Hmmm.. If DRM can keep the general MS using market locked up to specific applications, what is to prevent China (mainland) from getting Intel to produce a version that allows them to lock their users' computers as well (with red linux)?
Most people are missing the point of DRM. DRM is control of information and cash flow. Nothing else to it. Those who wind up controlling the PC platforms (information) wind up controlling a large part of the world (just like the media's heavy influence on most people's lives).
Eventually we all loose unless we own stock in the companies that come out ahead. It is kind of like the Patriot Act. We gave up some freedoms with that act. They are more than likely not coming back in our or our children's lifetimes (if ever in this nation's lifetime - US). This is another small freedom (self-determination) we give up. If we give into it, they (those who are in power) win another small but important victory. It is not paranoia to think that history repeats itslef for a reason. It is only paranoia to think they are only after you.
All through history, the rich and powerful have sought ways to control those around them. The more control they have, the more wealth and power they have. It is a viscious circle that has ended in blood more often than not (do not believe, break out your local history books for the past several thousand years). As much as technology has grown and as much as we debate the ethics and philosophy of the "new world", it is the same old motives as the old world.
The wrapping is pretty and the services offered are neat sounding, but to know what the value of this is, follow the money and read their mantra. DRM is everything they could have hoped for - MS having one of its founders on record as such. So, in the fine tradition of Standard Oil, Ma Bell, and others who sought to physically lock entire markets (and populations) up, here comes another.
Are you kidding? PHP, Java and the rest do not have bigger applications than what are done in Perl using mod-perl!
It has more of a learning curve than php at first, and probably is not appropriate for small static sites, but I have never seen PHP or Java rip out major stuff as fast as Perl, then migrate, modify or otherwise perform client expectations that require redesign. I have worked for two companies where we went to Java. At both companies, more than half the stuff that went to Java was sent back to perl to decrease response time for client needs. Another company I contract to went to PHP for their site when they started, but wound up re-writing the whole thing in Perl with mod_perl when they had a database change. It was faster, and the code came out more manageable, faster and more stable. We learned very quickly that a programmer who writes bad code does it in all languages, and all the good programmers wrote clean concise well documented code (most of the time). And when they wrote something sloppy, it was no more difficult to figure out what they had written than it was in the other languages (Java, php, C, C++, sql,...)
It is very simple. I am paid by my clients to provide, maintain and modify code. They expect that I will charge them less than others and provide strong solid support and service. Most of them expect one day to one week turn around for change requests. Since we manage the code ourselves, it is very important to us that the code be quick, clear and concise. It must be as reuseable as possible. It must be able to be picked up with and run by new people or contractors. The Java took too long to make the same things happen and PHP ran into dead ends (could not, or more often took too long) when upgrading sites, migrating to new client databases or other client changes. In short, Perl has allowed us to undercut almost all of our competitors in this area. The ones we have not undercut are, believe it or not, perl based shops as well. Java does beat perl for some things as does php for some things, but in so many cases, perl has beat them both.
Texas may be seemingly not paying for any of it, but there is definately a huge price tag for all people in this country, especially in the states in question. I think the company that pulls this off is one I will invest in. They will have great growth as cities spring up around this. It will increase taxes for the states involved as businesses take advantage of the transport system, and it will become semi-public supported (yes, with taxes) as localities wind up paying for things like on and off ramps to their special piece of land and the company in question gets more power and sway (with donations).
This is a very shrewd sales job, and the more I read about it from articles on the net, and look at the money flow, the more I realize just how big this deal is (the invested amount will be made back 100s of times in fifty years). The derivative businesses from this are big. Fuel to digital services to carrier (pipe, line, etc) charges to roadway stations, to fees to...
InnerWeb
Emminent Domain being used for private profit...
on
The Super Superhighway
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
What I really see here is a way for companies to use emminent domain to pull a railroad robber baron move. The government has a right to grab citizens' land for its use if it provides compensation that is appropriate....
I am uncertain that this idea of grabbing the land and then allowing a company to basically make the profits from these displaced inviduals land is a healthy step in the right direction. True, modern roads are paved by private contractors in most cases (that I am aware of), but they do not own the land, nor can private enterprise restrict access to the lands grabbed by the government for the public's use (AKAIK - please correct me if you know of any examples otherwise). I am not certain if the land for toll roads has been grabbed the same way as this suggests. And that 50 year contract is way over the top! About 45 years over the top.
If the company really wants to make this happen and they are wanting to do this with private enterprise, then the company needs to be the one that convinces the landowners to move or give up land (by providing truthfuly appropriate compensation) and the company should not turn to the state for anything but zoning approval (or other required approvals to build and maintain this system.) It could be a great thing to have a large transport system like this, but... One must always be careful of what doors one opens for potential abuse, as they are very hard to close.
In all fairness, if this proceeds, then the people whose land is being grabbed definately deserve a stake in the company that is to derive the profits from the current landowners' land. In truth, this probably ought not happen the way it is being thought up in the first place.
InnerWeb
Re:Speedy Limit or Incomplete Statistics...
on
The Super Superhighway
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The data provided is interesting, but not useful in the context provided. Sure, on those roads (with what traffic density?), a small drop in the fatality rate occured. What other events or changes happened at the same time (weather, cars being used,...)? Is it possible that this shows nothing other than some people do not pay attention to what they are doing unless they feel they are at risk somehow (driving fast)? Does this demonstrate that the roads were suddenly less travelled as others were more afraid of driving on them?
Just like marketing that shows two out of three dentists use brand A, incomplete numbers are not real as research is not completely valid if the environment it draws from is not studied completely.
This goes with the researcher at Harvard who concluded that Milk potentially reduces the chances of diabetes by studying two groups of kids. One drank more milk and one drank much less to none. The more milk drinking group had less diabetes than the less milk drinking group. But, in the research, there was no reference to what the less milk drinking group was drinking. Maybe water, you think? Probably not, probably heavily sugared drinks (but, we will never know since the researcher did not bother to find out). By neglecting this important aspect of his/her research, the information is not useful. All it suggests is that something that was different between the two groups contributed to diabetes in the less milk drinking group. It does not demonstrate that drinking milk potentially prevents diabetes any more than the numbers from Montana demonstrate that a lack of speed limit prevents or lowers fatal accidents.
I am sorry for not including quotes, and URLs, but these are stories that date back to the first year GW was in office, and in many cases, I no longer have the URLs. A simple Google search will turn up many sources (credible sources) with the proof you seek.
The best proof, being the actions the current regime has taken in regards to the EPA, Kyoto and other requirements and actions in place prior to his assumption of power. The reality is, he has reversed a long term trend in making power companies and oither polluters morer responsible for what they do. There has been very good coverage of it throughout the past 4 years, including time on 60 minutes, ABC news, CBS News and PBS, that I have seen. There have been publications in several national periodicals (mainstream press, not special interest).
That is like the person with clogged arteries getting bypass surger and then saying, see I did not need that, I have not had a heart attack.
A lot has already happened to slow the tyrend down, yet it marches on. And yes, many of these predictions are coming true. It merely takes longer when you do some serious things to slow it down.
Scientists disagree, genius. Hmm.. True the quote might be a little lame, but the spirit of the quote is right on. Last time I went through the published articles, I only read disagreement as to what extent the effect was. The only people who were disagreeing were not real scientists (pseudo-scientists) that work for corporate concerns (think smoking is not addictive or bad for you, lots of tobaco scientists made these claims, or pharma scientists, etc.) Do you really think that these corps care anything about reality, especially when it impacts their bottom line?
Really, an overwhelming majority of scientists agree on the seriousess of global warming (and more importantly, an even greater percentage of those who do this type of science agree). There will always be puppets of business that can create experiments to find evidence for anything by ignoring most everything else.
The spirit of what was written goes right along with the man GW, though. He who has said "I speak with God", "God has told me to..." as though he were a modern day prophet. He is arrogant and ill-informed. He cares little or nothing for the long term consequences of what he does, he only cares for the short term consequences. Kind of like the average American on credit.
This fits with the GW policies of adding more lead back into the atmosphere, allowing more toxins from plants in the environment, weakening standards on emmissions, mandating policy to schools without funding (thereby crippling the schools in question), using government funds to support religions, calling a holy war (crusade) on Muslims in the Middle East, and many more. Lets face it, the average American voted along only a few thoughts, and screwed themselves in the process. The debts we are running up are harmful and the damage we are doing to our selves and our children (your future taxpayers) will take generations to fix. Lead is proven (many times over) to cause a rise in violent crime(18 to 20 year following introduction into the environment, the length of time for a newborn to become a legal adult) as well as learning disabilities. Greenhouse gases are called such because they cause greehouse effects. Oil spills destroy ecologies, most have never recovered, let alone fully recovered. Iraq was the most ill-conceived idea from our leadership since viet-nam.
He may do some things right, but the damage he is doing is far greater. You do not have to agree with me now. What he is doing has already been done in the past (yes, study history), and it has never worked in the past being done by far more capable people than GW.
I do not not know about the parent, but I know from personally doing this. I have installed thousands of systems in my time for corps, and we receive them with the OEM OS installed (and we paid for it, verified on the bill), only to blank the HD and install (or Ghost) a copy onto the system that conformed to our corp policies (and no activiation key). We also paid for that copy (saw those invoices as well.)
More than once I asked why we did that, and was told the same every time. It was too difficult to get the refund, and they did not want to rock the boat for the discount they got from MS for what we were installing. The savings was not much (only in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars) for most of them at the time compared to paying a higher price for the OS and office apps we installed, by the thinking of the management. In all reality, it was cheaper to install a preconfigured copy of the OS and applications onto a system and set it up with scripts than to set up each system with the OEM installation than to simply not purchase the OS again so we could have it installed the way we wanted to. By doing it this way, I could install 100s of systems in a day (given enough outlets and space to do enough of them simultaneously) as opposed to dozens.
Geez, I guess it is not possible that I have saved several companies in excess of 30 million dollars using nothing more than my programming skills as a sysadmin and perl to automate workflow, document creation, digital authorization/authentication and a host of other things that groups of C/C++ programmers could not figure out.
Oh, and that I used UML (from the systems analyst) to develop three of those projects into full blown perl applications that actually ran faster than the C++ monkey boy's code that I replaced. They are still around 6 years later and the C/C++ kids still have not written better software (3 attempts to date).
Normally I do not feed the trolls, but yours is the 100th stupid comment I have read this week and I had to give you a prize. Too bad you posted as AC, or I could have personalized it for you.
Just had a discussion in our ethics class last week along these lines (genetics and stem cell), and the same argument came up, to which one of the smarter kids in the class replied "There is doing God's work and God doing work, which are not the same thing. Doing God's work only proves you believe in God, it does not prove the existence or the state of God."
He, of course, was immediately attacked (rather childishly) by a few of the rightists in the class. All kind of fun to watch (beats the heck out of TV).
Try some other avenues first (we used these as well)...
Local Chamber of Commerce.
Tech incubators
Small Business Administration (we used this quite sucessfully)
State tech assistance programs (normally funds set up by the state to encourage tech sector growth)
If you do not need to grow your company now, then wait. You first need to go through a few revisions of a business plan. That alone can take a whole year. You need to get with a financial specialist to do profit forecsats (potential). You need to make sure all of your liabilites that can be reasonably insured are insured first. You need to look at all business models that might apply (corp, S corp, LLC, etc) to see what best fits. You need to get help with a professional on understanding your local market demographics. You need to take a look at what it would take to give you all required expenses and the ability to pay a loan back at twice the required monthly payment per month (your loan for the capital you need). You need to see if you can grow the current income into this amount before you seek outside financial help.
The less risky you look (time and profits), the more likely you are to get a bank loan (much preferred to a VC), or better yet an SBA loan. Check to see if you have a group called SCORE (Senior Core of Retired Executives) in your local area. They are an incredible resource.
Installing three new outlets and associated wiring and circuit breaker (had to have the last checked by a licensed individual, by law).
Installing a new stove and fridge.
Changing car's oil and filters (and belts).
And, that is just in the past two months. Unless the job is something really complicated (and I do not understand it/have experience with it), or I do not have time, I will either hire a handyman or do it myself.
One of the major problems with the public school system is underfunding for the current mandates from state and national bodies. Voucher programs take even more funding out of the system. How is that going to even come cose to addressing the real issues of expecting too much from the schools, and not enough from the kids and parents?
At the very least, holding out until it is legally decided would seem to be the prudent way to go (unless you somehow *know* that SCO is going to win).
Here, here! True to the heart of the matter. This is as large a step forward as discovering genes were. You may not realize how huge this is yet, and people may be caught up in their religious fantasies, but this is reailty. The after life, perceived threshhold of life and all other such thoughts are in the realm of faith and faith healing. This is real, and if duplicatable, lays to rest many ills that we have suffered. After this, Beta cells (diabetes), cancer , bone replacement (already done), lungs, skin, eyes and other organs. Do you people truly comprehend the door that was opened with this accomplishment, and how it changes everything?
Atheism is a religion. It is "the doctrine or belief that there is no God". Not all religions believe in one God or any god at all. Those two words, doctrine or belief, are cluesticks, meaning based on faith, which would be a religion.
First thing that a game console should get is a mouse and keyboard standard with the joystick. That would be a better improvement than any graphics, AI or memory expansion.
After playing games on a PC with a mouse, playing on a console is frustrating, not fun. And, I can not imagine playing a game that puts console based players up against PC players (unless you handicap the PC's hardware). The console players would be out of luck.
Your reasoning is short sighted. Evolution has no impact on the existence of God. Maybe God is smarter than you give God credit. Maybe God created the big bang and let the universe run the way it went. Maybe God created man form a Monkey, maybe not. I do not think that a missing link has been found yet, which pretty much says that there is nothing that directly connects us (humans) to any other species. There are theories that man came from another species. We know that man-like species (cro-magnum, homo eructus,...) came from other speices, but I am not aware of the missing link being found as of yet. Maybe our next step in evolution is taking control of one more aspect of our environment and enhancing it for our survival (our gene pool). Maybe keeping people alive who would normally die off is a first step to being intelligent enough as a species to eliminating that which might kill people off in the gene pool. That would be incredible evolution.
True, at our current level, we are weakening the gene pool by allowing those who would not normally live long enough to reproduce. But, maybe we are strengthening the gene pool by gathering enough understanding of these God given tools (genetics) to use them the way God would. After all, it is our calling to become as Godlike as we can. Maybe Satan wants us to go no further and whispers in peoples ears pretending to be God. Show me one place in the Bible where God says to not do these things. Thou shalt not murder is good, but if murder is not involved, then what?
Maybe life is just a test to see if you can be smart enough to see past the false preachers in this world who would hold a society back because of the individuals' fears or the false preachers' power mongering through fear. I do not remember reading anything in the Bible that says we should not use any of the tools that are available to us. I remember hearing small men in cloth preaching we should not, but that is their opinion, not the word of God.
Most people whom I know who think Darwin is right are better church goers (do what they say, not just lip service at the pulpit) than most of the people who fight this stuff. I know very few "scientists" who do not believe in God. And, nowhere do I find a contradiction in Genesis and Darwinism. The only contradiction I find is in those who are unwilling to learn and study the world around them, as the Bible says to do. If this is God's creation, and in Genesis it is written that he has given us dominion over it, then what has he not given us dominion over?
We should move ahead with great caution and make sure many times over before we use this knowledge, but that is left to us by Him.
BTW, while we are on Genesis, why does it say the Gods created the heaven and Earth? It may not in English and Greek and other such translations, but in the original language, it does. Why did people mistranslate that? Why are Christs writings not included in the Bible? Is not he the main focus of the new covenant? Why are the writings of Mary not in the Bible? What were the real objectives of the Niacean (sp?) meeting in the 400s AD to build a Bible where none had existed before? Think about these things. A religion is not about God, but it is about the people who want us to see God in a certain way. That is why there are so many religions for the same God.
I have to disagree with you (on self-diagnostics and doc shopping). My experience is if you have an uncommon condition, you had better doc hunt for your life. I have been through over a dozen doctors in 7 years. I have been nearly killed 3 times from my different (then current) doctors' advice. I have learned that most doctors (you may be an exception) know little more about what they are doing than what they can remember from med school and what they have been told by pharma marketeers since. There are great doctors out there who do hunger to learn and grow in their field, but they are no more common than the top notch programmers are.
Most doctors are good for mundane, normal stuff. Personally, I was diabetic for years before anyone matched up the symptoms. Despite the fact that I continuously asked for certain tests to be performed that would have shown whether my beliefs (based on what I knew) were correct or not. One of the key tests I wanted the whole time was an insulin test. Type 2 diabetics show elevated insulin long before elevated sugar. But, most of my doctors not only did not know, they did not believe me and would not verify the information even though I told them where to find it! Most of them knew less than I did about the functioning of diabetes, let alone the treatments. The difference is that I studied for a long time (I watched my grandfather die from diabetes) and learned what current research was coming out with. It turns out that many of the assumptions we had held in the past about diabetes are bad assumptions. The treatments were less than good (though they were better than no treatment) and many people have suffered needlessly from diabetes, though something as simple as diet and excercise can control or eliminate practically all diabetic symptons and complications if detected while it is still only elevated insulin, not blood sugar! The ADA diet was not healthy! Then, there have been those lucky enough to meet a doctor who has been truly interested in the causes of diabetes instead of just the *standard* treatment. Strange thing is they were diagnosed earlier, had fewer complications and lived longer (as an average - see WHO and NIH) than the rest of the diabetics.
My sister in law (short-gut and cyliacs (sp?)) has been suffering for over 24 years at the hands of doctors who did not know what they were doing. She finally found one doctor (after shopping through dozens of docs) who actually understood enough about his own lack of knowledge to go hunting. He did not know about the two diseases at first, but now has her the healthiest she has ever been. The difference between him and all (save one) her other docs. He went out of his way to go learn something new that was way outside of his area of work. Doctors like him are an exception, not a rule.
So, if you are one of those doctors, keep it up. There are many doctors who are not.
Sorry, when I saw Hi, I'm the guy who wrote the article. I assumed (ya I know, never assume) you posted the article (wrote the slashdot article). Do I get a Duh! award?
A bit of warning would have been a good thing. I wonder if netiquette could be taught here?
You should know better than to give/.ers any kind of reference to your real server. If they get an itch, like lemmings they will follow each other until you fall. Why, that would be like giving your teenage son a house to stay in for a week with stocked cupboards and no adult supervision. Good luck on what you come back to.
Though I am very sorry to hear that you were sunk.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people are missing the point of DRM. DRM is control of information and cash flow. Nothing else to it. Those who wind up controlling the PC platforms (information) wind up controlling a large part of the world (just like the media's heavy influence on most people's lives).
Eventually we all loose unless we own stock in the companies that come out ahead. It is kind of like the Patriot Act. We gave up some freedoms with that act. They are more than likely not coming back in our or our children's lifetimes (if ever in this nation's lifetime - US). This is another small freedom (self-determination) we give up. If we give into it, they (those who are in power) win another small but important victory. It is not paranoia to think that history repeats itslef for a reason. It is only paranoia to think they are only after you.
All through history, the rich and powerful have sought ways to control those around them. The more control they have, the more wealth and power they have. It is a viscious circle that has ended in blood more often than not (do not believe, break out your local history books for the past several thousand years). As much as technology has grown and as much as we debate the ethics and philosophy of the "new world", it is the same old motives as the old world.
The wrapping is pretty and the services offered are neat sounding, but to know what the value of this is, follow the money and read their mantra. DRM is everything they could have hoped for - MS having one of its founders on record as such. So, in the fine tradition of Standard Oil, Ma Bell, and others who sought to physically lock entire markets (and populations) up, here comes another.
InnerWeb
It has more of a learning curve than php at first, and probably is not appropriate for small static sites, but I have never seen PHP or Java rip out major stuff as fast as Perl, then migrate, modify or otherwise perform client expectations that require redesign. I have worked for two companies where we went to Java. At both companies, more than half the stuff that went to Java was sent back to perl to decrease response time for client needs. Another company I contract to went to PHP for their site when they started, but wound up re-writing the whole thing in Perl with mod_perl when they had a database change. It was faster, and the code came out more manageable, faster and more stable. We learned very quickly that a programmer who writes bad code does it in all languages, and all the good programmers wrote clean concise well documented code (most of the time). And when they wrote something sloppy, it was no more difficult to figure out what they had written than it was in the other languages (Java, php, C, C++, sql, ...)
It is very simple. I am paid by my clients to provide, maintain and modify code. They expect that I will charge them less than others and provide strong solid support and service. Most of them expect one day to one week turn around for change requests. Since we manage the code ourselves, it is very important to us that the code be quick, clear and concise. It must be as reuseable as possible. It must be able to be picked up with and run by new people or contractors. The Java took too long to make the same things happen and PHP ran into dead ends (could not, or more often took too long) when upgrading sites, migrating to new client databases or other client changes. In short, Perl has allowed us to undercut almost all of our competitors in this area. The ones we have not undercut are, believe it or not, perl based shops as well. Java does beat perl for some things as does php for some things, but in so many cases, perl has beat them both.
InnerWeb
This is a very shrewd sales job, and the more I read about it from articles on the net, and look at the money flow, the more I realize just how big this deal is (the invested amount will be made back 100s of times in fifty years). The derivative businesses from this are big. Fuel to digital services to carrier (pipe, line, etc) charges to roadway stations, to fees to...
InnerWeb
I am uncertain that this idea of grabbing the land and then allowing a company to basically make the profits from these displaced inviduals land is a healthy step in the right direction. True, modern roads are paved by private contractors in most cases (that I am aware of), but they do not own the land, nor can private enterprise restrict access to the lands grabbed by the government for the public's use (AKAIK - please correct me if you know of any examples otherwise). I am not certain if the land for toll roads has been grabbed the same way as this suggests. And that 50 year contract is way over the top! About 45 years over the top.
If the company really wants to make this happen and they are wanting to do this with private enterprise, then the company needs to be the one that convinces the landowners to move or give up land (by providing truthfuly appropriate compensation) and the company should not turn to the state for anything but zoning approval (or other required approvals to build and maintain this system.) It could be a great thing to have a large transport system like this, but... One must always be careful of what doors one opens for potential abuse, as they are very hard to close.
In all fairness, if this proceeds, then the people whose land is being grabbed definately deserve a stake in the company that is to derive the profits from the current landowners' land. In truth, this probably ought not happen the way it is being thought up in the first place.
InnerWeb
Just like marketing that shows two out of three dentists use brand A, incomplete numbers are not real as research is not completely valid if the environment it draws from is not studied completely.
This goes with the researcher at Harvard who concluded that Milk potentially reduces the chances of diabetes by studying two groups of kids. One drank more milk and one drank much less to none. The more milk drinking group had less diabetes than the less milk drinking group. But, in the research, there was no reference to what the less milk drinking group was drinking. Maybe water, you think? Probably not, probably heavily sugared drinks (but, we will never know since the researcher did not bother to find out). By neglecting this important aspect of his/her research, the information is not useful. All it suggests is that something that was different between the two groups contributed to diabetes in the less milk drinking group. It does not demonstrate that drinking milk potentially prevents diabetes any more than the numbers from Montana demonstrate that a lack of speed limit prevents or lowers fatal accidents.
InnerWeb
The best proof, being the actions the current regime has taken in regards to the EPA, Kyoto and other requirements and actions in place prior to his assumption of power. The reality is, he has reversed a long term trend in making power companies and oither polluters morer responsible for what they do. There has been very good coverage of it throughout the past 4 years, including time on 60 minutes, ABC news, CBS News and PBS, that I have seen. There have been publications in several national periodicals (mainstream press, not special interest).
InnerWeb
A lot has already happened to slow the tyrend down, yet it marches on. And yes, many of these predictions are coming true. It merely takes longer when you do some serious things to slow it down.
InnerWeb
Hmm.. True the quote might be a little lame, but the spirit of the quote is right on. Last time I went through the published articles, I only read disagreement as to what extent the effect was. The only people who were disagreeing were not real scientists (pseudo-scientists) that work for corporate concerns (think smoking is not addictive or bad for you, lots of tobaco scientists made these claims, or pharma scientists, etc.) Do you really think that these corps care anything about reality, especially when it impacts their bottom line?
Really, an overwhelming majority of scientists agree on the seriousess of global warming (and more importantly, an even greater percentage of those who do this type of science agree). There will always be puppets of business that can create experiments to find evidence for anything by ignoring most everything else.
The spirit of what was written goes right along with the man GW, though. He who has said "I speak with God", "God has told me to..." as though he were a modern day prophet. He is arrogant and ill-informed. He cares little or nothing for the long term consequences of what he does, he only cares for the short term consequences. Kind of like the average American on credit.
This fits with the GW policies of adding more lead back into the atmosphere, allowing more toxins from plants in the environment, weakening standards on emmissions, mandating policy to schools without funding (thereby crippling the schools in question), using government funds to support religions, calling a holy war (crusade) on Muslims in the Middle East, and many more. Lets face it, the average American voted along only a few thoughts, and screwed themselves in the process. The debts we are running up are harmful and the damage we are doing to our selves and our children (your future taxpayers) will take generations to fix. Lead is proven (many times over) to cause a rise in violent crime(18 to 20 year following introduction into the environment, the length of time for a newborn to become a legal adult) as well as learning disabilities. Greenhouse gases are called such because they cause greehouse effects. Oil spills destroy ecologies, most have never recovered, let alone fully recovered. Iraq was the most ill-conceived idea from our leadership since viet-nam.
He may do some things right, but the damage he is doing is far greater. You do not have to agree with me now. What he is doing has already been done in the past (yes, study history), and it has never worked in the past being done by far more capable people than GW.
InnerWeb
More than once I asked why we did that, and was told the same every time. It was too difficult to get the refund, and they did not want to rock the boat for the discount they got from MS for what we were installing. The savings was not much (only in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars) for most of them at the time compared to paying a higher price for the OS and office apps we installed, by the thinking of the management. In all reality, it was cheaper to install a preconfigured copy of the OS and applications onto a system and set it up with scripts than to set up each system with the OEM installation than to simply not purchase the OS again so we could have it installed the way we wanted to. By doing it this way, I could install 100s of systems in a day (given enough outlets and space to do enough of them simultaneously) as opposed to dozens.
InnerWeb
Oh, and that I used UML (from the systems analyst) to develop three of those projects into full blown perl applications that actually ran faster than the C++ monkey boy's code that I replaced. They are still around 6 years later and the C/C++ kids still have not written better software (3 attempts to date).
Normally I do not feed the trolls, but yours is the 100th stupid comment I have read this week and I had to give you a prize. Too bad you posted as AC, or I could have personalized it for you.
InnerWeb
Just had a discussion in our ethics class last week along these lines (genetics and stem cell), and the same argument came up, to which one of the smarter kids in the class replied "There is doing God's work and God doing work, which are not the same thing. Doing God's work only proves you believe in God, it does not prove the existence or the state of God."
He, of course, was immediately attacked (rather childishly) by a few of the rightists in the class. All kind of fun to watch (beats the heck out of TV).
InnerWeb
Try some other avenues first (we used these as well)...
- Local Chamber of Commerce.
- Tech incubators
- Small Business Administration (we used this quite sucessfully)
- State tech assistance programs (normally funds set up by the state to encourage tech sector growth)
If you do not need to grow your company now, then wait. You first need to go through a few revisions of a business plan. That alone can take a whole year. You need to get with a financial specialist to do profit forecsats (potential). You need to make sure all of your liabilites that can be reasonably insured are insured first. You need to look at all business models that might apply (corp, S corp, LLC, etc) to see what best fits. You need to get help with a professional on understanding your local market demographics. You need to take a look at what it would take to give you all required expenses and the ability to pay a loan back at twice the required monthly payment per month (your loan for the capital you need). You need to see if you can grow the current income into this amount before you seek outside financial help.The less risky you look (time and profits), the more likely you are to get a bank loan (much preferred to a VC), or better yet an SBA loan. Check to see if you have a group called SCORE (Senior Core of Retired Executives) in your local area. They are an incredible resource.
InnerWeb
- Installing a new water heater.
- Installing three new outlets and associated wiring and circuit breaker (had to have the last checked by a licensed individual, by law).
- Installing a new stove and fridge.
- Changing car's oil and filters (and belts).
And, that is just in the past two months. Unless the job is something really complicated (and I do not understand it/have experience with it), or I do not have time, I will either hire a handyman or do it myself.InnerWeb
InnerWeb
InnerWeb
At the very least, holding out until it is legally decided would seem to be the prudent way to go (unless you somehow *know* that SCO is going to win).
InnerWeb
InnerWeb
InnerWeb
InnerWeb
InnerWeb
After playing games on a PC with a mouse, playing on a console is frustrating, not fun. And, I can not imagine playing a game that puts console based players up against PC players (unless you handicap the PC's hardware). The console players would be out of luck.
InnerWeb
Your reasoning is short sighted. Evolution has no impact on the existence of God. Maybe God is smarter than you give God credit. Maybe God created the big bang and let the universe run the way it went. Maybe God created man form a Monkey, maybe not. I do not think that a missing link has been found yet, which pretty much says that there is nothing that directly connects us (humans) to any other species. There are theories that man came from another species. We know that man-like species (cro-magnum, homo eructus, ...) came from other speices, but I am not aware of the missing link being found as of yet. Maybe our next step in evolution is taking control of one more aspect of our environment and enhancing it for our survival (our gene pool). Maybe keeping people alive who would normally die off is a first step to being intelligent enough as a species to eliminating that which might kill people off in the gene pool. That would be incredible evolution.
True, at our current level, we are weakening the gene pool by allowing those who would not normally live long enough to reproduce. But, maybe we are strengthening the gene pool by gathering enough understanding of these God given tools (genetics) to use them the way God would. After all, it is our calling to become as Godlike as we can. Maybe Satan wants us to go no further and whispers in peoples ears pretending to be God. Show me one place in the Bible where God says to not do these things. Thou shalt not murder is good, but if murder is not involved, then what?
Maybe life is just a test to see if you can be smart enough to see past the false preachers in this world who would hold a society back because of the individuals' fears or the false preachers' power mongering through fear. I do not remember reading anything in the Bible that says we should not use any of the tools that are available to us. I remember hearing small men in cloth preaching we should not, but that is their opinion, not the word of God.
Most people whom I know who think Darwin is right are better church goers (do what they say, not just lip service at the pulpit) than most of the people who fight this stuff. I know very few "scientists" who do not believe in God. And, nowhere do I find a contradiction in Genesis and Darwinism. The only contradiction I find is in those who are unwilling to learn and study the world around them, as the Bible says to do. If this is God's creation, and in Genesis it is written that he has given us dominion over it, then what has he not given us dominion over?
We should move ahead with great caution and make sure many times over before we use this knowledge, but that is left to us by Him.
BTW, while we are on Genesis, why does it say the Gods created the heaven and Earth? It may not in English and Greek and other such translations, but in the original language, it does. Why did people mistranslate that? Why are Christs writings not included in the Bible? Is not he the main focus of the new covenant? Why are the writings of Mary not in the Bible? What were the real objectives of the Niacean (sp?) meeting in the 400s AD to build a Bible where none had existed before? Think about these things. A religion is not about God, but it is about the people who want us to see God in a certain way. That is why there are so many religions for the same God.
InnerWeb
Most doctors are good for mundane, normal stuff. Personally, I was diabetic for years before anyone matched up the symptoms. Despite the fact that I continuously asked for certain tests to be performed that would have shown whether my beliefs (based on what I knew) were correct or not. One of the key tests I wanted the whole time was an insulin test. Type 2 diabetics show elevated insulin long before elevated sugar. But, most of my doctors not only did not know, they did not believe me and would not verify the information even though I told them where to find it! Most of them knew less than I did about the functioning of diabetes, let alone the treatments. The difference is that I studied for a long time (I watched my grandfather die from diabetes) and learned what current research was coming out with. It turns out that many of the assumptions we had held in the past about diabetes are bad assumptions. The treatments were less than good (though they were better than no treatment) and many people have suffered needlessly from diabetes, though something as simple as diet and excercise can control or eliminate practically all diabetic symptons and complications if detected while it is still only elevated insulin, not blood sugar! The ADA diet was not healthy! Then, there have been those lucky enough to meet a doctor who has been truly interested in the causes of diabetes instead of just the *standard* treatment. Strange thing is they were diagnosed earlier, had fewer complications and lived longer (as an average - see WHO and NIH) than the rest of the diabetics.
My sister in law (short-gut and cyliacs (sp?)) has been suffering for over 24 years at the hands of doctors who did not know what they were doing. She finally found one doctor (after shopping through dozens of docs) who actually understood enough about his own lack of knowledge to go hunting. He did not know about the two diseases at first, but now has her the healthiest she has ever been. The difference between him and all (save one) her other docs. He went out of his way to go learn something new that was way outside of his area of work. Doctors like him are an exception, not a rule.
So, if you are one of those doctors, keep it up. There are many doctors who are not.
InnerWeb
A bit of warning would have been a good thing. I wonder if netiquette could be taught here?
InnerWeb
You should know better than to give /.ers any kind of reference to your real server. If they get an itch, like lemmings they will follow each other until you fall. Why, that would be like giving your teenage son a house to stay in for a week with stocked cupboards and no adult supervision. Good luck on what you come back to.
Though I am very sorry to hear that you were sunk.
InnerWeb