Yes, but he also wasn't Jonas Salk or Ghandi or Pasteur or Einstein or Justus von Liebig or any of a thousand others who had far greater impact of human life and culture and health. He had a brilliant design sense and he was a brilliant marketer but this whole "He changed the WORLD!" thing is more than a little overblown.
He made better gadgets and made a metric crapload of money doing it. More power to him, but his contributions are incremental and not terribly important.
By opting to edit "objectionable material" they have opened themselves up to this.
I think people who think gayness can be "cured" are idiots. But for all I know these app developers are actually following my personal code of business ethics: "1. A fool and his money are my target market, and b. It is morally wrong to allow stupid people to keep their money."
(Or is this a free app?)
I'm firmly of two minds: The first is my standard response whenever anyone objects to any media content: You don't have to buy/watch/listen. There's an "off" switch. Use it.
The other mind is every company that appoints itself guardian of my content should have its arse sued into oblivion.
All I know is that my next device will be android. Not because of this specific case, but because of Apple's consistent impulse for control. The iPhone served me well as a user, but as a developer it rather sucks and the android platform and range of devices have come along nicely.
That's why I asked the question. I think you are talking about watts/m^2 averaged over 24 hours and I'm talking about watts/m^2 at solar noon. In other words, I think both figures are correct because they are different figures. I did use the phrase "factual error," and I really should not have because I think it was me missing the "real figure" you were using. And my original question was free of accusation because I was genuinely only asking for clarification. So this is, I think, an example of violent agreement. So please ignore my loaded reply (which also wasn't intended as an accusation because it still wasn't clear to me).
So, to sum up, sorry for the rhetoric, and thanks for the clarification.
I was trying to figure out why your insolation number was so much less than what I have personally observed and your number makes sense for a diurnal average (which is what you were using, yes?)
That's beautiful, except the 1300 watt figure is already an average. I'm by no means an expert, but I have had a long time interest in solar PV, and the energy at the surface where I live for a flat plate collector aimed at solar noon is quite close to 1000 watts per square meter. Now, a mono or plycrystalline silicon panel, with its indirect bandgap absorption is only going to collect something on the order of 1/5 to 1/10 of that energy, but that doesn't change the fact that it is there.
I actually agree with the overall gist of the original poster's argument. I just think when your rhetoric is expressing agitation at "bad science" and you then go on to make an argument that contains a serious error of fact, well, it undermines one's authority.
I'm not jumping on a high horse here myself. I once in a loud and angry online debate confused hydrocarbons and carbohydrates. We all make mistakes. I expressed mine as a question. I wanted to understand where the figure came from because it didn't match my direct experience with PVs at 45 degrees north.
Insolation at the top of the atmosphere is approximately 1360 watts per square meter. Where do you get "342?" Are you perhaps considering only part of the spectrum?
I have 4 real and dozens of virtual machines all running one flavor or another of Linux, with Ubuntu being the most common (I also have 3 CentOS boxes of various versions, one current Fedora box, one Mandriva, one SuSE, one Gentoo, one Debian). The real boxes all run or another Ubuntu version, one LTS server, and three desktop alternate installs (2 laptops with whole disk encryption and one "server" with a 5TB software RAID-5 array).
These are all behind one static IP address.
So, am I one user? 4 users? Does CentOS count as RedHat? It deliberately maintains the same versions of all software as RHEL.
There is no methodology that will give you an accurate count.
When I update all the requests will appear to be from one machine. Okay, so store a cookie or something. But what about a VM you snapshot and rollback (as I often do; these VMs are used for testing). I think you just have to pick a methodology and apply it consistently. Document it thoroughly. And then the consumers of the number can make their own judgment of the quality.
Just remember: Every poll you have ever seen was the result of talking to someone who doesn't just hang up on or walk away from the pollster. Now what do you think of those numbers?;)
And attackers can attack it. You can't crack the root password if it doesn't have one and it can't login, which, to me, is the whole point of the approach. I think it is avery GOOD thing. It closes an avenue of attack and improves accountability. It is a *smart* thing and I for one hope they never move back.
Okay. I take it all back. I waited 15 minutes to post my little rant. I've just never seen a torrent start so slowly for me. Now it is up and fully saturated with peers. Let's just pretend I never posted anything, mmm'kay?
I guess I should learn patience. I have four peers. I'll be leaving this up a long time, I think!;) (It is pretty rare for my joining to be a 20% increase!)
I am currently attempting to download the.iso from bittorrent. Aparrently no one (not one!) is seeding. I am downloading from 0 of 0 connected peers. Lest anyone think my network is down, I am also donwloading open solaris 10 from 64 peers...
I agree. IBM has been delivering superior support and Java tools for quite a while. Eclipse is the best IDE I have used, apart, perhaps, from the old Borland text-based IDE for Turbo C++.
And yes, I have used Netbeans and Visual Studio. And Kdevelop and Monodevelop and vim, vi, and emacs. And "brief" back when MS-DOS was the way to go.
And ed and Turbo Pascal back on CP/M. How many of you young punks used CP/M? Huh? Now get the hell off my lawn!
IBM is a stodgy old enterprise player, but they are solid and professional. They have been much friendlier to open source in general and Linux in particular than Sun has. I for one welcome our new Big Blue overlords...
I'm still primarily a Lintel platform user, but I just bought my wife a Macbook and the quality of design is quite high, both in hardware and software. The only Apple product I own and use is a iPhone. I used to carry a Linux-geek-worthy Nokia 770 tethered to a simple Sony-Ericsson phone via Bluetooth, but the Nokia had very poor PDA functions, so I still carried a Palm Tungsten. (Aside: Yes, Palm is dying, but from a usability perspective, it is still the best PDA IMHO. But I wouldn't buy a new one).
Basically, I got tired of carrying three devices and while the iPhone wasn't the best at any of these, it was pretty good at all of them AND was an iPod (albeit a limited one).
But that's just anecdote. I think Microsoft now faces real competition for the first time. Apple is a big part of it. The mass public now perceives Apple machines as capable in the business arena, more usable as a "personal computer," and less prone to the serious security problems that are now widely recognized by non-techies.
Beyond that, IBM's 7 billion dollar bid for Sun (which I, for one, hope is successful) positions IBM/Sun to stop cold Microsoft's inroads in the "serious" server space. (I look at all this from a pretty Linux-centered perspective -- you can't fully sum up two entities like IBM and Sun in a couple of paragraphs.)
Consider the combined portfolio: IBM brings their development, hardware, support and training infrastructure and software. IBM has been the real cheerleader (and tech leader) for Java for years now. IBM has embraced Linux and was in no small part responsible for American businesses taking it seriously. Eclipse, AIX, DB2, etc. Not to mention all the mainframe stuff
Sun brings recent acquisitions like MySQL and VirtualBox, official Java, OpenOffice, hardware and engineering...
An IBM/Sun combo can deliver the whole package to any sized business. From a single Linux-hosted server for a small business, up to mainframe hosted VMs for the largest entities. And as someone who has recently experienced many frustrations with the scalability of Windows Server 2003-hosted solutions (is it just me, or is SQL Server incredibly stupidly configured out of the box?)
And Linux-based netbooks. Cheap low power laptops run better with Linux.
So, from the smallest (embedded and netbooks), to the largest, Microsoft faces strong competition from Apple, IBM, Sun, and Linux. Real competition.
They can no longer hide behind their monopoly on systems software (and their other monopoly, Office, is only starting to be challenged by OpenOffice -- IBM has more clout to push that solution, another reason I like the idea of a merger) and claim to innovate. They will really have to innovate to compete. Vista showed how badly they can do it. It will be interesting to see what they learn (if they learn) from that.
Bullpellets. The First Amendment constrains ONLY THE GOVERNMENT. There is no "free speech right" in private places. A property owner may silence or remove anyone from his/her property for any reason, including not liking what you have to say. This is so fundamental and yet I am amazed how often people think private parties are constrained by the constitution! They ARE NOT.
That Bill of Rights thing limits only the government. You have no Constitutional Right to free speech at work, or within the bounds of a private contract.
And yet I want the President (any President) to be hampered by Congress. The "unitary executive" theory is pernicious no matter what person or party has the role.
Cleaning up Congress is the responsibility of the people, because, ultimately our votes DO count and DO decide. I'm a lifelong Minnesotan and I think we are proving that right now.
I too hold a generally dim view of the present Congress because of the way elections are funded at present. But this can change. And the most effective way to change it is for individuals to engage in the process with money, time, and their vote. If individuals contribute (which has become easier than ever) in large numbers, the influence of special interests is diluted. Congress people will be freer to vote in the public interest because they know their support will not dry up.
Keep contributing to candidates you believe in. As much as you can afford or is legal (whichever is less!;)
In a world where genes can be patented, I would much rather publicly fund science. But what the hell do I know? I also support arts funding. And roads and bridges too. What a wacky left-wing nut I am!
"Baseload" is a concept that might need revision in the future. I'm "one of those" environmentally-minded people not opposed to nuclear power. There are things that always need to be on. But in reality in our homes we don't actually need all our crap on all the time. Would it really ruin our lives if we could only run our air conditioners when the sun was shining?
I'm hopeful that we will come up with new, clean, safe ways to produce power without burning things. But "demand side management" is not at all unreasonable. We haven't put any significant effort into efficiency and conservation. I lived through the last energy crisis, and we quickly abandoned what we did back then as soon as the oil got cheap again.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to disable your A/C and your plasma TV on windless, cloudy days UNLESS you produce your own power locally. The grid is fine. The grid is good. But small scale local energy production with wind and solar is also a good idea.
Things are happening on the fuel cell front (with things like sodium borohydride fuel cells and the recently discovered catalyst that gives a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of electrolysis) and the chemical battery front. There are new designs for compressed air engines that hold promise for power storage.
My engineer father liked to restate "Necessity is the mother of invention" as "Necessity is a mutha#$@(*#" We haven't even begun to tap our creativity in these areas.
I have always mistrusted the unstated assumption that we must keep going as we have in the past, and that we must increase our energy use to grow economically. That assumption is untested, and, I suspect, incorrect.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my favorite Mark Twain quotes is "I want to go to heaven for the climate, and hell for the company."
I don't know how exactly I've got that, but it is the gist...
Yes, but he also wasn't Jonas Salk or Ghandi or Pasteur or Einstein or Justus von Liebig or any of a thousand others who had far greater impact of human life and culture and health. He had a brilliant design sense and he was a brilliant marketer but this whole "He changed the WORLD!" thing is more than a little overblown.
He made better gadgets and made a metric crapload of money doing it. More power to him, but his contributions are incremental and not terribly important.
That explains these boat eggs...
(Okay, those were swans. Still...)
(as others have noted) when you filter at all.
By opting to edit "objectionable material" they have opened themselves up to this.
I think people who think gayness can be "cured" are idiots. But for all I know these app developers are actually following my personal code of business ethics: "1. A fool and his money are my target market, and b. It is morally wrong to allow stupid people to keep their money."
(Or is this a free app?)
I'm firmly of two minds: The first is my standard response whenever anyone objects to any media content: You don't have to buy/watch/listen. There's an "off" switch. Use it.
The other mind is every company that appoints itself guardian of my content should have its arse sued into oblivion.
All I know is that my next device will be android. Not because of this specific case, but because of Apple's consistent impulse for control. The iPhone served me well as a user, but as a developer it rather sucks and the android platform and range of devices have come along nicely.
I haven't done the actual math but I think it would be either 2 or 1 depending on whether you started with an odd or even number of companies... ;)
That's why I asked the question. I think you are talking about watts/m^2 averaged over 24 hours and I'm talking about watts/m^2 at solar noon. In other words, I think both figures are correct because they are different figures. I did use the phrase "factual error," and I really should not have because I think it was me missing the "real figure" you were using. And my original question was free of accusation because I was genuinely only asking for clarification. So this is, I think, an example of violent agreement. So please ignore my loaded reply (which also wasn't intended as an accusation because it still wasn't clear to me).
So, to sum up, sorry for the rhetoric, and thanks for the clarification.
I was trying to figure out why your insolation number was so much less than what I have personally observed and your number makes sense for a diurnal average (which is what you were using, yes?)
Thanks!
That's beautiful, except the 1300 watt figure is already an average. I'm by no means an expert, but I have had a long time interest in solar PV, and the energy at the surface where I live for a flat plate collector aimed at solar noon is quite close to 1000 watts per square meter. Now, a mono or plycrystalline silicon panel, with its indirect bandgap absorption is only going to collect something on the order of 1/5 to 1/10 of that energy, but that doesn't change the fact that it is there.
I actually agree with the overall gist of the original poster's argument. I just think when your rhetoric is expressing agitation at "bad science" and you then go on to make an argument that contains a serious error of fact, well, it undermines one's authority.
I'm not jumping on a high horse here myself. I once in a loud and angry online debate confused hydrocarbons and carbohydrates. We all make mistakes. I expressed mine as a question. I wanted to understand where the figure came from because it didn't match my direct experience with PVs at 45 degrees north.
Insolation at the top of the atmosphere is approximately 1360 watts per square meter. Where do you get "342?" Are you perhaps considering only part of the spectrum?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation
May I just point out re: your sig the phrase is "intents and purposes" not "intensive purposes."
This is nothing to do with Go, Java, C++, or Google. Or how many words are defined in the OED.
Why? I have always believed it is morally wrong to allow stupid people to keep their money.
God, I miss CompuServe...
Or FIDOnet...
I have 4 real and dozens of virtual machines all running one flavor or another of Linux, with Ubuntu being the most common (I also have 3 CentOS boxes of various versions, one current Fedora box, one Mandriva, one SuSE, one Gentoo, one Debian). The real boxes all run or another Ubuntu version, one LTS server, and three desktop alternate installs (2 laptops with whole disk encryption and one "server" with a 5TB software RAID-5 array).
These are all behind one static IP address.
So, am I one user? 4 users? Does CentOS count as RedHat? It deliberately maintains the same versions of all software as RHEL.
There is no methodology that will give you an accurate count.
When I update all the requests will appear to be from one machine. Okay, so store a cookie or something. But what about a VM you snapshot and rollback (as I often do; these VMs are used for testing). I think you just have to pick a methodology and apply it consistently. Document it thoroughly. And then the consumers of the number can make their own judgment of the quality.
Just remember: Every poll you have ever seen was the result of talking to someone who doesn't just hang up on or walk away from the pollster. Now what do you think of those numbers? ;)
And attackers can attack it. You can't crack the root password if it doesn't have one and it can't login, which, to me, is the whole point of the approach. I think it is avery GOOD thing. It closes an avenue of attack and improves accountability. It is a *smart* thing and I for one hope they never move back.
That one burned down, fell over, and THEN sank into the swamp...
Okay. I take it all back. I waited 15 minutes to post my little rant. I've just never seen a torrent start so slowly for me. Now it is up and fully saturated with peers. Let's just pretend I never posted anything, mmm'kay?
I guess I should learn patience. I have four peers. I'll be leaving this up a long time, I think! ;) (It is pretty rare for my joining to be a 20% increase!)
I am currently attempting to download the .iso from bittorrent. Aparrently no one (not one!) is seeding. I am downloading from 0 of 0 connected peers. Lest anyone think my network is down, I am also donwloading open solaris 10 from 64 peers...
In which case it would have to be called "social engineering."
A little of both, actually...
I agree. IBM has been delivering superior support and Java tools for quite a while. Eclipse is the best IDE I have used, apart, perhaps, from the old Borland text-based IDE for Turbo C++.
And yes, I have used Netbeans and Visual Studio. And Kdevelop and Monodevelop and vim, vi, and emacs. And "brief" back when MS-DOS was the way to go.
And ed and Turbo Pascal back on CP/M. How many of you young punks used CP/M? Huh? Now get the hell off my lawn!
IBM is a stodgy old enterprise player, but they are solid and professional. They have been much friendlier to open source in general and Linux in particular than Sun has. I for one welcome our new Big Blue overlords...
Agreed.
I'm still primarily a Lintel platform user, but I just bought my wife a Macbook and the quality of design is quite high, both in hardware and software. The only Apple product I own and use is a iPhone. I used to carry a Linux-geek-worthy Nokia 770 tethered to a simple Sony-Ericsson phone via Bluetooth, but the Nokia had very poor PDA functions, so I still carried a Palm Tungsten. (Aside: Yes, Palm is dying, but from a usability perspective, it is still the best PDA IMHO. But I wouldn't buy a new one).
Basically, I got tired of carrying three devices and while the iPhone wasn't the best at any of these, it was pretty good at all of them AND was an iPod (albeit a limited one).
But that's just anecdote. I think Microsoft now faces real competition for the first time. Apple is a big part of it. The mass public now perceives Apple machines as capable in the business arena, more usable as a "personal computer," and less prone to the serious security problems that are now widely recognized by non-techies.
Beyond that, IBM's 7 billion dollar bid for Sun (which I, for one, hope is successful) positions IBM/Sun to stop cold Microsoft's inroads in the "serious" server space. (I look at all this from a pretty Linux-centered perspective -- you can't fully sum up two entities like IBM and Sun in a couple of paragraphs.)
Consider the combined portfolio: IBM brings their development, hardware, support and training infrastructure and software. IBM has been the real cheerleader (and tech leader) for Java for years now. IBM has embraced Linux and was in no small part responsible for American businesses taking it seriously. Eclipse, AIX, DB2, etc. Not to mention all the mainframe stuff
Sun brings recent acquisitions like MySQL and VirtualBox, official Java, OpenOffice, hardware and engineering...
An IBM/Sun combo can deliver the whole package to any sized business. From a single Linux-hosted server for a small business, up to mainframe hosted VMs for the largest entities. And as someone who has recently experienced many frustrations with the scalability of Windows Server 2003-hosted solutions (is it just me, or is SQL Server incredibly stupidly configured out of the box?)
And Linux-based netbooks. Cheap low power laptops run better with Linux.
So, from the smallest (embedded and netbooks), to the largest, Microsoft faces strong competition from Apple, IBM, Sun, and Linux. Real competition.
They can no longer hide behind their monopoly on systems software (and their other monopoly, Office, is only starting to be challenged by OpenOffice -- IBM has more clout to push that solution, another reason I like the idea of a merger) and claim to innovate. They will really have to innovate to compete. Vista showed how badly they can do it. It will be interesting to see what they learn (if they learn) from that.
Bullpellets. The First Amendment constrains ONLY THE GOVERNMENT. There is no "free speech right" in private places. A property owner may silence or remove anyone from his/her property for any reason, including not liking what you have to say. This is so fundamental and yet I am amazed how often people think private parties are constrained by the constitution! They ARE NOT.
That Bill of Rights thing limits only the government. You have no Constitutional Right to free speech at work, or within the bounds of a private contract.
NONE. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis.
And yet I want the President (any President) to be hampered by Congress. The "unitary executive" theory is pernicious no matter what person or party has the role.
Cleaning up Congress is the responsibility of the people, because, ultimately our votes DO count and DO decide. I'm a lifelong Minnesotan and I think we are proving that right now.
I too hold a generally dim view of the present Congress because of the way elections are funded at present. But this can change. And the most effective way to change it is for individuals to engage in the process with money, time, and their vote. If individuals contribute (which has become easier than ever) in large numbers, the influence of special interests is diluted. Congress people will be freer to vote in the public interest because they know their support will not dry up.
Keep contributing to candidates you believe in. As much as you can afford or is legal (whichever is less! ;)
In a world where genes can be patented, I would much rather publicly fund science. But what the hell do I know? I also support arts funding. And roads and bridges too. What a wacky left-wing nut I am!
"Baseload" is a concept that might need revision in the future. I'm "one of those" environmentally-minded people not opposed to nuclear power. There are things that always need to be on. But in reality in our homes we don't actually need all our crap on all the time. Would it really ruin our lives if we could only run our air conditioners when the sun was shining?
I'm hopeful that we will come up with new, clean, safe ways to produce power without burning things. But "demand side management" is not at all unreasonable. We haven't put any significant effort into efficiency and conservation. I lived through the last energy crisis, and we quickly abandoned what we did back then as soon as the oil got cheap again.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to disable your A/C and your plasma TV on windless, cloudy days UNLESS you produce your own power locally. The grid is fine. The grid is good. But small scale local energy production with wind and solar is also a good idea.
Things are happening on the fuel cell front (with things like sodium borohydride fuel cells and the recently discovered catalyst that gives a tenfold improvement in the efficiency of electrolysis) and the chemical battery front. There are new designs for compressed air engines that hold promise for power storage.
My engineer father liked to restate "Necessity is the mother of invention" as "Necessity is a mutha#$@(*#" We haven't even begun to tap our creativity in these areas.
I have always mistrusted the unstated assumption that we must keep going as we have in the past, and that we must increase our energy use to grow economically. That assumption is untested, and, I suspect, incorrect.