I moved to Portland, Oregon about 10 months ago and immediately hooked up with Qwest DSL. Believe it or not everything went smoothly - perhaps because it was a new line and a new number.
Another friend of mine had moved here shortly before me and received a few services on her phone line that she didn't want - and explicitly refused - during her setup call. After several calls to Qwest she was able to get those services removed but was unable to get a refund for the months in which she was charged for these services.
Two other friends of mine *both* received extra DSL modems they didn't order or want. One of them was able to *refuse* the package when it arrived and wasn't charged. The other one wasn't so lucky when she sent the package back. Qwest couldn't verify that it had come back to them, and she spent several phone calls negotiating with Qwest reps about getting a refund. She was basically told it was her fault for not getting the tracking number at the time of her refusal. Both of my friends received extra charges which were a big hassle to get removed.
During some period last year I managed to somehow miss paying some phone bills. To get my account reinstated I had to send $175 or so dollars to Qwest which they would *hold on to* for a whole year. If I managed to keep up with my bills from now on I would get the money back - though I believe Qwest will keep all - or most - of the interest earned on that money. C'est las vie.
When I had purchased my DSL modem last year Qwest was running a "deal." $195 for the modem with a $100 rebate after three months. (More interest for Qwest - woohoo!). What I didn't know was that to get the rebate I had to send in a claim form. I must've missed it in my phone bill. I never read the crap advertisements that come lodged in with my bill. I never saw the refund reflected on my bill, and recently thought to chack up on this. I wrote a polite email to Qwest who informed me I would have to email the marketing firm handling the refund claims. I did so, and just last week - believe it or not - I received my $100 back from Qwest. I suppose this could be considered holding money in escrow, but I received none of the interest earned on my 100 bucks.
So I moved recently and decided to transfer my DSL account and ISP to the new place. Unfortunately I moved to a different part of town than my old exchange covered so I had to get a new phone number. I placed my DSL order and followed up by calling Qwest a week later to check the details of my order.
First, I needed no DSL modem. I already had one. So I canceled the modem. Next, I needed to retain my Qwest ISP service since Macs aren't covered by MSN. Everything seemed cool. I'm told to just call up Tech Support to hook my account up correctly after the service starts. I will be hooked up in 2 weeks, they tell me - December 21.
Around New Year's Eve I start to wonder where my DSL is. It hasn't been turned on and it's way past the due date. A couple days later I received the Qwest CD package with my ISP info. They've given me a whole new ISP account - a new email address and everything. I don't want it, so I call up Tech Support to straighten it out. About 30 minutes later I'm told it's all set, that my original ISP account will remain and my new one will be terminated. Cool. But they inform me that my service due date is January 7. Ugh.
January 15th rolls around and still I have no DSL service. I spend two hours getting transferred around only to learn the following:
1) My new ISP account is indeed scheduled for termination as it should be - including the DSL line!
2) For the first tie I learn that my Cisco 678 is no longer supported. It won't work because it's a "CAP" modem. I'm told I need a newer enhanced modem. I was incredulous. A 678 is a 678 isn't it? Nope, the helpful representative explains that it's like the difference between 8-Track tapes and CDs. "It's different inside, see?"
At this point I'm thinking: Whatever! The speeds are exactly the same, the model number is the same, the plug wiring is the same. Nothing is gained by going to some new format - except Cisco gets to sell a whole new generation of 678s. I actually tell the rep I don't believe him. I don't know who to believe. This is the first I've ever heard of it. So where do I send my old modem for a refund? The rep tells me that I get to keep the original 678. I'm free to keep it forever because I bought it and I paid for it. Gosh I feel lucky. I need my DSL dammit so reluctantly I place an order for a brand new $95 modem, complete with cables and instructions.
As I get shuffled around the phone tree I confirm with a tech that indeed I do need a new modem. The old one is a "CAP" modem while the new one is a "DMT" modem. I feel grateful for this deep insight.
3) I visit my friend and tell him about the modem changeover I've been forced to make. He plops into my hand a 678 DMT modem and tells me to refuse the modem when it arrives. Send it back and keep my $95. I thank him, run home and configure the modem for DHCP. Voila, at last my DSL is connected and working!
So how much time have I wasted? How much of Qwest's resources have been eaten up by little me - a single customer? How much extra work has been done because no one told me up-front that I had to change to a new modem? How much effort am I wasting by sending this modem back? How much *more* time will I have to spend to get my billing straightened out so that I won't be billed from the 7th until today - or is it Dec 21st until today? What if Qwest won't refund the $95 for the modem I'm about to refuse from them? And never mind that my ISP account isn't even associated with my new phone number but only my old one! And now what's happened to my disk space quota?? Suddenly I can't upload stuff to my web site any more!
Communication is the single most essential ingredient in any successful and efficient organization. I don't need to point out the irony here, do I? In my 10 short months in this region of the country Qwest has proven to me that they are disorganized, inefficient, underhanded, greedy, predatory, and - above all - monopolistic. The poor oversized beast is certainly dysfunctional. I only hope they get some professional help before they kill themselves.
I'd add that American Democracy has overreached its good intentions in a lot of adult minds. Whereas it was intended to foster a sense of personal responsibility many people have come to feel that as long as they vote for a loud enough representative it gets them off the ethical hook, so to speak. Now that our freedom of information is under attack there are a good number of minds actively seeking to resist it.
Perhaps the increased incidence of people taking pacifying prescription drugs is a sign of resistance to this fundamental internal struggle.... People want to express their dissatisfaction, but they don't want to rock the boat when things are going so gosh-darned good. The "Brave New World" is right here and now in America, so be sure and only take the legally sanctioned drugs, kids!
I suppose you must know that a large majority media-fed Americans have only one overarching desire in life: to remain little irresponsible children free from the necessities of life, free to indulge in whatever vain pursuits fit the moment, free to get away with those things that the media tells us can be got away with.
Let Freedom Ring!
Our government and leadership are more than happy to indulge the American appetite for shallow pursuits, kicks, and thrills. Hell, look at the so-called "War on Terror" being promulgated in the media. The way it's promoted you'd think it was a fucking carnival ride. There's been enough chest-beating and crocodile tears to fill up a century of Jerry Springer episodes.
Oops, I'm ranting, but suddenly there's the other side. It's legal to attack and kill people anywhere you want - as long as you're the guy in power. Hell, if you're the guy in power you can even officially declare it Moral.
I'd say the whole game is spinning on its head with trousers down at this point.
Since representatives of Microsoft claim they were only emulating AT&T in their disclosures perhaps the Justice Department should do their part to fulfill the metaphor.
Sure, wouldn't it be great if a company like Microsoft, with billions of dollars in profits, could donate money to poor schools? It would give the impression that even the most egregious and predatory forms of Capitalism can make a positive difference to the lower classes. But then again you don't need a class-action lawsuit to spur this kind of charitable activity. If Bill Gates has ever been truly concerned about the state of poor schools - losing his collagen-enhanced beauty sleep over it - he could have donated millions of computers and free software years and years ago, further cemented their market dominance, and probably even gotten away with it. By tying this activity to the class-action lawsuits Microsoft can rest assured that from now on nobody will trust them in such a charitable action ever again. They've basically screwed themselves out of an excellent marketing opportunity.
And this to me is the central issue: Regardless of the good-act-overcoming-bad-history aspect of Microsoft's proposed settlement it's totally "off-topic" and a flagrant waste of the court's time. Meanwhile how much bloody *interest* has Microsoft's ill-earned profit gained? I hope the court's keeping tabs, because it should be compounded daily.
And if I may rant a bit more....
...Do they actually *pay* attorneys to come up with this kind of shit? M$ should just hire a bunch of Professional Morons and then they'd be able to commend them for the great work they're doing. They could throw in monthly cash bonuses for the most blatant misuse of the word "innovation."
Seriously, the more I see the way Microsoft's cadre of hired monkeys behave the more convinced I become that Steve Ballmer's testicular tumors are sprouting heads and getting Law degrees.
...display would stand a few inches above my line of sight so that I'd see eye to eye with the top of the Dock. There is something strangely retro about the iBlob. It would be right at home in the Flintstones' cave.
I had a vision of something like this a few days ago, except the components were inside a separate dome-shaped translucent plastic chassis and the monitor-on-a-stick was connected by an ADC cable.
If this is indeed Apple's next iMac there are some obvious problems. I'd better state them before I get caught up in the RDF tomorrow.
Too much like the cube.
Could the iBlob be the hub of your digital lifestyle? Firewire and USB connectors make it easy to attach a myriad of little translucent rectangular devices with Apple logo on the back. But what else can you attach to this lamp-like appliance? How much memory can you add? Get ready for the Inquisition once more, Apple!
The display sits too high.
According to ergonomic principles the top edge of your display should be level with your line of sight or even a little lower for extended usage periods. Sitting on my desk the iBlob
The display is too small - it's an iBook display.
Simply a matter of the display being disproportionate to the base. If the base were smaller or separate from the display it might make a difference. An awful lot of folks familiar with the iBook are going to scoff because you get hardly anything more than you get with an iBook - without the portability. Even if it's a G4 machine it won't do much to convince anyone. Photoshop benchmarks will not sell this appliance.
Expandability expandability expandability
I can't see a DVD slot on the front, can you? What about PCI slots? These questions are going to be relevant if this machine comes in above the $999 price point. The iBlob is poised to inherit the iMac mantle, but it's a very new appearance for a computer and can't avoind inheriting the legacy of the Cube as well. How can this be successful? Only on the merits of its features.
Versatility versatility versatility
The venerable CRT-based iMac had the benefit of familiarity. It was immediately evident to anyone who saw it that it was a console. It might sit atop a swiveling base but it would remain otherwise stationary. The iBlob has the appearance of a modular system but it probably isn't. The screen probably swivels but I'm guessing it will not be removable. You won't be able to hook another computer to its display for presentation purposes.
Where can one envision such a machine living? I see it in the corner of a countertop, in a boutique, atop a restaurant podium.... This is not a computer made to sit down at, but to stand near. But even for these uses the base is a bit too large. Maybe this is why I favor two separate pieces.
After all of Apple's hype the iBlob is not likely to receive the accolades it probably deserves on some level. I just hope Steve doesn't feel compelled to bring out the team of "special" people who gave birth to this ugly duckling. Time will tell if it is to become a swan or end up as carrion for buzzards.
I couldn't agree more. It isn't the job of Governments to get involved in bailing out one industry at the expense of another. What gives them the right to burden the makers of writeable media just because it happens to affect another industry. That's like putting a tax on cheap breakfast joints because they take profits away from luncheonettes? Not to mention the profits the makers of nicotine gum are taking away from cigarette makers!
Our officials seem to have no concept of economic realities surrounding piracy. I'd say that in 90% of "piracy" cases the individual would not have bought the product legitimately no matter what, so in reality it counts as no loss for the company.
And forget about silly "protecting the artists" arguments. No one takes more advantage of musicians and does them more harm than record companies. God, how many promising artists have lost their purity and soul in the name of record-sales, popularity, and fame? Capitalism corrupts, kids, for all the good it does.
When it comes down to it the "either-tax-or-copy-protect" choice is totally artificial. These are not the only alternatives so let's not allow the pundits to fool us into arguing one over the other. If creativity wasn't constantly being whored to the highest bidder maybe it would come back around to the service of quality and culture. Maybe artists would realize that the new media revolution means the record companies have become obsolete!
Let's face it, our courts and law enforcement have enough to do without becoming the muscle for corporate interests, and that's exactly the direction the US is going. Am I the only person who became physically ill when the aftermath of the 9/11 attack segued straight from heartfelt mourning to "save the economy, go out and spend" bullshit?
Fuck the profit-mongers. May their blue blood freeze in their veins....
I am about to expose information that could be used to commit a crime. If this information is improperly used then I and all who have passed on this information can and should be summarily prosecuted according to the Laws Against Spreading Evil Information. But I'll take the chance.
1. Humans are mortal
2. Poking a big hole in a human can kill it
3. Humans are the weak spot in bank security
4. Humans fear having holes poked in them
5. Guns are effective tools for poking holes in humans
6. Pointing guns at humans can get them to do what you want
7. Humans in banks will give you money if you point a gun at them
8. To kill a human quickly, shoot it in the heart or head
9. Explosives are also very effective
My apologies to all for whom this information represents a decrease in personal security. But rest assured, your firewall will continue to function long after your life has drained away.
I think you might be confusing the usage of "tracks" and "volumes." The Red Book volume contains the music tracks, whereas the Joliet / ISO9660 volume contains the PC files. If there's anything special about the first music "track" on the Red Book volume it would have to be such that it wouldn't affect its use on a standard CD player.
... prevailing to end this foolish mission. The folly of scientists never ceases to amaze me. Deep Space One, like Voyager 1 and 2 before it, will only be captured by one of a thousand nearby hostile alien civilizations, injected with mind-altering nano-spores and sent back to Earth. I pray this day never comes, but if it does it will herald a new awareness, just as the events of September 11 did. Scientists won't be able to hide in their committee chambers as they and the rest of the human race find themselves being consumed by the alien spores. They've already ignored this danger for far too long.
I for one am relieved to see funding going towards someplace where it's really needed for a change: to the essential and forward-thinking Laser Missile Defense Shield. You don't have to be a master of Redneck Rampage to see to smell the coffee burning. When the godless aliens arrive we need to be ready. We need to be prepared in every way to lase them into vapor before they possess the minds of our brothers and sisters and poison them against our deeply held moral values.
The laser defense is important, but I believe we must think even further if we are to survive.
Now that funding is going where it should scientists and engineers can devote their talented minds to things that really matter. What moral citizen hasn't dreamt of a day when the American People can stand united and secure beneath a neural-net controlled translucent bubble of ozone-infused anti-missile shielding? Agencies like NASA and programs like the Berkeley peacenik SETI "we want a big cosmic hug from E.T." project need to be exposed for the foolish wastes they are. The death of Deep Space One heralds the beginning of a new age of enlightened defensive spending.
I know that deep down beneath the part of you that hates humanity - those vile creatures who always taunt and belittle your superior intellects - Slashdotters care. I know when faced with the choice between a spore-infested world of android replicants and a utopian world where we can roam freely in a bio-dome safe from our enemies you'll make the wisest choice.
I have a friend who used to work for the same company as myself. He had links to their web-site and to the sites of clients for whom he had done stellar design work as part of his online resume. The company demanded that he remove these links.
Why? Ostensibly because "too many hits are coming from your page, buddy!" But perhaps it's really because his personal page advocates veganism, or perhaps because he's a photographer who had done some same-sex weddings. Who knows?
The point is, telling people not to link to your site is just plain stupid and unreasonable, and frankly borders on unethical. May they drown in their stupid-karma!
Bad grammar and long-winded explanations are an obvious sign that the speaker is trying to avoid being straightforward. The kind of bad grammar evidenced here shows that there are certain key phrases that are in the agenda, and if it means stuttering over a few words to get to those points, so be it. This long quote by Bill Gates reveals his intention to speak things he knows are untrue. Those who think Bill doesn't get it are giving him too much credit for honesty. At this stage of their game, MS is hardly interested in representing the true nature of the "software ecosystem." Unfortunately, a lot of uninformed politicians and pundits are apt to jump on the MS anti-open-source bandwagon. Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate Network is the centerpiece of Microsoft's disinformation campaign. They've even adopted the nasty tactics of the Right Wing, such as asserting the opposite of the truth and using subtle ridicule to stifle debate. Expect more stomach-churning action in the coming months.
... We certainly accept free software as part of the software ecosystem. In fact, there's a very virtuous cycle where people do free things, some people find that adequate, sometimes companies will take that work and turn it into commercial products, those companies will hire people, pay taxes. And so you see the free software and the commercial software existing together.
Translation: When Bill says "some people" he refers to those other people who you and I don't want to be: Those who settle for adequate. And of course, open source software is only adequate for simple little things.
When Bill refers to the capitalist tradition of hiring people and paying taxes he implies that OSS reduces the hiring of paid workers, and in this way hurts economic growth. This of course completely leaves out the overriding effects that OSS and free (as in beer) software have on the economy as a whole: lower costs, because your company isn't paying thousands of dollars in licensing fees to a centralized organization year after year; increased efficiency, because when bugs occur they are patched quickly, and not months or years later when MS gets around to it; furhter increased efficiency, because (for example) Linux leverages the power of older, less expensive hardware to do 90% of what servers are good for.
There are other "butterfly effects" that occur economically as a result of OSS, none of which Bill G. can see through his profit-colored glasses. The MS view is that software creates profit by leveraging corporate control to drive sales of licenses (priced according to MS standards, not market standards). It would seem that they see this as the end of the story. But software is much more than a boxed product for sale as Microsoft would have it. In a world now dependent on computer software for all forms of business, an economy benefits through the creative use of software. The software itself is just a starting point for innovation.
Because the quality of software has a global impact on productivity and efficiency everywhere it is essential that it be open and maintainable. A monopoly is identified in part as a company that institutes practices that benefit the company while harming the consumer. In this light Microsoft's attempts to misrepresent and vilify the open source movement are monopolisitic in the extreme.
There is a particular approach [called the GPL] that breaks the cycle... that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called Free Software Foundations designed that to break that cycle.
Okay, we've heard it a million times before, but for completeness... Translation: In order for Real Software to exist it has to be supported in its development. Real Development is supported by paying Real Money to Real Programmers and then advertising it during The Real World. The GPL is a viral substance like Ice-Nine that "breaks the cycle" of the development of Real Software, causing programmers to lose work, software-selling companies to go out of business, and Real Software to become extinct.
In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.
... continuing in the same vain, Bill here reminds us that Real Software is an important part of our identity, our culture, and our community. Windows represents the centerpiece of that culture and identity. Is Micirsoft learning from its competitors? Well, it's trying to emulate them in any case.
In the free-software vision... there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of Free Software Foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.
On the issue of taxes: Is this really the Free Software Vision(TM) Bill? Mr. Gates' emphasis on taxes is dubious, to say the least. As an economy grows its tax revenues grow. It is not by virtue of taxes being paid that governments and societies benefit. If tomorrow a car appeared that was affordable and got 200 miles per gallon people would spend less money on gasoline, but they'd likely spend more money on something else. The oil industry might be harmed, but the economy itself would quickly begin to show growth as a result of the new freedom and affordability of travel.
The situation is not so different with software given its ubiquity. If people stop spending money on Microsoft software and choose free or open source software it might hurt poort beleaguered Microsoft, but there will be a positive impact on the economy as a whole. Bill's code-words to representatives from Washnington state: the GPL threatens your kickbacks and graft!
On the second point: Does the Free Software Foundation really state in its literature someplace that the software industry should go away and be replaced by altruists with decent coding skills? No, of course Bill is just plain lying here.
As for Bill's last point, that open source projects can't produce sophisiticated software, such as a speech-recognition system: Bill is using his Freedom to Innovate to make up innovative lies. Given a good specification, a couple of clever programmers with knowledge about speech recognition, and a few months of key-pounding, decent software can be and is produced for every platform. If a company thinks it can sell lots of hardware units by having speech recognition in its nifty toy tablet device, they can hire specialists to contribute to the project. They can hire programmers and designers to make a decent UI. They don't have to make the project GPL, and if they want to protect their code investment so that nobody can use it in a cheaper / better tablet computer, they should do that. At this point Bill is just trying to get in his schtick leading up to the Shared Source program, which, my dear shareholders, is kinda like Open Source, except that members of the program get to pay more than they do for Closed Source and get far less than they do with Open Source.
Billy Gates wrote:
Every programmer I know of writes software for businesses and not for a software company. There can be no opensource replacement for customized software solutions, website development and database apps for the enterprise.
I wouldn't say "never." It's amazing what kinds of things are being written as open source projects: spreadsheets, chemical analysis, sales tracking, all kinds of "niche" applications. Nevertheless I don't think it matters if the *whole kaboodle* comes out of an open source effort or not. The open source foundation for our development efforts (languages, databases, GUIs) is enough to establish its inevitable dominance.
In my job writing proprietary solutions for my company's various clients I use open source tools and open source code all the time. It's not so much the customized proprietary bits that matter here, but the fact that I have a skein of time-tested code already available that carries 90% of the load. Open source saves our department enormous piles of time and effort. After building a dozen sites for various clients I wouldn't use anything *but* open source. It's the kind of monopoly I don't mind supporting.
I can think of at least one reason more people will upgrade to Windows XP: MacOS X. Many users of PCs - for the most part your average gamers who are using Windows 98 or ME and who are aware that "modern" operating systems are becoming an essential commodity - will buy this thing. Its aesthetic beauty - or at least M$ idea of aesthetic beauty - adds another element.
I can imagine one of these users looking at the colorful screenshots and saying, "Ah, finally something that makes full use of my powerful graphics card!" I have to admit that knowing I've got the capability of amazing 3D graphics lurking in my system makes me wish it were being used more ubiquitously. And now because of the hype surrounding "modern" crash-proof multitasking OSes a lot of users are slavering over exactly this kind of thing.
Hardcore gamers and power users long ago upgraded to Win2K. Although Windows 2000 is a modern crash-proof OS, to many users it *looks no different* from Windows 95 or 98. Microsoft is leveraging a lot of what Apple has done with MacOS X to give a brand-identity to the modern OS. In the minds of consumers an OS that has the audacity to get funky gives the impression that such computing cockiness is warranted by the underlying stability and speed of the OS. It also carries the impression of being forward-thinking, because - sure - with today's processors a lot of this stuff may be taxing, jumpy, or slow, but wait a few months or a couple years and just watch how normal it will all be.
The only thing that troubles me about the XP aesthetic is how closely it mirrors the graphical style of modern media. It won't be long before you'll have to look twice before you realize you're not looking at a sports-statistics display like you see on ESPN or NBC. And that flying logo: it's not the nightly news logo my friend, but "You've got mail!"
As a finaly note, It's obvious to me - and no doubt to many/. readers - that MacOS X is a much better deal and more viable in the long run for one simple reason: It's a Unix. No matter how many nice gadgets M$ decides to plop on top of their modern kernel (the dubious.NET included) when PC users decide to go further they'll find themselves sorely lacking. The savvier ones will install Linux and dual-boot it (hopefully there'll be a way to run Linux concurrently as an OS service). The all-in-one solution of MacOS X just seems more compelling to me, and frankly it's a hell of a lot prettier and more elegant.
Seems the XML you included in your post has been munged by the presence of those pointy-brackets. Everything in-between them got extracted by the Slashdot posting engine. Fortunately an earlier post has the correct code...
I'm following the media to get a sense of the mentality of my fellow Americans, and to get a sense of the official spin of the corporate media. Here is some of the official spin being used to incite the cerebral cortexes of Americans to rally around their cherished symbols:
- We have seen the face of evil.
- This is an attack on the American Way of Life
- This is an attack on all that America stands for (Freedom, Justice, etc.)
Okay, so first, good and evil has to be established to get good old-fashioned dualistic mentation all fired up.
Next, this general thing called the American Way of Life is introduced. Everyone has their own idea about the meaning of this sketchy term. Personally I tend to think of this as consisting of selfishness, materialism, profit motive, and a general tendency to blindly follow the crowd. (Not unlike the rest of the world, I guess.)
What pisses me off about this particular spin is how it ignores America's role in the wider world, where our way of life is to bribe, buy, and destabilize those people and regions that suit our "interests," which is the accumulation of wealth and power and short-sighted exploitation of the world's resources. American policy-makers and profiteers couldn't care less whether their actions cause irreperable harm to the rest of the world - as long as their affluent business contacts are drunk and smiling at the end of the day.
The spin that this is an attack on the values of freedom and justice is utterly stupid. It is ironic that this claim flies in the face of even Asama Bin Laden's own highly-publicized words, that he and others are acting (in the only way they know how) to protect their own view of what constitutes justice and freedom for those who live and practice Islam.
Now look, I think the terrorists are dead wrong if th think they are doing anything to benefit Islam. They are not only harming the world's perception of Islam, they are corrupting the spirit of religion itself, which in its deepest sense exists to free the mind from the trap of worldly dualism.
One would think, from the kind of publicity being given to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity that they amount to nothing more than agglomerations of ideals, opinions, and prejudices held by a bunch of uptight closed-minded wackos. Frankly this whole generation has become jaded and pissed-off at our spiritual predecessors for just this reason. They're hard-hearted, ignorant, bigoted, and tragically out of touch with the interconnected nature of reality. So frankly, Jerry Falwell and Asama Bin Laden don't look any different, but then the media can't always hide the truth.
Replying to my own post, as obviously I wrote far too soon, way before I knew the details of how many were killed in the attack or how many terrorists were involved. My face is red after realizing the ignorance of my statistics.
These kooks managed to kill almost as many people as die accidentally in transportation-related accidents in an entire year here in the US - in a matter of minutes. It's like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water. The USA feels nothing and hardly notices its own slow suicide, but when it hits all at once we jump out of the pot and get all up in arms. And we have the convenience of a particular source of this destruction that we can blame.
My perspective on this situation may perhaps seem skewed. I see the mind and the world political environment as parts of Nature, and this kind of event as a fact of nature - a natural disaster. The forces that caused it were born in the minds of people, but they wouldn't exist if not for the forces at work in the world in-general. And certainly the US wouldn't be such a tempting target if we weren't such assholes on the world stage.
All the talking heads on TV talking about this as an attack on "our way of life," should think long and hard about whether our "way of life" is really all that hot. We eat, sleep, shit, and screw in a manner much like every creature on earth. What distinguishes human beings in America is that we also have puffed-up attitudes about our style of eating, sleeping, shitting, and screwing, and think everyone around the world should do as we do, and join us in our suburban dreamscape going forward to our manifest destiny of peace, harmony, and major appliances for everyone.
I'm pissed, just as everyone seems to be, but I'm pissed on a thousand different levels. I'm pissed that a huge bunch of awesome living beings lost their lives. I don't care that they were Americans or Chinese or Arabs or Jews or whatever. This is a tragedy for Life Itself, and part of my original post was meant to point out that we are living in a tragic world, and that 99.999% of the tragic events that we bring upon ourselves and others every day go completely unnoticed.
So go ahead and react, America. Vote up all those bigmouth tough-on-you-name-it politicians and enjoy your new illusion of security. Personally, I'm going to stick to my own personal security, the comfort of knowing that we are each part of something greater than this consensual illusion we call America. We are part of one great life, one infinite universe, one nature, and in the beauty of eternity there is no need to fear anything.
I dare you to take an honest look at the killer beast that is our own fast-paced consumer lifestyle and get a little perspective on things....
http://www.bts.gov/btsprod/nts/Ch2_web/2-4.htm
... and it doesn't even mention the death-toll from cancer, obesity, and general stupidity. Where's the moral outrage about that?
I see the greatest threat coming from the corrupt self-serving souls of our leadership. While we may decry the actions of the individuals responsible and sincerely mourn the loss of those 271 lives...
... our leaders are already getting that twinkle in their eye that spells political opportunism. George Dubya in his shriveled little heart of hearts couldn't be more pleased about this turn of events given his political aims and those of his cronies. And mark my words, they'll be having a field-day pushing through all their pet Tough-On-X bills to put away every conceivable undesirable element in America and throughout the world.
All the lap-dogs in the House and Senate will be lapping up the blood-sweat of their constituencies, barking their retribution, hell-fire, and brimstone as loudly as possible to show that they're tougher than the guy in the next seat.
Mark my words, this is the beginning of a dark age of terrorism, only the greater terrorism will come from the soft-headed aristocracy we pathetically cling to as our representatives, and the cost in lives and freedoms will be a hundred-fold out of proportion with those 271 unfortunate deaths at the hands of four mad individuals.
Would you care to propose an alternative method or two?
It appears that computers and storage devices are still in a state of linear processing. Bytes are fetched and stored in linear space and time. Filesystems are organized in a tree-like structure, but they have to be traversed in linear steps.
In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser.
Yes I would. Especially in the terminal, where I want things to behave like they should bloody behave.
In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser.
Yes I would, didn't you hear me the first time? Those are two different files with two different names, and I don't care what you hide!
In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser.
Fine, be that way, but I'm never going to use a nutty OS that acts like that. And don't ask me to use an OS that has a universal handler for files that end in.jpg either. If it doesn't have an application specified then give me a list to choose from, don't go assigning things to it for me.
A simple physics question, or maybe not so simple:
Can phenomena which are in no particular state (i.e., the wave that lives in the space between non-existence and existence) have interim unobserved effects during the "particle"->"wave"->"particle" transition? Or is the wave/particle duality an impenetrable boundary, the "wave state" something that can never be "known" in itself?
It seems that in such a "quantum system" one could induce some potential course of action, and by measuring the existence or nonexistence of a resulting effect infer the meaning of the result based on the original parameters. In this case you can use time as the controlling variable, and all is right with the world.
(Intruducing time into the equation is the only means to observe a system without necessarily interacting with it that I can think of. At least, you probably only need to interact half of the time.)
Once you've made a logical branch based on the result (or non-result) then you can happily reset the system to a known state and set up the next "instruction."
I realize this is an oblique notion, but it makes a weird kind of sense if you've done enough acid!;-) I'm untainted by any deep understanding of quantum computing, so I'm just riffing off my intuition. Does quantum computing rely on preserving states in such a way that my theoretical brute-force approach would topple the system?
Slashdot Mirror
I reckon it would have to be manufactured in space and then lowered to earth by some vehicle moving in unison with the rotation of the planet.
I moved to Portland, Oregon about 10 months ago and immediately hooked up with Qwest DSL. Believe it or not everything went smoothly - perhaps because it was a new line and a new number.
Another friend of mine had moved here shortly before me and received a few services on her phone line that she didn't want - and explicitly refused - during her setup call. After several calls to Qwest she was able to get those services removed but was unable to get a refund for the months in which she was charged for these services.
Two other friends of mine *both* received extra DSL modems they didn't order or want. One of them was able to *refuse* the package when it arrived and wasn't charged. The other one wasn't so lucky when she sent the package back. Qwest couldn't verify that it had come back to them, and she spent several phone calls negotiating with Qwest reps about getting a refund. She was basically told it was her fault for not getting the tracking number at the time of her refusal. Both of my friends received extra charges which were a big hassle to get removed.
During some period last year I managed to somehow miss paying some phone bills. To get my account reinstated I had to send $175 or so dollars to Qwest which they would *hold on to* for a whole year. If I managed to keep up with my bills from now on I would get the money back - though I believe Qwest will keep all - or most - of the interest earned on that money. C'est las vie.
When I had purchased my DSL modem last year Qwest was running a "deal." $195 for the modem with a $100 rebate after three months. (More interest for Qwest - woohoo!). What I didn't know was that to get the rebate I had to send in a claim form. I must've missed it in my phone bill. I never read the crap advertisements that come lodged in with my bill. I never saw the refund reflected on my bill, and recently thought to chack up on this. I wrote a polite email to Qwest who informed me I would have to email the marketing firm handling the refund claims. I did so, and just last week - believe it or not - I received my $100 back from Qwest. I suppose this could be considered holding money in escrow, but I received none of the interest earned on my 100 bucks.
So I moved recently and decided to transfer my DSL account and ISP to the new place. Unfortunately I moved to a different part of town than my old exchange covered so I had to get a new phone number. I placed my DSL order and followed up by calling Qwest a week later to check the details of my order.
First, I needed no DSL modem. I already had one. So I canceled the modem. Next, I needed to retain my Qwest ISP service since Macs aren't covered by MSN. Everything seemed cool. I'm told to just call up Tech Support to hook my account up correctly after the service starts. I will be hooked up in 2 weeks, they tell me - December 21.
Around New Year's Eve I start to wonder where my DSL is. It hasn't been turned on and it's way past the due date. A couple days later I received the Qwest CD package with my ISP info. They've given me a whole new ISP account - a new email address and everything. I don't want it, so I call up Tech Support to straighten it out. About 30 minutes later I'm told it's all set, that my original ISP account will remain and my new one will be terminated. Cool. But they inform me that my service due date is January 7. Ugh.
January 15th rolls around and still I have no DSL service. I spend two hours getting transferred around only to learn the following:
1) My new ISP account is indeed scheduled for termination as it should be - including the DSL line!
2) For the first tie I learn that my Cisco 678 is no longer supported. It won't work because it's a "CAP" modem. I'm told I need a newer enhanced modem. I was incredulous. A 678 is a 678 isn't it? Nope, the helpful representative explains that it's like the difference between 8-Track tapes and CDs. "It's different inside, see?"
At this point I'm thinking: Whatever! The speeds are exactly the same, the model number is the same, the plug wiring is the same. Nothing is gained by going to some new format - except Cisco gets to sell a whole new generation of 678s. I actually tell the rep I don't believe him. I don't know who to believe. This is the first I've ever heard of it. So where do I send my old modem for a refund? The rep tells me that I get to keep the original 678. I'm free to keep it forever because I bought it and I paid for it. Gosh I feel lucky. I need my DSL dammit so reluctantly I place an order for a brand new $95 modem, complete with cables and instructions.
As I get shuffled around the phone tree I confirm with a tech that indeed I do need a new modem. The old one is a "CAP" modem while the new one is a "DMT" modem. I feel grateful for this deep insight.
3) I visit my friend and tell him about the modem changeover I've been forced to make. He plops into my hand a 678 DMT modem and tells me to refuse the modem when it arrives. Send it back and keep my $95. I thank him, run home and configure the modem for DHCP. Voila, at last my DSL is connected and working!
So how much time have I wasted? How much of Qwest's resources have been eaten up by little me - a single customer? How much extra work has been done because no one told me up-front that I had to change to a new modem? How much effort am I wasting by sending this modem back? How much *more* time will I have to spend to get my billing straightened out so that I won't be billed from the 7th until today - or is it Dec 21st until today? What if Qwest won't refund the $95 for the modem I'm about to refuse from them? And never mind that my ISP account isn't even associated with my new phone number but only my old one! And now what's happened to my disk space quota?? Suddenly I can't upload stuff to my web site any more!
Communication is the single most essential ingredient in any successful and efficient organization. I don't need to point out the irony here, do I? In my 10 short months in this region of the country Qwest has proven to me that they are disorganized, inefficient, underhanded, greedy, predatory, and - above all - monopolistic. The poor oversized beast is certainly dysfunctional. I only hope they get some professional help before they kill themselves.
I'd add that American Democracy has overreached its good intentions in a lot of adult minds. Whereas it was intended to foster a sense of personal responsibility many people have come to feel that as long as they vote for a loud enough representative it gets them off the ethical hook, so to speak. Now that our freedom of information is under attack there are a good number of minds actively seeking to resist it.
Perhaps the increased incidence of people taking pacifying prescription drugs is a sign of resistance to this fundamental internal struggle.... People want to express their dissatisfaction, but they don't want to rock the boat when things are going so gosh-darned good. The "Brave New World" is right here and now in America, so be sure and only take the legally sanctioned drugs, kids!
I suppose you must know that a large majority media-fed Americans have only one overarching desire in life: to remain little irresponsible children free from the necessities of life, free to indulge in whatever vain pursuits fit the moment, free to get away with those things that the media tells us can be got away with.
Let Freedom Ring!
Our government and leadership are more than happy to indulge the American appetite for shallow pursuits, kicks, and thrills. Hell, look at the so-called "War on Terror" being promulgated in the media. The way it's promoted you'd think it was a fucking carnival ride. There's been enough chest-beating and crocodile tears to fill up a century of Jerry Springer episodes.
Oops, I'm ranting, but suddenly there's the other side. It's legal to attack and kill people anywhere you want - as long as you're the guy in power. Hell, if you're the guy in power you can even officially declare it Moral.
I'd say the whole game is spinning on its head with trousers down at this point.
Since representatives of Microsoft claim they were only emulating AT&T in their disclosures perhaps the Justice Department should do their part to fulfill the metaphor.
Sure, wouldn't it be great if a company like Microsoft, with billions of dollars in profits, could donate money to poor schools? It would give the impression that even the most egregious and predatory forms of Capitalism can make a positive difference to the lower classes. But then again you don't need a class-action lawsuit to spur this kind of charitable activity. If Bill Gates has ever been truly concerned about the state of poor schools - losing his collagen-enhanced beauty sleep over it - he could have donated millions of computers and free software years and years ago, further cemented their market dominance, and probably even gotten away with it. By tying this activity to the class-action lawsuits Microsoft can rest assured that from now on nobody will trust them in such a charitable action ever again. They've basically screwed themselves out of an excellent marketing opportunity.
And this to me is the central issue: Regardless of the good-act-overcoming-bad-history aspect of Microsoft's proposed settlement it's totally "off-topic" and a flagrant waste of the court's time. Meanwhile how much bloody *interest* has Microsoft's ill-earned profit gained? I hope the court's keeping tabs, because it should be compounded daily.
And if I may rant a bit more....
...Do they actually *pay* attorneys to come up with this kind of shit? M$ should just hire a bunch of Professional Morons and then they'd be able to commend them for the great work they're doing. They could throw in monthly cash bonuses for the most blatant misuse of the word "innovation."
Seriously, the more I see the way Microsoft's cadre of hired monkeys behave the more convinced I become that Steve Ballmer's testicular tumors are sprouting heads and getting Law degrees.
...display would stand a few inches above my line of sight so that I'd see eye to eye with the top of the Dock. There is something strangely retro about the iBlob. It would be right at home in the Flintstones' cave.
I had a vision of something like this a few days ago, except the components were inside a separate dome-shaped translucent plastic chassis and the monitor-on-a-stick was connected by an ADC cable.
If this is indeed Apple's next iMac there are some obvious problems. I'd better state them before I get caught up in the RDF tomorrow.
Too much like the cube.
Could the iBlob be the hub of your digital lifestyle? Firewire and USB connectors make it easy to attach a myriad of little translucent rectangular devices with Apple logo on the back. But what else can you attach to this lamp-like appliance? How much memory can you add? Get ready for the Inquisition once more, Apple!
The display sits too high.
According to ergonomic principles the top edge of your display should be level with your line of sight or even a little lower for extended usage periods. Sitting on my desk the iBlob
The display is too small - it's an iBook display.
Simply a matter of the display being disproportionate to the base. If the base were smaller or separate from the display it might make a difference. An awful lot of folks familiar with the iBook are going to scoff because you get hardly anything more than you get with an iBook - without the portability. Even if it's a G4 machine it won't do much to convince anyone. Photoshop benchmarks will not sell this appliance.
Expandability expandability expandability
I can't see a DVD slot on the front, can you? What about PCI slots? These questions are going to be relevant if this machine comes in above the $999 price point. The iBlob is poised to inherit the iMac mantle, but it's a very new appearance for a computer and can't avoind inheriting the legacy of the Cube as well. How can this be successful? Only on the merits of its features.
Versatility versatility versatility
The venerable CRT-based iMac had the benefit of familiarity. It was immediately evident to anyone who saw it that it was a console. It might sit atop a swiveling base but it would remain otherwise stationary. The iBlob has the appearance of a modular system but it probably isn't. The screen probably swivels but I'm guessing it will not be removable. You won't be able to hook another computer to its display for presentation purposes.
Where can one envision such a machine living? I see it in the corner of a countertop, in a boutique, atop a restaurant podium.... This is not a computer made to sit down at, but to stand near. But even for these uses the base is a bit too large. Maybe this is why I favor two separate pieces.
After all of Apple's hype the iBlob is not likely to receive the accolades it probably deserves on some level. I just hope Steve doesn't feel compelled to bring out the team of "special" people who gave birth to this ugly duckling. Time will tell if it is to become a swan or end up as carrion for buzzards.
I couldn't agree more. It isn't the job of Governments to get involved in bailing out one industry at the expense of another. What gives them the right to burden the makers of writeable media just because it happens to affect another industry. That's like putting a tax on cheap breakfast joints because they take profits away from luncheonettes? Not to mention the profits the makers of nicotine gum are taking away from cigarette makers!
Our officials seem to have no concept of economic realities surrounding piracy. I'd say that in 90% of "piracy" cases the individual would not have bought the product legitimately no matter what, so in reality it counts as no loss for the company.
And forget about silly "protecting the artists" arguments. No one takes more advantage of musicians and does them more harm than record companies. God, how many promising artists have lost their purity and soul in the name of record-sales, popularity, and fame? Capitalism corrupts, kids, for all the good it does.
When it comes down to it the "either-tax-or-copy-protect" choice is totally artificial. These are not the only alternatives so let's not allow the pundits to fool us into arguing one over the other. If creativity wasn't constantly being whored to the highest bidder maybe it would come back around to the service of quality and culture. Maybe artists would realize that the new media revolution means the record companies have become obsolete!
Let's face it, our courts and law enforcement have enough to do without becoming the muscle for corporate interests, and that's exactly the direction the US is going. Am I the only person who became physically ill when the aftermath of the 9/11 attack segued straight from heartfelt mourning to "save the economy, go out and spend" bullshit?
Fuck the profit-mongers. May their blue blood freeze in their veins....
...but will it work with my iWalk?
I am about to expose information that could be used to commit a crime. If this information is improperly used then I and all who have passed on this information can and should be summarily prosecuted according to the Laws Against Spreading Evil Information. But I'll take the chance.
1. Humans are mortal
2. Poking a big hole in a human can kill it
3. Humans are the weak spot in bank security
4. Humans fear having holes poked in them
5. Guns are effective tools for poking holes in humans
6. Pointing guns at humans can get them to do what you want
7. Humans in banks will give you money if you point a gun at them
8. To kill a human quickly, shoot it in the heart or head
9. Explosives are also very effective
My apologies to all for whom this information represents a decrease in personal security. But rest assured, your firewall will continue to function long after your life has drained away.
I think you might be confusing the usage of "tracks" and "volumes." The Red Book volume contains the music tracks, whereas the Joliet / ISO9660 volume contains the PC files. If there's anything special about the first music "track" on the Red Book volume it would have to be such that it wouldn't affect its use on a standard CD player.
... prevailing to end this foolish mission. The folly of scientists never ceases to amaze me. Deep Space One, like Voyager 1 and 2 before it, will only be captured by one of a thousand nearby hostile alien civilizations, injected with mind-altering nano-spores and sent back to Earth. I pray this day never comes, but if it does it will herald a new awareness, just as the events of September 11 did. Scientists won't be able to hide in their committee chambers as they and the rest of the human race find themselves being consumed by the alien spores. They've already ignored this danger for far too long.
I for one am relieved to see funding going towards someplace where it's really needed for a change: to the essential and forward-thinking Laser Missile Defense Shield. You don't have to be a master of Redneck Rampage to see to smell the coffee burning. When the godless aliens arrive we need to be ready. We need to be prepared in every way to lase them into vapor before they possess the minds of our brothers and sisters and poison them against our deeply held moral values.
The laser defense is important, but I believe we must think even further if we are to survive.
Now that funding is going where it should scientists and engineers can devote their talented minds to things that really matter. What moral citizen hasn't dreamt of a day when the American People can stand united and secure beneath a neural-net controlled translucent bubble of ozone-infused anti-missile shielding? Agencies like NASA and programs like the Berkeley peacenik SETI "we want a big cosmic hug from E.T." project need to be exposed for the foolish wastes they are. The death of Deep Space One heralds the beginning of a new age of enlightened defensive spending.
I know that deep down beneath the part of you that hates humanity - those vile creatures who always taunt and belittle your superior intellects - Slashdotters care. I know when faced with the choice between a spore-infested world of android replicants and a utopian world where we can roam freely in a bio-dome safe from our enemies you'll make the wisest choice.
Just curious why you would choose to write a temporary local file when you could just use "print $content" where it says "fopen... fpassthru..."?
I have a friend who used to work for the same company as myself. He had links to their web-site and to the sites of clients for whom he had done stellar design work as part of his online resume. The company demanded that he remove these links.
Why? Ostensibly because "too many hits are coming from your page, buddy!" But perhaps it's really because his personal page advocates veganism, or perhaps because he's a photographer who had done some same-sex weddings. Who knows?
The point is, telling people not to link to your site is just plain stupid and unreasonable, and frankly borders on unethical. May they drown in their stupid-karma!
...this thing is for the birds!
Bad grammar and long-winded explanations are an obvious sign that the speaker is trying to avoid being straightforward. The kind of bad grammar evidenced here shows that there are certain key phrases that are in the agenda, and if it means stuttering over a few words to get to those points, so be it. This long quote by Bill Gates reveals his intention to speak things he knows are untrue. Those who think Bill doesn't get it are giving him too much credit for honesty. At this stage of their game, MS is hardly interested in representing the true nature of the "software ecosystem." Unfortunately, a lot of uninformed politicians and pundits are apt to jump on the MS anti-open-source bandwagon. Microsoft's Freedom to Innovate Network is the centerpiece of Microsoft's disinformation campaign. They've even adopted the nasty tactics of the Right Wing, such as asserting the opposite of the truth and using subtle ridicule to stifle debate. Expect more stomach-churning action in the coming months.
Translation: When Bill says "some people" he refers to those other people who you and I don't want to be: Those who settle for adequate. And of course, open source software is only adequate for simple little things.
When Bill refers to the capitalist tradition of hiring people and paying taxes he implies that OSS reduces the hiring of paid workers, and in this way hurts economic growth. This of course completely leaves out the overriding effects that OSS and free (as in beer) software have on the economy as a whole: lower costs, because your company isn't paying thousands of dollars in licensing fees to a centralized organization year after year; increased efficiency, because when bugs occur they are patched quickly, and not months or years later when MS gets around to it; furhter increased efficiency, because (for example) Linux leverages the power of older, less expensive hardware to do 90% of what servers are good for.
There are other "butterfly effects" that occur economically as a result of OSS, none of which Bill G. can see through his profit-colored glasses. The MS view is that software creates profit by leveraging corporate control to drive sales of licenses (priced according to MS standards, not market standards). It would seem that they see this as the end of the story. But software is much more than a boxed product for sale as Microsoft would have it. In a world now dependent on computer software for all forms of business, an economy benefits through the creative use of software. The software itself is just a starting point for innovation.
Because the quality of software has a global impact on productivity and efficiency everywhere it is essential that it be open and maintainable. A monopoly is identified in part as a company that institutes practices that benefit the company while harming the consumer. In this light Microsoft's attempts to misrepresent and vilify the open source movement are monopolisitic in the extreme.
There is a particular approach [called the GPL] that breaks the cycle ... that is not worth getting into today, but I don't think there is much awareness about how so-called Free Software Foundations designed that to break that cycle.
Okay, we've heard it a million times before, but for completeness... Translation: In order for Real Software to exist it has to be supported in its development. Real Development is supported by paying Real Money to Real Programmers and then advertising it during The Real World. The GPL is a viral substance like Ice-Nine that "breaks the cycle" of the development of Real Software, causing programmers to lose work, software-selling companies to go out of business, and Real Software to become extinct.
In terms of getting people excited about software and building communities around them, yes, that is a key to success. Nobody has done that more effectively than we have with Windows. Are there ways that we can do that better? Are there aspects of this where we're actually learning from all our different competitors out there? I think it's fair to say yes.
... continuing in the same vain, Bill here reminds us that Real Software is an important part of our identity, our culture, and our community. Windows represents the centerpiece of that culture and identity. Is Micirsoft learning from its competitors? Well, it's trying to emulate them in any case.
In the free-software vision ... there would be no jobs in the software industry, there would be no testers, no engineers, no taxes paid, or anything of that notion. So I certainly don't agree with the full sort of Free Software Foundation view that there should be no jobs in this area, and that the kind of commercial advances and risk taking that we've been able to do you can't get that, you can't get things like speech recognition on a tablet computer coming out of that kind of a paradigm. You can get things that follow along, you can get some smaller software, and so we embraced the idea of the free software paradigm and the commercial software paradigm moving forward in really a self-reinforcing way.
On the issue of taxes: Is this really the Free Software Vision(TM) Bill? Mr. Gates' emphasis on taxes is dubious, to say the least. As an economy grows its tax revenues grow. It is not by virtue of taxes being paid that governments and societies benefit. If tomorrow a car appeared that was affordable and got 200 miles per gallon people would spend less money on gasoline, but they'd likely spend more money on something else. The oil industry might be harmed, but the economy itself would quickly begin to show growth as a result of the new freedom and affordability of travel.
The situation is not so different with software given its ubiquity. If people stop spending money on Microsoft software and choose free or open source software it might hurt poort beleaguered Microsoft, but there will be a positive impact on the economy as a whole. Bill's code-words to representatives from Washnington state: the GPL threatens your kickbacks and graft!
On the second point: Does the Free Software Foundation really state in its literature someplace that the software industry should go away and be replaced by altruists with decent coding skills? No, of course Bill is just plain lying here.
As for Bill's last point, that open source projects can't produce sophisiticated software, such as a speech-recognition system: Bill is using his Freedom to Innovate to make up innovative lies. Given a good specification, a couple of clever programmers with knowledge about speech recognition, and a few months of key-pounding, decent software can be and is produced for every platform. If a company thinks it can sell lots of hardware units by having speech recognition in its nifty toy tablet device, they can hire specialists to contribute to the project. They can hire programmers and designers to make a decent UI. They don't have to make the project GPL, and if they want to protect their code investment so that nobody can use it in a cheaper / better tablet computer, they should do that. At this point Bill is just trying to get in his schtick leading up to the Shared Source program, which, my dear shareholders, is kinda like Open Source, except that members of the program get to pay more than they do for Closed Source and get far less than they do with Open Source.
Billy Gates wrote:
Every programmer I know of writes software for businesses and not for a software company. There can be no opensource replacement for customized software solutions, website development and database apps for the enterprise.
I wouldn't say "never." It's amazing what kinds of things are being written as open source projects: spreadsheets, chemical analysis, sales tracking, all kinds of "niche" applications. Nevertheless I don't think it matters if the *whole kaboodle* comes out of an open source effort or not. The open source foundation for our development efforts (languages, databases, GUIs) is enough to establish its inevitable dominance.
In my job writing proprietary solutions for my company's various clients I use open source tools and open source code all the time. It's not so much the customized proprietary bits that matter here, but the fact that I have a skein of time-tested code already available that carries 90% of the load. Open source saves our department enormous piles of time and effort. After building a dozen sites for various clients I wouldn't use anything *but* open source. It's the kind of monopoly I don't mind supporting.
I can think of at least one reason more people will upgrade to Windows XP: MacOS X. Many users of PCs - for the most part your average gamers who are using Windows 98 or ME and who are aware that "modern" operating systems are becoming an essential commodity - will buy this thing. Its aesthetic beauty - or at least M$ idea of aesthetic beauty - adds another element.
/. readers - that MacOS X is a much better deal and more viable in the long run for one simple reason: It's a Unix. No matter how many nice gadgets M$ decides to plop on top of their modern kernel (the dubious .NET included) when PC users decide to go further they'll find themselves sorely lacking. The savvier ones will install Linux and dual-boot it (hopefully there'll be a way to run Linux concurrently as an OS service). The all-in-one solution of MacOS X just seems more compelling to me, and frankly it's a hell of a lot prettier and more elegant.
I can imagine one of these users looking at the colorful screenshots and saying, "Ah, finally something that makes full use of my powerful graphics card!" I have to admit that knowing I've got the capability of amazing 3D graphics lurking in my system makes me wish it were being used more ubiquitously. And now because of the hype surrounding "modern" crash-proof multitasking OSes a lot of users are slavering over exactly this kind of thing.
Hardcore gamers and power users long ago upgraded to Win2K. Although Windows 2000 is a modern crash-proof OS, to many users it *looks no different* from Windows 95 or 98. Microsoft is leveraging a lot of what Apple has done with MacOS X to give a brand-identity to the modern OS. In the minds of consumers an OS that has the audacity to get funky gives the impression that such computing cockiness is warranted by the underlying stability and speed of the OS. It also carries the impression of being forward-thinking, because - sure - with today's processors a lot of this stuff may be taxing, jumpy, or slow, but wait a few months or a couple years and just watch how normal it will all be.
The only thing that troubles me about the XP aesthetic is how closely it mirrors the graphical style of modern media. It won't be long before you'll have to look twice before you realize you're not looking at a sports-statistics display like you see on ESPN or NBC. And that flying logo: it's not the nightly news logo my friend, but "You've got mail!"
As a finaly note, It's obvious to me - and no doubt to many
Seems the XML you included in your post has been munged by the presence of those pointy-brackets. Everything in-between them got extracted by the Slashdot posting engine. Fortunately an earlier post has the correct code...
I'm following the media to get a sense of the mentality of my fellow Americans, and to get a sense of the official spin of the corporate media. Here is some of the official spin being used to incite the cerebral cortexes of Americans to rally around their cherished symbols:
- We have seen the face of evil.
- This is an attack on the American Way of Life
- This is an attack on all that America stands for (Freedom, Justice, etc.)
Okay, so first, good and evil has to be established to get good old-fashioned dualistic mentation all fired up.
Next, this general thing called the American Way of Life is introduced. Everyone has their own idea about the meaning of this sketchy term. Personally I tend to think of this as consisting of selfishness, materialism, profit motive, and a general tendency to blindly follow the crowd. (Not unlike the rest of the world, I guess.)
What pisses me off about this particular spin is how it ignores America's role in the wider world, where our way of life is to bribe, buy, and destabilize those people and regions that suit our "interests," which is the accumulation of wealth and power and short-sighted exploitation of the world's resources. American policy-makers and profiteers couldn't care less whether their actions cause irreperable harm to the rest of the world - as long as their affluent business contacts are drunk and smiling at the end of the day.
The spin that this is an attack on the values of freedom and justice is utterly stupid. It is ironic that this claim flies in the face of even Asama Bin Laden's own highly-publicized words, that he and others are acting (in the only way they know how) to protect their own view of what constitutes justice and freedom for those who live and practice Islam.
Now look, I think the terrorists are dead wrong if th think they are doing anything to benefit Islam. They are not only harming the world's perception of Islam, they are corrupting the spirit of religion itself, which in its deepest sense exists to free the mind from the trap of worldly dualism.
One would think, from the kind of publicity being given to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity that they amount to nothing more than agglomerations of ideals, opinions, and prejudices held by a bunch of uptight closed-minded wackos. Frankly this whole generation has become jaded and pissed-off at our spiritual predecessors for just this reason. They're hard-hearted, ignorant, bigoted, and tragically out of touch with the interconnected nature of reality. So frankly, Jerry Falwell and Asama Bin Laden don't look any different, but then the media can't always hide the truth.
Replying to my own post, as obviously I wrote far too soon, way before I knew the details of how many were killed in the attack or how many terrorists were involved. My face is red after realizing the ignorance of my statistics.
These kooks managed to kill almost as many people as die accidentally in transportation-related accidents in an entire year here in the US - in a matter of minutes. It's like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water. The USA feels nothing and hardly notices its own slow suicide, but when it hits all at once we jump out of the pot and get all up in arms. And we have the convenience of a particular source of this destruction that we can blame.
My perspective on this situation may perhaps seem skewed. I see the mind and the world political environment as parts of Nature, and this kind of event as a fact of nature - a natural disaster. The forces that caused it were born in the minds of people, but they wouldn't exist if not for the forces at work in the world in-general. And certainly the US wouldn't be such a tempting target if we weren't such assholes on the world stage.
All the talking heads on TV talking about this as an attack on "our way of life," should think long and hard about whether our "way of life" is really all that hot. We eat, sleep, shit, and screw in a manner much like every creature on earth. What distinguishes human beings in America is that we also have puffed-up attitudes about our style of eating, sleeping, shitting, and screwing, and think everyone around the world should do as we do, and join us in our suburban dreamscape going forward to our manifest destiny of peace, harmony, and major appliances for everyone.
I'm pissed, just as everyone seems to be, but I'm pissed on a thousand different levels. I'm pissed that a huge bunch of awesome living beings lost their lives. I don't care that they were Americans or Chinese or Arabs or Jews or whatever. This is a tragedy for Life Itself, and part of my original post was meant to point out that we are living in a tragic world, and that 99.999% of the tragic events that we bring upon ourselves and others every day go completely unnoticed.
So go ahead and react, America. Vote up all those bigmouth tough-on-you-name-it politicians and enjoy your new illusion of security. Personally, I'm going to stick to my own personal security, the comfort of knowing that we are each part of something greater than this consensual illusion we call America. We are part of one great life, one infinite universe, one nature, and in the beauty of eternity there is no need to fear anything.
Once again, pardon my ignorance.
I dare you to take an honest look at the killer beast that is our own fast-paced consumer lifestyle and get a little perspective on things....
h -t oll.htm
http://www.bts.gov/btsprod/nts/Ch2_web/2-4.htm
... and it doesn't even mention the death-toll from cancer, obesity, and general stupidity. Where's the moral outrage about that?
I see the greatest threat coming from the corrupt self-serving souls of our leadership. While we may decry the actions of the individuals responsible and sincerely mourn the loss of those 271 lives...
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/deat
... our leaders are already getting that twinkle in their eye that spells political opportunism. George Dubya in his shriveled little heart of hearts couldn't be more pleased about this turn of events given his political aims and those of his cronies. And mark my words, they'll be having a field-day pushing through all their pet Tough-On-X bills to put away every conceivable undesirable element in America and throughout the world.
All the lap-dogs in the House and Senate will be lapping up the blood-sweat of their constituencies, barking their retribution, hell-fire, and brimstone as loudly as possible to show that they're tougher than the guy in the next seat.
Mark my words, this is the beginning of a dark age of terrorism, only the greater terrorism will come from the soft-headed aristocracy we pathetically cling to as our representatives, and the cost in lives and freedoms will be a hundred-fold out of proportion with those 271 unfortunate deaths at the hands of four mad individuals.
Would you care to propose an alternative method or two?
It appears that computers and storage devices are still in a state of linear processing. Bytes are fetched and stored in linear space and time. Filesystems are organized in a tree-like structure, but they have to be traversed in linear steps.
Are you holding out for some new paradigm?
In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser. Yes I would. Especially in the terminal, where I want things to behave like they should bloody behave. In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser. Yes I would, didn't you hear me the first time? Those are two different files with two different names, and I don't care what you hide! In other words DumbName.jpg and DumbName.txt should not be allowed in the same folder. Then hide all the file extensions and the users would be none the wiser. Fine, be that way, but I'm never going to use a nutty OS that acts like that. And don't ask me to use an OS that has a universal handler for files that end in .jpg either. If it doesn't have an application specified then give me a list to choose from, don't go assigning things to it for me.
A simple physics question, or maybe not so simple:
;-) I'm untainted by any deep understanding of quantum computing, so I'm just riffing off my intuition. Does quantum computing rely on preserving states in such a way that my theoretical brute-force approach would topple the system?
Can phenomena which are in no particular state (i.e., the wave that lives in the space between non-existence and existence) have interim unobserved effects during the "particle"->"wave"->"particle" transition? Or is the wave/particle duality an impenetrable boundary, the "wave state" something that can never be "known" in itself?
It seems that in such a "quantum system" one could induce some potential course of action, and by measuring the existence or nonexistence of a resulting effect infer the meaning of the result based on the original parameters. In this case you can use time as the controlling variable, and all is right with the world.
(Intruducing time into the equation is the only means to observe a system without necessarily interacting with it that I can think of. At least, you probably only need to interact half of the time.)
Once you've made a logical branch based on the result (or non-result) then you can happily reset the system to a known state and set up the next "instruction."
I realize this is an oblique notion, but it makes a weird kind of sense if you've done enough acid!