Yeah, the dinosaurs thanked their lucky stars every day.
Considering some of the more popular notions of how the dinosaurs died, I would say someone managed to insult one of those stars instead of thanking it.
Name a good business reason why this should happen? More importantly tell me why joe sixpack wants xhtml 2.
Stage coaches, horse drawn carriages and model t's were all pushed out of the way by better cars that people wanted. The infrastructure followed the demands of the market.
Television went to color because people wanted it. Again the infrastructure followed the market.
When people no longer can recognize the sites they like they will find new sites that don't force them to upgrade. Someone will go after that market.
What will bring adoption of xhtml 2 is one of two things: serious reductions in manufacturing cost or market demand. Considering how much time it would take your average html/css/javascript developer to learn all of these new technologies it will be quite a while before any cost reductions become apparent, if they even exist. As it is I see nothing in xhtml 2 that will make the average user want to switch.
I'd just like to point out that a good video card and internet connection are much more important than processor speed these days. You, uh, download a lot of porn, I take it?
Amazing how being a gamer sets you up well to do more than one thing. Somehow I doubt this line of reasoning will convince my girlfriend on the virtues of a new rig.
Also, the motto is "Do no evil", not "Do good". Google can try to minimize the effect of evil, but its motto doesn't in any way require it to take a stand to oppose it in others.
Shhh. This is slashdot, also known as dualismland. If you are not evil you then must be good. There is no third option as those lead to complicated decision making that often requires thinking, which is painful and often disputes the knee-jerk reactions everyone seems to like.
At the least it would force people to ask why. Perhaps constantly seeing "local laws have mandated the filtering of some of your results" at the bottom of search results would cause people to question the explanation the government televised. Were I to try and induce the overthrow of the Chinese government these are exactly the kind of tactics I would use.
Then morally you should also be compelled to say that you have caved in and also support china's regime, instead of using some pathetic rationalization like "it is indirect support through tax dollars, only a small portion of which go towards evil".
I would say such a thing, but I think trying to express an issue like this in black and white is just plain stupid. Then again I think a lot of things, many of which are probably wrong, so take that as you will.
My buying Chinese components doesn't stop the spread of new of Chinese government attrocities, save in the most indirect fashion.
So as long as its indirect support it is ok then? At what point does that context switch? How much would you have to help support China's economy to go from "lost in the noise" to "enabler of tyrannical regime"? Does allowing the people of China to keep their jobs under this current regime count as helping the tyrants stay in power?
I am saying that when there's a general consensus about human-induced global warming amongst many people who study it for a living, it's time to stop quibbling about what is absolute scientific truth.
Really, show me where your consensus is then? I have seen plenty of reports for and against, and honestly the methods used to go beyond the last hundred some odd years of direct measurements (i.e. ice cores, tree ring analysis, etc) don't seem up to the task. I say there is not enough data to reach consensus because there is not enough data to reach consensus.
I suppose if 80% of all reputable astronomers thought a 10 mile asteroid spotted on the edge of the solar system was going to collide with the earth and the other 20% said it wouldn't, you would argue that we shouldn't do anything because the data we have isn't solid enough.
Hurray for ad-hominem. (Yes, I do see the hypocrisy in me saying that)
The issue of global warming is a practical problem, not a scientific problem. There comes a time when you look at the data you have and you determine there's a strong enough correlation here that we'd be foolish to not take action against a problem of catastrophic proportions.
Yes, there is a time to stop looking at the data and do something about it. Too bad (I think) we haven't hit that point yet.
They have demonstrated that they will collude with tyrants, that making money is more important than ethics.
So none of the parts in your computer were made in china, or designed by chinese engineers? If anything you own was also made in China you too are colluding with a tyrant. Yes there is a world of difference between buying stuff from one and filtering your search services to fit their specifications, but the point is still there. If it is ok to support the chinese government in a small way at what point does it become wrong?
How can you know that the people at google feel this goes against their values? At least half of slashdot thinks they are doing the right thing, I wouldn't be suprised if the google campus was close to the same.
My argument here makes two assumptions: that any filtering introduced by any company will be incomplete, and that it will fail with roughly the same consistency across a given body of documents.
Which is more an act of opposition, introducing an index of billions of sites viewable to the general public to a fallible filter or ensuring that only the few who are able/willing to find proxies can see it?
By going along with China's policy, you accept that what the Chinese government does. is the correct thing.
No, by going along with China's policy you assert that providing a (however limited) search facility that will help subvert the governments objectives is better than nothing at all. Life is not fair, sometimes the best thing you can do to help still sucks.
In fairytale land things like the policies of China's government would not exist and "Do No Evil" would be all flowers and puppies, but here in the real world it sometimes is a little bit harder of a choice.
I would do both. Handing out rewards for finding bugs in your own software creates an incentive to create buggy software then fix it for more money. I would start a system where a total absence of bugs gets incentive, finding them yourself nets a little more, but having someone else catch them will cost you.
No, the BOFH would tell his "friends" to keep using the unstable, insecure, and crappy products that were Windows95, Windows98, and WindowsME rather than moving to XP.
Actually I am pretty sure the BOFH would make their computers automatically run searches for kiddie porn then turn them in for it, or just save all that trouble and electrocute them/lock them in a tape safe. maybe we are talking about a different person though.
So you are accepting a theory based on thousands of years of first hand data sampling? In that case get back to me about global warming in a couple thousand years when we have first hand data about that. Tree rings, ice cores, and other devices used to infer what was going on around the area of that sample don't count.
You can argue for more efficient use of natural resources without all of the global warming the sky is falling hoopla. There is a lot of room for doubt in what we are able to measure vs climate patterns over time.
Solar and wind power can do something, but the energy returns compared to the investment just are not there right now. I would be more for making the entire current system more efficient. Of course we should keep trying for better energy derived from renewable resources, but in the meantime the world still wants all the luxuries it has.
Except that the data recorded in glacial ice is only a small segment of what was really going on. Any information about the climate at the time has to be inferred from what is recorded there, and even then it is only applicable for a small portion of the earth's surface. Beyond that you are not even looking at enough ice to get a representative sample of the ice you are measuring. In the end there are so many variables to account for just to say that your measurements are accurate that any remaining data seems pretty much worthless.
I can write a book about anything, doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about. If Larry the Cable Guy wrote a book about how.NET sucked and Java was the best thing ever, would you take his word for it?
Probably not, but I would enjoy reading it more than probably 90% of the tech books out there right now.
Yes. Not bad going for reverse engineering a deliberatley obsfucated and poorly documented proprietary set of protocols plus an open standard security protocol that was subtley altered and therefore incompatible with other standard implementations. Yep. Pretty good job for something that was done completely voluntarily. Sheesh...
Hah, and people that are into whips and chains call themselves masochists... damn posers.
No one said this should be true for everybody. Some hobbies can only be that, and the risk or work required in going after them may be more than some people want to do.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering some of the more popular notions of how the dinosaurs died, I would say someone managed to insult one of those stars instead of thanking it.
Stage coaches, horse drawn carriages and model t's were all pushed out of the way by better cars that people wanted. The infrastructure followed the demands of the market.
Television went to color because people wanted it. Again the infrastructure followed the market.
When people no longer can recognize the sites they like they will find new sites that don't force them to upgrade. Someone will go after that market.
What will bring adoption of xhtml 2 is one of two things: serious reductions in manufacturing cost or market demand. Considering how much time it would take your average html/css/javascript developer to learn all of these new technologies it will be quite a while before any cost reductions become apparent, if they even exist. As it is I see nothing in xhtml 2 that will make the average user want to switch.
It really seems to make webheads spooge though.
Shhh. This is slashdot, also known as dualismland. If you are not evil you then must be good. There is no third option as those lead to complicated decision making that often requires thinking, which is painful and often disputes the knee-jerk reactions everyone seems to like.
At the least it would force people to ask why. Perhaps constantly seeing "local laws have mandated the filtering of some of your results" at the bottom of search results would cause people to question the explanation the government televised. Were I to try and induce the overthrow of the Chinese government these are exactly the kind of tactics I would use.
I would say such a thing, but I think trying to express an issue like this in black and white is just plain stupid. Then again I think a lot of things, many of which are probably wrong, so take that as you will.
In the mean time you can voice your opinion too, as can anyone else. Maybe that way we'll be able to reach consensus about all of this.
I would argue that any information is more valuable than none, and that knowing your results are being censored is better than not.
So as long as its indirect support it is ok then? At what point does that context switch? How much would you have to help support China's economy to go from "lost in the noise" to "enabler of tyrannical regime"? Does allowing the people of China to keep their jobs under this current regime count as helping the tyrants stay in power?
Really, show me where your consensus is then? I have seen plenty of reports for and against, and honestly the methods used to go beyond the last hundred some odd years of direct measurements (i.e. ice cores, tree ring analysis, etc) don't seem up to the task. I say there is not enough data to reach consensus because there is not enough data to reach consensus.
I suppose if 80% of all reputable astronomers thought a 10 mile asteroid spotted on the edge of the solar system was going to collide with the earth and the other 20% said it wouldn't, you would argue that we shouldn't do anything because the data we have isn't solid enough.
Hurray for ad-hominem. (Yes, I do see the hypocrisy in me saying that)
The issue of global warming is a practical problem, not a scientific problem. There comes a time when you look at the data you have and you determine there's a strong enough correlation here that we'd be foolish to not take action against a problem of catastrophic proportions.
Yes, there is a time to stop looking at the data and do something about it. Too bad (I think) we haven't hit that point yet.
So, should we lie down, but a bag over our heads or something?
So none of the parts in your computer were made in china, or designed by chinese engineers? If anything you own was also made in China you too are colluding with a tyrant. Yes there is a world of difference between buying stuff from one and filtering your search services to fit their specifications, but the point is still there. If it is ok to support the chinese government in a small way at what point does it become wrong?
How can you know that the people at google feel this goes against their values? At least half of slashdot thinks they are doing the right thing, I wouldn't be suprised if the google campus was close to the same.
Which is more an act of opposition, introducing an index of billions of sites viewable to the general public to a fallible filter or ensuring that only the few who are able/willing to find proxies can see it?
No, by going along with China's policy you assert that providing a (however limited) search facility that will help subvert the governments objectives is better than nothing at all. Life is not fair, sometimes the best thing you can do to help still sucks. In fairytale land things like the policies of China's government would not exist and "Do No Evil" would be all flowers and puppies, but here in the real world it sometimes is a little bit harder of a choice.
I would do both. Handing out rewards for finding bugs in your own software creates an incentive to create buggy software then fix it for more money. I would start a system where a total absence of bugs gets incentive, finding them yourself nets a little more, but having someone else catch them will cost you.
Actually I am pretty sure the BOFH would make their computers automatically run searches for kiddie porn then turn them in for it, or just save all that trouble and electrocute them/lock them in a tape safe. maybe we are talking about a different person though.
So you are accepting a theory based on thousands of years of first hand data sampling? In that case get back to me about global warming in a couple thousand years when we have first hand data about that. Tree rings, ice cores, and other devices used to infer what was going on around the area of that sample don't count.
Solar and wind power can do something, but the energy returns compared to the investment just are not there right now. I would be more for making the entire current system more efficient. Of course we should keep trying for better energy derived from renewable resources, but in the meantime the world still wants all the luxuries it has.
Except that the data recorded in glacial ice is only a small segment of what was really going on. Any information about the climate at the time has to be inferred from what is recorded there, and even then it is only applicable for a small portion of the earth's surface. Beyond that you are not even looking at enough ice to get a representative sample of the ice you are measuring. In the end there are so many variables to account for just to say that your measurements are accurate that any remaining data seems pretty much worthless.
Here here, I don't really buy into all the global warming hoopla either, but I see nothing wrong with trying to do things a little better anyways.
Probably not, but I would enjoy reading it more than probably 90% of the tech books out there right now.
Hah, and people that are into whips and chains call themselves masochists ... damn posers.
Girlfriend, what is that, where can I get one of these backup-mobile-phone systems and how much does it cost?
No one said this should be true for everybody. Some hobbies can only be that, and the risk or work required in going after them may be more than some people want to do.