Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
I would argue the exact opposite. Taxes are the only way to fairly manipulate behaviour. Should it be in the overall interest of everyone to reduce our rate of fuel consumption, a tax is the only way to go. What are the alternatives, make gas guzzling vehicles illegal? Or how about requiring automakers make specific types of cars.
A tax on gas will change national behaviour without placing limits on what we can do. Want to drive a Hummer? - just be ready to pay for it when you fill up. The tax acts as an incentive for people to minimize fuel consumption. This is better then the alternative as people retain the freedom to do drive and purchase whatever vehicle they want.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Yes, but when those "fashions" have a negative impact on their neighbours then it is time to apply a tax. The true cost of a product is not measured with just dollar signs. For example, the environmental repercussions of consuming a product are almost never part of the original purchase price. If the "invisible hand" is going to work correctly, monetary values for those repercussions must be artificially added in the form of a tax.
The human brain can perceive objects at 30fps. Great, but one has to generate the signal at twice the frequency in order to create an accurate reproduction for the human brain. Look up "Nyquist frequency" if you want some more technical details. Even higher frequencies are better but have little effect.
While intuitively 30fps should be sufficient, the generated images are not "synced" to the brain. This is not a digital to digital transfer, information is lost. To accommodate for this images should be displayed at 60fps. The brain might only perceive 30fps but displaying images at 60fps ensures that the brain processes the correct information.
There is a reason why Apple runs their iOS interfaces at 60fps. It does make a difference.
Oh, and considering how secretive Apple is, and that Android was announced before the iPhone, who else would Android be competing agains in the pre-iPhone marketplace?
Don't forget that Eric Schmidt was on the board at Apple while also CEO at Google. Right after the iPhone was announced he stated that he had to step down due to a possible conflict of interest. So he was fully aware of what was happening with the iPhone long before everyone at RIM and Microsoft.
And this is why Jobs was so pissed at Google - Schmidt was given insider knowledge of the iPhone and then 4 months after the iPhone is release, Android is here. I know there are plenty of great programmers at Google but it takes more then 4 months to design such a UI. Even if they based it on the original iPhone announcement (and not the physical phone), it's still only 11 months - not enough time.
So Android did have the iPhone in mind when it was being designed, but only in the latter part if it's development. I don't agree with the poster to whom you replied, but Google wasn't in the dark when it comes to the development of the iPhone.
I think it has more to do with testosterone. Men are biologically driven to compete. Becoming the alpha male is of great importance to humans - and many other species as well.
The difference between math and other subjects is that it is very easy to measure and rate the level of proficiency one has - especially in elementary school. This makes it easier to compete against one's piers in math then other subjects. And due to their competitive nature, men will invest more time and energy into the subject at the expense of other subjects.
Funny when you think about it. It is the need for self gratification that drives men into math over other subjects. We truly are beasts...
Saving people today is great, but I wouldn't consider it a great thing for humanity. Has humanity changed because of his donation? Overall no, with the exception of those who benefited directly. But assisting in the development of a power source that promises to be 90% more efficient / "green" then current nuclear power is a great thing for humanity. It would effect everyone now and even extend to future generations.
Don't want to sound like I'm belittling Bill's donations, it's just that the potential of a new energy source greatly outweighs anything he has previously done.
Hence the 4 year itch. Breakups frequently occur after 4 years - the biological time between insemination and the time a child/mother pair can survive without the assistance of a male. It's amazing how our instincts affect our daily lives without us even realizing it. We like to think our decisions are rational when in actuality, they are guided by biology.
The company I work for, Rockland Scientific, designs sensors that can be attached to these subs. Some of them are rated for 6000m - kind of makes 600' look like a joke...
But another method of collecting data is to simply have floating sensors. Similar data is collected but there is no propulsion except for up and down. Every so often they surface and transmit their collected data. Then they go back down and continue drifting with the current. They are typically used in a disposable manner and only last 5 years. The advantage of these devices is that they are far less costly. It is also convenient to have them follow the ocean current. Around 1000 of these sensors are placed into the ocean each year. A french company makes them, wish I could remember the name.
Just mount via the command line or via fstab. I assume that GUI mounting is done the way it is to allow for better recovery with broken connections. After a week of being annoyed when mounting via the GUI, I setup an fstab entry and never bothered with it again - works great.
AMD's approach is faster for some workloads. The problem is that they didn't design it around how most people currently write software.
No argument here, they designed it for how people are going to write software in the future.
AMD envisions a future where fp intensive operations are performed on a GPU. Want to calculate that FFT? - you won't be using the fp unit in the CPU. And honestly, they're right. The libraries and tools required to do this are already available. The biggest problem now is that there are too many different solutions - most of them not compatible with each other. Once this is resolved and there is enough installed hardware in the market, developers who really need good fp performance will make the switch.
From this perspective, the Bulldozer architecture makes a lot of sense - at least it will 5 years from now.
Self accelerating to what point? It has happened numerous times in the past and we haven't become Venus-like.
The problem is the rate of change. When change occurs quickly, complex organisms can not evolve to survive. Sure, bacteria and other organisms that reproduce rapidly will be fine but others will not. Trees, for example, can take decades to reproduce. So you what to know the outcome of rapid climate change? Vast areas of wasteland. We are already seeing our deserts expand - this will continue at an accelerated rate. The resulting loss of usable farm land will effect food prices and result in starvation. The rising of the oceans will simply add to the problem.
Then there is also the increased temperature and CO2 in the ocean killing coral reefs. These reefs contribute greatly to the overall fish population and their destruction will result in less food available for harvest. If the temperature change was slow then this wouldn't be a problem as new reefs would have time to form elsewhere.
The current rate of temperature change will have serious impacts on human civilization. Now you personally won't be effected that much because you can likely afford a doubling of food prices. In addition, farmers can build wells and provide irrigation to combat the effects of the change. Flooding can also be avoided with sufficient infrastructure. But then you probably live in the US, Canada, or Europe - those who live in Africa are going to have a horrible time as a result of this rapid change.
Except include code with licenses that guarantee the users fundamental software freedoms.
Freedom is such an abstract term and should not be applied to software. Using the term "fundamental software freedoms" is even worse and likely means something different to each person who hears/reads it.
The real issue is limitations and this is where the two licenses (BSD+GNU) differ greatly. The BSD license has almost no limitations while the GNU license has severe limitations that extends to code that is simply linked with GNU code. The two licenses serve different purposes and as such, one is not better then the other. To compare the licenses using abstract concepts like "freedom" is ridiculous.
I was raised to give to charity and not make such a big deal out of it, because then you're doing it for the right reasons, and not praise.
Well to be fair with Bill, he publicized his donations and created his charity in an effort to get other billionaires / millionaires to also donate. And it worked - many did.
In Canada, there is a 8 year limit for student loans. After 8 years of having to pay back your loans, you can write them off if you declare bankruptcy.
When growing food crops one is generally left with a large amount of left over cellulose - which is why it is generally cheap. We use it to feed cattle, as fertilizer - but really we just want to get rid of it. Being able to use this cellulose for fuel production would be a huge help and would not have an impact on food production.
He is not a designer of anything other than good business plans.
Jobs steered the direction of product design. He relied on talented people to do the individual jobs but he still made significant contributions. To say he could only contribute business plans would be wrong.
In fact, his business plans weren't all that great in the beginning. Just look at NeXT - amazing products but a failed business plan. At that time Jobs saw the problems with existing computers / programming techniques. You have to actually understand the technology to do this - something few CEOs could do. And then he screwed up the business plan. Fortunately the technology lives on today in OSX and GNUStep.
Of all the CEOs out there you would be hard pressed to find anyone that contributes more to product design then Jobs. And considering how successful those designs have been, the man deserves some credit.
There are projects to make extruded ABS filament from recycled ABS parts for the reprap printer. They are crude projects but it doesn't look that hard to do. Just need to be able to shred the plastic into small enough parts and then push those parts with an auger through a heated 3mm hole.
Specs only matter to the point that they improve the games. RAM is cheap, but can have a big effect on gameplay. More RAM means you can hold more a level in memory at a time, meaning you have less loading screens.
Firstly, RAM is not as cheap as you make it out to be. It's not like you can add another DIMM to your new PS Vita. Odds are that they are packaging the RAM directly with the CPU, just on a different layer. So now you start having to worry about power usage and heat buildup. Extra memory results in extra heat which if not dealt with will result in lower CPU speeds. I don't know why the engineers decided on the amount that they did but you can bet that they had their reasons. If adding more memory was cheap, easy, and helpful then they would have done it.
The amount of RAM does not have an effect on gameplay in consoles. When available resources are well defined, game designers can work at making sure their game operates within those limitations. Adding more memory does not help. I would personally be more concerned about the bandwidth and latency of the memory. And in regards to the delay when loading new levels - it's a non-issue. Just look how some CD/DVD based games were able to quickly load new level data. Now consider how much easier it would be when you data is on flash storage.
Nearly all consumers want CHEAP printers. That means that the translation from text/image to printer imaging codes is done in the computer, not the printer, which saves CPU power and memory in the printer
But consumers want more then just "cheap" printers. While cheap is good, they also want fast printers that they can print to wirelessly. They want interactive menus for configuration - like an iOS / Android device. They also want to be able to print from their camera / flash drive / SD card. And for those all-in-one devices, to operate as a photocopier or scanner.
To provide these features a printer requires local CPU and memory resources. Considering that these resources are already present, why put the driver on the computer? The additional demands for CPU/memory resources are nothing considering their minimal cost. Spend an extra $1 on parts and allow for a snazzier user interface while reducing the cost of driver development on different operating systems - who wouldn't go for that. The vast majority of consumers would pay the extra $2. Just imagine how much would be saved from product returns / product support resulting from driver conflicts and other unexpected problems.
Once the cost of additional resources is low enough, drivers are going back into the printers. It is just a matter of time - and it won't be long now.
Glad to hear that it works out well for you. But all laptops will suffer from limitations not present in desktops. Specifically, heat builds up in laptops and results in reduced performance. Be it the GPU or CPU, when they start to overheat they slow down to prevent damage. Modern Intel chips even support an "accelerated" mode where they work beyond their posted speed - for a bit and then they heat up and slow down.
So the better the cooling on modern hardware, the better the performance for periods of extended use - like gaming. Most users are not constantly using their computers so these "acceleration" features are welcome and greatly improve the user experience. But do not expect a laptop that says it has hardware X at speed Y to perform the same as a desktop with identical specs.
Now can a laptop provide adequate performance for you - apparently yes. But this question depends on the user and the requirements of the software that is being run. One thing for certain, adding an additional powerful GPU in an external box with proper cooling and a separate power supply will help. In those situations where a laptop is not sufficient for gaming, thunderbolt could allow it to perform this task well.
So long as the GPU has adequate local memory, there is no reason why 4 lanes would not be enough. All of the processing happens locally - unlike a cheap GPU that shares system memory and would be effected by reduced PCIe bandwidth.
Now it might be beneficial for such external GPUs to include even more memory. This way the game can include additional data on the GPU thereby removing any delays that might result from the GPU needing to access system memory. Minimize the amount of textures being sent over the PCIe bus and the remaining bandwidth should be more then enough for modern gaming.
How can they evolve that knowledge? Or is it aggression that is evolved too? A poisonous rat that is passive will probably not survive (it might still get eaten if it kills its predator) whereas one that is aggressive can attack its predator before it eats it.
In this example, aggression is not required. If an animal is killed but also kills the predator in the process, then the DNA of that animal will be more likely to survive via the increased likelihood of survival for it's relatives due to the death of a local predator.
For example, mother and baby rats get attacked by a fox. One baby rat dies along with the fox. Now the mother and remaining babies have an increased chance of survival. Because they all share similar DNA, the DNA traits that killed the fox survive.
Slashdot Mirror
Whatever you think..taxes should not be used for behavioral manipulations.
I would argue the exact opposite. Taxes are the only way to fairly manipulate behaviour. Should it be in the overall interest of everyone to reduce our rate of fuel consumption, a tax is the only way to go. What are the alternatives, make gas guzzling vehicles illegal? Or how about requiring automakers make specific types of cars.
A tax on gas will change national behaviour without placing limits on what we can do. Want to drive a Hummer? - just be ready to pay for it when you fill up. The tax acts as an incentive for people to minimize fuel consumption. This is better then the alternative as people retain the freedom to do drive and purchase whatever vehicle they want.
People should be free to choose to drive and spend in the fashion they wish.
Yes, but when those "fashions" have a negative impact on their neighbours then it is time to apply a tax. The true cost of a product is not measured with just dollar signs. For example, the environmental repercussions of consuming a product are almost never part of the original purchase price. If the "invisible hand" is going to work correctly, monetary values for those repercussions must be artificially added in the form of a tax.
Try translating "faux" from french.
The human brain can perceive objects at 30fps. Great, but one has to generate the signal at twice the frequency in order to create an accurate reproduction for the human brain. Look up "Nyquist frequency" if you want some more technical details. Even higher frequencies are better but have little effect.
While intuitively 30fps should be sufficient, the generated images are not "synced" to the brain. This is not a digital to digital transfer, information is lost. To accommodate for this images should be displayed at 60fps. The brain might only perceive 30fps but displaying images at 60fps ensures that the brain processes the correct information.
There is a reason why Apple runs their iOS interfaces at 60fps. It does make a difference.
Oh, and considering how secretive Apple is, and that Android was announced before the iPhone, who else would Android be competing agains in the pre-iPhone marketplace?
Don't forget that Eric Schmidt was on the board at Apple while also CEO at Google. Right after the iPhone was announced he stated that he had to step down due to a possible conflict of interest. So he was fully aware of what was happening with the iPhone long before everyone at RIM and Microsoft.
And this is why Jobs was so pissed at Google - Schmidt was given insider knowledge of the iPhone and then 4 months after the iPhone is release, Android is here. I know there are plenty of great programmers at Google but it takes more then 4 months to design such a UI. Even if they based it on the original iPhone announcement (and not the physical phone), it's still only 11 months - not enough time.
So Android did have the iPhone in mind when it was being designed, but only in the latter part if it's development. I don't agree with the poster to whom you replied, but Google wasn't in the dark when it comes to the development of the iPhone.
I think it has more to do with testosterone. Men are biologically driven to compete. Becoming the alpha male is of great importance to humans - and many other species as well.
The difference between math and other subjects is that it is very easy to measure and rate the level of proficiency one has - especially in elementary school. This makes it easier to compete against one's piers in math then other subjects. And due to their competitive nature, men will invest more time and energy into the subject at the expense of other subjects.
Funny when you think about it. It is the need for self gratification that drives men into math over other subjects. We truly are beasts...
Saving people today is great, but I wouldn't consider it a great thing for humanity. Has humanity changed because of his donation? Overall no, with the exception of those who benefited directly. But assisting in the development of a power source that promises to be 90% more efficient / "green" then current nuclear power is a great thing for humanity. It would effect everyone now and even extend to future generations.
Don't want to sound like I'm belittling Bill's donations, it's just that the potential of a new energy source greatly outweighs anything he has previously done.
Previous version is still free for 10.6 users.
Hence the 4 year itch. Breakups frequently occur after 4 years - the biological time between insemination and the time a child/mother pair can survive without the assistance of a male. It's amazing how our instincts affect our daily lives without us even realizing it. We like to think our decisions are rational when in actuality, they are guided by biology.
Here is another maker of similar products.
http://www.webbresearch.com/
The company I work for, Rockland Scientific, designs sensors that can be attached to these subs. Some of them are rated for 6000m - kind of makes 600' look like a joke...
But another method of collecting data is to simply have floating sensors. Similar data is collected but there is no propulsion except for up and down. Every so often they surface and transmit their collected data. Then they go back down and continue drifting with the current. They are typically used in a disposable manner and only last 5 years. The advantage of these devices is that they are far less costly. It is also convenient to have them follow the ocean current. Around 1000 of these sensors are placed into the ocean each year. A french company makes them, wish I could remember the name.
Just mount via the command line or via fstab. I assume that GUI mounting is done the way it is to allow for better recovery with broken connections. After a week of being annoyed when mounting via the GUI, I setup an fstab entry and never bothered with it again - works great.
AMD's approach is faster for some workloads. The problem is that they didn't design it around how most people currently write software.
No argument here, they designed it for how people are going to write software in the future.
AMD envisions a future where fp intensive operations are performed on a GPU. Want to calculate that FFT? - you won't be using the fp unit in the CPU. And honestly, they're right. The libraries and tools required to do this are already available. The biggest problem now is that there are too many different solutions - most of them not compatible with each other. Once this is resolved and there is enough installed hardware in the market, developers who really need good fp performance will make the switch.
From this perspective, the Bulldozer architecture makes a lot of sense - at least it will 5 years from now.
Self accelerating to what point? It has happened numerous times in the past and we haven't become Venus-like.
The problem is the rate of change. When change occurs quickly, complex organisms can not evolve to survive. Sure, bacteria and other organisms that reproduce rapidly will be fine but others will not. Trees, for example, can take decades to reproduce. So you what to know the outcome of rapid climate change? Vast areas of wasteland. We are already seeing our deserts expand - this will continue at an accelerated rate. The resulting loss of usable farm land will effect food prices and result in starvation. The rising of the oceans will simply add to the problem.
Then there is also the increased temperature and CO2 in the ocean killing coral reefs. These reefs contribute greatly to the overall fish population and their destruction will result in less food available for harvest. If the temperature change was slow then this wouldn't be a problem as new reefs would have time to form elsewhere.
The current rate of temperature change will have serious impacts on human civilization. Now you personally won't be effected that much because you can likely afford a doubling of food prices. In addition, farmers can build wells and provide irrigation to combat the effects of the change. Flooding can also be avoided with sufficient infrastructure. But then you probably live in the US, Canada, or Europe - those who live in Africa are going to have a horrible time as a result of this rapid change.
Except include code with licenses that guarantee the users fundamental software freedoms.
Freedom is such an abstract term and should not be applied to software. Using the term "fundamental software freedoms" is even worse and likely means something different to each person who hears/reads it.
The real issue is limitations and this is where the two licenses (BSD+GNU) differ greatly. The BSD license has almost no limitations while the GNU license has severe limitations that extends to code that is simply linked with GNU code. The two licenses serve different purposes and as such, one is not better then the other. To compare the licenses using abstract concepts like "freedom" is ridiculous.
I was raised to give to charity and not make such a big deal out of it, because then you're doing it for the right reasons, and not praise.
Well to be fair with Bill, he publicized his donations and created his charity in an effort to get other billionaires / millionaires to also donate. And it worked - many did.
In Canada, there is a 8 year limit for student loans. After 8 years of having to pay back your loans, you can write them off if you declare bankruptcy.
When growing food crops one is generally left with a large amount of left over cellulose - which is why it is generally cheap. We use it to feed cattle, as fertilizer - but really we just want to get rid of it. Being able to use this cellulose for fuel production would be a huge help and would not have an impact on food production.
He is not a designer of anything other than good business plans.
Jobs steered the direction of product design. He relied on talented people to do the individual jobs but he still made significant contributions. To say he could only contribute business plans would be wrong.
In fact, his business plans weren't all that great in the beginning. Just look at NeXT - amazing products but a failed business plan. At that time Jobs saw the problems with existing computers / programming techniques. You have to actually understand the technology to do this - something few CEOs could do. And then he screwed up the business plan. Fortunately the technology lives on today in OSX and GNUStep.
Of all the CEOs out there you would be hard pressed to find anyone that contributes more to product design then Jobs. And considering how successful those designs have been, the man deserves some credit.
There are projects to make extruded ABS filament from recycled ABS parts for the reprap printer. They are crude projects but it doesn't look that hard to do. Just need to be able to shred the plastic into small enough parts and then push those parts with an auger through a heated 3mm hole.
Specs only matter to the point that they improve the games. RAM is cheap, but can have a big effect on gameplay. More RAM means you can hold more a level in memory at a time, meaning you have less loading screens.
Firstly, RAM is not as cheap as you make it out to be. It's not like you can add another DIMM to your new PS Vita. Odds are that they are packaging the RAM directly with the CPU, just on a different layer. So now you start having to worry about power usage and heat buildup. Extra memory results in extra heat which if not dealt with will result in lower CPU speeds. I don't know why the engineers decided on the amount that they did but you can bet that they had their reasons. If adding more memory was cheap, easy, and helpful then they would have done it.
The amount of RAM does not have an effect on gameplay in consoles. When available resources are well defined, game designers can work at making sure their game operates within those limitations. Adding more memory does not help. I would personally be more concerned about the bandwidth and latency of the memory. And in regards to the delay when loading new levels - it's a non-issue. Just look how some CD/DVD based games were able to quickly load new level data. Now consider how much easier it would be when you data is on flash storage.
I think a lot of people don't realise how big Foxconn is.
About 1.2 million employees.. Calling it big is an understatement.
Nearly all consumers want CHEAP printers. That means that the translation from text/image to printer imaging codes is done in the computer, not the printer, which saves CPU power and memory in the printer
But consumers want more then just "cheap" printers. While cheap is good, they also want fast printers that they can print to wirelessly. They want interactive menus for configuration - like an iOS / Android device. They also want to be able to print from their camera / flash drive / SD card. And for those all-in-one devices, to operate as a photocopier or scanner.
To provide these features a printer requires local CPU and memory resources. Considering that these resources are already present, why put the driver on the computer? The additional demands for CPU/memory resources are nothing considering their minimal cost. Spend an extra $1 on parts and allow for a snazzier user interface while reducing the cost of driver development on different operating systems - who wouldn't go for that. The vast majority of consumers would pay the extra $2. Just imagine how much would be saved from product returns / product support resulting from driver conflicts and other unexpected problems.
Once the cost of additional resources is low enough, drivers are going back into the printers. It is just a matter of time - and it won't be long now.
Glad to hear that it works out well for you. But all laptops will suffer from limitations not present in desktops. Specifically, heat builds up in laptops and results in reduced performance. Be it the GPU or CPU, when they start to overheat they slow down to prevent damage. Modern Intel chips even support an "accelerated" mode where they work beyond their posted speed - for a bit and then they heat up and slow down.
So the better the cooling on modern hardware, the better the performance for periods of extended use - like gaming. Most users are not constantly using their computers so these "acceleration" features are welcome and greatly improve the user experience. But do not expect a laptop that says it has hardware X at speed Y to perform the same as a desktop with identical specs.
Now can a laptop provide adequate performance for you - apparently yes. But this question depends on the user and the requirements of the software that is being run. One thing for certain, adding an additional powerful GPU in an external box with proper cooling and a separate power supply will help. In those situations where a laptop is not sufficient for gaming, thunderbolt could allow it to perform this task well.
So long as the GPU has adequate local memory, there is no reason why 4 lanes would not be enough. All of the processing happens locally - unlike a cheap GPU that shares system memory and would be effected by reduced PCIe bandwidth.
Now it might be beneficial for such external GPUs to include even more memory. This way the game can include additional data on the GPU thereby removing any delays that might result from the GPU needing to access system memory. Minimize the amount of textures being sent over the PCIe bus and the remaining bandwidth should be more then enough for modern gaming.
I don't know...I can drive pretty fast...
In a station wagon? I am impressed...
How can they evolve that knowledge? Or is it aggression that is evolved too? A poisonous rat that is passive will probably not survive (it might still get eaten if it kills its predator) whereas one that is aggressive can attack its predator before it eats it.
In this example, aggression is not required. If an animal is killed but also kills the predator in the process, then the DNA of that animal will be more likely to survive via the increased likelihood of survival for it's relatives due to the death of a local predator.
For example, mother and baby rats get attacked by a fox. One baby rat dies along with the fox. Now the mother and remaining babies have an increased chance of survival. Because they all share similar DNA, the DNA traits that killed the fox survive.