors being International Business and German and to find a job meant leaving Springfield, Missouri which she didn't want to do.
Its something I watch out for. I like to play computer games, but anymore I get extremely board playing the same games. Its been fun dragging out TIE Fighter this past week. I've been thinking of getting an X-box, but I even hooked up my old Sega Gensises to the 65" HDTV I have and played it for about 4 hours one night just for kicks. (Okay two-nights, an old friend came over and we drug out mortal kombat).
I can remember playing Knights of the Old Republic and it logging I spent 48 hours playing the game over about 3 months at my friends. Then someone said I needed to play it again and do it dark side and I said, "Yeah, just tell me what happens because I've spent about 40 hours too long playing this game." I know someone else that spend the combined total of 120 days straight of EQ and had to quit. That certainly becomes and addiction.
At least when your playing Basketball, or in my case ice hockey, you are interacting with real people and getting excercise. I'm sure a lot of childhood obeseity these days are linked to kids doing nothing but watching TV, playing video games, as well as diet.
What really broke me was I spent 1 semester in Europe, Germany specifically. I had my iBook, no games, no TV in my apartment (I wish I had a TV so I could have listen to more German), but went out almost everynight for dinner from 7PM - 10PM and either watched Soccer or revived the lost art of conversation and debate over a smoke, tea and/or wine.
Dude, I think you need to lay of that wacky naquada. Really...
of some TV show with the same concept...how wierd is that...
I've recently moved and thus far, most of the people I've met have really no desire to play X-box. Yeah, I have a 65" HDTV and thought of buying an X-box, but I got to thinking about it and realized that I liked to play X-Box, but it was the multiplayer stuff that was fun...and funny especially after a couple rum runners.
Call me getting old, but I have a couple classic games I still like to play on the PC, but that's about it.
However, I use MS Office V.x for Mac over OpenOffice. Why? I find that it works better than on windows and I actually like using it over other applications. But mainly PowerPoint. Keynotes is nice and I could survive with Apple Works for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, but still I find PowerPoint for Mac extremely hard to beat. Same with Word for Mac. It just seems cleaner than Word XP or 2000. Excel I don't use often enough really to go one way or the other.