"What good is all the abundance if you cannot afford anything?"
Last time I visited Kiev I didn't notice anyone starving in the street and there were plenty of shops selling electronic equipment and mobile phones. Also my in-laws manage to survive and have money to spare and they're not rich , just normal people working in factories.
"said his wife thought it was better in the 70s under communist rule"
Other way around. Her opinion is it was a lot worse then bar a few things here and there. She still remembers food and fuel queues and of having to be very careful what you said in public. The only people who pine for those days are deluded western communists who can spout their rubbish thanks to the free society that was never enjoyed by the citizens of the USSR.
Isn't it odd how these self style "intellectual" lefties loved the idea of communism except when applied to themselves since hardly any actually went to live in the USSR (and even the ones who did usually did only to escape being tried for treason , eg philby & co). You'd think if it was such a workers paradise they'd have been on the first plane to Moscow as soon as they were out of short trousers.
"(a recession deliberately started by her government to justify a reduction in worker rights),"
What utter cobblers. The recession was a result of the previous labour govns spend spend spend policy (sound familiar?) combined with bloody minded unions who went on strike or work to rule over their "rights" at the drop of a hat and made UK industry even more uncompetetive than the lazy morons had managed even up until that point. You're obviously old enough to remember the power cuts in the 70s as I am due to endless miners strikes which - thanks to Thatcher - finally ended as she switched britain over to a lot more gas generation so the country could no longer be held hostage by a bunch of inbred ditch diggers.
"the future of British industry looked bleak,"
Mainly thanks to the unions. But lets not let reality get in the way of your left wing blinkered nonsense.
My wife comes from Ukraine. It might not be great now was NOT better in the 1970s. I don't know where you get your facts from but I'd find a new source other than Marxism Today if I were you.
"so you lead a very sheltered safe life and have a very narrow view of what 'sane' is"
Speak for yourself. My life has been far from sheltered which is rather the point. Only an antisocial agrophobic who's been brought up virtually living in a closet wouldn't have a problem with spending 2 years living in an airless tin can millions of miles from earth. Try persuading some flyboy or a skydiver who's used to the freedom of the open skys and see what sort of single finger response you get. That sort might have been happy to spend a few hours or even days in space knowing they'd be home with 48 hours, but 2 years? No way Jose.
"I, for one, would definitely consider doing it if not to get off this dirtball planet."
Right, because Mars is a tropical paradise. Oh , wait...
Too many problems with humans as it stands, anyway. Give me all the video games, movies, tv shows and music that I want as well as companionship and I'll really think about it."
Yeah , course you would. Now hurry up, your mum is calling you for supper.
"Well, perhaps count me as insane, as I would volunteer for such a trip to Mars in a heartbeat."
Go on then, put your name down. Whats stopping you?
"As for comparing a trip to Mars with a voyage from London to San Francisco in the 19th Century or even just across the North Atlantic in the 17th Century, I think the analogy is pretty appropriate"
No. It isn't. On ship if something goes wrong you have a small chance of surviving by jumping off as has happened in the past. Also when you get to your destination it will be habitable unlike mars. And all the other reasons I mentioned. If you really think they're the same then perhaps you are deluded enough to go to mars. Thought I suspect your delusion will only last long enough for you to have left earth then you'll spend the next 2 years living with the horror.
"here is a video for you to look at:"
Sorry , I don't have 75 mins to spend watching pie in the sky dreaming.
"The trick for travel to Mars quickly is to simply have a high density energy source"
You need more than just energy , you need a reaction mass - a LOT of it. You might want to brush up on newtons 2nd & 3rd laws.
Until a propulsion method is invented that can get humans to mars and back in a few weeks the whole premise is ridiculous. No SANE person is going to volunteer to spend a year in a capsule with 18 months on a dust ball with an unbreathable atmosphere and lethal UV radiation. Sure, you'll find some volunteers but I guaranteed they'll all be mentally unbalanced and would probably chicken out at the last moment anyway. And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that. On a ship you have gravity, fresh air, you can go outside, stop off at places and even swim. The nearest analogy would be to the conditions the poor slaves were kept in on atlantic voyages down in the hold.
"If we run out of spectrum then mobile networks and broadband wonâ(TM)t work,â
We're in no danger of running out of spectrum. Now analogue TV has been switched off theres a surfeit of it in europe currently. Someone should point this out to her.
"That is unacceptable, we must maximise this scarce resource by re-using it and creating a single market out of it. We need a single market for spectrum in order to regain global industrial leadership in mobile and data, to attract more R&D investments."
Another techno illterate beaurocrat talking out of her backside about stuff she knows nothing about but is good at chucking soundbite marketing buzz phrases about and looking like she has her finger on what - in Brussels - counts as a pulse. I'd lay money on her angling for a promotion and this is just a bit of self publicity to help it along.
Unfortunately they don't always get it right and end up interfering with legit stations. Probably because back in the day most pirates were run by trained engineers and people who knew what they were doing whereas now its usually any old bunch of halfwit punks who have sufficient IQ to but an FM transmitter off ebay and plug it in.
"Writing proprietary software is not justifiable no matter how much you want to feed your children"
When/if you eventualy have kids your rather silly ethical stance and software in general will take a backseat to raising them. You'd sell Stallman to MS if it meant they wouldn't go hungry. Trust me on this.
"Adding children to the mix is a FUD tactic by those who fear freedom."
Stop chucking the word "freedom" around like some verbal baseball bat, as if you have the first clue what it actually means. Stick to the silly debates you probably have in your student common room.
Yes, it is. And quoting an aquired taste comedy troupe doesn't exactly add gravitas to your argument.
"your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly."
I hate the break the news to you , but stallman and GNU do not have the last word on software ethics. Its their OPINION , not fact. And its not an opinion all of us share.
"Though X has done a remarkably good job of that."
Depends which bit of X. Core Xlib is mid to low level but is still very usable though some bits of it - eg the colour subsystem with its mash up of visuals & colormaps - are poorly thought out and unnecessarily complicated. Nonetheless , its stood the test of time isn't too hard to learn if you have the patience.
"Never thought anyone would be ignorant enough to even consider that, when the compiler has to compile both and can simply keep a symbol table between the files"
Wtf are you talking about???? Do you even know the difference between declaration and definition? Why don't you go and buy a ticket on the clue train you utter fucktard.
I love arrogant students who try and be intellectual and end up talking out of their arse.:o)
"it has to do with the COMPILER being smart enough to look at a library, as opposed to only being able to load in source and compile it."
Way to go on completely missing the point - which since you clearly can't read properly - was why does C/C++ required definitions in header files shared between source files. Presumably you thought that tossing in something about linking with libraries and C++11 makes you sound like an intellectual? I've got bad news for you sonny...
Simple - none of them are compiled down to machine code like C++ is. They're either scripting languages (perl,python) or use VMs (java, C#). If your code is running via some sort of interpreter it can do all sorts of runtime loading and analysis of program code which you can't do with a raw binary.
... it seems to me as an outsider. Which is ironic that it was science and engineering that created the USA as it is today. I don't know if its a dumbed down education system, lack of political direction or just a slowly growing luddite mentality. If it doesn't want to be an also-ran following in Chinas heals (as it already is in the manned space race now) then it better do something about it fast. But I won't hold my breath.
Slashdot Mirror
"What good is all the abundance if you cannot afford anything?"
Last time I visited Kiev I didn't notice anyone starving in the street and there were plenty of shops selling electronic equipment and mobile phones. Also my in-laws manage to survive and have money to spare and they're not rich , just normal people working in factories.
"said his wife thought it was better in the 70s under communist rule"
Other way around. Her opinion is it was a lot worse then bar a few things here and there. She still remembers food and fuel queues and of having to be very careful what you said in public. The only people who pine for those days are deluded western communists who can spout their rubbish thanks to the free society that was never enjoyed by the citizens of the USSR.
Isn't it odd how these self style "intellectual" lefties loved the idea of communism except when applied to themselves since hardly any actually went to live in the USSR (and even the ones who did usually did only to escape being tried for treason , eg philby & co). You'd think if it was such a workers paradise they'd have been on the first plane to Moscow as soon as they were out of short trousers.
"(a recession deliberately started by her government to justify a reduction in worker rights),"
What utter cobblers. The recession was a result of the previous labour govns spend spend spend policy (sound familiar?) combined with bloody minded unions who went on strike or work to rule over their "rights" at the drop of a hat and made UK industry even more uncompetetive than the lazy morons had managed even up until that point. You're obviously old enough to remember the power cuts in the 70s as I am due to endless miners strikes which - thanks to Thatcher - finally ended as she switched britain over to a lot more gas generation so the country could no longer be held hostage by a bunch of inbred ditch diggers.
"the future of British industry looked bleak,"
Mainly thanks to the unions. But lets not let reality get in the way of your left wing blinkered nonsense.
Are you completely braindead as well as brainwashed? I assume you've heard of the soviet union? Jeez...
My wife comes from Ukraine. It might not be great now was NOT better in the 1970s. I don't know where you get your facts from but I'd find a new source other than Marxism Today if I were you.
"Thank Assange (our newly elected Godhead for the Atheists on this site)"
I'm an atheist and I can't stand him.
Dumb yank. Socialist != communist.
"so you lead a very sheltered safe life and have a very narrow view of what 'sane' is"
Speak for yourself. My life has been far from sheltered which is rather the point. Only an antisocial agrophobic who's been brought up virtually living in a closet wouldn't have a problem with spending 2 years living in an airless tin can millions of miles from earth. Try persuading some flyboy or a skydiver who's used to the freedom of the open skys and see what sort of single finger response you get. That sort might have been happy to spend a few hours or even days in space knowing they'd be home with 48 hours, but 2 years? No way Jose.
"I, for one, would definitely consider doing it if not to get off this dirtball planet."
Right, because Mars is a tropical paradise. Oh , wait...
Too many problems with humans as it stands, anyway. Give me all the video games, movies, tv shows and music that I want as well as companionship and I'll really think about it."
Yeah , course you would. Now hurry up, your mum is calling you for supper.
Go on then hero, give NASA a call and put your name down.
"Well, perhaps count me as insane, as I would volunteer for such a trip to Mars in a heartbeat."
Go on then, put your name down. Whats stopping you?
"As for comparing a trip to Mars with a voyage from London to San Francisco in the 19th Century or even just across the North Atlantic in the 17th Century, I think the analogy is pretty appropriate"
No. It isn't. On ship if something goes wrong you have a small chance of surviving by jumping off as has happened in the past. Also when you get to your destination it will be habitable unlike mars. And all the other reasons I mentioned. If you really think they're the same then perhaps you are deluded enough to go to mars. Thought I suspect your delusion will only last long enough for you to have left earth then you'll spend the next 2 years living with the horror.
"here is a video for you to look at:"
Sorry , I don't have 75 mins to spend watching pie in the sky dreaming.
"The trick for travel to Mars quickly is to simply have a high density energy source"
You need more than just energy , you need a reaction mass - a LOT of it. You might want to brush up on newtons 2nd & 3rd laws.
Until a propulsion method is invented that can get humans to mars and back in a few weeks the whole premise is ridiculous. No SANE person is going to volunteer to spend a year in a capsule with 18 months on a dust ball with an unbreathable atmosphere and lethal UV radiation. Sure, you'll find some volunteers but I guaranteed they'll all be mentally unbalanced and would probably chicken out at the last moment anyway. And don't anyone compare it with old sailing ship voyages - its nothing like that. On a ship you have gravity, fresh air, you can go outside, stop off at places and even swim. The nearest analogy would be to the conditions the poor slaves were kept in on atlantic voyages down in the hold.
Probably has more to do with lower than normal atmospheric pressure in the vehicle than gravity.
Whoooosh.....
by Anonymous
Step 1) Release private details of fellow geeks from Sony.
Step 2) Release private details of fellow geeks devices from Apple
For kids who are so keen on releasing the details of others, they're strangely reluctant to release their own. Funny that.
"If we run out of spectrum then mobile networks and broadband wonâ(TM)t work,â
We're in no danger of running out of spectrum. Now analogue TV has been switched off theres a surfeit of it in europe currently. Someone should point this out to her.
"That is unacceptable, we must maximise this scarce resource by re-using it and creating a single market out of it. We need a single market for spectrum in order to regain global industrial leadership in mobile and data, to attract more R&D investments."
Another techno illterate beaurocrat talking out of her backside about stuff she knows nothing about but is good at chucking soundbite marketing buzz phrases about and looking like she has her finger on what - in Brussels - counts as a pulse. I'd lay money on her angling for a promotion and this is just a bit of self publicity to help it along.
Unfortunately they don't always get it right and end up interfering with legit stations. Probably because back in the day most pirates were run by trained engineers and people who knew what they were doing whereas now its usually any old bunch of halfwit punks who have sufficient IQ to but an FM transmitter off ebay and plug it in.
"Writing proprietary software is not justifiable no matter how much you want to feed your children"
When/if you eventualy have kids your rather silly ethical stance and software in general will take a backseat to raising them. You'd sell Stallman to MS if it meant they wouldn't go hungry. Trust me on this.
"Adding children to the mix is a FUD tactic by those who fear freedom."
Stop chucking the word "freedom" around like some verbal baseball bat, as if you have the first clue what it actually means. Stick to the silly debates you probably have in your student common room.
"No, it isn't (to quote Monty Python)"
Yes, it is. And quoting an aquired taste comedy troupe doesn't exactly add gravitas to your argument.
"your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly."
I hate the break the news to you , but stallman and GNU do not have the last word on software ethics. Its their OPINION , not fact. And its not an opinion all of us share.
"Though X has done a remarkably good job of that."
Depends which bit of X. Core Xlib is mid to low level but is still very usable though some bits of it - eg the colour subsystem with its mash up of visuals & colormaps - are poorly thought out and unnecessarily complicated. Nonetheless , its stood the test of time isn't too hard to learn if you have the patience.
"Never thought anyone would be ignorant enough to even consider that, when the compiler has to compile both and can simply keep a symbol table between the files"
Wtf are you talking about???? Do you even know the difference between declaration and definition? Why don't you go and buy a ticket on the clue train you utter fucktard.
Over & out.
I love arrogant students who try and be intellectual and end up talking out of their arse. :o)
"it has to do with the COMPILER being smart enough to look at a library, as opposed to only being able to load in source and compile it."
Way to go on completely missing the point - which since you clearly can't read properly - was why does C/C++ required definitions in header files shared between source files. Presumably you thought that tossing in something about linking with libraries and C++11 makes you sound like an intellectual? I've got bad news for you sonny...
Simple - none of them are compiled down to machine code like C++ is. They're either scripting languages (perl,python) or use VMs (java, C#). If your code is running via some sort of interpreter it can do all sorts of runtime loading and analysis of program code which you can't do with a raw binary.
... it seems to me as an outsider. Which is ironic that it was science and engineering that created the USA as it is today. I don't know if its a dumbed down education system, lack of political direction or just a slowly growing luddite mentality. If it doesn't want to be an also-ran following in Chinas heals (as it already is in the manned space race now) then it better do something about it fast. But I won't hold my breath.
"Now I use my programming skills in another industry"
TBH most developers I know work in the IT dept of a non IT related industry. The amount of devs who work in pure IT is actually quite small.