I keep mine in a redundant infinite array of parallel universes. That is the only safe way in case any number of solar systems falls into any number of black holes.
And GWB needs a new flashpoint to distract the US electorate from the mess he is making of everything else so in effect this is mutually beneficial situation.
You have to admire how politicians manage to turn two wrongs into a right. Well... At least for them.
You know... There is a very good reason for the acronym to be MAD. I don't think the people involved in coining it would have any difficulty to find a completely innocent combination of letters.
I don't think they can be used as offensive weapons, but the mere fact that they could render (I seriously doubt that) offensive weapons useless is enough to create a dangerous unbalance on the MAD principle. If Russians have to throw 30 nukes to hit 10 targets and Americans throw, say, 12 to hit 10 targets, then, while not being offensive weapons, they are offensive enough. Keep it also in mind that, just like any proto-dictator, Putin needs an enemy for their country to hate and the US with its utterly terrible foreign policy seems to be perfect for it.
One good way to deal with it is to cooperate on the technology with the Russians, so they can build the defensive systems themselves.
One of the things I learned with great sci-fi is that setting events in the distant future (or past, or just a plain distant place) and putting some spaceships, aliens and ray-guns allows the author to tell a profound story while still being interesting to the general public whose attention span equals the one of a mosquito.
See, the graph at http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/CNY/graph120.html points out a clear trend of devaluation of the American Dollar compared to a whole lot of other currencies in the world in the last 120 days. I don't care enough to dig out long-term trends for your education, but having a currency unit A that is worth two units of currency B is not exactly good if four months ago a unit of A was worth 10 units of B. It either shows A is being actively devalued by the government (in order to boost exports or curb imports) or is being discredited by severe doubts on the long term viability of their economy, at least compared to other, more vigorous, ones.
The cameras, the software are only tools, but they can greatly help a totalitarian government to do its job. Instead of worrying only when such draconian laws are passed, you should start to worry when there is enough infrastructure for those draconian laws to be enforced. If you are paranoid enough, just the political manipulation of the SCOTUS should trigger your discomfort.
And I bet there will be no cameras and microphones in any high-level government office streaming content to the general people as this would "help terrorist to plan their attacks" or something along the the enemy du jour line.
I am worried for the US and, since it commands a very well equipped military, I worry for myself, my children and my fellow human beings who happen to live elsewhere. We all saw this movie before and it has no happy ending (unless there is a "Love Conquers All" version I don't know of).
How much would it cost to feed and give health care to every human being that is starving? To educate every child? To nurture healthy economies where there are none or where corrupt governments ruined it?
Compare that with the cost of one week of Iraq occupation. How much money is being wasted in a war that gives nothing in return but a general feeling Americans are evil?
My grand mother went to tears every time she told me the story of how American troops shared their supplies with local refugees in the devastated Europe towards the end of the war. She never mentioned the government, invasions, nazis, politics or the reasons for the war - she remembered how generous they in helping her and her husband (along with hundreds of refugees) to feed their children in times of extreme hardship.
This is a good way to win lifetime loyalty - to help people. Not to bomb them back into stone-age and then invade, overthrow a bad and corrupt government for no better reason than to outdo a former president who couldn't (or didn't really want to) get rid of him and then push the country in the chaos of a virtual civil war and pave the way to a theocracy. Not to endorse corrupt and blood-thirsty dictators just because they oppose anyone to the left of the most far right extremists.
I do not blame people for the actions of their government, but not everyone is as enlightened. You can't expect to be popular, or safe, with a foreign policy like this.
And you don't need a sci-fi writer to figure that out.
This is also much more like what an OLPC should be. ARM == low power & cost relative to an x86. I think OPLC got it wrong when they went x86 - which looks like it was done solely to support Windows. Linux runs great on ARM (there are probably more Linux devices using ARM than x86).
I too wondered why x86 processors were selected back when it was announced. The truth is the ARM is too low power to be useful with more conventional applications - there are no implementations with large L2 caches and few, if any (didn't check) implementation with an FPU. That's too bad because I think an asynchronous dual-core ARM with shared FPU and vector processors and huge L1/L2 cache would take up very little silicon real-estate. Unfortunately, that chip does not exist.
Going x86 allowed them to use a more "common" version of the Linux kernel that has been tested to exhaustion by the vast majority of computer users, allows developers to do development on more understood and readily available computers and, very important, allow any optimizations to be ported to the mainline kernels - we should start to see some improvements, mainly in power management, in the next releases of the Linux kernel thanks in part to the work of the OLPC folks did on the x86 kernel.
But don't despair - Most of the OLPC components (über-smart wireless, fancy low-power high-res screen) will end-up in other devices. I would not be surprised to see them in e-book readers (it should be trivial to make one act as a wireless CUPS server for your desktop and allow you to read and search anything you "print" to it) or other "subcomputer" devices that may or may not use x86 processors. Many design decisions on the OLPC were made to make it safer for kids and cheaper to produce. You can also expect a product derived from it with Li-ion batteries, a "real" keyboard and more mass storage for sale sometime in the future.
We live in interesting times, but, this time, this seems to be a good thing.
This is not a rationalization - it's an explanation.
I too get a kick from just being in the presence of my son. I will never forget the joy when I first laid my eyes on him, about 5 seconds after he was born and I refer to that as the most transforming experience I ever had. It is partly a cognitive thing (we "know" they are our offspring) as something probably deeper and simpler (we "smell" like family). He's eleven now and the kick has not diminished a bit. Yet, I fully recognize we like each other for a whole lot of different reasons and one of them is that we were hard-wired to do so.
Not much, actually, What I really need is a good excuse to abandon my comfort-zones (Zope/Python/Plone, Java/JSP/JSF) for some time and do something "for real" in Lisp.
Since I collect interesting computers, even a Lisp Machine emulator that could fit my 800x1440 screen would be great to spend a couple days playing with;-)
And I am still looking forward toward someone implementing one as an FPGA.
I think your shared genes (and you recognizing the child as your offspring) account for the "kick" you get for changing your infant son's diapers. You probably wouldn't care as much as if it would be someone else's child. You also would not drive a truck over other people's offspring.
We are social animals and, since we depend on our fellow human beings (and our complex society) to survive, it's only natural that we develop the traits necessary for good social behaviour. While there is an impulse towards selfishness (making our genes more expressive than others), there is also a drive towards the well-being of the species, as our genes would not be able to survive (or thrive less) without others.
Most probably, our ancestors that were too selfish to care for the genes of others inbred themselves to extinction, while the too altruistic never bred very much anyway. We are the result of this balance and we should be expected to show both sides.
I like Lisp and find it an invaluable educational tool (you see what would be a parse tree for a C programmer), but I don't feel comfortable with s-expressions.
I am also not sure how a call-modifier like the ones I suggested would be implemented in Lisp.
But I admit my programmer learning path was disrupted very early. After being exposed to Smalltalk-ish languages (first Smalltalk/V, then Actor), it took me several years (and lots of complaining) to even touch C++.
Writing programs in something that resembles XML should be considered cruel and unusual punishment.;-)
I like the Hasse diagram thing as a visualization tool. Yet, resisting the idea of defining dependencies in a graphical environment ie necessary as dependencies should have syntactic support and be expressed into the source code in the simplest way possible - maybe like:
Slashdot Mirror
Problem is, the market is more about buying shiny things than being good, knowledgeable, customers.
For the clueless, good enough suffices.
In Soviet Russia, file-sharers sue you.
Sorry... Couldn't resist the signature...
I keep mine in a redundant infinite array of parallel universes. That is the only safe way in case any number of solar systems falls into any number of black holes.
You have to admire how politicians manage to turn two wrongs into a right. Well... At least for them.
You know... There is a very good reason for the acronym to be MAD. I don't think the people involved in coining it would have any difficulty to find a completely innocent combination of letters.
I would risk that a text editor that requires you to reconfigure your OS in order to avoid RSIs is going a little bit too far.
I don't think they can be used as offensive weapons, but the mere fact that they could render (I seriously doubt that) offensive weapons useless is enough to create a dangerous unbalance on the MAD principle. If Russians have to throw 30 nukes to hit 10 targets and Americans throw, say, 12 to hit 10 targets, then, while not being offensive weapons, they are offensive enough. Keep it also in mind that, just like any proto-dictator, Putin needs an enemy for their country to hate and the US with its utterly terrible foreign policy seems to be perfect for it.
One good way to deal with it is to cooperate on the technology with the Russians, so they can build the defensive systems themselves.
That would probably be SD.
One of the things I learned with great sci-fi is that setting events in the distant future (or past, or just a plain distant place) and putting some spaceships, aliens and ray-guns allows the author to tell a profound story while still being interesting to the general public whose attention span equals the one of a mosquito.
I am confused. Should we call it a throwscreen then?
Strong is not the word I would use.
See, the graph at http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/CNY/graph120.html points out a clear trend of devaluation of the American Dollar compared to a whole lot of other currencies in the world in the last 120 days. I don't care enough to dig out long-term trends for your education, but having a currency unit A that is worth two units of currency B is not exactly good if four months ago a unit of A was worth 10 units of B. It either shows A is being actively devalued by the government (in order to boost exports or curb imports) or is being discredited by severe doubts on the long term viability of their economy, at least compared to other, more vigorous, ones.
The cameras, the software are only tools, but they can greatly help a totalitarian government to do its job. Instead of worrying only when such draconian laws are passed, you should start to worry when there is enough infrastructure for those draconian laws to be enforced. If you are paranoid enough, just the political manipulation of the SCOTUS should trigger your discomfort.
And I bet there will be no cameras and microphones in any high-level government office streaming content to the general people as this would "help terrorist to plan their attacks" or something along the the enemy du jour line.
I am worried for the US and, since it commands a very well equipped military, I worry for myself, my children and my fellow human beings who happen to live elsewhere. We all saw this movie before and it has no happy ending (unless there is a "Love Conquers All" version I don't know of).
Some posts should be able to break the +5 barrier...
You can always develop it by yourself.
Really?
How much would it cost to eradicate poverty?
How much would it cost to feed and give health care to every human being that is starving? To educate every child? To nurture healthy economies where there are none or where corrupt governments ruined it?
Compare that with the cost of one week of Iraq occupation. How much money is being wasted in a war that gives nothing in return but a general feeling Americans are evil?
My grand mother went to tears every time she told me the story of how American troops shared their supplies with local refugees in the devastated Europe towards the end of the war. She never mentioned the government, invasions, nazis, politics or the reasons for the war - she remembered how generous they in helping her and her husband (along with hundreds of refugees) to feed their children in times of extreme hardship.
This is a good way to win lifetime loyalty - to help people. Not to bomb them back into stone-age and then invade, overthrow a bad and corrupt government for no better reason than to outdo a former president who couldn't (or didn't really want to) get rid of him and then push the country in the chaos of a virtual civil war and pave the way to a theocracy. Not to endorse corrupt and blood-thirsty dictators just because they oppose anyone to the left of the most far right extremists.
I do not blame people for the actions of their government, but not everyone is as enlightened. You can't expect to be popular, or safe, with a foreign policy like this.
And you don't need a sci-fi writer to figure that out.
I too wondered why x86 processors were selected back when it was announced. The truth is the ARM is too low power to be useful with more conventional applications - there are no implementations with large L2 caches and few, if any (didn't check) implementation with an FPU. That's too bad because I think an asynchronous dual-core ARM with shared FPU and vector processors and huge L1/L2 cache would take up very little silicon real-estate. Unfortunately, that chip does not exist.
Going x86 allowed them to use a more "common" version of the Linux kernel that has been tested to exhaustion by the vast majority of computer users, allows developers to do development on more understood and readily available computers and, very important, allow any optimizations to be ported to the mainline kernels - we should start to see some improvements, mainly in power management, in the next releases of the Linux kernel thanks in part to the work of the OLPC folks did on the x86 kernel.
But don't despair - Most of the OLPC components (über-smart wireless, fancy low-power high-res screen) will end-up in other devices. I would not be surprised to see them in e-book readers (it should be trivial to make one act as a wireless CUPS server for your desktop and allow you to read and search anything you "print" to it) or other "subcomputer" devices that may or may not use x86 processors. Many design decisions on the OLPC were made to make it safer for kids and cheaper to produce. You can also expect a product derived from it with Li-ion batteries, a "real" keyboard and more mass storage for sale sometime in the future.
We live in interesting times, but, this time, this seems to be a good thing.
Actually, DR-DOS worked just fine. It was just that Windows detected it and then pretended it did not work properly.
Is there a good reason why the PS3's Linux does not have full access to the hardware beyond lack of proper documentation?
This is not a rationalization - it's an explanation.
I too get a kick from just being in the presence of my son. I will never forget the joy when I first laid my eyes on him, about 5 seconds after he was born and I refer to that as the most transforming experience I ever had. It is partly a cognitive thing (we "know" they are our offspring) as something probably deeper and simpler (we "smell" like family). He's eleven now and the kick has not diminished a bit. Yet, I fully recognize we like each other for a whole lot of different reasons and one of them is that we were hard-wired to do so.
Ok... The cousins of our ancestors ;-)
Not much, actually, What I really need is a good excuse to abandon my comfort-zones (Zope/Python/Plone, Java/JSP/JSF) for some time and do something "for real" in Lisp.
;-)
Since I collect interesting computers, even a Lisp Machine emulator that could fit my 800x1440 screen would be great to spend a couple days playing with
And I am still looking forward toward someone implementing one as an FPGA.
I think your shared genes (and you recognizing the child as your offspring) account for the "kick" you get for changing your infant son's diapers. You probably wouldn't care as much as if it would be someone else's child. You also would not drive a truck over other people's offspring.
We are social animals and, since we depend on our fellow human beings (and our complex society) to survive, it's only natural that we develop the traits necessary for good social behaviour. While there is an impulse towards selfishness (making our genes more expressive than others), there is also a drive towards the well-being of the species, as our genes would not be able to survive (or thrive less) without others.
Most probably, our ancestors that were too selfish to care for the genes of others inbred themselves to extinction, while the too altruistic never bred very much anyway. We are the result of this balance and we should be expected to show both sides.
I like Lisp and find it an invaluable educational tool (you see what would be a parse tree for a C programmer), but I don't feel comfortable with s-expressions.
I am also not sure how a call-modifier like the ones I suggested would be implemented in Lisp.
But I admit my programmer learning path was disrupted very early. After being exposed to Smalltalk-ish languages (first Smalltalk/V, then Actor), it took me several years (and lots of complaining) to even touch C++.
Writing programs in something that resembles XML should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. ;-)
I like the Hasse diagram thing as a visualization tool. Yet, resisting the idea of defining dependencies in a graphical environment ie necessary as dependencies should have syntactic support and be expressed into the source code in the simplest way possible - maybe like:
foo.someotherthing() provides thing1
foo.myMethod(arg) depends thing1 provides thing2
bar.myMethod2(otherArg) depends (thing1 || otherstuff) provides thing3
which may be an utterly horrible solution as I dedicated only about 10 seconds of thought to this problem.
Most creationist nicely avoid this by saying "God made the fossil record this way to test our faith".
This way, creationism becomes non-falsifiable and thus, not a science.
So, they have a choice between being non-science or being already proved wrong. And this is the only question that should remain.