That's the dumbest explanation of communism I've ever heard. You must be an academic.

Oh, wait, it wasn't an article. It was a 2 paragraph blog post that someone crapped out with some random anecdote and zero facts, figures, or research.

I don't know why /. still surprises me with this.

"and the putting green."

kind hard to hide a sensor there, dear, given how tightly shorn the grass is on the green.

First!

130KG. 45 seconds.

And, if my app requires significant bandwidth would normally be used by the user, I now have to source it all myself for every user?

That sucks.

This is also known as the No Free Lunch Theorem and traces right back to Godel, Turing, and the foundations of all mathematics. You are right, it certainly isn't going anywhere.

Don't kid yourself, genius.

Efficient software maintenance is directly related to the Halting Problem. I'm sure you could figure out a thesis about it. Or at least a proof.

Besides, "business programming" involves many things, some of which includes problems (for example, my field, aerospace) that are ridiculously complex, certainly at least as much as a good 80% of any CS degree or thesis.

I agree that users tend to find it useful and easy to handle. That's what it's really for, anyway---when you get into more complex situations the whole mass blogs down and we use other software. But it is not bad for what its used for, by and large. It's just a more friendly file share with calendars and lists and stuff. It's more descriptive and useful than a file share and it's no more complex than one.

That being said, as a programmer and IT person I hate it. I don't administer any but the documentation and webservices are absolutely atrocious. It's like pulling teeth to do the most basic thing.

I wonder how IBM arrived at the result of $2000. Because I'm pretty sure that out of the 150k people that I work with that 3/4 of them will take months to adjust to Linux and be completely pissed off the entire time. At an internal rate of $100-$150 per person per hour... uh... lol, right.

This is what most of the company uses: Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint. Project. File shares. Blackberry/Phone. Online web conferences. PDF. That's about it. Everything else is either a back-end system specific to the business or a program (i.e, drafting, manufacturing, etc) for the specific business at hand.

And don't give me crap about open office solutions. It took most of these people 10 or 20 years to just get by with Office, you really think they are going to want to essentially re-learn everything? $2000 is only relevant if the people are actually fairly computer savy, which pretty much everyone everywhere is not nor do they care to bother.

You should try out a Kindle for a month. I think there is a no-questions return policy anyway within 30 days.

I have always been a big physical book person and was worried about buying the Kindle but I have to say it was worth every cent.

The thing is that the screen used (via eInk) is completely different from any other screen you're used to. It has high contrast, the rough color of a page of paper, and, most importantly, low glare and eye strain. I've taken my kindle on the beach, full sun, and it was actually easier to read than your usual magazine. It was even nicer given that the wind was kicking up and i didn't have to screw around with trying to hold my pages down. You can read it for hours with no problem, the battery life is incredible, and you have the ability to just go on and download any kindle book in the store (provided you have mobile reception)... which was fantastic when I was about to board a flight recently and realized I didn't have anything to read.... in the time it took them to call boarding and give them my ticket (5 minutes) I had gone online, download a book, and was set for the 4 hour flight (with a book selection that is obviously > airport bookstores). Things like that are priceless.

Give it a try.

The reason there are no dirt-cheap readers out there is that the eInk screen is still pretty brand new. Eventually it will cost pennies, so relax (and, yes, it beats the shit out of your typical screen).

Also, I have no idea what your point is about dirt-cheap if your examples are a $300 iphone (with subscription costs), your $300-$500 netbook, your $1000-$2000 desktop, and your $200-$500 palm. The kindle is $300 and provides exactly the exactly the screen you are looking for so... you're an idiot.

first, give me an e-ink screen with a higher refresh rate than 0.5-1 second and color, and i'll get you your phone.

/facepalm

It is also a stawman argument to state that because a bunch of people believe that something is true it obviously is.

And that's before we even get to the fact that just because x% thinks something that doesn't mean the truth or validity is proportional to x%. Not everything is linear you know.

If you're so smart and the world's climatologists are so dumb, for the love of god stop yammering about it on Slashdot, publish, and collect your Nobel Prize.

I tried. I'm actually just shy of the Nobel Prize. Only problem is that every time I suggest in my grant proposal that I'm going to attempt to prove that the earth isn't warming due to mankind I never get the funding.

Funny how that works.

Any one who is genuinely interested in learning about how and why complex systems change catastrophically should read "Limits to Growth" - the classic by the MIT team headed by Donella Meadows.

Yes, let's all jump on the 1970s Club of Rome fad and do exactly what they suggested---controlling the reproductive and development rights of third world countries while amassing all of their resources in the first world. Then we will all bask in the wonders of the United States empire while masturbating to Kissinger porn while the neutered africans can stick to their caves where they belong. All for the sake of Malthusian paradise, of course.

As far as your economics analogy, it is pretty poor. No one agrees that economic law is a natural science or that it's entirely accurate or even measurable. Do you not know follow the ten trillion debates that follow every data collection technique and every data series, nevermind the models upon which the data is based? Do you not wonder why companies spend hundreds of billions a year publishing and researching economics studies? You might have caught a bit of it if you, uh, ever read the newspaper in the past 100 years.

But to suggest that it is possible that the data collection techniques and models of such an exacting "science" such as climate change might be off? Why that's a Limbaugh conspiracy!

You people are funny---for some that always harp about complexity and exponential feed back loops you sure have a hard time thinking that it's remotely possible you've missed any exponential feedback loops in the opposite direction and the resulting massive change that would have on your predictions.

But what am I saying---I'm just a mathematician.