It only really just mentions cost and green. I could say to someone "data centers have huge electrical bills and you can save a lot of money by using energy efficient equipment". That's basically what the article says.
What about specific solutions? Even just general principles? Where would someone look to get help in reducing energy costs? What about alternative energy supplies? Are they reliable enough? Enough power density?
I would have liked an article with a lot more information.
In general, I really like this sort of development. It is the way the alternative health scene has worked for years (although, of course, only recently through the internet). There is a lot to be said for anecdotal evidence - but of course it is also dangerous. Many people feel under or mal-served by the medical establishment. Why not do one's best to bypass it?
Personally, I have a strong science background so I feel slightly confident about investigating remedies on my own. I do fear for people with poor educations though. That's one thing that the web is good for - it helps people self-educate.
Orange Juice is the most insidious. I spilt OJ on my Dell laptop keyboard. Then I took the extreme measure of using water to wash it out (I didn't take the keyboard off the laptop as I didn't know I could). Everything seemed fine for a few months. Then, gradually, one-by-one, keys started to get sticky. Eventually, about eight months laters, my keyboard became unusable and I had to replace it.
A better solution is to simply not allow corporations to be multinational. There's really no reason corporations should be allowed to operate in different countries.
How is this legislated? All the countries in the world would have to do so (or have a world government do so). And, no reason? That just doesn't compute to me. That's like saying that if you have a really great idea, you can't sell it in any country but your own. The consequences of preventing businesses/organizations from operating in different countries would be a suffocating level of beurocracy in the best case, and large-scale human tragedy in the worst case.
Why don't we want Islamic fundamentalists getting a voice in our government? What about democratic fundamentalists? Or market fundamentalists? If a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists were to move to a democratic country, doesn't that specifically allow them a voice in the government? And if they turn into a majority, doesn't that give them the majority voice? Are you afraid of an Islamic majority? Don't you think they might be just as afraid of a secular majority?
In my mind, a world government is pretty much the only solution to the problems that are facing humanity: environment, war, economic stife, human rights abuses, etc. Now I don't claim to know what the perfect world government would look like, but wouldn't it probably be based in democratic principles, human rights, and a balance between social and market driven economics?
Abuses will diminish when the proper channels are available.
The only conceivable proper channels are international law... which means international government. The interesting thing about the incredible power of multinational corporations and organizations is that it is one of the best arguments for the establishment of world government. These hugely powerful groups need a power to balance them - the checks and balances running at a national level are obviously insufficient.
I maintain a list of books and other resources for all sorts of people who work in the software development field including of course, programmers, managers, executives, testers, etc.
I've got one that's close to idea for me...
on
Palmtop Nirvana?
·
· Score: 1
It's my Palm Zire 72. What it has: bluetooth, decent screen, built in camera, mp3 player, SDIO, takes notes, takes voice memos, runs Java, great contact app, great todo app, great calendar app, small enough for pocket.
To make it perfectly ideal: 802.11g, runs linux, slightly larger screen, at least 3x the resolution (from 320x320 to 480x640), built-in microdrive of at least 2GB size, software to act as network storage over wireless, a slightly better camera (2Mpixels), speech recognition, thumbprint security, bluetooth cell phone (so I can use a headset instead of holding a block to my ear), solar panel flip case for charging - and no bigger than the Palm T3.
I don't even think RAM and processor speed are worthy of discussion since in two years I'll want 2 or 3 times what I want now.
The fact is that I find my PDA very useful. It is a great tool to have when dragging my laptop around is not feasible.
This is Blatant Self Promotion (you have been warned).
Here's a good list of software resources, mostly books that I've collected over the last five years or so. Lots of stuff about agile, stuff for managers as well as developers.
Don't even think about doing this without reading "Agile Software Development" by Alistair Cockburn . . . even if you aren't doing software development!
In any office, communication efficiency is the most important factor in productivity. My father works at a college, I work in the financial industry, and my brother is a filmmaker. In all these diverse industries, communication is the essense of getting things done effiently (obviously, _just_ getting things done _just_ takes bodies).
Now for some personal preferences: I like to have a personal private space for photos, plants, doodling. I like to be able to arrange the space as I like, including the furniture. I like to have privacy in the space so that I can veg when I need a mental health break, or so that I can concentrate when I'm in a bad mood and don't want to deal with people. However, I also really enjoy working in an open area with other talented people. The open area must have lots of whiteboards, good network access (802.11g is good enough), lots of stationary supplies, large work surfaces, and ideally a good relevent reference library handy (easiest to populate this with suggestions from the people working there). Much as I like some natural light, too much can ruin work in the morning or evening when the Sun shines directly into a space - one way to solve this is to orient most windows to the North. A good number of real air-cleaning plants is a good investment too since humans are naturally in a better mood when exposed to nature.
I think that reaching these various milestones in space exploration is commendable. However, I have two concerns:
1. We have many urgent problems facing us here on earth - perhaps it would be wise to invest the money that it would take to reach the moon and mars and instead spend it on the U.S. debts to the United Nations, or to improve public education.
2. Any major efforts to reach space should be done in collaboration with other governments under the banner of either the United Nations or some other international organization _and_ should deliberately exclude commercial interests until a much later stage of exploration.
sometimes it seems that to eliminate evil we must also eliminate beauty...
Have you seen "Kill Bill"? In it's own way, I felt like the beautiful parts of that movie were made more poignant by the incredible violence, gore etc. I think there is something to be said for the fact that we recognize good and evil only in comparison to each other. I'm not a believer that evil is a separate force from good, rather that it is just the absense of good (light and dark).
As for the terrible examples you provided (terrible because they caused so much harm), I think that there is a simple (maybe even simplistic?) distinction that can be made that helps: those are examples of individuals in power shaping spiritual/religious/moral teachings for their own purposes, while the examples of flourishing civilizations had the spiritual/religious/moral teachings as part of the society so that everyone (more or less) agreed with those teachings. In other words: unity of purpose?
So, just thinking as I write, maybe that is support simply for the idea of united action. Is our current Western civilization characterized by unity? I don't think so - perhaps thus is the root of its decline.
True enough... although there is some seemingly obvious ebb and flow: the height of the Roman empire, the Renaissance, the height Islam, etc. Although I am not a history expert, I have the sense that these heights were characterized by strong religious, spiritual and moral impulses.
Modern society in the West, over the last couple of centuries, has become progressively more materialistic and less religious/spiritual etc. Does that lead to decline? How is decline defined? I don't really have good answers to those questions. However, the intense exploration and failure of various systems of government and economy (including the cracks showing in capitalism) over the last couple of centuries suggest to me a relationship with the abandonment of spiritual foundations to life. We try to replace those foundations, but our replacements aren't working too well.
I've always felt like the world is in a period of decline despite the amazing advances in the sciences and arts. If asked, I would normally frame that decline as somehow moral or spiritual in nature. I'm going to seek out this book to investigate this idea of decline more carefully.
Liking something a lot and doing it freqently is a lot different than liking something but not being able to stop doing it without intense discomfort or struggle. Addiction isn't just doing something frequently. Cigarettes, alcohol, caffiene, and "harder" drugs all have physical and psychological (brain chemistry) effects that cause addiction in the sense of not being able to stop without (sometimes extreme) discomfort.
FWIW, the book "In the Absense of the Sacred" by Jerry Mander goes into a great deal of depth on this issue. He approaches it primarily from how technologies over the last few centuries have affected indigenous populations. His basic thesis is that technology is not neutral and so we must do a better job (more proactive rather than leaving it to our economic system) of selecting which technologies we keep and propagate widely.
We can't solve traffic congestion by reducing the speed of traffic to 10 KM/Hr. Nor can we solve obesity by reducing the shelves in the supermarket, or Spam by making it difficult and costly to send e-mail.
It's not that it is physically impossible to do these things; it's that people will resist with all their might, those who attempt to replace new found abundance with their parents' scarcity.
What is interesting about this is that it is a false dillema: we actually can do this and there is evidence that it can be done on a large scale. Some examples: environmental consciousness and its resulting behaviors such as recycling, use of alternative energy sources, etc. Although the progress is slow, there is progress.
I really think that solving these and many other problems requires an essentially spiritual or moral solution. People have to change in their hearts so they are less greedy, less ego-centric, less dishonest, less glutonous. The most important is honesty though: if we aren't truthful with ourselves and others, we simply won't even recognize the problems.
As Baha'u'llah says:
Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues
Slashdot Mirror
LOL - you're right. Or maybe 1920x1080 if we're talking about HDTV standards... but we're/they're not.
Should read 1920x1280 not 1980x1200.
It only really just mentions cost and green. I could say to someone "data centers have huge electrical bills and you can save a lot of money by using energy efficient equipment". That's basically what the article says.
What about specific solutions? Even just general principles? Where would someone look to get help in reducing energy costs? What about alternative energy supplies? Are they reliable enough? Enough power density?
I would have liked an article with a lot more information.
In general, I really like this sort of development. It is the way the alternative health scene has worked for years (although, of course, only recently through the internet). There is a lot to be said for anecdotal evidence - but of course it is also dangerous. Many people feel under or mal-served by the medical establishment. Why not do one's best to bypass it?
Personally, I have a strong science background so I feel slightly confident about investigating remedies on my own. I do fear for people with poor educations though. That's one thing that the web is good for - it helps people self-educate.
Orange Juice is the most insidious. I spilt OJ on my Dell laptop keyboard. Then I took the extreme measure of using water to wash it out (I didn't take the keyboard off the laptop as I didn't know I could). Everything seemed fine for a few months. Then, gradually, one-by-one, keys started to get sticky. Eventually, about eight months laters, my keyboard became unusable and I had to replace it.
http://www.berteig.org/mishkin/IrreducibleComplexi ty.html
News flash: software is nothing like building construction.
How is this legislated? All the countries in the world would have to do so (or have a world government do so). And, no reason? That just doesn't compute to me. That's like saying that if you have a really great idea, you can't sell it in any country but your own. The consequences of preventing businesses/organizations from operating in different countries would be a suffocating level of beurocracy in the best case, and large-scale human tragedy in the worst case.
Why don't we want Islamic fundamentalists getting a voice in our government? What about democratic fundamentalists? Or market fundamentalists? If a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists were to move to a democratic country, doesn't that specifically allow them a voice in the government? And if they turn into a majority, doesn't that give them the majority voice? Are you afraid of an Islamic majority? Don't you think they might be just as afraid of a secular majority?
In my mind, a world government is pretty much the only solution to the problems that are facing humanity: environment, war, economic stife, human rights abuses, etc. Now I don't claim to know what the perfect world government would look like, but wouldn't it probably be based in democratic principles, human rights, and a balance between social and market driven economics?
The only conceivable proper channels are international law... which means international government. The interesting thing about the incredible power of multinational corporations and organizations is that it is one of the best arguments for the establishment of world government. These hugely powerful groups need a power to balance them - the checks and balances running at a national level are obviously insufficient.
NOTE: blatant self promotion.
I maintain a list of books and other resources for all sorts of people who work in the software development field including of course, programmers, managers, executives, testers, etc.
Software Resources
The list is heavily weighted towards Agile software development.
Must reside and be based in the United States.
It's my Palm Zire 72. What it has: bluetooth, decent screen, built in camera, mp3 player, SDIO, takes notes, takes voice memos, runs Java, great contact app, great todo app, great calendar app, small enough for pocket.
To make it perfectly ideal: 802.11g, runs linux, slightly larger screen, at least 3x the resolution (from 320x320 to 480x640), built-in microdrive of at least 2GB size, software to act as network storage over wireless, a slightly better camera (2Mpixels), speech recognition, thumbprint security, bluetooth cell phone (so I can use a headset instead of holding a block to my ear), solar panel flip case for charging - and no bigger than the Palm T3.
I don't even think RAM and processor speed are worthy of discussion since in two years I'll want 2 or 3 times what I want now.
The fact is that I find my PDA very useful. It is a great tool to have when dragging my laptop around is not feasible.
This is Blatant Self Promotion (you have been warned).
Here's a good list of software resources, mostly books that I've collected over the last five years or so. Lots of stuff about agile, stuff for managers as well as developers.
Don't even think about doing this without reading "Agile Software Development" by Alistair Cockburn . . . even if you aren't doing software development!
In any office, communication efficiency is the most important factor in productivity. My father works at a college, I work in the financial industry, and my brother is a filmmaker. In all these diverse industries, communication is the essense of getting things done effiently (obviously, _just_ getting things done _just_ takes bodies).
Now for some personal preferences: I like to have a personal private space for photos, plants, doodling. I like to be able to arrange the space as I like, including the furniture. I like to have privacy in the space so that I can veg when I need a mental health break, or so that I can concentrate when I'm in a bad mood and don't want to deal with people. However, I also really enjoy working in an open area with other talented people. The open area must have lots of whiteboards, good network access (802.11g is good enough), lots of stationary supplies, large work surfaces, and ideally a good relevent reference library handy (easiest to populate this with suggestions from the people working there). Much as I like some natural light, too much can ruin work in the morning or evening when the Sun shines directly into a space - one way to solve this is to orient most windows to the North. A good number of real air-cleaning plants is a good investment too since humans are naturally in a better mood when exposed to nature.
Hope that helps.
Here's what I wrote:
Have you seen "Kill Bill"? In it's own way, I felt like the beautiful parts of that movie were made more poignant by the incredible violence, gore etc. I think there is something to be said for the fact that we recognize good and evil only in comparison to each other. I'm not a believer that evil is a separate force from good, rather that it is just the absense of good (light and dark).
As for the terrible examples you provided (terrible because they caused so much harm), I think that there is a simple (maybe even simplistic?) distinction that can be made that helps: those are examples of individuals in power shaping spiritual/religious/moral teachings for their own purposes, while the examples of flourishing civilizations had the spiritual/religious/moral teachings as part of the society so that everyone (more or less) agreed with those teachings. In other words: unity of purpose?
So, just thinking as I write, maybe that is support simply for the idea of united action. Is our current Western civilization characterized by unity? I don't think so - perhaps thus is the root of its decline.
True enough... although there is some seemingly obvious ebb and flow: the height of the Roman empire, the Renaissance, the height Islam, etc. Although I am not a history expert, I have the sense that these heights were characterized by strong religious, spiritual and moral impulses.
Modern society in the West, over the last couple of centuries, has become progressively more materialistic and less religious/spiritual etc. Does that lead to decline? How is decline defined? I don't really have good answers to those questions. However, the intense exploration and failure of various systems of government and economy (including the cracks showing in capitalism) over the last couple of centuries suggest to me a relationship with the abandonment of spiritual foundations to life. We try to replace those foundations, but our replacements aren't working too well.
I've always felt like the world is in a period of decline despite the amazing advances in the sciences and arts. If asked, I would normally frame that decline as somehow moral or spiritual in nature. I'm going to seek out this book to investigate this idea of decline more carefully.
Liking something a lot and doing it freqently is a lot different than liking something but not being able to stop doing it without intense discomfort or struggle. Addiction isn't just doing something frequently. Cigarettes, alcohol, caffiene, and "harder" drugs all have physical and psychological (brain chemistry) effects that cause addiction in the sense of not being able to stop without (sometimes extreme) discomfort.
FWIW, the book "In the Absense of the Sacred" by Jerry Mander goes into a great deal of depth on this issue. He approaches it primarily from how technologies over the last few centuries have affected indigenous populations. His basic thesis is that technology is not neutral and so we must do a better job (more proactive rather than leaving it to our economic system) of selecting which technologies we keep and propagate widely.
What is interesting about this is that it is a false dillema: we actually can do this and there is evidence that it can be done on a large scale. Some examples: environmental consciousness and its resulting behaviors such as recycling, use of alternative energy sources, etc. Although the progress is slow, there is progress.
I really think that solving these and many other problems requires an essentially spiritual or moral solution. People have to change in their hearts so they are less greedy, less ego-centric, less dishonest, less glutonous. The most important is honesty though: if we aren't truthful with ourselves and others, we simply won't even recognize the problems.
As Baha'u'llah says:
Of "the Diamond Age". We just have to get these things smaller...
I actually totally agree and if I could moderate my own comment, I would definitely mod it down as overrated. Weird.
Stupid lameness filter filler.
And although it may seem excessive, I think a further comment on your comment about my comment about comments is necessary.
Surely there is no harm... :-)
I never expected my comment to be rated up so quickly tho. :-/