So what, Lenovo can't stop the slowly sliding quality of the ThinkPad line, so now they're making consumer grade notebooks that you expect to be crappy? How about the "Cluelesspad" next.
Yeah, but sometimes, if you have even a dim understanding of economics and finance, and you follow current events, it doesn't take a Cassandra to sound the alarms. I've acquired something more than a merely dim understanding of economics and finance, mind you. As for imminent doom, such as Earth being blasted by a gamma ray burst (unless we aren't being told something), or global warming, yeah, that's the idiots talking.
The headline is misleading. These aren't predictions for 1998, they're written by a guy in 2008 as if they were written in 1998. That's what the "hindsight" part means.
My prediction for 2008: Major worldwide recession, due to the massive inflationary bubble bursting, an inability of the central banks to continue using inflation to create a false sense of prosperity, and stagflation.
The Singularity will almost have certainly taken place by 2107, making the future existence of cities a moot point. Even if not, the constantly accelerating pace of technological development makes it absurd that anyone can accurately predict any major shifts in the world a century from now, much less ten years from now. As a minor various examples, consumer VoIP was non-existent and unforeseen 10 years ago, no one knew the impact of Half-Life, there were no dual-core multi-GHz CPUs, and we were largely unaware of the Islamist war of aggression against civilization. Google didn't exist either. Now missing all those micro-variables, how can you generate macro predictions? If I could predict the future, I would have wormed my way into Google, pre-IPO.
What if we eventually can't distinguish sonic narrow-beam advertising from mental illness? Why does being around other people increasingly mean you're raped 24x7?
Was thinking as they are unlikely to have incredible hacking skills, it was more likely they'd log onto your computer and steal data. Most people don't even password protect their user accounts.
I'm guessing the laptops aren't being given to the starving ones. I have no problem writing them off and focusing on the not about to die crowd from largest net gain perspective, but the idea that giving them laptops is going to turn them into spoiled American college brats is a bit much. I don't know what jobs are available to very poor, incredibly uneducated people, but seeing what educated people in the US end up with, they can't be good.
People buy OS X because they want OS X. People buy Vista because they are too ignorant and lazy to know better. Did you see http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/06/157210? Corporations are avoiding Vista, cognizant consumers are insisting on XP, after a year OEMs still have to offer XP instead of or as an alternative to Vista. For a Windows release, that's a stunning failure.
Their recent quarterly results show that Vista sales are disappointing.
"Part of that is because those guys MADE IT into one of the largest, sprawling corporations in the world."
Different managers are required for different stages of a corporation's existence. Sure, they made the corporation what it is today, but they also mismanaged it into a crippled, bloated, low-growth, living entirely off of prior achievements, slug. It's an axiom that after a certain point, the best thing the founders of a corporation can do for their creation is leave, and I don't think Microsoft has proven to be an exception. Microsoft should have re-invented itself at some point during the 95/NT4 era, and instead calcified into the Microsoft of today. Perhaps the DOJ inquisition had a lot to do with that, but a corporation is forced to live under the regime it finds itself subject to.
"...the United States will have little or no spaceflight capability."
1) Manned spaceflight is of very limited value to government. We don't need astronauts up there to have spy satellites and other military hardware.
2) It's a mistake to equivocate the government having no manned spaceflight capability with the United States having no manned spaceflight capability. Private spaceflight will go forth unimpeded, and if you think humans are going to colonize space via NASA, well, evidence since 1969 (and analogous events hundreds of years prior), political science, and economics say this is highly unlikely. The US wasn't truly colonized by governments, but people looking to strike it rich. Government bureaucrats don't make good explorers or entrepreneurs, just good exploiters.
Sounds like Microsoft has gotten far too enormous to be manageable by most people if Bill Gates has no clue what's going on any more. Vista barely got out the door, it's a lame duck OS, and now at least one of the major software development teams has gone into seclusion, and no one important noticed. Wouldn't be surprised if more problematic tripwires and land mines were hiding under rocks at Redmond. MS needs new management, it's silly that the founders of a tiny itsy-bitsy Microsoft are still in control of one of the largest, sprawling corporations in the world.
"It's a bit unfair to say that that is its only purpose. For a start, you omitted its purpose as a convenient tool to separate students who research things properly from those who look at the first thing they find on the Internet. Then there's its use as a way of going to look something up and then wasting several hours reading entirely unrelated articles."
I exaggerated slightly for effect, and what you have said above does have merit.
"Finally despite what you -- and various other people who evidently only look at administrative pages and not the actual articles -- say, there is plenty of stable, useful material there."
This is wholly inaccurate. I don't find squabbling, backstabbing, and quashing of any and all dissent to be very readable. I'm a frequent reader of the articles, and I frequently find glaring errors and inaccuracies in them. Don't ask me to fix them; I'm done with revert wars and POV pushing. And no, offering a multitude of authoritative sources doesn't help. There is only one pravda on Wikipedia, that of the Cabal, or rather that of interconnected and inter-supporting power cliques.
I don't get why every time a person that's likely been on Wikipedia longer than most people, they get tagged as clueless noobs.
If you had RTFA, or even been on Wikipedia for very long, you'd know that the list of "known" sockpuppets is useless, as it's had too many false positives to be worthy of consideration. Not to mention many of those false positives are intentionally false positives.
For years, if not since inception, Wikipedia's only purpose has been to give power hungry trolls an endless stream of victims, and a platform for pushing their own agendas. There's been too many scandals and too many blatant abuses of power for anyone but the most enabling of supplicants to still take Wikipedia seriously.
It just occurred to me that the wording could ban all further exploration of Mars on the part of NASA, as any exploration of Mars is by definition, directly or indirectly, by humans, i.e. human exploration of Mars.
"Provided, That none of the funds under this heading shall be used for any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars."
Slashdot Mirror
Spelling, grammar, basic math, an understanding of economics, and a knowledge of the outside world.
So what, Lenovo can't stop the slowly sliding quality of the ThinkPad line, so now they're making consumer grade notebooks that you expect to be crappy? How about the "Cluelesspad" next.
...who says science isn't sexy?
Yeah, but sometimes, if you have even a dim understanding of economics and finance, and you follow current events, it doesn't take a Cassandra to sound the alarms. I've acquired something more than a merely dim understanding of economics and finance, mind you. As for imminent doom, such as Earth being blasted by a gamma ray burst (unless we aren't being told something), or global warming, yeah, that's the idiots talking.
My prediction for 2008: Major worldwide recession, due to the massive inflationary bubble bursting, an inability of the central banks to continue using inflation to create a false sense of prosperity, and stagflation.
Implying that people that disagree with you are unintelligent, assuming the premise? Sounds like I'm not the one lacking in verbal intelligence...
The Singularity will almost have certainly taken place by 2107, making the future existence of cities a moot point. Even if not, the constantly accelerating pace of technological development makes it absurd that anyone can accurately predict any major shifts in the world a century from now, much less ten years from now. As a minor various examples, consumer VoIP was non-existent and unforeseen 10 years ago, no one knew the impact of Half-Life, there were no dual-core multi-GHz CPUs, and we were largely unaware of the Islamist war of aggression against civilization. Google didn't exist either. Now missing all those micro-variables, how can you generate macro predictions? If I could predict the future, I would have wormed my way into Google, pre-IPO.
What's the difference? At least you can shoot the "bad" mugger.
I'm more terrified of the IRS, not that it will lose data on me. The IRS ruins peoples lives for fun, and the employees are sociopathic or amoral.
What if we eventually can't distinguish sonic narrow-beam advertising from mental illness? Why does being around other people increasingly mean you're raped 24x7?
Was thinking as they are unlikely to have incredible hacking skills, it was more likely they'd log onto your computer and steal data. Most people don't even password protect their user accounts.
No thanks, I don't want some lawless guy I've never met before from a third world hole using a robot to paw through my personal data.
We all know where this is leading to...
I'm guessing the laptops aren't being given to the starving ones. I have no problem writing them off and focusing on the not about to die crowd from largest net gain perspective, but the idea that giving them laptops is going to turn them into spoiled American college brats is a bit much. I don't know what jobs are available to very poor, incredibly uneducated people, but seeing what educated people in the US end up with, they can't be good.
Their recent quarterly results show that Vista sales are disappointing.
Different managers are required for different stages of a corporation's existence. Sure, they made the corporation what it is today, but they also mismanaged it into a crippled, bloated, low-growth, living entirely off of prior achievements, slug. It's an axiom that after a certain point, the best thing the founders of a corporation can do for their creation is leave, and I don't think Microsoft has proven to be an exception. Microsoft should have re-invented itself at some point during the 95/NT4 era, and instead calcified into the Microsoft of today. Perhaps the DOJ inquisition had a lot to do with that, but a corporation is forced to live under the regime it finds itself subject to.
1) Manned spaceflight is of very limited value to government. We don't need astronauts up there to have spy satellites and other military hardware.
2) It's a mistake to equivocate the government having no manned spaceflight capability with the United States having no manned spaceflight capability. Private spaceflight will go forth unimpeded, and if you think humans are going to colonize space via NASA, well, evidence since 1969 (and analogous events hundreds of years prior), political science, and economics say this is highly unlikely. The US wasn't truly colonized by governments, but people looking to strike it rich. Government bureaucrats don't make good explorers or entrepreneurs, just good exploiters.
Sounds like Microsoft has gotten far too enormous to be manageable by most people if Bill Gates has no clue what's going on any more. Vista barely got out the door, it's a lame duck OS, and now at least one of the major software development teams has gone into seclusion, and no one important noticed. Wouldn't be surprised if more problematic tripwires and land mines were hiding under rocks at Redmond. MS needs new management, it's silly that the founders of a tiny itsy-bitsy Microsoft are still in control of one of the largest, sprawling corporations in the world.
I exaggerated slightly for effect, and what you have said above does have merit.
"Finally despite what you -- and various other people who evidently only look at administrative pages and not the actual articles -- say, there is plenty of stable, useful material there."
This is wholly inaccurate. I don't find squabbling, backstabbing, and quashing of any and all dissent to be very readable. I'm a frequent reader of the articles, and I frequently find glaring errors and inaccuracies in them. Don't ask me to fix them; I'm done with revert wars and POV pushing. And no, offering a multitude of authoritative sources doesn't help. There is only one pravda on Wikipedia, that of the Cabal, or rather that of interconnected and inter-supporting power cliques.
I don't get why every time a person that's likely been on Wikipedia longer than most people, they get tagged as clueless noobs.
Except the Linux kernel is a usable product that one can use without having to worry about malfeasance, drama, or lack of reliability.
Tell us how long your edit lasts before it's reverted due to "vandalism" or some other nonsense.
If you had RTFA, or even been on Wikipedia for very long, you'd know that the list of "known" sockpuppets is useless, as it's had too many false positives to be worthy of consideration. Not to mention many of those false positives are intentionally false positives.
For years, if not since inception, Wikipedia's only purpose has been to give power hungry trolls an endless stream of victims, and a platform for pushing their own agendas. There's been too many scandals and too many blatant abuses of power for anyone but the most enabling of supplicants to still take Wikipedia seriously.
It just occurred to me that the wording could ban all further exploration of Mars on the part of NASA, as any exploration of Mars is by definition, directly or indirectly, by humans, i.e. human exploration of Mars.
"Provided, That none of the funds under this heading shall be used for any research, development, or demonstration activities related exclusively to the human exploration of Mars."