Remember the Nuvistor? It would be interesting if vacuum-tube technology got revived in order to make a space probe capable of surviving high temperatures.
sounds like it might find application in the area of phased-array radars.
Re:Not if you fly if from a stealth-plasma flagpol
on
"Stealth" Plasma Antennas
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Regarding your sig, Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?", I like this one too: "Share your fire with a man, he'll be warm for a night. Set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I realize that you are merely repeating a popular but false meme, so please do not think I'm being harsh with you personally.
What you're trying to say is "vote with your wallet." We are decades past that having any effect and I'll tell you why.
Remember one thing: consumers are the end of the supply and manufacturing chain. Products don't appear out of thin air, even simple items are the result of a long succession of manufacturing processes. Many years ago, the Japanese deliberately used predatory pricing (i.e. dumping) to attack domestic manufacturers of a wide array of electronic components. Once they successfully eliminated our own sources of supply for those critical components, they began to move up the supply chain until they were selling directly to the end user (hello, K-mart shoppers!) This happened long before China came on the scene: the last television set made in America was sold decades ago. In effet, the Japanese systematically destroyed our ability to make the most basic components of consumer electronic devices. Once that was accomplished, the rest of those markets belonged to them, because any remaining domestic producers were entirely dependent upon Japan for their raw materials. From the consumer's perspective, none of this was remotely obvious until suddenly the old, familiar "Made in the U.S.A" label became hard to find. By the time that happened, the domestic manufacturers were long gone. It's insidious, and our government was supposed to be on the lookout for such destructive activity (we have laws against it), but in this regard the Federal Government has failed... miserably. Matter of fact, they aided and abetted the enemy. Isn't corruption wonderful?
China is just finishing the job, because they are much larger than Japan and can operate on a much vaster scale. They have attacked everything from textiles to electronics. All the great textile factories in the U.S. are lying fallow now, all their machine tooling gone... sold for pennies on the dollar to China. Do you realize that we no longer have the ability to clothe ourselves? Get used to last year's styles if China decides it's time to put the screws to us for real. Don't give those old clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, 'cause you'll probably need them yourself.
The sad fact is that we've been completely hollowed out, all the way from raw materials processing down the line to finished goods. Can this be reversed? Can America return to being a major industrial power? At this point I'd give a qualified "Yes", but only if Congress gets off its fat collective corrupted ass and fixes a few things so that American companies can begin to compete again. I don't see that happening in the near future: Congress is perfectly aware that they are not going to be subject to the looming economic disaster that the rest of us are facing.
The Microsoft culture hates people that don't do everything they're told to do even when it is stupid and useless.
Well, we all know what happens to malfunctioning drones... they are immediately cut off from the rest of the collective.
I worked a full-time job as a game developer (this was some twenty years ago) and they had a particularly nasty employment contract (among other things, that after quitting I was enjoined from working as a game developer for a period of five years, they owned any game-related idea or product that I would produce for an indefinite period, etc. etc.... pretty unbelievable document.) As it happened, when I was hired I was given the usual bunch of paperwork to sign and return. I just didn't bother to return the contract, figured I'd wait until somebody noticed. Well, about a year later the president's secretary comes over with a clipboard, with some papers on it and blank piece on top covering everything but the signature line. "Here, you need to sign this." "What is it?" "Just sign it." "Nope, gotta see it first, duh." Turns out it was that contract. I told her "Not gonna sign it." Next thing I know the personnel manager comes over and tries to talk me into putting my JH on it, "It's just the standard agreement, all the other developers signed it." "Then they're idiots. I'm not signing that until you take out all the crap." Then my manager tried to order me to sign it. I told him where do you get off talking to me that way.
After that, I never heard another word about it. I worked there for a couple of years without having an employment contract. What the legalities of that are, I have no idea... but at least I had the satisfaction of telling them to go screw themselves.
Maybe the rest of the world starting thinking about all the business sensitive information zipping through the US and doesn't trust America not to pass that information along to their buddies in big business or use it inappropriately.
Maybe the U.S. should continue thinking about all the business sensitive information zipping through the rest of the world, and not trust that world to pass that information along to anyone who wants it or otherwise use it inappropriately. China, for example, is doing it's damnedest to rape every American corporation and government entity of whatever data it can get it's grubby little hacker mitts onto. Russia... well. That's another story. Neither of those countries is a good neighbor, Internet-wise, and I don't want them (or any nation that operates in a similar manner) to have anything at all to say about Internet governance. Period. Let them clean up their own act before they start pointing fingers and casting aspersions upon our national character. Get it through your head that these are totalitarians we're talking about here.
They've got every right to be skeptical of our behavior, motives and policies.
Indeed. And so do we. You still haven't provided anything resembling a good reason (from the United States' perspective) for ceding any control over any key Internet subsystem to anyone whatsoever. You are American, aren't you?
This has absolutely nothing to do with humble pie. This has to do with the simple fact that our economy (which affects a lot of people in other countries, whether their egos will let them admit that or not) is dependent upon the Internet and we don't trust overtly inimical foreign powers such as Russia or China to administer that network in a way that allows it to maintain its current functionality. We just don't, and we have even more reason to suspect them of nefarious intentions than they have of us. China, in particular, has shown that the free flow of information provided by an unfettered Internet is simply not tolerable to its leaders.
From your comment I presume you're American, and if you look at this rationally, you'd better hope we hang on to control of DNS for the foreseeable future.
These are precisely the sort of people we should be making an example of.
The problem with "making an example" (i.e. a harsher-than-required sentence handed down in order to "deter" similar crimes by other people) is that a. it really screws over the innocent guy and b. doesn't work anyway. Now, I'm not saying the sentence isn't warranted in this guy's case: hell, he admitted it. I just think that using excessive punishment as a deterrent serves no legitimate purpose. If, on the other hand, you meant "catch assholes like this and publicize their convictions and sentences widely" then I'd say we're in agreement.
Some twenty-odd years ago when I was doing some research software for a teaching hospital in the city, I had noticed there was some significant construction going on, some kind of addition to the main building. I didn't know what it was for at the time. A couple months later I was walking down a hallway with one of the doctors I was working with, and noticed what looked like a two-foot-square hole in the wall that hadn't been there the day before. It had been crudely patched with plasterboard. The doctor told me that a workman had been walking by carrying a window air conditioner at the exact moment the operator was test firing the magnets for the new MRI center they had just built right next door. It literally sucked the A/C out of the guy's hands, and slammed it through the wall and out the other side. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
I presume they must have done something to prevent such occurrences: so far as I'm aware it never happened again.
Oh, I agree, and my girlfriend would be the first to acknowledge that (it's just that where she's from English happens to be popular, although some of her friends are French-speakers as well.) Africa's a huge place, and over the centuries the French and the English both imposed their will (and their languages) upon the peoples of that continent. I was just using her experience as an example: people in the next village over might speak a different language entirely, or the same language but in a dialect sufficiently different that just using English is easier. Very different from my experience as an American: no matter where you go, there you are (with the exception of the Deep South... damned if I can figure out what they're saying half the time. Not sure they do, either.)
Anyway, I'm not trying to say that English is the only popular language on the planet, only pointing out that people having to learn another, more-widespread language in order to communicate efficiently is burdensome but necessary in many cases. The GP didn't seem to understand that... or maybe he just dislikes Americans so much that it upsets him that English so often used for that purpose. Possibly if we were all talking a more "civilized" language such as French he'd have been happy.
A lot depends upon what you need your language to do for you: as a trade tongue and for scientific and technical communication English certainly qualifies as the current lingua franca for a good part of the industrialized world. For now.
It's hardly obligatory... however as a common communications medium it is extremely useful. Take Africa, for example... there are so many different languages and incompatible dialects among the nations of that continent that if it weren't for English, they'd have no ability communicate at all. Hell, my gf is from there, and she tells me that people from neighboring villages often can't speak their native tongues to each other: they speak English! It's expected, if you want to do business beyond your immediate round. It has nothing to do with the beauty of the language, or how difficult it is to learn: it's what you need.
Then take China, which I understand has more students learning English than the entire population of the United States (yeah, that bothers me a little.) Let's not forget India, which has stolen a good chunk of China's economic thunder simply because they speak better English (for the time being.) The reality is this: the British Empire spread The Queen's English far and wide, and America's later scientific and economic prowess only cemented the value of that language to many peoples across the globe. You may not like the fact the English is today's lingua franca, but then again reality is something that most people on this miserable planet dislike intensely. You appear to be no different in that regard. Personally, I expect that tomorrow's common language will be Mandarin. Ha! And you thought English is hard to learn. I'd rather learn Spanish.
So far as those researchers are concerned: well, let's look at some facts there as well. Science is now (and has been for some time) a global phenomenon. You can complain that it's "needlessly hard" for scientists to publish their findings in English (and I'll grant that it's a burden, no argument) but what solution to that can you suggest? Babelfish? Yeah, right... machine translation has a long way to go. Everybody publish in their native tongues? That would bring science to a standstill. Science is all about communication, scientists absolutely require that common ground.
As I pointed out, for a variety of historical reasons a working knowledge of English is actually a fairly common skill around the world: should such utility simply be disposed of because you find English "distasteful" or the Anglo-Saxon history unattractive (I don't fully grasp the relevance of your comment there, but okay)? That's ridiculous on the face of it: get over any anti-American bias you may have and accept that people (scientists and otherwise) speak English (of whatever variety) because it's often the only method they have to talk to each other.
Language is a tool, a means to an end, and you don't have to like a tool to use it. Another fact: people that refuse to learn a foreign language are people that haven't been in a position where that lack of knowledge cost them something, made their lives more difficult. Most Americans are like that, because America is a large country and most of us don't deal with people of other countries on a daily basis (well, other than Mexico, that is.) That's hardly the case in Europe, where you almost have to be a polyglot just to order dinner.
is that the Feds want to trade off older mechanical voting equipment which could, at best, only be corrupted at the local level with more modern remotely-corruptible voting technology. I mean, the people behind our elections are probably tired of depending upon local election bosses to swing things in the prescribed direction, and have decided on a more direct approach.
I hope New York decides to fight this one. This smells really bad.
NY Rejects E-Voting, DOJ Trying to Force The Issue
Seriously, this comes under the heading of "WTF?" It really seems like the Feds want to run absolutely everything their way, nowadays. No room for such quaint oddities as "state's rights" or "civil liberties" or even "American tradition." Really, these people have no business holding public office, elected or appointed.
Better yet, fire their collective ass and replace them with ordinary citizens who might care about having to live under the laws they make while in office. This bunch doesn't, because they're effectively above it. The law, that is. Al Gore was once asked about his position on term limits for Congresspeople. His response? "But... but, that would deny the American people the benefits of professional politicians." A dubious benefit indeed, Mr. Gore, and one that I believe we can well live without, regardless of one's party affiliation.
machines can be fixed, because they have less disposable income now than they used to, and their technotoys cost more than they used to. That tends to make people think twice about simply throwing an expensive gadget away.
No real mystery here. People that can afford to toss costly electronics into the dumpster usually will... those that are re-learning the art of pinching pennies will look for alternatives.
It's a press release for something that is going to be available in less than a week for developers, with a dozen industry heavyweights behind it. That's not just a press release.
A dozen heavyweights who would like nothing better than to be out from under Microsoft's thumb. This is going to get interesting, you know.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember the Nuvistor? It would be interesting if vacuum-tube technology got revived in order to make a space probe capable of surviving high temperatures.
sounds like it might find application in the area of phased-array radars.
Regarding your sig, Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?", I like this one too: "Share your fire with a man, he'll be warm for a night. Set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
I realize that you are merely repeating a popular but false meme, so please do not think I'm being harsh with you personally.
... miserably. Matter of fact, they aided and abetted the enemy. Isn't corruption wonderful?
... sold for pennies on the dollar to China. Do you realize that we no longer have the ability to clothe ourselves? Get used to last year's styles if China decides it's time to put the screws to us for real. Don't give those old clothes to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, 'cause you'll probably need them yourself.
What you're trying to say is "vote with your wallet." We are decades past that having any effect and I'll tell you why.
Remember one thing: consumers are the end of the supply and manufacturing chain. Products don't appear out of thin air, even simple items are the result of a long succession of manufacturing processes. Many years ago, the Japanese deliberately used predatory pricing (i.e. dumping) to attack domestic manufacturers of a wide array of electronic components. Once they successfully eliminated our own sources of supply for those critical components, they began to move up the supply chain until they were selling directly to the end user (hello, K-mart shoppers!) This happened long before China came on the scene: the last television set made in America was sold decades ago. In effet, the Japanese systematically destroyed our ability to make the most basic components of consumer electronic devices. Once that was accomplished, the rest of those markets belonged to them, because any remaining domestic producers were entirely dependent upon Japan for their raw materials. From the consumer's perspective, none of this was remotely obvious until suddenly the old, familiar "Made in the U.S.A" label became hard to find. By the time that happened, the domestic manufacturers were long gone. It's insidious, and our government was supposed to be on the lookout for such destructive activity (we have laws against it), but in this regard the Federal Government has failed
China is just finishing the job, because they are much larger than Japan and can operate on a much vaster scale. They have attacked everything from textiles to electronics. All the great textile factories in the U.S. are lying fallow now, all their machine tooling gone
The sad fact is that we've been completely hollowed out, all the way from raw materials processing down the line to finished goods. Can this be reversed? Can America return to being a major industrial power? At this point I'd give a qualified "Yes", but only if Congress gets off its fat collective corrupted ass and fixes a few things so that American companies can begin to compete again. I don't see that happening in the near future: Congress is perfectly aware that they are not going to be subject to the looming economic disaster that the rest of us are facing.
The Microsoft culture hates people that don't do everything they're told to do even when it is stupid and useless.
... they are immediately cut off from the rest of the collective.
... pretty unbelievable document.) As it happened, when I was hired I was given the usual bunch of paperwork to sign and return. I just didn't bother to return the contract, figured I'd wait until somebody noticed. Well, about a year later the president's secretary comes over with a clipboard, with some papers on it and blank piece on top covering everything but the signature line. "Here, you need to sign this." "What is it?" "Just sign it." "Nope, gotta see it first, duh." Turns out it was that contract. I told her "Not gonna sign it." Next thing I know the personnel manager comes over and tries to talk me into putting my JH on it, "It's just the standard agreement, all the other developers signed it." "Then they're idiots. I'm not signing that until you take out all the crap." Then my manager tried to order me to sign it. I told him where do you get off talking to me that way.
... but at least I had the satisfaction of telling them to go screw themselves.
Well, we all know what happens to malfunctioning drones
I worked a full-time job as a game developer (this was some twenty years ago) and they had a particularly nasty employment contract (among other things, that after quitting I was enjoined from working as a game developer for a period of five years, they owned any game-related idea or product that I would produce for an indefinite period, etc. etc.
After that, I never heard another word about it. I worked there for a couple of years without having an employment contract. What the legalities of that are, I have no idea
Maybe the rest of the world starting thinking about all the business sensitive information zipping through the US and doesn't trust America not to pass that information along to their buddies in big business or use it inappropriately.
... well. That's another story. Neither of those countries is a good neighbor, Internet-wise, and I don't want them (or any nation that operates in a similar manner) to have anything at all to say about Internet governance. Period. Let them clean up their own act before they start pointing fingers and casting aspersions upon our national character. Get it through your head that these are totalitarians we're talking about here.
Maybe the U.S. should continue thinking about all the business sensitive information zipping through the rest of the world, and not trust that world to pass that information along to anyone who wants it or otherwise use it inappropriately. China, for example, is doing it's damnedest to rape every American corporation and government entity of whatever data it can get it's grubby little hacker mitts onto. Russia
They've got every right to be skeptical of our behavior, motives and policies.
Indeed. And so do we. You still haven't provided anything resembling a good reason (from the United States' perspective) for ceding any control over any key Internet subsystem to anyone whatsoever. You are American, aren't you?
This has absolutely nothing to do with humble pie. This has to do with the simple fact that our economy (which affects a lot of people in other countries, whether their egos will let them admit that or not) is dependent upon the Internet and we don't trust overtly inimical foreign powers such as Russia or China to administer that network in a way that allows it to maintain its current functionality. We just don't, and we have even more reason to suspect them of nefarious intentions than they have of us. China, in particular, has shown that the free flow of information provided by an unfettered Internet is simply not tolerable to its leaders.
From your comment I presume you're American, and if you look at this rationally, you'd better hope we hang on to control of DNS for the foreseeable future.
"Republicans and Democrats, working together ... and the only thing worse than a Republican, or a Democrat, is when these little pricks work together!"
These are precisely the sort of people we should be making an example of.
The problem with "making an example" (i.e. a harsher-than-required sentence handed down in order to "deter" similar crimes by other people) is that a. it really screws over the innocent guy and b. doesn't work anyway. Now, I'm not saying the sentence isn't warranted in this guy's case: hell, he admitted it. I just think that using excessive punishment as a deterrent serves no legitimate purpose. If, on the other hand, you meant "catch assholes like this and publicize their convictions and sentences widely" then I'd say we're in agreement.
In the bad old days of programming, we called the gratuitous use of color the "Christmas Tree Effect".
Subtlety is the key to elegance, and in that regard most commercial sites have a loooong way to go.
Am I truly witnessing the inflection point of the decline of the USA?
Nope. That happened in 1945, it's pretty much been downhill ever since.
George Orwell was not wrong, just early.
Not really. This has been going on for a long time. We're only now starting to feel the effects.
Some twenty-odd years ago when I was doing some research software for a teaching hospital in the city, I had noticed there was some significant construction going on, some kind of addition to the main building. I didn't know what it was for at the time. A couple months later I was walking down a hallway with one of the doctors I was working with, and noticed what looked like a two-foot-square hole in the wall that hadn't been there the day before. It had been crudely patched with plasterboard. The doctor told me that a workman had been walking by carrying a window air conditioner at the exact moment the operator was test firing the magnets for the new MRI center they had just built right next door. It literally sucked the A/C out of the guy's hands, and slammed it through the wall and out the other side. Fortunately nobody was hurt.
I presume they must have done something to prevent such occurrences: so far as I'm aware it never happened again.
Oh, I agree, and my girlfriend would be the first to acknowledge that (it's just that where she's from English happens to be popular, although some of her friends are French-speakers as well.) Africa's a huge place, and over the centuries the French and the English both imposed their will (and their languages) upon the peoples of that continent. I was just using her experience as an example: people in the next village over might speak a different language entirely, or the same language but in a dialect sufficiently different that just using English is easier. Very different from my experience as an American: no matter where you go, there you are (with the exception of the Deep South ... damned if I can figure out what they're saying half the time. Not sure they do, either.)
... or maybe he just dislikes Americans so much that it upsets him that English so often used for that purpose. Possibly if we were all talking a more "civilized" language such as French he'd have been happy.
Anyway, I'm not trying to say that English is the only popular language on the planet, only pointing out that people having to learn another, more-widespread language in order to communicate efficiently is burdensome but necessary in many cases. The GP didn't seem to understand that
A lot depends upon what you need your language to do for you: as a trade tongue and for scientific and technical communication English certainly qualifies as the current lingua franca for a good part of the industrialized world. For now.
But in the big picture, it's not that big a deal.
... that's a different story.
The dollar amounts? Not really, you're right. But in terms of mindset
It's hardly obligatory ... however as a common communications medium it is extremely useful. Take Africa, for example ... there are so many different languages and incompatible dialects among the nations of that continent that if it weren't for English, they'd have no ability communicate at all. Hell, my gf is from there, and she tells me that people from neighboring villages often can't speak their native tongues to each other: they speak English! It's expected, if you want to do business beyond your immediate round. It has nothing to do with the beauty of the language, or how difficult it is to learn: it's what you need.
... machine translation has a long way to go. Everybody publish in their native tongues? That would bring science to a standstill. Science is all about communication, scientists absolutely require that common ground.
Then take China, which I understand has more students learning English than the entire population of the United States (yeah, that bothers me a little.) Let's not forget India, which has stolen a good chunk of China's economic thunder simply because they speak better English (for the time being.) The reality is this: the British Empire spread The Queen's English far and wide, and America's later scientific and economic prowess only cemented the value of that language to many peoples across the globe. You may not like the fact the English is today's lingua franca, but then again reality is something that most people on this miserable planet dislike intensely. You appear to be no different in that regard. Personally, I expect that tomorrow's common language will be Mandarin. Ha! And you thought English is hard to learn. I'd rather learn Spanish.
So far as those researchers are concerned: well, let's look at some facts there as well. Science is now (and has been for some time) a global phenomenon. You can complain that it's "needlessly hard" for scientists to publish their findings in English (and I'll grant that it's a burden, no argument) but what solution to that can you suggest? Babelfish? Yeah, right
As I pointed out, for a variety of historical reasons a working knowledge of English is actually a fairly common skill around the world: should such utility simply be disposed of because you find English "distasteful" or the Anglo-Saxon history unattractive (I don't fully grasp the relevance of your comment there, but okay)? That's ridiculous on the face of it: get over any anti-American bias you may have and accept that people (scientists and otherwise) speak English (of whatever variety) because it's often the only method they have to talk to each other.
Language is a tool, a means to an end, and you don't have to like a tool to use it. Another fact: people that refuse to learn a foreign language are people that haven't been in a position where that lack of knowledge cost them something, made their lives more difficult. Most Americans are like that, because America is a large country and most of us don't deal with people of other countries on a daily basis (well, other than Mexico, that is.) That's hardly the case in Europe, where you almost have to be a polyglot just to order dinner.
Or speak English.
Dangerous game to play, redirecting Federal funds. Didn't work out so well for New Orleans, as I recall.
is that the Feds want to trade off older mechanical voting equipment which could, at best, only be corrupted at the local level with more modern remotely-corruptible voting technology. I mean, the people behind our elections are probably tired of depending upon local election bosses to swing things in the prescribed direction, and have decided on a more direct approach.
I hope New York decides to fight this one. This smells really bad.
Talk about a zombie army...
Hey! I resemble that remark!
NY Rejects E-Voting, DOJ Trying to Force The Issue
Seriously, this comes under the heading of "WTF?" It really seems like the Feds want to run absolutely everything their way, nowadays. No room for such quaint oddities as "state's rights" or "civil liberties" or even "American tradition." Really, these people have no business holding public office, elected or appointed.
Hey Germany! How does that gaping hole in your left podal extremity feel?
Better yet, fire their collective ass and replace them with ordinary citizens who might care about having to live under the laws they make while in office. This bunch doesn't, because they're effectively above it. The law, that is. Al Gore was once asked about his position on term limits for Congresspeople. His response? "But ... but, that would deny the American people the benefits of professional politicians." A dubious benefit indeed, Mr. Gore, and one that I believe we can well live without, regardless of one's party affiliation.
Miguel went from being the pitbull attack dog for RMS to saying .NET and OOXML are good in public
Has anyone asked him why?
I dunno ... I've been running some decryption software on my trunk for months now and it still won't open.
machines can be fixed, because they have less disposable income now than they used to, and their technotoys cost more than they used to. That tends to make people think twice about simply throwing an expensive gadget away.
... those that are re-learning the art of pinching pennies will look for alternatives.
No real mystery here. People that can afford to toss costly electronics into the dumpster usually will
It's a press release for something that is going to be available in less than a week for developers, with a dozen industry heavyweights behind it. That's not just a press release.
A dozen heavyweights who would like nothing better than to be out from under Microsoft's thumb. This is going to get interesting, you know.