I often wonder, is it possible that the black holes out there in space were lab-based experiments into black holes by some alien race that went horribly wrong?
It's all about trust - of course, you trust you family members, and you're dead right to. But what about strangers - that's why you can building codes, and licensed professionals.
Sure wasn't My Cousin Vinny the best defense attorney ever.
The whole point of professional degrees is so that you know who you are dealing with and that if that person doesn't deal professionally with you then there is a comeback.
If you were sick, you wouldn't trust you life to someone who assured you that they knew everything about perscription drugs but weren't actually a Doctor - would you?
I work for the RIAA and I'm trying to patent someone elses method that uses Intelligent Design to prove that Linux sucks. What software should I install on my Windows PC to do this?
Did I mention that I fully support the merging of the European Union and the United Nations as a division of ICANN?
You're right, of course about personal usage and business usage.
But another hugely significant factor is Government/Public Sector usage. Most Governments see themselves as in it for the long term - maybe not in the form of the current administration, or even the current socioeconomic model - however, even through major changes the survival of the information is paramount. Even to the extent of a ridiculous waste of resources.
To this end, they will probably see (e.g.) Microsoft as a threat to their knowledge base - envisioning that their bureaucratic empires will long see off the demise of such structures (they have a point, as most bureaucracies are far older than any other organisation currently in existance). For this reason we are seeing more and more public sector organisations leaning towards open standards (the most prominent example of late being Massachusetts).
It is worth remembering the importance of public sector contracts to the world's economies - they have a lot of influence.
Some time after the fall of the Soviet Union, I had the pleasure of travelling on a Yugoslavian passenger ship. One of the crew was the designated Political Officer - strangest thing - he was just there to make sure the crew didn't say the wrong thing to the western tourists. He was really nice bloke, and well able to throw back a pint but it just seemed a little strange.
Obviously, this is just an 'interesting' travel anecdote - and has nothing to with anything here.
At the moment there is a lot of grey area with copyright and the internet (IANAL) - which is why 'legal' music sites like allofmp3.com have disclaimers regarding local laws rather than concrete advice. In my own local jurisdiction the law appears to be clear about importing copyrighted material (and it's quite similiar in most other places) - i.e it's ok for personal/domestic use.
When the rights organisations test these laws the outcome might not be the one they want - and it will send a message to the mainstream users, who up to this point have been terrorised into not downloading music, that it is actually safe to do so.
They are playing with fire - and their time would be far better served coming up with a better business model than trying to defend an outdated one.
...and the strange thing is that Microsoft also happy to promote the dichtomoy that when other operating systems fail on the same hardware, that it is in fact the OS that is at fault and not the hardware.
To be fair the average user is so ignorant of what they use that it's an easy image to promote. I know plenty of people who believe that Windows is the technical term for a word processor and others who only buy computers made by Microsoft. Now that's ingrained.
I think the 'at worst' is not correct, though. At worst, others will fear (not the same as respect) or hate you. Neither of which are good things.
Isolationism is not a good policy. It results in polar, self-interested views of the world, it allows politicians to look past the individuals to the 'greater need' and finds historians talking about the benefit of hindsight - truths that America woke up to before, one December morning in 1942.
Surely, if there is a 'shortage of good technologists' then salaries would naturally tend to rise anyway.
And if they're not, is it not the case that the same CIOs who are beating their breast at the continued lack of qualified staff, are using bogeymen such as outsourcing and offshoring to repress demands for higher salaries from the qualified staff that they already have? [Now that's a rhetorical question!]
If you haven't read it - the 80/20 principal is a fascinating book. And one of the conclusions that Koch came to was that capital investors are every day living in great fear that tech innovators, especially in the software development industry will all come to realise that capital investment really isn't the cornerstone of the start-up the way it used to be (like when building cotton raddling factories etc).
I don't think we are going to see the death throes of the VCs just yet - but there is a certain 'writing on the wall', of which this kind of thing is indicative.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at who he gives it to.
Captain Kirk lands on some rock somewhere and, for no reason at all, there are loads of beautiful women - they are actually ugly rock monsters, but when we see them they are all out of focus and the music in the background is kind of 'wu-oo-hu-woo'.
Ok, music doesn't really translate into english very well - sue me!
Here's a test - when you are looking at the hot females, if you hear wu-oo-hu-woo music and their faces are slightly blurry - then they might not be that hot.
Or maybe it's the other way round, or maybe your just on Talos IV, or you could be drunk.
Ok, initially I see the whole thing with Bin Laden dipping his toe in the Black Sea for his early morning swim and then getting eaten by one of these things - munchity crunchity.
But then....
Other countries are gonna want them and these things aren't like Nuclear submarines - if you blow one out of the water it's not going to spark off an international incident or anything. So it will be a real you ate my shark so I'm going to eat yours. At which point it will probably become an Olympic sport.
Then, as with the nature of all things, it's going to get really cheap to buy your own remote controlled shark.
Forget Robot Wars! I want one of these... Or what about Robot vs Shark Wars, or even Robot Shark Wars, with cyborg Sharks, or nuclear submarines and pirates and hats and sharks and robots and more sharks and that little fish of Finding Nemo...
Overstimulated, overstimulated... Deep breaths......
Edubuntu is great for kids - only one problem which I believe will be resolved in the next release is the lack of a live CD, which is really great for just trying it out - especially for educationalists who are looking to move but don't want to commit until they have some idea what they are getting in to.
Looking at what you've, you seem to make a lot of sense, but imagine this:
You go out to get a pizza for lunch today and bring back a sausage pizza. As you sit down to eat it, your boss taps you on the shoulder, "Valafar," he says, "We don't eat sausage pizza here - now if you want to keep your job, throw that new-age sausage in the bin, and go out and get some real pizza with pepperoni."
"But," says Valafar, "everyone knows that pepperoni is made from dead rats and bubonic plague."
PHB points to the door, "I don't care! Now get out there and get a pepperoni pizza."
After a hard days work, Valafar goes to visit Mon and Dad. But they are very sick...
They've been eating pepperoni pizza and they have the plague.
"Dad! I told you to eat sausage pizza," says Valafar.
"I know son - but I've always eaten pepperoni - and I'm not changing now. Here have some pepperoni pizza."
And they all lived happily ever after - until they all died. Valafar starved because he couldn't get his beloved sausage pizza. (It was a bit like the end of Hamlet - without the Danes).
----
Your proposal of a live and let live world is fine - as long as it truly is live and let live.
On one side you have the Linux masturbaters, true, but do you honestly believe that Microsfot is sitting there doing nothing - hoping that this will all go away? They're tuggin' even harder. They're just not doing it in such an open way.
GM have been awarded the contract for building all roads.
All roads signs in the future will include a 'Designed for GM' logo.
It is believed that GM will license the new roads to the other car manufacturers, though technology insiders say it is unlikely that their competitors will be able to compete effectively with GM because of their closely guarded knowledge of the structure of the road surface.
All forms of public transport will be denied access to the new roads.
A government spokesman with a large bulging attache case and a broad smile announced the move at a press conference stating that 'this is a great day for the motorist'.
The move comes hot on the heels of recent share increases for the company as the markets reacted favourably to GM's 'inspired' cost savings stemming from the downsizing of their engineering and safety departments.
I was hoping somebody else would kick this obvious irony straight in there and the tone of the replies was to be expected.
After the recent UN Human Rights condemnation of the Guantanamo prison camp, I was a bit shocked by the allusion to the 10 year prisoner when there are prisoners in Guantanamo for nearly 5 years without trial.
The problem that I have with this is in China the 10-year prisoner is incarcertated legally according to Chinese law (even if you don't agree with thoses laws), the terrorist suspects in Guantanamo are not there legally according to American law.
Fine, if they are terrorists, try them and lock them up or execute them, if that's what you want to do - but it is pure hypocrisy to complain about China acting under its own laws while having a blatant disregard for your own laws and the right to just and fair treatment under them.
It's do as I say, not as I do.
I can see where Tom Lantos is coming from with his background, and I like a good Microsoft roasting as much as the next man, but as a representive of the government of the United States, I wonder is he ashamed?
...where "the all knowing, central planning, central government" of the Soviet Union engaged in a program of economic liberalisation, initiated (according to most observers) based on a recognition of the inevitability of democracy and free market economics.
Over the past number of years we have seen a liberalisation of trade and a continuing move towards a free market economy - China style.
We have seen with the fall of the Soviet Union, democracy and free market economics overnight is extremely painful and possible dangerous - at times it was touch and go there (maybe still is).
China is a really big place with lots of people, a similar shift would probably be catastrophic for China and for the world at large. It takes a long time to turn a big ship.
Same must be true for the application of democratic principles.
Tiananmen Square etc was a wake-up call for the Chinese government. Yes, it was 15 years ago, but that's a blink of an eye in geopolitics.
The writing is sort of on the wall - 'democracy' is really inevitable. And slowly the ship will turn. It will probably turn to its own course, and Chinese style democracy will be the very interesting outcome (if you think the democracy you live in is the only kind then you are well wrong).
To the/. folks: You and I know that systems can be hacked, and you can be sure that there are fair few Chinese doing that right now - breaking through the censorship and reading what the rest of the world is at; and you can be damn sure that the Chinese Government is fully aware of this - they're not stupid.
This kind of access might only be available to a small few - but it will be available. It's like a dam with a small leak - a huge crack would be disasterous, and the dam would crumble. But a small leak - that works.
Slashdot Mirror
I often wonder, is it possible that the black holes out there in space were lab-based experiments into black holes by some alien race that went horribly wrong?
It's all about trust - of course, you trust you family members, and you're dead right to. But what about strangers - that's why you can building codes, and licensed professionals.
Sure wasn't My Cousin Vinny the best defense attorney ever.
The whole point of professional degrees is so that you know who you are dealing with and that if that person doesn't deal professionally with you then there is a comeback.
If you were sick, you wouldn't trust you life to someone who assured you that they knew everything about perscription drugs but weren't actually a Doctor - would you?
I work for the RIAA and I'm trying to patent someone elses method that uses Intelligent Design to prove that Linux sucks. What software should I install on my Windows PC to do this?
Did I mention that I fully support the merging of the European Union and the United Nations as a division of ICANN?
~=@:O
You're right, of course about personal usage and business usage.
But another hugely significant factor is Government/Public Sector usage. Most Governments see themselves as in it for the long term - maybe not in the form of the current administration, or even the current socioeconomic model - however, even through major changes the survival of the information is paramount. Even to the extent of a ridiculous waste of resources.
To this end, they will probably see (e.g.) Microsoft as a threat to their knowledge base - envisioning that their bureaucratic empires will long see off the demise of such structures (they have a point, as most bureaucracies are far older than any other organisation currently in existance). For this reason we are seeing more and more public sector organisations leaning towards open standards (the most prominent example of late being Massachusetts).
It is worth remembering the importance of public sector contracts to the world's economies - they have a lot of influence.
Some time after the fall of the Soviet Union, I had the pleasure of travelling on a Yugoslavian passenger ship. One of the crew was the designated Political Officer - strangest thing - he was just there to make sure the crew didn't say the wrong thing to the western tourists. He was really nice bloke, and well able to throw back a pint but it just seemed a little strange.
Obviously, this is just an 'interesting' travel anecdote - and has nothing to with anything here.
To be fair to Microsoft (which I'd rather not be) they don't mention PCs in the article.
They use the term Windows XP machines - but not PCs. The summary added that twist.
The law is a dangerous tool to play with.
At the moment there is a lot of grey area with copyright and the internet (IANAL) - which is why 'legal' music sites like allofmp3.com have disclaimers regarding local laws rather than concrete advice. In my own local jurisdiction the law appears to be clear about importing copyrighted material (and it's quite similiar in most other places) - i.e it's ok for personal/domestic use.
When the rights organisations test these laws the outcome might not be the one they want - and it will send a message to the mainstream users, who up to this point have been terrorised into not downloading music, that it is actually safe to do so.
They are playing with fire - and their time would be far better served coming up with a better business model than trying to defend an outdated one.
...and the strange thing is that Microsoft also happy to promote the dichtomoy that when other operating systems fail on the same hardware, that it is in fact the OS that is at fault and not the hardware.
To be fair the average user is so ignorant of what they use that it's an easy image to promote. I know plenty of people who believe that Windows is the technical term for a word processor and others who only buy computers made by Microsoft. Now that's ingrained.
Well said!
I think the 'at worst' is not correct, though. At worst, others will fear (not the same as respect) or hate you. Neither of which are good things.
Isolationism is not a good policy. It results in polar, self-interested views of the world, it allows politicians to look past the individuals to the 'greater need' and finds historians talking about the benefit of hindsight - truths that America woke up to before, one December morning in 1942.
For running legacy applications on your 'cool' new operating system - Wine for Windows.
Seriously, they might think of applying some of their many resources in support of the Wine project so that all those applications can run seamlessly.
Yeah, I know - the Wine purists have all suffered heart attacks: "Over my dead body" etc etc
Surely, if there is a 'shortage of good technologists' then salaries would naturally tend to rise anyway.
And if they're not, is it not the case that the same CIOs who are beating their breast at the continued lack of qualified staff, are using bogeymen such as outsourcing and offshoring to repress demands for higher salaries from the qualified staff that they already have? [Now that's a rhetorical question!]
If you haven't read it - the 80/20 principal is a fascinating book. And one of the conclusions that Koch came to was that capital investors are every day living in great fear that tech innovators, especially in the software development industry will all come to realise that capital investment really isn't the cornerstone of the start-up the way it used to be (like when building cotton raddling factories etc).
I don't think we are going to see the death throes of the VCs just yet - but there is a certain 'writing on the wall', of which this kind of thing is indicative.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at who he gives it to.
Dear Steve,
These little computers are scaring the B'jaysus out of me.
I recken they're after all me gold!
Maybe if I slag the shite outta them, they'll go away.
Bill.
God! I shouldn't have to explain this.
Captain Kirk lands on some rock somewhere and, for no reason at all, there are loads of beautiful women - they are actually ugly rock monsters, but when we see them they are all out of focus and the music in the background is kind of 'wu-oo-hu-woo'.
Ok, music doesn't really translate into english very well - sue me!
www.google.com
I know that's just pure nasty - I just couldn't help it.
Are you sure about that non-hot-f:hot-f ratio?
Here's a test - when you are looking at the hot females, if you hear wu-oo-hu-woo music and their faces are slightly blurry - then they might not be that hot.
Or maybe it's the other way round, or maybe your just on Talos IV, or you could be drunk.
Ok, initially I see the whole thing with Bin Laden dipping his toe in the Black Sea for his early morning swim and then getting eaten by one of these things - munchity crunchity.
But then....
Other countries are gonna want them and these things aren't like Nuclear submarines - if you blow one out of the water it's not going to spark off an international incident or anything. So it will be a real you ate my shark so I'm going to eat yours. At which point it will probably become an Olympic sport.
Then, as with the nature of all things, it's going to get really cheap to buy your own remote controlled shark.
Forget Robot Wars! I want one of these... Or what about Robot vs Shark Wars, or even Robot Shark Wars, with cyborg Sharks, or nuclear submarines and pirates and hats and sharks and robots and more sharks and that little fish of Finding Nemo...
Overstimulated, overstimulated... Deep breaths......
Edubuntu is great for kids - only one problem which I believe will be resolved in the next release is the lack of a live CD, which is really great for just trying it out - especially for educationalists who are looking to move but don't want to commit until they have some idea what they are getting in to.
Looking at what you've, you seem to make a lot of sense, but imagine this:
You go out to get a pizza for lunch today and bring back a sausage pizza. As you sit down to eat it, your boss taps you on the shoulder, "Valafar," he says, "We don't eat sausage pizza here - now if you want to keep your job, throw that new-age sausage in the bin, and go out and get some real pizza with pepperoni."
"But," says Valafar, "everyone knows that pepperoni is made from dead rats and bubonic plague."
PHB points to the door, "I don't care! Now get out there and get a pepperoni pizza."
After a hard days work, Valafar goes to visit Mon and Dad. But they are very sick...
They've been eating pepperoni pizza and they have the plague.
"Dad! I told you to eat sausage pizza," says Valafar.
"I know son - but I've always eaten pepperoni - and I'm not changing now. Here have some pepperoni pizza."
And they all lived happily ever after - until they all died. Valafar starved because he couldn't get his beloved sausage pizza. (It was a bit like the end of Hamlet - without the Danes).
----
Your proposal of a live and let live world is fine - as long as it truly is live and let live.
On one side you have the Linux masturbaters, true, but do you honestly believe that Microsfot is sitting there doing nothing - hoping that this will all go away? They're tuggin' even harder. They're just not doing it in such an open way.
GM have been awarded the contract for building all roads.
All roads signs in the future will include a 'Designed for GM' logo.
It is believed that GM will license the new roads to the other car manufacturers, though technology insiders say it is unlikely that their competitors will be able to compete effectively with GM because of their closely guarded knowledge of the structure of the road surface.
All forms of public transport will be denied access to the new roads.
A government spokesman with a large bulging attache case and a broad smile announced the move at a press conference stating that 'this is a great day for the motorist'.
The move comes hot on the heels of recent share increases for the company as the markets reacted favourably to GM's 'inspired' cost savings stemming from the downsizing of their engineering and safety departments.
I was hoping somebody else would kick this obvious irony straight in there and the tone of the replies was to be expected.
After the recent UN Human Rights condemnation of the Guantanamo prison camp, I was a bit shocked by the allusion to the 10 year prisoner when there are prisoners in Guantanamo for nearly 5 years without trial.
The problem that I have with this is in China the 10-year prisoner is incarcertated legally according to Chinese law (even if you don't agree with thoses laws), the terrorist suspects in Guantanamo are not there legally according to American law.
Fine, if they are terrorists, try them and lock them up or execute them, if that's what you want to do - but it is pure hypocrisy to complain about China acting under its own laws while having a blatant disregard for your own laws and the right to just and fair treatment under them.
It's do as I say, not as I do.
I can see where Tom Lantos is coming from with his background, and I like a good Microsoft roasting as much as the next man, but as a representive of the government of the United States, I wonder is he ashamed?
This revolution is really taking off...
...where "the all knowing, central planning, central government" of the Soviet Union engaged in a program of economic liberalisation, initiated (according to most observers) based on a recognition of the inevitability of democracy and free market economics.
If they don't start it - no one else will.
...do we think the Chinese Government are stupid?
/. folks: You and I know that systems can be hacked, and you can be sure that there are fair few Chinese doing that right now - breaking through the censorship and reading what the rest of the world is at; and you can be damn sure that the Chinese Government is fully aware of this - they're not stupid.
Over the past number of years we have seen a liberalisation of trade and a continuing move towards a free market economy - China style.
We have seen with the fall of the Soviet Union, democracy and free market economics overnight is extremely painful and possible dangerous - at times it was touch and go there (maybe still is).
China is a really big place with lots of people, a similar shift would probably be catastrophic for China and for the world at large. It takes a long time to turn a big ship.
Same must be true for the application of democratic principles.
Tiananmen Square etc was a wake-up call for the Chinese government. Yes, it was 15 years ago, but that's a blink of an eye in geopolitics.
The writing is sort of on the wall - 'democracy' is really inevitable. And slowly the ship will turn. It will probably turn to its own course, and Chinese style democracy will be the very interesting outcome (if you think the democracy you live in is the only kind then you are well wrong).
To the
This kind of access might only be available to a small few - but it will be available. It's like a dam with a small leak - a huge crack would be disasterous, and the dam would crumble. But a small leak - that works.
Watch this space...