I guess by your definitions then, the Dutch have leagues of drug-addicted lunatics roaming their streets looking for their next fix... have you ever BEEN to Amsterdam?
Drugs are freely available there, but they decidely do NOT have a major drug problem - certainly no worse than any major city in the USA (likely much less). They also don't have the same level of crime and violence that surrounds the underground drug industries in the rest of the world.
Regulation works there (even though technically drugs are still illegal, they're tolerated) because it's no longer taboo. It's just like alcohol in most of Europe - it's not a major problem with teens and college students because it's not made out to be some huge deal.
Banning stuff like that makes the problem worse. If it's not going to go away no matter how much you try to ban it, then you're MUCH better off bringing it out into the open and at least having a little control over the boundaries.
For the average user, a lot of time is wasted waiting for the UI, or being afraid or unable to do other tasks while something "heavy" is going on (like reading email, surfing, etc.).
If the system still has the same horsepower, but I'm better able to actually multi-task without slogging through a molasses interface, then it's a huge improvement.
It's just not worth trying to type an email sometimes when it takes 6 seconds to update the UI after each keypress... maybe doing so will slow down your build in the background, but only marginally compared to the time wasted if you can't do anything at all during that time.
Generally, I believe that if you are aware of prior art, you're liable for treble (triple) damages. If you're ignorant, you're only liable for normal damages.
To me it seems a natural fit to help "ruggedize" consumer electronics. One of the hardest things to seal on your phone is the speaker (and mic... which this probably wouldn't address in itself).
No more need for a speaker - just put the candybar up to your ear.
>> As long as power use is built into the fixed price I pay for the cabinet I rent at the colo, I'll never turn off my servers if I don't need to. Why would I?
Maybe because you care about our planet? Your attitude exemplifies the "Somebody Else's Problem" response... if everyone thinks like you, we're doomed. Maybe your single rack isn't going to change the world, but it certainly plays its part.
Why do people, especially tech-savvy people, believe that having an email record is "proof" of anything? It's just like accepting faxed copies as good as originals. In this day and age, this stuff is SOOOOOOO easy to fake!
If email was considered proof, I could prove that my boss offered me a $2M bonus for keeping quiet about his gay love affair with the CEO. Unfortunately, it wouldn't hold up past the first glance.
If you want proof of submitting your claims, do it the old fashioned way... use the legal process. "You've been served". Short of that, it's all hearsay.
I know we're talking about completely debugged code, and including all the design/architecting costs, but that's a pretty high cost... and at $75k salary, it only equates to 6.5 lines of code per working day, or 1450 lines per year!
Hell - I write more code that that on average over the year, and I'm in MARKETING.:)
>> So Google's "going green" is at the cost of making everyone else less "green". They can willy-wave about how energy efficient they are, by simply dumping the difference on someone else.
The difference is that Google is going to actively exploit the ability of those hand-picked CPU's to run hotter. Chances are that the users who would have otherwise received those chips would not reap any energy savings from the capabilities.
At a minimum, Google is contributing here by forcing a vendor to differentiate chips that have a capability of running hotter from ones that don't. No matter who uses that capability, it's a benefit to the planet (versus the alternatives at least).
>> It's probably more like 30-cents in the 3rd world. I don't think it would be possible for even a machine to significantly beat that rate. The energy to "run" a human is roughly comparable to that of a computer running AI-ware. Plus, the cost of the cat-and-mouse AI software adjustments that a human-based approach doesn't need.
For that very reason, maybe it makes sense to invest more heavily in the "cost of effort" type of CAPTCHA - i.e. making the person perform a task in return for getting access. The theory is that the CPU time taken gets extremely high, even if the system can be cracked more easily.
The flip side is that you could also assume you're educating the 3rd world at the same time (if they're the ones being paid peanuts to solve these en masse)... use grammar questions, math, world history... even political propaganda! You could claim to be a humanitarian educating the world through CAPTCHAs.:)
Ok - then which would you rather do, given a capacitor and a battery of equal energy storage potential, each fully charged:
1) touch both leads on the capacitor 2) touch both terminals on the battery
Sorry - we're talking apples and oranges here. If you don't believe me, go open your old CRT-based TV and start touching capacitors until you understand. Those are NOTHING compared to the super-capacitors you'd need to drive a car.:)
I think my big concern is around discharge safety... forget about safety circuits and whatnot - what happens in an accident or whatever when the cap gets short-circuited? You've now got a much higher density of energy being discharged almost instantly. Batteries at least can't discharge their full load in such a short period of time.
It's the difference between being hit by a lightning bolt (capacitor) versus being cooked on a fire (battery)... both suck, but one you have no chance of reacting to before it's catastrophic.
A standard part of my personal interviewing process is this question:
"If I googled your name, what impression about you would I get, and what would I likely find?"
I don't as a habit Google them - although I have on occasion. However, I'm normally interviewing people for marketing roles, and their public presence (which today is largely online) is a very relevant indicator about how active they are in the market/community. For an internally-focused employee, the question and any findings online would be far less relevant or acceptable.
MadCow.
Re:More than scientific learning
on
LHC Success!
·
· Score: 5, Funny
>>... will the doomsayers ever learn for the next time? Probably not. I'm sure next time they'll say "this time, its different, the world is really going to end this time".
>> "By greatly increasing the number of concurrent execution threads, and then spreading them out across multiple, discrete processes (in our case, 6 separate instances of iexplore.exe), "
So, they're comparing a single instance of a multi-tabbed browser to 6 separate instances of a single-tabbed browser. You can account for this by the lack of tabs in IE (a fundamental flaw in today's world), but it's still not a fair comparison.
>>Every single day I get 4 or 5 copies of the "Paypal Dispute Transaction" shit.
If you'd just ship me those darn pills I ordered, I wouldn't have to dispute the PayPal transactions!!!
If this is all about the $7.29 shipping fee I still owe you, then just send me your bank account details and I'll send you the money by wire transfer instead.:)
>> Personally, I kind of liked the fact that they're monitoring my account for atypical transactions. The alternative is much worse.
Well, the alternative is worse for them, but not really for you. They're protecting THEMSELVES by doing this. Because your liability for fraudulent charges is limited (to $50 by law, often $0 by cardholder agreement), they're the ones that have the risk. They're putting their own profits ahead of your inconvenience of having a frozen account, embarrasment of getting declined, or headaches of having to fix uncounted "bounced" charges set up for automatic billing if you have to change card numbers to fix the problem.
Don't fool yourself - they're not doing this for you.
>> If I record my own political speech, convert it to mp3 and put it up on bittorrent except bittorrent doesn't work because it's been shut down by the state apparatink, do you understand where I'm going with this?
That would help - political speech is also protected, and often violently so. If a semi-major candidate started using P2P to distribute his campaign communications, then shutting down that media channel would be a huge no-no. I'm not saying it would stop it on its own, but it would certainly add to the difficulty of doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess by your definitions then, the Dutch have leagues of drug-addicted lunatics roaming their streets looking for their next fix... have you ever BEEN to Amsterdam?
Drugs are freely available there, but they decidely do NOT have a major drug problem - certainly no worse than any major city in the USA (likely much less). They also don't have the same level of crime and violence that surrounds the underground drug industries in the rest of the world.
Regulation works there (even though technically drugs are still illegal, they're tolerated) because it's no longer taboo. It's just like alcohol in most of Europe - it's not a major problem with teens and college students because it's not made out to be some huge deal.
Banning stuff like that makes the problem worse. If it's not going to go away no matter how much you try to ban it, then you're MUCH better off bringing it out into the open and at least having a little control over the boundaries.
MadCow.
For the average user, a lot of time is wasted waiting for the UI, or being afraid or unable to do other tasks while something "heavy" is going on (like reading email, surfing, etc.).
If the system still has the same horsepower, but I'm better able to actually multi-task without slogging through a molasses interface, then it's a huge improvement.
It's just not worth trying to type an email sometimes when it takes 6 seconds to update the UI after each keypress... maybe doing so will slow down your build in the background, but only marginally compared to the time wasted if you can't do anything at all during that time.
MadCow.
Tribbles... the trouble with TRIBBLES. :)
Generally, I believe that if you are aware of prior art, you're liable for treble (triple) damages. If you're ignorant, you're only liable for normal damages.
MadCow.
To me it seems a natural fit to help "ruggedize" consumer electronics. One of the hardest things to seal on your phone is the speaker (and mic... which this probably wouldn't address in itself).
No more need for a speaker - just put the candybar up to your ear.
Past, present, future... it's all a matter of perspective. If you ask Phillip J. Fry, Smellovision has been invented.
"Ever yet" might be more appropriate and exact. Sorry to be pedantic. :)
1. post story to slashdot
2. watch server burst into flames
3. apply fire extinguisher liberally
4. enjoy perfectly quietened hard drive noises
(there's no "profit" in there... I must've missed a step!)
>> As long as power use is built into the fixed price I pay for the cabinet I rent at the colo, I'll never turn off my servers if I don't need to. Why would I?
Maybe because you care about our planet? Your attitude exemplifies the "Somebody Else's Problem" response... if everyone thinks like you, we're doomed. Maybe your single rack isn't going to change the world, but it certainly plays its part.
MadCow.
Blackberries are particularly bad too. Same challenges: GPRS, constant data traffic, etc.
Why do people, especially tech-savvy people, believe that having an email record is "proof" of anything? It's just like accepting faxed copies as good as originals. In this day and age, this stuff is SOOOOOOO easy to fake!
If email was considered proof, I could prove that my boss offered me a $2M bonus for keeping quiet about his gay love affair with the CEO. Unfortunately, it wouldn't hold up past the first glance.
If you want proof of submitting your claims, do it the old fashioned way... use the legal process. "You've been served". Short of that, it's all hearsay.
MadCow.
I know we're talking about completely debugged code, and including all the design/architecting costs, but that's a pretty high cost... and at $75k salary, it only equates to 6.5 lines of code per working day, or 1450 lines per year!
Hell - I write more code that that on average over the year, and I'm in MARKETING. :)
MadCow.
>> So Google's "going green" is at the cost of making everyone else less "green". They can willy-wave about how energy efficient they are, by simply dumping the difference on someone else.
The difference is that Google is going to actively exploit the ability of those hand-picked CPU's to run hotter. Chances are that the users who would have otherwise received those chips would not reap any energy savings from the capabilities.
At a minimum, Google is contributing here by forcing a vendor to differentiate chips that have a capability of running hotter from ones that don't. No matter who uses that capability, it's a benefit to the planet (versus the alternatives at least).
MadCow.
>> It's probably more like 30-cents in the 3rd world. I don't think it would be possible for even a machine to significantly beat that rate. The energy to "run" a human is roughly comparable to that of a computer running AI-ware. Plus, the cost of the cat-and-mouse AI software adjustments that a human-based approach doesn't need.
For that very reason, maybe it makes sense to invest more heavily in the "cost of effort" type of CAPTCHA - i.e. making the person perform a task in return for getting access. The theory is that the CPU time taken gets extremely high, even if the system can be cracked more easily.
The flip side is that you could also assume you're educating the 3rd world at the same time (if they're the ones being paid peanuts to solve these en masse)... use grammar questions, math, world history... even political propaganda! You could claim to be a humanitarian educating the world through CAPTCHAs. :)
MadCow.
$4.30 / gallon for fuel which was in all senses of the word "carbon neutral"? It might not be such a bad deal even at that.
Really though, you're just creating nuclear-powered cars... without the inherent danger of crashing a nuclear reactor on the highway.
MadCow.
Actually, the average for Slashdot editors appears to be slightly lower than the general populace... it's the only explanation I can see. :)
MadCow.
Ok - then which would you rather do, given a capacitor and a battery of equal energy storage potential, each fully charged:
1) touch both leads on the capacitor
2) touch both terminals on the battery
Sorry - we're talking apples and oranges here. If you don't believe me, go open your old CRT-based TV and start touching capacitors until you understand. Those are NOTHING compared to the super-capacitors you'd need to drive a car. :)
MadCow.
I think my big concern is around discharge safety... forget about safety circuits and whatnot - what happens in an accident or whatever when the cap gets short-circuited? You've now got a much higher density of energy being discharged almost instantly. Batteries at least can't discharge their full load in such a short period of time.
It's the difference between being hit by a lightning bolt (capacitor) versus being cooked on a fire (battery)... both suck, but one you have no chance of reacting to before it's catastrophic.
MadCow.
A standard part of my personal interviewing process is this question:
"If I googled your name, what impression about you would I get, and what would I likely find?"
I don't as a habit Google them - although I have on occasion. However, I'm normally interviewing people for marketing roles, and their public presence (which today is largely online) is a very relevant indicator about how active they are in the market/community. For an internally-focused employee, the question and any findings online would be far less relevant or acceptable.
MadCow.
>> ... will the doomsayers ever learn for the next time? Probably not. I'm sure next time they'll say "this time, its different, the world is really going to end this time".
The doomsayers only need to be right once... :)
The comparison is a bit biased -
>> "By greatly increasing the number of concurrent execution threads, and then spreading them out across multiple, discrete processes (in our case, 6 separate instances of iexplore.exe), "
So, they're comparing a single instance of a multi-tabbed browser to 6 separate instances of a single-tabbed browser. You can account for this by the lack of tabs in IE (a fundamental flaw in today's world), but it's still not a fair comparison.
MadCow.
>>Every single day I get 4 or 5 copies of the "Paypal Dispute Transaction" shit.
If you'd just ship me those darn pills I ordered, I wouldn't have to dispute the PayPal transactions!!!
If this is all about the $7.29 shipping fee I still owe you, then just send me your bank account details and I'll send you the money by wire transfer instead. :)
>> Personally, I kind of liked the fact that they're monitoring my account for atypical transactions. The alternative is much worse.
Well, the alternative is worse for them, but not really for you. They're protecting THEMSELVES by doing this. Because your liability for fraudulent charges is limited (to $50 by law, often $0 by cardholder agreement), they're the ones that have the risk. They're putting their own profits ahead of your inconvenience of having a frozen account, embarrasment of getting declined, or headaches of having to fix uncounted "bounced" charges set up for automatic billing if you have to change card numbers to fix the problem.
Don't fool yourself - they're not doing this for you.
MadCow.
>> If I record my own political speech, convert it to mp3 and put it up on bittorrent except bittorrent doesn't work because it's been shut down by the state apparatink, do you understand where I'm going with this?
That would help - political speech is also protected, and often violently so. If a semi-major candidate started using P2P to distribute his campaign communications, then shutting down that media channel would be a huge no-no. I'm not saying it would stop it on its own, but it would certainly add to the difficulty of doing so.
MadCow.
Objects in picture are larger than they appear.
Seems like a HHGTTG scale issue. :) Be careful which words you choose.
MadCow.
Porn, printed as ASCII art on a dot-matrix printer.
See the third item here, titled "I didn't ask..."
MadCow.