"...unlikey events do not mean divine intervention..."
Which is exactly what Thomas Jericho thinks, too. But how unlikely do things have to get before you start believing in God? Read the book to find out. --
Hey! *I* just read this book
on
Calculating God
·
· Score: 3
I just read the same book. The jacket summary seemed really interesting and the book was very good--but the former didn't really describe the latter.
I also thought the "fundies" were a little overdone, especially since they didn't really contribute to the climax. On the other hand, the author is from Canada: if all you know of these whackos is what you read in the papers, the characters seem realistic.
I thought the biggest flaw in the book was the ending which was a little...overused. Personally I liked the pop-culture references, especially since they are VERY recent (some of them from late 1999).
Based on "Calculating God", I also read "Illegal Alien" by the same author. His previous work as a crime novelist (which I haven't read) really shows through: An alien is accused of murder. The book reads like Perry Mason meets E.T. Highly recommended although again, the ending is slightly weak. --
"Per item" is a very misleading way to put it. For instance, figure from the other direction: My effective tax rate is the amount of money I give to the gov't divided by my income * 100, right? Well, the amount of money I give to the gov't depends on how many items I buy.
"Doesn't the fact that lower income people spend a higher percentage of their income than higher income people also lead you to the conclusion that this is a regressive form of tax?"
If that were a fact, then yes it would lead me to that conclusion. But I haven't seen it proved yet. I'm not saying it can't be, I'm just saying I'm not yet convinced it's true. --
Well, I'll stipulate (for the sake of argument) that corps pass on their taxes to customers. However, as someone else points out this isn't cast in stone.
As for "sales taxes are regressive": if I understand this correctly it's what we are trying to PROVE--no fair using it has a premise.
Here's what I'm saying:
Let W be a widget that is normally priced at $100. With corp tax figured in, a customer is then charged $105. If I make $10,000/yr, $5 is.05% of my income. And if you make $100,000 it's.005%--I'm getting charged at 10 times the tax rate that you are.
But how many W's do I buy per year? I can't afford very many at $100 each. So maybe I only buy 1/year. Whereas you buy 1/mo. Now your tax rate (on W only) is.005% * 12 which is MORE (percentage AND absolute) than my.05% * 1.
The one flaw in my argument is items that everyone DOES buy (approx) equal amounts of--like food. But most places don't have sales tax on food--the same could apply to corp tax. --
True, but only if everyone buys exactly one. I would expect higher-income people to buy several widgets where I lower-income person buys one (or none). The (number of items the person buys times the tax rate) as a percentage of income is the real tax bracket definition here. --
I'm not talking about using old technology. Clearly the market for some of these concepts is saturated.
I'm talking about new ideas. Where are your tetris's, your Wolfenstein's, your Incredible Machine's of 2000? I'm not talking about porting these games to new hardware, I'm talking about new ideas of the same caliber and freshness as those were in their day.
Here's what I see happening: Take the source for game X. Double the number of polygons. Transport the location from A to B. Release. That's not a new game. --
"...games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work."
This is true--and unfortunate. Think of all the computer games you've played in your life. Rank them in order of "playability" (judged by how often you replayed). Now look at the top ten: How many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?
For me, the answer is 1 and 0. The only game I've liked enough to keep playing AND that had decent art was Civilization--and some would argue that the art sucked. In any case, the art itself had almost no contribution towards the playability.
Right now I'm hooked on xscorch . The art is pitiful. The game is addictive.
Clearly, YMMV--I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I exist (and I know I'm not the only one). Why is this market not being exploited? Make some good fun games that cost half as much (fire the art staff) as the art-filled wonders that crowd the shelves. --
IBM Constructs New Fastest Computer IBM's ASCII White Super Computer Unleashed
It's CmdrTaco coming down the stretch on New Fastest Computer, but here comes timothy on ASCII White, it's Taco, it's timothy, Taco, timothy....timothy by a nose! --
I can't really answer this question for you. But in a few years, when we've invented a workable time machine, you can go back in time to the 19th Century and ask Michael Faraday this same question. You know the 19th Century, right? When infant mortality was around 30%? When there was no phone system? No solar or nuclear energy plants? When crossing the Atlantic still took at least 2 weeks? In fact, when the whole world was BELOW the level India is at now.
Ask Michael Faraday--who did much of the work that made the 20th Century possible--what use scientific research is. Actually, someone DID ask him this once. His answer: "What use is a baby?" --
That budget site rocks! No, really. There's a "citizen's guide to the budget" that is really easy to follow with pie charts and everything.
From just a quick perusal, here's two interesting facts:
Percentage of gov't revenues from corporate income taxes have approximately halved since 1956 while revenues from individuals has remained constant.
In 1999, we spent $261 billion on "DOD-Military" (with $13 billion on "DOD-Other", whatever that is). In the same year we spent only $18 billion on "Space, Science and Technology" For 2000 the projected numbers are 277 and 19. WTF is the DOD spending all this money on? And don't tell me "research" because then I'll just respond "then it should be listed under "Science". --
This is EXACTLY what I want. And I want it to be able to run as an X-terminal so I can use the power of my desktop anywhere in the house (in the world?).
Frankly, it sounds like Dell and Compaq are playing it smart. Let the other companies see if there is a demand AND take the heat for the slow speed* and then come out with laptops in about 6 months.
*Not that the Crusoe is really slow. But a lot of people are going to be confused about MHz for a while after these come out. --
It's been a while since I was in a database class, but I think transactions and locking are orthogonal subjects. If all you have is transactions, you can STILL improperly read data. For that matter, you can still improperly WRITE data.
All transactions do is let you roll back a SET of steps atomically. This set is called a transaction. So, once your locking method tells you "Hey! You can't read/write that!" then you can fail, rolling the transaction back. --
"Corporate espionage and intelligence gathering has been one of the fastest growing market sectors, along with "head-hunting", for the last decade or so..."
Could you provide a reference for this? I don't disbelieve that corporate espionage takes place, but I have trouble believing that it is "on the rise" in any relative sense. --
"I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?"
The implied question here is a false analogy. Yes, we would be angry if Microsoft hired a private detective to dig up dirt on a rival. But that's because Microsoft's rivals are usually a) weaker than MS and b) doing nothing wrong (other than pissing off MS).
But let's imagine that MS dug up some dirt on, say, RJR Nabisco. I don't think we'd have a problem with that. --
The last release was copyrighted (because it was a published work) AND labelled a "trade secret". It was this second designation that allowed MS (or so they thought) to add "so don't use this to create your own implementation" to the license.
With only a copyright, this essentially becomes a "how to implement MS Kerb" book--you can use it to create an implementation but you can't copy the text. Just like any other book. --
I'll say it up front: I've only worked at three different companies (as a programmer, that is). 2 have been small-to-tiny, one was medium-small and growing. Clearly we had no need of ERP software.
Can anyone tell me what it's really supposed to do. "Enterprise Resource Planning" isn't very descriptive. What do you do, type in the number of employees you have and it calculates how many sodas to buy for the company picnic? (sodas, ERP, get it?)
Could someone at least explain what the SUPPOSED benefits are? All I ever see in the mags is "ERP" this and "OLAP" that. Never any explanation of what the benefits are supposed to be. --
I don't understand the advantage of "channels". Is this just so you don't have to open a new socket?
I might also note that putting all these channels into one big pipe makes it harder for a user (or administrator) to block something--or even know it is there. For instance, what if RealAudioBxxp devotes a channel to sucking data from my harddrive? With HTTP I'll see another connection being made and I have to option to block it. With BXXP--no such luck? --
"However, quantum physics (up to this point) would seem to differ."
Only if you subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation--which I don't. In fact, this is one of the reasons.
"That mnakes 3 observers, by my count. The reader, the protein processor, and the blue hair generator."
OK, yes. "Observers" in the sense of "entities that have data input into them". But I was refuting someone who was claiming that sentient observers were necessary--of which there are none in your list. --
Leaving aside the question of the actual definition of "information" (which has technical meaning, btw), let's look at "meaning".
Why does "meaning" require observation and analysis? For instance, consider genetics. In particular, let's think about a strand of DNA that encodes for, say blue hair. It can be translated (in fact, it IS translated in the making of the blue hair), it can be interpreted (again, it IS interpreted), etc--all without any observer or analyst. The DNA strand means "blue hair". The strand has "meaning". --
This shouldn't be marked "funny", it should be marked "insightful". I was going to post nearly the same thing (although not so succintly).
Information can and DOES exist "in a vacuum". Yes, it has a social impact. That doesn't mean it is a purely social phenomenon. You'd think that, on/. of all places, we could dispense with the "there is no objective reality except what culture teaches us" type crap. --
The more I think about it, the more I like it. It sounds exactly as powerful as a SMP machine BUT you can add more CPUs more easily. Up to 8 cards each with 4 processors plus my main processor is 33 CPUs! In one machine! And you can more than 8 cards if you don't "map all the memory" (according to the page).
Slashdot Mirror
"...unlikey events do not mean divine intervention..."
Which is exactly what Thomas Jericho thinks, too. But how unlikely do things have to get before you start believing in God? Read the book to find out.
--
I just read the same book. The jacket summary seemed really interesting and the book was very good--but the former didn't really describe the latter.
I also thought the "fundies" were a little overdone, especially since they didn't really contribute to the climax. On the other hand, the author is from Canada: if all you know of these whackos is what you read in the papers, the characters seem realistic.
I thought the biggest flaw in the book was the ending which was a little...overused. Personally I liked the pop-culture references, especially since they are VERY recent (some of them from late 1999).
Based on "Calculating God", I also read "Illegal Alien" by the same author. His previous work as a crime novelist (which I haven't read) really shows through: An alien is accused of murder. The book reads like Perry Mason meets E.T. Highly recommended although again, the ending is slightly weak.
--
"No, your tax rate is still .005% per item."
"Per item" is a very misleading way to put it. For instance, figure from the other direction: My effective tax rate is the amount of money I give to the gov't divided by my income * 100, right? Well, the amount of money I give to the gov't depends on how many items I buy.
"Doesn't the fact that lower income people spend a higher percentage of their income than higher income people also lead you to the conclusion that this is a regressive form of tax?"
If that were a fact, then yes it would lead me to that conclusion. But I haven't seen it proved yet. I'm not saying it can't be, I'm just saying I'm not yet convinced it's true.
--
Well, I'll stipulate (for the sake of argument) that corps pass on their taxes to customers. However, as someone else points out this isn't cast in stone.
.05% of my income. And if you make $100,000 it's .005%--I'm getting charged at 10 times the tax rate that you are.
.005% * 12 which is MORE (percentage AND absolute) than my .05% * 1.
As for "sales taxes are regressive": if I understand this correctly it's what we are trying to PROVE--no fair using it has a premise.
Here's what I'm saying:
Let W be a widget that is normally priced at $100. With corp tax figured in, a customer is then charged $105. If I make $10,000/yr, $5 is
But how many W's do I buy per year? I can't afford very many at $100 each. So maybe I only buy 1/year. Whereas you buy 1/mo. Now your tax rate (on W only) is
The one flaw in my argument is items that everyone DOES buy (approx) equal amounts of--like food. But most places don't have sales tax on food--the same could apply to corp tax.
--
True, but only if everyone buys exactly one. I would expect higher-income people to buy several widgets where I lower-income person buys one (or none). The (number of items the person buys times the tax rate) as a percentage of income is the real tax bracket definition here.
--
"Corporate income taxes are only passed on to the consumer ultimately, and therefore disproportionately affect those with the lowest incomes."
How does your second clause follow from the first?
--
I'm not talking about using old technology. Clearly the market for some of these concepts is saturated.
I'm talking about new ideas. Where are your tetris's, your Wolfenstein's, your Incredible Machine's of 2000? I'm not talking about porting these games to new hardware, I'm talking about new ideas of the same caliber and freshness as those were in their day.
Here's what I see happening: Take the source for game X. Double the number of polygons. Transport the location from A to B. Release. That's not a new game.
--
"...games tend to be hybrid organisms -- half software program, half artistic work."
This is true--and unfortunate. Think of all the computer games you've played in your life. Rank them in order of "playability" (judged by how often you replayed). Now look at the top ten: How many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?
For me, the answer is 1 and 0. The only game I've liked enough to keep playing AND that had decent art was Civilization--and some would argue that the art sucked. In any case, the art itself had almost no contribution towards the playability.
Right now I'm hooked on xscorch . The art is pitiful. The game is addictive.
Clearly, YMMV--I'm not saying everyone is like me. But I exist (and I know I'm not the only one). Why is this market not being exploited? Make some good fun games that cost half as much (fire the art staff) as the art-filled wonders that crowd the shelves.
--
IBM Constructs New Fastest Computer
IBM's ASCII White Super Computer Unleashed
It's CmdrTaco coming down the stretch on New Fastest Computer, but here comes timothy on ASCII White, it's Taco, it's timothy, Taco, timothy....timothy by a nose!
--
I can't really answer this question for you. But in a few years, when we've invented a workable time machine, you can go back in time to the 19th Century and ask Michael Faraday this same question. You know the 19th Century, right? When infant mortality was around 30%? When there was no phone system? No solar or nuclear energy plants? When crossing the Atlantic still took at least 2 weeks? In fact, when the whole world was BELOW the level India is at now.
Ask Michael Faraday--who did much of the work that made the 20th Century possible--what use scientific research is. Actually, someone DID ask him this once. His answer: "What use is a baby?"
--
That budget site rocks! No, really. There's a "citizen's guide to the budget" that is really easy to follow with pie charts and everything.
From just a quick perusal, here's two interesting facts:
Percentage of gov't revenues from corporate income taxes have approximately halved since 1956 while revenues from individuals has remained constant.
In 1999, we spent $261 billion on "DOD-Military" (with $13 billion on "DOD-Other", whatever that is). In the same year we spent only $18 billion on "Space, Science and Technology" For 2000 the projected numbers are 277 and 19. WTF is the DOD spending all this money on? And don't tell me "research" because then I'll just respond "then it should be listed under "Science".
--
This is EXACTLY what I want. And I want it to be able to run as an X-terminal so I can use the power of my desktop anywhere in the house (in the world?).
Let's go into business together and do this.
--
Frankly, it sounds like Dell and Compaq are playing it smart. Let the other companies see if there is a demand AND take the heat for the slow speed* and then come out with laptops in about 6 months.
*Not that the Crusoe is really slow. But a lot of people are going to be confused about MHz for a while after these come out.
--
It's been a while since I was in a database class, but I think transactions and locking are orthogonal subjects. If all you have is transactions, you can STILL improperly read data. For that matter, you can still improperly WRITE data.
All transactions do is let you roll back a SET of steps atomically. This set is called a transaction. So, once your locking method tells you "Hey! You can't read/write that!" then you can fail, rolling the transaction back.
--
Why is it that the moment MySQL goes GPL'd, Slashdot (which runs on MySQL) goes belly-up? I hope it isn't a refutation of ESRs panacea argument...
8^)
--
"Corporate espionage and intelligence gathering has been one of the fastest growing market sectors, along with "head-hunting", for the last decade or so..."
Could you provide a reference for this? I don't disbelieve that corporate espionage takes place, but I have trouble believing that it is "on the rise" in any relative sense.
--
"I hate to say it, but would reactions be different if it was Microsoft who hired IGI against another company?"
The implied question here is a false analogy. Yes, we would be angry if Microsoft hired a private detective to dig up dirt on a rival. But that's because Microsoft's rivals are usually a) weaker than MS and b) doing nothing wrong (other than pissing off MS).
But let's imagine that MS dug up some dirt on, say, RJR Nabisco. I don't think we'd have a problem with that.
--
The last release was copyrighted (because it was a published work) AND labelled a "trade secret". It was this second designation that allowed MS (or so they thought) to add "so don't use this to create your own implementation" to the license.
With only a copyright, this essentially becomes a "how to implement MS Kerb" book--you can use it to create an implementation but you can't copy the text. Just like any other book.
--
I'll say it up front: I've only worked at three different companies (as a programmer, that is). 2 have been small-to-tiny, one was medium-small and growing. Clearly we had no need of ERP software.
Can anyone tell me what it's really supposed to do. "Enterprise Resource Planning" isn't very descriptive. What do you do, type in the number of employees you have and it calculates how many sodas to buy for the company picnic? (sodas, ERP, get it?)
Could someone at least explain what the SUPPOSED benefits are? All I ever see in the mags is "ERP" this and "OLAP" that. Never any explanation of what the benefits are supposed to be.
--
I don't understand the advantage of "channels". Is this just so you don't have to open a new socket?
I might also note that putting all these channels into one big pipe makes it harder for a user (or administrator) to block something--or even know it is there. For instance, what if RealAudioBxxp devotes a channel to sucking data from my harddrive? With HTTP I'll see another connection being made and I have to option to block it. With BXXP--no such luck?
--
"However, quantum physics (up to this point) would seem to differ."
Only if you subscribe to the Copenhagen interpretation--which I don't. In fact, this is one of the reasons.
"That mnakes 3 observers, by my count. The reader, the protein processor, and the blue hair generator."
OK, yes. "Observers" in the sense of "entities that have data input into them". But I was refuting someone who was claiming that sentient observers were necessary--of which there are none in your list.
--
Leaving aside the question of the actual definition of "information" (which has technical meaning, btw), let's look at "meaning".
Why does "meaning" require observation and analysis? For instance, consider genetics. In particular, let's think about a strand of DNA that encodes for, say blue hair. It can be translated (in fact, it IS translated in the making of the blue hair), it can be interpreted (again, it IS interpreted), etc--all without any observer or analyst. The DNA strand means "blue hair". The strand has "meaning".
--
"To find the IQ of a committee, take the IQ of the lowest member and divide by the number of members."
Or to quote Dilbert (Alice to stupid co-worker): "*We* aren't better off when *you* work late."
--
This shouldn't be marked "funny", it should be marked "insightful". I was going to post nearly the same thing (although not so succintly).
/. of all places, we could dispense with the "there is no objective reality except what culture teaches us" type crap.
Information can and DOES exist "in a vacuum". Yes, it has a social impact. That doesn't mean it is a purely social phenomenon. You'd think that, on
--
The more I think about it, the more I like it. It sounds exactly as powerful as a SMP machine BUT you can add more CPUs more easily. Up to 8 cards each with 4 processors plus my main processor is 33 CPUs! In one machine! And you can more than 8 cards if you don't "map all the memory" (according to the page).
How much??
--