Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and damming rivers. Over 50% of the available energy is lost in generation and transmission inefficiencies. The storage medium, a battery, is a highly toxic item that adds so much weight to the vehicle that internal combustion only econoboxes with diesel engines (which can burn biofuels) get comparable mileage, without the polluting manufacturing and disposal issues attendant to the electric/hybrid car's battery.
So, what is the real benefit of the hybrid/electric car? Could it be more about fashion , kind of like those oil dripping gas guzzling, pollution spewing, 1960s VW buses I see with "Love your Mother" stickers on them, than reality?
Wow, some guy who can only get published in some offshore rag alleges a whacked out conspiracy!!!! Stop the presses!!!! It's proof that the consensus based approach of Wikipedia is broken and only the elites should decide what gets published on given subjects.
The reality is that information wants to be free. You provide a forum, like wikipedia, where it can be, and the truth will rise to the top.
Now, about solving the second part of that problematic moniker "SlimVirgin", call me;-)
In the meantime, I'll be watching the "Penguin's Christmas Caper" extra from "Madagascar", at least the penguins are supposed to be psychotic.
"I like to move it, move it...... MOVE IT!"
Note to execs considering relocating: Things are expensive over the long term because they are worth more than the alternative. CA, WA, and MA have stood the test of time as tech centers for a reason.
If you really want answers to your questions, use Google and read the independent product tests from Tolly, Network World, or just about any other non-marketing group.
Except the finger was pointed @ Apple in this case until a smart engineer @ Duke figured it was Cisco. Where was the benefit in the big company standing behind the stuff then?
Where is the benefit to everyone when the fix was subject to NDA?
In my experience, Cisco almost always pushes back with the same thing as Microsoft any time there is an interoperability problem: "We ARE the standard, so it must be them."
Old joke:
Q: How many big_dominant_company engineers does it take to change a Light Bulb?
A: None, they just declare darkness the standard.
But it isn't Duke, and only Duke, or even iPhones, and only iPhones, that have been having problems with Cisco APs. It's anything other than Windows clients. Cisco has just done a good job of hushing it up by requiring that people sign NDAs to get the fix.
Juniper for routers. Extreme for Network Switches. Juniper/Netscreen, Fortinet, or even Checkpoint for firewalls. Intruvert for IDP. Aventail for VPN. Aruba for Wireless.
Even a Vyatta or other OSS router is as good as or better than all but the biggest, and most horribly expensive, Ciscos.
But you knew that, because you couldn't point to any evidence that refuted my opinion that Cisco has more than just market share in common with MS.
"Given the widespread use of Cisco". So Windows must be pretty good too, right?
Cisco is the Microsoft of networking gear. Their stuff is complete crap compared to the alternatives in every category. It's also overpriced.
People buy Cisco for the same reason Chambers used to be able to get them to buy IBM Front End Processors (where he cut his teeth as an exec), because No-one gets fired for buying what everyone else buys. They SHOULD be, because they are just buying on inertia, but they don't.
All the posts on this can't be relied on as legal advice for your product/company/situation. GPLv3 has serious consequences for anyone who plans on making a living on pure technology/research/licensing, as opposed to subscriptions & services/ads/slinging boxes. YMMV, but I won't be using any of it in my projects. If that means I have to pay for an MS OS license for CIFS services, well that beats not being able to get any VC money because I don't have any Intellectual Property their lawyers deem protected, or the loss of revenue because BigCo X doesn't have to pay me a royalty (or better yet buy me) because Stallman et al undermined my ownership rights to my research and development.
As with all Socialist Utopian projects, the people who ultimately benefit most are the elites in power, not the commoner duped into supporting the revolution.
At least you use the right analogy: Environmentalism is a religion. Unfortunately, it also has a lot more in common with militant Islam than religion in general, as in its most vocal and influential adherents advocate actions that kill people : and a lot more of them than Islamist Terrorism has.
How is making sure that every idea you have, but never intend to build, winds up in the public domain any better than patenting something and lying in wait for the poor sap who actually spends time and treasure building it? In both cases you are denying someone who did the hard work: building it and bringing it to market, the fruits of their labor. Just because your motivation is socialist (give things to me that other people worked for) doesn't make it any better than greed. In its effect on the guy who built it, it's the exact same, and the likely effect on bringing products to market: reducing the incentive to do so, is the exact same.
In a business that is built entirely on software, if you don't have some protected IP, you will have a very hard time getting capital, because others can just sit on the sidelines, see your idea, and copy it. Frequently these others are large entrenched companies. With Patent protection, the cost of defending the lawsuit, and the probability of losing, gets factored into their build vs buy calculation.
I think that the USPTO current peer review project addresses the real problem of obviousness or prior art. It used to be that patents required that the idea be "reduced to practice", which was generally interpreted as putting it into use in some way. Addressing trolling by requiring that "inventors" actively try to bring the invention to market would round out this reform, and, with audit of the existing patent portfolio using these methods, would solve the bulk of the problem.
The/. crowd should be careful what we wish for in this arena. Many of us have livelihoods that depend on VCs being willing to fund startups, which depends on larger companies being willing to pay up if those startups become successful. In many cases, the pay up boils down to them not being willing to take the risk of being sued if they build it themselves. After all, once you've built it, you've made all the mistakes along the way, so copying you costs less than it took (capital in from the VC) in the first place. There are only two reasons that you buy the company rather than copying them: 1: Customer base/reach, which is much less common, although it's the one you hear about (MySpace, YouTube) 2: Intellectual property. Otherwise, they can just hire your key employees and/or reverse engineer your code.
I think that how rapidly the whole thread degenerated to name calling, discussion about international aid in Africa, etc. etc. shows just how badly it devalued/., and the science topic in particular.
There are plenty of places for policy wonks and activists to saturate the ether./. has, until fairly recently, not been one of them.
We have enough holy wars on tech without bringing in the "Sky is falling" vs "Pave the planet" debate that is raging in every other forum.
Let's at least make sure that the topic of the articles is correct. If it's politics, put it there. If it was an article pointing to a multi-year species diversity and environmental survey, with trend analysis and correlation to visitors, human population, etc., it would have been science.
Patents and censorship (especially Google etc.) are technology related, and they usually wind up where they belong, in YRO. If you aren't interested in them, you can not have those topics on your home page. Where's the science or tech in this?
My main objection was to the classification. Sea Shepherd and their supporters have taken to spamming every forum I participate in. Since I'm an active (Technical) SCUBA diver, that's a lot. Forae that get lots of off topic posts rapidly lose value.
The fact is, this is not news, and it's not science. It's a PR stunt by a lobbying group.
That this is published in a wiki!
Of course, there is the question of authoritativeness, given the sample size, and the sampler. But then again, a lack of peer review and vetting is also a characteristic of the wikiQ.
(I didn't call it a sphere, but rather tipped my had to the Q Continuum, which has more than 3 dimensions, with the pun on the idea that wikis answer Questions.)
Giving a crap is hard to train, especially in rent-a-cops, which the rush to outsource formerly Military functions to contractors has put in charge of all forms of security in CONUS.
Something about a lack of personnel for "non Combat duty" due to "force structure".
FYI I did the math. Your liberal version of it may not recognize that deductions on one side of the ledger equal credits on the other, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Especially to government entities. A $5M write-off to IBM is, at the marginal corporate tax rate in CA of 39.4% Federal, and 8.84% state, $2.4M in revenue the government has to get elsewhere.
Should the other 49 states have to pony up $1.97M, and the rest of CA $442K, even if IBM bears the rest of the burden of these bufoons?
I think not.
Especially to government entities. A $5M write-off to IBM is at, the marginal corporate tax rate in CA of 39.4% Federal, and 8.84% state, $2.4M in revenue the government has to get elsewhere.
Should the other 49 states have to pony up $1.97M, and the rest of CA $442K, even if IBM bears the rest of the burden of these bufoons?
I think not.
So we can just not pay the bonds issued by Carter while he presided over stagflation, and therefore carry double digit interest? Let's tell those bondholders that their return is usury. How about Reagan? Most of those ships he bought are sitting in Suisun bay or sold for scrap.
| Besides, if IBM never delivered (no one can find the hardware), should the school have to pay?
This is a red herring. In order for the debt to be valid, IBM had to be able to prove delivery and acceptance, and I'm sure you know that.
As far as the ethnic composition of the board, it's not the composition, but how and why the people were elected, and their resulting inability to work together. Are you telling me that West CC is not a racially balkanized area where people vote for color of skin (60 year old white dudes have at least their share of buffoons among them) as opposed to competency?
IBM has already helped you out. And don't tell me that using the bully pulpit of your state reps, one of whom happens to be the pro tem, isn't getting the state involved. As soon as they opened their mouths, they opened the door to IBM "making the state part of the solution".
As you can see from the overwhelming response here on/. People are sick and tired of paying for other's corruption and incompetence.
It's not a flame, but a reasonable response to asking everyone else to bail you out of a mess you created on your own.
Sorry that Richmond elects the wrong people, who hire crooks. But it sure as heck isn't: IBM's, who by all accounts delivered what was contracted for, at far below market; or the rest of the State of CA's; fault that your school district can't pay its bills.
Maybe if elections and appointments in your district were based on competency, as opposed to race, you'd be in better shape. Maybe reaping the consequences of ethnic balkanization and race politics will make you all band together, maybe it will tear you apart. The point is, it's YOUR MESS, YOU CLEAN IT UP.
So IBM's shareholders and/or the rest of the state should?
I'm not saying the situation doesn't stink, I just think fobbing the responsibility for the actions of a school board that the people chose, supposedly in free and fair elections, off on anyone EXCEPT the people in that district is a rotten precedent, and rewards bad behavior. Maybe, if they feel some financial pain, they will a: vote, and b: pay attention to who they are voting for, noting that when a politician promises something, they plan on having YOU, or your children, pay for it.
It's about being held accountable for your choices and actions. And "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".
Slashdot Mirror
Electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and damming rivers. Over 50% of the available energy is lost in generation and transmission inefficiencies. The storage medium, a battery, is a highly toxic item that adds so much weight to the vehicle that internal combustion only econoboxes with diesel engines (which can burn biofuels) get comparable mileage, without the polluting manufacturing and disposal issues attendant to the electric/hybrid car's battery.
So, what is the real benefit of the hybrid/electric car? Could it be more about fashion , kind of like those oil dripping gas guzzling, pollution spewing, 1960s VW buses I see with "Love your Mother" stickers on them, than reality?
There's a great "South Park" episode about this.
Disinformation is part of an intelligence agency's JOB. The KGB had an entire department (First Directorate, department A) dedicated to it.
Informing yourself from a variety of sources, and checking their bona-fides, is yours.
Wow, some guy who can only get published in some offshore rag alleges a whacked out conspiracy!!!! Stop the presses!!!! It's proof that the consensus based approach of Wikipedia is broken and only the elites should decide what gets published on given subjects.
;-)
The reality is that information wants to be free. You provide a forum, like wikipedia, where it can be, and the truth will rise to the top.
Now, about solving the second part of that problematic moniker "SlimVirgin", call me
In the meantime, I'll be watching the "Penguin's Christmas Caper" extra from "Madagascar", at least the penguins are supposed to be psychotic.
"I like to move it, move it...... MOVE IT!"
And other non-security savvy folks.
Note to execs considering relocating: Things are expensive over the long term because they are worth more than the alternative. CA, WA, and MA have stood the test of time as tech centers for a reason.
Call me a troll, but this proliferation of Hallmark Holidays is out of hand.
/.
Those who don't know what a BOFH is don't belong on
Go troll elsewhere mister AC.
If you really want answers to your questions, use Google and read the independent product tests from Tolly, Network World, or just about any other non-marketing group.
Except the finger was pointed @ Apple in this case until a smart engineer @ Duke figured it was Cisco. Where was the benefit in the big company standing behind the stuff then?
Where is the benefit to everyone when the fix was subject to NDA?
In my experience, Cisco almost always pushes back with the same thing as Microsoft any time there is an interoperability problem: "We ARE the standard, so it must be them."
Old joke:
Q: How many big_dominant_company engineers does it take to change a Light Bulb?
A: None, they just declare darkness the standard.
But it isn't Duke, and only Duke, or even iPhones, and only iPhones, that have been having problems with Cisco APs. It's anything other than Windows clients. Cisco has just done a good job of hushing it up by requiring that people sign NDAs to get the fix.
Juniper for routers. Extreme for Network Switches. Juniper/Netscreen, Fortinet, or even Checkpoint for firewalls. Intruvert for IDP. Aventail for VPN. Aruba for Wireless.
Even a Vyatta or other OSS router is as good as or better than all but the biggest, and most horribly expensive, Ciscos.
But you knew that, because you couldn't point to any evidence that refuted my opinion that Cisco has more than just market share in common with MS.
"Given the widespread use of Cisco". So Windows must be pretty good too, right?
Cisco is the Microsoft of networking gear. Their stuff is complete crap compared to the alternatives in every category. It's also overpriced.
People buy Cisco for the same reason Chambers used to be able to get them to buy IBM Front End Processors (where he cut his teeth as an exec), because No-one gets fired for buying what everyone else buys. They SHOULD be, because they are just buying on inertia, but they don't.
Even if they are actual lawyers.
All the posts on this can't be relied on as legal advice for your product/company/situation. GPLv3 has serious consequences for anyone who plans on making a living on pure technology/research/licensing, as opposed to subscriptions & services/ads/slinging boxes. YMMV, but I won't be using any of it in my projects. If that means I have to pay for an MS OS license for CIFS services, well that beats not being able to get any VC money because I don't have any Intellectual Property their lawyers deem protected, or the loss of revenue because BigCo X doesn't have to pay me a royalty (or better yet buy me) because Stallman et al undermined my ownership rights to my research and development.
As with all Socialist Utopian projects, the people who ultimately benefit most are the elites in power, not the commoner duped into supporting the revolution.
At least you use the right analogy: Environmentalism is a religion. Unfortunately, it also has a lot more in common with militant Islam than religion in general, as in its most vocal and influential adherents advocate actions that kill people : and a lot more of them than Islamist Terrorism has.
How is making sure that every idea you have, but never intend to build, winds up in the public domain any better than patenting something and lying in wait for the poor sap who actually spends time and treasure building it? In both cases you are denying someone who did the hard work: building it and bringing it to market, the fruits of their labor. Just because your motivation is socialist (give things to me that other people worked for) doesn't make it any better than greed. In its effect on the guy who built it, it's the exact same, and the likely effect on bringing products to market: reducing the incentive to do so, is the exact same.
/. crowd should be careful what we wish for in this arena. Many of us have livelihoods that depend on VCs being willing to fund startups, which depends on larger companies being willing to pay up if those startups become successful. In many cases, the pay up boils down to them not being willing to take the risk of being sued if they build it themselves. After all, once you've built it, you've made all the mistakes along the way, so copying you costs less than it took (capital in from the VC) in the first place. There are only two reasons that you buy the company rather than copying them: 1: Customer base/reach, which is much less common, although it's the one you hear about (MySpace, YouTube) 2: Intellectual property. Otherwise, they can just hire your key employees and/or reverse engineer your code.
In a business that is built entirely on software, if you don't have some protected IP, you will have a very hard time getting capital, because others can just sit on the sidelines, see your idea, and copy it. Frequently these others are large entrenched companies. With Patent protection, the cost of defending the lawsuit, and the probability of losing, gets factored into their build vs buy calculation.
I think that the USPTO current peer review project addresses the real problem of obviousness or prior art. It used to be that patents required that the idea be "reduced to practice", which was generally interpreted as putting it into use in some way. Addressing trolling by requiring that "inventors" actively try to bring the invention to market would round out this reform, and, with audit of the existing patent portfolio using these methods, would solve the bulk of the problem.
The
You're being facetious, right? 242293 is definitely older than me, but I'm under 1 Million in member number.
I think that how rapidly the whole thread degenerated to name calling, discussion about international aid in Africa, etc. etc. shows just how badly it devalued /., and the science topic in particular.
/. has, until fairly recently, not been one of them.
There are plenty of places for policy wonks and activists to saturate the ether.
We have enough holy wars on tech without bringing in the "Sky is falling" vs "Pave the planet" debate that is raging in every other forum.
Let's at least make sure that the topic of the articles is correct. If it's politics, put it there. If it was an article pointing to a multi-year species diversity and environmental survey, with trend analysis and correlation to visitors, human population, etc., it would have been science.
Patents and censorship (especially Google etc.) are technology related, and they usually wind up where they belong, in YRO. If you aren't interested in them, you can not have those topics on your home page. Where's the science or tech in this?
My main objection was to the classification. Sea Shepherd and their supporters have taken to spamming every forum I participate in. Since I'm an active (Technical) SCUBA diver, that's a lot. Forae that get lots of off topic posts rapidly lose value.
The fact is, this is not news, and it's not science. It's a PR stunt by a lobbying group.
And fundraising to boot. Agree or not, this doesn't belong in science, and probably doesn't belong on /.
That this is published in a wiki!
Of course, there is the question of authoritativeness, given the sample size, and the sampler. But then again, a lack of peer review and vetting is also a characteristic of the wikiQ.
(I didn't call it a sphere, but rather tipped my had to the Q Continuum, which has more than 3 dimensions, with the pun on the idea that wikis answer Questions.)
Giving a crap is hard to train, especially in rent-a-cops, which the rush to outsource formerly Military functions to contractors has put in charge of all forms of security in CONUS.
Something about a lack of personnel for "non Combat duty" due to "force structure".
Shouldn't it be the other way around?
There's nothing of substance in the article.
My guess is this was related to the MPACK issue, but us nerds knew about that over the geekend.
FYI I did the math. Your liberal version of it may not recognize that deductions on one side of the ledger equal credits on the other, but there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Especially to government entities. A $5M write-off to IBM is, at the marginal corporate tax rate in CA of 39.4% Federal, and 8.84% state, $2.4M in revenue the government has to get elsewhere. Should the other 49 states have to pony up $1.97M, and the rest of CA $442K, even if IBM bears the rest of the burden of these bufoons?
I think not.
Especially to government entities. A $5M write-off to IBM is at, the marginal corporate tax rate in CA of 39.4% Federal, and 8.84% state, $2.4M in revenue the government has to get elsewhere.
Should the other 49 states have to pony up $1.97M, and the rest of CA $442K, even if IBM bears the rest of the burden of these bufoons?
I think not.
| s/elects/elected in 1992, fifteen years ago.
/. People are sick and tired of paying for other's corruption and incompetence.
So we can just not pay the bonds issued by Carter while he presided over stagflation, and therefore carry double digit interest? Let's tell those bondholders that their return is usury. How about Reagan? Most of those ships he bought are sitting in Suisun bay or sold for scrap.
| Besides, if IBM never delivered (no one can find the hardware), should the school have to pay?
This is a red herring. In order for the debt to be valid, IBM had to be able to prove delivery and acceptance, and I'm sure you know that.
As far as the ethnic composition of the board, it's not the composition, but how and why the people were elected, and their resulting inability to work together. Are you telling me that West CC is not a racially balkanized area where people vote for color of skin (60 year old white dudes have at least their share of buffoons among them) as opposed to competency?
IBM has already helped you out. And don't tell me that using the bully pulpit of your state reps, one of whom happens to be the pro tem, isn't getting the state involved. As soon as they opened their mouths, they opened the door to IBM "making the state part of the solution".
As you can see from the overwhelming response here on
It's not a flame, but a reasonable response to asking everyone else to bail you out of a mess you created on your own.
Sorry that Richmond elects the wrong people, who hire crooks. But it sure as heck isn't: IBM's, who by all accounts delivered what was contracted for, at far below market; or the rest of the State of CA's; fault that your school district can't pay its bills.
Maybe if elections and appointments in your district were based on competency, as opposed to race, you'd be in better shape. Maybe reaping the consequences of ethnic balkanization and race politics will make you all band together, maybe it will tear you apart. The point is, it's YOUR MESS, YOU CLEAN IT UP.
So IBM's shareholders and/or the rest of the state should?
I'm not saying the situation doesn't stink, I just think fobbing the responsibility for the actions of a school board that the people chose, supposedly in free and fair elections, off on anyone EXCEPT the people in that district is a rotten precedent, and rewards bad behavior. Maybe, if they feel some financial pain, they will a: vote, and b: pay attention to who they are voting for, noting that when a politician promises something, they plan on having YOU, or your children, pay for it.
It's about being held accountable for your choices and actions. And "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".