I really don't like that explanation... it makes it seem like the pressure differential is "known" to the gas inside the cylinder via some sort of acoustically-transmitted information. My initial reaction was "HUH" and my secondary reaction was "ok, I don't buy that."
That's almost what he's saying. He's not saying there is acoustically-transmitted information, but that there is physically transmitted information.
Imagine you are inside the container. If you measure how much air is leaving the container, you have access to all the information required to know the pressure of the outside. At a certain point, the pressure of the outside has no further effect on the flow, so inside of the container, no further information about the outside is possible. You only know that the pressure is equal to or less than some specific amount. So while the external pressure is changing, no information about that fact is making its way into the container!
So the physical/mechanical transfer of information cannot exceed the speed of sound in this system, and if the air is leaving at the speed of sound, trying to go backwards at the speed of sound results in a net speed of zero. It's not that the container "knows" something in a "it comprehends the ideas of", but "knows" in that it contains within it that specific piece of information. It's used similar to how your computer "knows" what you are typing on the keyboard, but not that it "understands" what you are typing. And to extend the analogy a bit further, if your keyboard buffer fills, it can no longer "know" what you are typing, as that information is coming in faster than the computer (specifically the keyboard controller) is capable of processing it.
We can't create stuff that goes faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.
That's what "the speed of light" means. People almost never mean "the speed of light in water" (or some other non-vacuum medium) when they just say "the speed of light" unless they've previously established the context earlier.
You don't have to download Firefox to use the web. You have to download MS tools to use the MS services, while Google Wave will work on any standards-compliant web browser.
Or just tack 1 year onto the end of my existing contract (they give you the full subsidized price after one year). As it stands, I can't buy a new iPhone at a reasonable price. I'm not willing to pay an extra $200, so I'll wait. However, if AT&T doesn't do something to make this right, I may just wait until next summer, and jump to Verizon's iPhone instead.
It's clear that AT&T doesn't want to keep me as a customer by providing great service at a great price, but instead by forcing me to stay via contract (I signed it, I'm not complaining about the terms, but that they aren't even trying the carrot, but merely relying on the stick). I'm even willing to meet them part way. But that they won't go out of their way for me, I won't do so for them. I'd say "their loss", but really, we both lose out. Idiots.
Right, if we cared about "mass appeal" then we'd be interested in buying phones that only run apps that are approved by the church ladies who vet them at the app store.
It's statements like that that make me think you might not actually be the pope!
But, being serious, many of the "chained" bought systems with Vista installed and they don't want to spend money or effort to change it. Simple as that. Lots of bluster, little action.
Interesting you should mention bluster, as your statements are loud and assertive, but have very little substance to back them up. Do you have access to some slashdot poster demographics that the rest of us lack? Or are you just making things up as you go along?
Republicans need for once to grow a pair and call his bluff.
I think you got the wrong party there. It's the Democrats (as a party) that are trying to close tax loopholes and are worried about American jobs. The Republicans (as a party) spend their time and power eliminating barriers to corporations' avarice, which includes lowering taxes (even if via loopholes), instating self-regulation (like the coal industry is best suited to regulate air quality! WTF?), and moving jobs overseas.
The Republicans are not going to call Ballmer's bluff. On the contrary, they find such rhetoric useful to promote their agenda.
There were other OS's than Macintosh System, many of which ran on the same hardware as Windows. Some of the contemporaries of Windows, many predating Windows (especially if you start with Windows at 3.1, which is the first version to have any real success).
Commodore mismanaged themselves, OS/2 was mis-marketed by IBM and sabotaged by MS. DR-DOS was sabotaged by MS. GEM and DESQview were simply outclassed by Windows. X11 was rarely promoted outside of Unix. BeOS was too set on replacing Mac OS. And I haven't even covered half of the OS's out there.
Commercial forces far outweighed ease-of-development, which is merely one of the many commercial forces, and not even remotely the most significant one.
What do you even care if Linux takes on significant market share? As long as your preferred operating system remains available to you, what do you care which operating system other people prefer?
Community is important. As they say, "no man is an island".
The corporate world is 90%+ wedded to IE, and much of it still stuck on IE6.
That's their problem. As the web moves forward, they can stay in their IE 6 + Win32 ghetto if that's what they want. It's foolish to think the world should hold back on progress simply to cater to these idiots.
I pretty much pointed out that Linux/Unix/X11 aren't necessarily the best example when I wrote, "Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?"
That being said, I am curious what you do consider to be the most developer friendly system, particularly if you have experience in industry.
Presently, OS X is extremely easy to develop for. In the past (the context here, after all, is MS's success, so you have to look at what came before), both OS/2 and BeOS were supposed to have been fairly advanced from a developer point of view, as was Nextstep.
Even further back, comparing Macintosh System, AmigaOS, etc., with DOS and somewhat later, Windows, is relevant. I really don't think ease-of-development played a significant factor so long as development was "easy enough". Commercial interests are a much greater factor.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the idea was W3C vs MS, you'd have a point, but this is Google vs MS. The fact that Google is using a tool that is being developed with help from MS is somewhat ironic, but doesn't make this a "semi-Microsoft v. completely-Microsoft" battle any more than the Japanese attacking China with gunpowder weapons is "semi-China v. completely-China".
IE 6 remains a major target that needs to be covered
No, it doesn't. IE 6 is a ghetto, and can be safely ignored. Anyone who currently uses IE 6 and either will not or can not upgrade to a modern browser is someone who isn't terribly concerned about using the types of apps that things like HTML 5 and Gears are meant to make possible.
Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.
Are the two most critical things that needs to happen for Linux to begin to take on significant market share. These are two of the biggest influences on the increasing success of Mac OS X.
Microsoft is where it is today because it is the easiest OS for third parties to work with.
That's not even remotely true. I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion? Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?
The reason for MS's success (specifically, with Windows) is due to developers targeting the dominant system, and Windows became the dominant system primarily through being installed on the overwhelming majority of PCs. None of this was based on being the most "developer-friendly".
No one's claiming anything here other than "we should look into that, because we definitely don't know what it is and it MIGHT be space aliens". Period.
Then get off your ass and look! If that's all you're saying, why all the noise from you trying to discount everything except aliens? Reading your posts here, you claim reports can't be stars, balloons, experimental craft, etc. You may have been careful to avoid outright saying that some UFO are alien craft, but your bias is very clear.
Nothing unscientific about that, what's unscientific is ruling out all possibilities and not looking for new ones.
Leaving something unexplained or unidentified does not mean ruling out all possibilities. On the contrary, it's leaving them open!
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Have you proven human error, lying, hoaxing, etc., as impossible? Have you ended up with only one improbable solution? In the case of UFOs, the problem is the set of "impossible" is far too small, and the set of "remaining improbabilities" far too vast, to make a conclusion. Sherlock Holmes could always use that rule because he had a small set of suspects, and sufficient evidence to rule out all but one. This was made immensely easier due to the fact that he's a fictional character.
The interesting thing here is you've been following that Sherlock Holmes advice, except for the very last step. You've ruled every terrestrial explanation impossible, leaving only the extraterrestrial as possible, however improbable, and then stopped right there, so that you could claim you haven't jumped to a conclusion.
Well you're obviously not a scientist, otherwise you'd want to know.
Obviously you're not a scientist, or you'd know the number one idea behind science is mistrust of our conclusions. You check and double-check continuously, until the mountain of results is overwhelming. And even then you keep in mind that you might still be wrong, that the next experiment may not fit with the rest.
The one thing you don't do, that you must never, ever do as a scientist is jump to conclusions on flimsy data. When something is unknown or unidentified, you don't default to the first thing that comes to mind. You might, and in fact should, form hypotheses. There's nothing wrong with hypothesizing that UFOs are extraterrestrial craft. But there isn't even remotely sufficient evidence to validate that hypothesis.
And this is unfortunate, as I think there would be few things more amazing than the discovery of alien intelligence, here, visiting Earth. But knowing how much I'd like such a thing to be true, brings us back to the number one idea behind science. Knowing how easy it is to interpret data in accordance not to reality, but to our desires, you have to mistrust your conclusions, especially those you'd really like to be true. To do otherwise is not science, it's superstition, it's religion, it's a million things but the one thing it is not is science.
If you're prone to obsessive behaviours then you're going to be prone to them in games as well as in real life. I can't see how game designers are somehow bad for catering to this. As long as the game is playable without the need to collect all the widgets then they're actually just creating extra features.
It's bad, at least potentially, for the very reason you outlined below: it's a trap.
You say "catering", but it's also "exploiting". It's both. It's, as you point out, good in a way, but it's also bad in a way. People need to grow beyond the need to label things as completely good or completely bad (which is yet another trap). Most things are a mix of the two, and understanding the dynamics of that mixture (as you have, when you say that you have to be on your guard, for example) is crucial for making people's lives better.
Try openSUSE and the latest KDE before jumping over to Vista.
I was going to say that if someone actually wants to switch to Vista (Vista! Not XP, not 7, not OS X, but Vista of all things!), they're a lost cause and can't be reasoned with.
But I have to say, suggesting someone like that try KDE has a certain kind of logic to it...
The freedom (free as in liberty) aspect of Linux make that sort of standardization somewhere between extremely difficult and absolutely impossible. Freedom and autonomy are the enemies of standards.
Slashdot Mirror
I really don't like that explanation... it makes it seem like the pressure differential is "known" to the gas inside the cylinder via some sort of acoustically-transmitted information. My initial reaction was "HUH" and my secondary reaction was "ok, I don't buy that."
That's almost what he's saying. He's not saying there is acoustically-transmitted information, but that there is physically transmitted information.
Imagine you are inside the container. If you measure how much air is leaving the container, you have access to all the information required to know the pressure of the outside. At a certain point, the pressure of the outside has no further effect on the flow, so inside of the container, no further information about the outside is possible. You only know that the pressure is equal to or less than some specific amount. So while the external pressure is changing, no information about that fact is making its way into the container!
So the physical/mechanical transfer of information cannot exceed the speed of sound in this system, and if the air is leaving at the speed of sound, trying to go backwards at the speed of sound results in a net speed of zero. It's not that the container "knows" something in a "it comprehends the ideas of", but "knows" in that it contains within it that specific piece of information. It's used similar to how your computer "knows" what you are typing on the keyboard, but not that it "understands" what you are typing. And to extend the analogy a bit further, if your keyboard buffer fills, it can no longer "know" what you are typing, as that information is coming in faster than the computer (specifically the keyboard controller) is capable of processing it.
We can't create stuff that goes faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.
That's what "the speed of light" means. People almost never mean "the speed of light in water" (or some other non-vacuum medium) when they just say "the speed of light" unless they've previously established the context earlier.
You don't have to download Firefox to use the web. You have to download MS tools to use the MS services, while Google Wave will work on any standards-compliant web browser.
Or just tack 1 year onto the end of my existing contract (they give you the full subsidized price after one year). As it stands, I can't buy a new iPhone at a reasonable price. I'm not willing to pay an extra $200, so I'll wait. However, if AT&T doesn't do something to make this right, I may just wait until next summer, and jump to Verizon's iPhone instead.
It's clear that AT&T doesn't want to keep me as a customer by providing great service at a great price, but instead by forcing me to stay via contract (I signed it, I'm not complaining about the terms, but that they aren't even trying the carrot, but merely relying on the stick). I'm even willing to meet them part way. But that they won't go out of their way for me, I won't do so for them. I'd say "their loss", but really, we both lose out. Idiots.
Right, if we cared about "mass appeal" then we'd be interested in buying phones that only run apps that are approved by the church ladies who vet them at the app store.
It's statements like that that make me think you might not actually be the pope!
It's a gift.
But, being serious, many of the "chained" bought systems with Vista installed and they don't want to spend money or effort to change it. Simple as that. Lots of bluster, little action.
Interesting you should mention bluster, as your statements are loud and assertive, but have very little substance to back them up. Do you have access to some slashdot poster demographics that the rest of us lack? Or are you just making things up as you go along?
Republicans need for once to grow a pair and call his bluff.
I think you got the wrong party there. It's the Democrats (as a party) that are trying to close tax loopholes and are worried about American jobs. The Republicans (as a party) spend their time and power eliminating barriers to corporations' avarice, which includes lowering taxes (even if via loopholes), instating self-regulation (like the coal industry is best suited to regulate air quality! WTF?), and moving jobs overseas.
The Republicans are not going to call Ballmer's bluff. On the contrary, they find such rhetoric useful to promote their agenda.
There were other OS's than Macintosh System, many of which ran on the same hardware as Windows. Some of the contemporaries of Windows, many predating Windows (especially if you start with Windows at 3.1, which is the first version to have any real success).
Commodore mismanaged themselves, OS/2 was mis-marketed by IBM and sabotaged by MS. DR-DOS was sabotaged by MS. GEM and DESQview were simply outclassed by Windows. X11 was rarely promoted outside of Unix. BeOS was too set on replacing Mac OS. And I haven't even covered half of the OS's out there.
Commercial forces far outweighed ease-of-development, which is merely one of the many commercial forces, and not even remotely the most significant one.
What do you even care if Linux takes on significant market share? As long as your preferred operating system remains available to you, what do you care which operating system other people prefer?
Community is important. As they say, "no man is an island".
The corporate world is 90%+ wedded to IE, and much of it still stuck on IE6.
That's their problem. As the web moves forward, they can stay in their IE 6 + Win32 ghetto if that's what they want. It's foolish to think the world should hold back on progress simply to cater to these idiots.
I pretty much pointed out that Linux/Unix/X11 aren't necessarily the best example when I wrote, "Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?"
That being said, I am curious what you do consider to be the most developer friendly system, particularly if you have experience in industry.
Presently, OS X is extremely easy to develop for. In the past (the context here, after all, is MS's success, so you have to look at what came before), both OS/2 and BeOS were supposed to have been fairly advanced from a developer point of view, as was Nextstep.
Even further back, comparing Macintosh System, AmigaOS, etc., with DOS and somewhat later, Windows, is relevant. I really don't think ease-of-development played a significant factor so long as development was "easy enough". Commercial interests are a much greater factor.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the idea was W3C vs MS, you'd have a point, but this is Google vs MS. The fact that Google is using a tool that is being developed with help from MS is somewhat ironic, but doesn't make this a "semi-Microsoft v. completely-Microsoft" battle any more than the Japanese attacking China with gunpowder weapons is "semi-China v. completely-China".
IE 6 remains a major target that needs to be covered
No, it doesn't. IE 6 is a ghetto, and can be safely ignored. Anyone who currently uses IE 6 and either will not or can not upgrade to a modern browser is someone who isn't terribly concerned about using the types of apps that things like HTML 5 and Gears are meant to make possible.
This:
Android eschews X
and this:
Third, targeting Microsoft must not be the aim, it must be the unplanned outcome. The aim must be tp "please" we the users.
Are the two most critical things that needs to happen for Linux to begin to take on significant market share. These are two of the biggest influences on the increasing success of Mac OS X.
Microsoft is where it is today because it is the easiest OS for third parties to work with.
That's not even remotely true. I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion? Are you simply comparing Windows with Linux (and most any other X11 based system)?
The reason for MS's success (specifically, with Windows) is due to developers targeting the dominant system, and Windows became the dominant system primarily through being installed on the overwhelming majority of PCs. None of this was based on being the most "developer-friendly".
So, do you believe in evolution?
In the same way I "believe" in gravity.
No one's claiming anything here other than "we should look into that, because we definitely don't know what it is and it MIGHT be space aliens". Period.
Then get off your ass and look! If that's all you're saying, why all the noise from you trying to discount everything except aliens? Reading your posts here, you claim reports can't be stars, balloons, experimental craft, etc. You may have been careful to avoid outright saying that some UFO are alien craft, but your bias is very clear.
Nothing unscientific about that, what's unscientific is ruling out all possibilities and not looking for new ones.
Leaving something unexplained or unidentified does not mean ruling out all possibilities. On the contrary, it's leaving them open!
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Have you proven human error, lying, hoaxing, etc., as impossible? Have you ended up with only one improbable solution? In the case of UFOs, the problem is the set of "impossible" is far too small, and the set of "remaining improbabilities" far too vast, to make a conclusion. Sherlock Holmes could always use that rule because he had a small set of suspects, and sufficient evidence to rule out all but one. This was made immensely easier due to the fact that he's a fictional character.
The interesting thing here is you've been following that Sherlock Holmes advice, except for the very last step. You've ruled every terrestrial explanation impossible, leaving only the extraterrestrial as possible, however improbable, and then stopped right there, so that you could claim you haven't jumped to a conclusion.
I think you have mistaken me for the guy I was talking too.
Well you're obviously not a scientist, otherwise you'd want to know.
Obviously you're not a scientist, or you'd know the number one idea behind science is mistrust of our conclusions. You check and double-check continuously, until the mountain of results is overwhelming. And even then you keep in mind that you might still be wrong, that the next experiment may not fit with the rest.
The one thing you don't do, that you must never, ever do as a scientist is jump to conclusions on flimsy data. When something is unknown or unidentified, you don't default to the first thing that comes to mind. You might, and in fact should, form hypotheses. There's nothing wrong with hypothesizing that UFOs are extraterrestrial craft. But there isn't even remotely sufficient evidence to validate that hypothesis.
And this is unfortunate, as I think there would be few things more amazing than the discovery of alien intelligence, here, visiting Earth. But knowing how much I'd like such a thing to be true, brings us back to the number one idea behind science. Knowing how easy it is to interpret data in accordance not to reality, but to our desires, you have to mistrust your conclusions, especially those you'd really like to be true. To do otherwise is not science, it's superstition, it's religion, it's a million things but the one thing it is not is science.
If you're prone to obsessive behaviours then you're going to be prone to them in games as well as in real life. I can't see how game designers are somehow bad for catering to this. As long as the game is playable without the need to collect all the widgets then they're actually just creating extra features.
It's bad, at least potentially, for the very reason you outlined below: it's a trap.
You say "catering", but it's also "exploiting". It's both. It's, as you point out, good in a way, but it's also bad in a way. People need to grow beyond the need to label things as completely good or completely bad (which is yet another trap). Most things are a mix of the two, and understanding the dynamics of that mixture (as you have, when you say that you have to be on your guard, for example) is crucial for making people's lives better.
Try openSUSE and the latest KDE before jumping over to Vista.
I was going to say that if someone actually wants to switch to Vista (Vista! Not XP, not 7, not OS X, but Vista of all things!), they're a lost cause and can't be reasoned with.
But I have to say, suggesting someone like that try KDE has a certain kind of logic to it...
The freedom (free as in liberty) aspect of Linux make that sort of standardization somewhere between extremely difficult and absolutely impossible. Freedom and autonomy are the enemies of standards.
But for the most part, the 1.98 and 99 cent burgers are not the same nutritional value
Yeah, the 99 cent burger is probably better for you.
Yeah, "these guys" just happens to be the guy who actually wrote Doom in the first place. What's he know? Sheesh!
There is a toaster which can toast images into the bread. The frame rate will be pretty bad, though.
Oh, and you'll want to be really careful when using the BFG...