Murdoch comes off as someone facing a culture shock and has no interest in trying to adapt. I don't know why Google doesn't just do a preemptive strike and drop them from the search engine. This has the other effect of making people using Google toolbar think the site doesn't exist. They could always point to a DMCA style take down page and then offer alternative news sources.

We could always start putting Murdoch's site in red, using the WOT tool ;)

Worth reading Lauren Weinstein's blog post take on this - trenchantly dead-on, as usual:

Murdoch's Folly: Block Google & Kill Fair Use -- Plus a Nasty Truth
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000633.html

It depends. In terms of how easy it is to create, say, an UI application, NetBeans is much better out of the box than Eclipse, especially its awesome visual Swing designer. I've also found J2ME development to be more of a breeze in NetBeans compared to Eclipse offerings.

The problem with Eclipse, it seems, is that it overemphasizes extensions to the point that, to do anything useful, you need some mix of extensions. And often there are several extensions available that do the same thing differently, so you have to pick. So it's kinda like Linux - it's pointless to debate it in general, because the specific experience really depends on one's set of extensions used.

NetBeans is much more of a "turnkey" approach - you download the full version, install it, and everything that it can do, is there and working. If you want web or J2EE development, you get the full stack of servers, too. In that, it's much closer to Visual Studio in approach (which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective).

actually, destructive flares that disturb the geomagnectic field enough to cause major disruptions are far more common than once a century. We've had those at least every 20 years.

Congratulations! You've just disabled the phones of every passenger of every vehicle as well. No more texting on the train, or phoning on the bus, or from the back seat of taxis.

Funny, I was just in the middle of upgrading ("downloading packages") when I came across this article, and chickened out! But then I read some of the comments, and got curious, so I went through with it. I love it! My old Toshiba Satellite feels new again. I like everything - the new software utilities (disk checker, etc), the wallpapers (how classy!), that compiz just works out of the box again (how I missed it!)... The sound server is far better! It doesn't take full control of the computer's resources when the volume's turned up all the way (as much) anymore, and it actually sounds a lot better. (Louder, too.) The only problem I had was that, instead of having ubuntu-desktop and ubuntu artwork, it changed it all to xubuntu - usplash, gdm, everything. I had to manually reinstall the ubuntu-themed packages. But that's no big deal. I'm very happy I upgraded, article notwithstanding.

I always heard the GW was "Gee Whiz" BASIC.

$50 million in debt, no one disputes. The floundering part is where many might take issue. There's no such thing as a startup (civic or commercial) that is without debt. This was a large project with a long time-horizon to self-sufficiency and no one ever claimed otherwise. The attempts at sacking the city's chief administrator are self-serving and politically motivated in an effort at bringing down the mayor. It's interesting how the state official leveling charges at the city's handling of finances was the prime mover behind granting Fairpoint their approval to take over Verizon's landline operations in VT. This despite any number of well-reasoned warnings that they were simply not equal to the task, either in terms of experience or financial resources.

So, rather than deploy it as a government system, why not deploy it as a non-profit cooperative?

I think it would be great if we can attach an electronic version of a printed document so that we can verify its authenticity using digital signatures.

At least ARM have actually been highly successful. PowerPC and MIPS - they aren't the embedded champions so why bring them up?

MIPS has been a lot more successful in this space than ARM ever has. Cheap PCs all over China are using MIPS CPUs which rival 1GHz x86 CPUs. <$150 Netbooks have been available for a couple years now, using MIPS chips, a market ARM has been making a lot of noise about, but has only just now entered, and not even near the price point...

Perhaps the reason why ARM did well is because it really did have a clever idea or two and everyone else was too arrogant to have considered the market that they all now want to enter.

See above. ARM has been making a hell of a lot of PR noise, but that's the only thing they've done with any success.

    If I recall correctly, the F-14 grounding wasn't exactly a replacement parts issue. Well, I guess it could have been.

    When the contractors left the country, they were kind enough to sabotage and/or liberate parts from them. The aircraft apparently would still fly, but they were unable to use any weapons.

    And yes, they have the problem of replacement parts too. It is still assumed that about 30 may still be in service, the rest cannibalized for parts. The US Navy has made it rather difficult for parts to make it to the black market.

For my EnV Touch, I guess an SMS notifier would be the best solution, as I have to make a trip to the mobile web to check email..

It is absurd to suggest that any public company not do the maximum they can to minimize their tax liability.

It is absurd to suggest that any public company should be permitted to evade the law.

The same statements that you have made about MS can probably be made about 95% of the Fortune 500.

So? One criminal at a time.

Still - it looks like Clarke's first law could easily apply: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."