That is a very kind thing for Branson to do.
Judging from all the venom I have evoked from folks, my attempt at hyperbole was not taken as such. I do not in fact believe that the uber-wealthy do a lot of "spurious frittering away of wealth" - that ain't how you get, and stay, rich. Nor did I wish to imply that Sir Richard or any other multi-millionaire was *by default* a Bad Person (or that Soros, et al were Good People). I am sure every mega-billionaire has done some helping out of his fellow humans - as you have noted.
However, I do think many could do more. To use someoene else's far more elequent prose - Donella Meadows, one of the great thinkers on sustainability, wrote once in her Pulitzer nominated column:...the top 20 percent of the wealthy in the United States could give over $100 billion a year more than they now do (that's twice what I assumed the billionaires could give to end world poverty), and their fortunes would continue to grow.
Read the whole piece here: http://www.pcdf.org/meadows/billionaire.html
Okay - so maybe ol' George is a dodgy example in as much as "philanthropy" "charity." He does have some insane quest for personal wealth, and certainly hasn't always been the most, um, humanitarian in the process of building it. But isn't that how most people get super-uber-wealthy?
He does, however, give a fantastic amount of money to *charitable* (and perhaps a little too often political) causes like marijuana inititiaves and democracy in the Eastern bloc.
My point was not that Soros is some rich version of Gandhi, merely that one's wealth can be put to better, more "righteous," causes than being some extreme adventurer bozo.
This is a great first step, but the fact is that major exploits *do* exist in "Used Services'" processes, and not just the unused ones.
And, albeit poor network design and almost always a move forced by underfunding and low budgets, sometimes insecure services must be offered locally on the same nic that connects to the internet. Hence the firewall's usefulness...
On the other hand, you are right, the people that don't take that simple step and leave vulnerable services/ports open to the internet get exactly what they deserve... a good hax0r-ing!
Yeah, let's celebrate the spurious frittering away of wealth by the rich! Hooray for Mr. Branson for funding a school-boy dream project that will help his recently announced space-tourism company. Hooray for Steve Forbes for his ridiculous megalomaniacal presidential runs. ( I mean, who hasn't wanted to be president?) And Kudos to The Trump for walking away from bankruptcy with a cool $2 million a year at the expense of investors. Paris Hilton take note - you are a star every time you drop an absurd amount on... well whatever Paris Hilton spends her money on.
Really, all these folks are much better than those dull philanthropic types like Oprah , Bill Gates href=http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm>Bi ll Gates and George Soros. What fun is there in championing human kidness and decency, public health and global economic fairness?
This world is full of people looking to satisfy their own ego-centric desires. Some have the moolah to fulfill the big ones, and some of them are more fun, but it is merely a question of scale. Branson is little better than the tight-fisted Krocs or Waltons. The really amazing people are the ones who use their wealth to do something to raise up their fellow humans.
As usual that segment of the population for whom the cost of internet access is prohibitory remains unrepresented and undiscussed on Slashdot.
There exists in the United States a major digital divide (and let's not even get started on the international situation). Seems to me that one of the reasons among many for this is the cost of internet connectivity vis-a-vis income levels. The people who make the least money (and often the struggling school districts their tax dollars support) cannot afford what all of us technocrat/intelligentsia types take for granted - a good consistent internet connection.
This in turn only exacerbates a growing polarization of wealth in this country. Children of the less educated (and hence of generally lower income class) are less likely to be exposed to computers early in the home or school, and are less likely to excel in many of the increasingly technical jobs available. And so they make less money and so on and so on...
It also seems to me that you could alleviate this problem by allowing municipalities to get into the ISP biz - just as they have with electricity, water and the like - to offer a low cost alternative. Indeed, the quality may be lower, the beauracracy slogging and the elite class may not want to use it, but this is often the case with municipal utilities. Walk by any yoga studio in SF and you will find that most of the folks eschew the tap water in favor of some Euro-themed overpriced bottled water. Yes, water is different in that no clean municipal water supply results in a tremendous public health problem, but I would argue that allowing the class division to continually widen will result in all sorts of civic problems - from health threats, soaring welfare costs, and, eventually, violent uprising.
A municipal ISP could level the playing field by bringing acess to those who might not otherwise afford it, as well as reducing costs to schools, government programs, and other affiliated public service organizations. So isn't this bill just about corporate interests protecting their profits and in the process driving a wedge between the rich/educated and the poor/uneducated?
Re:What about the evil bit :P
on
Replacing SMTP?
·
· Score: 1
Really the evil bit is at the wrong network layer.
What we really need is to extend the concept of the evil bit to a new SMTP command. That way sll Evil Mail Servers would start a connection with a, say, command, after which the server drops the connection.
people may disagree, but i think one of the best things you can teach is some basics of computer hardware - basic components, installing peripherals, etc. possibly even put together a box during the course.
a problem i encouter a lot working with and supporting novice computer users is an unreasonable fear of their machines. i think learning how the guts of the thing work demystifies computers for people, allowing them to see it for the electronic tool it is, rather than some fear producing "magic box." in my experience such a shift results in users being much more bold with their all around use of the computer - trying new things, experimenting, etc.
I'm thinking not so much.
I see no specs for video i/o (or anything other than stereo output for the audio)
Until you can have a handheld like this drive, say,
your 42" plasma screen and send 7.1 channel audio to your home theatre system, its bigger, bulkier cousins will still have a substantial market share.
Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum? As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....
Amen to that. The Mutter is by far the coolest museum in the country. It may not seem like much now but removing Grover Cleveland's Secret Tumor on a boat on the Long Island was high tech - for the time (1893).
While you are at it, check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA, another bastion of the scientific and bizarre.
combined with a camera and some realtime image distortion you could have a lot of fun freaking people put as they watched their head blow up like a a balloon (or whatever) in their "reflection".
or better yet give your buddies fake flashbacks.
oh my god, my face is melting!
They already regulate the frequencies:
they go to the highest bidder
Apparently this is, if they are following their (at that point the FRC) charter via the Radio Act of 1927, in the "public interest." So when the people get together a some millions to buy and free part of the spectrum, then maybe we can start to think about ditching the telco's...
I agree too. Isn't it apple's best interest to promote the continuance of and get a Unix license (if they can)? With Unix compliance, they can claim a certain amount interoperability with a host of other OS's. If Unix has become a generic term, they instead have to refer to IEEE Std. 1003.1 compliance - which is nowhere near as sexy - especially to the less technically savvy (including many of their customers!) And nobody in Redmond can announce that level of compatability. And no, OS2/Warp doesn't count.
now ray-ramano-skipping technology - that I could really get behind...
seriously, though, i agree that it makes a lot of sense for advertisers to be troubled by DVR. it does, after all, allow you to watch a show without the commercials they pay a truckload to make and therefore expect some return from. on the other hand the invention of the remote control wrested their hold on your attention away, anyways.
i see two potential solutions for them to maintain the same revenue:
1)come up with new and interesting paradigms for advertising. note the innovative techniques that soccer (really called football every place it is commonly on tv) broadcasters have found: banners across the top, drop down ads, sponsored commercial-free time, etc.
2)utilize partnerships with the up and coming media megoliths (ClearChannel, Comcast/ATT, etc.) to force companies like ReplayTV to drop these technologies and support the status quo.
Especially since elected politicians have a vested interest in the continuation of television commercials as well, i suspect the latter will come to pass. even when we all have (crippled) dvr's on every tv in the house i have to disagree with the idea that "fewer people will watch ads." the networks and the advertisers are just going to find ways to make sure we are watching.
And yet Lucasfim is paying a measly $7 per square foot per year. You are right - in a city that lacks large spaces that are open to development - a chance to develop the Presidion *is* every company's dream. Even now when the city's economy is "depressed" construction projects are constantly filling the few empty lots available. So why, I wonder, is Georgie getting such a killer deal - a full $13/ft less than market cost? It sure makes me wonder who is really running this town...
Regarding point C...
You are dead on. Most of the current generation of "working adults" haven't been using computers their whole (or most) of their lives. So you have to start small: This is an "OS", an application, a folder, etc. This eliminates alot of the fear that "I might break it" and gives people fundamentals to build on. After that dropping down a menu to access some function becomes a comprehensible task.
The problem that I have found with this in small business IT: training money is scarce at best (okay so my company has never trained a damn person, including me). Starting from scratch costs a lot more in employee wages, lost productivity during training, etc. than your basic sit em down, spew some acronyms and pat the on the back. Perhaps my workplace is particularly ignorant as to the benefits of adequate training but... how much do others find organization-wide strategies result in the type of training that makes end users hate techs so much.
Slashdot Mirror
That is a very kind thing for Branson to do. Judging from all the venom I have evoked from folks, my attempt at hyperbole was not taken as such. I do not in fact believe that the uber-wealthy do a lot of "spurious frittering away of wealth" - that ain't how you get, and stay, rich. Nor did I wish to imply that Sir Richard or any other multi-millionaire was *by default* a Bad Person (or that Soros, et al were Good People). I am sure every mega-billionaire has done some helping out of his fellow humans - as you have noted. However, I do think many could do more. To use someoene else's far more elequent prose - Donella Meadows, one of the great thinkers on sustainability, wrote once in her Pulitzer nominated column: ...the top 20 percent of the wealthy in the United States could give over $100 billion a year more than they now do (that's twice what I assumed the billionaires could give to end world poverty), and their fortunes would continue to grow.
Read the whole piece here: http://www.pcdf.org/meadows/billionaire.html
Okay - so maybe ol' George is a dodgy example in as much as "philanthropy" "charity." He does have some insane quest for personal wealth, and certainly hasn't always been the most, um, humanitarian in the process of building it. But isn't that how most people get super-uber-wealthy?
He does, however, give a fantastic amount of money to *charitable* (and perhaps a little too often political) causes like marijuana inititiaves and democracy in the Eastern bloc.
My point was not that Soros is some rich version of Gandhi, merely that one's wealth can be put to better, more "righteous," causes than being some extreme adventurer bozo.
This is a great first step, but the fact is that major exploits *do* exist in "Used Services'" processes, and not just the unused ones.
And, albeit poor network design and almost always a move forced by underfunding and low budgets, sometimes insecure services must be offered locally on the same nic that connects to the internet. Hence the firewall's usefulness...
On the other hand, you are right, the people that don't take that simple step and leave vulnerable services/ports open to the internet get exactly what they deserve... a good hax0r-ing!
Oops - those broken links were:
The Gates Foundation
and
The Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation
Yeah, let's celebrate the spurious frittering away of wealth by the rich! Hooray for Mr. Branson for funding a school-boy dream project that will help his recently announced space-tourism company. Hooray for Steve Forbes for his ridiculous megalomaniacal presidential runs. ( I mean, who hasn't wanted to be president?) And Kudos to The Trump for walking away from bankruptcy with a cool $2 million a year at the expense of investors. Paris Hilton take note - you are a star every time you drop an absurd amount on... well whatever Paris Hilton spends her money on.
i ll Gates and George Soros. What fun is there in championing human kidness and decency, public health and global economic fairness?
Really, all these folks are much better than those dull philanthropic types like Oprah , Bill Gates href=http://www.gatesfoundation.org/default.htm>B
This world is full of people looking to satisfy their own ego-centric desires. Some have the moolah to fulfill the big ones, and some of them are more fun, but it is merely a question of scale. Branson is little better than the tight-fisted Krocs or Waltons. The really amazing people are the ones who use their wealth to do something to raise up their fellow humans.
As usual that segment of the population for whom the cost of internet access is prohibitory remains unrepresented and undiscussed on Slashdot.
There exists in the United States a major digital divide (and let's not even get started on the international situation). Seems to me that one of the reasons among many for this is the cost of internet connectivity vis-a-vis income levels. The people who make the least money (and often the struggling school districts their tax dollars support) cannot afford what all of us technocrat/intelligentsia types take for granted - a good consistent internet connection.
This in turn only exacerbates a growing polarization of wealth in this country. Children of the less educated (and hence of generally lower income class) are less likely to be exposed to computers early in the home or school, and are less likely to excel in many of the increasingly technical jobs available. And so they make less money and so on and so on...
It also seems to me that you could alleviate this problem by allowing municipalities to get into the ISP biz - just as they have with electricity, water and the like - to offer a low cost alternative. Indeed, the quality may be lower, the beauracracy slogging and the elite class may not want to use it, but this is often the case with municipal utilities. Walk by any yoga studio in SF and you will find that most of the folks eschew the tap water in favor of some Euro-themed overpriced bottled water. Yes, water is different in that no clean municipal water supply results in a tremendous public health problem, but I would argue that allowing the class division to continually widen will result in all sorts of civic problems - from health threats, soaring welfare costs, and, eventually, violent uprising.
A municipal ISP could level the playing field by bringing acess to those who might not otherwise afford it, as well as reducing costs to schools, government programs, and other affiliated public service organizations. So isn't this bill just about corporate interests protecting their profits and in the process driving a wedge between the rich/educated and the poor/uneducated?
Really the evil bit is at the wrong network layer. What we really need is to extend the concept of the evil bit to a new SMTP command. That way sll Evil Mail Servers would start a connection with a, say, command, after which the server drops the connection.
people may disagree, but i think one of the best things you can teach is some basics of computer hardware - basic components, installing peripherals, etc. possibly even put together a box during the course.
a problem i encouter a lot working with and supporting novice computer users is an unreasonable fear of their machines. i think learning how the guts of the thing work demystifies computers for people, allowing them to see it for the electronic tool it is, rather than some fear producing "magic box." in my experience such a shift results in users being much more bold with their all around use of the computer - trying new things, experimenting, etc.
I'm thinking not so much. I see no specs for video i/o (or anything other than stereo output for the audio)
Until you can have a handheld like this drive, say, your 42" plasma screen and send 7.1 channel audio to your home theatre system,
its bigger, bulkier cousins will still have a substantial market share.
Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum?
As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....
Amen to that. The Mutter is by far the coolest museum in the country.
It may not seem like much now but removing Grover Cleveland's Secret Tumor on a boat on the Long Island was high tech - for the time (1893).
While you are at it, check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA, another bastion of the scientific and bizarre.
combined with a camera and some realtime image distortion you could have a lot of fun freaking people put as they watched their head blow up like a a balloon (or whatever) in their "reflection". or better yet give your buddies fake flashbacks. oh my god, my face is melting!
They already regulate the frequencies: they go to the highest bidder
Apparently this is, if they are following their (at that point the FRC) charter via the Radio Act of 1927, in the "public interest." So when the people get together a some millions to buy and free part of the spectrum, then maybe we can start to think about ditching the telco's...
I agree too. Isn't it apple's best interest to promote the continuance of and get a Unix license (if they can)? With Unix compliance, they can claim a certain amount interoperability with a host of other OS's. If Unix has become a generic term, they instead have to refer to IEEE Std. 1003.1 compliance - which is nowhere near as sexy - especially to the less technically savvy (including many of their customers!) And nobody in Redmond can announce that level of compatability. And no, OS2/Warp doesn't count.
now ray-ramano-skipping technology - that I could really get behind...
seriously, though, i agree that it makes a lot of sense for advertisers to be troubled by DVR. it does, after all, allow you to watch a show without the commercials they pay a truckload to make and therefore expect some return from. on the other hand the invention of the remote control wrested their hold on your attention away, anyways.
i see two potential solutions for them to maintain the same revenue:
1)come up with new and interesting paradigms for advertising. note the innovative techniques that soccer (really called football every place it is commonly on tv) broadcasters have found: banners across the top, drop down ads, sponsored commercial-free time, etc.
2)utilize partnerships with the up and coming media megoliths (ClearChannel, Comcast/ATT, etc.) to force companies like ReplayTV to drop these technologies and support the status quo.
Especially since elected politicians have a vested interest in the continuation of television commercials as well, i suspect the latter will come to pass. even when we all have (crippled) dvr's on every tv in the house i have to disagree with the idea that "fewer people will watch ads." the networks and the advertisers are just going to find ways to make sure we are watching.
And yet Lucasfim is paying a measly $7 per square foot per year. You are right - in a city that lacks large spaces that are open to development - a chance to develop the Presidion *is* every company's dream. Even now when the city's economy is "depressed" construction projects are constantly filling the few empty lots available. So why, I wonder, is Georgie getting such a killer deal - a full $13/ft less than market cost? It sure makes me wonder who is really running this town...
Regarding point C... You are dead on. Most of the current generation of "working adults" haven't been using computers their whole (or most) of their lives. So you have to start small: This is an "OS", an application, a folder, etc. This eliminates alot of the fear that "I might break it" and gives people fundamentals to build on. After that dropping down a menu to access some function becomes a comprehensible task. The problem that I have found with this in small business IT: training money is scarce at best (okay so my company has never trained a damn person, including me). Starting from scratch costs a lot more in employee wages, lost productivity during training, etc. than your basic sit em down, spew some acronyms and pat the on the back. Perhaps my workplace is particularly ignorant as to the benefits of adequate training but... how much do others find organization-wide strategies result in the type of training that makes end users hate techs so much.