You are partially correct in the government funding pure science, such as astrophysics, mathematics, etc. However, medical research is not really pure science. Yes, there is government funding, but most research grants come from industry. Why? Because, the grantor who pays for the research has claims to the patents. Let's say there is some great breakthrough in stem cells that can save millions of lives. What happens when the company wants to charge exhorbantant prices for the cure and it is found out that tax payer dollars paid for the research? Most government funded medical research has strings attached. The universities like it because it a) pays for staff and overhead and b) it attracts private research dollars. However, to turn that research into an actual cure takes business involvement and venture capital (if you are a small firm) or big bankroll if you are somebody like Merck. The government still subsidizes the process but through tax incentives, not grants.
That is why the universities are the ones who are complaining about the ban on federal funding of fetal stem cell research. There is nothing, however, to stop the Christopher Reeves Foundation, or the Bill Gates or anybody else to fund it, just not the federal government. The problem is that it is too speculative.
Proponents will say it is too speculative because we don't put enough research money into it. However, that is a bogus argument. The rest of the world does not share in the U.S. ban, and pours billions into it and still the science isn't there. All of the promise is with adult stem cells. Even the use of fetal stem cells is to get the undifferentiated cells to become differentiated, which by definition would be adult stem cells. The purpose of using fetal cells is the misconception that they would be easier to obtain (and for research they would but not for actual use).
What researchers need is a pure consistent strain of cells. Therefore if they can harvest the fetus for its stem cells and get them to multiply and differentiate into the cells they need, then they have a virtually unlimited supply of cells to test with. However, before they could turn anything into a cure, they have to deal with rejection and a slew of other problems. For this, the easiest thing is to use adult cells from the actual patient.
That is the beuaty of the Canadian procedure (if it works on humans). The could extract your bone marrow and use it to repair your heart. Since it is your cells produced by your body, there is no problem with typing and rejection that any other source would have.
To get this to work with fetal cells, they would first have to get the fetal cells to differentiate into stem cells that could repair the heart. That would prove the heart could be repaired (although Canada already proved that). Then they would have to figure out what stem cell they produced and whether they could harvest it from the patient. If so, great, if not, they'd have to try another type. Canada skipped all of the what if and went right to the likely candidate bone marrow.
It's this simplified research approach that has the VC drooling. Not only have there been over 100 "cures" and treatments already produced from adult stem cells, they are cheaper on the research side and cheaper on the treatment side (because of the rejection issues). For the VC, it's a win-win which fetal stem cells can't compete against.
As for the private sector's investment potential, one only needs to look at the profits of the pharmaceutical industry to see how lucrative it really is. If you have $100M to give as a grant to something that has a 30% chance of success (adult stem cell) or 3% (fetal stem cell) what would you invest in? The fact that they choose the adult stem cell research is why there is such a cry for federal funding. But shouldn't the government be putting it's (our) money where it has the greatest bang for the buck, too?
In the end, the debate is not about anything but money, big, big money. It's o
Of course, since this research used adult stem cells, it would be totally legit in the United States. So, the real question is how many lives or cures are lost chasing the holy grail of fetal stem cell cures when to date all of the research, world-wide, points to adult stem cells holding the best promise.
The debate in the U.S. isn't even about fetal vs adult stem cells. It's about who pays for it. The U.S. government hasn't banned fetal stem cell research. It just won't pay for it. If the promise is so good, where are the venture capitalists? They aren't to be found, which is why the fetal stem cell researchers want government funding. The reason the venture capitalists aren't to be found is because they are pouring money into adult stem cell research, not for moral reasons, but because the science shows it has the highest chance of success and therefore the lowest financial risk.
This Canadian finding is just one more confirmation of what the business people already know. The real question is why doesn't the main stream media in the U.S. run with this story?
I agree with much of your post. However, your reasoning is flawed in that it is based on fossil fuels to produce electricity being a) cheap and b) unlimmitted. Neither of these are the case. There is only a finite amount of oil and coal reserves. Whether it is exhausted in 50 years, or 100 years or 200 years isn't the issue. The reserves will be exhausted and as they are depleted, they will no longer be a source of cheap electricity.
So, even if today we find out that CO2 emmission have zero effect on global warming, we are still faced with having to find a replacement for fossil fuels over then next few decades (so that they can truly be reserved for those things that need them most).
One way or the other, people, mainly the western world, are going to need to change their habits. Whether the change is brought about by diminishing fossil fuels or by reductions in CO2 emmissions, withing 50 years, we are not going to be able to sustaing burning oil and coal like we have been.
As for CO2 at.006% ruining the planet defying logic, well sulfer at lower concetrations than that sure seemed to have a major impact as acid rain. It's just that people don't remember it anymore, because we reduced the sulfer emmisions. HCF was found to cause problems, too and that was at low concentrations.
Here is what it really boils down to. There are two things that drive innovation - war and environmental issues. The earth is warming up, that is not disputed. Regardless of the cause, we are going to have to change the way we do things. At the same time this warming up is occurring, we are running out of relatively cheap energy sources. Again, we are going to have to change the way we do things. Both of these are environmental issues (although war may come into play over oil). Both have reach the level of social awareness that hopefully will drive the push to new technologies to provide solutions. Many of those technologies already exist, they're just not economically feasible with the current low price of fossil fuels. Many are waiting in the wings to be developed.
One way or another, though, all the scientists, whether they buy into CO2 causing global warming or not, will tell you that we cannot sustain our current rate of consumption.
Which brings it back to the original thought that it really doesn't matter. Whether or not CO2 emmissions from fossil fuels are causing global warming or not, the changeover from burning fossil fuels is comming. There is only a limited supply. We can plan for that change, to minimize the impact of it on the most vulnerable in society, but the change will come and nothing will stop it. It really is just a question of how pro-active we want to be with regards to the change.
Lines of code as a metric might be the only metric available if your codebase is so bad that you have to resort to a rewrite everytime there is an update.
If we ignore all other hypothesis and we turn out to be wrong with the whole CO2 thing, then we're going to spend some incomprehensible number of dollars reducing our CO2 output over the next 100 years for no gain. If these alternate theories turn out to be right, then that money would be better spent either helping us adapt to a phenomenon we have no control over, or hiring more pirates.
It doesn't matter. If the mainstream scientist are wrong and global warming isn't caused by CO2 emmissions, then we've spent a lot of money now on alternative energy sources -- something we are going to have to do eventually anyway. If, they are correct, however, then the money spent on reducing C02 emmissions is rightly spent. Either way, it seems to be money well spent.
If we all quit using native languages....
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The End of Native Code?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
If we all quit using native languages, then what are we going to use to a) write embed code, b) write drivers, c) write operating systems and d) write the interpreted languages that we use to replace our native ones?
Things will change when the telecoms and ISPs start limitting traffic to politicians and political parties that don't vote along the lines they want. Of course, by then nobody will be able to find out about it because that net traffic will be eliminated, too.
If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content?
Somehow, the local PBS station seems to provide content without a lot of commercials. Granted, it's not the same type of content that is on the major networks but then their budget is a lot smaller.
Besides, if the worry is about the advertisers being upset and not wanting to pay for the ads, exactly how much ad revenue do they pay for on those DVDs of prior seasons? Doesn't that take the ad revenue away from the local stations because of the lost revenue stream on reruns?
Seems the major networks want it both ways. They want to keep me from removing content but want to remove content from downstream providers.
Anyway, it seems it should be Pepsi who is upset. 24 doesn't and Fox don't own the content of the commercial, Pepsi does. And if Pepsi is upset, how is my fast forwarding or commercial editing any different than my getting up and leaving the room while the commercial plays?
American Idol came up with a novel idea. Have commercials that people wanted to see. The final commercial just before the show would return would be a Ford commercial with the contestants on it. People tuned in to it because it was tied into the show. Maybe if the networks and vendors treated the commercials as something of value to the viewer then people wouldn't want to skip past them.
Eventually it will change. Henry Ford used to say "You can have a Ford in any color you want, as long as it is black." And all Fords were black. Well, today, you can still get a Ford in black, but most people don't.
Maybe it's in retaliation for the US Goverment saying Lenova was a security threat because it is made in China. Maybe they think if they put a "secure" operating system on their computers the US will believe they really are secure.
Of course the problem is, assuming there wasn't a security problem before, there will be now.
You would be surprised then. But Windows does ship.Net. As for Os X. I went back and checked, and you are correct, it ships with Java, but it is old, which is understandable since is was current when the CDs were pressed. So, while it is correct that it ships with java and flash, you still have to install current versions.
MP3s are patented and licensed. The fact that the legal rights aren't normally enforced doesn't mean they couldn't be enforced (and have been in the past). That is the same reason that there are not any "free" (as in beer or anything else) dvd players in linux. As for Java and Flash, you are correct that they are free to distribute, even though they are not free software.
I do believe that with Sun's change to the Java license that it is supposed to be included in the next version of Ubuntu. The change came too late for the 6.06 release.
As for Flash and Java on Windows XP and OS X, I thought that you had to install them manually, too. They aren't included with the OS (unless the hardware vendor pre-installs them).
The issue is about mp3s and other codecs covered by copyrights and/or patents. Mepis ships them, but they are a reletively small company. If somebody sues Mepis for copyright or patent infringment, what will they get? Not, much, it is a one man show. If somebody sues Canoncial and/or Mark Shuttleworth, on the otherhand, well there is a whole lot more money to be made and therefore they are a much more likely target.
So harvesting aborted foetuses would be one way to provide stem cells for research. This is controversial for obvious reasons.
Why stop there? Why not kill off people for organ transplants, too? Of course, you couldn't be too blatant about it. Instead, the government can create a big DNA cross-referenced database. A senator needs a new heart? Find a match in the database and that person has an unfortunate accident the next day. An oil tycoon needs a liver? Well, you get the picture.
Of course, it would be controversial, too. But hey, it's all for the common good, right?
Re:This would be really helpful for someone I know
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Stem Cells in the Heart?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
You assume theologans know and understand the difference. Some do, but a hell of a lot don't. They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off. Its really an amazing brain washing system they have.
If they are "real" theologians, then its the preacher who would be listening to them, not the other way around. And yes, a "real" theologian would understand the difference.
I know you may feel like you are the one subsidizing others by what you are paying, but if you look at the financial reports of the cell phone companies, you will see that it is the other way around.
Those add a phone for $10 share somebody else's minutes, right? They don't get extra minutes. So effectively what has happened is the phone company just made an extra $10 for not having to increase the amount of minutes in use.
If you are paying as much as you are and you aren't getting fixed rates with free nights and free long distance, it's not because you are subsidizing anybody, it's because you are getting ripped off. Every major carrier offers these and obviously if you aren't getting them, your carrier is offering something that makes it worth paying that amount even without them.
Again, get the real data from the phone companies and you will see who is subsidizing who. It's the small low volume account that helps provide the service for you, not the otherway around. The numbers don't lie.
The reason that voice costs more is the same reason long distance used to cost more on a phone. It's something people highly demanded, thus they can charge more for the service. Unlike data which right now isn't necessarily something people need, so you have to charge less to offer that service. No one is losing in this equation.
But voice doesn't cost more. There are many regional cell phone companies offering 500-1000 minutes per month with free evenings and free phone to phone for $29-$49 per month depending on the carrier. If they can do it, why can't the big companies?
What the regional companies don't offer is free long distance, or internet or all of the other bells and whistles to attract the youth market.
One of the major carriers is offering high speed internet through their cell network cheaper than their land network. Assuming the ISP cost is the same, how can they actually do that?
Everyone says voice is a high bandwith application, however, voice compresses quite well. There are a lot of gaps and spaces in it (unlike music and video).
The subsidy is built into the base cost. Look at the lowest plan cost of your carrier. Then as the minutes increase, notice how the cost does not increase proportionately. If a 500 minute plan costs $39/month, a non-subsidized 1000 minute plan should cost $78/month however it doesn't. That is because there is built in overhead (subsidy) in the basic per minute charge (even in the higher minute plans) to cover all the other things (besides operational overhead) the company is charging for.
The text messaging you reference is a low bandwidth application, and the companies make a killing off of it. However, the live video feeds and tv programs that they are touting are not low bandwidth applications and will take significantly more towers.
Who is going to pay for all of those towers? Everyone with a cell phone, whether they use the new features or not. Therefore, your high-end features will be further subsidized by the low end users who will be paying for the increased infrastructure disproportionate to their needs.
Most of today's hits are just new faces on existing game engines. They are only hits because companies spend a lot of money on marketing to convince people that the new game is really something better.
Sure, they may licence new comic book charecters. Or, for sports games, have the latest players names and stats. But, if the game play still is lousy, then ultimately the game is, too. Improving game play costs a lot of money. It's a lot cheaper to try and convince consumers that the product is better than to actually make it better.
This is no different than movie producers. Indie producers simply do not have the resources to market the film or pay high salaries for name recognition. Very often, their product, as an art form, is significantly better than what comes out of Hollywood, but without the marketing machine, it can't reach the critical mass need for public awareness.
Game producers are in the same boat. Just like indie film producers, all of the indie game producers resources go directly into improving the product and not the frills. So, indie game producers can and do produce games that are as good or better than what comes out of the commercial game houses, however, without the ability to market them, they can't reach critical mass, either.
So here's the deal. Why can't you have your simple phone AND I have my complex phone?
If the cost of providing all of those features and bandwith for your complex phone needs to be subsidized by all the simple phone users, then how is that just? Maybe there would be enough bandwidth and fewer dropped calls if people weren't sending photos and playing music and surfing the web and phones were simply being used as phones.
The real reason, which the article and other posts haven't hit on for the dissatisfaction is this. Early adopters of cell phones, were business users who had a business need. Then came the technology users followed by the gadget people. Now, the remaining 60% of the market is everyday people, like your parents and grandparents who aren't into text messaging, surfing the web, downloading whatever and all of the "new" features being crammed into today's cell phones (or if they do these things, they don't do them on cell phones). What does this segment of the market want? Reliable, inexpensive no-frills cell phone service -- just like they had with their land-lines.
So, sure, we can have it both ways. Provide the no-frills options to those who want it with phones at $29.99 and 1000 minutes of calls for $29.99/month but if you want high speed internet, that's another $59.99/month. Want to watch cable on your phone, sure $39.99/month (HBO would be an extra $10/month) camera-phones, well the cost of your phone just went up another $30, etc, etc.
The problem is, the current pricing model spreads the infrastructure cost over everyone the same, simple user to complex user, so in effect, the simple user subsidizes the complex user.
Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed that this story hit just after Dell announced less than expected profits and their stock tumbled? If Lenovo is out, maybe more people will buy a good old Amercian laptop (even if it, too, is made in China).
Maybe Lenovo can license back IBM's initials. It seems that when IBM had their laptops manufactured in Japan by Lenovo it wasn't a security problem, but remove the magical three letter logo and now it is?
Maybe all Lenovo and IBM laptops should be disallowed. Of course, that would hurt an American business and the US government wouldn't want to do that. It's much easier to pick on the foreign ones.
However, is the purpose of a full blown word processor, like Word 2007 to "publish" blogs to the internet? That seems to be duplicating functionality. It would have made more sense for Word 2007 to save in an open document format and have IE able to publish the blog to the internet. Of course, that capability could still have been called while in Word (such as sending an email, etc.).
I'm assuming that Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 will contain the patch so businesses can turn off the blogging feature so their employees can use Word for word processing instead of blogging on company time. One has to really wonder why Microsoft would build this feature into a word processor. Maybe this quote from the article sums it all up:
"Microsoft's need to convince people to move to Office 2007 and its completely redesigned user interface, combined with the current ludicrous popularity of blogs, undoubtedly convinced the company that such a feature was worth spending development and testing time on."
Seems that they are expecting business users to think twice about upgrading to a completely new user interface and all of the retraining that will be required, so they are looking toward the home and student market.
You miss the point. The state agency in the original post is limited to versions that run on Windows 98 (and we would assume Windows 98 vintage hardware, too). Yet, groups applying for the grants to be issued are not limited those versions and most likely, many of them will be running Office 2003. So, unless the state is mandating people save the grant applications in the older formats, which the original poster did not indicate, they are already creating compatability problems for themself.
Or maybe, they just deny any grant requests that they can't open. Hopefully, they would but that in the proposal requirements, but you never know.
Slashdot Mirror
You are partially correct in the government funding pure science, such as astrophysics, mathematics, etc. However, medical research is not really pure science. Yes, there is government funding, but most research grants come from industry. Why? Because, the grantor who pays for the research has claims to the patents. Let's say there is some great breakthrough in stem cells that can save millions of lives. What happens when the company wants to charge exhorbantant prices for the cure and it is found out that tax payer dollars paid for the research? Most government funded medical research has strings attached. The universities like it because it a) pays for staff and overhead and b) it attracts private research dollars. However, to turn that research into an actual cure takes business involvement and venture capital (if you are a small firm) or big bankroll if you are somebody like Merck. The government still subsidizes the process but through tax incentives, not grants.
That is why the universities are the ones who are complaining about the ban on federal funding of fetal stem cell research. There is nothing, however, to stop the Christopher Reeves Foundation, or the Bill Gates or anybody else to fund it, just not the federal government. The problem is that it is too speculative.
Proponents will say it is too speculative because we don't put enough research money into it. However, that is a bogus argument. The rest of the world does not share in the U.S. ban, and pours billions into it and still the science isn't there. All of the promise is with adult stem cells. Even the use of fetal stem cells is to get the undifferentiated cells to become differentiated, which by definition would be adult stem cells. The purpose of using fetal cells is the misconception that they would be easier to obtain (and for research they would but not for actual use).
What researchers need is a pure consistent strain of cells. Therefore if they can harvest the fetus for its stem cells and get them to multiply and differentiate into the cells they need, then they have a virtually unlimited supply of cells to test with. However, before they could turn anything into a cure, they have to deal with rejection and a slew of other problems. For this, the easiest thing is to use adult cells from the actual patient.
That is the beuaty of the Canadian procedure (if it works on humans). The could extract your bone marrow and use it to repair your heart. Since it is your cells produced by your body, there is no problem with typing and rejection that any other source would have.
To get this to work with fetal cells, they would first have to get the fetal cells to differentiate into stem cells that could repair the heart. That would prove the heart could be repaired (although Canada already proved that). Then they would have to figure out what stem cell they produced and whether they could harvest it from the patient. If so, great, if not, they'd have to try another type. Canada skipped all of the what if and went right to the likely candidate bone marrow.
It's this simplified research approach that has the VC drooling. Not only have there been over 100 "cures" and treatments already produced from adult stem cells, they are cheaper on the research side and cheaper on the treatment side (because of the rejection issues). For the VC, it's a win-win which fetal stem cells can't compete against.
As for the private sector's investment potential, one only needs to look at the profits of the pharmaceutical industry to see how lucrative it really is. If you have $100M to give as a grant to something that has a 30% chance of success (adult stem cell) or 3% (fetal stem cell) what would you invest in? The fact that they choose the adult stem cell research is why there is such a cry for federal funding. But shouldn't the government be putting it's (our) money where it has the greatest bang for the buck, too?
In the end, the debate is not about anything but money, big, big money. It's o
Of course, since this research used adult stem cells, it would be totally legit in the United States. So, the real question is how many lives or cures are lost chasing the holy grail of fetal stem cell cures when to date all of the research, world-wide, points to adult stem cells holding the best promise.
The debate in the U.S. isn't even about fetal vs adult stem cells. It's about who pays for it. The U.S. government hasn't banned fetal stem cell research. It just won't pay for it. If the promise is so good, where are the venture capitalists? They aren't to be found, which is why the fetal stem cell researchers want government funding. The reason the venture capitalists aren't to be found is because they are pouring money into adult stem cell research, not for moral reasons, but because the science shows it has the highest chance of success and therefore the lowest financial risk.
This Canadian finding is just one more confirmation of what the business people already know. The real question is why doesn't the main stream media in the U.S. run with this story?
I agree with much of your post. However, your reasoning is flawed in that it is based on fossil fuels to produce electricity being a) cheap and b) unlimmitted. Neither of these are the case. There is only a finite amount of oil and coal reserves. Whether it is exhausted in 50 years, or 100 years or 200 years isn't the issue. The reserves will be exhausted and as they are depleted, they will no longer be a source of cheap electricity.
.006% ruining the planet defying logic, well sulfer at lower concetrations than that sure seemed to have a major impact as acid rain. It's just that people don't remember it anymore, because we reduced the sulfer emmisions. HCF was found to cause problems, too and that was at low concentrations.
So, even if today we find out that CO2 emmission have zero effect on global warming, we are still faced with having to find a replacement for fossil fuels over then next few decades (so that they can truly be reserved for those things that need them most).
One way or the other, people, mainly the western world, are going to need to change their habits. Whether the change is brought about by diminishing fossil fuels or by reductions in CO2 emmissions, withing 50 years, we are not going to be able to sustaing burning oil and coal like we have been.
As for CO2 at
Here is what it really boils down to. There are two things that drive innovation - war and environmental issues. The earth is warming up, that is not disputed. Regardless of the cause, we are going to have to change the way we do things. At the same time this warming up is occurring, we are running out of relatively cheap energy sources. Again, we are going to have to change the way we do things. Both of these are environmental issues (although war may come into play over oil). Both have reach the level of social awareness that hopefully will drive the push to new technologies to provide solutions. Many of those technologies already exist, they're just not economically feasible with the current low price of fossil fuels. Many are waiting in the wings to be developed.
One way or another, though, all the scientists, whether they buy into CO2 causing global warming or not, will tell you that we cannot sustain our current rate of consumption.
Which brings it back to the original thought that it really doesn't matter. Whether or not CO2 emmissions from fossil fuels are causing global warming or not, the changeover from burning fossil fuels is comming. There is only a limited supply. We can plan for that change, to minimize the impact of it on the most vulnerable in society, but the change will come and nothing will stop it. It really is just a question of how pro-active we want to be with regards to the change.
Lines of code as a metric might be the only metric available if your codebase is so bad that you have to resort to a rewrite everytime there is an update.
If we ignore all other hypothesis and we turn out to be wrong with the whole CO2 thing, then we're going to spend some incomprehensible number of dollars reducing our CO2 output over the next 100 years for no gain. If these alternate theories turn out to be right, then that money would be better spent either helping us adapt to a phenomenon we have no control over, or hiring more pirates.
It doesn't matter. If the mainstream scientist are wrong and global warming isn't caused by CO2 emmissions, then we've spent a lot of money now on alternative energy sources -- something we are going to have to do eventually anyway. If, they are correct, however, then the money spent on reducing C02 emmissions is rightly spent. Either way, it seems to be money well spent.
If we all quit using native languages, then what are we going to use to a) write embed code, b) write drivers, c) write operating systems and d) write the interpreted languages that we use to replace our native ones?
Things will change when the telecoms and ISPs start limitting traffic to politicians and political parties that don't vote along the lines they want. Of course, by then nobody will be able to find out about it because that net traffic will be eliminated, too.
If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content?
Somehow, the local PBS station seems to provide content without a lot of commercials. Granted, it's not the same type of content that is on the major networks but then their budget is a lot smaller.
Besides, if the worry is about the advertisers being upset and not wanting to pay for the ads, exactly how much ad revenue do they pay for on those DVDs of prior seasons? Doesn't that take the ad revenue away from the local stations because of the lost revenue stream on reruns?
Seems the major networks want it both ways. They want to keep me from removing content but want to remove content from downstream providers.
Anyway, it seems it should be Pepsi who is upset. 24 doesn't and Fox don't own the content of the commercial, Pepsi does. And if Pepsi is upset, how is my fast forwarding or commercial editing any different than my getting up and leaving the room while the commercial plays?
American Idol came up with a novel idea. Have commercials that people wanted to see. The final commercial just before the show would return would be a Ford commercial with the contestants on it. People tuned in to it because it was tied into the show. Maybe if the networks and vendors treated the commercials as something of value to the viewer then people wouldn't want to skip past them.
Eventually it will change. Henry Ford used to say "You can have a Ford in any color you want, as long as it is black." And all Fords were black. Well, today, you can still get a Ford in black, but most people don't.
I guess that would make Microsoft Windows the communist operating system and not Linux.
Maybe it's in retaliation for the US Goverment saying Lenova was a security threat because it is made in China. Maybe they think if they put a "secure" operating system on their computers the US will believe they really are secure.
Of course the problem is, assuming there wasn't a security problem before, there will be now.
You would be surprised then. But Windows does ship .Net. As for Os X. I went back and checked, and you are correct, it ships with Java, but it is old, which is understandable since is was current when the CDs were pressed. So, while it is correct that it ships with java and flash, you still have to install current versions.
MP3s are patented and licensed. The fact that the legal rights aren't normally enforced doesn't mean they couldn't be enforced (and have been in the past). That is the same reason that there are not any "free" (as in beer or anything else) dvd players in linux. As for Java and Flash, you are correct that they are free to distribute, even though they are not free software.
I do believe that with Sun's change to the Java license that it is supposed to be included in the next version of Ubuntu. The change came too late for the 6.06 release.
As for Flash and Java on Windows XP and OS X, I thought that you had to install them manually, too. They aren't included with the OS (unless the hardware vendor pre-installs them).
The issue is about mp3s and other codecs covered by copyrights and/or patents. Mepis ships them, but they are a reletively small company. If somebody sues Mepis for copyright or patent infringment, what will they get? Not, much, it is a one man show. If somebody sues Canoncial and/or Mark Shuttleworth, on the otherhand, well there is a whole lot more money to be made and therefore they are a much more likely target.
Dropping it onto the floor from a height of five feet wouldn't have been too much work.
So harvesting aborted foetuses would be one way to provide stem cells for research. This is controversial for obvious reasons.
Why stop there? Why not kill off people for organ transplants, too? Of course, you couldn't be too blatant about it. Instead, the government can create a big DNA cross-referenced database. A senator needs a new heart? Find a match in the database and that person has an unfortunate accident the next day. An oil tycoon needs a liver? Well, you get the picture.
Of course, it would be controversial, too. But hey, it's all for the common good, right?
You assume theologans know and understand the difference. Some do, but a hell of a lot don't. They just hear the word stem cells, remember that their preacher said they were bad, and immediately go off. Its really an amazing brain washing system they have.
If they are "real" theologians, then its the preacher who would be listening to them, not the other way around. And yes, a "real" theologian would understand the difference.
I know you may feel like you are the one subsidizing others by what you are paying, but if you look at the financial reports of the cell phone companies, you will see that it is the other way around.
Those add a phone for $10 share somebody else's minutes, right? They don't get extra minutes. So effectively what has happened is the phone company just made an extra $10 for not having to increase the amount of minutes in use.
If you are paying as much as you are and you aren't getting fixed rates with free nights and free long distance, it's not because you are subsidizing anybody, it's because you are getting ripped off. Every major carrier offers these and obviously if you aren't getting them, your carrier is offering something that makes it worth paying that amount even without them.
Again, get the real data from the phone companies and you will see who is subsidizing who. It's the small low volume account that helps provide the service for you, not the otherway around. The numbers don't lie.
The reason that voice costs more is the same reason long distance used to cost more on a phone. It's something people highly demanded, thus they can charge more for the service. Unlike data which right now isn't necessarily something people need, so you have to charge less to offer that service. No one is losing in this equation.
But voice doesn't cost more. There are many regional cell phone companies offering 500-1000 minutes per month with free evenings and free phone to phone for $29-$49 per month depending on the carrier. If they can do it, why can't the big companies?
What the regional companies don't offer is free long distance, or internet or all of the other bells and whistles to attract the youth market.
One of the major carriers is offering high speed internet through their cell network cheaper than their land network. Assuming the ISP cost is the same, how can they actually do that?
Everyone says voice is a high bandwith application, however, voice compresses quite well. There are a lot of gaps and spaces in it (unlike music and video).
The subsidy is built into the base cost. Look at the lowest plan cost of your carrier. Then as the minutes increase, notice how the cost does not increase proportionately. If a 500 minute plan costs $39/month, a non-subsidized 1000 minute plan should cost $78/month however it doesn't. That is because there is built in overhead (subsidy) in the basic per minute charge (even in the higher minute plans) to cover all the other things (besides operational overhead) the company is charging for.
The text messaging you reference is a low bandwidth application, and the companies make a killing off of it. However, the live video feeds and tv programs that they are touting are not low bandwidth applications and will take significantly more towers.
Who is going to pay for all of those towers? Everyone with a cell phone, whether they use the new features or not. Therefore, your high-end features will be further subsidized by the low end users who will be paying for the increased infrastructure disproportionate to their needs.
Most of today's hits are just new faces on existing game engines. They are only hits because companies spend a lot of money on marketing to convince people that the new game is really something better.
Sure, they may licence new comic book charecters. Or, for sports games, have the latest players names and stats. But, if the game play still is lousy, then ultimately the game is, too. Improving game play costs a lot of money. It's a lot cheaper to try and convince consumers that the product is better than to actually make it better.
This is no different than movie producers. Indie producers simply do not have the resources to market the film or pay high salaries for name recognition. Very often, their product, as an art form, is significantly better than what comes out of Hollywood, but without the marketing machine, it can't reach the critical mass need for public awareness.
Game producers are in the same boat. Just like indie film producers, all of the indie game producers resources go directly into improving the product and not the frills. So, indie game producers can and do produce games that are as good or better than what comes out of the commercial game houses, however, without the ability to market them, they can't reach critical mass, either.
So here's the deal. Why can't you have your simple phone AND I have my complex phone?
If the cost of providing all of those features and bandwith for your complex phone needs to be subsidized by all the simple phone users, then how is that just? Maybe there would be enough bandwidth and fewer dropped calls if people weren't sending photos and playing music and surfing the web and phones were simply being used as phones.
The real reason, which the article and other posts haven't hit on for the dissatisfaction is this. Early adopters of cell phones, were business users who had a business need. Then came the technology users followed by the gadget people. Now, the remaining 60% of the market is everyday people, like your parents and grandparents who aren't into text messaging, surfing the web, downloading whatever and all of the "new" features being crammed into today's cell phones (or if they do these things, they don't do them on cell phones). What does this segment of the market want? Reliable, inexpensive no-frills cell phone service -- just like they had with their land-lines.
So, sure, we can have it both ways. Provide the no-frills options to those who want it with phones at $29.99 and 1000 minutes of calls for $29.99/month but if you want high speed internet, that's another $59.99/month. Want to watch cable on your phone, sure $39.99/month (HBO would be an extra $10/month) camera-phones, well the cost of your phone just went up another $30, etc, etc.
The problem is, the current pricing model spreads the infrastructure cost over everyone the same, simple user to complex user, so in effect, the simple user subsidizes the complex user.
Is it just me, or has anybody else noticed that this story hit just after Dell announced less than expected profits and their stock tumbled? If Lenovo is out, maybe more people will buy a good old Amercian laptop (even if it, too, is made in China).
Maybe Lenovo can license back IBM's initials. It seems that when IBM had their laptops manufactured in Japan by Lenovo it wasn't a security problem, but remove the magical three letter logo and now it is?
Maybe all Lenovo and IBM laptops should be disallowed. Of course, that would hurt an American business and the US government wouldn't want to do that. It's much easier to pick on the foreign ones.
However, is the purpose of a full blown word processor, like Word 2007 to "publish" blogs to the internet? That seems to be duplicating functionality. It would have made more sense for Word 2007 to save in an open document format and have IE able to publish the blog to the internet. Of course, that capability could still have been called while in Word (such as sending an email, etc.).
I'm assuming that Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 will contain the patch so businesses can turn off the blogging feature so their employees can use Word for word processing instead of blogging on company time. One has to really wonder why Microsoft would build this feature into a word processor. Maybe this quote from the article sums it all up:
"Microsoft's need to convince people to move to Office 2007 and its completely redesigned user interface, combined with the current ludicrous popularity of blogs, undoubtedly convinced the company that such a feature was worth spending development and testing time on."
Seems that they are expecting business users to think twice about upgrading to a completely new user interface and all of the retraining that will be required, so they are looking toward the home and student market.
You miss the point. The state agency in the original post is limited to versions that run on Windows 98 (and we would assume Windows 98 vintage hardware, too). Yet, groups applying for the grants to be issued are not limited those versions and most likely, many of them will be running Office 2003. So, unless the state is mandating people save the grant applications in the older formats, which the original poster did not indicate, they are already creating compatability problems for themself.
Or maybe, they just deny any grant requests that they can't open. Hopefully, they would but that in the proposal requirements, but you never know.