I agree. My understanding has been that the military and as will as various diplomats have been the ones actually using Iridium. The company went under because they couldn't find other customers who needed to fly around the entire world and use a big clunky phone. To Iridium's credit their business plan was not hopeless. There is some market for big clunky global phones, just probably not enough to keep up the cost especially with two or more other companies trying to do the same thing.
With Itanium aimed at a niche market of real highend stuff that is often using only a few application, how is development for those few applications going? Is Oracle going to have support for Itanium right away?
Alright, who the hell is viewing the stile project from a Sun system and for that matter who is using IRIX to get their pr0n? Who ever it is I know they are reading slashdot. Fess up.
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't
on
Golden Rice
·
· Score: 1
I agree there should be some way to use GE rice correctly. Of course, there needs to be extremely extensive testing over many years before GE rice should be introduced widely, and obviously the GE rice should be mixed with local varieties to produce a rice appropriate for the region.
GE companies probably are quite eager to exploit this to push for greater acceptance of GE foods and Greenpeace is correct that there often is not adequate testing and oversight for GE foods. Think of the unapproved corn that got into Taco Bell(tm) tacos this year.
Greenpeace is also correct that the world should not rely on some GE wonder product to solve the problem of malnutrition and it would be much better to reintroduce local crops.
Right now there is not the political will in the United States in particular to do things like even pay normal dues to the UN, which supports the WHO (World Health Organization), which tries to combat malnutrition. The lack of motivation by rich countries to spend a little to combat malnutrition is the underlying probem.
This does not mean that the rich countries should give up on GE rice for poor countries, instead rich countries should proceed with caution, while also spending more money in other ways to combat malnutrition.
Since the P4 costs as much as two of the 1.2GHz Athlons wouldn't it make more sense to compare the P4 to a system with the AMD 760MP chipset and two of the DDR Athlon 1.2GHz CPUs? Has anyone seen such a comparison?
With Germany at 20% and the UK at 4%, it seems that these numbers do not reflect the online population. Germany (~88M people) is bigger than the UK (~60M people), but not by that much. The main factor is probably just whatever has become popular with the internet community in the particular country. I am impressed though that 1 in 3 Gnutella hosts are non-US centric according to the article.
Google is a good search engine, but sometimes the algorithm does not do so well. For example, the top three results in a search for credit card are p0rn. This is of course a real headache for companies like the one I work for that do things like compare credit cards, not to mention people actually looking for credit cards.
One of the major difference spotted Alexis DeTocqueville in Democary in America noticed between the United States and Europe was the inheritance tax, which prevented all the wealth and power of the nation from being accumulated by a small minority. This was in the early 1800's. The inheritance tax is still very important today as it prevents the accumulation of wealth over generations by a very few people. It is also the cause of a huge amount of charity as Brin points out.
The question posed by some in response to this open letter is would America be better off without the inheritance tax. If you believe that completely laize faire capitalism is the solution to everything then, yes you probably don't want the inheritance tax, or any other tax for that matter. However America's economic system is far from completely laize faire. There are the patent office and the anti-trust laws for example.
If you believe as most everyone that the government should collect taxes and help the economy, then other arguements for the inheritance tax apply. What would happen without the inheritance tax? First charitable giving for things like libraries would go way down. The strength and stability over generations of the extremely weathy would assured. Would the decreased tax burden on the wealthy help the economy? Under standard economic theories increasing the savings rate helps the economy, but so does investing in infastructure (buildings and libraries) so it is not clear how much the economy would stand to benefit with the change.
One-click lottery purchasing is a new method of obtaining goods and services without prior knowledge of the item to be purchased.
"A method of using javascript or similar technology to produce a single button interface, which when activated purchases a single random object from a databases of goods and services. This database is customized to the customer's preferences based on information obtained from the user's web browsing history."
That is two stories on MIR in one day. When is slashdot finally going to give MIR its own section and coresponding icon? MIR is more than just 'Space' and it deserves better.
I was thinking along those lines, but sort of in the opposite direction. With Microsoft Office dominating office suite software and Corel being the largest competitor, Microsoft's purchase of a big chunk of Corel would only further confirm the company's monopolistic position. How does Microsoft argue it does not have a monopoly now?
MS: There is competition among OS's.
DOJ: But you own large stakes in Apple and Corel (linux).
MS: There is competition among office suites.
DOJ: But you own a large stake in Corel with the #2 word processing application.
I work as an intern for Gromco, a small internet startup that does ISP comparisons. At www.ispmenu.com you can put in your address and we pre-screen to see if you can get DSL at your address and list what plans are available... end of self-plug...
We work with DSL a lot and generally it is simply a bit of a pain for home users for several reasons including the local phone companies and unmotivated DSL salespeople. Generally though people do get what they want in the end.
In the case that President Rupp and General Counsel Patsy Catapano do decide to block Napster, I will probably be the one organizing the large angry protests. Nice letter though Brian.
Jeff Senter
The next reduction in size will be to.13 micron. Intel is planning to make this transition on the P-III and P-4 chips in about Q3 of 2001. Slashdot posted this about the coming chips and micron size reductions. CNET has a story which is what the slashdot story is about. The CNET story though comes from this story of InQuest Market Research. Hope you like chip road maps as much as I do:)
I'm curious about how publishing the secret Apple Pics compares to publishing spy pictures of auto companies prototype cars. Car magazines publish spy shots of cars all the time I believe. Anyone have any good ideas about this?
I like all the stories about Napster, the RIAA, Gnutella, and new forms or file sharing. I think it would be very appropriate to have a new category for this since it is generating lots of stories and "The Internet" doesn't seem like a specific enough heading. I imagine there are also plenty of slashdot readers who are sick of these stories.
NYC Activists' Hosting Collective Discussion List is a brand new discussion list that is exploring ways to help activists in their causes by doing free administration, hosting, helping etc. Jesse Sanford jesse@columbia.edu is coordinating it so direct questions to him if you are interested.
Rupert Murdoch has control over a significant percentage of the media in Britain, America and Australia, and yet there hasn't been any significant decline. (Mind you, it's hard to decline from zero, but that's another story.)
Actually News Corp's invasion of British media has drastically decreased the once high quality of Britains newspapers. It is very unfortunate.
The one that always sticks in my mind is the Harvard scientists putting electrodes in a cat's brain to decode its vision, The Cat Cam! The other one that I remember is the suck.com parody of slashdot that included a reference to The Cat Cam.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. My understanding has been that the military and as will as various diplomats have been the ones actually using Iridium.
The company went under because they couldn't find other customers who needed to fly around the entire world and use a big clunky phone.
To Iridium's credit their business plan was not hopeless. There is some market for big clunky global phones, just probably not enough to keep up the cost especially with two or more other companies trying to do the same thing.
The BBC's science section has lots of cool stuff on space and science including another similar article on the new large minor planet.
With Itanium aimed at a niche market of real highend stuff that is often using only a few application, how is development for those few applications going? Is Oracle going to have support for Itanium right away?
Alright, who the hell is viewing the stile project from a Sun system and for that matter who is using IRIX to get their pr0n?
Who ever it is I know they are reading slashdot. Fess up.
I agree there should be some way to use GE rice correctly. Of course, there needs to be extremely extensive testing over many years before GE rice should be introduced widely, and obviously the GE rice should be mixed with local varieties to produce a rice appropriate for the region.
GE companies probably are quite eager to exploit this to push for greater acceptance of GE foods and Greenpeace is correct that there often is not adequate testing and oversight for GE foods. Think of the unapproved corn that got into Taco Bell(tm) tacos this year.
Greenpeace is also correct that the world should not rely on some GE wonder product to solve the problem of malnutrition and it would be much better to reintroduce local crops.
Right now there is not the political will in the United States in particular to do things like even pay normal dues to the UN, which supports the WHO (World Health Organization), which tries to combat malnutrition. The lack of motivation by rich countries to spend a little to combat malnutrition is the underlying probem.
This does not mean that the rich countries should give up on GE rice for poor countries, instead rich countries should proceed with caution, while also spending more money in other ways to combat malnutrition.
Since the P4 costs as much as two of the 1.2GHz Athlons wouldn't it make more sense to compare the P4 to a system with the AMD 760MP chipset and two of the DDR Athlon 1.2GHz CPUs?
Has anyone seen such a comparison?
With Germany at 20% and the UK at 4%, it seems that these numbers do not reflect the online population. Germany (~88M people) is bigger than the UK (~60M people), but not by that much. The main factor is probably just whatever has become popular with the internet community in the particular country. I am impressed though that 1 in 3 Gnutella hosts are non-US centric according to the article.
The NYTimes is response to the massive demand from slashdot readers for more stories about circuts and monkeys has written a better story.
Google is a good search engine, but sometimes the algorithm does not do so well.
For example, the top three results in a search for credit card are p0rn.
This is of course a real headache for companies like the one I work for that do things like compare credit cards, not to mention people actually looking for credit cards.
I think the next slashdot poll should be naming for the new "planet" EB173.
Here are some choices from the discussion.
Rupert --Douglas Adams reference
Planet X
Plut* (Plutito, Plutochen, Plutolein, Pluto-chan, Plutette, Plutitia)
Goofy
Natalie Portman
Hemos
These aren't bad, but what are some other good ones?
One of the major difference spotted Alexis DeTocqueville in Democary in America noticed between the United States and Europe was the inheritance tax, which prevented all the wealth and power of the nation from being accumulated by a small minority. This was in the early 1800's. The inheritance tax is still very important today as it prevents the accumulation of wealth over generations by a very few people. It is also the cause of a huge amount of charity as Brin points out.
The question posed by some in response to this open letter is would America be better off without the inheritance tax. If you believe that completely laize faire capitalism is the solution to everything then, yes you probably don't want the inheritance tax, or any other tax for that matter. However America's economic system is far from completely laize faire. There are the patent office and the anti-trust laws for example.
If you believe as most everyone that the government should collect taxes and help the economy, then other arguements for the inheritance tax apply. What would happen without the inheritance tax? First charitable giving for things like libraries would go way down. The strength and stability over generations of the extremely weathy would assured. Would the decreased tax burden on the wealthy help the economy? Under standard economic theories increasing the savings rate helps the economy, but so does investing in infastructure (buildings and libraries) so it is not clear how much the economy would stand to benefit with the change.
One-click lottery purchasing is a new method of obtaining goods and services without prior knowledge of the item to be purchased.
"A method of using javascript or similar technology to produce a single button interface, which when activated purchases a single random object from a databases of goods and services. This database is customized to the customer's preferences based on information obtained from the user's web browsing history."
That is two stories on MIR in one day. When is slashdot finally going to give MIR its own section and coresponding icon? MIR is more than just 'Space' and it deserves better.
So what entity competes with Microsoft and starts with _D_? They are next. Oh shit... Debian!
I was thinking along those lines, but sort of in the opposite direction. With Microsoft Office dominating office suite software and Corel being the largest competitor, Microsoft's purchase of a big chunk of Corel would only further confirm the company's monopolistic position. How does Microsoft argue it does not have a monopoly now?
MS: There is competition among OS's.
DOJ: But you own large stakes in Apple and Corel (linux).
MS: There is competition among office suites.
DOJ: But you own a large stake in Corel with the #2 word processing application.
I work as an intern for Gromco, a small internet startup that does ISP comparisons. At www.ispmenu.com you can put in your address and we pre-screen to see if you can get DSL at your address and list what plans are available... end of self-plug...
We work with DSL a lot and generally it is simply a bit of a pain for home users for several reasons including the local phone companies and unmotivated DSL salespeople. Generally though people do get what they want in the end.
Jeff Senter
In the case that President Rupp and General Counsel Patsy Catapano do decide to block Napster, I will probably be the one organizing the large angry protests. Nice letter though Brian. Jeff Senter
The next reduction in size will be to .13 micron. Intel is planning to make this transition on the P-III and P-4 chips in about Q3 of 2001. Slashdot posted this about the coming chips and micron size reductions. CNET has a story which is what the slashdot story is about. The CNET story though comes from this story of InQuest Market Research. Hope you like chip road maps as much as I do :)
I'm curious about how publishing the secret Apple Pics compares to publishing spy pictures of auto companies prototype cars. Car magazines publish spy shots of cars all the time I believe. Anyone have any good ideas about this?
I like all the stories about Napster, the RIAA, Gnutella, and new forms or file sharing. I think it would be very appropriate to have a new category for this since it is generating lots of stories and "The Internet" doesn't seem like a specific enough heading. I imagine there are also plenty of slashdot readers who are sick of these stories.
NYC Activists' Hosting Collective Discussion List is a brand new discussion list that is exploring ways to help activists in their causes by doing free administration, hosting, helping etc. Jesse Sanford jesse@columbia.edu is coordinating it so direct questions to him if you are interested.
Rupert Murdoch has control over a significant percentage of the media in Britain, America and Australia, and yet there hasn't been any significant decline. (Mind you, it's hard to decline from zero, but that's another story.)
Actually News Corp's invasion of British media has drastically decreased the once high quality of Britains newspapers. It is very unfortunate.
I agree. I don't think Amazon can be beat for Big Dumb Patent Bully even if it is unoriginal.
The one that always sticks in my mind is the Harvard scientists putting electrodes in a cat's brain to decode its vision, The Cat Cam! The other one that I remember is the suck.com parody of slashdot that included a reference to The Cat Cam.