I would like to point out one factual error in your reply. The licence fee is not a tax. Tax is something that you have not choice about paying. You can choose not to pay the license fee by not owning a TV. Note that I am not in any way saying that I think that the licence fee is right but it isn't a tax.
The problem with having the funding come from adverts is that you end up with a very poor type of "TV democracy". Minority groups, be they SciFi fans (yes not everyone likes SciFi), ethnic minorties or just people that like programs for people with an IQ greater than thier shoe size will be all but ignored.
Even though I don't have a TV I would be happy to pay a small separate tax to cover the installation and running of public services such as libraries, tv, radio stations as long as they had a charter that demanded neutrality and we over seen by a NGO.
I believe that the BBC off good value for money. They produce some excellent shows (although I think they have been slipping some what in recent years) and because of they way they are funded they can offer programs that would otherwise probably not get made.
My personal axe that I grind at every possible oportunity is to do with the way the license fee is collected. I haven't had a TV for many years but they won't leave me alone. Nothing I say or do will make them believe that I don't own a TV. I am truely in the guilty till proven innocent club. I have detailed my story here for those that are interested to see what the BBC do to people who don't pay.
It's a simple case of economics really. New technology is embraced for one of two reasons.
1) It's better in some way (generally faster with computer equipment). 2) It's cheaper.
I don't see that MSN seach is any faster and they are both free so it's not cheaper. Of course this is a simplified case and in reality the two criteria play off against each other (a processor twice as fast as todays that costs ten years pay probably won't become popular even though it's "better") and it is probably fair to say that to supplant Google you are going to need to have a tick next to both the statements above.
I admit that there was a very serious problem with discrimination against women in the workplace 20+ years ago but I am not so convinced that is the case now. I know that there are still some men out there that think a woman's place is in the home but, in my experience, there are just as many man hating women in top jobs now so in the end it evens itself out. Note: I am not in any way supporting discrimination such as this I am just trying to point out that nature seems to find a balance.
Now that we have pretty much eliminated gender discrimination I think it is probably time to start letting women choose for themselves what they want to be. If they don't want to be scientists or mathematicians fair enough. So what?
Again this is just in my experience but, women make much better managers (oh the irony - should it be personagers now?) than men. Where as men seem to make better scientists, engineers, etc. Now whether that is gender typing from birth I don't know. I know that studies have shown that men have better spatial awareness so perhaps they are more likely to become engineers because they find it easier.
Whatever the case is, be it discrimination, gender typing or natural difference I would say the research required to tell is probably impossible. If a man does it he will be discriminating if he finds a difference and a woman will be labelled an over zealous feminist. It's a no win situation so perhaps we should just leave well alone. The worst thing that can happen though is that we allow our fears and prejudices get in the way of honest, correct science.
...but I don't want to do anything that really upsets Google. So, if everyone here could simply visit my site, find a link to something are interested in and click it I would be very grateful. Does this count as automation?
Thanks:oD
Yes, I have sold my soul to Satan and I didn't get much for it
Regardless of whether global warming is real (I happen to think it is but it's not as bad as it's made out to be) we still have to invest money in alternative energy technology because oil and to a lesser extent coal isn't going to last forever.
More over it would be nice to breath in air that wasn't polluted with fumes from cars which are causing untold numbers of premature deaths.
I've seen quite a few papers recently that talk about using multiple cheap (<£30) webcams to do gesture recognition. Ok the images aren't great but the improvements you get from using £1000+ video set-ups with fancy lenses etc aren't that great.
Mod or teach the world some chemistry. hmmm teach some chemistry I think.
When it comes to chemicals please please please don't think have a knee jerk reaction and claim that all chemicals are evil and sent by satan himself.
Everything around you is a chemical so to say you are scared of chemicals is pretty stupid. Further more to say a chemical is bad or nasty is pretty silly as you are attributing a bunch of atoms a human personality.
Sodium Borohydride is a faily commonly used chemical and for the most part it is completely safe. There are no really special handling requirements (for lab scale use) although if memory serves it's generally best not to get it wet but even then it's generally only a fairly quck reaction. I'm not saying that you can eat the stuff just correctly managed it's safe.
There are a few really dangerous chemicals such as nerve gasses that require very special treatment and you really don't want to be messing with them but most chemicals are quite inert.
To give you some perspective have a look at the MSDS data for cadmium. You no doubt use NiCad batteries and I think you will be somewaht shocked. Do you have a mercury thermometer. That mercury is dangerous stuff. How about metholated spirit. If it was a toss up between eating 1g of sodium borohydride or drinking 1ml of meths I would probably go with the sodium borohydride and yet you probably splash meths about.
Have a look at the NetBeans Java IDE. It can do exactly what you suggest. It started out like the Gimp with windows all over the place (which I dislicked at first but am getting used to) and an option to have a single window display. The last couple of releases have focused on a single window display with panels that you can click into other places (eg you can make a tabbed pane of panels to les used tools). The flexability this offers amazing.
You should think yourself lucky I spent 4 hours on the phone a couple of weeks ago (a friday night no less) helpings a, wait for it, friends bosses daughter. 3 more links and I get to debug the presidents computer:o)
The easist way to avoid support calls is to simply buy a pair of good quality scissors and then offer to fix all their problems. Note: a knife may also work but may be a bit dangerous.
Proceed to go round to the users house and cut the plug off anything more comlicated than a spoon. If you feel like trying to change the world mail the plugs to your favourite manufacturer to difficult to use electronic equipment with a note telling them why they are recieving plugs.
In some crazy mixed up world maybe just maybe you will get a computer security system that isn't complete hell to use but it isn't going to happen in this life time.
Uses see security as an inconvenience not something that helps them in anyway (and lets face it if we sent all the crackers to Mars we wouldn't need security anyway).
Computer security isn't like, say, a guard over a the blade of a circular saw. I don't think most users understand what it is there for and so they by pass it or make it as simple to get through as possible.
It's a shame M$ feels they have to attack Linux in this way. They may actually win some support from the tech crowd if they fought the battle based on the quality of their products. I think we are more likely to see the second coming first though:o) (please don't mod me down for mentioning religion)
I can't help feeling that M$ is a company that can't decide whether they want to cater to the server market or the home market when it comes to Windows.
I agree, even the best programmers are prone to making massive mistakes once in a while.
I was once working with one of the best, if not the best, programmer I have known. It was a few years back when XP was starting to make itself heard. We had an understanding boss at the time that was willing to give new ideas a try so we decided to try and pair program a particularly difficult bit of code.
Well it all seemed fine. When we were done we both looked at it and thought it was one of the nicest bits of code we had ever seen. It fair brought a tear to the eye. It passed every unit test we through at it. It passed normal systems testing. It even passed a full code review.
Two months later it brought a production server to its knees! It took us a month of sundays to figure out what was wrong as well. I understood at that point that software development is hard.
I don't want to sound like an apologist for M$ but we found out a long time ago that software is difficult, if not impossible, to get right. I am sure their software practices are shoddy in the extreme but hasn't this news story been flogged to death already? What does the submitter think was are going to say about this particular problem that hasn't been said about the 1000 other "M$ security hole" type stories that have graced the pages of/. in the last week!
NASAs biggest problem is that it took its eye off the ball and lost direction. I think after they got to the moon they didn't really know what to do next so they just went to the moon a few more times rather than expanding their horizon and maybe trying to push on to Mars. They had something that captured the publics imagination with the HST but have now cocked it up to the point where the average person is just confused.
I admit you have to do some science to justify the expense of space missions but Jo Public only understands pictures and the science leaves him bored. Jo Publics attention span is also only just longer than that of the average goldfish so you have to keep the thrills coming. People will wait maybe a year for something amazing but they won't wait 10 years. NASA has got to remember that the public are funding them so they had better put on a good show.
I have recently been investigating using a small wind turbine to run my main server with mains back up when needed. It may be only a small thing but if we all made a small change it would add up to a big change.
Remember one important point though. Don't use solar cells (photovoltaics) and pat yourself on the back claiming to be doing your bit for the environment. They are energy sinks not sources meaning generally you are making the problem worse! Use wind and water power as over their life time turbines normally produce more energy than was required to buld them.
How much more evidence do we need before we start to do something about this problem? The problem, IMHO, is that even if we are at the point of seeing the start of run away global warming there is little incentive for our governments to do anything about it as it won't affect the current generation significantly.
If any of the governments of the world were thinking ahead though they would start investing very heavily in alternative power generation technology. In global terms it's not all that long before we run out of fossil fuels or damage the climate to the point where fossil fuels cost more than they are worth. The country that owns the technology to generate clean power will be in a very strong position. Imagine if your country didn't have to rely on the middle east for transport - suddenly your country becomes very powerful.
At the end of the day though while the American sheeple continue to vote idiots into power nothing is going to be done about the problem.
If you want to know quite how bad it can get I have briefly detailed my dealings with the tv licencing people. It's quite frankly amazing what they can get away with. Some of the later letters talk about search warrents and local court summons. This for the crime of not owning a TV and wanting to have nothing to do with tv licencing. In the end I attacked them with and old woman from the citizens advice bureau. That sorted them out;o)
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to point out one factual error in your reply. The licence fee is not a tax. Tax is something that you have not choice about paying. You can choose not to pay the license fee by not owning a TV. Note that I am not in any way saying that I think that the licence fee is right but it isn't a tax. The problem with having the funding come from adverts is that you end up with a very poor type of "TV democracy". Minority groups, be they SciFi fans (yes not everyone likes SciFi), ethnic minorties or just people that like programs for people with an IQ greater than thier shoe size will be all but ignored. Even though I don't have a TV I would be happy to pay a small separate tax to cover the installation and running of public services such as libraries, tv, radio stations as long as they had a charter that demanded neutrality and we over seen by a NGO.
I believe that the BBC off good value for money. They produce some excellent shows (although I think they have been slipping some what in recent years) and because of they way they are funded they can offer programs that would otherwise probably not get made.
My personal axe that I grind at every possible oportunity is to do with the way the license fee is collected. I haven't had a TV for many years but they won't leave me alone. Nothing I say or do will make them believe that I don't own a TV. I am truely in the guilty till proven innocent club. I have detailed my story here for those that are interested to see what the BBC do to people who don't pay.
It's a simple case of economics really. New technology is embraced for one of two reasons.
1) It's better in some way (generally faster with computer equipment).
2) It's cheaper.
I don't see that MSN seach is any faster and they are both free so it's not cheaper. Of course this is a simplified case and in reality the two criteria play off against each other (a processor twice as fast as todays that costs ten years pay probably won't become popular even though it's "better") and it is probably fair to say that to supplant Google you are going to need to have a tick next to both the statements above.
I've got a couple of testicles and do a great octopus impression - do you think they would accept that?
I admit that there was a very serious problem with discrimination against women in the workplace 20+ years ago but I am not so convinced that is the case now. I know that there are still some men out there that think a woman's place is in the home but, in my experience, there are just as many man hating women in top jobs now so in the end it evens itself out. Note: I am not in any way supporting discrimination such as this I am just trying to point out that nature seems to find a balance.
Now that we have pretty much eliminated gender discrimination I think it is probably time to start letting women choose for themselves what they want to be. If they don't want to be scientists or mathematicians fair enough. So what?
Again this is just in my experience but, women make much better managers (oh the irony - should it be personagers now?) than men. Where as men seem to make better scientists, engineers, etc. Now whether that is gender typing from birth I don't know. I know that studies have shown that men have better spatial awareness so perhaps they are more likely to become engineers because they find it easier.
Whatever the case is, be it discrimination, gender typing or natural difference I would say the research required to tell is probably impossible. If a man does it he will be discriminating if he finds a difference and a woman will be labelled an over zealous feminist. It's a no win situation so perhaps we should just leave well alone. The worst thing that can happen though is that we allow our fears and prejudices get in the way of honest, correct science.
I don't know about submitting a site it looks more like a "give us your working email address so we can spam you even more".
Who in their right mind developes a web application where the form submission is via email.
The censorship is so good I can't get any results from it at all. At least they can be shure they got all the "bad" sites.
Search for "Democracy" it returns: Nothing to see here more right along.
...but I don't want to do anything that really upsets Google. So, if everyone here could simply visit my site, find a link to something are interested in and click it I would be very grateful. Does this count as automation?
Thanks :oD
Yes, I have sold my soul to Satan and I didn't get much for it
Regardless of whether global warming is real (I happen to think it is but it's not as bad as it's made out to be) we still have to invest money in alternative energy technology because oil and to a lesser extent coal isn't going to last forever.
More over it would be nice to breath in air that wasn't polluted with fumes from cars which are causing untold numbers of premature deaths.
And I thought 640Kb was enough!
I've seen quite a few papers recently that talk about using multiple cheap (<£30) webcams to do gesture recognition. Ok the images aren't great but the improvements you get from using £1000+ video set-ups with fancy lenses etc aren't that great.
Mod or teach the world some chemistry. hmmm teach some chemistry I think.
When it comes to chemicals please please please don't think have a knee jerk reaction and claim that all chemicals are evil and sent by satan himself.
Everything around you is a chemical so to say you are scared of chemicals is pretty stupid. Further more to say a chemical is bad or nasty is pretty silly as you are attributing a bunch of atoms a human personality.
Sodium Borohydride is a faily commonly used chemical and for the most part it is completely safe. There are no really special handling requirements (for lab scale use) although if memory serves it's generally best not to get it wet but even then it's generally only a fairly quck reaction. I'm not saying that you can eat the stuff just correctly managed it's safe.
There are a few really dangerous chemicals such as nerve gasses that require very special treatment and you really don't want to be messing with them but most chemicals are quite inert.
To give you some perspective have a look at the MSDS data for cadmium. You no doubt use NiCad batteries and I think you will be somewaht shocked. Do you have a mercury thermometer. That mercury is dangerous stuff. How about metholated spirit. If it was a toss up between eating 1g of sodium borohydride or drinking 1ml of meths I would probably go with the sodium borohydride and yet you probably splash meths about.
Ok that's enough chemistry for one day.
Gindows will be a modern cluster only operating system that can find what you want before you know you want it. Comes complete with a minibar.
Have a look at the NetBeans Java IDE. It can do exactly what you suggest. It started out like the Gimp with windows all over the place (which I dislicked at first but am getting used to) and an option to have a single window display. The last couple of releases have focused on a single window display with panels that you can click into other places (eg you can make a tabbed pane of panels to les used tools). The flexability this offers amazing.
You should think yourself lucky I spent 4 hours on the phone a couple of weeks ago (a friday night no less) helpings a, wait for it, friends bosses daughter. 3 more links and I get to debug the presidents computer :o)
The easist way to avoid support calls is to simply buy a pair of good quality scissors and then offer to fix all their problems. Note: a knife may also work but may be a bit dangerous.
Proceed to go round to the users house and cut the plug off anything more comlicated than a spoon. If you feel like trying to change the world mail the plugs to your favourite manufacturer to difficult to use electronic equipment with a note telling them why they are recieving plugs.
I suspect that should fix the problem
In some crazy mixed up world maybe just maybe you will get a computer security system that isn't complete hell to use but it isn't going to happen in this life time.
Uses see security as an inconvenience not something that helps them in anyway (and lets face it if we sent all the crackers to Mars we wouldn't need security anyway).
Computer security isn't like, say, a guard over a the blade of a circular saw. I don't think most users understand what it is there for and so they by pass it or make it as simple to get through as possible.
It's a shame M$ feels they have to attack Linux in this way. They may actually win some support from the tech crowd if they fought the battle based on the quality of their products. I think we are more likely to see the second coming first though :o) (please don't mod me down for mentioning religion)
I can't help feeling that M$ is a company that can't decide whether they want to cater to the server market or the home market when it comes to Windows.
I agree, even the best programmers are prone to making massive mistakes once in a while.
I was once working with one of the best, if not the best, programmer I have known. It was a few years back when XP was starting to make itself heard. We had an understanding boss at the time that was willing to give new ideas a try so we decided to try and pair program a particularly difficult bit of code.
Well it all seemed fine. When we were done we both looked at it and thought it was one of the nicest bits of code we had ever seen. It fair brought a tear to the eye. It passed every unit test we through at it. It passed normal systems testing. It even passed a full code review.
Two months later it brought a production server to its knees! It took us a month of sundays to figure out what was wrong as well. I understood at that point that software development is hard.
This is news because?
I don't want to sound like an apologist for M$ but we found out a long time ago that software is difficult, if not impossible, to get right. I am sure their software practices are shoddy in the extreme but hasn't this news story been flogged to death already? What does the submitter think was are going to say about this particular problem that hasn't been said about the 1000 other "M$ security hole" type stories that have graced the pages of /. in the last week!
</rant> - it's been a hard day
Now it's going to be even harder to get my name in the top spot. Why was I cursed with the surname Smith!
NASAs biggest problem is that it took its eye off the ball and lost direction. I think after they got to the moon they didn't really know what to do next so they just went to the moon a few more times rather than expanding their horizon and maybe trying to push on to Mars. They had something that captured the publics imagination with the HST but have now cocked it up to the point where the average person is just confused.
I admit you have to do some science to justify the expense of space missions but Jo Public only understands pictures and the science leaves him bored. Jo Publics attention span is also only just longer than that of the average goldfish so you have to keep the thrills coming. People will wait maybe a year for something amazing but they won't wait 10 years. NASA has got to remember that the public are funding them so they had better put on a good show.
I have recently been investigating using a small wind turbine to run my main server with mains back up when needed. It may be only a small thing but if we all made a small change it would add up to a big change.
Remember one important point though. Don't use solar cells (photovoltaics) and pat yourself on the back claiming to be doing your bit for the environment. They are energy sinks not sources meaning generally you are making the problem worse! Use wind and water power as over their life time turbines normally produce more energy than was required to buld them.
How much more evidence do we need before we start to do something about this problem? The problem, IMHO, is that even if we are at the point of seeing the start of run away global warming there is little incentive for our governments to do anything about it as it won't affect the current generation significantly.
If any of the governments of the world were thinking ahead though they would start investing very heavily in alternative power generation technology. In global terms it's not all that long before we run out of fossil fuels or damage the climate to the point where fossil fuels cost more than they are worth. The country that owns the technology to generate clean power will be in a very strong position. Imagine if your country didn't have to rely on the middle east for transport - suddenly your country becomes very powerful.
At the end of the day though while the American sheeple continue to vote idiots into power nothing is going to be done about the problem.
If you want to know quite how bad it can get I have briefly detailed my dealings with the tv licencing people. It's quite frankly amazing what they can get away with. Some of the later letters talk about search warrents and local court summons. This for the crime of not owning a TV and wanting to have nothing to do with tv licencing. In the end I attacked them with and old woman from the citizens advice bureau. That sorted them out ;o)