There will, I suspect, always be those who say "Couldn't I have done something better with those 30 minutes than just walked to the bank?"
I don't think a longer lifespan will change that - I'll still want those 30 minutes.
Let's consider... what is the "typical" life cycle of a researcher? Well, okay, at leas tin the US, you go to schol from the age of 5 on until 17 or 18 and graduate from high school. You go to college, get your undergrad degree at 21 or 22. Then, finally, you go to graduate school. this is the point where you're *finally* able to do research. In fact, you might be spending as much as 90% of your working hours on research. By the time you're 28 you've got a Ph.D. and a cool thesis under your belt.... and then what?
There are two options: you can stay in academia, or try your hand in the private sector. If you do the former, odds are decent you'll get a professorship somewhere. As a result, you'll be in charge of 3-10 grad students and teaching classes - hence, you'll be doing research, at best, 30% of your time. In the priate sector, you'll be in a similar boat - spending as much time mentoring and managing as you do research. By the time you're 40, you may well NEVER be in the lab.
I think we can see that general trend in just baout every field - somewhere between 30 and 40, you're likely to make the transition to being management. Sure, there will be exceptions, but as a general ruel your "pure" contributions to a given field will happen before then.
So what does this mean in relation to increased lifespan? My first guess is that we'll see far slower advancement. Gone will be the days of the 35-yr-old technology director. Your director might be in his 100s or more, and promoting anyone under 50 to management would be seen as reckless.
On top of that, I think we're also going to see increased mobility between fields. Who here would want to be working in the same field for a century? For two centuries? For a millennium?
I expect that it will be typical for a person to devote a few decades to this or that field, then retire from there and move on to something else. After a while, you won't be considered educated until you've got an entire alphabet behind your name.
I don't see the rise of super-specialists; I think we're going to see the rise of super-generalists.
In my experience, most instnaces of violence ins chools are crimes of passion. They aren't well thought out master plans, they're a bunch of hormone-laden teenagers trying to establish dominance. In such situations no one *cares* if they're being taped.
It seems to me these cameras are addressing the wrong part of the problem. It's not as if these kids don't get caught - nor that the punishment is too weak to act as deterrence. Instead of worrying about these, instead focus on prevnetion. Sadly, I'm not sure HOW one would go about preventing school violence, but I don't think cameras will do the trick.
In a way, odds are thereabouts everyone is to some degree chimeric. The more cells split, the greater chance of genetic degredation. Hence, your skin cells, which by your 40s have undergone mitosis hundreds of times, probably have at least a few errors from the original DNA in your stem cells. Not that this actually makes much difference or is even detectable in most cases.
A chimeric person can have tissue that tests is of both genders - and, as has been demonstrated, this tissue can even be gonadal tissue.
However, the secondary sex characteristics are determined hormonally. Hence, there are instances of people who are in fact genetically one gender but wholly expressed as the other gender. This is generally dscovered when the unexpressed gonads begin to necrotize at the beginning of adolescence.
My point is that although the boy is a hermaphrodite I'd say he's a male who has some female tissue; there shouldn't be any question which bathroom he should use.
Based on this, I'm curious as to how the immune system determiens what antigens it responds to. It sounds like that's something that is programmed during the embryonic stage, as opposed to being determined genetically. Thinking about wht I recall about the immune system, that makes sense.
In turn, what this implies is that mismatched blood types would not cause autoabortion, as others have suggested.
Thing is, how could that be implemented? All told, there aren't all THAT many backbones to work with. Take out UUNet, or AT&T, and you've blocked off a very big part of the market.
From a business standpoint, it would be equivalent to deciding not to sell to anyone in, say Great Britain. Principle's fine, but that's going to cut into profits.
I worked for Sprint for a while, and their network is severely overengineered. The fibre backbones are generally only using 10% of their capacity. So long as that's the case, the beancounters are going to continue to search for ways to get more money out of that resource. They'll keep looking for - and finding - loopholes that allow them to sell their bandwidth. They'll keep doing this so long as they don't have anything better to sell their bandwidth for.
I seem to recall that the first computer memory was actually troughs of mercury relying on the slow propogation of electricity through that substance.
We've come a long way, and Wang's work was certainly important.
The thing that disturbs me about anti-spam legislation is that msot of these activities are already illegal. IANAL, but I think most of them fall under the heading of "fraud" in one form or another.
The failulre isn't with the legislation. I honestly can't say I mind receiving targetted advertising that is designed to appeal to my particular interests. Yet these, too, fall under the aegis of spam.
The flaw is in the enforcement of existing laws. In order for the spam problem to be reduced, it will be necessary to institute procedures to catch electronic fraud. Right now, these procedures are not in place, and until they are it doesn't matter what the law says anyway.
Just incidentally, Wang Computers still exists. They changed their focus from computer manufacture to system solutions. They were under the name of Wang Global, but have since been bought out and are now known as Getronics Wang.
And this has resulted in one developer I know, of the name Richard, answering the phone with "Get-a-Wang, this is Dick speaking". They don't let him answer phones anymore. Smart man.
What if you oculd have a pocket device with a fold-out screen - or maybe a HUD that simulates a very large screen?
The itnerface is certainly an issue, but there are possible workarounds. Eventually, it will become possible to carry the equivalent of a computer in an item the size of a pack of cigarettes or less. At that point the PDA as an appliance will likely be obsolete.
If you'd read the FAQ, you'd be aware tha tmost down-modding is done by the admins, who have unlimited mod points. You'd also be aware that mods are selected roughly at random with a few facotrs, such as karma and usage statistics, thrown in. And non-admin mods only get five mod points anyway.
In other words, if you're consistently modded down, it's not them, it's you.
But I think the best thing about this is the increased integration with the PC platform. The specs read like a low-end PC, and the applications available seem about the same.
What this means to me is that a PDA running OPENPDA will function less like a separate platform, and more like a piece of my network.
I wonder if eventually PDAs will render laptops obsolete - or, rather, if PDAs and laptops will converge.
I think there's a bit of general wisdom to be learned from this. Over the course of the past few years, the level of punishment for copyright infringement has increased - but this has had no apparent effect on the industry nor on people breaking the copyright.
I would go so far as to suggest that once the punishment is unequivocably greater than the benefit of the crime it has reached its limit of deterrence. Beyond that, focus should be on enforcment. I believe that those who would commit a crime unconsciously compute how bad the potential punishment is by how liekly they are to meet that punishment.
In the case of copyright infringment, most people conclude that The punishment is bad - in some cases disastrous - but that they are so unlikely to have to face that punishment that it doesn't matter.
Re:Decline and fall of the general purpose compute
on
Microsoft's Athens PC
·
· Score: 1
Various "market experts" have been predicting the downfall of the general-purpose comptuer for quite some time now. I suspect it's right up there with cold fusion and useful voice recog - it'll be about ten years away for upwards of 40 years.
I would challenge anyone making this prediction to think carefully on the killer app for the PC, and how this relates to the interface.
What do we use the PC for? Well, essentially, writing. It might be writing on a message board or forum, it might be writing the Great $country Novel, it might be a letter to your grandmother - it doesn't really matter. The thing is, the only viable interface that has ever been sugested for this is the PC as we know it - a pretty big screen and a keyboard, sitting on a desk. There are other options, to be sure, but can anyone imagine those options as anythign more than a supplement to this basic interface?
So long as we keep the desktop-type setup, then "appliances" will always be redundant, supplemental to the computer but not full replacements. And so long as we have this *thing* takign up our desk, we're going to want it to be able to do all the things that those wonderful appliances can do. And, on top of that, we're gogin to keep demanding ever more functionality.
Sorry, I just can't see the general-purpose comptuer going away anytime soon - if ever.
Was it not Jefferson who felt that a well-educated populace was a crucial ingredient in a democracy (or republic)?
If the current trend of inadequate education continues for too much longer, we might as well have a dictatorship - we'll have no worse a government than we get when the mobs elect whoever has the best hair.
As with most things, it's very difficult to say when "it" happened.
I've a suspicion that it was in the 70s that our rights really started eroding away - but it could have easily happened earlier, but prior to that time social pressures were able to keep the masses in check. Since that time, it seems much of our society and our government has been devoted to maintaining the status quo. I'm not sure I can blame the government for this : it's a chicken and egg problem.
The tragedy, though, is that there has yet to emerge a serious counter to this tendency. There are, to be sure, charismatic leaders who are fervently opposing this or that injustice. Hwoever, the opposition is too balkanized, and it is slowly being eaten up piecemeal. One can hope that a counterswing will eventually solidify, but the outlook is not terribly promising.
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There will, I suspect, always be those who say "Couldn't I have done something better with those 30 minutes than just walked to the bank?" I don't think a longer lifespan will change that - I'll still want those 30 minutes.
Let's consider... what is the "typical" life cycle of a researcher? Well, okay, at leas tin the US, you go to schol from the age of 5 on until 17 or 18 and graduate from high school. You go to college, get your undergrad degree at 21 or 22. Then, finally, you go to graduate school. this is the point where you're *finally* able to do research. In fact, you might be spending as much as 90% of your working hours on research. By the time you're 28 you've got a Ph.D. and a cool thesis under your belt.... and then what? There are two options: you can stay in academia, or try your hand in the private sector. If you do the former, odds are decent you'll get a professorship somewhere. As a result, you'll be in charge of 3-10 grad students and teaching classes - hence, you'll be doing research, at best, 30% of your time. In the priate sector, you'll be in a similar boat - spending as much time mentoring and managing as you do research. By the time you're 40, you may well NEVER be in the lab. I think we can see that general trend in just baout every field - somewhere between 30 and 40, you're likely to make the transition to being management. Sure, there will be exceptions, but as a general ruel your "pure" contributions to a given field will happen before then. So what does this mean in relation to increased lifespan? My first guess is that we'll see far slower advancement. Gone will be the days of the 35-yr-old technology director. Your director might be in his 100s or more, and promoting anyone under 50 to management would be seen as reckless. On top of that, I think we're also going to see increased mobility between fields. Who here would want to be working in the same field for a century? For two centuries? For a millennium? I expect that it will be typical for a person to devote a few decades to this or that field, then retire from there and move on to something else. After a while, you won't be considered educated until you've got an entire alphabet behind your name. I don't see the rise of super-specialists; I think we're going to see the rise of super-generalists.
In my experience, most instnaces of violence ins chools are crimes of passion. They aren't well thought out master plans, they're a bunch of hormone-laden teenagers trying to establish dominance. In such situations no one *cares* if they're being taped. It seems to me these cameras are addressing the wrong part of the problem. It's not as if these kids don't get caught - nor that the punishment is too weak to act as deterrence. Instead of worrying about these, instead focus on prevnetion. Sadly, I'm not sure HOW one would go about preventing school violence, but I don't think cameras will do the trick.
In a way, odds are thereabouts everyone is to some degree chimeric. The more cells split, the greater chance of genetic degredation. Hence, your skin cells, which by your 40s have undergone mitosis hundreds of times, probably have at least a few errors from the original DNA in your stem cells. Not that this actually makes much difference or is even detectable in most cases.
A chimeric person can have tissue that tests is of both genders - and, as has been demonstrated, this tissue can even be gonadal tissue. However, the secondary sex characteristics are determined hormonally. Hence, there are instances of people who are in fact genetically one gender but wholly expressed as the other gender. This is generally dscovered when the unexpressed gonads begin to necrotize at the beginning of adolescence. My point is that although the boy is a hermaphrodite I'd say he's a male who has some female tissue; there shouldn't be any question which bathroom he should use.
Based on this, I'm curious as to how the immune system determiens what antigens it responds to. It sounds like that's something that is programmed during the embryonic stage, as opposed to being determined genetically. Thinking about wht I recall about the immune system, that makes sense. In turn, what this implies is that mismatched blood types would not cause autoabortion, as others have suggested.
Thing is, how could that be implemented? All told, there aren't all THAT many backbones to work with. Take out UUNet, or AT&T, and you've blocked off a very big part of the market. From a business standpoint, it would be equivalent to deciding not to sell to anyone in, say Great Britain. Principle's fine, but that's going to cut into profits. I worked for Sprint for a while, and their network is severely overengineered. The fibre backbones are generally only using 10% of their capacity. So long as that's the case, the beancounters are going to continue to search for ways to get more money out of that resource. They'll keep looking for - and finding - loopholes that allow them to sell their bandwidth. They'll keep doing this so long as they don't have anything better to sell their bandwidth for.
I seem to recall that the first computer memory was actually troughs of mercury relying on the slow propogation of electricity through that substance. We've come a long way, and Wang's work was certainly important.
The thing that disturbs me about anti-spam legislation is that msot of these activities are already illegal. IANAL, but I think most of them fall under the heading of "fraud" in one form or another. The failulre isn't with the legislation. I honestly can't say I mind receiving targetted advertising that is designed to appeal to my particular interests. Yet these, too, fall under the aegis of spam. The flaw is in the enforcement of existing laws. In order for the spam problem to be reduced, it will be necessary to institute procedures to catch electronic fraud. Right now, these procedures are not in place, and until they are it doesn't matter what the law says anyway.
Just incidentally, Wang Computers still exists. They changed their focus from computer manufacture to system solutions. They were under the name of Wang Global, but have since been bought out and are now known as Getronics Wang. And this has resulted in one developer I know, of the name Richard, answering the phone with "Get-a-Wang, this is Dick speaking". They don't let him answer phones anymore. Smart man.
What if you oculd have a pocket device with a fold-out screen - or maybe a HUD that simulates a very large screen? The itnerface is certainly an issue, but there are possible workarounds. Eventually, it will become possible to carry the equivalent of a computer in an item the size of a pack of cigarettes or less. At that point the PDA as an appliance will likely be obsolete.
If you'd read the FAQ, you'd be aware tha tmost down-modding is done by the admins, who have unlimited mod points. You'd also be aware that mods are selected roughly at random with a few facotrs, such as karma and usage statistics, thrown in. And non-admin mods only get five mod points anyway. In other words, if you're consistently modded down, it's not them, it's you.
But I think the best thing about this is the increased integration with the PC platform. The specs read like a low-end PC, and the applications available seem about the same. What this means to me is that a PDA running OPENPDA will function less like a separate platform, and more like a piece of my network. I wonder if eventually PDAs will render laptops obsolete - or, rather, if PDAs and laptops will converge.
I think there's a bit of general wisdom to be learned from this. Over the course of the past few years, the level of punishment for copyright infringement has increased - but this has had no apparent effect on the industry nor on people breaking the copyright. I would go so far as to suggest that once the punishment is unequivocably greater than the benefit of the crime it has reached its limit of deterrence. Beyond that, focus should be on enforcment. I believe that those who would commit a crime unconsciously compute how bad the potential punishment is by how liekly they are to meet that punishment. In the case of copyright infringment, most people conclude that The punishment is bad - in some cases disastrous - but that they are so unlikely to have to face that punishment that it doesn't matter.
Various "market experts" have been predicting the downfall of the general-purpose comptuer for quite some time now. I suspect it's right up there with cold fusion and useful voice recog - it'll be about ten years away for upwards of 40 years. I would challenge anyone making this prediction to think carefully on the killer app for the PC, and how this relates to the interface. What do we use the PC for? Well, essentially, writing. It might be writing on a message board or forum, it might be writing the Great $country Novel, it might be a letter to your grandmother - it doesn't really matter. The thing is, the only viable interface that has ever been sugested for this is the PC as we know it - a pretty big screen and a keyboard, sitting on a desk. There are other options, to be sure, but can anyone imagine those options as anythign more than a supplement to this basic interface? So long as we keep the desktop-type setup, then "appliances" will always be redundant, supplemental to the computer but not full replacements. And so long as we have this *thing* takign up our desk, we're going to want it to be able to do all the things that those wonderful appliances can do. And, on top of that, we're gogin to keep demanding ever more functionality. Sorry, I just can't see the general-purpose comptuer going away anytime soon - if ever.
Was it not Jefferson who felt that a well-educated populace was a crucial ingredient in a democracy (or republic)? If the current trend of inadequate education continues for too much longer, we might as well have a dictatorship - we'll have no worse a government than we get when the mobs elect whoever has the best hair.
As with most things, it's very difficult to say when "it" happened. I've a suspicion that it was in the 70s that our rights really started eroding away - but it could have easily happened earlier, but prior to that time social pressures were able to keep the masses in check. Since that time, it seems much of our society and our government has been devoted to maintaining the status quo. I'm not sure I can blame the government for this : it's a chicken and egg problem. The tragedy, though, is that there has yet to emerge a serious counter to this tendency. There are, to be sure, charismatic leaders who are fervently opposing this or that injustice. Hwoever, the opposition is too balkanized, and it is slowly being eaten up piecemeal. One can hope that a counterswing will eventually solidify, but the outlook is not terribly promising.