Additionally, if the parents don't take their kids somewhere, where are they supposed to go in today's lawsuit happy world? I'm willing to argue that kids today are obese because they honestly don't have the option of physical activity. Most definitely not in the sense their ancestors did 50 to 100 years ago.
Throw me in with the "having kids today is criminally cruel" crowd.
Riiight. And on this machine (which can't run OS X adequately) yet has outstanding 3D capabilities (a Rage 128 maybe!) you're going to be doing exactly what?
Nope, In my considered opinion, if a machine is too old to run OS X (so we're clearly talking Macs here, remember?) then linux is probably the best option, as it will have the best software support. BSDs are also an option, but again, the software support for PPC BSD isn't going to be as good as PPC linux.
Yeah, I was really disappointed. I've heard about this device before, and more detailed specifics about it would be very interesting, but this article is just a fluff piece.
No, my point is that as things currently exist there are quite valid reasons for students to want to escape high school that have nothing to do with them being lazy, or stupid. And it's also not terribly difficult to tell the difference.
How long has it been since you finished high school? Odds are you have no idea how bad it is these days. Bad in terms of violence, harassment, rampant drug use, etc. There is no discipline, and absolutely no recourse. Students who attempt to find help from school officials are generally brutally punished. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." American High Schools are not safe.
pedantic, adj : Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details. (Source: American Heritage Dictionary)
You also seem to have totally missed that I pointed out that very section of the Constitution in my post.
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Isn't there some kind of Libel suit that can be filed about this kind of garbage? I know I, as a private citizen can't go around telling newspapers that the Coca-Cola company kills a kitten for every can of drink they sell, without getting sued nine ways from breakfast. Why is Microsoft any different? If they've got something, let's see it, if not, can't they be forced to stop spreading FUD on pain big nasty fine-y death? Surely Redhat, and the other corporate Linux entities have some interest in trying this?
Intellectual Property is not a part or provision of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. The First Amendment covers: Freedom of Speech, the Press, Religion, the Right to Peacably Assemble, and the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Greivances. That is all. To Quote:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Right of Congress to make laws regarding Intellectual Property is in the Body of the Constitution Proper. In Article 1, "The legislative powers of Congress", Section 8: Congress (and only congress) shall have the power to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
I don't really accept that interpretation. Apple was never in that deep. They've had billions in cash/liquid assets sitting around since the early '80's. $500 million or so from microsoft really didn't make shit all difference in the long run. I rather think it was just a gesture from Microsoft to try and keep regulators off their back (as you describe), but essential to Apple's survival? No way.
Right. I really don't see ANY change in their behavior. The recent release of the Zune exemplefies this. Once again, Microsoft has entered into partnerships and built up a platform (Playsforsure) and then turned around and released their own, proprietary and incompatible platform (Zune, and its Zune music store), stabbing their partners in the back, as they have done, many, many times in the past. If you need examples, just look at IBM, who they have done that to at least twice off the top of my head. Once in the DOS contract negotiations, and again on OS/2. Other Companies, such as Lotus Software (Lotus 1-2-3) Corel (Wordperfect), and Sega (The Dreamcast) suffered the same fate.
To be perfectly honest, I don't really understand why any company would enter into a partnership with Microsoft at all. Much like Wal-Mart, they will fuck you over the first chance they get, because they want the income and marketshare that you have. Of course I know the answer, it's"Money", but that really doesn't change that doing business with Microsoft is ultimately very, very dangerous for your companies long term bottom line.
I do not see Microsoft's recent actions as "embracing open source," maybe in their tried and true "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy, by attempting to fragment the market, and sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about non-Novell blessed (and hence Microsoft blessed) Open-source software. Bill Gates is no different than Andrew Carnegie (well actually, he is. Gates' parents were Upper-middle/Upper class Corporate attorneys, while Carnegie really did start out without a pot to piss in) he's stolen his Billions, and now he's trying to "Buy his way into heaven" as it were, trying to change history's view of him with good deeds that cost him nothing. Gates can donate $100 million dollars checks to a half dozen charities and not notice a damn thing.
I'd think that would be item #1 on the list. NASA needs cash. It's impossible to do R&D without the scratch to back it up. If we were putting a fraction of the money into NASA that we are into other things (*cough* Iraq *cough*) we'd be able to get to the moon today.
This has always struck me as absurd about Bush's Moon and Mars plans, he's been drumming up such ideas now and then, while at the same time slashing NASA budget. Why anybody believes he's doing anything other than posturing is beyond me.
So have I, and by and large, a horse's width is fairly constant for a given height and breed, and I'd be willing to bet Roman war Chariots were designed to fit a standard breed of Roman War Horse (Animal Husbandry ain't exactly a new invention you know). Secondly, they acknowledge as much as what I said in the Snopes article itself, they just dismiss it by saying it "It wasn't inevitable, it could very well have turned out differently" Which rather misses the point. It didn't.
I really rather disagree with their conclusion. Although it was not "inevitable" the fact of the matter is that the rail road gauge that became dominant in the USA and Europe CAN be traced to the one adapted for rail use from carriages designed to fit on roads built to a standard specified originally by the Roman Legions based on the width of the asses of two standard war horses. That this is merely coincidental doesn't make it any less true, or less telling about the nature of beaurocracy and resistance to change. And the fact of the matter is that the standard does continue to affect rail shipping to this day, as it most definately determines what an oversize rail car or load is. Whether or not this actually had a direct impact on the Space Shuttle's SSRB's is less clear, although certainly they had to be designed so that they could be shipped from the factory to Cape Canaveral.
The thrust of the point to me, is the very point that nobody sat around and actually considered what might be a good rail gauge to adopt for shipping lines, they just went ahead with a horribly odd standard that was already in existence.
"Don't know what they don't know" IS willful ignorance. They don't know because they don't WANT to know. Should a company that makes toasters be liable for someone using their toaster in the bath getting electrocuted? If you're going to operate a device you should have to know how to use it. If you saw your own arm off using a chainsaw improperly it is your own damn fault. If you start having sex out on your front lawn you don't have any right to complain about people watching you.
The difficulty is that while a space elevator can reduce the cost of moving freight to orbit by a factor of hundred or so (easily enough to be worthwhile) That's still a hugely long way from being "free" like you describe. Even at a cost of $10 to $50 per kilogram (I'm very unsure of the actual speculated values), adding a metric tonne or two of shielding would still increase the cost to get people people (and non-rad resistant items) into orbit immensely. This is why a space elevator, while still a very good idea is not a magic bullet solution to space flight.
Realistically, some kind of reusable passenger rocket or space plane is still desirable in order to get passengers and sensitive kinds of freight through the Van Allen Belts to a Space Station (probably the one at the top of the elevator) in a rapid manner, so as to side step the issue entirely.
None of this is to say that a Space Elevator is a bad idea, FAR from it, but it may not necessarily to sensible to expect the same infrastructure to be able to accomodate both passengers and freight. I would argue that this is actually one of the major problems with the Space Shuttle's design. Being committed to a Freight and Passenger vehicle resulted in having to do a Saturn V scale launch just to get anybody into orbit, in addition to the limits this placed on any number of satellites launched with the shuttle. Had we designed a smaller, simpler vehicle, specifically for passengers (as the did the Russians) launches would have been MUCH cheaper, on a Saturn I or a modern Atlas scale. Additionally we would have been able to achieve significantly higher orbits (What if we didn't have to worry about Hubble's orbit decaying? Among any number of other advantages) Reliance on a Space Elevator for all our Space travel also gives a rather significant single point of failure.
Hold on there. You're saying people don't have ANY obligation to educate themselves on how to safely operate the products they purchase? Someone who CHOOSES to be willfully ignorant about how to secure their wireless network is not an innocent 3 year old walking amongst child molesters. They are more like a greedy SOB who becomes good buddies with a "Nigerian Prince" to assist him in getting his millions of dollars out of the country.
Three Year olds don't operate computers (and if they do, their Parents have an obligation to protect them) we're talking about adults here. People have an obligation to take some responsibility for their actions. Operating Free Wi-Fi isn't even analogous to leaving your keys in your car, or the door to your house unlocked (as those are both acknowledged semi-private/private spaces) Wi-fi is like Television or Radio. It's an open service, operated in the commons, like OTA TV, AM/FM/Shortwave/HAM Radio. Operating an open, unsecured service in a public space is an invitation for it to be used. If they don't want it to be, they have an obligation to secure it.
Although probably unworkable I think it would be interesting if technical/scientific literature were to written in an artificial language with a much more rigorous and unambiguous grammar. Esperanto might be a good choice among languages that actually exist. But I kind of think something like "Loglan" from "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress" might be even better (although it doesn't exist in any form certain criteria about what it would be like are clear). As it was a language designed in the speculative future of the novel for precision in communication with highly developed expert systems (which is what the character Mike was originally designed as). Loglan would probably be somewhere between current high level programming languages and Esperanto, extremely structured, but with just enough of the qualities of natural language that people could be expected to formulate statements and interpret them very quickly.
No it isn't like blaming every rape victim that doesn't wear a chastity belt. It more like blaming every rape victim that runs around naked screaming "Free Sex!" Wi-Fi networks generally broadcast their availability as a Freely Available Service. If yo don't want that, there are many, many ways to disable it. Now the error may be on the manufacturer's part by taking the ease of use route, but that really doesn't excuse it. Wi-Fi is in a Public Space by definition. It is in an unliscensed spectrum free for public use. Running unsecured Wi-Fi is like sticking a water fountain in a public place. If you don't take steps to secure it, you don't have any right to complain when other people use it.
Riiight. In a country in which Habeus Corpus has been indefinately suspended? I'm sorry, but at this point relying on "your day in court" to right wrongs committed against you is plain foolish. Sure it doesn't happen that often (But at the same time how many US citizens or legal US residents are held captive without trial? Oh that's right, we don't KNOW), but the reality is that in America today anyone can be arrested and secreted off to Guantanamo Bay, or any of a hundred other secret US prisons around the globe. A "They'll never take me alive!" attitude is perfectly justified.
One thing I thing I think we're missing is this: The PS3 is going to sell out early on, regardless. And that's completely irrelevant. Completely. Because a couple hundred thousand units doesn't mean ANYTHING in the console wars. The question is, will Nintendo sell Wiis as quickly as they, and many of us think they will. Four to Six Million units in the hands of consumers DOES mean something. That's more Wiis out there than there are 360's. That's a big deal. What console would you, as a publisher want to produce for? The PS2 is probably a valid option, but you're probably going to have a hard time building up hype and anticipation that way. Do you want to go for the PS3, with a potential audience of maybe 300,000? The 360 with a potential audience of around 5,000,000 and growing? Or the Wii, with a potential audience of about 5,000,000 and growing? Keeping in mind all the while that Wii is substantially cheaper to develop for.
I suspect that if the Wii launch is even remotely sucessful this season, the Wii may rapidly become the system of choice for Publishers, which really puts in a PS2/NES style situation this generation.
There's a lot of people saying that the USA has such shitty broadband service because in the USA, we're too spread out, and wiring us up for 100mbit fiber connections would be "too expensive." Don't buy into the hype, its a load of bullshit. Why? Because there are plenty of places in the USA with population densities as high as South Korea or Japan. Know what? They don't have decent internet either. The reason is purely the consolidation of the Telecommunications industry and a lack of antitrust action/regulation. In short, COMPETITION, and GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS, make many nations far, far, better to live in than the USA, by any number of criteria (Life Expectancy, Health care access, infant mortality rate, functional literacy, science literacy, technology access, etc, etc, etc) The USA is a slum, barely better (if at all) than the small third world nations we use our military strength to keep down, like Cuba, Mexico, etc.
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being deported for violating the terms of a student visa by making money hardly demonstrates a morally bankrupt person with no ethical barriers.
Throw me in with the "having kids today is criminally cruel" crowd.
Nope, In my considered opinion, if a machine is too old to run OS X (so we're clearly talking Macs here, remember?) then linux is probably the best option, as it will have the best software support. BSDs are also an option, but again, the software support for PPC BSD isn't going to be as good as PPC linux.
Yeah, I was really disappointed. I've heard about this device before, and more detailed specifics about it would be very interesting, but this article is just a fluff piece.
No, my point is that as things currently exist there are quite valid reasons for students to want to escape high school that have nothing to do with them being lazy, or stupid. And it's also not terribly difficult to tell the difference.
How long has it been since you finished high school? Odds are you have no idea how bad it is these days. Bad in terms of violence, harassment, rampant drug use, etc. There is no discipline, and absolutely no recourse. Students who attempt to find help from school officials are generally brutally punished. "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." American High Schools are not safe.
pedantic, adj : Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details. (Source: American Heritage Dictionary)
You also seem to have totally missed that I pointed out that very section of the Constitution in my post.
Alright, enough of this bullshit. Isn't there some kind of Libel suit that can be filed about this kind of garbage? I know I, as a private citizen can't go around telling newspapers that the Coca-Cola company kills a kitten for every can of drink they sell, without getting sued nine ways from breakfast. Why is Microsoft any different? If they've got something, let's see it, if not, can't they be forced to stop spreading FUD on pain big nasty fine-y death? Surely Redhat, and the other corporate Linux entities have some interest in trying this?
The Right of Congress to make laws regarding Intellectual Property is in the Body of the Constitution Proper. In Article 1, "The legislative powers of Congress", Section 8: Congress (and only congress) shall have the power to "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
I don't really accept that interpretation. Apple was never in that deep. They've had billions in cash/liquid assets sitting around since the early '80's. $500 million or so from microsoft really didn't make shit all difference in the long run. I rather think it was just a gesture from Microsoft to try and keep regulators off their back (as you describe), but essential to Apple's survival? No way.
To be perfectly honest, I don't really understand why any company would enter into a partnership with Microsoft at all. Much like Wal-Mart, they will fuck you over the first chance they get, because they want the income and marketshare that you have. Of course I know the answer, it's"Money", but that really doesn't change that doing business with Microsoft is ultimately very, very dangerous for your companies long term bottom line.
I do not see Microsoft's recent actions as "embracing open source," maybe in their tried and true "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy, by attempting to fragment the market, and sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about non-Novell blessed (and hence Microsoft blessed) Open-source software. Bill Gates is no different than Andrew Carnegie (well actually, he is. Gates' parents were Upper-middle/Upper class Corporate attorneys, while Carnegie really did start out without a pot to piss in) he's stolen his Billions, and now he's trying to "Buy his way into heaven" as it were, trying to change history's view of him with good deeds that cost him nothing. Gates can donate $100 million dollars checks to a half dozen charities and not notice a damn thing.
This has always struck me as absurd about Bush's Moon and Mars plans, he's been drumming up such ideas now and then, while at the same time slashing NASA budget. Why anybody believes he's doing anything other than posturing is beyond me.
So have I, and by and large, a horse's width is fairly constant for a given height and breed, and I'd be willing to bet Roman war Chariots were designed to fit a standard breed of Roman War Horse (Animal Husbandry ain't exactly a new invention you know). Secondly, they acknowledge as much as what I said in the Snopes article itself, they just dismiss it by saying it "It wasn't inevitable, it could very well have turned out differently" Which rather misses the point. It didn't.
The thrust of the point to me, is the very point that nobody sat around and actually considered what might be a good rail gauge to adopt for shipping lines, they just went ahead with a horribly odd standard that was already in existence.
"Don't know what they don't know" IS willful ignorance. They don't know because they don't WANT to know. Should a company that makes toasters be liable for someone using their toaster in the bath getting electrocuted? If you're going to operate a device you should have to know how to use it. If you saw your own arm off using a chainsaw improperly it is your own damn fault. If you start having sex out on your front lawn you don't have any right to complain about people watching you.
Realistically, some kind of reusable passenger rocket or space plane is still desirable in order to get passengers and sensitive kinds of freight through the Van Allen Belts to a Space Station (probably the one at the top of the elevator) in a rapid manner, so as to side step the issue entirely.
None of this is to say that a Space Elevator is a bad idea, FAR from it, but it may not necessarily to sensible to expect the same infrastructure to be able to accomodate both passengers and freight. I would argue that this is actually one of the major problems with the Space Shuttle's design. Being committed to a Freight and Passenger vehicle resulted in having to do a Saturn V scale launch just to get anybody into orbit, in addition to the limits this placed on any number of satellites launched with the shuttle. Had we designed a smaller, simpler vehicle, specifically for passengers (as the did the Russians) launches would have been MUCH cheaper, on a Saturn I or a modern Atlas scale. Additionally we would have been able to achieve significantly higher orbits (What if we didn't have to worry about Hubble's orbit decaying? Among any number of other advantages) Reliance on a Space Elevator for all our Space travel also gives a rather significant single point of failure.
Damn straight. Thank you for calling that bastard on his Libertarian "Seig Heil!" the Corporation Bullshit.
Three Year olds don't operate computers (and if they do, their Parents have an obligation to protect them) we're talking about adults here. People have an obligation to take some responsibility for their actions. Operating Free Wi-Fi isn't even analogous to leaving your keys in your car, or the door to your house unlocked (as those are both acknowledged semi-private/private spaces) Wi-fi is like Television or Radio. It's an open service, operated in the commons, like OTA TV, AM/FM/Shortwave/HAM Radio. Operating an open, unsecured service in a public space is an invitation for it to be used. If they don't want it to be, they have an obligation to secure it.
Although probably unworkable I think it would be interesting if technical/scientific literature were to written in an artificial language with a much more rigorous and unambiguous grammar. Esperanto might be a good choice among languages that actually exist. But I kind of think something like "Loglan" from "The Moon is A Harsh Mistress" might be even better (although it doesn't exist in any form certain criteria about what it would be like are clear). As it was a language designed in the speculative future of the novel for precision in communication with highly developed expert systems (which is what the character Mike was originally designed as). Loglan would probably be somewhere between current high level programming languages and Esperanto, extremely structured, but with just enough of the qualities of natural language that people could be expected to formulate statements and interpret them very quickly.
No it isn't like blaming every rape victim that doesn't wear a chastity belt. It more like blaming every rape victim that runs around naked screaming "Free Sex!" Wi-Fi networks generally broadcast their availability as a Freely Available Service. If yo don't want that, there are many, many ways to disable it. Now the error may be on the manufacturer's part by taking the ease of use route, but that really doesn't excuse it. Wi-Fi is in a Public Space by definition. It is in an unliscensed spectrum free for public use. Running unsecured Wi-Fi is like sticking a water fountain in a public place. If you don't take steps to secure it, you don't have any right to complain when other people use it.
Do you use that line to defend your sexual acts with women too?
Riiight. In a country in which Habeus Corpus has been indefinately suspended? I'm sorry, but at this point relying on "your day in court" to right wrongs committed against you is plain foolish. Sure it doesn't happen that often (But at the same time how many US citizens or legal US residents are held captive without trial? Oh that's right, we don't KNOW), but the reality is that in America today anyone can be arrested and secreted off to Guantanamo Bay, or any of a hundred other secret US prisons around the globe. A "They'll never take me alive!" attitude is perfectly justified.
I suspect that if the Wii launch is even remotely sucessful this season, the Wii may rapidly become the system of choice for Publishers, which really puts in a PS2/NES style situation this generation.
There's a lot of people saying that the USA has such shitty broadband service because in the USA, we're too spread out, and wiring us up for 100mbit fiber connections would be "too expensive." Don't buy into the hype, its a load of bullshit. Why? Because there are plenty of places in the USA with population densities as high as South Korea or Japan. Know what? They don't have decent internet either. The reason is purely the consolidation of the Telecommunications industry and a lack of antitrust action/regulation. In short, COMPETITION, and GOVERNMENT REGULATION OF BUSINESS, make many nations far, far, better to live in than the USA, by any number of criteria (Life Expectancy, Health care access, infant mortality rate, functional literacy, science literacy, technology access, etc, etc, etc) The USA is a slum, barely better (if at all) than the small third world nations we use our military strength to keep down, like Cuba, Mexico, etc.
Well, God of War was a pretty cool game, and Hellgate: London looks pretty awesome as well, although I'll only buy it if it is ported to the 360.