I accept that there are people (more than I'd like to admit) that see any comment from the 'God Squad' as beneath contempt. It boils down to the same thing: People that try artificially simplify arguments into 'yes or no', no matter what their views, are being idiots.
It just so happens that it's the religious people doing it the loudest this time around. They are refusing to look at the facts or even worse trying to manipulate them to support their own views. It's this that I find offensive.
For all the people that don't take a religious stand on the issue I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people who object most of all don't know anything about stem cell research and cloning technology. I bet most of them have never had to take care of someone with Parkinsons or Alzeimers. Most of these people just take 1 look at the idea and speak up about how abhorant this idea is, basically because their first instinct is to screw up their faces and say 'yuck'. It's the 'yuck' factor that stops people from looking further into an issue and understand the real issues. This is just another example of people talking loudly without putting in any effort into understanding more.
As for people with religious objections, while have have respect for their views, there are a significant number who are making the debate very polarised. They will not allow any answers other than yes or no, leaving out all the important details in between. I don't like that style of argument, it generally sets my alarm bells ringing!
It was Thomas Payne who first suggested that nobody should own land because (paraphrased) since God (or whatever diety or force of nature etc) doesn't have a real estate agent through which to sell land, no person can actually own land at all. BUT a person can own improvemnts and work done to the land. For example if you put a fence around a random area of the land, it can be argued that the area that the fence surrounds is worth money because you have done work to that land to fence it off. The same applies to farm land and building work, the only thing you own is the building or the farm work.
I think the UN (being the only forum where our governments are likely to this sort of matter) will take this sort of view since it will avoid most arguments (after a treaty has been drawn up). Asteroids may be a different matter and will probably be regarded as floating rubbish and as long as it doesn't adversely affect the solar environment I can see a first-come-first-serve policy being implemented. Just saying "I'm in view of the asteroid therefore I call it" will be ignored.
y'know that bit about how LinkSys didn't have to use GPL software in the first place. It very comprehensively avoids the whole issue, not even an overview of what the GPL is.
I think this article is very damaging to the perception of GPL software because this article will mostly be read by executives whitout any knowledge of the background and will now think twice about using GPL software out of their own sense of morals. I'm sure I would if had a choice but no knowledge.
I've seen the code for some MAJOR blue chip companies and I really do wonder how these people stay in business with the rubbish that they put out. For example some of code drops from our clients don't even compile! The reason for all the crap is that it's very easy to cut corners without it being very obvious immediately. Typically, the first thing that gets stopped when things ar getting tight (either time or money) is documentation, quickly followed by testing. Next it's individual features, removed from the requirements 1 by 1.
Since software engineering is still a 'black art' as far as most traditional engineers and project managers are concerned, there isn't the real intuition/understanding of when things are starting to look bad. Without looking at code AND knowing something about it, you won't stand a chance 'intuiting' whether or not things are going well.
Writing software is an expensive business in both time and money. It's also a very young business without the same 'discipline of implementation' as other areas. Until the process matures and people realise that doing it on the cheap gives you cheap software, things aren't going to change and Mars probes are going to continue to produce craters.
It's not that water weighs more than everything else but the strengh/weight ratio is significantly less. It's no good taking something into space when you can have something else just as strong bt at a fraction of the weight.
This trick with water will lead to some interesting experiments in the future and allows scientists a little extra flexibility to do their thing. You never know, this might lead to the next teflon! (Yes I know teflon wasn't invented in space etc)
Have you seen Formula 1 racing recently? There's no such thing as too expensive to teams like Ferrari of McClaren. At first glance, this meterial could replace the carbon-fibre brake discs used at the moment (this all depends on the heat characteristics). It might also be used in their suspension systems. Anything that is lighter, is usually better! Knowing F1, even if they have to spend $10 million on a set of brake discs for the season, if it works better, they'll buy!
I quite liked the first book, I might no be interested in the characters so much but the plot help together much better than most of the SciFi written these days.
I can't see the plot in this one being any different in that respect. I'm more interested in what happens than the people, though I have to admit that if I found out a bit of someones background then I find it helps the plot.
There was quite a bit going on in the first one, I would very much like to see more of the story.
From the way you describe it here, you seem to be personifying those photons. (Not knocking you, just 1 way of putting it here) I thought I'd just give another way of saying here for others. 2 points of view being better than 1 an' all that.
That spookyness, I think, comes from our inability to know the polarisation before the event of taking te measurement. As you said, but I think that you can also say that since you don't know the orientation then the polarisation can be in ANY arbitrary orientation. If you think about it, there will then be a 50% chance of being correctly oriented to pass through the filter. If this is the case, then the other photon will always have a 100% chance of passing through if the first of blocked, or a 100% chance of being blocked if the first passes through.
If you concentrate on the orientation of the first photon as being a probability question and then second photon being of opposite polarisation then you don't see it as a case of many possibilities occupying the same space simultaneously, merely 1 value that you don't happen to know at this time. This point of view seems to give me fewer headaches than others. Hope it does the same to you.
Modest by a lot of peoples standards in this business. I think we have to see this prize as an example for others. He's obviously someone that believes in open source and wants to let everyone have access to the technology.
Did anyone see that article in New Scientist a month or so back (sorry no link on their site) that talks about tiny satellites about the size of a shoebox that can go out and do all sorts of clever things like inspect other satellites for damage, you name it, they might eventually be used as mini comm satellites. A launch vehicle not much bigger than the ones for this prize would be perfect.
The only reason that NASA has for not sponsoring this sort of event is that people in politics have a habit of only going for the options that mean profit for their companies.
The beginning and the end of the interviews were quite good (thought some of the more technical questions obviously had them grasping at straws). In the middle though (when talking about taxes) they seem to follow some of the further left wing views (not that these are necessarily bad) - taxes are bad. McReynolds(?) is in favour of banning taxes by the looks of it, and has some ropey links to it's eventual effects (better schooling??) though Browne takes a view which share with him. Giving money to the poor, even a little bit means that they don't have to suffer, but it needs to be handled well. If we just give them money, we'll have to ensure that all people spend it on what they need and not just on what they want. Garanteeing a minimum income for every citizen is a good start, or giving everyone vouchers for their basic needs, and letting people pay for everything they want above this. Shops can redeem the vouchers from the government. It could also loose the grip that huge Walmart style grocers have on jobs. They can dicatate employment levels to quite a large degree. Imagine if Walmart still charged the same (or more), and lots of little corner shops srung up everywhere! It would mean more jobs in general since Walmart (et al) would be keeping their turnover and any jobs that were lost could be replaced with new jobs that would be created by smaller shops. The customer wouldn't necessarily be the people who get the food, it would be he government! What would that do to the economy?
Their view on the war on drugs is spot on! They don't want to punish people who don't know any better/have a problem/made a mistake/got curious etc. They don't need prison, they need whatever helps them to cope, or review whether what they did was wrong. This IMHO could be applied to other areas in crime, if it already isn't! The mother who shop lifts to feed her children for example. Just having a war on soething doesn;t work, as any general will tell you, if you want get things done, you need a plan of action and a goal for that plan. This brings me to my last point.
I'm not sure I agree with their comments that the US doesn't need a mission. Yes a lot of nations don't have specific missions but with countries like China, leaders obviously have a goal to become more of a world leader instead of just a power. They have an idea of how to get there as well, just look at the way the press has covered them in recent years. They seem to become more open in some areas and are starting to gain more influence. A mission for a nation doesn't have to a big one but it helps. Look at what happened when JFK announced the moonshot effort! The whole nation went wild. It's a well known fact that when people have a goal and can see where their going, they're a lot happier. Just you watch, if the US has a goal, people will become more focused because they will have a role to play and they will be able to see how their role contributes to the whole. You'd be surprised how much of a boost this can give to someones moral and general well being. If this is the case then I guarantee that things like crime will drop, if not radically then markedly. Just you wait. If a president did all these things then change the constitution and let him/her stay in the driving seat until death by old age!
...is that things change to meets peoples needs. English is s language that does that. In any given month, you can see a BBC news reader using proper, well recognised words that just didn't exist last month. At the very least using an old word in an entirely new way. It's not so much the words you use in english, if you have a context, every new thing you bring into a conversation can be given a label to be used in that conversation and you will be understood. The rules for doing this are complex but people seem to understand anyway. Or if you want to focus on words, you can get by on very few. You can walk into any hotel and say "Me need room", as long as you know how to count in english or can read english numbers, you can pretty much get along nicely, butat the minumum level, whoever is taking your booking might need to use hand signs for a bit.
English is adaptable as hell and there's no one trying to keep it the same (heh, Acadamie Francais??).
I saw a thing about this a few years ago on TV. The story goes that this guy was thinking one day that cars don't actually need more than 1 or 2 horse power to pootle around town. (Motorways being a different matter). Since he lives in a relatively quiet town in the south of France (Brignol - my uncle lives there), he could work in peace. I think some of the trials were based around small taxis. They showed all the kit he used (but not actually anything from the inside of the engine, any of the details). All he had was a small compressor in the corner of the garage that fill up a big gas bottle next to it. When he needed a fillup, he just got it from the gas bottle which was being topped up continuously. Neat little package! I can see it working well around South Africa since you don't need much to get the power for the compressor, solar cells should be enough mostly. They might fill your back yard though.
It is entirely possible that this development could have an effect on the price of memory. There is something to be said about the theory that the perception that people are going to need more non-Rambus memory leading to a shortage in supply and driving up the cost. Any economists have any ideas?
As for Intel destroying the trust between management and those engineers. I think this is pretty dire! Those engineers are going to start thinking twice before giving their honest opinions on things. Could bery well lead to management not getting the information that they need, appraisals of new technology. If the engineers think that management are willing to push for it then people are just going to fold. Bear in mind that I use the word 'management' here loosely!
Um? Where did you get the idea that Mir was radioactive? To start with, there is no nuclear pile aboard. a) it's too heavy and inconvenient to put up their (not only the pile but all that shielding as well) and b) it wasn't strictly necessary since it's easier to work things so that they draw less power and stick a couple of photoelectric cells (albeit big ones) to side of the station!
Before you go on about it being irradiated in outer space, I'd just like to point out that cosmic radiation just isn't strong enough there and any solar winds are mostly deflected by the earths magnetosphere. Anyway, even if Mir gets a good dose of beta radiation (free electrons for the uninitiated), any charge that builds up will just be 'absorbed' by the atmosphere. You probably get more extra electrons form solar wind in a second than you would form Mir no matter how long it had stayed up! As for alpha particles I think their only dangerous if their fast moving.
Not as if any less radiation is put into the sea by you average Nuclear power station or sunken nuclear submarine in the baltic sea.
...that a lot of software requires large teams of people to work on that project alone. How will these people live if they don't get any returns from IP. Yes I agree it should be time limited (patenting is fine in small doses - just like everything else). IP is also a way of reckognising the creator of something!
What a lot of the left-wing radicals (note: I consider myself to be someonem who tends towards socialism) is that they forget that
1. theirs is not the most important view
2. theirs is not the only view
3. their ideas are often based on well meaning but ultimately inpractical concept
4. infrastructure. It's there and to get things done it's not always best to try and take it to peices with a demoloition crew, you have to work with it to bring it around to your way. I find logical argument works well in this case!
5. they have a habit of losing sight of other people.
I am not against these concept in principle but we have to consider the fact not everyone is the same and that some people do require an income - bear in mind that communist Russia never quite managed to get rid of their system of money dispite many (failed) attempts!
Having never heard of this person before, his rant looks far to close to a political troll to be healthy. I could be wrong but I suppose that any replies will set me straight!
Has anyone else ever received a new mobile phone beore now with a plastic film cover over the display (WAP phones especially). Look similar to the idea in that real patent above doesn't it!
My whole "Computer architecture and design" letures are coming back to me. It makes a great project as well, writing a program that takes an input file of memory addresses that might be used in the course of a programs execution and watch as different blocks are added and taken away from your little simulated cache. A good way of learning!
I actually felt a lump in my throat after reading this! This machine is an institution in itself. To think that something that humans actually made with their own hands has lasted so long and is going so far. What a pity it ever had to end at all. Oh well, that's the way the cooky crumbbles an' all that.
The reason it lasted so long anyway was probably the fact it wasn't over complicated. I'm not sure if it hasd any software, but if it did it was probably tiny and well understood! I'd like to see that around here!
Are you sure that when the military spending revue comes up, that there isn't going to be another 'crisis for the rights of a friendly nation'? There seems to be an unsettling pattern developing there!
How are you going to deal with all of the pressures of big businesses trying to make you make the decisions they want? How are you going to make people to trust you?
It hasn't been left wing since it became 'New Labour'. Anyway, they're only filling the void that occurred after the opposition went so far right that they scared off the right wing conservatives!!
Slashdot Mirror
We ALL know this!!
I've been holding off downloading anything with 2.6 kernel until I get an official Slackware distro with it in!
I accept that there are people (more than I'd like to admit) that see any comment from the 'God Squad' as beneath contempt. It boils down to the same thing:
People that try artificially simplify arguments into 'yes or no', no matter what their views, are being idiots.
It just so happens that it's the religious people doing it the loudest this time around. They are refusing to look at the facts or even worse trying to manipulate them to support their own views. It's this that I find offensive.
For all the people that don't take a religious stand on the issue I wouldn't be surprised if many of the people who object most of all don't know anything about stem cell research and cloning technology. I bet most of them have never had to take care of someone with Parkinsons or Alzeimers.
Most of these people just take 1 look at the idea and speak up about how abhorant this idea is, basically because their first instinct is to screw up their faces and say 'yuck'. It's the 'yuck' factor that stops people from looking further into an issue and understand the real issues.
This is just another example of people talking loudly without putting in any effort into understanding more.
As for people with religious objections, while have have respect for their views, there are a significant number who are making the debate very polarised. They will not allow any answers other than yes or no, leaving out all the important details in between. I don't like that style of argument, it generally sets my alarm bells ringing!
I think the UN (being the only forum where our governments are likely to this sort of matter) will take this sort of view since it will avoid most arguments (after a treaty has been drawn up). Asteroids may be a different matter and will probably be regarded as floating rubbish and as long as it doesn't adversely affect the solar environment I can see a first-come-first-serve policy being implemented. Just saying "I'm in view of the asteroid therefore I call it" will be ignored.
y'know that bit about how LinkSys didn't have to use GPL software in the first place. It very comprehensively avoids the whole issue, not even an overview of what the GPL is.
I think this article is very damaging to the perception of GPL software because this article will mostly be read by executives whitout any knowledge of the background and will now think twice about using GPL software out of their own sense of morals. I'm sure I would if had a choice but no knowledge.
I've seen the code for some MAJOR blue chip companies and I really do wonder how these people stay in business with the rubbish that they put out. For example some of code drops from our clients don't even compile! The reason for all the crap is that it's very easy to cut corners without it being very obvious immediately. Typically, the first thing that gets stopped when things ar getting tight (either time or money) is documentation, quickly followed by testing. Next it's individual features, removed from the requirements 1 by 1.
Since software engineering is still a 'black art' as far as most traditional engineers and project managers are concerned, there isn't the real intuition/understanding of when things are starting to look bad. Without looking at code AND knowing something about it, you won't stand a chance 'intuiting' whether or not things are going well.
Writing software is an expensive business in both time and money. It's also a very young business without the same 'discipline of implementation' as other areas. Until the process matures and people realise that doing it on the cheap gives you cheap software, things aren't going to change and Mars probes are going to continue to produce craters.
It's not that water weighs more than everything else but the strengh/weight ratio is significantly less. It's no good taking something into space when you can have something else just as strong bt at a fraction of the weight.
This trick with water will lead to some interesting experiments in the future and allows scientists a little extra flexibility to do their thing. You never know, this might lead to the next teflon! (Yes I know teflon wasn't invented in space etc)
Have you seen Formula 1 racing recently? There's no such thing as too expensive to teams like Ferrari of McClaren. At first glance, this meterial could replace the carbon-fibre brake discs used at the moment (this all depends on the heat characteristics). It might also be used in their suspension systems. Anything that is lighter, is usually better! Knowing F1, even if they have to spend $10 million on a set of brake discs for the season, if it works better, they'll buy!
Let's not forget that back in the days of Acorn Computers, StrongARM was a strange marriage between ARM and MIPS!
It wasn't that many years ago that I was salivating over the first SA processor but not being able to afford one.
I can't see the plot in this one being any different in that respect. I'm more interested in what happens than the people, though I have to admit that if I found out a bit of someones background then I find it helps the plot.
There was quite a bit going on in the first one, I would very much like to see more of the story.
dnnrly
Pour saps, having to catch up on the sly with the internet while your boss isn't looking.
dnnrly
That spookyness, I think, comes from our inability to know the polarisation before the event of taking te measurement. As you said, but I think that you can also say that since you don't know the orientation then the polarisation can be in ANY arbitrary orientation. If you think about it, there will then be a 50% chance of being correctly oriented to pass through the filter. If this is the case, then the other photon will always have a 100% chance of passing through if the first of blocked, or a 100% chance of being blocked if the first passes through.
If you concentrate on the orientation of the first photon as being a probability question and then second photon being of opposite polarisation then you don't see it as a case of many possibilities occupying the same space simultaneously, merely 1 value that you don't happen to know at this time. This point of view seems to give me fewer headaches than others. Hope it does the same to you.
dnnrly
dnnrly
The only reason that NASA has for not sponsoring this sort of event is that people in politics have a habit of only going for the options that mean profit for their companies.
dnnrly
Their view on the war on drugs is spot on! They don't want to punish people who don't know any better/have a problem/made a mistake/got curious etc. They don't need prison, they need whatever helps them to cope, or review whether what they did was wrong. This IMHO could be applied to other areas in crime, if it already isn't! The mother who shop lifts to feed her children for example. Just having a war on soething doesn;t work, as any general will tell you, if you want get things done, you need a plan of action and a goal for that plan. This brings me to my last point.
I'm not sure I agree with their comments that the US doesn't need a mission. Yes a lot of nations don't have specific missions but with countries like China, leaders obviously have a goal to become more of a world leader instead of just a power. They have an idea of how to get there as well, just look at the way the press has covered them in recent years. They seem to become more open in some areas and are starting to gain more influence. A mission for a nation doesn't have to a big one but it helps. Look at what happened when JFK announced the moonshot effort! The whole nation went wild. It's a well known fact that when people have a goal and can see where their going, they're a lot happier. Just you watch, if the US has a goal, people will become more focused because they will have a role to play and they will be able to see how their role contributes to the whole. You'd be surprised how much of a boost this can give to someones moral and general well being. If this is the case then I guarantee that things like crime will drop, if not radically then markedly. Just you wait. If a president did all these things then change the constitution and let him/her stay in the driving seat until death by old age!
dnnrly
English is adaptable as hell and there's no one trying to keep it the same (heh, Acadamie Francais??).
dnnrly
dnnrly
As for Intel destroying the trust between management and those engineers. I think this is pretty dire! Those engineers are going to start thinking twice before giving their honest opinions on things. Could bery well lead to management not getting the information that they need, appraisals of new technology. If the engineers think that management are willing to push for it then people are just going to fold. Bear in mind that I use the word 'management' here loosely!
dnnrly
Before you go on about it being irradiated in outer space, I'd just like to point out that cosmic radiation just isn't strong enough there and any solar winds are mostly deflected by the earths magnetosphere. Anyway, even if Mir gets a good dose of beta radiation (free electrons for the uninitiated), any charge that builds up will just be 'absorbed' by the atmosphere. You probably get more extra electrons form solar wind in a second than you would form Mir no matter how long it had stayed up! As for alpha particles I think their only dangerous if their fast moving.
Not as if any less radiation is put into the sea by you average Nuclear power station or sunken nuclear submarine in the baltic sea.
dnnrly
What a lot of the left-wing radicals (note: I consider myself to be someonem who tends towards socialism) is that they forget that
1. theirs is not the most important view
2. theirs is not the only view
3. their ideas are often based on well meaning but ultimately inpractical concept
4. infrastructure. It's there and to get things done it's not always best to try and take it to peices with a demoloition crew, you have to work with it to bring it around to your way. I find logical argument works well in this case!
5. they have a habit of losing sight of other people.
I am not against these concept in principle but we have to consider the fact not everyone is the same and that some people do require an income - bear in mind that communist Russia never quite managed to get rid of their system of money dispite many (failed) attempts!
Having never heard of this person before, his rant looks far to close to a political troll to be healthy. I could be wrong but I suppose that any replies will set me straight!
dnnrly
Prior art anyone?
dnnrly
dnnrly
The reason it lasted so long anyway was probably the fact it wasn't over complicated. I'm not sure if it hasd any software, but if it did it was probably tiny and well understood! I'd like to see that around here!
dnnrly
How are you going to deal with all of the pressures of big businesses trying to make you make the decisions they want? How are you going to make people to trust you?
dnnrly
dnnrly