Mildly joking since there are really no proven facts (other than the population growth decline), but I find reasons to think that we are headed towards more like one of those population attrition futures in which due to
1.- The lack of "new people" to occupy the lower ranks because there is less people born, 2.- Longer lifespans that will cause upper job positions to be almost a lifetime thing, resulting in lack of reward or motivation to most, 3.- Widespread implementation of education, further reducing the separation between people for the different jobs... 4.- Media and entertainment will be better than ever, causing people to loose interest in their real needs (Rome rings a bell?).
The above will lead to a population that, instead of revolting like in the old days, will get depressed (not having offspring, suicide, reclusion, substance abuse, alcohol, etc...) since we are now in a non-violence era, further decreasing the population growth rate down to a population shrinkage until we are down to only the bare minimum to maintain society up and replacing simpler jobs entirely by machines (since there won't be people to do it, but society will still demand their products) which in turn will further the attrition process until humanity is only a small portion of what it is today.
Less people walking around, more robots serving you coffee... then things will become stable for a while until the next aftermath: Robot Rebellion! This is something William Gibson would love to write about...
Pick the leaders at random with no option to stepdown, and severely punish underperformers by democratic voting.
Pickable people will have to prepare themselves for the task and every aspect of it well or they will suffer!. Additionally, being picked does not get them any tangible benefit or money during the tenure, only until the end without being punished, and they loose it all if punished.
Pros.- Increased voting (everyone wants to cause other people pain) Cons.- nobody will want the job, but in all honesty, everyone wants to be president because the benefit / investment ratio is close to infinite...
THAT is why foreigners outnumber Americans in these topics. It's not because they're smarter, not because they love engineering more, and not because education is better in their country. It's because they want to immigrate here. I heard from one of the people that reviews applications at MIT that the school has the commitment of keeping at least a 60% (or something like that) of american students (no government involvement, its just school commitment to their country which is great!). She said that if they didn't have that commitment and only based their applications on merits/capabilities there would be no american students at all because of the enormous amount of quality applications they receive, and she even went to say they even have a hard time keeping the 60% sometimes because there are not enough good applicants in the US.
Interesting indeed.
Plenty of other reasons besides being cool with FS
on
AMD To Open ATI Specs
·
· Score: 0
With the sudden acceptance of linux all over, including Dell, HP, and others, AMD/ATI is currently at a disadvantage against Nvidia. Buggy-low performance drivers will only cause the big computer sellers/retailers to divert from ATI chipsets in order to minimize support costs.
While the FS comunity has long touted this lack of support, it had never been important until just recently that Ubuntu began to be bundled in new computers.
Unfortunately for ATI/AMD it is probably late already.
The discussion about wheather ID is or not scientific has been done a lot of times and it is clear that it is NOT at all and it is NOT provable NOR testable...
Would there be any value in trying to find out why the heck people believe it? I my opinion it simply ignorance.
Most of the people that believe in ID surely think that dinosaurs existed 4000 years ago (yeah right, and there's even a book on that somewhere...). On the other hand they take The Genesis as a historical fact book whereas it was really the last book written by the hebrews aroung 500 B.C. as a compendium of stories made to teach people what God's intent was, and all of its content has been traced back, from Noha's ark (actually a mesopotamian merchant with a big floating house who drifted to the sea for 7 days), to Abraham.
These people are simply ignorant. That is the real and only fact, and like they say, "God made them, and they gather", only an ignorant can follow another ignorant.
I think there are some other perspectives about these people's opinion that may need a second look.
Profit Hungry corporations are laying off US employees in favor of overseas employment because its cheaper.
Perhaps the US state of Michigan is a good example. The automotive industry is moving to China... most of it, only cuz its way cheaper (17 chinese workers at the cost of 1 US employee). Now look at the current unemployment there.
Corporations will search always to make more money, which is natural. I think what these people are asking is to be protected against the corps need to go abroad just to get more money at the expense of the people that worked hard to build them.
Which makes me wonder how much of the terrorist stuff going on today is really done by groups like IRA and Al Qaeda, and how much is just bad propaganda given to them by some political groups (Governments are powerful and can do some really freaky stuff to oposing groups).
...they really didn't fully understand how wiki works when they launched this.
I find the implications of being able to change someone else's input very easy to see and should be not considered lightly for what will be called "editorial" content.
I am sure more than one will take the "wikitorial" content as the L.A. Times official stance on whatever topic it contains, and some are very delicate.
Your argument is like making steel producers responsible when someone uses a gun to kill. There are so many other uses, and you are condemning it because of one use.
You are against the only chance some ppl have of denouncing the crimes (genocides... sounds just as bad as CP to me) in their region because they are the backyard business of some powerful and ruthless politician.
Would you get killed if you spilled the beans? In mine you would. Would your family be threatened if so? This is a must to end with the threat you represent to them.
Perhaps you live in a fairy tale country. You seem to live in an at least "pseudo free-speech" country. Some have never had it you know, and Freenet is an option for them.
You won't really know the value of what you have until you loose it. Your reality does not apply to everyone.
This would not only make you sterile, it can also be the cause of other genetic deformities. Perhaps something like Anaencephalia, or Down Syndrome (not good examples but you get the idea).
Could game availabiliy be counted for piracy cause?
In poor countries that availability is almost nill. When you go to a store you find the latest game to be the original Homeworld. So if you want a game you can buy it from Amazon (or whatever store you want) with a 60% price increase because of customs tax and shipping. so the only way to get a game for most is to download a pirated copy (you surely can pay it, but you would have to stop eating for the next 2 months);)
I don't think that because GIMP's price is $0, it's value is infinite.
People (ideally) buy what they need, and some people need what GIMP doesn't offer. Can easy of use be bought? well IMHO, yes!, since I (and many others) would pay for that. That makes it a simple choice.
GIMP doesn't have all the features and easy of use that a lot of people appreciate... more than money.
I have always thought that videogames were a little bit overpriced for some markets. Here in Mexico, a usual console game (it has to be imported from the US ALWAYS) runs for about $50. Now if you mod your console the same $50, you can buy your pirate game for $5.
If we consider that the minimum salary in Mexico is $2 a day (Yes DAY, middle class workers earn a little over $10-$20), then the Idea of modding your console to be able to get your pirate games for $5 seems tempting for anyone in this condition... I think it could be similar for other 3rd world countries. Now, I don't know if it would were any different if they had the money anyways;)
So, getting only one tenth of the revenue, I find it hard for videogame companies to turn in any profits.
I thought it was stupid at first, but they were right... I have never seen pirate N64 games... I think it was effective to stop pirates although it certainly limited the console... oh well, food for the thought.
I think it is forced because CS is not only for computer using... but for general problem solving. Integro-Diferential Calculus is the basis for solving a lot of problems, so it is just a matter of basic knowledge for any engineering or scientific career.
If you didn't knew Integral calculus, then you could still program (a lot of people are like this) but your aproach is to actually solve problems as an engineer... and those are represented by integral calculus...
This is what I think though, and to me it is a good reason to put Calculus "down everyone throats":)
French might not be saints, but definetly the US is quite a bit of a devil...
Remember the black panthers? El Salvador?, Panama?, Colombia?, do you really know how involved the US government is with the situation in Africa? how many times has the US forced voting (winner) in Latin america? US needs to have a war everytime their economy goes down the hole?, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq (twice? what's the need? oh yeah I forgot theres oil, and Bush's company was the first authorized to harvest it, even through they are now saying theres not enough... just makes me think that a country in a weasel's hands is bound to become a weasel country...), Afganistan, Cold war with the soviets? this happens exactly every 10 years... It looks like a sport to them...
Now, everyone here wants hard facts, and even through the US has mostly erased those from common knowledge, you'll be able to find some info though on your local library, and reading carefully the newspaper and, even better yet, reading foreign news, away from the government censor (yeah, there is quite a lot of censor in the US, and theres now more than ever), and why not ask someone that REALLY KNOWS (perhaps someone that lives where things happened?) before believing what people say about the matter?
I didn't vote, but even through I don't like the french because they are weasels too (Nuclear testing in the sea), and they all look down other countries, I really think the US wins this one...
I think theres not quite a lot to hide now. Almost anyone can see their propietary code, and most likely theres no way to avoid the cloning or reimplementation of those at this or later time (and engine).
The inmediate solution is IMHO to actually try to make the actual game as (or more) appealing than the first to make a real profit from it, and make modding as incredibly easy as possible (almost like a WYSIWYG mod creation system, ok silly but thats the idea of easy). Engine licensing would still fare poorly because of this, but then again, make a good game, and forget about the engine. Have you ever seen warcraft 3 engine in other games? (Ok, maybe not the best example, but good games stand on their own, and half life 2 has a lot going for itself)
Anyways I'm sorry for Valve. I hope they can come out of this the best they can.
Re:Spintronics is already in use
on
More on Spintronics
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Hard drives use dipole orientation to read data. Not electron spin.
What if publishers tweaked their games to run suitably under wine?. Since the linux market isn't going to pull up soon, that could be a good idea for making the linux gaming landscape a little better and then launch a retail game.
I remember this TIME magazine article in which they question whenever videogames, movies and goths had anything to do with the Columbine incident. I think that was a wrong thing to do, because theyre giving answers to people waiting for them whenever theyre right or wrong. So, what happens with a society that grew up with movies (parents)? theyre used to them, they dont blame them. What about goths? They dont know any, those are seen in the movies. So whats left? videogames. Now thats how much bad media influences the commoners about this kind of situations.
Slashdot Mirror
Mildly joking since there are really no proven facts (other than the population growth decline), but I find reasons to think that we are headed towards more like one of those population attrition futures in which due to
1.- The lack of "new people" to occupy the lower ranks because there is less people born,
2.- Longer lifespans that will cause upper job positions to be almost a lifetime thing, resulting in lack of reward or motivation to most,
3.- Widespread implementation of education, further reducing the separation between people for the different jobs...
4.- Media and entertainment will be better than ever, causing people to loose interest in their real needs (Rome rings a bell?).
The above will lead to a population that, instead of revolting like in the old days, will get depressed (not having offspring, suicide, reclusion, substance abuse, alcohol, etc...) since we are now in a non-violence era, further decreasing the population growth rate down to a population shrinkage until we are down to only the bare minimum to maintain society up and replacing simpler jobs entirely by machines (since there won't be people to do it, but society will still demand their products) which in turn will further the attrition process until humanity is only a small portion of what it is today.
Less people walking around, more robots serving you coffee... then things will become stable for a while until the next aftermath: Robot Rebellion!
This is something William Gibson would love to write about...
Pick the leaders at random with no option to stepdown, and severely punish underperformers by democratic voting.
Pickable people will have to prepare themselves for the task and every aspect of it well or they will suffer!. Additionally, being picked does not get them any tangible benefit or money during the tenure, only until the end without being punished, and they loose it all if punished.
Pros .- Increased voting (everyone wants to cause other people pain) .- nobody will want the job, but in all honesty, everyone wants to be president because the benefit / investment ratio is close to infinite...
Cons
Interesting indeed.
With the sudden acceptance of linux all over, including Dell, HP, and others, AMD/ATI is currently at a disadvantage against Nvidia. Buggy-low performance drivers will only cause the big computer sellers/retailers to divert from ATI chipsets in order to minimize support costs.
While the FS comunity has long touted this lack of support, it had never been important until just recently that Ubuntu began to be bundled in new computers.
Unfortunately for ATI/AMD it is probably late already.
Start in 19 and go in 5 year periods to cover the all of slashdot's virgin's ages...
A) 19-24
B) 25-29
C) 30-34
D) 35-39
E) 40-45
F) My tool rusted out and was never used....
The discussion about wheather ID is or not scientific has been done a lot of times and it is clear that it is NOT at all and it is NOT provable NOR testable...
Would there be any value in trying to find out why the heck people believe it? I my opinion it simply ignorance.
Most of the people that believe in ID surely think that dinosaurs existed 4000 years ago (yeah right, and there's even a book on that somewhere...). On the other hand they take The Genesis as a historical fact book whereas it was really the last book written by the hebrews aroung 500 B.C. as a compendium of stories made to teach people what God's intent was, and all of its content has been traced back, from Noha's ark (actually a mesopotamian merchant with a big floating house who drifted to the sea for 7 days), to Abraham.
These people are simply ignorant. That is the real and only fact, and like they say, "God made them, and they gather", only an ignorant can follow another ignorant.
Wake up!
I think there are some other perspectives about these people's opinion that may need a second look.
Profit Hungry corporations are laying off US employees in favor of overseas employment because its cheaper.
Perhaps the US state of Michigan is a good example. The automotive industry is moving to China... most of it, only cuz its way cheaper (17 chinese workers at the cost of 1 US employee). Now look at the current unemployment there.
Corporations will search always to make more money, which is natural. I think what these people are asking is to be protected against the corps need to go abroad just to get more money at the expense of the people that worked hard to build them.
Which makes me wonder how much of the terrorist stuff going on today is really done by groups like IRA and Al Qaeda, and how much is just bad propaganda given to them by some political groups (Governments are powerful and can do some really freaky stuff to oposing groups).
...they really didn't fully understand how wiki works when they launched this.
I find the implications of being able to change someone else's input very easy to see and should be not considered lightly for what will be called "editorial" content.
I am sure more than one will take the "wikitorial" content as the L.A. Times official stance on whatever topic it contains, and some are very delicate.
Geeks are, of course, willing to put a lot more effort into relationships sometimes
Because they realize that could be their only chance?
Your argument is like making steel producers responsible when someone uses a gun to kill. There are so many other uses, and you are condemning it because of one use.
You are against the only chance some ppl have of denouncing the crimes (genocides... sounds just as bad as CP to me) in their region because they are the backyard business of some powerful and ruthless politician.
Would you get killed if you spilled the beans? In mine you would. Would your family be threatened if so? This is a must to end with the threat you represent to them.
Perhaps you live in a fairy tale country. You seem to live in an at least "pseudo free-speech" country. Some have never had it you know, and Freenet is an option for them.
You won't really know the value of what you have until you loose it. Your reality does not apply to everyone.
Keep it up Freenet!
This would not only make you sterile, it can also be the cause of other genetic deformities. Perhaps something like Anaencephalia, or Down Syndrome (not good examples but you get the idea).
Regards.
given he was so comfortable with lies, perhaps he wasn't even a prince in the first place...
They are the subhuman Tchoo-Tchoos. The small elephants were Chaugnar Faghn's servants.
Ok, I had to take that out of my system.
You are right maybe we wouldn't even be able to call them computers because of the many differenc aspects they could cover...
I may be exagerating, but maybe "Best Friend" or "opossing team" would be more adequate terms by that time.
Could game availabiliy be counted for piracy cause?
;)
In poor countries that availability is almost nill. When you go to a store you find the latest game to be the original Homeworld. So if you want a game you can buy it from Amazon (or whatever store you want) with a 60% price increase because of customs tax and shipping. so the only way to get a game for most is to download a pirated copy (you surely can pay it, but you would have to stop eating for the next 2 months)
I don't think that because GIMP's price is $0, it's value is infinite.
People (ideally) buy what they need, and some people need what GIMP doesn't offer. Can easy of use be bought? well IMHO, yes!, since I (and many others) would pay for that. That makes it a simple choice.
GIMP doesn't have all the features and easy of use that a lot of people appreciate... more than money.
I have always thought that videogames were a little bit overpriced for some markets. Here in Mexico, a usual console game (it has to be imported from the US ALWAYS) runs for about $50. Now if you mod your console the same $50, you can buy your pirate game for $5.
... I think it could be similar for other 3rd world countries. Now, I don't know if it would were any different if they had the money anyways ;)
If we consider that the minimum salary in Mexico is $2 a day (Yes DAY, middle class workers earn a little over $10-$20), then the Idea of modding your console to be able to get your pirate games for $5 seems tempting for anyone in this condition
So, getting only one tenth of the revenue, I find it hard for videogame companies to turn in any profits.
I thought it was stupid at first, but they were right... I have never seen pirate N64 games... I think it was effective to stop pirates although it certainly limited the console... oh well, food for the thought.
I think it is forced because CS is not only for computer using... but for general problem solving. Integro-Diferential Calculus is the basis for solving a lot of problems, so it is just a matter of basic knowledge for any engineering or scientific career.
:)
If you didn't knew Integral calculus, then you could still program (a lot of people are like this) but your aproach is to actually solve problems as an engineer... and those are represented by integral calculus...
This is what I think though, and to me it is a good reason to put Calculus "down everyone throats"
French might not be saints, but definetly the US is quite a bit of a devil...
:)
Remember the black panthers? El Salvador?, Panama?, Colombia?, do you really know how involved the US government is with the situation in Africa? how many times has the US forced voting (winner) in Latin america? US needs to have a war everytime their economy goes down the hole?, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq (twice? what's the need? oh yeah I forgot theres oil, and Bush's company was the first authorized to harvest it, even through they are now saying theres not enough... just makes me think that a country in a weasel's hands is bound to become a weasel country...), Afganistan, Cold war with the soviets? this happens exactly every 10 years...
It looks like a sport to them...
Now, everyone here wants hard facts, and even through the US has mostly erased those from common knowledge, you'll be able to find some info though on your local library, and reading carefully the newspaper and, even better yet, reading foreign news, away from the government censor (yeah, there is quite a lot of censor in the US, and theres now more than ever), and why not ask someone that REALLY KNOWS (perhaps someone that lives where things happened?) before believing what people say about the matter?
I didn't vote, but even through I don't like the french because they are weasels too (Nuclear testing in the sea), and they all look down other countries, I really think the US wins this one...
Sorry if I made any mistakes with my english
I think theres not quite a lot to hide now. Almost anyone can see their propietary code, and most likely theres no way to avoid the cloning or reimplementation of those at this or later time (and engine).
The inmediate solution is IMHO to actually try to make the actual game as (or more) appealing than the first to make a real profit from it, and make modding as incredibly easy as possible (almost like a WYSIWYG mod creation system, ok silly but thats the idea of easy). Engine licensing would still fare poorly because of this, but then again, make a good game, and forget about the engine. Have you ever seen warcraft 3 engine in other games? (Ok, maybe not the best example, but good games stand on their own, and half life 2 has a lot going for itself)
Anyways I'm sorry for Valve. I hope they can come out of this the best they can.
Hard drives use dipole orientation to read data. Not electron spin.
What if publishers tweaked their games to run suitably under wine?. Since the linux market isn't going to pull up soon, that could be a good idea for making the linux gaming landscape a little better and then launch a retail game.
Does it mean I can now see the movie from whatever point of view I like? Hope it does.
I remember this TIME magazine article in which they question whenever videogames, movies and goths had anything to do with the Columbine incident. I think that was a wrong thing to do, because theyre giving answers to people waiting for them whenever theyre right or wrong. So, what happens with a society that grew up with movies (parents)? theyre used to them, they dont blame them. What about goths? They dont know any, those are seen in the movies. So whats left? videogames. Now thats how much bad media influences the commoners about this kind of situations.