As over watch of operations management, what kind of performance measurements are you going to make to decide which direction Ubuntu development is heading? Number of bugs? Just cash flow? Number of supported packages?
Simply put: what are you going to improve Canonical's operations and how are you plan on measuring it to prove you're making a difference?
You used to write a lot about desktop Linux distributions but now that you're COO of Canonical, the revenue comes most from enterprise support. Do you plan on trying to change that or maintain any value in pleasing the at home Ubuntu user? Your blog post talks about your kids achieving basic tasks with Ubuntu, will you still keep them in mind despite the fact your new employer doesn't see a dime from them? Any plans to make it more user friendly or make it more mainstream and less server room?
This, I believe, is an opportunity for Canonical to tighten its focus. While Shuttleworth suggests that Silber's appointment "doesn't mark a change of direction," perhaps it should. With over 300 employees and products that span mobile, Netbooks and other personal computers, cloud computing, enterprise servers, and more, Canonical has its fingers in a lot of pots.
As COO, what are you going to do to improve the products you highlighted above? I'm not looking for a soft answer like "I'm going to promote Ubuntu on netbooks" but more so an itemized list of measurable goals, with milestones, dates and areas of focus (for instance, power minded ARM distributions). Is there anything about their vision you intend to change or influence the most?
Are these stories at all positive for the project? I mean, you would think with states and governments using Ubuntu or Red Hat that it would catch on like wildfire if the savings are there so why isn't that happening? I know Microsoft sends out a lot of Wormtongues to stick in the ears of important people, do you plan on targeting governments in a similar manner? Does/will Canonical work on making a presence in things like the EU Commissions where we've seen corporations collecting members in their pockets?
A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data... His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press.
So he chose to release his findings in the exact form of what was 'overloading people with information'? A printed book?
Boy I'd like to design that back cover:
"Find out how things like this very book you hold in your hands right now is destroying your mind and plaguing you with confusing and harmful thoughts..."
"You'll pick it up, read it, burn it and never read another book again!"
"Tell your neighbors to buy this book so you can outsmart them and take their cattle!"
"Your feudal lord's new tool of oppression: Printed word?"
CNN reported that "Email 'hurts IQ more than pot'"
Well from that article,
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
Well, not that I trust psychiatrists that much but I guess the only thing this is telling me is that marijuana really isn't the brain destroying demon they've made it out to be. Doesn't really convince me that email rots my brain.
Not a single shred of evidence underlies these stories...
Well, to be fair, these are psychiatrists conducting surveys and "research." Probably counts as a 'shred.' I think the surveys are a better bet than research but your blame doesn't lie with the media... rather the institutions giving these psychiatrists degrees and the "peer reviewed" journals publishing this work and research.
I am pretty sure that it will be a long time before the Olympic Committee manages to run their ice resurfacers the 29,000 times needed to break even.
All I was asking that the summary be more clear as to how much these things cost. It sounds blatantly one sided.
I'm not an expert on these machines but I did find an analysis for the town of Halton Hills which (on page four of that PDF) finds the per year cost of a natural gas ice resurfacer to be $14,225 versus $12,700 for an electric. Note a different service life is assumed:
The fuel source comparison chart illustrates that the natural gas powered machines would cost an average of $14,225 per year based on an 8 year service life and the projected cost for an electric battery powered machine is an average of $12,700 per year based on a 16 year service life.
I don't know where they got these numbers but I'm assuming this guy did the footwork. Even then, that report notes that the natural gas models have a history of performing satisfactorily and probably wasn't worth the $1,500/yr savings afforded by the electric model. This is called being prudent.
All I was saying is that I found the summary to be more than a little misleading in this respect. It just gave me an "electric will never be viable" vibe that I didn't really care for.
If you're going to spend twice as much on electric devices to replace non-green designs...
From the linked NYTimes article:
Electric resurfacers are also cheaper to run — about 25 cents a flood, Mr. Schlupp said, compared with at least $3 for a propane-powered flood and at least $4 for gasoline. The drawback is the cost of the electric machine, which he said would sell for about $160,000, twice the price of a propane model.
So like a lot of 'green' things they are designed to save you money in the long run. Like paying out your ass for CFL bulbs or installing a windmill. Granted that's over 29,000 floods you'd need to recoup the eighty grand, it's a bit misleading to say it's more expensive. The other thing to look at is whether or not the eighty thousand is worth the health of your fans (you know, where you get your revenues from). I mean, fume free might not mean much to me but to the six year old kid suffering from asthma in the front row?
... at least test the things first.
Again, from the NYTimes article:
Mr. Hainault said that so far the machines had run, well, smoothly.
Sounds like they tested them to me. The Seattle Times article is either wrong or confusing when they say that the Zambonis also had problems:
It's the second straight day there have been issues here treating the ice between sessions --- yesterday it was the women's 3,000. Problems with that Zamboni left only one available for today, and then that one that began to have problems. The Zamboni left some piles of slush in the turn near where I am sitting --- which is also the front straightaway.
The Resurfice Olympia models appeared to be the electrics with the Zambonis being the gas fed ice resurfacers. So are they saying they had problems with the Zambonis just as much as the Resurfice Olympia models? Or are they using Zamboni in place of "ice resurfacer" like Kleenex and Frisbee?
I would bet they were having problems with temperatures. I've been to Capitals hockey games were breaks between periods went long since the abnormally high temperatures caused problems with the Zambonis.
Step 1: Read leaked ACTA documents.
Step 2: Patent technologies and software logic that must follow to enforce ACTA.
Decision Gate A: Do you want to be stinking rich or fight for internet liberties? For stinking rich, proceed to step 3a. For valient political statement proceed to step 3b.
Step 3a: License patents under reasonable royalties and hire a legion of lawyers in countries around the world.
Step 3b: List licensing fees of one trillion dollars per patent and hire a legion of lawyers around the world to enforce it. Sit back and watch ACTA defeat itself (assuming it covers software intellectual property worldwide).
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
I retired from Microsoft in 2000 after 17 years of service ranging from program manager for Microsoft Access to general manager of the Microsoft Commercial Internet System.
At this point apathy consumes the rage that would normally well up inside me... Halliburten got contract after contract with a former employee as vice president of the United States... should this sponsorship surprise me? I guess it doesn't fall under conflict of interest though a large part of me feels it should...
and (my personal favorite) the warning about how the strong magnet inside the system could fritz your pacemaker.
So you have a large number of workers exposed to this machine that (I presume) creates massive electromagnetic fields? And they are exposed to it for lengthy amounts of time in proximity to it? And you have other workers in the same area/facility that are not exposed to it?
I tire of the ongoing debate that electromagnetic fields are hazardous to your health. Since you provide these people ongoing health care, perhaps you could release anonymized data so we could either confirm or deny this? If anything it would help clear things up in -- not only the power lines debate -- but also maybe cellphones if the EMFs are in anyway similar.
I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?
It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!
So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered afewquestions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.
Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.
Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.
The only way Facebook would integrate is if it didn't view Buzz as a competitor in anyway. But Buzz is a competitor already in some respects. The damned thing keeps asking me to integrate with my Picassa account. And it is already integrated with GMail and GChat. So you've got ad revenue, messaging and pictures... now Buzz needs finer tuned privacy control and a developer platform to be a direct competitor with Facebook. That last one is a big sticky mess though and Facebook seems to have done as best as possible with it.
Hilarious that Google got bit on privacy concerns. Facebook learned the lengthy hard way on that one but it does give me hope that people are not entirely offering up their privacy to Google without batting an eye. Maybe the general public is not as doomed as we thought?
Anyway, there is no way in hell Facebook would validate Buzz's existence by integrating with them. It would just give their users who already use GMail a chance to seamlessly transfer over to Buzz while keeping up with their archaic Facebook contacts. It would be potential suicide for Facebook to do such a thing if/when Google keeps up expanding Buzz.
Personally I think Buzz targets another market but losing any number of users to Buzz does not make sense in anyway... devoting time and resources to that endeavor makes even less sense. Facebook will sacrifice interaction between it's large user base and the few Buzz-only people in the name of maintaining its superiority. Really it's sad because the user loses out of being able to transfer and interact with users on Buzz... but when you're as big as Facebook, you just don't care about those kinds of integration competitor benefits and 'features.'
The same Roland Emmerich that wrote the script for Independence Day? The movie where Will Smith flies a spaceship out of an alien base and yells "Oh! Elvis has left the building!" ? Where Will Smith pauses after beating up an alien and says "Welcome to Earth!" ? Where Randy Quaid says, "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" ? Where Randy Quaid is about to fly his ship up into an Alien fortress to blow it up and says "All right, you alien assholes! In the words of my generation: Up Yours!" followed by "Ha-ha-ha! Hello, boys! I'm back! " ? Where Jeff Goldblum says, "Must go faster!" ?
That's the writing we have to look forward to? And the guy who wrote that is directing?
*curls up into fetal position*
Well, after seeing I, Robot I must say that at least they waited until Asimov was dead before hacking his works up into utter drivel in order to milk those cash cows. Gee, maybe if we're lucky we'll get to see the psychohistorian Hari Seldon played by Tom Cruise scream, "And that's my thousand year plan, bitch!" while snapping his fingers back and forth?
So what are we looking at here? A movie full of catch phrases shot in a new technology that just broke records for box office revenues? Sounds like these executive producers are betting on a winning horse that I'd rather take a bullet to the head than see.
First off, I'm 27. No clue if I'm therefore a member of her generation or not. But anyway, I do recognize a move towards a slough of progressive distribution models of information. I think the public domain is underrated and I would like to see copyright length dialed down a year or thirty. I don't think it should be completely abolished anytime in the near future.
I also feel like writers should be rewarded with incentives for their work. If her anything goes usage attitude was applied to me I would simply make a character with my name and pick up all my favorite sci-fi books and write glue to transport the character from one favorite scene to another in each of the books. I'd publish it and get all the proceeds. But that wouldn't be fair if all I did was write crappy glue to string the stories together. I should make pennies on the sale with the rest of the cash appropriately divided up to the real authors who did the real writing. I'm not a sampling artist but the ones that do get permission in music I believe settle up with the owner of that copyrighted work first.
I guess she lives in Germany so things might go differently for her. But in the United States, if you commit a crime as an act of art, you are still charged for the crime. Murder someone and string their body parts on a Christmas tree to represent the commercialization of Christmas? You're going to be tried for murder.
Something of curious note to me is that she's 17. In our code of law, I believe her record would be expunged when she's 18, not sure how it works in Germany. So maybe she's taking this hit now to generate publicity knowing full well it won't stick on her. Who knows? I think it's a shame that she didn't get permission and I hope the other authors are given a reasonable royalty rate on her sales.
Why do ignorant people that one statement by Jefferson and try to make it stand on it's own completely out of context to prove all our founders hated religion.
On the contrary, that statement proves how much Jefferson loved religion. He loved it so much he wanted to protect every kind of religion and every diversity of religion out there by not allowing the government to indoctrinate people into one mandated religion. I'm not changing anything, the Bill of Rights was frame to protect all religions, not hate them by promoting only one of them.
While the article is a bit biased as well as the people it covers, a lot of the things these people tout amount to plain ignorance.
More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians...
True.
... and according to biblical precepts.
False. The founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson) read so much philosophy and ethics that The Christian Bible was one of a hundred sources. One could easily argue that the nation was founded on principles of the League of Five Nations as much as anything else. Yes, the founding fathers most likely borrowed from heathen savages that populated a land where everyone went to hell before the Europeans got here.
If the people in the article think the founding fathers didn't intend for a separation of church and state, let's visit what documentation we have from them:
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
All men and women are created equal. Everyone has a right to practice what religion they so choose. So keep your religious crap out of our public schools.
The main goal with the proposal is to task the government with finding ways to strengthen freedoms of expression and information in Iceland, as well as providing strong protections for sources and whistleblowers.
That'd be a really good start and pretty much pocket change for a government. Wikileaks seemed to be operating just fine where ever their servers were located. Offer them asylum only if they need it.
Even better than that would be an IMMI award given out yearly to the whistleblowingest site out there. Let Cryptome and Wikileaks compete for eyeballs, usability and leaked documents.
Changing your laws will attract journalists to live there but, come on, the journalism industry isn't going to be pulling in huge import revenues for your country as it stands. So maybe the best thing would be to slightly improve the laws and use a little bit of change to encourage the principles the IMMI wants to support. Worry about becoming the Swiss Bank of Information and Dissent later when there's a huge demand for it. The places that need that stuff the most would sooner block all Iceland IP addresses than let you host damning news and evidence of them anyway.
Collaborate, in my opinion, implies that there is some advanced messaging going on in the background. And the persistence of that messaging (whether on a centralized server or via some P2P/Client routing protocol) is not only complex but often needs to be specific to what you want to collaborate about. Let's look at annotations. Where are they stored? How am I notified if you add an annotation to my document? How do I track my annotations? How do I share my annotations? Where is that stored? Etc. The questions raised are endless.
A coworker implemented a basic ruby service of this where I work and I have to say that he didn't find any open source alternatives before he started that fulfilled anywhere near what we needed. Ruby made it pretty easy (1 or 2 person job) with the emphasis just being javascript and DOM coding to get the interface correct. Then we just had a RESTful service for storing these and from there we'll keep adding on features like messaging/e-mail alearts/etc for the users when we get time. Yes, I'm aware that if I open sourced this you could help me out with that but I'm sorry, my employer is not on that boat (yet).
For your reference, even just document management is a sticky solution to find in open source, we've talkedabout ittime and timeagain.
If you're too stupid to spell it out, you're too stupid to deserve the oxygen you're breathing.
So you're that guy that repeatedly stood up in the grade school auditorium during the Abbott and Costello sketch and yelled, "The man that is on first has an uncommon given name of 'Who' resulting in the confusion that is unfolding between the two of you. Now that that is cleared up, carry on with the dialogue."
Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT.
Microsoft Phone Support: Thank you for calling Microsoft, all calls may be monitored for training purposes and to ensure quality of service. Now, what seems to be the problem... Customer: That's right. *pause* Microsoft Phone Support:... ? Sir, you have to give me more information. Customer: I'll tell you my problem. WAT is my problem. Microsoft Phone Support: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question, you haven't told me yet. Customer: I didn't ask you a question. Microsoft Phone Support: Then why did you call? Why do you need help? Customer: WAT's wrong. I can't activate Windows 7 but I just bought it! Microsoft Phone Support: Okay, let's try to diagnose this problem. What's wrong? Customer: Yes, I already said that, I know WAT is wrong! That is precisely why I called! Microsoft Phone Support: Wait, why are you calling? Customer: WAT! Microsoft Phone Support: I said, why are you calling?! Customer: WAT! WAT, GODDAMNIT, WAT!!!
We want sequels to Return of the Jedi. Wasn't he originally going to do 3 sets of trilogies: with the 3rd set later on, and the only common characters would be the 2 droids?
Yes, those were the initial plans. Although there was a very important if in their plans. From what I've heard through rumors, Lucas had two trilogies he could tell and he picked the stronger of the two (prequels) to do first. If that was financially successful and well received then he would continue with the sequels. I think this strategy changed with the release of the first or second episode and the latter sequel was canceled altogether.
I don't want later sequels. If anything is done in the Star Wars universe, I want the Timothy Zahn Trilogy done as three movies. Thrawn is badass. I want a TV series that takes stories like the "Tales" series of SW books and brings them to life.
Personally I think the characters in Episodes I, II and III were so weak that we need new characters that aren't supposed to fulfill some other plot line's obligations.
After considering the Court’s Order, Plaintiffs regretfully must decline to accept the remittitur since the rationale underlying the remittitur is inconsistent with the Copyright Act and its legislative history, as well as established case law.
I am not a lawyer but how many times can you prolong at trial? I'm aware of the appeal process but is this even an appeal? It sounds more like they're saying "we refuse to accept the court's decision" which is not quite how I recall law in the United States to work.
Then their filing says this:
In light of the foregoing, Plaintiffs respectfully decline to accept the Court’s remittitur and shall work with Defendant’s counsel and the Court to set this matter for a new trial on the issue of damages.
Emphasis mine. So this isn't an appeal or a retrial but instead a new trial? How many times must Thomas-Rasset go to court for copyright violation on twenty four songs?!
Further more, if any lawyers are reading this, does this affect the precedence that this verdict would set? Will Capital v. Thomas be referenced with an asterisk indicating that the first eight trials found her on the hook for any amount between $24 and $2 million causing the judge to finally throw it out on the ninth "new trial"?
Whatever happened to due process and not being able to stand trial for the same crime twice? Is this new trial a civil suit where the first two trials were criminal suits?
I understand some issues are not clearly defined in law but this is turning into a circus.
Slashdot Mirror
The East Coast gets a bit of a blizzard (I live in DC but am from Minnesota). People start saying, "Global warming?! HA!"
...
Meanwhile Sagar Island shrinks away from rising oceans.
Meanwhile a UAB professor claims ocean acidification is yet another measurable effect of climate change.
Meanwhile Eastern Antarctica (the steadfast 'unaffected' part of Antarctica) begins to show signs of melting (via NASA and U of TX).
Feel free to keep using your local area to prove/disprove climate change. One day the facts will pile up
As over watch of operations management, what kind of performance measurements are you going to make to decide which direction Ubuntu development is heading? Number of bugs? Just cash flow? Number of supported packages?
Simply put: what are you going to improve Canonical's operations and how are you plan on measuring it to prove you're making a difference?
You used to write a lot about desktop Linux distributions but now that you're COO of Canonical, the revenue comes most from enterprise support. Do you plan on trying to change that or maintain any value in pleasing the at home Ubuntu user? Your blog post talks about your kids achieving basic tasks with Ubuntu, will you still keep them in mind despite the fact your new employer doesn't see a dime from them? Any plans to make it more user friendly or make it more mainstream and less server room?
This, I believe, is an opportunity for Canonical to tighten its focus. While Shuttleworth suggests that Silber's appointment "doesn't mark a change of direction," perhaps it should. With over 300 employees and products that span mobile, Netbooks and other personal computers, cloud computing, enterprise servers, and more, Canonical has its fingers in a lot of pots.
As COO, what are you going to do to improve the products you highlighted above? I'm not looking for a soft answer like "I'm going to promote Ubuntu on netbooks" but more so an itemized list of measurable goals, with milestones, dates and areas of focus (for instance, power minded ARM distributions). Is there anything about their vision you intend to change or influence the most?
Every so often I see an adoption story about so and so taking up some open source solution and sometimes I think "Wow, French government? Now it's really going to take off. This is it. It's time." And then I wait. And wait.
Are these stories at all positive for the project? I mean, you would think with states and governments using Ubuntu or Red Hat that it would catch on like wildfire if the savings are there so why isn't that happening? I know Microsoft sends out a lot of Wormtongues to stick in the ears of important people, do you plan on targeting governments in a similar manner? Does/will Canonical work on making a presence in things like the EU Commissions where we've seen corporations collecting members in their pockets?
A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data ... His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press.
So he chose to release his findings in the exact form of what was 'overloading people with information'? A printed book?
..."
Boy I'd like to design that back cover:
"Find out how things like this very book you hold in your hands right now is destroying your mind and plaguing you with confusing and harmful thoughts
"You'll pick it up, read it, burn it and never read another book again!"
"Tell your neighbors to buy this book so you can outsmart them and take their cattle!"
"Your feudal lord's new tool of oppression: Printed word?"
CNN reported that "Email 'hurts IQ more than pot'"
Well from that article,
He found the IQ of those who tried to juggle messages and work fell by 10 points -- the equivalent to missing a whole night's sleep and more than double the 4-point fall seen after smoking marijuana.
Well, not that I trust psychiatrists that much but I guess the only thing this is telling me is that marijuana really isn't the brain destroying demon they've made it out to be. Doesn't really convince me that email rots my brain.
Not a single shred of evidence underlies these stories ...
Well, to be fair, these are psychiatrists conducting surveys and "research." Probably counts as a 'shred.' I think the surveys are a better bet than research but your blame doesn't lie with the media ... rather the institutions giving these psychiatrists degrees and the "peer reviewed" journals publishing this work and research.
I am pretty sure that it will be a long time before the Olympic Committee manages to run their ice resurfacers the 29,000 times needed to break even.
All I was asking that the summary be more clear as to how much these things cost. It sounds blatantly one sided.
I'm not an expert on these machines but I did find an analysis for the town of Halton Hills which (on page four of that PDF) finds the per year cost of a natural gas ice resurfacer to be $14,225 versus $12,700 for an electric. Note a different service life is assumed:
The fuel source comparison chart illustrates that the natural gas powered machines would cost an average of $14,225 per year based on an 8 year service life and the projected cost for an electric battery powered machine is an average of $12,700 per year based on a 16 year service life.
I don't know where they got these numbers but I'm assuming this guy did the footwork. Even then, that report notes that the natural gas models have a history of performing satisfactorily and probably wasn't worth the $1,500/yr savings afforded by the electric model. This is called being prudent.
All I was saying is that I found the summary to be more than a little misleading in this respect. It just gave me an "electric will never be viable" vibe that I didn't really care for.
If you're going to spend twice as much on electric devices to replace non-green designs ...
From the linked NYTimes article:
Electric resurfacers are also cheaper to run — about 25 cents a flood, Mr. Schlupp said, compared with at least $3 for a propane-powered flood and at least $4 for gasoline. The drawback is the cost of the electric machine, which he said would sell for about $160,000, twice the price of a propane model.
So like a lot of 'green' things they are designed to save you money in the long run. Like paying out your ass for CFL bulbs or installing a windmill. Granted that's over 29,000 floods you'd need to recoup the eighty grand, it's a bit misleading to say it's more expensive. The other thing to look at is whether or not the eighty thousand is worth the health of your fans (you know, where you get your revenues from). I mean, fume free might not mean much to me but to the six year old kid suffering from asthma in the front row?
... at least test the things first.
Again, from the NYTimes article:
Mr. Hainault said that so far the machines had run, well, smoothly.
Sounds like they tested them to me. The Seattle Times article is either wrong or confusing when they say that the Zambonis also had problems:
It's the second straight day there have been issues here treating the ice between sessions --- yesterday it was the women's 3,000. Problems with that Zamboni left only one available for today, and then that one that began to have problems. The Zamboni left some piles of slush in the turn near where I am sitting --- which is also the front straightaway.
The Resurfice Olympia models appeared to be the electrics with the Zambonis being the gas fed ice resurfacers. So are they saying they had problems with the Zambonis just as much as the Resurfice Olympia models? Or are they using Zamboni in place of "ice resurfacer" like Kleenex and Frisbee?
I would bet they were having problems with temperatures. I've been to Capitals hockey games were breaks between periods went long since the abnormally high temperatures caused problems with the Zambonis.
Step 1: Read leaked ACTA documents.
Step 2: Patent technologies and software logic that must follow to enforce ACTA.
Decision Gate A: Do you want to be stinking rich or fight for internet liberties? For stinking rich, proceed to step 3a. For valient political statement proceed to step 3b.
Step 3a: License patents under reasonable royalties and hire a legion of lawyers in countries around the world.
Step 3b: List licensing fees of one trillion dollars per patent and hire a legion of lawyers around the world to enforce it. Sit back and watch ACTA defeat itself (assuming it covers software intellectual property worldwide).
The bill's lead sponsor is Ross Hunter of Medina ...
The article's update notes:
Update: Rep. Hunter is a former Microsoft general manager.
As does his bio:
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
I retired from Microsoft in 2000 after 17 years of service ranging from program manager for Microsoft Access to general manager of the Microsoft Commercial Internet System.
At this point apathy consumes the rage that would normally well up inside me ... Halliburten got contract after contract with a former employee as vice president of the United States ... should this sponsorship surprise me? I guess it doesn't fall under conflict of interest though a large part of me feels it should ...
and (my personal favorite) the warning about how the strong magnet inside the system could fritz your pacemaker.
So you have a large number of workers exposed to this machine that (I presume) creates massive electromagnetic fields? And they are exposed to it for lengthy amounts of time in proximity to it? And you have other workers in the same area/facility that are not exposed to it?
...
I tire of the ongoing debate that electromagnetic fields are hazardous to your health. Since you provide these people ongoing health care, perhaps you could release anonymized data so we could either confirm or deny this? If anything it would help clear things up in -- not only the power lines debate -- but also maybe cellphones if the EMFs are in anyway similar.
Just a thought
Integration would be great though as I'd never have to go to FB.com again.
I can understand you hatin' on Facebook but what have you got against The American Farm Bureau Federation?
I think Buzz targets people who desire a very simple interface. It seems to perform a lot better on my slow machine than Facebook but is negligible on my main box. Honestly I haven't experienced any Spam on Buzz at all. Don't you have to follow the Spam bot or hacked account to get the Spam?
It's missing a lot of options, I guess time will tell if that is the intent or merely TBD yet. I do like how it's integrated with Google Reader. I share a lot of my news offerings with my followers. I don't like that it wants me to integrate with Picassa. I simply have too many Google contacts (some Slashdot readers I've never met!) to have them looking at my pictures!
So the one thing that Buzz has over Facebook is Aardvark. I signed up for that three or four days ago and have asked a question (with very positive results) and answered a few questions. I didn't get quite what I wanted out of answering questions although I think the people that answered my question did a pretty good job. How this is different from Yahoo Answers or Wiki Answers seems to be that it's tightly integrated with Buzz and GChat. Also it actively finds things for you to answer. I'm guessing what Google has with mining your e-mail and chats and searches it will use to locate experts for your questions and also pair you with better questions you're more capable of answering. A lot remains to be seen as to whether or not this is an actual beneficial addition or some more of the bloat a Facebook application would have to offer one.
Yes, I have already made two book purchases off of those suggestions from my question. Note that a problem with GChat caused two of my questions (which I tried to designate as separate) get slotted into one question. I could just hear the software thinking: the second question is about authors, he must be continuing his thought.
Personally I'm not leaving Facebook for Buzz. But I'm not decommissioning Buzz. I'm keeping it as a sort of News social network much like The Auteurs and Afternoon Records Community are for my movies and music respectively. Granted none of these niche networks get as much time as the all encompassing Facebook, they still exist harmoniously in the bag of sites I visit. I recognize I'm probably an outlier though.
... until Facebook can integrate ...
The only way Facebook would integrate is if it didn't view Buzz as a competitor in anyway. But Buzz is a competitor already in some respects. The damned thing keeps asking me to integrate with my Picassa account. And it is already integrated with GMail and GChat. So you've got ad revenue, messaging and pictures ... now Buzz needs finer tuned privacy control and a developer platform to be a direct competitor with Facebook. That last one is a big sticky mess though and Facebook seems to have done as best as possible with it.
... devoting time and resources to that endeavor makes even less sense. Facebook will sacrifice interaction between it's large user base and the few Buzz-only people in the name of maintaining its superiority. Really it's sad because the user loses out of being able to transfer and interact with users on Buzz ... but when you're as big as Facebook, you just don't care about those kinds of integration competitor benefits and 'features.'
Hilarious that Google got bit on privacy concerns. Facebook learned the lengthy hard way on that one but it does give me hope that people are not entirely offering up their privacy to Google without batting an eye. Maybe the general public is not as doomed as we thought?
Anyway, there is no way in hell Facebook would validate Buzz's existence by integrating with them. It would just give their users who already use GMail a chance to seamlessly transfer over to Buzz while keeping up with their archaic Facebook contacts. It would be potential suicide for Facebook to do such a thing if/when Google keeps up expanding Buzz.
Personally I think Buzz targets another market but losing any number of users to Buzz does not make sense in anyway
The same Roland Emmerich that wrote the script for Independence Day? The movie where Will Smith flies a spaceship out of an alien base and yells "Oh! Elvis has left the building!" ? Where Will Smith pauses after beating up an alien and says "Welcome to Earth!" ? Where Randy Quaid says, "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" ? Where Randy Quaid is about to fly his ship up into an Alien fortress to blow it up and says "All right, you alien assholes! In the words of my generation: Up Yours!" followed by "Ha-ha-ha! Hello, boys! I'm back! " ? Where Jeff Goldblum says, "Must go faster!" ?
That's the writing we have to look forward to? And the guy who wrote that is directing?
*curls up into fetal position*
Well, after seeing I, Robot I must say that at least they waited until Asimov was dead before hacking his works up into utter drivel in order to milk those cash cows. Gee, maybe if we're lucky we'll get to see the psychohistorian Hari Seldon played by Tom Cruise scream, "And that's my thousand year plan, bitch!" while snapping his fingers back and forth?
So what are we looking at here? A movie full of catch phrases shot in a new technology that just broke records for box office revenues? Sounds like these executive producers are betting on a winning horse that I'd rather take a bullet to the head than see.
First off, I'm 27. No clue if I'm therefore a member of her generation or not. But anyway, I do recognize a move towards a slough of progressive distribution models of information. I think the public domain is underrated and I would like to see copyright length dialed down a year or thirty. I don't think it should be completely abolished anytime in the near future.
I also feel like writers should be rewarded with incentives for their work. If her anything goes usage attitude was applied to me I would simply make a character with my name and pick up all my favorite sci-fi books and write glue to transport the character from one favorite scene to another in each of the books. I'd publish it and get all the proceeds. But that wouldn't be fair if all I did was write crappy glue to string the stories together. I should make pennies on the sale with the rest of the cash appropriately divided up to the real authors who did the real writing. I'm not a sampling artist but the ones that do get permission in music I believe settle up with the owner of that copyrighted work first.
I guess she lives in Germany so things might go differently for her. But in the United States, if you commit a crime as an act of art, you are still charged for the crime. Murder someone and string their body parts on a Christmas tree to represent the commercialization of Christmas? You're going to be tried for murder.
Something of curious note to me is that she's 17. In our code of law, I believe her record would be expunged when she's 18, not sure how it works in Germany. So maybe she's taking this hit now to generate publicity knowing full well it won't stick on her. Who knows? I think it's a shame that she didn't get permission and I hope the other authors are given a reasonable royalty rate on her sales.
Why do ignorant people that one statement by Jefferson and try to make it stand on it's own completely out of context to prove all our founders hated religion.
On the contrary, that statement proves how much Jefferson loved religion. He loved it so much he wanted to protect every kind of religion and every diversity of religion out there by not allowing the government to indoctrinate people into one mandated religion. I'm not changing anything, the Bill of Rights was frame to protect all religions, not hate them by promoting only one of them.
More elementally, they hold that the United States was founded by devout Christians ...
True.
... and according to biblical precepts.
False. The founding fathers (especially Thomas Jefferson) read so much philosophy and ethics that The Christian Bible was one of a hundred sources. One could easily argue that the nation was founded on principles of the League of Five Nations as much as anything else. Yes, the founding fathers most likely borrowed from heathen savages that populated a land where everyone went to hell before the Europeans got here.
If the people in the article think the founding fathers didn't intend for a separation of church and state, let's visit what documentation we have from them:
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
All men and women are created equal. Everyone has a right to practice what religion they so choose. So keep your religious crap out of our public schools.
The main goal with the proposal is to task the government with finding ways to strengthen freedoms of expression and information in Iceland, as well as providing strong protections for sources and whistleblowers.
Before you rewrite all your laws and start to upset other countries like the Brits, tossing a half million at them so they can finally come out of questionable status and my links to their site stop returning a 404.
That'd be a really good start and pretty much pocket change for a government. Wikileaks seemed to be operating just fine where ever their servers were located. Offer them asylum only if they need it.
Even better than that would be an IMMI award given out yearly to the whistleblowingest site out there. Let Cryptome and Wikileaks compete for eyeballs, usability and leaked documents.
Changing your laws will attract journalists to live there but, come on, the journalism industry isn't going to be pulling in huge import revenues for your country as it stands. So maybe the best thing would be to slightly improve the laws and use a little bit of change to encourage the principles the IMMI wants to support. Worry about becoming the Swiss Bank of Information and Dissent later when there's a huge demand for it. The places that need that stuff the most would sooner block all Iceland IP addresses than let you host damning news and evidence of them anyway.
Collaborate, in my opinion, implies that there is some advanced messaging going on in the background. And the persistence of that messaging (whether on a centralized server or via some P2P/Client routing protocol) is not only complex but often needs to be specific to what you want to collaborate about. Let's look at annotations. Where are they stored? How am I notified if you add an annotation to my document? How do I track my annotations? How do I share my annotations? Where is that stored? Etc. The questions raised are endless.
A coworker implemented a basic ruby service of this where I work and I have to say that he didn't find any open source alternatives before he started that fulfilled anywhere near what we needed. Ruby made it pretty easy (1 or 2 person job) with the emphasis just being javascript and DOM coding to get the interface correct. Then we just had a RESTful service for storing these and from there we'll keep adding on features like messaging/e-mail alearts/etc for the users when we get time. Yes, I'm aware that if I open sourced this you could help me out with that but I'm sorry, my employer is not on that boat (yet).
For your reference, even just document management is a sticky solution to find in open source, we've talked about it time and time again.
If you're too stupid to spell it out, you're too stupid to deserve the oxygen you're breathing.
So you're that guy that repeatedly stood up in the grade school auditorium during the Abbott and Costello sketch and yelled, "The man that is on first has an uncommon given name of 'Who' resulting in the confusion that is unfolding between the two of you. Now that that is cleared up, carry on with the dialogue."
Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT.
Microsoft Phone Support: Thank you for calling Microsoft, all calls may be monitored for training purposes and to ensure quality of service. Now, what seems to be the problem ... ... ? Sir, you have to give me more information.
Customer: That's right.
*pause*
Microsoft Phone Support:
Customer: I'll tell you my problem. WAT is my problem.
Microsoft Phone Support: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question, you haven't told me yet.
Customer: I didn't ask you a question.
Microsoft Phone Support: Then why did you call? Why do you need help?
Customer: WAT's wrong. I can't activate Windows 7 but I just bought it!
Microsoft Phone Support: Okay, let's try to diagnose this problem. What's wrong?
Customer: Yes, I already said that, I know WAT is wrong! That is precisely why I called!
Microsoft Phone Support: Wait, why are you calling?
Customer: WAT!
Microsoft Phone Support: I said, why are you calling?!
Customer: WAT! WAT, GODDAMNIT, WAT!!!
We want sequels to Return of the Jedi. Wasn't he originally going to do 3 sets of trilogies: with the 3rd set later on, and the only common characters would be the 2 droids?
Yes, those were the initial plans. Although there was a very important if in their plans. From what I've heard through rumors, Lucas had two trilogies he could tell and he picked the stronger of the two (prequels) to do first. If that was financially successful and well received then he would continue with the sequels. I think this strategy changed with the release of the first or second episode and the latter sequel was canceled altogether.
Keep in mind that Harrison Ford turned down a Han Solo spinoff and opted instead for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (with a fifth shaping up).
I don't want later sequels. If anything is done in the Star Wars universe, I want the Timothy Zahn Trilogy done as three movies. Thrawn is badass. I want a TV series that takes stories like the "Tales" series of SW books and brings them to life.
Personally I think the characters in Episodes I, II and III were so weak that we need new characters that aren't supposed to fulfill some other plot line's obligations.
After considering the Court’s Order, Plaintiffs regretfully must decline to accept the remittitur since the rationale underlying the remittitur is inconsistent with the Copyright Act and its legislative history, as well as established case law.
I am not a lawyer but how many times can you prolong at trial? I'm aware of the appeal process but is this even an appeal? It sounds more like they're saying "we refuse to accept the court's decision" which is not quite how I recall law in the United States to work.
Then their filing says this:
In light of the foregoing, Plaintiffs respectfully decline to accept the Court’s remittitur and shall work with Defendant’s counsel and the Court to set this matter for a new trial on the issue of damages.
Emphasis mine. So this isn't an appeal or a retrial but instead a new trial? How many times must Thomas-Rasset go to court for copyright violation on twenty four songs?!
Further more, if any lawyers are reading this, does this affect the precedence that this verdict would set? Will Capital v. Thomas be referenced with an asterisk indicating that the first eight trials found her on the hook for any amount between $24 and $2 million causing the judge to finally throw it out on the ninth "new trial"?
Whatever happened to due process and not being able to stand trial for the same crime twice? Is this new trial a civil suit where the first two trials were criminal suits?
I understand some issues are not clearly defined in law but this is turning into a circus.