Gravity is a theory. I propose a test. You go to the top of a 10 story building and step off. It's a test of a theory. There is a chance you might not fall and die. Because, according to you, it's only a theory.
There is another benefit to doing this experiment. According to Darwinian evolution, the population will be improved because the genetic component that makes you an idiot will be removed from the gene pool. (I just hope you have not reproduced yet.)
All and all, an experiment with no negative outcome. Sweet.
You're all geeking out abut the wrong part. The fact that the US, UK and Russia are in a dead heat for eighth place is pathetic.
So what do these three countries have in common? How about the fact that they are all politically corrupt oligarchies run for the power and profit of the economic/political elite. The proof: the wealth gap (ever expanding) between the rich and everyone else.
Meanwhile, socialist Sweden ranks number one. You know, evil socialism where everyone is enslaved and reduced to pathetic dependency on the state and nothing works because government! Of course Sweden also outranks the US, UK and Russian in health, longevity, education, low poverty, pretty much any measure of quality of life.
No, actually I never said anything about "100%" anarchy. I described Somalia as a place with "no functioning government". I said nothing to imply that an anarchistic government was the same as a completely failed state (except using it as a rhetorical device).
I guess I have to spell it out for you. Despite the claim of rationality libertarianism has a very romantic view of the human condition: "If we could just get rid of the damn government then it would all work out great". Just like the romantic view of communism: "If we could just get rid of private property then it would all work out great". Note these are rhetorical simplifications, not formal doctrine. I was not talking literally. I assumed that my audience was able to see that point. A big mistake on my part, given that it's Slashdot.
By the way, you're refutation is crap. It's the No True Scotsman fallacy. "No real Libertarian..."
Wrong: Somalia. When there is no functioning government there is no chance of government surveillance.
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
The positions name should be "Divine Ruler". That would return Microsoft to the good old days when Gates ruled by divine right, whatever Microsoft decreed inevitably became the standard, and Linus was some obscure guy in a research position. A newly anointed leader is all that's required.
So fucking what? It's still the same sleazy scam. The number of visas, the exemptions, the gaming the system all have the same goal: impoverishing most of the US to put more money in the pockets of the elite.
You are so brainwashed by the illusion of capitalism and faux "free enterprise" that you are supporting the looting of America. The game is rigged. There is no level playing field. The ever increasing gap between the wealth and the peasants (not citizens, because citizens have rights) is absolute proof of this.
You have delusions of being one of the ruling class. Unless the long term trend ends you will end up in the gutter, with the rest of the former middle class. Just how stupid are you?
The big players have bribed the right people (campaign contributions, eventual employment in the private sector), and used the right high priced lawyers. It's only the low level scamsters who get caught. Then the authorities get to pretend that they are enforcing the law and protecting US workers.
It's just a piece of theater. Nothing to see here, move along.
Wrong. A conclusion based on ill conceived science fiction.
Any civilization that can travel between star systems will be so advanced that it will not need to plunder whoever is at their destination. Generally there are two interstellar travel options.
First, Einstein speed of light restrictions hold, and it takes a minimum of hundreds of years to make the trip. Maybe thousands or more. The technology required means that the travelers can maintain themselves in raw vacuum for very long periods. They have access to power sources that will last as well. If they are going even 10% of the speed of light they have some amazing shielding from the added radiation they encounter from their speed. If they are going slower, 1% or 2% of the speed of light, they have equally amazing biological technology to support themselves and whatever biosphere they need. Same thing for some sort of hibernation. If they have this level of technology, they need nothing from us. Perhaps some raw materials, but those are more easily accessed from rocks and such in the solar system, not down a gravity well. The invasion scenario is ridiculous.
A similar argument holds for FTL travel. The technology is so advanced from our point of view it might as well be magic. There are one or two speculative models where FTL works under the Standard Model of physics, but they require exotic matter and mind bending abilities over matter and energy. Any technology beyond the Standard Model is ever more mind bending. Magicians need nothing from us.
The conqueror models is a projection of human history into space. It doesn't hold over interstellar distances. The distance scales and radically different physical environment of interstellar space invalidate any reason for an invasion.
For all that they actually do, this could easily replace the blithering idiots at all the airports, and most likely do a better job. As for the glitches, I'm sure that they would be less objectionable then what happens all the time right now.
Do you keep your KKK robes in the closet where they won't get wrinkled but someone might see them or do you fold them in a drawer where they need to be ironed but it is less likely that you'll be found out?
This is clearly a step in outsourcing childhood. Why have real children take a test when both the test taking and the test generation can be automated. The kids don't need to go to school, but can work at home, i.e. play video games and eat junk food.
Standardized test scores will go up so the education establishment will look good. Plus they can fire all the teachers and replace them with hourly contract workers with 1-HB visas who will work even more unpaid overtime then current teachers. English fluency not required.
Naturally, there will be no cost savings to the public, because all the profit will go into the pockets of the outsourcing companies. That's what already happened with for profit higher education, and the public and the students are left holding the bag. But not too worry. Only the taxpayers, students and general investors were screwed. The insiders already got out with their guaranteed profit. It's the American way.
Nope. Public libraries and coffee shops with free wi-fi. And that doesn't include resources available from the school itself. A high school might no have a whole lot, but a community college will have something, and high schools will always have some formal relationship with the local high schools. There will be a way.
Try to think a little more creatively. Negative thinking can be self reinforcing.
It's not reasonable to say nothing will change in the next five years, but get real. Yes, a lot of organization will blindly follow the herd, but not everyone will. A lot of stuff will stay exactly the same.
"The cloud" is not a magic carpet, and there are a lot of organizations who will get burned by falling for all the hype. I personally know a cloud based service provider that actually believed the marketing crap on reliability. When their cloud provider (one of the big two) crashed they had no backup and no recovery plan either. They were flat on their back for a week, and were still picking up the pieces a month after that. One more of those and they might just shut their doors.
So here is another fad, and the inevitable backlash will come when it fails to deliver. So how dumb do you have to be to announce the start of a brand new shiny paradigm shift that will make everything really different in a blink of an eye. Grow up.
Apple is a closed hardware platform, although Hackentosh is still an option.
OTOH Apple hardware/software is very reliable although not the most cost efficient. Even though the BSOD is not the daily occurrence it used to be, Apple machines stay up because of their BSD roots. I'm using an old iMac, and and I have not had an unplanned reboot in years. Bringing the machine down is only needed for software updates or hardware failures/changes. Windows machines are not like that.
Also more then one person has pointed out that Windows on Apple hardware is a very good combination, if you ignore the cost issues.
No matter what they call it, when they move to a subscription model it will be the de facto Windows 11. That is why Windows 10 is "free", and why they say that it will not be a long term version. It's to clear the deck so fewer people will try and hang on to their old non-subscription versions. Then the hammer will come down.
I keep trying to point this out, but nobody seems to notice. Everyone will be squealing like stuck pigs, but it shouldn't be any surprise when it happens.
If you read the article, it says that Intel is becoming less and less specific about what is in their chips. For example, they are not providing a gate count for any of the Skylake chips.
Additionally, the Power Control unit has a full CPU in it: "The PCU is essentially a microcontroller (we’ve seen references to a full Intel architecture (IA) core in there)".
Given the above, there is an incredible opening for some TLA agency (N?A) to put their very own software/hardware back door in at the silicon level. How would anyone ever know? Given the fact that they have already tapped a large percentage of all the phones in the world, the logical next step would be to place bugging capabilities in every Intel CPU on the planet.
I am currently looking at my Bliss Reference Manuel, publish date Nov. 9 1970, third revision. It's from the Computer Science department at Carnegie-Mellon. It has a red cover.
BLISS was an "implementation language" for the PDP-10. This was in the days when systems software was written in assembly language, and there was a lot of skepticism that a high level language could be used for the job. BLISS was intended to show that it was possible. BLISS-10 knew about the assembly language of the PDP-10, and you could express individual instructions and directly refer to hardware registers and addressing modes.
Different versions of BLISS existed for each different machine. There was BLISS-11 for the PDP-11 and BLISS-32 for the VAX. Some of the VMS system software was written in BLISS-32, and I think that this was also true for the PDP-11. The PDP-11 BLISS was cross compiled on a PDP-10.
There was a compiled version of SNOBOL4 called SPITBOL. Source code is available, and there is a macro implementation, so if someone wanted to it could be made to live again...
You opinions may or may not be valid. I won't argue about any particular judgement.
Your attitude sucks rocks. Your use of the word "hipster" as a pejorative is asinine. It demonstrates that you have the emotional maturity of an eight year old.
To show just how puerile you are, I will demonstrate by substituting "cooties" for "hipster" in part of your post.
For the avoidance of doubt, Go, Dart, Swift and Rust have top tier cooties, and a kitten masturbates god every time someone writes their first Hello World in any of them.
Ruby is so obviously has cooties that not even cooties think it's cool anymore.
Every language developed in the past 15 years which promises AMAZINGLY EASY PARALLEL PROGRAMMING OPPORTUNITIES has cooties.
Since there are no standards on Slashdot it makes no difference when you post drivel like this. If you were to ever display this kind of behavior in a school or professional environment you would be lucky to last a week.
Get a clue. Grow up. Otherwise you are a waste of space.
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There is another benefit to doing this experiment. According to Darwinian evolution, the population will be improved because the genetic component that makes you an idiot will be removed from the gene pool. (I just hope you have not reproduced yet.)
All and all, an experiment with no negative outcome. Sweet.
So what do these three countries have in common? How about the fact that they are all politically corrupt oligarchies run for the power and profit of the economic/political elite. The proof: the wealth gap (ever expanding) between the rich and everyone else.
Meanwhile, socialist Sweden ranks number one. You know, evil socialism where everyone is enslaved and reduced to pathetic dependency on the state and nothing works because government! Of course Sweden also outranks the US, UK and Russian in health, longevity, education, low poverty, pretty much any measure of quality of life.
Just sayin'.
I guess I have to spell it out for you. Despite the claim of rationality libertarianism has a very romantic view of the human condition: "If we could just get rid of the damn government then it would all work out great". Just like the romantic view of communism: "If we could just get rid of private property then it would all work out great". Note these are rhetorical simplifications, not formal doctrine. I was not talking literally. I assumed that my audience was able to see that point. A big mistake on my part, given that it's Slashdot.
By the way, you're refutation is crap. It's the No True Scotsman fallacy. "No real Libertarian..."
The question has far to many implicit assumptions. It reeks of libertarian elitism.
Is no government spying on residents identical to personal freedom? That's why the Somalia example is relevant. The government isn't spying on you, but you are at the mercy (literally) of warlords and violent religions factions. So what do are you really after?
In the sense of traditional Western values, the current best answer might be Scandinavia or Germany. In those places your private life is really your own. For example there's none of the crap like in the US where right wing religious fanatics want to get into your sex life. As for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", most of the citizens are far better off then the US. They work fewer hours, have more time off, get better health care and retire at a much higher standard of living. They live longer, which is the key component of that "life" part of the quote.
Of course they have less economic freedom, but they also have much better functioning democracy. Nobody can go out and try an buy elections, which is now the way the US elections are run.
it's a trade off. But from the way the question was asked, I doubt that you like these answers. You're looking for a libertarian paradise, when what that really gets you is Somalia.
The positions name should be "Divine Ruler". That would return Microsoft to the good old days when Gates ruled by divine right, whatever Microsoft decreed inevitably became the standard, and Linus was some obscure guy in a research position. A newly anointed leader is all that's required.
You are so brainwashed by the illusion of capitalism and faux "free enterprise" that you are supporting the looting of America. The game is rigged. There is no level playing field. The ever increasing gap between the wealth and the peasants (not citizens, because citizens have rights) is absolute proof of this.
You have delusions of being one of the ruling class. Unless the long term trend ends you will end up in the gutter, with the rest of the former middle class. Just how stupid are you?
The big players have bribed the right people (campaign contributions, eventual employment in the private sector), and used the right high priced lawyers. It's only the low level scamsters who get caught. Then the authorities get to pretend that they are enforcing the law and protecting US workers.
It's just a piece of theater. Nothing to see here, move along.
You're off your meds again, aren't you?
Any civilization that can travel between star systems will be so advanced that it will not need to plunder whoever is at their destination. Generally there are two interstellar travel options.
First, Einstein speed of light restrictions hold, and it takes a minimum of hundreds of years to make the trip. Maybe thousands or more. The technology required means that the travelers can maintain themselves in raw vacuum for very long periods. They have access to power sources that will last as well. If they are going even 10% of the speed of light they have some amazing shielding from the added radiation they encounter from their speed. If they are going slower, 1% or 2% of the speed of light, they have equally amazing biological technology to support themselves and whatever biosphere they need. Same thing for some sort of hibernation. If they have this level of technology, they need nothing from us. Perhaps some raw materials, but those are more easily accessed from rocks and such in the solar system, not down a gravity well. The invasion scenario is ridiculous.
A similar argument holds for FTL travel. The technology is so advanced from our point of view it might as well be magic. There are one or two speculative models where FTL works under the Standard Model of physics, but they require exotic matter and mind bending abilities over matter and energy. Any technology beyond the Standard Model is ever more mind bending. Magicians need nothing from us.
The conqueror models is a projection of human history into space. It doesn't hold over interstellar distances. The distance scales and radically different physical environment of interstellar space invalidate any reason for an invasion.
What, then, could an SQ +50 Superbeing possibly have to say to us?
Nice doggy!
For all that they actually do, this could easily replace the blithering idiots at all the airports, and most likely do a better job. As for the glitches, I'm sure that they would be less objectionable then what happens all the time right now.
That will be a part of Jeb Bush's education reform.
Do you keep your KKK robes in the closet where they won't get wrinkled but someone might see them or do you fold them in a drawer where they need to be ironed but it is less likely that you'll be found out?
Standardized test scores will go up so the education establishment will look good. Plus they can fire all the teachers and replace them with hourly contract workers with 1-HB visas who will work even more unpaid overtime then current teachers. English fluency not required.
Naturally, there will be no cost savings to the public, because all the profit will go into the pockets of the outsourcing companies. That's what already happened with for profit higher education, and the public and the students are left holding the bag. But not too worry. Only the taxpayers, students and general investors were screwed. The insiders already got out with their guaranteed profit. It's the American way.
Try to think a little more creatively. Negative thinking can be self reinforcing.
"The cloud" is not a magic carpet, and there are a lot of organizations who will get burned by falling for all the hype. I personally know a cloud based service provider that actually believed the marketing crap on reliability. When their cloud provider (one of the big two) crashed they had no backup and no recovery plan either. They were flat on their back for a week, and were still picking up the pieces a month after that. One more of those and they might just shut their doors.
So here is another fad, and the inevitable backlash will come when it fails to deliver. So how dumb do you have to be to announce the start of a brand new shiny paradigm shift that will make everything really different in a blink of an eye. Grow up.
If they hardwire, there could be a DDOS attack. One can only hope...
OTOH Apple hardware/software is very reliable although not the most cost efficient. Even though the BSOD is not the daily occurrence it used to be, Apple machines stay up because of their BSD roots. I'm using an old iMac, and and I have not had an unplanned reboot in years. Bringing the machine down is only needed for software updates or hardware failures/changes. Windows machines are not like that.
Also more then one person has pointed out that Windows on Apple hardware is a very good combination, if you ignore the cost issues.
I keep trying to point this out, but nobody seems to notice. Everyone will be squealing like stuck pigs, but it shouldn't be any surprise when it happens.
It's the next logical move.
72 cores, 3 teraflops. Good enough?
Given the above, there is an incredible opening for some TLA agency (N?A) to put their very own software/hardware back door in at the silicon level. How would anyone ever know? Given the fact that they have already tapped a large percentage of all the phones in the world, the logical next step would be to place bugging capabilities in every Intel CPU on the planet.
Paranoid much?
BLISS was an "implementation language" for the PDP-10. This was in the days when systems software was written in assembly language, and there was a lot of skepticism that a high level language could be used for the job. BLISS was intended to show that it was possible. BLISS-10 knew about the assembly language of the PDP-10, and you could express individual instructions and directly refer to hardware registers and addressing modes.
Different versions of BLISS existed for each different machine. There was BLISS-11 for the PDP-11 and BLISS-32 for the VAX. Some of the VMS system software was written in BLISS-32, and I think that this was also true for the PDP-11. The PDP-11 BLISS was cross compiled on a PDP-10.
There was a compiled version of SNOBOL4 called SPITBOL. Source code is available, and there is a macro implementation, so if someone wanted to it could be made to live again...
Your attitude sucks rocks. Your use of the word "hipster" as a pejorative is asinine. It demonstrates that you have the emotional maturity of an eight year old.
To show just how puerile you are, I will demonstrate by substituting "cooties" for "hipster" in part of your post.
Since there are no standards on Slashdot it makes no difference when you post drivel like this. If you were to ever display this kind of behavior in a school or professional environment you would be lucky to last a week.
Get a clue. Grow up. Otherwise you are a waste of space.