I am not defending intel, because clearly the make a handsome profit, which they must to compensate all the unproductive middle managers that are present in all large organizations. However, without RFTA, i can say the speculate the person who wrote the summary, and perhaps even the person who wrote the article, are probably without a clue.
First, average cost does not really tell us what the cost of a particular chip is. Does one chip set cost $200, one cost $100, another cost $50, and all the legacy costs $10? I mean a low end computer can be had for a few hundred dollars, and the chip itself can be had for mere dollars in quantity, so the cost to produce has to be a few dollars. This would mean the top end chip might costs a few hundred, or more, to produce.
Second, comparing an average to a maximum is about the most devious thing a person can do. Again, the top product might cost a few hundred dollars. The average offer taken price of a chip might be under a hundred dollars, again noticing that a computer can be had for a few hundred dollars.
Finally is this number fixed, variable, or simple material cost? Does it take into account the higher rate of defects on new products, and higher risk of returns? Is this a number with any credibility whatsoever?
This is what we do know. For the fourth quarter of last year Intel earned about 2 billion on sales of about 9 billion. That is about 20% profit. Because these are intel numbers we can assume the sales are inflated and the profit fudged. However, if even 10% of this revenue went to chip production, at $40 per chip we are looking at 90 million chips, give or take. Did they ship this many? Perhaps. And they did sell them for $80, would that leave any money to pay the fancy salaries and benifits that the average worker, quite greedily, expects.
Which is exactly the sort of red neck fear and hate mongering that make the world a dangerous place.
Fact. The US is the only nation that has actualy deployed a nuke against any other party. We have flexed our muscles, and have clearly showed our willingness to risk nuclear destruction during the cuban missle crisis.
Fact: Nuclear proliferation is tolerated. We have tolerated Israel for many years, with unknown capability, even though none of the neighboring countries has any capability. We offically do not know what these arms can do, though perhaps they could destroy the US.
Fact: Fissionable material is not enough. The enemy must have transportation and enough arms to do significant damage prior to destruction. This is why the US and the former USSR had so many missles. Suitecase nuclear bombs are not practicle.
In fact, the biggest part of this new proposal is the ability use nukes to preemptively strike against suspected biological arms. So, the US Government can now make up threats, as they did the WMDs in Iraq, and use such fabrications to deploy non-conventional arms.
The real danger of this is false security. We almost attacked Cuba during the missle crisis, and it lucky we didn't because we did not know there were a few dozen fully armed nuked ready to retaliate. To defend ourselves against the former USSR we spent massive amounts of money on arms, which we now know was unnecesary because the USSR was not nearly as strong as the CIA thought, and has resulted in the US becoming deeply indebted to the Saudis and the Chines. From the 9/11 attack we entered Afganastan, which was not totally unjusitified, but the mission was so ill planned we still do not have Saudi Osama. We use those resources instead to invade Iraq, on the basis of, again, bad intellegence, and now want to launch nukes against Iran on the basis on some of the same intellegence.
I know that few peope care. As long as we can live in our big houses in the suburbs, and drive our big cars, and watch out big tvs, who gives a shit about how many dark people have to die. And, after all, if we use those missles, then the arms and drug dealers will have to hire more people, so the economy will improve! Yea! Drop out bubba will have a job.
I don't think it is going to be confusing, at least not in a way that affects sales. MS did the home/pro thing to meet the demand for the $599 PC, which meant that it could not demand high specs and charge a lot for the OS. Most consumers did not care because all they wanted was a cheap PC that did three major things. For those who needed more, the $599 PC became a $699 PC, mostly due to the cost of the non-crippled OS. But most people just listened to the sales person and assumed that the crippled version was all they needed.
This is the same game. To compete with Linux, they need an even cheaper version to run on the even cheaper machines. So they create a version that they can give away so the vendors can sell the kit for $399. The number of versions on shelves will likely only be three, the rest probably sold by site license. I admit to being confused by three home editions, but I suspect that is meant more as an upgrade path, to insure continuing revenue from the home user, rather than products offered for regular ales.
In the end notice they left pro as pro so those who need the lesser-toy version of windows knows what to buy. Everyhting else is there to allow kit vendors to increase profit and thereby remain loyal to MS.
Proper configuration and coding is hard. This is not a bad thing because hard things tend to drive away people that just do a half ass job, and it is exactly these type of people that we do not want creating web sites that the public must use. Like the website used for the Katrina victims that allegedly requires the latest version of IE.
No matter how easy it is to get the initial set up going, getting the final product working is still hard work. Anyone who produce a final decent product can usually figure out the details of startup. Those that can't figure out the details of startup also have trouble producing good designs. For instance, one school district is IE only, including the services that employees and students are supposed to access from home. This leads to problems with parents accessing school information, students accesing schedule information, and employees accesing pay and vacation information. Now, it might have costa bit more to get competant coders, but when one considers that the design affects 100,000 people, and in a multiyear investment, it probably would have been worth it.
Which is to say, let's get a good product out, even if it is hard, so we do not toture innocent users for years to come.
I just hope they put their back catalog on line. I would enjoy watching things like Sheep in the Big City, which probably isn't worth putting on DVD, again. It really had the best charracters, like the Angry Scientist and the Plot Device.
A few bucks to download an ep would be well worth it.
I have stopped using my shuffle in car because the sound is so bad, at least compared to the mini. I don't know if it is battery life or decoder quality, but the shuffle has horrible sound generation in 'real' situations.
An FM radio would be useful in some situations, but then we would be complaining that it could not record
I don't know if I down with a flash based mini. I might just go for the huge capacity of the iPod.
the proble, at least in the US,has little to do with the population. First, New Orleans was formed when there was much land and few people. It was a port city. The growth probably had more to do with the limited mobility of the time rather than population. Water travel was faster than land travel, and water is needed for survival, so settlements tend to form near water. Now, as the populaion grew, limited mobility kept people near by. In fact, I believe Louisiana tends to one the states witht he highest retention of thier offspring.
The thing is that now we have fewer limits on mobility, yet we still build in dangerous areas, even though we in the US do not a land issue. The midwest is reverting to the legal definition of frontier.
What we actually forgot in a generation is how bad the last generation had it, and how much technology has helped us. The masses victimize the researchers that create a safer world while misusing the creations, and complain when the misue causes problems. Parents who have never known the high mortality rate of childhood illnesses mock immunization. Politicians fail to fund basic infrastructure projects because a road is more profitable than upgrading pumps. Consumers by unstable cars because they like the lok and then sue the manufacturers after the cars fail to perform like a racing car.
As long as we remeber that lack of fleas, the instant coffee, the lunchables, the long life comes at a high cost, we will be ok.
Occam's Razor may state the simplest explanation is the best, but a simple explanation that does not explain known phenomena or predicts new phenomenon is of little use. For example, the theory that a superior being designed everything may meet the requirements of a simple theory, but does not provide specific predictions, not does it explain why certain things, like the human trouble feedback system, which seems to provide unnecessarily intense pain, seem to be designed so badly.
Science is full of theories that appear more complex than the predecessor, but were necessary to explain known phenomenon or discrepancies in the math. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics. Some things perhaps are getting simpler, like the electro-weak force, but the simple unified theory is not the goal of every researcher.
To speak directly to the parents assertion, the elaborations of cosmology are necessary because of the presence unexplained phenomena. Sure we can wave our hands and chant dark matter, but without the presence of such matter it is the same as our grandparents chanting aether. The first reaction to new phenomena is to apply conventional wisdom, be it griffins, gremlins, or ghosts. As we gain more data and understanding, we can then construct informed hypothesis, test these hypothesis, and make and hopefully verify predictions. No reasonable hypothesis should be ignored simply because it seems complex. The creation of this 'dark matter' is equally complex, and the only advantage is in the fact that it is conventional.
As far as mathematical tricks are concerned, recall that history's greatest critic of math was Albert himself. That was until general relitivity kicked his ass to the curb. He had to go back and learn the math, and get some help, to work out his strange new geometry. It turned that that his perfect geometrical theory still resulted in the horror of the math shop. Complaining about math tricks is like complaining about the proper and fleunt use of any other language. It is mostly done by those who do not want to take the time to understand.
The other day on NPR they had an army corp guy saying how they would get the breeches closed in a day, and even if they didn't it would not be a big deal as the city would drain a bit as the river receeded. On tuesday Homeland security was like the city would be evacuated in a day.
Friday afternoon and the city is still under water. People are getting murdered, children are getting raped, and and an epidemic is inevitable. The dome is full and we are about to start filling the entire complex in houston with people. The schools are ready and willing to take of the children, but where do we put them, and who is going to get them here. One gun shot and our gaurd runs away. Refugees are being turned away from military bases.
I think the most depressing thing is that we have this new fangled Homeland security office that we paid dearly for, both with money and personal freedoms. They are supposed to help us with stuff like this, but all that has happened is talk. We will do this, we will do that. A week is almost gone, and we are still waiting. I know everyone is doing thier best, but honestly sometimes ones best is not good enough, and one has to be big enough to admit it. Texas was ready to help. The feds, however, are still on vacation. The benifit of being a rich country is quickly mobilizing aid to those in need. These people are in need. I don't care about the price of gas. I don't care about the effect on the economy. I just want help sent to those standed people. I just want the feds to stop jerking off, stope trying to minimize the impact to save political face, and do the job they are paid to do.
I would add that if one is not sure who Schnieir is or his biases, then one really has no basis to write an opinion on any computer security issue. He is one of the major players in the field. It is like programming and never having heard of Gamma or kernighan or stroustrup. One may not a agree with a particular player, but one should know who the players are.
In fact it has only been in past several years that Schneier has left the ivory tower and taken a stance on certain security situations, most notably in Beyond Fear. I find his thought process to be interesting and entertaining. For example his treatment of guns for airline pilots is classic.
I don't know if it is a victim of global warming, but certainly a victim of overdevelopment and changing weather patterns. A similiar thing happened in houston a few years ago. An overnight rain storm caused the worst flooding the city had seen in a very long time. This storm completely redefined the flood plains in the city. The flooding was largely due to the cementing of the city, in particular the mass building of townhouses and large strip centers without adequate flood control measures. Laws have since been put in place to help resolve this problem.
New Orleans is unlikely to go away, but it might not be the city it is today. After a flood like this people tend to move inland. Look at galveston in 1899. It was a major city for the time. Texas had about half the percentage of the US population that it has now, but galveston had a significant percentage of that. Then a hurricane destroyed Galveston. Galveston did not go away, but many moved in 50 miles to houston. Galveston is only 50% bigger than it was in 1900, while Texas and Houston has grown to hold significant percentages of the US population.
I am sure some parts of New Orleans will be rebuilt. I am sure that some will move back. But given that the US coastline in moving inland, and even Houston at some point will be uninhabitable, I think many will make the rational decision to relocate. Take a look at a topological map and discover how much of the gulf coast is just tens of feet above sea level.
The number of communist on this board is becoming alarming. The notion that the free market as an insufficient mechanism to handle the market of employee, or that the employer is not competent to manage their own needs using legal needs is truly reactionary thinking, perhaps even traitorous as defined by Ann Coulter.
This is what I think. What Kraft, McDonalds, and the like do is process engineering. They take existing product and figure out how to mass manufacture and market the product cheaply and efficiently. There is nothing wrong with it but what one ends up with is hardly food. As soon as one manufactures food one sacrifices nutrition and basic taste for things like shelf life, color and texture. Flavor is added in with salt and fat. And is it just not manufactured food. One can get a pretty apple, but not a good apple.
I think that chefs sometimes fall into the same catagory. If one uses real food massive amounts of butter are not neccesary. However, if your food comes from the local food parts facility, then there is little to do but cover up the lack of quality with grease.
actually, starting with s.397, and continuing with further bills promoted by the NRA, gun manufatureres might soon be able to name a gun 'spic killer' or 'homeless eliminator' and not have to worry about lawsuits whatsoever. They already are immune from lawsuits in which they have sold guns right outside an area where such things are illigal. Sure we do it with alchohol and firecrackers, but no to the extent that they do with guns.
As always the FBI has their priorities straight. We have the MS-13 about to restart the gang wars of the 90's, and they are after a person who let's jilted lover's spy on each other.
Any time I hear stories like this I think of the so-called right to work laws, which really don't give a person any new rights to work at all. They don't guarantee hours. They don't prevent the employer from asking the employee to sign thier human rights away prior to employment. They don't prevent employee from being fired for silly reasons. All they do is prevent unions from getting dues while still requiring the union to represent the employee. Classic coservative US greed. Wanting something for nothing.
Home school is probably as able to meet basic educational requirements as more traditional education. One big reason is that these goals are measured by standardized tests that create a very set of precise skills, and then test these skills at a reletively shallow level. Therefore the parent who home school can teach to the test. A benifit is also realized because the parent can teach to using the childs favored mode of learning, and does not need to expand the mode of learning beyond the minimum.
Even so, the discussion is about effeciency. The bus thing is not such a big deal, as it is not likely a large percentage of the 100K or so we pay to educate a kid k12. OTOH, one wonders if the a parent could educate a kid for significantly less than 200K, including all indirect and opportunity costs. I mean out society is based on effeciencies gained through large organziations, and one would think it would be much less effecient, by most measures, to educate one at a time rather than a warehouse method. Homeschool might be superior, depending upon the measure used in the studies and the definition of 'peer'. Again, if standard tests are used, these measure culture as much as knowledge.
The bottom line is that a person who can educate a kid at home probably needs to be out in the world producing.
First, I was very disappointed with battery life on the my mini. Apple usually does a beeter job than this. My best guess is the the iPod is a consumer product, on consumer products Apple is more likely to cut corners.
However, the price is not out of line. My first player cost much more money than the mini, about the same as a full iPod, and ran on one battery, with about the same life as the iPod, and only had 64 Mb. The reason the iPod sold was becasue it was a decent product that was competitive with other top of the line products. It is worth something to me just to plug the iPod into my firewire hub and have it charge. or even my computer.
If one wants an iPod for more than a year, then one can get the evil extended warrenty, which would reasonable extend the lifetime to four years. This provides value. My first player died because of a broken swith.
One also should remember the last similiar product, the Sony walkman. In 80's dollars these were not cheap machines.
The problem with commerce in America is that no one is competing on value and quality. Walmart competes on low prices. The airline competes on low prices. Car dealers compete on low prices. There is little effort to create a unique product that can compete on value.
The problem with this is that it can only go on for so long before profit is seriously reduced. The US car dealers lost the quality fight, so now they subsidize car sales through thier financing arm. Walmart kills thier vendors and encourages illigal immigration in an effort to keep profits up.
The airline industry has to simplify because air travel is no longer considered a luxury but neccesity. Likewise, competition from the likes of Fedex and UPS mean that the US government can no longer subsidize the industry through delivery contracts. So prices will fall. But that does not mean that every airline has to compete on price. If the major airlines are to succedd they must provide value. I am not a genius so I do not know how they will do this. They cannot compete with southwest on cost. Perhaps faster flights will provide the value,
Windows provides familiarity for most people. In business, I use MS Windows because it is what is provided. I get along well without it otherwise, and in fact have found that personal MS licensing is complicated enough that I do not use the products at all, except for the occasional IE due to some neccesary job related web pages.
Are there things I cannot get. Sure. I cannot get into some mail servers even though our mail does not regularly use the appoitment or address book functions. I cannot download or view WMP content, but most of the good stuff is AVI anyway. I can't play games, but when I did play games I had a console. The last stopped playing the last PC game becuase of annoying copy protection crap.
Most PC users have, and will cotinue, to use just a few applications. Training for those apps is not hard. Linux has those apps on the desktop. Inertia is keepping MS windows popular. It is still simpler to stay than to switch. The average office worker does not want to learn something new. The average tech would have trouble learning a new OS.
Which is the old simple pat answer, but now we know it is more complicated. Most children will be able to play violent video games with little negative effect, but some won't. Since such video games are everywhere, it makes little sense to forbid the child to play such games, unless one is going to create a entire environment in which the games are not present. If the family has a history of violence, or, if the child has experience and access to the tools that might allow him to kill 20 people in under an hour, it might be a good idea to monitor the child closely to insure that he knows that is a bad thing to do.
It is like alchohol. If the family drinks, and the child is going to be around people who drink, allowing that first drink to occur as some middle school party is probably counter productive. if the family has a histry of drug abuse, then the child should probably be taught strategies to overcome the situation. Some of it genetics.
So the parent not only has to make a decision about exposure, which must be made on broader terms than personal belief, but must use appropriate intervention strategies. It is really too much to expect of the average parent, which is why it is in societies interest to streamline the process.
A little more on this. Science does not necessarily have to solve problems. Science can in fact merely find a reasonable explanation for known phenomena, and then show that said explanation is consistent with other phenomena and, even better, predict something we have never noticed before. A prime example of this is the bending of light around the sun.
The issue of truth is not so crucial. There is nothing wrong with looking for truth. There is only something wrong with the arrogance involved in thinking one has found it. Science, at it's best, looks at the world in hope of one day finding the truth. It is seldom that the scientist believes they hav found the truth, or has the arrogance to state that the revealed theory is hogwash based on personal belief. In such cases, the revealed theory still wins.
The problem is really that the people who attack science tend to confuse themselves with god, and believe not only that they have the capacity to understand the truth, but that they have found it. In fact, the truth is the sole provenience of god, and it is the privilege of us lower being to examine the creation and try to understand some of it.
The situation gets worse as the arrogance goes beyond the belief that one is god, to the belief that one is such a wonderful god that one can put the entire truth of creation into one text. At this point stupidity replaces arrogance, as all that can be done is to fit new fact patterns in existing theories of existence. A person who does such a thing is arrogant, stupid, and corrupt beyond the ability to be saved by any messiah, prophet, or wise person. Such people are best locked up in the ghetto of an old sports arena, so their disease can be contained, and the harm to civilized society minimized.
Not to mention that computer hardware is never in the US until it is shipped to the US retailer. If we assume that the factory is in china, shipping to the US and shipping to the UK is about the same deal. Likewise distributing through the EU and US should be about the same. If you discount the attempt to price the product differenty thoughout the EU, which costs lawyer money.
The problem with pre-google search engines was that they assumed that the words on a webpage were inherently linked tot he content of the web page. Therefore, if a web page had many occurances of "simpson" in the web page and keywords, then it was likely that such a page might have a relation to the actress of animated show.
Google fixed this problem by including the links to the pages in the keyword search, which prevented web sites from simply putting unrelated words in the context to generate hits. However, it did nothing to keep owners from setting up web farms or others from attacking the site by linking with unrelated phrases.
What is interesting is that Google results are getting less reliable. Often a few of the first several result are link farms or other content neutral ad sites. We should have new technology to fix the problem, in the same way that Google fixed the problems with Alta Vista, but we don't.
This is just a bunch of numbers spouted, with no useful context, and then a broad statement made about value.
The days when 9 megabytes or 5 MPS sustained for a popular server is considered out of line is long gone. Poeple want to communicate, and they will use whatever resources are needed. How many resources do we use so that we can gaurantee that tuan will his present from grandma? How many resources do we use so that an arbitrary firm can mail a postcard to everyone in the country? How many resources do we use so that everyone can keep up with the every move of thier favorite celebrity?
As far as figuring out what is of value to a particular person, whatever judgemental figure one wishes to place on it, one can browse, or, take the time tested method of using a proxy. Find a trusted source and pay them to publish all the content that they think is of interest to a particular group. Obviously the busy person does not have time to look everywhere, so the service is of value. And, if you do not wish to actually pay for the service, perhaps the trusted source can convience others to pay in exchange for the opportunity to have control over the content or a portion of a page to promote thier particular interest.
Slashdot Mirror
It was IBMs mamoth supply capacity that made Apple such an insignificant customer, and reduced apple chances of getting suitible product.
First, average cost does not really tell us what the cost of a particular chip is. Does one chip set cost $200, one cost $100, another cost $50, and all the legacy costs $10? I mean a low end computer can be had for a few hundred dollars, and the chip itself can be had for mere dollars in quantity, so the cost to produce has to be a few dollars. This would mean the top end chip might costs a few hundred, or more, to produce.
Second, comparing an average to a maximum is about the most devious thing a person can do. Again, the top product might cost a few hundred dollars. The average offer taken price of a chip might be under a hundred dollars, again noticing that a computer can be had for a few hundred dollars.
Finally is this number fixed, variable, or simple material cost? Does it take into account the higher rate of defects on new products, and higher risk of returns? Is this a number with any credibility whatsoever?
This is what we do know. For the fourth quarter of last year Intel earned about 2 billion on sales of about 9 billion. That is about 20% profit. Because these are intel numbers we can assume the sales are inflated and the profit fudged. However, if even 10% of this revenue went to chip production, at $40 per chip we are looking at 90 million chips, give or take. Did they ship this many? Perhaps. And they did sell them for $80, would that leave any money to pay the fancy salaries and benifits that the average worker, quite greedily, expects.
Fact. The US is the only nation that has actualy deployed a nuke against any other party. We have flexed our muscles, and have clearly showed our willingness to risk nuclear destruction during the cuban missle crisis.
Fact: Nuclear proliferation is tolerated. We have tolerated Israel for many years, with unknown capability, even though none of the neighboring countries has any capability. We offically do not know what these arms can do, though perhaps they could destroy the US.
Fact: Fissionable material is not enough. The enemy must have transportation and enough arms to do significant damage prior to destruction. This is why the US and the former USSR had so many missles. Suitecase nuclear bombs are not practicle.
In fact, the biggest part of this new proposal is the ability use nukes to preemptively strike against suspected biological arms. So, the US Government can now make up threats, as they did the WMDs in Iraq, and use such fabrications to deploy non-conventional arms.
The real danger of this is false security. We almost attacked Cuba during the missle crisis, and it lucky we didn't because we did not know there were a few dozen fully armed nuked ready to retaliate. To defend ourselves against the former USSR we spent massive amounts of money on arms, which we now know was unnecesary because the USSR was not nearly as strong as the CIA thought, and has resulted in the US becoming deeply indebted to the Saudis and the Chines. From the 9/11 attack we entered Afganastan, which was not totally unjusitified, but the mission was so ill planned we still do not have Saudi Osama. We use those resources instead to invade Iraq, on the basis of, again, bad intellegence, and now want to launch nukes against Iran on the basis on some of the same intellegence.
I know that few peope care. As long as we can live in our big houses in the suburbs, and drive our big cars, and watch out big tvs, who gives a shit about how many dark people have to die. And, after all, if we use those missles, then the arms and drug dealers will have to hire more people, so the economy will improve! Yea! Drop out bubba will have a job.
This is the same game. To compete with Linux, they need an even cheaper version to run on the even cheaper machines. So they create a version that they can give away so the vendors can sell the kit for $399. The number of versions on shelves will likely only be three, the rest probably sold by site license. I admit to being confused by three home editions, but I suspect that is meant more as an upgrade path, to insure continuing revenue from the home user, rather than products offered for regular ales.
In the end notice they left pro as pro so those who need the lesser-toy version of windows knows what to buy. Everyhting else is there to allow kit vendors to increase profit and thereby remain loyal to MS.
No matter how easy it is to get the initial set up going, getting the final product working is still hard work. Anyone who produce a final decent product can usually figure out the details of startup. Those that can't figure out the details of startup also have trouble producing good designs. For instance, one school district is IE only, including the services that employees and students are supposed to access from home. This leads to problems with parents accessing school information, students accesing schedule information, and employees accesing pay and vacation information. Now, it might have costa bit more to get competant coders, but when one considers that the design affects 100,000 people, and in a multiyear investment, it probably would have been worth it.
Which is to say, let's get a good product out, even if it is hard, so we do not toture innocent users for years to come.
A few bucks to download an ep would be well worth it.
An FM radio would be useful in some situations, but then we would be complaining that it could not record
I don't know if I down with a flash based mini. I might just go for the huge capacity of the iPod.
The thing is that now we have fewer limits on mobility, yet we still build in dangerous areas, even though we in the US do not a land issue. The midwest is reverting to the legal definition of frontier.
What we actually forgot in a generation is how bad the last generation had it, and how much technology has helped us. The masses victimize the researchers that create a safer world while misusing the creations, and complain when the misue causes problems. Parents who have never known the high mortality rate of childhood illnesses mock immunization. Politicians fail to fund basic infrastructure projects because a road is more profitable than upgrading pumps. Consumers by unstable cars because they like the lok and then sue the manufacturers after the cars fail to perform like a racing car.
As long as we remeber that lack of fleas, the instant coffee, the lunchables, the long life comes at a high cost, we will be ok.
Science is full of theories that appear more complex than the predecessor, but were necessary to explain known phenomenon or discrepancies in the math. Special relativity, general relativity, quantum mechanics. Some things perhaps are getting simpler, like the electro-weak force, but the simple unified theory is not the goal of every researcher.
To speak directly to the parents assertion, the elaborations of cosmology are necessary because of the presence unexplained phenomena. Sure we can wave our hands and chant dark matter, but without the presence of such matter it is the same as our grandparents chanting aether. The first reaction to new phenomena is to apply conventional wisdom, be it griffins, gremlins, or ghosts. As we gain more data and understanding, we can then construct informed hypothesis, test these hypothesis, and make and hopefully verify predictions. No reasonable hypothesis should be ignored simply because it seems complex. The creation of this 'dark matter' is equally complex, and the only advantage is in the fact that it is conventional.
As far as mathematical tricks are concerned, recall that history's greatest critic of math was Albert himself. That was until general relitivity kicked his ass to the curb. He had to go back and learn the math, and get some help, to work out his strange new geometry. It turned that that his perfect geometrical theory still resulted in the horror of the math shop. Complaining about math tricks is like complaining about the proper and fleunt use of any other language. It is mostly done by those who do not want to take the time to understand.
Friday afternoon and the city is still under water. People are getting murdered, children are getting raped, and and an epidemic is inevitable. The dome is full and we are about to start filling the entire complex in houston with people. The schools are ready and willing to take of the children, but where do we put them, and who is going to get them here. One gun shot and our gaurd runs away. Refugees are being turned away from military bases.
I think the most depressing thing is that we have this new fangled Homeland security office that we paid dearly for, both with money and personal freedoms. They are supposed to help us with stuff like this, but all that has happened is talk. We will do this, we will do that. A week is almost gone, and we are still waiting. I know everyone is doing thier best, but honestly sometimes ones best is not good enough, and one has to be big enough to admit it. Texas was ready to help. The feds, however, are still on vacation. The benifit of being a rich country is quickly mobilizing aid to those in need. These people are in need. I don't care about the price of gas. I don't care about the effect on the economy. I just want help sent to those standed people. I just want the feds to stop jerking off, stope trying to minimize the impact to save political face, and do the job they are paid to do.
In fact it has only been in past several years that Schneier has left the ivory tower and taken a stance on certain security situations, most notably in Beyond Fear. I find his thought process to be interesting and entertaining. For example his treatment of guns for airline pilots is classic.
New Orleans is unlikely to go away, but it might not be the city it is today. After a flood like this people tend to move inland. Look at galveston in 1899. It was a major city for the time. Texas had about half the percentage of the US population that it has now, but galveston had a significant percentage of that. Then a hurricane destroyed Galveston. Galveston did not go away, but many moved in 50 miles to houston. Galveston is only 50% bigger than it was in 1900, while Texas and Houston has grown to hold significant percentages of the US population.
I am sure some parts of New Orleans will be rebuilt. I am sure that some will move back. But given that the US coastline in moving inland, and even Houston at some point will be uninhabitable, I think many will make the rational decision to relocate. Take a look at a topological map and discover how much of the gulf coast is just tens of feet above sea level.
The number of communist on this board is becoming alarming. The notion that the free market as an insufficient mechanism to handle the market of employee, or that the employer is not competent to manage their own needs using legal needs is truly reactionary thinking, perhaps even traitorous as defined by Ann Coulter.
I think that chefs sometimes fall into the same catagory. If one uses real food massive amounts of butter are not neccesary. However, if your food comes from the local food parts facility, then there is little to do but cover up the lack of quality with grease.
As always the FBI has their priorities straight. We have the MS-13 about to restart the gang wars of the 90's, and they are after a person who let's jilted lover's spy on each other.
Any time I hear stories like this I think of the so-called right to work laws, which really don't give a person any new rights to work at all. They don't guarantee hours. They don't prevent the employer from asking the employee to sign thier human rights away prior to employment. They don't prevent employee from being fired for silly reasons. All they do is prevent unions from getting dues while still requiring the union to represent the employee. Classic coservative US greed. Wanting something for nothing.
Even so, the discussion is about effeciency. The bus thing is not such a big deal, as it is not likely a large percentage of the 100K or so we pay to educate a kid k12. OTOH, one wonders if the a parent could educate a kid for significantly less than 200K, including all indirect and opportunity costs. I mean out society is based on effeciencies gained through large organziations, and one would think it would be much less effecient, by most measures, to educate one at a time rather than a warehouse method. Homeschool might be superior, depending upon the measure used in the studies and the definition of 'peer'. Again, if standard tests are used, these measure culture as much as knowledge.
The bottom line is that a person who can educate a kid at home probably needs to be out in the world producing.
However, the price is not out of line. My first player cost much more money than the mini, about the same as a full iPod, and ran on one battery, with about the same life as the iPod, and only had 64 Mb. The reason the iPod sold was becasue it was a decent product that was competitive with other top of the line products. It is worth something to me just to plug the iPod into my firewire hub and have it charge. or even my computer.
If one wants an iPod for more than a year, then one can get the evil extended warrenty, which would reasonable extend the lifetime to four years. This provides value. My first player died because of a broken swith.
One also should remember the last similiar product, the Sony walkman. In 80's dollars these were not cheap machines.
The problem with this is that it can only go on for so long before profit is seriously reduced. The US car dealers lost the quality fight, so now they subsidize car sales through thier financing arm. Walmart kills thier vendors and encourages illigal immigration in an effort to keep profits up.
The airline industry has to simplify because air travel is no longer considered a luxury but neccesity. Likewise, competition from the likes of Fedex and UPS mean that the US government can no longer subsidize the industry through delivery contracts. So prices will fall. But that does not mean that every airline has to compete on price. If the major airlines are to succedd they must provide value. I am not a genius so I do not know how they will do this. They cannot compete with southwest on cost. Perhaps faster flights will provide the value,
Are there things I cannot get. Sure. I cannot get into some mail servers even though our mail does not regularly use the appoitment or address book functions. I cannot download or view WMP content, but most of the good stuff is AVI anyway. I can't play games, but when I did play games I had a console. The last stopped playing the last PC game becuase of annoying copy protection crap.
Most PC users have, and will cotinue, to use just a few applications. Training for those apps is not hard. Linux has those apps on the desktop. Inertia is keepping MS windows popular. It is still simpler to stay than to switch. The average office worker does not want to learn something new. The average tech would have trouble learning a new OS.
It is like alchohol. If the family drinks, and the child is going to be around people who drink, allowing that first drink to occur as some middle school party is probably counter productive. if the family has a histry of drug abuse, then the child should probably be taught strategies to overcome the situation. Some of it genetics.
So the parent not only has to make a decision about exposure, which must be made on broader terms than personal belief, but must use appropriate intervention strategies. It is really too much to expect of the average parent, which is why it is in societies interest to streamline the process.
The issue of truth is not so crucial. There is nothing wrong with looking for truth. There is only something wrong with the arrogance involved in thinking one has found it. Science, at it's best, looks at the world in hope of one day finding the truth. It is seldom that the scientist believes they hav found the truth, or has the arrogance to state that the revealed theory is hogwash based on personal belief. In such cases, the revealed theory still wins.
The problem is really that the people who attack science tend to confuse themselves with god, and believe not only that they have the capacity to understand the truth, but that they have found it. In fact, the truth is the sole provenience of god, and it is the privilege of us lower being to examine the creation and try to understand some of it.
The situation gets worse as the arrogance goes beyond the belief that one is god, to the belief that one is such a wonderful god that one can put the entire truth of creation into one text. At this point stupidity replaces arrogance, as all that can be done is to fit new fact patterns in existing theories of existence. A person who does such a thing is arrogant, stupid, and corrupt beyond the ability to be saved by any messiah, prophet, or wise person. Such people are best locked up in the ghetto of an old sports arena, so their disease can be contained, and the harm to civilized society minimized.
Not to mention that computer hardware is never in the US until it is shipped to the US retailer. If we assume that the factory is in china, shipping to the US and shipping to the UK is about the same deal. Likewise distributing through the EU and US should be about the same. If you discount the attempt to price the product differenty thoughout the EU, which costs lawyer money.
Google fixed this problem by including the links to the pages in the keyword search, which prevented web sites from simply putting unrelated words in the context to generate hits. However, it did nothing to keep owners from setting up web farms or others from attacking the site by linking with unrelated phrases.
What is interesting is that Google results are getting less reliable. Often a few of the first several result are link farms or other content neutral ad sites. We should have new technology to fix the problem, in the same way that Google fixed the problems with Alta Vista, but we don't.
The days when 9 megabytes or 5 MPS sustained for a popular server is considered out of line is long gone. Poeple want to communicate, and they will use whatever resources are needed. How many resources do we use so that we can gaurantee that tuan will his present from grandma? How many resources do we use so that an arbitrary firm can mail a postcard to everyone in the country? How many resources do we use so that everyone can keep up with the every move of thier favorite celebrity?
As far as figuring out what is of value to a particular person, whatever judgemental figure one wishes to place on it, one can browse, or, take the time tested method of using a proxy. Find a trusted source and pay them to publish all the content that they think is of interest to a particular group. Obviously the busy person does not have time to look everywhere, so the service is of value. And, if you do not wish to actually pay for the service, perhaps the trusted source can convience others to pay in exchange for the opportunity to have control over the content or a portion of a page to promote thier particular interest.