Who is more likely to survive: the most clever species from Earth with all the resources that Earth has to offer, or the most clever species from Earth without any of the resources that Earth has to offer?
The latter will have whole planets of hydrocarbons to harvest, countless lumps of metal floating past and an endless horizon filled with other earths.
The former will have (what's left of) earth. And they will have to share it with 100 billion others because hey man, we all got rights. I'm sure it won't matter when the lights go out, and the potable water is exhausted and all the animals are extinct because we needed the food they used to eat. Ironically, all that will happen just after great advances in medical science grant us immortality.
If you ever read Asimovs Foundation, then you probably know of Trantor, a totally enclosed world where a sight of the sky is a luxury. That wasn't too bad because there was an empire outside. But if one planet were all there was....
If you got a choice between 500W and 250W would you not choose the latter ?
Unless someone kicks it off, you will always be making the 1000/500 choice. If all that's available is already half the power of those available now then everybody's better off, and the SUV drivers can buy the 500W just because they can. Why do some people treat power consumption like pokemon ?
If it weren't for regulation, most car companies would not be pursuing electric rechargeable or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The diesel engines they have built to comply with ongoing EU regs are amazing, high economy, very low emissions, even more power. How does that infringe anybodys rights, or do polluters have a right to pollute. Sorry mate, it's my business model you see.. stuck in the industrial revolution, can't improve without spending money (unless you threaten me). Can you lend me a tenner ?
It's not like they suddenly spring these things on the corporations. They are told 3 years in advance what's going to happen, and it's their job to work out how to achieve it. How's that for driving the market ? We the people, using the government, force the changes in the behaviour of the corporations, that we feel will improve all our lives. You can't bitch about lack of corporate accountability in other areas then expect them to get a free ride on power efficiency. Besides which the corporations always make money despite regulation, they just can't sit on as deep a pile of it. I value human rights over corporate rights. Too many people don't care about rights other than their own.
* Otherwise know as: All everybody your kids their kids etc
Nobody minded doing "evil" to the Nazis or the Japanese and that turned out better... didn't it ? You can't remain neutral in a war where the atmosphere is at stake. What happens to one happens to all. So in a funny way you were correct - in the long term the effect is to the detriment of the many as well as the few.
No, it's not a big switch for people that know what directory structure are, blah blah blah, but for someone that doesn't know much past "My Documents" and "The Internet (TM)," it can definitely be a big change...
For people who are that low down on the learning ladder it won't matter a bit then. We do have desktop environments available in Linux these days. Besides, nobody ever complains about "learning" a new web site.
The government are given powers by the people to act on their behalf. This includes taxation. No theft involved - you agreed to the deal when you voted.
Ahem,
States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.
What does "them" refer to in that sentence ? "And also" is part of the "to avoid" clause. Surely if "them" or "their" referred to the States party to the Treaty, you wouldn't need the "and also" clause. "Harmful contamination" and "adverse changes in the environment" are almost synonymous. That they phrased it that way implies the separation of the two areas of concern. Seems pretty clear to me. But then I have comprehension skills.
Read the Treaty Text. The original poster is a retard. The original purpose of the outer space treaty was essentially a deal to keep a great power from "taking over" space, made at a time, when the military importance of space was recognized but no leading nation was willing to bet its future on it winning the space race.
There is absolutely nothing that precludes the deposit of life on other planets. Its legal to seed the moon, mars or any other body with life and to terraform it
Did you read the Treaty ?
Article IX
In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of co-operation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.
So you're choosing not to do business with the airport security ? In that case you are choosing not to fly at all. At least not from that airport, try one in another state. What's that ? They've passed on your name to all their buddies in the airport security business ? Looks like you're not going anywhere on a plane. Wonderful thing, accountability.
The very first act of Israel as a nascent state was to attack Egypt. And there had never historically (before '48) been a State of Israel, all they had was vague mutterings of a "promised land". Where was this promised land - Palestine ! Who promised it ? The imaginary guy in the sky. Fuck worrying about intelligent design, what about the Israelis, murdering people to preserve a homeland that they basically promised themselves. There is a good reason why the diaspora happened - because they are a bunch of trouble makers and always have been. If it wasn't for what happened during WW2, they would have had their asses handed to them years ago. They've been playing the victim for far too long IMHO. Even christ freaked out because they used the temple as a branch of the local savings and loan.
I don't care what religion anybody subscribes to, but I do object to them starting fights every time you turn your back.
I used to read books and magazines on my Palm tungsten. Then I switched to blackberry, and I have nearly $1000 in ebooks that I can't read. At all.
I used to have a Palm Tungsten too. I bought a lot of ebooks at the time and I still have access to them on my WM5 powered HTC phone. Have you tried eReader software ? It is free, and I believe you can re-download any books you have already paid for. If it won't run on the crackberry, then maybe you should have considered a different device rather than throw away $1000 of ebooks. But whatever happens, you can still read them on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Symbian.
That's only true for the ones you can see. The other encrypted ones only appear once you've paid. It's called Top up TV here in the UK. Also Setanta sports.
Just because its more distracting doesn't mean its bad for you.
Yes it does. The ancient equivalent of a city would be on the veldt surrounded by predators. You are constantly on edge looking for the flash of colour which could mean you're on the menu. Your ears are straining to hear the danger signals through the constant noise. Constant exposure to such stress is very wearing and can result in various nervous malfunctions and lead to physical manifestations. Ever heard of hypertension ?
I recently (6 months ago) gave up driving a truck (18 wheeler for the US residents) because although the physical act of driving was easy, the mental stress of being abused by just about everybody else on the road led to me being pissed off the whole time. Once you get into that condition, you need serious training in Buddhism to learn to relax. I haven't had the training, and I still can't drive (even a car) without getting stressed almost immediately, and it has even affected me as a pedestrian. All this is happening to a person who in 2001/2002 drove across the US 3 times (FL -> WA, WA -> FL, FL -> CA) in a month and a half for fun, then drove almost all the way around Australia, then travelled all the way round NZ by bus. Hint: it's not the driving or travelling.
The human mind can't stand up to being attacked all the time. My condition is starting to become agoraphobic as it is impossible to go anywhere without encountering traffic. I recently spent time in Scotland, well away from large population centres, and it was like a large dose of valium. I was completely relaxed within a day or so. Unfortunately I still have to earn a living so moving there permanently isn't an option right now. And not having worked for 6 months means my savings are almost exhausted and my options are dwindling to zero.
Just because you don't notice the effect, it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It is cumulative and one day it will hit you hard. Your brain gets used to the default state of mind being stress, and suddenly one day it gets stuck there. Very hard to get back from, and very hard to withstand real stress when it occurs, because you have so little energy left in reserve.
I was listening to a radio program (BBC Radio 4) where they were discussing laser eye surgery, and some very interesting things came out. The main one being, if you have it done, that's it - you cannot reverse it. Sounds fine until you realise that your eye naturally changes with age, and so as you get older, your short sightedness changes to long sightedness as the eye muscles weaken. But you already had the surgery to improve your long distance vision so to bring the focus closer again, you must operate again. While it is possible to correct for far sightedness (ALK), there is only so much modification of the cornea that can be done (they remove tissue from the cornea) and you already reduced the material available when you corrected the original myopia. So if you have had laser surgery correction, you will end up using glasses anyway, and they will have to be more powerful than the ones you would have needed had you not had the surgery. I'm in my early 40s and my eyesight is starting to change for the worse already, especially close up. I have never had any surgery or worn glasses. It seems a big risk and a waste of money to get your eyes fixed, when it could potentially only last a few years before you're back to glasses again. Read all about it.
You don't have to yank the cable first. You have the ground based tether jump slightly to initiate a wave which travels up the cable. The elevator rides the waves. It's the same principle as the whip really, in that you throw the whip out first then back to make the crack.
And you think the current situation where it gets treated like waste makes it safer ? At least when it's reprocessed it has to meet a schedule, and you get to know more quickly if it goes missing.
--Software for a service. You offer a service, like hosting or something. You have software to make that possible and to interact with it. This works as free because people aren't paying you for it, people are paying for your service.
And how is that different from "Software as a service - to your employer" ?
What if you find yourself working in an environment where you code, script or otherwise hack all your own tools to accomplish your assigned task. The masses aren't capable of it now, but then they've been conditioned to push buttons rather than create. This is changing.
There are thousands of small firms going to the wall all the time. Money is tight, so which is the better option to run your small office on as a start up ? Pay for licences from MS/Apple, or do your own thing ? All that's missing is the awareness and the skill level. That is changing. New hires to the growing company will be hired on their ability to work with the tools available.
In such a job market, knowing how to access free and open tools and the ability to write your own will be just as much a desirable skill as knowing which button to push to print a Word document is today. With more people using open ended tools, more intelligent people will regard their computers as extensions of their brains, not machines they have to work for 8 hours a day. You task is gathering data, and reporting it up the chain. How you do that is up to you. The sysadmins take care of separation of privileges, duplication and protection of data.
Sure the low level money will be shit, but how's that different ? It's a job, you get paid. So there you have a way for "open source / free" software to make money and feed your kids. Too many people appear to make the assumption that the individual has to "sell" to make a wage packet. Deriding free software for failing a straw man argument is misleading and pointless. Most workers today don't sell anything, but the firm they work for might.
And you might be thinking that all the previous relies on a level of education that doesn't exist. Correct. Well how about teaching basic linux classes ? You can make money from free software quite well there, and there is the added benefit that my other scenario becomes more likely, sooner.
I get the impression there are a lot of homeless people standing next to piles of bricks, cement, timber and slates while complaining that they haven't got a house.
The only way it would be a similar situation is if you had 2 identical coats and left one in the coat room so that other people could look at it. You do not lose your coat, you lose the copy - period
This reminds me of a guy I hosted an ecommerce site for. He wanted to know why he (and I) had to pay a monthly rental for a server. He was under the impression that once the data was uploaded, that was it - it was "on the internet". Whether he thought it just zipped backwards and forwards over the phone lines never stopping or what, I don't know.
I actually still have (somewhere) a copy of my first ever web page which I had placed on a geocities site back in the 90's. Maybe the title of this topic should be - Don't rely on free stuff to last forever. There is no eviction taking place, no-one is being thrown out. Nothing of value was lost, that wasn't already in existence somewhere else. Anybody who was slightly less than lame would have had their site uploaded to a new host within a day of the shutdown. Anybody who expected different from AOL had their head up their ass anyway.
Not at all. The server only holds a COPY of the data, not the original, so it's the owners of the data that have responsibility for it. Only stupid people upload data to a remote site then delete the local copy.
Maybe there don't have to be any unnatural deaths, just less births. All life requires energy to exist. The human race tripled in size over the 72 years between 1927 and 1999. Where has the energy come from to enable that to happen ? Fossil fuels. Stored energy which we have used to establish ourselves as masters of the planet. But when those fossil fuels run out, or they cause the climate to change (meaning we can't use them), then the numbers of humans must re-adjust to the available energy. Unless you want to live in a world like a cube farm.
This is why I want to see manned space exploration. It is getting critical that we plant seeds elsewhere, before the energy required is more than we are prepared to expend, due to needing it to keep people alive here on earth. You can already hear it - why waste money on space when there's $problem on earth to fix first.
I believe that the earth is a seed. It has just enough energy encapsulated within it to enable intelligent life to grow, learn and then leave to plant life elsewhere. Once the energy is used up, this earth will die. This is nature. We are part of nature, however much we pretend otherwise. We are supposed to leave this planet. Do young birds stay close to the nest once they're able to fly ? Do plants forsake the light in favour of their own seed ? Why then do so many people desire to hide behind their fears by condemning expense.
More people + same space = less for all. (Wars, plagues, tyranny, misery) More people + more space = enough for all. (Freedom, Insulation, Happiness, Expansion)
Anybody who complains that manned space exploration is a waste of money, is penny wise and pound foolish.
Most people who speak of "limitations" to their framework are people who expect the framework to do all their work for them: this is simply unrealistic. If that were how it worked, it would not be called a "framework", but rather a "product".
I like that. Equally, most people who dismiss Linux because of its perceived lack of something or other, are people who expect the computer to do their thinking for them (or at least restrict them to safe choices). If that's what operating systems were about, then we would all be using appliances.
Apple took an existing platform and adapted it to insulate the user from the mechanics. If Microsoft were to do the same, what would that do to your relative "penetration" ?
Penetration is only relevant in the minds of people who seek to dominate a market. Linux is free, the market is not relevant - merely existence is enough. Would you agree that it would be wrong to make language or independent thought proprietary ? If so, why are you advocating exactly that ? What does it matter to you that I choose to work in an xterm or compile from source ? Communication is key, not the tools used to communicate. Evolution depends on many different organisms existing independently, not top down imposition of arbitrary end results. Most users of OSX do so because they don't know any different - Apple said buy so they did as they were told. I don't care how fucking shiny it is. They are in it to protect their business model and that's that. When the music industry does the same, everybody screams blue murder, but if Apple does it suddenly it's cool. GNU/Linux is based on altruism and you can't get a better foundation that that. It truly is the peoples OS, even if they don't realise it yet.
Beware of those who seek to take care of you lest your caretakers become your jailers. (Jim Rohn)
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. (Samuel Adams)
Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it. (Albert Einstein)
The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. (Herbert Spencer)
Beware those who seek to control knowledge, for they already see themselves your master. (unknown)
Slashdot Mirror
There you go, support the artists AND explore space !
I'd hate to hear Britneys version of "The Rings of Saturn" though.
The latter will have whole planets of hydrocarbons to harvest, countless lumps of metal floating past and an endless horizon filled with other earths.
....
The former will have (what's left of) earth.
And they will have to share it with 100 billion others because hey man, we all got rights. I'm sure it won't matter when the lights go out, and the potable water is exhausted and all the animals are extinct because we needed the food they used to eat. Ironically, all that will happen just after great advances in medical science grant us immortality.
If you ever read Asimovs Foundation, then you probably know of Trantor, a totally enclosed world where a sight of the sky is a luxury. That wasn't too bad because there was an empire outside. But if one planet were all there was
If you got a choice between 500W and 250W would you not choose the latter ?
Unless someone kicks it off, you will always be making the 1000/500 choice. If all that's available is already half the power of those available now then everybody's better off, and the SUV drivers can buy the 500W just because they can. Why do some people treat power consumption like pokemon ?
If it weren't for regulation, most car companies would not be pursuing electric rechargeable or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The diesel engines they have built to comply with ongoing EU regs are amazing, high economy, very low emissions, even more power. How does that infringe anybodys rights, or do polluters have a right to pollute. Sorry mate, it's my business model you see.. stuck in the industrial revolution, can't improve without spending money (unless you threaten me). Can you lend me a tenner ?
It's not like they suddenly spring these things on the corporations. They are told 3 years in advance what's going to happen, and it's their job to work out how to achieve it. How's that for driving the market ? We the people, using the government, force the changes in the behaviour of the corporations, that we feel will improve all our lives. You can't bitch about lack of corporate accountability in other areas then expect them to get a free ride on power efficiency. Besides which the corporations always make money despite regulation, they just can't sit on as deep a pile of it. I value human rights over corporate rights. Too many people don't care about rights other than their own.
Evil ???
:
... didn't it ?
In this case the Many INCLUDE the few !
That's why they're the many* !
* Otherwise know as
All
everybody
your kids
their kids
etc
Nobody minded doing "evil" to the Nazis or the Japanese and that turned out better
You can't remain neutral in a war where the atmosphere is at stake. What happens to one happens to all. So in a funny way you were correct - in the long term the effect is to the detriment of the many as well as the few.
For people who are that low down on the learning ladder it won't matter a bit then. We do have desktop environments available in Linux these days. Besides, nobody ever complains about "learning" a new web site.
Is voting compulsory then ?
The government are given powers by the people to act on their behalf. This includes taxation.
No theft involved - you agreed to the deal when you voted.
Ahem,
States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.
What does "them" refer to in that sentence ?
"And also" is part of the "to avoid" clause.
Surely if "them" or "their" referred to the States party to the Treaty, you wouldn't need the "and also" clause. "Harmful contamination" and "adverse changes in the environment" are almost synonymous. That they phrased it that way implies the separation of the two areas of concern.
Seems pretty clear to me. But then I have comprehension skills.
Did you read the Treaty ?
Article IX
In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of co-operation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.
My bold.
dare I say it ?
Ha Ha !
So you're choosing not to do business with the airport security ? In that case you are choosing not to fly at all. At least not from that airport, try one in another state. What's that ? They've passed on your name to all their buddies in the airport security business ? Looks like you're not going anywhere on a plane. Wonderful thing, accountability.
The very first act of Israel as a nascent state was to attack Egypt. And there had never historically (before '48) been a State of Israel, all they had was vague mutterings of a "promised land". Where was this promised land - Palestine ! Who promised it ? The imaginary guy in the sky. Fuck worrying about intelligent design, what about the Israelis, murdering people to preserve a homeland that they basically promised themselves. There is a good reason why the diaspora happened - because they are a bunch of trouble makers and always have been. If it wasn't for what happened during WW2, they would have had their asses handed to them years ago. They've been playing the victim for far too long IMHO. Even christ freaked out because they used the temple as a branch of the local savings and loan.
I don't care what religion anybody subscribes to, but I do object to them starting fights every time you turn your back.
I used to have a Palm Tungsten too. I bought a lot of ebooks at the time and I still have access to them on my WM5 powered HTC phone. Have you tried eReader software ? It is free, and I believe you can re-download any books you have already paid for. If it won't run on the crackberry, then maybe you should have considered a different device rather than throw away $1000 of ebooks. But whatever happens, you can still read them on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Symbian.
That's only true for the ones you can see. The other encrypted ones only appear once you've paid. It's called Top up TV here in the UK. Also Setanta sports.
Yes it does. The ancient equivalent of a city would be on the veldt surrounded by predators. You are constantly on edge looking for the flash of colour which could mean you're on the menu. Your ears are straining to hear the danger signals through the constant noise. Constant exposure to such stress is very wearing and can result in various nervous malfunctions and lead to physical manifestations. Ever heard of hypertension ?
I recently (6 months ago) gave up driving a truck (18 wheeler for the US residents) because although the physical act of driving was easy, the mental stress of being abused by just about everybody else on the road led to me being pissed off the whole time. Once you get into that condition, you need serious training in Buddhism to learn to relax. I haven't had the training, and I still can't drive (even a car) without getting stressed almost immediately, and it has even affected me as a pedestrian. All this is happening to a person who in 2001/2002 drove across the US 3 times (FL -> WA, WA -> FL, FL -> CA) in a month and a half for fun, then drove almost all the way around Australia, then travelled all the way round NZ by bus. Hint: it's not the driving or travelling.
The human mind can't stand up to being attacked all the time. My condition is starting to become agoraphobic as it is impossible to go anywhere without encountering traffic. I recently spent time in Scotland, well away from large population centres, and it was like a large dose of valium. I was completely relaxed within a day or so. Unfortunately I still have to earn a living so moving there permanently isn't an option right now. And not having worked for 6 months means my savings are almost exhausted and my options are dwindling to zero.
Just because you don't notice the effect, it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It is cumulative and one day it will hit you hard. Your brain gets used to the default state of mind being stress, and suddenly one day it gets stuck there. Very hard to get back from, and very hard to withstand real stress when it occurs, because you have so little energy left in reserve.
Aaah Lasik.
I was listening to a radio program (BBC Radio 4) where they were discussing laser eye surgery, and some very interesting things came out. The main one being, if you have it done, that's it - you cannot reverse it. Sounds fine until you realise that your eye naturally changes with age, and so as you get older, your short sightedness changes to long sightedness as the eye muscles weaken. But you already had the surgery to improve your long distance vision so to bring the focus closer again, you must operate again. While it is possible to correct for far sightedness (ALK), there is only so much modification of the cornea that can be done (they remove tissue from the cornea) and you already reduced the material available when you corrected the original myopia. So if you have had laser surgery correction, you will end up using glasses anyway, and they will have to be more powerful than the ones you would have needed had you not had the surgery.
I'm in my early 40s and my eyesight is starting to change for the worse already, especially close up. I have never had any surgery or worn glasses. It seems a big risk and a waste of money to get your eyes fixed, when it could potentially only last a few years before you're back to glasses again.
Read all about it.
You don't have to yank the cable first. You have the ground based tether jump slightly to initiate a wave which travels up the cable. The elevator rides the waves. It's the same principle as the whip really, in that you throw the whip out first then back to make the crack.
And you think the current situation where it gets treated like waste makes it safer ? At least when it's reprocessed it has to meet a schedule, and you get to know more quickly if it goes missing.
Yeah, just give us 4 minutes warning though...
Thrice.
And how is that different from "Software as a service - to your employer" ?
What if you find yourself working in an environment where you code, script or otherwise hack all your own tools to accomplish your assigned task. The masses aren't capable of it now, but then they've been conditioned to push buttons rather than create. This is changing. There are thousands of small firms going to the wall all the time. Money is tight, so which is the better option to run your small office on as a start up ? Pay for licences from MS/Apple, or do your own thing ? All that's missing is the awareness and the skill level. That is changing. New hires to the growing company will be hired on their ability to work with the tools available.
In such a job market, knowing how to access free and open tools and the ability to write your own will be just as much a desirable skill as knowing which button to push to print a Word document is today. With more people using open ended tools, more intelligent people will regard their computers as extensions of their brains, not machines they have to work for 8 hours a day. You task is gathering data, and reporting it up the chain. How you do that is up to you. The sysadmins take care of separation of privileges, duplication and protection of data.
Sure the low level money will be shit, but how's that different ? It's a job, you get paid. So there you have a way for "open source / free" software to make money and feed your kids.
Too many people appear to make the assumption that the individual has to "sell" to make a wage packet. Deriding free software for failing a straw man argument is misleading and pointless. Most workers today don't sell anything, but the firm they work for might.
And you might be thinking that all the previous relies on a level of education that doesn't exist. Correct.
Well how about teaching basic linux classes ? You can make money from free software quite well there, and there is the added benefit that my other scenario becomes more likely, sooner.
I get the impression there are a lot of homeless people standing next to piles of bricks, cement, timber and slates while complaining that they haven't got a house.
"If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true ?"
Enough with the coats already !
The only way it would be a similar situation is if you had 2 identical coats and left one in the coat room so that other people could look at it. You do not lose your coat, you lose the copy - period
This reminds me of a guy I hosted an ecommerce site for. He wanted to know why he (and I) had to pay a monthly rental for a server. He was under the impression that once the data was uploaded, that was it - it was "on the internet". Whether he thought it just zipped backwards and forwards over the phone lines never stopping or what, I don't know.
I actually still have (somewhere) a copy of my first ever web page which I had placed on a geocities site back in the 90's. Maybe the title of this topic should be - Don't rely on free stuff to last forever. There is no eviction taking place, no-one is being thrown out. Nothing of value was lost, that wasn't already in existence somewhere else. Anybody who was slightly less than lame would have had their site uploaded to a new host within a day of the shutdown. Anybody who expected different from AOL had their head up their ass anyway.
Not at all. The server only holds a COPY of the data, not the original, so it's the owners of the data that have responsibility for it. Only stupid people upload data to a remote site then delete the local copy.
Maybe there don't have to be any unnatural deaths, just less births. All life requires energy to exist. The human race tripled in size over the 72 years between 1927 and 1999. Where has the energy come from to enable that to happen ? Fossil fuels. Stored energy which we have used to establish ourselves as masters of the planet. But when those fossil fuels run out, or they cause the climate to change (meaning we can't use them), then the numbers of humans must re-adjust to the available energy. Unless you want to live in a world like a cube farm.
This is why I want to see manned space exploration. It is getting critical that we plant seeds elsewhere, before the energy required is more than we are prepared to expend, due to needing it to keep people alive here on earth. You can already hear it - why waste money on space when there's $problem on earth to fix first.
I believe that the earth is a seed. It has just enough energy encapsulated within it to enable intelligent life to grow, learn and then leave to plant life elsewhere. Once the energy is used up, this earth will die. This is nature. We are part of nature, however much we pretend otherwise. We are supposed to leave this planet. Do young birds stay close to the nest once they're able to fly ? Do plants forsake the light in favour of their own seed ? Why then do so many people desire to hide behind their fears by condemning expense.
More people + same space = less for all. (Wars, plagues, tyranny, misery)
More people + more space = enough for all. (Freedom, Insulation, Happiness, Expansion)
Anybody who complains that manned space exploration is a waste of money, is penny wise and pound foolish.
I like that.
Equally, most people who dismiss Linux because of its perceived lack of something or other, are people who expect the computer to do their thinking for them (or at least restrict them to safe choices). If that's what operating systems were about, then we would all be using appliances.
Apple took an existing platform and adapted it to insulate the user from the mechanics. If Microsoft were to do the same, what would that do to your relative "penetration" ?
Penetration is only relevant in the minds of people who seek to dominate a market. Linux is free, the market is not relevant - merely existence is enough. Would you agree that it would be wrong to make language or independent thought proprietary ? If so, why are you advocating exactly that ? What does it matter to you that I choose to work in an xterm or compile from source ? Communication is key, not the tools used to communicate. Evolution depends on many different organisms existing independently, not top down imposition of arbitrary end results. Most users of OSX do so because they don't know any different - Apple said buy so they did as they were told. I don't care how fucking shiny it is. They are in it to protect their business model and that's that. When the music industry does the same, everybody screams blue murder, but if Apple does it suddenly it's cool.
GNU/Linux is based on altruism and you can't get a better foundation that that. It truly is the peoples OS, even if they don't realise it yet.
Beware of those who seek to take care of you lest your caretakers become your jailers. (Jim Rohn)
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. (Samuel Adams)
Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it. (Albert Einstein)
The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. (Herbert Spencer)
Beware those who seek to control knowledge, for they already see themselves your master. (unknown)
etc, etc.