but now I seem to find myself questioning what Google has to gain.
Think about it. If you put some of the world's brightest minds in the same building and they all have a discussion among themselves, what would they conclude they would all like to do?
Can someone please tell these people that computers are, barring a massive paradigm shift in how they are used for education, merely 90% distraction from the real learning that must go on in schools at these ages?
If you at least get a high school diploma these days I think the business world expects you to be computer literate. It might be more important to know comptuers than to pass a history class or advanced calculus. Come to think of it... Name a job that doesn't use computers? And also compare that number to the number that require you to have knowledge of History and Advanced Math?
Sure it makes you a well rounded person and less of a corporate robot, but isn't the goal of going to school to get a better job considering most people won't go to college anyways? Maybe I just have low expectations of American society...
My first concern is that once given away, a very poor family might look towards selling the laptop on the black market for food, clothing, etc.
They'd get more money for selling their kids Playstation2 or Xbox. Unless the parents need $20 at that moment and time to get crack rock then I seriously doubt you'd have a poor family trading away something they got for their kids education.
I still miss the old "Babbage's" stores they used to have.
*sighs* Or maybe I just miss the time when games were on a 3.5" floppy standing when I would go down to the mall and watch the two TV screens outside the store showing games I couldn't afford at the time.
To grasp reality without going insane, humans must anthropomorphize concepts that do not exist into imaginary living breathing thinking sentient beings. For example, if someone were to say "Microsoft wants to kill Google with the XBox360 search features!", we would be fine reading that as a headline. However there is no such thing as Microsoft or Google as sentient beings or even a collective. Microsoft could not want to kill as much as Google could not physically be killed like a regular human. There maybe people at Microsoft that want to kill Google employees or want to see the end of Google, but like I said unless they build a 90 foot tall robot called "Microsoft" bent on destroying the all competitors then its just anthropomorphization of concepts. However in order to relate to the majority of readers, headlines will often include concepts that cover you weather you are included or not such as "Everyone loves to hate Microsoft." and "Everyone loves google." and "Americans like to watch reality TV". "Everyone" is actually an anthropomorphized version of the aforementioned concepts and may or may not include the reader. The problem lies mostly in when the reader is included in something they see as not true. Therefore it tends to be for "preaching to the choir" scenarios in which the author assumes that the majority of the readers would agree with the statement and sometimes this implies to the reader that they should agree with majority or otherwise they will not be included with the "Everyone" and somehow consider themselves and outcast. I'm not sure if any of what I said made sense, but if you take a look at how humans use language to make sense of reality then it makes you feel rather awkward and more confused than you started out.
I think it's equally fair to recognize that their contributions are like the societal and charitable contributions of mobsters or fascist dictators or whatever "Lawful Evil" entity you want to name.
At least the train's computers wouldn't blue screen of death... Oh wait......at least they ran on time... errr... they ran? Ummm... I've got nothing.
I don't need it to be a low quality digital camera, hard-to-use PDA, sub-standard web browser, trivial calculator, poor-capacity MP3 player, pathetically quiet alarm clock, and all the other junk.
I need the digital camera, browser, calculator, and alarm clock (but like you said a bit louder). Having a camera on you at all times may actually come in handy during a car wreck or something that needs to have a picture taken at that moment like a crime in progress... Well, if you live in a place like Phildadelphia (Baltimore, NYC, or Detroit) you sort of think of those things.
I often find myself at resturants arguing with people over tip and having the cell phone fixes that and I often fine myself sleeping in places where there isn't an alarm clock and so my cell phone is the next best thing.
Can't tell you how many times I needed to use the web browser instant messaging feature... It is more of a lifestyle thing than anything else.
I'm not going to carry around a bulky laptop, pda, or (even though really tempting) a Sidekick everywhere with me.
Regardless of if you need them or not, plenty of others do... If I was purchasing a cell phone and I came across one that didn't have those things I would shy away for the more feature laden but same priced cell phone.
Of course, R&D costs nothing, fabrication is free, paying employees for design and support is volunteer based, and filing the patents and copyrights by lawyers are all pro bono.
Copyrights are cheap around $30 per application and patents are roughly $650 per patent application (plust a $100-$150 filling fee) with an average $1,000 every 7 years to maintain... That might be exspensive to a small business but $5,000 or so for every patent for 17 years is a steal for a multi-million dollar company.
However, the Patent experts and full time lawyers they hire on cost an arm and a leg and have to be factored in.
While such a sign is a nice warning, you still have to do the shooting, yourself. An indiscriminate shooting machine is not acceptable, because not all entries of your property that you didn't personally authorize are truly trespassing
What about a machine that warns you that it is about to fire? Fires a warning shoot and then explains you have 60 seconds to vacate the property.
In truth indiscriminate shooting weapons would be military applications in which it didn't matter who you killed. Like those special facilities that have signs that say "lethal force has been authorized" or a less than compasionate government wanted to have easy ways to control the border.
Actually come to think of it... Didn't the DDR have automatic sentry guns on the Berlin wall? If not, I'm sure they would have used them if such a technology became available.
instead of going bankrupt they reorganize like they fucking should, at least then not all of their employees end up unemployed.
Because they will still go bankrupt in long term. Layoffs only give short term benefits because employees appear to be the most exspensive item in the budget. However, those employees were obviously doing something to benefit the company unless they were sitting around doing nothing and if they were that piss poor organized to begin with and that's more of an upper managment issue for not firing the people a long time ago on an individual basis and won't matter how many people they layoff unless they take people off the top.
If you fire off all your manpower and brainpower then you start to have lost productivity, lost sales, and lost innovation by the overworked people left over. It's like keeping from starving to death on a deserted island by cutting off you foot and eating it. Sure... It will keep you alive for a bit, but if you need to chase after wild animals for food then you are pretty much screwed.
Companies would be better to cancel projects and streamline spending and have individual firings as laying off peopel based off poor performance and lack of value to the company rather than picking a section of the company and giving them the axe with no rhyme or reason.
...is that it would take such a long time to generate functioning proteins through random chance that it would be statistically impossible
You existing is "statistically impossible", but obviously you are observing you exist as you read this.
Given enough time... Anything is possible, but the most probable thing will happen... Or something... I don't think the human mind can really comprehend what happens in the universe over 10 billion years.
I have a better, more proven technology that will foil hijack attempts. A lock.
Israeli airlines have done this years before 9/11.
A more technical solution would be to engage autopilot while overiding manual flight controls if the lock is breached and the plane contacts ground control and they have autopilot fly it to the closest airport.
That hasn't happened and there's a piss-pot full of data that shows the earth has been hotter in the past than it is now.
Even so... Would it benefit mankind to figure out someway to reduce the average temperature of the planet? I'm not really saying CO2 emmission reduction, but something more on the lines of direct cooling through technological means. Perhaps reflecting more energy back into space or concentrating heat on earth and turn it into more mechnical means... Heck if I know how you would pull it off, but regardless if man is causing it or not, Earth is getting warmer and may cause some major problems.
Other offices I've seen have standardized on Offive XP, or even Office 2000, and steadfastly refuse to upgrade.
I worked for a corporate outsource hotline that answers questions about how to actually use Microsoft products.
About 75% of the MS Word calls were actually from people who recently upgraded and couldn't figure the massive changes that were in the Mailmerge and the way Word 2002 and 2003 handles tracked changes.
In word 2000 Mail merge was a 3 step process... In 2002/2003 it was a 6 step process in which you had to you the task pane. That and the most useful buttons for the Mail Merge fields toolbars were not on the mail merge toolbar like in 2000. Then there is a sort of buglike issue when merging from Excel files in that you do not get the corrected $ and decimal formatting like word 2000 would automatically do. There are ways to fix this, but many users were just aggrivated at the changes and felt that this was a step in the wrong direction...
Rich people investing their money leads to unemployed people getting jobs, as the companies invested in use the money to expand their businesses and purchase goods and services.
Depends on how they invest their money. If you look at a big picture of economic growth of a country or maybe they invest in local companies then yes.
However if they invest in luxuries or do not invest their money locally... Say invest in China or a large corporation which does not have much to do with poor people except maybe sell them products (like a pharmaceuticals corporation) then the answer is no.
In theory, a poor person might never see money that a rich person saves on taxes if the rich person invests in things outside of the scope of the poor persons economic realm.
In truth, government and wealthy people will not spend money to directly benefit you or put money directly into your pocket. The best solution is for the individual to avoid paying as much tax as possible through loopholes or as tax filers call "creative accounting".
Slashdot Mirror
but now I seem to find myself questioning what Google has to gain.
Think about it. If you put some of the world's brightest minds in the same building and they all have a discussion among themselves, what would they conclude they would all like to do?
GET OFF THIS GOD FORSAKEN PLANET!
It has a fan.
If that fan is moving, noise is generated.
Ergo it is not silent.
QED.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Can someone please tell these people that computers are, barring a massive paradigm shift in how they are used for education, merely 90% distraction from the real learning that must go on in schools at these ages?
If you at least get a high school diploma these days I think the business world expects you to be computer literate. It might be more important to know comptuers than to pass a history class or advanced calculus. Come to think of it... Name a job that doesn't use computers? And also compare that number to the number that require you to have knowledge of History and Advanced Math?
Sure it makes you a well rounded person and less of a corporate robot, but isn't the goal of going to school to get a better job considering most people won't go to college anyways? Maybe I just have low expectations of American society...
My first concern is that once given away, a very poor family might look towards selling the laptop on the black market for food, clothing, etc.
They'd get more money for selling their kids Playstation2 or Xbox. Unless the parents need $20 at that moment and time to get crack rock then I seriously doubt you'd have a poor family trading away something they got for their kids education.
Wow, given this potential, I am surprised this work was not published in one of the bigger journals like Science or Nature?
1 7575710440.htm
Mostly because this news is old hat.
Here is an article and a nice pic of the lady from 2004.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200411/kt20041126
You could always fly to India or Thailand for a more qualified doctor, better health care facility, and a fraction the price of an American doctor.
e s/main689998.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/21/60minut
However... If you needed to sue for malpractice then your up the proverbial creek.
*sniffs*
I still miss the old "Babbage's" stores they used to have.
*sighs* Or maybe I just miss the time when games were on a 3.5" floppy standing when I would go down to the mall and watch the two TV screens outside the store showing games I couldn't afford at the time.
To grasp reality without going insane, humans must anthropomorphize concepts that do not exist into imaginary living breathing thinking sentient beings. For example, if someone were to say "Microsoft wants to kill Google with the XBox360 search features!", we would be fine reading that as a headline. However there is no such thing as Microsoft or Google as sentient beings or even a collective. Microsoft could not want to kill as much as Google could not physically be killed like a regular human. There maybe people at Microsoft that want to kill Google employees or want to see the end of Google, but like I said unless they build a 90 foot tall robot called "Microsoft" bent on destroying the all competitors then its just anthropomorphization of concepts. However in order to relate to the majority of readers, headlines will often include concepts that cover you weather you are included or not such as "Everyone loves to hate Microsoft." and "Everyone loves google." and "Americans like to watch reality TV". "Everyone" is actually an anthropomorphized version of the aforementioned concepts and may or may not include the reader. The problem lies mostly in when the reader is included in something they see as not true. Therefore it tends to be for "preaching to the choir" scenarios in which the author assumes that the majority of the readers would agree with the statement and sometimes this implies to the reader that they should agree with majority or otherwise they will not be included with the "Everyone" and somehow consider themselves and outcast. I'm not sure if any of what I said made sense, but if you take a look at how humans use language to make sense of reality then it makes you feel rather awkward and more confused than you started out.
The one question you would have to ask would it support an ecxhange server?
If not... Can they pull of "Exchange-like" behavior with calenders and meetings on a pop server?
I heard a rumor that Civilization was coming to the Nintendo DS. Can you confirm or deny this? What are your thoughts on such a release?
Yea ... Well ... John Dvorak says something stupid every week and just by coincidence alone some of it comes true.
Because the Computer Technology Industry is driven by companies doing stupid things. *coughs*
I think it's equally fair to recognize that their contributions are like the societal and charitable contributions of mobsters or fascist dictators or whatever "Lawful Evil" entity you want to name.
...at least they ran on time... errr... they ran? Ummm... I've got nothing.
At least the train's computers wouldn't blue screen of death... Oh wait...
I don't need it to be a low quality digital camera, hard-to-use PDA, sub-standard web browser, trivial calculator, poor-capacity MP3 player, pathetically quiet alarm clock, and all the other junk.
I need the digital camera, browser, calculator, and alarm clock (but like you said a bit louder). Having a camera on you at all times may actually come in handy during a car wreck or something that needs to have a picture taken at that moment like a crime in progress... Well, if you live in a place like Phildadelphia (Baltimore, NYC, or Detroit) you sort of think of those things.
I often find myself at resturants arguing with people over tip and having the cell phone fixes that and I often fine myself sleeping in places where there isn't an alarm clock and so my cell phone is the next best thing.
Can't tell you how many times I needed to use the web browser instant messaging feature... It is more of a lifestyle thing than anything else.
I'm not going to carry around a bulky laptop, pda, or (even though really tempting) a Sidekick everywhere with me.
Regardless of if you need them or not, plenty of others do... If I was purchasing a cell phone and I came across one that didn't have those things I would shy away for the more feature laden but same priced cell phone.
Of course, R&D costs nothing, fabrication is free, paying employees for design and support is volunteer based, and filing the patents and copyrights by lawyers are all pro bono.
h tm#PatentCost
Copyrights are cheap around $30 per application and patents are roughly $650 per patent application (plust a $100-$150 filling fee) with an average $1,000 every 7 years to maintain... That might be exspensive to a small business but $5,000 or so for every patent for 17 years is a steal for a multi-million dollar company.
However, the Patent experts and full time lawyers they hire on cost an arm and a leg and have to be factored in.
Sources:
http://www.copyright.gov/register/sound.html
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/patents.
While such a sign is a nice warning, you still have to do the shooting, yourself. An indiscriminate shooting machine is not acceptable, because not all entries of your property that you didn't personally authorize are truly trespassing
What about a machine that warns you that it is about to fire? Fires a warning shoot and then explains you have 60 seconds to vacate the property.
In truth indiscriminate shooting weapons would be military applications in which it didn't matter who you killed. Like those special facilities that have signs that say "lethal force has been authorized" or a less than compasionate government wanted to have easy ways to control the border.
Actually come to think of it... Didn't the DDR have automatic sentry guns on the Berlin wall? If not, I'm sure they would have used them if such a technology became available.
Oh hell! And I was thinking to myself how I missed out on Ebaying more DS's when there was a shortage.
Amazing. You managed to try to turn that into a positive point.
It's far easier to format and reinstall Windows than it is to try to repair a broken install of IE without a total reformat. Oh wait...
instead of going bankrupt they reorganize like they fucking should, at least then not all of their employees end up unemployed.
Because they will still go bankrupt in long term. Layoffs only give short term benefits because employees appear to be the most exspensive item in the budget. However, those employees were obviously doing something to benefit the company unless they were sitting around doing nothing and if they were that piss poor organized to begin with and that's more of an upper managment issue for not firing the people a long time ago on an individual basis and won't matter how many people they layoff unless they take people off the top.
If you fire off all your manpower and brainpower then you start to have lost productivity, lost sales, and lost innovation by the overworked people left over. It's like keeping from starving to death on a deserted island by cutting off you foot and eating it. Sure... It will keep you alive for a bit, but if you need to chase after wild animals for food then you are pretty much screwed.
Companies would be better to cancel projects and streamline spending and have individual firings as laying off peopel based off poor performance and lack of value to the company rather than picking a section of the company and giving them the axe with no rhyme or reason.
...is that it would take such a long time to generate functioning proteins through random chance that it would be statistically impossible
You existing is "statistically impossible", but obviously you are observing you exist as you read this.
Given enough time... Anything is possible, but the most probable thing will happen... Or something... I don't think the human mind can really comprehend what happens in the universe over 10 billion years.
You know what they say about infinite monkeys with infinite amount of typwriters.
I have a better, more proven technology that will foil hijack attempts. A lock.
Israeli airlines have done this years before 9/11.
A more technical solution would be to engage autopilot while overiding manual flight controls if the lock is breached and the plane contacts ground control and they have autopilot fly it to the closest airport.
That hasn't happened and there's a piss-pot full of data that shows the earth has been hotter in the past than it is now.
Even so... Would it benefit mankind to figure out someway to reduce the average temperature of the planet? I'm not really saying CO2 emmission reduction, but something more on the lines of direct cooling through technological means. Perhaps reflecting more energy back into space or concentrating heat on earth and turn it into more mechnical means... Heck if I know how you would pull it off, but regardless if man is causing it or not, Earth is getting warmer and may cause some major problems.
but I still think it's kind of interesting that in every picture of this thing there's guy with a firearm in his hand
They originally used flowers, but the military wasn't interested when they saw the pics.
...when I tripped and pressed the NES reset button with my toe and I then realized I didn't save and had just lost about 9 hours worth of game play.
Other offices I've seen have standardized on Offive XP, or even Office 2000, and steadfastly refuse to upgrade.
I worked for a corporate outsource hotline that answers questions about how to actually use Microsoft products.
About 75% of the MS Word calls were actually from people who recently upgraded and couldn't figure the massive changes that were in the Mailmerge and the way Word 2002 and 2003 handles tracked changes.
In word 2000 Mail merge was a 3 step process... In 2002/2003 it was a 6 step process in which you had to you the task pane. That and the most useful buttons for the Mail Merge fields toolbars were not on the mail merge toolbar like in 2000. Then there is a sort of buglike issue when merging from Excel files in that you do not get the corrected $ and decimal formatting like word 2000 would automatically do. There are ways to fix this, but many users were just aggrivated at the changes and felt that this was a step in the wrong direction...
Rich people investing their money leads to unemployed people getting jobs, as the companies invested in use the money to expand their businesses and purchase goods and services.
Depends on how they invest their money. If you look at a big picture of economic growth of a country or maybe they invest in local companies then yes.
However if they invest in luxuries or do not invest their money locally... Say invest in China or a large corporation which does not have much to do with poor people except maybe sell them products (like a pharmaceuticals corporation) then the answer is no.
In theory, a poor person might never see money that a rich person saves on taxes if the rich person invests in things outside of the scope of the poor persons economic realm.
In truth, government and wealthy people will not spend money to directly benefit you or put money directly into your pocket. The best solution is for the individual to avoid paying as much tax as possible through loopholes or as tax filers call "creative accounting".