If IBM did produce this design I would expect that it would work with their docking stations just like all their other Thinkpads. This is really just a laptop with a few more bells and whistles.
This is essentially a more flexible laptop not a desktop replacement. I travel a lot and frequently work onsite with my clients and this design would be very useful.
When I am travelling the conventional laptop configuration works the best. However, when I am onsite I use the computer enough that an ergonomic setup is absolutely necessary. I have to raise the screen to an appropriate height to avoid getting a stiff neck. I usually accomplish by setting the laptop on some manuals. This also means that I need a second keyboard since the laptop keyboard is now too high.
Rather than traveling with a laptop and a keyboard I would rather travel with just a laptop. Not to mention that it looks a lot cooler than a laptop balanced on a pile of manuals.
If you generate very high quality images which include motion blur then you could get by with 25 or 30 fps. However, it is typically easier to generate twice as many images without motion blur to get aproximately the same effect.
I suspect the amount of code in Linux where a person knowingly plagerized sources to which they did not have a legal right and tried to cover this theft up is vanishing small.
It is far more likely that people were not thinking, made a mistake or actually thought they had the right to include the code in which case they would not have tried to cover it up. I believe that ESR's goal is to identify these cases so they can be looked into.
As weapons improve and we are increasingly able to narrowly control and focus their destructive power what is going to happen? I don't think we can really stop this it is just a question of whether it happens sooner or later.
Imagine if we could reliably target terrorist leaders. Of course if we could do that then eventually it would mean that the terrorist could reliably target their enemies, i.e. our leaders. (I suspect they currently target civilians largely because of the difficulty of targeting political leaders.)
This would probably lead to fewer civilian casualties but I'm not sure it would lead to fewer casualties.
Weapons are just a special case of progress. As a society we need to be more aware and better prepared for how our lives will be transformed through progress, military or otherwise.
Technology such as this would save lives, not destroy them. Im a cruz missle with a perfect radar is fired, there is 0% chance of it hitting a neighboring hospital.
Don't underestimate human error. When the
US hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade it was not because our bombs were not precise enough. It was ultimately human error and the Chinese Embassy was mistakenly targetted.
Our weapons may get better and better but ultimately there are humans making many decisions under lots of pressure and tight deadlines. Essentially humans will become (if they are not already) the weakest link in the chain of destruction that any military operation entails.
Re:Will an external magnetic field affect memory?
on
MRAM in 2004?
·
· Score: 1
Yes, of course. That is the whole idea behind detonating a nuclear device above a city; the electro-magnetic pulse will fry most of the electronics. The real question is how strong an electro-magnetic field is required and how does mram compare with traditional static ram.
Many Yes lyrics are strangely poetic. Things like "spellbound roundly good for sunshine". Maybe they were somehow able to channel the 'fish back into the past.
The first issue is population dynamics and how variation within a population may allow some variants to quickly exploit a new niche. The amount of scientific evidence to back this up is phenomenal and nobody with even the slightest clue doubts this. The classic example is the white/black moths in the UK.
The second is the appearance of new variations in a population. There are plenty of theories but all of them have major problems since no one has come up with a credible explanation for this process that is subject to verification.
Most people, when talking about evolution, do not make a distinction between these two issues. This lack of precision allows some people to claim there is no scientific proof and others to claim that there is overwhelming scientific proof.
I think they overstate their case but it is not entirely flawed.
Evolution may be slow but it can express itself in a population very quickly. An adaptation that provides no specific advantage may spread through an isolated group (keep in mind this is happening in a huge number of groups). Then at some point in time it does become an advantage so the population of this group explodes as it expands into the newly created niche.
The fossil record provides strong evidence that changes in populations occur very quickly (i.e. tens of thousands of years) even if it provides no direct evidence on the speed of evolution.
In English 56% of the letters typed are with your left hand on a qwerty board, which would seem to indicate a left-hand bias rather than a right-hand bias.
In cases that are particularly frivolous the plantif (or the lawyer if it is pro bono) should be made to pay the defendent's cost. My understanding is that in many cases this is allowed but is rarely done.
The vocabulary is not that exotic. There are people who are extremely literate; typically because they grew up surrounded by other literate people, are widely read and know one or more foreign languages that are closely related to English. These people already know the vocabulary.
This just points out the difficulty of measuring literacy, which I assume is the goal, rather than rote memorization. Most tests are subject to the problem that ultimately all they accurately measure is the ability to take the test itself.
I think that Stallman places too much importance on GNU/Linux versus Linux but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a point.
During the Microsoft trial I had to repeatedly explain to people that Windows is not some monolithic product. At least conceptually Windows is an OS, utilities and a windowing system all bundled together. Microsoft has intermingled the code in order to increase the barrier to entry and force resellers to provide only their software.
Like any serious accident there is a whole chain of causes. For example the wire bundles were insulated with a material that was suppose to be inflamable but wasn't really. If you fix this then the faulty wiring of the in-cabin entertainment system would not have resulted in a catastrophic failure.
However, this has nothing to do with the issue of wireless communications possing a danger to planes.
Artists will go for a distinct look like you get in many comics/graphic novels. You already see this with some games moving to a cell-shading approach. There are lots of interesting things to be done that have very little to do with realism.
Realism is not the ultimate goal for most creative people. The experience is more important. Hollywood has known this for a long time which is why we hear tie fighters scream by in a vacuum and can see a gas nebula with the naked eye even though neither of these things are possible in real life.
A story told to me by a graphics researcher was that he did a film where snow was falling on a river. In order to find out what this looked like he went down to the river when it was snowing and saw that the snow just melts into the rivier without a splash. When the film was judged it was heavily criticized for not showing the splash that the judges expected when the snow hit the water.
The leaning tower of Pisa is a bad example as all evidence indicates that the lean is intentional, i.e. it was intentionally designed and built with a lean.
As someone mentioned in a later post in a game like chess you need to be able to look ahead and to evaluate your current position. Both of these are harder in go than in chess. Looking ahead is harder because the board is much larger in go and evaluating a position is harder because there is less hierarchy and the threat is indirect through being surrounded rather than direct by being captured as in chess.
In any project there is a balance that must be found between upfront planning and replanning as a project progresses. Upfront planning is preferable if it is actually used but if things change to much then much of your planning may actually be wasted effort. Replanning is less efficient than upfront planning but if you don't have the information you need to plan then you just wind up guessing which is not very useful.
I'm not aware of any open source project that functions without gate keepers or core developers who control what is accepted into the "official" version. There are and will always be restrictions on open source projects because succesful open source projects need a good dose of responsibility and acountability. Projects that do not have enought of either fall apart.
What was different about Columbus as compared to all the other people who had discovered America was that the recently invented printing press was used to make his discovery widely known.
It isn't the job of government to ensure any business models work and never break. Why should proprietary software vendors get special treatment?
That is exactly my point as well as that of the original poster. Proprietary software vendors should not get special treatment and neither should open source projects. In my opinion the GPL would amount to special treatment of open source efforts.
The point I wanted to make was that I think that the welfare system for proprietary vendors that would result from everything being put in the public domain is going to far in the other direction. The GPL and public domain are, in my opinion, at opposite ends of the spectrum and I feel that a more balanced license would better serve the public.
Given that you have some software that was funded by the government what should be done with it? In my opinion you want to maximize that value of the software to the people who paid for it, i.e. the people of the country. It is generally not of much direct use to the majority of people so you are left with choices like license it to a company, put it in the public domain, license it under the GPL or choose some other license.
My opinion is that the best way to maximize the benefits for the people is to choose a license that maximizes use while also ensuring interoperability and thus competition. The GPL does not maximize use while the public domain does nothing to ensure interoperability.
I agree with you that the GPL may not be the best license under which to make government sponsored software available. However I think that just making it public domain is an even worse idea.
Software is functional so I think that the interests of the people would be best served by including a condition that requires any information needed for interoperability to be published if the software is extended. The specific case I have in mind is Kerberos.
There may be some other conditions that should be added in order to better serve the interests of the people but I think that it is important that properietary software vendors don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to use the results of government sponsored software research.
Unfortunately your experience is far too common I have experience teaching Ada and C++ and was always amazed at the things people found to not like about Ada.
When using Ada I was often suprised at the level of frustration caused when a reasonably intellegent person is forced to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get a piece of code to compile. The programmers tended to develop an adversarial relationship with the compiler/language and in general this translated into a negative view of the language as a whole. Of course tutors that don't know the language only makes this situation worse.
Six years ago when I first encountered RMS's rhetoric I found it to be rather idealistic (to put is politely). It was ineffectual in the sense that I was content with a rather superficial understanding of the principles that are so dear to RMS. It was ESR's writings that provided the insights into free software that allowed me to realize that I never really got what RMS was saying and how truly unfortunate that was.
The confrontation between ideas and approaches is a necessary foundation for any community in order for it to grow and thrive. If we were to censor such conflicts I have no doubt that the community would only be poorer as a consequence. In my opinion it would be better if we had more people like RMS and ESR who are passionate enough to repeatedly state their case and to defend their convictions; especially when they disagree. It can only help to clarify the issues and ensure a broader appeal.
Rhetoric is like a knife; it is more effective after it has been sharpened.
Slashdot Mirror
If IBM did produce this design I would expect that it would work with their docking stations just like all their other Thinkpads. This is really just a laptop with a few more bells and whistles.
When I am travelling the conventional laptop configuration works the best. However, when I am onsite I use the computer enough that an ergonomic setup is absolutely necessary. I have to raise the screen to an appropriate height to avoid getting a stiff neck. I usually accomplish by setting the laptop on some manuals. This also means that I need a second keyboard since the laptop keyboard is now too high.
Rather than traveling with a laptop and a keyboard I would rather travel with just a laptop. Not to mention that it looks a lot cooler than a laptop balanced on a pile of manuals.
If you generate very high quality images which include motion blur then you could get by with 25 or 30 fps. However, it is typically easier to generate twice as many images without motion blur to get aproximately the same effect.
It is far more likely that people were not thinking, made a mistake or actually thought they had the right to include the code in which case they would not have tried to cover it up. I believe that ESR's goal is to identify these cases so they can be looked into.
Imagine if we could reliably target terrorist leaders. Of course if we could do that then eventually it would mean that the terrorist could reliably target their enemies, i.e. our leaders. (I suspect they currently target civilians largely because of the difficulty of targeting political leaders.) This would probably lead to fewer civilian casualties but I'm not sure it would lead to fewer casualties.
Weapons are just a special case of progress. As a society we need to be more aware and better prepared for how our lives will be transformed through progress, military or otherwise.
Don't underestimate human error. When the US hit the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade it was not because our bombs were not precise enough. It was ultimately human error and the Chinese Embassy was mistakenly targetted.
Our weapons may get better and better but ultimately there are humans making many decisions under lots of pressure and tight deadlines. Essentially humans will become (if they are not already) the weakest link in the chain of destruction that any military operation entails.
Yes, of course. That is the whole idea behind detonating a nuclear device above a city; the electro-magnetic pulse will fry most of the electronics. The real question is how strong an electro-magnetic field is required and how does mram compare with traditional static ram.
Many Yes lyrics are strangely poetic. Things like "spellbound roundly good for sunshine". Maybe they were somehow able to channel the 'fish back into the past.
The first issue is population dynamics and how variation within a population may allow some variants to quickly exploit a new niche. The amount of scientific evidence to back this up is phenomenal and nobody with even the slightest clue doubts this. The classic example is the white/black moths in the UK.
The second is the appearance of new variations in a population. There are plenty of theories but all of them have major problems since no one has come up with a credible explanation for this process that is subject to verification.
Most people, when talking about evolution, do not make a distinction between these two issues. This lack of precision allows some people to claim there is no scientific proof and others to claim that there is overwhelming scientific proof.
Evolution may be slow but it can express itself in a population very quickly. An adaptation that provides no specific advantage may spread through an isolated group (keep in mind this is happening in a huge number of groups). Then at some point in time it does become an advantage so the population of this group explodes as it expands into the newly created niche.
The fossil record provides strong evidence that changes in populations occur very quickly (i.e. tens of thousands of years) even if it provides no direct evidence on the speed of evolution.
In English 56% of the letters typed are with your left hand on a qwerty board, which would seem to indicate a left-hand bias rather than a right-hand bias.
In cases that are particularly frivolous the plantif (or the lawyer if it is pro bono) should be made to pay the defendent's cost. My understanding is that in many cases this is allowed but is rarely done.
The vocabulary is not that exotic. There are people who are extremely literate; typically because they grew up surrounded by other literate people, are widely read and know one or more foreign languages that are closely related to English. These people already know the vocabulary.
This just points out the difficulty of measuring literacy, which I assume is the goal, rather than rote memorization. Most tests are subject to the problem that ultimately all they accurately measure is the ability to take the test itself.
I think that Stallman places too much importance on GNU/Linux versus Linux but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a point.
During the Microsoft trial I had to repeatedly explain to people that Windows is not some monolithic product. At least conceptually Windows is an OS, utilities and a windowing system all bundled together. Microsoft has intermingled the code in order to increase the barrier to entry and force resellers to provide only their software.
Like any serious accident there is a whole chain of causes. For example the wire bundles were insulated with a material that was suppose to be inflamable but wasn't really. If you fix this then the faulty wiring of the in-cabin entertainment system would not have resulted in a catastrophic failure.
However, this has nothing to do with the issue of wireless communications possing a danger to planes.
Realism is not the ultimate goal for most creative people. The experience is more important. Hollywood has known this for a long time which is why we hear tie fighters scream by in a vacuum and can see a gas nebula with the naked eye even though neither of these things are possible in real life.
A story told to me by a graphics researcher was that he did a film where snow was falling on a river. In order to find out what this looked like he went down to the river when it was snowing and saw that the snow just melts into the rivier without a splash. When the film was judged it was heavily criticized for not showing the splash that the judges expected when the snow hit the water.
The leaning tower of Pisa is a bad example as all evidence indicates that the lean is intentional, i.e. it was intentionally designed and built with a lean.
As someone mentioned in a later post in a game like chess you need to be able to look ahead and to evaluate your current position. Both of these are harder in go than in chess. Looking ahead is harder because the board is much larger in go and evaluating a position is harder because there is less hierarchy and the threat is indirect through being surrounded rather than direct by being captured as in chess.
In any project there is a balance that must be found between upfront planning and replanning as a project progresses. Upfront planning is preferable if it is actually used but if things change to much then much of your planning may actually be wasted effort. Replanning is less efficient than upfront planning but if you don't have the information you need to plan then you just wind up guessing which is not very useful.
I'm not aware of any open source project that functions without gate keepers or core developers who control what is accepted into the "official" version. There are and will always be restrictions on open source projects because succesful open source projects need a good dose of responsibility and acountability. Projects that do not have enought of either fall apart.
What was different about Columbus as compared to all the other people who had discovered America was that the recently invented printing press was used to make his discovery widely known.
It isn't the job of government to ensure any business models work and never break. Why should proprietary software vendors get special treatment?
That is exactly my point as well as that of the original poster. Proprietary software vendors should not get special treatment and neither should open source projects. In my opinion the GPL would amount to special treatment of open source efforts.
The point I wanted to make was that I think that the welfare system for proprietary vendors that would result from everything being put in the public domain is going to far in the other direction. The GPL and public domain are, in my opinion, at opposite ends of the spectrum and I feel that a more balanced license would better serve the public.
Given that you have some software that was funded by the government what should be done with it? In my opinion you want to maximize that value of the software to the people who paid for it, i.e. the people of the country. It is generally not of much direct use to the majority of people so you are left with choices like license it to a company, put it in the public domain, license it under the GPL or choose some other license.
My opinion is that the best way to maximize the benefits for the people is to choose a license that maximizes use while also ensuring interoperability and thus competition. The GPL does not maximize use while the public domain does nothing to ensure interoperability.
I agree with you that the GPL may not be the best license under which to make government sponsored software available. However I think that just making it public domain is an even worse idea.
Software is functional so I think that the interests of the people would be best served by including a condition that requires any information needed for interoperability to be published if the software is extended. The specific case I have in mind is Kerberos.
There may be some other conditions that should be added in order to better serve the interests of the people but I think that it is important that properietary software vendors don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to use the results of government sponsored software research.
Unfortunately your experience is far too common I have experience teaching Ada and C++ and was always amazed at the things people found to not like about Ada.
When using Ada I was often suprised at the level of frustration caused when a reasonably intellegent person is forced to jump through a lot of hoops in order to get a piece of code to compile. The programmers tended to develop an adversarial relationship with the compiler/language and in general this translated into a negative view of the language as a whole. Of course tutors that don't know the language only makes this situation worse.
Six years ago when I first encountered RMS's rhetoric I found it to be rather idealistic (to put is politely). It was ineffectual in the sense that I was content with a rather superficial understanding of the principles that are so dear to RMS. It was ESR's writings that provided the insights into free software that allowed me to realize that I never really got what RMS was saying and how truly unfortunate that was.
The confrontation between ideas and approaches is a necessary foundation for any community in order for it to grow and thrive. If we were to censor such conflicts I have no doubt that the community would only be poorer as a consequence. In my opinion it would be better if we had more people like RMS and ESR who are passionate enough to repeatedly state their case and to defend their convictions; especially when they disagree. It can only help to clarify the issues and ensure a broader appeal.
Rhetoric is like a knife; it is more effective after it has been sharpened.
Robb