According to this news item from the PRC, the hourly wage for urban workers in 2000 was more like $0.42/hour.
Since income in general in China has been trending upwards since 2000, let's assume a modest 10% annual increase in income. Not too hard to imagine - the article showed a 13.1% increase from 1999 to 2000, and the Chinese economy has certainly been booming. If that assumption is correct, then your average urban worker in China is now earning around $0.75/hour. Pretty darn miserable, by western standards... not quite so bad if you're actually living in China, though. Having been there several times, it seems as if earning 50 yuan a day (or around 1200 yuan/month) would provide a much better standard of living than earning the same amount of money ($144/month) would in the US.
And every one of those eight is in an area where someone else already has an entry.
Not neccesarily a bad thing. Guy Kawasaki has commented that there are a lot of smart people in the world... if you come up with an idea, look around, and see abolutely no competition, then you have pull a Scott Adams and ask yourself, "which is more likely?"
I am incredibly smarter, luckier, and/or more insightful than each and every other person on the planet who might have ever had the chance to come up with this idea. In a sea of six billion faceless drones, I alone am unique.
There are smarter people in the world - much smarter than me - who have thought of and then discarded this idea as the disgusting piece of trash that it is.
Now, you see, the trick is that if you are somewhat smarter, luckier, or more insightful, you have two choices. You can attempt to come up with something completely original and new, which is really risky, as shown above. Or, you can enter a known, existing, money making market where your somewhat-smarter brain, store of luck and somewhat novel insgihts will allow you to out-maneuver the barely sentient cretins who currently inhabit that market niche. Still somewhat risky, but not anywhere near as risky as trying to create a completely new market.
No, it's true actually. A lot of businesses in Northern Ireland were poking at free software but no one wants to be first, so we're organising a big free software conference aimed at businesses.
Hmmm. I was just in Dublin a few weeks ago. I considered picking up a paper and seeing what might be available, but never got around to it... I'll have to make an effort next time I'm there (this summer, I hope:-) Cost of living in Ireland is scary, but it's a wonderful country and I think I'd enjoy the chance to spend a few years there (North or South).
There are a couple of Pratchett books that have made it onto the screen via animation - Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music. (There was a rumor earlier this year that Wee Free Men might be made into a movie, as well.) My wife and I enjoyed Soul Music, but haven't seen Wyrd Sisters yet. I have to admit that I'm tending to avoid it because I have a firm mental image of Esme, Gythia, and Magrat. I would really would hate to have that overlaid with someone else's conception of those characters.
All that to point out that, IMHO, there is one Discworld book that I think would translate to the big screen particularly well: Feet of Clay. It would almost certainly have to be animated, though. I can't think of anything in the book that would really have to be spelled out for new viewers, and the subject matter (fantasy homicide investigation) is particularly down-to-earth, and would probably have pretty broad appeal outside of the realm of F/SF fandom. Not to mention that there's a built-in love interest substory already. A bizzare one, of course, but at least it would mean that the studios wouldn't feel the overwhelming need to graft one in.
There is an interesting anecdote about why Pratchett is able to exercise so much control over optioning his books, as well...
Programs written in this functional style are automatically parallelized and executed on a large cluster of commodity machines. The run-time system takes care of the details of partitioning the input data, scheduling the program's execution across a set of machines, handling machine failures, and managing the required inter-machine communication. This allows programmers without any experience with parallel and distributed systems to easily utilize the resources of a large distributed system.
I just read the article, and I don't think the title of this posting should be "AOL to charge senders for incoming mail" but "AOL to charge senders to ensure email don't get flagged as spam."
<voice style='Godfather'>
"That's a classy email you have there. Real nice, you know? It would be a... shame... if anything were to happen to it."
</voice>
And it took you two days to realize this and come up with a rebuttal? Nuh-uh. Not buying that. You made two statements that were, indeed, contradictory - go back and re-read your own words in context. That you happen to use "should" in one sentence when you used "must" in another is irrelevant - your very clearly intended that both statements be taken as existing fact. As such, your second post still contradicts your first.
You are assuming that the computer is somehow critical in the educational process when the opposite can be argued quite effectively.
No. From what I understand, the model for the $100 laptop is one where the most effecient way to transmit information is electronically. How much do CDs cost again? Once you get a bunch of these laptops out into the hands of interested parties, how much would it cost to give each and every person a literal wealth of texts on agriculture, engineering, history, language, etc. on CD-ROM?
That's the point of the $100 laptop. Not to give them computers. To give them a tool that allows them easy access to information.
You're making my point again:-) Your original post said:
Any interpretation process must in fact bring a bit of personal beliefs into the process, and thus, the beliefs and opinions of the justice on how areas of the law should be interpreted are everything in determining what sort of justice a person will be.
And your second post elaborates on the first, where you state:
Judicial interpretation should begin with the factual content of the law and a factual examination of the situation, and then it should attempt to interpret the intent of the law from within that factual framework.
Two contradictory statements. All the more interesting because, AFAICT, your position in the above post is identical to the original poster's argument on why Alito would make a good justice: that he is able to seperate the influence of his personal beliefs from the interpretation and application of laws within the legal framework.
The religious community (at least the rightmost half of them) are ALREADY going bonkers about the "endorsement" of witchcraft in the Harry Potter series, so I can't see that "Small Gods" would do all that much more to irritate them.
I'm a member of the "religious community". I attend an independent Baptist church, and teach sunday school. I enjoy preaching Christ's gospel message when I have the opportunity. My wife and I are working on continuing our education so we can follow God's promptings and dedicate our lives to His service in the ministry. In most all ways, I'd end up being classified as Christian fundamentalist and a member of the "religious right".
So - for the record:
Harry Potter fails to excite me in any way, positive or negative.
PTerry, on the other hand, rocks - and "Small Gods" is one of my favorites.
have read studies that show that a parent's influence on their child has dropped to almost zero by around the age of 12 in most cases.
And you see this as justification for non-involvement instead of a reason for concern?
I'm pushing 40 and my parents and in-laws are still a significant influence on me. They are who I go to for help and advice. I enjoy spending time with them, and I'm still learning from them. I fervently hope that I will continue to influence my own children well past the age of 12, and that they will want my influence in their lives.
You have two choices:
Either educate your children by the age of twelve such that they are able to police their own behaviour, or
Use draconian measures to try to enforce behaviour after that.
You're ignoring what is, to me, an obvious third choice: raise your children in such a way that they know they can trust your advice and guidance, so that they don't start ignoring you when they turn twelve.
These are the real positions held by the people in charge of this stuff.
Well, then why didn't you - and others - say so directly? I mean, pointing someone at this bit from Linus is pretty much the be-all-end-all of the discussion - you really can't argue that "Linus said no" is ambiguous.
Not being a kernel hacker, I was unaware of this little tidbit of lkml lore. Having read this thread (and posted my original comment) where there were something like 350 visible posts, I thing I can pretty safely say that nobody of any consequence had bothered to point out that Linus' objection to a driver ABI was anything but ideological.
Instead, you started arguing from ideology - "Linux is about Open Source, and allowing people to link-in binary closed drivers goes against this." - when the real reason that Linus doesn't want binary only modules is because of (possible) performance issues and what he sees as inevitable legacy support (organizational) problems. I'm certainly not going to disagree with him on that - in fact, having read his rationale for refusing a driver ABI, I can understand it, and I sympathize. Trying to claim that he's giving ideological reasons for refusing an ABI is a bit of a stretch (particularly given the above referenced post...)
To argue that my ideas are stupid, are to argue their ideas are stupid.
I'm not arguing that your ideas (or theirs) are stupid - though I would say that your initial presentation of those ideas was flawed. If the sole objection to a driver ABI was ideological (the continued existance of close-source, binary-only drivers), then there are ways around that. I proposed one possible solution; I've seen others propose different solutions that attempt to overcome the ideological objections you and others raised.
However, as I pointed out, you started arguing from an ideological basis, when in fact the real reason that Linus has rejected a driver ABI has little (if anything) to do with ideology. How can I say that? Well, because he doesn't object to a driver ABI...
For any ideological reasons ("I allow binary-only modules...")
For any technical reasons (".... not because of any really technical reasons...")
For any personal reasons ("... not because I'm a callous bastard...")
He's objecting to a driver ABI because it's an ABI, and so carries with it non-code related problems he would rather not deal with. Like I said earlier, it's hard to argue with that. Given that knowledge, it's no wonder that GPL-vs-commercial arguments and the like don't really sway him, because they're irrelevant to his decision.
I think Linus makes a good case here why he doesn't want binary drivers...
So do I. I just don't think that the argument he makes here is the one you started off with.
Is it a counter-intuitive idea? Yeah. Doesn't it go against modern programming doctrine? Yeah, but so does the whole monolithic kernel design that Linux uses. Would the world be better if Linux could trust people to make Open Source drivers using a standard driver ABI, and not drive people hard like this? Yeah, life would be better.
OK, let's start by assuming that a stable binary driver ABI is, in general, a Good Thing. It means that, potentially...
drivers don't need to be recompiled for every kernel release
the driver ABI can be tested and verified for performance/breakage
the underlying driver model and behaviors in the kernel can be changed more freely
changes to the ABI implementation propagate to all drivers build on the ABI
etc.
Now, on the minus side, these benfits come with one problem from some points of view: hardware vendors would potentially be able to release binary-only drivers. Wait, though. This isn't a technical issue - it's a licensing issue. So why not just create a driver ABI for the kernel, and GPL it? Take steps to make sure that the only conceivable way you can build a driver to this interface is to place it under the GPL.
Existing drivers - those already under the GPL - can move to the binary interface without penalty. Any changes made to the way the binary interface works will be propagated out to all the drivers that use that interface. Companies that don't/can't use the GPL'd ABI can continue to write their drivers against the existing kernel driver interfaces, with all the headaches that entails; only now, they would have the lure of a much simpler, cleaner, binary interface for the small, small cost of opening up their driver code.
Still.. as fast as modern computers are I think we may be reaching a point where raw speed is less important and well designed microkernels can probably run almost as fast as monolithic kernels.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet... there was an article in the latest C/C++ User's Journal titled Interprocess Communication & the L4 Microkernel. Made for interesting reading. The main idea seems to be that traditional microkernel designs spend too much time and effort having the kernel validate messages.
You can probably get an inkling of the sort of problems to be tackled by taking a look at the CELF Developer's Wiki. If you enjoy specifications (And my! Who doesn't?!?) you can take a look at the final CELF 1.0 specification. I suspect that a lot (if not all) of the areas that CELF has examined will have to be addressed by OSDL/MLI as well.
Which just raises the question of why OSDL is putting together Yet Another Industry Forum when one already exists. In particular, all of the comapnies listed as initial members in ODSDL/MLI - MontaVista, Motorola, PalmSource, Trolltech, and Wind River - are already CELF members. What do they hope to accomplish via OSDL/MLI that they couldn't address as part of CELF?
From the sound of it, it seems like they're going to be covering a lot of the same ground as the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (see the CELF home page.)
The Consumer Electronics Linux Forum (CELF), a California Non-Profit Corporation, is focused on the advancement of Linux as an open source platform for consumer electronics (CE) devices. The CELF intends to operate completely within the letter and the spirit of the open source community. The CELF is a place to come and discuss various issues that are of particular importance to the CE industry. Through an open process, the CELF members will clarify and codify certain requirements to be addressed in open source software. Thereafter, the CELF will evaluate any open source submissions as to their effectiveness and responsiveness to the requirements. Open source submissions accepted by the CELF Architecture Group and Steering Committee will be incorporated into the CELF source tree, which itself is open to the public.
There's some interesting stuff coming out of CELF, if you're interested in that sort of thing. IIRC, Matt Mackall (the author of the linux tiny set of patches) is now working for CELF. From other CELF members I've talked to, I can say that they seem to be a pretty techically oriented bunch. The individual CELF members aren't marketing types trying to push OSS developers to do their work for them, they're developers who have a real interest in pitching in and helping to make Linux a useful OS for consumer electronics.
As the original post pointed out, most of the nuclear and conventional steam powered ships in the surface Navy have been decomissioned, and their replacements are powered by gas turbine engines. Gas turbine engines run off of JP-5, the same aviation fuel used by the Navy (it's the the Air Force and the Army that use JP-8). So a carrier should definitely be able to refuel a gas turbine ship if required in an emergency.
However, carriers still cary fuel for other ships in the carrier group.
Nope - there are auxilliary ships specifically designed for transporting fuel, and one is generally attached to a carrier group specifically for that purpose. I was stationed in one (USS Wabash, AOR-5).
That's not to say that a carrier couldn't supply fuel for another ship... there are procedures for transfering fuel underway that can be used between almost any combination of ships you care to mention. This isn't something that you'd see done normally, though. In my time in the Navy (4 years, 3 on a ship dedicated to underway replenishment), I only saw that done once, and that was part of an exercise - no fuel was actually transfered.
So unless the Navy's changed their supply management drastically in the last few years, carriers are far too busy, um, being carriers to deal with the (pretty much daily) need to refuel other ships.
The only reason they've got is that they still haven't learned how to tell Internet shit from shine-ola. In other words, still not enough brains to go around on the funder side of the table.
So... if the VCs have trillions of dollars, why in the name of Pete would you beat yourself up trying to come up with "the idea" that will grudgingly seperate them from a paltry few million? Go to where the money is! Put together a consulting firm that specializes in helping VCs get a better return on their investment - doing technical reviews, working with founders to assist in recuiting and development, etc. Siphon off a few million of that VC funding directly, instead of having to beg for it.
If MS were to move Office to X under MS-Redhat (or whatever), that would mean it should be possible to get Office running under Gentoo (which isn't the kind of lock-in MS would like). So they'd have to do something like make a special toolkit (which they would probably do anyways)... In the end, anyone with Gentoo (or whatever) and some time should be able to run the program that would run only on MS-Redhat.
Once Trusted Computing is in place and accepted, then all they would need to do is lock their office suite to a particular platform - RedHat Linux, for example. No muss, no fuss. If you're not running RedHat Trusted Linux (tm), then you won't be able to run their MS Office Linux Edition.
I think this is why MS really wants Trusted Computing. Not for multimedia, but because it helps them to lock their customers into a MS dependency.
I have to respectfully disagree. I've seen data that indicates people are extremely unlikely to change their habits for only a perceived marginal improvement.
In other words - making it "easier" won't get people to adopt it. It has to be obviously, noticably, incredibly, "Wow! I've gotta get me some of that!" easier before people will even start to THINK of adopting it.
Slashdot Mirror
According to this news item from the PRC, the hourly wage for urban workers in 2000 was more like $0.42/hour.
Since income in general in China has been trending upwards since 2000, let's assume a modest 10% annual increase in income. Not too hard to imagine - the article showed a 13.1% increase from 1999 to 2000, and the Chinese economy has certainly been booming. If that assumption is correct, then your average urban worker in China is now earning around $0.75/hour. Pretty darn miserable, by western standards... not quite so bad if you're actually living in China, though. Having been there several times, it seems as if earning 50 yuan a day (or around 1200 yuan/month) would provide a much better standard of living than earning the same amount of money ($144/month) would in the US.
Not neccesarily a bad thing. Guy Kawasaki has commented that there are a lot of smart people in the world... if you come up with an idea, look around, and see abolutely no competition, then you have pull a Scott Adams and ask yourself, "which is more likely?"
Now, you see, the trick is that if you are somewhat smarter, luckier, or more insightful, you have two choices. You can attempt to come up with something completely original and new, which is really risky, as shown above. Or, you can enter a known, existing, money making market where your somewhat-smarter brain, store of luck and somewhat novel insgihts will allow you to out-maneuver the barely sentient cretins who currently inhabit that market niche. Still somewhat risky, but not anywhere near as risky as trying to create a completely new market.
Hmmm. I was just in Dublin a few weeks ago. I considered picking up a paper and seeing what might be available, but never got around to it... I'll have to make an effort next time I'm there (this summer, I hope :-) Cost of living in Ireland is scary, but it's a wonderful country and I think I'd enjoy the chance to spend a few years there (North or South).
There are a couple of Pratchett books that have made it onto the screen via animation - Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music . (There was a rumor earlier this year that Wee Free Men might be made into a movie, as well.) My wife and I enjoyed Soul Music, but haven't seen Wyrd Sisters yet. I have to admit that I'm tending to avoid it because I have a firm mental image of Esme, Gythia, and Magrat. I would really would hate to have that overlaid with someone else's conception of those characters.
All that to point out that, IMHO, there is one Discworld book that I think would translate to the big screen particularly well: Feet of Clay. It would almost certainly have to be animated, though. I can't think of anything in the book that would really have to be spelled out for new viewers, and the subject matter (fantasy homicide investigation) is particularly down-to-earth, and would probably have pretty broad appeal outside of the realm of F/SF fandom. Not to mention that there's a built-in love interest substory already. A bizzare one, of course, but at least it would mean that the studios wouldn't feel the overwhelming need to graft one in.
There is an interesting anecdote about why Pratchett is able to exercise so much control over optioning his books, as well...
Two words, one algorithm: MapReduce.
<voice style='Godfather'>
"That's a classy email you have there. Real nice, you know? It would be a... shame... if anything were to happen to it."
</voice>
And it took you two days to realize this and come up with a rebuttal? Nuh-uh. Not buying that. You made two statements that were, indeed, contradictory - go back and re-read your own words in context. That you happen to use "should" in one sentence when you used "must" in another is irrelevant - your very clearly intended that both statements be taken as existing fact. As such, your second post still contradicts your first.
No. From what I understand, the model for the $100 laptop is one where the most effecient way to transmit information is electronically. How much do CDs cost again? Once you get a bunch of these laptops out into the hands of interested parties, how much would it cost to give each and every person a literal wealth of texts on agriculture, engineering, history, language, etc. on CD-ROM?
That's the point of the $100 laptop. Not to give them computers. To give them a tool that allows them easy access to information.
You're making my point again :-) Your original post said:
And your second post elaborates on the first, where you state:
Two contradictory statements. All the more interesting because, AFAICT, your position in the above post is identical to the original poster's argument on why Alito would make a good justice: that he is able to seperate the influence of his personal beliefs from the interpretation and application of laws within the legal framework.
...if it were posted in another thread.
Given the article under discussion, though, I find myself wishing /. had an "ironic" mod.
I'm a member of the "religious community". I attend an independent Baptist church, and teach sunday school. I enjoy preaching Christ's gospel message when I have the opportunity. My wife and I are working on continuing our education so we can follow God's promptings and dedicate our lives to His service in the ministry. In most all ways, I'd end up being classified as Christian fundamentalist and a member of the "religious right".
So - for the record:
Now he's going to have to move Kobold.
And you see this as justification for non-involvement instead of a reason for concern?
I'm pushing 40 and my parents and in-laws are still a significant influence on me. They are who I go to for help and advice. I enjoy spending time with them, and I'm still learning from them. I fervently hope that I will continue to influence my own children well past the age of 12, and that they will want my influence in their lives.
You're ignoring what is, to me, an obvious third choice: raise your children in such a way that they know they can trust your advice and guidance, so that they don't start ignoring you when they turn twelve.
Never thought you were.
Well, then why didn't you - and others - say so directly? I mean, pointing someone at this bit from Linus is pretty much the be-all-end-all of the discussion - you really can't argue that "Linus said no" is ambiguous.
Not being a kernel hacker, I was unaware of this little tidbit of lkml lore. Having read this thread (and posted my original comment) where there were something like 350 visible posts, I thing I can pretty safely say that nobody of any consequence had bothered to point out that Linus' objection to a driver ABI was anything but ideological.
Instead, you started arguing from ideology - "Linux is about Open Source, and allowing people to link-in binary closed drivers goes against this." - when the real reason that Linus doesn't want binary only modules is because of (possible) performance issues and what he sees as inevitable legacy support (organizational) problems. I'm certainly not going to disagree with him on that - in fact, having read his rationale for refusing a driver ABI, I can understand it, and I sympathize. Trying to claim that he's giving ideological reasons for refusing an ABI is a bit of a stretch (particularly given the above referenced post...)
I'm not arguing that your ideas (or theirs) are stupid - though I would say that your initial presentation of those ideas was flawed. If the sole objection to a driver ABI was ideological (the continued existance of close-source, binary-only drivers), then there are ways around that. I proposed one possible solution; I've seen others propose different solutions that attempt to overcome the ideological objections you and others raised.
However, as I pointed out, you started arguing from an ideological basis, when in fact the real reason that Linus has rejected a driver ABI has little (if anything) to do with ideology. How can I say that? Well, because he doesn't object to a driver ABI...
He's objecting to a driver ABI because it's an ABI, and so carries with it non-code related problems he would rather not deal with. Like I said earlier, it's hard to argue with that. Given that knowledge, it's no wonder that GPL-vs-commercial arguments and the like don't really sway him, because they're irrelevant to his decision.
So do I. I just don't think that the argument he makes here is the one you started off with.
OK, let's start by assuming that a stable binary driver ABI is, in general, a Good Thing. It means that, potentially...
Now, on the minus side, these benfits come with one problem from some points of view: hardware vendors would potentially be able to release binary-only drivers. Wait, though. This isn't a technical issue - it's a licensing issue. So why not just create a driver ABI for the kernel, and GPL it? Take steps to make sure that the only conceivable way you can build a driver to this interface is to place it under the GPL.
Existing drivers - those already under the GPL - can move to the binary interface without penalty. Any changes made to the way the binary interface works will be propagated out to all the drivers that use that interface. Companies that don't/can't use the GPL'd ABI can continue to write their drivers against the existing kernel driver interfaces, with all the headaches that entails; only now, they would have the lure of a much simpler, cleaner, binary interface for the small, small cost of opening up their driver code.
"The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less."
Which just raises the question of why OSDL is putting together Yet Another Industry Forum when one already exists. In particular, all of the comapnies listed as initial members in ODSDL/MLI - MontaVista, Motorola, PalmSource, Trolltech, and Wind River - are already CELF members. What do they hope to accomplish via OSDL/MLI that they couldn't address as part of CELF?
There's some interesting stuff coming out of CELF, if you're interested in that sort of thing. IIRC, Matt Mackall (the author of the linux tiny set of patches) is now working for CELF. From other CELF members I've talked to, I can say that they seem to be a pretty techically oriented bunch. The individual CELF members aren't marketing types trying to push OSS developers to do their work for them, they're developers who have a real interest in pitching in and helping to make Linux a useful OS for consumer electronics.
As the original post pointed out, most of the nuclear and conventional steam powered ships in the surface Navy have been decomissioned, and their replacements are powered by gas turbine engines. Gas turbine engines run off of JP-5, the same aviation fuel used by the Navy (it's the the Air Force and the Army that use JP-8). So a carrier should definitely be able to refuel a gas turbine ship if required in an emergency.
Nope - there are auxilliary ships specifically designed for transporting fuel, and one is generally attached to a carrier group specifically for that purpose. I was stationed in one (USS Wabash, AOR-5).
That's not to say that a carrier couldn't supply fuel for another ship... there are procedures for transfering fuel underway that can be used between almost any combination of ships you care to mention. This isn't something that you'd see done normally, though. In my time in the Navy (4 years, 3 on a ship dedicated to underway replenishment), I only saw that done once, and that was part of an exercise - no fuel was actually transfered.
So unless the Navy's changed their supply management drastically in the last few years, carriers are far too busy, um, being carriers to deal with the (pretty much daily) need to refuel other ships.
So... if the VCs have trillions of dollars, why in the name of Pete would you beat yourself up trying to come up with "the idea" that will grudgingly seperate them from a paltry few million? Go to where the money is! Put together a consulting firm that specializes in helping VCs get a better return on their investment - doing technical reviews, working with founders to assist in recuiting and development, etc. Siphon off a few million of that VC funding directly, instead of having to beg for it.
Wow. I don't know what's more disturbing - that Romero was your ex-girlfriend, or that you thought he was hot.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the 'Don't go there' sign..."
Once Trusted Computing is in place and accepted, then all they would need to do is lock their office suite to a particular platform - RedHat Linux, for example. No muss, no fuss. If you're not running RedHat Trusted Linux (tm), then you won't be able to run their MS Office Linux Edition.
I think this is why MS really wants Trusted Computing. Not for multimedia, but because it helps them to lock their customers into a MS dependency.
I have to respectfully disagree. I've seen data that indicates people are extremely unlikely to change their habits for only a perceived marginal improvement.
In other words - making it "easier" won't get people to adopt it. It has to be obviously, noticably, incredibly, "Wow! I've gotta get me some of that!" easier before people will even start to THINK of adopting it.