Or the kinds of weapons we see in Star Wars and Star Trek. Sounds a lot like blasters (solid "chunks" of laser) phasers (variably interacts as a solid or laser) and shields to me.
Then the entire paradigm is based on the (flawed) assumption that a general set of eyes is inherently better than the hired set of eyes which the programmers for any given closed source project employ.
The issue you have is that you don't trust the set of eyes, but the process is fundamentally the same if you do not review the source code yourself. You are trusting someone else to assure you nothing is wrong, and confusing motive with action.
The people who try and claim that FOSS is better than closed source because you can't be sure the evil corporate grmlins are stealing your soul are grasping at straws, and don't understand the fundamental benefits of closed source or FOSS, and IMHO, they are doing a disservice for OSS by promoting something that is not a reasonable benefit of OSS nor something which is an inherent difference it has.
Did anybody seriously think that the SSN would become the universal identifier for Americans that it now is?
I believe that the Supreme Court did... right up until the part where FDR threatened to destroy the Constitutional seperation of powers if they didn't pass the bill.
JC isn't here to stay yet, he's here for a brief visit cause pops decided that this development would be so disrupting to all his poor little geeks that they had to be warned. Poor JC had to log out of his Mac OS 23.19.3.2.0.4.5 box which was divine protection and come down to utter a warning to the non-believers.
You completely missed my point, which was that in the human fashion, we have jumped to the conclusion that change is bad. Change is simply uncertain, but it is not automatically harmful, and that is the scare being perpetrated around the world. Come to me with data on the effects, not the cause.
Desertification? In the event of a 3 degree average increase, which is almost three times the current estimate by 2100, Africa in all areas except the very southern portion of the continent is predicted to receive substantially more and more consistent percipitation.
Further, global warming, whether true or not, could not signifigantly affect trade winds which are governed by the spin of the Earth, and it is they that drive the major weather in many tropical and subtropical regions.
Global warming may or may not happen. If it does, it may or may not be a bad thing. Humans don't have any fundamental data on the subject, so human nature takes over: we fear change. The whole global warming scare across the world smacks of a very human fear of change. Most people don't even realize that the temperature on Earth now is, as far as we can tell, below the lifetime average for Earth, and below the lifetime median as well.
Why does everyone have to make any statement on economics a pissing match? I never said anything about the dollar. The Euro has performed weakly compared to its goals and backing, and it is primarily due to the deficits which France and Germany have been racking up, which rival those of the US for the only types of values that matter to economists: % GDP.
A weak dollar is actually a good way to fix outsourcing, as US goods become cheaper... in fact its the only way that the market by itself really has to fix outsourcing and trade deficits.
As for the Yuan... it has performed where it has because the Chinese government has been more or less subsidizing its own currency, which I suppose a more communist government is capable of. No matter how good the opportunity, China can't sustain a 9% growth rate forever, and when they slow down, their currency will have to come crashing to the floor, or we'll be mopping up Chinese bonds to fund their debt.
The global economy is a revolving door, and no one is spared, no matter how high and mighty they think they are. The state of the US dollar testifies to that.
There would be a lot of nice things about the EU fully federalizing... for the US and for Europe.
Particularly that countries like Germany and France would be force to give up their bullying of the rest of continent. The Euro would be a lot stronger if Germany and France didn't keep breaking the deficit rules that they force everyone else to abide by.
If by "& co" you mean "all politicians and people involved in government", then yeah.
If you think this is a Democrat/Republican thing, you're a moron. Not even the Supreme Court has been kind to the 10th Amendment since about 1870, and it's just gotten worse and worse since WWII.
Very few Slashdotters, as far as I can tell, actually endorse piracy outright. Those are the more "community commodity" folks, (socialism and such).
As I guage it there are a few key bones most/.ers have with the whole situation:
The US flexes copyright enforcement with complete disregard for other countries sovereignty or local government.
The DMCA, the primary document in the US outlining enforcement of digital copyright infringement, is flagrantly unconstitutional and reads like a rap sheet of big companies that want their own legal concerns codified.
The RIAA and MPAA have been completely resistant to any changes in their business model and have been attempting to "win" by illegalizing opposing business models.
The RIAA and MPAA operate as a illegal cartel, benefitting neither the producers or the consumers, only the distributors and financers.
Most slashdotters concede that regardless of what should be copyright law, or what is, many consumers download illegally as "try-to-buy" situation, and that illegal filesharing actually does translate to sales in some cases, (though we don't have any accurate measurements of this translation).
In an effort to "prevent" piracy, signifigant man-hours and dollars are wasted on "solutions" which will not stop real pirates and add no value to the product, only increasing the cost to real consumers.
Many of these piracy measures infringe the consumers fair-use rights under copyright, but due to the size of the corporations and the unconstitutional DMCA, consumers have little recourse.
These are just some of the valid concerns which are raised by many slashdotters.
Sorry, we're not a bunch of corporate hating communist hippies, most of us just have the common sense that the corporations involved seem to lack. So don't act like you're morally superior or something... equating the slashdot crowd to the hysterical prepubescent throng that constitutes Digg is a bit... insulting.
I work in a large school district. Large enough that it has a central IT department, (which is where I work).
The closest position here to what your describing is what we call a "Site Technology Coordinator", who we have at most high schools and middle school that deal with most of the stuff our actual sys admins don't have time to deal with. (We moved the printer without telling the WAN team and now we can't print?)
First, for a school of around 400 or so, you shouldn't need more than one full time technology assitant, if you have the tools to properly manage the systems. We use ZENworks, which obviously is overkill for such a small scope, (we have 50,000 students we service though).
Our largest school has about 2,000 students and about 150-175 staff, and we still only have one full time STC. We do however have area techs as well.
For your situation, the best way to convince a board is comparative analysis. See how other school districts or other schools fare, and what they do. Like us for instance. Your needed staff will probably total one full time Admin, and at least one part-time tech, (such as a TOSA [Teacher on Special Assignment], or teacher with extra responsibilities).
Some are, certainly, but I fear that any hunt will simply make a list of people who have different opinions than the prevailing winds of the crowd, much like the mob rule on Digg. I know that I am a lot less skeptical about Sony as a company than most here, but I work at a school district in IT. My only experience with Sony has been their products. I'd hate to be labelled as a Sony shill.
How is DVD any less proprietary? The only difference is that all the other companies went ahead and paid their licensing fees for it.
Add on top of that the fact that BluRay is outselling HDDVD signifigantly and the "PS3Cast" swipe and I can only assume that your post was nothing but flamboyantly anti-Sony diatribe.
Saying Gears isn't an 'FPS' is somewhat disingenuous. Yes, it's from a third person point of view... but I doubt many people would deny that its a direct competitor to other shooter games, particularly big FPS's like CoD and Halo.
Sorry to go off topic, but I had to address this point. It's unlikely that you just had to pay taxes. What likely happened is that you filled out a form telling the IRS how much extra money they stole from your paycheck.
Federal witholding is such a scam. Taxes should NEVER be withheld. When you never see the money, you don't ever think of the taxes as your money, so you are not vigilant to changes in taxes, nor do you care much how they are spent.
Thats completely ignoring that if you were allowed to pay instead of having it stolen, the resulting investment capital available would be excellent for the economy.
Well, what else are they going to do? Public servants can only pass the buck to the taxpayer... it's not as if Mr. Governor is gonna whip out his checkbook and cover the cost of such-and-such.
Their responsibility is making less expensive decisions, or less wasteful decisions, not covering their cost. Your responsibility is putting people who will make those decisions into power, and then covering the costs of their actions once they're there.
I find it highly amusing that something so speculative got on/.
Does the article use any substantiation beyond Google buying DoubleClick, which they arguably would have done for the sole purpose of keeping the company out of Microsoft's hands?
Honestly, people are giving Google a hard time on this one. I will too, if they screw it up. But at this point, all I see is a defensive acquisition against a company that has stated the intent of putting them under when they only have ONE revenue stream.
The US military takes the same approach to the Geneva Conventions regarding the use of 50 cal bullets on humans. Technically, you can only use 50 cal guns for equipment, but the US military maintains that clothing, guns, ammunition, flashlights, and other things the enemy may be carrying constitute targetable equipment.
Wow... all you have to do is be a public servant, and dammit, you're "the man".
How hysterically alarmist of you. I do indeed know what formulaic education brings. If you think that non-formulaic education relies on anyone except the teacher, you don't understand education.
Why is it that people attack the people for the faults of the system? You know why teachers are incapable? Unions. That's it. Unions allow them to sit back and do nothing different for 30 years straight. Unions allow them to be poor teachers with no repurcussions. Unions allow teachers that have no ability to deal with students into a classroom.
You don't seem to grasp what exactly it is I'm talking about.
Go ahead, shoot the messenger. I'll be laughing my ass off when a whole generation later you just can't figure out why attacking the people didn't fix the system.
Slashdot Mirror
Or the kinds of weapons we see in Star Wars and Star Trek. Sounds a lot like blasters (solid "chunks" of laser) phasers (variably interacts as a solid or laser) and shields to me.
Am I the only one that read that as Europeon Space Agency upon first glance?
Then the entire paradigm is based on the (flawed) assumption that a general set of eyes is inherently better than the hired set of eyes which the programmers for any given closed source project employ.
The issue you have is that you don't trust the set of eyes, but the process is fundamentally the same if you do not review the source code yourself. You are trusting someone else to assure you nothing is wrong, and confusing motive with action.
The people who try and claim that FOSS is better than closed source because you can't be sure the evil corporate grmlins are stealing your soul are grasping at straws, and don't understand the fundamental benefits of closed source or FOSS, and IMHO, they are doing a disservice for OSS by promoting something that is not a reasonable benefit of OSS nor something which is an inherent difference it has.
Wow, "Hans Brix" missed quite a bit if the all the asian people in NK have blonde hair...
Wow, I'm glad that you and adam had this discussion... it prevented me from having to argue with you in order to discover you were a cockbite.
JC isn't here to stay yet, he's here for a brief visit cause pops decided that this development would be so disrupting to all his poor little geeks that they had to be warned. Poor JC had to log out of his Mac OS 23.19.3.2.0.4.5 box which was divine protection and come down to utter a warning to the non-believers.
You completely missed my point, which was that in the human fashion, we have jumped to the conclusion that change is bad. Change is simply uncertain, but it is not automatically harmful, and that is the scare being perpetrated around the world. Come to me with data on the effects, not the cause.
Desertification? In the event of a 3 degree average increase, which is almost three times the current estimate by 2100, Africa in all areas except the very southern portion of the continent is predicted to receive substantially more and more consistent percipitation.
Further, global warming, whether true or not, could not signifigantly affect trade winds which are governed by the spin of the Earth, and it is they that drive the major weather in many tropical and subtropical regions.
Global warming may or may not happen. If it does, it may or may not be a bad thing. Humans don't have any fundamental data on the subject, so human nature takes over: we fear change. The whole global warming scare across the world smacks of a very human fear of change. Most people don't even realize that the temperature on Earth now is, as far as we can tell, below the lifetime average for Earth, and below the lifetime median as well.
Why does everyone have to make any statement on economics a pissing match? I never said anything about the dollar. The Euro has performed weakly compared to its goals and backing, and it is primarily due to the deficits which France and Germany have been racking up, which rival those of the US for the only types of values that matter to economists: % GDP.
A weak dollar is actually a good way to fix outsourcing, as US goods become cheaper... in fact its the only way that the market by itself really has to fix outsourcing and trade deficits.
As for the Yuan... it has performed where it has because the Chinese government has been more or less subsidizing its own currency, which I suppose a more communist government is capable of. No matter how good the opportunity, China can't sustain a 9% growth rate forever, and when they slow down, their currency will have to come crashing to the floor, or we'll be mopping up Chinese bonds to fund their debt.
The global economy is a revolving door, and no one is spared, no matter how high and mighty they think they are. The state of the US dollar testifies to that.
Wow... you Europeons are fucking screwed if your water is running out. Guess you want some of our American made rain now, don't cha?
There would be a lot of nice things about the EU fully federalizing... for the US and for Europe.
Particularly that countries like Germany and France would be force to give up their bullying of the rest of continent. The Euro would be a lot stronger if Germany and France didn't keep breaking the deficit rules that they force everyone else to abide by.
If by "& co" you mean "all politicians and people involved in government", then yeah.
If you think this is a Democrat/Republican thing, you're a moron. Not even the Supreme Court has been kind to the 10th Amendment since about 1870, and it's just gotten worse and worse since WWII.
As I guage it there are a few key bones most
Sorry, we're not a bunch of corporate hating communist hippies, most of us just have the common sense that the corporations involved seem to lack. So don't act like you're morally superior or something... equating the slashdot crowd to the hysterical prepubescent throng that constitutes Digg is a bit... insulting.
Better go pick up a PS3 then.
I work in a large school district. Large enough that it has a central IT department, (which is where I work).
The closest position here to what your describing is what we call a "Site Technology Coordinator", who we have at most high schools and middle school that deal with most of the stuff our actual sys admins don't have time to deal with. (We moved the printer without telling the WAN team and now we can't print?)
First, for a school of around 400 or so, you shouldn't need more than one full time technology assitant, if you have the tools to properly manage the systems. We use ZENworks, which obviously is overkill for such a small scope, (we have 50,000 students we service though).
Our largest school has about 2,000 students and about 150-175 staff, and we still only have one full time STC. We do however have area techs as well.
For your situation, the best way to convince a board is comparative analysis. See how other school districts or other schools fare, and what they do. Like us for instance. Your needed staff will probably total one full time Admin, and at least one part-time tech, (such as a TOSA [Teacher on Special Assignment], or teacher with extra responsibilities).
If you need more info, e-mail me.
Some are, certainly, but I fear that any hunt will simply make a list of people who have different opinions than the prevailing winds of the crowd, much like the mob rule on Digg. I know that I am a lot less skeptical about Sony as a company than most here, but I work at a school district in IT. My only experience with Sony has been their products. I'd hate to be labelled as a Sony shill.
How is DVD any less proprietary? The only difference is that all the other companies went ahead and paid their licensing fees for it.
Add on top of that the fact that BluRay is outselling HDDVD signifigantly and the "PS3Cast" swipe and I can only assume that your post was nothing but flamboyantly anti-Sony diatribe.
Saying Gears isn't an 'FPS' is somewhat disingenuous. Yes, it's from a third person point of view... but I doubt many people would deny that its a direct competitor to other shooter games, particularly big FPS's like CoD and Halo.
Federal witholding is such a scam. Taxes should NEVER be withheld. When you never see the money, you don't ever think of the taxes as your money, so you are not vigilant to changes in taxes, nor do you care much how they are spent.
Thats completely ignoring that if you were allowed to pay instead of having it stolen, the resulting investment capital available would be excellent for the economy.
Well, what else are they going to do? Public servants can only pass the buck to the taxpayer... it's not as if Mr. Governor is gonna whip out his checkbook and cover the cost of such-and-such.
Their responsibility is making less expensive decisions, or less wasteful decisions, not covering their cost. Your responsibility is putting people who will make those decisions into power, and then covering the costs of their actions once they're there.
I find it highly amusing that something so speculative got on /.
Does the article use any substantiation beyond Google buying DoubleClick, which they arguably would have done for the sole purpose of keeping the company out of Microsoft's hands?
Honestly, people are giving Google a hard time on this one. I will too, if they screw it up. But at this point, all I see is a defensive acquisition against a company that has stated the intent of putting them under when they only have ONE revenue stream.
The US military takes the same approach to the Geneva Conventions regarding the use of 50 cal bullets on humans. Technically, you can only use 50 cal guns for equipment, but the US military maintains that clothing, guns, ammunition, flashlights, and other things the enemy may be carrying constitute targetable equipment.
Wow... all you have to do is be a public servant, and dammit, you're "the man".
How hysterically alarmist of you. I do indeed know what formulaic education brings. If you think that non-formulaic education relies on anyone except the teacher, you don't understand education.
Why is it that people attack the people for the faults of the system? You know why teachers are incapable? Unions. That's it. Unions allow them to sit back and do nothing different for 30 years straight. Unions allow them to be poor teachers with no repurcussions. Unions allow teachers that have no ability to deal with students into a classroom.
You don't seem to grasp what exactly it is I'm talking about.
Go ahead, shoot the messenger. I'll be laughing my ass off when a whole generation later you just can't figure out why attacking the people didn't fix the system.