Although some government officials got very excited when they saw him conduct a demonstration flight in neighbouring Katsina state, Nigeria's Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) has so far shown no interest in his aircraft.
"No one from the NCAA has come to see what I've done. We don't reward talent in this country," he lamented. And here you see the plight of Nigeria and many other countries, they will save money in the short run by buying from a country that already has the infrastructure and expertise to build commodities but they will never take the steps to set that up in their own country. This destroys any chance of the people ever building a stable economy & providing employment for its citizens.
Nigeria would pay a premium to start up a helicopter plant or to start R&D but since the resources are not readily available and there's already another country selling the choppers, this man will most likely partake in the brain drain and go somewhere where his knowledge and resourcefulness are recognized and rewarded.
The government should either change its ways or just deal with being known only for e-mail scams and human suffering from inept governance. That's the problem with inept governance though, it usually persists by definition.
I also hope that someone puts the entire testimony of Stephen Colbert & John Stewart online from the youtube/viacom trial. I believe they are just as sarcastic and realistic in real life as they are in their shows.
It would be nice to watch the exxpression on the judge and juror's faces as they hear what John & Steve have to say.
I bought the disc box for ~$80 USD. Not because I thought it was a great album but because I wanted to support this model. The album is ok from what I've heard on MPR but it's growing on me.
I was curious so I asked around at work, it sounds like people are pay around four or five pounds ($8-$10). And I'm glad that I haven't had to guilt trip anyone into paying for it. Although, everyone I work with does receive a decent paycheck. I hope that by buying the discbox and encouraging people to buy it, it offsets the poorer people and the college kids. Having been in both those places, I sympathize heavily with them.
But, I hope that with writing, music & software people will realize how easy it is to disseminate the product and more will open up to the model of charging very little to touch millions instead of charging millions to reach very little.
I hope the shipping of the discbox goes better for Radiohead than it did for Prince. I can't wait to get my hands on that vinyl. I don't care what you say, it feels good to 'own' something even though the rights and definitions of that seem to deteriorate daily.
What I found most interesting comes from the beta announcment:
Copyright holders can choose what they want done with their videos: whether to block, promote, or even--if a copyright holder chooses to partner with us--create revenue from them, with minimal friction. YouTube Video ID will help carry out that choice. Because I'm certain Google realizes that a lot of these copyright holders are sittin' on a freaking gold mine here.
I guess that's the sad thing though, it's no longer the people that made this stuff that own the copyrights. It's huge corporations. This goes for sound and video. Do you think any of the big studios care about artist exposure? They don't care about building a fan base, they care about profit margins.
I personally would like to see Google help users approach and push the limits of fair use of sound and video. I think that a lot of artists would be open to their work being displayed in a tasteful manner without the full work being put online. I also think that the usually low quality of YouTube is a good reason to allow this and that if copyright material is found, they should investigate either shortening it or degrading the quality so that viewers get a taste. What's more, putting a link to sales of the item would be basically free advertising.
I feel especially sorry for the people who build movie montages with unpopular songs for I have watched many of them and purchased a DVD & CD from seeing the two. After watching that particular video, I rediscovered the genius of Sergio Leone after a fan posted that video with one of my favorite bands, The Arcade Fire. Sure, it's just anecdotal evidence but I still view that as original art & innovative.
It's truly a shame that copyright holders are throwing away what could be a beautiful & profitable relationship with fans.
Because sometimes bad things happen to bad people. And they should. But 'Does the punishment fit the crime?' is what constantly is asked. Does $220,000 in fines fit downloading 24 songs? The cases involving the internet seem to be outlandish often.
Here are the details for this case that I found another site:
Over nine months in 2004, Kilbride, Schaffer and an associate transmitted more than 600,000 spam messages, according to court documents. They were paid commissions based on the number of people who accessed the websites via the spam. Kilbride and Schaffer tried to make it seem as if they were sending messages from abroad by logging in to servers in Amsterdam. But those messages originated from Phoenix, prosecutors said. They were also ordered to forfeit $1.3m. So for sending 600,000 spam messages, they were each jailed for five years. The money means little to me since they had it from this spamming but the time in prison, I personally believe is a little harsh. I guess that's what the jury should have and did decide although I find myself not agreeing with jurors as of late in many cases involving my field of study.
Worse yet is something that didn't make it past the editing in my submission of this summary. I read around and it seems like a lot of people think that this budget for such an expensive extensive project would almost certainly be cut from any other alternative energy sources.
In my opinion, our defense spending is already through the roof, this could be a political move to put something powerful in space and get the money from alternative energy spending (or at least under the guises of it). Maybe my tin foil hat is on too tight but a lot of news sources were saying that this could drain and/or draw attention away from other just as valid efforts at escaping the grip of fossil fuels.
Like everyone's been saying, our solution to these problems of dependence on the middle east & emissions is going to be a host of different solutions specific to different areas. I fear that the funding and attention will go into this and we'll have all our eggs in one basket... a basket owned by and controlled by the DoD.
...artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Yes, he conveniently left out the legalization of robot prostitutes in Amsterdam scheduled for early 2010.
After all, though it may be morally frowned upon in the states, who of us hasn't dreamed of going down to the blue light district, picking up a couple of floozybots and voiding their warranties all night long?
You can find the first letter to start all this here. I recommend you read that letter and then the one linked in the text.
They attempt to use Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC decision as a reason that Leonard is legally liable for hosting defamatory statements about an infomercial company! This is Charles Montgomery Burns quality humor.
Also, for further comedic value, I heavily recommend The DirectBuy website done entirely in flash. Which doesn't offer much except a registration form (click the upper right hand ticket). I can't find a damned thing on how their business model works unless I sign up for it. Seems to be a way to get home furnishings as discount prices. But for some reason you have to go to a show room for that. Sounds like something where the value isn't really there but they're certain they can sell you on the idea if they get a half hour of your time. Probably not a scam but pretty damned close--time share style!
Also what's interesting is how they respond to negative feedback questions:
We're happy to hear that you are considering a DirectBuy membership. We understand that negative information can make it hard for you to make an informed decision about how membership can meet your current and future buying needs, and we'd like to respond.
DirectBuy's unique business model is very different than mainstream retail operation. Our concept, combined with our continued growth over 36 years, has made DirectBuy, just like any other sizeable corporation, a target for controversy.
That being said, most of the information online is posted by individuals who have not attended an Open House, or have chosen not to become members.
We realize that DirectBuy is not for everyone, and that's why we encourage individuals who are interested in taking a calculated approach to undeniable savings to attend an Open House to learn about our unmatched selection, savings, and service. The complaints you see online from those who have actually visited DirectBuy represent a very small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of individuals each year who attend an Open House. (And to set the record straight, DirectBuy has never been involved in a class-action lawsuit.)
We're very proud of our long track record of satisfied members who have enjoyed the undeniable savings and wide array of merchandise that we offer. Our members invest upfront to avoid paying traditional retail markup and save significantly on virtually everything for in and around their homes. Members' satisfaction is our number-one priority.
But the only way to make an informed decision about whether DirectBuy membership is right for you is to attend an Open House event at a showroom near you. There, you'll learn more about the benefits of DirectBuy membership by gaining exclusive access to our showroom and getting a firsthand look at the savings, selection and services available to members from our team of knowledgeable professionals.
DirectBuy members, tell McBain about your membership experience here, too. We'd love to hear from you! I've bolded the sentence that worries me. It both sounds too good to be true and sounds like they take my money and promise me something later that's ill defined. What do you think?
I'll bet any amount of money that wasn't written by a person with a soul. Shady legal threats from an even shadier company. What do you expect?
Just more anecdotal worthless evidence. Oh, thank you sir! I now have... let's see here, one... two... TWO data points to build my research around. Things are going swimmingly.
I'll be taking the well known "global warming" approach where I already know what is going to prove with my research so your data point will have to be either an anomaly or possibly tweaked. I may have to remove a word from your testimony and replace "not" with "..." but I do thank you. I am well on my way of utilizing the corporate scientific method!
1. Conduct 'research' proving people should not protect their children from dust and viruses.
2. Patent dust/virus concoctions in spray bottle to be applied daily to humans in the pupae stage.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!! (Virodust® bottle sales, maybe hospital kickbacks?)
With the proliferation of antibacterial products, I worry about two things. In the short term, what kind of new allergies will people develop as chemistry continues to replace people's immune systems? In the long term, what kind of backlash are we going to see when microbes begin to develop some sort of resistance to alcohol and other antibacterial agents? Precisely the idea behind a story I submitted a while ago cautioning the use of antibacterial soap--especially since the truth is it does little or nothing more than regular soap.
I could spout more of my fears of an overly medicated, overly hygienic society but my neck is really sore from the tinfoil fortress atop my head.:-) Well, at least I still have my freedom of choice not to take Tylenol when I have a headache, a glass of scotch usually fixes it better anyways.
Is the digestive system a computer? Perhaps a better term might be 'repopulate' although it doesn't sound as trendy.
I suppose you could poke equally as much fun back at the computer science community with:
Virus? Is a computer the immune system? Fields of science borrow and share terms all the time. People seem to like the term 'reboot' despite it's origins being found in computers. I myself sometimes forget the pure origin of the word. The 'boot' part being from the bootloader of a system which plays a vital role in the bootstrapping process prior to the start of the operating system (if there is one installed). Do you think tailors are annoyed that we stole their bootstrap word?
Why nitpick terminology when everyone borrows it. Accept descriptive words, don't be prescriptive--I think that's what makes languages fun and interesting instead of boring, dry & dead.
I have studied little biology or medical subjects though I've read studies about this same sort of thing happening with asthma, polio & allergies. I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained. So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today (as the article notes) is that we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later. This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.
I can't find the research but I thought a long time ago that a German study was done to find out why polio was "a middle class disease." If I recall they found that poor children were exposed to it since birth and rarely suffered from it since they were exposed to it always. The middle class children would be protected as infants but once exposed to it, their bodies would not be able to fight it. The upper class would take all costs to reduce exposure to it at all times--and they could.
Now this research is interestingly related in that appendicitis may be something that occurs due to our lack of exposure to diseases that destroy all the germs in our body (cholera & certain types of dysentery). Should something happen that would threaten this, our bodies respond poorly to it and the appendix flares up. As this article notes, appendicitis occurs less frequently in underdeveloped countries. Perhaps this is more reinforcement for the idea that protecting your children from germs is a double edged sword.
It's the double edged sword of software popularity.
Linux is becoming so respected and desired as an operating system for servers that phishers & hackers are slowly turning their attention towards it being profitable.
I think this will be the true test for Linux to prove that it can beat Windows in all departments.
I actually see this as good news although I must confess that when I get home I'm going to check & double check the configurations on the ports on my router and all my Linux boxes. When toying with app servers & apache, I have noticed tons of port scanners probing my Linux boxes. I paid them no mind although now... perhaps I should.
Wir wissen, daß Sie Adressen, Slashdot loggen. Dies heißt Krieg. Hans, bereiten das Virus vor! Widerstand ist vergeblich!
The Germans were dismayed to report that an 'unfortunate' side effect of this ruling is that they would have to invade Poland & France to 'liberate' their servers.
But in all seriousness, good for them. I personally think it should be left up to the administrator of the server (or whoever 'owns' the content). If you do keep it, it's evident that the government may be knocking on your door for it for (hopefully) only the most serious infractions of the law. I think making it illegal to retain this information is going a bit too far but it is better than going too far the other way. I guess it would make me feel more safe personally though I know a lot of people that would feel less safe and that's why we (I'm an American) have a government in power that is putting up more and more systems to monitor its own people.
What was the story I submitted tagged as? 'fudfudfud'
I wonder how many forks we'll see? I also wonder if anyone's going to actually make this real open source or if each company is going to fork their own copy and call all the shots on it? I hope someone learns that to be the OpenOffice you have to be open to community ideas, wants & needs as well as truly governed by the community.
You're going to see a whole slough of articles on this because it's now very easy for everyone to criticize after the facts are in. But, I caught this in The New York Times Blogs yesterday and I found these lessons learned to be quite accurate:
Just because a company has a huge and growing audience doesn't mean it can find a huge revenue source. Skype's appeal is that it offers services free or very cheap. That limits its ability to raise prices. And it turns out that there are limited opportunities for advertising or add-on services.
It's almost impossible to pay for a deal through "synergies." EBay executives talked about how Skype would be useful to connect buyers and sellers in its marketplace. This always seemed to be hooey. The eBay market is already full of chatter, mainly by e-mail, and sometimes by phone. Sure, some of that might well be handled by Internet phone, but how much and what value was created by eBay owning its own voice chat system? Not much, it turns out.
I think the second point is the most important. This deal was easy to criticize because they didn't know what the hell they were going to do with it. They had no forward plan. Where were they taking Skype? What were they going to do with it? How was it going to make money? Nobody knew. And, most importantly, eBay didn't either.
So why did they make the deal? Maybe they felt pressure. Maybe it looked like easy cash. One thing is for sure, it never came to fruition whatever they saw in the company. I personally liked the tool but once you start asking for cash, you can expect to see your user base taper off. You're competing with something that is already incredibly cheap in the states. If it ain't free, you're going to have problems operating in the black. If it is free, you better have some mad advertising revenue or market data stuff to sell... I don't know but that's why they over paid for it.
Google knew where they were going with the YouTube purchase. It's now pretty clear eBay didn't know exactly what they were going to do. But, hey, they could treat it like Microsoft's original Xbox venture, "We lost a lot of money but fsck it, we've got a ton to lose and I'm bored with being the top dog in a single market!"
Consumer: My company doesn't need Vista, we're using Linux which has about the same amount of bumps and hiccups. Microsoft: You mean you're using an operating system that validates over 450 of our patents? Consumer: Well, I know that isn't true but... Microsoft: But it'd be a shame if your company was ever engaged with our world class legal team instead of being a 'partner' with the largest software maker ever? Consumer: But we only have 20 employees. Microsoft: We know--perhaps you'd be interested in purchasing a copy of our lap dog here, Novell's SUSE? Consumer: But we already use Red Hat... Microsoft: We heavily suggest you re-evaluate SUSE and when you do your trade study please do note that it's the only Microsoft Certified Genuine Linux. Also, it would be a shame if we had to exercise our patent portfolio on Red Hat and subsequently... well, no reason to get into details. Have a nice day!
Google is susceptible to an erosion of moral tenacity, just like any other corporation. This would be far more interesting but the sad fact is that it's probably the simplest explanation: spammers are merely more sophisticated. I mean, a while ago a few people teamed up to Google bomb Bush as a "miserable failure" and it worked. They exploited Google's page ranking system. It's pretty easy to exploit because they patented it so you merely need to read the patent. From there you get an idea of how to exploit it.
I imagine that spammers could band together or simply get botnets 'clicking' as independent IP addresses links that boost their page rank. That's how it worked with Bush, they simply linked his homepage as "miserable failure" and suddenly he was the number one result from that query in Google.
I find this more likely an explanation than someone changing the data or values in the database. There's going to be plenty of evidence left in the logs & it's not like nobody's going to notice. This is Google's bread & butter, no amount of money in the world could entice a worker to mess with it. They would have to be exceptionally stupid as the lawsuits that follow would be in the billions.
Of course, without DRM few of the major labels play with them. That may be true but why not view this as a way to stick it to iTunes and other music services? Everyone on this site has been complaining about wanting an alternative way to get DRM free music so they can stop paying money to a broken, defective by design system known as DRM. Now put your money where your mouth is and rid yourself of iTunes. The music selection may not be as great but if everyone moves, you can make a difference. Not to mention this is probably the best thing to happen to unsigned artists looking to make some quick easy cash even though it may not be much.
Should kids be brought up knowing that their life on the web is being documented and controlled by people other than their parents? If people need parenting advice it shouldn't be from Slashdot. Come to think of it, if people need parenting advice, they shouldn't be having kids.
I'm not going to tell UK people how to raise their children and they're not going to tell me how to raise mine. You can go ahead and prepare your kid for what your government is going to force onto them anyways. I personally am going to teach my kids to question everything. Question me, question the government and question any institutions. I'm going to teach them how to do it objectively and how to improve themselves as well as the said institution. And you know what? Maybe my kids will be able to reverse what my generation has let slip out of control. Maybe not. Depends on how you raise your kids. So the question I'm really interested in is how are you going to raise your kids so I know whether I have to prepare mine to be monitored their entire life or prepare them for something we all used to enjoy.
are there holy wars between those who follow the great Google, and those who worship the iGod? No, you're confusing the Grand Search-quisition with the great Appleing. The holy wars from the former involved people being held down while their name was searched for on the all knowing search engine of Google. If it was found that they had died or where traitors to any of Google's causes, they were executed as witches. Truly an unfortunate time for people with common names, hence the beginning of middle, post middle, pre middle and ultra middle names in the western world. The great Appleing involved a band of VW bugs driving around the country, finding leaders of Microsoft & Google and pummeling them to death with Apples. We're still unsure of who was behind that, the iGod claims he never used the term 'open season.'
Also, there are these private messages asking me for sex, hooking up, or unspeakable acts? Just claim to be a football player in your My World and then post a picture you find online of one. If it doesn't work, add "shirtless" to the search.
Is there a subculture of people what worship Microsoft and wear red, blue, green, and yellow colored clothes? There are rumors of a sect that still survives the purging of Microsoft however, those who have witnessed a meeting have never survived the chairs of death that soon follow when they are found out to not fully endorse every Microsoft product. Ever seen a grown man cry his way through trying to use Windows 4? Not a pretty site.
Is Ubuntu Christian Edition *really* what jesus would download? No, the third coming was a joyous event. Christ quickly became a hit at parties in his conversion of dust and water to cocaine and coors lite. He doesn't download much these days as he spilled coors all over his only computer.
The year is 3007. A tour guide is moving people in futuristic suits along a wall containing ancient artifacts--some over 1000 years old.
Tour Guide: What you see before you on this wall is the registration page of "My World" which was a mediocre success from the once successful company Google... Tourist 1: You mean the religion Google? Tour Guide: No, this is before Google was technically a religion, although leading theorists are still in hot debate over whether or not they ever exhibited non-religious behavior. Tourist 2: So is this the "MySpace" that almost lead to the completely downfall and lack of productivity of the users? Tour Guide: No, this is a sad an unfortunate result of the ignorant times of the beginning of the fourth millennium when companies copied each other in naming conventions. Unfortunately this lead to confusing statements such as "You can find it on my MySpace profile." or "I like your My World house." Remember this after the point in time when everything had an e- appended to the front of it to raise more money due to reasons not yet understood... although this is before the time of the iCar, iHome, iWear & iMarthaStewartBedSheets. Tourist 3: So pre-iGod era? Tour Guide: That's right, prior to the death and rebirth of Steve Jobs. Tourist 4: What's this ancient script here on this page? Tour Guide: That is a dead dialect of someone criticising another user's "My World" and it reads as such, "J00 need a life, ur MW site is teh ghey." Scientists suspect this sort of talk was indicative of people who had experienced full frontal lobotomies or spent more than 10 minutes on a (now banned for obvious reasons) cell phone. The criticizing user is unimpressed with the amount of memory a plain "My World" consists of and seems to be demanding that more objects, backgrounds, dancing jesuses and flying toasters be added to the 'ghey' user's page. Tourist 5: What was the point of all of this? Tour Guide: Again, a much debated topic although the currently accepted belief is that these sites were often a strange mating ritual as many of the once private messages are now public and indicate that sex, hooking up or unspeakable acts were highly sought after from other users. Tourist 6: I can't believe I evolved from one of these 'people.' Tour Guide: Indeed, we have come a long way. It is too bad it took a thousand years and the complete eradication of all Microsoft products to return our productivity to nominal levels.
"Our ability to influence the conversation was remarkable." Phil: Hey Bob I just got into the beta for a new Internet phone service and I'm calling you right now on it. Bob: Oh yeah? Oh, is that the free phone calls with conversation-relevant ads showing up on your screen? Phil: That's right, it's completely free! Bob: Heh, monkey sex. Phil: Uh, what? Bob: Monkey sex! Phil: Ew, gross, stop that. Bob: Beastiality. Phil: Oh yuck, these flash based ads are... Bob: Goatse. Phil: Ahhhhhhhhh! *click*
The simple answer is that a lot of people are going to end up installing browser extensions that do the "click to run flash object" thing. And if they can't figure that out, I'm having a hard time feeling such pity if they are "squished". Remember, in order to use the internet, you must be completely knowledgeable & proficient at all underlying technologies. If you aren't, you're a moron and you deserve to have an IE javascript exploit install that virus on your machine.
Unfortunately, 98% of the population doesn't want to have to deal with extensions in order to surf the internet. I mean, you can barely get everyone to keep updating IE, how will you get them to use a Firefox extension? These are the mentalities that cause you to alienate people and if you'd stop and look around you, you'd notice that since you're alienating everyone you're actually alienating yourself. Of course, from what I've seen that seems to be the engineering way...
Slashdot Mirror
"No one from the NCAA has come to see what I've done. We don't reward talent in this country," he lamented. And here you see the plight of Nigeria and many other countries, they will save money in the short run by buying from a country that already has the infrastructure and expertise to build commodities but they will never take the steps to set that up in their own country. This destroys any chance of the people ever building a stable economy & providing employment for its citizens.
Nigeria would pay a premium to start up a helicopter plant or to start R&D but since the resources are not readily available and there's already another country selling the choppers, this man will most likely partake in the brain drain and go somewhere where his knowledge and resourcefulness are recognized and rewarded.
The government should either change its ways or just deal with being known only for e-mail scams and human suffering from inept governance. That's the problem with inept governance though, it usually persists by definition.
I also hope that someone puts the entire testimony of Stephen Colbert & John Stewart online from the youtube/viacom trial. I believe they are just as sarcastic and realistic in real life as they are in their shows.
It would be nice to watch the exxpression on the judge and juror's faces as they hear what John & Steve have to say.
I bought the disc box for ~$80 USD. Not because I thought it was a great album but because I wanted to support this model. The album is ok from what I've heard on MPR but it's growing on me.
I was curious so I asked around at work, it sounds like people are pay around four or five pounds ($8-$10). And I'm glad that I haven't had to guilt trip anyone into paying for it. Although, everyone I work with does receive a decent paycheck. I hope that by buying the discbox and encouraging people to buy it, it offsets the poorer people and the college kids. Having been in both those places, I sympathize heavily with them.
But, I hope that with writing, music & software people will realize how easy it is to disseminate the product and more will open up to the model of charging very little to touch millions instead of charging millions to reach very little.
I hope the shipping of the discbox goes better for Radiohead than it did for Prince. I can't wait to get my hands on that vinyl. I don't care what you say, it feels good to 'own' something even though the rights and definitions of that seem to deteriorate daily.
I guess that's the sad thing though, it's no longer the people that made this stuff that own the copyrights. It's huge corporations. This goes for sound and video. Do you think any of the big studios care about artist exposure? They don't care about building a fan base, they care about profit margins.
I personally would like to see Google help users approach and push the limits of fair use of sound and video. I think that a lot of artists would be open to their work being displayed in a tasteful manner without the full work being put online. I also think that the usually low quality of YouTube is a good reason to allow this and that if copyright material is found, they should investigate either shortening it or degrading the quality so that viewers get a taste. What's more, putting a link to sales of the item would be basically free advertising.
I feel especially sorry for the people who build movie montages with unpopular songs for I have watched many of them and purchased a DVD & CD from seeing the two. After watching that particular video, I rediscovered the genius of Sergio Leone after a fan posted that video with one of my favorite bands, The Arcade Fire. Sure, it's just anecdotal evidence but I still view that as original art & innovative.
It's truly a shame that copyright holders are throwing away what could be a beautiful & profitable relationship with fans.
Here are the details for this case that I found another site: Over nine months in 2004, Kilbride, Schaffer and an associate transmitted more than 600,000 spam messages, according to court documents. They were paid commissions based on the number of people who accessed the websites via the spam. Kilbride and Schaffer tried to make it seem as if they were sending messages from abroad by logging in to servers in Amsterdam. But those messages originated from Phoenix, prosecutors said. They were also ordered to forfeit $1.3m. So for sending 600,000 spam messages, they were each jailed for five years. The money means little to me since they had it from this spamming but the time in prison, I personally believe is a little harsh. I guess that's what the jury should have and did decide although I find myself not agreeing with jurors as of late in many cases involving my field of study.
That's an excellent point.
... a basket owned by and controlled by the DoD.
Worse yet is something that didn't make it past the editing in my submission of this summary. I read around and it seems like a lot of people think that this budget for such an expensive extensive project would almost certainly be cut from any other alternative energy sources.
In my opinion, our defense spending is already through the roof, this could be a political move to put something powerful in space and get the money from alternative energy spending (or at least under the guises of it). Maybe my tin foil hat is on too tight but a lot of news sources were saying that this could drain and/or draw attention away from other just as valid efforts at escaping the grip of fossil fuels.
Like everyone's been saying, our solution to these problems of dependence on the middle east & emissions is going to be a host of different solutions specific to different areas. I fear that the funding and attention will go into this and we'll have all our eggs in one basket
...artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Yes, he conveniently left out the legalization of robot prostitutes in Amsterdam scheduled for early 2010.After all, though it may be morally frowned upon in the states, who of us hasn't dreamed of going down to the blue light district, picking up a couple of floozybots and voiding their warranties all night long?
They attempt to use Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC decision as a reason that Leonard is legally liable for hosting defamatory statements about an infomercial company! This is Charles Montgomery Burns quality humor.
Also, for further comedic value, I heavily recommend The DirectBuy website done entirely in flash. Which doesn't offer much except a registration form (click the upper right hand ticket). I can't find a damned thing on how their business model works unless I sign up for it. Seems to be a way to get home furnishings as discount prices. But for some reason you have to go to a show room for that. Sounds like something where the value isn't really there but they're certain they can sell you on the idea if they get a half hour of your time. Probably not a scam but pretty damned close--time share style!
Also what's interesting is how they respond to negative feedback questions: We're happy to hear that you are considering a DirectBuy membership. We understand that negative information can make it hard for you to make an informed decision about how membership can meet your current and future buying needs, and we'd like to respond.
DirectBuy's unique business model is very different than mainstream retail operation. Our concept, combined with our continued growth over 36 years, has made DirectBuy, just like any other sizeable corporation, a target for controversy.
That being said, most of the information online is posted by individuals who have not attended an Open House, or have chosen not to become members.
We realize that DirectBuy is not for everyone, and that's why we encourage individuals who are interested in taking a calculated approach to undeniable savings to attend an Open House to learn about our unmatched selection, savings, and service. The complaints you see online from those who have actually visited DirectBuy represent a very small fraction of the hundreds of thousands of individuals each year who attend an Open House. (And to set the record straight, DirectBuy has never been involved in a class-action lawsuit.)
We're very proud of our long track record of satisfied members who have enjoyed the undeniable savings and wide array of merchandise that we offer. Our members invest upfront to avoid paying traditional retail markup and save significantly on virtually everything for in and around their homes. Members' satisfaction is our number-one priority.
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DirectBuy members, tell McBain about your membership experience here, too. We'd love to hear from you! I've bolded the sentence that worries me. It both sounds too good to be true and sounds like they take my money and promise me something later that's ill defined. What do you think?
I'll bet any amount of money that wasn't written by a person with a soul. Shady legal threats from an even shadier company. What do you expect?
I'll be taking the well known "global warming" approach where I already know what is going to prove with my research so your data point will have to be either an anomaly or possibly tweaked. I may have to remove a word from your testimony and replace "not" with "..." but I do thank you. I am well on my way of utilizing the corporate scientific method!
1. Conduct 'research' proving people should not protect their children from dust and viruses.
2. Patent dust/virus concoctions in spray bottle to be applied daily to humans in the pupae stage.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!! (Virodust® bottle sales, maybe hospital kickbacks?)
I could spout more of my fears of an overly medicated, overly hygienic society but my neck is really sore from the tinfoil fortress atop my head.
I suppose you could poke equally as much fun back at the computer science community with: Virus? Is a computer the immune system? Fields of science borrow and share terms all the time. People seem to like the term 'reboot' despite it's origins being found in computers. I myself sometimes forget the pure origin of the word. The 'boot' part being from the bootloader of a system which plays a vital role in the bootstrapping process prior to the start of the operating system (if there is one installed). Do you think tailors are annoyed that we stole their bootstrap word?
Why nitpick terminology when everyone borrows it. Accept descriptive words, don't be prescriptive--I think that's what makes languages fun and interesting instead of boring, dry & dead.
I have studied little biology or medical subjects though I've read studies about this same sort of thing happening with asthma, polio & allergies. I think I've posted about this before but anecdotally I noticed there were no farmers who had allergies or asthma as I grew up and worked on farms with them. The young kids would play in hay and run around in the mud outside when it rained. So it seems that a problem with being an overly hygienic society today (as the article notes) is that we don't expose our young to these pathogens early on so they never adapt to them and suffer exposure to them later. This is why I recommend against anyone installing an air purifier in their home. It's a great idea--if you never plan on leaving your home.
I can't find the research but I thought a long time ago that a German study was done to find out why polio was "a middle class disease." If I recall they found that poor children were exposed to it since birth and rarely suffered from it since they were exposed to it always. The middle class children would be protected as infants but once exposed to it, their bodies would not be able to fight it. The upper class would take all costs to reduce exposure to it at all times--and they could.
Now this research is interestingly related in that appendicitis may be something that occurs due to our lack of exposure to diseases that destroy all the germs in our body (cholera & certain types of dysentery). Should something happen that would threaten this, our bodies respond poorly to it and the appendix flares up. As this article notes, appendicitis occurs less frequently in underdeveloped countries. Perhaps this is more reinforcement for the idea that protecting your children from germs is a double edged sword.
It's the double edged sword of software popularity.
... perhaps I should.
Linux is becoming so respected and desired as an operating system for servers that phishers & hackers are slowly turning their attention towards it being profitable.
I think this will be the true test for Linux to prove that it can beat Windows in all departments.
I actually see this as good news although I must confess that when I get home I'm going to check & double check the configurations on the ports on my router and all my Linux boxes. When toying with app servers & apache, I have noticed tons of port scanners probing my Linux boxes. I paid them no mind although now
Wir wissen, daß Sie Adressen, Slashdot loggen. Dies heißt Krieg. Hans, bereiten das Virus vor! Widerstand ist vergeblich!
The Germans were dismayed to report that an 'unfortunate' side effect of this ruling is that they would have to invade Poland & France to 'liberate' their servers.
But in all seriousness, good for them. I personally think it should be left up to the administrator of the server (or whoever 'owns' the content). If you do keep it, it's evident that the government may be knocking on your door for it for (hopefully) only the most serious infractions of the law. I think making it illegal to retain this information is going a bit too far but it is better than going too far the other way. I guess it would make me feel more safe personally though I know a lot of people that would feel less safe and that's why we (I'm an American) have a government in power that is putting up more and more systems to monitor its own people.
I submitted a story about this a week or two ago. I think it's also worthy to note that IBM seems to have done the same thing.
What was the story I submitted tagged as? 'fudfudfud'
I wonder how many forks we'll see? I also wonder if anyone's going to actually make this real open source or if each company is going to fork their own copy and call all the shots on it? I hope someone learns that to be the OpenOffice you have to be open to community ideas, wants & needs as well as truly governed by the community.
- Just because a company has a huge and growing audience doesn't mean it can find a huge revenue source. Skype's appeal is that it offers services free or very cheap. That limits its ability to raise prices. And it turns out that there are limited opportunities for advertising or add-on services.
- It's almost impossible to pay for a deal through "synergies." EBay executives talked about how Skype would be useful to connect buyers and sellers in its marketplace. This always seemed to be hooey. The eBay market is already full of chatter, mainly by e-mail, and sometimes by phone. Sure, some of that might well be handled by Internet phone, but how much and what value was created by eBay owning its own voice chat system? Not much, it turns out.
I think the second point is the most important. This deal was easy to criticize because they didn't know what the hell they were going to do with it. They had no forward plan. Where were they taking Skype? What were they going to do with it? How was it going to make money? Nobody knew. And, most importantly, eBay didn't either.So why did they make the deal? Maybe they felt pressure. Maybe it looked like easy cash. One thing is for sure, it never came to fruition whatever they saw in the company. I personally liked the tool but once you start asking for cash, you can expect to see your user base taper off. You're competing with something that is already incredibly cheap in the states. If it ain't free, you're going to have problems operating in the black. If it is free, you better have some mad advertising revenue or market data stuff to sell
Google knew where they were going with the YouTube purchase. It's now pretty clear eBay didn't know exactly what they were going to do. But, hey, they could treat it like Microsoft's original Xbox venture, "We lost a lot of money but fsck it, we've got a ton to lose and I'm bored with being the top dog in a single market!"
Consumer: My company doesn't need Vista, we're using Linux which has about the same amount of bumps and hiccups. ... ... ... well, no reason to get into details. Have a nice day!
Microsoft: You mean you're using an operating system that validates over 450 of our patents?
Consumer: Well, I know that isn't true but
Microsoft: But it'd be a shame if your company was ever engaged with our world class legal team instead of being a 'partner' with the largest software maker ever?
Consumer: But we only have 20 employees.
Microsoft: We know--perhaps you'd be interested in purchasing a copy of our lap dog here, Novell's SUSE?
Consumer: But we already use Red Hat
Microsoft: We heavily suggest you re-evaluate SUSE and when you do your trade study please do note that it's the only Microsoft Certified Genuine Linux. Also, it would be a shame if we had to exercise our patent portfolio on Red Hat and subsequently
I imagine that spammers could band together or simply get botnets 'clicking' as independent IP addresses links that boost their page rank. That's how it worked with Bush, they simply linked his homepage as "miserable failure" and suddenly he was the number one result from that query in Google.
I find this more likely an explanation than someone changing the data or values in the database. There's going to be plenty of evidence left in the logs & it's not like nobody's going to notice. This is Google's bread & butter, no amount of money in the world could entice a worker to mess with it. They would have to be exceptionally stupid as the lawsuits that follow would be in the billions.
I'm not going to tell UK people how to raise their children and they're not going to tell me how to raise mine. You can go ahead and prepare your kid for what your government is going to force onto them anyways. I personally am going to teach my kids to question everything. Question me, question the government and question any institutions. I'm going to teach them how to do it objectively and how to improve themselves as well as the said institution. And you know what? Maybe my kids will be able to reverse what my generation has let slip out of control. Maybe not. Depends on how you raise your kids. So the question I'm really interested in is how are you going to raise your kids so I know whether I have to prepare mine to be monitored their entire life or prepare them for something we all used to enjoy.
The year is 3007. A tour guide is moving people in futuristic suits along a wall containing ancient artifacts--some over 1000 years old.
... ... although this is before the time of the iCar, iHome, iWear & iMarthaStewartBedSheets.
Tour Guide: What you see before you on this wall is the registration page of "My World" which was a mediocre success from the once successful company Google
Tourist 1: You mean the religion Google?
Tour Guide: No, this is before Google was technically a religion, although leading theorists are still in hot debate over whether or not they ever exhibited non-religious behavior.
Tourist 2: So is this the "MySpace" that almost lead to the completely downfall and lack of productivity of the users?
Tour Guide: No, this is a sad an unfortunate result of the ignorant times of the beginning of the fourth millennium when companies copied each other in naming conventions. Unfortunately this lead to confusing statements such as "You can find it on my MySpace profile." or "I like your My World house." Remember this after the point in time when everything had an e- appended to the front of it to raise more money due to reasons not yet understood
Tourist 3: So pre-iGod era?
Tour Guide: That's right, prior to the death and rebirth of Steve Jobs.
Tourist 4: What's this ancient script here on this page?
Tour Guide: That is a dead dialect of someone criticising another user's "My World" and it reads as such, "J00 need a life, ur MW site is teh ghey." Scientists suspect this sort of talk was indicative of people who had experienced full frontal lobotomies or spent more than 10 minutes on a (now banned for obvious reasons) cell phone. The criticizing user is unimpressed with the amount of memory a plain "My World" consists of and seems to be demanding that more objects, backgrounds, dancing jesuses and flying toasters be added to the 'ghey' user's page.
Tourist 5: What was the point of all of this?
Tour Guide: Again, a much debated topic although the currently accepted belief is that these sites were often a strange mating ritual as many of the once private messages are now public and indicate that sex, hooking up or unspeakable acts were highly sought after from other users.
Tourist 6: I can't believe I evolved from one of these 'people.'
Tour Guide: Indeed, we have come a long way. It is too bad it took a thousand years and the complete eradication of all Microsoft products to return our productivity to nominal levels.
Bob: Oh yeah? Oh, is that the free phone calls with conversation-relevant ads showing up on your screen?
Phil: That's right, it's completely free!
Bob: Heh, monkey sex.
Phil: Uh, what?
Bob: Monkey sex!
Phil: Ew, gross, stop that.
Bob: Beastiality.
Phil: Oh yuck, these flash based ads are
Bob: Goatse.
Phil: Ahhhhhhhhh! *click*
I swear those books on kitten huffing & freedom hating are purely for research on my next acting part in a play!
Unfortunately, 98% of the population doesn't want to have to deal with extensions in order to surf the internet. I mean, you can barely get everyone to keep updating IE, how will you get them to use a Firefox extension? These are the mentalities that cause you to alienate people and if you'd stop and look around you, you'd notice that since you're alienating everyone you're actually alienating yourself. Of course, from what I've seen that seems to be the engineering way