Given the original poster's statement of the geographical acumen of his correspondents, I wouldn't assume that the parties in question were necessarily aware that Canadia (all right! CANADA) lies north of the US border! However, your point is well taken, and is probably what the AC meant by his statement. I'll admit I didn't think of that. Thanks!
Is geographic ignorance confined to the United States? Or is that geographic ignorance?
For the record, I'm a citizen of the United States, and I know where Canada, Montana, North Dakota, and Kashmir are. I also know that it doesn't make a lot of sense to refer to being "north" of a border that runs north-south, as the Montana-North Dakota border does.
Also, I think Canada should be called "Canadia." Isn't that a cooler sounding name? And I think Nepal should be moved a little bit to the left (west on my North America centric maps). I think robots are stealing my luggage. I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary people in the country are fed up with being sick and tired. I am certainly not. But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
(Portions stolen without permission from Steve Martin and the Monty Python group).
Anyways, for the record, I know not only the states of the union, but the Provinces of Canadia (although I couldn't tell you the name of a single current Canadian office holder), and the capitals of Oregon, Ontario, and Quatar.
Surely there are much better things to belittle the United States about than our geography skills? Like our electoral college...
It was an incredibly cheesy cybernetic Loch Ness Monster. It looks abysmal when it is stop-motion animated, and it manages to look even worse when it is a CSO background sock puppet.
Good story, though. Lots of atmosphere, good old "over the top" villian in John Woodnutt, and the thrill of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in a kilt. It's a fun episode. Pretty typical of the "good" Baker episodes.
Don't apologize! I was the ignorant correcting the ignorant! (No offense to kfg intended there. I knew a little bit more about how those phrases are used today than he, but, as I said, I'm not a Latin scholar, 1 semester in college notwithstanding).
I think it was Aquinas (but it may have been Augustine) who said "The only cure for ignorance is confession." I appreciate the details, and hope kfg does too!
Actually, ex post facto means "after the fact." The phrase a posteriori is the complement to a priori, which are terms from philosophy that define how a datum is knowable: Knowledge that is "a priori" is knowledge that is known without experience, whereas "a posteriori" knowledge is known only with experience.
The most useful contrast would be between mathematics, which may be continually derived by pure thought, and physics, which requires that theories be subjected to experimentation.
Mathematics and logic can be said to be "a priori" systems, but natural science requires validation against experience and is thus "a posteriori."
IIRC, these phrases mean "from before" and "from after," not "after the fact," which, as I said before, is better translated to Latin as "ex post facto."
Not that your meaning wasn't clear to me, but quickly looking over the use of these phrases in modern writing shows me that "a priori/a posteriori" are terms mostly used in logic and epistomology, wheras I see them not at all in legal dictionaries, while "ex post facto" shows up frequently in legal writing.
I don't claim any great authority, here, however, and would be happy to be proved wrong. (Well, not happy, maybe, but I'm preapred for it;-)
Revenues most emphatically did not double, unless you count the economic expansion that followed the tax INCREASE in the first two years of the Clinton administration.
Where in the world do you get the notion that revenues doubled? In fact, federal spending as a percentage of GDP peaked during the Bush I administration.
During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, revenue went from 517.1 billion dollars to 769.2 billion dollars (quite an expansion in absolute dollars, but hardly double the revenue). In the meantime, the public debt went from 711.9 billion dollars to 1.74 TRILLION dollars, more than doubling. (Source is the CBO).
Also, if you look at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP (the total economic output of the nation), during the Reagan years you see that taxes were indeed cut, from 18.9% of GDP to 17.5% of GDP. But if the intention was for that to reduce the debt, that failed. In percent of GDP terms, from 26.1% of GDP to 39.6% of GDP.
If we look at on whom the tax burden fell, individual income taxes were 244.1 billion in 1980 and 349.0 billion in 1986. Corporate income tax went from 64.6 billion to 63.1 billion over the same period. How corporate America suffers!
Social security and Medicare over this time went from 157.8 billion to 283.9 billion.
And the evil "Death Tax" the Republicans love to attack? 6.4 billion to 7.0 billion.
Oh, and while you are blaming Congress for the "spending" side, *All* of the expansion in entitlements were offset by increased payroll taxation. The increase? The defense budget.
Now, understand, I'm not saying this was a bad thing. I think the cold war is over because of this massive increase in Federal spending, but put the blame for the deficits and the debt where it lies: In the budget proposed and pushed by the adminstration.
Again, you can't get the facts from the press on the right or the left. You have to go look at the data.
Nobody in the mass media is telling the story truthfully and completely. Not the traditional news media, and certainly not the right-wing talk radio world.
You will hear the CBO bashed, but remember the Congressional Budget Office is currently run by the Republicans and there sits the data.
Go look at it.
Oh, BTW, from 1992 to 2000, revenue DID double (from 1.091 trillion to 2.025 trillion, and the debt went down from its 1997 peak of 3.772 trillion to 3.409 trillion). However, the budget has gone back into deficit in 2002 and 2003 and the debt is increasing again. We can argue about the cause, but the big new item in the budget is running two major military operations.
This is the basic leap most people fail to make. Note that this doesn't mean cutting taxes MUST be bad policy. If it was always bad to borrow money, businesses would never do it. It is all about whether the economic activity you spur by shifting back tot he private sector will produce enough revenue to more than offset the cost of the bonds sold to cover the deficit.
The debate on fiscal policy is about *that*, not about tax cuts.
The problem is that thinking about taxes and spending at this level requires just a little bit more time and attention than TV generally allows. People doze off. So both sides reduce fiscal policy to sound bites:
"Tax and spend liberal!" "Tax cuts for the rich!"
Both are shallow and largely irrelevant.
The real debate is in your observation. But tax cuts do cause economic growth. But economic growth can lead to inflation. The Federal Reserve fights inflation by raising interest rates. Rising interest rates slow economic growth. Slow economic growth and you don't get the increased revenue (I think you can tell where I come down on the tax cuts).
The next time you hear demagogery from the right or the left on fiscal policy, think about this person's comment. The issue is deeper than the debate.
Read David Stockman's Book: "The Triumph of Politics." He was Reagan's budget director. The deficits were *deliberate*. They saw it as the only way to force reductions in the size of government. He has plenty of ink against the Dems as well, but the notion of the Reagan Administration as sound fiscal stewards isn't supported by former members of the Administration.
I would like to just mention that I have had the same 802.11b PCMCIA card and access point for almost three years now, but on a recent business trip, it got broken.
Several trips to a SuperJumboElectroMegaHut (or a Best Buy, I can't remember which) later, the only 802.11 card that would work "out of the box" with my Linux laptop was a Microsoft MN-520. All the others on the shelf used one of the either not supported or barely supported 802.11g chipsets.
For various job-related reasons using non-standard kernel patches wasn't an option for me, so the few other supported cards were out.
It is getting harder and harder to find wireless cards that work well with the stock kernel (or the Fedora/RedHat kernel, which, of course, can't really be considered a stock kernel).
So I'm sorry to see Microsoft leave this market because they were the best provider of Linux-friendly Wi-Fi cards. Ironic, innit?
There are a lot of great threads in this discussion. For the most part I am firmly in the "math is good" part. The more types, the better. The barest, most essential minimum is actually often taught in the Philosophy departments of universities: Logic. A thorough grounding in logic is essential to being a good programmer. And I don't merely mean being able to throw together a chain of ands and ors that work, but being able to optomize logical expressions to find the most compact and efficient expression possible. I can't think of a single kind of programming that doesn't benefit from a fairly deep knowledge of symbolic logic.
Beyond that, various mathematical disciplines have different levels of demand based on the work being done. I'm largely excluded from the world of real-time 3D graphics because I never went beyond the basics of the math that underlies it. (Some of the most terrifying evil geniuses I know are guys who can not only do all the math involved in projections and rotations, but can also implement it using only integer math -- they scare me!)
You'd better have your logic (deep) and at least your algebra, pre-calculus, calculus, geometry (with trig). From there, every bit of math you learn broadens you and gives you the potential to see solutions your competitors (other job applicants) might not see.
This is the value of all education: Having more knowledge at your fingertips is the rich soil that grows insights. I know a lot of people who think they they can use an Internet connection and Google and they are "programmers." To some extent, this is true. But you can't look for things you can't imagine or remember. Information and knowledge are not the same things.
I don't limit this to math education either. Even history, music, literature, biology, chemistry, physics, and philosophy can provide the mind with the possibility of new ideas. Anyone looking for "the easy path" through education to a job is short changing himself. University time is the time to wallow in the sea of human learning. The goal is to be an educated person, not a unit of productivity fitted to a particular cog in the great machine of industry. We make and use machines for our rote tasks. Your goal in education (to me) is to become maximally adaptable: to achieve cerebral fitness.
In other words, I think this question is the wrong question.
I'm sure I'm echoing sentiments and thoughts already expressed a hundred times over in this discussion, but I think analogy demolishes this argument better than anything.
Do doctors keep their methods secret? Do architects refuse to file blueprints with the local planning authority? No. Can everyone on earth perform open heart surgery just because the methods are available in textbooks? No. Can anyone slap together a design for a skyscraper, even though blueprints are on file at the planning comission? No! Because the skills and knowledge are of value not the product. (Well, of course the product has value, but not in the same way). Most people who write software are not writing commodity components (operating systems, word processors, web browsers) and using the fact the compilation is tantamount to encryption in conjunction with IP law to create an artificial shortage to permit sale at inflated prices. Most people who write software are paid to make specific devices work or to automate processes for specific businesses. Free Software is eroding the market for a tiny fraction of the software economy. The fact that it is "software companies" whose market is being eroded makes it look like catastrophe, but it is NOT. Software is transitioning from a commodity to a profession. And that is a good thing.
No, not every programmer is going to be a Linus Thorvalds or a Larry Wall (or "insert your favorite famous programmer here"), but then not every architect is I.M. Pei either. There are plenty of architects, but few superstars. There are plenty of doctors and lawyers, but few Christain Barnards or Melvin Bellis. But so what?
The point is, software shouldn't be secret. It should be the quality of your practice and not the secrets you keep that set your value.
Note that IMHO the longer payback times are correct. The short times are assuming that boule ends from IC manufacture are used and discount the energy used to produce that refined silicon. Since this is about 300kWh/kg, that's a lot of energy. The longer times are more "honest." Although, PV production right now doesn't exhaust the supply of recyclable refined silicon.
The thin-films, like amorphous silicon, have much shorter payback times, but amorphous silicon degrades over time to a final stable output that is quite inefficient. Still, thin-film silicon PV is used quite well in applications that require changeout every 5-10 years (like roof shingles).
ALL silicon PV technologies produce more energy than they take to manufacture.
I must say that I do not know about the "exotic" thin films used in space applications, like CdTe and CIS (copper-indium di-selenide). They have high efficiency, but I haven't the foggiest knowledge of their energy-to-manafucture.
This is simply untrue and has been for nearly 2 decades. I don't know why this pernicious belief hangs on. PV cells based on silicon have energy payback times of 1-4 years. They can produce energy indefinitely, although lifetime for mono and polycrystalline cells is generally taken to be 30 years.
There is a PDF at NREL that summarizes the current PV payback times.
Note that this is energy payback time. Not economic payback time. The reason we aren't all doing PV is it is still much cheaper to hook up to the grid.
The indemnification argument is the only thing that really makes me think about "vast consipiracy" in this whole thing, because IIRC it was shortly after MS announced it would offer third-party indeminty to all Windows users that SCO started making its big stink. But memory is tricky (esp. mine). It may have been shortly before that SCO started its stink.
I do notice that it is MS's traditional media shills who keep talking about indeminifcation. It's the old "Big Lie" PR approach. Tell a lie often enough, loud enough, and it becomes the truth in the popular mind.
Personally, I'm rather glad this is coming up. To my eye, this looks like it will turn into a test of the GPL, and I think the GPL is ready for it.
How about Antarctica? Last time I checked, most of the world's ice was to be found there and (also the last time I checked) it is a continent. Mind you, I've never been to Antarctica. I've only read about it in books. You can't trust those damned liberal cartographers, though, can you? They probably made up Antarctica as part of a vast liberal conspiracy to keep Monsanto from doing whatever the damned hell Monsanto wants to do.
You have to remember that a crime was being investigated here. The person was engaged in extortion and fraud. The law enforcement agency did not enter or search the alleged perpetrator's home or computer, they did the network equivalent of making a call or pulling the phone records.
This was in no way an abuse of police power.
IANAL, but if there was any prayer of claiming that this was an illegal search, then the defense lawyer will use it (or such a defense has been long since tried and either failed or succeeded).
This isn't about outsourcing software development overseas, this is about security at a company and outsourcing security and network administration. If a company has one person who holds all the keys to the security kingdom, even if he or she is doing a great job so far, you have an insecure system. Any system the depends on the knowledge or integrity of one person is an insecure system.
That said, firing that person is not the first best answer. The first best answer is to properly distribute the responsibility and oversight. It isn't right to put all you trust in an outside vendor either.
I don't know any specifics about this particular situation, but if I encountered a person who had all such controls in his or her hands and who regarded any distribution or surrender of authority or oversight as wrong or something to be resisted, I would consider replacing that person.
No system designed around a single point of failure is a reliable system.
How about Frankenstein's monster's reason? You created me for now good reason. I hate you for condemning me to life.
Milton had Adam ask this question in "Paradise Lost":
"Did I ask thee, God, to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?"
All of these are about God's duty to creation, man's duty to God, man's duty to his own creations, etc.
While we're at it, toss in a little "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." Mix well. Ask yourself if maybe there's, just maybe, room for the same ground to be trod again and again because the question is really difficult...
This version was a lot less hackneyed than the original.
If you are a sci-fi worshipper (as opposed to a reader), then just keep up your idolatry and let the grown-ups play once in a while.
This is *not* Flamebait!
on
iPod-Jacked
·
· Score: 1
This just reinforces my belief that Apple is a religion. Plugging one's jack into another's socket (with no obscene metaphor intended) has been technologically feasible since the first battery-operated portable tape recorders, even well before the first battery-operated tape recorder people didn't look at you funny for carrying around (the Sony Walkman). So why didn't this cult practice catch on before now? Simple. Think different. Think Moonie.;-)
A Different Kind of Company, A Different Kind of Car... A Different Kind of Company, A Different Kind of Car... Consume... Consume... Consume...
Slashdot Mirror
Given the original poster's statement of the geographical acumen of his correspondents, I wouldn't assume that the parties in question were necessarily aware that Canadia (all right! CANADA) lies north of the US border! However, your point is well taken, and is probably what the AC meant by his statement. I'll admit I didn't think of that. Thanks!
Is geographic ignorance confined to the United States? Or is that geographic ignorance?
For the record, I'm a citizen of the United States, and I know where Canada, Montana, North Dakota, and Kashmir are. I also know that it doesn't make a lot of sense to refer to being "north" of a border that runs north-south, as the Montana-North Dakota border does.
Also, I think Canada should be called "Canadia." Isn't that a cooler sounding name? And I think Nepal should be moved a little bit to the left (west on my North America centric maps). I think robots are stealing my luggage. I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary people in the country are fed up with being sick and tired. I am certainly not. But I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.
(Portions stolen without permission from Steve Martin and the Monty Python group).
Anyways, for the record, I know not only the states of the union, but the Provinces of Canadia (although I couldn't tell you the name of a single current Canadian office holder), and the capitals of Oregon, Ontario, and Quatar.
Surely there are much better things to belittle the United States about than our geography skills? Like our electoral college...
"The Manchurian Candidate" was a book before it was the first movie. So the current version is a movie from a movie from a book.
It was an incredibly cheesy cybernetic Loch Ness Monster. It looks abysmal when it is stop-motion animated, and it manages to look even worse when it is a CSO background sock puppet.
Good story, though. Lots of atmosphere, good old "over the top" villian in John Woodnutt, and the thrill of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in a kilt. It's a fun episode. Pretty typical of the "good" Baker episodes.
Don't apologize! I was the ignorant correcting the ignorant! (No offense to kfg intended there. I knew a little bit more about how those phrases are used today than he, but, as I said, I'm not a Latin scholar, 1 semester in college notwithstanding).
I think it was Aquinas (but it may have been Augustine) who said "The only cure for ignorance is confession." I appreciate the details, and hope kfg does too!
Actually, ex post facto means "after the fact." The phrase a posteriori is the complement to a priori, which are terms from philosophy that define how a datum is knowable: Knowledge that is "a priori" is knowledge that is known without experience, whereas "a posteriori" knowledge is known only with experience.
;-)
The most useful contrast would be between mathematics, which may be continually derived by pure thought, and physics, which requires that theories be subjected to experimentation.
Mathematics and logic can be said to be "a priori" systems, but natural science requires validation against experience and is thus "a posteriori."
IIRC, these phrases mean "from before" and "from after," not "after the fact," which, as I said before, is better translated to Latin as "ex post facto."
Not that your meaning wasn't clear to me, but quickly looking over the use of these phrases in modern writing shows me that "a priori/a posteriori" are terms mostly used in logic and epistomology, wheras I see them not at all in legal dictionaries, while "ex post facto" shows up frequently in legal writing.
I don't claim any great authority, here, however, and would be happy to be proved wrong. (Well, not happy, maybe, but I'm preapred for it
Revenues most emphatically did not double, unless you count the economic expansion that followed the tax INCREASE in the first two years of the Clinton administration.
Where in the world do you get the notion that revenues doubled? In fact, federal spending as a percentage of GDP peaked during the Bush I administration.
During the eight years of the Reagan presidency, revenue went from 517.1 billion dollars to 769.2 billion dollars (quite an expansion in absolute dollars, but hardly double the revenue). In the meantime, the public debt went from 711.9 billion dollars to 1.74 TRILLION dollars, more than doubling. (Source is the CBO).
Also, if you look at tax revenue as a percentage of GDP (the total economic output of the nation), during the Reagan years you see that taxes were indeed cut, from 18.9% of GDP to 17.5% of GDP. But if the intention was for that to reduce the debt, that failed. In percent of GDP terms, from 26.1% of GDP to 39.6% of GDP.
If we look at on whom the tax burden fell, individual income taxes were 244.1 billion in 1980 and 349.0 billion in 1986. Corporate income tax went from 64.6 billion to 63.1 billion over the same period. How corporate America suffers!
Social security and Medicare over this time went from 157.8 billion to 283.9 billion.
And the evil "Death Tax" the Republicans love to attack? 6.4 billion to 7.0 billion.
Oh, and while you are blaming Congress for the "spending" side, *All* of the expansion in entitlements were offset by increased payroll taxation. The increase? The defense budget.
Now, understand, I'm not saying this was a bad thing. I think the cold war is over because of this massive increase in Federal spending, but put the blame for the deficits and the debt where it lies: In the budget proposed and pushed by the adminstration.
Again, you can't get the facts from the press on the right or the left. You have to go look at the data.
Nobody in the mass media is telling the story truthfully and completely. Not the traditional news media, and certainly not the right-wing talk radio world.
You will hear the CBO bashed, but remember the Congressional Budget Office is currently run by the Republicans and there sits the data.
Go look at it.
Oh, BTW, from 1992 to 2000, revenue DID double (from 1.091 trillion to 2.025 trillion, and the debt went down from its 1997 peak of 3.772 trillion to 3.409 trillion). However, the budget has gone back into deficit in 2002 and 2003 and the debt is increasing again. We can argue about the cause, but the big new item in the budget is running two major military operations.
Bingo. I hope you get moderated up.
This is the basic leap most people fail to make. Note that this doesn't mean cutting taxes MUST be bad policy. If it was always bad to borrow money, businesses would never do it. It is all about whether the economic activity you spur by shifting back tot he private sector will produce enough revenue to more than offset the cost of the bonds sold to cover the deficit.
The debate on fiscal policy is about *that*, not about tax cuts.
The problem is that thinking about taxes and spending at this level requires just a little bit more time and attention than TV generally allows. People doze off. So both sides reduce fiscal policy to sound bites:
"Tax and spend liberal!"
"Tax cuts for the rich!"
Both are shallow and largely irrelevant.
The real debate is in your observation. But tax cuts do cause economic growth. But economic growth can lead to inflation. The Federal Reserve fights inflation by raising interest rates. Rising interest rates slow economic growth. Slow economic growth and you don't get the increased revenue (I think you can tell where I come down on the tax cuts).
The next time you hear demagogery from the right or the left on fiscal policy, think about this person's comment. The issue is deeper than the debate.
Read David Stockman's Book: "The Triumph of Politics." He was Reagan's budget director. The deficits were *deliberate*. They saw it as the only way to force reductions in the size of government. He has plenty of ink against the Dems as well, but the notion of the Reagan Administration as sound fiscal stewards isn't supported by former members of the Administration.
Only for sex. For everything else, it is called "employment."
I would like to just mention that I have had the same 802.11b PCMCIA card and access point for almost three years now, but on a recent business trip, it got broken.
Several trips to a SuperJumboElectroMegaHut (or a Best Buy, I can't remember which) later, the only 802.11 card that would work "out of the box" with my Linux laptop was a Microsoft MN-520. All the others on the shelf used one of the either not supported or barely supported 802.11g chipsets.
For various job-related reasons using non-standard kernel patches wasn't an option for me, so the few other supported cards were out.
It is getting harder and harder to find wireless cards that work well with the stock kernel (or the Fedora/RedHat kernel, which, of course, can't really be considered a stock kernel).
So I'm sorry to see Microsoft leave this market because they were the best provider of Linux-friendly Wi-Fi cards. Ironic, innit?
There are a lot of great threads in this discussion. For the most part I am firmly in the "math is good" part. The more types, the better. The barest, most essential minimum is actually often taught in the Philosophy departments of universities: Logic. A thorough grounding in logic is essential to being a good programmer. And I don't merely mean being able to throw together a chain of ands and ors that work, but being able to optomize logical expressions to find the most compact and efficient expression possible. I can't think of a single kind of programming that doesn't benefit from a fairly deep knowledge of symbolic logic.
Beyond that, various mathematical disciplines have different levels of demand based on the work being done. I'm largely excluded from the world of real-time 3D graphics because I never went beyond the basics of the math that underlies it. (Some of the most terrifying evil geniuses I know are guys who can not only do all the math involved in projections and rotations, but can also implement it using only integer math -- they scare me!)
You'd better have your logic (deep) and at least your algebra, pre-calculus, calculus, geometry (with trig). From there, every bit of math you learn broadens you and gives you the potential to see solutions your competitors (other job applicants) might not see.
This is the value of all education: Having more knowledge at your fingertips is the rich soil that grows insights. I know a lot of people who think they they can use an Internet connection and Google and they are "programmers." To some extent, this is true. But you can't look for things you can't imagine or remember. Information and knowledge are not the same things.
I don't limit this to math education either. Even history, music, literature, biology, chemistry, physics, and philosophy can provide the mind with the possibility of new ideas. Anyone looking for "the easy path" through education to a job is short changing himself. University time is the time to wallow in the sea of human learning. The goal is to be an educated person, not a unit of productivity fitted to a particular cog in the great machine of industry. We make and use machines for our rote tasks. Your goal in education (to me) is to become maximally adaptable: to achieve cerebral fitness.
In other words, I think this question is the wrong question.
I'm sure I'm echoing sentiments and thoughts already expressed a hundred times over in this discussion, but I think analogy demolishes this argument better than anything.
Do doctors keep their methods secret? Do architects refuse to file blueprints with the local planning authority? No. Can everyone on earth perform open heart surgery just because the methods are available in textbooks? No. Can anyone slap together a design for a skyscraper, even though blueprints are on file at the planning comission? No! Because the skills and knowledge are of value not the product. (Well, of course the product has value, but not in the same way). Most people who write software are not writing commodity components (operating systems, word processors, web browsers) and using the fact the compilation is tantamount to encryption in conjunction with IP law to create an artificial shortage to permit sale at inflated prices. Most people who write software are paid to make specific devices work or to automate processes for specific businesses. Free Software is eroding the market for a tiny fraction of the software economy. The fact that it is "software companies" whose market is being eroded makes it look like catastrophe, but it is NOT. Software is transitioning from a commodity to a profession. And that is a good thing.
No, not every programmer is going to be a Linus Thorvalds or a Larry Wall (or "insert your favorite famous programmer here"), but then not every architect is I.M. Pei either. There are plenty of architects, but few superstars. There are plenty of doctors and lawyers, but few Christain Barnards or Melvin Bellis. But so what?
The point is, software shouldn't be secret. It should be the quality of your practice and not the secrets you keep that set your value.
The Y web site doesn't tell me what license this is to be realeased under. Anyone here know?
Not to be pedantic, but since X exists, this would have to be getting it right the second time, at least...
Note that IMHO the longer payback times are correct. The short times are assuming that boule ends from IC manufacture are used and discount the energy used to produce that refined silicon. Since this is about 300kWh/kg, that's a lot of energy. The longer times are more "honest." Although, PV production right now doesn't exhaust the supply of recyclable refined silicon.
The thin-films, like amorphous silicon, have much shorter payback times, but amorphous silicon degrades over time to a final stable output that is quite inefficient. Still, thin-film silicon PV is used quite well in applications that require changeout every 5-10 years (like roof shingles).
ALL silicon PV technologies produce more energy than they take to manufacture.
I must say that I do not know about the "exotic" thin films used in space applications, like CdTe and CIS (copper-indium di-selenide). They have high efficiency, but I haven't the foggiest knowledge of their energy-to-manafucture.
This is simply untrue and has been for nearly 2 decades. I don't know why this pernicious belief hangs on. PV cells based on silicon have energy payback times of 1-4 years. They can produce energy indefinitely, although lifetime for mono and polycrystalline cells is generally taken to be 30 years.
There is
a PDF at NREL that summarizes the current PV payback times.
Note that this is energy payback time. Not economic payback time. The reason we aren't all doing PV is it is still much cheaper to hook up to the grid.
The indemnification argument is the only thing that really makes me think about "vast consipiracy" in this whole thing, because IIRC it was shortly after MS announced it would offer third-party indeminty to all Windows users that SCO started making its big stink. But memory is tricky (esp. mine). It may have been shortly before that SCO started its stink.
I do notice that it is MS's traditional media shills who keep talking about indeminifcation. It's the old "Big Lie" PR approach. Tell a lie often enough, loud enough, and it becomes the truth in the popular mind.
Personally, I'm rather glad this is coming up. To my eye, this looks like it will turn into a test of the GPL, and I think the GPL is ready for it.
SCO is going to lose.
How about Antarctica? Last time I checked, most of the world's ice was to be found there and (also the last time I checked) it is a continent. Mind you, I've never been to Antarctica. I've only read about it in books. You can't trust those damned liberal cartographers, though, can you? They probably made up Antarctica as part of a vast liberal conspiracy to keep Monsanto from doing whatever the damned hell Monsanto wants to do.
Fuckin' liberals...
Pay me $2M or I will tell the world about your flaws.
That is an attempt to obtain money by threat. That is the definition of extortion. A business relationship cannot be created by only one party.
This is not a legitimate line of business at all.
You have to remember that a crime was being investigated here. The person was engaged in extortion and fraud. The law enforcement agency did not enter or search the alleged perpetrator's home or computer, they did the network equivalent of making a call or pulling the phone records.
This was in no way an abuse of police power.
IANAL, but if there was any prayer of claiming that this was an illegal search, then the defense lawyer will use it (or such a defense has been long since tried and either failed or succeeded).
This isn't about outsourcing software development overseas, this is about security at a company and outsourcing security and network administration. If a company has one person who holds all the keys to the security kingdom, even if he or she is doing a great job so far, you have an insecure system. Any system the depends on the knowledge or integrity of one person is an insecure system.
That said, firing that person is not the first best answer. The first best answer is to properly distribute the responsibility and oversight. It isn't right to put all you trust in an outside vendor either.
I don't know any specifics about this particular situation, but if I encountered a person who had all such controls in his or her hands and who regarded any distribution or surrender of authority or oversight as wrong or something to be resisted, I would consider replacing that person.
No system designed around a single point of failure is a reliable system.
From personal experience in the wide world of MIS, you do not need to have a union or belong to a union to do this.
How about Frankenstein's monster's reason? You created me for now good reason. I hate you for condemning me to life.
Milton had Adam ask this question in "Paradise Lost":
"Did I ask thee, God, to mould me man?
Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?"
All of these are about God's duty to creation, man's duty to God, man's duty to his own creations, etc.
While we're at it, toss in a little "Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead." Mix well. Ask yourself if maybe there's, just maybe, room for the same ground to be trod again and again because the question is really difficult...
This version was a lot less hackneyed than the original.
If you are a sci-fi worshipper (as opposed to a reader), then just keep up your idolatry and let the grown-ups play once in a while.
This just reinforces my belief that Apple is a religion. Plugging one's jack into another's socket (with no obscene metaphor intended) has been technologically feasible since the first battery-operated portable tape recorders, even well before the first battery-operated tape recorder people didn't look at you funny for carrying around (the Sony Walkman). So why didn't this cult practice catch on before now? Simple. Think different. Think Moonie. ;-)
A Different Kind of Company, A Different Kind of Car... A Different Kind of Company, A Different Kind of Car... Consume... Consume... Consume...