I'm sorry, but it took scientists to figure out that it was caused by the flow of the beer from the bubbles rising in the center? I mean, I figured that out a long time ago just by looking. No 750 frame per second camera required. I don't even think I was sober when I figured it out. And this is news? Sorry, but I'm a bit disappointed.
This kid needs confidence in his social skills. That usually takes a lot of time. I was lucky that I found a shortcut. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it because it's neither legal nor was that its purpose, but it just worked out that way.
The best thing would be to somehow get him into a situation where he's forced to deal with people, preferably adults, on a daily basis. The reason I say "preferably adults," is that they are less likely to make fun of him and more likely to appreciate his smarts. That should provide confidence in dealing with his peers. An after school job doing something that involves dealing with customers is best. Doesn't matter if it's waiter at a restaurant or working in sales, or whatever.
This kid's social skills right now, are far more important than his ability in any science. If he's got the gift, he'll learn all he needs to know about that. What he won't learn easily without a lot of help, is social skills. That should be the main focus for him right now. Believe me, the earlier this is changed, the better off he'll be for the rest of his life.
Also address issues such as how he dresses, how he does his hair. Anything that might be standing in his way. Help him to look, if not cool, at least "not geeky." A good start would be to do a search on google for "geek dating tips" and start from there. Not that you're getting the guy a date, but a lot of the advice he'll find applies to many aspects of social life, and let's face it, this is one of the more important ones.
I didn't say how I conquered my social failings/lack of confidence, but suffice it to say that it changed in my junior year of high school and it changed my life in a major way. Shortly after the "experience", I went from total geek to dating one of the cutest cheerleaders in school. I quickly became comfortable dealing with people in social settings.
If you can give this kid the confidence he needs dealing with people socially, it will change his life in profound ways and he will thank you for it.
I'm very torn on this issue. I'm no fan of MS. But at the same time, where do you draw the line and say, "you can integrate this into the OS, but you can't integrate that." What should be allowable and what shouldn't? Who should decide? This is not much different from the case brought years ago about the integration of the web browser. What about MS Paint? What about WordPad? And games?
Users expect a certain amount of stuff built into the OS. Maybe this expectation exists because of MS, but it exists. Gnome and KDE both come with a bunch of software. Granted, they're both OSS, but I think users have this expectation and it must be met to some degree for any company to succeed.
I know a lot of newbie users who can't even figure out how to get Acrobat installed and without help from someone who's computer literate, they wouldn't be able to read PDF attachments, which are pretty common.
Anyway, I'm torn on it. I don't want to see MS continue as a monopoly, but I want them to fail for the right reasons, not some arbitrary, "you can add this, but not that" kind of rule unless it's applied equally to all competitors.
I'm glad they point out that caffeine isn't for everyone. Some of us suffer from anxiety disorders and caffeine is definitely not helpful. I'm fortunate that I don't have an issue with it anymore, but I could some day.
Frankly, tea (black and green) are much better for you than coffee in terms of the anti-oxidants. Tea is loaded with them, with or without caffeine. Tea also has flavonoids which on top of being an anti-oxidant, is also acts as a vasodilator, making the arteries more flexible and less likely to rupture, something important for people with high blood pressure.
And the benefits don't end with cancer and the heart. Tea also makes the bones (and teeth) stronger. In fact, it's been shown to reduce the damage caused by osteoperosis.
So, while I enjoy my occasional cup of coffee, I'll continue to drink my 6-8 cups of tea a day.
Sorry, but it just is. I mean, the way my own memory works just makes no sense. People can tell me things to remember and I just can't. It's not that I don't pay attention when they tell me, it's just after they tell me, it's gone.
On the other hand, I remember things vividly from as early as 2 years old (events, dreams, etc). I remember phone numbers and lock combinations from childhood (I'm 35 now). Numbers have always been easy for me, though. I see patterns in them and tend to remember the patterns. I have an almost inexhaustable reserve of useless trivial knowledge and God knows why I remember it all. I excel at Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune. I can understand (read and spoken) 9 languages, but I can only speak 2 of them.
But ask me to remind you of something in 20 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, and there's about a 95% chance I'll forget. Ask me what I did 3 days ago and I'm more likely to get it confused with something I did 2 or 4 days ago.
I consider my memory excellent... For some things. For others, it's just atrocious.
First of all, I completely disagree with the Bush agenda. However, there is at least one compelling reason to go back to the moon, and that's to put a radio telescope on the far side.
One of the big problems with radio astronomy is noise interference from Earth and the many satellites we have in orbit. The nearest zone free of this interference would be the far side of the moon.
Building a radio telescope on the moon would likely require a full-time manned base for handling repairs and maintenance. One of the disadvantages of having a radio telescope on the moon is that radio astronomy has been advancing along with other technological areas and upgrades would be needed periodically in addition to repairs.
I think Radio Astronomy would benefit enormously from such a project, but I doubt that's on the Bush agenda...
This is precisely why I'll be sticking with Google. For the most part, I'm generally searching for non-commercial sites when I search. If I need commercial sites, I know I can find them at Google, but I also know it's not going to give the non-paying sites a higher ranking just because they pay, in the search results, and that's important to me.
I think Yahoo!, following this same old business model, will simply end up failing in the search engine competition, and that's fine with me.
I honestly can't see how anyone can improve significantly on what Google has done. They're interface is plain and simple, their search results are generally excellent.
If I were ashamed of my life, I might post as an anonymous coward like you. But I'm not. I'm proud of what I've accomplished in my life. I'm also happy to be living in Mexico.
I work on open source projects because I have the time to, certainly not to make money. Is this your first time at slashdot?
I dunno, your analysis of me wasn't exactly right-on. Let me take a crack at you. You're unhappy with your life, ashamed of your accomplishments, and to make yourself feel better, you try to trash other people. Am I getting close?
First of all, mine was a simple post to slashdot, not a letter to a company I was considering doing business with. I rarely check my spelling, grammar, or sentence construction for slashdot posts. What a total waste of time.
Second of all, I was simply stating something I believe to be true, which is that letters with misspelled words and poor grammar usually don't get as much attention in business as letters that are well written.
I never claimed to be a great writer of any sort (though I suppose I write well enough to get a computer book published), but I can certainly recognize and comment on poor spelling and grammar.
Unfortunately, letters like this do little good when they are filled with spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't mean to insult, but if your grammar and spelling are below average, you really should make use of spell check and grammar check in your e-mails. People will take them more seriously.
Maybe I just think that because I was raised by a mother who majored in English and a father who is a journalist, though. I tend to give less credence to correspondence that's poorly written, for good or for bad.
The fact that for millions of years on Earth, nothing happened, and then all of a sudden BOOM life arose in the gap of about 10,000 (which is a small gap), might be suggestive that life really might not be able to happen many other way!
Where did you get this from?
Geologically speaking, life appeared on Earth almost the instant the Earth became hospitable enough for life, about 3.8 billion years ago (or when the Earth was 700-800 million years old. That was only single-celled life, but life nonetheless. The move to multi-celled life took far longer and didn't occur until about 700 million years ago. That's the giant-leap there. If single-celled life appears so quickly and it took so much longer for multi-celled life, then it gives the impression that single-celled life is very opportunistic while multi-celled life isn't necessarily the next step.
Technology certainly doesn't cause stress in itself. I think stress comes from several different areas. In terms of software, I think the issues are generally buggy software, failure of people to communicate properly, and probably misguided or unrealistic expectations. I think these three things are my biggest sources of stress, in no particular order.
Buggy software isn't usually a huge stress problem for me, but it is for a lot of people. Failure to commmunicate for a software developer can be a huge source of stress, though. For example, I have a client right now who, after we finalized the requirements, made several major changes (and countless small ones) to the system after it was developed. I tried to communicate the impact that would have on the timeline. He seemed to understand that, but then he started talking about how it was supposed to be done months ago (based on the original requirements) and now can't seem to understand the impact his changes had, even though I told him from day 1.
This same client is causing issues with unrealistic expectations. The software was about 8 months in development and we're nearing the end. It's been in testing for 2 days and he's frustrated because they're finding bugs. I made it clear to him before we started testing that I expected us to find bugs and that's why we are testing. Now he's talking about throwing out the entire project and starting over from scratch with a different developer (which frankly, at this point, would be fine with me).
So, from my point of view, as a software developer, these are the things that cause me stress.
I haven't noticed that anyone has mentioned the actual cost of going to Venus which, fuel-wise, is much more expensive than going to Mars. It's much cheaper to go to an orbit further from the sun than it is to go to one towards it due to the inertia a rocket will already have from Earth's orbit.
You can't just aim towards Venus and go. You have to slow down the rocket's relative orbital speed. That's a lot of fuel. So it's also a matter of cost/benefit.
...An interesting point is that most of the PCs used in Iran are assembled from smuggled parts and run pirated versions of all the latest software (due to foreign embargo?).
Even with no embargo, software piracy is rampant in the third world. I live in Mexico and it's rare to see anyone with a legal version of software. Though, that is changing.
The equivalent of the IRS down here is Hacienda and my understanding is Microsoft has given them a lot of training and now Hacienda has started checking businesses for pirated software (financial audits are frequent down here). Apparently MS gives Hacienda a chunk of change when they score one for MS.
So things are changing here a bit, but the truth is, a lot of business are simply looking for new ways around it. One business I know of is talking of setting up an Windows Terminal Services machine which will reside off of the property, and everyone will connect to it to get to all the pirated software (and of course, the WTS is unlicensed).
So, really, I doubt an embargo has anything to do with the piracy. Frankly, most third world businesses simply can't afford the price of software.
Not only is it premature, it's STUPID. Why do people keep associating OSS with anti-Microsoft? As I said yesterday, OSS is about choices, not about putting MS out of business. No matter how much any of us dislikes or even hates MS, that should not be what OSS is about. That is anything but a noble cause.
A noble cause is providing free choice to people. That's what OSS is and should be about and someone needs to get this message to the media. MS should rise or fall based on their own merits, even if those merits are questionable or at odds with the OSS community. If Microsoft falls because of OSS, so be it, but if that's the cause, and Microsoft falls, then OSS no longer has a cause. The cause to provide choice will always be there.
C# exists to kill Java. By furthering C# you help Micros~1..NET exists to kill Java. By furthering.NET you help Micros~1.
That YOU are so sycophantic re: Micros~1 and mono is the greatest irony of all time. It would be funny if it weren't so truly stupid and truly dangerous.
This is a variation of killing the messenger for delivering the message. Instead you want to kill the message (.NET and C#) because you don't like the messenger (Microsoft). Frankly, I think it's just as stupid as killing the messenger.
Miguel thinks, and frankly, I agree, that.NET and C# are superior to Java in some respects. I don't think creating a.NET platform for Linux hurts Linux nearly as much as it helps.
Has WINE helped or hurt Linux? It provides people a layer of compatibility that allows them to migrate to Linux. That's REALLY important to a lot of people, companies, and governments who are deciding which platform to use. If I'm a government agency and I have a custom tool written in C# and now we're thinking about whether to switch to Linux or continue using Windows, I have an option. Without Mono and dotGnu, my decision is made. I have to stick with Windows or rewrite my software. Which one do you think will cost me more.
I didn't intend to imply that Java itself was deficient because of the UIs. I assumed that there were probably libraries out there for doing nicer widgets, but I had just never seen them. Thanks for the link, but after a year and a half of C#, I'm kind of committed to it and sticking with it.
I've read some books on Java and played with it a tiny bit, and it's clear that C# got a lot of good ideas from Java. I think the language Java is quite well designed in many ways and would have improved my productivity in a manner similar to C#, but I ended up with C#. Such is life.
I find this very enlightening. I had no idea that Mono was intended to be compatible with Mac OS X, and I find that VERY cool. As I posted earlier regarding my own open source project that uses.NET, I want to target as many platforms as possible, and Mono gives me this ability. And on top of it, I get to use C# and the.NET Framework. Despite the company that designed it, it's an excellent language and framework. As Miguel said, it boosts productivity. I have personally witnessed that.
I haven't been following Mono as closely as I'd like because I haven't gotten to the porting yet, but I've been following some of the API development and frankly, I think they've done an excellent job of targetting the most important issues in order. Almost everything I need is already in Mono. Where it isn't there yet, I hope to either contribute code to Mono, or come up with workarounds.
Open Source is more about choices than trying to put a company out of business. Since when was the open source motto "To write software that puts Microsoft out of business?" What sort of noble goal is that? Microsoft should succeed or fail on its own merits. I don't like them very much, and perhaps they're not succeeding on their own merits, but that doesn't mean that the motivation of OSS should be to make them fail.
As a.NET developer, frankly, I don't care what the motivations of Mono develoers or dotGnu developers are. Maybe I should be, but I'm not. I'm building an open source project in.NET and I want Linux, BSD and Mac OS X support (the latter two, hopefully with the help of SSCLI), and frankly, whatever other platforms I can include.
I don't want to use Java. First of all, I've never used it to develop software. Second of all, every user interface I've ever seen done with Java stinks. Maybe I've been seeing bad examples, but the windows, buttons, and other contols of the Java apps I've seen have an old fashion look and feel to me and I don't care for it. My personal opinion, but for me, that counts for something.
.NET is a really nice development environment. As much as I don't care for Microsoft, I have to admit that since I adopted C# about a year and a half ago, my production has roughly tripled, maybe more. I've never had ANY technology have that kind of impact on my development before, unless it was the reverse (making me 3 times LESS productive).
So, whatever the motivation of Mono or dotGnu, I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps. That's MY motivation, and that's what matters to me.
It occurs to me that since, as the poster pointed out, we tax payers are paying for the software, wouldn't it make sense for the government to open source all the software they have developped? At least software that isn't considered secret of some sort?
Think of the benefits to, not just the public, but to the agencies themselves. Every government project goes onto, say SourceForge. The company hired to write the software would do all the development on SourceForge. If other people are interested, they can get in on the testing and development. The government gets better software and the public gets to use it, and the contractor still gets paid. Everyone wins.
Here's another possible positive result: Many agencies within the government have software developped that it alsmost identical to software developped for other agencies (left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing stuff). It's possible that through open source, not only could more code sharing go on, but it might be possible for agencies to take an existing project, make a few changes, and have it fit their needs, further saving them money.
Anyway, I've never considered this before, but it seems to make a great deal of sense to me.
Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature?
There's no reason that human babies couldn't be conceived and come to term in low or even zero-g. Yes, it's been done with other 'Earth creatures'. Besides some insects, there were some fish that were bred on Skylab, I believe. As I recall, the Earth born parents were unable to control their swimming in zero-g, but the babies had no problem. I assume human babies would also adapt natural abilities in zero and low-g that astronauts learn to clumsily do.
But the fact is, human bodies are poorly adapter to low and zero-g for several reasons. Radiation and muscle atrophy are one problem, but bone loss is another serious problem. Thus it's likely that any humans or other complex animals born in zero or low-g wouldn't live very long. Probably not even long enough to reproduce.
The only way for humans to evolve to be able to surivive would be for the conditions of low-g living to be slowly introduced over many generations or to somehow short-cut evolution.
Governments are such good managers and because all the governments of the world get along so well, you can be sure they'll have no problems making progress on every need that arises. Oh yeah, this is simply a brilliant idea.
I love the quote "It will be a network on which freedom of speech is guaranteed by law, not simply allowed because of technical decisions on network architecture made 30 years ago by a bunch of academic computer scientists." Yeah, I see China hopping right on board with this.
And let's face it, rebuilding the internet from scratch, as he proposes, poses no real technical challenge. All we have to do is come up with a new set of standards and a new set of hardware and software that supports those standards. That'll only take a week or two, right? At a cost of maybe a few hundred dollars, right?
This guy is clearly brilliant and sees things much clearer than "a bunch of academic computer scientists."
Slashdot Mirror
That's his idea? To create a day camp? "Hey, how was camp?" "Oh, a bit cold. We were 100 feet underground all summer." Boy, that sounds like fun.
I think it should be use for playing games. "Would you like to play a game? How about Thermonuclear War!" Now that sounds like fun.
I'm sorry, but it took scientists to figure out that it was caused by the flow of the beer from the bubbles rising in the center? I mean, I figured that out a long time ago just by looking. No 750 frame per second camera required. I don't even think I was sober when I figured it out. And this is news? Sorry, but I'm a bit disappointed.
Isn't there a joke about a dancing cop??? I can see the fear in the eyes of the criminals: "Look out boys, he's going to tap us to death."
This kid needs confidence in his social skills. That usually takes a lot of time. I was lucky that I found a shortcut. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it because it's neither legal nor was that its purpose, but it just worked out that way.
The best thing would be to somehow get him into a situation where he's forced to deal with people, preferably adults, on a daily basis. The reason I say "preferably adults," is that they are less likely to make fun of him and more likely to appreciate his smarts. That should provide confidence in dealing with his peers. An after school job doing something that involves dealing with customers is best. Doesn't matter if it's waiter at a restaurant or working in sales, or whatever.
This kid's social skills right now, are far more important than his ability in any science. If he's got the gift, he'll learn all he needs to know about that. What he won't learn easily without a lot of help, is social skills. That should be the main focus for him right now. Believe me, the earlier this is changed, the better off he'll be for the rest of his life.
Also address issues such as how he dresses, how he does his hair. Anything that might be standing in his way. Help him to look, if not cool, at least "not geeky." A good start would be to do a search on google for "geek dating tips" and start from there. Not that you're getting the guy a date, but a lot of the advice he'll find applies to many aspects of social life, and let's face it, this is one of the more important ones.
I didn't say how I conquered my social failings/lack of confidence, but suffice it to say that it changed in my junior year of high school and it changed my life in a major way. Shortly after the "experience", I went from total geek to dating one of the cutest cheerleaders in school. I quickly became comfortable dealing with people in social settings.
If you can give this kid the confidence he needs dealing with people socially, it will change his life in profound ways and he will thank you for it.
I'm very torn on this issue. I'm no fan of MS. But at the same time, where do you draw the line and say, "you can integrate this into the OS, but you can't integrate that." What should be allowable and what shouldn't? Who should decide? This is not much different from the case brought years ago about the integration of the web browser. What about MS Paint? What about WordPad? And games?
Users expect a certain amount of stuff built into the OS. Maybe this expectation exists because of MS, but it exists. Gnome and KDE both come with a bunch of software. Granted, they're both OSS, but I think users have this expectation and it must be met to some degree for any company to succeed.
I know a lot of newbie users who can't even figure out how to get Acrobat installed and without help from someone who's computer literate, they wouldn't be able to read PDF attachments, which are pretty common.
Anyway, I'm torn on it. I don't want to see MS continue as a monopoly, but I want them to fail for the right reasons, not some arbitrary, "you can add this, but not that" kind of rule unless it's applied equally to all competitors.
I'm glad they point out that caffeine isn't for everyone. Some of us suffer from anxiety disorders and caffeine is definitely not helpful. I'm fortunate that I don't have an issue with it anymore, but I could some day.
Frankly, tea (black and green) are much better for you than coffee in terms of the anti-oxidants. Tea is loaded with them, with or without caffeine. Tea also has flavonoids which on top of being an anti-oxidant, is also acts as a vasodilator, making the arteries more flexible and less likely to rupture, something important for people with high blood pressure.
And the benefits don't end with cancer and the heart. Tea also makes the bones (and teeth) stronger. In fact, it's been shown to reduce the damage caused by osteoperosis.
So, while I enjoy my occasional cup of coffee, I'll continue to drink my 6-8 cups of tea a day.
Sorry, but it just is. I mean, the way my own memory works just makes no sense. People can tell me things to remember and I just can't. It's not that I don't pay attention when they tell me, it's just after they tell me, it's gone.
On the other hand, I remember things vividly from as early as 2 years old (events, dreams, etc). I remember phone numbers and lock combinations from childhood (I'm 35 now). Numbers have always been easy for me, though. I see patterns in them and tend to remember the patterns. I have an almost inexhaustable reserve of useless trivial knowledge and God knows why I remember it all. I excel at Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune. I can understand (read and spoken) 9 languages, but I can only speak 2 of them.
But ask me to remind you of something in 20 minutes, or tomorrow, or next week, and there's about a 95% chance I'll forget. Ask me what I did 3 days ago and I'm more likely to get it confused with something I did 2 or 4 days ago.
I consider my memory excellent... For some things. For others, it's just atrocious.
First of all, I completely disagree with the Bush agenda. However, there is at least one compelling reason to go back to the moon, and that's to put a radio telescope on the far side.
One of the big problems with radio astronomy is noise interference from Earth and the many satellites we have in orbit. The nearest zone free of this interference would be the far side of the moon.
Building a radio telescope on the moon would likely require a full-time manned base for handling repairs and maintenance. One of the disadvantages of having a radio telescope on the moon is that radio astronomy has been advancing along with other technological areas and upgrades would be needed periodically in addition to repairs.
I think Radio Astronomy would benefit enormously from such a project, but I doubt that's on the Bush agenda...
This is precisely why I'll be sticking with Google. For the most part, I'm generally searching for non-commercial sites when I search. If I need commercial sites, I know I can find them at Google, but I also know it's not going to give the non-paying sites a higher ranking just because they pay, in the search results, and that's important to me.
I think Yahoo!, following this same old business model, will simply end up failing in the search engine competition, and that's fine with me.
I honestly can't see how anyone can improve significantly on what Google has done. They're interface is plain and simple, their search results are generally excellent.
If I were ashamed of my life, I might post as an anonymous coward like you. But I'm not. I'm proud of what I've accomplished in my life. I'm also happy to be living in Mexico.
I work on open source projects because I have the time to, certainly not to make money. Is this your first time at slashdot?
I dunno, your analysis of me wasn't exactly right-on. Let me take a crack at you. You're unhappy with your life, ashamed of your accomplishments, and to make yourself feel better, you try to trash other people. Am I getting close?
For good or for ill? Who talks like that?
First of all, mine was a simple post to slashdot, not a letter to a company I was considering doing business with. I rarely check my spelling, grammar, or sentence construction for slashdot posts. What a total waste of time.
Second of all, I was simply stating something I believe to be true, which is that letters with misspelled words and poor grammar usually don't get as much attention in business as letters that are well written.
I never claimed to be a great writer of any sort (though I suppose I write well enough to get a computer book published), but I can certainly recognize and comment on poor spelling and grammar.
Unfortunately, letters like this do little good when they are filled with spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't mean to insult, but if your grammar and spelling are below average, you really should make use of spell check and grammar check in your e-mails. People will take them more seriously.
Maybe I just think that because I was raised by a mother who majored in English and a father who is a journalist, though. I tend to give less credence to correspondence that's poorly written, for good or for bad.
The fact that for millions of years on Earth, nothing happened, and then all of a sudden BOOM life arose in the gap of about 10,000 (which is a small gap), might be suggestive that life really might not be able to happen many other way!
Where did you get this from?
Geologically speaking, life appeared on Earth almost the instant the Earth became hospitable enough for life, about 3.8 billion years ago (or when the Earth was 700-800 million years old. That was only single-celled life, but life nonetheless. The move to multi-celled life took far longer and didn't occur until about 700 million years ago. That's the giant-leap there. If single-celled life appears so quickly and it took so much longer for multi-celled life, then it gives the impression that single-celled life is very opportunistic while multi-celled life isn't necessarily the next step.
Technology certainly doesn't cause stress in itself. I think stress comes from several different areas. In terms of software, I think the issues are generally buggy software, failure of people to communicate properly, and probably misguided or unrealistic expectations. I think these three things are my biggest sources of stress, in no particular order.
Buggy software isn't usually a huge stress problem for me, but it is for a lot of people. Failure to commmunicate for a software developer can be a huge source of stress, though. For example, I have a client right now who, after we finalized the requirements, made several major changes (and countless small ones) to the system after it was developed. I tried to communicate the impact that would have on the timeline. He seemed to understand that, but then he started talking about how it was supposed to be done months ago (based on the original requirements) and now can't seem to understand the impact his changes had, even though I told him from day 1.
This same client is causing issues with unrealistic expectations. The software was about 8 months in development and we're nearing the end. It's been in testing for 2 days and he's frustrated because they're finding bugs. I made it clear to him before we started testing that I expected us to find bugs and that's why we are testing. Now he's talking about throwing out the entire project and starting over from scratch with a different developer (which frankly, at this point, would be fine with me).
So, from my point of view, as a software developer, these are the things that cause me stress.
"Yahoo failed when it became a "portal"..."
It failed? If a market cap of 28 BILLION dollars is failure, what do I have to do wrong to get there?
I haven't noticed that anyone has mentioned the actual cost of going to Venus which, fuel-wise, is much more expensive than going to Mars. It's much cheaper to go to an orbit further from the sun than it is to go to one towards it due to the inertia a rocket will already have from Earth's orbit.
You can't just aim towards Venus and go. You have to slow down the rocket's relative orbital speed. That's a lot of fuel. So it's also a matter of cost/benefit.
...An interesting point is that most of the PCs used in Iran are assembled from smuggled parts and run pirated versions of all the latest software (due to foreign embargo?).
Even with no embargo, software piracy is rampant in the third world. I live in Mexico and it's rare to see anyone with a legal version of software. Though, that is changing.
The equivalent of the IRS down here is Hacienda and my understanding is Microsoft has given them a lot of training and now Hacienda has started checking businesses for pirated software (financial audits are frequent down here). Apparently MS gives Hacienda a chunk of change when they score one for MS.
So things are changing here a bit, but the truth is, a lot of business are simply looking for new ways around it. One business I know of is talking of setting up an Windows Terminal Services machine which will reside off of the property, and everyone will connect to it to get to all the pirated software (and of course, the WTS is unlicensed).
So, really, I doubt an embargo has anything to do with the piracy. Frankly, most third world businesses simply can't afford the price of software.
Not only is it premature, it's STUPID. Why do people keep associating OSS with anti-Microsoft? As I said yesterday, OSS is about choices, not about putting MS out of business. No matter how much any of us dislikes or even hates MS, that should not be what OSS is about. That is anything but a noble cause.
A noble cause is providing free choice to people. That's what OSS is and should be about and someone needs to get this message to the media. MS should rise or fall based on their own merits, even if those merits are questionable or at odds with the OSS community. If Microsoft falls because of OSS, so be it, but if that's the cause, and Microsoft falls, then OSS no longer has a cause. The cause to provide choice will always be there.
C# exists to kill Java. By furthering C# you help Micros~1. .NET exists to kill Java. By furthering .NET you help Micros~1.
.NET and C# are superior to Java in some respects. I don't think creating a .NET platform for Linux hurts Linux nearly as much as it helps.
That YOU are so sycophantic re: Micros~1 and mono is the greatest irony of all time. It would be funny if it weren't so truly stupid and truly dangerous.
This is a variation of killing the messenger for delivering the message. Instead you want to kill the message (.NET and C#) because you don't like the messenger (Microsoft). Frankly, I think it's just as stupid as killing the messenger.
Miguel thinks, and frankly, I agree, that
Has WINE helped or hurt Linux? It provides people a layer of compatibility that allows them to migrate to Linux. That's REALLY important to a lot of people, companies, and governments who are deciding which platform to use. If I'm a government agency and I have a custom tool written in C# and now we're thinking about whether to switch to Linux or continue using Windows, I have an option. Without Mono and dotGnu, my decision is made. I have to stick with Windows or rewrite my software. Which one do you think will cost me more.
I didn't intend to imply that Java itself was deficient because of the UIs. I assumed that there were probably libraries out there for doing nicer widgets, but I had just never seen them. Thanks for the link, but after a year and a half of C#, I'm kind of committed to it and sticking with it.
I've read some books on Java and played with it a tiny bit, and it's clear that C# got a lot of good ideas from Java. I think the language Java is quite well designed in many ways and would have improved my productivity in a manner similar to C#, but I ended up with C#. Such is life.
Miguel, muchas gracias para tu repuesta...
.NET, I want to target as many platforms as possible, and Mono gives me this ability. And on top of it, I get to use C# and the .NET Framework. Despite the company that designed it, it's an excellent language and framework. As Miguel said, it boosts productivity. I have personally witnessed that.
I find this very enlightening. I had no idea that Mono was intended to be compatible with Mac OS X, and I find that VERY cool. As I posted earlier regarding my own open source project that uses
I haven't been following Mono as closely as I'd like because I haven't gotten to the porting yet, but I've been following some of the API development and frankly, I think they've done an excellent job of targetting the most important issues in order. Almost everything I need is already in Mono. Where it isn't there yet, I hope to either contribute code to Mono, or come up with workarounds.
Open Source is more about choices than trying to put a company out of business. Since when was the open source motto "To write software that puts Microsoft out of business?" What sort of noble goal is that? Microsoft should succeed or fail on its own merits. I don't like them very much, and perhaps they're not succeeding on their own merits, but that doesn't mean that the motivation of OSS should be to make them fail.
As a .NET developer, frankly, I don't care what the motivations of Mono develoers or dotGnu developers are. Maybe I should be, but I'm not. I'm building an open source project in .NET and I want Linux, BSD and Mac OS X support (the latter two, hopefully with the help of SSCLI), and frankly, whatever other platforms I can include.
.NET is a really nice development environment. As much as I don't care for Microsoft, I have to admit that since I adopted C# about a year and a half ago, my production has roughly tripled, maybe more. I've never had ANY technology have that kind of impact on my development before, unless it was the reverse (making me 3 times LESS productive).
I don't want to use Java. First of all, I've never used it to develop software. Second of all, every user interface I've ever seen done with Java stinks. Maybe I've been seeing bad examples, but the windows, buttons, and other contols of the Java apps I've seen have an old fashion look and feel to me and I don't care for it. My personal opinion, but for me, that counts for something.
So, whatever the motivation of Mono or dotGnu, I simply want to develop my cross-platform C# apps. That's MY motivation, and that's what matters to me.
It occurs to me that since, as the poster pointed out, we tax payers are paying for the software, wouldn't it make sense for the government to open source all the software they have developped? At least software that isn't considered secret of some sort?
Think of the benefits to, not just the public, but to the agencies themselves. Every government project goes onto, say SourceForge. The company hired to write the software would do all the development on SourceForge. If other people are interested, they can get in on the testing and development. The government gets better software and the public gets to use it, and the contractor still gets paid. Everyone wins.
Here's another possible positive result: Many agencies within the government have software developped that it alsmost identical to software developped for other agencies (left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing stuff). It's possible that through open source, not only could more code sharing go on, but it might be possible for agencies to take an existing project, make a few changes, and have it fit their needs, further saving them money.
Anyway, I've never considered this before, but it seems to make a great deal of sense to me.
Can people reproduce on other planets? Can any earth creature?
There's no reason that human babies couldn't be conceived and come to term in low or even zero-g. Yes, it's been done with other 'Earth creatures'. Besides some insects, there were some fish that were bred on Skylab, I believe. As I recall, the Earth born parents were unable to control their swimming in zero-g, but the babies had no problem. I assume human babies would also adapt natural abilities in zero and low-g that astronauts learn to clumsily do.
But the fact is, human bodies are poorly adapter to low and zero-g for several reasons. Radiation and muscle atrophy are one problem, but bone loss is another serious problem. Thus it's likely that any humans or other complex animals born in zero or low-g wouldn't live very long. Probably not even long enough to reproduce.
The only way for humans to evolve to be able to surivive would be for the conditions of low-g living to be slowly introduced over many generations or to somehow short-cut evolution.
Governments are such good managers and because all the governments of the world get along so well, you can be sure they'll have no problems making progress on every need that arises. Oh yeah, this is simply a brilliant idea.
I love the quote "It will be a network on which freedom of speech is guaranteed by law, not simply allowed because of technical decisions on network architecture made 30 years ago by a bunch of academic computer scientists." Yeah, I see China hopping right on board with this.
And let's face it, rebuilding the internet from scratch, as he proposes, poses no real technical challenge. All we have to do is come up with a new set of standards and a new set of hardware and software that supports those standards. That'll only take a week or two, right? At a cost of maybe a few hundred dollars, right?
This guy is clearly brilliant and sees things much clearer than "a bunch of academic computer scientists."