Illinois recently passed a law limiting the number of ephedrine products (cold medicine like Sudafed) that can be sold in a single transaction. The intent was to limit product availability for makers of meth. However, the law focused on retailers (limiting sales quantities) and included fines and mandatory expenses in the form of employee training. I don't know if other laws address this, but the hole you could drive a truck through is that there are no penalties or even prohibition for those buying the suspicious amounts of cold medicine.
Actually it has come out on DVD. I think they've even gone through a normal release and are at the "Special Edition" now. Even "One Crazy Summer" is out.
The world community grid project is more generalized than just the current project. The plans are to take other projects on as well. The requrirements for any project are that they must be not-for-profit.
Results must be made available to the
global research community by the sponsoring research organization and remain in the public
domain.
In short, IBM expects to take a loss on this as a philanthropic donation every year that they support it and only non-profits will be able to use it for "pressing issues facing the global community."
Remember, a space elevator is neither a tower nor a suspension bridge. It is anchored simply to keep it from moving around under winds, small disturbances, etc. but the elevator itself is in orbit.
What keeps the elevator up if I were to tug on it? To lift a 1-ton satellite into orbit, the elevator must exert 1-ton of force opposite to the pull of the satellite, if my understanding of physics is correct. So what keeps it up?
However, Lucas said that the vision in his head is not what went into the actual movie (something like 20-30% he said). So people responded to what was actually made and not what he would consider a "complete" movie.
The article said that IBM would release a 4-way machine first. I can only assume that's the one that's $5000. If so, that's a steal for a 4-way POWER 5 machine. Spec'ed with AIX, you pay (starting at) $8000 for a 2-way. And the 4-way would (IMO) blow the lid off anything under $5000.
I agree that we pay double for less than half the service quality (if you don't count taxes to pay for the subsidy) and that currently we are "locked" into older technology. However, this still doesn't address what will happen in the future when (if) the U.S. is responding to market forces and these countries are locked into their old technology. I don't know what will happen, but I don't think its unreasonable to believe that those monopolies will hinder adoption of better tech.
BTW, I don't think the Japan example is relevant because to my knowledge Japan doesn't subsidize their telecom industry.
But the articles clearly show that this has not been the case. Highspeed access has progressed in leaps and bounds in Asia and Europe precisely because the governments pushed aside businesses to mandate change.
For now. As the grandparent pointed out, for many years we were (and still are to some extent) locked into 1920's phone technology. It's too soon to tell with the broadband in this case. Come back in 20 years and we'll see if those countries are locked into old technology or not. Time will tell.
Assuming Bill goes out and buys 50,000 shares of, say XMSR then in all actuality, the folks at XM Radio won't see a penny of that. We buy stocks from other people, not from the companies themselves, excepting an IPO, in which case, the price remains rather low to begin with. But this is just an infusion of cash, not a continuous stream.
This is true, but simplistic. A company won't sell all of it's available stock in an IPO. Also when they feel the stock price of their company is low (and they have cash), they will buy stock back at market prices. The upshot is that a company will have a supply of stock that they can sell back to the market to get cash when they need it. So in your example when Mr. Gates buys XMSR, some of that may actually go to the company, but probably not. It will drive up the price, however, allowing XM Radio to make a greater amount of cash should they choose to sell their reserve of stock.
What if the cost of "saving one child" is a billion dollars, or making life a little more miserable for the rest of society?
Your post said nothing about these types of situations; only that maybe Timmy was an idiot. My response stated "So, if we are genuinely saving children and not at the expense of squandering other children..." I would define spending undue resources (that could be used to save many children) on one child as squandering. Banning little league altogether is likewise squndering many children for the sake of one. However, what is the price of one child? At what point do you say the child isn't worth it?
Interestingly, a book with a character that shares the name of your example addresses this question.
The response of Scrooge in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" sounds very similar to yours.
`If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, `they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
I believe Dickens' point was that we as humans have an obligation to other humans and we should not make the determination of who recieves help or not, but that we should help all.
So, if we are genuinely saving children and not at the expense of squandering other children, then one child is worth it. You never know when that one child my be your own, or when that one child might have been you.
This is moderated too low. Circuit Cellar is definately my favorite technical magazine, although I prefer the dead-tree edition for easier reference. I'm surprised more slashdotters don't read it, given its geeky content.
An CPA once told me that audits do not uncover fraud. The public perception is that they do, but in reality their purpose is to make sure all funda are accounted for a administered in compliance with accepted business practices. Someone who knows the ins and outs of a financial system can easily cover fraud from auditors who are independent and therefore not as knowledgeable.
Well reasoned, but I have a devil's advocate question.
Another problem with Tanenbaum's logic is that he only presents examples of people that were Unix licensees...
Tanenbaum was not a Unix licensee and he told you the task was possible to accomplish in few months if he had devoted more time to it.
Ken Brown asserts that Tanenbaum had the Lions notes (illegal Unix copy), so the fact that he wasn't a Unix licensee should be irrelevant. Given that, how would you now respond to Brown's statement?
I'd say a better solution is to start telling people the having their shiny electronic gizmos (very) occasionally stolen is not the biggest concern facing mankind. By all means we should pursue and punish those involved, but at some point the marginal cost of lowering the crime rate outweighs the cost incurred by the crimes.
You (apparently) have never been robbed. It's not the "shiny electronic gizmos" that go missing, it's the feeling of security. I don't care about that stuff, but it bothers me that I feel uncomfortable when someone I don't know rings my doorbell at night now.
That said, I agree that the marginal cost is definately not worth the benefit of lower crime. It sucks to have been robbed, but if that's the cost of preserving greater liberty for all, I'll take it.
The whole idea of an automated grading system for essays is insane to begin with. The single most important aspect of an essay is its content, not its form. Form and grammar are important in conveying a message, but the message is what is actually important. The things an automated grading system can grade should not make up much of an essay's total grade.
If you start grading on content (read: opinion of the author), then only the students that parrot the teacher will get good grades. Much better to remove content from the equation, so the student can effectively learn how to present ideas in a useful and persuasive manner regardless of what the idea may be.
Besides, anyone who has read much literature knows that many great authors play with grammar, spelling, and form in non-standard ways in order convey a message. An automated system would grade them poorly, because only those who conform exactally to the rules get a good grade. Is our goal to turn all of our students into mindless automatons whose only goal is to churn out exactally the same drivell as the next guy?
I don't think this argument works well at the high-school level. Students are still learning about grammar and spelling, so all mistakes will be unintentional except by the most gifted students (about three standard deviations away). This is the same priciple by which artists are trained: master classical techniques so you can utilize them (through use or intentional mis-use) in your modern art.
Please don't perpetuate the dual-income myth. My wife put me through the last three years of my schooling. During this time we were able to:
pay for school
pay off school loans
save money
There are some important considerations. My wife had (has) a good job in her field of Computer Science. Also, we don't have children. Changing either of these would make things tighter, but I firmly believe it is certainly not impossible.
Self control and frugality are key to making it on one income. One income from an educated individual is certainly enough to go around, even including savings and children. My sister is the best example I know of this. Though they have no income other than my brother-in-law's government job, they do quite well. They don't have the newest "stuff", but they and their three children are happy, healthy, and well-fed.
The internet is not going to change. DARPA wants to re-think networking and create a new protocol. Why? For military application. They are finding ad-hoc networks, such as battle situations, are not well covered by IP. So, they come up with something new. They use it on the battlefield, where it was designed to function. Maybe some people use it for other things, like mobile networking. This doesn't change the internet one bit, as it will still exist and function separate from whatever DARPA does.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. Far too many people seem to think that getting their way is more important than working together to move society forward.
Illinois recently passed a law limiting the number of ephedrine products (cold medicine like Sudafed) that can be sold in a single transaction. The intent was to limit product availability for makers of meth. However, the law focused on retailers (limiting sales quantities) and included fines and mandatory expenses in the form of employee training. I don't know if other laws address this, but the hole you could drive a truck through is that there are no penalties or even prohibition for those buying the suspicious amounts of cold medicine.
That was two years ago. As a resident of that area, I can attest that IBM no longer manufactures anything in RTP. However, they still do design here.
Actually it has come out on DVD. I think they've even gone through a normal release and are at the "Special Edition" now. Even "One Crazy Summer" is out.
The world community grid project is more generalized than just the current project. The plans are to take other projects on as well. The requrirements for any project are that they must be not-for-profit.
The request for projects (pdf) says this:
In short, IBM expects to take a loss on this as a philanthropic donation every year that they support it and only non-profits will be able to use it for "pressing issues facing the global community."
What keeps the elevator up if I were to tug on it? To lift a 1-ton satellite into orbit, the elevator must exert 1-ton of force opposite to the pull of the satellite, if my understanding of physics is correct. So what keeps it up?
However, Lucas said that the vision in his head is not what went into the actual movie (something like 20-30% he said). So people responded to what was actually made and not what he would consider a "complete" movie.
There must be some catch...
I agree that we pay double for less than half the service quality (if you don't count taxes to pay for the subsidy) and that currently we are "locked" into older technology. However, this still doesn't address what will happen in the future when (if) the U.S. is responding to market forces and these countries are locked into their old technology. I don't know what will happen, but I don't think its unreasonable to believe that those monopolies will hinder adoption of better tech.
BTW, I don't think the Japan example is relevant because to my knowledge Japan doesn't subsidize their telecom industry.
For now. As the grandparent pointed out, for many years we were (and still are to some extent) locked into 1920's phone technology. It's too soon to tell with the broadband in this case. Come back in 20 years and we'll see if those countries are locked into old technology or not. Time will tell.
Do you use the term "uber sex" when you are presenting a new design to your boss?
This is true, but simplistic. A company won't sell all of it's available stock in an IPO. Also when they feel the stock price of their company is low (and they have cash), they will buy stock back at market prices. The upshot is that a company will have a supply of stock that they can sell back to the market to get cash when they need it. So in your example when Mr. Gates buys XMSR, some of that may actually go to the company, but probably not. It will drive up the price, however, allowing XM Radio to make a greater amount of cash should they choose to sell their reserve of stock.
Your post said nothing about these types of situations; only that maybe Timmy was an idiot. My response stated "So, if we are genuinely saving children and not at the expense of squandering other children..." I would define spending undue resources (that could be used to save many children) on one child as squandering. Banning little league altogether is likewise squndering many children for the sake of one. However, what is the price of one child? At what point do you say the child isn't worth it?
The response of Scrooge in Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" sounds very similar to yours.
I believe Dickens' point was that we as humans have an obligation to other humans and we should not make the determination of who recieves help or not, but that we should help all.
So, if we are genuinely saving children and not at the expense of squandering other children, then one child is worth it. You never know when that one child my be your own, or when that one child might have been you.
This is moderated too low. Circuit Cellar is definately my favorite technical magazine, although I prefer the dead-tree edition for easier reference. I'm surprised more slashdotters don't read it, given its geeky content.
An CPA once told me that audits do not uncover fraud. The public perception is that they do, but in reality their purpose is to make sure all funda are accounted for a administered in compliance with accepted business practices. Someone who knows the ins and outs of a financial system can easily cover fraud from auditors who are independent and therefore not as knowledgeable.
Ken Brown asserts that Tanenbaum had the Lions notes (illegal Unix copy), so the fact that he wasn't a Unix licensee should be irrelevant. Given that, how would you now respond to Brown's statement?
You (apparently) have never been robbed. It's not the "shiny electronic gizmos" that go missing, it's the feeling of security. I don't care about that stuff, but it bothers me that I feel uncomfortable when someone I don't know rings my doorbell at night now.
That said, I agree that the marginal cost is definately not worth the benefit of lower crime. It sucks to have been robbed, but if that's the cost of preserving greater liberty for all, I'll take it.
If you start grading on content (read: opinion of the author), then only the students that parrot the teacher will get good grades. Much better to remove content from the equation, so the student can effectively learn how to present ideas in a useful and persuasive manner regardless of what the idea may be.
I don't think this argument works well at the high-school level. Students are still learning about grammar and spelling, so all mistakes will be unintentional except by the most gifted students (about three standard deviations away). This is the same priciple by which artists are trained: master classical techniques so you can utilize them (through use or intentional mis-use) in your modern art.
pay for school
pay off school loans
save money
There are some important considerations. My wife had (has) a good job in her field of Computer Science. Also, we don't have children. Changing either of these would make things tighter, but I firmly believe it is certainly not impossible.
Self control and frugality are key to making it on one income. One income from an educated individual is certainly enough to go around, even including savings and children. My sister is the best example I know of this. Though they have no income other than my brother-in-law's government job, they do quite well. They don't have the newest "stuff", but they and their three children are happy, healthy, and well-fed.
That Student D is such a follower. I've always hated that guy.
I think the grandparent is trying to point out that email is a threat vector because viruses are spread largely through email.
And I think that you might want to correct this date.
Ha! You just admitted that you've seen Star Trek 5! Oh wait...
The internet is not going to change. DARPA wants to re-think networking and create a new protocol. Why? For military application. They are finding ad-hoc networks, such as battle situations, are not well covered by IP. So, they come up with something new. They use it on the battlefield, where it was designed to function. Maybe some people use it for other things, like mobile networking. This doesn't change the internet one bit, as it will still exist and function separate from whatever DARPA does.