If I was on something like this for a long time and sudden found out that it was a complete waste, becuase of looking in the wrong place, I would be very pissed.
Me, I'd just laugh about it. Welcome to the wonderful world of science, where you can't just flip the card over and look at the answer. Time and effort spent looking is rarely really wasted, even if it eventually turns out there was nothing to find. Pulsed laser beams is just another thing to try. Maybe we should be scanning through gravity waves, too. Who knows? Maybe any lifeform that has any real sense uses controlled quantized subspace variations to communicate over interstellar distances, and they figure no-one else is intelligent enough to talk to yet.
If the computer costs $15 to make, people are not going to be spending $80-$100 to put Windows Whatever on it.
Interesting thought, but it doesn't necessarily follow. You can buy a pretty decently-made blank book for just a few dollars, but lots of people happily buy the latest hard-cover best-sellers for $20-$30 (US). (I might not think Windows Whatever will be worth the extra cost, but I don't think the latest John Grisham is worth $28, either.)
The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation.
You're thinking in terms of silicon. It's not a straight scale-up when you're changing the basic materials. It's my understanding that a polymer-based CPU of that size would generate less heat and use less power than a silicon-based CPU sized as they currently are.
Think about the consequences of a development?! What are you, some kinda tree-huggin' liberal commie Luddite?
Progress Is Go(o)d.
(Except for the blink tag. That was Bad. That was the only exception, though. Really. Here, have a dish of algea bloom ice cream with depleted uranium sprinkles. Yummy!)
1) Longevity != immortality. (Though it may help you live long enough to take advantage of more advances which may help you live long enough to... etc etc... which may help you live long enough to need to think seriously about how to dodge the death of the universe.)
2) I'm not sure why you think this may "deprecate" "this whole religion thing". It would probably effect how at least some people think about religious and spiritual issues, but deprecate it? I really doubt it.
How about some numbers? That kinda bullshit hyperbole is what makes me want to bitch-slap environmentalists these days.
That's pretty funny, given that Dubya has jumped on the numbers given to help justify suggesting more drilling and mining in supposedly protected areas.
In any case, it wouldn't take a huge percentage increase over forecasts to cause problems, especially during peak use periods.
I tried Linux a while back, but it was too much hassle at the time, so I grudgingly went back to Windoze. Been meaning to give another go at it now that various folks have been working on making it less of a hassle, but haven't gotten around to it.
Now I've been reading up on Macs and especially MacOS X. A slick GUI on top of a *nix core looks real good to me, and what the hell, it's time for new hardware, anyway.
I dunno how common people like me are, but I bet I'm not unique.
The world of Steve Jobs is so topsy-turvy that being honest about Apple's fortunes, and answering questions directly, are both now news.
Not quite. This is news because being blunt and honest is nearly unheard of in the corporate world in general. (If Jobs was actually doing that.) Try to imagine Gates (or Steve Case or Ivan Seidenberg or W. C. Ford or whoever) talking without sounding like he's running the latest version of MS CorpSpeak 2000.
Re:Personal Levitating Scooter
on
What is 'IT'?
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· Score: 2
Magnetic Levitation Rails built into the ground? Are you crazy??? Not only would it destroy every computer in ever city, I would also result in mass amounts of badness in the form of metallic items being attracted to the ground.
No, maglev doesn't work that way.
On the other hand, I have a have a heard time imagining cities, etc, paying to install sufficient maglev infrastructure unless the resulting system was perceived as a lot better than the current kludge. Not that roads and i.c. vehicles are that great, but a lot of the drawbacks aren't visible to Joe Average.
If this is a transportation device, it'll have to be able to function -- at least to some extent -- with no additional infrastructure. Or at least infrastructure that's relatively easily added, like buried guidewires or something like that.
I'm not an Apple user, but it's nice to see Apple finally getting the G4 a bit more upto par with AMD/Intel speeds (after all Joe Average buys more often than not on the machines MHZ value). Hopefully this will give AMD and Intel a bit more competition and lower prices even further.
That'll only happen if Apple can get it through Joe Average's thick skull that actual performance is only partly a function of MHz. This might be a little easier than it would have been if Intel hadn't shot itself in the foot with the Pentium-4.
(No offence meant to anyone out there named Joe Average.)
How do you go about proving that you were discriminated against based on race, creed, or religion? I mean there are thousands of reasons that someone might get passed over for a promotion. Yes, they are a very technically competent person and quite capable in their work, but their managerial skills just might suck!
It's extremely difficult to legally prove discrimination occurred for a particular individual or a few individuals, for some of the reasons you mention. But that's not what this is about. This is a class action suit, that claims that Microsoft discriminates in general.
That's also difficult to prove, but if the numbers given are correct, it looks like Microsoft employs less than half the percentage of blacks than the tech industry does as a whole. (2.6% vs 6.3%) That's not "proof", all by itself, but it's not at all unreasonable to look at those numbers and get suspicious.
Given the size of Microsoft, it would be unreasonable to look at those numbers and not get suspicious. (Yes, the size of Microsoft matters. If this was a small company, the difference between those percentages would be less meaningful. Ask a statistician.)
To answer the question, in the tech industry, it's approx. 6.3%. So yes, it's a little lower.
Compared to 2.6% of Microsoft's employees? Black employees are less than half as common at Microsoft than they are in the tech industry in general. Given that Microsoft employs ~22,000 people that's actually a pretty significant difference. (It would be less indicative if we were talking about a small company. Ask a statistician.) Is it proof? Nope. Is it suspicious? Definitely.
The Drake Equation was developed by Frank Drake in 1961 as a way to focus on the factors which determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy.
Exactly. Drake had no illusions that the equation could answer the question. It was just meant to clarify the question, which it does quite well.
Any "solutions" I've seen of the equation were plainly tentative -- "If I'm right about these values, then this is the result." Sloppy thinkers/writers might not be clear about that, and -- at least as likely -- sloppy readers might miss the qualifiers. But that's not a problem with the equation itself.
Aaaah, Slashdot. Where suggesting that economic disparity might be something worth commenting on is a "Troll", but talking about how people who freeze "deserve to freeze" isn't.
Everytime I hear someone ever-so-modestly say, "Hey, nobody ever helped me, everything I got I earned... if someone's in the shit, it's probably their own fault", I think, "There's goes someone goes someone without a fuckin' clue... and proud of it."
Go ahead, lusers, moderate me down... that'll prove something.
Yeah, it's kinda odd that Kahney seems to have missed the fact that being able to make such changes is a good thing. (To whatever extent OS X / Aqua makes this easier, about which I'm not really sure.)
Plus, I wonder what definition of "legion" Kahney uses, especially given that s/he later grudgingly admits that "it's impossible to know how many people have 'Macified' Mac OS X".
"Hey, look! Some people don't like the New Thing!" Uh, yeah, no kidding?
Well, I don't really think that federal highway support can be considered a "subsidy", since it comes from gasoline taxes. It's more of a "user fee" scheme.
That's the common myth. Doing a little math is, as always, worthwhile. Gasoline taxes only pay for about 60% of highway construction and maintenance. The rest comes from general revenue.
If one were to add in the other costs of the automobile infrastructure -- pollution and health costs, the militarization of the Gulf, etc... the Amtrak subsidy is pocket change.
As suggested by someone else, you might want to check out a book called Mining the Sky, by John S. Lewis. Not all suggestions along these lines are naive.
BTW, not all asteroids are in the asteroid belt. Some -- including some potentially very useful ones -- are much closer.
If it fails, however, Acela Express could be the swan song for Amtrak, the federally subsidized railway that is under orders from Congress to become financially self-sufficient by 2003.
Hmm. How much time are they giving the federally subsidized US highway system to become self-sufficient?
Slashdot Mirror
[shrug] Maybe not "or" but "and". So?
(Was this an insightful comment by me, or a cynical attempt to get moderated up?)
Yeah! Next thing you know, they'll be indistinguishable from the US! (Well, ok, we don't have a Maoist gerontocracy ...)
Me, I'd just laugh about it. Welcome to the wonderful world of science, where you can't just flip the card over and look at the answer. Time and effort spent looking is rarely really wasted, even if it eventually turns out there was nothing to find. Pulsed laser beams is just another thing to try. Maybe we should be scanning through gravity waves, too. Who knows? Maybe any lifeform that has any real sense uses controlled quantized subspace variations to communicate over interstellar distances, and they figure no-one else is intelligent enough to talk to yet.
Interesting thought, but it doesn't necessarily follow. You can buy a pretty decently-made blank book for just a few dollars, but lots of people happily buy the latest hard-cover best-sellers for $20-$30 (US). (I might not think Windows Whatever will be worth the extra cost, but I don't think the latest John Grisham is worth $28, either.)
You're thinking in terms of silicon. It's not a straight scale-up when you're changing the basic materials. It's my understanding that a polymer-based CPU of that size would generate less heat and use less power than a silicon-based CPU sized as they currently are.
Rechargeable batteries.
I think it was pretty obvious that he was exaggerating for effect.
Progress Is Go(o)d.
(Except for the blink tag. That was Bad. That was the only exception, though. Really. Here, have a dish of algea bloom ice cream with depleted uranium sprinkles. Yummy!)
2) I'm not sure why you think this may "deprecate" "this whole religion thing". It would probably effect how at least some people think about religious and spiritual issues, but deprecate it? I really doubt it.
That's pretty funny, given that Dubya has jumped on the numbers given to help justify suggesting more drilling and mining in supposedly protected areas.
In any case, it wouldn't take a huge percentage increase over forecasts to cause problems, especially during peak use periods.
I tried Linux a while back, but it was too much hassle at the time, so I grudgingly went back to Windoze. Been meaning to give another go at it now that various folks have been working on making it less of a hassle, but haven't gotten around to it.
Now I've been reading up on Macs and especially MacOS X. A slick GUI on top of a *nix core looks real good to me, and what the hell, it's time for new hardware, anyway.
I dunno how common people like me are, but I bet I'm not unique.
Though to be fair, Dean Kamen hisself has said that the whole Ginger thing was blown out of proportion.
Not quite. This is news because being blunt and honest is nearly unheard of in the corporate world in general. (If Jobs was actually doing that.) Try to imagine Gates (or Steve Case or Ivan Seidenberg or W. C. Ford or whoever) talking without sounding like he's running the latest version of MS CorpSpeak 2000.
No, maglev doesn't work that way.
On the other hand, I have a have a heard time imagining cities, etc, paying to install sufficient maglev infrastructure unless the resulting system was perceived as a lot better than the current kludge. Not that roads and i.c. vehicles are that great, but a lot of the drawbacks aren't visible to Joe Average.
If this is a transportation device, it'll have to be able to function -- at least to some extent -- with no additional infrastructure. Or at least infrastructure that's relatively easily added, like buried guidewires or something like that.
That'll only happen if Apple can get it through Joe Average's thick skull that actual performance is only partly a function of MHz. This might be a little easier than it would have been if Intel hadn't shot itself in the foot with the Pentium-4.
(No offence meant to anyone out there named Joe Average.)
It's extremely difficult to legally prove discrimination occurred for a particular individual or a few individuals, for some of the reasons you mention. But that's not what this is about. This is a class action suit, that claims that Microsoft discriminates in general.
That's also difficult to prove, but if the numbers given are correct, it looks like Microsoft employs less than half the percentage of blacks than the tech industry does as a whole. (2.6% vs 6.3%) That's not "proof", all by itself, but it's not at all unreasonable to look at those numbers and get suspicious.
Given the size of Microsoft, it would be unreasonable to look at those numbers and not get suspicious. (Yes, the size of Microsoft matters. If this was a small company, the difference between those percentages would be less meaningful. Ask a statistician.)
Racism isn't always as obvious as it is on made-for-TV movies. (Sometimes, unfortunately, it is that obvious, but usually it's a lot more subtle.)
Compared to 2.6% of Microsoft's employees? Black employees are less than half as common at Microsoft than they are in the tech industry in general. Given that Microsoft employs ~22,000 people that's actually a pretty significant difference. (It would be less indicative if we were talking about a small company. Ask a statistician.) Is it proof? Nope. Is it suspicious? Definitely.
Danger Mouse! (He's the greatest!)
Exactly. Drake had no illusions that the equation could answer the question. It was just meant to clarify the question, which it does quite well.
Any "solutions" I've seen of the equation were plainly tentative -- "If I'm right about these values, then this is the result." Sloppy thinkers/writers might not be clear about that, and -- at least as likely -- sloppy readers might miss the qualifiers. But that's not a problem with the equation itself.
Everytime I hear someone ever-so-modestly say, "Hey, nobody ever helped me, everything I got I earned ... if someone's in the shit, it's probably their own fault", I think, "There's goes someone goes someone without a fuckin' clue ... and proud of it."
Go ahead, lusers, moderate me down ... that'll prove something.
Yeah, it's kinda odd that Kahney seems to have missed the fact that being able to make such changes is a good thing. (To whatever extent OS X / Aqua makes this easier, about which I'm not really sure.)
Plus, I wonder what definition of "legion" Kahney uses, especially given that s/he later grudgingly admits that "it's impossible to know how many people have 'Macified' Mac OS X".
"Hey, look! Some people don't like the New Thing!" Uh, yeah, no kidding?
Another cotton-candy story from Wired ...
That's the common myth. Doing a little math is, as always, worthwhile. Gasoline taxes only pay for about 60% of highway construction and maintenance. The rest comes from general revenue.
If one were to add in the other costs of the automobile infrastructure -- pollution and health costs, the militarization of the Gulf, etc ... the Amtrak subsidy is pocket change.
BTW, not all asteroids are in the asteroid belt. Some -- including some potentially very useful ones -- are much closer.
Hmm. How much time are they giving the federally subsidized US highway system to become self-sufficient?