All they have to prove is that all these spying saves one child. Presto. Everything and anything can be justified under the slogan, "if it saves one child, it is worth it."
Steve Balmer has announced that space exploration will be included as a feature in the next version of the Windows operating system. As a first step, MS will rename Internet Explorer, Universe Explorer.
Some slashdotters decried the move and speculated that Venture capital for the firms currently engaged in space exploration will dry up immediately. European Union created a standard Open Protocol for Space Exploration. Microsoft submitted a competing standard as the standard. Its spokesman said "There should be lots of competing standards. More the merrier."
Meanwhile one lone guy who wrote a "In Soviet Russia the Space explores you" got modded down as "so last century".
The main problem in recovering energy from a diffused source with a small temperature diff over the surroundings is the little thing called Carnot limit efficiency. If the alleged technology is really succesful there is no need to limit it to waste heat. We could apply it equally well to solar energy collection too. But sadly, looks like the alleged device is a very low efficiency thermocouple.
What is with this guy? First convinces the communist state government of Kerala to switch to Open Source. Then another Indian state that formed a coalition government with the communists. Now cuba. I have nothing against communists using Open Source. But I dont think it benefits the image of open source to be associated with communists so much. Others will spin and try to claim guilt by association.
Well, the basic fact is this. If there is violent content on TV or a movie, something really gross, parents have no qualms about engaging in a conversation with their kids and telling them the other side of the story and letting the kids know the right from wrong when it comes to violence. But most parents are very uncomfortable talking about sex to their kids and providing them with a balanced picture. In a ad-supported medium like TV they tend to prefer censorship. If they have to pay for content, like they do for print magazines or books, they usually dont bother. So it is easy to snicker at the parents and the American public for tolerating heavy doeses of violence and flipping out at the first wardrobe malfunction. But the fundamental cause is that there is not enough paid, ad free alternatives to TV. If that becomes possible, GoogleTV or AppleTV or Akimbo service or whatever, the demand for censorship will vanish. [Typing without my contacts. Please forgive typos.]
How good is that code?
on
PMD Applied
·
· Score: 5, Funny
My friend wrote a syntax analyzer to report gross statistics about code. Calculate the ratio of number of lines of comments to lines of code, average number of lines per function, etc etc. Finally it would come up with a let grade between A and F for code qualtiy based on some heuristics. That was his masters project.
Our diabolical prof fed this analysis code itself to it as data. It spat out a D. He got a D.
The upgrades might be going at snails pace but every new pc being shipped is shipping with vista. It wont be long before there are more installations of Vista than Firefox.
What nonsense, attributing the hum detected by the seismometers to the waves on the ocean floor.
Every Hindu knows it is not a hum it is AUM. Aum is the primordial sound of the creation of the universe.
It permeates everything. It is the pulse of every living being. All the ancient yogis knew that. That is why Hindu chanting includes aum so many times. Read all about it: http://www.yogalesson.com/basic_info/quantum.html . Scientists are just discovering what these yogis knew so long ago.
True. And the biggest honcho in the company, the CEO or the CFO always replace their laptops every six months or one year and they cant be bothered to change their preferences to save in an older format by default. So suddenly no one in the company is able to open an attachment from the big cheeses. Another round of upgrades for all. The IT department does not care because that is how their budget increases and they wined and dined by the vendor. The working stiffs dont bother because they get a day or two break for "retraining". Free pizza on these days mostly. Big cheeses dont care because their competitors too are blowing the same amount of money so they can all pass it to their customers. Only the slashdotters bemoan the vendor lock and the inefficiency.
There should be only one standard. You need competition among the vendors. That is the way to have level playing field. Microsoft is playing with words and fudging the issue by creating competing standards. What if every tire manufacturer proposes his own standards? The market is not served by fragmentation of standards. One standard. Not owned by any vendor but under the control of users, consumers and the marketplace. The standards should promote competition among the vendors. If it does not promote competition then it is not worth having a standard.
These atheistic God-denying scientists attribute the constant hum detected by the seismometers to some random wave action at the ocean floors. But they ignore the fact that it violates the second law of thermodynamics (whatever it is). The real cause for the hum is the intelligent shaking by the Shaker. We demand equal time in all classrooms and seminars and conferences, wherever these surfologists congregate to rebut their theory (not fact) with our scientifically formulated real sceintific fact that intelligent shaking is the fundamental cause for all the hum on earth.
No company likes to compete on price alone. Every company strives to get a "brand" image or some kind of differentiation from its competitor. Something that will make its customers stop looking at the price and something else. At least one big name PC vendor should get the idea to ship a PC with Windows, but with Firefox as the default browser, OpenOffice pre-installed, and advertise its product as "a more secure PC". But not a single vendor is pre-installing Firefox. Not one is installing OpenOffice. Why?
It is a cop out to say that customers are not clamouring for it. These companies are in the business of manipulating customer's behaviour. They spend millions of dollars in advertising influencing the customers. Strange that all that influencing leaves the
biggest elephant unemntioned.
From the linked article that is not slashdotted: (The other one is)
In effect Open Source has become a free pass for all sorts of competitive actions that would once have been--at a minimum--roundly criticized. I don't argue that (for the most part) such actions should be universally deplored or prohibited. It's part of the way today's software world works, and in many ways it provides direct advantages to IT customers. However, don't mistake it for altruism--and thereby get all shocked and disappointed when the same companies take some other action that is nakedly self-serving the next week.
Competition is good. Self interest is good. Altruism is not all that good. I am not talking tounge in cheek or being sarcastic. I cant condense all the wisdom that the humankind has accumulated starting from the "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith all the way down to "Climbing the Mount Improbable" by Richard Dawkins in this reply which I have to finish before my build finishes in the next window. So mod me down as troll or idiotic if it is too cryptic.
From the linked article:
IBM released Eclipse for free, and it's killed off all the commercial Java IDEs out there. Sure, the source is available - but why isn't that seen as predatory? The net effect has been the same.
Well, tomorrow if IBM decides to change the fee structure and demand an arm and a leg or it thinks it should change the file formats to keep the competition out or decide to drop support for some API to maintain an advantage... Guess what? There is nothing to stop the customers/competitors to take the ball run circles around IBM. That is why Open source is not all that predatory.
Sometimes some people get a profound insight and that produces a view point that is strikingly different from the crowd. This article mimics the symptom, "being radically different from the rest" but without a cogent underlying argument that is the hallmark of a "profound insight".
Yes Intel and AMD are competing with one another. Prices are dropping. When there is true competion in the OS market, OS prices also will drop. When there is true competition in the Office market, Office prices will also drop. Office prices will drop only when the consumers, (mainly the corporate consumers, we retail customers dont have much weight) stop confusing interoperability with windows compatibility there will be true competition in that market.
Why keep bashing Microsoft, calling it evil etc? It is the consumers who should wake up. Let us say I give these companies big discount so that they can "make the numbers" for this quarter. But that would force them to give all their data to me and they have to pay me every quarter to access their own data. In a rational world, I would be laughed out of the business meeting in no time. But that is precisely what is happening in sales meetings between MS and the fortune 500 companies.
When it comes to the chips Dell is able to play AMD against Intel. It is in Dell's own interest to have a competition in OS/Office market so that it can play one against another and reduce the cost of computing to its customers so that it can sell more. But Dell buries alternatives deep, makes it difficult to buy the alternatives. Why? Why? Isn't there anyone who can break through the non-disclosure agreements and the secrecy and shed light on why corporations are acting seemingly irrationally? Sunlight is the best disinfectent.
Given that no machine has 100% efficiency, these generators cant produce more energy than what
the astronauts muscles could deliver. So dont confuse these with generating power like in solar cells or nuclear reactors. But there is always need for electrical energy so
they might come in handy. But why these piezo-electrics? I have seen WW-II era footage of soldiers ing tiny generators by hand or by legs to power their radio sets.
The apocryphal story of NASA spending millions of dollars to invent a pressurized ball point pen that would work in zero gravity and USSR deciding to use a pencil comes to my mind.
I dont want to rain in their parade. But typically whenever people start with a spec like "100 times better than what they can do", they assume they will continue to perform at current levels while these people take years to develop and mature their new technology. In the real world, the traditional methods too improve and unless they can maintain a 100x lead continually the new technology flops.
What happened to Gallium Arsenide replacing silicon? What happened to solid state memory completely repalcing magnetic disks? Technology field is littered with such fiascos.
Well, it is perfectly possible for the uploader to have gmail id and used google check out to buy a gps system and got it delivered to his home. Never over estimate the average human intelligence. Now if I am really clever, and if I have a grouse against my employer or ex, I would create a google id in his/her name, get gps delivered to his/her home and use the same id to upload content that is sure to draw the attention of mpaa and then stand at the sidewalk and watch the fun. But sadly I am too smart for that;-)
You do have a valid point. The manual might not be needed it could just be a summation, you are right about that. Still I think MS changing the GUI and the users meekly accepting it without too much of a protest is at odds with the percieved difficulty retraining users in a different GUI.
All the windows supporters say Linux is hard and it is too difficult to learn a new GUI. And Microsoft nonchalantly changes the GUI under them, removes applications, adds applications, changes the way things work, and all of them dutifully learn new ways of doing the same old things. 827 page manual for general user who is already familiar with XP? That is insane. Companies should demand Microsoft to pay for the retraining of their employees and upgrade costs and data migration costs. But you see them line up like the harbour coolies paying protection money to Peter in Deewaar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deewaar_(1975_film)
But what else can they do? They so heavily vendor locked into Microsoft they have to pay the protection money. There will be no Vijay Verma for them riding into the pier to clean up the mess.
Slashdot Mirror
All they have to prove is that all these spying saves one child. Presto. Everything and anything can be justified under the slogan, "if it saves one child, it is worth it."
Ok if you are suddenly wondering whatever happened to them, here is the link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bobbitt
I am sure Mr John Wayne Bobbitt will welcome this news and appreciate it greatly. :-)
Some slashdotters decried the move and speculated that Venture capital for the firms currently engaged in space exploration will dry up immediately. European Union created a standard Open Protocol for Space Exploration. Microsoft submitted a competing standard as the standard. Its spokesman said "There should be lots of competing standards. More the merrier."
Meanwhile one lone guy who wrote a "In Soviet Russia the Space explores you" got modded down as "so last century".
Nah, putting a kitchen sink in the phone is so 20th century. If it can make decent frapiccino or caramel machiatto , then you are talking, baby!
The main problem in recovering energy from a diffused source with a small temperature diff over the surroundings is the little thing called Carnot limit efficiency. If the alleged technology is really succesful there is no need to limit it to waste heat. We could apply it equally well to solar energy collection too. But sadly, looks like the alleged device is a very low efficiency thermocouple.
What is with this guy? First convinces the communist state government of Kerala to switch to Open Source. Then another Indian state that formed a coalition government with the communists. Now cuba. I have nothing against communists using Open Source. But I dont think it benefits the image of open source to be associated with communists so much. Others will spin and try to claim guilt by association.
Well, the basic fact is this. If there is violent content on TV or a movie, something really gross, parents have no qualms about engaging in a conversation with their kids and telling them the other side of the story and letting the kids know the right from wrong when it comes to violence. But most parents are very uncomfortable talking about sex to their kids and providing them with a balanced picture. In a ad-supported medium like TV they tend to prefer censorship. If they have to pay for content, like they do for print magazines or books, they usually dont bother. So it is easy to snicker at the parents and the American public for tolerating heavy doeses of violence and flipping out at the first wardrobe malfunction. But the fundamental cause is that there is not enough paid, ad free alternatives to TV. If that becomes possible, GoogleTV or AppleTV or Akimbo service or whatever, the demand for censorship will vanish. [Typing without my contacts. Please forgive typos.]
Our diabolical prof fed this analysis code itself to it as data. It spat out a D. He got a D.
The upgrades might be going at snails pace but every new pc being shipped is shipping with vista. It wont be long before there are more installations of Vista than Firefox.
aum shanti... , aum shanti... , aum shantihi...
True. And the biggest honcho in the company, the CEO or the CFO always replace their laptops every six months or one year and they cant be bothered to change their preferences to save in an older format by default. So suddenly no one in the company is able to open an attachment from the big cheeses. Another round of upgrades for all. The IT department does not care because that is how their budget increases and they wined and dined by the vendor. The working stiffs dont bother because they get a day or two break for "retraining". Free pizza on these days mostly. Big cheeses dont care because their competitors too are blowing the same amount of money so they can all pass it to their customers. Only the slashdotters bemoan the vendor lock and the inefficiency.
This is the 198th birthday week of Charles Darwin. Happy Birthday Charles.
There should be only one standard. You need competition among the vendors. That is the way to have level playing field. Microsoft is playing with words and fudging the issue by creating competing standards. What if every tire manufacturer proposes his own standards? The market is not served by fragmentation of standards. One standard. Not owned by any vendor but under the control of users, consumers and the marketplace. The standards should promote competition among the vendors. If it does not promote competition then it is not worth having a standard.
These atheistic God-denying scientists attribute the constant hum detected by the seismometers to some random wave action at the ocean floors. But they ignore the fact that it violates the second law of thermodynamics (whatever it is). The real cause for the hum is the intelligent shaking by the Shaker. We demand equal time in all classrooms and seminars and conferences, wherever these surfologists congregate to rebut their theory (not fact) with our scientifically formulated real sceintific fact that intelligent shaking is the fundamental cause for all the hum on earth.
It is a cop out to say that customers are not clamouring for it. These companies are in the business of manipulating customer's behaviour. They spend millions of dollars in advertising influencing the customers. Strange that all that influencing leaves the biggest elephant unemntioned.
Competition is good. Self interest is good. Altruism is not all that good. I am not talking tounge in cheek or being sarcastic. I cant condense all the wisdom that the humankind has accumulated starting from the "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith all the way down to "Climbing the Mount Improbable" by Richard Dawkins in this reply which I have to finish before my build finishes in the next window. So mod me down as troll or idiotic if it is too cryptic.
Well, tomorrow if IBM decides to change the fee structure and demand an arm and a leg or it thinks it should change the file formats to keep the competition out or decide to drop support for some API to maintain an advantage... Guess what? There is nothing to stop the customers/competitors to take the ball run circles around IBM. That is why Open source is not all that predatory.
Sometimes some people get a profound insight and that produces a view point that is strikingly different from the crowd. This article mimics the symptom, "being radically different from the rest" but without a cogent underlying argument that is the hallmark of a "profound insight".
Why keep bashing Microsoft, calling it evil etc? It is the consumers who should wake up. Let us say I give these companies big discount so that they can "make the numbers" for this quarter. But that would force them to give all their data to me and they have to pay me every quarter to access their own data. In a rational world, I would be laughed out of the business meeting in no time. But that is precisely what is happening in sales meetings between MS and the fortune 500 companies.
When it comes to the chips Dell is able to play AMD against Intel. It is in Dell's own interest to have a competition in OS/Office market so that it can play one against another and reduce the cost of computing to its customers so that it can sell more. But Dell buries alternatives deep, makes it difficult to buy the alternatives. Why? Why? Isn't there anyone who can break through the non-disclosure agreements and the secrecy and shed light on why corporations are acting seemingly irrationally? Sunlight is the best disinfectent.
The apocryphal story of NASA spending millions of dollars to invent a pressurized ball point pen that would work in zero gravity and USSR deciding to use a pencil comes to my mind.
What happened to Gallium Arsenide replacing silicon? What happened to solid state memory completely repalcing magnetic disks? Technology field is littered with such fiascos.
Well, it is perfectly possible for the uploader to have gmail id and used google check out to buy a gps system and got it delivered to his home. Never over estimate the average human intelligence. Now if I am really clever, and if I have a grouse against my employer or ex, I would create a google id in his/her name, get gps delivered to his/her home and use the same id to upload content that is sure to draw the attention of mpaa and then stand at the sidewalk and watch the fun. But sadly I am too smart for that ;-)
You do have a valid point. The manual might not be needed it could just be a summation, you are right about that. Still I think MS changing the GUI and the users meekly accepting it without too much of a protest is at odds with the percieved difficulty retraining users in a different GUI.
But what else can they do? They so heavily vendor locked into Microsoft they have to pay the protection money. There will be no Vijay Verma for them riding into the pier to clean up the mess.