If she wants treatment for mental illness, she should get it through her
insurance company.
If she wants treatment for mental illness, she should be able to
get it through her insurance company. Unfortunately, this is rarely
the case in the US.
You could say that about any product. You could argue that McDonald's
shouldn't be allowed to advertise because it increases the price of a
Big Mac. Why not just ban advertising in general?
We don't need to ban it but we sure as hell should stop subsidizing
it. Advertising should not be treated as a business expense that
can be deducted from taxes, it should be taxed heavily the same way
that pollution should be taxed heavily because they are both negative
externalities. The rationalization that advertising helps consumers
by making them better informed is total bullshit. We all have
limited time on earth and limited attention. If someone wants to
use my limited time and attention then they should pay me for that.
I shouldn't be paying them for it.
So your solution to terrorism is mass genocide? The decision for us
to commit much greater atrocities is not "in the hands of the
clerics and other muslim [sic] leaders around the world". They are
not responsible for our actions, we are. Nor are they responsible for
the actions of the people who committed this horrible attack. In
addition, why would you expect the attackers to treat us as fellow
humans when you are not willing to treat them that way?
We started this bloody awful mess and they see themselves as fighting
back and defending themselves in the only way the can. The most
effective way to get someone to act subhuman is to treat them as
subhuman. Repaying atrocity with atrocity might give you some
emotional relief but it is about as effective as pouring gasoline
on a fire or copulating for virginity.
I pray we do not become the evil we abhor. As long as enough people
choose to dehumanize their fellow human beings then there will be no
end to the escalating violence on both sides.
People who would do such things are animals and aren't worth dealing
with on an even level. If they wish to behave this way, then they
should be treated that way.
Albert Einstein:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we
created them.
IOW, your reaction to dehumanize the people who did this plays
right into their hands. ISIS was created by and survives on
atrocities committed by the West. I'm not saying this justifies
the attack. I'm saying that from a pragmatic perspective
dehumanizing the attackers is extremely stupid and short-sighted.
> I have not seen any reasonable theoretical explanation for the anomalous
force that is purported to power the EM drive
The only thing that critics have managed to say about emdrive theory
over 10 years is " muh momentum "
What else can we reply when there is no actually theory presented that
we can reply to or refute? All we have to go on is some micro-wave
engineer claims that he has invented a device that violates
conservation of momentum without providing any reasonable theory for
how it might work. Your attempt to blame the critics for the complete
lack of theoretical underpinnings by the inventor is ridiculous. The
inventor himself said:
I am just a microwave engineer and all that matters is that it
works.
In addition, the Anonymous Coward engineer claims:
Emdrive has been experimentally verified by 5 institutions with
results published.
(emphasis added)
Have experimental results been published? Yes. Has the effect been
verified? No. Most of the extraordinary experimental results seem to
have been either debunked or retracted, claims such as nearly one
Newton of thrust by a paper from China which has been shrouded in
mystery. The more recent and reliable Tajimar paper
explicitly says:
... we successfully identified
experimental areas needing additional attention before any firm
conclusions concerning the EMDrive claims could be made. Out test
campaign therefore can neither confirm or refute the claims of the
EMDrive [...]
In one of their experiments their measured thrust was in the wrong
direction! Their conclusion that the experiments need to be improved
before they can be used to verify the EMDrive claims echoes what I
already said (and you mocked) that the current experimental results
are buried down with the noise. That is what the fine post linked to
by the summary says as well. The experimentalists are working on
beating back known sources of noise so they will eventually be in a
position to confirm or refute the EMDrive claims. It is not all
relevant if totally different experiments with totally different
devices had better signal to noise ratios with similar input powers
and output thrusts.
Your mocking, your ad hominem attacks, and your appeals to
emotion and irrelevancies do nothing to bolster your argument.
Your claims far exceed the claims of the very experimentalists
whose work you (appear to) cite. You are, of course, free to
believe whatever the heck you want but it seems your claims of
experimental verification are greatly overblown. For me, the
lack of theoretical underpinnings, the violation of the
conservation of momentum, and the lack of experimental
verification (as I cited above and from the fine post linked
to in summary) all make me highly dubious that the effect is real.
Because his prior work, from which the EMDrive stems, is a laser-gyroscope
functioning on the exact same principles as the EMDrive in reverse [...]
This is complete hogwash. The effects cannot be related because
the laser-gyroscope is based fundamentally on rotational velocities
being absolute. Linear velocities (even without Einstein's relativity)
are relative. OTOH, it makes some sense that an engineer who developed
their intuition based on laser-gyroscopes would misapply that intuition
to "invent" the EMDrive.
Shawyer's theory states the greatest way to improve thrust from existing
models would be to make a perfect-Q cavity [...]
Can you point to an actual theoretical explanation/prediction of the
effect? Shawyer himself said:
I am just a microwave engineer and all that matters is that it works.
This was in reference to his claim (in 2007) of creating a EMDrive that
produced 0.1 Newtons (100,000 microNewtons, 1000 times larger
than the effect measured in the post from the summary). Was that
claim debunked or abandoned? If not, then why are we farting around
with machines that only produce 100 micro-Newtons?
In 2012 there was a claim from China about producing an EMDrive that
created nearly 1 Newton of thrust. Many people were dubious of
this claim because the test wasn't performed in a vacuum so the
thrust could have been created by thermal effects (like a Crookes
radiometer). Now we are talking about better experiments where the
effect has been reduced by a factor of 10,000 and is down in the
noise level while the experimenters are working on decreasing the
sources of noise. Everything about Shawyer's claim reeks of
crockpottery. Sure, if something like this actually existed then
it could be the gateway to interstellar travel. But that only
makes these dubious claims more suspicious.
The problem is not the absolute smallness of 100 micro-Newtons. The
problem is the relative size of 100-micro-Newtons compared to the
forces that exist in the experimental apparatus. It is like
confusing absolute signal level with the signal to noise ratio.
Yes, we can easily measure the weight of a snowflake. But if the
total thrust from this 100 watt drive is equivalent to the weight
of a snowflake then I am exceedingly unimpressed. If you read the
fine post that is linked to, you will see that this is literally
down in the level of noise that can be produced by ground loops and
so on. The author is basically saying that they tried to remove
even more noise sources than last time and still have not yet
tracked down what is causing the extremely tiny anomalous thrust
they have measured.
I am a physicist so I am well aware of just how bloody difficult
it is to track down and account for every form of noise
and error in experiments like this one. Or in the experiment that
measured neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light.
I am often cautioning my friends to not get too excited about
weak experimental results like this that contradict foundational
physical theories. I also cautioned people to not get too excited
about the so-called "face on Mars" for the same reasons. Lots
of fascinating things are seen in weak signals that are close to
the experimental noise floor.
In addition, I have not seen any reasonable theoretical explanation
for the anomalous force that is purported to power the EM drive. There
is certainly no relationship between the purported physics of an EM
drive and the actual physics of a ring laser gyroscope. Nor
have I seen any reasonable theoretical explanation for why the thrust
should scale as a large power of the input energy. Yet many people
here who ignore the experimental challenges of measuring the weight
of a snowflake on top of the forces acting on an apparatus dissipating
100 watts of RF energy seem to blithely accept these remarkable
and, AFAIK unfounded, theoretical claims as gospel truth.
One trillion connections per year is roughly the size of the traffic
the Wikipedia gets. Wikipedia is one of the top
ten sites on the internet.
Next up: Judge Bennet tosses out a case because plaintif neglected
to provide context for the sky being blue or water being wet.
I don't know what bugs me more, this obvious attempt to subvert
justice or the lame-ass excuse used for doing so. It is insulting.
It's like the judge is telling us the fix is so far in that he
doesn't even have to bother to appear to make sense.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human
face -- forever.
It [mandatory full-disk encryption] can benefit consumers AND be
self-serving.
Not according to the standard definitions of self-serving
which includes:
1. Serving one's own interests, especially without concern for the
needs or interests of others.
2. Exhibiting concern solely for one's own interests:
serving one's own interests often in disregard of the truth or the
interests of others.
It would be more accurate to say that this may be a case where
benefiting consumers also benefits the corporate interest. It is
curious that you have managed to twist around something good Google
has done and spin it as something negative (self-serving). I'm not
claiming it was intentional on your part or that it is part of a vast
conspiracy but it is part of a larger pattern. Most news stories I've
seen about Google doing something good have been spun into stories
about Google being evil. Recent memorable examples are Google's fight
against software patents and Google's fight for network neutrality.
Both of these stories were shrouded with lies about Google doing the
exact opposite of what they actually did.
Did you even bother to look at the article you linked to? It says:
Google, believing that litigation was imminent, responded by asking
the court to issue a declaratory judgment that it is not infringing
Netlist's patent and that Netlist's patent isn't valid.
That is pretty much the exact opposite of an offensive patent suit.
Then CapS said:
And there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents as well:
In this article Google applied for a patent and then, horrors,
asked a company that was in the same field to get on board a patent
reform initiative. Applying for patents and advocating for patent
reform is not the same thing as being a patent troll.
In the patent frenzied world of 2013, Google had to acquire
patents to defend themselves. It was part of the cost of doing
business in the tech arena. You have provided ZERO evidence that
Google has switched gears and started to file offensive patent
suits.
If there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies
with patents then please provide a link to at least one such
case otherwise you are just full of shenanigans.
Dzurak noted that that the team had recently "patented a design for a
full-scale quantum computer chip that would allow for millions of our
qubits, all doing the types of calculations that we've just
experimentally demonstrated."
He said that a key next step for the project is to identify the right
industry partners to work with to manufacture the full-scale quantum
processor chip.
ISTM that if you want to find the right industry partners and avoid a
lot of "it can't be done" BS, there are worse ways than first
publishing a paper in a prestigious journal.
The real problem with quantum computers is noise and decoherence. To
make a practical quantum computer you need three things:
1) Qubits thare are very loosely coupled with the environment
so they have a long decoherence time 2) A way of coupling these qubits to each other without destroying (1).
3) A way of reading from and writing to qubits without destroying (1) or (2).
I *think* this paper claims to have solved (2) and (3). I believe (1) had
previously been solved by the use of electron spin with atoms of Silicon-28
which this paper uses as well. Do a search for "qubit silicon 28". I think
a saw a measured decoherence time of 200 microseconds. This would mean that
a calcuation would need to be completed in well under this time in order
to not get swamped out by noise from the environment.
This is an interesting conflict. A group of people find the
LKML culture to be toxic to such an extent that they decide
to stop participating in it. The question is: should the
LKML culture change to accommodate them?
I don't see any easy answers. Many people agree that
Casablanca was a great film. At the time it was being
made, the people involved thought it was just another film.
We don't know what magic ingredients caused that film to
be great. There is no known recipe to reproduce that greatness.
The Intel culture has produced some fabulous things. It has
been at the forefront of exponential growth in digital electronics
for decades. But there are many things that culture is not good
at creating. Operating systems that run on their hardware, for
example. Likewise, Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2011 but
ended up selling it at a loss three years later. The Google
culture was really good at many things but making smartphones
was not one of them.
The Linux kernel is unique and like the movie Casablanca
we just don't know what combination of elements caused it to
be so great. We have no recipe for making another OS like
Linux. This is not from lack of trying. The question is:
should we try to change the culture on LKML in order to make
it appear less toxic to a group of people? Are the parts of
the culture that seem toxic to some people part of the magic
that has made Linux so successful? We just don't know.
If I was king of the world and everyone ultimately answered to
me then I would let Linus decide if he wants to change the LKML
or not. I don't think anyone knows why the LKML consistently
make good kernels the same way Intel consistently makes good
hardware. The person who knows it best is Linus. I would trust
his gut instinct of what to do about changing the culture he has
created. If I was forced to decide then I would tell him to keep
doing what he has been doing because, for me, the quality of the
kernel is far more important than a group of people finding the
LKML culture toxic.
Of course there has to be a line drawn somewhere. For example
if the LKML required ritual human sacrifices, that would be
totally unacceptable. Any forms of physical violence would
be unacceptable, even forms of hate speech would be unacceptable.
For me, a group of people who can't work with the kernel because
they find the environment toxic does not cross the line. If it was
a large fraction of the developers then it would be a problem.
If I saw instances that were particularly egregious then that
would be a problem too.
There are many work environments that people would find much
more toxic than the LKML. Commercial fishing is one obvious
example. I think the vast majority of people (at least from
the first world) would find working as a commercial fisherman
to be toxic, intolerable, and probably impossible. This does
not necessarily mean commercial fishing needs to change in
order have a less toxic work environment. The obvious solution
has already been implemented: if you don't want to be a
commercial fisherman then don't be one.
Perhaps the same obvious solution has been found here was well.
I think it is good that this issue is brought up every now
and then. It gives Linus a chance to see if he thinks the
LKML culture needs to change. But I don't see any reason for
the LKML to be all inclusive. I think it would be fine if it
were a mostly all whiteboys club (I don't know if it is) as
long as there is no discrimination based on gender or race
instead of actions. If it works and you don't know how or
why it works then don't fix it.
A modern cheap laptop from today is faster than a Convex
supercomputer I was using 20 years ago. But in that
same time span disk seek times dropped from 15 milliseconds
down to about 7.5 milliseconds which is only a factor of
two.
You want paid work because you want more than whatever plain rice you'd
be able to afford surviving on a basic income.
Parent responded:
[...] what if the basic income was just enough to keep me comfortable
with a plot of land and a small home?
So the question seems to boil down to: what happens if the basic
income level allows you to live very comfortably so there is no
monetary incentive to work?
1) In most places in the US, even in the rural southwest, a
plot of land and a small home are not cheap. Unless you already owned
them, you could probably not afford them on a basic income.
2) Prices will get set by supply and demand. Even if the price for
a comfortable small home and plot of land starts out in range of those
with a basic income, it will soon move out of that range.
3) Few people are content with having just enough to get by.
We currently live in a very materialistic and consumerist society.
Unless our society changes drastically, very few people will be
content with just getting by. If you can pare down your material
desires and live a very simple life then more power to you!
4) The question seems to be founded on one of the most
basic premises of capitalism: that acquisition and monetization are
almost the sole forms of motivation. IOW, if people don't have
to work to stay alive and comfortable then they won't work.
I've known many people who have not been forced to work for a living.
Some of them have been independently wealthy. Some of them have been
living off of pensions or disability payments. NOT A SINGLE ONE of
them has been content to sit back and do nothing useful for society.
Every one of them has tried to contribute back to society. If a
basic income frees up people so they can choose how they want to
give back to society then the world will be a much better place than
if people were forced to do demeaning, menial labor to survive.
I do believe that many of them are honourable people, but their
viewpoint has become so skewed by the corporate culture that they have
lost touch with reality...
Even though Lois McMaster Bujold said:
Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know
about yourself.
for me it is too big of a stretch to call self-deluded people
honorable because if we do then very few people will be dishonorable.
Almost all of us are the hero in our own movie. People who do
horrible things because they believe ends justifies means would all
be honorable. Many psychopaths (including most CEOs) would be
honorably. Self-deluded dictators and tyrants would be honorable.
Most people suffering from hubris would honorable.
For me, honor is not totally relative based entirely on one's own
self-perception. In fact, I think if you start to look closely,
hubris and self-deception are the most common causes for people to act
dishonorably. I admit there are honorable acts in some culture may be
considered to be dishonorable in other cultures. One example of this
is ritual suicide.
Please don't use self-deception to excuse vile acts. Pragmatically,
the self-deluded are more difficult to deal with than people who
have a clear view of reality and are intentionally evil.
[...] the only way to avoid it [systemd] is to either run old distros or
some other OS entirely.
A third option is to use a newer distro that does not use systemd. I
run a Gentoo system that does not use systemd. You can also get
up-to-date Debian based distros such as antiX Linux which don't use systemd. I imagine
these are not the only options.
Isn't that an argument that everything should be written in shell script?
I don't think so. There are many many things that are better off
*not* written in shell script, even for sysadmins. Compilers and
interpreters come to mind.
I think it is more of an argument for using the right tool for the
job. And the right tool will depend very heavily on the role you are
playing. I think this is partly why there is such strong disagreement
over the value of systemd. From a purely user perspective where
everything is assumed to be working properly (or it is someone else's
problem) then it is great. The same can be said of Microsoft
offerings. But if you are coming at it from the sysadmin side then
you might want something that is easier to understand and debug and
fix. The init system has to have a lot of glue because it has to
start up services from a lot of different code bases. There is a lot
in favor of having this glue in a simple language that is easier to
understand and fix. Systemd makes more sense for commodity,
user-oriented devices. It makes very little sense on servers.
IIRC, this is similar to what Linus said about systemd. He said that
as a user he liked it and didn't have problems with it but he did run
into problems when interacting with the systemd developers.
I'd rather have a system that does it better without having to resort
to scripts all over the place to make up for deficiencies in the
system.
You seem to be making the tacit assumption that everything works
perfectly. If I am debugging a system then I would much prefer
to deal with scripts (usually all in one place or otherwise easily
found) than have to try to debug C and C++ code and XML schema.
See
Theodore Ts'o comments that were linked to above.
It reminds of me dealing with Microsoft systems (many years ago
from the NT days, maybe they have changed since then). *IF*
everything works pefectly then it is fine but as soon as you are in
the mode of tracking down problems then it becomes a nightmare.
This is why I made the switch from Windows-NT to Linux when I was
doing sysadmin at a university. If I wanted to use a system that
was like that then I would use Windows. This tacit assumption that
the system was designed perfectly so there is no need for any
intervention is one of the reason people don't want to give up
init scripts on their Linux systems and replace them with systemd.
I want to win this fight for all of us. To anyone who is interested
in this case I recommend that you read this documentto [sic] understand
the corruption behind the mercenary law enforcement action that led
to the destruction of Megaupload.
That link just brings me back to this Slashdot page. I believe the correct
URL for the whitepaper is http://kim.com/whitepaper.pdf
Slashdot Mirror
If she wants treatment for mental illness, she should get it through her insurance company.
If she wants treatment for mental illness, she should be able to get it through her insurance company. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case in the US.
gravity is as instantaneous as people can detect - ie its not at the speed of light.
That is not actually known. We still haven't figured out if gravity propagates at the speed of light or not.
In 1916 Einstein figured out that gravity propagates at the speed of light. We just haven't measured it directly yet.
Take a look at antiX Linux and MX Linux. They are both modern distros with fairly modern desktops and they don't use systemd.
You could say that about any product. You could argue that McDonald's shouldn't be allowed to advertise because it increases the price of a Big Mac. Why not just ban advertising in general?
We don't need to ban it but we sure as hell should stop subsidizing it. Advertising should not be treated as a business expense that can be deducted from taxes, it should be taxed heavily the same way that pollution should be taxed heavily because they are both negative externalities. The rationalization that advertising helps consumers by making them better informed is total bullshit. We all have limited time on earth and limited attention. If someone wants to use my limited time and attention then they should pay me for that. I shouldn't be paying them for it.
So your solution to terrorism is mass genocide? The decision for us to commit much greater atrocities is not "in the hands of the clerics and other muslim [sic] leaders around the world". They are not responsible for our actions, we are. Nor are they responsible for the actions of the people who committed this horrible attack. In addition, why would you expect the attackers to treat us as fellow humans when you are not willing to treat them that way?
We started this bloody awful mess and they see themselves as fighting back and defending themselves in the only way the can. The most effective way to get someone to act subhuman is to treat them as subhuman. Repaying atrocity with atrocity might give you some emotional relief but it is about as effective as pouring gasoline on a fire or copulating for virginity.
I pray we do not become the evil we abhor. As long as enough people choose to dehumanize their fellow human beings then there will be no end to the escalating violence on both sides.
FlyHelicopters:
People who would do such things are animals and aren't worth dealing with on an even level. If they wish to behave this way, then they should be treated that way.
Albert Einstein:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
IOW, your reaction to dehumanize the people who did this plays right into their hands. ISIS was created by and survives on atrocities committed by the West. I'm not saying this justifies the attack. I'm saying that from a pragmatic perspective dehumanizing the attackers is extremely stupid and short-sighted.
> I have not seen any reasonable theoretical explanation for the anomalous force that is purported to power the EM drive
The only thing that critics have managed to say about emdrive theory over 10 years is " muh momentum "
What else can we reply when there is no actually theory presented that we can reply to or refute? All we have to go on is some micro-wave engineer claims that he has invented a device that violates conservation of momentum without providing any reasonable theory for how it might work. Your attempt to blame the critics for the complete lack of theoretical underpinnings by the inventor is ridiculous. The inventor himself said:
I am just a microwave engineer and all that matters is that it works.
In addition, the Anonymous Coward engineer claims:
Emdrive has been experimentally verified by 5 institutions with results published.
(emphasis added)
Have experimental results been published? Yes. Has the effect been verified? No. Most of the extraordinary experimental results seem to have been either debunked or retracted, claims such as nearly one Newton of thrust by a paper from China which has been shrouded in mystery. The more recent and reliable Tajimar paper explicitly says:
In one of their experiments their measured thrust was in the wrong direction! Their conclusion that the experiments need to be improved before they can be used to verify the EMDrive claims echoes what I already said (and you mocked) that the current experimental results are buried down with the noise. That is what the fine post linked to by the summary says as well. The experimentalists are working on beating back known sources of noise so they will eventually be in a position to confirm or refute the EMDrive claims. It is not all relevant if totally different experiments with totally different devices had better signal to noise ratios with similar input powers and output thrusts.
Your mocking, your ad hominem attacks, and your appeals to emotion and irrelevancies do nothing to bolster your argument. Your claims far exceed the claims of the very experimentalists whose work you (appear to) cite. You are, of course, free to believe whatever the heck you want but it seems your claims of experimental verification are greatly overblown. For me, the lack of theoretical underpinnings, the violation of the conservation of momentum, and the lack of experimental verification (as I cited above and from the fine post linked to in summary) all make me highly dubious that the effect is real.
Because his prior work, from which the EMDrive stems, is a laser-gyroscope functioning on the exact same principles as the EMDrive in reverse [...]
This is complete hogwash. The effects cannot be related because the laser-gyroscope is based fundamentally on rotational velocities being absolute. Linear velocities (even without Einstein's relativity) are relative. OTOH, it makes some sense that an engineer who developed their intuition based on laser-gyroscopes would misapply that intuition to "invent" the EMDrive.
Shawyer's theory states the greatest way to improve thrust from existing models would be to make a perfect-Q cavity [...]
Can you point to an actual theoretical explanation/prediction of the effect? Shawyer himself said:
I am just a microwave engineer and all that matters is that it works.
This was in reference to his claim (in 2007) of creating a EMDrive that produced 0.1 Newtons (100,000 microNewtons, 1000 times larger than the effect measured in the post from the summary). Was that claim debunked or abandoned? If not, then why are we farting around with machines that only produce 100 micro-Newtons?
In 2012 there was a claim from China about producing an EMDrive that created nearly 1 Newton of thrust. Many people were dubious of this claim because the test wasn't performed in a vacuum so the thrust could have been created by thermal effects (like a Crookes radiometer). Now we are talking about better experiments where the effect has been reduced by a factor of 10,000 and is down in the noise level while the experimenters are working on decreasing the sources of noise. Everything about Shawyer's claim reeks of crockpottery. Sure, if something like this actually existed then it could be the gateway to interstellar travel. But that only makes these dubious claims more suspicious.
The problem is not the absolute smallness of 100 micro-Newtons. The problem is the relative size of 100-micro-Newtons compared to the forces that exist in the experimental apparatus. It is like confusing absolute signal level with the signal to noise ratio. Yes, we can easily measure the weight of a snowflake. But if the total thrust from this 100 watt drive is equivalent to the weight of a snowflake then I am exceedingly unimpressed. If you read the fine post that is linked to, you will see that this is literally down in the level of noise that can be produced by ground loops and so on. The author is basically saying that they tried to remove even more noise sources than last time and still have not yet tracked down what is causing the extremely tiny anomalous thrust they have measured.
I am a physicist so I am well aware of just how bloody difficult it is to track down and account for every form of noise and error in experiments like this one. Or in the experiment that measured neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. I am often cautioning my friends to not get too excited about weak experimental results like this that contradict foundational physical theories. I also cautioned people to not get too excited about the so-called "face on Mars" for the same reasons. Lots of fascinating things are seen in weak signals that are close to the experimental noise floor.
In addition, I have not seen any reasonable theoretical explanation for the anomalous force that is purported to power the EM drive. There is certainly no relationship between the purported physics of an EM drive and the actual physics of a ring laser gyroscope. Nor have I seen any reasonable theoretical explanation for why the thrust should scale as a large power of the input energy. Yet many people here who ignore the experimental challenges of measuring the weight of a snowflake on top of the forces acting on an apparatus dissipating 100 watts of RF energy seem to blithely accept these remarkable and, AFAIK unfounded, theoretical claims as gospel truth.
Check out MX Linux and antiX Linux. They are not in the top 10 distros but they are solidly in the top 30. They're based on Debian but don't use systemd. They also have some pretty neat features and friendly communities.
One trillion connections per year is roughly the size of the traffic the Wikipedia gets. Wikipedia is one of the top ten sites on the internet.
Next up: Judge Bennet tosses out a case because plaintif neglected to provide context for the sky being blue or water being wet. I don't know what bugs me more, this obvious attempt to subvert justice or the lame-ass excuse used for doing so. It is insulting. It's like the judge is telling us the fix is so far in that he doesn't even have to bother to appear to make sense.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever.
It [mandatory full-disk encryption] can benefit consumers AND be self-serving.
Not according to the standard definitions of self-serving which includes:
1. Serving one's own interests, especially without concern for the needs or interests of others.
2. Exhibiting concern solely for one's own interests: serving one's own interests often in disregard of the truth or the interests of others.
It would be more accurate to say that this may be a case where benefiting consumers also benefits the corporate interest. It is curious that you have managed to twist around something good Google has done and spin it as something negative (self-serving). I'm not claiming it was intentional on your part or that it is part of a vast conspiracy but it is part of a larger pattern. Most news stories I've seen about Google doing something good have been spun into stories about Google being evil. Recent memorable examples are Google's fight against software patents and Google's fight for network neutrality. Both of these stories were shrouded with lies about Google doing the exact opposite of what they actually did.
I'm giving up mod points to reply here but the articles linked to above provide no evidence of the claims made by the parent.
CapS said:
As for Google never filing a non-defensive patent lawsuit, that's not true. A quick Duck Duck Go search reveals this:
http://www.informationweek.com...
Did you even bother to look at the article you linked to? It says:
Google, believing that litigation was imminent, responded by asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that it is not infringing Netlist's patent and that Netlist's patent isn't valid.
That is pretty much the exact opposite of an offensive patent suit.
Then CapS said:
And there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents as well:
http://blog.splitwise.com/2013...
In this article Google applied for a patent and then, horrors, asked a company that was in the same field to get on board a patent reform initiative. Applying for patents and advocating for patent reform is not the same thing as being a patent troll. In the patent frenzied world of 2013, Google had to acquire patents to defend themselves. It was part of the cost of doing business in the tech arena. You have provided ZERO evidence that Google has switched gears and started to file offensive patent suits. If there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents then please provide a link to at least one such case otherwise you are just full of shenanigans.
So... does this mean I learned binary for nothing?
Sometimes it does mean that and sometimes it doesn't mean that.
Are you Shor?
There are several factors to consider, but just like Schroedinger's cation, I'm positive!
From the fine article:
Dzurak noted that that the team had recently "patented a design for a full-scale quantum computer chip that would allow for millions of our qubits, all doing the types of calculations that we've just experimentally demonstrated."
He said that a key next step for the project is to identify the right industry partners to work with to manufacture the full-scale quantum processor chip.
ISTM that if you want to find the right industry partners and avoid a lot of "it can't be done" BS, there are worse ways than first publishing a paper in a prestigious journal.
So... does this mean I learned binary for nothing?
Sometimes it does mean that and sometimes it doesn't mean that.
The real problem with quantum computers is noise and decoherence. To make a practical quantum computer you need three things:
1) Qubits thare are very loosely coupled with the environment so they have a long decoherence time
2) A way of coupling these qubits to each other without destroying (1).
3) A way of reading from and writing to qubits without destroying (1) or (2).
I *think* this paper claims to have solved (2) and (3). I believe (1) had previously been solved by the use of electron spin with atoms of Silicon-28 which this paper uses as well. Do a search for "qubit silicon 28". I think a saw a measured decoherence time of 200 microseconds. This would mean that a calcuation would need to be completed in well under this time in order to not get swamped out by noise from the environment.
This is an interesting conflict. A group of people find the LKML culture to be toxic to such an extent that they decide to stop participating in it. The question is: should the LKML culture change to accommodate them?
I don't see any easy answers. Many people agree that Casablanca was a great film. At the time it was being made, the people involved thought it was just another film. We don't know what magic ingredients caused that film to be great. There is no known recipe to reproduce that greatness.
The Intel culture has produced some fabulous things. It has been at the forefront of exponential growth in digital electronics for decades. But there are many things that culture is not good at creating. Operating systems that run on their hardware, for example. Likewise, Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2011 but ended up selling it at a loss three years later. The Google culture was really good at many things but making smartphones was not one of them.
The Linux kernel is unique and like the movie Casablanca we just don't know what combination of elements caused it to be so great. We have no recipe for making another OS like Linux. This is not from lack of trying. The question is: should we try to change the culture on LKML in order to make it appear less toxic to a group of people? Are the parts of the culture that seem toxic to some people part of the magic that has made Linux so successful? We just don't know.
If I was king of the world and everyone ultimately answered to me then I would let Linus decide if he wants to change the LKML or not. I don't think anyone knows why the LKML consistently make good kernels the same way Intel consistently makes good hardware. The person who knows it best is Linus. I would trust his gut instinct of what to do about changing the culture he has created. If I was forced to decide then I would tell him to keep doing what he has been doing because, for me, the quality of the kernel is far more important than a group of people finding the LKML culture toxic.
Of course there has to be a line drawn somewhere. For example if the LKML required ritual human sacrifices, that would be totally unacceptable. Any forms of physical violence would be unacceptable, even forms of hate speech would be unacceptable. For me, a group of people who can't work with the kernel because they find the environment toxic does not cross the line. If it was a large fraction of the developers then it would be a problem. If I saw instances that were particularly egregious then that would be a problem too.
There are many work environments that people would find much more toxic than the LKML. Commercial fishing is one obvious example. I think the vast majority of people (at least from the first world) would find working as a commercial fisherman to be toxic, intolerable, and probably impossible. This does not necessarily mean commercial fishing needs to change in order have a less toxic work environment. The obvious solution has already been implemented: if you don't want to be a commercial fisherman then don't be one.
Perhaps the same obvious solution has been found here was well. I think it is good that this issue is brought up every now and then. It gives Linus a chance to see if he thinks the LKML culture needs to change. But I don't see any reason for the LKML to be all inclusive. I think it would be fine if it were a mostly all whiteboys club (I don't know if it is) as long as there is no discrimination based on gender or race instead of actions. If it works and you don't know how or why it works then don't fix it.
A modern cheap laptop from today is faster than a Convex supercomputer I was using 20 years ago. But in that same time span disk seek times dropped from 15 milliseconds down to about 7.5 milliseconds which is only a factor of two.
GP said:
You want paid work because you want more than whatever plain rice you'd be able to afford surviving on a basic income.
Parent responded:
[...] what if the basic income was just enough to keep me comfortable with a plot of land and a small home?
So the question seems to boil down to: what happens if the basic income level allows you to live very comfortably so there is no monetary incentive to work?
1) In most places in the US, even in the rural southwest, a plot of land and a small home are not cheap. Unless you already owned them, you could probably not afford them on a basic income.
2) Prices will get set by supply and demand. Even if the price for a comfortable small home and plot of land starts out in range of those with a basic income, it will soon move out of that range.
3) Few people are content with having just enough to get by. We currently live in a very materialistic and consumerist society. Unless our society changes drastically, very few people will be content with just getting by. If you can pare down your material desires and live a very simple life then more power to you!
4) The question seems to be founded on one of the most basic premises of capitalism: that acquisition and monetization are almost the sole forms of motivation. IOW, if people don't have to work to stay alive and comfortable then they won't work.
I've known many people who have not been forced to work for a living. Some of them have been independently wealthy. Some of them have been living off of pensions or disability payments. NOT A SINGLE ONE of them has been content to sit back and do nothing useful for society. Every one of them has tried to contribute back to society. If a basic income frees up people so they can choose how they want to give back to society then the world will be a much better place than if people were forced to do demeaning, menial labor to survive.
I do believe that many of them are honourable people, but their viewpoint has become so skewed by the corporate culture that they have lost touch with reality ...
Even though Lois McMaster Bujold said:
Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.
for me it is too big of a stretch to call self-deluded people honorable because if we do then very few people will be dishonorable. Almost all of us are the hero in our own movie. People who do horrible things because they believe ends justifies means would all be honorable. Many psychopaths (including most CEOs) would be honorably. Self-deluded dictators and tyrants would be honorable. Most people suffering from hubris would honorable.
For me, honor is not totally relative based entirely on one's own self-perception. In fact, I think if you start to look closely, hubris and self-deception are the most common causes for people to act dishonorably. I admit there are honorable acts in some culture may be considered to be dishonorable in other cultures. One example of this is ritual suicide.
Please don't use self-deception to excuse vile acts. Pragmatically, the self-deluded are more difficult to deal with than people who have a clear view of reality and are intentionally evil.
[...] the only way to avoid it [systemd] is to either run old distros or some other OS entirely.
A third option is to use a newer distro that does not use systemd. I run a Gentoo system that does not use systemd. You can also get up-to-date Debian based distros such as antiX Linux which don't use systemd. I imagine these are not the only options.
Isn't that an argument that everything should be written in shell script?
I don't think so. There are many many things that are better off *not* written in shell script, even for sysadmins. Compilers and interpreters come to mind.
I think it is more of an argument for using the right tool for the job. And the right tool will depend very heavily on the role you are playing. I think this is partly why there is such strong disagreement over the value of systemd. From a purely user perspective where everything is assumed to be working properly (or it is someone else's problem) then it is great. The same can be said of Microsoft offerings. But if you are coming at it from the sysadmin side then you might want something that is easier to understand and debug and fix. The init system has to have a lot of glue because it has to start up services from a lot of different code bases. There is a lot in favor of having this glue in a simple language that is easier to understand and fix. Systemd makes more sense for commodity, user-oriented devices. It makes very little sense on servers.
IIRC, this is similar to what Linus said about systemd. He said that as a user he liked it and didn't have problems with it but he did run into problems when interacting with the systemd developers.
I'd rather have a system that does it better without having to resort to scripts all over the place to make up for deficiencies in the system.
You seem to be making the tacit assumption that everything works perfectly. If I am debugging a system then I would much prefer to deal with scripts (usually all in one place or otherwise easily found) than have to try to debug C and C++ code and XML schema. See Theodore Ts'o comments that were linked to above.
It reminds of me dealing with Microsoft systems (many years ago from the NT days, maybe they have changed since then). *IF* everything works pefectly then it is fine but as soon as you are in the mode of tracking down problems then it becomes a nightmare. This is why I made the switch from Windows-NT to Linux when I was doing sysadmin at a university. If I wanted to use a system that was like that then I would use Windows. This tacit assumption that the system was designed perfectly so there is no need for any intervention is one of the reason people don't want to give up init scripts on their Linux systems and replace them with systemd.
In his second to last answer Kim Dotcom says:
I want to win this fight for all of us. To anyone who is interested in this case I recommend that you read this documentto [sic] understand the corruption behind the mercenary law enforcement action that led to the destruction of Megaupload.
That link just brings me back to this Slashdot page. I believe the correct URL for the whitepaper is http://kim.com/whitepaper.pdf