Anybody in any country would become extremely hesitant about building any Microsoft based system. How can anyone trust a company that will not comply to the laws in a major market? They would not only loose the enormous market in the EU but also suffer major blows all around the globe. And that would have repercussions even in the US since if a global company makes decisions that cut their income in half would have a shitload of stockholder lawsuits against them in the US. Taking your ball and going home means you forfeit the game... remember that.
You're just forgetting one small detail: the person decding if Microsoft complied with interoperabilty demands was picked from a shortlist that Microsoft themselves provided. In essence Microsoft to pick the own jury with no intervention and yet they failed. I belive that speaks volumes.
Ehum, small correction. I got the market capitalization value wrong. It is actually $5 million, not $10 million. Which makes it even more improbable. Sorry about the mistake.
...It's been under a dollar a share for a few days now. If it continues, it could lead to delisting. Look for SCOX if you want to track it on a ticker. However, in the past SCO did a reverse split and they could always do another one and convert 2 or 3 shares to 1 and get back over a dollar a share to avoid delisting......I'm hoping for a delisting as that would hurt SCO immensely, but I'm not holding my breath
As you suspect there isn't much hope for delisting. The stock has to be under $1 for 30 trading days for the company to get a warning. They then get 90 days to remedy the situation (for example, doing a 2-1 reverse split on the stock you suggested). It would be harder for SCOX to avoid a delisting if they slid under the other delisting criteria: having a market capitalization under $10 million (currently it is about $20.4 million). But as you, I'm not holding my breath for either one.
Not just US and russian navy but also Mitsubishi. They built the experimental boat Yamato 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1. Just wanted to give you a heads up before you shoot anyone for no reason you know;-)
Getting it the URL from a mail will be all nice and dandy if the mail comes from someone who knows the input method. But if the person who got it wants to send the link to someone else they'd need to paste it instead of typing it (I often type URLs into mails instead of pasting them). Of course you can find the urls by other methods... but you'll just be pissing people off by making it more difficult to reach you. And there's much more easier ways to do that if you want to play that game.
And I said "If you have any international contacts...". Obviously if you only use the local language you're not having much international contacts. So the last "Besides..." was pretty much a non sequitur.
umlaut is hardly a problem if you set the use keyboard to üs-ïnternätional. But asian/hebrew/arabic/hebrew charcacter are much more difficult to enter... in my expierence.
Those who will have these "international" URLs will almost all be using their national keyboards so they will not be familiar with the US keyboard layout... or other foreign layouts. And umlauts was just one example... what about "ç" (had to paste it myself..) or "". How would they be certain how they're mapped in a foreign keyboard (not just US.. swedish, german, french etc). I think my point stands... i.e "you still need the old-style URLs" (when having international contacts).
If your company/organisation/you have any international contacts then you will NOT be using these international URLs. So you still need the old-style URLs or you'll need to explain how to get those umlauts etc to type in the url. On their national keyboard... not yours that has them. And if you've done any support you know how hard it's even to get someone to READ what's already on the screen...
Alas... my response was to that particular point in your post (and not the other ones) which isn't sarcastic at all when you know the facts. Just a reality.
...A decent chance of being sued by SCO for no real reason...
Not if you're looking at it from the SCOG point of view.
"Copyrights and patents are protection against strangers. Contracts are what you use against parties you have relationships with," Sontag said. "They end up being far stronger than anything you do could do with a patent." [1]
Now, who would knowingly enter a contract with an entity with an entity like that. And anyone who has looked into SCOG claims know they make some very very strange contract claims. Like JFS2 that originated on OS/2 and then got ported to Linux. SCOG claims control over that since it also got ported to AIX. And that's not old dropped claims. They continued to make it as late as March 1st this year.
I know but this was much more than that. If I remember correctly then this was in october (many years ago) and my conscription lasted until february. This was far enough north that we had less than 8 hours of daylight during midwinter so there was a lot of dark times around. I spent more than 1/3 of the time doing 24/7 field excercises since we were the radio guys and were on loan to other companies that needed us. So being able to observe the nightsky I could do often. And I didn't see anything like it then or after.
Btw, night orienteering during an eclipse is quite difficult especially if you find yourself in a fairly normal finnish forest. Becuase there are very few distinguishing features you can follow so it's a lot of map+compass work. And when you reach the chosen waypoint then need to try to check it by finding the closest identifiable feature on the map, do several hundred meteres of detour there to check your position and then do it all over again. We sooooo enjoyed that part.
I had the opportunity to see one while being far from any light polluting city (or even close to any populated area at all). This was during a night orienteering excercise with the finnish army and we're running around in the middle of the night in some godforsaken forest trying to find the checkpoints. It was a very clear night but after a while it starts to get darker and I look up and the eclipse had started (but no one of use knew about it beforehand). Then at the full eclipse it got really pitch dark... you actually couldn't see your hand infront of you.
And I looked up... it was very beautiful. With clear country air, no light pollution and no moonlight my eyes was able to see the stars in the Milkyway and around that you never see otherwise... the sky was really full of them and gave me a whole other sense of scale about our place in the galaxy. That might be the closest thing to go to space one can experience while still staying earthbound. I can imagine standing on the back of the moon watching out would create the same sensation.
So if the weather is clear... don't stay in or near a city if you can get away. It will be worth the trip.
Fair enough. But as I implied a magnitude 5 quake is a likely a much bigger problem if you're on the moon since your life pretty much depends on the structural integrity of your habitat. Depending on acceptable and calculated risklevels maybe these kind of structures should be used as a safety precaution even if other types of structures are built.
Which brings the interesting question of what is an acceptable risklevel? I don't know but I played with some numbers in my head... let's say, for arguments sake, that we have 100 habitats. What would be an acceptable risk of severe structural damage? One suggestion is that we accept to lose 1 habitat every 10 years. That would mean a 0.1% risk of loss per year. But with less habitats the risk must/should be a lot less since the consequences of a loss is greater. Survivors needing somewhere to live in already minimized quarters, perhaps loss of key personnel etc. If we started out with perhaps 3 habitats then I feel that the risks must/should be a couple of magnitudes less. Maybe that is enough that we should at least worry about moonquakes at the start of moon colonization (if we ever do that) because as I read it there are no "safe zones" with the moon being one plate and with the quakes travelling a lot farther (as you pointed out)
...But inflatable structures in a vacuum are extremely strong due to the pressure difference. For example, the ISS gets considerable structural strength from air pressure alone....
And they can be made in a way that is better at resisting moonquakes. Bend and flex instead breaking.
From NASA:
Between 1972 and 1977, the Apollo seismic network saw twenty-eight of them; a few "registered up to 5.5 on the Richter scale," says Neal. A magnitude 5 quake on Earth is energetic enough to move heavy furniture and crack plaster.
And somehow it feels like plaster cracking forces is a much bigger problem when you're on the moon...
Of course you are since you are arguing a point which has no obvious foundation in reality. Being "convinced" doesn't make for a good basis for a factual argument. You need to at least point to something suspicious for the rest of your post to have any relevance when it comes to this particular case.
There is no bias in reality against foreign companies when it comes to EC anti-trust cases. In fact, the biggest anti-trust fine was given to a German company in connection with an lift and escalator cartel. And second this investigation wasn't initiated by the EC... it was a complaint from SUN Microsystems that triggered the whole thing. Which is, as I'm sure you know, very much an US company.
Supply complete and accurate information: This is very vague and how would they even test whether the documentation is complete and accurate
They let Microsoft define who was capable to judge this issue by letting them deliver a shortlist of people that Microsoft themselves found acceptable. The EC then picked one of them.
Microsoft has a business presence in Europe via Microsoft EMEA (EMEA == Europe. Middle East, Africa) and presumably the legal communications go through them even if it is the HQ that provides them with their strategies etc. If the board of MS EMEA would refuse to pay fines then they could very well be held personably accountable... they might go many extra miles for Microsoft but to endager their own economic wellfare or even perhaps freedom is probably well over the line for what they would agree to.
Do you think the board of some company X owned by a foreign entity could walk free if they refused to pay, say, taxes and then refered to an order that came from their owner?
Another good thing if you use biomass such as manure etc to make biogas in an anaerobic digester is that you actually cut back on methane (which is a greenhouse gas, 20 times more so than CO2 according to wikipedia) emissions into the atmosphere. If the used biomass would be left to decompose by itself it would emit the methane anyway. And it's not like you are wasting the fertilizing properties of the manure since one of the byproducts is methanogenic digestate which is an excellent fertilizer.
P.S I live in a municipality (about 150 000 ppl) where buses, taxis and municipality vehicles are mostly biogas vehicles. So it scales reasonably and works well as far as I can tell.
Here in Linköping, Sweden the overhelming majority of buses, municipality vehicles and taxis all run on biogas (i.e. methane made with anaerobic digestion) and safety has never been an issue. Translated from the FAQ:
Question: Is it dangeour to fill the tank and drive with biogas?
Answer: No. The cars are tested in the same way as petrol cars. The system is close with means that leaks are avoided while filling up the tank. The gas is lighter than air and non-poisonous and has a higher ignition temperature than petrol or diesel. The risk for fires or explosion in case of a traffic accident is because of that lower than if you compare with gasoline or diesel vehicle.
The Fermi paradox says that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, at least one of them should have colonized the entire galaxy by now. But since there is no evidence of this, humankind must be the only intelligent life in the galaxy....
Or could it simply be that they are suffienctly different from us that their motivations doesn't make them contact us. Maybe they just got up from their planet because they had to survive and not because some more deeper drive to explore anything and everything. Another possibility is that they avoid being noticed by other, say lesser, species because of practical reasons ("boy are these natives starting to get restless and don't have anything to offer") or philosophical reasons ("let's not mess them up"). And if one species has colonized most of the galaxy and there is a multitude of intelligent life around then why should we be the first one they meet? In that case we are most probably a long way down the line to get contacted if they even if they should want to.
If you read the article you will see that they are just warding of any coming questions about global warming causing the subglacial lakes. There are over hundred known subglacial lakes in Antarctica with Lake Vostok being the largest one being 250 km long and 50 km wide ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok )
Umm. I type as fast as I generally speak. I *can* speak faster, but then, I *can* type faster too, if I don't have to stop and think what I'm going to say. I imagine signing would be similar. So I would think text messaging would be just as fast.
Unless the problem is that it's hard to type on the available input device. In which case, fix the input device.
I don't guess there's anything _wrong_ with developing technology to allow sign language to be transmitted over the cell phone network, but it seems like a harder problem is being worked on to avoid having to solve an easier one.
One problem is that ASL isn't signed english but very much a separate language. To deaf-born ASL users english is their second language. In another post I made this comparison: think of it like you speak english every day but when you use text based communication it would be like being forced to use japanese kanji. So it's not about picking the "hard" or "easy" problem but picking the one that is most important to the users... giving them the ability to use their own language with mobile devices.
The project itself is interesting but it might not have any major impact on the deaf society. The current trend is to use 3G (where available) phones with plain video calls. But perhaps future devices will allow them do download codecs for their specific needs.
If they know sign, can't you sign to teach them to read? I can't imagine someone being very functional in society without any written language knowledge.
First important thing to know: ASL isn't signed english - it's a language very much of its own. And for those who are born deaf it's their primary language. Most hearing people can learn a secondary language but with very different degrees of success and I guess it's the same for the deaf.
Consider the following thought experiment: imagine you growing up talking english with your parents, friends etc. Then when you start to learn text based communication you're only allowed to use, say, japanese kanji or written chinese. Most of us could probably do it if we started at a young age but I suspect a significant portion would be less than comfortable or even proficent using it.
The deaf texts a lot as well - one swedish article had a couple of deaf teenagers commenting on 3G phones and they used to send 500-1000 SMS per month. But a quick email exchange isn't the same thing as a actual live conversation (at least not for most of us)... just consider how the time gaps with texting/email makes it harder to judge the other persons mental state.
Another interesting trial project going on now in Sweden is "Translator in a pocket". It allows a deaf person to call a sign language translator who translates using the phone. Very useful for anything where you need a direct conversation with a hearing person and you couldn't plan ahead to get a translator and don't want passing notes (or what they'd use). Btw, 3G phones are very popular here in Sweden with the deaf and especially with the teenagers. I've heard numbers that something like 80% of all deaf teenagers have videophones.
Well said. Just wanted to add for those that doesn't know how enormous IBM Global Services is: in 2005 Global Services had an revenue of 47.3 billion making up about half of IBM:s revenue... compare that to the total revenue for Microsoft last year: 46 billion (according to Yahoo Finance)
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Anybody in any country would become extremely hesitant about building any Microsoft based system. How can anyone trust a company that will not comply to the laws in a major market? They would not only loose the enormous market in the EU but also suffer major blows all around the globe. And that would have repercussions even in the US since if a global company makes decisions that cut their income in half would have a shitload of stockholder lawsuits against them in the US. Taking your ball and going home means you forfeit the game... remember that.
You're just forgetting one small detail: the person decding if Microsoft complied with interoperabilty demands was picked from a shortlist that Microsoft themselves provided. In essence Microsoft to pick the own jury with no intervention and yet they failed. I belive that speaks volumes.
Ehum, small correction. I got the market capitalization value wrong. It is actually $5 million, not $10 million. Which makes it even more improbable. Sorry about the mistake.
Not just US and russian navy but also Mitsubishi. They built the experimental boat Yamato 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1. Just wanted to give you a heads up before you shoot anyone for no reason you know ;-)
Getting it the URL from a mail will be all nice and dandy if the mail comes from someone who knows the input method. But if the person who got it wants to send the link to someone else they'd need to paste it instead of typing it (I often type URLs into mails instead of pasting them). Of course you can find the urls by other methods... but you'll just be pissing people off by making it more difficult to reach you. And there's much more easier ways to do that if you want to play that game.
And I said "If you have any international contacts...". Obviously if you only use the local language you're not having much international contacts. So the last "Besides..." was pretty much a non sequitur.
If your company/organisation/you have any international contacts then you will NOT be using these international URLs. So you still need the old-style URLs or you'll need to explain how to get those umlauts etc to type in the url. On their national keyboard... not yours that has them. And if you've done any support you know how hard it's even to get someone to READ what's already on the screen...
Alas... my response was to that particular point in your post (and not the other ones) which isn't sarcastic at all when you know the facts. Just a reality.
[1]http://news.com.com/2100-1016-1010569.html
I know but this was much more than that. If I remember correctly then this was in october (many years ago) and my conscription lasted until february. This was far enough north that we had less than 8 hours of daylight during midwinter so there was a lot of dark times around. I spent more than 1/3 of the time doing 24/7 field excercises since we were the radio guys and were on loan to other companies that needed us. So being able to observe the nightsky I could do often. And I didn't see anything like it then or after.
Btw, night orienteering during an eclipse is quite difficult especially if you find yourself in a fairly normal finnish forest. Becuase there are very few distinguishing features you can follow so it's a lot of map+compass work. And when you reach the chosen waypoint then need to try to check it by finding the closest identifiable feature on the map, do several hundred meteres of detour there to check your position and then do it all over again. We sooooo enjoyed that part.
I had the opportunity to see one while being far from any light polluting city (or even close to any populated area at all). This was during a night orienteering excercise with the finnish army and we're running around in the middle of the night in some godforsaken forest trying to find the checkpoints. It was a very clear night but after a while it starts to get darker and I look up and the eclipse had started (but no one of use knew about it beforehand). Then at the full eclipse it got really pitch dark... you actually couldn't see your hand infront of you.
And I looked up... it was very beautiful. With clear country air, no light pollution and no moonlight my eyes was able to see the stars in the Milkyway and around that you never see otherwise... the sky was really full of them and gave me a whole other sense of scale about our place in the galaxy. That might be the closest thing to go to space one can experience while still staying earthbound. I can imagine standing on the back of the moon watching out would create the same sensation.
So if the weather is clear... don't stay in or near a city if you can get away. It will be worth the trip.
Fair enough. But as I implied a magnitude 5 quake is a likely a much bigger problem if you're on the moon since your life pretty much depends on the structural integrity of your habitat. Depending on acceptable and calculated risklevels maybe these kind of structures should be used as a safety precaution even if other types of structures are built.
Which brings the interesting question of what is an acceptable risklevel? I don't know but I played with some numbers in my head... let's say, for arguments sake, that we have 100 habitats. What would be an acceptable risk of severe structural damage? One suggestion is that we accept to lose 1 habitat every 10 years. That would mean a 0.1% risk of loss per year. But with less habitats the risk must/should be a lot less since the consequences of a loss is greater. Survivors needing somewhere to live in already minimized quarters, perhaps loss of key personnel etc. If we started out with perhaps 3 habitats then I feel that the risks must/should be a couple of magnitudes less. Maybe that is enough that we should at least worry about moonquakes at the start of moon colonization (if we ever do that) because as I read it there are no "safe zones" with the moon being one plate and with the quakes travelling a lot farther (as you pointed out)
Any thoughts?
From NASA: And somehow it feels like plaster cracking forces is a much bigger problem when you're on the moon...
See article: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15mar_moo
There is no bias in reality against foreign companies when it comes to EC anti-trust cases. In fact, the biggest anti-trust fine was given to a German company in connection with an lift and escalator cartel. And second this investigation wasn't initiated by the EC... it was a complaint from SUN Microsystems that triggered the whole thing. Which is, as I'm sure you know, very much an US company.
Microsoft has a business presence in Europe via Microsoft EMEA (EMEA == Europe. Middle East, Africa) and presumably the legal communications go through them even if it is the HQ that provides them with their strategies etc. If the board of MS EMEA would refuse to pay fines then they could very well be held personably accountable... they might go many extra miles for Microsoft but to endager their own economic wellfare or even perhaps freedom is probably well over the line for what they would agree to.
Do you think the board of some company X owned by a foreign entity could walk free if they refused to pay, say, taxes and then refered to an order that came from their owner?
Another good thing if you use biomass such as manure etc to make biogas in an anaerobic digester is that you actually cut back on methane (which is a greenhouse gas, 20 times more so than CO2 according to wikipedia) emissions into the atmosphere. If the used biomass would be left to decompose by itself it would emit the methane anyway. And it's not like you are wasting the fertilizing properties of the manure since one of the byproducts is methanogenic digestate which is an excellent fertilizer.
More about anaerobic digestion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_digestion
P.S I live in a municipality (about 150 000 ppl) where buses, taxis and municipality vehicles are mostly biogas vehicles. So it scales reasonably and works well as far as I can tell.
If you read the article you will see that they are just warding of any coming questions about global warming causing the subglacial lakes. There are over hundred known subglacial lakes in Antarctica with Lake Vostok being the largest one being 250 km long and 50 km wide ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Vostok )
The project itself is interesting but it might not have any major impact on the deaf society. The current trend is to use 3G (where available) phones with plain video calls. But perhaps future devices will allow them do download codecs for their specific needs.
Consider the following thought experiment: imagine you growing up talking english with your parents, friends etc. Then when you start to learn text based communication you're only allowed to use, say, japanese kanji or written chinese. Most of us could probably do it if we started at a young age but I suspect a significant portion would be less than comfortable or even proficent using it.
The deaf texts a lot as well - one swedish article had a couple of deaf teenagers commenting on 3G phones and they used to send 500-1000 SMS per month. But a quick email exchange isn't the same thing as a actual live conversation (at least not for most of us)... just consider how the time gaps with texting/email makes it harder to judge the other persons mental state.
Another interesting trial project going on now in Sweden is "Translator in a pocket". It allows a deaf person to call a sign language translator who translates using the phone. Very useful for anything where you need a direct conversation with a hearing person and you couldn't plan ahead to get a translator and don't want passing notes (or what they'd use). Btw, 3G phones are very popular here in Sweden with the deaf and especially with the teenagers. I've heard numbers that something like 80% of all deaf teenagers have videophones.
Well said. Just wanted to add for those that doesn't know how enormous IBM Global Services is: in 2005 Global Services had an revenue of 47.3 billion making up about half of IBM:s revenue... compare that to the total revenue for Microsoft last year: 46 billion (according to Yahoo Finance)
See http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/103/103329.html