Sooner or later you are going to bottleneck on the memory interface. Dual cpus are going to give more capability than hyperthreading, at more cost. If they are strangled by the memory interface, there is no advantage to it. But if it gets more throughout - and Intel have probably simulated it to death - it could be the way to go.
Simply: cost. The CPU core is probably now well under 10% of the silicon area, the remainder being L1 cache and similar support circuitry. Adding a whole extra core adds very little to the total silicon - less than making the core more complex to handle ever deepening pipelines. Whereas adding a second complete chip, in its own package, plus the arbitration logic necessary to make the two chips work together, costs a lot more.
Usually, industry specific knowledge. Don't regard yourself as just a spec-monkey, translating specs into code. Work with your client, who hever they are, and learn their industry. Get to visit them in person (hard to do overseas) and pick their brains.
I make machines for broadcasters. I know things about timecodes, CCIR 601 encoding, VTR control, working practices in newsrooms etc. that no of-the-shelf programmer knows. And the client, while knowledgeable in thes things, knows nothing of software. If they talk to each other without me, larg misundersandings can (do) occur.
That's my field. There are hundreds of others. Get close to your customer, and make his problem yours. Then he will have to keep coming back to you for solutions.
I know just the person for a one-way trip to Mars - determined, clever, very strong sense of self-preservation, deserves a one way ticket far, far away from the human race: Saddam Hussein. *And* it saves the government from deciding whether to shoot him or not.
if you think your job can be both safe, and something you can do from home, you need to find a different line of work.
No. You just need aome unique skill or knowledge which cannot be picked up on tbe street corner. Certainly, if you think of yourself as a "warm body" programmer - "Have emacs, will travel (virtually)", then you can be replaced by another such - and it doesn't matter if they are in India or down the street. Wherever you may be, you need to build up skills and knowledge. Work out what distinguishes you from the next cubicle and (provided it is good, of course), polish it.
This is something self-employed people and small traders have had to live with for ever. It is now moving into the previously sheltered world of software. It is not thst the world is suddenly being nasty to geeks - it is that geeks have had it unfairly easy for thirty years, and the real world has finally woken up to the easy ride we have been getting.
There is going to be no single standard. ESPN is going to 720p because they think sport needs the high frame rate. The majors are mostly going to 1080i. i don't think anybody is proposing to broadcast 24 frames, but it might be used as an intermediate format. lBut your TV, like your monitor, is going to have to be flexible. Th matrix of formats allowed by legislation has 14 allowable formats, and someone is is going to use most of them.
What is it about 1920x1080 that makes it the "True" HDTV? It happend to be the size of the unsuccesssful, and now defunct, Japanese HiVision system. But there are higher resolutions: some film work has been done at 4kx3k.
You have to be pragmatic: 1080 line screens are likely to be reasonably cheap reasonably soon. 1920 screens will be a way behind.
Then consider bandwidth: just because you have 1920 lines, it doesn't mean the station is going to pay for more megabits. Afrer a certain point, the extra lines just get compressed out.
I ffel that there should be some tunable propensity for applications to swap back in. Generally speaking, disk cache is most effective over a pretty short timescale - seconds or a few minutes. It is vey effective with a multi-pass compiler to cache the output of one pass so it can be read in by the next. But this sort of thing has a relatively narrow window.
So way you want to do is:
Apps which haven't been used for a time get swapped out.
Cached blocks decay with time, decaying faster if the system idles a lot (presumably the big jobs have stopped), slower if the system is very busy (more likely there is something to re-use cache)
As cache blocks decay out, BloatyApp is gradually sucked back in. In Gui Environments, the Window Manager flags the pressure to return as proportional to (say) the number of pixels of visible screen it occupies. Of course, having swapped out once, if it never restarts, you can throw it out second time if you need your cache back.
So if the guy goes to leaving a big make running, it gradually pushed the big apps out while it runs. But if the big make completes, the apps start crawling slowly back in. If it hasn't finished when he comes back from lunch, he probably wants it to carry on running the make: since the CPU is at 100% load, he is probably not surprised it is sluggish.
The problem is how cold the cold end has to be. I think it has to operate at 50K. To cool it electrically, you need to pump heat out of it and dump it somewhere. Easy to do on earty, but in space with a vacuum, it is actually quite hard to get rid of the heat. The telescope is to be situated at L2 because that is well shaded by the earth, and already has a sunshade to keep the telecope body reasonably cool. I think it is just to diffivult to pump the heat out, compared to having a large bucke of liquid helium. It already has solar cells to generate power - teh trouble is, solar cells bring heat as well as power.
The Touchstream Keyboard use finger muscles less and in a different way from a normal keyboard. Add the fact that it does mouse as well. It does take a bit of learning, but is otherwise pretty cool.
I agree with other people that changing imput devices - mice, keyboards - would be a good idea. I run the touchstream and a conventional Qwerty in parallel. When running apps which use a lot of F keys or the numpad (which my favourite editor prefers), I need a conventional keyboard. Wne word-processing, I switch to the Touchstream. Web surfing probably better in the Touchstream because of gestures.
Assume this works. At least two further questions then need to be asked.
Firstly, if we have built robots that can do anything in space that humans can, what is the point of ISS? Why have a human who requires air, food, sleep, sanitary facilties if Robonaut can do the same thing.
Secondly, are there consequences for the James Webb telescope? This is going to lurk out at L2 and is currently going to be inaccessible for repair or, more significantly, refuel. It is currently being designed with a finite life because of a finite supply of coolant for the IR sensor. Surely the same technology that can repair Hubble can refuel Webb. And Webb is probably being designed with fastenings suitable only for earthside maintainance. Perhaps they should design fasteners to be undone in orbit, even if they don't have the technology to undo those fasteners now. By the time Webb starts running low, about 2016, they probably will have the technology. Wingnuts instead of welds - then Robbie can fix it.
That's just a matter of taste. I use 1280*1024, but I nearly always have the main window I am looking at maximised so I only use one window at a time, but change frequently.
Nothing wrong with your way (or mine), but it is still personal preference.
Digital is not the terminology in the UK: The UK and Europe have no plans yet for HDTV. Digital is all the channels deliverd over cable and satellite, and with the broadcast "freeview" digital box. Analog is the basic 5 channels that you can pick up without a decoder box.
In the US and places where they are proposing to implement HDTV, it willbe deliverd only over digital channels, because digital channels can use compression and cut the bandwidth requirement massively. Plus, of course, digital channels don't suffer from noise (except for compression artefacts).
The alternative is usually tighter, not looser, control. Do you say the same thing every time you see a child strapped into a buggy? In a dangerous environment, children *will* wander. A hand-hold is *not* safe enough - parents can get distracted (assuming lack of superhumanity). For a certain age-band a leash, while harmful to a dignity the child doesn't yet have, allows the maximum of freedom consonant with safety. I call not using a leash, for that age band, either overprotective (if you keep the child tied up) or underprotective (if you let them stray into roads, over drops, out of sight) and hence bad parenting. I do not see how the child suffers from the leash, and hence how it can be bad parenting.
While Google is great and making a profit, it is still weak. No? They wouldn't be eyeing an IPO if they were rock solid. If you can do everything you want with the money you have, you have no reason to become a public company that answers to shareholders.
Yes they would. The venture capitalists put money in, and at some time they want money out, several times over. Page and Brin may think as you say, but they are not the only shareholders in Google Inc. VCs usually have a three to seven year timescale: they want their money back in seven years. Google is about five: the VCs will be dropping hints.
This is a piece of distortion introduced by disk drive manufacturers. I think Connor (now expired) first introduced it, at the time that disk drives in the low number of gigabytes were appearing. They started sizing drives with a gigabyte counted as 1000 honest Megabytes. I think Connor needed to do it because with honest gigabytes, their drive (a rotten, unreliable one it turned out to be) would not make the 4 Gigabyte mark, though everybody elses's did. To their shame, the other drive nanufacturers followed. So for all disk drives, a Gigabyte now meant 10^3*2^20, not 2^30. A sad world, my masters.
All the major energy companies are doing research into non-fissil fuels. For two reasons. Firstly, because it make sense to know about the alternatives to their main product, and if one becomes viable, to jump on the bandwaggon ASAP. But secondly to have something to wave at the Green lobby, so say "We ar realists - we ship the fuel you need now. But we share your ideals and will convert to ecofrindely fuels as soon as we can" - which is true, for some value of "as soon as we can". The sums of money mentioned here - a few tens of millions - are panuts to the oil majors. Probably less than the cost of a vew dry wells, which they drill by the dozen.
Ever tried to twist a gyroscope? You can use them in two ways: if you don't try to push them, they stay oriented the same way so yo have a directional reference. But if you ty to move, they "push" back. This gives you something to "push against" in order to twist yourself in space. You don't need to spend expensive reaction mass hauled up from earth, you just use electricity from your solar cells, and you get a much smoother and more accurate control than thrusters.
However, a single gyro can only handle positioning about two axes - you can rotate it about its spin axus as much as you like. So for three axis rotational stabilisation you need at least two gyros at 90 degrees to each other.
I think you exaggerate. *If* SCO were to win at the level they claim, the returns would be enormous. Baystare were backing an outsider. They make dozens of bets of this order, and expect quite a lot of them to bomb. If the others pay off with a serios multiplier, that is fine by them. SCO is probably on the riskier end of their betting, but not outside the envelope.
Like most here, I don't think SCO own enough IP to make a big suit stick. The idea that they own all *nix-alikes is laughable. It might, just possibly, be that a little code they have rights to found its way into Linux via IBM. Improbably, IMO, but stranger things have happened.
Which raises the question of how much damages SCO should be able to claim in the unlikely event of their getting something to stick agaisnt IBM. You can only claim for sales you can reasonably claim to have lost (unless punitive damages are ordered, which seems unlikely). SCO will, of course, claim that every installation of Linux in the worls is worth $699 to them - but the court is unlikely to wear that. If, for example, it were found that some of the SMP code infringed SCO's copyright (as originally alleged), then it would be reasonable to restrict it to SMP machines. The you would have to show that, in the absence of free Linux, the users of such machines wouldn't have bought (e.g.) Solaris. So how much can SCO *really* claim?
I think it is just the writer gerring carried away. It is just security through obscurity: a new technolog which will be difficult for forgets to duplicate - until 30 minutes after it bcomes possible to make a lot of money by forging it.
The article is pretty uniformed: confusing bits and states: 1 bit-> 2 states, 2 bits->4 states.
I don't see ut as much to write home about unless they get more than two layers. If they could get 8 bits inot 1 onion, thy might be onto something. This current implementation seems to be little more valuable than the dual layer DVDs.
Yes. VW at least are investigating recycling fairly intensively: they are under strong pressure to be non-polluting in their home market. I think many of the others are doing the same. But don't expect much scrap value from your totalled car - this is more about saving you a disposal charge rather than getting any residual value from the wreck.
I am out of it. I am in the UK. Yes, the US can be full of bullshit - that is what I meant by being wrong. But it is one of those irregular verbs - I misjudge, you make a mistake, he is full of bullshit. I think my company in the UK is one of the few that can offer the same level of full-throttle new-concept development as a number of US companies. But I think that we are one of the few In the UK, whereas the US has many (but not all).
I think the worst think the US can do is get frighterned and spend too much time looking over its shoulder. Fast forward, and leave the past to the others.
Of course, that same self-confidence can be a pain - I am not happy with the way it is manifesting itself in international affairs these days. But that is the other side of the coin which has led the US to its current position.
To answer some of the other points. Yes, India is competing where you were yesterdsy - and the IP question needs to be dealt with. But move on. And India is doing a large number of routine software tasks. Emphasis on routine. Everyday software is no longer leading edge - expect others to take it on. So find the next thing. Dilbert may be outsourced - but Linus Torvalds has been insourced.
This has always happened. Any industry will have cheap bits that can be outsourced. It would be a negative for the US to try to hang on to the cheap bits. Tht doesn't mean more well paid high tech jobs for US citizens - it means more low paid production line jobe which will be filled, if at all, by immigrants.
Be elitist. The US can do R&D like no other. Yes, other coutries will try, and set up science parks which look just as pretty as US science parks. But it is not pretty science parks that make inventions, it is grade A researchers in an environment which stimulates innovation. Which crucuilly includes, in the US more than anywhere else, the freedom to be wrong.
Of course, yesterdays leading edge is todays mainstream. And therefore that which only the US could do yesterday, others can do today - and will, for less money. If you stop a US company outsourcing he things that can be done cheaply overseas, you will actually have a negative effect: a wholly overseas compay will outcompete them and put them nout of business.
But the US has a 100 year record of finding new things to do. In the old things, all the overseas contries are competing with each other: in the new, the US has the field to itself
By definition, the ones you have seen are the counter examples. There are a lot of people who have basically slacked of when they have made $10-$20 million - enough to keep themselves comfortable for the rest of their lives in any concievable circumstances, plus leave their children a helluva good start in life. By the current count, America has a million millionaires - people whose disposabe assets (including the yacht but not the house) exceed $1million. But these guys are not very visible - they slow down and only work enough to keep the coffers at a "safe" level.
There are indeed the driven ones - the ones whose happiness is measured in how much they made today, or who have to buy ever more expensive goods to prove their worth. These are the high profile ones, the ones you see. But for each on of these there are several - I don't know how many - who slowed down when they reached "rich".
The guys who started Google are still in their twenties. They probably have all the money they will ever need, and can affors all the wine, women and song their tastes run to. But would you like to be looking forward in your twenties and say that you have done all you are ever going to do? I (50 this year) don't want to. If you didn't enjoy whatever it was you did to get rich, you might change course. But if you are enjoying yourself (and all reports say that Google is a fun place to work, and must have bean great fun for the founders), why break a winning streak?
The pressure to IPO is from the Venture Capitalists. They put in dollars, and they want out (lots of) dollars. But if Google, Inc doesn't need the money for re-investment, the founders can say that they don't relish the prospect of the Market looking over their shoulders and, while of course the VCs have the right to float the company, if they do the founders will walk, in search of more fun. Because of the nature of Google, because it is still in the innovation area, those founders (and the top perhapse 20 elite geeks who may not be founders but drive the company - and might well follow the founders if they left) are in a position of considerable power.
I see an internal power struggle - though very polite. The geeks are saying "No IPO - we don't need it". The VCs are saying "OK, we accept that for the moment. But please can we put everything in place so we can IPO quickly when the time is right." - with which the geeks go along.
Original post says that filing SECs figures without a market presence is uncomfortable. Possibly - but it is a discomfort Google could put up with for a long time if it were necessary. Don't hold your breath.
And, paradocucally, if Google IPOs, the VC will have won over the geeks and the company will be worth less because of it.
It's not the language that counts, it is experience in the wierd and wonderful ways that computers can misunderstand you that matters. I've been at this lark thiry years now - Fortran, Algol, Pascal, C, C++ and nowadays Java. You can learn a new language in days and become fluent in months. But until you have been scarred by the many and varied ways in which computer systems bite back at anybody who takes anything for granted, I don't want you on my project. Someone with 10 years Cobol and 2 years C++: looks good. Someone straight out of college who started learning C++ two years ago: very dubious.
Latin: Experior I try. Expertus sum I have tried - or, I am an expert. If you've been there, done that, and got the crash dumps, then languages are irrelevant.
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Sooner or later you are going to bottleneck on the memory interface. Dual cpus are going to give more capability than hyperthreading, at more cost. If they are strangled by the memory interface, there is no advantage to it. But if it gets more throughout - and Intel have probably simulated it to death - it could be the way to go.
Simply: cost. The CPU core is probably now well under 10% of the silicon area, the remainder being L1 cache and similar support circuitry. Adding a whole extra core adds very little to the total silicon - less than making the core more complex to handle ever deepening pipelines. Whereas adding a second complete chip, in its own package, plus the arbitration logic necessary to make the two chips work together, costs a lot more.
Usually, industry specific knowledge. Don't regard yourself as just a spec-monkey, translating specs into code. Work with your client, who hever they are, and learn their industry. Get to visit them in person (hard to do overseas) and pick their brains.
I make machines for broadcasters. I know things about timecodes, CCIR 601 encoding, VTR control, working practices in newsrooms etc. that no of-the-shelf programmer knows. And the client, while knowledgeable in thes things, knows nothing of software. If they talk to each other without me, larg misundersandings can (do) occur.
That's my field. There are hundreds of others. Get close to your customer, and make his problem yours. Then he will have to keep coming back to you for solutions.
I know just the person for a one-way trip to Mars - determined, clever, very strong sense of self-preservation, deserves a one way ticket far, far away from the human race: Saddam Hussein. *And* it saves the government from deciding whether to shoot him or not.
if you think your job can be both safe, and something you can do from home, you need to find a different line of work.
No. You just need aome unique skill or knowledge which cannot be picked up on tbe street corner. Certainly, if you think of yourself as a "warm body" programmer - "Have emacs, will travel (virtually)", then you can be replaced by another such - and it doesn't matter if they are in India or down the street. Wherever you may be, you need to build up skills and knowledge. Work out what distinguishes you from the next cubicle and (provided it is good, of course), polish it.
This is something self-employed people and small traders have had to live with for ever. It is now moving into the previously sheltered world of software. It is not thst the world is suddenly being nasty to geeks - it is that geeks have had it unfairly easy for thirty years, and the real world has finally woken up to the easy ride we have been getting.
There is going to be no single standard. ESPN is going to 720p because they think sport needs the high frame rate. The majors are mostly going to 1080i. i don't think anybody is proposing to broadcast 24 frames, but it might be used as an intermediate format. lBut your TV, like your monitor, is going to have to be flexible. Th matrix of formats allowed by legislation has 14 allowable formats, and someone is is going to use most of them.
What is it about 1920x1080 that makes it the "True" HDTV? It happend to be the size of the unsuccesssful, and now defunct, Japanese HiVision system. But there are higher resolutions: some film work has been done at 4kx3k.
You have to be pragmatic: 1080 line screens are likely to be reasonably cheap reasonably soon. 1920 screens will be a way behind.
Then consider bandwidth: just because you have 1920 lines, it doesn't mean the station is going to pay for more megabits. Afrer a certain point, the extra lines just get compressed out.
So way you want to do is:
So if the guy goes to leaving a big make running, it gradually pushed the big apps out while it runs. But if the big make completes, the apps start crawling slowly back in. If it hasn't finished when he comes back from lunch, he probably wants it to carry on running the make: since the CPU is at 100% load, he is probably not surprised it is sluggish.
The problem is how cold the cold end has to be. I think it has to operate at 50K. To cool it electrically, you need to pump heat out of it and dump it somewhere. Easy to do on earty, but in space with a vacuum, it is actually quite hard to get rid of the heat. The telescope is to be situated at L2 because that is well shaded by the earth, and already has a sunshade to keep the telecope body reasonably cool. I think it is just to diffivult to pump the heat out, compared to having a large bucke of liquid helium. It already has solar cells to generate power - teh trouble is, solar cells bring heat as well as power.
The Touchstream Keyboard use finger muscles less and in a different way from a normal keyboard. Add the fact that it does mouse as well. It does take a bit of learning, but is otherwise pretty cool.
I agree with other people that changing imput devices - mice, keyboards - would be a good idea. I run the touchstream and a conventional Qwerty in parallel. When running apps which use a lot of F keys or the numpad (which my favourite editor prefers), I need a conventional keyboard. Wne word-processing, I switch to the Touchstream. Web surfing probably better in the Touchstream because of gestures.
Assume this works. At least two further questions then need to be asked.
Firstly, if we have built robots that can do anything in space that humans can, what is the point of ISS? Why have a human who requires air, food, sleep, sanitary facilties if Robonaut can do the same thing.
Secondly, are there consequences for the James Webb telescope? This is going to lurk out at L2 and is currently going to be inaccessible for repair or, more significantly, refuel. It is currently being designed with a finite life because of a finite supply of coolant for the IR sensor. Surely the same technology that can repair Hubble can refuel Webb. And Webb is probably being designed with fastenings suitable only for earthside maintainance. Perhaps they should design fasteners to be undone in orbit, even if they don't have the technology to undo those fasteners now. By the time Webb starts running low, about 2016, they probably will have the technology. Wingnuts instead of welds - then Robbie can fix it.
That's just a matter of taste. I use 1280*1024, but I nearly always have the main window I am looking at maximised so I only use one window at a time, but change frequently.
Nothing wrong with your way (or mine), but it is still personal preference.
Digital is not the terminology in the UK: The UK and Europe have no plans yet for HDTV. Digital is all the channels deliverd over cable and satellite, and with the broadcast "freeview" digital box. Analog is the basic 5 channels that you can pick up without a decoder box.
In the US and places where they are proposing to implement HDTV, it willbe deliverd only over digital channels, because digital channels can use compression and cut the bandwidth requirement massively. Plus, of course, digital channels don't suffer from noise (except for compression artefacts).
The alternative is usually tighter, not looser, control. Do you say the same thing every time you see a child strapped into a buggy? In a dangerous environment, children *will* wander. A hand-hold is *not* safe enough - parents can get distracted (assuming lack of superhumanity). For a certain age-band a leash, while harmful to a dignity the child doesn't yet have, allows the maximum of freedom consonant with safety. I call not using a leash, for that age band, either overprotective (if you keep the child tied up) or underprotective (if you let them stray into roads, over drops, out of sight) and hence bad parenting. I do not see how the child suffers from the leash, and hence how it can be bad parenting.
BTW, do you have children?
While Google is great and making a profit, it is still weak. No? They wouldn't be eyeing an IPO if they were rock solid. If you can do everything you want with the money you have, you have no reason to become a public company that answers to shareholders.
Yes they would. The venture capitalists put money in, and at some time they want money out, several times over. Page and Brin may think as you say, but they are not the only shareholders in Google Inc. VCs usually have a three to seven year timescale: they want their money back in seven years. Google is about five: the VCs will be dropping hints.
This is a piece of distortion introduced by disk drive manufacturers. I think Connor (now expired) first introduced it, at the time that disk drives in the low number of gigabytes were appearing. They started sizing drives with a gigabyte counted as 1000 honest Megabytes. I think Connor needed to do it because with honest gigabytes, their drive (a rotten, unreliable one it turned out to be) would not make the 4 Gigabyte mark, though everybody elses's did. To their shame, the other drive nanufacturers followed. So for all disk drives, a Gigabyte now meant 10^3*2^20, not 2^30. A sad world, my masters.
All the major energy companies are doing research into non-fissil fuels. For two reasons. Firstly, because it make sense to know about the alternatives to their main product, and if one becomes viable, to jump on the bandwaggon ASAP. But secondly to have something to wave at the Green lobby, so say "We ar realists - we ship the fuel you need now. But we share your ideals and will convert to ecofrindely fuels as soon as we can" - which is true, for some value of "as soon as we can". The sums of money mentioned here - a few tens of millions - are panuts to the oil majors. Probably less than the cost of a vew dry wells, which they drill by the dozen.
Ever tried to twist a gyroscope? You can use them in two ways: if you don't try to push them, they stay oriented the same way so yo have a directional reference. But if you ty to move, they "push" back. This gives you something to "push against" in order to twist yourself in space. You don't need to spend expensive reaction mass hauled up from earth, you just use electricity from your solar cells, and you get a much smoother and more accurate control than thrusters.
However, a single gyro can only handle positioning about two axes - you can rotate it about its spin axus as much as you like. So for three axis rotational stabilisation you need at least two gyros at 90 degrees to each other.
I think you exaggerate. *If* SCO were to win at the level they claim, the returns would be enormous. Baystare were backing an outsider. They make dozens of bets of this order, and expect quite a lot of them to bomb. If the others pay off with a serios multiplier, that is fine by them. SCO is probably on the riskier end of their betting, but not outside the envelope.
Like most here, I don't think SCO own enough IP to make a big suit stick. The idea that they own all *nix-alikes is laughable. It might, just possibly, be that a little code they have rights to found its way into Linux via IBM. Improbably, IMO, but stranger things have happened.
Which raises the question of how much damages SCO should be able to claim in the unlikely event of their getting something to stick agaisnt IBM. You can only claim for sales you can reasonably claim to have lost (unless punitive damages are ordered, which seems unlikely). SCO will, of course, claim that every installation of Linux in the worls is worth $699 to them - but the court is unlikely to wear that. If, for example, it were found that some of the SMP code infringed SCO's copyright (as originally alleged), then it would be reasonable to restrict it to SMP machines. The you would have to show that, in the absence of free Linux, the users of such machines wouldn't have bought (e.g.) Solaris. So how much can SCO *really* claim?
I think it is just the writer gerring carried away. It is just security through obscurity: a new technolog which will be difficult for forgets to duplicate - until 30 minutes after it bcomes possible to make a lot of money by forging it.
The article is pretty uniformed: confusing bits and states: 1 bit-> 2 states, 2 bits->4 states.
I don't see ut as much to write home about unless they get more than two layers. If they could get 8 bits inot 1 onion, thy might be onto something. This current implementation seems to be little more valuable than the dual layer DVDs.
Yes. VW at least are investigating recycling fairly intensively: they are under strong pressure to be non-polluting in their home market. I think many of the others are doing the same. But don't expect much scrap value from your totalled car - this is more about saving you a disposal charge rather than getting any residual value from the wreck.
I am out of it. I am in the UK. Yes, the US can be full of bullshit - that is what I meant by being wrong. But it is one of those irregular verbs - I misjudge, you make a mistake, he is full of bullshit. I think my company in the UK is one of the few that can offer the same level of full-throttle new-concept development as a number of US companies. But I think that we are one of the few In the UK, whereas the US has many (but not all).
I think the worst think the US can do is get frighterned and spend too much time looking over its shoulder. Fast forward, and leave the past to the others.
Of course, that same self-confidence can be a pain - I am not happy with the way it is manifesting itself in international affairs these days. But that is the other side of the coin which has led the US to its current position.
To answer some of the other points. Yes, India is competing where you were yesterdsy - and the IP question needs to be dealt with. But move on. And India is doing a large number of routine software tasks. Emphasis on routine. Everyday software is no longer leading edge - expect others to take it on. So find the next thing. Dilbert may be outsourced - but Linus Torvalds has been insourced.
This has always happened. Any industry will have cheap bits that can be outsourced. It would be a negative for the US to try to hang on to the cheap bits. Tht doesn't mean more well paid high tech jobs for US citizens - it means more low paid production line jobe which will be filled, if at all, by immigrants.
Be elitist. The US can do R&D like no other. Yes, other coutries will try, and set up science parks which look just as pretty as US science parks. But it is not pretty science parks that make inventions, it is grade A researchers in an environment which stimulates innovation. Which crucuilly includes, in the US more than anywhere else, the freedom to be wrong.
Of course, yesterdays leading edge is todays mainstream. And therefore that which only the US could do yesterday, others can do today - and will, for less money. If you stop a US company outsourcing he things that can be done cheaply overseas, you will actually have a negative effect: a wholly overseas compay will outcompete them and put them nout of business.
But the US has a 100 year record of finding new things to do. In the old things, all the overseas contries are competing with each other: in the new, the US has the field to itself
By definition, the ones you have seen are the counter examples. There are a lot of people who have basically slacked of when they have made $10-$20 million - enough to keep themselves comfortable for the rest of their lives in any concievable circumstances, plus leave their children a helluva good start in life. By the current count, America has a million millionaires - people whose disposabe assets (including the yacht but not the house) exceed $1million. But these guys are not very visible - they slow down and only work enough to keep the coffers at a "safe" level.
There are indeed the driven ones - the ones whose happiness is measured in how much they made today, or who have to buy ever more expensive goods to prove their worth. These are the high profile ones, the ones you see. But for each on of these there are several - I don't know how many - who slowed down when they reached "rich".
The guys who started Google are still in their twenties. They probably have all the money they will ever need, and can affors all the wine, women and song their tastes run to. But would you like to be looking forward in your twenties and say that you have done all you are ever going to do? I (50 this year) don't want to. If you didn't enjoy whatever it was you did to get rich, you might change course. But if you are enjoying yourself (and all reports say that Google is a fun place to work, and must have bean great fun for the founders), why break a winning streak?
The pressure to IPO is from the Venture Capitalists. They put in dollars, and they want out (lots of) dollars. But if Google, Inc doesn't need the money for re-investment, the founders can say that they don't relish the prospect of the Market looking over their shoulders and, while of course the VCs have the right to float the company, if they do the founders will walk, in search of more fun. Because of the nature of Google, because it is still in the innovation area, those founders (and the top perhapse 20 elite geeks who may not be founders but drive the company - and might well follow the founders if they left) are in a position of considerable power.
I see an internal power struggle - though very polite. The geeks are saying "No IPO - we don't need it". The VCs are saying "OK, we accept that for the moment. But please can we put everything in place so we can IPO quickly when the time is right." - with which the geeks go along.
Original post says that filing SECs figures without a market presence is uncomfortable. Possibly - but it is a discomfort Google could put up with for a long time if it were necessary. Don't hold your breath.
And, paradocucally, if Google IPOs, the VC will have won over the geeks and the company will be worth less because of it.
It's not the language that counts, it is experience in the wierd and wonderful ways that computers can misunderstand you that matters. I've been at this lark thiry years now - Fortran, Algol, Pascal, C, C++ and nowadays Java. You can learn a new language in days and become fluent in months. But until you have been scarred by the many and varied ways in which computer systems bite back at anybody who takes anything for granted, I don't want you on my project. Someone with 10 years Cobol and 2 years C++: looks good. Someone straight out of college who started learning C++ two years ago: very dubious.
Latin: Experior I try. Expertus sum I have tried - or, I am an expert. If you've been there, done that, and got the crash dumps, then languages are irrelevant.