the desire of anyone with the ability or funds to do it to go to space
Not only the desire to go, but some destinations ("space" is not a place) are necessary, too. I would expect that the main use of this device would be for freight, not people. For a start the safety requirements are much less stringent (apart from if it collapses on top of people) and therefore the implementation costs would be less.
There's also the little matter of geography. A space elevator would have to be built on or near to the equator. At present none of the equatorial countries have the will, means or need to build one. In the past the imperial powers have created global infrastructure, but there are no more imperial powers and there is not sufficient political stability for others to want to risk 10's or 100's of trillions of <insert name of preferred currency here> in some tropical location outside of their control.
There must be about a million varieties of Android STBs. The Gbox doesn't appear to be anything special and as the webpage says (it's framed as a warning, but actually it's an advertisement) there are lots of cheaper versions around. It also seems to be "last year's" tech - given that the newest Android STBs sport 2GB of RAM and quad-core processors.
I really don't see why Amazon would try to get into a well established and over-supplied market. They don't have anything original or worthwhile to offer.
No, encryption may be unbreakable now, but not in X years time.
So while it might appear like a solution (today), in the long term it is a failure. All you have to do is store the encrypted data and defer the spying - either on individuals or corporations until such a time as the technology to crack the encryption has progressed, While encryption allows protection up until that time, nobody is in a position to say how long it will be until any particular scheme is compromised. For all we know, ALL current encryption techniques could already have been broken, but like the british did with their Enigma cracks in WW2, the information gleaned isn't always sed for fear of exposing the surveillance capability.
I think you've missed the whole point of this. The basic problem is that any packets that touch american soil become subject to american surveillance and american law. Even if the data / email / web pages are only transiting, fron one "free" country to another.
This is clearly unacceptable and since the americans don't have any motivation to fix the problem, the rest of the world (or at least: countries in Europe, at this stage) will just find a way to bypass it.
As the old saying goes: The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Yes, the biggest problem with the culture is including time spent in meetings as counting as "work". let's face it, it isn't. Sitting in a room with a bunch of other people, bored out of your skull and having to listen to a bunch of agenda items until it's your "5 minutes of fame" to recite your status report (probably the same as the last one - or as everybody elses') and having all the other participants paying you as little attention as you did to them.
That's not work: it's not even as constructive as the commute in.
60 hours a week, huh? And how many of them are spent goofing around - talking to colleagues (and preventing them from working and getting home on time). Updating your FB page every 5 minutes, checking for new cat photos, tweets, that last-second bid on ebay (that you watch like an eagle for the 10 minutes leading up to it), spending a day or two checking out holiday resorts before booking, or buying christmas gifts at Amazon.
Then there are the people who really do need to spend 60 hours working - to achieve what everyone else manages to produce in 35. Slow, incompetent, indolent or simply easily distracted? You choose.
Finally we have the individuals who actually prefer to be at their job - rather than at home, either on their own, getting an earful of "verbal", or simply staring at the wall becuase they have no friends and less imagination about what to do with the empty voids between sleeping and working.
There are plenty of people who work these long hours for the reasons above. Whether they brag about it, or whether others see them as the pathetic specimens they are would depend. But if you do work tose hours, maybe it's because it's either your own fault or it's your way of escaping.
The people you _really_ know (as opposed to merely have "friended") will already know your gender, preferences, propensities and how you wish to be known. For all the rest, it shouldn't even matter. If you want to refer to a person, use their name, initials (e.g. PP) or online nickname.
Either that, or let each individual FB-er choose a unique description for themselves - in their own language.
Whether you think fundraising should be unfettered (what? even for Al Queda? or in times gone past: the IRA?) or controlled, if the Finns have a law, then it's up to people in Finland - Finnish or not - to abide by it. Complaining that you don't think it should apply to you, or your cause, because it's special makes no sense: to every fundraiser: legal, illegal, moral, immoral, commercial, charitable, fraudulent or honest - their cause is "special" otherwise they wouldn't do it.
... is that a large number of the couch potatos in the country will nod quietly and agree with him.
We already know that things which happen in soap operas come to pass, in real life - as programmes like those set the agenda for what "ordinary people" assume is socially acceptable: both for their own behaviour and that of others. Those programmes (and cop shows, too) also tell people what is an acceptable reaction to given situations.
Some (non-viewers) might say that these are fictional drama and therefore should be treated as non-real and non-realistic, but just check out TV forums and see how many posters refer to actors by their characters' names. For a lot of people, TV is real-life: just as Google IS the internet as far asa they're concerned.
An expert won't do routine. Similiar to how a 5-star chef won't work at mcDonalds.
No a 5* chef won't work at McD's. But they do still make burgers - and they are exceptional [ ref: Heston Blumenthal - one of his TV series ]. Although the principle doesn't transfer exactly: once high quality code is written once, it exists for all, unlike a burger. The problem is that there aren't sufficient (any?) 5* coders working in the FOSS world. As you say, they write what they like and as soon as they stop liking (either are asked to fix bugs, improve the security/error-handling, document the product, produce a Mk2, add a feature they don't use or think necessary) they stop doing it.
So the code they do produce might be of acceptable quality, but a 5* (or even 2*, for that matter) coder does more than just write code - they are professional enough to produce a software product, complete in all it's facets.
All of this stuff is merely emotional inflation. These days you can't just like something, you've got to love. Likewise, if something displeases you a little, you are said to hate it. Personally I find these extremes: black or white with no middle ground to be rather childish - like TV villains who are only bad, or heros who are only good. It might work in programmes where you only have 1 hour - or rather: 40 minutes + advertisements to introduce, flesh-out and conclude a story, but real people aren't like that and adopting TV-style dialog into real-life is misleading.
So to say you "love" programming is pointless. I'm sure people are drawn to some aspects of creating new software (though doing the documentation and the testing never seems to be those aspects) and occasionally actually like the feeling of creating something. But is that love? No of course it isn't. Love is (break out the violins) all-conquering, an emotion you would go to extreme lengths to preserve and protect.
If you really did "love" coding, you wouldn't have to be paid to do it. Maybe that's what employers are really looking for.
I wasn't taught about "old" technologies when I was young and I can't say I missed out on anything. There might be a few moments of interest when an under-20 is confronted by (say) a typewriter, but that's about as relevant to today's "kids" as a music-box or valve radio was to me. Yes, these things exist, but they've been superceded and their relevance is long gone.
His data analysis and harvesting will help the guy get a first date with more women. But all he's doing is trawling for ones that match what he thinks he wants. To get a second date his real-life personality and interests have to match what the other person thinks she wants.
Even with the women in question also choosing him on the basis of his tailored responses, he's simply increasing the sample size (i.e. the number of first dates) he gets, without really addressing the quality of the data - how closely the women match him in reality and vice-versa.
One of his descriptions in the article "star signs and all that crap" (or words to that effect) indicates that he still hasn't really "got" the women in the database. By dismissing what they consider important in a profile (the "crap") he's not helping himself. Maybe he should have turned around his search. Instead of hacking his profile to get more matches, he should consider modifying his personality to be more attractive to what the larger numbers of women feel they want in a man.
But I guess to a techie, every problem has a technical solution. No doubt all the first-date restaurants will thank him for his patronage and his (later, but maybe not much later) divorce lawyer will also be suitably grateful.
Go on then. Or was that number just pulled out of someone's behind
Most deinitely, pulled.
Also, the guy who wrote that is confused about revenue vs. profit. If logmein was sucha profitable organisation and it was so easy for someone else to offer an alternative service, there would be dozens of them - everywhere. And logmein's founder would have sold out to Google / Farcebook / Oracle / whoever, years ago.
And you're a perfect example of the second-worst thing about Linux: not the software this time, but the so-called "community". Arrogant, offensive and ignorant. Not only have you made some completely incorrect assertions, but your tone would do nothing to make a newcomer want to be involved with anything to do with Linux. It's also clear that you haven't even taken the time to check out whether what you are suggesting is valid for the software in question.
Why is what bad? The point that thousands of hours went into developing this software, but not a single minute into making it easy for a Linux user to work out how to run the wretched thing?
Nightingale is a superb example of exactly what is wrong with Linux software.
When you go to the website, you have many options for downloading. With Windows you get a.exe to download and install. With Mac, you get an image file. With Linux you get a tarball. A bald, naked tarball - just a bunch of files. No instructions, no readme, no clue whatsoever about how you get the thing to play music.
Some users might stumble across the nightingale file and, out of curiosity, try to run it. However, for all the effort that people have put into writing code for this thing, would it have been so difficult to write a single-line README file, sayinf "run the file called nightingale"?
there'll be a toothbrush with a camera (and illumination) built it. Not only will you be able to see your teeth as you brush them, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a share button that uploaded it to YouTube for the delight and entertainment of your 10,000 closest "friends"
The USA is the prime developer of all these new technologies, and by far the biggest user of them.
The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars. As a consequence the US feels that it is above the sanction of the rest of the world and has no need of it's "rules" for warfare.
If a company has good managers, its customers will find they are paying LESS, not more, for the products. All those projects with time and budget overruns? That's not the result of being WELL managed.
Slashdot Mirror
the desire of anyone with the ability or funds to do it to go to space
Not only the desire to go, but some destinations ("space" is not a place) are necessary, too. I would expect that the main use of this device would be for freight, not people. For a start the safety requirements are much less stringent (apart from if it collapses on top of people) and therefore the implementation costs would be less.
There's also the little matter of geography. A space elevator would have to be built on or near to the equator. At present none of the equatorial countries have the will, means or need to build one. In the past the imperial powers have created global infrastructure, but there are no more imperial powers and there is not sufficient political stability for others to want to risk 10's or 100's of trillions of <insert name of preferred currency here> in some tropical location outside of their control.
There must be about a million varieties of Android STBs. The Gbox doesn't appear to be anything special and as the webpage says (it's framed as a warning, but actually it's an advertisement) there are lots of cheaper versions around. It also seems to be "last year's" tech - given that the newest Android STBs sport 2GB of RAM and quad-core processors.
I really don't see why Amazon would try to get into a well established and over-supplied market. They don't have anything original or worthwhile to offer.
Where have you been for the past couple of years. Haven't you heard of ARM? (Hell, even Intel are using ARM chips in their technology demos)
So while it might appear like a solution (today), in the long term it is a failure. All you have to do is store the encrypted data and defer the spying - either on individuals or corporations until such a time as the technology to crack the encryption has progressed, While encryption allows protection up until that time, nobody is in a position to say how long it will be until any particular scheme is compromised. For all we know, ALL current encryption techniques could already have been broken, but like the british did with their Enigma cracks in WW2, the information gleaned isn't always sed for fear of exposing the surveillance capability.
Are there even any ...
I think you've missed the whole point of this. The basic problem is that any packets that touch american soil become subject to american surveillance and american law. Even if the data / email / web pages are only transiting, fron one "free" country to another.
This is clearly unacceptable and since the americans don't have any motivation to fix the problem, the rest of the world (or at least: countries in Europe, at this stage) will just find a way to bypass it.
As the old saying goes: The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
That's not work: it's not even as constructive as the commute in.
Then there are the people who really do need to spend 60 hours working - to achieve what everyone else manages to produce in 35. Slow, incompetent, indolent or simply easily distracted? You choose.
Finally we have the individuals who actually prefer to be at their job - rather than at home, either on their own, getting an earful of "verbal", or simply staring at the wall becuase they have no friends and less imagination about what to do with the empty voids between sleeping and working.
There are plenty of people who work these long hours for the reasons above. Whether they brag about it, or whether others see them as the pathetic specimens they are would depend. But if you do work tose hours, maybe it's because it's either your own fault or it's your way of escaping.
Either that, or let each individual FB-er choose a unique description for themselves - in their own language.
Whether you think fundraising should be unfettered (what? even for Al Queda? or in times gone past: the IRA?) or controlled, if the Finns have a law, then it's up to people in Finland - Finnish or not - to abide by it. Complaining that you don't think it should apply to you, or your cause, because it's special makes no sense: to every fundraiser: legal, illegal, moral, immoral, commercial, charitable, fraudulent or honest - their cause is "special" otherwise they wouldn't do it.
Guns that never need firing would be infinitely better
We already know that things which happen in soap operas come to pass, in real life - as programmes like those set the agenda for what "ordinary people" assume is socially acceptable: both for their own behaviour and that of others. Those programmes (and cop shows, too) also tell people what is an acceptable reaction to given situations.
Some (non-viewers) might say that these are fictional drama and therefore should be treated as non-real and non-realistic, but just check out TV forums and see how many posters refer to actors by their characters' names. For a lot of people, TV is real-life: just as Google IS the internet as far asa they're concerned.
An expert won't do routine. Similiar to how a 5-star chef won't work at mcDonalds.
No a 5* chef won't work at McD's. But they do still make burgers - and they are exceptional [ ref: Heston Blumenthal - one of his TV series ]. Although the principle doesn't transfer exactly: once high quality code is written once, it exists for all, unlike a burger. The problem is that there aren't sufficient (any?) 5* coders working in the FOSS world. As you say, they write what they like and as soon as they stop liking (either are asked to fix bugs, improve the security/error-handling, document the product, produce a Mk2, add a feature they don't use or think necessary) they stop doing it.
So the code they do produce might be of acceptable quality, but a 5* (or even 2*, for that matter) coder does more than just write code - they are professional enough to produce a software product, complete in all it's facets.
All of this stuff is merely emotional inflation. These days you can't just like something, you've got to love. Likewise, if something displeases you a little, you are said to hate it. Personally I find these extremes: black or white with no middle ground to be rather childish - like TV villains who are only bad, or heros who are only good. It might work in programmes where you only have 1 hour - or rather: 40 minutes + advertisements to introduce, flesh-out and conclude a story, but real people aren't like that and adopting TV-style dialog into real-life is misleading.
So to say you "love" programming is pointless. I'm sure people are drawn to some aspects of creating new software (though doing the documentation and the testing never seems to be those aspects) and occasionally actually like the feeling of creating something. But is that love? No of course it isn't. Love is (break out the violins) all-conquering, an emotion you would go to extreme lengths to preserve and protect.
If you really did "love" coding, you wouldn't have to be paid to do it. Maybe that's what employers are really looking for.
I wasn't taught about "old" technologies when I was young and I can't say I missed out on anything. There might be a few moments of interest when an under-20 is confronted by (say) a typewriter, but that's about as relevant to today's "kids" as a music-box or valve radio was to me. Yes, these things exist, but they've been superceded and their relevance is long gone.
Did you read the whole article?
Good God, no. This is the internet, you know. Most people don't even make it past the headline. (and did you not see my line about divorce lawyer?)
Even with the women in question also choosing him on the basis of his tailored responses, he's simply increasing the sample size (i.e. the number of first dates) he gets, without really addressing the quality of the data - how closely the women match him in reality and vice-versa.
One of his descriptions in the article "star signs and all that crap" (or words to that effect) indicates that he still hasn't really "got" the women in the database. By dismissing what they consider important in a profile (the "crap") he's not helping himself. Maybe he should have turned around his search. Instead of hacking his profile to get more matches, he should consider modifying his personality to be more attractive to what the larger numbers of women feel they want in a man.
But I guess to a techie, every problem has a technical solution. No doubt all the first-date restaurants will thank him for his patronage and his (later, but maybe not much later) divorce lawyer will also be suitably grateful.
Go on then. Or was that number just pulled out of someone's behind
Most deinitely, pulled. Also, the guy who wrote that is confused about revenue vs. profit. If logmein was sucha profitable organisation and it was so easy for someone else to offer an alternative service, there would be dozens of them - everywhere. And logmein's founder would have sold out to Google / Farcebook / Oracle / whoever, years ago.
Maybe not that, exactly. But some code to do with the assembly / disassembly of comms packets.
You're an idiot. ...
And you're a perfect example of the second-worst thing about Linux: not the software this time, but the so-called "community". Arrogant, offensive and ignorant. Not only have you made some completely incorrect assertions, but your tone would do nothing to make a newcomer want to be involved with anything to do with Linux. It's also clear that you haven't even taken the time to check out whether what you are suggesting is valid for the software in question.
Just to be clear THAT'S THE PROBLEM.
When you go to the website, you have many options for downloading. With Windows you get a .exe to download and install. With Mac, you get an image file. With Linux you get a tarball. A bald, naked tarball - just a bunch of files. No instructions, no readme, no clue whatsoever about how you get the thing to play music.
Some users might stumble across the nightingale file and, out of curiosity, try to run it. However, for all the effort that people have put into writing code for this thing, would it have been so difficult to write a single-line README file, sayinf "run the file called nightingale"?
there'll be a toothbrush with a camera (and illumination) built it. Not only will you be able to see your teeth as you brush them, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a share button that uploaded it to YouTube for the delight and entertainment of your 10,000 closest "friends"
The USA is the prime developer of all these new technologies, and by far the biggest user of them. The USA has also declared that it is not bound by the International Criminal Court which investigates and tries criminal acts during wars. As a consequence the US feels that it is above the sanction of the rest of the world and has no need of it's "rules" for warfare.
If a company has good managers, its customers will find they are paying LESS, not more, for the products. All those projects with time and budget overruns? That's not the result of being WELL managed.