>Time wasted deleting junk e-mail costs American >businesses nearly $22 billion a year, according >to a new study from the University of >Maryland... The average spam messages per day >is 18.5 and the average time spent per day >deleting them is 2.8 minutes.
Using this same logic, I would guess that Solitaire, Minesweeper, etc. cost American businesses at least $200 billion per year. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but using the time it takes to delete spam as the basis for determing its economic impact is ridiculous. A much more accurate number would be the amount of time/money companies use to prevent spam from coming in and going out of their systems, the amount lost to phishing and other scams, etc.
In case of slashdotting, the article is also available from the NY Times.
It wasn't a very informative read -- quick summary is that Yahoo and MSN are catching up to Google (they don't give many specifics as to what "catching up" means) and each of these companies is making more money from searches than they have in the past. They allude briefly to Yahoo improving their search technology and Google losing focus somewhat due to management being preoccupied by their IPO.
MYTH: If the Earth has heated up since pre-industrial times, this warming is due to an increase in the intensity of the sun.
FACT: The sun's intensity does vary. In the late 1970's, sophisticated technology was developed that can directly measure the sun's intensity. Measurements from these instruments show that in the past 20 years the sun's variations have been very small. Indirect measurements of changes in the sun's intensity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 show that variations in the sun's intensity do not account for all the warming that occurred in the 20th century and that the majority of the warming was caused by an increase in human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
>Base MSRP is $19,855, for manual transmission. >Since no one in the US drives manual (except me >it seems), I suspect $21,000 to start for most >people.
It would be nice to see the government provide more tax credits to encourage use of these vehicles (less pollution, encourage new technology development, less gas use leading to less reliance on middle east oil, etc), but the existing credits are set to expire soon. Meanwhile Bush wants to drill in Alaska for a minimal oil supply, but that's another story...
I visited Palmer Station last year (http://www.mountaininterval.org/journal-2004-01.h tml#20040119) and they claimed to have a full-time wireless network going -- we were able to check email using our laptops. I would assume that McMurdo, being a small city, would also have full time access. Not sure about the South Pole station or bases from any other countries.
I work for a large company, have recently had to interview people, and can say without a doubt that this sounds like the type of manager I would want to work with.
Here's how hiring works these days: you put out a job request, and get buried with resumes. You only have time to interview a handful of people, and so you pick the best from the resumes, set up times for these people to come in, and then arrange for everyone on your team to meet these people. You, your team, and HR spend an not-inconsequential amount of time that you could have spent doing real work in ensuring that this person is fairly reviewed. Then the interviewee comes in and it turns out that they put down "four years extensive network admin experience" because they have a Linux box connected to a printer. Personally, if a manager blacklists the headhunter that pushed that person through and wasted everyone's time (not to mention kept a potentially viable person from interviewing), it makes it that much more likely that the next time you're gonna get people who are actually qualified. Any manager that does that is doing his job.
On a side note, replying to the original poster, don't exaggerate on your resume. If you have a Linux box connected to a printer, just put down that you have some Linux experience. If you get to the interview and you've lied on your resume, not only will you not get the job, but you won't ever be asked back to interview at the company. If you're honest, get an interview, and don't get the job, at least they'll know you and keep you in mind for future openings.
I've got four invites remaining as of 5:01 PST that I'm happy to give out -- ryan.holliday@gmail.com.
And the obligatory shameless plug: www.mountaininterval.org. Site is up when SBC actually provides DSL service. Anyone know another cheap, reliable provider in the Bay Area? Comcast?
I'd agree with the parent on this one -- I started with a K-1000, which was a great camera to learn with. However, when the camera finally died my upgrade options were a) buy another Pentax (and have fewer accessories to choose from) or b) replace all of my lenses (and be broke). It seems that the selection of bodies and lenses are far greater with Canon and Nikon, and these cameras offer more "professional" features. In addition, you can find a lot more nice used Canon and Nikon equipment on eBay.
Long story short, I bought a Canon Eos Elan 7 and I'm thrilled with it. It has a few more of the features that I wanted (bracketing, remote shutter release) and the number of lenses and other accessories now available is awesome. The obligatory shameless plug: Photos are here.
>When the $400 desktop computer I pick up at best >buy has a 4 terabyte drive, and processes data in >the multiteraflop range, and has 7.1 audio built >right in, and the video card has a gigabyte of >VRAM, Hollywood will be making the same kinds of >noises that the RIAA are right now.
I work for one of the major studio's home video divisions right now. They are well aware that they need to stay ahead of the technology curve, and are preparing for the next generation of high definition DVDs. They are also very amused by the music group's utter failure -- DVD prices have been and will continue to drop over time since studies show that (most) people are happy to pay a reasonable price for a legal, packaged product with the studio's seal of approval on it, rather than a pirated copy that may not be of the same quality, could contain trojans, takes forever to download, etc., etc.
Also, most of the folks I work with hate things like the DMCA -- it seems to be just the folks in the legal department (who no one likes anyhow:-P ) who support legislation like the DMCA, and not the folks that produce, market, and support these products, that are fighting those sorts of battles. Again, give people a good product at a reasonable cost and they will pay for it. Make the costs unreasonable, and people will then risk the unlicensed, pirated products.
Thanks, the idea that it would be caught in the slipstream makes a lot more sense. If you just assume that acceleration due to gravity and the shuttle were to blame then we'd see craters on the ground anytime someone dropped a piece of foam from a tall building:-P
I've probably missed this somewhere, but the "smoking gun" that determined the accident was due to foam impact was a test wherey the fired a chunk of foam at hundreds of miles per hour at a wing section and then showed off the damage. What I'm missing is why the impact on the Columbia would have occurred at hundreds of miles per hour. The foam was a part of the shuttle, so it should have been moving at practically the same speed as the shuttle during the impact. It's not like the shuttle was going ridiculously fast and hit a stationary object.
Granted, the foam would have slowed due to friction with the air, but why hundreds of miles per hour? Can someone explain?
Re:I won't even see the original release in theatr
on
The Trilogy as One
·
· Score: 1
>Frankly, by going to all the re-releases, and >buying the DVDs 2 or 3 times to get extra footage, >all you are doing is to encourage them to cut lots >of content out of the original movie, and add it >later to rake you over the coals.
Quick disclaimer is that while I work for a movie studio, I'm not in movie production. However, in dealing with the DVD marketing guys I can tell you that for successful movies, there does not seem to be a push to come out with lots of different editions. In the case of the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson wanted to make a four hour movie but knew mass audiences wouldn't sit through it, so he created a single, extended edition for himself and for the fans. Unless there is a _huge_ push from the fans, there aren't going to be any more editions from the filmmakers (yes, marketing will probably create a three-set, but no new movie footage, just new packaging). And I can practically guarantee you that Peter Jackson isn't sitting on cut film, waiting for the "super duper edition".
Just as an example, the upcoming Terminator 3 DVD is meant to be _the_ definitive edition. If fans want a three-set there might be something added later on, but the studio isn't holding anything back, and there definitely isn't cut film being held aside specifically for another edition. While pitching the new DVD to distributors it was made abundantly clear that this is going to be _the_ Terminator 3 DVD, and only if fans want it, and if a deal between Universal and Warner can be worked out, would there be any further work on a three-set.
Summary: if fans demand more, there will be more, but filmmakers don't sit on content solely to make money on DVDs. The movie in the theatre is the best movie that directors can make for a mass audience.
Others have already stated this, but read the entire thread on the Linux Kernel mailing list. RMS trolled, Larry eventually responded to a post about reverse engineering by saying (paraphrased) "Legally I must point out that to reverse-engineer the product violates our license. If I don't defend our license when it is challenged then I won't have a leg to stand on should it ever go to a court case."
The conversation continued to the point where Larry (as usual) got exasperated and said (paraphrased) "We give free BitKeeper to the community for any use other than putting us out of business. We have made all DATA freely available, and you are free to use any tool, including CVS, to work with that data. Basically, if you want to use our tool you are doing so by our good graces, so quit complaining."
While maybe not the most politcally correct person out there, I see nothing in Larry's statements to disagree with. BitKeeper is in use because it's better than the available free tools. The use of BitKeeper has done wonders for Kernel development -- the changelogs are the most visible example, but ask Alan Cox (who doesn't use BitKeeper) if Linus has been easier to work with since adopting BitKeeper. And if Larry wants to make it difficult for people to copy his product, that's his business -- he has gone out of his way to make the data freely available, and he has also gone out of his way to clearly draw a line between what is BitKeeper (his) and what is owned by the community.
From the SF Bay Area with terrible light conditions my roommates and I saw at least 200 over a forty-five minute period, including a stretch of about two minutes in which 30-40 showed up. Don't know what it was like last year as I was overseas.
If you dismiss them you fail to recognize them as a legitimate threat. True, right now sysadmins everywhere beg management not to force them to use NT because of the security flaws and bugs. But if Microsoft is planning to focus more on these two areas, it would be a good idea not to assume they will fail. And if they don't fail, the success currently enjoyed by Linux and BSD may go the way of Netscape and Netware.
The typical Slashdot post seems to assume that Microsoft will fail because they have not succeeded in the past. That's a really dangerous attitude -- the same attitude probably prevailed when Internet Explorer 1.0 came out, but now web logs show that some IE variant accounts for 95% of traffic. Never mind HOW Microsoft achieved this result, the fact is that they DID achieve it because they made a commitment to be successful at all costs.
There are a lot of intelligent people working for Microsoft, many of whom are management and are capable of focusing resources when required to do so. Say what you will about their code quality, their business practices, and their tactics, but don't dismiss them lightly...
I've been playing around with nightly builds for the last few months and have been pretty impressed -- anyone still using Netscape 4.x should definitely upgrade.
For anyone interested in the nightly builds, Mozillazine publishes a page with nightly build comments so you can find out if there are any showstoppers -- http://www.mozillazine.org/build_comments/. This is also a good way to help out in the testing process, obviously...
$20 million seemed like a huge amount of money to me until I started thinking about how many people would have to pay $20 million per visit to cover the costs of building the ISS -- at a price tag of $100 billion, FIVE THOUSAND people would have to shell out that kind of cash, and then you'd still have launch and support costs...
Re:School isn't just to get a job
on
CS vs CIS
·
· Score: 1
Agreed. If your only reason for doing CIS is because it's easier then go for the CS degree -- you'll work harder, but I can tell you that when I look at my degrees hanging over my desk, I don't remember the work, only the pride I feel at knowing how hard I had to work to get them.
In my own defense, the "science" that was being used in this discussion was only tangentially related -- "it is OK to screw up the planet because the planet is capable of healing itself." The science in this argument, that earth is capable of healing itself, is definitely true, but the assumption made from that science, that it is OK to screw up the planet, is both flawed and dangerous.
>Worse things have happened and will happen to the planet.
Feeding the trolls... oh well, here's a simple analogy for you. I am going to die some day. Just because that is true does not mean it makes sense if I consume quantities of poisonous substances, thus expediting the process. Bad things have and will happen to the planet, but that is not justification for continuing things like global warming, ozone depletion, etc.
>There is no "healthy" state for the earth, it is
>and always has been in a state of change. Those
>who worship a particular state of ecological
>balance are very misguided
This is one of the most ignorant comments I've seen posted, and it was moderated up as "insightful"? OK, change is the only constant, I'll agree. But look at the rate of change for just one second... temperatures have risen a least a degree Fahrenheit worldwide, the ozone hole now covers 11 MILLION square miles, extinction rates are at the highest level since the dinosaurs disappeared... and anyone who worships a particular state of ecological balance is "misguided?" Uh huh. Methinks you worship a certain green substance that is fun to roll up and smoke.
Anyone who ignores their responsibility to take care of what they've been given -- in this case a habitable planet that has evolved out of billions of years -- is lazy and misguided, but someone who does it while attempting to support themselves with scientific arguments is downright dangerous.
"...but most people all over the world have never even touched a computer, never mind owned one, because everyday needs take priority."
Sorry, this touched a nerve. The "rest" of the world is not living in grass huts and hunting their food for a living. True, much of the world is not as wired as the US, Europe, and some parts of Asia, but this view that they are still living in the dark ages is pretty pathetic. I've been to Ecuador and met cab drivers who make less than $1000 US per year, and many of them have surfed the web -- they may not own a computer, but they're by no means in awe of the things. I'm presently in Singapore, and in many ways this place is more wired than America. Even in Malaysia they've got a huge problem with software piracty -- that doesn't happen when people don't have access to computers. I'm sure it was unintentional, but this elitist view of things is still pretty sad.
If you actually look at all of the screens it looks like they're getting away from the concept of a filesystem per se and moving to a task based system -- abstract away the organizational structure and let the system bring you what you want. As examples:
The search options all over the place
The "tasks you can do" after clicking on control panel (yeah, control panel isn't the filesystem, but before it was still icon based)
The extensive customisation options (hide icons, whatever, it's a start)
Lots of UI designers have been talking about no longer using the "filing" concept for a long time, but this is the closest I've seen to anyone actually doing it... Eazel is nice, but at its core it's still a system for users to put things in places. What I would like is a system for me to simply get what I want... looks like MS might be moving there...
Slashdot Mirror
>Time wasted deleting junk e-mail costs American
>businesses nearly $22 billion a year, according
>to a new study from the University of
>Maryland... The average spam messages per day
>is 18.5 and the average time spent per day
>deleting them is 2.8 minutes.
Using this same logic, I would guess that Solitaire, Minesweeper, etc. cost American businesses at least $200 billion per year. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but using the time it takes to delete spam as the basis for determing its economic impact is ridiculous. A much more accurate number would be the amount of time/money companies use to prevent spam from coming in and going out of their systems, the amount lost to phishing and other scams, etc.
In case of slashdotting, the article is also available from the NY Times.
It wasn't a very informative read -- quick summary is that Yahoo and MSN are catching up to Google (they don't give many specifics as to what "catching up" means) and each of these companies is making more money from searches than they have in the past. They allude briefly to Yahoo improving their search technology and Google losing focus somewhat due to management being preoccupied by their IPO.
>Get real, folks. It's all about the sun.
From this site:
MYTH: If the Earth has heated up since pre-industrial times, this warming is due to an increase in the intensity of the sun.
FACT: The sun's intensity does vary. In the late 1970's, sophisticated technology was developed that can directly measure the sun's intensity. Measurements from these instruments show that in the past 20 years the sun's variations have been very small. Indirect measurements of changes in the sun's intensity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in 1750 show that variations in the sun's intensity do not account for all the warming that occurred in the 20th century and that the majority of the warming was caused by an increase in human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
You can read more about this here.
>Base MSRP is $19,855, for manual transmission.
s p?bhcp=1 says $26,970 for front wheel drive, $28,595 for four-wheel drive. Where did you get your numbers from?
>Since no one in the US drives manual (except me
>it seems), I suspect $21,000 to start for most
>people.
Ford's web site - http://fordvehicles.com/escapehybrid/home/index.a
It would be nice to see the government provide more tax credits to encourage use of these vehicles (less pollution, encourage new technology development, less gas use leading to less reliance on middle east oil, etc), but the existing credits are set to expire soon. Meanwhile Bush wants to drill in Alaska for a minimal oil supply, but that's another story...
I visited Palmer Station last year (http://www.mountaininterval.org/journal-2004-01.h tml#20040119) and they claimed to have a full-time wireless network going -- we were able to check email using our laptops. I would assume that McMurdo, being a small city, would also have full time access. Not sure about the South Pole station or bases from any other countries.
>Bet you're REEEAL fun to work with.
I work for a large company, have recently had to interview people, and can say without a doubt that this sounds like the type of manager I would want to work with.
Here's how hiring works these days: you put out a job request, and get buried with resumes. You only have time to interview a handful of people, and so you pick the best from the resumes, set up times for these people to come in, and then arrange for everyone on your team to meet these people. You, your team, and HR spend an not-inconsequential amount of time that you could have spent doing real work in ensuring that this person is fairly reviewed. Then the interviewee comes in and it turns out that they put down "four years extensive network admin experience" because they have a Linux box connected to a printer. Personally, if a manager blacklists the headhunter that pushed that person through and wasted everyone's time (not to mention kept a potentially viable person from interviewing), it makes it that much more likely that the next time you're gonna get people who are actually qualified. Any manager that does that is doing his job.
On a side note, replying to the original poster, don't exaggerate on your resume. If you have a Linux box connected to a printer, just put down that you have some Linux experience. If you get to the interview and you've lied on your resume, not only will you not get the job, but you won't ever be asked back to interview at the company. If you're honest, get an interview, and don't get the job, at least they'll know you and keep you in mind for future openings.
I've got four invites remaining as of 5:01 PST that I'm happy to give out -- ryan.holliday@gmail.com.
And the obligatory shameless plug: www.mountaininterval.org. Site is up when SBC actually provides DSL service. Anyone know another cheap, reliable provider in the Bay Area? Comcast?
I'd agree with the parent on this one -- I started with a K-1000, which was a great camera to learn with. However, when the camera finally died my upgrade options were a) buy another Pentax (and have fewer accessories to choose from) or b) replace all of my lenses (and be broke). It seems that the selection of bodies and lenses are far greater with Canon and Nikon, and these cameras offer more "professional" features. In addition, you can find a lot more nice used Canon and Nikon equipment on eBay.
Long story short, I bought a Canon Eos Elan 7 and I'm thrilled with it. It has a few more of the features that I wanted (bracketing, remote shutter release) and the number of lenses and other accessories now available is awesome. The obligatory shameless plug: Photos are here.
>When the $400 desktop computer I pick up at best
:-P ) who support legislation like the DMCA, and not the folks that produce, market, and support these products, that are fighting those sorts of battles. Again, give people a good product at a reasonable cost and they will pay for it. Make the costs unreasonable, and people will then risk the unlicensed, pirated products.
>buy has a 4 terabyte drive, and processes data in
>the multiteraflop range, and has 7.1 audio built
>right in, and the video card has a gigabyte of
>VRAM, Hollywood will be making the same kinds of
>noises that the RIAA are right now.
I work for one of the major studio's home video divisions right now. They are well aware that they need to stay ahead of the technology curve, and are preparing for the next generation of high definition DVDs. They are also very amused by the music group's utter failure -- DVD prices have been and will continue to drop over time since studies show that (most) people are happy to pay a reasonable price for a legal, packaged product with the studio's seal of approval on it, rather than a pirated copy that may not be of the same quality, could contain trojans, takes forever to download, etc., etc.
Also, most of the folks I work with hate things like the DMCA -- it seems to be just the folks in the legal department (who no one likes anyhow
Thanks, the idea that it would be caught in the slipstream makes a lot more sense. If you just assume that acceleration due to gravity and the shuttle were to blame then we'd see craters on the ground anytime someone dropped a piece of foam from a tall building :-P
I've probably missed this somewhere, but the "smoking gun" that determined the accident was due to foam impact was a test wherey the fired a chunk of foam at hundreds of miles per hour at a wing section and then showed off the damage. What I'm missing is why the impact on the Columbia would have occurred at hundreds of miles per hour. The foam was a part of the shuttle, so it should have been moving at practically the same speed as the shuttle during the impact. It's not like the shuttle was going ridiculously fast and hit a stationary object.
Granted, the foam would have slowed due to friction with the air, but why hundreds of miles per hour? Can someone explain?
>Frankly, by going to all the re-releases, and
>buying the DVDs 2 or 3 times to get extra footage,
>all you are doing is to encourage them to cut lots
>of content out of the original movie, and add it
>later to rake you over the coals.
Quick disclaimer is that while I work for a movie studio, I'm not in movie production. However, in dealing with the DVD marketing guys I can tell you that for successful movies, there does not seem to be a push to come out with lots of different editions. In the case of the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson wanted to make a four hour movie but knew mass audiences wouldn't sit through it, so he created a single, extended edition for himself and for the fans. Unless there is a _huge_ push from the fans, there aren't going to be any more editions from the filmmakers (yes, marketing will probably create a three-set, but no new movie footage, just new packaging). And I can practically guarantee you that Peter Jackson isn't sitting on cut film, waiting for the "super duper edition".
Just as an example, the upcoming Terminator 3 DVD is meant to be _the_ definitive edition. If fans want a three-set there might be something added later on, but the studio isn't holding anything back, and there definitely isn't cut film being held aside specifically for another edition. While pitching the new DVD to distributors it was made abundantly clear that this is going to be _the_ Terminator 3 DVD, and only if fans want it, and if a deal between Universal and Warner can be worked out, would there be any further work on a three-set.
Summary: if fans demand more, there will be more, but filmmakers don't sit on content solely to make money on DVDs. The movie in the theatre is the best movie that directors can make for a mass audience.
Others have already stated this, but read the entire thread on the Linux Kernel mailing list. RMS trolled, Larry eventually responded to a post about reverse engineering by saying (paraphrased) "Legally I must point out that to reverse-engineer the product violates our license. If I don't defend our license when it is challenged then I won't have a leg to stand on should it ever go to a court case."
The conversation continued to the point where Larry (as usual) got exasperated and said (paraphrased) "We give free BitKeeper to the community for any use other than putting us out of business. We have made all DATA freely available, and you are free to use any tool, including CVS, to work with that data. Basically, if you want to use our tool you are doing so by our good graces, so quit complaining."
While maybe not the most politcally correct person out there, I see nothing in Larry's statements to disagree with. BitKeeper is in use because it's better than the available free tools. The use of BitKeeper has done wonders for Kernel development -- the changelogs are the most visible example, but ask Alan Cox (who doesn't use BitKeeper) if Linus has been easier to work with since adopting BitKeeper. And if Larry wants to make it difficult for people to copy his product, that's his business -- he has gone out of his way to make the data freely available, and he has also gone out of his way to clearly draw a line between what is BitKeeper (his) and what is owned by the community.
From the SF Bay Area with terrible light conditions my roommates and I saw at least 200 over a forty-five minute period, including a stretch of about two minutes in which 30-40 showed up. Don't know what it was like last year as I was overseas.
If you dismiss them you fail to recognize them as a legitimate threat. True, right now sysadmins everywhere beg management not to force them to use NT because of the security flaws and bugs. But if Microsoft is planning to focus more on these two areas, it would be a good idea not to assume they will fail. And if they don't fail, the success currently enjoyed by Linux and BSD may go the way of Netscape and Netware.
The typical Slashdot post seems to assume that Microsoft will fail because they have not succeeded in the past. That's a really dangerous attitude -- the same attitude probably prevailed when Internet Explorer 1.0 came out, but now web logs show that some IE variant accounts for 95% of traffic. Never mind HOW Microsoft achieved this result, the fact is that they DID achieve it because they made a commitment to be successful at all costs.
There are a lot of intelligent people working for Microsoft, many of whom are management and are capable of focusing resources when required to do so. Say what you will about their code quality, their business practices, and their tactics, but don't dismiss them lightly...
I've been playing around with nightly builds for the last few months and have been pretty impressed -- anyone still using Netscape 4.x should definitely upgrade.
For anyone interested in the nightly builds, Mozillazine publishes a page with nightly build comments so you can find out if there are any showstoppers -- http://www.mozillazine.org/build_comments/. This is also a good way to help out in the testing process, obviously...
$20 million seemed like a huge amount of money to me until I started thinking about how many people would have to pay $20 million per visit to cover the costs of building the ISS -- at a price tag of $100 billion, FIVE THOUSAND people would have to shell out that kind of cash, and then you'd still have launch and support costs...
Agreed. If your only reason for doing CIS is because it's easier then go for the CS degree -- you'll work harder, but I can tell you that when I look at my degrees hanging over my desk, I don't remember the work, only the pride I feel at knowing how hard I had to work to get them.
In my own defense, the "science" that was being used in this discussion was only tangentially related -- "it is OK to screw up the planet because the planet is capable of healing itself." The science in this argument, that earth is capable of healing itself, is definitely true, but the assumption made from that science, that it is OK to screw up the planet, is both flawed and dangerous.
>Worse things have happened and will happen to the planet.
Feeding the trolls... oh well, here's a simple analogy for you. I am going to die some day. Just because that is true does not mean it makes sense if I consume quantities of poisonous substances, thus expediting the process. Bad things have and will happen to the planet, but that is not justification for continuing things like global warming, ozone depletion, etc.
>There is no "healthy" state for the earth, it is
>and always has been in a state of change. Those
>who worship a particular state of ecological
>balance are very misguided
This is one of the most ignorant comments I've seen posted, and it was moderated up as "insightful"? OK, change is the only constant, I'll agree. But look at the rate of change for just one second... temperatures have risen a least a degree Fahrenheit worldwide, the ozone hole now covers 11 MILLION square miles, extinction rates are at the highest level since the dinosaurs disappeared... and anyone who worships a particular state of ecological balance is "misguided?" Uh huh. Methinks you worship a certain green substance that is fun to roll up and smoke.
Anyone who ignores their responsibility to take care of what they've been given -- in this case a habitable planet that has evolved out of billions of years -- is lazy and misguided, but someone who does it while attempting to support themselves with scientific arguments is downright dangerous.
"...but most people all over the world have never even touched a computer, never mind owned one, because everyday needs take priority."
Sorry, this touched a nerve. The "rest" of the world is not living in grass huts and hunting their food for a living. True, much of the world is not as wired as the US, Europe, and some parts of Asia, but this view that they are still living in the dark ages is pretty pathetic. I've been to Ecuador and met cab drivers who make less than $1000 US per year, and many of them have surfed the web -- they may not own a computer, but they're by no means in awe of the things. I'm presently in Singapore, and in many ways this place is more wired than America. Even in Malaysia they've got a huge problem with software piracty -- that doesn't happen when people don't have access to computers. I'm sure it was unintentional, but this elitist view of things is still pretty sad.
The search options all over the place
The "tasks you can do" after clicking on control panel (yeah, control panel isn't the filesystem, but before it was still icon based)
The extensive customisation options (hide icons, whatever, it's a start)
Lots of UI designers have been talking about no longer using the "filing" concept for a long time, but this is the closest I've seen to anyone actually doing it... Eazel is nice, but at its core it's still a system for users to put things in places. What I would like is a system for me to simply get what I want... looks like MS might be moving there...