A couple of years back there was this scare about electricity towers having potentially harmful health effects because of the magnetism given off by the wires.
Now in spite of anecdotal evidence no scientist has been able to verify it.
Anyone else slightly worried though about the increasing airwave pollution from all this wireless stuff being shoved down our throats (so to speak)? You got the Nintendo Rev wireless router capability, you got wireless Xbox2 controllers, every familymember their own cell-phone, and then you got all your neighbours appliances to worry about as well.
(A real health-hazard turned out to be cell-phones..if you have a pace-maker that is. AFAIK cell-phones are still outlawed on ICU in hospitals.)
You actually raise a valid point: the British government could be bankrupted if terrorists started bombing targets outside of London subways. 150k for every trainstation in the country? Ouch!
If technological progress starts to slow, it means we're going to advance through other means. Just as culture was a replacement of evolutionary progress as a means of inter-group competitiveness, and technology advancement became a replacement of cultural competition.
At least according to Kurzweil's law. (Which isn't really a cast in stone law, but more a theory that all progress follows an s-curve, and that when the curve of a mode of progress nears an end, it gets replaced by another mode. Just like when transistors started taking off when vacuum tubes started becoming a hard to improve technology.)
Yet the BSD stack has made Windows more competitive in the server market. Ohterwise they possibly wouldn't be there anymore. So yes, in a way it's made the BSDs and Linux less attractive.
On the other hand: using this add they can point out how the public has been paying too much for Intel, and explain away why people associate Intel with quality while AMD is in the shadows.
Fareed Zakaria had some things to say about that. It appears that the Supreme Court, out of all US governmental institutions, is considered the most trustworthy by the general populace. In spite of it being the least democratic, and not without good reason if I may say so. A case for technocracy if I ever saw one.
Actually, my dad is an old-fashioned wedding photographer. Besides having his chain of photoshops almost being put out of buisness by digital photography (simply because almost noone prints their photo's anymore, instead viewing them on their computers), he does work with the system 'we keep your negatives, you may reorder them from us'. Why? That's his buisness model. You can get reproductions for cheap, and this is the only way he makes a profit on making good pictures. The higher the quality of his work, the more 'expensive' reproductions people get.
If people are unsatisfied with the work, then they don't reorder. Simple.
You're missing the fact that not releasing this software means the competitors will need to develop the software themselves..at a 2 mill setback.
So the choice is..keep competitive advantage within the company, or make 200-500k.
Considering this, and the small market, I don't see ANY advantage to open sourcing it. It's not like open sourcing it will mean hordes of programmers improving your software for free. It means giving up your competitive advantage.
Good point. I can imagine it: students ask their professor what chapters to study. The professor rattles off a list of chapter numbers. Then the students ask if that list is valid for their version. Kind of a nightmare.
A government subsidized network means no longer walking around the streets untill you find an unsecured network, just because you can't be arsed to spend the 5 minutes it takes to get through WEP.
We used that book (by Russell & Norvig) for a course in AI here where I study psychology. I can recommend it highly as a primer into AI. Very clear, concise, coherent, with lots of pictures, and lots of references for further study. Don't expect to be a master AI-programmer after reading it front to cover, as it is mostly introducing, explaining and expounding on ALL of the basics, but it's fun to read and helps you on the way a lot.
Boot-sector viruses can still be written, but they won't do much on Windows 95+ systems. I believe it is because boot-sectors aren't 'loaded' upon reading, just read. And writes to HD MBR's is dissallowed in Windows (can't install GRUB from Windows 95) I believe.
Nonetheless, contagion viruses don't do much anymore since the internet has replaced the sneaker net.
And infecting cd-roms is rather non-trivial, considering the vast array of burning-software that needs to be tricked into writing a bit of extra info to cd-rom each time you burn some aluminium.;-)
Then again, Windows XP and Media Player have some nifty cd-rom burning features, don't they? Would it be possible to 'add code' whenever some marks files as 'to burn' in explorer?
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't be surprised if this feature is going to be one 'of the lucky few'.
A couple of years back there was this scare about electricity towers having potentially harmful health effects because of the magnetism given off by the wires.
Now in spite of anecdotal evidence no scientist has been able to verify it.
Anyone else slightly worried though about the increasing airwave pollution from all this wireless stuff being shoved down our throats (so to speak)? You got the Nintendo Rev wireless router capability, you got wireless Xbox2 controllers, every familymember their own cell-phone, and then you got all your neighbours appliances to worry about as well.
(A real health-hazard turned out to be cell-phones..if you have a pace-maker that is. AFAIK cell-phones are still outlawed on ICU in hospitals.)
I don't find reading PDFs nice. :(
It's always slow as mollasses, and I rather have some plain txt or html docs, even 'if it doesn't render well'.
You actually raise a valid point: the British government could be bankrupted if terrorists started bombing targets outside of London subways. 150k for every trainstation in the country? Ouch!
Dang, people don't even recognize jokes anymore. :|
..for making paid IT-personal superfluous.
If technological progress starts to slow, it means we're going to advance through other means. Just as culture was a replacement of evolutionary progress as a means of inter-group competitiveness, and technology advancement became a replacement of cultural competition.
At least according to Kurzweil's law. (Which isn't really a cast in stone law, but more a theory that all progress follows an s-curve, and that when the curve of a mode of progress nears an end, it gets replaced by another mode. Just like when transistors started taking off when vacuum tubes started becoming a hard to improve technology.)
I feel a s***storm coming nonetheless. ;-)
Yet the BSD stack has made Windows more competitive in the server market. Ohterwise they possibly wouldn't be there anymore. So yes, in a way it's made the BSDs and Linux less attractive.
And Apple has and is contributing back, and MS hasn't contributed anything back so far.
George Carlin might be a very funny and insightful man, but that quote is a few centuries older than Carlin.
On the other hand: using this add they can point out how the public has been paying too much for Intel, and explain away why people associate Intel with quality while AMD is in the shadows.
The story I read was slightly different..
Had to think about that one ;)
Fareed Zakaria had some things to say about that. It appears that the Supreme Court, out of all US governmental institutions, is considered the most trustworthy by the general populace. In spite of it being the least democratic, and not without good reason if I may say so. A case for technocracy if I ever saw one.
Heh, reminds me of Maddox' rants against Orbitz. (All things said I side with Maddox on this one though)
Actually, my dad is an old-fashioned wedding photographer. Besides having his chain of photoshops almost being put out of buisness by digital photography (simply because almost noone prints their photo's anymore, instead viewing them on their computers), he does work with the system 'we keep your negatives, you may reorder them from us'. Why? That's his buisness model. You can get reproductions for cheap, and this is the only way he makes a profit on making good pictures. The higher the quality of his work, the more 'expensive' reproductions people get.
If people are unsatisfied with the work, then they don't reorder. Simple.
You're missing the fact that not releasing this software means the competitors will need to develop the software themselves..at a 2 mill setback.
So the choice is..keep competitive advantage within the company, or make 200-500k.
Considering this, and the small market, I don't see ANY advantage to open sourcing it. It's not like open sourcing it will mean hordes of programmers improving your software for free. It means giving up your competitive advantage.
You omitted BeOS, damn you!
And AmigaOS.
Good point. I can imagine it: students ask their professor what chapters to study. The professor rattles off a list of chapter numbers. Then the students ask if that list is valid for their version. Kind of a nightmare.
I smell a comeback for the BeOS ;)
A government subsidized network means no longer walking around the streets untill you find an unsecured network, just because you can't be arsed to spend the 5 minutes it takes to get through WEP.
So I get's it's some advancement.
We used that book (by Russell & Norvig) for a course in AI here where I study psychology. I can recommend it highly as a primer into AI. Very clear, concise, coherent, with lots of pictures, and lots of references for further study. Don't expect to be a master AI-programmer after reading it front to cover, as it is mostly introducing, explaining and expounding on ALL of the basics, but it's fun to read and helps you on the way a lot.
Websites with virus sourcecode? :)
Boot-sector viruses can still be written, but they won't do much on Windows 95+ systems. I believe it is because boot-sectors aren't 'loaded' upon reading, just read. And writes to HD MBR's is dissallowed in Windows (can't install GRUB from Windows 95) I believe.
;-)
Nonetheless, contagion viruses don't do much anymore since the internet has replaced the sneaker net.
And infecting cd-roms is rather non-trivial, considering the vast array of burning-software that needs to be tricked into writing a bit of extra info to cd-rom each time you burn some aluminium.
Then again, Windows XP and Media Player have some nifty cd-rom burning features, don't they? Would it be possible to 'add code' whenever some marks files as 'to burn' in explorer?