If IE has to be modified in order to workaround this patent, then it means Microsoft can require everyone using Windows to upgrade to IE 7.0.
One of the challenges facing Microsoft (and other software companies) is getting their customers to install upgrades.
With a proper spin on this, it shouldn't be hard to get everyone to throw out IE 5.5, etc. and finally upgrade to 7.0. This will probably begin by convincing websites to modify their content to support a NEW plugin standard supported by IE 7.0 in order to avoid lawsuits related to this patent.
So in a nutshell, MS gets to "require" customers into upgrading without appearing to be the demanding bully. The only question I have is what else are they going to put into IE 7? Will this be like bills in our govt where they add stuff (pork) that won't get passed on their own?
Maybe they'll bundle their new antivirus product and make it a huge publicity win. i.e. "Unlike Linux (re: SCO), we respect other people's IP so we changed our flagship product. Plus, we've added antivirus code to make this the most secure browser technoloy on the planet! And the anti-virus code incorporates DRM so your employees don't accidently make your company liable for their copyright violations!"
Is this true for Windows too? Gecko engine is compiled into the firebird and thunderbird's EXE files?!?!?!?
If so, then the gecko engine should be moved to a DLL so that it can be shared by multiple applications without taking up so much extra memory for each new application that uses it. Who knows how many other applications will make use of the gecko engine in the future.
This is different from the desktop market where Apple's sales were much slower than their notebooks and they were getting crushed by AMD/Intel desktops in benchmarks. That is why they needed to start selling the G5 desktops ASAP but it doesn't make business sense to do the same with their notebooks right now.
Speed is important in notebooks but not nearly as much as in desktops. Other factors like battery life, size and weight are sometimes more important to consumers (which is why most of us don't lug 8 lbs "desktop replacement" notebooks).
The G4 notebooks are selling briskly so the smart thing to do for Apple is to wait until they sell enough existing G4 notebooks before introducing the G5 version. Announcing G5 notebooks now will hurt their notebook sales and selling G5 notebooks now might not dramatically increase their sales. It simply makes more sense for Apple to wait 1-2 years.
I'm reminded by your response of polititions who sidestep direct questions by answering something totally unrelated or spouting their rehearsed views until the original question/point is forgotten by joe-sixpack.
This was your response to point #1 in which I simply stated that jobs moving offshore will decrease the income taxes collected by states and federal govt:
Our economy is directly driven by the rich and big business. More money being made equals more money being injected into the economy. I seriously doubt that average joe sixpack who receives a big refund every year has contributed anywhere near as much as the rich and big business.
See? I make a point about loss of income taxes collected as more jobs move offshore and you spout that the rich drive the economy. If you want to know how economies work, read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" rather than reciting what you might hear repeated on Fox News.
This is how you responded to point #2 in which I stated that the tax cuts might not be spent in ways that help the economy or at all. I further give an example of how the tax cuts might be spent on building offshore facilities to move even more US jobs overseas:
Of course you neglect the fact that these tax cuts will be spent by the people receiving them. Again, more profit means more tax revenue.
See? Anyone can see clearly that I did mention the tax cuts MIGHT (not WILL) be spent and even gave an example. If we sold the tax breaks to Americans with "because the rich pay more now", then I wouldn't bother bringing it up. But it was sold to Americans with "because it will help improve the economy" so I'd like to see this tied together for people that receive millions in tax breaks. And as for the poor schmoes who only get $500 - $50,000 in annual tax breaks, let them spend it anyway they want.
Also, your "more profit means more tax revenue" sounds like common sense but is in fact misleading because there are clear examples of corporations making billions in profits (not revenues) while not paying ANY federal income taxes due to loopholes. For example, Microsoft paid no income taxes in 1999 despite making $12.3 billion in profits according to Citizens for Tax Justice. To find out why this doesn't jive with that year's SEC reports, look at this Motley Fool article for details and you'll find the numbers from ctj.org add up.
Your reponse to point #3 in which I state that we (USA) end up paying more for the war in Iraq because we pissed off our allies that would've paid for part that if we went in together was baffling:
The terrorists are extremist Muslims that are[...]
Whether the terrorists are Muslims or Martians and whether they believe in Allah or the tooth fairie is irrelevant to my statement about us having to pay for ALMOST ALL of the war instead of A REASONABLE PART of the war because our leader didn't think it was important enough to build consensus with UN before going in. IMHO, if we had Bush SR leading us instead of JR, then this would've been done right.
I didn't like Clinton either but at least we didn't lose thousands of American lives to terrorists within our country during his watch. And during his foreign policy leadership, I vaguely remember Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands at the White House--vaguely because that is not as memorable as the current bloodbath. I also recall a balanced budget but that isn't as memorable as the millions of jobs lost under Bush Jr. or the now unbalanced budget & deficit which can't be explained away solely by the cost of war on terrorism.
Things can be done a lot better than this and I don't care if it is a Republican or Democrat or Independent that helps us out of this mess.
---
We need someone smarter to lead
Here's why you'll start seeing more crazy-sounding initiatives like this "lan tax":
1. Outsourcing jobs overseas = massive amounts of lost taxes for USA. Since IT jobs were hit the hardest and California was the hottest IT area, it doesn't take a genius to figure out one substantial reason why they're in a budget crisis (which is a taste of things to come for our federal budget).
2. Huge tax cuts without requirements on how it should be spent = lost tax revenues that might not be spent at all or spent in ways that improve the economy. This is kinda like giving a total stranger $100K and expecting him to spend it in ways that help you while not giving him any expectations on how to spend it (i.e. he can spend it all on building offshore infrastructure to move even more US jobs overseas!).
3. Our president's failure to build consensus in the UN to attack Iraq and then being exposed for making false justification statements means that other countries are less willing to send their young soldiers to die in Iraq. This means more of OUR taxes going to pay for this ongoing fiasco which will likely INCREASE the odds of future terrorist attacks & boycotts against US-made products.
4. and so on including our mounting budget deficit which is like running up a huge credit card bill with mounting interest that YOU and I must pay later with...you guessed it--more freaking taxes than EVER given the aging demographics of babyboomers and their impact on social security, medicare and reduced collection of income taxes from them as they retire.
NOTE: $100K is roughly how much VP. Cheney will save in taxes in one year due to the Bush tax cuts. Since that money has to come from somewhere, many of our brave soldiers sacrificing their lives in Iraq will receive PAY CUTS of around $200/month.
Don't be surprised if you find important services like public schools and homeland security facing massive budget cuts in the future--it doesn't HAVE to happen but I don't see a way out if we continue managing our government in the most idiotic way I've seen in decades.
I feel sorry for the poor soul who'll get elected as our president next because he's gonna have an almost impossible task on his hands (he'll need to take massive and very unpopular action to fix this mess being created by the current politicians).
First, I don't condone the actions of either side but I can understand each side's frustrations and why they might take such undesirable actions.
Having said that, I wanted to comment on something specific you mentioned:
Never do you see in the news: Israel kills busload of Palestinian schoolchildren. Why? It doesn't happen.
That statement obviously leads people into believing that Palestinians kill more schoolchildren than the Israelis.
I recall being shocked last year when Amnesty International's body count of children killed by both sides reflected a different reality (there were more Palestinian children killed than Israeli children).
The point of this post isn't to say one side is worse than the other--both are killing children either directly (terrorism to all) or indirectly (collateral damage to some, terrorism to affected parents) as a means to accomplish their political goals.
The point is to mention that people from both sides and their allies are bombarded with heavily biased news which makes it even more difficult for the masses to see the other side's perspective.
As long as the Palestinians fail to take the moral high ground, the USA will continue to provide funding and weapons to Israel--and partly as a result, anger the Palestinians & their allies who might resort to terrorism against the USA out of frustration.
The only realistic hope for all of us to benefit is if the Palestinians begin (without exception and without retaliation for any Israeli action) to use proven and peaceful tactics employed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to end occupation or civil rights injustices. Unfortunately, it is like the USA drug war--there are players that benefit by maintaining the unsuccessful status-quo of violence so we'll probably never observe one side taking the 100% peaceful approach successfully.
This is tragic for many reasons, including the death of innocents on both sides. For selfish reasons, it is also tragic because it would appear that the USA will encounter more frequent terrorism if this cycle of violence continues with us taking sides.
------
As an American, are you comfortable with our soldiers taking $200/month pay cuts and many veterans losing medical benefits in order to help offset tax cuts that helps folks like VP Cheney receive over $100,000 in tax cuts this year?
As an intelligent adult, do you actually believe that tax cuts for the wealthy will boost the economy if there are no requirements on how that money must be spent? If you gave $100,000 to a complete stranger and expected him to spend it all in ways that would help you (ie hire you or a friend) without actually requiring him to do so, what do you think will happen? No difference from the tax cuts.
Tax cuts given to companies aggressively moving jobs offshore is retarded. We lose the money in tax cuts and we lost the income tax we could have collected if the jobs stayed in the USA. At this rate, we are totally screwed and they'll have to raise taxes (probably on the middle class) in order to fix this mess years from now or get rid of services like public schools and FIRE people working for the largest employer in the USA (the government). Hint: raising taxes drastically and firing lots of people won't improve the economy but we'll be forced to do so if this mismanagement continues.
While some may argue that it will increase the cost of doing business, the leeches who profit from our personal info without our consent don't deserve our sympathy. There are many companies that buy and sell our personal info daily without our consent or knowledge.
Besides, having rules for security related to our personal info will create new jobs as existing systems are modified and business processes are reengineered. Perhaps even more jobs than HIPAA.
Perhaps an even better solution is to require our written consent before any company sells our personal info to another and the consent deemed non-transferable.
When I saw my response tagged as a Troll, I was pretty shocked myself.
Who knows? Maybe the AC who posted the original message I responded to didn't like what I had to say and was able to mod my post down with his real account.
I'm kinda glad though. It prompted you to post more info regarding this such as the successful NAACP lawsuit, Choicepoint and Katherine Harris.
Capitalism is good and it doesn't prevent the use of open source code. For example, RedHat not only succeeded in securing private funding but had a very nice IPO because of open source software.
I highly recommend the book, Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith for anyone who is interested in learning more about Capitalism. Adam Smith is considered the "father of capitalism" and the book was published in 1776 (a great year in history for many reasons).
When people complain about capitalism, they're usually complaining about something entirely different such as corporate corruption/abuses which can easily occur under other systems too.
Based on your argument, should people who "harp" about 9/11 let it die already and drink lithium milkshakes? Both events are important to us patriotic Americans and the only ones who downplay these are the ignorant, the terrorists and the people who committed election fraud.
WAKE UP! This isn't about the stupid "hanging chads" everyone universally is sick of hearing about. Hanging chads seem like mere incompetence, not election fraud to me. So don't associate annoying stories we've all heard to the relevant stories we have not yet heard.
This story is about computerized voting and there is new hard evidence that certain computerized abuses occured in the 2000 election.
According to the NY Times best-selling book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a 2-year investigation of the 2000 election showed that we Americans did not even once hear about the real abuses during that election which were reported in the non-profit BBC (British Broadcasting Corp) but not even mentioned once by any of the media giants in the US (who happened to have contributed to the benefactor of the abuses).
WHAT WE DIDN'T HEAR IS THIS: Many thousands of voters were illegally disqualified for having committed crimes years in the future (2007, 2008, etc.) The vast majority of these disqualified voters were blacks and democrats. When this was reported to the authorities, they simply BLANKED OUT the future dates of crimes so these voters were still disqualified!
Since the abuses took place under the charge of the benefitting candidate's brother and the Supreme Court decision to stop the recount was decided by judges appointed by the benefitting candidate's father, this is much bigger news than the former president trying to weasel out of confessing to a marital affair.
Especially considering that the election was decided by less than 600 votes, the discover of many thousands of illegally disqualified voters based on FUTURE criminal convictions should be discussed and investigated at least as much as the "Monica" story.
According to the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, hard evidence gathered during a 2-year investigation of the 2000 presidential election revealed that the problem wasn't just "hanging chads".
The author states that the investigation uncovered CDs that contained lists of MANY THOUSANDS voters who were disqualified because they had supposedly been convicted of crimes. There are several interesting items (all verifiable because they are not mere opinions) related to this:
1. The disqualified voters were predominantly blacks and democrats. Less than 400 names were republicans so you do the statistical math about this being pure chance.
2. The supposed crimes took place IN THE FUTURE. The original list contained future dates of crimes such as year 2007 and so on. I'm reminded of technology used in the movie Minority Report but that is fiction--this is real life.
3. When this error was reported to the appropriate authorities (I do not recall the official title of the person), the "solution" was not to requalify these "future criminals" but to blank out the fictional future dates of crimes! I'd like to know WHY! And please, lets not jump to conclusions simply because the benefitting candidate's brother was governor where this happened. Jumping to conclusions don't help so lets just stick to facts that can be confirmed & verified.
4. This story was covered by non-profit news organizations like the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) but no American for-profit company even mentioned it while they constantly reported about ridiculous "hanging chads" and "lets move on" stories. BTW, the BBC is huge and is used by 90% of the British it wasn't a tiny local news show that published this story.
5. The election was decided by less than 600 votes so doesn't the discovery of MANY THOUSANDS of illegally disqualified voters deserve a full investigation?
As a patriotic American, I don't want to believe any of this stuff and it really pisses me off to hear about it. What I'd like to know is if this stuff really happened as the author (investigative reporter) stated--these allegations are more relevant to our country than any "Monica" story (which also sucks BTW) but it didn't receive ANY airtime in the USA by media corporations who'd benefit by upcoming decisions from the FCC. These same US media giants were campaign contributors to the benefitting candidate so this is simply tragic. Maybe our country needs something similar to the BBC that the British can count on for more objective, non-profit news.
If voting were computerized, won't abuses such as this be easier to commit?
Another interesting assertion made by the book is that the Bush family had business dealings with Osama Bin Laden's family in Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration made the FBI avoid doing certain investigations that would uncover this. I don't know if this is true but it is kinda creepy given that the book was published WAY BEFORE the Bush administration's current attempts to censor Saudi Arabia's alleged involvement in 9/11.
I don't know about you folks, but I lost someone in 9/11 who happened to be working at the WTC that day. She and all the others who died deserve better than this. We shouldn't avoid investigating certain involved parties because it would be politically uncomfortable for the President to explain how his family may have provided money to Osama's family members which in turn provided money to Osama himself. IMHO, intentionally putting a one's own political career and thereby weakening US National Security should be considered treason at most and grounds for impeachment at least. At a minimum, there should be a full investigation that at least matches the one performed during the "Monica" fiasco.
I've never voted for a Democrat before but I'm seriously considering voting for them if this nonsense continues.
Did any of you get a chance to try it out and compare how much memory it uses?
One of the annoyances about Java when compared to C is the total memory usage. So when apps like Eclipse written in Java can be compiled and if the memory usage is lower as a result, then that would make Java more attractive.
I'm guessing that even a "hello world" will suck up a lot of memory for a Java console app compiled using GCJ because of required runtime library. Just a guess.
Yes, memory is cheap but some of us are stuck with company-owned equipment we can't modify or we've already maxed out on upgrades.
"A team of hackers from Red Hat has released RPMS for a version of Eclipse, a free software IDE written in Java, that has been compiled with a modified gcj. You can find more information here. We'll be integrating the required gcj patches into cvs in the near future."
ps
Slashdot preview is buggy today...can't do HTML format preview and links one or more spaces get embedded in URLs (like the one below).
--- My most underrated Slashdot post is http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68610&cid=6276 748
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer or doctor or counselor. My messages are for entertainment
purposes only and are not to be taken as advice to be carried out.
During college years, I had similar problems but I've learned to overcome them.
A lot of this will sound like common sense but sometimes it helps to hear/read it from another person. Most importantly, its a lot easier said than done for some people.
BASICS:
1. KNOW THYSELF: Stop lying to yourself and making excuses. Find out why you do or don't do things. Keep asking "why" when you get shallow answers like "because you're a lazy undiciplined moron":) -- this simple exercise can be life-changing if you have the courage to do it properly (I permanently & instantly stopped smoking due to this 10-minute exercise after many failed attempts over many years to stop smoking 2 packs/day). Then ask yourself the right questions like "how" you can correct it. Yea it sounds like common sense but you'd be surprised.
Speaking of asking the right questions....try Personal Power II CDs from Anthony Robbins. If you can't afford it, buy it used on EBAY or check out one of his books at the library that talk about Neuro-Associations. If you get the CD and are able to finish it within 30 days (doing all the assigned work & exercises on time without skipping any days) then you'll probably have positively changed your life beyond recognition--but that's easier said than done because the assignments can be very tough (but worthwhile if you're into designing your life to be what you want rather than being on autopilot).
For people who think Tony Robbins is corny (he is sometimes), they should compare their own bio to Tony's bio (deep link so it looks funky)--that said, don't treat any author as a "perfect" guru because their shit stinks too--think of them as a coach and experiment with what they teach and throw away the stuff that doesn't work for you. Basically, be aware of the 10 most common bullshitting methods when reading anything so you can throw away the nonsense parts while keeping the useful bits--IMHO, there's even a few BS methods used in Tony's bio & work but they're still highly useful after throwing those out.
Discover what pain/pleasure you associate with tasks you procrastinate--and force yourself to consciously consider/feel the pain/pleasure of what will happen if you continue procrastinating important tasks.
2. APPLY what you read or learn--without action, they are useless. Reading Seven Habits or other books won't help unless you actually apply what you learn from reading it. DO NOT read another book until you actually apply the stuff you learned from the current one because you might be reading self-help books to avoid real work rather than to change yourself. A clue might be the tendency to read these books while you have a important and probably unpleasant stuff to do that is more urgent than reading these books.
3. Start simple and begin a sleep schedule you KNOW you'll succeed at following. Like going to bed 10 minutes earlier each night and getting up 10 minutes earlier NO MATTER WHAT until you reach a normal schedule. Then set a HARD STOP where you go to bed by midnight NO MATTER WHAT--face the consequences if you didn't get stuff done by midnight when you wake up 7-8 hours later.
4. Write down your goals for the day and prioritize them--actually INCLUDE things like web surfing, etc. but place them at the end of the list and put a time-limit on that like 1 hour (use an alarm clock/phone or stopwatch). DO NOT do lower priority tasks until the high priority ones are done. Keep this tasklist short and doable--if there's clearly too much for 1 day, then be realistic and schedule accordingly.
5. Become more predictable in a good way--form good habits like having productive da
1. Without patents, the little guy who invents something new won't be able to compete against the big corporations who copy his idea.
2. Patents are REQUIRED to describe sufficient details so that any reasonably skilled person in the "art" (computer science, electrical engineer, etc.) can actually use the patent to build the invention. This means rather than keeping useful inventions secret, the inventor benefits for about 17 years after which the general public can benefit too by having details available.
In other words, patents CAN help the lone inventor protect his invention and it helps foster an environment where inventors are incented to SHARE details about their invention with the public.
Like anything else, there are abuses and extreme cases but it doesn't mean there are no benefits.
I don't know if it is true, but based on all the media I've been fed by the big-5 media giants, I think unions are too extreme.
Basically, I've been led to believe that unions cause decent companies to go bankrupt due to lazy, underperforming workers who can't be fired because they belong to the union. Also, joining a union would make me a communist so why would I want to be associated with that nasty crap?
Again, I don't know if this is actually true but all the input I've been fed so far from media makes me perceive unions in this way so I'd feel too much shame in joining one. Also, I've been given the impression from media that unions are corrupt and run by the mafia.
I guess some of the same perception true for organizations that are supposed to protect us from racial descrimination. I've been led to believe that those organizations help lazy, underperforming minorities take jobs away from hardworking whites.
Come to think of it, I've also been given the impression that organizations that are supposed to help protect freedom of speech are run by a bunch of depraved perverts who protect pornography more than anything else.
Again, I don't have a clue if/how accurate these general perceptions are but that is the general impression I got by watching TV. Not sure which channel...maybe Fox News, MSNBC and CNN in that order?
RANT
I guess Oscar Wilde was wrong about the need to fear the middle class becoming too powerful. They've been split up by emotional issues like abortion rights, gay rights and allowing organized prayer in schools. Screw it, I personally know too many women who want to get abortions right away and there are more gays than straights and I have too many children who are upset about not being allowed to have organized prayer in school for me to be concerned about petty things that don't affect me at all like having my taxes go to the ultra wealthy via corporate welfare & tax loopholes while social security, medicare, and public school funding go down the tubes. Thats right, I don't bother with corporations paying/RANT
On the bright side, everything else about this country rocks and I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Maybe if I keep watching TV, I'll be dumbed down enough to be happy about the other stuff.
I think almost everyone is buying the diversion and ignoring the real threat.
If SCO loses the lawsuit because of the so-called "viral" aspect of GPL, then Linux could suffer substantially as a result of SCO's loss.
Microsoft could say something like "see, we told you that crap was viral, you'll all lose your company's intellectual property rights if you use 'free software' with your proprietary work!"
Want to know how much "value" decision-makers perceive when they think about intellectual property and proprietary software? Look at the market cap of MSFT because the decision-makers do and many have owned shares since the early 1990's if they had a clue and wished their own companies were doing so well.
And by the time SCO loses, 'free software' would be associated strictly with GPL instead of any of dozens of other OSI-approved licenses such as BSD License and MIT License that are more friendly toward intellectual property ownership.
More and more news stories will talk about 'free software' ONLY in the context of GPL and basically cause every decision-maker to think they're one and the same. This is the subtle FUD (4th & 9th paragraphs) going on right now and most Linux advocates don't even realize it.
Face it, companies and governments like free stuff as much as we do but requiring them to give up their proprietary work makes it easy for SCO & Microsoft to argue against in the context of money and national security.
The fact that many companies won't make a dime on the affected proprietary software or that the govt's affected proprietary software is mostly useless crap doesn't matter--perception is what matters.
Why do you think SCO wanted 1,000+ companies to EXAMINE the GPL? Because they knew most didn't bother yet and their lawyers would freak out if they saw the intellectual property issues with GPL. So if SCO loses based on GPL, they end up winning what they originally set out to accomplish: making companies avoid the use of GPL software and by fud association all 'free software' too. How many clueless companies will replace Apache web server because they incorrectly believe it is covered by GPL? 8,000?
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer and all my messages are not to be taken as statements of fact but are solely my own opinion.
Does "unsolicited e-mail" mean any e-mail the recipient didn't specifically request? I guess my co-workers in Michigan will stop sending me e-mails now or face the consequences.
Seriously, do they even make any distinctions between an advertisement for breast enlargement vs a political message from a new candidate that doesn't yet have enough money to advertise on TV?
On the flip side, will I be in deep shit in Michigan if I send unsolited political opinion/suggestion to an elected official via e-mail because they don't make the distinction?
What if they decide to fix laws that aren't specific enough by tacking on quick-fixes such as "require all political messages to begin with 'POL:' in the subject." in the name of protecting political e-mail from being treated as spam? Wouldn't it be ironic that this would actually make e-mail political censorship/monitoring MUCH easier and more practical? (Please don't retort with comments about Boyer-Moore-Horspool or irregular expressimifications because I'm not a techie and don't even know what they are)
Frankly, I don't know which would be worse because it is easier to filter/monitor all political messages on the net if they had "POL:" as the first 4 letters of the subject.
Which do you prefer?
And is there new technology on the horizon (not mere spam-blocking) going to help us solve this issue? It would be interesting to have optional and required categorization of e-mail in some future protocol.
And yea, I didn't read the story but chose the "talk amongst yourselves" bit instead.
As much as I'd like to see the latest version of Java included with every modern desktop OS, I think the decision was correct.
Imagine spending years designing, creating and selling your product and then being ORDERED by the government to include a someone else's product which will reduce your competitive advantage.
And even though this particular decision was the right one, I personally feel that the prior remedies imposed on Microsoft as a result of the anti-trust settlement is pure crap that was not entirely unrelated to the massive new campaign contributions made by Microsoft ever since the trials began.
As Linux gains more momentum on desktops, so will the popularity of certain Linux applications (most likely--but not all--open source ones).
And as a result of improved support for X Windows on Mac, better source-level compatibility or ports between Linux and Mac OS X, the number of popular applications available on Mac OS X will also increase as Linux becomes more popular.
To simplify things further, future package managers will probably support FreeBSD, Linux and Mac OS X. Perhaps they will be based on
MetaPKG or something similar.
I think the ONLY remaining reason not to purchase a Mac this coming Christmas will be the lack of support for specific apps or games. Apple addressed the OS by ditching OS 9, now the CPU and more reasonably comparable price/performance. This leaves lack of support for specific apps or games to be the biggest remaining barrier. WILL SONY AND APPLE EVER SIGN A DEAL TO ENABLE MACS TO RUN PS2/PS3 GAMES?!?!?
I could be totally mistaken but I'm under the impression that porting Windows apps to Mac OS X is more difficult than porting Linux apps to Max OS X. So there you have it. More Linux desktops = more popularity of Linux apps = more "popular" apps available on Mac OS X. Just a guess. Nothing more.
I don't condone copyright violations but doesn't the FBI have enough on its plate without this added responsibility?
If we really had a massive terrorist threat including cyber-terrorism, why the hell are they adding this to the FBI's plate?
Did they already fix the problems within the FBI and among different agencies that led to the tragic failure to prevent 9/11 despite having all the info they needed?
Shouldn't the FBI investigate Enron, etc. and the role they played in influencing our government's energy policy with VP Dick Cheney in a manner that might've been illegal? Or investigate VP Dick Cheney's alleged fraudulent accounting practices while he was director of Halliburton? Given the HUGE relevance to this story after millions of us lost a big chunk of our pensions, why didn't we hear about this as much as even 1/1000th of Monica's story?
Oh, I forgot, we the public aren't supposed to care about things that actually impact us like (inflated gas prices or losing hard-earned pension funds)--we should only care about sex scandals of politicians because we're illiterate morons that believe corrupt politicians when they tell us they believe in the same God or religion as us since we don't have the ability to detect bullshit.
I suppose making govt larger and more intrusive is seen as a better strategy than fixing the specific problems that led to the failure to prevent it.
I lost someone who was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and I'm very dissappointed at how they've handled it BEFORE and AFTER that tragedy.
We're the most technologically advanced nation on Earth...we can do better than this.
Many of the "innovative new features" now being added to browsers like Safari and Mozilla are, in my opinion, fluff and "nice idea, but far from a necessity" features.
I use the bookmark keywords feature of Mozilla Firebird more often than I manually type in a URL. I've setup about 7 of these to do lookups in Amazon, Dictionary, FedEx Tracking, Google, Thesaurus and more.
For example, when I type "g linux", I get a Google search result of the word "linux" using my language & results per page preferences.
And when I type "d word", I get a www.dictionary.com definition of "word".
It is an awesome feature that changed the way I used my browser in a fundamental way because it only takes 10 seconds to set one up and it works with most pages that receive parameters. I used single letters like "g" and "d" but it can be whole words like "google" or "dictionary".
As a result of this feature, I think of typing in keywords rather than URLs now. And that is a huge shift in how I use the browser.
Take one of the current big ones, tabbed browsing. Sure, it's nifty - but what does it ultimately add to the experience of viewing a given web page? The HTML is still rendered the same way, and that's the core function of any browser.
Another core function of any browser is the BACK & FORWARD navigation of the web. One thing tabbed browsing gives us is the ability to have multiple BACK & FORWARD histories--something I'd rather not give up after being using it. And having multiple windows open clogs up the task bar and consumes more resources.
I believe what is most lacking is consistency and publicity. Whether Linux draws from Max OSX or Windows or a combo, Linux UI should be much more consistent and that push should be publicized.
But without Microsoft's budget, it will be more difficult for projects like KDE & Gnome to publish a GUI guideline book that we can pickup at Barns & Noble or Borders. When Microsoft published theirs, I remember companies buying it and using it as their bible to enforce UI consistency across their products.
After you read this simple guide to bullshit detection, you'll be shocked to see how much of the 10 common propaganda techniques we are exposed to daily from managers, media, and even friends who sometimes don't even realize they're using these specific propaganda techniques.
I rediscovered this guide today after many years and had a good laugh when I ran into a few of the propaganda techniques after lunch.
After 15-30 minutes reading this guide, you'll be amused if you practice it on:
1. Fox News Channel (easy place to start for beginners--you can sometimes detect 5 different techniques within a few minutes)
2. Slashdot Posts (if you're into picking apart someone's flawed argument, you'll become a pro)
3. CNN Crossfire (watch 2 pros battle each other using these techniques)
IMHO, they should teach this (bullshit detection) in high school and assign homework to find specific examples of common propaganda techniques in advertising, news media, etc. Can you detect which one(s), if any, I'm using in this post?
Index of 10 common techniques
Word games ....Name-calling ....Glittering generalities ....Euphemisms
False connections ....Transfer ....Testimonial
Special Appeals ....Plain Folks ....Bandwagon ....Fear
Logical fallacies ....Bad Logic or propaganda? ....Unwarranted extrapolation
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
Look at the drastic improvements MS IE received while Netscape was still a strong contender. Then look at the improvements after IE got 90%+ marketshare. Some would argue that there isn't much to add to a browser but a look at the innovations in Opera, Mozilla Firebird and Safari.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
My apologies if such a GUI/UI standard exists--I simply don't see it being promoted or used in X apps I've tried--and it was just an example.
Slashdot Mirror
If IE has to be modified in order to workaround this patent, then it means Microsoft can require everyone using Windows to upgrade to IE 7.0.
One of the challenges facing Microsoft (and other software companies) is getting their customers to install upgrades.
With a proper spin on this, it shouldn't be hard to get everyone to throw out IE 5.5, etc. and finally upgrade to 7.0. This will probably begin by convincing websites to modify their content to support a NEW plugin standard supported by IE 7.0 in order to avoid lawsuits related to this patent.
So in a nutshell, MS gets to "require" customers into upgrading without appearing to be the demanding bully. The only question I have is what else are they going to put into IE 7? Will this be like bills in our govt where they add stuff (pork) that won't get passed on their own?
Maybe they'll bundle their new antivirus product and make it a huge publicity win. i.e. "Unlike Linux (re: SCO), we respect other people's IP so we changed our flagship product. Plus, we've added antivirus code to make this the most secure browser technoloy on the planet! And the anti-virus code incorporates DRM so your employees don't accidently make your company liable for their copyright violations!"
Is this true for Windows too? Gecko engine is compiled into the firebird and thunderbird's EXE files?!?!?!?
If so, then the gecko engine should be moved to a DLL so that it can be shared by multiple applications without taking up so much extra memory for each new application that uses it. Who knows how many other applications will make use of the gecko engine in the future.
This is different from the desktop market where Apple's sales were much slower than their notebooks and they were getting crushed by AMD/Intel desktops in benchmarks. That is why they needed to start selling the G5 desktops ASAP but it doesn't make business sense to do the same with their notebooks right now.
Speed is important in notebooks but not nearly as much as in desktops. Other factors like battery life, size and weight are sometimes more important to consumers (which is why most of us don't lug 8 lbs "desktop replacement" notebooks).
The G4 notebooks are selling briskly so the smart thing to do for Apple is to wait until they sell enough existing G4 notebooks before introducing the G5 version. Announcing G5 notebooks now will hurt their notebook sales and selling G5 notebooks now might not dramatically increase their sales. It simply makes more sense for Apple to wait 1-2 years.
I'm reminded by your response of polititions who sidestep direct questions by answering something totally unrelated or spouting their rehearsed views until the original question/point is forgotten by joe-sixpack.
This was your response to point #1 in which I simply stated that jobs moving offshore will decrease the income taxes collected by states and federal govt:
Our economy is directly driven by the rich and big business. More money being made equals more money being injected into the economy. I seriously doubt that average joe sixpack who receives a big refund every year has contributed anywhere near as much as the rich and big business.
See? I make a point about loss of income taxes collected as more jobs move offshore and you spout that the rich drive the economy. If you want to know how economies work, read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" rather than reciting what you might hear repeated on Fox News.
This is how you responded to point #2 in which I stated that the tax cuts might not be spent in ways that help the economy or at all. I further give an example of how the tax cuts might be spent on building offshore facilities to move even more US jobs overseas:
Of course you neglect the fact that these tax cuts will be spent by the people receiving them. Again, more profit means more tax revenue.
See? Anyone can see clearly that I did mention the tax cuts MIGHT (not WILL) be spent and even gave an example. If we sold the tax breaks to Americans with "because the rich pay more now", then I wouldn't bother bringing it up. But it was sold to Americans with "because it will help improve the economy" so I'd like to see this tied together for people that receive millions in tax breaks. And as for the poor schmoes who only get $500 - $50,000 in annual tax breaks, let them spend it anyway they want.
Also, your "more profit means more tax revenue" sounds like common sense but is in fact misleading because there are clear examples of corporations making billions in profits (not revenues) while not paying ANY federal income taxes due to loopholes. For example, Microsoft paid no income taxes in 1999 despite making $12.3 billion in profits according to Citizens for Tax Justice. To find out why this doesn't jive with that year's SEC reports, look at this Motley Fool article for details and you'll find the numbers from ctj.org add up.
Your reponse to point #3 in which I state that we (USA) end up paying more for the war in Iraq because we pissed off our allies that would've paid for part that if we went in together was baffling:
The terrorists are extremist Muslims that are[...]
Whether the terrorists are Muslims or Martians and whether they believe in Allah or the tooth fairie is irrelevant to my statement about us having to pay for ALMOST ALL of the war instead of A REASONABLE PART of the war because our leader didn't think it was important enough to build consensus with UN before going in. IMHO, if we had Bush SR leading us instead of JR, then this would've been done right.
I didn't like Clinton either but at least we didn't lose thousands of American lives to terrorists within our country during his watch. And during his foreign policy leadership, I vaguely remember Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands at the White House--vaguely because that is not as memorable as the current bloodbath. I also recall a balanced budget but that isn't as memorable as the millions of jobs lost under Bush Jr. or the now unbalanced budget & deficit which can't be explained away solely by the cost of war on terrorism.
Things can be done a lot better than this and I don't care if it is a Republican or Democrat or Independent that helps us out of this mess. --- We need someone smarter to lead
Here's why you'll start seeing more crazy-sounding initiatives like this "lan tax":
1. Outsourcing jobs overseas = massive amounts of lost taxes for USA. Since IT jobs were hit the hardest and California was the hottest IT area, it doesn't take a genius to figure out one substantial reason why they're in a budget crisis (which is a taste of things to come for our federal budget).
2. Huge tax cuts without requirements on how it should be spent = lost tax revenues that might not be spent at all or spent in ways that improve the economy. This is kinda like giving a total stranger $100K and expecting him to spend it in ways that help you while not giving him any expectations on how to spend it (i.e. he can spend it all on building offshore infrastructure to move even more US jobs overseas!).
3. Our president's failure to build consensus in the UN to attack Iraq and then being exposed for making false justification statements means that other countries are less willing to send their young soldiers to die in Iraq. This means more of OUR taxes going to pay for this ongoing fiasco which will likely INCREASE the odds of future terrorist attacks & boycotts against US-made products.
4. and so on including our mounting budget deficit which is like running up a huge credit card bill with mounting interest that YOU and I must pay later with...you guessed it--more freaking taxes than EVER given the aging demographics of babyboomers and their impact on social security, medicare and reduced collection of income taxes from them as they retire.
NOTE: $100K is roughly how much VP. Cheney will save in taxes in one year due to the Bush tax cuts. Since that money has to come from somewhere, many of our brave soldiers sacrificing their lives in Iraq will receive PAY CUTS of around $200/month.
Don't be surprised if you find important services like public schools and homeland security facing massive budget cuts in the future--it doesn't HAVE to happen but I don't see a way out if we continue managing our government in the most idiotic way I've seen in decades.
I feel sorry for the poor soul who'll get elected as our president next because he's gonna have an almost impossible task on his hands (he'll need to take massive and very unpopular action to fix this mess being created by the current politicians).
First, I don't condone the actions of either side but I can understand each side's frustrations and why they might take such undesirable actions.
Having said that, I wanted to comment on something specific you mentioned:
Never do you see in the news: Israel kills busload of Palestinian schoolchildren. Why? It doesn't happen.
That statement obviously leads people into believing that Palestinians kill more schoolchildren than the Israelis.
I recall being shocked last year when Amnesty International's body count of children killed by both sides reflected a different reality (there were more Palestinian children killed than Israeli children).
The point of this post isn't to say one side is worse than the other--both are killing children either directly (terrorism to all) or indirectly (collateral damage to some, terrorism to affected parents) as a means to accomplish their political goals.
The point is to mention that people from both sides and their allies are bombarded with heavily biased news which makes it even more difficult for the masses to see the other side's perspective.
As long as the Palestinians fail to take the moral high ground, the USA will continue to provide funding and weapons to Israel--and partly as a result, anger the Palestinians & their allies who might resort to terrorism against the USA out of frustration.
The only realistic hope for all of us to benefit is if the Palestinians begin (without exception and without retaliation for any Israeli action) to use proven and peaceful tactics employed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. to end occupation or civil rights injustices. Unfortunately, it is like the USA drug war--there are players that benefit by maintaining the unsuccessful status-quo of violence so we'll probably never observe one side taking the 100% peaceful approach successfully.
This is tragic for many reasons, including the death of innocents on both sides. For selfish reasons, it is also tragic because it would appear that the USA will encounter more frequent terrorism if this cycle of violence continues with us taking sides.
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As an American, are you comfortable with our soldiers taking $200/month pay cuts and many veterans losing medical benefits in order to help offset tax cuts that helps folks like VP Cheney receive over $100,000 in tax cuts this year?
As an intelligent adult, do you actually believe that tax cuts for the wealthy will boost the economy if there are no requirements on how that money must be spent? If you gave $100,000 to a complete stranger and expected him to spend it all in ways that would help you (ie hire you or a friend) without actually requiring him to do so, what do you think will happen? No difference from the tax cuts.
Tax cuts given to companies aggressively moving jobs offshore is retarded. We lose the money in tax cuts and we lost the income tax we could have collected if the jobs stayed in the USA. At this rate, we are totally screwed and they'll have to raise taxes (probably on the middle class) in order to fix this mess years from now or get rid of services like public schools and FIRE people working for the largest employer in the USA (the government). Hint: raising taxes drastically and firing lots of people won't improve the economy but we'll be forced to do so if this mismanagement continues.
We obviously need to push for similar requirements used to secure our medical information.
While some may argue that it will increase the cost of doing business, the leeches who profit from our personal info without our consent don't deserve our sympathy. There are many companies that buy and sell our personal info daily without our consent or knowledge.
Besides, having rules for security related to our personal info will create new jobs as existing systems are modified and business processes are reengineered. Perhaps even more jobs than HIPAA.
Perhaps an even better solution is to require our written consent before any company sells our personal info to another and the consent deemed non-transferable.
When I saw my response tagged as a Troll, I was pretty shocked myself.
Who knows? Maybe the AC who posted the original message I responded to didn't like what I had to say and was able to mod my post down with his real account.
I'm kinda glad though. It prompted you to post more info regarding this such as the successful NAACP lawsuit, Choicepoint and Katherine Harris.
I highly recommend the book, Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith for anyone who is interested in learning more about Capitalism. Adam Smith is considered the "father of capitalism" and the book was published in 1776 (a great year in history for many reasons).
A full-text is available for free for those of you who did not yet master applied capitalism. :)
When people complain about capitalism, they're usually complaining about something entirely different such as corporate corruption/abuses which can easily occur under other systems too.
WAKE UP! This isn't about the stupid "hanging chads" everyone universally is sick of hearing about. Hanging chads seem like mere incompetence, not election fraud to me. So don't associate annoying stories we've all heard to the relevant stories we have not yet heard.
This story is about computerized voting and there is new hard evidence that certain computerized abuses occured in the 2000 election.
According to the NY Times best-selling book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a 2-year investigation of the 2000 election showed that we Americans did not even once hear about the real abuses during that election which were reported in the non-profit BBC (British Broadcasting Corp) but not even mentioned once by any of the media giants in the US (who happened to have contributed to the benefactor of the abuses).
WHAT WE DIDN'T HEAR IS THIS: Many thousands of voters were illegally disqualified for having committed crimes years in the future (2007, 2008, etc.) The vast majority of these disqualified voters were blacks and democrats. When this was reported to the authorities, they simply BLANKED OUT the future dates of crimes so these voters were still disqualified!
Since the abuses took place under the charge of the benefitting candidate's brother and the Supreme Court decision to stop the recount was decided by judges appointed by the benefitting candidate's father, this is much bigger news than the former president trying to weasel out of confessing to a marital affair.
Especially considering that the election was decided by less than 600 votes, the discover of many thousands of illegally disqualified voters based on FUTURE criminal convictions should be discussed and investigated at least as much as the "Monica" story.
The author states that the investigation uncovered CDs that contained lists of MANY THOUSANDS voters who were disqualified because they had supposedly been convicted of crimes. There are several interesting items (all verifiable because they are not mere opinions) related to this:
1. The disqualified voters were predominantly blacks and democrats. Less than 400 names were republicans so you do the statistical math about this being pure chance.
2. The supposed crimes took place IN THE FUTURE. The original list contained future dates of crimes such as year 2007 and so on. I'm reminded of technology used in the movie Minority Report but that is fiction--this is real life.
3. When this error was reported to the appropriate authorities (I do not recall the official title of the person), the "solution" was not to requalify these "future criminals" but to blank out the fictional future dates of crimes! I'd like to know WHY! And please, lets not jump to conclusions simply because the benefitting candidate's brother was governor where this happened. Jumping to conclusions don't help so lets just stick to facts that can be confirmed & verified.
4. This story was covered by non-profit news organizations like the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) but no American for-profit company even mentioned it while they constantly reported about ridiculous "hanging chads" and "lets move on" stories. BTW, the BBC is huge and is used by 90% of the British it wasn't a tiny local news show that published this story.
5. The election was decided by less than 600 votes so doesn't the discovery of MANY THOUSANDS of illegally disqualified voters deserve a full investigation?
As a patriotic American, I don't want to believe any of this stuff and it really pisses me off to hear about it. What I'd like to know is if this stuff really happened as the author (investigative reporter) stated--these allegations are more relevant to our country than any "Monica" story (which also sucks BTW) but it didn't receive ANY airtime in the USA by media corporations who'd benefit by upcoming decisions from the FCC. These same US media giants were campaign contributors to the benefitting candidate so this is simply tragic. Maybe our country needs something similar to the BBC that the British can count on for more objective, non-profit news.
If voting were computerized, won't abuses such as this be easier to commit?
Another interesting assertion made by the book is that the Bush family had business dealings with Osama Bin Laden's family in Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration made the FBI avoid doing certain investigations that would uncover this. I don't know if this is true but it is kinda creepy given that the book was published WAY BEFORE the Bush administration's current attempts to censor Saudi Arabia's alleged involvement in 9/11.
I don't know about you folks, but I lost someone in 9/11 who happened to be working at the WTC that day. She and all the others who died deserve better than this. We shouldn't avoid investigating certain involved parties because it would be politically uncomfortable for the President to explain how his family may have provided money to Osama's family members which in turn provided money to Osama himself. IMHO, intentionally putting a one's own political career and thereby weakening US National Security should be considered treason at most and grounds for impeachment at least. At a minimum, there should be a full investigation that at least matches the one performed during the "Monica" fiasco.
I've never voted for a Democrat before but I'm seriously considering voting for them if this nonsense continues.
Did any of you get a chance to try it out and compare how much memory it uses? One of the annoyances about Java when compared to C is the total memory usage. So when apps like Eclipse written in Java can be compiled and if the memory usage is lower as a result, then that would make Java more attractive. I'm guessing that even a "hello world" will suck up a lot of memory for a Java console app compiled using GCJ because of required runtime library. Just a guess. Yes, memory is cheap but some of us are stuck with company-owned equipment we can't modify or we've already maxed out on upgrades.
I found this info at http://gcc.gnu.org/java/
6 748
"A team of hackers from Red Hat has released RPMS for a version of Eclipse, a free software IDE written in Java, that has been compiled with a modified gcj. You can find more information here. We'll be integrating the required gcj patches into cvs in the near future."
ps
Slashdot preview is buggy today...can't do HTML format preview and links one or more spaces get embedded in URLs (like the one below).
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My most underrated Slashdot post is http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68610&cid=627
What is yours?
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer or doctor or counselor. My messages are for entertainment purposes only and are not to be taken as advice to be carried out.
:) -- this simple exercise can be life-changing if you have the courage to do it properly (I permanently & instantly stopped smoking due to this 10-minute exercise after many failed attempts over many years to stop smoking 2 packs/day). Then ask yourself the right questions like "how" you can correct it. Yea it sounds like common sense but you'd be surprised.
During college years, I had similar problems but I've learned to overcome them.
A lot of this will sound like common sense but sometimes it helps to hear/read it from another person. Most importantly, its a lot easier said than done for some people.
BASICS:
1. KNOW THYSELF: Stop lying to yourself and making excuses. Find out why you do or don't do things. Keep asking "why" when you get shallow answers like "because you're a lazy undiciplined moron"
Speaking of asking the right questions....try Personal Power II CDs from Anthony Robbins. If you can't afford it, buy it used on EBAY or check out one of his books at the library that talk about Neuro-Associations. If you get the CD and are able to finish it within 30 days (doing all the assigned work & exercises on time without skipping any days) then you'll probably have positively changed your life beyond recognition--but that's easier said than done because the assignments can be very tough (but worthwhile if you're into designing your life to be what you want rather than being on autopilot).
For people who think Tony Robbins is corny (he is sometimes), they should compare their own bio to Tony's bio (deep link so it looks funky)--that said, don't treat any author as a "perfect" guru because their shit stinks too--think of them as a coach and experiment with what they teach and throw away the stuff that doesn't work for you. Basically, be aware of the 10 most common bullshitting methods when reading anything so you can throw away the nonsense parts while keeping the useful bits--IMHO, there's even a few BS methods used in Tony's bio & work but they're still highly useful after throwing those out.
Discover what pain/pleasure you associate with tasks you procrastinate--and force yourself to consciously consider/feel the pain/pleasure of what will happen if you continue procrastinating important tasks.
2. APPLY what you read or learn--without action, they are useless. Reading Seven Habits or other books won't help unless you actually apply what you learn from reading it. DO NOT read another book until you actually apply the stuff you learned from the current one because you might be reading self-help books to avoid real work rather than to change yourself. A clue might be the tendency to read these books while you have a important and probably unpleasant stuff to do that is more urgent than reading these books.
3. Start simple and begin a sleep schedule you KNOW you'll succeed at following. Like going to bed 10 minutes earlier each night and getting up 10 minutes earlier NO MATTER WHAT until you reach a normal schedule. Then set a HARD STOP where you go to bed by midnight NO MATTER WHAT--face the consequences if you didn't get stuff done by midnight when you wake up 7-8 hours later.
4. Write down your goals for the day and prioritize them--actually INCLUDE things like web surfing, etc. but place them at the end of the list and put a time-limit on that like 1 hour (use an alarm clock/phone or stopwatch). DO NOT do lower priority tasks until the high priority ones are done. Keep this tasklist short and doable--if there's clearly too much for 1 day, then be realistic and schedule accordingly.
5. Become more predictable in a good way--form good habits like having productive da
Couple reasons:
1. Without patents, the little guy who invents something new won't be able to compete against the big corporations who copy his idea.
2. Patents are REQUIRED to describe sufficient details so that any reasonably skilled person in the "art" (computer science, electrical engineer, etc.) can actually use the patent to build the invention. This means rather than keeping useful inventions secret, the inventor benefits for about 17 years after which the general public can benefit too by having details available.
In other words, patents CAN help the lone inventor protect his invention and it helps foster an environment where inventors are incented to SHARE details about their invention with the public.
Like anything else, there are abuses and extreme cases but it doesn't mean there are no benefits.
I don't know if it is true, but based on all the media I've been fed by the big-5 media giants, I think unions are too extreme.
/RANT
Basically, I've been led to believe that unions cause decent companies to go bankrupt due to lazy, underperforming workers who can't be fired because they belong to the union. Also, joining a union would make me a communist so why would I want to be associated with that nasty crap?
Again, I don't know if this is actually true but all the input I've been fed so far from media makes me perceive unions in this way so I'd feel too much shame in joining one. Also, I've been given the impression from media that unions are corrupt and run by the mafia.
I guess some of the same perception true for organizations that are supposed to protect us from racial descrimination. I've been led to believe that those organizations help lazy, underperforming minorities take jobs away from hardworking whites.
Come to think of it, I've also been given the impression that organizations that are supposed to help protect freedom of speech are run by a bunch of depraved perverts who protect pornography more than anything else.
Again, I don't have a clue if/how accurate these general perceptions are but that is the general impression I got by watching TV. Not sure which channel...maybe Fox News, MSNBC and CNN in that order?
RANT
I guess Oscar Wilde was wrong about the need to fear the middle class becoming too powerful. They've been split up by emotional issues like abortion rights, gay rights and allowing organized prayer in schools. Screw it, I personally know too many women who want to get abortions right away and there are more gays than straights and I have too many children who are upset about not being allowed to have organized prayer in school for me to be concerned about petty things that don't affect me at all like having my taxes go to the ultra wealthy via corporate welfare & tax loopholes while social security, medicare, and public school funding go down the tubes. Thats right, I don't bother with corporations paying
On the bright side, everything else about this country rocks and I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Maybe if I keep watching TV, I'll be dumbed down enough to be happy about the other stuff.
I think almost everyone is buying the diversion and ignoring the real threat.
If SCO loses the lawsuit because of the so-called "viral" aspect of GPL, then Linux could suffer substantially as a result of SCO's loss.
Microsoft could say something like "see, we told you that crap was viral, you'll all lose your company's intellectual property rights if you use 'free software' with your proprietary work!"
Want to know how much "value" decision-makers perceive when they think about intellectual property and proprietary software? Look at the market cap of MSFT because the decision-makers do and many have owned shares since the early 1990's if they had a clue and wished their own companies were doing so well.
And by the time SCO loses, 'free software' would be associated strictly with GPL instead of any of dozens of other OSI-approved licenses such as BSD License and MIT License that are more friendly toward intellectual property ownership.
More and more news stories will talk about 'free software' ONLY in the context of GPL and basically cause every decision-maker to think they're one and the same. This is the subtle FUD (4th & 9th paragraphs) going on right now and most Linux advocates don't even realize it.
Face it, companies and governments like free stuff as much as we do but requiring them to give up their proprietary work makes it easy for SCO & Microsoft to argue against in the context of money and national security.
The fact that many companies won't make a dime on the affected proprietary software or that the govt's affected proprietary software is mostly useless crap doesn't matter--perception is what matters.
Why do you think SCO wanted 1,000+ companies to EXAMINE the GPL? Because they knew most didn't bother yet and their lawyers would freak out if they saw the intellectual property issues with GPL. So if SCO loses based on GPL, they end up winning what they originally set out to accomplish: making companies avoid the use of GPL software and by fud association all 'free software' too. How many clueless companies will replace Apache web server because they incorrectly believe it is covered by GPL? 8,000?
DISCLAIMER: I'm not a lawyer and all my messages are not to be taken as statements of fact but are solely my own opinion.
Does "unsolicited e-mail" mean any e-mail the recipient didn't specifically request? I guess my co-workers in Michigan will stop sending me e-mails now or face the consequences.
Seriously, do they even make any distinctions between an advertisement for breast enlargement vs a political message from a new candidate that doesn't yet have enough money to advertise on TV?
On the flip side, will I be in deep shit in Michigan if I send unsolited political opinion/suggestion to an elected official via e-mail because they don't make the distinction?
What if they decide to fix laws that aren't specific enough by tacking on quick-fixes such as "require all political messages to begin with 'POL:' in the subject." in the name of protecting political e-mail from being treated as spam? Wouldn't it be ironic that this would actually make e-mail political censorship/monitoring MUCH easier and more practical? (Please don't retort with comments about Boyer-Moore-Horspool or irregular expressimifications because I'm not a techie and don't even know what they are)
Frankly, I don't know which would be worse because it is easier to filter/monitor all political messages on the net if they had "POL:" as the first 4 letters of the subject.
Which do you prefer?
And is there new technology on the horizon (not mere spam-blocking) going to help us solve this issue? It would be interesting to have optional and required categorization of e-mail in some future protocol.
And yea, I didn't read the story but chose the "talk amongst yourselves" bit instead.
As much as I'd like to see the latest version of Java included with every modern desktop OS, I think the decision was correct. Imagine spending years designing, creating and selling your product and then being ORDERED by the government to include a someone else's product which will reduce your competitive advantage. And even though this particular decision was the right one, I personally feel that the prior remedies imposed on Microsoft as a result of the anti-trust settlement is pure crap that was not entirely unrelated to the massive new campaign contributions made by Microsoft ever since the trials began.
And as a result of improved support for X Windows on Mac, better source-level compatibility or ports between Linux and Mac OS X, the number of popular applications available on Mac OS X will also increase as Linux becomes more popular.
To simplify things further, future package managers will probably support FreeBSD, Linux and Mac OS X. Perhaps they will be based on MetaPKG or something similar.
I think the ONLY remaining reason not to purchase a Mac this coming Christmas will be the lack of support for specific apps or games. Apple addressed the OS by ditching OS 9, now the CPU and more reasonably comparable price/performance. This leaves lack of support for specific apps or games to be the biggest remaining barrier. WILL SONY AND APPLE EVER SIGN A DEAL TO ENABLE MACS TO RUN PS2/PS3 GAMES?!?!?
I could be totally mistaken but I'm under the impression that porting Windows apps to Mac OS X is more difficult than porting Linux apps to Max OS X. So there you have it. More Linux desktops = more popularity of Linux apps = more "popular" apps available on Mac OS X. Just a guess. Nothing more.
If we really had a massive terrorist threat including cyber-terrorism, why the hell are they adding this to the FBI's plate?
Did they already fix the problems within the FBI and among different agencies that led to the tragic failure to prevent 9/11 despite having all the info they needed?
Shouldn't the FBI investigate Enron, etc. and the role they played in influencing our government's energy policy with VP Dick Cheney in a manner that might've been illegal? Or investigate VP Dick Cheney's alleged fraudulent accounting practices while he was director of Halliburton? Given the HUGE relevance to this story after millions of us lost a big chunk of our pensions, why didn't we hear about this as much as even 1/1000th of Monica's story?
Oh, I forgot, we the public aren't supposed to care about things that actually impact us like (inflated gas prices or losing hard-earned pension funds)--we should only care about sex scandals of politicians because we're illiterate morons that believe corrupt politicians when they tell us they believe in the same God or religion as us since we don't have the ability to detect bullshit.
I suppose making govt larger and more intrusive is seen as a better strategy than fixing the specific problems that led to the failure to prevent it.
I lost someone who was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and I'm very dissappointed at how they've handled it BEFORE and AFTER that tragedy.
We're the most technologically advanced nation on Earth...we can do better than this.
I use the bookmark keywords feature of Mozilla Firebird more often than I manually type in a URL. I've setup about 7 of these to do lookups in Amazon, Dictionary, FedEx Tracking, Google, Thesaurus and more.
For example, when I type "g linux", I get a Google search result of the word "linux" using my language & results per page preferences.
And when I type "d word", I get a www.dictionary.com definition of "word".
It is an awesome feature that changed the way I used my browser in a fundamental way because it only takes 10 seconds to set one up and it works with most pages that receive parameters. I used single letters like "g" and "d" but it can be whole words like "google" or "dictionary".
As a result of this feature, I think of typing in keywords rather than URLs now. And that is a huge shift in how I use the browser.
Take one of the current big ones, tabbed browsing. Sure, it's nifty - but what does it ultimately add to the experience of viewing a given web page? The HTML is still rendered the same way, and that's the core function of any browser.
Another core function of any browser is the BACK & FORWARD navigation of the web. One thing tabbed browsing gives us is the ability to have multiple BACK & FORWARD histories--something I'd rather not give up after being using it. And having multiple windows open clogs up the task bar and consumes more resources.
Great response!
I believe what is most lacking is consistency and publicity. Whether Linux draws from Max OSX or Windows or a combo, Linux UI should be much more consistent and that push should be publicized.
But without Microsoft's budget, it will be more difficult for projects like KDE & Gnome to publish a GUI guideline book that we can pickup at Barns & Noble or Borders. When Microsoft published theirs, I remember companies buying it and using it as their bible to enforce UI consistency across their products.
I rediscovered this guide today after many years and had a good laugh when I ran into a few of the propaganda techniques after lunch.
After 15-30 minutes reading this guide, you'll be amused if you practice it on:
1. Fox News Channel (easy place to start for beginners--you can sometimes detect 5 different techniques within a few minutes)
2. Slashdot Posts (if you're into picking apart someone's flawed argument, you'll become a pro)
3. CNN Crossfire (watch 2 pros battle each other using these techniques)
IMHO, they should teach this (bullshit detection) in high school and assign homework to find specific examples of common propaganda techniques in advertising, news media, etc. Can you detect which one(s), if any, I'm using in this post?
Index of 10 common techniques
Word games
....Name-calling
....Glittering generalities
....Euphemisms
False connections
....Transfer
....Testimonial
Special Appeals
....Plain Folks
....Bandwagon
....Fear
Logical fallacies
....Bad Logic or propaganda?
....Unwarranted extrapolation
Source: http://www.propagandacritic.com/
There are pros & cons to this.
The drawbacks to having fragmented marketshare (like KDE & GNOME) is sometimes--but not always--outweighed by the improvements caused by having strong competition.
Look at the drastic improvements MS IE received while Netscape was still a strong contender. Then look at the improvements after IE got 90%+ marketshare. Some would argue that there isn't much to add to a browser but a look at the innovations in Opera, Mozilla Firebird and Safari.
Rather than consolidation, I'd rather see competing products like KDE & Gnome come up with common standards. For example, KDE & Gnome could come up with very specific & consistent user interface standards and adhere to them in their products.
Microsoft did a great job (compared to Linux) in not only coming up with Windows UI standards but in preaching it: the vast majority of Windows apps writting by diverse vendors has a FILE, EDIT, HELP, etc. menu and they are rather consistent in their content too. CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT.
I'd like to see Linux be different where it counts: like stabiliy, security, open standards, Unix-like shell & filesystem, etc. But I don't see the point of being different for its own sake (like throwing out MS Windows GUI/UI guidelines so that 95% of pc users will find it less desirable to switch to Linux).
My apologies if such a GUI/UI standard exists--I simply don't see it being promoted or used in X apps I've tried--and it was just an example.