The Canadian government took a long time to turn the US down on its offer to spend money and political capital on BMD.
Many of the lefties were complaining that the US really wanted to militarize space.
Being one of those "commies" that disagreed with BMD for that very reason, let me again say that the biggest threats to US security do not come from space. That situation is unlikely to change in the near or medium future.
I work for a U.S. government contractor. One of the rules that we have to comply with is that all of our software must be produced in the united states. We can't use open source code because some of it could be written outside of the US. We can't buy licenses for software libraries that could be produced overseas. It's to protect us from potentially malicious code.
Assumes that an OSS package written overseas can't be inspected for malicious intent, while a locally produced software is believed to be safe.
This also assumes that locally produced proprietary software doesn't contain OSS components.
Odd, very odd.
This articles prevents the Chinese Government from buying software from outside of the country. There's still another 1.3 billion consumers there that don't directly work for the government. I don't see this to be a very big problem for US companies trying to sell products there.
The Chinese gvt is actually the biggest seller in that market. Whatever they use could easily become the de facto standard for schools, and then business.
One can only hope that once Stallman and the FSF crowd reach an agreement with OOo devs we will stop hearing about the supposed Java Trap.
Those that get their knickers in a knot over Java not being free would be better off working on projects like GCJ than flaming about those that are producing some of the best F/OSS projects out there.
When I look at your front page, the rendering looks broken: the links overlap the CMS/CSS/RSS info further right.
I guess it's so important to you that people see things exactly the way you want them to, you also make sure it looks right on every browser and resolution combination, hmm?
she receives funny animated emails from her friends and/or colleagues, and a found Word document with the recipe for werewolf in dung sauce that she can't open...
Won't work for average old ladies.
Where do you live? Around here, eating wherewolves is so passe- although that dung sauce sounds intriguing.
"Intelligence" services were warned about the previous attack on the WTC, but they lacked translators. They were warned about 9/11, but they couldn't prevent it because they lacked translators.
They obviously need a search engine to solve this problem.
With IBM officially supporting FF for internal use, (and I imagine quite a few German companies must be doing the same), I wonder what the implications are for developers. Will we soon be able to assume a standards-compliant browser? Could some IT departments start using XUL to its full potential?
If anyone has any information about why Germans are so far in advance, please do tell.
Depends on which big company you work for. I deal with some snail mail once in a while (when phone lines are busy), and most of the stuff I see was received 1-3 weeks prior. Faxing or emailing a _specific_ person would be ideal, as would be recommended snail mail.
It's called civil disobedience. Refuse to let schools become cesspools of fanatic indoctrination by religious zealots. Makes you look worse than Qu'ran thumpers- with over a century of free public education, you fools should know better.
I hold this not just against Kansans but against Americans. No other "civilized" country I know of officially states that "In God we trust", or has a head of state that regularly finishes sermon er speeches with "God bless ". You all bear some responsibility for the rise of your right-wing crusaders.
I hope you are indeed one of the saner Americans, and that you'll show us more of what made you leaders in areas of civil rights and non-violent action. Good luck.
Yeah, the God must have loaded the dice hypothesis.
What's troubling is a lack of imagination and the inability to deal with ignorance. We don't know- do we have to grasp at theories to explain or can we just be OK with that for a while?
Perhaps even more alarming than the lack of imagination and need for prematurely squashing cognitive dissonance is the image most people have of God. It stretches most people's imagination to picture HER as a breastfeeding mother- it's almost always a Santa look-alike. And a white Jesus to his right.
If you want to make it your responsibility to get to know better, go right ahead and do that. Where I get annoyed is because of your conviction you want to make it my responsibility too. I'm just trying to deal as best I can with the mysteries I see- mysteries precisely because our human minds can't conclusively solve them.
I wouldn't be so alarmed about this... the state decides what you have to teach, not HOW you must teach it.
More to the point, students (children) should not be held hostages to our stupid politicking. Let them learn about both theories, and why scientists don't accept ID (and vice-versa).
Instead of stuffing their brains with the "right" theories, we ought to be teaching them how to use said brains. We'll need citizens- open-minded but critical thinkers, not PC-drones.
Both sides in this debate would have us submit children to an authoritarian model of education as long as they're taught their pet-theories. If we want a better democracy, we'll need to educate people to be better citizens.
The success of the environmental movement is driven by two powerful forces--romanticism and science--that are often in opposition. The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and combative against any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction.
Any time someone divides any group into two neat sub-groups, there's trouble brewing. And lo! one of these groups celebrates irrationality, will fight you if they think you're wrong and won't admit their faults.
His following theories are so weak it would be easy to rebut them- would that only get me branded as a naive romantic? Like with the supposed Christians that tell me the devil gives people rational arguments to doubt (their version of) the true faith, I suspect there is no use arguing.
Nuclear energy will save us and the earth that rest on four pillars. Amen.
I've used OO.org to properly import old PowerPoint files in the new PowerPoint version. That should be a sign.
With MS, you never know if your files are going to be mangled from one upgrade to the next. With OO.org, you'll never be SOL, even assuming that a new version could not properly import an old file... which is not likely.
Then teach students something about job searches: tell them to also list MS Office on their resume and answer yes to interview questions.
I learned to use a spreadsheet with Lotus. On my first job I was asked to do a task that was expected to take hours, but was done in 5 minutes. Most employers have no idea what is possible, and they'll be impressed as hell if you can do the job fast- even if you have to use the Help section.
The question of how we defend blogs against the evils of PR is fairly interesting. I would even argue that a system where there are more PR workers planting news than journalists writing them can only lead to an increase in corporatism- most advocacy groups can't pre-digest news and line up three "experts", whereas it's just a cheap form of advertising for large corporations.
I've also got it interfacing with Google Maps to do live vehicle tracking via gpsd. It also uploads pictures from an on-board webcam every five minutes or so.
Could the pics be analyzed to produce useful GIS data? At the very least could street names and circulation signs (no left turn, etc...) be recognized on pics and geocoded?
There's a lot of interesting social software that could be built with even partial data, but the cost of the commercial sets is so high that it discourages casual hacking.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are so smart, learn to undo your conitionning.
The Canadian government took a long time to turn the US down on its offer to spend money and political capital on BMD.
Many of the lefties were complaining that the US really wanted to militarize space.
Being one of those "commies" that disagreed with BMD for that very reason, let me again say that the biggest threats to US security do not come from space. That situation is unlikely to change in the near or medium future.
This also assumes that locally produced proprietary software doesn't contain OSS components.
Odd, very odd.
The Chinese gvt is actually the biggest seller in that market. Whatever they use could easily become the de facto standard for schools, and then business.
One can only hope that once Stallman and the FSF crowd reach an agreement with OOo devs we will stop hearing about the supposed Java Trap.
Those that get their knickers in a knot over Java not being free would be better off working on projects like GCJ than flaming about those that are producing some of the best F/OSS projects out there.
When I look at your front page, the rendering looks broken: the links overlap the CMS/CSS/RSS info further right.
I guess it's so important to you that people see things exactly the way you want them to, you also make sure it looks right on every browser and resolution combination, hmm?
"Intelligence" services were warned about the previous attack on the WTC, but they lacked translators. They were warned about 9/11, but they couldn't prevent it because they lacked translators.
They obviously need a search engine to solve this problem.
compared to 69% there for IE.
With IBM officially supporting FF for internal use, (and I imagine quite a few German companies must be doing the same), I wonder what the implications are for developers. Will we soon be able to assume a standards-compliant browser? Could some IT departments start using XUL to its full potential?
If anyone has any information about why Germans are so far in advance, please do tell.
Bah, to the /. crowd, nuclear is the way to go. Fuel cells will be here sooner than nuke batteries, even without subsidies.
Reality can't stop the nuclear fetish.
What is rude is "objecting" to someone using pork in their cooking. It's boorish, and no way to win an ideological/religious battle.
Depends on which big company you work for. I deal with some snail mail once in a while (when phone lines are busy), and most of the stuff I see was received 1-3 weeks prior. Faxing or emailing a _specific_ person would be ideal, as would be recommended snail mail.
We hold against you that you elected these morons. Please don't tell me you didn't vote unless you weren't allowed, that's even worse.
1) Reverse the decision (somehow)
It's called civil disobedience. Refuse to let schools become cesspools of fanatic indoctrination by religious zealots. Makes you look worse than Qu'ran thumpers- with over a century of free public education, you fools should know better.
I hold this not just against Kansans but against Americans. No other "civilized" country I know of officially states that "In God we trust", or has a head of state that regularly finishes sermon er speeches with "God bless ". You all bear some responsibility for the rise of your right-wing crusaders.
I hope you are indeed one of the saner Americans, and that you'll show us more of what made you leaders in areas of civil rights and non-violent action. Good luck.
Yeah, the God must have loaded the dice hypothesis.
What's troubling is a lack of imagination and the inability to deal with ignorance. We don't know- do we have to grasp at theories to explain or can we just be OK with that for a while?
Perhaps even more alarming than the lack of imagination and need for prematurely squashing cognitive dissonance is the image most people have of God. It stretches most people's imagination to picture HER as a breastfeeding mother- it's almost always a Santa look-alike. And a white Jesus to his right.
If you want to make it your responsibility to get to know better, go right ahead and do that. Where I get annoyed is because of your conviction you want to make it my responsibility too. I'm just trying to deal as best I can with the mysteries I see- mysteries precisely because our human minds can't conclusively solve them.
I commented on K5:
I wouldn't be so alarmed about this... the state decides what you have to teach, not HOW you must teach it.
More to the point, students (children) should not be held hostages to our stupid politicking. Let them learn about both theories, and why scientists don't accept ID (and vice-versa).
Instead of stuffing their brains with the "right" theories, we ought to be teaching them how to use said brains. We'll need citizens- open-minded but critical thinkers, not PC-drones.
Both sides in this debate would have us submit children to an authoritarian model of education as long as they're taught their pet-theories. If we want a better democracy, we'll need to educate people to be better citizens.
Regardless of morality, I'd have to wonder what eating a human brain (at least genetically/protein-wise) could do to you.
Sadly, not all governments provide such data. Most of the free data I can get for the US from its government is fairly outdated.
I'd also be surprised if the government had GIS data for trip planning. Do you have any links?
His following theories are so weak it would be easy to rebut them- would that only get me branded as a naive romantic? Like with the supposed Christians that tell me the devil gives people rational arguments to doubt (their version of) the true faith, I suspect there is no use arguing.
Nuclear energy will save us and the earth that rest on four pillars. Amen.
I've used OO.org to properly import old PowerPoint files in the new PowerPoint version. That should be a sign.
With MS, you never know if your files are going to be mangled from one upgrade to the next. With OO.org, you'll never be SOL, even assuming that a new version could not properly import an old file... which is not likely.
Then teach students something about job searches: tell them to also list MS Office on their resume and answer yes to interview questions.
I learned to use a spreadsheet with Lotus. On my first job I was asked to do a task that was expected to take hours, but was done in 5 minutes. Most employers have no idea what is possible, and they'll be impressed as hell if you can do the job fast- even if you have to use the Help section.
Whereas Paul Graham sees PR as fairly benign, this is not always the case. I suggest reading the classic Toxic Sludge Is Good For You (Amazon reviews).
The question of how we defend blogs against the evils of PR is fairly interesting. I would even argue that a system where there are more PR workers planting news than journalists writing them can only lead to an increase in corporatism- most advocacy groups can't pre-digest news and line up three "experts", whereas it's just a cheap form of advertising for large corporations.
There's a lot of interesting social software that could be built with even partial data, but the cost of the commercial sets is so high that it discourages casual hacking.