SMP is not the only way to do multiprocessing. If you'd read the wikipedia article on SMP you might have noticed that the first section is about "alternatives" where it mentions asymmetric multiprocessing (ASMP).
The concept of having multiple disparate processing units inside machines has been around for a long time. Modern PCs which offload processing onto their GPUs are (arguably) ASMP systems. The Cell CPU itself with it's PPC core and 8 SPE cores is itself an ASMP system.
The fact that different bus architectures are used between Cell/PPC and x86 is not an insurmountable problem. You can always jam them together via a bus like PCI Express. Tighter integration is of course possible too, even shared memory architectures - that'd "just" require a bunch of custom logic.
Thing is, PA Semi's processor design consumes 5-13W typically. An ARM chip of the likes that Apple uses in iPods and iPhones uses about 300mW - about 1/20th as much. This is not a purchase for hand-held devices.
Intel's Core2 chips tend to use about 10x as much power as PAs.
I'm not sure how close processing performance is between PWRficient and Core2. Given the number of execution units and the quality of the PA Semi team, I'd expect performance to be similar at the same MHz rating. They do run at 2GHz...
As it stands, Mac OS X should run essentially unchanged on PWRficient - it should just run the 64-bit PPC G5 version. I fully expect that Apple have had in their labs Macs running on these chips since they were first fabbed, much like they had Intel-based Macs running for the whole history of Mac OS X.
My guess? Looks like we might get a "PowerBook G5" after all.:)
Some new iTunes Plus material is being priced at 99c - notably releases from some, maybe all, independent labels.
New releases from EMI and other labels owned by EMI such as Mute however are all at $1.29 per track. I verified this yesterday with a former colleague who now works at EMI Digital.
It's only wishful thinking that has folks believe that iTunes is blanket pricing new iTunes Plus releases at 99c I'm afraid.
Oh, because they might sue? Come dear, this site talks about government oppression (and the need to oppose it) constantly. The problem as I see it is that criticising the government is not analagous to criticising corporations. In many if not most of the societies of slashdot readers governments will not sue if you are vocally publically critical of them, but corporations will.
In spite of changes to laws that have happened over the past few years there are still few (if any) direct and immediate rammifications of criticising your government, or a foreign government. The risk in criticising governments is medium to long term (regime change for the worse, application of the most draconian parts of laws, etc) whereas the risk in criticising corporations is much more immediate.
They are talking Intel for the platform, same as the latest generation of, well, everything. Processor should be in the 400mhz neighborhood. Sorry to be a pedant, but it's highly unlikely that Palm will be using an Intel platform for any of their machines, especially not a mobile phone. It is however likely that they will use XScale, which is these days owned by Marvell.
Quite - speed reading techniques rely on you being able to read multiple lines at a time.
The example image in the article is incredibly poor. Personally I could read the "before live ink" at least twice as fast (if not for our five) as the "after live ink" version, and with a higher level of comprehension. I found the coloured text in the "after" image to be confusing, since it drew my eye to those words, and they seemed to be fairly randomly selected. Indeed since colouring implies emphasis, this made the text less comprehensible to me.
The notion also that one can only focus on a small circular area, which they characterise as "the straw" is slightly flawed. This would be true if you had only one eye. Since most of us are binocular, we tend to be able to focus on a more oval area. Speed reading techniques take advantage of that.
It seems to me that this re-formatting could be advantageous only to those folks that have poor concentration abilities and a short attention span. For the rest of us I'd suggest practicing speed reading techniques.
The events run for the first season of Perplex City were not exclusively run in Britain. They had a fairly large live event in San Francisco not too long ago. There were also hints and clues run fairly early in the game as previews in cinemas in Toronto. I believe they're planning other events around the world.
The perplexcity.com web site had been down for upgrades in advance of Season Two of Perplex City. It's back up now. The new season officially starts at the beginning of March - although many suspect that things may happen at the party being held this Saturday in London to celebrate the finding of the Receda Cube and the end of Season One.
Why didn't you hear about this? Well, Mind Candy Design, who run the Perplex City ARG were rather small when the game began and are still a fairly small operation. However you are of course hearing about it now...
The emphasis for season 1 was finding the Cube for a $200,000 prize. Along with this quest were puzzle cards that you could buy and solve - many of the cards contained clues to help find the location of the Cube. Not much is known about the second season right now beyond the fact that there's a new set of puzzle cards coming out. I'd expect there will be another prize on offer.
Whilst the winner had collected and solved most of the puzzle cards, it's not actually necessary to buy any of them to take part. Puzzle cards can however be bought from www.firebox.com if you're interested. Season one also seems to have been fairly self-contained so I'd expect it would be fairly easy to jump into season two as a newbie.
Whilst on outward appearances there seems to be almost no difference between the OS X and GTK open and save boxes, the reality is that they *do* work differently.
Take the screenshots of the "open" dialog boxes. On Mac OS X if you (single) click on a folder in the left hand column it will hilight itself and then the folder shown on the right matches. GTK however confuses this - a single click on a folder in the left column will cause it to hilight only and the folder displayed to the right does not change.
Yes, I know the bit above the folder on GTK shows me the file path, however I would argue that this display is inconsistent. I know that the argument is that you double click on a folder to open it, however I would argue in return that you aren't really opening the folder, but are rather selecting it. I'm fairly sure IIRC that a single click on the folder name above the file display changes the folder displayed instantly. IMHO what Mac OS X does in this case is clear, simple, and correct, and what GTK does is very confusing and wrong.
I'm primarily a Mac OS X user, however I used Gnome exclusively at work for five months last year, and I constantly got bit by this functionality - I would end up saving files in the wrong place.
I'm 99% certain that they'll repeat their mistake.
ActiveX controls and IE-isms are pervasive across the Korean web. Almost every major Korean web site relies either on custom ActiveX controls or some feature of IE that is non-standard. My wife is Korean, and we keep a copy of Virtual PC on our Mac just so that she can access her bank.
There are some indicators that this is changing, but progress is very slow. One example of this is a shift in displaying video clips - 18 months ago these were universally displayed using custom ActiveX controls and so wouldn't work on our Mac - these days most are using Flash players, and are now visible.
The reason for the dominance of MS is price. The reason why there are slow moves away from MS technologies is price.
It must be remembered that Korea was an early adopter of Internet technologies with government policies put in place to subsidise the development of a pervasive broadband network. Back then the choices for running serious web sites were either Apache on Solaris or IIS on NT, with IIS being the cheaper option - Linux was far too new to be taken seriously. Most of the back-end web infrastructure in Korea is MS, as well as client-end.
In the short and medium term in most cases it will be much cheaper and faster to fix on-line banking (and other web sites) in Korea by making the required ActiveX controls Vista compatible. This is therefore the route that will be taken.
Having worked in the industry I know that's not the full story with variable pricing.
The truth is that industry wants to be able to charge lower prices. They want to be able to effectively leverage their back catalogue, however at a blanket $9.99 per album pricing scheme this becomes very difficult. There is no equivalent on iTunes to the bargain bin at your local record store - and this is a problem. It makes digital products less attractive than physical. This applies to the music industry as a whole - not just the big 4.
The industry also wants to be able to sell music at higher quality for a premium. For example DJs demand their music in higher quality than is available on iTunes. Audiophiles want loss-less music, so they won't touch downloads right now.
The majors also don't really like the Apple monopoly - and this is the primary reason why they are considering selling DRM free tracks. iTunes is very mainstream, which makes it difficult to push music in certain genres (like dance) and to break new acts. Specialist shops which provide better coverage for new material tend to be DRM free MP3 stores, and thus at present solely the domain of independent labels.
The way that the majors work though is odd - they may be four companies, but each of those has many labels. If the majors start selling DRM free music expect it to be done initially in an experimental manner with just a few of their labels trying it out rather than in a blanket fashion.
It may be a PDA with wifi and GSM, but to cite that the iPhone runs Cocoa apps as an advantage is stretching it a bit.
There is a chance that some select third parties may possibly be allowed to write some applications for the iPhone, but Apple has been saying that the platform is closed. This means that you won't be seeing applications from small or medium sized developers, only Apple themselves, or possibly a few big names.
If all that you use your PDA for is contacts, diary, very simple note taking, and a bit of browsing then the iPhone would be fine.
If you like the fact that you can hand-write notes on your existing PDA then you're out of luck. If you need to draw diagrams then you're out of luck. If you play games on your PDA then you're out of luck (with the possible exception of some flash-based games). If you have a database on your PDA then you're out of luck, and so on.
The iPhone could be a perfect device for many people that require a PDA and a cell phone. Local governments and mobile sales forces are both good customers for both types of devices and pretty big markets.
It seems to me that Apple needs to do two things to make the iPhone a killer device for business and government: 1) Open it up to third party development 2) Allow a pen to be used for input
I know many bright intelligent people from the US.
I understand your position that one should distinguish the government from its people. However one should not forget that governments are representatives of the people. The actions of a government reflects the people of that nation.
Additionally let's not forget that Bush got re-elected. That too says something about the people.
We're talking about a maximum 7% rise in 4 years out of 6. Given that domain names cost only $10 per year that's peanuts.
Give the continuing depreciation of the dollar and the fact that.com domains are an international product from the perspective of us folks outside the US it's likely that the price for domain names will continue to fall over the next 6 years, even if the prices get raised.
In the UK we had the £1 coin introduced in 1983. Sure, many vending machine would not initially accept these coins, but this wasn't a big problem.
Since that time we've had several other changes in coinage. Our 5p, 10p and 50p coins have all shrunk. The 20p coin was introduced in 1982, and the £2 coin entered general circulation in 1997 (although they've been around since 1986).
The £1 coin is fatter and smaller in diameter than a modern 10p, and that smaller size probably helped its adoption. Additionally £1 notes ceased production in 1984, and removed from circulation in 1988.
Vending machines got quickly adapted to cope with the changes in currency we've had. They also coped just fine with all the transition periods where we had two different coin sizes in use.
It should also be noted that Canada has $1 and $2 coins (colloquially known as loonies and twonies), and whilst I believe their old $1 and $2 notes remain legal tender (unlike in the UK) they are *very* rarely seen these days. Canada stopped printing the old notes a couple of years after introducing the coins.
The problem with US $1 coins is essentially that they have not been produced in very large quantities, and the dollar bill remains in circulation. Additionally the size/weight may be a bit large.
That would indeed seem to be significantly different from Apple's input method switching.
Whilst when this is explained it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, it is actually a pretty novel idea, and thus if you're allowing software patents this probably get one. MS probably should just cough up the cash for a license on this one.
Apple's thing will let you switch between Dvorak and Qwerty too in the same way as Qwerty to Hangul. You just need to turn on the Dvorak input method. You can switch between all three if you like, or as many others as you want to add.
It would be nice to have some details of the patent involved here. So far I've seen none.
The summary is also confusing. In one sentence it talks about automatic translation between English and Korean, the next it's about switching the input mode between Korean and English. These would seem to me to be two entirely different things.
As it stands if this really is concerned with switching input modes, then the folks at P&IB may wish to take a look at Apple's Mac OS X too. Since I'm married to a Korean, I've got my Mac at home set up to accept input in English and Hangul (the Korean alphabet). All I need to do to switch between the two is press Apple-Space. Mac OS X is smart enough to remember which alphabet you were typing in inside different windows too.
Couldn't agree more. I like working in an open plan office. When I want to isolate myself I just plug in my headphones.
I've worked both as a developer, and as a manager, up to CTO position, always in open plan offices. Not all members of senior staff want to be locked away from the action.
I'm used to some noise and people talking about what they're doing. Indeed a recent job of mine was at an online music store and we usually had music playing the whole day. What I'm finding not great about my current office is it's a bit too quiet for me - the place is virtually silent with everyone quietly doing their thing, little discussion about what's going on. 99% of the time all I can hear is people typing and the air conditioning; as a result I'm tending to feel somewhat isolated and not so much part of a team.
The measures you're talking about are usually referred to as "Imperial", rather than English.
In England there's only three things I can think of where we stick with Imperial measures: beer, milk, and driving distances. There is also a tendency for individuals here to measure their own weight in stones (14 lb to a stone), however the medical profession uses kg. Besides those things we're completely metric. Indeed, it's illegal to sell groceries in England in pounds and ounces, and petrol (gasoline) is legally required to be sold in litres.
The USA is dominated *far* more by imperial measures than England. It should also be noted that when it comes to volume measures, US pints, quarts, and gallons are all smaller measures to their English equivalents.
Oh - and Universal Time - that's essentially English - it's otherwise known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).:-)
A real Christian state, i.e. one that follows the teachings of Christ, would be very tolerant.
Violence and sex in the media is not per-se un-Christian - you imply that these would be actively banned by a Christian state, whilst I don't think they would be at all. Having said that a society overwhelmingly comprised of real Christians would probably be less likely to put out media that is dominated by sex and violence. There is a difference between fantasy and reality...
Gays would most definitely not be "beat down in force" in a true Christian state - that kind of action would go fundamentally against Christ's teachings.
A true Christian state would have no corporal punishment, and wouldn't go in for retribution or retaliation. It would also be very charitable, helping out all those people that it could, irrespective of their religion or race. Christ didn't care one jot what the religion or race was of the people he helped.
There is a big difference between "Christian" churches and religious organisations, and the teachings of Christ.
Re:Not a big intro
on
The Zune Cometh
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Microsoft also did not push themselves with the original XBox launch. There was no Microsoft branding to be found there - their logo isn't on the console. They are trying to create a new brand with Zune, not making use of their existing brand, much as they did with the XBox.
Maybe they feel it unwise to make use of the Microsoft brand for these products.
The write-up for this story says that the performer was also the bar manager. He would presumably be responsible for ensuring that his venue had the appropriate licenses.
If I were you I would re-think the 4 things that you believe your experience has taught you.
If you follow those items and bring your laptop with you then you will look like you have something to hide. Using encryption will raise a big flag in the mind of any government agent, even if you demonstrate to them that all the data that is encrypted is innocuous.
The best policy would be to have *no* material hidden at all on your computer - don't use any encryption. If you absolutely must encrypt some material put it on a USB memory stick.
Passports and strict border controls are a relatively new thing. A hundred years ago you could pretty much go wherever you wanted.
Of course a hundred years back there was far less movement of people around the world because it was far more expensive - and thus far less potential for (uncontrolled) migration.
Slashdot Mirror
SMP is not the only way to do multiprocessing. If you'd read the wikipedia article on SMP you might have noticed that the first section is about "alternatives" where it mentions asymmetric multiprocessing (ASMP).
The concept of having multiple disparate processing units inside machines has been around for a long time. Modern PCs which offload processing onto their GPUs are (arguably) ASMP systems. The Cell CPU itself with it's PPC core and 8 SPE cores is itself an ASMP system.
The fact that different bus architectures are used between Cell/PPC and x86 is not an insurmountable problem. You can always jam them together via a bus like PCI Express. Tighter integration is of course possible too, even shared memory architectures - that'd "just" require a bunch of custom logic.
Thing is, PA Semi's processor design consumes 5-13W typically. An ARM chip of the likes that Apple uses in iPods and iPhones uses about 300mW - about 1/20th as much. This is not a purchase for hand-held devices.
:)
Intel's Core2 chips tend to use about 10x as much power as PAs.
I'm not sure how close processing performance is between PWRficient and Core2. Given the number of execution units and the quality of the PA Semi team, I'd expect performance to be similar at the same MHz rating. They do run at 2GHz...
As it stands, Mac OS X should run essentially unchanged on PWRficient - it should just run the 64-bit PPC G5 version. I fully expect that Apple have had in their labs Macs running on these chips since they were first fabbed, much like they had Intel-based Macs running for the whole history of Mac OS X.
My guess? Looks like we might get a "PowerBook G5" after all.
Sorry, but this isn't true.
Some new iTunes Plus material is being priced at 99c - notably releases from some, maybe all, independent labels.
New releases from EMI and other labels owned by EMI such as Mute however are all at $1.29 per track. I verified this yesterday with a former colleague who now works at EMI Digital.
It's only wishful thinking that has folks believe that iTunes is blanket pricing new iTunes Plus releases at 99c I'm afraid.
In spite of changes to laws that have happened over the past few years there are still few (if any) direct and immediate rammifications of criticising your government, or a foreign government. The risk in criticising governments is medium to long term (regime change for the worse, application of the most draconian parts of laws, etc) whereas the risk in criticising corporations is much more immediate.
Quite - speed reading techniques rely on you being able to read multiple lines at a time.
The example image in the article is incredibly poor. Personally I could read the "before live ink" at least twice as fast (if not for our five) as the "after live ink" version, and with a higher level of comprehension. I found the coloured text in the "after" image to be confusing, since it drew my eye to those words, and they seemed to be fairly randomly selected. Indeed since colouring implies emphasis, this made the text less comprehensible to me.
The notion also that one can only focus on a small circular area, which they characterise as "the straw" is slightly flawed. This would be true if you had only one eye. Since most of us are binocular, we tend to be able to focus on a more oval area. Speed reading techniques take advantage of that.
It seems to me that this re-formatting could be advantageous only to those folks that have poor concentration abilities and a short attention span. For the rest of us I'd suggest practicing speed reading techniques.
The events run for the first season of Perplex City were not exclusively run in Britain. They had a fairly large live event in San Francisco not too long ago. There were also hints and clues run fairly early in the game as previews in cinemas in Toronto. I believe they're planning other events around the world.
The perplexcity.com web site had been down for upgrades in advance of Season Two of Perplex City. It's back up now. The new season officially starts at the beginning of March - although many suspect that things may happen at the party being held this Saturday in London to celebrate the finding of the Receda Cube and the end of Season One.
Why didn't you hear about this? Well, Mind Candy Design, who run the Perplex City ARG were rather small when the game began and are still a fairly small operation. However you are of course hearing about it now...
The emphasis for season 1 was finding the Cube for a $200,000 prize. Along with this quest were puzzle cards that you could buy and solve - many of the cards contained clues to help find the location of the Cube. Not much is known about the second season right now beyond the fact that there's a new set of puzzle cards coming out. I'd expect there will be another prize on offer.
Whilst the winner had collected and solved most of the puzzle cards, it's not actually necessary to buy any of them to take part. Puzzle cards can however be bought from www.firebox.com if you're interested. Season one also seems to have been fairly self-contained so I'd expect it would be fairly easy to jump into season two as a newbie.
Whilst on outward appearances there seems to be almost no difference between the OS X and GTK open and save boxes, the reality is that they *do* work differently.
Take the screenshots of the "open" dialog boxes. On Mac OS X if you (single) click on a folder in the left hand column it will hilight itself and then the folder shown on the right matches. GTK however confuses this - a single click on a folder in the left column will cause it to hilight only and the folder displayed to the right does not change.
Yes, I know the bit above the folder on GTK shows me the file path, however I would argue that this display is inconsistent. I know that the argument is that you double click on a folder to open it, however I would argue in return that you aren't really opening the folder, but are rather selecting it. I'm fairly sure IIRC that a single click on the folder name above the file display changes the folder displayed instantly. IMHO what Mac OS X does in this case is clear, simple, and correct, and what GTK does is very confusing and wrong.
I'm primarily a Mac OS X user, however I used Gnome exclusively at work for five months last year, and I constantly got bit by this functionality - I would end up saving files in the wrong place.
Many businesses consider C and C++ to be "write only languages" and ban it's use in custom applications encoding business logic.
I personally know of far more businesses that consider C/C++ to be "write only" and consider Perl in the same way.
I'm 99% certain that they'll repeat their mistake.
ActiveX controls and IE-isms are pervasive across the Korean web. Almost every major Korean web site relies either on custom ActiveX controls or some feature of IE that is non-standard. My wife is Korean, and we keep a copy of Virtual PC on our Mac just so that she can access her bank.
There are some indicators that this is changing, but progress is very slow. One example of this is a shift in displaying video clips - 18 months ago these were universally displayed using custom ActiveX controls and so wouldn't work on our Mac - these days most are using Flash players, and are now visible.
The reason for the dominance of MS is price. The reason why there are slow moves away from MS technologies is price.
It must be remembered that Korea was an early adopter of Internet technologies with government policies put in place to subsidise the development of a pervasive broadband network. Back then the choices for running serious web sites were either Apache on Solaris or IIS on NT, with IIS being the cheaper option - Linux was far too new to be taken seriously. Most of the back-end web infrastructure in Korea is MS, as well as client-end.
In the short and medium term in most cases it will be much cheaper and faster to fix on-line banking (and other web sites) in Korea by making the required ActiveX controls Vista compatible. This is therefore the route that will be taken.
The industry wanted higher prices however.
Having worked in the industry I know that's not the full story with variable pricing.
The truth is that industry wants to be able to charge lower prices. They want to be able to effectively leverage their back catalogue, however at a blanket $9.99 per album pricing scheme this becomes very difficult. There is no equivalent on iTunes to the bargain bin at your local record store - and this is a problem. It makes digital products less attractive than physical. This applies to the music industry as a whole - not just the big 4.
The industry also wants to be able to sell music at higher quality for a premium. For example DJs demand their music in higher quality than is available on iTunes. Audiophiles want loss-less music, so they won't touch downloads right now.
The majors also don't really like the Apple monopoly - and this is the primary reason why they are considering selling DRM free tracks. iTunes is very mainstream, which makes it difficult to push music in certain genres (like dance) and to break new acts. Specialist shops which provide better coverage for new material tend to be DRM free MP3 stores, and thus at present solely the domain of independent labels.
The way that the majors work though is odd - they may be four companies, but each of those has many labels. If the majors start selling DRM free music expect it to be done initially in an experimental manner with just a few of their labels trying it out rather than in a blanket fashion.
It may be a PDA with wifi and GSM, but to cite that the iPhone runs Cocoa apps as an advantage is stretching it a bit.
There is a chance that some select third parties may possibly be allowed to write some applications for the iPhone, but Apple has been saying that the platform is closed. This means that you won't be seeing applications from small or medium sized developers, only Apple themselves, or possibly a few big names.
If all that you use your PDA for is contacts, diary, very simple note taking, and a bit of browsing then the iPhone would be fine.
If you like the fact that you can hand-write notes on your existing PDA then you're out of luck. If you need to draw diagrams then you're out of luck. If you play games on your PDA then you're out of luck (with the possible exception of some flash-based games). If you have a database on your PDA then you're out of luck, and so on.
The iPhone could be a perfect device for many people that require a PDA and a cell phone. Local governments and mobile sales forces are both good customers for both types of devices and pretty big markets.
It seems to me that Apple needs to do two things to make the iPhone a killer device for business and government:
1) Open it up to third party development
2) Allow a pen to be used for input
I know many bright intelligent people from the US.
I understand your position that one should distinguish the government from its people. However one should not forget that governments are representatives of the people. The actions of a government reflects the people of that nation.
Additionally let's not forget that Bush got re-elected. That too says something about the people.
We're talking about a maximum 7% rise in 4 years out of 6. Given that domain names cost only $10 per year that's peanuts.
.com domains are an international product from the perspective of us folks outside the US it's likely that the price for domain names will continue to fall over the next 6 years, even if the prices get raised.
Give the continuing depreciation of the dollar and the fact that
Rubbish!
In the UK we had the £1 coin introduced in 1983. Sure, many vending machine would not initially accept these coins, but this wasn't a big problem.
Since that time we've had several other changes in coinage. Our 5p, 10p and 50p coins have all shrunk. The 20p coin was introduced in 1982, and the £2 coin entered general circulation in 1997 (although they've been around since 1986).
The £1 coin is fatter and smaller in diameter than a modern 10p, and that smaller size probably helped its adoption. Additionally £1 notes ceased production in 1984, and removed from circulation in 1988.
Vending machines got quickly adapted to cope with the changes in currency we've had. They also coped just fine with all the transition periods where we had two different coin sizes in use.
It should also be noted that Canada has $1 and $2 coins (colloquially known as loonies and twonies), and whilst I believe their old $1 and $2 notes remain legal tender (unlike in the UK) they are *very* rarely seen these days. Canada stopped printing the old notes a couple of years after introducing the coins.
The problem with US $1 coins is essentially that they have not been produced in very large quantities, and the dollar bill remains in circulation. Additionally the size/weight may be a bit large.
Cool - thanks for explaining this.
That would indeed seem to be significantly different from Apple's input method switching.
Whilst when this is explained it seems a pretty obvious thing to do, it is actually a pretty novel idea, and thus if you're allowing software patents this probably get one. MS probably should just cough up the cash for a license on this one.
Apple's thing will let you switch between Dvorak and Qwerty too in the same way as Qwerty to Hangul. You just need to turn on the Dvorak input method. You can switch between all three if you like, or as many others as you want to add.
It would be nice to have some details of the patent involved here. So far I've seen none.
The summary is also confusing. In one sentence it talks about automatic translation between English and Korean, the next it's about switching the input mode between Korean and English. These would seem to me to be two entirely different things.
As it stands if this really is concerned with switching input modes, then the folks at P&IB may wish to take a look at Apple's Mac OS X too. Since I'm married to a Korean, I've got my Mac at home set up to accept input in English and Hangul (the Korean alphabet). All I need to do to switch between the two is press Apple-Space. Mac OS X is smart enough to remember which alphabet you were typing in inside different windows too.
Couldn't agree more. I like working in an open plan office. When I want to isolate myself I just plug in my headphones.
I've worked both as a developer, and as a manager, up to CTO position, always in open plan offices. Not all members of senior staff want to be locked away from the action.
I'm used to some noise and people talking about what they're doing. Indeed a recent job of mine was at an online music store and we usually had music playing the whole day. What I'm finding not great about my current office is it's a bit too quiet for me - the place is virtually silent with everyone quietly doing their thing, little discussion about what's going on. 99% of the time all I can hear is people typing and the air conditioning; as a result I'm tending to feel somewhat isolated and not so much part of a team.
The measures you're talking about are usually referred to as "Imperial", rather than English.
:-)
In England there's only three things I can think of where we stick with Imperial measures: beer, milk, and driving distances. There is also a tendency for individuals here to measure their own weight in stones (14 lb to a stone), however the medical profession uses kg. Besides those things we're completely metric. Indeed, it's illegal to sell groceries in England in pounds and ounces, and petrol (gasoline) is legally required to be sold in litres.
The USA is dominated *far* more by imperial measures than England. It should also be noted that when it comes to volume measures, US pints, quarts, and gallons are all smaller measures to their English equivalents.
Oh - and Universal Time - that's essentially English - it's otherwise known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
A real Christian state, i.e. one that follows the teachings of Christ, would be very tolerant.
Violence and sex in the media is not per-se un-Christian - you imply that these would be actively banned by a Christian state, whilst I don't think they would be at all. Having said that a society overwhelmingly comprised of real Christians would probably be less likely to put out media that is dominated by sex and violence. There is a difference between fantasy and reality...
Gays would most definitely not be "beat down in force" in a true Christian state - that kind of action would go fundamentally against Christ's teachings.
A true Christian state would have no corporal punishment, and wouldn't go in for retribution or retaliation. It would also be very charitable, helping out all those people that it could, irrespective of their religion or race. Christ didn't care one jot what the religion or race was of the people he helped.
There is a big difference between "Christian" churches and religious organisations, and the teachings of Christ.
Microsoft also did not push themselves with the original XBox launch. There was no Microsoft branding to be found there - their logo isn't on the console. They are trying to create a new brand with Zune, not making use of their existing brand, much as they did with the XBox.
Maybe they feel it unwise to make use of the Microsoft brand for these products.
The write-up for this story says that the performer was also the bar manager. He would presumably be responsible for ensuring that his venue had the appropriate licenses.
If I were you I would re-think the 4 things that you believe your experience has taught you.
If you follow those items and bring your laptop with you then you will look like you have something to hide. Using encryption will raise a big flag in the mind of any government agent, even if you demonstrate to them that all the data that is encrypted is innocuous.
The best policy would be to have *no* material hidden at all on your computer - don't use any encryption. If you absolutely must encrypt some material put it on a USB memory stick.
Passports and strict border controls are a relatively new thing. A hundred years ago you could pretty much go wherever you wanted.
Of course a hundred years back there was far less movement of people around the world because it was far more expensive - and thus far less potential for (uncontrolled) migration.