The company claims that earthquakes do not "happen fast", but that things start to happen a good while (20-30) days before the actual quake hits. These telltale signs can be picked up and (apparently) with the proper analysis be used to predict the quake. Or forecast, if you're picky. The point is that they claim that there is time to issue a useful warning.
I'm not sure if that is true everywhere in western countries, or if that gain goes to the rich, government, or a growing number of unproductive people. But the numbers in my own country (NL) don't lie: productivity has risen steadily for decades, but somewhere in the 90s purchasing power flattened out and has remained more or less the same for 2 decades or so.
Concern over ultra-fine particles may be emerging because it turns out that the "regular-fine" particles that we used to worry about aren't much of a problem. They are bad for us but the amount of them in the air has been dropping steadily for over a century. The end of the steam era, using oil or gas instead of wood and coal to heat our homes, fewer but ever more efficient coal fired power plants, and increasingly clean diesels caused the drop, and the downward trend hasn't ended yet. So we need a new scare.
Seriously, we do need to look into this. But lets do that first before taking drastic measures.
By the way, your diesel's filter does remove most of the soot. It fails to catch the ultra-fines however.
I was not comparing those professions with programming, but just wondering why it is considered normal for a lawyer to stay in that profession their entire life (becoming a better lawyer in the process), or to remain a surgeon all their life, or an architect, but not for programmers. Not all surgeons and lawyers do, but no one considers it strange if they keep on doing what they do. That's different for programmers: they are not expected to stay in their profession, but instead must move "up" into management or other activities. Programming is treated as a low level activity, something you do at the start of your career. Perhaps that is why programming is still closer to a craft than a profession.
I'm not sure that I agree with your description of the nature of programming, but it's a very interesting question and one that I don't have a clear answer to as yet.
That's just one of the next steps. If encryption is off by default, turning it on will in itself become a suspicious act in the eyes of law enforcement types like these. "If you have nothing to hide you have no reason to turn it on. So why did you turn it on?" For this reason I say that government should not be allowed to know who of us made a conscious choice to encrypt our data; that choice itself is data of a highly private nature. And I suspect that this data is of interest to law enforcement as well. If encryption is on by default, not only are people safer from wrongdoers by default, but those of us who actually care about encrypting our data can remain "hidden in the crowd", so to speak.
Did Charlie Hebdo engage in deliberately pissing on someone's beliefs? It's called satire, and those guys were taking the piss out of everyone who even remotely deserved it. Still, only one of the subjects of their cartoons got a response of lethal fire. That is no coincidence; most religious people are sensitive about their beliefs, but some a lot more strongly than others.
We had protests when "Life of Brian" was released, and the creators of that movie even received some death threats, but can you imagine the mayhem that a similar movie showing the life of the prophet would cause? It's unthinkable. And what I am seeing here (in Europe) is that many mainstream and influential politicians are doing exactly what you are suggesting: making sure that anything offensive to religion (yes, that means muslims) takes place out of sight "to maintain public order", and finally to simply ban offensive speech. In the UK, Labour leader Tony Blair has tried to get "religious hatred" speech banned, but succeeded only in banning actual threats, not insults. Their new leader Ed Miliband has vowed to succeed where Blair failed. Think about that. A criminal record for voicing critique on islam. In Europe, similar proposals have been made. Thankfully, support for "global blasphemy laws" that come up in the UN every so often seem to be running out of steam.
Religious sensitivities and public order should not play second fiddle to free speech.
Maybe they were afraid that small airports that do have controllers would start replacing those people with the remote setup. If those airports only get infrequent traffic, a couple of guys in a remote control tower can probaby handle dozens of them.
What surprises me is that the union actually has the clout to stop this.
Let's see these AA iPads and the software for what they really are: pieces of business-critical software / hardware. Which means that they have to treat it like any other combination of business critical software and hardware. The entire configuration is frozen, software, OS, patches and all, and any change is thoroughly tested before it is pushed to the production devices.
So what happened? One news item hints at a recent update causing the issue. Where did the update come from? Was iOS updated, or the app? Was this update tested before being rolled out?
The makerspaces I have visited are mostly populated by educated upper class type geeks. Many of them are doing projects that at some point will involve mechanical work: robotics, 3d printing, structural stuff, or even just making a decent enclosure for whatever electronics they created. And most of them struggle even with the basics of woodworking, welding, or machining. If you have these skills, you'll be welcomed with open arms. I haven't met a "maker" who doesn't regret not having had or taking the opportunity to learn them in school or college.
Embarrasingly, our then prime minister (mr. Kok) wasn't much better with a computer mouse, picking it up and staring at it nonplussed on national television. Even more embarrasingly, he later told the press that he wasn't really bothered by his computer illiteracy, because "I have people for that".
Exactly. Just like computer security, there is no perfect solution, and it's not something you maximise no matter what. Safety, like security, is a trade off.
Perhaps that $11 would have raised the sticker price past the magical $x999.99 barrier, or it would have lowered the profit margin below some arbitrarily set floor. Both of these are extremely serious consequences in some companies. One of Ikea's advertising slogans rings true in many other companies: "the price tag is the first thing we design".
We're talking about stability here. If I compare the Apple devices I have used (iPhone 3G up to 5s) to the Android devices (various tables, and a Samsung phone we bought to replace my mother-in-law's iPhone 4), Apple still comes out ahead. I've had some hardware issues on the Apple devices, most notably the AntennaGate issue (noticable but hardly a real issue) as well as WiFi dying on an iPhone 4s (pretty uch bricking it, and just after warranty expired, of course). I have had hardware issues on Android stuff as well, mainly home buttons breaking and a battery dying because it got undercharged... the battery was replaced easily enough, but the new battery will break just the same if I leave the tablet off the charger for too long.
Software wise, iPhones have been rock solid for me, a few minor issues asides. I have not had any major issues like I experienced on the Android devices, such as the browser getting hijacked somehow (with only a couple of regular apps installed), and one Samsung phone that at some point will just reboot every few minutes, with the only fix being a factory reset.
Apple stuff still "just works". Unless it does not do out of the box what you want it to do, then chances are that you're stuffed if you picked iOS. iOS is a walled garden, but sitting here in my comfort zone I can't even see the wall, much less feel it or be bothered by it. Never even considered jailbreaking my phone. I don't like Apple or their business practices all that much, and I wish they'd open up their OS a little, but there is no way I'll switch to Android anytime soon after the decidedly poor experiences I have had with Android. But that is just personal, I know plenty of people who switched from Apple to Android and haven't looked back. Some others have returned to Apple. So perhaps it is mostly a matter of taste after all.
Exactly. Why buy a locked down 4k bluray, when the Pirate Bay has a free copy that will play where I want when I want. I'll pay for content but not for digital restrictions added on.
So Disney ensures that every quarter, at least one copy of Steamboat Willy is sold. Or they simply show it once a year on the Disney Channel, which means they are making money off it.
Better to specify a fixed term for copyright in the spirit of the US constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Art...". Copyright should be about the public interest; the interests of creators are secondary to that. A copyright term should be short enough to ensure that all works enter the public domain in a meaningful time frame, but long enough to allow creators to cash in on successful works, and long enough to make sure publishers don't simply outwait creators so they don't have to pay them. 25 years ought to be ample.
Websites DEMANDING that nothing interferes in the process of displaying their page as they intended.
It's those ads that most often interfere with "displaying the page as intended" in the first place. If a page doesn't load or hangs or whatever, it's usually due to a failed ad script.
The difference is in the "when". Broadly adopted standards do not get dropped all that quickly; in this case the content or hardware providers tend to be followers rather than leaders. Apple is a bit of an exception, they like to come up with their own standards and are a bit quicker to drop stuff they think is becoming obsolete. But where a single provider owns the standard, things tend to change a whole lot quicker. And where standards change quickly, older versions of the standard get dropped faster; it would be too expensive to maintain backward compatibility. This is what businesses are discovering in the world of SAAS (software as a service) as well, especially on multi-tenant systems. Providers like these want to remain on the leading edge and are forcing everyone to follow along, even if theirs are paying customers.
The last point is a good one, and it's bigger than just the utilities. Over here, there's a hefty tax on every kWh (as there is on pretty much everything else). Since private households delivering power to the grid get paid retail rates including taxes (up to the total amount they draw from the system each year), solar installations pay for themselves quickly. However at some point, energy tax revenues will decline to the point where the government will have to make up for the loss by taxing something else. So your solar installation reduces your utility bill, but your income tax will go up. Or something like that.
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
What if our model is wrong? I mean so wrong that crap has been built on crap that now has become a religion, a test of faith, do you believe the equations explain the system, or only predict how the system would look through the limits of the detection mechanism.
The model is pretty good at predicting a bunch of stuff; even if the model is wrong, it has proven to be eminently useful in everyday applied science and engineering. So who cares if it turns out to be crap upon crap? Scientists would, and they'd be ecstatic. Proving that there are major problems with the currently held theory means more work, jobs, grants, awards for scientists, and a chance to go down in history.
When a scientists measures something that doesn't fit the current models, they will generally suspect their equipment first. You could say it's reverence for established theories, but it is simple care to double check before announcing a ground breaking discovery to the world. You wouldn't call up your friends and family about winning the lottery before double-checking your ticket at least a few times either.
Slashdot Mirror
The company claims that earthquakes do not "happen fast", but that things start to happen a good while (20-30) days before the actual quake hits. These telltale signs can be picked up and (apparently) with the proper analysis be used to predict the quake. Or forecast, if you're picky. The point is that they claim that there is time to issue a useful warning.
I'm not sure if that is true everywhere in western countries, or if that gain goes to the rich, government, or a growing number of unproductive people. But the numbers in my own country (NL) don't lie: productivity has risen steadily for decades, but somewhere in the 90s purchasing power flattened out and has remained more or less the same for 2 decades or so.
Concern over ultra-fine particles may be emerging because it turns out that the "regular-fine" particles that we used to worry about aren't much of a problem. They are bad for us but the amount of them in the air has been dropping steadily for over a century. The end of the steam era, using oil or gas instead of wood and coal to heat our homes, fewer but ever more efficient coal fired power plants, and increasingly clean diesels caused the drop, and the downward trend hasn't ended yet. So we need a new scare.
Seriously, we do need to look into this. But lets do that first before taking drastic measures.
By the way, your diesel's filter does remove most of the soot. It fails to catch the ultra-fines however.
I was not comparing those professions with programming, but just wondering why it is considered normal for a lawyer to stay in that profession their entire life (becoming a better lawyer in the process), or to remain a surgeon all their life, or an architect, but not for programmers. Not all surgeons and lawyers do, but no one considers it strange if they keep on doing what they do. That's different for programmers: they are not expected to stay in their profession, but instead must move "up" into management or other activities. Programming is treated as a low level activity, something you do at the start of your career. Perhaps that is why programming is still closer to a craft than a profession.
I'm not sure that I agree with your description of the nature of programming, but it's a very interesting question and one that I don't have a clear answer to as yet.
That's just one of the next steps. If encryption is off by default, turning it on will in itself become a suspicious act in the eyes of law enforcement types like these. "If you have nothing to hide you have no reason to turn it on. So why did you turn it on?" For this reason I say that government should not be allowed to know who of us made a conscious choice to encrypt our data; that choice itself is data of a highly private nature. And I suspect that this data is of interest to law enforcement as well. If encryption is on by default, not only are people safer from wrongdoers by default, but those of us who actually care about encrypting our data can remain "hidden in the crowd", so to speak.
I don't code that much these days, but the question is familiar. Why do you still code? Yet no one asks an architect, surgeon or lawyer that question.
Did Charlie Hebdo engage in deliberately pissing on someone's beliefs? It's called satire, and those guys were taking the piss out of everyone who even remotely deserved it. Still, only one of the subjects of their cartoons got a response of lethal fire. That is no coincidence; most religious people are sensitive about their beliefs, but some a lot more strongly than others.
We had protests when "Life of Brian" was released, and the creators of that movie even received some death threats, but can you imagine the mayhem that a similar movie showing the life of the prophet would cause? It's unthinkable. And what I am seeing here (in Europe) is that many mainstream and influential politicians are doing exactly what you are suggesting: making sure that anything offensive to religion (yes, that means muslims) takes place out of sight "to maintain public order", and finally to simply ban offensive speech. In the UK, Labour leader Tony Blair has tried to get "religious hatred" speech banned, but succeeded only in banning actual threats, not insults. Their new leader Ed Miliband has vowed to succeed where Blair failed. Think about that. A criminal record for voicing critique on islam. In Europe, similar proposals have been made. Thankfully, support for "global blasphemy laws" that come up in the UN every so often seem to be running out of steam.
Religious sensitivities and public order should not play second fiddle to free speech.
Maybe they were afraid that small airports that do have controllers would start replacing those people with the remote setup. If those airports only get infrequent traffic, a couple of guys in a remote control tower can probaby handle dozens of them.
What surprises me is that the union actually has the clout to stop this.
Let's see these AA iPads and the software for what they really are: pieces of business-critical software / hardware. Which means that they have to treat it like any other combination of business critical software and hardware. The entire configuration is frozen, software, OS, patches and all, and any change is thoroughly tested before it is pushed to the production devices.
So what happened? One news item hints at a recent update causing the issue. Where did the update come from? Was iOS updated, or the app? Was this update tested before being rolled out?
The makerspaces I have visited are mostly populated by educated upper class type geeks. Many of them are doing projects that at some point will involve mechanical work: robotics, 3d printing, structural stuff, or even just making a decent enclosure for whatever electronics they created. And most of them struggle even with the basics of woodworking, welding, or machining. If you have these skills, you'll be welcomed with open arms. I haven't met a "maker" who doesn't regret not having had or taking the opportunity to learn them in school or college.
Which places would those be? Certainly not Europe...
Embarrasingly, our then prime minister (mr. Kok) wasn't much better with a computer mouse, picking it up and staring at it nonplussed on national television. Even more embarrasingly, he later told the press that he wasn't really bothered by his computer illiteracy, because "I have people for that".
Exactly. Just like computer security, there is no perfect solution, and it's not something you maximise no matter what. Safety, like security, is a trade off.
Perhaps that $11 would have raised the sticker price past the magical $x999.99 barrier, or it would have lowered the profit margin below some arbitrarily set floor. Both of these are extremely serious consequences in some companies. One of Ikea's advertising slogans rings true in many other companies: "the price tag is the first thing we design".
Wow, people still make calls on these things? How quaint...
We're talking about stability here. If I compare the Apple devices I have used (iPhone 3G up to 5s) to the Android devices (various tables, and a Samsung phone we bought to replace my mother-in-law's iPhone 4), Apple still comes out ahead. I've had some hardware issues on the Apple devices, most notably the AntennaGate issue (noticable but hardly a real issue) as well as WiFi dying on an iPhone 4s (pretty uch bricking it, and just after warranty expired, of course). I have had hardware issues on Android stuff as well, mainly home buttons breaking and a battery dying because it got undercharged... the battery was replaced easily enough, but the new battery will break just the same if I leave the tablet off the charger for too long.
Software wise, iPhones have been rock solid for me, a few minor issues asides. I have not had any major issues like I experienced on the Android devices, such as the browser getting hijacked somehow (with only a couple of regular apps installed), and one Samsung phone that at some point will just reboot every few minutes, with the only fix being a factory reset.
Apple stuff still "just works". Unless it does not do out of the box what you want it to do, then chances are that you're stuffed if you picked iOS. iOS is a walled garden, but sitting here in my comfort zone I can't even see the wall, much less feel it or be bothered by it. Never even considered jailbreaking my phone. I don't like Apple or their business practices all that much, and I wish they'd open up their OS a little, but there is no way I'll switch to Android anytime soon after the decidedly poor experiences I have had with Android. But that is just personal, I know plenty of people who switched from Apple to Android and haven't looked back. Some others have returned to Apple. So perhaps it is mostly a matter of taste after all.
Exactly. Why buy a locked down 4k bluray, when the Pirate Bay has a free copy that will play where I want when I want. I'll pay for content but not for digital restrictions added on.
Better: non-donors go to the bottom of the list when they need one themselves.
So Disney ensures that every quarter, at least one copy of Steamboat Willy is sold. Or they simply show it once a year on the Disney Channel, which means they are making money off it.
Better to specify a fixed term for copyright in the spirit of the US constitution: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Art...". Copyright should be about the public interest; the interests of creators are secondary to that. A copyright term should be short enough to ensure that all works enter the public domain in a meaningful time frame, but long enough to allow creators to cash in on successful works, and long enough to make sure publishers don't simply outwait creators so they don't have to pay them. 25 years ought to be ample.
It's those ads that most often interfere with "displaying the page as intended" in the first place. If a page doesn't load or hangs or whatever, it's usually due to a failed ad script.
The difference is in the "when". Broadly adopted standards do not get dropped all that quickly; in this case the content or hardware providers tend to be followers rather than leaders. Apple is a bit of an exception, they like to come up with their own standards and are a bit quicker to drop stuff they think is becoming obsolete. But where a single provider owns the standard, things tend to change a whole lot quicker. And where standards change quickly, older versions of the standard get dropped faster; it would be too expensive to maintain backward compatibility. This is what businesses are discovering in the world of SAAS (software as a service) as well, especially on multi-tenant systems. Providers like these want to remain on the leading edge and are forcing everyone to follow along, even if theirs are paying customers.
If use of such drugs becomes the norm, you'll have to take them if you are to keep up with your coworkers; that's one of the points the article makes.
The last point is a good one, and it's bigger than just the utilities. Over here, there's a hefty tax on every kWh (as there is on pretty much everything else). Since private households delivering power to the grid get paid retail rates including taxes (up to the total amount they draw from the system each year), solar installations pay for themselves quickly. However at some point, energy tax revenues will decline to the point where the government will have to make up for the loss by taxing something else. So your solar installation reduces your utility bill, but your income tax will go up. Or something like that.
1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
What if our model is wrong? I mean so wrong that crap has been built on crap that now has become a religion, a test of faith, do you believe the equations explain the system, or only predict how the system would look through the limits of the detection mechanism.
The model is pretty good at predicting a bunch of stuff; even if the model is wrong, it has proven to be eminently useful in everyday applied science and engineering. So who cares if it turns out to be crap upon crap? Scientists would, and they'd be ecstatic. Proving that there are major problems with the currently held theory means more work, jobs, grants, awards for scientists, and a chance to go down in history.
When a scientists measures something that doesn't fit the current models, they will generally suspect their equipment first. You could say it's reverence for established theories, but it is simple care to double check before announcing a ground breaking discovery to the world. You wouldn't call up your friends and family about winning the lottery before double-checking your ticket at least a few times either.