Greenspan really is scarily inept... It amazes me that he was taken as seriously as he was for so long. The most amazing thing I found in his autobiographical book was that he believed in the 90s that computer systems were going to efficiency gains that accounted for the share price rises during the.com bubble.
While I've never used the Newton "Soup" data storage, that's certainly a similar sort of thing, from a conceptual perspective - at least. The closest thing I found to it was with the Palm Pilot 'database' format.
The distinction with what interests me is that I want this sort of a facility on server-class hardware, backed by terabytes of disk - with multiple multi-core processors accessing it (for both read and write) in real-time. I don't want to use a DBMS; I don't want to use an ISAM layer on top of my filesystem... I want to have low-level support for persistent associative arrays from binary strings to binary strings... with minimal restrictions.
It seems an obvious facility to want... but (and I've tried) it is harder to implement than it, at first, sounds. A lot of the challenges are identical to filesystems, however.
While I do see the point in file-system research and advancement, to me the usefulness of a 'better' hierarchical file system is limited by the traditional API used to access the data stored thereon.
I'd like to efficiently store data direct to a block device in a different structure. I want to have support for (multi-user) transactions and to replace the concept of a 'file' with a mapping from one (arbitrarily long) sequence of (arbitrary) bytes to another... and to be able to read back pairs of byte-sequences by specifying domain ranges.
From a low-level implementation perspective, I can't imagine that this is wildly different to a hierarchical file system with efficient directories (relaxed to allow the zero byte as part of a filename) but I can't find any work that has been done on such a facility.
If such an alternative "filesystem" were to be implemented and have a reliability on a par with existing linux filesystems... it could revolutionise data processing.
If anyone is aware of such a project, I'd be very interested.
I was aware that there were early adopters... but, I'm afraid, I'm a cynic.
Given the revolutionary potential of so many applications, I find it difficult to establish why investments are so small. If the technology is ripe for production and can be demonstrated, I can't imagine it being difficult to get substantial funding and put this into mass production.
The entire field of capacitive (solid-state) batteries I found very interesting. What undermines the technology, from my perspective, is that there seems to have been so little progress in the last three years.
Are EEstor and related technologies going to be realised or are they vapourware?
Using monopoly money, this is exactly what I did last week (the day before cuil was announced) as an exercise.
I deem myself to have shorted Google using a "contract for difference" at 486 with a stop-loss at 535 - and also accepted a "put option" for Jan 09 for a strike price of 500 that cost me 59.
A healthy future is entirely plausible. A healthy future valued at $152bn - maybe not.
If google loose their ability to buy-up just about any small company they choose (which might happen) then, while I do not anticipate bankruptcy (unless the board bet the farm on something very risky) I don't see them having the same sector dominance in ten years' time.
Google have been a stunning success in every conceivable way. What I doubt, however, is that they can pull off an achievement on this scale again. It is this kind of repeated success that the share price dictates to be the anticipation of the investors.
I think Google will see some credible competition, for the first time in its history, over the next 5 years.
What mechanism will bring about this Google crash? Unlike the famous companies in the.com bubble, Google is actually making money. And lots of it. More than a billion dollars a quarter, to go along with their $12 billion in cash and zero debt.
Google won't crash like the.com hilarities of 2000, but to consider it invincible is a mistake too.
While they expect to drag in $4.8bn this year, they are valued at $152bn. This is equivalent to a gross return on investment of 3.1% - which is not, in my opinion, an encouraging yield. Their advertising revenues (in my opinion) are unlikely to grow significantly - and (as far as I can tell) they've scant other revenue stream developed. In an economic downturn, of course, I'd also expect to see advertising spend slashed... putting even further pressure on share price.
As I see it, the only justification for today's share price is an expectation of spectacular capital growth. I think that game is over. If google returned 10% yield, I think that would be credible... that would decimate their share price - and, in so doing, would foster a complete lack of confidence among investors who would see their speculative gains wiped out. Even $12bn in cash won't keep them up forever - especially considering the size of their wage bill if they are going to stop their to talent jumping ship.
Don't get me wrong, I think Google are awesome, but I do think they are over-valued.
The debts which are the corollary of this credit cannot ever be paid off
This is fallacious. I hope that all the debts are never paid off, because that would imply financial collapse and would would be a barrier to trade - an activity I think enriches society.
The debts can be paid off - in principle - it requires only that the people who owe money work (indirectly or directly) for the people who are owed.
Well, I think that holding gold is even more bonkers than you do, but I understand why some might find the idea attractive.
I really do think that the situation today is different... there are huge risks inherent in any investment... stocks may suffer the contagion of reckless bank debt; real-estate might well be over-valued - in a bubble fuelled by the same debt.
To make any sort of call, you need to decide if you believe in an inflationary or deflationary outcome. I'm firmly in the deflation camp - I expect that as bad deals come to light that they will constrain credit - hence causing fiat to appreciate. In the UK, we've noticed that M1 has effectively stopped expanding in 2008... and I believe a similar effect has been seen in the USA. The journey, of course, is fraught with potential pitfalls... but I don't intend to speculate in an industrially useless yellow metal... irrespective of others' views.
"Why, praytell, have so many otherwise * intelligent people been lured onto the gold bandwagon lately?"
* => "supposedly"
With this amendment to your question, I think I can answer... since I've spent many hours wondering that very question.
I think that the basis for this trend has been the debasement of currency... As an investment, gold worked for the French aristocrats after the Mississippi scheme got out of control; it worked for the British aristocrats when the South Sea Bubble was set to collapse; it would have been viable too when the Wieimar Republic suffered its currency collapse.
I think that most of those who have been buying gold have no understanding of why they are doing so... it is merely a pattern and response that has proved profitable historically.
You are most likely to doubt my claim of currency debasement... Today, IMHO, debasement mainly arises when bad loans are made and not declared. Where the rate of expansion of a fiat currency exceeds the rate of interest, it becomes very difficult to identify bad loans - since debtors can expand their debts rather than default. In just one debacle, the subprime scandal, credible commentators suggest that between $1tn and $1.4tn losses were sustained... and that, to date, only $400bn have been conceded.
If people conclude that bad debt is endemic, trust in the currency is damaged... and this applies not only to the USA, with its dollars, but to most of the 'civilised' world. Rational people holding these currencies might well look to diversify into any hard assets if they fear that financial stability might be challenged by banking fraud, for example.
An example of legislation that I consider to be potentially worrying, I could point you at the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that had separated commercial and investment banking activities (in order to avoid conflicts of interest) which had been in place since the Great Depression. As "financial innovation" emerged and exploded in recent years, in the form of financial derivitive trading, which lead banks to declare all-time record profits in 2006... It does not surprise me that some are nervous.
I've recently been looking at the new nw9440, which, I've noticed is substantially more expensive than the nw9420... and I've wondered why that should be. The specification is marginally higher - but that doesn't seem to be a valid justification for the price hike - to my mind at least...
Here a video of Labour MPs attacking the leader of the opposition. A significant own-goal, I suspect, as what they were parodying would likely have remained in obscurity otherwise.
1. Please, please, please can we get an updatable centralised (LDAP?) address book? 2. I wish I could configure Thunderbird to refresh all my Imap folders periodically? I've dozens and without selecting each in turn they sometimes don't refresh with new mails delivered to a folder. 3. I love the ease with which I can select between multiple sending email addresses - but I'd also like to be able to associate a particular email address with a particular destination address. This would make using the correct email address less error prone when posting to mailing lists... as well as avoiding confusing contacts who may only recognise me when I wear a specific "hat"
I'm unconvinced- I think webmail will soon be replacing client side readers for all but power users.
Bobbins. Even users who would join the luddites given half a chance, in my experience, prefer to use a proper mail client as soon as email becomes a part of everyday life.
I'm a fan of Thunderbird (in its new 1.5beta form) - though even with that I'm frustrated by the lack of support for updatable LDAP (or other shared) address books. That and 'grammar checking' are the two things I wish FOSS could catch up with. Outlook & exchange have had these essentials covered for years. FOSS needs a lightweight feature-complete email client - I'm still waiting.
I've a 15" 1200x1600 display which is pretty damned great for my purposes - and until recently there's been nothing better I could find. If I were to buy again now I'd get the Sony 17" 1200x1920 as this would give me an extra strip down the left or right hand side... though I'd far rather have a 17" regular ratio display.
I accept the argument that big displays aren't very portable - but to me that doesn't matter. I only want to use my laptop on a desk - in fact I'm not even bothered if it is able to run on batteries.
Is Rails useful to aggregate web services?
on
What is Ruby on Rails?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I am intrigued by Rails and have the book waiting for me to read at home. I am curious, however, is Rails only really useful to implement something which uses the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture - where the model is defined in the context of a SQL RDBMS... or would Rails also be useful, for example, to aggregate a number of, say, local web-services to implement a single combined web service or site?
Re:how many people actually _like_ windows?
on
Pepping Up Windows
·
· Score: 1
I feel as if I put-up with both Windows and POSIX systems. I try to use the best one for the job at hand. When it comes to user interfaces the big benefit with POSIX is X-Windows' capacity to run remote applications as if they were local - however that benefit is eroded by improvements in PC hardware and the existence of the Cygwin X server for Windows. When it comes to data entry, having extensively used several X-based environments as well as Windows, I have concluded that I can edit text documents more easily with the Windows approach for cut-and-paste.
In my experience it is the Mozilla innovations which encourage people to switch... the better the features the more compelling the motivation to switch.
Recently the released improvements to the Mozilla suite in the release products have slowed. I strongly suspect that version 1.5 will bring yet more people on-board. I'm using the Thunderbird 1.5 beta for my email right now and it is a fantastic improvement over the current release version.
[Minor whinge] I wish I could print an email without all the irrelevant headers... preview what will be printed and (optionally) change the format.
Slashdot Mirror
Greenspan really is scarily inept... It amazes me that he was taken as seriously as he was for so long. The most amazing thing I found in his autobiographical book was that he believed in the 90s that computer systems were going to efficiency gains that accounted for the share price rises during the .com bubble.
http://www.amazon.com/Age-Turbulence-Adventures-New-World/dp/1594201315
While I've never used the Newton "Soup" data storage, that's certainly a similar sort of thing, from a conceptual perspective - at least. The closest thing I found to it was with the Palm Pilot 'database' format.
The distinction with what interests me is that I want this sort of a facility on server-class hardware, backed by terabytes of disk - with multiple multi-core processors accessing it (for both read and write) in real-time. I don't want to use a DBMS; I don't want to use an ISAM layer on top of my filesystem... I want to have low-level support for persistent associative arrays from binary strings to binary strings... with minimal restrictions.
It seems an obvious facility to want... but (and I've tried) it is harder to implement than it, at first, sounds. A lot of the challenges are identical to filesystems, however.
Is Earth one of them?
While I do see the point in file-system research and advancement, to me the usefulness of a 'better' hierarchical file system is limited by the traditional API used to access the data stored thereon.
I'd like to efficiently store data direct to a block device in a different structure. I want to have support for (multi-user) transactions and to replace the concept of a 'file' with a mapping from one (arbitrarily long) sequence of (arbitrary) bytes to another... and to be able to read back pairs of byte-sequences by specifying domain ranges.
From a low-level implementation perspective, I can't imagine that this is wildly different to a hierarchical file system with efficient directories (relaxed to allow the zero byte as part of a filename) but I can't find any work that has been done on such a facility.
If such an alternative "filesystem" were to be implemented and have a reliability on a par with existing linux filesystems... it could revolutionise data processing.
If anyone is aware of such a project, I'd be very interested.
I was aware that there were early adopters... but, I'm afraid, I'm a cynic.
Given the revolutionary potential of so many applications, I find it difficult to establish why investments are so small. If the technology is ripe for production and can be demonstrated, I can't imagine it being difficult to get substantial funding and put this into mass production.
The entire field of capacitive (solid-state) batteries I found very interesting. What undermines the technology, from my perspective, is that there seems to have been so little progress in the last three years.
Are EEstor and related technologies going to be realised or are they vapourware?
I recommend selling short on Google now.
Using monopoly money, this is exactly what I did last week (the day before cuil was announced) as an exercise.
I deem myself to have shorted Google using a "contract for difference" at 486 with a stop-loss at 535 - and also accepted a "put option" for Jan 09 for a strike price of 500 that cost me 59.
I'm watching my progress with interest.
A healthy future is entirely plausible. A healthy future valued at $152bn - maybe not.
If google loose their ability to buy-up just about any small company they choose (which might happen) then, while I do not anticipate bankruptcy (unless the board bet the farm on something very risky) I don't see them having the same sector dominance in ten years' time.
Google have been a stunning success in every conceivable way. What I doubt, however, is that they can pull off an achievement on this scale again. It is this kind of repeated success that the share price dictates to be the anticipation of the investors.
I think Google will see some credible competition, for the first time in its history, over the next 5 years.
What mechanism will bring about this Google crash? Unlike the famous companies in the .com bubble, Google is actually making money. And lots of it. More than a billion dollars a quarter, to go along with their $12 billion in cash and zero debt.
Google won't crash like the .com hilarities of 2000, but to consider it invincible is a mistake too.
While they expect to drag in $4.8bn this year, they are valued at $152bn. This is equivalent to a gross return on investment of 3.1% - which is not, in my opinion, an encouraging yield. Their advertising revenues (in my opinion) are unlikely to grow significantly - and (as far as I can tell) they've scant other revenue stream developed. In an economic downturn, of course, I'd also expect to see advertising spend slashed... putting even further pressure on share price.
As I see it, the only justification for today's share price is an expectation of spectacular capital growth. I think that game is over. If google returned 10% yield, I think that would be credible... that would decimate their share price - and, in so doing, would foster a complete lack of confidence among investors who would see their speculative gains wiped out. Even $12bn in cash won't keep them up forever - especially considering the size of their wage bill if they are going to stop their to talent jumping ship.
Don't get me wrong, I think Google are awesome, but I do think they are over-valued.
The debts which are the corollary of this credit cannot ever be paid off
This is fallacious. I hope that all the debts are never paid off, because that would imply financial collapse and would would be a barrier to trade - an activity I think enriches society.
The debts can be paid off - in principle - it requires only that the people who owe money work (indirectly or directly) for the people who are owed.
Well, I think that holding gold is even more bonkers than you do, but I understand why some might find the idea attractive.
I really do think that the situation today is different... there are huge risks inherent in any investment... stocks may suffer the contagion of reckless bank debt; real-estate might well be over-valued - in a bubble fuelled by the same debt.
To make any sort of call, you need to decide if you believe in an inflationary or deflationary outcome. I'm firmly in the deflation camp - I expect that as bad deals come to light that they will constrain credit - hence causing fiat to appreciate. In the UK, we've noticed that M1 has effectively stopped expanding in 2008... and I believe a similar effect has been seen in the USA. The journey, of course, is fraught with potential pitfalls... but I don't intend to speculate in an industrially useless yellow metal... irrespective of others' views.
"Why, praytell, have so many otherwise * intelligent people been lured onto the gold bandwagon lately?"
* => "supposedly"
With this amendment to your question, I think I can answer... since I've spent many hours wondering that very question.
I think that the basis for this trend has been the debasement of currency... As an investment, gold worked for the French aristocrats after the Mississippi scheme got out of control; it worked for the British aristocrats when the South Sea Bubble was set to collapse; it would have been viable too when the Wieimar Republic suffered its currency collapse.
I think that most of those who have been buying gold have no understanding of why they are doing so... it is merely a pattern and response that has proved profitable historically.
You are most likely to doubt my claim of currency debasement... Today, IMHO, debasement mainly arises when bad loans are made and not declared. Where the rate of expansion of a fiat currency exceeds the rate of interest, it becomes very difficult to identify bad loans - since debtors can expand their debts rather than default. In just one debacle, the subprime scandal, credible commentators suggest that between $1tn and $1.4tn losses were sustained... and that, to date, only $400bn have been conceded.
If people conclude that bad debt is endemic, trust in the currency is damaged... and this applies not only to the USA, with its dollars, but to most of the 'civilised' world. Rational people holding these currencies might well look to diversify into any hard assets if they fear that financial stability might be challenged by banking fraud, for example.
An example of legislation that I consider to be potentially worrying, I could point you at the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that had separated commercial and investment banking activities (in order to avoid conflicts of interest) which had been in place since the Great Depression. As "financial innovation" emerged and exploded in recent years, in the form of financial derivitive trading, which lead banks to declare all-time record profits in 2006... It does not surprise me that some are nervous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act
http://www.freecycle.org/
If I knew in advance exactly what I would be doing when I started work each morning, I'd automate it.
It is a nifty trick question, IMHO.
I was really hoping to see some objective insights into HTC's PDA phones here... I've been toying with the idea of getting one.
I especially like the Atermis [ http://www.europe.htc.com/products/htcp3300.html ] and the Trinity [ http://www.europe.htc.com/products/htcp3600.html ] - though I'd love to read a comparison with other connected PDA/Phones on the market.
I've recently been looking at the new nw9440, which, I've noticed is substantially more expensive than the nw9420... and I've wondered why that should be. The specification is marginally higher - but that doesn't seem to be a valid justification for the price hike - to my mind at least...
Does the nw9440 resolve these problems?
Here a video of Labour MPs attacking the leader of the opposition. A significant own-goal, I suspect, as what they were parodying would likely have remained in obscurity otherwise.
m
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6048202.st
For point 2, just right click on the folder you want to be checked, select "properties" and select "Check this folder for new messages".
Good call! Thanks... I'd never found that - it isn't an option on Inbox, so I'd not looked elsewhere.
1. Please, please, please can we get an updatable centralised (LDAP?) address book?
2. I wish I could configure Thunderbird to refresh all my Imap folders periodically? I've dozens and without selecting each in turn they sometimes don't refresh with new mails delivered to a folder.
3. I love the ease with which I can select between multiple sending email addresses - but I'd also like to be able to associate a particular email address with a particular destination address. This would make using the correct email address less error prone when posting to mailing lists... as well as avoiding confusing contacts who may only recognise me when I wear a specific "hat"
I'm unconvinced- I think webmail will soon be replacing client side readers for all but power users.
Bobbins. Even users who would join the luddites given half a chance, in my experience, prefer to use a proper mail client as soon as email becomes a part of everyday life.
I'm a fan of Thunderbird (in its new 1.5beta form) - though even with that I'm frustrated by the lack of support for updatable LDAP (or other shared) address books. That and 'grammar checking' are the two things I wish FOSS could catch up with. Outlook & exchange have had these essentials covered for years. FOSS needs a lightweight feature-complete email client - I'm still waiting.
Do you have your laptop on edge or what?
I'd like to... that would make widescreen LCDs genuinely useful to me.
Anyway - what's wrong with stating the y-dimension first - it's good to be unconventional.
I've a 15" 1200x1600 display which is pretty damned great for my purposes - and until recently there's been nothing better I could find. If I were to buy again now I'd get the Sony 17" 1200x1920 as this would give me an extra strip down the left or right hand side... though I'd far rather have a 17" regular ratio display.
I accept the argument that big displays aren't very portable - but to me that doesn't matter. I only want to use my laptop on a desk - in fact I'm not even bothered if it is able to run on batteries.
I am intrigued by Rails and have the book waiting for me to read at home. I am curious, however, is Rails only really useful to implement something which uses the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture - where the model is defined in the context of a SQL RDBMS... or would Rails also be useful, for example, to aggregate a number of, say, local web-services to implement a single combined web service or site?
I feel as if I put-up with both Windows and POSIX systems. I try to use the best one for the job at hand. When it comes to user interfaces the big benefit with POSIX is X-Windows' capacity to run remote applications as if they were local - however that benefit is eroded by improvements in PC hardware and the existence of the Cygwin X server for Windows. When it comes to data entry, having extensively used several X-based environments as well as Windows, I have concluded that I can edit text documents more easily with the Windows approach for cut-and-paste.
In my experience it is the Mozilla innovations which encourage people to switch... the better the features the more compelling the motivation to switch.
Recently the released improvements to the Mozilla suite in the release products have slowed. I strongly suspect that version 1.5 will bring yet more people on-board. I'm using the Thunderbird 1.5 beta for my email right now and it is a fantastic improvement over the current release version.
[Minor whinge] I wish I could print an email without all the irrelevant headers... preview what will be printed and (optionally) change the format.