Years ago the Smithsonian had a touring show. I saw the phaser (and tricorder?) in Providence, RI. They didn't tour the Enterprise. It was really slick that they had a Tucker (car) there, too.
Since we're talking Pluto-like, How about Goofy? Certainly the Slashdot audience would believe that the whole Disney pantheon belongs "down there."
But it brings to mind the question, "Why does Goofy walk on 2 legs and talk, but Pluto walks on 4 legs and barks, when they're both dogs?" Does Goofy ever put a leash on Pluto, and take him for a walk? Vice versa?
Is this like the kernel "binary interface" issue, which will never be done, or is like OS/X 10.4, where they feel that the interfaces are *finally* stable enough to fix?
I won't argue your point, but why isn't it *packaged* as valuable, reusable modules?
I'm one of those folks still using the "classic" Mozilla, because my family and I spend a fair amount of time in each of the browser and mail clients. First off, under Linux there's some non-trivial configuration to be done getting them to work together properly. (ie: send link) Second, those valuable, reusable modules are not separately packages, and then used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Instead, installing Firefox and Thunderbird ends up installing 2 copies of those basics on disk, and dragging 2 copies into RAM. If you're going to be using both during a session, the classic client is leaner.
Plus, repackaging would go partway toward solving the security update problem. I also recognize that a heavily compartmented packaging of Firefox/Thunderbird would probably confuse the heck out of Windows users and annoy the heck out of rpm (not urpmi or yum) users. But for those of us on Gentoo (or urpmi or yum or apt) it would be great. Imagine a Mozilla-* update that no longer requires an overnight build on my aging k6-3.
But then someone might say, "This is Slashdot, and everyone knows there are only sex-starved male geeks there." They would then doubt that you're really a woman.
That is of course the same type of person that can't believe I've been married over 20 years and have 2 kids. This is Slashdot, after all, etc, etc, etc.
So where does that put the US? Where will it put the US in 20 years?
The US is developed, but with large amounts of obsolete, neglected, crumbling infrastructure. The US is heavily indebted. The wealth disparity in the US is growing, and current trends indicate that this will continue. Perhaps (or perhaps not) today the poor in the US are well-off compared to the average in other countries, but which way are things headed?
My brother contends that the US is doing all it can (by intent or by accident?) to turn into a third-world country, so there can be a cheap domestic labor pool, again.
"The John Varley Reader", a collection of short stories by John Varley. Specifically, "The Barbie Murders," pp119-145.
Not really giving anything away... a future cult who believes that individuality is bad. So they all try to make themselves the same - patterned after the One True Being - Barbie. Down to the point that they get a sex change if needed, the breasts are all the same size - with no nipples. Other parts are pruned as much as biologically possible to resemble Barbie. They spread by evangelizm, not reproduction.
No, but I have run it with 4.5 x 95. But this machine tends to have thermal problems, so I run it conservatively. When it only (?) had 64MB, I ran the bus at 100MHz, but it would never run more than 1 stick reliably at that frequency, so I backed off to 95MHz and have been mostly happy. I still need to run the AC in order to "emerge -uD world" or build a kernel, in the Summer.
So now it's become an oldest/slowest computer contest? I see your 1GHz and I lower you to 380MHz.
My main machine at home that my wife and I use is a K6-3 running at 380 (4x95) MHz, and our server is a 300MHz Celeron-A. The kids share an Athlon XP 2600. We recently retired our Cyrix P150+ server.
I never did get around to getting my name on the Do Not Call list. There was also this nagging feeling in the back of my head, "Here's a big list of vetted phone numbers. I know it's supposed to be 'Do Not Call,' but I'm sure SOMEBODY's going to get a hold of it and start calling." And to be truthful, we don't have that many problem calls. Most of our phone-spam comes from charities we may have donated to, in the past few years.
But trying to find "Maplefield Farms" in Colchester, VT is about 5 miles off. Finding the "Common Man" in Concord, NH is about 1.5 miles off.
Seems to me that searching Smithsonian Air Space would have given me at least ONE pointer to the place *most* people want to go. If there were a second, I'd expect it to be the annex at the airport. Not that the offices aren't important...
...of google maps. Depending the search, they might be accurate, or they might be much less accurate than the speed check.
About the time I saw this pop up on Slashdot, I was searching google maps for "smithsonian air space" in "washington, dc". Pretty simple, right? It gives 2 results, neither within a mile of the real answer. (One answer looked like it was in a residential neighborhood perhaps 2 miles away, the other about a mile away - in the median strip of a highway.) I've had a case looking for a place in my own area where the google map was miles off, and another time searching for a particular restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire with similar inaccuracies. Sometimes google maps are right, too.
They used exclusively single tones, and I'll agree that the experiment might have been a bit simplistic. But it was fun to watch, and of course keeping eyeballs to the screen is what they're really after.
Actually, I was hoping for something with just a little bit deeper sound to it.
As for impressing the ladies, a while back we got a link to a "laugh test" that had a picture of a race car and this soundtrack. You were supposed to watch and listen for 1 minute while keeping a straight face. My daughter (one of the ladies) was quite impressed.
When competition disappears from ANY market, that market stagnates. For the moment, I'll follow your example and continue to pick on Microsoft, but it's by no means limited to them. Way back in the early PC days, DOS advanced fairly rapidly to DOS 3.3, driven by hardware introductions. There was also a not widely used or known multitasking version of DOS (4?) as well as IBM's much-maligned DOS4. But basically, DOS stagnated after V3.3.
That is, until DRDOS 5.0 came out, offering much better value. (More features, not sure if it cost less.) Then Microsoft followed, and brought out their own DOS 5.0, and the stakes were upped again with DRDOS 6.0, etc. Somewhere in there, Microsoft slipped the legendary AARD code into Windows 3.1 to chill the DRDOS uptake, and also around that timeframe they "incorporated" disk compression, courtesy of Stac Electronics. (lawsuits followed, on both counts.)
But IMHO, if DRDOS 5 hadn't appeared, it would have stayed DOS 3.3 under Windows until the whole Windows vs OS/2 battle started. Also IMHO, lacking competitive pressure in a given market, a company will invest its development dollars elsewhere, and milk the stagnant market for all it can.
I've always had this pet idea to get a little ricer, mount the subwoofer on the outside, and have an "engine noise synthesizer" coupled to the gas pedal and perhaps vacuum, as well. Pipe the synthesizer through the sub, and it sounds like you've got an engine the size (and muffler) of a monster truck in a Civic-like car.
But I've got SO many better things to do with my time and money that I'd have to be immortal and already have my own space program, before I'd bother with this.
They busted the "brown note" myth a few weeks back, on Mythbusters. They didn't have any folded horns, but they had plenty of diaphragm area, and achieved SPLs of 100-150dB in the target (7-15 hZ) frequencies.
As others have said, trade and globalization issues will place some sort of check and balance on the whole IP issue. My guess, which is as good as any other marginally-informed guess, is that all sides will choose their IP battles carefully. So in a little more detail: First off, trying to write broad IP claims for a sustainable city sounds ludicrous to me. There are so many elements to a sustainable city, and there has been so much academic publication on the concept for so many years that I doubt that there's much left. There is probably room for broad claims on some specific technologies, and numerous narrow claims, but I doubt that anyone can sew this one up tight, any more. Second, I doubt any other nations are going to get too uppity about things China does for domestic consumption that a) aren't exportable and b) don't compete with importable products.
There will be IP battles, but they will be carefully chosen. IMHO there's no way other nations will try and block China from building sustainable cities. We'll look to them as a fruitful market for our movies, music, etc.
You can certainly make that argument. But I would assert that conversely, U.S. companies want OTHER companies to support a highly-paid workforce, in order to buy THEIR products. In other words, it's a bit like the Prisoners' Dilemma. YOU pay YOUR workers top dollar so they can buy MY products. I pay my workers dirt, because I don't care if they can buy YOUR products. If everybody plays the game that way, everybody loses.
There are "high value products" for sale in the US that simply won't sell in any third-world economy. There are companies that will go under if these products lose their customers. Yet they're all destroying their customer base by destroying their US workforces.
Think large flat panel HDTVs, sports cars, high-end gaming PCs, latest'n'greatest video cards, commercial-quality home stoves. There are things that little real-world utility, or such luxurious implementations of basic utility that nobody without excess wealth would even think of buying one. Obviously - no probably, there will still be overpaid corporate execs in the US to buy these products, but they're not a big enough market to justify the business.
The real question for corporate survival: Will economies like India rise fast enough to become customers of "high-value products" before the US economy degrades far enough to lose its customers? On the side... By the time India's economy rises to the point of becoming customers, will they have priced themselves out of the job market? Will the company then go to another country, looking for cheap workers? Are we really seeing "employment crop rotation?"
Don't forget that when you replace that PC, you're throwing money at more than Microsoft. You're throwing it at Intel, at Maxtor/Seagate/Hitachi/WD/etc, at Dell/Compaq/etc, at ATI/nVidia, etc. Think of all the jobs you're helping create. Think of the CHILDREN! (of those people filling those jobs.) Think of the boost to the economy. Don't think of it as wasteful, think of it as Patriotic!
On a slightly (but only slightly) more serious note, I wonder how many hardware makers stop to think about how many PCs are replaced simply because of Windows spyware - and are greatful. (Is this reason NOT to support Linux?)
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot to put on the magic screen, and wipe with the magic cloth.
Don't forget to sing the Winky Dink theme song while you do this.
Boy, am I showing my age.
Years ago the Smithsonian had a touring show. I saw the phaser (and tricorder?) in Providence, RI. They didn't tour the Enterprise. It was really slick that they had a Tucker (car) there, too.
It's not the toons themselves, it's the Company they keep.
Since we're talking Pluto-like, How about Goofy? Certainly the Slashdot audience would believe that the whole Disney pantheon belongs "down there."
But it brings to mind the question, "Why does Goofy walk on 2 legs and talk, but Pluto walks on 4 legs and barks, when they're both dogs?" Does Goofy ever put a leash on Pluto, and take him for a walk? Vice versa?
Is this like the kernel "binary interface" issue, which will never be done, or is like OS/X 10.4, where they feel that the interfaces are *finally* stable enough to fix?
I won't argue your point, but why isn't it *packaged* as valuable, reusable modules?
I'm one of those folks still using the "classic" Mozilla, because my family and I spend a fair amount of time in each of the browser and mail clients.
First off, under Linux there's some non-trivial configuration to be done getting them to work together properly. (ie: send link)
Second, those valuable, reusable modules are not separately packages, and then used by Firefox and Thunderbird. Instead, installing Firefox and Thunderbird ends up installing 2 copies of those basics on disk, and dragging 2 copies into RAM. If you're going to be using both during a session, the classic client is leaner.
Plus, repackaging would go partway toward solving the security update problem. I also recognize that a heavily compartmented packaging of Firefox/Thunderbird would probably confuse the heck out of Windows users and annoy the heck out of rpm (not urpmi or yum) users. But for those of us on Gentoo (or urpmi or yum or apt) it would be great. Imagine a Mozilla-* update that no longer requires an overnight build on my aging k6-3.
But then someone might say, "This is Slashdot, and everyone knows there are only sex-starved male geeks there." They would then doubt that you're really a woman.
That is of course the same type of person that can't believe I've been married over 20 years and have 2 kids. This is Slashdot, after all, etc, etc, etc.
So where does that put the US?
Where will it put the US in 20 years?
The US is developed, but with large amounts of obsolete, neglected, crumbling infrastructure.
The US is heavily indebted.
The wealth disparity in the US is growing, and current trends indicate that this will continue. Perhaps (or perhaps not) today the poor in the US are well-off compared to the average in other countries, but which way are things headed?
My brother contends that the US is doing all it can (by intent or by accident?) to turn into a third-world country, so there can be a cheap domestic labor pool, again.
"The John Varley Reader", a collection of short stories by John Varley. Specifically, "The Barbie Murders," pp119-145.
Not really giving anything away... a future cult who believes that individuality is bad. So they all try to make themselves the same - patterned after the One True Being - Barbie. Down to the point that they get a sex change if needed, the breasts are all the same size - with no nipples. Other parts are pruned as much as biologically possible to resemble Barbie. They spread by evangelizm, not reproduction.
But are you actively using it?
No, but I have run it with 4.5 x 95. But this machine tends to have thermal problems, so I run it conservatively. When it only (?) had 64MB, I ran the bus at 100MHz, but it would never run more than 1 stick reliably at that frequency, so I backed off to 95MHz and have been mostly happy. I still need to run the AC in order to "emerge -uD world" or build a kernel, in the Summer.
So now it's become an oldest/slowest computer contest? I see your 1GHz and I lower you to 380MHz.
My main machine at home that my wife and I use is a K6-3 running at 380 (4x95) MHz, and our server is a 300MHz Celeron-A. The kids share an Athlon XP 2600. We recently retired our Cyrix P150+ server.
I never did get around to getting my name on the Do Not Call list. There was also this nagging feeling in the back of my head, "Here's a big list of vetted phone numbers. I know it's supposed to be 'Do Not Call,' but I'm sure SOMEBODY's going to get a hold of it and start calling." And to be truthful, we don't have that many problem calls. Most of our phone-spam comes from charities we may have donated to, in the past few years.
All these posts, and nobody hit:
Semi
Autonomous
Underwater
Eeny
Meeny
Artificial Intelligence
Can't think of another clever word at the moment
Still need to fit in "PROFIT!!!"
Bring the vi vs emacs wars underseas, too.
Interesting.
But trying to find "Maplefield Farms" in Colchester, VT is about 5 miles off. Finding the "Common Man" in Concord, NH is about 1.5 miles off.
Seems to me that searching Smithsonian Air Space would have given me at least ONE pointer to the place *most* people want to go. If there were a second, I'd expect it to be the annex at the airport. Not that the offices aren't important...
...of google maps. Depending the search, they might be accurate, or they might be much less accurate than the speed check.
About the time I saw this pop up on Slashdot, I was searching google maps for "smithsonian air space" in "washington, dc". Pretty simple, right? It gives 2 results, neither within a mile of the real answer. (One answer looked like it was in a residential neighborhood perhaps 2 miles away, the other about a mile away - in the median strip of a highway.) I've had a case looking for a place in my own area where the google map was miles off, and another time searching for a particular restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire with similar inaccuracies. Sometimes google maps are right, too.
They used exclusively single tones, and I'll agree that the experiment might have been a bit simplistic. But it was fun to watch, and of course keeping eyeballs to the screen is what they're really after.
Or maybe its that I'm not an immortal billionaire with my own space program.
Actually, I was hoping for something with just a little bit deeper sound to it.
As for impressing the ladies, a while back we got a link to a "laugh test" that had a picture of a race car and this soundtrack. You were supposed to watch and listen for 1 minute while keeping a straight face. My daughter (one of the ladies) was quite impressed.
You underestimate your argument.
When competition disappears from ANY market, that market stagnates. For the moment, I'll follow your example and continue to pick on Microsoft, but it's by no means limited to them. Way back in the early PC days, DOS advanced fairly rapidly to DOS 3.3, driven by hardware introductions. There was also a not widely used or known multitasking version of DOS (4?) as well as IBM's much-maligned DOS4. But basically, DOS stagnated after V3.3.
That is, until DRDOS 5.0 came out, offering much better value. (More features, not sure if it cost less.) Then Microsoft followed, and brought out their own DOS 5.0, and the stakes were upped again with DRDOS 6.0, etc. Somewhere in there, Microsoft slipped the legendary AARD code into Windows 3.1 to chill the DRDOS uptake, and also around that timeframe they "incorporated" disk compression, courtesy of Stac Electronics. (lawsuits followed, on both counts.)
But IMHO, if DRDOS 5 hadn't appeared, it would have stayed DOS 3.3 under Windows until the whole Windows vs OS/2 battle started. Also IMHO, lacking competitive pressure in a given market, a company will invest its development dollars elsewhere, and milk the stagnant market for all it can.
I've always had this pet idea to get a little ricer, mount the subwoofer on the outside, and have an "engine noise synthesizer" coupled to the gas pedal and perhaps vacuum, as well. Pipe the synthesizer through the sub, and it sounds like you've got an engine the size (and muffler) of a monster truck in a Civic-like car.
But I've got SO many better things to do with my time and money that I'd have to be immortal and already have my own space program, before I'd bother with this.
They busted the "brown note" myth a few weeks back, on Mythbusters. They didn't have any folded horns, but they had plenty of diaphragm area, and achieved SPLs of 100-150dB in the target (7-15 hZ) frequencies.
As others have said, trade and globalization issues will place some sort of check and balance on the whole IP issue. My guess, which is as good as any other marginally-informed guess, is that all sides will choose their IP battles carefully. So in a little more detail:
First off, trying to write broad IP claims for a sustainable city sounds ludicrous to me. There are so many elements to a sustainable city, and there has been so much academic publication on the concept for so many years that I doubt that there's much left. There is probably room for broad claims on some specific technologies, and numerous narrow claims, but I doubt that anyone can sew this one up tight, any more.
Second, I doubt any other nations are going to get too uppity about things China does for domestic consumption that a) aren't exportable and b) don't compete with importable products.
There will be IP battles, but they will be carefully chosen. IMHO there's no way other nations will try and block China from building sustainable cities. We'll look to them as a fruitful market for our movies, music, etc.
You can certainly make that argument. But I would assert that conversely, U.S. companies want OTHER companies to support a highly-paid workforce, in order to buy THEIR products. In other words, it's a bit like the Prisoners' Dilemma. YOU pay YOUR workers top dollar so they can buy MY products. I pay my workers dirt, because I don't care if they can buy YOUR products. If everybody plays the game that way, everybody loses.
There are "high value products" for sale in the US that simply won't sell in any third-world economy. There are companies that will go under if these products lose their customers. Yet they're all destroying their customer base by destroying their US workforces.
Think large flat panel HDTVs, sports cars, high-end gaming PCs, latest'n'greatest video cards, commercial-quality home stoves. There are things that little real-world utility, or such luxurious implementations of basic utility that nobody without excess wealth would even think of buying one. Obviously - no probably, there will still be overpaid corporate execs in the US to buy these products, but they're not a big enough market to justify the business.
The real question for corporate survival:
Will economies like India rise fast enough to become customers of "high-value products" before the US economy degrades far enough to lose its customers?
On the side...
By the time India's economy rises to the point of becoming customers, will they have priced themselves out of the job market?
Will the company then go to another country, looking for cheap workers?
Are we really seeing "employment crop rotation?"
Don't forget that when you replace that PC, you're throwing money at more than Microsoft. You're throwing it at Intel, at Maxtor/Seagate/Hitachi/WD/etc, at Dell/Compaq/etc, at ATI/nVidia, etc. Think of all the jobs you're helping create. Think of the CHILDREN! (of those people filling those jobs.) Think of the boost to the economy. Don't think of it as wasteful, think of it as Patriotic!
On a slightly (but only slightly) more serious note, I wonder how many hardware makers stop to think about how many PCs are replaced simply because of Windows spyware - and are greatful. (Is this reason NOT to support Linux?)