I'm not sure what Microsoft is trying to do, both with Silverlight and.NET in general. Although I see some scope for.NET however Silverlight is another story.
Take a look at HD DVD and Blu-ray, they were trying to capture the biggest market share, once it was apparent that Blu-ray is going to take the lead, HD DVD group gracefully retracted.
Now here is Microsoft, competing products already have the market, why do they even hope to compete. Its not like they have come out with something revolutionary, both.NET and Silverlight are copycat solutions to (maybe) better existing solutions that have already captured the market!
-Built in GPS with Nokia Maps, maps can be stored on device or updated where ever there is Internet, either over 3G or Wi-fi (you can also load TomTom onto this device)
-Built in email reader support. Microsoft Exchange via roadsync or inbuilt POP3 and IMAP client, can use wifi or cellular network.
-It also has a great SIP client on the phone itself that I use regularly, make really cheap calls where ever internet is available over (wifi or the cellular network)
-You can get a small bluetooth keyboard that connects to the N95 for writing emails as this device lacks a qwerty keyboard)
-Excellent media device, MP3 player and video player. Store mp3s on device or listen to internet radio and youtube over the internet again wifi or cellular.
-Good web browser, supports javascript (but no flash)
Personally, I don't even carry a laptop anymore.
BTW, all this comes at the cost of battery life. If I use all these features, I have to charge the phone daily. If I only use the phone and phone alone, then every 3-4 days. Further having said that, video, GPS and wifi suck the most juice off the battery, listening to mp3 doesn't impact the battery life much.
Based on your needs you may want a spare battery and a battery charger. also get a 4GB or larger micro SDHC card
Disclaimer: No I don't work for Nokia, Just a very happy N95 user.
Linux Microsoft interoperability Meeting: Torvalds: Bill, lets get some interoperability between various products, particularly linux and microsoft, it will be beneficial to the industry. Gates: Sure that sounds great Linus.
Later that day..
Engineer at MS: Bill, how did your interoperability meeting go? Gates: Great, Torvalds agrees that MS office should be able to handle all the document formats with MS Office Suite.
Being a Muslim I have often had discussion on this topic with non-Muslim friends out here in west.
The issue really has nothing to do with "what kind of picture".
According to Muslim perspective, the last major prophet before Muhammad was Jesus. However (again from Muslim perspective), Jesus was mistook to be god/son of god, the whole trinity thing. Furthermore, his images and statues were placed in churches and worshiped. So that such a thing does not happen again, Islam strictly forbids depiction of prophet in any way or form, reason being that all worship is to god and not his prophets, his prophets are sent to preach god's word and not to be worshiped themselves.
Anyhow, this again is of no concern for wikipedia and to those that do not understand the issue or don't care what the issue is, however it is an issue for Muslims. Kind of a irreconcilable difference that cannot be resolved.
I personally do not condone it and would like to see the images off wikipedia, but at the end of the day there are more important issues Muslims need to resolve. The entire Muslim world is a mess.
Well we can launch into space, but what. By my rough calculations and assuming a rail size of 50m, acceleration would be near 1200000 m/sec_sq, thats 1200 km/sec_sq
Very few things can survive that kind of acceleration. I don't think precision electronics and live beings fall in the "survivable" category.
Calculations follow: 40320 kph 40320000 m/hr 11200 m/s 50 rail size in m (projectile will have 50m to go from 0 to 40320kph) g = 0.5 *v^2/s (g=acceleration, v=velocity, s=distance) g = 0.5 * 11200^2/50 1254400 acceleration in m/s sq 1254.4 acceleration in km/s sq
Well, children do make a difference. My work style did not change significantly when I got married about 5 years ago, however it has completely changed after my kid. He is 15 months and more than both my wife and I can handle.
Kid may have different effect on different people, some don't want kids for various reasons.
For me, my kid's birth resolved a very important question for me, notice how I did not say "answered" but "resolved". The question is philosophical, "What is my purpose in life?" After his birth, I am not looking for that answer.
For the same reason, I don't do 80hr work week, nor do I want a 20% raise every year. I somehow am contended with his existence in my life. I feel "purpose in life" doesn't need to be answered anymore.
Is this somehow built into my genes, is this a result of how humans evolved. I don't know and I don't care.
Blu Ray never gained momentum, for that matter, neither did HD DVD. However its looking more and more that HD DVD is slowly gaining momentum. Paramount Switch, 100$ HDDVD players.
This technology is better suited to replacing wires and cables that connect your TV to a next gen HD player.
I have a mess of wires in my home theater setup as I have cables running to speakers, tv and recevier plus power to all of these. If I can get rid of all these wires then all I will really need to worry about are power cables, i.e. until wireless power comes buy:)
I believe this technology is better suited as bluetooth off home theater where all the components are close by.
What really scares me with this type of stuff is if there is a lobby like the RIAA.
Songs is something you do not need for survival, but if you can push around laws that restrict what people can eat, then the society is really screwed. All of a sudden you go back 5000 years where slaves are forced to work for food. You still go do a desk job, but after a months pay all you can afford is food, every thing at your local grocery store is copyrighted and you have to pay 100$ for a loaf of bread. You bake your own bread and you get sued because the wheat was pirated.
What surprises me is that your comment is not rated as flamebait. Further, it is off topic and excellent propaganda.
Now more to current topic, Science and Islam. I have thought about this a lot, Muslim were excellent merchants, scientists and tradesmen since the advent of Islam . A must see documentary from PBS is "Islam, an empire of faith". At the time Europe was in dark ages, Muslim world was flourishing economically. You get words like "Algebra" and most of "chemistry" from this Muslim world.
So what went wrong.
Well lots of things.
First, Mongols attacked Baghdad, the center of Islamic culture, this one event was catastrophic. Libraries were burned, scientists and other people alike were murdered. Infrastructure was totally destroyed.
Second, Mongols converted to Islam after their conquest and stayed back, this further worked negatively and the Islamic society turned from a community of scientist, merchants and tradesmen to a society of oppressors and aggressors. This you can still see today. They conquered and changed Islamic world's way of life.
Third, Saudi Arabia and wahabism. Don't recall exact dates, however around 18th century, Abdul Wahab, a powerful personality from what is present day Saudi Arabia wanted to get rid of various rituals and beliefs still being practiced in contradiction to Islam. So instead of finding whats true and whats not, he banned everything and came with a philosophy of not believing anything except what is found in Quran and the most authenticated hadiths. Unfortunately this brand of Islam found money in oil, lots of it. This money was used to spread wahabi Islam and continues to do so.
Next point, not directly related to Science and Islam does show what happened in more recent times. Russia invaded Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia backed by US of A funded religious schools. These schools suggested that Russians are invaders and u must carry jihad against them. These schools have spread. they continue to teach this. Unfortunately, this time round, the invaders are not Russians.
So my analysis of Islam suggests that Islam is definitely not what it use to be.
So now to my point, Islam changed, further being a Muslim, I take comments like these very seriously and offensive. Why is it that atheist feel it their right to abuse believers of god, however they often take offense if they are ridiculed. Islam changed from the state where prophet Muhammad left it. His way of doing things are lost.
And we won't do anything either, or rather our politicians won't do anything.
They have no oil.
They have no terrorist (that threaten our lifestyle).
They are not on the map, their existence neither threatens nor benefits us. So we will let UN peace keepers handle this, in due time.
Meanwhile lets talk about more important matters, I just heard Halo 3 is out. Also seems Iranians are oppressed by a mad man dictator president, lets liberate them./sarcasm
"I don't know of anyone that went back to their country of origin."
You Anwered it, I am from India, although I studied back home, I know most folks wanted to go to US because they wanted to get out of India. Grad school was one of the surest way of doing it. Even if they had to leave US, the world was open to them. This may not be entirely true anymore as India gets on the economic front, however getting out of India is still a big motivator, particularly for folks who weren't fortunate enough to get into IIT.
"Unisys probably outsourced their techs to India. "
I know this was meant as a joke, but just like all blond jokes annoy blonds, this annoys me, why, cause I'm an Indian. Further, I have been competing quite well against the best and the brightest US of A has to offer. There are a significant number of Indians in the silicon valley. Further, those crappy tech support are crappy not because they are in India, but because Corporate American Enterprises owning them want them that way, simply its cheap. hires Bachelor of History graduates to do tech support after a couple of weeks crash course in English accent, support and tech. Hence your get what you get when you call them.
Here is a humorous incident that took place some time back, Traveling to US two years back, this petrol station clerk asked me where I was from, I said Canada, he said, "thats somewhere in New York, right!". Now lets say this guy is sitting at tech support in US and a European calls him!
Not only are governments better equipped to crush revolts, we now have this great word to justify to the rest of the world that it was needed to nuke 2000 people, they were all "terrorists".
I'm not sure this polygamy thing is that big of a problem. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for about a decade, I only found one Saudi who had 2 wives, and I interacted with a large number of Saudis. I am not sure of the exact percentage, however the number has to be low, in fact low enough not to effect.
Having said that, there is a factor of dowry from the groom to the family of the bride, this is a much bigger problem in Middle-east and more of a challange in getting a bride than polygamy is.
This is just another article from someone sitting in his basement not knowing any facts.
Am I the only one that thinks to themselves, "One of these days, some really smart person is going to come out with a new and better theory of reality that reveals all this quantum mechanics stuff to be a bunch of quackery."?
I used to, but then someone came up with String theory. Then I gave up hope.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what Microsoft is trying to do, both with Silverlight and .NET in general. Although I see some scope for .NET however Silverlight is another story.
.NET and Silverlight are copycat solutions to (maybe) better existing solutions that have already captured the market!
Take a look at HD DVD and Blu-ray, they were trying to capture the biggest market share, once it was apparent that Blu-ray is going to take the lead, HD DVD group gracefully retracted.
Now here is Microsoft, competing products already have the market, why do they even hope to compete. Its not like they have come out with something revolutionary, both
Fortunately humanity would have learned to ascend long before that.
You need a laptop and the Nokia N95
Why
-Decent Carl-Zeis lens with 5Megapixel camera (sample pics at http://www.flickr.com/cameras/nokia/n95/) also video recording at 30fps at 640x480.
-Built in GPS with Nokia Maps, maps can be stored on device or updated where ever there is Internet, either over 3G or Wi-fi (you can also load TomTom onto this device)
-Built in email reader support. Microsoft Exchange via roadsync or inbuilt POP3 and IMAP client, can use wifi or cellular network.
-It also has a great SIP client on the phone itself that I use regularly, make really cheap calls where ever internet is available over (wifi or the cellular network)
-You can get a small bluetooth keyboard that connects to the N95 for writing emails as this device lacks a qwerty keyboard)
-Excellent media device, MP3 player and video player. Store mp3s on device or listen to internet radio and youtube over the internet again wifi or cellular.
-Good web browser, supports javascript (but no flash)
Personally, I don't even carry a laptop anymore.
BTW, all this comes at the cost of battery life. If I use all these features, I have to charge the phone daily. If I only use the phone and phone alone, then every 3-4 days. Further having said that, video, GPS and wifi suck the most juice off the battery, listening to mp3 doesn't impact the battery life much.
Based on your needs you may want a spare battery and a battery charger. also get a 4GB or larger micro SDHC card
Disclaimer: No I don't work for Nokia, Just a very happy N95 user.
Linux Microsoft interoperability Meeting:
Torvalds: Bill, lets get some interoperability between various products, particularly linux and microsoft, it will be beneficial to the industry.
Gates: Sure that sounds great Linus.
Later that day..
Engineer at MS: Bill, how did your interoperability meeting go?
Gates: Great, Torvalds agrees that MS office should be able to handle all the document formats with MS Office Suite.
Well you know, we might be the scaled version.
...its looking more and more like a documentary on US history. Well from a 2050 perspective anyway.
Being a Muslim I have often had discussion on this topic with non-Muslim friends out here in west.
The issue really has nothing to do with "what kind of picture".
According to Muslim perspective, the last major prophet before Muhammad was Jesus. However (again from Muslim perspective), Jesus was mistook to be god/son of god, the whole trinity thing. Furthermore, his images and statues were placed in churches and worshiped. So that such a thing does not happen again, Islam strictly forbids depiction of prophet in any way or form, reason being that all worship is to god and not his prophets, his prophets are sent to preach god's word and not to be worshiped themselves.
Anyhow, this again is of no concern for wikipedia and to those that do not understand the issue or don't care what the issue is, however it is an issue for Muslims. Kind of a irreconcilable difference that cannot be resolved.
I personally do not condone it and would like to see the images off wikipedia, but at the end of the day there are more important issues Muslims need to resolve. The entire Muslim world is a mess.
That is what you were going to say.
Atlantis, Duh!
Well we can launch into space, but what. By my rough calculations and assuming a rail size of 50m, acceleration would be near 1200000 m/sec_sq, thats 1200 km/sec_sq
Very few things can survive that kind of acceleration. I don't think precision electronics and live beings fall in the "survivable" category.
Calculations follow:
40320 kph
40320000 m/hr
11200 m/s
50 rail size in m (projectile will have 50m to go from 0 to 40320kph)
g = 0.5 *v^2/s (g=acceleration, v=velocity, s=distance)
g = 0.5 * 11200^2/50
1254400 acceleration in m/s sq
1254.4 acceleration in km/s sq
...and a handful for, wait what was I thinking, ummmm....
Yah, I ordered one for G. W. Bush and a handful for..... ummmmm.... argh old age.
If this becomes popular, I shred to think what product Microsoft will come out with.
Also do I want Norton Anti-virus running on my body, or maybe Microsoft's malicious humanware removal tool.
"Hi, I am a PC. Hi I'm a Mac", will have a whole new meaning.
No difference, except
Act 1 only screws Monica Lewinski
Act 2 screws all of America
Well, children do make a difference. My work style did not change significantly when I got married about 5 years ago, however it has completely changed after my kid. He is 15 months and more than both my wife and I can handle.
Kid may have different effect on different people, some don't want kids for various reasons.
For me, my kid's birth resolved a very important question for me, notice how I did not say "answered" but "resolved". The question is philosophical, "What is my purpose in life?" After his birth, I am not looking for that answer.
For the same reason, I don't do 80hr work week, nor do I want a 20% raise every year. I somehow am contended with his existence in my life. I feel "purpose in life" doesn't need to be answered anymore.
Is this somehow built into my genes, is this a result of how humans evolved. I don't know and I don't care.
Weird, but I like it!
Momentum! What momentum?
Blu Ray never gained momentum, for that matter, neither did HD DVD. However its looking more and more that HD DVD is slowly gaining momentum. Paramount Switch, 100$ HDDVD players.
This technology is better suited to replacing wires and cables that connect your TV to a next gen HD player. I have a mess of wires in my home theater setup as I have cables running to speakers, tv and recevier plus power to all of these. If I can get rid of all these wires then all I will really need to worry about are power cables, i.e. until wireless power comes buy :)
I believe this technology is better suited as bluetooth off home theater where all the components are close by.
What really scares me with this type of stuff is if there is a lobby like the RIAA.
Songs is something you do not need for survival, but if you can push around laws that restrict what people can eat, then the society is really screwed. All of a sudden you go back 5000 years where slaves are forced to work for food. You still go do a desk job, but after a months pay all you can afford is food, every thing at your local grocery store is copyrighted and you have to pay 100$ for a loaf of bread. You bake your own bread and you get sued because the wheat was pirated.
For me there is a lot to say on this comment.
What surprises me is that your comment is not rated as flamebait. Further, it is off topic and excellent propaganda.
Now more to current topic, Science and Islam. I have thought about this a lot, Muslim were excellent merchants, scientists and tradesmen since the advent of Islam . A must see documentary from PBS is "Islam, an empire of faith". At the time Europe was in dark ages, Muslim world was flourishing economically. You get words like "Algebra" and most of "chemistry" from this Muslim world.
So what went wrong.
Well lots of things.
First, Mongols attacked Baghdad, the center of Islamic culture, this one event was catastrophic. Libraries were burned, scientists and other people alike were murdered. Infrastructure was totally destroyed.
Second, Mongols converted to Islam after their conquest and stayed back, this further worked negatively and the Islamic society turned from a community of scientist, merchants and tradesmen to a society of oppressors and aggressors. This you can still see today. They conquered and changed Islamic world's way of life.
Third, Saudi Arabia and wahabism. Don't recall exact dates, however around 18th century, Abdul Wahab, a powerful personality from what is present day Saudi Arabia wanted to get rid of various rituals and beliefs still being practiced in contradiction to Islam. So instead of finding whats true and whats not, he banned everything and came with a philosophy of not believing anything except what is found in Quran and the most authenticated hadiths. Unfortunately this brand of Islam found money in oil, lots of it. This money was used to spread wahabi Islam and continues to do so.
Next point, not directly related to Science and Islam does show what happened in more recent times.
Russia invaded Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia backed by US of A funded religious schools. These schools suggested that Russians are invaders and u must carry jihad against them. These schools have spread. they continue to teach this. Unfortunately, this time round, the invaders are not Russians.
So my analysis of Islam suggests that Islam is definitely not what it use to be.
So now to my point, Islam changed, further being a Muslim, I take comments like these very seriously and offensive. Why is it that atheist feel it their right to abuse believers of god, however they often take offense if they are ridiculed. Islam changed from the state where prophet Muhammad left it. His way of doing things are lost.
And we won't do anything either, or rather our politicians won't do anything.
/sarcasm
They have no oil.
They have no terrorist (that threaten our lifestyle).
They are not on the map, their existence neither threatens nor benefits us. So we will let UN peace keepers handle this, in due time.
Meanwhile lets talk about more important matters, I just heard Halo 3 is out. Also seems Iranians are oppressed by a mad man dictator president, lets liberate them.
"I don't know of anyone that went back to their country of origin."
You Anwered it, I am from India, although I studied back home, I know most folks wanted to go to US because they wanted to get out of India. Grad school was one of the surest way of doing it. Even if they had to leave US, the world was open to them. This may not be entirely true anymore as India gets on the economic front, however getting out of India is still a big motivator, particularly for folks who weren't fortunate enough to get into IIT.
"Unisys probably outsourced their techs to India. "
I know this was meant as a joke, but just like all blond jokes annoy blonds, this annoys me, why, cause I'm an Indian. Further, I have been competing quite well against the best and the brightest US of A has to offer. There are a significant number of Indians in the silicon valley. Further, those crappy tech support are crappy not because they are in India, but because Corporate American Enterprises owning them want them that way, simply its cheap. hires Bachelor of History graduates to do tech support after a couple of weeks crash course in English accent, support and tech. Hence your get what you get when you call them.
Here is a humorous incident that took place some time back,
Traveling to US two years back, this petrol station clerk asked me where I was from, I said Canada, he said, "thats somewhere in New York, right!". Now lets say this guy is sitting at tech support in US and a European calls him!
Not only are governments better equipped to crush revolts, we now have this great word to justify to the rest of the world that it was needed to nuke 2000 people, they were all "terrorists".
I'm not sure this polygamy thing is that big of a problem. Having lived in Saudi Arabia for about a decade, I only found one Saudi who had 2 wives, and I interacted with a large number of Saudis. I am not sure of the exact percentage, however the number has to be low, in fact low enough not to effect.
Having said that, there is a factor of dowry from the groom to the family of the bride, this is a much bigger problem in Middle-east and more of a challange in getting a bride than polygamy is.
This is just another article from someone sitting in his basement not knowing any facts.
Anti-Smudging, or rather quick smudge removal technology has already been patented.
I read a paper on LTWS (Lick Tongue Wipe Shirt)
Am I the only one that thinks to themselves, "One of these days, some really smart person is going to come out with a new and better theory of reality that reveals all this quantum mechanics stuff to be a bunch of quackery."?
I used to, but then someone came up with String theory. Then I gave up hope.