RTFA. No, they're functionally extinct, as in, there are not sufficient numbers to maintain their population through breeding. So while they might not be completely gone yet, its just a matter of time and the probability of bringing them back is exceedingly low.
Just think, future paleontologists will refer to this time period as a mass extinction. Future archeologists will refer to this as the trash layer and will be able to date sediments based on all the little bits of colored plastic buried in the dirt.
Apple is making a big splash out of making computing devices that have an interface that is relatively simple to use. This article tries to claim that people want complexity in their machines, but what it said to me was that companies want complexity to justify driving the price of their items up. That's just a marketing trick, and sure you might find it on crummy garbage for sale at Wal-Mart but if you look at high end electronics equipment, its always been fairly simple looking, rather than full of gimmicky buttons and dials.
I agree that its too late now and that its not really feasible to port to linux or mac (or at least its not likely). After playing NWN2 for a few hours recently, I don't mind so much. The storyline, as far as I got, bored me. The serious lack of any kind of practical PW makes it a pretty useless game as far as I'm concerned.
As far as linux on NWN: my own personal experience was that I was one of the only people running linux that I ever met on NWN and I played on the same server for about three years. However, a large number of permanent world servers were running the linux version of the server software. I know the one I played on was, and I believe that a fair number of the other ones that are still around were running it too.
Its worse than just not getting people interested in doing science. We're having problems getting the existing ones students to stay in science. I've watched many graduate students look at the pain and misery that the first few years of being an assistant professor is and say "no thanks, that's not for me." Universities are putting such immense pressure on professors to bring home the research dollars (which are a finite resource being spread over an increasing number of people), its turning even those people who already want to be in science away from the field. So both the graduate students are unhappy because they're going for a degree that will only get them overwork and uncertainty and that's if they're successful and the assistant professors can't find anyone except mediocre students to work for them because everyone else has already gone to work in a field with a greater perceived liklihood of success.
"Their [wealthy individuals'] hold on the benefits of economic growth, which keeps on increasing, has become a key characteristic of US society. A study by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert J Gordon of Northwestern University confirms this trend, without even taking into account capital gains. Between 1966 and 2001 the median salary in the US increased by only 11% in real terms. But the 10% of workers who are the highest-paid registered a 58% increase in income, and the curve climbed ever more steeply to reach a 121% gain for the top 1%, 256% more for the 0.1% richest and 617% more for the 0.01% most prosperous (7). Sharing is a thing of the past. The winner now takes all (8)."
"This was not always the case: "Historically," wrote Clive Crook, "rising productivity has been a tide that lifted nearly all boats. For more than 20 years during the long surge of productivity growth that followed the second world war, median incomes in the United States rose as quickly as the highest incomes" (9)."
This would seem to say that while there may not be a "step backwards", the median US salary is stagnant. So perhaps all these poor people with cell phones and ipods are buying them in place of what they used to buy.
Yeah I know, I feel the same way. Maybe I just don't understand the intricacies the modern business world, but how is making a deal with your competitor so they won't sue you going to help you any? I understand that M$ is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room and fear of death by lawuits is a real concern, but I can't see that paying "protection money" to M$ is a viable solution to this. Its like negotiatoting with hostage-takers, sure you might gain something in the short-term but in the long-term you're only encouraging them to strike again. By making this deal, isn't Novell is telling M$ (and the rest of us), that there paying this "protection money" is necessary?
"Besides all that, I know we're supposed to hate Microsoft but, hey now, we're talking about the EU! Am I the only one who remembers all the red coats and that "rather unpleasant matter concerning tea" up in Boston? Sure, we're shoulder-to-shoulder against the world, but when it comes right down to it it's us-against-them in the oldest rivalry our nation knows ('cause it hails from our very beginnings!)"
I tend to think about the reasons for the rebellion rather than a gut reaction about who was fighting who. I dislike Microsoft because of their shoddy products and their using their monopoly on operating systems to force the user to use other products. You've heard abundantly of the microsoft tax here on slashdot. Considering that the U.S. government has not only failed to enforce the anti-trust laws in the U.S., but is now trying to corrupt other governments as well, isn't your patriotism misplaced?
I argue that if you really wanted to follow the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, you should be protesting the microsoft tax and dress up like a hippy and dump every copy of windows XP into the Boston Harbour, er, recycle bin (since its got all that plastic).
The problem is not that M$ is getting sued for bundling products. As others have pointed out, they have a nasty habit of making those bundled products frustratingly difficult or downright impossible to disable. Safari, or the widgets are easy to remove and the user is free to use whatever they wish as a replacement. IE, as we all know, is not. I'm not certain because I won't use windows if I can help it, but I'd be willing to bet that M$ will abuse its position as a monopoly to force its bundled products down the users throat. That's the difference.
Secondly, after the Bono releases a record and it shows up on P2P, does that make it worthy of a new story? Look, people, file sharing is going to happen, as soon as something is digitally encoded, it's chances of being pirated approach 100%. Leopard finding it's way onto a BitTorrent tracker isn't news worthy, it's not even unexpected!
The whole point of the "United States" is that we are a federation of 50 states."
BUUUZZZZT! Wrong answer, thanks for playing. See, we had this little thing called the Civil war where 600,000 people died in order to decide that in the end, the good of the entire populace outweighs the good of any individual state. Determining who the president is surely a matter where the good of the entire population trumps the good of any individual state.
I dunno, I tried submitting a story about the Apple spreadsheet rumor over on thinksecret, but I resisted the urge to call it an "M$ Office Killer". My story got rejected. The may be not be correlated though, but all this killer talk make me pretty suspicious.
Slashdot Mirror
RTFA. No, they're functionally extinct, as in, there are not sufficient numbers to maintain their population through breeding. So while they might not be completely gone yet, its just a matter of time and the probability of bringing them back is exceedingly low.
Just think, future paleontologists will refer to this time period as a mass extinction. Future archeologists will refer to this as the trash layer and will be able to date sediments based on all the little bits of colored plastic buried in the dirt.
Apple is making a big splash out of making computing devices that have an interface that is relatively simple to use. This article tries to claim that people want complexity in their machines, but what it said to me was that companies want complexity to justify driving the price of their items up. That's just a marketing trick, and sure you might find it on crummy garbage for sale at Wal-Mart but if you look at high end electronics equipment, its always been fairly simple looking, rather than full of gimmicky buttons and dials.
I agree that its too late now and that its not really feasible to port to linux or mac (or at least its not likely). After playing NWN2 for a few hours recently, I don't mind so much. The storyline, as far as I got, bored me. The serious lack of any kind of practical PW makes it a pretty useless game as far as I'm concerned.
As far as linux on NWN: my own personal experience was that I was one of the only people running linux that I ever met on NWN and I played on the same server for about three years. However, a large number of permanent world servers were running the linux version of the server software. I know the one I played on was, and I believe that a fair number of the other ones that are still around were running it too.
Its worse than just not getting people interested in doing science. We're having problems getting the existing ones students to stay in science. I've watched many graduate students look at the pain and misery that the first few years of being an assistant professor is and say "no thanks, that's not for me." Universities are putting such immense pressure on professors to bring home the research dollars (which are a finite resource being spread over an increasing number of people), its turning even those people who already want to be in science away from the field. So both the graduate students are unhappy because they're going for a degree that will only get them overwork and uncertainty and that's if they're successful and the assistant professors can't find anyone except mediocre students to work for them because everyone else has already gone to work in a field with a greater perceived liklihood of success.
"Their [wealthy individuals'] hold on the benefits of economic growth, which keeps on increasing, has become a key characteristic of US society. A study by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert J Gordon of Northwestern University confirms this trend, without even taking into account capital gains. Between 1966 and 2001 the median salary in the US increased by only 11% in real terms. But the 10% of workers who are the highest-paid registered a 58% increase in income, and the curve climbed ever more steeply to reach a 121% gain for the top 1%, 256% more for the 0.1% richest and 617% more for the 0.01% most prosperous (7). Sharing is a thing of the past. The winner now takes all (8)."
"This was not always the case: "Historically," wrote Clive Crook, "rising productivity has been a tide that lifted nearly all boats. For more than 20 years during the long surge of productivity growth that followed the second world war, median incomes in the United States rose as quickly as the highest incomes" (9)."
This would seem to say that while there may not be a "step backwards", the median US salary is stagnant. So perhaps all these poor people with cell phones and ipods are buying them in place of what they used to buy.
"Besides all that, I know we're supposed to hate Microsoft but, hey now, we're talking about the EU! Am I the only one who remembers all the red coats and that "rather unpleasant matter concerning tea" up in Boston? Sure, we're shoulder-to-shoulder against the world, but when it comes right down to it it's us-against-them in the oldest rivalry our nation knows ('cause it hails from our very beginnings!)"
I tend to think about the reasons for the rebellion rather than a gut reaction about who was fighting who. I dislike Microsoft because of their shoddy products and their using their monopoly on operating systems to force the user to use other products. You've heard abundantly of the microsoft tax here on slashdot. Considering that the U.S. government has not only failed to enforce the anti-trust laws in the U.S., but is now trying to corrupt other governments as well, isn't your patriotism misplaced?
I argue that if you really wanted to follow the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, you should be protesting the microsoft tax and dress up like a hippy and dump every copy of windows XP into the Boston Harbour, er, recycle bin (since its got all that plastic).
The problem is not that M$ is getting sued for bundling products. As others have pointed out, they have a nasty habit of making those bundled products frustratingly difficult or downright impossible to disable. Safari, or the widgets are easy to remove and the user is free to use whatever they wish as a replacement. IE, as we all know, is not. I'm not certain because I won't use windows if I can help it, but I'd be willing to bet that M$ will abuse its position as a monopoly to force its bundled products down the users throat. That's the difference.
Bah! I think all those word processors you list are bloat-ware. A truly elegant word processors is Ed, man! !man ed
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html
Everyone knows Ed is the true father of all word processors.
I dunno, I tried submitting a story about the Apple spreadsheet rumor over on thinksecret, but I resisted the urge to call it an "M$ Office Killer". My story got rejected. The may be not be correlated though, but all this killer talk make me pretty suspicious.