Slashdot Mirror

I don't understand why companies don't include such things on new PCs as an option. Just include the .EXE file for Folding@Home (or one of the lesser projects :), a link on the desktop and an explanation of what the user can do with his/her idle CPU time. The number crunching power of millions upon millions of PCs wouldn't go to waste.

If you still believe that population growth is a problem (that is, that Thomas Robert Malthus or Paul Ehrlich are correct), then you have never heard of Julian Simon.

While Malthus (centuries ago) and again Ehrlich (late 1960s) hypothesized that geometric population growth combined with a finite amount of resources would lead to massive problems (mainly starvation), they missed two things that would prevent this: technology and ingenuity.

Combined, we find that people will always be looking for a way to build a better mouse trap, or, in this case, get more use out of less copper, find different ways to grow more livestock, etc. As world population grows, there are many more consumers who are looking for options, and the entrepeneur wins.

Malthus' argument fails to realized the ability of mankind to find solutions to problems, and therefore, is most likely incorrect. Or, at least he grossly miscalculated the maximum possible world population.

Six Billion And Feeling Fine.

For more about Julian Simon, I suggest this obituary, which describes his work quite well.

There has been a lot of IPO activity lately. Read the RedHerring if you want to know more about this. They did a big article giving some of the numbers lately.

A big part of what's going on right now is that the venture community has figured out that they can make the public markets (i.e. people who buy stock) take a lot of the risk of a company, by doing an early IPO. This is worth worring about - retail investors are taking venture-level risks, but getting equity-level returns. At some point there will be some big disasters, and this game will stop.

Also, many companies do IPOs to freeze out competitors - on the theory that the ones with the biggest "war chests" in an area will dominate it, and cause competitors to not be able to get funding.

But as for worrying about it - no way! It means that it's easier to get things funded these days, good and bad, which means more things are being developed. Finances are a tool, like anything else. Every engineer should understand that.

here is proof

Title of invention: Method and system in a data processing system windowing environment for displaying previously obscured information

red herring - I'm gonna sue your ass! How industry leaders are putting startups through legal hell -- and dampening innovation.

check this url http://www.herring.com/mag/issue66 /news-sue.html out.

talks about the problems with law suits wrt to small firms and big companies and how the small firms loose :(