Weird article. It seems to have been written by an academic who just knows the facts from reading textbooks and has tried to liven them up. He doesn't mention several machines such as the TRS-100 a pocket computer with 4k of memory nor does he seem to recognize other kit computers that were available before the altair...
And his opinions on why companies did things at the time is sorely lacking... My memory is a bit hazy but a lot of the things he says are close, but not actually correct. Heck, I remember programming on TRS Model I, II, and III's and they aren't even mentioned from what I saw of the article... So he history of the 60's 70's and 80's isn't all that good... I got bored with it and stopped reading...
It really means nothing. I really don't care about Microsoft passing this or not. It's a political game where pork contracts are handed out for meeting criteria that don't exist except to provide access to one company or another... This isn't a Microsoft thing it's a government thing. With MS you can chose not to use their products, with the government you also can chose not to but then you go to prison or disappear with the "special" police since your are now a terrorist.....
Grin,
Seriously thought, the only thing it takes to meet this level of requirement is the money to perform the testing...
As for those still razing MS, they need to do this in order to make money, which really is what they are supposed to be doing.
Actually, it sounds kind of interesting. My wife has a large collection of music. I'm not interested in ripping all of it, something like this, if I had the cash would be nice for a Christmas present.
There are at least two other groups that you neglect that I can think of off the top of my head.
I myself am attracted to opensource as a geek because I like to read code and see how things are done, but make no mistake that is not the primary reason for using open source. The primary reason is to get other work done... A computer to me is just a lump of metal and plastic, what's important to me is what is done.
On the other hand there are people that want/need to know what is going on in their system. Privacy and the ability to fix problems and not be forced into re-purchasing the software when the current version expires is for self interest not socialism/communism. If I remember correctly, Microsoft allows it's largest customers to view and modify the windows code and I really doubt it is a matter of socialism and communism.
This strikes me as incorrect, I just bought a system for $2000 with dual core processors and almost a terabyte of hardrive, raid 5 and 4 gigabyte of memory... All far beyond what the 360 has I think. However I don't buy consoles so maybe I am off base?
The unfortunate part of this though is your $15 a month represents what you have now, having had a higher income in the past to buy all your basics. For others that only have $15-20 a month to spare, investing 20 weeks of spending income into buying an xbox and buying at most 1 used game a month is a pretty lavish expense. I definately have more than $20 a month extra to spend, but that money disappears very quickly. The rise in gas prices over the last year or two would have destroyed that $15 a month.
Frankly, I'm more financially well off now making far less than I used to because I don't have to pay large rental fee's and am even allowed to deduct my interest payments on my house from my taxes. I have a computer system. I know that they are far cheaper than they used to by, but $600 at $30 a month is all your spending cash for over a year and a half. Include in that the fact that I have the education to make money without having to work 2 fulltime jobs and 1 parttime job. If I hadn't had the income in the past, or more specifically if my wife and I had not combined incomes and had superior educations, we would need more than we make now in order to survive. I'm also going to school, so I'm in a similiar boat to you. But realize that without resources financial and other types, it is much more expensive to live.
PS, I get to see 1 movie a year if I'm lucky, for the past several years that has been Harry Potter. Any movies that are purchased are purchased for my daughter her education and stimulation is more important than our "entertainment". However, as a geek the internet, which is required for my wife's work, provides quite a bit of entertainment. I just purchased my first laptop with student loans because I am away from my home system while at school, but still need to moonlight to pay bills. Currently, I feel that while I may not have spending money, I'm not about to collapse because of 1 unexpected bill. In the past there have been times that I have had to live on the streets and get my dinner from out of the trash.
Blah blah blah sorry to go on, I seem to be doing that a lot today. Anyway, just wanted to point out that you and I have a lot more than a lot of people and while I do have more than $15 spending money a month that is merely money that doesn't have to go to necessities and is quickly used for things that break, getting some liquid plumber to clean out a pipe so that I can stop running a clothes hanger down it to get the bathtub to empty, etc.
PS 36 now, daughter is nearly 4. Since she will be in kindergarden soon and daycare expenses will go down, we are starting to work on her next. I haven't checked into it recently, but I seem to remember that the chance of complications starts to rise once the woman reaches the age of 35 which means we have time for 1 more child and possibly a second while my wife is still in her 30's. I'll be in school for several more years so we are dependent on her income.
It now takes two incomes to support a family. So mom and dad both have to work which means little toby has to go to daycare which costs almost 25% of the family takehome pay. So unless one member of the family has a job earning far more than the national average, ie 30k x2 incomes = 60k+ it's almost impossible live decently and what parent wants their children to suffer because the family is functionally broke?
Some people do get married and have children younger, but they generally have a support system of friends and family. However, most of the people that have their children at a young age are more likely to have done it because of irresponsible behavior rather than careful planning.
I've see this as well and have come to different conclusions, having lived in the types of societies you have described when I was growing up, I'd say that they are more prevalent now, but they existed in the past as well.
Anyway on with my point, the truth is that in my day, the reason most of the kids/people around me acted like this was not due to a lack of fear, but from a feeling of desperation, ie fear of having no control. By creating a scene they were forcing others to react to them and thus had some sembelence of control.
Environment does play a major factor. By taking away any possibility of being rewarded or noticed for positive behavior, negative behavior becomes the primary method of attracting attention. Also remember that the people you see doing this behavior are the ones that are attracting attention, all the kids that are doing what they are supposed to don't get noticed.
Also note, that once a society forms with these types of behavior and starts to reinforce this behavior it is very difficult to change. For example, look at all the "gangster" rappers that carry guns and behave like "bad-asses". It's interesting to note that many of them are suburban kids that behave a certain way in order to get attention. In the past the ones that were disenfrancied were the poor, but they didn't have the resources to get noticed. The middle income folks generally had a belief that they could do something and be someone. However the more people feel like they are just a cog in the machine and unable to do anything the more misfits and anti-social individuals will appear.
I personally wonder how far the current administration can push before something snaps. It seems that they are primarily attempting to rule by fear, however, at some point they will push to the point where people feel that they have nothing left to lose...
Children have always been like this, ie self-centered. If the parents do not enforce some type of discipline then the child will be out of control. Children often test their boundries it is part of growing up. Shows like supernanny and nanny 911 show that for a majority of "trouble" children, once their parents start to set boundries and enforce them the children generally become more socially responsible. I don't think that this necessarily makes the children more of a conformist, but just as some parents don't set any boundries others push the boundaries to hard.
This seems to be true for most. I myself don't fit either mold, for some reason I became a nerd very young, ie reading at 2 and algebra by 5 programing by 7, but there are bound to be exceptions to every rule. My children though seem to follow the normal pattern with a few quirks that seem to be genetic from my wife and myself.
There are 3 forms of radiation, ie alpha, beta and gamma. Alpha particles have the mass of He atom stripped of it's electons and are positively charged. The beta has the same mass as an electron and is negatively charged. Gamma is an electro-magnetic wave, which light x-rays, infrared etc are. Gamma radiation has no charge so magnetic fields don't effect it.
Ps freqency of gamma waves is 10^24 - 10 ^ 20... X rays 10-^21 - 10^17 visisble light 10 ^14.somthing - 10^ 15.something
On a more serious note, you do know that SUV's are classified as utility vehicles and as such are charged only 25% of the normal rate for cars in most municiples. Plus, since it is a utility vehicle and not a car, you can write of a portion of the purchase price on your federal taxes. Why would our freely bought congressmen and women do something to hurt their political base?
No, no, no... The pollution tax is based on how many miles you travel not how much gas you use... After all we can't have those pesky hydrogen, electric, etc cars getting off without being taxed.
As a developer, I am always interested in looking at new tools. I went over to take a look and it seems that they are mainly soliciting ideas for games? I know that a genre or basic architechture of the game engine is necessary to code properly, however isn't this what is being made available? The specs for a engine, why would a designer look at these tools? Even if I was a game designer, I don't think I would be telling them what my game design would be...
Consider this... If they can tax for actual road usage they can get rid of the tax on gasoline and thus the poor people with SUV's won't have an unfair tax burden....;)
Ummm,
Let's say that Tech is hard and I am not denying it. However, Georgia State University has the same rules. Though it does have it's difficult degree's there are quite of few lax classes, etc.
Here's a couple more points to consider:
1) State and Tech are both state run, so if they provide wireless they can't really monitor content or deny access to students based on content because that would probably be ruled as censorship.
2) If you can't focus on the subject and you fail, your fault end of discussion you should be mature enought to handle yourself.
3) I take far too many classes in the day with far too many notes, before the semester starts I scan all my books into the computer, this way I carry 1 computer versus dozens of books. I prefer it this way.
4) Having computer access during class let's me google subjects and discussion points as the instructor is discussing them. As a systems level programmer without a degree, going back to school to get a degree I sometimes disagree with what the books indicate, having wireless I can look up my references directly and email the url directly to the professor while I'm thinking about it.
Lando
PS, Personally, I believe that if someone wants to waste their time and money by not paying attention, that is their right. If you babysit that person all the time, then I guess the employer will have to be the one that fires them within the first 30 days because they were looking at unrelated material on the internet rather than doing their jobs.
Hmmm,
Not to be a jerk here, but it cannot be "proven", it can only be shown to be incorrect. The reason why we call them theories is because we cannot be absolutely sure of why something happens. At the macroscopic level we of course can be very close and it doesn't matter very much, this is basic physics and the reason that newton's laws are still used even though they have been proven wrong.
Einstein has several theories/conjuctures that have proven to be wrong, but they didn't substantually change the outcome of E=Mc^2 so the normal jarhead scientists who are a beyond newton use einstein, be there are levels beyond that, string theory, uncertainty principle etc. We cannot know we just keep making rules that fit the situation. This is just testing to see if an effect that einsteins theory predicts is true or not. If so, no changes, but that doesn't mean that it is proven to be true. If not, then we try to figure out where the theory is wrong and fix it.
I agree that there shouldn't be a problem with this kind of advertising. Heck, it's a lot better than yahoo who specifically sold the search results. Google is giving the unbiased results and has google ads on the side. There is no way that the ad can be confused with the search engine results in my opinion.
However our opinion is not very important. This is French law against a French based company, ie Google.fr not Google.com.
Keep in mind that Google.com has won similar court cases in the Unitied States. It's just that different countries have different laws and if Google wants to do business in France, ie Google.fr, and sell advertising to French companies they will have to abide by the French laws.
Keep in mind that I don't know French law and I am just stating opinion as to what I have read.
The basic premise of the law seems to be that if a vender spends a lot of money/time/etc promoting the brand and another company uses that trademark in their own advertising, that they are getting free advertising by associating their product with that brand name.
For example: Say you have a company that sells widgets but isn't well know. If they say that their widget is as good as a Porche, the person viewing that ad makes a mental connection between Porche and their widget. So that anytime an advertisement for Porche is seen, the viewer also thinks of widgets.
Think of it this way, advertisers will spend a lot of money for a celebrity endorsement because seeing the celebrity outside of those commercials will still remind the viewer of the product associated with that celebrity. Even if you don't agree that wearing the Nike shoes will make you a famous basketball star, you are still reminded that the celebrity endorses Nike.
That seems to be the basic premise to me. Not sure that it is the correct one, but it's the conclusion that I have come through having read a couple of articles about the case and reading comments here on/.
Oh, I agree that I have the bias as well. I really don't see the problem with this. Indeed, the US court system has said that it isn't unethical.
However I was trying to point out to the original poster that different countries have differing criteria.
Google is not more akin to a telephone directory. With a telephone directory you look up a suject and find a listing of companies that are listed in relation to that subject. In Google's case, the item being looked up is a trademark. The telephone directory does not sort it's information by trademark..
As for this operationg in an international venue... This judgement is in relation to Google.fr ie, French based operations not international.
As far as this being my arguement... I don't see that I am making an arguement at all, merely pointing out fact.
Fact: Americans are used to seeing venders compare themselves to others
Fact: In that light this judgement seems to be counter-intuitive.
Fact: French culture/law is different than American culture/law and is the basis for the judgement.
As I said, I have merely pointed out fact not drawn on fact to support my arguement.
Slashdot Mirror
Weird article. It seems to have been written by an academic who just knows the facts from reading textbooks and has tried to liven them up. He doesn't mention several machines such as the TRS-100 a pocket computer with 4k of memory nor does he seem to recognize other kit computers that were available before the altair...
And his opinions on why companies did things at the time is sorely lacking... My memory is a bit hazy but a lot of the things he says are close, but not actually correct. Heck, I remember programming on TRS Model I, II, and III's and they aren't even mentioned from what I saw of the article... So he history of the 60's 70's and 80's isn't all that good... I got bored with it and stopped reading...
It really means nothing. I really don't care about Microsoft passing this or not. It's a political game where pork contracts are handed out for meeting criteria that don't exist except to provide access to one company or another... This isn't a Microsoft thing it's a government thing. With MS you can chose not to use their products, with the government you also can chose not to but then you go to prison or disappear with the "special" police since your are now a terrorist.....
Grin,
Seriously thought, the only thing it takes to meet this level of requirement is the money to perform the testing...
As for those still razing MS, they need to do this in order to make money, which really is what they are supposed to be doing.
Actually it generally depends on the people around it for that protection or the building it is inside. Several ATM machines "disappear" every year...
Now when/if they start putting low-jack systems into the atm machines it'll be a bit harder than just picking up the machines and leaving...
Your right about almost everything, except the dell pc, it's actually a dell laptop...
Actually, it sounds kind of interesting. My wife has a large collection of music. I'm not interested in ripping all of it, something like this, if I had the cash would be nice for a Christmas present.
Website says windows XP nothing about linux...
There are at least two other groups that you neglect that I can think of off the top of my head.
I myself am attracted to opensource as a geek because I like to read code and see how things are done, but make no mistake that is not the primary reason for using open source. The primary reason is to get other work done... A computer to me is just a lump of metal and plastic, what's important to me is what is done.
On the other hand there are people that want/need to know what is going on in their system. Privacy and the ability to fix problems and not be forced into re-purchasing the software when the current version expires is for self interest not socialism/communism. If I remember correctly, Microsoft allows it's largest customers to view and modify the windows code and I really doubt it is a matter of socialism and communism.
What other groups are out there?
This strikes me as incorrect, I just bought a system for $2000 with dual core processors and almost a terabyte of hardrive, raid 5 and 4 gigabyte of memory... All far beyond what the 360 has I think. However I don't buy consoles so maybe I am off base?
Thanks for the tip, looks good. I'll have to find a way around their plugin requirements it seems. Not working in basic firefox sans plugins
The unfortunate part of this though is your $15 a month represents what you have now, having had a higher income in the past to buy all your basics. For others that only have $15-20 a month to spare, investing 20 weeks of spending income into buying an xbox and buying at most 1 used game a month is a pretty lavish expense. I definately have more than $20 a month extra to spend, but that money disappears very quickly. The rise in gas prices over the last year or two would have destroyed that $15 a month.
Frankly, I'm more financially well off now making far less than I used to because I don't have to pay large rental fee's and am even allowed to deduct my interest payments on my house from my taxes. I have a computer system. I know that they are far cheaper than they used to by, but $600 at $30 a month is all your spending cash for over a year and a half. Include in that the fact that I have the education to make money without having to work 2 fulltime jobs and 1 parttime job. If I hadn't had the income in the past, or more specifically if my wife and I had not combined incomes and had superior educations, we would need more than we make now in order to survive. I'm also going to school, so I'm in a similiar boat to you. But realize that without resources financial and other types, it is much more expensive to live.
PS, I get to see 1 movie a year if I'm lucky, for the past several years that has been Harry Potter. Any movies that are purchased are purchased for my daughter her education and stimulation is more important than our "entertainment". However, as a geek the internet, which is required for my wife's work, provides quite a bit of entertainment. I just purchased my first laptop with student loans because I am away from my home system while at school, but still need to moonlight to pay bills. Currently, I feel that while I may not have spending money, I'm not about to collapse because of 1 unexpected bill. In the past there have been times that I have had to live on the streets and get my dinner from out of the trash.
Blah blah blah sorry to go on, I seem to be doing that a lot today. Anyway, just wanted to point out that you and I have a lot more than a lot of people and while I do have more than $15 spending money a month that is merely money that doesn't have to go to necessities and is quickly used for things that break, getting some liquid plumber to clean out a pipe so that I can stop running a clothes hanger down it to get the bathtub to empty, etc.
PS 36 now, daughter is nearly 4. Since she will be in kindergarden soon and daycare expenses will go down, we are starting to work on her next. I haven't checked into it recently, but I seem to remember that the chance of complications starts to rise once the woman reaches the age of 35 which means we have time for 1 more child and possibly a second while my wife is still in her 30's. I'll be in school for several more years so we are dependent on her income.
It now takes two incomes to support a family. So mom and dad both have to work which means little toby has to go to daycare which costs almost 25% of the family takehome pay. So unless one member of the family has a job earning far more than the national average, ie 30k x2 incomes = 60k+ it's almost impossible live decently and what parent wants their children to suffer because the family is functionally broke?
Some people do get married and have children younger, but they generally have a support system of friends and family. However, most of the people that have their children at a young age are more likely to have done it because of irresponsible behavior rather than careful planning.
I've see this as well and have come to different conclusions, having lived in the types of societies you have described when I was growing up, I'd say that they are more prevalent now, but they existed in the past as well.
Anyway on with my point, the truth is that in my day, the reason most of the kids/people around me acted like this was not due to a lack of fear, but from a feeling of desperation, ie fear of having no control. By creating a scene they were forcing others to react to them and thus had some sembelence of control.
Environment does play a major factor. By taking away any possibility of being rewarded or noticed for positive behavior, negative behavior becomes the primary method of attracting attention. Also remember that the people you see doing this behavior are the ones that are attracting attention, all the kids that are doing what they are supposed to don't get noticed.
Also note, that once a society forms with these types of behavior and starts to reinforce this behavior it is very difficult to change. For example, look at all the "gangster" rappers that carry guns and behave like "bad-asses". It's interesting to note that many of them are suburban kids that behave a certain way in order to get attention. In the past the ones that were disenfrancied were the poor, but they didn't have the resources to get noticed. The middle income folks generally had a belief that they could do something and be someone. However the more people feel like they are just a cog in the machine and unable to do anything the more misfits and anti-social individuals will appear.
I personally wonder how far the current administration can push before something snaps. It seems that they are primarily attempting to rule by fear, however, at some point they will push to the point where people feel that they have nothing left to lose...
Children have always been like this, ie self-centered. If the parents do not enforce some type of discipline then the child will be out of control. Children often test their boundries it is part of growing up. Shows like supernanny and nanny 911 show that for a majority of "trouble" children, once their parents start to set boundries and enforce them the children generally become more socially responsible. I don't think that this necessarily makes the children more of a conformist, but just as some parents don't set any boundries others push the boundaries to hard.
This seems to be true for most. I myself don't fit either mold, for some reason I became a nerd very young, ie reading at 2 and algebra by 5 programing by 7, but there are bound to be exceptions to every rule. My children though seem to follow the normal pattern with a few quirks that seem to be genetic from my wife and myself.
There are 3 forms of radiation, ie alpha, beta and gamma. Alpha particles have the mass of He atom stripped of it's electons and are positively charged. The beta has the same mass as an electron and is negatively charged. Gamma is an electro-magnetic wave, which light x-rays, infrared etc are. Gamma radiation has no charge so magnetic fields don't effect it.
Ps freqency of
gamma waves is 10^24 - 10 ^ 20...
X rays 10-^21 - 10^17
visisble light 10 ^14.somthing - 10^ 15.something
On a more serious note, you do know that SUV's are classified as utility vehicles and as such are charged only 25% of the normal rate for cars in most municiples. Plus, since it is a utility vehicle and not a car, you can write of a portion of the purchase price on your federal taxes. Why would our freely bought congressmen and women do something to hurt their political base?
No, no, no... The pollution tax is based on how many miles you travel not how much gas you use... After all we can't have those pesky hydrogen, electric, etc cars getting off without being taxed.
As a developer, I am always interested in looking at new tools. I went over to take a look and it seems that they are mainly soliciting ideas for games? I know that a genre or basic architechture of the game engine is necessary to code properly, however isn't this what is being made available? The specs for a engine, why would a designer look at these tools? Even if I was a game designer, I don't think I would be telling them what my game design would be...
Shrug,
Consider this... If they can tax for actual road usage they can get rid of the tax on gasoline and thus the poor people with SUV's won't have an unfair tax burden.... ;)
Ummm,
Let's say that Tech is hard and I am not denying it. However, Georgia State University has the same rules. Though it does have it's difficult degree's there are quite of few lax classes, etc.
Here's a couple more points to consider:
1) State and Tech are both state run, so if they provide wireless they can't really monitor content or deny access to students based on content because that would probably be ruled as censorship.
2) If you can't focus on the subject and you fail, your fault end of discussion you should be mature enought to handle yourself.
3) I take far too many classes in the day with far too many notes, before the semester starts I scan all my books into the computer, this way I carry 1 computer versus dozens of books. I prefer it this way.
4) Having computer access during class let's me google subjects and discussion points as the instructor is discussing them. As a systems level programmer without a degree, going back to school to get a degree I sometimes disagree with what the books indicate, having wireless I can look up my references directly and email the url directly to the professor while I'm thinking about it.
Lando
PS, Personally, I believe that if someone wants to waste their time and money by not paying attention, that is their right. If you babysit that person all the time, then I guess the employer will have to be the one that fires them within the first 30 days because they were looking at unrelated material on the internet rather than doing their jobs.
Hmmm,
Not to be a jerk here, but it cannot be "proven", it can only be shown to be incorrect. The reason why we call them theories is because we cannot be absolutely sure of why something happens. At the macroscopic level we of course can be very close and it doesn't matter very much, this is basic physics and the reason that newton's laws are still used even though they have been proven wrong.
Einstein has several theories/conjuctures that have proven to be wrong, but they didn't substantually change the outcome of E=Mc^2 so the normal jarhead scientists who are a beyond newton use einstein, be there are levels beyond that, string theory, uncertainty principle etc. We cannot know we just keep making rules that fit the situation. This is just testing to see if an effect that einsteins theory predicts is true or not. If so, no changes, but that doesn't mean that it is proven to be true. If not, then we try to figure out where the theory is wrong and fix it.
Lando
Lol touche'
Because they purchased AT&T and now are a major backbone carrier...?
I agree that there shouldn't be a problem with this kind of advertising. Heck, it's a lot better than yahoo who specifically sold the search results. Google is giving the unbiased results and has google ads on the side. There is no way that the ad can be confused with the search engine results in my opinion.
However our opinion is not very important. This is French law against a French based company, ie Google.fr not Google.com.
Keep in mind that Google.com has won similar court cases in the Unitied States. It's just that different countries have different laws and if Google wants to do business in France, ie Google.fr, and sell advertising to French companies they will have to abide by the French laws.
Keep in mind that I don't know French law and I am just stating opinion as to what I have read.
/.
The basic premise of the law seems to be that if a vender spends a lot of money/time/etc promoting the brand and another company uses that trademark in their own advertising, that they are getting free advertising by associating their product with that brand name.
For example: Say you have a company that sells widgets but isn't well know. If they say that their widget is as good as a Porche, the person viewing that ad makes a mental connection between Porche and their widget. So that anytime an advertisement for Porche is seen, the viewer also thinks of widgets.
Think of it this way, advertisers will spend a lot of money for a celebrity endorsement because seeing the celebrity outside of those commercials will still remind the viewer of the product associated with that celebrity. Even if you don't agree that wearing the Nike shoes will make you a famous basketball star, you are still reminded that the celebrity endorses Nike.
That seems to be the basic premise to me. Not sure that it is the correct one, but it's the conclusion that I have come through having read a couple of articles about the case and reading comments here on
Oh, I agree that I have the bias as well. I really don't see the problem with this. Indeed, the US court system has said that it isn't unethical.
However I was trying to point out to the original poster that different countries have differing criteria.
Google is not more akin to a telephone directory. With a telephone directory you look up a suject and find a listing of companies that are listed in relation to that subject. In Google's case, the item being looked up is a trademark. The telephone directory does not sort it's information by trademark..
As for this operationg in an international venue... This judgement is in relation to Google.fr ie, French based operations not international.
As far as this being my arguement... I don't see that I am making an arguement at all, merely pointing out fact.
Fact: Americans are used to seeing venders compare themselves to others
Fact: In that light this judgement seems to be counter-intuitive.
Fact: French culture/law is different than American culture/law and is the basis for the judgement.
As I said, I have merely pointed out fact not drawn on fact to support my arguement.