You're right that Microsoft is not going to elicit much sympathy. But the real issue is that NEW start-ups, companies, and people are getting locked out of semantic URLs by squatters. Microsoft can afford to pay off anyone...but I can't. The only alternatives are either nonsense domains (where do you think "Web 2.0" names come from...it's not because people think they're cute), or extremely long domains of 3 words or more.
This is directly analogous to the issue of network neutrality. Why should a small group of people be allowed to hold entire TLDs hostage for ransom? It's no better than a small group holding last-mile access hostage.
And can I just say that the "free market" comments are utter bullshit. It's NOT a free market--it's a heavily regulated market (ICANN, Verisign), and the heavy regulation creates artificial scarcity. Squatters are gaming the rules, and the answer is not to claim that there are no rules--the answer is to fix the rules.
This experience has taught me that anyone who thinks scientists can model the entire world and get every equation and every theoretical assumption correct (down to a degree Celcius with no fudge-factor) is either ignorant or just a shill.
Wait, what experience?
[A]s an undergraduate engineer, I spent plenty of time in college science labs doing experiments to acquaint myself with the scientific method.
Oh, ok. That is actually, in the large scheme of things, some pretty damn minor scientific experience. May I humbly submit that perhaps thousands of professional scientists holding Ph.D.s and years of research experience might have an ok handle on the concept of precision (which you so indelicately call the "fudge factor").
To know your precision you have to know the realm of your data. In the case of the global average temperature of the Earth's biosphere, the realm is only a few degrees over the last several thousand years. In other words predicting to within a degree Celsius is not at all precise. There's a huge fudge factor--like saying that you predict you'll measure gravitational acceleration to be somewhere between 8 and 11 m/s^2.
This the second post on this thread I've seen where you focus on the plants. It's stupid. For one thing, the world already produces enough food to feed every single human. The problems of starvation are problems of transportation and politics. The number one health problem throughout the world is not starvation, it is clean fresh water. CO2 does nothing to help that.
Second, there is no causative correlation between biomass and biodiversity. Biomass increases in a single organism lifetime--you can grow a whole forest in 30 years. But they'll all be the same trees you planted. Biodiversity requires long periods of time to develop. If you're concerned about biodiversity, the only way to preserve it is to protect old ecosystems. Once again CO2 does nothing to help that.
If 99% of the businesses that consider Google Apps instead go with a deeply discounted solution from Microsoft, Google still accomplishes their goal--taking money out of Microsoft's pocket.
Google's core profit center is ads. They're using that money to subsidize an effort to undercut Microsoft in their core profit center: OS and office apps. If all they do is drive down the price, that's still a win, because Microsoft is trying to do the reverse. Every dollar Microsoft loses to discounts is a dollar that's not available to subsidize attacks on Google.
As for why an organization would choose Google Apps over Open Office, who knows. Maybe because they think it will be a better bargaining chip in their talks with Microsoft.
There's already a standard treatment available--common carrier. ISPs were subject to this regulation when everyone connected to the Internet over phone lines. Now, thanks to the 9th Circuit Court, cable ISPs are not subject to this regulation. And rather than restore it via legislation, Congress is instead considering stripping it from telephone-line ISPs as well.
Common carrier is an essential part of all of our transportation networks. The reason you can go to Kinkos and send a package, regardless of what's in it, is common carrier. The reason you can make phone calls to Cingular with a Verizon cell phone is because of common carrier. Without it the transport company can refuse or degrade service as they please.
Plenty of people write and edit on the Internet, interacting with others, and do not inflate their resumes to protect themselves. Here's a recent example: Pamela Jones, who has way more to worry about than some random Wikipedia admin--but has not lied about her experience or credentials. Instead she simply chooses to not share her personal data--the ethical choice. It sounds to me like Essjay suffers from overly developed senses of importance, drama, and cleverness.
A fully open development model for an OS is the #1 innovation of Linux. It proved that not only could it work, it produces a better operating system than the proprietary model. #2 is probably the pluggable filesystems, which is related to #1.
With the cube joke, maybe you were looking for user-end innovations? Those tend to come more from apps than OS though.
Apple is interested in building great experiences using computers--you hear Jobs talk about it all the time. But corporations develop and determine their own experiences based on their industry, their policies, the apps they use, and their staff training. The question is whether Apple is willing to subsume its control of experience to individual corporations, and I think the answer is pretty clearly no. Rather, they choose to pursue business segments whose experiences align well with Apple's--creative, publishing, science, education, small businesses, etc. These plus all consumers is a pretty darn big potential market--bigger than the balance of corporate America, actually.
Anyone can opt out of any "mandatory" vaccination program due to civil rights protections--specifically the right of freedom of religion. All you have to do is sign a piece of paper saying that you object to vaccination and your child is opted out.
The point of making it "mandatory" is that doing so triggers a wide variety of social safety nets that make it affordable for people who might otherwise not be able to afford a $400 vaccine treatment, even if they want it. Just like when a governor designates certain areas "disaster areas"--the point is not to put a dramatic label on it, but to trigger certain legal and government aid processes that require that certain designation. Think of it like an access code.
The other reason is to force people to confront the issue and make a conscious choice, rather than just read an article and forget about it. This is important because the decision will not just affect them, it will affect their kids for the rest of their lives, and likely numerous other people as well. It's not one of those isolated parenting decisions like whether Johnny will go to a Baptist or Lutheran church. We limit parents' decisions on all sorts of public safety issues, like how fast they're allowed to drive, what they're allowed to feed their kids, how physical they can be when punishing, etc.
Look, it's not a conspiracy. It's pretty simple: we spend the most on our military because we like being the boss. "I'm the boss"--the drive to achieve this is the basis of both our economy and our foreign policy. Anyone who's spent time with Americans knows what overbearing bossy asses we can be. Is this really hard to figure out?
iPod prices are lower now than they were when the device launched. It's probably even more dramatic if you adjust for inflation. If there's one thing you can count on in consumer electronics, it's falling prices.
I think it's very possible we'll see a $300 iPhone in a few years. Either the best iPod will cost well under $300, or the iPhone WILL be the best iPod--in much the same way the Treo is the top-of-the-line Palm PDA these days.
All the military schools do to bad kids is physically strengthen them and harden their resolve--and just maybe teach them to fight effectively and handle weapons.
Besides, military schools cost money, and always have. They've always been mostly a place to send daddy's bad little spoiled rich boy. Poor or middle class bad kids end up in the real-life military. Or jail.
The iPod doesn't actually talk with the music store. It syncs with iTunes, which is what communicates with the Music Store. More specifically it syncs with the iTunes Library, which is separate from the Music Store component. I don't think anything about the iPod is reported to Apple when it's plugged in.
Google is using Microsoft's own tactic against them--use one strong revenue stream to subsidize aggressive underselling in another. Almost all of Microsoft's profit comes from their Windows/Office/Exchange product lines--they then use this profit to offset heavy losses as they attack new markets (like--Internet advertising). Google is simply executing the reverse--using their strong ad revenue to subsidize an attack on Microsoft's office turf. Even if few companies actually sign on with Google, they're all going to use Google's offering to negotiate lower pricing with Microsoft, thereby hurting a key revenue stream--mission accomplished.
Microsoft's battle against GO Penpoint is instructive because it's well documented from both sides. The GO side is covered in the famous book Startup, and the Microsoft side is covered in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. In that book the GO chapter ends with the death of Microsoft Pen Windows and a revelation from one of the managers--that the goal was not to sell Pen Windows, but simply to block GO's success in the marketplace---"Block the kick," not score the touchdown.
Because the sun is rising or setting, or (in the temperate regions) the sun sits low in the sky due to the season. And although I won't speculate as to why, people like that light. It's why photographers call the hour after sunrise and hour before sunset the "magic hours."
Evolution planted cause-and-effect determinism deep and strong in the human psyche and it's hard to let go. We once had the same problem with Heisenberg.
Maybe you should read up on quantum electrodynamics--it's the most tested and accurate physical theory we have. In other words the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not imply that highly accurate predictions of any kind are impossible.
While Apple gave it a fancy name, it was actually mostly developed by a team of Russian programmers in company called Paragraph. From my Wave Report article about them in 2002:
Parascript began life as the company ParaGraph International, which developed the handwriting recognition features of the Apple Newton. Following the Newton, their next handwriting recognition application was CalliGrapher, whose customer base eventually grew to over 1 million end users and 35 OEMs. ParaGraph and many of its technologies were bought by SGI, which created a subsidiary later acquired by Vadem. Vadem subsequently sold CalliGrapher technologies to Microsoft. Today, the CalliGrapher technology forms a part of Transcriber, the handwriting recognition software included in all Pocket PCs and Tablet PCs.
Apple recently announced that the next version of the Mac OS will have native support for pen input, known as Inkwell. While Apple has announced that this is based on "Newton Technology," Dr. Kitainik stated that Parascript has not been working with them. While Inkwell is probably based on the ParaGraph Newton software, Apple has apparently continued the development in-house.
There used to be a Sam Goody in Quincy Market, but I think they're gone now.
iTunes is putting all the mom and pop stores out of business. That's why I think we should instead dump hundreds of MacBooks and iMacs into the Boston Harbor. Just make sure you load up iTunes first. In fact I think anyone with a Mac should consider throwing it into a body of water in protest.
I'm not sure it is. I'd be interested to see citations. Local or regional weather is definitely chaotic, because studying it requires cutting it out of the larger system of which it is an integral part. The global climate on the other hand is a relatively closed system. Speaking in global averages it should be possible to study it deterministically, at least grossly.
Was this meant to be an explanation of what exactly caused the Medieval Warm Period? And what caused the Mini Ice Age? And what the contribution of man-made CO2 was in either case? And why the East Antarctic is cooling? And why air temperatures seem to have stabilised? Not to mention what the Wegman report showed about the statistical inadequacies of the Hockey Stick?
The hidden assumption in your questions is that any one of those raise substantial doubts about the effect of human-generated gases on climate change. This seems common in non-science discussions, and I think it's because we all watch legal dramas and understand the importance of "reasonable doubt" in murder trials. It doesn't work that way in science though--it's more like "a preponderance of the evidence," a legal standard that non-lawyers are not as familiar with.
To answer your specific questions: - The "Medieval Warm Period" and "Mini Ice Age" could have been caused by any number of factors, which could still today be acting. The anthropogenic theory states that man-made greenhouse gases are an additional factor that is having a new effect, not that it is the only factor, or that it has replaced other factors. - Regional effects such as relative cooling or warming will occur regardless of forcings because of the chaotic mixing of the atmosphere. No theory of climate change predicts increasing uniformity or smoothness in weather. - The infamous Mann et al. "hockey stick" has been subjected to much study, disproof, and criticism, just like Darwin's "The Origin of Species." Both debunking efforts have discovered errors, but at the cost of ignoring the enormous amounts of other research and proof presented in non-famous papers.
Hardware companies sell products that are limited and cannot be easily duplicated by their customers. Their business model is safe until someone invents a cheap replicator.
Content companies sell products that can effortlessly copied and distributed by their customers, and the customers now want and expect to do it. Their business model is not safe, no matter how much legislation and enforcement they try to buy.
Over time the hardware companies are simply going to have more resources to wage this battle, because their customers are on their side, not opposed to them. Look to history--those seeking to limit popular new technologies always lose. Fighting it is like trying to eliminate speeding once and for all.
Slashdot Mirror
You're right that Microsoft is not going to elicit much sympathy. But the real issue is that NEW start-ups, companies, and people are getting locked out of semantic URLs by squatters. Microsoft can afford to pay off anyone...but I can't. The only alternatives are either nonsense domains (where do you think "Web 2.0" names come from...it's not because people think they're cute), or extremely long domains of 3 words or more.
This is directly analogous to the issue of network neutrality. Why should a small group of people be allowed to hold entire TLDs hostage for ransom? It's no better than a small group holding last-mile access hostage.
And can I just say that the "free market" comments are utter bullshit. It's NOT a free market--it's a heavily regulated market (ICANN, Verisign), and the heavy regulation creates artificial scarcity. Squatters are gaming the rules, and the answer is not to claim that there are no rules--the answer is to fix the rules.
You, sir or madam, are the problem.
What does Netcraft say?
Wait, what experience?
Oh, ok. That is actually, in the large scheme of things, some pretty damn minor scientific experience. May I humbly submit that perhaps thousands of professional scientists holding Ph.D.s and years of research experience might have an ok handle on the concept of precision (which you so indelicately call the "fudge factor").
To know your precision you have to know the realm of your data. In the case of the global average temperature of the Earth's biosphere, the realm is only a few degrees over the last several thousand years. In other words predicting to within a degree Celsius is not at all precise. There's a huge fudge factor--like saying that you predict you'll measure gravitational acceleration to be somewhere between 8 and 11 m/s^2.
This the second post on this thread I've seen where you focus on the plants. It's stupid. For one thing, the world already produces enough food to feed every single human. The problems of starvation are problems of transportation and politics. The number one health problem throughout the world is not starvation, it is clean fresh water. CO2 does nothing to help that.
Second, there is no causative correlation between biomass and biodiversity. Biomass increases in a single organism lifetime--you can grow a whole forest in 30 years. But they'll all be the same trees you planted. Biodiversity requires long periods of time to develop. If you're concerned about biodiversity, the only way to preserve it is to protect old ecosystems. Once again CO2 does nothing to help that.
If 99% of the businesses that consider Google Apps instead go with a deeply discounted solution from Microsoft, Google still accomplishes their goal--taking money out of Microsoft's pocket.
Google's core profit center is ads. They're using that money to subsidize an effort to undercut Microsoft in their core profit center: OS and office apps. If all they do is drive down the price, that's still a win, because Microsoft is trying to do the reverse. Every dollar Microsoft loses to discounts is a dollar that's not available to subsidize attacks on Google.
As for why an organization would choose Google Apps over Open Office, who knows. Maybe because they think it will be a better bargaining chip in their talks with Microsoft.
There's already a standard treatment available--common carrier. ISPs were subject to this regulation when everyone connected to the Internet over phone lines. Now, thanks to the 9th Circuit Court, cable ISPs are not subject to this regulation. And rather than restore it via legislation, Congress is instead considering stripping it from telephone-line ISPs as well.
Common carrier is an essential part of all of our transportation networks. The reason you can go to Kinkos and send a package, regardless of what's in it, is common carrier. The reason you can make phone calls to Cingular with a Verizon cell phone is because of common carrier. Without it the transport company can refuse or degrade service as they please.
Plenty of people write and edit on the Internet, interacting with others, and do not inflate their resumes to protect themselves. Here's a recent example: Pamela Jones, who has way more to worry about than some random Wikipedia admin--but has not lied about her experience or credentials. Instead she simply chooses to not share her personal data--the ethical choice. It sounds to me like Essjay suffers from overly developed senses of importance, drama, and cleverness.
A fully open development model for an OS is the #1 innovation of Linux. It proved that not only could it work, it produces a better operating system than the proprietary model. #2 is probably the pluggable filesystems, which is related to #1.
With the cube joke, maybe you were looking for user-end innovations? Those tend to come more from apps than OS though.
Apple is interested in building great experiences using computers--you hear Jobs talk about it all the time. But corporations develop and determine their own experiences based on their industry, their policies, the apps they use, and their staff training. The question is whether Apple is willing to subsume its control of experience to individual corporations, and I think the answer is pretty clearly no. Rather, they choose to pursue business segments whose experiences align well with Apple's--creative, publishing, science, education, small businesses, etc. These plus all consumers is a pretty darn big potential market--bigger than the balance of corporate America, actually.
Anyone can opt out of any "mandatory" vaccination program due to civil rights protections--specifically the right of freedom of religion. All you have to do is sign a piece of paper saying that you object to vaccination and your child is opted out.
The point of making it "mandatory" is that doing so triggers a wide variety of social safety nets that make it affordable for people who might otherwise not be able to afford a $400 vaccine treatment, even if they want it. Just like when a governor designates certain areas "disaster areas"--the point is not to put a dramatic label on it, but to trigger certain legal and government aid processes that require that certain designation. Think of it like an access code.
The other reason is to force people to confront the issue and make a conscious choice, rather than just read an article and forget about it. This is important because the decision will not just affect them, it will affect their kids for the rest of their lives, and likely numerous other people as well. It's not one of those isolated parenting decisions like whether Johnny will go to a Baptist or Lutheran church. We limit parents' decisions on all sorts of public safety issues, like how fast they're allowed to drive, what they're allowed to feed their kids, how physical they can be when punishing, etc.
Look, it's not a conspiracy. It's pretty simple: we spend the most on our military because we like being the boss. "I'm the boss"--the drive to achieve this is the basis of both our economy and our foreign policy. Anyone who's spent time with Americans knows what overbearing bossy asses we can be. Is this really hard to figure out?
iPod prices are lower now than they were when the device launched. It's probably even more dramatic if you adjust for inflation. If there's one thing you can count on in consumer electronics, it's falling prices.
I think it's very possible we'll see a $300 iPhone in a few years. Either the best iPod will cost well under $300, or the iPhone WILL be the best iPod--in much the same way the Treo is the top-of-the-line Palm PDA these days.
All the military schools do to bad kids is physically strengthen them and harden their resolve--and just maybe teach them to fight effectively and handle weapons.
Besides, military schools cost money, and always have. They've always been mostly a place to send daddy's bad little spoiled rich boy. Poor or middle class bad kids end up in the real-life military. Or jail.
The iPod doesn't actually talk with the music store. It syncs with iTunes, which is what communicates with the Music Store. More specifically it syncs with the iTunes Library, which is separate from the Music Store component. I don't think anything about the iPod is reported to Apple when it's plugged in.
6) CowboyNeal
Google is using Microsoft's own tactic against them--use one strong revenue stream to subsidize aggressive underselling in another. Almost all of Microsoft's profit comes from their Windows/Office/Exchange product lines--they then use this profit to offset heavy losses as they attack new markets (like--Internet advertising). Google is simply executing the reverse--using their strong ad revenue to subsidize an attack on Microsoft's office turf. Even if few companies actually sign on with Google, they're all going to use Google's offering to negotiate lower pricing with Microsoft, thereby hurting a key revenue stream--mission accomplished.
Microsoft's battle against GO Penpoint is instructive because it's well documented from both sides. The GO side is covered in the famous book Startup, and the Microsoft side is covered in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. In that book the GO chapter ends with the death of Microsoft Pen Windows and a revelation from one of the managers--that the goal was not to sell Pen Windows, but simply to block GO's success in the marketplace---"Block the kick," not score the touchdown.
Because the sun is rising or setting, or (in the temperate regions) the sun sits low in the sky due to the season. And although I won't speculate as to why, people like that light. It's why photographers call the hour after sunrise and hour before sunset the "magic hours."
No need to lie awake, here's a climate prediction that was proven out by observation.
Maybe you should read up on quantum electrodynamics--it's the most tested and accurate physical theory we have. In other words the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not imply that highly accurate predictions of any kind are impossible.
If you want more details here's the rest of the article.
iTunes is putting all the mom and pop stores out of business. That's why I think we should instead dump hundreds of MacBooks and iMacs into the Boston Harbor. Just make sure you load up iTunes first. In fact I think anyone with a Mac should consider throwing it into a body of water in protest.
Thanks,
Bill Gates
Macrochips?
I'm not sure it is. I'd be interested to see citations. Local or regional weather is definitely chaotic, because studying it requires cutting it out of the larger system of which it is an integral part. The global climate on the other hand is a relatively closed system. Speaking in global averages it should be possible to study it deterministically, at least grossly.
The hidden assumption in your questions is that any one of those raise substantial doubts about the effect of human-generated gases on climate change. This seems common in non-science discussions, and I think it's because we all watch legal dramas and understand the importance of "reasonable doubt" in murder trials. It doesn't work that way in science though--it's more like "a preponderance of the evidence," a legal standard that non-lawyers are not as familiar with.
To answer your specific questions:
- The "Medieval Warm Period" and "Mini Ice Age" could have been caused by any number of factors, which could still today be acting. The anthropogenic theory states that man-made greenhouse gases are an additional factor that is having a new effect, not that it is the only factor, or that it has replaced other factors.
- Regional effects such as relative cooling or warming will occur regardless of forcings because of the chaotic mixing of the atmosphere. No theory of climate change predicts increasing uniformity or smoothness in weather.
- The infamous Mann et al. "hockey stick" has been subjected to much study, disproof, and criticism, just like Darwin's "The Origin of Species." Both debunking efforts have discovered errors, but at the cost of ignoring the enormous amounts of other research and proof presented in non-famous papers.
Hardware companies sell products that are limited and cannot be easily duplicated by their customers. Their business model is safe until someone invents a cheap replicator.
Content companies sell products that can effortlessly copied and distributed by their customers, and the customers now want and expect to do it. Their business model is not safe, no matter how much legislation and enforcement they try to buy.
Over time the hardware companies are simply going to have more resources to wage this battle, because their customers are on their side, not opposed to them. Look to history--those seeking to limit popular new technologies always lose. Fighting it is like trying to eliminate speeding once and for all.