Just for sake of a reasonable theological argument:
1) The bible clearly puts limits to what god can do: e.g. He can't lie, He can't break his own laws, etc. in short: The biblical god has some limitations.
However, the biblical god can control the outcome, the result he desires will come to pass.
2) What name would you give the ability to cause whatever you desired as the final result regardless of what anyone else tried to accomplish?
Imagine that: Whatever outcome you desired, regardless of what anyone actively did to try to prevent it, their efforts will be in vain and in fact usually end up causing the outcome that your desired?
The ability to control the result is much more limited then (absolute) omnipotency, but for all desired intents and purposes it is as close as one could reasonably get. I don't think the term omnipotency is meant to be taken as an absolute ability but more as a relative ability so that whatever else happens, god has the ability to control the *end result* regardless of *the path* we decide to follow towards it?
"If carbon-12 is expected to remain the standard, and the scientitific community therefore prefers an integer divisible by 12, then we suggest using [the cube of] 84,446,886. Then 1 gram would be the mass of exactly 18 [times the cube of] 14,074,481 carbon-12 atoms. Consequently, 1 amu would be exactly 1/(2 x 3^2 x 1,667^3 x 8,443^3) gram, and 1 mole of any entity would be exactly [the cube of] 84,446,886 of those entities."
Re:IBM PCs compared extremely poorly with Amigas
on
The Amiga Turns 25
·
· Score: 1
BIOS is crap and should be removed from the PC, replaced by EFI most likely.
What I don't know or understand is why Apple choose EFI over OpenFirmware?
Re:IBM PCs compared extremely poorly with Amigas
on
The Amiga Turns 25
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
It was not openness that won. It's never openness that wins.
Very visible continuous progress is needed to become popular. Visible continuous progress is better then openness. Openness can be a way to obtain continuous progress, but openness is neither required nor sufficient.
Amiga was advanced, but it did not develop anywhere, it was so advanced but somehow no-one could be found to take it the next step forward. So it became stagnant while PC developed. We can see the same thing with Apple, a 1995 Mac was nearly identical to that of 1985. Only after Jobs came back, taking with him a whole team from NeXT, did the Mac go anywhere fresh. We even have seen this with Microsoft IE 6, which started out great, but then nothing No-one there to take the next step.
To many who want conserve what they have, and not enough who want to move progressively forward. To take the next step, especially with a successful, advanced product is scary and the results are uncertain. One needs to have amazing self-confidence to be able to take the next step again, and again, and again Most people's fear, uncertainty and doubt will prevent them from making the next step consistently, often waisting millions of dollars and many months on aimless research and development in the process. Sometimes even leading to products which are then canceled with in a few months.
The best strategy seems to be to take the next (often obvious) step with a product on a regular schedule (every few months, at most once a year). Occasionally this step should be a leap, but it does not have to be every time. If you are able to, it also seems to help to only talk about actual deliverable products and implemented features: Don't announce products which are not ready for production, don't talk about features not yet implemented (anyone remember Longhorn?). Any progress is better then no progress, even minimal progress is better then the disappointment of vaporware. So keep your plans private/secret until you are ready to deliver an actual product.
Well, it did help that Apple replaced its own senior staff with people from NeXT... even as high as the CEO, then iCEO, Jobs. Structurally it seems more like if NeXT had bought Apple, then the reverse.
Surely it is your choice to buy a iProduct from Apple or to buy it somewhere else?
As the consequence of the choices you make you will get particular freedoms. And like all freedoms, any freedom brings with it some limitation. **Absolute freedom does not exist.**
We make a choice because of what we expect to be the consequence of this choice: The freedoms **and** limitation we think we can accept. So, If you don't accept the consequence then you should choose differently.
In old eastern germany you did not have the freedom to voice your opinion, but if you did people would listen. In current germany you have the freedom of expression, but now nobody listens anymore unless you are a VIP.
Freedom without at least some limitions does not exist. You never choose for or against some particular freedom, the choice is always about the freedoms you do want, and the freedoms you don't want.
Well Microsoft, that is what you get when you don't build your own hardware like Apple does.
Microsoft should get out of the software business and start designing their own computers together with their own software. Want Windows? Buy that WinBox from Microsoft!
That way you know what kind of hardware is needed and you can drop support for all kinds of crap.
Let Dell, HP, etc try selling computers without an usable OS.
Go back a couple hundred years and people believed all sorts of weird things. Baths were bad. Bloodletting was good. The moon's made of cheese, earth's flat, earth's the center of everything, We can reach the moon/planets with a giant cannon, etc...
Even nowerdays people believe wierd nonsense and myths... like that one about how people once believed that the earth was flat.
I always thought that "being brilliant" was a proper subset of "being dangerous"?
The real problem I think is that to many managers still want/need to handle programming as predictable production work, instead of inherently unpredictable design work.
Developing critical thinking can only lead to beter science and might be one of the best skills that anyone should learn. There is a lot of junk science and cargo cult science out there which is generally accepted by educated people: some is obvious, most is less so.
I don't understand why anyone would consider it necessary to protect/defend evolution against or all things critical thinking.
One more reason why I hate installers of every kind.
Luckily that most software for the mac comes as a dmg which you can mount, drag'n'drop inclosed app nearly anywhere, and that's it. Installers should be used ONLY when it's really needed and there is no other way to do it.
I do think that Apple should restrict write-access to anything in/System: Just make that whole area read-only for all users, and give write-access only after 'sudo' or equivalent. (The same applies to more folders).
Every developer should restrain him/herself from writing a kext (kernel extension). Really, unless you do something really unique and special, you do not need that much power. Leave the kernet alone. A kext is not a solution, its a new problem: A bad hack. Please prevent and eliminate these kind of problems.
Is that account not personal? May you transfer it to someone else? Can you have several accounts active at once on one computer.
While this may solve the question of inheriting stuff. However it is limited to a whole account: All the media you've bought. Maybe a good idea to create a new account every time you buy something?
Can children inherit their parents video/audio recordings? How are they to proof that the recordings are legit? How about resale (second hand book or record stores)?
It would help if copyright would end after some years but somehow they keep extending it.
Also think of how iTMS is handeling resale, inheriting, divorce, etc... any event where ownership needs to be transfered...
What we have here is a conflict in the definition of property. Without the right and ability to resale (transfer of ownership) you don't have any property. Without property rights you can not have an open and free market. Without an open and free market you can not have fair prices or honest competition.
The result at the moment? Instead of two products which compete you now have only one.
Patents are nothing more then government granted monopolies. Patents only ever lead to legal fights. It's cheaper and less complicated to sue someone then it is to design a beter product.
Patents never lead to more innovation, that's a myth. (Please, try and proof me wrong.)
History shows that most innovation happens where the concept of intellectual property does not exist. Real innovation becomes stagnant from the moment patents are introduced. Patents keep newcomers out of the market place. And then there is the risk of legal action and the cost associated with this...
Without the insanity of intellectual property there is more innovation. For one it's not easy to just knock off someone else's non-trivial idea and build an business around it. The first mover, the inventor, has a huge advantage. However, because the first mover knows that her competition will come, she will have to keep innovating. At the same time the competition will want to do more then just make copies of the old model, they need a competitive edge beyond price. This means that they will be forced to invest in innovation as well.
The end result is a world where there is more competition, more innovation, and lower prices.
These devices have new technology and even new concepts.
Consider mesh networking. Fast forward 10 years, consider everyone has such a device. Who needs an isp anymore? The mesh is giving everybody access to everyone else without an isp. Naturally host which are close-by are much faster then host farther away; so maybe some may need a isp, but most communication with friends and colleges will go over the mesh network...
These machines will get cheaper over time. They can not continue to upgrade the system because of power constraints so the upgrade cycles we have seen in pc's are unlikely; All the development will result in more features and lower production prices. These systems are the next step after the PC.
Most Common Lisp is as fast as C. Mainly because the compilers are optimized over many many years. The same holds true for all languages: It's the compiler, and only the compiler, which makes it run fast or slow.
Slashdot Mirror
Just for sake of a reasonable theological argument:
1) The bible clearly puts limits to what god can do: e.g. He can't lie, He can't break his own laws, etc. in short: The biblical god has some limitations.
However, the biblical god can control the outcome, the result he desires will come to pass.
2) What name would you give the ability to cause whatever you desired as the final result regardless of what anyone else tried to accomplish?
Imagine that: Whatever outcome you desired, regardless of what anyone actively did to try to prevent it, their efforts will be in vain and in fact usually end up causing the outcome that your desired?
The ability to control the result is much more limited then (absolute) omnipotency, but for all desired intents and purposes it is as close as one could reasonably get. I don't think the term omnipotency is meant to be taken as an absolute ability but more as a relative ability so that whatever else happens, god has the ability to control the *end result* regardless of *the path* we decide to follow towards it?
To quote Kevin Smith: God had a sense of humor? :D
"If carbon-12 is expected to remain the standard, and the scientitific community therefore prefers an integer divisible by 12, then we suggest using [the cube of] 84,446,886. Then 1 gram would be the mass of exactly 18 [times the cube of] 14,074,481 carbon-12 atoms. Consequently, 1 amu would be exactly 1/(2 x 3^2 x 1,667^3 x 8,443^3) gram, and 1 mole of any entity would be exactly [the cube of] 84,446,886 of those entities."
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.3743,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx
BIOS is crap and should be removed from the PC, replaced by EFI most likely.
What I don't know or understand is why Apple choose EFI over OpenFirmware?
It was not openness that won. It's never openness that wins.
Very visible continuous progress is needed to become popular. Visible continuous progress is better then openness. Openness can be a way to obtain continuous progress, but openness is neither required nor sufficient.
Amiga was advanced, but it did not develop anywhere, it was so advanced but somehow no-one could be found to take it the next step forward. So it became stagnant while PC developed. We can see the same thing with Apple, a 1995 Mac was nearly identical to that of 1985. Only after Jobs came back, taking with him a whole team from NeXT, did the Mac go anywhere fresh. We even have seen this with Microsoft IE 6, which started out great, but then nothing No-one there to take the next step.
To many who want conserve what they have, and not enough who want to move progressively forward. To take the next step, especially with a successful, advanced product is scary and the results are uncertain. One needs to have amazing self-confidence to be able to take the next step again, and again, and again Most people's fear, uncertainty and doubt will prevent them from making the next step consistently, often waisting millions of dollars and many months on aimless research and development in the process. Sometimes even leading to products which are then canceled with in a few months.
The best strategy seems to be to take the next (often obvious) step with a product on a regular schedule (every few months, at most once a year). Occasionally this step should be a leap, but it does not have to be every time. If you are able to, it also seems to help to only talk about actual deliverable products and implemented features: Don't announce products which are not ready for production, don't talk about features not yet implemented (anyone remember Longhorn?). Any progress is better then no progress, even minimal progress is better then the disappointment of vaporware. So keep your plans private/secret until you are ready to deliver an actual product.
Well, it did help that Apple replaced its own senior staff with people from NeXT... even as high as the CEO, then iCEO, Jobs. Structurally it seems more like if NeXT had bought Apple, then the reverse.
Surely it is your choice to buy a iProduct from Apple or to buy it somewhere else?
As the consequence of the choices you make you will get particular freedoms. And like all freedoms, any freedom brings with it some limitation. **Absolute freedom does not exist.**
We make a choice because of what we expect to be the consequence of this choice: The freedoms **and** limitation we think we can accept. So, If you don't accept the consequence then you should choose differently.
In old eastern germany you did not have the freedom to voice your opinion, but if you did people would listen. In current germany you have the freedom of expression, but now nobody listens anymore unless you are a VIP.
Freedom without at least some limitions does not exist. You never choose for or against some particular freedom, the choice is always about the freedoms you do want, and the freedoms you don't want.
Well Microsoft, that is what you get when you don't build your own hardware like Apple does.
Microsoft should get out of the software business and start designing their own computers together with their own software. Want Windows? Buy that WinBox from Microsoft!
That way you know what kind of hardware is needed and you can drop support for all kinds of crap.
Let Dell, HP, etc try selling computers without an usable OS.
Go back a couple hundred years and people believed all sorts of weird things. Baths were bad. Bloodletting was good. The moon's made of cheese, earth's flat, earth's the center of everything, We can reach the moon/planets with a giant cannon, etc...
Even nowerdays people believe wierd nonsense and myths... like that one about how people once believed that the earth was flat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_mythology
What else that is commonly believed will turn out the be wrong?
I always thought that "being brilliant" was a proper subset of "being dangerous"?
The real problem I think is that to many managers still want/need to handle programming as predictable production work, instead of inherently unpredictable design work.
> Christianity has killed more people than any other religion on earth.
Please define "Christianity" in a complete and consistant manner?
Democracy has killed more people then any other form of government is also true, if we include every government that claims to be a democracy.
Developing critical thinking can only lead to beter science and might be one of the best skills that anyone should learn. There is a lot of junk science and cargo cult science out there which is generally accepted by educated people: some is obvious, most is less so.
I don't understand why anyone would consider it necessary to protect/defend evolution against or all things critical thinking.
There is a "No problem Bugroff" license: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/5947/bugroff.html
The only way to win is by not playing the game.
Never going to happen...
Do they use linux in the next world?
What about the library? People can read the books there without buying them.
While DRM is a form of incompatibility this does not mean that every form of incompatibility is DRM.
Apple makes Mac OS X for their own hardware which is not just a generic PC.
If vmware where to emulate a real intel Mac, Mac OS X would run on it. However... vmware does not, so Mac OS X does not.
One more reason why I hate installers of every kind.
/System: Just make that whole area read-only for all users, and give write-access only after 'sudo' or equivalent. (The same applies to more folders).
Luckily that most software for the mac comes as a dmg which you can mount, drag'n'drop inclosed app nearly anywhere, and that's it. Installers should be used ONLY when it's really needed and there is no other way to do it.
I do think that Apple should restrict write-access to anything in
Every developer should restrain him/herself from writing a kext (kernel extension). Really, unless you do something really unique and special, you do not need that much power. Leave the kernet alone. A kext is not a solution, its a new problem: A bad hack. Please prevent and eliminate these kind of problems.
Is that account not personal?
May you transfer it to someone else?
Can you have several accounts active at once on one computer.
While this may solve the question of inheriting stuff.
However it is limited to a whole account: All the media you've bought.
Maybe a good idea to create a new account every time you buy something?
Can children inherit their parents video/audio recordings?
How are they to proof that the recordings are legit?
How about resale (second hand book or record stores)?
It would help if copyright would end after some years but somehow they keep extending it.
Also think of how iTMS is handeling resale, inheriting, divorce, etc... any event where ownership needs to be transfered...
What we have here is a conflict in the definition of property.
Without the right and ability to resale (transfer of ownership) you don't have any property.
Without property rights you can not have an open and free market.
Without an open and free market you can not have fair prices or honest competition.
Is a book property? A CD? A DVD? A iTMS movie?
The result at the moment? Instead of two products which compete you now have only one.
Patents are nothing more then government granted monopolies. Patents only ever lead to legal fights.
It's cheaper and less complicated to sue someone then it is to design a beter product.
Patents never lead to more innovation, that's a myth. (Please, try and proof me wrong.)
History shows that most innovation happens where the concept of intellectual property does not exist. Real innovation becomes stagnant from the moment patents are introduced. Patents keep newcomers out of the market place. And then there is the risk of legal action and the cost associated with this...
Without the insanity of intellectual property there is more innovation. For one it's not easy to just knock off someone else's non-trivial idea and build an business around it. The first mover, the inventor, has a huge advantage. However, because the first mover knows that her competition will come, she will have to keep innovating. At the same time the competition will want to do more then just make copies of the old model, they need a competitive edge beyond price. This means that they will be forced to invest in innovation as well.
The end result is a world where there is more competition, more innovation, and lower prices.
These devices have new technology and even new concepts.
Consider mesh networking. Fast forward 10 years, consider everyone has such a device. Who needs an isp anymore? The mesh is giving everybody access to everyone else without an isp. Naturally host which are close-by are much faster then host farther away; so maybe some may need a isp, but most communication with friends and colleges will go over the mesh network...
These machines will get cheaper over time. They can not continue to upgrade the system because of power constraints so the upgrade cycles we have seen in pc's are unlikely; All the development will result in more features and lower production prices. These systems are the next step after the PC.
This is the beginning of the post-PC era.
There is no reason why you could not write a compiler if you wanted too.
True.
But writing a really good library is stil hard.
Most Common Lisp is as fast as C. Mainly because the compilers are optimized over many many years. The same holds true for all languages: It's the compiler, and only the compiler, which makes it run fast or slow.