I believe you can find old maps in the archives that labeled the oceans with "Beyond here be dragons" because no one or thing that ventured out that way came back.
Of course, we now understand why that happened and have invented the technologies to overcome such limitations. However, if you had asked fishermen 1000 years ago what was over the horizon, I'm sure you would have heard several stories of friends that disappeared fishing out a little too far. Even a few hundred years ago, post-Columbus, a journey to the new world was a high risk undertaking, hence all the spanish gold we're finding on the seabed in modern times.
I'd be really curious if this SF writer would run his analogy from a 15th century perspective on the costs of colonizing the new world. At the typical lossage rates, how many extra ships would we need? How many crazy colonists would die? What possible gain would we have establishing a colony so far away that it wouldn't benefit the homeland one bit for all the costs involved. We'd never see a return on such investment, right?
And yet, at some point, the magic wand was waved and we got time-pieces that were accurate at sea, and navigation became easier. Then we got steam engines and propulsion came under our control, freeing us from the mercy of the winds.
Sure with current technology, it's a long shot. But we've been through significant technological breakthroughs in recent history, let alone our lifetimes. We can be fairly confident new significant breakthroughs are just over the horizon and no doubt some of them will drastically alter the risks/costs/benefits equations involved in space flight.
As for precedent, both Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (coauthors of Footfall, and the Mote in God's Eye amongst other works) were a significant part of the push in the 80's to develop what is now National Missile Defense.
Niven also wrote "The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton" which was about Gil, a diagnosed schizophrenic, who was paid by the government to go off his meds for periods of time to tap into his paranoid creativity and anticipate threats against the homeland. In this future world, they had an entire department of these people trying to anticipate the badness.
I really admire Niven's SF writing. Hell, I admire Bear and Pournelle too. The other's I haven't read. But somehow, SF writers advising government on public policy sounds a lot like celebrities advising america on which candidate to vote for, or how much toilet paper they should use per restroom visit. Non Sequitur, is the term I believe I'm looking for.
Terrorism, like most criminal acts, is conducted by exploiting opportunity. If you remove the opportunity to carry box cutters onto a plane, then they will find another opportunity to exploit. That might involve planes, it might not. Which is why we are wasting our time standing in line for TSA to search, sniff and seize our shampoos. Okay, so now we're safe from knives, shoe bombs and liquid explosives in quantities over 3 oz. Does that make our planes safe? No. Our planes are safe because the ratio of actual terrorists trying to hijack or explode planes vs. actual planes is infinitesimally low.
When they want to blow up the next plane, they'll use 2.5 oz of high-yield liquid explosive pressed up against the window and detonate it with the battery in their cellphone. After cellphones are banned and no liquids are allowed, they'll find another way. Or they'll stop targetting planes and go after shopping malls instead. It doesn't take a SF writer to guess this stuff out into the open, but I'm sure they enjoy the attention.
Probably the real reason we're so safe in america these days is that there seems to be an all-hand's meeting of terrorists going on in iraq. They're very determined to make sure we lose the engagement over there; figuratively, actually, and publicly. Once they've accomplished that, which they will due to our own schizophrenic form of government, if we don't stop our international meddling ways, we'll probably start seeing a rash of attacks at home from random and unpredictable sources--just like the 9/11 terrorists.
And they won't crash through our barricades or evade our procedures. They'll search for and exploit opportunities within our existing "safety" systems.
My eldest racked up $75 in ring tone downloads the _day after_ he got his phone. The _day after_ I explained that he had my credit card in his hand. The _day after_ I told him not to download any ring tones without my permission.
I called Cingular/AT&T and had them put an internet block on his phone. No downloads, no browsing, no SMS. Sorry bub.
After reading this article, it's looking more and more like a great move.
Those tests are intrusive and don't prove anything, I'd have the option of taking them and not getting a job or refusing and still not getting the job so I think it's better to refuse and let the company know what you think of their tests.
The hiring company doesn't care if you refuse. Such tests and screens are about minimizing risk, nothing more. Risk to the insurance companies, typically. Although some might want to reduce risk of job abandonment or unpredictable performance--direct risks to the company.
In any given population lets assume that 10% of the candidates pose unacceptable risks that such screenings can filter out. Let's assume that another 20% are either unnecessarily concerned that they would be filtered or otherwise against submitting to such screening. That still leaves 70% of the candidates that the company can choose from.
You have to understand that they are fine with this. They don't care if they are missing out on some genius employee or super creative wizard. They've already made the decision that people in the excluded group are not worth the risk. They'll take the best from the low-risk group and consider that person a genius--because compared to others in the same low-risk bracket, they are!
So either buckle down and submit to the screening, or don't bother applying. No harm, no foul. No one (in their right mind) should assume you are a criminal or wacko because you decline to submit to intrusive testing. But don't for one minute think you are teaching the company a lesson--they don't care.
... when trying to force an undesirable act/product upon the people:
1. give it a friendly name 2. rename as necessary to avoid negative stigma 3. select friendly name that implies exact opposite of intended effect 4. advertise, advertise, advertise 5. co-opt media owners to stop using previous name(s). 6. remove all other consumer options 7. profit!
If you had a lock that kept out only the people you actually wanted in, but couldn't keep out those that were actually going to rob you blind, one would think that your solution might be a little more robust than "I'll see anyone who reports how badly my lock works".
I'm surprised how prevalent this thinking is within the human species. We're having a rash of burglaries in my neighborhood. This week, we received a notice from the local police informing of this fact. They mention that these daylight burglers are breaking windows to enter homes. The police letter then helpfully suggests that we lock our doors and windows as a placebo.
One thing I remember from owning a convertible coupe car was that one should always leave one's doors unlocked and when sunny, windows down. That way, those that are up to no good won't cut your canvass top or break your windows while pilfering through your stuff. Of course, the non-thieves among us leave your shit alone either way.
Maybe the EFF should buy convertibles for key members of the RIAA.
Of course we have to jail them for life. Otherwise, we could be accused for not doing enough after they shoot all their classmates.
I would however expect police and prosecutors to be familiar with the percentages of prank bomb threats vs. the real ones. Young children seem to think things like this are funny until the first time. Whereas a serious psychopath might rather deliver the message with a boom. If there is a strong correlation between pranks/threats and future bombing attempts, then jail is appropriate.
Unfortunately, this case was yet another example of guilty until proven innocent. It will make for great discussion when his history course gets around to discussing the deprecated constitution.
At the systems company I worked for, we were told to use the entire tube as well. Granted, it wasn't 4ccs, but it was still too much. Our CPUs would typically have 1mm of paste between them and the heat spreader--easily seen when you took them apart later.
Back when I was overclocking my white-box PCs, I read that paste is only supposed to fill the grooves between heat sink and chip die. Ideally, you want metal to die contact, but since these surfaces are typically non-uniform, direct contact is very inefficient with only a few high-points touching. Therefore, thermal paste was developed that allowed the gaps to conduct a bit better than air. However, apply too much and you eliminate the possible metal to die contact and thus cause over heating.
I also read about "lapping" and actually did an experiment with one of my dual proc PCs. I sanded my Celeron die and heat sink flat with 400 grit sandpaper and then put them together with the smallest dab of paste. Separating the two revealed that nearly all of that paste was pushed out of the contact region leaving a very thin, nearly non-existent film of paste. Back in my system, this CPU was immediately 5C cooler than its twin, under any load.
Metal to die beats paste any day. These companies could do a lot better with focus on making flat surfaces, less viscous paste and a little education.
I'll have to keep your perspective in mind the next time they ask me to register my guns.
"Dear Handgun Control. I elect to not register my 9mm stubby,.45 short nose and.38 backup pistol. Please stop asking us to register our guns because we don't appreciate it."
I don't understand why it is so difficult for people to grasp the concept of "no."
Intelligent life exists in quantity. However, they have learned through violent competition for choice resources (i.e. planets) to be very quiet. That would eliminate the chances that we'd find them from here.
They are also probably looking for either beings like us or planets like ours. If altruistic aliens find us first (e.g. close encounters) how exciting! Alternatively, if a conquering species locate us first we're doomed (e.g. battlefield earth). It's just a matter of time and luck.
With regard to why we haven't seen them yet, you'd have to determine the minimum likely scanning interval for a galaxy the size of the milky way. Assuming nearly instantaneous travel, there are still millions of stars to visit. How often would a sentient race return to check up on things? Every thousand years would reveal that nothing much has changed here on Earth for the last ten thousand years--assuming they haven't been back in the last 500 years or so.
Another and cheaper method would be to deposit robotic monitors in each solar system designed to send a signal upon certain event triggers. I would suspect we've earned some marks for getting off the ground, but since we make infrequent and very short trips outside our atmosphere, we're still probably not worth their efforts or attention. Once we get manufacturing and agriculture up into space, establish self-sufficient space colonies, we'll warrant a closer look.
"So, Signore Galilei, you were improperly induced by the Inquisition to suppress the information that the Earth rotates around the Sun?"
A genuinely free-market Republican administration would surely want the truth about climate change to be readily available so that the markets could respond appropriately and make capital and resources available for the inevitable re-shaping of society
You know, I've been watching Google News for some time now with a keyword search for "global warming" and there has been zero shortage of articles proclaiming doom and gloom. However, there is a definite shortage of opposing viewpoints. This leads me to believe you have your reference to Galilei reversed and might want to consider the flat-earth crowd analogous to the heatwave prognosticators.
Regardless, free markets don't require government regulation to guide their appropriate responses. The republicans have the position of skeptics believing that the facts are not all in--and they don't want to alter public policy (or their oil windfalls) accordingly. The democrats however want to force businesses and citizens into economically harmful behavior in the name of saving the planet--hardly a free market response to information.
The fact is, the Earth is a chaotic system. Very chaotic. Predicting the weather makes predicting the stock market look simple. Are we experiencing warming across a majority of the planet? Yes. Are we seeing CO2 levels much higher than our limited historical record and sampling techniques imply? Yes.
And that's where the facts end. The rest is extrapolation, conjecture and hypothesis.
Are we going to continue warming? How much hotter will it get? How bad will the 2006... uh, 2007 hurricane season get? When will the plankton die off and oxygen production decline? Will Earth's lifeforms take advantage of surplus CO2 and turn us around? Is there some misunderstood aspect of the Sun causing this? What about the Earth's core or magnetic field? What will the Earth's average temperature be in three months? Six? Why are some areas of Antarctica getting colder? Why is it snowing in Los Angeles for the first time in forty years? Where does all our carbon dioxide go?
Given the temperature upswing and rapid climb in CO2, we certainly need to understand this issue better and develop models that can ACCURATELY predict future weather. These same models should be provable by ACCURATELY predicting historical weather, but we are nowhere near that capability yet. Studying the planet's climate deserves funding, no doubt. But try to convince a bunch of senators that we don't understand something and really ought to spend money to figure it out. You'll get nowhere.
Inducing panic is much easier. And a politician's response to panic is very predictable. Of course, panic has serious side effects and casualties, but when your religion tells you the world is going to end, I guess the means are justified.
Personally, I hope they're correct, because our species is wasting a lot of money and opportunity if this turns out to be a mild cyclical event beyond our control.
Is it really "space" or is it a 62 mile high ballistic roller coaster ride with a substantial risk of death? $25K for a week on the ISS, you bet. $25K for a shot around the moon? You bet. $25K for a rollercoaster... color me jaded, but I'll pass.
What shocks me is that the IRS has been around since 1913 and still contest promoters haven't figured out that free isn't free if you don't also cover taxes. Why can't contest promoters put up $100K for the prize, $30K for the taxes, $9K for the tax on the tax money, $2.7K for the... you know, I seem to recall first year calculus solved this riddle, but I'd guess $145K would cover space and taxes and then it would truly be free and open to Elementary students who certainly don't have credit cards to cover the IRS bill.
Seeing a sixth grader win and actually able to afford a trip into sub-orbital-space... that would be something cool indeed.
MSFT adds value into their OS versions through licensing. I don't know the specific prices, but a quick scan on newegg shows WindowOS licenses ranging from $100-$300. Aside from the value added through feature-flavors like Home, Pro, Server, whatnot, they consider OEM licenses at $100 to be single-instance installs for your motherboard-components configuration.
This is how Dell is able to sell PCs for $300--OEM licenses are the cheap, use it until it breaks, disposable operating system of our era.
If you wanted to be able to swap components and upgrade your box due to technology advancement or hardware failures then MSFT expects you to pay $300 for the full version of Windows which allows you to reinstall (with a limited number of activations) on new or significantly upgraded hardware by virtue of an install disk and key and non-hw-bound installer.
For those of us used to paying $0 for an operating system, these higher, "value added" amounts feel exorbitant. Bur for MBAs and stockholders, this looks like an awesome business model.
Not being a MSFT shareholder, when the cheap Dell PCs I bought a year ago start coughing up blood, my kids are getting introduced to the world of spare parts on ebay and linux.
There's a clause in the EULA where you give Microsoft or it's agents the right to come in and audit you at any time, at your expense... The only way out is to not be running any of their software and be able to prove it in court.
While I realize that the EULA basically has us all over a barrel with our first born children as collateral, doesn't MSFT first have an obligation to prove that we opened and installed the software that we paid for, thus accepting the EULA?
Or, being a civil suit, are the rules of evidence out the window and we're all basically guilty until proven innocent?
Either way, I'm more and more appreciative that I began my personal transition to linux several years ago.
With the advent of birth control, human evolution is starting to go backwards. In 100 years they will talk about the benevolent reign of George Bush the Wise.
You are assuming five generations hence that they comprehend, let alone study history with an average IQ of 70. Hell, I think you could make the argument that today's voters don't comprehend, let alone study history. Who was President 100 years ago? Quick, no google!
... especially if you were wise enough to insist on the relo package details in the written job offer. Remember, if it's not in writing, it's not yours.
Your hiring manager is your champion. They are the one that justified your extravagant salary to the higher-ups. They are the one that made HR find you. They are the one that wants you and not those other scrubs that applied and even interviewed. They know the ins and outs of their company and can get the right wheels greased in seconds. Just give them a call and tell them there is a snag on their end that you would appreciate some help with.
Be reasonable, but firm and insist that they correct this and stick to the agreement or you are going to be in a very awkward position. While already quitting your current job may make it feel like you've lost leverage, you are still in a strong position because you haven't started working with the new company yet--they don't want to lose you! Especially over something they already said you could have.
As a regular hiring manager, I've seen my share of great candidates get lost because of HR's mistakes. One of my peers lost a great candidate because HR stood too firm on the salary offer, when he called the candidate to find out what happened he discovered that they guy only needed $2K more to say yes!! For some reason, HR failed to discover this and had too much ego to make the deal happen, sending this hiring manager back into the process over $2K.
Call your new boss, he'll sort it out. If he doesn't, walk--you didn't want to move anyway.
You're not there to educate every schmuck that applies for your position. You're supposed to simply find the best candidate (that meets your bar) in a reasonable amount of time.
A secondary purpose of interviewing is to get people excited about your company. EVERYONE should leave your interviews wanting to work with you. That generally fosters good will in your area prompting qualified people to apply. A great way to make people not want to work with you is to be critical without the pretense of looking out for their best interests the way a friend, peer or mentor might.
I never let on how poorly people are doing. I simply alter my approach, simplify my questions and wrap up early. I always ask if they have any questions for me about the position or company. I always take a moment to tell them something exciting about what we do. I always thank them for coming. I always show them out with a handshake and a smile and then inform my recruiter regarding how I want to follow-up.
With a little luck, those that don't get invited back know someone who will.
When I first saw the announcement I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't call Apple's Phone the "aPhone". After all, it's what aPhone should be.
I'd really like to buy aPhone, provided I can get one without extending my already too long Cingular contract. I've been a cellphone owner since 1994 and have been waiting for aPhone for the last twelve years.
I think Microsoft woke up to the fact that "PC and hardware enthusiasts" provide billions of dollars worth of free technical support to friends (read: anybody who finds out that you're good with computers). This is something we'd be markedly less willing to do if we didn't use Windows ourselves.
Reads as: MSFT realized that the tech-savvy were about to start advising the non-tech-savvy to go Linux on their next home PC.
Many in government know they are bit players in a pointless security theater, but react violently when told that.
I don't think it's really that pointless... and they know it. The cows in the field tend to stay away from the "electrified" fence. Until, that is, some smart-ass cow starts demonstrating that it's not really electrified at all and makes a big show of it, waving his hooves around and getting others to try it out.
Then the farmer has no choice but to turn the electricity back on and deal with sour milk for a few weeks until they learn their lesson again and stay away from the fence.
Were we talking about intelligent humans, not cows? Dear me.
... It's called a Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. Keeps the pressure on the outer side of your hand and away from the carpal tunnel. I bought three for ~$50 each back in the day. Last I checked, the were going on eBay for ~$100. Too bad they're discontinued.
I think you meant to write that linux would have no more than 7300 hours uptime per year (down for 60 days) so that Windows could acheive 20% more. And while I agree with your premise, I detected that you subtracted 60 twice from 365 to arrive at your erronious 5844 hours.
Hmmm, I have to respectfully disagree. Guns are made to be able to kill, whether in self-defense or not. This proposed law is more like outlawing surgeon's knives because Jack the Ripper (supposedly) used one, never mind that surgeons use them to save lives; network tools are used to hack networks but are also used to secure them. That's the most apt comparison I can think of.
Knives were originally made in order to kill, whether in self-defense, food gathering or otherwise. Your excuse that they are a useful surgeon's instrument is akin to guns being useful for hunting. After all, surgeons save lives, as do food suppliers.
Outlawing tools because criminals use them in the commission of crimes is political subterfuge; they seek to distract you from the real issue: crime, and their inability to capture and detain criminals. Or at least that's the rational excuse. If you want to go the conspiracy route, then you can conclude that preventing common citizens from possessing useful tools is a way to maintain control in the hands of the select and soon to be wealthy few.
Slashdot Mirror
I believe you can find old maps in the archives that labeled the oceans with "Beyond here be dragons" because no one or thing that ventured out that way came back.
Of course, we now understand why that happened and have invented the technologies to overcome such limitations. However, if you had asked fishermen 1000 years ago what was over the horizon, I'm sure you would have heard several stories of friends that disappeared fishing out a little too far. Even a few hundred years ago, post-Columbus, a journey to the new world was a high risk undertaking, hence all the spanish gold we're finding on the seabed in modern times.
I'd be really curious if this SF writer would run his analogy from a 15th century perspective on the costs of colonizing the new world. At the typical lossage rates, how many extra ships would we need? How many crazy colonists would die? What possible gain would we have establishing a colony so far away that it wouldn't benefit the homeland one bit for all the costs involved. We'd never see a return on such investment, right?
And yet, at some point, the magic wand was waved and we got time-pieces that were accurate at sea, and navigation became easier. Then we got steam engines and propulsion came under our control, freeing us from the mercy of the winds.
Sure with current technology, it's a long shot. But we've been through significant technological breakthroughs in recent history, let alone our lifetimes. We can be fairly confident new significant breakthroughs are just over the horizon and no doubt some of them will drastically alter the risks/costs/benefits equations involved in space flight.
As for precedent, both Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven (coauthors of Footfall, and the Mote in God's Eye amongst other works) were a significant part of the push in the 80's to develop what is now National Missile Defense.
Niven also wrote "The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton" which was about Gil, a diagnosed schizophrenic, who was paid by the government to go off his meds for periods of time to tap into his paranoid creativity and anticipate threats against the homeland. In this future world, they had an entire department of these people trying to anticipate the badness.
I really admire Niven's SF writing. Hell, I admire Bear and Pournelle too. The other's I haven't read. But somehow, SF writers advising government on public policy sounds a lot like celebrities advising america on which candidate to vote for, or how much toilet paper they should use per restroom visit. Non Sequitur, is the term I believe I'm looking for.
Terrorism, like most criminal acts, is conducted by exploiting opportunity. If you remove the opportunity to carry box cutters onto a plane, then they will find another opportunity to exploit. That might involve planes, it might not. Which is why we are wasting our time standing in line for TSA to search, sniff and seize our shampoos. Okay, so now we're safe from knives, shoe bombs and liquid explosives in quantities over 3 oz. Does that make our planes safe? No. Our planes are safe because the ratio of actual terrorists trying to hijack or explode planes vs. actual planes is infinitesimally low.
When they want to blow up the next plane, they'll use 2.5 oz of high-yield liquid explosive pressed up against the window and detonate it with the battery in their cellphone. After cellphones are banned and no liquids are allowed, they'll find another way. Or they'll stop targetting planes and go after shopping malls instead. It doesn't take a SF writer to guess this stuff out into the open, but I'm sure they enjoy the attention.
Probably the real reason we're so safe in america these days is that there seems to be an all-hand's meeting of terrorists going on in iraq. They're very determined to make sure we lose the engagement over there; figuratively, actually, and publicly. Once they've accomplished that, which they will due to our own schizophrenic form of government, if we don't stop our international meddling ways, we'll probably start seeing a rash of attacks at home from random and unpredictable sources--just like the 9/11 terrorists.
And they won't crash through our barricades or evade our procedures. They'll search for and exploit opportunities within our existing "safety" systems.
And then we'll lose another dozen liberties.
Two better words: Internet Block.
My eldest racked up $75 in ring tone downloads the _day after_ he got his phone. The _day after_ I explained that he had my credit card in his hand. The _day after_ I told him not to download any ring tones without my permission.
I called Cingular/AT&T and had them put an internet block on his phone. No downloads, no browsing, no SMS. Sorry bub.
After reading this article, it's looking more and more like a great move.
Those tests are intrusive and don't prove anything, I'd have the option of taking them and not getting a job or refusing and still not getting the job so I think it's better to refuse and let the company know what you think of their tests.
The hiring company doesn't care if you refuse. Such tests and screens are about minimizing risk, nothing more. Risk to the insurance companies, typically. Although some might want to reduce risk of job abandonment or unpredictable performance--direct risks to the company.
In any given population lets assume that 10% of the candidates pose unacceptable risks that such screenings can filter out. Let's assume that another 20% are either unnecessarily concerned that they would be filtered or otherwise against submitting to such screening. That still leaves 70% of the candidates that the company can choose from.
You have to understand that they are fine with this. They don't care if they are missing out on some genius employee or super creative wizard. They've already made the decision that people in the excluded group are not worth the risk. They'll take the best from the low-risk group and consider that person a genius--because compared to others in the same low-risk bracket, they are!
So either buckle down and submit to the screening, or don't bother applying. No harm, no foul. No one (in their right mind) should assume you are a criminal or wacko because you decline to submit to intrusive testing. But don't for one minute think you are teaching the company a lesson--they don't care.
... when trying to force an undesirable act/product upon the people:
1. give it a friendly name
2. rename as necessary to avoid negative stigma
3. select friendly name that implies exact opposite of intended effect
4. advertise, advertise, advertise
5. co-opt media owners to stop using previous name(s).
6. remove all other consumer options
7. profit!
If you had a lock that kept out only the people you actually wanted in, but couldn't keep out those that were actually going to rob you blind, one would think that your solution might be a little more robust than "I'll see anyone who reports how badly my lock works".
I'm surprised how prevalent this thinking is within the human species. We're having a rash of burglaries in my neighborhood. This week, we received a notice from the local police informing of this fact. They mention that these daylight burglers are breaking windows to enter homes. The police letter then helpfully suggests that we lock our doors and windows as a placebo.
One thing I remember from owning a convertible coupe car was that one should always leave one's doors unlocked and when sunny, windows down. That way, those that are up to no good won't cut your canvass top or break your windows while pilfering through your stuff. Of course, the non-thieves among us leave your shit alone either way.
Maybe the EFF should buy convertibles for key members of the RIAA.
Of course we have to jail them for life. Otherwise, we could be accused for not doing enough after they shoot all their classmates.
I would however expect police and prosecutors to be familiar with the percentages of prank bomb threats vs. the real ones. Young children seem to think things like this are funny until the first time. Whereas a serious psychopath might rather deliver the message with a boom. If there is a strong correlation between pranks/threats and future bombing attempts, then jail is appropriate.
Unfortunately, this case was yet another example of guilty until proven innocent. It will make for great discussion when his history course gets around to discussing the deprecated constitution.
This isn't taught anywhere.
At the systems company I worked for, we were told to use the entire tube as well. Granted, it wasn't 4ccs, but it was still too much. Our CPUs would typically have 1mm of paste between them and the heat spreader--easily seen when you took them apart later.
Back when I was overclocking my white-box PCs, I read that paste is only supposed to fill the grooves between heat sink and chip die. Ideally, you want metal to die contact, but since these surfaces are typically non-uniform, direct contact is very inefficient with only a few high-points touching. Therefore, thermal paste was developed that allowed the gaps to conduct a bit better than air. However, apply too much and you eliminate the possible metal to die contact and thus cause over heating.
I also read about "lapping" and actually did an experiment with one of my dual proc PCs. I sanded my Celeron die and heat sink flat with 400 grit sandpaper and then put them together with the smallest dab of paste. Separating the two revealed that nearly all of that paste was pushed out of the contact region leaving a very thin, nearly non-existent film of paste. Back in my system, this CPU was immediately 5C cooler than its twin, under any load.
Metal to die beats paste any day. These companies could do a lot better with focus on making flat surfaces, less viscous paste and a little education.
does a 25% increase in efficiency translate into tripling the power output?
It does if you study mechanics and explosions more than mathematics.
I'll have to keep your perspective in mind the next time they ask me to register my guns.
.45 short nose and .38 backup pistol. Please stop asking us to register our guns because we don't appreciate it."
"Dear Handgun Control. I elect to not register my 9mm stubby,
I don't understand why it is so difficult for people to grasp the concept of "no."
There is a real need for smaller computers, but is there a real need for mass-produced mass spectrometers?
:-)
I'd buy one.
I'd use it when eating out to test for bacteria, virii and other contaminants.
I'd use it at home to analyze the paint on my walls and products for lead, mercury or other poisons I don't want in my house.
I'd use it on my used engine oil to determine levels of wear.
I'd use it on my kids pee and clothing to see what they've been up to.
I'm sure I'd find other uses for it until I couldn't imagine living without one. Kinda like a phone or a computer with more than 640KB of RAM.
Intelligent life exists in quantity. However, they have learned through violent competition for choice resources (i.e. planets) to be very quiet. That would eliminate the chances that we'd find them from here.
They are also probably looking for either beings like us or planets like ours. If altruistic aliens find us first (e.g. close encounters) how exciting! Alternatively, if a conquering species locate us first we're doomed (e.g. battlefield earth). It's just a matter of time and luck.
With regard to why we haven't seen them yet, you'd have to determine the minimum likely scanning interval for a galaxy the size of the milky way. Assuming nearly instantaneous travel, there are still millions of stars to visit. How often would a sentient race return to check up on things? Every thousand years would reveal that nothing much has changed here on Earth for the last ten thousand years--assuming they haven't been back in the last 500 years or so.
Another and cheaper method would be to deposit robotic monitors in each solar system designed to send a signal upon certain event triggers. I would suspect we've earned some marks for getting off the ground, but since we make infrequent and very short trips outside our atmosphere, we're still probably not worth their efforts or attention. Once we get manufacturing and agriculture up into space, establish self-sufficient space colonies, we'll warrant a closer look.
"So, Signore Galilei, you were improperly induced by the Inquisition to suppress the information that the Earth rotates around the Sun?"
A genuinely free-market Republican administration would surely want the truth about climate change to be readily available so that the markets could respond appropriately and make capital and resources available for the inevitable re-shaping of society
You know, I've been watching Google News for some time now with a keyword search for "global warming" and there has been zero shortage of articles proclaiming doom and gloom. However, there is a definite shortage of opposing viewpoints. This leads me to believe you have your reference to Galilei reversed and might want to consider the flat-earth crowd analogous to the heatwave prognosticators.
Regardless, free markets don't require government regulation to guide their appropriate responses. The republicans have the position of skeptics believing that the facts are not all in--and they don't want to alter public policy (or their oil windfalls) accordingly. The democrats however want to force businesses and citizens into economically harmful behavior in the name of saving the planet--hardly a free market response to information.
The fact is, the Earth is a chaotic system. Very chaotic. Predicting the weather makes predicting the stock market look simple. Are we experiencing warming across a majority of the planet? Yes. Are we seeing CO2 levels much higher than our limited historical record and sampling techniques imply? Yes.
And that's where the facts end. The rest is extrapolation, conjecture and hypothesis.
Are we going to continue warming?
How much hotter will it get?
How bad will the 2006... uh, 2007 hurricane season get?
When will the plankton die off and oxygen production decline?
Will Earth's lifeforms take advantage of surplus CO2 and turn us around?
Is there some misunderstood aspect of the Sun causing this?
What about the Earth's core or magnetic field?
What will the Earth's average temperature be in three months? Six?
Why are some areas of Antarctica getting colder?
Why is it snowing in Los Angeles for the first time in forty years?
Where does all our carbon dioxide go?
Given the temperature upswing and rapid climb in CO2, we certainly need to understand this issue better and develop models that can ACCURATELY predict future weather. These same models should be provable by ACCURATELY predicting historical weather, but we are nowhere near that capability yet. Studying the planet's climate deserves funding, no doubt. But try to convince a bunch of senators that we don't understand something and really ought to spend money to figure it out. You'll get nowhere.
Inducing panic is much easier. And a politician's response to panic is very predictable. Of course, panic has serious side effects and casualties, but when your religion tells you the world is going to end, I guess the means are justified.
Personally, I hope they're correct, because our species is wasting a lot of money and opportunity if this turns out to be a mild cyclical event beyond our control.
Is it really "space" or is it a 62 mile high ballistic roller coaster ride with a substantial risk of death? $25K for a week on the ISS, you bet. $25K for a shot around the moon? You bet. $25K for a rollercoaster... color me jaded, but I'll pass.
What shocks me is that the IRS has been around since 1913 and still contest promoters haven't figured out that free isn't free if you don't also cover taxes. Why can't contest promoters put up $100K for the prize, $30K for the taxes, $9K for the tax on the tax money, $2.7K for the... you know, I seem to recall first year calculus solved this riddle, but I'd guess $145K would cover space and taxes and then it would truly be free and open to Elementary students who certainly don't have credit cards to cover the IRS bill.
Seeing a sixth grader win and actually able to afford a trip into sub-orbital-space... that would be something cool indeed.
MSFT adds value into their OS versions through licensing. I don't know the specific prices, but a quick scan on newegg shows WindowOS licenses ranging from $100-$300. Aside from the value added through feature-flavors like Home, Pro, Server, whatnot, they consider OEM licenses at $100 to be single-instance installs for your motherboard-components configuration.
This is how Dell is able to sell PCs for $300--OEM licenses are the cheap, use it until it breaks, disposable operating system of our era.
If you wanted to be able to swap components and upgrade your box due to technology advancement or hardware failures then MSFT expects you to pay $300 for the full version of Windows which allows you to reinstall (with a limited number of activations) on new or significantly upgraded hardware by virtue of an install disk and key and non-hw-bound installer.
For those of us used to paying $0 for an operating system, these higher, "value added" amounts feel exorbitant. Bur for MBAs and stockholders, this looks like an awesome business model.
Not being a MSFT shareholder, when the cheap Dell PCs I bought a year ago start coughing up blood, my kids are getting introduced to the world of spare parts on ebay and linux.
There's a clause in the EULA where you give Microsoft or it's agents the right to come in and audit you at any time, at your expense... The only way out is to not be running any of their software and be able to prove it in court.
While I realize that the EULA basically has us all over a barrel with our first born children as collateral, doesn't MSFT first have an obligation to prove that we opened and installed the software that we paid for, thus accepting the EULA?
Or, being a civil suit, are the rules of evidence out the window and we're all basically guilty until proven innocent?
Either way, I'm more and more appreciative that I began my personal transition to linux several years ago.
With the advent of birth control, human evolution is starting to go backwards. In 100 years they will talk about the benevolent reign of George Bush the Wise.
You are assuming five generations hence that they comprehend, let alone study history with an average IQ of 70. Hell, I think you could make the argument that today's voters don't comprehend, let alone study history. Who was President 100 years ago? Quick, no google!
... especially if you were wise enough to insist on the relo package details in the written job offer. Remember, if it's not in writing, it's not yours.
Your hiring manager is your champion. They are the one that justified your extravagant salary to the higher-ups. They are the one that made HR find you. They are the one that wants you and not those other scrubs that applied and even interviewed. They know the ins and outs of their company and can get the right wheels greased in seconds. Just give them a call and tell them there is a snag on their end that you would appreciate some help with.
Be reasonable, but firm and insist that they correct this and stick to the agreement or you are going to be in a very awkward position. While already quitting your current job may make it feel like you've lost leverage, you are still in a strong position because you haven't started working with the new company yet--they don't want to lose you! Especially over something they already said you could have.
As a regular hiring manager, I've seen my share of great candidates get lost because of HR's mistakes. One of my peers lost a great candidate because HR stood too firm on the salary offer, when he called the candidate to find out what happened he discovered that they guy only needed $2K more to say yes!! For some reason, HR failed to discover this and had too much ego to make the deal happen, sending this hiring manager back into the process over $2K.
Call your new boss, he'll sort it out. If he doesn't, walk--you didn't want to move anyway.
... is to find good people.
You're not there to educate every schmuck that applies for your position. You're supposed to simply find the best candidate (that meets your bar) in a reasonable amount of time.
A secondary purpose of interviewing is to get people excited about your company. EVERYONE should leave your interviews wanting to work with you. That generally fosters good will in your area prompting qualified people to apply. A great way to make people not want to work with you is to be critical without the pretense of looking out for their best interests the way a friend, peer or mentor might.
I never let on how poorly people are doing. I simply alter my approach, simplify my questions and wrap up early. I always ask if they have any questions for me about the position or company. I always take a moment to tell them something exciting about what we do. I always thank them for coming. I always show them out with a handshake and a smile and then inform my recruiter regarding how I want to follow-up.
With a little luck, those that don't get invited back know someone who will.
When I first saw the announcement I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't call Apple's Phone the "aPhone". After all, it's what aPhone should be.
I'd really like to buy aPhone, provided I can get one without extending my already too long Cingular contract. I've been a cellphone owner since 1994 and have been waiting for aPhone for the last twelve years.
I think Microsoft woke up to the fact that "PC and hardware enthusiasts" provide billions of dollars worth of free technical support to friends (read: anybody who finds out that you're good with computers). This is something we'd be markedly less willing to do if we didn't use Windows ourselves.
Reads as: MSFT realized that the tech-savvy were about to start advising the non-tech-savvy to go Linux on their next home PC.
Many in government know they are bit players in a pointless security theater, but react violently when told that.
I don't think it's really that pointless... and they know it. The cows in the field tend to stay away from the "electrified" fence. Until, that is, some smart-ass cow starts demonstrating that it's not really electrified at all and makes a big show of it, waving his hooves around and getting others to try it out.
Then the farmer has no choice but to turn the electricity back on and deal with sour milk for a few weeks until they learn their lesson again and stay away from the fence.
Were we talking about intelligent humans, not cows? Dear me.
... It's called a Logitech TrackMan Marble FX. Keeps the pressure on the outer side of your hand and away from the carpal tunnel. I bought three for ~$50 each back in the day. Last I checked, the were going on eBay for ~$100. Too bad they're discontinued.
I think you meant to write that linux would have no more than 7300 hours uptime per year (down for 60 days) so that Windows could acheive 20% more. And while I agree with your premise, I detected that you subtracted 60 twice from 365 to arrive at your erronious 5844 hours.
;)
Careful with those stones.
Hmmm, I have to respectfully disagree. Guns are made to be able to kill, whether in self-defense or not. This proposed law is more like outlawing surgeon's knives because Jack the Ripper (supposedly) used one, never mind that surgeons use them to save lives; network tools are used to hack networks but are also used to secure them. That's the most apt comparison I can think of.
Knives were originally made in order to kill, whether in self-defense, food gathering or otherwise. Your excuse that they are a useful surgeon's instrument is akin to guns being useful for hunting. After all, surgeons save lives, as do food suppliers.
Outlawing tools because criminals use them in the commission of crimes is political subterfuge; they seek to distract you from the real issue: crime, and their inability to capture and detain criminals. Or at least that's the rational excuse. If you want to go the conspiracy route, then you can conclude that preventing common citizens from possessing useful tools is a way to maintain control in the hands of the select and soon to be wealthy few.