You have been hearing it from a few for a long time. Now you are hearing from a majority of respectable scientists.
Really? Check out this link
First of all, I still doubt the "The earth is dying" theology. Clearly CO2 levels have increased but scientists don't really know if this explains the small change in global temps. We very well might be in a natural warming trend. "Why take the chance" is the arguement people use for drastically changing energy policy. Well... Lets look at the past theory:
1970s: There is NO oil left! We must convert to new energy sources! Please FUND OUR PROGRAMS!! WRONG: There is plenty of untapped oil that will easily last another century, no rush. The trick is to get it cheaply AND maintain political stability.
1980s: If we have a nuclear war, the earth will die due to nuclear winter. Please fund our nuclear winter/climate studies. OKAY, peace with the USSR, now no need for nuke winter PHDs.
1990s: Wait, the earth is dying due to..to...to... CO2! Please fund our programs!
Its hard to find unbiased researchers that are not PAID by people who stand to profit or suffer from the results of climate study. Most studies are funded by governments who typically have a vested interest in "changing" things. The PHDs themselves would no have future (other than teaching) if the results were not BAD for the earth. Many scientists who are not on the Go'ment dole (or the oil companies) do not buy into the C02/warming linkage.
I think this is just a way for some governments (Europe, canada) to try get a competitive advantage over America. The way THEY do business (more socialistic in nature) cannot compete with America's mixed (less socialistic) enconomy so this is an attempt to level the playing field. To put it into a/. perspective, the Kyoto treaty is like ISO 9000 and other so-called "standards" in Software engineering. They exist not to really make a better product, but to try gain a competive edge over s/w competitors (mostly in Government work ofcourse). The trick there is to FIRST get your little ISO compliance rating and THEN force it upon everyone else so that then YOU have an advantage. This is what Europe is trying to do to America, only with climate science...
Don't get me wrong, I am TOTALLY for alternative fuels, wind, solar, electric cars, etc... But it should NOT be driven by some treaty. It should be driven by free markets and inovation..
What the heck is the city doing with 26,000 desktops? Do city officials REALLY use word and excel THAT much? Are there THAT many administrative employees working?
but why don't they ever publish manuals in a three or four ring binder, or unbound with the holes punched for readily inserting into a binder?
Because the pages would rip out very easily.
Because it would be easy to feed the entire manual into the xerox feeder and thus easily make copies for free
Because having lots of computer books in ones book shelf makes one look like they know alot, having lots of loose-leaf papers in a peechee folders or notebooks makes you look like a nerd (hey, this is news for nerds though)
Because that is the way DEC shipped their VMS docs. Where is DEC today?
iTunes is probably using some type off callback mechanism to stream the MP3 compression like most players but is KEEPING the decompressed RAM in memory.
Why? Probably so that if you the user were to move the song back it could "on the fly" shift back without having to re-engage the decompression algorithm.
Thats smart. My guess is that if you had a HUGE MP3 there would be some limit to how big this buffer would get. But it still must be streaming....
I used to be a major mac hater back in the DOS/Win16 days... Back then I wanted to tweak things. DOS/Win16 was pretty tweakable.
Then I started messing with Linux. Tons of tweakability, but the apps are always in sort of a "Beta" stage. The macs I have seen are first class AND have some of the *nix features as well.
I did the 1.25Mhz with the 512MB RAM.
I plan to use a KVM switch with a USB keyboard to switch between Fedora Linux and the Mini.
GSG
* Gambling losses (add up all those state lottery tickets)
ONLY against gambling gains. Not a net loss. In other words, if you win a million bux in the lotto but lost ten thousand at Vegas, your taxable would shrink to 990,000.
* Losses on investments
I think its still limited to $3000 of passive (meaning you write if off of your normal income) loss. If you risk big and win, you gotta pay the governments share of winnings, if you lose... You only write off 3000.
* Some medical expenses
I think its subject to a floor of some sort.
Does anyone know of a good pdf util for Linux that will let me use the fed (and california) tax forms?
GSG
So in other words, what we need is a new millenium (okay its a few years late) version of the Commodore 64. I had one as a kid. We didn't have the bux for an Apple or IBM so we got a Commie. Funny thing is, I got through three years of College on than machine and the s/w never crashed. Now most users fight just to get their systems to work "bug/virus/spy"-free. I even did C and Pascal Programming on it!
If it could be done then, it can be done now...
I used to love Borland Products.... Turbo Pascal and Turbo C rocked! But Borland turned to the dark side when they stopped suppor of OWL in favor of Builder. Gee, its funny how history seems to repeat itself at Borland. I remember not long ago, I was handed a project by my company written entirely in BC++ (5.02) and OWL. The debugger was crap (would crash your whole system), the linker would freeze your whole computer for like 5 minutes, and the Windows Resource editor had bugs all over the place. Borland Decided to NOT fix any problems and switch over to Builder completely. There was NO conversion tool (that worked at all) to OWL to VCL. Thanks. Our App is only 200K SLOCS.
I wouldn't touch Borland with a 10 mile pole.
Go with either full Microsoft products (that will at least be supported properly) or go with Java or even better FSF where at least you can fix all the bugs.
Slashdot Mirror
You have been hearing it from a few for a long time. Now you are hearing from a majority of respectable scientists.
/. perspective, the Kyoto treaty is like ISO 9000 and other so-called "standards" in Software engineering. They exist not to really make a better product, but to try gain a competive edge over s/w competitors (mostly in Government work ofcourse). The trick there is to FIRST get your little ISO compliance rating and THEN force it upon everyone else so that then YOU have an advantage. This is what Europe is trying to do to America, only with climate science...
Really? Check out this link First of all, I still doubt the "The earth is dying" theology. Clearly CO2 levels have increased but scientists don't really know if this explains the small change in global temps. We very well might be in a natural warming trend. "Why take the chance" is the arguement people use for drastically changing energy policy. Well... Lets look at the past theory:
1970s: There is NO oil left! We must convert to new energy sources! Please FUND OUR PROGRAMS!! WRONG: There is plenty of untapped oil that will easily last another century, no rush. The trick is to get it cheaply AND maintain political stability.
1980s: If we have a nuclear war, the earth will die due to nuclear winter. Please fund our nuclear winter/climate studies. OKAY, peace with the USSR, now no need for nuke winter PHDs.
1990s: Wait, the earth is dying due to..to...to... CO2! Please fund our programs!
Its hard to find unbiased researchers that are not PAID by people who stand to profit or suffer from the results of climate study. Most studies are funded by governments who typically have a vested interest in "changing" things. The PHDs themselves would no have future (other than teaching) if the results were not BAD for the earth. Many scientists who are not on the Go'ment dole (or the oil companies) do not buy into the C02/warming linkage.
I think this is just a way for some governments (Europe, canada) to try get a competitive advantage over America. The way THEY do business (more socialistic in nature) cannot compete with America's mixed (less socialistic) enconomy so this is an attempt to level the playing field. To put it into a
Don't get me wrong, I am TOTALLY for alternative fuels, wind, solar, electric cars, etc... But it should NOT be driven by some treaty. It should be driven by free markets and inovation..
GSG
I think the real question should be:
What the heck is the city doing with 26,000 desktops? Do city officials REALLY use word and excel THAT much? Are there THAT many administrative employees working?
GSG
but why don't they ever publish manuals in a three or four ring binder, or unbound with the holes punched for readily inserting into a binder?
Because the pages would rip out very easily.
Because it would be easy to feed the entire manual into the xerox feeder and thus easily make copies for free
Because having lots of computer books in ones book shelf makes one look like they know alot, having lots of loose-leaf papers in a peechee folders or notebooks makes you look like a nerd (hey, this is news for nerds though)
Because that is the way DEC shipped their VMS docs. Where is DEC today?
GSG
Here is my Windows 9x Effective CPU power equation:
CPU (effective) = CPU (rated) / (number of 3 month periods since last OS re-install)
iTunes is probably using some type off callback mechanism to stream the MP3 compression like most players but is KEEPING the decompressed RAM in memory.
Why? Probably so that if you the user were to move the song back it could "on the fly" shift back without having to re-engage the decompression algorithm.
Thats smart. My guess is that if you had a HUGE MP3 there would be some limit to how big this buffer would get. But it still must be streaming....
GSG
Actually, this is cheating, as it increases the maintainance overhead.
Really? I run and develop Java all the time. Let see.... How many hours a year do I "maintain" the JRE.... NONE..
I used to be a major mac hater back in the DOS/Win16 days... Back then I wanted to tweak things. DOS/Win16 was pretty tweakable. Then I started messing with Linux. Tons of tweakability, but the apps are always in sort of a "Beta" stage. The macs I have seen are first class AND have some of the *nix features as well. I did the 1.25Mhz with the 512MB RAM. I plan to use a KVM switch with a USB keyboard to switch between Fedora Linux and the Mini. GSG
* Gambling losses (add up all those state lottery tickets) ONLY against gambling gains. Not a net loss. In other words, if you win a million bux in the lotto but lost ten thousand at Vegas, your taxable would shrink to 990,000. * Losses on investments I think its still limited to $3000 of passive (meaning you write if off of your normal income) loss. If you risk big and win, you gotta pay the governments share of winnings, if you lose... You only write off 3000. * Some medical expenses I think its subject to a floor of some sort. Does anyone know of a good pdf util for Linux that will let me use the fed (and california) tax forms? GSG
So in other words, what we need is a new millenium (okay its a few years late) version of the Commodore 64. I had one as a kid. We didn't have the bux for an Apple or IBM so we got a Commie. Funny thing is, I got through three years of College on than machine and the s/w never crashed. Now most users fight just to get their systems to work "bug/virus/spy"-free. I even did C and Pascal Programming on it! If it could be done then, it can be done now...
I used to love Borland Products.... Turbo Pascal and Turbo C rocked! But Borland turned to the dark side when they stopped suppor of OWL in favor of Builder. Gee, its funny how history seems to repeat itself at Borland. I remember not long ago, I was handed a project by my company written entirely in BC++ (5.02) and OWL. The debugger was crap (would crash your whole system), the linker would freeze your whole computer for like 5 minutes, and the Windows Resource editor had bugs all over the place. Borland Decided to NOT fix any problems and switch over to Builder completely. There was NO conversion tool (that worked at all) to OWL to VCL. Thanks. Our App is only 200K SLOCS.
I wouldn't touch Borland with a 10 mile pole.
Go with either full Microsoft products (that will at least be supported properly) or go with Java or even better FSF where at least you can fix all the bugs.