The US's critical defense systems are completely isolated from the internet. I fully expect the same of our Chinese counterparts. That leaves only civilian targets. The only goals that either side could have in mind involve the total crippling of the opposing countries economy and infrastructure. Imagine not a nuclear wasteland, but rather an economic one. No food shipments, no way to buy food with no income, etc. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as everyone tried to get by and the country's own government would be forced to intercede by way of martial law (with still no food for the general population). Thousands to millions of civilians would die.
On one hand, from a military perspective - great idea. On the other hand, from a war crimes perspective, these people fucking suck and should be tried as war criminals should they ever give the order to execute these plans.
First off, in business, there are very rarely "good guys" and "bad guys". In that sense, I agree with you that Apple has never been the "good guy". There are companies that go about achieving their end goal (making profit) ethically, and those that do not. I would very strongly put Microsoft in the latter category and Apple somewhere in the middle.
I do not think that the APSL, or Darwin for that matter, is evil. It is simply structured to protect Apple's revenue generating interests. As a case in point, I would firmly place Redhat as one of the "good guys" - to use that terminology. They regularly contribute to the community and in some respects, were instrumental in getting Linux accepted into the Enterprise. However, the GPL is a two edged sword. Now you have a company like Oracle (whom I can not stand), offering Linux support for 1/2 the price. Their contributions to the community are completely non-existent, but because of the GPL wording, it is entirely possible that they put Redhat out of business. In the end, this ultimately hurts everyone, with the exception of Oracle's shareholders. I firmly believe that should they ever start offering support for mySQL we'll see another great company go under.
All parties being discussed: 1) Oracle, 2) Redhat, 3) mySQL, and 4) Apple are (for the most part - I will not start a debate on iTunes and DRM here) operating within their legal bounds. However, the APSL protect's Apple's hard work while the GPL allows an asshole company like Oracle to sweep in and destroy other companies by taking complete advantage of their work. My ultimate point is that one can not attack a company for operating within the bounds of law. Either the law, or the license agreements, need to change.
The immediate solution to the Oracle problem is to append:
"If you are Oracle Corporation, or any wholly or partially owned subsidiary, or affiliated with Oracle Corporation in any manner, you are hereby restricted from distributing or providing support for the product released under this GPL."
And then we can adjust it from there to dissuade anyone else from engaging in similar practices:)
A change in the data (vibration trending upwards, exhaust or combustion temperature changes trending either way) could result in a variety of events ranging from an alarm to a modification to the operating envelope. Note that there is no specific identifiable external event that results in a trigger.
A change in the data is not an event how? I can understand your logic in drawing a distinction between user-driven and automated. However, read TFA before attacking people's comments. The person giving the demonstration was not using the term in the same context that you described above.
Has anyone actually watched the flash demo? Sadly, I have wasted a good ten minutes of my life that I will now never get back watching it. In doing so - I took notes on two terms that I found interesting:
Situational Application: Come on people, WHAT fucking application on the planet is NOT situational? I've NEVER used an application that was NOT situational - be it a game (entertainment), word processor (solving a business need), or anything else for that matter.
My other favorite:
Data driven application: As opposed to what?!? A bullshit driven application? Ah yes, that is officially MY new buzzword: Bullshit driven application. You heard it here first folks....
I am now in my mid-30s, and i believe that my memory and ability to hold a lot of things in my mind at once has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 10-15 years. I have a lot of experience that makes up for it of course, but i think at some point i suspect i'm going to become less productive as a programmer (it may have already happened).
I'm not sure how much that actually impacts us in our field. I also have noticed that my memory capacity has decreased some. However, Google, books, and API documentation are great things. Fortunately for us, memory is not really a high-value item in our field. Being able to logically break down problems and derive algorithms to solve them are more important and not necessarily tied to memory.
First, there are many software development projects which are "on the margin" meaning they're not profitable if developers are paid $90k but become profitable if developers are paid $30k. As a result, reducing the cost of software development by hiring Indians will cause marginal software projects to become profitable, causing more software projects to be undertaken than otherwise would. In other words, just because someone is paying an Indian $30k to do something does not mean he would otherwise be paying an American $90k to do the same thing; instead, without the Indian, he might not pay anyone to do it.
Now factor in greed. If you have a project that would be profitable employing programmers at 90k, but MORE profitable employing them at 30k - which would you choose? Its a race to the bottom.
No - I am sure what he is saying is that the US Gov. should be providing incentives to THOSE businesses keeping jobs here to make it the more attractive option for them. Asshole.
First, I wholeheartedly agree with you on points 1 and 2. Secondly, the following is perhaps one of the most obnoxious, steaming lines of crap that I have perhaps ever read:
3. If someone else is willing to do the same work for less money than you do, too damn bad for you.
4. Yes, it is a race to the bottom. No, that isn't necessarily a bad thing in the long run. When you want to fill a container you have to fill the bottom first.
5. If you think you're better than the people 'your' job was outsourced to, prove it
No, its not just too damn bad for me. Its too damn bad for every American. Have you read nothing of the earlier posts regarding depleting our labor pool by moving the entry level jobs off shore? What I will give you is this - it IS good for other countries and businesses when we offshore our own jobs. This does two things: 1) Creates better and more well paying jobs in other countries, and 2) Makes the wealthy in this country wealthier. It does absolutely NOTHING for me and mine (the American middle class). PLEASE do not feed me any bullshit lines about how I must be "racist" or blah blah blah for wanting the jobs to stay in this country. I am NOT racist and frankly do not give a rats ass what the ethnicity (or race) of the AMERICAN that gets the job is. What I do care about that is the wealthy of our country stop selling our country down the river to earn themselves more dividends.
I suspect that the next line you are going to feed me would be something along the lines of: "What right do I have to demand those jobs stay here?" Or perhaps, "Do I not care about the people over in the other countries???" I will tell everyone in no uncertain terms that I honestly do not give a frack about the people's job situations in other countries. Let me be clear on that - that is not to say that I do not care if the people starve, or are not properly vaccinated, or that basic human needs are met. However, it is NOT my concern as to whether or not India gets good paying IT jobs. Whether or not the people of India and China have good jobs should be the concern of India's and China's political and business leaders. America's political and business leaders should be concerned that Americans have good jobs and a good standard of living. I am sick and fracking tired of responding to posts and FAs like this one.
A race to the bottom is NOT good for anyone. Once all of the jobs are sufficiently raped from within this country, the jobs in India and China will start to move out to the next lowest paying nation (possibly America once the dust settles) leaving those countries in ruin as well. The only GOOD way to solve the problem is for developing nations to invest in infrastructure and new job creation.
Regarding item number 5, this is not about me saying that I am better than anyone else. This is about me saying that I am sick of American politicians who think that its ok (or a good thing even) to send jobs that could have been created in this country off shore. I am SURE that there are some people in India and China smarter than I. I am ALSO sure that I am smarter than some people over there. The problem lies in the fact that I can not compete with them fairly due to the value of the US dollar. China in particular pisses me off in that they purposely peg the value of their currency low against the US dollar. While India's and China's politicians are bent on securing jobs for their countries (as they should be), American politicians are content sitting on their fat asses receiving kickbacks for letting our companies offshore jobs. That forces me to ask - WHY THE FRACK HAVE WE SPENT $375,000,000,000 DOLLARS IN IRAQ (and why did we go there in the first place)?!? I would much rather (as crappy as it is) have given American Corporations (and small businesses) that much in tax breaks in exchange for hiring in this country.
I'll bypass my comments about Gentoo being the distro that the author picked. Everyone else seemed to do a pretty good job of covering that.
I do want to ask why though? Why dump that much money on a brand new PS3 and then put Linux on it? Do not interpret this as a bash against Linux, but rather I am trying to understand the end goal and attraction. I would think that someone wanting to experiment with Linux would either dual-boot a PC (or Mac), or buy another box (for less money than a PS3) to install Linux on.
Ya know, these jokes were rampant regarding the new Rocky movie. Have you seen Harrison Ford or Sly lately? Take a real good look, then go to the corner and cry like I did after watching the new Rocky movie. Despite the years on these guys, I would wager a hefty sum that either of them on their worse day are in better shape than 3/4's of us/.'ers.
For purposes of this post, I am going to ignore the implications of MS FUD in TFA, and specifically address whether or not (IMHO) Linux is ready for the desktop. Additionally, let me preface this by saying that I have used Linux as my sole desktop for PCs since 1994, but roughly two years ago switched to OS X on a Powerbook G4.
I recently tried to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu) on my Powerbook. To be fair, the live CD worked flawlessly and I was really impressed. Additionally, AirPort Extreme drivers are not working for PPC Linux, BUT I do not hold any distribution at fault for that because there are legal issues related to the open source version of the driver.
The installation went smoothly until I got to the Yaboot install - which failed. After considerable poking around, I read that there is a new bug in Yaboot when dealing with ATA drives. After several hours of manually editing the conf file - I finally figured out a manual workaround that solved the problem. However, I was frusturated by the whole process. Some time ago, I tried Yellow Dog (4.1, i think) - which installed flawlessly using Yaboot. This tells me that the new ATA bug was introduced recently. In the time since I first tried YD to the time I tried Ubuntu - I expected progress - not regression. While someone with time and experience can work through these problems, how can anyone expect Joe-six-pack to be impressed and not pissed when he tries it? One of the major Mac rags just ran an article about multi-desktop Macs and included mention of Linux. Each time someone with a Powerbook (or some other Mac with an ATA drive) attempts to install Ubuntu (or even openSuse for that matter), they will run across such bug and be soured.
The community as a whole needs a better way to deal with (read prevent) issues like the one I just encountered. While I understand how and why said bug occured, and how to work around it, someone trying to install Linux for the first time will run across it, get pissed, tell their friends Linux sucks, and get on with their lives. I firmly know that Linux has a better (read more stable) kernel than MS, and that all of the components necessary for Linux to be a prime candidate for the desktop are in place. Additionally, I believe that open-source is a better route. BUT, until the community gets its shit together and makes a distribution that works - Linux on the desktop will continue to be an uphill battle.
Science doesn't "surrport" manufacturing. High-level science and engineering invent things that are high-tech for a while, and are manufactured in the US as long as those things require a high-tech work force. Later they become commoditized and are moved offshore. By then we've moved on to something else.
I used to subscribe to this argument. Actually, in the 90s I was actually quite adament about it. I was perfectly okay with the offshoring of US auto manufacturing jobs. Afterall, the tech market was booming and the "Next Big Thing (TM)" was obvious. However, I ask you today, what is the new, great "Next Big Thing (TM)"? Biologicals and Pharmacuticals you say? I'm afraid that as a country we've missed the boat on that one already as South Korea and other not-so-infuenced-by-the-right countries have picked up the ball that we dropped. So, do tell, what IS the Next Big Thing(TM)? Without seeing where we are a clear leader, the only thing that I DO see is my flawed prior logic and how offshoring anything is not a good thing.
So far none of the examples succeeded on their own merits.
If by success, you mean taking first place, then I agree with you. However, if by success you mean, "becomming relevant enough to harm competitors by taking advantage of their monopoloy on the desktop", then we disagree.
Let me preface this by saying that I am actually a fan of Apple and I hope that I am dead wrong on this. But look what they did with the XBox, Web Servers, and Browser. Microsoft always tends to start slow with a crappy product and take heavy losses. Over time, they'll leverage Vista and everything else they can to turn the Zune into a household name. Apple is in a good position at the moment, but all it takes is one mistake.
In my opinion, Sony screwed the pooch with the PS-3 and MS took advantage of it. With the war chest they have, they do not need a better product. They only need to be able to win a war of attrition.
Actually, not so. I will not, in wholesale, defend the parent article. Ultimately, there are many additional factors involved. However, that particular point is sound. There only has to be a considerable trend such that most upper class people mate with others of the same caste, while the same applies to the lower castes.
Over time, barring other considerations, this will result in two distinct sub-species of Homo sapiens. In biology, the definition of a species includes the ability of two organisms to mate and create viable and fertile offspring. The inter-subspecies breeding you are talking about, will merely maintain the two subspecies as a single higher order species. If that mechanism were removed, we'd eventually be looking at two completely seperate species that could no longer produce viable and fertile offspring.
You made an excellent point, and up until recently, I would have agreed with you completely. However, I recently inherited a 91 Chevy S10 from my wife's parents. The plan was to restore it and make something of a hotrod out of it. However, it was rusted horribily. Really bad.
While looking for parts for it (bear with me, I WILL make a point - I promise), I ran across an 85 Olds 442. The guy only wanted $500 for it, so I went to check it out. The body did have "some" rust, but for the most part it was intact. The engine (a 307 H/O) still ran great. Needless to say, I towed it home and started working on it. I junked the S10.
Reading online forums, I ran across countless people stating that crap from the 80's is junk, while stuff from the 70's is good. Converesly, there were also people stating that stuff from the 70's was crap, but the 60's were good. It goes on and on.
I think the situation that we are seeing is a transition to a disposable society. Things are actually getting worse in terms of qualilty and durability (but perhaps not features).
People who believe life started via creationism are stupid.
Ah, not so. Stupidity is a largely uncorrectable condition. People who believe in creationism are ignorant. Ignorance is a largely correctable condition. There is hope!
People who believe life started in some sort of "scientific" way are smart.
Not necessarily. Informed and well read yes, but not necessarily smart. Additonally, many of these people are egotistical and obnoxious [possibly - although hopefully not - myself included] (thereby making them assholes) who ultimately hurt the cause of educating people.
...even though there's no hard evidence supporting either claim.
This statement is blatantly false, and sadly, the pedestal upon which the entire anti-evolution movement rests. It is easier for the population to believe a simple lie vs. a complex truth. As such, this myth continues to gain popularity (see ignorance comment above). I invite ANYONE who holds on to this myth to join me for a day at a respectable college library where I will pull peer-reviewed journal article after peer-reviewed journal article out showing evidence FOR evolution until the person is convinced or leaves out of boredom (see ignorance). Quiet literally, I am not sure that there is enough time in one person's lifetime to go through and understand ALL of the available evidence. This allows for the different branches of science each with their own piece to the puzzle: Geology, Genetics (Biology), Chemestry, Physics, Astronomy, Anthropology. Within these branches of science are additional sub-fields. There is ALOT of evidence out there.
Ya know, its percisely this kinda of bone headed "beat them with a stick" mentality that gives credence to the theory stating that the primary reason we have not run across other intelligent life yet is that it usually self destructs somewhere in the neighborhood of our level of development.
That's Darwin at his finest. We're an agressive species. We evolved to where we are by being agressive.
This statement is categorically untrue. While we have all varying levels of agression in our species as a whole, we evolved to where we are by uniquely (mostly) being self aware and having the capacity to reason. If we do not exercise our ability to reason, we will ultimately end up self destructing or fighting it out on this rock until we collapse the environment or any number of other planet-wide catastrophic events take place. Use that thing between your shoulders for something other than holding up your glasses and THINK.
The authors of the software have EVERY right to demand that their work NOT be used to kill other people ESPECIALLY given our capcity for reasoning to determine other solutions.
Rather naive, to believe that the United States (or ANY other nation) would abide by this "No Military Use" restriction. If it is a black program, the very existence of which is denyed, do you REALLY think they would lose sleep over that restriction? The authors included it to make a "good" statement - that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
The US's critical defense systems are completely isolated from the internet. I fully expect the same of our Chinese counterparts. That leaves only civilian targets. The only goals that either side could have in mind involve the total crippling of the opposing countries economy and infrastructure. Imagine not a nuclear wasteland, but rather an economic one. No food shipments, no way to buy food with no income, etc. Imagine the chaos that would ensue as everyone tried to get by and the country's own government would be forced to intercede by way of martial law (with still no food for the general population). Thousands to millions of civilians would die.
On one hand, from a military perspective - great idea. On the other hand, from a war crimes perspective, these people fucking suck and should be tried as war criminals should they ever give the order to execute these plans.
"Users of the future operating system will have to keep working with HFS+, a filesystem that is almost ten years old now."
Yes, because a file system is something that should definitely be re-designed every two years or so. You know, just to stay "current"...
... Send up a crew of ./ers with enough copies of the Burning Crusade to go around. Should clear up all problems.
First off, in business, there are very rarely "good guys" and "bad guys". In that sense, I agree with you that Apple has never been the "good guy". There are companies that go about achieving their end goal (making profit) ethically, and those that do not. I would very strongly put Microsoft in the latter category and Apple somewhere in the middle.
:)
I do not think that the APSL, or Darwin for that matter, is evil. It is simply structured to protect Apple's revenue generating interests. As a case in point, I would firmly place Redhat as one of the "good guys" - to use that terminology. They regularly contribute to the community and in some respects, were instrumental in getting Linux accepted into the Enterprise. However, the GPL is a two edged sword. Now you have a company like Oracle (whom I can not stand), offering Linux support for 1/2 the price. Their contributions to the community are completely non-existent, but because of the GPL wording, it is entirely possible that they put Redhat out of business. In the end, this ultimately hurts everyone, with the exception of Oracle's shareholders. I firmly believe that should they ever start offering support for mySQL we'll see another great company go under.
All parties being discussed: 1) Oracle, 2) Redhat, 3) mySQL, and 4) Apple are (for the most part - I will not start a debate on iTunes and DRM here) operating within their legal bounds. However, the APSL protect's Apple's hard work while the GPL allows an asshole company like Oracle to sweep in and destroy other companies by taking complete advantage of their work. My ultimate point is that one can not attack a company for operating within the bounds of law. Either the law, or the license agreements, need to change.
The immediate solution to the Oracle problem is to append: "If you are Oracle Corporation, or any wholly or partially owned subsidiary, or affiliated with Oracle Corporation in any manner, you are hereby restricted from distributing or providing support for the product released under this GPL."
And then we can adjust it from there to dissuade anyone else from engaging in similar practices
Ya know, if you had Macs, you could go buy a family pack (five licenses) of OS X for 199 ;-)
Consumer choice??? As far as I knew, consumers have always had a choice with the iPod:
See some options here
A change in the data (vibration trending upwards, exhaust or combustion temperature changes trending either way) could result in a variety of events ranging from an alarm to a modification to the operating envelope. Note that there is no specific identifiable external event that results in a trigger.
A change in the data is not an event how? I can understand your logic in drawing a distinction between user-driven and automated. However, read TFA before attacking people's comments. The person giving the demonstration was not using the term in the same context that you described above.
Has anyone actually watched the flash demo? Sadly, I have wasted a good ten minutes of my life that I will now never get back watching it. In doing so - I took notes on two terms that I found interesting:
Situational Application: Come on people, WHAT fucking application on the planet is NOT situational? I've NEVER used an application that was NOT situational - be it a game (entertainment), word processor (solving a business need), or anything else for that matter.
My other favorite:
Data driven application: As opposed to what?!? A bullshit driven application? Ah yes, that is officially MY new buzzword: Bullshit driven application. You heard it here first folks....
I am now in my mid-30s, and i believe that my memory and ability to hold a lot of things in my mind at once has deteriorated quite a bit in the last 10-15 years. I have a lot of experience that makes up for it of course, but i think at some point i suspect i'm going to become less productive as a programmer (it may have already happened).
I'm not sure how much that actually impacts us in our field. I also have noticed that my memory capacity has decreased some. However, Google, books, and API documentation are great things. Fortunately for us, memory is not really a high-value item in our field. Being able to logically break down problems and derive algorithms to solve them are more important and not necessarily tied to memory.
First, there are many software development projects which are "on the margin" meaning they're not profitable if developers are paid $90k but become profitable if developers are paid $30k. As a result, reducing the cost of software development by hiring Indians will cause marginal software projects to become profitable, causing more software projects to be undertaken than otherwise would. In other words, just because someone is paying an Indian $30k to do something does not mean he would otherwise be paying an American $90k to do the same thing; instead, without the Indian, he might not pay anyone to do it.
Now factor in greed. If you have a project that would be profitable employing programmers at 90k, but MORE profitable employing them at 30k - which would you choose? Its a race to the bottom.
No - I am sure what he is saying is that the US Gov. should be providing incentives to THOSE businesses keeping jobs here to make it the more attractive option for them. Asshole.
First, I wholeheartedly agree with you on points 1 and 2. Secondly, the following is perhaps one of the most obnoxious, steaming lines of crap that I have perhaps ever read:
3. If someone else is willing to do the same work for less money than you do, too damn bad for you.
4. Yes, it is a race to the bottom. No, that isn't necessarily a bad thing in the long run. When you want to fill a container you have to fill the bottom first.
5. If you think you're better than the people 'your' job was outsourced to, prove it
No, its not just too damn bad for me. Its too damn bad for every American. Have you read nothing of the earlier posts regarding depleting our labor pool by moving the entry level jobs off shore? What I will give you is this - it IS good for other countries and businesses when we offshore our own jobs. This does two things: 1) Creates better and more well paying jobs in other countries, and 2) Makes the wealthy in this country wealthier. It does absolutely NOTHING for me and mine (the American middle class). PLEASE do not feed me any bullshit lines about how I must be "racist" or blah blah blah for wanting the jobs to stay in this country. I am NOT racist and frankly do not give a rats ass what the ethnicity (or race) of the AMERICAN that gets the job is. What I do care about that is the wealthy of our country stop selling our country down the river to earn themselves more dividends.
I suspect that the next line you are going to feed me would be something along the lines of: "What right do I have to demand those jobs stay here?" Or perhaps, "Do I not care about the people over in the other countries???" I will tell everyone in no uncertain terms that I honestly do not give a frack about the people's job situations in other countries. Let me be clear on that - that is not to say that I do not care if the people starve, or are not properly vaccinated, or that basic human needs are met. However, it is NOT my concern as to whether or not India gets good paying IT jobs. Whether or not the people of India and China have good jobs should be the concern of India's and China's political and business leaders. America's political and business leaders should be concerned that Americans have good jobs and a good standard of living. I am sick and fracking tired of responding to posts and FAs like this one.
A race to the bottom is NOT good for anyone. Once all of the jobs are sufficiently raped from within this country, the jobs in India and China will start to move out to the next lowest paying nation (possibly America once the dust settles) leaving those countries in ruin as well. The only GOOD way to solve the problem is for developing nations to invest in infrastructure and new job creation.
Regarding item number 5, this is not about me saying that I am better than anyone else. This is about me saying that I am sick of American politicians who think that its ok (or a good thing even) to send jobs that could have been created in this country off shore. I am SURE that there are some people in India and China smarter than I. I am ALSO sure that I am smarter than some people over there. The problem lies in the fact that I can not compete with them fairly due to the value of the US dollar. China in particular pisses me off in that they purposely peg the value of their currency low against the US dollar. While India's and China's politicians are bent on securing jobs for their countries (as they should be), American politicians are content sitting on their fat asses receiving kickbacks for letting our companies offshore jobs. That forces me to ask - WHY THE FRACK HAVE WE SPENT $375,000,000,000 DOLLARS IN IRAQ (and why did we go there in the first place)?!? I would much rather (as crappy as it is) have given American Corporations (and small businesses) that much in tax breaks in exchange for hiring in this country.
I'll bypass my comments about Gentoo being the distro that the author picked. Everyone else seemed to do a pretty good job of covering that.
I do want to ask why though? Why dump that much money on a brand new PS3 and then put Linux on it? Do not interpret this as a bash against Linux, but rather I am trying to understand the end goal and attraction. I would think that someone wanting to experiment with Linux would either dual-boot a PC (or Mac), or buy another box (for less money than a PS3) to install Linux on.
Ya know, these jokes were rampant regarding the new Rocky movie. Have you seen Harrison Ford or Sly lately? Take a real good look, then go to the corner and cry like I did after watching the new Rocky movie. Despite the years on these guys, I would wager a hefty sum that either of them on their worse day are in better shape than 3/4's of us /.'ers.
Now what THAT means is a whole other question...
For purposes of this post, I am going to ignore the implications of MS FUD in TFA, and specifically address whether or not (IMHO) Linux is ready for the desktop. Additionally, let me preface this by saying that I have used Linux as my sole desktop for PCs since 1994, but roughly two years ago switched to OS X on a Powerbook G4.
I recently tried to install Linux (specifically Ubuntu) on my Powerbook. To be fair, the live CD worked flawlessly and I was really impressed. Additionally, AirPort Extreme drivers are not working for PPC Linux, BUT I do not hold any distribution at fault for that because there are legal issues related to the open source version of the driver.
The installation went smoothly until I got to the Yaboot install - which failed. After considerable poking around, I read that there is a new bug in Yaboot when dealing with ATA drives. After several hours of manually editing the conf file - I finally figured out a manual workaround that solved the problem. However, I was frusturated by the whole process. Some time ago, I tried Yellow Dog (4.1, i think) - which installed flawlessly using Yaboot. This tells me that the new ATA bug was introduced recently. In the time since I first tried YD to the time I tried Ubuntu - I expected progress - not regression. While someone with time and experience can work through these problems, how can anyone expect Joe-six-pack to be impressed and not pissed when he tries it? One of the major Mac rags just ran an article about multi-desktop Macs and included mention of Linux. Each time someone with a Powerbook (or some other Mac with an ATA drive) attempts to install Ubuntu (or even openSuse for that matter), they will run across such bug and be soured.
The community as a whole needs a better way to deal with (read prevent) issues like the one I just encountered. While I understand how and why said bug occured, and how to work around it, someone trying to install Linux for the first time will run across it, get pissed, tell their friends Linux sucks, and get on with their lives. I firmly know that Linux has a better (read more stable) kernel than MS, and that all of the components necessary for Linux to be a prime candidate for the desktop are in place. Additionally, I believe that open-source is a better route. BUT, until the community gets its shit together and makes a distribution that works - Linux on the desktop will continue to be an uphill battle.
And to think I had thought this would all start with Skynet...
Science doesn't "surrport" manufacturing. High-level science and engineering invent things that are high-tech for a while, and are manufactured in the US as long as those things require a high-tech work force. Later they become commoditized and are moved offshore. By then we've moved on to something else.
I used to subscribe to this argument. Actually, in the 90s I was actually quite adament about it. I was perfectly okay with the offshoring of US auto manufacturing jobs. Afterall, the tech market was booming and the "Next Big Thing (TM)" was obvious. However, I ask you today, what is the new, great "Next Big Thing (TM)"? Biologicals and Pharmacuticals you say? I'm afraid that as a country we've missed the boat on that one already as South Korea and other not-so-infuenced-by-the-right countries have picked up the ball that we dropped. So, do tell, what IS the Next Big Thing(TM)? Without seeing where we are a clear leader, the only thing that I DO see is my flawed prior logic and how offshoring anything is not a good thing.
So far none of the examples succeeded on their own merits.
If by success, you mean taking first place, then I agree with you. However, if by success you mean, "becomming relevant enough to harm competitors by taking advantage of their monopoloy on the desktop", then we disagree.
Let me preface this by saying that I am actually a fan of Apple and I hope that I am dead wrong on this. But look what they did with the XBox, Web Servers, and Browser. Microsoft always tends to start slow with a crappy product and take heavy losses. Over time, they'll leverage Vista and everything else they can to turn the Zune into a household name. Apple is in a good position at the moment, but all it takes is one mistake.
In my opinion, Sony screwed the pooch with the PS-3 and MS took advantage of it. With the war chest they have, they do not need a better product. They only need to be able to win a war of attrition.
Actually, not so. I will not, in wholesale, defend the parent article. Ultimately, there are many additional factors involved. However, that particular point is sound. There only has to be a considerable trend such that most upper class people mate with others of the same caste, while the same applies to the lower castes.
Over time, barring other considerations, this will result in two distinct sub-species of Homo sapiens. In biology, the definition of a species includes the ability of two organisms to mate and create viable and fertile offspring. The inter-subspecies breeding you are talking about, will merely maintain the two subspecies as a single higher order species. If that mechanism were removed, we'd eventually be looking at two completely seperate species that could no longer produce viable and fertile offspring.
You made an excellent point, and up until recently, I would have agreed with you completely. However, I recently inherited a 91 Chevy S10 from my wife's parents. The plan was to restore it and make something of a hotrod out of it. However, it was rusted horribily. Really bad.
While looking for parts for it (bear with me, I WILL make a point - I promise), I ran across an 85 Olds 442. The guy only wanted $500 for it, so I went to check it out. The body did have "some" rust, but for the most part it was intact. The engine (a 307 H/O) still ran great. Needless to say, I towed it home and started working on it. I junked the S10.
Reading online forums, I ran across countless people stating that crap from the 80's is junk, while stuff from the 70's is good. Converesly, there were also people stating that stuff from the 70's was crap, but the 60's were good. It goes on and on.
I think the situation that we are seeing is a transition to a disposable society. Things are actually getting worse in terms of qualilty and durability (but perhaps not features).
Lets analyze this:
...even though there's no hard evidence supporting either claim.
People who believe life started via creationism are stupid.
Ah, not so. Stupidity is a largely uncorrectable condition. People who believe in creationism are ignorant. Ignorance is a largely correctable condition. There is hope!
People who believe life started in some sort of "scientific" way are smart.
Not necessarily. Informed and well read yes, but not necessarily smart. Additonally, many of these people are egotistical and obnoxious [possibly - although hopefully not - myself included] (thereby making them assholes) who ultimately hurt the cause of educating people.
This statement is blatantly false, and sadly, the pedestal upon which the entire anti-evolution movement rests. It is easier for the population to believe a simple lie vs. a complex truth. As such, this myth continues to gain popularity (see ignorance comment above). I invite ANYONE who holds on to this myth to join me for a day at a respectable college library where I will pull peer-reviewed journal article after peer-reviewed journal article out showing evidence FOR evolution until the person is convinced or leaves out of boredom (see ignorance). Quiet literally, I am not sure that there is enough time in one person's lifetime to go through and understand ALL of the available evidence. This allows for the different branches of science each with their own piece to the puzzle: Geology, Genetics (Biology), Chemestry, Physics, Astronomy, Anthropology. Within these branches of science are additional sub-fields. There is ALOT of evidence out there.
Ya know, its percisely this kinda of bone headed "beat them with a stick" mentality that gives credence to the theory stating that the primary reason we have not run across other intelligent life yet is that it usually self destructs somewhere in the neighborhood of our level of development.
That's Darwin at his finest. We're an agressive species. We evolved to where we are by being agressive.
This statement is categorically untrue. While we have all varying levels of agression in our species as a whole, we evolved to where we are by uniquely (mostly) being self aware and having the capacity to reason. If we do not exercise our ability to reason, we will ultimately end up self destructing or fighting it out on this rock until we collapse the environment or any number of other planet-wide catastrophic events take place. Use that thing between your shoulders for something other than holding up your glasses and THINK.
The authors of the software have EVERY right to demand that their work NOT be used to kill other people ESPECIALLY given our capcity for reasoning to determine other solutions.
Rather naive, to believe that the United States (or ANY other nation) would abide by this "No Military Use" restriction. If it is a black program, the very existence of which is denyed, do you REALLY think they would lose sleep over that restriction? The authors included it to make a "good" statement - that's all.
I'll immediately start work then on the PHB module so that we can finally "outsource" the managers who are so fond of doing it to us :)
What goes around...