Cool. Commercial desktop applications or playing Diablo? What should we choose from your argumentation? If you talk about commercial applications then you're wrong. Yes you don't have them at a click distance. But on a good Linux setup you've always to get your hands dirty.
If you consider Diablo then you are correct. But then don't mess a commercial game with office apps or design tools. You are not paid for playing Diablo but for doing the real job.
On what concerns any possible hassles companies, like Corel, face, then it is natural. The business model on Linux is not the same as Windows. You build systems fit for tasks and not tasks fit for systems as M$ does. If you don't understand this then try to dig on the last 15 years of computer development and tell me where 80% of apps went into. How many office systems you may get in the market? How many design tools are offered? What is the range multimedia tools today, compared to 5-6 years ago? How many compilers and development tools are offered to you? How far can you change system settings, desktop environments? And how flexible are all these things for you to modify, integrate, improve, implement and interact in a software/hardware system?
Am I talking BS? Cool. Then why I can't choose between command line typping and mouse clicks anymore?
Your considerations on Linux not being ready for desktop show also that you are not ready for Linux at all. No one in the developer community says you that Linux should be a Windows-II. Yes it is a hassle to build an office worksation. But that also depends on what you really wanna build. If you want a 20 minutes installation on a "lemedofoyou" style to do typesetting then choose Windows. If your concerns are far from this and concern document manipulation, automatising services like fax, file transfer/archiving. backup, encryption, small server tasks and secured Internet then you should choose Linux or even BSD (frankly here Linux is not unique).
The only good point you make is lack of popular games. Yes that is still a thing that Linux lacks of. But it is also a ++++ for offices as it concentrates people in more concrete tasks. At least presently:).
On the rest you are only doing flamebait.
Note: I have people working on desktop Linuxes. Even financial directors. And they don't want to see Windows even in rosy clothes. All that is needed on Windows, they can get on Linux. And besides they don't dig on code nor are developers but their demands are much more complex since Linux came to their desktops.
There is a pyramid nearby being built. A Egyptian-like pyramid. Strictly geometric and with a very misterious air of techno-mystics.
Most of the pyramid is empty.
The walls are made of glass.
Most of the foundations are steel and concrete.
There are no sphynxes, bulls or hulls. Only geometry levered to techno-exageration.
Light, light, light, light everywhere. Tons of electricity. The pyramid itself rises little more than 20 meters. But the light show can be seen from quite far away.
These are our pyramids.
We are more primitive than aliens.
Both of us are technoholic.
So why would aliens care to such bulky things like Gize pyramids?
Yes you could be partially right on saying that pyramids in Egypt are a sad copy of something else. But note that the oldest pyrmaids do resemble something: Zigguraths of Sumer/Chaldea in modern Iraq. What could be more truly is that Gize pyramids are zigguraths leveled to the absurd of geometric/technological perfection.
Well I think that this looks much like the Mars Face you know? You have tons of alignements and try to guess what the Hell they mean... Funny? No. Real. Even not knowing Hoagland's inventions/visions I and a few people discovered that there are real alignements in Cydonia. All we knew before this was that some american dodos talked about some "schemes" in Martian Cydonia.
And yes they are aligned. The City, the Fortress, the D&M pyramid, the "Fussy Face" and a bunch of other landscape formations. And they do make some very curious and nearly ordered patterns. So one could talk about a "scheme".
However...
First these orders are not absolutely perfect. they have errors ranging 100-200 meters. Even considering all possible landscape movements, possible unexperience of the "supposed authors", such discrepancies are too big. That would mean not aliens flying in saucers but someone building a gigantic Stonehendge at most.
Second. I never saw Hoagland's theory in detail. However the 2-3 diagrams I saw show that ours and Hoaglands are COMPLETELY different. Yes we use the same formations and the same primitive relations. However one ends talking about Hyperphysics and other talking about organisms and Stone Ages. That's what we end in. Among several other things.
So if the Gize pyramids have some sort of alignment and these alignments fit on something this is not even half way to conclude the Truth. Maybe the contrary. In Mars we have only alignments with a weird discrepancy. NOTHING ELSE.
In Egypt we have a mess of alignments, joined with tons of fairy tales, a bit of History, and a bit of Maths. Don't wonder if suddenly that big Pyramid turns into a bizarre monument to fertility or something more weird. Or some equivalent to our Arms Race (ex. "Hey Babilon we have a much better ziggurat"). And don't search for the aliens there. If they have been here, then they have all passed away ~3-5 thousand years before anyone thought about building this stuff.
Ok, ok, ok. Stop a moment and think. Netscape 6.0. It was supposed that Netscape would make a commercial version of its browser. Right? Right. Now they are the authors/proprietors/owners of this thing. On the net, to have a commercial value you should advertise. And Netscape's value, today is on all these AOL & Netscape Netcenter stuff. The browser is, in any case given for free. So how od you think Netscape will atract customers? - "Oh, hey! We are such a good guys, get our browser for free... and by the way, don't forget we do something else..." That is the way they do money today.
So it would be quite natural to see Netscape providing adds on its browser. Maybe they are too much for such a product, But that's the only way for them to keep afloat. Anyway they give the right to choose. They also gave ground to Mozilla's project, and this one is much less ad-loaded than Netscape.
Why it looks so ad-ictive in relation to IE? Well IE is a system embedded into a OS called Windows, upon which Microsoft gets some envious fees. Even from people who don't use it. And, besides, Microsoft has a much larger market in control. So it does not need to rape your brains with a menu carrying 40 ads right-tight into your eyes and calling you to "buy... Buy... BUY!!!!" having its logo in every corner. Microsoft can be more stealth and more promiscuous then Netscape/AOL because its interest is even on the stock value of many companies and not on the direct sell of the product.
Any way, if this bores you, which is understandable, don't forget that there is Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, Links, and a few others that have nothing to do with selling you snake oil. However most of the breath only on the *NIX. That is the cost of freedom.
Blocks porno? Great! Make it into law. Every library should have it by the end of 2001...
It does not block everything? Ok give 10 million bucks to perfect the soft. It is not a problem if a full dressed hot blonde is blocked while it will block even a half dressed Pamela Anderson.
It blocks Art? Well it may be a problem somehow. But how many of that porno crap runs under the names of those Rembrandts, Bottlecellies and alikes? There was even that latino Michael Angelo who painted God almost nude... So that is not an issue altogether.
It blocks your family pictures? My rosy little John IV in his 6 months. Well that's bad. It should be corrected. Anyway initial funding will be only 6 million. We shouldn't fat the guys...
"Oh damn - and it blocks my secretary pics" - "Damn, I'll take the funding by 5 million to avoid risks..."
IT BLOCKS THE PRESIDENT?????? Ooooooohhhh my!!!!..
What to do? Well anyway the thing is promising... 2 million.
Bill Gates is blocked????? They couldn't block anyone else??? Even our 1 million funding wouldn't cover court expenses!!! The thing is dead meat. Well anyway we shouldn't leave this alone. Let's give a US$10.000 dollar check and an award from The Fund for Clean Moral & Family Values. It will be a good incentive for future researches. Maybe, in the end, someone stops blocking my rosy nose from appearing in campaign sites...
Flex time is a good thing if you can make a good division between the freedom of your employees and the demands for certain time events. Here we have a full staff in flex time. Each day, one of us stays from 9 to 18:00 to serve calls and make routine tasks. Our flex time means you can go in and out 24 hours a day. No questions are given, no one argues if you have 2-3 works more. The only conditions are:
-that time endlines should be accomplished (most of our work is project-based).
-that you should be available wherever you are (even if you travel to Antarctida)
Our work as an ISP turns over a serious level of automatisation so routine work is minimal. However our project-based nature is not completely sweet and rosy. Some remain here sometimes for days. It is usual to see 1-2 of our workers having a deep snap in th sofa during the day. At night there are always 2-3 hackers doing what cannot be done at daytime. Somehow this sometimes looks like working on Mir. However everyone likes this regime. Only ex-wifes hated it...
"The other benefit here is that with physical smart cards, private key theft is nearly impossible. (The only exploits I know of involve physical access, and LOTS of equipment beyond the reach of the average skript kiddie)"
Again the ingenuosity comes up... LOTS of equipment? And what skript kiddies are? They are nothing more than people using LOTS of equipment and software. Script cracking was born from the huge building of 25 years of computer cracking/hacking, when all this soft and equipment became able to be automatized. In fact a skript kiddie knows nearly nothing about the inners of the system or software it exploits. He uses the huge knowledge database hackers/crackers left and the huge level of automatisation script languages give. Nothing more.
One may think that dealing with hardware will be harder for kiddies. Are you sure of this? Are you really sure? Today some of the electronic infrastructure for smart cards systems costs only a few tens or hundreds of bucks. And already today people break, crack, rip codes from magnetic strips, chips and other stuff. Besides there are serious problems on doing security. Sometimes people try too much on doing authentication and leave other things completely untouched. Once a physical key was broken in less than 15 seconds just because the developers decided that a "if key exists then do_everything_else" would suffice.
20 years ago many people would give their hand on defending the capacity of 56 bit DES. Where we are today? Magnetic stripe cards are not a problem for ATM thieves. Even if they are 10 years old are able today to get into. Like the Kalashnikov AK-47, modern computerings gave a universal weapon for everyone. The only problem is time and a few bucks in the needed moment...
Your statements are in principle wrong. And terribly wrong. Sincerly, you are trying to put moral on things that gives a Hell on what humans may think about it.
In part I am a technocrat so you may blame me for this. But also I know the value and disvalue of many scientific and technological advances from a human point of view. Science and Technology are unhuman in their inner nature. They do not depend on you, me, the government or corporations. Whatever humans do to find a new law or create a new invention does not give these things a human character. It is quite unfortunate that Earth is probably too isolated from the rest of the Galaxy. i believe that if we had two/three neighbors we would have a more clear picture on how a wheel, a car or a computer would look too external to a human mind.
You talk about responsability on technology. What makes you think that technology should be responsable. It is humans who should be responsable. They either make nuclear stations that blast off, or nukes that bomb cities. The technology is mostly the same for both things and the human irresponsability goes nearly the same level for both cases. A criminal case of playing with matches to see how things burn. But note that the problem is not on the matches. The problem is on how you use them. Pease weigh every point of nuclear technology and tell me. Should we forbid it? Yes? Cool, then we should have forbidden dynamite, cannon powder, and even fire. Why our ancesters didn't see it? One makes a fire to roast a chicken and another to cook some niggers/white necks/red skins/gooks/reds/russkies/gringos/yankees/fritz/.. . However the predatory nature is not on the fire but rigt inside of that piece of white material inside of our skulls. So much for the danger of technology. Technology is technology. The human values are what is in question. Do not humanize technology but yourself. Frankenstein was not wrong by reviving a human. No, he was wrong by trying to do it at all price, reverting all his human values, commiting crimes and more hideous doings to achieve his goals. If you read carefully the novel then you would note exactly this. His creation did not blame him for his revival. He blamed him for the moral fall and the fact that once the goal achieved he refused to accept it. Because it would mean that he accepted all the monstruosity of what he had done to achieve his goal. And besides. Once the monster created, he tries to kill him. A double crime after all.
So Frankenstein is probably not the best example you have taken. There it is more a blame for human nature and moral rather than a blame for technology. Maybe it would be better to choose Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hide as an example. There technology is more to blame for freeing the monster.
Meanwhile you talk about the future of technology and boards, public discussion, commitees. Do you know what they mean? Inquisition, the mobs and nothing less than the corporations. This last one in a much broader sense than the "typical modern" corporation. Do you remember Galilei, Bruno? Do you remember what happened to the first car? Do you remember about the masons of Middle Age and their construction skills?
The Judaic/Christian/Muslim tradition states that God said: "You shan't kill...". Well that's the point. You may have your bare hand, a stick, a pistol or a nuke. But, "you shan't kill". Correct, it is hard in our marvellous world to follow such a rule. I know how damn hard it is, specially when one tries to kill you. But the problem is on the human values you hold and how you apply them. I don't go trough the streets and shot everyone I see. But I can't stand out of using violent measures to avoid an uncontrollable hooligan trying to cut my neck.
This same point goes to the human genome. If we care and do care for our future then we should forbid the uncontrollable use of genetics in humans. But if we care to solve serious problems of health like hereditary defects then we should modify genes. Other way does not exist.
And anyway. Imagine that humans have some %%%% of artificiality. Anyway they do have. Even from the selectivism of our nature. So what makes modifying genes a big difference?
Why they took the novel? Because they knew you were reading it. They don't read but nothing is good like hassle you for a while... After questioning you would come home, have a cold shower, kick your comp and get THAT novel...:)
Why they took your clothes. All your clothes? Well they also surely know that you are not a MTV fan. So you barely risk to go on the streets advertising the "GET NAKED!.." Beavies & ButtHeads of generation Next. Much simpler than saying "...don't leave the town."
The coofee maker. Man when you ever seen a working coofee maker on a police station? Yeah they will say it's evidence. "Are you sure you locked the door when you left? You were handcuffed..." Or to analyse your fingerprints, your friends fingerprints, your girlfriend's fingerprints, your parents fingerprint's, your neighbor's fingerprints. Anyway most fingerprints will be of those who came to get you... As, after some long hours, anyone wants a good cup of coofee.:)
Interesting satire. Very well done. I believe that BG would be very near to this position if he would use Linux...
The document presents one flaw. The author described quite well the position of the opposition, but only in relation to desktops. Sad that he didn't try the server side. There things are much hotter.
However there is one thing that scares me. As usual, in Slashdot, many voices started to arise against the KDE vs. Gnome, kernel diversity and other things. People that scares me. It looks like a "narkom"(people's comissar) agitation against the "damn, fat, piggy capitalists and their hordes of accolites".
Ok we have an enemy: Microsoft. But what are we doing here? Fight against Microsoft or building a system? If we go fight against Microsoft than it would be better to join the US states and push courts to split Microsoft. Make civil action and pirating software. It is much cheaper than writing billions of lines of code "for nothing". Why we should worry about them when we are "to get Microsoft"? Because, then, we either turn into another Microsoft or drop all this in the trashcan and join the dismembered Microsoft. Because, then, they may already give diversity to developers...
Today, Linux is what it is because it offers one thing: diversity. So much for the boo-boo shouters who cried that we are a bunch of communists. We are the market now. We can offer several destop systems. We can offer kernels with a variety of features for several tasks. Most of our software is able to run in several platforms, even on Windows. Now, even several Windows apps are able to run on Linux. And we reached what Microsoft was never able to do: we are multiplatform.
We were able to achieve this because we are the market. If we went on a "smash Microsoft" mood we would never be able to achieve the 28% of server market. We would never be able to be a desktop alternative. We would be another group trying to overcome Microsoft, by presenting a "great OS but a dumb user interface with very few cool apps". We win Microsoft now because we are a great OS, we have interfaces from the most to the least dumb and we have tons of applications, from lemons to works of art.
Yes, many applications double the objectives and tasks between themselves. However, it is exactly this that keep us moving. Close concurrence among developers. The most important is not to do the best program but the program that fits best to customers/users interests. Now pick me up a group of users and please tell me: does everyone has the same tastes, interests, necessities, requirements? Of course not! So why we should do the "ONE DESKTOP" interface?
For most end users, KDE sounds as a "ONE DESKTOP" interface. Or Gnome. But here we are already falling in the market tricks. People do not only choose objectively but also very subjectively. For the large majority, it would be good to have the "ONE". But not for all. And don't think they make 5% of the population. On my analysis I noted that WindowMaker or AfterStep reach the 80% among experts/developers. And again the subjectivity. Some developers argue that they do this to "push the machine" for other tasks like development. But why then people don't use the most simple wm's like blackbox? Because they like the art of WindowMaker... Which eats a good piece of performance...
Frankly in a study among 4500 people I was admired to note the following: >60% go KDE, >25% go WindowMaker (lot of developers here). Frankly I don't remember exactly the remaining numbers but Gnome/Enlightenment and Blackbox divided third place and 4th was AfterStep with a significative number of people. Last went ICEwm, the most Windows-like system. But I think this was due to its very early stage of development then.
Do not consider this as "who's best". Try to see on the point of diversity. Of freedom of choice. We have it here... And that is what people wants. Or else we would never make the shelves or have a golden place at major ftp sites. We would be one more OS among many (and how many they are...).
Does this hinder development? Yes it hinders. There are less developers in each project. But does this hinders development IN GENERAL? Absolutely not. Because there are many more developers working rather than if we were doing the "ONE DESKTOP". We go slow. But sure. Much like US in the first half of the century.
America then was not much better than some third world countries. In one point I would seriously risk to compare US then with Russia today. Sincerly, the only thing that made America big, then, was freedom. It was the most free country in the world. And it possessed a free rising market. Product quality was not a thing that americans could be proud of. But they could offer a lot more than anyone else and to anyone else. To europeans, asians, africans. Cheap and good enough to not be dropped directly to the trashcan.
This may sound like thunder to some american patriots. But remember. You had the Depression. Yes it was a Hell of a time. But Americans were not marching on 5th Avenue in front of their "Fuhrers". Americans did not pass the horrors of the "Working Camps" and the Holocaust or the Purge. America passed over this. It passed over the II World War. and it overcome Soviet Union in the Moon Race.
Why I am being so globally politized here? Because there is a parallel here with us, the Linux community. Today the quality of our soft may not be the best in relation to Microsoft. In general. Yes, we overcome Redmond on stability, performance, on Web servers and some other things. But, the general picture still shows that we have a long way to go. Specially on what concerns desktops. Here, today, we are a poor bunch of people who have only two big things: freedom & market. Can we live with them? We should. Because we may give more people a choice. A real one. We may overcome crisis more steadly. And we may overcome Microsoft...
To explain this let me return to global politics and its parallelisms. Remember the race to the Moon? What was America at the beginning? Nothing. Zero. Soviet Union had a program that was ten years more advanced than the US. They had already ballistic missiles in full work. They sent the first animals to Space, they sent the first people around Earth. By that time, America showed a sad picture of rockets banging, falling, a satellite that made miserable travel around earth and an astronaut that nearly got cooked on entry. However, this country, in less than 8 years, managed to do what Soviets were unable to do - put a man in the Moon. Not only one - several. How?
This was achieved because there was a market all around. America managed to reach its objective because tens of projects were presented, tested and scrapped. Because a whole industry ran against each other for the one only objective. The whole internal market boiled on the race. And they even managed to pick its allies on the madness... So, in the end a whole world was running to the Moon like people to the departing bus.
Americans at start presented a miserable perspective. But their diversity of choices managed to do what Soviets couldn't do. And here, the factor of failure was exactly the one that some people claim today among the Linux community: "the ONE..."
Soviet Union made a huge mistake - it sticked straight into only one project. They also had several initial projects and teams. However, the tradition of that time was to push everyone and everything into one project. Yes, this is typical of communist ideologies, but note that then Soviet Union had SEVERAL nearly independent organisations working on Space conquer. Unfortunately, it was decided that only one such organisation should care about sending a cosmonaut to the Moon - Kurchatov's team. Mr. Kurchatov was the one who sent the Sputnik and Gagarin to Space. However his Moon rocket was not the best of all projects he made. One point that he was surely wrong was, that it would be too hard to reach the Moon directly from Earth. So it would be better to build an "intermediary" Space station at first. Only later, he started to push for the "direct travel". However the rocket exploded on tests, killing more than 100 workers and specialists. A little later Kurchatov died, leaving his project completely orphan. The "everyone-on-one" push to the Moon ended as a fiasco.
By that time there were other people who had a much clearer view on how to reach the Moon. These people were later responsible for such things like Mir, Energya, Buran and Zvezda. Their more practical projects were refused because they were, by then, too ambitious and the the top bosses feared that resources would dissipate. So they choose one more conservative but more "unified" project. By doing only one, Soviet Union killed all chances of reaching the Moon if something went wrong. And that happened...
Well, let us return to our penguin. I am sorry for this long story about the Moon and global politics but I hope people see what I try to remark. It is variety and market that make Linux alive. I would even remark more specifically - internal market. It may sound strange to compare Space Race to our internal wars. But note, if you look well, the nature of both situations had exactly the same nature - one authoritarian infrastructure full of talented people - one democratic/liberallistic infrastructure based on no less talented but less resource centered infrastructure.
We are a democracy. An capitalist/anarchist/bolshevik/neo-liberal democracy. Here we have choices. Doing only KDE or Gnome for all is killing this freedom and variety. It is sending a good part of users into the marginal avenue. That one that created some of the main reasons why Microsoft started to loose developers to Linux in the middle of the 90's. They presented user/developers with one interface, one SDK, one policy and one very bad price. And developers, mainly, ran away from Redmond's Dream into a OS that barely could hold a web server up. Note that they ran to Linux when BSD was a much more viable choice. However, the restrictive nature of BSD made many people to pass nearby the red devil and leave it alone. At that time, Linux was even less restrictive in license terms. However, until now we have a kernel with a few dissonances. Because the market is working. People want diversity but also impose some limits. However these limits are clearly not "one kernel, one OS, one desktop".And it is not Stallman's dream of GNU/Linux but a full world of Free Source, Open Source, Half-opened and closed one. And Free/Open Source win here not because they are correct but because they concur. Concur with other software variants and concur even inside their conceptions. That what give the chance for software to be free. Stallman's dream of free software is a dangerous dream of the "brilliant future" of communism. Because if we get only free software than this stuff will not be free at all. It will be forcing people into things that they may not wish to do. GPL can only live on a free world. But not present that free world to everyone.
This may sound as if GPL is some sort of license "anti-licenses". I do not consider such. I consider that GPL is the nature that software should be presented in a form that allows progress to keep on. Because software demands integration, interconnection. Software is built on Software. To attain the maximum of communication and development we have to use GPL. However it is clear that we can use other software apart from GPL. Nothing forbids us of such if we abide to each license of each software developer. What developers should care of is first to beware of their personal interests that may hinder the community in general. Producing incompatible licenses, trying to overcome others or making "their own license" may result in a juridical jungle and clan wars that no one wishes to participate. Here it is the moral duty of the developer to eveluate his interests and the intrests of the community. And to consider not only the simplistic road of "direct reward" but other ways that may be much more rewardable than the first one. Personally I have noted that using GPL software, I managed to keep on my profession and get a much more reliable income than on Windows times. However I don't sell any software, even the one I develope. I use the strategy of "perfectioning" software to specific and high-grade tasks. Also I charge for support. But not the support of installing a Linux from a CD-ROM. That one goes frequently free. I get paid for computer supervision. security tasks, automatisation and several other things. And meanwhile GPL allows me to be independent of my bosses. If I do a new program, script of create a new form of software implementation, I can use my ideas where I think they fit best. And no one has the right to say "I paid you for making it, you..." because I term from start that any software not carrying private data is not private property of anyone specifically. This alows me to get working on three jobs at the same time and have 5-6 times the income I got a few years ago.
This may sound good for the private consultant and bad for the enterprise. However I believe that companies should revise many of its strategies, diversify the access to their software and try to offer its clients a more flexible and dynamic form of service. If NVidia would sell its cards with drivers under X license, they would be the monopolist of Linux market.
Anyway time to end. Sincerly I hink people should revise their ideas on "one, one and only one". Let's hope diversity wins. And laet's hope that Microsoft finally gets the idea that this is not a "script kiddies haloween" and that it is time to come into the bunch. Even in full closed source clothes. But then they will have the chance to prove they are the best...
Sorry but the post is a bit ingenuous. Soviet Union started the permanent expeditions with Salyut 7. And Mir was only unnocupied for some monthes when people started procedures to down it. For nearly ten years there were humans always on space. One cosmonaut took even one year on Mir. It was the first timetraveller on Earth... It left when Soviet existed and returned into Russia:)
Yes probably it is a point to say that ISS may be "more permanent" than Salyut & Mir. Maybe this time humans will never ever leave Cosmos. But it is a point of ingenuity to consider that the "big construction kit" will be a guarantee of permanence.
People say it will live for 10-15 years. I will risk 25-40 from what we saw with Mir and all these MirII, station Freedom & Co. In the next 10 years politicians will try to forget about Cosmos and get into a more mundane world. So this will well push he living span of the station.
However there is a problem. Time will go and politicians may forget Cosmos AT ALL. Like Moon exploration... Where are the Moon stations, expeditions to Mars? So it is probable that this permanent presence may last only 50 years. By then we will be all on Earth, eat BigMacs, drink Coke, speak bad english (worser than mine:) ), see Internet Holywood 24h/d from Redmond... and think if some jerks did really landed on the Moon in 1969. Proabably it was another Holywood blockbuster.
A "real 3D world" or better saying 3D systems that give you the feeling of a real 3D world. Really this is the result of a conversation i had with one friend about 3D glasses & Co.
As far as I know there is always a lag between screen frequencies & fps. On glasses systems this is quite visible. To get a 50 fps you need a 100Hz monitor as minimum. To get higher rates you need a monitor going nearly 2 times the fps rate. So it is quite logical to try to achieve 200fps as they also have to be divided in glasses systems. However then, monitors should reach a cool 200-300Hz to give a chance for your eyes.
I have never see a glasses system but some friends around here tell that presently that is the same as burning you eyes for good. So let's wait the 200's
What this guy writes is a mixture of secondary school knowledge and flamebait. Yes, he goes in some detail on how our eyes work but he strongly lacks some deeper scientific knowledge. A clear example:
"The visual cortex is where all the information is put together. Humans only have so much room in the brain, so there are some tricks it uses to give us the most information possible in the smallest, most efficient structure. One of these tricks is the property of motion blur."
Some tricks that produce motion blur... However he does not explain any details of what these tricks are. How human brain compresses information is still a question but this guy even does not touch this slightly. Only "tricks of the trade". Sorry people but he is very superficial. I am no expert on these things but I saw books and I know people who would explain more clearly for the layman these things. Once, Scientifc American published an excellent book exclusively dedicated to this problem. I think it would be worth to search for it.
On what concerns 72fps. Is he nuts? I can discern a 60-70 fps picture clearly from a 110 fps! On such level it is still well seen how things go hickcups.
And on what concerns monitors. For me and several people 60Hz is deadly painful! Seat on a 60Hz monitor for the whole day and you surely get some serious headaches (specially on the temporas and inside the eyes). It looks like someone furiously turns lights on and off. On a 72-75Hz it is still visible the flickering. The minimal frequency for such aliens/mutants like me is no less than 85 Hz. And sincerly one gets tired working on such monitor. My good level is 100Hz. Yes there I can work without feeling any stress. Btw. When working, I pass more than 12 hours day in front of the bright head of the computer. In fact, my work turns frequently to 36 hour shifts (like today, I'm in the 17th hour). So guys, maybe I mutated too strongly... >:E
Well, I don't know where this guy took his theories but my everyday work tells me he's nuts. So much for the theory.
If people have a general knowledge about computer hardware and are not paranoid about touching it then, use HDDs.
That is a very popular way of data transfer between experts and experienced users. In fact, for the last two-three years is the only form of data transfer I see being used apart from networks. Floppy drives are only used on booting computers and even this is dissapearing. Some computers are already living without their floppy devices attached to them.
Note that this practice is not only used by the geeks here. Even people like accountants and financial directors rip the cables of their HDDs without pitty and carry their "hard floppies" in their suitcases. The most funny was to see an woman accountant carrying a HDD in her VERY SMALL pursecase. It looked as if the HDD suddenly grew three times when she took it out.
A 3Gb HDD costs here almost 30 dollars. A package of floppies nears 10 dollars. Why I would pay for 43Mb if I can get 3Gb for that price?
Well people, you may be right that AOL has the right to do its browsers with its content. Quite correct it's THEIR browser and they have the right to present the product to you the way they think you like it.
However could you tell me one little thing? Do they separate this product from their other services? Do they specifically tell you that you may use it or IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera or even lynx? If they don't do this then they are subverting you. They are bounding you into the use of AOL only products. Worse, if they force the installation of their browser embedded into other services then they are clearly subverting your right for choice. Specially if you don't know too much about the market. It would be the same as if Ford possessed a oil company and made its cars sch a way that you could only fill in their gas stations ("Oh you can't use other gas station? Unfortunately we couldn't agree the common standards. And why to worry? We are everywhere").
If this happens, it's a problem. Because you're facing a monopoly. However, if AOL informs that its products & services are separate entities. If it informs you about the existence of a market (no matter that it will surely say that its browser is better). IF it does not impose any critical restrictions or incompatibilities with other products. If you can get rid of AOL products without hampering other services the company gives. Well, if these IFs are observed then it's their right to do the browser the way they want. You have a right to choose. And, in this case, it's no matter to anyone if this company is fatter then King Kong. Otherwise, wait for DJ knocking their doors in a near future. When AOL will try to subvert the biggest US corporation...:)
More time? Because the Constitution of each of the United States took centuries? In a world where seconds, not years count? And what is this story about consitutions being adopted during centuries? As far as I know it was a Conevention of a few guys in shorts, long hair, speaking bad english, smelling tobacco and being some of the highest minds of their century that wrote the Constitution of The United States of America. And I don't think they were sitting centuries there to write it.
Now some gentleman in bright cleaned suits and having some bad popularity around about their capacities, should stay for longer than the rules allow them?
Let me tell you one thing. Here some people are trying to move the President of Tatarstan, Mr. Mintimer Shaimyev into third term. The Constitution of the Russian Federation strictly forbids Governors or Presidents to be more than two terms. Now Mr. Shaimyev is a national symbol here. This man did more than any other regional leader to hold up the Federation together. In his Republic he did so much that, if elections would be today, 70% of people would still elect him as President. Now there is the Law of the Federation. Some local politicians tried to overcome it and even found a legal issue that effectively gives a chance for Mr. Shaimyev to be a legtimate Presidetn for four more years.
Now what we have? A national symbol, a Constitution stating two terms no more, and several Federative acts that give the chance to be elected more than two terms. These acts are mostly due to the "interim" situation that happened after the fall of Soviet Union. Nearly all of them will loose any sense after 2010. Anyway they still work. So what Mr. Shaimyev does?
He refuses to be elected for third time...
Not that he would not like to be elected. But suddenly someone reminded that these are not only elections and state jobs. It's the validity of the Constitution itself. There it is written black on white "no more than two terms". By overpassing it, even legally, it would weaken the meaning of the Fundamental Law in front of the whole Federation. What today seems correct, tomorrow may turn to tragedy. Suddenly people will start to pass over the Constitution. Laws may start to be issued on the corner of the constitution. Governors will start to stay "for life", because one act, a law, federative agreement or his intuition says that Constitution does not fully cover all cricumstances. Emergency may be called by the President (I don't mean Mr. Putin but the job) without consulting anyone because "there is an emergency and it is too hard to follow the Constitution".
We have here a similar situation. Yes there is some "interim situation". However the White Paper states, black on white, "no more than two years". So? Even if all these guys are good people. and suddenly they are real great people. And one of the elected members starts overpassing the White Paper and issuing rules above his powers. Why he would stop in front of these "great people". In front of the White Paper, they are ilegitimate...
There has been too much hype centering around the.com. Probably companies should be more accurate on choosing the domain name they are in..org could be much more succesfull.
As an example. How many hits does get this company compared to this one organisation?
This attempt to turn into a Member at Life is extrmely dangerous. It is not only a problem of elections. Mostly it is a problem on the validity of the White Paper and consequently on the validity of the whole organisation. It seems that some people got too acustomized to the heat of their seats at ICANN and do not want to go in the cold. Soon they may think that ICANN is not doing enough so it should rule that and that. A little more and they will start saying "L'Internet c'est moi"...
There is a interesting point mentioned on the article:
"Back in the days of the White Paper, the document which still provides the foundation for whatever legitimacy ICANN may retain, the United States government assured all that the initial, secretly appointed members of the ICANN Board were only temporary."
Well if these guys get too nuts, then we should direct protests not to them but to the Government of the United States of America. He is the guarantor that the White Paper will not be violated. No matter how feelings, thinkings and relations with this organism, I think that they will not sponsor such clear violation of the principles that rule its establishment. With propper argumentation, they will surely act and tell these guys that is time to leave.
PS: For those who don't know History and/or French. "L'Etat c'est moi" - "The State is me". It was said by King Louis XIV of France during his rise to power. This King was the most famous monarch and despot of the times of Absolutism. During his reign, he managed to concentrate all state control on himself.
Last year in a highly popular russian e-journal this poll was made:
Wanna live in Russia : 39%
Wanna live in the West : 21%
Well people hold your breath. The webmasters thought that two questions was not enough. So they thought, thougth, thought, thought and decided that a "funny question" would be enough:
"Ain't there another globe?"
And what you think? How many people choose this question? 39%!!!!!
The poll was used by nearly 50 000 users. It was a scandal that even several TV stations mentioned it in their news. There were even experts who commented it! A bomb. Nearly half-Russia is ready to get the Hell outta here at first chance. West? Noooooo. Mars, The Moon, Jupiter, Milky Way, Andromeda...
First stop a little bit on your words. Caucasian for me is the same as nigger for you. I am no Caucasian fuss, ok? If you have a problem with your race it's your problem not mine. Here we cut these problems short. Here, you either keep being a nigger and die straight on the frost, or you hold up and become a russian. And it's no matter what skin you are. Alexander Pushkin's grand-grand-father was from Africa (yeah a blackman like you). And he was not a slave in chains but a general of the Russian Army who fought against the Swedes. And Mr. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was the founder of modern Russian language if you wanna know.
If you are not going to learn anything with this damn Mars is also your problem. I am interested in Mars and there are lot of people also interested on it. Including blacks. And what concerns they will "write some nice reports". Who reads them? We read the original info...
NDS has been Novell's bulldog since the middle of the 90's. As far as I know, professionals with a large workstage will choose NDS rather than ADS. In any case. NDS is much more advanced to be just put apart for whatever reasons. The risk of developing a large network based on ADS core technologies is too big to play. ADS is not only years behind as it is a technological generation behind the first versions of NDS.
The problem remains with newbies. They may risk to enter into a Win00 only world. However they will surely enter the pitfalls of ADS. There I can see two solutions. Either they decide mixed technologies where such solutions like NIS+ and NDS are introduced. Or they blow up their networks. Turn them into the "Future of Developers" picture. Yeah it may be not so bad for users. They will jump from tree to tree and eat bananas...
PS: "Future of Developers" was a popular picture back in 95 that showed up after the launch of Win95. Its popularity was due to the fact that Microsoft took a few steps towards its software base that were a full blow against the independent development. Small developers suffered the most and many gave up programming. The picture of Middle Age skulls, lined in a shelf, turned into a obligatory desktop item then.
It's a pitty that you, as a person of African origin does not know very well the fate of your "historical motherland". As you would probably be a lot more interested in such things. Even if we sent penguins as astronauts.
Let me note you a things: Africa possesses one of the largest meteoritic crater systems on dry land in the world. A system that covers nearly 1200km of Sahara. The biggest craters has a diameter of 600km. If that thing hit today then Africa, and a good piece of the World would turn into Microwave Shaker in a matter of seconds. Even you, in America, would not survive.
The craters have a few millions of years. That's a lot? Well Africa - Part II: Ancient Egypt. Have you heard of a story called Atlantis that some Egyptian preachers told to one greek. A tragedy so big that almost all culture was wiped out from Earth. I don't wanna discuss here what this Atlantis was. However let me note that there are several facts confirming that Egyptians were not just talking tales.
Good that's 2500 years ago. So what? Africa - Part III: Cool let's go to our century and search for a weird metallic meteorite called, if I'm not mistaken, Goba. The thing managed to "land" on Earth because it has a funny table-like form. However if that thing went full force into Earth, it would make a beautiful hole of a few hundreds of meters or more in South Africa.
What this thing has to do with Mars? Well, there, recently, something hit it badly. Too badly. People at NASA say it was milliards ago, but now even they are in doubt. Some other experts say something of millions or hundreds of thousands. Some others mention a few interesting features and say its could be just a few thousands.
Cool and what this has to do with me, you may ask. Well Do you wanna Tunguska hardcore party to happen right over your head? In Russia it was just 92 years ago. Sikhote-Alin was just 53 years ago. A few years ago there was one in Greenland. Last year another one nearly happened in New Zealand. You may think that barely can happen to you and you are a lucky guy. Pompei citizens were also very sure of themselves when Vesuvio started roaming. Btw. Africans lived there...
What you express here is mostly what stops Space Exploration. "Dispatch a nuke". Do you have some knowledge of rocketry? Nukes are suborbital engines! They are mostly designed for parabolic orbits and surely not for interplantary travel. Even SATAN, the scariest of Russian nukes had to be redesigned to carry orbital loads.
In this way, probably think 90% of your representatives and senators. Don't worry. Our Duma thinks the same way...
Your concern about billions of dollars is understandable. However I should note you that not going to Mars is a mistake. I have seen in detail nearly 40% of the surface of that rock and I tell you that we need to get there. No matter the cost. That is not a planet. No it is not what we may think of a planet, its evolution and nature. As an example: there is a place near Acidalia Planitia that shows a small valley with a depth nearly one kilometer. There are several things that tell that this valley was formed in a matter of minutes and I'm sure it was water that did it. I also tell you that this thing is really small. There are bigger and deeper valleys around. In fact that region is a mess of gigantic canyons crossing each other. In Mars there are several of them.
No knowledge we have today is able to explain such thing. It seems that something hit Mars and hit it badly. And hit it very recently. No it is not aliens or the forces of Pandora's Box. But it is something that ripped of a good chunk out of the planet, left it vibrating like mad, wiped its water and atmosphere. The most critical is that this thing is not so old as NASA tries to show.
And it is scary that it seems that this could be more than one blow in the History of this planet.
and it is even more scary that we Russians and you Americans can't manage to reach that planet in most cases. We send to every corner of the Solar System several probes. Only a few failed. But on Mars 80% of probes went into limbo in the most strange ways. It seems we are missing something but I wouldn't risk to say aliens. In their good minds they would avoid that place. Because there are things much more weird than Fussy Faces and Hoagland's mirages...
Like craters laying around an nearly oval mound. Like if something carefully choose to hit its base and sides. Only... All around the mound...
Slashdot Mirror
Cool. Commercial desktop applications or playing Diablo? What should we choose from your argumentation? If you talk about commercial applications then you're wrong. Yes you don't have them at a click distance. But on a good Linux setup you've always to get your hands dirty.
If you consider Diablo then you are correct. But then don't mess a commercial game with office apps or design tools. You are not paid for playing Diablo but for doing the real job.
On what concerns any possible hassles companies, like Corel, face, then it is natural. The business model on Linux is not the same as Windows. You build systems fit for tasks and not tasks fit for systems as M$ does. If you don't understand this then try to dig on the last 15 years of computer development and tell me where 80% of apps went into. How many office systems you may get in the market? How many design tools are offered? What is the range multimedia tools today, compared to 5-6 years ago? How many compilers and development tools are offered to you? How far can you change system settings, desktop environments? And how flexible are all these things for you to modify, integrate, improve, implement and interact in a software/hardware system?
Am I talking BS? Cool. Then why I can't choose between command line typping and mouse clicks anymore?
Your considerations on Linux not being ready for desktop show also that you are not ready for Linux at all. No one in the developer community says you that Linux should be a Windows-II. Yes it is a hassle to build an office worksation. But that also depends on what you really wanna build. If you want a 20 minutes installation on a "lemedofoyou" style to do typesetting then choose Windows. If your concerns are far from this and concern document manipulation, automatising services like fax, file transfer/archiving. backup, encryption, small server tasks and secured Internet then you should choose Linux or even BSD (frankly here Linux is not unique). :).
The only good point you make is lack of popular games. Yes that is still a thing that Linux lacks of. But it is also a ++++ for offices as it concentrates people in more concrete tasks. At least presently
On the rest you are only doing flamebait.
Note: I have people working on desktop Linuxes. Even financial directors. And they don't want to see Windows even in rosy clothes. All that is needed on Windows, they can get on Linux. And besides they don't dig on code nor are developers but their demands are much more complex since Linux came to their desktops.
There is a pyramid nearby being built. A Egyptian-like pyramid. Strictly geometric and with a very misterious air of techno-mystics.
Most of the pyramid is empty.
The walls are made of glass.
Most of the foundations are steel and concrete.
There are no sphynxes, bulls or hulls. Only geometry levered to techno-exageration.
Light, light, light, light everywhere. Tons of electricity. The pyramid itself rises little more than 20 meters. But the light show can be seen from quite far away.
These are our pyramids.
We are more primitive than aliens.
Both of us are technoholic.
So why would aliens care to such bulky things like Gize pyramids?
Yes you could be partially right on saying that pyramids in Egypt are a sad copy of something else. But note that the oldest pyrmaids do resemble something: Zigguraths of Sumer/Chaldea in modern Iraq. What could be more truly is that Gize pyramids are zigguraths leveled to the absurd of geometric/technological perfection.
Well I think that this looks much like the Mars Face you know? You have tons of alignements and try to guess what the Hell they mean... Funny? No. Real. Even not knowing Hoagland's inventions/visions I and a few people discovered that there are real alignements in Cydonia. All we knew before this was that some american dodos talked about some "schemes" in Martian Cydonia.
And yes they are aligned. The City, the Fortress, the D&M pyramid, the "Fussy Face" and a bunch of other landscape formations. And they do make some very curious and nearly ordered patterns. So one could talk about a "scheme".
However...
First these orders are not absolutely perfect. they have errors ranging 100-200 meters. Even considering all possible landscape movements, possible unexperience of the "supposed authors", such discrepancies are too big. That would mean not aliens flying in saucers but someone building a gigantic Stonehendge at most.
Second. I never saw Hoagland's theory in detail. However the 2-3 diagrams I saw show that ours and Hoaglands are COMPLETELY different. Yes we use the same formations and the same primitive relations. However one ends talking about Hyperphysics and other talking about organisms and Stone Ages. That's what we end in. Among several other things.
So if the Gize pyramids have some sort of alignment and these alignments fit on something this is not even half way to conclude the Truth. Maybe the contrary. In Mars we have only alignments with a weird discrepancy. NOTHING ELSE.
In Egypt we have a mess of alignments, joined with tons of fairy tales, a bit of History, and a bit of Maths. Don't wonder if suddenly that big Pyramid turns into a bizarre monument to fertility or something more weird. Or some equivalent to our Arms Race (ex. "Hey Babilon we have a much better ziggurat"). And don't search for the aliens there. If they have been here, then they have all passed away ~3-5 thousand years before anyone thought about building this stuff.
Ok, ok, ok. Stop a moment and think. Netscape 6.0. It was supposed that Netscape would make a commercial version of its browser. Right? Right. Now they are the authors/proprietors/owners of this thing. On the net, to have a commercial value you should advertise. And Netscape's value, today is on all these AOL & Netscape Netcenter stuff. The browser is, in any case given for free. So how od you think Netscape will atract customers? - "Oh, hey! We are such a good guys, get our browser for free... and by the way, don't forget we do something else..." That is the way they do money today.
So it would be quite natural to see Netscape providing adds on its browser. Maybe they are too much for such a product, But that's the only way for them to keep afloat. Anyway they give the right to choose. They also gave ground to Mozilla's project, and this one is much less ad-loaded than Netscape.
Why it looks so ad-ictive in relation to IE? Well IE is a system embedded into a OS called Windows, upon which Microsoft gets some envious fees. Even from people who don't use it. And, besides, Microsoft has a much larger market in control. So it does not need to rape your brains with a menu carrying 40 ads right-tight into your eyes and calling you to "buy... Buy... BUY!!!!" having its logo in every corner. Microsoft can be more stealth and more promiscuous then Netscape/AOL because its interest is even on the stock value of many companies and not on the direct sell of the product.
Any way, if this bores you, which is understandable, don't forget that there is Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx, Links, and a few others that have nothing to do with selling you snake oil. However most of the breath only on the *NIX. That is the cost of freedom.
Blocks porno? Great! Make it into law. Every library should have it by the end of 2001...
It does not block everything? Ok give 10 million bucks to perfect the soft. It is not a problem if a full dressed hot blonde is blocked while it will block even a half dressed Pamela Anderson.
It blocks Art? Well it may be a problem somehow. But how many of that porno crap runs under the names of those Rembrandts, Bottlecellies and alikes? There was even that latino Michael Angelo who painted God almost nude... So that is not an issue altogether.
It blocks your family pictures? My rosy little John IV in his 6 months. Well that's bad. It should be corrected. Anyway initial funding will be only 6 million. We shouldn't fat the guys...
"Oh damn - and it blocks my secretary pics" - "Damn, I'll take the funding by 5 million to avoid risks..."
IT BLOCKS THE PRESIDENT?????? Ooooooohhhh my!!!!..
What to do? Well anyway the thing is promising... 2 million.
Bill Gates is blocked????? They couldn't block anyone else??? Even our 1 million funding wouldn't cover court expenses!!! The thing is dead meat. Well anyway we shouldn't leave this alone. Let's give a US$10.000 dollar check and an award from The Fund for Clean Moral & Family Values. It will be a good incentive for future researches. Maybe, in the end, someone stops blocking my rosy nose from appearing in campaign sites...
Why are you knoking your head over the table?
I'm out of ammunition and now I'm using my bare hands...
Flex time is a good thing if you can make a good division between the freedom of your employees and the demands for certain time events. Here we have a full staff in flex time. Each day, one of us stays from 9 to 18:00 to serve calls and make routine tasks. Our flex time means you can go in and out 24 hours a day. No questions are given, no one argues if you have 2-3 works more. The only conditions are:
-that time endlines should be accomplished (most of our work is project-based).
-that you should be available wherever you are (even if you travel to Antarctida)
Our work as an ISP turns over a serious level of automatisation so routine work is minimal. However our project-based nature is not completely sweet and rosy. Some remain here sometimes for days. It is usual to see 1-2 of our workers having a deep snap in th sofa during the day. At night there are always 2-3 hackers doing what cannot be done at daytime. Somehow this sometimes looks like working on Mir. However everyone likes this regime. Only ex-wifes hated it...
"The other benefit here is that with physical smart cards, private key theft is nearly impossible. (The only exploits I know of involve physical access, and LOTS of equipment beyond the reach of the average skript kiddie)"
Again the ingenuosity comes up... LOTS of equipment? And what skript kiddies are? They are nothing more than people using LOTS of equipment and software. Script cracking was born from the huge building of 25 years of computer cracking/hacking, when all this soft and equipment became able to be automatized. In fact a skript kiddie knows nearly nothing about the inners of the system or software it exploits. He uses the huge knowledge database hackers/crackers left and the huge level of automatisation script languages give. Nothing more.
One may think that dealing with hardware will be harder for kiddies. Are you sure of this? Are you really sure? Today some of the electronic infrastructure for smart cards systems costs only a few tens or hundreds of bucks. And already today people break, crack, rip codes from magnetic strips, chips and other stuff. Besides there are serious problems on doing security. Sometimes people try too much on doing authentication and leave other things completely untouched. Once a physical key was broken in less than 15 seconds just because the developers decided that a "if key exists then do_everything_else" would suffice.
20 years ago many people would give their hand on defending the capacity of 56 bit DES. Where we are today? Magnetic stripe cards are not a problem for ATM thieves. Even if they are 10 years old are able today to get into. Like the Kalashnikov AK-47, modern computerings gave a universal weapon for everyone. The only problem is time and a few bucks in the needed moment...
Dear Mr. Katz
. . However the predatory nature is not on the fire but rigt inside of that piece of white material inside of our skulls. So much for the danger of technology. Technology is technology. The human values are what is in question. Do not humanize technology but yourself. Frankenstein was not wrong by reviving a human. No, he was wrong by trying to do it at all price, reverting all his human values, commiting crimes and more hideous doings to achieve his goals. If you read carefully the novel then you would note exactly this. His creation did not blame him for his revival. He blamed him for the moral fall and the fact that once the goal achieved he refused to accept it. Because it would mean that he accepted all the monstruosity of what he had done to achieve his goal. And besides. Once the monster created, he tries to kill him. A double crime after all.
Your statements are in principle wrong. And terribly wrong. Sincerly, you are trying to put moral on things that gives a Hell on what humans may think about it.
In part I am a technocrat so you may blame me for this. But also I know the value and disvalue of many scientific and technological advances from a human point of view. Science and Technology are unhuman in their inner nature. They do not depend on you, me, the government or corporations. Whatever humans do to find a new law or create a new invention does not give these things a human character. It is quite unfortunate that Earth is probably too isolated from the rest of the Galaxy. i believe that if we had two/three neighbors we would have a more clear picture on how a wheel, a car or a computer would look too external to a human mind.
You talk about responsability on technology. What makes you think that technology should be responsable. It is humans who should be responsable. They either make nuclear stations that blast off, or nukes that bomb cities. The technology is mostly the same for both things and the human irresponsability goes nearly the same level for both cases. A criminal case of playing with matches to see how things burn. But note that the problem is not on the matches. The problem is on how you use them. Pease weigh every point of nuclear technology and tell me. Should we forbid it? Yes? Cool, then we should have forbidden dynamite, cannon powder, and even fire. Why our ancesters didn't see it? One makes a fire to roast a chicken and another to cook some niggers/white necks/red skins/gooks/reds/russkies/gringos/yankees/fritz/.
So Frankenstein is probably not the best example you have taken. There it is more a blame for human nature and moral rather than a blame for technology. Maybe it would be better to choose Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hide as an example. There technology is more to blame for freeing the monster.
Meanwhile you talk about the future of technology and boards, public discussion, commitees. Do you know what they mean? Inquisition, the mobs and nothing less than the corporations. This last one in a much broader sense than the "typical modern" corporation. Do you remember Galilei, Bruno? Do you remember what happened to the first car? Do you remember about the masons of Middle Age and their construction skills?
The Judaic/Christian/Muslim tradition states that God said: "You shan't kill...". Well that's the point. You may have your bare hand, a stick, a pistol or a nuke. But, "you shan't kill". Correct, it is hard in our marvellous world to follow such a rule. I know how damn hard it is, specially when one tries to kill you. But the problem is on the human values you hold and how you apply them. I don't go trough the streets and shot everyone I see. But I can't stand out of using violent measures to avoid an uncontrollable hooligan trying to cut my neck.
This same point goes to the human genome. If we care and do care for our future then we should forbid the uncontrollable use of genetics in humans. But if we care to solve serious problems of health like hereditary defects then we should modify genes. Other way does not exist.
And anyway. Imagine that humans have some %%%% of artificiality. Anyway they do have. Even from the selectivism of our nature. So what makes modifying genes a big difference?
Why they took the novel? Because they knew you were reading it. They don't read but nothing is good like hassle you for a while... After questioning you would come home, have a cold shower, kick your comp and get THAT novel... :)
:)
Why they took your clothes. All your clothes? Well they also surely know that you are not a MTV fan. So you barely risk to go on the streets advertising the "GET NAKED!.." Beavies & ButtHeads of generation Next. Much simpler than saying "...don't leave the town."
The coofee maker. Man when you ever seen a working coofee maker on a police station? Yeah they will say it's evidence. "Are you sure you locked the door when you left? You were handcuffed..." Or to analyse your fingerprints, your friends fingerprints, your girlfriend's fingerprints, your parents fingerprint's, your neighbor's fingerprints. Anyway most fingerprints will be of those who came to get you... As, after some long hours, anyone wants a good cup of coofee.
Interesting satire. Very well done. I believe that BG would be very near to this position if he would use Linux...
The document presents one flaw. The author described quite well the position of the opposition, but only in relation to desktops. Sad that he didn't try the server side. There things are much hotter.
However there is one thing that scares me. As usual, in Slashdot, many voices started to arise against the KDE vs. Gnome, kernel diversity and other things. People that scares me. It looks like a "narkom"(people's comissar) agitation against the "damn, fat, piggy capitalists and their hordes of accolites".
Ok we have an enemy: Microsoft. But what are we doing here? Fight against Microsoft or building a system? If we go fight against Microsoft than it would be better to join the US states and push courts to split Microsoft. Make civil action and pirating software. It is much cheaper than writing billions of lines of code "for nothing". Why we should worry about them when we are "to get Microsoft"? Because, then, we either turn into another Microsoft or drop all this in the trashcan and join the dismembered Microsoft. Because, then, they may already give diversity to developers...
Today, Linux is what it is because it offers one thing: diversity. So much for the boo-boo shouters who cried that we are a bunch of communists. We are the market now. We can offer several destop systems. We can offer kernels with a variety of features for several tasks. Most of our software is able to run in several platforms, even on Windows. Now, even several Windows apps are able to run on Linux. And we reached what Microsoft was never able to do: we are multiplatform.
We were able to achieve this because we are the market. If we went on a "smash Microsoft" mood we would never be able to achieve the 28% of server market. We would never be able to be a desktop alternative. We would be another group trying to overcome Microsoft, by presenting a "great OS but a dumb user interface with very few cool apps". We win Microsoft now because we are a great OS, we have interfaces from the most to the least dumb and we have tons of applications, from lemons to works of art.
Yes, many applications double the objectives and tasks between themselves. However, it is exactly this that keep us moving. Close concurrence among developers. The most important is not to do the best program but the program that fits best to customers/users interests. Now pick me up a group of users and please tell me: does everyone has the same tastes, interests, necessities, requirements? Of course not! So why we should do the "ONE DESKTOP" interface?
For most end users, KDE sounds as a "ONE DESKTOP" interface. Or Gnome. But here we are already falling in the market tricks. People do not only choose objectively but also very subjectively. For the large majority, it would be good to have the "ONE". But not for all. And don't think they make 5% of the population. On my analysis I noted that WindowMaker or AfterStep reach the 80% among experts/developers. And again the subjectivity. Some developers argue that they do this to "push the machine" for other tasks like development. But why then people don't use the most simple wm's like blackbox? Because they like the art of WindowMaker... Which eats a good piece of performance...
Frankly in a study among 4500 people I was admired to note the following: >60% go KDE, >25% go WindowMaker (lot of developers here). Frankly I don't remember exactly the remaining numbers but Gnome/Enlightenment and Blackbox divided third place and 4th was AfterStep with a significative number of people. Last went ICEwm, the most Windows-like system. But I think this was due to its very early stage of development then.
Do not consider this as "who's best". Try to see on the point of diversity. Of freedom of choice. We have it here... And that is what people wants. Or else we would never make the shelves or have a golden place at major ftp sites. We would be one more OS among many (and how many they are...).
Does this hinder development? Yes it hinders. There are less developers in each project. But does this hinders development IN GENERAL? Absolutely not. Because there are many more developers working rather than if we were doing the "ONE DESKTOP". We go slow. But sure. Much like US in the first half of the century.
America then was not much better than some third world countries. In one point I would seriously risk to compare US then with Russia today. Sincerly, the only thing that made America big, then, was freedom. It was the most free country in the world. And it possessed a free rising market. Product quality was not a thing that americans could be proud of. But they could offer a lot more than anyone else and to anyone else. To europeans, asians, africans. Cheap and good enough to not be dropped directly to the trashcan.
This may sound like thunder to some american patriots. But remember. You had the Depression. Yes it was a Hell of a time. But Americans were not marching on 5th Avenue in front of their "Fuhrers". Americans did not pass the horrors of the "Working Camps" and the Holocaust or the Purge. America passed over this. It passed over the II World War. and it overcome Soviet Union in the Moon Race.
Why I am being so globally politized here? Because there is a parallel here with us, the Linux community. Today the quality of our soft may not be the best in relation to Microsoft. In general. Yes, we overcome Redmond on stability, performance, on Web servers and some other things. But, the general picture still shows that we have a long way to go. Specially on what concerns desktops. Here, today, we are a poor bunch of people who have only two big things: freedom & market. Can we live with them? We should. Because we may give more people a choice. A real one. We may overcome crisis more steadly. And we may overcome Microsoft...
To explain this let me return to global politics and its parallelisms. Remember the race to the Moon? What was America at the beginning? Nothing. Zero. Soviet Union had a program that was ten years more advanced than the US. They had already ballistic missiles in full work. They sent the first animals to Space, they sent the first people around Earth. By that time, America showed a sad picture of rockets banging, falling, a satellite that made miserable travel around earth and an astronaut that nearly got cooked on entry. However, this country, in less than 8 years, managed to do what Soviets were unable to do - put a man in the Moon. Not only one - several. How?
This was achieved because there was a market all around. America managed to reach its objective because tens of projects were presented, tested and scrapped. Because a whole industry ran against each other for the one only objective. The whole internal market boiled on the race. And they even managed to pick its allies on the madness... So, in the end a whole world was running to the Moon like people to the departing bus.
Americans at start presented a miserable perspective. But their diversity of choices managed to do what Soviets couldn't do. And here, the factor of failure was exactly the one that some people claim today among the Linux community: "the ONE..."
Soviet Union made a huge mistake - it sticked straight into only one project. They also had several initial projects and teams. However, the tradition of that time was to push everyone and everything into one project. Yes, this is typical of communist ideologies, but note that then Soviet Union had SEVERAL nearly independent organisations working on Space conquer. Unfortunately, it was decided that only one such organisation should care about sending a cosmonaut to the Moon - Kurchatov's team. Mr. Kurchatov was the one who sent the Sputnik and Gagarin to Space. However his Moon rocket was not the best of all projects he made. One point that he was surely wrong was, that it would be too hard to reach the Moon directly from Earth. So it would be better to build an "intermediary" Space station at first. Only later, he started to push for the "direct travel". However the rocket exploded on tests, killing more than 100 workers and specialists. A little later Kurchatov died, leaving his project completely orphan. The "everyone-on-one" push to the Moon ended as a fiasco.
By that time there were other people who had a much clearer view on how to reach the Moon. These people were later responsible for such things like Mir, Energya, Buran and Zvezda. Their more practical projects were refused because they were, by then, too ambitious and the the top bosses feared that resources would dissipate. So they choose one more conservative but more "unified" project. By doing only one, Soviet Union killed all chances of reaching the Moon if something went wrong. And that happened...
Well, let us return to our penguin. I am sorry for this long story about the Moon and global politics but I hope people see what I try to remark. It is variety and market that make Linux alive. I would even remark more specifically - internal market. It may sound strange to compare Space Race to our internal wars. But note, if you look well, the nature of both situations had exactly the same nature - one authoritarian infrastructure full of talented people - one democratic/liberallistic infrastructure based on no less talented but less resource centered infrastructure.
We are a democracy. An capitalist/anarchist/bolshevik/neo-liberal democracy. Here we have choices. Doing only KDE or Gnome for all is killing this freedom and variety. It is sending a good part of users into the marginal avenue. That one that created some of the main reasons why Microsoft started to loose developers to Linux in the middle of the 90's. They presented user/developers with one interface, one SDK, one policy and one very bad price. And developers, mainly, ran away from Redmond's Dream into a OS that barely could hold a web server up. Note that they ran to Linux when BSD was a much more viable choice. However, the restrictive nature of BSD made many people to pass nearby the red devil and leave it alone. At that time, Linux was even less restrictive in license terms. However, until now we have a kernel with a few dissonances. Because the market is working. People want diversity but also impose some limits. However these limits are clearly not "one kernel, one OS, one desktop".And it is not Stallman's dream of GNU/Linux but a full world of Free Source, Open Source, Half-opened and closed one. And Free/Open Source win here not because they are correct but because they concur. Concur with other software variants and concur even inside their conceptions. That what give the chance for software to be free. Stallman's dream of free software is a dangerous dream of the "brilliant future" of communism. Because if we get only free software than this stuff will not be free at all. It will be forcing people into things that they may not wish to do. GPL can only live on a free world. But not present that free world to everyone.
This may sound as if GPL is some sort of license "anti-licenses". I do not consider such. I consider that GPL is the nature that software should be presented in a form that allows progress to keep on. Because software demands integration, interconnection. Software is built on Software. To attain the maximum of communication and development we have to use GPL. However it is clear that we can use other software apart from GPL. Nothing forbids us of such if we abide to each license of each software developer. What developers should care of is first to beware of their personal interests that may hinder the community in general. Producing incompatible licenses, trying to overcome others or making "their own license" may result in a juridical jungle and clan wars that no one wishes to participate. Here it is the moral duty of the developer to eveluate his interests and the intrests of the community. And to consider not only the simplistic road of "direct reward" but other ways that may be much more rewardable than the first one. Personally I have noted that using GPL software, I managed to keep on my profession and get a much more reliable income than on Windows times. However I don't sell any software, even the one I develope. I use the strategy of "perfectioning" software to specific and high-grade tasks. Also I charge for support. But not the support of installing a Linux from a CD-ROM. That one goes frequently free. I get paid for computer supervision. security tasks, automatisation and several other things. And meanwhile GPL allows me to be independent of my bosses. If I do a new program, script of create a new form of software implementation, I can use my ideas where I think they fit best. And no one has the right to say "I paid you for making it, you..." because I term from start that any software not carrying private data is not private property of anyone specifically. This alows me to get working on three jobs at the same time and have 5-6 times the income I got a few years ago.
This may sound good for the private consultant and bad for the enterprise. However I believe that companies should revise many of its strategies, diversify the access to their software and try to offer its clients a more flexible and dynamic form of service. If NVidia would sell its cards with drivers under X license, they would be the monopolist of Linux market.
Anyway time to end. Sincerly I hink people should revise their ideas on "one, one and only one". Let's hope diversity wins. And laet's hope that Microsoft finally gets the idea that this is not a "script kiddies haloween" and that it is time to come into the bunch. Even in full closed source clothes. But then they will have the chance to prove they are the best...
Sorry but the post is a bit ingenuous. Soviet Union started the permanent expeditions with Salyut 7. And Mir was only unnocupied for some monthes when people started procedures to down it. For nearly ten years there were humans always on space. One cosmonaut took even one year on Mir. It was the first timetraveller on Earth... It left when Soviet existed and returned into Russia :)
:) ), see Internet Holywood 24h/d from Redmond... and think if some jerks did really landed on the Moon in 1969. Proabably it was another Holywood blockbuster.
Yes probably it is a point to say that ISS may be "more permanent" than Salyut & Mir. Maybe this time humans will never ever leave Cosmos. But it is a point of ingenuity to consider that the "big construction kit" will be a guarantee of permanence.
People say it will live for 10-15 years. I will risk 25-40 from what we saw with Mir and all these MirII, station Freedom & Co. In the next 10 years politicians will try to forget about Cosmos and get into a more mundane world. So this will well push he living span of the station.
However there is a problem. Time will go and politicians may forget Cosmos AT ALL. Like Moon exploration... Where are the Moon stations, expeditions to Mars? So it is probable that this permanent presence may last only 50 years. By then we will be all on Earth, eat BigMacs, drink Coke, speak bad english (worser than mine
A "real 3D world" or better saying 3D systems that give you the feeling of a real 3D world. Really this is the result of a conversation i had with one friend about 3D glasses & Co.
As far as I know there is always a lag between screen frequencies & fps. On glasses systems this is quite visible. To get a 50 fps you need a 100Hz monitor as minimum. To get higher rates you need a monitor going nearly 2 times the fps rate. So it is quite logical to try to achieve 200fps as they also have to be divided in glasses systems. However then, monitors should reach a cool 200-300Hz to give a chance for your eyes.
I have never see a glasses system but some friends around here tell that presently that is the same as burning you eyes for good. So let's wait the 200's
What this guy writes is a mixture of secondary school knowledge and flamebait. Yes, he goes in some detail on how our eyes work but he strongly lacks some deeper scientific knowledge. A clear example:
"The visual cortex is where all the information is put together. Humans only have so much room in the brain, so there are some tricks it uses to give us the most information possible in the smallest, most efficient structure. One of these tricks is the property of motion blur."
Some tricks that produce motion blur... However he does not explain any details of what these tricks are. How human brain compresses information is still a question but this guy even does not touch this slightly. Only "tricks of the trade". Sorry people but he is very superficial. I am no expert on these things but I saw books and I know people who would explain more clearly for the layman these things. Once, Scientifc American published an excellent book exclusively dedicated to this problem. I think it would be worth to search for it.
On what concerns 72fps. Is he nuts? I can discern a 60-70 fps picture clearly from a 110 fps! On such level it is still well seen how things go hickcups.
And on what concerns monitors. For me and several people 60Hz is deadly painful! Seat on a 60Hz monitor for the whole day and you surely get some serious headaches (specially on the temporas and inside the eyes). It looks like someone furiously turns lights on and off. On a 72-75Hz it is still visible the flickering. The minimal frequency for such aliens/mutants like me is no less than 85 Hz. And sincerly one gets tired working on such monitor. My good level is 100Hz. Yes there I can work without feeling any stress. Btw. When working, I pass more than 12 hours day in front of the bright head of the computer. In fact, my work turns frequently to 36 hour shifts (like today, I'm in the 17th hour). So guys, maybe I mutated too strongly... >:E
Well, I don't know where this guy took his theories but my everyday work tells me he's nuts. So much for the theory.
If people have a general knowledge about computer hardware and are not paranoid about touching it then, use HDDs.
That is a very popular way of data transfer between experts and experienced users. In fact, for the last two-three years is the only form of data transfer I see being used apart from networks. Floppy drives are only used on booting computers and even this is dissapearing. Some computers are already living without their floppy devices attached to them.
Note that this practice is not only used by the geeks here. Even people like accountants and financial directors rip the cables of their HDDs without pitty and carry their "hard floppies" in their suitcases. The most funny was to see an woman accountant carrying a HDD in her VERY SMALL pursecase. It looked as if the HDD suddenly grew three times when she took it out.
A 3Gb HDD costs here almost 30 dollars. A package of floppies nears 10 dollars. Why I would pay for 43Mb if I can get 3Gb for that price?
Well people, you may be right that AOL has the right to do its browsers with its content. Quite correct it's THEIR browser and they have the right to present the product to you the way they think you like it.
:)
However could you tell me one little thing? Do they separate this product from their other services? Do they specifically tell you that you may use it or IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera or even lynx? If they don't do this then they are subverting you. They are bounding you into the use of AOL only products. Worse, if they force the installation of their browser embedded into other services then they are clearly subverting your right for choice. Specially if you don't know too much about the market. It would be the same as if Ford possessed a oil company and made its cars sch a way that you could only fill in their gas stations ("Oh you can't use other gas station? Unfortunately we couldn't agree the common standards. And why to worry? We are everywhere").
If this happens, it's a problem. Because you're facing a monopoly. However, if AOL informs that its products & services are separate entities. If it informs you about the existence of a market (no matter that it will surely say that its browser is better). IF it does not impose any critical restrictions or incompatibilities with other products. If you can get rid of AOL products without hampering other services the company gives. Well, if these IFs are observed then it's their right to do the browser the way they want. You have a right to choose. And, in this case, it's no matter to anyone if this company is fatter then King Kong. Otherwise, wait for DJ knocking their doors in a near future. When AOL will try to subvert the biggest US corporation...
More time? Because the Constitution of each of the United States took centuries? In a world where seconds, not years count? And what is this story about consitutions being adopted during centuries? As far as I know it was a Conevention of a few guys in shorts, long hair, speaking bad english, smelling tobacco and being some of the highest minds of their century that wrote the Constitution of The United States of America. And I don't think they were sitting centuries there to write it.
Now some gentleman in bright cleaned suits and having some bad popularity around about their capacities, should stay for longer than the rules allow them?
Let me tell you one thing. Here some people are trying to move the President of Tatarstan, Mr. Mintimer Shaimyev into third term. The Constitution of the Russian Federation strictly forbids Governors or Presidents to be more than two terms. Now Mr. Shaimyev is a national symbol here. This man did more than any other regional leader to hold up the Federation together. In his Republic he did so much that, if elections would be today, 70% of people would still elect him as President. Now there is the Law of the Federation. Some local politicians tried to overcome it and even found a legal issue that effectively gives a chance for Mr. Shaimyev to be a legtimate Presidetn for four more years.
Now what we have? A national symbol, a Constitution stating two terms no more, and several Federative acts that give the chance to be elected more than two terms. These acts are mostly due to the "interim" situation that happened after the fall of Soviet Union. Nearly all of them will loose any sense after 2010. Anyway they still work. So what Mr. Shaimyev does?
He refuses to be elected for third time...
Not that he would not like to be elected. But suddenly someone reminded that these are not only elections and state jobs. It's the validity of the Constitution itself. There it is written black on white "no more than two terms". By overpassing it, even legally, it would weaken the meaning of the Fundamental Law in front of the whole Federation. What today seems correct, tomorrow may turn to tragedy. Suddenly people will start to pass over the Constitution. Laws may start to be issued on the corner of the constitution. Governors will start to stay "for life", because one act, a law, federative agreement or his intuition says that Constitution does not fully cover all cricumstances. Emergency may be called by the President (I don't mean Mr. Putin but the job) without consulting anyone because "there is an emergency and it is too hard to follow the Constitution".
We have here a similar situation. Yes there is some "interim situation". However the White Paper states, black on white, "no more than two years". So? Even if all these guys are good people. and suddenly they are real great people. And one of the elected members starts overpassing the White Paper and issuing rules above his powers. Why he would stop in front of these "great people". In front of the White Paper, they are ilegitimate...
There has been too much hype centering around the .com. Probably companies should be more accurate on choosing the domain name they are in. .org could be much more succesfull.
As an example. How many hits does get this company compared to this one organisation?
This attempt to turn into a Member at Life is extrmely dangerous. It is not only a problem of elections. Mostly it is a problem on the validity of the White Paper and consequently on the validity of the whole organisation. It seems that some people got too acustomized to the heat of their seats at ICANN and do not want to go in the cold. Soon they may think that ICANN is not doing enough so it should rule that and that. A little more and they will start saying "L'Internet c'est moi"...
There is a interesting point mentioned on the article:
"Back in the days of the White Paper, the document which still provides the foundation for whatever legitimacy ICANN may retain, the United States government assured all that the initial, secretly appointed members of the ICANN Board were only temporary."
Well if these guys get too nuts, then we should direct protests not to them but to the Government of the United States of America. He is the guarantor that the White Paper will not be violated. No matter how feelings, thinkings and relations with this organism, I think that they will not sponsor such clear violation of the principles that rule its establishment. With propper argumentation, they will surely act and tell these guys that is time to leave.
PS: For those who don't know History and/or French. "L'Etat c'est moi" - "The State is me". It was said by King Louis XIV of France during his rise to power. This King was the most famous monarch and despot of the times of Absolutism. During his reign, he managed to concentrate all state control on himself.
Last year in a highly popular russian e-journal this poll was made:
Wanna live in Russia : 39%
Wanna live in the West : 21%
Well people hold your breath. The webmasters thought that two questions was not enough. So they thought, thougth, thought, thought and decided that a "funny question" would be enough:
"Ain't there another globe?"
And what you think? How many people choose this question? 39%!!!!!
The poll was used by nearly 50 000 users. It was a scandal that even several TV stations mentioned it in their news. There were even experts who commented it! A bomb. Nearly half-Russia is ready to get the Hell outta here at first chance. West? Noooooo. Mars, The Moon, Jupiter, Milky Way, Andromeda...
First stop a little bit on your words. Caucasian for me is the same as nigger for you. I am no Caucasian fuss, ok? If you have a problem with your race it's your problem not mine. Here we cut these problems short. Here, you either keep being a nigger and die straight on the frost, or you hold up and become a russian. And it's no matter what skin you are. Alexander Pushkin's grand-grand-father was from Africa (yeah a blackman like you). And he was not a slave in chains but a general of the Russian Army who fought against the Swedes. And Mr. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was the founder of modern Russian language if you wanna know.
If you are not going to learn anything with this damn Mars is also your problem. I am interested in Mars and there are lot of people also interested on it. Including blacks. And what concerns they will "write some nice reports". Who reads them? We read the original info...
NDS has been Novell's bulldog since the middle of the 90's. As far as I know, professionals with a large workstage will choose NDS rather than ADS. In any case. NDS is much more advanced to be just put apart for whatever reasons. The risk of developing a large network based on ADS core technologies is too big to play. ADS is not only years behind as it is a technological generation behind the first versions of NDS.
The problem remains with newbies. They may risk to enter into a Win00 only world. However they will surely enter the pitfalls of ADS. There I can see two solutions. Either they decide mixed technologies where such solutions like NIS+ and NDS are introduced. Or they blow up their networks. Turn them into the "Future of Developers" picture. Yeah it may be not so bad for users. They will jump from tree to tree and eat bananas...
PS: "Future of Developers" was a popular picture back in 95 that showed up after the launch of Win95. Its popularity was due to the fact that Microsoft took a few steps towards its software base that were a full blow against the independent development. Small developers suffered the most and many gave up programming. The picture of Middle Age skulls, lined in a shelf, turned into a obligatory desktop item then.
It's a pitty that you, as a person of African origin does not know very well the fate of your "historical motherland". As you would probably be a lot more interested in such things. Even if we sent penguins as astronauts.
Let me note you a things: Africa possesses one of the largest meteoritic crater systems on dry land in the world. A system that covers nearly 1200km of Sahara. The biggest craters has a diameter of 600km. If that thing hit today then Africa, and a good piece of the World would turn into Microwave Shaker in a matter of seconds. Even you, in America, would not survive.
The craters have a few millions of years. That's a lot? Well Africa - Part II: Ancient Egypt. Have you heard of a story called Atlantis that some Egyptian preachers told to one greek. A tragedy so big that almost all culture was wiped out from Earth. I don't wanna discuss here what this Atlantis was. However let me note that there are several facts confirming that Egyptians were not just talking tales.
Good that's 2500 years ago. So what? Africa - Part III: Cool let's go to our century and search for a weird metallic meteorite called, if I'm not mistaken, Goba. The thing managed to "land" on Earth because it has a funny table-like form. However if that thing went full force into Earth, it would make a beautiful hole of a few hundreds of meters or more in South Africa.
What this thing has to do with Mars? Well, there, recently, something hit it badly. Too badly. People at NASA say it was milliards ago, but now even they are in doubt. Some other experts say something of millions or hundreds of thousands. Some others mention a few interesting features and say its could be just a few thousands.
Cool and what this has to do with me, you may ask. Well Do you wanna Tunguska hardcore party to happen right over your head? In Russia it was just 92 years ago. Sikhote-Alin was just 53 years ago. A few years ago there was one in Greenland. Last year another one nearly happened in New Zealand. You may think that barely can happen to you and you are a lucky guy. Pompei citizens were also very sure of themselves when Vesuvio started roaming. Btw. Africans lived there...
What you express here is mostly what stops Space Exploration. "Dispatch a nuke". Do you have some knowledge of rocketry? Nukes are suborbital engines! They are mostly designed for parabolic orbits and surely not for interplantary travel. Even SATAN, the scariest of Russian nukes had to be redesigned to carry orbital loads.
In this way, probably think 90% of your representatives and senators. Don't worry. Our Duma thinks the same way...
Your concern about billions of dollars is understandable. However I should note you that not going to Mars is a mistake. I have seen in detail nearly 40% of the surface of that rock and I tell you that we need to get there. No matter the cost. That is not a planet. No it is not what we may think of a planet, its evolution and nature. As an example: there is a place near Acidalia Planitia that shows a small valley with a depth nearly one kilometer. There are several things that tell that this valley was formed in a matter of minutes and I'm sure it was water that did it. I also tell you that this thing is really small. There are bigger and deeper valleys around. In fact that region is a mess of gigantic canyons crossing each other. In Mars there are several of them.
No knowledge we have today is able to explain such thing. It seems that something hit Mars and hit it badly. And hit it very recently. No it is not aliens or the forces of Pandora's Box. But it is something that ripped of a good chunk out of the planet, left it vibrating like mad, wiped its water and atmosphere. The most critical is that this thing is not so old as NASA tries to show.
And it is scary that it seems that this could be more than one blow in the History of this planet.
and it is even more scary that we Russians and you Americans can't manage to reach that planet in most cases. We send to every corner of the Solar System several probes. Only a few failed. But on Mars 80% of probes went into limbo in the most strange ways. It seems we are missing something but I wouldn't risk to say aliens. In their good minds they would avoid that place. Because there are things much more weird than Fussy Faces and Hoagland's mirages...
Like craters laying around an nearly oval mound. Like if something carefully choose to hit its base and sides. Only... All around the mound...