In X years, real people will not fool around with ultra-cheap microcontrollers. Instead, they will set up a regular PC (*) to trigger the reset button of the computer. Then, they'll probably need a third PC to be able to reset your first-resetter-computer, too.
And yeah, all three PCs will know how to make coffe.
Also few [none?] programming languages have very good parallel programming support. Let's say, you have a long "for" loop which could be executed in many parallel threads. Thus, you have to create the threads, run them, gather the data, and destroy them. What if you could just write:
#parallel//tells the compiler that the following code can be executed in parallel threads
for (...) { do something...} #end parallel
Currently over 3 billion people can not afford even a 300 Mhz second-hand desktop. What makes you think that in 10 years they will be able to buy fancy "Home Server"s? Now they're happy even without knowing what a computer is - why would they need "Home Server"s in 10 years??
Or does "everybody" cover only the top 10 countries??
Another issue is that while a coal-fired power plant needs about 8 hours for starting up, a solar plant can start instantly. Also, modifying the power output takes a lot of time in the case of coal plants, while it is done almost instantly in the case of solar panels. (water turbines start have the shortest startup time, about 10 to 15 minutes - small turbines might start as "fast" as 5 mins - compare this with solar, which starts in a couple seconds)
This is a very important issue in the scenario when a power plant goes offline and the other plants in the grid need to increase their power output in a very short time - otherwise the grid might fail, like during the 2002 NY blackout.
Peak period: due to this long start / stop times, it is a serious issue to supply the daytime power demand to the consumers - you can't just start and stop coal / gas / coal power plants. Solar produces energy right in this period, and it can be started "on the fly".
Also, afaik a solar power plant can supply better quality current than regular power plants. This is due to the fact that solar panels produce continuous voltage and then it is turned into alternating voltage with the aid of high-power IGBTs. These are controlled by a computer which is programmed so that the characteristics of the delivered current are better - by means of harmonics, reactive current, and probably other things too.
I don't think it's definitely bad showing people what's going on in the world. The Darfur disaster is not a popular one - everyone knows about Iraq, but few people know about Darfur. Inventing a tool which would encourage people to read / care more about this issue is just a good thing, resulting in higher chance for future actions to solve the problem (foundations, donations, lobby, etc).
In the 80's they invented Rapid Prototyping techniques. They used it only for designing prototypes. Now the technology has advanced so much that they are using the same techniques for Rapid manufacturing.
The same can happen with FPGAs - in the beginning they used them only for designing prototypes, but in time they will be good and cheap enough for using them as reprogrammable microprocessors, probably manufactured in small series, not million-plus multi-gigahertz gaming procs.
Right, companies should find a way to make their employees happy. Smiley face means better code.
Eastern Europeans are lucky: there is an enourmous need for programmers and employers do almost anything to make their coders happy. Also, (I think) all European countries offer 20+ days paid holiday for the employees - yep, that's at least a month. Some countries have 30 days, that's 6 weeks paid holiday. Quite enough to have a decent life.
As far as I know US laws offer something like 5 days paid holiday (not sure).
Right - students should be motivated to fill their holiday with social activities instead. This geekism or workaholism will have side effects. Sooner or later.
American: Where are you from? me: Romania. American: Wow! me: I see you're enthusiastic. What do you know about Romania? American: I only know it's a place where it is good not to be. me: Have you been there? American: Fortunately not.
me, thinking: Phukken snobbish american. 70% of the Americans are like you.
Romanian salaries are 10 times lower than in the US - if MS would sell Windows 10 times cheaper than in the US, most Romanians would buy it... no comment.
Currently, Windows costs about 3 months of a student's scholarship, or almost a month of a beginner engineer's net income.
Right, ZX Spectrum, or whatever. The whole computer was inside of a 2-inch thick keyboard, the display was our bw tv, the games were loaded from an old russian magnetic tape player.
But I definitely started karate because I loved that game.
When I was a kid I used to play "Bruce-Lee" on my ZX80 (hand-made by my father). A few years later I began karate. However, I doubt that I'd be a serial killer if I had powerful PC and played Quake, for instance.
I F**ING HATE people being able to talk only about cool technology, fun video games, military hardware, or the latest in high horsepower vehicles regardless of their gender. I'd better quit my job if I had to spend over 33% of my life surrounded with these assholes.
Wikipedia could be called an experiment in human nature: assuming that everybody does their best (and no evil) is just like one of the principles of communism (everybody should do their best at work, despite their motivation, salary, etc). I did never believe it could possible work as well as it did.
I did not research this but I assume that in the beginning mostly more educated people used it and they tend not to abuse it too much. As it became widely adopted and used, everybody started to use it, meaning a higher percentage of people who would like to abuse it.
Unfortunately I don't believe that a [global] experiment in human nature can survive... Check out Winterbottom's movie, "24 hour party people".
That's quite an idea: releasing an official guide on why and how should companies switch to Linux. CEOs rather trust an government-released official guide rather than geek speech.
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In X years, real people will not fool around with ultra-cheap microcontrollers. Instead, they will set up a regular PC (*) to trigger the reset button of the computer. Then, they'll probably need a third PC to be able to reset your first-resetter-computer, too.
And yeah, all three PCs will know how to make coffe.
(*) by means of complexity
Also few [none?] programming languages have very good parallel programming support. Let's say, you have a long "for" loop which could be executed in many parallel threads. Thus, you have to create the threads, run them, gather the data, and destroy them. What if you could just write:
//tells the compiler that the following code can be executed in parallel threads
#parallel
for (...) { do something...}
#end parallel
Dear Glenn,
Currently over 3 billion people can not afford even a 300 Mhz second-hand desktop. What makes you think that in 10 years they will be able to buy fancy "Home Server"s? Now they're happy even without knowing what a computer is - why would they need "Home Server"s in 10 years??
Or does "everybody" cover only the top 10 countries??
Another issue is that while a coal-fired power plant needs about 8 hours for starting up, a solar plant can start instantly. Also, modifying the power output takes a lot of time in the case of coal plants, while it is done almost instantly in the case of solar panels. (water turbines start have the shortest startup time, about 10 to 15 minutes - small turbines might start as "fast" as 5 mins - compare this with solar, which starts in a couple seconds)
This is a very important issue in the scenario when a power plant goes offline and the other plants in the grid need to increase their power output in a very short time - otherwise the grid might fail, like during the 2002 NY blackout.
Peak period: due to this long start / stop times, it is a serious issue to supply the daytime power demand to the consumers - you can't just start and stop coal / gas / coal power plants. Solar produces energy right in this period, and it can be started "on the fly".
Also, afaik a solar power plant can supply better quality current than regular power plants. This is due to the fact that solar panels produce continuous voltage and then it is turned into alternating voltage with the aid of high-power IGBTs. These are controlled by a computer which is programmed so that the characteristics of the delivered current are better - by means of harmonics, reactive current, and probably other things too.
Is the 42 cents still so expensive?
I don't think it's definitely bad showing people what's going on in the world. The Darfur disaster is not a popular one - everyone knows about Iraq, but few people know about Darfur. Inventing a tool which would encourage people to read / care more about this issue is just a good thing, resulting in higher chance for future actions to solve the problem (foundations, donations, lobby, etc).
In the 80's they invented Rapid Prototyping techniques. They used it only for designing prototypes. Now the technology has advanced so much that they are using the same techniques for Rapid manufacturing.
The same can happen with FPGAs - in the beginning they used them only for designing prototypes, but in time they will be good and cheap enough for using them as reprogrammable microprocessors, probably manufactured in small series, not million-plus multi-gigahertz gaming procs.
Right, companies should find a way to make their employees happy. Smiley face means better code.
:)
Eastern Europeans are lucky: there is an enourmous need for programmers and employers do almost anything to make their coders happy. Also, (I think) all European countries offer 20+ days paid holiday for the employees - yep, that's at least a month. Some countries have 30 days, that's 6 weeks paid holiday. Quite enough to have a decent life.
As far as I know US laws offer something like 5 days paid holiday (not sure).
Hahaa... US coders, move to Romania!
Btw, what's the usual salary US programmers can expect? For example, zero or five years of experience.
On the 8th day, God created GMail.
Great. Maybe your gas bill will go down with $400 and you AC bill up with $800. Like that, huh?
Btw, my car gets 45 mpg.
Right - students should be motivated to fill their holiday with social activities instead. This geekism or workaholism will have side effects. Sooner or later.
Anytime, somewhere in Romania:
"I'd like to live in the US."
"What do you know about the US?"
"Only that it's a place where it's good to be."
"Have you been there?"
"No..."
Phukken snobbish romanian...
Summer 2002, somewhere in Arizona:
American: Where are you from?
me: Romania.
American: Wow!
me: I see you're enthusiastic. What do you know about Romania?
American: I only know it's a place where it is good not to be.
me: Have you been there?
American: Fortunately not.
me, thinking: Phukken snobbish american. 70% of the Americans are like you.
Romanian salaries are 10 times lower than in the US - if MS would sell Windows 10 times cheaper than in the US, most Romanians would buy it... no comment.
Currently, Windows costs about 3 months of a student's scholarship, or almost a month of a beginner engineer's net income.
Yes, dude. How in hell could they have so high incomes? Donations??????
Right, ZX Spectrum, or whatever. The whole computer was inside of a 2-inch thick keyboard, the display was our bw tv, the games were loaded from an old russian magnetic tape player.
But I definitely started karate because I loved that game.
When I was a kid I used to play "Bruce-Lee" on my ZX80 (hand-made by my father). A few years later I began karate. However, I doubt that I'd be a serial killer if I had powerful PC and played Quake, for instance.
But surely I'd be a more aggressive person.
I said ONLY, but of course it can be read "mainly". Either way.
Shall I consider this a compliment? Wanna date? ;))
Yeah, and guys who don't like technology, video games, military hadrware are not even men... holy shit!
Haha, this was funny to read in the middle of a serious conversation :)
Or: go to work half-naked and invite a geek per day to the restroom.
Sorry girls, this is meant only to be a joke. No offense.
I F**ING HATE people being able to talk only about cool technology, fun video games, military hardware, or the latest in high horsepower vehicles regardless of their gender. I'd better quit my job if I had to spend over 33% of my life surrounded with these assholes.
Additional information: I'm male, software engineer.
Wikipedia could be called an experiment in human nature: assuming that everybody does their best (and no evil) is just like one of the principles of communism (everybody should do their best at work, despite their motivation, salary, etc). I did never believe it could possible work as well as it did.
I did not research this but I assume that in the beginning mostly more educated people used it and they tend not to abuse it too much. As it became widely adopted and used, everybody started to use it, meaning a higher percentage of people who would like to abuse it.
Unfortunately I don't believe that a [global] experiment in human nature can survive... Check out Winterbottom's movie, "24 hour party people".
Yeah, and to keep your parents away while you're f**king!!!
ha hahaaaa
It's nothing new though.
IBM came out with Theirs a while back too.
Yes, but I have not heard of it yet. And if I have not heard of it I bet many CEOs neither did.
The more the merrier, I agree.
That's quite an idea: releasing an official guide on why and how should companies switch to Linux. CEOs rather trust an government-released official guide rather than geek speech.