Turbogears is similar in many ways to Webware, but there is a bit more setup involved. Atleast I had some trouble with that but this may not be the experience of others.
Between RoR and django - I prefer django because it can generate the database directly from the Model source code unlike in the case of RoR where it is a bit more involved. Django also generates (optionally) a good administration area which is quite usable even on a production environment; this is also lacking in RoR.
In the end, I prefer Webware over the rest because it gives me a whole lot more flexibility than either RoR or Django (I haven't used Turbogears a lot, so I can't comment much on that). Webware is closest to the J2EE style of functioning but yet stays clear of J2EE's idiosyncrasies. Also, there are more web hosts supporting python than Ruby and that kinda rules out RoR for most of the work I do.
Yes, I agree with you. If as much of the code is partitioned away from the HTML, it will be much simpler to test. However, some of the UI logic will be difficult to test none-the-less.
I too am a believer in writing as many unit test cases as possible, but sometimes that is not really possible - as you have mentioned, database handling is one place where it gets difficult; and anything to do with generation of UI; for instance generating a gantt graph based on values in the database.
But yes, I do agree with you; a lot can be tested using unit test cases.
How do you catch UI errors such as errors in the validation code in web pages using unit tests? Unit tests are useful when you have discrete blocks / units of code which can be tested without user intervention - such as business logic code etc, but it is not very useful for testing code such as UI handling code.
I completely agree with your assessment of the situation in India. I have also graduated from India and yes, engineering graduates from India have very few 'real' skills or knowledge and for the most part only have theoretical knowledge obtained from the prescribed engineering texts.
The Indian education system - including the engineer training system, does not stress applied knowledge and very few engineering graduates really know how to work with tools, draw up designs, develop and fabricate components etc. This situation can be mitigated by tying in funding to research conducted by professors. But I don't see this happening very soon, even in the IITs.
I think this is a problem with ALL frameworks which try and do a lot of automatic code generation - if you want any modifications done, it becomes really difficult. All high-level frameworks are written optimized for a certain type of solution and if what you are trying to do does not fit into that style perfectly, you are going to have some real problems. This is true for RoR, Django, Turbogears, and most software.
This is one of the reasons J2EE still exists - individual components of it do a lot, but you will need to spend the time to put all of those together and make them work together. But J2EE has a few design faults and looks like it was designed by a committee more concerned about "Descriptive" programming than about getting software developed. This makes J2EE a pain-in-the-ass to work with.
A simplified version of J2EE - with a minimal number of crappy XML descriptor files will be a good base framework.
A fairly good framework which I use is Webware for python - it does not generate a lot of code and stuff, but it provides the essential mechanisms which you can use for getting the work done. It will take longer to code in than RoR but it is far more flexible and is kinda similar to J2EE but without the crap. http://www.webwareforpython.org/.
The only problem with using Python, Ruby etc is that as they are not strongly typed, you will not find out some problems at compile time and these problems will only show up at runtime, unlike in Java.
If two species A and B are significantly different (by significant I mean - A seems to have had feathers while B has a fully developed wing complete with feathers), it is natural to ask about an intermediate AB species which must have had atleast a partially developed wing. Now if AB species is found, but the wing is about a foot long and is very under developed while species B has fully developed 6 foot wings, then one must ask the question if there was an intermediate species between AB and B.
Also, the question that needs to be asked is whether there is sufficient proof to rule out the fact that these species could have co-existed (which basically means that one didn't evolve from the other). Consider two animals - the garden lizard with no limbs and the snake. Is it natural to guess that the snake is the ancestor of the lizard. What about the possibility that both could be compatriots (as they are now)?
About your question regarding the railways - India has, I think, the second largest railway network in the world. This is good, ofcourse, but rails cannot completely obviate the need for roads.
Actually there are a lot of roads in India - good, bad and ugly. But there aren't enough big highways. Most cities in India are connected by 2 or 4 lane highways. What this new project (called the Golden Quadrilateral project) does is create highways which are wider and meant for much higher speeds connecting the big cities. Many of the new highways coming up are 6 lanes.
Just so you know - India has also been developing its railways; especially sub-urban and urban railways. For instance, Delhi has one of the newest/most advanced tube railway systems now. Calcutta has already had such a system for many years now. Other cities are following suit - Chennai is now considering such a tube railway system as well. Chennai already has on-ground and overhead (skytrain) urban train systems, so this new tube railway being considered will be in addition to the existing systems. These projects are primarily being developed to deal with the problem of congestion in the big Indian cities.
Seems to me that Videolan (by École Centrale Paris) could get hit by this since it circumvents the region coding on DVDs. Better get that source downloaded now!
It would be a shame if VLC goes. It is an excellent product.
The $100 laptop was conceived based on the following assumptions.
1) Enough information can save this world and cure all ills 2) Information is not available in the third-world 3) The poor can tap into this information easily as long as they have a computer and a net connection.
I question the validity of these assumptions.
I think every age has its "High Priests". During the dark ages, it was the priests from the many religions on the world who were the high priests. They held sway and had complete control over the people and influenced their every decision and way of life. They were above question and everything they said was accepted as the Truth. The priests said that everything in the world could be cured if the people adopt the 'right' religion, and use the 'right' holy oils. It didn't matter that you were dying of smallpox, but if you said the right chants and use the right oil, you will be 'saved'.
Now we live in the Information Age - now the high priests are the scientists and the evangelists are the telecommunication companies, IT companies and the IT professionals. Now the latest 'cure' being preached is Information. You can't have enough Information - all Information is good and Information is going to change this world and cure all its problems, the poor are going to be liberated, the sick are going to be healed, the lame will walk, the blind will see, and mankind is going to freed from all bondages. We need to spread the Information across the world as fast as we can - and wirelessly to reach even remote areas. Then we must have people who can access this information - as cheaply as possible, since we want ALL to benefit from having this Information; so like the Gideon's Bible, we have the $100 laptop.
But the truth is information of all kinds and types is already available in most of the 3rd World. People are using cellphones; magazines are available; second-hand / cheap books are easily available for next to nothing; Internet Cafes are all over the place and one can browse for an hour for something like 15 cents, and cheap second hand computers many of which will be more capable and cheaper than this $100 laptop are available. But the people are continuing to be poor, and in some cases, they are actually getting poorer.
I live and work in the 3rd world and it has been my experience that the 3rd world remains that way because those in power benefit from keeping it that way - cheap domestic and industrial labour is available only if the poor are around. Most of the poor ALREADY know that bad water causes disease, they ALREADY know that they shouldn't be living over a sewer, but what options are open to them?
The poor already know that they must get to the doctor and get that infected open wound / tuberculosis / tumour treated before it gets worse and needs amputation / major surgery / expensive treatment; but if they go to the doctor, they will lose that day's wage and they will also have to pay the doctor, so they will wait it out to see if the wound will heal by itself.
So it appears that it is not information which can liberate people - systems must change to allow these people to get out of the grinding poverty and most importantly there must be political will to affect this change.
Do you really think that the 3rd world is some sort of a black hole where information has somehow stopped flowing because cheap computers are not available? and do you really think that it is the lack of information that is keeping these parts from improving?
I live in a 3rd world country and I can tell you this - there is enough information floating around this place - internet cafe's which offer 1 hour of internet usage at something like 20 cents / hour or even less. There are also a lot of second-hand book stores which sell books for very very little (a dollar or less fetch you one or two good science books). Many of these books are foriegn publications which has passed through the hands of many, many people before it was finally dumped somewhere. There are also stalls which buy old paper, books etc which are then sent to recycling plants etc. You can pick up magazines here for 10 cents of less. So it seems to me that it is not the lack of information which is causing the poor to stay that way.
In my experience, one of the greatest barriers to progress in these places is the mindset of those in power - who will do nothing to help the very poor, because if the poor get any wealthier, the rich won't have cheap domestic / industrial labour. The poor are easier to exploit in other ways as well. This is not going to change with a $100 laptop. $100 is, by the way, more than what many of the poor will get as salary in a month. Heck, if you had $100 to spend on a computer in these parts, they will classify you with the middle-class!
Don't speak too soon. I live in a part of the world where to get even moderately palatable water we have to dig borewells which go 150 ft or more in depth.
When it gets this bad, you don't want any new high rises in your neighbourhood because in a single high rise there could be 50+ families sucking the little water that is remaining at such speeds that entire neighbourhoods go dry. The situation is so bad in some parts around here that there is ABSOLUTELY NO water even at depths of 300 ft or more.
When it gets this bad, you also don't want your rich neighbours to suck out all the water leaving the rest of the community completely dry.
There are people rich enough in these parts to have swimming pools even as people on the same street have to lug water from miles away.
Please don't live in this utopia where economic pressures somehow lead to a just and fair sharing of natural resources. It has never happenned and it may never will.
We have legislation now which prevents to a small extent the complete wastage of water. But the situation may deteriorate to the point where the state may have to ration out the water for each family. Sometimes desperate measures are needed to prevent total collapse of the system - sometimes the state just has to step in to ensure that all citizens have enough; socialism is not all bad sometimes.
Excellent dependability means much more
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It seems to me that it is dependability which really differentiates those who excel and those who don't. I mean, people who have average intelligence but are very dependable and who works well with teams, seem to get much further than those with very high raw intelligence but are either anti-social, or plain unreliable.
By dependable, I mean - keeps his word, is honest, does not shirk, is conscentious, consistently delivers the same good results, knows to keep his mouth shut, delivers under pressure, does not overcommit, tends not to exaggerate.
Add good abilities to work in teams, now they are unstoppable.
I don't know what the optimal timespan is. Who knows? and also, do all humans have the optimal timespan? I have met older people in their 70s, 80s and later who have the intelligence, the risk taking capabilities and the energy exceeding those much younger than them.
It seems like the current lifespan we have is good enough and is perhaps optimal, but again, I really don't know.
To concur with you - yes, the death of the old, and the associated loss of memories / information / knowledge / methods is one of the primary movers of social evolution.
If old ideas and ways of life prolong, it will actually cause the society to stagnate. The same can be applied to an individual's memory - the mind filters out stale data by forgetting them, it also forgets stale methods of functioning, adapts to new ways etc.
Human lifespan is long enough for the old to teach the young IMPORTANT skills which they themselves have learnt from generations that went before them, but short enough for the young to take control and learn new things on their own. If the lifespan of man is significantly increased, it may actually cause deterioration in the overall health of the society.
1)It said that schools should present evolution as a flawed theory. This has the effect of students looking at evolution and saying "oh, it's not good enough to explain what we see...". A side effect of this is that the students now become more receptive to kooky ideas like Intelligent Design.
Is Evolution a flawed theory? if it is, there is nothing wrong in pointing that out. Ofcourse that could mean some students would look at evolution rather more critically than they might otherwise.. or perhaps even look at other "explanations", but I don't see how that can be harmful.
In all this debate about ID vs Evolution, I think the assumption is being made that evolution is flawless - and I don't think that is true.
The whole thought process behind a USD 100 laptop is misplaced. The assumption is that this is going to somehow allow disadvantaged kids to take advantage of the benefits of information technology is flawed from my experience with working with the poor.
The oft-quoted problems all all real. I quote them below: 1. Lack of a place to store these laptops / computers safely. USD 100 is a lot of money where I come from. 2. Lack of good quality electricity 3. Where electricity is available, it is expensive. (In most cases it is stolen so perhaps this does not count but this is nonetheless a precarious existence for the user) 4. Most documentation is available only in English or European languages and this is a real problem.
I have been trying to teach kids from the slums to take over small jobs on the computer such as simple php scripting etc. I provide the computers, the safe place, the electricity etc, but I have run up against a big wall which is basically lack of documentation which they can understand. Ofcourse, I could sit and translate some of the PHP stuff, but soon the kids want me to translate something on mysql, something in javascript, in HTML, on Linux etc.. the list is endless. The kids become completely dependent on me and they learn from me and are unable to fully benefit from the vast information store that is the Internet.
What will be more helpful than spending all this money on a USD 100 laptop would be to setup small netcafes across the developing world where the poor can come and register to become members. The registration could be given for a small amount each year (free registrations will never be valued).
Registered users will be allowed to work so many hours each day/week on the computers.
The netcafe should have staff who will be able to train the users in the usage of computers, who provide cheap computer books (translated into the local language) for purchase or lease.
In some parts of the developing world, the kids should also be taught English (especially in India since very little computer documentation is available in all Indian languages).
All this will IMHO be more useful than an inexpensive laptop.
The whole assumption that cats do not disembowel is not entirely founded in fact. Larger cats such as the tiger do disembowel their prey on occassion.
If you read Jim Corbett's account of tiger attacks in India during the early 1900's, there are references to how some people came to hospitals after surviving a tiger attack holding the stomach shut with their hands to prevent their intestines from spilling over onto the floor.
On a side note - it amazes me how some people walked > 10 miles after sustaining such injuries.
DirectX. Yes, it has problems rendering at very high precision required for engineering applications, however for gaming, there is nothing like it - on any platform. The combination of excellent graphics, excellent hardware support, excellent sound support - definitely the best game development libraries available.
Linux has SDL - but it came after DirectX and is nowhere near as good. OpenGL is good too, but the audio support is not stellar to say the least. Also, OpenGL is targetted at engineering apps and is not as good for games.
Re:Names have been changed, addiction is real...
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Just so you know - my mom is not a porn star. I was asking a hypothetical question; I didn't mention who in my family was living an immoral life, you came to the conclusion that it was my mom based on a question I asked rhetorically.
And also - I think you need to get your head out of your ass.
I have been reading up a lot on paleontology myself and I find some of the inferences made based on scanty physical evidence to be very far fetched.
Re:Names have been changed, addiction is real...
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The fact that people wanting to deviate from the norm is, in your argument, one of the negative affects of pornography is a clear indicator that despite your disclaimer, you are a prude. If the worst consequence of pornography you can come up with is that people will want to engage in varied sex acts, I don't think you should expect to be taken too seriously.
And where exactly did you see that in my comment? Why don't you read my comment once more before shooting off your mouth.
I do, however, find it quite alarming that the religious right have discovered a more insidious way to be taken seriously by the mainstream, by masquerading their morality as science. Show me the data or fuck off. Anecdotes don't mean shit.
And morals are wrong? So you are ok with not having morals when it comes to relationships, but what if it came to someone stealing from you? Will you be ok with that?
If you think having morals is being old-fashioned and right-wing, please don't. I am not a religious right by a long shot. It is just that I recognize the hurt that can be caused when morals are overlooked.
As to your other grouse about not having data to back up what I said - do you really need data to show that your SO is going to be hurt if she found you sleeping around with someone else or browsing porn? Or do you live under the dillusion that women are ok with that.
What if your mother was a porn star? will you be ok with that too..
I was ok with porn too till I found out some stuff about people in my family to do with sexual immorality and the pain still remains.
You can afford to preach because you probably don't have people very close to you who were involved in this kind of stuff - I am not talking about people who were watching porn, I am talking about those who were actually participating in porn. It hurt like crazy for me. You need data for that?
Re:Names have been changed, addiction is real...
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Thanks for being honest. It has been my experience as well that porn addiction is real and that it is difficult to get out off.
Unfortunately, your opinion and mine is not popular in this forum.
People would rather pretend that porn is ok - harmless.. some would even suggest that it would bring down crime against women since men will be able to feed their fantasies by looking at porn online where it is easily accessible without having to harm anyone physically.
But this is not how it works - as with everything else, once you have been exposed to porn of a certain type for long, you will want something even more hardcore.
If, for instance, you were into softcore porn, it is only a matter of time before you will try hardcore... soon you will not only want to see it online, you will also want to try this for yourself.
How do I know all this? because I have been there. I hate to admit this, but my addiction to porn has severely hurt my marriage and my interaction with members of the opposite sex. I have seen this happening with few of my friends as well.
I am no prude and I speak from experience. I hope someone will listen. PORN IS NOT OK. IT IS EVIL AND WILL COMPLETELY CONTROL YOUR LIFE IF YOU INDULGE IN IT LONG ENOUGH. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM IT.
Re:Does anybody buy this Bullshit?
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Totally agree with your point of view.
A lot of this talk about porn being good for the industry is just a lot of hot air. People like to pretend as if porn is nice and beneficial - and so we come up with some stupid lines about how porn has helped this and that industry..
Anyone who is honest about it knows that this prevalence of porn cannot be good.
How many of these so-called porn liberals will be fine with their wives and kids taking it all off for the common good on TV / web? Honestly?!
Porn is demeaning to a lot of people and many who indulge in it do not really realize what it is doing to their loved ones.
Another question - would it be completely and totally ok with you if you found out one day that your mom was a porn star? would you be completely unfazed by that finding? what about your wife? your daughter? I think all of us know the answer to this question - but we like our porn so we pretend as if it is fine.. We are ok with porn as long as it is someone else's wife, someone else's mother.. someone else's daughter..
Am sorry about this long rant - but I am tired of the patronizing tone of some of the folks who post in this forum and the insinuation being made that those opposed to porn are small-minded fanatics.
Slashdot Mirror
Please check out http://www.webwareforpython.org/ - it is another framework which I haved used and it is quite good.
Turbogears is similar in many ways to Webware, but there is a bit more setup involved. Atleast I had some trouble with that but this may not be the experience of others.
Between RoR and django - I prefer django because it can generate the database directly from the Model source code unlike in the case of RoR where it is a bit more involved. Django also generates (optionally) a good administration area which is quite usable even on a production environment; this is also lacking in RoR.
In the end, I prefer Webware over the rest because it gives me a whole lot more flexibility than either RoR or Django (I haven't used Turbogears a lot, so I can't comment much on that). Webware is closest to the J2EE style of functioning but yet stays clear of J2EE's idiosyncrasies. Also, there are more web hosts supporting python than Ruby and that kinda rules out RoR for most of the work I do.
Yes, I agree with you. If as much of the code is partitioned away from the HTML, it will be much simpler to test. However, some of the UI logic will be difficult to test none-the-less.
I too am a believer in writing as many unit test cases as possible, but sometimes that is not really possible - as you have mentioned, database handling is one place where it gets difficult; and anything to do with generation of UI; for instance generating a gantt graph based on values in the database.
But yes, I do agree with you; a lot can be tested using unit test cases.
How do you catch UI errors such as errors in the validation code in web pages using unit tests? Unit tests are useful when you have discrete blocks / units of code which can be tested without user intervention - such as business logic code etc, but it is not very useful for testing code such as UI handling code.
I completely agree with your assessment of the situation in India. I have also graduated from India and yes, engineering graduates from India have very few 'real' skills or knowledge and for the most part only have theoretical knowledge obtained from the prescribed engineering texts.
The Indian education system - including the engineer training system, does not stress applied knowledge and very few engineering graduates really know how to work with tools, draw up designs, develop and fabricate components etc. This situation can be mitigated by tying in funding to research conducted by professors. But I don't see this happening very soon, even in the IITs.
I think this is a problem with ALL frameworks which try and do a lot of automatic code generation - if you want any modifications done, it becomes really difficult. All high-level frameworks are written optimized for a certain type of solution and if what you are trying to do does not fit into that style perfectly, you are going to have some real problems. This is true for RoR, Django, Turbogears, and most software.
This is one of the reasons J2EE still exists - individual components of it do a lot, but you will need to spend the time to put all of those together and make them work together. But J2EE has a few design faults and looks like it was designed by a committee more concerned about "Descriptive" programming than about getting software developed. This makes J2EE a pain-in-the-ass to work with.
A simplified version of J2EE - with a minimal number of crappy XML descriptor files will be a good base framework.
A fairly good framework which I use is Webware for python - it does not generate a lot of code and stuff, but it provides the essential mechanisms which you can use for getting the work done. It will take longer to code in than RoR but it is far more flexible and is kinda similar to J2EE but without the crap. http://www.webwareforpython.org/.
The only problem with using Python, Ruby etc is that as they are not strongly typed, you will not find out some problems at compile time and these problems will only show up at runtime, unlike in Java.
If two species A and B are significantly different (by significant I mean - A seems to have had feathers while B has a fully developed wing complete with feathers), it is natural to ask about an intermediate AB species which must have had atleast a partially developed wing. Now if AB species is found, but the wing is about a foot long and is very under developed while species B has fully developed 6 foot wings, then one must ask the question if there was an intermediate species between AB and B.
Also, the question that needs to be asked is whether there is sufficient proof to rule out the fact that these species could have co-existed (which basically means that one didn't evolve from the other). Consider two animals - the garden lizard with no limbs and the snake. Is it natural to guess that the snake is the ancestor of the lizard. What about the possibility that both could be compatriots (as they are now)?
About your question regarding the railways - India has, I think, the second largest railway network in the world. This is good, ofcourse, but rails cannot completely obviate the need for roads.
Actually there are a lot of roads in India - good, bad and ugly. But there aren't enough big highways. Most cities in India are connected by 2 or 4 lane highways. What this new project (called the Golden Quadrilateral project) does is create highways which are wider and meant for much higher speeds connecting the big cities. Many of the new highways coming up are 6 lanes.
Just so you know - India has also been developing its railways; especially sub-urban and urban railways. For instance, Delhi has one of the newest/most advanced tube railway systems now. Calcutta has already had such a system for many years now. Other cities are following suit - Chennai is now considering such a tube railway system as well. Chennai already has on-ground and overhead (skytrain) urban train systems, so this new tube railway being considered will be in addition to the existing systems. These projects are primarily being developed to deal with the problem of congestion in the big Indian cities.
Seems to me that Videolan (by École Centrale Paris) could get hit by this since it circumvents the region coding on DVDs. Better get that source downloaded now!
It would be a shame if VLC goes. It is an excellent product.
No, I have travelled a lot - have encountered this only in the US. As people have noted, it does exist in Canada as well.
The $100 laptop was conceived based on the following assumptions.
1) Enough information can save this world and cure all ills
2) Information is not available in the third-world
3) The poor can tap into this information easily as long as they have a computer and a net connection.
I question the validity of these assumptions.
I think every age has its "High Priests". During the dark ages, it was the priests from the many religions on the world who were the high priests. They held sway and had complete control over the people and influenced their every decision and way of life. They were above question and everything they said was accepted as the Truth. The priests said that everything in the world could be cured if the people adopt the 'right' religion, and use the 'right' holy oils. It didn't matter that you were dying of smallpox, but if you said the right chants and use the right oil, you will be 'saved'.
Now we live in the Information Age - now the high priests are the scientists and the evangelists are the telecommunication companies, IT companies and the IT professionals. Now the latest 'cure' being preached is Information. You can't have enough Information - all Information is good and Information is going to change this world and cure all its problems, the poor are going to be liberated, the sick are going to be healed, the lame will walk, the blind will see, and mankind is going to freed from all bondages. We need to spread the Information across the world as fast as we can - and wirelessly to reach even remote areas. Then we must have people who can access this information - as cheaply as possible, since we want ALL to benefit from having this Information; so like the Gideon's Bible, we have the $100 laptop.
But the truth is information of all kinds and types is already available in most of the 3rd World. People are using cellphones; magazines are available; second-hand / cheap books are easily available for next to nothing; Internet Cafes are all over the place and one can browse for an hour for something like 15 cents, and cheap second hand computers many of which will be more capable and cheaper than this $100 laptop are available. But the people are continuing to be poor, and in some cases, they are actually getting poorer.
I live and work in the 3rd world and it has been my experience that the 3rd world remains that way because those in power benefit from keeping it that way - cheap domestic and industrial labour is available only if the poor are around. Most of the poor ALREADY know that bad water causes disease, they ALREADY know that they shouldn't be living over a sewer, but what options are open to them?
The poor already know that they must get to the doctor and get that infected open wound / tuberculosis / tumour treated before it gets worse and needs amputation / major surgery / expensive treatment; but if they go to the doctor, they will lose that day's wage and they will also have to pay the doctor, so they will wait it out to see if the wound will heal by itself.
So it appears that it is not information which can liberate people - systems must change to allow these people to get out of the grinding poverty and most importantly there must be political will to affect this change.
Do you really think that the 3rd world is some sort of a black hole where information has somehow stopped flowing because cheap computers are not available? and do you really think that it is the lack of information that is keeping these parts from improving?
I live in a 3rd world country and I can tell you this - there is enough information floating around this place - internet cafe's which offer 1 hour of internet usage at something like 20 cents / hour or even less. There are also a lot of second-hand book stores which sell books for very very little (a dollar or less fetch you one or two good science books). Many of these books are foriegn publications which has passed through the hands of many, many people before it was finally dumped somewhere. There are also stalls which buy old paper, books etc which are then sent to recycling plants etc. You can pick up magazines here for 10 cents of less. So it seems to me that it is not the lack of information which is causing the poor to stay that way.
In my experience, one of the greatest barriers to progress in these places is the mindset of those in power - who will do nothing to help the very poor, because if the poor get any wealthier, the rich won't have cheap domestic / industrial labour. The poor are easier to exploit in other ways as well. This is not going to change with a $100 laptop. $100 is, by the way, more than what many of the poor will get as salary in a month. Heck, if you had $100 to spend on a computer in these parts, they will classify you with the middle-class!
Don't speak too soon. I live in a part of the world where to get even moderately palatable water we have to dig borewells which go 150 ft or more in depth.
When it gets this bad, you don't want any new high rises in your neighbourhood because in a single high rise there could be 50+ families sucking the little water that is remaining at such speeds that entire neighbourhoods go dry. The situation is so bad in some parts around here that there is ABSOLUTELY NO water even at depths of 300 ft or more.
When it gets this bad, you also don't want your rich neighbours to suck out all the water leaving the rest of the community completely dry.
There are people rich enough in these parts to have swimming pools even as people on the same street have to lug water from miles away.
Please don't live in this utopia where economic pressures somehow lead to a just and fair sharing of natural resources. It has never happenned and it may never will.
We have legislation now which prevents to a small extent the complete wastage of water. But the situation may deteriorate to the point where the state may have to ration out the water for each family. Sometimes desperate measures are needed to prevent total collapse of the system - sometimes the state just has to step in to ensure that all citizens have enough; socialism is not all bad sometimes.
It seems to me that it is dependability which really differentiates those who excel and those who don't. I mean, people who have average intelligence but are very dependable and who works well with teams, seem to get much further than those with very high raw intelligence but are either anti-social, or plain unreliable.
By dependable, I mean - keeps his word, is honest, does not shirk, is conscentious, consistently delivers the same good results, knows to keep his mouth shut, delivers under pressure, does not overcommit, tends not to exaggerate.
Add good abilities to work in teams, now they are unstoppable.
I don't know what the optimal timespan is. Who knows? and also, do all humans have the optimal timespan? I have met older people in their 70s, 80s and later who have the intelligence, the risk taking capabilities and the energy exceeding those much younger than them.
It seems like the current lifespan we have is good enough and is perhaps optimal, but again, I really don't know.
To concur with you - yes, the death of the old, and the associated loss of memories / information / knowledge / methods is one of the primary movers of social evolution.
If old ideas and ways of life prolong, it will actually cause the society to stagnate. The same can be applied to an individual's memory - the mind filters out stale data by forgetting them, it also forgets stale methods of functioning, adapts to new ways etc.
Human lifespan is long enough for the old to teach the young IMPORTANT skills which they themselves have learnt from generations that went before them, but short enough for the young to take control and learn new things on their own. If the lifespan of man is significantly increased, it may actually cause deterioration in the overall health of the society.
Is Evolution a flawed theory? if it is, there is nothing wrong in pointing that out. Ofcourse that could mean some students would look at evolution rather more critically than they might otherwise.. or perhaps even look at other "explanations", but I don't see how that can be harmful.
In all this debate about ID vs Evolution, I think the assumption is being made that evolution is flawless - and I don't think that is true.The whole thought process behind a USD 100 laptop is misplaced. The assumption is that this is going to somehow allow disadvantaged kids to take advantage of the benefits of information technology is flawed from my experience with working with the poor.
The oft-quoted problems all all real. I quote them below:
1. Lack of a place to store these laptops / computers safely. USD 100 is a lot of money where I come from.
2. Lack of good quality electricity
3. Where electricity is available, it is expensive. (In most cases it is stolen so perhaps this does not count but this is nonetheless a precarious existence for the user)
4. Most documentation is available only in English or European languages and this is a real problem.
I have been trying to teach kids from the slums to take over small jobs on the computer such as simple php scripting etc. I provide the computers, the safe place, the electricity etc, but I have run up against a big wall which is basically lack of documentation which they can understand. Ofcourse, I could sit and translate some of the PHP stuff, but soon the kids want me to translate something on mysql, something in javascript, in HTML, on Linux etc.. the list is endless. The kids become completely dependent on me and they learn from me and are unable to fully benefit from the vast information store that is the Internet.
What will be more helpful than spending all this money on a USD 100 laptop would be to setup small netcafes across the developing world where the poor can come and register to become members. The registration could be given for a small amount each year (free registrations will never be valued).
Registered users will be allowed to work so many hours each day/week on the computers.
The netcafe should have staff who will be able to train the users in the usage of computers, who provide cheap computer books (translated into the local language) for purchase or lease.
In some parts of the developing world, the kids should also be taught English (especially in India since very little computer documentation is available in all Indian languages).
All this will IMHO be more useful than an inexpensive laptop.
I am a Christian, does that make me "anti-scientist"?
I don't think so. Do I believe all of evolutions claims? No. Do I take everything written in the Bible literally? No.
Your assertion that a belief in God can be equated to lack of intelligence is bogus to say the least - is Larry Wall an idiot? was Isacc Newton?
The whole assumption that cats do not disembowel is not entirely founded in fact. Larger cats such as the tiger do disembowel their prey on occassion.
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If you read Jim Corbett's account of tiger attacks in India during the early 1900's, there are references to how some people came to hospitals after surviving a tiger attack holding the stomach shut with their hands to prevent their intestines from spilling over onto the floor.
On a side note - it amazes me how some people walked > 10 miles after sustaining such injuries.
A link to some information on Jim Corbett and his work in India:
http://www.nwf.org/productions/indiatiger/corbett
DirectX. Yes, it has problems rendering at very high precision required for engineering applications, however for gaming, there is nothing like it - on any platform. The combination of excellent graphics, excellent hardware support, excellent sound support - definitely the best game development libraries available.
Linux has SDL - but it came after DirectX and is nowhere near as good. OpenGL is good too, but the audio support is not stellar to say the least. Also, OpenGL is targetted at engineering apps and is not as good for games.
Just so you know - my mom is not a porn star. I was asking a hypothetical question; I didn't mention who in my family was living an immoral life, you came to the conclusion that it was my mom based on a question I asked rhetorically.
And also - I think you need to get your head out of your ass.
I have been reading up a lot on paleontology myself and I find some of the inferences made based on scanty physical evidence to be very far fetched.
The fact that people wanting to deviate from the norm is, in your argument, one of the negative affects of pornography is a clear indicator that despite your disclaimer, you are a prude. If the worst consequence of pornography you can come up with is that people will want to engage in varied sex acts, I don't think you should expect to be taken too seriously.
And where exactly did you see that in my comment? Why don't you read my comment once more before shooting off your mouth.
I do, however, find it quite alarming that the religious right have discovered a more insidious way to be taken seriously by the mainstream, by masquerading their morality as science. Show me the data or fuck off. Anecdotes don't mean shit.
And morals are wrong? So you are ok with not having morals when it comes to relationships, but what if it came to someone stealing from you? Will you be ok with that?
If you think having morals is being old-fashioned and right-wing, please don't. I am not a religious right by a long shot. It is just that I recognize the hurt that can be caused when morals are overlooked.
As to your other grouse about not having data to back up what I said - do you really need data to show that your SO is going to be hurt if she found you sleeping around with someone else or browsing porn? Or do you live under the dillusion that women are ok with that.
What if your mother was a porn star? will you be ok with that too..
I was ok with porn too till I found out some stuff about people in my family to do with sexual immorality and the pain still remains.
You can afford to preach because you probably don't have people very close to you who were involved in this kind of stuff - I am not talking about people who were watching porn, I am talking about those who were actually participating in porn. It hurt like crazy for me. You need data for that?
Thanks for being honest. It has been my experience as well that porn addiction is real and that it is difficult to get out off.
Unfortunately, your opinion and mine is not popular in this forum.
People would rather pretend that porn is ok - harmless.. some would even suggest that it would bring down crime against women since men will be able to feed their fantasies by looking at porn online where it is easily accessible without having to harm anyone physically.
But this is not how it works - as with everything else, once you have been exposed to porn of a certain type for long, you will want something even more hardcore.
If, for instance, you were into softcore porn, it is only a matter of time before you will try hardcore... soon you will not only want to see it online, you will also want to try this for yourself.
How do I know all this? because I have been there. I hate to admit this, but my addiction to porn has severely hurt my marriage and my interaction with members of the opposite sex. I have seen this happening with few of my friends as well.
I am no prude and I speak from experience. I hope someone will listen. PORN IS NOT OK. IT IS EVIL AND WILL COMPLETELY CONTROL YOUR LIFE IF YOU INDULGE IN IT LONG ENOUGH. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM IT.
Totally agree with your point of view.
A lot of this talk about porn being good for the industry is just a lot of hot air. People like to pretend as if porn is nice and beneficial - and so we come up with some stupid lines about how porn has helped this and that industry..
Anyone who is honest about it knows that this prevalence of porn cannot be good.
How many of these so-called porn liberals will be fine with their wives and kids taking it all off for the common good on TV / web? Honestly?!
Porn is demeaning to a lot of people and many who indulge in it do not really realize what it is doing to their loved ones.
Another question - would it be completely and totally ok with you if you found out one day that your mom was a porn star? would you be completely unfazed by that finding? what about your wife? your daughter? I think all of us know the answer to this question - but we like our porn so we pretend as if it is fine.. We are ok with porn as long as it is someone else's wife, someone else's mother.. someone else's daughter..
Am sorry about this long rant - but I am tired of the patronizing tone of some of the folks who post in this forum and the insinuation being made that those opposed to porn are small-minded fanatics.