However I think that liberals in general are more fearful of life and thus seek security more. This does not mean they have more fear... they may have the same fear as a conservative. However if so then they have still a greater adversity to risk or at least a perceived greater adversity to risk... which might simply mean they are less confident.
Or, it may be that people with more assets tend to have more security via what they own so they can take more chances and hence would be seen as being more enterprenarial. One with little in the way of assets would be expected to shun risk and hence seek a safe haven.
If so - then one would expect all but the brightest students to tend towards liberal thinking. The brightest would be expected to have perhaps the most confidence and would tend to favour conservative thinking. However - this idea might not be supportable. Perhaps it is simply those with more wealth who tend to lean right.
It its related to intellectual ability, then would create a paradox. You see - in this senerio, say "B" students would be expected to seek out the safe government jobs first. "C" students and those who couldn't get these jobs would end in a blue collar occupations would be expected to seek union jobs as their next best way to ensure job security. None of these people would be expected to favour too many business oriented convervative ideas - right? "A" students? Well - would they tend towards the business world and be right leaning or would they tend toward research positions and be leftward leaning?
What of the other 1/2 of the population that a) never will get a government job and b) never will take a union job? That is a big chunk of the population. This chunk includes small businessmen. One would expect that the political leanings of this group would swing to the right... they want policies that would favour business growth and reward them for the risks they take.
So in the end... the liberal with his tendancy to find the safest type of job possible would then be expected to favour policies which tend to increase his perceived saftey net. The conservative, not being as likely to occupy the type of job held by liberals, should tend to favour the business oriented part of our economy and certainly not favour more rules and red tape. So it should be the conservative who favours the status quo.
One could believe that it is the desire for safety which leads the leftest thinking person to find the safest place to live out his life with the least amount of risk, and that such a person would favour even more government and more red tape. It would also make sense that the tree huggers of the world and those most afraid of silly ideas like global warming caused by CO2, would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the liberals.... why? Because these are perceived threats. Threats are seen as risks and the liberal doesn't like risk.
I wonder what percentage of liberals invest in the stock markets compared to conservatives and in what dollar amounts. What ever this number - the paradox is that those with more security have more freedom to take risk. In fact the chap with a booming business worth a great deal of money isn't taking much risk because he knows that if the investment fails he can try again another day. Its the guy without a safety net who takes the risk.
Most wealth in the western world is inherited. One should expect those with substantial inheritances to lean to conservative ideas.
I think what this means is that as wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of fewer people that the result is the pendulum in the country should swing to the left. I think this also means that as the birth rates go up the pendulum should swing to the left. A high birth rate tends to make a greater percentage of the population poor because fewer resources are divided over more children.
This is funny. I always thought the distinction was bleeding heart issues. Aren't liberals more bleeding heart than the rest? Aren't conservatives more realistic?
Aren't liberals more emotional? Isn't this why they love trees? And furry animals?
What does accuracy in recognizing a letter with a certain time frame have to do with anything? One person reported that the test in part was to distinguish between an M and a W while given less than 1/2 second to do it. If so - then one has to somehow record the answer. How? By pressing a button? If so then wouldn't this test eye hand coordination with a dyslexic tending toward the conservative camp?
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What is really funny about this is that I always thought of myself as a right winger - a strong right winger. In fact I don't like many of the policies put forward by our Canadian Liberals and the USA Democrates at all.
Yet - my son who has studied some political science says I'm far more liberal than conservative.
One of the many programs I do support however is universal medicare. I just don't think it benefits society at all and certainly not the family for instance to literally ruin the financial well being of a family if someone gets sick. I consider it a form of insurance and I'm all for insurance too. Is insurance liberal or conservative? Hmm. I dunno. I do know that many people would opt out of insurance if they were allowed too. Poor people would especially opt out because they have nothing to lose. So in an accident they could just declare bankruptcy... right? Is bankruptcy liberal or conservative?
The thing is that we don't legally allow people to drive without insurance. Yet at the same time we allow people to live without medical insurance. Which is worse? Is this a liberal idea or a conservative idea that one is ok and the other is not. IMHO clearly someone who lives without insurance imposes the greater risk on others.
Then the system gets stacked to make it virtually impossible in for instance the USA for a huge percentage of the population to even afford proper medical insurance and I've been lead to believe this is republican thinking and that it aligns with conservative thinking.
What about free enterprise? What about small business and small businessmen. Are they liberal or conservative? I always thought that enterprenarially inclined folks tended to be conservatives. I always thought that socialistic minded people and those looking for an iron rice bowl tended to be liberals.
As such - it would be the liberals through unnecessary laws and support of unions and socialistic ideas who would tend to create an unhealthy business environment which would leads to the destruction of the very jobs their retoric seeks to create for the little guy.
But now... am I worng? Its is really that they have more attention to detail? If liberals have more attention to detail does this means conservatives see a bigger picture?
What if you can both see a big picture because you are a visionary and at the same time can handle much more detail that others?
What of computer programmers? I can think of few professions who can handle as much detail as a computer programmer handles. Good computer programmers can handle prodigious amounts of detail with ease. So do they tend to be liberals? Some computer programmers have a tremendous amount of vision as well... But I don't know which could distinguish between M's and W's fastest.
The short of it is there are so many undefined premises here that the study makes no sense whatsoever. Hense I would think the researchers are biased. They probably are looking either for a cushy research post or yet another grant and in both cases I think this would tend to make them liberals. If I'm right - then a conservative would never waste his/her time in such a pursuit... unless maybe they are a private consultant in search of yet another cushy research contract? Hmm. It boggles the mind.
One might occasionally want to query by company or some other attribute in order to find and correct data.
However with geological data in general queries like a borehole drilled by company X in such and such a direction makes no sense whatsoever.
In fact - this is where we really run into problems with data like this. In general - one is interested in data that falls within some 3-D space. It might just be 2-D mind you - like data that intersects a zone or is above a zone or below a zone.
The thing is that in all cases, one is generally best to determine what data could fall within a volume or zone of interest and then simply scan the data after that. This means a flat file approach actually works pretty good for data of this type. Geophysical data falls into this.
So with the borehole data one would want to carry the xyz or top hole location and bottom hole location with the main data for simple holes and then add a flag if there is a deviation survey. Sometimes these holes do look like a snake.
Then one wants to group this data via an artificially determined key which is 3-D in nature if possible to eliminate all data which cannot possibly participate in the query.
The borehole ID field doesn't accomplish much other than to let someone look up and possibly correct some data. As such - one is generally not even interested in how efficient this is. The number of updates and lookups by borehole ID are very low.
Its the areal retrievals and the volume scans that take the time. This is the mapping side of the picture. You are correct that flat files actually can make more sense because spinning through even the best RDBMS's is quite slow when compared to reading a flat file.
So then the question becomes, how long are the records. Does it make sense to split them up. The answer to this depends on the type of query. In our case we have a suite of queries that go through and generate flat files of certain formats. When one looks at these flat files it didn't make much sense to split them up.
The thing is in an RDBMS if you read from two tables your disk heads may seek constantly between the two read points = and then there is the merge operation. Even a fairly large record can be fetched from the disk within a few reads... a few for the index and one or two to fetch the data.
My point is that the power of an RDBMS is really not applicable to this type of data. However RDBMS's do confer other advantages such as standardized interfaces, maintanance tools, ability to do ad hoc queries and updates. All in all the RDBMS is a decent choice.
My experiances however is that the API sux and this is a major distraction.
In many cases your observation would be true that once you are getting up to 100 fields in a row that this is really pushing it.
However with geological data this is not always the case. Consider a borehole in a mining setting. The hole lives at a certain location and has directional information. The borehole is identified by an ID. It was drilled by such adn such a company at such and such a time and hence it still makes sense to carry all this data in a row identified by the borehole ID. If one breaks this data into multiple rows - then a merge may need to take place and this can be costly compared to the much easier job of just ignoring a few fields which are not needed.
Add to this it issue that if you have split the rows up then some of the data may be missing and some may be duplicate because the data structure allows it.
Now if you had two contractors drilling the same borehole then I would agree and say split the contractor data into one table and the technical data into another. In fact that was done even though there is no possiblity of having two or more contractors on a borehole. If something funny happens one can always assign a new borehole ID anyway.
Look at the technical data.
Isotopic signatures may be taken. There are over 100 isotopes alone.
Various mineral assays can be conducted. The number of fields here is also large.
In short it is quite easy to end up with more than 100 fields.
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I'd like to address your assertion that an RDBMS is a "data managment tool" and not an "applications development tool". In my mind - one should not preclude the other.
By the time one has defined a view of the data it looks just like a flat file. We have a fixed number of columns of data - some of which may be dupicated and of course some of which may be composite data such as if we average something.
I have no problem with this at all.
My point is that if the data looks like a flat file and can be printed as a flat file by pretty much any SQL query engine, then why can't the RDBMS software present this to a 3rd generation programming language as a flat file that can be read. In fact it can.
One _could_ for instance fire up a child process and feed it the query and have it hand this off to some SQL query engine which then writes the data out to a flat file which the application then opens and reads with standard old 3rd generation programming statements like fread().
This would actually be fairly quick to program.
The thing is that its a horrible way to write an application. So why doesn't the RDBMS provide what looks like a flat file interface but do it in a fashion that is at least as elegant as the good old read and write logic that's been around for 30 years or more?
Similarly for writing data into the database.
One should not have to stand on their head and do back flips simply because there is so little attention to the interface between the programming language and the data management software.
The example I cited was from PostgreSQL where over 1000 parameters were generated by their precompiler. It was poorly implemented and I have not looked at it since.
Of course I do agree that what I am talking about is the API to the RDBMS.
Still, in my mind this is just as important as the data management capabilities of the system.
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Oh - I want to address the comment that is a language like Perl you use a float.
For monetary values it is rare that it is valid to EVER use a float. In C and C++ you do have floats available. It is just worng under almost all circumstances to use them.
The reason is that when you add floats you cannot guarantee that rounding errors will crop up which will render what you are doing incorrect. For instance, if you wish to tally the items in an invoice then the items should in fact add up to the total you print. With floats this cannot
From a standard 3rd generation programing language one can read and write into flat files and we can do close to this with a hierachical database.
We lose this with relational databases because the way the database organises data has no direct mapping to the way it might be set up in a standard programming language.
What this means is that every transaction to and from the database must go through a literally horrible re-mapping. IE. The language data structures do not correspond to the RDBMS data structures and visa versa.
As an example - in postgreSQL the last I looked at writing a simple row into a table where there were something like 100 columns in the row...
In the 3rd generation programming languages this was just a simple structure with 100 entries.
The data transfer from that structure generated a function call with more than 1000 parameters. This was to be mapped and re-mapped with each call to transfer data, this is even though the structure itself is static and determined at compile time.
Next: There were about 10 parameters per field (column).
1: Column name 2: Column name length 3: data type 4: data length 5: character representation... etc
finally 10: Address where the data lives.
The thing is such a table could be set up very easily and populated with a simple loop that rolls in the required values via say a mapping function with about 10 arguments. This could be done ONCE at run time to prepare for the transfer of data and then the same table could be referenced for each call and simply an address could be sent with the transfer.
Noooo.. It was dynamic and the data was encoded as parameters on the stack. This means the stack must be build and torn down and rebuilt for each call.
Next - the implementation was so bad that the program would run in test mode with only a few parameter but it failed when the whole row was to be transfered.
I gave up on that interface.
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Oracle had pre-compilers. They did the same damn thing. The code generated by the pre-compilers was just awful.
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While there is much good to say about RDBMS's in general. The issue I ran into was the interface from 3rd generation languages took a HUGE step backward. IMHO we should have a high level language statement called DBRead() and DBWrite(). In C this should generally correspond to fread() and fwrite(). If this is too complex then DBWriteStruct() could be implemented with suitable mapping helper function.
Nooo...
In the old days one could read and write into a flat file at a given location with a single statement or function call depending on the language. Of course "where" to read and write became a real issue and I do fully understand the complexity of file based tree structures and so forth, especially since I wrote a lot of code to implement these algorithms.
The thing is now we have RDBMS and other solutions that give us the data organisational abilities we need - and we lose the ease of mapping these structures into a suitable structure or object in the programming language.
I for one do not think we have stepped forward very far at all.
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I'll toss in a case in point made by a good buddy of mine who just happens to be one of the top geophysical programmers in this city.
One of his clients was running an application hooked to an Oracle database running on a fast SUN. Run times were measured in close to a day.
Finally they removed the Oracle interface and replaced it with a glorified flat file. They clearly built in some indexing. The result is the run times dropped to under 20 minuets.
As my buddy says - He will NOT use any RDBMS. He can take 5 views of the data comprising 1000's of seismic lines and the user can click on any trace number, line number, well tie and so forth and in real time he can modify all views of the data on as many as 5 s
Another thing you should perhaps be alarmed about is that its legal for a person on Phenobarb to drive. You might note that phenobarb is a far more powerful sedative than alcohol. IMHO this is mostly a witch hunt.
If the issue is minimizing danger on the road then we should address the real issues at hand. Instead we create a scapegoat.
Your neighbour's kid isn't the issue. The issue is simply that people who should not be allowed to drive are issued driver's licenses without question.
Next we have tirades such as you made where you try to lump anyone who may have had a drink into the category as you say of drunken driving. It is very clear that jurisdictions cannot agree on the limit and furthermore individual variations mean that many who are deemed to be intoxicated in fact are not intoxicated.
Finally you missed the fact of the matter that my wife should not have had a driver's license because she was totally disabled. But thanks for being understanding while you missed the point entirely.
I fully expect that within 15-20 years we will have robot cars. They might even be called Johnny Cabs. Who Knows...
The question to ask is this: If someone rides home in a Johnny Cab and his is over the BAC limit - is he a criminal?
What if a person rides home on his bicycle?
My understanding of the bicycle situation is that if the rider does not have a driver's license then he cannot be charged. If he does have a driver's license then he can be charged. Note that one does not need a driver's license to operate a bicycle.
What of a boat?
If the boat doesn't have a motor then you cannot be charged. If it does have a motor then you can be charged. This is true even if you are drift fishing. But what if the motor doesn't work? Are you safe if you throw the keys overboard?
What if you are sleeping in your car? Many people say charges have been laid. If so - then apparently if you leave the pub and figure maybe you better sleep it off - then you are still at risk.
What if you leave the keys with the bartender? What if you do this and forget there is a spare set in your wallet?
What if a drunk rides home on his horse?
The short of it is that I fully expect that by 2025 we will have robot cars. Personally I look forward to this. I think it will save a lot of lives because there are some really bad drivers out there. I also think this should be the basis of an OpenSource project because its going to be exceedingly difficult to write the software.
Notwithstanding this - when we get our JohnnyCabs... I expect anyone over the legal limit who rides in one will be charged with a DUI offense.
The issue however is that many people are charged with DUI when they are NOT drunks and are trying to be responsible. Yes - there are drunks and some of them are really bad. I personally know one in fact. This guy was wreaking 6 cars per year and sometimes more.
He has a criminal record because of this. This still didn't stop him. One time he and a friend were comming around a corner on the highway - pissed of course - and were traveling so fast that when they left the road they flew OVER TOP of the gas pumps. The car stopped when it hit the shop.
He's broken his neck. He's broken his legs. Yet he lives. Also he never killed anyone but that is probably just luck.
A menace? Yes - a real menace.
But DUI laws don't stop people like this. Furthermore there are other laws which can be used including dangerous driving.
The issue I addressed is the idea that an arbitrary Blood Alcohol number automatically determines if a person can handle a vehical. Next - there is no agreement on what that number should be. Some jurisdictions are at 0.05, others 0.08 and still others are at 0.10.
Then some correctly point out that while some people can handle a car at 120 others have trouble at 45. Yes - my point exactly. Perhaps the person who cannot handle a vehical at 45 should not have a license.
I think the laws are out of porportion with the crime - if there is one. In 99% of the case there is no criminal intent. At least in my circle of friends everyone takes this very seriously and tries not to break the law.
Now - that post that the Ontario Government estimates a DUI will cost over $20,000 before its over.
Really? Isn't this a little ridiculous?
How about what happened to a friend of mine? He was stopped one night. They didn't do a breath test. Yes he had a couple beers.
Instead they gave him an option. He could go down to the station and be checked, or they would call him a cab and tow his vehical to the pound. He chose the cab option. It cost him over $150 bux for towing charges and impound fees.
I see this as a type of extortion. What we have is a system where money is fleeced out of people via threats and over reactions and then this is justified somehow? Meanwhile the anti-drinking people thump presumably their bibles and ask for harsher penalties.
But did any of these DUI convictions stop that fellow who was a drunk from driving? Ans. No. It just cost his parents a lot of money. He never paid any of those fines. They did. He never had a job.
As I see it - a generally responsible person who might be a little over the limit should be held accountable. However that person should not end up with a criminal record and should not be grouped in with real criminals. In criminal law we have the concept of the "criminal mind".
You actually have to intend to commit the crime you are accused of. With DUI we usually just have a under estimation of a number (the Blood alcohol number) by people who have no means whatsoever to actually test what their BAC actually is. In these cases, its not a criminal offense. Its a mistake.
Also, the number of accidents compared to the DUI convictions is very low. As I see it the punishment is several orders of magnitude greater than the crime. But then its about the same with Marijuanna too isn't it?
Where I grew up it snows and sometimes the roads are really bad.
Yup - a farmer in the area was drinking too much. So his friend said he'd drive him home. They hit the ditch and were stuck. So the friend left him in the car and walked 1/4 mile to the nearest farmhouse to get a tractor and help. By the time they got back with the tractor the cops had already charged the sleeping farmer with being in control of a licened vehical while being intoxicated.
I recall there was quite an uproar in the area.
Mind you - I didn't read the court case and never talked to the people actually involved.
My wife was totally disabled at the age of about 29. She was diagnosed terminally ill at the age of 26. By the time she was 30 she was having several seisures per day. nevertheless she had a driver's license. Nevertheless her driver's license was renewed without question when she turned 30.
Of course I never let her drive. The reason for the driver's license was Identification.
My point is that she was legally allowed to drive.
She died at 36 and was legally allowed to drive... at the time she was in an auxillary hospital.
My father passed away about a year ago. He was legally allowed to drive up until and including the day he died. I rode with him to my aunt's funeral. I can say for certain he should not have been allowed on the road. Fortunately he was not involved in any car accidents. The thing is his driving ability was bad because his judgment was was off.
During times of great personal stress it is normal that people's judgment will be way off. It would make sense for people to not drive during times like this. As a case in point, accident rates are reported to be at least double during say a divorce. Similarly accident rates are greatly increased with the death of a spouse.
IMHO the DUI laws are greatly blown out of porportion. Then on top of this we have the fact that most people have no way to determine whether they are over the limit or not.
Crappy moderation again. I really wish those closer to God than the rest of us here in Slashdot would eliminate this personal points of view moderation tactics. The post is a good one and raises many questions which are valid questions. The post also has generated discussion which is exactly what slashdot is all about.
So moderators - stop attacking the messenger ok?
There is a TV program which I do not watch called "Canada's worst drivers".
This program apparently is oriented to rehabilitating some of the worst drivers in the country - people which clearly should not be allowed on the road.
Many years ago I was in an accident caused by one of these people. I watched with disbelief while this person drove literally more than a car length and finally stopped when she hit my car. At no time during this did she ever look forward. She had her head turned to the left looking for oncoming traffic. Meanwhile I was to her right. This would have been 1001, 1002, 1003. I was thinking - Lady... you need to look where you are driving!
It was in the news that a kid was killed while sitting on a bus bench. The lady in question was trying to fetch the plant that fell off the seat while she was turning a corner.
Now - what we do see in the media are deliberatly distorted statistics. If the victim in the accident has had something to drink they stat "Alcohol was involved". The victim could be sound asleep in the passenger seat and there are cases of him being charged. 1) He wasn't operating the vehical. 2) he wasn't even awake. 3) He never operated the vehical. 4) it was his buddy who was driving him home and the car quit and his buddy went to get help.
While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion. At 0.08% many people are not intoxicated at all. Others are intoxicated at 0.02%. And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
Then... we have a faulty machine testing a flawed premise. The flawed premise is that alcohol at a certain level makes everyone a criminal.
What we really need to do is get bad drivers off the road. IMHO tail gating is a far worse offence than driving with a little too much slosh. Of course the cops in this city like tail gaters.
I expect this is already being done. The only issue really is how to bring anything found into court.
Non-Germans would be expected to have no rights in a German court of law. Non-Americans have little rights in an American Court of law. This means it is legal for one country's law enforcement personnel to spy on non-citzens...and then trade data with the said country's law enforcement personnel.
The thing is how a German citizen living in Germany would be taken into court in Germany.... Similarly, how would an American Citizen be taken into court in America? If the said individual lives outside of his own country then perhaps its a bit easier...
Nevertheless, our authorities have been spying on everyone for decades.
I think all this really boils down to is what is admissible in a court of law. I doubt it will have any effect on what our spies actually do on a day to day basis.
I see this as a simple issue of psychology.... human psychology.
As I see it - various jobs attract people of certain character.
Science for instance will attract people who are naturally curious.
Computer programming should be expected to attract people who like games and puzzles and are good at dealing with detail.
Administration should be expected to attract people who like to tell other people what to do. One would expect to see a lot of control freaks in managment and administration.
If so, then how would one gain and excersize control? How would one keep control. Would it be expected that a great deal of paranoia might build up in people of this nature? I think so.
When one combines paranoia with a desire to control other people it is perfectly natural to expect that they might like to dig up any dirt they can on others.
Police states are known for this.
One could extrapolate and suggest the USA is turning itself into a police state. If so then it isn't the worst known in human history - far from it. But all forms of police states are bad and I think we are seeing evidence of these bad traits as people strive to gain power over others by using totally unnecessary, possibly dirty, and definitely abhorant tactics. These overzealous background checks certainly fall into this characterization.
Its an abuse of power. But then this is what police states do. They abuse their power and when they get challenged they abuse people's rights in order to retain power.
One way to look at this is when a group of babies are born - what law of nature or God says that one or more has a god given right to control the other babies? How would one measure and determine at the outset who should be that alpha baby? What of when they grow up? At what point in time did it become ok for the alpha baby to step forth and declare that everyone has to listen to what he says - that he has the right to order others around? Did it occur when he became a cop? Did it occur when he became a lawyer or a judge?
Should it happen by birth?...because one parent happened to be born KING?...and because the previous king was able to bribe a lot of civil servants to support him?...and because the civil servants want the next king to carry on the cushy lifestyle they have managed to attain by supporting the system?
IMHO people are NOT born with the right to control other's lives. Sometimes they gain this power during life. If so then usually its because they covent power and those who gain the most power are the ones willing to spend all their days and nights politicing to get it. IE. They are control freaks.
Next we have the political and administrative systems which have been designed first to accomodate the control of the majority by sometimes a fanatical minority. What we see by these ruthless and totally unnecessary background checks is merely an extension of this.
Its an ugly situation and I see it as a symptom of the USA becoming more of a police state which flogs threats of terrorism as a justification for what they do. If so then the terrorists are winning because this is exactly what they want to happen. Would it be true to observe that if the terrorists create a situation where the average Joe and Josephene in middle class America loses his and her freedoms, that the terrorist has succeeded...regardless of the fact that it is the government that became an agent of the terrorist and starts to terrorize sectors of the population through things like background checks and personal attacks? Do we have McCarthyism all over again?
Combine this with the apparent fact that government jobs at all levels are filled with people who seek security first and are willing to kiss ass like it never gets kissed in private industry. When you have a large number of administrative people who love to follow rules just for the sake of rules and are too concerned about job security to stand up for what's right... then you have a receipe for exactly what we have taking place now.
This is not a whole lot different than a judge ruling that auto manufacturers need to install and log GPS locations of cars so that if one is used in a felony then they can trace where it was.
I somehow doubt the judge has authority to make this happen.
Now the thing is... consider Canada. We have a law that cars need to have their headlights on in the daytime. Go figure eh? I happen to be in favour of this law but I sure don't want to have to retrofit my oldest vehical.
What power does a judge in the USA have over foreigners?
In the case of a car, the government can prevent the importation of the car. In the case of software the judge can attempt to prevent the importation and use of the software, but that is about it and the attempt will probably fail. Who is going to enforce it?
One thing that is becomming perfectly clear is that all internet communications need to be encrypted and in addition it is probably a very good idea to encrypt the port as well. This would prevent non-net neutrality as well which is probably something we all want.
Once the packet has been received it can then be decrypted and the port will be known and can be handed to the proper service. IMHO the sooner we do this the better.
If you deliberately leave your back door swinging in the breeze this can be interpreted as entrapment. Why did you do it? Were you dumb or stupid or were you trying to create an opportunity for an otherwise honest person to come rob you?
Why did these people put the songs in Kazza? What was their intent?
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This is a very difficult area. What of police entrapment? So we have a single guy walking down the street and he meets up with a gal and she asks "Would you like a date?"
Why not? Maybe she's the girl of his dreams.
Clearly they can construe this as a bloke picking up a ho... but no. He might just be a very nice guy who is a software developer and focuses on what he does... and you know what? This girl might really like what he can do and who he is and so forth. Yes... He might like a date.
Should be be charged? I say no. It clearly entrapment.
I've been there too.
I was at a wet tee shirt bar and met a contestant. I do not think she was a ho. We were talking and this jerk was pestering me about would I like to talk with so and so. My answer: No!
Within 5 mins this jerk punched her in the eye. She ran out and called 911. I ended up talking with them for 15 mins until the cops arrived.
The cops didn't talk to her. They told me to FO. When I inquired if they talked to her and I was a witness to the jerk who assulted her they decided to arrest me.
I'm a single person. My wife died. When these cops arrested me this meant my kids were left alone. I told them I was planning on leaving at 6:30 and will be home by 10. I was not allowed to call them.
My daughter was 13 then. Both kids were quite upset and worried.
So? What was I guilty of?
Was she a hooker? I honestly do not think so. Even if she was... No way. I think she was just out having fun and this jerk beat on her and she was told by friends to just leave.
And the cops?
Entrapment?
Abuse?
My response to this was to start with the Mayor's office. I started right at the top and tore flesh through more than a few rungs. Of course I had rather solid ground. I was 38 and buried my wife after having cared for her for 10 years and I had done nothing worng. Nothing at all. I've been arrested since and have not done anything worng. On this next arrest. I was with the crown prosecutor. She is a friend of mine. She is also very nice and so is her son. Hey - don't do drugs in Calgary but if you are interested in shrooms then I will point out which will kill you and which will get you high and which are just good to eat.
But what do cops see?
See - the issue is intentions. What are people doing and why?
I think you are correct in your assement but the issue at hand is that blockbuster is renting movies to make a profit. These people were not renting anything. What was their intention?
IMHO the toughest job facing the OSS community is education: teaching, learning, and how to document.
This is compounded by the issue that most developers do not find documentation fun. If the common perception that geeks tend to be nerdy and poor at communication is true, then we have a triple whammy. This is one reason I say documentation and communication and education is our collective biggest failing.
The learning curves for _any_ of our packages are steep. SysAdmins rejoice in the job security they perceive they gain as their expertize for apache, mysql, postfix, postgreSQL and so forth increases. The thing is each package has so many options that it takes forever to learn how to set them up. At last count Debian boasted over 30,000 packages available. How is one suppose to even know what a small percentage of these packages do? That is much less than to learn how to install, support and maintain them?
But this is just the systems administration arena. The API's and programming is an order of magnitude more difficult to keep up with.
Then the documentation. To use WxWidgets for instance I am faced with over 3,000 pages of main manuals, I need to decide if I use DialogBlocks or CodeBlocks or neither. I need to figure out what each does and what each doesn't, and after I buy Julian Smart's book - its another over 500 pages to read. In spite of the fact he's written DialogBlocks there is no useful information on same in his book. Thanx.
This is only one (1) package. I have not addressed version differences and library dependencies and so forth. I have not considered the issues of limitations and bugs.
To keep up is typically information overload to the gawd-zillion'th degree.
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M$ recognized this and attempted a solution. From what I can tell in around w95 they pulled all the error messages out of the system. I experienced the great joy of accidently turning off the external SCSI hard drive on a W95 computer while the system was accessing the disk... reading it actually. No error message was reported. We got what looked like "END OF FILE". This was M$ code reading the disk.
Then on another occasion I noted a networking message from NT4.0 had the exact same text as from OS/2. The error number in NT4.0 was missing. Everything else was the same. On a hunch I looked up the message in OS/2 and lo and behold the error number lead to the issue at hand. Of course NT4.0 was no help at all because this information had been removed.
Either it was removed or never put in. I dunno. What I do know is that the systems ability to correctly diagnose was hamstrung.
So what do we have in the OSS world?
1) volumes of crappy documentation layered on more volumes of poorly organized documentation.
2) When problems are found and corrected - no good method exists to upgrade the docs.
Here is an example. Many years ago I ran into a sound configuration issue in Debian Woody. This had to do with esoteric issues of generic SCSI drivers and bad permissions and so forth. I ended up posting in SourceForge a complete description of the problem and how to walk through it and fix it.
Two (2) years later none of this information had been disseminated through the documentation of the package at hand where I had discovered it. Debian was still misconfigured. People were still coming into IRC pleading for assistance on how to get the software running (It was GRIP as I recall).
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This is just terrible performance and we are not getting much better at it.
There are several websites of documentation. SourceForge does this. IMHO they do it poorly. There are many wiki's dedicated to various packages. Nothing is coordinated. The man and info pages I have in my latest system are still the first place I would like to look for information and they are basically just as bad now as they were in 1997. Probably these documentation sources have not been updated much since 1997. Why not? If there is new
There have been some very good suggestions put forth.
What came first to my mind is the question of friction. Every measurement you do is friction on the task at hand. Friction can really add up. At the poker table in a casino its called the rake. When you trade on the stock market its called the commission.
When you do your job its the additional time required to account for doing your job. The more grandularity you are required to produce the greater the amount of friction, and the less time you have available to do what you are hired to do as opposed to account for doing what you are hired to do. The accounting is pure overhead and like most forms of friction - it is non productive.
So whatever you do make sure you add a column for "friction" and make sure you properly fill in this column. Note that if you are in a meeting and end up discussing the "friction" issue then this is also friction.
That being said... one observation of systems admin is that a large part can be dealing with the learning curve. Once one determines how to solve a problem - implementing the solution may be quite easy and take little time. The thing is that one systems admin can jump into the fray and implement a poor solution and will as a result look really busy and possibly productive. A simple metric might say "Spent 2 weeks (80 hours) implementing a virus scanner".
Thing is... does the scanner really work? Next - even if it does - if an extra few days had been spent in research could the task have been accomplished in overall less time? How about if the guy had hired a consultant he might happen to know to just get it done? Most sysadmins know a number of quite proficient consultants
In the world of programming this is an order of magnitude more important.
I'll give an example. Many years ago I was faced with writing and using sort packages. In one company there were 5 different "library" sort packages. Many programmers did not use them. Even now - to this very day - a good friend of mine who is a programmer rolls out yet another copy of his very own favorite bubble sort every time he needs to sort any data. He has many ways to justify this... including that processors are so fast no-a-days that it never is an issue.
Back in the past when I looked in detail at the "library" sort routines of that company I was working for I found all were worse than bad. In fact their "SuperSort()" was a bubble sort coded in assembler and the assembler code wasn't even good.
Of the programmers who were rolling their own - virtually all were terribly redundant. No-one was doing a good job and even though Donald Knuth had researched the issues to death and published a very good book on the subject - none of those programmers had bothered to borrow the book from the library and read up on searching and sorting methods.
What of today?
We have a very good Glibc open source sort package. It can be used by anyone. It can be used in commercial code because its under the Library license.
Any programmer today who wastes his or her time rolling out yet another sort routine is wasting their employer's money. In fact they are creating a liability for their employer because someone else at some time will have to maintain the application. Of course this is a general statement. I do know of a few instances where one might be faced with a special variant of a problem and need to address it in a unique way. Nevertheless I still believe that over 80% of the problem in most software is searching and sorting.
How do you measure things like this? What sort of metrics are appropriate? Perhaps the first question to ask is "Does the task in question really need to be done?".
In my experiance people have a really big difficulty with this issue. In mathematical logic its the issue of existence. If whatever you are trying to determine does not in fact exist - then you can make no conclusions about it.
Consider the question of a court action regarding d
I've not read the claims of course, but from the description if _any_ form of completion is claimed then it would seem to me that prior art would include command line completion as well. We've had things like this since the 70's in many forms.
I went to a backwater country school in Saskatchewan. My high school math and science marks were good - never a mark much below 95. I was a victim of the "no child gets ahead" system.
You see - the teacher - the principal was "accredited" so he set his own exams. This meant he was able to spread the grad 11 chem over 2 years and ditto with the grade 11 physics. In fact he finished less than 1/2 of the grade 11 chem by the end of grade 12 and about 2/3 of the grade 11 physics. Even at this snail pace the courses were watered down. His justification was that a good student could easily catch up in high school.
After that bullshit and the additional bullshit that the math curriculum simply repeated grade 9 and 10 math in 11 and 12 - I had no study skills at all. My career ambitions were dashed. I wanted to do nuclear engineering physics. I was taught so little that having graduated with glorious marks and having won the Mathematics olympiad in the province - I didn't even know how to find the engineering faculty. So I took pure math instead.
One of the things that really pissed me off what that there wasn't even a set of encyclopedias suitable for high school students. The best they had was world book and that was targeted for junior high.
Being in that school was like being in prison. I was frequently attacked by other students. Thankfully the worst ended up out of the system in around grade 10. I had no real friends. It took me years to discover while in uni that many of the people there actually liked me as a person and weren't constantly attacking me. In fact when one chap said I reminded him of Orson Wells I thought he was insulting me. Months later I found out he was in honors drama and Orson Wells was his hero!
Academically? Uggghhh! It was horrible. It was like watching childrens' cartoons day in and day out.
I have to say I still carry scars from this even though its been several decades.
People can also put more insulation in their houses. This will save the CO2 from the fuel burned and save the money spent to buy the fuel. Next the house is cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter and we save our non-renewable natural resources for our children.
We need about R50 in the walls and R70 in the ceilings and this will cost about $1 bux per square foot of building envelope surface area in addition to what we spend now. IE. Its DIRT CHEAP to do it during construction.
But - You are right IMHO. People would rather a lab somewhere fixes the problem. I don't think this problem needs to be fixed in a lab and I'm not sure a lab can do all that good a job. A little sweat mind you will go a long ways. Teaching people what they need to know is very important.
I do not think the carbon paper you refer to will do much for storing hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very small molecule and it gets into metals and embrittles them. It doesn't like to be compressed and as everyone knows even NASA has had its problems when its in the liquid phase. Witness the Challenger. I honestly don't think we want to be toting around much liquid hydrogen. In the gaseous form under pressure its also not fun. Ask a welder about safety with his pressurized welding gases.
Even a semi-tractor tire can be dangerous. In the small town garage where I grew up is a ring in the ceiling left behind by a split rim. This was not at pressures in the 1000's of PSI. Even 100's can kill a person quite easily. In the case of the garage with the neat ring in the ceiling no one was hurt. But they still like to talk about it.
Note: Toss in carbon and we get high energy well behaved liquid fuels that clearly are quite safe to use. We are going to have to learn a great deal about nature before we can top what we already have.
This is why the Oil Industry here in Alberta is investing over $10 billion per year in synthetic oil. You may hear about it as synthetic crude or synthetic fuel or synthetic oil. Its all the same.
We are mining hydrogen poor bitumin with an H:C ratio a wee bit better than 1:1 and we add hydrogen and bring the ratio up in the range of 2:1 in line with the alkane series: CnH(2n+2). For each atom of carbon we mine we need to find an atom of hydrogen. To do this we are building some of the largest hydrogen plants in the world.
We can produce synthetic crude from coal and from any other carbon source as well including plant matter. The issue is these are all hydrogen poor fuels. This is why coal is solid. Plant material is partly oxidized so it carries dead weight. Plant matter is (CH2O)n. These are the sugar polymers that build up through the simple sugars into starches and later into cellulose, lignans and pentosans.
IMHO a really good area of research is fungii that can live in liquid culture and which digest trees. There is much talk on T. Reesie. Trichoderma reeshie is a strain of T. veridi which was isolated in Guam in the 1940's. Its used industrially because it is a cellulose digester. But over 1/2 of most plants are not cellulose. I think we have a situation of holding a hammer and thinking the world looks like a nail.
Non the less. There are millions of species of fungii we know next to nothing about and many produce the enzymes we need to digest cellulostic waste products. If we next have a strain of E. coli which can produce an alkane precursor then this may very well form the basis of a renewable fuel industry.
If so... then we won't have carbon free fuels. I personally don't really worry much if they are carbon neutral fuels as measured by a bio-cycle. Note Volcanoes will continue to spew geologically aged CO2 into the atmosphere and sometimes the rate of spew is very very high. Witness the Deccan and Siberian trapps.
What I'm worried about is having fuel available "at all". The 2007 BP statistical review shows world oil production basically flat. It shows Saudi Arabia in decline last year. I side with th
You are correct if you look at temperature data and Co2 levels over say the last couple million years.... IE the Volstok ice core data shows CO2 levels trailing temperature increases by something like 1000 years. A good explanation for this is that the freezing of the ice ages shuts down the actions of micro-organisms and the organics simply don't break down until the next thaw.
However 2 million years is a very short geological window. In the longer planetary time scale say going back 500 million years we don't see a correlation between planetary temperature and Co2 levels.
For instance during the Ordovician the planet started out about 10C warmer than now on average and with CO2 levels between 13x and 17x greater than now the planet plunged into an ice age.
your numbers look about right. Yup - pigs' and cows' will go hungry. Well - cows can get along quite well without grain but not so with pigs and chickens. So we can expect the economics of poultry and pork producers to go into the toilet and eventually we should see the cost of same go up.
Thing is that from an economics standpoint we have this: One needs to be able to brew beer at $2.50 per keg in order for ethanol to compete with Gasoline at $1.25 per liter. Why? Because beer is 5% ethanol and a keg is just under 60 liters. 5% of 60 = 3 and 3 liters of ethanol contain about as much energy as 2 liters of gasoline. Given these economics our pork and poultry producers might be able to compete without all that much of a price increase for pork and poultry products. Besides the brewers grains which are left over are a high source of protein which is not a surprise at all considering the starch was converted to ethanol.
Now the 14% of the crop. If 14% which is almost 1/6th goes to fuel production then this is 14% of 14 days (100% would provide fuel for about 2 weeks) so that is about 2 days worth of fuel.
Its really only a drop in the bucket.
Remember, the USA consumes about 20,589 thousand barrels oil per day - page 13 of the 2007 BP statistical review.
We still have a very big problem and I don't think ethanol is going to be much of a solution.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you are somewhat correct.
However I think that liberals in general are more fearful of life and thus seek security more. This does not mean they have more fear... they may have the same fear as a conservative. However if so then they have still a greater adversity to risk or at least a perceived greater adversity to risk... which might simply mean they are less confident.
Or, it may be that people with more assets tend to have more security via what they own so they can take more chances and hence would be seen as being more enterprenarial. One with little in the way of assets would be expected to shun risk and hence seek a safe haven.
If so - then one would expect all but the brightest students to tend towards liberal thinking. The brightest would be expected to have perhaps the most confidence and would tend to favour conservative thinking. However - this idea might not be supportable. Perhaps it is simply those with more wealth who tend to lean right.
It its related to intellectual ability, then would create a paradox. You see - in this senerio, say "B" students would be expected to seek out the safe government jobs first. "C" students and those who couldn't get these jobs would end in a blue collar occupations would be expected to seek union jobs as their next best way to ensure job security. None of these people would be expected to favour too many business oriented convervative ideas - right? "A" students? Well - would they tend towards the business world and be right leaning or would they tend toward research positions and be leftward leaning?
What of the other 1/2 of the population that a) never will get a government job and b) never will take a union job? That is a big chunk of the population. This chunk includes small businessmen. One would expect that the political leanings of this group would swing to the right... they want policies that would favour business growth and reward them for the risks they take.
So in the end... the liberal with his tendancy to find the safest type of job possible would then be expected to favour policies which tend to increase his perceived saftey net. The conservative, not being as likely to occupy the type of job held by liberals, should tend to favour the business oriented part of our economy and certainly not favour more rules and red tape. So it should be the conservative who favours the status quo.
One could believe that it is the desire for safety which leads the leftest thinking person to find the safest place to live out his life with the least amount of risk, and that such a person would favour even more government and more red tape. It would also make sense that the tree huggers of the world and those most afraid of silly ideas like global warming caused by CO2, would be drawn primarily from the ranks of the liberals.... why? Because these are perceived threats. Threats are seen as risks and the liberal doesn't like risk.
I wonder what percentage of liberals invest in the stock markets compared to conservatives and in what dollar amounts. What ever this number - the paradox is that those with more security have more freedom to take risk. In fact the chap with a booming business worth a great deal of money isn't taking much risk because he knows that if the investment fails he can try again another day. Its the guy without a safety net who takes the risk.
Most wealth in the western world is inherited. One should expect those with substantial inheritances to lean to conservative ideas.
I think what this means is that as wealth becomes more concentrated in the hands of fewer people that the result is the pendulum in the country should swing to the left. I think this also means that as the birth rates go up the pendulum should swing to the left. A high birth rate tends to make a greater percentage of the population poor because fewer resources are divided over more children.
Do these speculations make sense?
If so then old school catholic countries would be
This is funny. I always thought the distinction was bleeding heart issues. Aren't liberals more bleeding heart than the rest? Aren't conservatives more realistic?
Aren't liberals more emotional? Isn't this why they love trees? And furry animals?
What does accuracy in recognizing a letter with a certain time frame have to do with anything? One person reported that the test in part was to distinguish between an M and a W while given less than 1/2 second to do it. If so - then one has to somehow record the answer. How? By pressing a button? If so then wouldn't this test eye hand coordination with a dyslexic tending toward the conservative camp?
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What is really funny about this is that I always thought of myself as a right winger - a strong right winger.
In fact I don't like many of the policies put forward by our Canadian Liberals and the USA Democrates at all.
Yet - my son who has studied some political science says I'm far more liberal than conservative.
One of the many programs I do support however is universal medicare. I just don't think it benefits society at all and certainly not the family for instance to literally ruin the financial well being of a family if someone gets sick. I consider it a form of insurance and I'm all for insurance too. Is insurance liberal or conservative? Hmm. I dunno. I do know that many people would opt out of insurance if they were allowed too. Poor people would especially opt out because they have nothing to lose. So in an accident they could just declare bankruptcy... right? Is bankruptcy liberal or conservative?
The thing is that we don't legally allow people to drive without insurance. Yet at the same time we allow people to live without medical insurance. Which is worse? Is this a liberal idea or a conservative idea that one is ok and the other is not. IMHO clearly someone who lives without insurance imposes the greater risk on others.
Then the system gets stacked to make it virtually impossible in for instance the USA for a huge percentage of the population to even afford proper medical insurance and I've been lead to believe this is republican thinking and that it aligns with conservative thinking.
What about free enterprise? What about small business and small businessmen. Are they liberal or conservative? I always thought that enterprenarially inclined folks tended to be conservatives. I always thought that socialistic minded people and those looking for an iron rice bowl tended to be liberals.
As such - it would be the liberals through unnecessary laws and support of unions and socialistic ideas who would tend to create an unhealthy business environment which would leads to the destruction of the very jobs their retoric seeks to create for the little guy.
But now... am I worng? Its is really that they have more attention to detail? If liberals have more attention to detail does this means conservatives see a bigger picture?
What if you can both see a big picture because you are a visionary and at the same time can handle much more detail that others?
What of computer programmers? I can think of few professions who can handle as much detail as a computer programmer handles. Good computer programmers can handle prodigious amounts of detail with ease. So do they tend to be liberals? Some computer programmers have a tremendous amount of vision as well... But I don't know which could distinguish between M's and W's fastest.
The short of it is there are so many undefined premises here that the study makes no sense whatsoever. Hense I would think the researchers are biased. They probably are looking either for a cushy research post or yet another grant and in both cases I think this would tend to make them liberals. If I'm right - then a conservative would never waste his/her time in such a pursuit... unless maybe they are a private consultant in search of yet another cushy research contract? Hmm. It boggles the mind.
Does opera run on linux?
I havn't used it since I switched a few years ago. One would think people could keep up.
One might occasionally want to query by company or some other attribute in order to find and correct data.
However with geological data in general queries like a borehole drilled by company X in such and such a direction makes no sense whatsoever.
In fact - this is where we really run into problems with data like this. In general - one is interested in data that falls within some 3-D space. It might just be 2-D mind you - like data that intersects a zone or is above a zone or below a zone.
The thing is that in all cases, one is generally best to determine what data could fall within a volume or zone of interest and then simply scan the data after that. This means a flat file approach actually works pretty good for data of this type. Geophysical data falls into this.
So with the borehole data one would want to carry the xyz or top hole location and bottom hole location with the main data for simple holes and then add a flag if there is a deviation survey. Sometimes these holes do look like a snake.
Then one wants to group this data via an artificially determined key which is 3-D in nature if possible to eliminate all data which cannot possibly participate in the query.
The borehole ID field doesn't accomplish much other than to let someone look up and possibly correct some data. As such - one is generally not even interested in how efficient this is. The number of updates and lookups by borehole ID are very low.
Its the areal retrievals and the volume scans that take the time. This is the mapping side of the picture. You are correct that flat files actually can make more sense because spinning through even the best RDBMS's is quite slow when compared to reading a flat file.
So then the question becomes, how long are the records. Does it make sense to split them up. The answer to this depends on the type of query. In our case we have a suite of queries that go through and generate flat files of certain formats. When one looks at these flat files it didn't make much sense to split them up.
The thing is in an RDBMS if you read from two tables your disk heads may seek constantly between the two read points = and then there is the merge operation. Even a fairly large record can be fetched from the disk within a few reads... a few for the index and one or two to fetch the data.
My point is that the power of an RDBMS is really not applicable to this type of data. However RDBMS's do confer other advantages such as standardized interfaces, maintanance tools, ability to do ad hoc queries and updates. All in all the RDBMS is a decent choice.
My experiances however is that the API sux and this is a major distraction.
With regard to say 100 fields in a row.
In many cases your observation would be true that once you are getting up to 100 fields in a row that this is really pushing it.
However with geological data this is not always the case. Consider a borehole in a mining setting. The hole lives at a certain location and has directional information. The borehole is identified by an ID. It was drilled by such adn such a company at such and such a time and hence it still makes sense to carry all this data in a row identified by the borehole ID. If one breaks this data into multiple rows - then a merge may need to take place and this can be costly compared to the much easier job of just ignoring a few fields which are not needed.
Add to this it issue that if you have split the rows up then some of the data may be missing and some may be duplicate because the data structure allows it.
Now if you had two contractors drilling the same borehole then I would agree and say split the contractor data into one table and the technical data into another. In fact that was done even though there is no possiblity of having two or more contractors on a borehole. If something funny happens one can always assign a new borehole ID anyway.
Look at the technical data.
Isotopic signatures may be taken. There are over 100 isotopes alone.
Various mineral assays can be conducted. The number of fields here is also large.
In short it is quite easy to end up with more than 100 fields.
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I'd like to address your assertion that an RDBMS is a "data managment tool" and not an "applications development tool". In my mind - one should not preclude the other.
By the time one has defined a view of the data it looks just like a flat file. We have a fixed number of columns of data - some of which may be dupicated and of course some of which may be composite data such as if we average something.
I have no problem with this at all.
My point is that if the data looks like a flat file and can be printed as a flat file by pretty much any SQL query engine, then why can't the RDBMS software present this to a 3rd generation programming language as a flat file that can be read. In fact it can.
One _could_ for instance fire up a child process and feed it the query and have it hand this off to some SQL query engine which then writes the data out to a flat file which the application then opens and reads with standard old 3rd generation programming statements like fread().
This would actually be fairly quick to program.
The thing is that its a horrible way to write an application. So why doesn't the RDBMS provide what looks like a flat file interface but do it in a fashion that is at least as elegant as the good old read and write logic that's been around for 30 years or more?
Similarly for writing data into the database.
One should not have to stand on their head and do back flips simply because there is so little attention to the interface between the programming language and the data management software.
The example I cited was from PostgreSQL where over 1000 parameters were generated by their precompiler. It was poorly implemented and I have not looked at it since.
Of course I do agree that what I am talking about is the API to the RDBMS.
Still, in my mind this is just as important as the data management capabilities of the system.
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Oh - I want to address the comment that is a language like Perl you use a float.
For monetary values it is rare that it is valid to EVER use a float. In C and C++ you do have floats available. It is just worng under almost all circumstances to use them.
The reason is that when you add floats you cannot guarantee that rounding errors will crop up which will render what you are doing incorrect. For instance, if you wish to tally the items in an invoice then the items should in fact add up to the total you print. With floats this cannot
On the contrary.
... etc
From a standard 3rd generation programing language one can read and write into flat files and we can do close to this with a hierachical database.
We lose this with relational databases because the way the database organises data has no direct mapping to the way it might be set up in a standard programming language.
What this means is that every transaction to and from the database must go through a literally horrible re-mapping. IE. The language data structures do not correspond to the RDBMS data structures and visa versa.
As an example - in postgreSQL the last I looked at writing a simple row into a table where there were something like 100 columns in the row...
In the 3rd generation programming languages this was just a simple structure with 100 entries.
The data transfer from that structure generated a function call with more than 1000 parameters. This was to be mapped and re-mapped with each call to transfer data, this is even though the structure itself is static and determined at compile time.
Next: There were about 10 parameters per field (column).
1: Column name
2: Column name length
3: data type
4: data length
5: character representation
finally 10: Address where the data lives.
The thing is such a table could be set up very easily and populated with a simple loop that rolls in the required values via say a mapping function with about 10 arguments. This could be done ONCE at run time to prepare for the transfer of data and then the same table could be referenced for each call and simply an address could be sent with the transfer.
Noooo.. It was dynamic and the data was encoded as parameters on the stack. This means the stack must be build and torn down and rebuilt for each call.
Next - the implementation was so bad that the program would run in test mode with only a few parameter but it failed when the whole row was to be transfered.
I gave up on that interface.
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Oracle had pre-compilers. They did the same damn thing. The code generated by the pre-compilers was just awful.
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While there is much good to say about RDBMS's in general. The issue I ran into was the interface from 3rd generation languages took a HUGE step backward. IMHO we should have a high level language statement called DBRead() and DBWrite(). In C this should generally correspond to fread() and fwrite(). If this is too complex then DBWriteStruct() could be implemented with suitable mapping helper function.
Nooo...
In the old days one could read and write into a flat file at a given location with a single statement or function call depending on the language. Of course "where" to read and write became a real issue and I do fully understand the complexity of file based tree structures and so forth, especially since I wrote a lot of code to implement these algorithms.
The thing is now we have RDBMS and other solutions that give us the data organisational abilities we need - and we lose the ease of mapping these structures into a suitable structure or object in the programming language.
I for one do not think we have stepped forward very far at all.
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I'll toss in a case in point made by a good buddy of mine who just happens to be one of the top geophysical programmers in this city.
One of his clients was running an application hooked to an Oracle database running on a fast SUN. Run times were measured in close to a day.
Finally they removed the Oracle interface and replaced it with a glorified flat file. They clearly built in some indexing. The result is the run times dropped to under 20 minuets.
As my buddy says - He will NOT use any RDBMS. He can take 5 views of the data comprising 1000's of seismic lines and the user can click on any trace number, line number, well tie and so forth and in real time he can modify all views of the data on as many as 5 s
Oh,
Another thing you should perhaps be alarmed about is that its legal for a person on Phenobarb to drive. You might note that phenobarb is a far more powerful sedative than alcohol. IMHO this is mostly a witch hunt.
If the issue is minimizing danger on the road then we should address the real issues at hand. Instead we create a scapegoat.
Your neighbour's kid isn't the issue. The issue is simply that people who should not be allowed to drive are issued driver's licenses without question.
Next we have tirades such as you made where you try to lump anyone who may have had a drink into the category as you say of drunken driving. It is very clear that jurisdictions cannot agree on the limit and furthermore individual variations mean that many who are deemed to be intoxicated in fact are not intoxicated.
Finally you missed the fact of the matter that my wife should not have had a driver's license because she was totally disabled. But thanks for being understanding while you missed the point entirely.
Arnie had this is Total Recall.
I fully expect that within 15-20 years we will have robot cars. They might even be called Johnny Cabs. Who Knows...
The question to ask is this: If someone rides home in a Johnny Cab and his is over the BAC limit - is he a criminal?
What if a person rides home on his bicycle?
My understanding of the bicycle situation is that if the rider does not have a driver's license then he cannot be charged. If he does have a driver's license then he can be charged. Note that one does not need a driver's license to operate a bicycle.
What of a boat?
If the boat doesn't have a motor then you cannot be charged. If it does have a motor then you can be charged. This is true even if you are drift fishing. But what if the motor doesn't work? Are you safe if you throw the keys overboard?
What if you are sleeping in your car? Many people say charges have been laid. If so - then apparently if you leave the pub and figure maybe you better sleep it off - then you are still at risk.
What if you leave the keys with the bartender? What if you do this and forget there is a spare set in your wallet?
What if a drunk rides home on his horse?
The short of it is that I fully expect that by 2025 we will have robot cars. Personally I look forward to this. I think it will save a lot of lives because there are some really bad drivers out there. I also think this should be the basis of an OpenSource project because its going to be exceedingly difficult to write the software.
Notwithstanding this - when we get our JohnnyCabs... I expect anyone over the legal limit who rides in one will be charged with a DUI offense.
Sad eh?
Yes - you make many good arguments.
The issue however is that many people are charged with DUI when they are NOT drunks and are trying to be responsible. Yes - there are drunks and some of them are really bad. I personally know one in fact. This guy was wreaking 6 cars per year and sometimes more.
He has a criminal record because of this. This still didn't stop him. One time he and a friend were comming around a corner on the highway - pissed of course - and were traveling so fast that when they left the road they flew OVER TOP of the gas pumps. The car stopped when it hit the shop.
He's broken his neck. He's broken his legs. Yet he lives. Also he never killed anyone but that is probably just luck.
A menace? Yes - a real menace.
But DUI laws don't stop people like this. Furthermore there are other laws which can be used including dangerous driving.
The issue I addressed is the idea that an arbitrary Blood Alcohol number automatically determines if a person can handle a vehical. Next - there is no agreement on what that number should be. Some jurisdictions are at 0.05, others 0.08 and still others are at 0.10.
Then some correctly point out that while some people can handle a car at 120 others have trouble at 45. Yes - my point exactly. Perhaps the person who cannot handle a vehical at 45 should not have a license.
I think the laws are out of porportion with the crime - if there is one. In 99% of the case there is no criminal intent. At least in my circle of friends everyone takes this very seriously and tries not to break the law.
Now - that post that the Ontario Government estimates a DUI will cost over $20,000 before its over.
Really? Isn't this a little ridiculous?
How about what happened to a friend of mine? He was stopped one night. They didn't do a breath test. Yes he had a couple beers.
Instead they gave him an option. He could go down to the station and be checked, or they would call him a cab and tow his vehical to the pound. He chose the cab option. It cost him over $150 bux for towing charges and impound fees.
I see this as a type of extortion. What we have is a system where money is fleeced out of people via threats and over reactions and then this is justified somehow? Meanwhile the anti-drinking people thump presumably their bibles and ask for harsher penalties.
But did any of these DUI convictions stop that fellow who was a drunk from driving? Ans. No. It just cost his parents a lot of money. He never paid any of those fines. They did. He never had a job.
As I see it - a generally responsible person who might be a little over the limit should be held accountable. However that person should not end up with a criminal record and should not be grouped in with real criminals. In criminal law we have the concept of the "criminal mind".
You actually have to intend to commit the crime you are accused of. With DUI we usually just have a under estimation of a number (the Blood alcohol number) by people who have no means whatsoever to actually test what their BAC actually is. In these cases, its not a criminal offense. Its a mistake.
Also, the number of accidents compared to the DUI convictions is very low. As I see it the punishment is several orders of magnitude greater than the crime. But then its about the same with Marijuanna too isn't it?
Well - its heresay.
Where I grew up it snows and sometimes the roads are really bad.
Yup - a farmer in the area was drinking too much. So his friend said he'd drive him home. They hit the ditch and were stuck. So the friend left him in the car and walked 1/4 mile to the nearest farmhouse to get a tractor and help. By the time they got back with the tractor the cops had already charged the sleeping farmer with being in control of a licened vehical while being intoxicated.
I recall there was quite an uproar in the area.
Mind you - I didn't read the court case and never talked to the people actually involved.
I see the parent has been modded up. Good.
I am making another reply.
My wife had a driver's license.
My wife was totally disabled at the age of about 29. She was diagnosed terminally ill at the age of 26. By the time she was 30 she was having several seisures per day. nevertheless she had a driver's license. Nevertheless her driver's license was renewed without question when she turned 30.
Of course I never let her drive. The reason for the driver's license was Identification.
My point is that she was legally allowed to drive.
She died at 36 and was legally allowed to drive... at the time she was in an auxillary hospital.
My father passed away about a year ago. He was legally allowed to drive up until and including the day he died. I rode with him to my aunt's funeral. I can say for certain he should not have been allowed on the road. Fortunately he was not involved in any car accidents. The thing is his driving ability was bad because his judgment was was off.
During times of great personal stress it is normal that people's judgment will be way off. It would make sense for people to not drive during times like this. As a case in point, accident rates are reported to be at least double during say a divorce. Similarly accident rates are greatly increased with the death of a spouse.
IMHO the DUI laws are greatly blown out of porportion. Then on top of this we have the fact that most people have no way to determine whether they are over the limit or not.
Crappy moderation again. I really wish those closer to God than the rest of us here in Slashdot would eliminate this personal points of view moderation tactics. The post is a good one and raises many questions which are valid questions. The post also has generated discussion which is exactly what slashdot is all about.
So moderators - stop attacking the messenger ok?
There is a TV program which I do not watch called "Canada's worst drivers".
This program apparently is oriented to rehabilitating some of the worst drivers in the country - people which clearly should not be allowed on the road.
Many years ago I was in an accident caused by one of these people. I watched with disbelief while this person drove literally more than a car length and finally stopped when she hit my car. At no time during this did she ever look forward. She had her head turned to the left looking for oncoming traffic. Meanwhile I was to her right. This would have been 1001, 1002, 1003. I was thinking - Lady... you need to look where you are driving!
It was in the news that a kid was killed while sitting on a bus bench. The lady in question was trying to fetch the plant that fell off the seat while she was turning a corner.
Now - what we do see in the media are deliberatly distorted statistics. If the victim in the accident has had something to drink they stat "Alcohol was involved". The victim could be sound asleep in the passenger seat and there are cases of him being charged. 1) He wasn't operating the vehical. 2) he wasn't even awake. 3) He never operated the vehical. 4) it was his buddy who was driving him home and the car quit and his buddy went to get help.
While there are accidents caused by people who should not be driving because they are intoxicated, the truth is this is totally blown out of porportion. At 0.08% many people are not intoxicated at all. Others are intoxicated at 0.02%. And the post I am responding to correctly points out that some people are so compromised that they should never get a driver's license in the first place.
Then... we have a faulty machine testing a flawed premise. The flawed premise is that alcohol at a certain level makes everyone a criminal.
What we really need to do is get bad drivers off the road. IMHO tail gating is a far worse offence than driving with a little too much slosh. Of course the cops in this city like tail gaters.
I expect this is already being done. The only issue really is how to bring anything found into court.
...and then trade data with the said country's law enforcement personnel.
Non-Germans would be expected to have no rights in a German court of law. Non-Americans have little rights in an American Court of law. This means it is legal for one country's law enforcement personnel to spy on non-citzens
The thing is how a German citizen living in Germany would be taken into court in Germany.... Similarly, how would an American Citizen be taken into court in America? If the said individual lives outside of his own country then perhaps its a bit easier...
Nevertheless, our authorities have been spying on everyone for decades.
I think all this really boils down to is what is admissible in a court of law. I doubt it will have any effect on what our spies actually do on a day to day basis.
I see this as a simple issue of psychology.... human psychology.
...because one parent happened to be born KING? ...and because the previous king was able to bribe a lot of civil servants to support him? ...and because the civil servants want the next king to carry on the cushy lifestyle they have managed to attain by supporting the system?
...regardless of the fact that it is the government that became an agent of the terrorist and starts to terrorize sectors of the population through things like background checks and personal attacks? Do we have McCarthyism all over again?
As I see it - various jobs attract people of certain character.
Science for instance will attract people who are naturally curious.
Computer programming should be expected to attract people who like games and puzzles and are good at dealing with detail.
Administration should be expected to attract people who like to tell other people what to do. One would expect to see a lot of control freaks in managment and administration.
If so, then how would one gain and excersize control? How would one keep control. Would it be expected that a great deal of paranoia might build up in people of this nature? I think so.
When one combines paranoia with a desire to control other people it is perfectly natural to expect that they might like to dig up any dirt they can on others.
Police states are known for this.
One could extrapolate and suggest the USA is turning itself into a police state. If so then it isn't the worst known in human history - far from it. But all forms of police states are bad and I think we are seeing evidence of these bad traits as people strive to gain power over others by using totally unnecessary, possibly dirty, and definitely abhorant tactics. These overzealous background checks certainly fall into this characterization.
Its an abuse of power. But then this is what police states do. They abuse their power and when they get challenged they abuse people's rights in order to retain power.
One way to look at this is when a group of babies are born - what law of nature or God says that one or more has a god given right to control the other babies? How would one measure and determine at the outset who should be that alpha baby? What of when they grow up? At what point in time did it become ok for the alpha baby to step forth and declare that everyone has to listen to what he says - that he has the right to order others around? Did it occur when he became a cop? Did it occur when he became a lawyer or a judge?
Should it happen by birth?
IMHO people are NOT born with the right to control other's lives. Sometimes they gain this power during life. If so then usually its because they covent power and those who gain the most power are the ones willing to spend all their days and nights politicing to get it. IE. They are control freaks.
Next we have the political and administrative systems which have been designed first to accomodate the control of the majority by sometimes a fanatical minority. What we see by these ruthless and totally unnecessary background checks is merely an extension of this.
Its an ugly situation and I see it as a symptom of the USA becoming more of a police state which flogs threats of terrorism as a justification for what they do. If so then the terrorists are winning because this is exactly what they want to happen. Would it be true to observe that if the terrorists create a situation where the average Joe and Josephene in middle class America loses his and her freedoms, that the terrorist has succeeded
Combine this with the apparent fact that government jobs at all levels are filled with people who seek security first and are willing to kiss ass like it never gets kissed in private industry. When you have a large number of administrative people who love to follow rules just for the sake of rules and are too concerned about job security to stand up for what's right... then you have a receipe for exactly what we have taking place now.
This is not a whole lot different than a judge ruling that auto manufacturers need to install and log GPS locations of cars so that if one is used in a felony then they can trace where it was.
I somehow doubt the judge has authority to make this happen.
Now the thing is... consider Canada. We have a law that cars need to have their headlights on in the daytime. Go figure eh? I happen to be in favour of this law but I sure don't want to have to retrofit my oldest vehical.
What power does a judge in the USA have over foreigners?
In the case of a car, the government can prevent the importation of the car. In the case of software the judge can attempt to prevent the importation and use of the software, but that is about it and the attempt will probably fail. Who is going to enforce it?
One thing that is becomming perfectly clear is that all internet communications need to be encrypted and in addition it is probably a very good idea to encrypt the port as well. This would prevent non-net neutrality as well which is probably something we all want.
Once the packet has been received it can then be decrypted and the port will be known and can be handed to the proper service. IMHO the sooner we do this the better.
What you are missing is the intention.
If you deliberately leave your back door swinging in the breeze this can be interpreted as entrapment. Why did you do it? Were you dumb or stupid or were you trying to create an opportunity for an otherwise honest person to come rob you?
Why did these people put the songs in Kazza? What was their intent?
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This is a very difficult area. What of police entrapment? So we have a single guy walking down the street and he meets up with a gal and she asks "Would you like a date?"
Why not? Maybe she's the girl of his dreams.
Clearly they can construe this as a bloke picking up a ho... but no. He might just be a very nice guy who is a software developer and focuses on what he does... and you know what? This girl might really like what he can do and who he is and so forth. Yes... He might like a date.
Should be be charged? I say no. It clearly entrapment.
I've been there too.
I was at a wet tee shirt bar and met a contestant. I do not think she was a ho. We were talking and this jerk was pestering me about would I like to talk with so and so. My answer: No!
Within 5 mins this jerk punched her in the eye. She ran out and called 911. I ended up talking with them for 15 mins until the cops arrived.
The cops didn't talk to her. They told me to FO. When I inquired if they talked to her and I was a witness to the jerk who assulted her they decided to arrest me.
I'm a single person. My wife died. When these cops arrested me this meant my kids were left alone. I told them I was planning on leaving at 6:30 and will be home by 10. I was not allowed to call them.
My daughter was 13 then. Both kids were quite upset and worried.
So? What was I guilty of?
Was she a hooker? I honestly do not think so. Even if she was... No way. I think she was just out having fun and this jerk beat on her and she was told by friends to just leave.
And the cops?
Entrapment?
Abuse?
My response to this was to start with the Mayor's office. I started right at the top and tore flesh through more than a few rungs. Of course I had rather solid ground. I was 38 and buried my wife after having cared for her for 10 years and I had done nothing worng. Nothing at all. I've been arrested since and have not done anything worng. On this next arrest. I was with the crown prosecutor. She is a friend of mine. She is also very nice and so is her son. Hey - don't do drugs in Calgary but if you are interested in shrooms then I will point out which will kill you and which will get you high and which are just good to eat.
But what do cops see?
See - the issue is intentions. What are people doing and why?
I think you are correct in your assement but the issue at hand is that blockbuster is renting movies to make a profit. These people were not renting anything. What was their intention?
IMHO the toughest job facing the OSS community is education: teaching, learning, and how to document.
This is compounded by the issue that most developers do not find documentation fun. If the common perception that geeks tend to be nerdy and poor at communication is true, then we have a triple whammy. This is one reason I say documentation and communication and education is our collective biggest failing.
The learning curves for _any_ of our packages are steep. SysAdmins rejoice in the job security they perceive they gain as their expertize for apache, mysql, postfix, postgreSQL and so forth increases. The thing is each package has so many options that it takes forever to learn how to set them up. At last count Debian boasted over 30,000 packages available. How is one suppose to even know what a small percentage of these packages do? That is much less than to learn how to install, support and maintain them?
But this is just the systems administration arena. The API's and programming is an order of magnitude more difficult to keep up with.
Then the documentation. To use WxWidgets for instance I am faced with over 3,000 pages of main manuals, I need to decide if I use DialogBlocks or CodeBlocks or neither. I need to figure out what each does and what each doesn't, and after I buy Julian Smart's book - its another over 500 pages to read. In spite of the fact he's written DialogBlocks there is no useful information on same in his book. Thanx.
This is only one (1) package. I have not addressed version differences and library dependencies and so forth. I have not considered the issues of limitations and bugs.
To keep up is typically information overload to the gawd-zillion'th degree.
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M$ recognized this and attempted a solution. From what I can tell in around w95 they pulled all the error messages out of the system. I experienced the great joy of accidently turning off the external SCSI hard drive on a W95 computer while the system was accessing the disk... reading it actually. No error message was reported. We got what looked like "END OF FILE". This was M$ code reading the disk.
Then on another occasion I noted a networking message from NT4.0 had the exact same text as from OS/2. The error number in NT4.0 was missing. Everything else was the same. On a hunch I looked up the message in OS/2 and lo and behold the error number lead to the issue at hand. Of course NT4.0 was no help at all because this information had been removed.
Either it was removed or never put in. I dunno. What I do know is that the systems ability to correctly diagnose was hamstrung.
So what do we have in the OSS world?
1) volumes of crappy documentation layered on more volumes of poorly organized documentation.
2) When problems are found and corrected - no good method exists to upgrade the docs.
Here is an example. Many years ago I ran into a sound configuration issue in Debian Woody. This had to do with esoteric issues of generic SCSI drivers and bad permissions and so forth. I ended up posting in SourceForge a complete description of the problem and how to walk through it and fix it.
Two (2) years later none of this information had been disseminated through the documentation of the package at hand where I had discovered it. Debian was still misconfigured. People were still coming into IRC pleading for assistance on how to get the software running (It was GRIP as I recall).
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This is just terrible performance and we are not getting much better at it.
There are several websites of documentation. SourceForge does this. IMHO they do it poorly. There are many wiki's dedicated to various packages. Nothing is coordinated. The man and info pages I have in my latest system are still the first place I would like to look for information and they are basically just as bad now as they were in 1997. Probably these documentation sources have not been updated much since 1997. Why not? If there is new
There have been some very good suggestions put forth.
What came first to my mind is the question of friction. Every measurement you do is friction on the task at hand. Friction can really add up. At the poker table in a casino its called the rake. When you trade on the stock market its called the commission.
When you do your job its the additional time required to account for doing your job. The more grandularity you are required to produce the greater the amount of friction, and the less time you have available to do what you are hired to do as opposed to account for doing what you are hired to do. The accounting is pure overhead and like most forms of friction - it is non productive.
So whatever you do make sure you add a column for "friction" and make sure you properly fill in this column. Note that if you are in a meeting and end up discussing the "friction" issue then this is also friction.
That being said... one observation of systems admin is that a large part can be dealing with the learning curve. Once one determines how to solve a problem - implementing the solution may be quite easy and take little time. The thing is that one systems admin can jump into the fray and implement a poor solution and will as a result look really busy and possibly productive. A simple metric might say "Spent 2 weeks (80 hours) implementing a virus scanner".
Thing is... does the scanner really work? Next - even if it does - if an extra few days had been spent in research could the task have been accomplished in overall less time? How about if the guy had hired a consultant he might happen to know to just get it done? Most sysadmins know a number of quite proficient consultants
In the world of programming this is an order of magnitude more important.
I'll give an example. Many years ago I was faced with writing and using sort packages. In one company there were 5 different "library" sort packages. Many programmers did not use them. Even now - to this very day - a good friend of mine who is a programmer rolls out yet another copy of his very own favorite bubble sort every time he needs to sort any data. He has many ways to justify this... including that processors are so fast no-a-days that it never is an issue.
Back in the past when I looked in detail at the "library" sort routines of that company I was working for I found all were worse than bad. In fact their "SuperSort()" was a bubble sort coded in assembler and the assembler code wasn't even good.
Of the programmers who were rolling their own - virtually all were terribly redundant. No-one was doing a good job and even though Donald Knuth had researched the issues to death and published a very good book on the subject - none of those programmers had bothered to borrow the book from the library and read up on searching and sorting methods.
What of today?
We have a very good Glibc open source sort package. It can be used by anyone. It can be used in commercial code because its under the Library license.
Any programmer today who wastes his or her time rolling out yet another sort routine is wasting their employer's money. In fact they are creating a liability for their employer because someone else at some time will have to maintain the application. Of course this is a general statement. I do know of a few instances where one might be faced with a special variant of a problem and need to address it in a unique way. Nevertheless I still believe that over 80% of the problem in most software is searching and sorting.
How do you measure things like this? What sort of metrics are appropriate? Perhaps the first question to ask is "Does the task in question really need to be done?".
In my experiance people have a really big difficulty with this issue. In mathematical logic its the issue of existence. If whatever you are trying to determine does not in fact exist - then you can make no conclusions about it.
Consider the question of a court action regarding d
I've not read the claims of course, but from the description if _any_ form of completion is claimed then it would seem to me that prior art would include command line completion as well. We've had things like this since the 70's in many forms.
Ya - having to use winders would be worse than being in gaol!
Here is a solution. Get a copy of VMware and use it to run a copy of windows and let them put their tracking software in there! End of issue.
Or... see if the tracking software will run in WINE.
I went to a backwater country school in Saskatchewan. My high school math and science marks were good - never a mark much below 95. I was a victim of the "no child gets ahead" system.
You see - the teacher - the principal was "accredited" so he set his own exams. This meant he was able to spread the grad 11 chem over 2 years and ditto with the grade 11 physics. In fact he finished less than 1/2 of the grade 11 chem by the end of grade 12 and about 2/3 of the grade 11 physics. Even at this snail pace the courses were watered down. His justification was that a good student could easily catch up in high school.
After that bullshit and the additional bullshit that the math curriculum simply repeated grade 9 and 10 math in 11 and 12 - I had no study skills at all. My career ambitions were dashed. I wanted to do nuclear engineering physics. I was taught so little that having graduated with glorious marks and having won the Mathematics olympiad in the province - I didn't even know how to find the engineering faculty. So I took pure math instead.
One of the things that really pissed me off what that there wasn't even a set of encyclopedias suitable for high school students. The best they had was world book and that was targeted for junior high.
Being in that school was like being in prison. I was frequently attacked by other students. Thankfully the worst ended up out of the system in around grade 10. I had no real friends. It took me years to discover while in uni that many of the people there actually liked me as a person and weren't constantly attacking me. In fact when one chap said I reminded him of Orson Wells I thought he was insulting me. Months later I found out he was in honors drama and Orson Wells was his hero!
Academically? Uggghhh! It was horrible. It was like watching childrens' cartoons day in and day out.
I have to say I still carry scars from this even though its been several decades.
People can also put more insulation in their houses. This will save the CO2 from the fuel burned and save the money spent to buy the fuel. Next the house is cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter and we save our non-renewable natural resources for our children.
We need about R50 in the walls and R70 in the ceilings and this will cost about $1 bux per square foot of building envelope surface area in addition to what we spend now. IE. Its DIRT CHEAP to do it during construction.
But - You are right IMHO. People would rather a lab somewhere fixes the problem. I don't think this problem needs to be fixed in a lab and I'm not sure a lab can do all that good a job. A little sweat mind you will go a long ways. Teaching people what they need to know is very important.
I do not think the carbon paper you refer to will do much for storing hydrogen. Hydrogen is a very small molecule and it gets into metals and embrittles them. It doesn't like to be compressed and as everyone knows even NASA has had its problems when its in the liquid phase. Witness the Challenger. I honestly don't think we want to be toting around much liquid hydrogen. In the gaseous form under pressure its also not fun. Ask a welder about safety with his pressurized welding gases.
Even a semi-tractor tire can be dangerous. In the small town garage where I grew up is a ring in the ceiling left behind by a split rim. This was not at pressures in the 1000's of PSI. Even 100's can kill a person quite easily. In the case of the garage with the neat ring in the ceiling no one was hurt. But they still like to talk about it.
Note: Toss in carbon and we get high energy well behaved liquid fuels that clearly are quite safe to use. We are going to have to learn a great deal about nature before we can top what we already have.
This is why the Oil Industry here in Alberta is investing over $10 billion per year in synthetic oil. You may hear about it as synthetic crude or synthetic fuel or synthetic oil. Its all the same.
We are mining hydrogen poor bitumin with an H:C ratio a wee bit better than 1:1 and we add hydrogen and bring the ratio up in the range of 2:1 in line with the alkane series: CnH(2n+2). For each atom of carbon we mine we need to find an atom of hydrogen. To do this we are building some of the largest hydrogen plants in the world.
We can produce synthetic crude from coal and from any other carbon source as well including plant matter. The issue is these are all hydrogen poor fuels. This is why coal is solid. Plant material is partly oxidized so it carries dead weight. Plant matter is (CH2O)n. These are the sugar polymers that build up through the simple sugars into starches and later into cellulose, lignans and pentosans.
IMHO a really good area of research is fungii that can live in liquid culture and which digest trees. There is much talk on T. Reesie. Trichoderma reeshie is a strain of T. veridi which was isolated in Guam in the 1940's. Its used industrially because it is a cellulose digester. But over 1/2 of most plants are not cellulose. I think we have a situation of holding a hammer and thinking the world looks like a nail.
Non the less. There are millions of species of fungii we know next to nothing about and many produce the enzymes we need to digest cellulostic waste products. If we next have a strain of E. coli which can produce an alkane precursor then this may very well form the basis of a renewable fuel industry.
If so... then we won't have carbon free fuels. I personally don't really worry much if they are carbon neutral fuels as measured by a bio-cycle. Note Volcanoes will continue to spew geologically aged CO2 into the atmosphere and sometimes the rate of spew is very very high. Witness the Deccan and Siberian trapps.
What I'm worried about is having fuel available "at all". The 2007 BP statistical review shows world oil production basically flat. It shows Saudi Arabia in decline last year. I side with th
You are correct if you look at temperature data and Co2 levels over say the last couple million years.... IE the Volstok ice core data shows CO2 levels trailing temperature increases by something like 1000 years. A good explanation for this is that the freezing of the ice ages shuts down the actions of micro-organisms and the organics simply don't break down until the next thaw.
However 2 million years is a very short geological window. In the longer planetary time scale say going back 500 million years we don't see a correlation between planetary temperature and Co2 levels.
For instance during the Ordovician the planet started out about 10C warmer than now on average and with CO2 levels between 13x and 17x greater than now the planet plunged into an ice age.
your numbers look about right. Yup - pigs' and cows' will go hungry. Well - cows can get along quite well without grain but not so with pigs and chickens. So we can expect the economics of poultry and pork producers to go into the toilet and eventually we should see the cost of same go up.
Thing is that from an economics standpoint we have this: One needs to be able to brew beer at $2.50 per keg in order for ethanol to compete with Gasoline at $1.25 per liter. Why? Because beer is 5% ethanol and a keg is just under 60 liters. 5% of 60 = 3 and 3 liters of ethanol contain about as much energy as 2 liters of gasoline. Given these economics our pork and poultry producers might be able to compete without all that much of a price increase for pork and poultry products. Besides the brewers grains which are left over are a high source of protein which is not a surprise at all considering the starch was converted to ethanol.
Now the 14% of the crop. If 14% which is almost 1/6th goes to fuel production then this is 14% of 14 days (100% would provide fuel for about 2 weeks) so that is about 2 days worth of fuel.
Its really only a drop in the bucket.
Remember, the USA consumes about 20,589 thousand barrels oil per day - page 13 of the 2007 BP statistical review.
We still have a very big problem and I don't think ethanol is going to be much of a solution.