Nonesense. Bush II got more of the vote than Clinton did. It didn't stop either of them from doing whatever they wanted. This 'lack of credibility' existed only in the minds of hard-core republicans (in Clinton's case) and hard-core democrats (in Bush II's case)
Neither party gives a #%!# about messages, unless the message is 'the other guy won, you lose!!'
I'll admit, what you suggest is likely. Especially if this third party absorbs a good deal of the party leaders that were running whichever party it replaced. (That would be little more than a name change, and needs to be guarded against)
However, if this third party could educate enough of the public, so that it's power-base has a clue, it stands a good chance of doing a lot of good.
I guess what I am saying is what Jefferson said, A nation who wants to be ignorant and free . . . wants what never was and never will be. I am afraid that we (as a nation) are pretty ignorant, and unless this changes, we will lose what little freedom is left. The Republicrats will not educate the ignorant, though, so don't look to them to save this nation.
"but allowing the greater evil to be elected will only make the situation suck worse."
Correct. However, voting for the lesser of the two evils will do the same thing. It will just take longer.
But what if, by letting the greater evil win, you give us a chance to actually get a non-evil administration into power? I say go for it, even with the chance that if we fail, the end comes sooner. A chance at winning is better than a delayed, but guarenteed, loss. IMHO anyway.
You are right about reform at the local level, that is where it has to start. But I disagree that election reform is what we need. (though it could help) Education of the public, and election of non-republicrats to local and state office is where most of the effort needs to be.
One wants to drive off the cliff on one side, the other wants to drive into the cliff on the other side. (I intentionally did not say right and left:) )
Both parties are hell-bent on destroying this nation and it's freedoms. They have different methods of doing so, and these methods have big consequences for various special interest groups (gun lobby, pro-{life,choice}, {MP,RI}AA, big business, minorites, you get the picture!)
So which side wins matters a lot to you if any one of these special interests are more important to you than liberty. But if you value living in the land of the free and the home of the brave, there is no difference.
P.S. gay marriage is an oxymoron, and ammending the constitution is the right way to do it, specifically, ditch the 14th amendment (replace if necessary with a non-broken version) Most if not all court decisions affecting gay marriage etc at the federal level depend on the 14th amendment. (as well as abortion, the texas sodemy case, religion in schools, ten commandments in court, etc) Without that, the federal government has no jurisdiction over them.
An amendment mentioning marriage, is both a bad idea and a bad precedent. (Shall we define 'person' next?)
Utah (my state) will vote for Bush. He knows this. He is not even bothering to campaign here.
A vote for a third party here will have ZERO effect on who wins the election. Most states are in this position.
So, look at your state, and if there is some question about which dork will win your state, go ahead and choose the lesser evil. For the rest of us, vote third-party. That way your vote can have some impact on politics. Voting for either dork in these states is throwing your vote away.
If that is your definition of science, then I do not care if something is or is not science. Both economics and quantum mechanics are important fields of endeavor, as you put it. Both can be studied in methodical ways to yield verifiably correct results. That one method of study, the scientific method, is not useable, due to the nature of economics or quantum mechanics, simply means that we must check to see if whatever method used is flawed or not. We already know that the scientific method is not flawed.
If this is what you had in mind, then, yes, economic and quantum mechanics are not sciences, and we need a different name to describe them. But only the terminology changes. It is like deciding whether tomatoes are fruit or vegetable. Whichever way you decide has no real bearing on tomatoes. They are still exactally the same as before. Tomatoes.
However, when people say 'X is not a science' the implication is that the conclusions of X are not as true, or as important as those that are dubed science, and can be disregarded or doubted. While there are no doubt many fields where this is true, this does not apply to economics, or quantum mechanics.
Last point, it has been shown that all physical phenomenon (except gravity so far) are merely special cases of quantum mechanics. This would mean that astronomy, biology, chemistry, and most physics are not science either, as there are all quantum mechanical at their core. Is there any science left?
" You can't do the same experiment twice and get the same results."
Correct. But not in the way that you imply. You cannot do this mostly because you cannot do the same experiment twice. Heck, you cannot even list all of the input conditions (since these include all the knowledge/opinions etc of all the humans involved) let alone replicate them.
" Unless you can test a hypothesis and come up with verifiable, repeatable results, you're not doing science."
By this strict definition, quantum mechanics is not science. An electron, in some specified condition, has a chance of tunneling through some barrier. We can (at least in simple situations) calculate this chance exactlly, and verify that this calculation is correct. But you cannot predict in any way when, or if, it will do so. The when of it is not repeatable. Does this mean it is not science??? No.
"Next, cars will be banned, because they can be used as getaway vehicles for bank robberies."
No, you seem to be unaware of the true power in the world today. Corporations. Big business. Your logic seems to be, 'Because $PRODUCTX is being banned because of $GIVEN_REASON then $PRODUCTY will next be banned next because $GIVEN_REASON applies there too. The truth is that if a product threatens an industry with an established political power-base, laws will be passed to limit/eradicate that product. The auto industry has too much political clout to be threatened, and cars do not threaten anyone's profits.
You are right about one thing though, the betamax rulling does threaten the publishing industry (music, movies, and anything else digital) and so it is likely to be overturned/legislated out of existence.
"Do you know how enormously more likely a person is to get in a harmful accident during his first 4 years of driving?"
Yes. This proves that practice and/or expierience makes safer drivers. Is there any proof that the licence grants any such ability? Or assures such ability?
"Can you imagine how much worse it would be if they were allowed to start driving as soon as they can buy/borrow a car,...[?]"
Yes, actually. If I remember correctly, a person is more likely to get into an accident in the first few years around drinking age than before. (here driving age starts at 16, drinking age is 21) Assuming that the parents are somewhat responsible, I imagine that there would be little loss in safety. Since that assumption is not always true, actual results would be a little bit worse, but not disaster by any means.
This starts to get into a philosophical question. Which do you value more, liberty or safety? I would rather be at liberty to drive my car without the restrictions of licensing, registration and safety inspections, than to have safer roads - even if I am wrong, and such regulations actually do signifigantly increase safety.
"The fact that you drove around with a traffic cop in your backseat for 30 minutes and he didn't get angry at you makes you safer."
No. This constitutes weak proof of minimal competence. (you can drop the weak and minimal here if it makes you feel better, even strong proof of competence doesn't change this.) It does not make you safer. At all. The practice and training needed to pass such a test is what makes the driver safer.
"A firm cutoff date like that is both wrong and unfair."
I totally agree with that statement. Are you arguing for a repeal of minimum driving ages?
Hmmm... I kind of like the idea, (M+4). Add something like AMD's Cool&quiet to the M so it slows down to 500MHz or so when idle, and shut the 4 down completely, so it doesn't heat the house when you aren't using it.
Maby you could even use the p4's l2 cache as an l3 for the M when the p4 is not in use.... It would be slow, sure, but faster than RAM.
Gold is measured in troy ounces, 12 to a pound, not 16. Oh, and that is a troy pound, which is different than the normal pound.... see this for details. Net result is that a (normal) pound of gold is worth a bit less than you calculated.
All this means is that it won't happen . . until it becomes cheaper. Unless we nuke ourselvs back into the stone age or some such stupidity, this is only a matter of time.
The only real thing to be concerned about is 'Will it be in my lifetime or not?'
At that price, you would earn about 2%/year on your money. Not all that hot. The only way that this makes sense is if you think that Google will a) double (or better) its profits by cost cutting etc., or b) double (or better) it's revenue with the same profit margins, and you think that Google's market value will not fall. Or you think you can sell it back soon to an even bigger sucker than yourself before reality sets in.
If not, well, 10 year Treasuries are yealding 4.5%, and you will get your money back. Given the risk factors, $5 billion sounds a little high to me. It almost looks to me like the bubble lost some air, but did not pop.
Others have pointed out that we are stuck with round wafers. The real question then is why are they still using square chips? I would think that hexagonal chips would pack more onto the round wafer than squares. Or perhaps triangles? (you want some shape that fits together without gaps, otherwise you waste more than what you would save)
All of the chip desighs I have seen have large square L2 caches, Is that the reason?
As for cooling, the transistors are in a very thin (measured in nanometers!) layer. Why not grind/polish off the rest of the SI (after it is made) and putting the cooling fluid right next to the transistors? (a few 10's of micrometers?)
Huh?? Plenty of software that works well for both platforms? Oh, wait, you meant plenty of software that works for windows, and plenty of software that works for Linux. Outside of a few of the more polished OSS projects, there is almost no software that runs on Windows and Linux (same program on both platforms)
That is what the grandparent post meant. There isn't much. But there is a lot of software that runs on Linux and Solaris and AIX and *BSD and... And corporations are starting to like it.
Hmmmm... First, a thoughtfull (and rather large) reply, I half expected a shorter rant. Nice.
To add to your reasons why programmers create OSS. Many of these people love creating things, especially new, or complex things. (See yesterday's?/. article on great hackers). Second, the political bent, ala Richard Stallman. Your other reasons are good to.
Your reasoning as to why a ballance cannot be reached depends on two assumptions. First, that both OSS and CSS (closed source...) software developement depend on the number of paid programmers. "So now there are P-Po programmers working. The problem is that decreases the amount of work done on both commercial products and open source products," I see no reason for this to be the case. You said yourself that one of the reasons for writting OSS was lack of a programming job. Second assumption, that as OSS products become less usefull, (due to fewer programmers as per assumption 1) that the market will turn to CSS. This is certainly possible, but it does not seem to be the case. What is happening is that the corporations (except MS of course) are simply improving existing OSS projects, as doing so is cheaper in the short term at least than starting from scratch on CSS projects. I am refering to IBM, Apple, Linksys (wireless access points) and others.
If you add to that the fact that software developement in general has been changing too fast to reach any sort of ballance anyway, I am not worried about it.
I am also still puzzled by your fear of volunteers. (work without compensation) The problem with communisim is not work without compensation, as it is forced work without compensation, combined with compensation without work. (welfare) Laws mandating that all software be GPL'ed would be BAD for the software industry, and the computer world in general. OSS is not comunisim as implimented by the soviet union etc. It is more akin to old-fashioned barn-raising. That worked fine.
Last point: "A programmer doesn't have much else to do. " Wrong. He could take up farming, or woodworking, or engineering or . . . Programmers are people, and people can do just about anything. As I said in my first post, the only thing to be afraid of here is the temporary costs of retraining. (and the lost productivity during said retraining) The programmer will need retraining for anything not very similar to programming, but that does not mean he cannot do anything else.
Most people in the US would run screaming in terror if they were actually presented with true freedom. They do not want to take responsibility for their actions, which is what freedom requires.
And no, I am not talking about anarchy, more the ideals our nation was founded on.
This may be the freest nation in the world, but it is not very free.
Not just anyone can practice law. You have to be licenced to practice law. Licences are usually nothing more than comeptition control. There are too few lawyers*, because the competition is artificially limited, to bennifit the lawyers. You assumed that the free market principals of supply and demand applied here. They do not.
*Well, too few given the huge amount of regulations and laws that can be litigated over! Passed by lawyers in the legislature/congress...
I need to find/write a stock reply to this nonsense, as it comes up often here. This is the first draft?
The concept here is simple. In the pre-wikipedia world, there is a demand for encyclopedias. This demand is filled by people who write and sell encyclopedias. The cost to society for this is the goods and services that the people who are writting the encyclopedias could have made, but aren't, because they are busy writting and marketing encyclopedias. Normally this is a good thing because the value of the encyclopedias to society is about the same or greater than that cost. (barring copyright monopolies or other legal regulations that limit the competition! then the cost is greater than the bennifit!)
Enter wikipedia. Assuming that it is about as good as the commercial encyclopedias, people will stop buying those encyclopedias and use the free wikipedia. Those people who were writting the commercial encyclopedias can now produce something else of value. Thus, society gains the value of both the encyclipedias and the goods and services of those who were writting them. Also, because the wikipedia is cheaper, more people use it, and so the bennifit to society of the wikipedia is greater than that of the commercial encyclopedias.
To sum up, Open source is simply more efficient for producing information products than commercial methods. (in general, I am sure there are still some exceptions...) This greater efficiency results in a wealthier society. The only thing to be afraid of is the (temporary) cost to society of retraining those who were employed in now obsolete industries.
This is just basic economics, Adam Smith style. Go read his book, (or at least the first few chapters) wealth of nations. It is free on guttenberg.;)
Every 'need' (or must, have to, etc) has an 'or else' clause. Usually it is clear from context what it is, so we skip it. ('I need to breathe' has the, usually unstated, 'or else I will die!' clause. If dying is not a problem, do I need to breathe?)
However, in this case I am not sure what the 'or else' is here. Could you clarify? What happens if they don't?
"Helping very young children to walk can actually be a health threat, as their leg bones are not yet strong enough to support them. Supposedly it's a fairly common occurrence for babies to have tiny leg fractures due to premature "walking" with an adult's help."
Really??? I was under the impression that baby 'bones' at that age were mostly cartilage, not ridgid bone. Any links on this??
I imagine that if the stress was enought to fracture, it would hurt, and the first niece loved walking. We got tired of it after the first few hours. each day.
Any comments anyone? I do not want to hurt my nieces!
The 'ordinary desktop user' doesn't install OSes either. The only 'winning over' that you need for these people is when they go to the store(or wherever) to buy a computer, is for them to consider buying the linux preinstalled one instead of the windows one. The $ factor should help there, but first there needs to be the option. Get them that option, and you are more than halfway there.
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Neither party gives a #%!# about messages, unless the message is 'the other guy won, you lose!!'
I'll admit, what you suggest is likely. Especially if this third party absorbs a good deal of the party leaders that were running whichever party it replaced. (That would be little more than a name change, and needs to be guarded against)
However, if this third party could educate enough of the public, so that it's power-base has a clue, it stands a good chance of doing a lot of good.
I guess what I am saying is what Jefferson said, A nation who wants to be ignorant and free . . . wants what never was and never will be. I am afraid that we (as a nation) are pretty ignorant, and unless this changes, we will lose what little freedom is left. The Republicrats will not educate the ignorant, though, so don't look to them to save this nation.
Correct. However, voting for the lesser of the two evils will do the same thing. It will just take longer.
But what if, by letting the greater evil win, you give us a chance to actually get a non-evil administration into power? I say go for it, even with the chance that if we fail, the end comes sooner. A chance at winning is better than a delayed, but guarenteed, loss. IMHO anyway.
You are right about reform at the local level, that is where it has to start. But I disagree that election reform is what we need. (though it could help) Education of the public, and election of non-republicrats to local and state office is where most of the effort needs to be.
Both parties are hell-bent on destroying this nation and it's freedoms. They have different methods of doing so, and these methods have big consequences for various special interest groups (gun lobby, pro-{life,choice}, {MP,RI}AA, big business, minorites, you get the picture!)
So which side wins matters a lot to you if any one of these special interests are more important to you than liberty. But if you value living in the land of the free and the home of the brave, there is no difference.
P.S. gay marriage is an oxymoron, and ammending the constitution is the right way to do it, specifically, ditch the 14th amendment (replace if necessary with a non-broken version) Most if not all court decisions affecting gay marriage etc at the federal level depend on the 14th amendment. (as well as abortion, the texas sodemy case, religion in schools, ten commandments in court, etc) Without that, the federal government has no jurisdiction over them.
An amendment mentioning marriage, is both a bad idea and a bad precedent. (Shall we define 'person' next?)
A vote for a third party here will have ZERO effect on who wins the election. Most states are in this position.
So, look at your state, and if there is some question about which dork will win your state, go ahead and choose the lesser evil. For the rest of us, vote third-party. That way your vote can have some impact on politics. Voting for either dork in these states is throwing your vote away.
If this is what you had in mind, then, yes, economic and quantum mechanics are not sciences, and we need a different name to describe them. But only the terminology changes. It is like deciding whether tomatoes are fruit or vegetable. Whichever way you decide has no real bearing on tomatoes. They are still exactally the same as before. Tomatoes.
However, when people say 'X is not a science' the implication is that the conclusions of X are not as true, or as important as those that are dubed science, and can be disregarded or doubted. While there are no doubt many fields where this is true, this does not apply to economics, or quantum mechanics.
Last point, it has been shown that all physical phenomenon (except gravity so far) are merely special cases of quantum mechanics. This would mean that astronomy, biology, chemistry, and most physics are not science either, as there are all quantum mechanical at their core. Is there any science left?
Correct. But not in the way that you imply. You cannot do this mostly because you cannot do the same experiment twice. Heck, you cannot even list all of the input conditions (since these include all the knowledge/opinions etc of all the humans involved) let alone replicate them.
" Unless you can test a hypothesis and come up with verifiable, repeatable results, you're not doing science."
By this strict definition, quantum mechanics is not science. An electron, in some specified condition, has a chance of tunneling through some barrier. We can (at least in simple situations) calculate this chance exactlly, and verify that this calculation is correct. But you cannot predict in any way when, or if, it will do so. The when of it is not repeatable. Does this mean it is not science??? No.
No, you seem to be unaware of the true power in the world today. Corporations. Big business. Your logic seems to be, 'Because $PRODUCTX is being banned because of $GIVEN_REASON then $PRODUCTY will next be banned next because $GIVEN_REASON applies there too. The truth is that if a product threatens an industry with an established political power-base, laws will be passed to limit/eradicate that product. The auto industry has too much political clout to be threatened, and cars do not threaten anyone's profits.
You are right about one thing though, the betamax rulling does threaten the publishing industry (music, movies, and anything else digital) and so it is likely to be overturned/legislated out of existence.
Yes. This proves that practice and/or expierience makes safer drivers. Is there any proof that the licence grants any such ability? Or assures such ability?
"Can you imagine how much worse it would be if they were allowed to start driving as soon as they can buy/borrow a car, ...[?]"
Yes, actually. If I remember correctly, a person is more likely to get into an accident in the first few years around drinking age than before. (here driving age starts at 16, drinking age is 21) Assuming that the parents are somewhat responsible, I imagine that there would be little loss in safety. Since that assumption is not always true, actual results would be a little bit worse, but not disaster by any means.
This starts to get into a philosophical question. Which do you value more, liberty or safety? I would rather be at liberty to drive my car without the restrictions of licensing, registration and safety inspections, than to have safer roads - even if I am wrong, and such regulations actually do signifigantly increase safety.
No. This constitutes weak proof of minimal competence. (you can drop the weak and minimal here if it makes you feel better, even strong proof of competence doesn't change this.) It does not make you safer. At all. The practice and training needed to pass such a test is what makes the driver safer.
"A firm cutoff date like that is both wrong and unfair."
I totally agree with that statement. Are you arguing for a repeal of minimum driving ages?
That sounds reasonable, but you provide no evidence whatsoever beyond your say-so.
Can you back up your claims? Logic or links?
Maby you could even use the p4's l2 cache as an l3 for the M when the p4 is not in use.... It would be slow, sure, but faster than RAM.
You are only off by about 10%, your argument is still valid. :^)
Gold is measured in troy ounces, 12 to a pound, not 16. Oh, and that is a troy pound, which is different than the normal pound.... see this for details. Net result is that a (normal) pound of gold is worth a bit less than you calculated.
The only real thing to be concerned about is 'Will it be in my lifetime or not?'
If not, well, 10 year Treasuries are yealding 4.5%, and you will get your money back. Given the risk factors, $5 billion sounds a little high to me. It almost looks to me like the bubble lost some air, but did not pop.
All of the chip desighs I have seen have large square L2 caches, Is that the reason?
As for cooling, the transistors are in a very thin (measured in nanometers!) layer. Why not grind/polish off the rest of the SI (after it is made) and putting the cooling fluid right next to the transistors? (a few 10's of micrometers?)
That is what the grandparent post meant. There isn't much. But there is a lot of software that runs on Linux and Solaris and AIX and *BSD and ... And corporations are starting to like it.
To add to your reasons why programmers create OSS. Many of these people love creating things, especially new, or complex things. (See yesterday's? /. article on great hackers). Second, the political bent, ala Richard Stallman. Your other reasons are good to.
Your reasoning as to why a ballance cannot be reached depends on two assumptions. First, that both OSS and CSS (closed source...) software developement depend on the number of paid programmers. "So now there are P-Po programmers working. The problem is that decreases the amount of work done on both commercial products and open source products," I see no reason for this to be the case. You said yourself that one of the reasons for writting OSS was lack of a programming job. Second assumption, that as OSS products become less usefull, (due to fewer programmers as per assumption 1) that the market will turn to CSS. This is certainly possible, but it does not seem to be the case. What is happening is that the corporations (except MS of course) are simply improving existing OSS projects, as doing so is cheaper in the short term at least than starting from scratch on CSS projects. I am refering to IBM, Apple, Linksys (wireless access points) and others.
If you add to that the fact that software developement in general has been changing too fast to reach any sort of ballance anyway, I am not worried about it.
I am also still puzzled by your fear of volunteers. (work without compensation) The problem with communisim is not work without compensation, as it is forced work without compensation, combined with compensation without work. (welfare) Laws mandating that all software be GPL'ed would be BAD for the software industry, and the computer world in general. OSS is not comunisim as implimented by the soviet union etc. It is more akin to old-fashioned barn-raising. That worked fine.
Last point: "A programmer doesn't have much else to do. " Wrong. He could take up farming, or woodworking, or engineering or . . . Programmers are people, and people can do just about anything. As I said in my first post, the only thing to be afraid of here is the temporary costs of retraining. (and the lost productivity during said retraining) The programmer will need retraining for anything not very similar to programming, but that does not mean he cannot do anything else.
And no, I am not talking about anarchy, more the ideals our nation was founded on.
This may be the freest nation in the world, but it is not very free.
*Well, too few given the huge amount of regulations and laws that can be litigated over! Passed by lawyers in the legislature/congress...
The concept here is simple. In the pre-wikipedia world, there is a demand for encyclopedias. This demand is filled by people who write and sell encyclopedias. The cost to society for this is the goods and services that the people who are writting the encyclopedias could have made, but aren't, because they are busy writting and marketing encyclopedias. Normally this is a good thing because the value of the encyclopedias to society is about the same or greater than that cost. (barring copyright monopolies or other legal regulations that limit the competition! then the cost is greater than the bennifit!)
Enter wikipedia. Assuming that it is about as good as the commercial encyclopedias, people will stop buying those encyclopedias and use the free wikipedia. Those people who were writting the commercial encyclopedias can now produce something else of value. Thus, society gains the value of both the encyclipedias and the goods and services of those who were writting them. Also, because the wikipedia is cheaper, more people use it, and so the bennifit to society of the wikipedia is greater than that of the commercial encyclopedias.
To sum up, Open source is simply more efficient for producing information products than commercial methods. (in general, I am sure there are still some exceptions...) This greater efficiency results in a wealthier society. The only thing to be afraid of is the (temporary) cost to society of retraining those who were employed in now obsolete industries.
This is just basic economics, Adam Smith style. Go read his book, (or at least the first few chapters) wealth of nations. It is free on guttenberg. ;)
Every 'need' (or must, have to, etc) has an 'or else' clause. Usually it is clear from context what it is, so we skip it. ('I need to breathe' has the, usually unstated, 'or else I will die!' clause. If dying is not a problem, do I need to breathe?)
However, in this case I am not sure what the 'or else' is here. Could you clarify? What happens if they don't?
Really??? I was under the impression that baby 'bones' at that age were mostly cartilage, not ridgid bone. Any links on this??
I imagine that if the stress was enought to fracture, it would hurt, and the first niece loved walking. We got tired of it after the first few hours. each day.
Any comments anyone? I do not want to hurt my nieces!
The 'ordinary desktop user' doesn't install OSes either. The only 'winning over' that you need for these people is when they go to the store(or wherever) to buy a computer, is for them to consider buying the linux preinstalled one instead of the windows one. The $ factor should help there, but first there needs to be the option. Get them that option, and you are more than halfway there.