- 50M people dead in world war II. Europe couldn't afford another idustrialize war.
- Common threat from the USSR.
- The United States maintaining troops in Europe more or less permantly and said, "We'll provide the Guns...you all worry about butter".
Irony was that Wilson and the United States told the Europeans this would have been best after World War I instead of punishing Germany and leading to world war II. The United States never ratified the Treaty of Versailles.
While some of the UN bodies are usefull, the General Assembly and the Security Council minus the US is pretty much a joke in internaional politics.
Why did Saddam need to be removed? Saddam believed, maybe still does, in Pan-Arabism or the uniting of the Gulf Arab states into one nation. Granted in his vision, under his rule. This was a talking point of the Baathists circa 1960. Well the idea is back under the guise of forming a single united Islamic state. Much like Saddam, doubt its going to happen, but still the political idea - like fashion seem to come around every generation or so.
Why Saddam before others? Boils down to this: Saddam was a bastard. Sancations have proven they really don't solve the problem, just make worse problems for the population. Someone needed to go down in the Middle East and Iraq pumped the least oil, had no military left, and Saddam was a dick. While people may not like, like you, what we've done, you honestly can't tell me that your not glad to see the bastard on trial and his two sons dead can you?
Sanctions, no fly zone, et al. were all designed to force him out of power. It didn't work. Long term containment won;t work either because eventually people give in. Sure, Saddam might have died some day, but what of his Sons? I believe Germany had some strict sanctions on their military after World War I. 15 years later, Hitler said, "The hell with you, I'm building guns" and the rest of the world basically said, "You shouldn't do that" and did nothing to stop it. Saddam had all the quipement needed to go back an start manufacturing Biochem weapons within months of the lifting of sanctions. Frankly what has me scared is that we didn't find BioChem weapons other than a few shells here and there. You actually believe he destroyed them all? Might have a huge stockpile, but I am willing to bet there was still enough to pose a threat to neighbors or his own people. Could we have kept the pressure? Sure I guess so, but eventually a Iraqi leader like one of Saddam's Sons would have come to power, maybe even Saddam himslef, told the UN and world to screw off and gone back to producing weapons. Iraqi people became poor, but Saddam sure didn't loose any palaces over it...at least not until the spring of 2003.
Why are we still there? Because you can't rebuild a country over night. Hell we're still in Japan and Germany for crying out loud and that's been for over 50 years. It took almost 10 years to rebuild, educate, and hand over full control of Germany and Japan to the peoples of those country. The idea is to try and create a democracy in Iraq. That is going to take at least a decade and other decade past that to judge if it was sucessful.
Ever been to southern Germany? Seems like there is some US Military base about every 50 kilometers or so. Still! Many military bases are at least 50 years old. Sometimes you have to build new bases because its cheaper to maintain. Sometimes you have to build new bases because there are none.
Is the world safer? Answer: World's never been a safe place. 3000 miles of ocean made it seem saferso. I got a better question: is your perception of the world safer? World has always been this dangerous. Terrorism isn't new to Spain, UK, Germany, or France. They've delt with the IRA, ETA, Algerian seperates, Baader-Meinhof (Red Army?) gang, etc in the last 30 years. I think the threat has always existed, but not until the last 25 years that the world had become small enough that 3000 miles of ocean no longer provided an effective barrier. The United States has gone from being blind and ignorant that the world isn't a safe place and become aware of that fact. World hasn't changed, United States has changed.
How many terrorist are there? Lots and it depends who you ask. ETA is a terrorist, yet the MTFA(SP?) in Peru are not listed as terrorist. They seem like terrorist as well. All I can say for sure is that there are more terrorist in body bags and graves today than 3 years ago.
Was freedom for Iraqis worth 200Billion and thousands of people dead? TBD: see me again in 2020 and I can tell you for sure. However, was America's free
Its been true for centuries: if you want peace, prepare for war. Most often in history the thirst for power is the primary movtive for most leaders. Keeping that power is second on the list.
Nuclear Weapons are the ultimate diplomatic solution. Why? Because if used everyone looses. The only way to win a nuclear war is not to have one and therefore the primary recourse is to use diplomacy. Perfect example is North Korea and why Iran is trying like mad to develop nuclear weapons: there is no military solution. Only way to win is not to play. Why I think those wanting to ban and dismantle nukes either never understood risk or Axis and Allies nor grasp the history of international relations. That's not to say that we need 20k nuclear warheads. Macnamara's miminum deterance factor works really well (enough nukes to blow up the world once is plenty).
The big problem being the more weapons there are, the higher the chance some group (such as Bin Ladan) will use such weapons. But enough about Nukes.
Simple Fact: someone (nation or group) are going to develop such weapons and probably deploy them. China has proposed developing such systems to destroy US and other sats as well. Nothing new here. Sounds like a lot of money, but stuff to do this already exists on shelves probably. There are a lot of basic research done by DARPA/CIA/NSA/DOD including proof of concepts work that often have practical civilan applications. A lot of the work on Medical lasers are a result of DARPA funded programs originally designed to create blinding weapons. I've seen a lot of stuff funded (included OpenBSD at one point) with DOD money that otherwise would have gone unexplored for years.
Spending this money is spending it on diplomacy. If given the choice between developing weapons that forces people to the table and taking your chances in modern, mass-production war-fare...well just look at WWI and WWII for case studies on how well that ends...
World War II: 26M Soviets dead, 20M Germans...how many of those were civilians? Or do we really know? Either way, what was the total on all sides, over 50M people dead? So that would mean, if your stats are correct, that ~25M civilans died in world war two. That was what? 6 years vs. the past 60 years?
All in all, that's not as bad. Still bad, but still lets add some perspective here.
Really there are two OSes on the market these days: Windows and Unix. Everything falls into those two catagories (okay a small number of machines still running MacOS 9.x or less). While Linux may technically be "Unix-like". For the realities for 99.9% of the world, I know that is only 80% of/., It looks like Unix, acts like Unix, therefore...
Mac OSX IS Unix based off of the BSD system. Its just BSD with commcial software like Adobe and MS Office ported to it and a easy to use interface via Aqua. One thing I have learned through working in business is that people don't care how 'cool to nerds' it is or how evil Microsoft is or anything like that, all they care about is having a computer that works. AT the end of the day a computer is a tool. And its not helping the business if the tool is broken like anyother peice of machinery. If its Windows or Linux, they don't really care so long as it works and easy to use. I could go on a huge rant why, for technical reasons, I like Unix and even DOS over Windows. Mainly because system files don't move much from version to version...unless its Red Hat. Again...another flamewar, some other time.
Where Unix is taking the hit is in the Server Market. Its cheaper and (in theory) more reliable to run clustered or parallel(sp?) commodity x86 boxes running Linux. Cheaper? Yes. Better? Not always, but that's another flame war. Is Apple going to be viable in that market? Not widely. I've helped one small video production company install and trained them on OSX server with a 1TB Raid-5 server, but they had been using Macs for years and things looked familiar and they could understand it because they were use to it. Sure, could have spent 1/2 to 1/3 for a DELL, but how much in terms of training and support would it have cost them?
Where I don't see Linux taking off is still the desktop market. I see Apple being the leader in the Unix desktop market and still a distant second to home and business markets. Many of the engineers and graphics people I know have been switching to Apple the past couple years from SUN and SGI workstations. Especially after the introduction of the PowerPC 970's (G5's). Graphics because smaller studios can run Maya, Final Cut, and Adobe products all on one platform. Engineers because even a fully decked out G5 is cheaper than their current SUN workstations. Apparently porting from SUN to Darwin hasn't been too bad. But I am sure there are some horror stories out there. I've seen many people running SUN workstations that cost between $16k - 30k now on more powerful dual G5 machines that were $8k maybe $14,000 if they got dual 23" HD displays (which outside of video production folks, I've never seen).
I used Linux about 5 years ago then made the leap on the server side to *BSD (Free and Open) and then two years ago bought an iBook. Probably will go back to Apple even if they do cost a premium. Why? By what's made Apple sucessful: creating a product that works and also looks cool. I don't play games anymore and working with everyone elses computer problems (I am a consultant) it is nice to have a laptop (now a powerbook G4 1Ghz) that can run Windows via Virtual PC, MacOS, and a Unix Shell on one machine. Its also nice to come home to a working unit to check email and read Slashdot. And yes, I will pay extra money up front for quality because the less time I work on my stuff: the more time I have for those billable hours!
This is nearly perfect for an office enviroment. It has a small footprint and elegant "serious" look to it. I've had businesses look at macintosh iMac's before and say they look "Too playful" even though the machines did everything they needed without spending more on PowerMacs.
I've been using a powerbook because of its power and small profile for a couple years, but having a small profile and power of a G5 processor as well as price will make my next powerbook arguement much more difficult since I can get more at half the price.
We did a market research study for a client in a college town that was an existing bar and was looking for a new gimic and though of purchasing the building next door and setting up a system of HD LCD TV's networked into divded areas. Fees to play would would be $5 per person during open times, to cover basic overhead expenses and then make the profit from selling concessions such as snacks, soda, and beer.
Our conclusion was it could work with about a $50,000 investment in equipement and rennovations and could turn a tidy profit, however it was the fact that it was the X-box and we found that while gamers would pay to play on larger screens that many wouldn't because the ease of setting up a 4 room X-box match in the Dorms or existing frat houses, many of which had several new flat-panel TV's in every room (college/frats had just built 4 brand new houses at an average price of $2M a peice).
Fleisher's correct, people do have to watch what they say and do and much of it doesn't have to do with government censorship. I'd argue that we have to watch what we say due to political correctness. I graduated from college over a year ago and during my time there I had to watch what I said and wrote in certain classes. There were times that I got that B+ instead of a A because I hold the opinion that responsiblity should be in the realm of the person rather than that of the government's.
The number of times I was down right insulted or mocked for my opinion that people should be taxed less and the (federal) government needs to the hell out of schools and let local communities dictate how they are run. Or for holding ideas like replacing the IRS and income tax system with either a flat-rate or national sales tax system that taxes consumption rather than income and savings would be a great idea.
What was even better were the times I wrote or spoke that there are lines in morality and things that are right and wrong. Its like Art, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Personally I believe pornography to be an evil. I am not talking about nude photos or art, but hardcore acts. I find it degrading to the nature of sex and to the people participating in them. Others don't, that's fine, but I had one professor tell me that my view was "enforcing my moral judgements upon others". Isn't the Gay Rights movement wanting to ram their idealology that Gay marriage is the same thing as the traditional marriage down my throat any different? Under the law should Gay couples have the same rights as hetro couples, yes. Is marriage an institution designed to help propagate a culture. (think about it, why Jews are encouraged to marry jews; Catholics other Catholics, or arrianged marriages between tribes/kingdoms throughout history) Certainly it has been used to maintain and expand a culture, but there is a biological reason for this: it takes a male and female to reproduce and marriage was designed as a social contract, later a legal one, for this end goal. Try holding this view with either far right-wing religous zelots or far left-wing zealots in the room.
Another great example is socalized medicine. While the current healthcare system in the is Broken, is government's control of the system any better? My British friends think the system is okay for the general population, but if your older or sick the morbid joke: you don't die not having insurance, you die waiting for that insurance to do something. Even in socialized systems of healthcare, some are provided for and others are allowed to die quickly because there isn't enough resources available to all. This may just be the way it is whether its privately funded or publicly funded. There will always be haves and have nots in the world. In health care I guess its a matter of who you want to screw you over: big evil corporations or big evil government. Needless to say, the professors that earned their doctorates in the 1970's in Canada or Switzerland because they decided to skip the draft certainly didn't see it that way in their Utopian academic world view of things.
Other views not always popular in the local coffeehouse is this: Kerry went and served in Vietnam. Can't nor won't deny that. He fufilled his service requirements, I don't deny that. Its his behavior when he returned and his actions after the fact that meets the definition of at least sedition if not treason in my book. That and Kerry so far hasn't been pro anything, just I am anti-Bush, but wouldn't do anything different. (Sorry, but unless he actually unvails some plans other than saying I'm just going to tax and spend more money doesn't cut it)
And finally there is slashdot. I've been modded up and down on various posts dealing with politics because of my views and I could tell it was from someone that militantly disagreed and decided to use the overratted or flamebait even after modded to +4 +5, but then someone else that might have agreed or thought it was an interesting comment would come across and mod it back up, etc.
Whether its the government or the doctrine of political correctness, we have to watch what we say and do these days.
Have to admit it was nice eye candy, but its quite possible for a fusion reaction to destroy an entire city. Ever seen a test detenation of an Hydrogen Bomb (Fusion) compared to a standard Atomic Bomb (fission) bomb? Its true the Hydrogen (or thermonuclear) bomb uses the explosion of a standard atomic bomb to start the fusion process, but the result is an uncontained fusion reaction and the release of the resulting energy is pretty devistating. At least until the fuel is expended. And there isn't a lot of fuel inside one of those things...a few kilos at best and that's the resulting energy release.
Example II: Stars, in particular those that go bang or supernova. The elments get too heavy after most of the lighter fuel burns up and boom...you either have one less solar system in the galactic neighborhood or a new blackhole, or both. When fusion gets out of control or is uncontrolled, it ads a whole other catagory to the word boom.
The whole idea of a commerical fusion reactor has not the problem of creating a fusion reaction (we can do that, look at previous example of nuclear weapons) but sustaining the reaction to the point where it produces rather than consumes energy (I've read before researchers are getting close to the 1 to 1 threashold and probably will by 2015), and lastly controlling the reaction where can be useful for heating water and turning turbines to produce electricity. We don't get power from the current fission methods directly, we do so by passing water through reaction generating steam to turn turbines for power. I am assuming we'd do the same with fusion.
My big question is what happens if the reaction not only becomes sustainable, but producing energy (and presuming a lot of it) and containment (ie the magnetic bubble around it) is breached, what happens to the access energy? Unless the laws of thermodynamics have changed, it has to go somewhere. Its true that the reaction itself would fizzle once its fuel supply is exhausted (like in a Hydrogen bomb), but what about the resulting energy release?
Now the one glaring thing I didn't quite understand is if it was a feeding chain reaction, wouldn't submersing it in water not be such a good idea since water is a good source of hydrogen? Not only that, but wouldn't the heat produced by the reaction cause the water to steam around it at least for a while?
I am more familar with the Tamamak fusion designs with magnetic bubbles and stuff, guess they are looking into other methods with lasers and stuff too. But my $.02
Wifi is a draw for someone offering and making money off another product or service. I say this typing at my favorite local coffee house that has free WiFi. In fact most of the coffee houses here have it now.
However, this is the first one to offer it and turned me into a loyal and repeat customer. In fact this morning I will answer emails and do some work and probably stay for lunch and order a sandwich and they make another $5 off me.
As a stand alone pay service, its doomed to failed, however as an incentive to get people into your place of business, especially one serving food and drinks, it can be a cheap and effective marketing tool.
I have to agree with your post. Giving an average soldiger more than a rifle, ammo, and night vision equipement is too much. In the thick of combat you don't need a lot of information. You have to react. The M16A2 is a vast improvement over the original, but the M14 was a good accurate rifle. The idea in Vietnam of "Spray and Pray" was a really bad idea.
We need to make sure our soldgers are well trained (marksmanship) with good sturdy weapons and good gear such as the chest harnesses and body armour.
Go back even to WWII where soldigers were taught how to aim and shoot the M1. The M1 was without question the best rifle on the battlefield in WWII. Why? It was rugged, simple, and accurate. All it needed to be. The M1911A1 is another example. Only what, 7 parts...it was simple and reliable.
Also look at the AK series of assualt rifles. Simple and rugged.
Notice a trend here: simple and rugged. That is what is needed even on the "modern" battlefield. Because you don't have time to think need to be able to react.
What do I mean by this? Well our local downtown coffee house for instance. They had a pay-mode Wifi system that they were charging $5 - $10 an hour to use depending if you rented a laptop or brought your own. Nobody used it. They once said they rented out time for about 10 hours per month and it didn't even cover their bandwidth charge.
Sometime in the last 2 years they started offering the service free. Guess what, a lot of people came in with their laptops, like me, and used it and purchased coffee. I might even stay a couple hours while doing work and then purchase lunch. And I would go to this coffee house over a couple others because of the free access. They probably paid half their BW bill a month from me alone purchasing additional goods.
Now there are several other coffee houses that offer the same free service. So I pick based on which is closest. Same with Hotels. Its a cheap way to offer high speed access to many guests. I know its something I look for in business travel.
But none of these services give away the service or get revenue directly from the wifi access, however they do get additional customer loyality and usage because its there.
Opterons are designed to be a server/high end work station chip. You need to comapare its price with like typed chips like the Xeon and SPARC from SUN.
I've worked in the rendering graphics world where dropping $15k on an SGI, SUN, or ALPHA workstation in the past was nothing. The renderfarm alone was $3.2M of ALPHA servers back in the day.
Funny thing now is it was replaced last summer with $750k worth of IBM blade servers that nearly quadrupled the number of processors in half the space.
Anyway, AMD really isn't targeting gamers or the average users with these chips. If you want to compare price/performance, need to take the Athlon* series vs. the P4's.
I will have to disagree with you there. Sure, some people will switch, but others will spend the money because its much cheaper to pay for the upgrade than to switch everything over. I remember switching one client from phpWebsite to Mambo Openserver. It took them well over a week to learn the new system's interface and another month to fully import all their old information and pages. It was a site run by volunteers, but still just the amount of time in Man hours.
Now if there had been some support or converter that could have done the job automatically for $100 or even $150, I think all involved would have agreed the price was worth the saved time.
There is prior case for allowing such back ups. The Home Recording Act of 1992 Read it here
I am pretty sure there is another law out there that states basically, "Once its inside your home, you can do what ever you want." It may have been court ruling as well. If you want to make a copy for every CD/DVD player in your home, it should be legal. If not, I am pretty damn sure it comes close under "fair use" clause.
Now selling those copies on the street corner is illeagal in anyone's book. And giving buddy Joe a copy also boarders on that as well.
I think their biggest fear is of people renting the movie and making a copy. However this practice has been in play for years with VCRs. One of my friends still has the double decker VCR just for that purpose.
Here is a better idea: don't try beating the system. 90%+ of all computer problems are really not lack of secure code, its the idiot sitting in front of the screen. While getting Office and other programs from p2p may be trendy and even "cool" to some, you run the risk that it might not be as advertised.
Out in the professional world we do pay for everything. Why? In the last 6 months, two graphics designers in this town were busted for using warezed versions of Photoshop and black listed by other companies in the area including long time clients. And advertising/marketing being cut-throat as it is, there were glaring stories about it in the local business journal. Wow, probably $100k+ income lost to save $5k on software. Smart move there!
If there was such a thing, then download from a MS website or trusted mirror (like download.com) or else roll the dice and take your chances.
Personally I am waiting for the $10 for shipping beta from MS as I am classified as an "IT manager/decision maker" for our company (and several others as I also do consulting).
If there is an existing service tax in the state, then I could see where custom programming is a service and subject to tax laws. However, if I am reading this correctly (good chance I am not its 7AM and only 1 cup of coffee so far) the idea is almost as stupid as the idea of collecting sales taxes for every county/city in the US.
Maybe they'll outsource the custom programming to Missouri or Indiana er... India.
Offtopic, but on the case of collecting sales taxes online, how is a online business different than a mail order/catalog store? Why not use existing laws to collect state sales tax sold on goods to customers in your state? Is it really that hard to figure out?
SSTO is a really stupid idea really. A dual stage to orbit concept with two resuable parts, like one vechicle that flys up to 80k feet and releases an orbiter, is much cheaper to develop and to depoly. Even the shuttle isn't 100% reusable, the fuel tank is dropped and burns up. Not only would be much cheaper to develop, but should also reduce the price per pound to launch stuff up into space.
I would say 95% or higher and your okay. There are always going to be people that want things there the day before they bought it or others that bitch, but look at the negative feed back only and look for patterns.
Also, is it a person or a business? If its a person, the it may take them a day or two to ship the item out. Why? Well I have a daily life and sometimes don't get a chance. If its a business and you see the same complaint, might be something to it. However, look at the number of transactions. If they have like 500 good transactions and 30 bad ones in a month, chances are your going to be okay. Those 30 are generally that 10% of the population that would bitch about a sunny 65 degree day with a slight breeze.
I've been on both ends. I've purchased a few items from ebay and sold a couple and had things go the same ways.
Slashdot Mirror
- 50M people dead in world war II. Europe couldn't afford another idustrialize war.
- Common threat from the USSR.
- The United States maintaining troops in Europe more or less permantly and said, "We'll provide the Guns...you all worry about butter".
Irony was that Wilson and the United States told the Europeans this would have been best after World War I instead of punishing Germany and leading to world war II. The United States never ratified the Treaty of Versailles.
While some of the UN bodies are usefull, the General Assembly and the Security Council minus the US is pretty much a joke in internaional politics.
Why Saddam before others? Boils down to this: Saddam was a bastard. Sancations have proven they really don't solve the problem, just make worse problems for the population. Someone needed to go down in the Middle East and Iraq pumped the least oil, had no military left, and Saddam was a dick. While people may not like, like you, what we've done, you honestly can't tell me that your not glad to see the bastard on trial and his two sons dead can you?
Sanctions, no fly zone, et al. were all designed to force him out of power. It didn't work. Long term containment won;t work either because eventually people give in. Sure, Saddam might have died some day, but what of his Sons? I believe Germany had some strict sanctions on their military after World War I. 15 years later, Hitler said, "The hell with you, I'm building guns" and the rest of the world basically said, "You shouldn't do that" and did nothing to stop it. Saddam had all the quipement needed to go back an start manufacturing Biochem weapons within months of the lifting of sanctions. Frankly what has me scared is that we didn't find BioChem weapons other than a few shells here and there. You actually believe he destroyed them all? Might have a huge stockpile, but I am willing to bet there was still enough to pose a threat to neighbors or his own people. Could we have kept the pressure? Sure I guess so, but eventually a Iraqi leader like one of Saddam's Sons would have come to power, maybe even Saddam himslef, told the UN and world to screw off and gone back to producing weapons. Iraqi people became poor, but Saddam sure didn't loose any palaces over it...at least not until the spring of 2003.
Why are we still there? Because you can't rebuild a country over night. Hell we're still in Japan and Germany for crying out loud and that's been for over 50 years. It took almost 10 years to rebuild, educate, and hand over full control of Germany and Japan to the peoples of those country. The idea is to try and create a democracy in Iraq. That is going to take at least a decade and other decade past that to judge if it was sucessful.
Ever been to southern Germany? Seems like there is some US Military base about every 50 kilometers or so. Still! Many military bases are at least 50 years old. Sometimes you have to build new bases because its cheaper to maintain. Sometimes you have to build new bases because there are none.
Is the world safer? Answer: World's never been a safe place. 3000 miles of ocean made it seem saferso. I got a better question: is your perception of the world safer? World has always been this dangerous. Terrorism isn't new to Spain, UK, Germany, or France. They've delt with the IRA, ETA, Algerian seperates, Baader-Meinhof (Red Army?) gang, etc in the last 30 years. I think the threat has always existed, but not until the last 25 years that the world had become small enough that 3000 miles of ocean no longer provided an effective barrier. The United States has gone from being blind and ignorant that the world isn't a safe place and become aware of that fact. World hasn't changed, United States has changed.
How many terrorist are there? Lots and it depends who you ask. ETA is a terrorist, yet the MTFA(SP?) in Peru are not listed as terrorist. They seem like terrorist as well. All I can say for sure is that there are more terrorist in body bags and graves today than 3 years ago.
Was freedom for Iraqis worth 200Billion and thousands of people dead? TBD: see me again in 2020 and I can tell you for sure. However, was America's free
Nuclear Weapons are the ultimate diplomatic solution. Why? Because if used everyone looses. The only way to win a nuclear war is not to have one and therefore the primary recourse is to use diplomacy. Perfect example is North Korea and why Iran is trying like mad to develop nuclear weapons: there is no military solution. Only way to win is not to play. Why I think those wanting to ban and dismantle nukes either never understood risk or Axis and Allies nor grasp the history of international relations. That's not to say that we need 20k nuclear warheads. Macnamara's miminum deterance factor works really well (enough nukes to blow up the world once is plenty).
The big problem being the more weapons there are, the higher the chance some group (such as Bin Ladan) will use such weapons. But enough about Nukes.
Simple Fact: someone (nation or group) are going to develop such weapons and probably deploy them. China has proposed developing such systems to destroy US and other sats as well. Nothing new here. Sounds like a lot of money, but stuff to do this already exists on shelves probably. There are a lot of basic research done by DARPA/CIA/NSA/DOD including proof of concepts work that often have practical civilan applications. A lot of the work on Medical lasers are a result of DARPA funded programs originally designed to create blinding weapons. I've seen a lot of stuff funded (included OpenBSD at one point) with DOD money that otherwise would have gone unexplored for years.
Spending this money is spending it on diplomacy. If given the choice between developing weapons that forces people to the table and taking your chances in modern, mass-production war-fare...well just look at WWI and WWII for case studies on how well that ends...
World War II: 26M Soviets dead, 20M Germans...how many of those were civilians? Or do we really know? Either way, what was the total on all sides, over 50M people dead? So that would mean, if your stats are correct, that ~25M civilans died in world war two. That was what? 6 years vs. the past 60 years? All in all, that's not as bad. Still bad, but still lets add some perspective here.
Mac OSX IS Unix based off of the BSD system. Its just BSD with commcial software like Adobe and MS Office ported to it and a easy to use interface via Aqua. One thing I have learned through working in business is that people don't care how 'cool to nerds' it is or how evil Microsoft is or anything like that, all they care about is having a computer that works. AT the end of the day a computer is a tool. And its not helping the business if the tool is broken like anyother peice of machinery. If its Windows or Linux, they don't really care so long as it works and easy to use. I could go on a huge rant why, for technical reasons, I like Unix and even DOS over Windows. Mainly because system files don't move much from version to version...unless its Red Hat. Again...another flamewar, some other time.
Where Unix is taking the hit is in the Server Market. Its cheaper and (in theory) more reliable to run clustered or parallel(sp?) commodity x86 boxes running Linux. Cheaper? Yes. Better? Not always, but that's another flame war. Is Apple going to be viable in that market? Not widely. I've helped one small video production company install and trained them on OSX server with a 1TB Raid-5 server, but they had been using Macs for years and things looked familiar and they could understand it because they were use to it. Sure, could have spent 1/2 to 1/3 for a DELL, but how much in terms of training and support would it have cost them?
Where I don't see Linux taking off is still the desktop market. I see Apple being the leader in the Unix desktop market and still a distant second to home and business markets. Many of the engineers and graphics people I know have been switching to Apple the past couple years from SUN and SGI workstations. Especially after the introduction of the PowerPC 970's (G5's). Graphics because smaller studios can run Maya, Final Cut, and Adobe products all on one platform. Engineers because even a fully decked out G5 is cheaper than their current SUN workstations. Apparently porting from SUN to Darwin hasn't been too bad. But I am sure there are some horror stories out there. I've seen many people running SUN workstations that cost between $16k - 30k now on more powerful dual G5 machines that were $8k maybe $14,000 if they got dual 23" HD displays (which outside of video production folks, I've never seen).
I used Linux about 5 years ago then made the leap on the server side to *BSD (Free and Open) and then two years ago bought an iBook. Probably will go back to Apple even if they do cost a premium. Why? By what's made Apple sucessful: creating a product that works and also looks cool. I don't play games anymore and working with everyone elses computer problems (I am a consultant) it is nice to have a laptop (now a powerbook G4 1Ghz) that can run Windows via Virtual PC, MacOS, and a Unix Shell on one machine. Its also nice to come home to a working unit to check email and read Slashdot. And yes, I will pay extra money up front for quality because the less time I work on my stuff: the more time I have for those billable hours!
I've been using a powerbook because of its power and small profile for a couple years, but having a small profile and power of a G5 processor as well as price will make my next powerbook arguement much more difficult since I can get more at half the price.
Our conclusion was it could work with about a $50,000 investment in equipement and rennovations and could turn a tidy profit, however it was the fact that it was the X-box and we found that while gamers would pay to play on larger screens that many wouldn't because the ease of setting up a 4 room X-box match in the Dorms or existing frat houses, many of which had several new flat-panel TV's in every room (college/frats had just built 4 brand new houses at an average price of $2M a peice).
The number of times I was down right insulted or mocked for my opinion that people should be taxed less and the (federal) government needs to the hell out of schools and let local communities dictate how they are run. Or for holding ideas like replacing the IRS and income tax system with either a flat-rate or national sales tax system that taxes consumption rather than income and savings would be a great idea.
What was even better were the times I wrote or spoke that there are lines in morality and things that are right and wrong. Its like Art, the line has to be drawn somewhere. Personally I believe pornography to be an evil. I am not talking about nude photos or art, but hardcore acts. I find it degrading to the nature of sex and to the people participating in them. Others don't, that's fine, but I had one professor tell me that my view was "enforcing my moral judgements upon others". Isn't the Gay Rights movement wanting to ram their idealology that Gay marriage is the same thing as the traditional marriage down my throat any different? Under the law should Gay couples have the same rights as hetro couples, yes. Is marriage an institution designed to help propagate a culture. (think about it, why Jews are encouraged to marry jews; Catholics other Catholics, or arrianged marriages between tribes/kingdoms throughout history) Certainly it has been used to maintain and expand a culture, but there is a biological reason for this: it takes a male and female to reproduce and marriage was designed as a social contract, later a legal one, for this end goal. Try holding this view with either far right-wing religous zelots or far left-wing zealots in the room.
Another great example is socalized medicine. While the current healthcare system in the is Broken, is government's control of the system any better? My British friends think the system is okay for the general population, but if your older or sick the morbid joke: you don't die not having insurance, you die waiting for that insurance to do something. Even in socialized systems of healthcare, some are provided for and others are allowed to die quickly because there isn't enough resources available to all. This may just be the way it is whether its privately funded or publicly funded. There will always be haves and have nots in the world. In health care I guess its a matter of who you want to screw you over: big evil corporations or big evil government. Needless to say, the professors that earned their doctorates in the 1970's in Canada or Switzerland because they decided to skip the draft certainly didn't see it that way in their Utopian academic world view of things.
Other views not always popular in the local coffeehouse is this: Kerry went and served in Vietnam. Can't nor won't deny that. He fufilled his service requirements, I don't deny that. Its his behavior when he returned and his actions after the fact that meets the definition of at least sedition if not treason in my book. That and Kerry so far hasn't been pro anything, just I am anti-Bush, but wouldn't do anything different. (Sorry, but unless he actually unvails some plans other than saying I'm just going to tax and spend more money doesn't cut it)
And finally there is slashdot. I've been modded up and down on various posts dealing with politics because of my views and I could tell it was from someone that militantly disagreed and decided to use the overratted or flamebait even after modded to +4 +5, but then someone else that might have agreed or thought it was an interesting comment would come across and mod it back up, etc.
Whether its the government or the doctrine of political correctness, we have to watch what we say and do these days.
There's a template...damn maybe that's why I never get modded up.
1) Be respectful of the privacy of others 2) Think before you type
Name me one "Peace-keeping" operation not under the command of the US...err I mean "NATO" that has actually worked.
Have to admit it was nice eye candy, but its quite possible for a fusion reaction to destroy an entire city. Ever seen a test detenation of an Hydrogen Bomb (Fusion) compared to a standard Atomic Bomb (fission) bomb? Its true the Hydrogen (or thermonuclear) bomb uses the explosion of a standard atomic bomb to start the fusion process, but the result is an uncontained fusion reaction and the release of the resulting energy is pretty devistating. At least until the fuel is expended. And there isn't a lot of fuel inside one of those things...a few kilos at best and that's the resulting energy release. Example II: Stars, in particular those that go bang or supernova. The elments get too heavy after most of the lighter fuel burns up and boom...you either have one less solar system in the galactic neighborhood or a new blackhole, or both. When fusion gets out of control or is uncontrolled, it ads a whole other catagory to the word boom. The whole idea of a commerical fusion reactor has not the problem of creating a fusion reaction (we can do that, look at previous example of nuclear weapons) but sustaining the reaction to the point where it produces rather than consumes energy (I've read before researchers are getting close to the 1 to 1 threashold and probably will by 2015), and lastly controlling the reaction where can be useful for heating water and turning turbines to produce electricity. We don't get power from the current fission methods directly, we do so by passing water through reaction generating steam to turn turbines for power. I am assuming we'd do the same with fusion. My big question is what happens if the reaction not only becomes sustainable, but producing energy (and presuming a lot of it) and containment (ie the magnetic bubble around it) is breached, what happens to the access energy? Unless the laws of thermodynamics have changed, it has to go somewhere. Its true that the reaction itself would fizzle once its fuel supply is exhausted (like in a Hydrogen bomb), but what about the resulting energy release? Now the one glaring thing I didn't quite understand is if it was a feeding chain reaction, wouldn't submersing it in water not be such a good idea since water is a good source of hydrogen? Not only that, but wouldn't the heat produced by the reaction cause the water to steam around it at least for a while? I am more familar with the Tamamak fusion designs with magnetic bubbles and stuff, guess they are looking into other methods with lasers and stuff too. But my $.02
However, this is the first one to offer it and turned me into a loyal and repeat customer. In fact this morning I will answer emails and do some work and probably stay for lunch and order a sandwich and they make another $5 off me.
As a stand alone pay service, its doomed to failed, however as an incentive to get people into your place of business, especially one serving food and drinks, it can be a cheap and effective marketing tool.
We need to make sure our soldgers are well trained (marksmanship) with good sturdy weapons and good gear such as the chest harnesses and body armour.
Go back even to WWII where soldigers were taught how to aim and shoot the M1. The M1 was without question the best rifle on the battlefield in WWII. Why? It was rugged, simple, and accurate. All it needed to be. The M1911A1 is another example. Only what, 7 parts...it was simple and reliable.
Also look at the AK series of assualt rifles. Simple and rugged.
Notice a trend here: simple and rugged. That is what is needed even on the "modern" battlefield. Because you don't have time to think need to be able to react.
The F-4 Phantom II proved that bricks could fly...at Mach 2 no less.
a couple months ago didn't someone do a test showing that the enterprise's design would hold up very well at mach 5+?
Sometime in the last 2 years they started offering the service free. Guess what, a lot of people came in with their laptops, like me, and used it and purchased coffee. I might even stay a couple hours while doing work and then purchase lunch. And I would go to this coffee house over a couple others because of the free access. They probably paid half their BW bill a month from me alone purchasing additional goods.
Now there are several other coffee houses that offer the same free service. So I pick based on which is closest. Same with Hotels. Its a cheap way to offer high speed access to many guests. I know its something I look for in business travel.
But none of these services give away the service or get revenue directly from the wifi access, however they do get additional customer loyality and usage because its there.
After only 4 cups of the coffee house stuff (I like my $2.00 bottomless cup) and the entire pot of no effect from foldgers in my cup at home.
I've worked in the rendering graphics world where dropping $15k on an SGI, SUN, or ALPHA workstation in the past was nothing. The renderfarm alone was $3.2M of ALPHA servers back in the day.
Funny thing now is it was replaced last summer with $750k worth of IBM blade servers that nearly quadrupled the number of processors in half the space.
Anyway, AMD really isn't targeting gamers or the average users with these chips. If you want to compare price/performance, need to take the Athlon* series vs. the P4's.
Now if there had been some support or converter that could have done the job automatically for $100 or even $150, I think all involved would have agreed the price was worth the saved time.
I am pretty sure there is another law out there that states basically, "Once its inside your home, you can do what ever you want." It may have been court ruling as well. If you want to make a copy for every CD/DVD player in your home, it should be legal. If not, I am pretty damn sure it comes close under "fair use" clause.
Now selling those copies on the street corner is illeagal in anyone's book. And giving buddy Joe a copy also boarders on that as well.
I think their biggest fear is of people renting the movie and making a copy. However this practice has been in play for years with VCRs. One of my friends still has the double decker VCR just for that purpose.
Out in the professional world we do pay for everything. Why? In the last 6 months, two graphics designers in this town were busted for using warezed versions of Photoshop and black listed by other companies in the area including long time clients. And advertising/marketing being cut-throat as it is, there were glaring stories about it in the local business journal. Wow, probably $100k+ income lost to save $5k on software. Smart move there!
If there was such a thing, then download from a MS website or trusted mirror (like download.com) or else roll the dice and take your chances.
Personally I am waiting for the $10 for shipping beta from MS as I am classified as an "IT manager/decision maker" for our company (and several others as I also do consulting).
Maybe they'll outsource the custom programming to Missouri or Indiana er... India.
Offtopic, but on the case of collecting sales taxes online, how is a online business different than a mail order/catalog store? Why not use existing laws to collect state sales tax sold on goods to customers in your state? Is it really that hard to figure out?
SSTO is a really stupid idea really. A dual stage to orbit concept with two resuable parts, like one vechicle that flys up to 80k feet and releases an orbiter, is much cheaper to develop and to depoly. Even the shuttle isn't 100% reusable, the fuel tank is dropped and burns up. Not only would be much cheaper to develop, but should also reduce the price per pound to launch stuff up into space.
Also, is it a person or a business? If its a person, the it may take them a day or two to ship the item out. Why? Well I have a daily life and sometimes don't get a chance. If its a business and you see the same complaint, might be something to it. However, look at the number of transactions. If they have like 500 good transactions and 30 bad ones in a month, chances are your going to be okay. Those 30 are generally that 10% of the population that would bitch about a sunny 65 degree day with a slight breeze.
I've been on both ends. I've purchased a few items from ebay and sold a couple and had things go the same ways.