Corporations certainly do their bit, but open source is about bazaars, not cathedrals.
Is it really? I sometimes wonder. The marque projects of open source - OpenOffice.org and Firefox, for example - look corporate to my eyes. The Dirac video codec emerged from the BBC, and you can't get more high church than that.
Neither major candidate spent much time campaigning in NY, LA, or Houston during the general election. The electoral landslide was a result of the swing states, not the major population centers. .
The swing states are important only as a counter to the major population centers.
Strip away McCain's electoral wins in Texas and Arizona and there is not much left other than the deep South and the depopulated Northern plains.
Let's see...my Nintendo 64 Hexen has an M for mature rating...
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Hexen for the N-64 was released in 1997.
It isn't useful even to begin this discussion without admitting that - in the last ten years - publishers like Rockstar have pushed the limits of the M rating much farther - and not without a price.
Are they saying that aspirin is so simple and helpful that Big Pharma never would have allowed it on the market or would have it tied up in all sorts of patents?
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Aspirin was Big Pharma. You can't get much bigger than Bayer.
How many people were actually a victim of this exploit? Is there one documented case of an electronic break-in because of this exploit?
That you can ask this question on Slashdot - and hear nothing in response but the sound of crickets chirping in the background - answers your question, I should think.
If Sugar is child friendly, to whom is Windows friendly towards?
Is this a trick question?
The answer, of course, is "anyone using a computer outside a grade school classroom."
The UI will be familiar and the core apps much the same in any working environment.
That is what makes Windows on the XO so compelling to the third world education minister - who wants to get as many of his kids as possible on track for the higher grades, college, trade and business school.
Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but who in their right mind makes decisions based on the [now wholly predictable] crapflood of 1-star reviews the geek in full mob force posts to Amazon.com?
No way in hell that they're going to force that upon Micro-Laptops.
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How many times has the geek been absolutely certain that this time the hardware requirements for a Windows OS would remain out-of-reach -- leaving a clear track ahead for Linux in some new market segment - only to see high-end specs become low-end specs in a year, or two, or three?
The irresponsible people are allowed to buy incredible amounts of extremely hazardous materials like fireworks, while many chemicals that require qualifications, to even know what to do with them, are heavily restricted. .
In the U.S., consumer fireworks are regulated - and legal purchases in "incredible amounts" is difficult and expensive.
The Federal Hazardous Substances Act, prohibits the sale of the most dangerous types of fireworks to consumers. These banned fireworks include large reloadable mortar shells, cherry bombs, aerial bombs, M-80 salutes and larger firecrackers containing more than two grains of powder. Also banned are mail-order kits designed to build these fireworks.
In a regulation that went into effect December 6, 1976, the CPSC lowered the permissible charge in firecrackers to no more than 50 milligrams of powder. In addition, these amended regulations provide performance specifications for fireworks other than firecrackers intended for consumer use, including a requirement that fuses burn at least 3 seconds, but no longer than 9 seconds. All fireworks must carry a warning label describing necessary safety precautions and instructions for safe use.
The Commission has issued a performance requirement to reduce the risk of potentially dangerous tip-over of large multiple tube mine and shell devices. Tip-over of these devices has resulted in two fatalities.Consumer Product Safety Commission: Fireworks Fact Sheet
The fact sheet summarizes state regulations as of June 1, 2008.
If you want to do chemistry, why not do not do within the framework of a chemistry club - associated, perhaps, with a local high school or community college?
This is - after all - how many dangerous sports and recreational activities have been organized for a century and more.
You want to work with antique sporting arms?
Join a black powder gun club. You'll learn more and learn it more quickly - while still keeping your eyebrows intact and all ten fingers.
Microsoft is bribing reviewers with free high-end laptops. If a software company handed you a $2,000 computer, wouldn't you have a few nice things to say about the operating system preloaded on it? .
64 Bit Vista Premium at $1000
15" Screen
2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
320 GB HDD
256 MB NVIDA 9200M Graphics
LightScribe DVD Burner
Integrated webcam, HDMI, Firewire, etc. HP 15.4'' Pavilion
64 Bit Vista Premium at $1600
18" screen
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
2 250 GB HDDs
Combo Blu-Ray BD Play and DVD Burner
512 MB NVIDIA 9600M Graphics
Integrated fingerprint reader, etc. HP 18.4'' Pavilion
The point to this exercise being that the "high end" hardware demanded by a Windows OS does not remain high end for very long.
If you are serious about testing Win 7 - as a consumer OS - you should be looking at realistic projections for the OEM hardware and software bundle.
Electricity is not trivial nor efficient to store, so far the best we can do is pump a bunch of water up on top of a hill. .
The Erie Canal begins with water at the top of hill - above Niagara Falls.
In 1825, and for a century after, the canal was both cheap transportation and a hydro-powered light industrial corridor across rural upstate New York.
You have concisely outlined here why oil is such a fantastic energy source. The stored potential energy in a tank of fuel is enormous, the ease by which it is transported is unprecedented .
In the 1890s, high-pressure steam, electricity and compressed air weren't available outside the biggest cities, at any price.
In 2008, it is still hard to see how you make the "alternative fuel" available, attractive and affordable outside the urban core.
The New York Times posted a story on the revival of the Erie Barge Canal:
The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks. Hints of Comeback for Nation's First Superhighway
Compressed air is used to start the engines of a commercial jet - which means that KLM and Air France probably have the necessary infrastructure in place on the ground. Compressed-air engine
The problem with the wind-up car is that you need a pretty big spring and pretty big key - and someone strong enough to wind it up.
Henry Ford chose gasoline for two fundamental reasons:
A gallon of gas could transport a family of four and their baggage about twenty-five miles - a full day's excursion by horse and buggy.
In 1896 you could economically ship and store a barrel of gasoline almost anywhere by rail.
For greater safety and profits, a dealer might do better burying a tank, buying in bulk and distributing from a hand pump.
You could make a decent living this way and never see rural electric service until the New Deal of the Thirties.
Before MaBell was broken up, only Bell System phones could be connected to the phone line. And they charged arms and legs for that phone. Why? One, you didn't have alternatives, and two, if they charged too little, then customers wouldn't appreciate the service as much.
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AT&T in its prime delivered the best telephone service in the world - and, because your phone was leased - not sold - it was built to last.
It is almost trivially easy to find handsome - and still functional - examples from the 1930s, the 1920s, and even earlier.
For me, the underlying issue is this: Have Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates ever made any statements that indicate that they have an understanding of technology? .
Microsoft saw a modest 2% growth in profits in its first quarter of FY2009. It held $21 billion in cash in September.
Microsoft is one of the six companies in the industrial sector with a AAA corporate credit rating from S&P - and the first industrial to make the list in ten years.
The others are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.
In 1980 there were 30 industrials with AAA ratings.
In late 2008 the odds are 7 in 10 a US industrial will be rated "below investment grade" - aka "toast:"
Take a Dilbert cartoon and stick it on your office door and you're not violating copyright. Take a picture of your office door and put it on your homepage so that the same co-workers can see it, and you've violated copyright law, and since copyright law treats copying as such a rarified activity. .
Your office door exposes the clip to a casual glance by perhaps twenty-five people. There are no limits to re-distribution through your web site.
And let's be honest here. It isn't the photo of your office door that gets posted to the web. It's a high-res scan of the strip itself.
The geek takes his prize when he posts an HD rip of The Dark Knight Returns.
Entry level requirements a Blu-Ray drive and broadband service. Bonus points in platinum if he can score a pre-release screener and be first across the post.
It is not about money. It is not about Fair Use.
It is pure ego. Nothing more.
"I am invincible!" The James Bond flicks got that much right.
At this level of play, the geek is scaling Mount Everest and not cruising the Kansas plains, and he is lying if he says otherwise.
You should be countering the majority-held myth of a thing called "scientific consensus." .
You conduct an experiment which - in your mind, at least - demonstrates the economic viability of cold fusion.
But until your results are replicated - and your conclusions validated - by the physics community as a whole, the consensus view stands - and your new start-up won't see a dime from Warren Buffet.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it really? I sometimes wonder. The marque projects of open source - OpenOffice.org and Firefox, for example - look corporate to my eyes. The Dirac video codec emerged from the BBC, and you can't get more high church than that.
I don't know how anything this informal and erratic can be made to work long-term.
.
The swing states are important only as a counter to the major population centers.
Strip away McCain's electoral wins in Texas and Arizona and there is not much left other than the deep South and the depopulated Northern plains.
.
Hexen for the N-64 was released in 1997.
It isn't useful even to begin this discussion without admitting that - in the last ten years - publishers like Rockstar have pushed the limits of the M rating much farther - and not without a price.
.
No one much cares that you have time-shifted a video - so long as it stays within your own home.
The real meaning of "fair use" of a Betamax VCR.
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Aspirin was Big Pharma. You can't get much bigger than Bayer.
and like any proper 50's car it has tail fins: constitution-reinmagined
That you can ask this question on Slashdot - and hear nothing in response but the sound of crickets chirping in the background - answers your question, I should think.
Is this a trick question?
The answer, of course, is "anyone using a computer outside a grade school classroom."
The UI will be familiar and the core apps much the same in any working environment.
That is what makes Windows on the XO so compelling to the third world education minister - who wants to get as many of his kids as possible on track for the higher grades, college, trade and business school.
Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but who in their right mind makes decisions based on the [now wholly predictable] crapflood of 1-star reviews the geek in full mob force posts to Amazon.com?
.
How many times has the geek been absolutely certain that this time the hardware requirements for a Windows OS would remain out-of-reach -- leaving a clear track ahead for Linux in some new market segment - only to see high-end specs become low-end specs in a year, or two, or three?
HP 8.9" 2133-E Mini-Note PC
Vista Basic. 1.2 Ghz VIA CPU. VIA DX 9 Graphics. 2 GB RAM. 120 GB HDD. $610
.
In the U.S., consumer fireworks are regulated - and legal purchases in "incredible amounts" is difficult and expensive.
The Federal Hazardous Substances Act, prohibits the sale of the most dangerous types of fireworks to consumers. These banned fireworks include large reloadable mortar shells, cherry bombs, aerial bombs, M-80 salutes and larger firecrackers containing more than two grains of powder. Also banned are mail-order kits designed to build these fireworks.
In a regulation that went into effect December 6, 1976, the CPSC lowered the permissible charge in firecrackers to no more than 50 milligrams of powder. In addition, these amended regulations provide performance specifications for fireworks other than firecrackers intended for consumer use, including a requirement that fuses burn at least 3 seconds, but no longer than 9 seconds. All fireworks must carry a warning label describing necessary safety precautions and instructions for safe use.
The Commission has issued a performance requirement to reduce the risk of potentially dangerous tip-over of large multiple tube mine and shell devices. Tip-over of these devices has resulted in two fatalities. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Fireworks Fact Sheet
The fact sheet summarizes state regulations as of June 1, 2008.
If you want to do chemistry, why not do not do within the framework of a chemistry club - associated, perhaps, with a local high school or community college?
This is - after all - how many dangerous sports and recreational activities have been organized for a century and more.
You want to work with antique sporting arms?
Join a black powder gun club. You'll learn more and learn it more quickly - while still keeping your eyebrows intact and all ten fingers.
.
64 Bit Vista Premium at $1000
15" Screen
2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
320 GB HDD
256 MB NVIDA 9200M Graphics
LightScribe DVD Burner
Integrated webcam, HDMI, Firewire, etc. HP 15.4'' Pavilion
64 Bit Vista Premium at $1600
18" screen
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB RAM
2 250 GB HDDs
Combo Blu-Ray BD Play and DVD Burner
512 MB NVIDIA 9600M Graphics
Integrated fingerprint reader, etc. HP 18.4'' Pavilion
The point to this exercise being that the "high end" hardware demanded by a Windows OS does not remain high end for very long.
If you are serious about testing Win 7 - as a consumer OS - you should be looking at realistic projections for the OEM hardware and software bundle.
.
The Erie Canal begins with water at the top of hill - above Niagara Falls.
In 1825, and for a century after, the canal was both cheap transportation and a hydro-powered light industrial corridor across rural upstate New York.
.
In the 1890s, high-pressure steam, electricity and compressed air weren't available outside the biggest cities, at any price.
In 2008, it is still hard to see how you make the "alternative fuel" available, attractive and affordable outside the urban core.
The New York Times posted a story on the revival of the Erie Barge Canal:
The canal still remains the most fuel-efficient way to ship goods between the East Coast and the upper Midwest. One gallon of diesel pulls one ton of cargo 59 miles by truck, 202 miles by train and 514 miles by canal barge. A single barge can carry 3,000 tons, enough to replace 100 trucks. Hints of Comeback for Nation's First Superhighway
Distribution costs. Someone - meaning you - has to pay for the additional bandwidth. The iTunes track at $1 becomes the iTunes track at $1.50.
The keyword here is "I."
It doesn't tell you which codec to chose and which bit rate to select when you need to satisfy a larger audience - even within your own family.
To waste their time on so fundamentally trivial a complaint as the DRM used to protect a free demo - is ludicrous.
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Trams and carts running in hazardous environments used compressed air one hundred years ago. The History of Compressed Air Vehicles
Compressed air is used to start the engines of a commercial jet - which means that KLM and Air France probably have the necessary infrastructure in place on the ground. Compressed-air engine
The problem with the wind-up car is that you need a pretty big spring and pretty big key - and someone strong enough to wind it up.
Henry Ford chose gasoline for two fundamental reasons:
A gallon of gas could transport a family of four and their baggage about twenty-five miles - a full day's excursion by horse and buggy.
In 1896 you could economically ship and store a barrel of gasoline almost anywhere by rail.
For greater safety and profits, a dealer might do better burying a tank, buying in bulk and distributing from a hand pump.
You could make a decent living this way and never see rural electric service until the New Deal of the Thirties.
.
AT&T in its prime delivered the best telephone service in the world - and, because your phone was leased - not sold - it was built to last.
It is almost trivially easy to find handsome - and still functional - examples from the 1930s, the 1920s, and even earlier.
.
Microsoft saw a modest 2% growth in profits in its first quarter of FY2009. It held $21 billion in cash in September.
Microsoft is one of the six companies in the industrial sector with a AAA corporate credit rating from S&P - and the first industrial to make the list in ten years.
The others are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer.
In 1980 there were 30 industrials with AAA ratings.
In late 2008 the odds are 7 in 10 a US industrial will be rated "below investment grade" - aka "toast:"
Microsoft joins select industrial club with S&P's AAA rating
.
The nick is westlake, kid, and I don't do sock puppets.
Since twitter quite despises the "westlake" brand name, it amused me when he began making an occasional apperance as "westbake."
You say a lot of stuff like this. Why?
.
Your office door exposes the clip to a casual glance by perhaps twenty-five people. There are no limits to re-distribution through your web site.
And let's be honest here. It isn't the photo of your office door that gets posted to the web. It's a high-res scan of the strip itself.
The geek takes his prize when he posts an HD rip of The Dark Knight Returns.
Entry level requirements a Blu-Ray drive and broadband service. Bonus points in platinum if he can score a pre-release screener and be first across the post.
It is not about money. It is not about Fair Use.
It is pure ego. Nothing more.
"I am invincible!" The James Bond flicks got that much right.
At this level of play, the geek is scaling Mount Everest and not cruising the Kansas plains, and he is lying if he says otherwise.
.
You conduct an experiment which - in your mind, at least - demonstrates the economic viability of cold fusion.
But until your results are replicated - and your conclusions validated - by the physics community as a whole, the consensus view stands - and your new start-up won't see a dime from Warren Buffet.
.
This was the last year for our pull-the-lever voting machines.
Invented here in upstate New York and first used in Lockport in 1892. Vote: The Machinery of Democracy
I will miss them.
Each little lever snapping into place with a loud and satisfying "Clack!" and revealing a clear and unmistakable red X.
There was never any ambiguity about what you had done and everything was reversible until you pulled the one big Big lever and exited the booth.
Generally speaking, with a dial, the mid-range is safe and the extremes are dangerous.
The position of a lever has equal clarity and the lever itself has enough resistance that it cannot be moved accidentally.
These are lessons you can teach a child.