I suspect that these kind of things have a less obvious purpose - as marketing tools to justify military spending.
Take NASA, for instance, people didn't mind huge amounts being spent on it when there was something exciting and heroic to see - such as landing on the moon. As soon as the job became routine and much more practical, no one was interested and they got their funding cut.
If the military regularly rolls out these futuristic and legitimately expensive pieces of kit - then the public interest is maintained and so is the funding.
It also forces (allows) foreign powers to (happily) up their game and raise the stakes further - giving further justification for more spending.
They tried that at Heathrow, but they found that the baggage area became quickly infested with level 4 trolls, a small army of Orcs had set up camp in the ladies toilets and a level 12 necromancer took over the computer system.
I would have preferred to buy the Linux version of this machine, but couldn't get it here at Big Camera. So the Windows version was more of a second choice. No proper command line but, anyway, I dont regret it. Why not just install Linux on it? Puppeee and/or eeeXubuntu both work great. And with SquashFS/UnionFS you end up with plenty of disk space.
intentionally design an OS that works better on a less powerful computer They'd already tried intentionally designing one that works worse on a more powerful computer.
A recent experience demonstrated to me a salutary lesson in how this works.
I would consider myself pretty savvy in respect of spam/viruses etc, but recently I started working on a blog - and I'm sure as you all know there are blog spams out there. Well I didn't know that - why would I?! It's not something I had any dealings with - and you never see them on other blogs, because they get moderated out.
Now, I'm get 2-3 of these things a day and I just mark them as spam, no problem. But I have to say the first one had me good. It was a very vague comment on the blog, and I'm trying to promote my site from a marketing point of view. If someone seems unclear - standard marketing insists that you clarify the situation for them. And this appealed to my sense of "Cool! Someone's interested in my blog" - another victim of human frailty.
Now, I was tempted to reply to their e-mail address - but I didn't and replied through the comments on the site instead. Thing is though, the reason I didn't reply was not because I was worried about the malware effects but because I wasn't too sure what the procedure for dealing with comments was and I didn't want to offend my potential new customer and/or look stupid.
So alls I'm saying, it's people who are novices in areas (as everyone is at some stage) who click on these things. And given that there are 100s of millions of new PCs sold annually, literally there is one born every minute, or more accurately every second.
I would imagine that the exclusion would follow standard public procurement procedures within the EU, whereby Microsoft would be excluded from applying for public tenders because they weren't compliant with existing regulations.
Where they are already in place, they would not need to apply for tenders. If new departments etc came into existence, then they could use other presentation software and would have budgets for training etc.
So basically Microsoft wouldn't be able to grow their existing base, until they sorted out their compliance. But current users of their software would be unaffected.
By definition, not one word of "critical assessment" has been carried out on theories that have not yet been postulated. You can provide a library of congress of books criticizing all the theories ever suggested about god etc, and it is all worthless in respect of a new theory that comes out tomorrow.
That new theory may be rubbish - but it cannot be rejected without scrutiny.
The system you describe uses terms such as 'basis for believing', 'presume', 'pending', 'probably false'. These are not terms that are concordant with the scientific method. You have made a valid hypothesis (and a sensible one at that), but you have not tested or demonstrated it in any way - and hence you have drawn your conclusion based on no evidence.
Philosophically, I think you are 100% correct, but scientifically the best you can say is that there is no evidence for gods etc (and so religion should receive no recognition or support from a rational society) - but that's all.
A scientific theory is a theory which conforms to very strict rules. A theory in general does not.
My objection to Dawkins principles is that he suggests that all theories of god should be rejected without any critical assessment. So if a theory of god appears tomorrow which conforms to scientific principles (I'm not saying it will - I am merely hypothesizing) then we must reject it because it refers to supernatural beings. I'm sorry but that lacks the plain objectivity of the scientific mind.
Should we fund 'ridiculous' theories about god, should churches have a say in the running of the country or should religion be taught in schools science? Unless they are proven, then I agree with Richard Dawkins, absolutely not.
However, they should always be entitled to the first hearing in the court of science. Which means I cannot rule absolutely against them as a scientist and therefore can claim omniscience as to their future validity. And we can't tell theists that they are wrong merely because their current theories are nonsensical.
That doesn't mean I don't firmly believe they will always be wrong - but that's my opinion not a scientific fact.
His early books were great, they were all about science and how you didn't really need god or fairies or any of that nonsense - and you would say 'Oh yeah' I see where you are going with that, that's really cool.
His latest book (the god delusion) seems to be just an invective against people who believe in god and I didn't like it.
I find he is becoming more a self-appointed spokesman for atheists (a priest, if you will) - and is presenting just the one point of view (dogma), in exactly the same way the various churches do.
In fact, as scientist, I find atheism in general to be more and more repulsive to scientific thinking - in that it rejects without proof any possibility of gods, fairies etc rather than just rejecting the theories as unproven - I suppose that makes me an agnostic now. Oh well.
Under Data Protection Legislation I can go to Google's (etc) offices and for a small fee they are required to provide me with every piece of information that they have on me, and if any of it is incorrect they must correct it.
It is not the state controlling access - it is the state, acting on my behalf, to ensure that large organizations (including the state itself) are not entitled to use my personal information against me. If you are not covered by such protection then anyone can use your information to do you untold damage and there is nothing you can do about it.
Because the Olympics are being hosted in China, it is an opportunity to exert massive pressure on the Chinese government to reform. We are seeing day in, day out reports of how China is being forced to act differently because of the spotlight that is being placed on them. This Wikipedia move is just one, as is the uncomfortable pressure that Tibet is now capable of putting on the Chinese.
China is quickly becoming one of the leading powers in the world - getting to a point where they won't care what you think. If change is to come, it needs to be now - but not through aggressive moves.
Boycotting the Olympics will effectively eliminate whatever chance there is of encouraging change.
You will of course be able to sit smugly and claim a blow for 'freedom and democracy' - but the cost will be immeasurable and you will have changed nothing.
The ethos of the Linux development community is simple: a reasonably solid engineered kernel tightly controlled by the originators, with a totally open API (credit goes elsewhere) so that anyone can develop anything they want.
Result: A solid secure system - with such a broad and esoteric collection of application that make it appear to the unscrupulous eye as 'user unfrielndly'. In reality the full range of applications is only really used by geeks (not computer geeks) in specific areas, while the core applications (such as firefox, gimp, openoffice to name a few - along with gnome and kde) are very user friendly. Which pretty much matches the ethos.
Most Windows users I know are afraid to try anything different, and would rather stick to a broken Windows than risk a real solution to their problems; which to my mind are generally to do with viruses and spyware. The consequent effect of this is that they are forever seeking better way to patch over the holes letting these nastys in rather than ensuring that they are fundamentally protected.
It seems that this mindset is reflected within Microsoft's development policy.
...but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows Sure Vista does that now.
I seem to remember Vista was supposed to be a huge departure from what was done before - and then reality hit.
The mistake they are making (will make) is that that they think their software is what is broken - when in fact the software is just a representation of the business model they have chosen. Their system design is market driven not engineering driven - and whatever they produce from this point on will be the same as all the others. Windows, OSX, Linux, Unix etc are all products of the ethos in the organizations in which they are created.
If the mould is defective, there's no point is making a second one in the hope that it will turn out differently.
...especially with the loose application of proper units.
Please try this exercise (dedicated/.ers are, of course, excused as usual from this and all other forms of exercise):
1. Touch your index finger and your thumb together. 2. Hold the assembly up to your eye (close your other one). 3. Now slowly separate the two until you can see through to the other side.
Anything that fits in the resulting gap is, by definition, "Teeny Tiny" - anything else is not! 15 miles is most certainly not - 15 miles is "Feckin' Jaysus! Where does this bastard live anyway?"
C'mon lads let's raise the bar a little here - we're not creationists.
Slashdot Mirror
People's Fries.
I suspect that these kind of things have a less obvious purpose - as marketing tools to justify military spending.
Take NASA, for instance, people didn't mind huge amounts being spent on it when there was something exciting and heroic to see - such as landing on the moon. As soon as the job became routine and much more practical, no one was interested and they got their funding cut.
If the military regularly rolls out these futuristic and legitimately expensive pieces of kit - then the public interest is maintained and so is the funding.
It also forces (allows) foreign powers to (happily) up their game and raise the stakes further - giving further justification for more spending.
They tried that at Heathrow, but they found that the baggage area became quickly infested with level 4 trolls, a small army of Orcs had set up camp in the ladies toilets and a level 12 necromancer took over the computer system.
With the giant mutant anemones and sponges with teeth and the crushing and the laser eyes!
.... and mutant.
To people of Japan, your cities are no longer safe. Run for your lives. The coral is back, and this time it's pissed
I saw a post the other day pointing out that Asus were not evangelizing Linux - it just happened to be the best O/S for their needs.
Well you could've fooled me. They're doing a better job than those that are doing it deliberately. 20G vs 12G, sweet.
This just in: Kindergarten kid corrects 13 year old student's earlier correction of NASA calculation.
Chance of impact now 1 in 4.
Toddler's have be banned from using calculators for fear they will doom us all.
Doom Us All, I tells ya!
That hasn't worked out too good though.
Eee doesn't have a CD drive.
A recent experience demonstrated to me a salutary lesson in how this works.
I would consider myself pretty savvy in respect of spam/viruses etc, but recently I started working on a blog - and I'm sure as you all know there are blog spams out there. Well I didn't know that - why would I?! It's not something I had any dealings with - and you never see them on other blogs, because they get moderated out.
Now, I'm get 2-3 of these things a day and I just mark them as spam, no problem. But I have to say the first one had me good. It was a very vague comment on the blog, and I'm trying to promote my site from a marketing point of view. If someone seems unclear - standard marketing insists that you clarify the situation for them. And this appealed to my sense of "Cool! Someone's interested in my blog" - another victim of human frailty.
Now, I was tempted to reply to their e-mail address - but I didn't and replied through the comments on the site instead. Thing is though, the reason I didn't reply was not because I was worried about the malware effects but because I wasn't too sure what the procedure for dealing with comments was and I didn't want to offend my potential new customer and/or look stupid.
So alls I'm saying, it's people who are novices in areas (as everyone is at some stage) who click on these things. And given that there are 100s of millions of new PCs sold annually, literally there is one born every minute, or more accurately every second.
I would imagine that the exclusion would follow standard public procurement procedures within the EU, whereby Microsoft would be excluded from applying for public tenders because they weren't compliant with existing regulations.
Where they are already in place, they would not need to apply for tenders. If new departments etc came into existence, then they could use other presentation software and would have budgets for training etc.
So basically Microsoft wouldn't be able to grow their existing base, until they sorted out their compliance. But current users of their software would be unaffected.
By definition, not one word of "critical assessment" has been carried out on theories that have not yet been postulated. You can provide a library of congress of books criticizing all the theories ever suggested about god etc, and it is all worthless in respect of a new theory that comes out tomorrow.
That new theory may be rubbish - but it cannot be rejected without scrutiny.
The system you describe uses terms such as 'basis for believing', 'presume', 'pending', 'probably false'. These are not terms that are concordant with the scientific method. You have made a valid hypothesis (and a sensible one at that), but you have not tested or demonstrated it in any way - and hence you have drawn your conclusion based on no evidence.
Philosophically, I think you are 100% correct, but scientifically the best you can say is that there is no evidence for gods etc (and so religion should receive no recognition or support from a rational society) - but that's all.
1. A scientific theory - yes.
2. A theory - no.
A scientific theory is a theory which conforms to very strict rules. A theory in general does not.
My objection to Dawkins principles is that he suggests that all theories of god should be rejected without any critical assessment. So if a theory of god appears tomorrow which conforms to scientific principles (I'm not saying it will - I am merely hypothesizing) then we must reject it because it refers to supernatural beings. I'm sorry but that lacks the plain objectivity of the scientific mind.
Should we fund 'ridiculous' theories about god, should churches have a say in the running of the country or should religion be taught in schools science? Unless they are proven, then I agree with Richard Dawkins, absolutely not.
However, they should always be entitled to the first hearing in the court of science. Which means I cannot rule absolutely against them as a scientist and therefore can claim omniscience as to their future validity. And we can't tell theists that they are wrong merely because their current theories are nonsensical.
That doesn't mean I don't firmly believe they will always be wrong - but that's my opinion not a scientific fact.
That sounds like a challenge: http://slashdot.org/~PinkyDead/journal/200376
I used to but I don't any more.
His early books were great, they were all about science and how you didn't really need god or fairies or any of that nonsense - and you would say 'Oh yeah' I see where you are going with that, that's really cool.
His latest book (the god delusion) seems to be just an invective against people who believe in god and I didn't like it.
I find he is becoming more a self-appointed spokesman for atheists (a priest, if you will) - and is presenting just the one point of view (dogma), in exactly the same way the various churches do.
In fact, as scientist, I find atheism in general to be more and more repulsive to scientific thinking - in that it rejects without proof any possibility of gods, fairies etc rather than just rejecting the theories as unproven - I suppose that makes me an agnostic now. Oh well.
Under Data Protection Legislation I can go to Google's (etc) offices and for a small fee they are required to provide me with every piece of information that they have on me, and if any of it is incorrect they must correct it.
It is not the state controlling access - it is the state, acting on my behalf, to ensure that large organizations (including the state itself) are not entitled to use my personal information against me. If you are not covered by such protection then anyone can use your information to do you untold damage and there is nothing you can do about it.
There is an alternative list: The 10 Cool Gadgets you can get here (maybe).
I just don't get this shipping restriction nonsense - either you want to sell your products or you don't.
Because the Olympics are being hosted in China, it is an opportunity to exert massive pressure on the Chinese government to reform. We are seeing day in, day out reports of how China is being forced to act differently because of the spotlight that is being placed on them. This Wikipedia move is just one, as is the uncomfortable pressure that Tibet is now capable of putting on the Chinese.
China is quickly becoming one of the leading powers in the world - getting to a point where they won't care what you think. If change is to come, it needs to be now - but not through aggressive moves.
Boycotting the Olympics will effectively eliminate whatever chance there is of encouraging change.
You will of course be able to sit smugly and claim a blow for 'freedom and democracy' - but the cost will be immeasurable and you will have changed nothing.
The ethos of the Linux development community is simple: a reasonably solid engineered kernel tightly controlled by the originators, with a totally open API (credit goes elsewhere) so that anyone can develop anything they want.
Result: A solid secure system - with such a broad and esoteric collection of application that make it appear to the unscrupulous eye as 'user unfrielndly'. In reality the full range of applications is only really used by geeks (not computer geeks) in specific areas, while the core applications (such as firefox, gimp, openoffice to name a few - along with gnome and kde) are very user friendly. Which pretty much matches the ethos.
Most Windows users I know are afraid to try anything different, and would rather stick to a broken Windows than risk a real solution to their problems; which to my mind are generally to do with viruses and spyware. The consequent effect of this is that they are forever seeking better way to patch over the holes letting these nastys in rather than ensuring that they are fundamentally protected.
It seems that this mindset is reflected within Microsoft's development policy.
...but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows Sure Vista does that now.I seem to remember Vista was supposed to be a huge departure from what was done before - and then reality hit.
The mistake they are making (will make) is that that they think their software is what is broken - when in fact the software is just a representation of the business model they have chosen. Their system design is market driven not engineering driven - and whatever they produce from this point on will be the same as all the others. Windows, OSX, Linux, Unix etc are all products of the ethos in the organizations in which they are created.
If the mould is defective, there's no point is making a second one in the hope that it will turn out differently.
...never one when you need one - then three come along all at once.
..it's just a simple trick.
That's OOXML for you.
You were warned - but no, you knew better. I have no sympa<formatLikeWord95> D'oh!
...especially with the loose application of proper units.
/.ers are, of course, excused as usual from this and all other forms of exercise):
Please try this exercise (dedicated
1. Touch your index finger and your thumb together.
2. Hold the assembly up to your eye (close your other one).
3. Now slowly separate the two until you can see through to the other side.
Anything that fits in the resulting gap is, by definition, "Teeny Tiny" - anything else is not! 15 miles is most certainly not - 15 miles is "Feckin' Jaysus! Where does this bastard live anyway?"
C'mon lads let's raise the bar a little here - we're not creationists.