> Negative population growth, which should put China comfortably within the > land's capability to support their population within the next 100 years or so.
They aren't going to maintain it for 100 years; it's not really a sustainable practice much beyond one generation or so. A large population of geriatrics supported by a smaller number of workers is an economic disaster. Assuming, of course, China acts like a civilized country in elder care... which I expect it would, given what I understand of asian traditions.
More likely, they'll soon start a gradual easing of the policy as their economy moves out of peasant-style agriculture (which high birthrates are normal and necessary) to a richer urban-based middle-class economy.
I would dearly love to know the origin of this idea that Microsoft have a battalion of salesmen who take CIOs out to strip clubs.
I know, I know. I was just using a little satire to point out how the decision to waste a lifetime working with some chunk of Microsoft technology is rarely going to be made by anyone who actually does hands on work with said technology, and the things considered in the decision will likely have nothing to do with the technology or the people who'll use and/or maintain it.
The problem is that dog "breeds" are so inbred that they often have serious medical conditions
Amen. If you're going to ban something, ban the breed organisations like the AKC who push breeders to choose dogs for appearance instead of health or function.
So what if he has Asperger? Are the lawyers implying that he is less responsible for his acts due his condition?
Yep.
Their job is to find absolutely anything which will get their client off and/or decrease the sentence. Doesn't matter if it's a medical condition, addiction, or something nasty like child sexual abuse, it's their duty to represent it to the court as something which drove the behaviour.
The prosecution will, of course, be digging up evidence that the kid is some kind of Machiavellian criminal mastermind using his inhuman hacking skills to springboard to world domination...
Your math is sound, but it appears to be based on the assumption that 100% of those 1.9 million are really employable.
You have to account for things like disabilities (a mining engineer in a wheelchair will have limited options), poor choice of specialization (went into something for the money, doesn't enjoy it), psychological issues (not everyone can handle the stress of having to sign off on a bridge), not being able to move to where the jobs are, etc.
95.5% being employed in their field is pretty high by most standards.
> this is only going to convince big companies like Microsoft, Apple, > Google, Amazon, Cisco, etc. that they need to hunker down even > more in developing extensive patent portfolios and vigorously defending them.
That's a strategy which only really works against someone who builds a product which might infringe on one of their patents. It doesn't do much to prevent exposure to patent trolls, or companies who discover they can make more money from lawsuits than actually building products.
You'd have to ask them. To me, it seems like the corporate PR equivalent of "yeah, whatever, here's an official statement on some stupid shit we don't think affects us".
I agree but what I'd add is that Twitter should be absolutely lambasted for agreeing to hand over the names as that's what really stinks in this scenario.
The qualifier is "... if legally required". Hate to break it to you, but there's darn near no corporation on the planet which will outright refuse to do something if they're clearly legally required, especially if compliance is cheap. The ones with balls will refuse to do things they're not legally obligated to do, and a few will even refuse to do things which fall into legal grey areas, but otherwise they'll do it. I this case, Twitter hasn't actually done anything except, maybe, compile that list just to ensure they know they could do it if they were asked properly.
Now, that being said, it stands to reason that Twitter will probably ignore any legal requests from inapplicable jurisdictions. This may or may not include the UK. They may also contest requests where they think they might have a strong legal backing (i.e. privacy laws).
> Right now, on newegg, im only seeing USB3.0 on highend > multi-hundred-dollar motherboards, so it seems to be a wash > in that regard.
Look harder.
Last week I bought, from Newegg, a MSI 880GMA-E53 for under $100 with USB-3. I was also considering a Gigabyte board for about the same price with USB-3.
> Gnome is supposed to be written to support X Windows.
Well, sure. But it's more than just a GUI. A desktop environment also has hooks into things like device management (USB drives, networking, etc), and there's the whole virtual filesystem thing (gvfs?). The more seamless you try to make the experience, the tighter you might end up binding things to the O/S.
Not that I have an opinion as to whether Linux-only is better or worse for the GNOME project, but there's a lot more to it than just being an X11 application.
> This makes me laugh really hard, because Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
One of the nice things about getting out of Afghanistan is that western countries can stop pretending that the Pakistan government and intelligence services are anything other than a bunch of backstabbing scum who'd hide someone like OBL in their backyard while taking money from their allies.
> There is only one viable exit strategy, leaving that country with a > functional government with a semblance of law and order.
I firmly agree that would be a better exit strategy. I just don't believe for a second that a functional Afghani government can have what us westerners consider a semblance of law and order. I think we're lucky if we get a choice between a hard-line Islamic state or a kleptocracy of tribal warlords.
> Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like > thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2.
It means the USA can credibly claim "mission accomplished" and get the hell out of Afghanistan. As long as he was still breathing, there was simply no politically viable exit strategy.
> It amazes me that a company as large and established > as Sony would make such a boneheaded move
Are you kidding? This is Sony. Their corporate mission statement goes beyond "not invented here" to more like "not invented by someone working in my department". Not only am I not surprised that essentially all PSN user accounts got stolen and (apparently) they can't recover from backups, but I'm waiting to see what novel approach Sony takes to make a bad situation even more stupid.
There's the Android-x86 Project. I had an older build booting off a USB key on my netbook. Quite frankly, all I found it good for was as a reminder that a UI designed for a 3" touch screen is a poor, poor fit for a 9" screen with a trackpad and keyboard.
>... that's a pretty sad state to be in, given that fact tablets have > been "the next big thing" for at least a year now.
Well, no.
A sad state is to have been shipping tablet/touch/PDA operating systems on and off for almost 20 years, and suddenly admit you don't have a clue what to do when tablets suddenly take off.
> MS has certainly purchased tech from others and incorporated it into > their own products over the years but out right copying?
Absolutely. Microsoft is a collection of experts at seeing what things are popular, and incorporating them into their own products. They do it often and they generally do it well. In fact, I'd say their most memorable and spectacular failures have been when they did things they thought were innovation (*cough*Bob*cough*). That's not to say they don't have moments of true innovation, but it's not what we know them for. Indeed, given their emphasis on conservative corporate users real innovation would probably cost them a lot of sales.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, nor am I saying it's a good thing. I'm saying it's standard operating procedure in this industry, and it's Microsoft's strong point; with their expertise they'll be a lot better off if they could do it without any fear of patent trolls (or even legitimate patent holders, assuming they exist).
With FOSS, copying is the norm because without a concrete goal like something which already exists, it's incredibly hard to build a community and keep it focused. When copies reach a cough "parity" things tend to turn weird... well, KDE 4 and GNOME 3?
> Don't cry foul when what you wish for come back to take a big bite at your ass
You're forgetting... Microsoft is by far one of the best at copying other peoples ideas, probably even better at it than open source desktop projects. It's part of their corporate genetics or something. If they don't have to worry about patent lawsuits, it opens up entire fields of things they can just outright copy rather than having pretend to partner and/or do complex patent cross-licensing agreements.
Otherwise, they have to actually invent their own new stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
> Negative population growth, which should put China comfortably within the
> land's capability to support their population within the next 100 years or so.
They aren't going to maintain it for 100 years; it's not really a sustainable practice much beyond one generation or so. A large population of geriatrics supported by a smaller number of workers is an economic disaster. Assuming, of course, China acts like a civilized country in elder care... which I expect it would, given what I understand of asian traditions.
More likely, they'll soon start a gradual easing of the policy as their economy moves out of peasant-style agriculture (which high birthrates are normal and necessary) to a richer urban-based middle-class economy.
> > But what's a few dead, organ-harvested people under the bridge
> > who voiced their opposition to the company town?
>
> A business expense.
That depends upon how much you get for the organs, doesn't it?
I know, I know. I was just using a little satire to point out how the decision to waste a lifetime working with some chunk of Microsoft technology is rarely going to be made by anyone who actually does hands on work with said technology, and the things considered in the decision will likely have nothing to do with the technology or the people who'll use and/or maintain it.
Because a Microsoft sales drone took your CIO out golfing, then to a ritzy strip club? Or was that a trick question?
Amen. If you're going to ban something, ban the breed organisations like the AKC who push breeders to choose dogs for appearance instead of health or function.
Yep.
Their job is to find absolutely anything which will get their client off and/or decrease the sentence. Doesn't matter if it's a medical condition, addiction, or something nasty like child sexual abuse, it's their duty to represent it to the court as something which drove the behaviour.
The prosecution will, of course, be digging up evidence that the kid is some kind of Machiavellian criminal mastermind using his inhuman hacking skills to springboard to world domination...
Your math is sound, but it appears to be based on the assumption that 100% of those 1.9 million are really employable.
You have to account for things like disabilities (a mining engineer in a wheelchair will have limited options), poor choice of specialization (went into something for the money, doesn't enjoy it), psychological issues (not everyone can handle the stress of having to sign off on a bridge), not being able to move to where the jobs are, etc.
95.5% being employed in their field is pretty high by most standards.
> this is only going to convince big companies like Microsoft, Apple,
> Google, Amazon, Cisco, etc. that they need to hunker down even
> more in developing extensive patent portfolios and vigorously defending them.
That's a strategy which only really works against someone who builds a product which might infringe on one of their patents. It doesn't do much to prevent exposure to patent trolls, or companies who discover they can make more money from lawsuits than actually building products.
Speaking of irony, it sounds like you actually watched the entire movie... you didn't give anyone actual money for that "privilege", did you?
You'd have to ask them. To me, it seems like the corporate PR equivalent of "yeah, whatever, here's an official statement on some stupid shit we don't think affects us".
The qualifier is "... if legally required". Hate to break it to you, but there's darn near no corporation on the planet which will outright refuse to do something if they're clearly legally required, especially if compliance is cheap. The ones with balls will refuse to do things they're not legally obligated to do, and a few will even refuse to do things which fall into legal grey areas, but otherwise they'll do it. I this case, Twitter hasn't actually done anything except, maybe, compile that list just to ensure they know they could do it if they were asked properly.
Now, that being said, it stands to reason that Twitter will probably ignore any legal requests from inapplicable jurisdictions. This may or may not include the UK. They may also contest requests where they think they might have a strong legal backing (i.e. privacy laws).
> Right now, on newegg, im only seeing USB3.0 on highend
> multi-hundred-dollar motherboards, so it seems to be a wash
> in that regard.
Look harder.
Last week I bought, from Newegg, a MSI 880GMA-E53 for under $100 with USB-3. I was also considering a Gigabyte board for about the same price with USB-3.
> Gnome is supposed to be written to support X Windows.
Well, sure. But it's more than just a GUI. A desktop environment also has hooks into things like device management (USB drives, networking, etc), and there's the whole virtual filesystem thing (gvfs?). The more seamless you try to make the experience, the tighter you might end up binding things to the O/S.
Not that I have an opinion as to whether Linux-only is better or worse for the GNOME project, but there's a lot more to it than just being an X11 application.
> This makes me laugh really hard, because Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
One of the nice things about getting out of Afghanistan is that western countries can stop pretending that the Pakistan government and intelligence services are anything other than a bunch of backstabbing scum who'd hide someone like OBL in their backyard while taking money from their allies.
> There is only one viable exit strategy, leaving that country with a
> functional government with a semblance of law and order.
I firmly agree that would be a better exit strategy. I just don't believe for a second that a functional Afghani government can have what us westerners consider a semblance of law and order. I think we're lucky if we get a choice between a hard-line Islamic state or a kleptocracy of tribal warlords.
> Thinking the death of Bin Laden will change anything is like
> thinking the death of Roosevelt in 1945 meant the end of WW2.
It means the USA can credibly claim "mission accomplished" and get the hell out of Afghanistan. As long as he was still breathing, there was simply no politically viable exit strategy.
> playing devil's advocate I'd have to point out they are
> trying to remove the market for the kiddie porn.
There's probably a bit of truth to this, but I strongly doubt the vast majority of child porn producers/abusers are in it for the money.
> It amazes me that a company as large and established
> as Sony would make such a boneheaded move
Are you kidding? This is Sony. Their corporate mission statement goes beyond "not invented here" to more like "not invented by someone working in my department". Not only am I not surprised that essentially all PSN user accounts got stolen and (apparently) they can't recover from backups, but I'm waiting to see what novel approach Sony takes to make a bad situation even more stupid.
> What I don't understand is why RIM would launch a tablet or any
> mobile device without a calendar, contacts, or an email client.
Maybe they hired a bunch of ex-Palm people...
There's the Android-x86 Project. I had an older build booting off a USB key on my netbook. Quite frankly, all I found it good for was as a reminder that a UI designed for a 3" touch screen is a poor, poor fit for a 9" screen with a trackpad and keyboard.
> ... that's a pretty sad state to be in, given that fact tablets have
> been "the next big thing" for at least a year now.
Well, no.
A sad state is to have been shipping tablet/touch/PDA operating systems on and off for almost 20 years, and suddenly admit you don't have a clue what to do when tablets suddenly take off.
> MS has certainly purchased tech from others and incorporated it into
> their own products over the years but out right copying?
Absolutely. Microsoft is a collection of experts at seeing what things are popular, and incorporating them into their own products. They do it often and they generally do it well. In fact, I'd say their most memorable and spectacular failures have been when they did things they thought were innovation (*cough*Bob*cough*). That's not to say they don't have moments of true innovation, but it's not what we know them for. Indeed, given their emphasis on conservative corporate users real innovation would probably cost them a lot of sales.
I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, nor am I saying it's a good thing. I'm saying it's standard operating procedure in this industry, and it's Microsoft's strong point; with their expertise they'll be a lot better off if they could do it without any fear of patent trolls (or even legitimate patent holders, assuming they exist).
With FOSS, copying is the norm because without a concrete goal like something which already exists, it's incredibly hard to build a community and keep it focused. When copies reach a cough "parity" things tend to turn weird... well, KDE 4 and GNOME 3?
> Don't cry foul when what you wish for come back to take a big bite at your ass
You're forgetting... Microsoft is by far one of the best at copying other peoples ideas, probably even better at it than open source desktop projects. It's part of their corporate genetics or something. If they don't have to worry about patent lawsuits, it opens up entire fields of things they can just outright copy rather than having pretend to partner and/or do complex patent cross-licensing agreements.
Otherwise, they have to actually invent their own new stuff.
I'm not saying pre-Unity multi-head was good by any stretch, but on a scale from 1 to clusterfuck I don't recall it being any worse than a 7.