During the run-up to the election. . . when EVERYONE was saying that it was Romney's to lose. I kept referring to Intrade, which consistently showed that Romney NEVER had a snowball's chance.
Yet EVERY major news outlet, was Romeny Romney Romney 24x7 after the first debate; and then after 47%-gate, only a few begrudgingly accepted that Obama was going to win. (if I'm recalling my order of events properly) - but specifically, it was really like the final two weeks where everyone was just perplexed at how the polls were shifting to Romney - (they were wrong) and Intrade was showing a narrowing gap, but it was clearly still Obama's race.
They never accepted this reality until the returns were coming back at 5pm. And I *knew* that it was possible that Intrade could be "gamed" - but I always kind of figured it would be the OTHER team with the resources to do that.
But NOBODY in the popular press ever once cited Intrade. It was as if it did not exist at all. And they were right, by God. And afterwards, when they were sweeping up the pieces and trying to point fingers and figure out WHY they were wrong, they STILL didn't look at the obvious signs. I just don't get why this was soooo under the radar.
I'm not too excited about putting an unremovable Amazon.Com AD into my pocket. Really, I am *not*.
I have 12.10 on my laptop.
Yes, I have *REMOVED* the amazon crap from my lens bar, both by installing the special removal package, and dconf settings. And somehow, they still keep popping up on my toolbar.
Happily for me, KDE 4.10 came out yesterday, and I'm happy with that so far. . .
In my case. . . FORCED? Really? And, all those things . . . none of it, terribly exciting to anybody. Seriously. There are 7+ billion of us on this planet. I'm not all that special. Exactly why the NSA would waste my tax dollars spying on me, I have no fucking idea.
Exactly - and the Ubuntu vendors are probably not going to install an unremovable version of Exchange. Instead, they're going to install an unremovable version of GoGolf, and Amazon Shopping.
If it's a hot, humid, summer day, those fans are going to run harder, speed-step is going to slam the CPU into minimum mode, and the battery's going to run-down real quick.
If it's a dry, cool, winter day, (it's being reviewed in winter) - then, of course it can maintain 40C under load.
Don't put it in your laptop bag while it's still running.
I think that the idea of aerostats was to address the issue of "if we had a persistent CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over the USA on 9/11 - it wouldn't have happened" BUT "a CAP is extremely expensive, so the next best thing is . . . well, let's ask Lockheed Martin"?
and people who are used to Windows always do a double-take and ask me what software I am using to get such an awesome look
. . . I find this to be an incredibly ironic statement. I am primarily a Windows user - and granted - I am exposed to pretty much every OS out there (and my heart goes to OpenStep; and I do use Unity for my home setup) - but, frankly, I always found Windows to be pretty much butt-ugly.
There's a lot of ugly Gnome themes out there. And OS X is getting pretty long in the tooth. But they all have more class than any version of Windows. And with Widows 8 . . . holy crap - Microsoft just really doesn't "get it", do they?
really? I wonder when they're going to fix the installer, so it doesn't render my machine into an unstable black-screen? Well - at least I am still handy with bash. . .
Windows started out life as an "Operating Environment". (DOS was the "Operating System").
When you change the form-factor, and set of use-cases, significantly, from the Desktop/Workstation model, that strains the Windows "Operating Environment".
Sure - in the "Server" case - having the Windows 3.1 GUI duct-taped on top of Windows NT 3.51 was acceptable. Barely. Windows never made any serious inroads into the server market until IIS matured, and Active Directory made Servers a little more bearable.
And then Apache came along and ate their lunch.
Surprisingly - Microsoft adapted this model VERY WELL to the game-console form factor and set of use cases. Nobody can argue that XBox was not a huge success. But then again - you can hide a crappy system behind the REAL content when the users are 99% into GAMES. But I dont' really want to go there - because Microsoft actually DID do a great job with XBox, and developers flocked to the platform in droves because of that.
But they absolutely failed at media players. They have failed at netbooks. They have failed at tablets. And they have failed at smartphones.
So it's not surpising at all to me that they're running scared. (and I'm one who believes that most of these other form-factors are really just fads, and that the classic "Desktop/Workstation" is NOT going to go away. The problem is: Desktop/Workstation BECAME a fad, and that fad faded away and was replaced largely by these other gadgets, because people were looking for solutions to the portability problem. We pros STILL need our Desktop/Workstations. We ALWAYS will.)
In any case: Linux can adapt. Because Linux is not an "Operating Environment". It's an Operating System. It's forked and adapted to phones and tablets (android) and little devices (busybox, etc), and it's the mainstay of servers, and it does everything we really NEED on the desktop. It doesn't NEED to have the same front-end on all of them. As long as the back-end is still POSIX. (Microsoft doesn't *get* this. And Windows is freaking POSIX-compliant!) I think Microsoft is still so steeped in MBA-culture, that they're terrified to lose mindshare, so they feel they must use a "seat" sold on a smartphone, to "advertise" for a Server OS, and a Media Player, and a Tablet, and a Desktop. Fucking spreadsheet-jockeys.
If we wanted to play: "lets raise the earth's orbit" . . . I would think we would use a LOT of electrical power, and induction, against the Sun's magnetic field.
We would need to spool-out some cable around the planet, and energize that guy with a lot of current. This will generate a strong electrical field, against the solar magnetic field, enough to increase the earth's orbital velocity.
I'm thinking that the field, itself, would need to be pretty damn (cancer-causing) strong. (okay, not literally cancer-causing, but probably disruptive to natural processes in ways I can't imagine in this off-the-cuff scenario). I'm thinking that the mere act of wrapping the earth in cable would be a feat, in itself. But wrapping the earth in cable strong enough to carry enough current to generate a field to ACCELERATE the entire planet, in order to magnetically lift it in it's orbit around the sun? I don't think we have enough electricity.
I suppose that this device would also come in handy when the sun converted to red-supergiant.
This woman has a Master's, and plays a classical instrument, and plays original compositions.
She knows her music history, I assure you.
She doesn't want to be a quad-zillionaire.
She just wants to be able to feed her kid, and she wants to be able to know that she's going to be able to pay rent for 12 months in a row.
She got 1.5 million listens - so it's not like she's some unpopular rage-filled metal-playing guitar kid in mom's basement, emailing home-recorded mp3's to local scene-kids.
And the "market" for live music is pretty limited actually.
At least for "bar" music - most people just want to hear cover bands play music they know, by "pop" bands, and they want the music to be not TOO loud, so they can converse, and not TOO aggressive, or challenging, because - frankly, it's background noise for their drinking.
Many musicians study their art in depth, working through their primary, secondary, and postsecondary education, and also attending special training on the side, then qualifying for highly competitive programs, to go to 4 year schools, often going on to get a Master's. Their equipment is not cheap. The services they need, to record, are not cheap. These musicians are not playing what 90% of people want to listen to at bars. And you might want to apply your libertarian "free market" ideals to that, and say; "well these people need to go flip burgers and wait on tables or something." But there's a significant audience of people who want to listen to those recordings, and these musicians do contribute significantly to our culture. (a great deal more than your average lying car-salesman or steroid-junky sports-star.)
So let me tell you where you can put your world's smallest violin.
Java was Sun's last-ditch effort to preserve an ecosystem of different operating systems and different CPU platforms anyway. That didn't really work-out so well for Sun in the long run. Rather unfortunately.
It's nice that we still have a diverse range of operating systems, but really, it kind of just boils down to Intel now.
Another thing is; Absolutely nobody has ever once even TESTED a missile that does evasive action.
The US and Russia have tested (but not fielded) warheads that can maneuver on reentry - it is questionable whether they retain any accuracy.
The earlier in the flight-path a missile tries anything dodgy, the more difficult it will be to retain any sort of accuracy.
There ARE folks who have fielded hack-jobs on ballistic missiles to try to alter trajectory. The result, is a vehicle that delivers it's payload way off target. Saddam did it in 92 with some poorly modified SCUDS. And the Palestinians are apparently trying to do it with their junkyard-wars rockets. You ever wonder why they never hit anything?
The biggest actual problem for Ballistic Missile Defense is decoys.
The fact is (while I believe your cost numbers are off, your point is valid) . . . Palestinians just plain are not supposed to even HAVE those rockets.
They are getting them on the downlow. They are being financed from external sources. So the cost of their rockets is really kind of invalid. Also, Iron Dome was financed, in large part, by US military aid (I acknowledge the extensive work Israelis did improving on Patriot). These costs are also not really valid. And when you're talking about protecting say, your own bank from being targeted and bombed, a $10k investment in a defense missile is pretty trivial. Because if your bank blows up (figuratively) - you're not investing in anything else at all ever again. They will happily "loan" you as much money as it takes to defend them. (so in economic terms, that cost is not "real" - it is coerced).
Another possiblity is: what if the same entity is financing BOTH sides and providing them with weapons. (those palestinian rockets, actually, are pretty worthless, in terms of the actual damage they do. They can kill a few people, but usually, they're just terrifying, and harmless). There's no real risk in supplying angry Palestinians with these mexican firework-grade missiles, while, raking in profits from poor, terrorized Israelis. I'm not saying that that's exactly what's going on. But since nobody seems interested in stopping it, and nobody seems to give a crap about where the money's coming from, or when it will ever end - it sure seems to be the most likely explanation. (if property owners were REALLY concerned about stopping the Palestinian missiles - they'd put a stop to it. It wouldn't be pretty, or humanitarian. But the ongoing situation isn't pretty either. It's just more profitable this way.)
The Navy has known they've had this vulnerability for 30 years. They've known they're sitting-ducks, and they have KNOWN it's just a matter of time before the enemy ups the sophistication of their game to where they can sneak something through the defensive posture of a typical battle group. Iran caught us unawares with a cruise missile. (this won't happen again - because we learned a lesson). Al-Q caught us unawares with a speedboat. (honestly, I don't know how you prevent this from happening all the freaking time). Back in the Revolutionary War - 1776 the US planned a primitive submarine to go under British ships, drill into the hull, and/or plant explosives. Had this actually been technically feasible at the time . . . well, THINK about the implications!: https://lh3.ggpht.com/_j_Bcf_6uMS4/RrlFv_jQYdI/AAAAAAAABRk/MX0ia2MCkb8/s400/alg_turtle.jpg ) - there was no defense against this thing, and it was aimed straight at the heart of the British Superpower's Navy.
This is why the Navy is investing in learning ways of changing tactics, changing to different types of vessels, and exploring completely different concepts in how to prosecute naval warfare. They've been thinking about this since the invention of the airplane.
That said; I have had some interesting conversations with an elderly gentleman (retired) who used to work for *a big defense contractor who shall remain unnamed* who, in the 1980's, worked on solutions for tracking incoming ballistic missiles (from an outgoing response vehicle; designed to relay targeting information to interceptors). And he certainly acknowledged that it was obvious to all, (except maybe the politicians), that it was always a numbers-game, and it would always be in favor of the attackers. Smart interceptors (like Iron Dome, today) are always going to be way more expensive (like $90k) than the incoming warhead (Palestinian Shahab, like $300). Try to solve that with Directed Energy weapons, and you have many other problems (not just economic) to solve. (how to get enough power, deal with line-of-sight, weather, atmosphere and haze, recycle time, etc).
It's a problem worth addressing, because it's better than sitting there helpless while the enemy pounds away with ballistic missiles. But in my view - we are still looking at problems that we were looking at in the 1980's. We've come a long way, but some of this stuff is just really hard.
It's probably the only viable manufacturing strategy in that environment. And; in fact, the same strategy DSI plans on pursuing in their asteroid-mining venture.
Because "bros" like brand-name products. Same with the driving games, they license REAL cars. So that "bros" can fantasize about driving cars they'll never own, up sidewalks, running over pedestrians, and smashing into flaming police cars. (to a soundtrack, by their favorite top-40 gangsta-rap artist. . ..)
Slashdot Mirror
During the run-up to the election. . . when EVERYONE was saying that it was Romney's to lose. I kept referring to Intrade, which consistently showed that Romney NEVER had a snowball's chance.
Yet EVERY major news outlet, was Romeny Romney Romney 24x7 after the first debate; and then after 47%-gate, only a few begrudgingly accepted that Obama was going to win. (if I'm recalling my order of events properly) - but specifically, it was really like the final two weeks where everyone was just perplexed at how the polls were shifting to Romney - (they were wrong) and Intrade was showing a narrowing gap, but it was clearly still Obama's race.
They never accepted this reality until the returns were coming back at 5pm. And I *knew* that it was possible that Intrade could be "gamed" - but I always kind of figured it would be the OTHER team with the resources to do that.
But NOBODY in the popular press ever once cited Intrade. It was as if it did not exist at all. And they were right, by God. And afterwards, when they were sweeping up the pieces and trying to point fingers and figure out WHY they were wrong, they STILL didn't look at the obvious signs. I just don't get why this was soooo under the radar.
I'm not too excited about putting an unremovable Amazon.Com AD into my pocket. Really, I am *not*.
I have 12.10 on my laptop.
Yes, I have *REMOVED* the amazon crap from my lens bar, both by installing the special removal package, and dconf settings. And somehow, they still keep popping up on my toolbar.
Happily for me, KDE 4.10 came out yesterday, and I'm happy with that so far. . .
In my case. . .
FORCED? Really?
And, all those things . . . none of it, terribly exciting to anybody.
Seriously. There are 7+ billion of us on this planet. I'm not all that special. Exactly why the NSA would waste my tax dollars spying on me, I have no fucking idea.
. . . pic or it didn't happen. . .
Exactly - and the Ubuntu vendors are probably not going to install an unremovable version of Exchange. Instead, they're going to install an unremovable version of GoGolf, and Amazon Shopping.
This all depends on ambient air temperature.
If it's a hot, humid, summer day, those fans are going to run harder, speed-step is going to slam the CPU into minimum mode, and the battery's going to run-down real quick.
If it's a dry, cool, winter day, (it's being reviewed in winter) - then, of course it can maintain 40C under load.
Don't put it in your laptop bag while it's still running.
Well - look up the history of airships in warfare. They aren't the most resilient or reliable craft.
The idea here, is that by going to a much higher altitude, they can overcome some of that vulnerability.
But personally, I don't think that's going to work.
I think that the idea of aerostats was to address the issue of "if we had a persistent CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over the USA on 9/11 - it wouldn't have happened" BUT "a CAP is extremely expensive, so the next best thing is . . . well, let's ask Lockheed Martin"?
In other words: Security Theater.
and people who are used to Windows always do a double-take and ask me what software I am using to get such an awesome look
. . . I find this to be an incredibly ironic statement. I am primarily a Windows user - and granted - I am exposed to pretty much every OS out there (and my heart goes to OpenStep; and I do use Unity for my home setup) - but, frankly, I always found Windows to be pretty much butt-ugly.
There's a lot of ugly Gnome themes out there. And OS X is getting pretty long in the tooth. But they all have more class than any version of Windows. And with Widows 8 . . . holy crap - Microsoft just really doesn't "get it", do they?
We Await Silent Tristero's Empire
starving for good - so yeah, fringe is good junk-food.
. . . that reminds me. I think it's about time for another C++ vs. Java flamewar.
Who's up for it?
really? I wonder when they're going to fix the installer, so it doesn't render my machine into an unstable black-screen? Well - at least I am still handy with bash. . .
I still need it to install Bios patches.
yes, yes. I shall now bear the cone of shame. :(
I think you're right.
Windows started out life as an "Operating Environment". (DOS was the "Operating System").
When you change the form-factor, and set of use-cases, significantly, from the Desktop/Workstation model, that strains the Windows "Operating Environment".
Sure - in the "Server" case - having the Windows 3.1 GUI duct-taped on top of Windows NT 3.51 was acceptable. Barely. Windows never made any serious inroads into the server market until IIS matured, and Active Directory made Servers a little more bearable.
And then Apache came along and ate their lunch.
Surprisingly - Microsoft adapted this model VERY WELL to the game-console form factor and set of use cases. Nobody can argue that XBox was not a huge success. But then again - you can hide a crappy system behind the REAL content when the users are 99% into GAMES. But I dont' really want to go there - because Microsoft actually DID do a great job with XBox, and developers flocked to the platform in droves because of that.
But they absolutely failed at media players.
They have failed at netbooks.
They have failed at tablets.
And they have failed at smartphones.
So it's not surpising at all to me that they're running scared.
(and I'm one who believes that most of these other form-factors are really just fads, and that the classic "Desktop/Workstation" is NOT going to go away. The problem is: Desktop/Workstation BECAME a fad, and that fad faded away and was replaced largely by these other gadgets, because people were looking for solutions to the portability problem. We pros STILL need our Desktop/Workstations. We ALWAYS will.)
In any case: Linux can adapt. Because Linux is not an "Operating Environment". It's an Operating System. It's forked and adapted to phones and tablets (android) and little devices (busybox, etc), and it's the mainstay of servers, and it does everything we really NEED on the desktop. It doesn't NEED to have the same front-end on all of them. As long as the back-end is still POSIX. (Microsoft doesn't *get* this. And Windows is freaking POSIX-compliant!) I think Microsoft is still so steeped in MBA-culture, that they're terrified to lose mindshare, so they feel they must use a "seat" sold on a smartphone, to "advertise" for a Server OS, and a Media Player, and a Tablet, and a Desktop. Fucking spreadsheet-jockeys.
If we wanted to play: "lets raise the earth's orbit" . . . I would think we would use a LOT of electrical power, and induction, against the Sun's magnetic field.
We would need to spool-out some cable around the planet, and energize that guy with a lot of current. This will generate a strong electrical field, against the solar magnetic field, enough to increase the earth's orbital velocity.
I'm thinking that the field, itself, would need to be pretty damn (cancer-causing) strong. (okay, not literally cancer-causing, but probably disruptive to natural processes in ways I can't imagine in this off-the-cuff scenario). I'm thinking that the mere act of wrapping the earth in cable would be a feat, in itself. But wrapping the earth in cable strong enough to carry enough current to generate a field to ACCELERATE the entire planet, in order to magnetically lift it in it's orbit around the sun? I don't think we have enough electricity.
I suppose that this device would also come in handy when the sun converted to red-supergiant.
well-more than half.
This woman has a Master's, and plays a classical instrument, and plays original compositions.
She knows her music history, I assure you.
She doesn't want to be a quad-zillionaire.
She just wants to be able to feed her kid, and she wants to be able to know that she's going to be able to pay rent for 12 months in a row.
She got 1.5 million listens - so it's not like she's some unpopular rage-filled metal-playing guitar kid in mom's basement, emailing home-recorded mp3's to local scene-kids.
You misunderstand what musicians do.
And the "market" for live music is pretty limited actually.
At least for "bar" music - most people just want to hear cover bands play music they know, by "pop" bands, and they want the music to be not TOO loud, so they can converse, and not TOO aggressive, or challenging, because - frankly, it's background noise for their drinking.
Many musicians study their art in depth, working through their primary, secondary, and postsecondary education, and also attending special training on the side, then qualifying for highly competitive programs, to go to 4 year schools, often going on to get a Master's. Their equipment is not cheap. The services they need, to record, are not cheap. These musicians are not playing what 90% of people want to listen to at bars. And you might want to apply your libertarian "free market" ideals to that, and say; "well these people need to go flip burgers and wait on tables or something." But there's a significant audience of people who want to listen to those recordings, and these musicians do contribute significantly to our culture. (a great deal more than your average lying car-salesman or steroid-junky sports-star.)
So let me tell you where you can put your world's smallest violin.
Java was Sun's last-ditch effort to preserve an ecosystem of different operating systems and different CPU platforms anyway. That didn't really work-out so well for Sun in the long run. Rather unfortunately.
It's nice that we still have a diverse range of operating systems, but really, it kind of just boils down to Intel now.
Another thing is;
Absolutely nobody has ever once even TESTED a missile that does evasive action.
The US and Russia have tested (but not fielded) warheads that can maneuver on reentry - it is questionable whether they retain any accuracy.
The earlier in the flight-path a missile tries anything dodgy, the more difficult it will be to retain any sort of accuracy.
There ARE folks who have fielded hack-jobs on ballistic missiles to try to alter trajectory. The result, is a vehicle that delivers it's payload way off target. Saddam did it in 92 with some poorly modified SCUDS. And the Palestinians are apparently trying to do it with their junkyard-wars rockets. You ever wonder why they never hit anything?
The biggest actual problem for Ballistic Missile Defense is decoys.
The fact is (while I believe your cost numbers are off, your point is valid) . . . Palestinians just plain are not supposed to even HAVE those rockets.
They are getting them on the downlow. They are being financed from external sources. So the cost of their rockets is really kind of invalid. Also, Iron Dome was financed, in large part, by US military aid (I acknowledge the extensive work Israelis did improving on Patriot). These costs are also not really valid. And when you're talking about protecting say, your own bank from being targeted and bombed, a $10k investment in a defense missile is pretty trivial. Because if your bank blows up (figuratively) - you're not investing in anything else at all ever again. They will happily "loan" you as much money as it takes to defend them. (so in economic terms, that cost is not "real" - it is coerced).
Another possiblity is: what if the same entity is financing BOTH sides and providing them with weapons. (those palestinian rockets, actually, are pretty worthless, in terms of the actual damage they do. They can kill a few people, but usually, they're just terrifying, and harmless). There's no real risk in supplying angry Palestinians with these mexican firework-grade missiles, while, raking in profits from poor, terrorized Israelis. I'm not saying that that's exactly what's going on. But since nobody seems interested in stopping it, and nobody seems to give a crap about where the money's coming from, or when it will ever end - it sure seems to be the most likely explanation. (if property owners were REALLY concerned about stopping the Palestinian missiles - they'd put a stop to it. It wouldn't be pretty, or humanitarian. But the ongoing situation isn't pretty either. It's just more profitable this way.)
The Navy has known they've had this vulnerability for 30 years. They've known they're sitting-ducks, and they have KNOWN it's just a matter of time before the enemy ups the sophistication of their game to where they can sneak something through the defensive posture of a typical battle group. Iran caught us unawares with a cruise missile. (this won't happen again - because we learned a lesson). Al-Q caught us unawares with a speedboat. (honestly, I don't know how you prevent this from happening all the freaking time). Back in the Revolutionary War - 1776 the US planned a primitive submarine to go under British ships, drill into the hull, and/or plant explosives. Had this actually been technically feasible at the time . . . well, THINK about the implications!: https://lh3.ggpht.com/_j_Bcf_6uMS4/RrlFv_jQYdI/AAAAAAAABRk/MX0ia2MCkb8/s400/alg_turtle.jpg ) - there was no defense against this thing, and it was aimed straight at the heart of the British Superpower's Navy.
This is why the Navy is investing in learning ways of changing tactics, changing to different types of vessels, and exploring completely different concepts in how to prosecute naval warfare. They've been thinking about this since the invention of the airplane.
That said; I have had some interesting conversations with an elderly gentleman (retired) who used to work for *a big defense contractor who shall remain unnamed* who, in the 1980's, worked on solutions for tracking incoming ballistic missiles (from an outgoing response vehicle; designed to relay targeting information to interceptors). And he certainly acknowledged that it was obvious to all, (except maybe the politicians), that it was always a numbers-game, and it would always be in favor of the attackers. Smart interceptors (like Iron Dome, today) are always going to be way more expensive (like $90k) than the incoming warhead (Palestinian Shahab, like $300). Try to solve that with Directed Energy weapons, and you have many other problems (not just economic) to solve. (how to get enough power, deal with line-of-sight, weather, atmosphere and haze, recycle time, etc).
It's a problem worth addressing, because it's better than sitting there helpless while the enemy pounds away with ballistic missiles. But in my view - we are still looking at problems that we were looking at in the 1980's. We've come a long way, but some of this stuff is just really hard.
It's probably the only viable manufacturing strategy in that environment. And; in fact, the same strategy DSI plans on pursuing in their asteroid-mining venture.
Because "bros" like brand-name products. .)
Same with the driving games, they license REAL cars. So that "bros" can fantasize about driving cars they'll never own, up sidewalks, running over pedestrians, and smashing into flaming police cars.
(to a soundtrack, by their favorite top-40 gangsta-rap artist. . .
It sells games.