Embed is not part of any W3C standard. To embed an object, call the tag, which is standards complaint. However, images go in the tag. Someone tell the USPTO that W3C standards are not patented, and they should be encouraged.
But, Firefox will show the pictures (badly) if you have Quicktime. Let's stick to complaining when browsers don't display "standards compliant" pages correctly.
First off, I agree, this entire thing was childish. That said, I expect to see this rated this flamebait or troll or whatever for criticizing all these "insightful" posts... BUT...
How dare Slashdotters get all in a tiff over this. If I'm not mistaken, and I'm most certainly not, Slashdotters were slapping each other's asses left and right when this story came out.
Slashdot did all but gang-bang Sys-Con Media over Maureen O'Gara. Now that another reporter has disclosed the private details of another online person (including links to their home address), now the person themselves is the guilty party somehow?
I kinda liked having "Good" karma, but if giving it all up exposes the hypocrisy here, then so be it. Yeah, Google over reacted. But saying "Fuck him" to Google exec's privacy, after/. majority also said "Fuck her" to Maureen O'Gara for exposing someone else's private details, is a gross double-standard. Let me guess, we're just supporting those we already like, and pounding on those we already don't like.
I guess the issues don't matter, as long as you jump on whichever side of the fence suits the community better.
It's more about XML, I believe. News is a unique content source, as opposed to static content. For instance, Moby Dick is static content. Moby Dick in XML might not be that useful. RSS, or xml, on the other hand is raw annotated content. Unlike a webpage, it doesn't need an html interpreter (browser) to read, but can feed directly into applications, including offline readers (I recommend Avantgo if you really want mobile news... it installs on most palm/pocket pc devices).
The advantage is that rss is really different. If you look at the XHTML specification, RSS is only really different from a web page in the names of the tags it uses. It's just a file format. It doesn't cure cancer. It won't make your teeth whiter. But, for people that aren't html standards compliant, they at least get their feet wet in a standards compliant format for their content, thus increasing the universal access to their public data.
And by that measure, Google has increased universal access to their data as well. Such feeds might be used directly by rss readers. For the most part, though, the feeds will be used as parts of applications.
For instance, you could set up a company RSS feed to search for all news on your company, and feed it directly into the internal e-mail system. Or, if you are like me, you can integrate RSS news feeds into other web-applications, like Google Maps. Prior to this, I hooked Yahoo's RSS news feeds (by location) to the Google maps, so that you could view top news geographically, instead of chronologically.
Without RSS and other XML standards, scraping websites is very inaccurate, and much more bandwidth/time consuming. Parsing an XML document is far easier than a raw, unorganized document. With a proper cache setup (like Magpie for PHP), small sites can utilize a LOT of RSS content, which would only take a tiny amount of bandwidth. Compare that to a site scraping a Google search result, then scraping all resulting pages, and trying to pick out things such as the "headline", "publishing date", "author", etc.
Those are some of the advantages to RSS/XML, though I'm sure someone even more familiar with the standards could go more in depth.
I think the 60 week years will appeal to you. Divisibility and symmetry of the calendar is one of its greatest assets. Being based on triangular numbers, it is the most whole number divisible calendar available, as it scales up at base 10, so you don't have to learn anything new to apply it to a decade, century, or millennium.
It is, however, based on decimal time, with a day equalling a unit of 1, and time being a decimal of that. With standard language, time can always be represented as a factor of one, such as 1/2 of a day, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc. That's just a bit hard to make a clock out of, though.
In that same fashion, I like wikipedia, hate its editorial system. I think this may help in certain cases, and I have an example (name of article not included... obvious reasons).
I help maintain a few pages at Wikipedia. I only maintain those pages which I have direct knowledge of. Some people like to go around confirming stats, checking spelling, grammer, adding photos, whatever. I'm the other type.
So, one of the pages I look over was radically changed one day. I look at the diff comments, and get a lot of fluff about self-promotion. Of course, the promotion was not from a person, but from the item itself... about itself.
I looked through the changes, taking this person's view into consideration, and restored most everything that was unrelated to what I had assumed truly constituted any hint of self-promotion.
I come back the next day, and the guy is FREAKED OUT! How could I reverse all of his changes! I was a content nazi!
I explained on the talk page that his editorial view should only target specific examples, and not turn a 1 and a half page entry into 2 paragraphs (which is exactly what this guy did). I had restored it to about 1 page, removing most links at the bottom to related resources, along with extranious content.
What does the guy do? Puts the page up for a vote for complete removal. Alas, I had to contact the other related individuals who had previously editted the page to get them to help on this issue. It was resolved, with only a few minor changes the the revisions I had made.
The point is this. There are too many people on Wikipedia that don't care what they do (reducing 90% of the content on their own personal whim), but go insane if you reverse even only a portion of their edit... even if you keep some of their edits as having good cause.
"I can edit you, but how dare you edit me!" mentality has GOT to go at Wikipedia. In one of the examples a/. poster posted below, I am an expert on the item in question. I certainly was not the only one, but I was the only one that made major contributions to this item. This guy came along knowing shit-all about the topic. If he finds something out of bounds with relation to the rules, that's one thing (something anyone should be able to spot). But by god, if I'm the expert, I'm going to fight for the legitimacy of a page, as well as for the accuracy of its content. The problem is... I shouldn't have to fight edit trolls. If you know nothing about a topic, and aren't experienced in properly enforcing the Wiki rules, LEAVE IT ALONE!
This guy's first clue should have been that the page only changed a few times a year to update stats, and to "beautify" the page with reformatting of the content, and had never been the target of a vote of any kind.
I hope the changes at Wikipedia have a positive effect to reduce such headaches. I only overlook about 3 items, and it's still a pain. I'd hate to be someone who deals with dozens every day. The stress would cause my eyes to pop out of my head.
"It's not just the media choosing to run only sensationalist stories, but media consumers, who mainly buy crap and leave thoughtful articles unread."
So THAT'S why people keep talking about Tom Cruise. And all this time, I thought they really were curious about what Scientology (really) was. Turns out they are just reading about famous, good looking, eccentric people regardless of their religion. I guess that's why I don't hear much about Kabbalah anymore either... Britney Spears got knocked up, so her kooky "Hollywood" religion isn't news anymore.
Actually, I bought my router (2002) before Cisco bought Linksys (2003).
I am sad to report, though, that Linksys Boo-Boo actually died early last month. I'll eventually throw away the router, but I'll keep the box if I find it again. The box probably still works as a box. The router, unfortunately, does not work as a router.
Did anyone also think that maybe because the version on his site includes images (I can't recall ever seeing an image on Slashdot... but maybe there was a crazy experiment to do so long ago).
Also, his full text is rather long by Slashdot standards. Slashdot readers tend to like their news in 1 paragraph sound bytes, and then clicking a link if they care to read more. Well, isn't that what he did?
Either way, who cares. It's news. God forbid he post it anywhere outside Slashdot too!
The News Nazi: "No news for j00! Post only on Slashdot, or never come back! Next!"
/me hugs my Linksys router... "You'll keep me safe, Boo-Boo, won't you? Cisco let the bad man hurt people. You'll protect me, though. I love you Linksys Boo-Boo!" *KISSES*
The system seems like a tool to use against the RIAA/MPAA to block pollution efforts. However, then the other shoe drops, and the RIAA/MPAA has a tool to target the highest ranked nodes/cliches/people. No longer do they need to figure out how many files you have.
They just have to find one file, extrapolate your rank to the average system rank, run a few numbers (and maybe a few inflated costs in there too), and bam... for sharing Happy Birthday To You.mp3, you get slapped with a $1 million infringement case because you happen to rank as a very high legitimate link.
On the other hand, this might be benefitial to take the heat off of the majority of the file trading community that honestly is NOT costing them any money. They don't need to target the casual "weekend downloader", who's rank should be significantly lower (being a new node on the network) than some guy with 4 160GB HDD's of the latest releases to theater and DVD. Nobody feel sorry when these guys (or gals) get busted. When 14 year old choir girls get busted, there is PR hell to pay. This system allows them to do that.
Didn't RTFA, but that's my first impression. A use to boost network quality, a use to increase (not decrease) the reach of the **AA's, and a use that may help both sides.
"Every tool has at least 2 completely unassociated uses. A spoon can serve food to your mouth, or gouge the eyes out of your enemies." - Me
My parents met at their job. I've met many of my friends via jobs. This rule is just plain wrong.
Has anyone thought about how this could impact hiring practices? Will employers outright ban hiring married couples? How about those dating? If two employees married, will their honeymoon gift be getting fired?
Are we now going to have to have "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at the workplace?
No employer of mine will EVER control what I do outside the workplace. This is why workers need unions. This is the type of issues you strike over. Is corporate America going to be the new Big Brother, tracking who we fraternize with, and busting in on our late afternoon rendezvous like the Thought Police?
I refuse to accept that, EVER! I don't even allow my employer to dictate what I choose to do on my breaks, which is MY time! We're human, not lab rats, not machines, not pets, not robots, not computers! I'm nobody's bitch, and I'm nobody's slave!
Actually, that's probably one of the smartest things I've heard of yet (except the gyroscope suggestion might work better).
*Paper Weight Completely Split Keyboard (one half on each hand) *Gyroscope enabled mouse movements. *Couple extra rows of "center keys" for clicking (with either hand, of course). *Mounted those bad boys on arm braces *Throw in a HUD for kicks.
Hmmm.... Nah, I might as well be asking for a inner leg deployable sidearm, and dress up like Robocop.
I know these are just interns, and that the page (a complete rip-off) was done because they loved Google's page. However is this how Microsoft sees the world maybe?
I'm not talking about the order, that's just alphabetical. But, you don't see Apple in that list. You don't see Sony in that list either. You also don't see AOL. I would speculate, these interns may have given some great insight into who Microsoft is focusing on as the real competition... Google and Yahoo.
BTW, the popup window thing. I'm sorry, but it's not an improvement over Google's homepage. The windows don't even drag. Whoever created this uses IE and is longing for tabs. Get Firefox, and get rid of the floating javascript windows.
The positive about this? Google engineers are going to look at it and say to themselves, "Oh, HELL NO!" and get cracking on yet another ground breaking beta update.
Just make your page standards compliant. After all, isn't that the point? Not that any single browser should be singled out for MDK, but that browsers either be standards compliant, or they fail to render a page correctly?
"Free software, despite the price, can be confusing and costly for corporations to use. A few freely distributed programs, like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server, have become well known, but most are still unproved."
Despite the price... can be costly... because they are unproved? So, basically, stay away from unproved cheap software? Thank God I'm buying Windows Vista and running IIS. I mean, if you pay a lot, and a big name backs it, it must be secure, right?
The NYT needs to stop reading MS press releases as sources for stories on non-MS software. All software must be properly scrutinized.
How is open source different? At least you can hire a programmer to review its code. Try reviewing Windows code for stability. No, really, go ahead. I'll be working on the Linux/Apache box if you need me... I've left a CD of HijackThis!, AdAware, and Spybot next to the Windows box in case you run into any problems. I've wrote an "unproven open source" perl script to "net send" spam you if any critical updates are necessary for you to install while you work.
"Time is a measure, therefore they actually do thave the authority to regulate it."
Yeah, but let's make sure this isn't like when the State of Indiana when they tried unsuccessfully to legally solidify Pi as 3.2 in 1897.
Now, if only people got serious about real time reform, and not only disconnected the link between time and the sun, but also did away with DST, Timezones, a Base 12/60 numerical time hybrid, and disconnected the calendar and the moon as well!
"cases like these are part of the Justice Department's coordinated strategy to protect copyright owners from the online thieves who steal and then sell the products they work so hard to produce."
Wouldn't it be nice if it instead read:
"cases like these, (x="IBM, HP, APPLE"), are part of (y="Open Source")'s coordinated strategy to protect online theives from the copyright owners who then sell the products thousands work so hard to produce."
Have fun modifying the quote yourself. Here's an exciting example to get you started!
x="Garage Bands, Indie film makers, story writers" y="Creative Commons"
Re:Most Important Discovery of our Time
on
Ice Lake on Mars
·
· Score: 1
Like the Boyscout motto says, though, be prepared (even if they are having a hell of a time dealing with the laws of electricity now over at the Boy Scouts... no joke intended).
Society, all societies, must be prepared on some basic level to deal with such a discovery. While the fundamentalist can dismiss discovery of life on another planet as impossible (mainstream fundamentalism, not alien cults) and refuse to discuss the matter, the chance that we could find life elsewhere is higher than might have been previously thought if Mars has ice.
Having the faith of millions of moderates broken could dramatically shift everything we know. And by the time the theory becomes fact, it'll be too late to prepare. And by prepare, I mean starting a real discussion with religious groups about what it would mean to them and their faith. Giving people a guided path, as opposed to pulling the rug out from under them. Even if that discussion takes place on cable news talk shows, it's a start.
From what I can see, Amazon's primary business may be Amazon.com. But, it's secondary business is certainly to patent the obvious and the mundane, then attack its rivals with them. And there are plenty of rival companies out there already doing this for many services, not just web. In fact, you can sell web services over eBay now, using Paypal, also owned by eBay. How is this different?
Most Important Discovery of our Time
on
Ice Lake on Mars
·
· Score: 1
This could turn out to be one of the most important discoveries of our time. Not only could this lake be a hot spot of fossilized life, which would be an earth shattering event (thinking of the religious and social impact), but it could be the keystone of extraplanetary colonization.
Have no doubt, while this may be page 4 news in major newspapers, it could be more impactful to human civilization than the computer, internet, automobile, and airplane combined once fully investigated. They may not find fish, but finding an algae or bacteria would shake the world to its core, and could have profound changes to how we live, from education to law to commerce.
If you are a religious fundamentalist, now is a time to be very afraid. If you are a Treky wanting to visit new worlds, and live on them, now is a time of great hope.
"Unlike either Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo does not have enormous financial backing from other divisions which can offset losses."
Well, if they go out of business, doesn't that set up a perfect anti-trust trial, in this case, against both? If you purposefully sell something at a loss simply to kill competition?
I mean, this isn't like the Windows with IE and bundling. We're talking about flat out sales of valuable systems at big loses.
I project that when those two cases are settled, probably 10 years from now (they'll file in 5), Nintendo will have probably made more money from Sony and MS than they ever did competing against them. Who knows, maybe they will do better than Netscape in terms of real results (breakup).
Slashdot Mirror
But, Firefox will show the pictures (badly) if you have Quicktime. Let's stick to complaining when browsers don't display "standards compliant" pages correctly.
First off, I agree, this entire thing was childish. That said, I expect to see this rated this flamebait or troll or whatever for criticizing all these "insightful" posts... BUT...
/. majority also said "Fuck her" to Maureen O'Gara for exposing someone else's private details, is a gross double-standard. Let me guess, we're just supporting those we already like, and pounding on those we already don't like.
How dare Slashdotters get all in a tiff over this. If I'm not mistaken, and I'm most certainly not, Slashdotters were slapping each other's asses left and right when this story came out.
Slashdot did all but gang-bang Sys-Con Media over Maureen O'Gara. Now that another reporter has disclosed the private details of another online person (including links to their home address), now the person themselves is the guilty party somehow?
I kinda liked having "Good" karma, but if giving it all up exposes the hypocrisy here, then so be it. Yeah, Google over reacted. But saying "Fuck him" to Google exec's privacy, after
I guess the issues don't matter, as long as you jump on whichever side of the fence suits the community better.
It's more about XML, I believe. News is a unique content source, as opposed to static content. For instance, Moby Dick is static content. Moby Dick in XML might not be that useful. RSS, or xml, on the other hand is raw annotated content. Unlike a webpage, it doesn't need an html interpreter (browser) to read, but can feed directly into applications, including offline readers (I recommend Avantgo if you really want mobile news... it installs on most palm/pocket pc devices).
The advantage is that rss is really different. If you look at the XHTML specification, RSS is only really different from a web page in the names of the tags it uses. It's just a file format. It doesn't cure cancer. It won't make your teeth whiter. But, for people that aren't html standards compliant, they at least get their feet wet in a standards compliant format for their content, thus increasing the universal access to their public data.
And by that measure, Google has increased universal access to their data as well. Such feeds might be used directly by rss readers. For the most part, though, the feeds will be used as parts of applications.
For instance, you could set up a company RSS feed to search for all news on your company, and feed it directly into the internal e-mail system. Or, if you are like me, you can integrate RSS news feeds into other web-applications, like Google Maps. Prior to this, I hooked Yahoo's RSS news feeds (by location) to the Google maps, so that you could view top news geographically, instead of chronologically.
Without RSS and other XML standards, scraping websites is very inaccurate, and much more bandwidth/time consuming. Parsing an XML document is far easier than a raw, unorganized document. With a proper cache setup (like Magpie for PHP), small sites can utilize a LOT of RSS content, which would only take a tiny amount of bandwidth. Compare that to a site scraping a Google search result, then scraping all resulting pages, and trying to pick out things such as the "headline", "publishing date", "author", etc.
Those are some of the advantages to RSS/XML, though I'm sure someone even more familiar with the standards could go more in depth.
"Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Holy crap! Switching to low bandwidth page..."
Triangular Earth Calendar
I think the 60 week years will appeal to you. Divisibility and symmetry of the calendar is one of its greatest assets. Being based on triangular numbers, it is the most whole number divisible calendar available, as it scales up at base 10, so you don't have to learn anything new to apply it to a decade, century, or millennium.
It is, however, based on decimal time, with a day equalling a unit of 1, and time being a decimal of that. With standard language, time can always be represented as a factor of one, such as 1/2 of a day, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, etc. That's just a bit hard to make a clock out of, though.
In that same fashion, I like wikipedia, hate its editorial system. I think this may help in certain cases, and I have an example (name of article not included... obvious reasons).
/. poster posted below, I am an expert on the item in question. I certainly was not the only one, but I was the only one that made major contributions to this item. This guy came along knowing shit-all about the topic. If he finds something out of bounds with relation to the rules, that's one thing (something anyone should be able to spot). But by god, if I'm the expert, I'm going to fight for the legitimacy of a page, as well as for the accuracy of its content. The problem is... I shouldn't have to fight edit trolls. If you know nothing about a topic, and aren't experienced in properly enforcing the Wiki rules, LEAVE IT ALONE!
I help maintain a few pages at Wikipedia. I only maintain those pages which I have direct knowledge of. Some people like to go around confirming stats, checking spelling, grammer, adding photos, whatever. I'm the other type.
So, one of the pages I look over was radically changed one day. I look at the diff comments, and get a lot of fluff about self-promotion. Of course, the promotion was not from a person, but from the item itself... about itself.
I looked through the changes, taking this person's view into consideration, and restored most everything that was unrelated to what I had assumed truly constituted any hint of self-promotion.
I come back the next day, and the guy is FREAKED OUT! How could I reverse all of his changes! I was a content nazi!
I explained on the talk page that his editorial view should only target specific examples, and not turn a 1 and a half page entry into 2 paragraphs (which is exactly what this guy did). I had restored it to about 1 page, removing most links at the bottom to related resources, along with extranious content.
What does the guy do? Puts the page up for a vote for complete removal. Alas, I had to contact the other related individuals who had previously editted the page to get them to help on this issue. It was resolved, with only a few minor changes the the revisions I had made.
The point is this. There are too many people on Wikipedia that don't care what they do (reducing 90% of the content on their own personal whim), but go insane if you reverse even only a portion of their edit... even if you keep some of their edits as having good cause.
"I can edit you, but how dare you edit me!" mentality has GOT to go at Wikipedia. In one of the examples a
This guy's first clue should have been that the page only changed a few times a year to update stats, and to "beautify" the page with reformatting of the content, and had never been the target of a vote of any kind.
I hope the changes at Wikipedia have a positive effect to reduce such headaches. I only overlook about 3 items, and it's still a pain. I'd hate to be someone who deals with dozens every day. The stress would cause my eyes to pop out of my head.
"It's not just the media choosing to run only sensationalist stories, but media consumers, who mainly buy crap and leave thoughtful articles unread."
So THAT'S why people keep talking about Tom Cruise. And all this time, I thought they really were curious about what Scientology (really) was. Turns out they are just reading about famous, good looking, eccentric people regardless of their religion. I guess that's why I don't hear much about Kabbalah anymore either... Britney Spears got knocked up, so her kooky "Hollywood" religion isn't news anymore.
Actually, I bought my router (2002) before Cisco bought Linksys (2003).
I am sad to report, though, that Linksys Boo-Boo actually died early last month. I'll eventually throw away the router, but I'll keep the box if I find it again. The box probably still works as a box. The router, unfortunately, does not work as a router.
Did anyone also think that maybe because the version on his site includes images (I can't recall ever seeing an image on Slashdot... but maybe there was a crazy experiment to do so long ago).
Also, his full text is rather long by Slashdot standards. Slashdot readers tend to like their news in 1 paragraph sound bytes, and then clicking a link if they care to read more. Well, isn't that what he did?
Either way, who cares. It's news. God forbid he post it anywhere outside Slashdot too!
The News Nazi: "No news for j00! Post only on Slashdot, or never come back! Next!"
/me hugs my Linksys router... "You'll keep me safe, Boo-Boo, won't you? Cisco let the bad man hurt people. You'll protect me, though. I love you Linksys Boo-Boo!" *KISSES*
The system seems like a tool to use against the RIAA/MPAA to block pollution efforts. However, then the other shoe drops, and the RIAA/MPAA has a tool to target the highest ranked nodes/cliches/people. No longer do they need to figure out how many files you have.
They just have to find one file, extrapolate your rank to the average system rank, run a few numbers (and maybe a few inflated costs in there too), and bam... for sharing Happy Birthday To You.mp3, you get slapped with a $1 million infringement case because you happen to rank as a very high legitimate link.
On the other hand, this might be benefitial to take the heat off of the majority of the file trading community that honestly is NOT costing them any money. They don't need to target the casual "weekend downloader", who's rank should be significantly lower (being a new node on the network) than some guy with 4 160GB HDD's of the latest releases to theater and DVD. Nobody feel sorry when these guys (or gals) get busted. When 14 year old choir girls get busted, there is PR hell to pay. This system allows them to do that.
Didn't RTFA, but that's my first impression. A use to boost network quality, a use to increase (not decrease) the reach of the **AA's, and a use that may help both sides.
"Every tool has at least 2 completely unassociated uses. A spoon can serve food to your mouth, or gouge the eyes out of your enemies." - Me
My parents met at their job. I've met many of my friends via jobs. This rule is just plain wrong.
Has anyone thought about how this could impact hiring practices? Will employers outright ban hiring married couples? How about those dating? If two employees married, will their honeymoon gift be getting fired?
Are we now going to have to have "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" at the workplace?
No employer of mine will EVER control what I do outside the workplace. This is why workers need unions. This is the type of issues you strike over. Is corporate America going to be the new Big Brother, tracking who we fraternize with, and busting in on our late afternoon rendezvous like the Thought Police?
I refuse to accept that, EVER! I don't even allow my employer to dictate what I choose to do on my breaks, which is MY time! We're human, not lab rats, not machines, not pets, not robots, not computers! I'm nobody's bitch, and I'm nobody's slave!
Actually, that's probably one of the smartest things I've heard of yet (except the gyroscope suggestion might work better).
*Paper Weight Completely Split Keyboard (one half on each hand)
*Gyroscope enabled mouse movements.
*Couple extra rows of "center keys" for clicking (with either hand, of course).
*Mounted those bad boys on arm braces
*Throw in a HUD for kicks.
Hmmm.... Nah, I might as well be asking for a inner leg deployable sidearm, and dress up like Robocop.
GOOG
MSFT
YHOO
I know these are just interns, and that the page (a complete rip-off) was done because they loved Google's page. However is this how Microsoft sees the world maybe?
I'm not talking about the order, that's just alphabetical. But, you don't see Apple in that list. You don't see Sony in that list either. You also don't see AOL. I would speculate, these interns may have given some great insight into who Microsoft is focusing on as the real competition... Google and Yahoo.
BTW, the popup window thing. I'm sorry, but it's not an improvement over Google's homepage. The windows don't even drag. Whoever created this uses IE and is longing for tabs. Get Firefox, and get rid of the floating javascript windows.
The positive about this? Google engineers are going to look at it and say to themselves, "Oh, HELL NO!" and get cracking on yet another ground breaking beta update.
Just make your page standards compliant. After all, isn't that the point? Not that any single browser should be singled out for MDK, but that browsers either be standards compliant, or they fail to render a page correctly?
Enojoyed is not a correction to enjoied.
/. editors? Suggestion, try the Firefox Google Toolbar, it comes with a spell checker.
You mean "Enjoyed". Getting a little too much caffeine there
"Free software, despite the price, can be confusing and costly for corporations to use. A few freely distributed programs, like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server, have become well known, but most are still unproved."
Despite the price... can be costly... because they are unproved? So, basically, stay away from unproved cheap software? Thank God I'm buying Windows Vista and running IIS. I mean, if you pay a lot, and a big name backs it, it must be secure, right?
The NYT needs to stop reading MS press releases as sources for stories on non-MS software. All software must be properly scrutinized.
How is open source different? At least you can hire a programmer to review its code. Try reviewing Windows code for stability. No, really, go ahead. I'll be working on the Linux/Apache box if you need me... I've left a CD of HijackThis!, AdAware, and Spybot next to the Windows box in case you run into any problems. I've wrote an "unproven open source" perl script to "net send" spam you if any critical updates are necessary for you to install while you work.
Very informative real world example for us non-hardware geeks (yeah, some of us actually exist, heh).
No doubt. Everyone in Canada knows it's Guvernment.
"Time is a measure, therefore they actually do thave the authority to regulate it."
Yeah, but let's make sure this isn't like when the State of Indiana when they tried unsuccessfully to legally solidify Pi as 3.2 in 1897.
Now, if only people got serious about real time reform, and not only disconnected the link between time and the sun, but also did away with DST, Timezones, a Base 12/60 numerical time hybrid, and disconnected the calendar and the moon as well!
"cases like these are part of the Justice Department's coordinated strategy to protect copyright owners from the online thieves who steal and then sell the products they work so hard to produce."
Wouldn't it be nice if it instead read:
"cases like these, (x="IBM, HP, APPLE"), are part of (y="Open Source")'s coordinated strategy to protect online theives from the copyright owners who then sell the products thousands work so hard to produce."
Have fun modifying the quote yourself. Here's an exciting example to get you started!
x="Garage Bands, Indie film makers, story writers"
y="Creative Commons"
Like the Boyscout motto says, though, be prepared (even if they are having a hell of a time dealing with the laws of electricity now over at the Boy Scouts... no joke intended).
Society, all societies, must be prepared on some basic level to deal with such a discovery. While the fundamentalist can dismiss discovery of life on another planet as impossible (mainstream fundamentalism, not alien cults) and refuse to discuss the matter, the chance that we could find life elsewhere is higher than might have been previously thought if Mars has ice.
Having the faith of millions of moderates broken could dramatically shift everything we know. And by the time the theory becomes fact, it'll be too late to prepare. And by prepare, I mean starting a real discussion with religious groups about what it would mean to them and their faith. Giving people a guided path, as opposed to pulling the rug out from under them. Even if that discussion takes place on cable news talk shows, it's a start.
"And, of course, they aren't making some kind of patent requiring exclusivity. So anybody who *does* want to do it themselves, still can."
I'm a bit confused. Isn't exclusivity and licensing the point of patents? Amazon doesn't have a great track record of non-exclusivity.
Amazon Patents User Viewing Histories
Amazon Patents Cookies (from the "are you f'ing kidding me dept.)
Amazon One-Click Shopping
From what I can see, Amazon's primary business may be Amazon.com. But, it's secondary business is certainly to patent the obvious and the mundane, then attack its rivals with them. And there are plenty of rival companies out there already doing this for many services, not just web. In fact, you can sell web services over eBay now, using Paypal, also owned by eBay. How is this different?
This could turn out to be one of the most important discoveries of our time. Not only could this lake be a hot spot of fossilized life, which would be an earth shattering event (thinking of the religious and social impact), but it could be the keystone of extraplanetary colonization.
Have no doubt, while this may be page 4 news in major newspapers, it could be more impactful to human civilization than the computer, internet, automobile, and airplane combined once fully investigated. They may not find fish, but finding an algae or bacteria would shake the world to its core, and could have profound changes to how we live, from education to law to commerce.
If you are a religious fundamentalist, now is a time to be very afraid. If you are a Treky wanting to visit new worlds, and live on them, now is a time of great hope.
"Unlike either Sony or Microsoft, Nintendo does not have enormous financial backing from other divisions which can offset losses."
Well, if they go out of business, doesn't that set up a perfect anti-trust trial, in this case, against both? If you purposefully sell something at a loss simply to kill competition?
I mean, this isn't like the Windows with IE and bundling. We're talking about flat out sales of valuable systems at big loses.
I project that when those two cases are settled, probably 10 years from now (they'll file in 5), Nintendo will have probably made more money from Sony and MS than they ever did competing against them. Who knows, maybe they will do better than Netscape in terms of real results (breakup).