And I care because... why? At its height, Silicon Valley/San Fran contained thousands of individuals hoping to get rich quick by pretending to be techies. Now India has thousands of individuals hoping to have a better life by pretending to be techies. There's nothing new here. Move along.
Please pay attention, will you? My post was a real response to a real post by an AC. Just because it looks like I'm responding to myself at +1 does not mean my post is a troll. Besides, if you're moderating, you should be browsing at 0 or lower. Anything higher is a failure to do your job.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
(Thanks for the attitude.)
You're welcome.:-) And I'm not easily dismissing it. Microbial life in space would be a big boon if actually shown to be from outer-space. The problem is that the microbes that exist in our Solar System are probably all from earth. Ejecta from other planets, moons, and asteroids land on Earth all the time. If there was something truly strange out there, we probably would have noticed it by now.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
We're still finding life occuring in places on the Earth that we didn't think could possibly survive just a decade ago. Iron slag dumps, underneath the earth's crust, etc.
Gee. Maybe that's why I devoted half my post to "Microscopic life isn't what people are referring to when they talk about extra-terrestrials"? Ah, so much easier not to RTFP in the first place. Just read the first sentence and *bam!* post away!
Mod parent "-1, doesn't bother to read".
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the Solar System other than earth would you say we've explored?
All nine planets, a fair number of moons, and quite a few asteroids. We have enough data to establish that there would appear to be no macroscopic life in our solar system. Hope is still held for Europa, but I'm not holding my breath. Microscopic life is a little different in that it is very difficult to find by visual, radio, and radiation means. That being said, microscopic life that is found, would first have to be shown to not originate from Earth in the first place. Also, microscopic life is not usually what people refer to when discussing extra-terrestrials. So that point is pretty much moot.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Besides failing the Star Trek reference spectacularly (how can you forget that the quest was started by Picard's old professor?!), you seem to forget that "The Chase" only referred to humanoid species. Other species such as the Horta and "The Founders" evolved independently.
BTW, a TRUE geek would know that the legends of "The Preservers" went all the way back to the Original Series as an explanation of the numerous humanoid life-forms that existed. "The Paradise Syndrome" in particular, dealt with the concept that "The Preservers" left behind a machine to protect a fledgling colony.
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 1
Allow me to rephrase. The type of life with which we are currently familiar, requires certain balances in the way of light, heat, gravity, raw materials, etc. While some "wiggle-room" exists in these areas, it is very minute on a cosmic scale. Even leaving the "beat-the-odds" chances of evolution out of the equation, the chances of planetoids forming under similar conditions to those of Earth are exceedingly small.
Now I will grant you that life of a type that we are not familiar with, may exist. We currently have no way of guessing as to how such a creature may function. All speculations on other life forms (e.g. silicon), still result in a life form with similar tolerances to those of Earth based life. Thus we must calculate based on the conditions with which we are familiar. These calculations state that life on Earth is most likely unique.
A common point that bolsters those calculations is the fact that no other life has been discovered in our Solar System to date. If life was relatively common due to various evolution of processes, such life should then exist in areas ranging from Gas Giants, to CO2 factories, to the (relative) vacuum of space. So far, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of them. Even the microbial life on mars was most likely delivered by ejecta from the Earth's surface. The bacteria which survived, was then able to thrive to a limited degree on the resources found on mars.
Of course, that entire argument may blow up in my face if someone actually proves that "John Glen's Fireflies" are actually living creatures. (For those unfamiliar with the term, John's Fireflies describes the apparent swarming activity of debris around craft in space. One astronaut commented that NASA initially believed them to be living creatures. I'm not sure what their current view is on them.)
Re:We know other life exists
on
Lonely Planets
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
the chances are simply too great for other life to _not_ exist somewhere.
Somebody's been watching Sagan again. Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life? The odds of it spontaneously appearing are bad enough, but the various balances that allow earth to sustain life after the fact, make the number tremendous. How tremendous? Well, let's just say that there are so many zeros on the end that we don't even have a name for it. If you want to talk about "chances", then the chances are good that we're alone.
Feel free to argue the "tremendous waste of space" argument. That's a bit more sensible, but not rooted in any actual science.
Personally, I kind of liked it when "Space: Above and Beyond" said that the aliens were actually descended from organic ejecta from Earth that made its way across the galaxy. Much more believable than separate evolutions. That being said, shows like Star Trek are much more interesting if we ignore that little detail.:-)
Just because vanilla Crossover supposedly works, does not mean that the Xandros version will work. Given how slow many business deals are forged, it is not uncommon for bundled software to be out of date upon shipping. Still, it's good to know that Access 2000 works on vanilla Crossover.
However, It might be a good idea for them to get Office XP working now. Many companies are (unfortunately) moving to XP licenses thanks to Microsoft's "scorched earth"^W^W "forced upgrade" policy.
Of course. I'll have you know, that I have spent a great deal of time and effort on making DataDino function correctly on *all* Linux distros. The installer will even optionally dump DataDino.desktop icons on your Gnome and KDE desktop. I tried to add these icons to the K and foot menus, but RedHat has been completely unhelpful by releasing pre-release software. If I were to add the icons on RedHat 8, I would wipe out the user's entire "hat menu" in Gnome. That's why you may hear me moaning about RedHat from time to time.
Haha didn't any of the mods click his screenshot link??
What's wrong with his screenshot link. That's actually Xandros running. Yes, that's Microsoft Office you see. Xandros includes Crossover Office as a standard feature, so seeing Windows software is a somewhat normal thing.
Or should this have redirected me to large holes or something?
...if Xandros' Crossover Office runs Microsoft Access? Love or hate it, a lot of quick and dirty internal apps are written in Access. Unless it functions correctly, Xandros' Crossover Office support is not useful. I personally already use OpenOffice for all my document needs, even though I have copies of Microsoft Office. And being able to run Internet Exploder is not a plus. (Well, maybe for testing. But that's about it.)
(a genetically engineered squid flying a ship from earth to the astoroid belt anyone? [from the book Space]).
Actually, it's from "Manifold: Time". And personally I found the book to be rather depressing. It started off great, with a push toward space. But in the end, it was basically, "Let's see, who's not dead yet? Oh, I know! The ENTIRE HUMAN RACE!" Ugh.
And the Squid was over the top. It sounds great in the context of the book and everything, but it just doesn't jive. I mean, how exactly does the author propose that a little Frankenstein type surgery on a squid brain would result in a super intelligent squid? Or that this attribute would be passed down through generations when it wasn't actually DNA encoded?
Quality of programmers depends on the individual, not where they're from. In my experience, some Indians are decent programmers and some are lousy programmers. Same goes for US programmers.
However, you don't think these outsourcing companies really hire the good Indian programmers with years of experience in architecting, leading teams, etc, do you? No! For one, those programmers are probably already here in the US. Secondly, the outsource premise is that it's cheaper.
Not to worry though. US firms such as Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) hire just about anyone as a programmer and then charge a bundle for their "services". So it's not a problem unique to India.
My overall point is that junior programmers abound. At least with in-house coders, I can teach them everything they need to know (and hopefully weed out the useless ones). With outsourced coders, they do whatever they "think" is the right way according to some imaginary schedule made up by management. The end result is tremendously low quality code. Not that it bothers the outsourcing companies any. That's more money for maintenance.
Every company should have a highly experienced and capable programmer who will lead a small team by training and example. The code quality will be higher, the dev cycles lower, and the junior programmers will be well on their way to becoming seniors. Of course, that isn't going to happen as long as managers feel threatened by highly qualified people.
If any of you managers are listening, a good coder still needs a manager. He doesn't want your position, and he's not out to make you look like an idiot. Just do your job, help him do his job, and you'll find yourselves with a lot of the credit when things go right.
I'm all for the free market sorting it out. Just to be clear: I think the Indian outsourcing thing is a phase and that it will blow over.
The real problem (which is quite amusing) is that you can trust companies to do the right thing. Right after they've done everything else. Extreme Programming, Outsourcing, Consultants, etc., etc., etc. are all attempts are cure-alls in place of a well managed project. Not that this is anything new. Many other corporate departments have been through the same shift/reorg cycle as software dev. They all eventually smoothed out. Software development will too, don't worry.
"Who cares if an Indian can do a job better: they are Indian"
Except that they can't. Here in the US, I can keep track of my team and teach them what they need to know. If the work gets outsourced, then all you end up with is a large number of junior level programmer with no direction. It's simply not effective. Then again, neither is hiring 200 programmers for a project.
The real problem is that buisnesses are looking for the sweet spot between quality, productivity and price. It seems counter-intuitive to companies that a smaller team of more experienced programmers will be more effective than a large team of juniors. They think that a senior developer simply costs more, and that they'll still need the same number of developers.
No kidding. My personal Zip drive was a standard tool for an IT professoinal back then. Completely screw up your computer? No problem! Use a boot disk with zip drive drivers and you could recover all your personal files lickety split! I actually taped a sign to mine that said "Official Butt Saver of the IT Department.":-)
These days, bootable CDROM drives + Network access fills the need for quick, easy recovery. Especially since DOS can no longer access Window's drives.
I agree perfectly about the PCjr (although mine had 256K, HAH!). It was my first computer and it really was useful for just about anything you wanted a computer for. If IBM had decided against that stupid infrared keyboard, it would have been perfect.
The Audrey however, was underpowered even for the software it ran. Spending 3 minutes waiting for an "Internet Device" to load just doesn't cut it.
Ah, seems like only yesterday that (old-school) computer geeks everywhere were trying to get AT&T to understand the benefits of using a packet switched network instead of moving to that ungainly dial-switched network from their old operator switched system.
Then again, tremendous waste has always been an aspect of the telco industry.
You might notice that said plant life is adapted to the short growing season and unpredictable frosts. Also to the thin layers of usable topsoil on top of permafrost...
As I said, cold weather stock.
And your point is? The whole region was developed because of a government push for "reclamation" of the desert rather than any economic justification, and even now the government sells water to farmers at a price far lower than it either costs to deliver or nearby cities pay for the same water. There are on-going political battles over that water, and the cities are starting to win. Soon there will be a lot less irrigated agriculture in the Imperial valley.
My point is exactly what I said. Excess in the U.S. is not a long term solution to developing those areas. Governments are very good at making unnatural things happen, but unless the process "clicks" with economic incentive, it won't hold on long term. Thus high demand is the only way the less hospitable regions could be developed better.
Follow that back one step. Where do you get the water in a desert? You can pump it out of an aquifer, at the cost of drying up other things that the aquifer feeds (rivers, streams and springs) and eventually deplete the aquifer itself. Or you can divert the water from other things that use it to feed your use, which may come at a very high price in destroyed land and extinct species.
Well, I'm glad to see we're agreeing. It can be done, but only if an incentive exists to actually do it.
So far we haven't done much in the way of making more fresh water on the kind of scale required. Unless and until this is done, the problem does not have a solution.
We have the technology, we have the energy, and we have the sources (ocean). What we don't have, is an incentive to do anything.
However, we are severely falling offtopic. On original topic (land in China and Russia that is underdeveloped, fertile land), there is more than enough fertile land to feed the number of people over there. The U.S. farmland is shrinking every year as higher production from smaller areas continues to meet demand. With access to modern farming methods that we use, there is no reason why land in these countries couldn't produce more than enough food for their respective continents.
Still, there is little need for that, because the U.S. and South America are still producing more than enough food for the world over. The poor, starving countries simply need better economies to handle the importing or growing of consumable goods. (Arguably, this is a difficult situation as they have fallen very far behind and have little to offer the world economy other than labor.)
So in closing, there is no shortage today, and there will be none for the foreseeable future. If and when a shortage does occur, current technology will be able to start creating new farmland to meet the needs. Hell, if the Incans could do it, why can't we?
Even before transport was good enough to allow importing crops from elsewhere, people did not grow food crops in Alaska. They hunted and fished (and still do to some extent).
Because it's easier than farming. If there's no overriding need for food, why farm? Some farming does happen in Alaska (lots of cabbage and rubarb), but they already have most of the food they need. High fat, high protien food sources are especially desirable up there due to the colder climate.
Just because you can grow the odd monster vegetable there does not mean that Alaska is an agricultural-powerhouse-in-waiting.
Bah. You can grow a hell of a lot more than "the occasional monster vegetable". A good chunk of Alaska is very rich land that hosts teeming plant life in the warmer seasons.
You have it backwards. The money can flow to the Imperial Valley because of the surplus productivity of the rest of the farms in the USA. If we had the kind of cash crunch that we'd have if we were butting up against the limits of agricultural production in Iowa and Texas, paying for unsustainable water projects in California, Arizona and Nevada would have gone by the wayside long since.
That's the exact opposite of Econmics 101, supply and demand. If it has been working out that way, it's because of the next major econmic factor: goverment interference.
The economics of the situation are: if there is a high demand for food, but a short supply, then the price will rise and new competitors will invest money to expand into the new profitable market. This will continue to happen until the supply outweighs the demand (our current situation with produce). And if water/irrigation becomes a profitable market (not currently happening due to government/monopoly control) new technologies and fresh water producers will enter the market to meet the demand.
Due to lack of water, the productivity of the land is low and it doesn't grow crops directly edible by humans
Which is where adding irrigation to a region makes sense. The ground itself may have lousy topsoil (another thing that can be corrected) or steep inclines (that can be corrected too) and you can still grow some plants. Which, as I said, is useful for feeding livestock.
Because the crops require conversion by animals before being edible, there are further losses which make the human-usable productivity of the land several times lower.
If it makes poor land for human food, then it doesn't matter much. While I make the point that close to any land can be farmed, I also realize that the easier areas are going to be farmed first. Who wants to spend a million dollars per 100 acres terraforming when some other area can be done for $500,000 per thousand acres?
There is only so much you can do without postulating something like nanotech.
Nano-tech is a cureall that's "not quite here yet" and probably won't be (at least in a usable form) for a long time yet. In the meantime, my bet is on human inginuity, especially that of farmers.
Because growing up in the Midwest doesn't confer good understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Now this is just a downright pathetic argument. The second law does not preclude the addition of energy into a system, which is very much what farming today is about. If you want to be corrected on thermodynamics, I suggest you visit sci.energy where they will helpfully bash your brains in for incorrect use of the law, then bemoan the loss of nuclear energy while at the same time complaining of the dangers of a few grams of radioisotope encased in lead. (Don't ask.)
To qualify that statement, PVCS does not help (in any way shape or form) in helping you track files that have changed. Instead, you have to spend your time carefully managing your locks or tracking your files in a text file. The former is not a good method, as invariably, someone else needs the same file. Even worse, is that when you do get your lock back, PVCS will not ask about merging, it will simply f**k up the file for you. I lost a great deal of work before Merant fixed this little problem.
Worst of all though, is that file-locked methods don't scale to large projects. Every file collision costs your developers that much more lost time, and the larger the project, the more often those collisions occur.
3rd party support sucks too, since PVCS command line tools don't recognize many of the GUI's repository changes. (e.g. A reorg done by "linking" files to new places.)
actually, I'm proposing the scenario in which you are hosting your web or blog site at another site, perhaps relying on it's SSL or anonymizer technology, and you would like to be able to inspect (ie, receive a remote attestation as to) the configuration of the machine.
In those situations, you are trusting the company which you signed with. You can still peruse the device hierarchy and point out what you don't like, but you somewhat gave up your freedom of the machine when you contracted out.
The point is that Microsoft, in this instance, chose to use one technology (signed modules) in a way that locked out other vendors, instead of using it in a way that would allow a customer to choose their own management paradigm.
I certainly won't argue that Microsoft's intentions are often less than honorable. However, this does nothing to change the situation pertaining to OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware is still (IMHO) the best choice, and Intel's NIH syndrome is not going to help anyone.
...how most of these rumors get out? My best guess is that Apple actually allows some rumors to be leaked intentionally, then uses their lawyers to make a stage show out of it. (There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?) The only problem was that using the lawyers was hurting their image. So it would seem that they've stopped. There have been plenty of Mac rumors in the past year or two, but I haven't heard a peep from the Apple lawyers.
As you probably know, Apple had two versions of OpenFirmware: the "old world" pre-PowerPC and the "new world" post-PowerPC. About the oldest mention of Apple's firmware I can find on Usenet is 1996, so it has definitely been around for a VERY long time.
"Were" doesn't matter in 2006 when all new x86 PCs have digital restrictions management, among other features that make it hard for a competing OS vendor to get its OS to boot, and old x86 PCs are breaking down.
Pardon me for being realistic, but breaking your computer via security is NOT a "feature". I understand this may be Intel's intent, but that doesn't make it the best decision.
Slashdot Mirror
And I care because... why? At its height, Silicon Valley/San Fran contained thousands of individuals hoping to get rich quick by pretending to be techies. Now India has thousands of individuals hoping to have a better life by pretending to be techies. There's nothing new here. Move along.
Please pay attention, will you? My post was a real response to a real post by an AC. Just because it looks like I'm responding to myself at +1 does not mean my post is a troll. Besides, if you're moderating, you should be browsing at 0 or lower. Anything higher is a failure to do your job.
(Thanks for the attitude.)
:-) And I'm not easily dismissing it. Microbial life in space would be a big boon if actually shown to be from outer-space. The problem is that the microbes that exist in our Solar System are probably all from earth. Ejecta from other planets, moons, and asteroids land on Earth all the time. If there was something truly strange out there, we probably would have noticed it by now.
You're welcome.
We're still finding life occuring in places on the Earth that we didn't think could possibly survive just a decade ago. Iron slag dumps, underneath the earth's crust, etc.
Gee. Maybe that's why I devoted half my post to "Microscopic life isn't what people are referring to when they talk about extra-terrestrials"? Ah, so much easier not to RTFP in the first place. Just read the first sentence and *bam!* post away!
Mod parent "-1, doesn't bother to read".
Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the Solar System other than earth would you say we've explored?
All nine planets, a fair number of moons, and quite a few asteroids. We have enough data to establish that there would appear to be no macroscopic life in our solar system. Hope is still held for Europa, but I'm not holding my breath. Microscopic life is a little different in that it is very difficult to find by visual, radio, and radiation means. That being said, microscopic life that is found, would first have to be shown to not originate from Earth in the first place. Also, microscopic life is not usually what people refer to when discussing extra-terrestrials. So that point is pretty much moot.
Besides failing the Star Trek reference spectacularly (how can you forget that the quest was started by Picard's old professor?!), you seem to forget that "The Chase" only referred to humanoid species. Other species such as the Horta and "The Founders" evolved independently.
BTW, a TRUE geek would know that the legends of "The Preservers" went all the way back to the Original Series as an explanation of the numerous humanoid life-forms that existed. "The Paradise Syndrome" in particular, dealt with the concept that "The Preservers" left behind a machine to protect a fledgling colony.
Allow me to rephrase. The type of life with which we are currently familiar, requires certain balances in the way of light, heat, gravity, raw materials, etc. While some "wiggle-room" exists in these areas, it is very minute on a cosmic scale. Even leaving the "beat-the-odds" chances of evolution out of the equation, the chances of planetoids forming under similar conditions to those of Earth are exceedingly small.
Now I will grant you that life of a type that we are not familiar with, may exist. We currently have no way of guessing as to how such a creature may function. All speculations on other life forms (e.g. silicon), still result in a life form with similar tolerances to those of Earth based life. Thus we must calculate based on the conditions with which we are familiar. These calculations state that life on Earth is most likely unique.
A common point that bolsters those calculations is the fact that no other life has been discovered in our Solar System to date. If life was relatively common due to various evolution of processes, such life should then exist in areas ranging from Gas Giants, to CO2 factories, to the (relative) vacuum of space. So far, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any of them. Even the microbial life on mars was most likely delivered by ejecta from the Earth's surface. The bacteria which survived, was then able to thrive to a limited degree on the resources found on mars.
Of course, that entire argument may blow up in my face if someone actually proves that "John Glen's Fireflies" are actually living creatures. (For those unfamiliar with the term, John's Fireflies describes the apparent swarming activity of debris around craft in space. One astronaut commented that NASA initially believed them to be living creatures. I'm not sure what their current view is on them.)
the chances are simply too great for other life to _not_ exist somewhere.
:-)
Somebody's been watching Sagan again. Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life? The odds of it spontaneously appearing are bad enough, but the various balances that allow earth to sustain life after the fact, make the number tremendous. How tremendous? Well, let's just say that there are so many zeros on the end that we don't even have a name for it. If you want to talk about "chances", then the chances are good that we're alone.
Feel free to argue the "tremendous waste of space" argument. That's a bit more sensible, but not rooted in any actual science.
Personally, I kind of liked it when "Space: Above and Beyond" said that the aliens were actually descended from organic ejecta from Earth that made its way across the galaxy. Much more believable than separate evolutions. That being said, shows like Star Trek are much more interesting if we ignore that little detail.
Just because vanilla Crossover supposedly works, does not mean that the Xandros version will work. Given how slow many business deals are forged, it is not uncommon for bundled software to be out of date upon shipping. Still, it's good to know that Access 2000 works on vanilla Crossover.
However, It might be a good idea for them to get Office XP working now. Many companies are (unfortunately) moving to XP licenses thanks to Microsoft's "scorched earth"^W^W "forced upgrade" policy.
Does it run DataDino?
Of course. I'll have you know, that I have spent a great deal of time and effort on making DataDino function correctly on *all* Linux distros. The installer will even optionally dump DataDino.desktop icons on your Gnome and KDE desktop. I tried to add these icons to the K and foot menus, but RedHat has been completely unhelpful by releasing pre-release software. If I were to add the icons on RedHat 8, I would wipe out the user's entire "hat menu" in Gnome. That's why you may hear me moaning about RedHat from time to time.
Haha didn't any of the mods click his screenshot link??
What's wrong with his screenshot link. That's actually Xandros running. Yes, that's Microsoft Office you see. Xandros includes Crossover Office as a standard feature, so seeing Windows software is a somewhat normal thing.
Or should this have redirected me to large holes or something?
...if Xandros' Crossover Office runs Microsoft Access? Love or hate it, a lot of quick and dirty internal apps are written in Access. Unless it functions correctly, Xandros' Crossover Office support is not useful. I personally already use OpenOffice for all my document needs, even though I have copies of Microsoft Office. And being able to run Internet Exploder is not a plus. (Well, maybe for testing. But that's about it.)
(a genetically engineered squid flying a ship from earth to the astoroid belt anyone? [from the book Space]).
Actually, it's from "Manifold: Time". And personally I found the book to be rather depressing. It started off great, with a push toward space. But in the end, it was basically, "Let's see, who's not dead yet? Oh, I know! The ENTIRE HUMAN RACE!" Ugh.
And the Squid was over the top. It sounds great in the context of the book and everything, but it just doesn't jive. I mean, how exactly does the author propose that a little Frankenstein type surgery on a squid brain would result in a super intelligent squid? Or that this attribute would be passed down through generations when it wasn't actually DNA encoded?
Ugh. That's my review.
Quality of programmers depends on the individual, not where they're from. In my experience, some Indians are decent programmers and some are lousy programmers. Same goes for US programmers.
However, you don't think these outsourcing companies really hire the good Indian programmers with years of experience in architecting, leading teams, etc, do you? No! For one, those programmers are probably already here in the US. Secondly, the outsource premise is that it's cheaper.
Not to worry though. US firms such as Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) hire just about anyone as a programmer and then charge a bundle for their "services". So it's not a problem unique to India.
My overall point is that junior programmers abound. At least with in-house coders, I can teach them everything they need to know (and hopefully weed out the useless ones). With outsourced coders, they do whatever they "think" is the right way according to some imaginary schedule made up by management. The end result is tremendously low quality code. Not that it bothers the outsourcing companies any. That's more money for maintenance.
Every company should have a highly experienced and capable programmer who will lead a small team by training and example. The code quality will be higher, the dev cycles lower, and the junior programmers will be well on their way to becoming seniors. Of course, that isn't going to happen as long as managers feel threatened by highly qualified people.
If any of you managers are listening, a good coder still needs a manager. He doesn't want your position, and he's not out to make you look like an idiot. Just do your job, help him do his job, and you'll find yourselves with a lot of the credit when things go right.
I'm all for the free market sorting it out. Just to be clear: I think the Indian outsourcing thing is a phase and that it will blow over.
The real problem (which is quite amusing) is that you can trust companies to do the right thing. Right after they've done everything else. Extreme Programming, Outsourcing, Consultants, etc., etc., etc. are all attempts are cure-alls in place of a well managed project. Not that this is anything new. Many other corporate departments have been through the same shift/reorg cycle as software dev. They all eventually smoothed out. Software development will too, don't worry.
"Who cares if an Indian can do a job better: they are Indian"
Except that they can't. Here in the US, I can keep track of my team and teach them what they need to know. If the work gets outsourced, then all you end up with is a large number of junior level programmer with no direction. It's simply not effective. Then again, neither is hiring 200 programmers for a project.
The real problem is that buisnesses are looking for the sweet spot between quality, productivity and price. It seems counter-intuitive to companies that a smaller team of more experienced programmers will be more effective than a large team of juniors. They think that a senior developer simply costs more, and that they'll still need the same number of developers.
WTF ?! The zip drive was immensly popular.
:-)
No kidding. My personal Zip drive was a standard tool for an IT professoinal back then. Completely screw up your computer? No problem! Use a boot disk with zip drive drivers and you could recover all your personal files lickety split! I actually taped a sign to mine that said "Official Butt Saver of the IT Department."
These days, bootable CDROM drives + Network access fills the need for quick, easy recovery. Especially since DOS can no longer access Window's drives.
I agree perfectly about the PCjr (although mine had 256K, HAH!). It was my first computer and it really was useful for just about anything you wanted a computer for. If IBM had decided against that stupid infrared keyboard, it would have been perfect.
The Audrey however, was underpowered even for the software it ran. Spending 3 minutes waiting for an "Internet Device" to load just doesn't cut it.
Ah, seems like only yesterday that (old-school) computer geeks everywhere were trying to get AT&T to understand the benefits of using a packet switched network instead of moving to that ungainly dial-switched network from their old operator switched system.
Then again, tremendous waste has always been an aspect of the telco industry.
You might notice that said plant life is adapted to the short growing season and unpredictable frosts. Also to the thin layers of usable topsoil on top of permafrost...
As I said, cold weather stock.
And your point is? The whole region was developed because of a government push for "reclamation" of the desert rather than any economic justification, and even now the government sells water to farmers at a price far lower than it either costs to deliver or nearby cities pay for the same water. There are on-going political battles over that water, and the cities are starting to win. Soon there will be a lot less irrigated agriculture in the Imperial valley.
My point is exactly what I said. Excess in the U.S. is not a long term solution to developing those areas. Governments are very good at making unnatural things happen, but unless the process "clicks" with economic incentive, it won't hold on long term. Thus high demand is the only way the less hospitable regions could be developed better.
Follow that back one step. Where do you get the water in a desert? You can pump it out of an aquifer, at the cost of drying up other things that the aquifer feeds (rivers, streams and springs) and eventually deplete the aquifer itself. Or you can divert the water from other things that use it to feed your use, which may come at a very high price in destroyed land and extinct species.
Well, I'm glad to see we're agreeing. It can be done, but only if an incentive exists to actually do it.
So far we haven't done much in the way of making more fresh water on the kind of scale required. Unless and until this is done, the problem does not have a solution.
We have the technology, we have the energy, and we have the sources (ocean). What we don't have, is an incentive to do anything.
However, we are severely falling offtopic. On original topic (land in China and Russia that is underdeveloped, fertile land), there is more than enough fertile land to feed the number of people over there. The U.S. farmland is shrinking every year as higher production from smaller areas continues to meet demand. With access to modern farming methods that we use, there is no reason why land in these countries couldn't produce more than enough food for their respective continents.
Still, there is little need for that, because the U.S. and South America are still producing more than enough food for the world over. The poor, starving countries simply need better economies to handle the importing or growing of consumable goods. (Arguably, this is a difficult situation as they have fallen very far behind and have little to offer the world economy other than labor.)
So in closing, there is no shortage today, and there will be none for the foreseeable future. If and when a shortage does occur, current technology will be able to start creating new farmland to meet the needs. Hell, if the Incans could do it, why can't we?
Even before transport was good enough to allow importing crops from elsewhere, people did not grow food crops in Alaska. They hunted and fished (and still do to some extent).
Because it's easier than farming. If there's no overriding need for food, why farm? Some farming does happen in Alaska (lots of cabbage and rubarb), but they already have most of the food they need. High fat, high protien food sources are especially desirable up there due to the colder climate.
Just because you can grow the odd monster vegetable there does not mean that Alaska is an agricultural-powerhouse-in-waiting.
Bah. You can grow a hell of a lot more than "the occasional monster vegetable". A good chunk of Alaska is very rich land that hosts teeming plant life in the warmer seasons.
You have it backwards. The money can flow to the Imperial Valley because of the surplus productivity of the rest of the farms in the USA. If we had the kind of cash crunch that we'd have if we were butting up against the limits of agricultural production in Iowa and Texas, paying for unsustainable water projects in California, Arizona and Nevada would have gone by the wayside long since.
That's the exact opposite of Econmics 101, supply and demand. If it has been working out that way, it's because of the next major econmic factor: goverment interference.
The economics of the situation are: if there is a high demand for food, but a short supply, then the price will rise and new competitors will invest money to expand into the new profitable market. This will continue to happen until the supply outweighs the demand (our current situation with produce). And if water/irrigation becomes a profitable market (not currently happening due to government/monopoly control) new technologies and fresh water producers will enter the market to meet the demand.
Due to lack of water, the productivity of the land is low and it doesn't grow crops directly edible by humans
Which is where adding irrigation to a region makes sense. The ground itself may have lousy topsoil (another thing that can be corrected) or steep inclines (that can be corrected too) and you can still grow some plants. Which, as I said, is useful for feeding livestock.
Because the crops require conversion by animals before being edible, there are further losses which make the human-usable productivity of the land several times lower.
If it makes poor land for human food, then it doesn't matter much. While I make the point that close to any land can be farmed, I also realize that the easier areas are going to be farmed first. Who wants to spend a million dollars per 100 acres terraforming when some other area can be done for $500,000 per thousand acres?
There is only so much you can do without postulating something like nanotech.
Nano-tech is a cureall that's "not quite here yet" and probably won't be (at least in a usable form) for a long time yet. In the meantime, my bet is on human inginuity, especially that of farmers.
Because growing up in the Midwest doesn't confer good understanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Now this is just a downright pathetic argument. The second law does not preclude the addition of energy into a system, which is very much what farming today is about. If you want to be corrected on thermodynamics, I suggest you visit sci.energy where they will helpfully bash your brains in for incorrect use of the law, then bemoan the loss of nuclear energy while at the same time complaining of the dangers of a few grams of radioisotope encased in lead. (Don't ask.)
Anyone use Merant PVCS?
I HATE PVCS WITH A PASSION!
Does that answer your question?
To qualify that statement, PVCS does not help (in any way shape or form) in helping you track files that have changed. Instead, you have to spend your time carefully managing your locks or tracking your files in a text file. The former is not a good method, as invariably, someone else needs the same file. Even worse, is that when you do get your lock back, PVCS will not ask about merging, it will simply f**k up the file for you. I lost a great deal of work before Merant fixed this little problem.
Worst of all though, is that file-locked methods don't scale to large projects. Every file collision costs your developers that much more lost time, and the larger the project, the more often those collisions occur.
3rd party support sucks too, since PVCS command line tools don't recognize many of the GUI's repository changes. (e.g. A reorg done by "linking" files to new places.)
IMHO, CVS just does everything better than PVCS.
actually, I'm proposing the scenario in which you are hosting your web or blog site at another site, perhaps relying on it's SSL or anonymizer technology, and you would like to be able to inspect (ie, receive a remote attestation as to) the configuration of the machine.
In those situations, you are trusting the company which you signed with. You can still peruse the device hierarchy and point out what you don't like, but you somewhat gave up your freedom of the machine when you contracted out.
The point is that Microsoft, in this instance, chose to use one technology (signed modules) in a way that locked out other vendors, instead of using it in a way that would allow a customer to choose their own management paradigm.
I certainly won't argue that Microsoft's intentions are often less than honorable. However, this does nothing to change the situation pertaining to OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware is still (IMHO) the best choice, and Intel's NIH syndrome is not going to help anyone.
...how most of these rumors get out? My best guess is that Apple actually allows some rumors to be leaked intentionally, then uses their lawyers to make a stage show out of it. (There's no such thing as bad publicity, right?) The only problem was that using the lawyers was hurting their image. So it would seem that they've stopped. There have been plenty of Mac rumors in the past year or two, but I haven't heard a peep from the Apple lawyers.
Did "old world" pre-iMac computers use OF?
As you probably know, Apple had two versions of OpenFirmware: the "old world" pre-PowerPC and the "new world" post-PowerPC. About the oldest mention of Apple's firmware I can find on Usenet is 1996, so it has definitely been around for a VERY long time.
"Were" doesn't matter in 2006 when all new x86 PCs have digital restrictions management, among other features that make it hard for a competing OS vendor to get its OS to boot, and old x86 PCs are breaking down.
Pardon me for being realistic, but breaking your computer via security is NOT a "feature". I understand this may be Intel's intent, but that doesn't make it the best decision.