We just need a little imagination. Earth needn't be the only source of fuel. I think asteroids are one of the biggest untapped resources we have in the Solar System. The Moon has ice caps, if memory serves. Solar power could separate it into H and O rocket fuel. Even if we do need to take fuel from Earth, imagine being able to get all your other resources for construction in the low-grav environment of open space, and never having to launch any of that stuff from anything more intense than high lunar orbit.
Infrastructure. Mining facilities, both for lunar caps and asteroids. Orbiting scaffolds and an elevator or two. High initial investment, but in the relative long term, I think worth it. Would you rather beach your yacht on the rocks every time you bring it in from sea (slugging spacecraft into and out of earth all day), or have a pier available (lunar bases)?
Within a decade, China's going to be "it." Not the USA. I know it's blasphemy to most Americans to say so, but it's a plain and simple fact.
At least when that happens, maybe we can get our manufacturing jobs back. Maybe we won't have to live in this stagnant consumer culture and it'll be fashionable to NOT be up to your earlobes in debt. Maybe sunshine will burst out of our asses.
If we're going to spend our space exploration energy looking for life, we'd better get something built on the Moon first. The Moon is a far more efficient launch site than the big hulking gravity machine we call the Earth.
I wish NASA would just build some kind of infrastructure (lunar construction facilities? colonies? space elevators?) that would help competitive PRIVATE INDUSTRY get into space to do all that exploring. Then not only will we not need to pay taxes for a government program for it, but progress will happen more quickly.
The Internet makes them irrelevant. If the RIAA ceased to exist tomorrow, the knobs that run the radio stations, VH1, etc. would be confused for about a week, then realize the replacement already exists.
More people need to realize this. Maybe somehow, someone like Napster, Apple or Microsoft can get the typical mainstream distribution channels (radio, TV) to not think of the RIAA labels as their sole source. When that happens, well, we can watch what a free market will do. The thing the RIAA labels offer to budding artists is andvertisement and connections. If web-based distribution companies find a way to offer this too, in essence becoming labels themselves, then the RIAA is sunk.
The future of cars according to Gates will involve high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions.
Article should read: "Guy who sells software and electronics says future cars will use lots of software and electronics."
I can't imagine needing or even wanting--even for curiosity's sake--ANY of that bullshit he just listed. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel as though we're already assaulted enough with some marketroid's idea of what handy gadget we need next? With the climbing price of gasoline, I draw the line at hybrids.
The thing that really kills me is that people like BillyG probably will have an effect on the future of automobiles, and twenty years down the road (no pun intended) I won't be able to purchase the kind of car I actually want: a simple fuel-efficient car without a bunch of expensive Star Trek features. It just won't be available. Everything's going to have those damnable screens and voices and self-driving mechanisms and cost about $30,000(considering inflation) more because of it.
It's crap like this that turns people into luddites.
I really hope that's the case. I just want Star Wars to go away. It does not exist anymore as a charming spaceborne fairytale, but rather as a tri-annual marketing blizkrieg.
I want them to fix Star Trek, and if they have in fact fixed Batman I shall be very pleased.
While it's my hope that they'll do sequels that don't suck, if the market says it doesn't want a sequel, then clearly the original didn't prove itself enough to deserve one, and in such a case it's unlikely a sequel would be any better. Yay free market!
I guess the ending suggested a sequel, and I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't exactly a perpetual side-splitter like the books, but I was satisfied. There was even a laugh-out-loud moment or two. I'd like to see more. I'm of the opinion that practically anything goes when it comes to the H2G2 flick(s). As long as they amuse me--and this one did--I say mission accomplished.
Besides, if they do another one, they'll almost certainly do a third--and in the span of two movies we can just about count on seeing the bit about "flying."
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every time the GPL gets bashed, the is inevitably somebody who can't stand to play fair. (You're welcome, choir. I'll be preaching again next week.)
If you like the GPL but still want to make money on your "software product," then publish the binary and ask a certain "ransom" to have it GPLed. If it's popular or useful enough, you'll get your cash soon enough, then you can release the code via GPL. Not only have you profited, but you have also given back and helped everyone (and yourself) out the way you would have if you had published it under the GPL to begin with.
I still don't know why more people don't do this. Is it too much of a hassle?
Alot(sic) of people would steal/download stuff off the internet, but they would never dare steal a car for example in real life.
Barring the fact that it isn't theft, but rather copyright infringement with draconian penalties, I feel the need to point something out here. You're berating the filesharers for behaving illegally and immorally. You make the valid point that these things are luxuries and whatever idiotic, expensive structure governs them, you still have to follow the rules. But then you say this:
I admit I download mp3s and "0day" movies and games. I know it is illegal and immoral...
Which, by all practical definitions, makes you a hypocrite. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and move on.
I am sick of all the people on slashdot blaiming(sic) the RIAA for their activities. Grow up and be responsible for your own actions!
Not to be rude, but the RIAA companies *are* the ones responsible for the situation we're in. The RIAA does not believe in a free market. Monopolies never do. They have an extremely lucrative distribution/advertising system which is now threatened by the technologies of the Internet. Competition. Instead of competing, doing what the market obviously wants (a cheap, flexible, controllable distribution channel), they persist to keep their old model on life support because that's where their monopoly is. Napster, iTunes and other online music stores are successful because they, despite the gougings of the RIAA, are offering something the cabal of record labels refuses to. They are offering something the market wants--or at least something a touch more palatable.
Downloading music you don't own is not a good idea. I do believe a person should pay an appropriate price for the luxury of good music. But the consumer also deserves a free market that will offer him what he wants at a price he is willing to pay, instead of charging him an arm and a leg for music he doesn't want.
Remember how stable and relatively inflation- and debt-free the gold/silver-based US economy was before the Federal Reserve corporation(s) got monopoly control of our money supply? Remember what the phone industry was like until AT&T lost its monopoly? Remember what the computer industry was like until Microsoft leveled the (hardware) playing field? Remember how awful the US Postal Service was until FedEx challenged them? The same principle applies to the monopolies on media that the **AAs enjoy. Once they're broken, people will wonder why anyone tolerated them to begin with.
Dvorak's right that the major source of growth is getting kids to buy bigger machines, but once we reach photorealism and perfect physics, the industry will not collapse. The market will demand real innovation and the developers will have to start making actual FUN games again. The industry "as we know it" may end, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Can anyone deny that the fun level of stuff on the old Atari outshines 99% of games published today? Technology wasn't the appeal then. It was all colored blocks moving around other colored blocks. The focus was FUN. With games like HL2 where you can spend hours just shooting a tire swing or throwing soda cans, having the time of your life, there's hope for the future of fun video games.
What does someone mistaking it for a real site have to do with the level of corporate America's absurdity?
Clearly he means that the lengths to which companies like Wal-Mart will go to spin something as positive for themselves would be comic parody if we lived in a sane society.
Fortunately for all corporate behemoths, most Americans have been fashioned by TV into such brainwashed intellectual sloths that they'll believe practically anything.
Therefore, if anyone believed it to be a real Wal-Mart site, it is indicative not only of the intensity of current corporate doublespeak, but also of America's expectation to hear such nonsense.
I'll certainly concede that. But when I was working on my own projects in my early CS classes, my negligence to use comments only caused me unnecessary headaches later. Comments are helpful and they don't take really any extra effort to employ. So why not? In fact, another poster said it helps outline the project right before coding it.
Always comment. Always. I'm not a career coder, but I've done enough to know that if it's a project of any noticeable size at all, and you intend to read the code later, take the extra few seconds and COMMENT THE STUPID THING. It makes life a lot easier.
The only thing that probably doesn't need commenting is a simple BAT file or a shell script.
Comment!
>What's needed to make things better? Well, the Linux community needs to address the device driver crisis.
No, stupid, the hardware manufacturers need to address the device driver crisis. You think the working-but-closed nVidia driver exists because of something the "Linux community" did? It was a decision made by nVidia to provide Linux drivers.
Unless you expect a bunch of penguin-suited ninjas to infiltrate D-Link and Intel headquarters and start stealing hardware specs for our wireless cards.
From the article:
>The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas. It gives each work a numeric score based on the weight instructors place on various elements of the assignment.
No it doesn't. To do that, the software would have to be able to reason.
Also from the article:
>With up to 140 students enrolled in his writing-intensive, introductory sociology course, Brent estimates he's saved more than 200 hours of work per semester with Qualrus. The final papers, which he does read, are usually much better as a result of Qualrus, too.
Bull. If all he reads are the final papers, how can he know they've improved?
You signed up for this job, numbnuts. Do the work.
Nationwide fear, paranoia, and long-term apathy has made shows like 24 palatable. I started watching this show when the current season began and I was horrified at the laws and rights that those CTU twits would trample just to take shortcuts to get his man. The rule of law can make things inconvenient but it's there for a REASON.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather have my rights than some illusion of security. If Bauer's heroism was in his cleverness and creativity while following the rules, he truly would be a hero. To me, he's just a manifestation of the stampeding fear America has of "terrorists."
Slashdot Mirror
Technically, Congress writes laws, not lawyers. Lawyers just try to get the judge to see/interpret law their way.
Nevertheless, it is still correct to say that in prolonged lawsuits, the lawyers are the only winners.
We just need a little imagination. Earth needn't be the only source of fuel. I think asteroids are one of the biggest untapped resources we have in the Solar System. The Moon has ice caps, if memory serves. Solar power could separate it into H and O rocket fuel. Even if we do need to take fuel from Earth, imagine being able to get all your other resources for construction in the low-grav environment of open space, and never having to launch any of that stuff from anything more intense than high lunar orbit.
Infrastructure. Mining facilities, both for lunar caps and asteroids. Orbiting scaffolds and an elevator or two. High initial investment, but in the relative long term, I think worth it. Would you rather beach your yacht on the rocks every time you bring it in from sea (slugging spacecraft into and out of earth all day), or have a pier available (lunar bases)?
Within a decade, China's going to be "it." Not the USA. I know it's blasphemy to most Americans to say so, but it's a plain and simple fact.
At least when that happens, maybe we can get our manufacturing jobs back. Maybe we won't have to live in this stagnant consumer culture and it'll be fashionable to NOT be up to your earlobes in debt. Maybe sunshine will burst out of our asses.
I, for one, welcome our new Sino-Overlords.
If we're going to spend our space exploration energy looking for life, we'd better get something built on the Moon first. The Moon is a far more efficient launch site than the big hulking gravity machine we call the Earth.
I wish NASA would just build some kind of infrastructure (lunar construction facilities? colonies? space elevators?) that would help competitive PRIVATE INDUSTRY get into space to do all that exploring. Then not only will we not need to pay taxes for a government program for it, but progress will happen more quickly.
Precisely.
The Internet makes them irrelevant. If the RIAA ceased to exist tomorrow, the knobs that run the radio stations, VH1, etc. would be confused for about a week, then realize the replacement already exists.
More people need to realize this. Maybe somehow, someone like Napster, Apple or Microsoft can get the typical mainstream distribution channels (radio, TV) to not think of the RIAA labels as their sole source. When that happens, well, we can watch what a free market will do. The thing the RIAA labels offer to budding artists is andvertisement and connections. If web-based distribution companies find a way to offer this too, in essence becoming labels themselves, then the RIAA is sunk.
I wonder what O.S.C. thinks of Star Wars?
In my book it never was science fiction to begin with.
The future of cars according to Gates will involve high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions.
Article should read: "Guy who sells software and electronics says future cars will use lots of software and electronics."
I can't imagine needing or even wanting--even for curiosity's sake--ANY of that bullshit he just listed. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel as though we're already assaulted enough with some marketroid's idea of what handy gadget we need next? With the climbing price of gasoline, I draw the line at hybrids.
The thing that really kills me is that people like BillyG probably will have an effect on the future of automobiles, and twenty years down the road (no pun intended) I won't be able to purchase the kind of car I actually want: a simple fuel-efficient car without a bunch of expensive Star Trek features. It just won't be available. Everything's going to have those damnable screens and voices and self-driving mechanisms and cost about $30,000(considering inflation) more because of it.
It's crap like this that turns people into luddites.
Disney movies are tolerable--even good--until Eisner craps all over them.
Let's call a spade a spade.
Good point.
But wasn't QT ransomed in this way? I know this has been done before and it worked, either because of rabid fans or some kind of sponsoring body.
In any case, I can't imagine the community of people who want the code to have such an aversion to contributing money that they give NOTHING.
I really hope that's the case. I just want Star Wars to go away. It does not exist anymore as a charming spaceborne fairytale, but rather as a tri-annual marketing blizkrieg.
I want them to fix Star Trek, and if they have in fact fixed Batman I shall be very pleased.
While it's my hope that they'll do sequels that don't suck, if the market says it doesn't want a sequel, then clearly the original didn't prove itself enough to deserve one, and in such a case it's unlikely a sequel would be any better. Yay free market!
Made by Disney? I hadn't realized. OK. Now I panic.
I guess the ending suggested a sequel, and I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't exactly a perpetual side-splitter like the books, but I was satisfied. There was even a laugh-out-loud moment or two. I'd like to see more. I'm of the opinion that practically anything goes when it comes to the H2G2 flick(s). As long as they amuse me--and this one did--I say mission accomplished.
Besides, if they do another one, they'll almost certainly do a third--and in the span of two movies we can just about count on seeing the bit about "flying."
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every time the GPL gets bashed, the is inevitably somebody who can't stand to play fair. (You're welcome, choir. I'll be preaching again next week.)
If you like the GPL but still want to make money on your "software product," then publish the binary and ask a certain "ransom" to have it GPLed. If it's popular or useful enough, you'll get your cash soon enough, then you can release the code via GPL. Not only have you profited, but you have also given back and helped everyone (and yourself) out the way you would have if you had published it under the GPL to begin with.
I still don't know why more people don't do this. Is it too much of a hassle?
Alot(sic) of people would steal/download stuff off the internet, but they would never dare steal a car for example in real life.
Barring the fact that it isn't theft, but rather copyright infringement with draconian penalties, I feel the need to point something out here. You're berating the filesharers for behaving illegally and immorally. You make the valid point that these things are luxuries and whatever idiotic, expensive structure governs them, you still have to follow the rules. But then you say this:
I admit I download mp3s and "0day" movies and games. I know it is illegal and immoral...
Which, by all practical definitions, makes you a hypocrite. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and move on.
I am sick of all the people on slashdot blaiming(sic) the RIAA for their activities. Grow up and be responsible for your own actions!
Not to be rude, but the RIAA companies *are* the ones responsible for the situation we're in. The RIAA does not believe in a free market. Monopolies never do. They have an extremely lucrative distribution/advertising system which is now threatened by the technologies of the Internet. Competition. Instead of competing, doing what the market obviously wants (a cheap, flexible, controllable distribution channel), they persist to keep their old model on life support because that's where their monopoly is. Napster, iTunes and other online music stores are successful because they, despite the gougings of the RIAA, are offering something the cabal of record labels refuses to. They are offering something the market wants--or at least something a touch more palatable.
Downloading music you don't own is not a good idea. I do believe a person should pay an appropriate price for the luxury of good music. But the consumer also deserves a free market that will offer him what he wants at a price he is willing to pay, instead of charging him an arm and a leg for music he doesn't want.
Remember how stable and relatively inflation- and debt-free the gold/silver-based US economy was before the Federal Reserve corporation(s) got monopoly control of our money supply? Remember what the phone industry was like until AT&T lost its monopoly? Remember what the computer industry was like until Microsoft leveled the (hardware) playing field? Remember how awful the US Postal Service was until FedEx challenged them? The same principle applies to the monopolies on media that the **AAs enjoy. Once they're broken, people will wonder why anyone tolerated them to begin with.
Of course, that's just my opinion.
"Nothing" is precisely what we're going to do.
Dvorak's right that the major source of growth is getting kids to buy bigger machines, but once we reach photorealism and perfect physics, the industry will not collapse. The market will demand real innovation and the developers will have to start making actual FUN games again. The industry "as we know it" may end, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Can anyone deny that the fun level of stuff on the old Atari outshines 99% of games published today? Technology wasn't the appeal then. It was all colored blocks moving around other colored blocks. The focus was FUN. With games like HL2 where you can spend hours just shooting a tire swing or throwing soda cans, having the time of your life, there's hope for the future of fun video games.
What does someone mistaking it for a real site have to do with the level of corporate America's absurdity?
Clearly he means that the lengths to which companies like Wal-Mart will go to spin something as positive for themselves would be comic parody if we lived in a sane society.
Fortunately for all corporate behemoths, most Americans have been fashioned by TV into such brainwashed intellectual sloths that they'll believe practically anything.
Therefore, if anyone believed it to be a real Wal-Mart site, it is indicative not only of the intensity of current corporate doublespeak, but also of America's expectation to hear such nonsense.
I'll certainly concede that. But when I was working on my own projects in my early CS classes, my negligence to use comments only caused me unnecessary headaches later. Comments are helpful and they don't take really any extra effort to employ. So why not? In fact, another poster said it helps outline the project right before coding it.
Always comment. Always. I'm not a career coder, but I've done enough to know that if it's a project of any noticeable size at all, and you intend to read the code later, take the extra few seconds and COMMENT THE STUPID THING. It makes life a lot easier. The only thing that probably doesn't need commenting is a simple BAT file or a shell script. Comment!
...will there THEN be any compelling reason to upgrade from W2K? I submit that there will not. =P
>What's needed to make things better? Well, the Linux community needs to address the device driver crisis.
No, stupid, the hardware manufacturers need to address the device driver crisis. You think the working-but-closed nVidia driver exists because of something the "Linux community" did? It was a decision made by nVidia to provide Linux drivers.
Unless you expect a bunch of penguin-suited ninjas to infiltrate D-Link and Intel headquarters and start stealing hardware specs for our wireless cards.
From the article: >The program analyzes sentence and paragraph structure and can ascertain the flow of arguments and ideas. It gives each work a numeric score based on the weight instructors place on various elements of the assignment. No it doesn't. To do that, the software would have to be able to reason. Also from the article: >With up to 140 students enrolled in his writing-intensive, introductory sociology course, Brent estimates he's saved more than 200 hours of work per semester with Qualrus. The final papers, which he does read, are usually much better as a result of Qualrus, too. Bull. If all he reads are the final papers, how can he know they've improved? You signed up for this job, numbnuts. Do the work.
Nationwide fear, paranoia, and long-term apathy has made shows like 24 palatable. I started watching this show when the current season began and I was horrified at the laws and rights that those CTU twits would trample just to take shortcuts to get his man. The rule of law can make things inconvenient but it's there for a REASON.
Call me crazy, but I'd rather have my rights than some illusion of security. If Bauer's heroism was in his cleverness and creativity while following the rules, he truly would be a hero. To me, he's just a manifestation of the stampeding fear America has of "terrorists."