Yes it does. That's how politics works. Cynical? - Moi?
More to the point though, I think it is still political suicide.
Shhh..... Don't give GWB any tip-offs.
No, I think what's needed is for a strong president, who thinks "people are addicted to oil", to introduce just such an idea. You are strong aren't you George? (nudge, nudge, wink wink).
It all depends on how things work. The US is a massive country of course so there are wide opinions based on geographical and historical differences. That said, it's not impossible. Just as long as it's done slowly, a little hint here, a little hint their, a bit of "viral marketing". Before you know it the people want it! Then you just give them what they want. Ah, democracy! Of course this only works if you have a decent civil service and the politicians stay out of the way...
I think you are slightly missing what I said before. Clearly the developing world wants SUVs, 24/7 shopping channels and iPods. After all, that's progress right?
My point is what we decide to do at home, in our own back yard. Surely that's the place to start? If we don't want to change there's no hope that anyone else will.
Did you mean "green lawns?"
we do not and never have had a sustainable system
Clearly that is true and must change. Much of our wealth has come from what can be dug out of the ground or stolen, sorry "liberated", from others.
The 5 billion+ people of the third world and rising, and rising fast.
I'm going to change tack slightly here. Perhaps you are right, if the rest of the world follows our history we are all "doomed, doomed I tell you" [*].
As Mark Twain once said however, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme". In other words they may go through a similar process of improvements in health, life expectancy etc, but not in the same manner.
Look for example at the first world. The population of this country (UK), and other European countries is in decline. This decline is particularly amusing in Italy since it is regarded as a traditional Catholic country and obviously abhors contraception, but that's another story.
If it wasn't for immigration to these countries our populations would be actively shrinking, or shrinking much faster than they currently are.
This will, I suspect force countries to become more sustainable. Rather than living off the wealth to be created by our children in some mad pyramid scheme we will have to be more prudent. Pyramid schemes can after all only work if their is unchecked exponential expansion!
Why has this happened? Well we can speculate. Bringing children into the world in these countries is now extremely expensive. Also, the (relative) emancipation of women now means they are more likely to want to build careers. Consequently birth rates are lower, much lower than they were in the past. Many people can now choose to have children or not. In this manner our growth has become self checking. Big famillies are now rare. This is not just an economical perspective, it is now a social one.
In some respects one could argue that a world populated by smaller numbers of people (say 500 million), who have a low birth rate and long life expectancy would be preferable to the current situation.
Following this hypothesis, the question of course is how can this happen without the potentially unplesent "middle step"?
Time will tell. In many ways I feel it is futile to engineer these things. Nevertheless it's fun to conjecture.
holding off the industrial revolution of theirs.
I assume you do not mean this literally.
Yes, this is a difficult problem. The main problem is greed of course. Everyone wants stuff for themselves and to hell with everyone else.
Of course, "hell", may just be around the corner....
No, that is not much at all. In the UK tax accounts for approximately 75% of the cost.
It was always the long term intention of government to price people out of cars and on to public transport. Some of the motivation being the environmental issue. This started in the early 1990s with the so called "fuel escalator". It works to some extent. The main problem is what public transport. It is still in a poor state (but getting better) and over priced.
Of course world events have tipped the balance sending the price of oil very high. There are cries to reduce the tax on fuel, however this is a short term solution. It is a common view that oil prices will keep rising, the problem is the dependence on oil. Without breaking that we will just defer the problem.
Other posters are right I fear. Introducing a higher tax on fuel over there would be political suicide. Unlike starting wars it seems [*]. I imagine the only way is the stealth techniques of your own fuel escalator. Who's going to notice 2% above inflation?
Boil the frog slowly!
---------
[*] Sorry, a cheap shot, but I can't help myself.
Having read many of the posts here I think people are missing the importance of libraries.
I would hazard a guess that most people want to get a problem solved in the most painless manner possible when programming.
Surely the best way to achive this is by avoiding the reinvention of the wheel.
In some manner I tend to view languages now as nothing more than the glue that binds library calls together!
My approach is:
Work out what you want to do.
Find libraries that implement the most difficult parts of the problem.
See what language bindings exist.
Choose the language appropriate to this.
For example, there is a wealth of scientific code out there in F77. Just because F77 is old doesn't mean that the libraries are now wrong. They still do what they did back then. They are still useful. People have spent a great deal of time working out the error propagation in these codes, the efficiency and their validity. Do you really think you will save yourself time and do a better job by rewriting it in Java? No! So. Use them.
Then there are (great) libraries such as ATLAS or FFTW [*] written in C. Why assume you can do better? You can't, use that too.
In the rare case where you need to have something written from scratch, write it in whatever you are comfortable with. In my case C++/Boost (yes another library).
Finally you need to tie all this together, and hack around with it, and analyse the results so what's wrong with a bit of Python and MATLAB?
Perhaps this is an extreme example, and doesn't fall into the buisiness relm but the point is "the path of least resistance". Sometimes that path is dictated by existing code.
Do you really expect someone to rewrite from scratch an XML parser in "DoomJuice", or whatever is fashionable in house, just to please the people that want to standerdise on "DoomJuice"? No, use an existing library!
Ok, I've made my point. I will stop now.
[*] Yes I know FFTW technically uses Objective CAML to generate C code, but that's really only a distinction that a nerd would make.
In my opinion traditional NFS is not that secure, either against reading things "on the wire" or spoofing.
As another poster has mentioned you can export the filesystem on a client by client basis. As a "bad guy" you have to take over the identity of one of those trusted clients (steal the IP address). Tricky but not impossible.
The basic problem here is authenticating that the client really is the right client. IP addresses are not sufficient in this regard. For those that deem this necessary Secure NFS is key. (excuse the DES pun).
The default behaviour is to not allow this. From the manual, man -S 5 exports
Very often, it is not desirable that the root user on a client machine
is also treated as root when accessing files on the NFS server. To this
end, uid 0 is normally mapped to a different id: the so-called anony-
mous or nobody uid. This mode of operation (called 'root squashing') is
the default, and can be turned off with no_root_squash.
I would respectfully point out that Fullers ESB is not a fine British beer, it's certainly "extra special". Of course if you are comparing it to American Budweiser [*]....
If you want one "off the shelf", look no further than Muji who sell aluminium card cases. These quite nicely contain your credit cards, bank cards and cash and are RFID stoppers. Of course this can be a bad thing since it means I have to always take my Oyster card out to use it.
If you use USD then you may find the bills too long and thin to conveniently fold to use the card case as a wallet, but it works well for GBP, EURO & NZD.
(Caveat, I don't use it for it's RFID stopping abilities but for its abject refusal to stretch when it needs clearing out, preventing wallet bulge!).
I think this is a common misunderstanding. The whole buisiness with the "Cat" is a rather over-stretched metaphor. When you read "observation" think "interaction". In this sense anything else is an observer if it interacts with the "Cat" (probes its state). This gets more complex of course when one realises that "everything is connected to everything else" [*]
...it's also unprovable..
I realise the following is probably more detailed than necessary, however it's worth keeping in mind.
"Proof" in science is another common misconception. One cannot ever prove a scientific theory with an experiment. One can only falsify a scientific theory with experiment (assuming of course the experiment is valid). If one takes the view that the aim of the gaim is to model and predict nature a manifestation within nature that does not agree with the theory clearly indicates that the theory is incorrect. The reverse is not true of course, nature cannot be incorrect!;-)
In this way experimental physics is far more powerful than theoretical physics. For example, it takes just one experiment to demonstrate that Newtonian mechanics is not the "truth" (e.g. measure how far neutrons can fly before they decay). Instead one must realise that Newtonian mechanics is an approximation. Within the appropriate approximations, speeds much less than that of light, inertial reference frame, flat space-time etc., Newtonian mechanics is still an excellent theory. It is also a perfectly useful theory, after all one wouldn't analyse a bridge structure or aircraft with quantum mechanics or relativistic kinematics!
For all practical purposes use the most straightforward approach you can!
The use of "proof" is sadly a luxury of mathematicians and alcohol distillers!
-------------
[*] Lenin - Though I don't mean it in the same context!
You rarely see children reading newspapers. You probably won't see a McDonald's employee reading a paper, nor will you see a construction worker or a clothing salesperson.
Pardon? I can only assume you have not discovered "The Sun". It's a very British rag which almost always decides the result of a general election....
Slashdot Mirror
With components like DB::DataObject, HTML::QuickForm and DB::DataObject::FormBuilder building web DB applications is shockingly quick!
Anyone?
"Make a man a fire, he'll be warm for the night"...
"Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life".
Ah! Another cynic. Welcome!
Of course, if you were a real cynic you would add the suffix "...for the time being". ;-)
Yes it does. That's how politics works. Cynical? - Moi?
More to the point though, I think it is still political suicide.
Shhh..... Don't give GWB any tip-offs.
No, I think what's needed is for a strong president, who thinks "people are addicted to oil", to introduce just such an idea. You are strong aren't you George? (nudge, nudge, wink wink).
It all depends on how things work. The US is a massive country of course so there are wide opinions based on geographical and historical differences. That said, it's not impossible. Just as long as it's done slowly, a little hint here, a little hint their, a bit of "viral marketing". Before you know it the people want it! Then you just give them what they want. Ah, democracy! Of course this only works if you have a decent civil service and the politicians stay out of the way...
I think you are slightly missing what I said before. Clearly the developing world wants SUVs, 24/7 shopping channels and iPods. After all, that's progress right?
My point is what we decide to do at home, in our own back yard. Surely that's the place to start? If we don't want to change there's no hope that anyone else will.
Did you mean "green lawns?"
we do not and never have had a sustainable system
Clearly that is true and must change. Much of our wealth has come from what can be dug out of the ground or stolen, sorry "liberated", from others.
The 5 billion+ people of the third world and rising, and rising fast.
I'm going to change tack slightly here. Perhaps you are right, if the rest of the world follows our history we are all "doomed, doomed I tell you" [*].
As Mark Twain once said however, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme". In other words they may go through a similar process of improvements in health, life expectancy etc, but not in the same manner.
Look for example at the first world. The population of this country (UK), and other European countries is in decline. This decline is particularly amusing in Italy since it is regarded as a traditional Catholic country and obviously abhors contraception, but that's another story. If it wasn't for immigration to these countries our populations would be actively shrinking, or shrinking much faster than they currently are.
This will, I suspect force countries to become more sustainable. Rather than living off the wealth to be created by our children in some mad pyramid scheme we will have to be more prudent. Pyramid schemes can after all only work if their is unchecked exponential expansion!
Why has this happened? Well we can speculate. Bringing children into the world in these countries is now extremely expensive. Also, the (relative) emancipation of women now means they are more likely to want to build careers. Consequently birth rates are lower, much lower than they were in the past. Many people can now choose to have children or not. In this manner our growth has become self checking. Big famillies are now rare. This is not just an economical perspective, it is now a social one.
In some respects one could argue that a world populated by smaller numbers of people (say 500 million), who have a low birth rate and long life expectancy would be preferable to the current situation.
Following this hypothesis, the question of course is how can this happen without the potentially unplesent "middle step"?
Time will tell. In many ways I feel it is futile to engineer these things. Nevertheless it's fun to conjecture.
holding off the industrial revolution of theirs.
I assume you do not mean this literally.
Yes, this is a difficult problem. The main problem is greed of course. Everyone wants stuff for themselves and to hell with everyone else.
Of course, "hell", may just be around the corner....
As is often the case economics dictates what hap
It was always the long term intention of government to price people out of cars and on to public transport. Some of the motivation being the environmental issue. This started in the early 1990s with the so called "fuel escalator". It works to some extent. The main problem is what public transport. It is still in a poor state (but getting better) and over priced.
Of course world events have tipped the balance sending the price of oil very high. There are cries to reduce the tax on fuel, however this is a short term solution. It is a common view that oil prices will keep rising, the problem is the dependence on oil. Without breaking that we will just defer the problem.
Other posters are right I fear. Introducing a higher tax on fuel over there would be political suicide. Unlike starting wars it seems [*]. I imagine the only way is the stealth techniques of your own fuel escalator. Who's going to notice 2% above inflation?
Boil the frog slowly!
---------
[*] Sorry, a cheap shot, but I can't help myself.
"Lock him away lads!"
That's an interesting legal viewpoint. That would make life so much easier for everyone.
Who knows, maybe it will catch on.
You presumably work in the financial sector. You opted not to do something because it was too evil.
Hmm, maybe there is hope for humanity.
I'm with the other poster on this one, except with a suitable link: Mussolini, just your standard propaganda loving fashist.
Of course the corolory that; if you do make the trains run on time you are not a fashist is something of a non-sequitur.
I would be busy getting lab tests on the water supply. ;-)
I would hazard a guess that most people want to get a problem solved in the most painless manner possible when programming.
Surely the best way to achive this is by avoiding the reinvention of the wheel.
In some manner I tend to view languages now as nothing more than the glue that binds library calls together!
My approach is:
For example, there is a wealth of scientific code out there in F77. Just because F77 is old doesn't mean that the libraries are now wrong. They still do what they did back then. They are still useful. People have spent a great deal of time working out the error propagation in these codes, the efficiency and their validity. Do you really think you will save yourself time and do a better job by rewriting it in Java? No! So. Use them.
Then there are (great) libraries such as ATLAS or FFTW [*] written in C. Why assume you can do better? You can't, use that too.
In the rare case where you need to have something written from scratch, write it in whatever you are comfortable with. In my case C++/Boost (yes another library).
Finally you need to tie all this together, and hack around with it, and analyse the results so what's wrong with a bit of Python and MATLAB?
Perhaps this is an extreme example, and doesn't fall into the buisiness relm but the point is "the path of least resistance". Sometimes that path is dictated by existing code.
Do you really expect someone to rewrite from scratch an XML parser in "DoomJuice", or whatever is fashionable in house, just to please the people that want to standerdise on "DoomJuice"? No, use an existing library!
Ok, I've made my point. I will stop now.
[*] Yes I know FFTW technically uses Objective CAML to generate C code, but that's really only a distinction that a nerd would make.
That's a healthy attitude to have. Once you are scared of the beast you learn to treat it with respect!
The lion tamer that runs into the cage armed with nothing but an innocent air and a blindfold doesn't stay a lion tamer for long;-)
[Unless of course (s)he manages to put the blindfold on the lion, but that is another story and not really a suitable metaphor]
In my opinion traditional NFS is not that secure, either against reading things "on the wire" or spoofing.
As another poster has mentioned you can export the filesystem on a client by client basis. As a "bad guy" you have to take over the identity of one of those trusted clients (steal the IP address). Tricky but not impossible.
The basic problem here is authenticating that the client really is the right client. IP addresses are not sufficient in this regard. For those that deem this necessary Secure NFS is key. (excuse the DES pun).
For the extra paranoid you can even tunnel the connection with SSH.
-ed
man -S 5 exports
I would respectfully point out that Fullers ESB is not a fine British beer, it's certainly "extra special". Of course if you are comparing it to American Budweiser [*]....
[*] Not to be confused with the Czech beer.
If you use USD then you may find the bills too long and thin to conveniently fold to use the card case as a wallet, but it works well for GBP, EURO & NZD.
(Caveat, I don't use it for it's RFID stopping abilities but for its abject refusal to stretch when it needs clearing out, preventing wallet bulge!).
"Herb Schildt"
That sounds like an imperitive anagram involving a burp, doctoral title and feces [*]
Delicious aptronym or pure coincidence?
[*] This is an excersise for the reader. Fill in the missing blank "Belch Dr ____"
Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis?
I think this is a common misunderstanding. The whole buisiness with the "Cat" is a rather over-stretched metaphor. When you read "observation" think "interaction". In this sense anything else is an observer if it interacts with the "Cat" (probes its state). This gets more complex of course when one realises that "everything is connected to everything else" [*]
I realise the following is probably more detailed than necessary, however it's worth keeping in mind.
"Proof" in science is another common misconception. One cannot ever prove a scientific theory with an experiment. One can only falsify a scientific theory with experiment (assuming of course the experiment is valid). If one takes the view that the aim of the gaim is to model and predict nature a manifestation within nature that does not agree with the theory clearly indicates that the theory is incorrect. The reverse is not true of course, nature cannot be incorrect! ;-)
In this way experimental physics is far more powerful than theoretical physics. For example, it takes just one experiment to demonstrate that Newtonian mechanics is not the "truth" (e.g. measure how far neutrons can fly before they decay). Instead one must realise that Newtonian mechanics is an approximation. Within the appropriate approximations, speeds much less than that of light, inertial reference frame, flat space-time etc., Newtonian mechanics is still an excellent theory. It is also a perfectly useful theory, after all one wouldn't analyse a bridge structure or aircraft with quantum mechanics or relativistic kinematics!
For all practical purposes use the most straightforward approach you can!
The use of "proof" is sadly a luxury of mathematicians and alcohol distillers! ------------- [*] Lenin - Though I don't mean it in the same context!
"That's a nice pen, where did you get it",
"From Pen Island of course".
Yes... I know, it's immature isn't it?
I was going to ask for some references, then decided to go and look for myself. "Interesting."
Not to me, it just makes me hungary... Maybe it was his wife, Pavlova....
Now, that is a bad pun!
(Yes I'm fully aware that Pavlov was Russian not Hungarian)
Nice one! I always think of things like that too late. I'm going to squirrel that away at the back of my mind, "just in case"...
Pardon? I can only assume you have not discovered "The Sun". It's a very British rag which almost always decides the result of a general election....