Well, there are geographical reasons for that also. While the Middle East is That Great Place of Oil(TM), it also happens to be reasonably close to Europe, certainly by shipping line. So it would be a pretty natural place to get oil from even if it weren't a large part of OPEC.
Besides, as someone has already stated, the US has mostly exhausted its cheap oil. While we can kid ourselves that if we REALLY wanted we could be self-sufficient, the cost of that would probably be quite unacceptable to the general public. In case of war economics don't matter too much, so the US would probably be ok, but on a free market US oil is simply more expensive.
In my original post I didn't put any spin, I simply stated that public transportation is almost non-existent in the US. By that I didn't mean that I wouldn't welcome it. In fact, most people opposed to public transportation have never experienced a well-run system themselves, relying instead on Hollywood clichees of the NYC subway.
You should visit any of the European cities with a decent rapid transit system and judge for yourself. Of course, as a tourist it's hard to develop an unbiased opinion on the basis of a couple of days. But people that use them for their daily commute rarely would switch to a car. You can read a book, work on a laptop etc while on the way to/from work. There's something to be said for a lifestyle where you can hop on and off public transportation on your way across the city, without having to babysit and nurture a car--find it a parking spot, feed it, maneuver it around all the idiots on the road.
Personally, here in Chattanooga I have to use the car for everything, and sometimes in the morning I'm longing to just kick back and relax on the way to work. Mind you, I'm not ignorant of the fact that in most places in the US the population density is simply too low to make comprehensive public transportation worth the cost. Here in Chattanooga alone--a city of about 150,000--the number of bus lines required to REALLY service the city would be mindboggling.
Besides, sometimes it is nice to have the car. It's nice to have both options, and many Europeans certainly share that opinion. There is a reason why Germany and Italy, along with the US, are the car richest countries in the world.
We would never never ever consider driving less because we don't have much of a choice. I don't know percentages, but probably by far most of the population of the US has no reasonable access to public transportation. Only a few of the very large cities have a decent enough infrastructure to make a car-free life feasible. For the rest, it's the car or nothing.
Europe doesn't get all its oil from the Middle East. You might want to check out the oil drilling efforts in the North Sea, some of the busiest oil drilling in the world.
It seems that garbage collection will eventually weasle its way into most surviving programming languages, so stack objects might not matter too much. What I mainly like about them is the more concise procedures they allow. I'm a stickler for saving those extra two three lines of code.
I realize that linking at the procedure level is a compiler feature, I thought I implied as much in my post. Still, I find it amazing that C/C++ compiler vendors have gone out of their way to add all kinds of arkane features, yet mostly haven't gotten around to this pretty useful one.
1. Having stack objects can be very nice. You simply declare the variable at the beginning of the procedure, use it, and when it goes out of scope it automatically calls the destructor. In Delphi you always have to make sure to call Free, hence the need for try...finally, and that can lead to accidental memory leaks. Still, I live every day without this feature and still love Delphi.
2. Units. I really hate that you can't spread a class definition across units. It's also very easy to end up with circular inclusion, which Delphi doesn't allow. So basically, if you have several classes that in any way reference each other, they ALL need to be in the same unit. Which of course leads to the HUGE units of the VCL.
Still, the fact that Delphi compiles and links code on a procedure level rather than unit level (as C/C++ does) helps a lot and makes my point 2 above more of an aesthetic niggle than a real problem. And while it might have nothing to do with Pascal per se, I sure love Delphi's compilation speed. Whenever I have to switch to C++ for some other project and have to wait around for minutes for it to compile, I gladly run back to Delphi. I like saying that no matter what the project, Delphi takes 5 seconds to compile it. Hello world? 5 seconds. Windows 2000? 5 seconds (eh, make that 10).
>> Templates - It is unlikely this will ever be >> included in Delphi for the simple reason of >> compilation speed.
> That reasoning is wrong and that reasoning has > been ripped apart often enough.
I'd say a better point against templates is that they can lead to serious code bloat. Naive implementations that don't consolidate common functionality in a base class can lead to incredible code multiplication. Of course, in the hands of a decent programmer they can be quite handy (he, he), but then again, a decent programmer can make even a crappy tool work to advantage.
I just don't get this craze about embedding Linux. Last time I checked, you still need at least 2M RAM to do anything minimally useful, and 20M to store a minimal fileset. In the embedded world that's considered BIG IRON. The embedded stuff we create here at work runs on a 386 PC104 board with 2M RAM and 500k Flash. We're running PharLap, and much of the 2M aren't in use. Look around the industry, and that kind of setup is very typical. If we had to switch to Linux today, our hardware costs would suddenly shoot up--at the very least for a Disk-On-Chip to store the thing, possibly more RAM as well.
I'm not saying Linux doesn't have the capabilities, only that its bang-per-byte isn't that great. Its main attraction is the price, but other than that there are many (currently) superior alternatives.
What really needs to be done is to pare down the kernel to 250KB or less and still include all the useful stuff like networking and a FS in there. Once you can run it on a typical 640k 386 and still have room for your embedded app(s), then you're talking. After that, prune away at the required files until the whole things needs WAY less than 20M--more like 1M or so.
There are OSs out there today that make do with far less hardware than Linux--I believe EPOC is amongst them, so is QNX, PalmOS, etc. Personally I don't like PharLap which we are using, so I'd be eager to switch anyway. But these are the OSs embedded Linux would be competing with. And simply saying "hey, it takes more hardware, but it's free" doesn't cut the mustard.
My machines never stay in one piece forever. Eventually they disgorge their innards into other machines, the HD going into one box, the video/sound into another, the mobo/CPU yet another one. Which of these pieces is the Windows CD supposed to stick with? Where does its loyalty lie?
Personally, I believe in the buy-once-use-on-all-machines-in-the-house approach, and unless the FBI comes tearing down my door, I don't give a shit what others say. That's the beauty of software, that you can do that sort of thing. If you could also do it with hardware--books, TVs, phones--I'd never buy more than one of anything, but alas...
If we had a humongous generator with a crank handle extending all the way to the moon, we could use the moon for some serious energy. Of course, since we're effectively slowing it down, it will eventually plummet down to Earth and kill us all. But I think the tradeoff is well worth it, and if we calculate the energy extraction rate carefully, we can time the whole falling-down-to-earth bit so as to make it a future generation's problem.
> Maglev train: aren't the Japanese the only > people who have invested in this?
Actually, TransRapid is the most production-ready maglev system in the world. They've been working on the technology since the 60s. I think the Japanese tend to get mentioned more in this regard because of the association with their bullet trains which everyone knows about--which probably leads to the assumption that their maglev technology must also be most advanced. There have been various articles in the scientific press (especially Scientific American) with comparisons between the Japanese and German system (repulsive vs. attractive), with the general consensus that the Japanese system isn't market ready yet.
> Turkish human rights are appalling, quite as > bad as Iraq.
Quite correct. I really shouldn't have mentioned that point because it would have taken more elaboration to do it justice. The thing is, German industry is quite willing to overlook human rights for a quick buck--witness their involvement in chemical technology deliveries to Iraq--and one has to wonder whether the German government really is always consistent in that respect. For one thing, Germans have a thing with Turks because they're the largest minority in Germany. On the other hand, Germany has always been very cosy with Arab countries, all the way back to the Third Reich. My point is that the objection to the Turkish sales of the Leopard II probably had more to do with the fact that it was Turkey. I'm suspecting you might have never heard about it had it been say Indonesia instead.
> I'm unconvinced about the claim that Germany's > long-term finances are in a mess.
Well, that's an issue I'm no expert on, other than that the quality of life is steadily declining in Germany. On the recent quality-of-life UN roster of countries, Germany ranked about in the middle, quite unbecoming for the third-largest economy in the world. Blaming it all on an aging population doesn't tell the whole story.
Even if you're right, their general attitude doesn't help. Germans in general tend to be very child-unfriendly, if one can make such a blanket statement. I visited there just three weeks ago with my two year old twins, and I've never seen so much indifference or outright displeasure towards kids. Here in the southern US, I can't go to the mall without being stopped 10-15 times by complete strangers ogling over the twins. OK, the South is maybe more child-friendly than average in the US, but still. So this anti-child attitude in Germany will either have to change, or they'll have to become an immigration country like the US. The latter they pretty much already are anyway, though they won't admit it. The former I'd like to see.
The German higher education system is in shambles mostly due to underfunding. Libraries are pathetic, classes are huge, not enough research takes place. This all is according to the German media, because I did all my university studies in Australia and the US, so I wouldn't know. I just know German students constantly bitch about the system there.
> I sometimes wonder if my German has become that > bad or if Germans are just not used to German > coming out of an Asian face.
Actually, Germans are really flattered if someone makes the effort to learn their language. They certainly won't put you down, they'll compliment you even if your German sucks. The French on the other hand will condescendingly switch to English should only your accent be slightly off (ok, not really, but you get the point). Hey, my second disparaging comment about the French, and I don't even dislike them a bit. Stereotypes, stereotypes...
> I disagree with the Germans being conservative - > a lot of that would have to do with what your > definition of conservative would be
True, and I leave it at that. To be honest, I'm mostly irked by their sometimes luddite behaviour more than anything else. I posted a much more comprehensive rant on this issue to another poster in this thread.
>> Germans can be incredibly rude, especially in >> the service industries. > Amen to that.
Let me qualify that: your mileage may vary with German rudeness. A lot of people can be very friendly, in fact you might visit the country for a couple of weeks and never experience any particular rudeness. On the other hand, at times there can be episodes where you think you're on the other side of the iron curtain.
German rudeness is different from French rudeness in that the French are rude on priciple, as a matter of pride (well, especially around Paris), whereas Germans are more capricious and temperamental. The daemons of rudeness enter them at more random times.
Yeah, that's what I like about the city. I mean, I'm not the most partying person in the world, but it's nice to know that the option exists.
> I'm living in Boston, so the weather would be an improvement for me...
I visited Berlin about three weeks ago and the weather was superb. Actually too hot as far as I'm concerned, especially since Europeans don't think much of air conditioning. Sleeping at 90 degrees is not my idea of fun. They do have lots of lakes to cool off at, though.
> Politically liberal, good privacy safeguards in law.
I guess I was inaccurate regarding political conservativism. When I think of German politics, "conservative" to me means good old socialist behaviour. While I'm very middle of the road between socialism and capitalism, Germans have a hard time shedding some of the old social structures that are becoming a liability. They have high unemployment and low private spending, yet can't get themselves to revamp the tax code to both encourage citizens to spend more, and to make it more attractive for companies to operate in the country.
Other things I do like about their politics. I think there's considerably less hypocrisy and piety than in the US. I love privacy laws over there, probably some of the best in the world. True personal privacy is one thing Americans will probably never really understand.
The main thing I really hate about Germany and Germans is their infuriating technological aversion of late. The Greens would rather have everybody return to the horse-and-buggy and accept the horseshit in the streets than expend any efforts in embracing and cleaning up new technologies. OK, they have a thing about solar and wind power, but that's about it. Classical case in point is the TransRapid maglev train. Here's a technology that has been refined over 25 years, which promises lots of improvements in several areas. But it being a new trick, and Germany an old dog, it simply won't fly. Now another country is going to take it and run with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the US--or maybe China--will have the first installation, and with it the fame and glory.
Another classic German missed-opportunity case: Kraus-Maffei worked up a juicy deal with Turkey for tons of Leopard II tanks. OK, maybe a shady way of making money, but the US economy certainly benefits handsomely from it. Now some parties in the government are objecting to the sale because of Turkey's questionable human rights record. I can't deny that that's true, but if Turkey is good enough for the US to make deals with, why the hell shouldn't it be for Germany? They certainly don't mind working with the Chinese.
As a technophile, things like that curdle my blood and make it boil at the same time.
The German companies that drive technology forward are mostly the ones with international operations. I'm sure a lot of Siemens' R&D happens abroad--it has to, given the shortage of good tech universities. Heck, look at a lot of the top US research scientists: either Chinese, Russian or German names. That's where everybody defects to.
> Undergraduate teaching typically takes the form > of impressively qualified but distant professors > giving lectures to huge theatres of undergraduates, > with almost no opportunity for personal contact.
Hey, that sounds like my kind of university. Actually, I kind of prefer that kind of setup, but it's just my personal taste. I agree that on average it probably does less for the students than a more personal setting. Incidentally, in Australia at the University of Queensland it certainly was the same in freshman year. Intro CompSci, English, Bio, Chemistry etc consisted of a huge amphitheatre stuffed full with 400 students or so.
The main problem I have with US education is with everything leading up to graduate studies. High school places almost no learning demands on students (with notable exceptions, usually in private schools), which colleges then have to make up for with prolonged undergraduate studies. I got my CS degree in the US, but did my senior high school in Germany and Australia. Needless to say, I was bored to death in the general ed classes, except for differential equations and American history. Judging by its relevance to my eventual jobs, I would consider the CS degree very mediocre. I'm sure the elite schools do better, but since when do abberations count?
Well, I was thinking more in terms of jokes about national or regional stereotypes, under which I guess redneck jokes would fall. Racial jokes are a different thing, I won't touch that topic. In any case, most Europeans are of the same general race anyway, so you've got to find other things to poke fun at.
As as German living in the US, I have a bias towards Europe. When I return there, I will consider one of these options:
Berlin. Huge place, largest city in Europe. Tons of money are pouring into the place, even though right now it's still one big construction site. My feeling is it will become more and more the German show piece, so lots of things will be "firsts" in Berlin. Deutsche Telekom (most hated in Germany, btw) is planning flat-rate DSL rollout this summer, so eventually connectivity will be good. Personally, I'm biased towards large metropolitan cities (despite where I live right now!), and Berlin definitely fits the bill. Road infrastructure is good and getting even better with more city freeways. The surroundings are pretty good too, with lots of lakes and stuff to do, especially up north towards the Baltic.
However, I'm not sure I want to live in Germany again. For one, my wife is American and doesn't speak a lick of Deutsch. Besides, I'm sick of Germany for various reasons: Germans are very conservative overall--politically, socially, economically, financially, technologically. True, lots of tech came out of Germany this century, but those were different times, when Germans were still adventurous. Now they're used to the good life and don't want to jeopardize it with any "risky business". Most bright and open minds have left for the US long ago.
Also, Germans can be incredibly rude, especially in the service industries. I've never been treated with more indifference and contempt than in German shops and restaurants. And that at hourly wages many times more than in the US, where you get better service regardless.
Add to that a strong dose of arrogance. Germans still think of their country as the leading edge in all the areas that made it great, completely ignoring that times have changed and the world has moved on. While they certainly haven't missed the train yet, they need to wake up and smell the coffee--and I'm not sure they're capable of that anymore.
Ireland. Seems to be really booming in the IT area. Life should be a lot cheaper than in most of Europe, though I'm sure that'll change. Language is English (well, arguably anyway), and the people are reportedly very friendly, especially after being lubricated with some ale. However, the weather is reputed to be bad a lot of the time. It's also pretty far from the Continent. I'd be interested to know how long it takes to get to the mainland, and at what cost.
Spain. One of the cheapest European countries, except for telecom. Friendly people, great weather most of the time. After living in Australia and the southern US, I'm not sure I can return to cold climates again, so Spain is a strong favorite there. The language is a problem since my Spanish is worse than my Swahili, and I don't speak Swahili. I don't know how far English will get you in Spain either. But I'm willing to learn, so that should count for something .
Amsterdam. It's on the Continent, so there's easy access to everywhere. Everybody speaks English, and good English at that. It's quite a high-tech city from what I hear, so that's a plus.
Other than these options, I can't think of anything else. Eastern Europe won't be an option for at least another decade, their infrastructure simply sucks.
Americans looking at Europe should keep the following things in mind in general. They're not show stoppers, but they can be very irritating in day-to-day life.
-cost of gas. Europe sucks the blood out of you there. Filling up a mid-size sedan runs about $50. On the flip side, there's a plethora of public transportation, and you don't need a car as much as in the US, but it depends on where you live. If you're used to the US lifestyle of two cars no matter what, that can get pretty expensive.
-cost of housing. Rents are high, houses cost even more. I only know about Germany, but I assume things are similar everythere. Most houses in Germany start at $400,000 or so and go up, up, up. There's really no equivalent of the small three bedroom suburban house for $100,000. Properties are really expensive ($150 a square meter in many places, do the math for acres), often running almost as much as the house. Therefore people build big expensive houses to make it worthwhile. Get ready to pay for the rest of your life (and maybe your children's lives) for your house.
-communications. Most European telephone companies were only recently privatised, and they're still dragging their feet. They're simply used to monopoly status and price their services accordingly. In most places even local calls are metered, so staying online with your ISP will cost you a bunch. The ISP costs themselves are comparable to the US, the real killer are the phone company charges. Downloading a Linux distribution will probably cost you more than buying the boxed version. However, it's a fast-paced field and a lot of competition is arriving. In many countries DSL is starting to arrive, and along with it flat rate Internet access. With respect to DSL, I don't think Europe is far behind the US, where it's still impossible to get DSL in most places and will be for the next 5 to 10 years.
-culture. Americans are used to travel all over the US and still remain within their cultural context: same language, same politics, same restaurants, same TV and media. Travel that much in Europe, and your head will spin. No language is truly common to all of Europe (though English is the official language of the EU). No TV is common, you have to adjust to what's available in each country; and while people on the street might speak some English, the evening news most certainly will be in the local language. Magazines and newspapers differ widely, too, though you will find many international ones also. People's lifestyles and attitudes differ incredibly, and you can make no safe assumptions except with time and experience. Don't forget, these are still independent countries, proud of their differences and heritage. In the US we can all make a joke about the South and rednecks and all, safe in the knowledge that we're all Americans after all. In Europe, make a joke about another European nation and you're liable to get your head bashed in if the wrong people stand around.
All in all, you can live quite nicely in Europe--300 million people do it every day and wouldn't be anywhere else. But be prepared for a serious culture shock for the first few months. I know of a lot of people who went through serious depression until they got used to the place. Eventually most people settle in and like it a whole lot.
Even though Munich is a large city population-wise, it feels like a small provincial town almost. Road infrastucture is terrible, it takes forever to get from one end of town to the other, since there are no (or few) freeway bypasses.
Besides, life is way too expensive in Munich itself. You have to go outside of town and commute to find decent housing. However, the area to the south towards the Alps is quite accessible with two freeways, and it's beautiful around there.
All in all I'd have to say Munich is a mixed bag. Besides, especially for foreigners, the accent takes some getting used to.
Yeah, it's a great city to live. I was there from 87 to 92, went to UQ and tried a couple of majors, but then had to leave since I was still hanging off my parent's apron strings at the time, and they left for the US. Life is much more relaxed than in most places, people are friendly--especially after you prime them with a few bottles of XXXX. Gold Coast is just an hour away, and the beaches around Brisbane are some of the best in the world, period!
The only downside to life in Australia is that it's so fucking far from the rest of the (relevant) world. Most of my family lives in Germany, so I didn't get to see them very often. And at the time email and the Web were only just getting started in the non-geek world. Considering a return ticket to Europe used to run $2000 or so, you're pretty much stuck to the Continent. And a big continent it is, with way not enough decent freeways to go places.
Just as soon as commercial wormholes becomes available and travel from Australia to Europe and the US involves nothing more than stepping through a gate, I'll be back in Oz, that's for sure.
It might all be true and all, but when everything is said and done, and the smoke clears, and the first laptops actually ship, I'll eat a Yugo if they run substantially longer than a thrifty laptop today. By SUBSTANTIALLY I mean twice as long or so. Considering a current laptop maybe does 2-3h of CONTINUOUS USE, a Crusoe laptop would have to go for at least 5-6h for me to give a shit. Anything less is hardly revolutionary. And I seriously doubt we'll see that kind of battery life. If IBM is right and the Thinkpad they're promising will really do 8h, now that would be something to behold. Until then, I'll remain the stubborn and pigheaded skeptic I am.
The reason for that is that the software isn't the only part of the ERP equation. Heck, with some vendors it might not even be the greatest part. What really makes ERP tick is a thorough analysis of the company, its structure, business processes etc. Then using this information the ERP software is put in place to smooth out all these interactions. Sometimes the company needs some restructuring and streamlining, often the software needs lots of adapting to a particular company.
All in all the real costs of ERP are in the analysis and installation phase. The software costs are almost incidental. Look at a company like SAP and one of their large installations. GM spent hundreds of millions of dollars for SAP analysts to come in and adapt the SAP software to the company. The big moolah goes into maintaining this horde of specialists for the months and years it takes to install SAP.
Given all this, Open Source ERP software is about as useful as Open Source Space Shuttle "firmware".
Well, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, when Sharky or Tom squared off the AMD and Intel against each other, equivalent performance cost about the same. Besides, like many people around here I don't shop at that end of the price spectrum. The Celeron is still very popular, and at that level AMD doesn't really offer anything special--except for the new Duron I guess. I'll have to check that one out sooner or later.
> If the release version is supposed to work with > AMD processors, then why are you complaining?
Because for a substantial amount of time it WASN'T working. If the point of incompatibility is in a graphics card or some other peripheral, you yank it and replace it with something that works. If the culprit is the CPU or chipset itself, you're rather stuck, unless you replace the whole machine.
My point is that viewed over an extended length of time, you're more likely to encounter incompatibilities with AMD than with Intel. It might often happen for trivial reasons, or even through no fault of AMD's, but the fact that it happens is enough.
It seems to me that such statements--minimizing the impact of digital electronics on society--are most often made by those who understand their use and applications the least.
Many argue that increased mobility is one of the greatest impacts of high tech on the human race. In particular flying, because it reduces the size of the entire planet to one day's trip. Our image of the world has changed profoundly since we can personally visit most of it.
Flying would not be so widespread (and increasing at an estimated 5% anually) if it weren't affordable. What makes flying affordable is the reliable aircraft technology. Modern jet engines in particular are one of the most reliable pieces of hardware ever built. If one considers the MTBF of a jet engine, it blows most other things out of the water. There are many factors contributing to that: modern materials engineering, proper servicing, proper use. But equally crucial are modern monitoring and engine control systems. That's one area where digital electronics have made a huge impact. Modern IC technology can be very problem-free compared to what was before. It also offers many more capabilities that would have been very hard or very expensive to implement with analog electronics.
Another area where digital electronics made a huge impact in aircraft--and will make an even bigger one in the future--is in communications. Aircraft of the 40s, 50s and 60s used to have huge amounts of cabling on board for all the various sensor and actuator systems. Back then everything was analog, so a cable ran across the entire aircraft to each device. Modern planes have many more devices on board than back then, so the increase in cable weight and space requirements would be huge. Digital networks have substantially cut down the amount of full-length cable runs required. In addition, they also made possible deploying many more sensors than would have been practicable before. And that's still using copper mostly. The future promises even larger savings by using fiber optics for all major busses. In addition to cutting down on the amount of wire needed and the substantial weight savings, it also reduces the effects of RF interference and allows more redundancy through additional cable runs.
Travel today without doubt would be far more expensive without digital electronics. But there are so many other areas where they've made substantial but invisible differences that it's hard to know where to start. All I can say is that if there's any technology-supported aspect of modern life that appears to be functioning well--or funcioning at all--digital electronics are somewhere in there either making it at all possible, or making it much cheaper and affordable and reliable.
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Well, there are geographical reasons for that also. While the Middle East is That Great Place of Oil(TM), it also happens to be reasonably close to Europe, certainly by shipping line. So it would be a pretty natural place to get oil from even if it weren't a large part of OPEC.
Besides, as someone has already stated, the US has mostly exhausted its cheap oil. While we can kid ourselves that if we REALLY wanted we could be self-sufficient, the cost of that would probably be quite unacceptable to the general public. In case of war economics don't matter too much, so the US would probably be ok, but on a free market US oil is simply more expensive.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
In my original post I didn't put any spin, I simply stated that public transportation is almost non-existent in the US. By that I didn't mean that I wouldn't welcome it. In fact, most people opposed to public transportation have never experienced a well-run system themselves, relying instead on Hollywood clichees of the NYC subway.
You should visit any of the European cities with a decent rapid transit system and judge for yourself. Of course, as a tourist it's hard to develop an unbiased opinion on the basis of a couple of days. But people that use them for their daily commute rarely would switch to a car. You can read a book, work on a laptop etc while on the way to/from work. There's something to be said for a lifestyle where you can hop on and off public transportation on your way across the city, without having to babysit and nurture a car--find it a parking spot, feed it, maneuver it around all the idiots on the road.
Personally, here in Chattanooga I have to use the car for everything, and sometimes in the morning I'm longing to just kick back and relax on the way to work. Mind you, I'm not ignorant of the fact that in most places in the US the population density is simply too low to make comprehensive public transportation worth the cost. Here in Chattanooga alone--a city of about 150,000--the number of bus lines required to REALLY service the city would be mindboggling.
Besides, sometimes it is nice to have the car. It's nice to have both options, and many Europeans certainly share that opinion. There is a reason why Germany and Italy, along with the US, are the car richest countries in the world.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
We would never never ever consider driving less because we don't have much of a choice. I don't know percentages, but probably by far most of the population of the US has no reasonable access to public transportation. Only a few of the very large cities have a decent enough infrastructure to make a car-free life feasible. For the rest, it's the car or nothing.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Europe doesn't get all its oil from the Middle East. You might want to check out the oil drilling efforts in the North Sea, some of the busiest oil drilling in the world.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
It seems that garbage collection will eventually weasle its way into most surviving programming languages, so stack objects might not matter too much. What I mainly like about them is the more concise procedures they allow. I'm a stickler for saving those extra two three lines of code.
I realize that linking at the procedure level is a compiler feature, I thought I implied as much in my post. Still, I find it amazing that C/C++ compiler vendors have gone out of their way to add all kinds of arkane features, yet mostly haven't gotten around to this pretty useful one.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I agree with most of what you say, except:
1. Having stack objects can be very nice. You simply declare the variable at the beginning of the procedure, use it, and when it goes out of scope it automatically calls the destructor. In Delphi you always have to make sure to call Free, hence the need for try...finally, and that can lead to accidental memory leaks. Still, I live every day without this feature and still love Delphi.
2. Units. I really hate that you can't spread a class definition across units. It's also very easy to end up with circular inclusion, which Delphi doesn't allow. So basically, if you have several classes that in any way reference each other, they ALL need to be in the same unit. Which of course leads to the HUGE units of the VCL.
Still, the fact that Delphi compiles and links code on a procedure level rather than unit level (as C/C++ does) helps a lot and makes my point 2 above more of an aesthetic niggle than a real problem. And while it might have nothing to do with Pascal per se, I sure love Delphi's compilation speed. Whenever I have to switch to C++ for some other project and have to wait around for minutes for it to compile, I gladly run back to Delphi. I like saying that no matter what the project, Delphi takes 5 seconds to compile it. Hello world? 5 seconds. Windows 2000? 5 seconds (eh, make that 10).
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
>> Templates - It is unlikely this will ever be
>> included in Delphi for the simple reason of
>> compilation speed.
> That reasoning is wrong and that reasoning has
> been ripped apart often enough.
I'd say a better point against templates is that they can lead to serious code bloat. Naive implementations that don't consolidate common functionality in a base class can lead to incredible code multiplication. Of course, in the hands of a decent programmer they can be quite handy (he, he), but then again, a decent programmer can make even a crappy tool work to advantage.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I mean to post this under "Linux Announcement from Sony, Toshiba, NEC, Fujitsu", so mea culpa.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I just don't get this craze about embedding Linux. Last time I checked, you still need at least 2M RAM to do anything minimally useful, and 20M to store a minimal fileset. In the embedded world that's considered BIG IRON. The embedded stuff we create here at work runs on a 386 PC104 board with 2M RAM and 500k Flash. We're running PharLap, and much of the 2M aren't in use. Look around the industry, and that kind of setup is very typical. If we had to switch to Linux today, our hardware costs would suddenly shoot up--at the very least for a Disk-On-Chip to store the thing, possibly more RAM as well.
I'm not saying Linux doesn't have the capabilities, only that its bang-per-byte isn't that great. Its main attraction is the price, but other than that there are many (currently) superior alternatives.
What really needs to be done is to pare down the kernel to 250KB or less and still include all the useful stuff like networking and a FS in there. Once you can run it on a typical 640k 386 and still have room for your embedded app(s), then you're talking. After that, prune away at the required files until the whole things needs WAY less than 20M--more like 1M or so.
There are OSs out there today that make do with far less hardware than Linux--I believe EPOC is amongst them, so is QNX, PalmOS, etc. Personally I don't like PharLap which we are using, so I'd be eager to switch anyway. But these are the OSs embedded Linux would be competing with. And simply saying "hey, it takes more hardware, but it's free" doesn't cut the mustard.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Hmm?
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
My machines never stay in one piece forever. Eventually they disgorge their innards into other machines, the HD going into one box, the video/sound into another, the mobo/CPU yet another one. Which of these pieces is the Windows CD supposed to stick with? Where does its loyalty lie?
Personally, I believe in the buy-once-use-on-all-machines-in-the-house approach, and unless the FBI comes tearing down my door, I don't give a shit what others say. That's the beauty of software, that you can do that sort of thing. If you could also do it with hardware--books, TVs, phones--I'd never buy more than one of anything, but alas...
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
If we had a humongous generator with a crank handle extending all the way to the moon, we could use the moon for some serious energy. Of course, since we're effectively slowing it down, it will eventually plummet down to Earth and kill us all. But I think the tradeoff is well worth it, and if we calculate the energy extraction rate carefully, we can time the whole falling-down-to-earth bit so as to make it a future generation's problem.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> Maglev train: aren't the Japanese the only
> people who have invested in this?
Actually, TransRapid is the most production-ready maglev system in the world. They've been working on the technology since the 60s. I think the Japanese tend to get mentioned more in this regard because of the association with their bullet trains which everyone knows about--which probably leads to the assumption that their maglev technology must also be most advanced. There have been various articles in the scientific press (especially Scientific American) with comparisons between the Japanese and German system (repulsive vs. attractive), with the general consensus that the Japanese system isn't market ready yet.
> Turkish human rights are appalling, quite as
> bad as Iraq.
Quite correct. I really shouldn't have mentioned that point because it would have taken more elaboration to do it justice. The thing is, German industry is quite willing to overlook human rights for a quick buck--witness their involvement in chemical technology deliveries to Iraq--and one has to wonder whether the German government really is always consistent in that respect. For one thing, Germans have a thing with Turks because they're the largest minority in Germany. On the other hand, Germany has always been very cosy with Arab countries, all the way back to the Third Reich. My point is that the objection to the Turkish sales of the Leopard II probably had more to do with the fact that it was Turkey. I'm suspecting you might have never heard about it had it been say Indonesia instead.
> I'm unconvinced about the claim that Germany's
> long-term finances are in a mess.
Well, that's an issue I'm no expert on, other than that the quality of life is steadily declining in Germany. On the recent quality-of-life UN roster of countries, Germany ranked about in the middle, quite unbecoming for the third-largest economy in the world. Blaming it all on an aging population doesn't tell the whole story.
Even if you're right, their general attitude doesn't help. Germans in general tend to be very child-unfriendly, if one can make such a blanket statement. I visited there just three weeks ago with my two year old twins, and I've never seen so much indifference or outright displeasure towards kids. Here in the southern US, I can't go to the mall without being stopped 10-15 times by complete strangers ogling over the twins. OK, the South is maybe more child-friendly than average in the US, but still. So this anti-child attitude in Germany will either have to change, or they'll have to become an immigration country like the US. The latter they pretty much already are anyway, though they won't admit it. The former I'd like to see.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
The German higher education system is in shambles mostly due to underfunding. Libraries are pathetic, classes are huge, not enough research takes place. This all is according to the German media, because I did all my university studies in Australia and the US, so I wouldn't know. I just know German students constantly bitch about the system there.
> I sometimes wonder if my German has become that
> bad or if Germans are just not used to German
> coming out of an Asian face.
Actually, Germans are really flattered if someone makes the effort to learn their language. They certainly won't put you down, they'll compliment you even if your German sucks. The French on the other hand will condescendingly switch to English should only your accent be slightly off (ok, not really, but you get the point). Hey, my second disparaging comment about the French, and I don't even dislike them a bit. Stereotypes, stereotypes...
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> I disagree with the Germans being conservative -
> a lot of that would have to do with what your
> definition of conservative would be
True, and I leave it at that. To be honest, I'm mostly irked by their sometimes luddite behaviour more than anything else. I posted a much more comprehensive rant on this issue to another poster in this thread.
>> Germans can be incredibly rude, especially in
>> the service industries.
> Amen to that.
Let me qualify that: your mileage may vary with German rudeness. A lot of people can be very friendly, in fact you might visit the country for a couple of weeks and never experience any particular rudeness. On the other hand, at times there can be episodes where you think you're on the other side of the iron curtain.
German rudeness is different from French rudeness in that the French are rude on priciple, as a matter of pride (well, especially around Paris), whereas Germans are more capricious and temperamental. The daemons of rudeness enter them at more random times.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> Really active and exciting social scene.
Yeah, that's what I like about the city. I mean, I'm not the most partying person in the world, but it's nice to know that the option exists.
> I'm living in Boston, so the weather would be an improvement for
me...
I visited Berlin about three weeks ago and the weather was superb. Actually too hot as far as I'm concerned, especially since Europeans don't think much of air conditioning. Sleeping at 90 degrees is not my idea of fun. They do have lots of lakes to cool off at, though.
> Politically liberal, good privacy safeguards in law.
I guess I was inaccurate regarding political conservativism. When I think of German politics, "conservative" to me means good old socialist behaviour. While I'm very middle of the road between socialism and capitalism, Germans have a hard time shedding some of the old social structures that are becoming a liability. They have high unemployment and low private spending, yet can't get themselves to revamp the tax code to both encourage citizens to spend more, and to make it more attractive for companies to operate in the country.
Other things I do like about their politics. I think there's considerably less hypocrisy and piety than in the US. I love privacy laws over there, probably some of the best in the world. True personal privacy is one thing Americans will probably never really understand.
The main thing I really hate about Germany and Germans is their infuriating technological aversion of late. The Greens would rather have everybody return to the horse-and-buggy and accept the horseshit in the streets than expend any efforts in embracing and cleaning up new technologies. OK, they have a thing about solar and wind power, but that's about it. Classical case in point is the TransRapid maglev train. Here's a technology that has been refined over 25 years, which promises lots of improvements in several areas. But it being a new trick, and Germany an old dog, it simply won't fly. Now another country is going to take it and run with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the US--or maybe China--will have the first installation, and with it the fame and glory.
Another classic German missed-opportunity case: Kraus-Maffei worked up a juicy deal with Turkey for tons of Leopard II tanks. OK, maybe a shady way of making money, but the US economy certainly benefits handsomely from it. Now some parties in the government are objecting to the sale because of Turkey's questionable human rights record. I can't deny that that's true, but if Turkey is good enough for the US to make deals with, why the hell shouldn't it be for Germany? They certainly don't mind working with the Chinese.
As a technophile, things like that curdle my blood and make it boil at the same time.
The German companies that drive technology forward are mostly the ones with international operations. I'm sure a lot of Siemens' R&D happens abroad--it has to, given the shortage of good tech universities. Heck, look at a lot of the top US research scientists: either Chinese, Russian or German names. That's where everybody defects to.
> Undergraduate teaching typically takes the form
> of impressively qualified but distant professors
> giving lectures to huge theatres of undergraduates,
> with almost no opportunity for personal
contact.
Hey, that sounds like my kind of university. Actually, I kind of prefer that kind of setup, but it's just my personal taste. I agree that on average it probably does less for the students than a more personal setting. Incidentally, in Australia at the University of Queensland it certainly was the same in freshman year. Intro CompSci, English, Bio, Chemistry etc consisted of a huge amphitheatre stuffed full with 400 students or so.
The main problem I have with US education is with everything leading up to graduate studies. High school places almost no learning demands on students (with notable exceptions, usually in private schools), which colleges then have to make up for with prolonged undergraduate studies. I got my CS degree in the US, but did my senior high school in Germany and Australia. Needless to say, I was bored to death in the general ed classes, except for differential equations and American history. Judging by its relevance to my eventual jobs, I would consider the CS degree very mediocre. I'm sure the elite schools do better, but since when do abberations count?
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Well, I was thinking more in terms of jokes about national or regional stereotypes, under which I guess redneck jokes would fall. Racial jokes are a different thing, I won't touch that topic. In any case, most Europeans are of the same general race anyway, so you've got to find other things to poke fun at.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
As as German living in the US, I have a bias towards Europe. When I return there, I will consider one of these options:
Berlin. Huge place, largest city in Europe. Tons of money are pouring into the place, even though right now it's still one big construction site. My feeling is it will become more and more the German show piece, so lots of things will be "firsts" in Berlin. Deutsche Telekom (most hated in Germany, btw) is planning flat-rate DSL rollout this summer, so eventually connectivity will be good. Personally, I'm biased towards large metropolitan cities (despite where I live right now!), and Berlin definitely fits the bill. Road infrastructure is good and getting even better with more city freeways. The surroundings are pretty good too, with lots of lakes and stuff to do, especially up north towards the Baltic.
However, I'm not sure I want to live in Germany again. For one, my wife is American and doesn't speak a lick of Deutsch. Besides, I'm sick of Germany for various reasons: Germans are very conservative overall--politically, socially, economically, financially, technologically. True, lots of tech came out of Germany this century, but those were different times, when Germans were still adventurous. Now they're used to the good life and don't want to jeopardize it with any "risky business". Most bright and open minds have left for the US long ago.
Also, Germans can be incredibly rude, especially in the service industries. I've never been treated with more indifference and contempt than in German shops and restaurants. And that at hourly wages many times more than in the US, where you get better service regardless.
Add to that a strong dose of arrogance. Germans still think of their country as the leading edge in all the areas that made it great, completely ignoring that times have changed and the world has moved on. While they certainly haven't missed the train yet, they need to wake up and smell the coffee--and I'm not sure they're capable of that anymore.
Ireland. Seems to be really booming in the IT area. Life should be a lot cheaper than in most of Europe, though I'm sure that'll change. Language is English (well, arguably anyway), and the people are reportedly very friendly, especially after being lubricated with some ale. However, the weather is reputed to be bad a lot of the time. It's also pretty far from the Continent. I'd be interested to know how long it takes to get to the mainland, and at what cost.
Spain. One of the cheapest European countries, except for telecom. Friendly people, great weather most of the time. After living in Australia and the southern US, I'm not sure I can return to cold climates again, so Spain is a strong favorite there. The language is a problem since my Spanish is worse than my Swahili, and I don't speak Swahili. I don't know how far English will get you in Spain either. But I'm willing to learn, so that should count for something .
Amsterdam. It's on the Continent, so there's easy access to everywhere. Everybody speaks English, and good English at that. It's quite a high-tech city from what I hear, so that's a plus.
Other than these options, I can't think of anything else. Eastern Europe won't be an option for at least another decade, their infrastructure simply sucks.
Americans looking at Europe should keep the following things in mind in general. They're not show stoppers, but they can be very irritating in day-to-day life.
-cost of gas. Europe sucks the blood out of you there. Filling up a mid-size sedan runs about $50. On the flip side, there's a plethora of public transportation, and you don't need a car as much as in the US, but it depends on where you live. If you're used to the US lifestyle of two cars no matter what, that can get pretty expensive.
-cost of housing. Rents are high, houses cost even more. I only know about Germany, but I assume things are similar everythere. Most houses in Germany start at $400,000 or so and go up, up, up. There's really no equivalent of the small three bedroom suburban house for $100,000. Properties are really expensive ($150 a square meter in many places, do the math for acres), often running almost as much as the house. Therefore people build big expensive houses to make it worthwhile. Get ready to pay for the rest of your life (and maybe your children's lives) for your house.
-communications. Most European telephone companies were only recently privatised, and they're still dragging their feet. They're simply used to monopoly status and price their services accordingly. In most places even local calls are metered, so staying online with your ISP will cost you a bunch. The ISP costs themselves are comparable to the US, the real killer are the phone company charges. Downloading a Linux distribution will probably cost you more than buying the boxed version. However, it's a fast-paced field and a lot of competition is arriving. In many countries DSL is starting to arrive, and along with it flat rate Internet access. With respect to DSL, I don't think Europe is far behind the US, where it's still impossible to get DSL in most places and will be for the next 5 to 10 years.
-culture. Americans are used to travel all over the US and still remain within their cultural context: same language, same politics, same restaurants, same TV and media. Travel that much in Europe, and your head will spin. No language is truly common to all of Europe (though English is the official language of the EU). No TV is common, you have to adjust to what's available in each country; and while people on the street might speak some English, the evening news most certainly will be in the local language. Magazines and newspapers differ widely, too, though you will find many international ones also. People's lifestyles and attitudes differ incredibly, and you can make no safe assumptions except with time and experience. Don't forget, these are still independent countries, proud of their differences and heritage. In the US we can all make a joke about the South and rednecks and all, safe in the knowledge that we're all Americans after all. In Europe, make a joke about another European nation and you're liable to get your head bashed in if the wrong people stand around.
All in all, you can live quite nicely in Europe--300 million people do it every day and wouldn't be anywhere else. But be prepared for a serious culture shock for the first few months. I know of a lot of people who went through serious depression until they got used to the place. Eventually most people settle in and like it a whole lot.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Even though Munich is a large city population-wise, it feels like a small provincial town almost. Road infrastucture is terrible, it takes forever to get from one end of town to the other, since there are no (or few) freeway bypasses.
Besides, life is way too expensive in Munich itself. You have to go outside of town and commute to find decent housing. However, the area to the south towards the Alps is quite accessible with two freeways, and it's beautiful around there.
All in all I'd have to say Munich is a mixed bag. Besides, especially for foreigners, the accent takes some getting used to.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Yeah, it's a great city to live. I was there from 87 to 92, went to UQ and tried a couple of majors, but then had to leave since I was still hanging off my parent's apron strings at the time, and they left for the US. Life is much more relaxed than in most places, people are friendly--especially after you prime them with a few bottles of XXXX. Gold Coast is just an hour away, and the beaches around Brisbane are some of the best in the world, period!
The only downside to life in Australia is that it's so fucking far from the rest of the (relevant) world. Most of my family lives in Germany, so I didn't get to see them very often. And at the time email and the Web were only just getting started in the non-geek world. Considering a return ticket to Europe used to run $2000 or so, you're pretty much stuck to the Continent. And a big continent it is, with way not enough decent freeways to go places.
Just as soon as commercial wormholes becomes available and travel from Australia to Europe and the US involves nothing more than stepping through a gate, I'll be back in Oz, that's for sure.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
It might all be true and all, but when everything is said and done, and the smoke clears, and the first laptops actually ship, I'll eat a Yugo if they run substantially longer than a thrifty laptop today. By SUBSTANTIALLY I mean twice as long or so. Considering a current laptop maybe does 2-3h of CONTINUOUS USE, a Crusoe laptop would have to go for at least 5-6h for me to give a shit. Anything less is hardly revolutionary. And I seriously doubt we'll see that kind of battery life. If IBM is right and the Thinkpad they're promising will really do 8h, now that would be something to behold. Until then, I'll remain the stubborn and pigheaded skeptic I am.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
The reason for that is that the software isn't the only part of the ERP equation. Heck, with some vendors it might not even be the greatest part. What really makes ERP tick is a thorough analysis of the company, its structure, business processes etc. Then using this information the ERP software is put in place to smooth out all these interactions. Sometimes the company needs some restructuring and streamlining, often the software needs lots of adapting to a particular company.
All in all the real costs of ERP are in the analysis and installation phase. The software costs are almost incidental. Look at a company like SAP and one of their large installations. GM spent hundreds of millions of dollars for SAP analysts to come in and adapt the SAP software to the company. The big moolah goes into maintaining this horde of specialists for the months and years it takes to install SAP.
Given all this, Open Source ERP software is about as useful as Open Source Space Shuttle "firmware".
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
Well, unless my memory is playing tricks on me, when Sharky or Tom squared off the AMD and Intel against each other, equivalent performance cost about the same. Besides, like many people around here I don't shop at that end of the price spectrum. The Celeron is still very popular, and at that level AMD doesn't really offer anything special--except for the new Duron I guess. I'll have to check that one out sooner or later.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
> If the release version is supposed to work with
> AMD processors, then why are you complaining?
Because for a substantial amount of time it WASN'T working. If the point of incompatibility is in a graphics card or some other peripheral, you yank it and replace it with something that works. If the culprit is the CPU or chipset itself, you're rather stuck, unless you replace the whole machine.
My point is that viewed over an extended length of time, you're more likely to encounter incompatibilities with AMD than with Intel. It might often happen for trivial reasons, or even through no fault of AMD's, but the fact that it happens is enough.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
It seems to me that such statements--minimizing the impact of digital electronics on society--are most often made by those who understand their use and applications the least.
Many argue that increased mobility is one of the greatest impacts of high tech on the human race. In particular flying, because it reduces the size of the entire planet to one day's trip. Our image of the world has changed profoundly since we can personally visit most of it.
Flying would not be so widespread (and increasing at an estimated 5% anually) if it weren't affordable. What makes flying affordable is the reliable aircraft technology. Modern jet engines in particular are one of the most reliable pieces of hardware ever built. If one considers the MTBF of a jet engine, it blows most other things out of the water. There are many factors contributing to that: modern materials engineering, proper servicing, proper use. But equally crucial are modern monitoring and engine control systems. That's one area where digital electronics have made a huge impact. Modern IC technology can be very problem-free compared to what was before. It also offers many more capabilities that would have been very hard or very expensive to implement with analog electronics.
Another area where digital electronics made a huge impact in aircraft--and will make an even bigger one in the future--is in communications. Aircraft of the 40s, 50s and 60s used to have huge amounts of cabling on board for all the various sensor and actuator systems. Back then everything was analog, so a cable ran across the entire aircraft to each device. Modern planes have many more devices on board than back then, so the increase in cable weight and space requirements would be huge. Digital networks have substantially cut down the amount of full-length cable runs required. In addition, they also made possible deploying many more sensors than would have been practicable before. And that's still using copper mostly. The future promises even larger savings by using fiber optics for all major busses. In addition to cutting down on the amount of wire needed and the substantial weight savings, it also reduces the effects of RF interference and allows more redundancy through additional cable runs.
Travel today without doubt would be far more expensive without digital electronics. But there are so many other areas where they've made substantial but invisible differences that it's hard to know where to start. All I can say is that if there's any technology-supported aspect of modern life that appears to be functioning well--or funcioning at all--digital electronics are somewhere in there either making it at all possible, or making it much cheaper and affordable and reliable.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu