since fighting China by military, or economic means is nearly futile, about the only way left is to disseminate information via the internet in all imaginable ways. If the net is a 'true democracy', then by 'painlessly' infiltrating it into the hands of 1.3 billion Chinese, we'd be 'waging' a successful war on China... which, lest you forgot, is still considered the last, dying, communist bastion of the world.
and wanting to make waves, as he does, I'd start working on developing some form of a interface between a human and a computer. I mean, even if he succeeds at developing a software system that passes the Turing test, that still would pale in comparison to developing the next Borg. Just a thought...
I sent in an article at least couple of years ago about this site, and the story reviewer was at first going to submit the story, then he renegged on it and turned it down. I even got a reply to my email from Dr. Peter Duesberg (professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley), where I asked him if he is willing to lend facts/credence to the story I submitted on Slashdot by backing up some of the claims that HIV is a myth - which he very well did, and the moderator on Slashdot _still_ decided to turn the story down. He cited some shitty sources where they call Duesberg and others like him "dissidents" (yeah, just like Chomsky I suppose), and said there was enough conflicting opinion that he himself found to reject my story. What a buffoon, I thought... and two years later, someone actually submits a story on a self-healing HIV-positive "patient".
Is it just me or is there others who find Slashdot to be laughable when it comes to credibility, or even newsworthiness? I think all Slashdot has going for it is a lot of momentum from the past - other than that, I think there's a number of websites that one can go to for higher quality news and more credible stories.
What's the guarantee that Intel based macs will be
on
Intel PowerBook Rumor Mill
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
faster than a PowerPC based Mac? As I understand it, the slowdown in performance isn't necessarily from the CPU, but in the way the OSX kernel is designed, which is a hybrid micro/monolithic-kernel. Not that long ago, Anandtech published performance figures too for Linux vs OSX on the serverside, and largely threading issues were blamed for performance. IIRC, there's multiple levels of API's before you get to the 'fast' threads - forgot what they're called on OSX, which slow the threads down on OSX vs Linux. Will switching to a new CPU necessarily give any performance benefits at all over the old PPC CPUs?
.. I believe Bruce Schneier already beat this issue to death - security is a process - that can not be gained from a book or a product or a tool or whatever... If the book moves you in the right direction, it's worth a read. Check out his short essay on this.
Somehow, the following G.I. Jane dialogue seemed apropos (give or take a few modifications to the words:
SBC Board of Directors: Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: Begging your pardon, sir?
SBC Board of Directors: Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: I think you've resented me from the start, sir.
SBC Board of Directors: What I resent, Lieutenant, is some politician using my base as a test tube for her grand social experiment. What I resent, is the sensitivity training that is now mandatory for all of my men. The ob-gyn I now have to keep on staff just to keep track of your personal pap smears. But most of all what I resent, is your perfume, however subtle, interfering with the scent of my fine three-dollar-and-seventy-nine-cent cigar, which I will put out this instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your GODDAMN FRAGILE SENSIBILITIES! Does it?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: No, sir.
SBC Board of Directors: "No, sir" WHAT?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: The shape doesn't bother me. Just the goddamn sweet stench.
This may be slightly off topic - but BMW has been demonstrating the 750hl model throughout the world for a few years now. IIRC, the only issue was the cost of making hydrogen. Google for 'BMW 750hl'.
Apple is a _BUSINESS_. They could give a shit less whether they run Power CPUs or Intel as long as they are still a viable business. I think they've been quite PATIENT with IBM, and obviously they realized there will be no Powerbook G5 in the foreseeable future - and that costs them a fuckload of potential revenue/profits. So why are you (acting) so surprised as though any one of us wouldn't have made the exact same move if we were in Apple's shoes?
OF COURSE, development will go on - most Mac users could give slightly more than a fuck about what CPU the Mac runs on as long as the software/GUI is preserved. Upon hearing this news, 98% of Mac users scratched their ass and said, 'whew, let's move on then'... Just like you should instead of dweebing on this issue like a bunch of worried grandmothers!:)
You cant have your cake and eat it too. But which is better - more jobs and shitty conditions for those workers or less jobs and better conditions for those who have them? It's not like it takes a PhD for one to be employed as a UPS trucker... so he or she might as well find another job for the qualifications they possess.
Or - option 2 - reduce the CEO's and top executives' incomes enough so that they can cover for more employees. They can treat that as investing back into the company. Somehow, I can't see that fly in the corporate world...but it was a thought:).
well.. thanks for the snippy remarks.. Tesla was greate, no matter how you slice it, whether you like it or not. Corporations only care about you in the most minimal sense possible, thus the feeling should be reciprocal.
However, it seems you are pretty entrenched in your own beliefs, so further discussion is probably moot and my point is lost on you...
ugh - you are quite right about some people are more talented than others - but in the , call it what you want - grand scheme of things, that truly matters little. Tesla was the fucking genius of the last century, and died, withered away in poverty.... so have many other super fuckin talented, creative, mathematically inclined people. Do you know why? Because it truly doesn't matter that they were in a certain way, when it comes to big corporations...
Talented, TRULY outstanding individuals who do not easily burn out and can produce excellent results 10 out of 10 times they apply themselves to their job - are actually a thorn in everyone's ass in large corporations, where there's a lot of mouths to feed... Maybe if you were in a small corporation, working closely with the owner, you will get remunerated for your talents/effort accordingly, but generally speaking those who are super smart, are super arrogant and deluded that what they are represents something larger than capitalism, larger than life, and forget who they are and who they work for, or they burn themselves out by working for someone and expect an equal remuneration proportionate to their efforts. They measure their efforts as compared to the guy next to them using the same or a different title - and when they realize that at the end of the day the difference in pay may be even higher for the guy that worked less - they either quit, or get revolted and act out (and then they get axed later on anyway because they are of a rebellious nature)....
So fucking what if someone is smarter than me or if I am smarter/more productive than someone else? It may mean something to me. It may mean something to the company. It may mean a lot of things, except one thing - that you are going to be rewarded, because I assume this is your entire underlying assumption in what you said, that smarter people should be more rewarded.... accordingly to your talents/effort.
The "everyone is a winner" is actually the correct ideology to assume when you have a corporation where not everyone is equally talented or as productive. This is why corporations GROW and become MEDIOCRE eventually. It is not by _choice_, it is a consequence to the growth of the business.
As a matter of fact, I think you will never be able to stay working at one company for a long time if you think that you can keep reinventing yourself or tryign to prove yourself or earn more than what is budgeted for you in the company... you will flat out burn out after a while.
On the other hand, if you can obtain a daddy in the company, someone higher up, and you can do something for someone in order to indebt them in a way that they will feel and notice and talk about it, and especially in a way that can rake in more cash for them, or save them cash tremendously - now you're talkign serious advancement in the company....
You are seriously confused if you think companies hire talented people because they want to reward them according to their talents.
companies do get fined when a patent suit has no merit - the fines are epitomized in lawyer fees. the more fundamental problem here is - as you pointed out - determination of merit. Who says what is merit or meritless? Figuring that out costs a sizable chunk of money from some company's cash supply...
rather than just eliminate patents outright - imho, bad idea - why not have the USPTO broadly advertise the patents for a period of time before they are granted? So the patentor has something analogous to 'a lock in' period (like locking in an interest rate on a mortgage for 30 days...), after which any patent infringement claims will be automatically rejected, even if they are valid. This is probably more cost effective than fighting it out later.. Just a thought (probably insufficient, but hey, IANAL:).
And how many people have you met that you've called smart that were just naturally intelligent but lacked knowledge (either general/common knowledge or specialized, as in a degree in something)?
Raw 'smarts' (a.k.a. natural intelligence) is an unused potential lest it's coupled with enormous amounts of knowledge/experience.
You can't simply split the two and have a wholly-rounded individual with only one dimension fulfilled - someone who knows shit but isn't intelligent is a parrot, a packer... someone who doesn't know shit but is intelligent is clueless, and usually arrogant... now those who have both, intelligence and knowledge (aka wisdom) - are the ones you need to be afraid of...
It's always a fair balance between these and they are consequential of one another, but these 2 dimensions are never divided/split, and exist in everyone as a whole.
Spare me that 'kids will pick it up'.. Kids aint picking up shit from computing. They dont even know what computing and/or computer science is all about. I finished my CS degree from UCF in '97 and briefly spoke with our assoc. dean about the kinds of people they were getting noawadays in the CS program... These 'kids' who seem to think CS is about "internet" or "games" or some stupid shit they do in their free time are the first ones to drop out of the program...
CS may not be as hard as physics, but it's right up there in the sense that it takes a mental pattern (bestowed by God and no other - or mother nature, choose your 'religion') in the human brain to be fully developed in order to understand it... Just like some people will NEVER get physics, you have people who just because computers permeate every aspect of society and they think of it as something 'cool', will never get CS even if they tried their hardest...
Just like I will never be able to successfully compose like Mozart or Bach... or be able to operate on open hearts... etc etc - because I wasn't cut out to do any of those things...
No one 'picks up' anything by thinking of it as 'cool' or fun or whatever - they pick it up because of an innate drive, and motivation/affinity they develop toward something even as a kid... And physics is damn hard only because it's so damn... simple! (earth physics, per se, I'm not talking quantum physics or astro physics - those still have no well defined boundaries). And it takes a freekin genius mind to understand something as simple as physics. Most people do not fit this category (I'd say 98%).
Well, amen to that.. because you just reminded me of an small incident I had while I lived in Orlando, FL.. Went out with a good friend of mine for a night out in downtown Orlando, bar hopping clubbing etc, and the little fucker didn't just drink profusely, but also split a ruffie with someone else... Bad mistake. Then we all had to ride with him back to his house, which is where I parked my car.. Bad mistake #2.
The guy could barely drive. I don't even know how he came to terms with himself that he could drive, and while we were driving down on Colonial Dr, he tried to change lanes.. but he was soooo out of it that he side swiped a vehicle next to him. At this point, I knew we're in deep shit, but what are you going to do? I was shitting bricks... I offered up to drive us all back before he even set foot in the car, but he indignantly refused (I dont know if this is common for drunk people, or his breed - he's palestinian - or some other bullshit, but it wasn't funny at all) saying he can drive and that he didn't want me driving his new '98 camry (at the time)...
To top the evening off, as I was fixing to leave his house, he leaned on the back of my Tercel with his big ass and dented it! Fortunately I was able to push the dent out without any damage... But this really put me over the top. Everysince then, I sort of stopped going out with him.. We would hang out still, but this just really left me with a bad aftertaste.
Luckily no one was hurt.. but who is to say I wasn't on the verge of death or a major fucking accident that night? I've seen people who survived bad accidents.. It's like looking at a recovering heroin addict.. constant pain and reminders of what it can be like.
I could just go on and on.. but if at least one person reads this - it'll be worth my while typing it up - don't, even if you are superintelligent,supereducated, a damn Hawking/Einstein type of IQ - EVER drink (more than you're supposed to) & drive, or worse, leave your fate to someone who you know very little about when he or she's under influence of alcohol...
The ensuing drama to your life that follows bad car accidents just isn't worth it, I'm telling you.
Slashdot Mirror
since fighting China by military, or economic means is nearly futile, about the only way left is to disseminate information via the internet in all imaginable ways. If the net is a 'true democracy', then by 'painlessly' infiltrating it into the hands of 1.3 billion Chinese, we'd be 'waging' a successful war on China... which, lest you forgot, is still considered the last, dying, communist bastion of the world.
It's "1984", all over again!! :)
YellowDog had that issue for a while, but it has been fixed. Linux PPC does control the fan now.
and wanting to make waves, as he does, I'd start working on developing some form of a interface between a human and a computer. I mean, even if he succeeds at developing a software system that passes the Turing test, that still would pale in comparison to developing the next Borg. Just a thought...
Not only that, but one has yet to prove that there is a causal relationship between HIV and AIDS. Search for virusmyth.com and Peter Duesberg.
I sent in an article at least couple of years ago about this site, and the story reviewer was at first going to submit the story, then he renegged on it and turned it down. I even got a reply to my email from Dr. Peter Duesberg (professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley), where I asked him if he is willing to lend facts/credence to the story I submitted on Slashdot by backing up some of the claims that HIV is a myth - which he very well did, and the moderator on Slashdot _still_ decided to turn the story down. He cited some shitty sources where they call Duesberg and others like him "dissidents" (yeah, just like Chomsky I suppose), and said there was enough conflicting opinion that he himself found to reject my story. What a buffoon, I thought... and two years later, someone actually submits a story on a self-healing HIV-positive "patient".
Is it just me or is there others who find Slashdot to be laughable when it comes to credibility, or even newsworthiness? I think all Slashdot has going for it is a lot of momentum from the past - other than that, I think there's a number of websites that one can go to for higher quality news and more credible stories.
I beg to differ.
faster than a PowerPC based Mac? As I understand it, the slowdown in performance isn't necessarily from the CPU, but in the way the OSX kernel is designed, which is a hybrid micro/monolithic-kernel. Not that long ago, Anandtech published performance figures too for Linux vs OSX on the serverside, and largely threading issues were blamed for performance. IIRC, there's multiple levels of API's before you get to the 'fast' threads - forgot what they're called on OSX, which slow the threads down on OSX vs Linux. Will switching to a new CPU necessarily give any performance benefits at all over the old PPC CPUs?
once the Intel based Macs come out so I can run Windows on them as well, dual-boot. Still can't shake Windows that easily...
.. I believe Bruce Schneier already beat this issue to death - security is a process - that can not be gained from a book or a product or a tool or whatever... If the book moves you in the right direction, it's worth a read. Check out his short essay on this.
Somehow, the following G.I. Jane dialogue seemed apropos (give or take a few modifications to the words:
SBC Board of Directors: Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: Begging your pardon, sir?
SBC Board of Directors: Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: I think you've resented me from the start, sir.
SBC Board of Directors: What I resent, Lieutenant, is some politician using my base as a test tube for her grand social experiment. What I resent, is the sensitivity training that is now mandatory for all of my men. The ob-gyn I now have to keep on staff just to keep track of your personal pap smears. But most of all what I resent, is your perfume, however subtle, interfering with the scent of my fine three-dollar-and-seventy-nine-cent cigar, which I will put out this instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your GODDAMN FRAGILE SENSIBILITIES! Does it?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: No, sir.
SBC Board of Directors: "No, sir" WHAT?
SBC CEO Edward Witacre: The shape doesn't bother me. Just the goddamn sweet stench.
Or you can ask the judges to get a Ph.D. in computer science in addition to their JDs to in order to facilitate a speedy trial.
This may be slightly off topic - but BMW has been demonstrating the 750hl model throughout the world for a few years now. IIRC, the only issue was the cost of making hydrogen. Google for 'BMW 750hl'.
Apple is a _BUSINESS_. They could give a shit less whether they run Power CPUs or Intel as long as they are still a viable business. I think they've been quite PATIENT with IBM, and obviously they realized there will be no Powerbook G5 in the foreseeable future - and that costs them a fuckload of potential revenue/profits. So why are you (acting) so surprised as though any one of us wouldn't have made the exact same move if we were in Apple's shoes?
:)
OF COURSE, development will go on - most Mac users could give slightly more than a fuck about what CPU the Mac runs on as long as the software/GUI is preserved. Upon hearing this news, 98% of Mac users scratched their ass and said, 'whew, let's move on then'... Just like you should instead of dweebing on this issue like a bunch of worried grandmothers!
God damn it - you ripped the words right out of my mouth dude... (well, I lied - Pat Buchanan's mouth)
you ripped the words right out of my mouth (or, well, Pat Buchanan's mouth). Eventually, all democracies commit suicide.
You cant have your cake and eat it too. But which is better - more jobs and shitty conditions for those workers or less jobs and better conditions for those who have them? It's not like it takes a PhD for one to be employed as a UPS trucker... so he or she might as well find another job for the qualifications they possess.
:).
Or - option 2 - reduce the CEO's and top executives' incomes enough so that they can cover for more employees. They can treat that as investing back into the company. Somehow, I can't see that fly in the corporate world...but it was a thought
well.. thanks for the snippy remarks.. Tesla was greate, no matter how you slice it, whether you like it or not. Corporations only care about you in the most minimal sense possible, thus the feeling should be reciprocal.
However, it seems you are pretty entrenched in your own beliefs, so further discussion is probably moot and my point is lost on you...
ugh - you are quite right about some people are more talented than others - but in the , call it what you want - grand scheme of things, that truly matters little. Tesla was the fucking genius of the last century, and died, withered away in poverty.... so have many other super fuckin talented, creative, mathematically inclined people. Do you know why? Because it truly doesn't matter that they were in a certain way, when it comes to big corporations...
Talented, TRULY outstanding individuals who do not easily burn out and can produce excellent results 10 out of 10 times they apply themselves to their job - are actually a thorn in everyone's ass in large corporations, where there's a lot of mouths to feed... Maybe if you were in a small corporation, working closely with the owner, you will get remunerated for your talents/effort accordingly, but generally speaking those who are super smart, are super arrogant and deluded that what they are represents something larger than capitalism, larger than life, and forget who they are and who they work for, or they burn themselves out by working for someone and expect an equal remuneration proportionate to their efforts. They measure their efforts as compared to the guy next to them using the same or a different title - and when they realize that at the end of the day the difference in pay may be even higher for the guy that worked less - they either quit, or get revolted and act out (and then they get axed later on anyway because they are of a rebellious nature)....
So fucking what if someone is smarter than me or if I am smarter/more productive than someone else? It may mean something to me. It may mean something to the company. It may mean a lot of things, except one thing - that you are going to be rewarded, because I assume this is your entire underlying assumption in what you said, that smarter people should be more rewarded.... accordingly to your talents/effort.
The "everyone is a winner" is actually the correct ideology to assume when you have a corporation where not everyone is equally talented or as productive. This is why corporations GROW and become MEDIOCRE eventually. It is not by _choice_, it is a consequence to the growth of the business.
As a matter of fact, I think you will never be able to stay working at one company for a long time if you think that you can keep reinventing yourself or tryign to prove yourself or earn more than what is budgeted for you in the company... you will flat out burn out after a while.
On the other hand, if you can obtain a daddy in the company, someone higher up, and you can do something for someone in order to indebt them in a way that they will feel and notice and talk about it, and especially in a way that can rake in more cash for them, or save them cash tremendously - now you're talkign serious advancement in the company....
You are seriously confused if you think companies hire talented people because they want to reward them according to their talents.
companies do get fined when a patent suit has no merit - the fines are epitomized in lawyer fees. the more fundamental problem here is - as you pointed out - determination of merit. Who says what is merit or meritless? Figuring that out costs a sizable chunk of money from some company's cash supply...
rather than just eliminate patents outright - imho, bad idea - why not have the USPTO broadly advertise the patents for a period of time before they are granted? So the patentor has something analogous to 'a lock in' period (like locking in an interest rate on a mortgage for 30 days...), after which any patent infringement claims will be automatically rejected, even if they are valid. This is probably more cost effective than fighting it out later.. Just a thought (probably insufficient, but hey, IANAL :).
And how many people have you met that you've called smart that were just naturally intelligent but lacked knowledge (either general/common knowledge or specialized, as in a degree in something)?
Raw 'smarts' (a.k.a. natural intelligence) is an unused potential lest it's coupled with enormous amounts of knowledge/experience.
You can't simply split the two and have a wholly-rounded individual with only one dimension fulfilled - someone who knows shit but isn't intelligent is a parrot, a packer... someone who doesn't know shit but is intelligent is clueless, and usually arrogant... now those who have both, intelligence and knowledge (aka wisdom) - are the ones you need to be afraid of...
It's always a fair balance between these and they are consequential of one another, but these 2 dimensions are never divided/split, and exist in everyone as a whole.
Those extensible languages are called Lisp (and its family) :).
Spare me that 'kids will pick it up'.. Kids aint picking up shit from computing. They dont even know what computing and/or computer science is all about. I finished my CS degree from UCF in '97 and briefly spoke with our assoc. dean about the kinds of people they were getting noawadays in the CS program... These 'kids' who seem to think CS is about "internet" or "games" or some stupid shit they do in their free time are the first ones to drop out of the program...
... simple! (earth physics, per se, I'm not talking quantum physics or astro physics - those still have no well defined boundaries). And it takes a freekin genius mind to understand something as simple as physics. Most people do not fit this category (I'd say 98%).
CS may not be as hard as physics, but it's right up there in the sense that it takes a mental pattern (bestowed by God and no other - or mother nature, choose your 'religion') in the human brain to be fully developed in order to understand it... Just like some people will NEVER get physics, you have people who just because computers permeate every aspect of society and they think of it as something 'cool', will never get CS even if they tried their hardest...
Just like I will never be able to successfully compose like Mozart or Bach... or be able to operate on open hearts... etc etc - because I wasn't cut out to do any of those things...
No one 'picks up' anything by thinking of it as 'cool' or fun or whatever - they pick it up because of an innate drive, and motivation/affinity they develop toward something even as a kid... And physics is damn hard only because it's so damn
Well, amen to that.. because you just reminded me of an small incident I had while I lived in Orlando, FL.. Went out with a good friend of mine for a night out in downtown Orlando, bar hopping clubbing etc, and the little fucker didn't just drink profusely, but also split a ruffie with someone else... Bad mistake. Then we all had to ride with him back to his house, which is where I parked my car.. Bad mistake #2.
The guy could barely drive. I don't even know how he came to terms with himself that he could drive, and while we were driving down on Colonial Dr, he tried to change lanes.. but he was soooo out of it that he side swiped a vehicle next to him. At this point, I knew we're in deep shit, but what are you going to do? I was shitting bricks... I offered up to drive us all back before he even set foot in the car, but he indignantly refused (I dont know if this is common for drunk people, or his breed - he's palestinian - or some other bullshit, but it wasn't funny at all) saying he can drive and that he didn't want me driving his new '98 camry (at the time)...
To top the evening off, as I was fixing to leave his house, he leaned on the back of my Tercel with his big ass and dented it! Fortunately I was able to push the dent out without any damage... But this really put me over the top. Everysince then, I sort of stopped going out with him.. We would hang out still, but this just really left me with a bad aftertaste.
Luckily no one was hurt.. but who is to say I wasn't on the verge of death or a major fucking accident that night? I've seen people who survived bad accidents.. It's like looking at a recovering heroin addict.. constant pain and reminders of what it can be like.
I could just go on and on.. but if at least one person reads this - it'll be worth my while typing it up - don't, even if you are superintelligent,supereducated, a damn Hawking/Einstein type of IQ - EVER drink (more than you're supposed to) & drive, or worse, leave your fate to someone who you know very little about when he or she's under influence of alcohol...
The ensuing drama to your life that follows bad car accidents just isn't worth it, I'm telling you.
Take care.