Actually you're right. If you earn $5000 (considering, you're living alone) in India, you can have a ball. You can drive a hatchback (cars are expensive here, but then, the roads and the traffic is pretty bad anyway), live in a very nice part of the city, afford to party your ass every weekend, and take a quarterly vacation to Goa or to the Himalayas. Money talks here. If you've got the money here, everything works like a charm, and even the cops don't bother you (jump a red light, pay $1-2 bribe).
The lifestyle that you can lead in India is perhaps a little bit of a downgrade vis a vis America, but not by much, especially if you're living in a big city. Perhaps, you can't afford an overseas vacation every year or drive a big car. But, that's about it. But hey, in which other country can you do an engineering degree from a top college for $1000 a year or an MBA for $2000 a year? Perhaps, one in a thousand go for a student loan here.
I agree with your point. One thing though. $100 = Rs. 4500 isn't that big a deal in India:-)
Perhaps an architect could get by with $100 a month IF he/she lives alone or with their parents, has no loans, cooks at home, and takes the bus everyday. $100 is also roughly what a student (from a no-name college with no campus placements) would expect to get paid with 0 experience.
A typical middle-class Indian would earn about $200-$300 a month, live in a 2BHK rental/govt flat (Bedroom, "Hall" aka living room, Kitchen), own a scooter or a 100cc motorbike (100cc bikes give insane mileage - 1 liter = 100km!), and have a 4-5 member family (husband, wife, 2 kids, grandma).
I agree. $2.30 pm is quite reasonable. However, PC prices in India are exorbitant. Forget purchasing power parity. The same PC that costs $500 in the US would cost about $800 in India! This is the reason why the PC penetration in India is so low. To add to it, most Indians tend to buy stuff with cash after they've saved for it. Hence, they usually plan to save for about 2-4 years if they want to buy a PC for their kid.
Hmmm, either that or the article was in cold storage for a very long time, and the author/editor didn't notice the BitTorrent reference when microwaving it for this issue.
Interestingly, the entire modus operandi cited in the Wired article falls apart in the case of BitTorrent. The article admits the same thing too. However, the article claims that:-
"Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry. (BitTorrent, a faster and more efficient type of P2P file-sharing, is an exception. But at present there are far fewer BitTorrent users.)"
Huh? When was this article written? In Jan 2005, when this article was posted, they don't consider BitTorrent a major P2P player?
To add, I've noticed that of late, most issues or point of views have become polarized. Today, you're either a techno-freak or a luddite. You're either expected to own or at least want a plasma television, a TiVo, a VOIP/cell/PDA phone or you don't even believe in electricity. Heck, it even extends to other things. You're either a Bush lover or a Bush hater. However, i digress.
Like you said, a lot of us are confusing a "good to have" technical gadget with a need. While there's nothing wrong with owning or desiring the latest gadgets, we also need to put things in perspective. The twist here is that technology is rapidly evolving at such a rate that a lot of it is now taken for granted. We've almost become dependant on it. People today, including myself, have very real email withdrawl symptoms if say the network goes down for an hour. Perhaps, this is the reason why so many of us are confusing a desirable ringtone or mobile internet access as a need. Perhaps, the solution to "snap" out of it is to keep reminding ourselves to put things in perspective.
"And exactly what luxuries does athiesm provide?" You misunderstood. Atheism is a luxury for a dirt-poor Indian only because religion provides comfort and a reason to live, albeit false. Say you come across a child who's lost his/her speech because of the terror they faced or met an individual who's lost the will to live. What would you do? Try to motivate them by talking logic to them?
"You don't have too look to a god either." I never said anything about a god either. By miracle, i meant a human being's capacity to persevere even when they've obviously been stretched beyond the breaking point. A miracle is the smile on a child's face even when the child has been starving for 3 days. Ironically, i too was saying that one doesn't need to look in a god or in a religion to see miracles.
Hmmm, i'll take your comment as is, and not as a rhetoric one.
"...and imagine still wasting one hour travelling to the air/spaceport" Perhaps. Spaceport commute time would completely depend on your proximity and capability of transit transport infrastructure. By the same argument, commuting to the office everyday takes as much time.
"three ours in check-in and security lanes" Three hours is a tad high, IMHO, except in rare situations. Check-in time, even for international travel usually takes an hour, in my experience. Airport security check in Israel is an exception though.
I agree with the core point of your comment though. However, in spite of the non-travel time lossage, one would save bigtime on travel fatigue. After say a 12 or 20 hour flight, one needs to be a superhuman to not take a day off. However, a total travel time of say 6 hours is not too bad, except for the jet lag.
Sorry, couldn't resist the anagram. Here's the source code for the phel trojan. This trojan is written in a very high level language. By a strange temporal accident involving a singularity, an anagram, and MS's open-door policy, the source code closely resembles a certain song lyric that goes by the same name.
The lyrics are kinda fitting, don't you think?;-)
[snip] When I was younger, so much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way. But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured, Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down And I do appreciate you being round. Help me, get my feet back on the ground, Won't you please, please help me.
And now my life has changed in oh so many ways, My independence seems to vanish in the haze. But every now and then I feel so insecure, I know that I just need you like I've never done before.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down And I do appreciate you being round. Help me, get my feet back on the ground, Won't you please, please help me. [/snip]
Speaking as an Indian, a big heartfelt THANKS for all of you who've empathised with the tragedy and have helped the rescue efforts. It's in trying times like these that one's faith in humanity is restored.
Thankfully, in spite of Indian bureacracy being well Indian bureaucracy, rescue and rehabilitation efforts are going on VERY effectively. An enormous number of people in India, be it the government, armed forces, or even the common woman/man is pitching in. Most companies here have setup collection boxes and at the very least, we're donating medicines, soaps, toothbrushes, disinfectants, clothes, utensils, non-perishable food items etc. There's also an army of volunteers who's landed in the disaster struck areas with truckloads of donated stuff and are distributing it to the needy.
Strangely enough, it seems that too many clothes are being donated! A friend of mine is physically helping out with the rescue efforts and he tells me that there's piles and piles of clothes lying around but of little use to anybody. Well, i guess too much help is always better than too little help.
Another thing that amazes me is the resilience of the common man or woman. Here are people living on the edge of poverty, getting hammered everyday with issues like eking out an existence. Perhaps they've scrounged and saved enough to get their daughters married, hidden a few hundred rupees in a hole in the wall. Perhaps they've just bought a shiny new radio or a bicycle. What do they wake up to? A tsunami that takes away their children, their friends, and everything they own. What do they do? Shrug it off eventually and mark it off as karma, god's will, or god's punishment depending on their religion (no, most poor Indians cannot afford the luxuries of athesim or agnosticism). Then, they take it one day at a time and slowly start rebuilding their lives.
You want to see miracles, mental strength, and the answer to life, the universe, and everything? You don't have to look far in times like these.
Thanks for the correction. You're right. I confused multi-tasking (multitasking?) with concurrent processing.
One small thing: the dictionary.com link that you mentioned (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=multitas king) seems to consider concurrent processing as a synonym for multitasking, which is incorrect. However, wikipedia seems to have got it correct when it says:- "When context switches occur frequently enough the illusion of concurrency is achieved" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ multitaskin g)
If i remember correctly, multi-tasking is used incorrectly even in the computer field. The processor "seems" to multi-task only because it's very rapidly switching between the tasks. Real multi-tasking only happens when a processor is capable of simultaneously performing more than one task. Breaking up the word also seems to suggest this.
However, it's been a while since i touched my text books, so i'll stand corrected if proved otherwise:-)
Depends on the kind of work
on
Life Interrupted
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I think the article is generalizing too much. Firstly, multi-tasking is the wrong word to use as we're not simultaneously doing two or more activities, but are doing it in a round-robin, pre-emptive, or time-sharing kind of way. Again, one's ability to successfully pull this off depends on one's temperament, prioritization ability, and the kind of work involved. Repetitive work can easily be done in this way, for example, simply because after sufficient practise, the work itself becomes mechanical and doesn't need any cognitive ability. On the other hand, work that requires genuine thinking effort is done best without interruption, especially when one is in the "flow" or "zone". Again, if a person has the mental discipline to ignore other interruptions or re-priorotize the distractions, it's not too much of a problem.
In another vein, we've always had distractions, and the ones posed by technology are just a new form of it. What separates an efficient individual from an inefficient one is the ability to block out these distractions when needed, and only focus on the goal at hand. The rest is all FUD that these so-called cognitive experts throw in to justify their existence. I'm fedup of these experts extrapolating some extreme cases and generalizing them to create non-existent issues.
Cognitive overload. Bah. We've always had cognitive overload. Only the jingo is new. I think i should change my profession and start bullshitting my way into some real money.
The FX-55, which is the top of the line from AMD, retails for about $900:- http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=amd+fx -55&btnG =Froogle+Search&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
The Dothan 2.1 GHZ, which is the top of the line Dothan from Intel, retails for about $750:- http://froogle.google.com/froogle?price1=2 00&price 2=600&hl=en&lr=&tab=wf&scoring=pd&price=between&q= dothan+processor+2.1ghz&btnG=Search+Froogle
The power rating or TDP (Thermal Design Power) for the FX-55 is 104W! (up from 89W). It also operates at about 55 degree C, which, IMHO, is definitely hot to the touch. URL:- http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_con tent.asp?id=fx5 5&page=2
The Dothan, on the other hand, has a TDP of only 21W! URL:- http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_conte nt.asp?id=dot handesktop&page=2
Yes, if you look at price/performance, as is your main argument, Dothan may not currently be viable. I myself said the same thing in my previous post. However, say 6 months down the line, if i can buy a Dothan with mobo at similar prices for a mid-range AMD+mobo, i will go for the Dothan, even if i get a 15% performance hit in certain apps. Yes, Dothan is not the best in compiling, but is very good in gaming and other apps.
It can very definitely be used as a desktop processor. I use a P-M in my laptop everyday as a very real power user, and even my 1 year old P-M gives me very decent processing performance.
Surprisingly, in all the comments, hardly anyone has given importance to the one amazing card that Intel holds: Dothan.
Anandtech review on Linux performance on Dothan:- http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.a spx?i=2308
Yes, everyone agrees that Prescott is too hot and doesn't quite match up to the FX-55 and its descendants. Shut up already.
Dothan's a different cheetah though. With it's mind-bogglingly cool thermal envelope, a moderately overclocked Dothan holds up to a FX-55 (which is a pretty hot processor, albeit not in the Prescott level) in most cases. Best of all, Dothan delivers GAMING performance almost as good as the top of the line AMD offering: FX-55. There's also tons of headroom for overclocking a Dothan to further increase its performance. All this when Dothan is not even running DDR2, PCI-E, or a performance optimized (as opposed to power optimized) mobo! Come Alvisio, things will get even better.
If Intel sheds a bit of Prescott ego, and it's already showing signs of doing so, and adopts Dothan variants for its upcoming desktops, it will whup some serious ass. Believe you me.
The only sadness is that current Dothans and especially their desktop mobos are horribly expensive. I'm just waiting for the prices to come down in the next 6 months. Can't wait to get my hands on a passive cooled, super silent Pentium M desktop that delivers the same performance as all these over-hyped FX-55s and Prescotts. Heck, i'm even willing to take a 10-20% performance hit, as long as i don't need to use an industrial exhaust fan or liquid nitrogen coolant. I can always make up for the processor performance by spending more on a graphics card anyway.
I love processors, not brands, btw. Hats off to the Israeli design team that pulled the P-M rabbit out of their hat!
Hopefully, with a concerted effort, we should all be able to pull through and at the very least, minimize the loss resulting from this tragedy.
Again, i didn't mean to offend anybody here. Just ignore it as the frustrations of someone who's been affected (albeit, indirectly) from this tragedy, will ya?
Look, i don't hate America any more that i hate India, China, France, or whatever. Again, if you read my comment carefully, you'll see that i have nothing against America itself.
Firstly, adequate media coverage isn't even the issue here. The issue is how much assistance a global superpower is offering for a calamity that has affected thousands, possibly millions of people. My point is that if a developed country can spend billions in waging wars, spending a few million on rescue efforts does not cut it. Calamities of this scale need as much help as they can get. Again, this is not a under-developed country taking this as an excuse to get some aid from a superpower or whatever.
What is needed on an immediate basis is NOT money or even media coverage but planes, helicopters, first-aid, medicine, bulldozers, and skilled personell to co-ordinate and implement the rescue efforts.
Incidentally, i didn't even mention 9/11 as it's completely irrelevant to this tragedy. Nobody's trying to trivialize a tragedy here, be it 9/11 or the current one. The other commenters probably brought up the subject of 9/11 only to contrast the media coverage received by it vis a vis the media coverage that the tsunami is getting.(and hence, the importance accorded to the tragedy by a country).
Again, i'm not saying that America is unaware or not helping out in this tragedy. I only feel that they can do much more. Perhaps, i made some blanket statements about the american media and the governance, which in retrospect, i feel were a bit immaturish. For this, i apologize.
However, countries can do much more than just throw some money and look away. Heck, USA has a huge naval base in Diego Garcia, which is, nautically speaking, a stone's throw away from the tsunami affected countries. They can at least offer to help out in the rescue efforts.
Fair enough. I agree with you that the American media is not too concerned because the tsunami didn't directly affect Americans. It would be true for any country as well.
What IS hypocritical is that the same American media or government wages devasatating wars, overthrows governments, and generally meddles around with the affairs of other nations on the justification that they have a *MORAL* obligation to do so.
If the American government or media has such a well endowed conscience (which is a good thing, btw, if applied correctly), then WHERE the F**K is the conscience when entire nations have a very real crisis at hand?
I will put this in perspective by adding that my criticism is targetted at the American media and the government, and not on America as a nation. *People*, regardless of any country, are generally sympathetic, understanding, and helpful. Governments, OTOH, want to gain political mileage out of any international incident, even if it is a calamity. As long as the votebank is not even made aware of the horrors of this multi-national tragedy, why should the government take any action, eh?
Remember, a lot of Wal-Mart's bullying is simply because they can get away with it and because they want things done according to their liking. It doesn't always translate into price cuts for the consumer.
Good point. However, one could easily make a note of the original MAC address, and change it back to the original, if it causes a problem.
On the topic of MAC addresses, i'm not sure if enough people treat it as a privacy issue. AFAIK, MAC addresses are globally unique, thus uniquely identifying an individual user. Even IP addresses are sometimes dynamic (depending on the ISP), and can be "masked" by using a suitable proxy. MAC, OTOH, is almost like a digital fingerprint.
Does anyone else share the same concern? Or am i missing something here??
Given that Wal-Mart has been bullying its suppliers since donkey's years, it's high time they got a taste of their own medicine. However, rumour has it that the Pedigree has pawed the line in this initiative. Only, they're calling it Arf-ID.
Deciding on a platform is a trivial issue. Deciding on your system architecture is the key question that you should be asking. Forget.NET and J2EE for a moment. In any case, deciding on.NET or Java first, and then building your system archtecture would almost always result in a poor and non-optimal design.
Take the bottom-up approach instead. First decide on the database that you're going to use. Consider your database size, performance requirements, transaction requirements, and reliability. Get a database expert or DBA guru on board, if you don't have one already. Believe me, this is the key. It's no secret that most enterprise systems invest the lion's share of their project budget on their database architecture and personell.
Next, make an estimate of the business logic complexity and size. Consider implementing the business logic directly in your database. The advantages of doing this are:- 1. Performance - No client application or middle-tier server application can hold a candle to the performance offered by a well-tuned stored procedure or (Oracle) package. 2. Maintainability - Say, you have a thousand clients connected to your database. Changing a business logic component that's implemented directly in the database would be a trivial issue. Change the package and recompile. Clients can seamlessly get the update. 3. Simplified system design - As long as you have a strong database architecture, you'll notice that the complexity of your non-database code will be dramatically low. In other words, taking a decision on a client platform such as.NET or J2EE now becomes a trivial issue. In fact, you can even have both, with additional platforms thrown in. 4. Portability - Again, because your biz logic is encapsulated in your database itself, you can have multiple client technologies connect to your database in a trivial manner. 5. Interfacing with other databases - My experience with enterprise databases has shown me that interfaces cause 80% of the maintainence issues down the road. As opposed to these "platforms", most databases offer readymade tools for scheduling and implementing interfaces. Again, no command line interface or XML web service implemented in a "platform" can even come close to the performance and reliability of a database level interface.
To reiterate, your first three criteria on implementing a robust system design should be database, database, and database. Remember, the lifeblood of any software system is its data, not the cruft we call.NET or J2EE or whatever.
Although I've titled my subject as Oracle, it can be replaced with any other RDBMS that suits your needs. Only, remember, nobody ever got fired for implementing Oracle, and for good reasons to boot.
Agreed. However, try extrapolating your argument for once.
Step 1: The government censors any public communication that is deemed to be "against national interest". This would include communication detailing say, coup details, anarchists' plans etc.
Step 2: The government arrests the people at the two (or more) ends of the communication.
Step 3: Replace public with private above.
Step 4: Replace "against national interest" with "promoting illegal acts". This would include any material pertaining to say, system cracking, bomb making, lock picking (remember the MIT guides?) and so on. Again, feel free to interchange public with private.
Step 5: Replace "promoting illegal acts" with "against moral values".
Step 6: The govt. rewards people to report these offenses. In other words, it begins enlisting local people to help in information gathering.
Step 7: The govt. begins changing the legal, bureaucratic, and political system in its favour to enable it to perform the above steps more efficiently. This is done by replacing people at the high level with more "suitable" people, and have this percolate downwards.
Step 8: The govt. decides to impose an emergency because of a perceived external threat. This acts as an exercise to demostrate if it can succesfully curtail people's rights if needed.
Step 9: The govt. decides to modify the democratic system permanently and gives itself more control to tackle the above-mentioned emergency more effectively.
Thus is the slippery slope defined (or one version of it). People get concerned with these kind of issues only because they recognize that these things are a natural progression.
Having said this, i'm not an alarmist or anything. Just making an observation, that's all.
Ok, i should have worded it "underage porn" and not "child porn". In any case, the crime here not the act itself or even capturing it in a video, but peddling it for money.
Again, in most countries, a pornographic act itself is not considered illegal. However, making money (or commercializing) from it is deemed illegal. The same holds true in this case as well.
In this case, the CEO of Baazee was arrested because he indirectly tried to make money from the transaction. Please note that i'm not in support of his arrest. I'm only stating the reason for his arrest.
Indian laws, in some respects, are quite backward and outdated. As a matter of fact, homosexuality (anal intercourse) is considered a crime in India! However, it's not very different from the antiquated and often ridiculous laws in the other countries as well. Additionally, India does have a mature, albeit slow, legal system. It just so happens this case has become a media circus, and hence, there's a lot of political pressures on the authorities.
Another thing: there's a lot of stuff sold in Baazee that can be considered illegal. It defintely doesn't monitor it's products the same way that say, eBay does.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually you're right. If you earn $5000 (considering, you're living alone) in India, you can have a ball. You can drive a hatchback (cars are expensive here, but then, the roads and the traffic is pretty bad anyway), live in a very nice part of the city, afford to party your ass every weekend, and take a quarterly vacation to Goa or to the Himalayas. Money talks here. If you've got the money here, everything works like a charm, and even the cops don't bother you (jump a red light, pay $1-2 bribe).
The lifestyle that you can lead in India is perhaps a little bit of a downgrade vis a vis America, but not by much, especially if you're living in a big city. Perhaps, you can't afford an overseas vacation every year or drive a big car. But, that's about it. But hey, in which other country can you do an engineering degree from a top college for $1000 a year or an MBA for $2000 a year? Perhaps, one in a thousand go for a student loan here.
I agree with your point. One thing though. $100 = Rs. 4500 isn't that big a deal in India :-)
Perhaps an architect could get by with $100 a month IF he/she lives alone or with their parents, has no loans, cooks at home, and takes the bus everyday. $100 is also roughly what a student (from a no-name college with no campus placements) would expect to get paid with 0 experience.
A typical middle-class Indian would earn about $200-$300 a month, live in a 2BHK rental/govt flat (Bedroom, "Hall" aka living room, Kitchen), own a scooter or a 100cc motorbike (100cc bikes give insane mileage - 1 liter = 100km!), and have a 4-5 member family (husband, wife, 2 kids, grandma).
I agree. $2.30 pm is quite reasonable. However, PC prices in India are exorbitant. Forget purchasing power parity. The same PC that costs $500 in the US would cost about $800 in India! This is the reason why the PC penetration in India is so low. To add to it, most Indians tend to buy stuff with cash after they've saved for it. Hence, they usually plan to save for about 2-4 years if they want to buy a PC for their kid.
Hmmm, either that or the article was in cold storage for a very long time, and the author/editor didn't notice the BitTorrent reference when microwaving it for this issue.
Interestingly, the entire modus operandi cited in the Wired article falls apart in the case of BitTorrent. The article admits the same thing too. However, the article claims that:-
"Without this duplication and distribution structure providing content, the P2P networks would run dry. (BitTorrent, a faster and more efficient type of P2P file-sharing, is an exception. But at present there are far fewer BitTorrent users.)"
Huh? When was this article written? In Jan 2005, when this article was posted, they don't consider BitTorrent a major P2P player?
Very true.
To add, I've noticed that of late, most issues or point of views have become polarized. Today, you're either a techno-freak or a luddite. You're either expected to own or at least want a plasma television, a TiVo, a VOIP/cell/PDA phone or you don't even believe in electricity. Heck, it even extends to other things. You're either a Bush lover or a Bush hater. However, i digress.
Like you said, a lot of us are confusing a "good to have" technical gadget with a need. While there's nothing wrong with owning or desiring the latest gadgets, we also need to put things in perspective. The twist here is that technology is rapidly evolving at such a rate that a lot of it is now taken for granted. We've almost become dependant on it. People today, including myself, have very real email withdrawl symptoms if say the network goes down for an hour. Perhaps, this is the reason why so many of us are confusing a desirable ringtone or mobile internet access as a need. Perhaps, the solution to "snap" out of it is to keep reminding ourselves to put things in perspective.
"And exactly what luxuries does athiesm provide?"
You misunderstood. Atheism is a luxury for a dirt-poor Indian only because religion provides comfort and a reason to live, albeit false. Say you come across a child who's lost his/her speech because of the terror they faced or met an individual who's lost the will to live. What would you do? Try to motivate them by talking logic to them?
"You don't have too look to a god either."
I never said anything about a god either. By miracle, i meant a human being's capacity to persevere even when they've obviously been stretched beyond the breaking point. A miracle is the smile on a child's face even when the child has been starving for 3 days. Ironically, i too was saying that one doesn't need to look in a god or in a religion to see miracles.
Hmmm, i'll take your comment as is, and not as a rhetoric one.
"...and imagine still wasting one hour travelling to the air/spaceport"
Perhaps. Spaceport commute time would completely depend on your proximity and capability of transit transport infrastructure. By the same argument, commuting to the office everyday takes as much time.
"three ours in check-in and security lanes"
Three hours is a tad high, IMHO, except in rare situations. Check-in time, even for international travel usually takes an hour, in my experience. Airport security check in Israel is an exception though.
I agree with the core point of your comment though. However, in spite of the non-travel time lossage, one would save bigtime on travel fatigue. After say a 12 or 20 hour flight, one needs to be a superhuman to not take a day off. However, a total travel time of say 6 hours is not too bad, except for the jet lag.
Sorry, couldn't resist the anagram. Here's the source code for the phel trojan. This trojan is written in a very high level language. By a strange temporal accident involving a singularity, an anagram, and MS's open-door policy, the source code closely resembles a certain song lyric that goes by the same name.
;-)
The lyrics are kinda fitting, don't you think?
[snip]
When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.
And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.
Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.
[/snip]
- Help by The Beatles
Speaking as an Indian, a big heartfelt THANKS for all of you who've empathised with the tragedy and have helped the rescue efforts. It's in trying times like these that one's faith in humanity is restored.
Thankfully, in spite of Indian bureacracy being well Indian bureaucracy, rescue and rehabilitation efforts are going on VERY effectively. An enormous number of people in India, be it the government, armed forces, or even the common woman/man is pitching in. Most companies here have setup collection boxes and at the very least, we're donating medicines, soaps, toothbrushes, disinfectants, clothes, utensils, non-perishable food items etc. There's also an army of volunteers who's landed in the disaster struck areas with truckloads of donated stuff and are distributing it to the needy.
Strangely enough, it seems that too many clothes are being donated! A friend of mine is physically helping out with the rescue efforts and he tells me that there's piles and piles of clothes lying around but of little use to anybody. Well, i guess too much help is always better than too little help.
Another thing that amazes me is the resilience of the common man or woman. Here are people living on the edge of poverty, getting hammered everyday with issues like eking out an existence. Perhaps they've scrounged and saved enough to get their daughters married, hidden a few hundred rupees in a hole in the wall. Perhaps they've just bought a shiny new radio or a bicycle. What do they wake up to? A tsunami that takes away their children, their friends, and everything they own. What do they do? Shrug it off eventually and mark it off as karma, god's will, or god's punishment depending on their religion (no, most poor Indians cannot afford the luxuries of athesim or agnosticism). Then, they take it one day at a time and slowly start rebuilding their lives.
You want to see miracles, mental strength, and the answer to life, the universe, and everything? You don't have to look far in times like these.
Thanks for the correction. You're right. I confused multi-tasking (multitasking?) with concurrent processing.
s king) seems to consider concurrent processing as a synonym for multitasking, which is incorrect. However, wikipedia seems to have got it correct when it says:-_ multitaskin g)
One small thing: the dictionary.com link that you mentioned (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=multita
"When context switches occur frequently enough the illusion of concurrency is achieved"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
If i remember correctly, multi-tasking is used incorrectly even in the computer field. The processor "seems" to multi-task only because it's very rapidly switching between the tasks. Real multi-tasking only happens when a processor is capable of simultaneously performing more than one task. Breaking up the word also seems to suggest this.
:-)
However, it's been a while since i touched my text books, so i'll stand corrected if proved otherwise
I think the article is generalizing too much. Firstly, multi-tasking is the wrong word to use as we're not simultaneously doing two or more activities, but are doing it in a round-robin, pre-emptive, or time-sharing kind of way. Again, one's ability to successfully pull this off depends on one's temperament, prioritization ability, and the kind of work involved. Repetitive work can easily be done in this way, for example, simply because after sufficient practise, the work itself becomes mechanical and doesn't need any cognitive ability. On the other hand, work that requires genuine thinking effort is done best without interruption, especially when one is in the "flow" or "zone". Again, if a person has the mental discipline to ignore other interruptions or re-priorotize the distractions, it's not too much of a problem.
In another vein, we've always had distractions, and the ones posed by technology are just a new form of it. What separates an efficient individual from an inefficient one is the ability to block out these distractions when needed, and only focus on the goal at hand. The rest is all FUD that these so-called cognitive experts throw in to justify their existence. I'm fedup of these experts extrapolating some extreme cases and generalizing them to create non-existent issues.
Cognitive overload. Bah. We've always had cognitive overload. Only the jingo is new. I think i should change my profession and start bullshitting my way into some real money.
The FX-55, which is the top of the line from AMD, retails for about $900:-x -55&btnG =Froogle+Search&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
2 00&price 2=600&hl=en&lr=&tab=wf&scoring=pd&price=between&q= dothan+processor+2.1ghz&btnG=Search+Froogle
n tent.asp?id=fx5 5&page=2
e nt.asp?id=dot handesktop&page=2
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=amd+f
The Dothan 2.1 GHZ, which is the top of the line Dothan from Intel, retails for about $750:-
http://froogle.google.com/froogle?price1=
The power rating or TDP (Thermal Design Power) for the FX-55 is 104W! (up from 89W). It also operates at about 55 degree C, which, IMHO, is definitely hot to the touch.
URL:-
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_co
The Dothan, on the other hand, has a TDP of only 21W!
URL:-
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_cont
Yes, if you look at price/performance, as is your main argument, Dothan may not currently be viable. I myself said the same thing in my previous post. However, say 6 months down the line, if i can buy a Dothan with mobo at similar prices for a mid-range AMD+mobo, i will go for the Dothan, even if i get a 15% performance hit in certain apps. Yes, Dothan is not the best in compiling, but is very good in gaming and other apps.
It can very definitely be used as a desktop processor. I use a P-M in my laptop everyday as a very real power user, and even my 1 year old P-M gives me very decent processing performance.
Perhaps it would be simpler to download Back Orifice and "hack" the asteroid, a la Independance Day.
After all, it's an ass-steroid, right?
Surprisingly, in all the comments, hardly anyone has given importance to the one amazing card that Intel holds: Dothan.
a spx?i=2308
Anandtech review on Linux performance on Dothan:-
http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.
Yes, everyone agrees that Prescott is too hot and doesn't quite match up to the FX-55 and its descendants. Shut up already.
Dothan's a different cheetah though. With it's mind-bogglingly cool thermal envelope, a moderately overclocked Dothan holds up to a FX-55 (which is a pretty hot processor, albeit not in the Prescott level) in most cases. Best of all, Dothan delivers GAMING performance almost as good as the top of the line AMD offering: FX-55. There's also tons of headroom for overclocking a Dothan to further increase its performance. All this when Dothan is not even running DDR2, PCI-E, or a performance optimized (as opposed to power optimized) mobo! Come Alvisio, things will get even better.
If Intel sheds a bit of Prescott ego, and it's already showing signs of doing so, and adopts Dothan variants for its upcoming desktops, it will whup some serious ass. Believe you me.
The only sadness is that current Dothans and especially their desktop mobos are horribly expensive. I'm just waiting for the prices to come down in the next 6 months. Can't wait to get my hands on a passive cooled, super silent Pentium M desktop that delivers the same performance as all these over-hyped FX-55s and Prescotts. Heck, i'm even willing to take a 10-20% performance hit, as long as i don't need to use an industrial exhaust fan or liquid nitrogen coolant. I can always make up for the processor performance by spending more on a graphics card anyway.
I love processors, not brands, btw. Hats off to the Israeli design team that pulled the P-M rabbit out of their hat!
Good to hear that!
Hopefully, with a concerted effort, we should all be able to pull through and at the very least, minimize the loss resulting from this tragedy.
Again, i didn't mean to offend anybody here. Just ignore it as the frustrations of someone who's been affected (albeit, indirectly) from this tragedy, will ya?
Look, i don't hate America any more that i hate India, China, France, or whatever. Again, if you read my comment carefully, you'll see that i have nothing against America itself.
Firstly, adequate media coverage isn't even the issue here. The issue is how much assistance a global superpower is offering for a calamity that has affected thousands, possibly millions of people. My point is that if a developed country can spend billions in waging wars, spending a few million on rescue efforts does not cut it. Calamities of this scale need as much help as they can get. Again, this is not a under-developed country taking this as an excuse to get some aid from a superpower or whatever.
What is needed on an immediate basis is NOT money or even media coverage but planes, helicopters, first-aid, medicine, bulldozers, and skilled personell to co-ordinate and implement the rescue efforts.
Incidentally, i didn't even mention 9/11 as it's completely irrelevant to this tragedy. Nobody's trying to trivialize a tragedy here, be it 9/11 or the current one. The other commenters probably brought up the subject of 9/11 only to contrast the media coverage received by it vis a vis the media coverage that the tsunami is getting.(and hence, the importance accorded to the tragedy by a country).
Again, i'm not saying that America is unaware or not helping out in this tragedy. I only feel that they can do much more. Perhaps, i made some blanket statements about the american media and the governance, which in retrospect, i feel were a bit immaturish. For this, i apologize.
However, countries can do much more than just throw some money and look away. Heck, USA has a huge naval base in Diego Garcia, which is, nautically speaking, a stone's throw away from the tsunami affected countries. They can at least offer to help out in the rescue efforts.
Fair enough. I agree with you that the American media is not too concerned because the tsunami didn't directly affect Americans. It would be true for any country as well.
What IS hypocritical is that the same American media or government wages devasatating wars, overthrows governments, and generally meddles around with the affairs of other nations on the justification that they have a *MORAL* obligation to do so.
If the American government or media has such a well endowed conscience (which is a good thing, btw, if applied correctly), then WHERE the F**K is the conscience when entire nations have a very real crisis at hand?
I will put this in perspective by adding that my criticism is targetted at the American media and the government, and not on America as a nation. *People*, regardless of any country, are generally sympathetic, understanding, and helpful. Governments, OTOH, want to gain political mileage out of any international incident, even if it is a calamity. As long as the votebank is not even made aware of the horrors of this multi-national tragedy, why should the government take any action, eh?
bleh
Remember, a lot of Wal-Mart's bullying is simply because they can get away with it and because they want things done according to their liking. It doesn't always translate into price cuts for the consumer.
Heck, RFID is one such example.
Good point. However, one could easily make a note of the original MAC address, and change it back to the original, if it causes a problem.
On the topic of MAC addresses, i'm not sure if enough people treat it as a privacy issue. AFAIK, MAC addresses are globally unique, thus uniquely identifying an individual user. Even IP addresses are sometimes dynamic (depending on the ISP), and can be "masked" by using a suitable proxy. MAC, OTOH, is almost like a digital fingerprint.
Does anyone else share the same concern? Or am i missing something here??
Given that Wal-Mart has been bullying its suppliers since donkey's years, it's high time they got a taste of their own medicine. However, rumour has it that the Pedigree has pawed the line in this initiative. Only, they're calling it Arf-ID.
cough, sorry
Deciding on a platform is a trivial issue. Deciding on your system architecture is the key question that you should be asking. Forget .NET and J2EE for a moment. In any case, deciding on .NET or Java first, and then building your system archtecture would almost always result in a poor and non-optimal design.
.NET or J2EE now becomes a trivial issue. In fact, you can even have both, with additional platforms thrown in.
.NET or J2EE or whatever.
Take the bottom-up approach instead. First decide on the database that you're going to use. Consider your database size, performance requirements, transaction requirements, and reliability. Get a database expert or DBA guru on board, if you don't have one already. Believe me, this is the key. It's no secret that most enterprise systems invest the lion's share of their project budget on their database architecture and personell.
Next, make an estimate of the business logic complexity and size. Consider implementing the business logic directly in your database. The advantages of doing this are:-
1. Performance - No client application or middle-tier server application can hold a candle to the performance offered by a well-tuned stored procedure or (Oracle) package.
2. Maintainability - Say, you have a thousand clients connected to your database. Changing a business logic component that's implemented directly in the database would be a trivial issue. Change the package and recompile. Clients can seamlessly get the update.
3. Simplified system design - As long as you have a strong database architecture, you'll notice that the complexity of your non-database code will be dramatically low. In other words, taking a decision on a client platform such as
4. Portability - Again, because your biz logic is encapsulated in your database itself, you can have multiple client technologies connect to your database in a trivial manner.
5. Interfacing with other databases - My experience with enterprise databases has shown me that interfaces cause 80% of the maintainence issues down the road. As opposed to these "platforms", most databases offer readymade tools for scheduling and implementing interfaces. Again, no command line interface or XML web service implemented in a "platform" can even come close to the performance and reliability of a database level interface.
To reiterate, your first three criteria on implementing a robust system design should be database, database, and database. Remember, the lifeblood of any software system is its data, not the cruft we call
Although I've titled my subject as Oracle, it can be replaced with any other RDBMS that suits your needs. Only, remember, nobody ever got fired for implementing Oracle, and for good reasons to boot.
Agreed. However, try extrapolating your argument for once.
Step 1: The government censors any public communication that is deemed to be "against national interest". This would include communication detailing say, coup details, anarchists' plans etc.
Step 2: The government arrests the people at the two (or more) ends of the communication.
Step 3: Replace public with private above.
Step 4: Replace "against national interest" with "promoting illegal acts". This would include any material pertaining to say, system cracking, bomb making, lock picking (remember the MIT guides?) and so on. Again, feel free to interchange public with private.
Step 5: Replace "promoting illegal acts" with "against moral values".
Step 6: The govt. rewards people to report these offenses. In other words, it begins enlisting local people to help in information gathering.
Step 7: The govt. begins changing the legal, bureaucratic, and political system in its favour to enable it to perform the above steps more efficiently. This is done by replacing people at the high level with more "suitable" people, and have this percolate downwards.
Step 8: The govt. decides to impose an emergency because of a perceived external threat. This acts as an exercise to demostrate if it can succesfully curtail people's rights if needed.
Step 9: The govt. decides to modify the democratic system permanently and gives itself more control to tackle the above-mentioned emergency more effectively.
Thus is the slippery slope defined (or one version of it). People get concerned with these kind of issues only because they recognize that these things are a natural progression.
Having said this, i'm not an alarmist or anything. Just making an observation, that's all.
Baazee was only recently acquired by eBay. It is definitely more loosely run than eBay USA.
Ok, i should have worded it "underage porn" and not "child porn". In any case, the crime here not the act itself or even capturing it in a video, but peddling it for money.
Again, in most countries, a pornographic act itself is not considered illegal. However, making money (or commercializing) from it is deemed illegal. The same holds true in this case as well.
In this case, the CEO of Baazee was arrested because he indirectly tried to make money from the transaction. Please note that i'm not in support of his arrest. I'm only stating the reason for his arrest.
Indian laws, in some respects, are quite backward and outdated. As a matter of fact, homosexuality (anal intercourse) is considered a crime in India! However, it's not very different from the antiquated and often ridiculous laws in the other countries as well. Additionally, India does have a mature, albeit slow, legal system. It just so happens this case has become a media circus, and hence, there's a lot of political pressures on the authorities.
Another thing: there's a lot of stuff sold in Baazee that can be considered illegal. It defintely doesn't monitor it's products the same way that say, eBay does.