...But Office v.X for the Mac is actually quite nice. I've yet to experience document incompatability problems with MS Office for Windows. For simple documents like research papers and personal writing it does the job reasonably well. Now I haven't written a large thesis with piles of footnotes, or a large book with a huge integrated outline... so it could blow for serious work and I wouldn't know. But the fact is that I need to submit my work in MS word format and it does the job.
Apple may come out with a quality office suite. But if MS Word/Windows users run into even minor incompatability problems with its output, it will fail. I assume the real reason Apple is doing this is because MS may stop supporting MS Office for the Mac. Which would be a real shame. I'm not saying the government should force them to continue supporting the product, but I strongly doubt it's an unprofitable product line. I would certainly buy the next release. Shouldn't shareholders have some say in this? --M
And I still listen to the Dead Kennedy's and Minor Threat. *sigh*. Guess I'm just hopelessly out of date. But postmodernism is most definitely stinking up the cemetary these days... --M
You're right, it's too expensive. I'm a Zipcar member here in Boston and I'm about to let my membership lapse because the hourly cost is too high. The only big advantage they offer are cars parked throughout the city, ready for locals to reserve and drive away. It's nice to pick the car up a short walk away. However, the excessive hourly cost, the hassles of dealing with assholes who steal the reserved parking spots, and members who return the car late, messy, or low on gas just don't warrant paying so much for a rental car within walking distance. It's too much trouble.
I think the reserved parking spots are pretty expensive, so that may be one reason why Zipcar must charge so much. And most car rental agencies are much larger, so they get volume discounts when buying cars. I don't think they're skimming a huge profit, I'm guessing their cost structure makes for a marginal business model. --M
UNIX expects all I/O and interprocess communication to occur as serial streams between devices and processes. This is highly limiting when dealing with responding to large numbers of real time events in an asynchronous and parallel universe. For large scale data acquisition or robotics I/O it's a serious problem. Real-time kernel hacks notwithstanding, it's the user libs which need severe restructuring to overcome this flaw. In which case you're not running 'NIX, but some very specialized application with kernel hooks for event handling.
A completely new OS design with more than a simple multi-cpu thread model and real time hooks are what's needed. How that would look internally is anybody's guess. It sure as hell won't be Windows though. Plan 9 had some really neat ideas. So does SmallTalk and the whole 1980's LISP systems movement. If I had to guess, a new real-time data acquisition/response programming platform would integrate some kind of functional programming compiler/interface with a real-time kernel. NOTE that I AM talking out my ass here...
This is basically accurate for a projection hologram. Only quibble is that I would add that during projection one must use the same wavelength laser as was used to shoot the original hologram. Best if it's the same laser, especially if we're talking HeNe here as the number of coil windings can shift output wavelength slightly from one laser to the next. Actually, never having shot a hologram with a diode laser, I have no idea if that's still a concern... --M
Has sold holography kits for years. Currently they have a book Showbox Holography which shows how to set up a small lab to shoot holograms with a pen diode laser. They used to have a neat kit with a HeNe laser back in the day, but it wern't no $100 bucks. *cough* I haven't looked at an Edmund Scientific catalog for over a decade, but they seem to have shifted from the home hobby lab market to strictly the teaching market... shame. --M
...Rocks! But it's too intense for me to want to live there 24/7. The crazy cost of living and tiny apartments I can accept, the amazing diversity of arts, entertainment and restaurants I could gush over till the sun goes nova, but the constant noise and adrenalin rush would leave me a grey-haired empty shell of a man within only a few years. I'll take nice slow Boston, thanks. *Phew!*:) --M
No, but perhaps you were not around in the good ol' BBS Days: When your dialup connection dropped, you'd get the 'NO CARRIER' message in your terminal.
Only if you used a modem which supported the Hayes AT command set. Many didn't. From manual acoustic coupler modems through to DEC, AT&T, and other proprietary direct connection modems, AT didn't wind up becoming a standard until the late '80s - early '90s; long after 2400bps modems had past their prime. As an aside I remember paying $350 for a US Robotic 2400bps modem in 1985 through a special BBS deal for SYSOPs US Robots offered, the modem at the time went for about $500 retail. Was among the first to offer 2400bps BBS in Massachusetts. --M
Should I remind people that the water they drink is pumped from rivers, lakes, and wells where animals (submarine and above ground) piss in it all the time?
And let's not forget that certain waste byproduct is actually desirable to drink! I'd like to find a lake full of this stuff. Hmmmmmm..... --M
Living until the heat death of the universe isn't such a bad thing (and even then there may be fantastic ways to actually slip to other realities).
I suppose there are no physical laws which prevent a possible future whereby humanity shifts conscious awareness from one physical substrate to the next for a near infinite time. But I highly doubt that outcome.
I count myself lucky to live in a time where humanity may cure such major diseases and causes of death as: cancers; heart disease; viral, bacterial and prion infections; even "just" diabetes. I'm amazed by these advances. We all stand a good shot at living past one hundred years due to the advances of medical science. But it's highly speculative to assume we can extend human life much longer than that, never mind a full order of magnitude or two. At least not without some major genetic tweaking. Not that we have any idea how to do that or what the biological consequences would be.
As for the Drexler dream of conscious upload and transformation out of our biological bodies.... yeah, well, you keep dreaming. I suspect we'll discover that the physical processes behind consciousness are so complex that predictions today for the potential of such technology are a waste of time. So maybe, but probably not. JMO. --M
It's obvious that what he really wants is life extension. And he may get some. Understanding the biology of aging has certainly improved over the last fifteen years as we completed the Genome project. But even if we extended life out to such ridiculous time spans as the thousands of years, each of us must face the inevitable truth that one day we will die. It appears as though while intellectually he may be willing to admit it as axiomatic, emotionally he can't face up to this fact. Can't say that I blame him either. Death bothers the fuck out of me too. --M
Yeah, eerie isn't it? This is CIA bag of tricks crap being used on the US public. I don't mind the government using tough tactics to go after terrorists and violent criminals, but manipulating elections is another thing entirely. That's some freaky shit... --M
You know, I'm a self proclaimed liberal. I'm in my mid-thirties and have been drifting rightward as a result of reading the Economist regularly and operating a small business as a landlord. So you could say I'm sensitive to the needs of small business and would fit somewhere between a fiscal moderate and a social liberal these days. This does not rule out voting for certain GOP candidates though. I'd vote McCain or Specter, for example. The problem with the Republican party right now is that they've dropped their moderate fiscal responsibility base in support of Christian fundamentalists, creating a huge schism within the GOP. The new fundamentalist leadership is even purging old-timers, calling them RINOs (Republican in Name Only) and booting them when possible (this nearly happened to Arlen Specter during his latest primary).
The problem here is that the Christain conservatives are motivated primarily by one issue: abortion. What happens if Bush is reelected and the Christians get what they want, outlawing abortion? Further, what if they win an anti-gay marriage constitutional ammendment? Or prayer in schools? OK... so they win these few hot button issues, then what? IMO, that faction of the party will disolve, having met their goals, and with the moderate base gone the GOP will likely peter out just like the Dems did in the 70's after winning their pet liberal agenda in the 50s and 60s.
Don't miss this Atlantic Monthly article by Joshua Green on Karl Rove and his history of campaign dirty tricks. The story to which you refer is presented there in detail:
A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove's client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up--absent any trace of who was behind them--viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street... I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees." The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order "to create a backlash against the Democrat," as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. "They just beat you down to your knees," Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove's attacks. See won the race.
Or a whisper campaign against Alabama state supreme court justice Mark Kennedy, who was unjustly smeared as a peadophile:
Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children. "We were trying to counter the positives from that ad," a former Rove staffer told me, explaining that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile. "It was our standard practice to use the University of Alabama Law School to disseminate whisper-campaign information," the staffer went on. "That was a major device we used for the transmission of this stuff. The students at the law school are from all over the state, and that's one of the ways that Karl got the information out--he knew the law students would take it back to their home towns and it would get out." This would create the impression that the lie was in fact common knowledge across the state. "What Rove does," says Joe Perkins, "is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship. Mark is not your typical Alabama macho, beer-drinkin', tobacco-chewin', pickup-drivin' kind of guy. He is a small, well-groomed, well-educated family man, and what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."
There's plenty more stories to read. all of which would make any honest person want to puke. Republicans only damage their own credibility by supporting this crap on the national stage. At some point these tactics will backfire and the GOP will wind up badly damaged as a result. JMO. --M
The Columbia School of Journalism has been running a great media crit blog called Campaign Desk which spends much time decrying print and TV journalists who only engage in "he said / he said" reporting. It's not bias to report unpleasant facts. That's supposed to be a reporter's fucking job. But journalists have been cowed in this nation due to claims of bias and ownership consolidation, so they've fallen back to reporting the barest minimum of facts in order to reduce the risk of claims of bias by readers and viewers. That the public from both sides of the political spectrum not only accepts, but demands this from their journalists only furthers the feedback loop. Stewart is right, this isn't journalism and it is hurting the American public. Sometimes people have to face unpleasant facts, and it's the journalist's job to report those facts. Take that away and you have factless reporting - which is pretty much what we see today.
When claims of bias drown out factual reporting, the very notion of an "incontrovertible fact" disappears along with it. Do we really wish to live in a society where "facts" have been replaced by "opinion"?
Bush is known world wide and Kerry not near as much. Which is the bigger target? A Senator or the President? THAT'S why everyone needs to be scrutinized who come with in sight of the guy not because he wants to be secretive.
Your primary argument is that Bush must stifle dissent when he speaks in public (really private events, but I digress), in order to protect him against potential violence. Further, Candidate Kerry doesn't need this level of "protection" because he isn't the president and is thus not a likely target. You forget Robert F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin's bullet to the head after having given his California primary victory speech in Los Angeles prior to the 1968 Democratic convention. He likely would have beat Hubert Humphrey, the eventual Democratic nominee.
All candidates face serious danger from lunatics and political extremists on the campaign trail. That Kerry chooses to keep his events open to the public in the face of open dissent and polarized discourse would seem to show real COURAGE. Or possibly recklessness. But I seriously doubt stifling political dissent -- free speech -- would protect either President Bush or Candidate Kerry from a real assassin. The Secret Service should have more serious concerns than running around directing local police to arrest dissenters with unfavorable T-Shirts and signs so the President won't feel embarrassed in public. IMO their primary and only concern should be to protect the President, his family, and other critical executive officials from physical danger. Whatever security checks they need do to meet that goal is fine by me.
...I sure would like to hear comment from the Kerry campaign on that. Given the editorial slant of "LifeNews.com" I'm willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt and assume there are either unreported facts missing in the story or that this event did not occur due to campaign policy. But if it happened as reported, Kerry or a campaign official should clarify their policy on public dissent during campaign speeches. Thanks for the link. --M
President Bush's team exerts close control over admission to his campaign events. Dissenters and would-be hecklers are turned away, campaign officials say. On several occasions in recent weeks, Democrats who have gotten in have been ejected because they wore pro-Kerry T-shirts.
Kerry Events
By contrast, most of Kerry's events are open to the public[...]
Kerry's more open approach carries political risks. Sometimes protesters show up and try to disrupt his appearances. To get across their point that Kerry is a flip-flopper, they often clap flip-flop sandals over their heads, and chant, "Four more years!"
Such dissent is never a problem for Bush.
I think you'd have no touble getting into a public Kerry event wearing that T-Shirt. --M
In many states posting personal information with intent to harass or stalk is a felony. I'm not aware of any federal laws to that effect though. However, the Secret Service does serve to protect the President and would reasonably investigate threats or harassment against delegates. The folks publishing this info definitely need a good legal spanking, and I agree that the ACLU is on the wrong side of this argument.
I'm finding it harder and harder to support total Internet anonymity on the ground of free speech rights when so many abuse these freedoms for criminal purposes. And given the threat of terrorism, it seems like just a matter of time before mandatory trusted authentication for all network access. And I think in the right context I'd be willing to support this. --M
Indeed even if they were able to fit three cores in the same chip the thermal energy would most likely outstrip the dissipation potential of conventional heatsinks[...]
Is that really true? Given the reduction in energy consumption and consequent reduction in heat dissipation with each lithographic step down in size, isn't going multi-core a reasonable way to use the additional footprint and reduced per-core energy consumption offered? I suppose one could argue that a larger on-chip cache is better use wafer real-estate and higher frequencies with the consequent higher energy consumption offers better performance than a slower dual core, but I doubt it would pan out. Larger caches and higher clock frequencies offer diminishing returns due to increased branch prediction failures and memory bus latency. Assuming a multithreaded OS environment, at a certain point a second on-chip core operating at ~80% efficiency is simply going to out-perform a faster single core+larger cache. A good questions is, where's the performance gain threshold between the two in the tradeoff? Would love to read a real chip guy explain this in detail.... --M
Relocation was deemed less cruel than extermination.
Why am I seeing this mental image of a PETA representative proving the danger of this procedure by extracting herself pneumatically from a giant simulated ground hog hole straight into a simulated giant steel-backed ground-hog-storage container? *THWAP!* --M
All I want... a pneumatic tube for transportation - like a big version of what they have at the bank."
"Give me that, and I can die happy."
As you most assuredly will, after exiting the tube at high speeds and smashing head first into a wall. I've seen Futurama and know the pitfalls. Be warned! --M
Slashdot Mirror
...But Office v.X for the Mac is actually quite nice. I've yet to experience document incompatability problems with MS Office for Windows. For simple documents like research papers and personal writing it does the job reasonably well. Now I haven't written a large thesis with piles of footnotes, or a large book with a huge integrated outline... so it could blow for serious work and I wouldn't know. But the fact is that I need to submit my work in MS word format and it does the job.
Apple may come out with a quality office suite. But if MS Word/Windows users run into even minor incompatability problems with its output, it will fail. I assume the real reason Apple is doing this is because MS may stop supporting MS Office for the Mac. Which would be a real shame. I'm not saying the government should force them to continue supporting the product, but I strongly doubt it's an unprofitable product line. I would certainly buy the next release. Shouldn't shareholders have some say in this? --M
And I still listen to the Dead Kennedy's and Minor Threat. *sigh*. Guess I'm just hopelessly out of date. But postmodernism is most definitely stinking up the cemetary these days... --M
You're right, it's too expensive. I'm a Zipcar member here in Boston and I'm about to let my membership lapse because the hourly cost is too high. The only big advantage they offer are cars parked throughout the city, ready for locals to reserve and drive away. It's nice to pick the car up a short walk away. However, the excessive hourly cost, the hassles of dealing with assholes who steal the reserved parking spots, and members who return the car late, messy, or low on gas just don't warrant paying so much for a rental car within walking distance. It's too much trouble.
I think the reserved parking spots are pretty expensive, so that may be one reason why Zipcar must charge so much. And most car rental agencies are much larger, so they get volume discounts when buying cars. I don't think they're skimming a huge profit, I'm guessing their cost structure makes for a marginal business model. --M
UNIX expects all I/O and interprocess communication to occur as serial streams between devices and processes. This is highly limiting when dealing with responding to large numbers of real time events in an asynchronous and parallel universe. For large scale data acquisition or robotics I/O it's a serious problem. Real-time kernel hacks notwithstanding, it's the user libs which need severe restructuring to overcome this flaw. In which case you're not running 'NIX, but some very specialized application with kernel hooks for event handling.
A completely new OS design with more than a simple multi-cpu thread model and real time hooks are what's needed. How that would look internally is anybody's guess. It sure as hell won't be Windows though. Plan 9 had some really neat ideas. So does SmallTalk and the whole 1980's LISP systems movement. If I had to guess, a new real-time data acquisition/response programming platform would integrate some kind of functional programming compiler/interface with a real-time kernel. NOTE that I AM talking out my ass here...
That was an incredible read. Thank you *very* much! --M
This is basically accurate for a projection hologram. Only quibble is that I would add that during projection one must use the same wavelength laser as was used to shoot the original hologram. Best if it's the same laser, especially if we're talking HeNe here as the number of coil windings can shift output wavelength slightly from one laser to the next. Actually, never having shot a hologram with a diode laser, I have no idea if that's still a concern... --M
Has sold holography kits for years. Currently they have a book Showbox Holography which shows how to set up a small lab to shoot holograms with a pen diode laser. They used to have a neat kit with a HeNe laser back in the day, but it wern't no $100 bucks. *cough* I haven't looked at an Edmund Scientific catalog for over a decade, but they seem to have shifted from the home hobby lab market to strictly the teaching market... shame. --M
...Rocks! But it's too intense for me to want to live there 24/7. The crazy cost of living and tiny apartments I can accept, the amazing diversity of arts, entertainment and restaurants I could gush over till the sun goes nova, but the constant noise and adrenalin rush would leave me a grey-haired empty shell of a man within only a few years. I'll take nice slow Boston, thanks. *Phew!* :) --M
No, but perhaps you were not around in the good ol' BBS Days: When your dialup connection dropped, you'd get the 'NO CARRIER' message in your terminal.
Only if you used a modem which supported the Hayes AT command set. Many didn't. From manual acoustic coupler modems through to DEC, AT&T, and other proprietary direct connection modems, AT didn't wind up becoming a standard until the late '80s - early '90s; long after 2400bps modems had past their prime. As an aside I remember paying $350 for a US Robotic 2400bps modem in 1985 through a special BBS deal for SYSOPs US Robots offered, the modem at the time went for about $500 retail. Was among the first to offer 2400bps BBS in Massachusetts. --M
Should I remind people that the water they drink is pumped from rivers, lakes, and wells where animals (submarine and above ground) piss in it all the time?
And let's not forget that certain waste byproduct is actually desirable to drink! I'd like to find a lake full of this stuff. Hmmmmmm..... --M
Living until the heat death of the universe isn't such a bad thing (and even then there may be fantastic ways to actually slip to other realities).
I suppose there are no physical laws which prevent a possible future whereby humanity shifts conscious awareness from one physical substrate to the next for a near infinite time. But I highly doubt that outcome.
I count myself lucky to live in a time where humanity may cure such major diseases and causes of death as: cancers; heart disease; viral, bacterial and prion infections; even "just" diabetes. I'm amazed by these advances. We all stand a good shot at living past one hundred years due to the advances of medical science. But it's highly speculative to assume we can extend human life much longer than that, never mind a full order of magnitude or two. At least not without some major genetic tweaking. Not that we have any idea how to do that or what the biological consequences would be.
As for the Drexler dream of conscious upload and transformation out of our biological bodies.... yeah, well, you keep dreaming. I suspect we'll discover that the physical processes behind consciousness are so complex that predictions today for the potential of such technology are a waste of time. So maybe, but probably not. JMO. --M
Why is the idea of living for thousands of years ridiculous?
And even if you live ten thousand years you will have only delayed the inevitable. That was my point. --M
More like "Resistance is futile, you will die".
It's obvious that what he really wants is life extension. And he may get some. Understanding the biology of aging has certainly improved over the last fifteen years as we completed the Genome project. But even if we extended life out to such ridiculous time spans as the thousands of years, each of us must face the inevitable truth that one day we will die. It appears as though while intellectually he may be willing to admit it as axiomatic, emotionally he can't face up to this fact. Can't say that I blame him either. Death bothers the fuck out of me too. --M
Here's my claim of "bias" with the CJR site - I read about halfway down the main page...never once did it refute any Kerry statements.
No, they regularly refute nonfactual Kerry claims as well. Your sample base is too small. --M
By gosh, it's just like a military leaflet psyop!
Yeah, eerie isn't it? This is CIA bag of tricks crap being used on the US public. I don't mind the government using tough tactics to go after terrorists and violent criminals, but manipulating elections is another thing entirely. That's some freaky shit... --M
You know, I'm a self proclaimed liberal. I'm in my mid-thirties and have been drifting rightward as a result of reading the Economist regularly and operating a small business as a landlord. So you could say I'm sensitive to the needs of small business and would fit somewhere between a fiscal moderate and a social liberal these days. This does not rule out voting for certain GOP candidates though. I'd vote McCain or Specter, for example. The problem with the Republican party right now is that they've dropped their moderate fiscal responsibility base in support of Christian fundamentalists, creating a huge schism within the GOP. The new fundamentalist leadership is even purging old-timers, calling them RINOs (Republican in Name Only) and booting them when possible (this nearly happened to Arlen Specter during his latest primary).
The problem here is that the Christain conservatives are motivated primarily by one issue: abortion. What happens if Bush is reelected and the Christians get what they want, outlawing abortion? Further, what if they win an anti-gay marriage constitutional ammendment? Or prayer in schools? OK... so they win these few hot button issues, then what? IMO, that faction of the party will disolve, having met their goals, and with the moderate base gone the GOP will likely peter out just like the Dems did in the 70's after winning their pet liberal agenda in the 50s and 60s.
Just a thought...
Or a whisper campaign against Alabama state supreme court justice Mark Kennedy, who was unjustly smeared as a peadophile:
There's plenty more stories to read. all of which would make any honest person want to puke. Republicans only damage their own credibility by supporting this crap on the national stage. At some point these tactics will backfire and the GOP will wind up badly damaged as a result. JMO. --M
The Columbia School of Journalism has been running a great media crit blog called Campaign Desk which spends much time decrying print and TV journalists who only engage in "he said / he said" reporting. It's not bias to report unpleasant facts. That's supposed to be a reporter's fucking job. But journalists have been cowed in this nation due to claims of bias and ownership consolidation, so they've fallen back to reporting the barest minimum of facts in order to reduce the risk of claims of bias by readers and viewers. That the public from both sides of the political spectrum not only accepts, but demands this from their journalists only furthers the feedback loop. Stewart is right, this isn't journalism and it is hurting the American public. Sometimes people have to face unpleasant facts, and it's the journalist's job to report those facts. Take that away and you have factless reporting - which is pretty much what we see today.
When claims of bias drown out factual reporting, the very notion of an "incontrovertible fact" disappears along with it. Do we really wish to live in a society where "facts" have been replaced by "opinion"?
Bush is known world wide and Kerry not near as much. Which is the bigger target? A Senator or the President? THAT'S why everyone needs to be scrutinized who come with in sight of the guy not because he wants to be secretive.
Your primary argument is that Bush must stifle dissent when he speaks in public (really private events, but I digress), in order to protect him against potential violence. Further, Candidate Kerry doesn't need this level of "protection" because he isn't the president and is thus not a likely target. You forget Robert F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin's bullet to the head after having given his California primary victory speech in Los Angeles prior to the 1968 Democratic convention. He likely would have beat Hubert Humphrey, the eventual Democratic nominee.
All candidates face serious danger from lunatics and political extremists on the campaign trail. That Kerry chooses to keep his events open to the public in the face of open dissent and polarized discourse would seem to show real COURAGE. Or possibly recklessness. But I seriously doubt stifling political dissent -- free speech -- would protect either President Bush or Candidate Kerry from a real assassin. The Secret Service should have more serious concerns than running around directing local police to arrest dissenters with unfavorable T-Shirts and signs so the President won't feel embarrassed in public. IMO their primary and only concern should be to protect the President, his family, and other critical executive officials from physical danger. Whatever security checks they need do to meet that goal is fine by me.
--Maynard
...I sure would like to hear comment from the Kerry campaign on that. Given the editorial slant of "LifeNews.com" I'm willing to give Kerry the benefit of the doubt and assume there are either unreported facts missing in the story or that this event did not occur due to campaign policy. But if it happened as reported, Kerry or a campaign official should clarify their policy on public dissent during campaign speeches. Thanks for the link. --M
Yes:
Bush Events:
Kerry Events
I think you'd have no touble getting into a public Kerry event wearing that T-Shirt. --M
In many states posting personal information with intent to harass or stalk is a felony. I'm not aware of any federal laws to that effect though. However, the Secret Service does serve to protect the President and would reasonably investigate threats or harassment against delegates. The folks publishing this info definitely need a good legal spanking, and I agree that the ACLU is on the wrong side of this argument.
I'm finding it harder and harder to support total Internet anonymity on the ground of free speech rights when so many abuse these freedoms for criminal purposes. And given the threat of terrorism, it seems like just a matter of time before mandatory trusted authentication for all network access. And I think in the right context I'd be willing to support this. --M
Indeed even if they were able to fit three cores in the same chip the thermal energy would most likely outstrip the dissipation potential of conventional heatsinks[...]
Is that really true? Given the reduction in energy consumption and consequent reduction in heat dissipation with each lithographic step down in size, isn't going multi-core a reasonable way to use the additional footprint and reduced per-core energy consumption offered? I suppose one could argue that a larger on-chip cache is better use wafer real-estate and higher frequencies with the consequent higher energy consumption offers better performance than a slower dual core, but I doubt it would pan out. Larger caches and higher clock frequencies offer diminishing returns due to increased branch prediction failures and memory bus latency. Assuming a multithreaded OS environment, at a certain point a second on-chip core operating at ~80% efficiency is simply going to out-perform a faster single core+larger cache. A good questions is, where's the performance gain threshold between the two in the tradeoff? Would love to read a real chip guy explain this in detail.... --M
Relocation was deemed less cruel than extermination.
Why am I seeing this mental image of a PETA representative proving the danger of this procedure by extracting herself pneumatically from a giant simulated ground hog hole straight into a simulated giant steel-backed ground-hog-storage container? *THWAP!* --M
All I want ... a pneumatic tube for transportation - like a big version of what they have at the bank."
"Give me that, and I can die happy."
As you most assuredly will, after exiting the tube at high speeds and smashing head first into a wall. I've seen Futurama and know the pitfalls. Be warned! --M