I just have to wonder if Limbaugh's advice is counterproductive.
Only if it were to result in Clinton getting elected.;-)
In the meantime, infighting among the Dems is a good thing.
From what I've seen in this election cycle, more than any other is that people are basically led around by the talking heads on TV. The will vote for whoever is getting the most press. With the Republican nomination cynched by McCain, the only thing that will be in the news will be Obama/Clinton. Come November, people will be saying, "McCain? Who is that?"
You're way off base. Obama is peaking too early, just as Clinton did. The really negative stuff about Obama will hit if/when he secures the nomination. As we wind towards the election, more and more people, especially older people, will have (valid) second thoughts regarding Obama's experience level and policies.
The pundits are talking about the youth vote, but the senior vote is a much bigger demographic with high turnout. If Obama is the nominee I predict a Republican landslide among older voters of all races and genders.
It isn't a matter of the media reporting badly about McCain. It is a matter of them simply overtly shutting him out of the news coverage altogether, like they did with Paul, Kucinich and later Huckabee. The talking-head, 24-hour news cycle is an extremely powerful tool that amounts to free political adds for whoever the network controllers consider a "front-runner", whether that be Giovanni or Thompson. Having Obama/Clinton being the "news of the day" for the next few months will not help McCain.
I disagree. I think the intense scrutiny of the flawed Dem policy proposals will be a good thing for McCain. Plus he'll be able to spend months consolidating his machine for the general election while Clinton and Obama fight it out in the primary.
I hope his contributions from big business pick up, a Dem win would be a disaster for them...and really for the country as a whole.
Indeed. The craze for virtualising runtime code has got way out of hand. Its fine if you want binaries to run unmodified cross platform , but it makes no sense whatsoever for anything else. These days people use Java because of the language and the libraries itself, not the JVM. In fact most java developers I know would be quite happy never to see the JVM again and just use a standard compiler , never mind JIT. I certainly don't understand the reason for using a runtime VM to run executables when a standard binary would suffice , which means I simply don't see the point of.NET either.
There are some nice things about running on a VM. For one thing, once you've debugged the JIT code generation, you can pretty well prove that large classes of nasty things can't happen. The other argument usually given is that doing JIT compilation presents optimization opportunities not present during static compilation.
The VMs are doing very well, considering that gcj has been under development for a long time as a traditional compiler, and often loses to the Sun JVM in testing. I do think a traditional compiler is the way to go for hard real time stuff, but you also need deterministic GC (or guaranteed no GC during RT operation). The gcj folks should probably implement the RT Java extensions as their next major effort.
I believe Project Harmony was to use a traditional compilation approach. I wonder how things are going there, I'll have to check it out..
And that's twice now that you've behaved like a child instead of thanking me for educating you. Are this much of an asshole to everyone who corrects you when you're obviously wrong, or are you just embarrassed by your failure and lashing out?
So I'm the one lashing out? ROFL
I hope you can come up with something germane to the actual conversation next time.
Here's another quote for you to ponder...I'm sure I got the attribution right on this one.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
--Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
Let's see, asshat. We're off on a tangent of discussing a quotation which had nothing to do with the substance of the post, per se. Dismiss whatever you like, it's clear facts don't bother you a bit.
"The problem with your assertions here about what "Ben" (and I presume you mean Franklin) meant is that this isn't a quote from "Ben" at all, so your argument is totally fabricated."
That quote is commonly attributed to Ben Franklin, and he did publish it, implicitly endorsing it.
The rest of my argument stands as written.
I love Ben's wisdom, but this quote is being so overused and so often poorly used that it is being diminished. Please note the word "essential",
I'm well aware of the word 'essential'. You've misinterpreted the quote. Ben makes no distinction between different 'types' of liberty - he views liberty itself as essential, as important as air. He is simply stating that liberty is more important than safety, period. As in, "Give me liberty or give me death!"
In short, non-essential liberties are excluded by the quote and anonymity while driving is a non-essential liberty, actually a non-existent liberty. We have no right to drive on public roads, it is a privilege. We knowingly enter into a contract in order to exercise that privilege. Our cars must be registered and display a unique identifier, the license plate. We are required to be licensed and must present that license upon request. Furthermore, OnStar is voluntary and has positive benefits, any good contract should, such as notifying rescue personnel of an accident's location. Ben's quote is quite inappropriate here.
Once again you've missed the point. The infraction here is not one regarding identity, it's regarding potentially having private conversations monitored without any warning having been given that such a thing is even possible. I'm quite sure the courts support an expectation of privacy for conversations within a personal vehicle. I own an OnStar vehicle, and I assure you no one ever mentioned that my conversations might potentially be monitored with no visible sign. I'm sure some folks are going over the OnStar contract with a fine toothed comb as we speak to see if such a possibility is mentioned. In a similar vein, I'm sure plenty of cell owners are questioning the legality of their devices ALL being clandestine listening devices.
There's a difference between knowing your calls may be tapped, and finding out that your cell phone may have been bugging off-air conversations with no visible sign. Just as in 1984 where the TV could watch you - and couldn't be turned off.
All that happened under the watch of a Democratic Congress.
Face it, the Dems are no better, and further the liberals are generally the ones clamoring for more international trade, and internationalization in general.
McCain will probably not be a panacea, as he is about 51% Dem anyhow...;-)
There's no need, but most Americans believed what the right wing told them about infinite growth, and somehow thought they could get rich whilst everybody else did the hard work.
The right wing? You must mean the Clintons instead, the most China-friendly couple you'd ever want to meet. During their eight years in power, China and offshoring flourished. Vast right wing conspiracy indeed. Does Wal-Mart board of directors ring a bell?
Gladly, we won't be seeing them in the White House again. What we will be seeing may be worse, McCain. Obama is not electable in the gemeral election.
At any rate, we'll see how things play out. Bomb, bomb, bomb..bomb, bomb Iran! lol
Going with the Slashdot meme here, it's not theft because they haven't taken it away from you - you *still* have your IP.
That's fine, and also irrelevant. The salient fact is not that I still have my IP, but that whatever profits I might make with said IP will be (possibly massively) diluted by a competitor who has no right to my idea/design/product.
The delta between what I would have made and what I did make is what was "stolen".
If you or other/. folk don't like the term "IP theft", come up with another one. It's still theft.
Can't say I'm all that surprised about the phones being used in China or the copycats. I guess with one of the world's largest markets, there's going to be a healthy "grey" market too.
Sure, and with China's well documented tendencies towards theft of intellectual property, no one should be surprised.
What we should be doing here in the US, though, is everything we can to discourage use of Chinese products. There's no need to give China all our wealth and in the process create a powerful competitor. Problem is, we're already there...now it's time for damage control. The one good thing about a weak dollar policy is it will help.
Good thing we have a big crop of American scientists and engineers to compete into the future! Oh, wait...
So sans a Star-Trek-style Cloaking Device, it will always be detectable at some leve. So they might as well just make it look like some random satellite so there's always a question as to what kind it is.
It's worse than that. Visible light isn't the problem, it's self emission of long wave infrared (LWIR) radiation. The background of space is very cold (a few K above absolute zero), so anything with any significant temperature contrasts very nicely. In theory it might be possible to cool the front side of the (notionally black) satellite to near zero deg K, but in practice that'd take prohibitive energy, since that nice black surface would absorb a whole lot of solar energy when exposed (~1/2 the time).
So, civilian satellite spotters aren't the real problem, it's inimical militaries with LWIR telescopes...and there's pretty well nothing to be done about it.
Some say that because they couldn't have kids, he wanted to leave his mark on the world through all these stunts.
Which he certainly did.;-)
Regardless, some consider these "stunts" "adventures" instead. Also, you have to respect the guy's personal commitment, considering he got in shape enough to swim the English Channel, participate in Ironman competitions, and so on.
Most people will be faceless sheep by comparison, doing nothing of significance in their lives.
As to his wife's attitude about his pursuits, perhaps you should read some of her public statements.
Washington State had better watch itself...Microsoft is liable to pull up stakes and move to Nevada. Then Washington would lose all the income tax revenue, property tax revenue and so on from all those Microsoft employees.
That is the fallacy of trying to squeeze too much revenue out of 'rich' companies.
I have additional negatives on each candidate, beyond yours:
McCain:
Negatives: Pro-amnesty, against Bush tax cuts, global warming proponent
Romney:
Negatives: Has switched numerous positions (no 'reputation' involved), seems to have a Clintonesque tendency to do anything to get elected, NRA Lifetime Member since 2006 but will consider 'banning weapons of unusual destructive potential', needs to consult lawyers before making decisions as Commander in Chief
Huckabee:
Negatives: Snake oil salesman par excellence, anti-science, very liberal fiscally, pro amnesty, busily screwing over Romney and the Republican Party and helping McCain by staying in race for Super Tuesday - not one person should vote for him
Paul:
Positives: Libertarian platform generally makes sense
Negatives: Way, way, way wrong on the war in Iraq, and therefore unelectable. Also many other unworkable and/or dangerous ideas
In summary, a pitiful and pathetic field of Republican candidates. The only thing worse is the field of Democratic candidates! I miss Fred Thompson.:-/
Thank you for providing the Neocon perspective. It's monstrous of me to say so, but on some level... It's sort of fortunate for us that we may be attacking Iran any day now.
Yes it is, but not for the reasons you think. Iran has actively been working against our interests since '77, it's time for payback.
Attacking Iran will ensure that your ideology doesn't just go into a temporary retreat - that it dies a horrible death. We can't afford for it to survive. The actual political center of this country is somewhere between Kucinich and Edwards, when people are surveyed on isolated issues, instead of labelling themselves as conservative/liberal. Neoconservatism has managed to rally the limbic centers of half a dozen single-issue voting blocs to convince the media & pol groupthink that the average person holds beliefs just slightly left of Mussolini.
Not true. On the issue of bombing Iran, for instance, recent polls show that over 50% of Americans favor it. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Okay, Clinton made the country too prosperous, we got greedy, we had it coming. The problem with the American Dream is that we're all dreaming about what we'll do when we're rich. And when you're flying high on internet stocks, perhaps a guy you'd like to have a drink with seems like a good choice for a president.
Sorry, I don't buy the "we're wealthy, therefore we should feel guilty" tripe. We're fortunate to be at the top, meaning everyone else will complain about us until they manage to climb over us. The United States is by no means perfect, but it beats the alternatives (so far at least;).
But we can't afford this stuff any more. Not for a few decades. Not when we have actual, existential crises facing the country, like the nexus of peak oil, the fall of the US dollar as anchor currency, and global warming.
Sure we can. The US is probably best positioned of any major power to leave oil behind, the fall of the US dollar simply reflects our poor fiscal policies since long before Bush, and global warming is something that is best handled with future technologies, not by hamstringing our current economy (I hope you've seen the recent article stating that 60% of carbon emissions between now and 2030 is likely to come from India and China).
At any rate, I hope it's not too much of a shock for you when Hillary loses the next presidential election, and a Republican is in power for four more years.
Iran simply does not threaten the USA in ANY sense, unless you subscribe to the current US administration's view that NOT allowing itself to be dominated by the US somehow threatens the US in itself.
First off, Iran threatens stability and pro-Western entities throughout the Middle East, and particularly in Iraq.
Second, Iran has been actively working against the US in Iraq, and Iranian weapons have killed many US troops.
Third, Iran funds terrorism including Al Queda.
Fourth, Iran is actively seeking to build nuclear weapons, which could well be used against the US or US interests.
I favor wide-ranging airstrikes against Iran's nuclear installations and military. Those should keep Iran from being a problem for many years, and perhaps give the rest of the Middle East a chance to move out of the seventh century... To my mind the only other possibility is a pro-democracy revolution, which seems pretty unlikely at this point.
If Iran continues to cause trouble after the airstrikes, we can hit its oil terminals, cutting off its only source of hard currency.
Any country that regularly holds government sponsored rallys to chant "Death to America" is no friend of America. As their technology improves, it simply becomes more and more likely they'll be able to do something catastrophic to us. Iran needs to understand in no uncertain terms that the reverse is true as well.
Also, can ANYONE explain to me what the issue with Taiwan is? The US apparently doesn't want China to reabsorb Taiwan into the state, yet are quite happy to deal/trade with the Chinese in their current political form and doesn't seem that bothered about Tibet. Face it, Taiwan will, at some point, much like Hong Kong, be re-absorbed by China, and the USA has ZERO chance of stopping it happening.
What you're missing with regard to Taiwan is that the Taiwanese don't want to be re-absorbed. There are treaties with the US, and it's likely that the US will get involved if China uses force. The threat of US intervention is likely the only thing that's stopped it so far.
The US most certainly could stop China from conquering Taiwan...whether it chooses to do so when push comes to shove is another question. Let's hope it doesn't happen on Hillary's watch.;-)
The Moon is a natural space station, with unlimited energy and unknown amounts of raw materials. What raw materials it doesn't possess can be imported in the form of asteroids and comets. Mars is too far away to be a practical first step, but the country that colonizes the Moon on an industrial scale will be the only one with the technology and expertise to colonize the rest of the Solar System. It will also have an incredible technology edge over the rest of the world, as well as a commanding military platform above Earth's gravity well.
Calling it a 'big dead rock in space' only shows your own lack of imagination.;-)
It will be 20% faster, 200% hotter, needs a 300% nosier fan, consumes 500% as much power.
I know it'd require reading the article;-) but the stated power per CPU is 100-120 W. That's a far cry from 500% over current processors, isn't it? BTW, heat scales directly with power IIRC.
Not even close. Games, after all, run in realtime. There are many, many applications out there that have no problem pegging top-of-the-line hardware for hours on end: DV editing, raytracing, scientific computing. In fact, the whole reason I'm posting this is because I'm waiting for my PC to solve a big math problem:-)
You've conflated two different issues. Games are intended to be realtime, but often aren't. Since they're soft realtime, this is characterized by framerates dropping below some arbitrary rate be it 120/s, 60/s or 30/s. Most science/math applications don't have the realtime constraint but utilize no more system resources than the game does...both are using 100% of CPU, memory bandwidth, or both. For serious flight simulators, the frame rate is a hard realtime requirement and not meeting it is considered a fatal error.
In fact, since games tend to use the massive compute resources on the GPU more intensively, I'd still argue they're the most intensive applications - and their soft realtime nature only adds to that opinion. Game programming issues certainly make it more difficult to achieve acceptable performance, due to that pesky realtime requirement.
Microsoft's argument for having DirectX is that having to go through a committee slows down their development process, and so they prefer to have their own API for the games market (Desktop's, consoles).
This was always a specious argument. OpenGL includes a vendor extension mechanism so vendors DON'T have to wait for a new 'official' version to roll out new functionality.
Microsoft simply wanted (as it always does) to control the APIs and promote Microsoft platform lockin. It has been trying to push DirectX into 'serious' apps ever since, without much success fortunately.
The good news is that a few game developers, Apple, all Unix vendors and the Open Source community are quite sufficient to keep OpenGL a vibrant, cross-platform standard. NVIDIA is good about exposing all the new hardware functionality through vendor extensions as mentioned above, and are active on the OpenGL ARB.
but I'm not sure about your parent poster, glock27.
In this situation, there are three private parties involved. The Senator, google.com and moveon.org. The government must arbitrate between them. Note that there's the precedent that these ads would without question have run in radio, TV, or print. Only on the Internet was there somehow this issue of trademark violation. In my mind the right of the Senator to free political speech trumps moveon.org's right to assert a trademark on their political organizations name (those shouldn't be allowed IMO).
To be clear, I think moveon.org is more at fault for asserting a trademark issue, but google should have stood up for political free speech.
All political speech moves over privately owned channels - there should be no impediments to such speech.
Slashdot Mirror
Only if it were to result in Clinton getting elected. ;-)
In the meantime, infighting among the Dems is a good thing.
From what I've seen in this election cycle, more than any other is that people are basically led around by the talking heads on TV. The will vote for whoever is getting the most press. With the Republican nomination cynched by McCain, the only thing that will be in the news will be Obama/Clinton. Come November, people will be saying, "McCain? Who is that?"
You're way off base. Obama is peaking too early, just as Clinton did. The really negative stuff about Obama will hit if/when he secures the nomination. As we wind towards the election, more and more people, especially older people, will have (valid) second thoughts regarding Obama's experience level and policies.
The pundits are talking about the youth vote, but the senior vote is a much bigger demographic with high turnout. If Obama is the nominee I predict a Republican landslide among older voters of all races and genders.
It isn't a matter of the media reporting badly about McCain. It is a matter of them simply overtly shutting him out of the news coverage altogether, like they did with Paul, Kucinich and later Huckabee. The talking-head, 24-hour news cycle is an extremely powerful tool that amounts to free political adds for whoever the network controllers consider a "front-runner", whether that be Giovanni or Thompson. Having Obama/Clinton being the "news of the day" for the next few months will not help McCain.
I disagree. I think the intense scrutiny of the flawed Dem policy proposals will be a good thing for McCain. Plus he'll be able to spend months consolidating his machine for the general election while Clinton and Obama fight it out in the primary.
I hope his contributions from big business pick up, a Dem win would be a disaster for them...and really for the country as a whole.
There are some nice things about running on a VM. For one thing, once you've debugged the JIT code generation, you can pretty well prove that large classes of nasty things can't happen. The other argument usually given is that doing JIT compilation presents optimization opportunities not present during static compilation.
The VMs are doing very well, considering that gcj has been under development for a long time as a traditional compiler, and often loses to the Sun JVM in testing. I do think a traditional compiler is the way to go for hard real time stuff, but you also need deterministic GC (or guaranteed no GC during RT operation). The gcj folks should probably implement the RT Java extensions as their next major effort.
I believe Project Harmony was to use a traditional compilation approach. I wonder how things are going there, I'll have to check it out..
So I'm the one lashing out? ROFL
I hope you can come up with something germane to the actual conversation next time.
Here's another quote for you to ponder...I'm sure I got the attribution right on this one.
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.
I hope our future is never in your hands.
"The problem with your assertions here about what "Ben" (and I presume you mean Franklin) meant is that this isn't a quote from "Ben" at all, so your argument is totally fabricated." That quote is commonly attributed to Ben Franklin, and he did publish it, implicitly endorsing it. The rest of my argument stands as written.
I'm well aware of the word 'essential'. You've misinterpreted the quote. Ben makes no distinction between different 'types' of liberty - he views liberty itself as essential, as important as air. He is simply stating that liberty is more important than safety, period. As in, "Give me liberty or give me death!"
In short, non-essential liberties are excluded by the quote and anonymity while driving is a non-essential liberty, actually a non-existent liberty. We have no right to drive on public roads, it is a privilege. We knowingly enter into a contract in order to exercise that privilege. Our cars must be registered and display a unique identifier, the license plate. We are required to be licensed and must present that license upon request. Furthermore, OnStar is voluntary and has positive benefits, any good contract should, such as notifying rescue personnel of an accident's location. Ben's quote is quite inappropriate here.
Once again you've missed the point. The infraction here is not one regarding identity, it's regarding potentially having private conversations monitored without any warning having been given that such a thing is even possible. I'm quite sure the courts support an expectation of privacy for conversations within a personal vehicle. I own an OnStar vehicle, and I assure you no one ever mentioned that my conversations might potentially be monitored with no visible sign. I'm sure some folks are going over the OnStar contract with a fine toothed comb as we speak to see if such a possibility is mentioned. In a similar vein, I'm sure plenty of cell owners are questioning the legality of their devices ALL being clandestine listening devices.
There's a difference between knowing your calls may be tapped, and finding out that your cell phone may have been bugging off-air conversations with no visible sign. Just as in 1984 where the TV could watch you - and couldn't be turned off.
No. Time to get paranoid, your cell phone can be remotely tapped (speakerphone mic) even when it's off:
http://www.news.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
That's what they're concerned about. A quote from the article:
I wonder if that applies to Steve's iPhone? heh
All cars with OnStar can be monitored the same way. Welcome to 1984.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. --Benjamin Franklin
Face it, the Dems are no better, and further the liberals are generally the ones clamoring for more international trade, and internationalization in general.
McCain will probably not be a panacea, as he is about 51% Dem anyhow... ;-)
The right wing? You must mean the Clintons instead, the most China-friendly couple you'd ever want to meet. During their eight years in power, China and offshoring flourished. Vast right wing conspiracy indeed. Does Wal-Mart board of directors ring a bell?
Gladly, we won't be seeing them in the White House again. What we will be seeing may be worse, McCain. Obama is not electable in the gemeral election.
At any rate, we'll see how things play out. Bomb, bomb, bomb..bomb, bomb Iran! lol
That's fine, and also irrelevant. The salient fact is not that I still have my IP, but that whatever profits I might make with said IP will be (possibly massively) diluted by a competitor who has no right to my idea/design/product.
The delta between what I would have made and what I did make is what was "stolen".
If you or other /. folk don't like the term "IP theft", come up with another one. It's still theft.
Sure, and with China's well documented tendencies towards theft of intellectual property, no one should be surprised.
What we should be doing here in the US, though, is everything we can to discourage use of Chinese products. There's no need to give China all our wealth and in the process create a powerful competitor. Problem is, we're already there...now it's time for damage control. The one good thing about a weak dollar policy is it will help.
Good thing we have a big crop of American scientists and engineers to compete into the future! Oh, wait...
It's worse than that. Visible light isn't the problem, it's self emission of long wave infrared (LWIR) radiation. The background of space is very cold (a few K above absolute zero), so anything with any significant temperature contrasts very nicely. In theory it might be possible to cool the front side of the (notionally black) satellite to near zero deg K, but in practice that'd take prohibitive energy, since that nice black surface would absorb a whole lot of solar energy when exposed (~1/2 the time).
So, civilian satellite spotters aren't the real problem, it's inimical militaries with LWIR telescopes...and there's pretty well nothing to be done about it.
Which he certainly did. ;-)
Regardless, some consider these "stunts" "adventures" instead. Also, you have to respect the guy's personal commitment, considering he got in shape enough to swim the English Channel, participate in Ironman competitions, and so on.
Most people will be faceless sheep by comparison, doing nothing of significance in their lives.
As to his wife's attitude about his pursuits, perhaps you should read some of her public statements.
Washington State had better watch itself...Microsoft is liable to pull up stakes and move to Nevada. Then Washington would lose all the income tax revenue, property tax revenue and so on from all those Microsoft employees. That is the fallacy of trying to squeeze too much revenue out of 'rich' companies.
McCain:
Negatives: Pro-amnesty, against Bush tax cuts, global warming proponent
Romney:
Negatives: Has switched numerous positions (no 'reputation' involved), seems to have a Clintonesque tendency to do anything to get elected, NRA Lifetime Member since 2006 but will consider 'banning weapons of unusual destructive potential', needs to consult lawyers before making decisions as Commander in Chief
Huckabee:
Negatives: Snake oil salesman par excellence, anti-science, very liberal fiscally, pro amnesty, busily screwing over Romney and the Republican Party and helping McCain by staying in race for Super Tuesday - not one person should vote for him
Paul:
Positives: Libertarian platform generally makes sense
Negatives: Way, way, way wrong on the war in Iraq, and therefore unelectable. Also many other unworkable and/or dangerous ideas
In summary, a pitiful and pathetic field of Republican candidates. The only thing worse is the field of Democratic candidates! I miss Fred Thompson. :-/
Yes it is, but not for the reasons you think. Iran has actively been working against our interests since '77, it's time for payback.
Attacking Iran will ensure that your ideology doesn't just go into a temporary retreat - that it dies a horrible death. We can't afford for it to survive. The actual political center of this country is somewhere between Kucinich and Edwards, when people are surveyed on isolated issues, instead of labelling themselves as conservative/liberal. Neoconservatism has managed to rally the limbic centers of half a dozen single-issue voting blocs to convince the media & pol groupthink that the average person holds beliefs just slightly left of Mussolini.
Not true. On the issue of bombing Iran, for instance, recent polls show that over 50% of Americans favor it. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Okay, Clinton made the country too prosperous, we got greedy, we had it coming. The problem with the American Dream is that we're all dreaming about what we'll do when we're rich. And when you're flying high on internet stocks, perhaps a guy you'd like to have a drink with seems like a good choice for a president.
Sorry, I don't buy the "we're wealthy, therefore we should feel guilty" tripe. We're fortunate to be at the top, meaning everyone else will complain about us until they manage to climb over us. The United States is by no means perfect, but it beats the alternatives (so far at least;).
But we can't afford this stuff any more. Not for a few decades. Not when we have actual, existential crises facing the country, like the nexus of peak oil, the fall of the US dollar as anchor currency, and global warming.
Sure we can. The US is probably best positioned of any major power to leave oil behind, the fall of the US dollar simply reflects our poor fiscal policies since long before Bush, and global warming is something that is best handled with future technologies, not by hamstringing our current economy (I hope you've seen the recent article stating that 60% of carbon emissions between now and 2030 is likely to come from India and China).
At any rate, I hope it's not too much of a shock for you when Hillary loses the next presidential election, and a Republican is in power for four more years.
First off, Iran threatens stability and pro-Western entities throughout the Middle East, and particularly in Iraq.
Second, Iran has been actively working against the US in Iraq, and Iranian weapons have killed many US troops.
Third, Iran funds terrorism including Al Queda.
Fourth, Iran is actively seeking to build nuclear weapons, which could well be used against the US or US interests.
I favor wide-ranging airstrikes against Iran's nuclear installations and military. Those should keep Iran from being a problem for many years, and perhaps give the rest of the Middle East a chance to move out of the seventh century... To my mind the only other possibility is a pro-democracy revolution, which seems pretty unlikely at this point.
If Iran continues to cause trouble after the airstrikes, we can hit its oil terminals, cutting off its only source of hard currency.
Any country that regularly holds government sponsored rallys to chant "Death to America" is no friend of America. As their technology improves, it simply becomes more and more likely they'll be able to do something catastrophic to us. Iran needs to understand in no uncertain terms that the reverse is true as well.
Also, can ANYONE explain to me what the issue with Taiwan is? The US apparently doesn't want China to reabsorb Taiwan into the state, yet are quite happy to deal/trade with the Chinese in their current political form and doesn't seem that bothered about Tibet. Face it, Taiwan will, at some point, much like Hong Kong, be re-absorbed by China, and the USA has ZERO chance of stopping it happening.
What you're missing with regard to Taiwan is that the Taiwanese don't want to be re-absorbed. There are treaties with the US, and it's likely that the US will get involved if China uses force. The threat of US intervention is likely the only thing that's stopped it so far.
The US most certainly could stop China from conquering Taiwan...whether it chooses to do so when push comes to shove is another question. Let's hope it doesn't happen on Hillary's watch. ;-)
The Moon is a natural space station, with unlimited energy and unknown amounts of raw materials. What raw materials it doesn't possess can be imported in the form of asteroids and comets. Mars is too far away to be a practical first step, but the country that colonizes the Moon on an industrial scale will be the only one with the technology and expertise to colonize the rest of the Solar System. It will also have an incredible technology edge over the rest of the world, as well as a commanding military platform above Earth's gravity well.
Calling it a 'big dead rock in space' only shows your own lack of imagination. ;-)
I know it'd require reading the article ;-) but the stated power per CPU is 100-120 W. That's a far cry from 500% over current processors, isn't it? BTW, heat scales directly with power IIRC.
You've conflated two different issues. Games are intended to be realtime, but often aren't. Since they're soft realtime, this is characterized by framerates dropping below some arbitrary rate be it 120/s, 60/s or 30/s. Most science/math applications don't have the realtime constraint but utilize no more system resources than the game does...both are using 100% of CPU, memory bandwidth, or both. For serious flight simulators, the frame rate is a hard realtime requirement and not meeting it is considered a fatal error.
In fact, since games tend to use the massive compute resources on the GPU more intensively, I'd still argue they're the most intensive applications - and their soft realtime nature only adds to that opinion. Game programming issues certainly make it more difficult to achieve acceptable performance, due to that pesky realtime requirement.
I suggest taking a hard look at Fred Thompson. I hope his campaign strategy works out, his platform is outstanding.
I'm still waiting to see HillBillary dethroned as the Dem's candidate...I just can't see them winning.
This was always a specious argument. OpenGL includes a vendor extension mechanism so vendors DON'T have to wait for a new 'official' version to roll out new functionality.
Microsoft simply wanted (as it always does) to control the APIs and promote Microsoft platform lockin. It has been trying to push DirectX into 'serious' apps ever since, without much success fortunately.
The good news is that a few game developers, Apple, all Unix vendors and the Open Source community are quite sufficient to keep OpenGL a vibrant, cross-platform standard. NVIDIA is good about exposing all the new hardware functionality through vendor extensions as mentioned above, and are active on the OpenGL ARB.
In this situation, there are three private parties involved. The Senator, google.com and moveon.org. The government must arbitrate between them. Note that there's the precedent that these ads would without question have run in radio, TV, or print. Only on the Internet was there somehow this issue of trademark violation. In my mind the right of the Senator to free political speech trumps moveon.org's right to assert a trademark on their political organizations name (those shouldn't be allowed IMO).
To be clear, I think moveon.org is more at fault for asserting a trademark issue, but google should have stood up for political free speech.
All political speech moves over privately owned channels - there should be no impediments to such speech.
I predict you're in for a very disappointing election day in '08... ;-)
Don't shoot the messenger... ;-)