One of the main reasons Windows crashes constantly is the conceptual inferiority of it's install system. There's the problem of registry creep, and the lack of user control over WTF is happening to the system. The resulting instability has already cost Microsoft the server markes. And as the Linux and OS X desktops gain market share, people will slowly come together and realize that a computer crashing every day is not normal, despite what Microsoft says.
If the Windows Paradigm was broken people would not use Windows.
"Eat shit, thousands of flies can't be wrong!" Fallacious bullshit. Just because millions of "technically challenged" people use windows every day, doesen't meant it's better than Unix, specially not conceptually. The Windows installation system works, but at the cost of a bloated, buggy, useless registry, and DLLs that are repeated endlessly...
My point is that we can't know how advanced an alien civilization might be, not that they're not more advanced than we are. There is no conclusive proof that an alien civilization would forcibly have better and more technology than us. However, an alien civilization that we contact right now would have to be at least as advanced as we are, in order to generate radio signals. On the other hand, there simply isn't enough data for any hypothesis about the biological, cultural or technological developments of alien lifeforms, so for all we know, we might be the advanced civilization.
Unlikely. Check out the variety of life on earth; it's quite unlikely that intelligence will evolve in humanoid form. The prerequisites for (technological) intelligence are manipulatory organs (hands, tentacles, pseudopods) and sensory organs (ears, eyes, chemical sensors, radio receivers). There's no point in supposing that their organs will be arranged in the same way that ours are! And besides, there's the fact that different planets present different environments and therefore, different evolutionary pressures. Do you think that a methane-breathing, silicon-based, high-gravity lifeform would be anything like us at all?
His theory has a LOT of problems with it. First, keep in mind the following. If we find an alien race that at least as advanced as us, chances are, they're WAY ahead of us. This is a matter of probability, but we've only been transmitting for a few decades of our entire history and chances are any aliens out there have been doing it for, at the very least, thousands if not millions of years.
Why? How can you suppose that all lifeforms out ther have better technology than us? They've had the same time to appear, evolve, and contruct civilization that we did. There is no reason to believe they're more advanced than us. In fact, ultra-advanced alien civilizations are just Sci-Fi. There is no way we can know how advanced they are. They might be capable of interstellar travel. Or maybe they just split the atom. Or maybe they are living in caves. We just don't know.
The OSI has consistently demonstrated (along with Actual Empirical Evidence) that OSS is superior than commercial software. Linux is a mature, production OS. Mainstream means users. Users like decent software. Nuff' said.
Linux doesn't need commercial software, and the community that builds it, supports it and advocates it doesn't like commercial software. Where commercial software is better than FOSS, te community strives to make FOSS better. So far, all trivial, daily, and common task are covered, with the Linux software being generally better than their commercial equivalents (OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox).
Cut the OS-is-not-important crap. Speed, reliability and also the quality and quantity of apps depend on having a good OS. Without the well-designed kernel and tools, there would be none of the great APIs, libraries and toolkits that make Linux programming a much easier task.
And besides, Linux already has free (as beer and speech) utilities for burning CDs. They're cheaper, and probably better and more reliable than Nero could ever hope to be. Nero is irrelevant.
>Because the rover only has a grayscale camera onboard.
WTF? You mean they spend millions of dollars on mass spectrometers, articulate robot arms, independently-moving wheels and high-efficiency solar panels and then install a grayscale camera?!
In the name of Eris, why?
I'm a high school student, and I can say that roughly 10% of students are at least marginally interested in technology and science. Lego mindstorms is definitely an interesting idea; coding C is not (Simpler languages like Lisp and Python are better). Perhaps you should go to a high school, tell them about IT, and ask them what kind of event they would like.
Wal-Mart can probably do anything with that data. I doubt there are any legal impediments. Even if there are, Wal-Mart's got enough cash to ignore American law. Who knows where this information can go? Certainly a lot of people would pay truckloads of money for it.
Teaching simple coding skills, using a simple scripted language like Python or Lisp, is way better in an Open Source environment. Not only most Open Unixes like Linux and BSD already come with most common compilers and interpreters, but it also encourages the time honored tradition of opening stuff up and looking at it's innards, then learning about how it works (Looking at the source code for common software, or even looking at ELisp code). A few comments about the subject are at http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/preface.htm
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When you drive a car, you need to have a minimum level of understanding about how to operate it.
The same applies to all forms of technology. If you can't use it properly, then you shouldn't use it at all. Microsoft and Apple have created a culture of ignorant users. Users these days don't know the difference between the web and the internet. They use IE and MSN Messenger just because it's there to start with.
People aren't dumb but it's true that Most Users Are Ignorant.
Slashdot Mirror
The major question that emerges here is whether this model will work for a large company like Sun.
I have the crawling notion that you got this idea for a question while 'watching' Kari build something...] *shudder*
Verne and Ayn Rand don't qualify - the list is 1931+ only. RTFA.
I, Robot, is the title of the collection of short stories that included the novella "I, Robot" which is long enough to qualify as a novel.
Amen. I have three characters in two different MUDs (Achaea and Lusternia) and they suck every scrape of free time I have.
This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon. Dilbert writes a memo, made up of three points:
1 Oxygen is good.
2 Competition is bad.
3 I like jelly.
And then the pointy-haired boss would tell him to take out the part about competition...
Is Dilbert working for the US gov't?
One of the main reasons Windows crashes constantly is the conceptual inferiority of it's install system. There's the problem of registry creep, and the lack of user control over WTF is happening to the system. The resulting instability has already cost Microsoft the server markes. And as the Linux and OS X desktops gain market share, people will slowly come together and realize that a computer crashing every day is not normal, despite what Microsoft says.
My point is that we can't know how advanced an alien civilization might be, not that they're not more advanced than we are. There is no conclusive proof that an alien civilization would forcibly have better and more technology than us. However, an alien civilization that we contact right now would have to be at least as advanced as we are, in order to generate radio signals. On the other hand, there simply isn't enough data for any hypothesis about the biological, cultural or technological developments of alien lifeforms, so for all we know, we might be the advanced civilization.
Unlikely. Check out the variety of life on earth; it's quite unlikely that intelligence will evolve in humanoid form. The prerequisites for (technological) intelligence are manipulatory organs (hands, tentacles, pseudopods) and sensory organs (ears, eyes, chemical sensors, radio receivers). There's no point in supposing that their organs will be arranged in the same way that ours are! And besides, there's the fact that different planets present different environments and therefore, different evolutionary pressures. Do you think that a methane-breathing, silicon-based, high-gravity lifeform would be anything like us at all?
Why? How can you suppose that all lifeforms out ther have better technology than us? They've had the same time to appear, evolve, and contruct civilization that we did. There is no reason to believe they're more advanced than us. In fact, ultra-advanced alien civilizations are just Sci-Fi. There is no way we can know how advanced they are. They might be capable of interstellar travel. Or maybe they just split the atom. Or maybe they are living in caves. We just don't know.
The OSI has consistently demonstrated (along with Actual Empirical Evidence) that OSS is superior than commercial software. Linux is a mature, production OS. Mainstream means users. Users like decent software. Nuff' said.
Linux doesn't need commercial software, and the community that builds it, supports it and advocates it doesn't like commercial software. Where commercial software is better than FOSS, te community strives to make FOSS better. So far, all trivial, daily, and common task are covered, with the Linux software being generally better than their commercial equivalents (OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox).
Cut the OS-is-not-important crap. Speed, reliability and also the quality and quantity of apps depend on having a good OS. Without the well-designed kernel and tools, there would be none of the great APIs, libraries and toolkits that make Linux programming a much easier task.
And besides, Linux already has free (as beer and speech) utilities for burning CDs. They're cheaper, and probably better and more reliable than Nero could ever hope to be. Nero is irrelevant.
You might be interested in Eric Raymond's discussion of the subject, "The Magic Cauldron", which can be read online here
>Because the rover only has a grayscale camera onboard.
WTF? You mean they spend millions of dollars on mass spectrometers, articulate robot arms, independently-moving wheels and high-efficiency solar panels and then install a grayscale camera?! In the name of Eris, why?
I'm a high school student, and I can say that roughly 10% of students are at least marginally interested in technology and science. Lego mindstorms is definitely an interesting idea; coding C is not (Simpler languages like Lisp and Python are better). Perhaps you should go to a high school, tell them about IT, and ask them what kind of event they would like.
Perhaps Eric S. Raymond should begin to write "The invasion of the noosphere"...
We can't do it because someone already patented the Clue Hammer(TM), the Clue-by-Four(TM) and the Clue ICBM(TM)
Wal-Mart can probably do anything with that data. I doubt there are any legal impediments. Even if there are, Wal-Mart's got enough cash to ignore American law. Who knows where this information can go? Certainly a lot of people would pay truckloads of money for it.
Teaching simple coding skills, using a simple scripted language like Python or Lisp, is way better in an Open Source environment. Not only most Open Unixes like Linux and BSD already come with most common compilers and interpreters, but it also encourages the time honored tradition of opening stuff up and looking at it's innards, then learning about how it works (Looking at the source code for common software, or even looking at ELisp code). A few comments about the subject are at http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/preface.htm ---
When you drive a car, you need to have a minimum level of understanding about how to operate it. The same applies to all forms of technology. If you can't use it properly, then you shouldn't use it at all. Microsoft and Apple have created a culture of ignorant users. Users these days don't know the difference between the web and the internet. They use IE and MSN Messenger just because it's there to start with. People aren't dumb but it's true that Most Users Are Ignorant.