The most common way to be killed by electricity (as I've been told by people in the know) is that it messes up the electrical signals the brain sends to your organs (esp. heart and lungs) and if this happens long enough, then you end up... unhappy, shall I say.
Now, as for the 240V, it's not lethal by its own merit. Electricians say it's Amps that kill (faster).
I live in Europe and I can tell you 240V is just a wilder shock (you just jump up a bit higher... ~~~#:-)
Why do I get the feeling you are an MS employee working in Canada?
You're either ignorant of Microsoft's tactics of "innovation" or you're playing it downright stupid (which I think you do).
Hmmm, now that MS feels the DOJ's hose homing in on their re@r end, they start worrying... and not keeping their cool that much. And it's about time they got what they deserve, at least for once
It does bring out some very thought-provoking topics. It is the ultimate goal of any military type: to kill as many of the enemy as you can without getting a single scratch on yourself. But how moral is this? (to the extent killing is "moral") Access to technology often equals to power. And we don't want powerful people to be cowards, because this can lead to *very* uncomfortable situations (you know what the coward does when he's not enjoying a situation...).
Apart from the topics the book discusses, a war is by no means the best way to resolve a conflict. We keep bragging about our technological advances. OK, but that's pretty much all the advancing we've done lately. Take a human of, say, the 15th century and take your neighbours. Apart from that we have adapted to the contemporary technology (we know what a plane is and what a PC does and how to use toilet paper, for example), how different are we from our 15th century ancestors?
I don't think we are as different as we want to believe. Any significant advances in technology should be accompanied by equivalent advances in humanity. So that we can make wise use of that technology and not harm ourselves in the way.
I see every gov't and business guys thinking about and promoting only technological proliferation, disregarding, if not hindering in a way, mental.
Hence, this book points out some topics that every one of us should think about, since we are a member of a forum about technology. Kind of reminded me that article that was posted sometime in March (I think) about an engineer at Sun and what he thought of the future and technology.
Now, as for the poster's comment:
I cannot comment on that as I do not know the exact details of the situation. However, I tend to agree.
Other things I'd like to point out, complementarily:
1. The Serbians may have done some bad things but they weren't the only ones. The US and NATO guided the press very nicely in both cases: a.) effectiveness of the weaponry b.) who's the bad guy. Things weren't black but they weren't white either...
2. It definitely wasn't for humanitarian reasons. Once blood has been drawn, it's been drawn. And US/NATO troops shed lots of it. I come from very near those areas (Greece, if you wondered) and I know that this war didn't help alleviate the conflict. Think about it. They now have memories from a full-scale war to throw at each other. This situation has made them far more fanatic than they probably would have been if things were let to go unaffected.
3. Benefits for the US (and allies): a. The area now needs rebuilding from scratch. Guess who is borrowing them money and signing contracts... b. A nice chance to test any untested new weapons in a real situation (tell me that this wouldn't be tempting!). c. Justify "other" expenses as war-expenses. ("Where did that money go, Bill/Whoever?" -"War expenses...") d. As somebody else said: keep the public busy on that while we... (god knows what) e. Ever heard that in Kosovo (or around there) there are some quite rich uranium ores and many other minerals??? Think of some nations who'd like to control that... (not necessarily the US, but that's another thing to think about)
4. Have you ever considered the ecological disasters this brought about? Certainly not to the States, but countries like Bulgaria, Greece and Italy will definitely be affected. I know that because I live in the "neighbourhood". I guess it wasn't given much press coverage that some of the "smart" missiles landed INSIDE the perimeter of a nuclear energy plant in Bulgaria (thankfully without exploding)!
5. Oh, by the way, did you guys know that the US/NATO went ahead to wage this war without having an approval from the UN (I think) Security Council (which was supposed to approve any such actions first, and then...)? I didn't hear much about this piece of news in the media...
Finally, contrary to what you might think, I am *not* anti-American. I respect this country but I prefer to keep my own/different opinion on some matters and not just gulp whatever the mainstream press "offers".
Well, I'd guess that there will be a lot smaller heat dissipation. Correct me on this, but I assume that since they have no mass (only energy), they have 0 resistance.
So, the term "cool computer" will probably take a whole new meaning I guess.
However, I am no that excited on the subject. For one thing, I certainly do not posess such knowledge to question their theories.
What worries me, though, is that I kind of expect to be quite a few years before we could get our hands on one of those thingies. Think of the economics.
Suppose that in a month's time Mr. Ozin somes out and says "I've got a processor ready, architecture, ISA, layout, blueprints, the whole lot. Along with exquisite details on the manufacturing process!" (ok, it's not his job to design the processor, but let's say that somehow he got one ready from some processor designer at his uni)
For one thing, all the major corps will jump on it immediately (IBM for example). But the manufacturing process will be a new one and it's gonna be bloody expensive to make them and not the most efficient.
Another reason they're gonna be *really* expensive, even if the manufacturing process is just 5% more expensive than current practices: the corps so far have spent billions on investments in both product development and the respective manufacturing infrastructures. And they will want to milk that cow first on us and THEN, in a few years' time, introduce the optical chips as the high-prestige ones with equivalent prices...:-/
No need to rush. Even a company rushing to beat the competition (take AMD for example, my favourite) will be held back a bit. No manufacturer is gonna make such big jumps.
A bit off-topic, but think about it. I wouldn't expect this technology to become mainstream anytime soon (btw, does the word "military" ring a bell??? I'm sure they'll want it first)
Not BASIC, please! All the lecturers at my uni. (yes, I am a computer science student) foam if you even say the word and I tend to agree with them (but not because they are my lecturers). It's generally accepted to be a horrible language if you wanna teach somebody the principles of programming (or at least, teach them _right_).
And if it makes any difference to you, keep in mind that Basic was designed by Bill Gates himself (not that it matters to me, but I thought you should know if you already don't)
From my personal experience, I'd say to start off with Java. I started learning it last September and it's very easy to pick up and not cryptic at all. Plus, it's OO, which is a very good way to start with.
At this point I have to note that before I started uni I had no programming experience at all (unless you call batch files and a bit of BASIC "programming"). I'm particularly happy I didn't get to learn much BASIC beforehand and I'm equally happy that I got to learn Java. As you might have guessed, therefore, my experience on programming languages is very limited and in a way I am very much like your kids on this aspect.
Then, you might also want to consider Eiffel. It's much like Java plus more powerful. OK, it's not a mainstream language, but I've heard only good things about it... (I've never used it but I DO plan to do)
When we started our course at uni, the first thing we were taught was Scheme, on the course "Principles of Programming". Now, I know that Scheme is simply lots of parentheses:-) and a b@$t@%d to learn but I guess the folks at uni should know better... Personally, though, I wouldn't exactly have it at the top of my list...:-/
Alternatively, you can also teach them Prolog along with whatever you might decide to teach them mainly. It's a 4th generation language and it introduces some very interesting concepts behind programming. We were taught Prolog last year and I have to say that the concepts behind it and its potentials are definitely worth knowing...
I don't think it's only me thinking that if the MPAA wasn't making such a big fuss about piracy, people wouldn't have bothered that much to research into ways of how to pirate movies.
The MPAA being all that frantic about piracy, it is really ASKING for piracy.
So, to me that was a bit of a thing I was expecting sooner or later. I just expected it to be a bit more underground. And I will agree with the various posters who commented on the movie industry's greed. It makes me sick to think what else goes on their minds in the meantime and makes me VERY worried to think that if NOW they are THAT bad, what will they be like in 10-20 years or something...
It's a bit ironic/twisted to think about it, but in the end movies like Mad Max and the Matrix (etc.) seem more and more of the foreseeable future rather than science fiction (if you get my gist)...
anyway... lets hope they don't get their way on these things...:-/
How much support are those customers likely to request and how often?
It all depends on the services you are offering and how well you document them (if it's some piece of software, for example).
All in all, a well designed documentation and no bugs (if possible to start with, if it's software) can reduce the amount of required support to a minimum.
Well, isn't Linux about choice? Then why not have tens of graphics programs?
As for open sourcing: well, I wouldn't exactly mind if Corel didn't open-source Draw or Adobe didn't open-source Photoshop or if Newtek didn't open-source LightWave etc. Reason: they are all excellent packages at what they do and lets not start yelling about open-source all over the place. Some companies may think otherwise but if their software does the job, I don't really mind.
For the GIMP: I don't exactly like it (I know I have blasphemied, forgive me!). I just can't wait till Adobe *eventually* decides to keep the Unix version of Photoshop up to date (any Adobe guys listening?????? Where are you????). I've been using it (PS) since version 3.0.4 in Windoze and it's evolved to a great package, thank you. Gimp is good, but it kind-of lacks the usability yet. It's a good program with a very nice lot of features but it isn't quite "there" yet. I'd love to help but I'm not a programmer (at least not of that skill). I'm a graphics designer.
I mean OK, it's open source, it's free and everything, but I've seen better (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but that's a personal opinion, if I'm entitled to one.). Canvas 7-beta was also quite good, though its design is a bit of a mix of various image-manipulation and layout programs and therefore its usability and intuitivity do leave quite a few things to be desired.
In summary: Linux is about choice and *your* choice is not necessarily *my* choice (as you have seen above).
can anyone point me to a real-world application or website that actually uses Java?
Well, my company is writing a VHDL compiler / simulator in Java and it is working quite fast, thank you very much. I'm writing some of the GUI stuff for this project, in Java as well, and it is beutiful to program in.
I have been using Java since September (1999), and here are my experiences so far:
it's very easy to pick up.
being an OO language it does add some logical structure and hierarchy by itself to your programs that C etc. programmers have to think about to create.
despite what hardcore programmers say, I think that the lack of pointers in the language is actually quite beneficial. It lets you focus on your task at hand, rather than worrying about the umpteenth pointer and stuff being out of place and so on and so on... OK, it isn't fit for low-level programming, but it's quite good for pretty much anything else.
It is easy to write GUI applications. Once you get the hang of it (which isn't hard), you are on your way to create some complex GUIs with minimal effort compared, say, to C.
Add the rest of the (argued) advantages of OO programming (which I quite enjoy) and there you have it.
Of course you can argue that C++ is also OO, but you'll most likely be also aware what a beast of a language it is.
As for using the Java libraries being a bit bizarre, I'd say that the method names, although a bit long sometimes, are quite intuitive and this improves readability. Give somebody a C program and give them then the same program written in the too-wordy Java language and ask them which is more readable/understandable...
Finally, for the speed issue: well, OK, so it's slower. So don't develop your games or nuclear explosion simulators in Java. However my experience is that it isn't that bad. I'd say that the loss of a bit of speed is compensated by the portability of the language. Yes, the GUIs I'm writing (for example) work on all Windoze, Solaris and Linux with minimal attention (i.e. "porting" effort) during development and I'm very happy about it.
Slashdot Mirror
may I also add:
The most common way to be killed by electricity (as I've been told by people in the know) is that it messes up the electrical signals the brain sends to your organs (esp. heart and lungs) and if this happens long enough, then you end up... unhappy, shall I say.
Now, as for the 240V, it's not lethal by its own merit. Electricians say it's Amps that kill (faster).
I live in Europe and I can tell you 240V is just a wilder shock (you just jump up a bit higher... ~~~#:-)
anyway....
Trian
Why do I get the feeling you are an MS employee working in Canada?
You're either ignorant of Microsoft's tactics of "innovation" or you're playing it downright stupid (which I think you do).
Hmmm, now that MS feels the DOJ's hose homing in on their re@r end, they start worrying... and not keeping their cool that much. And it's about time they got what they deserve, at least for once
First, on the Book:
It does bring out some very thought-provoking topics. It is the ultimate goal of any military type: to kill as many of the enemy as you can without getting a single scratch on yourself. But how moral is this? (to the extent killing is "moral") Access to technology often equals to power. And we don't want powerful people to be cowards, because this can lead to *very* uncomfortable situations (you know what the coward does when he's not enjoying a situation...).
Apart from the topics the book discusses, a war is by no means the best way to resolve a conflict. We keep bragging about our technological advances. OK, but that's pretty much all the advancing we've done lately. Take a human of, say, the 15th century and take your neighbours. Apart from that we have adapted to the contemporary technology (we know what a plane is and what a PC does and how to use toilet paper, for example), how different are we from our 15th century ancestors?
I don't think we are as different as we want to believe. Any significant advances in technology should be accompanied by equivalent advances in humanity. So that we can make wise use of that technology and not harm ourselves in the way.
I see every gov't and business guys thinking about and promoting only technological proliferation, disregarding, if not hindering in a way, mental.
Hence, this book points out some topics that every one of us should think about, since we are a member of a forum about technology. Kind of reminded me that article that was posted sometime in March (I think) about an engineer at Sun and what he thought of the future and technology.
Now, as for the poster's comment:
I cannot comment on that as I do not know the exact details of the situation. However, I tend to agree.
Other things I'd like to point out, complementarily:
1. The Serbians may have done some bad things but they weren't the only ones. The US and NATO guided the press very nicely in both cases: a.) effectiveness of the weaponry b.) who's the bad guy. Things weren't black but they weren't white either...
2. It definitely wasn't for humanitarian reasons. Once blood has been drawn, it's been drawn. And US/NATO troops shed lots of it. I come from very near those areas (Greece, if you wondered) and I know that this war didn't help alleviate the conflict. Think about it. They now have memories from a full-scale war to throw at each other. This situation has made them far more fanatic than they probably would have been if things were let to go unaffected.
3. Benefits for the US (and allies):
a. The area now needs rebuilding from scratch. Guess who is borrowing them money and signing contracts...
b. A nice chance to test any untested new weapons in a real situation (tell me that this wouldn't be tempting!).
c. Justify "other" expenses as war-expenses. ("Where did that money go, Bill/Whoever?" -"War expenses...")
d. As somebody else said: keep the public busy on that while we... (god knows what)
e. Ever heard that in Kosovo (or around there) there are some quite rich uranium ores and many other minerals??? Think of some nations who'd like to control that... (not necessarily the US, but that's another thing to think about)
4. Have you ever considered the ecological disasters this brought about? Certainly not to the States, but countries like Bulgaria, Greece and Italy will definitely be affected. I know that because I live in the "neighbourhood". I guess it wasn't given much press coverage that some of the "smart" missiles landed INSIDE the perimeter of a nuclear energy plant in Bulgaria (thankfully without exploding)!
5. Oh, by the way, did you guys know that the US/NATO went ahead to wage this war without having an approval from the UN (I think) Security Council (which was supposed to approve any such actions first, and then...)? I didn't hear much about this piece of news in the media...
Finally, contrary to what you might think, I am *not* anti-American. I respect this country but I prefer to keep my own/different opinion on some matters and not just gulp whatever the mainstream press "offers".
Trian
--
I know one thing: that I know nothing.
Well, I'd guess that there will be a lot smaller heat dissipation. Correct me on this, but I assume that since they have no mass (only energy), they have 0 resistance.
:-/
So, the term "cool computer" will probably take a whole new meaning I guess.
However, I am no that excited on the subject. For one thing, I certainly do not posess such knowledge to question their theories.
What worries me, though, is that I kind of expect to be quite a few years before we could get our hands on one of those thingies. Think of the economics.
Suppose that in a month's time Mr. Ozin somes out and says "I've got a processor ready, architecture, ISA, layout, blueprints, the whole lot. Along with exquisite details on the manufacturing process!" (ok, it's not his job to design the processor, but let's say that somehow he got one ready from some processor designer at his uni)
For one thing, all the major corps will jump on it immediately (IBM for example). But the manufacturing process will be a new one and it's gonna be bloody expensive to make them and not the most efficient.
Another reason they're gonna be *really* expensive, even if the manufacturing process is just 5% more expensive than current practices: the corps so far have spent billions on investments in both product development and the respective manufacturing infrastructures. And they will want to milk that cow first on us and THEN, in a few years' time, introduce the optical chips as the high-prestige ones with equivalent prices...
No need to rush. Even a company rushing to beat the competition (take AMD for example, my favourite) will be held back a bit. No manufacturer is gonna make such big jumps.
A bit off-topic, but think about it. I wouldn't expect this technology to become mainstream anytime soon (btw, does the word "military" ring a bell??? I'm sure they'll want it first)
Trian
Not BASIC, please! All the lecturers at my uni. (yes, I am a computer science student) foam if you even say the word and I tend to agree with them (but not because they are my lecturers). It's generally accepted to be a horrible language if you wanna teach somebody the principles of programming (or at least, teach them _right_).
:-) and a b@$t@%d to learn but I guess the folks at uni should know better... Personally, though, I wouldn't exactly have it at the top of my list... :-/
And if it makes any difference to you, keep in mind that Basic was designed by Bill Gates himself (not that it matters to me, but I thought you should know if you already don't)
From my personal experience, I'd say to start off with Java. I started learning it last September and it's very easy to pick up and not cryptic at all. Plus, it's OO, which is a very good way to start with.
At this point I have to note that before I started uni I had no programming experience at all (unless you call batch files and a bit of BASIC "programming"). I'm particularly happy I didn't get to learn much BASIC beforehand and I'm equally happy that I got to learn Java. As you might have guessed, therefore, my experience on programming languages is very limited and in a way I am very much like your kids on this aspect.
Then, you might also want to consider Eiffel. It's much like Java plus more powerful. OK, it's not a mainstream language, but I've heard only good things about it... (I've never used it but I DO plan to do)
When we started our course at uni, the first thing we were taught was Scheme, on the course "Principles of Programming". Now, I know that Scheme is simply lots of parentheses
Alternatively, you can also teach them Prolog along with whatever you might decide to teach them mainly. It's a 4th generation language and it introduces some very interesting concepts behind programming. We were taught Prolog last year and I have to say that the concepts behind it and its potentials are definitely worth knowing...
Anyway, hope this helps a bit...
Trian
--
I know one thing: that I know nothing.
Redundant comment:
:-/
I don't think it's only me thinking that if the MPAA wasn't making such a big fuss about piracy, people wouldn't have bothered that much to research into ways of how to pirate movies.
The MPAA being all that frantic about piracy, it is really ASKING for piracy.
So, to me that was a bit of a thing I was expecting sooner or later. I just expected it to be a bit more underground. And I will agree with the various posters who commented on the movie industry's greed. It makes me sick to think what else goes on their minds in the meantime and makes me VERY worried to think that if NOW they are THAT bad, what will they be like in 10-20 years or something...
It's a bit ironic/twisted to think about it, but in the end movies like Mad Max and the Matrix (etc.) seem more and more of the foreseeable future rather than science fiction (if you get my gist)...
anyway... lets hope they don't get their way on these things...
Trian
Good lord!
I hate to ask, but what about 1024 or 2048-bit PGP encryption, mate?
Trian
have you considered the following question?
How much support are those customers likely to request and how often?
It all depends on the services you are offering and how well you document them (if it's some piece of software, for example).
All in all, a well designed documentation and no bugs (if possible to start with, if it's software) can reduce the amount of required support to a minimum.
Trian
Well, isn't Linux about choice? Then why not have tens of graphics programs?
As for open sourcing: well, I wouldn't exactly mind if Corel didn't open-source Draw or Adobe didn't open-source Photoshop or if Newtek didn't open-source LightWave etc. Reason: they are all excellent packages at what they do and lets not start yelling about open-source all over the place. Some companies may think otherwise but if their software does the job, I don't really mind.
For the GIMP: I don't exactly like it (I know I have blasphemied, forgive me!). I just can't wait till Adobe *eventually* decides to keep the Unix version of Photoshop up to date (any Adobe guys listening?????? Where are you????). I've been using it (PS) since version 3.0.4 in Windoze and it's evolved to a great package, thank you. Gimp is good, but it kind-of lacks the usability yet. It's a good program with a very nice lot of features but it isn't quite "there" yet. I'd love to help but I'm not a programmer (at least not of that skill). I'm a graphics designer.
I mean OK, it's open source, it's free and everything, but I've seen better (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but that's a personal opinion, if I'm entitled to one.). Canvas 7-beta was also quite good, though its design is a bit of a mix of various image-manipulation and layout programs and therefore its usability and intuitivity do leave quite a few things to be desired.
In summary: Linux is about choice and *your* choice is not necessarily *my* choice (as you have seen above).
Trian
can anyone point me to a real-world application or website that actually uses Java?
Well, my company is writing a VHDL compiler / simulator in Java and it is working quite fast, thank you very much. I'm writing some of the GUI stuff for this project, in Java as well, and it is beutiful to program in.
I have been using Java since September (1999), and here are my experiences so far:
- it's very easy to pick up.
- being an OO language it does add some logical structure and hierarchy by itself to your programs that C etc. programmers have to think about to create.
- despite what hardcore programmers say, I think that the lack of pointers in the language is actually quite beneficial. It lets you focus on your task at hand, rather than worrying about the umpteenth pointer and stuff being out of place and so on and so on... OK, it isn't fit for low-level programming, but it's quite good for pretty much anything else.
- It is easy to write GUI applications. Once you get the hang of it (which isn't hard), you are on your way to create some complex GUIs with minimal effort compared, say, to C.
- Add the rest of the (argued) advantages of OO programming (which I quite enjoy) and there you have it.
Of course you can argue that C++ is also OO, but you'll most likely be also aware what a beast of a language it is.As for using the Java libraries being a bit bizarre, I'd say that the method names, although a bit long sometimes, are quite intuitive and this improves readability. Give somebody a C program and give them then the same program written in the too-wordy Java language and ask them which is more readable/understandable...
Finally, for the speed issue: well, OK, so it's slower. So don't develop your games or nuclear explosion simulators in Java. However my experience is that it isn't that bad. I'd say that the loss of a bit of speed is compensated by the portability of the language. Yes, the GUIs I'm writing (for example) work on all Windoze, Solaris and Linux with minimal attention (i.e. "porting" effort) during development and I'm very happy about it.
Trian