What has a federal judge got to do with property rights 40 miles off English coastline? I knew that the US had ambitions of a colonial nature, but this surely is a step too far...! Or is it that the UK has quietly become a federation while I slept?
Does anyone have a link to the terms of the competition. The posting and the article it came from both omit to say how far the rock has to be moved. I'd have thought that would have a big impact on the total energy requirement. I would also hope that the spec would have a total energy consumption target (in KWh) - rewarding the more energy efficient robots.
The remarkable thing about this is that it is such an old story. I was involved in looking for improved ways of ensuring spreadsheet models were error free when i worked for the consultancy division of a large accounting firm back in the early 1990s.. Then we were focusing on developing structured methods for laying out / documenting simple spreadsheets (these were the days when Lotus 123 was top dog...), providing more specific training on how to build easy to follow spreadsheets and doing some formal auditing of work. But the biggest idea then was to simply use a better tool - even then people were developing software designed to make financial modelling (in particular) more rubust - including Javelin (from Ashton Tate I think) and Lotus Improv. Both these used multi-dimensional space to track results of formulaic relationships that defined the model (in Improv's case you could have up to 12 dimensions - and its innovative way of allowing the user to browse this datacube by shuffling 'axis tiles' was later crudely copied by MS to come up with the PivotTable - a pitiful copy of the original idea). The idea being that you define the relationship using (in Improv's case near-english language) formulas (such as Profit = Revenue - Costs, with Revenue and Costs being defined separately by other formulas, or simple data vectors). Improv included (as with other similar products) the idea of sequences within dimensions - so you could have 'previous' and 'next' modifiers in formulas which was great for financial type analysis etc. The key was the formulas were were distinct from the numbers themselves (separating code and data as you might now say). It allowed you to do some very powerful modeulling with high confidence levels. I used Improv a lot for a few years, but Lotus never worked out who its client base was, and it finally died in the mid 1990s. A great pity.
A short review of spreadsheet evolution appears here.
I seem to recall that someone still sells an Improv like product, but not sure where / what it is, or if it is well liked...
I reckon I can afford either the 2Ghz model, or the 1.6Ghz model with balance spent on extras (memory, graphics card, ???). But not sure if the PCI-X, the performance hike and (presumably) newer motherboard is worth the extra...
For example I could presumably put an ATI 9600 series video card in for not much money (I don't need ADC, so could get a vanilla board) - 512Mbyte RAM and perhaps a Bluetooth module...
I've been waiting for this '2nd generation' G5 release with a view to getting one. But as with the earlier G5's it seems the low-spec ones are built with distinctly lower-tech motherboard design. I want to get the cheapest G5 I can (I'm not rich) but I don't want to close door to development / improvement of machine (at the prices charged, it's going to have to last...!).
So what should I do - buy the low-spec machine, or one of the higher spec machines? If the higher spec, which one?
Although the CNN article focuses on the US experience, the UK has had successful and profitable online grocery shopping for several years. UK chain Tesco was one of the first - with an in-house developed software system - and now most of the UK major chains have followed suit with similar systems.
The Tesco system was initially thought to be un-economic as it simply comprised staff going round existing stores and loading carts that where then delivered using small vans to homes in the locality - but apparently its been profitable since the outset.
Tesco's approach is compared to that of WebVan (who feature in the CNN article) in this document written by a Prof at Wharton (free - but registration required)
More recently, a WebVan style UK Grocery operation called Occado has started too - working with upmarket Grocer Waitrose. Their approach is to use central warehouses to fill orders and distribute.
All this competition has resulted in competition between providers both on price (several offer the service 'free' for spends over a threshold of about 75) and quality (for example, discounts if delivery times are missed, or the goods / brands you order are not in stock etc.)
Although the capturing device has accelerated the 'flash to print' time, the main reason why the Iraqi photos travelled around the world so fast was the networking infrastructure that meant that they could be sent and received quickly.
A major factor in the publishing delay for WW2 photos was the time it took for the photo to get to one or more mechanisms for mass-distribution (i.e. then, the Newspapers).
Prior to the rise of the interconnected broadband public Internet, the only way that photos could be sent was by proprietary point-to-point sytems: initially wire transfer, more recently various forms of ISDN connection.
It was only during the 20th Century that the mass distribution of pictorial information became possible - through Newspapers, News reels and then TV.
In all this, the evolution of the camera itself plays a very small part... It is the rise of the public internet, with common (open) standards that allows hi-resolution photos to be sent quickly with confidence that they'll arrive in a form that can be viewed and published has transformed photo-journalism, along with the option for these photos to be published to massive audiences at almost no cost via public web sites.
A news story being carried by Yahoo! reports that a Nigerian 419 scammer (arrested in Ireland it seems) has been tried and found guilty by a court in the UK (Wales) and sentenced to 20 months.
Perhaps Sun will be less keen to promote its Java Desktop now it is getting closer to MS...? This seems to have been a key part of several recent announcements about organisations planning to move to Linux desktops...
Talk has been that now that EU has gone to point of issuing a legal ruling on MS Monopoly infringement, it would be easier for others complaining about MS in future to argue case (as they can refer to legally relevant prior art wrt. MS abuses).
One suggested consequence of this is it would lead MS to be more cautious about abusing its market position in future (in EU at least...): up until today a very possible candidate for such future legal action would of course by Sun.
I wonder if all that MS is doing is reading writing on wall, and buying off Sun in advance - avoid all those years of legal costs / settlements against it in the future. If so, looks like the EU competition authority has teeth after all (hurrah!)
Providing more food may not be the answer
on
How To Feed The World
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The general observation that there is sufficient food to feed the current population, if only we could find a equitable way of distributing it, is one thing. But you need to factor in the impact of better food production on future demands too.
Recently there was a TV documentary in the UK to commemorate 20 years since the 'Band Aid' / 'Live Aid' events triggered by famines in Ethiopia. This insightful program (Ethiopia: A Journey with Michael Buerk) by the original reporter who broke news of the famine observed that prior to the famine, the country was able to feed itself (provided the rains came). Twenty years of food aid and the ensuing population explosion later, Ethiopia remains the largest receipient of food aid in Africa, and no longer can produce enough to feed itself even in a year with good rains. There is also apparently an increasing problem with fresh water supplies in the country.
So more food may be part of the answer, but simply providing more food to hungry people does not appear to be the solution. As always, it seems to be much more complex than that.
I have an AMD XP2400+ based system (using ASUS A7V8X-X Mobo) with ATI Radeon 9600 video card. I dual boot Gentoo and Windows XP Pro.
Simply put, the dual-boot bit works just fine. I use Grub to dual boot, and once I'd worked out how to configure it, it does the job well.
The learning curve for Gentoo is steep if you are new to to Unix - editing a working/etc/fstab file is not really so easy compared to an auto-installation system. But the online manual / documentation / tutorial is pretty helpful provided you have standard ish hardware. The gentoo support forums (forums.gentoo.org) are also very active and very helpful for the most part.
The compile time is a factor - on my system it takes about 24 hours to get from blank HD to running KDE / Gnome - but once you have some sort of desktop running the ability to 'emerge' applications in the background becomes a major boon. That bit is really easy to do and works wonderfully. As does the auto-update bit (emerge world).
So challenge is to get something like a desktop going - some find this easy, but my experience is that many end up having two or three goes (it took me about four to get an installation that worked) - and many hours reading manuals / discussion forum entries tracking down why that bit of stuff won't work. Almost always it is a simple typo in a config file - the dependency checking in the emerge system means almost never do you end up with stuff that is installed but won't work due to some failed / missing app. Question is do you have time / energy to do the three or four builds plus research - and will the time you spend be compensated by the ultra-fast / efficient system you end up with (and your learning lots about the gubbins that make up Unix systems).
For me I stuck it out and am very happy with Gentoo. But I'd think carefully before recommending it to anyone else -especially a new user.
I've never had a problem getting it all to work first time. Forgot something? emerge packagename and you're done.
The ability to emerge packages as you need them is great - but it is only good once you've got the system working. Remember, that even if you go for a stage 3 install, you still have to manually create your/etc/fstab file, configure grub / lilo, edit XF86Config etc. - which as far as I recall is not required in same way for standard distros. The Gentoo Installation handbook is great - but unless you have pretty standard hardware or don't want / need things like high quality graphics, advanced sound, access to things like CDRW, USBdrives etc. you have to be pretty clued up simply to get it to work. Don't agree? Just go and look at the (brilliantly helpful) gentoo install support forums - it is stuffed full of people struggling (and not always resolving) configuration and set up issues.
Gentoo has a great many things in its favour, but I can't see how anyone would recommend Gentoo as a distribution for a person new to unix - until Gentoo gets closer to offering an equivalent to the automated install of the major distros.
Sounds like a great idea - but surely that's what you get from the gentoo linux system - you custom build a verison of linux that not only has 'just the components you need' in it, but also is (or can be) specifically tailored to suit your hardware and peripherals etc.
I can see an avenue for component based distributions taking off, however. The two challenges with Gentoo are 1) the need to compile everything from scratch (which can take ages) and 2) the almost vertical learning curve required to get the resulting linux system to work (work out of the box? - not really!). Presumably the component model might allow both of these to be addressed...
Good to see the PC community catching on to quiet. But it is really just fixing a designed-in problem.
I have an ageing Mac G4 Cube that has worked perfectly since the day it arrived and it makes no noise at all other than disk drive chatter. The whole thing is designed around a huge passive heat sink, and has no fans inside at all. And curiously, no market at all for 'silent' extras. I wonder why that might be...
An earlier Slashdot article (Remail: IBM is Reinventing Email) from December 9th 2003 discusses similar work done by IBM researcher's on an advanced email system. It too aims to put the 'user' at the heart of email processing, and has identified clever iconic images with dots and lines as a way to help navigate discussion threads. But IBM's project seems to be more expansive than the work reported here, covering more aspects of how we interact with email.
Just to say I've got a Nikormat FTN. Had it for over 20 years, from my days as a student (it was second hand even then). Travelled with it, never had a case for it, it is worn and dented, but never missed a beat. Has highly effective ergonomics - including OM1 style shutter speed changing via ring at base of lens rather than with shutter dial on top of case.
After about five years I 'upgraded' to a Nikon FE - but never got the results from FE that price suggested - and soon reverted to Nikormat.
Have had shutter (all mechanical) re-calibrated on Nikormat twice. And changed light meter battery. But otherwise it is unchanged since day I bought it.
Apart from the non-GPL'd status, I'm not aware of big problems with ethernet drivers for nForce boards - as noted elsewhere in this thread they seem to be functionally supported out of the box.
But getting the sound components of the nForce board to work is altogether more challenging - the nVidia drivers are very basic and don't always work. Various patches exist (e.g. this entry from the Gentoo Discussion Forum) and some people report installing SBLive type cards to get around the problem.
Apparently one problem that is preventing GPL'd audio drivers is that nVidia won't release the technical specifications of the nForce audio components...
I got to go to the original version (at Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London) and it was not good. But I'm sure that there have been better productions since...
I am hopeful though - I am sure that the collective TV memory of HHG suffers partly because whenever it comes up they show clips from the BBC TV series... Work on new radio material might in turn inspire new visual material and this might be used to update the clips.
I was lucky enough to hear the first series when it was first broadcast (and went to see the play - but the less said about that the better).
I agree that it is going to be hard for any new incarnations of the story to do it justice. But the real difficulty faced is going to be familiarity with the plot: surely it is one of the most well known about stories of the recent modern age. Part of the captivating thrill of listening to the first series was simply that you had no idea what was going to happen next - both in terms of plot line and plot devices. We were amused and intrigued by the originality of the story / format: I think that is something hard to recapture. I suppose the TV show might have got away with it because many who watched possibly hadn't heard (or heard of) the radio play. But, as with the recent Lord of the Rings film, any new audiences will go looking to see 'how their favourite bit was... visualised / dramatised / messed up etc.
It is a pity that Douglas Adams is not around. But I don't think there is much evidence that his being around protected against bad translations (i.e. play, TV show). A much greater pity is the absence of Peter Jones.
Slashdot Mirror
What has a federal judge got to do with property rights 40 miles off English coastline? I knew that the US had ambitions of a colonial nature, but this surely is a step too far...! Or is it that the UK has quietly become a federation while I slept?
Does anyone have a link to the terms of the competition. The posting and the article it came from both omit to say how far the rock has to be moved. I'd have thought that would have a big impact on the total energy requirement. I would also hope that the spec would have a total energy consumption target (in KWh) - rewarding the more energy efficient robots.
The remarkable thing about this is that it is such an old story. I was involved in looking for improved ways of ensuring spreadsheet models were error free when i worked for the consultancy division of a large accounting firm back in the early 1990s.. Then we were focusing on developing structured methods for laying out / documenting simple spreadsheets (these were the days when Lotus 123 was top dog...), providing more specific training on how to build easy to follow spreadsheets and doing some formal auditing of work. But the biggest idea then was to simply use a better tool - even then people were developing software designed to make financial modelling (in particular) more rubust - including Javelin (from Ashton Tate I think) and Lotus Improv. Both these used multi-dimensional space to track results of formulaic relationships that defined the model (in Improv's case you could have up to 12 dimensions - and its innovative way of allowing the user to browse this datacube by shuffling 'axis tiles' was later crudely copied by MS to come up with the PivotTable - a pitiful copy of the original idea). The idea being that you define the relationship using (in Improv's case near-english language) formulas (such as Profit = Revenue - Costs, with Revenue and Costs being defined separately by other formulas, or simple data vectors). Improv included (as with other similar products) the idea of sequences within dimensions - so you could have 'previous' and 'next' modifiers in formulas which was great for financial type analysis etc. The key was the formulas were were distinct from the numbers themselves (separating code and data as you might now say). It allowed you to do some very powerful modeulling with high confidence levels. I used Improv a lot for a few years, but Lotus never worked out who its client base was, and it finally died in the mid 1990s. A great pity.
A short review of spreadsheet evolution appears here.
I seem to recall that someone still sells an Improv like product, but not sure where / what it is, or if it is well liked.. .
Camino 0.8 is hugely good, and better than earlier versions. But one area that it really shines is in processing of Javascript pages.
I used the BenchJS benchmark from the 24fun.com web site to test Safari , Firefox, and Camino on my 12" Powerbook (837Mhz) Here's what I got:
That's five to six times quicker!
By comparison:
For example I could presumably put an ATI 9600 series video card in for not much money (I don't need ADC, so could get a vanilla board) - 512Mbyte RAM and perhaps a Bluetooth module...
What do people think?
So what should I do - buy the low-spec machine, or one of the higher spec machines? If the higher spec, which one?
Although the CNN article focuses on the US experience, the UK has had successful and profitable online grocery shopping for several years. UK chain Tesco was one of the first - with an in-house developed software system - and now most of the UK major chains have followed suit with similar systems.
The Tesco system was initially thought to be un-economic as it simply comprised staff going round existing stores and loading carts that where then delivered using small vans to homes in the locality - but apparently its been profitable since the outset.
Tesco's approach is compared to that of WebVan (who feature in the CNN article) in this document written by a Prof at Wharton (free - but registration required)
More recently, a WebVan style UK Grocery operation called Occado has started too - working with upmarket Grocer Waitrose. Their approach is to use central warehouses to fill orders and distribute.
All this competition has resulted in competition between providers both on price (several offer the service 'free' for spends over a threshold of about 75) and quality (for example, discounts if delivery times are missed, or the goods / brands you order are not in stock etc.)
Although the capturing device has accelerated the 'flash to print' time, the main reason why the Iraqi photos travelled around the world so fast was the networking infrastructure that meant that they could be sent and received quickly.
A major factor in the publishing delay for WW2 photos was the time it took for the photo to get to one or more mechanisms for mass-distribution (i.e. then, the Newspapers).
Prior to the rise of the interconnected broadband public Internet, the only way that photos could be sent was by proprietary point-to-point sytems: initially wire transfer, more recently various forms of ISDN connection.
It was only during the 20th Century that the mass distribution of pictorial information became possible - through Newspapers, News reels and then TV.
In all this, the evolution of the camera itself plays a very small part... It is the rise of the public internet, with common (open) standards that allows hi-resolution photos to be sent quickly with confidence that they'll arrive in a form that can be viewed and published has transformed photo-journalism, along with the option for these photos to be published to massive audiences at almost no cost via public web sites.
A news story being carried by Yahoo! reports that a Nigerian 419 scammer (arrested in Ireland it seems) has been tried and found guilty by a court in the UK (Wales) and sentenced to 20 months.
Perhaps Sun will be less keen to promote its Java Desktop now it is getting closer to MS...? This seems to have been a key part of several recent announcements about organisations planning to move to Linux desktops...
Talk has been that now that EU has gone to point of issuing a legal ruling on MS Monopoly infringement, it would be easier for others complaining about MS in future to argue case (as they can refer to legally relevant prior art wrt. MS abuses).
One suggested consequence of this is it would lead MS to be more cautious about abusing its market position in future (in EU at least...): up until today a very possible candidate for such future legal action would of course by Sun.
I wonder if all that MS is doing is reading writing on wall, and buying off Sun in advance - avoid all those years of legal costs / settlements against it in the future. If so, looks like the EU competition authority has teeth after all (hurrah!)
The general observation that there is sufficient food to feed the current population, if only we could find a equitable way of distributing it, is one thing. But you need to factor in the impact of better food production on future demands too.
Recently there was a TV documentary in the UK to commemorate 20 years since the 'Band Aid' / 'Live Aid' events triggered by famines in Ethiopia. This insightful program (Ethiopia: A Journey with Michael Buerk) by the original reporter who broke news of the famine observed that prior to the famine, the country was able to feed itself (provided the rains came). Twenty years of food aid and the ensuing population explosion later, Ethiopia remains the largest receipient of food aid in Africa, and no longer can produce enough to feed itself even in a year with good rains. There is also apparently an increasing problem with fresh water supplies in the country.
So more food may be part of the answer, but simply providing more food to hungry people does not appear to be the solution. As always, it seems to be much more complex than that.
I have an AMD XP2400+ based system (using ASUS A7V8X-X Mobo) with ATI Radeon 9600 video card. I dual boot Gentoo and Windows XP Pro.
/etc/fstab file is not really so easy compared to an auto-installation system. But the online manual / documentation / tutorial is pretty helpful provided you have standard ish hardware. The gentoo support forums (forums.gentoo.org) are also very active and very helpful for the most part.
Simply put, the dual-boot bit works just fine. I use Grub to dual boot, and once I'd worked out how to configure it, it does the job well.
The learning curve for Gentoo is steep if you are new to to Unix - editing a working
The compile time is a factor - on my system it takes about 24 hours to get from blank HD to running KDE / Gnome - but once you have some sort of desktop running the ability to 'emerge' applications in the background becomes a major boon. That bit is really easy to do and works wonderfully. As does the auto-update bit (emerge world).
So challenge is to get something like a desktop going - some find this easy, but my experience is that many end up having two or three goes (it took me about four to get an installation that worked) - and many hours reading manuals / discussion forum entries tracking down why that bit of stuff won't work. Almost always it is a simple typo in a config file - the dependency checking in the emerge system means almost never do you end up with stuff that is installed but won't work due to some failed / missing app. Question is do you have time / energy to do the three or four builds plus research - and will the time you spend be compensated by the ultra-fast / efficient system you end up with (and your learning lots about the gubbins that make up Unix systems).
For me I stuck it out and am very happy with Gentoo. But I'd think carefully before recommending it to anyone else -especially a new user.
Regards
gavin
I've never had a problem getting it all to work first time. Forgot something? emerge packagename and you're done.
/etc/fstab file, configure grub / lilo, edit XF86Config etc. - which as far as I recall is not required in same way for standard distros. The Gentoo Installation handbook is great - but unless you have pretty standard hardware or don't want / need things like high quality graphics, advanced sound, access to things like CDRW, USBdrives etc. you have to be pretty clued up simply to get it to work. Don't agree? Just go and look at the (brilliantly helpful) gentoo install support forums - it is stuffed full of people struggling (and not always resolving) configuration and set up issues.
The ability to emerge packages as you need them is great - but it is only good once you've got the system working. Remember, that even if you go for a stage 3 install, you still have to manually create your
Gentoo has a great many things in its favour, but I can't see how anyone would recommend Gentoo as a distribution for a person new to unix - until Gentoo gets closer to offering an equivalent to the automated install of the major distros.
Sounds like a great idea - but surely that's what you get from the gentoo linux system - you custom build a verison of linux that not only has 'just the components you need' in it, but also is (or can be) specifically tailored to suit your hardware and peripherals etc. I can see an avenue for component based distributions taking off, however. The two challenges with Gentoo are 1) the need to compile everything from scratch (which can take ages) and 2) the almost vertical learning curve required to get the resulting linux system to work (work out of the box? - not really!). Presumably the component model might allow both of these to be addressed...
Good to see the PC community catching on to quiet. But it is really just fixing a designed-in problem. I have an ageing Mac G4 Cube that has worked perfectly since the day it arrived and it makes no noise at all other than disk drive chatter. The whole thing is designed around a huge passive heat sink, and has no fans inside at all. And curiously, no market at all for 'silent' extras. I wonder why that might be...
An earlier Slashdot article ( Remail: IBM is Reinventing Email ) from December 9th 2003 discusses similar work done by IBM researcher's on an advanced email system. It too aims to put the 'user' at the heart of email processing, and has identified clever iconic images with dots and lines as a way to help navigate discussion threads. But IBM's project seems to be more expansive than the work reported here, covering more aspects of how we interact with email.
Just to say I've got a Nikormat FTN. Had it for over 20 years, from my days as a student (it was second hand even then). Travelled with it, never had a case for it, it is worn and dented, but never missed a beat. Has highly effective ergonomics - including OM1 style shutter speed changing via ring at base of lens rather than with shutter dial on top of case. After about five years I 'upgraded' to a Nikon FE - but never got the results from FE that price suggested - and soon reverted to Nikormat. Have had shutter (all mechanical) re-calibrated on Nikormat twice. And changed light meter battery. But otherwise it is unchanged since day I bought it.
Apart from the non-GPL'd status, I'm not aware of big problems with ethernet drivers for nForce boards - as noted elsewhere in this thread they seem to be functionally supported out of the box.
But getting the sound components of the nForce board to work is altogether more challenging - the nVidia drivers are very basic and don't always work. Various patches exist (e.g. this entry from the Gentoo Discussion Forum) and some people report installing SBLive type cards to get around the problem.
Apparently one problem that is preventing GPL'd audio drivers is that nVidia won't release the technical specifications of the nForce audio components...
I saw the Theatr Clwyd production
I got to go to the original version (at Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London) and it was not good. But I'm sure that there have been better productions since...
I am hopeful though - I am sure that the collective TV memory of HHG suffers partly because whenever it comes up they show clips from the BBC TV series... Work on new radio material might in turn inspire new visual material and this might be used to update the clips.
I was lucky enough to hear the first series when it was first broadcast (and went to see the play - but the less said about that the better).
I agree that it is going to be hard for any new incarnations of the story to do it justice. But the real difficulty faced is going to be familiarity with the plot: surely it is one of the most well known about stories of the recent modern age. Part of the captivating thrill of listening to the first series was simply that you had no idea what was going to happen next - both in terms of plot line and plot devices. We were amused and intrigued by the originality of the story / format: I think that is something hard to recapture. I suppose the TV show might have got away with it because many who watched possibly hadn't heard (or heard of) the radio play. But, as with the recent Lord of the Rings film, any new audiences will go looking to see 'how their favourite bit was... visualised / dramatised / messed up etc.
It is a pity that Douglas Adams is not around. But I don't think there is much evidence that his being around protected against bad translations (i.e. play, TV show). A much greater pity is the absence of Peter Jones.