For those who still bravely (foolishly) venture onto usenet, it would be nice to replace kill files with something Bayesian. There may be such a reader already but I haven't seen it (nevermind something cross-platform, which is a must for me).
Do you remember the big to-do with the "We are the world", "FoodAid" and all the starving people in Africa back in the 1980s. What most people don't know is that less than 10 miles away from where all the news pictures came from there were government warehouses filled with enough 10x the number of people afflicted.
The only problem was that those starving were either disfavored ethnic minorities/races or innocent civilians living in territory occupied by anti-government guerilla. Food was a weapon, nothing more. The same story continues today.
Listening to a dozen of so (Tagalog, Indonesian, French, German, Danish, Dutch, Russian, etc.), I'd say these aren't exactly representative of typical accented English of this native speakers. Most are of people who are pretty multilingual from an unusually early age.
Still if you listen hard and know the accents already you can almost imagine what the real versions sound like. I hope they continue to gather a more realistic sampling.
"Radiation" is many, many things. It's sort of like glomming all programming languages together: OO, functional, etc.
So blocking "radiation" isn't always simply a matter of density, aka Hi-Z shielding. There are cases, such as with cosmic rays, where Hi-Z actually increases the radiation exposure on the other side of the shield though the processes called spallation and bremstrahlung.
That this nanofoam loses its ferromagnetism with time suggests that nanofoam is fundamentally unstable at the molecular level. Presumable its ferromagnetism is due to a separation of the electron orbits between adjacent atoms caused by being in a "foam". Like a soap or detergent foam, it presumably breaks down over time resulting in the condensation of the carbon atoms back into a normal non-magnetic separation. I haven't read the original paper so this is just an educated guess.
Re:The Peoples' Hate Affair with Apple
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Apple Quashes pBop
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Apple strives for an elite, artistic aesthetic standard, and on top of that much (I won't say all) of their technology matches that aesthetic. They have excellent industrial design. They think about the user experience (unlike many Windows & Linux developers).
For USians in particular, our history doesn't lend itself to adulation of the elites or of people that are perceived to have airs of being the elite. There is a grudging acknowledgment, once Apples has proven its products, that appeals to the practical appreciation of the technology, but there's a subcurrent of feelings of inadequacy which manifests itself when companies like Microsoft boldly state that they invented when it's obvious Apple was there first. The Microsoft appeal is probably at least partly "yeah it sucks, but Windows is one of the boys, at least - not prissy or artsy dilettante".
Beyond the outward cultural aspect, there is also the personal demons element. Apple (due to Steve's personality and reality-distortion-field) sort of acts like the smart, popular and good looking kid who knows exactly how smart, popular and good looking he is - yeah, that triggers all sorts of adolescent insecurities, even with people how haven't been adolescents for decades. Apple seems to seduce and some folks feel unconfortable with being seduced like that. (I happen to like but I'm a bit of hedonist!:-) )
Watching how Mr. Bill, and Microsoft in general, respond to things Apple leads me to think that these factors are at play. I'd put many Linux folks who hate Apple into the same bucket though, only in different proportions. Rationally Apple is Unix and a closer cousin now, most of the issues raised always seems to be more emotional than rational. (The proof will come from how people reply/moderate this I guess:-) )
While I believe people should have the right to decide their own fates in most things with absolutely minimal government intervention, when someone grossly abuses others' rights, something needs to be done - one option is to let people take retribution into their own hands, which I admit truly is an ultimate right, though usually not the best starting point for either most practical purposes nor for a theoretical starting point for daily rules of thumb.
Back to the original topic: corporations are definitely not remotely equivalent to people, even though in the US they are legally the same under the constitution (Southern Pacific vs. California). The problem is that 1) the fact corporations are a group of people acting together, the entity does not make decisions like an individual and is not motivated by the same factors as an individual, and 2) the legal structure of incorporation removes many of the fundamental checks and balances that moderate behavior of individuals. Thus corporations really need to be treated differently. The best way is to do that on some fundamental principle such as Rights and Duties. If you've read the letters of incorporation for some company, you'll find that it's little more than a legal contract, which makes Rights and Duties a reasonable model.
There is still a lot of overlap to individuals on this also - it's been my experience that the staunchest arguments for pure Libertarianism contains one or more forgotten axioms that make the argument still essentially one of Rights and Duties (be it ethics, good parental training, educational perspective, etc.).
You idea of the social contract has only existed in pure form on the US frontiers where there has been only a sparse populations with either little need for social harmony or with little variance in values. Under those circumstances you can always ignore what you don't like or violently suppress it - there's no obligations or duty for anything else.
But beyond that, who else would mediate equitible assurances of rights them if not "the people" in the form of the goverment? Would corporations work better? Private militias? The only reasonable alternative that is equitible is, in the US anyway, through the 2nd Amendment where it's every man and woman for themselves. Infringe on my inherent rights, I arbitrarily define them and I enforce them any way can or need to.
Basically your position is that the individual is everything and the group (society, etc.) is subjugated if not irrelevant. We can get into "no man is an island" and respect for diversity, etc. but I'm not sure that would sway you.
How wonderfully parochial and imperialistic! Ok, International Business 101:
In order to do business in Europe (or any other country outside the US), you need to incorporate as a European corporation (or local corporation) - there is a Microsoft Ltd. in the UK, a Microsoft Gmbh in Germany, etc. They are fully European companies, granted the right to exist and sell products in Europe directly by the written agreement that they obey European (or local national) business law. No incorporation, no business in country. Period.
If you are a European company and chose to do business in the US, guess what? You have to form a US business, generally a C-corp, S-corp or LLC - possibly even state-by-state! And regardless of what might be allowed in your home country (things like pervasive bribery, etc.) you are required to obey US laws in regard to your business practices in the US. Your US-based company can have its assets seized by the courts if you violate US law.
If you do business in Europe and break European law (antitrust in this case, but it could be advertising by mentioning your competitor, which is illegal in both France and Germany), the European gov't can say the following (which is precisely ALL they are say):
"If you wish to continue to do any business in Europe (or country X) you will abide by our decision that you are now a convicted "Abusive Monopolist", and you must agree to a fine (deprivation of property right on your cash, which
We granted you to do business here and which you earned in Our country) and to reduced protection of your property rights (which We granted you to do business here and which you used in Our country) by sharing your product IP with your legally-deemed-abused competitors."
The unspoken option for Microsoft is always: leave Europe and don't do business there if you don't like the government's decree on your business practices. It's only that Microsoft chooses to continue to do business there that any of the sanctions apply. Similarly if you don't like the decisions of the US government you as an individual always have the option to leave (or to stay to try to alter things through channels - subject to penalties if you break the laws of the land).
As far as the Coffee shop example is concerned, guess what: yes, that's exactly what can required as a condition to doing business at that location in the first place. This is no different from "zoning" laws for Coffee shops. If Microsoft doesn't like, nobody is forcing them to set up and run a Coffee shop in the first place - they have the option to invest somewhere else in some other thing. It's only because Microsoft chooses to setup shop and because they violated local laws regarding Coffee shops that they have a conditions added - can you say "parole".
Having local regulation part of the cost of doing business. A free market doesn't mean your costs are minimized, only that they are not different from others doing the same thing and agreeing the same terms of business (latter of which Microsoft chose not to agree to in Europe - hence they are now a convicted Abusive Monopolist, with new conditions for being allowed to do business in country added).
Shareholder property rights are not infinite either, btw. If shareholder property is invested in Europe, that property may only be used in Europe under the conditions and restrictions of local law. If the business mishandles shareholder property and has it confiscated, that's solely and issue between the shareholder and the business executives and board (it's called an "agency relationship"). The same is true in the US.
Microsoft exists as a legal entity known as a "limited liability corporation" by virtue of being granted the rights of property and limited legal liability by the government. Thus all the concepts of Rights and Duties apply to corporations as well. Having property confiscated, being jailed or sentenced to death is approximated by things like antitrust penalties and loss of liability protected for its owners and executives. Having their intellection property "taken" as a penalty in anti-trust is absolutely no different from jailing some person who breaks the law.
Exactly. More explicitly this is the concept of "Rights and Duties". You are only granted Rights in exchange for Duties. It is essentially a "contract of citizenship". The government does have the right to confiscate property because it is the only real guarantor of rights. Through the courts and if required through the force of sheriffs, your right to your property is enforced by the force of the goverment to potentially deny rights of those who may take your property. Included in your "property rights" are the right of property of yourself, body and life. When you are jailed or executed your are losing the property right to decide how to use your property as your please because your violated the duty of obeyence to the law.
The duties, at least in the Unites Status (but similarly in other countries) are the duty to national defense (as per the recent discussion on the inevitable reinstitution of the draft in the US), duty to obeyence of law, duty to participation in government activities (like voting, jury duty, etc.) and in some cases the duty to participate in social or religious activities. The religious angle is generally more relevant to outside the US due to its separation of church and state clauses in the constitution/bill of rights.
This is one of the central ideas of western legal theory - not some fanatical concept. The concept that you have rights with absolutely no obligations is the odd-ball idea.
Two books I have related to doing math in your head:
"Consider a Spherical Cow" and there's a 2nd book "Consider a Cylindrical Cow":-) - which is about how to do "back-of-the-envelope" estimates. How many pairs of shoes can be made from a single cow? Consider a spherical cow.:-)
And a Dover reprint: "How to Calculate Quickly" which has many of the tricks and rules of thumb people used to all know before calculators.
From my "antiquarian" collection I have a number of "arithmetic" textbooks (all pre-1930) that have lots of little rules of thumb for checking sums and products - many are familiar to accountants. Also great chapters like "Arithmetic of Thrift", "Arithmetic of Agriculture", etc. with problems like "...girls in a class in millinery need 20 yd. of ribbon..."
HP at one time tried to do something similar with instrument calibration and repair. They stopped selling calibration and repair manuals. They were challenged on antitrust grounds and backed down, presumably because the case for their actions was seriously weak. They've been selling repair and calibration manuals ever since (now as Agilent).
The auto companies would not have joined a voluntary system mentioned if they hadn't known what they were doing was verging in to antitrust. Their claims in the article are PR smokescreens and spin.
Yes, of course. The entire Silicon Valley was in large part a result of the Cold War. That's a Straw Man.
Strictly, I agree that technology is neutral. However people who control it may not be. Even if people are individually neutral, the organizations they occupy may not be neutral and the individual cease to be in those groups.
I quite aware of the US military current dominance of space; I'm personally responsible for much of that. I'm not sure you are familiar with what is being proposed to accelerate that domination well beyond what exists now. I'm also familiar with the slight of hand that occurs when these types of projects are proposed and funded. What's said publically is generally not what's planned or talked about behind closed doors.
My only concern is that must of what's on the table for "anti-asteroid" technology is, not surprisingly, the same technology being proposed for "US military domination of space". If it weren't for the recent Bush/Rumsfeld/PNAC/Iraq shenanigans I might give the government the benefit of the doubt. However, I'm dubious about this whole concept.
Sort of old news: comp.risks subject 20 years now
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Can Software Kill?
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· Score: 2, Troll
comp.risks has been talking about these issues on the net for 20 years now. Started with the fatal Therac cancer machine incident, way back when. Also comp.risks has been warning about just about every security eventuality that has hit Microsoft recently starting 10-15 years ago!. I've been on this group since it started - I'm still surprised other don't know about it.
Actually Ericcson specifically did endorse the upgrade path. The letter that comes with the "upgrade T226" specifically mentions that it's a join AT&T/Sony-Ericcson upgrade program. I'd even bet that AT&T is getting them for free in exchange for the advertising value for Sony-Ericcson. That's how these joint marketing programs usually work.
Their update concept is very good concept, if and only if what you're offering for the upgrade is any good.
Where does one begin?
Current T68 is curvy, stylish and ergonomic in the hand, upgrade T226 phone is an ugly box, light and cheap feeling
Only apparent "new feature": MMS - major yawn for anyone over the age of, I don't know, 14 years of age? On top of that doing anything with MMS deathly slow and cumbersome to use. As usually for tech marketing - forgot to ask customer what they actually wanted - this wasn't it!
Oh yeah, polyphonic ring tones, too. BFD!
More crap crammed into a too small space: joystick is usable on the T68; new phone it's nearly impossible to use. Just too small, and no actual "joystick", just 5 button placed inconveniently close in a cross.
T68 keypad numbers are well illuminated for dialing in the dark; on the T226 they are utterly illegibly dim
The screen seems to be a bit bigger on the T226 phone, but is actually worse readability than the T68 - presumably lower resolution.
No bluetooth - from one of companies that invented no less; current T68 has bluetooth (complete with alternating, if silly, activity lights - online & bluetooth - it's inane but strangely comforting)
Did mention the T226 is just d*mn ugly! It looks and feels like something you'd get out of a Crackjack box
Tried the phone for a couple of hours and just gave up on it. Sent it back. Thankfully you can switch the SIM card back to the old phone so easily. If you have a T68, you are stepping way down with this phone! BMW to Yugo. You're a fool if you keep it. And now, of course, it'll be a case of once bitten, twice shy if they try it again.
I don't know who to blame more: AT&T or Sony-Ericson. For AT&T, this will go down as one the stupidest tech marketing blunders in a while! For Sony-Ericson, well, the engineering team that designed the T226 should be taken out and shot. At the very least they should barred from designing any consumer electronic product - for life!
When the T68 came out I thought maybe Ericson might finally have figured out what Nokia does right - with this phone it's apparent the T68 was just a lucky, but utterly random accident.:-p
When graduated my friend (who is a professor in EE) was having a house built. He would regale the laughable incompetence of his electrical contractor and we'd joke how he was making more than both of us combined yet we knew how to do his job better than he did without any great mental effort. I seriously thought about becoming an electrical contractor. My father is a mechanical contractor and the money was so much better than an EE could make.
Some contractor examples made me consider it:
Because the code says to do it that way...
My friend wanted plenty of electrical sockets so though he spec'ed 3 per wall, he wanted to make sure that it was being done right. Drives out to the job site and finds the contractor and country inspector do the last walk-through on the outlets and such. My friend looks at the outlets and notices that the ground was nicely screwed into the junction box wall... except the junction boxes were all PVC plastic. My friend calls them over and say "do you anything wrong with this outlet box?" "Nope, looks fine!" "It's not supposed to be screwed into a plastic box...!" "Hey, it's OK. The code says to do that" The county inspector nods approvingly. "Ah, do you know why you need to ground that line?" "Well, yeah, you can get electrocuted - electricity's dangerous!" "Ok, so how does grounding protect you?" "Well, the power can go through the ground instead of you" "Yes, ok. So if the ground is connected to plastic, which doesn't conduct electricity, how do that ground protect you?" They both think for a minute, and in horror look at each other. Apparently neither of them was available for a few weeks as the contractor and inpector went back to several hundred other new homes, "just to check them one more time".;-p
It's just low voltage stuff
Same house, same contractor. My friend has a long driveway going down a hill. He wanted 24V lighting in the concrete retaining wall along the wall. He drops by and notices that the contractor has a spool of 22 gauge telephone wire out next to the cement forms. "Ah, aren't you going to use a heavier gauge than that?" "Oh no, this is low voltage stuff! You don't big stuff" "Yes, low voltage but it's a 500 ft run. The current.." "Hey don't worry about, I know what I'm doing" "Ok, so you'll test it before they pour the concrete tomorrow?" "Yeah, sure." Well, you know he didn't test it under days after the pour. As expected, the light went on in the upper third and then got gradually dimmer and none were lit on the lower third. After ~$5K spent by the contractor paying to demolish the wall, repipe and wire with 10 gauge, and laying a new wall, the lights worked perfectly.
So in this context, I began thinking, WTF, given that I clearly know what I'm doing compared to the "competition" and they're making $80-120K per year (this is in 1984!), what would I be making and and how does that compare to the low-ball job offer I just got for $25K a year at Northrup? The problem was I know I have a craving for having things "interesting" and "challenging". I didn't take the lame Northrup offer (they were actually surprised I wasn't kissing their feet for amount they offered! Bastard PhDs! To them BSEE meant overpaid technician!) I strongly suspected I'd get bored far too soon as an electrical contractor (even with the money). I went to work at a military think-tank instead, which was a pretty wild time. And the rest is history...:-)
I have, however, had many jobs in many wildly different fields. My rule of thumb has always been: if job stops being "fun" more than 50% of the time, it's time to look for something new. No job is fun 100% of the time but 50% isn't an unreasonable expectation IMO. Each time I've been well stretched and well challenged. It's gotten to the point that the only Myers-Briggs recommended job for my personality that I haven't done yet is being a lawyer!
:-) I'm always amused by techie's comments like this, in part because I used to say exactly the same thing when I was in my early 20s.
The reality is that value of your smarts to society as a whole is entirely fungible (your word-of-the-day) and largely determined by that image, for better or for worse. You may have your own internal compass of self-worth; bravo! it's a wonderful thing and I don't begrudge you it. But it won't buy you a cup of coffee.
The mass media is simply a reflection of a greater collective value assertion on your community and indirectly on you personally. You (like every other human being) have limits to your brilliance, power and control. One of those limits is on how you are valued in terms of economic and social resource allocation. Your allocation of those resources (aka Jobs, Mates, Favors, Respect, etc.) are solely dependent on your value to others as that value is perceivedby others. Your only means of control is to be aware of and exert influence on that perception (sometimes called "marketing yourself" - yes, I know, despicable).
Is it unfair that people may judge your value as a person based on a stereotype of "the nerd"? Yes and no. They have a right to decide how to allocate the resources they possess; with that includes the right to decide the means for testing and assessing the value of what will be exchanged (you, your personality and your skills) for those resources. A lot of people might think justifications for case-modding and overclocking are unfair and foolish ways of valuing resources. But it's your money, your case and your CPU, and thus your right to decide how you chose to make your value decisions.
People use stereotypes and perceptions to avoid thinking too much.
This is anathema to nerds since we do a lot thinking, enjoy thinking and respect thinking. Nonetheless, thinking takes time and energy. An entirely rational strategy followed by most humans is to "play the numbers" and use heuristic substitutes for detailed analytic thinking. If the heuristic is right 80% of the time but you spent only 20% of the effort that thinking would require, aren't you ahead of the game? Absolutely. But we nerds do it also.
Ask yourself this: do I rationally analyze every purchase I make or do I mostly just buy a brand I know? I mean, absolutely every purchase; like every time I buy toothpaste do I send it out for analysis to assure quality control? Of course not. You buy <insert your familiar brand> rather than intensely investigate what you're buying each time you make a purchase. This is what "branding" is: sidestepping the cost of rational economic analysis by relying on a symbolic representation and promise of a product that meets a need. You choose (explicitly or implicitly) to hold a belief that the product does what you expect, for example, due to the presumption that manufacturing is performed according to familiar, rational practices and processes so that the next time you buy a Coca Cola or an Athlon, it will probably be just as good as the last one. This is reasonable, but not a strictly rational belief or axiom. You are playing the odds on it, using your own stereotype (aka a brand perception) to convince yourself that you don't need to think about it. Go to some developing nation some time and you'll see product quality variance that may force you to question that assumption.
So why do I (you) need to worry about what the mass media thinks about me? Well, I won't say "worry" is the right word. Specifically, your value to society is on the line with how you and your profession is perceived. Economic, social and romantic decisions are being made right this minute based on it! You should be aware of the implications of what a negative image means in terms of your career and personal satisfaction. How important those are to you is your privilege to decide how important you decide they are
I only know anything about it because I've had my feet deep in both fields: computers/electronics and biotechnology/biology. The core heuristic of human thought is usually extrapolation of the familiar.:-)
I agree. There's definitely a pattern to a compilers error streams. As you start removing bugs it changes from chaotic to ordered.
I think this is related to the feedback/feedforward nature of most parsers as they encounter syntax errors, try to re-align, fail to do so (in relation to the bugginess of the code), and then cascade into a flurry on actually nonexistent "errors". As you correct the errors, parser realignment begins to happen correctly more often and more regularity appears.
In a sense there is a potentially "musical" element to that as it generates a holistic pattern space like music. The proper mapping is more likely something similar to a "fractal dimension" or something linearly linked to pitch, or to a generative music parameter: ultra buggy code generates something like John Cage progressing to improvised jazz to pop to something highly organized like martial or baroque music. Of course then you have to know music well enough to "hear" what your compiler is telling you.:-)
> Fortunately, advanced supercomputers can be used
> to create models of virii and their effects on
> cells.
Not even close! You can only simulate something on a computer that has a model in the first place. That's what this research is about in the first place. Computers do not create models. Computers are driven by models. Humans create those models that drive computers. Humans create those models by validating hypothetical, human-contrived, models against empirical observation (such as come from creating pathological viruses and seeing how deadly they are). Models only predict when they are validated empirically and are only improved by empirically comparison: reality is the only truth.
There are no sufficiently accurate cell or virus models in existence that could begin to realistic assess if a virus can or can not be pathogenic from first-principles (DNA mutations, etc.). Trusting models that exist today to human lives is nearly as dangerous as playing with a pathogenic virus as described in the article. That's how crude they are! It will be decades before sufficiently better models exist. It will only be through these types of experiments that such a model could ever exist.
Currently biologist have the raw data for genomics (DNA sequences) based on the DNA a handful of people out of 5 billion(!), but the actual biological implications of a model aren't simply defined by genomics. The next layer is proteomics (how proteins from some arbitrary source mRNA are created, folded and embued with biological activity), and then the next layer, the total black hole of the hour: enzyme and metabolic "circuits" in N-space. Most of the knowledge of proteomics and enzyme pathways is utterly primitive at best. Actually predicting phenomena theoretically from first principles (which is what you are suggesting can be done in lieu of empirical testing) is utterly impossible now and probably will remain so for many decades to come in the best case scenario.
To put this in perspective: imagine you are a 19th century scientist or engineer with fresh knowledge of Maxwell's and Newton, but no concept of Quantum Mechanics (1920s) or Linear Circuit Theory (1930s) or Semiconductor Physics (1940s) or Computer Design (1950s) or Integrated Circuits (1960s) or Microprocessors (1970s) or OO Software Design (1980s) or the Web (1990s).
Now imagine someone says tells: "Hey you (Mr. 19th Century), you can predict how this Athlon microprocessor can be used by two people on opposite sides of the world to communicate instantly over a network, just based on what you know now and extrapolating from first principles..." You might have an inkling that it might somehow be possible given telegraphy and telephones at the time, but whatever you came up with would never predict spam, porn, identify theft or other pathological/pathogenic outcomes.
Right now, molecular biology is at a similar point to where electronic/electric technology was in the late 19th century. Most stuff is done empirically. Biological procedure is a craft and art as much as a science and process. Theories and systematic procedures exist but they tend to be valid "one-off" only. Automation in biology is almost out of the 18th century rather than the 21st century.
There is an ethical question certainly, but it's not black-and-white, and computers can not be substituted for taking certain risks. The only question is one of risk-assessment and of ethics given those risks.
Slashdot Mirror
For those who still bravely (foolishly) venture onto usenet, it would be nice to replace kill files with something Bayesian. There may be such a reader already but I haven't seen it (nevermind something cross-platform, which is a must for me).
The only problem was that those starving were either disfavored ethnic minorities/races or innocent civilians living in territory occupied by anti-government guerilla. Food was a weapon, nothing more. The same story continues today.
Still if you listen hard and know the accents already you can almost imagine what the real versions sound like. I hope they continue to gather a more realistic sampling.
So blocking "radiation" isn't always simply a matter of density, aka Hi-Z shielding. There are cases, such as with cosmic rays, where Hi-Z actually increases the radiation exposure on the other side of the shield though the processes called spallation and bremstrahlung.
That this nanofoam loses its ferromagnetism with time suggests that nanofoam is fundamentally unstable at the molecular level. Presumable its ferromagnetism is due to a separation of the electron orbits between adjacent atoms caused by being in a "foam". Like a soap or detergent foam, it presumably breaks down over time resulting in the condensation of the carbon atoms back into a normal non-magnetic separation. I haven't read the original paper so this is just an educated guess.
Big time tinfoil hat! :-)
For USians in particular, our history doesn't lend itself to adulation of the elites or of people that are perceived to have airs of being the elite. There is a grudging acknowledgment, once Apples has proven its products, that appeals to the practical appreciation of the technology, but there's a subcurrent of feelings of inadequacy which manifests itself when companies like Microsoft boldly state that they invented when it's obvious Apple was there first. The Microsoft appeal is probably at least partly "yeah it sucks, but Windows is one of the boys, at least - not prissy or artsy dilettante".
Beyond the outward cultural aspect, there is also the personal demons element. Apple (due to Steve's personality and reality-distortion-field) sort of acts like the smart, popular and good looking kid who knows exactly how smart, popular and good looking he is - yeah, that triggers all sorts of adolescent insecurities, even with people how haven't been adolescents for decades. Apple seems to seduce and some folks feel unconfortable with being seduced like that. (I happen to like but I'm a bit of hedonist! :-) )
Watching how Mr. Bill, and Microsoft in general, respond to things Apple leads me to think that these factors are at play. I'd put many Linux folks who hate Apple into the same bucket though, only in different proportions. Rationally Apple is Unix and a closer cousin now, most of the issues raised always seems to be more emotional than rational. (The proof will come from how people reply/moderate this I guess :-) )
While I believe people should have the right to decide their own fates in most things with absolutely minimal government intervention, when someone grossly abuses others' rights, something needs to be done - one option is to let people take retribution into their own hands, which I admit truly is an ultimate right, though usually not the best starting point for either most practical purposes nor for a theoretical starting point for daily rules of thumb.
Back to the original topic: corporations are definitely not remotely equivalent to people, even though in the US they are legally the same under the constitution (Southern Pacific vs. California). The problem is that 1) the fact corporations are a group of people acting together, the entity does not make decisions like an individual and is not motivated by the same factors as an individual, and 2) the legal structure of incorporation removes many of the fundamental checks and balances that moderate behavior of individuals. Thus corporations really need to be treated differently. The best way is to do that on some fundamental principle such as Rights and Duties. If you've read the letters of incorporation for some company, you'll find that it's little more than a legal contract, which makes Rights and Duties a reasonable model.
There is still a lot of overlap to individuals on this also - it's been my experience that the staunchest arguments for pure Libertarianism contains one or more forgotten axioms that make the argument still essentially one of Rights and Duties (be it ethics, good parental training, educational perspective, etc.).
But beyond that, who else would mediate equitible assurances of rights them if not "the people" in the form of the goverment? Would corporations work better? Private militias? The only reasonable alternative that is equitible is, in the US anyway, through the 2nd Amendment where it's every man and woman for themselves. Infringe on my inherent rights, I arbitrarily define them and I enforce them any way can or need to.
Basically your position is that the individual is everything and the group (society, etc.) is subjugated if not irrelevant. We can get into "no man is an island" and respect for diversity, etc. but I'm not sure that would sway you.
In order to do business in Europe (or any other country outside the US), you need to incorporate as a European corporation (or local corporation) - there is a Microsoft Ltd. in the UK, a Microsoft Gmbh in Germany, etc. They are fully European companies, granted the right to exist and sell products in Europe directly by the written agreement that they obey European (or local national) business law. No incorporation, no business in country. Period.
If you are a European company and chose to do business in the US, guess what? You have to form a US business, generally a C-corp, S-corp or LLC - possibly even state-by-state! And regardless of what might be allowed in your home country (things like pervasive bribery, etc.) you are required to obey US laws in regard to your business practices in the US. Your US-based company can have its assets seized by the courts if you violate US law.
If you do business in Europe and break European law (antitrust in this case, but it could be advertising by mentioning your competitor, which is illegal in both France and Germany), the European gov't can say the following (which is precisely ALL they are say):
The unspoken option for Microsoft is always: leave Europe and don't do business there if you don't like the government's decree on your business practices. It's only that Microsoft chooses to continue to do business there that any of the sanctions apply. Similarly if you don't like the decisions of the US government you as an individual always have the option to leave (or to stay to try to alter things through channels - subject to penalties if you break the laws of the land).
As far as the Coffee shop example is concerned, guess what: yes, that's exactly what can required as a condition to doing business at that location in the first place. This is no different from "zoning" laws for Coffee shops. If Microsoft doesn't like, nobody is forcing them to set up and run a Coffee shop in the first place - they have the option to invest somewhere else in some other thing. It's only because Microsoft chooses to setup shop and because they violated local laws regarding Coffee shops that they have a conditions added - can you say "parole".
Having local regulation part of the cost of doing business. A free market doesn't mean your costs are minimized, only that they are not different from others doing the same thing and agreeing the same terms of business (latter of which Microsoft chose not to agree to in Europe - hence they are now a convicted Abusive Monopolist, with new conditions for being allowed to do business in country added).
Shareholder property rights are not infinite either, btw. If shareholder property is invested in Europe, that property may only be used in Europe under the conditions and restrictions of local law. If the business mishandles shareholder property and has it confiscated, that's solely and issue between the shareholder and the business executives and board (it's called an "agency relationship"). The same is true in the US.
Nerd with an MBA
Microsoft exists as a legal entity known as a "limited liability corporation" by virtue of being granted the rights of property and limited legal liability by the government. Thus all the concepts of Rights and Duties apply to corporations as well. Having property confiscated, being jailed or sentenced to death is approximated by things like antitrust penalties and loss of liability protected for its owners and executives. Having their intellection property "taken" as a penalty in anti-trust is absolutely no different from jailing some person who breaks the law.
The duties, at least in the Unites Status (but similarly in other countries) are the duty to national defense (as per the recent discussion on the inevitable reinstitution of the draft in the US), duty to obeyence of law, duty to participation in government activities (like voting, jury duty, etc.) and in some cases the duty to participate in social or religious activities. The religious angle is generally more relevant to outside the US due to its separation of church and state clauses in the constitution/bill of rights.
This is one of the central ideas of western legal theory - not some fanatical concept. The concept that you have rights with absolutely no obligations is the odd-ball idea.
"Consider a Spherical Cow" and there's a 2nd book "Consider a Cylindrical Cow" :-) - which is about how to do "back-of-the-envelope" estimates. How many pairs of shoes can be made from a single cow? Consider a spherical cow. :-)
And a Dover reprint: "How to Calculate Quickly" which has many of the tricks and rules of thumb people used to all know before calculators.
From my "antiquarian" collection I have a number of "arithmetic" textbooks (all pre-1930) that have lots of little rules of thumb for checking sums and products - many are familiar to accountants. Also great chapters like "Arithmetic of Thrift", "Arithmetic of Agriculture", etc. with problems like "...girls in a class in millinery need 20 yd. of ribbon..."
Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible.
Somehow this message seems funnier on a site about new internet protocol than your typical slashdotted site.
The auto companies would not have joined a voluntary system mentioned if they hadn't known what they were doing was verging in to antitrust. Their claims in the article are PR smokescreens and spin.
Strictly, I agree that technology is neutral. However people who control it may not be. Even if people are individually neutral, the organizations they occupy may not be neutral and the individual cease to be in those groups.
I quite aware of the US military current dominance of space; I'm personally responsible for much of that. I'm not sure you are familiar with what is being proposed to accelerate that domination well beyond what exists now. I'm also familiar with the slight of hand that occurs when these types of projects are proposed and funded. What's said publically is generally not what's planned or talked about behind closed doors.
My only concern is that must of what's on the table for "anti-asteroid" technology is, not surprisingly, the same technology being proposed for "US military domination of space". If it weren't for the recent Bush/Rumsfeld/PNAC/Iraq shenanigans I might give the government the benefit of the doubt. However, I'm dubious about this whole concept.
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/
Actually Ericcson specifically did endorse the upgrade path. The letter that comes with the "upgrade T226" specifically mentions that it's a join AT&T/Sony-Ericcson upgrade program. I'd even bet that AT&T is getting them for free in exchange for the advertising value for Sony-Ericcson. That's how these joint marketing programs usually work.
Where does one begin?
Tried the phone for a couple of hours and just gave up on it. Sent it back. Thankfully you can switch the SIM card back to the old phone so easily. If you have a T68, you are stepping way down with this phone! BMW to Yugo. You're a fool if you keep it. And now, of course, it'll be a case of once bitten, twice shy if they try it again.
I don't know who to blame more: AT&T or Sony-Ericson. For AT&T, this will go down as one the stupidest tech marketing blunders in a while! For Sony-Ericson, well, the engineering team that designed the T226 should be taken out and shot. At the very least they should barred from designing any consumer electronic product - for life!
When the T68 came out I thought maybe Ericson might finally have figured out what Nokia does right - with this phone it's apparent the T68 was just a lucky, but utterly random accident. :-p
Some contractor examples made me consider it:
My friend wanted plenty of electrical sockets so though he spec'ed 3 per wall, he wanted to make sure that it was being done right. Drives out to the job site and finds the contractor and country inspector do the last walk-through on the outlets and such. My friend looks at the outlets and notices that the ground was nicely screwed into the junction box wall... except the junction boxes were all PVC plastic. My friend calls them over and say "do you anything wrong with this outlet box?" "Nope, looks fine!" "It's not supposed to be screwed into a plastic box...!" "Hey, it's OK. The code says to do that" The county inspector nods approvingly. "Ah, do you know why you need to ground that line?" "Well, yeah, you can get electrocuted - electricity's dangerous!" "Ok, so how does grounding protect you?" "Well, the power can go through the ground instead of you" "Yes, ok. So if the ground is connected to plastic, which doesn't conduct electricity, how do that ground protect you?" They both think for a minute, and in horror look at each other. Apparently neither of them was available for a few weeks as the contractor and inpector went back to several hundred other new homes, "just to check them one more time". ;-p
Same house, same contractor. My friend has a long driveway going down a hill. He wanted 24V lighting in the concrete retaining wall along the wall. He drops by and notices that the contractor has a spool of 22 gauge telephone wire out next to the cement forms. "Ah, aren't you going to use a heavier gauge than that?" "Oh no, this is low voltage stuff! You don't big stuff" "Yes, low voltage but it's a 500 ft run. The current.." "Hey don't worry about, I know what I'm doing" "Ok, so you'll test it before they pour the concrete tomorrow?" "Yeah, sure." Well, you know he didn't test it under days after the pour. As expected, the light went on in the upper third and then got gradually dimmer and none were lit on the lower third. After ~$5K spent by the contractor paying to demolish the wall, repipe and wire with 10 gauge, and laying a new wall, the lights worked perfectly.
So in this context, I began thinking, WTF, given that I clearly know what I'm doing compared to the "competition" and they're making $80-120K per year (this is in 1984!), what would I be making and and how does that compare to the low-ball job offer I just got for $25K a year at Northrup? The problem was I know I have a craving for having things "interesting" and "challenging". I didn't take the lame Northrup offer (they were actually surprised I wasn't kissing their feet for amount they offered! Bastard PhDs! To them BSEE meant overpaid technician!) I strongly suspected I'd get bored far too soon as an electrical contractor (even with the money). I went to work at a military think-tank instead, which was a pretty wild time. And the rest is history... :-)
I have, however, had many jobs in many wildly different fields. My rule of thumb has always been: if job stops being "fun" more than 50% of the time, it's time to look for something new. No job is fun 100% of the time but 50% isn't an unreasonable expectation IMO. Each time I've been well stretched and well challenged. It's gotten to the point that the only Myers-Briggs recommended job for my personality that I haven't done yet is being a lawyer!
Nerd with an MBA
The reality is that value of your smarts to society as a whole is entirely fungible (your word-of-the-day) and largely determined by that image, for better or for worse. You may have your own internal compass of self-worth; bravo! it's a wonderful thing and I don't begrudge you it. But it won't buy you a cup of coffee.
The mass media is simply a reflection of a greater collective value assertion on your community and indirectly on you personally. You (like every other human being) have limits to your brilliance, power and control. One of those limits is on how you are valued in terms of economic and social resource allocation. Your allocation of those resources (aka Jobs, Mates, Favors, Respect, etc.) are solely dependent on your value to others as that value is perceived by others. Your only means of control is to be aware of and exert influence on that perception (sometimes called "marketing yourself" - yes, I know, despicable).
Is it unfair that people may judge your value as a person based on a stereotype of "the nerd"? Yes and no. They have a right to decide how to allocate the resources they possess; with that includes the right to decide the means for testing and assessing the value of what will be exchanged (you, your personality and your skills) for those resources. A lot of people might think justifications for case-modding and overclocking are unfair and foolish ways of valuing resources. But it's your money, your case and your CPU, and thus your right to decide how you chose to make your value decisions.
People use stereotypes and perceptions to avoid thinking too much. This is anathema to nerds since we do a lot thinking, enjoy thinking and respect thinking. Nonetheless, thinking takes time and energy. An entirely rational strategy followed by most humans is to "play the numbers" and use heuristic substitutes for detailed analytic thinking. If the heuristic is right 80% of the time but you spent only 20% of the effort that thinking would require, aren't you ahead of the game? Absolutely. But we nerds do it also.
Ask yourself this: do I rationally analyze every purchase I make or do I mostly just buy a brand I know? I mean, absolutely every purchase; like every time I buy toothpaste do I send it out for analysis to assure quality control? Of course not. You buy <insert your familiar brand> rather than intensely investigate what you're buying each time you make a purchase. This is what "branding" is: sidestepping the cost of rational economic analysis by relying on a symbolic representation and promise of a product that meets a need. You choose (explicitly or implicitly) to hold a belief that the product does what you expect, for example, due to the presumption that manufacturing is performed according to familiar, rational practices and processes so that the next time you buy a Coca Cola or an Athlon, it will probably be just as good as the last one. This is reasonable, but not a strictly rational belief or axiom. You are playing the odds on it, using your own stereotype (aka a brand perception) to convince yourself that you don't need to think about it. Go to some developing nation some time and you'll see product quality variance that may force you to question that assumption.
So why do I (you) need to worry about what the mass media thinks about me? Well, I won't say "worry" is the right word. Specifically, your value to society is on the line with how you and your profession is perceived. Economic, social and romantic decisions are being made right this minute based on it! You should be aware of the implications of what a negative image means in terms of your career and personal satisfaction. How important those are to you is your privilege to decide how important you decide they are
I only know anything about it because I've had my feet deep in both fields: computers/electronics and biotechnology/biology. The core heuristic of human thought is usually extrapolation of the familiar. :-)
I think this is related to the feedback/feedforward nature of most parsers as they encounter syntax errors, try to re-align, fail to do so (in relation to the bugginess of the code), and then cascade into a flurry on actually nonexistent "errors". As you correct the errors, parser realignment begins to happen correctly more often and more regularity appears.
In a sense there is a potentially "musical" element to that as it generates a holistic pattern space like music. The proper mapping is more likely something similar to a "fractal dimension" or something linearly linked to pitch, or to a generative music parameter: ultra buggy code generates something like John Cage progressing to improvised jazz to pop to something highly organized like martial or baroque music. Of course then you have to know music well enough to "hear" what your compiler is telling you. :-)
> to create models of virii and their effects on
> cells.
Not even close! You can only simulate something on a computer that has a model in the first place. That's what this research is about in the first place. Computers do not create models. Computers are driven by models. Humans create those models that drive computers. Humans create those models by validating hypothetical, human-contrived, models against empirical observation (such as come from creating pathological viruses and seeing how deadly they are). Models only predict when they are validated empirically and are only improved by empirically comparison: reality is the only truth.
There are no sufficiently accurate cell or virus models in existence that could begin to realistic assess if a virus can or can not be pathogenic from first-principles (DNA mutations, etc.). Trusting models that exist today to human lives is nearly as dangerous as playing with a pathogenic virus as described in the article. That's how crude they are! It will be decades before sufficiently better models exist. It will only be through these types of experiments that such a model could ever exist.
Currently biologist have the raw data for genomics (DNA sequences) based on the DNA a handful of people out of 5 billion(!), but the actual biological implications of a model aren't simply defined by genomics. The next layer is proteomics (how proteins from some arbitrary source mRNA are created, folded and embued with biological activity), and then the next layer, the total black hole of the hour: enzyme and metabolic "circuits" in N-space. Most of the knowledge of proteomics and enzyme pathways is utterly primitive at best. Actually predicting phenomena theoretically from first principles (which is what you are suggesting can be done in lieu of empirical testing) is utterly impossible now and probably will remain so for many decades to come in the best case scenario.
To put this in perspective: imagine you are a 19th century scientist or engineer with fresh knowledge of Maxwell's and Newton, but no concept of Quantum Mechanics (1920s) or Linear Circuit Theory (1930s) or Semiconductor Physics (1940s) or Computer Design (1950s) or Integrated Circuits (1960s) or Microprocessors (1970s) or OO Software Design (1980s) or the Web (1990s).
Now imagine someone says tells: "Hey you (Mr. 19th Century), you can predict how this Athlon microprocessor can be used by two people on opposite sides of the world to communicate instantly over a network, just based on what you know now and extrapolating from first principles..." You might have an inkling that it might somehow be possible given telegraphy and telephones at the time, but whatever you came up with would never predict spam, porn, identify theft or other pathological/pathogenic outcomes.
Right now, molecular biology is at a similar point to where electronic/electric technology was in the late 19th century. Most stuff is done empirically. Biological procedure is a craft and art as much as a science and process. Theories and systematic procedures exist but they tend to be valid "one-off" only. Automation in biology is almost out of the 18th century rather than the 21st century.
There is an ethical question certainly, but it's not black-and-white, and computers can not be substituted for taking certain risks. The only question is one of risk-assessment and of ethics given those risks.