It was discovered not long ago that hair itself contains cells, not just the follicles, and that the hair protects those cells against damage. This has been a massive boon to archaeological DNA studies, as it massively reduces contamination as well as reducing loss of information.
The discovery was made during studies of the hair of woolly mammoth. It's a fascinating line of research and one that is under-utilized at present
I believe the Russians had lost control of their satellite. The Irridium was certainly manoeverable, though. So, yes, it was avoidable. For conspiracy theorists, this will raise the question of who benefits from the debris field. For everyone else, it raises questions like "who cleans up this mess?" and "who pays for it to be cleaned up, if it is?"
On the other hand, there was a case a few years back where a meteorite smashed into some Australian guy's house and demolished the sofa he'd only just got up from.
Why it had to pick on him, rather than Haliburton, I don't know.
Some of the early proposals for satellite phones would have put enough in orbit that if any two had collided, the rest would have smashed into the debris field, again resulting in a complete block to launch.
Remember, one of the early space shuttles was hit by a fleck of paint in orbit. The impact nearly smashed a hole through the windshield. A fragment the size of a dried pea would not necessarily be visible from ground stations on Earth but might easily be expected to punch through any space vehicle in its path, along with anyone inside.
It's no more (or less) certified than Windows for exactly the same reason. As long as Windows boasts about its security - including EAL rating - Linux gets to do likewise. The difference is, you can run the software portion of the EAL tests for Linux (they're open-source and part of the LTP) and you can therefore verify that there is nothing obviously contrary to the certification in your installation.
You can't do the same for Windows.
It is also important to remember that the image Linux has has nothing to do with what people know, it has everything to do with what people perceive. The same is true of Windows.
Perceptions sometimes start as facts, but can also start as factoids, Urban Legends, slander or even press releases. Perceptions have very little relationship to the truth, but they do have a very close relationship with what people think the truth is (or should be).
Perception is used by Microsoft to bludgeon any and all opponents. Survival depends on learning to parry and riposte. Windows is weak on the very front they are attacking on, so is a logical place to strike. If that means taking the truth and bending it, it is better bent than broken in a dozen places.
In the end, the only thing that matters is the utter defeat of claims that would be slander were they against a person or an entity that has the legal protections of a person. Since these attacks are being made and/or funded by an 800,000 lb. gorilla, this requires something a bit more forceful than a "those guys aren't being fair".
Push every exec's button. Exploit their paranoia over being seen to do the wrong thing. Use (and abuse) the fact that they are loyal to no-one and nothing other than their paycheck. This paranoia has been created by corporations to destroy competitors, and has been used to that effect. You are doing nothing beyond giving the guilty a taste of their own medicine by turning it back on them.
Well, the next question is whether these hairs are fossilized or actual. If actual, hair is remarkably good at preserving DNA. It may be possible to determine what primate the hairs belong to.
Oh, there's actually a much better ways to do things. Windows 2000 had its NIST certification withdrawn due to insecurities (you don't have to say those were fixed and it was revalidated).
Whereas Linux is certified at around EAL5 - one of the highest Government ratings for commercial software and above the standards needed for classified work. Linux also has security code by the NSA. They can't endorse it, being the Government and all, but would the NSA spend money on software they can't use?
Even NASA and the Department of Energy have spent millions on Linux systems and putting some of their most essential work in that environment. If it's good enough to secure our nation against terror, doesn't it have to be better than the system you're patching monthly and still getting break-ins on?
For the LED, yes, you're correct. If all you want is a single LED for an on/off measure, then a single cheap component is all you need. If, on the other hand, you wanted a scale readout, you still only need a single vaccuum tube but might need half a dozen or more LEDs or more. Eventually, the tube becomes cheaper.
Yes, the hidden costs you mention are important to factor in. Eliminating ammonia production would devastate the food supply available, but this would have the benefit of reducing human population to something sensible, so it's not all bad.
But assuming you're not wanting this to happen, coal and other fossil fuels will necessarily be consumed and might as well generate power whilst they are doing so. However, you only need as many such power stations as generate the necessary byproduct, and you can tailor the type of burn to maximize the byproduct even if it reduces the overall power-generating capability, as power then becomes the real byproduct.
Portland cement is an interesting one. The Romans added volcanic ash to powdered limestone, as the ash reacts with water to chemically generate massive amounts of heat, producing an effect very similar to Portland cement. Not necessarily as high a grade and definitely not as uniform in quality, but still definitely an innovative way of working.
They appear to have used a method developed by the Egyptians, who poured the tops of pyramids into place before allowing what is essentially cement to solidify, but adapted it - likely as a result of an experiment or accidental discovery somewhere around Vesuvius.
This does not mean we can just substitute Roman technology for modern technology - although given the really crappy cement people use, there are occasions when this might not be such a bad idea. What it does mean is that Portland cement will likely borrow other techniques to become more energy-efficient, in time.
Steel smelting - well, there you have me stumped. I don't know of any alternative methods for producing or handling high-grade steel. It's energy-hungry and always has been. If you don't mind it being a little "hot" in other ways, I suppose you could reprocess nuclear fuel rods to produce a sub-critical mass. The heat from the thermonuclear activity should be ample, but it's hard to say what atomic nuclei will be in the "steel" afterwards, or what you do with the three axe-wielding arms it has grown.
Not necessarily lawyers. Accountants are probably just as much to blame. If you sink money into research that is worthless (or, at least, say you are - since it's likely deferred spending), then Microsoft may be able to claim against that for taxes.
The lawyer side has probably less to do with genuinely bullshit patents and more to do with strategic patenting. If they can anticipate some key component of a competitor's future technology, Microsoft can patent it, making it unlikely the competitor will bother. Nobody wants to fight the 800,000 lb. gorilla, especially as the potential customers are all Microsoft supporters.
Ok, but you've only shown that -some- Slashdotters are ignorant. The distribution of IQs is not an unbiased bell curve (since there are IQs in excess of 200 and none that are negative - well, so long as you don't consider politicians as qualifying as humans). However, because 100 is the average, there must be more people with an IQ below 100 than above for that to hold.
It's reasonable to suppose that IQs on Slashdot follow the distribution seen in the general population, so yes, that means that you'll see more stupid posts than sensible ones. But if you claim that "most" posts are stupid, you are arguing that Slashdot is dumber than the general population. Frankly, you could probably replace half of Slashdot with amoebas and still be better than the general population.
As for renewable and nuclear power, that depends on how you perform the calculations. For example, take solar power. Much of that power will be used for heating. But running water through a copper pipe along a tube where half the tube acts as a reflective surface with a focal point of the pipe, you can heat up the water with far greater efficiency than the theoretical limit of solar panels, let alone solar panels linked to an electrical heater to heat water.
You're still limited by the energy being put in, and your conversion is still bounded, but one very simple high-efficiency conversion will be superior to multiple low-efficiency conversions.
By nuclear power, you mean nuclear fission. There is no shortage of fuel for nuclear fusion, unless you know something about the water table that the rest of us don't. I'm also assuming that by "on the planet", you mean what has been constructed and is currently in operation, rather than what could be got from a fission reactor if it were built to be efficient rather than cheap.
If the Governments of the world stopped farking around and got down to business, we could have plenty of fission capacity in very short order and could have fusion reactors on the grid (not for testing, but for actual consumer use) within 5-10 years.
The only reason the reactor being built in France will take so long is because it's being designed to be "perfect" (which is never the right way to do things). There should be four or five such reactors being assembled quickly at staggered intervals such that data from one can be used to update the design of the next. Stepwise refine! Monolithic design/test methods don't work.
LEDs are limited by current, not voltage, if I recall my electronics correctly. Personally, though, if you're going to use high voltages, you're better off with thermionic valves. You have more control over where, when and how it lights up.
If "a" solution existed to the economy, we wouldn't have had any boom/bust cycles since the very first ones in the stone age.
As with others, I believe I know some of the problems and therefore can suggest fixes to those specific issues.
One problem is that there are too many low-educated people for the number of unskilled/low-skilled jobs that are still done by manual labour. There are likewise too many people at each stage up the educational pyramid for the jobs at those levels.
It would seem to follow that better education that was more affordable would shift the educational pyramid up by enough that sufficient demand existed for each layer within the pyramid. This would not guarantee employment, it would merely guarantee that demand was no longer overwhelmed by supply.
That would seem sensible, from even an elementary economics viewpoint, and would seem both sensible and ethical from a social standpoint. Added to which, as economists would equally be elevated in their levels of knowledge, they should be in a superior position to identify other weaknesses in the system.
A related problem is that skills that are underutilized will grow stale and there is no form of "Sabatical" recognized by the US Government or corporate sector in which people can update. That, however, would require such an overhaul and such a change in thinking that it would be beyond any single President to bring that about.
A second problem is that statisticians aren't working from valid data. The unemployment figures you hear isn't the actual number unemployed. It is the number of people who qualify for unemployment (eg: their company paid unemployment insurance to the same State that the person was resident in, and some qualifying length of time/amount of money has been paid into the insurance, the person hasn't claimed on it for some given period of time AND the person meets that State's definition of what "actively seeking work" might be).
The information you can get out of statistics is no better than the data being put in. If you deliberately filter the data with enough random, local variations, you have an excellent source of random noise and a very poor source of usable data.
Economists may be vastly superior to me (I doubt it, as Economists can't even decide which of the few hundred competing models even describes the United States, let alone the world). However, even assuming this supremacy, of what value is it - and of what value is all of their theorizing - if they do not have data unfiltered by petty politics?
(Incidentally, the current stimulus bill owes far more to Keynsian theory than to Adam Smith.)
The best they can do under the circumstances is produce suggestions on how to optimize the data to best hide reality behind the obscuring details of such filters. They are not tackling the real problem, they are attacking what politicians want to present as the problem.
(Real unemployment in America, if by "real" you mean every meaningfully employable person who has not actively elected to retire but is unable to qualify as employed for reasons beyond their control, is not shown on any official table. I have no idea what it would be, but I'm guessing that if you took all those who have treatable conditions but who are too sick to work and whom Medicade/Medicare has largely forgotten, added in all prisoners, threw in everyone who daren't work because initial wages would be lower than the benefits they get, and eliminated the duplicates, you might easily double the official number of unemployed.)
So, better education would stimulate (some of) the economy and better numbers would stimulate (some of) the economists.
There's lots of other thing I'd consider important, but I'd argue any day of the week that fundamentally better minds operating on fundamentally superior information could likely come up with far superior ideas with far superior rationale. If that's true, then it's better to let such minds find the fixes and avoid accidental damage. If I'm wrong (ie: they're just as screwed up as anyone today) then the damage they do to the economy would make any other idea I had useless anyway.
It's easy to cast stones - especially if you're using a blunderbus. You're guaranteed to hit your target, along with most of the landscape.
So how about you -stop- throwing stones and -start- by stating some specifics. What is wrong with people's ideas on CPU design? You say "virtually all", so presumably you're including me, as I consider myself part of this "great vast all" of which you speak. Specify for me which aspect(s) of CPU design I am ignorant on. Links to the posts of interest would be valuable, but a summary of what I have said versus the reality would be enlightening.
The same goes for your brother. You say "many of the arguments" can be dismissed. I do not want a carefully edited micro-selection of arguments, because that shows clearly that "many" is a blatant falsehood. Show me proof that "many" has any validity in this, that you didn't simply produce for your brother a rundown of the least of the points raised on here (or even points never raised on here at all) in order to find something for your brother to reject.
Ah, but no. Anyone willing to bandy words that are clearly a slam against everyone and yet worded so as to weasel out of any counter-claim has no interest in admitting they're not right. So, no, I don't believe you'll show any clear-cut evidence. If you reply at all, it'll be with further vagueness dressed up to look like definitive statements.
Thought Cisco's discovery protocol was used in routers rather than switches. Ok, in that case, CDP would be a possibility too. Thanks for that.
The point, however, is that the list is not only finite, it is also necessarily very limited. As outside observers, we cannot possibly identify which of those possibilities it is, with any real certainty, but we can suggest tests that would show if it was one candidate or another, and we can suggest a remedy if it turns out to be something one of us has experience in resolving.
To know exactly what the problem is requires knowing the switch concerned and being able to gather test data from it - from the data lines but also from all of the other lines on an ethernet port - when there is no input and when there is controlled input, again on all pins.
(Chances are the hardware guys'll just replace the switch, but a deep analysis would have been fun.)
We, as outsiders, don't have that data, but we do have enough information to eliminate 99.9% of the ways bizarre behaviour can be produced - possibly more, as switches are relatively dumb devices.
Not really. Aliens log onto Slashdot a lot. The Timelords are the worst offenders, using the Matrix and a space/time inversion multiplexor to access the unused ports on the Slashdot switches directly.
It's likely multicast-related, as that's where TFA states the problem was seen. There are only so many multicast issues you can have. True, we don't know the topology. True, we don't know the switch configuration. True, it's just as possible this is some sort of revenge by the Church of Scientology for all the Slashdot articles on them.
However, some things seem more plausible than others. Since this was a spontaneous problem, hardware seems more suspect than software. If it is software (unlikely but possible), the only multicast protocol most switches use are the spanning-tree protocols.
Sure there have been departures. uMicro's OS was object-based, back in the 1980s. I quite liked it. It could also handle the programming languages that Phantom can't, suggesting a retograde step is being taken.
In many ways, MULTICS was a "departure", although technically it's modern programming practices that departed from the direction MULTICS went in. But, hey, it's all relative.
Plan 9 also had some really neat concepts that are missing from "traditional" OS'. Along with all the other examples I'm giving, C doesn't seem to be a problem.
The Transputer went one step further with Occam. An amazing architecture that was completely uniform from the depths of hardware through to the heights of the primary programming language. Elegant, powerful, massively under-utilized, and not terribly well-supported by Inmos' parent company, Thorn EMI. Again, classical programming methods could be used.
The few programs that utilized the Transputer module for the Amiga (which had a single Transputer in it) used very classical programming methods as it's hard to parallelize across a single core.
AFAICS, Phantom appears to repeat history without learning from it.
Based on white papers I've written in the past, I'd suggest the following:
Any standard should be recognized by at least two vendors, of whom at least one should be considered mainstream and at least one should be developed by a non-trivial (less than 3 member) group.
Any standard should not be be unduly burdened by dependencies on system architecture, OS or other facet of technology that is likely to change in the lifetime of data produced under that standard.
Any standard should be documented to someting that is itself an accepted standard (eg: IETF protocols), in a recognized formal notation, or to an extent that a reasonable assessment would class as comprehensive. Improper and inadequate documentation are the two main causes of interoperability issues.
Where there is a requirement to select between two standards that are otherwise equally good, the simpler specification should be chosen first. If the specifications are equally simple, the more extensible of the specifications should be selected.
That the expression isn't French? Well, probably because they only have one course in a meal that contains meat, making it quite stupid in that context.
Slashdot Mirror
It was discovered not long ago that hair itself contains cells, not just the follicles, and that the hair protects those cells against damage. This has been a massive boon to archaeological DNA studies, as it massively reduces contamination as well as reducing loss of information.
The discovery was made during studies of the hair of woolly mammoth. It's a fascinating line of research and one that is under-utilized at present
I believe the Russians had lost control of their satellite. The Irridium was certainly manoeverable, though. So, yes, it was avoidable. For conspiracy theorists, this will raise the question of who benefits from the debris field. For everyone else, it raises questions like "who cleans up this mess?" and "who pays for it to be cleaned up, if it is?"
On the other hand, there was a case a few years back where a meteorite smashed into some Australian guy's house and demolished the sofa he'd only just got up from.
Why it had to pick on him, rather than Haliburton, I don't know.
Some of the early proposals for satellite phones would have put enough in orbit that if any two had collided, the rest would have smashed into the debris field, again resulting in a complete block to launch.
Remember, one of the early space shuttles was hit by a fleck of paint in orbit. The impact nearly smashed a hole through the windshield. A fragment the size of a dried pea would not necessarily be visible from ground stations on Earth but might easily be expected to punch through any space vehicle in its path, along with anyone inside.
Passwords must be in the correct three-line format.
It's no more (or less) certified than Windows for exactly the same reason. As long as Windows boasts about its security - including EAL rating - Linux gets to do likewise. The difference is, you can run the software portion of the EAL tests for Linux (they're open-source and part of the LTP) and you can therefore verify that there is nothing obviously contrary to the certification in your installation.
You can't do the same for Windows.
It is also important to remember that the image Linux has has nothing to do with what people know, it has everything to do with what people perceive. The same is true of Windows.
Perceptions sometimes start as facts, but can also start as factoids, Urban Legends, slander or even press releases. Perceptions have very little relationship to the truth, but they do have a very close relationship with what people think the truth is (or should be).
Perception is used by Microsoft to bludgeon any and all opponents. Survival depends on learning to parry and riposte. Windows is weak on the very front they are attacking on, so is a logical place to strike. If that means taking the truth and bending it, it is better bent than broken in a dozen places.
In the end, the only thing that matters is the utter defeat of claims that would be slander were they against a person or an entity that has the legal protections of a person. Since these attacks are being made and/or funded by an 800,000 lb. gorilla, this requires something a bit more forceful than a "those guys aren't being fair".
Push every exec's button. Exploit their paranoia over being seen to do the wrong thing. Use (and abuse) the fact that they are loyal to no-one and nothing other than their paycheck. This paranoia has been created by corporations to destroy competitors, and has been used to that effect. You are doing nothing beyond giving the guilty a taste of their own medicine by turning it back on them.
Well, the next question is whether these hairs are fossilized or actual. If actual, hair is remarkably good at preserving DNA. It may be possible to determine what primate the hairs belong to.
Oh, there's actually a much better ways to do things. Windows 2000 had its NIST certification withdrawn due to insecurities (you don't have to say those were fixed and it was revalidated).
Whereas Linux is certified at around EAL5 - one of the highest Government ratings for commercial software and above the standards needed for classified work. Linux also has security code by the NSA. They can't endorse it, being the Government and all, but would the NSA spend money on software they can't use?
Even NASA and the Department of Energy have spent millions on Linux systems and putting some of their most essential work in that environment. If it's good enough to secure our nation against terror, doesn't it have to be better than the system you're patching monthly and still getting break-ins on?
For the LED, yes, you're correct. If all you want is a single LED for an on/off measure, then a single cheap component is all you need. If, on the other hand, you wanted a scale readout, you still only need a single vaccuum tube but might need half a dozen or more LEDs or more. Eventually, the tube becomes cheaper.
Yes, the hidden costs you mention are important to factor in. Eliminating ammonia production would devastate the food supply available, but this would have the benefit of reducing human population to something sensible, so it's not all bad.
But assuming you're not wanting this to happen, coal and other fossil fuels will necessarily be consumed and might as well generate power whilst they are doing so. However, you only need as many such power stations as generate the necessary byproduct, and you can tailor the type of burn to maximize the byproduct even if it reduces the overall power-generating capability, as power then becomes the real byproduct.
Portland cement is an interesting one. The Romans added volcanic ash to powdered limestone, as the ash reacts with water to chemically generate massive amounts of heat, producing an effect very similar to Portland cement. Not necessarily as high a grade and definitely not as uniform in quality, but still definitely an innovative way of working.
They appear to have used a method developed by the Egyptians, who poured the tops of pyramids into place before allowing what is essentially cement to solidify, but adapted it - likely as a result of an experiment or accidental discovery somewhere around Vesuvius.
This does not mean we can just substitute Roman technology for modern technology - although given the really crappy cement people use, there are occasions when this might not be such a bad idea. What it does mean is that Portland cement will likely borrow other techniques to become more energy-efficient, in time.
Steel smelting - well, there you have me stumped. I don't know of any alternative methods for producing or handling high-grade steel. It's energy-hungry and always has been. If you don't mind it being a little "hot" in other ways, I suppose you could reprocess nuclear fuel rods to produce a sub-critical mass. The heat from the thermonuclear activity should be ample, but it's hard to say what atomic nuclei will be in the "steel" afterwards, or what you do with the three axe-wielding arms it has grown.
You only have so many people, but you have an endless supply of chocolate-covered espresso coffee beans.
I think 7 of 9 is the adult version of Windows 7. It might sell extremely well in some markets, too.
I knew they were penny-pinchers, but selling the fire! That's seriously inventive.
Not necessarily lawyers. Accountants are probably just as much to blame. If you sink money into research that is worthless (or, at least, say you are - since it's likely deferred spending), then Microsoft may be able to claim against that for taxes.
The lawyer side has probably less to do with genuinely bullshit patents and more to do with strategic patenting. If they can anticipate some key component of a competitor's future technology, Microsoft can patent it, making it unlikely the competitor will bother. Nobody wants to fight the 800,000 lb. gorilla, especially as the potential customers are all Microsoft supporters.
Ok, but you've only shown that -some- Slashdotters are ignorant. The distribution of IQs is not an unbiased bell curve (since there are IQs in excess of 200 and none that are negative - well, so long as you don't consider politicians as qualifying as humans). However, because 100 is the average, there must be more people with an IQ below 100 than above for that to hold.
It's reasonable to suppose that IQs on Slashdot follow the distribution seen in the general population, so yes, that means that you'll see more stupid posts than sensible ones. But if you claim that "most" posts are stupid, you are arguing that Slashdot is dumber than the general population. Frankly, you could probably replace half of Slashdot with amoebas and still be better than the general population.
As for renewable and nuclear power, that depends on how you perform the calculations. For example, take solar power. Much of that power will be used for heating. But running water through a copper pipe along a tube where half the tube acts as a reflective surface with a focal point of the pipe, you can heat up the water with far greater efficiency than the theoretical limit of solar panels, let alone solar panels linked to an electrical heater to heat water.
You're still limited by the energy being put in, and your conversion is still bounded, but one very simple high-efficiency conversion will be superior to multiple low-efficiency conversions.
By nuclear power, you mean nuclear fission. There is no shortage of fuel for nuclear fusion, unless you know something about the water table that the rest of us don't. I'm also assuming that by "on the planet", you mean what has been constructed and is currently in operation, rather than what could be got from a fission reactor if it were built to be efficient rather than cheap.
If the Governments of the world stopped farking around and got down to business, we could have plenty of fission capacity in very short order and could have fusion reactors on the grid (not for testing, but for actual consumer use) within 5-10 years.
The only reason the reactor being built in France will take so long is because it's being designed to be "perfect" (which is never the right way to do things). There should be four or five such reactors being assembled quickly at staggered intervals such that data from one can be used to update the design of the next. Stepwise refine! Monolithic design/test methods don't work.
LEDs are limited by current, not voltage, if I recall my electronics correctly. Personally, though, if you're going to use high voltages, you're better off with thermionic valves. You have more control over where, when and how it lights up.
If "a" solution existed to the economy, we wouldn't have had any boom/bust cycles since the very first ones in the stone age.
As with others, I believe I know some of the problems and therefore can suggest fixes to those specific issues.
One problem is that there are too many low-educated people for the number of unskilled/low-skilled jobs that are still done by manual labour. There are likewise too many people at each stage up the educational pyramid for the jobs at those levels.
It would seem to follow that better education that was more affordable would shift the educational pyramid up by enough that sufficient demand existed for each layer within the pyramid. This would not guarantee employment, it would merely guarantee that demand was no longer overwhelmed by supply.
That would seem sensible, from even an elementary economics viewpoint, and would seem both sensible and ethical from a social standpoint. Added to which, as economists would equally be elevated in their levels of knowledge, they should be in a superior position to identify other weaknesses in the system.
A related problem is that skills that are underutilized will grow stale and there is no form of "Sabatical" recognized by the US Government or corporate sector in which people can update. That, however, would require such an overhaul and such a change in thinking that it would be beyond any single President to bring that about.
A second problem is that statisticians aren't working from valid data. The unemployment figures you hear isn't the actual number unemployed. It is the number of people who qualify for unemployment (eg: their company paid unemployment insurance to the same State that the person was resident in, and some qualifying length of time/amount of money has been paid into the insurance, the person hasn't claimed on it for some given period of time AND the person meets that State's definition of what "actively seeking work" might be).
The information you can get out of statistics is no better than the data being put in. If you deliberately filter the data with enough random, local variations, you have an excellent source of random noise and a very poor source of usable data.
Economists may be vastly superior to me (I doubt it, as Economists can't even decide which of the few hundred competing models even describes the United States, let alone the world). However, even assuming this supremacy, of what value is it - and of what value is all of their theorizing - if they do not have data unfiltered by petty politics?
(Incidentally, the current stimulus bill owes far more to Keynsian theory than to Adam Smith.)
The best they can do under the circumstances is produce suggestions on how to optimize the data to best hide reality behind the obscuring details of such filters. They are not tackling the real problem, they are attacking what politicians want to present as the problem.
(Real unemployment in America, if by "real" you mean every meaningfully employable person who has not actively elected to retire but is unable to qualify as employed for reasons beyond their control, is not shown on any official table. I have no idea what it would be, but I'm guessing that if you took all those who have treatable conditions but who are too sick to work and whom Medicade/Medicare has largely forgotten, added in all prisoners, threw in everyone who daren't work because initial wages would be lower than the benefits they get, and eliminated the duplicates, you might easily double the official number of unemployed.)
So, better education would stimulate (some of) the economy and better numbers would stimulate (some of) the economists.
There's lots of other thing I'd consider important, but I'd argue any day of the week that fundamentally better minds operating on fundamentally superior information could likely come up with far superior ideas with far superior rationale. If that's true, then it's better to let such minds find the fixes and avoid accidental damage. If I'm wrong (ie: they're just as screwed up as anyone today) then the damage they do to the economy would make any other idea I had useless anyway.
It's easy to cast stones - especially if you're using a blunderbus. You're guaranteed to hit your target, along with most of the landscape.
So how about you -stop- throwing stones and -start- by stating some specifics. What is wrong with people's ideas on CPU design? You say "virtually all", so presumably you're including me, as I consider myself part of this "great vast all" of which you speak. Specify for me which aspect(s) of CPU design I am ignorant on. Links to the posts of interest would be valuable, but a summary of what I have said versus the reality would be enlightening.
The same goes for your brother. You say "many of the arguments" can be dismissed. I do not want a carefully edited micro-selection of arguments, because that shows clearly that "many" is a blatant falsehood. Show me proof that "many" has any validity in this, that you didn't simply produce for your brother a rundown of the least of the points raised on here (or even points never raised on here at all) in order to find something for your brother to reject.
Ah, but no. Anyone willing to bandy words that are clearly a slam against everyone and yet worded so as to weasel out of any counter-claim has no interest in admitting they're not right. So, no, I don't believe you'll show any clear-cut evidence. If you reply at all, it'll be with further vagueness dressed up to look like definitive statements.
Good! I don't pirate IP laws either. No resale value.
Thought Cisco's discovery protocol was used in routers rather than switches. Ok, in that case, CDP would be a possibility too. Thanks for that.
The point, however, is that the list is not only finite, it is also necessarily very limited. As outside observers, we cannot possibly identify which of those possibilities it is, with any real certainty, but we can suggest tests that would show if it was one candidate or another, and we can suggest a remedy if it turns out to be something one of us has experience in resolving.
To know exactly what the problem is requires knowing the switch concerned and being able to gather test data from it - from the data lines but also from all of the other lines on an ethernet port - when there is no input and when there is controlled input, again on all pins.
(Chances are the hardware guys'll just replace the switch, but a deep analysis would have been fun.)
We, as outsiders, don't have that data, but we do have enough information to eliminate 99.9% of the ways bizarre behaviour can be produced - possibly more, as switches are relatively dumb devices.
Not really. Aliens log onto Slashdot a lot. The Timelords are the worst offenders, using the Matrix and a space/time inversion multiplexor to access the unused ports on the Slashdot switches directly.
It's likely multicast-related, as that's where TFA states the problem was seen. There are only so many multicast issues you can have. True, we don't know the topology. True, we don't know the switch configuration. True, it's just as possible this is some sort of revenge by the Church of Scientology for all the Slashdot articles on them.
However, some things seem more plausible than others. Since this was a spontaneous problem, hardware seems more suspect than software. If it is software (unlikely but possible), the only multicast protocol most switches use are the spanning-tree protocols.
*cue Holst's Mars* (Hey, we all know CmdrTaco is related to Professor Bernard Quatermass)
Act as a data source to Excel.
Sure there have been departures. uMicro's OS was object-based, back in the 1980s. I quite liked it. It could also handle the programming languages that Phantom can't, suggesting a retograde step is being taken.
In many ways, MULTICS was a "departure", although technically it's modern programming practices that departed from the direction MULTICS went in. But, hey, it's all relative.
Plan 9 also had some really neat concepts that are missing from "traditional" OS'. Along with all the other examples I'm giving, C doesn't seem to be a problem.
The Transputer went one step further with Occam. An amazing architecture that was completely uniform from the depths of hardware through to the heights of the primary programming language. Elegant, powerful, massively under-utilized, and not terribly well-supported by Inmos' parent company, Thorn EMI. Again, classical programming methods could be used.
The few programs that utilized the Transputer module for the Amiga (which had a single Transputer in it) used very classical programming methods as it's hard to parallelize across a single core.
AFAICS, Phantom appears to repeat history without learning from it.
Based on white papers I've written in the past, I'd suggest the following:
That the expression isn't French? Well, probably because they only have one course in a meal that contains meat, making it quite stupid in that context.