more computing power in a head-sized device than exists in all the human brains alive today
Do we even know how much "computing power" the human brain actually has? Given our narrow understanding of autistic savants and synaesthesia, the answer would seem to be a resounding "no." We might one day discover that our brains are the only computers we could ever need.
I live in the mountains, meaning that my car needs to "go up hills." Wanting a more fuel efficient car, I test drove the range of hybrids, but eventually settled on VWs TDI. Why? Because every hybrid I drove absolutely labored to go up the slightest inclines, and gas mileage went down right along with it.
The mother of a friend of mine recently purchased a hybrid SUV. When it switches from gas to battery, it jerks the whole vehicle, which they find incredibly annoying.
Hybrids are still in the early adopter phase, I think, and while they'll get better with time, I wouldn't by one just yet, especially if you live in the mountains.
"Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery." --Frank Herbert;)
Seriously, though. I do not mean to imply that money itself is worthless, or that having money can not lead to the stress-free lifestyle that most of us seem to be looking for. It isn't about the money, per se, but what that money gets you, and time is required to enjoy those things.
Therefore, if you are making a sizeable salary but are putting in a 60-hour work week, and you don't want to put in that kind of time because it is keeping you from your family (for example), then the money itself becomes less important than the detrimental effects the time required to make that money is having on your life. You might start asking yourself if your priorities aren't mixed up.
Thoreau said, "A man is only as rich as the number of things he can let alone." Who cares how much money you make if you're so swamped you can't enjoy it? I am considering a career change for this very reason. Life's too flipping short.
Thinking about things in general can be theraputic, and turning your thoughts into writing helps you organize what you are thinking about. Journals and diaries have always been good for this, but what makes blogging different in some cases is that it gives an opportunity for the blogger to be part of a community support structure, via comments/blogrings/etc.
I am assuming that you are referring to the fact that open source development is (partially) supported by taxation. Notice that I did not say "taxation in general," but was instead referring to a much more centralized system: "artists could be paid for their films and music by a general 'taxation' on Internet connections."
Open source development is fueled by a diverse range of "systems of reward," (monetary, commercial, personal, etc.) and this is part of what keeps it afloat. If artists/developers are to be "rewarded" (monetarily) through such centralized means as an "Internet connection tax," the question inevitably arises: "Who decides where the money goes?"
Being so centralized, it becomes a target for those who would seek to control such things. It is often said that "power corrupts," but what is more accurate is that "power attracts the corrupt." If this position of authority was siezed by someone with an interest in perpetuating his/her own interests, it would cause development to stagnate and become more homogenous.
This is why diversity is preferred in almost all scenarios; diversity can "check" the growth of other systems so that no one system has too much control.
Monetary compensation is not the only motivation for developing open source software, to be sure. However, it could not have become the juggernaut that it is today without commercial/monetary support. More to the point, it would not be what it is without such a diverse range of participants seeking a diverse range of rewards.
Is FOSS stagnating now then? Or are you saying that if developers get it into their heads that they might be rewarded for their FOSS efforts this will act as a deterrent?
I am saying neither. I take issue with one suggestion in particular, which is to provide the "rewards to developers" you mentioned through a general "Internet connection tax." This would place those "rewards" in the hands of a homogenous power structure, a scenario that (according to the observations of economists such as Hayek and Friedman) most usually leads to stagnation.
I'm a big fan of the GPL, and of course I'm opposed to software patents, but to divine from the two the need to tax everybody for everything just smacks of totalitarianism.
Precisely. While I would not be opposed to this change in the GPL per se (I do find the ideology behind it a bit on the aggressive side), I completely disagree with the suggestion that a general 'taxation' on Internet connections could support innovation. It seems to me like such a thing would stagnate innovation rather than encourage it.
Here here. My girlfriend and I recently moved downtown from the 'burbs, and it's ended up being one of the best things we've ever done. The little bit of extra money we're spending on rent is far outweighed by what we're saving in other costs (fuel, cabs, utilities, paying for downtown parking, &c). We're also a lot more fit from all the walking we do.
Frankly, I think that if fuel prices stay where they are and/or go up, you'll see cities in the U.S. re-shape themselves to include more commercial infastructure in outlying suburban communities.
As others have pointed out, we presently have a choice as to whether or not we do business with people who sell DRM media. If the laws do not change to require DRM (and that is a really big if), then you just don't have to give your money to people who sell DRM. It is good that the EFF has pointed out some alternative choices. If people don't want DRM, then the marketplace will decide whether or not it'll stick around.
However, I'm pretty cynical, so I instead expect laws to change to make restricted media the norm.
Quite right. Die-hard capitalists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek point out that in order for the market to "work," competition mustn't be stifled. The basic idea is that diversity works better than homogeneity (they both warned against homogenous power structures), and this seems to hold true in more areas than the marketplace.
I've set up a few Linux servers for small businesses with very general needs, and their TCO so far has been limited to setup and hardware costs. In such environments, next to no maintenance has been required.
I would assume the story would be somewhat different, however, for someone with more specific (i.e., vendor-locked) needs than file, web, DB, or mail servers. Maybe some more experienced techs out there could chime in on that.
How this compares to Windows seems hard to quantify. A "properly configured" Windows server, while not quite as stable in certain situations as a "properly configured" Linux server, comes pretty close.
Frankly, I think it really just boils down to what the clients' needs are. Linux works better in some situations, Windows in others, etc.
Interestingly, most (if not all) humans exhibit such behavior from time to time, though perhaps not to such a degree as those we would normally call "psychopaths." Power for the sake of power, even at the expense of those that sustain you. Needless consumption, "parasitic" dominance, seeking to make another person feel inferior, etc.
I am not entirely convinced that this type of behavior has a genetic component as far as the behavior itself is concerned. I think that the potential for such behavior has a genetic component, and this potential is shared by all humans. In other words, this is the soil in which the seed is planted, or the cell that the virus infects (this type of behavior has very much in common with a virus, or cancer, or other systems of "unsustainable growth.")
The seed/virus, I believe, comes from interacting with other power-seeking humans. These interactions are typically "abusive" in some sense, with a clear "dominator" and a clear "victim." From these types of interactions, the victim comes to believe that "terrain denial" and dominance through brutal strength is the proper way to interact with others.
The "victim," wishing to overcome his/her feelings of inferiority that were spawned by interacting with the dominator, then seeks to dominate others, thus further spreading the "seeds" for this type of behavior.
I do not know where, exactly, this type of behavior came from. Many argue that the animal kingdom behaves in a similar fashion, but I only agree with this to a point. While there is clearly a certain form of competition among members of the animal kingdom, there still exists a balance and an almost symbiotic relationship between "predator" and "prey," not at all unlike the relationship between the shepherd and the flock.
For modern humans, however, mutually destructive behavior results in wild growth of unsustainable power systems. On the individual level, you get interactions like the example given above. On the social level, you get despotic dictatorships. The seed is the same for both scales: notions of absolute value (inferiority/superiority in an ultimate sense) that are first applied to the "self," and from thence to the "Other."
Consider that each human mind is like a "node," or a neuron, and that the entirety of humanity is one "mind," and human interaction is the firing between the neurons. Our belief systems are like the filters that allow only certain signals to pass through, and in a way, they are almost alive, since they can be transmitted from one person to another through their effects on human behavior.
Right now, many of us have that "terrain denying" belief. There are a lot of different kinds, but in the past few thousand years or so, this has been a very "predatory" and successful one. There is another, however, that might be relatively more "beneficial" to us and the environment in which we live: mutual uplift. Think of how different parts of a cell come together to form a whole, how cells come together to form organs, how organs come together to form beings, how beings come together to form planets, and how a planet is something like a cell. Each part is a unique individual, but it works in a mutually uplifting fashion with its counterparts. The only "central authority" they follow vents downward, on this scale, from sun to planet to individual: that which sustains them.
The way I understand it, this isn't necessarily true. According to this article:
"To be as specific/technical as possible, downloading copyrighted material without expressed permission is illegal. Such music must be purchased in order to be legal."
I know it's illegal and that it can possibly hurt artists, but if it wasn't for downloading music illegally, I would have never bothered listening to Michael Buble, would have never bought two tickets to his show, and would have never spent over $200 on merchandise afterwards. So there's a good side to it as well that isn't always as obvious.
"If you want something that goes light on memory it's time to start looking at options with Linux or *BSD which offer some options about exactly how gussied up you want your interface: you lose functionality, but it'll definitely run on less RAM.
Exactly. I am usually more comfortable with fluxbox and a scroll mouse on Linux, and such a setup will typically eat up less memory than Windows. Hell, explorer.exe uses around 30 megs of RAM for me; maybe there's something wrong with my XP box, but that seems like a lot.
Then again, bare-bones window managers are nowhere near as functional as Windows, KDE, and OS X, so I guess it's not so surprising that they take up more memory.
Trumping all of us are those who are comfy with nothing but a command line.;)
" Memory is cheap and will continue to get less expensive."
You're absolutely right about this, and there is no denying that an increase in memory at decreased prices will lead to more developers taking advantage of those increased resources. However, they also seem to disregard efficiency, sometimes when it is arguably not a good thing to do so. And, for the more tinfoil-hattish of us, it is arguable that some of the more popular developers intentionally bloat their products to give kickbacks to their hardware buddies.
In any case, my main concern is that with Vista, we're not getting our "bang for our buck" as far as the system requirements go.
"Microsoft Allchin said in an April interview that he expects Vista will need about 512MB of memory and "today's level" of processor."
It is possible that they are overstating the RAM requirements, but holy cow, that seems like a whole crapload of memory to run... what, exactly? 128 MB is suggested for XP Pro, but I know that's more or less BS, because I run Pro, and tend to use ~300 MB on average, and I rarely have anything extra running besides Firefox, gaim, and AVG. So, does that mean they're actually understating the RAM requirements?
Anyway, just from reading the article, I am not inclined to spend the money on upgrading. As of now, none of the new features seem very impressive.
Slashdot Mirror
more computing power in a head-sized device than exists in all the human brains alive today Do we even know how much "computing power" the human brain actually has? Given our narrow understanding of autistic savants and synaesthesia, the answer would seem to be a resounding "no." We might one day discover that our brains are the only computers we could ever need.
That is just what they want you to think!
The mother of a friend of mine recently purchased a hybrid SUV. When it switches from gas to battery, it jerks the whole vehicle, which they find incredibly annoying.
Hybrids are still in the early adopter phase, I think, and while they'll get better with time, I wouldn't by one just yet, especially if you live in the mountains.
Seriously, though. I do not mean to imply that money itself is worthless, or that having money can not lead to the stress-free lifestyle that most of us seem to be looking for. It isn't about the money, per se, but what that money gets you, and time is required to enjoy those things.
Therefore, if you are making a sizeable salary but are putting in a 60-hour work week, and you don't want to put in that kind of time because it is keeping you from your family (for example), then the money itself becomes less important than the detrimental effects the time required to make that money is having on your life. You might start asking yourself if your priorities aren't mixed up.
Thoreau said, "A man is only as rich as the number of things he can let alone." Who cares how much money you make if you're so swamped you can't enjoy it? I am considering a career change for this very reason. Life's too flipping short.
Thinking about things in general can be theraputic, and turning your thoughts into writing helps you organize what you are thinking about. Journals and diaries have always been good for this, but what makes blogging different in some cases is that it gives an opportunity for the blogger to be part of a community support structure, via comments/blogrings/etc.
Open source development is fueled by a diverse range of "systems of reward," (monetary, commercial, personal, etc.) and this is part of what keeps it afloat. If artists/developers are to be "rewarded" (monetarily) through such centralized means as an "Internet connection tax," the question inevitably arises: "Who decides where the money goes?"
Being so centralized, it becomes a target for those who would seek to control such things. It is often said that "power corrupts," but what is more accurate is that "power attracts the corrupt." If this position of authority was siezed by someone with an interest in perpetuating his/her own interests, it would cause development to stagnate and become more homogenous.
This is why diversity is preferred in almost all scenarios; diversity can "check" the growth of other systems so that no one system has too much control.
Monetary compensation is not the only motivation for developing open source software, to be sure. However, it could not have become the juggernaut that it is today without commercial/monetary support. More to the point, it would not be what it is without such a diverse range of participants seeking a diverse range of rewards.
I am saying neither. I take issue with one suggestion in particular, which is to provide the "rewards to developers" you mentioned through a general "Internet connection tax." This would place those "rewards" in the hands of a homogenous power structure, a scenario that (according to the observations of economists such as Hayek and Friedman) most usually leads to stagnation.
Precisely. While I would not be opposed to this change in the GPL per se (I do find the ideology behind it a bit on the aggressive side), I completely disagree with the suggestion that a general 'taxation' on Internet connections could support innovation. It seems to me like such a thing would stagnate innovation rather than encourage it.
Frankly, I think that if fuel prices stay where they are and/or go up, you'll see cities in the U.S. re-shape themselves to include more commercial infastructure in outlying suburban communities.
However, I'm pretty cynical, so I instead expect laws to change to make restricted media the norm.
Quite right. Die-hard capitalists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek point out that in order for the market to "work," competition mustn't be stifled. The basic idea is that diversity works better than homogeneity (they both warned against homogenous power structures), and this seems to hold true in more areas than the marketplace.
I would assume the story would be somewhat different, however, for someone with more specific (i.e., vendor-locked) needs than file, web, DB, or mail servers. Maybe some more experienced techs out there could chime in on that.
How this compares to Windows seems hard to quantify. A "properly configured" Windows server, while not quite as stable in certain situations as a "properly configured" Linux server, comes pretty close.
Frankly, I think it really just boils down to what the clients' needs are. Linux works better in some situations, Windows in others, etc.
No, that unit is the "Wattajig."
One point twenty-one jigawatts?!
Who wants to make a bet that they'll just keep on turning up the heat in this pot of water we're all sitting in?
Er, what's that? It's already boiling?!
So let's jump out already. Seriously, we're being cooked alive.
I am not entirely convinced that this type of behavior has a genetic component as far as the behavior itself is concerned. I think that the potential for such behavior has a genetic component, and this potential is shared by all humans. In other words, this is the soil in which the seed is planted, or the cell that the virus infects (this type of behavior has very much in common with a virus, or cancer, or other systems of "unsustainable growth.")
The seed/virus, I believe, comes from interacting with other power-seeking humans. These interactions are typically "abusive" in some sense, with a clear "dominator" and a clear "victim." From these types of interactions, the victim comes to believe that "terrain denial" and dominance through brutal strength is the proper way to interact with others.
The "victim," wishing to overcome his/her feelings of inferiority that were spawned by interacting with the dominator, then seeks to dominate others, thus further spreading the "seeds" for this type of behavior.
I do not know where, exactly, this type of behavior came from. Many argue that the animal kingdom behaves in a similar fashion, but I only agree with this to a point. While there is clearly a certain form of competition among members of the animal kingdom, there still exists a balance and an almost symbiotic relationship between "predator" and "prey," not at all unlike the relationship between the shepherd and the flock.
For modern humans, however, mutually destructive behavior results in wild growth of unsustainable power systems. On the individual level, you get interactions like the example given above. On the social level, you get despotic dictatorships. The seed is the same for both scales: notions of absolute value (inferiority/superiority in an ultimate sense) that are first applied to the "self," and from thence to the "Other."
Consider that each human mind is like a "node," or a neuron, and that the entirety of humanity is one "mind," and human interaction is the firing between the neurons. Our belief systems are like the filters that allow only certain signals to pass through, and in a way, they are almost alive, since they can be transmitted from one person to another through their effects on human behavior.
Right now, many of us have that "terrain denying" belief. There are a lot of different kinds, but in the past few thousand years or so, this has been a very "predatory" and successful one. There is another, however, that might be relatively more "beneficial" to us and the environment in which we live: mutual uplift. Think of how different parts of a cell come together to form a whole, how cells come together to form organs, how organs come together to form beings, how beings come together to form planets, and how a planet is something like a cell. Each part is a unique individual, but it works in a mutually uplifting fashion with its counterparts. The only "central authority" they follow vents downward, on this scale, from sun to planet to individual: that which sustains them.
Food for thought, anyway.
Some billionaire with a mid-life crisis and a serious need for attention.
"To be as specific/technical as possible, downloading copyrighted material without expressed permission is illegal. Such music must be purchased in order to be legal."
It was my girlfriend's birthday. No, seriously, I have a girlfriend. Hey, I'm not kidding.
Stop looking at me like that.
I know it's illegal and that it can possibly hurt artists, but if it wasn't for downloading music illegally, I would have never bothered listening to Michael Buble, would have never bought two tickets to his show, and would have never spent over $200 on merchandise afterwards. So there's a good side to it as well that isn't always as obvious.
Exactly. I am usually more comfortable with fluxbox and a scroll mouse on Linux, and such a setup will typically eat up less memory than Windows. Hell, explorer.exe uses around 30 megs of RAM for me; maybe there's something wrong with my XP box, but that seems like a lot.
Then again, bare-bones window managers are nowhere near as functional as Windows, KDE, and OS X, so I guess it's not so surprising that they take up more memory.
Trumping all of us are those who are comfy with nothing but a command line. ;)
You're absolutely right about this, and there is no denying that an increase in memory at decreased prices will lead to more developers taking advantage of those increased resources. However, they also seem to disregard efficiency, sometimes when it is arguably not a good thing to do so. And, for the more tinfoil-hattish of us, it is arguable that some of the more popular developers intentionally bloat their products to give kickbacks to their hardware buddies.
In any case, my main concern is that with Vista, we're not getting our "bang for our buck" as far as the system requirements go.
It is possible that they are overstating the RAM requirements, but holy cow, that seems like a whole crapload of memory to run... what, exactly? 128 MB is suggested for XP Pro, but I know that's more or less BS, because I run Pro, and tend to use ~300 MB on average, and I rarely have anything extra running besides Firefox, gaim, and AVG. So, does that mean they're actually understating the RAM requirements?
Anyway, just from reading the article, I am not inclined to spend the money on upgrading. As of now, none of the new features seem very impressive.
That is an incredibly tasteless and juvenile thing for a news reporter to say.