I generally agree with your scenario, with one exception. I expect to see some fraction of the suburbs survive with telecommuters. Similar to energy costs pushing physical workers back close to their workplace, I expect to see those costs push "telecommutable" jobs into telecommuting, and an expansion of technologies that enable telecommuting.
The other piece of work that needs to be done behind all of this is to make the suburbs more foot-friendly. Once you don't need to drive to work, the next thing is to not have to drive, or at least not as far, to get the basics of living. I'd expect to see humongous grocery stores fade back into the neighborhood supermarkets.
It doesn't require effort from millions of Americans.
All you have to do is make more economical energy generally available. It's still a project with participation in the thousands or tens of thousands. Once a way to save money is readily available, the millions will do so.
The hard part is when the way to save money is available, but not readily. In other words, when it's available, but you have to make substantial changes or investments in order to realize it. For instance, imagine photovoltaic panels with a 10 year payback vs either a 1 or 2 year payback, or some sort of "encouragement legislation" in place that turned the 10 year payback into a 1 or 2 year payback.
No, the Jupiter Bridge was necessary to fully check out the theory, but the project took on a life of its own and continued long after the necessary verification was done. That they let it continue after the theory was verified was the political misdirection. As long as construction on the bridge continued, the adversary didn't know that we were already taking the next step.
The other thing you get out of this is getting to watch Scranton, PA take off. Clearly a good thing for Scranton-haters.
In "Mission to the Stars", written by A.E. van Vogt between 1943 and 1952, Peter Maltby did pretty much just this. I believe I've read other depictions of "personal reentry" written later with more realistic and practical detail, as well.
We flew to DC last week for a vacation. At JFK, waiting for the flight to Dulles, there was a guy across from me in the waiting area... Swarthy appearance, and he was reading a little book with Arabic writing on the cover.
It's interesting analyzing one's own reactions in a situation like that, given the stereotypes our society so recklessly and relentlessly foists on us.
I haven't finished all of the Rose episodes, and only seen a few with Martha, but last I knew, there WAS no high council, and no other Time Lords at all, unless Romana makes her way back from E-Space. Of course the big face did say something about the doctor not being alone, and maybe that shows up in some episode I haven't seen, yet.
The Master ran through all 12 cycles, and was looking like decayed meat on the bone, until he stole the body of Nyssa's father. But that was a one-off, not a new set of 12 regenerations.
Can't be. The doctor only gets 12 regeneration cycles. I don't know if that means 12 lives, or 12 regenerations, for 13 lives. Moreover, if we count Peter Gann as 8, Tom Eccleston as 9, and now whats-his-name is 10, there are only 2 or 3 left. Of course we don't count Peter Cushing.
Some ASUS motherboards have a BIOS that talks during POST. If you're going to brick-roll the board, you could do something more interesting than 0's or random numbers with all of those bits. How about a small codec and some music.
How would Rick get his royalties from this? Think of the artists!
But what if the bear is bored, not hungry. He doesn't want a meal, he wants the chase and the kill.
To shift metaphors, I've heard that the way to handle canine attack is to get down on the ground and bare your neck. It's a submission symbol, and they generally respect it. Plus they can outrun and outbite you. Of course I've never tested this personally, and I've usually been able to intimidate dogs just by acting intimidating. (I once intimidated a pair of nasty looking German shepherds, until their owner came out with a gun and intimidated me.)
I'd go one step further, and state that SELinux *can* be the enemy of defense-in-depth. To begin with, SELinux has been sufficiently difficult to get running properly that a common response is to just shut it off. So if you want defense-in-depth, and the other forms of defense are those that haven't been pre-configured into SELinux, you're essentially discouraged from using them. (If you think it's hard picking SELinux up off the shelf and using it, then try some fairly deep modifications to existing policies, and adding new policies.)
Add the amount of general awe the people hold toward the NSA and SELinux, and there is a tendency for it to be not just A silver bullet, but THE silver bullet.
That's not even to say anything necessarily bad about SELinux or the job it does, but there can be difficult circumstances created around it.
I'll pick a different one from communications satellites, where the government role is a bit clearer.
Weather satellites.
Remember when hurricanes struck with little warning? Perhaps as important as giving us a better picture of the current weather, weather satellites have given us the area coverage and data volume to make forecasting less snicker-worthy. Sure, cyclones, tornadoes, and other things happen, but I remember there being more "weather catastrophe with little warning" as a child than there is now.
I might mostly agree with you. But there are 2 real problems. First, if I'm the one being denied the service, either by the stupid corporation or the stupid government, I'm still being denied the service. Second, these days it seems that corporate stupidity isn't sufficiently punished. This kind of ties in with the first reason - if a stupid company denies me the service, too often they squat on a market and prevent someone else from fulfilling my need. Another aspect of this is that some companies have gotten so big that the government feels that they can't afford to allow corporate Darwinism to happen, because of the side-effects. Think Chrysler, or Bear Sterns, for a more recent example. Perhaps a died-in-the-wool libertarian would argue that proper government would never have allowed this situation to happen, but it has, we're here now, and we're stuck with it. IMHO sudden deregulation to a "libertarian paradise" starting from today's market would be even more disastrous than what we have, with corporations more powerful than governments, fully capable of distorting the laws of supply and demand, and adept at denying customers the information needed for a proper choice.
Yes, but those tolls would not be taxes, they would be payments to entrepreneurs for services rendered. In the libertarian mindset, that's a MUCH different thing regardless of the relative magnitude of the costs. (In other words, being charged any amount a free-market provider is better than paying any amount by taxation for that same service, no matter what the relative costs.)
It's possible and much easier to be "for" things in the Mom-and-apple-pie fashion, yet do nothing to back up that stand.
To be against something immediately alienates some group of people.
Come to think of it that can be put the other way around, too.
There are things that being "against" is Mom-and-apple-pie, like today's Republicans and abortion. Taking a pro-choice stand immediately alienates that group.
Still, I think Obama has taken the less popular stand on this position. I happen to disagree with his stand on this, too. I applaud his goal, but I'd rather see the money come from somewhere else.
Heck, if you really want to make a difference on those things, don't pick on space exploration. At the very least, space exploration drives technology development and brings its benefits back to the marketplace manyfold. Plus space exploration is seriously underfunded right now, and there just isn't that much money in it. If you want some serious money to apply to worthy goals, go after corporate welfare.
> you aren't looking at what we could have done with those dollars instead.
What would you have done with those dollars, instead? I suspect the common libertarian answer would have been to reduce taxes and allow people to keep the money. Then the free market would have stepped someone up to the plate to begin building a nationwide network of toll roads that though not free, would have provided better road service at no taxpayer expense.
A countering Carnegie-type argument would have been, "Why let the workers have more than minimal wage, when they're just going to spend it on booze and gambling?" Then the counter-Carnegie argument is that if your were really restricting workers' pay on principle, you should have educated their children, instead of simply increasing your own wealth. It's telling that Carnegie worked hard to give away his fortune before he died, but IMHO educating the workers' kids might have been a better legacy for at least part of the money.
Back to topic... One could argue that the highway example you mention has been done recently, with broadband. The government has not done any sort of broadband deployment the way they did highway or rural electrification or even regulated telephone deployments. As a result, it's perfectly obvious that US industry has stepped up to the plate and provided the US with the BEST broadband in the world, at the lowest prices.
Government may be incredibly stupid, but they have no monopoly on the attribute.
I know we're far from there, but still, we're knocking on the door, and some people like Drexler are proposing doing those fiction things as fact. Science fiction needs to keep ahead of the reality curve.
Actually I kind of liked JCL. It all stayed put and did nothing until you submitted it. Then it still did nothing while it waited in the queue. But when it started running, it was TOO LATE. With scripting languages there's always this feeling that you can hit Ctl-C and kill the job before it destroys you data. None of that wimp stuff with JCL. Once it hits the first IEFBR14 step, your data's dead and gone - Real Man Programming.
IEFBR14, the good old chunk of do-nothing code, the most universal executable used by anyone who ever wrote JCL.
It really does that - nothing. IEF is the code prefix, since all code *must* be prefixed, after all. BR14 stands for "Branch to Register 14", which with the old code linkages conventions means "return and exit". In JCL it's commonly used simply to attach, allocate, and deallocate files. In other words, used for its side-effects with the file allocation parameters. I haven't written any JCL in probably 20+ years, or I'd give an example. Anything I'd show now would likely be too badly riddled with errors to give the true, scrumptious feel.
I first saw femtotech in "Pushing Ice", and it seemed to me to be the natural result of the arms race between science and science fiction. Since I'm now working on 45nM semiconductor technology, I'm right at the brink of "classical nanotech" dimensions. We're practically there, so if science fiction is to remain fiction, they've got to move beyond. In that respect, femtotech is a natural next step. Wonder where science fiction will go once femtotech is within reach. Picotech is so "marching down the orders of magnitude", instead of different in kind, or will the magnitude be so different that it will be different in kind, like femtotech appears to be from nanotech...
Into this thought we have to insert IA64, and I'm not sure how the heck we do. With any discussion of IA64, competition, and closed market is has to come up. IA64 was designed first and foremost to be a closed market, utterly unclonable. Though an Intel/HP joint venture, neither company owns any of the IP related to IA64. Instead the IP is owned by a separate company, and Intel and HP have a license to the IP from that company. That way, the IA64 IP is protected from any cross-licensing agreements that Intel or HP may have made, or may make in the future, since they don't have the rights to make any such agreements.
IA64 is closed as no architecture ever has been before. But it has been practical matters preventing its widespread adoption, not the competition-proof IP bomb that is its basic nature.
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I generally agree with your scenario, with one exception. I expect to see some fraction of the suburbs survive with telecommuters. Similar to energy costs pushing physical workers back close to their workplace, I expect to see those costs push "telecommutable" jobs into telecommuting, and an expansion of technologies that enable telecommuting.
The other piece of work that needs to be done behind all of this is to make the suburbs more foot-friendly. Once you don't need to drive to work, the next thing is to not have to drive, or at least not as far, to get the basics of living. I'd expect to see humongous grocery stores fade back into the neighborhood supermarkets.
It doesn't require effort from millions of Americans.
All you have to do is make more economical energy generally available. It's still a project with participation in the thousands or tens of thousands. Once a way to save money is readily available, the millions will do so.
The hard part is when the way to save money is available, but not readily. In other words, when it's available, but you have to make substantial changes or investments in order to realize it. For instance, imagine photovoltaic panels with a 10 year payback vs either a 1 or 2 year payback, or some sort of "encouragement legislation" in place that turned the 10 year payback into a 1 or 2 year payback.
No, the Jupiter Bridge was necessary to fully check out the theory, but the project took on a life of its own and continued long after the necessary verification was done. That they let it continue after the theory was verified was the political misdirection. As long as construction on the bridge continued, the adversary didn't know that we were already taking the next step.
The other thing you get out of this is getting to watch Scranton, PA take off. Clearly a good thing for Scranton-haters.
In "Mission to the Stars", written by A.E. van Vogt between 1943 and 1952, Peter Maltby did pretty much just this. I believe I've read other depictions of "personal reentry" written later with more realistic and practical detail, as well.
We flew to DC last week for a vacation. At JFK, waiting for the flight to Dulles, there was a guy across from me in the waiting area... Swarthy appearance, and he was reading a little book with Arabic writing on the cover.
It's interesting analyzing one's own reactions in a situation like that, given the stereotypes our society so recklessly and relentlessly foists on us.
I haven't finished all of the Rose episodes, and only seen a few with Martha, but last I knew, there WAS no high council, and no other Time Lords at all, unless Romana makes her way back from E-Space. Of course the big face did say something about the doctor not being alone, and maybe that shows up in some episode I haven't seen, yet.
The Master ran through all 12 cycles, and was looking like decayed meat on the bone, until he stole the body of Nyssa's father. But that was a one-off, not a new set of 12 regenerations.
Can't be. The doctor only gets 12 regeneration cycles. I don't know if that means 12 lives, or 12 regenerations, for 13 lives. Moreover, if we count Peter Gann as 8, Tom Eccleston as 9, and now whats-his-name is 10, there are only 2 or 3 left. Of course we don't count Peter Cushing.
Some ASUS motherboards have a BIOS that talks during POST. If you're going to brick-roll the board, you could do something more interesting than 0's or random numbers with all of those bits. How about a small codec and some music.
How would Rick get his royalties from this? Think of the artists!
Please don't mistake me for a libertarian. Though there are some aspects to it that I like, in general I think it's hopelessly naive.
Besides, the free market provider doesn't have to lock up all the roads, just the one that *I* live or need to drive on.
But what if the bear is bored, not hungry. He doesn't want a meal, he wants the chase and the kill.
To shift metaphors, I've heard that the way to handle canine attack is to get down on the ground and bare your neck. It's a submission symbol, and they generally respect it. Plus they can outrun and outbite you. Of course I've never tested this personally, and I've usually been able to intimidate dogs just by acting intimidating. (I once intimidated a pair of nasty looking German shepherds, until their owner came out with a gun and intimidated me.)
I'd go one step further, and state that SELinux *can* be the enemy of defense-in-depth. To begin with, SELinux has been sufficiently difficult to get running properly that a common response is to just shut it off. So if you want defense-in-depth, and the other forms of defense are those that haven't been pre-configured into SELinux, you're essentially discouraged from using them. (If you think it's hard picking SELinux up off the shelf and using it, then try some fairly deep modifications to existing policies, and adding new policies.)
Add the amount of general awe the people hold toward the NSA and SELinux, and there is a tendency for it to be not just A silver bullet, but THE silver bullet.
That's not even to say anything necessarily bad about SELinux or the job it does, but there can be difficult circumstances created around it.
I'll pick a different one from communications satellites, where the government role is a bit clearer.
Weather satellites.
Remember when hurricanes struck with little warning? Perhaps as important as giving us a better picture of the current weather, weather satellites have given us the area coverage and data volume to make forecasting less snicker-worthy. Sure, cyclones, tornadoes, and other things happen, but I remember there being more "weather catastrophe with little warning" as a child than there is now.
I might mostly agree with you. But there are 2 real problems. First, if I'm the one being denied the service, either by the stupid corporation or the stupid government, I'm still being denied the service. Second, these days it seems that corporate stupidity isn't sufficiently punished. This kind of ties in with the first reason - if a stupid company denies me the service, too often they squat on a market and prevent someone else from fulfilling my need. Another aspect of this is that some companies have gotten so big that the government feels that they can't afford to allow corporate Darwinism to happen, because of the side-effects. Think Chrysler, or Bear Sterns, for a more recent example. Perhaps a died-in-the-wool libertarian would argue that proper government would never have allowed this situation to happen, but it has, we're here now, and we're stuck with it. IMHO sudden deregulation to a "libertarian paradise" starting from today's market would be even more disastrous than what we have, with corporations more powerful than governments, fully capable of distorting the laws of supply and demand, and adept at denying customers the information needed for a proper choice.
Yes, but those tolls would not be taxes, they would be payments to entrepreneurs for services rendered. In the libertarian mindset, that's a MUCH different thing regardless of the relative magnitude of the costs. (In other words, being charged any amount a free-market provider is better than paying any amount by taxation for that same service, no matter what the relative costs.)
I beg to differ.
It's possible and much easier to be "for" things in the Mom-and-apple-pie fashion, yet do nothing to back up that stand.
To be against something immediately alienates some group of people.
Come to think of it that can be put the other way around, too.
There are things that being "against" is Mom-and-apple-pie, like today's Republicans and abortion. Taking a pro-choice stand immediately alienates that group.
Still, I think Obama has taken the less popular stand on this position. I happen to disagree with his stand on this, too. I applaud his goal, but I'd rather see the money come from somewhere else.
Heck, if you really want to make a difference on those things, don't pick on space exploration. At the very least, space exploration drives technology development and brings its benefits back to the marketplace manyfold. Plus space exploration is seriously underfunded right now, and there just isn't that much money in it. If you want some serious money to apply to worthy goals, go after corporate welfare.
> you aren't looking at what we could have done with those dollars instead.
What would you have done with those dollars, instead? I suspect the common libertarian answer would have been to reduce taxes and allow people to keep the money. Then the free market would have stepped someone up to the plate to begin building a nationwide network of toll roads that though not free, would have provided better road service at no taxpayer expense.
A countering Carnegie-type argument would have been, "Why let the workers have more than minimal wage, when they're just going to spend it on booze and gambling?" Then the counter-Carnegie argument is that if your were really restricting workers' pay on principle, you should have educated their children, instead of simply increasing your own wealth. It's telling that Carnegie worked hard to give away his fortune before he died, but IMHO educating the workers' kids might have been a better legacy for at least part of the money.
Back to topic... One could argue that the highway example you mention has been done recently, with broadband. The government has not done any sort of broadband deployment the way they did highway or rural electrification or even regulated telephone deployments. As a result, it's perfectly obvious that US industry has stepped up to the plate and provided the US with the BEST broadband in the world, at the lowest prices.
Government may be incredibly stupid, but they have no monopoly on the attribute.
I know we're far from there, but still, we're knocking on the door, and some people like Drexler are proposing doing those fiction things as fact. Science fiction needs to keep ahead of the reality curve.
Actually I kind of liked JCL. It all stayed put and did nothing until you submitted it. Then it still did nothing while it waited in the queue. But when it started running, it was TOO LATE. With scripting languages there's always this feeling that you can hit Ctl-C and kill the job before it destroys you data. None of that wimp stuff with JCL. Once it hits the first IEFBR14 step, your data's dead and gone - Real Man Programming.
IEFBR14, the good old chunk of do-nothing code, the most universal executable used by anyone who ever wrote JCL.
It really does that - nothing. IEF is the code prefix, since all code *must* be prefixed, after all. BR14 stands for "Branch to Register 14", which with the old code linkages conventions means "return and exit". In JCL it's commonly used simply to attach, allocate, and deallocate files. In other words, used for its side-effects with the file allocation parameters. I haven't written any JCL in probably 20+ years, or I'd give an example. Anything I'd show now would likely be too badly riddled with errors to give the true, scrumptious feel.
I first saw femtotech in "Pushing Ice", and it seemed to me to be the natural result of the arms race between science and science fiction. Since I'm now working on 45nM semiconductor technology, I'm right at the brink of "classical nanotech" dimensions. We're practically there, so if science fiction is to remain fiction, they've got to move beyond. In that respect, femtotech is a natural next step. Wonder where science fiction will go once femtotech is within reach. Picotech is so "marching down the orders of magnitude", instead of different in kind, or will the magnitude be so different that it will be different in kind, like femtotech appears to be from nanotech...
1: Then put turbine blades above your data center, so that the upwelling heated water spins them, generating electricity.
2: Use some of the electricity to power your data center, and the rest to power other thermodynamically impossible projects.
3: Profit!! (no hidden step needed here, just an impossible one)
> stifled closed market ... (alpha, hppa, ia64)....
Into this thought we have to insert IA64, and I'm not sure how the heck we do. With any discussion of IA64, competition, and closed market is has to come up. IA64 was designed first and foremost to be a closed market, utterly unclonable. Though an Intel/HP joint venture, neither company owns any of the IP related to IA64. Instead the IP is owned by a separate company, and Intel and HP have a license to the IP from that company. That way, the IA64 IP is protected from any cross-licensing agreements that Intel or HP may have made, or may make in the future, since they don't have the rights to make any such agreements.
IA64 is closed as no architecture ever has been before. But it has been practical matters preventing its widespread adoption, not the competition-proof IP bomb that is its basic nature.
Oh yeah, IANAL.
But does that look like one of the chips ripped out of its SMT solder joints, in the second picture?
Why do I have the sinking feeling that it will describe ME! (false positive)