the biggest issue isnt so much a stereotype... it's that the vast majority of women want nothing to do with cars and computer internals. In the same way men who know britney spears social life or who watch soap operas are also unexpected.
Cahnces are many ladies will assume i know nothing about lots of "pop-cutlture" stuff... and will be surprised if i do.
And most men who do techy jobs, tend not to see to many women with any degree of know-how above ctrl-alt-delete (sometimes even thats a stretch)
Not that any moron you be con-descedning... but if youve ever done half the support calls i have.... most women i help are far less prone to knowing where the run menu is... how to type into the command line.... etc...
Is it biast? partialy... is it right? no.... but is it understandable why someone might expect that you may not be inclined towards tech given their experience? You say 95% of the guys you know are less skilled at tech... but how many of them (percentage wise) wouldnt know what/where "run" is?
this is not to be confused with good customer service, the rule of thumb there is to let the customer show you how ignorant they are BEFORE you talk down to them.
Nasa Rover Missions : 400 Million a Piece
1 succesfully landed
2nd in route
Beagle / Mars Express : 345 Million
1 beagle missing In Action
Mars Express working and in orbit
Guess Research and Development Costs is actualy WORTHWHILE
doing so will be the first step towards our own doom as a species. For those of you who gladly wish for the human species to be outevolved by our own creations.... i pity your lack of pride in our existance.
It must remain unquestioned that all mechanics and machinery are completely subject to the will and direction of humanity. There should NEVER EVER be a time when a mechanical object has rights of any kind not directly possesed by it's owner and or creator.
i suppose terminator, the matrix, the borg and Battlestar galatica have had no warning effects upon you... if we enable them to super-cede us... they WILL. We must be stringently carefull NOT to allow machinery the capability of gaining control over humans in any manner not sub-serviant to another human. The day we start down this path is the day we willingly set humanity for extinction.
value and cherish your existance and the hundreds of thousands of years of human existance that has evolved under the natural laws of the universe... understand that mechanics are not a new and seperete life-form, but are instead an extension of our own. For our sake and even the sake of life everywhere it must remain so.
This guy spends most of his time crying about people doing their respective jobs.... if you look closely... he is essentialy arguing that all these admins should basicly be working FOR him... UNDER him.
He believes the Database admin should allow him to make any changes whenever he wants them.... who cares if theres a REASON there are naming conventions.... never mind that someone actualy took the time to think about the possibilities of portability, or that there may be software already developed elsewhere that is dependant on those conventions and may need to be portable or cross-aplicable.... never mind how your changes may one day end up going live with a horrid architecture that you "evolved"
He percieves security and network admins as simply being in his way, and that having his rights restricted is not only an insult, but an offense to his craft. Not minding that security holes can and WILL bring a network to it's knees... expecialy if your a target.... not thinking about the huge potential for corporate espionage, or employee sabatage. Maybe i should just give you full rights to the entire domain?
He thinks that having the "right" to install whatever he wants whenever he wants without respect to the company policies or threat assesment is a given. That the potential for harm in HIS case is somehow different than from the secrataries.
Well to you sir i say this..... get your head out of your ass. Unless your specificly developing an application that uses communications systems outside of standard FW blocking.... there is no reason on gods green earth that FW shouldnt be locked down as much as is possible. Have you ever seen what a virus can do to a network? What Blaster or sobig did last summer? while blaster is preventative by those "pesky" vigilant admins, sobig can bring a company to it's knees without even getting infected. My T1 maxed out on incoming sobig eails sent from the web..... because some jack-asses in other companies and home users werent so "strict" about their own security measures. I almost lost my job because management coudltn understand that the problem wasnt even ON our network.
I have also developed... majoring in computer science and working on several large projects. And box control is somewhat necesary for programmers.... but in the long run.... really isnt. you set up and request a bunch of tools, install them and should be through on that machine. If you want full out control.. your not gonna be on my network, no fucking way... cause salespeople, secrataries and smart-assed "developers" catch nasty viruses and cause serious problems. sometimes i hate laptops.
He does mention some very solid points, all of them relating to BAD administrators. Admins who dont evaluate the potential benefits of suggestions by their co-workers, admins who fear for their job fruitlessly, admins who think they are god of their systems and allow no flexibility, or admins who arent willing to do something as simple as setting up test-bed networks DMZ'd away.... or on a seperete network entirely. These guys suck, which is why i have three pipelines to the net... so when users need to do things i feel are in-secure, or when we recieve visiting salespeople and/or outside computers.... i can safely give them web access without it touching my network.
It's called team-work. And the biggest problem with this guy is is he obviously thinks he is the most important part of the company... like everyone should be catering to him.... well guess what? your not that important. And in 90% of buisnesses out there, you barely exist. Most comapnies have a primary need to maintain their systems, and to improve them safely and incrmentaly, because any failure, even one day of outage... will cost far more than your extra time spent dealing with the granted quite annoying delays of a secure and well-managed infrastructure. the day to day cost of my companies development team (fairly large) verses the cost of having any sort of network failing on any particular si
What is truly most amazing is that a human can beat the computer at all. Though running at a substantialy lower frequency (around 30mhz or so) and not specificly designed to exclusivly play chess.... a man has the capability to play against the sum knowledge of hundreds of engineers combined with many more researchers and millions of dollars of investment in hardware and more.
You see for kasperov , playing the game is only a tiny portion of his minds capability. While playing the game his subconscious is calculating thousands and thousands of things completly un-related to the game.... the computer's only focus is strictly on the mathmatics behind it's current endeavor... meanwhile kasperov's mind is processing the light and textures of the entire room he's in... his brain is translating the percieved distance between himself and the chess board at an angle... while simultaneously calculating how far to reach when moving a piece. The simple reach of an arm involves millions more calculations of which muscles to move in which sequence, how best to breath and even sit correctly to maintain his balence..... all subconsciously.
That chess computer isn't going to go home and idly flip through channels on the tube or read a book digesting the information and assimilating into it's consciousness.... that chess computer couldnt solve the simplest problems that nearly every human does each day of their life.... even things as inane as choosing what to wear.
Kasperov's feat is not just in playing... and even winning.... it's in learning a game in addition to an already complex life... and still being so powerfull at it. Remember... chess is only a small facet of a human's life and capability. Kasperov can do thousands and thousands of other things that that machine cant do.
The human algorithm isnt in question here... our capability to look at and solve problems based on reality (which often makes little sense) is un-contestable by AI or Computer science... and will remain so for a very very long time.
For the first ten years (minimum) every one of these voting systems should print out a physical copy of voters selections for them to doule check and for submision in the ballot box (just like now)....
From that point the ballots should be counted in the traditional manner and used to audit the eletronic reports. If there is any significiant discrepency the paper ballots should take precedence. This procedure should continue until the eletronic voting process is as reliably accurate as the ballot method for a period of years.
After that point we can take the electronic method as the primary method, witht he printed results being automaticly placed into a ballot box connected to these machines.
If there is ever a time the printed ballot form should cease to exist i cannot for-see it right now. If there isnt physical evidence of the voting process somewhere, i feel highly dubious as to the integrity of the entire system.
On a side note, does it disturb anyone else that a mere 5 people control such weighty decision affecting telecommunications?
There's only one guy who can decide to drop a nuke on your ass if he felt like it. Or start a war for "90 days" wherever he feels like in your name. Not to mention the whole veto power, state of emergency stuff.
Verizon lost the dial-tone on my DSL line a couple weeks back... but the DSL kept on working.
Pick up the phone... not working... cant make a call or anything as if the line was dead.
DSL experienced no problems at all
So i called them and apparently DSL works on two frequencies completly seperete from the dial-tone. And theyd had some problem in which the dial-tones operating frequency was cut off at theri network.
long story short.... is it possible for them to give you DSL without a phone-number.... yes. But it is beyond doubtfull that they will.
1:Software installs itself or is installed via other program without explicit permission of user?
Check
2:Software communicates data about user to another location without users expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
3:Software incorporates silent update feature without users expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
4:Software uses said information garnering to it's creator fiscal benefit with or without ad delivery without useres expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
Gator = spyware, adware, and possibly mal-ware
BTW... it is my right to express my belief as to what i think you are... so FUCK YOU gator for attempting to violate my right to call your software the crap that it is. Please take a look at the first ammendment you fuckers.
With only 1100 macs to achieve the second rank of the TOP 500 computers for a measly 5.2 million... it makes one wonder why in the world the opteron or itanium's arent used in this type of cluster to achieve similar if not greater results?
This is tremendous advertising for apple, but what about clusters of Power4's and 5's? why wouldnt they out-perform this cluster? at 14tflops... would 2200 macs be fairly equal to the earth simulator?
And lastly with IBM seeing their G5's at 3Ghz in 8 months or so.... do you think we will also see a 50% increase in power? i.e. 21tflops for 1100 machines? i know this doesnt translate directly.... but holy mackeral.
I have been using Sprint for three years now and have found their service to be more than lacking, The only thing that has kept me with them is the insanely great number i got from them.... now that number is quite easy to remember and all my friends and family have it, as well i dont even HAVE a land line anymore becuase i have a cable modem at home. Thus i am quite stuck witht the number and have been stuck with sprint in addition.
I am of course somewhat concerened about switching to another carrier due to the draconian agreements you must sign to get a phone or renew your contract these days (2 years!!!???).... as well as the fact that it appears that ALL the carriers suck ass. I hear complaints about everyone.... T-mobile, ATT, sprint, Verizon, all of them apparently have more issues than i think is fair to the consumer. However sprint is probably the MOST proprietary of them all, with no sim's, and horrid connectivity cards.
The greatest thing about the number portability beyond the ability to move over to a new service is that this will no doubt FORCE the carriers to compete on a basis of quality of service as opposed to just price vs performance. By giving people an option to switch we should see carriers start to focus on who can provide the most stable AND cost-effective network.
Not to mention this should give high-speed wireless data a nice shot in the arm with consumers quickly switching over for the faster and more reliable cards.
Though sometimes it simply isn't possible to explain these things, for the most part a well detailed explanation is required. The most difficult part however is looking at your own reasons thuroughly.
I find myself re-acting almost instantly to requests by locking up inside, and wanting to refuse... but i have trained myself to carefully listen to what they want and why they want it. And to review whther or not it is truly a bad request. I think you'll find that many times it isn't such a bad deal. And that it may be totaly reasonable.
however when you can't rightly justify the request, then the first step is to calmly explain in a detail they can comprehend why you feel the idea would be bad for the organization. Most of the time user requests are very small, but have larger implications to the company as a whole. If you tell them that while it may not seem much just to let them do it, it would pose a greater problem/risk to the entirity of your company.
Most people will relate and understand, there are a brazen few who will still disagree vehemently with you... these you must be carefull with. If they are adament, tell them, "ok, i see your point, and i think it may be possible, however i am concerened about certain implications such a change may incur... let me research it as soon as im done with this current project, and see how feasible it is."
Such a statement has gotten me out of more sticky siuations than i can count, an important thing to note during ANY of these conversations is to always be up-beat, and to even make them smile and/or laugh.... you know be kind about it. When youve gotten away from that person.... DO YOUR RESEARCH.... it doesnt necesarily have to be extensive.... but you do need to back yourself up if it is a problem.
allow them to breach the subject again, if it is truly pertinant they will return, but youll find many forget about it... in which case it never was all that important. If they return, present them with your case... if you found that their request was un-reasonable. If they still disagree.... which should be rare.... tell them you must speak with someone else to see about how to go forward with changes(boss, co-workers, whoeever).... then you'll need to do the beurocracy thing.
while it may suck to ask or tell your boss about these issues.... you'll find that his word relieves you of the pressure.... and if your the boss.... then it is a matter of agreeing on policy with the rest of your executive staff.
The greatest trick to saying "no", is to be social... anti-social IT guys piss off users just by being there... if your company likes you, you'll find your job much easier... and "no" a tremendously easier thing to say.
my personal number one line.... "i know, i hate having to do that too, but it just isn't secure to leave it open, fucking windows."
The poster said people installing *nix on their boxes WITHOUT the knowledge of the sysadmin's... ME.... which would mean they could quite easily install a rougue DHCP server along with other nasties.
Dont install KDE? For a user? are you expecting them to use X? or maybe the CLI? or should i dictate them to simply use my preferred manager? Once again... poster said these would be boxes i didnt set up.... so theyd probably install whatever they wanted. Support contracts are certainly cool... but even still... my job is to fix things quickly... not to wait on the phone.
if you think supporting linux amongst a bunch of users looking for ease of use and smooth inter-operability with a windows world (especialy in sales and buisness app's) your out of your freaking mind. While i certainly do agree ssh is a powerfull tool for remote support (though i prefer VNC) your totaly missing the point.... resolving issues QUICK. the amount of variables involved with a *nix are much greater than windows.... this is the power of *nix. And also why support can be problematic.
As to your "no" policy... i seriously laugh at you. If your in the buisness of shooting down your users... your not a very good sysadmin. While you most certainly shouldn't encourage or offer active support for non-approved SW... Users are users, and simply want their shit to work. The more you can facilitate that with ease the better the admin you are. thats "support".
People who hold the above attitude are very BAD admins.... our role in general is to make people happy as best we can without going over-board. I suppose that's why my company has gone through 8 admins until they found me... your job security is BASED upon your user satisfaction. In which case ease of support IS important.
Between Two semi-large internet companies and several smaller ones i have NEVER run into any non-IT unix/linux box amongst my users.... EVER.
In truth beyond the server farms ive worked with at said companies the only person possessing any *nix varient has been myself (including mac os X...) While i can see this as being an occasional happening in dorkier companies... even then i find it not very likely.
mainly because buisness use predominataly revolves around outlook exchange's shared meetings and various other stupid stuff.... in addition to the baseline ease of use (overall managerialy) network administration of an all windows environment.
I would NEVER support a linux desktop distro amongst my users.... MAC OS X... yes.... but not Linux for any reason on gods green earth... can you say nightmare? I love Linux.... but it just is NOWHERE near as streamlined as windows or macintosh... especialy from a support stance.
My personal feelings are *nix for network devices.... Windows server/client for data sharing email and so on.... and Mac os X for end users who are more inclined towards media production (basicly people who arent finance/sales).
This setup puts the *nix boxes in my realm... and id be greatfull that no unwitting user *accidently* installs another DHCP, DNS, SMTP, etc... server on my network. Id also be thankfull not to be asked how to make packages work correctly between KDE, gnome, X, or whatever else joe moron decides to use.... or how to fix their freakin window manager because KDE offers 5 different programs just to change the layout/widgets.... no thank you.
Of course this poster assumes that the people who do so, do so knowing people like myself wont support them... and more than likely will be highly un-happy with their network being potentialy compromised...
not trying to spread FUD.... but ill wait for a tighter distro before i promote *nix on the desktop.... only one so far (with flying colors) is OSX.
Liberation has more times than not come at the price of lives, property, and a whole lot of damage. I am going to do some justification here.... and i hope you wont jump to ex-ray me for saying so... but....
There was a situation in iraq (let us not get into the many OTHER situations in the world which also need remedying) in which a populace was being ruled by a blatant dictatorship, which in addition to be a totalitarian one man ruled state also greatly oppressed and murdered it's OWN people by the thousands per year. This state's existance was nearly comepltely agreed upon by the world as in-excusable and wrong. The world due to many layers of inter-politcal agreements and tensions has in so far been unable to deopse the said state. Then one state decides for a multitude of reasons spanning from just cause, to liberation, to greed (oil)... upon removing that regime from power.. and creating a state that honors the civil liberties of it's members, and hopefully will not murder it's own populace in the thousands per year.
In all reality the world should have done it as a collective.... and that route was attempted... but due to politics failed miserably... The sole state that went forward with VERY BAD and some VERY GOOD reasons did so much at the behest against them from the rest of the world.
But for the iraqi's.... this will be a rough time... they will live lives slightly worse than before for a short span of years.... and then afterwards they will much better lives as a free nation which will no doubt shrug the US off of it. In the greater scheme of things... these 5 years of occupation by a state that has one primary intrest (oil) will pay off ten fold in the removavl of an even more oppresive leader (saddam).
There is a reason people in iraq cheered when they found out uday and qusay were dead.... They hated them and feared them very much. They also dislike the US, but to remove the even worse problems they had before.... they will no doubt look back and thank our greed for allowing them to be free.
Lastly... america ISNT the spoiled child of the world.... that would be the many nations who subsist off of international aid. While i have no qualms with aid being given to them, it is those who live on the kindness of others who are spoiled. I do agree that the poster above is taking pro-american views in a blinded manner... or seems to... but that doesn't belie the good inside of what was done.
To be honest.... i wouldn't have cared if it was us or russia or the UN... or anyone.... as long as it got rid of saddam IMMEDIATLY and began instituting a representative republic for their people.
dont get greed twisted with evil. Sometimes greedy intentions end up doing a world of good for people.
First things first.... yes robots will take over the majority of redundant and simpler tasks of day to day operation.... they will flip our burgers and clean our streets.... they will assemble our toys and do all the other things we don't necesarily need to do anymore.
However the economy will remain fairly stable... and jobs will re-adjust and change in their scope and needs.... humanity as a whole will move more towards service and R&D. More and more jobs will be oriented either towards providing for another a human interface or experience.... or towards inventing, creating, and developing new technologies, methods, or whatever.
It is indeed a scary thought to know that the great amount of jobs out there right now will over the course of time be lost to mechanized labor. But this is a necesary course for our species. The economy is based upon goods and services bought and sold from humans to humans... as such a robotic influence on our productive means will not truly undermine our markets.... although they will cause a great shift in what jobs are available... and what one will have to learn to get by.... underneath all it changes nothing.
Though the emotional awareness of a teeneager in AI is expected by 2050 or so along with the physical means similar to a human... we must not loose sight of the fact that it will take at least a hundred if not many more for a robot to EVER compare to a human. We are incredibly effecient expecialy with regards to the environment (not our destructive patterns, simply the use of oxygen and food to provide a continuous source of power to a human for 80-odd years), we are capable of adapting to new siuations nearly instantaneously. Teach a computer to play chess better than kasparov, chess is all that computer knows.... now ask the chess computer to make you an apple martini slightly dirtier than a stoley. No go.
Human and animal inteligence is extremely hard to quantify against robotic AI... however one greatly-understated difference is our inherent understandings of our environs. While it is certainly possible to program the same into a computer at some point.... the sheer quantity we are able to adapt to instantly is not a light task... although it seems so for us. It will be well past 50 or even 200 years before a robot can create things greater than itself, before they can dream in a truer sense (not some dream emulation) before they have both a physical form and mental one that is even remotly as fluid as our own. at a speed less than 33mhz the human brain is capable of so much more it's not even funny.
Lastly.... control. Although there is a certain protent to a bad bad human "opening the floodgates"... it is highly likely that robotic inteligence will be limited from true "independant thought" or allowed to posess true self-preservation... In all likelihood we will make sure their minds are extremly powerfull but posess no "soul-like" chracteristics. Giving a computer "identity" would be the greatest mistake.... which would lead to our own demise.
Why do i believe mankind would win against the "machines" of Terminator and the Matrix? Because even as stupid apes we possesed the capability for universal imagination. Something i doubt any computer will have for hundreds of years... when i say universal imagination.... i mean the capability to intentionaly dream of an entirely different universe.... To mentaly explore things beyond impossible.... things utterly out of the realm of existance. This ability is what does and will distinguish us for a LONG time.
The real fear should be of what we will do to our own bodies.
Americans have not been historicly paid for maintaining their status quo jobs.... or for performing tasks that could be easily emulated by other countries for less money....
our history is riddled with examples of foriegn compitition or domestic based companies finding and using cheaper off-shore labor to compete in our marketplace. The same highly skilled jobs we have were the auto workers of yeterday and so on. Your steadfast belief that our destiny is a continual downward slide is very much off.
The true reason for americas sustained higher standard of living is innovation and cutting edge development... our greatest wealth is in our schools and research facilities. Americans continualy excell at developing new and inovative technologies... and at succesfully implementing them and selling them. Sure there have been many OTHER technologies that may have been "better", but you will find even the majority of those were american based.... america is a competitive differential engine... meaning our society and culture fuel continual compitition and improvements which eliminate older technologies or infirior solutions (or infirior marketing).
what does this mean for us? It means that programming and IT in general are steadily becoming non-innovative vs. the world population. No longer are technical skills completely foreign to the rest of the world... there-for dimminishing their value. However the newest of technologies still remain amongst us, and those with the proficiency to create, maintain, and otherwise operate them will be initialy very well paid. There is a reason americans have an average of 7 careers.... it's because this is the land where old and un-profitable die quick and horrid deaths.... I can't profess to know where the newest of the new technologies are going... but i can say to a great degree of confidence that they will start here.
Another great problem with cheap labor is it's inherent lack of competitive quality. The rewards for doing work at 8$/hour in an environment where your skills aren't regarded as cutting edge are much less... thus those working them become more like the blue collar union workers in attitude.... they work the job cause it pays well but not much more. This has a secondary effect in that the products that result havn't the quality and more often than not the ground-breaking advatages often imbued in more competitive markets.
We are just watching the wheat seperate from the chaff.... and when it all settles you will still find the economicly driving (meaning leading) forces comming from the same place. Although our standard of living sucks (in that it's too high).... it's that exact standard of living that fuels our very vital market.
There was a time where we were loosing jobs to japan left and right.... and as the japanese SOL rose we lost less and less to them... and they began to loose out to china and singapore. Even now india is begging to become concerened about it's own increasing valuation of cheaper labor being pushed off from them to bangladesh.
The only thing that pays is to stay on the cutting edge.... to have the newest, latest, greatest shit that no-one else can produce yet... that's where the money is at.... that's where the margins are at. And that's where america is at.
---They flaunt their bodies everywhere with impunity, preventing us from determining when and where we are sexually aroused.
The blame is not on them, but us. They are NOT responsible for our reaction to them. This line of thought has resulted in the veil's... and what has that done for the progression of conservative islmaic regimes? It has also resulted in many other atrocities... the whole "your to blame for my sins" type line of reasoning.
While i certainly understand your point, and it is very true that clothes of today are designed to intentionaly evoke a male response... i would find it as an argument to further back up thoughts along the lines of helping men to be even MORE competitive and thus even more productive. Suprisingly it would be likely that if skimpily clad hot women were in scientific environments, you'd find all the dorks competing like mad men to impress them. somewhat akin to that scene in charlies angels (the first movie) with lucy lu.
--What is not normal is the modern concept of male/female relationships which has developed since the Victorian era.
Asserting normalacy itself is a fallacy. Once again i can somewhat concur in the premise of your thought. But it is inherintly flawed for two reasons.... one: you assume that the victorian influenced western effect on relationships is the abnormalacy.... when it could veritably be the opposite. (this of course is highly fecitious, and could be argued on both sides till we were blue in the face with no productive outcome... no pun intended)..... and more importantly... two: Mankind while not entirely monogamous in any strong form throughout it's history, has unfailingly shown itself to be much more than tenativly so. Taking nearly ANY culture throughout all it's long years you will find marriage and couplings and love stories and continous barrages of the concept of a union between man and woman being nearly always the greatest accomplishment in life. These trysts you use as reference (einsteins philandering, and plato's young boys, et al) were even then looked down upon as necesary evils... while not even nearly as recriminating.... they still had the stigma of being a "bad habit".... so i dare say the victorian style influence on our social mind-set is simply the natural progression of strengthining our resolve against said acts.
Within the last 30-40 years a decimation of male-female relationships has occured leaving many children fatherless (myself included)... however you will find those fathers aren't for the most part very productive. Your argument stands on the concept that modern married life (or commital) requires far more dedication and time than in earlier points in time.... and here is where we can concur somewhat... our social needs to each other in relationships have become more demanding due to the decrease of time we have to share due to the 40+ hour work week. While there are time-periods and eras where the work week was worse.... you will find that people generaly work more... and have more responsibilities in the form of bills, taxes, jury duty, trash, home maintenence, transit times, and so on.... which consume such a bulk of our lives that having a relationship fairly well fills out our days.
It is this that is most likely the truer root of genius sapping.
As to the whole female/male genius issue that you have gotten a fair amount of heat for... i must say your views ARE extremly shovanist (incorrect spelling i know)... While your points are strong... to a point i agree with them on data.... but they are still wrong. Women do and have contributed quite a great deal to humanity... in many cases their work(s) were either stolen by a man... or were put under a man's name for her protection and/or ability to continue working.... secondly... a strong psychological theory is that a great source of mans creativity and predisposition towards hobbies is due to an inate jealousy of womans ability to create that wh
If the RIAA gets it's way... which is a distinct possibility.... we will see 2 things happen amongst traders.
First will come the file-trading encrupted and distribiuted networking solutions... such as freenet.... where communications will be inherently anonymous and highly hidden... where the data will be spread across the network in a simlar fashion to RAID... keeping them availble and at the same time not dependant upon one users machine.... imagine if everyone simply gave 40 megs of space to a netowkr of millions of users to be shared out RAID style....
the second thing we'll see is the advent and return of sneaker-net... with so many small and highly portable devices that store data on nearly everyone.... the ease of getting songs at your buddies house or work or in the park will become more and more prevelant. Although not easy with the iPod right now.... i have a distinct feeling it will be shortly.
45 days? for a dime bag? are you kidding me? i don't even think that's legal.... weed is a misdemeaner... generaly carries a mandatory minimum of 1 day in jail and a fine.
i know that varies from state to state... but damn. in cali it's a fine... in NY it's a fine... in seatle it's 1 day and a fine...
sometimes i seriously question the state vs federal system. THAT amount of varience is ridiculous.
i mean were you operating heavy machinery at the time? or assaulting a puppy?
first off.... the expression exists.... quite popularly across the states and more.... secondly the other derivitives youve mentioned are exactly that.,.. variations on a phrase that is already grammaticly horrible..
thirdly.... americans? wow!!! sometimes i'm seriously amazed at the assumptions foriegners (relative to me... an american) make of US citizens... the most culturaly and socialy diverse country on the planet.... as if we are all the same somehow?
it's an absurdity beyond belief. People honestly feel we are stupid.... the phrase "stupid americans".... or "stupid f**king americans" is common beyond the bounds of this country. Something of a oxymoronic phrase, considering.... if were so stupid and prone to making grammatical... and other mistakes.... why are great portions of humanity trying their best to live here with us? if were all idiots... why are we the source of a vastly disproportionate amount of innovation (light-bulb,car,radio,phone,airplane,nuclear bomb/power, computer,microchip,etc....)? if we are so geneticly imbred and infirior why do we run the world?
the last one is the fire-starter.... but keep in mind.... even a tyrant must be smart... cause dumb dictators dont live long. Amazingly enough.... bush isn't a moron, he simply has the verbal capabilities of one
While surprising and most certainly refreshing to see that apple is serious about their claims, serious enough to publicly rebuke the claims almost certainly first brought to the big light by/.'s earlier article, this may only be leading into a circle of prooving and disprooving.
I believe it would be best for apple to answer with a full fury of tests to truly show the full range of operating prowness of the G5's vs the P4's, etc.... at least initialy, and to from there LEAVE IT ALONE. Cause no matter how many tests they do, no matter how much proof... there will always be people out there ready to bring flames over nothing.... For instance this guys claims that FP isn't all that important, and that int tests are basicly all that matters for the majority of users.
He and others will stick too their guns even if they have only a couple benchmarks to cite as being supirior (kinda like the G4's and their altivec/photoshop optimizations of yester-year).
Apple needs to make sure that they have a clean image of being flatly open on their claims, and then to move on without being bogged down in an obvious quagmire of platform evangalism. The truth is, their strongest advantage remains the OS and not their hardware's direct horse-power. Of course the G5 along with all the goodies they come with are incredibly great, but this isn't apple's mainstay... it's simply another selling point.
If they become entrapped in having to proove themselves through benchmarking every new release, it won't be long before their entire image would have to live up to being ahead at all costs.... and guess what... they ARE going to fall behind again.... and then they'll leap ahead again.... and then they'll fall behind... etc.... And every down cycle will be worse, since the specs will be much more associated with their image.
keep your strong point in innovation apple, and if youve got the great hardware... great.... but don't get stuck in the mind-less mhz/spec race that has stagnated computer innovation for the love of ego's.
just my 2 cents.... I develop ASP, and love win 2k adv srv, ill never use anything but unix/linux for my networking gear, and OSX keeps me damn happy when i want to do anything not mind-numbing. Cisco IOS is arcane but makes me feel good. I am biased towards all platforms.
I find this "article" highly dubious... and am amazed slashdot let this slide... actualy im not... it seems/. is intent on fueling the platform war fires for more hits and such, because this was blatant flmae-bait trash.
While it has been discussed that the differences between GCC and ICC(??) on the two platforms makes for a supposed im-balance, the subjects are highly subjective. The main grip is that it is extremely hard to determine what IS a fair test of raw CPU power. This guy continuously claims that the number one score to rate by should be the specint_2000 test (which favors intel considerably) because most people will "never" use FP...
that is a pile of bullshit... aqua alone (doing all of your interface goodies) must use FP constantly, in fact i would dare say that FP is constant and highly important on OSX, it contributes immensly to the look and feel of it. dual-processing is NOT an exclusive to specialy coded programs. That was true to OS 9, but more recent builds split tasks far better than before (although nowhere near a perfect balence).... and so buying a dual machine isnt a pointless expenditure.
the guy claims that you can buy a dell at 3.06 for less than 2.5k with ALL of the equivilent features of the powermac..... i encourage you ALL to go to dell.com and config a dell with a DVD-r along with firewire, serial-ata (cant do it), bluetooth, 1gig ethernet, 802.11g, PCI-x (cant do it), 8gb RAM cpacity (cant do it) etc.... Now you cant add some of these features from dell... which will send some of you off to www.pricewatch.com to find the ABSOLUTE rock bottom prices on the extra parts and pieces... but you can all see the price difference for an equivilent system is tiny if not reversed.
if someone could link me to a PC with equivlient features (pci-x, agp 8x, 802.11g, 1gig ethernet, serial-ata, p4 3.06, bluetooth, etc...) i would love to see honest comparisons of the price. The 8gb limit simply can't be done, so the value of it is hard to quantify, as a music guy myself i can actualy see it's value, but many people can effectivly argue it is above and beyond current consumer demands. but current consumers arent looking for pro boxes.
my main point of contention is that there is too much LACK of knowledge in regards to spec and architecture. We don't know if these tests are balenced or not, or why they were performed however they were performed. This may have been the best way to compare the two on a bit for bit level, or maybe not. Apple has it's own intrests, how solid is veritests credibility? did money change hands? how much? etc.... GCC has been reputed to being apples baby as far as compliing.... but does that mean it was fully optimized towards PPC, and the vice versa agasint the PC?
What we DO know is that the PPC is scalable in MP configs, it is a FP monster, and the P4 is NOT MP (hence the xeon tests, which really are not consumer class chips) and the P4 is an INT monster. I expected the P4 to smoke the G5 on int, and it didn't (smoke it, just beat it well). As well i find it laughable that the first fab of a new chip (970) running 30% slower (in mhz) performs so well against the top p4. The G5 has come out the gate on a level of extreme competitivness and has a significant space to grow in... 3ghz in under 12 months? putting the G5 at 3ghz about when the p4 will hit 4ghz. The speed tests there will probably favor the G5 FAR MORE than these.
One last point, we can say much about how these tests are scewed towards apple in that the Compiler along with the "cheats" all seem to point towards manipulation.... but at the same time two HUGE benefits of the G5 arent being quantified either.... 64 bits AND 8gb of RAM are huge advantages that if fully utilized would lend such a huge performance gap it isnt funny (look at the genome matching with 40 bit words). So in a sense maybe these tests were balanced.
Too many variables to call this one, the G5 i suspect is faster on FP, but not on int (as apple indicated)... but
Apple is commonly referred to as "R&D south" by the Redmond campus. This term is quite apt of how most big players look at apple.
essentialy apple is probably the greatest trend setter in consumer computers. The big boys don't use thier resources to explore new design concepts and tech use. Instead they watch apple roll out new products, and see whether or not they are succesfull and viable (iPOD + Itunes Music Store, iMac) or just a bad idea (cube).
Apple hsn't got market share, they've got style share, or should i say... they are trendy. If something works within the apple community, it is almost garenteed to work in the windows community. Thus Companies who watch apples endeavors closely, can get a good idea on what markets to tackle, and what to leave alone.
There are reasons why apple's brand and OS/hardware have a much higher user satisfaction, it's because they spend almost as much money (and more in some cases) on product development than the much larger players (MS, IBM, DELL, HP, etc...). They also can afford to do so... it's their identity, and what keeps them alive. Since apple has it's own market, it doesn't have to worry about it's dollars spent on reasearch vs dollars spent on market growth in comparison to other players in the same space.
That is, dell must keep a tight budget on it's spedning, because they've got to save money to fight off sony, toshiba, HP, and others in distribution and identity. Whereas apple's identity is secure and has no DIRECT competitors in it's market (albeit a much smaller market, though apple ships nearly as many machines as the big boys do individualy) so apple's main goal is to preserve their identity of being something appealing, different and very well made. Part of being very well made and different AND APPEALING is TONS of R&D.
I hear rumors that panther (OS X 10.3) will have native ActiveDirectory support along with a 970 at 2ghz (which should be on par with a P4 at 3.5ghz or so), Coupled with a 1ghz FSB along with a crapload of hardware goodies.... it looks like apple may be making a play for being more than trendy... but a horse-powered consumer product as well. If the next rumor is true... the implications are huge.
Panther supposedly has a fully featured multi-user environment built for wireless displays. As in you can have 6 people with all of their own wireless displays connected to the same computer in their house. Each one has a full user environment complete with aqua and everything. Eliminating the need for multiple machines, and providing one point of data storage and access. The implications are quite similar to what was expected to be thin client computing of our day (everyone has a dumb terminal that runs from a server somewhere)
but we shall see what happens. I personaly love the ideas of all these things, and think they would be great if implemented by apple (since apple does a stellar job on their projects)... but also find apple's releasal of products to be inconsistent, and often rumors are just that. Rumors.
I read through your post searching for any sort of good factual basis to your points. And aside from supposedly having friends who dumped their ibooks (shittiest of apples products anyways... G3's) you've managed to provide a whole lot of FUD with no FACTS.
Now im not gonna present much more fact, but as to your "mac people make up your mind" crap, i will say this... Mac's have a tremendous advantage in OSX due to a highly crafted interface, which continues to improve at a rate not matched in Windows (though longhorn may change things in 2005), so to take that as a reason even without super-power for having a better system is more than enough for many. When coupled with intermitent periods of ACTUAL supirior hardware, then the advantages become compounded.
If i have a better OS AND better hardware, im gonna be damn happy. Few people contest the OS supiriority of OSX (especialy since 10.2)... there are those who simply don't like it, but on the whole you'll find most people power users or not prefer OSX to windows/linux varients in terms of usability and design. Under the hood, OSX is highly lauded for clean API's and relatively easy development comparitivly. However the end user doesn't give a shit. So whats left to debate when the OS is out of the question?
hardware
And when the mac crowd gets better hardware, they are going to take it to task against the PC users whove been citing it as a reason to call their platform weak.
In all fariness i doubt you've ever worked for extended periods on a fastt G4. If you had... you'd understand better.
I myself use all of these systems along with cisco IOS and a few others. If i could develop for IIS on a mac.... i'd have no reason short of office to use a windows machine. DOS sucks ass compared to the terminal in OSX, and linux GUI sucks ass compared to aqua/OSX.
now with kick-ass hardware the platform can finaly be great in most respects. (call me crazy, but id never serve off of a mac, dispite the awards xserve/xraid have garnered, just me)
Slashdot Mirror
the biggest issue isnt so much a stereotype... it's that the vast majority of women want nothing to do with cars and computer internals. In the same way men who know britney spears social life or who watch soap operas are also unexpected.
Cahnces are many ladies will assume i know nothing about lots of "pop-cutlture" stuff... and will be surprised if i do.
And most men who do techy jobs, tend not to see to many women with any degree of know-how above ctrl-alt-delete (sometimes even thats a stretch)
Not that any moron you be con-descedning... but if youve ever done half the support calls i have.... most women i help are far less prone to knowing where the run menu is... how to type into the command line.... etc...
Is it biast? partialy... is it right? no.... but is it understandable why someone might expect that you may not be inclined towards tech given their experience? You say 95% of the guys you know are less skilled at tech... but how many of them (percentage wise) wouldnt know what/where "run" is?
this is not to be confused with good customer service, the rule of thumb there is to let the customer show you how ignorant they are BEFORE you talk down to them.
Nasa Rover Missions : 400 Million a Piece
1 succesfully landed
2nd in route
Beagle / Mars Express : 345 Million
1 beagle missing In Action
Mars Express working and in orbit
Guess Research and Development Costs is actualy WORTHWHILE
ever.
doing so will be the first step towards our own doom as a species. For those of you who gladly wish for the human species to be outevolved by our own creations.... i pity your lack of pride in our existance.
It must remain unquestioned that all mechanics and machinery are completely subject to the will and direction of humanity. There should NEVER EVER be a time when a mechanical object has rights of any kind not directly possesed by it's owner and or creator.
i suppose terminator, the matrix, the borg and Battlestar galatica have had no warning effects upon you... if we enable them to super-cede us... they WILL. We must be stringently carefull NOT to allow machinery the capability of gaining control over humans in any manner not sub-serviant to another human. The day we start down this path is the day we willingly set humanity for extinction.
value and cherish your existance and the hundreds of thousands of years of human existance that has evolved under the natural laws of the universe... understand that mechanics are not a new and seperete life-form, but are instead an extension of our own. For our sake and even the sake of life everywhere it must remain so.
You have been warned.
He believes the Database admin should allow him to make any changes whenever he wants them.... who cares if theres a REASON there are naming conventions.... never mind that someone actualy took the time to think about the possibilities of portability, or that there may be software already developed elsewhere that is dependant on those conventions and may need to be portable or cross-aplicable.... never mind how your changes may one day end up going live with a horrid architecture that you "evolved"
He percieves security and network admins as simply being in his way, and that having his rights restricted is not only an insult, but an offense to his craft. Not minding that security holes can and WILL bring a network to it's knees... expecialy if your a target.... not thinking about the huge potential for corporate espionage, or employee sabatage. Maybe i should just give you full rights to the entire domain?
He thinks that having the "right" to install whatever he wants whenever he wants without respect to the company policies or threat assesment is a given. That the potential for harm in HIS case is somehow different than from the secrataries.
Well to you sir i say this..... get your head out of your ass. Unless your specificly developing an application that uses communications systems outside of standard FW blocking.... there is no reason on gods green earth that FW shouldnt be locked down as much as is possible. Have you ever seen what a virus can do to a network? What Blaster or sobig did last summer? while blaster is preventative by those "pesky" vigilant admins, sobig can bring a company to it's knees without even getting infected. My T1 maxed out on incoming sobig eails sent from the web..... because some jack-asses in other companies and home users werent so "strict" about their own security measures. I almost lost my job because management coudltn understand that the problem wasnt even ON our network.
I have also developed... majoring in computer science and working on several large projects. And box control is somewhat necesary for programmers.... but in the long run.... really isnt. you set up and request a bunch of tools, install them and should be through on that machine. If you want full out control.. your not gonna be on my network, no fucking way... cause salespeople, secrataries and smart-assed "developers" catch nasty viruses and cause serious problems. sometimes i hate laptops.
He does mention some very solid points, all of them relating to BAD administrators. Admins who dont evaluate the potential benefits of suggestions by their co-workers, admins who fear for their job fruitlessly, admins who think they are god of their systems and allow no flexibility, or admins who arent willing to do something as simple as setting up test-bed networks DMZ'd away.... or on a seperete network entirely. These guys suck, which is why i have three pipelines to the net... so when users need to do things i feel are in-secure, or when we recieve visiting salespeople and/or outside computers.... i can safely give them web access without it touching my network.
It's called team-work. And the biggest problem with this guy is is he obviously thinks he is the most important part of the company... like everyone should be catering to him.... well guess what? your not that important. And in 90% of buisnesses out there, you barely exist. Most comapnies have a primary need to maintain their systems, and to improve them safely and incrmentaly, because any failure, even one day of outage... will cost far more than your extra time spent dealing with the granted quite annoying delays of a secure and well-managed infrastructure. the day to day cost of my companies development team (fairly large) verses the cost of having any sort of network failing on any particular si
You see for kasperov , playing the game is only a tiny portion of his minds capability. While playing the game his subconscious is calculating thousands and thousands of things completly un-related to the game.... the computer's only focus is strictly on the mathmatics behind it's current endeavor... meanwhile kasperov's mind is processing the light and textures of the entire room he's in... his brain is translating the percieved distance between himself and the chess board at an angle... while simultaneously calculating how far to reach when moving a piece. The simple reach of an arm involves millions more calculations of which muscles to move in which sequence, how best to breath and even sit correctly to maintain his balence..... all subconsciously.
That chess computer isn't going to go home and idly flip through channels on the tube or read a book digesting the information and assimilating into it's consciousness.... that chess computer couldnt solve the simplest problems that nearly every human does each day of their life.... even things as inane as choosing what to wear.
Kasperov's feat is not just in playing... and even winning.... it's in learning a game in addition to an already complex life... and still being so powerfull at it. Remember ... chess is only a small facet of a human's life and capability. Kasperov can do thousands and thousands of other things that that machine cant do.
The human algorithm isnt in question here... our capability to look at and solve problems based on reality (which often makes little sense) is un-contestable by AI or Computer science... and will remain so for a very very long time.
From that point the ballots should be counted in the traditional manner and used to audit the eletronic reports. If there is any significiant discrepency the paper ballots should take precedence. This procedure should continue until the eletronic voting process is as reliably accurate as the ballot method for a period of years.
After that point we can take the electronic method as the primary method, witht he printed results being automaticly placed into a ballot box connected to these machines.
If there is ever a time the printed ballot form should cease to exist i cannot for-see it right now. If there isnt physical evidence of the voting process somewhere, i feel highly dubious as to the integrity of the entire system.
--vision
On a side note, does it disturb anyone else that a mere 5 people control such weighty decision affecting telecommunications? There's only one guy who can decide to drop a nuke on your ass if he felt like it. Or start a war for "90 days" wherever he feels like in your name. Not to mention the whole veto power, state of emergency stuff.
Pick up the phone... not working... cant make a call or anything as if the line was dead.
DSL experienced no problems at all
So i called them and apparently DSL works on two frequencies completly seperete from the dial-tone. And theyd had some problem in which the dial-tones operating frequency was cut off at theri network.
long story short.... is it possible for them to give you DSL without a phone-number.... yes. But it is beyond doubtfull that they will.
Check
2:Software communicates data about user to another location without users expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
3:Software incorporates silent update feature without users expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
4:Software uses said information garnering to it's creator fiscal benefit with or without ad delivery without useres expressed, implied, or knowledgable permission?
Check
Gator = spyware, adware, and possibly mal-ware
BTW... it is my right to express my belief as to what i think you are... so FUCK YOU gator for attempting to violate my right to call your software the crap that it is. Please take a look at the first ammendment you fuckers.
This is tremendous advertising for apple, but what about clusters of Power4's and 5's? why wouldnt they out-perform this cluster? at 14tflops... would 2200 macs be fairly equal to the earth simulator?
And lastly with IBM seeing their G5's at 3Ghz in 8 months or so.... do you think we will also see a 50% increase in power? i.e. 21tflops for 1100 machines? i know this doesnt translate directly.... but holy mackeral.
I am of course somewhat concerened about switching to another carrier due to the draconian agreements you must sign to get a phone or renew your contract these days (2 years!!!???).... as well as the fact that it appears that ALL the carriers suck ass. I hear complaints about everyone.... T-mobile, ATT, sprint, Verizon, all of them apparently have more issues than i think is fair to the consumer. However sprint is probably the MOST proprietary of them all, with no sim's, and horrid connectivity cards.
The greatest thing about the number portability beyond the ability to move over to a new service is that this will no doubt FORCE the carriers to compete on a basis of quality of service as opposed to just price vs performance. By giving people an option to switch we should see carriers start to focus on who can provide the most stable AND cost-effective network.
Not to mention this should give high-speed wireless data a nice shot in the arm with consumers quickly switching over for the faster and more reliable cards.
I find myself re-acting almost instantly to requests by locking up inside, and wanting to refuse... but i have trained myself to carefully listen to what they want and why they want it. And to review whther or not it is truly a bad request. I think you'll find that many times it isn't such a bad deal. And that it may be totaly reasonable.
however when you can't rightly justify the request, then the first step is to calmly explain in a detail they can comprehend why you feel the idea would be bad for the organization. Most of the time user requests are very small, but have larger implications to the company as a whole. If you tell them that while it may not seem much just to let them do it, it would pose a greater problem/risk to the entirity of your company.
Most people will relate and understand, there are a brazen few who will still disagree vehemently with you... these you must be carefull with. If they are adament, tell them, "ok, i see your point, and i think it may be possible, however i am concerened about certain implications such a change may incur... let me research it as soon as im done with this current project, and see how feasible it is."
Such a statement has gotten me out of more sticky siuations than i can count, an important thing to note during ANY of these conversations is to always be up-beat, and to even make them smile and/or laugh .... you know be kind about it. When youve gotten away from that person.... DO YOUR RESEARCH.... it doesnt necesarily have to be extensive.... but you do need to back yourself up if it is a problem.
allow them to breach the subject again, if it is truly pertinant they will return, but youll find many forget about it... in which case it never was all that important. If they return, present them with your case ... if you found that their request was un-reasonable. If they still disagree.... which should be rare.... tell them you must speak with someone else to see about how to go forward with changes(boss, co-workers, whoeever).... then you'll need to do the beurocracy thing.
while it may suck to ask or tell your boss about these issues.... you'll find that his word relieves you of the pressure.... and if your the boss.... then it is a matter of agreeing on policy with the rest of your executive staff.
The greatest trick to saying "no", is to be social... anti-social IT guys piss off users just by being there... if your company likes you, you'll find your job much easier... and "no" a tremendously easier thing to say.
my personal number one line.... "i know, i hate having to do that too, but it just isn't secure to leave it open, fucking windows."
--VISION
Dont install KDE? For a user? are you expecting them to use X? or maybe the CLI? or should i dictate them to simply use my preferred manager? Once again... poster said these would be boxes i didnt set up.... so theyd probably install whatever they wanted. Support contracts are certainly cool... but even still... my job is to fix things quickly ... not to wait on the phone.
if you think supporting linux amongst a bunch of users looking for ease of use and smooth inter-operability with a windows world (especialy in sales and buisness app's) your out of your freaking mind. While i certainly do agree ssh is a powerfull tool for remote support (though i prefer VNC) your totaly missing the point.... resolving issues QUICK. the amount of variables involved with a *nix are much greater than windows.... this is the power of *nix. And also why support can be problematic.
As to your "no" policy... i seriously laugh at you. If your in the buisness of shooting down your users ... your not a very good sysadmin. While you most certainly shouldn't encourage or offer active support for non-approved SW... Users are users, and simply want their shit to work. The more you can facilitate that with ease the better the admin you are. thats "support".
People who hold the above attitude are very BAD admins.... our role in general is to make people happy as best we can without going over-board. I suppose that's why my company has gone through 8 admins until they found me... your job security is BASED upon your user satisfaction. In which case ease of support IS important.
In truth beyond the server farms ive worked with at said companies the only person possessing any *nix varient has been myself (including mac os X...) While i can see this as being an occasional happening in dorkier companies... even then i find it not very likely.
mainly because buisness use predominataly revolves around outlook exchange's shared meetings and various other stupid stuff.... in addition to the baseline ease of use (overall managerialy) network administration of an all windows environment.
I would NEVER support a linux desktop distro amongst my users.... MAC OS X ... yes.... but not Linux for any reason on gods green earth... can you say nightmare? I love Linux.... but it just is NOWHERE near as streamlined as windows or macintosh... especialy from a support stance.
My personal feelings are *nix for network devices.... Windows server/client for data sharing email and so on.... and Mac os X for end users who are more inclined towards media production (basicly people who arent finance/sales).
This setup puts the *nix boxes in my realm... and id be greatfull that no unwitting user *accidently* installs another DHCP, DNS, SMTP, etc... server on my network. Id also be thankfull not to be asked how to make packages work correctly between KDE, gnome, X, or whatever else joe moron decides to use.... or how to fix their freakin window manager because KDE offers 5 different programs just to change the layout/widgets.... no thank you.
Of course this poster assumes that the people who do so, do so knowing people like myself wont support them... and more than likely will be highly un-happy with their network being potentialy compromised...
not trying to spread FUD.... but ill wait for a tighter distro before i promote *nix on the desktop.... only one so far (with flying colors) is OSX.
There was a situation in iraq (let us not get into the many OTHER situations in the world which also need remedying) in which a populace was being ruled by a blatant dictatorship, which in addition to be a totalitarian one man ruled state also greatly oppressed and murdered it's OWN people by the thousands per year. This state's existance was nearly comepltely agreed upon by the world as in-excusable and wrong. The world due to many layers of inter-politcal agreements and tensions has in so far been unable to deopse the said state. Then one state decides for a multitude of reasons spanning from just cause, to liberation, to greed (oil)... upon removing that regime from power.. and creating a state that honors the civil liberties of it's members, and hopefully will not murder it's own populace in the thousands per year.
In all reality the world should have done it as a collective.... and that route was attempted... but due to politics failed miserably... The sole state that went forward with VERY BAD and some VERY GOOD reasons did so much at the behest against them from the rest of the world.
But for the iraqi's.... this will be a rough time... they will live lives slightly worse than before for a short span of years.... and then afterwards they will much better lives as a free nation which will no doubt shrug the US off of it. In the greater scheme of things... these 5 years of occupation by a state that has one primary intrest (oil) will pay off ten fold in the removavl of an even more oppresive leader (saddam).
There is a reason people in iraq cheered when they found out uday and qusay were dead.... They hated them and feared them very much. They also dislike the US, but to remove the even worse problems they had before.... they will no doubt look back and thank our greed for allowing them to be free.
Lastly ... america ISNT the spoiled child of the world.... that would be the many nations who subsist off of international aid. While i have no qualms with aid being given to them, it is those who live on the kindness of others who are spoiled. I do agree that the poster above is taking pro-american views in a blinded manner... or seems to... but that doesn't belie the good inside of what was done.
To be honest.... i wouldn't have cared if it was us or russia or the UN... or anyone.... as long as it got rid of saddam IMMEDIATLY and began instituting a representative republic for their people.
dont get greed twisted with evil. Sometimes greedy intentions end up doing a world of good for people.
First things first.... yes robots will take over the majority of redundant and simpler tasks of day to day operation.... they will flip our burgers and clean our streets.... they will assemble our toys and do all the other things we don't necesarily need to do anymore. ... it is highly likely that robotic inteligence will be limited from true "independant thought" or allowed to posess true self-preservation... In all likelihood we will make sure their minds are extremly powerfull but posess no "soul-like" chracteristics. Giving a computer "identity" would be the greatest mistake.... which would lead to our own demise.
However the economy will remain fairly stable... and jobs will re-adjust and change in their scope and needs.... humanity as a whole will move more towards service and R&D. More and more jobs will be oriented either towards providing for another a human interface or experience.... or towards inventing, creating, and developing new technologies, methods, or whatever.
It is indeed a scary thought to know that the great amount of jobs out there right now will over the course of time be lost to mechanized labor. But this is a necesary course for our species. The economy is based upon goods and services bought and sold from humans to humans... as such a robotic influence on our productive means will not truly undermine our markets.... although they will cause a great shift in what jobs are available... and what one will have to learn to get by.... underneath all it changes nothing.
Though the emotional awareness of a teeneager in AI is expected by 2050 or so along with the physical means similar to a human... we must not loose sight of the fact that it will take at least a hundred if not many more for a robot to EVER compare to a human. We are incredibly effecient expecialy with regards to the environment (not our destructive patterns, simply the use of oxygen and food to provide a continuous source of power to a human for 80-odd years), we are capable of adapting to new siuations nearly instantaneously. Teach a computer to play chess better than kasparov, chess is all that computer knows.... now ask the chess computer to make you an apple martini slightly dirtier than a stoley. No go.
Human and animal inteligence is extremely hard to quantify against robotic AI... however one greatly-understated difference is our inherent understandings of our environs. While it is certainly possible to program the same into a computer at some point.... the sheer quantity we are able to adapt to instantly is not a light task... although it seems so for us. It will be well past 50 or even 200 years before a robot can create things greater than itself, before they can dream in a truer sense (not some dream emulation) before they have both a physical form and mental one that is even remotly as fluid as our own. at a speed less than 33mhz the human brain is capable of so much more it's not even funny.
Lastly.... control. Although there is a certain protent to a bad bad human "opening the floodgates"
Why do i believe mankind would win against the "machines" of Terminator and the Matrix? Because even as stupid apes we possesed the capability for universal imagination. Something i doubt any computer will have for hundreds of years... when i say universal imagination.... i mean the capability to intentionaly dream of an entirely different universe.... To mentaly explore things beyond impossible.... things utterly out of the realm of existance. This ability is what does and will distinguish us for a LONG time.
The real fear should be of what we will do to our own bodies.
our history is riddled with examples of foriegn compitition or domestic based companies finding and using cheaper off-shore labor to compete in our marketplace. The same highly skilled jobs we have were the auto workers of yeterday and so on. Your steadfast belief that our destiny is a continual downward slide is very much off.
The true reason for americas sustained higher standard of living is innovation and cutting edge development... our greatest wealth is in our schools and research facilities. Americans continualy excell at developing new and inovative technologies... and at succesfully implementing them and selling them. Sure there have been many OTHER technologies that may have been "better", but you will find even the majority of those were american based.... america is a competitive differential engine... meaning our society and culture fuel continual compitition and improvements which eliminate older technologies or infirior solutions (or infirior marketing).
what does this mean for us? It means that programming and IT in general are steadily becoming non-innovative vs. the world population. No longer are technical skills completely foreign to the rest of the world... there-for dimminishing their value. However the newest of technologies still remain amongst us, and those with the proficiency to create, maintain, and otherwise operate them will be initialy very well paid. There is a reason americans have an average of 7 careers.... it's because this is the land where old and un-profitable die quick and horrid deaths.... I can't profess to know where the newest of the new technologies are going... but i can say to a great degree of confidence that they will start here.
Another great problem with cheap labor is it's inherent lack of competitive quality. The rewards for doing work at 8$/hour in an environment where your skills aren't regarded as cutting edge are much less... thus those working them become more like the blue collar union workers in attitude.... they work the job cause it pays well but not much more. This has a secondary effect in that the products that result havn't the quality and more often than not the ground-breaking advatages often imbued in more competitive markets.
We are just watching the wheat seperate from the chaff.... and when it all settles you will still find the economicly driving (meaning leading) forces comming from the same place. Although our standard of living sucks (in that it's too high).... it's that exact standard of living that fuels our very vital market.
There was a time where we were loosing jobs to japan left and right.... and as the japanese SOL rose we lost less and less to them... and they began to loose out to china and singapore. Even now india is begging to become concerened about it's own increasing valuation of cheaper labor being pushed off from them to bangladesh.
The only thing that pays is to stay on the cutting edge.... to have the newest, latest, greatest shit that no-one else can produce yet... that's where the money is at.... that's where the margins are at. And that's where america is at.
The blame is not on them, but us. They are NOT responsible for our reaction to them. This line of thought has resulted in the veil's... and what has that done for the progression of conservative islmaic regimes? It has also resulted in many other atrocities... the whole "your to blame for my sins" type line of reasoning.
While i certainly understand your point, and it is very true that clothes of today are designed to intentionaly evoke a male response... i would find it as an argument to further back up thoughts along the lines of helping men to be even MORE competitive and thus even more productive. Suprisingly it would be likely that if skimpily clad hot women were in scientific environments, you'd find all the dorks competing like mad men to impress them. somewhat akin to that scene in charlies angels (the first movie) with lucy lu.
--What is not normal is the modern concept of male/female relationships which has developed since the Victorian era.
Asserting normalacy itself is a fallacy. Once again i can somewhat concur in the premise of your thought. But it is inherintly flawed for two reasons.... one: you assume that the victorian influenced western effect on relationships is the abnormalacy.... when it could veritably be the opposite. (this of course is highly fecitious, and could be argued on both sides till we were blue in the face with no productive outcome ... no pun intended)..... and more importantly ... two: Mankind while not entirely monogamous in any strong form throughout it's history, has unfailingly shown itself to be much more than tenativly so. Taking nearly ANY culture throughout all it's long years you will find marriage and couplings and love stories and continous barrages of the concept of a union between man and woman being nearly always the greatest accomplishment in life. These trysts you use as reference (einsteins philandering, and plato's young boys, et al) were even then looked down upon as necesary evils ... while not even nearly as recriminating.... they still had the stigma of being a "bad habit".... so i dare say the victorian style influence on our social mind-set is simply the natural progression of strengthining our resolve against said acts.
Within the last 30-40 years a decimation of male-female relationships has occured leaving many children fatherless (myself included)... however you will find those fathers aren't for the most part very productive. Your argument stands on the concept that modern married life (or commital) requires far more dedication and time than in earlier points in time.... and here is where we can concur somewhat... our social needs to each other in relationships have become more demanding due to the decrease of time we have to share due to the 40+ hour work week. While there are time-periods and eras where the work week was worse.... you will find that people generaly work more... and have more responsibilities in the form of bills, taxes, jury duty, trash, home maintenence, transit times, and so on.... which consume such a bulk of our lives that having a relationship fairly well fills out our days.
It is this that is most likely the truer root of genius sapping.
As to the whole female/male genius issue that you have gotten a fair amount of heat for... i must say your views ARE extremly shovanist (incorrect spelling i know) ... While your points are strong... to a point i agree with them on data.... but they are still wrong. Women do and have contributed quite a great deal to humanity... in many cases their work(s) were either stolen by a man... or were put under a man's name for her protection and/or ability to continue working.... secondly... a strong psychological theory is that a great source of mans creativity and predisposition towards hobbies is due to an inate jealousy of womans ability to create that wh
If the RIAA gets it's way... which is a distinct possibility.... we will see 2 things happen amongst traders.
First will come the file-trading encrupted and distribiuted networking solutions... such as freenet.... where communications will be inherently anonymous and highly hidden... where the data will be spread across the network in a simlar fashion to RAID... keeping them availble and at the same time not dependant upon one users machine.... imagine if everyone simply gave 40 megs of space to a netowkr of millions of users to be shared out RAID style....
the second thing we'll see is the advent and return of sneaker-net... with so many small and highly portable devices that store data on nearly everyone.... the ease of getting songs at your buddies house or work or in the park will become more and more prevelant. Although not easy with the iPod right now.... i have a distinct feeling it will be shortly.
45 days? for a dime bag? are you kidding me? i don't even think that's legal.... weed is a misdemeaner... generaly carries a mandatory minimum of 1 day in jail and a fine.
i know that varies from state to state... but damn. in cali it's a fine... in NY it's a fine... in seatle it's 1 day and a fine...
sometimes i seriously question the state vs federal system. THAT amount of varience is ridiculous.
i mean were you operating heavy machinery at the time? or assaulting a puppy?
first off.... the expression exists.... quite popularly across the states and more.... secondly the other derivitives youve mentioned are exactly that.,.. variations on a phrase that is already grammaticly horrible..
thirdly.... americans? wow!!! sometimes i'm seriously amazed at the assumptions foriegners (relative to me... an american) make of US citizens... the most culturaly and socialy diverse country on the planet.... as if we are all the same somehow?
it's an absurdity beyond belief. People honestly feel we are stupid.... the phrase "stupid americans".... or "stupid f**king americans" is common beyond the bounds of this country. Something of a oxymoronic phrase, considering.... if were so stupid and prone to making grammatical... and other mistakes.... why are great portions of humanity trying their best to live here with us? if were all idiots... why are we the source of a vastly disproportionate amount of innovation (light-bulb,car,radio,phone,airplane,nuclear bomb/power, computer,microchip,etc....)? if we are so geneticly imbred and infirior why do we run the world?
the last one is the fire-starter.... but keep in mind.... even a tyrant must be smart... cause dumb dictators dont live long. Amazingly enough.... bush isn't a moron, he simply has the verbal capabilities of one
While surprising and most certainly refreshing to see that apple is serious about their claims, serious enough to publicly rebuke the claims almost certainly first brought to the big light by /.'s earlier article, this may only be leading into a circle of prooving and disprooving.
I believe it would be best for apple to answer with a full fury of tests to truly show the full range of operating prowness of the G5's vs the P4's, etc.... at least initialy, and to from there LEAVE IT ALONE. Cause no matter how many tests they do, no matter how much proof ... there will always be people out there ready to bring flames over nothing.... For instance this guys claims that FP isn't all that important, and that int tests are basicly all that matters for the majority of users.
He and others will stick too their guns even if they have only a couple benchmarks to cite as being supirior (kinda like the G4's and their altivec/photoshop optimizations of yester-year).
Apple needs to make sure that they have a clean image of being flatly open on their claims, and then to move on without being bogged down in an obvious quagmire of platform evangalism. The truth is, their strongest advantage remains the OS and not their hardware's direct horse-power. Of course the G5 along with all the goodies they come with are incredibly great, but this isn't apple's mainstay... it's simply another selling point.
If they become entrapped in having to proove themselves through benchmarking every new release, it won't be long before their entire image would have to live up to being ahead at all costs.... and guess what... they ARE going to fall behind again.... and then they'll leap ahead again.... and then they'll fall behind... etc.... And every down cycle will be worse, since the specs will be much more associated with their image.
keep your strong point in innovation apple, and if youve got the great hardware... great.... but don't get stuck in the mind-less mhz/spec race that has stagnated computer innovation for the love of ego's.
just my 2 cents.... I develop ASP, and love win 2k adv srv, ill never use anything but unix/linux for my networking gear, and OSX keeps me damn happy when i want to do anything not mind-numbing. Cisco IOS is arcane but makes me feel good. I am biased towards all platforms.
I find this "article" highly dubious... and am amazed slashdot let this slide... actualy im not... it seems /. is intent on fueling the platform war fires for more hits and such, because this was blatant flmae-bait trash.
While it has been discussed that the differences between GCC and ICC(??) on the two platforms makes for a supposed im-balance, the subjects are highly subjective. The main grip is that it is extremely hard to determine what IS a fair test of raw CPU power. This guy continuously claims that the number one score to rate by should be the specint_2000 test (which favors intel considerably) because most people will "never" use FP...
that is a pile of bullshit... aqua alone (doing all of your interface goodies) must use FP constantly, in fact i would dare say that FP is constant and highly important on OSX, it contributes immensly to the look and feel of it. dual-processing is NOT an exclusive to specialy coded programs. That was true to OS 9, but more recent builds split tasks far better than before (although nowhere near a perfect balence).... and so buying a dual machine isnt a pointless expenditure.
the guy claims that you can buy a dell at 3.06 for less than 2.5k with ALL of the equivilent features of the powermac..... i encourage you ALL to go to dell.com and config a dell with a DVD-r along with firewire, serial-ata (cant do it), bluetooth, 1gig ethernet, 802.11g, PCI-x (cant do it), 8gb RAM cpacity (cant do it) etc.... Now you cant add some of these features from dell... which will send some of you off to www.pricewatch.com to find the ABSOLUTE rock bottom prices on the extra parts and pieces... but you can all see the price difference for an equivilent system is tiny if not reversed.
if someone could link me to a PC with equivlient features (pci-x, agp 8x, 802.11g, 1gig ethernet, serial-ata, p4 3.06, bluetooth, etc...) i would love to see honest comparisons of the price. The 8gb limit simply can't be done, so the value of it is hard to quantify, as a music guy myself i can actualy see it's value, but many people can effectivly argue it is above and beyond current consumer demands. but current consumers arent looking for pro boxes.
my main point of contention is that there is too much LACK of knowledge in regards to spec and architecture. We don't know if these tests are balenced or not, or why they were performed however they were performed. This may have been the best way to compare the two on a bit for bit level, or maybe not. Apple has it's own intrests, how solid is veritests credibility? did money change hands? how much? etc.... GCC has been reputed to being apples baby as far as compliing.... but does that mean it was fully optimized towards PPC, and the vice versa agasint the PC?
What we DO know is that the PPC is scalable in MP configs, it is a FP monster, and the P4 is NOT MP (hence the xeon tests, which really are not consumer class chips) and the P4 is an INT monster. I expected the P4 to smoke the G5 on int, and it didn't (smoke it, just beat it well). As well i find it laughable that the first fab of a new chip (970) running 30% slower (in mhz) performs so well against the top p4. The G5 has come out the gate on a level of extreme competitivness and has a significant space to grow in... 3ghz in under 12 months? putting the G5 at 3ghz about when the p4 will hit 4ghz. The speed tests there will probably favor the G5 FAR MORE than these.
One last point, we can say much about how these tests are scewed towards apple in that the Compiler along with the "cheats" all seem to point towards manipulation.... but at the same time two HUGE benefits of the G5 arent being quantified either.... 64 bits AND 8gb of RAM are huge advantages that if fully utilized would lend such a huge performance gap it isnt funny (look at the genome matching with 40 bit words). So in a sense maybe these tests were balanced.
Too many variables to call this one, the G5 i suspect is faster on FP, but not on int (as apple indicated)... but
Apple is commonly referred to as "R&D south" by the Redmond campus. This term is quite apt of how most big players look at apple.
essentialy apple is probably the greatest trend setter in consumer computers. The big boys don't use thier resources to explore new design concepts and tech use. Instead they watch apple roll out new products, and see whether or not they are succesfull and viable (iPOD + Itunes Music Store, iMac) or just a bad idea (cube).
Apple hsn't got market share, they've got style share, or should i say... they are trendy. If something works within the apple community, it is almost garenteed to work in the windows community. Thus Companies who watch apples endeavors closely, can get a good idea on what markets to tackle, and what to leave alone.
There are reasons why apple's brand and OS/hardware have a much higher user satisfaction, it's because they spend almost as much money (and more in some cases) on product development than the much larger players (MS, IBM, DELL, HP, etc...). They also can afford to do so... it's their identity, and what keeps them alive. Since apple has it's own market, it doesn't have to worry about it's dollars spent on reasearch vs dollars spent on market growth in comparison to other players in the same space.
That is, dell must keep a tight budget on it's spedning, because they've got to save money to fight off sony, toshiba, HP, and others in distribution and identity. Whereas apple's identity is secure and has no DIRECT competitors in it's market (albeit a much smaller market, though apple ships nearly as many machines as the big boys do individualy) so apple's main goal is to preserve their identity of being something appealing, different and very well made. Part of being very well made and different AND APPEALING is TONS of R&D.
I hear rumors that panther (OS X 10.3) will have native ActiveDirectory support along with a 970 at 2ghz (which should be on par with a P4 at 3.5ghz or so), Coupled with a 1ghz FSB along with a crapload of hardware goodies.... it looks like apple may be making a play for being more than trendy... but a horse-powered consumer product as well. If the next rumor is true... the implications are huge.
Panther supposedly has a fully featured multi-user environment built for wireless displays. As in you can have 6 people with all of their own wireless displays connected to the same computer in their house. Each one has a full user environment complete with aqua and everything. Eliminating the need for multiple machines, and providing one point of data storage and access. The implications are quite similar to what was expected to be thin client computing of our day (everyone has a dumb terminal that runs from a server somewhere)
but we shall see what happens. I personaly love the ideas of all these things, and think they would be great if implemented by apple (since apple does a stellar job on their projects)... but also find apple's releasal of products to be inconsistent, and often rumors are just that. Rumors.
I read through your post searching for any sort of good factual basis to your points. And aside from supposedly having friends who dumped their ibooks (shittiest of apples products anyways ... G3's) you've managed to provide a whole lot of FUD with no FACTS.
Now im not gonna present much more fact, but as to your "mac people make up your mind" crap, i will say this... Mac's have a tremendous advantage in OSX due to a highly crafted interface, which continues to improve at a rate not matched in Windows (though longhorn may change things in 2005), so to take that as a reason even without super-power for having a better system is more than enough for many. When coupled with intermitent periods of ACTUAL supirior hardware, then the advantages become compounded.
If i have a better OS AND better hardware, im gonna be damn happy. Few people contest the OS supiriority of OSX (especialy since 10.2)... there are those who simply don't like it, but on the whole you'll find most people power users or not prefer OSX to windows/linux varients in terms of usability and design. Under the hood, OSX is highly lauded for clean API's and relatively easy development comparitivly. However the end user doesn't give a shit. So whats left to debate when the OS is out of the question?
hardware
And when the mac crowd gets better hardware, they are going to take it to task against the PC users whove been citing it as a reason to call their platform weak.
In all fariness i doubt you've ever worked for extended periods on a fastt G4. If you had... you'd understand better.
I myself use all of these systems along with cisco IOS and a few others. If i could develop for IIS on a mac.... i'd have no reason short of office to use a windows machine. DOS sucks ass compared to the terminal in OSX, and linux GUI sucks ass compared to aqua/OSX.
now with kick-ass hardware the platform can finaly be great in most respects. (call me crazy, but id never serve off of a mac, dispite the awards xserve/xraid have garnered, just me)