Not strictly true. A DVD work-around has already been produced (search on Google, I can't remember the URL) for the (admittedly beta) Japanese versions of the Linux kit.
...since the EULA is not valid, he would not have the right to install the software in any form (since such rights are only granted by the EULA). So technically no one under the age of eighteen can install Microsoft software (or GPL software for that matter, it has more than a few EULA like clauses).
Sorry? Minors are allowed to purchase things, like food, yes? Does this mean that if a food had a license agreement that said that it could only be eaten if the recipient was over-18 (and I'm not talking about alcohol) then it could be bought but not consumed.
Surely, some-one not bound by the terms of the EULA who had purchased the software would only be bound by the same laws covering (say) music CDs. Meaning they could install the software, and do anything with it so long as it was not expressly prohibited by copyright law. (Like copy it.)
Or aren't 17-year old's allowed to buy (and more importantly play Mariah Carey almbums any more.
Let me tell you a story about my boss at GS. (Whose name shall remain anonymous, because he'd kill me...)
He was the most highly rated analyst in Europe at sector X. His calls as to when a stock would go up, or down or just round-and-round were always spot on. In every survery of investors he was rated best in sector.
One day the head of research asked him: "So, Joe, why don't you become our X analyst in the US, you'd earn a lot more money?"
Answer: "You drug test in the US."
The moral of this anecdote: you don't employ people to be crack addicts, you employ them to do a job. If they can do the job better than anyone else despite (insert impediment here) then any *rational* employer would hire them anyway.
Anyway, my boss has given up worrying about those pesky urine samples (by leaving GS) and good on him...
The employment contract was even more harsh... at least in theory.
Any intellectual property I developed, such as writing a diary, at home in my own time, was their property. To this day I worry that royalties from my autobography Robert Smithson: My Life at The Coalmine (sales to date: zero) will accrue to GS.
BUT (and this is the point of my post, as you guessed there would be) the contract also stated that any work I did in my own time would be mine, so long as I got their permission. And that such permission 'would not reasonably be refused'.
Maybe GS is uncommonly kind (although that seems a little unlikely), but most emplyers demand more the right to be kept informed, than the right to control your every move. If your line manager says (off-contract) that it is 'no problem' that you work on GNU/Emacs for Dreamcast in your evening time (especially if you mention the important befits to your company, like... errr.. not playing Virtua Tennis instead) ten there is very little the company can do about it.
So, just remeber to ask someone who doesn't care, or know the details, about employment contracts and you'll be fine. Just hope they don't read Slahdot...
There is no doubt that the Skeptical Environmentalist contains many errors. But it contains a lot that is useful, and it does not pretend to be a book about science. It is a book about the statistics used by certain people to support certain arguments.
Sometimes the stastics used are dubious: the Economist themselves ran a story on how the world's figures on fish production were flawed because of massive misrepesentation from China. (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_I D=885936) As a result of this, one whole chapter of the book is glaringly wrong.
*BUT*
The reaction to the book does the environmentalists great disservice. Rather than rationally approaching it from the point of view of the statistics, and admitting that - in a few cases - statistics used to back up a points were wrong, the environmental movement has reacted hysterically. Normally sensible people have attacked Lomberg as an agent of big business, the oil companies, etc.
This is wrong. Attack Lomberg for his errors, do not get caught up in some hysterical conspiracy theory.
And talk about statistics. The book is about statistics, not about global warming. It may well be that global warming is worse than expected, but attacking him for having a different point of view (and that alone) is wrong.
The problem with discussions of Intel vs every other chip maker is they ignore the extraordinary differences in scale between the players.
Let's compare: Sun is a company that produces operating systems (Solaris), computers, CPUs, motherboards, and a host of peripherals. (Plus it has to invent Java, J2EE, etc.) It's R&D budget was $2.0bn in 2001.
Intel is 95% CPUs. It spent $3.8bn on R&D in 2001.
Intel has the world's most productive fabs. It's capex budget is so huge, it can order the lithograohy companies and the like to build to order inside its factories. Result, it's yields are 25% better at start; and still 10-12% better after 6-9 months.
It is incredibly difficult for anyone to keep up with the Intel machine. I wish it weren't so; but it is.
Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. The laser doesn't burn through the target it literally hits it with more energy than it can deal with - sure making it refective would help - but only a little. Plus, there is the majordisadvantage of being poorly concealed to conventional weopans.
In the UK, the magazine Edge (http://www.edge-online.com) has a column called Red Eye by a veteran video game journalist.
About six months ago the column was about a journalist who boasted of writing a review of a game without even playing it. According to Red Eye, the practise is remarkably common - as magazines and web sites fight to make sure they aren't caught out by scoops from others.
Red Eye also criticises video game journalists from acting like a pack. He cites Driver 2 as an example where the universally positive reviews ignored significant flaws in the game.
Anyway, just my thoughts,
*r
'Oh how right I was, only I wish I'd said it.'
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· Score: 2
The dot com boom, and subsequent bust cannot solely be blamed on poor management. Nor can it be blamed on justifiably irrational expectations. (If that is not a contradiction in terms.)
Most importantly, it is not best analysed by those who claim to have been right all along, yet were strangely silent during the period 1997-2000.
The best analyses will come from those who invested and lost their own (not other peoples') money.
Why were so many individual investors (and I include 'angels' here) persuaded that pets.com was worth more than the aggregate market value of all other pet suppliers combined? Why were analysts so vocifiorous in their claims that the net was going to change the face of the economy for ever? (Did anyone ever compare the Internet to previous technology led booms? If so, let them come forward - don't let them crow after remaining silent during the boom years.)
While we have a culture of 'I told you so, just not to your face, or indeed to anyone else at all', then analyses will be flawed and, frankly, self-righteous and arrogant.
I look forward to Mary Meeker's words, and Henrey Blogets's words. (I won't necesserily believe them - but I look forward to reading them.)
But let me take on some of your points; it won't get me any karma, but I'll do it anyway. (Hey, my whoring days are over - I'll never get proper mod rights, so I'm just going to have to get used to it!)
Overpopulation is not a new theme. It has dated back to Thomas Malthus (c.1800) and before. The theory has a simple premise: food production is growing arithmetically (or is in someway limited), but population grows geometrically. And, the only way to hold the population in check is wars, disease, etc. These checks mean that the geometrical growth in population has (until now) been such that has matched food production.
But now (and the now always changes) food production can no longer grow in line with the population.
Which brings me to my two points.
(1) The whole spectre of overpopulation is overblown by people that don't understand the issue. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a member of Greenpeace, but the world is not about to fail to be able to meet the food needs, at least in theory, of its people.)
(2) The concept of overpopulation is nearly always racist in the way it's used, because the people being asked not to breed are not in Birmingham, Alabama, but in Bangladesh and Bengal.
Adressing the first point:
The world's food supply has consistently grown faster than population, and these shows no sign of stopping. (No, that does not mean it is perfectly distributed.) Since 1960, grain yield (per hectar) have grown from 1.3tons to 2.7tons. If we exclude the ex-Soviet area, where things have got indisputably much worse since 1990, the growth is even higher. Indeed, the growth in yield per hectar has not even started to level out.
By contrast, world population growth has begun levelling out. Given education and contraception, birth rates have fallen from their peaks almost everywhere.
Equally importantly, lets not sit back with our (oh so wonderful) Western viewpoints, and aassume that familes like producing kids they can't feed. Population growth has largely been a *result* of the agricultural (read green) revolution, not a precursor. When (local) yields have levelled off, so have populations.
This is not to dispute the glaring local examples to this (in Africa, for example) - but on a global basis, things have gotten better not worse.
Secondly, and this point is simple, no-one proposes banning people in Minnesota from having two children. Attempting to suggest this in the US would be an unforgivable breach of the fundamental freedoms people hold. Suggesting it is OK for us (US) to dictate this to China is racism, pure and simple.
'Overpopulated' is one of these wonderful terms, that suggests a scientific problem. But really means 'there are some people I would rather weren't born.'
More specifically, 'overpopulaton' - whatever that is supposed to mean - is used as a euphamism for 'too many of them, about the right number of us.'
When we talk of overpopulation, what we are really saying is 'there are a class of people who should not be allowed to reproduce.' That is a dangerous and evil thought...
Anyway, we're very lucky in Britain that employees are not quite as concerned about what your degree is in. It is not considered essential to have an MBA to work as an investment banker, or a computer science degree to work as a programmer.
I speak from experience: I 'majored' in Philosophy, became an investment banker, and dabble in programming. (Not bad for a man with a lower second...)
People should look at their degree as their last chance to enjoy themselves and do something they may not be able to ever do again. Use your degree as an opportunity as a chance to expand your horizons, not as a launch pad for a career.
At the end of the day, you can always learn to be programmer or a networking specialist: and your degree may not be the best place to learn those skills.
Well. Funding ION Storm probably did Eidos no favours. The failure of Daikatana - launched (conincidentally) when Eidos's stock was at an all-time high - has meant people miss one of the greatest games of all time.
Whenever anyone thinks of casting aspersions at ION Storm, they should think of Deus Ex. Few games have had the critical acclaim it had. I can only hope its succesor is as impressive.
Nothing out Looking Glass - even the masterful Thief 2 - came close.
Remember that. The $30m+ wasted on Daikatana and Dominion:etc. did produce one of the greatest games of all time.
I was lucky enough to go to the Eidos party at E3 in 1999.
These were heady days. Daikatana was about to be finally released. The PSX was at its peak. PC gaming was growing, growing, growing.
And I was standing next to Warren Specter in the queue.
He told me who he was, and I asked why he was standing with the plebs, rather than going through the VIP route he was no doubt entitled to.
Warren laughed and said he was with his team, and no way was he leaving them.
It is a rare thing to see someone with such a reputation prefer his team to his convenience, and whatever happened to ION Storm I wish him well.
Re:Advantages of a single currency (or not!)
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The Euro
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· Score: 3, Informative
Thanks for that: I shall check out those books.
The argument as I see it is very much unresolved: do lower transaction costs and better transparency outweigh greater inflexibility?
And for all the words written on Slashdot, we just don't know.
As a Brit, I must admit I would not join the Euro in the first wave. But, that does not mean it cannot or will not work. It is 'a grand experiment'.
I look forward to reading the reviews of the Euro one year in!
Re:Advantages of a single currency (or not!)
on
The Euro
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Yes. Labour (labor) is much more mobile in the US than in Europe.
And Yes, that does mean 'asymetrical shocks' can be more easily absorbed than in Europe.
But that does not mean an Indiana steelworker can easily become a networking expert. (Or, in the current environment, the opposite.)
Even inside countries, people are surprisingly unlikely to move. How else can you explain the persistently high unemployment rates in some parts of the US? The statistics tell a story: very few people change 'region' in the US during their lifetime. And an even smaller proportion change for economic, as opposed to life-style, family or educational reasons.
And at the 'high end' of the emplyment spectrum - by which I mean skilled professionals - locational mobility is increasingly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Find the major investment bank in London where 'brits' make up the majority of senior positions.
I am uncovinced by cultural arguments: I know many Scottish nationalists working in London; many opposed to further European integration find themselves working on computing contracts in Brussels, Frankfurt or Paris.
I could well be wrong, but the evidence does not yet point clearly to either (a) labour mobility being *that* important or (b) people being *much* more unwilling to move - at least temptoraily - around Europe than around the US.
What is really frightening about living in the UK is the degree of ignorance, not just about the Euro, but about Europe in general.
If you read the English tabloid press - The Sun, The Star, and the like - then you would be left with the impression that Britain is by far the pre-eminent European country and economy.
Yet - and here I grope for my Economist World in 2002 - Britain is no longer at the top of the European economic heap. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland... all richer in terms of GDP per head. And when adjusted for PPP (purchasing power parity - ie what you £1 or $1 or 1 of currency actually buys you) Britain turns out to be a pretty second-division Europan power. People in Britain are, outside London and the South-East, *poorer* than their European peers.
Maybe, instead of ranting about European beaurocracy and red-tape, we in Britain should ask 'why has Europe become so rich, while we have stagnated.'
(And before anyone comes back to me with unemployment figures - go check the ILO unemployment numbers, or better EMPLOYMENT numbers. Our so-called low unemployment is largely a statisicians dream.)
Re:Picture of bills with US bill
on
The Euro
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I won't get any Karma for this - but hey, I gave up whoring ages ago...
There are two common fallacies about sharing currencies between countries:
(1) It is necessary to have a shared government. Monetary integration *must* lead to political integration;
(2) Entering a 'common currency' is a once-and-for-all measure.
Both these can be countered by recent history.
Ireland and the UK.
Until the mid-1970s Ireland and the UK shared a currency - the British pound. This situation began with Irish independence at the beginning of the Century. Yet Ireland was not subsumed inside some British super-state. Ireland's independence as a country was never in doubt.
Ireland decided to go its own monetary way following the start of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. The Irish government made the, no doubt politically correct, decision that breaking from a currency agreement with a country responsible for 'Bloody Sunday' when tens of Catholic (Northern) Irish citizens were killed would not harm its electoral chances.
If anything, Ireland and the UK had less interlinked economies than most of the Eurozone (cf the figures for Ireland's exports as a % of GDP in the 1970s, esp. pre its entry into the EU - then the EEC.) Add in the almost complete lack of Ireland/UK trade resolution agreements - don't forget that one of Ireland's two major political parties was against the partion of Ireland - and it becomes clear that there is no reason why countries cannot share a currency without sharing a government.
Belgium and Luxembourg:
OK, they're both small. But the point remains.
France and the 'Convertible Franc':
Interesting one this, and one which I don't know as much as I should. (Reminder, read books on the subject.) France's ex-colonial 'possesions' in Africa share/shared with their previous overlord, a semi-convertible currency, even as 'colonial ties' were being increasinly relaxed. No greater disparity between the (predominantly) African economies of the former colonies and their erstwhile masters can be imagined. Yet, these countries regarded the convertible franc as the one beneficial legacy of colonialism.
I don't know how this has changed since the 'creation' of the Euro. Nor can I point to any noted economic successes in Africa. (Although, I would say - largely without any hard evidence - they have done no worse than peers.) So, it is not necessarily a great example.
BUT - they do go some way to demonstrate that a 'sovreign federal' body is hardly a necessity to a working currency.
Advantages of a single currency (or not!)
on
The Euro
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· Score: 4, Informative
Well.. I'll (almost) pass on the Argentina situation. Argentina does not have the US dollar as a currency. Indeed, it is considering 'dollarisation' where it does adapt the dollar as a currency. Right now, it has a currency board with insufficient reserves to support its chosen exchange rate with the US$ given:
(1) Argentina's budget deficit
(2) its large (private) US dollar borrowings, and
(3) modest US$ export earnings
In this situation, Argentina becomes a sitting duck for currency speculators. Irrespective of the 'true' value of the peso, it is near impossible to maintain the value of the currency. Add in a crazy political situation (most of the public sector deficit in Argentina is from *local* government - where politicans are from different political parties to central government, and hence much to gain from embarassing the central government...). Result, chaos. And that's even before a long running recession, supply-side inefficencies, etc.
Back to Europe.
There is an economics theory called 'optimal currency zones' which makes much the same case you do: how can the central bank pursue a coherent monetary (ie interest rate) policy, when the different countries that make up Europe have such different economies?
We don't know.
Only experience will tell. But one thing seems forgotten: the US has widely differing economic areas. How closely correlated are tobacco farming in Virginia, car manufacturing in Detroit, optical networking in San Francisco and investment banking in Wall Street? When car making is suffering from Japanese competition, it might seem to make sense to devalue the Detroit dollar - yet no-one has ever suggested breaking the US into regional currencies.
And the advantages of a single currency are huge: greater price transparency for consumers, lower inflation from greater competition, lower long-term interest rates, etc.
Most importantly of all: work or not, <b>everyone</b> should hope the Euro is a success. Neither the US, the UK, nor Asia will benefit from an economically weak Europe.
And I'm really looking forward to getting hold of my first Euro notes and coins when I go to France on Friday!
I'll be honest with you: I play Civ with my music. But I love iD. I've been playing their games (Commander Keen, anyone) for such a long time I feel like they're a part of my life.
Just don't tell my girlfriend: she thinks I'm working.
It must be really hard producing a sequel of such a classic game after such a long period. They will be judged against people's rose tinted rememberances of the original Wolfenstein 3D. And no matter how good it is, people will say 'Ahhh I enjoyed the original more.'
It's also hard, because the FPS genre is not new anymore. Can RTCW be a better game than Deus Ex or Counterstike? Maybe. But whatever it is it will be hard for it to be revolutionary.
That said, I'm sure I'll buy it as soon as it hits the shops. Just as soon as I finish Civ 3 that is!
(1) That they didn't think anyone would notice. And that people would be a little upset when they realised that the graphics card they'd bought wasn't as quick at Half Life as hoped.
and
(2) They went to so much trouble. Sure, optimising the drivers so they scored well on Quake is not a bad idea. But it must have been quite a lot of work against the risk of detection.
That said, if I want to play Quake, this is definitely the card I'll buy. I'll just make sure I don't rename any of the files.
I don't mean to be funny but...
on
Virtual Keyboard
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· Score: 2, Informative
Isn't this an obvious hoax.
There is no way the image shown can tell when I press a key, or indeed where my fingers are with any degree of accuracy.
I spent two years playing with human-computer interfaces and quickly came to the conclusion that short of something physical to 'press' then users wouldn't know where keys where, and sensors (particularly placed where the 'knucklebands' shows are) wouldn't know with any degree of accuracy where my fingers were.
The lack of an AVI or any kind of press review just adds to my scepticism.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... I guess the lower cost of the 'beige boxes' might have something to do with it.
First thing I do with my new 'beige box' is remove the (expensively pre-installed) copy of Windows MistakE and install Linux.
And despite the $30 or so heading Redmond's way, this is still the cheapest way to get a decent machine.
(ps - you *can* use Linux to drive the iPod; just be prepared to set-aside a whole week-end of your time.)
Not strictly true. A DVD work-around has already been produced (search on Google, I can't remember the URL) for the (admittedly beta) Japanese versions of the Linux kit.
Sorry? Minors are allowed to purchase things, like food, yes? Does this mean that if a food had a license agreement that said that it could only be eaten if the recipient was over-18 (and I'm not talking about alcohol) then it could be bought but not consumed.
Surely, some-one not bound by the terms of the EULA who had purchased the software would only be bound by the same laws covering (say) music CDs. Meaning they could install the software, and do anything with it so long as it was not expressly prohibited by copyright law. (Like copy it.)
Or aren't 17-year old's allowed to buy (and more importantly play Mariah Carey almbums any more.
You're in favour of random drug testing?
Let me tell you a story about my boss at GS. (Whose name shall remain anonymous, because he'd kill me...)
He was the most highly rated analyst in Europe at sector X. His calls as to when a stock would go up, or down or just round-and-round were always spot on. In every survery of investors he was rated best in sector.
One day the head of research asked him: "So, Joe, why don't you become our X analyst in the US, you'd earn a lot more money?"
Answer: "You drug test in the US."
The moral of this anecdote: you don't employ people to be crack addicts, you employ them to do a job. If they can do the job better than anyone else despite (insert impediment here) then any *rational* employer would hire them anyway.
Anyway, my boss has given up worrying about those pesky urine samples (by leaving GS) and good on him...
*r
The employment contract was even more harsh... at least in theory.
Any intellectual property I developed, such as writing a diary, at home in my own time, was their property. To this day I worry that royalties from my autobography Robert Smithson: My Life at The Coalmine (sales to date: zero) will accrue to GS.
BUT (and this is the point of my post, as you guessed there would be) the contract also stated that any work I did in my own time would be mine, so long as I got their permission. And that such permission 'would not reasonably be refused'.
Maybe GS is uncommonly kind (although that seems a little unlikely), but most emplyers demand more the right to be kept informed, than the right to control your every move. If your line manager says (off-contract) that it is 'no problem' that you work on GNU/Emacs for Dreamcast in your evening time (especially if you mention the important befits to your company, like... errr.. not playing Virtua Tennis instead) ten there is very little the company can do about it.
So, just remeber to ask someone who doesn't care, or know the details, about employment contracts and you'll be fine. Just hope they don't read Slahdot...
*r
There is no doubt that the Skeptical Environmentalist contains many errors. But it contains a lot that is useful, and it does not pretend to be a book about science. It is a book about the statistics used by certain people to support certain arguments.
I D=885936) As a result of this, one whole chapter of the book is glaringly wrong.
Sometimes the stastics used are dubious: the Economist themselves ran a story on how the world's figures on fish production were flawed because of massive misrepesentation from China. (http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_
*BUT*
The reaction to the book does the environmentalists great disservice. Rather than rationally approaching it from the point of view of the statistics, and admitting that - in a few cases - statistics used to back up a points were wrong, the environmental movement has reacted hysterically. Normally sensible people have attacked Lomberg as an agent of big business, the oil companies, etc.
This is wrong. Attack Lomberg for his errors, do not get caught up in some hysterical conspiracy theory.
And talk about statistics. The book is about statistics, not about global warming. It may well be that global warming is worse than expected, but attacking him for having a different point of view (and that alone) is wrong.
Just my $0.05...
*r
The problem with discussions of Intel vs every other chip maker is they ignore the extraordinary differences in scale between the players.
Let's compare: Sun is a company that produces operating systems (Solaris), computers, CPUs, motherboards, and a host of peripherals. (Plus it has to invent Java, J2EE, etc.) It's R&D budget was $2.0bn in 2001.
Intel is 95% CPUs. It spent $3.8bn on R&D in 2001.
Intel has the world's most productive fabs. It's capex budget is so huge, it can order the lithograohy companies and the like to build to order inside its factories. Result, it's yields are 25% better at start; and still 10-12% better after 6-9 months.
It is incredibly difficult for anyone to keep up with the Intel machine. I wish it weren't so; but it is.
*r
Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. The laser doesn't burn through the target it literally hits it with more energy than it can deal with - sure making it refective would help - but only a little. Plus, there is the majordisadvantage of being poorly concealed to conventional weopans.
In the UK, the magazine Edge (http://www.edge-online.com) has a column called Red Eye by a veteran video game journalist.
About six months ago the column was about a journalist who boasted of writing a review of a game without even playing it. According to Red Eye, the practise is remarkably common - as magazines and web sites fight to make sure they aren't caught out by scoops from others.
Red Eye also criticises video game journalists from acting like a pack. He cites Driver 2 as an example where the universally positive reviews ignored significant flaws in the game.
Anyway, just my thoughts,
*r
The dot com boom, and subsequent bust cannot solely be blamed on poor management. Nor can it be blamed on justifiably irrational expectations. (If that is not a contradiction in terms.)
Most importantly, it is not best analysed by those who claim to have been right all along, yet were strangely silent during the period 1997-2000.
The best analyses will come from those who invested and lost their own (not other peoples') money.
Why were so many individual investors (and I include 'angels' here) persuaded that pets.com was worth more than the aggregate market value of all other pet suppliers combined? Why were analysts so vocifiorous in their claims that the net was going to change the face of the economy for ever? (Did anyone ever compare the Internet to previous technology led booms? If so, let them come forward - don't let them crow after remaining silent during the boom years.)
While we have a culture of 'I told you so, just not to your face, or indeed to anyone else at all', then analyses will be flawed and, frankly, self-righteous and arrogant.
I look forward to Mary Meeker's words, and Henrey Blogets's words. (I won't necesserily believe them - but I look forward to reading them.)
My thoughts only,
Robert
Harsh.
But let me take on some of your points; it won't get me any karma, but I'll do it anyway. (Hey, my whoring days are over - I'll never get proper mod rights, so I'm just going to have to get used to it!)
Overpopulation is not a new theme. It has dated back to Thomas Malthus (c.1800) and before. The theory has a simple premise: food production is growing arithmetically (or is in someway limited), but population grows geometrically. And, the only way to hold the population in check is wars, disease, etc. These checks mean that the geometrical growth in population has (until now) been such that has matched food production.
But now (and the now always changes) food production can no longer grow in line with the population.
Which brings me to my two points.
(1) The whole spectre of overpopulation is overblown by people that don't understand the issue. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a member of Greenpeace, but the world is not about to fail to be able to meet the food needs, at least in theory, of its people.)
(2) The concept of overpopulation is nearly always racist in the way it's used, because the people being asked not to breed are not in Birmingham, Alabama, but in Bangladesh and Bengal.
Adressing the first point:
The world's food supply has consistently grown faster than population, and these shows no sign of stopping. (No, that does not mean it is perfectly distributed.) Since 1960, grain yield (per hectar) have grown from 1.3tons to 2.7tons. If we exclude the ex-Soviet area, where things have got indisputably much worse since 1990, the growth is even higher. Indeed, the growth in yield per hectar has not even started to level out.
By contrast, world population growth has begun levelling out. Given education and contraception, birth rates have fallen from their peaks almost everywhere.
Equally importantly, lets not sit back with our (oh so wonderful) Western viewpoints, and aassume that familes like producing kids they can't feed. Population growth has largely been a *result* of the agricultural (read green) revolution, not a precursor. When (local) yields have levelled off, so have populations.
This is not to dispute the glaring local examples to this (in Africa, for example) - but on a global basis, things have gotten better not worse.
Secondly, and this point is simple, no-one proposes banning people in Minnesota from having two children. Attempting to suggest this in the US would be an unforgivable breach of the fundamental freedoms people hold. Suggesting it is OK for us (US) to dictate this to China is racism, pure and simple.
Just my thoughts,
Robert
But in this case, I did.
'Overpopulated' is one of these wonderful terms, that suggests a scientific problem. But really means 'there are some people I would rather weren't born.'
More specifically, 'overpopulaton' - whatever that is supposed to mean - is used as a euphamism for 'too many of them, about the right number of us.'
When we talk of overpopulation, what we are really saying is 'there are a class of people who should not be allowed to reproduce.' That is a dangerous and evil thought...
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong!
*r
Hi,
I'm British. Sorry about that.
Anyway, we're very lucky in Britain that employees are not quite as concerned about what your degree is in. It is not considered essential to have an MBA to work as an investment banker, or a computer science degree to work as a programmer.
I speak from experience: I 'majored' in Philosophy, became an investment banker, and dabble in programming. (Not bad for a man with a lower second...)
People should look at their degree as their last chance to enjoy themselves and do something they may not be able to ever do again. Use your degree as an opportunity as a chance to expand your horizons, not as a launch pad for a career.
At the end of the day, you can always learn to be programmer or a networking specialist: and your degree may not be the best place to learn those skills.
Just my ha'pennys worth.
Have you considered Enron subordinated debt? That's offering 100%+ yields...
Well. Funding ION Storm probably did Eidos no favours. The failure of Daikatana - launched (conincidentally) when Eidos's stock was at an all-time high - has meant people miss one of the greatest games of all time.
Whenever anyone thinks of casting aspersions at ION Storm, they should think of Deus Ex. Few games have had the critical acclaim it had. I can only hope its succesor is as impressive.
Nothing out Looking Glass - even the masterful Thief 2 - came close.
Remember that. The $30m+ wasted on Daikatana and Dominion:etc. did produce one of the greatest games of all time.
I was lucky enough to go to the Eidos party at E3 in 1999.
These were heady days. Daikatana was about to be finally released. The PSX was at its peak. PC gaming was growing, growing, growing.
And I was standing next to Warren Specter in the queue.
He told me who he was, and I asked why he was standing with the plebs, rather than going through the VIP route he was no doubt entitled to.
Warren laughed and said he was with his team, and no way was he leaving them.
It is a rare thing to see someone with such a reputation prefer his team to his convenience, and whatever happened to ION Storm I wish him well.
Thanks for that: I shall check out those books.
The argument as I see it is very much unresolved: do lower transaction costs and better transparency outweigh greater inflexibility?
And for all the words written on Slashdot, we just don't know.
As a Brit, I must admit I would not join the Euro in the first wave. But, that does not mean it cannot or will not work. It is 'a grand experiment'.
I look forward to reading the reviews of the Euro one year in!
Yes. Labour (labor) is much more mobile in the US than in Europe.
And Yes, that does mean 'asymetrical shocks' can be more easily absorbed than in Europe.
But that does not mean an Indiana steelworker can easily become a networking expert. (Or, in the current environment, the opposite.)
Even inside countries, people are surprisingly unlikely to move. How else can you explain the persistently high unemployment rates in some parts of the US? The statistics tell a story: very few people change 'region' in the US during their lifetime. And an even smaller proportion change for economic, as opposed to life-style, family or educational reasons.
And at the 'high end' of the emplyment spectrum - by which I mean skilled professionals - locational mobility is increasingly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Find the major investment bank in London where 'brits' make up the majority of senior positions.
I am uncovinced by cultural arguments: I know many Scottish nationalists working in London; many opposed to further European integration find themselves working on computing contracts in Brussels, Frankfurt or Paris.
I could well be wrong, but the evidence does not yet point clearly to either (a) labour mobility being *that* important or (b) people being *much* more unwilling to move - at least temptoraily - around Europe than around the US.
What is really frightening about living in the UK is the degree of ignorance, not just about the Euro, but about Europe in general.
If you read the English tabloid press - The Sun, The Star, and the like - then you would be left with the impression that Britain is by far the pre-eminent European country and economy.
Yet - and here I grope for my Economist World in 2002 - Britain is no longer at the top of the European economic heap. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland... all richer in terms of GDP per head. And when adjusted for PPP (purchasing power parity - ie what you £1 or $1 or 1 of currency actually buys you) Britain turns out to be a pretty second-division Europan power. People in Britain are, outside London and the South-East, *poorer* than their European peers.
Maybe, instead of ranting about European beaurocracy and red-tape, we in Britain should ask 'why has Europe become so rich, while we have stagnated.'
(And before anyone comes back to me with unemployment figures - go check the ILO unemployment numbers, or better EMPLOYMENT numbers. Our so-called low unemployment is largely a statisicians dream.)
I won't get any Karma for this - but hey, I gave up whoring ages ago...
There are two common fallacies about sharing currencies between countries:
(1) It is necessary to have a shared government. Monetary integration *must* lead to political integration;
(2) Entering a 'common currency' is a once-and-for-all measure.
Both these can be countered by recent history.
Ireland and the UK.
Until the mid-1970s Ireland and the UK shared a currency - the British pound. This situation began with Irish independence at the beginning of the Century. Yet Ireland was not subsumed inside some British super-state. Ireland's independence as a country was never in doubt.
Ireland decided to go its own monetary way following the start of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. The Irish government made the, no doubt politically correct, decision that breaking from a currency agreement with a country responsible for 'Bloody Sunday' when tens of Catholic (Northern) Irish citizens were killed would not harm its electoral chances.
If anything, Ireland and the UK had less interlinked economies than most of the Eurozone (cf the figures for Ireland's exports as a % of GDP in the 1970s, esp. pre its entry into the EU - then the EEC.) Add in the almost complete lack of Ireland/UK trade resolution agreements - don't forget that one of Ireland's two major political parties was against the partion of Ireland - and it becomes clear that there is no reason why countries cannot share a currency without sharing a government.
Belgium and Luxembourg:
OK, they're both small. But the point remains.
France and the 'Convertible Franc':
Interesting one this, and one which I don't know as much as I should. (Reminder, read books on the subject.) France's ex-colonial 'possesions' in Africa share/shared with their previous overlord, a semi-convertible currency, even as 'colonial ties' were being increasinly relaxed. No greater disparity between the (predominantly) African economies of the former colonies and their erstwhile masters can be imagined. Yet, these countries regarded the convertible franc as the one beneficial legacy of colonialism.
I don't know how this has changed since the 'creation' of the Euro. Nor can I point to any noted economic successes in Africa. (Although, I would say - largely without any hard evidence - they have done no worse than peers.) So, it is not necessarily a great example.
BUT - they do go some way to demonstrate that a 'sovreign federal' body is hardly a necessity to a working currency.
Well.. I'll (almost) pass on the Argentina situation. Argentina does not have the US dollar as a currency. Indeed, it is considering 'dollarisation' where it does adapt the dollar as a currency. Right now, it has a currency board with insufficient reserves to support its chosen exchange rate with the US$ given:
(1) Argentina's budget deficit
(2) its large (private) US dollar borrowings, and
(3) modest US$ export earnings
In this situation, Argentina becomes a sitting duck for currency speculators. Irrespective of the 'true' value of the peso, it is near impossible to maintain the value of the currency. Add in a crazy political situation (most of the public sector deficit in Argentina is from *local* government - where politicans are from different political parties to central government, and hence much to gain from embarassing the central government...). Result, chaos. And that's even before a long running recession, supply-side inefficencies, etc.
Back to Europe.
There is an economics theory called 'optimal currency zones' which makes much the same case you do: how can the central bank pursue a coherent monetary (ie interest rate) policy, when the different countries that make up Europe have such different economies?
We don't know.
Only experience will tell. But one thing seems forgotten: the US has widely differing economic areas. How closely correlated are tobacco farming in Virginia, car manufacturing in Detroit, optical networking in San Francisco and investment banking in Wall Street? When car making is suffering from Japanese competition, it might seem to make sense to devalue the Detroit dollar - yet no-one has ever suggested breaking the US into regional currencies.
And the advantages of a single currency are huge: greater price transparency for consumers, lower inflation from greater competition, lower long-term interest rates, etc.
Most importantly of all: work or not, <b>everyone</b> should hope the Euro is a success. Neither the US, the UK, nor Asia will benefit from an economically weak Europe.
And I'm really looking forward to getting hold of my first Euro notes and coins when I go to France on Friday!
I'll be honest with you: I play Civ with my music. But I love iD. I've been playing their games (Commander Keen, anyone) for such a long time I feel like they're a part of my life.
Just don't tell my girlfriend: she thinks I'm working.
It must be really hard producing a sequel of such a classic game after such a long period. They will be judged against people's rose tinted rememberances of the original Wolfenstein 3D. And no matter how good it is, people will say 'Ahhh I enjoyed the original more.'
It's also hard, because the FPS genre is not new anymore. Can RTCW be a better game than Deus Ex or Counterstike? Maybe. But whatever it is it will be hard for it to be revolutionary.
That said, I'm sure I'll buy it as soon as it hits the shops. Just as soon as I finish Civ 3 that is!
*r
Two things really surprise me:
(1) That they didn't think anyone would notice. And that people would be a little upset when they realised that the graphics card they'd bought wasn't as quick at Half Life as hoped.
and
(2) They went to so much trouble. Sure, optimising the drivers so they scored well on Quake is not a bad idea. But it must have been quite a lot of work against the risk of detection.
That said, if I want to play Quake, this is definitely the card I'll buy. I'll just make sure I don't rename any of the files.
Isn't this an obvious hoax.
There is no way the image shown can tell when I press a key, or indeed where my fingers are with any degree of accuracy.
I spent two years playing with human-computer interfaces and quickly came to the conclusion that short of something physical to 'press' then users wouldn't know where keys where, and sensors (particularly placed where the 'knucklebands' shows are) wouldn't know with any degree of accuracy where my fingers were.
The lack of an AVI or any kind of press review just adds to my scepticism.
*r