One often over looked "benefit" of Vista is that it's Control Panel is completely redesigned and made much more confusing. So confusing in fact that my mother (after having upgraded and I don't know why) is unable to break her PC anymore by messing with the Control Panel. Under XP she knew where things were and would adjust them. Now she can't find anything, so I get fewer calls.
On the flip side of the coin, the poor guys in my IT department are also lost as to where the hell the controls they need have gone in the new Control Panel.
Ooh, ooh, a good (from management's perspective) reason to use Google's new "Office" software! If Microsoft is doing it, then what Google is doing must be viable and legit, right? Well, I can hope they see it that way.
As a classics major in collage, I had the need to set up a small but informative website circa 1996. I had no one to help me, so through the use of view source I figured out how to make a very basic website (it even used frames). From there I learned Javascript, CSS, XHTML, XML, Java, C#, C, and SQL. So, the article is right - Html skills can lead to real software skills. I apologize for never learning/using any LAMP except MySQL but I've always been given Win boxes as servers to work with.
While I don't like Skype per se, they bring up a good point and have Congress's ear. The current mobile providers do everything they can to reduce customer choice and therefore competition. They lock phones, force users into long contracts, and charge outrageous prices. Look to Asia and Europe for examples of successful, open networks with no locked phones and no contracts (yes, you can get a contract for a lower price but you're not required).
Common carrier laws should be applied to the telcos and to Skype; in fact to any large network. The government is supposed to server the people, not businesses. Everyday I hope that somebody in Congress will remember this.
Apple decided to not take cash directly from Cingular, hence the lack of a Cingular logo on the phone. The phone is locked, so Apple has don't nothing for consumer. Yes, you should be able to get an iPhone out of contract and that means a cheaper monthly for the consumer (in theory). Is Apple the good guy? Not really.
Fermi makes a lot of assumptions. First it assumes that an advanced civilization is looking to expand. Just because we humans would doesn't mean all would. It assumes that we'd recognize an alien when we saw it - there's a good chance we wouldn't Silicon based life forms and Carbon based ones might not even notice each other.
A lot of commenters are assuming that if an advanced civilization found us they'd be studying us. Would we study aliens we found? What happened last time a group of humans decided to spread out and colonize? It would happen again, but with another species we probably wouldn't think of it as amoral to just "remove" them all. So, my assumption is that we know if we'd been found - because we'd all be dead. My first comment counter this because I'm assuming that another species would behave as we do.
Lastly, Fermi is assuming that the advanced civilization survived. We're not even sure that we're going to survive, let a long actually make it off of Earth to colonize anything. Who's to say any other civilization has?
So, if there are large lakes in the Anartic, that need refilling - then perhaps it's already dumping more fresh water into the oceans naturally than we originally thought. If so, this is good news for us humans. One of the major fears of global warming has been the desalinization of the oceans and the disrupting of the normal ocean currents -leading to massive global cooling. If the ice caps are already desalinating faster than we thought, perhaps we have more time than we thought to sort this whole warming thing out. I can sleep better already... off to take a nap.
Kudos to the scientist. From the photo I would have called it a grasshopper. Anyways, this is very cool news. If the owner (or future owner) allows scientists to drill in and get a small sample of DNA we'll be able to link it to a modern variety of frog and perhaps other animals; and it will be an amazing lineage of how DNA gets morphed over time to adapt to the environment. I'll need to do some searching to see how the frog's environment differs from 25 million years ago to now.
The problem with this idea is that it allows big, rich companies to lockout an entire idea just because it could be a threat to them. We want new ideas to come along and threaten the big companies. That's the whole idea behind innovation. If a patent's cost increases each year, then that means an individual or small/start up company gets less protection than a well establish, rich megacorp - imho the opposite the intention of what the USPO was established to do.
Ack - speaking of selling out. Google has proven themselves to be no better a company than any other. They made a mockery of their "do no evil" pledge with the whole search in China thing, and with their lobbying efforts in the various states. You may as well sell Wikipedia to Microsoft or IBM.
Wikipedia serves a lot of functions, and it serves a lot of people. I personally have donated to their cause. I guess it just surprises me how many people are willing to use Wikipedia, but how few are willing to pay for that use. I guess that it shouldn't.
Disallow patenting an idea of how to do something. Proof of concept must exist. Limit software parents to 10 years and require that the source code and all source code for updates and/or patches be given to the USPO. After the 10 years expires the source code becomes public domain to be used by startups, students, and competitors.
Deny all patenting of genetic and biological technology.
If a company cannot make a profit off an idea that they have sole access to for a decade, then that idea or company is faulty to begin with anyways. Let somebody else have a chance to make the idea work.
(( ok I feel the need to start this by saying I am pro-OSS and pro-Linux, I'm just not anit-M$ ))
Alright then, if re-use of old code is evil then Linux must be too. Are you saying distros never have 'copy and paste old code" in them? You expect every version of Window to be completely coded from the groud up? How about other apps like Photoshop, FireFox, Thunderbird, Office, or any other software out there that's not on version 1.0?
I'll agree that Win98 was a farce and so was WinMe, but Win98SE was actually a fairly stable (if insecure) OS to use and served millions of people well. WinNT to Win2K was a huge internal system upgrade. The redevelopment of the micro-kernal subsystems and the HAL were needed and good. WinXP has added a lot in the way of UI improvements and really upgraded M$'s networking technology; and we're not even talking.NET here.
With Vista huge portions of the OS are getting major security and API overhauls. M$ is not just sitting on their laurals. They are upgrading and improving. Perhaps not in the direction that most of us here on Slashdot would prefer, but to say that they're just "copy and paste old code" is a slight to thousands of hardworking software engineers. Yes, I'm an software engineer, no I don't work for/with M$.
Your mentality confuses me. It seems like you're just anti-M$, just to be anti-M$. I could be wrong here, but you're arguments are not swaying me.
Hardly. Do you even understand the vast differences bewteen the Win9x and WinNT code bases? Come on, get serious. One is a DOS derivative and the other is not. One is multi-threaded and the other is not. One is kernal based and the other... ok, you're getting it.
I see I got mod'ed down for saying anything supporting a M$ decision. God forbid. I know this is Slashdot and it's Linux country, but come'on people you're (for the most part) techy people that understand that this isn't true a bad thing. Even if you only use Linux, somebody you know uses Windows and if it's gonna help them, or reduce the number of times they ask you for help with their latest virus infect all the better.
No? Is everything M$ so terrible and completely wrong?
What's wrong with Vista? MS has decided to delay it to guarantee a better product? So let me get this straight: if they get it out faster, then "their marketing machine is push crap code out too fast" and if they take longer then "they're taking too long and becoming irrelivant". Which is it, 'cause you cannot have both with an OS that supports that much legacy software/hardware. I cannot even begin to imagine the nightmare of supporting hardware like PS/2 mice along side USB2.0 devices... not to mention the archaic software packages they need to backward support.
MS's backwards support for DOS and Win9x has always amazed me. Not that they do it, but that they've been able to.
Guess I'm in the 10% then. I love Apple industrial design. I hate Apple 'uniqueness'. Nothing of value to me runs on the Mac. All of my tools don't so I cannot use it for work, and of the games I play only WoW runs on the Mac.
Windows on the Mac is what I've wanted for years. I would pay a 20% premium for that.
Doesn't equate to 1,000 titles sold per PS2 sold? Or am I reading that wrong? 'Cause with less than 1,000 titles for sale and most of those titles not worth buying I can't imagine the average PS2 owner has 100 titles to their name, let a lone 1,000.
I just logged to check. There's a Staff of Jordon on the AH for 250G on Moonrunner right now. The majority of blue items L25 are between 5-25 gold. Sure, that's a fortune to any character at that level (and it should be)... unless they have a main.
Economy seems fine to me.
I would label you a bigot. If you're playing WoW (and chances are good), Gold farming in now way damages the economy. What it does do is put more gold into the game for casual players allowing them access to expensive items.
People like you are the ones that take honest, hardworking people and make them feel bad about their jobs. The men and women in China who are 'gold farming' are being entrepreneurs and shame on you for saying they have no right to be so.
Besides, give me one concreate example of a gold farmer ruining an WoW game economy that you were part of.
So my question is: Do your statements stem from ignorance or prejudice?
Gathering content for you to puruse based on a string text... isn't that what Google does? better? Sheesh, and with Google I'm stuck searching for same crap day in and day out. Everyday can be completely new crap.
Quite the opposite actually. As a small company owner, there are people that I cannot afford to promote because nobody could fill their shoes. Sure, they get pay raises but I cannot see giving them additional duties as their plate is already full.
As a species it's our job to look out for each other first. Do you eat beef, pork, chicken, or any other living animals? Is that cruel? Do you wear leather, or like Jello (come on there's always room for Jello).
Learning from mice to save the lives of thousands or millions is worth it in my opinion. Sure it seems crule when you're focused up on it real close... but stop being myopic and think about the larger picture. And, someday when you're sick and a medicine that was found by doing research on mice saves your life... then tell me how it's inhumane.
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One often over looked "benefit" of Vista is that it's Control Panel is completely redesigned and made much more confusing. So confusing in fact that my mother (after having upgraded and I don't know why) is unable to break her PC anymore by messing with the Control Panel. Under XP she knew where things were and would adjust them. Now she can't find anything, so I get fewer calls.
On the flip side of the coin, the poor guys in my IT department are also lost as to where the hell the controls they need have gone in the new Control Panel.
Ooh, ooh, a good (from management's perspective) reason to use Google's new "Office" software! If Microsoft is doing it, then what Google is doing must be viable and legit, right? Well, I can hope they see it that way.
As a classics major in collage, I had the need to set up a small but informative website circa 1996. I had no one to help me, so through the use of view source I figured out how to make a very basic website (it even used frames). From there I learned Javascript, CSS, XHTML, XML, Java, C#, C, and SQL. So, the article is right - Html skills can lead to real software skills. I apologize for never learning/using any LAMP except MySQL but I've always been given Win boxes as servers to work with.
While I don't like Skype per se, they bring up a good point and have Congress's ear. The current mobile providers do everything they can to reduce customer choice and therefore competition. They lock phones, force users into long contracts, and charge outrageous prices. Look to Asia and Europe for examples of successful, open networks with no locked phones and no contracts (yes, you can get a contract for a lower price but you're not required).
Common carrier laws should be applied to the telcos and to Skype; in fact to any large network. The government is supposed to server the people, not businesses. Everyday I hope that somebody in Congress will remember this.
Apple decided to not take cash directly from Cingular, hence the lack of a Cingular logo on the phone. The phone is locked, so Apple has don't nothing for consumer. Yes, you should be able to get an iPhone out of contract and that means a cheaper monthly for the consumer (in theory). Is Apple the good guy? Not really.
Fermi makes a lot of assumptions. First it assumes that an advanced civilization is looking to expand. Just because we humans would doesn't mean all would. It assumes that we'd recognize an alien when we saw it - there's a good chance we wouldn't Silicon based life forms and Carbon based ones might not even notice each other.
A lot of commenters are assuming that if an advanced civilization found us they'd be studying us. Would we study aliens we found? What happened last time a group of humans decided to spread out and colonize? It would happen again, but with another species we probably wouldn't think of it as amoral to just "remove" them all. So, my assumption is that we know if we'd been found - because we'd all be dead. My first comment counter this because I'm assuming that another species would behave as we do.
Lastly, Fermi is assuming that the advanced civilization survived. We're not even sure that we're going to survive, let a long actually make it off of Earth to colonize anything. Who's to say any other civilization has?
PS. The speed of light is looking more and more to be variable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#.22Fas ter-than-light.22_observations_and_experiments
So, if there are large lakes in the Anartic, that need refilling - then perhaps it's already dumping more fresh water into the oceans naturally than we originally thought. If so, this is good news for us humans. One of the major fears of global warming has been the desalinization of the oceans and the disrupting of the normal ocean currents -leading to massive global cooling. If the ice caps are already desalinating faster than we thought, perhaps we have more time than we thought to sort this whole warming thing out. I can sleep better already... off to take a nap.
Kudos to the scientist. From the photo I would have called it a grasshopper. Anyways, this is very cool news. If the owner (or future owner) allows scientists to drill in and get a small sample of DNA we'll be able to link it to a modern variety of frog and perhaps other animals; and it will be an amazing lineage of how DNA gets morphed over time to adapt to the environment. I'll need to do some searching to see how the frog's environment differs from 25 million years ago to now.
The problem with this idea is that it allows big, rich companies to lockout an entire idea just because it could be a threat to them. We want new ideas to come along and threaten the big companies. That's the whole idea behind innovation. If a patent's cost increases each year, then that means an individual or small/start up company gets less protection than a well establish, rich megacorp - imho the opposite the intention of what the USPO was established to do.
Ack - speaking of selling out. Google has proven themselves to be no better a company than any other. They made a mockery of their "do no evil" pledge with the whole search in China thing, and with their lobbying efforts in the various states. You may as well sell Wikipedia to Microsoft or IBM.
Wikipedia serves a lot of functions, and it serves a lot of people. I personally have donated to their cause. I guess it just surprises me how many people are willing to use Wikipedia, but how few are willing to pay for that use. I guess that it shouldn't.
Disallow patenting an idea of how to do something. Proof of concept must exist. Limit software parents to 10 years and require that the source code and all source code for updates and/or patches be given to the USPO. After the 10 years expires the source code becomes public domain to be used by startups, students, and competitors.
Deny all patenting of genetic and biological technology.
If a company cannot make a profit off an idea that they have sole access to for a decade, then that idea or company is faulty to begin with anyways. Let somebody else have a chance to make the idea work.
Alright then, if re-use of old code is evil then Linux must be too. Are you saying distros never have 'copy and paste old code" in them? You expect every version of Window to be completely coded from the groud up? How about other apps like Photoshop, FireFox, Thunderbird, Office, or any other software out there that's not on version 1.0?
I'll agree that Win98 was a farce and so was WinMe, but Win98SE was actually a fairly stable (if insecure) OS to use and served millions of people well. WinNT to Win2K was a huge internal system upgrade. The redevelopment of the micro-kernal subsystems and the HAL were needed and good. WinXP has added a lot in the way of UI improvements and really upgraded M$'s networking technology; and we're not even talking .NET here.
With Vista huge portions of the OS are getting major security and API overhauls. M$ is not just sitting on their laurals. They are upgrading and improving. Perhaps not in the direction that most of us here on Slashdot would prefer, but to say that they're just "copy and paste old code" is a slight to thousands of hardworking software engineers. Yes, I'm an software engineer, no I don't work for/with M$.
Your mentality confuses me. It seems like you're just anti-M$, just to be anti-M$. I could be wrong here, but you're arguments are not swaying me.
I see I got mod'ed down for saying anything supporting a M$ decision. God forbid. I know this is Slashdot and it's Linux country, but come'on people you're (for the most part) techy people that understand that this isn't true a bad thing. Even if you only use Linux, somebody you know uses Windows and if it's gonna help them, or reduce the number of times they ask you for help with their latest virus infect all the better.
No? Is everything M$ so terrible and completely wrong?
MS's backwards support for DOS and Win9x has always amazed me. Not that they do it, but that they've been able to.
Windows on the Mac is what I've wanted for years. I would pay a 20% premium for that.
# 1b units software
Doesn't equate to 1,000 titles sold per PS2 sold? Or am I reading that wrong? 'Cause with less than 1,000 titles for sale and most of those titles not worth buying I can't imagine the average PS2 owner has 100 titles to their name, let a lone 1,000.
Lets just state the facts here. Nothing from Redmond is going to 'kill' the iPod. Aint gonna happen.
I just logged to check. There's a Staff of Jordon on the AH for 250G on Moonrunner right now. The majority of blue items L25 are between 5-25 gold. Sure, that's a fortune to any character at that level (and it should be)... unless they have a main. Economy seems fine to me.
People like you are the ones that take honest, hardworking people and make them feel bad about their jobs. The men and women in China who are 'gold farming' are being entrepreneurs and shame on you for saying they have no right to be so.
Besides, give me one concreate example of a gold farmer ruining an WoW game economy that you were part of.
So my question is: Do your statements stem from ignorance or prejudice?
Yeah - I need to bone up on that reading with accuracy thing I keep hearing about...
Gathering content for you to puruse based on a string text... isn't that what Google does? better? Sheesh, and with Google I'm stuck searching for same crap day in and day out. Everyday can be completely new crap.
Quite the opposite actually. As a small company owner, there are people that I cannot afford to promote because nobody could fill their shoes. Sure, they get pay raises but I cannot see giving them additional duties as their plate is already full.
German -> English (thanks Google!)
Learning from mice to save the lives of thousands or millions is worth it in my opinion. Sure it seems crule when you're focused up on it real close... but stop being myopic and think about the larger picture. And, someday when you're sick and a medicine that was found by doing research on mice saves your life... then tell me how it's inhumane.
Until they finish getting Windows Vista working on the iMac Duo. Ahh the future cometh! ^_^