Introducing a period of "public" inspection prior to making a patent even harder to overturn would, yet again, seem to favor those (corporate) interests that have the deepest pockets for the most and/or best lawyers.
This is not anything to cheer about. And considering how "busy" Congress is trying to stuff the Federal judicial bench, you can be prety certain that the bill actually originated from corporate ghost writers.
"It's just too bad Bush can't have a third term. How will we be safe when he is gone?!"
Very funny. But exactly who said that Bush won't just decide to stay in office anyway? The pesky piece of paper called the US Constitution has already been shredded by Dubya and his neo-con Gestapo. Dubya and his minions are busy now packing the court system with their croneys -- activist "populist" judges are evil, but activist "neo-con" judges are good.
Remember the FEC floating a "trial balloon" in the press about postponing the 2004 national elections due to concerns about new acts of terrorism? The groundwork has been laid for the 2008 national elections, and another terrorist act will occur that will bring martial law and the suspension of all civil liberties, including national elections.
The Reagan "Revolution", Gingrich's "Contract on America's Middle Class", and the Clinton "Show Trials" were all a prelude to what we have in the USA today. Welcome to George HW Bush's "New World Order". Of course, the son (Dubya) would not have been able to force this national socialist police state down the gullets of the American people without the timely terrorist attack on 9-11-2001.
Put more plainly: A Middle Eastern country with deep financial ties in the USA and to the Bush family, known for their raving bloodthirsty religious fundamentalist evangelism, provided the impetus for a heinous domestic terrorist attack that has been used by American raving bloodthirsty religious fundamentalist evangelists to seize power here in the USA.
Everything else including "compassionate conservatism", "no foreign military adventures", "(Bush) family values", voluntary pre-emptive wars against "WMD", and Social Security "reform" have all been smokescreens for the propaganda machine to sieze and consolidate power while keeping the American people tranquilized with their "Fear Factor", "Fox News Network", and "MTV".
Not unlike the MSFT borg hive, resistance is futile. Agent Smith already has my name -- I'm just waiting for the knock at the door. Spread the word. Somebody ele has to know...
Sorry, but it isn't "all about the money". Money can be a driving force for good or for evil. What it really is is about greed and "about making quick money".
While I cannot comment upon the finer points of India's financial and high technology planning, I most certainly can comment upon the greed (nay, avarice) of the USA's corporations and the politicians they own. America's tax policies favor businesses that export the USA's jobs. What is particularly disheartening is that the vast majority of our politicians favor the flood of L1-A and H1-B workers and (apparently) condone increased illegal immigration -- all of which trend towards forcing American wages downwards. It isn't only competition in the IT or high-tech job market anymore, it's also in the construction trades, health services, automotive, real estate, and general service contracting businesses that are now effected. Anyone who makes the pitch that illegal immigration only involved undocumented "migrant workers" is either lying or stone-stupid.
about Apple's announced move to Intel architecture?
(1) yet another round of binary incompatabilities.
(2) switching endians.
(3) switching from the 64-bit G5 to the half-assed 32-bit plus 64-bit addressing of the x86-64.
(4) yet another competitor in the commodity x86 PC market (which will confuse many users when Apple's new hardware still isn't price competative)
(5) Apple's wholehearted embrace of Intel's DRM strategy, as represented by Intel's new processor and chipset.
Apple taking on Intel as a senior partner makes about as much sense as Sun taking on MSFT as a partner -- there is far more to risk than to gain. DEC, SGI, and HP all placed a heavy trust and reliance upon Intel's processor "roadmaps", which have borne much bitter fruit.
Apple is essentially tossing in the towel by adopting Intel 's processor. Only by fully embracing Intel's DRM can they be assured of not having their hardware/software solution trumped by some alternative OS. Loyal Apple users will have a difficult time going from no DRM to crippling DRM. Without that DRM to enforce Apple's "standards", there will be no way to differentiate Apple's pricy hardware from the commodity PC hardware that's already out there in the marketplace.
I find it difficult to believe that Apple having bragging rights to a 3.0 GigaHertz 32-bit laptop crippled by Intel DRM is worth more than having dual 64-bit desktops and servers and supercomputer clusters.
It was part of my understanding that karma represented (in simplified western terms) "that what comes around, goes around". Meaning that proper and honorable actions would be rewarded in this or some subsequent lifetime: likewise as a punishment for improper and dishonorable actions.
Your description would seem to deny any attribution of the Hindu religion as a basis for the enforcement of the rigid caste system, which would make it more of a cultural issue not so unlike the western adoption of slavery (after a fashion). Slavery in the West found no validation in the Christian religion, although verses were sometimes misquoted in attempts to justify it.
It looks like I need to spend much more time reading about religions, and less time writing about them. Could you point me toward an English language treatese on Hinduism to bring me toward a greater understanding?
I have found that there are many admirable traits to be found within "eastern" religions. The only aspect of Hinduism that I find to be particularly negative is the rigid caste system it engenders. If the cross-pollination of religions between east and west had been more vigorous since Alexander, the European "Age of Enlightenment" might never have occurred.
I certainly had no intention of insulting anyone's religious beliefs in the use of the word "karma".
I do think that I have a rather basic understanding of the word, however, when used in its religious context. IMHO, karma is both cause and effect, both yin and yang, and circles within circles. Its manifestations cross cycles of life, but also exist within a single lifetime. Karma is the great force of equilibrium.
could a stable OS that has many/most of the security holes patched be considered a "failure". Of course, it is also an OS that will shortly be retired (unsupported) by MSFT, in favor of a more vulnerable series of OSes (XP Home, XP Lite, XP Pro, XP Reduced Fuctionality, XP Media Center, etcetera).
Too bad that MSFT has decided that hardware DRM is the only way that their newest OSes can be secure. Digital Restrictions Management is not user friendly.
NAFTA encouraged many American companies to build manufacturing facilities in Mexico. The impetus was cheaper labor, no labor unions, no benefits, no cumbersome environmental regulations -- in short, all those things that the Clinton regime was supposed to address in follow-up legislation when promises were made to American trade unions.
But some companies that established Mexican facilities decided that Mexican workers still cost too much money, so they imported Chinese labor to replace the Mexicans. As the infrastructure and regulatory situation improved in the PRC, these same companies pulled up stakes and moved to China, leaving behind a lot of unemployed Mexican AND Chinese workers. (Many of these workers have since illegally immigrated to the USA through the porous southern border.)
Whatever labor gap India may currently have that impacts their offshore outsourcing business, so long as they continue to invest in their human and technical infrastructure, the situation will correct itself. OTOH, the Dubya/neo-con regime in the USA is not only not willing to invest in improving either their human or technical infrastructure, they are hard at work dismantling the remnants of the social safety net by any means possible. It is not hard to foresee that both China and India will be 1st-world world powers within 20 years, while America will have slid into the position of a feudal 3rd-world economic basket case.
Well, that was pretty damned careless of both Citibank and UPS. Too bad that no heads will roll over this latest security breech.
Unfortunately, my personal experiences with UPS would tend to prompt the question "Why would any company entrusted with the financial information of so many people engage the services of UPS anywhere in the "chain of custody"?"
Incidents that I have personally witnessed:
(1) mis-delivery of $15,000 USD worth of computer equipment (with obligatory signature) to our place of business, instead of the correct business all the way across town.
(2) drop-off of $3,000 USD of computer equipment to my doorstep, with "Signature Required" marked all over the package.
(3) drop-off of a package marked "Signature Required" to my doorstep, instead of another residential address 4 blocks away.
(4) Two separate instances of time-sensitive deliveries left with neighbors intead of a "call notice" on my door, again, marked "Signature Required".
(5) Discovery that a package UPS lost in-transit could not be tracked, due to UPS recycling their tracking number system (, which was not designed to handle the number of packages that they handle.)
(6) Discovery that UPS treats packages marked "Fragile" and "Glass - Fragile" no differently than any other of the packages they handle. Related: Discovered that the same, heavily insured one-of-a-kind items may take up to 6 months for UPS to financially acknowlege liability for.
I have had far better results with either the USPS or with FedEx
I would not trust UPS to deliver a carefully padded, burst-proof box of horse manure to my worst enemy, intact and to the right party. Why would any financial institution trust any commercial carrier, let alone UPS, with critically sensitive data? Where is their "due diligence"?
All of these computer OEMs have bitten at the Intel "apple" (sorry about that!), sacrificing innovative and powerful technologies in order to become more mainstream. The single largest problem with "mainstream" is that the "great unwashed masses" of computer users care little about innovative technologies, only about price.
DEC Alphas made use of OpenBoot, with the ability to run VMS, Ultrix (unix), or WinNT with no more than a reboot. (I know, because I set up such Alphas for fun and profit.) With Apple switching to Intel's latest DRM-enabled processors and chipsets, Apple will have the opportunity to lock out those other OSes (linux & BSD) that savy users might be tempted to use. Apple will wholeheartedly embrace DRM because they will have little else to lock users into their platform/OS solution.
SGI made wonderful Intel-based workstations that were priced significantly higher than all their other WinTel competition. At the same time, SGI adopted Intel's ia64 processor in lou of their 64-bit MIPS processor for their server offerings. The huge development cost of retooling to the Intel processor broke the company, and SGI is now only a bit player in the server market. Nobody uses SGI Intel-based workstations because nobody wants to get locked into the high TCO.
HP has built Intel-based workstations for a very long time, but their quality control and service issues have driven them into the low-ball commodity PC market to survive. HP abandoned first the DEC Alpha and then the PA-RISC in favor of the Intel ia64, which they are now regretting. HP may soon adopt only AMD as their server processor.
The bottom line is that any/all computer OEMs that have switched to the Intel (or Wintel) computing solution have found themselves competing in the commodity PC market, a market in which margins are razor-thin and money for advanced development has dried up. This is not where Apple users want Apple to go. Instead of gaining market share and increasing profit margins, Apple has forsaken their loyal user base and doomed themselves to the ashbin of computer history. They will be in good company there, but so what?
RIP Apple.
(2009) Netcraft has confirmed that Apple Computer is dead. Apple finally collapsed under fierce commodity computer market pressure. As an ironic twist of fate, Apple Music has purchased (at a fire sale price) all rights to Apple's iTune business. Quoted by one maven "Apple Music has finally won the legal result they have always sought."
So vote fraud is merely a civil offense, and not a criminal offense? I don't know about the rest of the "civilized" democratic world, but I think that vote fraud is a criminal offense in the USA.
Repeatedly using a publically held corporation's fraudulent lists of criminals not allowed to vote in order to disenfranchise those voters supporting the opposing political party is a USA Federal criminal offense, under the auspicies of the 1964 Voting Rights Act.
Unfortunately, the concerned citizens will find no legal redress to the abridgement of their civil rights if the Attorney General and the FBI, under the direct control of the regime whose agents perpetrated those crimes, choose not to prosecute.
OTOH, public corporations whose executive boards are friends with that very same regime who fail, through careless disregard and/or due diligence, to provide secure, transparent, and valid processes for their electronic voting machines and their accumulators that aggregate the vote count are apparently only liable to civil penalties. But only up to the point that criminal charges of conspiracy can be made, if and when such data becomes available.
The USA's 2000 election may have been improperly resolved in the Supreme Court. The Florida law prohibiting a full, across the state vote recount should have been found unconstitutional. AFAIK, no charges have ever been filed against the FL Secretary of State responsible for disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters.
The USA's 2004 election results are in serious doubt, not only because of vote fraud regarding the use of faulty electronic voting machines and accumulator machines used, but also reliance upon projections of voter turnout based upon fraudulent exit poll data. In many jurisdictions, election result projections based upon cooked exit poll data was the only way possible to ascertain the accuracy of those electronic votes counted.
As far as the issue of having evidence that the
electronic voting machines failed, there is enough evidence already available to cast doubts on the voting results in every jurisdiction in which these machines have been used. There is actually quite enough evidence already available to make charges of concious culpability and conspiracy on the part of those public corporations who build electronic voting machines and accumulators. There is a substantial amount of information available at "http://www.blackboxvoting.org".
Then again, some people don't want LFS on a different platform but "their favorite ($insert favorite distro here$) linux distro" on a different platform. Some distros are only packaged for a few architectures.
Slightly OT, but I can remember when MS WinNT was available for the Alpha, Intel, MIPS and PPC platform.
The real strength of linux (alright, GNU/linux) is that since source code is available for virtually everything, your favorite distribution can be built on your favorite platform. The real sticking point, in my book, are nasty OEM manufactureres that insist upon providing binary-only drivers for only one or two architectures. Theo (of OpenBSD fame) is correct in chiding these OEMs about their drivers -- it just isn't right.
I am so glad that you bought the Fujitsu P1120 instead of the HP Omnibook. And if you realized how bad HP hardware support (in-warranty) was, you would also be glad.
I have an HP Omnibook that went back twice to HP while under warranty -- the first time back they replaced the system board but didn't fix the problem. The second time it went back, it was returned to me as-is, with a note that it is functioning as designed. Unfortunately, their "as designed" functionality was not the condition in which I bought it new.
I will never buy an HP branded product ever again, whether a server, desktop, laptop, PDA, printer, switch or router. And since my bad experience with HP support at that time, it would appear that they have only gotten worse. I would never have imagined that a premier high tech company like HP could have fallen so low. (Thanks, Fiorina!)
Just because there is insufficient data, and insufficient understanding of the forces at work to make the claim (absolutely and utterly) that global warming is the basis of climactic changes in Siberia and the Arctic as a whole, common sense should be a factor.
When the Dubya regime rejects the science behind global warming in order to justify rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, it is rejecting both civilian and US military studies that trend changing regional weather patterns on a global scale. This stubborn anti-science position does preserve the "status quo" for some short term political advantage, in exchange for increased liability for future generations to deal with. (Not unlike the USAs' going from a $500 Billion USD surplus in 2000 to a $2.5 Trillion USD debt in 2004.) Both the Canadian and US Navy are projecting forward the need for men and ships to patrol the open Artic seas in 10 years where there was only pack ice 10 years ago -- what's wrong with this picture?
Slightly OT, but this very same attitude has been used to justify the ramp-up in construction of nuclear power plants in the USA, as part of Dubya's "energy plan". Nuclear energy (fission) is cheap, just so long as you don't factor in the total manpower and environmental costs for the duration of the created radioactive hazards out 50,000 years. Simple math and simple minds and simple solutions -- if the total costs projected out 50,000 years cannot be calculated for dealing with highly radioactive waste, then it is (at least politically) not a factor and can be safely ignored.
Of course, many of the same politicians believe that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, which makes any projections out 50,000 years far outside their conceivable universe. IMHO, politicians that go out of their way to ignore science are far more dangerous than any "martyr strapped with explosives". Their narrowminded viewpoint effects millions of people for thousands of generations, truly walking, talking WMD.
A slower processor, say 1/2 the clock speed, would not necessarily draw less power than the faster processor running at that same speed. If you were to compare 2 processors on the same die size, the power required at a specific clock rate determines what speed the manufacturer rates it for. Most modern NMOS-type chip designs draw the most power on the rising and falling clock edges.
The cleaner and sharper rise and fall times that the processor clock runs at, the lower the power requirements and the faster the clock could run. Via and trace densities inside the chip determine what the absolute maximum power can be drawn, without melting (like a buss fuse). The faster processor runing at a lower clock rate should still have the steeper clock transition times, drawing less power.
One of the requirements of a good chip design is the use of a clock signal distributed well. So long as a slower clock rate can still sync up properly between on-chip modules (like caches), a faster processor should draw considerably less power than the slower processor, given the same clock speed. Manufacturing tolerances determine what a specific 6 inch or 9 inch silicon wafer can produce, speed-wise. Of course, the more faster chips that can be produced reliably from a given wafer, the more $$$ the manufacturer can make.
Processors designed for portable, low power use already can make use of a slower clock when in sleep mode. Desktop systems could also make use of the same technology to save energy. A faster processor that is running at a slower speed may not even require a fan, if quiet operation is desired. The motherboard design, mb support chips, and the BIOS must support under-clocking for this to work.
I fail to understand how MSFT's "adoption" of the open XML file format, encapuslating it in a binary
DRM-encumbered wrapper, and furnishing an SDK for this new file format under restrictive licensing is any real "end to MSFT's closed file formats".
It does look quite a bit like more of the same old MSFT strategy of "embrace and extend standards" and "what MSFT cannot control, it will try to kill" - well established and largely successful MSFT business strategies.
Considering how supportive the Dubya regime has been regarding science and space exploration, and so little interest in the militarization of space, or of creating yet another cash-cow for the benefit of their corporate sponsers, the USA's taxpayers can rejoice over this new golden age of space travel.
Oh, wait. Wrong alternative universe.
Considering the Dubya regime's ever-broadening definition of terrorism, one can only draw the conclusion that the Moon will be barely big enough for the expansion of Guantanano Bay's prison facilities. No doubt also the only sure way to avoid IRC inspections, intercession by those pesky "activist" judges, and any more questions about violations of the Geneva Conventions.
"If you want kids to do better- get better teachers, not more work."
Bollocks!
If you want kids to do better - get better parents! The push for more homework assignments has the tendency to keep students off the streets and out of trouble. Which is more than many parents are willing (or able) to do. How many of these parents have let the TV (boob-tube) do their babysitting for them, instead of reading a book to their kids, or actually digging in to help them understand their homework? The three R's are the vitally important bedrock of children learning, but how many parents will run flashcard drills with their kids, or sit down and play Scrabble (or some other educational game) with them?
Teachers these days are expected to be teachers, babysitters, truancy officers, and substitute adult role models for their students. If there are not enough hours in the day to cover all these duties, more homework is a partial solution. The USA's public school systems need to break away from the agrarian-based 9 month school year, and switch to year-round schooling. Several short breaks in the instruction cycle are far more productive than a mind numbing 3 month break. Requiring school uniforms instead of rampant competition over name-brand clothing would help, also.
Well, I can understand Ulrich's position. The company he works for only supports specific and profitable platforms. Microsoft dropped their WinNT support for the ALPHA, MIPS, and PPC platforms because they didn't want to re-write their Application suite. IMHO, though, MSFT's software offerings would have been more stable and less buggy if they had proceeded to port all their applications to these other platforms.
But Ulrich's position is indefensible in the broader scheme of F/OSS and linux, which has the marketshare it does have ONLY because of the ability to be ported to any number of archane platforms. This is its strength, and not a weakness. It would appear that in Ulrich's lexicon, linux (or F/OSS) and portability do not belong in the same sentence. I don't claim to know his curriculum vitae, but he sounds sort of Microsoftie...
800.0 mm (millimeters)
Any mechanical bug this big belongs on the
battlefield, not in a clinical setting.
80.0 mm (millimeters)
That is one big bug. It doesn't need 6 legs,
it needs tank treads.
8.00 mm (millimeters)
Okay, this sounds a bit more reasonable, but
still rather big to have 6 legs.
0.80 mm (millimeters)
On this scale, it would be more like a swarm
of gnats. With some AI and BT or RFID feed-
back, a swarm of probes this size might work.
800 nm (nanometers)
At this size, the probe would be way smaller
than many of the symbiotic bugs found in the
human body.
This does not compute. Re-enter correct data.
Actually, everyone has the right to drive drunk -- on their own property. That right ends on public property -- just like (IMHO) all of your other rights, which end where other people's rights begin.
Unfortunately, in this "politically correct" era, many people think that their own rights supercede everyone else's rights. The right to get drunk, or to drive through stop signs or traffic lights, the right to sideswipe a parked car and drive off, the right to carjack someone at gun-point, the right to tresspass on and vandalize other people's property; the list goes on and on. Now we (here in the USA) have a regime in power that wants to regulate how we live, but also how we die. These are not conservatives in the normal sense of the word -- they are Nazis. (But I digress here.)
In much of the USA, there is an unholy cabal between legislators and defense lawyers that makes it easy (with enough cash) to have a 1st or 2nd or 15th DUI conviction punished with little more than a slap on the wrist. IMHO, the punishments need to be far more severe, with a 1st offense that draws a 1 year suspension of a drivers license, and a 2nd offense that draws 6 months in jail. The usual occurance, when someone it caught driving with a suspended license, should automatically draw a six month jail term. Of course, defense lawyers might be forced to find an honest means of employment if the penalties were increased significantly.
If you are thinking about "socialism" then places like Castro's Cuba come to mind -- free/cheap housing, free medical care, free education, etc. Or perhaps, Venezuela, which has a left-of-center elected government that actually cares about their poor. But that the Bushwhacker neo-cons regard Venezuela
as an enemy state has less to do with their politics, and a way lot more to do with their oil wealth. Diverting their oil profits away from the elite with close ties to Houston, TX, into social welfare programs has brought Venezuela to the brink of being included in the "axis-of-evil".
State corporatism, also known as National Socialism, tends to provide favoritism to corporations over the general well-being of the population. Tax cuts to these corporations, legislation that provides government handouts to corporations, stripping away of social welfare programs, government actions against labor unions and equitable wages, concentration of the public media into fewer and fewer hands, and unprovoked and unjustifiable foreign wars are the warning signs.
The USA has come a lot closer to adopting National Socialism than Venezuela has to becoming a "communist" state in the past five years. And it is particularly vexing to hear the Senate Majority Leader Frist call the increasingly marginalized minority party "Nazis" over the use of the filibuster -- a mechanism for guarding minority party voice in the approval of "appointed-for-life" Federal judges.
It is, however, refreshing to see some (albeit small) improvement in addressing ethics and morality at American business schools. After all the corporate financial shenannigans of AOL, Adelphia, Enron, Global Crossing, Wachovia, and Worldcom, I was beginning to believe that Break-the-Law 101 was part of business school curriculum. (Okay, so they actually changed it to Ethics 101, right?)
American corporations have all the rights of the individual, but none of the legal liabilities. Until that changes, it will be "business" as usual.
Slashdot Mirror
Another new law, made by lawyers for lawyers.
Introducing a period of "public" inspection prior
to making a patent even harder to overturn would,
yet again, seem to favor those (corporate) interests
that have the deepest pockets for the most and/or
best lawyers.
This is not anything to cheer about. And considering
how "busy" Congress is trying to stuff the Federal
judicial bench, you can be prety certain that the
bill actually originated from corporate ghost writers.
"It's just too bad Bush can't have a third term. How will we be safe when he is gone?!"
Very funny. But exactly who said that Bush won't just decide to stay in office anyway? The pesky piece of paper called the US Constitution has already been shredded by Dubya and his neo-con Gestapo. Dubya and his minions are busy now packing the court system with their croneys -- activist "populist" judges are evil, but activist "neo-con" judges are good.
Remember the FEC floating a "trial balloon" in the press about postponing the 2004 national elections due to concerns about new acts of terrorism? The groundwork has been laid for the 2008 national elections, and another terrorist act will occur that will bring martial law and the suspension of all civil liberties, including national elections.
The Reagan "Revolution", Gingrich's "Contract on America's Middle Class", and the Clinton "Show Trials" were all a prelude to what we have in the USA today. Welcome to George HW Bush's "New World Order". Of course, the son (Dubya) would not have been able to force this national socialist police state down the gullets of the American people without the timely terrorist attack on 9-11-2001.
Put more plainly: A Middle Eastern country with deep financial ties in the USA and to the Bush family, known for their raving bloodthirsty religious fundamentalist evangelism, provided the impetus for a heinous domestic terrorist attack that has been used by American raving bloodthirsty religious fundamentalist evangelists to seize power here in the USA.
Everything else including "compassionate conservatism", "no foreign military adventures", "(Bush) family values", voluntary pre-emptive wars against "WMD", and Social Security "reform" have all been smokescreens for the propaganda machine to sieze and consolidate power while keeping the American people tranquilized with their "Fear Factor", "Fox News Network", and "MTV".
Not unlike the MSFT borg hive, resistance is futile. Agent Smith already has my name -- I'm just waiting for the knock at the door. Spread the word. Somebody ele has to know...
Sorry, but it isn't "all about the money". Money can be a driving force for good or for evil. What it really is is about greed and "about making quick money".
While I cannot comment upon the finer points of India's financial and high technology planning, I most certainly can comment upon the greed (nay, avarice) of the USA's corporations and the politicians they own. America's tax policies favor businesses that export the USA's jobs. What is particularly disheartening is that the vast majority of our politicians favor the flood of L1-A and H1-B workers and (apparently) condone increased illegal immigration -- all of which trend towards forcing American wages downwards.
It isn't only competition in the IT or high-tech job market anymore, it's also in the construction trades, health services, automotive, real estate, and general service contracting businesses that are now effected. Anyone who makes the pitch that illegal immigration only involved undocumented "migrant workers" is either lying or stone-stupid.
about Apple's announced move to Intel architecture?
(1) yet another round of binary incompatabilities.
(2) switching endians.
(3) switching from the 64-bit G5 to the half-assed 32-bit plus 64-bit addressing of the x86-64.
(4) yet another competitor in the commodity x86 PC market (which will confuse many users when Apple's new hardware still isn't price competative)
(5) Apple's wholehearted embrace of Intel's DRM strategy, as represented by Intel's new processor and chipset.
Apple taking on Intel as a senior partner makes about as much sense as Sun taking on MSFT as a
partner -- there is far more to risk than to gain. DEC, SGI, and HP all placed a heavy trust and reliance
upon Intel's processor "roadmaps", which have borne much bitter fruit.
Apple is essentially tossing in the towel by adopting Intel 's processor. Only by fully embracing Intel's DRM can they be assured of not having their hardware/software solution trumped by some alternative OS. Loyal Apple users will have a difficult time going from no DRM to crippling DRM. Without that DRM to enforce Apple's "standards", there will be no way to differentiate Apple's pricy hardware from the commodity PC hardware that's already out there in the marketplace.
I find it difficult to believe that Apple having bragging rights to a 3.0 GigaHertz 32-bit laptop crippled by
Intel DRM is worth more than having dual 64-bit desktops and servers and supercomputer clusters.
I am in your debt.
It was part of my understanding that karma represented (in simplified western terms) "that what comes around, goes around". Meaning that proper and honorable actions would be rewarded in this or some subsequent lifetime: likewise as a punishment for improper and dishonorable actions.
Your description would seem to deny any attribution of the Hindu religion as a basis for the enforcement of the rigid caste system, which would make it more of a cultural issue not so unlike the western adoption of slavery (after a fashion). Slavery in the West found no validation in the Christian religion, although verses were sometimes misquoted in attempts to justify it.
It looks like I need to spend much more time reading about religions, and less time writing about them. Could you point me toward an English language treatese on Hinduism to bring me toward a greater understanding?
I have found that there are many admirable traits to be found within "eastern" religions. The only aspect of Hinduism that I find to be particularly negative is the rigid caste system it engenders. If the cross-pollination of religions between east and west had been more vigorous since Alexander, the European "Age of Enlightenment" might never have occurred.
I certainly had no intention of insulting anyone's religious beliefs in the use of the word "karma".
I do think that I have a rather basic understanding of the word, however, when used in its religious context. IMHO, karma is both cause and effect, both yin and yang, and circles within circles. Its manifestations cross cycles of life, but also exist within a single lifetime. Karma is the great force of equilibrium.
could a stable OS that has many/most of the security holes patched be considered a "failure". Of course, it is also an OS that will shortly be retired (unsupported) by MSFT, in favor of a more vulnerable series of OSes (XP Home, XP Lite, XP Pro, XP Reduced Fuctionality, XP Media Center, etcetera).
Too bad that MSFT has decided that hardware DRM is the only way that their newest OSes can be secure.
Digital Restrictions Management is not user friendly.
NAFTA encouraged many American companies to build manufacturing facilities in Mexico. The impetus was cheaper labor, no labor unions, no benefits, no cumbersome environmental regulations -- in short, all those things that the Clinton regime was supposed to address in follow-up legislation when promises were made to American trade unions.
But some companies that established Mexican facilities decided that Mexican workers still cost too much money, so they imported Chinese labor to replace the Mexicans. As the infrastructure and regulatory situation improved in the PRC, these same companies pulled up stakes and moved to China, leaving behind a lot of unemployed Mexican AND Chinese workers. (Many of these workers have since illegally immigrated to the USA through the porous southern border.)
Whatever labor gap India may currently have that impacts their offshore outsourcing business, so long as they continue to invest in their human and technical infrastructure, the situation will correct itself. OTOH, the Dubya/neo-con regime in the USA is not only not willing to invest in improving either their human or technical infrastructure, they are hard at work dismantling the remnants of the social safety net by any means possible. It is not hard to foresee that both China and India will be 1st-world world powers within 20 years, while America will have slid into the position of a feudal 3rd-world economic basket case.
Well, that was pretty damned careless of both Citibank and UPS. Too bad that no heads will roll over this latest security breech.
Unfortunately, my personal experiences with UPS would tend to prompt the question "Why would any company entrusted with the financial information of so many people engage the services of UPS anywhere in the "chain of custody"?"
Incidents that I have personally witnessed:
(1) mis-delivery of $15,000 USD worth of computer equipment (with obligatory signature) to our place of business, instead of the correct business all the way across town.
(2) drop-off of $3,000 USD of computer equipment to my doorstep, with "Signature Required" marked all over the package.
(3) drop-off of a package marked "Signature Required" to my doorstep, instead of another residential address 4 blocks away.
(4) Two separate instances of time-sensitive deliveries left with neighbors intead of a "call notice" on my door, again, marked "Signature Required".
(5) Discovery that a package UPS lost in-transit could not be tracked, due to UPS recycling their tracking number system (, which was not designed to handle the number of packages that they handle.)
(6) Discovery that UPS treats packages marked "Fragile" and "Glass - Fragile" no differently than any other of the packages they handle.
Related: Discovered that the same, heavily insured one-of-a-kind items may take up to 6 months for UPS to financially acknowlege liability for.
I have had far better results with either the USPS or with FedEx
I would not trust UPS to deliver a carefully padded, burst-proof box of horse manure to my worst enemy, intact and to the right party. Why would any financial institution trust any commercial carrier, let alone UPS, with critically sensitive data? Where is their "due diligence"?
All of these computer OEMs have bitten at the Intel "apple" (sorry about that!), sacrificing innovative and powerful technologies in order to become more mainstream. The single largest problem with "mainstream" is that the "great unwashed masses" of computer users care little about innovative technologies, only about price.
DEC Alphas made use of OpenBoot, with the ability to run VMS, Ultrix (unix), or WinNT with no more than a reboot. (I know, because I set up such Alphas for fun and profit.) With Apple switching to Intel's latest DRM-enabled processors and chipsets, Apple will have the opportunity to lock out those other OSes (linux & BSD) that savy users might be tempted to use. Apple will wholeheartedly embrace DRM because they will have little else to lock users into their platform/OS solution.
SGI made wonderful Intel-based workstations that were priced significantly higher than all their other WinTel competition. At the same time, SGI adopted Intel's ia64 processor in lou of their 64-bit MIPS processor for their server offerings. The huge development cost of retooling to the Intel processor broke the company, and SGI is now only a bit player in the server market. Nobody uses SGI Intel-based workstations because nobody wants to get locked into the high TCO.
HP has built Intel-based workstations for a very long time, but their quality control and service issues have driven them into the low-ball commodity PC market to survive. HP abandoned first the DEC Alpha and then the PA-RISC in favor of the Intel ia64, which they are now regretting. HP may soon adopt only AMD as their server processor.
The bottom line is that any/all computer OEMs that have switched to the Intel (or Wintel) computing solution have found themselves competing in the commodity PC market, a market in which margins are razor-thin and money for advanced development has dried up. This is not where Apple users want Apple to go. Instead of gaining market share and increasing profit margins, Apple has forsaken their loyal user base and doomed themselves to the ashbin of computer history. They will be in good company there, but so what?
RIP Apple.
(2009) Netcraft has confirmed that Apple Computer is dead. Apple finally collapsed under fierce commodity computer market pressure. As an ironic twist of fate, Apple Music has purchased (at a fire sale price) all rights to Apple's iTune business. Quoted by one maven "Apple Music has finally won the legal result they have always sought."
So vote fraud is merely a civil offense, and not
a criminal offense? I don't know about the rest
of the "civilized" democratic world, but I think
that vote fraud is a criminal offense in the USA.
Repeatedly using a publically held corporation's
fraudulent lists of criminals not allowed to vote
in order to disenfranchise those voters supporting
the opposing political party is a USA Federal
criminal offense, under the auspicies of the 1964
Voting Rights Act.
Unfortunately, the concerned citizens will find no
legal redress to the abridgement of their civil rights
if the Attorney General and the FBI, under the direct
control of the regime whose agents perpetrated
those crimes, choose not to prosecute.
OTOH, public corporations whose executive boards
are friends with that very same regime who fail,
through careless disregard and/or due diligence,
to provide secure, transparent, and valid processes
for their electronic voting machines and their accumulators
that aggregate the vote count are apparently only
liable to civil penalties. But only up to the
point that criminal charges of conspiracy can be
made, if and when such data becomes available.
The USA's 2000 election may have been improperly
resolved in the Supreme Court. The Florida law
prohibiting a full, across the state vote recount
should have been found unconstitutional. AFAIK,
no charges have ever been filed against the FL
Secretary of State responsible for disenfranchising
tens of thousands of voters.
The USA's 2004 election results are in serious doubt,
not only because of vote fraud regarding the use
of faulty electronic voting machines and accumulator
machines used, but also reliance upon projections
of voter turnout based upon fraudulent exit poll
data. In many jurisdictions, election result
projections based upon cooked exit poll data was
the only way possible to ascertain the accuracy
of those electronic votes counted.
As far as the issue of having evidence that the
electronic voting machines failed, there is enough
evidence already available to cast doubts on the
voting results in every jurisdiction in which
these machines have been used. There is actually
quite enough evidence already available to make
charges of concious culpability and conspiracy
on the part of those public corporations who build
electronic voting machines and accumulators. There
is a substantial amount of information available
at "http://www.blackboxvoting.org".
Then again, some people don't want LFS on a different platform but "their favorite ($insert favorite distro here$) linux distro" on a different platform. Some distros are only packaged for a few architectures.
Slightly OT, but I can remember when MS WinNT was available for the Alpha, Intel, MIPS and PPC platform.
The real strength of linux (alright, GNU/linux) is that since source code is available for virtually everything, your favorite distribution can be built on your favorite platform. The real sticking point, in my book, are nasty OEM manufactureres that insist upon providing binary-only drivers for only one or two architectures. Theo (of OpenBSD fame) is correct in chiding these OEMs about their drivers -- it just isn't right.
I am so glad that you bought the Fujitsu P1120
instead of the HP Omnibook. And if you realized
how bad HP hardware support (in-warranty) was, you
would also be glad.
I have an HP Omnibook that went back twice to HP
while under warranty -- the first time back they
replaced the system board but didn't fix the
problem. The second time it went back, it was
returned to me as-is, with a note that it is
functioning as designed. Unfortunately, their
"as designed" functionality was not the condition
in which I bought it new.
I will never buy an HP branded product ever again,
whether a server, desktop, laptop, PDA, printer,
switch or router. And since my bad experience
with HP support at that time, it would appear that
they have only gotten worse. I would never have
imagined that a premier high tech company like HP
could have fallen so low. (Thanks, Fiorina!)
I have to agree, entirely.
Just because there is insufficient data, and insufficient understanding of the forces at work to make the claim (absolutely and utterly) that global warming is the basis of climactic changes in Siberia and the Arctic as a whole, common sense should be a factor.
When the Dubya regime rejects the science behind global warming in order to justify rejection of the Kyoto Treaty, it is rejecting both civilian and US military studies that trend changing regional weather patterns on a global scale. This stubborn anti-science position does preserve the "status quo" for some short term political advantage, in exchange for increased liability for future generations to deal with. (Not unlike the USAs' going from a $500 Billion USD surplus in 2000 to a $2.5 Trillion USD debt in 2004.) Both the Canadian and US Navy are projecting forward the need for men and ships to patrol the open Artic seas in 10 years where there was only pack ice 10 years ago -- what's wrong with this picture?
Slightly OT, but this very same attitude has been used to justify the ramp-up in construction of nuclear power plants in the USA, as part of Dubya's "energy plan". Nuclear energy (fission) is cheap, just so long as you don't factor in the total manpower and environmental costs for the duration of the created radioactive hazards out 50,000 years. Simple math and simple minds and simple solutions -- if the total costs projected out 50,000 years cannot be calculated for dealing with highly radioactive waste, then it is (at least politically) not a factor and can be safely ignored.
Of course, many of the same politicians believe that the Earth is only 5,000 years old, which makes any projections out 50,000 years far outside their conceivable universe. IMHO, politicians that go out of their way to ignore science are far more dangerous than any "martyr strapped with explosives". Their narrowminded viewpoint effects millions of people for thousands of generations, truly walking, talking WMD.
A slower processor, say 1/2 the clock speed, would
not necessarily draw less power than the faster
processor running at that same speed. If you were
to compare 2 processors on the same die size, the
power required at a specific clock rate determines
what speed the manufacturer rates it for. Most
modern NMOS-type chip designs draw the most power
on the rising and falling clock edges.
The cleaner and sharper rise and fall times that
the processor clock runs at, the lower the power
requirements and the faster the clock could run.
Via and trace densities inside the chip determine
what the absolute maximum power can be drawn,
without melting (like a buss fuse). The faster
processor runing at a lower clock rate should
still have the steeper clock transition times,
drawing less power.
One of the requirements of a good chip design is
the use of a clock signal distributed well. So
long as a slower clock rate can still sync up
properly between on-chip modules (like caches),
a faster processor should draw considerably less
power than the slower processor, given the same
clock speed. Manufacturing tolerances determine
what a specific 6 inch or 9 inch silicon wafer
can produce, speed-wise. Of course, the more
faster chips that can be produced reliably from
a given wafer, the more $$$ the manufacturer can
make.
Processors designed for portable, low power use
already can make use of a slower clock when in
sleep mode. Desktop systems could also make use
of the same technology to save energy. A faster
processor that is running at a slower speed may
not even require a fan, if quiet operation is
desired. The motherboard design, mb support chips,
and the BIOS must support under-clocking for this
to work.
Just my rapidly depreciating $00.02 worth.
I fail to understand how MSFT's "adoption" of the
open XML file format, encapuslating it in a binary
DRM-encumbered wrapper, and furnishing an SDK for
this new file format under restrictive licensing
is any real "end to MSFT's closed file formats".
It does look quite a bit like more of the same old MSFT
strategy of "embrace and extend standards" and "what
MSFT cannot control, it will try to kill" - well established
and largely successful MSFT business strategies.
Spot on target!
Considering how supportive the Dubya regime has been regarding science and space exploration, and so little interest in the militarization of space, or of creating yet another cash-cow for the benefit of their corporate sponsers, the USA's taxpayers can rejoice over this new golden age of space travel.
Oh, wait. Wrong alternative universe.
Considering the Dubya regime's ever-broadening definition of terrorism, one can only draw the conclusion that the Moon will be barely big enough for the expansion of Guantanano Bay's prison facilities. No doubt also the only sure way to avoid IRC inspections, intercession by those pesky "activist" judges, and any more questions about violations of the Geneva Conventions.
"If you want kids to do better- get better teachers, not more work."
Bollocks!
If you want kids to do better - get better parents! The push for more homework assignments has the tendency to keep students off the streets and out of trouble. Which is more than many parents are willing (or able) to do. How many of these parents have let the TV (boob-tube) do their babysitting for them, instead of reading a book to their kids, or actually digging in to help them understand their homework? The three R's are the vitally important bedrock of children learning, but how many parents will run flashcard drills with their kids, or sit down and play Scrabble (or some other educational game) with them?
Teachers these days are expected to be teachers, babysitters, truancy officers, and substitute adult role models for their students. If there are not enough hours in the day to cover all these duties, more homework is a partial solution. The USA's public school systems need to break away from the agrarian-based 9 month school year, and switch to year-round schooling. Several short breaks in the instruction cycle are far more productive than a mind numbing 3 month break. Requiring school uniforms instead of rampant competition over name-brand clothing would help, also.
Well, I can understand Ulrich's position. The company he works for only supports specific and profitable platforms. Microsoft dropped their WinNT support for the ALPHA, MIPS, and PPC platforms because they didn't want to re-write their Application suite. IMHO, though, MSFT's software offerings would have been more stable and less buggy if they had proceeded to port all their applications to these other platforms.
But Ulrich's position is indefensible in the broader scheme of F/OSS and linux, which has the marketshare it does have ONLY because of the ability to be ported to any number of archane platforms. This is its strength, and not a weakness. It would appear that in Ulrich's lexicon, linux (or F/OSS) and portability do not
belong in the same sentence. I don't claim to know his curriculum vitae, but he sounds sort of Microsoftie...
No, no, no. Those units MUST be wrong.
800.0 mm (millimeters)
Any mechanical bug this big belongs on the
battlefield, not in a clinical setting.
80.0 mm (millimeters)
That is one big bug. It doesn't need 6 legs,
it needs tank treads.
8.00 mm (millimeters)
Okay, this sounds a bit more reasonable, but
still rather big to have 6 legs.
0.80 mm (millimeters)
On this scale, it would be more like a swarm
of gnats. With some AI and BT or RFID feed-
back, a swarm of probes this size might work.
800 nm (nanometers)
At this size, the probe would be way smaller
than many of the symbiotic bugs found in the
human body.
This does not compute. Re-enter correct data.
"Nobody has the right to drive drunk."
Actually, everyone has the right to drive drunk --
on their own property. That right ends on public
property -- just like (IMHO) all of your other rights,
which end where other people's rights begin.
Unfortunately, in this "politically correct" era,
many people think that their own rights supercede
everyone else's rights. The right to get drunk,
or to drive through stop signs or traffic lights,
the right to sideswipe a parked car and drive off,
the right to carjack someone at gun-point, the right
to tresspass on and vandalize other people's property;
the list goes on and on. Now we (here in the USA)
have a regime in power that wants to regulate how
we live, but also how we die. These are not
conservatives in the normal sense of the word --
they are Nazis. (But I digress here.)
In much of the USA, there is an unholy cabal between
legislators and defense lawyers that makes it easy
(with enough cash) to have a 1st or 2nd or 15th
DUI conviction punished with little more than a
slap on the wrist. IMHO, the punishments need to
be far more severe, with a 1st offense that draws
a 1 year suspension of a drivers license, and a 2nd
offense that draws 6 months in jail. The usual
occurance, when someone it caught driving with a
suspended license, should automatically draw a
six month jail term. Of course, defense lawyers
might be forced to find an honest means of employment
if the penalties were increased significantly.
"Lisp gurus, start your engines!" -- NOT!
I think Forth.
Small core, fast, functional, modular, & universal.
Exactly so!
If you are thinking about "socialism" then places
like Castro's Cuba come to mind -- free/cheap housing,
free medical care, free education, etc. Or perhaps,
Venezuela, which has a left-of-center elected
government that actually cares about their poor.
But that the Bushwhacker neo-cons regard Venezuela
as an enemy state has less to do with their politics,
and a way lot more to do with their oil wealth.
Diverting their oil profits away from the elite
with close ties to Houston, TX, into social welfare
programs has brought Venezuela to the brink of being
included in the "axis-of-evil".
State corporatism, also known as National Socialism,
tends to provide favoritism to corporations over
the general well-being of the population. Tax cuts to
these corporations, legislation that provides
government handouts to corporations, stripping away
of social welfare programs, government actions against
labor unions and equitable wages, concentration of
the public media into fewer and fewer hands, and
unprovoked and unjustifiable foreign wars are the
warning signs.
The USA has come a lot closer to adopting National
Socialism than Venezuela has to becoming a "communist"
state in the past five years. And it is particularly
vexing to hear the Senate Majority Leader Frist
call the increasingly marginalized minority party
"Nazis" over the use of the filibuster -- a mechanism
for guarding minority party voice in the approval
of "appointed-for-life" Federal judges.
The parent poster is "spot-on-target".
It is, however, refreshing to see some (albeit small)
improvement in addressing ethics and morality at
American business schools. After all the corporate
financial shenannigans of AOL, Adelphia, Enron,
Global Crossing, Wachovia, and Worldcom, I was
beginning to believe that Break-the-Law 101 was
part of business school curriculum. (Okay, so
they actually changed it to Ethics 101, right?)
American corporations have all the rights of the
individual, but none of the legal liabilities.
Until that changes, it will be "business" as usual.