I don't know that a business can be depressed in the emotional sense of the word, but I think Microsoft's strategy RE:Linux has fit this overall theme. I'd say MS is currently moving into the Barganing stage. Hopefully Acceptance won't be that far off. One/.er made a snide remark about a future with a MS Linux distro. The chances of that aren't great, but I would love to see it happen.
Microsoft's inital position on Linux has been harsh, but do remember, Linux is 1)direct competition to Windows and 2)has a radically differnt philosophy that basically attacks the core of Microsoft's business model. How would anyone here feel if someone sprang up in direct competion to the way you live your life? How do any of us react to luddites and technophobes? Very similarly in spirit to MS's initial reaction to Linux.
But the shock is starting to where off and Microsoft is realizing that Linux isn't going away. So their learning and changing.
The changes in Encarta aren't just about embracing wiki. Microsoft's corporate buzzwords, the backbone of the feature set promoted in Office 2003 are integration and colaboration. Microsoft is simply extending that.
Assuming NASA's prediction of 20 millions visitors for the launch (which is ~6.8% of the US population or.33% of the world population) is correct, is it that unbelievable to think that 2.5% of the visitors will try to view the launch?
Well, my public library system has new release CDs and DVDs (and VHS still) that anyone with an Ocean County Library card (or Burlington County, there's a reciprical agreement) can rent for 3 days for free. Fines are $1/day for DVD/VHS and $.10/day for everything else. Only about 5% of the budget comes from fines. The rest comes from fundraisers and taxes. Any "profit" goes right into infrastructure in the form of new branches (1/3 of the municipalities do no have a local branch yet), new books/CDs/DVDs/other media, and more computers.
The other day I took out a book on PHP5 & MySQL. Sure there are outdated books in their collection, but there are outdated books in my personal library (one book I'll never get rid of is my first programming guide...on ATARI BASIC).
Why does everyone always equate wireless access with laptop only? Say your city proivdes free wifi access for its citizens. Slap a $50 PCI WiFi card in a $300 Dell and your your up and running. There are various charities that give away computers for those who can't afford them (I've been involved in 3 at different times). Possibly the municipality can even buy PCI WiFi cards in bulk and distribute them to whoever comes in to sign up for their free wifi access and demonstrates a finacial need, or gives or sells at cost to local charities that give away computers.
TFA doesn't seem to have any clue what "open source" means. This isn't open source at all. It was liscences to several MS server technologies donated to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. It gives Canadian police a central database for notes, evidence collected, and existing tracking databases. It then uses standard data mining to tease out connections. It will do the same for other jurisdictions. It's "free as in beer" if your a national law enforcement agency, but certainly not "free as in speech"
Well, Dell, HP, and Gateway all have HTPCs, and there are probably hundreds of small business such as myself that build and sell HTPCs along with traditional offerings. Not to be sarcastic, but, yeah, I think it has merit as a business idea since business are already doing it.
They way daylight saving reduces energy consumption is that: 1) Less lights are turned on during daylight than during night. 2) Less lights are turned on while people sleep than when awake. Therefore, minimizing the overlap between the two times decreases the overall number of usage of lights and the overall usage of electricty. Don't think it's much? Let's run some numbers.
Average lightbulb in a home: 100 watts. Let's say that at any given time when the lights are on, there are 2 lights turned on in a household. Over 1 hr that is 200 watt-hours or.2kWh There are 281421906 people in the US as of the 2000 census. The average family size was 2.57. That means there are ~109 millions households. 109E6 times.2kWh = nearly 22 gigawatt hours saved/day if everyone's lights are turned off an extra hour per day. Extending Daylight Saving Time to full year would theoretically save almost 4 terawatts per year.
Well if that happens, having telephone service isn't going to help you. Besides, if the house is on fire, the priority is 1) get out. 2)call 911. Not the other way round.
To patent something, you need to describe it. Not in the sense of "a commuting device that works by transforming matter into energy, beaming it back and retransforming it back." You have to describe HOW the proccess works. You have to describe the actual proccess of transforming matter into energy, the process of transmitting it, and the process of transforming the energy back to matter. It has to be technologically feasable.
When you say that the proccessing power for your transporter is going to be supplied by a 3.8GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition proccessor, and the patent official looks up the fact that a 200 pound body has more than 10^30 particles that each contain (under current theories) at least 50 bits of information, they will do the math, see that that equates to 5x10^31 bits of info, they will see that will take over 10^18 seconds or over 416 trillion years and deny your patent.
Or you say that you will be using a quantum computer with a yotaflop (10 orders of magnatude faster than the current supercomputer record) of proccessing power, it will take a mere 150 years. Then of course, theres the issue of coming up with a concept for creating a yotaflop quantum supercomputer. Details, details.
Sony decided to patent a concept before spending the $$ on equipment and R&D to test it. The proccess is simple.
Come up with idea
Do basic research on feasability
Patent before someone else does
R&D
build
Remember, he who patents first wins. Nobody cares if you spend $5 billion developing a product but didn't patent it before ready to go to market and then find out that somebody else already patented the technology while you were hard at work developing it.
After the Columbia incident a lot of people complained about the age of the computers used in the shuttle. IIRC, they are the equivilent of 8086 processors. The thing is, they don't need to be any faster than that. The shuttle isn't doing CAD work or downloading pr0n, it's checking internal sensors against programming to insure that pumps and such are working correctly.
The programming for the shuttle is 30+ years old. But that is actually a good thing. The shuttle code has been certified the most stable in the world.
Oh, and the first manned Soyuz launch was April 1967. After problems discovered in the first launch, Soyuz resumed launches in Oct 1968. For all intents and purposes, the Soyuz is the Russian version of the Apollo and it's still going strong.
How do you define what a city should and should not provide for its citizens? Things that have been around the longest? Things that aren't technologically based? Police, fire, water, etc use a good deal of technology to perform their services. Is it really wrong for a city to want to provide services for its citizenry? Isn't that the purpose of government in the first place?
Is it inherently fair or unfair for a city to subsidize the cost of trash collection? My family has payed a seperate service to pick up our trash for a decade while our taxes go towards subsidizing a service we don't use. What about telephone polls? My great grandparents had to pay to have telephone polls installed on their road leading up to their house. 10 miles worth. At ~20 polls per mile and a cost of $1 per pole, that came to an expensive $200. Private vs public schools are the same issue. Private trash companies and private schools exist even though there are free alternatives. The same will be with WiFi.
And why are so many cities interested in providing WiFi access and not telephone or cable? Because of demand. People are clamoring for internet access but there has never been a big movement for free cable/phone service.
The map of my town is probably about 5 years old because the new library is in place, but the municipal building is only just getting strated and the ground isn't even broken for the new primary school
I like the idea for this, but I don't think it could ever be implemented well. First of all, if the number is too small, it would be really easy to abuse. If it was too large, it would be useless. I'm sure Microsoft has enough resouces to get www.redhat.com flagged.
Alternatively (and I'm sure just as difficult to implement) would be a voting system. Allow users to vote on which links had the information they searched for. And figure in a sites vote tally into its rating
Thats one of the ideas behind this technology. However, technologically speaking, its a lot easier to program a chip to:
If Brain = tvon Then 'Think about turning tv on TV = True ' Turn TV on End If
then
If Brain = tvon Then 'Think about turning tv on Do While EYES = toolow 'check location of hand relative to button & adjust RIGHTARM = Forward RIGHTARM = Up cin EYES Loop INDEXFINGER = Extend 'reach for button RIGHTARM =Forward 'press button End If
Which is an extreme simplification of the process, but you get the point. Also these devices require a good deal of training. Generally, when someone has this implanted they are missing a limb, and are instructed to think about moving that limb, and doctors monitor the EKG, and the chip is programmed to use the thought of moving your missing arm to turn on the tv. So if you were'nt missing your arm, but had the chip installed, thinking about turning on the tv would turn on the tv, and at the same time, you would be reaching out to turn it on, which depending on the situation, would have the effect of turning the tv off again, or simply exerting the effort to turn on the tv while turning it on electronically.
Have the information encoded in some sort of magnetic strip (and encrypted to prevent stolen passports from being read). Swipe it at the metal detector or whereever they plan on doing this. I really don't see why anything should be wireless if it doesn't have to me.
And another issue, is a 64k picture going to be clear enough to use facial recognition software on?
I was given three months to work on a project. At the end of the three months I announced that the project was completed. I've spent three months since then "following up" and getting it finished. But on paper, it was done at the end of last year.
Electronics aren't designed to be senetiive to EM radiation, its the fundamental nature of what they are. In fact, you have to work hard to sheild or harden electronics to protect them from EM radiation when they are in environmets exposed to them.
And, I RTFA. It doesn't say anything about self-replicating.
Is't this how it's done in the real world? I work for the state. I irregularly have to access a database (for which I have read-only access). To login I need a user ID, PIN, and specify the database. When I forgot my PIN, I had to talk to the sysadmin for my office, who then had to contact the state admin to reset my PIN. I then had to login, change the PIN, and confirm to my sysadmin that I did so. It is then logged that I successfully logged into the account and changed my PIN.
We have multiple levels of accountability to ensure that resetting the PIN is both secure and simple.
Slashdot Mirror
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
I don't know that a business can be depressed in the emotional sense of the word, but I think Microsoft's strategy RE:Linux has fit this overall theme. I'd say MS is currently moving into the Barganing stage. Hopefully Acceptance won't be that far off. OneMicrosoft's inital position on Linux has been harsh, but do remember, Linux is 1)direct competition to Windows and 2)has a radically differnt philosophy that basically attacks the core of Microsoft's business model. How would anyone here feel if someone sprang up in direct competion to the way you live your life? How do any of us react to luddites and technophobes? Very similarly in spirit to MS's initial reaction to Linux.
But the shock is starting to where off and Microsoft is realizing that Linux isn't going away. So their learning and changing.
The changes in Encarta aren't just about embracing wiki. Microsoft's corporate buzzwords, the backbone of the feature set promoted in Office 2003 are integration and colaboration. Microsoft is simply extending that.
Assuming NASA's prediction of 20 millions visitors for the launch (which is ~6.8% of the US population or .33% of the world population) is correct, is it that unbelievable to think that 2.5% of the visitors will try to view the launch?
The other day I took out a book on PHP5 & MySQL. Sure there are outdated books in their collection, but there are outdated books in my personal library (one book I'll never get rid of is my first programming guide...on ATARI BASIC).
Why does everyone always equate wireless access with laptop only? Say your city proivdes free wifi access for its citizens. Slap a $50 PCI WiFi card in a $300 Dell and your your up and running. There are various charities that give away computers for those who can't afford them (I've been involved in 3 at different times). Possibly the municipality can even buy PCI WiFi cards in bulk and distribute them to whoever comes in to sign up for their free wifi access and demonstrates a finacial need, or gives or sells at cost to local charities that give away computers.
TFA doesn't seem to have any clue what "open source" means. This isn't open source at all. It was liscences to several MS server technologies donated to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. It gives Canadian police a central database for notes, evidence collected, and existing tracking databases. It then uses standard data mining to tease out connections. It will do the same for other jurisdictions. It's "free as in beer" if your a national law enforcement agency, but certainly not "free as in speech"
According to the press release, they will be packaged in "user-friendly" packaging. Will it open itself for you
Well, Dell, HP, and Gateway all have HTPCs, and there are probably hundreds of small business such as myself that build and sell HTPCs along with traditional offerings. Not to be sarcastic, but, yeah, I think it has merit as a business idea since business are already doing it.
They way daylight saving reduces energy consumption is that: 1) Less lights are turned on during daylight than during night. 2) Less lights are turned on while people sleep than when awake. Therefore, minimizing the overlap between the two times decreases the overall number of usage of lights and the overall usage of electricty. Don't think it's much? Let's run some numbers.
Average lightbulb in a home: 100 watts. Let's say that at any given time when the lights are on, there are 2 lights turned on in a household. Over 1 hr that is 200 watt-hours or .2kWh There are 281421906 people in the US as of the 2000 census. The average family size was 2.57. That means there are ~109 millions households. 109E6 times .2kWh = nearly 22 gigawatt hours saved/day if everyone's lights are turned off an extra hour per day. Extending Daylight Saving Time to full year would theoretically save almost 4 terawatts per year.
So will all their *Drake tools now be *Driva tools? It just doesn't have the same ring to it.
I live near an Air Force Base. Their radar destroys cell signals. Verizon, Sprint, Nextel, T-Mobile, and AT&T are all horrible around here.
Well if that happens, having telephone service isn't going to help you. Besides, if the house is on fire, the priority is 1) get out. 2)call 911. Not the other way round.
When you say that the proccessing power for your transporter is going to be supplied by a 3.8GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition proccessor, and the patent official looks up the fact that a 200 pound body has more than 10^30 particles that each contain (under current theories) at least 50 bits of information, they will do the math, see that that equates to 5x10^31 bits of info, they will see that will take over 10^18 seconds or over 416 trillion years and deny your patent.
Or you say that you will be using a quantum computer with a yotaflop (10 orders of magnatude faster than the current supercomputer record) of proccessing power, it will take a mere 150 years. Then of course, theres the issue of coming up with a concept for creating a yotaflop quantum supercomputer. Details, details.
Sony decided to patent a concept before spending the $$ on equipment and R&D to test it. The proccess is simple.
Remember, he who patents first wins. Nobody cares if you spend $5 billion developing a product but didn't patent it before ready to go to market and then find out that somebody else already patented the technology while you were hard at work developing it.
The programming for the shuttle is 30+ years old. But that is actually a good thing. The shuttle code has been certified the most stable in the world.
Oh, and the first manned Soyuz launch was April 1967. After problems discovered in the first launch, Soyuz resumed launches in Oct 1968. For all intents and purposes, the Soyuz is the Russian version of the Apollo and it's still going strong.
Is it inherently fair or unfair for a city to subsidize the cost of trash collection? My family has payed a seperate service to pick up our trash for a decade while our taxes go towards subsidizing a service we don't use. What about telephone polls? My great grandparents had to pay to have telephone polls installed on their road leading up to their house. 10 miles worth. At ~20 polls per mile and a cost of $1 per pole, that came to an expensive $200. Private vs public schools are the same issue. Private trash companies and private schools exist even though there are free alternatives. The same will be with WiFi.
And why are so many cities interested in providing WiFi access and not telephone or cable? Because of demand. People are clamoring for internet access but there has never been a big movement for free cable/phone service.
The map of my town is probably about 5 years old because the new library is in place, but the municipal building is only just getting strated and the ground isn't even broken for the new primary school
The air force base I live near isn't blurred at all. You can even see the planes on the runways
Isn't that normally called a changelog?
Alternatively (and I'm sure just as difficult to implement) would be a voting system. Allow users to vote on which links had the information they searched for. And figure in a sites vote tally into its rating
would Walmart really have to buy walmar.biz twice?
BTW: yes I know I mixed C with BASIC. Somebody please just shoot me now.
And another issue, is a 64k picture going to be clear enough to use facial recognition software on?
I was given three months to work on a project. At the end of the three months I announced that the project was completed. I've spent three months since then "following up" and getting it finished. But on paper, it was done at the end of last year.
And, I RTFA. It doesn't say anything about self-replicating.
We have multiple levels of accountability to ensure that resetting the PIN is both secure and simple.