"emember, 30 years ago computers who could monitor millions of telephone conversations and filter out words like "bomb", "communism" etc already existed"
Yes, and they were as big as a football field. And designed and manufactured by boring old commercial Earth companies.
Some sekrit alien technology that is. The only thing special about it was that only the government had the cash to buy such large systems.
"lso, any chance he actually found something about anti-gravity and all that and that he wrongly attributed it aliens? Sounds unlikely to me, but after all, (non-alien) UFOs seem to exist (relying on pilots and radar operators witnessings), and since they are of human origin, after all, the NASA *could* be involved (I know it sounds quite like science-fiction tho)"
NASA's budget is being crushed, causing many projects to be canceled, in part so that money can be spent on Bush's stupid Mars mission boondoggle that he probably hasn't even thought of in years.
Anti-gravity and similar technologies would probably save NASA billions if they used it in their own projects. It'd be a lot cheaper to put a space telescope in orbit if it could be done with an antigrav device instead of an expensive, resource-intensive launch.
In the military context, I suppose even a small use of anti-grav would greatly boost the carrying capacity of our transport planes, which would come in handy when trying to move sixty ton tanks around the globe.
So, if we have sekrit anti-grav tech, why isn't it being used to save billions?
But they'd still have incentive to use 'free energy' to power surveillance drones all over the US. Just start them up and set them aloft, and never have to worry about running out of power.
They'd also have incentive to run heavy military vehicles (tanks, mobile howitzers, etc) using the free energy tech, because fueling those things is a major logistical hassle.
These kinds of changes would have little or no effect on the energy industry - the government didn't exactly balk at producing nuclear subs and aircraft carriers because it would hurt Exxon, did they?
But these would be visible enough to come to the attention of regular folks.
"Besides, earning money under the model of selling it to one person is perfectly possible. It's called contract work. Not all software is made to be sold on the shelf."
That, however, limits the freedom of the developer. You're basically saying that if you want to be paid, you have to write what other people tell you to write.
And many varieties or genres of software simply don't fall into that model, at all.
If you have an idea for software that could be broadly useful, and want to implement it and make it widely accessible for the general public, and earn a living, then you're out of luck.
" What type of information would you want on the BBC's homepage (or CNN's if you're in America)?"
Whenever I go to CNN's website, I can feel myself losing IQ points. And that's before I see the inevitable: "Woman dismembers own child: WATCH NOW!" which makes it sound like they have video of the act, but also is an example of their preference for sensational-but-relatively-unimportant stories like killings and missing white girls.
(Actually, it looks like they finally got rid of that kind of headline, at last.)
But really, America would be far better served if everyone who gets their news at CNN.com switched to the BBC's news site. For the most part, CNN follows the American media tendency of treating the rest of the world as a freakshow to be ignored except when it provides a "News of the Weird"-style story or a vehicle crash that kills a lot of people - that is, unless Americans are involved.
What I like about the BBC is that they're so engaged with people from all over the world. American media's treatment of the rest of the world is a bit like talking about someone behind their back.
It would also be nice if more Americans got their news from organizations who are not beholden to Washington for their ongoing existence (NPR), nor are part of the whole US corporate/lobbying/government structure.
This seems like it'd be more useful as a way to implement touch-sensitivity on an all-screen iPod. The camera elements could be monochrome, which would probably let them be smaller than if they were color. Focus wouldn't be an issue, because they'd just have to sense the location of your finger - the big dark spot. Resolution could be pretty low.
"When the bubble burst, there was a false impression that computer related fields were doomed. I always found that amusing because our whole society is based on technology and will always need people to run it."
Our society is also dependent on manufacturing to produce all the nifty gadgets we are so dependent on.
But it's not a good career choice if you're in the US.
"The WMDs had been used extensively during the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands of dead and wounded are not "very little" proof."
Since when is a twenty year old use of WMD, at a time when Saddam was our buddy, justification for a half-trilion dollar war and thousands of dead and wounded, when, frankly, we had actual threats to be working on?
Iraq was a utopian distraction from dealing with the actual threats. A distraction that has been vastly damaging to our military and our national security.
But I guess that's what you get when you let ex-Trots come up with national policy. Once a utopian, always a utopian.
" and highly inappropriate in others (did you type in your post by selecting and dragging individual characters with your mouse? Did you draw the characters with a pen and tablet?)."
Moglen statement goes *way* beyond that. He's not just saying that CLIs are useful and have their place.
FWIW, I'm typing this on a MacBookPro, and abandoned the Mac in the early 90s for Jobs' NeXT machines and OS, which I worked with for the rest of the decade. I'm not an all-GUI paleo-Machead who thinks Terminal.app is an abomination unto Steve. I had no use for MacOS until it merged with OpenStep and became Unix.
"I know he isnt popular with the/. crowd, but Schwartz -IS- popular with the Fortune500 CEO crowd... I've seen the guy work a room, he comes across very charismatically (way WAY more than McNealy ever has) and the dumb PHB/CxO types seem to really take an interest in what he's saying. "
No surprise - Schwartz spent some time working for one of the big management consulting firms.
He probably learned how to sell crap to CEOs while he was there. It's what the management consulting firms *do*.
"If he were anything like the kind of autocrat that his detractors claim, those same detractors wouldn't be walking around in the sunlight."
John, just because he hasn't tried yet doesn't mean he doesn't believe he has the power to do so.
He and his enablers have argued that he has essentially limitless power during wartime, in which wartime is defined nebulously and unendingly. He has already locked up an American citizen without trial for years. The excuse he used to do so is not codified in law, so it could easily be expanded without limit.
"When a government official tries to extend their own authority, they are way out of line. This stupid cow needs to be dismissed from the taxpayers' payroll, immediately."
Considering that her boss, who appointed her, believes he's the King of America, subject to no law but his own, I kinda doubt she's going to be fired. She's just following Bush's example.
"Users wanted to be infantilized, to return to a pre-linguistic condition in the using of computers, and the Xerox PARC technology's primary advantage was that it allowed users to address computers in a pre-linguistic way."
So Eben would prefer if he had to write a dissertation in order to flush his toilet. He's a lawyer, right? They're excessively wordy by nature.
"By failing to react appropriately, Carter abandoned the people of Iran to a theocracy, and exposed the United States and the rest of the world to a growing threat of islamist extremism."
Sorry, but we accomplished all that when we toppled their government and installed a tyrant. Carter was just in office when our earlier labors bore fruit.
Slashdot Mirror
"Not exactly. FDR and Truman both had the guts to fight a war without pulling punches. (At least, Truman started out that way... Pity about Korea.)"
That would be consistent for Bush - he's also modeled his life after his father's and didn't measure up there, either.
"It's not clear to me that they'll be any more successful in getting across that this is "new and improved" than they were with the Pentium "
Well, they're certainly loading up "Core Duo 2" name to emphasize the difference.
Perhaps they could have named it the "Core Twin Duo 2 Dos Zwei Duplex Combo Team Processor".
"But do they have a monolithic management or micromanagement?"
"Nobody could ever need fewer than 640k managers." - Bill Gates
"emember, 30 years ago computers who could monitor millions of telephone conversations and filter out words like "bomb", "communism" etc already existed"
Yes, and they were as big as a football field. And designed and manufactured by boring old commercial Earth companies.
Some sekrit alien technology that is. The only thing special about it was that only the government had the cash to buy such large systems.
"lso, any chance he actually found something about anti-gravity and all that and that he wrongly attributed it aliens? Sounds unlikely to me, but after all, (non-alien) UFOs seem to exist (relying on pilots and radar operators witnessings), and since they are of human origin, after all, the NASA *could* be involved (I know it sounds quite like science-fiction tho)"
NASA's budget is being crushed, causing many projects to be canceled, in part so that money can be spent on Bush's stupid Mars mission boondoggle that he probably hasn't even thought of in years.
Anti-gravity and similar technologies would probably save NASA billions if they used it in their own projects. It'd be a lot cheaper to put a space telescope in orbit if it could be done with an antigrav device instead of an expensive, resource-intensive launch.
In the military context, I suppose even a small use of anti-grav would greatly boost the carrying capacity of our transport planes, which would come in handy when trying to move sixty ton tanks around the globe.
So, if we have sekrit anti-grav tech, why isn't it being used to save billions?
But they'd still have incentive to use 'free energy' to power surveillance drones all over the US. Just start them up and set them aloft, and never have to worry about running out of power.
They'd also have incentive to run heavy military vehicles (tanks, mobile howitzers, etc) using the free energy tech, because fueling those things is a major logistical hassle.
These kinds of changes would have little or no effect on the energy industry - the government didn't exactly balk at producing nuclear subs and aircraft carriers because it would hurt Exxon, did they?
But these would be visible enough to come to the attention of regular folks.
"So when downloading a static frame, he saw someone's hand move across the image and he was cut off, and that's why he didn't get the screen shot"
Maybe it was his Dad's hand. "Get off the damn computer and take out the garbage. And take a shower, too."
Bah! PC means Printed Circuit. Always did, always will.
Program Counter.
Police Constable.
"Besides, earning money under the model of selling it to one person is perfectly possible. It's called contract work. Not all software is made to be sold on the shelf."
That, however, limits the freedom of the developer. You're basically saying that if you want to be paid, you have to write what other people tell you to write.
And many varieties or genres of software simply don't fall into that model, at all.
If you have an idea for software that could be broadly useful, and want to implement it and make it widely accessible for the general public, and earn a living, then you're out of luck.
" What type of information would you want on the BBC's homepage (or CNN's if you're in America)?"
Whenever I go to CNN's website, I can feel myself losing IQ points. And that's before I see the inevitable: "Woman dismembers own child: WATCH NOW!" which makes it sound like they have video of the act, but also is an example of their preference for sensational-but-relatively-unimportant stories like killings and missing white girls.
(Actually, it looks like they finally got rid of that kind of headline, at last.)
But really, America would be far better served if everyone who gets their news at CNN.com switched to the BBC's news site. For the most part, CNN follows the American media tendency of treating the rest of the world as a freakshow to be ignored except when it provides a "News of the Weird"-style story or a vehicle crash that kills a lot of people - that is, unless Americans are involved.
What I like about the BBC is that they're so engaged with people from all over the world. American media's treatment of the rest of the world is a bit like talking about someone behind their back.
It would also be nice if more Americans got their news from organizations who are not beholden to Washington for their ongoing existence (NPR), nor are part of the whole US corporate/lobbying/government structure.
The market for this sort of thing would be old people who want to play that 'Brain Age' game but for whom the DS screen is illegibly small.
This seems like it'd be more useful as a way to implement touch-sensitivity on an all-screen iPod. The camera elements could be monochrome, which would probably let them be smaller than if they were color. Focus wouldn't be an issue, because they'd just have to sense the location of your finger - the big dark spot. Resolution could be pretty low.
"Actually, I'd say most users know they're supposed to have a firewall. Most don't know what it does or why they need it,"
I think they understand a firewall as being "to keep the bad guys out", but that's about it. Nothing about preventing outgoing connections.
"When the bubble burst, there was a false impression that computer related fields were doomed. I always found that amusing because our whole society is based on technology and will always need people to run it."
Our society is also dependent on manufacturing to produce all the nifty gadgets we are so dependent on.
But it's not a good career choice if you're in the US.
"The WMDs had been used extensively during the Iran-Iraq war. Thousands of dead and wounded are not "very little" proof."
Since when is a twenty year old use of WMD, at a time when Saddam was our buddy, justification for a half-trilion dollar war and thousands of dead and wounded, when, frankly, we had actual threats to be working on?
Iraq was a utopian distraction from dealing with the actual threats. A distraction that has been vastly damaging to our military and our national security.
But I guess that's what you get when you let ex-Trots come up with national policy. Once a utopian, always a utopian.
"Possibly, although they could also be in Syria."
Right. They could also be up Bush's ass (right next to Bush's head).
There were none in 2003. Not that that mattered to Bush, who had a hard-on for war and was willing to resort to fraud in order to get his war on.
" and highly inappropriate in others (did you type in your post by selecting and dragging individual characters with your mouse? Did you draw the characters with a pen and tablet?)."
Moglen statement goes *way* beyond that. He's not just saying that CLIs are useful and have their place.
FWIW, I'm typing this on a MacBookPro, and abandoned the Mac in the early 90s for Jobs' NeXT machines and OS, which I worked with for the rest of the decade. I'm not an all-GUI paleo-Machead who thinks Terminal.app is an abomination unto Steve. I had no use for MacOS until it merged with OpenStep and became Unix.
"I know he isnt popular with the /. crowd, but Schwartz -IS- popular with the Fortune500 CEO crowd... I've seen the guy work a room, he comes across very charismatically (way WAY more than McNealy ever has) and the dumb PHB/CxO types seem to really take an interest in what he's saying. "
No surprise - Schwartz spent some time working for one of the big management consulting firms.
He probably learned how to sell crap to CEOs while he was there. It's what the management consulting firms *do*.
Replacing McNealy with Schwartz would be like performing a brain transplant in which a poorly functioning brain is replaced with a kidney.
"If he were anything like the kind of autocrat that his detractors claim, those same detractors wouldn't be walking around in the sunlight."
John, just because he hasn't tried yet doesn't mean he doesn't believe he has the power to do so.
He and his enablers have argued that he has essentially limitless power during wartime, in which wartime is defined nebulously and unendingly. He has already locked up an American citizen without trial for years. The excuse he used to do so is not codified in law, so it could easily be expanded without limit.
Your libertarian instincts have dulled.
"When a government official tries to extend their own authority, they are way out of line. This stupid cow needs to be dismissed from the taxpayers' payroll, immediately."
Considering that her boss, who appointed her, believes he's the King of America, subject to no law but his own, I kinda doubt she's going to be fired. She's just following Bush's example.
"Users wanted to be infantilized, to return to a pre-linguistic condition in the using of computers, and the Xerox PARC technology's primary advantage was that it allowed users to address computers in a pre-linguistic way."
So Eben would prefer if he had to write a dissertation in order to flush his toilet. He's a lawyer, right? They're excessively wordy by nature.
Why exactly should anyone care what he thinks?
"I wonder whos graphics drivers the FSF's computers run (thats if they even run linux?)"
Dunno, but it's probably runs inside emacs.
"By failing to react appropriately, Carter abandoned the people of Iran to a theocracy, and exposed the United States and the rest of the world to a growing threat of islamist extremism."
Sorry, but we accomplished all that when we toppled their government and installed a tyrant. Carter was just in office when our earlier labors bore fruit.
You don't understand, those bathrooms are directly connected to the company Visual SourceSafe repository.