It seems to me what you're talking about is dehumanization. (I don't know if that's a word, but it looks good)
I don't go around hurting people because I don't want to see people in pain. If you convince yourself that the people you see are not the same as yourself, then you can effectively circumvent your empathy. (Or conscience, or whatever you call it)
Racists convince themselves that persons of other races are not the same as them. They believe they are superior. This is how some of the nicest people (from a similar-race perspective) can exhibit some of the most loathsome, disgusting, and unforgivable behavior.
I will agree that this missing empathy is the problem. Too many people today lack any feeling for other living beings. I don't really know what the problem is, but I do not believe that it has anything to do with video games. During the world wars, groups of American kids got together and played at wargames in the otherwise peaceful fields surrounding their homes. The split into teams, and threw non-harmful projectiles at each other. For countless generations kids have played these sorts of games. How are these different from "Tribes", except that it requires that much less imagination?
Violent movies are a possibility, except that for the most part they fit into a non-realistic ideal, which are much like grown-up versions of wargames from childhood. Some movies fit into a more realistic type of mold, like "Saving Private Ryan"; but truth be told I almost cried at the end of that movie, which would have been the first time in several years.
As I said, I really don't know what has caused this lack of feeling, but I don't like it.
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
P.S. MASH is a very cool show, but I would suggest that your example in human feelings will be infinitely more imporatant than any other influence; from your article, I have faith in those examples.
>I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
To sum up: Your particular morality is that these activities are wrong, or empty, or meaningless, etc.
The central point to freedom, IMHO, is that freedom does not legislate, or control in any way, morality. That you would press your morals on me is exactly what these fights are about, and exactly what we should be fighting.
It's a relatively easy concept to contemplate, and an impossibly difficult path to follow. I should have the freedom to do whatever I wish, provided my activities do not impact you. I cannot, for instance, harm you physically, since this impacts on your freedom.
The difficulty is defining where the line is. In one sense, American football does not impact you, since you can simply choose not to watch it. In another sense, everything a person does impacts all other people in small, imperceptible ways. Football is still watched by many people. The average american cannot ignore football completely, since it is focused on by a large segment of the public. It is talked about at work, shown on TV, etc.
What was my point? Don't press your morals on me. How to do this, and maintain order in a society? Beats the hell out of me. Perhaps its just a matter of multiple sides fighting over these principles until a true solution presents itself.
I'm not the sort of person who preaches about love of the fellow man, forgiveness, or other forms of apathy. Those would be religous leaders, or hippies. Hippies are nice enough, but dumb. I won't say anything about religous leaders, because it's too easy to find out where I live.
The point is, that this vilification of Bill Gates seems extreme even to me. As someone who engages in this activity quite often, and has even gained some notoriety at it, I usually don't attempt to defend a target, lest I be seen as a hypocrite. However, someone should try to head this off before a mob forms, I think.
I don't have any knowledge of the internal workings of Microsoft, but I would venture to guess that Bill Gates probably is not as powerful as people would like to believe. In a normal corporation, the people who drive the entire process are called "Investors". These "Investors" observe the bottom line, and are happy when the corporation makes a profit. When the corporation does not make a profit, people get fired.
I apologise for the length of my explanation, but I'm trying to make this perfectly clear for some of the slower members of the audience. (Especially myself)
These investors really are only slightly concerned with how the public views the company, and certainly much more concerned about the monetary aspect of the company. An investor generally has money in many different corporations, and cannot really worry about the morality of this one or that. So he mentally passes the burden of morality on to other faceless people who control the company, and happily goes about his business, content in the knowledge that his hands are clean.
Every once in a while, one company or another will do something not only despicable, but highly visible. Then the investors will demand that certain people be canned, or possibly move to the extreme and remove their funding from said corporation (Which generally has the effect of certain people being canned.) The investors will then feel VERY good about themselves.
Of course, the people who run the company view the investors as having control, considering as they are answerable to the investors. So they demand profits from those lower down the chain, and do not worry about details of how those profits are made. When a despicable act comes to light, they know that they did nothing to cause this, they are simply the middleman in this whole affair, and if they resigned, someone else would be more than happy to do this job.
This is a wonderful performance many in America enjoy, known as the "blame game". (I specify since I have not spent enough time in other countries to know wether they have this same ritual) Should anyone actually be called to question about shady dealings, this person will simply point a finger in a random direction and blame the person over there for causing some aspect of the problem.
Bill Gates is simply playing along with the rest of us. For instance, there are a great number of people in the United States with 401k plans. They may not have as much money in a corporation as a large investor, but certainly the immense number of small investors make up for the large investors?
I guess I don't really see why Bill should take so much abuse and blame when there are other rich people we can blame...
Here at work, we get the local paper (Rochester NY, Democrat and Chronicle) every weekday. Every day, during lunch, I read the funnies, a column by a local writer (Dick Dougherty, who is an excellent writer, IMHO) the editorial/opinion pages, the sports highlights, and the business section, in that order. I always read Dave Barry on mondays, and occasionally scan the other sections for interesting bits, but that's my general routine.
The reasons why I like the newpaper better than TV news shows is that I can find information when I'm looking for it. I don't have to wait until 11:15 for weather news, I can find out who won the primary just by looking in the correct section. As for being better than news on the web, there are many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that its nice to be able to have it in the same space I am. I like having the physical properties of the newspaper. Other reasons include: Lack of information overload, all important information is included in an article because the newspeople cannot simply "link" to an article elsewhere; Information only in informative articles, opinions in editorial pages; I've never had to wait for a page to load:)
Plus, the pages are local information. The articles can be from non-local sources, but the information is always prioitized locally. The heat wave in California may be of higher global priority, but the 100 inches of snow that went up from 90 a week ago has a much higher local priority. The local telephone area code split is not even a footnote for the rest of the world, but here is a huge issue.
I read tech news on the net. I occasionally watch news on TV for latest information. But most of my news comes from the newspaper. This may change, if news orginizations move papers onto the web, but this certainly does not eliminate the need for local reporting, editing, etc. And I still think many people like the news in paper format.
I can't speak for the silent majority, and I wouldn't want to.
I can however, speak for myself, and I would like to thank you for writing your columns here. Thanks are also due to the people who are responsible for you posting here, and those who help you.
The best compliment that I can think to give a person is that you seem to have an open mind. I think a part of "human nature" is to make decisions without thinking about a subject at all. This is a part of human nature I feel we could do without.
The best compliment I can think to give to a writer is that he/she makes _me_ think. My favorite writers have always been those that expand my horizons, make me see things in ways I never have before. Many of those authors have gone to where I can no longer thank them, so I thank the ones I can.
I may not agree with everything you have to say, but I get the feeling that you think about what you write, and are trying to make a positive influence. I appreciate this.
There are phones that all you have to do is say the name of the person you want to call; it will find the phone number and connect you. Of course, you have to train it with what phone numbers and the voice recognition probably isn't very good, but they're getting closer.
Its such a fine line between "cool" and "scary"...
>Great, so we can have a really small doohickey to do stuff quickly. The >problem I see in the future of portable computing is interface. Get this >little doohickey to understand me when I'm talking (or thinking) >to it, then you've got a product. Until then, much smaller than a palm >pilot, and you've got problems.
I don't think that they're going to get smaller. I think portables are going to become more paper-notebook-like. Traditionally, the most popular info-storing device has been somewhere between 8.5x6 and 8.5x11 inches (dunno metric for those so inclined) like traditional books, legal pads, and the ever-popular spiral bound from college days.
The interface here is actually the key. Human beings are visual-based; we work best when we can see what we're thinking about. I keep a huge whiteboard at my desk at work, and another at my home, simply because the free-format visual interface they have is so intuitive. Several times a week I find that I cannot describe a concept to someone else unless I have a whiteboard nearby to assist.
I always take notebooks to meetings (not because anything worth writing down happens in a meeting, but because I may have a thought I need to write down) and I also write lists, sketch algorithms, etc on notebooks while I'm at my desk.
I see desktop computers as whiteboard-like appliances, and webpads, with large LCD screens, and those pen-imitation things, as the "new" versions of notebooks and info-books. Storage, and retrieval of information, but in a visual manner, will be the big thing.
This might be a good time to invest in LCD screens...:)
>No, he doesn't understand that CSS isn't copy protection, it's region >protection and viewer control, as well as control over hardware companies.
Its ALL those things. In order to play a DVD scrambled by CSS, you have to have a special DVD, with the codes on it, and copy all the scrambled data onto it. Then the DVD is playable by the "approved" DVD players. If you don't have the ability to descramble the data, it is much more difficult to copy the data. Instead of trying to play "whack-a-mole" with the data the way the music industry is with MP3's, they can simply control the flow of recordable DVD's.
With the data in unscrambled format, it can be compressed, stored to a hard drive and played on ANY computer system; it's only a matter of time before technology catches up to the format, to allow transmission/real-time-decompression of DVD video.
At this point I would like to point out that I agree with the freedom of information movement. I think that companies will simply have to change the way they do business, or become extinct.
And the fact that CSS can be used for all these other things (area-specific DVDs, compulsory ads) is REALLY scary. This is the sort of power which is not good in corporate hands, as they have a tendency to take everything to the limit.
>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
>I disagree. That is what people have been told over and over again, but this is wrong. For example, you can solve the 8 queens problem in >500 assy lines, and there are a lot of problems in that complexity >range. And the fun factor is incredibly high.
I'm not familiar with that problem.
In the world of mathematical problems, its much better to take the time and bring your level of complexiy from n^3 to n^2, then to spend time shaving three cycles off n. The class of applications that really _need_ the speed difference are those real-time applications that use the full facilities of the machine you're working with. At the moment, this consists of mostly games and simulations. Even real-time video/audio compression does not really belong in this class: You can either run format X on this machine, or you cannot. Games will expand to fit the machine, and I believe they will continue to do so.
But I digress. My point is, that the difference between an n^2 and (n-2)^2 algorithm is not really significant. And if you don't believe me, then find a book on time complexity, and have it explained by someone who knows the argument well...:) I learned enough to convince myself, and then forgot most of it.
Have you ever written a large program? Even on a command line? On a CLI you can do assembler or C, because they're linear in nature. C/C++ was not created so that programs could use less CPU cycles; it was created so that programs could be written more quickly (programmer time), more robustly, and vastly larger than their assembly counterparts.
I'm certain you can write a 500-instruction assembly program that will run faster than a similar program I write in C++. But the scope of problems you can solve in those 500 lines are so unbelievably small that its not worth the time to test it.
>As long as the programmer has more knowledge than the compiler, he will >always find tricks to save an instruction here or there and outperform >the compilers this way.
This is true, on a small scale. If you want to solve any kind of a decent-sized problem, however, you are not going to want to implement the entire program in assembly. Even if you're not writing a GUI program, a large program would be nearly impossible to implement. Looking at a decent sized C++ program, how much duplication and cruft do you see? Imagine how much more there would be in an assembly program.
As a real-world example, I believe that Quake3 uses MOSTLY C++ for implementation. Only the really intensive, often used portions of the code are implemented in assembler. I wonder if Carmack reads/. to correct me on this...:)
Its worth spending twice as much time optimizing an algorithm that's going to account for 90% of your CPU time, but not otherwise. And only graphics apps really have these sorts of algorithms. In a GUI program, most of the CPU cycles are spent passing messages around the system, or in OS calls, which are also generally message-oriented. That would be code worth optimizing, maybe. In the application I'm working on, the most CPU intensive algorithm we have is a FFT, and I would bet that its probably the place where the least optimization could take place. The slowest part of our code (the part that uses the most CPU cycles for the least accomplished) is the part that writes the data out to the screen (After the FFT; Damned third-party controls). It takes approx 2 seconds to run a hundred thousand points through the FFT, and probably 20-30 seconds to display it. The extra time is taken up by GUI, message passing, and COM/OLE crap.
The point is that only the most CPU intensive, high-performance algorithms really need to be written in Assembly. And most programs don't have these needs.
I have noticed this too. It appears that the highest level posts get sorted according to "Highest score first", and the other level (replies to posts, replies to replies to posts, etc) get sorted according to time posted. The only reasonable reason for this I can see is that it creates too much overhead to do sort messages recursively. Either that or its a bug.:)
>Imagine if the RC Church had burned Gutenburg at the stake for inventing >the printing press. And I'm sure they would have, if they could have realized >the implications such an invention would have. Todays powers don't seem to >want to make that mistake.
If I remember correctly, they did try. I can't remember enough to be certain, but I know the church did try to keep the bible in Latin, and took extreme measures to do so.
Needless to say, not a part of their history they really publicize.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the guy should be questioned for 8 hours without a lawyer either, (or, for that matter, in any way inconvenienced for writing a program) but the ACLU isn't going to be able to do anything here. I'm sure they would like to be able to help him, but how can they?
Heh. Very funny. BTW, what are you doing posting to slashdot? Finish Duke, dammit!:)
#include <whiteperson.h> void SeriousReply(char* lpszComments) { Sometimes white people do this fighting-racism-and-helping-minorities thing, and some people do it to make themselves feel superior (which is same reason IMHO for racism) but for the most part, I think we do it out of innocence. There are still some nasty racist assholes out there. (And they give us non-racist assholes a bad name) I don't know if a given person's misfortunes are because of racism in the society, or some personality deficiency on his part, or simply bad luck.
Its difficult to tell how widespread racism is in this country (USA, don't know anything about other countries) but we have to try to be part of the solution, as opposed to NOT part of the problem. I would much rather be convicted of trying too hard, than not trying enough.
BTW, this last paragraph looks like a political speech. If so, will someone please come kill me? Just put me out of my misery.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
P.S. Yes, I have to attempt to show off in the presence of a fellow programmer, especially GAME programmers.
P.P.S. You will notify me first if 3DRealms has any open positions?;)
I think that's the temperature of the actual processor core. Once the heat dissapates into the surrounding packaging, the whole packaging will be cooler that a celeron. And of course, the temperature of the chip will depend SOLELY on the dissapation. If there's nowhere for the heat to go, the chip will just rise in temp until it melts; doesn't matter how low power consumption, etc.
Probably the reason why they used core temp was the numbers looked better.:) I don't know how special their chip is, but from what little I saw of the presentation, Transmeta's marketing people are EXTREMELY good.
This started as a quick reply, and turned into a thesis (for me, at least) against free software, and paradigm shifts in general.
To understand this post, it helps to understand paradigms. A paradigm is a way of looking at a system, be it the world, or merely the patterns in the office you work in. A paradigm is a filter, a way of ignoring solutions which are really not useful, or not possible. An example was shown to me at one time. An vehicle was designed that had a low-horsepower engine. It got impressive gas mileage, but could also had very impressive acceleration. The specs were deemed impossible by conventional engineering. Its secret was that when the vehicle applied the brakes, the energy was stored temporarily, so that it could be applied to the next acceleration. The paradigm indicated that this was impossible. Paradigms are good in that they keep us from having to eliminate all possible solutions for every problem. It is bad in that other solutions, which lie outside conventional thinking, could be covered up and ignored by our paradigms.
Hopefully this gives some idea of what paradigms are all about. The rest of the post concerns itself with the paradigms of literature (books) and software.
The model for literature works (IMHO) something like this: Writer writes book, usually in digital form. Manuscript, after being looked at and processed by many people, is given to printing press, where it is printed. ALL the people in this chain are dependent on people buying this book. If nobody pays for this book, they don't eat, have no place to sleep, etc. So the digitial form, which can be easily reproduced, is kept secure, and the printed form, which is harder to reproduce, is allowed to circulate more or less free.
Software model is COMPLETELY different. All copies are digital. Can be copied freely, and is getting more free all the time. Copy protection schemes, restrictions, etc. are all attempts to make this new product (software) fit into old patterns of marketing. People are forcing these restrictions because of this paradigm; they cannot grasp any other ways of making money off software. Its not (neccesarily) that we are trying to constrict the freedom of everyone else, the people involved are simply trying to continue our lifestyle.
I am trapped in this same paradigm. I really cannot see any way of making money off of free software, which is why I work for a company that produces copyrighted software. Our copy protection scheme is simple, the software isn't of much use without the large expensive instrument it was designed to run, but I can understand the point of view of people who don't have such protection schemes. The system I live in involves people paying for software. Is there another system that will work? Probably. Is it the free software model? Possibly. But currently, free software is written by people who have other sources of income. If I join the free software movement, and it fails, I am totally without income.
I am a software engineer. I like having a nice car, and a nice apartment, being able to afford to eat well is a bonus. I don't make an immense amount of money. The question is, why should I give this up? Why should I risk this, for a paradigm that I don't understand, that may not work? I don't actually oppose free software, I really see both sides of the situation, and I am generally neutral in the whole argument. The difference is, that I have the ability to step back and see (perhaps) the situation (ignorance is bliss). This whole paradigm-shifting applies to not only software, but to the whole media industry. If people don't get paid for writing songs, very few people are going to write songs, because they're doing something else so that they can eat.
Having said all this, what you (free software people, libertarians, whatever you call yourselves) need to do is 1) Possibly figure out middle steps. See if there is a way, instead of making one large paradigm shift, to make several smaller ones. 2) In either case, get out there and DO something. Standing around talking about it doesn't accomplish anything. Organise, march, make posters, lobby in congress, convince friends and relatives of the "rightness" of your solution. So many battles have been lost for lack of communication; You are the architects, designers, and controllers of the largest communications network in history. 3) Make a plan. This should be done before item two, but I wanted to get across the importance of the second item. (Doing something is important!)
That's a good start. Did I mention that free software advocates should go out and do something?
Maybe they would have been more careful about responding to you if they'd known you would've gone complaining on/., eh?;-) Make sure and tell them who you are if you order one...
Heh... Maybe I can't win, but I can make damned sure THEY lose. Now that I think about it, this seems to be the argument behind nuclear missles as well. Aw, hell...
I built the computer two months ago. I'm typing on it right now. Ordering another case doesn't make much sense at this point.
Off topic, anyone know anything about those PC Power and Cooling cases the magazine people always rave about? I don't really trust Dvorak, but when Jerry Pournelle says something I consider it. Anyone used/owned/destroyed one?
Interesting question. OTOH, would a governor with aspirations to the presidency have done that, either?
Oh, and in case you do happen to be against the death penalty, I would advocate you to go and look up what the bible actually advocates. I cannot remember the actual references, but somewhere in the pentateuch, I believe, there is great detail on the punishment of a murderer. If I remember correctly, the punishment had to be carried out by a family member of the murdered person.
My point is: Biblical arguments against the death penalty are really not useful, if only because there are so many interpretations of what the Bible represents, not to mention the religions that aren't "Christian", etc.
Also, I find it hard to believe that any aspiring politico would have commited such a grevious error, especially where it could be overheard.
>>>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
Everything I read is assigned a probability. Your claim was assigned roughly a 0.02% chance of being true.
I mean come on. I understand that most (other) people will buy bullshit if it is skewed in the right manner, but this is too much BS, and too much skewing.
Give me a link to a NON-PARTISAN, informational article on a respected news site that confirms what you claim, and I will reconsider the probability of your claim.
I KNOW the voice is digitized... BUT IT DOESN'T HELP!
...very good coder......code only at night, only at night...
(The previous line is a pitiful attempt at a "Rain Man" parody. It probably wouldn't have been funny even if I hadn't had to explain it.)
Besides which, its long distance, and I refuse to make long distance calls until AT&T, MCI, and every other long-distance company stops calling me and offering me "excellent deals!"
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
Hmmm... I paint Minis, so I do have some experience with paint, but I would still rather buy a case then go through all the bother of doing it myself, even if it only took 3-4 hours and looked good (which I highly doubt for myself, if you can do it then more power to ya.)
As far as a case being open source, you're really beginning to scare me. For certain types of software, Open Source is a great idea. But as far as painting your computer case goes, you need to get out and see the uhm... Whatzitcalled... Daystar more often. Open the windows and get rid of the paint fumes, OK?:)
>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
BP6 is nice, but good luck trying to get the friggin UDMA controller recognised. ARGH
I found a FAQ that told me how, now all I have to do is actually get it recognised and install Linux.
As a side note, Win98 had NO problems finding and recognising the extra IDE ports. I hate Windoze, but it does SOME things impressively well.
As far as cases go, I have a nice big full tower with 3 internal 3.5 bays, 1 external 3.5, and five external 5.25 bays. The biggest problem I have is finding IDE cables long enough to reach the bays that are farther away. I had to go out and search the local stores until I found one that sold really long cables.:)
>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
I put together a computer back in november, and wanted one of these cool cases to put in. I sent two or three messages to these people, asking about pricing, shipping, etc. They never replied.
Their web site indicates that they would sell individual cases, but either they only sell bulk, or this company be defunct, which doesn't make sense since they updated their web site recently.
I think its pretty rude to just not reply. Could it have killed them to send a friggin email that says "We don't sell cases to individuals."??? /VENT>
As an aside, how do you put brackets in HTML anyway? I figured out how to do an ending bracket, but a beginning bracket escapes me.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
Slashdot Mirror
I would have fallen out of my chair if it wasn't for these armrests... (IWHFOOMCIIWFTA, for the acronym people)
:)
That was a perfect setup... I've waited my whole life for an opportunity like that...
You only get a few of those, Azure... Make sure you enjoy it....
>>>>>>>> Kvort
It seems to me what you're talking about is dehumanization. (I don't know if that's a word, but it looks good)
I don't go around hurting people because I don't want to see people in pain. If you convince yourself that the people you see are not the same as yourself, then you can effectively circumvent your empathy. (Or conscience, or whatever you call it)
Racists convince themselves that persons of other races are not the same as them. They believe they are superior. This is how some of the nicest people (from a similar-race perspective) can exhibit some of the most loathsome, disgusting, and unforgivable behavior.
I will agree that this missing empathy is the problem. Too many people today lack any feeling for other living beings. I don't really know what the problem is, but I do not believe that it has anything to do with video games. During the world wars, groups of American kids got together and played at wargames in the otherwise peaceful fields surrounding their homes. The split into teams, and threw non-harmful projectiles at each other. For countless generations kids have played these sorts of games. How are these different from "Tribes", except that it requires that much less imagination?
Violent movies are a possibility, except that for the most part they fit into a non-realistic ideal, which are much like grown-up versions of wargames from childhood. Some movies fit into a more realistic type of mold, like "Saving Private Ryan"; but truth be told I almost cried at the end of that movie, which would have been the first time in several years.
As I said, I really don't know what has caused this lack of feeling, but I don't like it.
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
P.S. MASH is a very cool show, but I would suggest that your example in human feelings will be infinitely more imporatant than any other influence; from your article, I have faith in those examples.
>I'd have those two activities as the two strongest indicators of a sociopath.
To sum up: Your particular morality is that these activities are wrong, or empty, or meaningless, etc.
The central point to freedom, IMHO, is that freedom does not legislate, or control in any way, morality. That you would press your morals on me is exactly what these fights are about, and exactly what we should be fighting.
It's a relatively easy concept to contemplate, and an impossibly difficult path to follow. I should have the freedom to do whatever I wish, provided my activities do not impact you. I cannot, for instance, harm you physically, since this impacts on your freedom.
The difficulty is defining where the line is. In one sense, American football does not impact you, since you can simply choose not to watch it. In another sense, everything a person does impacts all other people in small, imperceptible ways. Football is still watched by many people. The average american cannot ignore football completely, since it is focused on by a large segment of the public. It is talked about at work, shown on TV, etc.
What was my point? Don't press your morals on me. How to do this, and maintain order in a society? Beats the hell out of me. Perhaps its just a matter of multiple sides fighting over these principles until a true solution presents itself.
>>>>>>>> Kvort
I'm not the sort of person who preaches about love of the fellow man, forgiveness, or other forms of apathy. Those would be religous leaders, or hippies. Hippies are nice enough, but dumb. I won't say anything about religous leaders, because it's too easy to find out where I live.
The point is, that this vilification of Bill Gates seems extreme even to me. As someone who engages in this activity quite often, and has even gained some notoriety at it, I usually don't attempt to defend a target, lest I be seen as a hypocrite. However, someone should try to head this off before a mob forms, I think.
I don't have any knowledge of the internal workings of Microsoft, but I would venture to guess that Bill Gates probably is not as powerful as people would like to believe. In a normal corporation, the people who drive the entire process are called "Investors". These "Investors" observe the bottom line, and are happy when the corporation makes a profit. When the corporation does not make a profit, people get fired.
I apologise for the length of my explanation, but I'm trying to make this perfectly clear for some of the slower members of the audience. (Especially myself)
These investors really are only slightly concerned with how the public views the company, and certainly much more concerned about the monetary aspect of the company. An investor generally has money in many different corporations, and cannot really worry about the morality of this one or that. So he mentally passes the burden of morality on to other faceless people who control the company, and happily goes about his business, content in the knowledge that his hands are clean.
Every once in a while, one company or another will do something not only despicable, but highly visible. Then the investors will demand that certain people be canned, or possibly move to the extreme and remove their funding from said corporation (Which generally has the effect of certain people being canned.) The investors will then feel VERY good about themselves.
Of course, the people who run the company view the investors as having control, considering as they are answerable to the investors. So they demand profits from those lower down the chain, and do not worry about details of how those profits are made. When a despicable act comes to light, they know that they did nothing to cause this, they are simply the middleman in this whole affair, and if they resigned, someone else would be more than happy to do this job.
This is a wonderful performance many in America enjoy, known as the "blame game". (I specify since I have not spent enough time in other countries to know wether they have this same ritual) Should anyone actually be called to question about shady dealings, this person will simply point a finger in a random direction and blame the person over there for causing some aspect of the problem.
Bill Gates is simply playing along with the rest of us. For instance, there are a great number of people in the United States with 401k plans. They may not have as much money in a corporation as a large investor, but certainly the immense number of small investors make up for the large investors?
I guess I don't really see why Bill should take so much abuse and blame when there are other rich people we can blame...
>>>>>>> Kvort
Here at work, we get the local paper (Rochester NY, Democrat and Chronicle) every weekday. Every day, during lunch, I read the funnies, a column by a local writer (Dick Dougherty, who is an excellent writer, IMHO) the editorial/opinion pages, the sports highlights, and the business section, in that order. I always read Dave Barry on mondays, and occasionally scan the other sections for interesting bits, but that's my general routine.
:)
The reasons why I like the newpaper better than TV news shows is that I can find information when I'm looking for it. I don't have to wait until 11:15 for weather news, I can find out who won the primary just by looking in the correct section. As for being better than news on the web, there are many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that its nice to be able to have it in the same space I am. I like having the physical properties of the newspaper. Other reasons include: Lack of information overload, all important information is included in an article because the newspeople cannot simply "link" to an article elsewhere; Information only in informative articles, opinions in editorial pages; I've never had to wait for a page to load
Plus, the pages are local information. The articles can be from non-local sources, but the information is always prioitized locally. The heat wave in California may be of higher global priority, but the 100 inches of snow that went up from 90 a week ago has a much higher local priority. The local telephone area code split is not even a footnote for the rest of the world, but here is a huge issue.
I read tech news on the net. I occasionally watch news on TV for latest information. But most of my news comes from the newspaper. This may change, if news orginizations move papers onto the web, but this certainly does not eliminate the need for local reporting, editing, etc. And I still think many people like the news in paper format.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
Mr. Katz,
I can't speak for the silent majority, and I wouldn't want to.
I can however, speak for myself, and I would like to thank you for writing your columns here. Thanks are also due to the people who are responsible for you posting here, and those who help you.
The best compliment that I can think to give a person is that you seem to have an open mind. I think a part of "human nature" is to make decisions without thinking about a subject at all. This is a part of human nature I feel we could do without.
The best compliment I can think to give to a writer is that he/she makes _me_ think. My favorite writers have always been those that expand my horizons, make me see things in ways I never have before. Many of those authors have gone to where I can no longer thank them, so I thank the ones I can.
I may not agree with everything you have to say, but I get the feeling that you think about what you write, and are trying to make a positive influence. I appreciate this.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
They're getting closer.
There are phones that all you have to do is say the name of the person you want to call; it will find the phone number and connect you. Of course, you have to train it with what phone numbers and the voice recognition probably isn't very good, but they're getting closer.
Its such a fine line between "cool" and "scary"...
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
>Great, so we can have a really small doohickey to do stuff quickly. The
:)
>problem I see in the future of portable computing is interface. Get this
>little doohickey to understand me when I'm talking (or thinking)
>to it, then you've got a product. Until then, much smaller than a palm
>pilot, and you've got problems.
I don't think that they're going to get smaller. I think portables are going to become more paper-notebook-like. Traditionally, the most popular info-storing device has been somewhere between 8.5x6 and 8.5x11 inches (dunno metric for those so inclined) like traditional books, legal pads, and the ever-popular spiral bound from college days.
The interface here is actually the key. Human beings are visual-based; we work best when we can see what we're thinking about. I keep a huge whiteboard at my desk at work, and another at my home, simply because the free-format visual interface they have is so intuitive. Several times a week I find that I cannot describe a concept to someone else unless I have a whiteboard nearby to assist.
I always take notebooks to meetings (not because anything worth writing down happens in a meeting, but because I may have a thought I need to write down) and I also write lists, sketch algorithms, etc on notebooks while I'm at my desk.
I see desktop computers as whiteboard-like appliances, and webpads, with large LCD screens, and those pen-imitation things, as the "new" versions of notebooks and info-books. Storage, and retrieval of information, but in a visual manner, will be the big thing.
This might be a good time to invest in LCD screens...
>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
>No, he doesn't understand that CSS isn't copy protection, it's region
>protection and viewer control, as well as control over hardware companies.
Its ALL those things. In order to play a DVD scrambled by CSS, you have to have a special DVD, with the codes on it, and copy all the scrambled data onto it. Then the DVD is playable by the "approved" DVD players. If you don't have the ability to descramble the data, it is much more difficult to copy the data. Instead of trying to play "whack-a-mole" with the data the way the music industry is with MP3's, they can simply control the flow of recordable DVD's.
With the data in unscrambled format, it can be compressed, stored to a hard drive and played on ANY computer system; it's only a matter of time before technology catches up to the format, to allow transmission/real-time-decompression of DVD video.
At this point I would like to point out that I agree with the freedom of information movement. I think that companies will simply have to change the way they do business, or become extinct.
And the fact that CSS can be used for all these other things (area-specific DVDs, compulsory ads) is REALLY scary. This is the sort of power which is not good in corporate hands, as they have a tendency to take everything to the limit.
>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
>I disagree. That is what people have been told over and over again,
:) I learned enough to convince myself, and then forgot most of it.
but this is wrong. For example, you can solve the 8 queens problem in
>500 assy lines, and there are a lot of problems in that complexity
>range. And the fun factor is incredibly high.
I'm not familiar with that problem.
In the world of mathematical problems, its much better to take the time and bring your level of complexiy from n^3 to n^2, then to spend time shaving three cycles off n. The class of applications that really _need_ the speed difference are those real-time applications that use the full facilities of the machine you're working with. At the moment, this consists of mostly games and simulations. Even real-time video/audio compression does not really belong in this class: You can either run format X on this machine, or you cannot. Games will expand to fit the machine, and I believe they will continue to do so.
But I digress. My point is, that the difference between an n^2 and (n-2)^2 algorithm is not really significant. And if you don't believe me, then find a book on time complexity, and have it explained by someone who knows the argument well...
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
Have you ever written a large program? Even on a command line? On a CLI you can do assembler or C, because they're linear in nature. C/C++ was not created so that programs could use less CPU cycles; it was created so that programs could be written more quickly (programmer time), more robustly, and vastly larger than their assembly counterparts.
I'm certain you can write a 500-instruction assembly program that will run faster than a similar program I write in C++. But the scope of problems you can solve in those 500 lines are so unbelievably small that its not worth the time to test it.
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
>As long as the programmer has more knowledge than the compiler, he will
/. to correct me on this... :)
>always find tricks to save an instruction here or there and outperform
>the compilers this way.
This is true, on a small scale. If you want to solve any kind of a decent-sized problem, however, you are not going to want to implement the entire program in assembly. Even if you're not writing a GUI program, a large program would be nearly impossible to implement. Looking at a decent sized C++ program, how much duplication and cruft do you see? Imagine how much more there would be in an assembly program.
As a real-world example, I believe that Quake3 uses MOSTLY C++ for implementation. Only the really intensive, often used portions of the code are implemented in assembler. I wonder if Carmack reads
Its worth spending twice as much time optimizing an algorithm that's going to account for 90% of your CPU time, but not otherwise. And only graphics apps really have these sorts of algorithms. In a GUI program, most of the CPU cycles are spent passing messages around the system, or in OS calls, which are also generally message-oriented. That would be code worth optimizing, maybe. In the application I'm working on, the most CPU intensive algorithm we have is a FFT, and I would bet that its probably the place where the least optimization could take place. The slowest part of our code (the part that uses the most CPU cycles for the least accomplished) is the part that writes the data out to the screen (After the FFT; Damned third-party controls). It takes approx 2 seconds to run a hundred thousand points through the FFT, and probably 20-30 seconds to display it. The extra time is taken up by GUI, message passing, and COM/OLE crap.
The point is that only the most CPU intensive, high-performance algorithms really need to be written in Assembly. And most programs don't have these needs.
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
I have noticed this too. It appears that the highest level posts get sorted according to "Highest score first", and the other level (replies to posts, replies to replies to posts, etc) get sorted according to time posted. The only reasonable reason for this I can see is that it creates too much overhead to do sort messages recursively. Either that or its a bug. :)
>>>>>>>> Kvort
>Imagine if the RC Church had burned Gutenburg at the stake for inventing
>the printing press. And I'm sure they would have, if they could have realized
>the implications such an invention would have. Todays powers don't seem to
>want to make that mistake.
If I remember correctly, they did try. I can't remember enough to be certain, but I know the church did try to keep the bible in Latin, and took extreme measures to do so.
Needless to say, not a part of their history they really publicize.
>>>>>>> Kvort
Doesn't the A in ACLU stand for "American"?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the guy should be questioned for 8 hours without a lawyer either, (or, for that matter, in any way inconvenienced for writing a program) but the ACLU isn't going to be able to do anything here. I'm sure they would like to be able to help him, but how can they?
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
Heh. Very funny. BTW, what are you doing posting to slashdot? Finish Duke, dammit! :)
;)
#include <whiteperson.h>
void SeriousReply(char* lpszComments)
{
Sometimes white people do this fighting-racism-and-helping-minorities thing, and some people do it to make themselves feel superior (which is same reason IMHO for racism) but for the most part, I think we do it out of innocence. There are still some nasty racist assholes out there. (And they give us non-racist assholes a bad name) I don't know if a given person's misfortunes are because of racism in the society, or some personality deficiency on his part, or simply bad luck.
Its difficult to tell how widespread racism is in this country (USA, don't know anything about other countries) but we have to try to be part of the solution, as opposed to NOT part of the problem. I would much rather be convicted of trying too hard, than not trying enough.
BTW, this last paragraph looks like a political speech. If so, will someone please come kill me? Just put me out of my misery.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
P.S. Yes, I have to attempt to show off in the presence of a fellow programmer, especially GAME programmers.
P.P.S. You will notify me first if 3DRealms has any open positions?
I think that's the temperature of the actual processor core. Once the heat dissapates into the surrounding packaging, the whole packaging will be cooler that a celeron. And of course, the temperature of the chip will depend SOLELY on the dissapation. If there's nowhere for the heat to go, the chip will just rise in temp until it melts; doesn't matter how low power consumption, etc.
:) I don't know how special their chip is, but from what little I saw of the presentation, Transmeta's marketing people are EXTREMELY good.
Probably the reason why they used core temp was the numbers looked better.
>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
This started as a quick reply, and turned into a thesis (for me, at least) against free software, and paradigm shifts in general.
To understand this post, it helps to understand paradigms. A paradigm is a way of looking at a system, be it the world, or merely the patterns in the office you work in. A paradigm is a filter, a way of ignoring solutions which are really not useful, or not possible. An example was shown to me at one time. An vehicle was designed that had a low-horsepower engine. It got impressive gas mileage, but could also had very impressive acceleration. The specs were deemed impossible by conventional engineering. Its secret was that when the vehicle applied the brakes, the energy was stored temporarily, so that it could be applied to the next acceleration. The paradigm indicated that this was impossible. Paradigms are good in that they keep us from having to eliminate all possible solutions for every problem. It is bad in that other solutions, which lie outside conventional thinking, could be covered up and ignored by our paradigms.
Hopefully this gives some idea of what paradigms are all about. The rest of the post concerns itself with the paradigms of literature (books) and software.
The model for literature works (IMHO) something like this: Writer writes book, usually in digital form. Manuscript, after being looked at and processed by many people, is given to printing press, where it is printed. ALL the people in this chain are dependent on people buying this book. If nobody pays for this book, they don't eat, have no place to sleep, etc. So the digitial form, which can be easily reproduced, is kept secure, and the printed form, which is harder to reproduce, is allowed to circulate more or less free.
Software model is COMPLETELY different. All copies are digital. Can be copied freely, and is getting more free all the time. Copy protection schemes, restrictions, etc. are all attempts to make this new product (software) fit into old patterns of marketing. People are forcing these restrictions because of this paradigm; they cannot grasp any other ways of making money off software. Its not (neccesarily) that we are trying to constrict the freedom of everyone else, the people involved are simply trying to continue our lifestyle.
I am trapped in this same paradigm. I really cannot see any way of making money off of free software, which is why I work for a company that produces copyrighted software. Our copy protection scheme is simple, the software isn't of much use without the large expensive instrument it was designed to run, but I can understand the point of view of people who don't have such protection schemes. The system I live in involves people paying for software. Is there another system that will work? Probably. Is it the free software model? Possibly. But currently, free software is written by people who have other sources of income. If I join the free software movement, and it fails, I am totally without income.
I am a software engineer. I like having a nice car, and a nice apartment, being able to afford to eat well is a bonus. I don't make an immense amount of money. The question is, why should I give this up? Why should I risk this, for a paradigm that I don't understand, that may not work? I don't actually oppose free software, I really see both sides of the situation, and I am generally neutral in the whole argument. The difference is, that I have the ability to step back and see (perhaps) the situation (ignorance is bliss). This whole paradigm-shifting applies to not only software, but to the whole media industry. If people don't get paid for writing songs, very few people are going to write songs, because they're doing something else so that they can eat.
Having said all this, what you (free software people, libertarians, whatever you call yourselves) need to do is 1) Possibly figure out middle steps. See if there is a way, instead of making one large paradigm shift, to make several smaller ones. 2) In either case, get out there and DO something. Standing around talking about it doesn't accomplish anything. Organise, march, make posters, lobby in congress, convince friends and relatives of the "rightness" of your solution. So many battles have been lost for lack of communication; You are the architects, designers, and controllers of the largest communications network in history. 3) Make a plan. This should be done before item two, but I wanted to get across the importance of the second item. (Doing something is important!)
That's a good start. Did I mention that free software advocates should go out and do something?
>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck
Maybe they would have been more careful about responding to you if they'd /., eh? ;-) Make sure and tell them who
known you would've gone complaining on
you are if you order one...
Heh... Maybe I can't win, but I can make damned sure THEY lose. Now that I think about it, this seems to be the argument behind nuclear missles as well. Aw, hell...
I built the computer two months ago. I'm typing on it right now. Ordering another case doesn't make much sense at this point.
Off topic, anyone know anything about those PC Power and Cooling cases the magazine people always rave about? I don't really trust Dvorak, but when Jerry Pournelle says something I consider it. Anyone used/owned/destroyed one?
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, too tired to type more.
Interesting question. OTOH, would a governor with aspirations to the presidency have done that, either?
Oh, and in case you do happen to be against the death penalty, I would advocate you to go and look up what the bible actually advocates. I cannot remember the actual references, but somewhere in the pentateuch, I believe, there is great detail on the punishment of a murderer. If I remember correctly, the punishment had to be carried out by a family member of the murdered person.
My point is: Biblical arguments against the death penalty are really not useful, if only because there are so many interpretations of what the Bible represents, not to mention the religions that aren't "Christian", etc.
Also, I find it hard to believe that any aspiring politico would have commited such a grevious error, especially where it could be overheard.
>>>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
Everything I read is assigned a probability. Your claim was assigned roughly a 0.02% chance of being true.
I mean come on. I understand that most (other) people will buy bullshit if it is skewed in the right manner, but this is too much BS, and too much skewing.
Give me a link to a NON-PARTISAN, informational article on a respected news site that confirms what you claim, and I will reconsider the probability of your claim.
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort
... Actually ... talk ... people ... ?
...code only at night, only at night...
Kibo save me! I can't DO that!
I KNOW the voice is digitized... BUT IT DOESN'T HELP!
...very good coder...
(The previous line is a pitiful attempt at a "Rain Man" parody. It probably wouldn't have been funny even if I hadn't had to explain it.)
Besides which, its long distance, and I refuse to make long distance calls until AT&T, MCI, and every other long-distance company stops calling me and offering me "excellent deals!"
>>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
Hmmm... I paint Minis, so I do have some experience with paint, but I would still rather buy a case then go through all the bother of doing it myself, even if it only took 3-4 hours and looked good (which I highly doubt for myself, if you can do it then more power to ya.)
:)
As far as a case being open source, you're really beginning to scare me. For certain types of software, Open Source is a great idea. But as far as painting your computer case goes, you need to get out and see the uhm... Whatzitcalled... Daystar more often. Open the windows and get rid of the paint fumes, OK?
>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
BP6 is nice, but good luck trying to get the friggin UDMA controller recognised. ARGH
:)
I found a FAQ that told me how, now all I have to do is actually get it recognised and install Linux.
As a side note, Win98 had NO problems finding and recognising the extra IDE ports. I hate Windoze, but it does SOME things impressively well.
As far as cases go, I have a nice big full tower with 3 internal 3.5 bays, 1 external 3.5, and five external 5.25 bays. The biggest problem I have is finding IDE cables long enough to reach the bays that are farther away. I had to go out and search the local stores until I found one that sold really long cables.
>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor
I put together a computer back in november, and wanted one of these cool cases to put in. I sent two or three messages to these people, asking about pricing, shipping, etc. They never replied.
Their web site indicates that they would sell individual cases, but either they only sell bulk, or this company be defunct, which doesn't make sense since they updated their web site recently.
I think its pretty rude to just not reply. Could it have killed them to send a friggin email that says "We don't sell cases to individuals."???
/VENT>
As an aside, how do you put brackets in HTML anyway? I figured out how to do an ending bracket, but a beginning bracket escapes me.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort the Duck, Lord High Peanut of Krondor