No company does anything for free. If they did, they would quickly be out of business. Non-profits definitely don't do work for free. They may strive not to turn a profit every year, but they have revenue in order to continue to run. And if they run on donations, they are doing work they think will net them the most donations. And really what's the big deal? Who cares what the motives are of a company if they are doing things that most would consider charity or good?
Apple is giving away Safari to try and raise more brand awareness on MS platforms (and probably for other reasons I don't know about). It ends up being a win-win for both sides.
IBM paying devs to work on FOSS, again a win-win-win for IBM-devs-community.
Not to flame, but have you worked in any business? The larger a business is the less likely they are to have anything home built. They are also less likely to start messing with their hardware in any significant fashion. Over the years working in big business I've seen RAM added to servers and HDs replaced when they failed in arrays. The last thing any of the techs want to deal with are randomly built DIY machines.
Exactly. At some point a scientist sits down and says I either think this is true or not, let me see if I can figure it out. All of science starts out with a belief (or the scientific term a hypothesis) and goes from there.
Now, ignoring evidence and other bad science is a different topic.
I agree with what you are saying. Believing something in the face of facts to the contrary is definitely wrong. There are many things that we haven't been able to prove or disprove yet so ones beliefs in those areas are simply based on a hypothesis or faith (and not necessarily in the religious sense).
A good example is that I believe there is life on other planets. We currently lack the science to either prove or disprove my belief at the moment. Does that mean it is incorrect for me to believe it though?
Keep in mind the original comment I was responding to.
Belief in something with no scientific proof is the foundation of just about every failed adventure in human-kind.
Not arguing for religion here, but where do you think scientific proof comes from? Many times scientists take a belief they have and then set out to 'prove' it. Now they always don't find that what they believe is supported and should adjust accordingly, but don't think believing something w/o proof is wrong in any way. Lets not even get into what constitutes 'proof'.
Low-level languages like C are powerful because they can interact (almost) directly with the hardware.
I'm going to guess you're defining 'powerful' as fast? C is barely an abstraction above the underlying hardware. The power of C comes from being able to express what you want the hardware to do with very few leaks to the abstraction.
Then there are other languages that are built on top of those languages that are designed to hide complexity and allow programmers to code more efficiently at the cost of non-optimized code.
I think you're making an incorrect assumption that more abstract languages aren't optimized.
I didn't RTFA, but if the compilers start taking liberties and "hiding the complexity" of writing multi-threaded code, then unless they are absolutely perfect how would someone truly take advantage of hardware even while programming in C?
I'm not so sure compilers are trying to hide the complexity of multi-threaded code. Instead they are trying to take their normal peep-hole style optimization techniques and expand them to use multiple cores. In this manner a program/programmer can receive advantages of being on a multi-core machine w/o explicitly coding towards it. This is a good thing, b/c of how messed up multi-threaded programming is in most languages based on the von-neuman architecture.
I'm sorry that I don't have the time to refine my thoughts, but basically if low-level languages (lll's) start becoming more like mid/high-level languages then how do go back to being able to optimize code like you did back when lll's were real lll's?
Of course there are exceptions (things like individual algos, embedded, etc...), but with the size and complexity of most systems today optimizations are now coming from places like system design (which is often easier in a higher level language) rather than being able to hand code one function in assembly. This is not to say those low level optimizations will ever go away, just that they'll be used/needed less and less (and when they are used, they'll be packaged in a complier or some library).
What surprises me is that ITMS hasn't decided to and advertise that they can keep a list of all of the songs you ever buy. That way your 'backup' is taken care of, to an off site location to boot. I know they haven't done this for probably 2 reasons: 1) If your HD fails they would benefit from you rebuying and 2) If ITMS ever goes out of business they don't want any liabilities having to do with what you have purchased.
To me though, that would be the 'killer' feature that would push ITMS way over and beyond a physical CD.
The other cool thing about 'The Black Card' is that you can't even ask for one. They come to you and offer it if you're worthy. Forbes could probably build their list of the most wealthy just by looking at who carries those 2 cards.
Not nearly. A text usually only 'beeps' once when received and doesn't ring over and over. A text also forces the sender to condense down the information to a short message. I can't tell you how many 1-2-3 minute voice mails I get where if the person would've sent a short text I could've known what was needed immediately. Also, glancing to read a couple lines of text while doing something else is much easier/quicker/less intrusive than either answering a phone call or listening to a voice mail.
Since when is personal responsibility the responsibility of the government? Why is it my problem that other people don't save money? Why do I have to pay taxes which may be used to bail out people who made stupid decisions getting ARMs or negam loans? This is the exact situation that responsible people are tired of dealing with. If someone wants to risk taking an exotic loan with the hopes of making a big profit on a house I'm fine with that. Just don't come to me to bail you out when your gamble doesn't work.
I don't have a house yet because when I thought prices were reasonable I hadn't saved enough for a decent down payment. And now that prices are out of control I'm waiting for the credit bubble to collapse before picking something up on the relative cheap. The collapse is happening even with some states trying to put programs in to stop it. The problem is that housing is sticky on the way down since it's not a liquid asset.
As far as healthcare goes, how did it get so expensive? Do individuals have that sort of money to purchase the drugs and services at that high of cost? I would argue no, and that gov. programs are where the money came from to drive up the costs of healthcare to begin with. Some other drivers would be things like schooling costs, lawsuits (malpractice and class action), insurance, and good old supply and demand (good doctors can have waiting list for months for an appointment).
Exactly! And that's also why I prefer to send and receive texts now instead of actually calling someone. A text is much less intrusive to someone than a call.
You must never have subscribed to cable television or had a telephone.
There are a lot of phone options now. VOIP, landline, cell...no one is forcing you to pay for or use any of them though. Cable TV is not some right. A lot of friends have dropped cable in favor of watching OTA or just not watching TV at all. No one has come to their door demanding they turn cable back on.
Yes, taxes are not optional, but they are the dues we pay for civilization. You anti-government types would be the first ones to cry if your garbage wasn't picked up or the road on which you drive to work wasn't repaired, or if your social security check was a week late.
I'm not anti-government, but I want the government as small as possible. Roads and city services are a great place for government involvement at the smallest local level as possible. I want balance sheets and ROI calculations just like a corporation.
Many Americans forget just how important the "socialist" programs of FDR were to creating the terrific country in which we live, and they are just now realizing just how much damage a dim bully like George Bush has done.
You should read 'FDR's Folly' sometime. It might change your mind on how helpful all his programs really were. We now have whole generations of Americans (and now even illegals lol) living off the public dole. In some states a woman can pop out a couple of kids and make the equivalent of 50k/year in subsistence. I know that's not a lot with 2 kids, but that still a decent amount of cash for just sitting around and having babies.
Talk to me again when you're looking to file bankruptcy because you lost your job and you've got 60k in credit card balances and you've defaulted on your school loans
And how exactly does someone get 60k in debt? Even if I lost my job today I have 6 months salary saved up and could pinch pennies to go even longer. This doesn't count a part time job I could easily pick up to help cover costs. I also worked the entire time through college so my school loan is small and manageable. Oh wait, personal responsibility isn't required anymore so let me go out and spend all my savings and start letting it rain with Cristal...
You'll notice I have avoided anything having to do with healthcare. That's one area where I haven't figured out where the real problem is yet. It couldn't cost so much if people weren't getting the money from somewhere to pay, so I look at it as a chicken and the egg type of problem. There are so many factors that go into what a drug or procedure cost that I just haven't thought through them all yet.
I think there's plenty of evidence to support that the only thing private companies do "better" than government is enrich themselves.
I don't know about you, but I'm not forced to buy any goods or services from any particular private company, yet I'm forced to give a large portion of my earnings to the gov. for many so called services. The gov. is infinitely better at enriching themselves than any private company for the simple fact that they can forceably take anything they want from you and often do.
Maybe we should look at why the ISPs fail? Are there enough customers to support the cost of the infrastructure?
So you say the internet is quickly becoming a essential service, or do you mean broadband and wifi? Dialup now is free or nearly so, so if all someone needs is the internet then already get it.
If the pharmaceutical companies shut their doors tomorrow then we the workers who work in them (like me) should take them over and run them for the benefit of the people.
Um...right. And the resources to run them would come from where exactly?
You hit them all pretty well. The biggest feature for me is that texting is disconnected. You don't have to bother the other person right then and they don't have to bother you. They can read and respond whenever they want to. Also makes it very easy to carry on multiple conversations at the same time.
Personally, I rarely talk on the phone anymore and just use texting to set up where/when I'll meet people.
Now if we're talking about an actual Hummer or Hum-V then I'm okay with that. People buy those to do extreme off roading and even if they don't at least they bought a car that was good at what it's supposed to be good at. When most people say Hummer nowadays though they are talking about an H2, which when it comes to SUVs is a 50k POS.
And Vettes (although the newest ones are finally getting better) and Vipers are shit IMHO. Give me nearly any Euro sports car over either of them. If price is an issue, then take a look at the Infiniti G35s (may just be G now).
I think people hate the H2s because people only buy them are jerks who want to feel big or cool. I have no problem with people buying gas guzzling cars or expensive cars, but at least do some research first. If you need an SUV, the H2 is probably the worst one to get in terms of towing, ride, comforts, etc... I remember reading a review in one of the car mags, where they destroyed the H2 as an SUV. If you're wanting a luxury SUV in a similar price range the Escalade is a much better car. If you don't mind price, then a Range Rover is the way to go. If you simply need to pull stuff, then either a truck or one of the other cheaper SUVs can get it done.
Nope, I have this nifty head unit which plugs into the docking port on my ipod. The head unit has a multi-line display which I can control the ipod from (it also charges the ipod, so the ipod really just ends up being a portable HD for my stereo system). So while you have a 6-disc changer, I have currently have a 356-disc changer.
Got my undergrad there years ago. Getting my MSCS there now. I know that I should have tried to go to a different school for my MS, but it's pretty much impossible for me to leave CHS:)
Well the break here doesn't compare very favorably to anywhere in CA, but come hurricane season we can get some pretty nice swells in the SE, plus our water is warm:) Check out some pics.
Even though I love the serene feeling of surfing, I mostly wake board now since I can get a consistent wave to work with and I've become addicted to flying through the air:)
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No company does anything for free. If they did, they would quickly be out of business. Non-profits definitely don't do work for free. They may strive not to turn a profit every year, but they have revenue in order to continue to run. And if they run on donations, they are doing work they think will net them the most donations. And really what's the big deal? Who cares what the motives are of a company if they are doing things that most would consider charity or good?
Apple is giving away Safari to try and raise more brand awareness on MS platforms (and probably for other reasons I don't know about). It ends up being a win-win for both sides.
IBM paying devs to work on FOSS, again a win-win-win for IBM-devs-community.
Not to flame, but have you worked in any business? The larger a business is the less likely they are to have anything home built. They are also less likely to start messing with their hardware in any significant fashion. Over the years working in big business I've seen RAM added to servers and HDs replaced when they failed in arrays. The last thing any of the techs want to deal with are randomly built DIY machines.
Wouldn't then believing it not to be true also be incorrect?
Exactly. At some point a scientist sits down and says I either think this is true or not, let me see if I can figure it out. All of science starts out with a belief (or the scientific term a hypothesis) and goes from there.
Now, ignoring evidence and other bad science is a different topic.
I agree with what you are saying. Believing something in the face of facts to the contrary is definitely wrong. There are many things that we haven't been able to prove or disprove yet so ones beliefs in those areas are simply based on a hypothesis or faith (and not necessarily in the religious sense).
A good example is that I believe there is life on other planets. We currently lack the science to either prove or disprove my belief at the moment. Does that mean it is incorrect for me to believe it though?
Keep in mind the original comment I was responding to.
Belief in something with no scientific proof is the foundation of just about every failed adventure in human-kind.
Not arguing for religion here, but where do you think scientific proof comes from? Many times scientists take a belief they have and then set out to 'prove' it. Now they always don't find that what they believe is supported and should adjust accordingly, but don't think believing something w/o proof is wrong in any way. Lets not even get into what constitutes 'proof'.
And, according to Crucial, the best performance comes from installing them in pairs.
Low-level languages like C are powerful because they can interact (almost) directly with the hardware.
I'm going to guess you're defining 'powerful' as fast? C is barely an abstraction above the underlying hardware. The power of C comes from being able to express what you want the hardware to do with very few leaks to the abstraction.
Then there are other languages that are built on top of those languages that are designed to hide complexity and allow programmers to code more efficiently at the cost of non-optimized code.
I think you're making an incorrect assumption that more abstract languages aren't optimized.
I didn't RTFA, but if the compilers start taking liberties and "hiding the complexity" of writing multi-threaded code, then unless they are absolutely perfect how would someone truly take advantage of hardware even while programming in C?
I'm not so sure compilers are trying to hide the complexity of multi-threaded code. Instead they are trying to take their normal peep-hole style optimization techniques and expand them to use multiple cores. In this manner a program/programmer can receive advantages of being on a multi-core machine w/o explicitly coding towards it. This is a good thing, b/c of how messed up multi-threaded programming is in most languages based on the von-neuman architecture.
I'm sorry that I don't have the time to refine my thoughts, but basically if low-level languages (lll's) start becoming more like mid/high-level languages then how do go back to being able to optimize code like you did back when lll's were real lll's?
Of course there are exceptions (things like individual algos, embedded, etc...), but with the size and complexity of most systems today optimizations are now coming from places like system design (which is often easier in a higher level language) rather than being able to hand code one function in assembly. This is not to say those low level optimizations will ever go away, just that they'll be used/needed less and less (and when they are used, they'll be packaged in a complier or some library).
What surprises me is that ITMS hasn't decided to and advertise that they can keep a list of all of the songs you ever buy. That way your 'backup' is taken care of, to an off site location to boot. I know they haven't done this for probably 2 reasons: 1) If your HD fails they would benefit from you rebuying and 2) If ITMS ever goes out of business they don't want any liabilities having to do with what you have purchased.
To me though, that would be the 'killer' feature that would push ITMS way over and beyond a physical CD.
The other cool thing about 'The Black Card' is that you can't even ask for one. They come to you and offer it if you're worthy. Forbes could probably build their list of the most wealthy just by looking at who carries those 2 cards.
Not nearly. A text usually only 'beeps' once when received and doesn't ring over and over. A text also forces the sender to condense down the information to a short message. I can't tell you how many 1-2-3 minute voice mails I get where if the person would've sent a short text I could've known what was needed immediately. Also, glancing to read a couple lines of text while doing something else is much easier/quicker/less intrusive than either answering a phone call or listening to a voice mail.
Since when is personal responsibility the responsibility of the government? Why is it my problem that other people don't save money? Why do I have to pay taxes which may be used to bail out people who made stupid decisions getting ARMs or negam loans? This is the exact situation that responsible people are tired of dealing with. If someone wants to risk taking an exotic loan with the hopes of making a big profit on a house I'm fine with that. Just don't come to me to bail you out when your gamble doesn't work.
I don't have a house yet because when I thought prices were reasonable I hadn't saved enough for a decent down payment. And now that prices are out of control I'm waiting for the credit bubble to collapse before picking something up on the relative cheap. The collapse is happening even with some states trying to put programs in to stop it. The problem is that housing is sticky on the way down since it's not a liquid asset.
As far as healthcare goes, how did it get so expensive? Do individuals have that sort of money to purchase the drugs and services at that high of cost? I would argue no, and that gov. programs are where the money came from to drive up the costs of healthcare to begin with. Some other drivers would be things like schooling costs, lawsuits (malpractice and class action), insurance, and good old supply and demand (good doctors can have waiting list for months for an appointment).
Exactly! And that's also why I prefer to send and receive texts now instead of actually calling someone. A text is much less intrusive to someone than a call.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
There are a lot of phone options now. VOIP, landline, cell...no one is forcing you to pay for or use any of them though. Cable TV is not some right. A lot of friends have dropped cable in favor of watching OTA or just not watching TV at all. No one has come to their door demanding they turn cable back on.
I'm not anti-government, but I want the government as small as possible. Roads and city services are a great place for government involvement at the smallest local level as possible. I want balance sheets and ROI calculations just like a corporation.
You should read 'FDR's Folly' sometime. It might change your mind on how helpful all his programs really were. We now have whole generations of Americans (and now even illegals lol) living off the public dole. In some states a woman can pop out a couple of kids and make the equivalent of 50k/year in subsistence. I know that's not a lot with 2 kids, but that still a decent amount of cash for just sitting around and having babies.
And how exactly does someone get 60k in debt? Even if I lost my job today I have 6 months salary saved up and could pinch pennies to go even longer. This doesn't count a part time job I could easily pick up to help cover costs. I also worked the entire time through college so my school loan is small and manageable. Oh wait, personal responsibility isn't required anymore so let me go out and spend all my savings and start letting it rain with Cristal...
You'll notice I have avoided anything having to do with healthcare. That's one area where I haven't figured out where the real problem is yet. It couldn't cost so much if people weren't getting the money from somewhere to pay, so I look at it as a chicken and the egg type of problem. There are so many factors that go into what a drug or procedure cost that I just haven't thought through them all yet.
I don't know about you, but I'm not forced to buy any goods or services from any particular private company, yet I'm forced to give a large portion of my earnings to the gov. for many so called services. The gov. is infinitely better at enriching themselves than any private company for the simple fact that they can forceably take anything they want from you and often do.
Maybe we should look at why the ISPs fail? Are there enough customers to support the cost of the infrastructure?
So you say the internet is quickly becoming a essential service, or do you mean broadband and wifi? Dialup now is free or nearly so, so if all someone needs is the internet then already get it.
One of the best descriptions I've read. Well said.
If the pharmaceutical companies shut their doors tomorrow then we the workers who work in them (like me) should take them over and run them for the benefit of the people.
Um...right. And the resources to run them would come from where exactly?
You hit them all pretty well. The biggest feature for me is that texting is disconnected. You don't have to bother the other person right then and they don't have to bother you. They can read and respond whenever they want to. Also makes it very easy to carry on multiple conversations at the same time.
Personally, I rarely talk on the phone anymore and just use texting to set up where/when I'll meet people.
Now if we're talking about an actual Hummer or Hum-V then I'm okay with that. People buy those to do extreme off roading and even if they don't at least they bought a car that was good at what it's supposed to be good at. When most people say Hummer nowadays though they are talking about an H2, which when it comes to SUVs is a 50k POS.
And Vettes (although the newest ones are finally getting better) and Vipers are shit IMHO. Give me nearly any Euro sports car over either of them. If price is an issue, then take a look at the Infiniti G35s (may just be G now).
I think people hate the H2s because people only buy them are jerks who want to feel big or cool. I have no problem with people buying gas guzzling cars or expensive cars, but at least do some research first. If you need an SUV, the H2 is probably the worst one to get in terms of towing, ride, comforts, etc... I remember reading a review in one of the car mags, where they destroyed the H2 as an SUV. If you're wanting a luxury SUV in a similar price range the Escalade is a much better car. If you don't mind price, then a Range Rover is the way to go. If you simply need to pull stuff, then either a truck or one of the other cheaper SUVs can get it done.
Nope, I have this nifty head unit which plugs into the docking port on my ipod. The head unit has a multi-line display which I can control the ipod from (it also charges the ipod, so the ipod really just ends up being a portable HD for my stereo system). So while you have a 6-disc changer, I have currently have a 356-disc changer.
Got my undergrad there years ago. Getting my MSCS there now. I know that I should have tried to go to a different school for my MS, but it's pretty much impossible for me to leave CHS :)
Well the break here doesn't compare very favorably to anywhere in CA, but come hurricane season we can get some pretty nice swells in the SE, plus our water is warm :) Check out some pics.
:)
Even though I love the serene feeling of surfing, I mostly wake board now since I can get a consistent wave to work with and I've become addicted to flying through the air