Was that the original news post had a sensational title, but nowhere in the story, nor any of the links were ANY details about the numbers used in the experiment, specifically about exactly how much power was put in, and how much came out.
It is pretty basic stuff.
I either thought is must be BS or the value were unrealistic to be used in anything but in an experiment (so small as to make it impossible in real scale).
Why is Gov IT expensive and low quality? Several reasons.
1) Politics. Not something you have to deal with in the private sector. It isn't supposed to be part of the bureaucracy, but it is. High level management seems to be trending more towards their political masters. It is called political interference. Want some jobs in your District? There are procurement rules, but every manager knows how to get around all of the rules, the higher the manager the better they are at doing it. Also every time they (Management) gets caught breaking their own rules, the reaction isn't to punish the person who broke the rules (who is likely politically connected anyway), but rather to make more rules so "this can never happen again", which really means you are just punishing everyone who actually has to follow the procurement rules. Just procurement can take much of a year for even a small project.
2) Regulations. Government IT is (supposed to be at any rate) held to a higher standard. Security, Privacy, Redundancy, etc... Projects have to be over designed to meet all the extra requirements placed on them. This makes projects cost much more, take much longer to design, and implement.
3) Policy. What does this database/application do today? Because you know what, it is going to change tomorrow. Everything will have to be redesigned for the 15th time. Which also makes the systems wonky for lack of a better term, as every redesign causes its own problems that don't get caught. Much to my regret policy drives IT, not the other way around. When management wants something done a certain way, no isn't a welcome word.
4) Contractors. Government has rid itself of most IT staff, basically to look like it cost less and that government staff is smaller. Nothing is done in house anymore. Everything is hired out to contractors. Contractors charge a LOT of money. Some are good, most that do government work, do a lot of government work. They suckle at the teat of unending money and guaranteed contracts. Parasites. While some delay is always going to be fault of government with change orders and the like, many I am sure draw out contracts to extract the most they can.
5) Power. What IT that does exist in government largely is a maintenance role. Running networks, systems, etc... I don't know if they are paranoid about also being outsourced, or if it is just a normal government management power type play to try and protect their own fiefdom but they are actively obstructionist. You want something done. It has to be this way, according to this, by them, when they say so. From a technical perspective in many cases this makes sense, however I doubt much of it has to do with anything technical and more about making sure their kingdom is secure.
So why did a project cost 10x what it should? Well it isn't so far fetched when you think about it.
Got a bleeding edge MB last month, included ac wifi. Looked into buying an ac router. Not that many actually available, and the few that were cost 150-250$.
I will stick with my g router which probably is worth about 10$.
I will wait until they become a bit more affordable.
So I go traveling abroad from Canada, spend a couple weeks roaming around the med.
So I can't really use my phone anywhere but Canada with having 1000's of dollars in bills, (which is a whole other rant entirely) but I figure I am going to be in a civilized countries (maybe not Turkey, sorry Turks!:)) and like big cities in Canada there will be free WiFi everywhere and I can just communicate via the internets!. I mean McDonalds, Tim Hortons, StarBucks, just about every restaurant, business or whatever will have free wifi.
Surprise#1: Italy apparently has no internet anywhere, except in nicer hotels that want 20$ a minute to use it. It isn't like it is a tourist destination or anything silly like that. Surprise#2: Greece may not have many things, like working toilets and sewer system, or an economy, but holy crap do they have internet everywhere. The guy who has a gyro stand on the street corner will not only have wifi and a password to access it, but an iPad to use at your convenience...
Never mind 95% of the population lives in a 100km strip across the US border...
Also places like Finland have similar population densities and somehow they make it work with lower costs and higher speeds...
I live in a City, and pay 80$ a month for Internet. Does it costs anything near that? No. I pay that because the telcos know they can make me pay that.
This has been going on since benchmarks were a thing. So a long time.
GPU in particular had a bad rep for this. However they actually got the benchmark software altered!
Simply checking for a process name and OC, isn't exactly all that sneaky. Maybe a bit unethical, but still. Whoever is running the benchmark could easily check for that. Of course it depends on how closed down the OS is for inspection also.
First played Myst in University. There was 3 of us that played it together. It was around exam time. We had to make a pact to stop playing it as we would fail exams, we had someone hide it. Year laters I think I found out that one of the guys had made the person who hid it tell them where it was so they could get their fix.
The best things about it was that it was very non-linear. The puzzles could be anything. It also had a good story that tied everything together. You could also die, is many different ways, pretty unexpectedly. It was quite hard to figure out in some places. The graphics at the time were very good, and the theme (very steampunkesque) was well done. It required a lot of thought, and experimentation. I remember having to recreate a song using levers that I heard in another area that was linked to the room thematically. To me most of these kind of games were, find a key, find a door where that key worked. Using music, sound (particularly at a point in PC gaming that was not so advanced), and a host of other methods to solve puzzles was like a game in 4D. Specifically it had more dimension than any previous game.
The only thing I can think of recently that is even remotely like it was Portal. However Portal as good as that was, was basically a set of given physical properties, the ability to manipulate them, and then endless situations/variations of more less the same thing. It was lots of fun, and let you play around with physics, but that is about it.
About the only legacy that it left is that as it turns out, making good video games is hard, and it is easier and more profitable to simply churn out the same dreck each year and add a number to it.
About the only video games that have actually harmed children were perhaps the old Nintendo game cartridges with their hard plastic cases, and pointy edges.
You could really whiff one of those at a friend, brother, or sister and they would know it if at the receiving end.
People who would want to blame video games for violent behavior are really saying that bad parenting is the cause of unacceptable behavior.
Buying inappropriate things for your children would certainly fall into that category. The excuse that your brat really really wanted it, and you eventually capitulated to the whining and screaming is exactly that.
1) Make a game that is basically X-Wing VS Tie Fighter, except updated. Better graphics, perhaps MMO down the road. Don't screw it up. 2) ??? 3) Profit.
Now come out with a new improved version say every 3 years.
Use your office petty cash to buy the software rights to Firefly. Build a game that lets you play a smuggler having adventures. Have actual original cast do voice acting. Watch nerds throw buckets of cash at you between fainting spells.
Considering most are OK with GPS-assist in their phones this is pretty much a non-issue. It affects such a small subset of people that who really cares. Model rocketry hobbyists I guess which is kind of geeky which is why I suppose it is even listed here at all. Even among that subset, there is only going to be an even fewer number that would exceed that ceiling for GPS operation.
I mean when I got into GIS the turned off the GPS limitations for civilians, THAT was a big news story. You no longer really had to cross check your positions using ground base stations at fixed coordinates for correction.
GPS assist isn't even real GPS. I always thought about those movies and tv shows where they attach a GPS device under a car to "track" it not making much sense. I mean without a direct path to satellites you aren't going to get much of a signal, and there isn't one under a car. Heck tree leaves are the biggest point in failure! I suppose you could tap into the cars antenna, but that is a bit more involved than placing a black box under the car. Then again it could be GPS-assist cell, as you don't need line of sight, just cell coverage. That could be likely easily defeated by a cell blocker, but I suppose those are illegal most places.
Random trivia questions... if I triangulate my "GPS" position by using cell tower locations, is it still called "triangulate" if I use more than 3?
This is what I thought was funny about the World War Z movie. I am not sure they meant it as a commentary on human behavior constraints, but I think I was someone surprised that it went from totally normal to murder everyone in your way and rape people in supermarkets in a few hours.
Personally I thought you might have more time than that, but then again perhaps they didn't want to wait any time at the beginning of the movie.
However: 1) Your entire planet and race gets blown up by a supernova (including your wife and kids). 2) You travel back in time through a black hole decades prior to the explosion. 3) Do you A) Warn your world (or at least send a msg to the wife and kids) about their impending destruction, to you know, prevent it or something? or B) Murder all the Vulcan's in a genocidal rage?
Seriously. It was the one thing I couldn't get past. The only reasonable explanation is Nero was driven batshit crazy (and I guess his entire crew as well) and because his was mad, could not think at all and thus acts stupidly. The only other is that the script is just stupid.
I think it more than a little ironic that the US is making a big deal about chemical weapons, yet still use (and refused to sign the ban on) landmines.
Chemical Weapons have been around since WW1. An interesting metric would be to compare how many people were killed/maimed by each over the last 100 years.
My bet would be on landmines, particularly when talking about civilian deaths.
Here is where the fundamental problem with Capitalism comes into play and the big bad wolf Communism (actually more like basic socialism really) should come into play.
One would think, with the advent of technology, automation, that this would free up people to do other less menial things. Which is sort of true. Also robot repairmen, etc... however just like the agrarian roots of our past the bottom line is it takes way less people to do these things. So what do all those unemployed people then do? Well share work. However that would mean more wages, and shorter hours, except we are and have been going the opposite direction to that. In addition if you look at how this all comes into play, the reason for the automation, the saving of money to make more profit, which is being concentrated at the very top of the economic food chain, our current course of more unemployment, and greater disparity between wealthy and poor is pretty much an obvious outcome of our current path.
I mean wasn't it futurists of the 50's that foresaw automation allowing us to work less and live more comfortably and wealthy than ever before, not the exact opposite of that.
Slashdot Mirror
Heck even the stupid story mentions it is 280 megawatts in the first sentence. 70,000 homes? Who cares. How many Library of Congresses can it power?
Was that the original news post had a sensational title, but nowhere in the story, nor any of the links were ANY details about the numbers used in the experiment, specifically about exactly how much power was put in, and how much came out.
It is pretty basic stuff.
I either thought is must be BS or the value were unrealistic to be used in anything but in an experiment (so small as to make it impossible in real scale).
That Tornado Machine is pretty power hungry as well...
Why is Gov IT expensive and low quality? Several reasons.
1) Politics. Not something you have to deal with in the private sector. It isn't supposed to be part of the bureaucracy, but it is. High level management seems to be trending more towards their political masters. It is called political interference. Want some jobs in your District? There are procurement rules, but every manager knows how to get around all of the rules, the higher the manager the better they are at doing it. Also every time they (Management) gets caught breaking their own rules, the reaction isn't to punish the person who broke the rules (who is likely politically connected anyway), but rather to make more rules so "this can never happen again", which really means you are just punishing everyone who actually has to follow the procurement rules. Just procurement can take much of a year for even a small project.
2) Regulations. Government IT is (supposed to be at any rate) held to a higher standard. Security, Privacy, Redundancy, etc... Projects have to be over designed to meet all the extra requirements placed on them. This makes projects cost much more, take much longer to design, and implement.
3) Policy. What does this database/application do today? Because you know what, it is going to change tomorrow. Everything will have to be redesigned for the 15th time. Which also makes the systems wonky for lack of a better term, as every redesign causes its own problems that don't get caught. Much to my regret policy drives IT, not the other way around. When management wants something done a certain way, no isn't a welcome word.
4) Contractors. Government has rid itself of most IT staff, basically to look like it cost less and that government staff is smaller. Nothing is done in house anymore. Everything is hired out to contractors. Contractors charge a LOT of money. Some are good, most that do government work, do a lot of government work. They suckle at the teat of unending money and guaranteed contracts. Parasites. While some delay is always going to be fault of government with change orders and the like, many I am sure draw out contracts to extract the most they can.
5) Power. What IT that does exist in government largely is a maintenance role. Running networks, systems, etc... I don't know if they are paranoid about also being outsourced, or if it is just a normal government management power type play to try and protect their own fiefdom but they are actively obstructionist. You want something done. It has to be this way, according to this, by them, when they say so. From a technical perspective in many cases this makes sense, however I doubt much of it has to do with anything technical and more about making sure their kingdom is secure.
So why did a project cost 10x what it should? Well it isn't so far fetched when you think about it.
My summery of the technology would be.
Got a bleeding edge MB last month, included ac wifi. Looked into buying an ac router. Not that many actually available, and the few that were cost 150-250$.
I will stick with my g router which probably is worth about 10$.
I will wait until they become a bit more affordable.
Buy more desks?
So I go traveling abroad from Canada, spend a couple weeks roaming around the med.
So I can't really use my phone anywhere but Canada with having 1000's of dollars in bills, (which is a whole other rant entirely) but I figure I am going to be in a civilized countries (maybe not Turkey, sorry Turks! :)) and like big cities in Canada there will be free WiFi everywhere and I can just communicate via the internets!. I mean McDonalds, Tim Hortons, StarBucks, just about every restaurant, business or whatever will have free wifi.
Surprise#1: Italy apparently has no internet anywhere, except in nicer hotels that want 20$ a minute to use it. It isn't like it is a tourist destination or anything silly like that.
Surprise#2: Greece may not have many things, like working toilets and sewer system, or an economy, but holy crap do they have internet everywhere. The guy who has a gyro stand on the street corner will not only have wifi and a password to access it, but an iPad to use at your convenience...
Same BS statistics are used in Canada.
Never mind 95% of the population lives in a 100km strip across the US border...
Also places like Finland have similar population densities and somehow they make it work with lower costs and higher speeds...
I live in a City, and pay 80$ a month for Internet. Does it costs anything near that? No. I pay that because the telcos know they can make me pay that.
BBC???
So make a big announcement without ANY details?
About the only figure mention in the article was that the program cost $3.5bn.
How can you have an article about fusion "breaking even" and not even mention input and output power. Kinda important.
Particularly if the power is not scaleable, Like you broke even, but only when using .005 watts or something.
Probably no where as it would have about $3.5bn less in funding...
This has been going on since benchmarks were a thing. So a long time.
GPU in particular had a bad rep for this. However they actually got the benchmark software altered!
Simply checking for a process name and OC, isn't exactly all that sneaky. Maybe a bit unethical, but still. Whoever is running the benchmark could easily check for that. Of course it depends on how closed down the OS is for inspection also.
Also the REAL reason government shut down.
Everyone wanted to play GTA5 rather than go to work.
That must have been a wonderful 3rd day briefing...
"Seriously guys? Day 3? WTF?"
WTF? For lack of market is blackberry just making one up?
First played Myst in University. There was 3 of us that played it together. It was around exam time. We had to make a pact to stop playing it as we would fail exams, we had someone hide it. Year laters I think I found out that one of the guys had made the person who hid it tell them where it was so they could get their fix.
The best things about it was that it was very non-linear. The puzzles could be anything. It also had a good story that tied everything together. You could also die, is many different ways, pretty unexpectedly. It was quite hard to figure out in some places. The graphics at the time were very good, and the theme (very steampunkesque) was well done. It required a lot of thought, and experimentation. I remember having to recreate a song using levers that I heard in another area that was linked to the room thematically. To me most of these kind of games were, find a key, find a door where that key worked. Using music, sound (particularly at a point in PC gaming that was not so advanced), and a host of other methods to solve puzzles was like a game in 4D. Specifically it had more dimension than any previous game.
The only thing I can think of recently that is even remotely like it was Portal. However Portal as good as that was, was basically a set of given physical properties, the ability to manipulate them, and then endless situations/variations of more less the same thing. It was lots of fun, and let you play around with physics, but that is about it.
About the only legacy that it left is that as it turns out, making good video games is hard, and it is easier and more profitable to simply churn out the same dreck each year and add a number to it.
About the only video games that have actually harmed children were perhaps the old Nintendo game cartridges with their hard plastic cases, and pointy edges.
You could really whiff one of those at a friend, brother, or sister and they would know it if at the receiving end.
People who would want to blame video games for violent behavior are really saying that bad parenting is the cause of unacceptable behavior.
Buying inappropriate things for your children would certainly fall into that category. The excuse that your brat really really wanted it, and you eventually capitulated to the whining and screaming is exactly that.
Because putting the "Windows Key" between Ctrl and Alt isn't going to annoy PC gamers at all...
Accidental windows key. Game interruption. Swearing. Game death.
1) Make a game that is basically X-Wing VS Tie Fighter, except updated. Better graphics, perhaps MMO down the road. Don't screw it up.
2) ???
3) Profit.
Now come out with a new improved version say every 3 years.
Use your office petty cash to buy the software rights to Firefly.
Build a game that lets you play a smuggler having adventures. Have actual original cast do voice acting.
Watch nerds throw buckets of cash at you between fainting spells.
Buy the software rights to Star Trek...
Considering most are OK with GPS-assist in their phones this is pretty much a non-issue. It affects such a small subset of people that who really cares. Model rocketry hobbyists I guess which is kind of geeky which is why I suppose it is even listed here at all. Even among that subset, there is only going to be an even fewer number that would exceed that ceiling for GPS operation.
I mean when I got into GIS the turned off the GPS limitations for civilians, THAT was a big news story. You no longer really had to cross check your positions using ground base stations at fixed coordinates for correction.
GPS assist isn't even real GPS. I always thought about those movies and tv shows where they attach a GPS device under a car to "track" it not making much sense. I mean without a direct path to satellites you aren't going to get much of a signal, and there isn't one under a car. Heck tree leaves are the biggest point in failure! I suppose you could tap into the cars antenna, but that is a bit more involved than placing a black box under the car. Then again it could be GPS-assist cell, as you don't need line of sight, just cell coverage. That could be likely easily defeated by a cell blocker, but I suppose those are illegal most places.
Random trivia questions... if I triangulate my "GPS" position by using cell tower locations, is it still called "triangulate" if I use more than 3?
This is what I thought was funny about the World War Z movie. I am not sure they meant it as a commentary on human behavior constraints, but I think I was someone surprised that it went from totally normal to murder everyone in your way and rape people in supermarkets in a few hours.
Personally I thought you might have more time than that, but then again perhaps they didn't want to wait any time at the beginning of the movie.
I can take the lens flares etc...
However:
1) Your entire planet and race gets blown up by a supernova (including your wife and kids).
2) You travel back in time through a black hole decades prior to the explosion.
3) Do you A) Warn your world (or at least send a msg to the wife and kids) about their impending destruction, to you know, prevent it or something? or B) Murder all the Vulcan's in a genocidal rage?
Seriously. It was the one thing I couldn't get past.
The only reasonable explanation is Nero was driven batshit crazy (and I guess his entire crew as well) and because his was mad, could not think at all and thus acts stupidly. The only other is that the script is just stupid.
But hey it did have a really cool intro! :)
Seriously? Sounds like someone is overcompensating...
Resistance is Futile, you will be assimilated...
As mentioned by a few, don't forget landmines.
I think it more than a little ironic that the US is making a big deal about chemical weapons, yet still use (and refused to sign the ban on) landmines.
Chemical Weapons have been around since WW1. An interesting metric would be to compare how many people were killed/maimed by each over the last 100 years.
My bet would be on landmines, particularly when talking about civilian deaths.
Here is where the fundamental problem with Capitalism comes into play and the big bad wolf Communism (actually more like basic socialism really) should come into play.
One would think, with the advent of technology, automation, that this would free up people to do other less menial things. Which is sort of true. Also robot repairmen, etc... however just like the agrarian roots of our past the bottom line is it takes way less people to do these things. So what do all those unemployed people then do? Well share work. However that would mean more wages, and shorter hours, except we are and have been going the opposite direction to that. In addition if you look at how this all comes into play, the reason for the automation, the saving of money to make more profit, which is being concentrated at the very top of the economic food chain, our current course of more unemployment, and greater disparity between wealthy and poor is pretty much an obvious outcome of our current path.
I mean wasn't it futurists of the 50's that foresaw automation allowing us to work less and live more comfortably and wealthy than ever before, not the exact opposite of that.