After extracting various samples of DNA from Paris's body, the aliens were able to create a remarkably diverse gene pool. The aliens concluded that the human body they recovered was left there as a biological time capsule containing DNA samples for others to discover.
No different than major cities nowadays. NYC is expensive depending on the area. Rent is insane and the people who run the city also run the police, court systems, etc.
There is no reason things can't be privately owned inside of a ziggurat anymore than they are now. Blocks of the pyramid will be "zoned" just like parts of the city are zoned. The city designates some parts public land and spends its money maintaining/constructing things in it. Private owners can pay for construction of sections (or tear-down and reconstruction) and own it.
The only difference between this and a major city is the outer walls. Most of the interconnecting things (hallways, plumbing, electricity, etc.) are already managed nowadays in the form of streets and public municipals.
Well, there is a significant difference you see. Sure the opening scene of Private Ryan is gruesome and vivid. Yet the message behind it is the pointlessness and futility of the whole thing. Most violence in GTA is trivial in comparison but instills that VIOLENCE HAS REWARDS. That is a very significant difference.
Yes, there is a difference. Yes, one may have a more amiable interpretation *for you* than the other. But you know what? That's just you.
Every GTA up until GTA 4 is a satire. That's right, it isn't meant to be taken seriously. It's irony at its best from the little details like the overly stereotypical hood-speak to the comical theme of "gotta be a gangsta".
It's fun and entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. It paints such an absurd world that it is quite clear that it is a fantasy. And that's the point of it. Whether that is somehow less "insightful" than "oh god, war is terrible" is up to the individual. If I had kids, I'd rather teach them irony and skepticism rather than sensationalism and melodrama.
I wish to the FSM I had mod points right now. Well said. In summary:
1. "Art" has been giving an artificial aura of intellectualism and elitism that it shouldn't be. It's whatever someone creates out of creativity. Whether a statement is involved is optional.
2. "Free speech" is not the exclusive right to art. Last I checked, it was the birthright of everyone. Whether you're writing a trashy novel, designing a mindless shoot-em-up game or making the next Jackass movie, you have the freedom to do it regardless of whether it's considered "art".
The analogy isn't correct. Taking steroids offers an obvious advantage in the event. It's very arguable whether being 14 years of age vs 16 years of age is an advantage in this exercise.
I do agree that *if* being 14 was an obvious advantage, then stripping the medal would be an appropriate action. But I honestly don't think it is. One can as easily point to the mental resolve that comes with age as a proportionate advantage to having younger bones.
That would be the fault of the judges. IMO, Nastia Liukin gave a better uneven bar performance. But judging standards aside, they gave the performance to get them the medal.
They were shady, as well. "How old are you?" "16." I cannot be convinced that they are completely unaware of the rules or the changes made to their documentation.
You'd be surprised at how naive a 14 year old can be especially one from rural China. Having met many people from there it is very very easy to mislead them on the gravity of things like this. "It's no big deal, just a technicality that you need to get around to win".
If you break the rules of a game, you have cheated. If you cheat at a game, you're not a winner.
I'm sorry but that's very pedantic. Ultimately, the game is about fair play. If your argument was that being 14 gave her an unfair advantage in the competition vs the 16 year old, fine, we can argue on that point. But blindly chanting "a rule is a rule is a rule" is bureaucratic and mindless. If one can accept that being 14 offers no obvious advantage than 16, then the girl competed fairly and won.
The distinction I would draw is that the rules they broke constituted an unfair advantage. It is arguable whether being 14 instead of 16 is an unfair advantage or not. The rule wasn't in place to prevent the dominant 14 year old girls from crushing the 16 year old ones, it's to prevent abuse and over-stressing of children.
Saying "a rule is a rule is a rule" is very blind and pedantic. One needs to look at the spirit of a rule as much as the letter of it.
In this case, I don't think the competing girls had an unfair advantage being 14. Therefore, whatever shady dealings the Chinese government did to fake the age shouldn't mean that they didn't compete fairly and win.
I agree that there should be disciplinary action made against those who did the faking. In this case, the Chinese government and possibly the coach and/or official who let it happen.
I'm not sure I'd agree with stripping the gold from the girls. They gave the performance to earn it. They shouldn't lose it because their government is shady.
The better solution would be disqualification from the next Olympics for those events for China. Let the winners this year keep their metals.
Now let's take the example of the drug industry, where there's no J.D. Power, and in spite of regulation, some companies have done their best to hide the reports of the ill effects of certain drugs.
I'll respond to this with an anecdote. My grandfather is currently 90. He was a doctor in China. There is no government regulatory system there for drugs. None of his patients are ever given bad drugs. Do you know why? Because doctors there don't act under the assumption that all drugs are safe because there's an FDA. They do their research, consult colleagues, consult reputable review boards and go with providers with a good history.
Again, it's short sighted thinking that government regulation is and will be the only solution. Every industry that has not been regulated has popped up its own plethora of independent review associations and consumer watchdogs. This includes the tech industry which is practically a shining example of capitalism at work. Every new product that is introduced is scrutinized beyond belief by every tech magazine out there as well as independent reviewers. There exists standards and consortiums that set them. All of this happened without regulation and all of these mechanisms work far better and far more accurately than anything the federal government could've hoped to form.
To sum it up. Without the FDA, drug companies would no longer be trusted by consumers. I would no longer go to the drug store and buy over the counter stuff with the assumption that it was safe. I'd actually *shop* for my pills. Drug companies would have to go out of their way to prove the safety of their product. Those that do, will gain consumers. Those that don't, will die off.
And let's look at the negative effects of the FDA. Pharmaceutical corporations, by sheer fact that the FDA only has the ability to certify so many drugs per year, have a virtual monopoly on the market. Foreign companies (such as from Canada) *cannot by law* sell to the U.S. There is no competition. Drug prices are up, quality is down.
Maybe, maybe not. As I mentioned before, even if it is rational and would result in long-term financial gains does not mean that it will be the choice of a company. The free market works on an assumption of complete, accurate information, and rational actors, neither of which are a reality.
In the immediate case, no. Over time, this has proven again and again to be true. Like I said, it takes time. But no other system in history has proven itself to adjust so accurately to balancing the needs of the populace.
The fact that those technologies existed, were effective at preventing injury and death, and yet were not being installed shows enough need. Maybe, if left to themselves, companies would have all eventually decided to install them. Who knows how long that would have taken. In the meantime, the government has a responsibility to promote the general welfare of its citizens (and that's from the Constitution).
That is a very dangerous mentality.
Firstly and foremost, one needs to fully realize the ramifications of government mandates. To think that there are no consequences is very short sighted. Among the most important is the expansion of government power. It sets a dangerous legal precedence to what the government is allowed to regulate.
Secondly, one has to look at the effect it will have on the economy. Let's take the automobile example. Ford and GM have demonstrated, again and again, incompetence at anticipating consumer needs. In the free market, these companies would not have followed consumer demand for safer cars. Toyota and Honda have demonstrated again and again their ability to not only anticipate consumer needs but follow and exceed the requirements.
Had the government not interfered. Ford and GM would've gone out of business decades ago because they did not listen to consumer demands for safety. All the government mandate did was allow an incompetent company to stay in business.
Independent bodies have formed (J.D. Power and Associates, Consumer Reports, etc.) that have far more stringent grading systems than their federal counterparts. These are what consumers look to when purchasing a vehicle.
Again, this is all under the argument of the effectiveness (and ill effects) of regulation.
I will point you to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_Clause that explains the interpretation of "General Welfare" as outlined by the Constitution. Here's a hint, it does say Congress can use legal power to "promote general welfare". Congress's ability to meddle in the general welfare of the populace is limited to its powers of taxing and spending.
This argument has existed for a long time and the legal precedence thus far is that "general welfare" isn't a blank check for the legislative branch to pass whatever law it wants that it thinks will be "good for citizens".
You may not believe that regulatory bodies like NHTSA and the FDA are necessary, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me that companies will pony up the amount of information they're currently required to without those bodies, or that they would do as much safety testing of their own accord.
Whether or not I believe they are necessary is really just a side-note. My main argument is whether or not they are *legal* or in line with the principles behind the founding of the United States government. Just because "it would be nice if something is regulated" does not mean that it should be.
It is not because demand does not exist, it is because there is not enough financial incentive for a company to respond to the demand that does exist.
So there is financial incentive. Just not enough. I did say "financial incentive" did I not? As to whether or not a company will do it given a certain level of financial incentive. That's why we call it a free market. If company A won't do it, company B will. If consumers wanted it, company B would sell more and company A would follow suit. It takes time and it's not always perfect. But it will happen.
I did also illustrate that the reason a V-Chip like technology does not exist now is because consumers (and I use this term statistically) are not willing to pay for it did I not? That does not mean "no one is willing to pay for it". That means "not enough people are willing to pay enough".
While some car manufacturers have gone above and beyond the regulatory requirements, or otherwise pride themselves on safety, the fact remains that safety measures had to be mandated to press manufacturers who did not perceive enough financial incentive in safety measures to implement them.
I would argue against the "had to" part. Take a look at the current automobile market. Look at how well the companies who "had to be mandated" are doing vs those who went above and beyond. The same government who mandated safety are, ironically, the ones who are subsidizing these companies just to keep them afloat.
All you've pointed out is that the government has again and again enacted mandates. It does not show that there was a need for them.
Ah, but you neglect to mention where laws come from.
No I didn't, read the rest of what I wrote.
And that would be the mores, customs, opinions, beliefs, and morals of the population which the laws serve.
Perhaps some governments. The unique thing about the United States (and many other modern countries) is that that is not true (at least from the point of view of the Constitution). What you describe is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrany_of_the_majority.
I will grant you that the basis of fundamental freedom and rights is, from a completely moral-relativist perspective, a result of moral customs of western civilization. I prefer, however, to think of it as a truth to be held self-evident.
The government has no business legislating what is moral? What about theft? Murder? Rape? Child abuse?
While those are considered immoral acts, they are illegal because they impede on another person's life, liberty and/or property. Which is what the State is there to protect.
All citizens of the United States are protected from incursions upon their person, their freedom and their property.
As a counter-example, would you consider lying an immoral act? What if I told people I drove a Ferrari instead of a Toyota? What about cheating in a poker game? Having an affair? Being racist?
Those have the unique quality that, while immoral, they do not impede on the life, liberty or property of another.
What you are describing is Anarchism, the belief that self-rule is the best method of controlling a nation.
No, what I'm describing is the United States government as framed by the Constitution. Which mandates that the government provides defense and promotes general welfare and protect the rights and immunities of all citizens of the United States as well as collect taxes and provide public services. It does *not* specify one of the roles of government as "enforcing morality".
What you mean to say, and almost did say, is not if there's demand, but if there's financial incentive, which are not identical things. Then there's the fact that really good ideas (like the seat belt) don't always translate into financial incentive, and so have to be mandated.
In a capitalist market, demand = financial incentive. If consumers aren't willing to pay for it, but just want it anyway, that is not demand. I don't agree with seat belt mandates either. And that is a perfect example. Automobile manufacturers have gone *way* beyond seat belts when it comes to safety of their vehicles. All of their own accord (heheh). This is because consumers *demand* safety with their money. They are willing to pay the extra cost in order to drive a safer car. This is why billions upon billions of R&D is pumped into crash testing, impact resistance, and newer concepts of cars even include a separate inner compartment that is elastically attached to the outer hull of the car.
All of this provides just as much, if not more safety in a car crash for the passenger than the antiquated technology that is the seat belt.
Government is all about legislating what is moral. It's called criminal law.
Erm, no. Criminal law is the right of the government to enforce its laws by removal of civil rights from a citizen. It has nothing to do with morality. That is a far different branch of philosophy. The term is only useful in contrast to Civil Law. Which is the case of the government arbitrating between two citizens.
As for the philosophy behind what the government has a right to make into criminal activity, I am a firm believer of the stance the U.S. Constitution takes on this.
The government is mandated to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
That's it.
Also, arguments about legislating morality are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, since we're simply talking about a labeling requirement and the inclusion of a feature that allows (and does not require) content discrimination.
A legislation is made. The legislation is justified on moral, not legal or functional grounds. I.e. "we are making a law that requires labeling for the good of the children". That is legislated morality.
All of your arguments are based on the very short-sighted "but it would be nice" reasoning. Yes, it would be nice if all video game console manufacturers labeled their games and provided lock-out features. It would also be nice if companies only charged an extra 5% on top of the cost of production for their products. I will say this once more, and hopefully it may sink in.
It's the same reason there are arguments in congress about a law to ban flag burning. In the past decade, the recorded case of an American burning the American flag can be counted in single digits. It's a non-problem.
But they argue to make it anyway so the idiots who vote for them will think "omg, that guy is patriotic". It's politicians mocking morality for show. And dumbasses who vote for them not realizing what legislating something like this will do to American business let alone set a dangerous precedence for expansion of government power.
Forget No Child Left Behind. We need an overhaul of the education system to be No Adult Left Behind. Everyone needs some basic education of the philosophy of the role of government and the legal fragility that is civil liberties. Maybe then politicians won't be able to get away with power grabs like this "for the good of the children".
I agree that legislators ought to think long and hard before mandating something like the V-Chip, because you're right, the cost will be passed on to consumers. However, sometimes mandating the tool may be the only way to actually get manufacturers to provide it (think about the history of the seat belt).
If there is demand, manufacturers will provide. That's the free market. If there's currently no financial incentive for game console manufacturers to provide V-Chip like technology then all that means is that your average consumer isn't willing to fork over an extra $50 to keep their precious little snowflake shielded from the big bad images. Instead, they'd rather everyone to share the cost by mandating it into law.
Government has no business legislating what is moral. It's everyone's job as individuals to do what they can to keep their kids away from unwanted content. You don't *have* to buy your kids GTA-V "Sluts on wheels". Nor do you have to let your kids associate with other kids who's parents aren't as Ned Flanders-like.
My tax dollars shouldn't be used to keep your snowflakes from watching bad things.
If I'm reading the article right, they're not just "turning the chip off". They're putting it to sleep with the important states retained. That is, the chip will wake up in the state it was put to sleep. This reduces the need to have a boot-up sequence and state restore, which, for chips that target the pico-watt region, eats up a lot of available energy.
Well, in order to be fast in executing, the code density can't be all that high for the internal u-ops. I don't have a rough estimate but if the trace cache in Netburst is any indication, it's a 30% or more increase in code size for the same operations vs x86. We're talking 30% increase of simple instructions too. I would imagine it's pretty bloated and not suitable to be used external to the processor.
On top of that, it's probably subject to change with each micro-architecture.
Analysis of non-steady state signals still follow Ohm's law. V(t) = R(t)I(t). Transform it to the frequency domain and V(f) = R(f)I(f). Capacitance and inductance both are just descriptions of the voltage and current of the circuit model varying with time/frequency. They are fundamental circuit elements.
The argument another poster made is that this isn't a description of a circuit element with regards to either frequency or time but rather, history of current. I argue that the device still models resistance, just that it can't be analyzed using classic time/frequency domain methods.
Diodes, transistors, schmitt triggers, etc. are all elements that can't be built with just resistors, capacitors and inductors. They're not fundamental circuit elements. They can all be analyzed using capacitance, resistance and inductance. The same is true of this device.
That's different. The problem with multi-cores (and the associated complexity) is not with how many cores you can cram in there nor whether you can run linux on it. The problem comes with coherency across the cores. When putting multiple cores that each functions as an independent Von Neumann machine, glue logic needs to be implemented to make sure they don't step on each other's toes. This is an unavoidable fact with x86 as the ISA was never designed for multiple instruction streams.
Cell SPE's are not coherent, self-sufficient architectures. They're more like co-processors controlled by the PowerPC. This means that all, if any, coherency scheme can be handled by the PowerPC. Tacking on these co-processors is much easier and so you don't have to restrict yourself to certain symmetrical schemes.
Yet another example of the Keep It Simple rule. You need extra math power, add more math units. All you're doing with multi-core is duplicating the decode/parallelism extraction effort.
The CPU to GPU interconnect was never really much of a bottleneck. When AGP went from 4x to 8x (double the speed) there was barely any improvement. The same is true of going to PCI-E. Yes, it is because all graphics cards include a huge pool of obscenely fast DRAM on it such that it almost never needs to go over the peripheral bus but the types of bandwidth required here simply isn't reproduce-able even with high-speed interconnects like Hypertransport or Quickpath.
From a performance perspective, graphics processing is not limited at all by how fast it can communicate with the CPU. It's limited, like pretty much everything, by how fast it can communicate with memory (either its own or system memory). I don't see integrating the GPU and CPU as solving this problem. If anything, it'll make it worse from a performance (though perhaps not from a power or cost) perspective.
Slashdot Mirror
After extracting various samples of DNA from Paris's body, the aliens were able to create a remarkably diverse gene pool. The aliens concluded that the human body they recovered was left there as a biological time capsule containing DNA samples for others to discover.
No different than major cities nowadays. NYC is expensive depending on the area. Rent is insane and the people who run the city also run the police, court systems, etc.
There is no reason things can't be privately owned inside of a ziggurat anymore than they are now. Blocks of the pyramid will be "zoned" just like parts of the city are zoned. The city designates some parts public land and spends its money maintaining/constructing things in it. Private owners can pay for construction of sections (or tear-down and reconstruction) and own it.
The only difference between this and a major city is the outer walls. Most of the interconnecting things (hallways, plumbing, electricity, etc.) are already managed nowadays in the form of streets and public municipals.
Well, there is a significant difference you see. Sure the opening scene of Private Ryan is gruesome and vivid. Yet the message behind it is the pointlessness and futility of the whole thing. Most violence in GTA is trivial in comparison but instills that VIOLENCE HAS REWARDS. That is a very significant difference.
Yes, there is a difference. Yes, one may have a more amiable interpretation *for you* than the other. But you know what? That's just you.
Every GTA up until GTA 4 is a satire. That's right, it isn't meant to be taken seriously. It's irony at its best from the little details like the overly stereotypical hood-speak to the comical theme of "gotta be a gangsta".
It's fun and entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. It paints such an absurd world that it is quite clear that it is a fantasy. And that's the point of it. Whether that is somehow less "insightful" than "oh god, war is terrible" is up to the individual. If I had kids, I'd rather teach them irony and skepticism rather than sensationalism and melodrama.
I wish to the FSM I had mod points right now. Well said. In summary:
1. "Art" has been giving an artificial aura of intellectualism and elitism that it shouldn't be. It's whatever someone creates out of creativity. Whether a statement is involved is optional.
2. "Free speech" is not the exclusive right to art. Last I checked, it was the birthright of everyone. Whether you're writing a trashy novel, designing a mindless shoot-em-up game or making the next Jackass movie, you have the freedom to do it regardless of whether it's considered "art".
She also won the individual gold for the uneven bars.
The analogy isn't correct. Taking steroids offers an obvious advantage in the event. It's very arguable whether being 14 years of age vs 16 years of age is an advantage in this exercise.
I do agree that *if* being 14 was an obvious advantage, then stripping the medal would be an appropriate action. But I honestly don't think it is. One can as easily point to the mental resolve that comes with age as a proportionate advantage to having younger bones.
That point is also a debatable topic.
That would be the fault of the judges. IMO, Nastia Liukin gave a better uneven bar performance. But judging standards aside, they gave the performance to get them the medal.
They were shady, as well. "How old are you?" "16." I cannot be convinced that they are completely unaware of the rules or the changes made to their documentation.
You'd be surprised at how naive a 14 year old can be especially one from rural China. Having met many people from there it is very very easy to mislead them on the gravity of things like this. "It's no big deal, just a technicality that you need to get around to win".
If you break the rules of a game, you have cheated. If you cheat at a game, you're not a winner.
I'm sorry but that's very pedantic. Ultimately, the game is about fair play. If your argument was that being 14 gave her an unfair advantage in the competition vs the 16 year old, fine, we can argue on that point. But blindly chanting "a rule is a rule is a rule" is bureaucratic and mindless. If one can accept that being 14 offers no obvious advantage than 16, then the girl competed fairly and won.
The distinction I would draw is that the rules they broke constituted an unfair advantage. It is arguable whether being 14 instead of 16 is an unfair advantage or not. The rule wasn't in place to prevent the dominant 14 year old girls from crushing the 16 year old ones, it's to prevent abuse and over-stressing of children.
Saying "a rule is a rule is a rule" is very blind and pedantic. One needs to look at the spirit of a rule as much as the letter of it.
In this case, I don't think the competing girls had an unfair advantage being 14. Therefore, whatever shady dealings the Chinese government did to fake the age shouldn't mean that they didn't compete fairly and win.
I agree that there should be disciplinary action made against those who did the faking. In this case, the Chinese government and possibly the coach and/or official who let it happen.
I'm not sure I'd agree with stripping the gold from the girls. They gave the performance to earn it. They shouldn't lose it because their government is shady.
The better solution would be disqualification from the next Olympics for those events for China. Let the winners this year keep their metals.
Now let's take the example of the drug industry, where there's no J.D. Power, and in spite of regulation, some companies have done their best to hide the reports of the ill effects of certain drugs.
I'll respond to this with an anecdote. My grandfather is currently 90. He was a doctor in China. There is no government regulatory system there for drugs. None of his patients are ever given bad drugs. Do you know why? Because doctors there don't act under the assumption that all drugs are safe because there's an FDA. They do their research, consult colleagues, consult reputable review boards and go with providers with a good history.
Again, it's short sighted thinking that government regulation is and will be the only solution. Every industry that has not been regulated has popped up its own plethora of independent review associations and consumer watchdogs. This includes the tech industry which is practically a shining example of capitalism at work. Every new product that is introduced is scrutinized beyond belief by every tech magazine out there as well as independent reviewers. There exists standards and consortiums that set them. All of this happened without regulation and all of these mechanisms work far better and far more accurately than anything the federal government could've hoped to form.
To sum it up. Without the FDA, drug companies would no longer be trusted by consumers. I would no longer go to the drug store and buy over the counter stuff with the assumption that it was safe. I'd actually *shop* for my pills. Drug companies would have to go out of their way to prove the safety of their product. Those that do, will gain consumers. Those that don't, will die off.
And let's look at the negative effects of the FDA. Pharmaceutical corporations, by sheer fact that the FDA only has the ability to certify so many drugs per year, have a virtual monopoly on the market. Foreign companies (such as from Canada) *cannot by law* sell to the U.S. There is no competition. Drug prices are up, quality is down.
Maybe, maybe not. As I mentioned before, even if it is rational and would result in long-term financial gains does not mean that it will be the choice of a company. The free market works on an assumption of complete, accurate information, and rational actors, neither of which are a reality.
In the immediate case, no. Over time, this has proven again and again to be true. Like I said, it takes time. But no other system in history has proven itself to adjust so accurately to balancing the needs of the populace.
The fact that those technologies existed, were effective at preventing injury and death, and yet were not being installed shows enough need. Maybe, if left to themselves, companies would have all eventually decided to install them. Who knows how long that would have taken. In the meantime, the government has a responsibility to promote the general welfare of its citizens (and that's from the Constitution).
That is a very dangerous mentality.
Firstly and foremost, one needs to fully realize the ramifications of government mandates. To think that there are no consequences is very short sighted. Among the most important is the expansion of government power. It sets a dangerous legal precedence to what the government is allowed to regulate.
Secondly, one has to look at the effect it will have on the economy. Let's take the automobile example. Ford and GM have demonstrated, again and again, incompetence at anticipating consumer needs. In the free market, these companies would not have followed consumer demand for safer cars. Toyota and Honda have demonstrated again and again their ability to not only anticipate consumer needs but follow and exceed the requirements.
Had the government not interfered. Ford and GM would've gone out of business decades ago because they did not listen to consumer demands for safety. All the government mandate did was allow an incompetent company to stay in business.
Independent bodies have formed (J.D. Power and Associates, Consumer Reports, etc.) that have far more stringent grading systems than their federal counterparts. These are what consumers look to when purchasing a vehicle.
Again, this is all under the argument of the effectiveness (and ill effects) of regulation.
I will point you to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Welfare_Clause that explains the interpretation of "General Welfare" as outlined by the Constitution. Here's a hint, it does say Congress can use legal power to "promote general welfare". Congress's ability to meddle in the general welfare of the populace is limited to its powers of taxing and spending.
This argument has existed for a long time and the legal precedence thus far is that "general welfare" isn't a blank check for the legislative branch to pass whatever law it wants that it thinks will be "good for citizens".
You may not believe that regulatory bodies like NHTSA and the FDA are necessary, but you're going to have a hard time convincing me that companies will pony up the amount of information they're currently required to without those bodies, or that they would do as much safety testing of their own accord.
Whether or not I believe they are necessary is really just a side-note. My main argument is whether or not they are *legal* or in line with the principles behind the founding of the United States government. Just because "it would be nice if something is regulated" does not mean that it should be.
It is not because demand does not exist, it is because there is not enough financial incentive for a company to respond to the demand that does exist.
So there is financial incentive. Just not enough. I did say "financial incentive" did I not? As to whether or not a company will do it given a certain level of financial incentive. That's why we call it a free market. If company A won't do it, company B will. If consumers wanted it, company B would sell more and company A would follow suit. It takes time and it's not always perfect. But it will happen.
I did also illustrate that the reason a V-Chip like technology does not exist now is because consumers (and I use this term statistically) are not willing to pay for it did I not? That does not mean "no one is willing to pay for it". That means "not enough people are willing to pay enough".
While some car manufacturers have gone above and beyond the regulatory requirements, or otherwise pride themselves on safety, the fact remains that safety measures had to be mandated to press manufacturers who did not perceive enough financial incentive in safety measures to implement them.
I would argue against the "had to" part. Take a look at the current automobile market. Look at how well the companies who "had to be mandated" are doing vs those who went above and beyond. The same government who mandated safety are, ironically, the ones who are subsidizing these companies just to keep them afloat.
All you've pointed out is that the government has again and again enacted mandates. It does not show that there was a need for them.
Ah, but you neglect to mention where laws come from.
No I didn't, read the rest of what I wrote.
And that would be the mores, customs, opinions, beliefs, and morals of the population which the laws serve.
Perhaps some governments. The unique thing about the United States (and many other modern countries) is that that is not true (at least from the point of view of the Constitution). What you describe is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrany_of_the_majority.
I will grant you that the basis of fundamental freedom and rights is, from a completely moral-relativist perspective, a result of moral customs of western civilization. I prefer, however, to think of it as a truth to be held self-evident.
The government has no business legislating what is moral? What about theft? Murder? Rape? Child abuse?
While those are considered immoral acts, they are illegal because they impede on another person's life, liberty and/or property. Which is what the State is there to protect.
All citizens of the United States are protected from incursions upon their person, their freedom and their property.
As a counter-example, would you consider lying an immoral act? What if I told people I drove a Ferrari instead of a Toyota? What about cheating in a poker game? Having an affair? Being racist?
Those have the unique quality that, while immoral, they do not impede on the life, liberty or property of another.
What you are describing is Anarchism, the belief that self-rule is the best method of controlling a nation.
No, what I'm describing is the United States government as framed by the Constitution. Which mandates that the government provides defense and promotes general welfare and protect the rights and immunities of all citizens of the United States as well as collect taxes and provide public services. It does *not* specify one of the roles of government as "enforcing morality".
What you mean to say, and almost did say, is not if there's demand, but if there's financial incentive, which are not identical things. Then there's the fact that really good ideas (like the seat belt) don't always translate into financial incentive, and so have to be mandated.
In a capitalist market, demand = financial incentive. If consumers aren't willing to pay for it, but just want it anyway, that is not demand. I don't agree with seat belt mandates either. And that is a perfect example. Automobile manufacturers have gone *way* beyond seat belts when it comes to safety of their vehicles. All of their own accord (heheh). This is because consumers *demand* safety with their money. They are willing to pay the extra cost in order to drive a safer car. This is why billions upon billions of R&D is pumped into crash testing, impact resistance, and newer concepts of cars even include a separate inner compartment that is elastically attached to the outer hull of the car.
All of this provides just as much, if not more safety in a car crash for the passenger than the antiquated technology that is the seat belt.
Government is all about legislating what is moral. It's called criminal law.
Erm, no. Criminal law is the right of the government to enforce its laws by removal of civil rights from a citizen. It has nothing to do with morality. That is a far different branch of philosophy. The term is only useful in contrast to Civil Law. Which is the case of the government arbitrating between two citizens.
As for the philosophy behind what the government has a right to make into criminal activity, I am a firm believer of the stance the U.S. Constitution takes on this.
The government is mandated to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
That's it.
Also, arguments about legislating morality are pretty much irrelevant to this discussion, since we're simply talking about a labeling requirement and the inclusion of a feature that allows (and does not require) content discrimination.
A legislation is made. The legislation is justified on moral, not legal or functional grounds. I.e. "we are making a law that requires labeling for the good of the children". That is legislated morality.
All of your arguments are based on the very short-sighted "but it would be nice" reasoning. Yes, it would be nice if all video game console manufacturers labeled their games and provided lock-out features. It would also be nice if companies only charged an extra 5% on top of the cost of production for their products. I will say this once more, and hopefully it may sink in.
It. Should. Not. Be. Law.
It's the same reason there are arguments in congress about a law to ban flag burning. In the past decade, the recorded case of an American burning the American flag can be counted in single digits. It's a non-problem.
But they argue to make it anyway so the idiots who vote for them will think "omg, that guy is patriotic". It's politicians mocking morality for show. And dumbasses who vote for them not realizing what legislating something like this will do to American business let alone set a dangerous precedence for expansion of government power.
Forget No Child Left Behind. We need an overhaul of the education system to be No Adult Left Behind. Everyone needs some basic education of the philosophy of the role of government and the legal fragility that is civil liberties. Maybe then politicians won't be able to get away with power grabs like this "for the good of the children".
I agree that legislators ought to think long and hard before mandating something like the V-Chip, because you're right, the cost will be passed on to consumers. However, sometimes mandating the tool may be the only way to actually get manufacturers to provide it (think about the history of the seat belt).
If there is demand, manufacturers will provide. That's the free market. If there's currently no financial incentive for game console manufacturers to provide V-Chip like technology then all that means is that your average consumer isn't willing to fork over an extra $50 to keep their precious little snowflake shielded from the big bad images. Instead, they'd rather everyone to share the cost by mandating it into law.
Government has no business legislating what is moral. It's everyone's job as individuals to do what they can to keep their kids away from unwanted content. You don't *have* to buy your kids GTA-V "Sluts on wheels". Nor do you have to let your kids associate with other kids who's parents aren't as Ned Flanders-like.
My tax dollars shouldn't be used to keep your snowflakes from watching bad things.
For such a liberal state, NY sure likes to empower its government to do all sorts of things it has no place doing.
If I'm reading the article right, they're not just "turning the chip off". They're putting it to sleep with the important states retained. That is, the chip will wake up in the state it was put to sleep. This reduces the need to have a boot-up sequence and state restore, which, for chips that target the pico-watt region, eats up a lot of available energy.
Well, in order to be fast in executing, the code density can't be all that high for the internal u-ops. I don't have a rough estimate but if the trace cache in Netburst is any indication, it's a 30% or more increase in code size for the same operations vs x86. We're talking 30% increase of simple instructions too. I would imagine it's pretty bloated and not suitable to be used external to the processor.
On top of that, it's probably subject to change with each micro-architecture.
Analysis of non-steady state signals still follow Ohm's law. V(t) = R(t)I(t). Transform it to the frequency domain and V(f) = R(f)I(f). Capacitance and inductance both are just descriptions of the voltage and current of the circuit model varying with time/frequency. They are fundamental circuit elements.
The argument another poster made is that this isn't a description of a circuit element with regards to either frequency or time but rather, history of current. I argue that the device still models resistance, just that it can't be analyzed using classic time/frequency domain methods.
Diodes, transistors, schmitt triggers, etc. are all elements that can't be built with just resistors, capacitors and inductors. They're not fundamental circuit elements. They can all be analyzed using capacitance, resistance and inductance. The same is true of this device.
That's different. The problem with multi-cores (and the associated complexity) is not with how many cores you can cram in there nor whether you can run linux on it. The problem comes with coherency across the cores. When putting multiple cores that each functions as an independent Von Neumann machine, glue logic needs to be implemented to make sure they don't step on each other's toes. This is an unavoidable fact with x86 as the ISA was never designed for multiple instruction streams.
Cell SPE's are not coherent, self-sufficient architectures. They're more like co-processors controlled by the PowerPC. This means that all, if any, coherency scheme can be handled by the PowerPC. Tacking on these co-processors is much easier and so you don't have to restrict yourself to certain symmetrical schemes.
Yet another example of the Keep It Simple rule. You need extra math power, add more math units. All you're doing with multi-core is duplicating the decode/parallelism extraction effort.
The CPU to GPU interconnect was never really much of a bottleneck. When AGP went from 4x to 8x (double the speed) there was barely any improvement. The same is true of going to PCI-E. Yes, it is because all graphics cards include a huge pool of obscenely fast DRAM on it such that it almost never needs to go over the peripheral bus but the types of bandwidth required here simply isn't reproduce-able even with high-speed interconnects like Hypertransport or Quickpath.
From a performance perspective, graphics processing is not limited at all by how fast it can communicate with the CPU. It's limited, like pretty much everything, by how fast it can communicate with memory (either its own or system memory). I don't see integrating the GPU and CPU as solving this problem. If anything, it'll make it worse from a performance (though perhaps not from a power or cost) perspective.