Way to appear to reply to a post, while totally ignoring his point.
Look. Get a copy of the Constitution. Get a copy of the federal budget. Compare them. Look at the powers that the Constitution gives to the Federal government. (Be especially sure to read and understand the tenth amendment.) Compare the powers granted to the Federal government with what the budget says that Federal government is actually doing. Note how much it is doing that has no constitutional authorization. That is the grandparent's point.
And if you think that Bush Jr. was the one who started this, and that under Clinton and all other predecessors the government was strictly adhering to the limits placed on in by the Constitution, then you are badly out of touch with reality...
Sure they do. But where do they make their money? They don't make as much on bulk IP traffic as they would have on the individual long-distance calls.
(Of course, they spend less, too, because they don't have to do the billing processing for the individual call. But I still think that the long-distance outfits wind up with less profit from VOIP than they did from long-distance phone calls.)
So: If their profits are going to go down, and we can see it coming, then sell their stock.
(Disclaimer: I am neither a stock-market analyst nor an investment advisor. I'm just saying what it looks like to me.)
Yes, it's possible. It's also possible that the government is using "terrorism" as a smokescreen to trample all over the freedom of the (non-mainstream) press.
Now, I'm not in favor of letting some al-Qaeda operative escape because we blab about the investigation in open court. I'm also not in favor of letting the government shut down freedom of the press just because it embarasses them. And the problem is this: We can't tell which is going on here.
Neither can the judge. So they go through this little dance, where the judge tries to get them to say enough to let the judge know what's going on, and the government tries to say as little as possible, and they go back and forth several times, and eventually the judge finds out enough to convince him/her.
... can be summed up in one phrase: "What's true vs. the truth".
Let's start with this: The sky is green. That statement is actually true in a way, in that there is green light coming from the sky. If you ran the light from the sky through a prism (you would have to columnate it first), you would see that this is true. And if you looked at the sky through a filter that only let green light pass, it wouldn't be black. So in that sense, it is true that the sky is green.
Nevertheless, the truth is that the sky is blue. I mean, go outside and look up, and what do you see?
I say all this to illustrate what I mean by "the truth" versus "what is true". And once you look at things with this distinction in mind, you see this all over the place.
Politics, for instance. The two examples that immediately come to mind are, "I did not inhale" and "I did not have sex with that woman." And both may be true. But the truth is, he smoked pot and he had sex with that woman.
But the point here is the news media. "Today John Kerry charged blah blah blah. The White House responded blah blah blah." And it's all true. John Kerry really said it. Someone from the White House did in fact say the other. It's all true. But what's the truth? They don't tell us.
This is the glaring flaw in the current news media. They are trying so hard to be "unbiased" (never mind that they do show bias in what stories they run, and they slant the stories a bit). But they are determined to give quotes from both sides, to let both present their side of the story. The problem is that the truth is biased. Somebody's view doesn't square with the facts very well. (Or, quite possibly, neither side does.) But the media doesn't point this out so that they will remain "unbiased".
I don't know if blogs are the answer. But the news media is certainly the problem.
Here in Utah (yeah, yeah, I know, don't shoot me), we had a state constitution amendment on the ballot to clarify the rules for impeaching a state official. One of the reasons to do this is because it's so much less messy to do this when there isn't an actual impeachment in progress or about to happen.
Same thing here. Find and fix the problems now, when the race has been conceded, and the result isn't in doubt, so that, when we need to be able to count on the system to count every vote, we can.
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Maybe, but only if Bush wins. See, it's my impression that the majority of the bitterness is originating on the Democratic side. They've been in attack mode because Bush was leading in the polls after the conventions. So if Kerry loses with all the bitterness, then maybe next time around the bitterness won't be used as a strategy. But if Kerry wins, then the bitterness will be back even stronger in 2008.
Wow. You hope you don't have to live through the next four years, regardless of who wins? Wow, that's really pessimistic.
Though, objectively, I must admit that I see why you feel that way...
Trying to answer the question that was asked...
on
How Cheap Can A PC Be?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Most of the answers are along the lines of, "I can't find the parts at that price in this catalog or that store". I don't think that was the question.
Some other comments have focused on whether what Balmer said was reasonable. Interesting topic, but that isn't the question either.
Some other comments have said, "Yes, get a used one." That still isn't the question.
The question is: Could we spec out a PC that, in volume, could sell for $100 and run Linux?
An interesting twist on the question: Can we consider it "a PC" (for purposes of this question) if it doesn't have an Intel-compatible processor? Say, a StrongARM CPU? (Note that the criterion was that it run Linux; well, Linux runs on a wide variety of CPUs.)
The personal computer revolution in the US had a lot of computers that cost one month's average income (or more), back in the 1980s. We still bought an awful lot of them, and the computer revolution took off here.
The computer doesn't have to be "budget" in the sense of "find that much money in the couch cushions". But if the average person can manage to get their hands on one if they try reasonably hard, that's a big deal.
that I can make an even more improved chip that will display VGA resolution on a screen that physically has only 1/4 the resolution of VGA, by composing 4 lines together? Or 8? Or, hey, I know, why don't we compose all the lines together, so we can have a VGA resolution display on hardware that is only a single row of pixels?
Well, because it doesn't work that way. You can combine lines and display the right color values, but in the end, you only have half as many pixels, and you simply don't have VGA resolution. You can maybe make it look better than half-VGA, but you can't make it really VGA. When you try to push this "just like VGA" display, you find out that you can't push it as far as VGA before things start losing sharpness. There is a Spanish saying: "Although the monkey may dress in silk, she remains a monkey."
You sure ought to be grateful! My mother (yes, my mother) was a programmer in the 1950's, writing flight simulations for missiles, and working (among other places) at JPL. When she began working, she wrote in octal. She was grateful when she got an assembler!
Writing numerical code in octal - I just can't begin to imagine how much talent that took.
Microsoft is free to charge whatever they want. But Microsoft is not free to charge more than the market will bear without consequences. If they charge more than the market will bear, they lose customers or encourage piracy. (I know, the copyright violations are still illegal. But Microsoft makes the illegal more tempting for many people, and many people are quite bad at resisting temptation...)
So what should we do? Shrug our shoulders and watch our garden paradise go to hell in a handbasket while we try to maximize short-term profits?
If we are not the cause, we may not be able to be the cure. Destroying our economic (semi)paradise on a fool's quest to "fix" the climate isn't going to help anybody...
Yeah, well, you are talking about regimes where the consequences of being discovered are a certain and painful death, I think being paranoid is probably pretty good advice...
But XORing against a random byte stream is not very good advice, because it is much more difficult than you might expect to generate such a random byte stream. Hint: The random number generator that comes with your compiler is not good enough.
There is no pie big enough for everyone to have a slice, if "everyone" contains Microsoft - at least, not in Microsoft's view. In their view, if they're in the game, everyone else must be forced out of the market.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean like Cobol?
Look. Get a copy of the Constitution. Get a copy of the federal budget. Compare them. Look at the powers that the Constitution gives to the Federal government. (Be especially sure to read and understand the tenth amendment.) Compare the powers granted to the Federal government with what the budget says that Federal government is actually doing. Note how much it is doing that has no constitutional authorization. That is the grandparent's point.
And if you think that Bush Jr. was the one who started this, and that under Clinton and all other predecessors the government was strictly adhering to the limits placed on in by the Constitution, then you are badly out of touch with reality...
Hello? Can you go out somewhere and buy some perspective?
I wouldn't define evil that way, though I understand that the word is used that way. I would define "evil" as "the extreme of morally wrong".
Of course, extreme ruthlessness is evil in that sense also...
How can you live in a place that has transparent air? How do you even breathe?
Sure they do. But where do they make their money? They don't make as much on bulk IP traffic as they would have on the individual long-distance calls.
(Of course, they spend less, too, because they don't have to do the billing processing for the individual call. But I still think that the long-distance outfits wind up with less profit from VOIP than they did from long-distance phone calls.)
So: If their profits are going to go down, and we can see it coming, then sell their stock.
(Disclaimer: I am neither a stock-market analyst nor an investment advisor. I'm just saying what it looks like to me.)
Time to sell your stock in long-distance companies...
Icebergs were no threat to the Titanic, either.
No, really. It was unsinkable. Just ask the shipping company...
Sure it will be in a service pack before Longhorn ships - in version 1.0.
But it won't be good enough to get much use until 3.0, so we probably still have a while...
But your point is quite valid. Get XUL out there, get the market lock-in, beat them to the punch.
Now, I'm not in favor of letting some al-Qaeda operative escape because we blab about the investigation in open court. I'm also not in favor of letting the government shut down freedom of the press just because it embarasses them. And the problem is this: We can't tell which is going on here.
Neither can the judge. So they go through this little dance, where the judge tries to get them to say enough to let the judge know what's going on, and the government tries to say as little as possible, and they go back and forth several times, and eventually the judge finds out enough to convince him/her.
Let's start with this: The sky is green. That statement is actually true in a way, in that there is green light coming from the sky. If you ran the light from the sky through a prism (you would have to columnate it first), you would see that this is true. And if you looked at the sky through a filter that only let green light pass, it wouldn't be black. So in that sense, it is true that the sky is green.
Nevertheless, the truth is that the sky is blue. I mean, go outside and look up, and what do you see?
I say all this to illustrate what I mean by "the truth" versus "what is true". And once you look at things with this distinction in mind, you see this all over the place.
Politics, for instance. The two examples that immediately come to mind are, "I did not inhale" and "I did not have sex with that woman." And both may be true. But the truth is, he smoked pot and he had sex with that woman.
But the point here is the news media. "Today John Kerry charged blah blah blah. The White House responded blah blah blah." And it's all true. John Kerry really said it. Someone from the White House did in fact say the other. It's all true. But what's the truth? They don't tell us.
This is the glaring flaw in the current news media. They are trying so hard to be "unbiased" (never mind that they do show bias in what stories they run, and they slant the stories a bit). But they are determined to give quotes from both sides, to let both present their side of the story. The problem is that the truth is biased. Somebody's view doesn't square with the facts very well. (Or, quite possibly, neither side does.) But the media doesn't point this out so that they will remain "unbiased".
I don't know if blogs are the answer. But the news media is certainly the problem.
Same thing here. Find and fix the problems now, when the race has been conceded, and the result isn't in doubt, so that, when we need to be able to count on the system to count every vote, we can.
beginningtoseethelight gets hit with a DMCA lawsuit?
And, yes, I am aware of the irony of posting this on election day in the US...
Short answer: No. Longer answer: Maybe, but only if Bush wins. See, it's my impression that the majority of the bitterness is originating on the Democratic side. They've been in attack mode because Bush was leading in the polls after the conventions. So if Kerry loses with all the bitterness, then maybe next time around the bitterness won't be used as a strategy. But if Kerry wins, then the bitterness will be back even stronger in 2008.
Wow. You hope you don't have to live through the next four years, regardless of who wins? Wow, that's really pessimistic.
Though, objectively, I must admit that I see why you feel that way...
Most of the answers are along the lines of, "I can't find the parts at that price in this catalog or that store". I don't think that was the question.
Some other comments have focused on whether what Balmer said was reasonable. Interesting topic, but that isn't the question either.
Some other comments have said, "Yes, get a used one." That still isn't the question.
The question is: Could we spec out a PC that, in volume, could sell for $100 and run Linux?
An interesting twist on the question: Can we consider it "a PC" (for purposes of this question) if it doesn't have an Intel-compatible processor? Say, a StrongARM CPU? (Note that the criterion was that it run Linux; well, Linux runs on a wide variety of CPUs.)
Thanks. I thought he did, but I didn't have the URL to prove it.
Kerry was a senator when the DMCA was passed. How did he vote?
The personal computer revolution in the US had a lot of computers that cost one month's average income (or more), back in the 1980s. We still bought an awful lot of them, and the computer revolution took off here.
The computer doesn't have to be "budget" in the sense of "find that much money in the couch cushions". But if the average person can manage to get their hands on one if they try reasonably hard, that's a big deal.
Well, because it doesn't work that way. You can combine lines and display the right color values, but in the end, you only have half as many pixels, and you simply don't have VGA resolution. You can maybe make it look better than half-VGA, but you can't make it really VGA. When you try to push this "just like VGA" display, you find out that you can't push it as far as VGA before things start losing sharpness. There is a Spanish saying: "Although the monkey may dress in silk, she remains a monkey."
Writing numerical code in octal - I just can't begin to imagine how much talent that took.
Microsoft is free to charge whatever they want. But Microsoft is not free to charge more than the market will bear without consequences. If they charge more than the market will bear, they lose customers or encourage piracy. (I know, the copyright violations are still illegal. But Microsoft makes the illegal more tempting for many people, and many people are quite bad at resisting temptation...)
If we are not the cause, we may not be able to be the cure. Destroying our economic (semi)paradise on a fool's quest to "fix" the climate isn't going to help anybody...
Yeah, well, you are talking about regimes where the consequences of being discovered are a certain and painful death, I think being paranoid is probably pretty good advice...
But XORing against a random byte stream is not very good advice, because it is much more difficult than you might expect to generate such a random byte stream. Hint: The random number generator that comes with your compiler is not good enough.
There is no pie big enough for everyone to have a slice, if "everyone" contains Microsoft - at least, not in Microsoft's view. In their view, if they're in the game, everyone else must be forced out of the market.