However really government should be kicking ISP ass to get this improved. Creating jobs in rural areas would solve a host of problems, and not having the network to do it for most the types of jobs you could telecommute to or operate whereever you can get people to live is a major hurtle. One might say that the ISP NOT doing this is doing their host countries a huge disservice and harming domestic economics (and considering MOST are state owned or subsided monopolies, not really fair either).
Think high tech jobs in the country, and being able to offer employees reasonable housing costs, and a wonderful environment. However if you do not have the infrastructure to do it, the the company has to, and that is unlikely to happen without huge injection of money from government. So there you go.
Facebook was "Sparse and Clean" once upon a time. I remember this is one of the things like liked over the yahoo.geocities like pages of MySpace. Of course look at Facebook now that it is big, and trying to find a way to make money. Apps, and a mess. This could be a social media cycle thing going on here.
Made me chuckle a bit. I seem to get an image of a brit with a bobby hat, and a sly wink, saying the same thing, and following it up with an "old chap", and then saying cheerio and walking off into the sunset.
While my connection is faster now, I also have caps which I didn't used to have.
I remember the conversation when I called about my connection being severed. Telco: "You exceeded your CAP." Me: "My WHAT?" Telco: "There are caps now, its all in your EULA." Me: "It wasn't in there when I signed up." Telco: "We changed it." Me: "You can do that?" Telco: "Sure we just need to notify you." Me: "I wasn't notified!" Telco: "Sure you were, we posted the EULA on our website at this obscure web address." Me: "How am I supposed to know to check? Should I just re-read my EULA every couple of days?" Telco: shrugs.
I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you get the general idea. So now, I have a faster connection, with a cap, which will allow me to exceed it faster, so now I can pay them exorbitant fees per GB. Gotta love progress.
Some believe the Earth etc... was created 5000 years ago by a magic bearded guy in 7 days.
People will believe in a lot of silly things. I would even go so far as to say that in all likelihood a good chunk of those "geocentrists" also believe in that the world is 5000 years old. Heck there is still a "Flat Earth Society" out there I hear...
Anyway I will do my best to ignore those people and hope somehow St. Darwin takes care of the rest eventually...
Interestingly enough a long time ago, the only way to get an education was through the Church. So most of those people with any education would have been religious. It has seemingly done an about face at some point in recent history. Likely with the advent of state sponsored schools.
However back in the day, when someone was being accused us hearsay by the church, they were also most likely his peers at the same time.
Not sure what world you are living in. One has lots of features, the other has zero pretty much. Google simply display's data, there is really nothing you can do with it.
An apt analogy would be Adobe and Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader may be pretty good, and a copy of it may be installed on every persons computer in the whole world, and it is free.... but it ain't going to be hell of a lot of good without Adobe.
ESRI should be wary, but until Google starts expanding into the realm of professional GIS software (and I wish they would), I don't think they have much to worry about. If anything it will fuel more demand for actual data, to which people will have to use ESRI, and I am sure they will like that.
However if Google makes the logical next step after having Google Maps and Earth for a number of years and starts to develop even a rudimentary GIS editing software, I would be scared witless if I was ESRI. They may have the installed base, but as you mentioned, many are fed up with ESRI, and Google has a wide reach and lots of money by several amounts of magnitude compared to ESRI.
Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down... Leon: What one? Holden: What? Leon: What desert? Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical. Leon: But, how come I'd be there? Holden: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you... Leon: Tortoise? What's that? Holden: [irritated by Leon's interruptions] You know what a turtle is? Leon: Of course! Holden: Same thing. Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean. Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon. Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you? Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Leon: [angry at the suggestion] What do you mean, I'm not helping? Holden: I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Leon? [Leon has become visibly shaken] Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?
The lunacy is at the top, where these budgets are decided. If they knew how to run one, the the people below wouldn't have to try and alter their decision by inflating budgets.
To use Star Trek (hey its slashdot) as an example, in the original series, Kirk would be "Scotty, I need Warp 8!" and Scotty's response would be "I canna do eet Captin' she has a broken quantum exchange unit, it'll take me at least 12 hours to fix".... to which Kirk's response will be "You have 6 hours!".
Now what Scotty should say is "No, it will take 12 hours like I said, in 6 hours I can give you warp 5 but no more!"
Now what I am trying to illustrate here is that government is always seemingly under "fiscal restraint", so anytime budget time comes around, the guy at the top, usually politically affiliated, will be like "OK, your budget was 50 million last year, this year your going to take a 10% cut, now do the same job as before", which in many cases, unless you built in a buffer (by say inflating your budget the year before), you cannot offer the same service at the lower price tag, its just not going to happen. If fact you start to let long term requirements go such as system maintaince, in order to meet short term obligations. The fact is, your going to get cut just about every year, yet be asked to continue to offer every single service you have provided in the past. It just doesn't make any sense. Its the same thing, as no one wants to pay taxes, but wants all the perks that are provided. Sorry, it ain't free.
Another example is places like futureshop that raise prices by 10% and the a week later have a sale for 15%. The customer gets the impression that they are getting a deal, and futureshop gets to sell stuff.
Basically people don't like to say no, particularly to their boss. Its always "we'll get it done somehow..."
Anyway the whole situation is ridiculous really. It really comes from politicians trying to save money without having to make hard decisions. In the previous example the response should be, "OK, here is a list of 30 programs, you get to now cut 5 that will no longer be offered to the public. Some are required by Law so be careful lest we get sued. Also you get to lay all those people off, and the Union will sue us for breach of contract. Have fun next election."
Of course that person would be fired (or moved), and they would find someone else who would be more "flexible" who would tell the politician what he wants to hear yet at the same time try to fix it so the downward spiral isn't noticed.
Considering that there has been websites out there that have had the word "breast" censored from their site, even when that site was about breast cancer it really doesn't surprise me of the foolishness. I mean I have heard that my country's national animal the "Beaver" is banned in many places, because somehow people think a big swimming rat that builds things is lewd. Also considering the XBoxLive is largely populated by 12-14 year old douchebags, it doesn't surprise me at all.
MS not doing its homework, and then trying to stick by the decision is disappointing, but then again its Microsoft, what do you expect. Remember they tried to sue a guy called Mike Row about his website "MikeRowSoft", sometimes big corporations go off the rails and it takes a while before common sense can kick in.
Ur-viles are creatures of jet black color and are constructions of an extinct race named the Demondim. They are highly magical, possessing a number of supernatural abilities, including shooting acid, creating bolts of pure energy and the like. They are also blind, but have a preternatural sense of smell. One of their most distinctive features is that when assembled in a wedge formation, the leader (or loremaster) at the apex wields the combined power of the entire group, without weakening any of their kin in the rest of the wedge. The Ur-viles initially served Lord Foul, but later turned against him by creating the creature Vain (from which the new Staff of Law was created). In The Runes of the Earth, the Ur-viles have actively joined the side of "good", though their motivation remains unclear. Because they were made rather than born, the Ur-viles loathe their own bodies and often redirect this rage towards other targets. They also do not die (except when killed) or reproduce.
I have also seen him described as a "perfectly engineered" ebony humanoid and of having a "programmed purpose" after the fact.
So there you have it. Perhaps not so great, but better than Emo Sith.
Slashdot Mirror
However really government should be kicking ISP ass to get this improved. Creating jobs in rural areas would solve a host of problems, and not having the network to do it for most the types of jobs you could telecommute to or operate whereever you can get people to live is a major hurtle. One might say that the ISP NOT doing this is doing their host countries a huge disservice and harming domestic economics (and considering MOST are state owned or subsided monopolies, not really fair either).
Think high tech jobs in the country, and being able to offer employees reasonable housing costs, and a wonderful environment. However if you do not have the infrastructure to do it, the the company has to, and that is unlikely to happen without huge injection of money from government. So there you go.
Shotgun. Though it may cause some minor network interruption...
Facebook was "Sparse and Clean" once upon a time. I remember this is one of the things like liked over the yahoo.geocities like pages of MySpace. Of course look at Facebook now that it is big, and trying to find a way to make money. Apps, and a mess. This could be a social media cycle thing going on here.
Well you know it is going to happen.
Personally, this will be the best one!
The "choices" I am waiting for are:
"Shoot Greedo" or "Don't shoot Greedo"
and
"Force Choke Jar-Jar" or "Space Jar-Jar out an airlock"
That and anything to do with either Leia or Natalie Portman in the "Unrated Version".
and just for Slashdot (even thought I don't really get the meme)
"Grits" or "no grits"
Wait, that's absurd!
That's like treating everyone like a criminal! It is also like taxing the medium rather than the actual pirates!
You should use Canada as a model... We would never... er... never mind.
1997 called, they want their stupid idea back.
Is the rating system for Movies "Law"? I don't see the distinction here.
I thought we were measuring things in terms of Library of Congress and Football fields... I must have missed the memo.
Or 10 full-grown American cats.
I weigh the equivalent to 20 full-grown cats for example.
Sound waves? How effective is that?
Considering the amount of Hot Air my boss produces, cell companies should look into capturing that "valuable" resource. Its just like waste heat now.
http://xkcd.com/225/
For those that thought "wtf?"
"you appear to have misplaced your passport"
Made me chuckle a bit. I seem to get an image of a brit with a bobby hat, and a sly wink, saying the same thing, and following it up with an "old chap", and then saying cheerio and walking off into the sunset.
Then again, I'm mad.
While my connection is faster now, I also have caps which I didn't used to have.
I remember the conversation when I called about my connection being severed.
Telco: "You exceeded your CAP."
Me: "My WHAT?"
Telco: "There are caps now, its all in your EULA."
Me: "It wasn't in there when I signed up."
Telco: "We changed it."
Me: "You can do that?"
Telco: "Sure we just need to notify you."
Me: "I wasn't notified!"
Telco: "Sure you were, we posted the EULA on our website at this obscure web address."
Me: "How am I supposed to know to check? Should I just re-read my EULA every couple of days?"
Telco: shrugs.
I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you get the general idea. So now, I have a faster connection, with a cap, which will allow me to exceed it faster, so now I can pay them exorbitant fees per GB. Gotta love progress.
Harper truly believes in transparency. Just not on things that embarrass the conservatives or get in the way of their politics.
The rest is fair game...
Some believe the Earth etc... was created 5000 years ago by a magic bearded guy in 7 days.
People will believe in a lot of silly things. I would even go so far as to say that in all likelihood a good chunk of those "geocentrists" also believe in that the world is 5000 years old. Heck there is still a "Flat Earth Society" out there I hear...
Anyway I will do my best to ignore those people and hope somehow St. Darwin takes care of the rest eventually...
Interestingly enough a long time ago, the only way to get an education was through the Church. So most of those people with any education would have been religious. It has seemingly done an about face at some point in recent history. Likely with the advent of state sponsored schools.
However back in the day, when someone was being accused us hearsay by the church, they were also most likely his peers at the same time.
"On the features and use - absolutely."
Not sure what world you are living in. One has lots of features, the other has zero pretty much. Google simply display's data, there is really nothing you can do with it.
An apt analogy would be Adobe and Adobe Reader. Adobe Reader may be pretty good, and a copy of it may be installed on every persons computer in the whole world, and it is free.... but it ain't going to be hell of a lot of good without Adobe.
ESRI should be wary, but until Google starts expanding into the realm of professional GIS software (and I wish they would), I don't think they have much to worry about. If anything it will fuel more demand for actual data, to which people will have to use ESRI, and I am sure they will like that.
However if Google makes the logical next step after having Google Maps and Earth for a number of years and starts to develop even a rudimentary GIS editing software, I would be scared witless if I was ESRI. They may have the installed base, but as you mentioned, many are fed up with ESRI, and Google has a wide reach and lots of money by several amounts of magnitude compared to ESRI.
Well he certainly couldn't have gotten better advertising.
I have never heard of "Minecraft" until today...
Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Leon: But, how come I'd be there?
Holden: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you...
Leon: Tortoise? What's that?
Holden: [irritated by Leon's interruptions] You know what a turtle is?
Leon: Of course!
Holden: Same thing.
Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: [angry at the suggestion] What do you mean, I'm not helping?
Holden: I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
[Leon has become visibly shaken]
Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?
"....and what also melts?"
"Cheese?"
"small stones!"
"toasters!"
"witches"
"That's right! Witches. Now who doesn't like Witches?"
"Water?"
"DUCKS!"
"Jesus?"
"Correct! Jesus hates witches... and what happens when messiah returns?"
"Frogs?"
"Mice?"
"The Destruction of Earth!"
"Very good, the destruction of earth! Now what does the earth do now?"
"Rotates around the sun?"
"Hosts Life?"
"Spins?"
"Yes it spins! Therefore when it is destroyed, it will stop spinning. What is created by spinning?"
"Centrifugal force?"
"large rats?"
"Magnetism!"
"Correct, it creates magnetism, which must cause the destruction of earth due to its stopping by Jesus because he hates witches. Quid Pro Quo."
"Applause!"
The lunacy is at the top, where these budgets are decided. If they knew how to run one, the the people below wouldn't have to try and alter their decision by inflating budgets.
To use Star Trek (hey its slashdot) as an example, in the original series, Kirk would be "Scotty, I need Warp 8!" and Scotty's response would be "I canna do eet Captin' she has a broken quantum exchange unit, it'll take me at least 12 hours to fix".... to which Kirk's response will be "You have 6 hours!".
Now what Scotty should say is "No, it will take 12 hours like I said, in 6 hours I can give you warp 5 but no more!"
Now what I am trying to illustrate here is that government is always seemingly under "fiscal restraint", so anytime budget time comes around, the guy at the top, usually politically affiliated, will be like "OK, your budget was 50 million last year, this year your going to take a 10% cut, now do the same job as before", which in many cases, unless you built in a buffer (by say inflating your budget the year before), you cannot offer the same service at the lower price tag, its just not going to happen. If fact you start to let long term requirements go such as system maintaince, in order to meet short term obligations. The fact is, your going to get cut just about every year, yet be asked to continue to offer every single service you have provided in the past. It just doesn't make any sense. Its the same thing, as no one wants to pay taxes, but wants all the perks that are provided. Sorry, it ain't free.
Another example is places like futureshop that raise prices by 10% and the a week later have a sale for 15%. The customer gets the impression that they are getting a deal, and futureshop gets to sell stuff.
Basically people don't like to say no, particularly to their boss. Its always "we'll get it done somehow..."
Anyway the whole situation is ridiculous really. It really comes from politicians trying to save money without having to make hard decisions. In the previous example the response should be, "OK, here is a list of 30 programs, you get to now cut 5 that will no longer be offered to the public. Some are required by Law so be careful lest we get sued. Also you get to lay all those people off, and the Union will sue us for breach of contract. Have fun next election."
Of course that person would be fired (or moved), and they would find someone else who would be more "flexible" who would tell the politician what he wants to hear yet at the same time try to fix it so the downward spiral isn't noticed.
Considering that there has been websites out there that have had the word "breast" censored from their site, even when that site was about breast cancer it really doesn't surprise me of the foolishness. I mean I have heard that my country's national animal the "Beaver" is banned in many places, because somehow people think a big swimming rat that builds things is lewd. Also considering the XBoxLive is largely populated by 12-14 year old douchebags, it doesn't surprise me at all.
MS not doing its homework, and then trying to stick by the decision is disappointing, but then again its Microsoft, what do you expect. Remember they tried to sue a guy called Mike Row about his website "MikeRowSoft", sometimes big corporations go off the rails and it takes a while before common sense can kick in.
Oh an before people start thinking of me as an Emo Sith, my handle doesn't mean that.
Back in the early very early 90's I needed a handle for BBS's and the like and wanted a hacker name.
So I came up with DarthVain.
Darth referred to the DeathStar which was the hacker inside joke about the Ma Bell logo at the time.
Vain referred to a character in the series of books called The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R. Donaldson that I was currently reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Thomas_Covenant,_the_Unbeliever
Ur-viles are creatures of jet black color and are constructions of an extinct race named the Demondim. They are highly magical, possessing a number of supernatural abilities, including shooting acid, creating bolts of pure energy and the like. They are also blind, but have a preternatural sense of smell. One of their most distinctive features is that when assembled in a wedge formation, the leader (or loremaster) at the apex wields the combined power of the entire group, without weakening any of their kin in the rest of the wedge. The Ur-viles initially served Lord Foul, but later turned against him by creating the creature Vain (from which the new Staff of Law was created). In The Runes of the Earth, the Ur-viles have actively joined the side of "good", though their motivation remains unclear. Because they were made rather than born, the Ur-viles loathe their own bodies and often redirect this rage towards other targets. They also do not die (except when killed) or reproduce.
I have also seen him described as a "perfectly engineered" ebony humanoid and of having a "programmed purpose" after the fact.
So there you have it. Perhaps not so great, but better than Emo Sith.
I resemble that remark... :(
of a big hand point blame to someone else.
Personally I am waiting for Halibuton and Transocean's reports to see how many pages they can draw point fingers on.
Whichever one is longest wins.