No need to get so defensive, delire. No-one's judging you here, You know, it is perfectly OK to prefer Linux+KDE/Gnome and to believe that it makes you all special and off-mainstream. Congratulations for your great escape.
I don't think it really matters whether the global warming is real or not. My point was that every nation should work towards more environmentally friendly societies simply because pollution is, in general, harmful to us and the nature. Global warming is just one (alleged) symptom of pollution.
And even if this was only about global warming, I think that the most prudent course of action would be to assume a worst case scenario and work based on that. There's nothing wrong with working on such assumptions instead of unobtainable "real hard facts" and erring on the side of caution - engineers and politicians do it every day.
(Off-topic: Is anyone else getting this? "Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between... It's been 13 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment". A bug or a new feature in Slashcode? Damn annoying.)
Ah, so in your opinion we should just keep on polluting the environment, because there is no consensus on the existence, causes and effects of global warming? Pollution means profits, right?
Yes, I like the hardware, too. My point was that even though it is well coordinated and works together nicely, it is still standard, off-the-shelf stuff inside.
I like the Mac UI. I have Mac at work and the GUI -- and the way how, in contrast to Windows and Linux, things just worked -- got me interested in buying a Mac laptop in the first place. It's clean, intuitive and yes, IMO it looks great too.
People may buy a Mac, then install Linux or *BSD onto it.
That's something I've never understood.
Mac hardware's nothing special - it's primarily the software that makes Macs so great in comparison to a typical Windows/Linux/BSD PC. Why the heck would anyone buy a Mac and then install a Linux on it? Just doesn't make sense.
By the time we cover the entire planet, we will have outsourced most of our (mineral at least)needs to other planets
Ok. Fine and dandy, but it sure sounds a lot like the stage 2 in my previous post. Where's the technology? Where are the plans?
Well, as human beings, I like to think that we can work "beyond" nature.
Quite frankly, as a physicist I don't know what you mean by "working beyond nature". You can't break the laws of nature. The only thing you try is to work around the limitations, but even then you're limited. Yes. I've got a closed mind in the sense that I don't gamble our grandchildrens' existence on "oh well, we'll have things figured out by then".
It's like driving an ambulance at 1 mile per hour when it can go at 65.
Yes, the critical point has not been reached yet but it is time to slow down a bit. Why now and not later? It is better to err on the side of caution -- just like one should slow down from 65 when approaching a tight turn.
In fact, I don't see why I should make a case for slowing down and developing more sustainable technologies. The burden of proof should be on you if you wish to continue on this same, unsustainable path. Can you say when the critical point will reached? No? So let's slow down, develop the necessary technology and living style (yeah, you might have to give up that SUV) for environmentally sustainable societies now. If it turns out things weren't as bad as expected, no real harm done. Some people didn't make as much money as they could have. Big deal.
With appropriate use of technogoloy and a more selfless economy, unlimited growth is feasable and not all that difficult
Well, yes. To paraphrase the South Park underpant gnomes' plan: 1) Obtain appropriate technology, 2) ???, 3) Unlimited growth!!
The fundamental problem is that sustainable unlimited growth is physically impossible in the nature. Yes, as one AC already pointed out in this thread, there is cancer, but I am not sure you want to use that as a model of a sustained unlimited system as it kills the host in the end.
I don't understand why this is so hard for the economically indoctrinated people to understand? You cannot expect that the physical reality conforms to your economic theories -- it works the other way around.
I'm more afraid of the hippies who want developing countries to starve to death and prevent their economies from developing.
I think that pretty much sums up your point. There will never be enough "good enough" evidence to convince you that that sustained, unlimited development is a pipe dream and that we must aim at zero growth at some point. After all, unlimited growth is the fundamental doctrine of the libertarian faith.
Grandpa: I realized that the reason you won't kill me is because you don't understand how I feel, Billy. But now I found a way to show you what it feels like to be a grandpa.
Stan: Hey, what are you doing?!?
Grandpa loads a cassette into a tape player.
Kyle: What are they doing in there?
Cartman: I don't know.
Grandpa: Now, you're about to see what it's like to be as old as me. Are you ready Billy?
Stan: Uh, I guess.
Grandpa starts the tape, it is a really distorted sounding version of Enya's 'Orinoco Flow(Sail Away)'
Stan: Ok, you, you can let me out now.
Grandpa: Not just yet.
Stan: Let me out grandpa!
Stan: I can't take it anymore, this music is terrible, it's, it's cheesy, but lame and eerily soothing at the same time.
Grandpa: That's it, now you know what it feels like to be grandpa.
Stan falls out of the room, looking very haggard.
Stan: Eh, grandpa, I had no idea how bad it was for you. Now I understand.
Come on. Are you trolling? Do you seriously expect a company to bend over backwards and release their internal bug database to make it easier for everyone else to build a competing product?
There's no abuse here, just quid pro quo. Apple's conforming to the letter of GPL and that's all that matters. You do realize that with a more draconian license on KHTML, Apple wouldn't have used the code in the first place or they would have done it in secret: no backdonation at all. Of course, with a truly free license like BSD, you wouldn't have to bother with such silly games in the first place...
That's why the SaarCore [saarcor.de] can outperform a P4, and why your computer has a custom built GPU.
This is probably off-topic, but I've often wondered if it would be feasible to have a PPU (Physics Processing Unit) to improve the physics of game worlds? I don't know anything about GPUs, but aren't they helping to render the visuals for a game by taking in information such as the coordinates, shapes and texture of objects and then cranking it out faster than a general purpose CPU?
So, in addition to that information, each fundamental unit (again, I don't know the proper term... pixel, voxel, whatever?) from which game objects consist of would have mechanical properties such as density, Young's modulus or bulk modulus as well as forces affecting it. PPU would gobble this up, set up Lagrangian equations (generalized coordinates provide rather a systematic way to set up any classical mechanics problem), crank out the results and update the game world coordinates. This way every object could really be blown to pieces, shot/thrown through objects or deformed.
...why on earth does he expect IBM, HP or Sun to encourage development of independent commercial software products - products that would compete with those offered by the IBM, for instance?
Farnsworth: "The thought of caressing that leathery hide makes the tapioca rise in my gullet."
Fry: "Professor, please. The fate of the world depends on you getting to second base with Mom."
Farnsworth: "Very well. If cop a feel I must, then cop a feel I shall!"
Mom: "Your eyes always were the most beautiful shade of milky white."
Farnsworth: "And your skin still dangles so gracefully from your neck."
I'll probably get modded down as redudant, but this is most excellent news! I've already got all four seasons on DVD and I'd certainly buy new episodes as well.
might be against policy at your university for non-windows machines to authenticate.
I believe it's fundamentally something like that. I had to jump through hoops and sign waivers to get a special permission for my work Mac (it still doesn't authenticate with AD).
"Try"? By support I meant, of course, that MS is not suing the pants of the Samba team and is not obfuscating the protocol beyond all hope for reverse engineering (which they probably could do).
I find this interesting, because at the university where I work, the security policy requires centralized AD authentication from all computers in the network. After that I've hardly seen any Linux PCs or Macs around anymore. When I asked about it from one of our IT guys, he said that you can't authenticate non-Windows computers with MS Active Directory.
Interesting. I didn't know you could authenticate non-Windows computers with Microsoft Active Directory servers. It's rather surprising that Microsoft supports such interoperability.
Slashdot Mirror
No need to get so defensive, delire. No-one's judging you here, You know, it is perfectly OK to prefer Linux+KDE/Gnome and to believe that it makes you all special and off-mainstream. Congratulations for your great escape.
And even if this was only about global warming, I think that the most prudent course of action would be to assume a worst case scenario and work based on that. There's nothing wrong with working on such assumptions instead of unobtainable "real hard facts" and erring on the side of caution - engineers and politicians do it every day.
(Off-topic: Is anyone else getting this? "Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between... It's been 13 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment". A bug or a new feature in Slashcode? Damn annoying.)
Ah, so in your opinion we should just keep on polluting the environment, because there is no consensus on the existence, causes and effects of global warming? Pollution means profits, right?
I like the Mac UI. I have Mac at work and the GUI -- and the way how, in contrast to Windows and Linux, things just worked -- got me interested in buying a Mac laptop in the first place. It's clean, intuitive and yes, IMO it looks great too.
Don't bother. For these guys, the only good software is free software.
That's something I've never understood.
Mac hardware's nothing special - it's primarily the software that makes Macs so great in comparison to a typical Windows/Linux/BSD PC. Why the heck would anyone buy a Mac and then install a Linux on it? Just doesn't make sense.
Ok. Fine and dandy, but it sure sounds a lot like the stage 2 in my previous post. Where's the technology? Where are the plans?
Well, as human beings, I like to think that we can work "beyond" nature.
Quite frankly, as a physicist I don't know what you mean by "working beyond nature". You can't break the laws of nature. The only thing you try is to work around the limitations, but even then you're limited. Yes. I've got a closed mind in the sense that I don't gamble our grandchildrens' existence on "oh well, we'll have things figured out by then".
Yes, the critical point has not been reached yet but it is time to slow down a bit. Why now and not later? It is better to err on the side of caution -- just like one should slow down from 65 when approaching a tight turn.
In fact, I don't see why I should make a case for slowing down and developing more sustainable technologies. The burden of proof should be on you if you wish to continue on this same, unsustainable path. Can you say when the critical point will reached? No? So let's slow down, develop the necessary technology and living style (yeah, you might have to give up that SUV) for environmentally sustainable societies now. If it turns out things weren't as bad as expected, no real harm done. Some people didn't make as much money as they could have. Big deal.
Well, yes. To paraphrase the South Park underpant gnomes' plan: 1) Obtain appropriate technology, 2) ???, 3) Unlimited growth!!
The fundamental problem is that sustainable unlimited growth is physically impossible in the nature. Yes, as one AC already pointed out in this thread, there is cancer, but I am not sure you want to use that as a model of a sustained unlimited system as it kills the host in the end.
I don't understand why this is so hard for the economically indoctrinated people to understand? You cannot expect that the physical reality conforms to your economic theories -- it works the other way around.
I think that pretty much sums up your point. There will never be enough "good enough" evidence to convince you that that sustained, unlimited development is a pipe dream and that we must aim at zero growth at some point. After all, unlimited growth is the fundamental doctrine of the libertarian faith.
Stan: Hey, what are you doing?!?
Grandpa loads a cassette into a tape player.
Kyle: What are they doing in there?
Cartman: I don't know.
Grandpa: Now, you're about to see what it's like to be as old as me. Are you ready Billy?
Stan: Uh, I guess.
Grandpa starts the tape, it is a really distorted sounding version of Enya's 'Orinoco Flow(Sail Away)'
Stan: Ok, you, you can let me out now.
Grandpa: Not just yet.
Stan: Let me out grandpa!
Stan: I can't take it anymore, this music is terrible, it's, it's cheesy, but lame and eerily soothing at the same time.
Grandpa: That's it, now you know what it feels like to be grandpa.
Stan falls out of the room, looking very haggard.
Stan: Eh, grandpa, I had no idea how bad it was for you. Now I understand.
I can only say that it is my honest opinion, but I guess you're right - on Slashdot voicing such an opinion will most certainly be seen as trolling.
There's no abuse here, just quid pro quo. Apple's conforming to the letter of GPL and that's all that matters. You do realize that with a more draconian license on KHTML, Apple wouldn't have used the code in the first place or they would have done it in secret: no backdonation at all. Of course, with a truly free license like BSD, you wouldn't have to bother with such silly games in the first place...
I'm pretty sure there's a blow.jobs-joke somewhere in there.
This is probably off-topic, but I've often wondered if it would be feasible to have a PPU (Physics Processing Unit) to improve the physics of game worlds? I don't know anything about GPUs, but aren't they helping to render the visuals for a game by taking in information such as the coordinates, shapes and texture of objects and then cranking it out faster than a general purpose CPU?
So, in addition to that information, each fundamental unit (again, I don't know the proper term... pixel, voxel, whatever?) from which game objects consist of would have mechanical properties such as density, Young's modulus or bulk modulus as well as forces affecting it. PPU would gobble this up, set up Lagrangian equations (generalized coordinates provide rather a systematic way to set up any classical mechanics problem), crank out the results and update the game world coordinates. This way every object could really be blown to pieces, shot/thrown through objects or deformed.
...why on earth does he expect IBM, HP or Sun to encourage development of independent commercial software products - products that would compete with those offered by the IBM, for instance?
Bill Gates: "Ooh, the Germans are mad at me? I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans!"
(ok, shamelessly stolen from The Simpsons)
Yes. That's the spirit! Damn those trolls who won't support the GNU-troops and march lockstep with the true believers. Off with their karma.
I wonder if they're still looking for peer reviewers who'd check the study and all original material very, very carefully? ;-)
Farnsworth: "The thought of caressing that leathery hide makes the tapioca rise in my gullet."
Fry: "Professor, please. The fate of the world depends on you getting to second base with Mom."
Farnsworth: "Very well. If cop a feel I must, then cop a feel I shall!"
Mom: "Your eyes always were the most beautiful shade of milky white."
Farnsworth: "And your skin still dangles so gracefully from your neck."
I'll probably get modded down as redudant, but this is most excellent news! I've already got all four seasons on DVD and I'd certainly buy new episodes as well.
So, you want the law to protect the network but not copyrighted material?
I believe it's fundamentally something like that. I had to jump through hoops and sign waivers to get a special permission for my work Mac (it still doesn't authenticate with AD).
I find this interesting, because at the university where I work, the security policy requires centralized AD authentication from all computers in the network. After that I've hardly seen any Linux PCs or Macs around anymore. When I asked about it from one of our IT guys, he said that you can't authenticate non-Windows computers with MS Active Directory.
Interesting. I didn't know you could authenticate non-Windows computers with Microsoft Active Directory servers. It's rather surprising that Microsoft supports such interoperability.