America has sanctions against supercomputers? Why?
THey have export restrictions against supercomputers yes. Unless the sale is approved by (department of commerce?) some government agency. The reason is that supercomputers can (potentially) be used for all sorts of nefarious acts like biological warfare, nuclear weapons, rocketry, decryption, etc, etc. They have similar restrictions on all sorts of technology that could be used by another country (unfriendly) to develop weapons.
The article says it was built with ibm power4 chips operating at 1ghz. What I am wondering is this - if the US gov't decides to get upset about this will they prohibit IBM from selling power4 chips to the company that makes these supercomputers?
And of those of you interested in the power 4 check out this page. A pretty cool chip from what I can tell...
Indeed. I was just pointing out that maybe a similar process occured. And a nuetron bomb has high initial radiation that dissipates quickly from what I understand so they would not have necassarily picked it up. Shrug it was just a thought.
how do you explain a nuclear weapon with no fallout and radioactivity?
I do not advocate or support this theory about port chicago being a nuclear explosion at all but what about a Neutron Bomb?. Granted they weren't even thought of till 1958 but... Shrug.
Indeed it was. Terrible deaths they where too, and they should never be forgotten as a lesson to what years of war and ignorance can result in - on both sides. I will say is this - an invasion of the japanese mainland would have resulted in far, far more casulties. Millions upon millions and the war wouldn't have likely ended for 2-3 more years. Millions more would have died due to starvation during the invasion.
but I will not blame their willingness to try and save their way of life (embodied in the emperor) for the nukings
Trying to preserve a way of life doesn't automaticaly grant you some sort of divine right to let millions of your citizens to be killed in a hopeless cause.
As for bombing in broad daylight there was no other realistic option - you wanted the most light so you could be sure your bombs hit the target. These weren't laser guided bombs with GPS navigation they where using. The move wasn't calculated to kill the most people - it was calculated to give the mission the best chance of success, in the morning so the crew could fly there under the cover of nite then have good light by which to see their target. Also, it was in case the first target was obscured by fog or whatever they still had enough time to hit their secondary target.
As for the end justifying the means.. no. You have to put this in a historical context. After years and years of war President Truman was told they had two bombs of incredible destructive power that MIGHT save the US hundreds of thousands of casulties and shave years off the war. The bombing of civilians, while a horrible act, was probably never even considered at that time by the president and his advisors. The Japanese had not spared civilians during the war so the US never really tried either (note: not a justification just part of the context we are dealing with here). A conditional surrender was never an option for the japanese - for all the reasons I explained and because of popular opinion due to pearl harbor. He ordered it, and the order was carried out.
As for possibly scaring the rest of the world to go along with post WWII US Foreign Policy this was probably quite true and probably influenced his decision in some way, though Truman himself never admitted to it and there is no direct evidence that Truman decided to drop the bomb just to show the Soviets the US had a new weapon - indeed he knew that the soviets knew quite abit about the bomb due to spies and their own research.
The cold war was hardly world war I & II and, at any rate, the goal was achieved - neither Germany or Japan threataned world peace (or stability if you prefer) again. I see quite a bit of difference between bombing hiroshima and nagasaki than invading the Islands and killing millions more.
Against civillians, mind you, and the war was already won. Japan had been trying to negociate a surrender with the help of russian diplomats for about a year when the US decided to nuke 'em (twice!). The point was not to end the war, it was to get an unconditionnal surrender...kick 'em while they're down.
As a history major this bit of misinformation has to be swiftly kicked out the door. The japanese would NEVER unconditionally surrender without the Nukes. Indeed, after the first nuke they STILL wouldn't demanding that a conditional surrnder with the Japanese Emperor still held in place the only condition the only option. After the second nuke only the direct intervention of the Japanese Emperor himself convinced the war cabinet to surrender.
The logical question then arises why did the US demand a unconditional surrender? Simple, it had been agreed upon at numerous conferences between the allies. Italy, Germany, and Japan all must unconditionally surrender or the war would not stop. Not demanding a unconditional surrender would've been tatamount to breaking a treaty between the allies.
The *reasons* for an unconditional surrender are quite valid. The US , and the allies, wanted to prevent the Germans/Japanese/Italians from ever rising up in power again to make war upon the world. You might remember the Versaille treaty and WWI - or you probably don't. At any rate this conditional treaty totally failed in preventing germany from rearming and, indeed, contributed to the rise of power of hitler. The US and the allies demanded the unconditional surrender to ensure something like this would never happen. And, guess what, it hasn't. Germany and Japan are both fairly strong allies and both are pretty peace-loving and economic powerhouses in the world. Seems the US occupation and surrender did some good.
Finally, instead of blaming the us for "kicking them while they where down" why the fuck don't you blame the japanese leaders for not surrendering when they *knew* they where beat? They KNEW that the allies would only accept an unconditional surrender but they continued to fight and, ultimatly, it is they who decided the fate of all those people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or the millions who would've died in an invasion of the home islands.
It had nothing to do with 'kicking them while they where down'. It had EVERYTHING to do with preventing a World War III. And, guess what, it worked. Anyone who thinks that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where simply vengeful acts has not a clue about the historical basis for the reasons for unconditional surrender - as you yourself proved.
Wow boy settle down. They have as similar agreement with Red Hat and with Sun for Star Office. Yes we foot the bill with 400,00$ a year but split up between 28,000 students that comes to - oh - 15$ or so a person.
Recently MS has started offering *substantial* discounts to students at major universities. At my school we can get a copy of Windows XP for 9.95$, office XP for $7.95, and Office X for 7.95$. Of course the student council or whatever has to pay MS 400,000$ a year or so to do this and there are some restrictions on how you can use the software (have to return the software if you don't graduate, only for personal use,etc) but over all it is a very, very nice deal for students.
I mean really when Windows XP professional and office XP costs you a combined total of about 20$ there is no point in pirating them.
Thanks, we use office 2k but I found a related way of doing it on win2k as well. The custom install script seems to have taken care of most of the problems but this won't hurt at all.
Ouch. I've found this especially useful for office installs (link below) - basically it is a custom script that will not only install on first run but if some random asinine problem happens will look for a network share of office and grab the files necassary. even works if the people delete their entire office install:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/defaul t. asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2000/dep loy/depopt/wiofc2k.asp
Might be different in XP. THis is using windows 2000/office 2000. So far I have only seen it on 98/2k computers that happen to be on a windows domain. You won't see it most likely if you are not on a domain. Try clicking on the 'open new office document' in the start menu in a different account.
Install MSoffice on one account. Click on word icon. MS office pops up and needs to configure itself - insert cd. Fine. Great. Rinse, repeat for all user accounts on system. Sound like fun?
and I have yet to meet someone that genuinely *NEEDS* anything that Word has
Well the asinine installation program that for some god unknown reason needs to 'configure' itself everytime you look at it the wrong way or some other user logs onto the computer helps keep me employed... =) (yes, blah we just made a custom.msi installation script that 'installs on first run' or whatever the point is you shouldn't fscking have to). of course it also makes me want to gouge out my eyes with a plastic spoon the minute somebody mentions MS Office.
FOR GODS SAKE WHY WHY WHY DOES MSOFFICE NEED TO FSCKING CONFIGURE ITSELF? WHY CAN"T IT JUST BE INSTALLED LIKE EVERY OTHER FSCKING APPLICATION? WHY GOD WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY WHY?
These people aren't driven by pure evil but rather extreme frustration
You forgot to add "and a massive dose of ignorance and intolerance." Of course I just described fanatics of all shapes, sizes, and colors whether it be terrorists, right-wing fundamentalists, or richard stallman (sorry couldn't resist).
If your company is participating in illegal activities abroad yes you can be jailed, most likely be held as a witness for a trial against whatever company they are currently pursuing. For instance the executives of De Beers do not dare step foot into the United States because they would be arrested on the spot for various antitrust reasons as well as a number of outstanding civil cases against them.
The fact is, he did all his work on the product (which is legal in its country of origin) in Russia, where, last I heard, US laws don't apply.
For the last time.. US laws apply to him for this reason - his employer made that software he produced available forsale to Americans from servers based in the United States. Therefore the law applies to him. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? Commercial laws apply to you if you sell your product in that country.
Of course the possibility of Duke Nukem Forever ever actually being released is pretty much nil. Indeed in a few years the possibility of it actually being released will go *Below* zero and soon we will have the memory of Duke Nukem Forever actually be erased from our minds and the collective consciousness of the geek community. Or something. I'm delirious time for bed.
Greatest change from proposed date to actual date. We can just go ahead and call this the 'Blizzard' award in honor of Warcraft II, III, Diablo II, Starcraft, etc, etc.
For one I am an active member of save sub-saharan orphans and am not a fool when it comes to the problems facing third world countries. What I take objection to is people who automatically assume they are *Right* and that whatever person x is doing is *Wrong* like you are doing with this Gnome business. Let's take a look at your assertation that somehow what Gnome is doing by *shock* allowing it's product to be sold by SUn/Red Hat/etc is somehow wrong.
No. The charity work that they do still benefits the needy. Suppose FedEx sponsors Habitat for Humanity. Both win. Habitat for humanity gets much-needed money and FedEx gets good press.
No. The charity work that they do still benefits the needy. Suppose FedEx sponsors Gnome. Both Win. Gnome gets much-needed money to further develop a needed free GUI and Fedex gets good press.
THere is *no* difference between the two. None, except that one is more traditional so, according to your view, is more *right* somehow. It's a narrowminded view of the world.
Let's assume that, out of a population of 37,090,298 (Cia world factbook) 1/10 of 1 percent have a computer - that's 37,090 computers. Which, btw, is far, far below the actual number since the reported number of internet users is 50,000. At any rate if they would switch entirely to OSS they would save, at 200$ per computer, 7,418,000$ dollars. That's 7 million dollars that quite a big chunk of change. I would also point out that Gnome minimum system requirements are quite a bit less than the latest version of windows xp. I could also point out that Gnome will continue to be supported far longer than windows xp.
Alas, I would have more to say but I have to finish writing a 6 page paper due in 6 hours. Good day sir.
Because it is a hobby for those involved. They do it for personal fulfillment.
And what exactly is a charity? Do you not donate to a charity to get some form of personal gratification for helping those in need, by giving some of your excess to further some goal that is dear to you?
While, in principle, I agree to you that Gnome is hardly my idea of a charitable organization I don't see any reason to criticize their work or call it, in so many words, a fraud of our tax code. I have seen more worthless charities than I care to see and Gnome is hardly an abuse of the current tax code. They donate their work to the public at large to be used however they want to use it and accept donations for the public. Is it traditional? No. Is it still a non-profit organization? Hell yes. Are you under some sort of odd obligation to support it? No. No one cares, if you want to support it do if you don't believe in supporting it don't.
Legitimate charities do not invest tax-deductible contributions to develop products that are resold by big business.
In so many words, fool. What do you call charities that accept sponorship of big companies? Advertisement plain and simple. This charity function funded in part by blah blah. Are they not, using your defination, simply 'selling themselves out' by allowing for their image/goodwill/goodworks to be used to advertise a business and tie to it? Ah but since they do, what YOU define as, good works that is ok? I say that by producing a legitemate, free, alternative to windows Gnome does many good works by allowing for a free desktop enviroment that can be used by any organization that can better spend the $200 it would normally spend on a os/GUI on more important things. In that sense Gnome is indeed a charity since the 200$ it would cost for, say, a windows XP liscene can be better spent feeding children/building houses/curing aids whatever.
Because your CableCo might happen to be, oh, Time Warner which has a vested interest in DRM. Granted they are one of the few large media companies with a cable network but.. the point is there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is about to face a disaster of biblical proportions. Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical?" Dr. Raymond Stantz: We mean real wrath-of-God type stuff. Plagues, darkness-- Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave! Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes-- Dr. Peter Venkman: Riots in the streets, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Slashdot Mirror
True I thought of that but the US gov't isn't exactly known for it's wonderful intelligence factor sometimes. Shrug.
America has sanctions against supercomputers? Why?
THey have export restrictions against supercomputers yes. Unless the sale is approved by (department of commerce?) some government agency. The reason is that supercomputers can (potentially) be used for all sorts of nefarious acts like biological warfare, nuclear weapons, rocketry, decryption, etc, etc. They have similar restrictions on all sorts of technology that could be used by another country (unfriendly) to develop weapons.
The article says it was built with ibm power4 chips operating at 1ghz. What I am wondering is this - if the US gov't decides to get upset about this will they prohibit IBM from selling power4 chips to the company that makes these supercomputers?
And of those of you interested in the power 4 check out this page. A pretty cool chip from what I can tell...
Indeed. I was just pointing out that maybe a similar process occured. And a nuetron bomb has high initial radiation that dissipates quickly from what I understand so they would not have necassarily picked it up. Shrug it was just a thought.
how do you explain a nuclear weapon with no fallout and radioactivity?
I do not advocate or support this theory about port chicago being a nuclear explosion at all but what about a Neutron Bomb?. Granted they weren't even thought of till 1958 but... Shrug.
still hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths!
Indeed it was. Terrible deaths they where too, and they should never be forgotten as a lesson to what years of war and ignorance can result in - on both sides. I will say is this - an invasion of the japanese mainland would have resulted in far, far more casulties. Millions upon millions and the war wouldn't have likely ended for 2-3 more years. Millions more would have died due to starvation during the invasion.
but I will not blame their willingness to try and save their way of life (embodied in the emperor) for the nukings
Trying to preserve a way of life doesn't automaticaly grant you some sort of divine right to let millions of your citizens to be killed in a hopeless cause.
As for bombing in broad daylight there was no other realistic option - you wanted the most light so you could be sure your bombs hit the target. These weren't laser guided bombs with GPS navigation they where using. The move wasn't calculated to kill the most people - it was calculated to give the mission the best chance of success, in the morning so the crew could fly there under the cover of nite then have good light by which to see their target. Also, it was in case the first target was obscured by fog or whatever they still had enough time to hit their secondary target.
As for the end justifying the means.. no. You have to put this in a historical context. After years and years of war President Truman was told they had two bombs of incredible destructive power that MIGHT save the US hundreds of thousands of casulties and shave years off the war. The bombing of civilians, while a horrible act, was probably never even considered at that time by the president and his advisors. The Japanese had not spared civilians during the war so the US never really tried either (note: not a justification just part of the context we are dealing with here). A conditional surrender was never an option for the japanese - for all the reasons I explained and because of popular opinion due to pearl harbor. He ordered it, and the order was carried out.
As for possibly scaring the rest of the world to go along with post WWII US Foreign Policy this was probably quite true and probably influenced his decision in some way, though Truman himself never admitted to it and there is no direct evidence that Truman decided to drop the bomb just to show the Soviets the US had a new weapon - indeed he knew that the soviets knew quite abit about the bomb due to spies and their own research.
The cold war was hardly world war I & II and, at any rate, the goal was achieved - neither Germany or Japan threataned world peace (or stability if you prefer) again. I see quite a bit of difference between bombing hiroshima and nagasaki than invading the Islands and killing millions more.
Against civillians, mind you, and the war was already won. Japan had been trying to negociate a surrender with the help of russian diplomats for about a year when the US decided to nuke 'em (twice!). The point was not to end the war, it was to get an unconditionnal surrender...kick 'em while they're down.
As a history major this bit of misinformation has to be swiftly kicked out the door. The japanese would NEVER unconditionally surrender without the Nukes. Indeed, after the first nuke they STILL wouldn't demanding that a conditional surrnder with the Japanese Emperor still held in place the only condition the only option. After the second nuke only the direct intervention of the Japanese Emperor himself convinced the war cabinet to surrender.
The logical question then arises why did the US demand a unconditional surrender? Simple, it had been agreed upon at numerous conferences between the allies. Italy, Germany, and Japan all must unconditionally surrender or the war would not stop. Not demanding a unconditional surrender would've been tatamount to breaking a treaty between the allies.
The *reasons* for an unconditional surrender are quite valid. The US , and the allies, wanted to prevent the Germans/Japanese/Italians from ever rising up in power again to make war upon the world. You might remember the Versaille treaty and WWI - or you probably don't. At any rate this conditional treaty totally failed in preventing germany from rearming and, indeed, contributed to the rise of power of hitler. The US and the allies demanded the unconditional surrender to ensure something like this would never happen. And, guess what, it hasn't. Germany and Japan are both fairly strong allies and both are pretty peace-loving and economic powerhouses in the world. Seems the US occupation and surrender did some good.
Finally, instead of blaming the us for "kicking them while they where down" why the fuck don't you blame the japanese leaders for not surrendering when they *knew* they where beat? They KNEW that the allies would only accept an unconditional surrender but they continued to fight and, ultimatly, it is they who decided the fate of all those people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - or the millions who would've died in an invasion of the home islands.
It had nothing to do with 'kicking them while they where down'. It had EVERYTHING to do with preventing a World War III. And, guess what, it worked. Anyone who thinks that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where simply vengeful acts has not a clue about the historical basis for the reasons for unconditional surrender - as you yourself proved.
Wow boy settle down. They have as similar agreement with Red Hat and with Sun for Star Office. Yes we foot the bill with 400,00$ a year but split up between 28,000 students that comes to - oh - 15$ or so a person.
Recently MS has started offering *substantial* discounts to students at major universities. At my school we can get a copy of Windows XP for 9.95$, office XP for $7.95, and Office X for 7.95$. Of course the student council or whatever has to pay MS 400,000$ a year or so to do this and there are some restrictions on how you can use the software (have to return the software if you don't graduate, only for personal use,etc) but over all it is a very, very nice deal for students.
I mean really when Windows XP professional and office XP costs you a combined total of about 20$ there is no point in pirating them.
Thanks, we use office 2k but I found a related way of doing it on win2k as well. The custom install script seems to have taken care of most of the problems but this won't hurt at all.
Ouch. I've found this especially useful for office installs (link below) - basically it is a custom script that will not only install on first run but if some random asinine problem happens will look for a network share of office and grab the files necassary. even works if the people delete their entire office install:
l t. asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2000/dep loy/depopt/wiofc2k.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/defau
Might be different in XP. THis is using windows 2000/office 2000. So far I have only seen it on 98/2k computers that happen to be on a windows domain. You won't see it most likely if you are not on a domain. Try clicking on the 'open new office document' in the start menu in a different account.
Install MSoffice on one account. Click on word icon. MS office pops up and needs to configure itself - insert cd. Fine. Great. Rinse, repeat for all user accounts on system. Sound like fun?
and I have yet to meet someone that genuinely *NEEDS* anything that Word has
.msi installation script that 'installs on first run' or whatever the point is you shouldn't fscking have to). of course it also makes me want to gouge out my eyes with a plastic spoon the minute somebody mentions MS Office.
Well the asinine installation program that for some god unknown reason needs to 'configure' itself everytime you look at it the wrong way or some other user logs onto the computer helps keep me employed... =) (yes, blah we just made a custom
FOR GODS SAKE WHY WHY WHY DOES MSOFFICE NEED TO FSCKING CONFIGURE ITSELF? WHY CAN"T IT JUST BE INSTALLED LIKE EVERY OTHER FSCKING APPLICATION? WHY GOD WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY WHY?
Sorry. See what I mean?
Any additional information about the IBM JVM would be greatly appreciated - i.e. where to find it and does it run java right, at least most java.
These people aren't driven by pure evil but rather extreme frustration
You forgot to add "and a massive dose of ignorance and intolerance." Of course I just described fanatics of all shapes, sizes, and colors whether it be terrorists, right-wing fundamentalists, or richard stallman (sorry couldn't resist).
If your company is participating in illegal activities abroad yes you can be jailed, most likely be held as a witness for a trial against whatever company they are currently pursuing. For instance the executives of De Beers do not dare step foot into the United States because they would be arrested on the spot for various antitrust reasons as well as a number of outstanding civil cases against them.
The fact is, he did all his work on the product (which is legal in its country of origin) in Russia, where, last I heard, US laws don't apply.
For the last time.. US laws apply to him for this reason - his employer made that software he produced available forsale to Americans from servers based in the United States. Therefore the law applies to him. Why is this so hard for people to grasp? Commercial laws apply to you if you sell your product in that country.
Great Minds think alike!.
Of course the possibility of Duke Nukem Forever ever actually being released is pretty much nil. Indeed in a few years the possibility of it actually being released will go *Below* zero and soon we will have the memory of Duke Nukem Forever actually be erased from our minds and the collective consciousness of the geek community. Or something. I'm delirious time for bed.
Heh, they get the 'lifetime achievement award.' =).
Smallest slip from proposed date to actual date
Or, the converse:
Greatest change from proposed date to actual date. We can just go ahead and call this the 'Blizzard' award in honor of Warcraft II, III, Diablo II, Starcraft, etc, etc.
For one I am an active member of save sub-saharan orphans and am not a fool when it comes to the problems facing third world countries. What I take objection to is people who automatically assume they are *Right* and that whatever person x is doing is *Wrong* like you are doing with this Gnome business. Let's take a look at your assertation that somehow what Gnome is doing by *shock* allowing it's product to be sold by SUn/Red Hat/etc is somehow wrong.
No. The charity work that they do still benefits the needy. Suppose FedEx sponsors Habitat for Humanity. Both win. Habitat for humanity gets much-needed money and FedEx gets good press.
No. The charity work that they do still benefits the needy. Suppose FedEx sponsors Gnome. Both Win. Gnome gets much-needed money to further develop a needed free GUI and Fedex gets good press.
THere is *no* difference between the two. None, except that one is more traditional so, according to your view, is more *right* somehow. It's a narrowminded view of the world.
Let's assume that, out of a population of 37,090,298 (Cia world factbook) 1/10 of 1 percent have a computer - that's 37,090 computers. Which, btw, is far, far below the actual number since the reported number of internet users is 50,000. At any rate if they would switch entirely to OSS they would save, at 200$ per computer, 7,418,000$ dollars. That's 7 million dollars that quite a big chunk of change. I would also point out that Gnome minimum system requirements are quite a bit less than the latest version of windows xp. I could also point out that Gnome will continue to be supported far longer than windows xp.
Alas, I would have more to say but I have to finish writing a 6 page paper due in 6 hours. Good day sir.
Because it is a hobby for those involved. They do it for personal fulfillment.
And what exactly is a charity? Do you not donate to a charity to get some form of personal gratification for helping those in need, by giving some of your excess to further some goal that is dear to you?
While, in principle, I agree to you that Gnome is hardly my idea of a charitable organization I don't see any reason to criticize their work or call it, in so many words, a fraud of our tax code. I have seen more worthless charities than I care to see and Gnome is hardly an abuse of the current tax code. They donate their work to the public at large to be used however they want to use it and accept donations for the public. Is it traditional? No. Is it still a non-profit organization? Hell yes. Are you under some sort of odd obligation to support it? No. No one cares, if you want to support it do if you don't believe in supporting it don't.
Legitimate charities do not invest tax-deductible contributions to develop products that are resold by big business.
In so many words, fool. What do you call charities that accept sponorship of big companies? Advertisement plain and simple. This charity function funded in part by blah blah. Are they not, using your defination, simply 'selling themselves out' by allowing for their image/goodwill/goodworks to be used to advertise a business and tie to it? Ah but since they do, what YOU define as, good works that is ok? I say that by producing a legitemate, free, alternative to windows Gnome does many good works by allowing for a free desktop enviroment that can be used by any organization that can better spend the $200 it would normally spend on a os/GUI on more important things. In that sense Gnome is indeed a charity since the 200$ it would cost for, say, a windows XP liscene can be better spent feeding children/building houses/curing aids whatever.
Sigh. people need to *think* more.
Because your CableCo might happen to be, oh, Time Warner which has a vested interest in DRM. Granted they are one of the few large media companies with a cable network but.. the point is there.
The long quote version (from imdb):
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is about to face a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical?"
Dr. Raymond Stantz: We mean real wrath-of-God type stuff. Plagues, darkness--
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes--
Dr. Peter Venkman: Riots in the streets, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!