You, Sir, are certainly a fountain of knowledge, being a Master of the English language, Mathematics and Social Science combined. Please share your knowledge with other poor people like me, for example those from Merriam-Webster, that a company is not a mere "an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise", or those from Cambridge University Press, who actually think that a company is an "an organization which sells goods or services in order to make money" whereas an organisation "a group of people who work together in a structured way for a shared purpose" is.
This profound knowledge of the English language baring no comparison and your fine essay, rebuting my argumentation point by point, makes me think I should maybe refrain using your language and only write in my native tongue.
Your adeptness of logic and deduction, which must have lead to your conclusion about my profession, are tremendous and suggests that you are quite competent at mathematics, too. This surely includes the knowledge of statistics.
I have to admit, I feel a bit flattered, that you you have chosen my post to start shareing your wisdom with us and that you even did so much research on my posts to come to your conclusion on my profession.
I can only hope, that my estimates are only half as qualified as your conclusions and will strive to be a role model for etiquette and impartiality like you.
> collective shareholders. And those shareholders aren't people? They don't share a collective goal?
> The thing is the companies goal is to maximize revenue, all other goals are second class goals.
Commonly, this may be true. But this is not a necessity. The goal of a company is determined by its owners. This is usually the maximisation of profit (since this is the way they became owners, and assures that they'll remain owners). But they may pursue other goals, too.
What are companies? Do companies share the same rights as citizens? Aren't companies solely a bunch of people combined by a collective goal?
In a democracy, the goverment is not a company which has to serve it's clients. It is a representation of the people. Such a goverment has no obligation to companies, only to the majority of the people. This is often a common goal, but not necessarily one.
Where does the money come from anyway? Would it be wrong, to say it comes from the people?
> Most companies can't use GPL'd code in their products.
This may be true. But most companies still can use GPLed code for their products. Most companies don't earn money by writing code, they earn it by using code.
Now, considering that it is about contract work, it begs the question, isn't that relatively specialised software anyway?
Actually, it's the only practical way to create a fairly sophisticated computation unit.
The problem is, to have a synchronous chip, there has to be synchronicity.
Problem: The more transistors a chip has, the smaller the production process has to be to keep the production profitable. The smaller the process the slower the signal travels.
So, you'll get a system, where the clocks signal can't be synchronous (or it'll be terrible complicated to distribute the signal). Hence, it'll have to be asynchronous.
Not necessarily a completion-based asynchronous logic, maybe a multi-core like the current IBM PowerPCs. But async-logic actually seems to be the easier way as SMP doesn't scale perfectly.
Furthermore, the smaller the structures and the higher the clock, the larger the clock driver has to be.
IRC, 1/3 of the current chips is used to drive the clock alone. But don't cite me on that.
I've to admit that mentioning the G7 as an abritrary group of wealthy nations does make me sound like some conspiracy theory freak.
It's not like their conspiring. It's in the news. The EU and the US (and other wealthy nations) are employing high-tech to close their borders. Not to "keep the poor nations under their boot", but to prevent the increasing uncontrolled imigration of poor people. I never mention poor nations, only poor people.
> animals models is extremely valuable.
Now your touching a different area as they will have no effect on a global scale and is merely a ethical problem. We don't have the reproduce the pros and cons on that matter. Just a sidenote: I consider the value for a new hair shampoo or a new cosmetica somehow limited. It's not like the majority of animal experiments are used to cure HIV.
> [...] human systems [...] have the potential to act intelligently
Well, in my opinion, this is actually the current situation. Do we act intelligently and work against the current development. Even ignoring the discussion whether it is human induced or not.
Not to mention that we're waging wars even they aren't about such elementary things like water and food.
In theory, we all could live together in peace and harmony. And as kitschy as it sounds, as inprobable it is.
Sorry, mixed them up. I've only the weak excuse, that Kitano works for Sony.
Kitano Lab's Pino is still more impressive, but costs about $30k (as sold by ZMP Corp. for research purposes). This is a little bit more than the 6k, I've to admit.
For the price of Sony SDR-4X. We are back to guessing. $30k-$40k is one guess. But the statement of Toshitada Doi (Executive VP), that the robot costs "as much as a car, a luxury car", makes me think, it will even cost a little bit more.
Now it's getting a bit to much into literature, which is not one of my strong points. (To formulate it positively)
Well, I think most quotes are appropriate for only a certain situation.
I think the above quote should one remember to be humble, but considering a certain task at hand, I like the chinese proverb: The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
My fault.... here a (hopefully) more reliable source. The Press Release from Sony.
But I've to admit that the availability is a bit lacking. In other words, nearly no one gets his hands on this.
Never seen it in action with my own eyes. At a robotic symposium in Fukuoka, a demonstration was planned, but to my regret it was canceled. I've only seen a presentation by Masahiro Fujita, a senior manager for this project from Sony and a still standing model.
Googleing for the type "SDR-4X" seems to be more productive.
>> Just be aware of it and use your common sense. > I have my doubts about common sense.
>> And often, economics and ecology work just fine together. >Huh? I'm not aware of any examples. [...] some companies [...]
Well, it was primarily targeted for home use, as you may see from my suggestions.
Then, please let me reformulate these sentences. And make let me put it more directly.
Just be aware and use your head for thinking. Doing something for the enviroment may even save you some bucks.
For example, buy yourself a cheep, small car. Forget your ego and comfort.
But somehow, this formulation seemed a bit unelegant to me, almost offensive. First sentence implies, that the reader may be mentally handycapped, the second that he is avaricious. The last part may implicate that the he is compensating for something
>Let's try for wiser
According to my limited knowledge of the english language "wiser" primarily reflects the internal state of person and to a lesser extend ones deeds. But since I'm not a native speaker, I'm no authority on this matter. I've to admit "better" is a bit vague.
P.S.: Dear Reader, please don't feel offended, when some parts actually apply to you. Take it with a grain of salt. P.P.S: That doesn't mean that said parts actually have to apply to the Dear Reader, when he feels offended. P.P.P.S: goto P.S.
>We as humans give ourselves far too much credit for how much damage we think we can do.
Oh... that is why we are doing so much to avoid doing such damage.
> Did you ever see a giant clam show remorse over eating too much plankton? Right....
Remorse requires ethics. The giant clam lacks the prerequisite not beeing sentient.
Not to mention that the giant clam doesn't eat too much plankton. (A single one may do so, but not the whole species). That is evolution at work. Every species, which did not achieved an equlibrium with its surrounding ecosystem became distinct.
> We're far from being a major force in the Universe. We're too new....
How does this correlate? Why does one need to be a major force in the universe to affect the earth? Do we need to be old to be a major force?
We may be dwarved by other scales, but for those scales that we do care about, we have quite an impact.
> If the answer is "not really", don't worry: you have lots of company.
And half of the population is dumber that the rest:) Ignorance is the privilege of the unkowing ones. Sorrow's the burden of the intelligent people.
> So, the question isn't "what should I do?"
It is. But is the answer "I should go seek cover in cave"? Most certainly not. But neither should it be "I can't do anything about it anyway." or "What I do doesn't matter anyway".
One isn't required to change ones whole lifestyle (well, actually it is, but one can't expect it) It's the little things that count.
Don't drive with your car to get somewhere just around the corner. It's better for your health anyway (Unless you're in Alaska in winter, that is)
In winter it's cold, and summer hot. Try to adapt yourself, not your surroundings. (That means, you don't have to be able to run around in shorts in winter, not that you've to sit freezing under 6 blankets)
Isolate your house. When the snow on your roof is melting and it is not spring something went wrong.
Turn of the electronics, you don't use. That includes light. (Is there a light, when no one sees it?)
Just be aware of it and use your common sense. And often, economics and ecology work just fine together.
My philosophy: Try at least to be a little bit better than the people around you.
Oh, the earth will most certainly survive. At least some cockroaches, for sure. But certainly a lot more.
>Having studied the bio sciences...
Then you most certainly came across differential equations? (Hunter/Gatherer comes to mind)
> (which the ocean should buffer quite nicely, considering it covers 75% of the earth's surface)
The problem is, that blue algea and corals are highly suspectible to changes in temperature. (Hint: they don't thrive on rising temperature)
> I'm not certain global warming has been proven to the bulk of the scientific community's satisfaction.
The majority of climatologists consider human induced global warming a fact (that's a Saddam Hussein election-like majority, not a more than 50% majority) The amount of increase and influence is debated about.
>[...] you cannot extrapolate from a single mountain [...] though I'm sure global warming proponents will try.
Every time, I've heard a climatologist speaking about such a phenomenom (polar glaciers, Alpen glaciers, El Niño, large storms, floodings and droughts) , he says almost the same, something along the line: "It's a single incident, and, standing alone, it proves nothing. And saying, this is a prove for global warming is nonesense. But as a part of a larger statistic, it leads us to the consequence, that there is a global warming.
> [...] !EARTHFIRST!" communique about the plant's imminent demise... feh. Earth is tougher than we are [...]
Those people aren't as altruistic as you may think. They are fearing the planet's demise, but it's a demise from our perspective.
How will the planet react towards a sudden climatic change? Well, like it ever reacted, a "reboot". Will this make life extinct, most certainly not. But what about us humans?
The more complicated a system, the more likey it will fail. And human society is fairly complicated. How many people you know are actually working for the survival of the human-kind? Not directly or indirectly for an advancement of society, but only for actual survival? Certainly, fairly few. We've achieved and rely on a highly efficient system, which provides us with all the neccessities for survival and allows us to maintain us a lot of "unnecessary" things, in other words a culture.
We cannot maintain such efficiency under a fast changing climate. (The marches of Sibiria won't become fertile, just because it becomes warmer. Still the deserts become larger)
Even in the current situation the global society isn't as stable as one liked it to be. The G7 are building walls to protect their wealth from the poorer nations. In case of the US, you can even take it literally (Mexican border).
Will those walls previal in case of an even increased discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor?
> You can't definitely say ahead of time that smoking will have a bad effect on *this* person
The poisonous effects of various substances in tobacco have been reproduced in laboratory experiments. So you can say what effect smoking will have on a certain person. The maximum life-span of the very same person is shortened by smokeing. That the this person can die earlier for a different reason is another thing.
> To take an extreme example [...]
In what ways would the life be prolonged in contrast to, let's say, eating the final meal?
Furthermore, his life-time was not extended by smoking, but it was threatened to be shortened even further by the firing squad.
> If you don't like this, go find another insurance company.
Such a insurance company would cost much more and would make it inhibitable for lesser fortunate people to afford such luxury.
In a purely capitalistic society this would seem approriate. But, at least to me, it seems unethical. Why is it unethical to discriminate on basis of genetics?
To a similar reason, why it is unethical to discriminate on the basis on race, place of birth, zodiac sign.
First, the mantra "correlation is not cause" applies here to some extend, too. "You are black, so you will live shorter." is an example. In contrast, smokeing is unhealthy. That is a proven fact and not just a statistical correlation, like the decrease of the population of storks and a correlating decrease of the birthrate. Similar is currently true for genetic screenin. As explained in the article, you may well have a predisposition in one gene for a certain malice, but it is far from known, how this may affect your life, as the same person may have some unknown genes, which compensate the predisposition.
Second, and more importantly: You can't choose your genetic make-up, where you're born and when. Willingly punishing someone for such things is unethical. At least according to my moral codex, which is the result of my upbringing. Maybe yours differ, but I thought the civilised world agreed upon this.
> The only solution is to make it a law that every citizen MUST vote.
Think about it. How would that improve the situation? Dee Em See Ay? Lower Taxes!!! The difference would be that a small politically interested minority would be even smaller, and would even more dominated by the "dumb masses". Don't get me wrong I'm a democrat. I'm against any regulation which puts restrictions on who should able to vote, or how much a vote counts. In my opinion, children should be allowed to vote, too. But to choose not to vote, is in a way a vote, too. It's a statement: I do not know enough, or do not care enough to vote. (Which in my opinion is the same)
Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to vote by giving them a better political education? Or giving the votes more weight by shifting the political power more to local administrations?
BTW, I voted every election I could and consider it as one of the responsibilities of a citizen. But responsibility cannot be enforced. (Disclaimer: IANAA)
Well, as wanted to indicate "Average" is very vague. SPECInt has 14-16% conditional branches. SPECFloat has 3-12%.
>On the first run [...] 50% prediction rate
Not really. Statistical prediction and profiling can be applied. 85% of back branches are taken (loops), and 60% forward branches are taken. With predict taken you get roughly a miss prediciton rate (MPR) of 35%. With profiling you can get a MPR of 10%-20%.
>[...] and a good branch prediction unit can give 90% correct predictions.
Let's say an average one. (At best)
A two-level adaptive scheme (T. Yeh, Y. Patt) delivers a MPR of 3%. Hybrid Branch Predictors deliver even better results.
>We then need to add the pipeline length
The penalty is not always the whole pipepline length. For the P4 the pipeline has 28 stages. But only 19 have to be flushed (8 are needed for the trace cache).
So lets review your calculation:
>So this leads us to need a pipeline flush every 45 instructions (on average)
20% branches 10% MPR means to me 2% pipeline flushes. How do you come on every 45 instructions?
I'd say something more like this: Conditional branch instructions: 20% (your guess is as good as mine). MPR 10% = 2E-2 Pipline flush probability MPR 5% = 1E-2 MPR 3% = 6E-3
So, at least according to my estimation the P4 has actually not 18% penalty towards the PPC970 but only one of 6%.
> multi-tasking Umm, you are running with something 1GHz for something like 10ms. So you'll have 10MI. So most probably, the penalty for a cold BTB is probably neglectable. Otherwise, you're probably IO-bound anyway, and the CPU will be you're least problems.
The reason for better (or worse) performance may probably lie somewhere else. Actually, the increase of other pipeline hazards may be one of them. How long instructions take another one. (Well, for RISC processor an (non-fp) instruction takes 1 cycle, but for x86...) Not to mention caches and memory.
And actually, this is also not quite correct. In praxis, it is possible to achieve super-linear speedup, although unlikely. (N times as much memory is more the culprit than the additional processing power)
While speaking of distcc, one could also mention Group Enabled Cluster Compiler. Never used one of those, I've to admit.
Re:Why KDE is faster on Mandrake than on Gentoo
on
Gentoo Linux Reloaded
·
· Score: 2
Not really interesting, just a PR statement. No real facts, besides there are people who think that "KDE on Mandrake [is] faster than on Gentoo".
This only shows, that the speed difference is a subjective thing.
I tried Gentoo (twice), and liked the low inital dependencies and the init-scripts.
(Note, I'm a developer and a happy Mandrake User. Started using Linux with RedHat 3.0.3. I'd rather compile my own code.)
This is, of course, makes it quite enjoyable. Would it be less enjoyable with 6kB/sec?
> $0.02/kB
This on the other hand, could be quite a downside. Hmm, 5Gb with $0.02/kB = $1000. It seems you have to pay for the extra bandwith and storage.
>>So, essentially you're complaing about the HD being to large?
>That's rediculous.
It's not ridiculous. Let me deduce my statement.
>Bluetooth should be 10x faster. Then take WLAN. It is even 11 times as fast. But then you'll have to pay the price (energy consumption). You want both? Me too. Furthermore, I want a high payed job with no work (not really, just to make a point).
So, Bluetooth exists and is as fast as it is for various reasons (simplicity, costs, energy consumption).
Then there are PDAs with a storage of let's say 32Mb. It isn't unreasonable to assume that this is currently quite enough for most purposes, otherwise noone would by these things or even ones with 8Mb or less.
So, 32Mb is the total Memory a PDA. Now maybe you need more storage space, (Note the word "storage", not memory). There is a device where you can save the whole memory in roughly a minute and additionally you have a multitude of the PDA's space on it.
It may a ridiculous small disc and a ridiculous slow, but it is intended for ridiculous small devices with ridiculous processing power. Compared for the targeted enviroment, it would be more appropriate to say it is ridiculous large. But it is probably the smallest capacity one get get these days.
>I have a server in my house, and all the data is there. This is of course a solution. (Actually one I use, too. Except for accessing it via a CDMA2k mobile).
>[...]Sprint PCS Vision, faster then bluetooth BTW, [...] Is this a reproducable fact, or the numbers Sprint gave you?
> At the optimal transfer speed, you'll need three sets of batteries to read all the data off of this thing.
So, essentially you're complaing about the HD being to large?
It is certainly a money waster, that's true for every new technology out there. One could say the same for PDAs, Digital Cameras, MP3 players and the like.
>External 40 GB Hard Drive. / USB 2.0
Wohoo. Great. Now how do I connect it to my Sony DSC-FX77? Or my iPAQ 3850? Over a computer? Do they deliver it with the Harddisc?
Granted it's not a likely scenario, and that's the reason for the price-tag. Few people have a need for it, and they have to pay for the development costs.
>The concept is flawed
What point of the BT concept is flawed? The idea to keep it small and simple to make it cheep and less powerconsuming? The idea of ubiquitous and cheap network?
The baseband-specification? The pico-net concept? The small-range? The low bandwidth?
The SDP? PAN? The simple migration paths for old protocols like IrDA Obex? Serial Communictation? DUN? Basic Printing Profile? Common ISDN Access Profile (CIP)?
Maybe, you didn't notice it, but there are a lot more mobiles out there than PCs.
Slashdot Mirror
You, Sir, are certainly a fountain of knowledge, being a Master of the English language, Mathematics and Social Science combined.
Please share your knowledge with other poor people like me, for example those from Merriam-Webster, that a company is not a mere "an association of persons for carrying on a commercial or industrial enterprise", or those from Cambridge University Press, who actually think that a company is an "an organization which sells goods or services in order to make money" whereas an organisation "a group of people who work together in a structured way for a shared purpose" is.
This profound knowledge of the English language baring no comparison and your fine essay, rebuting my argumentation point by point, makes me think I should maybe refrain using your language and only write in my native tongue.
Your adeptness of logic and deduction, which must have lead to your conclusion about my profession, are tremendous and suggests that you are quite competent at mathematics, too. This surely includes the knowledge of statistics.
I have to admit, I feel a bit flattered, that you you have chosen my post to start shareing your wisdom with us and that you even did so much research on my posts to come to your conclusion on my profession.
I can only hope, that my estimates are only half as qualified as your conclusions and will strive to be a role model for etiquette and impartiality like you.
> collective shareholders.
And those shareholders aren't people?
They don't share a collective goal?
> The thing is the companies goal is to maximize revenue, all other goals are second class goals.
Commonly, this may be true. But this is not a necessity.
The goal of a company is determined by its owners.
This is usually the maximisation of profit (since this is the way they became owners, and assures that they'll remain owners). But they may pursue other goals, too.
What are companies?
Do companies share the same rights as citizens?
Aren't companies solely a bunch of people combined by a collective goal?
In a democracy, the goverment is not a company which has to serve it's clients. It is a representation of the people. Such a goverment has no obligation to companies, only to the majority of the people.
This is often a common goal, but not necessarily one.
Where does the money come from anyway?
Would it be wrong, to say it comes from the people?
> Most companies can't use GPL'd code in their products.
This may be true. But most companies still can use GPLed code for their products.
Most companies don't earn money by writing code, they earn it by using code.
Now, considering that it is about contract work, it begs the question, isn't that relatively specialised software anyway?
> Ok I'm not going to use any words that even resemble beowulf or cluster in this post anywhere!
Somehow, I doubt this.
Actually, it's the only practical way to create a fairly sophisticated computation unit.
The problem is, to have a synchronous chip, there has to be synchronicity.
Problem: The more transistors a chip has, the smaller the production process has to be to keep the production profitable.
The smaller the process the slower the signal travels.
So, you'll get a system, where the clocks signal can't be synchronous (or it'll be terrible complicated to distribute the signal). Hence, it'll have to be asynchronous.
Not necessarily a completion-based asynchronous logic, maybe a multi-core like the current IBM PowerPCs.
But async-logic actually seems to be the easier way as SMP doesn't scale perfectly.
Furthermore, the smaller the structures and the higher the clock, the larger the clock driver has to be.
IRC, 1/3 of the current chips is used to drive the clock alone. But don't cite me on that.
> G7-conspiring-to-keep-the-poor-nations-under-their -boot
I've to admit that mentioning the G7 as an abritrary group of wealthy nations does make me sound like some conspiracy theory freak.
It's not like their conspiring. It's in the news.
The EU and the US (and other wealthy nations) are employing high-tech to close their borders. Not to "keep the poor nations under their boot", but to prevent the increasing uncontrolled imigration of poor people.
I never mention poor nations, only poor people.
> animals models is extremely valuable.
Now your touching a different area as they will have no effect on a global scale and is merely a ethical problem.
We don't have the reproduce the pros and cons on that matter.
Just a sidenote: I consider the value for a new hair shampoo or a new cosmetica somehow limited.
It's not like the majority of animal experiments are used to cure HIV.
> [...] human systems [...] have the potential to act intelligently
Well, in my opinion, this is actually the current situation. Do we act intelligently and work against the current development. Even ignoring the discussion whether it is human induced or not.
Not to mention that we're waging wars even they aren't about such elementary things like water and food.
In theory, we all could live together in peace and harmony. And as kitschy as it sounds, as inprobable it is.
Sorry, mixed them up. I've only the weak excuse, that Kitano works for Sony.
Kitano Lab's Pino is still more impressive, but costs about $30k (as sold by ZMP Corp. for research purposes).
This is a little bit more than the 6k, I've to admit.
For the price of Sony SDR-4X. We are back to guessing.
$30k-$40k is one guess. But the statement of Toshitada Doi (Executive VP), that the robot costs "as much as a car, a luxury car", makes me think, it will even cost a little bit more.
Now it's getting a bit to much into literature, which is not one of my strong points. (To formulate it positively)
Well, I think most quotes are appropriate for only a certain situation.
I think the above quote should one remember to be humble, but considering a certain task at hand, I like the chinese proverb:
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
My fault.... here a (hopefully) more reliable source. The Press Release from Sony.
But I've to admit that the availability is a bit lacking. In other words, nearly no one gets his hands on this.
Never seen it in action with my own eyes.
At a robotic symposium in Fukuoka, a demonstration was planned, but to my regret it was canceled.
I've only seen a presentation by Masahiro Fujita, a senior manager for this project from Sony and a still standing model.
Googleing for the type "SDR-4X" seems to be more productive.
I'd rather go for the Pino and the GPLd Open Pino Platform Pino
The platform is far more impressive.
>> Just be aware of it and use your common sense.
> I have my doubts about common sense.
>> And often, economics and ecology work just fine together.
>Huh? I'm not aware of any examples. [...] some companies [...]
Well, it was primarily targeted for home use, as you may see from my suggestions.
Then, please let me reformulate these sentences. And make let me put it more directly.
Just be aware and use your head for thinking.
Doing something for the enviroment may even save you some bucks.
For example, buy yourself a cheep, small car.
Forget your ego and comfort.
But somehow, this formulation seemed a bit unelegant to me, almost offensive.
First sentence implies, that the reader may be mentally handycapped, the second that he is avaricious. The last part may implicate that the he is compensating for something
>Let's try for wiser
According to my limited knowledge of the english language "wiser" primarily reflects the internal state of person and to a lesser extend ones deeds.
But since I'm not a native speaker, I'm no authority on this matter.
I've to admit "better" is a bit vague.
P.S.: Dear Reader, please don't feel offended, when some parts actually apply to you. Take it with a grain of salt.
P.P.S: That doesn't mean that said parts actually have to apply to the Dear Reader, when he feels offended.
P.P.P.S: goto P.S.
>We as humans give ourselves far too much credit for how much damage we think we can do.
Oh... that is why we are doing so much to avoid doing such damage.
> Did you ever see a giant clam show remorse over eating too much plankton? Right....
Remorse requires ethics.
The giant clam lacks the prerequisite not beeing sentient.
Not to mention that the giant clam doesn't eat too much plankton. (A single one may do so, but not the whole species). That is evolution at work.
Every species, which did not achieved an equlibrium with its surrounding ecosystem became distinct.
> We're far from being a major force in the Universe. We're too new....
How does this correlate? Why does one need to be a major force in the universe to affect the earth?
Do we need to be old to be a major force?
We may be dwarved by other scales, but for those scales that we do care about, we have quite an impact.
And half of the population is dumber that the rest
Ignorance is the privilege of the unkowing ones. Sorrow's the burden of the intelligent people.
> So, the question isn't "what should I do?"
It is. But is the answer "I should go seek cover in cave"?
Most certainly not. But neither should it be "I can't do anything about it anyway." or "What I do doesn't matter anyway".
One isn't required to change ones whole lifestyle (well, actually it is, but one can't expect it)
It's the little things that count.
Don't drive with your car to get somewhere just around the corner. It's better for your health anyway (Unless you're in Alaska in winter, that is)
In winter it's cold, and summer hot. Try to adapt yourself, not your surroundings. (That means, you don't have to be able to run around in shorts in winter, not that you've to sit freezing under 6 blankets)
Isolate your house. When the snow on your roof is melting and it is not spring something went wrong.
Turn of the electronics, you don't use. That includes light. (Is there a light, when no one sees it?)
Just be aware of it and use your common sense.
And often, economics and ecology work just fine together.
My philosophy: Try at least to be a little bit better than the people around you.
Oh, the earth will most certainly survive. At least some cockroaches, for sure. But certainly a lot more.
>Having studied the bio sciences...
Then you most certainly came across differential equations? (Hunter/Gatherer comes to mind)
> (which the ocean should buffer quite nicely, considering it covers 75% of the earth's surface)
The problem is, that blue algea and corals are highly suspectible to changes in temperature.
(Hint: they don't thrive on rising temperature)
> I'm not certain global warming has been proven to the bulk of the scientific community's satisfaction.
The majority of climatologists consider human induced global warming a fact (that's a Saddam Hussein election-like majority, not a more than 50% majority)
The amount of increase and influence is debated about.
>[...] you cannot extrapolate from a single mountain [...] though I'm sure global warming proponents will try.
Every time, I've heard a climatologist speaking about such a phenomenom (polar glaciers, Alpen glaciers, El Niño, large storms, floodings and droughts) , he says almost the same, something along the line: "It's a single incident, and, standing alone, it proves nothing. And saying, this is a prove for global warming is nonesense. But as a part of a larger statistic, it leads us to the consequence, that there is a global warming.
> [...] !EARTHFIRST!" communique about the plant's imminent demise... feh. Earth is tougher than we are [...]
Those people aren't as altruistic as you may think. They are fearing the planet's demise, but it's a demise from our perspective.
How will the planet react towards a sudden climatic change? Well, like it ever reacted, a "reboot". Will this make life extinct, most certainly not. But what about us humans?
The more complicated a system, the more likey it will fail. And human society is fairly complicated.
How many people you know are actually working for the survival of the human-kind? Not directly or indirectly for an advancement of society, but only for actual survival?
Certainly, fairly few.
We've achieved and rely on a highly efficient system, which provides us with all the neccessities for survival and allows us to maintain us a lot of "unnecessary" things, in other words a culture.
We cannot maintain such efficiency under a fast changing climate. (The marches of Sibiria won't become fertile, just because it becomes warmer. Still the deserts become larger)
Even in the current situation the global society isn't as stable as one liked it to be.
The G7 are building walls to protect their wealth from the poorer nations. In case of the US, you can even take it literally (Mexican border).
Will those walls previal in case of an even increased discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor?
> You can't definitely say ahead of time that smoking will have a bad effect on *this* person
The poisonous effects of various substances in tobacco have been reproduced in laboratory experiments.
So you can say what effect smoking will have on a certain person. The maximum life-span of the very same person is shortened by smokeing. That the this person can die earlier for a different reason is another thing.
> To take an extreme example [...]
In what ways would the life be prolonged in contrast to, let's say, eating the final meal?
Furthermore, his life-time was not extended by smoking, but it was threatened to be shortened even further by the firing squad.
> If you don't like this, go find another insurance company.
Such a insurance company would cost much more and would make it inhibitable for lesser fortunate people to afford such luxury.
In a purely capitalistic society this would seem approriate.
But, at least to me, it seems unethical.
Why is it unethical to discriminate on basis of genetics?
To a similar reason, why it is unethical to discriminate on the basis on race, place of birth, zodiac sign.
First, the mantra "correlation is not cause" applies here to some extend, too. "You are black, so you will live shorter." is an example. In contrast, smokeing is unhealthy. That is a proven fact and not just a statistical correlation, like the decrease of the population of storks and a correlating decrease of the birthrate. Similar is currently true for genetic screenin.
As explained in the article, you may well have a predisposition in one gene for a certain malice, but it is far from known, how this may affect your life, as the same person may have some unknown genes, which compensate the predisposition.
Second, and more importantly: You can't choose your genetic make-up, where you're born and when.
Willingly punishing someone for such things is unethical.
At least according to my moral codex, which is the result of my upbringing. Maybe yours differ, but I thought the civilised world agreed upon this.
> The only solution is to make it a law that every citizen MUST vote.
Think about it. How would that improve the situation?
Dee Em See Ay? Lower Taxes!!!
The difference would be that a small politically interested minority would be even smaller, and would even more dominated by the "dumb masses".
Don't get me wrong I'm a democrat. I'm against any regulation which puts restrictions on who should able to vote, or how much a vote counts. In my opinion, children should be allowed to vote, too.
But to choose not to vote, is in a way a vote, too.
It's a statement: I do not know enough, or do not care enough to vote. (Which in my opinion is the same)
Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to vote by giving them a better political education? Or giving the votes more weight by shifting the political power more to local administrations?
BTW, I voted every election I could and consider it as one of the responsibilities of a citizen. But responsibility cannot be enforced.
(Disclaimer: IANAA)
>"Average code" is 20% branch instructions,
Well, as wanted to indicate "Average" is very vague. SPECInt has 14-16% conditional branches. SPECFloat has 3-12%.
>On the first run [...] 50% prediction rate
Not really. Statistical prediction and profiling can be applied. 85% of back branches are taken (loops), and 60% forward branches are taken. With predict taken you get roughly a miss prediciton rate (MPR) of 35%. With profiling you can get a MPR of 10%-20%.
>[...] and a good branch prediction unit can give 90% correct predictions.
Let's say an average one. (At best)
A two-level adaptive scheme (T. Yeh, Y. Patt) delivers a MPR of 3%. Hybrid Branch Predictors deliver even better results.
>We then need to add the pipeline length
The penalty is not always the whole pipepline length.
For the P4 the pipeline has 28 stages. But only 19 have to be flushed (8 are needed for the trace cache).
So lets review your calculation:
>So this leads us to need a pipeline flush every 45 instructions (on average)
20% branches 10% MPR means to me 2% pipeline flushes. How do you come on every 45 instructions?
I'd say something more like this:
Conditional branch instructions: 20% (your guess is as good as mine).
MPR 10% = 2E-2 Pipline flush probability
MPR 5% = 1E-2
MPR 3% = 6E-3
Some Guesses:
MPR: P3 5%, P4 3%, PPC970 3%
Pipeline penalty: P3 10, P4 19, PPC970 10
Overhead: P3: 10%, P4: 12%, PPC970 6%
So, at least according to my estimation the P4 has actually not 18% penalty towards the PPC970 but only one of 6%.
> multi-tasking
Umm, you are running with something 1GHz for something like 10ms. So you'll have 10MI. So most probably, the penalty for a cold BTB is probably neglectable. Otherwise, you're probably IO-bound anyway, and the CPU will be you're least problems.
The reason for better (or worse) performance may probably lie somewhere else. Actually, the increase of other pipeline hazards may be one of them. How long instructions take another one. (Well, for RISC processor an (non-fp) instruction takes 1 cycle, but for x86...) Not to mention caches and memory.
Can you greet Mr. Amdahl from me? :)
And actually, this is also not quite correct. In praxis, it is possible to achieve super-linear speedup, although unlikely. (N times as much memory is more the culprit than the additional processing power)
While speaking of distcc, one could also mention Group Enabled Cluster Compiler. Never used one of those, I've to admit.
Not really interesting, just a PR statement. No real facts, besides there are people who think that "KDE on Mandrake [is] faster than on Gentoo".
This only shows, that the speed difference is a subjective thing.
I tried Gentoo (twice), and liked the low inital dependencies and the init-scripts.
(Note, I'm a developer and a happy Mandrake User.
Started using Linux with RedHat 3.0.3. I'd rather compile my own code.)
> ~30-50kB/sec
This is, of course, makes it quite enjoyable.
Would it be less enjoyable with 6kB/sec?
> $0.02/kB
This on the other hand, could be quite a downside.
Hmm, 5Gb with $0.02/kB = $1000. It seems you have to pay for the extra bandwith and storage.
>>So, essentially you're complaing about the HD being to large?
>That's rediculous.
It's not ridiculous. Let me deduce my statement.
>Bluetooth should be 10x faster.
Then take WLAN. It is even 11 times as fast. But then you'll have to pay the price (energy consumption).
You want both? Me too. Furthermore, I want a high payed job with no work (not really, just to make a point).
So, Bluetooth exists and is as fast as it is for various reasons (simplicity, costs, energy consumption).
Then there are PDAs with a storage of let's say 32Mb.
It isn't unreasonable to assume that this is currently quite enough for most purposes, otherwise noone would by these things or even ones with 8Mb or less.
So, 32Mb is the total Memory a PDA. Now maybe you need more storage space, (Note the word "storage", not memory). There is a device where you can save the whole memory in roughly a minute and additionally you have a multitude of the PDA's space on it.
It may a ridiculous small disc and a ridiculous slow, but it is intended for ridiculous small devices with ridiculous processing power.
Compared for the targeted enviroment, it would be more appropriate to say it is ridiculous large. But it is probably the smallest capacity one get get these days.
>I have a server in my house, and all the data is there.
This is of course a solution. (Actually one I use, too. Except for accessing it via a CDMA2k mobile).
>[...]Sprint PCS Vision, faster then bluetooth BTW, [...]
Is this a reproducable fact, or the numbers Sprint gave you?
> At the optimal transfer speed, you'll need three sets of batteries to read all the data off of this thing.
So, essentially you're complaing about the HD being to large?
It is certainly a money waster, that's true for every new technology out there. One could say the same for PDAs, Digital Cameras, MP3 players and the like.
>External 40 GB Hard Drive. / USB 2.0
Wohoo. Great. Now how do I connect it to my Sony DSC-FX77? Or my iPAQ 3850? Over a computer?
Do they deliver it with the Harddisc?
Granted it's not a likely scenario, and that's the reason for the price-tag. Few people have a need for it, and they have to pay for the development costs.
>The concept is flawed
What point of the BT concept is flawed?
The idea to keep it small and simple to make it cheep and less powerconsuming? The idea of ubiquitous and cheap network?
The baseband-specification?
The pico-net concept? The small-range? The low bandwidth?
The SDP? PAN? The simple migration paths for old protocols like IrDA Obex? Serial Communictation?
DUN? Basic Printing Profile? Common ISDN Access Profile (CIP)?
Maybe, you didn't notice it, but there are a lot more mobiles out there than PCs.
Class 1 Devices have a range of 100m.
Unless you can follow the frequency hopping scheme, stand close enough, and break the encryption/authentication scheme, it seems quite unlikely.