Why would you want to scroll? Why not use it for real programming?
Lets not confuse Java the language and its performance with Java GUI framework. Just like you would not compare C++ the language with the Microsoft windows framework.
The Java framework sacrifices some speed for generality. So see what you save writing it once and delivering it to multiple platforms vs re-writting the GUI portion for another platform. There is method and cost to this madness.
I think that one of the great ideas that has come to us from mathematics is the Abstract Data Type. With its seperation of logical view from physical implementation. That is describe the functional service in it minimal essence. Then you can implement it any which way without breaking things.
That was the important idea behind Databases. and why we adopted Databases quickly even though they cost more in terms of time space and money. It was a realization that this meta model of design solved the maitaince problem that was threating to bring down Computers as a viable business tool.
The second big one came from normalization of databases. Which solved much of the maitainence problems with data storage and handling. This came after Databases.
Then there was Modulo which allowed segmentation of software into computational units, a first step to implementing ADT's.
Then we brought these together in OOP with modular normailzed data and programs together. All part of a march towards a natural evolution of compact maintainable systems.
With the next round which seems to involve efforts like J2EE and others with allowing software to talk seamlessly over networks as just part of what they do. We are starting to abstract out even the computer hardware underneath.
Who knows what evolution will decide is then next great idea. Where we will end up doing our work.
I just hope our economy lasts long enough for us to realize the next step.
Now one might argue that computer programs are just an archetypal externalizaton of internal processes. Who knows maybe its DNA programming us to create programs to understand DNA. A sort of evolutionary nepotism.
Actually, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like your thumb. -@copyright Putnam 2002 all rights reserved."
In an environment where gene's are being patented. We have a land grab going on to what some consider as the public domain. I guess that is the real issue and the complaint many have with the patent office, where are the boundries. An example might be with auctions, that ancient human activity, when moved to the web is patented, go figure. It seems like the new outlet for the ancient practice is a "new" idea but is it worthy of ownership? I think not. How much oil has to spill before the beach is irreversibly harmed. Maybe I should get one of those new Tablet pc's and put an auction on it and patent that. I can see the bucks rolling in now.
Of course one of the corallaries to Murphies Law is you don't know what you got till its gone. No thats a song title, no thats a breath mint.
Well anyway. Many sections of code are there like the many clauses in a legal document. They are not used or needed until something else breaks. An example might be like our bodies digesting muscle when we run out of food. Who would have thought we would do that. We would never know until we saw it with our own eyes. Or as God said go forth and figure.
I was calmly installing Zone alarm because some asshole hacked into my system taking advantage of the Microsoft Web server provided (yes this was part of my education, lesson one, and two).
Lesson Three was when a piece of software popped up MQMGR I think or something like that, that was requesting access to the internet.
Looking that up I find that it is Microsofts software, automatically installed that whenever you are connected to the internet connects to Microsoft to send then information about your system. Strange I thought as I disabled it.
Lesson four, with the security setting high I accessed Hotmail and at every page it requests to have Microsoft Messenger act as a server connecting to the internet. This I would not know about unless I had the firewall filtering access.
We have instances of ads that track (or try) to track your external travels on the internet. Even free comical icons for kids that track your usage. With direct marketing, sadly on the phones as well, big business. Someone is going to find a way to utilize as much information as it can on you for their profit not yours.
So lets all have an operating system that tracks our internal usage. With microsoft already putting in stealth internet connections in their products can you imagine that they will not have something similar (to give your the easiest most seamless user experience possible) in this new operating system. With a DB supplied, there gots the DB competition. You will become more and more dependent on them, with wonderful hooks I'm sure to their Internet Services, such that the feature rich envirionment will coddle you into acceptance.
Already there are a frightenly high number or internet sites that work only with IE. The Internet is becoming divided by Microsofts propriatary, incompatible, feature rich offerings. The only bright light on the horizon was the news about Walmart and the Lindows PC's.
Dont get me wrong I think Microsoft has brought the computer industry to the masses and has been a benevolent dictator for a long time. I just hope it doesnt become a malevolent dictator as competition increases.
Why can't we all just get along. Well maybe because there is more money to be made the other way.
"The AdAge Group is pleased to announce the aquisition of one of the internets most popular web stites"
"Advertising professionals will now benefit from the combination of round-the-clock industry news and a vast TV commercial archive.
We will relaunch a new and improved AdCritic in the near future. While we build it, send us an e-mail telling us what you liked and didn't like about AdCritic.
If you are interested in knowing when the new site goes live - please submit your name and email (at right), and we will send you an email inviting you to see the new AdCritic.com before anyone else."
So there is hope that it will be resurrected. It too was one of my favorite browse sites. (Esp some of the European ads)
I for one would like to see that model work. Eliminating the publisher, the distributer, the store. Writers and artists get only a small fraction of the money generated by their efforts. Some of that goes to the hawking of the work and the sails.. a creative specialty in its own right, but not one I see as as worthy as that of the creative worker. A necesarry evil maybe like lawyers.
I have an artist friend that signed an exclusive contract with a gallery, then they chose only about 10% of her work and gave her maybe 10 pct of the sale price. Fortunetly she had a job teaching at the Art Institue of Chicago and was able to let the contract run out and still eat. She was new to this country and creative distribution system, not new to art.
And they talk about us foolish Americans
Well I just subscribed to Tad's site. I support the idea of his trying to get direct support for his work if not for the value given from the work itself (we are at a bootstrap point in this model).
Here is an opportunity for someone to put up a site for these types of efforts to help get exposure and marketing. Well that will work until someone sees the profit of it then starts to squeeze. But maybe there will be a breif period when things work like they should, like early Greece or early Internet maybe.
If you think this industry only relies on intelligence then your not tapped into the creativity of engineering and design. Granted there is always a movement to dummy up process with tools..tools..tools.. but then there is always the tool design area. Most of that creativity is under the hood as is with any good engineering. Or using the tools in new and creative ways.. just look at the "slam" shows and their use of garbage can lids and hollow tubes.
This raises the question of conflict of interest and in my mind makes me wonder whether at some time they might not provide SSL and PKI that has holes to allow the other side of the business more business.
Of course you should be using Javadoc which automatically formats linked HTML pages for documentation. The Java runtime specification book was actually a Javadoc from the code. So the system can do more complex formats.
Of course that pre-supposes your using Java, or maybe a reason for using it.
..."For your basic premise that if wealth was redistributed it mean the "same amount of money in the system" -- that idea is all fine and good, except for the tricky little thing known as inflation. Lets suppose everyone doubles their income tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, you will notice that the price for a loaf of bread goes from 1.25 to 2.50. The end result is that everyone makes more money - but things just cost more. New Boss = Old Boss. "
If we look at the system today, there is an ever-increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The middle class is shrinking and many of them have both spouses working or one spouse working multiple jobs just to have a decent living. What's wrong with this picture? Certainly the trend started to worsen back in the Regan era, where he wanted to bring "Elegance" back to the White House and break the influence of the unions. Throw in a few decades of MBA's objectifying the economy to the point where we don't look at what people are having to do to live good lives. This economy has been hard on the majority of the population with the multiple jobs and very good for a very few. Those few control the money that feeds the political parties and benefits from large government projects. There is a new spirit out there to objectify people as "human resources" and to "outsource" as a method of reducing benefits. "Shareholder Equity" is now the new God of business, not what the business does (banking, insurance, manufacturing).
There is a difference between what works in the economy, which numbers you look at to say, "we are doing a good job" and a country that has people that are benefiting from the work they do. Investing is renting money (with a variable and possibly negative return), should this be held as more valuable than the house that is built by the construction worker. Those who make their living renting money and are swimming in riches but have no other contribution to society, show that there is at least one area of this free market system that lacks enough competition to make that process efficient.
One of the precepts of the free market system is that it will limit profit through competition. Any time you have a situation where there are exorbitant profits, then someone else gets into the market and siphons that off some of it balancing and making the system efficient. When you look at the growing stratification of society we see that this free market concept in not working for the society as a whole. I contend that it should and those that support the free market ideas should welcome the competition. Anything else is hypocritical.
Please remember that the system is dynamic but there is one truth to it. At the bottom of that chain are the hundreds of millions of people that actually produce a product, or a service. That is what the rest is based on and is merely a tuning and apportioning of the value of that work. The difference is who gets the value for the work done. Right now it is biased towards the rich getting richer indirectly off that basic work. This is not a situation that can last for too much longer without backlash, or renewed Union organization (which used to be the control on that imbalance). Milk's value is undervalued to the point where farmers are pouring it out because they can't make a living at its current price. The dynamics of the system don't always work, they don't always match the value and the cost, and those imbalances can only last a short time before something gives.
I agree that having someone else re-apportion wealth, i.e. government is maybe a bad way to do it but I think it needs to be done to have a healthy country and a healthy economy. We need healthy, educated, motivated people to keep the system going. It is short sighted to ignore this stratification if your own wealth is due to a viable workforce.
It gets down to what I think has been lost, starting with the Regan era, that "Enlightened self interest" is being replaced with short sighted short term "Self Interest". That's the basic problem. The imbalance stems from this and something has to bring it into balance. The voters will at some point, sooner or later, decide that the system is not doing it itself and it will take steps to see that it is done. My only fear is that the next Supreme Court justices to be chosen will prolong the agony for many decades to come. That is the real choice and why even though I might otherwise vote my conscience, the stakes are too high not to play the political game and bet on the horse that is going to get you closer to your goal rather than, years of pain, waiting for another chance. My vote will be as much against a candidate/party and its goals as for a principle or a candidate.
You must not be from around here! No the US is not trying to get gambling, porn, fraternizing people off the internet. We are a democracy with free speach and a relatively open political system that allows individuals who want to do these thing speak their minds and yes even run for political office. We knew the risks and build it Laws, Rights, due process, and checks and balances to make sure no idiots could do too much damage that could not be undone by the people will.
As to invasion, well if you have a better mouse trap and people have mice, they buy it. That's part of that free will and self determination thing that we all here treasure. So all these people clamoring onto the Internet all over the world, by choice, are doing it for their own reasons, hardly an invasion. A revolution of information and communications maybe, but one being driven for the most part by those voluntary participants at their keyboards, like yours I might add.
Pornography, Gambling, I see as personal choices and something that adults, yes those people of responsible age, should not be restricted from. Gamboling is a problem when it opens someone up to control by someone else. Here in the US, people in banks are restricted from holding large debts, or margin accounts. As a saftey against desperate people dipping into the central monetary system of the country. A restriction sure, but you can think of it as risk management, not unlike a boot scan program. You have one of those dont you?
Hacking, well if you mean that people should not be allowed to break into other peoples computers and destroy corporate records or steal credit card numbers or delete a students hard work, well yes I think there should be concequences for that sort of juvenile or felonious behaviour. Dont you?
Net Monitoring, look at the ACLU who is asking for the FBI's Carnivoir system code. We too do not support that type of activity and are vocal and pro-active in our country to make sure those in power know we disaprove and will take them to court if necesarry. If that doesnt work we vote them out of office and change the laws.
The US is not monolithic, far from it, we are such a mixture of the world and changing daily. We feel the heat of invasion from the Orient, Middle East, Europe, South America, Africa. New people coming in daily, voting patterns changing, many parts of our cities principly speak other languages than English. Here we have a large Spanish speaking contigent, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Chek, Vietnamese, Russian, to name a few. If there is a Jack Boot, it is a very colorful one and full of ethnic dancing.
Copyright, well have you written anything? did someone take what you wrote and turn around and sell it an become wealth from that sale? How would feel. What if wanted to make computers and computer software your living, and you spent years designing a killer graphical utility. You started selling it to find out that it was being sold dirt cheap throughout Asia in pirated form. All your years of work and sweat for naught. And you see the fellow that pirated it driving a BMW and smiling. Well you might feel that you had been robbed of your property. Do you feel that you should just say, well thats alright, all that work was just for fun. I'll get a job packing boxes to pay the rent and feed my kids. When I was in China in the computer stores, virtually all the major software was there, and all of it was pirated. Admittedly they cant afford the price we pay but someone there is getting very rich on theft.That is the core of the issue and gets back to part of this countries valuing the individual. This gets confused when corporations own rights but it is still a matter of, if you did the work, you should get the benefit (within reason and for a certain period of time), how can this be a bad thing? Benefit fosters innovation. The open source movement is the same, it is collective benefit, that is good, but somewhere, the bill have to be paid. So we work at using that open source software to make it do things, but that intellectual property is yours and if someone else uses it and calls it there own or makes money off your work your going to protest.
I think the invasion you talk about is really the world seeing the value in a good idea. One that we have fought hard to keep free and open such that the whole world can be connected. The whole world has embraced it, hardly an invasion.
I like the polarization idea, in that that shows that there are other "characteristics" available to be exploited to send information. Who know what else someone will find to exploit, which is my point.
Maybe a way can be found to add a skewness factor, as sort of frequency shift within one half cycle. This might be measurable as well. We thought that no more information could be added to the current lines, but they keep finding more ways to pack and compress. Remember when they wanted to close the patent office?
Yes spread spectrum is an interesting technology, but one that spreads out on the spectrum like a butter in a hot pan raising the level of background noise. If more people used this the effective background noise would get so large that everyone would need to use this technology. A self fullfiling technology.
For Wireless communication we have always used geographic subdivision as well as frequency subdivision. First because we had so much geography and limited power for our radios. The cellular idea is just taking this natural existing situation and turning it into a planned scheme. I see that we will continue to reduce the size of cells till we have a light infrastructure that allows direct connection from almost any location. We have a systemic power/phone/gas infrastructure it seems only natural that the information infrastructure will follow the same pattern.
The problem with transmitting bits of data is that they have sharp corners, where the frequency or amplitude of a signal has some difficulty in making those corners, which means it takes some time to move the frequency or amplitude or phase of a signal to signify a one or a zero. We need some quantity of the signal we can change and detect to signify data, like dividing a change in frequency of a carrier signal into descrete phase angle changes relative to a reference signal into many parts (like 256 different phase angles which would encode 8bits of information). The carrier is good so you can lock onto the signal and know what you are detecting is the signal and not noise (signal to noise ratio is high). As long as we can find more and clever ways to encode data, and more precise ways of descriminating it we can squeeze more out of any frequency.
One major problem is repeating the signal without addition of errors. Analog signals always add error at each step so the signal degrades the more times it is repeated on route. Digital signals on the other hand can be descriminated and reconstitued anew at each stage so you can send digital signals through more stages without loss of quality. The phone system's analog repeaters guarentee a bandwidth of only 3k or so as this is all that is needed for acceptable voice transmission. Digital networks do much better, with error correcting codes and such can almost guarentee good data (or tell you its not).
So I think a purely digital distributed light network with an IR station in each room (possibly an addition to each light bulb, and street light) would solve a lot of problems. Who knows maybe all this RF in the air is really responsible for all the global warming (that losted energy does end up in heat).
Would that that were really true. There are laws now that make it a crime to listen in to certain frequencies, govt, mobile radio, cell. And radio receivers have to be limited to only listen in on acceptable bands (although easy fixes exist to change that). The ideal of the airwave belongs to the people has been eroded.
Good Engineering is hidden, and looks deceptively like common sense.
Programming is engineering, many people think it is just learning a language.
The different paradigms are like different building techniques, poured reenforced concrete, ballon frame, earthen ware, geodesic domes.
Experience, lots of experience, training lots of training (formal or on the Job), allows you the insights on what to use and when.
Recognizing the degrees of freedom, sometimes these are changing the perceptions of the people with the problem rather than the specifications you are given.
Make tools to solve problems, using personal craft
Have a problem to solve, work to solve it, get someone to pay you for it.
Smile a lot and be invested in your users problem. Your their solultion, you are helping them and they will appreciate it.
Intense focus on the problem, but from a little distance so you dont miss the obvious.
After 28 years I am still learning, applying and smiling (they still pay me, go figure)
"1/3 of the screen gets covered by the help window." I absouluely agree.
For me there are several important issues
Not enough screen real estate.
Paper manuals help this.
Multiple screens would do the same. >
Notes and highlighted sections
Shifting sub dialects (in terms I understand, like "this is like a printf"..)
Most manuals have information and comentary, I highlight the information typically it scans better e-docs dont yet address this, I have a desk calendar for the same reason, it is my technique for keeping track of project time and phone numbers, try to do that with Lotus Notes. They just didnt look at how those calendars were used I guess. I read for learning at night. I scan for syntax during the day. My laptop doesnt feel comfy in my comfy chair.
Online docs with their searching capabilities and hlinks are very powerful, and worth having. If a second pc or at least a second screen (or third or forth) can be used then you have benefits of both media (why did I ever let my two monitor MAC go), at least for fork. The hardcopy for learning I still think is better.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would you want to scroll? Why not use it for real programming?
Lets not confuse Java the language and its performance with Java GUI framework. Just like you would not compare C++ the language with the Microsoft windows framework.
The Java framework sacrifices some speed for generality. So see what you save writing it once and delivering it to multiple platforms vs re-writting the GUI portion for another platform. There is method and cost to this madness.
Well, tight C++ code may be a confusion in terms given its prepenstiy to leak memory.
another day, another line of code, I'll debug it tomorrow.
I think that one of the great ideas that has come to us from mathematics is the Abstract Data Type. With its seperation of logical view from physical implementation. That is describe the functional service in it minimal essence. Then you can implement it any which way without breaking things.
That was the important idea behind Databases. and why we adopted Databases quickly even though they cost more in terms of time space and money. It was a realization that this meta model of design solved the maitaince problem that was threating to bring down Computers as a viable business tool.
The second big one came from normalization of databases. Which solved much of the maitainence problems with data storage and handling. This came after Databases.
Then there was Modulo which allowed segmentation of software into computational units, a first step to implementing ADT's.
Then we brought these together in OOP with modular normailzed data and programs together. All part of a march towards a natural evolution of compact maintainable systems.
With the next round which seems to involve efforts like J2EE and others with allowing software to talk seamlessly over networks as just part of what they do. We are starting to abstract out even the computer hardware underneath.
Who knows what evolution will decide is then next great idea. Where we will end up doing our work.
I just hope our economy lasts long enough for us to realize the next step.
Now one might argue that computer programs are just an archetypal externalizaton of internal processes. Who knows maybe its DNA programming us to create programs to understand DNA. A sort of evolutionary nepotism.
Actually, "When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like your thumb. -@copyright Putnam 2002 all rights reserved."
In an environment where gene's are being patented. We have a land grab going on to what some consider as the public domain. I guess that is the real issue and the complaint many have with the patent office, where are the boundries. An example might be with auctions, that ancient human activity, when moved to the web is patented, go figure. It seems like the new outlet for the ancient practice is a "new" idea but is it worthy of ownership? I think not. How much oil has to spill before the beach is irreversibly harmed. Maybe I should get one of those new Tablet pc's and put an auction on it and patent that. I can see the bucks rolling in now.
Of course one of the corallaries to Murphies Law is you don't know what you got till its gone. No thats a song title, no thats a breath mint.
Well anyway. Many sections of code are there like the many clauses in a legal document. They are not used or needed until something else breaks. An example might be like our bodies digesting muscle when we run out of food. Who would have thought we would do that. We would never know until we saw it with our own eyes. Or as God said go forth and figure.
Is that your real Hair?
Lesson Three was when a piece of software popped up MQMGR I think or something like that, that was requesting access to the internet.
Looking that up I find that it is Microsofts software, automatically installed that whenever you are connected to the internet connects to Microsoft to send then information about your system. Strange I thought as I disabled it.
Lesson four, with the security setting high I accessed Hotmail and at every page it requests to have Microsoft Messenger act as a server connecting to the internet. This I would not know about unless I had the firewall filtering access.
We have instances of ads that track (or try) to track your external travels on the internet. Even free comical icons for kids that track your usage. With direct marketing, sadly on the phones as well, big business. Someone is going to find a way to utilize as much information as it can on you for their profit not yours.
So lets all have an operating system that tracks our internal usage. With microsoft already putting in stealth internet connections in their products can you imagine that they will not have something similar (to give your the easiest most seamless user experience possible) in this new operating system. With a DB supplied, there gots the DB competition. You will become more and more dependent on them, with wonderful hooks I'm sure to their Internet Services, such that the feature rich envirionment will coddle you into acceptance.
Already there are a frightenly high number or internet sites that work only with IE. The Internet is becoming divided by Microsofts propriatary, incompatible, feature rich offerings.
The only bright light on the horizon was the news about Walmart and the Lindows PC's.
Dont get me wrong I think Microsoft has brought the computer industry to the masses and has been a benevolent dictator for a long time. I just hope it doesnt become a malevolent dictator as competition increases.
Why can't we all just get along. Well maybe because there is more money to be made the other way.
if you go to the adcritic site you get
"The AdAge Group is pleased to announce the aquisition of one of the internets most popular
web stites"
"Advertising professionals will now benefit from the combination of round-the-clock industry news and a vast TV commercial archive.
We will relaunch a new and improved AdCritic in the near future. While we build it, send us an e-mail telling us what you liked and didn't like about AdCritic.
If you are interested in knowing when the new site goes live - please submit your name and email (at right), and we will send you an email inviting you to see the new AdCritic.com before anyone else."
So there is hope that it will be resurrected. It too was one of my favorite browse sites. (Esp some of the European ads)
And you could sell detergent and cosmetics and maybe a personal improvement seminar....Can you say pyramid scheme..
I have an artist friend that signed an exclusive contract with a gallery, then they chose only about 10% of her work and gave her maybe 10 pct of the sale price. Fortunetly she had a job teaching at the Art Institue of Chicago and was able to let the contract run out and still eat. She was new to this country and creative distribution system, not new to art.
And they talk about us foolish Americans
Well I just subscribed to Tad's site. I support the idea of his trying to get direct support for his work if not for the value given from the work itself (we are at a bootstrap point in this model).
Here is an opportunity for someone to put up a site for these types of efforts to help get exposure and marketing. Well that will work until someone sees the profit of it then starts to squeeze. But maybe there will be a breif period when things work like they should, like early Greece or early Internet maybe.
If you think this industry only relies on intelligence then your not tapped into the creativity of engineering and design. Granted there is always a movement to dummy up process with tools..tools..tools.. but then there is always the tool design area. Most of that creativity is under the hood as is with any good engineering. Or using the tools in new and creative ways.. just look at the "slam" shows and their use of garbage can lids and hollow tubes.
This raises the question of conflict of interest and in my mind makes me wonder whether at some time they might not provide SSL and PKI that has holes to allow the other side of the business more business.
Of course you should be using Javadoc which automatically formats linked HTML pages for documentation. The Java runtime specification book was actually a Javadoc from the code. So the system can do more complex formats.
Of course that pre-supposes your using Java, or maybe a reason for using it.
Lets not forget water, electricity and dare I say it , Indoor plumbing.
..."For your basic premise that if wealth was redistributed it mean the "same amount of money in the system" -- that idea is all fine and good, except for the tricky little thing known as inflation. Lets suppose everyone doubles their income tomorrow. Shortly thereafter, you will notice that the price for a loaf of bread goes from 1.25 to 2.50. The end result is that everyone makes more money - but things just cost more. New Boss = Old Boss. "
If we look at the system today, there is an ever-increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. The middle class is shrinking and many of them have both spouses working or one spouse working multiple jobs just to have a decent living. What's wrong with this picture? Certainly the trend started to worsen back in the Regan era, where he wanted to bring "Elegance" back to the White House and break the influence of the unions. Throw in a few decades of MBA's objectifying the economy to the point where we don't look at what people are having to do to live good lives. This economy has been hard on the majority of the population with the multiple jobs and very good for a very few. Those few control the money that feeds the political parties and benefits from large government projects. There is a new spirit out there to objectify people as "human resources" and to "outsource" as a method of reducing benefits. "Shareholder Equity" is now the new God of business, not what the business does (banking, insurance, manufacturing).
There is a difference between what works in the economy, which numbers you look at to say, "we are doing a good job" and a country that has people that are benefiting from the work they do. Investing is renting money (with a variable and possibly negative return), should this be held as more valuable than the house that is built by the construction worker. Those who make their living renting money and are swimming in riches but have no other contribution to society, show that there is at least one area of this free market system that lacks enough competition to make that process efficient.
One of the precepts of the free market system is that it will limit profit through competition. Any time you have a situation where there are exorbitant profits, then someone else gets into the market and siphons that off some of it balancing and making the system efficient. When you look at the growing stratification of society we see that this free market concept in not working for the society as a whole. I contend that it should and those that support the free market ideas should welcome the competition. Anything else is hypocritical.
Please remember that the system is dynamic but there is one truth to it. At the bottom of that chain are the hundreds of millions of people that actually produce a product, or a service. That is what the rest is based on and is merely a tuning and apportioning of the value of that work. The difference is who gets the value for the work done. Right now it is biased towards the rich getting richer indirectly off that basic work. This is not a situation that can last for too much longer without backlash, or renewed Union organization (which used to be the control on that imbalance). Milk's value is undervalued to the point where farmers are pouring it out because they can't make a living at its current price. The dynamics of the system don't always work, they don't always match the value and the cost, and those imbalances can only last a short time before something gives.
I agree that having someone else re-apportion wealth, i.e. government is maybe a bad way to do it but I think it needs to be done to have a healthy country and a healthy economy. We need healthy, educated, motivated people to keep the system going. It is short sighted to ignore this stratification if your own wealth is due to a viable workforce.
It gets down to what I think has been lost, starting with the Regan era, that "Enlightened self interest" is being replaced with short sighted short term "Self Interest". That's the basic problem. The imbalance stems from this and something has to bring it into balance. The voters will at some point, sooner or later, decide that the system is not doing it itself and it will take steps to see that it is done. My only fear is that the next Supreme Court justices to be chosen will prolong the agony for many decades to come. That is the real choice and why even though I might otherwise vote my conscience, the stakes are too high not to play the political game and bet on the horse that is going to get you closer to your goal rather than, years of pain, waiting for another chance. My vote will be as much against a candidate/party and its goals as for a principle or a candidate.
As to invasion, well if you have a better mouse trap and people have mice, they buy it. That's part of that free will and self determination thing that we all here treasure. So all these people clamoring onto the Internet all over the world, by choice, are doing it for their own reasons, hardly an invasion. A revolution of information and communications maybe, but one being driven for the most part by those voluntary participants at their keyboards, like yours I might add.
Pornography, Gambling, I see as personal choices and something that adults, yes those people of responsible age, should not be restricted from. Gamboling is a problem when it opens someone up to control by someone else. Here in the US, people in banks are restricted from holding large debts, or margin accounts. As a saftey against desperate people dipping into the central monetary system of the country. A restriction sure, but you can think of it as risk management, not unlike a boot scan program. You have one of those dont you?
Hacking, well if you mean that people should not be allowed to break into other peoples computers and destroy corporate records or steal credit card numbers or delete a students hard work, well yes I think there should be concequences for that sort of juvenile or felonious behaviour. Dont you?
Net Monitoring, look at the ACLU who is asking for the FBI's Carnivoir system code. We too do not support that type of activity and are vocal and pro-active in our country to make sure those in power know we disaprove and will take them to court if necesarry. If that doesnt work we vote them out of office and change the laws.
The US is not monolithic, far from it, we are such a mixture of the world and changing daily. We feel the heat of invasion from the Orient, Middle East, Europe, South America, Africa. New people coming in daily, voting patterns changing, many parts of our cities principly speak other languages than English. Here we have a large Spanish speaking contigent, Polish, Chinese, Korean, Chek, Vietnamese, Russian, to name a few. If there is a Jack Boot, it is a very colorful one and full of ethnic dancing.
Copyright, well have you written anything? did someone take what you wrote and turn around and sell it an become wealth from that sale? How would feel. What if wanted to make computers and computer software your living, and you spent years designing a killer graphical utility. You started selling it to find out that it was being sold dirt cheap throughout Asia in pirated form. All your years of work and sweat for naught. And you see the fellow that pirated it driving a BMW and smiling. Well you might feel that you had been robbed of your property. Do you feel that you should just say, well thats alright, all that work was just for fun. I'll get a job packing boxes to pay the rent and feed my kids. When I was in China in the computer stores, virtually all the major software was there, and all of it was pirated. Admittedly they cant afford the price we pay but someone there is getting very rich on theft.That is the core of the issue and gets back to part of this countries valuing the individual. This gets confused when corporations own rights but it is still a matter of, if you did the work, you should get the benefit (within reason and for a certain period of time), how can this be a bad thing? Benefit fosters innovation. The open source movement is the same, it is collective benefit, that is good, but somewhere, the bill have to be paid. So we work at using that open source software to make it do things, but that intellectual property is yours and if someone else uses it and calls it there own or makes money off your work your going to protest.
I think the invasion you talk about is really the world seeing the value in a good idea. One that we have fought hard to keep free and open such that the whole world can be connected. The whole world has embraced it, hardly an invasion.
Welcome to the revolution.
(should be) What do you think Slashdot should do if defaced with that kind of choice?
I like the polarization idea, in that that shows that there are other "characteristics" available to be exploited to send information. Who know what else someone will find to exploit, which is my point.
Maybe a way can be found to add a skewness factor, as sort of frequency shift within one half cycle. This might be measurable as well. We thought that no more information could be added to the current lines, but they keep finding more ways to pack and compress. Remember when they wanted to close the patent office?
Yes spread spectrum is an interesting technology, but one that spreads out on the spectrum like a butter in a hot pan raising the level of background noise. If more people used this the effective background noise would get so large that everyone would need to use this technology. A self fullfiling technology.
The problem with transmitting bits of data is that they have sharp corners, where the frequency or amplitude of a signal has some difficulty in making those corners, which means it takes some time to move the frequency or amplitude or phase of a signal to signify a one or a zero. We need some quantity of the signal we can change and detect to signify data, like dividing a change in frequency of a carrier signal into descrete phase angle changes relative to a reference signal into many parts (like 256 different phase angles which would encode 8bits of information). The carrier is good so you can lock onto the signal and know what you are detecting is the signal and not noise (signal to noise ratio is high). As long as we can find more and clever ways to encode data, and more precise ways of descriminating it we can squeeze more out of any frequency.
One major problem is repeating the signal without addition of errors. Analog signals always add error at each step so the signal degrades the more times it is repeated on route. Digital signals on the other hand can be descriminated and reconstitued anew at each stage so you can send digital signals through more stages without loss of quality. The phone system's analog repeaters guarentee a bandwidth of only 3k or so as this is all that is needed for acceptable voice transmission. Digital networks do much better, with error correcting codes and such can almost guarentee good data (or tell you its not).
So I think a purely digital distributed light network with an IR station in each room (possibly an addition to each light bulb, and street light) would solve a lot of problems. Who knows maybe all this RF in the air is really responsible for all the global warming (that losted energy does end up in heat).
Would that that were really true. There are laws now that make it a crime to listen in to certain frequencies, govt, mobile radio, cell. And radio receivers have to be limited to only listen in on acceptable bands (although easy fixes exist to change that). The ideal of the airwave belongs to the people has been eroded.
Good Engineering is hidden, and looks deceptively like common sense.
Programming is engineering, many people think it is just learning a language.
The different paradigms are like different building techniques, poured reenforced concrete, ballon frame, earthen ware, geodesic domes.
Experience, lots of experience, training lots of training (formal or on the Job), allows you the insights on what to use and when.
Recognizing the degrees of freedom, sometimes these are changing the perceptions of the people with the problem rather than the specifications you are given.
Make tools to solve problems, using personal craft
Have a problem to solve, work to solve it, get someone to pay you for it.
Smile a lot and be invested in your users problem. Your their solultion, you are helping them and they will appreciate it.
Intense focus on the problem, but from a little distance so you dont miss the obvious.
After 28 years I am still learning, applying and smiling (they still pay me, go figure)
For me there are several important issues
Not enough screen real estate.
Paper manuals help this.
Multiple screens would do the same. >
Notes and highlighted sections
Shifting sub dialects (in terms I understand, like "this is like a printf"..)
Most manuals have information and comentary, I highlight the information typically it scans better
e-docs dont yet address this, I have a desk calendar for the same reason, it is my technique for keeping track of project time and phone numbers, try to do that with Lotus Notes. They just didnt look at how those calendars were used I guess.
I read for learning at night. I scan for syntax during the day. My laptop doesnt feel comfy in my comfy chair.
Online docs with their searching capabilities and hlinks are very powerful, and worth having. If a second pc or at least a second screen (or third or forth) can be used then you have benefits of both media (why did I ever let my two monitor MAC go), at least for fork. The hardcopy for learning I still think is better.