A fraction of the stimulus can have video.gov up and running in one week.
Don't successful websites always take about a week according to their founders?
Keeps the hordes from making useless comments because government can write the privacy policy and find out everything about anyone - except for WMDs. Imagine that - no YouTube comments like 'lol', or 'i mean dude'.
PL/1 to doom COBOL.
Linux to doom Windows.
Ruby to doom PHP.
Chrome to doom Firefox.
Boxers to doom Y-Fronts.
Derivatives to doom economy (OK, OK - they did).
Where is the beef? Broadband is as much a delivery 'pipe' as these strategically important networks:
Electric Grid.
Interstate Freeways.
Railways.
Air Traffic Control.
Rivers and Canals.
The $10 billion investment will *not* bring about the degree of change possible if broadband networks do not get treated as a strategic asset with equal access. A government/private-sector non-profit consortium should be given the money and tasked to bring this about. There are many ways of achieving a policy objective. Now that there is money to do something, it should be put to use defining what will bring about the biggest bang for the buck, and then putting the investment there. It has to be a deliberate and coordinated effort, and not some relatively vague destination this $10 billion has taken.
The policy can direct the implementation of 1gbps connections, as Japan has set out to do, with the consortium tasked to determine how to bring it about. At an extreme, what can be achieved today is demonstrated by the world's fastest Internet connection. http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712. At 40gbps it blows away my puny 10mbps fiber connection. I'll be satisfied with 1gbps to match my wired home network.
The broadband private sector will likely 'rant and rave', to the degree this effort will be labelled 'socialism', ignoring the fact that it is quite the opposite - a 'capitalist' investment designed to bring about much bigger and better markets. Socialism tends to restrict free and open markets, which at times is the private sector's indulgence and delight. Philosophically, companies resistant to the idea are, by this definition, the 'socialists'. They do not see the bigger profit and are therefore of disservice to their shareholders.
As an example, Comcast has become the free marketer's laughing stock by deciding to 'close the runway to certain kinds of aircraft' http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9800629-38.html - instead of taking the more sensible approach of promoting and lobbying for the coordinated research, development, and adoption of higher bandwidth technologies in order to eliminate the bandwidth issue. A broadband network outside Comcast control eliminates this kind of inevitable private sector 'gaming'. Your SUV cannot be blocked from the freeway because Comcast objects to it carrying Firefox T-Shirts.
Teach everyone Globish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globish, a language already spoken, and you are done. Doesn't take much to speak from a 1500 word dictionary instead of the 175,000+ word Oxford dictionary.
No need to delay projects for the required 6912 translations (languages in existence: http://www.ethnologue.com/ because one word was changed in the UI. You need at worst 6912 translaters and at best 1 (who speaks all 6912 languages in existence today).
Globish is already out there, the lingua franca of globalization. Hi Y'All doesn't quite work when buying lumber in Papua New Guinea. A one-time translation of the 1500 words will last humankind for ever, unless physicists make up their mind how many dimensions there are in string theory and bring about contact with other civilizations.
I am looking forward to the Win128 API which promises to sweep away the clutter and replace it with one unified API incorporating every conceivable design pattern, including those quantum ones folded 16 times.
The success of Win128 will be ensured by Microsoft becoming a true 'service oriented' business, as Bill Gates and Steve Balmer start thinking about leaving behind a 'legacy' in their dwindling years.
Windows will be Open Sourced for what they say is the common good of mankind. Fortunately, we know the very act will guarantee our extinction and therefore ignore it in favor of more multiple forks of whatever already works.
DRAM loses it's data when power is switched off. Battery backups and other fail-safe features designed to keep data persistent in DRAM based disks might be considered too risky.
If your computer is off and the battery backup fails - you will have a freshly 'wiped' hard disk within a few seconds/minutes.
Which is why DRAM 'disks' are only really good for temporary data - like your download of the specification for a DRAM 'disk'.
In the interest of 'National Security', the NSA can be forced to become our Internet Nanny, monitoring and admonishing our errant Internet habits, with the uncertainty of unknown consequences in undisclosed locations being a powerful deterrent.
Don't need COPA or anything like it to protect us and especially our children. NSA can be made to do it.
Why destroy anything? I choose to keep things simple with nothing controversial at hand - on the computer, on my self, in the house, and elsewhere. No sense in living with fear.
This was I can happily divulge my password to the NSA and Homeland Security who are entitled to it by law, but refuse to do so to anyone else because they don't have the same right. It can be fun to be a 'stick in the mud'.
Which is why I keep my most precious online possession, my Slashdot password, mental.
Not very smart if the only offering other than Windows is Solaris. Solaris has less penetration than Linux, meaning smaller market.
There should also be a 'no OS' option so I don't have to pay whatever they will add to get the OS on the laptop above the laptop's hardware price even though the OS is free.
How about a 'bare-metal' hypervisor laptop running several OS at once? I can develop for several OS using one machine.
Taking this further, given enough bandwidth, we could well see many a PC relegated to being a dumb terminal attached to a hackable 'cloud computer', or 'personal virtual machine'. Imagine a million of those hacked instantly because Amazon EC2 has a security flaw - a backdoor admin password revealed to a boy/girlfriend of the opposite political persuasion; a lost Amazon laptop with a functioning VPN link into EC2 with superadmin privileges; an unfortunate fraud detection and prevention businessman specializing in cloud security?
Some government agencies are quite competent at conducting R&D of new technologies. For example, DARPA used government funds for R&D to create TCP/IP for a new fangled thing called the 'Internet'. Maybe we need to give them the funds for this effort as well. Seem to do their job well without having to outsource the task to anyone that will do the job 'cheaper' in the interest of short-term 'profit'.
Without new patents for technology developed in the US, we will lose our edge.
Slashdot Mirror
A fraction of the stimulus can have video.gov up and running in one week.
Don't successful websites always take about a week according to their founders?
Keeps the hordes from making useless comments because government can write the privacy policy and find out everything about anyone - except for WMDs. Imagine that - no YouTube comments like 'lol', or 'i mean dude'.
Dear Netflix,
If it ain't broke, don't change it.
Benjamin Franklin.
PL/1 to doom COBOL.
Linux to doom Windows.
Ruby to doom PHP.
Chrome to doom Firefox.
Boxers to doom Y-Fronts.
Derivatives to doom economy (OK, OK - they did).
There will be no need for masses of Democrats to move to Texas, or for masses of Republicans to move to California to swing the electoral college.
Does this mean the collective intelligence derived from a group of Bankers will provide new ways of tanking entire global economies?
Or is it still beta? Never mind.
Learn from Microsoft. Start patching.
The only secure system is one without any interface.
My infrared image of the kitchen floor bacteria is being interpreted as a major new galactic cluster with supermassive black hole.
I want to live in the web. Living outside it is so last century.
I am working on a web-based open source luxury resort with a grand Firefox entrance.
It will replace my expensive non-web existence.
Freely built, upgraded, and maintained by millions of Slashdotters.
"For me, Microsoft is so last century. They are not the problem".
Apparently, being a monopoly simply expires with time. Just stay long enough.
I hope she is being funny or misquoted. If not, Google better quit the hip image and move into a Pittsburgh steel mill to become "so last millenium".
Where is the beef? Broadband is as much a delivery 'pipe' as these strategically important networks:
Electric Grid.
Interstate Freeways.
Railways.
Air Traffic Control.
Rivers and Canals.
The $10 billion investment will *not* bring about the degree of change possible if broadband networks do not get treated as a strategic asset with equal access. A government/private-sector non-profit consortium should be given the money and tasked to bring this about. There are many ways of achieving a policy objective. Now that there is money to do something, it should be put to use defining what will bring about the biggest bang for the buck, and then putting the investment there. It has to be a deliberate and coordinated effort, and not some relatively vague destination this $10 billion has taken.
The policy can direct the implementation of 1gbps connections, as Japan has set out to do, with the consortium tasked to determine how to bring it about. At an extreme, what can be achieved today is demonstrated by the world's fastest Internet connection. http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712. At 40gbps it blows away my puny 10mbps fiber connection. I'll be satisfied with 1gbps to match my wired home network.
The broadband private sector will likely 'rant and rave', to the degree this effort will be labelled 'socialism', ignoring the fact that it is quite the opposite - a 'capitalist' investment designed to bring about much bigger and better markets. Socialism tends to restrict free and open markets, which at times is the private sector's indulgence and delight. Philosophically, companies resistant to the idea are, by this definition, the 'socialists'. They do not see the bigger profit and are therefore of disservice to their shareholders.
As an example, Comcast has become the free marketer's laughing stock by deciding to 'close the runway to certain kinds of aircraft' http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9800629-38.html - instead of taking the more sensible approach of promoting and lobbying for the coordinated research, development, and adoption of higher bandwidth technologies in order to eliminate the bandwidth issue. A broadband network outside Comcast control eliminates this kind of inevitable private sector 'gaming'. Your SUV cannot be blocked from the freeway because Comcast objects to it carrying Firefox T-Shirts.
Teach everyone Globish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globish, a language already spoken, and you are done. Doesn't take much to speak from a 1500 word dictionary instead of the 175,000+ word Oxford dictionary.
No need to delay projects for the required 6912 translations (languages in existence: http://www.ethnologue.com/ because one word was changed in the UI. You need at worst 6912 translaters and at best 1 (who speaks all 6912 languages in existence today).
Globish is already out there, the lingua franca of globalization. Hi Y'All doesn't quite work when buying lumber in Papua New Guinea. A one-time translation of the 1500 words will last humankind for ever, unless physicists make up their mind how many dimensions there are in string theory and bring about contact with other civilizations.
I am looking forward to the Win128 API which promises to sweep away the clutter and replace it with one unified API incorporating every conceivable design pattern, including those quantum ones folded 16 times.
The success of Win128 will be ensured by Microsoft becoming a true 'service oriented' business, as Bill Gates and Steve Balmer start thinking about leaving behind a 'legacy' in their dwindling years.
Windows will be Open Sourced for what they say is the common good of mankind. Fortunately, we know the very act will guarantee our extinction and therefore ignore it in favor of more multiple forks of whatever already works.
Is here http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9116758
DRAM loses it's data when power is switched off. Battery backups and other fail-safe features designed to keep data persistent in DRAM based disks might be considered too risky.
If your computer is off and the battery backup fails - you will have a freshly 'wiped' hard disk within a few seconds/minutes.
Which is why DRAM 'disks' are only really good for temporary data - like your download of the specification for a DRAM 'disk'.
In the interest of 'National Security', the NSA can be forced to become our Internet Nanny, monitoring and admonishing our errant Internet habits, with the uncertainty of unknown consequences in undisclosed locations being a powerful deterrent.
Don't need COPA or anything like it to protect us and especially our children. NSA can be made to do it.
Awesome. Slashdot is available off the Internet! Now I can be safe too.
Why destroy anything? I choose to keep things simple with nothing controversial at hand - on the computer, on my self, in the house, and elsewhere. No sense in living with fear.
This was I can happily divulge my password to the NSA and Homeland Security who are entitled to it by law, but refuse to do so to anyone else because they don't have the same right. It can be fun to be a 'stick in the mud'.
Which is why I keep my most precious online possession, my Slashdot password, mental.
Not very smart if the only offering other than Windows is Solaris. Solaris has less penetration than Linux, meaning smaller market.
There should also be a 'no OS' option so I don't have to pay whatever they will add to get the OS on the laptop above the laptop's hardware price even though the OS is free.
How about a 'bare-metal' hypervisor laptop running several OS at once? I can develop for several OS using one machine.
On the other hand, its about time.
Taking this further, given enough bandwidth, we could well see many a PC relegated to being a dumb terminal attached to a hackable 'cloud computer', or 'personal virtual machine'. Imagine a million of those hacked instantly because Amazon EC2 has a security flaw - a backdoor admin password revealed to a boy/girlfriend of the opposite political persuasion; a lost Amazon laptop with a functioning VPN link into EC2 with superadmin privileges; an unfortunate fraud detection and prevention businessman specializing in cloud security?
Some government agencies are quite competent at conducting R&D of new technologies. For example, DARPA used government funds for R&D to create TCP/IP for a new fangled thing called the 'Internet'. Maybe we need to give them the funds for this effort as well. Seem to do their job well without having to outsource the task to anyone that will do the job 'cheaper' in the interest of short-term 'profit'. Without new patents for technology developed in the US, we will lose our edge.
Lets put our 4TiB database into this new fangled virtual memory Microsoft has come up with, before the competition catches on.