1. Disaster. Nuclear engineers say that the chance of a meltdown is very small, but this argument is worthless after Harrisburg and Chernobyl. People in general are mathematically clueless, but they do know that the risk is real and not small after these two events.
That was made a lot worse by proponents greatly overstating their case, effectively arguing that any accident is utterly theoretic and could never, ever happen in reality. When it did - two larger accidents, in Three-Mile Island and in Chernobyl, and numerous smaller incidents (like the Darwin Award winners in a Japanese plant that carted radioactive materials in ordinary buckets) - that effectively destroyed the credibility of the nuclear industry.
When people today say that 1. "Current reactor designs are a lot safer than the 30+ ones we use now"; and 2. "The risk is very, very small", people will say that 3. "You lied through your teeth to get us where you wanted the last time, and we bet you're doing the same this time around"
In no jurisdiction that I am aware of is it illegal to rip and listen to a DRM-unencumbered CD (or record, or tape) that you already own. I would not be surprised if existing music collections is actually the bulk of material listened to.
Or if you are in Japan and want a nice traditional cheap hostel-style room, then find a 'ryokan' somewhere.
I'd seriously like to know where you found an actual cheap ryokan.
In my (limited) experience, a ryokan will be traditional and charming, but always somewhere from "quite a lot more expensive than the usual business hotel" to "you have got to be kidding, I could buy these square feet in Tokyo with that kind of money".
That's not to say a ryokan isn't worth the stay; on the contrary. If you're vacationing in Japan, go for the ryokan over the boring hotel every time.
But again, if you're adventurous, take one night or two at a love hotel; the experience really is worth it. My local favourite is "Chapel Christmas", where it's Christmas every day of the year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/75774506/
That's huge compared to what they have in Japan. In Japan, they have what are called capsule hotels", which is basically like the sleeping tubes in the movie the 5th element.
Yep. This sounds more like a scaled-down normal room. The capsule hotels in Tokyo and Osaka, for those who don't know, are situated around the major train stations and cater to drunk salarymen who missed the last train and need someplace to crash before work the next morning. As such, they're actually quite expensive (set to be cheaper than taking a taxi home), and often prohibit women guests altogether. If you're looking for somewhere to go with that special someone, there's lots of clean, cheerful "love hotels" dotted around every entertainment district (which, often, are actually cheaper, cleaner and more comfortable than a normal hotel if you're looking for a place to stay overnight).
My choice quote - at the very end, and the only tenuous link to the present subject:
And if you do happen to get bit by a Komodo dragon, you'll be able to be distracted from the effects of its venom by the fact that your arm is missing.
True, but don't you think a new file system, API structure, or network stack would bring even more dev/IT people to the table?
But just how well do they integrate with non-MS systems? Like it or not, but having multiple systems is increasingly the reality, and nobody will want to support or develop for something that can't be transferred or interfaced with other systems.
You can get this kind of high accuracy from GPS, if you do a little bit of engineering.
And you can get better than 1m with Galileo with a bit of engineering.
The fact is, in dense cities, GPS sucks hairy monkey balls. With Galileo, and with receivers able to read both systems, things would improve immensely even if Galileo was only a copy of GPS (which it isn't) since there'll be more satellites in view.
If Galileo was really about public use, there wouldn't be a private subscriber channel. The system would just put out accurate data to begin with. Why would the EU citizens accept paying billions for this network, just to have to pay for a subscription to actually use its full capabilities?
I posted an answer about that below; basically, you're paying for the guarantee itself. You can use that data for potentially critical applications, knowing that there is someone with their reputation (and bankbook) on the line if the system borks due to lost position.
Note that the emergency channel gives you just about the same accuracy, and with a low-bandwidth communication channel, for free; it's the guarantee itself that is the difference
If it can get you within 20 meters (or let's say even 50) and you still can't locate a particular address, I don't think that problem is with the GPS system.
You haven't been to Osaka, I understand. Or Tokyo, for that matter (though my own experience with that city is limited to a few weeks). 20 meters off is plenty of margin to get lost.
How would it be different from the current system, except for some marginally useful increases in accuracy and the inability to shut it off during a war if it's being used by enemy missles?
One big benefit (as the article clearly stated; I can recommend reading it), is the much improved accuracy - 1m or so on the open, free channel, 1cm with error estimation for subscribed service, whereas 5-10m is normal for GPS.
A second benefit is that it works better in restricted environments, like beneath a forest canopy, or among high-rises. As anyone using GPS to navigate big cities know, accuracy can rapidly drop to 20 meters or worse, which is frankly no longer all that useful when you're trying to locate a particular adress. A third, associated benefit is that the system takes a lot shorter time to lock on when you start your receiver. Again, in a city, you may have to wait for upwards of five minutes, moving around all the while, before the receiver finds four satellites and figures out where you are.
The United States is going to perceive this as a military move. Or, at least, extreme reactionary war-hawk conservatives will. (i.e. the sorts of people who label all of Europe as Socialist or call Europeans "EUroweenies").
Ahh, a cloud chock-full of silver linings...
Seriously, would the US want to rely on a navigation service controlled by France, with the express ability to shut it off at any time for any reason they want? Why expect Europe to accept such a situation?
Reading the frelling article, I don't see what keeps anyone from hacking and getting the 'commercial-grade' service.
I think a major point of the commercial-grade service isn't the precision itself (which will more or less become available anyway), but the fact that paying for it will guarantee the service. As in, if an incident happens, it's the service operator's fault if the accuracy was degraded. Of course, the service comes with an error estimate; if the signal is degrading and the user (or their equipment) ignores the warnings, the ball is back in their court.
But that implied liability probably does far more to make the service palatable than any technical specifications. In a way, the provider is putting its corporate head on the block as a guarantor of the service.
Re:Just curious
on
Why Use GTK+?
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Does gimp still use GTK+ of some version or some other for its toolkit?
Apple will encase a piece of rock in white, translucent plastic, name it iCon and immediately sell five million of them for $249 each to fans solemnly declaring that Apple has redefined the meaning of amorhpous silicates.
Well, the US is 5% of the population, and perhaps 20% or so of the economy. Most of the potential market is wide open, and cultural and business differences are large enough that it's unclear if there is an advantage to already have a functioning business process elsewhere to start from (or if that even creates a change adversity that is a sum negative).
I really wonder to what degree it really is possible for any one company to dominate the world market in most culture- or society-related products anymore. What I mean is not that societies are becoming more resistant to outside influences, but that the market - seen as purchasing power or some other similar measure - has grown a lot. Perhaps 30 years ago, if you two or three of the north American, west European and the Japanese markets, you really had market dominance. That is simply not true to the same degree anymore. Becoming a dominant player just is a lot harder today - and perhaps impossible in some areas already.
Make a robot that you can have a heated argument on the street with and will still leave you with a parting from-the-heart remark like "Have a good one", and you might have some prospective Gotham customers.
You know, one of the big draws for me with the idea of automated service is that when I don't want to, I'm not forced to be social. The parent poster has a serious point - seing hundreds of people at all times can become pretty draining, and the option of buying a coffee, or lunch, or a paper without having to interact with anyone can be an enormous relief.
Oh, and if I never, ever, hear any variation of "have a good day" - formulaic and habitual, uttered just because the employee manual requires it - ever again, I will consider my life to have been well lived, all considered. That alone os reason enough to look forward to the march towards automated service.
Yep, there are socially inept people in Japan. Yep, they are especially frequent in technical and academic fields.
And of course, that is true for any society. Also, if you're a non-Japanese - and especially if you're the kind of person that reads and comments on/. - the Japanese people you're most likely to run into are those working in technical and academic fields.
I've lived here for some time now, and I find this to have no more more basis in fact here than anywhere else. After seeing supposedly always composed and polite Japanese scream, shout, argue and fight often enough, I've consigned this stereotype to just another myth. It's just like the sterotype of Americans as loud, shallow and selfish - such people certainly exist but isn't really the societal norm.
Re:Ruby & Java == Moriarity & Holmes
on
Ruby Off the Rails
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The ruby crowd positions themselves as none other than mortal enemies of Java and anyone stupid enough to still be using that pathetic excuse for a language!
When looking at who is "positioning" Ruby that way, it seems to be mostly Java users, actually - at times to belittle Ruby (there seems to be a few developers that feel threatened by the Rails framework) but mostly, it seems, as a basis from which to highlight shortcomings in Java. Ruby developers don't seem all that interested in these comparisons.
That's sounds really great for users -- that could be a truly decisive feature, for those who need email access on the road, but for some reason don't already own a blackberry.
Or do not already have a real email account and client on their phone. I think you can't get a phone without it here anymore.
Some aspects of companies are borderless, like support. But then if companies want to do business in the US, we can always put tariffs on them for playing foul.
Last I checked, our colleges are a resource that India uses. We can cut student visa's when outsourcing becomes a problem.
Well, put tariffs on foreign companies, effectively distorting the market in local companies' favour, and other countries do the same to US companies. Everybody loses - and, in the end, it doesn't actually stop the trend of lessening economic differences, it just makes the adjustment more painful for everybody.
And if you see your colleges as a resource used by other countries, are you planning to recompense those other countries for the health care and schooling those graduates received before coming to, and staying in, the US? Now that would be an "interesting" system if nobody could move or work in different countries unless the countries very carefully adjust every perceived cost between each other: "well, mr. Smith did receive a third place ribbon, at a cost of $3.50 to the school, for his science project in the third grade; we'll need to add that to the adjustment charge, of course, before we allow him to move."
Government will have to figure out how to tax those people, the outsource loophole, the company doesnt have to pay insurance, workers comp or benefits.
They do pay the taxes, insurance and other benefits in the country they outsource to. And with a very hot labour market over many years, and the countries growing wealthier, those costs are increasing and faster than in the stable industrialized countries the companies are based in.
In any case, all todays large companies are largely borderless. Most do not have a plurality of activity in any one country, and frequently their larges market is not in the same area their head office happens to reside. Outsourcing is not only to get cheaper development - it is also about having a prescence in very fast-growing markets.
Make it too difficult for them to service other countries and you may see just how quick it is to move the head office and postal adress to Britain, say, or Ireland, or any number of other feasible countries where thay probably already have a heavy prescence.
The quest for the most effective labour for the lowest price will never end.
The lowest price doesn't stay low, though. Seen from far above, what is happening now is very good, and something we should all be happy for, in the long term. Income levels are growing smaller - and it is happening by a combination of wealthy nations growing less wealthy and poorer nations growing wealthier. Yep, it means the buying power of the wealthy will decrease (and decrease more the wealhtier a nation is), but it also means a lot of poor people increase their power. In the end, this is a good thing. And in the end, it means that those companies who have been using these stark income differences as the way to leverage their own earnings will have to change or disappear.
Yes, and they are riding the outsourcing wave as well (and good for them!). But they are focusing regionally - the eastern European states are mostly getting work from west European companies, and the Baltic states are working with Scandinavian companies. Skype was started by a couple of Swedes and has/had a lot of their developemnt in Estonia, for example.
I don't think there is that a large surplus pool left over for, say, American or Japanese companies when they're already part of the huge European market.
Sure, you'll inevitably have a system that only predicts that "more of the same" is good. That only picks sure bets. But as we've seen often enough in Hollywod movies (as opposed to moviemaking in general) sure bets often aren't. And if a system can help in picking which Tom "The Thetans Took My Sanity And All I got Was This Lousy T-shirt" Cruise vehicle will actually break even then I guess it will have fulfilled its purpose.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Disaster. Nuclear engineers say that the chance of a meltdown is very small, but this argument is worthless after Harrisburg and Chernobyl. People in general are mathematically clueless, but they do know that the risk is real and not small after these two events.
That was made a lot worse by proponents greatly overstating their case, effectively arguing that any accident is utterly theoretic and could never, ever happen in reality. When it did - two larger accidents, in Three-Mile Island and in Chernobyl, and numerous smaller incidents (like the Darwin Award winners in a Japanese plant that carted radioactive materials in ordinary buckets) - that effectively destroyed the credibility of the nuclear industry.
When people today say that 1. "Current reactor designs are a lot safer than the 30+ ones we use now"; and 2. "The risk is very, very small", people will say that 3. "You lied through your teeth to get us where you wanted the last time, and we bet you're doing the same this time around"
...which must be illegally.
In no jurisdiction that I am aware of is it illegal to rip and listen to a DRM-unencumbered CD (or record, or tape) that you already own. I would not be surprised if existing music collections is actually the bulk of material listened to.
Or if you are in Japan and want a nice traditional cheap hostel-style room, then find a 'ryokan' somewhere.
I'd seriously like to know where you found an actual cheap ryokan.
In my (limited) experience, a ryokan will be traditional and charming, but always somewhere from "quite a lot more expensive than the usual business hotel" to "you have got to be kidding, I could buy these square feet in Tokyo with that kind of money".
That's not to say a ryokan isn't worth the stay; on the contrary. If you're vacationing in Japan, go for the ryokan over the boring hotel every time.
But again, if you're adventurous, take one night or two at a love hotel; the experience really is worth it. My local favourite is "Chapel Christmas", where it's Christmas every day of the year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jannem/75774506/
That's huge compared to what they have in Japan. In Japan, they have what are called capsule hotels", which is basically like the sleeping tubes in the movie the 5th element.
Yep. This sounds more like a scaled-down normal room. The capsule hotels in Tokyo and Osaka, for those who don't know, are situated around the major train stations and cater to drunk salarymen who missed the last train and need someplace to crash before work the next morning. As such, they're actually quite expensive (set to be cheaper than taking a taxi home), and often prohibit women guests altogether. If you're looking for somewhere to go with that special someone, there's lots of clean, cheerful "love hotels" dotted around every entertainment district (which, often, are actually cheaper, cleaner and more comfortable than a normal hotel if you're looking for a place to stay overnight).
So, Dan obviously didn't get any brains. Steve obviously didn't either. Somewhere out there, there is a Quayle brother who's dangerously smart.
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/11/21/w
My choice quote - at the very end, and the only tenuous link to the present subject:
True, but don't you think a new file system, API structure, or network stack would bring even more dev/IT people to the table?
But just how well do they integrate with non-MS systems? Like it or not, but having multiple systems is increasingly the reality, and nobody will want to support or develop for something that can't be transferred or interfaced with other systems.
You can get this kind of high accuracy from GPS, if you do a little bit of engineering.
And you can get better than 1m with Galileo with a bit of engineering.
The fact is, in dense cities, GPS sucks hairy monkey balls. With Galileo, and with receivers able to read both systems, things would improve immensely even if Galileo was only a copy of GPS (which it isn't) since there'll be more satellites in view.
If Galileo was really about public use, there wouldn't be a private subscriber channel. The system would just put out accurate data to begin with. Why would the EU citizens accept paying billions for this network, just to have to pay for a subscription to actually use its full capabilities?
I posted an answer about that below; basically, you're paying for the guarantee itself. You can use that data for potentially critical applications, knowing that there is someone with their reputation (and bankbook) on the line if the system borks due to lost position.
Note that the emergency channel gives you just about the same accuracy, and with a low-bandwidth communication channel, for free; it's the guarantee itself that is the difference
.
If it can get you within 20 meters (or let's say even 50) and you still can't locate a particular address, I don't think that problem is with the GPS system.
You haven't been to Osaka, I understand. Or Tokyo, for that matter (though my own experience with that city is limited to a few weeks). 20 meters off is plenty of margin to get lost.
How would it be different from the current system, except for some marginally useful increases in accuracy and the inability to shut it off during a war if it's being used by enemy missles?
One big benefit (as the article clearly stated; I can recommend reading it), is the much improved accuracy - 1m or so on the open, free channel, 1cm with error estimation for subscribed service, whereas 5-10m is normal for GPS.
A second benefit is that it works better in restricted environments, like beneath a forest canopy, or among high-rises. As anyone using GPS to navigate big cities know, accuracy can rapidly drop to 20 meters or worse, which is frankly no longer all that useful when you're trying to locate a particular adress. A third, associated benefit is that the system takes a lot shorter time to lock on when you start your receiver. Again, in a city, you may have to wait for upwards of five minutes, moving around all the while, before the receiver finds four satellites and figures out where you are.
The United States is going to perceive this as a military move. Or, at least, extreme reactionary war-hawk conservatives will. (i.e. the sorts of people who label all of Europe as Socialist or call Europeans "EUroweenies").
Ahh, a cloud chock-full of silver linings...
Seriously, would the US want to rely on a navigation service controlled by France, with the express ability to shut it off at any time for any reason they want? Why expect Europe to accept such a situation?
Reading the frelling article, I don't see what keeps anyone from hacking and getting the 'commercial-grade' service.
I think a major point of the commercial-grade service isn't the precision itself (which will more or less become available anyway), but the fact that paying for it will guarantee the service. As in, if an incident happens, it's the service operator's fault if the accuracy was degraded. Of course, the service comes with an error estimate; if the signal is degrading and the user (or their equipment) ignores the warnings, the ball is back in their court.
But that implied liability probably does far more to make the service palatable than any technical specifications. In a way, the provider is putting its corporate head on the block as a guarantor of the service.
Does gimp still use GTK+ of some version or some other for its toolkit?
Yes.
Apple will encase a piece of rock in white, translucent plastic, name it iCon and immediately sell five million of them for $249 each to fans solemnly declaring that Apple has redefined the meaning of amorhpous silicates.
Well, the US is 5% of the population, and perhaps 20% or so of the economy. Most of the potential market is wide open, and cultural and business differences are large enough that it's unclear if there is an advantage to already have a functioning business process elsewhere to start from (or if that even creates a change adversity that is a sum negative).
I really wonder to what degree it really is possible for any one company to dominate the world market in most culture- or society-related products anymore. What I mean is not that societies are becoming more resistant to outside influences, but that the market - seen as purchasing power or some other similar measure - has grown a lot. Perhaps 30 years ago, if you two or three of the north American, west European and the Japanese markets, you really had market dominance. That is simply not true to the same degree anymore. Becoming a dominant player just is a lot harder today - and perhaps impossible in some areas already.
Make a robot that you can have a heated argument on the street with and will still leave you with a parting from-the-heart remark like "Have a good one", and you might have some prospective Gotham customers.
You know, one of the big draws for me with the idea of automated service is that when I don't want to, I'm not forced to be social. The parent poster has a serious point - seing hundreds of people at all times can become pretty draining, and the option of buying a coffee, or lunch, or a paper without having to interact with anyone can be an enormous relief.
Oh, and if I never, ever, hear any variation of "have a good day" - formulaic and habitual, uttered just because the employee manual requires it - ever again, I will consider my life to have been well lived, all considered. That alone os reason enough to look forward to the march towards automated service.
Yep, there are socially inept people in Japan. Yep, they are especially frequent in technical and academic fields.
/. - the Japanese people you're most likely to run into are those working in technical and academic fields.
And of course, that is true for any society. Also, if you're a non-Japanese - and especially if you're the kind of person that reads and comments on
I've lived here for some time now, and I find this to have no more more basis in fact here than anywhere else. After seeing supposedly always composed and polite Japanese scream, shout, argue and fight often enough, I've consigned this stereotype to just another myth. It's just like the sterotype of Americans as loud, shallow and selfish - such people certainly exist but isn't really the societal norm.
The ruby crowd positions themselves as none other than mortal enemies of Java and anyone stupid enough to still be using that pathetic excuse for a language!
When looking at who is "positioning" Ruby that way, it seems to be mostly Java users, actually - at times to belittle Ruby (there seems to be a few developers that feel threatened by the Rails framework) but mostly, it seems, as a basis from which to highlight shortcomings in Java. Ruby developers don't seem all that interested in these comparisons.
That's sounds really great for users -- that could be a truly decisive feature, for those who need email access on the road, but for some reason don't already own a blackberry.
Or do not already have a real email account and client on their phone. I think you can't get a phone without it here anymore.
Some aspects of companies are borderless, like support. But then if companies want to do business in the US, we can always put tariffs on them for playing foul.
Last I checked, our colleges are a resource that India uses. We can cut student visa's when outsourcing becomes a problem.
Well, put tariffs on foreign companies, effectively distorting the market in local companies' favour, and other countries do the same to US companies. Everybody loses - and, in the end, it doesn't actually stop the trend of lessening economic differences, it just makes the adjustment more painful for everybody.
And if you see your colleges as a resource used by other countries, are you planning to recompense those other countries for the health care and schooling those graduates received before coming to, and staying in, the US? Now that would be an "interesting" system if nobody could move or work in different countries unless the countries very carefully adjust every perceived cost between each other: "well, mr. Smith did receive a third place ribbon, at a cost of $3.50 to the school, for his science project in the third grade; we'll need to add that to the adjustment charge, of course, before we allow him to move."
Of course, that's the same kind of story you hear about every in-hose development as well.
Perhaps because decently working, on-time no fuss deployments aren't anything exciting to talk about?
Government will have to figure out how to tax those people, the outsource loophole, the company doesnt have to pay insurance, workers comp or benefits.
They do pay the taxes, insurance and other benefits in the country they outsource to. And with a very hot labour market over many years, and the countries growing wealthier, those costs are increasing and faster than in the stable industrialized countries the companies are based in.
In any case, all todays large companies are largely borderless. Most do not have a plurality of activity in any one country, and frequently their larges market is not in the same area their head office happens to reside. Outsourcing is not only to get cheaper development - it is also about having a prescence in very fast-growing markets.
Make it too difficult for them to service other countries and you may see just how quick it is to move the head office and postal adress to Britain, say, or Ireland, or any number of other feasible countries where thay probably already have a heavy prescence.
The quest for the most effective labour for the lowest price will never end.
The lowest price doesn't stay low, though. Seen from far above, what is happening now is very good, and something we should all be happy for, in the long term. Income levels are growing smaller - and it is happening by a combination of wealthy nations growing less wealthy and poorer nations growing wealthier. Yep, it means the buying power of the wealthy will decrease (and decrease more the wealhtier a nation is), but it also means a lot of poor people increase their power. In the end, this is a good thing. And in the end, it means that those companies who have been using these stark income differences as the way to leverage their own earnings will have to change or disappear.
Eastern Europe has a lot of IT/programmer types.
Yes, and they are riding the outsourcing wave as well (and good for them!). But they are focusing regionally - the eastern European states are mostly getting work from west European companies, and the Baltic states are working with Scandinavian companies. Skype was started by a couple of Swedes and has/had a lot of their developemnt in Estonia, for example.
I don't think there is that a large surplus pool left over for, say, American or Japanese companies when they're already part of the huge European market.
Sure, you'll inevitably have a system that only predicts that "more of the same" is good. That only picks sure bets. But as we've seen often enough in Hollywod movies (as opposed to moviemaking in general) sure bets often aren't. And if a system can help in picking which Tom "The Thetans Took My Sanity And All I got Was This Lousy T-shirt" Cruise vehicle will actually break even then I guess it will have fulfilled its purpose.