BTW, the DOE page that your worldwatch page points to indicates that lighting accounts for only about 3.3% of energy use in homes! A far cry from 34%! Maybe someone lost a decimal somewhere.
In home use in many areas, lighting is completely insignificant. HVAC dominates. The refrigerator is a distant second, followed by electric hot water (if used), and the rest is lost in the noise.
And when it is hot, it's better from an energy conservation viewpoint to block the outside light (and heat) and use artificial light inside.
The major problem with formal specification and verification is that the process is _at least_ as complex and error prone as the program you're verifying. And unlike the program (which can be tested), there's no real-world validity checking for your verification, so you could be completely off-base and never notice. So you end up going through a grindingly tedious process for no real gain.
Slashdot guilt-by-association subnet blocking sucks. I'm running out of places to post, and I have a cursed STATIC IP.
You're talking about a guy who came up with a diabolical plan involving taking over commercial airplanes to knock down several large, occupied buildings, successfully executed said plan, and you're objecting to the idea that he has an underground lair? The man's certainly supervillian material (though more Bond than comic book, I'll grant you).
Your "civil disobedience" is equivalent to a pre-Constantine Christian making a date with the authorities to be fed to a lion. The lion is happy to be fed, the rulers are happy there's one less Christian, and any onlookers enjoy the spectacle.
No matter what the unjust law nowadays, no one cares if you rot in jail for breaking it. If you break it openly and notoriously, you simply are assured of rotting in jail (and enjoy all the comforts and servicing the other prisoners provide). Those who are against you or apathetic just see you as another criminal. Many of those who even sympathize with your cause will see you as a criminal and figure you deserve what you got. Those who don't see you that way will see your cause as trivial compared to some other cause civil disobedience has been used for (usually civil rights), and figure you still deserve what you got.
Civil disobedience is obselete. The system has adapted to it.
No cartoonish supervillians? I can think of one. He's got a long beard and a penchant for knocking down occupied buildings.
Besides, wouldn't you really want to sock it to Carey Sherman, Bill Gates, Michael Eisner, or the like? OK, so this may technically make YOU a cartoonish supervillian, but hey, that's just a matter of perspective, right?
As for activism, raising awareness, getting others involved in politics, etc... you'll have better luck with the batsuit and cape. The system has had years to figure out ways to neutralize and co-opt THOSE methods of change.
...we're just saying that maybe you want to stay inside for the next few days. Perhaps underground. If you decide otherwise and see an unexpected meteor shower, please give us a call.
The system _is_ truly stable. It has adapted to every method for changing it by making those methods ineffective. After 220+ years, it has settled down to stasis; there is no longer any usable mechanism for change for the better.
Voting doesn't help; you're voting for one member of the existing system, or another of the same, or you're voting for someone who can't win.
Worse, if you DO manage to vote out the incumbent, the rules of the House and Senate assure he has no real influence until he's been around for a while and therefore has fully aligned his interests with those of the system.
Letter-writing doesn't work -- such campaigns are often ignored, and those who prefer the status quo can and do mobilize their own campaigns.
Demonstrations don't work. If they're peaceful, they're ignored. If they're violent, the side opposing the status quo gets blamed. If they're peaceful and too big to be ignored, agents provocateur ensure they become violent, thus discrediting them.
Civil disobedience doesn't work; the penalties are too high, and once you've been convicted of a felony you've forfeited your political viability within the system -- as well as your chances of even making a decent living. Nobody cares if you're rotting in jail for violating an unjust law; you're just a criminal.
Even bribery (legalized or otherwise) won't work. Those supporting the status quo have more money. And the campaign finance laws are set up (not coincidentally) to help out the incumbents; those who have the most to gain by maintaining the status quo.
Let's say, against all odds, that this campaign from EFF prevents the rider from being introduced or prevents it from being attached to the bill. What does this do? Nothing, really; they'll just do it again and again until eventually they win. Even if we stay vigilant, they only have to get lucky once. The only thing that will stymie them is a Supreme Court smackdown on Constitutional grounds, and that's not in the cards.
Check again, Mr. Coward. I think you'll find that at least some of the following conditions apply
1) Your job ads are so ridiculously overspecified that you're asking for people who don't exist -- e.g. 10 years of experience in several disparate fields
2) Your job ads are simply wrong; e.g. you're looking for a highly experienced developer but asking for only two years of experience.
3) Your human resources department (or recruiter) is separating the wheat from the chaff and throwing away the wheat.
If you're starting your own software business, you're hardly going to be remaining in your cubicle all day. Assuming you have the aptitude for it (and I think the majority of technical types don't), you'll be spending the majority of your time dealing with the business aspects.
There's something to be said for division of labor; not everyone can do the code AND find the clients AND run the business. Unfortunately when that division results in your skills only being required in India, you're screwed.
Anyone can make a straight-line extrapolation of current trends... and be both boring AND entirely off-base. If that's what mundane SF is about, skip it.
Besides, claiming "artificial intelligence" as likely is pretty non-mundane; it's been worked on as long as practical fusion power, and to as little result. Objecting to impossibilities of modern physics (FTL, teleportation, etc) while swallowing whole equal impossibilities in other fields (replicants, much of SF-style nanotech) is pointless. Why do they do it? Because they've got a political agenda, of course:
"That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth."
The problem is some people and organizations -- particularly including publishers -- are lawsuit-averse to a fault. They'll insist you get permission for every single quote you use, every excerpt from a song, news article, etc, and yes, every screen shot. They don't want to be sued, even if they're right. And they know damn well that the courts could come down against them.
Not much you can do about that attitude, unless you have a few million dollars to publish, promote, and distribute it yourself.
NO ONE accidently looks at 150 kiddy porn images in one night.
Sure about that? What if it was some malicious site which created tons of pop-ups containing said images? (And what if that malicious site was run by the government, as a sting?)
Many crimes are "strict liability" offenses, no mens rea required. And the Feds have gotten child porn convictions on such flimsy scenarios as
1) They (the Feds) sent a guy some child porn. 2) He picked it up at the post office. 3) He threw it away, UNOPENED 4) The Feds recovered it and arrested him for possession.
The Betamax case ruled that recording things off of TV was fair use. However, the lifetime of that case is likely very short unless the Chief Justice is unable to participate in the vote in MGM v Grokster.
Boucher is the free-speech side's token politician. He never actually manages to get anything through committee, and certainly never gets it passed, and he never actually intends to.
Rather, he's there to maintain the fiction of balance, and the hope of possibility of change for the better through the established political process. By doing so, he siphons off efforts which would be better put towards forcing change through other means, AND provides an excuse for fans of the system to tell those who are violating the laws to just simmer down and work through the political process.
This ruling doesn't really have broader application; it was a ruling by a California court, not a Federal one. What did Borders expect, that California was going to decide it couldn't tax them?
If they wanted to argue they didn't have a California nexus, they should have arranged for the case to be in Federal court.
The guy's mostly trolling. He calls himself "The Devil's Advocate", so it's not like he's not being up front about it.
But, he's basically right about the obselescence of the PPC Mac. Game developers are a bad example because they hate porting to the Mac in the first place, but I'm sure developers will abandon the PPC faster than Steve Jobs would like.
The 3.6 Ghz P4 beating a 2.7Ghz G5... uhh, not really a surprise. Beating a dual in some cases? Probably cases where one processor was idle. This rather demonstrates the problem with the PPC, one he denied in an earlier article -- it's not keeping up.
Classic support? Uhh, yeah. Apple has a huge base of people who need their 5+ year old Classic apps to run on their brand-spanking-new machines. (There's two or three guys who troll comp.sys.mac.system, I think that's about it. They'll buy the new machines just to have more to complain about). And I love the way Kheit's link "work in publishing" points to someone who says nothing about Classic and doesn't work in publishing.
Disclaimer: I think this move likely WILL kill Apple as a computer company. A Mac which can run Windows apps at reasonable speed will result in developers who don't bother to make Mac versions even when substantial portions of their market are Mac users. Then Mac users will note they're spending an awful lot of time in Virtual PC, and they'll just buy a PC next time, resulting in a death spiral.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, the DOE page that your worldwatch page points to indicates that lighting accounts for only about 3.3% of energy use in homes! A far cry from 34%! Maybe someone lost a decimal somewhere.
In home use in many areas, lighting is completely insignificant. HVAC dominates. The refrigerator is a distant second, followed by electric hot water (if used), and the rest is lost in the noise. And when it is hot, it's better from an energy conservation viewpoint to block the outside light (and heat) and use artificial light inside.
The major problem with formal specification and verification is that the process is _at least_ as complex and error prone as the program you're verifying. And unlike the program (which can be tested), there's no real-world validity checking for your verification, so you could be completely off-base and never notice. So you end up going through a grindingly tedious process for no real gain.
Slashdot guilt-by-association subnet blocking sucks. I'm running out of places to post, and I have a cursed STATIC IP.
Scenario 3) Someone neither buys nor downloads a new record. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Scenario 4) Someone buys the record. Record company engages in creative accounting. Result: Artist doesn't get the royalty.
Seems no matter what the scenario, the result is the same. So either the result mustn't be all that's important, or every action is equally bad.
You're talking about a guy who came up with a diabolical plan involving taking over commercial airplanes to knock down several large, occupied buildings, successfully executed said plan, and you're objecting to the idea that he has an underground lair? The man's certainly supervillian material (though more Bond than comic book, I'll grant you).
Your "civil disobedience" is equivalent to a pre-Constantine Christian making a date with the authorities to be fed to a lion. The lion is happy to be fed, the rulers are happy there's one less Christian, and any onlookers enjoy the spectacle.
No matter what the unjust law nowadays, no one cares if you rot in jail for breaking it. If you break it openly and notoriously, you simply are assured of rotting in jail (and enjoy all the comforts and servicing the other prisoners provide). Those who are against you or apathetic just see you as another criminal. Many of those who even sympathize with your cause will see you as a criminal and figure you deserve what you got. Those who don't see you that way will see your cause as trivial compared to some other cause civil disobedience has been used for (usually civil rights), and figure you still deserve what you got.
Civil disobedience is obselete. The system has adapted to it.
No cartoonish supervillians? I can think of one. He's got a long beard and a penchant for knocking down occupied buildings.
Besides, wouldn't you really want to sock it to Carey Sherman, Bill Gates, Michael Eisner, or the like? OK, so this may technically make YOU a cartoonish supervillian, but hey, that's just a matter of perspective, right?
As for activism, raising awareness, getting others involved in politics, etc... you'll have better luck with the batsuit and cape. The system has had years to figure out ways to neutralize and co-opt THOSE methods of change.
...we're just saying that maybe you want to stay inside for the next few days. Perhaps underground. If you decide otherwise and see an unexpected meteor shower, please give us a call.
The system _is_ truly stable. It has adapted to every method for changing it by making those methods ineffective. After 220+ years, it has settled down to stasis; there is no longer any usable mechanism for change for the better.
Voting doesn't help; you're voting for one member of the existing system, or another of the same, or you're voting for someone who can't win.
Worse, if you DO manage to vote out the incumbent, the rules of the House and Senate assure he has no real influence until he's been around for a while and therefore has fully aligned his interests with those of the system.
Letter-writing doesn't work -- such campaigns are often ignored, and those who prefer the status quo can and do mobilize their own campaigns.
Demonstrations don't work. If they're peaceful, they're ignored. If they're violent, the side opposing the status quo gets blamed. If they're peaceful and too big to be ignored, agents provocateur ensure they become violent, thus discrediting them.
Civil disobedience doesn't work; the penalties are too high, and once you've been convicted of a felony you've forfeited your political viability within the system -- as well as your chances of even making a decent living. Nobody cares if you're rotting in jail for violating an unjust law; you're just a criminal.
Even bribery (legalized or otherwise) won't work. Those supporting the status quo have more money. And the campaign finance laws are set up (not coincidentally) to help out the incumbents; those who have the most to gain by maintaining the status quo.
I believe James Traficant was the last member of Congress to get caught taking bribes.
Since ABSCAM, most congresscritters have wised up and figured out how to get the bribes without technically breaking laws or getting caught.
...time to curse the darkness.
Let's say, against all odds, that this campaign from EFF prevents the rider from being introduced or prevents it from being attached to the bill. What does this do? Nothing, really; they'll just do it again and again until eventually they win. Even if we stay vigilant, they only have to get lucky once. The only thing that will stymie them is a Supreme Court smackdown on Constitutional grounds, and that's not in the cards.
Somewhat off-topic, but Wachovia doesn't help things by having a NON-SECURE sign-on page -- Wachovia's home page.
Check again, Mr. Coward. I think you'll find that at least some of the following conditions apply
1) Your job ads are so ridiculously overspecified that you're asking for people who don't exist -- e.g. 10 years of experience in several disparate fields
2) Your job ads are simply wrong; e.g. you're looking for a highly experienced developer but asking for only two years of experience.
3) Your human resources department (or recruiter) is separating the wheat from the chaff and throwing away the wheat.
If you're starting your own software business, you're hardly going to be remaining in your cubicle all day. Assuming you have the aptitude for it (and I think the majority of technical types don't), you'll be spending the majority of your time dealing with the business aspects.
There's something to be said for division of labor; not everyone can do the code AND find the clients AND run the business. Unfortunately when that division results in your skills only being required in India, you're screwed.
That the remaining jobs are in areas where geeks are typically short in skills.
The good news....
It IS Gartner, meaning there's a damn good chance that analysis is a steaming pile of BS.
"REAL" stories may well be about people and how they deal with the world around them, but SF ain't. SF began partially as a rejection of that.
Anyone can make a straight-line extrapolation of current trends... and be both boring AND entirely off-base. If that's what mundane SF is about, skip it.
Besides, claiming "artificial intelligence" as likely is pretty non-mundane; it's been worked on as long as practical fusion power, and to as little result. Objecting to impossibilities of modern physics (FTL, teleportation, etc) while swallowing whole equal impossibilities in other fields (replicants, much of SF-style nanotech) is pointless. Why do they do it? Because they've got a political agenda, of course:
"That this dream of abundance can encourage a wasteful attitude to the abundance that is here on Earth."
Right. Since mpix is used to dealing with professional images, they aren't going to refuse to print yours because they look "too professional".
Of course, this means they've got their ass hanging out in the breeze if someone uses them to reproduce another photographer's copyrighted works.
The problem is some people and organizations -- particularly including publishers -- are lawsuit-averse to a fault. They'll insist you get permission for every single quote you use, every excerpt from a song, news article, etc, and yes, every screen shot. They don't want to be sued, even if they're right. And they know damn well that the courts could come down against them.
Not much you can do about that attitude, unless you have a few million dollars to publish, promote, and distribute it yourself.
Many crimes are "strict liability" offenses, no mens rea required. And the Feds have gotten child porn convictions on such flimsy scenarios as
1) They (the Feds) sent a guy some child porn.
2) He picked it up at the post office.
3) He threw it away, UNOPENED
4) The Feds recovered it and arrested him for possession.
The Betamax case ruled that recording things off of TV was fair use. However, the lifetime of that case is likely very short unless the Chief Justice is unable to participate in the vote in MGM v Grokster.
Boucher is the free-speech side's token politician. He never actually manages to get anything through committee, and certainly never gets it passed, and he never actually intends to.
Rather, he's there to maintain the fiction of balance, and the hope of possibility of change for the better through the established political process. By doing so, he siphons off efforts which would be better put towards forcing change through other means, AND provides an excuse for fans of the system to tell those who are violating the laws to just simmer down and work through the political process.
Remember, he voted for the DMCA.
This ruling doesn't really have broader application; it was a ruling by a California court, not a Federal one. What did Borders expect, that California was going to decide it couldn't tax them?
If they wanted to argue they didn't have a California nexus, they should have arranged for the case to be in Federal court.
The guy's mostly trolling. He calls himself "The Devil's Advocate", so it's not like he's not being up front about it.
But, he's basically right about the obselescence of the PPC Mac. Game developers are a bad example because they hate porting to the Mac in the first place, but I'm sure developers will abandon the PPC faster than Steve Jobs would like.
The 3.6 Ghz P4 beating a 2.7Ghz G5... uhh, not really a surprise. Beating a dual in some cases? Probably cases where one processor was idle. This rather demonstrates the problem with the PPC, one he denied in an earlier article -- it's not keeping up.
Classic support? Uhh, yeah. Apple has a huge base of people who need their 5+ year old Classic apps to run on their brand-spanking-new machines. (There's two or three guys who troll comp.sys.mac.system, I think that's about it. They'll buy the new machines just to have more to complain about). And I love the way Kheit's link "work in publishing" points to someone who says nothing about Classic and doesn't work in publishing.
Disclaimer: I think this move likely WILL kill Apple as a computer company. A Mac which can run Windows apps at reasonable speed will result in developers who don't bother to make Mac versions even when substantial portions of their market are Mac users. Then Mac users will note they're spending an awful lot of time in Virtual PC, and they'll just buy a PC next time, resulting in a death spiral.