They're only committment to linux is a revenge fantasy against MS. Open source has definite potential for long term profit, but in the current environment, waiting not only for sales but for support contracts to come in for profit to be made would be a very risky move for any company to make. All the promises of future earnings won't make a big difference to the invesors that will leave when quarterly earnings reports slip below expectations.
They didn't mention the statistic the matters much more (to most of us) than top speed, which is acceleration. Very few people ever drive above 85-90, and most driving is done below 60, so being able to go 130 doesn't matter that much.
Where hybrid and pure electric cars really need to improve is the all important ability to get up to speed quickly and smoothly, and it doesn't appear that this car really addressed this critical issue.
The fact it can be done begins to move us away from some of the mysteries surrounding human beings; things like the existence of a soul, which frankly is pure imagination
I don't happen to believe in the soul as it appears in most religions, but I fail to see how a successful cloning experiment completely disproves the idea that helps countless millions cope with their lives. Statements like these hurt the image of the scientific community in the eyes of the public, i.e. the people the science is supposedly trying to improve the lives of.
If he had really disproven the soul or God (which is impossible to to the vague nature of their descriptions) then he should by all means spread this proof, but since he hasn't, then he should just STFU.
He is making scientific conclusions based on his faith that the soul is not real. That's just stupid.
It's strange, listening to someone complain about the difficulties of dealing with the diversity among computers, when, throughout all of/., I hear about monopolies and everything being the same dull, grey box to to large corporations squeezing the littel guy with the innovative design out.
On another topic, I think that it is rather foolish to order a specialty PC and not be able to repair it yourself, or have the money to buy totally new parts. It's similar to owning an old car from a now defunct manufacturer. Cusomers shouldn't expect the same service as if they owned an uncustomized computer from a large manufacturer.
I think that if another election is decided by the government being elected, it is time for another revolution. We need to overhaul the political system in this coutry or we may just have no more elections.
I have always considered seeing if one of the owners of a computer that was rendered unusable by spyware that I know would be interested in launching a civil suit. I would imagine that sneaking something onto someone's property and causing damage that could at least be measured in hundreds if not thousands of dollars would merit a court case.
My concerns are not based on the idea of consistantly skewing results. It's the one time when one of the heads of Google's misstresses comes under investigation and the search results are changed for that one search to get her off.
I see 2 problems with the government and law enforcement using the internet. I don't want the government using the internet for their job. They tend to over regulate and sometimes take full control of things they use, no one wants that.
The second is that Google is a private corporation and there is no guarantee that google does not the display search results that it wants displayed instead of the real ones. Just too much power in Google's hands in my mind.
Open Source is not a panacea, requirement for life, or any sort of deity. Therefore, it seems foolish to treat it like one.
Of course they are a company, with shareholders and the the desire to make a profit. So are Red Hat, VA Linux, and Mandrake.
There is nothing wrong with a company supporting Linux, that's exactly what Linux needs to bring it to the attention of the general public. IBM has essentially been advertising Linux for a while now. They've put more money into Linux than pretty much anyone else has. This is what Linux has lacked: big money supporting Linux.
I would think that the ideal solution is to have something with the pictures of man and earth that also transmits radio waves. That way, it is not just oddly shaped space trash.
Remember that when something like voyager hits an earth like atmosphere it will become a small pebble that ignites a brush fire in a rural area of Betelgeuse-4
Although I haven't yet read this book, from the description it sounds like it could be a real help to me. With Apache on Linux I found that just to get things up and running was a long and involved process that was in no way trivial.
There seemed to be little in the way of practical material that gave specific and step-by-step instructions for installing and running Apache on Linux. Apache on Linux requires you to spend 8 hours per day just to keep it up and running, and while its performance and security is fine if you have the time and staff for it, there is no way to just set it up and let it sit while installing patches when needed.
Before working with Apache I had been dubious as to MS's claims about TCO but after that experience I can say that in a situation where you can't spend all your time working on the server itself, Microsoft products can actually be superior.
I think that these ultra small almost entirely functionless handhelds are just wasting the time of good engineers who could be making something that is actually useful.
From a corporate standpoint, the development costs of making this sort of product are very high. The sales from these are fairly low as the only people who buy them tend to be impulse buyers, most of whom are scared away by the high price needed to make a profit.
Between CF cards and actual pen-and-paper notebooks, this type of machine is entirely unneeded.
Going against basic instincts can eventually cause insanity or at least mental instability.
I think a better solution is to find a safe outlet for these urges. Sports are a fairly common choice, but there is a wide range of activities that allow you to vent your frustrations without driving dangerously or beating spouses/offspring.
Aderkach.org is a fairly new site but I have found their hardware reviews to be spot on. They test things pretty thoroughly and they have spotted problems that many major reviewers have missed. They also suggest some interesting alternative uses for the products they review and so it can be a great place to look for fun and time wasting projects.
The google IPO is just a mess and I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.
This is a revival of the doomed to fail *.com IPOs and was a huge mistake for google. They were a steadily profitable company that was well respected. Now they are going to lose a lot of money when their stock goes way down due to the horrible over valuation of their stock. It has a PE of ~110. This predicts that a loss of 90%would not to an unbelievable situation (although something for along the lines of 25-50% seems more likely).
Now Google is a slave to Wall Street and will have to cut out anything that investors don't approve of and add in anything that it wants. Google claims it wants to focus on the long term. They are naive to think that they won't have to shuffle all their finances at the end of the quarter just to meet an artificial earnings expectation or risk having their stock price drop.
I have never held a share of a *.com for more than two weeks. In 1998 I was making half of what everyone else did. Now a lot of people are trying to salvage what they can from their portfolio while I'm still making similar money to what I did in the 90s.
I can identify with these soldiers. I once spent a month at a house with no internet access whatsoever. I had no idea what to do with myself in my spare time. I had my laptop with me and spent hours playing solitaire. I couldn't get my mind off the internet, and what must be happenning in my absence. I tried watching tv but I usually watch tv while browsing/., so it was no help. News papers weren't much better because I couldn't adjust the font size or get the perfect lighting of the computer monitor. I even went through pages I had available offline. I ended up just signing up for a month of dial-up connection, but it possibly made it worse because I had an old modem and was used to broadband. I had exactly the same sensations that I had while trying to give up cocaine (a habit from my young and stupid days), except there was no real physical sensations except those produced from nervousness.
The point made in the link is that if non humanoid robots break down, then humans could not step in and use the tools that the robots had been using.
It provided an example of a automobile factory where non humanoid robotic "arms" did the work, as many of you have probably seen video of. The poster claims that if these were to break down, then the factory would be idle because the factory and tools had been set up for non humanoid workers to use, but that if humanoid robots were used, then the workers could just pick up the robot's tools and continue working.
I believe this is wrong. First off, the initial investment of the robots would be much higher and you would have to pay for features that had nothing to do with making cars, so that if they break, employees who have no experience can step into their place if they break down. I would think that you would have only hired repairmen (repairbots?) to begin with, so they repair your productive workers.
You need to remember, humans invented mathematics and science. Numbers are the the relations and functions used in science and mathematics are human creations to describe the universe, much like language, only with more stringent rules.
This could possibly be beneficial to science, whose purpose is ultimately to serve humanity. This creates something of a democracy in science. Now the public can chose what problems that it wants solved and play a direct role in helping while they sleep.
I think that this is a Good Thing (TM). Distributed computing has the postential to not only further the cause of science, but to bridge the gap between the public and the scientists.
I'm not convinced of the usefulness of humanoid robots, except for providing disabled humans with prothetic limbs and maybe organs eventually.
It would seem more useful to build robots that are designed with the task they must perform in mind. Therefore, they could perform it far better than any human.
The truth is that the/. community has maligned this legitimate, above the boards company just for trying to get restitution for code that they really did buy. It dissappoints me that even the editors won't allow them to make their case, which actually does have merit. Having looked at their products, they are very impressive. This whole "SCO is teh suck" mentality is stifling innovation at this company that has developed many products that have improved computing as we know it.
So they don't want to give their hard earned IP away. What good business would? Look at the companies that have tried to make profit off linix. Mandrake just hauled itself out of bankruptcy, Red Hat had some success, but is floundering. Open Source software can not be made into a profitable business model.
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Can your subconcious run linux?
They're only committment to linux is a revenge fantasy against MS. Open source has definite potential for long term profit, but in the current environment, waiting not only for sales but for support contracts to come in for profit to be made would be a very risky move for any company to make. All the promises of future earnings won't make a big difference to the invesors that will leave when quarterly earnings reports slip below expectations.
Where hybrid and pure electric cars really need to improve is the all important ability to get up to speed quickly and smoothly, and it doesn't appear that this car really addressed this critical issue.
I don't happen to believe in the soul as it appears in most religions, but I fail to see how a successful cloning experiment completely disproves the idea that helps countless millions cope with their lives. Statements like these hurt the image of the scientific community in the eyes of the public, i.e. the people the science is supposedly trying to improve the lives of.
If he had really disproven the soul or God (which is impossible to to the vague nature of their descriptions) then he should by all means spread this proof, but since he hasn't, then he should just STFU.
He is making scientific conclusions based on his faith that the soul is not real. That's just stupid.
I shudder to think what the smell would be like if a toilet overflows.
Since we haven't played a good single player FPS game since Halo 1!
On another topic, I think that it is rather foolish to order a specialty PC and not be able to repair it yourself, or have the money to buy totally new parts. It's similar to owning an old car from a now defunct manufacturer. Cusomers shouldn't expect the same service as if they owned an uncustomized computer from a large manufacturer.
I guess that would only affect 40% of us though.
I have always considered seeing if one of the owners of a computer that was rendered unusable by spyware that I know would be interested in launching a civil suit. I would imagine that sneaking something onto someone's property and causing damage that could at least be measured in hundreds if not thousands of dollars would merit a court case.
My concerns are not based on the idea of consistantly skewing results. It's the one time when one of the heads of Google's misstresses comes under investigation and the search results are changed for that one search to get her off.
The second is that Google is a private corporation and there is no guarantee that google does not the display search results that it wants displayed instead of the real ones. Just too much power in Google's hands in my mind.
Of course they are a company, with shareholders and the the desire to make a profit. So are Red Hat, VA Linux, and Mandrake.
There is nothing wrong with a company supporting Linux, that's exactly what Linux needs to bring it to the attention of the general public. IBM has essentially been advertising Linux for a while now. They've put more money into Linux than pretty much anyone else has. This is what Linux has lacked: big money supporting Linux.
Remember that when something like voyager hits an earth like atmosphere it will become a small pebble that ignites a brush fire in a rural area of Betelgeuse-4
There seemed to be little in the way of practical material that gave specific and step-by-step instructions for installing and running Apache on Linux. Apache on Linux requires you to spend 8 hours per day just to keep it up and running, and while its performance and security is fine if you have the time and staff for it, there is no way to just set it up and let it sit while installing patches when needed.
Before working with Apache I had been dubious as to MS's claims about TCO but after that experience I can say that in a situation where you can't spend all your time working on the server itself, Microsoft products can actually be superior.
It surprised me too.
My point is that the entire field is a uselss money black hole. Future rollouts are just as unprofitable as current rollouts.
From a corporate standpoint, the development costs of making this sort of product are very high. The sales from these are fairly low as the only people who buy them tend to be impulse buyers, most of whom are scared away by the high price needed to make a profit.
Between CF cards and actual pen-and-paper notebooks, this type of machine is entirely unneeded.
Nothing to see here, please move along.
I think a better solution is to find a safe outlet for these urges. Sports are a fairly common choice, but there is a wide range of activities that allow you to vent your frustrations without driving dangerously or beating spouses/offspring.
Aderkach.org is a fairly new site but I have found their hardware reviews to be spot on. They test things pretty thoroughly and they have spotted problems that many major reviewers have missed. They also suggest some interesting alternative uses for the products they review and so it can be a great place to look for fun and time wasting projects.
This is a revival of the doomed to fail *.com IPOs and was a huge mistake for google. They were a steadily profitable company that was well respected. Now they are going to lose a lot of money when their stock goes way down due to the horrible over valuation of their stock. It has a PE of ~110. This predicts that a loss of 90%would not to an unbelievable situation (although something for along the lines of 25-50% seems more likely).
Now Google is a slave to Wall Street and will have to cut out anything that investors don't approve of and add in anything that it wants. Google claims it wants to focus on the long term. They are naive to think that they won't have to shuffle all their finances at the end of the quarter just to meet an artificial earnings expectation or risk having their stock price drop.
I have never held a share of a *.com for more than two weeks. In 1998 I was making half of what everyone else did. Now a lot of people are trying to salvage what they can from their portfolio while I'm still making similar money to what I did in the 90s.
I can identify with these soldiers. I once spent a month at a house with no internet access whatsoever. I had no idea what to do with myself in my spare time. I had my laptop with me and spent hours playing solitaire. I couldn't get my mind off the internet, and what must be happenning in my absence. I tried watching tv but I usually watch tv while browsing /., so it was no help. News papers weren't much better because I couldn't adjust the font size or get the perfect lighting of the computer monitor. I even went through pages I had available offline. I ended up just signing up for a month of dial-up connection, but it possibly made it worse because I had an old modem and was used to broadband. I had exactly the same sensations that I had while trying to give up cocaine (a habit from my young and stupid days), except there was no real physical sensations except those produced from nervousness.
It provided an example of a automobile factory where non humanoid robotic "arms" did the work, as many of you have probably seen video of. The poster claims that if these were to break down, then the factory would be idle because the factory and tools had been set up for non humanoid workers to use, but that if humanoid robots were used, then the workers could just pick up the robot's tools and continue working.
I believe this is wrong. First off, the initial investment of the robots would be much higher and you would have to pay for features that had nothing to do with making cars, so that if they break, employees who have no experience can step into their place if they break down. I would think that you would have only hired repairmen (repairbots?) to begin with, so they repair your productive workers.
You need to remember, humans invented mathematics and science. Numbers are the the relations and functions used in science and mathematics are human creations to describe the universe, much like language, only with more stringent rules.
I think that this is a Good Thing (TM). Distributed computing has the postential to not only further the cause of science, but to bridge the gap between the public and the scientists.
It would seem more useful to build robots that are designed with the task they must perform in mind. Therefore, they could perform it far better than any human.
The truth is that the /. community has maligned this legitimate, above the boards company just for trying to get restitution for code that they really did buy. It dissappoints me that even the editors won't allow them to make their case, which actually does have merit. Having looked at their products, they are very impressive. This whole "SCO is teh suck" mentality is stifling innovation at this company that has developed many products that have improved computing as we know it.
So they don't want to give their hard earned IP away. What good business would? Look at the companies that have tried to make profit off linix. Mandrake just hauled itself out of bankruptcy, Red Hat had some success, but is floundering. Open Source software can not be made into a profitable business model.