The Panama Canal was dug around 1910. In 1910, about 38% of Americans were employed in agriculture... now it is under 2%. In other words, humankind is radically better at things like "moving dirt."
This argument makes no sense whatever.
Agricultural employment in the states is under 2% because we are "radically" better at things like farming.
Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) in China was last measured at 34.80 in 2011, according to the World Bank.
By July 1, 1914, a total of 238,845,587 cubic yards had been excavated during the American construction era. Together with some 30,000,000 cubic yards excavated by the French, this gives a total of around 268,000,000 cubic yards, or more than four times the volume originally estimated for de Lesseps' sea level canal.
The Panama Canal cost Americans around $375,000,000, including the $10,000,000 paid to Panama and the $40,000,000 paid to the French company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time. Fortifications cost extra, about $12,000,000.
Amazingly, unlike any other such project on record, the American canal had cost less in dollars than estimated, with the final figure some $23,000,000 below the 1907 estimate, in spite of landslides and a design change to a wider canal.
Even more amazing is that this huge, complex and unprecedented project was carried out without any of the scandal or corruption that often plagues such efforts, nor has any hint of scandal ever come to light in subsequent years.
There was, of course, also a cost in lives. According to hospital records, 5,609 lives were lost from disease and accidents during the American construction era. Adding the deaths during the French era would likely bring the total deaths to some 25,000 based on an estimate by Gorgas. However, the true number will never be known, since the French only recorded the deaths that occurred in hospital.
if it's backed by gold, US dollars, or some other reasonably-stable commodity AND there is no debasing
First sentence of the article you so obviously haven't read:
After mortgaging most of Ecuador's oil and gold to finance spending, President Rafael Correa is planning to create virtual money to pay the nation's bills.
and the last:
"I wouldn't want to be converted into a new currency managed by an untested central bank," Reichold said. Creating a currency "isn't straightforward even when you're in a country with a perfect track record of successful economic management, and I don't think Ecuador is in that category.''
could send the decades-old utility industry into a death spiral
Is it too much to ask to get the time line right?
The first hydro-electric plant generating AC power for regional distribution went into service at Niagara Falls in 1895.
Edison had much smaller scale DC plants online in New York and London in 1882. On-site generation is a decade older still.
There is always something of a disconnect between where people want to live - where the jobs are - and where alterative power sources are most easily and economically exploited on a commercial scale.
If you are looking for wind, Tornado Alley is a good place to start, and for sun the Hades hot and dry desert southwest.
The upside in open source being that you *can* read the source and build documentation from it, if you were so inclined.
"Reading the source" doesn't necessarily imply that you truly understand what a program is doing or how to use it effectively.
A simple example would be a raster graphics editor like Paint.NET or Krita, which as a bog standard download may include fifty to one hundred or so customizable tools and special effects, aka filters.
The Streisand Effect works only if you know and care about Barbara Streisand --- and only in a time and place where Geek Rules override every other consideration.
The geek has a one-size-fits-all cultural mindset that has never served him particularly well.
Ideally, what you want is a list of projects which are simply and accurately described, not dormant or defunct, and generally regarded as useful or promising in their present state.
(!) This article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links.
Yes, some websites wanted to use H.264 for video encoding, but Mozilla shouldn't have abetted them.
H.264 is here.
HEVC not far down the road.
The geek sees everything in terms of the "open" web.
But there is more to digital video than video distribution through the web.
Which is why the mainstream commercial codecs dominate here.
Why hardware and software support for these codecs are baked into the smartphone, tablet, PC, graphics card, HDTV, video game console, Blu-ray player. The prosumer HD camcorder, medical and industrial video systems and so on, endlessly.
Why is this moderated troll?
The very first paragraph of the article says she got a death threat and that they know where she lives. Do people even read the articles before moderating anymore?
Consider how predictably the Slashdot geek responds to stories like this. Embarrassing, isn't it?
The Internet was vastly better then by any measure. It wasn't used to commit financial crimes, to dupe people, to invade privacy, or to spy on whole populations. It especially didn't destroy more jobs than it's created and eliminate whole industries
AOL introduced flat-rate monthly billing in the mid nineties - coincidental with flat-rate regional calling plans.
Going on-line had become affordable.
The typical Internet suite of that era had its arcane clients for e-mail, IRC chat, USENET, FTP, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, and maybe a primitive web browser, along with zip file compression and a graphics editor.
The AOL client pushed all the geek's beloved tech far into the background, and put an easy to use GUI up-front.
At that point, the only way the geek could have kept the" old Internet" as his private playground would have been by crippling the evolution of the "open" web browse - and praying there wouldn't be too many defections to the commercial online services.
Why don't they just change their state flag to the swastika?
The one true faith.
The geek's emotional investment in Bitcoin can be frightening.
Bitcoins, which lost 45 percent of their value after skyrocketing to more than $1,100 last year, are poised to tumble further, according to the latest Bloomberg Global Poll of financial professionals.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said the virtual currency trades at unsustainable, bubble-like prices, according to the quarterly poll of 562 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers. Another 14 percent said it's on the verge of a bubble. Only 6 percent of respondents said a bubble isn't forming. The remaining 25 percent were unsure.
Merchants including Expedia Inc., Dish Network Corp. and Overstock.com Inc. have decided to accept bitcoins. A total of 63,000 businesses now take the virtual currency, and people have set up more than 5 million wallets to keep their digital holdings, according to CoinDesk, which tracks its use.
That enthusiasm contrasts with opinions expressed by finance-industry leaders. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 58, has said bitcoins probably won't last as a currency after governments subject them to rules and standards akin to those for other payment systems. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, 83, has said he'll be surprised if bitcoins last 10 or 20 years.
A Bloomberg poll in January showed investor doubts in the virtual currency as well. Almost half of 477 international investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers were bearish on bitcoins and said they would sell them. At the time, bitcoins traded about 30 percent above current levels.
Then again, a remarkable coincidence started WWI, so...
I don't know what is coincidental in the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by Serbian nationalists armed and trained by Serbian military intelligence. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Given the political and military alliances forged in Europe before WWI, this was not going to end well.
once one company creates a really good word processor, we don't need ten more to compete with them. The result is total market dominance for the one who does it first (or markets it the best
Word Perfect had the perfect character-oriented word processor---
which it ported to every OS known to man with customized print drivers for every printer known to man.
But it stumbled badly when small business oriented operating systems --- Mac and Windows ---- began moving towards higher levels of abstraction. The GUI. The printer API ---
and stumbled again when trying to keep pace with the new and rapidly evolving concept of the integrated office suite.
He probably uses more energy in his mansions than 99.9999% of the people in the world, let alone the energy jetting around everywhere.
In the larger scheme of things, none of this matters.
He is one man among 7 billion men.
The billionaire's mansions are almost certainly not burning wood or coal or kerosene as their primary sources of light and heat. Their mechanical and thermodynamic efficiencies are probably quite good and the systems well-maintained.
Slashdot Mirror
Toronto is a small city? It's the largest city in Canada and the 4th largest in North America
Population of Metro Toronto 5.6 million.
Then there is the golden triangle: Toronto - Hamilton - Buffalo.
ask yourself which community can Oracle extort support contracts out of
If support contracts count as extortion than open source development is in big trouble.
The Panama Canal was dug around 1910. In 1910, about 38% of Americans were employed in agriculture... now it is under 2%. In other words, humankind is radically better at things like "moving dirt."
This argument makes no sense whatever.
Agricultural employment in the states is under 2% because we are "radically" better at things like farming.
Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) in China was last measured at 34.80 in 2011, according to the World Bank.
Employment in agriculture (% of total employment) in China
By July 1, 1914, a total of 238,845,587 cubic yards had been excavated during the American construction era. Together with some 30,000,000 cubic yards excavated by the French, this gives a total of around 268,000,000 cubic yards, or more than four times the volume originally estimated for de Lesseps' sea level canal.
END OF CONSTRUCTION
The Panama canal nearly bankrupted America.
Nonsense.
The Panama Canal cost Americans around $375,000,000, including the $10,000,000 paid to Panama and the $40,000,000 paid to the French company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time. Fortifications cost extra, about $12,000,000.
Amazingly, unlike any other such project on record, the American canal had cost less in dollars than estimated, with the final figure some $23,000,000 below the 1907 estimate, in spite of landslides and a design change to a wider canal.
Even more amazing is that this huge, complex and unprecedented project was carried out without any of the scandal or corruption that often plagues such efforts, nor has any hint of scandal ever come to light in subsequent years.
There was, of course, also a cost in lives. According to hospital records, 5,609 lives were lost from disease and accidents during the American construction era. Adding the deaths during the French era would likely bring the total deaths to some 25,000 based on an estimate by Gorgas. However, the true number will never be known, since the French only recorded the deaths that occurred in hospital.
END OF THE CONSTRUCTION
if it's backed by gold, US dollars, or some other reasonably-stable commodity AND there is no debasing
First sentence of the article you so obviously haven't read:
After mortgaging most of Ecuador's oil and gold to finance spending, President Rafael Correa is planning to create virtual money to pay the nation's bills.
and the last:
"I wouldn't want to be converted into a new currency managed by an untested central bank," Reichold said. Creating a currency "isn't straightforward even when you're in a country with a perfect track record of successful economic management, and I don't think Ecuador is in that category.''
The fascists are never going to give up power now that they have it.
Pathetic.
Translating geek speak into English:
" I don't know how to communicate effectively with voters and make my issues and my candidates a driving force in any political campaign.
When I lose I'll take refuge in Godwinism and talk of bribery, further alienating the voters whose advise and support I need the most."
could send the decades-old utility industry into a death spiral
Is it too much to ask to get the time line right?
The first hydro-electric plant generating AC power for regional distribution went into service at Niagara Falls in 1895.
Edison had much smaller scale DC plants online in New York and London in 1882. On-site generation is a decade older still.
There is always something of a disconnect between where people want to live - where the jobs are - and where alterative power sources are most easily and economically exploited on a commercial scale.
If you are looking for wind, Tornado Alley is a good place to start, and for sun the Hades hot and dry desert southwest.
The upside in open source being that you *can* read the source and build documentation from it, if you were so inclined.
"Reading the source" doesn't necessarily imply that you truly understand what a program is doing or how to use it effectively.
A simple example would be a raster graphics editor like Paint.NET or Krita, which as a bog standard download may include fifty to one hundred or so customizable tools and special effects, aka filters.
Theft of intellectual property should be a criminal matter.
Copyright infringement should be a civil matter
Perhaps it is the August heat.
But don't see any meaningful distinction here.
The geek wants to share the unlicensed movies he has downloaded with 10,000 of his closest friends on the P2P nets.
But when his own IP is threatened he will be the first to call the cops.
Couldn't they have just redefined the acronym? 'Xenon Based Media Center'.. something something...
It's too late in the day for such a simple-minded solution to take hold.
A Google search for "X Box Media Center" returns 426 million hits. "XBMC" 4 million hits.
How about they release Cryengine open-source? That'd be awesome.
It's not going to happen without the consent of Crytek's creditors.
Have you never heard of the Streisand Effect?
The Streisand Effect works only if you know and care about Barbara Streisand --- and only in a time and place where Geek Rules override every other consideration.
The geek has a one-size-fits-all cultural mindset that has never served him particularly well.
For those of us still refusing to join modern networks, IRC is vibrant as ever.
would it kill the geek to bring the IRC and USENET client into the 21st century?
What's wrong with just googling for stuff
Time.
Ideally, what you want is a list of projects which are simply and accurately described, not dormant or defunct, and generally regarded as useful or promising in their present state.
Cannot be used for weapon manufacturing or mass surveillance... or anything defined as 'evil' by a FSF committee.
Unpredictable and self-righteous. It would utterly destroy GPLv4 as a viable open source license and the ripple effect would be devastating,
(!) This article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links.
Bromium
Yes, some websites wanted to use H.264 for video encoding, but Mozilla shouldn't have abetted them.
H.264 is here.
HEVC not far down the road.
The geek sees everything in terms of the "open" web.
But there is more to digital video than video distribution through the web.
Which is why the mainstream commercial codecs dominate here.
Why hardware and software support for these codecs are baked into the smartphone, tablet, PC, graphics card, HDTV, video game console, Blu-ray player. The prosumer HD camcorder, medical and industrial video systems and so on, endlessly.
Why is this moderated troll?
The very first paragraph of the article says she got a death threat and that they know where she lives. Do people even read the articles before moderating anymore?
Consider how predictably the Slashdot geek responds to stories like this. Embarrassing, isn't it?
There are other words that come to mind.
The base price for an off-the-shelf 2000 Watt Complete Grid-Tied DIY AC Solar Kit is $4600.
The kit includes eight 8 x 8 x 5 inch Enphase inverters weighing 6 lbs each. Retailing for about $150 each. All offers for Enphase M215 Micro-Inverter
The big money is in mediocre crap. Always has been.
You might try telling that to HBO or Disney Animation.
The Internet was vastly better then by any measure. It wasn't used to commit financial crimes, to dupe people, to invade privacy, or to spy on whole populations. It especially didn't destroy more jobs than it's created and eliminate whole industries
AOL introduced flat-rate monthly billing in the mid nineties - coincidental with flat-rate regional calling plans.
Going on-line had become affordable.
The typical Internet suite of that era had its arcane clients for e-mail, IRC chat, USENET, FTP, Gopher, Archie, Veronica, and maybe a primitive web browser, along with zip file compression and a graphics editor.
The AOL client pushed all the geek's beloved tech far into the background, and put an easy to use GUI up-front.
At that point, the only way the geek could have kept the" old Internet" as his private playground would have been by crippling the evolution of the "open" web browse - and praying there wouldn't be too many defections to the commercial online services.
Why don't they just change their state flag to the swastika?
The one true faith.
The geek's emotional investment in Bitcoin can be frightening.
Bitcoins, which lost 45 percent of their value after skyrocketing to more than $1,100 last year, are poised to tumble further, according to the latest Bloomberg Global Poll of financial professionals.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said the virtual currency trades at unsustainable, bubble-like prices, according to the quarterly poll of 562 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers. Another 14 percent said it's on the verge of a bubble. Only 6 percent of respondents said a bubble isn't forming. The remaining 25 percent were unsure.
Merchants including Expedia Inc., Dish Network Corp. and Overstock.com Inc. have decided to accept bitcoins. A total of 63,000 businesses now take the virtual currency, and people have set up more than 5 million wallets to keep their digital holdings, according to CoinDesk, which tracks its use.
That enthusiasm contrasts with opinions expressed by finance-industry leaders. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 58, has said bitcoins probably won't last as a currency after governments subject them to rules and standards akin to those for other payment systems. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, 83, has said he'll be surprised if bitcoins last 10 or 20 years.
A Bloomberg poll in January showed investor doubts in the virtual currency as well. Almost half of 477 international investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers were bearish on bitcoins and said they would sell them. At the time, bitcoins traded about 30 percent above current levels.
Bitcoins Can't Shake Bubble Image in Poll After 45% Drop [July 17]
Then again, a remarkable coincidence started WWI, so...
I don't know what is coincidental in the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by Serbian nationalists armed and trained by Serbian military intelligence. Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
Given the political and military alliances forged in Europe before WWI, this was not going to end well.
once one company creates a really good word processor, we don't need ten more to compete with them. The result is total market dominance for the one who does it first (or markets it the best
Word Perfect had the perfect character-oriented word processor---
which it ported to every OS known to man with customized print drivers for every printer known to man.
But it stumbled badly when small business oriented operating systems --- Mac and Windows ---- began moving towards higher levels of abstraction. The GUI. The printer API ---
and stumbled again when trying to keep pace with the new and rapidly evolving concept of the integrated office suite.
He probably uses more energy in his mansions than 99.9999% of the people in the world, let alone the energy jetting around everywhere.
In the larger scheme of things, none of this matters.
He is one man among 7 billion men.
The billionaire's mansions are almost certainly not burning wood or coal or kerosene as their primary sources of light and heat. Their mechanical and thermodynamic efficiencies are probably quite good and the systems well-maintained.