I just opened my browser on slashdot and I saw two news, one under the other but very different.
One is about a group of hard working scientists who dream of a world where new possibilities are created and human kind evolve to a higher level and the other about a group of litigious bastards who dream of a world where they have so much money that it leaks through their ass and everybody listen to the same crappy music made by some fake overpaid artist.
"The da Vinci Project, led by Brian Feeney of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, registered as a contender for the X PRIZE on June 2, 2000. A reusable helium balloon will lift our spacecraft, "Wild Fire" to an altitude of 80,000 feet. This is where Wild Fire's rocket engines will fire and propel the crew to the 100 km altitude goal -- space."
They developed the project in a kind of "open process" way; every people who wants to contribute is invited to join the project and can even open a local club in is university. They accept help from people of all fields: engineering, public relations, marketing etc...
"The all-volunteer da Vinci project is the largest volunteer technology project in Canadian history with upwards of 100,000 man-hours having been spent on the project thus far."
They amased a huge amount of sponsers and are well advanced in the project.
This guy is a respected Internet pioneer and probably did not want to have some retard juvenile show humiliate him in front of thousands. Even if he did something funny they could edit it to make him look bad.
The solution was maybe to send someone to play is part, for who looking goofy on TV can bee a most for is career.
Phase 1: Find an actor looking for publicity who will do some crazy shit and explained some fake new weird antispam technology working by hocking an USB cable in the ass of a rat or something as nobody understand what's happening.
Phase 2: Write the plan of action, take pictures of the preparation, record an interview with the artist who will play the prank and even plant someone in the audience with a hidden camera or audio tape that could recorde the event.
Phase 3: Publish everything on the internet and send a post to Slashdot and many other media before they air the show.
(and then who knows, maybe profit!!!)
Anyway it would have been fun that he turn the table on them.:)
Yeah but the diference here is that Microsoft like always will be bright enough to make the console backware compatible (like the PS2 did), then the Dream Cast scenario will not happen cause it will be a no brainier to buy the Xbox 2 (except probably for the price...); You will be able to buy a machine that can play all the games of the previous generation plus the upcoming games of the next generation plus a multitude of multimedia files.
My guess is that they will take some ideas from the Xbox Media Player of modded" Xbox's. Remember how they were insisting for the first generation that this was a console and not a PC? Well now that they proved their point and that this is not an issue anymore they wont be afraid to put some PC like applications in this new generation.
Well at least there is a methodology in those conclusion because all the "USA is the most free country of the universe and you all from else where are miserable turds" comments have no methotodology at all, no argument, no reference, nothing! Just plain USA is the best and most free country since ages and that's all.
My point is that there is also liberty outside USA. Maybe they ban some stuff related to Nazi heritage (and I don't really see the point of banning that to be honest with you) but on another hand they don't make of simple nipple shown on TV during a sport event an all out national crisis.
Now this as been said I still affirm that USA is a great free press country but not the only one in this world.
Before throwing accusation only based on the hate of some Americans for the Germans and French, mainly fueled by the political international fiasco of the Iraq war you should look at this analysis of the free press around the world.
France and Germany are well respected free press countries. There is even this report of 2002 where Germany received a better rate for free press than USA.
USA is a great country with free press tradition but this doesn't means that other countries can't do a better job in this department.
I think the most important factor is the way to teach it and not the programming language. I myself am already a programmer and I just failed to read the Introduction of the HTDP. This thing look atrociously boring.
All my life I have teach all sort of things like sports, how to maintain computers and many other stuff to friends, family and for work.
Good teachers need to adapt to their student and find the particular way that work best for someone. Taking the contend of a book and trying to force it directly in the head of your mother is not the best solution.
Go for a project oriented method. Ask her questions and try to find WITH HER a not to difficult project that she would like to do. Then choose the programming language the most appropriated and divide the whole project in smaller goals. Teach her goal by goal until you can assemble the whole project with her.
Star with something easy and remember the most important word in all the process is MOTIVATION. People are willing to learn anything if they have the motivation to do it.
The real thing is that scientists are conducting experiments on the poor little thing by testing the limit that Dino can reach in an inhospitable environment. Please stop the insanity and save the dinosaur.
In Canada, a couple of years ago, the government linked together government databases from different sources (taxes, government school loans, health care, etc.) the population reacted immediately and the government had to back off immediately and destroy the resulting linked database.
For a period of time Citizens where able to request a complete report on all the information that was linked together about them. I think this give an example on how people react to privacy issues up here.
I find it disturbing how many people in the media and people in general expect full and absolute accountability from top levels of companies and the government, yet fail to realize that this means there will end up being no responsibility or care for the customer at the bottom if those people have no power or influence.
Ok but the problem is that many times everybody accepts that top levels have accountability. Can the Sadam Husein, Hitler, Bin Laden, Milosevich claim that they never ordered the acts committed under their authority? Milosevich was accused of closing is eyes on barbaric events decided by people under him. Even if he did not gave the orders (and I said "even if") and this was the initiative of other people I still think he is accountable for closing is eyes on the events.
In my opinion when there is a problem you have to look those who made the mistake and those who managed them. Then it's a case by case scenario where everybody will have a different degree of responsibility in the event.
Pre-emptive disclaimer: My examples are maybe shocking but I sincerely don't want a flame war here. I am just interested by a constructive discussion without insults and names callings please.:)
My son recently started to manifest some signs of schizophrenia. Last Year he suddenly announced that he owns Linux and that every body should pay him to use it. At first we where thinking that this was just a premature April fools day but then we realized that he really was meaning it. Thousands of people tried to explain him the ridicule of is claim but unfortunately he was each day more and more in denial.
In one of his crisis, thinking that he was now some kind of Dr Evil he asked a ransom of 3 billion dollars to IBM. He have a friend, who I don't know if he is a pimp or sell drugs or something but the fact is that the guy named Bill have a lot of money and gave him some 30 millions to encourage him to continue to live in is fantasy. Shame on him!
Each day he is getting more delusional and I really start to worry that he hurt himself by doing something stupid or just annoys to much people until is ass get seriously kicked.
I live in Montreal Canada and have a degree in computer science (but work for no one cause I have my own company). So I will speak about what I know.
Positive Stuff:
The cost of life is ridiculously low .
Beautiful city .
Great nightlife.
Good international restaurants.
Friendly population who come from many parts of the world.
Low crime rate;You feel safe almost everywhere at any time in this city (I said almost OK)
Negative Stuff:
Pay checks for IT are smaller than elsewhere (but in some case what you save with the cost of life can easily compensate)
Lot of taxes
Maybe more difficult to get a job in IT.
I saw a couple of time ago a documentary about the profile of 6 Americans who decided to come to live to Quebec. There was a reporter, a writer, an engineer, a lawyer, an architect and I.T. guy. I will tell you their words not mines. All where saying basically the same thing. Maybe less money but you can do more with what you have. You have much more support from the government in case something bad happens to you.
One of them said one insightful sentence: USA really like is winner and take care of them but if thinks start to go wrong you are on your own and the USA system is really hard on losers.
Because everyone buys the latest and greatest technology, right?
Well that's your point of view but for my part I see many useful utilities for 8.5 GB.
First I want to be able to fit a "Norton Ghost" backups of my operating system on a single DVD. The actual capacity is not big enough and other solutions are to expensive. The double layer 8.5GB seams to be the perfect solution.
I am also right now transferring old 8mm family films to digital and been able to fit everything in half the amount of DVD's is not a bad thing.
Well I have build a basic config for my system and then I made an image of it with "Norton Ghost". With one install everything is done in a couple of minutes.
What I have in my basic ready Windows install Ghost image file:
1 - Windows fully patched and updated
2 - Firewall - Zonealarm (installed offline)
3 - Antivirus - Mcafee virus scan (installed offline)
4 - Spyware Trifacta : Ad-Aware/Spybot/SpywareBlaster (installed offline)
5 - Zip/Rar Utilities - PowerZip - 7Zip
6 - Winamp
7 - Irfanview (JPG viewer)
8 - Video Codecs (Divx, Real alternative, Qick Time Alternative etc)
9 - Hardware drivers/software (scanner, video capture, etc)
10 - CD Burning Utilities
Installing the other bigger utilities it's a one by one case that I can do as I am needing them.
if you werent all such prudes, you wouldnt mind explaing to your kids how sex works, without geting all embarrassed. I mean, it is HOW THEY WERE CREATED!!!!!.
To ad on top of your point of view, then its ok to show people get killed and beaten on tv but not making love.
Or let's talk about fear factor, I think its les degrading for a human being to make love live on tv than to eat cow turd just to entertain the masses.
Anyway I am certainly not advocating to ban any of those issues I am just saying that using the public money and resource on those matters is the most stupid thing that a government can do.
Ever heard of the "Gerald Bull Supercanon" project? If I where you I will not only be concerned about the legality of the project. By doing that kind of project you'll become an unofficial enemy of many industrial country's and that's the perfect scenario to finish like this guy. Is basic project wasn't mean, he just wanted to develop a cheap way to send payload in space but because he was helping enemy nations he got more than he bargained for. Even if he was a Canadian Citizen (I think) he wasn't out of reach of the Mossad...
Slashdot Mirror
Soon it will be more efficient to list the things that corporations allows you to do without going to see Bubba.
It's maybe even easier to simply put everybody in prison and then invite corporations to decide who can get out!
I just opened my browser on slashdot and I saw two news, one under the other but very different.
:|
One is about a group of hard working scientists who dream of a world where new possibilities are created and human kind evolve to a higher level and the other about a group of litigious bastards who dream of a world where they have so much money that it leaks through their ass and everybody listen to the same crappy music made by some fake overpaid artist.
Mmm, we live in a very strange world.
--I'm sure somebody else has come up with the idea, but is anybody pursuing it?
Yes the Canadian Team called The da Vinci project
"The da Vinci Project, led by Brian Feeney of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, registered as a contender for the X PRIZE on June 2, 2000. A reusable helium balloon will lift our spacecraft, "Wild Fire" to an altitude of 80,000 feet. This is where Wild Fire's rocket engines will fire and propel the crew to the 100 km altitude goal -- space."
They developed the project in a kind of "open process" way; every people who wants to contribute is invited to join the project and can even open a local club in is university. They accept help from people of all fields: engineering, public relations, marketing etc...
"The all-volunteer da Vinci project is the largest volunteer technology project in Canadian history with upwards of 100,000 man-hours having been spent on the project thus far."
They amased a huge amount of sponsers and are well advanced in the project.
This guy is a respected Internet pioneer and probably did not want to have some retard juvenile show humiliate him in front of thousands. Even if he did something funny they could edit it to make him look bad.
:)
The solution was maybe to send someone to play is part, for who looking goofy on TV can bee a most for is career.
Phase 1: Find an actor looking for publicity who will do some crazy shit and explained some fake new weird antispam technology working by hocking an USB cable in the ass of a rat or something as nobody understand what's happening.
Phase 2: Write the plan of action, take pictures of the preparation, record an interview with the artist who will play the prank and even plant someone in the audience with a hidden camera or audio tape that could recorde the event.
Phase 3: Publish everything on the internet and send a post to Slashdot and many other media before they air the show.
(and then who knows, maybe profit!!!)
Anyway it would have been fun that he turn the table on them.
Yeah but the diference here is that Microsoft like always will be bright enough to make the console backware compatible (like the PS2 did), then the Dream Cast scenario will not happen cause it will be a no brainier to buy the Xbox 2 (except probably for the price...); You will be able to buy a machine that can play all the games of the previous generation plus the upcoming games of the next generation plus a multitude of multimedia files.
My guess is that they will take some ideas from the Xbox Media Player of modded" Xbox's. Remember how they were insisting for the first generation that this was a console and not a PC? Well now that they proved their point and that this is not an issue anymore they wont be afraid to put some PC like applications in this new generation.
Well at least there is a methodology in those conclusion because all the "USA is the most free country of the universe and you all from else where are miserable turds" comments have no methotodology at all, no argument, no reference, nothing! Just plain USA is the best and most free country since ages and that's all.
My point is that there is also liberty outside USA. Maybe they ban some stuff related to Nazi heritage (and I don't really see the point of banning that to be honest with you) but on another hand they don't make of simple nipple shown on TV during a sport event an all out national crisis.
Now this as been said I still affirm that USA is a great free press country but not the only one in this world.
Before throwing accusation only based on the hate of some Americans for the Germans and French, mainly fueled by the political international fiasco of the Iraq war you should look at this analysis of the free press around the world.
France and Germany are well respected free press countries. There is even this report of 2002 where Germany received a better rate for free press than USA.
USA is a great country with free press tradition but this doesn't means that other countries can't do a better job in this department.
Who's operating system is this?
It's a UNIX baby.
Who's UNIX is this?
SCO!
Who's SCO?
SCO is dead baby, SCO is dead...
Here you can find some links. They are not all toy moding, some are toy destruction but you have between others:
How See 'n Says Work;
How to make a talking fish say what you want;
And of course Scientific analysis of the destruction of a toy Chibi Moon figure.
I think the most important factor is the way to teach it and not the programming language. I myself am already a programmer and I just failed to read the Introduction of the HTDP. This thing look atrociously boring.
All my life I have teach all sort of things like sports, how to maintain computers and many other stuff to friends, family and for work.
Good teachers need to adapt to their student and find the particular way that work best for someone. Taking the contend of a book and trying to force it directly in the head of your mother is not the best solution.
Go for a project oriented method. Ask her questions and try to find WITH HER a not to difficult project that she would like to do. Then choose the programming language the most appropriated and divide the whole project in smaller goals. Teach her goal by goal until you can assemble the whole project with her.
Star with something easy and remember the most important word in all the process is MOTIVATION. People are willing to learn anything if they have the motivation to do it.
"Though IBM did not invent Linux"
:)
Yeah but they did "invent" Microsoft so that's why they are the ones who have to clean this mess now...
The real thing is that scientists are conducting experiments on the poor little thing by testing the limit that Dino can reach in an inhospitable environment. Please stop the insanity and save the dinosaur.
--This announcement is sponsored by PETA
In Canada, a couple of years ago, the government linked together government databases from different sources (taxes, government school loans, health care, etc.) the population reacted immediately and the government had to back off immediately and destroy the resulting linked database.
For a period of time Citizens where able to request a complete report on all the information that was linked together about them. I think this give an example on how people react to privacy issues up here.
I find it disturbing how many people in the media and people in general expect full and absolute accountability from top levels of companies and the government, yet fail to realize that this means there will end up being no responsibility or care for the customer at the bottom if those people have no power or influence.
:)
Ok but the problem is that many times everybody accepts that top levels have accountability. Can the Sadam Husein, Hitler, Bin Laden, Milosevich claim that they never ordered the acts committed under their authority? Milosevich was accused of closing is eyes on barbaric events decided by people under him. Even if he did not gave the orders (and I said "even if") and this was the initiative of other people I still think he is accountable for closing is eyes on the events.
In my opinion when there is a problem you have to look those who made the mistake and those who managed them. Then it's a case by case scenario where everybody will have a different degree of responsibility in the event.
Pre-emptive disclaimer: My examples are maybe shocking but I sincerely don't want a flame war here. I am just interested by a constructive discussion without insults and names callings please.
Good point I agree 100%.
Even Steves Jobs who was apparently the great defender of the people who think diferent as turned to the dark side.
Some insightful article
Some video critic
Some Original Insult
Kudos to IBM and shame on Apple!
All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
-Some has-been band
Damn it! I screwed up on the punch line :(
My son recently started to manifest some signs of schizophrenia. Last Year he suddenly announced that he owns Linux and that every body should pay him to use it. At first we where thinking that this was just a premature April fools day but then we realized that he really was meaning it. Thousands of people tried to explain him the ridicule of is claim but unfortunately he was each day more and more in denial.
In one of his crisis, thinking that he was now some kind of Dr Evil he asked a ransom of 3 billion dollars to IBM. He have a friend, who I don't know if he is a pimp or sell drugs or something but the fact is that the guy named Bill have a lot of money and gave him some 30 millions to encourage him to continue to live in is fantasy. Shame on him!
Each day he is getting more delusional and I really start to worry that he hurt himself by doing something stupid or just annoys to much people until is ass get seriously kicked.
Should we check him in a psychiatric institution?
Mrs Macneil
I have the perfect device for you my friend:
Cheap, not really a computer and with a keyboard! It's called a P-P-P PowerBook
Where do you want me to ship it?
And don't forget my favourite yahoo page, the analyst opinions. They give a quote from 1 to 5.
;)
1 means Strong buy (buy this thing it will go rocket high).
5 means attention crew leave the ship crash and burn eminent this stock is going down to hell.
Now, what do you guess the SCO recomendation quote is right now ?
I live in Montreal Canada and have a degree in computer science (but work for no one cause I have my own company). So I will speak about what I know.
Positive Stuff: The cost of life is ridiculously low . Beautiful city . Great nightlife. Good international restaurants. Friendly population who come from many parts of the world. Low crime rate;You feel safe almost everywhere at any time in this city (I said almost OK)
Negative Stuff: Pay checks for IT are smaller than elsewhere (but in some case what you save with the cost of life can easily compensate) Lot of taxes Maybe more difficult to get a job in IT.
I saw a couple of time ago a documentary about the profile of 6 Americans who decided to come to live to Quebec. There was a reporter, a writer, an engineer, a lawyer, an architect and I.T. guy. I will tell you their words not mines. All where saying basically the same thing. Maybe less money but you can do more with what you have. You have much more support from the government in case something bad happens to you.
One of them said one insightful sentence: USA really like is winner and take care of them but if thinks start to go wrong you are on your own and the USA system is really hard on losers.
Because everyone buys the latest and greatest technology, right?
Well that's your point of view but for my part I see many useful utilities for 8.5 GB.
First I want to be able to fit a "Norton Ghost" backups of my operating system on a single DVD. The actual capacity is not big enough and other solutions are to expensive. The double layer 8.5GB seams to be the perfect solution.
I am also right now transferring old 8mm family films to digital and been able to fit everything in half the amount of DVD's is not a bad thing.
Double layer support (8.5 GB) is the hot thing to come for DVD's and without this, there is no way this thing will be a success.
Well I have build a basic config for my system and then I made an image of it with "Norton Ghost". With one install everything is done in a couple of minutes.
What I have in my basic ready Windows install Ghost image file:
1 - Windows fully patched and updated
2 - Firewall - Zonealarm (installed offline)
3 - Antivirus - Mcafee virus scan (installed offline)
4 - Spyware Trifacta : Ad-Aware/Spybot/SpywareBlaster (installed offline)
5 - Zip/Rar Utilities - PowerZip - 7Zip
6 - Winamp
7 - Irfanview (JPG viewer)
8 - Video Codecs (Divx, Real alternative, Qick Time Alternative etc)
9 - Hardware drivers/software (scanner, video capture, etc)
10 - CD Burning Utilities
Installing the other bigger utilities it's a one by one case that I can do as I am needing them.
if you werent all such prudes, you wouldnt mind explaing to your kids how sex works, without geting all embarrassed. I mean, it is HOW THEY WERE CREATED!!!!!.
To ad on top of your point of view, then its ok to show people get killed and beaten on tv but not making love.
Or let's talk about fear factor, I think its les degrading for a human being to make love live on tv than to eat cow turd just to entertain the masses.
Anyway I am certainly not advocating to ban any of those issues I am just saying that using the public money and resource on those matters is the most stupid thing that a government can do.
Ever heard of the "Gerald Bull Supercanon" project? If I where you I will not only be concerned about the legality of the project. By doing that kind of project you'll become an unofficial enemy of many industrial country's and that's the perfect scenario to finish like this guy. Is basic project wasn't mean, he just wanted to develop a cheap way to send payload in space but because he was helping enemy nations he got more than he bargained for. Even if he was a Canadian Citizen (I think) he wasn't out of reach of the Mossad...