Posts by Peter 21 publicly visible posts • joined 25 Mar 2008
There was quite some coverage here in Belgium, and just about every expert said it was rubbish and even if it wasn't, cellphones would detect a worse signal and start to increase the power of the signals they're emitting, rendering the whole thing useless.
And the quantum thing would be totally irrelevant as normal physics apply to cellphone signals (I say 'would be' because I'm no expert, I just read it somewhere, then moved on to my evening of mind-numbing TV).
He's probably a smarter guy than I am, but the idea seems silly to me. Truthiness should come out of the fact that the amount of websites with the truth will outnumber the amount of cult-websites. It's the democratic nature of the net, much like the democratic nature of thoughts and opinions out in the real world. People can spread the wrong ideas and some will follow, but the majority won't.
The solution to avoiding cults and their stupid ideas is not to block the idiots, but to educate them (and everyone else). Good education and critical thought will make people look for second opinions and more information on subjects.
Actually each tab has it's own process, not it's own thread. To me, it seems the only real advantage over other browsers. Browsers more or less do the same nowadays, with FF haveing the advantage of many extensions. Read the comic, and don't see why I would change, though the multi-process thing could be a good idea for other browsers.
I'm betting it'll take more and more marketshare over time. One big advantage is that windows developers now can make RIA's (or whatever you call them) much more easily, with the skills they already have.
Plus they're starting to push Silverlight (in a typical MS way of course), see http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080602-new-hp-microsoft-live-search-deal-is-all-about-silverlight.html
I ain't no MS fanboy, but I think it's realistic to say that SL will become a serious contender for Flash in a few years. This doesn't mean Flash will dissapear of course.
Anyway, both will never become nr1 because good old HTML (and the languages that produce it like PHP, ASP.NET, etc) still stands strong (especially since search engines can't index Flash and the likes)
I can't believe the military really cares much about the environment. They continue to research weapons which are environment-unfriendly (depleted uranium, lead, bio/chemical, etc). The environment isn't their concern, it's efficiency and efficacy.
Their interest in alternatives is fueled (ha!) more by driving down costs and reducing dependency on other countries, something the wee little soldiers have always been trying to improve.
Not one I've done myself, but a colleague told me about this. A developer once had a problem with GUIDs in his code. The fooled him into beleiving that the GUIDs were out of stock. You had to order them at Microsoft per 25000.
The boss was aware of the joke and when the developer asked the boss that he rapidly needed new GUIDs, the boss gave his approval.
The developer then called MS for a new order of GUIDs...
Funny how a lot of people think vegetarians should live up to their principles 100%, but anyone pro-human rights (I'm guessing most of you?) can buy cheap clothing (made by well-paid adults in countries famous for treating their workers correctly), cell phones (with coltan, mined by well-treated miners in conflict-free Congo), put their money in a big bank (which will of course never invest in the giant weapons industry) etc.
Just something to think about. You can never live 100% to your principles, but that doesn't mean you should have any.
Apart from that, I still think it's a strange idea.
Ok, illegal downloading is wrong because people put their work into it. But the opponents of torrent sites have become so excited, I believe they've lost focus.
Torrent search sites just provide links to torrents, they don't host it themselves. Now we're all smart enough to know what most users will use them for, and why these sites were created in the first place, but in the end, they're not doing anything wrong.
I can easily find illegal stuff via Google, but just because that's not the preferred way for downloaders, normal search engines are left unbothered.
Instead of trying to break every torrent search site (which they will never really succeed at), these associations should try to force the sites to filter out illegal content.
Paris, because she doesn't mind people mass downloading her, ahem, content, wherever it's hosted.
People should indeed be able to spread their opinion, but you have to draw the line somewhere (see: History).
One interesting aspect is that most of the attempts and calls to ban this movie are based on what people think is in the movie. As far as I know, noone has actually seen the movie yet. So, to call for a ban on something that hasn't been published yet is, to say the least, a little weird (see: pre-emptive strike theory).
But there is a difference between criticising and demonising (correct English?).
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