Just the other day I needed to access some files on a 5.25 floppy and couldn't find a drive anywhere... fortunately the customer had a drive in storage to read the files.
BTW, this customer is still running a copy of software I wrote in 1988 that only needed updating because a required government form changed.
Our county (Placer, California) uses a system which is similar to this...
We vote on a "scantron" type sheet (fill in bubbles for candidates) and this is scanned into a reader before you leave the poll and the scanner keeps the paper form. If there are any problems reading the scan, you have the opportunity to fix it. There is also a paper trail of all of the forms that can be verified.
I was in Phnom Penh Cambodia recently. It is a good size city of 1+ million people. Lots of traffic... cars, motorcycles, elephants, donkey carts, etc.
Anyway... they had NO traffic lights and traffic flowed very well. I was amazed that this cooperative system of traffic worked so well.
I used to work in a hospital ER and would ALWAYS wash my hands BEFORE using the bathroom (in addition to after and many other times during the day.)
Urine is sterile (unless you have an infection) but the problem is the proximity to the sewage outlet. As some wit has remarked... "who would have designed a major recreation area next to the water works and the sewage outlet?"
I don't know about the EU (I'm in the US) but here is a credit industry that collects personal information about every "consumer" and sells this to anyone who isn't obviously a crook. Some of the users of the information are legitimate (i.e. bank checks my credit when I apply for a loan or credit card). Most of the sales are to companies that want to sell you something (i.e. all of those unsolicited credit card applications).
As far as banks go, they tell you that they are releasing your personal bank information and loan payment information to the credit bureaus (it's in the fine print of their "privacy disclosure") and that makes it "OK" in the eyes of the law. You as a consumer can't prevent this information sale. The only way to opt out is to not have any bank accounts, loans, or credit cards (but they still collect other "public record" information on you such as DMV, court records, property transfers, etc.).
As Bill Joy once said... You don't have any privacy... get over it.
It's great for my purposes which is lots of Jazz and Blues classics... I don't think it has Britney Spears, though. It does have 1.4 million tracks that are DRM-free MP3s that are very reasonably priced.
Why should anyone be able to ruin your finances by just knowing some numbers?
Why should someone be able to borrow in your name by just quoting some number?
Why is my future dependent on whether some data entry operator in some company follows the proper security precautions?
This is the crux of the problem. The entire basis of the credit industry is that they collect all of your personal information and then sell it freely without your knowledge or permission. They profit from each sale and thus have a big incentive to make the information available to as many people as possible. They've been burned by past practices and have had to eliminate outright fraudsters from their sales prospects (much to their dismay) but they still make big bucks by selling to just about anyone else prospecting for suckers for their credit cards, "financial services", and every other hair-brained marketers wet dream.
If people could actually claim ownership of their data and have it released only when they specifically agreed to the release with proper notification, the identity theft problems would go away (but so would the business model of the credit agencies).
I think you're confusing the "potential" with the actual implementation of power saving code.
I think we can count on Microsoft screwing up the implementation so that you will get these problems with lock up, etc. However, if this is properly implemented, there is a great potential for power savings.
For instance, my Dell 700m laptop with the 1.7GHz Intel Pentium mobile processor is very power efficient. It creates so little heat that the fan only comes on briefly when I am doing a compile or something else processor intensive. It's a very responsive machine that consumes less than 20 watts most of the time.
This week's Economist has a good article on the Zune and other things Microsoft.
My favorite quote from the article:
Zune is much more controversial, however, because Microsoft's pre-existing hardware and service partners are left high and dry. "I've never seen a business so blatantly screw its business partners," says Peter Sealey, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.
There lies the true danger and the power of wikipedia, and the reason why no-one must ever take wikipedia seriously. I think this can't be stressed enough - never ever trust wikipedia, nothing on wikipedia is necessarily true. That should be recited like a mantra. Wikipedia is fine as long as everyone always remembers that and doesn't try to elevate it to anything even approaching truth.
I must say though that I think the last thing the Chinese need is yet another dubious source of information. They need objective reality not wikiality.
Would you trust a MySpace fact? Why do you trust a wikipedia one? There's little difference other than perception. They may be written by the same person.
You really should say this about ALL information sources. You can't really trust anything you read/see/hear anywhere. You need to read everything with a critical mind and understand possible sources of bias. I don't think there is any information source (government, mass media, web, etc.) that I trust without thinking about it. One would hope that the experience of the Internet would teach people this lesson. On the web it is easy to find every sort of fiction along with "facts" and there is no one to stamp them with an objective reality seal of approval... (and beware of anyone who attempts to tell you which sources are trustworthy).
My point was that an IBM proprietary CPU and OS would not have been widely adopted even if IBM choose to sell it to OEMs (not likely given IBMs business model at the time).
The reason the IBM PC became so popular was that IBM didn't control it and anyone could make a clone. If the clone makers all had to go to IBM for permission and parts, the market wouldn't have developed.
The DEC PDP-8 (and PDP-11) were arguably better architectures and had arguably better software and were implemented (somewhat belatedly) as microprocessors but they were ignored. I remember that when DEC did finally come out with their own PC clone, they were charging a premium for formatted floppy disks. They didn't provide a formatting program for floppies and charged you extra for their "special" formatted floppies. Needless to say, their attempt to control this small bit of the market failed and their PC clone failed and their company failed. They had great computers but they were proprietary and expensive and they failed to develop a broad market.
The IBM PC succeeded because it was not proprietary. IBM couldn't control it. The IBM PC was, at the time, a "rogue" project that didn't follow IBMs rules and it failed to follow the IBM business model (because IBM didn't feel that it would amount to anything).
I think the GPU (graphics process units) people have a big advantage for gamers (and all digital content creation tasks). Most GPUs are 10-20 times as fast as CPUs for their specialized functions so a "58%" speed improvement with the quad core CPU doesn't mean anything.
Yes, this is stupid. I think the reason that it gets reported as an "Apple" bug is that it was first demonstrated on Apple hardware... yes, it's not fair... but, it's not a plot to destroy Apple.
The press in general is stupid since they don't understand technology. Most of the press coverage of virus, trojan, etc. problems fails to mention that these are almost exclusively the problems of Windows PCs and that Apple and Linux computers are almost free of such problems.
Interesting that last week's Economist published the results of a study which shows that you are exactly right. It studied the growth in the US budget for years when there was a "divided" executive/legislature and years when one party was in control of both. The budget grew about twice as much in the years of one party control as it did when there was divided control.
There have already been cases where electronic medical records vendors have refused to release patient medical information for doctors who want to move their patients to another system.
There should be some "right" to your own information.
I'm getting these calls several times a day (California 4th) and I'm getting tired of them. At first I found it amusing to hear the outrageous things they would say about the Democrat. According to the calls, he would raise taxes, give welfare to immigrants, and rape our mothers and sisters (well... the rape part was only implied).
I guess it is a measure of the desperation of the Republicans that they are making these calls. I can't believe anyone would believe the outlandish claims but I guess they are counting on the stupidity of the electorate.
The problem here is not technical. The problem is the high prices and restrictions on use.
Most of these services are priced several times the cost of other Internet access and they all seem to have restrictions to limit access to brief email and browsing use. For instance, they specifically prohibit streaming music or video... unless, of course, you are paying them big extra bucks for their "special" DRM content.
This will take off big when they get realistic about pricing and use but I don't think this will happen... ever.
The FCC was involved because Massport had complained to the FCC that the WiFi service would interfere with other radios... the FCC rightly said this was shenanigans.
I think that most of us would agree that information technology is vital to our economy and security. However, you'd be hard pressed to buy any "made in USA" IT equipment. It's all made in a web of countries all over the world, each exercising it's comparative advantage... the US for CPUs, Japan and Korea for memory, Taiwan, China and a lot of other countries for assembly. There's no reason that food should be different. Why should I buy high priced sugar from the USA when a lot of countries can produce sugar more efficiently?
On the estate tax, it is a myth that this is a double tax on money that has already been taxed. Most of the value of most estates comes from appreciation in real estate value or capital gains that have never been taxed.
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BTW, this customer is still running a copy of software I wrote in 1988 that only needed updating because a required government form changed.
We vote on a "scantron" type sheet (fill in bubbles for candidates) and this is scanned into a reader before you leave the poll and the scanner keeps the paper form. If there are any problems reading the scan, you have the opportunity to fix it. There is also a paper trail of all of the forms that can be verified.
The behaviour of disbelieving scientific facts is the RESULT of a reduction in brain size due to a lack of intelligent stimulation.
Missouri (pop 5.5 million) had 1021 traffic deaths in 2005.
Illinois pedestrian fatalities are 268/10 million in large cities.
Between 1996 and 2003, a total of 3,462 NYC bicyclists were seriously injured in crashes with motor vehicles.
NYC: 66 traffic deaths first three months of 1998, compared to 74 during the first three months of 1998 - an 11 percent drop.
Anyway... they had NO traffic lights and traffic flowed very well. I was amazed that this cooperative system of traffic worked so well.
Urine is sterile (unless you have an infection) but the problem is the proximity to the sewage outlet. As some wit has remarked... "who would have designed a major recreation area next to the water works and the sewage outlet?"
As far as banks go, they tell you that they are releasing your personal bank information and loan payment information to the credit bureaus (it's in the fine print of their "privacy disclosure") and that makes it "OK" in the eyes of the law. You as a consumer can't prevent this information sale. The only way to opt out is to not have any bank accounts, loans, or credit cards (but they still collect other "public record" information on you such as DMV, court records, property transfers, etc.).
As Bill Joy once said... You don't have any privacy... get over it.
It's great for my purposes which is lots of Jazz and Blues classics... I don't think it has Britney Spears, though. It does have 1.4 million tracks that are DRM-free MP3s that are very reasonably priced.
If people could actually claim ownership of their data and have it released only when they specifically agreed to the release with proper notification, the identity theft problems would go away (but so would the business model of the credit agencies).
I'm still waiting for the paperless bathroom...
I think we can count on Microsoft screwing up the implementation so that you will get these problems with lock up, etc. However, if this is properly implemented, there is a great potential for power savings.
For instance, my Dell 700m laptop with the 1.7GHz Intel Pentium mobile processor is very power efficient. It creates so little heat that the fan only comes on briefly when I am doing a compile or something else processor intensive. It's a very responsive machine that consumes less than 20 watts most of the time.
My favorite quote from the article:
Economist http://economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?stThe reason the IBM PC became so popular was that IBM didn't control it and anyone could make a clone. If the clone makers all had to go to IBM for permission and parts, the market wouldn't have developed.
The DEC PDP-8 (and PDP-11) were arguably better architectures and had arguably better software and were implemented (somewhat belatedly) as microprocessors but they were ignored. I remember that when DEC did finally come out with their own PC clone, they were charging a premium for formatted floppy disks. They didn't provide a formatting program for floppies and charged you extra for their "special" formatted floppies. Needless to say, their attempt to control this small bit of the market failed and their PC clone failed and their company failed. They had great computers but they were proprietary and expensive and they failed to develop a broad market.
The IBM PC succeeded because it was not proprietary. IBM couldn't control it. The IBM PC was, at the time, a "rogue" project that didn't follow IBMs rules and it failed to follow the IBM business model (because IBM didn't feel that it would amount to anything).
- developed their own CPU instead of the "cheap" 8088
- bought Microsoft and Digital Research or "written their own" OS
Then the "IBM PC standard" would be in the same boat as the DEC PDP-8 and would be ancient history.
I think the GPU (graphics process units) people have a big advantage for gamers (and all digital content creation tasks). Most GPUs are 10-20 times as fast as CPUs for their specialized functions so a "58%" speed improvement with the quad core CPU doesn't mean anything.
... because they are using nano-sized particles.
The press in general is stupid since they don't understand technology. Most of the press coverage of virus, trojan, etc. problems fails to mention that these are almost exclusively the problems of Windows PCs and that Apple and Linux computers are almost free of such problems.
It's not a plot, it's just sloppy reporting.
Interesting that last week's Economist published the results of a study which shows that you are exactly right. It studied the growth in the US budget for years when there was a "divided" executive/legislature and years when one party was in control of both. The budget grew about twice as much in the years of one party control as it did when there was divided control.
There should be some "right" to your own information.
I guess it is a measure of the desperation of the Republicans that they are making these calls. I can't believe anyone would believe the outlandish claims but I guess they are counting on the stupidity of the electorate.
Most of these services are priced several times the cost of other Internet access and they all seem to have restrictions to limit access to brief email and browsing use. For instance, they specifically prohibit streaming music or video... unless, of course, you are paying them big extra bucks for their "special" DRM content.
This will take off big when they get realistic about pricing and use but I don't think this will happen... ever.
Symantec is getting pretty desperate... now they have to write their own viruses to get people to buy their anti-virus software.
The FCC was involved because Massport had complained to the FCC that the WiFi service would interfere with other radios... the FCC rightly said this was shenanigans.
On the estate tax, it is a myth that this is a double tax on money that has already been taxed. Most of the value of most estates comes from appreciation in real estate value or capital gains that have never been taxed.