As for crappy schools, the notion that the quality of your school should be linked to the money you have (except of course for the 1-2% who can attend very expensive private schools) or the city you live in is a very American one.
If this is supposed to imply that all Brazilian kids get a similar eduaction it is very ignorant. Brazil is one of the most unequal societies in the world. The favela kids don't have any schools or health care at all, and are hunted for sport by the police.
These cheap computers may help the middle class get on the web. But it's very likely that primarily it will help some fat cat involved in it make millions of govenrment money. Did I mention that Brazil is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as well?
It's a great place to visit, though. But stay out of the favelas!!
It's pretty safe to assume that like almost everyone else, the Patent Office (USPTO) prefers to be rich and powerful to the alternatives.
The more patents are issued, the bigger the USPTO needs to be. The easier it gets to get a patent, the more applications will come in. The organization grows and grows, and it is good to be in charge of the USPTO!
Until it becomes a question on the national political agenda, there is probably not much to do about it. Rounded off to the nearest percent of voters, nobody really cares about patents.
Way too many people know Starcraft, as the asker points out. There are thousands of almost completely unknown games out these. For every hit game, at least 10 flops are released. Use some of those to at least get the previous experience bias out.
1 and 2 are reasonable points, but I don't think they're much to worry about. There's no way a project like this can get started before there has been people on Mars for decades. The planet will be well explored before we start, and if there's life or any other things worth preserving, that can be figured out in good time.
Point 3 is nonsense. There is no connection between the two, other than cheap rhetoric. It's like saying I shouldn't see that movie until I've lost 5 pounds.
And you don't seem to consider the good in making a hellhole into a possibly very nice home for billions of people and other life forms. Does that mean nothing to you?
I moved from Sweden to the US five years ago. It's funny how at both sides of the Atlantic a lot of people are sick of their oppresive country, and yearn for the freedom and decency of the opposite side.
I don't find Swedens privacy record impressive at all. The government demands to know pretty much everything about your life, and it's not afraid to use that information. Many of it's employees also have access to a lot of it.
How about this: In Sweden, your tax return is public information, with your entire income, where it came from as well as that HIV treatment deduction. I could go on.
There is also a law on computer registers, which makes most web sites illegal, since people's names are not allowed to be stored there. It is of course ingored and laughed at. Not too dissimilar from the scenario where a company ignores it's own privacy policy.
Personally I prefer companies to abuse my info than the state. At least they can't put me in jail based on it.
I also doubt that these online privacy measures, however nice they might be in theory, will work in any serious way. After all, information wants to be free.
We're all more or less sick from time to time, mentally and physically. That is no reason to throw us all in jail. Only acts which harm others should be punishable, sick or not.
I have to disagree. Private companies have an excellent record of honoring privacy, when that is central to their success. Better than any government.
One example is banks, whose secrecy is famous and hated by governments everywhere. Auditing and accounting are other fields where loose lips will kill your business.
If I knew the streets were monitored, I'd feel safer walking in San Francisco. If only a few streets were being taped, I might go out of my way to walk on a taped one.
I don't see the problem. If you don't want people to see you, don't go out in public. That's how it's always been.
I heard that street crime has practically disappeared in heavily monitored areas in the UK, but I may misremember that.
I thought the/. wisdom was that CSS is there to make sure only authorised DVD players could play industry discs, and that it really doesn't pertain to copying since you can just copy the raw data from one disc to another, just like I can copy a Finnish text character by character without understanding a word of it.
While sending irrelevant or heavy things hurts the (to you) offending company's bottom line, and provides an incentive for them to clean up their act, sending something rotting will only hurt the minimum wage mail opener who has to work three jobs to pay their children's medical bills.
We're 6 billion now. You seem to be claiming a far higher birthrate than I think reasonable.
But that's beside your main point. We might reach those numbers in twice the time, but the question what to do about it remains.
And while I'm not particularly worried, I can't say I have an answer. Such a world would be so radically different from ours that it's hard to imagine, and you probably would be very wrong in most predictions. Think about what people predicted about how previous big changes would affect society. Reality tends to surprise. But it also tends to sort itself out, and the doomsayers are routinely proven wrong.
There would clearly have to be some major changes in how societies function. If living space and resources like water and air becomes real scarce they will have to be managed very tightly, either as private property or rationed by government. There might be restrictions on breeding. We might colonize the planets and the oceans. We'll certainly invent new better ways to produce food and products. It may turn out that even with aging beaten, people only live to 150 on average, so we'll just be twice as many. I could go on and on, but I already have.
Yes in this case blaming deregulation is probably correct because it was done in a brain dead fashion that means that the power companies have to sell electricity for a fixed price while buying it on an open market.
You're right. I'm just annoyed that people call this "deregulation". In a deregulation, all or at least most of the regulations would disappear. here they just replaced the old regulations with even stupider new ones.
The problem with the pencil and paper is that it is expensive. You can only hire so many people to count, and if you hire them at too low of a salary they could conceivably be susceptible to election fraud.
That is easily solved by having the votes counted at least twice by independent groups of counters. I've worked as a vote counter in Sweden, and that's how it's done there. And I'm pretty sure they get the numbers exactly right most of the time.
I don't like pencils though. They're erasable, you know.
Here's a good description of the QT 4.0 problems form the Interface Hall of Shame:
http://www.iarchitect.com/qtime.htm
The issues with the other products are similar.
He says it's Apple who created this themselves.
on
Jobs Plays It Frank
·
· Score: 2
I think he's saying that PC manufaturers are more generous with margins and sales people incentives than Apple, and thus Apple should not be surprised that they prefer selling stuff they actually make money on.
Slashdot Mirror
As for crappy schools, the notion that the quality of your school should be linked to the money you have (except of course for the 1-2% who can attend very expensive private schools) or the city you live in is a very American one.
If this is supposed to imply that all Brazilian kids get a similar eduaction it is very ignorant. Brazil is one of the most unequal societies in the world. The favela kids don't have any schools or health care at all, and are hunted for sport by the police.
These cheap computers may help the middle class get on the web. But it's very likely that primarily it will help some fat cat involved in it make millions of govenrment money. Did I mention that Brazil is one of the most corrupt countries in the world as well?
It's a great place to visit, though. But stay out of the favelas!!
The readers don't pay to borrow the books, but the library pays the author a small sum (around 1 cent, I think) each time it's lent out.
It's pretty safe to assume that like almost everyone else, the Patent Office (USPTO) prefers to be rich and powerful to the alternatives.
The more patents are issued, the bigger the USPTO needs to be. The easier it gets to get a patent, the more applications will come in. The organization grows and grows, and it is good to be in charge of the USPTO!
Until it becomes a question on the national political agenda, there is probably not much to do about it. Rounded off to the nearest percent of voters, nobody really cares about patents.
Way too many people know Starcraft, as the asker points out. There are thousands of almost completely unknown games out these. For every hit game, at least 10 flops are released. Use some of those to at least get the previous experience bias out.
A lot of people are confused by the word "own". If A owns X, it really just means that A is the one who gets to decide what to do with X.
Keeping this in mind, statements like "we don't own this planet" turn out to be meaningless rhetoric.
1 and 2 are reasonable points, but I don't think they're much to worry about. There's no way a project like this can get started before there has been people on Mars for decades. The planet will be well explored before we start, and if there's life or any other things worth preserving, that can be figured out in good time.
Point 3 is nonsense. There is no connection between the two, other than cheap rhetoric. It's like saying I shouldn't see that movie until I've lost 5 pounds.
And you don't seem to consider the good in making a hellhole into a possibly very nice home for billions of people and other life forms. Does that mean nothing to you?
...on the other side of the ocean.
I moved from Sweden to the US five years ago. It's funny how at both sides of the Atlantic a lot of people are sick of their oppresive country, and yearn for the freedom and decency of the opposite side.
I don't find Swedens privacy record impressive at all. The government demands to know pretty much everything about your life, and it's not afraid to use that information. Many of it's employees also have access to a lot of it.
How about this: In Sweden, your tax return is public information, with your entire income, where it came from as well as that HIV treatment deduction. I could go on.
There is also a law on computer registers, which makes most web sites illegal, since people's names are not allowed to be stored there. It is of course ingored and laughed at. Not too dissimilar from the scenario where a company ignores it's own privacy policy.
Personally I prefer companies to abuse my info than the state. At least they can't put me in jail based on it.
I also doubt that these online privacy measures, however nice they might be in theory, will work in any serious way. After all, information wants to be free.
Here are some very interesting articles on the subject.
l
l
Turns out the US government is the prime kiddie porn
dealer on the net!
http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.34/kiddie_porn1.htm
http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.34/kiddie_porn2.htm
We're all more or less sick from time to time, mentally and physically. That is no reason to throw us all in jail. Only acts which harm others should be punishable, sick or not.
I did double check to avoid such irony. And spell checkers don't catch these things.
You've exposed the sad truth, sir: I suck!
It's bad English complaint day at slashdot, and here is my contribution:
Unless Hemos meant to say that there was first global warning, and sometime after that a thought, the correct english word to use is "THAN".
I have to disagree. Private companies have an excellent record of honoring privacy, when that is central to their success. Better than any government.
One example is banks, whose secrecy is famous and hated by governments everywhere. Auditing and accounting are other fields where loose lips will kill your business.
If I knew the streets were monitored, I'd feel safer walking in San Francisco. If only a few streets were being taped, I might go out of my way to walk on a taped one.
I don't see the problem. If you don't want people to see you, don't go out in public. That's how it's always been.
I heard that street crime has practically disappeared in heavily monitored areas in the UK, but I may misremember that.
If you deny that a DNA bank could have real good criminological uses, you're fooling yourself.
And if you deny that a government would misuse such a bank, you're also deluded.
The solution seems obvious. A private company who keeps the data, and only gives it out for legitimate purposes.
I thought the /. wisdom was that CSS is there to make sure only authorised DVD players could play industry discs, and that it really doesn't pertain to copying since you can just copy the raw data from one disc to another, just like I can copy a Finnish text character by character without understanding a word of it.
Or did I mix up the conspiracies?
While sending irrelevant or heavy things hurts the (to you) offending company's bottom line, and provides an incentive for them to clean up their act, sending something rotting will only hurt the minimum wage mail opener who has to work three jobs to pay their children's medical bills.
We're 6 billion now. You seem to be claiming a far higher birthrate than I think reasonable.
But that's beside your main point. We might reach those numbers in twice the time, but the question what to do about it remains.
And while I'm not particularly worried, I can't say I have an answer. Such a world would be so radically different from ours that it's hard to imagine, and you probably would be very wrong in most predictions. Think about what people predicted about how previous big changes would affect society. Reality tends to surprise. But it also tends to sort itself out, and the doomsayers are routinely proven wrong.
There would clearly have to be some major changes in how societies function. If living space and resources like water and air becomes real scarce they will have to be managed very tightly, either as private property or rationed by government. There might be restrictions on breeding. We might colonize the planets and the oceans. We'll certainly invent new better ways to produce food and products. It may turn out that even with aging beaten, people only live to 150 on average, so we'll just be twice as many. I could go on and on, but I already have.
If it happens, it'll be an interesting ride!
Nothing can give us immortality. What is possible is that we won't age. We would still die from non age related diseases, accidents, wars etc.
And the planet can easily take 20 billion people.
So relax and try to get some sleep, OK?
Yes in this case blaming deregulation is probably correct because it was done in a brain dead fashion that means that the power companies have to sell electricity for a fixed price while buying it on an open market.
You're right. I'm just annoyed that people call this "deregulation". In a deregulation, all or at least most of the regulations would disappear. here they just replaced the old regulations with even stupider new ones.
The PC term should be "reregulation".
The problem with the pencil and paper is that it is expensive. You can only hire so many people to count, and if you hire them at too low of a salary they could conceivably be susceptible to election fraud.
That is easily solved by having the votes counted at least twice by independent groups of counters. I've worked as a vote counter in Sweden, and that's how it's done there. And I'm pretty sure they get the numbers exactly right most of the time.
I don't like pencils though. They're erasable, you know.
Here's a good description of the QT 4.0 problems form the Interface Hall of Shame:
http://www.iarchitect.com/qtime.htm
The issues with the other products are similar.
I think he's saying that PC manufaturers are more generous with margins and sales people incentives than Apple, and thus Apple should not be surprised that they prefer selling stuff they actually make money on.
Slashdot is usually on the side of free spread of all information. Funny to see the reverse position being taken here.
Perhaps (and I stress this is just a loose thought) the real beef is with big corprations?
According to Moores lesser known second law, the number of mouse buttons will double regularly.
Here is one page explaining the formats
http://www.alkenmrs.com/video/standards.html
You're right in that there are 7 subbranches of PAL, but SECAM is as I described it. Is uses 625 lines and 50Hz just like PAL.