PDF files are the most common way to communicate with clients. You cannot modify* it so it stays as published. It is not common for anyone, whther Microsoft or not, to publish something as a DOC. For example, nearly all brochures are PDF, even if they were created in MS Word.
(* Obviously one can modify any file if it doesn't use some encryption technique, but I'm talking about a regular user modifying it, without reverting to hacking or something)
I'm not the original poster but he/she was right. You DO have two statements:
Statement A = "Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Dirac, Faraday, Planck, Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein believed in God."
Statement B = "So do I."
You basically have, A therefore B.
On a different note, I don't think weak-minded believe in God. If anything, regious fundamentalists are one of the strongest people around (they cannot be easily tempted by desires such as wealth, lust/sex, fame, vanity, etc).
Rather, it's the irrational that believe in God. If you support the line of thinking we call science, it is hypocritical of you to follow a religion*.
(* I suppose one can follow God since such a "concept" is outside the realm of science. However, that person cannot follow religion since it is based on scriptures and oral traditions, and hence conflicts.)
Yeah... the virus would be the same thing as an application (it's a software program after all)...
Does any comp sci guys know if you can theoretically create a program (however trivial) that can run on arbitrarily differing operating systems?
I'm thinking it would have to be a low level program, possibly written in assembly or machine language (if that's even possible), and it has to circumvent the operating system calls... I don't know... Seems interesting...
Are there viruses that can run on multiple operating systems? I'm talking about ONE virus that can infect a Windows machine, then propagate onto a linux machine and infect that, and so on. I'm also not talking about Internet Explorer exploits, or user exploit/trojan horse (eg. user clicks on some attached file),etc. I'm talking about an old school virus that can detect what OS is running and then infect it.
DISCLAIMER: do not base your investment decisions on what I say. I don't know what I'm talking about:)
1. if you have to ask how to trade in gold, how do you know enough to make a informed investment decision.
There is a first time for everything. I have never invested anything gold-related so I'm asking how to do it. The first time one needs to ask others. I mean, the first time you invested in stocks, didn't you ask others or read up on it? Same thing here.
As far as the decision being INFORMED, well, it's just like any other decision. How do you make an informed decision on what stock to buy? Gold is pretty much the same thing. In fact, gold is less volatile* than investing in, say, Cisco or Microsoft.
2. buy a gold index tracker if you still think its a good idea (despite gold being near its 15-year high, you think it'll go higher), eg. Gold Bullion Securities (GBSA on the LSE)
I'm not really thinking of it NOW. I met one guy several years ago who invested in gold by buying the boullions and bars I mentioned. I have always wondered how you invest in gold but don't know how. I am DEFINITELY NOT planning to invest in gold right now. If anything, I don't have any money (I'm unemployed now:(:(:( ) If I DO decide to invest in gold, it'll be in the future (once I accumulate savings and I study the markets.)
3. buy stock in a gold miner, like Anglo american (AAL on the LSE), or Trans-Siberian gold (TSG on the LSE)
Thanks for the info but I was hoping someone in North America (preferably Canada) has some info. LSE is London Stock Exchange right? I'm in Canada and can't invest over there.
I am also looking at gold index that tracks the underlying price of gold, or even some security that actually tracks gold (but not futures.) Also, it has to be traded on major stock exchanges and must be liquid. Not sure if there is such a thing available so I'm asking others.
I do NOT want gold mining stocks or some index that tracks gold mining stocks. If you want to know why, here is why. From what little I have read (admittedly, mostly theory) gold mining stocks are not a good way to invest in gold (IF you are just looking for gold.) From what I read, the main reason is because the mining stocks are heavily leveraged relative to gold. For instance, if the price of gold moves up 1%, the mining stock may move up 10% (I just made up the numbers but you get the point). When it goes down, it's the same thing. In addition, gold mining stocks are probably impacted more by new gold discoveries of the company than the underlying price of gold. Also, other factors such as poor management, employee strikes, etc can impact gold mining stock significantly. In contrast, the underlying price of gold doesn't fluctuate like the gold mining stocks.
I'm basically looking to invest in gold (not mining stocks) without using futures or something like that. If anyone has info, it would be helpful.
Thanks!
* When I say gold is less volatile, I'm talking about actual gold and not gold mining stocks, which are very volatile and probably more volatile than tech stocks even. Read my last paragraph for more.
How would overwriting the first few sectors result in loss of all data? Wouldn't that just overwrite the boot sector only? Can't you still retrieve your data?
I have never purchased anything on e-bay but I have always wondered about reliability. For instance, I wonder about purchasing gold and silver on ebay (Examples here, here, and here.) How does anyone know these things are for real?
I know one guy I met online who was investing in gold by buying these bars but how do you even know they are what the ad says they are? Who would invest big money using these bars?
--OFF-TOPIC--
Does anyone here invest in gold (as investment)? If yes, what do you use? And have you invested in gold indices on stock markets? Do you know the symbols for them? Thanks...
I got sick and tired of the acution frauds so i started finding them and bidding them up to inifity.
This is dumb... it's too risky man...
My favorite gambit is to ask them some absurd question that makes no sense like is this the power book that had the DVI fibrulator? They will answer "yes". Ask them if they take paypal and they dont answer.
That's ingenious. Thanks for the tip. Scammers likely have no knowledge of the product they are selling so this should catch them. Good strategy (I would stop bidding up stuff to infinity though... that's risky)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:Expensive Electronics Cheap Scams, not taken do
on
eBay Fraud Vigilantes
·
· Score: 1
THis is even worse than a pyramid scheme. At least with a pyramid scheme some people make money, until the pyramid collapses of course. With this, no one makes any money (except the scammer). What's to stop the scammer from awarding the "prize" to his friend or even himself who happens to be at the top of the list?
I disagree with you (I'm an immigrant Canadian BTW.) I'm a leftist and don't subscribe the view of a nationalist (capitalist?) like Lou Dobbs. So even though I am against what is transpiring, I am nowhere near Lou Dobbs on the econopolitical spectrum. The reason against the present type of "free trade" can be summed up as follows.
First of all, I support trade. It is a way for all countries to prosper (check out 'absolute costs and comparative costs' to see why.) However, I am against what passes for "free trade". We can go into lengthy argument over this but I'll just describe where you are wrong.
Who Benefits?
What you fail to contemplate is the benefits--in particular, who is benefitting from this? Indian workers, for instance, do not benefit in the long term. What is to stop the jobs from being outsourced to another lower-cost country? In fact, it WILL happen. When that happens, India will lose jobs while another poorer country gets the jobs for a short while. Rinse and repeat. You cannot build an economy in such a manner. This is nothing more than capitalist voodoo magic (except the capitalists won't tell you that there is no such thing as real magic.)
If the outsourced workers don't benefit overall in the long-term, who does? Well, it is pretty simple. It is the capitalists. When I say capitalists I am talking about shareholders of corporations. The vast majority of the benefit accrues to the shareholders. It doesn't accrue to India or Indian workers, or American workers. This is blatantly obvious to anyone that follows these things. For instance, corporate profits go up almost in full proportion to the "free trade."
Why most leftists oppose
Another serious problem with "free trade" is that one of the major reasons corporations carry it out is to circumvent environmental regulations and working conditions. This isn't so much a problem in the tech sector but plays a big role in manufacturing, textiles, and others. In other words, there are many cases where corporations simply move to another part of the world just so that they can hire workers that they can fire at will, pay no benefits, etc.
What passes for "free trade" is coming at the expense of workers. Most leftists would not want to see all the benefits accrued by worker movements in the past to be destroyed.
US Imperialism
You are a sympathetic person. I am glad you are--we need more like you. However, what is happening isn't going to help anything even if what you are saying were true. The US economy is too small relative to the number of poor people. Even if 100% of US "jobs" were transplanted elsewhere, it probably isn't enough for 1/3 of Africa alone. If you really care about the lives of the less privledged in other countries, stop US imperialism! US imperialism has set back many countries by decades (particularly Latin America.) Get your country to stop meddling in other countries' affairs, overthrowing goverments, bribing--and hence solidifying--corrupt evil politicians/autocrats, and don't provide military "aid" to any of these countries. That will help the poor more than what "free trade" ever will.
Auto Industry and Japan (circa 80's)
The auto industry survived in the 80's because of protectionism. Basically, USA and Canada slapped on a massive tariff on imports (this happened because auto unions are stronger than anyone else, including the capitalists who own the car companies.) So Japanese companies came and built factories in USA and hence manufactured cars there. If it weren't for government intervention, the auto industry would have completely dissapeared. There is no way USA and Canada could have competed against Japan at that time. So this isn't a good example for you case. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your ideology. Capitalists claim the intervention was bad because it jacked up car prices (cars would be cheaper if it weren't for that); socialists and most leftists would say it was good because it kept the auto industry.
The threat to freedom posed by worms and other malicious attacks is several magnitudes smaller than the threat from governments and insidious corporations.
For example, spam (which would fit into the 'insidious corporation' category--after all, spammers make millions of dollars in profits is what is driving it) will decrease the quality of e-mail more than any virus or trojan horse spread through e-mail. People are more likely to scale back e-mail usage because of spam than virus attacks. Similarly, governments tracking you (and your devices such as cellphones, PDAs, etc) through IP addresses will be greater threat to freedoms than the worst worm. Of course, the worst scenario is when corporations work with governments to take away freedoms (things like RIAA and MPAA would fit into this).
Viruses, worms, and others can be stopped--the user has the power. Just like how you can stop mosquitoes by using mosquito netting or anti-bug repellant, you can prevent these attacks by using firewalls, not clicking on unknown attachments, and so on. In contrast, government and corporate influence is difficult to combat by a single person.
The only problem with worms/viruses/etc right now is that the general public is unaware of the aforementioned solutions. Computer users don't even know what a firewall is. Hopefully the day will come when users know as much of a firewall as bug repellant.
Unfortunately, it is the exact opposite. The book is at its heart a direct attack on democracy, and seeks to put in its place an entirely different society that is ruled by philosopher kings. The book has nothing to do with a Republican form of government, the title is as it originality meant.. Res Publica... the people's business. Many of Plato's dialogues attack democracy, btw.
I don't see how that can be. Was democracy even present at that time? My impression was that there was no such as democracy at that time.
You haven't thought into this quite enough however, you also discount the man is a political animal. What if we all spoke different languages? Truly had different beliefs about everything? What if we just popped out children and told them they could do whatever they want?
What you describe is utopia. We will reach that stage (assuming we don't kill ourselves off with our warmongering ways). I don't see any problem in people doing different things, whatever they wanted.
The point is we force people into a mould every day. Whether it is language, school, laws, propaganda of television and media... the list goes on.
No one is forced into anything--IF they are strong enough to resist. There are some who seek to advantage themselves by forcing others into some mould. You can resist and live life the way YOU want it to be. Conformists copy the rest; but I don't!
Man is a political animal who strongly desires to be a part of a community that exists for a purpose greater than simple survival. You have fallen into the trap of the bourgeoise illusion.
No, I have not fallen into anything. It's you who has fallen into some sort of a nihilistic pit. Your meaning in life seems to be outside your reach...
I'm not trolling (although the original poster was a troll)...Man... I'm asking him/her to update me on the status of Internet 2. Obviously if I wanted to, I could have spent time looking that up. Anyway, going to the home page of Internet 2 doesn't really mean much... call me lazy if you want but I find that asking others is a fast way to learn something (will be biased but still...):)
Your example can be misleading because I think PK-type (PK=player killer) games would be more appealing to men. You can't base that on women. Similarly, I would think that sports games would be mainly played by men. In contrast, strategy (eg. Sims) or adventure would probably have more women. Anyway, that's my impression.
All of our experience will be biased. Men will do things that are male-oriented (whatever the hell that means) so they won't meet women, and vice versa.
Having said that, when I was a gamer until a few years ago, there were only a few women. The type of games I played were RTS, RPG, and strategy and I didn't really run into too many women.
It seems no one on Slashdot understood the original joke about AOL chatrooms and guys calling themselves girls... The original post is still modded insightful, when it should be funny...
These figures are impressive but they seem fishy to me. If I'm not mistaken this overtakes cable/satellite/etc television (anyone have the tv figures handy?) I find that hard to believe. I can't think of a single person who has internet but no cable television (not counting students and people moving/transiting/etc)
This is a huge threat to civil liberties. Typical citizens will still be safe for a while. This won't have a major impact on citizens until the technology is passed from the spy agencies (eg. CIA) to the police agencies (eg. FBI). Not really sure when this will happen but at the rate the "war" on terrorism is going, it may be tomorrow...
That's true... but the other thing is... there was a lot of infrastructure laid during the "dot com" era so it may still take a while for the tech companies to recover. In other words, there may be overcapacity... When I say this, I'm not necessarily talking about telecom, networking, or related companies. The same applies to other areas of the internet. For example, there are probably "too many" web design companies and too many ISPs (that were all started during the boom). Will these companies be attractive in the near future? Probably not until there is more demand than supply.
Having said this, some claim the stock market (and hence valuation of all companies in a capitalist society) is a ponzi-scheme and based on hype and speculation more than anything. If that is indeed true, then you can make money under any scenario. All you need is a ton of people investing (which will autmoatically increase the value).
Slashdot Mirror
The 'therefore' is implied. Otherwise what's the point of listing all those people in the first place?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
PDF files are the most common way to communicate with clients. You cannot modify* it so it stays as published. It is not common for anyone, whther Microsoft or not, to publish something as a DOC. For example, nearly all brochures are PDF, even if they were created in MS Word.
(* Obviously one can modify any file if it doesn't use some encryption technique, but I'm talking about a regular user modifying it, without reverting to hacking or something)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not the original poster but he/she was right. You DO have two statements:
Statement A = "Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Dirac, Faraday, Planck, Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein believed in God."
Statement B = "So do I."
You basically have, A therefore B.
On a different note, I don't think weak-minded believe in God. If anything, regious fundamentalists are one of the strongest people around (they cannot be easily tempted by desires such as wealth, lust/sex, fame, vanity, etc).
Rather, it's the irrational that believe in God. If you support the line of thinking we call science, it is hypocritical of you to follow a religion*.
(* I suppose one can follow God since such a "concept" is outside the realm of science. However, that person cannot follow religion since it is based on scriptures and oral traditions, and hence conflicts.)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol heheh :) Your cities must have very high production if you can implement SDI in all cities in 3 turns...
Yeah... the virus would be the same thing as an application (it's a software program after all)...
Does any comp sci guys know if you can theoretically create a program (however trivial) that can run on arbitrarily differing operating systems?
I'm thinking it would have to be a low level program, possibly written in assembly or machine language (if that's even possible), and it has to circumvent the operating system calls... I don't know... Seems interesting...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
For those that know a bit about viruses...
Are there viruses that can run on multiple operating systems? I'm talking about ONE virus that can infect a Windows machine, then propagate onto a linux machine and infect that, and so on. I'm also not talking about Internet Explorer exploits, or user exploit/trojan horse (eg. user clicks on some attached file),etc. I'm talking about an old school virus that can detect what OS is running and then infect it.
Anyone know of such viruses?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
DISCLAIMER: do not base your investment decisions on what I say. I don't know what I'm talking about :)
:(:(:( ) If I DO decide to invest in gold, it'll be in the future (once I accumulate savings and I study the markets.)
1. if you have to ask how to trade in gold, how do you know enough to make a informed investment decision.
There is a first time for everything. I have never invested anything gold-related so I'm asking how to do it. The first time one needs to ask others. I mean, the first time you invested in stocks, didn't you ask others or read up on it? Same thing here.
As far as the decision being INFORMED, well, it's just like any other decision. How do you make an informed decision on what stock to buy? Gold is pretty much the same thing. In fact, gold is less volatile* than investing in, say, Cisco or Microsoft.
2. buy a gold index tracker if you still think its a good idea (despite gold being near its 15-year high, you think it'll go higher), eg. Gold Bullion Securities (GBSA on the LSE)
I'm not really thinking of it NOW. I met one guy several years ago who invested in gold by buying the boullions and bars I mentioned. I have always wondered how you invest in gold but don't know how. I am DEFINITELY NOT planning to invest in gold right now. If anything, I don't have any money (I'm unemployed now
3. buy stock in a gold miner, like Anglo american (AAL on the LSE), or Trans-Siberian gold (TSG on the LSE)
Thanks for the info but I was hoping someone in North America (preferably Canada) has some info. LSE is London Stock Exchange right? I'm in Canada and can't invest over there.
I am also looking at gold index that tracks the underlying price of gold, or even some security that actually tracks gold (but not futures.) Also, it has to be traded on major stock exchanges and must be liquid. Not sure if there is such a thing available so I'm asking others.
I do NOT want gold mining stocks or some index that tracks gold mining stocks. If you want to know why, here is why. From what little I have read (admittedly, mostly theory) gold mining stocks are not a good way to invest in gold (IF you are just looking for gold.) From what I read, the main reason is because the mining stocks are heavily leveraged relative to gold. For instance, if the price of gold moves up 1%, the mining stock may move up 10% (I just made up the numbers but you get the point). When it goes down, it's the same thing. In addition, gold mining stocks are probably impacted more by new gold discoveries of the company than the underlying price of gold. Also, other factors such as poor management, employee strikes, etc can impact gold mining stock significantly. In contrast, the underlying price of gold doesn't fluctuate like the gold mining stocks.
I'm basically looking to invest in gold (not mining stocks) without using futures or something like that. If anyone has info, it would be helpful.
Thanks!
* When I say gold is less volatile, I'm talking about actual gold and not gold mining stocks, which are very volatile and probably more volatile than tech stocks even. Read my last paragraph for more.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How would overwriting the first few sectors result in loss of all data? Wouldn't that just overwrite the boot sector only? Can't you still retrieve your data?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I have never purchased anything on e-bay but I have always wondered about reliability. For instance, I wonder about purchasing gold and silver on ebay (Examples here, here, and here.) How does anyone know these things are for real?
I know one guy I met online who was investing in gold by buying these bars but how do you even know they are what the ad says they are? Who would invest big money using these bars?
--OFF-TOPIC--
Does anyone here invest in gold (as investment)? If yes, what do you use? And have you invested in gold indices on stock markets? Do you know the symbols for them? Thanks...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol hehe :)
I got sick and tired of the acution frauds so i started finding them and bidding them up to inifity.
This is dumb... it's too risky man...
My favorite gambit is to ask them some absurd question that makes no sense like is this the power book that had the DVI fibrulator? They will answer "yes". Ask them if they take paypal and they dont answer.
That's ingenious. Thanks for the tip. Scammers likely have no knowledge of the product they are selling so this should catch them. Good strategy (I would stop bidding up stuff to infinity though... that's risky)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
THis is even worse than a pyramid scheme. At least with a pyramid scheme some people make money, until the pyramid collapses of course. With this, no one makes any money (except the scammer). What's to stop the scammer from awarding the "prize" to his friend or even himself who happens to be at the top of the list?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I disagree with you (I'm an immigrant Canadian BTW.) I'm a leftist and don't subscribe the view of a nationalist (capitalist?) like Lou Dobbs. So even though I am against what is transpiring, I am nowhere near Lou Dobbs on the econopolitical spectrum. The reason against the present type of "free trade" can be summed up as follows.
First of all, I support trade. It is a way for all countries to prosper (check out 'absolute costs and comparative costs' to see why.) However, I am against what passes for "free trade". We can go into lengthy argument over this but I'll just describe where you are wrong.
Who Benefits?
What you fail to contemplate is the benefits--in particular, who is benefitting from this? Indian workers, for instance, do not benefit in the long term. What is to stop the jobs from being outsourced to another lower-cost country? In fact, it WILL happen. When that happens, India will lose jobs while another poorer country gets the jobs for a short while. Rinse and repeat. You cannot build an economy in such a manner. This is nothing more than capitalist voodoo magic (except the capitalists won't tell you that there is no such thing as real magic.)
If the outsourced workers don't benefit overall in the long-term, who does? Well, it is pretty simple. It is the capitalists. When I say capitalists I am talking about shareholders of corporations. The vast majority of the benefit accrues to the shareholders. It doesn't accrue to India or Indian workers, or American workers. This is blatantly obvious to anyone that follows these things. For instance, corporate profits go up almost in full proportion to the "free trade."
Why most leftists oppose
Another serious problem with "free trade" is that one of the major reasons corporations carry it out is to circumvent environmental regulations and working conditions. This isn't so much a problem in the tech sector but plays a big role in manufacturing, textiles, and others. In other words, there are many cases where corporations simply move to another part of the world just so that they can hire workers that they can fire at will, pay no benefits, etc.
What passes for "free trade" is coming at the expense of workers. Most leftists would not want to see all the benefits accrued by worker movements in the past to be destroyed.
US Imperialism
You are a sympathetic person. I am glad you are--we need more like you. However, what is happening isn't going to help anything even if what you are saying were true. The US economy is too small relative to the number of poor people. Even if 100% of US "jobs" were transplanted elsewhere, it probably isn't enough for 1/3 of Africa alone. If you really care about the lives of the less privledged in other countries, stop US imperialism! US imperialism has set back many countries by decades (particularly Latin America.) Get your country to stop meddling in other countries' affairs, overthrowing goverments, bribing--and hence solidifying--corrupt evil politicians/autocrats, and don't provide military "aid" to any of these countries. That will help the poor more than what "free trade" ever will.
Auto Industry and Japan (circa 80's)
The auto industry survived in the 80's because of protectionism. Basically, USA and Canada slapped on a massive tariff on imports (this happened because auto unions are stronger than anyone else, including the capitalists who own the car companies.) So Japanese companies came and built factories in USA and hence manufactured cars there. If it weren't for government intervention, the auto industry would have completely dissapeared. There is no way USA and Canada could have competed against Japan at that time. So this isn't a good example for you case. Whether this was a good thing or a bad thing depends on your ideology. Capitalists claim the intervention was bad because it jacked up car prices (cars would be cheaper if it weren't for that); socialists and most leftists would say it was good because it kept the auto industry.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The threat to freedom posed by worms and other malicious attacks is several magnitudes smaller than the threat from governments and insidious corporations.
For example, spam (which would fit into the 'insidious corporation' category--after all, spammers make millions of dollars in profits is what is driving it) will decrease the quality of e-mail more than any virus or trojan horse spread through e-mail. People are more likely to scale back e-mail usage because of spam than virus attacks. Similarly, governments tracking you (and your devices such as cellphones, PDAs, etc) through IP addresses will be greater threat to freedoms than the worst worm. Of course, the worst scenario is when corporations work with governments to take away freedoms (things like RIAA and MPAA would fit into this).
Viruses, worms, and others can be stopped--the user has the power. Just like how you can stop mosquitoes by using mosquito netting or anti-bug repellant, you can prevent these attacks by using firewalls, not clicking on unknown attachments, and so on. In contrast, government and corporate influence is difficult to combat by a single person.
The only problem with worms/viruses/etc right now is that the general public is unaware of the aforementioned solutions. Computer users don't even know what a firewall is. Hopefully the day will come when users know as much of a firewall as bug repellant.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Unfortunately, it is the exact opposite. The book is at its heart a direct attack on democracy, and seeks to put in its place an entirely different society that is ruled by philosopher kings. The book has nothing to do with a Republican form of government, the title is as it originality meant.. Res Publica... the people's business. Many of Plato's dialogues attack democracy, btw.
I don't see how that can be. Was democracy even present at that time? My impression was that there was no such as democracy at that time.
You haven't thought into this quite enough however, you also discount the man is a political animal. What if we all spoke different languages? Truly had different beliefs about everything? What if we just popped out children and told them they could do whatever they want?
What you describe is utopia. We will reach that stage (assuming we don't kill ourselves off with our warmongering ways). I don't see any problem in people doing different things, whatever they wanted.
The point is we force people into a mould every day. Whether it is language, school, laws, propaganda of television and media... the list goes on.
No one is forced into anything--IF they are strong enough to resist. There are some who seek to advantage themselves by forcing others into some mould. You can resist and live life the way YOU want it to be. Conformists copy the rest; but I don't!
Man is a political animal who strongly desires to be a part of a community that exists for a purpose greater than simple survival. You have fallen into the trap of the bourgeoise illusion.
No, I have not fallen into anything. It's you who has fallen into some sort of a nihilistic pit. Your meaning in life seems to be outside your reach...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol you DO look like the devil ;) Very scary looking pose in your pic :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That's some interesting reverse psychology theory you are putting forward. Either that, or Slashdot just doesn't have a sense of humour ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'm not trolling (although the original poster was a troll)...Man... I'm asking him/her to update me on the status of Internet 2. Obviously if I wanted to, I could have spent time looking that up. Anyway, going to the home page of Internet 2 doesn't really mean much... call me lazy if you want but I find that asking others is a fast way to learn something (will be biased but still...) :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Your example can be misleading because I think PK-type (PK=player killer) games would be more appealing to men. You can't base that on women. Similarly, I would think that sports games would be mainly played by men. In contrast, strategy (eg. Sims) or adventure would probably have more women. Anyway, that's my impression.
All of our experience will be biased. Men will do things that are male-oriented (whatever the hell that means) so they won't meet women, and vice versa.
Having said that, when I was a gamer until a few years ago, there were only a few women. The type of games I played were RTS, RPG, and strategy and I didn't really run into too many women.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
It seems no one on Slashdot understood the original joke about AOL chatrooms and guys calling themselves girls... The original post is still modded insightful, when it should be funny...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
These figures are impressive but they seem fishy to me. If I'm not mistaken this overtakes cable/satellite/etc television (anyone have the tv figures handy?) I find that hard to believe. I can't think of a single person who has internet but no cable television (not counting students and people moving/transiting/etc)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The brainwashed masses need to be educated. Obviously you have been brainwashed beyond repair... ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
This is a huge threat to civil liberties. Typical citizens will still be safe for a while. This won't have a major impact on citizens until the technology is passed from the spy agencies (eg. CIA) to the police agencies (eg. FBI). Not really sure when this will happen but at the rate the "war" on terrorism is going, it may be tomorrow...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
That's true... but the other thing is... there was a lot of infrastructure laid during the "dot com" era so it may still take a while for the tech companies to recover. In other words, there may be overcapacity... When I say this, I'm not necessarily talking about telecom, networking, or related companies. The same applies to other areas of the internet. For example, there are probably "too many" web design companies and too many ISPs (that were all started during the boom). Will these companies be attractive in the near future? Probably not until there is more demand than supply.
Having said this, some claim the stock market (and hence valuation of all companies in a capitalist society) is a ponzi-scheme and based on hype and speculation more than anything. If that is indeed true, then you can make money under any scenario. All you need is a ton of people investing (which will autmoatically increase the value).
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I see a ton of ads for Classmates but I wonder how they make their money... by getting people's e-mail and then spamming them perhaps?
Sivaram Velauthapillai