Biggest problem in Iran isn't so much the Iranians as it is the government, AFAICT.
Biggest problem in {Iran, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Turkey, Russia, China, The UK, America, etc.} isn't so much the {Iranians, Egyptans, Syrians, Israelis, Turks, Russians, Chinese, Americans, etc.} as it is the government, AFAICT
I'm pretty sure Open Office and MS Word can both open any format they've ever supported.
Sure, so long as you can find equipment that will run them. Both of those applications will eventually fall into disuse, and when that happens it will be just as tricky to find something that will run them. That is, in fact, the crux of the open document movement... keeping public records away from proprietary formats.
A bigger issue is moving vast quantities of information (which we are generating at an exponentially-increasing rate) from obsolete media to whatever is current at any given time before the ability to read the older media disappears. NASA, for example, is having a big problem with Apollo archives, which were originally stored on 9-track magnetic tape.
Just having tons and tons of paper sitting in a warehouse was was much cheaper, I heard later.
I basically agree with your points, but there is a difference between a well managed document control system, and one implemented by bunglers. Plus electronic documents have the advantage that they can be backed up offsite somewhere: that warehouse full of paper may indeed be cheaper but it's not necessarily safer.
I've been involved in document control projects (primarily used for pulling manufacturing production prints) and you're right: paper is damned useful, for all the reasons you outlined. Consequently, I never made any attempt to develop or promote a paperless system because it a. wouldn't have served the purpose and b. would never have been accepted anyway.
All the software did was provide a convenient, searchable interface to servers full of untold thousands of engineering drawings (both Autocad DWGs and scans of paper drawings) so that they could be viewed on-screen and printed if desired. That offered the best of both worlds: quick and easy viewability for those that don't need a hardcopy, with a printout only a mouse-click away. No expensive content manager (the software didn't require any proprietary server-side component of any kind, and rendered all drawings locally), and no DBAs competent or otherwise.
The first version of that app was DOS-based and ran over dial-up, with about a dozen plants around the world using it, pulling files from a big Solaris server. That was back in the late eighties, and it ran for years without much need for maintenance (other than the occasional hardware upgrade or repair.) I eventually wrote a Windows version of the application, and they're still running it. They've gone through several major server and connectivity upgrades over the years, I've heard, but I didn't even have to be involved in that. They also have a disaster recovery plan in place, so even if the server room burns through the floor they won't lose their drawings. That's something you can't easily do with tons of paper.
Sometimes you have to think things through and realize what it is you don't need. Big-ass proprietary software vendors have a vested interest in locking you into hypercomplex, overbuilt systems that may or may not do what you want, but are virtually guaranteed to cost more than they're worth.
This certainly an eye opener for me. I thought I was prepared.
Wiser men than either of us have thought that... and given the number of major sites that Slashdot has brought to their knees I suspect you won't be the last.
yes we do REALLY hope someone with a clue steps up for his old position.
The problem with power vacuums is that they tend to suck in people who want power, and they're rarely honest about what they intend to do with that power. I do wish you luck though.
...to property they're going to legitimately own, thanks to the much slicker trick of rigging their currency exchange rate?
Well, just think of yourself as a caretaker. Hell, if you bought a house you don't really own it, not when your local government can and will take it away from you an instant if you don't pay your taxes. The essence of ownership is control, and we've already given that up to our own governments, and it looks like we'll eventually have to give it to China.
The judiciary can't have it both ways when the Supreme Court is promoting an extreme interpretation of the First Amendment (i.e. unlimited corporate donations to political campaigns are OK).
Sure they can. They're judges, and they don't always look at the big picture. The only possibility of making them eat some crow is an appeal.
and our conclusion is that in India too many people go into IT because it pays well
My conclusion is that your conclusion is true in any field. Medicine, law, engineering, writing, politics... there are always more people that will enter a given field for financial security rather than because they're good at it and they love what they do. It can be tough to weed those types out, but good managers usually find a way.
99% of everything is crud. Unfortunately, that applies to people as well as the rest of the Universe.
Those are some mighty big "exceptions" when measured by their impact on our lives.
True. But when you look at the number of companies (Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, and many, many others) that were started by visionary founders and grew to employ a hell of a lot of people... well, it's hard to justify a politico-economic system that squelches the little guy.
My question is this "If you're producing Hydrogen... aren't you also producing Oxygen at the very same time?"
Yes. What you're really getting is so-called Brown's Gas, an oxy-hydrogen mixture. In conventional electrolysis you get the two gases produced at discrete electrodes, so it's easy to keep them physically separate.
I think that illegal material should be blocked (it usually is, by removing the associated IP addresses from DNS servers). On the other hand, blocking refused classification material is censorship.
Would you care to explain to this dimwitted American the effective difference between "blocking illegal material", blocking material that is "refused classification" and "censorship"? From where I sit, if I can't access a Web address because of government-mandated interference, well... that material has been censored. What particular arbitrary classification a particular government regime places that information into is irrelevant: I cannot get to it. Governments like to play games with words in order to make their sanctimonious crap more palatable to their respective publics. It sounds to me like that's exactly what's happening in Australia, and you personally seem to be buying into it.
I hope Google takes this stand elsewhere and gives some other countries who are warming to the idea of total control over information flow in their countries something to think about. (Yes, I know it won't happen).
Google is an incredibly valuable resource to pretty much every Internet-capable country on this planet. Consequently, the threat of pulling out of a country is a very real one. It's real to China, you can bank on that. The don't currently have a viable alternative to a number of Google's services. Oh, they can certainly duplicate them at some point in the future, but the loss of Google will hurt now. Other countries which do not now, and will probably never have, an alternative to Google are far more likely to be cooperative in this kind of negotiation. That's will be especially true if Google does, in fact, pull out of China.
Slashdot Mirror
Biggest problem in Iran isn't so much the Iranians as it is the government, AFAICT.
Biggest problem in {Iran, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Turkey, Russia, China, The UK, America, etc.} isn't so much the {Iranians, Egyptans, Syrians, Israelis, Turks, Russians, Chinese, Americans, etc.} as it is the government, AFAICT
I'm pretty sure Open Office and MS Word can both open any format they've ever supported.
Sure, so long as you can find equipment that will run them. Both of those applications will eventually fall into disuse, and when that happens it will be just as tricky to find something that will run them. That is, in fact, the crux of the open document movement ... keeping public records away from proprietary formats.
A bigger issue is moving vast quantities of information (which we are generating at an exponentially-increasing rate) from obsolete media to whatever is current at any given time before the ability to read the older media disappears. NASA, for example, is having a big problem with Apollo archives, which were originally stored on 9-track magnetic tape.
Just having tons and tons of paper sitting in a warehouse was was much cheaper, I heard later.
I basically agree with your points, but there is a difference between a well managed document control system, and one implemented by bunglers. Plus electronic documents have the advantage that they can be backed up offsite somewhere: that warehouse full of paper may indeed be cheaper but it's not necessarily safer.
I've been involved in document control projects (primarily used for pulling manufacturing production prints) and you're right: paper is damned useful, for all the reasons you outlined. Consequently, I never made any attempt to develop or promote a paperless system because it a. wouldn't have served the purpose and b. would never have been accepted anyway.
All the software did was provide a convenient, searchable interface to servers full of untold thousands of engineering drawings (both Autocad DWGs and scans of paper drawings) so that they could be viewed on-screen and printed if desired. That offered the best of both worlds: quick and easy viewability for those that don't need a hardcopy, with a printout only a mouse-click away. No expensive content manager (the software didn't require any proprietary server-side component of any kind, and rendered all drawings locally), and no DBAs competent or otherwise.
The first version of that app was DOS-based and ran over dial-up, with about a dozen plants around the world using it, pulling files from a big Solaris server. That was back in the late eighties, and it ran for years without much need for maintenance (other than the occasional hardware upgrade or repair.) I eventually wrote a Windows version of the application, and they're still running it. They've gone through several major server and connectivity upgrades over the years, I've heard, but I didn't even have to be involved in that. They also have a disaster recovery plan in place, so even if the server room burns through the floor they won't lose their drawings. That's something you can't easily do with tons of paper.
Sometimes you have to think things through and realize what it is you don't need. Big-ass proprietary software vendors have a vested interest in locking you into hypercomplex, overbuilt systems that may or may not do what you want, but are virtually guaranteed to cost more than they're worth.
The essential utility of paper. We won't stop using paper until the last tree has been ground into pulp and pressed out into a sheet.
This certainly an eye opener for me. I thought I was prepared.
Wiser men than either of us have thought that ... and given the number of major sites that Slashdot has brought to their knees I suspect you won't be the last.
this article seems rather apropos.
yes we do REALLY hope someone with a clue steps up for his old position.
The problem with power vacuums is that they tend to suck in people who want power, and they're rarely honest about what they intend to do with that power. I do wish you luck though.
Believe it or not the US is not the centre of the universe
As an American, I must disagree with you. We are, in fact, the center of the known Universe.
Yeah, a zombie. Or maybe a vampire. Depends upon how intelligent you think he is.
Any veteran admin
Whoops, found your problem right there. Who wants to pay for an experienced administrator anymore?
...to property they're going to legitimately own, thanks to the much slicker trick of rigging their currency exchange rate?
Well, just think of yourself as a caretaker. Hell, if you bought a house you don't really own it, not when your local government can and will take it away from you an instant if you don't pay your taxes. The essence of ownership is control, and we've already given that up to our own governments, and it looks like we'll eventually have to give it to China.
slashdotted
No kidding. Posting your personal Web site to Slashdot is a great way to run up some extra bandwidth charges.
With all those hundreds of video cameras tracking your every move at the border, why isn't there some definite evidence showing up here?
Because they're the new special "smartcams" that have been deployed all along the border. They only record when law enforcement looks good.
The judiciary can't have it both ways when the Supreme Court is promoting an extreme interpretation of the First Amendment (i.e. unlimited corporate donations to political campaigns are OK).
Sure they can. They're judges, and they don't always look at the big picture. The only possibility of making them eat some crow is an appeal.
The article specifically mentioned "research", and brother, it takes research to come up with an "invisible" antiperspirant.
Damn right, and when you're walking without any clothes on it really helps, let me tell you.
and our conclusion is that in India too many people go into IT because it pays well
My conclusion is that your conclusion is true in any field. Medicine, law, engineering, writing, politics ... there are always more people that will enter a given field for financial security rather than because they're good at it and they love what they do. It can be tough to weed those types out, but good managers usually find a way.
99% of everything is crud. Unfortunately, that applies to people as well as the rest of the Universe.
We're not any smarter, and those low end jobs are what built us.
Thank you. No mod points for me today, but if I had any you'd get one.
Now, all we need is a good CEO outsourcing firm and the transition will be complete.
Not necessary. They're outsourcing themselves already.
Those are some mighty big "exceptions" when measured by their impact on our lives.
True. But when you look at the number of companies (Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, and many, many others) that were started by visionary founders and grew to employ a hell of a lot of people ... well, it's hard to justify a politico-economic system that squelches the little guy.
My question is this "If you're producing Hydrogen... aren't you also producing Oxygen at the very same time?"
Yes. What you're really getting is so-called Brown's Gas, an oxy-hydrogen mixture. In conventional electrolysis you get the two gases produced at discrete electrodes, so it's easy to keep them physically separate.
ITMS?
I'm assuming he means "iTunes Music Store".
Oh, and by the way, the topic is Star Trek, not Spaceballs.
No, you misunderstood. I really did have to wipe yogurt out of my keyboard.
If the filter vendor agrees this is a rogue use of their technology... why are they cashing the check?
I'm impressed. LostCluster managed to spell "rogue" correctly not once but twice. Not that I have anything against rouge.
I think that illegal material should be blocked (it usually is, by removing the associated IP addresses from DNS servers). On the other hand, blocking refused classification material is censorship.
Would you care to explain to this dimwitted American the effective difference between "blocking illegal material", blocking material that is "refused classification" and "censorship"? From where I sit, if I can't access a Web address because of government-mandated interference, well ... that material has been censored. What particular arbitrary classification a particular government regime places that information into is irrelevant: I cannot get to it. Governments like to play games with words in order to make their sanctimonious crap more palatable to their respective publics. It sounds to me like that's exactly what's happening in Australia, and you personally seem to be buying into it.
Note: Illinois already does this.
Is it helping...?
Dunno. Too early to tell.
I hope Google takes this stand elsewhere and gives some other countries who are warming to the idea of total control over information flow in their countries something to think about. (Yes, I know it won't happen).
Google is an incredibly valuable resource to pretty much every Internet-capable country on this planet. Consequently, the threat of pulling out of a country is a very real one. It's real to China, you can bank on that. The don't currently have a viable alternative to a number of Google's services. Oh, they can certainly duplicate them at some point in the future, but the loss of Google will hurt now. Other countries which do not now, and will probably never have, an alternative to Google are far more likely to be cooperative in this kind of negotiation. That's will be especially true if Google does, in fact, pull out of China.