People who believe not only that CO2 is the primary cause of warming, but that the man-made component of CO2 in the atmosphere is the primary cause of warming are simply gullible beyond belief. They have fallen for a scam, plain and simple.
The only way to believe such foolishness is to never have studied the millions of years of temperature fluctuations throughout the Earth's recent history. True believers in AGW have to deny the existence of the two Holocene optimums, the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period, plus the cooling phases in between them such as the Little Ice Age, etc. Then they base their entire belief system on an increase in CO2 during the warming from the LIA back to temperatures that are normal for the current interglacial climate (the Holocene). They mistakenly assume the increase in CO2 is the cause of the warming that occurred due to other factors, and presto: AGW is born.
The terrible science behind AGW does serve one "useful" purpose: it has become the basis for a variety of scams to regulate, tax and trade CO2, and that is why it is still being hyped in spite of disasters such as Climategate. There is too much money at stake for the AGW scammers to simply give up and walk away. Governments want the tax revenue from regulating CO2. Congress recently submitted budget projections to the CBO (used to estimate the size of future deficits) which included $873 Billion in tax revenue from regulating CO2 over a 10 year period. That is 873 billion reasons for them to want AGW to be believed to be true. It is not only governments. Some businesses want the transaction fees and profits from trading CO2 permits. Estimates of the size of those markets vary, but they are all measured in TRILLIONS of dollars. Other businesses want the handouts and competitive advantages they have been promised in return for their support for cap-and-trade schemes.
Better hypotheses to explain Earth's constantly changing climate exist, but they all have to do with mechanisms that affect the Earth's albedo (reflectivity) and/or the amount of radiation reaching the Earth. These include variations in the amount of radiation from the Sun, the combined magnetic field strength of the Sun and the Earth with respect to cosmic rays forming aerosol particles in the Earth's atmosphere, variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, and so on. Other important forcings include oceanic/atmospheric circulation patterns such as the PDO, NAO, etc. However, none of the causes from any of these competing hypotheses can be regulated or taxed or traded - which is the primary reason the failed AGW hypothesis is still being hyped.
Meanwhile, the current grand solar minimum of solar cycle 24 combined the PDO entering a cooling phase essentially guarantees that the next 30 years will have gradually cooling temperatures. This process has already begun (the transition from warming to cooling occurred during the 2000's), and the effects of the cooling are starting to be noticed by more and more people over time. Incredibly, the AGW scammers are now trying to convince people that global warming leads to global cooling. Fortunately, most people with an ounce of common sense are not buying that B.S. anymore. The scammers are also trying to shift their AGW scare tactics away from temperature trends (which are not cooperating) toward ocean acidification instead.
At this point, with the competing hypotheses finally being disseminated and published (after being successfully suppressed for so long), I don't believe they are going to have much luck with their AGW re-branding efforts. The only thing I can be sure of is that they will keep on trying.
This thread represents a sort of "tipping point" for me. The uninformed, mis-informed and flat out childish posts far outnumber the relative handful of posts worth reading. It is part of a trend I have been noticing more and more on/., and can no longer ignore.
The simple solution: I won't waste any more time visiting this site in the future. Signing off now. Be careful out there.
I used to think Joel knew what he was talking about. As usual, he sort of does but mainly, he does not. In this case, Joel has his head up his ass regarding compensation. Once you land at a company as a permanent employee, you frequently learn quite a few new skills (new tools, architectures, etc), as well as gain practical experience in the application of those skills. As a result, your value on the market goes shooting up dramatically, but you as an employee are limited to the standard 4% annual raise. The only way to cash in on what your knowledge and experience are truly worth is to jump to a new company every few years. The people that stay with a company for a very long time (thereby giving up raises of 30% or more in the process) are NOT the best and the brightest - so Joel is wrong again.
Also, he has completely overlooked the entire fields of contracting and consulting, both of which are project-based. You work on a project, you finish a project, and then it is time to find another project (usually through a different staffing firm). As a result of both of these phenomenon, good people are on the market every few years, or more frequently if they are doing contract work.
Certain specific skillsets in most markets are experiencing negative unemployment levels... in other words, all available people with any experience whatsoever are already taken, and there are not enough people to go around. The tech bust dramatically reduced the supply of techies, and now it does not take all that much demand to completely use up that relatively small supply.
If you want to hire techies, you have three alternatives:
1) be prepared to pounce on anyone that does become available due to normal turnover (takes time and patience). 2) grow your own internally via training (takes even more time and patience, and is not guaranteed to work). 3) take them away from other companies (which can be very expensive).
JIT compiled languages give you native binaries... don't group.NET with python, et al - it makes no sense to do so.
Do you really not understand the difference, or are you simply a fan of some of the interpreted languages and are looking to manufacture some sort of fake equivalence as an excuse to use them?
Your argument amounts to "we will have a huge amount of ram and CPU cycles, therefore we can feel free to waste them on interpreted code rather than compiled native binaries". Huh? Good luck with that - I am sticking with.NET and C#.
"violence of poverty"? Sorry. That phrase alone is all the information I need to understand that your head is packed full of organic fertilizer (I thought you might appreciate the reference to "organic" material - shit, in this case). All subsequent points you were trying to make were rendered irrelevant by the stupidity inherent in those two initial sentences.
Lamest troll post in a loooong time. If there is any discrimination out there, it is the reverse kind, where minorities receive preferential treatment to fill quotas. Get real.
The C# language borrows heavily from both C and Java (very similar syntax). The big difference is in the.Net architecture and the nature of the runtime.
In Java, the virtual machine (VM) is the mechanism for cross-platform code execution. The VM is a standard computer platform implememted as a native executable - in short, it is an emulator. If you have ever worked with any emulators, you know they are neither fast nor efficient. Most of Java's problems stem from the limitations of the emulator (VM).
In.Net, on the other hand, the Intermediate Language (IL) is the cross-platform standard. All.Net programming languages are translated into IL (sort of like Java bytecode, but... not really). There is no emulator. All IL code is compiled into a native executable at runtime, and linked into the CLR, which can be thought of as the mother of all DLL's.
.Net also adds back much of the C/C++ functionality that was removed from Java. I personally use Visual Studio to write web applications and web services, but then deploy them to Mono running on Linux/Apache. Mono smart clients running on Linux are not quite there yet, but then again, neither is Linux on the desktop.
As a former hard-core J2EE designer/developer, I can honestly say that my productivity using Visual Studio and C# has increased by a factor of 5 to 10 times over what it was using various Java IDE's, mainly due to the distributed debugging and the relative simplicity of the C# language itself (no more unlearning/relearning due to constant deprecation). Hope that helps.
Actually, downloads do not attract that sort of attention from the broadband ISP's. They are targeting and eliminating customers that run servers. Not just occasional servers, like a personal web page or blog, but the type of servers that see a lot of traffic 7 x 24. Heavy and continuous P2P traffic is a good example of the type of usage that they are trying to eliminate. They use the conditions of their EULA as an excuse to get rid of these customers. You can "cut down" on your download bandwidth usage all you want, and it will have no effect on their behaviour. If you continue to run a P2P server, they will terminate your service eventually.
especially since there is no way to stop the PHB's from implementing the latest short-sighted "strategery du-jour" that periodically gets planted in their tiny little brains. The solution is two-fold:
First, begin the process of starting your own company. Think services, think consulting, that sort of thing (I am in the midst of this process right now). It is basically the same work, under different circumstances and with the additional work of marketing/selling and customer relations thrown into the mix. Get used to it - this is what the future holds for most of us, ready or not.
Second, after some time as passed and the PHB's have been forced to belatedly realize that they went too far with the whole outsourcing thing, charge them a LOT of money for the services you provide.
p.s. Try not to make the same mistakes as the PHB's when it is eventually your turn in the driver's seat.
Microsoft paid good money for that study. If you take it seriously, that just proves your last remaining brain cell has died. The more you dig for details the more ridiculous their claims are. If you want the truth, read the article on the register, and check out the IBM study a this link...
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul 2002.pdf
I have been through this dance before (I design large mission-critical computer systems for a living). The words "spanning tree" caught my immediate attention, since I have faced similar issues while trying to build Ethernet networks into an approximation of a mesh topology. It can be done, but it tends to be fragile, and it is REALLY easy to introduce loops if you are not careful. The solution: ATM. (I know - insert derisive laughter here) ATM was designed for mesh topologies, and incorporates a least-cost-routing algorithm to help traffic negotiate the multiple paths between network nodes efficiently. It is a great solution to form the core section of a campus backbone, with edge devices to translate between Ethernet and ATM for traffic to and from the network clients. It will never happen though. ATM is not even on people's radar screens, much less actively considered for deployment. I have had no luck suggesting it as a solution in my network designs either. *SIGH*
Slashdot Mirror
The OP reads like a press release... What's with the slanted and/or biased infomercials showing up as posts these days?
People who believe not only that CO2 is the primary cause of warming, but that the man-made component of CO2 in the atmosphere is the primary cause of warming are simply gullible beyond belief. They have fallen for a scam, plain and simple.
The only way to believe such foolishness is to never have studied the millions of years of temperature fluctuations throughout the Earth's recent history. True believers in AGW have to deny the existence of the two Holocene optimums, the Minoan warm period, the Roman warm period, the Medieval warm period, plus the cooling phases in between them such as the Little Ice Age, etc. Then they base their entire belief system on an increase in CO2 during the warming from the LIA back to temperatures that are normal for the current interglacial climate (the Holocene). They mistakenly assume the increase in CO2 is the cause of the warming that occurred due to other factors, and presto: AGW is born.
The terrible science behind AGW does serve one "useful" purpose: it has become the basis for a variety of scams to regulate, tax and trade CO2, and that is why it is still being hyped in spite of disasters such as Climategate. There is too much money at stake for the AGW scammers to simply give up and walk away. Governments want the tax revenue from regulating CO2. Congress recently submitted budget projections to the CBO (used to estimate the size of future deficits) which included $873 Billion in tax revenue from regulating CO2 over a 10 year period. That is 873 billion reasons for them to want AGW to be believed to be true. It is not only governments. Some businesses want the transaction fees and profits from trading CO2 permits. Estimates of the size of those markets vary, but they are all measured in TRILLIONS of dollars. Other businesses want the handouts and competitive advantages they have been promised in return for their support for cap-and-trade schemes.
Better hypotheses to explain Earth's constantly changing climate exist, but they all have to do with mechanisms that affect the Earth's albedo (reflectivity) and/or the amount of radiation reaching the Earth. These include variations in the amount of radiation from the Sun, the combined magnetic field strength of the Sun and the Earth with respect to cosmic rays forming aerosol particles in the Earth's atmosphere, variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, and so on. Other important forcings include oceanic/atmospheric circulation patterns such as the PDO, NAO, etc. However, none of the causes from any of these competing hypotheses can be regulated or taxed or traded - which is the primary reason the failed AGW hypothesis is still being hyped.
Meanwhile, the current grand solar minimum of solar cycle 24 combined the PDO entering a cooling phase essentially guarantees that the next 30 years will have gradually cooling temperatures. This process has already begun (the transition from warming to cooling occurred during the 2000's), and the effects of the cooling are starting to be noticed by more and more people over time. Incredibly, the AGW scammers are now trying to convince people that global warming leads to global cooling. Fortunately, most people with an ounce of common sense are not buying that B.S. anymore. The scammers are also trying to shift their AGW scare tactics away from temperature trends (which are not cooperating) toward ocean acidification instead.
At this point, with the competing hypotheses finally being disseminated and published (after being successfully suppressed for so long), I don't believe they are going to have much luck with their AGW re-branding efforts. The only thing I can be sure of is that they will keep on trying.
This thread represents a sort of "tipping point" for me. The uninformed, mis-informed and flat out childish posts far outnumber the relative handful of posts worth reading. It is part of a trend I have been noticing more and more on /., and can no longer ignore.
The simple solution: I won't waste any more time visiting this site in the future. Signing off now. Be careful out there.
I used to think Joel knew what he was talking about. As usual, he sort of does but mainly, he does not. In this case, Joel has his head up his ass regarding compensation. Once you land at a company as a permanent employee, you frequently learn quite a few new skills (new tools, architectures, etc), as well as gain practical experience in the application of those skills. As a result, your value on the market goes shooting up dramatically, but you as an employee are limited to the standard 4% annual raise. The only way to cash in on what your knowledge and experience are truly worth is to jump to a new company every few years. The people that stay with a company for a very long time (thereby giving up raises of 30% or more in the process) are NOT the best and the brightest - so Joel is wrong again. Also, he has completely overlooked the entire fields of contracting and consulting, both of which are project-based. You work on a project, you finish a project, and then it is time to find another project (usually through a different staffing firm). As a result of both of these phenomenon, good people are on the market every few years, or more frequently if they are doing contract work.
Certain specific skillsets in most markets are experiencing negative unemployment levels... in other words, all available people with any experience whatsoever are already taken, and there are not enough people to go around. The tech bust dramatically reduced the supply of techies, and now it does not take all that much demand to completely use up that relatively small supply.
If you want to hire techies, you have three alternatives:
1) be prepared to pounce on anyone that does become available due to normal turnover (takes time and patience).
2) grow your own internally via training (takes even more time and patience, and is not guaranteed to work).
3) take them away from other companies (which can be very expensive).
Navel gazing has descended to new depths of stupidity... just incredible. What the hell is this crap doing on /.?
JIT compiled languages give you native binaries... don't group .NET with python, et al - it makes no sense to do so.
Do you really not understand the difference, or are you simply a fan of some of the interpreted languages and are looking to manufacture some sort of fake equivalence as an excuse to use them?
Your argument amounts to "we will have a huge amount of ram and CPU cycles, therefore we can feel free to waste them on interpreted code rather than compiled native binaries". Huh? Good luck with that - I am sticking with .NET and C#.
"violence of poverty"? Sorry. That phrase alone is all the information I need to understand that your head is packed full of organic fertilizer (I thought you might appreciate the reference to "organic" material - shit, in this case). All subsequent points you were trying to make were rendered irrelevant by the stupidity inherent in those two initial sentences.
Lamest troll post in a loooong time. If there is any discrimination out there, it is the reverse kind, where minorities receive preferential treatment to fill quotas. Get real.
The C# language borrows heavily from both C and Java (very similar syntax). The big difference is in the .Net architecture and the nature of the runtime.
.Net, on the other hand, the Intermediate Language (IL) is the cross-platform standard. All .Net programming languages are translated into IL (sort of like Java bytecode, but... not really). There is no emulator. All IL code is compiled into a native executable at runtime, and linked into the CLR, which can be thought of as the mother of all DLL's.
.Net also adds back much of the C/C++ functionality that was removed from Java. I personally use Visual Studio to write web applications and web services, but then deploy them to Mono running on Linux/Apache. Mono smart clients running on Linux are not quite there yet, but then again, neither is Linux on the desktop.
In Java, the virtual machine (VM) is the mechanism for cross-platform code execution. The VM is a standard computer platform implememted as a native executable - in short, it is an emulator. If you have ever worked with any emulators, you know they are neither fast nor efficient. Most of Java's problems stem from the limitations of the emulator (VM).
In
As a former hard-core J2EE designer/developer, I can honestly say that my productivity using Visual Studio and C# has increased by a factor of 5 to 10 times over what it was using various Java IDE's, mainly due to the distributed debugging and the relative simplicity of the C# language itself (no more unlearning/relearning due to constant deprecation). Hope that helps.
Actually, downloads do not attract that sort of attention from the broadband ISP's. They are targeting and eliminating customers that run servers. Not just occasional servers, like a personal web page or blog, but the type of servers that see a lot of traffic 7 x 24. Heavy and continuous P2P traffic is a good example of the type of usage that they are trying to eliminate. They use the conditions of their EULA as an excuse to get rid of these customers. You can "cut down" on your download bandwidth usage all you want, and it will have no effect on their behaviour. If you continue to run a P2P server, they will terminate your service eventually.
especially since there is no way to stop the PHB's from implementing the latest short-sighted "strategery du-jour" that periodically gets planted in their tiny little brains. The solution is two-fold: First, begin the process of starting your own company. Think services, think consulting, that sort of thing (I am in the midst of this process right now). It is basically the same work, under different circumstances and with the additional work of marketing/selling and customer relations thrown into the mix. Get used to it - this is what the future holds for most of us, ready or not. Second, after some time as passed and the PHB's have been forced to belatedly realize that they went too far with the whole outsourcing thing, charge them a LOT of money for the services you provide. p.s. Try not to make the same mistakes as the PHB's when it is eventually your turn in the driver's seat.
Microsoft paid good money for that study. If you take it seriously, that just proves your last remaining brain cell has died. The more you dig for details the more ridiculous their claims are. If you want the truth, read the article on the register, and check out the IBM study a this link... http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul 2002.pdf
I have been through this dance before (I design large mission-critical computer systems for a living). The words "spanning tree" caught my immediate attention, since I have faced similar issues while trying to build Ethernet networks into an approximation of a mesh topology. It can be done, but it tends to be fragile, and it is REALLY easy to introduce loops if you are not careful. The solution: ATM. (I know - insert derisive laughter here) ATM was designed for mesh topologies, and incorporates a least-cost-routing algorithm to help traffic negotiate the multiple paths between network nodes efficiently. It is a great solution to form the core section of a campus backbone, with edge devices to translate between Ethernet and ATM for traffic to and from the network clients. It will never happen though. ATM is not even on people's radar screens, much less actively considered for deployment. I have had no luck suggesting it as a solution in my network designs either. *SIGH*