According to teh Wiki, 4 years from initial release to Mozilla 1.0. Even then, I don't remember many people actually using it until Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox came along, and that wasn't until 2004 - 6 years after Netscape made the Mozilla codebase available.
This sort of thing is why I prefer 'free source' to 'open source'. We encounter internal politic and lobbying poisoning the well for developers and authors with different visions, and we find it occurring in secret by the managers of the 'open source' projects. Wouldn't politicking and lobbying occur in any case, man being a political animal and all that? And I'd argue that Wikipedia is "free", in the sense that anybody is free to fork their own if you don't like how The Wikipedia is turning out. The problem with that - apart from the usual GPL-viral-licenses-oh-noes worries that companies/corporations have - is that network benefits mean that the Wikipedia with the most users gets the greatest benefit - more eyeballs and all that.
Still, I'm sure people with niche interests and a mutual hatred of Wikipedia bureaucracy could set up an excellent wiki about railways (say) or Lewis Carroll or whatever, and use Wikipedia to get themselves started. That's why people like me contributed in the first place: so that others could take what we gave, and improve on it.
Unfortunately, if the US did that, the fundamentalists would use that as an excuse to attack the schools for being in collaboration with the Great Satan. True, but you guys supported about half-a-dozen* proxy wars with the Soviets without actively being involved. Sneaking money into the country via the UN, through good offices in countries which are friendly to Pakistan (I guess China would be too much to hope for?), sponsoring college education for underprivileged students and teachers or smuggling books into the country might help.
Ultimately, the only solution to fundamentalism is that the surrounding society deems it not acceptable. Education is essential in achieving this; however, it is by no means sufficient. It is perfectly possible to be well-educated and an evil fanatic. Again, true; although I'd guess that most* well-educated and non-"evil" (what a funny word) people have better and more profitable things to do than plan attacks on army bases and Pres. Musharraf. Certainly, many extremely smart and well-educated people have joined terrorist outfits; however, having other avenues for your intelligence definitely helps. I can't imagine the Muslims I know personally (most of whom were offended by the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed) protesting peacefully, let alone burn downing embassies. They're more likely to complain about it a bit and move on.
I think the danger in slipping into fundamentalism lies in two areas: firstly, the ability of leaders to cajole and the propensity of the affected and aggrieved to take their anger out on either the offenders or completely helpless bystanders (examples range from violence which erupted in Kenya's rift valley last week, to the riots in Bangalore caused by - of all things - the perfectly natural death of an aging movie star), and secondly, the vast majority of people who would just like to get on with what they're doing, and are perfectly willing to grant to the affected and aggrieved mentioned above any seemingly small concession in order to calm their anger. Yes, let's ban this book, ban that film, you can see their point, their favourite movie star died and nobody seemed to care, and so on. This, I feel, only drives them into the hands of the leaders mentioned above, who can triumphantly claim that violence is the only way in which the minority can have its grievances addressed. Before you know it, things have escalated to Godhra.
What's the way out? I don't know, but I guess ensuring that the aggrieved have a soap box to make their grievances heard, having a strong constitution reinforced by a strong judiciary which ensures that the rights to free speech and personal liberty remain enforced, and better mobility within society to ensure that the most wretched have as much of a chance at success as do the richest might help. How that comes about is beyond me, and it's probably too early on a Monday to try and figure that out:).
For quite a while, actually. I remember somebody pointing out in their sig that CmdrTaco had tagged one of the stories he'd posted himself as "slownewsday". You can see kdawson and CmdrTaco's lists of posted tags from their profile pages (linked for your convenience), but be warned that those pages take forever to open.
We really need to bring these people up to speed with the 21st century. What's the best way to do it? Three weeks of heavy meteorite bombardment followed by moving in a new population of sane people. It's the only way to be sure.
(Joking aside, I sincerely hope parent was making dark humour without any actual intention of supporting genocide)
... a product called Tata is just one I will never be able to deal with without snickering like a teenage boy... That's cool; if everything goes According To Plan, you can soon call them Jaguar and Land Rover instead.
That's because securepaynet.net is owned by WildWestDomains.com which is the reseller arm of GoDaddy's domain registration service. So both websites you linked to are owned by GoDaddy, which explains the identical website layouts.
All the other posters replying to your post seem to be of the opinion that the point of the analogy you drew was that armed lambs will be able to defend themselves against attack by the wolves. A naive interpretation, such as mine, of this analogy would instead be that in a constitutional republic, the constitution acts as the guns of the lamb - both figuratively and, through its agent the Executive, literally - to protect it from assault by the wolves, despite them being in the majority. This could be representative of, for instance, the arguments for and against slavery in the mid-1800s (i.e. should slavery be allowed to exist, because the majority wish it so? Or should the US Constitution's assumption that "all men are created equal" act to protect those who would be enslaved against their wolfish enslavers? Thankfully, wisdom prevailed, and emancipation proclaimed). Is the intended point really the first one? And if so, are my co-posters aware that Afghanistan is in a bit of a mess at the moment because too many people have guns?
Sorry for my odd english; it's 6am here right now and I desperately need some sleep.
Not sure about the others, but Gandhi broke laws he considered unfair, then submitted himself for the punishment for those crimes, informing the court (and press) that as soon as he was let out, he would break the law again. He didn't commit other crimes while trying to further his political position.
I wonder if it's possible for someone to donate most of their wealth to charity, then break copyright law as a protest. What are the penalties in civil court if you cannot afford to pay the damages?
Not all of them, of course. In India, five or six years ago, a newspaper tested out the emergency phone numbers (100-103) by dialing them up to "report" an emergency. They never got through.
I've heard that the original version of Transport Tycoon (DOS only) had a bug, so that if you tried building a tunnel from one end of the map to the other, the price would be high enough that it would wrap around, giving you a very high negative "cost" for the tunnel. So once you "bought" the tunnel, the game would subtract the cost of the tunnel from your total money, causing you to *gain* money instead of losing it.
Very handy for building up cash surpluses early in the game, I hear.
Slashdot Mirror
Man, *seven* hours to the first Eva reference? /. is dying, netcraft conf...
:)
Thank you for making me smile nevertheless
I'm really curious, not (just) being a smartass: how did you think bees found flowers?
According to teh Wiki, 4 years from initial release to Mozilla 1.0. Even then, I don't remember many people actually using it until Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox came along, and that wasn't until 2004 - 6 years after Netscape made the Mozilla codebase available.
Still, I'm sure people with niche interests and a mutual hatred of Wikipedia bureaucracy could set up an excellent wiki about railways (say) or Lewis Carroll or whatever, and use Wikipedia to get themselves started. That's why people like me contributed in the first place: so that others could take what we gave, and improve on it.
Nonsense. Real theoretical physicists don't fear stairs: they level the building.
(You don't think Hawking radiation only applies to black holes, do you?)
The autoscroll-thing didn't work on Opera until this site update. I don't know which other browsers it was "turned off" for.
Great, now "The Elements Song" will be playing in my head all night ... thanks! (I think :P)
I hope you get modded up!
I think the danger in slipping into fundamentalism lies in two areas: firstly, the ability of leaders to cajole and the propensity of the affected and aggrieved to take their anger out on either the offenders or completely helpless bystanders (examples range from violence which erupted in Kenya's rift valley last week, to the riots in Bangalore caused by - of all things - the perfectly natural death of an aging movie star), and secondly, the vast majority of people who would just like to get on with what they're doing, and are perfectly willing to grant to the affected and aggrieved mentioned above any seemingly small concession in order to calm their anger. Yes, let's ban this book, ban that film, you can see their point, their favourite movie star died and nobody seemed to care, and so on. This, I feel, only drives them into the hands of the leaders mentioned above, who can triumphantly claim that violence is the only way in which the minority can have its grievances addressed. Before you know it, things have escalated to Godhra.
What's the way out? I don't know, but I guess ensuring that the aggrieved have a soap box to make their grievances heard, having a strong constitution reinforced by a strong judiciary which ensures that the rights to free speech and personal liberty remain enforced, and better mobility within society to ensure that the most wretched have as much of a chance at success as do the richest might help. How that comes about is beyond me, and it's probably too early on a Monday to try and figure that out
* Warning, bogus number.
For quite a while, actually. I remember somebody pointing out in their sig that CmdrTaco had tagged one of the stories he'd posted himself as "slownewsday". You can see kdawson and CmdrTaco's lists of posted tags from their profile pages (linked for your convenience), but be warned that those pages take forever to open.
(Joking aside, I sincerely hope parent was making dark humour without any actual intention of supporting genocide)
Beautiful.
... a product called Tata is just one I will never be able to deal with without snickering like a teenage boyModeration +4: 50% Funny, 30% Informative, 20% Insightful
I completely agree with your point, but I have to say: I love Slashdot.
This is Slashdot. We'd all pick the CowboyNeal option, and then what/who would he do?
chmod 444
That's because securepaynet.net is owned by WildWestDomains.com which is the reseller arm of GoDaddy's domain registration service. So both websites you linked to are owned by GoDaddy, which explains the identical website layouts.
Hi,
All the other posters replying to your post seem to be of the opinion that the point of the analogy you drew was that armed lambs will be able to defend themselves against attack by the wolves. A naive interpretation, such as mine, of this analogy would instead be that in a constitutional republic, the constitution acts as the guns of the lamb - both figuratively and, through its agent the Executive, literally - to protect it from assault by the wolves, despite them being in the majority. This could be representative of, for instance, the arguments for and against slavery in the mid-1800s (i.e. should slavery be allowed to exist, because the majority wish it so? Or should the US Constitution's assumption that "all men are created equal" act to protect those who would be enslaved against their wolfish enslavers? Thankfully, wisdom prevailed, and emancipation proclaimed). Is the intended point really the first one? And if so, are my co-posters aware that Afghanistan is in a bit of a mess at the moment because too many people have guns?
Sorry for my odd english; it's 6am here right now and I desperately need some sleep.
Yours sincerely, etc.
Good save! I wish I had mod points ...
Not sure about the others, but Gandhi broke laws he considered unfair, then submitted himself for the punishment for those crimes, informing the court (and press) that as soon as he was let out, he would break the law again. He didn't commit other crimes while trying to further his political position.
I wonder if it's possible for someone to donate most of their wealth to charity, then break copyright law as a protest. What are the penalties in civil court if you cannot afford to pay the damages?
And in case you were wondering, yes, it's authentic.
Did you mean 37,000 Libraries of Congress per Electoral Year? Libraries of Congress are units of storage, not processing rate.
we have had critically ill people receive delayed medical care because people have dialed 911 after watching American TV.
It's pretty sad; this is why several countries now route 911 to their local emergency number.
Not all of them, of course. In India, five or six years ago, a newspaper tested out the emergency phone numbers (100-103) by dialing them up to "report" an emergency. They never got through.
Heh.
I've heard that the original version of Transport Tycoon (DOS only) had a bug, so that if you tried building a tunnel from one end of the map to the other, the price would be high enough that it would wrap around, giving you a very high negative "cost" for the tunnel. So once you "bought" the tunnel, the game would subtract the cost of the tunnel from your total money, causing you to *gain* money instead of losing it.
Very handy for building up cash surpluses early in the game, I hear.
It's semi-offtopic, sure, but this is the kind of detailed dissection which truely makes Slashdot worthwhile. Thank you!
Steve Jobs is going to announce the Time Capsule at the MacWorld Expo, which might be exactly what you're looking for.