The engineers involved were trying to solve the interesting problems. Delivering input to each contestant in the most convenient form doesn't seem like much of a concession.
I disagree with your assessment that OCR and voice recognition are not interesting problems, but in any case the entire issue could have been avoided by just doing what you suggested: add a camera to Watson and perform OCR.
The fact that IBM did not do this indicates that they have something to hide, and makes the whole thing the worst kind of publicity stunt.
Despite all the media hype, I for one am not at all impressed by this feat.
Various media articles have made clear that Watson has no visual or auditory input. Presumably Watson is receiving a direct digital feed of the tournament questions (oops, answers, I forgot this is Jeopardy). That alone gives Watson a huge timing advantage over the human competitors, who must (effectively) perform voice recognition and OCR to process the clues. On top of that, Watson has the computer-controlled ability to buzz in in four milliseconds, again giving it a huge advantage over the humans, and one that has nothing to do with AI.
Buzzer timing and strategy is a highly significant part of the game of Jeopardy. Given its direct digital feed and its internal computer clock, Watson is not playing this part of the game by the same rules as the humans. Thus, it's not fair to say that Watson wins a "Jeopardy" contest -- Watson has a huge unnatural advantage. In effect, Watson is not playing the same game as what we normally call "Jeopardy." A real Jeopardy contestant has to use eyes and ears and hands in addition to brain.
To be clear, I do think Watson is a worthy achievement. But this feeling is overshadowed by my constant annoyance at the media and others who incorrectly label this achievement as somehow winning a game of Jeopardy.
Currently I can browse freely and run various other software without any problems. I don't want the browser to be so 'greedy' that it grabs 100% of both my cores and causes sound glitches just to get an nearly imperceptible speed up.
Run the recording software under a user account with real-time scheduling privileges, and run the browser under a different user account without real-time scheduling privileges. Problem solved (and you should be doing this anyway).
Converting analogue media to digital in this way (for example) is done by more than an "infinitesimally small proportion of users".
The number of users who record audio on their PC is certainly large, but the number of users who need to record audio and browse their web on the same PC at the same time is much much smaller, and in no way justifies worsening performance for the other 99% of regular users who don't need to do both at the same time.
Explanation: If I do A/V recording or other timing sensitive work at the same time as browsing, I most certainly don't want a browser with any kind of RT guarantee, but a "best effort" one.
This complaint is utterly nonsensical. If you are doing real-time sensitive work on the machine, you should not be web browsing on that machine at the same time. A/V gear is expensive compared to a PC. In such a situation, you need (and can easily afford) a second machine, separate from your recording machine, for web browsing.
Most people benefit greatly from a more responsive browser. It makes no sense for Mozilla to cater to the infinitesimally small proportion of users who somehow need simultaneous A/V recording and web browsing on the same machine.
And I'm not sure if saying "near 20 years of full end-user software compatibility" is justified if I can't run win16 binaries on win64 (and that's a hard limitation of x86-64)
This is a myth. The inability to run win16 binaries on x64 is a software limitation. Microsoft chose not to support it. It is not a hardware limitation (I assume this is what you mean by "hard" limitation).
The very first paragraph of Wikipedia's article on long mode says:
In the x86-64 computer architecture, long mode is the mode where a 64-bit application (or operating system) can access the 64-bit instructions and registers. 32-bit programs and 16-bit protected mode programs are executed in a compatibility sub-mode; real mode or virtual 8086 mode programs cannot run in this mode. (emphasis added)
As the above quote indicates, x86-64 cuts off compatibility at real mode. So you are right in that one cannot (for example) run old DOS applications natively in x86-64, and this is a hardware limitation. But Windows 3.1 and above do not run in real mode (and in fact cannot run in real mode). So any "win16" binary written for Windows 3.1 or above (the vast majority of them) is a protected mode application, and in principle the hardware does support running such an application in long mode.
In the end, the fact that we're even able to discuss this topic is a huge testament to the emphasis that the Wintel platform places on backwards compatibility. For any other platform the discussion would end with the single word "no."
You can, literally, buy a brand new Intel machine today and run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 on it, unmodified, without emulation.
Theoretically, yes. Realistically, no. That new machine will not have proper hardware support for those operating systems: its sound card and network card will not be supported by either OS.
True, although you can work around this if you're careful. Buy a Core 2 Quad motherboard with ISA slots, and plug in a Soundblaster 16 and NE2000. Of course, this is already super overkill as DOS can't use four cores, but that's kind of my point -- at least it boots and runs after 25 years. There is literally no other consumer platform in history for which you can say this.
Windows will probably not be able to use its keyboard or mouse (assuming it is USB based as I have seen increasingly recently).
Amazingly, this is false. Most BIOSes that I've seen allow hardware-based PS/2 emulation of USB keyboards and mice (and, although you didn't mention it -- USB floppy drives too!). It's usually a BIOS option called "Legacy USB support" or something similar.
Graphics will be limited to VGA mode (either 640x480x16 colours or 320x240x256 colours) under Windows or any graphical DOS programs, because you won't be able to get a driver for it.
The graphics supported by such old software is inherently poor. This is not a huge limitation for the market of people interested in running such old programs. 640x480x16 was at one time considered high-end graphics.
It's also theoretically possible to run an old ARM OS on a modern ARM device. These people have made the OS designed for the original Acorn Archimedes (the first computer to use an ARM processor) work on ARM Cortex A8 devices. The major problem is device driver support for modern systems.
As the URL itself indicates, that's a port of RISC OS. It's not the original, unmodified binary. It uses the original ROM image, but that's hardly the same thing as running the original full OS binary.
Intel's CISC are too much for hand-helds, but an ARM may someday become powerful enough (multicore perhaps) to become a desktop processor. Technology A is already at the height of it's S-curve, while B climbs and intersects the capabilities of A. At that point, products A & B are equal in the eyes of the customer, but B is cheaper and soon nibbles at A's customers. CompanyA is non-existent in the new market which is now growing at unforseen rates. CompanyA is now in a position where it *must* switch to technology B, but it is years behind, and making B's canibalizes CompanyA's existing customers. History has shown that the CompanyAs soon hopelessly fall behind and thus die off.
You and everybody else here (including the author of the article and every single slashdot commenter) are missing a big point. The Wintel platform has an extraordinary track record of maintaining binary compatibility. This is a huge feature that many of Intel's business customers need. Without it, ARM is not even in the discussion.
ARM can't offer binary compatibility even in principle. ARM doesn't make chips. They license their design to others who make chips. The licensees in many cases are allowed to modify the design, and their business model depends on allowing the licencess to do so. So far, I am only talking about ARM-to-ARM compatibility, which is already practically nonexistent compared with x86-to-x86 compatibility. On top of that, there is the huge existing installed base of x86 applications, which ARM is (obviously) not compatible with.
You can, literally, buy a brand new Intel machine today and run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 on it, unmodified, without emulation. That's 20+ years of unbroken binary compatibility. No one, not even ARM, can break into Intel's core base, because they cannot offer this level of compatibility, or even anything close. I also want to emphasize just how underappreciated this feature is. No other consumer technology ever made can claim anywhere near 20 years of full end-user software compatibility. (And really, if you're counting, it's closer to 30 years, since DOS 3.3 and the like will work as well -- but few customers need that.)
At worst, the Wintel platform might go the way of IBM mainframes -- no longer at the center of the tech world, but still profitable for many decades thereafter.
Yep. Make sure the handouts are food, not money which can go on cigarettes and beer.
It's not as simple as that. If someone has any income at all, they can use the food stamps to buy food, and then use the money (that they would otherwise have spent on buying food) on cigarettes and beer, or even drugs. In this way food stamps can increase alcohol/tobacco/drug use even if 100% of the handout is spent on food. It's called the substitution effect in economics.
I like the concept of food stamps overall but I don't think there is any way to solve the problem of using food stamp money (indirectly) to buy drugs.
Of course, the Anonymous Coward who called for eliminating food stamps has absolutely no clue what he's talking about. (Surprise surprise -- rabid anti-government tea partier has no knowledge of actual facts.) Food stamps are a federal program, and eliminating food stamps wouldn't save California a dime or affect California in the slightest.
In any case, it's a meaningless statistic. Is there any country in the world that eagerly accepts 50-year old laid off factory workers?
So, it's only easy to move to Canada for people who don't need to move to Canada.
That's my point. People immigrate for opportunities. The only Americans that Canada lets in are people who aren't desperate for opportunities.
Way to not answer the question.
By your standard, there is literally no country in the world that admits aging unemployed factory workers. Every country in the world restricts immigration in this way. Why do you continue to pick on Canada?
It's easy to say Canadian immigration is hard if you apply a standard so stringent that every country in the world is also hard to immigrate to, but if you do so, the "hard" label then becomes meaningless.
I explicitly listed one very specific and very measurable area in which the US is ahead of every other nation (GDP per capita)
But what has the extraordinary (and growing) income disparity done to "per capita" GDP? If you have 2% of the population making a lot of money and everybody else losing ground, what meaning does "per capita" GDP have? What good is "per capita" GDP when for most people 1/4 of it goes to health care?
If you're in the top 2%, the US is a great place to live. For everyone else, who will soon have to work until age 70, paying up to 1/2 (at age 65) of their income for health care, it's not so terrific.
All valid points, which you should have included in your original claim, rather than making the ridiculous claim that there exists no measurable standard by which the US excels.
As I said before, if you're a 50 year-old laid off factory worker, there is no possible way for you to move to Canada and get a job.
As you said before? Please kindly point out where in your post you mentioned 50-year old factory workers.
In any case, it's a meaningless statistic. Is there any country in the world that eagerly accepts 50-year old laid off factory workers? The issue is whether Canadian immigration is easy or hard, not whether a 50-year old laid off factory worker can immigrate. By comparison with any other country, Canada is legally one of the easiest nations in the world to immigrate to, and certainly the easiest first-world nation.
Nothing in your post indicates that you have any knowledge of immigration laws in any country, not even your own. For example, you spend much of your time praising northern Europe. Have you ever tried to immigrate to a northern European country? Do you know anyone (who didn't originally have European citizenship) who has succeeded in doing so? Because, if you have any experience with European immigration, then there is no way you could say with a straight face that Canadian immigration is hard.
Immigration is a difficult and serious topic. Your comments give this topic none of the respect that it deserves. Anyone seriously considering immigration would do well to initiate the process well before they are 50 years old, and well before they are laid off. This is simple reality and has nothing to do with legal technicalities. Immigration simply requires a certain amount of energy and financial expenditure. Demanding to enter a country after you've been laid off and washed up is one of the more crass examples of an overwrought sense of entitlement that I have ever seen. There is no country in the world that lets you do that. If you truly want to move to another country, why didn't you move at age 30?
In every way you can measure these things, Germany, Sweden and the others are indeed "way ahead" of the United States. Further, those countries are moving in a positive direction and the United States is losing ground in every single category. The only area the US is ahead is in "self-identifying as Christian". Fat lot of good it's done us.
I explicitly listed one very specific and very measurable area in which the US is ahead of every other nation (GDP per capita). Therefore your claim that 'The only area the US is ahead is in "self-identifying as Christian"' is indisputably and demonstrably false. The fact that you choose to ignore this area is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of your claim. If you wish to limit the discussion to those areas that you choose, then please state so in your claims (and state what those areas are).
And other countries with universal health care are even further along. Somehow, Israel manages to provide universal health care AND have a competitive economy based on innovation. Germany, of course, does even better (and they're one of the most pro-labor, pro-union countries in the world). You go from country to country in northern Europe, and they're way ahead of the US. Why do you think Canada makes it so hard for Americans to immigrate there? Because we'd double their population overnight.
You know, although I largely sympathize with your conclusions, your facts are pretty much dead wrong, and thus your argument overall is nonsensical. Your whole post very much smacks of "the grass is greener on the other side."
I'm an American living in Canada. I've also had experience with the other direction (immigrating to the US from abroad). It is not hard for Americans to immigrate to Canada, and your belief that Americans would double Canada's population overnight is puzzling to say the least. The truth is Canada is desperate for more immigrants to shore up their service economy, especially in western Canada which is currently experiencing an oil boom. For the most part, the reason why Americans aren't immigrating to Canada is because they don't want to live in cold places, not because Canada keeps them out. (Some Americans, such as convicted felons (including DUI) and those with pre-existing health conditions, are barred from Canada, but not enough to affect the discussion.)
Canada uses a points system for immigration. Other avenues of immigration are possible, e.g. family sponsorship, but the points system is something you can use even with no sponsor. If you have a bachelor's degree, know English, are between 21-49 years of age, and have 4+ years of work experience in a technical field, then you have enough points to immigrate to Canada. It's that easy. Compare this to the US, where immigration is virtually impossible without an employer or family member to sponsor you.
I also question your claim that Germany and northern European countries are "way ahead" of the US. As stated your claim is largely meaningless, because nowhere in your post do you state what standard you are using to judge countries. If you're talking about quality of life, then sure, I can believe that (although I have no direct experience living in Europe). But if you're talking about wealth generation, which is what originally started this discussion, then it's hard to see how you could be right. By any objective measurable standard (e.g. GDP per capita), the US leads all countries in wealth generation. Even if you discount financial-bubble wealth as fake, there are many obvious examples of real wealth in the US (Intel, Google, Apple), and comparatively few from Europe.
Goldman bought those insurance contracts fair and square and AIG had every ability to underwrite each and every one to insure it was a sound investment.
If AIG had the full ability to underwrite its insurance contracts then it certainly didn't need a bailout. But your point is irrelevant. Regardless of whether or not AIG had the ability to honor its contracts, AIG should have been left to succeed or fail on its own merits in the free market fair and square, without government interference, and without bailouts.
In fact, "no bailouts" is a simple solution to every single problem that you bring up in your post. The free market, without government interference, is an excellent mechanism for correcting the prices of mispriced goods, whether those goods are houses, loans, or insurance contracts.
This economic crisis would have been fully resolved two years ago had there been no bailouts. The only downside (from the point of view of bankers, that is; for taxpayers it would have been an upside) is that Goldman Sachs would be deservedly out of business.
People seem to leave this part out. They keep screaming about the 'bailouts' and tax payer money being 'wasted'. That money has been, for the most part, repaid, with interest. The 'taxpayers' have been making out like bandits with these 'bailouts' because they've decided they don't want the regulation that comes along with it. You take taxpayers money, you play by their rules. It's like people can't beyond the fact that these loans had some pretty heavy strings attached to them for the benefit of the taxpayers.
If you count Goldman's AIG exposure, which any honest accountant must count, Goldman has not even come close to repaying the bailout money they received.
Goldman would absolutely be bankrupt today ten times over had the government not bailed out AIG. The government's bailout of AIG was in effect a proxy bailout of Goldman. Until AIG repays every cent they received with interest, Goldman is not off the hook.
It is, however, more than a little upsetting that cheerleaders like you so blindly accept Goldman's offloading of their liabilities onto AIG and then try to say with a straight face that Goldman has repaid their debt to the taxpayer.
There appear to be a few failure modes; the one we definitely experience on the Gingerbread-powered Nexus S involves being routed to the wrong thread when you tap it either in the Notifications list or the master thread list in the Messaging application, so if you don't notice, you'll end up firing a message to the wrong person.
Not sure whether to file this under FUD, but the error isn't nearly as sensational as the title or summary seem to indicate. Certainly an issue if it turns out that presses are being fuzzed out to different locations than intended, but very possibly an issue of "fat fingers" on the part of customers.
Fat fingers can't explain why messages that the phone logs as having been sent to person A are in fact sent to person B, which some people have reported.
However rarely this bug strikes, it is something that should never happen, and it is definitely a showstopper bug for many many users.
Here in Canada, depending on the province, you are automatically presumed guilty of DUI if you refuse the breath test.
You're missing the point. In Canada, if you refuse the breath test, sure, you are guilty of DUI, but the police can't force you to submit to a blood test. You have the right to refuse all tests in exchange for a DUI conviction.
In Florida, you don't have the option of refusing the blood test. The police can force you to have your blood drawn and tested. It's not "refuse this test and go to jail." It's "you can't refuse this test, regardless of whether or not you go to jail." And of course, anybody getting this test is already going to go to jail anyway.
If I can verify that my vote was counted, and can prove how I voted if there was a fraud to force a recount/etc, how does the system make it impossible for me to prove to my boss/spouse/friends/church/etc how I voted?
It's the magic of mathematics. Modern cryptography is amazing in many ways, and one of the amazing things is that we know how to do seemingly impossible things like "allow voters to prove their vote counted, without allowing them to prove how they voted."
There are many ways to achieve what you ask, even if it seems impossible to you. One way is to use undeniable signatures. The idea is that the verification process is interactive, and you (meaning the system designer, not necessarily the voter) can choose the set of people (e.g. election authorities) for which valid proofs of votes are possible. For anyone outside of the designated set, you can (undetectably) forge proofs that you voted for someone that you didn't actually vote for. The way it works is that the election authorities have special secret cryptographic keys that, in combination with the interactive proof, allow them to do more than the average voter.
Off-the-record messaging is another similar example of a cryptography protocol achieving the "impossible". In this case, OTR messaging allows you to prove your identity to other parties in the conversation, but only to those other parties. For any third party not in the conversation, it is possible to (undetectably) forge the proof of identity for anyone (and the OTR software even includes a tool for producing such forgeries).
I don't see how anybody can support instant elimination of the payouts to people who paid into the system their entire life (with the explicit promise of getting paid once they retire).
Sure sure, keep on defending the need for compromise.
I'll tell you what, only one party on Capitol Hill has expressed any willingness whatsoever to compromise on legislation, and it's not the Tea Party.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare.
Please, say it again if it makes you feel good but it doesn't change the fact that it is completely untrue. Many tea party candidates are in favor of (reforming/privatizing/making optional) SS which all amounts to abolishing. I am not going to go searching for quotes, just google "tea party candidate social security".
I just did exactly that. Clicking through the first five pages of results, the only candidate mentioned is Joe Miller. He supports "transition[ing] out of the Social Security arrangement" over the course of a generation. That's not elimination. That's delaying the problem to our children. In other words, business as usual in Washington.
If that's the best you can do, then case closed. I stand by my statement that no candidate supports elimination. This is an indisputable fact.
You refuse to understand the difference between a tax cut and patent welfare. A tax cut means you give less of what you have worked to earn to other people
By this logic, which is your own logic, social security and medicare are taxes. They involve giving part of what you have worked to earn to other people.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare, state taxes, and consumption taxes.
Which are not income taxes, which they pay 0.
They are not income taxes, but they are taxes, by none other than your own logic from above.
In the real world, what matters is how much you pay in taxes, not how much you pay in income taxes.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare
Ha, ha, I thought those were not taxes but "insurance". Get on the message, comrade.
Despite your derisory attitude, I have yet to see any national-level candidate, of any party, advocate the elimination of these programs. This includes your beloved Tea Party.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare.
I personally very much support eliminating these programs. I want to see them GONE. Do you? If yes, then good, but in that case, how do you reconcile this with the "no compromises" attitude of the Tea Party, which is clearly compromising on this issue? If no, then you're just being hypocritical, since you evidently support socialist "insurance" programs.
So what? The top 10% are already supplying 70% of the income tax receipts and benefit less from that money than the poor do. Why in your opinion do the hard working have a duty to carry the lazy on their shoulders? They are doing far more than enough already.
As many others have pointed out, the top 10% own far more than 70% of the wealth. Paying only 70% of the taxes is not even a fair share, let alone "far more than enough."
Maybe there is zero discussion because people forgot about it. A completely random once off $400 tax credit based on a million conditions is hardly in the same league as tax cuts of several % across the board.
The conditions are: AGI less than $195000, not a dependent on someone else's tax return, and legal status (i.e. have SSN). It's hardly a million conditions. More like three.
Attacking the Making Work Pay credit on the grounds that it is "once off" is a very strange accusation. Does that mean you would support it more if it were permanent? And if the "once off" nature of the tax credit is a major objection, why aren't you lobbying to make the credit permanent, rather than opposing it bitterly?
The foreign tax credit is not as straightforward as you claim. It only really works that way if you live exclusively outside of the US and earn all your income abroad. If you earn a portion of your income within the US, and a portion abroad, then the amount of the foreign tax credit is capped -- it cannot exceed the fraction of your US tax liability corresponding to overseas income. Your income taxes, on the other hand, are not capped -- you have to pay taxes on all your income, regardless of where you earned it. In such situations, you really can get taxed twice on the same income.
Sadly, I have personal experience with all of the above. I (literally) have a Ph.D in mathematics from Harvard, and even I had a very hard time figuring it out.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare, state taxes, and consumption taxes. These represent a far bigger proportion of a poor person's income than a rich person's income.
In addition, the article is about the 2009 tax year. During the 2009 tax year, Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit disproportionately benefited the poor. That tax credit is now expired, and (unlike with the Bush tax cuts) there is absolutely zero discussion in Washington about extending it.
Anyone who supports extending the Bush tax cuts but fails to support extending the Making Work Pay tax cut is doing exactly what we are accusing you of doing, namely, wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes. Presumably this is your stance as well, since I see you favor extending the Bush tax cuts, but not the Making Work Pay tax cut. If this assessment of your position is wrong, please feel free to correct it.
I'm tired of the constant bitching from people who will never buy an iPhone. There is plenty of competition in the marketplace.
That's all well and good. Now, if Steve Jobs would follow your same advice, then I would be happy to follow it as well.
But Steve Jobs is clearly on the offensive. He will never buy an Android. Yet, this whole post is about Jobs bitching about Android. He should stop bitching about Android, and let marketplace competition take its course. I have absolutely no doubt that the free market, left to its own devices, will make the right decision between the two platforms.
As long as the other side is waging a marketing war, it's a little disingenuous to claim that we can't.
Protected class is a term used in United States anti-discrimination law. The term describes characteristics or factors which can not be targeted for discrimination and harassment.
The definition seems pretty clear to me.
Yes, your repetitive misstatements of what two English sentences mean, introducing concepts that are not there, is completely non-productive. Bordering on trolling.
Just because someone doesn't agree with you 100% doesn't mean he's a troll. In fact, antagonizing someone like myself, who actually largely supports marijuana legalization and anti-discrimination, is pretty much exactly the wrong thing to do if you expect to win political campaigns.
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The engineers involved were trying to solve the interesting problems. Delivering input to each contestant in the most convenient form doesn't seem like much of a concession.
I disagree with your assessment that OCR and voice recognition are not interesting problems, but in any case the entire issue could have been avoided by just doing what you suggested: add a camera to Watson and perform OCR.
The fact that IBM did not do this indicates that they have something to hide, and makes the whole thing the worst kind of publicity stunt.
Various media articles have made clear that Watson has no visual or auditory input. Presumably Watson is receiving a direct digital feed of the tournament questions (oops, answers, I forgot this is Jeopardy). That alone gives Watson a huge timing advantage over the human competitors, who must (effectively) perform voice recognition and OCR to process the clues. On top of that, Watson has the computer-controlled ability to buzz in in four milliseconds, again giving it a huge advantage over the humans, and one that has nothing to do with AI.
Buzzer timing and strategy is a highly significant part of the game of Jeopardy. Given its direct digital feed and its internal computer clock, Watson is not playing this part of the game by the same rules as the humans. Thus, it's not fair to say that Watson wins a "Jeopardy" contest -- Watson has a huge unnatural advantage. In effect, Watson is not playing the same game as what we normally call "Jeopardy." A real Jeopardy contestant has to use eyes and ears and hands in addition to brain.
To be clear, I do think Watson is a worthy achievement. But this feeling is overshadowed by my constant annoyance at the media and others who incorrectly label this achievement as somehow winning a game of Jeopardy.
Why are you telling the waiter your mum's maiden name
It's very very easy to find out someone's mother's maiden name just from public records.
Currently I can browse freely and run various other software without any problems. I don't want the browser to be so 'greedy' that it grabs 100% of both my cores and causes sound glitches just to get an nearly imperceptible speed up.
Run the recording software under a user account with real-time scheduling privileges, and run the browser under a different user account without real-time scheduling privileges. Problem solved (and you should be doing this anyway).
Converting analogue media to digital in this way (for example) is done by more than an "infinitesimally small proportion of users".
The number of users who record audio on their PC is certainly large, but the number of users who need to record audio and browse their web on the same PC at the same time is much much smaller, and in no way justifies worsening performance for the other 99% of regular users who don't need to do both at the same time.
Explanation: If I do A/V recording or other timing sensitive work at the same time as browsing, I most certainly don't want a browser with any kind of RT guarantee, but a "best effort" one.
This complaint is utterly nonsensical. If you are doing real-time sensitive work on the machine, you should not be web browsing on that machine at the same time. A/V gear is expensive compared to a PC. In such a situation, you need (and can easily afford) a second machine, separate from your recording machine, for web browsing.
Most people benefit greatly from a more responsive browser. It makes no sense for Mozilla to cater to the infinitesimally small proportion of users who somehow need simultaneous A/V recording and web browsing on the same machine.
And I'm not sure if saying "near 20 years of full end-user software compatibility" is justified if I can't run win16 binaries on win64 (and that's a hard limitation of x86-64)
This is a myth. The inability to run win16 binaries on x64 is a software limitation. Microsoft chose not to support it. It is not a hardware limitation (I assume this is what you mean by "hard" limitation).
The very first paragraph of Wikipedia's article on long mode says:
In the x86-64 computer architecture, long mode is the mode where a 64-bit application (or operating system) can access the 64-bit instructions and registers. 32-bit programs and 16-bit protected mode programs are executed in a compatibility sub-mode; real mode or virtual 8086 mode programs cannot run in this mode. (emphasis added)
As the above quote indicates, x86-64 cuts off compatibility at real mode. So you are right in that one cannot (for example) run old DOS applications natively in x86-64, and this is a hardware limitation. But Windows 3.1 and above do not run in real mode (and in fact cannot run in real mode). So any "win16" binary written for Windows 3.1 or above (the vast majority of them) is a protected mode application, and in principle the hardware does support running such an application in long mode.
In the end, the fact that we're even able to discuss this topic is a huge testament to the emphasis that the Wintel platform places on backwards compatibility. For any other platform the discussion would end with the single word "no."
You can, literally, buy a brand new Intel machine today and run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 on it, unmodified, without emulation.
Theoretically, yes. Realistically, no. That new machine will not have proper hardware support for those operating systems: its sound card and network card will not be supported by either OS.
True, although you can work around this if you're careful. Buy a Core 2 Quad motherboard with ISA slots, and plug in a Soundblaster 16 and NE2000. Of course, this is already super overkill as DOS can't use four cores, but that's kind of my point -- at least it boots and runs after 25 years. There is literally no other consumer platform in history for which you can say this.
Windows will probably not be able to use its keyboard or mouse (assuming it is USB based as I have seen increasingly recently).
Amazingly, this is false. Most BIOSes that I've seen allow hardware-based PS/2 emulation of USB keyboards and mice (and, although you didn't mention it -- USB floppy drives too!). It's usually a BIOS option called "Legacy USB support" or something similar.
Graphics will be limited to VGA mode (either 640x480x16 colours or 320x240x256 colours) under Windows or any graphical DOS programs, because you won't be able to get a driver for it.
The graphics supported by such old software is inherently poor. This is not a huge limitation for the market of people interested in running such old programs. 640x480x16 was at one time considered high-end graphics.
It's also theoretically possible to run an old ARM OS on a modern ARM device. These people have made the OS designed for the original Acorn Archimedes (the first computer to use an ARM processor) work on ARM Cortex A8 devices. The major problem is device driver support for modern systems.
As the URL itself indicates, that's a port of RISC OS. It's not the original, unmodified binary. It uses the original ROM image, but that's hardly the same thing as running the original full OS binary.
Intel's CISC are too much for hand-helds, but an ARM may someday become powerful enough (multicore perhaps) to become a desktop processor. Technology A is already at the height of it's S-curve, while B climbs and intersects the capabilities of A. At that point, products A & B are equal in the eyes of the customer, but B is cheaper and soon nibbles at A's customers. CompanyA is non-existent in the new market which is now growing at unforseen rates. CompanyA is now in a position where it *must* switch to technology B, but it is years behind, and making B's canibalizes CompanyA's existing customers. History has shown that the CompanyAs soon hopelessly fall behind and thus die off.
You and everybody else here (including the author of the article and every single slashdot commenter) are missing a big point. The Wintel platform has an extraordinary track record of maintaining binary compatibility. This is a huge feature that many of Intel's business customers need. Without it, ARM is not even in the discussion.
ARM can't offer binary compatibility even in principle. ARM doesn't make chips. They license their design to others who make chips. The licensees in many cases are allowed to modify the design, and their business model depends on allowing the licencess to do so. So far, I am only talking about ARM-to-ARM compatibility, which is already practically nonexistent compared with x86-to-x86 compatibility. On top of that, there is the huge existing installed base of x86 applications, which ARM is (obviously) not compatible with.
You can, literally, buy a brand new Intel machine today and run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 on it, unmodified, without emulation. That's 20+ years of unbroken binary compatibility. No one, not even ARM, can break into Intel's core base, because they cannot offer this level of compatibility, or even anything close. I also want to emphasize just how underappreciated this feature is. No other consumer technology ever made can claim anywhere near 20 years of full end-user software compatibility. (And really, if you're counting, it's closer to 30 years, since DOS 3.3 and the like will work as well -- but few customers need that.)
At worst, the Wintel platform might go the way of IBM mainframes -- no longer at the center of the tech world, but still profitable for many decades thereafter.
Yep. Make sure the handouts are food, not money which can go on cigarettes and beer.
It's not as simple as that. If someone has any income at all, they can use the food stamps to buy food, and then use the money (that they would otherwise have spent on buying food) on cigarettes and beer, or even drugs. In this way food stamps can increase alcohol/tobacco/drug use even if 100% of the handout is spent on food. It's called the substitution effect in economics.
I like the concept of food stamps overall but I don't think there is any way to solve the problem of using food stamp money (indirectly) to buy drugs.
Of course, the Anonymous Coward who called for eliminating food stamps has absolutely no clue what he's talking about. (Surprise surprise -- rabid anti-government tea partier has no knowledge of actual facts.) Food stamps are a federal program, and eliminating food stamps wouldn't save California a dime or affect California in the slightest.
So, it's only easy to move to Canada for people who don't need to move to Canada.
That's my point. People immigrate for opportunities. The only Americans that Canada lets in are people who aren't desperate for opportunities.
Way to not answer the question.
By your standard, there is literally no country in the world that admits aging unemployed factory workers. Every country in the world restricts immigration in this way. Why do you continue to pick on Canada?
It's easy to say Canadian immigration is hard if you apply a standard so stringent that every country in the world is also hard to immigrate to, but if you do so, the "hard" label then becomes meaningless.
But what has the extraordinary (and growing) income disparity done to "per capita" GDP? If you have 2% of the population making a lot of money and everybody else losing ground, what meaning does "per capita" GDP have? What good is "per capita" GDP when for most people 1/4 of it goes to health care?
If you're in the top 2%, the US is a great place to live. For everyone else, who will soon have to work until age 70, paying up to 1/2 (at age 65) of their income for health care, it's not so terrific.
All valid points, which you should have included in your original claim, rather than making the ridiculous claim that there exists no measurable standard by which the US excels.
As I said before, if you're a 50 year-old laid off factory worker, there is no possible way for you to move to Canada and get a job.
As you said before? Please kindly point out where in your post you mentioned 50-year old factory workers.
In any case, it's a meaningless statistic. Is there any country in the world that eagerly accepts 50-year old laid off factory workers? The issue is whether Canadian immigration is easy or hard, not whether a 50-year old laid off factory worker can immigrate. By comparison with any other country, Canada is legally one of the easiest nations in the world to immigrate to, and certainly the easiest first-world nation.
Nothing in your post indicates that you have any knowledge of immigration laws in any country, not even your own. For example, you spend much of your time praising northern Europe. Have you ever tried to immigrate to a northern European country? Do you know anyone (who didn't originally have European citizenship) who has succeeded in doing so? Because, if you have any experience with European immigration, then there is no way you could say with a straight face that Canadian immigration is hard.
Immigration is a difficult and serious topic. Your comments give this topic none of the respect that it deserves. Anyone seriously considering immigration would do well to initiate the process well before they are 50 years old, and well before they are laid off. This is simple reality and has nothing to do with legal technicalities. Immigration simply requires a certain amount of energy and financial expenditure. Demanding to enter a country after you've been laid off and washed up is one of the more crass examples of an overwrought sense of entitlement that I have ever seen. There is no country in the world that lets you do that. If you truly want to move to another country, why didn't you move at age 30?
In every way you can measure these things, Germany, Sweden and the others are indeed "way ahead" of the United States. Further, those countries are moving in a positive direction and the United States is losing ground in every single category. The only area the US is ahead is in "self-identifying as Christian". Fat lot of good it's done us.
I explicitly listed one very specific and very measurable area in which the US is ahead of every other nation (GDP per capita). Therefore your claim that 'The only area the US is ahead is in "self-identifying as Christian"' is indisputably and demonstrably false. The fact that you choose to ignore this area is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of your claim. If you wish to limit the discussion to those areas that you choose, then please state so in your claims (and state what those areas are).
And other countries with universal health care are even further along. Somehow, Israel manages to provide universal health care AND have a competitive economy based on innovation. Germany, of course, does even better (and they're one of the most pro-labor, pro-union countries in the world). You go from country to country in northern Europe, and they're way ahead of the US. Why do you think Canada makes it so hard for Americans to immigrate there? Because we'd double their population overnight.
You know, although I largely sympathize with your conclusions, your facts are pretty much dead wrong, and thus your argument overall is nonsensical. Your whole post very much smacks of "the grass is greener on the other side."
I'm an American living in Canada. I've also had experience with the other direction (immigrating to the US from abroad). It is not hard for Americans to immigrate to Canada, and your belief that Americans would double Canada's population overnight is puzzling to say the least. The truth is Canada is desperate for more immigrants to shore up their service economy, especially in western Canada which is currently experiencing an oil boom. For the most part, the reason why Americans aren't immigrating to Canada is because they don't want to live in cold places, not because Canada keeps them out. (Some Americans, such as convicted felons (including DUI) and those with pre-existing health conditions, are barred from Canada, but not enough to affect the discussion.)
Canada uses a points system for immigration. Other avenues of immigration are possible, e.g. family sponsorship, but the points system is something you can use even with no sponsor. If you have a bachelor's degree, know English, are between 21-49 years of age, and have 4+ years of work experience in a technical field, then you have enough points to immigrate to Canada. It's that easy. Compare this to the US, where immigration is virtually impossible without an employer or family member to sponsor you.
I also question your claim that Germany and northern European countries are "way ahead" of the US. As stated your claim is largely meaningless, because nowhere in your post do you state what standard you are using to judge countries. If you're talking about quality of life, then sure, I can believe that (although I have no direct experience living in Europe). But if you're talking about wealth generation, which is what originally started this discussion, then it's hard to see how you could be right. By any objective measurable standard (e.g. GDP per capita), the US leads all countries in wealth generation. Even if you discount financial-bubble wealth as fake, there are many obvious examples of real wealth in the US (Intel, Google, Apple), and comparatively few from Europe.
Goldman bought those insurance contracts fair and square and AIG had every ability to underwrite each and every one to insure it was a sound investment.
If AIG had the full ability to underwrite its insurance contracts then it certainly didn't need a bailout. But your point is irrelevant. Regardless of whether or not AIG had the ability to honor its contracts, AIG should have been left to succeed or fail on its own merits in the free market fair and square, without government interference, and without bailouts.
In fact, "no bailouts" is a simple solution to every single problem that you bring up in your post. The free market, without government interference, is an excellent mechanism for correcting the prices of mispriced goods, whether those goods are houses, loans, or insurance contracts.
This economic crisis would have been fully resolved two years ago had there been no bailouts. The only downside (from the point of view of bankers, that is; for taxpayers it would have been an upside) is that Goldman Sachs would be deservedly out of business.
People seem to leave this part out. They keep screaming about the 'bailouts' and tax payer money being 'wasted'. That money has been, for the most part, repaid, with interest. The 'taxpayers' have been making out like bandits with these 'bailouts' because they've decided they don't want the regulation that comes along with it. You take taxpayers money, you play by their rules. It's like people can't beyond the fact that these loans had some pretty heavy strings attached to them for the benefit of the taxpayers.
If you count Goldman's AIG exposure, which any honest accountant must count, Goldman has not even come close to repaying the bailout money they received.
Goldman would absolutely be bankrupt today ten times over had the government not bailed out AIG. The government's bailout of AIG was in effect a proxy bailout of Goldman. Until AIG repays every cent they received with interest, Goldman is not off the hook.
It is, however, more than a little upsetting that cheerleaders like you so blindly accept Goldman's offloading of their liabilities onto AIG and then try to say with a straight face that Goldman has repaid their debt to the taxpayer.
There appear to be a few failure modes; the one we definitely experience on the Gingerbread-powered Nexus S involves being routed to the wrong thread when you tap it either in the Notifications list or the master thread list in the Messaging application, so if you don't notice, you'll end up firing a message to the wrong person.
Not sure whether to file this under FUD, but the error isn't nearly as sensational as the title or summary seem to indicate. Certainly an issue if it turns out that presses are being fuzzed out to different locations than intended, but very possibly an issue of "fat fingers" on the part of customers.
Fat fingers can't explain why messages that the phone logs as having been sent to person A are in fact sent to person B, which some people have reported.
However rarely this bug strikes, it is something that should never happen, and it is definitely a showstopper bug for many many users.
Here in Canada, depending on the province, you are automatically presumed guilty of DUI if you refuse the breath test.
You're missing the point. In Canada, if you refuse the breath test, sure, you are guilty of DUI, but the police can't force you to submit to a blood test. You have the right to refuse all tests in exchange for a DUI conviction.
In Florida, you don't have the option of refusing the blood test. The police can force you to have your blood drawn and tested. It's not "refuse this test and go to jail." It's "you can't refuse this test, regardless of whether or not you go to jail." And of course, anybody getting this test is already going to go to jail anyway.
If I can verify that my vote was counted, and can prove how I voted if there was a fraud to force a recount/etc, how does the system make it impossible for me to prove to my boss/spouse/friends/church/etc how I voted?
It's the magic of mathematics. Modern cryptography is amazing in many ways, and one of the amazing things is that we know how to do seemingly impossible things like "allow voters to prove their vote counted, without allowing them to prove how they voted."
There are many ways to achieve what you ask, even if it seems impossible to you. One way is to use undeniable signatures. The idea is that the verification process is interactive, and you (meaning the system designer, not necessarily the voter) can choose the set of people (e.g. election authorities) for which valid proofs of votes are possible. For anyone outside of the designated set, you can (undetectably) forge proofs that you voted for someone that you didn't actually vote for. The way it works is that the election authorities have special secret cryptographic keys that, in combination with the interactive proof, allow them to do more than the average voter.
Off-the-record messaging is another similar example of a cryptography protocol achieving the "impossible". In this case, OTR messaging allows you to prove your identity to other parties in the conversation, but only to those other parties. For any third party not in the conversation, it is possible to (undetectably) forge the proof of identity for anyone (and the OTR software even includes a tool for producing such forgeries).
I don't see how anybody can support instant elimination of the payouts to people who paid into the system their entire life (with the explicit promise of getting paid once they retire).
Sure sure, keep on defending the need for compromise.
I'll tell you what, only one party on Capitol Hill has expressed any willingness whatsoever to compromise on legislation, and it's not the Tea Party.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare. Please, say it again if it makes you feel good but it doesn't change the fact that it is completely untrue. Many tea party candidates are in favor of (reforming/privatizing/making optional) SS which all amounts to abolishing. I am not going to go searching for quotes, just google "tea party candidate social security".
I just did exactly that. Clicking through the first five pages of results, the only candidate mentioned is Joe Miller. He supports "transition[ing] out of the Social Security arrangement" over the course of a generation. That's not elimination. That's delaying the problem to our children. In other words, business as usual in Washington.
If that's the best you can do, then case closed. I stand by my statement that no candidate supports elimination. This is an indisputable fact.
You refuse to understand the difference between a tax cut and patent welfare. A tax cut means you give less of what you have worked to earn to other people
By this logic, which is your own logic, social security and medicare are taxes. They involve giving part of what you have worked to earn to other people.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare, state taxes, and consumption taxes.
Which are not income taxes, which they pay 0.
They are not income taxes, but they are taxes, by none other than your own logic from above.
In the real world, what matters is how much you pay in taxes, not how much you pay in income taxes.
As the article itself points out, poor people still pay Social security, Medicare Ha, ha, I thought those were not taxes but "insurance". Get on the message, comrade.
Despite your derisory attitude, I have yet to see any national-level candidate, of any party, advocate the elimination of these programs. This includes your beloved Tea Party.
I'll say it again: Not a single Tea Party candidate anywhere in the country has called for the elimination of Social Security or Medicare.
I personally very much support eliminating these programs. I want to see them GONE. Do you? If yes, then good, but in that case, how do you reconcile this with the "no compromises" attitude of the Tea Party, which is clearly compromising on this issue? If no, then you're just being hypocritical, since you evidently support socialist "insurance" programs.
So what? The top 10% are already supplying 70% of the income tax receipts and benefit less from that money than the poor do. Why in your opinion do the hard working have a duty to carry the lazy on their shoulders? They are doing far more than enough already.
As many others have pointed out, the top 10% own far more than 70% of the wealth. Paying only 70% of the taxes is not even a fair share, let alone "far more than enough."
Maybe there is zero discussion because people forgot about it. A completely random once off $400 tax credit based on a million conditions is hardly in the same league as tax cuts of several % across the board.
The conditions are: AGI less than $195000, not a dependent on someone else's tax return, and legal status (i.e. have SSN). It's hardly a million conditions. More like three.
Attacking the Making Work Pay credit on the grounds that it is "once off" is a very strange accusation. Does that mean you would support it more if it were permanent? And if the "once off" nature of the tax credit is a major objection, why aren't you lobbying to make the credit permanent, rather than opposing it bitterly?
Sadly, I have personal experience with all of the above. I (literally) have a Ph.D in mathematics from Harvard, and even I had a very hard time figuring it out.
In addition, the article is about the 2009 tax year. During the 2009 tax year, Obama's Making Work Pay tax credit disproportionately benefited the poor. That tax credit is now expired, and (unlike with the Bush tax cuts) there is absolutely zero discussion in Washington about extending it.
Anyone who supports extending the Bush tax cuts but fails to support extending the Making Work Pay tax cut is doing exactly what we are accusing you of doing, namely, wanting to keep poor people as the only ones who pay taxes. Presumably this is your stance as well, since I see you favor extending the Bush tax cuts, but not the Making Work Pay tax cut. If this assessment of your position is wrong, please feel free to correct it.
I'm tired of the constant bitching from people who will never buy an iPhone. There is plenty of competition in the marketplace.
That's all well and good. Now, if Steve Jobs would follow your same advice, then I would be happy to follow it as well.
But Steve Jobs is clearly on the offensive. He will never buy an Android. Yet, this whole post is about Jobs bitching about Android. He should stop bitching about Android, and let marketplace competition take its course. I have absolutely no doubt that the free market, left to its own devices, will make the right decision between the two platforms.
As long as the other side is waging a marketing war, it's a little disingenuous to claim that we can't.
It does no such thing. And most certainly not by definition.
From Wikipedia:
Protected class is a term used in United States anti-discrimination law. The term describes characteristics or factors which can not be targeted for discrimination and harassment.
The definition seems pretty clear to me.
Yes, your repetitive misstatements of what two English sentences mean, introducing concepts that are not there, is completely non-productive. Bordering on trolling.
Just because someone doesn't agree with you 100% doesn't mean he's a troll. In fact, antagonizing someone like myself, who actually largely supports marijuana legalization and anti-discrimination, is pretty much exactly the wrong thing to do if you expect to win political campaigns.