I fear that you're wrong, and the guy is just a conservative technophobe
The new Prime Minister, Surayud Chulanont, is a born-and-raised military man. He seeks to strengthen Thailand. I suspect that spending large sums on outside technology which will tend to increase the influence of outside media (such as the US and China) leads him to take a dim view of the OLPC project, along with the other cancelled and soon-to-be-cancelled educational initiatives. I don't think this action is related to the cancellation of the open source policy.
I do think Thailand is aware of the benefits of technology. They are having quite the political upheaval, though, and this is probably closely related to the Southern militants. The southern part is where all the violence around schools is happening. (This post links to the BBC and ABC)
There is definitely a battle for the identity and control of Thailand. I think it's incredible how little blood has been shed in the recent coup. I hope that the government moves back toward democracy, but it looks like Thailand is becoming more of a Communist state.
The scary thing is, since Microsoft was formed, we've seen significant changes in the largest democracy (that is, largest population -- I mean the U.S. -- no offense to my Aussie friends) that I never thought would happen.
What I'm getting at is this: Microsoft can spread FUD for as long as they like. They're a monopoly, and a lot of their customers will still buy Windows boxen for years, even if they did start firing off patent lawsuits. Microsoft could weather IBM's patent lawsuits if it turns out anything like the anti-trust lawsuits.
But what's scary is that Microsoft may just be warming their FUD plumbing until the day they have infected the E.U. deeply enough that the E.U. won't bat an eye. Then they start suing, and they won't face obstacles there, or here in the U.S. either.
I am one of the people who worked with the Cell emulator when it first came out.
If I recall correctly (it's been a year) they still only have an x86 emulator, not a PPC emulator. However, it's a full-featured environment and very useful. Of course, it's only designed to work with Fedora, which is where I was involved--I successfully ported it to several other linux distros, but there wasn't a lot of demand for the patch I had, so I've moved on to other things.
Politicians are having their dirty laundry aired to the world and they are complaining. What a suprise.
Honestly they brought it upon themselves.. The dirty spear campaigns have existed since the civil war and they will continue, the net is simply a new tool they realize they can use.
My bosses were wary when I suggested XML as our data representation for a new project. Here were some of the arguments:
Pro
Easy to change the schema, don't have to convert old data.
They didn't know exactly what XML was, so if I recommended it,... (a.k.a. "gee whiz" factor?)
The other developers liked the idea
Con
They weren't sure whether this would increase (better system = save time?) or decrease (reinvent the wheel = waste a lot of time in meetings?) productivity
Takes lots of space (no "binary XML")
Slow processing, right? (see "Takes lots of space")
Eventually we settled on gzipped xml. It required a little more code, but everyone seemed happy. Oh, and we stored images as separate.png.
I think my experience is pretty common, though. And from experience, libxml2 + libz is still very, very fast, and there's not a (whole lot) of wasted space.
I'd like to hear other people's success stories, if anyone wants to reply... I liked reading the article, too.
Okay, this is not a flamewar. In the article they have a graph which I thought showed the increasing supply matched by the steadily increasing demand in China. What did you get out of that graph? Am I missing something?
I see a lot of trolls responding to you. That may be because it's hard to believe you were able to get one from the Japan launch. Did you order it online? Did you fly to Japan? Can you prove that you actually have a PS3?
Can you comment on the heat? Rumor is that the PS3 produces a lot of it, and would overheat in a standard entertainment center cabinet, or sitting on a carpeted floor.
I think you're legit, but I can understand that some people will have a hard time believing you actually have a PS3.
Sorry to post twice, but after 30 seconds with google, I found this article:
John Authers reports for The Financial Times...
"Over the five years to June this year, the blue [Democrat] index gained 139 per cent, compared with 34 per cent for the S&P500, which in turn beat the red [Republican] index. Even excluding recent stars Google and Apple, the blues are easily ahead,"
You have a valid point about Apple and Google's political spending.
But you are unfair to Ars. They are a tech journal. I don't hear you complaining about how reliable or balanced slashdot is. Ars gets technical details right. For political information, I take anything with a big dose of salt.
Still, Ars, if you're reading this forum, you could've done better.
Threads! Ahhh, beautiful threads! Replies! Nested comments! Oh, this is good news. Slashdot! Wonderful slashdot! I wonder if CmdrTaco is reading this right now? Wow, it's good not to be digg any more.
the service value of information is exceeding the content value of information
Eventually, information restrictions like copyrights will be such an incredible and annoying hinderence on providing information services that the financial pressure to kill them will become unbearable.
I think you've got it. The Ask Slashdot - How Do You Make a Profit While Using Open Source? - is demonstrating the same thing: Open Source software is one more way in which the service value of having all the source code outweighs the value of executing the code.
Whether it's the MPAA/RIAA, or Microsoft, the meteor has hit the ground. The dinosaurs that cannot adapt may make a lot of noise in their death throes, but they will fade into irrelevance.
I think the.com crash is evidence of how poorly the mainstream understands this. Some of them talk about "Software As A Service," or "Video On Demand," but that's just commoditizing bandwidth instead of the physical media of the '90's. Open Source and Google will wipe them out by delivering more value.
my 2 cents.
This is on-topic, but not the answer everyone else is giving...
My last encounter with a virus was when my brother (who had been abroad) came home, and a few days later I got an email from him with an executable in it. I downloaded the executable and found... surprise, he got a virus using IM, which spammed everyone in his address book. I notified everyone in his address book, cleaned up a few infections, and have never had a problem since.
Seriously. I didn't even have the free version of Ad-Aware installed until late 2004, and when I ran it I had lots of tracking cookies... that was all.
I do heavy development in Visual Studio, but only for consulting work. The rest I do in linux. I've never had a problem. I admin lots of systems, and I've seen rootkits on Solaris, but I've been lucky so far with all the linux servers I've looked at.
It's possible some of my mistakes weren't discovered until much later and no one bothered to tell me. But my own workstation has never been exploited. Sorry, hate to disappoint everyone, but I have nothing to tell.
Until you experienced a blue screen of death while playing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", your life is utterly meaningless
Actually, I just learned from the article that all the Beatles albums on the Zune store are broken links or something, since Microsoft hasn't licensed them yet.
You are so correct. I would much rather the government just took my money at gunpoint, delivered a PS3 to my home whenever they got around to it, and called that a service.
Hear, hear. Actually, does anyone know what it takes to become an editor on/.? Because it seems like they work really, really hard to get the job, and then immediately slack off. CowboyNeal, CmdrTaco, what incentives are in place for editors to post useful stories? Who moderates the editors?
This seems to be the real clincher. I would agree with you:
The problem of finding a business model which utilizes open source is presently confounding many companies, many of them very large ones.
Why do you 'like' Open Source, and what motivates you to release your software?
It's like the huge problem the RIAA and MPAA are having with filesharing, torrents, and DRM. The market (for better or for worse) is made up of humans. They behave rationally most of the time. They count the costs and make decisions based on perceived profit, etc. Economics.
But humans also behave irrationally. Sometimes closed source is a good idea, because humans are irrational. I think that's where I agree with you. For instance, if you own a business doing embedded programming for some boring widget, it would be difficult to gain a financial advantage by open sourcing your code and hoping the community would contribute.
However, humans also behave irrationally the other way. Take patent-holding companies like NTP, for example, whose sole existence is to file suits based on their patent portfolio. The cost to our whole society of a patent reform is enormous, and possibly the only way we can move past such things as submarine patents and the fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding the Microsoft/Novell partnership.
Leaving the economics alone, there's an enormous sea-change happening here. Evidence includes the Microsoft/Novell partnership. If even the largest, most profitable company to ever exist is threatened by the Free Software Foundation (okay, I know that some would debate this, but for the sake of argument, think about this) -- then this could be very significant. I've heard it said by other/.ers that it has to do with the ease of copying bits. This is not the same as a brick-and-mortar store, and the RIAA's complaints of "stealing" become shades of gray.
But the change is more than just "a chicken in every pot / a source tarball for every binary."
Think about the implication of the internet, its ability to spread the information which is publicly available. More than that, the internet, and even slashdot, are places where useful information seems to rise to the top. Because most people are rational most of the time, the trolls and flamebait sink and information is distilled. Open source software existed before the internet, but without the community effect, its pace was measured in decades instead of weekends.
Open source, file sharing, slashdot and the other blogs, VOIP, IPTV, piracy, viruses, and so many other things are examples of this community. I'm really trying to avoid the buzzwords of the.com boom v1.0, but the effect is real and the benefits are worth pursuing.
I think the real question facing individuals, business, and governments is simply this: If we all actually sat down and traded what we have for no cost, so that we all had access to the same resources, what could we accomplish? Would we benefit? Or would the Kim Jong Ils of the world build a nuke and turn us all into flamebait?
If you don't like how everything is getting tagged itsatrap, you can tag it !itsatrap, and vote against the tag. Enough !itsatrap votes, and the tag will be taken off the story.
Slashdot Mirror
I do think Thailand is aware of the benefits of technology. They are having quite the political upheaval, though, and this is probably closely related to the Southern militants. The southern part is where all the violence around schools is happening. (This post links to the BBC and ABC)
There is definitely a battle for the identity and control of Thailand. I think it's incredible how little blood has been shed in the recent coup. I hope that the government moves back toward democracy, but it looks like Thailand is becoming more of a Communist state.
Although it has received its own share of criticism, as a possible misquote
For those who actually are looking for this information, wikipedia has good articles on Robert W. Bussard, Harrison Schmitt (note corrected spelling), and the NSD-Fusion he refers to appears to be a company that sells neutron generators.
The scary thing is, since Microsoft was formed, we've seen significant changes in the largest democracy (that is, largest population -- I mean the U.S. -- no offense to my Aussie friends) that I never thought would happen.
What I'm getting at is this: Microsoft can spread FUD for as long as they like. They're a monopoly, and a lot of their customers will still buy Windows boxen for years, even if they did start firing off patent lawsuits. Microsoft could weather IBM's patent lawsuits if it turns out anything like the anti-trust lawsuits.
But what's scary is that Microsoft may just be warming their FUD plumbing until the day they have infected the E.U. deeply enough that the E.U. won't bat an eye. Then they start suing, and they won't face obstacles there, or here in the U.S. either.
I hope that day never comes. *crosses fingers*
It would make MS billions of dollars.
Almost as much as Office?
P.S. Tag this article haha pwned
I believe this is Steven Jones' research area? As in, Steven Jones of the 9/11 Truth Movement?
I am one of the people who worked with the Cell emulator when it first came out.
If I recall correctly (it's been a year) they still only have an x86 emulator, not a PPC emulator. However, it's a full-featured environment and very useful. Of course, it's only designed to work with Fedora, which is where I was involved--I successfully ported it to several other linux distros, but there wasn't a lot of demand for the patch I had, so I've moved on to other things.
I suppose I could add notfud.
Pro
- Easy to change the schema, don't have to convert old data.
- They didn't know exactly what XML was, so if I recommended it,
... (a.k.a. "gee whiz" factor?)
- The other developers liked the idea
ConEventually we settled on gzipped xml. It required a little more code, but everyone seemed happy. Oh, and we stored images as separate
I think my experience is pretty common, though. And from experience, libxml2 + libz is still very, very fast, and there's not a (whole lot) of wasted space.
I'd like to hear other people's success stories, if anyone wants to reply... I liked reading the article, too.
Okay, this is not a flamewar. In the article they have a graph which I thought showed the increasing supply matched by the steadily increasing demand in China. What did you get out of that graph? Am I missing something?
Actually, you'll have to delete a space slashcode added to the <Document> tag
How could /. readers forget the Firefox Crop Circle?!?!
I see a lot of trolls responding to you. That may be because it's hard to believe you were able to get one from the Japan launch. Did you order it online? Did you fly to Japan? Can you prove that you actually have a PS3?
Can you comment on the heat? Rumor is that the PS3 produces a lot of it, and would overheat in a standard entertainment center cabinet, or sitting on a carpeted floor.
I think you're legit, but I can understand that some people will have a hard time believing you actually have a PS3.
You have a valid point about Apple and Google's political spending.
But you are unfair to Ars. They are a tech journal. I don't hear you complaining about how reliable or balanced slashdot is. Ars gets technical details right. For political information, I take anything with a big dose of salt.
Still, Ars, if you're reading this forum, you could've done better.
Threads! Ahhh, beautiful threads! Replies! Nested comments! Oh, this is good news. Slashdot! Wonderful slashdot! I wonder if CmdrTaco is reading this right now? Wow, it's good not to be digg any more.
Whether it's the MPAA/RIAA, or Microsoft, the meteor has hit the ground. The dinosaurs that cannot adapt may make a lot of noise in their death throes, but they will fade into irrelevance.
I think the
my 2 cents.
[ Parent ]
This is on-topic, but not the answer everyone else is giving...
... surprise, he got a virus using IM, which spammed everyone in his address book. I notified everyone in his address book, cleaned up a few infections, and have never had a problem since.
My last encounter with a virus was when my brother (who had been abroad) came home, and a few days later I got an email from him with an executable in it. I downloaded the executable and found
Seriously. I didn't even have the free version of Ad-Aware installed until late 2004, and when I ran it I had lots of tracking cookies... that was all.
I do heavy development in Visual Studio, but only for consulting work. The rest I do in linux. I've never had a problem. I admin lots of systems, and I've seen rootkits on Solaris, but I've been lucky so far with all the linux servers I've looked at.
It's possible some of my mistakes weren't discovered until much later and no one bothered to tell me. But my own workstation has never been exploited. Sorry, hate to disappoint everyone, but I have nothing to tell.
[ Parent ]
Let's see some positive change hear.
/.? Because it seems like they work really, really hard to get the job, and then immediately slack off. CowboyNeal, CmdrTaco, what incentives are in place for editors to post useful stories? Who moderates the editors?
Hear, hear. Actually, does anyone know what it takes to become an editor on
But humans also behave irrationally. Sometimes closed source is a good idea, because humans are irrational. I think that's where I agree with you. For instance, if you own a business doing embedded programming for some boring widget, it would be difficult to gain a financial advantage by open sourcing your code and hoping the community would contribute.
However, humans also behave irrationally the other way. Take patent-holding companies like NTP, for example, whose sole existence is to file suits based on their patent portfolio. The cost to our whole society of a patent reform is enormous, and possibly the only way we can move past such things as submarine patents and the fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding the Microsoft/Novell partnership.
Leaving the economics alone, there's an enormous sea-change happening here. Evidence includes the Microsoft/Novell partnership. If even the largest, most profitable company to ever exist is threatened by the Free Software Foundation (okay, I know that some would debate this, but for the sake of argument, think about this) -- then this could be very significant. I've heard it said by other
But the change is more than just "a chicken in every pot / a source tarball for every binary."
Think about the implication of the internet, its ability to spread the information which is publicly available. More than that, the internet, and even slashdot, are places where useful information seems to rise to the top. Because most people are rational most of the time, the trolls and flamebait sink and information is distilled. Open source software existed before the internet, but without the community effect, its pace was measured in decades instead of weekends.
Open source, file sharing, slashdot and the other blogs, VOIP, IPTV, piracy, viruses, and so many other things are examples of this community. I'm really trying to avoid the buzzwords of the
I think the real question facing individuals, business, and governments is simply this: If we all actually sat down and traded what we have for no cost, so that we all had access to the same resources, what could we accomplish? Would we benefit? Or would the Kim Jong Ils of the world build a nuke and turn us all into flamebait?
except one, which is tagged with !itsatrap
Sorry about that one. I was trying to explain how to use the tagging system today, and it backfired. I removed my !itsatrap tag, but it was too late.
If you don't like how everything is getting tagged itsatrap, you can tag it !itsatrap, and vote against the tag. Enough !itsatrap votes, and the tag will be taken off the story.