I think it was former Prime MInister Pierre Trudeau who used the metaphor of the mouse in bed with the elephant to describe Canada-U.S. relations. In a lot of ways it's a good metaphor.
Canada has to walk a tightrope: on the one hand our economic prosperity as a nation depends on our trade relationship and close economic ties with the U.S. (Canada is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, and vis versa), and certainly Canada's national security is largely tied to that of the U.S. But on the other hand, Canada is a distinct sovereign nation, and it's important to protect our sovereignty, and not become an extension of the U.S. The article mentions the Canadian government's long-standing flirtation with legalizing pot, and not to downplay issues like that [1], there are other, bigger, issues to consider. The current U.S. administration has shown a cavalier attitude towards environmental protection, weakening the EPA and making efforts to open up protected areas in Alaska for oil exploration and exploitation. Canada has been (awkwardly at times) tracing out it's own environmental policy, balancing the need to preserve our unique and precious ecological heritage, while at the same time preserving our resource based economies. It'd be a real shame if that balancing act was thrown out of whack by pressure from south of the border. The situation with freshwater policy is similar, and will perhaps become even more important.
Canada/U.S. relations loom large over Canadian politics, just as the movements of the elephant loom large in the thoughts of the mouse that it's in bed with. So when U.S. officials make "rumblings", the Canadian government can't help but take note.
[1] I'm for it. The war on drugs has been an abject failure, especially as far as pot is concerned
Back in the 19th century, astronomers had noticed that there was a minute procession in the perihelion of Mercury (in other words, the point in Mercury's orbit that is closest to the sun kept moving forward) that they couldn't account for using the Keplerian/Newtonian model of celestial dynamics. Astronomers thought that it must have reflected the influence of some massive, distant unknown planet; predictions were made about where this planet was and what its mass was, but astronomers couldn't find it. Then all of a sudden General Relativity came along, and our understanding of mechanics in gravitational fields was improved, and the procession was easily predicted (within an incredibly small margin, as I recall). So it seems just as likely that the "missing mass" is due to a theoretical deficit as it is due to an observational deficit.
(As I'm sure you can tell) I don't claim to know much about any of this at all, but I did read the kerneltrap post, for what it was worth, and as a non-x86 user, I have a few questions. Ingo's patch is only for x86; is equivalent protection for other architectures possible, or even necessary? To what extent are buffer-overflow exploits architecture specific?
Apple has heavily optimized OS X and the so-called iLife apps (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) for AltiVec, the special vector instruction set that the G4 has. That's why OS X runs much more nicely on G4's (which have AltiVec) than on G3's (which don't). The reason all the buzz started about Apple migrating new Macs to the 64-bit IBM chips in the first place was that IBM introduced AltiVec workalike instructions for their new chips, so Apple could move up without sacrificing the AltiVec optimizations. Moving to x86-ish hardware would mean that they'd lose all the AltiVec optimizations they've made, so it seems unlikely to me.
One of the terms that often gets thrown around when discussing open source software is the "Open Source Community", and I suspect that one of the most important features of this community is the recognition that is accorded to developers, so project names take on a special significance in the OSS community, almost paralleling their significance in the world of commercial software. In the world of commercial software names are important for marketing purposes, while in the open source world, project names are important because of the cachet value that having your name associated with a project brings. So just as a commercial product named x would suffer adverse effects if a dominant company were to name their product x, so does Firebird-the-database when the second-or-third most successful OSS project (behind the Linux kernel and maybe apache) decides to take the name Firebird-the-browser.
Having said that, this all seems pretty silly, and it occurs to me that mass mailing campaigns aren't the mature way to deal with this, even if egos are involved. If this were a commercial situation (if the lawyers weren't involved) a mutually beneficial solution would be negotiated between the grown-ups running the two projects. It seems to me that this is the best course of action in this case as well.
Does anyone know how easy it is to dual-boot Bamboo (or other PPC-Linux distros) with OS X? I've seen a few (older) faq's about dual-booting with Debian and Gentoo, but both required a fresh reinstall of OS X as well as linux, which would be a real pain. I know from my experience in x86-land that Mandrake made dual-boot installations nice and easy, but i couldn't find any details on their site about PPC installations; for most details about anything it just refers the reader to the x86 info for details, for the most part.
ts things like this that make me very unproud to be an American citizen. I can't believe the RIAA is not considered an illegal monopoly. It just goes to show how effective bribes are.
The RIAA isn't a company; it's an Industry Association, that's what the I and one of the A's in the name are for. And this certainly isn't an abuse of "monopoly position"; they aren't squeezing out smaller, competing companies, or otherwise being anti-competitive. There's a lot silly, stupid and wrong about this (in varying quantities), but this isn't a case of abuse of monopoly power. You want to post those posts in the section with the picture of the geeky-looking Borg.
It's funny that the anti-spam company's name is Habeas, because, from where I sit, the erosion of habeas corpus rights, and civil rights in general is much scarier than having to sign up to mailing lists before you can post, and the inconvenience of not being able to have open relays
I'll admit that I find spam as annoying as the next guy, but I try to take precautions and use a fairly effective junk mail filter, so spam at best rises to the level of minor annoyance. Aren't there better things to spend our money and time lobbying lawmakers and dragging people to court about?
Could Steve Forbes be pushing for patent reform to be a Republican plank in '04 (especially if he decides to run again...)?
And court the all-important geek vote? Steve Forbes has about zilch political credibility aside from the soabox afforded to him by his publishing companies and the fortune that those companies provide him. He certainly won't be able to mount a primary challenge against a sitting president if he runs as a republican, and running as a third party candidate pretty much ensures that he'll be the butt of late night talk-show host jokes for the length of the campaign and that his supporters will look like cranks.
This is probably because OS/X is heavily altivec-optimized, and g3's don't have altivec. So basically what you're saying is "a g3 optimized operating system is faster on my g3 than a g4 optimized operating system."
why can't we be content to keep the traditional designations of what make up a planet?
a) this is science, not tradition, scientific terms need an absolute definition.
Hogwash. Scientific terms need a definition in terms of a scientific theory. So an "absolute" definition like "anything spherical with a radius smaller than the sun and bigger than the moon" or something like that, although suitably absolute (notwithstanding changes in the radii of the sun and moon), obviously has no connection to a scientific theory of planets. But there's a bigger point here too: absolute definitions make for crappy science. We can't legislate the way the world is via definition; good science should seek to describe the world. Imagine, for a moment, we were having this discussion not about planets but about marmots. We wouldn't want to specify maximum and minimum sizes in some definition of marmots because it would be silly to disqualify something as a marmot purely on the basis of its size, regardless of other factors (say, its marmot parents). And analogously, it would be silly to disqualify something that otherwise fit into our theory of planets perfectly on the basis of its size. Or to be forced to include something as a planet on the basis of its size, despite the fact that it has no other place in a scientific model of planets.
For my money, the smartest thing said in the article came at the end:
"It's way too early to define a planet . . . even though we have now found over 100 of them, these are still early days in planet hunting."
It strikes me that planets have traditionally been considered as geographical features of our solar system. But now that the Hubble telescope and other detectors are beginning to extend our knowledge of planets beyond our solar system, if we want to define a natural category planet it makes sense that the definition this category should have a basis in a well founded theory of planets, not arbitrary size and shape limits. So it makes sense to hold off on a definition of planet until we learn more about planets outside our own solar system.
If you ask me, we put altogether too much emphasis on putting stuff in orbit these days. Manned space exploration has been stalled since the end of the Apollo program; putting people into orbit has become the be-all and end-all. Our focus should be beyond orbit; we should head back to the moon, and then on to Mars. Right now, we are doing fine using disposable rockets to put satellites into orbit, and assuming that the investigation into the Columbia disaster comes up with substantive results and recommendations, the shuttle program can continue to put people into orbit (and we end up grounding the shuttles, I don't see why we can't use Soyuz-like capsules to send people to orbit). If we're planning new space technologies (and major space-related capital commitments) I think we must literally aim higher than Earth orbit. While a space elevator would be an incredible technical achievement, it should wait until we have enough in the way of manned orbital stations to justify the cost, or until private companies want to pay for it as a satellite delivery system.
If we're going to spend that much money on space, we should spend it on space exploration.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was former Prime MInister Pierre Trudeau who used the metaphor of the mouse in bed with the elephant to describe Canada-U.S. relations. In a lot of ways it's a good metaphor.
Canada has to walk a tightrope: on the one hand our economic prosperity as a nation depends on our trade relationship and close economic ties with the U.S. (Canada is the U.S.'s largest trading partner, and vis versa), and certainly Canada's national security is largely tied to that of the U.S. But on the other hand, Canada is a distinct sovereign nation, and it's important to protect our sovereignty, and not become an extension of the U.S. The article mentions the Canadian government's long-standing flirtation with legalizing pot, and not to downplay issues like that [1], there are other, bigger, issues to consider. The current U.S. administration has shown a cavalier attitude towards environmental protection, weakening the EPA and making efforts to open up protected areas in Alaska for oil exploration and exploitation. Canada has been (awkwardly at times) tracing out it's own environmental policy, balancing the need to preserve our unique and precious ecological heritage, while at the same time preserving our resource based economies. It'd be a real shame if that balancing act was thrown out of whack by pressure from south of the border. The situation with freshwater policy is similar, and will perhaps become even more important.
Canada/U.S. relations loom large over Canadian politics, just as the movements of the elephant loom large in the thoughts of the mouse that it's in bed with. So when U.S. officials make "rumblings", the Canadian government can't help but take note.
[1] I'm for it. The war on drugs has been an abject failure, especially as far as pot is concerned
thanks for catching my error.
;)
Back in the 19th century, astronomers had noticed that there was a minute procession in the perihelion of Mercury (in other words, the point in Mercury's orbit that is closest to the sun kept moving forward) that they couldn't account for using the Keplerian/Newtonian model of celestial dynamics. Astronomers thought that it must have reflected the influence of some massive, distant unknown planet; predictions were made about where this planet was and what its mass was, but astronomers couldn't find it. Then all of a sudden General Relativity came along, and our understanding of mechanics in gravitational fields was improved, and the procession was easily predicted (within an incredibly small margin, as I recall). So it seems just as likely that the "missing mass" is due to a theoretical deficit as it is due to an observational deficit.
(As I'm sure you can tell) I don't claim to know much about any of this at all, but I did read the kerneltrap post, for what it was worth, and as a non-x86 user, I have a few questions. Ingo's patch is only for x86; is equivalent protection for other architectures possible, or even necessary? To what extent are buffer-overflow exploits architecture specific?
Sorry if I'm missing something simple here.
No he's not.
Apple has heavily optimized OS X and the so-called iLife apps (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) for AltiVec, the special vector instruction set that the G4 has. That's why OS X runs much more nicely on G4's (which have AltiVec) than on G3's (which don't). The reason all the buzz started about Apple migrating new Macs to the 64-bit IBM chips in the first place was that IBM introduced AltiVec workalike instructions for their new chips, so Apple could move up without sacrificing the AltiVec optimizations. Moving to x86-ish hardware would mean that they'd lose all the AltiVec optimizations they've made, so it seems unlikely to me.
Five year sentence? Don't worry -- I'm sure their lawyers will be able to talk them down to a booting
Ang Lee's directing, so more like:
Hulk BORED!
. . .so it's either being /.'ed, or the site's hosted on a TRS-80 and connected via an acoustic modem.
One of the terms that often gets thrown around when discussing open source software is the "Open Source Community", and I suspect that one of the most important features of this community is the recognition that is accorded to developers, so project names take on a special significance in the OSS community, almost paralleling their significance in the world of commercial software. In the world of commercial software names are important for marketing purposes, while in the open source world, project names are important because of the cachet value that having your name associated with a project brings. So just as a commercial product named x would suffer adverse effects if a dominant company were to name their product x, so does Firebird-the-database when the second-or-third most successful OSS project (behind the Linux kernel and maybe apache) decides to take the name Firebird-the-browser.
Having said that, this all seems pretty silly, and it occurs to me that mass mailing campaigns aren't the mature way to deal with this, even if egos are involved. If this were a commercial situation (if the lawyers weren't involved) a mutually beneficial solution would be negotiated between the grown-ups running the two projects. It seems to me that this is the best course of action in this case as well.
-----
posted while drunk-as-in-bourbon.
Really? I'd have thought that hypercard would do the trick.
Does anyone know how easy it is to dual-boot Bamboo (or other PPC-Linux distros) with OS X? I've seen a few (older) faq's about dual-booting with Debian and Gentoo, but both required a fresh reinstall of OS X as well as linux, which would be a real pain. I know from my experience in x86-land that Mandrake made dual-boot installations nice and easy, but i couldn't find any details on their site about PPC installations; for most details about anything it just refers the reader to the x86 info for details, for the most part.
The RIAA isn't a company; it's an Industry Association, that's what the I and one of the A's in the name are for. And this certainly isn't an abuse of "monopoly position"; they aren't squeezing out smaller, competing companies, or otherwise being anti-competitive. There's a lot silly, stupid and wrong about this (in varying quantities), but this isn't a case of abuse of monopoly power. You want to post those posts in the section with the picture of the geeky-looking Borg.
It's funny that the anti-spam company's name is Habeas, because, from where I sit, the erosion of habeas corpus rights, and civil rights in general is much scarier than having to sign up to mailing lists before you can post, and the inconvenience of not being able to have open relays
I'll admit that I find spam as annoying as the next guy, but I try to take precautions and use a fairly effective junk mail filter, so spam at best rises to the level of minor annoyance. Aren't there better things to spend our money and time lobbying lawmakers and dragging people to court about?
Just a question.
Just subsitute "archive" for "www" in the server name - works for all the NYT articles. here's the link.
And court the all-important geek vote? Steve Forbes has about zilch political credibility aside from the soabox afforded to him by his publishing companies and the fortune that those companies provide him. He certainly won't be able to mount a primary challenge against a sitting president if he runs as a republican, and running as a third party candidate pretty much ensures that he'll be the butt of late night talk-show host jokes for the length of the campaign and that his supporters will look like cranks.
I don't think they really compared with the Evil Bit article, though!
could be, they make windows media player for mac you know. . .
yeah, out of the playoffs in (at the latest) the second round.
This is probably because OS/X is heavily altivec-optimized, and g3's don't have altivec. So basically what you're saying is "a g3 optimized operating system is faster on my g3 than a g4 optimized operating system."
Shocking, eh?
Hogwash. Scientific terms need a definition in terms of a scientific theory. So an "absolute" definition like "anything spherical with a radius smaller than the sun and bigger than the moon" or something like that, although suitably absolute (notwithstanding changes in the radii of the sun and moon), obviously has no connection to a scientific theory of planets. But there's a bigger point here too: absolute definitions make for crappy science. We can't legislate the way the world is via definition; good science should seek to describe the world. Imagine, for a moment, we were having this discussion not about planets but about marmots. We wouldn't want to specify maximum and minimum sizes in some definition of marmots because it would be silly to disqualify something as a marmot purely on the basis of its size, regardless of other factors (say, its marmot parents). And analogously, it would be silly to disqualify something that otherwise fit into our theory of planets perfectly on the basis of its size. Or to be forced to include something as a planet on the basis of its size, despite the fact that it has no other place in a scientific model of planets.
For my money, the smartest thing said in the article came at the end:
It strikes me that planets have traditionally been considered as geographical features of our solar system. But now that the Hubble telescope and other detectors are beginning to extend our knowledge of planets beyond our solar system, if we want to define a natural category planet it makes sense that the definition this category should have a basis in a well founded theory of planets, not arbitrary size and shape limits. So it makes sense to hold off on a definition of planet until we learn more about planets outside our own solar system.
and standard has been a standard for even longer.
learn to spell, jackhole.
If you ask me, we put altogether too much emphasis on putting stuff in orbit these days. Manned space exploration has been stalled since the end of the Apollo program; putting people into orbit has become the be-all and end-all. Our focus should be beyond orbit; we should head back to the moon, and then on to Mars. Right now, we are doing fine using disposable rockets to put satellites into orbit, and assuming that the investigation into the Columbia disaster comes up with substantive results and recommendations, the shuttle program can continue to put people into orbit (and we end up grounding the shuttles, I don't see why we can't use Soyuz-like capsules to send people to orbit). If we're planning new space technologies (and major space-related capital commitments) I think we must literally aim higher than Earth orbit. While a space elevator would be an incredible technical achievement, it should wait until we have enough in the way of manned orbital stations to justify the cost, or until private companies want to pay for it as a satellite delivery system.
If we're going to spend that much money on space, we should spend it on space exploration.