There are two important factors often overlooked in the "organic" vs. conventional debate.
First is cost. Is it better to have produce that is slightly less nutritious but cheaper so that people eat more of it? Simply stated, if conventionally grown salad greens are cheaper will people eat more of them (and be healthier) or will more people (poorer people) eat them when they wouldn't at a higher price (and be healthier)?
Second is practicality. The great Nobel Peace price winning agronomist Norman Borlaug has stated that in common analysis there simply isn't a way to change the world to 100% organic produce. There simply isn't enough sh*t to support feeding the world's current population plus reduced efficiencies of organic farming methods are an issue. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html
This is another example how statistics lie. I have a blackberry with GPS and yes, I have USED IT ONCE OR TWICE as a GPS so I qualify as far as the article is concerned. I do not use it as my primary GPS by a long shot and just bought an upgraded Garmin for my car. Smart phone GPS's have a long way to go before they displace stand alone GPS's for speed of route calculation, accuracy, readability and speed of satellite signal acquisition.
Gee, since an Moslem terrorist would know this too and since if they are on a suicide mission or other mission, they are probably going to skip the wonderful airline food and they will know not to order a special meal.
Once again, another pointless Bush administration loss of liberty to ZERO affect on the war on terror.
Now all we have to do is convince Moslems that the vaccine isn't all part of a western conspiracy to make them sterile. As you all may recall this is the reason that polio isn't quite iradicated. Certain Moslem religous leaders have been telling their followers not to take the polio vaccination for this reason.
First of all, he looks like Woody Allen in that picture.
Second of all, it would be funny to see if the picture could be enhanced to see his outlook inbox to see the senders and subjects of the emails that he has there.
Early Itaniums produced so much heat that replacing Sun, HP or other Intel Servers with Itaniums would strain a data centers AC by dramatically increasing the heat produced (and associated electricity needed). Many people at the time just didn't see the need to play with them and got their early impressions.
Gee, was that a Swiss government funded project? If it was and the Swiss gov't wish to license it, that is one thing. I specifically didn't mention "invention" did I?
uh...nobody's government wanted to take control of the steamengines or airplanes did they? Additionally those inventions weren't specifically government funded (ie taxpayer), were they? What we are talking about is administration of a service provided by the US govenerment currently for the world's benefit, financed by US taxpayer dollars. I don't see any parallel between that and individual inventions made by individuals.
The Internet was funded with US taxpayer dollars and has been open to the world to use without financial consideration or gratitude for the research money that went into it.
If the US Govt wants to run the root servers that is purely a domestic US issue.
Like the GPS system (also US taxpayer financed in the billions and used by the world without gratitude or financial consideration), if people in other countries or Americans don't like the US govt administering it, go build your own.
While I commend Spitzer, the real question is this: Where is the US Justice Department in all these investigations? Why is this guy, one of 50 state attorney generals (or equivalent), leading the prosection of abuses of spy-ware, mutual fund imdustry rip offs, insurance industry abuses, etc.? It is a joke to me that Spitzer on his tiny budget, relative to the US Justice Dept. can get so much done.
No new laws have been passed in NY state to enable Spitzer to pursue these abuses, he is using decades old laws or simple civil lawsuits and is saving all US (and often world) citizens from these rip offs.
The real question is why a non "huge international company" needs 2500 servers for running its business! Seems to me if they ported their ap to Linux, they could get away with only 2450 servers!
2 Billion Euros is a lot to spend on a small improvement in accuracy--and does anyone think it can be built for less than 3 Billion after expected overruns? This is pure pork.
The future of linux and the ultimate downfall of the Windows environment are the developing economies of Asia. As the cost of HW goes down, the MS tax becomes a greater and greater percentage of overall costs and a greater and greater incentive for these economies to use and advance the Linux alterative.
The only way MS can play in these economies is to dramatically drop prices which would affect prices/revenue around the world because they couldn't have the prices so much lower in certain markets without a huge grey market developing.
There are two questions: Firstly, why would Sun do it and secondly, what is good about this in the open source world.
The first question, IMHO, is that Sun's customers are somehow driving Sun to Open Solaris probablyu because they are resistant to runing aps on Solaris and would rather use Linux. This is possibly because they are concerned about Sun's long term survivability. They would consider Solaris more seriously if it were Open source and ported to other platforms. It is also important to recognize that large portions of AIX were "open sourced" by their inclusion in Linux--thus the SCO lawsuit. IBM appears to want to get out of the UX-OS business entirely and their strategy is to boost up Linux with functionality and sell consulting services to their customers to help them migrate!
My answer to the second question is one that should make/.ers jump for joy. Solaris has the BEST SMP support (most linear) of all the UXes...wouldn't it be great to use that code to improve Linux?
While people can point to certain advances in electronics that the Apollo and Mercury programs begat, the "spinoffs" of the space program since Apollo 11 (ie. > 30 years) has truly been minimal. The other questions to be thought about are (IMHO) these: How much sooner did these wonderful advances come our way and how many MORE and more useful advances would have come our way if 50% of the money were spent on basic sciences or even military R&D??
Giving away free copies of MS products to schools helps the monopoly, it doesn't help competition! It shuts down the possibility of competing products in those schools! Having M$ give part of that fine money to fund open source or to a sw foundation to help growing sw companies are the things that might help competition?
Hmmm...what do they need $50MM for? If IBM (and the rest of the planet) are about to fold and have to pay huge bux to SCO, why do they need the invesment? Even if the IBM claim goes to trial, it will go to trial within a year or two so I would only imagine that SCO needs a couple of years worth of burnrate. It just seems to me weird that a company that only is losing a few hundred thou a year needs such a big investment.
I think the record companies are forgetting is that the consumers are becoming more focused on the singles and less on the album takes away from the way the consumer thinks about the band! The consumer loses the association with the band as they lose the album experience and this will make their woes even more dramatic as they end up being even more hit focused and less band focused.
Just my rant!
Call me naive (but don't call me late to dinner), I just think that in these recent situations the lies are so blatent and so in the face of overwhelming opposing evidence!
We live in a world of disinformation! Whether it is the politicians or business people it is becoming all too common. Several things jump to mind:
- Bill gates in the anti-trust suit having ridiculously selective memory
- Disinformation on both positions on the Iraq war whether Washington, Europe of even Information Ali
- The SCO/IBM situation.
- Enron
The list just goes on an on. The world is becoming such a scary place.
You left out that little part about a WELL REGULATED militia:
2nd Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Read the rest of the constitution to see how it uses the word militia to get an understanding of what was intended.
I support the right to own guns, but don't hide behind an improper quoting of the constitution. USE THE WHOLE SENTENCE!
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There are two important factors often overlooked in the "organic" vs. conventional debate. First is cost. Is it better to have produce that is slightly less nutritious but cheaper so that people eat more of it? Simply stated, if conventionally grown salad greens are cheaper will people eat more of them (and be healthier) or will more people (poorer people) eat them when they wouldn't at a higher price (and be healthier)? Second is practicality. The great Nobel Peace price winning agronomist Norman Borlaug has stated that in common analysis there simply isn't a way to change the world to 100% organic produce. There simply isn't enough sh*t to support feeding the world's current population plus reduced efficiencies of organic farming methods are an issue. http://www.reason.com/news/show/27665.html
This is another example how statistics lie. I have a blackberry with GPS and yes, I have USED IT ONCE OR TWICE as a GPS so I qualify as far as the article is concerned. I do not use it as my primary GPS by a long shot and just bought an upgraded Garmin for my car. Smart phone GPS's have a long way to go before they displace stand alone GPS's for speed of route calculation, accuracy, readability and speed of satellite signal acquisition.
I gotta believe it is Pirate Bay that has more money that WB!!
...and they had to spend a BILLION dollars for this education?? ;-)
So, then it looks like Sun acquired nothing. The real IP has walked out the door.
Am I the only one who thinks that Hulu is such a disorganized mess? If you don't know exactly what you are looking for, forget it!
Gee, since an Moslem terrorist would know this too and since if they are on a suicide mission or other mission, they are probably going to skip the wonderful airline food and they will know not to order a special meal. Once again, another pointless Bush administration loss of liberty to ZERO affect on the war on terror.
Now all we have to do is convince Moslems that the vaccine isn't all part of a western conspiracy to make them sterile. As you all may recall this is the reason that polio isn't quite iradicated. Certain Moslem religous leaders have been telling their followers not to take the polio vaccination for this reason.
First of all, he looks like Woody Allen in that picture.
Second of all, it would be funny to see if the picture could be enhanced to see his outlook inbox to see the senders and subjects of the emails that he has there.
Early Itaniums produced so much heat that replacing Sun, HP or other Intel Servers with Itaniums would strain a data centers AC by dramatically increasing the heat produced (and associated electricity needed). Many people at the time just didn't see the need to play with them and got their early impressions.
Gee, was that a Swiss government funded project? If it was and the Swiss gov't wish to license it, that is one thing. I specifically didn't mention "invention" did I?
uh...nobody's government wanted to take control of the steamengines or airplanes did they? Additionally those inventions weren't specifically government funded (ie taxpayer), were they? What we are talking about is administration of a service provided by the US govenerment currently for the world's benefit, financed by US taxpayer dollars. I don't see any parallel between that and individual inventions made by individuals.
The Internet was funded with US taxpayer dollars and has been open to the world to use without financial consideration or gratitude for the research money that went into it. If the US Govt wants to run the root servers that is purely a domestic US issue. Like the GPS system (also US taxpayer financed in the billions and used by the world without gratitude or financial consideration), if people in other countries or Americans don't like the US govt administering it, go build your own.
While I commend Spitzer, the real question is this: Where is the US Justice Department in all these investigations? Why is this guy, one of 50 state attorney generals (or equivalent), leading the prosection of abuses of spy-ware, mutual fund imdustry rip offs, insurance industry abuses, etc.? It is a joke to me that Spitzer on his tiny budget, relative to the US Justice Dept. can get so much done. No new laws have been passed in NY state to enable Spitzer to pursue these abuses, he is using decades old laws or simple civil lawsuits and is saving all US (and often world) citizens from these rip offs.
The real question is why a non "huge international company" needs 2500 servers for running its business! Seems to me if they ported their ap to Linux, they could get away with only 2450 servers!
2 Billion Euros is a lot to spend on a small improvement in accuracy--and does anyone think it can be built for less than 3 Billion after expected overruns? This is pure pork.
The only way MS can play in these economies is to dramatically drop prices which would affect prices/revenue around the world because they couldn't have the prices so much lower in certain markets without a huge grey market developing.
There are two questions: Firstly, why would Sun do it and secondly, what is good about this in the open source world. The first question, IMHO, is that Sun's customers are somehow driving Sun to Open Solaris probablyu because they are resistant to runing aps on Solaris and would rather use Linux. This is possibly because they are concerned about Sun's long term survivability. They would consider Solaris more seriously if it were Open source and ported to other platforms. It is also important to recognize that large portions of AIX were "open sourced" by their inclusion in Linux--thus the SCO lawsuit. IBM appears to want to get out of the UX-OS business entirely and their strategy is to boost up Linux with functionality and sell consulting services to their customers to help them migrate! My answer to the second question is one that should make /.ers jump for joy. Solaris has the BEST SMP support (most linear) of all the UXes...wouldn't it be great to use that code to improve Linux?
While people can point to certain advances in electronics that the Apollo and Mercury programs begat, the "spinoffs" of the space program since Apollo 11 (ie. > 30 years) has truly been minimal. The other questions to be thought about are (IMHO) these: How much sooner did these wonderful advances come our way and how many MORE and more useful advances would have come our way if 50% of the money were spent on basic sciences or even military R&D??
Giving away free copies of MS products to schools helps the monopoly, it doesn't help competition! It shuts down the possibility of competing products in those schools! Having M$ give part of that fine money to fund open source or to a sw foundation to help growing sw companies are the things that might help competition?
Hmmm...what do they need $50MM for? If IBM (and the rest of the planet) are about to fold and have to pay huge bux to SCO, why do they need the invesment? Even if the IBM claim goes to trial, it will go to trial within a year or two so I would only imagine that SCO needs a couple of years worth of burnrate. It just seems to me weird that a company that only is losing a few hundred thou a year needs such a big investment.
I think the record companies are forgetting is that the consumers are becoming more focused on the singles and less on the album takes away from the way the consumer thinks about the band! The consumer loses the association with the band as they lose the album experience and this will make their woes even more dramatic as they end up being even more hit focused and less band focused. Just my rant!
Call me naive (but don't call me late to dinner), I just think that in these recent situations the lies are so blatent and so in the face of overwhelming opposing evidence!
We live in a world of disinformation! Whether it is the politicians or business people it is becoming all too common. Several things jump to mind: - Bill gates in the anti-trust suit having ridiculously selective memory - Disinformation on both positions on the Iraq war whether Washington, Europe of even Information Ali - The SCO/IBM situation. - Enron The list just goes on an on. The world is becoming such a scary place.
You left out that little part about a WELL REGULATED militia: 2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Read the rest of the constitution to see how it uses the word militia to get an understanding of what was intended. I support the right to own guns, but don't hide behind an improper quoting of the constitution. USE THE WHOLE SENTENCE!