Since Firefly depicted the vacuum of space as proper silence, the lack of a music soundtrack would have people wondering if the sound cut off on their TV sets.
Why don't they have the simple technology to simulate the lasers shots and explosions like they have on Star Wars with their on board computers to give the pilot a better 3D spacial reference of the battle with sound effects?
a) I work better when at work. I don't like to work at home; one of the nice things about my 5 mile commute is that,
That is nice, I live no more than 10 miles, but if we hit rush hour expect 1+ hour commute. I feel sorry for the people that live 30-60 miles that drive here. I take it you do not live in a metropolitan area... Or at least one without bad commuting traffic.
b) There is a value to meetings - at least, some of them.
If it wasn't for a new "major change" in our policy meeting, I wouldn't be able to remember the last time I had a meeting other than a 1 on 1 with management for reviews. Of course we don't have projects per say... I suppose we are more like contractors.
c) I'm not good on the phone. My hearing isn't what it could be, and I spend too much mental power on making sure I'm hearing what the other person is saying to really be processing well.
You would not have a job at my place. 95% of communication is done on the phone. Heck... It would be impossible otherwise considering many of our clients are thousands of miles away from us.
But then again... We don't have telecommuting and I don't think we could have a free time either because of totally different reasons.
I think mostly because we do a great deal of collaboration all at the same time. I guess we could be in different offices, but if no one was here at a certain time and something goes down or blows up... Then there would be hell to pay.
But your reasons don't work for everyone and I would say that tech companies should try other systems and given the ability to start my own business I would follow the idea mostly because I would not have an office but rather a group of contractors to assist with various projects.
Could this possibly be a function of the fact that the simulation isn't 100% accurate,
And if the simulate isn't 100% of purpose?
Let us say in the simulation the button to take picture is blue. Then afterwards, they give the student a few minutes to play with the camera that has a red button and take it away from them.
Then pop quiz them on what color it was.
If the student then answer the button was blue, (and if most of them did vs blind studies of people with cameras that were blue in both simulation and real life) then perhaps it really was a false memory.
It's a good idea to encourage civil behavior in your enemies.
There is a reason that in most modern conflicts, that an unconditional surrender is the only option. Your enemy is still going to want to kill you even if you are a peace for a few years.
I know people think I'm a bit flamey and bitter, but that is how I feel and I believe if you support true artists, then you don't give RIAA a nickel.
We can't know, or even imagine, non-existance, because we've never experienced it.
The problem is that you cannot experience non-existence.
You simply cannot, because otherwise you would be experiencing some type of existence.
No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
That said... On the bright side, you won't notice yourself not existing or wanting to exist and a minute or a millennium or a trillion years will be the same to you.
That said... Given infinite time (or time beyond our comprehension rather) the probability for us to spring back into existence gets higher. Eventually, we might come back into existence as we see ourselves existing now means that it is possible that we can just spring into existence from nothingness.
However, whether that means we get born 49 days from your death (Tibetan Buddhism) or in a trillion years from now on the Planet Grabash as a 20 tentacle methane breather monsters or perhaps even as yourself all over again if the universe suffers a big crunch and simply recycles itself exactly the same way as now due to Anthropic principle (and the universe could not exist in any other way that it did or we wouldn't know it because we wouldn't exist) well... I really don't know.
There is no way to really tell what happens after death other than know the probability of spontaneously popping back into existence is probable.
You of course won't be able to pass along this information to yourself after you die so it maybe a moot point unless people in the future have kept this information about this idea.
Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?
First, the human mind and computers cannot actually calculate infinity.
There is not enough brainpower nor matter in the observable universe to calculate such an amount.
Rather than to go insane at the thought of infinity or to try to create a machine that consumes all matter outside the observable universe, we simply create a placeholder.
Secondly, infinity does not actually exist in the physical universe.
As time does not exist other than as a unit of measurement and mostly as a matter of opinion and comparison of atomic decay. Time itself cannot be measured by polling a static unit of measurement like you can with matter or energy... As in... There are so much quantity and quality of matter or energy at any given point. Whereas time is merely a measurement of the comparison of what matter and energy are doing and for how long.
Considering it is also relative depending on how fast the energy or matter is traveling doesn't help the situation.
Even if there is infinite matter and energy in the universe, it would be impossible for anything to observe it all at once because of the space time problem.
Infinity might as well not exist if you can't observe it and even if you could would it really matter? Since, nothing else could exist as a single point of time, matter, and space no information could be transfered before the big bang.
However, this does not take an account of what is happening outside our observable universe or if there other universes. As in... There was a big bang, but there happens to be other big bangs or various other similar events happening elsewhere but so far away that light or xrays from those parts of the universe will never reach us... EVER!
I'm no fundamentalist, but creating embryos for research purposes strikes me as a bit creepy.
As opposed to dying of Parkinson's or various other diseases that cloning research may cure?
I would suppose putting dead viruses into my body is a bit creepy too, but I'd rather do that than die from a disease that could have been prevented with a vaccination.
Rather than looking at just the creepiness factor, you should consider how much human suffering you can cause or alleviate by the choice.
If the choice will save lives and end suffering while not causing suffering to a sentient being, then the choice is clear. Of course this depends on your definition of what a sentient being is...
I for one do no consider human embryos to be sentient nor conscious. Since they were never going to exist anyways in a conscious form seeing these embryos would never be used to create human life.
However, I would more likely to object to research on humans or embryos that was going to be a conscious human unless perhaps they died of natural causes and the next of kin agreed or had some organ donor agreement before hand.
So only fundamentalist Christians are made a bit uncomfortable with some of these new concepts of cloning, use of aborted embryos for research.
Well there are the Luddites, but we don't bother insulting them because they don't use the internets and would never know that we are making fun of them.
Advocacy is good up until the point that you get to exclude relevant facts inimical to your argument.
IANAL but if you are presenting an argument to a judge or jury, you are not responsible to provide information to them that incriminates your client or their cause. In fact if you did so you wouldn't be a good lawyer.
The responsibility of counter argument or evidence falls solely on the attorney's on the opposing side of the case be it corporate lawyers or attorney generals for the state.
Only the judge and/or jury are supposed to take both side's information into account before making a decision. Not the lawyers presenting their argument.
Outside court is a different story, but you often have to keep in mind that public opinion does creep into the courts. So it is in the best interest for lawyers to never present both sides at any time ever.
In a truly fair world, it would be nice, but unfortunately that isn't how things are.
In any case, I think that a 100% solar earth is unlikely:
Why not?
More energy falls on a 100 square kilometers from the sun than is consumed via our normal power grids in a day comparatively.
The key problem is that we need very efficient solar panels to acheive this. Once we hit around 75-90% efficiency I'd say it is a high probability we could go 100% solar.
Of course this may take 20-50 years, but I wouldn't say we will never switch to complete solar.
Unless we blot the sun out for any particular reason...
Unless you disagree with the man with the gun of course. But dead is not really alive and you won't be able to argue with anyone other than the supreme maker about whether life was fair or not.
So you are saying Microsoft bought Apache, Oracle, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Novel and a few other companys that you listed there.
No, I think I may misunderstood the original post, but in a sense they often buy companies to compete with their competitors. (Like the group that designed Defrag, the group that made MS Organizational Chart, Citrix, and so on)
In a sense, they made crap they bought better, but not more so than their competitors who more often than not did not buy their innovation from others. (Well... Google tends to buy their way into innovation as well.)
Still, they have a habit of taking crap and actually making it pretty decent. At least to my experience.
Are you talking about Microsoft's crap or other people's crap? I mean if we are talking about the transition from Win95 to Win2000, I would say that is true but let us take a look at some examples when we compare other companies vs Microsoft:
1. Apache vs IIS
Apache crap? I don't think so. Ever had to admin IIS 4 or 5? Gah! I don't know about newer versions though, but I have a hunch there are still issues going on.
2. Oracle SQL/MySQL vs MS SQL
MS SQL isn't all that bad if you got the hardware to keep it in line, but I wouldn't call Oracle or MySQL crap.
3. iPod vs Zune
I'm not going to even answer this one. *coughs*
4. Playstation 2/Game Cube vs Xbox
Yeah... Technically Xbox has better hardware and graphics, but you can't say the other two systems were crap.
5. Groupwise vs Outlook
I mean Groupwise isn't as say functional with VBA and add-ins... Well maybe that isn't a bad thing, but Groupwise wasn't crap. Now if your an Exchange Admin of Outlook I'm sure you might have some nasty words about Outlook. Its getting better though
6. Lotus Notes vs Outlook/Access
Um... Ok. You got me. Lotus Notes was and is crap. I can't defend that product. So we've got 1 out of 6. I could go on about Wordperfect, Quatro Pro, and Lotus Suite which weren't crap products. Microsoft didn't really improve on those when they came out with their competing office suite. If you are going to talk about improvements we are going to have to look at Office 97, 2000, 2002, 2003 and now Office Vista which is an improvement of their own products.
Yes they both have extensive articles on Wiki. Although I may have taken the liberty to combine the two termns, but if you really don't know... Read the articles.
The point is that Patent system doesn't require you to actually make an invention, but rather have a description on what these invention does. These things can often be very vague and people have been known to patent the wheel on occasion shows a big flaw in the Patent system.
If I can patent the wheel with vague wording, what does that mean as far as patenting devices that may come into use by some other company?
It isn't that hard to think of something to patent that someone might do since it the idea would be obvious. That is why this reason why it is being brought before the SCOTUS.
Strikes me as true, and as always when claiming something is obvious, it begs the question "how come you didn't think of it then?"
Well most of these people actually do think of the solution and actually create a working product, but then a Submarine Patent Troll comes out of the woodwork telling them that their actual invention violates their vague patent that they never bothered to bring to market or tell anyone else about.
That is the key problem here... Not that it is just obvious, but they are going after people who do come up with the idea themselves rather than those who have stolen the idea from them.
They're also missing the fact that a lot of clueless parents are going to be buying these for their kids for xmas and then are going to be returning them AFTER xmas for an iPod.
Actually, my coworker made a nifty comment...
People who buy Zunes, are those who go to the store to buy an iPod for their loved ones, but since it is sold out they figure it is the same thing.
Yet, given time and Microsoft's endless pockets, we eventually see a change in the long run.
This reminds me of Napoleon's endless manpower of his La Grande Armée. It was the largest army of Europe of its time and he could simply throw manpower at objectives to acheive them (not that he was a master strategist as it was), but over time the attrition was too much on the Steppes of frozen Russia and he lost. Not to mention every other country in the game ganged up on him afterwards.
Microsoft's money appears to be endless, but it is actually quite finite.
I think the fact they are trying to put too many fingers in too many pies will eventually kill them.
Or expect to wake up one day where MS Execs are ordering the execution or amputation of parts of its company because the dead weight ruining the bottom line.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but I play one on Slashdot.
Since Firefly depicted the vacuum of space as proper silence, the lack of a music soundtrack would have people wondering if the sound cut off on their TV sets.
Why don't they have the simple technology to simulate the lasers shots and explosions like they have on Star Wars with their on board computers to give the pilot a better 3D spacial reference of the battle with sound effects?
This sort of thing is the reason I host my own e-mail. At least this way I usually know when it's broken, and I have the opportunity to fix it.
Technically that is against the ToS for regular Earthlink accounts.
Secondly they like to block a lot of traffic on email-esque ports.
Either way... As a former employee, I'm not surprised.
a) I work better when at work. I don't like to work at home; one of the nice things about my 5 mile commute is that,
That is nice, I live no more than 10 miles, but if we hit rush hour expect 1+ hour commute. I feel sorry for the people that live 30-60 miles that drive here. I take it you do not live in a metropolitan area... Or at least one without bad commuting traffic.
b) There is a value to meetings - at least, some of them.
If it wasn't for a new "major change" in our policy meeting, I wouldn't be able to remember the last time I had a meeting other than a 1 on 1 with management for reviews. Of course we don't have projects per say... I suppose we are more like contractors.
c) I'm not good on the phone. My hearing isn't what it could be, and I spend too much mental power on making sure I'm hearing what the other person is saying to really be processing well.
You would not have a job at my place. 95% of communication is done on the phone. Heck... It would be impossible otherwise considering many of our clients are thousands of miles away from us.
But then again... We don't have telecommuting and I don't think we could have a free time either because of totally different reasons.
I think mostly because we do a great deal of collaboration all at the same time. I guess we could be in different offices, but if no one was here at a certain time and something goes down or blows up... Then there would be hell to pay.
But your reasons don't work for everyone and I would say that tech companies should try other systems and given the ability to start my own business I would follow the idea mostly because I would not have an office but rather a group of contractors to assist with various projects.
Could this possibly be a function of the fact that the simulation isn't 100% accurate,
And if the simulate isn't 100% of purpose?
Let us say in the simulation the button to take picture is blue. Then afterwards, they give the student a few minutes to play with the camera that has a red button and take it away from them.
Then pop quiz them on what color it was.
If the student then answer the button was blue, (and if most of them did vs blind studies of people with cameras that were blue in both simulation and real life) then perhaps it really was a false memory.
It's a good idea to encourage civil behavior in your enemies.
There is a reason that in most modern conflicts, that an unconditional surrender is the only option. Your enemy is still going to want to kill you even if you are a peace for a few years.
I know people think I'm a bit flamey and bitter, but that is how I feel and I believe if you support true artists, then you don't give RIAA a nickel.
My suggestion is run, don't walk, to your computer and buy these tracks, even if you hate the artists involved.
I would disagree. Not only should these artists not be supported but I have qualms giving my money to companies who promote the RIAA system.
RIAA as a group should be removed. They are the problem. Not just the DRM. They destroy art and ruin independent music.
Maybe I'm just bitter, but if you want to support non-drm music then buy it from non RIAA groups like www.emusic.com
We can't know, or even imagine, non-existance, because we've never experienced it.
The problem is that you cannot experience non-existence.
You simply cannot, because otherwise you would be experiencing some type of existence.
No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
That said... On the bright side, you won't notice yourself not existing or wanting to exist and a minute or a millennium or a trillion years will be the same to you.
That said... Given infinite time (or time beyond our comprehension rather) the probability for us to spring back into existence gets higher. Eventually, we might come back into existence as we see ourselves existing now means that it is possible that we can just spring into existence from nothingness.
However, whether that means we get born 49 days from your death (Tibetan Buddhism) or in a trillion years from now on the Planet Grabash as a 20 tentacle methane breather monsters or perhaps even as yourself all over again if the universe suffers a big crunch and simply recycles itself exactly the same way as now due to Anthropic principle (and the universe could not exist in any other way that it did or we wouldn't know it because we wouldn't exist) well... I really don't know.
There is no way to really tell what happens after death other than know the probability of spontaneously popping back into existence is probable.
You of course won't be able to pass along this information to yourself after you die so it maybe a moot point unless people in the future have kept this information about this idea.
Seriously, someone explain to me why time MUST have a beginning? Can't we just accept some things as being infinite?
First, the human mind and computers cannot actually calculate infinity.
There is not enough brainpower nor matter in the observable universe to calculate such an amount.
Rather than to go insane at the thought of infinity or to try to create a machine that consumes all matter outside the observable universe, we simply create a placeholder.
Secondly, infinity does not actually exist in the physical universe.
As time does not exist other than as a unit of measurement and mostly as a matter of opinion and comparison of atomic decay. Time itself cannot be measured by polling a static unit of measurement like you can with matter or energy... As in... There are so much quantity and quality of matter or energy at any given point. Whereas time is merely a measurement of the comparison of what matter and energy are doing and for how long.
Considering it is also relative depending on how fast the energy or matter is traveling doesn't help the situation.
Even if there is infinite matter and energy in the universe, it would be impossible for anything to observe it all at once because of the space time problem.
Infinity might as well not exist if you can't observe it and even if you could would it really matter? Since, nothing else could exist as a single point of time, matter, and space no information could be transfered before the big bang.
However, this does not take an account of what is happening outside our observable universe or if there other universes. As in... There was a big bang, but there happens to be other big bangs or various other similar events happening elsewhere but so far away that light or xrays from those parts of the universe will never reach us... EVER!
I'm no fundamentalist, but creating embryos for research purposes strikes me as a bit creepy.
As opposed to dying of Parkinson's or various other diseases that cloning research may cure?
I would suppose putting dead viruses into my body is a bit creepy too, but I'd rather do that than die from a disease that could have been prevented with a vaccination.
Rather than looking at just the creepiness factor, you should consider how much human suffering you can cause or alleviate by the choice.
If the choice will save lives and end suffering while not causing suffering to a sentient being, then the choice is clear. Of course this depends on your definition of what a sentient being is...
I for one do no consider human embryos to be sentient nor conscious. Since they were never going to exist anyways in a conscious form seeing these embryos would never be used to create human life.
However, I would more likely to object to research on humans or embryos that was going to be a conscious human unless perhaps they died of natural causes and the next of kin agreed or had some organ donor agreement before hand.
So only fundamentalist Christians are made a bit uncomfortable with some of these new concepts of cloning, use of aborted embryos for research.
Well there are the Luddites, but we don't bother insulting them because they don't use the internets and would never know that we are making fun of them.
Advocacy is good up until the point that you get to exclude relevant facts inimical to your argument.
IANAL but if you are presenting an argument to a judge or jury, you are not responsible to provide information to them that incriminates your client or their cause. In fact if you did so you wouldn't be a good lawyer.
The responsibility of counter argument or evidence falls solely on the attorney's on the opposing side of the case be it corporate lawyers or attorney generals for the state.
Only the judge and/or jury are supposed to take both side's information into account before making a decision. Not the lawyers presenting their argument.
Outside court is a different story, but you often have to keep in mind that public opinion does creep into the courts. So it is in the best interest for lawyers to never present both sides at any time ever.
In a truly fair world, it would be nice, but unfortunately that isn't how things are.
In any case, I think that a 100% solar earth is unlikely:
Why not?
More energy falls on a 100 square kilometers from the sun than is consumed via our normal power grids in a day comparatively.
The key problem is that we need very efficient solar panels to acheive this. Once we hit around 75-90% efficiency I'd say it is a high probability we could go 100% solar.
Of course this may take 20-50 years, but I wouldn't say we will never switch to complete solar.
Unless we blot the sun out for any particular reason...
Tax breaks for the rich?! DUH only the rich can get 'em cause the botom 50% is getting the money.
While I suppose the majority of the world lives on less than $2 a day has something to do with this.
Life's not fair.
Unless, it involves a gun.
Life is whatever the man with the gun says it is.
Unless you disagree with the man with the gun of course. But dead is not really alive and you won't be able to argue with anyone other than the supreme maker about whether life was fair or not.
I think I've paraphrased Mao.
I realize this is how different flavours of languages propagate over the ages, but I'm all in favor of keeping English as unified as possible.
Thou dost mock mine native tongue with banterings of a barbrian! Have at thee with bulbous and troubedore pestilence!
Now we just have to figure out if the amount of energy needed to synthesize the blood protein
How much energy is required for pig farm?
Genetically engineered pigs that is...
I mean, honestly - what does Vista do that XP doesn't? From a business standpoint, of course.
For one, you won't be able to play Halo 3 LAN games at the office without it!
So you are saying Microsoft bought Apache, Oracle, Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Novel and a few other companys that you listed there.
No, I think I may misunderstood the original post, but in a sense they often buy companies to compete with their competitors. (Like the group that designed Defrag, the group that made MS Organizational Chart, Citrix, and so on)
In a sense, they made crap they bought better, but not more so than their competitors who more often than not did not buy their innovation from others. (Well... Google tends to buy their way into innovation as well.)
Still, they have a habit of taking crap and actually making it pretty decent. At least to my experience.
Are you talking about Microsoft's crap or other people's crap?
I mean if we are talking about the transition from Win95 to Win2000, I would say that is true but let us take a look at some examples when we compare other companies vs Microsoft:
1. Apache vs IIS
Apache crap? I don't think so. Ever had to admin IIS 4 or 5? Gah! I don't know about newer versions though, but I have a hunch there are still issues going on.
2. Oracle SQL/MySQL vs MS SQL
MS SQL isn't all that bad if you got the hardware to keep it in line, but I wouldn't call Oracle or MySQL crap.
3. iPod vs Zune
I'm not going to even answer this one. *coughs*
4. Playstation 2/Game Cube vs Xbox
Yeah... Technically Xbox has better hardware and graphics, but you can't say the other two systems were crap.
5. Groupwise vs Outlook
I mean Groupwise isn't as say functional with VBA and add-ins... Well maybe that isn't a bad thing, but Groupwise wasn't crap. Now if your an Exchange Admin of Outlook I'm sure you might have some nasty words about Outlook. Its getting better though
6. Lotus Notes vs Outlook/Access
Um... Ok. You got me. Lotus Notes was and is crap. I can't defend that product. So we've got 1 out of 6. I could go on about Wordperfect, Quatro Pro, and Lotus Suite which weren't crap products. Microsoft didn't really improve on those when they came out with their competing office suite. If you are going to talk about improvements we are going to have to look at Office 97, 2000, 2002, 2003 and now Office Vista which is an improvement of their own products.
What is a "submarine patent troll?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent
Yes they both have extensive articles on Wiki. Although I may have taken the liberty to combine the two termns, but if you really don't know... Read the articles.
The point is that Patent system doesn't require you to actually make an invention, but rather have a description on what these invention does. These things can often be very vague and people have been known to patent the wheel on occasion shows a big flaw in the Patent system.
If I can patent the wheel with vague wording, what does that mean as far as patenting devices that may come into use by some other company?
It isn't that hard to think of something to patent that someone might do since it the idea would be obvious. That is why this reason why it is being brought before the SCOTUS.
Strikes me as true, and as always when claiming something is obvious, it begs the question "how come you didn't think of it then?"
Well most of these people actually do think of the solution and actually create a working product, but then a Submarine Patent Troll comes out of the woodwork telling them that their actual invention violates their vague patent that they never bothered to bring to market or tell anyone else about.
That is the key problem here... Not that it is just obvious, but they are going after people who do come up with the idea themselves rather than those who have stolen the idea from them.
They're also missing the fact that a lot of clueless parents are going to be buying these for their kids for xmas and then are going to be returning them AFTER xmas for an iPod.
Actually, my coworker made a nifty comment...
People who buy Zunes, are those who go to the store to buy an iPod for their loved ones, but since it is sold out they figure it is the same thing.
Yet, given time and Microsoft's endless pockets, we eventually see a change in the long run.
This reminds me of Napoleon's endless manpower of his La Grande Armée. It was the largest army of Europe of its time and he could simply throw manpower at objectives to acheive them (not that he was a master strategist as it was), but over time the attrition was too much on the Steppes of frozen Russia and he lost. Not to mention every other country in the game ganged up on him afterwards.
Microsoft's money appears to be endless, but it is actually quite finite.
I think the fact they are trying to put too many fingers in too many pies will eventually kill them.
Or expect to wake up one day where MS Execs are ordering the execution or amputation of parts of its company because the dead weight ruining the bottom line.
So, you can see how Einstein's relativity theory can be explained in fine detail using an alternate theory that involves an aether.
Don't you mean dark matter?
In the end, it is pretty much the same thing... Things that affect reality that you can't see or detect.