Awesome! Tell me tell me tell me....you say there are several but you didn't say which ones....I want! OmniSky native browser (web clipping) sucks balls.....
Turns out that they're not pulling out completely.
From the link, the official Capcom statement:
"Today, there have been some reports by the media that our company will be withdrawing from the arcade game software market. These reports are not official announcements made by our company, and are not formal decisions made at the current time.
Though our company will cut down on the arcade department in the next fiscal and focus on the home console market, we will also continue to provide software for the arcades as well."
I have to say, the heating up of the PDA wars is definitely getting interesting (Palm vs. Handspring vs. iPAQ), but I have to say the most intriguing part of this whole battle, to me, is the emergence (and advances) of wireless Interet access.
I currently have a Handspring Visor w/ OmniSky and am, for the most part, loving it. I think getting email and news while beyond the reach of my notebook/desktop is extremely cool.
BUT -- I saw the top-o-the-line iPAQ the other day w/ the wireless modem add-on, and, frankly, I'm impressed. First off, it's color & sleek (m505/Visor Prism matches it there), it's got a PCMCIA (or whatever they call it these days) expansion module, which means the wireless modem can also work on my laptop, and thirdly (and this is the most impressive part to me), it's got a FULL web browser built-in.
I've always been as anti-WinCE/Pocket-PC as one can get, but the fact that I browse full color, full-graphics, and full-text web pages (well, for the most part) on a palm-sized device is totally cool. I know this technology will improve, but PocketPC's definitley got the lead right now.
My question is how are these new Palms going to handle the whole net access question? I have high hopes -- there seems to be mention of the "Wireless Access Software", but that doesn't seem to be more than the 'ol IR-to-cellphone gig.
I'm waiting to see what kind of wireless modems are available for these devices, and what kind of web browsers will go along with them. If the modems are like the current Minstrels (i.e. tiny expansion slot but a modem that >doubles the overall size of the unit -- LAME), I'm going to have to keep waiting....:(
You present a very negative and risk averse perspective on the world. Some might find your strategy comforting, but you're never going to hit a "home run" that way, nor is it the best strategy for finding and keeping a "good" job.
Being a contractor is a good way to get a high salary ($150k - $300k annualized) but GUARANTEE that you'll never A) work a full-time job again because you'll be so used to your high salary, B) own equity in the company you work for and have a shot at making a lot more than 200k, and C) feel a sense of loyalty to your company or have your company trust and respect you.
Good companies don't like hiring contractors because they offer no loyalty but demand lots of money. Being a contractor is like being a mercenary -- companies don't like you but you give them no choice and demand lots of money. I think that's a bad position to put a company in.
Likewise, headhunters are also bad news to a lot of companies. They don't like hiring people and paying 25 - 33% of year 1 salary as a fee. Again, this puts companies into the position of not wanting to pay the money and make the headhunter rich, but ending up doing it in the end because they want to hire you.
Why not just find the company you want to work for and apply for a job directly? You'll probably get a higher salary (becuase that money will go to you instead of the headhunter...trust me, this is a consideration we make when hiring people at my company!) and you won't start off feeling like a body that's just been brokered (which is how headhunters talk about people to the hiring managers)
This may sound a bit weird, but what about adopting a standardized GPA multiplier system country-wide?
I imagine a diverse body of educators from around the country could form some sort of impartial organization whose sole responsibility is to measure the relative educational strengths, academic rigors, and overall difficulty level of each of the high schools in the country. And I'm not talking about some silly USNews-esque ranking system based on "alumni donations" or "size of endowment", but a real analysis of the academics of a high school. Each high school would then receive a multipler or weighting, which can then be applied to the students' GPAs and a normalized figure could be acheived.
The main problem nowadays is that this basic system is already in place, albeit "off the record." I went to a very well-known private school in New York, and even with a (relatively) shitty 3.0 GPA, I got into MIT because "they just know." But this won't always happen, and a kid with a 3.9 at a top-notch school in Nowheresville, USA should be recognized for his acheivements.
Obviously this is a far from perfect system -- I think the ideal solution is for each school to have its own admission tests outside the scope of the SAT.
MIT is a VERY different place from Swarthmore, for example. Both are great schools, but using the same test as a basis for admission is silly.
The difference is that these scientists are planning on cloning the father to create his own son -- not choosing some random guy to clone for another random couple.
This can have obvious (and dramatic) consequences in the raising of the child that might not otherwise exist. One of the things we all learn as we're growing up is that while we might look a bit like our parents, we're our OWN self and will look different when we grow up.
Imagine instead growing up, looking at your dad, and knowing that that's *exactly* how you will look when you're his age. Sure you might be a bit thiner or healthier or whatnot, but you're an exact genetic duplicate, so any predispositions that he has (i.e. lazy, slow metabolism, loves football and beer) will probably still be there.
Of course this is an opportunity to have a good rousing argument about nature vs. nurture -- those for the former would agree with me, and those for the latter would agree with you.:)
I don't think they're necessarily reading too much into this -- the WP has generally been one of the more reasonable newspapers when it comes to military journalism.
I'd presume that the journalists who wrote the article probably did a bit more research than just "reading into" the use of Red/Blue. Remember -- this was a military operation, so any official word (or even hint of an official word) that this involved China could provoke some seriously anti-diplomatic reaction from them (as it is, they're not terribly pleased with the US military after the Embassy carpet-combing incident)
Having been involved in the journalism field, I'd guess that the reporter probably got very good word that they were indeed referring to China (from an unnamed source) but on the condition that it remained as vague as possible.
(The reason they chose China probably has to do with the China / Taiwan interactions (i.e. tensions) -- though one could probably make a similar argument for Russia / every little guy they mess with.)
Yes I can. Bush and Ashcroft would have followed the military advisors' advice, bombed Cuba, taken the retaliatory strike in Berlin, and started a war. Sooner or later, nukes would have gone off, and we'd have been fucked.
And I'm *sure* Clinton is an evil guy who decided to bomb hospitals and aspirin factories because he wanted to kill people. (Not.)
Sure, maybe Clinton did order strikes in Afghanistan at a curious time....and maybe he did follow a "Wag the Dog" scenario, but they were justified strikes (even if his timing wasn't). He's not a maniac....just a politician.
What's worse....imagine it were GWB and Ashcroft instead of JFK and RFK....I had the exact same horrific thought while watching it.
At one point, at a particularly intense JFK decision-making scene, I turned to my friend and whispered:
"Now sit back and pretend this was GWB instead of JFK."
We both almost lost it....
But on a serious note, my guess is that GWB would have just listened to the majority of his most forceful advisors...i.e. the joint chiefs/military brass.
No doubt Cuba would have been carpet bombed at the first sign of trouble and we'd be in a different kind of world now...
The theater I saw the movie in last night had a funny sign up by the ticket counter, which read something like this:
"Due to the extremely high interest in the 'Lord of the Rings' trailer, we regret to inform you that individuals who purchase tickets to 'Thirteen Days' only to see the trailer will NOT receive a refund if they choose not to stay for the remainder of the movie."
And I didn't think it was that good of a trailer, anyway. I think hyping 3 movies 1, 2, and 3 years in advance (respectively) is a setup for disappointment.
"The only striking thing I see is that Gore refuses to give up. One recount is fine, two is pushing it, but more than that is just a waste of time.
Give up, Gore. You lost (barely, though). If you stop being an ass about it, maybe someone'll vote for you in 2004."
I'm going to reply to every one of these posts until people stop spewing this false rederic and start facing reality:
Gore is not wasting time. He did not "lose multiple recounts" because no complete recount has been made yet. Just because the state certifies something doesn't mean it's the actual result.
When every vote in every county has been fully evaluated and categorized in one way or another, then you can say who the winner and who the loser is.
"Gore has lost 3 and sometimes 4 counts of the ballots, including ones in the BEST possible bias towards him. He has clearly lost."
Wait just one damn second here...
This is the same crap that Republicans all over this country are spewing.
Gore has in no way CLEARLY lost. I do not call 500-some-odd votes clear in any definition of the word.
Moreover, Miami-Dade did NOT complete it's full hand recount. Gore has not "lost" any hand count there and they have not done either 3 or 4 counts there.
Let's get the facts straight before we all follow W's lead and make declarations and accusations that distort the truth of the matter.
"Bush speaks plainly, I think the country needs that."
Plain speak does not equal smart speak, my friend. Nor does it imply in any way that the man will do a good (or even decent job) as President. I shall not use this as an excuse to promote or demote either candidate, but this is a typical simple-minded response and is totally indiciative of the attitude that so much of our country now has
"Duhhhh....what'd he say? This here smart-speak is too much for me. I like Dubya more, cause he speaks like a common man."
This is the same moronic crap that people pulled when Lazio "moved in too much on Hillary's personal space" in the senatorial debate in New York. WHO THE FUCK CARES? that isn't important.....nor is "how Bush speaks"
Sounds to me like an evil Republican plot to prevent the vote counts in Florida from being completed on time. 5PM CST? Hmmm....
"Listen, Mr. Bush....we've been secretly working this large device called a "Laaa-zer" thay will fire a powerful "Laaa-zer beam" at the sun, causing a reflection of solar energy that will block out the world's communication equipment for a period of 24 hours. Then we can prevent all those votes from being counted!"
"But of all the things in Linux, this is the thing that's missing. It must have a standard interface if they want the revolution to go all the way to consumers."
I by no means have the answer to this, but at the very least I'd like to pose some questions to the crowd: Is our goal as linux users and open source advocates really to take Linux et. al "all the way to consumers"?
My feelings are that we use and love Linux for various reasons - the community, the flexibility, the attitude, the speed, etc. Linux is a more powerful and more stable operating system than Windoze. X helps us visualize that operating system and GNOME/KDE help us build on that visualization.
But frankly, most "mass-market" people don't know, care, or want to know how to use *nix. It's complicated, and that's why, as hackers, enjoy it. The problem arises in that there is an inherent loss of control/power (i.e. Windows/Mac) when a system is "dumbed down" beyond the window manager.
So what do we want? We want acceptance of Linux as an alternative to the norm. We want wider application support. We want games. But I don't necessarily feel that taking Linux "mass-market" is the only way to get those. (And I do agree with the only ways Linux could get really "mass-market" are a) make it really dumbed down or b) make everyone in the world suddenly get a lot more tech saavy - unlikely).
I'd be curious to hear what you all think about this....
"Film studios say zoning is designed to minimise piracy"
Yeah....just like DeCSS is designed to maximize piracy. Sure.
I'm a firm believer in allowing market forces to dictate the state of the market. DVD zoning is not a piracy prevention tool. It's an electronic measure for specifying market barriers - barriers which, in this age, should not be defined by artifical means. If I want to watch an imported Japanese porn flick on my plain-vanilla Pioneer DVD player, I should have every right to. If I want to watch a classic French film brought here from Europe, the same goes. Having a zoning system in place restricts perfectly legitimate uses of the DVD system and allows orchestrated price controls (like those that Tesco is fighting against) to exist.
Now, granted, I am not a professional economist and can't speak for trade barriers, import restrictions, tariffs, etc. But the whole point of economic measures like those is allow the market to dictate the price of goods. If a Euro-zone DVD costs more to import because of a set tariff, then fine! If I'm willing to pay the price then I should at least have the ability to view the film. If UK DVDs are being priced artificially high, however, that's allowing the industry to leverage monopolistic price controls (i.e. zoning) and shouldn't continue.
I'm fairly excited to hear this news, because I imagine this means that Corel will make sure that Inprise's JBuilder Enterprise Edition makes it to the Linux platform.
I'm in the midst of a fairly heavy Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based development project and have been for the most part displeased with Sun's Forte for Java, one of the only commercial-level Java IDE's available for Linux (that I know of). They have decent module support for the J2EE features (Servlets, EJBs, JDBC, RMI, etc.) but the IDE is sloooooow.
Inprise has recently made JBuilder Foundation (i.e. Lite) available for Linux, but that lacks the support for the J2EE stuff and doesn't quite fit the bill. JBuilder EE, however, is currently only available for Windoze and Solaris.
On that note, maybe I'm getting unnecessarily excited. Are there any J2EE-capable development environments currently available for Linux that can handle multi-party development and all that good stuff? Might I just be best off with Emacs + CVS? Maybe an "Ask Slashdot" is in order for this one....
Sigurd makes some very thought-provoking points in his article and really highlights what I believe are some of the key issues that are helping Linux make its way into the mainstream -- even the corporate one:
As a recovering Windoze junkie (I'm in rehab), I can pretty easily recall some of my key arguments against moving to a purely Linux world. It boiled down to Games, Application Compatibility, and GUI.
Games. While my current workload doesn't allow for as much gaming time, this used to be the #1 thing preventing me from using Linux all the time (or at least from nuking the Windows partition.) Loki has done and is doing a great job of changing that. I imagine the number of games ported to Linux is growing exponentially, and no longer will people be able to cling to that aspect of the M$ world.
Application Compatibility. Sigurd pointed this out in his article: Everyone in the corporate world uses MS Office - Word + Excel primarily. It sucks but it's true. People get upset when you send them PDF files or plain text (and, as a matter of professionalism, it doesn't look too nice when you send a plain-text business plan to a Venture Capitalist) With the arrival of Linux-based apps to handle and create these documents, one can at least easily communicate with ones peers (even if via a primative language!)
GUI. I hate that this is a reason, because I think the command line is quite elegant most of the time, but try telling that to a legal assistant at a major lawfirm or a secretary at a large company and they'll laugh in your face. GNOME, KDE, and sleek windowmanagers like Sawmill are making life MUCH better.
I think there is still a bit to go before more people are willing to make "The Switch," but it's getting more compelling every day.
Pardon my lack of in-depth knowledge of the way the routing protocols work, but would it be possible for neighboring links to route around any Russian ISPs unless absolutely necessary?
My initial thoughts are that while it wouldn't be normal for a packet to get switched thorugh a Russian-based route, in some cases that might provide the optimal pathway and someone's unsuspecting packet will get logged. Might a work-around in "protest" be to configure the neighboring routers to only move data through a Russian point unless absolutely necessary (i.e. destination IP actually in Russia)?
I imagine this is easier said than done, but it would seem like a first step in the right direction...
Even though I must say I'm completely and utterly opposed to this pronounciation, I must remind you all of the famous line(s) from "Back to the Future"...
On the other hand, just about every radio ad these days from "dumb companies" involving a computer system as the topic (i.e. MicroCenter, CompUSA, etc.) simply refers to hard disk sizes in "Gigs" -- not "Jigs"
"The new Compaq Presario comes with a whopping 32 meg of ram and 10 gig of hard drive...."
I've been waiting for a discussion about this topic to pop up, so I'm happy to add my few cents.
I'm currently working on a web development project (using Oracle 8.0.5) with some folks and we're using Linux as the development enviornment. I've not actually ever used NT for this sort of thing, so I'm not familiar with the joys of SQL Navigator (for better or for worse).
In scouring the pages of freshmeat and other sources, the best tool I've found is called dbMan. It's based on Perl, Tk, and DBI interfaces and works quite well for some purposes.
Currently, the version I have (0.0.9pre1) lets you browse and modify tables and table data in a spreadsheet-like interface (adding new rows doesn't seem to work perfectly), run command line SQL queries with command history, and do some basic import-export functions. (check the website for more details.)
I am very interested, however, as to what other people use and if there's anything a bit more hard core than dbMan.
Never in my days have I seen such a total debacle of corporate comminication. I think this really shows the importance of any company (small or large) keeping a good grasp on who's talking to who from inside the company.
My guess is that "Apple" itself isn't really flip-flopping as much as we think they are - rather there are probably several individuals inside the company that haven't heard of this thing called a "phone" and can't quite coordinate what they're going to tell the press. None of the news stories or earlier press releases have indicated a uniform source of the information, and it's wise of them to have Steve Jobs give the final (or maybe not) word.
So what started this whole problem in the first place? If I had to guess it's the fault of good 'ol Operations Research. I imagine Apple was faced with the straightforward financial problem of a drastic overdemand for their machies and an equally drastic undersupply of the key (i.e. 500Mhz) component of those machines.
So they sat down, thought about what was going on, and attached a number to every "variable" they could come up with: What's the $-cost of downgrading everyone's chips versus the cost of delaying shipment versus the cost of making everyone re-order. These are not straightforward things to value, and, as we've seen fairly clearly, they underestimated the public's reaction. Now if they could just get the PR people to communicate.....
Slashdot Mirror
Awesome! Tell me tell me tell me....you say there are several but you didn't say which ones....I want! OmniSky native browser (web clipping) sucks balls.....
nlh
Turns out that they're not pulling out completely.
From the link, the official Capcom statement:
Next stop: Street Fighter vs. Mortal Kombat! :)
nlh
I have to say, the heating up of the PDA wars is definitely getting interesting (Palm vs. Handspring vs. iPAQ), but I have to say the most intriguing part of this whole battle, to me, is the emergence (and advances) of wireless Interet access.
I currently have a Handspring Visor w/ OmniSky and am, for the most part, loving it. I think getting email and news while beyond the reach of my notebook/desktop is extremely cool.
BUT -- I saw the top-o-the-line iPAQ the other day w/ the wireless modem add-on, and, frankly, I'm impressed. First off, it's color & sleek (m505/Visor Prism matches it there), it's got a PCMCIA (or whatever they call it these days) expansion module, which means the wireless modem can also work on my laptop, and thirdly (and this is the most impressive part to me), it's got a FULL web browser built-in.
I've always been as anti-WinCE/Pocket-PC as one can get, but the fact that I browse full color, full-graphics, and full-text web pages (well, for the most part) on a palm-sized device is totally cool. I know this technology will improve, but PocketPC's definitley got the lead right now.
My question is how are these new Palms going to handle the whole net access question? I have high hopes -- there seems to be mention of the "Wireless Access Software", but that doesn't seem to be more than the 'ol IR-to-cellphone gig.
I'm waiting to see what kind of wireless modems are available for these devices, and what kind of web browsers will go along with them. If the modems are like the current Minstrels (i.e. tiny expansion slot but a modem that >doubles the overall size of the unit -- LAME), I'm going to have to keep waiting....:(
nlh
You present a very negative and risk averse perspective on the world. Some might find your strategy comforting, but you're never going to hit a "home run" that way, nor is it the best strategy for finding and keeping a "good" job.
Being a contractor is a good way to get a high salary ($150k - $300k annualized) but GUARANTEE that you'll never A) work a full-time job again because you'll be so used to your high salary, B) own equity in the company you work for and have a shot at making a lot more than 200k, and C) feel a sense of loyalty to your company or have your company trust and respect you.
Good companies don't like hiring contractors because they offer no loyalty but demand lots of money. Being a contractor is like being a mercenary -- companies don't like you but you give them no choice and demand lots of money. I think that's a bad position to put a company in.
Likewise, headhunters are also bad news to a lot of companies. They don't like hiring people and paying 25 - 33% of year 1 salary as a fee. Again, this puts companies into the position of not wanting to pay the money and make the headhunter rich, but ending up doing it in the end because they want to hire you.
Why not just find the company you want to work for and apply for a job directly? You'll probably get a higher salary (becuase that money will go to you instead of the headhunter...trust me, this is a consideration we make when hiring people at my company!) and you won't start off feeling like a body that's just been brokered (which is how headhunters talk about people to the hiring managers)
nlh
Actually, it isn't the Investment Banking division that provides capital, it's the Private Equity division.
Investment Banking = Issue bonds, take companies public, merge companies
Private Equity = VC from a big bank
nlh
This may sound a bit weird, but what about adopting a standardized GPA multiplier system country-wide?
I imagine a diverse body of educators from around the country could form some sort of impartial organization whose sole responsibility is to measure the relative educational strengths, academic rigors, and overall difficulty level of each of the high schools in the country. And I'm not talking about some silly USNews-esque ranking system based on "alumni donations" or "size of endowment", but a real analysis of the academics of a high school. Each high school would then receive a multipler or weighting, which can then be applied to the students' GPAs and a normalized figure could be acheived.
The main problem nowadays is that this basic system is already in place, albeit "off the record." I went to a very well-known private school in New York, and even with a (relatively) shitty 3.0 GPA, I got into MIT because "they just know." But this won't always happen, and a kid with a 3.9 at a top-notch school in Nowheresville, USA should be recognized for his acheivements.
Obviously this is a far from perfect system -- I think the ideal solution is for each school to have its own admission tests outside the scope of the SAT.
MIT is a VERY different place from Swarthmore, for example. Both are great schools, but using the same test as a basis for admission is silly.
nlh
You, sir, do not make any sense. Come again?
The difference is that these scientists are planning on cloning the father to create his own son -- not choosing some random guy to clone for another random couple.
:)
This can have obvious (and dramatic) consequences in the raising of the child that might not otherwise exist. One of the things we all learn as we're growing up is that while we might look a bit like our parents, we're our OWN self and will look different when we grow up.
Imagine instead growing up, looking at your dad, and knowing that that's *exactly* how you will look when you're his age. Sure you might be a bit thiner or healthier or whatnot, but you're an exact genetic duplicate, so any predispositions that he has (i.e. lazy, slow metabolism, loves football and beer) will probably still be there.
Of course this is an opportunity to have a good rousing argument about nature vs. nurture -- those for the former would agree with me, and those for the latter would agree with you.
nlh
I don't think they're necessarily reading too much into this -- the WP has generally been one of the more reasonable newspapers when it comes to military journalism.
I'd presume that the journalists who wrote the article probably did a bit more research than just "reading into" the use of Red/Blue. Remember -- this was a military operation, so any official word (or even hint of an official word) that this involved China could provoke some seriously anti-diplomatic reaction from them (as it is, they're not terribly pleased with the US military after the Embassy carpet-combing incident)
Having been involved in the journalism field, I'd guess that the reporter probably got very good word that they were indeed referring to China (from an unnamed source) but on the condition that it remained as vague as possible.
(The reason they chose China probably has to do with the China / Taiwan interactions (i.e. tensions) -- though one could probably make a similar argument for Russia / every little guy they mess with.)
nlh
Yes I can. Bush and Ashcroft would have followed the military advisors' advice, bombed Cuba, taken the retaliatory strike in Berlin, and started a war. Sooner or later, nukes would have gone off, and we'd have been fucked.
And I'm *sure* Clinton is an evil guy who decided to bomb hospitals and aspirin factories because he wanted to kill people. (Not.)
Sure, maybe Clinton did order strikes in Afghanistan at a curious time....and maybe he did follow a "Wag the Dog" scenario, but they were justified strikes (even if his timing wasn't). He's not a maniac....just a politician.
nlh
What's worse....imagine it were GWB and Ashcroft instead of JFK and RFK....I had the exact same horrific thought while watching it.
At one point, at a particularly intense JFK decision-making scene, I turned to my friend and whispered:
"Now sit back and pretend this was GWB instead of JFK."
We both almost lost it....
But on a serious note, my guess is that GWB would have just listened to the majority of his most forceful advisors...i.e. the joint chiefs/military brass.
No doubt Cuba would have been carpet bombed at the first sign of trouble and we'd be in a different kind of world now...
nlh
Did anyone else find Kevin Costner's accent VERY strained and unrealistic?
I felt like he was doing a (bad) Mayor Quimby imitation the whole time....
Kickin' movie, though...
nlh
The theater I saw the movie in last night had a funny sign up by the ticket counter, which read something like this:
"Due to the extremely high interest in the 'Lord of the Rings' trailer, we regret to inform you that individuals who purchase tickets to 'Thirteen Days' only to see the trailer will NOT receive a refund if they choose not to stay for the remainder of the movie."
And I didn't think it was that good of a trailer, anyway. I think hyping 3 movies 1, 2, and 3 years in advance (respectively) is a setup for disappointment.
nlh
"The only striking thing I see is that Gore refuses to give up. One recount is fine, two is pushing it, but more than that is just a waste of time.
Give up, Gore. You lost (barely, though). If you stop being an ass about it, maybe someone'll vote for you in 2004."
I'm going to reply to every one of these posts until people stop spewing this false rederic and start facing reality:
Gore is not wasting time. He did not "lose multiple recounts" because no complete recount has been made yet. Just because the state certifies something doesn't mean it's the actual result.
When every vote in every county has been fully evaluated and categorized in one way or another, then you can say who the winner and who the loser is.
Impatience is no excuse for inaccuracy.
nlh
"Gore has lost 3 and sometimes 4 counts of the ballots, including ones in the BEST possible bias towards him. He has clearly lost."
Wait just one damn second here...
This is the same crap that Republicans all over this country are spewing.
Gore has in no way CLEARLY lost. I do not call 500-some-odd votes clear in any definition of the word.
Moreover, Miami-Dade did NOT complete it's full hand recount. Gore has not "lost" any hand count there and they have not done either 3 or 4 counts there.
Let's get the facts straight before we all follow W's lead and make declarations and accusations that distort the truth of the matter.
nlh
"Bush speaks plainly, I think the country needs that."
Plain speak does not equal smart speak, my friend. Nor does it imply in any way that the man will do a good (or even decent job) as President. I shall not use this as an excuse to promote or demote either candidate, but this is a typical simple-minded response and is totally indiciative of the attitude that so much of our country now has
"Duhhhh....what'd he say? This here smart-speak is too much for me. I like Dubya more, cause he speaks like a common man."
This is the same moronic crap that people pulled when Lazio "moved in too much on Hillary's personal space" in the senatorial debate in New York. WHO THE FUCK CARES? that isn't important.....nor is "how Bush speaks"
nlh
Sounds to me like an evil Republican plot to prevent the vote counts in Florida from being completed on time. 5PM CST? Hmmm....
"Listen, Mr. Bush....we've been secretly working this large device called a "Laaa-zer" thay will fire a powerful "Laaa-zer beam" at the sun, causing a reflection of solar energy that will block out the world's communication equipment for a period of 24 hours. Then we can prevent all those votes from being counted!"
I by no means have the answer to this, but at the very least I'd like to pose some questions to the crowd: Is our goal as linux users and open source advocates really to take Linux et. al "all the way to consumers"?
My feelings are that we use and love Linux for various reasons - the community, the flexibility, the attitude, the speed, etc. Linux is a more powerful and more stable operating system than Windoze. X helps us visualize that operating system and GNOME/KDE help us build on that visualization.
But frankly, most "mass-market" people don't know, care, or want to know how to use *nix. It's complicated, and that's why, as hackers, enjoy it. The problem arises in that there is an inherent loss of control/power (i.e. Windows/Mac) when a system is "dumbed down" beyond the window manager.
So what do we want? We want acceptance of Linux as an alternative to the norm. We want wider application support. We want games. But I don't necessarily feel that taking Linux "mass-market" is the only way to get those. (And I do agree with the only ways Linux could get really "mass-market" are a) make it really dumbed down or b) make everyone in the world suddenly get a lot more tech saavy - unlikely).
I'd be curious to hear what you all think about this....
Yeah....just like DeCSS is designed to maximize piracy. Sure.
I'm a firm believer in allowing market forces to dictate the state of the market. DVD zoning is not a piracy prevention tool. It's an electronic measure for specifying market barriers - barriers which, in this age, should not be defined by artifical means. If I want to watch an imported Japanese porn flick on my plain-vanilla Pioneer DVD player, I should have every right to. If I want to watch a classic French film brought here from Europe, the same goes. Having a zoning system in place restricts perfectly legitimate uses of the DVD system and allows orchestrated price controls (like those that Tesco is fighting against) to exist.
Now, granted, I am not a professional economist and can't speak for trade barriers, import restrictions, tariffs, etc. But the whole point of economic measures like those is allow the market to dictate the price of goods. If a Euro-zone DVD costs more to import because of a set tariff, then fine! If I'm willing to pay the price then I should at least have the ability to view the film. If UK DVDs are being priced artificially high, however, that's allowing the industry to leverage monopolistic price controls (i.e. zoning) and shouldn't continue.
"Here here" to Tesco.
I'm fairly excited to hear this news, because I imagine this means that Corel will make sure that Inprise's JBuilder Enterprise Edition makes it to the Linux platform.
I'm in the midst of a fairly heavy Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based development project and have been for the most part displeased with Sun's Forte for Java, one of the only commercial-level Java IDE's available for Linux (that I know of). They have decent module support for the J2EE features (Servlets, EJBs, JDBC, RMI, etc.) but the IDE is sloooooow.
Inprise has recently made JBuilder Foundation (i.e. Lite) available for Linux, but that lacks the support for the J2EE stuff and doesn't quite fit the bill. JBuilder EE, however, is currently only available for Windoze and Solaris.
On that note, maybe I'm getting unnecessarily excited. Are there any J2EE-capable development environments currently available for Linux that can handle multi-party development and all that good stuff? Might I just be best off with Emacs + CVS? Maybe an "Ask Slashdot" is in order for this one....
Sigurd makes some very thought-provoking points in his article and really highlights what I believe are some of the key issues that are helping Linux make its way into the mainstream -- even the corporate one:
As a recovering Windoze junkie (I'm in rehab), I can pretty easily recall some of my key arguments against moving to a purely Linux world. It boiled down to Games, Application Compatibility, and GUI.
Games. While my current workload doesn't allow for as much gaming time, this used to be the #1 thing preventing me from using Linux all the time (or at least from nuking the Windows partition.) Loki has done and is doing a great job of changing that. I imagine the number of games ported to Linux is growing exponentially, and no longer will people be able to cling to that aspect of the M$ world.
Application Compatibility. Sigurd pointed this out in his article: Everyone in the corporate world uses MS Office - Word + Excel primarily. It sucks but it's true. People get upset when you send them PDF files or plain text (and, as a matter of professionalism, it doesn't look too nice when you send a plain-text business plan to a Venture Capitalist) With the arrival of Linux-based apps to handle and create these documents, one can at least easily communicate with ones peers (even if via a primative language!)
GUI. I hate that this is a reason, because I think the command line is quite elegant most of the time, but try telling that to a legal assistant at a major lawfirm or a secretary at a large company and they'll laugh in your face. GNOME, KDE, and sleek windowmanagers like Sawmill are making life MUCH better.
I think there is still a bit to go before more people are willing to make "The Switch," but it's getting more compelling every day.
Pardon my lack of in-depth knowledge of the way the routing protocols work, but would it be possible for neighboring links to route around any Russian ISPs unless absolutely necessary?
My initial thoughts are that while it wouldn't be normal for a packet to get switched thorugh a Russian-based route, in some cases that might provide the optimal pathway and someone's unsuspecting packet will get logged. Might a work-around in "protest" be to configure the neighboring routers to only move data through a Russian point unless absolutely necessary (i.e. destination IP actually in Russia)?
I imagine this is easier said than done, but it would seem like a first step in the right direction...
Even though I must say I'm completely and utterly opposed to this pronounciation, I must remind you all of the famous line(s) from "Back to the Future" ...
"1.21 gigawatts??!! 1....point....twenty..one gigawatts? Marty....!"
Pronounced with a quite distinct "jiga-watts"
On the other hand, just about every radio ad these days from "dumb companies" involving a computer system as the topic (i.e. MicroCenter, CompUSA, etc.) simply refers to hard disk sizes in "Gigs" -- not "Jigs"
"The new Compaq Presario comes with a whopping 32 meg of ram and 10 gig of hard drive...."
I've been waiting for a discussion about this topic to pop up, so I'm happy to add my few cents.
I'm currently working on a web development project (using Oracle 8.0.5) with some folks and we're using Linux as the development enviornment. I've not actually ever used NT for this sort of thing, so I'm not familiar with the joys of SQL Navigator (for better or for worse).
In scouring the pages of freshmeat and other sources, the best tool I've found is called dbMan. It's based on Perl, Tk, and DBI interfaces and works quite well for some purposes.
Currently, the version I have (0.0.9pre1) lets you browse and modify tables and table data in a spreadsheet-like interface (adding new rows doesn't seem to work perfectly), run command line SQL queries with command history, and do some basic import-export functions. (check the website for more details.)
I am very interested, however, as to what other people use and if there's anything a bit more hard core than dbMan.
Never in my days have I seen such a total debacle of corporate comminication. I think this really shows the importance of any company (small or large) keeping a good grasp on who's talking to who from inside the company.
My guess is that "Apple" itself isn't really flip-flopping as much as we think they are - rather there are probably several individuals inside the company that haven't heard of this thing called a "phone" and can't quite coordinate what they're going to tell the press. None of the news stories or earlier press releases have indicated a uniform source of the information, and it's wise of them to have Steve Jobs give the final (or maybe not) word.
So what started this whole problem in the first place? If I had to guess it's the fault of good 'ol Operations Research. I imagine Apple was faced with the straightforward financial problem of a drastic overdemand for their machies and an equally drastic undersupply of the key (i.e. 500Mhz) component of those machines.
So they sat down, thought about what was going on, and attached a number to every "variable" they could come up with: What's the $-cost of downgrading everyone's chips versus the cost of delaying shipment versus the cost of making everyone re-order. These are not straightforward things to value, and, as we've seen fairly clearly, they underestimated the public's reaction. Now if they could just get the PR people to communicate.....