Yes. You're in Europe. I'm not. People here are dumb. And there is nothing wrong with being elitist, if the average person in this country really is so amazingly dumb (and they are) and-- far worse-- so unwilling to learn (and they are).
I'm not calling them Sheeple to their face. I'm calling them Sheeple here, to other geeks. I have no obligation to respect the average American, nor will I ever (unless American culture manages to change quite a bit in the next few decades)
We are never going to run out of water, presuming we manage to avoid bleeding it all off to space via global warming. Even if the water is dirty, you can always filter it. Perhaps at a great cost of power-- but you can filter it.
And as for sunlight... Well, in fact, we probably won't run out of water until the exact same time we run out of sunlight-- when the sun goes supergiant, and the Earth finds itself in the middle of its corona. By which time we will certainly no longer be here, one way or another...
Your "devil's advocate" attitude smells suspiciously right-wing-ish. We are going to run out of fossil fuel, within a single-digit number of generations. Are you happy now? This clearly puts the problem into the "Uh, guys, we should start planning for this now..." category, regardless of whether we're going to run out in 5 years, 50 or 500. If it won't affect us, it will affect our children, or our children's children, or our children's children's children. Do you really want to saddle them with such a horrid situation as a sudden return to quasi-Medieval technology due to a virtually complete lack of power?
If it requires a 100mix100mi chunk o' land to produce it cheaply (which I doubt, given the extreme untapped potential of TDP plants), then there is no way it will ever fly without first convincing the public. It's somewhat like a chicken-and-egg problem. Let's say that to make cheap biodiesel, you need to use a 100x100 chunk of land. But to justify the 100x100 chunk of land to the Sheeple, you'd have to already be producing the cheap biodiesel, so you could say "See? Cheap fuel. Now, isn't it worth it to devote 10,000 mi^2 of desert to this process?" The public will likely not believe anything until they can already go to the neighbourhood Chevron and buy the cheap new renewable fuel, which makes it a circular problem.
Clearly, the first step towards a shift away from the current status quo (i.e. the US being reliant on Arab and other foreign oil, being pulled from a shrinking supply which will run out) has to be either to (A) somehow convince the public that the sacrifices involved (and there will be sacrifices, or at least annoyances-- and some very rich, very white, very conservative people stand to lose substantial chunks of their fortunes and will fight any change tooth and nail), or (B) to simply mandate it by government order, and hope the public (and/or the corps) don't revolt.
And, needless to say, any of this sort of stuff is highly unlikely to happen under the leadership of Shrub & Co, what with their ties to big oil...
For us to avoid a catastrophe with the US running out of fossil fuel and ending up in an awful post-apocalyptic scenario, "alternative energy" needs to be far, far more than "a fairly hot trend". It needs to be a serious movement. Getting all rosy-eyed talking about this bacterial production of biodiesel needing "only" 10,000 square miles is ridiculous. First, we need to persuade the Sheeple that (A) we are going to run out of fossil fuel, and (B) it it is imperative that we do devote those 10,000 square miles so that we can finally do so. (Or, alternatively, we could go with another alternative source of fuel, such as the TDP machines featured recently here.) Then, and only then, we can start patting ourselves on the back over devoting a 100x100 mile area of our own land to renewable fuel production, rather than depending upon volatile foreign nations to supply us with oil drawn from an ever-dwindling supply. At the moment, to the average Merkin, it will sound amazingly ridiculous to "waste" a 100x100 mile area "just so some pinko environmentalist wackos can stop using oil". (I'm sorry, but that's how the right-leaning folks in this nation will interpret it.)
The general public in the US is so amazingly ignorant, they probably never even bother thinking that we could run out of oil, much less that we will, and that is is only a matter of time before we do (if no action is taken, which is looking rather likely as always).
And half of them probably would say "Poppycock; there's no way we could run out of fuel. God wouldn't let that happen to us!" It sounds like an anti-religion troll, but I seem to recall actually hearing rubbish like that from the far-right...
"Hardcore is implementing coroutines in assembly language or creating a full-fledged OO system in 6K."
I can see it now. The scene: A dark alley, after dusk. A geek wearing scotch-taped glasses and with a Zaurus in his pocket confronts a group of large, scary men.
Geek: "I'm hardcore, man! I implemented a fully-fledged object oriented system in six kilobytes of code! I even talked to a girl once!"
...before space travel is monopolized, like everyotherbloodyfieldoutthere? It's not a question of "if". It's a question of "when". Monopoly (or quasi-monopoly, e.g. the Coke/Pepsi diopoly) seems to be the new way of doing business.
You imply that being "anti-corporate" is being "anti-progress". Nowadays, any reasonable person who is "anti-corporate" is really merely "anti-monopoly". Is that a bad thing? Progress is a good thing; industry is a good thing; having a maximum of 2 or 3 huge companies ruthlessly dominating each field is not a good thing.
It's very easy to document where code did come from. But it's virtually impossible (if not 100% impossible!) to document that code did not come from any commercial source. By definition, to "prove" that any given piece of code didn't come from a commercial source, you'd have to take every single piece of commercial source code written up to and including the day of the disputed source's release, and grep it.
That isn't the scent of an evolution denier. That is the scent of someone making a goofy little crack about how stupid people are nowadays, despite the effects of billions of years of evolution. There is credible evidence that we really are getting dumber.
Clearly, this service isn't being marketed to the SlashDot crowd. The very IDEA of this service reeks of "mass market", which we are not. (Though, with all the MSFT ads, we're getting closer every year. I'm just waiting until I see AOL ads on SlashDot. That'll be the day...)
The HP/Compaq story seems to be implying that they are actually taking action against individual employees of the corporation who were responsible for doing such-and-such, as opposed to HP/Compaq itself.
This could set a GREAT precedent! As things stand currently, people within corporations can pretty much do whatever they want, while acting in the interest of the corporation, and they'll never see a personal fine or the inside of a jail cell. (Case in point: Bill Gates was never fined or jailed for all the things he did. MS just got a slap on the wrist, but nothing happened to Gates himself.) Maybe now, we'll see some accountability, as people won't simply be able to hide behind their involvement with $BIG_CORPORATION to avoid criminal charges...
In any sane society, a lawsuit like this would be dead before it could be born. A judge would take one look at it and say "Screw you, this thing isn't even GOING to court. This is RIDICULOUS." But in America, land of lawyers, EVERYTHING is given its day in court, and stupid things like this actually have a chance of winning...
Slashdot Mirror
The ringleaders among the right wing in the United States do own stakes in an oil importer. Look at Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, etc...
Yes. You're in Europe. I'm not. People here are dumb. And there is nothing wrong with being elitist, if the average person in this country really is so amazingly dumb (and they are) and-- far worse-- so unwilling to learn (and they are).
I'm not calling them Sheeple to their face. I'm calling them Sheeple here, to other geeks. I have no obligation to respect the average American, nor will I ever (unless American culture manages to change quite a bit in the next few decades)
This is absolutely ridiculous.
We are never going to run out of water, presuming we manage to avoid bleeding it all off to space via global warming. Even if the water is dirty, you can always filter it. Perhaps at a great cost of power-- but you can filter it.
And as for sunlight... Well, in fact, we probably won't run out of water until the exact same time we run out of sunlight-- when the sun goes supergiant, and the Earth finds itself in the middle of its corona. By which time we will certainly no longer be here, one way or another...
Your "devil's advocate" attitude smells suspiciously right-wing-ish. We are going to run out of fossil fuel, within a single-digit number of generations. Are you happy now? This clearly puts the problem into the "Uh, guys, we should start planning for this now..." category, regardless of whether we're going to run out in 5 years, 50 or 500. If it won't affect us, it will affect our children, or our children's children, or our children's children's children. Do you really want to saddle them with such a horrid situation as a sudden return to quasi-Medieval technology due to a virtually complete lack of power?
If it requires a 100mix100mi chunk o' land to produce it cheaply (which I doubt, given the extreme untapped potential of TDP plants), then there is no way it will ever fly without first convincing the public. It's somewhat like a chicken-and-egg problem. Let's say that to make cheap biodiesel, you need to use a 100x100 chunk of land. But to justify the 100x100 chunk of land to the Sheeple, you'd have to already be producing the cheap biodiesel, so you could say "See? Cheap fuel. Now, isn't it worth it to devote 10,000 mi^2 of desert to this process?" The public will likely not believe anything until they can already go to the neighbourhood Chevron and buy the cheap new renewable fuel, which makes it a circular problem.
Clearly, the first step towards a shift away from the current status quo (i.e. the US being reliant on Arab and other foreign oil, being pulled from a shrinking supply which will run out) has to be either to (A) somehow convince the public that the sacrifices involved (and there will be sacrifices, or at least annoyances-- and some very rich, very white, very conservative people stand to lose substantial chunks of their fortunes and will fight any change tooth and nail), or (B) to simply mandate it by government order, and hope the public (and/or the corps) don't revolt.
And, needless to say, any of this sort of stuff is highly unlikely to happen under the leadership of Shrub & Co, what with their ties to big oil...
For us to avoid a catastrophe with the US running out of fossil fuel and ending up in an awful post-apocalyptic scenario, "alternative energy" needs to be far, far more than "a fairly hot trend". It needs to be a serious movement. Getting all rosy-eyed talking about this bacterial production of biodiesel needing "only" 10,000 square miles is ridiculous. First, we need to persuade the Sheeple that (A) we are going to run out of fossil fuel, and (B) it it is imperative that we do devote those 10,000 square miles so that we can finally do so. (Or, alternatively, we could go with another alternative source of fuel, such as the TDP machines featured recently here.) Then, and only then, we can start patting ourselves on the back over devoting a 100x100 mile area of our own land to renewable fuel production, rather than depending upon volatile foreign nations to supply us with oil drawn from an ever-dwindling supply. At the moment, to the average Merkin, it will sound amazingly ridiculous to "waste" a 100x100 mile area "just so some pinko environmentalist wackos can stop using oil". (I'm sorry, but that's how the right-leaning folks in this nation will interpret it.)
The general public in the US is so amazingly ignorant, they probably never even bother thinking that we could run out of oil, much less that we will, and that is is only a matter of time before we do (if no action is taken, which is looking rather likely as always).
And half of them probably would say "Poppycock; there's no way we could run out of fuel. God wouldn't let that happen to us!" It sounds like an anti-religion troll, but I seem to recall actually hearing rubbish like that from the far-right...
"Hardcore is implementing coroutines in assembly language or creating a full-fledged OO system in 6K."
I can see it now. The scene: A dark alley, after dusk. A geek wearing scotch-taped glasses and with a Zaurus in his pocket confronts a group of large, scary men.
Geek: "I'm hardcore, man! I implemented a fully-fledged object oriented system in six kilobytes of code! I even talked to a girl once!"
Thug 1: "Let's beat Professor Einstein here up."
Geek: "You can't touch me, knave! I'm hardcore!"
(the beating commences...)
Geek: "Ow! OWWW! Linus protect meeeee!"
...before space travel is monopolized, like every other bloody field out there? It's not a question of "if". It's a question of "when". Monopoly (or quasi-monopoly, e.g. the Coke/Pepsi diopoly) seems to be the new way of doing business.
You imply that being "anti-corporate" is being "anti-progress". Nowadays, any reasonable person who is "anti-corporate" is really merely "anti-monopoly". Is that a bad thing? Progress is a good thing; industry is a good thing; having a maximum of 2 or 3 huge companies ruthlessly dominating each field is not a good thing.
It's very easy to document where code did come from. But it's virtually impossible (if not 100% impossible!) to document that code did not come from any commercial source. By definition, to "prove" that any given piece of code didn't come from a commercial source, you'd have to take every single piece of commercial source code written up to and including the day of the disputed source's release, and grep it.
They mean streaming the DISK image, methinks.
That isn't the scent of an evolution denier. That is the scent of someone making a goofy little crack about how stupid people are nowadays, despite the effects of billions of years of evolution. There is credible evidence that we really are getting dumber.
Clearly, this service isn't being marketed to the SlashDot crowd. The very IDEA of this service reeks of "mass market", which we are not. (Though, with all the MSFT ads, we're getting closer every year. I'm just waiting until I see AOL ads on SlashDot. That'll be the day...)
How amusing, then, that you just misspelled "misspell" and (wait for it) "Ferengi" :)
"I AM THE GREAT CORNHOLIO! NYyhahhahahahahaahnhhhnnhnyhynnnnhhahh! My bunghole will speak now!! Are you threatening me!??!?"
So I guess you don't trust RMS, since he's just a "so-called altruistic" person...
Either in terms of money or market share?
They would not be doing it if it did not help them in one or both of those areas (and directly as opposed to indirectly, if at all possible)
Microsoft is not a charity. Even when they do give money to charity, they have reasons that have nothing to do with simple kindness.
I think I have that much in my couch cushions ;) (Just kidding!)
The HP/Compaq story seems to be implying that they are actually taking action against individual employees of the corporation who were responsible for doing such-and-such, as opposed to HP/Compaq itself.
This could set a GREAT precedent! As things stand currently, people within corporations can pretty much do whatever they want, while acting in the interest of the corporation, and they'll never see a personal fine or the inside of a jail cell. (Case in point: Bill Gates was never fined or jailed for all the things he did. MS just got a slap on the wrist, but nothing happened to Gates himself.) Maybe now, we'll see some accountability, as people won't simply be able to hide behind their involvement with $BIG_CORPORATION to avoid criminal charges...
You make the assumption that everyone dual-boots to Windows. I don't.
Then why would this system be useful at all? I mean, after all, Windows users could just use the file-hunting animated dog thing...
The Google folks are smart. Surely they've developed something that is more capable than merely find and grep, or file-hunting-dog, or Sherlock...
I certainly hope this isn't a Windows-only thing.
In any sane society, a lawsuit like this would be dead before it could be born. A judge would take one look at it and say "Screw you, this thing isn't even GOING to court. This is RIDICULOUS." But in America, land of lawyers, EVERYTHING is given its day in court, and stupid things like this actually have a chance of winning...
Why was a Caldera icon used here, instead of a SCO icon?
Computerized Beeeeerr....
So, Microsoft raises it's (sic) prices to accentuate it's (sic) disadvantages over Linux?
No, Microsoft raises its prices to accentuate its disadvantages over Linux.