Hey, I know! Let's cut U.S. farm subsidies to the levels farmers get in Australia and New Zealand. That would be zero. Yep.
(Well, using OECD scoring [which counts marketing, infrastructure, research, higher prices through tariff protection, and other forms of industry support in addition to direct payments, price supports, and the like] Australian farmers have about a 4% subsidy and New Zealand ones a 2% [2004 figures]. But compared to the U.S. 20%, European 35%, or Japanese 58% [also 2004 figures], they might as well be zero.)
So we're talking $2 billion a year. Where to find it, where to find it . . .
Hey, I know! Let's cut U.S. farm subsidies to the levels farmers get in Australia and New Zealand. Surely American farmers aren't so incompetent that even with the advantage of cheap Mexican immigrant labor they can't compete on an even footing with Australians, right? So cut subsidies by 80%. That'll generate, oh, seventeen billion dollars. We can update the air control system in just three years, then, and then let the money saved reduce the deficit.
Re:The sad state of Slashdot editorial line nowada
on
GCC 4.2.1 Released
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Sad, sad, sad, this used to be a cool blog with real "news for nerds" but lately it seems more interested in generating polemic and the page views that accompany it. Right. Because Jon Katz was such a technologically sophisticated analyst, not a blowhard polemicist.
The market 'ooh'd and 'aahd' in delight of the new architecture, supposing that it would herald in a new era of computing in a similar way that the jump from 16 to 32 did.
The 80386 was introduced in 1985, but the transition to 32 bits in software was really only done in 1995. Windows 3.1, released seven years after the 386, still ran on the 286. Word 6.0 for DOS, released in 1993, still could run on an original 8086.
The first 64-bit x86 processors were introduced in 2003. If they "herald in a new era of computing in a similar way that the jump from 16 to 32 did", then there won't be a full transition until 2013. Maybe Microsoft will bother shipping a 32-bit OS then, but since any 32-bit machines will be six years old by then, I doubt it. And I'd expect more than four gigs on a desktop to be pretty standard by then, so there'll even be a demand.
Any finite, deterministic, two-player game will, with perfect play, always produce just one of victory for player 1, victory for player 2, or a draw. Because there are three possibilities -- there exists a line of perfect play that will allow side 1 to win no matter how well side 2 plays; there exists a line of perfect play that will allow side 2 to win no matter how well side 1 plays; or no winning line exists for either side, so both sides can prevent the other from winning with perfect play.
Why is fixing this such an issue in all of these historical RTS or strategy games? It's an inherently difficult problem to scale things so near-tech-level rivals have approximately correct interactions while zeroing the chance against far-tech-level opponents. You need lots of special-case rules to handle interactions; numerical "unit strength" values and formulas don't work. Call it the "Hot Lead" problem, because it was bedeviling Steve Jackson long before any of these computer games came along.
The effect of this agreement is to make it easier and cheaper to make dual NAVSTAR/Galileo receivers. The effect of that would be to make it harder for either the US or EU to degrade consumer GPS by messing with their satellite signals in the way the US used to do with Selective Availability -- because more people would have dual-signal devices that would use the other to correct. There has been discussion with the Russians about making GLONASS compatible with the two as well.
As far as true jamming, the US developed theater-area jamming for NAVSTAR and GLONASS back before it turned off Selective Availability. The US presumably also has or is developing jammers for Beidou/Compass and IRNSS. Adding Galileo to that list would be fairly simple even if the frequencies weren't shared.
The article is referring to 1) times when both systems were working, and 2) to the next-generation version of GPS (the planned-for-2013 Block III satellites).
Corn is only high in sugar compared to other crops that can be grown in mass quantities in the continental U.S. The only reason your food is sweetened with HFCS are trade barriers and tariffs approximately double the price of sugar -- barriers that persist mostly as a result of corn lobby demands.
If the GPL v3 actually stopped "trusted computing", there would actually be some point to its anti-Tivoization clause. However, it doesn't, because it only applies to a "User Product". "A "User Product" is either (1) a "consumer product", which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling."
So the actual GPL v3 message is: "Sure, computer manufacturers, you can lock down all the servers and corporate/government/education desktops you sell so they can only run versions of Free Software you specifically authorize, allowing you to simultaneously serve the GNU/Linux market and deny people freedom. Our license doesn't affect that at all. We don't care if the eventual result of the combination of our deliberate loophole, the home desktop dominance of Windows, and pressure from Microsoft, is that every general-purpose computer sold worldwide can only run manufacturer-authorized software. That's not important enough to worry about. No, what we want to make sure is that every time somebody calls the TiVo support line about a bug, the TiVo people have to ask the user if he's using an unauthorized version of the software. That's the important thing!"
There are only two possible interpretations of the anti-Tivoization clause. Either the writers were utterly incompetent, or they were motivated by nothing but malice toward TiVo. Because it doesn't do shit for Free Software.
The seven wonders of the world should not be decided by SMS and online polls.
You're right. They should be decided by monks, based on rival lists by ancient Greeks, centuries after many of the candidates have been destroyed. That's a properly inclusive method!
Desktop Market != Home Desktop in Developed Countries Market.
As TFA said, "Just this week, yet another state in India declared that it would no longer buy Windows systems, but would switch to Linux instead, spelling vast potential savings for the government and touting potential benefits to education for the populus [sic]." Apple doesn't even have a model appropriate for that market.
It is true that "most PC buyers" don't care about the four software freedoms. However, most desktop PCs are sold to a group that consists of governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and people poor by the standards of the First World but middle-class by the standards of their home countries. Apple doesn't even try to make computers they'll buy, and thus they are market segments Mac OS X can't make any inroads in.
Or to make it shorter: Because Linux runs on white boxes, while OS X doesn't.
[sic]--I presume they meant populace, not cottonwoods and aspens.
What I don't get is why you think this is a misuse of "hermetically". He didn't say the iPhone had a hermetically sealed case; he was saying that one would keep the battery from popping out. A case fused into a single piece forming an airtight enclosure around the battery would do that, would it not?
To double check, we can look in terms of per capita PPP GDP. Brazil is $8,800, while Australia is $33,300, France is $31,100, Germany is $31,900, Italy is $30,200, and Japan is $33,100.
To cross-check the GDP numbers, let's consider transportation and communications development, data from the 2007 World Almanac and Book of Facts. There are 80 personal vehicles per 1000 people in Brazil, 498 in Australia, 486 in France, 542 in Germany, 570 in Italy, 433 in Japan. Airline passenger-miles per capita per year run 152 in Brazil, 2640 in Australia, 1171 in France, 937 in Germany, 366 in Italy, 800 in Japan. Railroad track miles per thousand population are 97 in Brazil, 1676 in Australia, 301 in France, 348 in Germany, 206 in Italy, 114 in Japan. The number of televisions per 1000 people is 333 in Brazil, 716 in Australia, 620 in France, 581 in Germany, 492 in Italy, 719 in Japan. The number of radios is 434 per 1000 in Brazil, 1391 in Australia, 946 in France, 948 in Germany, 880 in Italy, 956 in Japan. Phone lines per 1000 run 224 in Brazil, 564 in Australia, 586 in France, 667 in Germany, 431 in Italy, 461 in Japan. Newspaper circulation is 45.9 per 1000 in Brazil, 161 in Australia, 142 in France, 291 in Germany, 109 in Italy, 566 in Japan.
And now, we can look at (a href="http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-resou rces/variable-351.html">energy use per capita. See Brazil down there with 1,067.6 kilograms of oil equivalent? Compare with Australia at 5,723.3, France at 4,518.4, Germany at 4,203.1, Italy at 3,127.2, and Japan at 4,040.4.
So we see it is harder to meet energy demand in developed countries than in others, like Brazil.
I think a lot of people criticising the iPhone at the moment still haven't made the leap from "this is a phone. It does X,Y,Z" to "this is a fully-fledged computer, masquerading as a phone"
Considering all the people criticizing Apple for not providing a proper SDK, for locking out third-party apps, and for not including things like chat programs and VOIP, I'd say the critics are instead those who have made the leap from "this looks like a fully-fledged computer, masquerading as a phone" to "it's so deliberately locked-down by Apple, it's not a computer, but only a phone that does X, Y, Z." .
My point was, the available configurations for the swimmer in this case are limited by the skeletal structure they share -- that is, by their mutual evolutionary history. Show me a cnidarian or a mollusk or the like that evolved into the same shape as a shark/dolphin/ichthyosaur, and I'll grant that "Nature seems confined to a set of configurations -- no matter the evolutionary history."
Not remotely related? They're both descended from the jawed fish that was the prototype for infraphylum Gnathostomata in subphylum Vertebra in phylum Chordata, an ancestor that provided both with the same basic structure (skull, jaw, spinal column, pairs of limbs) and over 80% common DNA.
Ah, yes, good ol' Operation Desert Faux: "The four-day bombing campaign occurred at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives was conducting the impeachment hearing of President Clinton."
First, we don't actually know that Exxon complained to the ISP, because the ISP did the takedown "in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify." You can argue that it's likely to be Exxon, but the fact is nobody knows.
Second, filing a complaint with an ISP is not the sort of action one implied by "Brute Squad".
Third, there was no hacking involved.
You know, the only way to improve this headline would have been to name a group other than the Yes Men as the ones who were cut off.
Am I supposed to actually believe converting the whole world of GNU/Linux-on-Intel servers so they can't run modified versions of software would be no big deal, while the TiVo is a major threat to freedom?
I mean, c'mon. Under this definition, a standard x86 Dell sold for "Small Business", "Medium & Large Business", or "Government, Education and Healthcare" can be locked down. Ship consumer PCs with Windows, and sell non-Windows machines only through the business/organization sales channels, and a vendor can perfectly legally lock down every single computer such that it can only run vendor-authorized versions of software, regardless of the GPL 3. Microsoft can even pay the motherboard chipset makers to do the lockdown, and consequently permanently lock GPL3 OSes out of the entire consumer channel while allowing business demand for GNU/Linux-on-Intel servers to be filled.
If opposing TiVoization had genuinely been a matter of principle to the FSF, an actual matter of defending freedom, the license wouldn't only prevent it on "tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling".
Slashdot Mirror
(Well, using OECD scoring [which counts marketing, infrastructure, research, higher prices through tariff protection, and other forms of industry support in addition to direct payments, price supports, and the like] Australian farmers have about a 4% subsidy and New Zealand ones a 2% [2004 figures]. But compared to the U.S. 20%, European 35%, or Japanese 58% [also 2004 figures], they might as well be zero.)
So we're talking $2 billion a year. Where to find it, where to find it . . .
Hey, I know! Let's cut U.S. farm subsidies to the levels farmers get in Australia and New Zealand. Surely American farmers aren't so incompetent that even with the advantage of cheap Mexican immigrant labor they can't compete on an even footing with Australians, right? So cut subsidies by 80%. That'll generate, oh, seventeen billion dollars. We can update the air control system in just three years, then, and then let the money saved reduce the deficit.
The market 'ooh'd and 'aahd' in delight of the new architecture, supposing that it would herald in a new era of computing in a similar way that the jump from 16 to 32 did.
The 80386 was introduced in 1985, but the transition to 32 bits in software was really only done in 1995. Windows 3.1, released seven years after the 386, still ran on the 286. Word 6.0 for DOS, released in 1993, still could run on an original 8086.
The first 64-bit x86 processors were introduced in 2003. If they "herald in a new era of computing in a similar way that the jump from 16 to 32 did", then there won't be a full transition until 2013. Maybe Microsoft will bother shipping a 32-bit OS then, but since any 32-bit machines will be six years old by then, I doubt it. And I'd expect more than four gigs on a desktop to be pretty standard by then, so there'll even be a demand.
Any finite, deterministic, two-player game will, with perfect play, always produce just one of victory for player 1, victory for player 2, or a draw. Because there are three possibilities -- there exists a line of perfect play that will allow side 1 to win no matter how well side 2 plays; there exists a line of perfect play that will allow side 2 to win no matter how well side 1 plays; or no winning line exists for either side, so both sides can prevent the other from winning with perfect play.
The effect of this agreement is to make it easier and cheaper to make dual NAVSTAR/Galileo receivers. The effect of that would be to make it harder for either the US or EU to degrade consumer GPS by messing with their satellite signals in the way the US used to do with Selective Availability -- because more people would have dual-signal devices that would use the other to correct. There has been discussion with the Russians about making GLONASS compatible with the two as well.
As far as true jamming, the US developed theater-area jamming for NAVSTAR and GLONASS back before it turned off Selective Availability. The US presumably also has or is developing jammers for Beidou/Compass and IRNSS. Adding Galileo to that list would be fairly simple even if the frequencies weren't shared.
The article is referring to 1) times when both systems were working, and 2) to the next-generation version of GPS (the planned-for-2013 Block III satellites).
Corn is only high in sugar compared to other crops that can be grown in mass quantities in the continental U.S. The only reason your food is sweetened with HFCS are trade barriers and tariffs approximately double the price of sugar -- barriers that persist mostly as a result of corn lobby demands.
"blog" is short for "web log" A regularly updated .plan file is not a "web log". Therefore . . .
If the GPL v3 actually stopped "trusted computing", there would actually be some point to its anti-Tivoization clause. However, it doesn't, because it only applies to a "User Product". "A "User Product" is either (1) a "consumer product", which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling."
So the actual GPL v3 message is:
"Sure, computer manufacturers, you can lock down all the servers and corporate/government/education desktops you sell so they can only run versions of Free Software you specifically authorize, allowing you to simultaneously serve the GNU/Linux market and deny people freedom. Our license doesn't affect that at all. We don't care if the eventual result of the combination of our deliberate loophole, the home desktop dominance of Windows, and pressure from Microsoft, is that every general-purpose computer sold worldwide can only run manufacturer-authorized software. That's not important enough to worry about. No, what we want to make sure is that every time somebody calls the TiVo support line about a bug, the TiVo people have to ask the user if he's using an unauthorized version of the software. That's the important thing!"
There are only two possible interpretations of the anti-Tivoization clause. Either the writers were utterly incompetent, or they were motivated by nothing but malice toward TiVo. Because it doesn't do shit for Free Software.
Oh, you're using Windows, not MacOS, BeOs, or OPENSTEP?
McKeyboard or AfterStep, AltGR+P
Unicode Extended (either) AltGR+H
(No, Excel doesn't recognize it. But hey, it's easy to become able to type it.)
You're right. They should be decided by monks, based on rival lists by ancient Greeks, centuries after many of the candidates have been destroyed. That's a properly inclusive method!
"Do you speak Russian?"
"Nein."
"That's German, not Russian."
"Right. I don't speak Russian."
Why won't it be OS X? Simple enough:
Desktop Market != Home Desktop in Developed Countries Market.
As TFA said, "Just this week, yet another state in India declared that it would no longer buy Windows systems, but would switch to Linux instead, spelling vast potential savings for the government and touting potential benefits to education for the populus [sic]." Apple doesn't even have a model appropriate for that market.
It is true that "most PC buyers" don't care about the four software freedoms. However, most desktop PCs are sold to a group that consists of governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and people poor by the standards of the First World but middle-class by the standards of their home countries. Apple doesn't even try to make computers they'll buy, and thus they are market segments Mac OS X can't make any inroads in.
Or to make it shorter: Because Linux runs on white boxes, while OS X doesn't.
[sic]--I presume they meant populace, not cottonwoods and aspens.
What I don't get is why you think this is a misuse of "hermetically". He didn't say the iPhone had a hermetically sealed case; he was saying that one would keep the battery from popping out. A case fused into a single piece forming an airtight enclosure around the battery would do that, would it not?
So...Brazil isn't a developed country?
u rces/variable-351.html">energy use per capita. See Brazil down there with 1,067.6 kilograms of oil equivalent? Compare with Australia at 5,723.3, France at 4,518.4, Germany at 4,203.1, Italy at 3,127.2, and Japan at 4,040.4.
Er, no, it isn't.
See the full list of developed/advanced countries. Do you see Brazil?
To double check, we can look in terms of per capita PPP GDP. Brazil is $8,800, while Australia is $33,300, France is $31,100, Germany is $31,900, Italy is $30,200, and Japan is $33,100.
To cross-check the GDP numbers, let's consider transportation and communications development, data from the 2007 World Almanac and Book of Facts. There are 80 personal vehicles per 1000 people in Brazil, 498 in Australia, 486 in France, 542 in Germany, 570 in Italy, 433 in Japan. Airline passenger-miles per capita per year run 152 in Brazil, 2640 in Australia, 1171 in France, 937 in Germany, 366 in Italy, 800 in Japan. Railroad track miles per thousand population are 97 in Brazil, 1676 in Australia, 301 in France, 348 in Germany, 206 in Italy, 114 in Japan. The number of televisions per 1000 people is 333 in Brazil, 716 in Australia, 620 in France, 581 in Germany, 492 in Italy, 719 in Japan. The number of radios is 434 per 1000 in Brazil, 1391 in Australia, 946 in France, 948 in Germany, 880 in Italy, 956 in Japan. Phone lines per 1000 run 224 in Brazil, 564 in Australia, 586 in France, 667 in Germany, 431 in Italy, 461 in Japan. Newspaper circulation is 45.9 per 1000 in Brazil, 161 in Australia, 142 in France, 291 in Germany, 109 in Italy, 566 in Japan.
And now, we can look at (a href="http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/energy-reso
So we see it is harder to meet energy demand in developed countries than in others, like Brazil.
Considering all the people criticizing Apple for not providing a proper SDK, for locking out third-party apps, and for not including things like chat programs and VOIP, I'd say the critics are instead those who have made the leap from "this looks like a fully-fledged computer, masquerading as a phone" to "it's so deliberately locked-down by Apple, it's not a computer, but only a phone that does X, Y, Z."
.
I caught his point; I disagree with it.
My point was, the available configurations for the swimmer in this case are limited by the skeletal structure they share -- that is, by their mutual evolutionary history. Show me a cnidarian or a mollusk or the like that evolved into the same shape as a shark/dolphin/ichthyosaur, and I'll grant that "Nature seems confined to a set of configurations -- no matter the evolutionary history."
Not remotely related? They're both descended from the jawed fish that was the prototype for infraphylum Gnathostomata in subphylum Vertebra in phylum Chordata, an ancestor that provided both with the same basic structure (skull, jaw, spinal column, pairs of limbs) and over 80% common DNA.
Ah, yes, good ol' Operation Desert Faux: "The four-day bombing campaign occurred at the same time the U.S. House of Representatives was conducting the impeachment hearing of President Clinton."
Yes, bad form replying to myself here. But!
1) We know the Yes Men have previously masqueraded as ExxonMobil executives.
2) This takedown has generated additional publicity for the Yes Men.
Wouldn't it have been a master stroke by the Yes Men if they had faked their own ISP into taking them down by making the complaint themselves?
First, we don't actually know that Exxon complained to the ISP, because the ISP did the takedown "in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify." You can argue that it's likely to be Exxon, but the fact is nobody knows.
Second, filing a complaint with an ISP is not the sort of action one implied by "Brute Squad".
Third, there was no hacking involved.
You know, the only way to improve this headline would have been to name a group other than the Yes Men as the ones who were cut off.
Am I supposed to actually believe converting the whole world of GNU/Linux-on-Intel servers so they can't run modified versions of software would be no big deal, while the TiVo is a major threat to freedom?
I mean, c'mon. Under this definition, a standard x86 Dell sold for "Small Business", "Medium & Large Business", or "Government, Education and Healthcare" can be locked down. Ship consumer PCs with Windows, and sell non-Windows machines only through the business/organization sales channels, and a vendor can perfectly legally lock down every single computer such that it can only run vendor-authorized versions of software, regardless of the GPL 3. Microsoft can even pay the motherboard chipset makers to do the lockdown, and consequently permanently lock GPL3 OSes out of the entire consumer channel while allowing business demand for GNU/Linux-on-Intel servers to be filled.
If opposing TiVoization had genuinely been a matter of principle to the FSF, an actual matter of defending freedom, the license wouldn't only prevent it on "tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling".