If I have to give up 15% of my paycheck on research they may or may not be usefull, I would prefer that it go toward whatever is likly to give me the biggest bang per buck.
And how would you know what gives you the biggest bang per buck? In the 1500's how would you know necessarily that studies by Galileo would lead to a man landing on the moon? Scientists don't even know what leads to good information. And that's the point. Science is about discovering something you didn't know before. Pure research leads to knowledge and knowledge is always good (though what you might do with that could be good or bad).
(At one point 15% of the US budget was going toward space reseach, to keep up Russia had 50% of its budjet), 15% gave us a lot of cool techology, and a massive debt. Russia got a ruined economy.
Actually I don't think the russian numbers are correct, because that would leave the other 50% to military research. Plus these are percentages. The Soviet Union was a communist nation where all the wealth was concentrated it the oligarchy. They may have had a lot more money in the government than the US. You'll need more figures to back this up.
Plus, you can't blame space research on causing the debt when it is in fact the US itself which spends 50% of its own budget on national defense. Plus much of the space research and military research cross over so that makes the 15% figure questionable as to its true nature.
See, this doesn't surprise me as news. The article should be taking the complete opposite tack.
For the last 100 years in the US, for example, we've been consumed by consumption. Things have to make money in order to be researched or experimented with and people have to make money to survive. So everyone gets a 9 to 5 job and works their tail off until they go into business for themselves or find some niche that makes them happy that also pays them.
I think the problem is that the over all amount of science and pure research has shrunk in recent years because so many people are concerned about two things:
1) What they think is important rather than what's best for science in general. 2) Money.
I.E. "why should my taxes fund that research? Huh? it might cure disease in 20 years? I don't get it, it must be stupid since I don't understand how that could possibly happen. Now pardon me while I go manage my snack food and oil stock portfolio."
And worse, in the US, so many people have less hobby time than they used to because people are working longer hours in the US.
Scientists of old had more significant hobby time than dop typical US citizens. They also were funded more often by local lords who thought it a status symbol to be funding the local science or art geek. Our national endowments for the arts and sciences inthe US have been gutted as of late because the public feels these funds "unnecessary."
Science and Art lead society. Most americans don't get that, because they are scared of change. So we are stuck with the same music as before, the same stupid non-important drugs, and the same people running the government, and less and less real art and science coming out of this country.
Hopefully, the UK will heed the BBC and turn away from the way the US is running itself into the ground.
Some posts here seem needlessly modded up, only because too many people are concentrating on the fact that the article mentions some "transplant Chimeras." The thrust of the article is to discuss and debate growing human organs inside animals. That is from birth, they have one or more human organs. From the article:
But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially sensitive when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the organ credited with making humans human.
There's plenty to talk about in the article, especially about the history of this type of experimentation. It continues the ideas of growing organs, however, with this:
But what about experiments in which scientists add human stem cells not to an animal embryo but to an animal fetus, which has already made its eggs and sperm? Then the only question is how human a creature one dares to make.
The article is raising the debate, I feel, of organ growing and harvesting. It's also raising the debate of stem cell research again.
In order to go down this road we need more stems cells. And once we have these stem cells, and we grow these animals, what do we do with the animals that they were harvested from? You have the anti-stem cell groups and the anti-animal abuse groups right there on top of you saying this kind of research is wrong and evil.
Plus, the article is kind of calous, when it says this:
But few scientists are eager to do that experiment. The risk, they say, is that some human cells will find their way to the developing testes or ovaries, where they might grow into human sperm and eggs. If two such chimeras - say, mice - were to mate, a human embryo might form, trapped in a mouse.
Not everyone agrees that this would be a terrible result.
"What would be so dreadful?" asked Ann McLaren, a renowned developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge in England. After all, she said, no human embryo could develop successfully in a mouse womb. It would simply die, she told the academy.
It's not that I disagree with Ann's point, but hell if that's the way you spin this situation, those who oppose this kind of research aren't going to change their minds.
My point is that this article does try to subtly alude to the research debate while not actually bringing up the specific points. Many posters just went and agreed with it, but I don't think this attitude is what's going to help this type of research going forward. Being sensitive to the issues it raises will be a much better way to go about it.
"Sorry kid, you don't have the experience to do this job."
"But how do I get experience if you don't hire me?"
For the past 4 years almost every sector has lost jobs, including tech. The job market seems less stingy than before, but for four years, many people haven't even been getting experience, so how can you hire experienced people?
The tech sector seems pretty stupid to me with regards to handling "experience". In manufacturing, you were hired at a plant because you were eager, hard working, and listened to the boss. You got experience while actually working, and people were in it for the long haul. The tech sector expects you to have 10 years experience in 3 year old technologies. I've also seen few decent training programs designed to hire promising college grads and mold them into the type of worker a company wants. Many of those programs died with the bubble, but they need to come back!!
I've seen several posts on this thread talk about "I can't find good qualified workers" but how many of those posters belong to a company who actually tries to bring in new hirees at the entry level and make their own qualified workers? Or do they just expect to fall off the tree that way?
It seems like little more than a rant but hopefully the marketing department for Microsoft picks up on this gem from the article:
"... Waited ****ing years for this game to come out and now can't play it? I've got the damn discs in my hands! It's outrageous! I want it now!"
Only a fool will miss that this is a completely legitamite complaint, which is just caused by more anti-piracy and copyright bullshit. And I say microsoft better pay attention because they were probably the ones who are directing Bungie to make sure this game has as much disabling crap as they can fit into the game.
Now, I'm not going to put up a big fuss about the advantages and disadvantages of any kind of outsourcing, whether you source jobs from india or Tennessee. But I will take exception to several posts here praising the idea of moving to some rural area and getting away from the city.
I'm not following anyone anywhere damnit. I like where I live. My family likes where they live, and damn a CEO to hell if he doesn't have some small sense of true guilt at the pain he would cause my family if we had to move.
Mothers and fathers don't always work at the same company, so if you move one parent, the other must follow, or the first one must quit and find a new position. And kids establish a lot of bonds in the school they go to, and uprooting most kids like that is emotionally distressful, no matter how trivial such things are to adults.
The problem with "outsourcing" is that it's done for only one reason, to cut costs. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's bad. And sometimes it hurts people, and sometime's it doesn't. Change always hurts, but let's get some balance and empathy here in the posts.
Everyone's so excited about this, but this scares me just as much as outsourcing to india. In fact it scares me more, because it's even more tempting and easy for small companies to take advantage of. I don't want to move to the deep south, I hate it there, and I'm presently very pissed at southerners for handing the election to Bush. I'll stay right where I am thank you.
Actually it was my idea. It's a long story but my old registrar decided to go belly up without letting me know ahead of time. Email responses took two weeks to get replies, so instead I decided to find a way around them. Joker gave me some info I didn't know about before and I found my registrar was in fact using another registrar and they were just proxying for registration fees. I went to the real registrar, presented identification, and they gave me all the info and rights I needed to transfer my domain.
Okay, I'm not a huge MP3 hoarder, and never was, but I never really got into MP3s ever because all the audio programs seemed "too cool." It was cool to make an audio player that supported visual features? Why? Back in the days before napster:
Me: Hey, are there any programs that can play these MP3s?
MP3 guru: Are there? d00d! Look at these MP3 players!! This one has awesome support for skins and its skins are cross compatible! Look at all the choices you have to make your MP3 player look cool!
Me: ummmm yea but is it easy to use and will it play my Mp3s?
MP3 guru: and this one supports alpha channeling so it's like L337 n' stuff!
Me: Hello? How does making the player transparent make it work better. Does this audio program even have audio features? And what is L337? Some kind of code to unlock the program? ----
Basically I never got why back in the day so much time was spent on how the player looked vs. how the player worked. Even these days, there are visual features of iTunes (such as that weird psychedelic screensaver thingie that changes shapes while different music is playing) which I just don't get why anyone wants them. I just want to listen to music and I want my software to make sense!
It seemed like MP3 players were designed by the niche and for the niche, until MP3s were no longer a niche.
Why are we promoting the idea of talking about Christmas before Thanksgiving? Perhaps we should stop and think about that for a while, and maybe this should have been posted on black friday instead?
Joker.com is my registrar and they emailed me 3 days ago about the changes, and declared all domains under their service were auto-locked by default!
I had no idea about the regulations until they emailed me first. First they helped me transfer my domain away from a bad registrar, now they help me through new regulations without me lifting a finger.
Buyer beware of other services, but that's why you sign up with a reliable service with good references!:) Now if only I could get this kind of service from my credit card.
Anyone find it ironic that facts or figures or even examples are hard to find validate in this piece? Yet it's written as "this is just obvious fact."
I'd have to admit, It's probably accurate to say most blogs are not journalism. But this article attempts to imply all blogs are not journalism. This is a classic trap in which most americans fall because they are not analytical.
And that's the most important point. Every news story must be evaluated on its facts. Every news organization must be evaluated on their treatment and use of the facts.
This is just yet another smear tactic in a long list of age old smear tactics. The smart people amongst us simply say "shut up and give me some facts already. It's the only way I'll make sense of what your saying. If I get no facts, then I call bullshit, plain and simple."
Unfortunately, no one in the US really cares about facts any more do they? If they did, they would have voted for Howard Dean or that Green Party guy.
Your judging the movie by the title? That's kind of ridiculous. Taxi Driver isn't a very exciting title either, is it?
By the entertainment value of the other pixar movies, I predict The Incredibles and Cars to both be enjoyable. I won't predict that Cars won't take a disney style nose dive the way their movies went after Lion King, but hey, they are fun so far, and have definitely taken children's movies to another level.
Also, the alternate worlds shtick has never worn off. It's nothing new to the children's genre and Pixar by far isn't someone who pioneered it. What matters is the acting, directing, and plot. Is it good and entertaining?
For those Americans who need to start learning it, I am posting the lyrics here to Oh Canada:
The Canadian Anthem
"O Canada" O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise, The True North, strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Refrain O Canada, glorious and free! We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! Where pines and maples grow. Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow. How dear to us thy broad domain, From East to Western Sea, Thou land of hope for all who toil! Thou True North, strong and free!
Refrain O Canada, glorious and free! We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise, To keep thee steadfast through the years From East to Western Sea, Our own beloved native land! Our True North, strong and free!
Refrain O Canada, glorious and free! We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer, Hold our dominion within thy loving care; Help us to find, O God, in thee A lasting, rich reward, As waiting for the Better Day, We ever stand on guard.
Refrain O Canada, glorious and free! We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee. O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
Okay, get off the OS idealogy wagon for a second, and entirely off which hardware is better. Now start thinking about barrier to entry and business models.
Name the OSes that run on x86. Now name the OSes that run on PPC.
Any low level geek can name three, and lots of computer users these days can name three as well, and even more can name two, even if they have contempt for it, be it for reasons they don't understand.
1) Windows 2) Mac OS 3) Linux
Now linux is intimidating for the average user. Most people won't bother to install it. It runs on both, but the cost to entry is too high for the average user. It costs no money, but way too much time.
Now look at the remaining two. One only runs x86, one only runs PPC. For 90% of the populace, the only choice is windows on x86. Most people don't think they have a choice. I'm dealing with more and more people that have problems with computers and bring them to me to fix. I have a way of making windows a little more secure, but that's only because I know and use features and free software which most people don't even know exist. Most require a complete wipe and reinstall.
Now think about a hardware switch to PPC. Intel dies but Dell and the others adapt over 5-10 years. Windows chugs along.
Then there are people like me continuing to reinstall windows in that time.
"Hey, yanno this is the third time you sent this to me. Maybe you should think about another OS. I got a copy of Mac OS X here if you'd like to try it. In my professional opinion its more secure and will save you money and time." No need to buy any new hardware"
And maybe this action won't kill microsoft over night, but it will erode markets share, and microsoft cannot abide eroding market share of any amount.
Okay admit it. How many of you read that as "free homeland security software" and were about ready to burn down sourceforge to find the programmer who created this? Fess up! I know you're out there!
Verizon and Qwest are offering "Naked" DSL offerings. I.E. DSL with no phone required. However, you often need to call into their sales department and ask for it specifically, no online ordering or anything like that. They don't advertise it but at least you can get it.
"Of course, true VoIP will only be possible with a migration to IPv6. There are simply too many phone numbers, which would need an IP address, to use IPv4."
In order to have any range of VoIP services, you need as many IP addresses as your network has. I.E. one. Now I'll admit I'm no expert on VoIP, but routing of VoIP is no different than routing any other data on your network. Most large business have subnets with internal IP addresses which reroute to one hub that goes to the internet. VoIP simply uses existing internet and network technology.
Besides, for home technology, both Verizon and Comcast are already using IPv6. Using my Vonage system, I can have have as many virtual phone numbers as I want, set up multiple devices, such as faxes, with their own numbers, and still only need one IP address.
Okay, I'm missing something here. The article is saying not to blame the software for being bad, but to blame the people who made the software bad? Isn't that by default what any fucking intelligent person does, is blame the ass who made the software? If my car breaks down, I might scream at my car for a bit as therapy, but I ultimately blame the manufacturer for the problem.
they aren't exactly new, but in the race to make the worlds ugliest currency- I think Australia is winning by far.
The harder it is to counterfeit, the better. I don't care what it looks like as long as I can purchase a proper case of beer before the game on Sunday.
One or two posts have already pointed out information on Flash mobs, which Niven has masterfully discussed in some of his works. Granted, his flash mobs required teleportation booths, but still, it's a lesson about technology that's highly important and still applicable here.
What's interesting to me is no one has mentioned Niven's second tier problem with Flash mobs. Niven wrote at least one story about a man who worked as a professional flash mob pick pocket. He'd wait until some event occured that would result in a flash mob, and he's show up, working the crowd.
How long until the criminal element reads Niven and gets the idea?
Okay, you make a good point, but if you think about it, why doesn't "George Bush" bring up the same kind of results? The uses of "President", "George" and "Bush" are used just as much as "Senator," "John," and "Kerry."
The next paragraph partially answers this:
With an occasional exception, Weblogs are generally not found among the Google News results, so Zuckerman had some advice for aspiring political publishers who want to game the search engines: Don't blog -- start an alternative news network. Use terms like George Bush and John Kerry frequently, rather than their last names alone, in both your text and headlines. Publish new works frequently.
While this is a good tactic for news publishers, I have a problem with Google blaming the algorythm and telling people to try to change to match the algorythm. Perhaps the algorythm is flawed? Perhaps there are too many "alternative news networks" spreading nothing but biased coverage (for either side of the campaign). Perhaps weblogs should be included? I'm no media writer but I've seen far more blogs for democratic candidates and their supporters than republicans. Perhaps the republicans create "news networks" because that's a typical republican thing to do?
No news source is perfect but there seem to be some simple answers to fixing any kind of bias here which is more than just a linguistic aberration.
Slashdot Mirror
If I have to give up 15% of my paycheck on research they may or may not be usefull, I would prefer that it go toward whatever is likly to give me the biggest bang per buck.
And how would you know what gives you the biggest bang per buck? In the 1500's how would you know necessarily that studies by Galileo would lead to a man landing on the moon? Scientists don't even know what leads to good information. And that's the point. Science is about discovering something you didn't know before. Pure research leads to knowledge and knowledge is always good (though what you might do with that could be good or bad).
(At one point 15% of the US budget was going toward space reseach, to keep up Russia had 50% of its budjet), 15% gave us a lot of cool techology, and a massive debt. Russia got a ruined economy.
Actually I don't think the russian numbers are correct, because that would leave the other 50% to military research. Plus these are percentages. The Soviet Union was a communist nation where all the wealth was concentrated it the oligarchy. They may have had a lot more money in the government than the US. You'll need more figures to back this up.
Plus, you can't blame space research on causing the debt when it is in fact the US itself which spends 50% of its own budget on national defense. Plus much of the space research and military research cross over so that makes the 15% figure questionable as to its true nature.
See, this doesn't surprise me as news. The article should be taking the complete opposite tack.
For the last 100 years in the US, for example, we've been consumed by consumption. Things have to make money in order to be researched or experimented with and people have to make money to survive. So everyone gets a 9 to 5 job and works their tail off until they go into business for themselves or find some niche that makes them happy that also pays them.
I think the problem is that the over all amount of science and pure research has shrunk in recent years because so many people are concerned about two things:
1) What they think is important rather than what's best for science in general.
2) Money.
I.E. "why should my taxes fund that research? Huh? it might cure disease in 20 years? I don't get it, it must be stupid since I don't understand how that could possibly happen. Now pardon me while I go manage my snack food and oil stock portfolio."
And worse, in the US, so many people have less hobby time than they used to because people are working longer hours in the US.
Scientists of old had more significant hobby time than dop typical US citizens. They also were funded more often by local lords who thought it a status symbol to be funding the local science or art geek. Our national endowments for the arts and sciences inthe US have been gutted as of late because the public feels these funds "unnecessary."
Science and Art lead society. Most americans don't get that, because they are scared of change. So we are stuck with the same music as before, the same stupid non-important drugs, and the same people running the government, and less and less real art and science coming out of this country.
Hopefully, the UK will heed the BBC and turn away from the way the US is running itself into the ground.
Some posts here seem needlessly modded up, only because too many people are concentrating on the fact that the article mentions some "transplant Chimeras." The thrust of the article is to discuss and debate growing human organs inside animals. That is from birth, they have one or more human organs. From the article:
But chimerism becomes a more sensitive topic when it involves growing entire human organs inside animals. And it becomes especially sensitive when it deals in brain cells, the building blocks of the organ credited with making humans human.
There's plenty to talk about in the article, especially about the history of this type of experimentation. It continues the ideas of growing organs, however, with this:
But what about experiments in which scientists add human stem cells not to an animal embryo but to an animal fetus, which has already made its eggs and sperm? Then the only question is how human a creature one dares to make.
The article is raising the debate, I feel, of organ growing and harvesting. It's also raising the debate of stem cell research again.
In order to go down this road we need more stems cells. And once we have these stem cells, and we grow these animals, what do we do with the animals that they were harvested from? You have the anti-stem cell groups and the anti-animal abuse groups right there on top of you saying this kind of research is wrong and evil.
Plus, the article is kind of calous, when it says this:
But few scientists are eager to do that experiment. The risk, they say, is that some human cells will find their way to the developing testes or ovaries, where they might grow into human sperm and eggs. If two such chimeras - say, mice - were to mate, a human embryo might form, trapped in a mouse.
Not everyone agrees that this would be a terrible result.
"What would be so dreadful?" asked Ann McLaren, a renowned developmental biologist at the University of Cambridge in England. After all, she said, no human embryo could develop successfully in a mouse womb. It would simply die, she told the academy.
It's not that I disagree with Ann's point, but hell if that's the way you spin this situation, those who oppose this kind of research aren't going to change their minds.
My point is that this article does try to subtly alude to the research debate while not actually bringing up the specific points. Many posters just went and agreed with it, but I don't think this attitude is what's going to help this type of research going forward. Being sensitive to the issues it raises will be a much better way to go about it.
The guy has a nasty bacterial infection and is still trying to perform Slackware updates?
I get the flu and I can barely stand to surf the web or chat on IRC! Hopefully, he will live into old age and share this story with his grandkids...
"When I was your age, I was compiling code by hand, with a lung infection, uphill, in the snow! You linux programmers have it easy these days!"
Good luck man, I'm pulling for you.
You know the catch-22 when getting a job:
"Sorry kid, you don't have the experience to do this job."
"But how do I get experience if you don't hire me?"
For the past 4 years almost every sector has lost jobs, including tech. The job market seems less stingy than before, but for four years, many people haven't even been getting experience, so how can you hire experienced people?
The tech sector seems pretty stupid to me with regards to handling "experience". In manufacturing, you were hired at a plant because you were eager, hard working, and listened to the boss. You got experience while actually working, and people were in it for the long haul. The tech sector expects you to have 10 years experience in 3 year old technologies. I've also seen few decent training programs designed to hire promising college grads and mold them into the type of worker a company wants. Many of those programs died with the bubble, but they need to come back!!
I've seen several posts on this thread talk about "I can't find good qualified workers" but how many of those posters belong to a company who actually tries to bring in new hirees at the entry level and make their own qualified workers? Or do they just expect to fall off the tree that way?
It seems like little more than a rant but hopefully the marketing department for Microsoft picks up on this gem from the article:
"... Waited ****ing years for this game to come out and now can't play it? I've got the damn discs in my hands! It's outrageous! I want it now!"
Only a fool will miss that this is a completely legitamite complaint, which is just caused by more anti-piracy and copyright bullshit. And I say microsoft better pay attention because they were probably the ones who are directing Bungie to make sure this game has as much disabling crap as they can fit into the game.
Now, I'm not going to put up a big fuss about the advantages and disadvantages of any kind of outsourcing, whether you source jobs from india or Tennessee. But I will take exception to several posts here praising the idea of moving to some rural area and getting away from the city.
I'm not following anyone anywhere damnit. I like where I live. My family likes where they live, and damn a CEO to hell if he doesn't have some small sense of true guilt at the pain he would cause my family if we had to move.
Mothers and fathers don't always work at the same company, so if you move one parent, the other must follow, or the first one must quit and find a new position. And kids establish a lot of bonds in the school they go to, and uprooting most kids like that is emotionally distressful, no matter how trivial such things are to adults.
The problem with "outsourcing" is that it's done for only one reason, to cut costs. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's bad. And sometimes it hurts people, and sometime's it doesn't. Change always hurts, but let's get some balance and empathy here in the posts.
Everyone's so excited about this, but this scares me just as much as outsourcing to india. In fact it scares me more, because it's even more tempting and easy for small companies to take advantage of. I don't want to move to the deep south, I hate it there, and I'm presently very pissed at southerners for handing the election to Bush. I'll stay right where I am thank you.
Actually it was my idea. It's a long story but my old registrar decided to go belly up without letting me know ahead of time. Email responses took two weeks to get replies, so instead I decided to find a way around them. Joker gave me some info I didn't know about before and I found my registrar was in fact using another registrar and they were just proxying for registration fees. I went to the real registrar, presented identification, and they gave me all the info and rights I needed to transfer my domain.
Okay, I'm not a huge MP3 hoarder, and never was, but I never really got into MP3s ever because all the audio programs seemed "too cool." It was cool to make an audio player that supported visual features? Why? Back in the days before napster:
Me: Hey, are there any programs that can play these MP3s?
MP3 guru: Are there? d00d! Look at these MP3 players!! This one has awesome support for skins and its skins are cross compatible! Look at all the choices you have to make your MP3 player look cool!
Me: ummmm yea but is it easy to use and will it play my Mp3s?
MP3 guru: and this one supports alpha channeling so it's like L337 n' stuff!
Me: Hello? How does making the player transparent make it work better. Does this audio program even have audio features? And what is L337? Some kind of code to unlock the program?
----
Basically I never got why back in the day so much time was spent on how the player looked vs. how the player worked. Even these days, there are visual features of iTunes (such as that weird psychedelic screensaver thingie that changes shapes while different music is playing) which I just don't get why anyone wants them. I just want to listen to music and I want my software to make sense!
It seemed like MP3 players were designed by the niche and for the niche, until MP3s were no longer a niche.
Why are we promoting the idea of talking about Christmas before Thanksgiving? Perhaps we should stop and think about that for a while, and maybe this should have been posted on black friday instead?
Joker.com is my registrar and they emailed me 3 days ago about the changes, and declared all domains under their service were auto-locked by default!
:) Now if only I could get this kind of service from my credit card.
I had no idea about the regulations until they emailed me first. First they helped me transfer my domain away from a bad registrar, now they help me through new regulations without me lifting a finger.
Buyer beware of other services, but that's why you sign up with a reliable service with good references!
Anyone find it ironic that facts or figures or even examples are hard to find validate in this piece? Yet it's written as "this is just obvious fact."
I'd have to admit, It's probably accurate to say most blogs are not journalism. But this article attempts to imply all blogs are not journalism. This is a classic trap in which most americans fall because they are not analytical.
And that's the most important point. Every news story must be evaluated on its facts. Every news organization must be evaluated on their treatment and use of the facts.
This is just yet another smear tactic in a long list of age old smear tactics. The smart people amongst us simply say "shut up and give me some facts already. It's the only way I'll make sense of what your saying. If I get no facts, then I call bullshit, plain and simple."
Unfortunately, no one in the US really cares about facts any more do they? If they did, they would have voted for Howard Dean or that Green Party guy.
That august 27th date didn't give it away did it?
Your a little behind the curve, pretty off topic, and very pointless.
Your judging the movie by the title? That's kind of ridiculous. Taxi Driver isn't a very exciting title either, is it?
By the entertainment value of the other pixar movies, I predict The Incredibles and Cars to both be enjoyable. I won't predict that Cars won't take a disney style nose dive the way their movies went after Lion King, but hey, they are fun so far, and have definitely taken children's movies to another level.
Also, the alternate worlds shtick has never worn off. It's nothing new to the children's genre and Pixar by far isn't someone who pioneered it. What matters is the acting, directing, and plot. Is it good and entertaining?
For those Americans who need to start learning it, I am posting the lyrics here to Oh Canada:
The Canadian Anthem
"O Canada"
O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North, strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Refrain
O Canada, glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! Where pines and maples grow.
Great prairies spread and lordly rivers flow.
How dear to us thy broad domain,
From East to Western Sea,
Thou land of hope for all who toil!
Thou True North, strong and free!
Refrain
O Canada, glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
O Canada! Beneath thy shining skies
May stalwart sons and gentle maidens rise,
To keep thee steadfast through the years
From East to Western Sea,
Our own beloved native land!
Our True North, strong and free!
Refrain
O Canada, glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
Ruler supreme, who hearest humble prayer,
Hold our dominion within thy loving care;
Help us to find, O God, in thee
A lasting, rich reward,
As waiting for the Better Day,
We ever stand on guard.
Refrain
O Canada, glorious and free!
We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee!
Okay, get off the OS idealogy wagon for a second, and entirely off which hardware is better. Now start thinking about barrier to entry and business models.
Name the OSes that run on x86. Now name the OSes that run on PPC.
Any low level geek can name three, and lots of computer users these days can name three as well, and even more can name two, even if they have contempt for it, be it for reasons they don't understand.
1) Windows
2) Mac OS
3) Linux
Now linux is intimidating for the average user. Most people won't bother to install it. It runs on both, but the cost to entry is too high for the average user. It costs no money, but way too much time.
Now look at the remaining two. One only runs x86, one only runs PPC. For 90% of the populace, the only choice is windows on x86. Most people don't think they have a choice. I'm dealing with more and more people that have problems with computers and bring them to me to fix. I have a way of making windows a little more secure, but that's only because I know and use features and free software which most people don't even know exist. Most require a complete wipe and reinstall.
Now think about a hardware switch to PPC. Intel dies but Dell and the others adapt over 5-10 years. Windows chugs along.
Then there are people like me continuing to reinstall windows in that time.
"Hey, yanno this is the third time you sent this to me. Maybe you should think about another OS. I got a copy of Mac OS X here if you'd like to try it. In my professional opinion its more secure and will save you money and time." No need to buy any new hardware"
And maybe this action won't kill microsoft over night, but it will erode markets share, and microsoft cannot abide eroding market share of any amount.
Okay admit it. How many of you read that as "free homeland security software" and were about ready to burn down sourceforge to find the programmer who created this? Fess up! I know you're out there!
Away put your pitchforks and torches!
*perk* Supersized?? If by that you mean well endowed, then *Schwing*!! Woo hoo!
No this is not a pr0n comment.
Verizon and Qwest are offering "Naked" DSL offerings. I.E. DSL with no phone required. However, you often need to call into their sales department and ask for it specifically, no online ordering or anything like that. They don't advertise it but at least you can get it.
This statement makes no sense:
"Of course, true VoIP will only be possible with a migration to IPv6. There are simply too many phone numbers, which would need an IP address, to use IPv4."
In order to have any range of VoIP services, you need as many IP addresses as your network has. I.E. one. Now I'll admit I'm no expert on VoIP, but routing of VoIP is no different than routing any other data on your network. Most large business have subnets with internal IP addresses which reroute to one hub that goes to the internet. VoIP simply uses existing internet and network technology.
Besides, for home technology, both Verizon and Comcast are already using IPv6. Using my Vonage system, I can have have as many virtual phone numbers as I want, set up multiple devices, such as faxes, with their own numbers, and still only need one IP address.
Okay, I'm missing something here. The article is saying not to blame the software for being bad, but to blame the people who made the software bad? Isn't that by default what any fucking intelligent person does, is blame the ass who made the software? If my car breaks down, I might scream at my car for a bit as therapy, but I ultimately blame the manufacturer for the problem.
Or maybe I'm not any fucking intelligent.
they aren't exactly new, but in the race to make the worlds ugliest currency- I think Australia is winning by far.
The harder it is to counterfeit, the better. I don't care what it looks like as long as I can purchase a proper case of beer before the game on Sunday.
One or two posts have already pointed out information on Flash mobs, which Niven has masterfully discussed in some of his works. Granted, his flash mobs required teleportation booths, but still, it's a lesson about technology that's highly important and still applicable here.
What's interesting to me is no one has mentioned Niven's second tier problem with Flash mobs. Niven wrote at least one story about a man who worked as a professional flash mob pick pocket. He'd wait until some event occured that would result in a flash mob, and he's show up, working the crowd.
How long until the criminal element reads Niven and gets the idea?
Okay, you make a good point, but if you think about it, why doesn't "George Bush" bring up the same kind of results? The uses of "President", "George" and "Bush" are used just as much as "Senator," "John," and "Kerry."
The next paragraph partially answers this:
With an occasional exception, Weblogs are generally not found among the Google News results, so Zuckerman had some advice for aspiring political publishers who want to game the search engines: Don't blog -- start an alternative news network. Use terms like George Bush and John Kerry frequently, rather than their last names alone, in both your text and headlines. Publish new works frequently.
While this is a good tactic for news publishers, I have a problem with Google blaming the algorythm and telling people to try to change to match the algorythm. Perhaps the algorythm is flawed? Perhaps there are too many "alternative news networks" spreading nothing but biased coverage (for either side of the campaign). Perhaps weblogs should be included? I'm no media writer but I've seen far more blogs for democratic candidates and their supporters than republicans. Perhaps the republicans create "news networks" because that's a typical republican thing to do?
No news source is perfect but there seem to be some simple answers to fixing any kind of bias here which is more than just a linguistic aberration.
There are LAWS to prevent that, dude.
Your talking about American laws right? Those tough and strict gambling laws ensuring every gambling game is on the up and up?
Pardon me while I contact my Albanian, Chinese, and Nigerian contacts and we all have a good laugh at your expense.