Well, you can bet your ass that Windows's native NTFS is much faster than the Linux one, because they wrote the FS, and they have years of time to optimize the working driver.
Sure, user-mode will be a performance issue, but I think the context-switch + work is only necessary, when the kernel decides to either read data (on a cache miss) or write out its file buffers to disk. So if you don't use NTFS as your native disk (not sure how that'll work with permissions and stuff), you should really by fine. Maybe there's an option somewhere to turn on big read-write chunks (so that the kernel will always read/write huge blocks from the user daemon, which would make context-switch time negligible).
Wait for the message from your nice centrally planning representative.
They're bound to be experts in anything that involves cellphones, or servers, because they're, well, universal geniuses (or they wouldn't have gone into politics, right?)!
"to install up to four (4) copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device."
Whow there, BFD!
But to quote The Matrix: "Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about I give you the finger, and you give me my phone call."
With other operating systems, the customer has the "ability" (and license) to do *anything* he wants (except redistribution, which might be limited under the GPL).
We have alternatives? Well, Safari for the Mac, and Konqueror for Unix. Then there's Camino (basically Firefox) for the Mac.
What else? When I'm on a Unix system, my only useable option (IMHO) is Firefox... (it's cross-platform; I'm too lazy to get used to KDE, even if it's installed)
Well, since most libs likely don't need more than 4GB, I'd simply only install libs compiled in 32-bit mode, i.e. they might use all 16 registers on the AMD64, but only use instructions with 32bit width.
If the user needs the whole address space for huge mmap()ed files, databases or other stuff, he's free to use it (just like on PPC), but all pointers / program parts that interact with the libs directly should reside in the lower 4GB (which is enough space, really). Also, there's no reason why there can't be 64-bit libs and 32-bit libs in the same program. There only has to be an understanding (this concept is also known as a 'type system') what functions accept 32-bit values and which accept 64-bit ones. Since a value that *has* to be 64bit is rather rare, there shouldn't be a problem making it explicit for the programmer.
Well, but if the app (and its plugins) don't really need more than 4GB address space, there's no reason to not simply let it stay 32 bit. The OS simply loads it in 32-bit mode.
Your comment about the REX prefix: is that like the 16-bit-prefix when in normal 32-bit more, i.e. does that mean I can run in "64bit mode" and use all registers, but still use 32-bit instructions/addressing, i.e. simply have a 32-bit mode with more registers?
That'd be great (a bit like PPC which has been 64bit from the beginning, but allows you to simply only use the lower half of a register if you like (or if your CPU, like mine, doesn't have 64 bits per register:D)).
Why? Can't your 64-bit kernel run applications in 32bit mode? Why not? (Can't all decent operating systems?)
And why would you even *notice* if an application uses 32bit- or 64bit-instructions? Exactly.
My Mac has a 32bit CPU, but my friend has a 64bit one. I don't see any difference. Does Safari use 64-bit instructions if the CPU has 64 bit? Does the kernel? Maybe, but none of us care, and there's no reason at all why we should.
Long answer is: we've had it in Germany. The reform was led by an arbitrary government committee (group of ministers for educational affairs) and led to changes that were simply wrong etymologically, or grammatically.
Basically: if you don't really really know what you're doing (and with a grown language that's hundreds/thousands of years old, almost nobody really knows everything), don't change a language.
After a while in Germany, most newspapers reverted to either the old writing, or their own writing (mixture of "official" new writing style, and the old one), while most authors simply continued to use the old style. Design by committee doesn't work.
Good question. It shouldn't be too hard to isolate extensions and have them under control through a monitored API. If they even have their own memory allocator, great. If it gets out of control, just kill the thread and remove the memory area. If the extension has to use something like C++, you can still overload the memory portion to use a different memory area and free it all at once, basically doing something like cheap garbage collection.
Of course a real, separate process communicating over sockets is the best solution. Sad that nowadays people always equate the need for extensions with the need to integrate everything into a huge, binary, blob, instead of separating it into processes.
I think it's the other way round: because IT is new terrain for them, most insurances make IT insurance too expensive.
Now if any insurance company were to make IT insurance for certain systems with certain properties cheap, maybe people would try to implement those properties (say, Unix, separation of privileges, managed code or alternatively strongly checked code with powerful type/effect systems) to be able to get the cheap insurance (or to offer that cheap insurance to their clients/users).
Well, if roads were private, new houses would be built along with roads leading to them, and with cables in them. Then you could choose a road maintainer or a cable maintainer of your choice, and buy service from whoever wants to give it to you.
With existing roads things are different. Not sure about the regulations, but of course opening up the street to lay cable is expensive too (but might well be worth it in the long term; maybe sometime someone will found a service company after Cringely's model; charging mostly for maintenance on a flat monthly fee, but allowing you to buy actual service elsewhere).
And agreed: interchange points, where networks are routed together, will lower costs tremendously too (so everybody need only pay the short length of their road). The key is that ownership of the connection isn't delegated to one telco/ISP, but to the road owner. Every service and maintenance can cheaply be "outsourced".
True, but still I'd love to see more insurance by The People, i.e. basic risk pooling.
In Germany the whole health insurance/money redistribution system (yes, just the bureaucracy) costs more money than is in the end given to the doctors!! That's just so sicko.
Also, not you, but government chooses what you will get insurance for, and what won't be covered (because of lack of money) by the otherwise-insure-all public health insurance. My dad recently had to pay 2000 himself to not go blind, because the insurance said "hey, it's not life-threatening!", and that though he pays many hundred every single month (which would be much cheaper under private insurance, I'm sure).
Germany was more unregulated in the 50s-70s, I'd say. Then the federal budget and regulations started ballooning.
Yes, 10th century life was hard. That includes ultra-capitalism. I think today's political system applied back then would have resulted in *real* misery, much worse than things were (yes I know, there was much poverty; but as I said those were the times).
And I wouldn't look at today's USA problems like poverty and healthcare, because those are the result of decades under a corporatist system. Take a look at http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html for how healthcare was in places, and could be (roughly the idea at least).
Today's capitalist countries aren't *anything* like a libertarian society would work. There are just so many interventions, regulations, and other laws that prevent society from being any different. In that regard you could say, your society/economy *is* totally planned.
I don't think we'd see anythnig like 1000% drop in wages, honestly. But the companies you see around, that are "already making a profit", that would only profit more under lower wages are the companies *that are still alive*. There could be many more companies + jobs, at lesser wages. And if everybody has those wages, it's again rather ok, I'd say.
Concerning the argument that libertarian countries should do better: don't they? When Germany was still rather unregulated (compared to today) it did excellent. The USA also did much better a few decades ago than now, and upward mobility for lower social classes was good (which it isn't at all right now!). When the USA were *really* libertarian, long time ago, AFAIK they quickly rose in living standards and even overtook many European countries, to become the world's richest country...
While I think only liberty is truly moral, because it's non-coercive (unlike any state), I'd be very happy with a low-tax regime like unregulated Germany, or the United States in its better times. That's already a sharp departure from current desastrous politics.
Communism: no, it doesn't sound great in theory. The supposed outcome sounds great in theory: everybody has enough of everything, but that's clearly utopic, and against all economic theory. Now the theory of communism involves violence (fight/kill all but the proletarian class; take all their stuff), and then create a classless society, which is supposed to be done by some supervising organ: again violence. Capitalism is based merely on the non-aggression principle. We don't say that poverty can exist, but usually everybody who works hard will be able to either earn money, or receive charity. As long as everybody agrees, there could eben be general welfare; it only has to be paid (but hey, you like welfare, even I like the concept; so in the end, almost everybody would join such a cooperative, as long as the money isn't being wasted, like it is by today's welfare governments).
The outsourcing or "I can't live off my work" problem: well, under a dynamic economic system wages would rise and fall according to supply and demand (in Germany for instance this isn't possible, so businesses move offshore, or simply fire their workers instead, when they can). People would be employed, at their maximum "value" to anyone.
I don't think your one employee would be the only one, that is to say, wages in general would fall, with the beautiful result that the cost of (any) business drops, so prices drop, competition becomes easier. When productivity rises, this basically *frees* people to do other work instead.
Now one reason why the USA and EU don't have many companies eager to employ people is that government has actively intervened to fight business: there are so many regulations and requirements on businesses, while workers get mandatory healthcare (here), 30 days paid vacations and so on... all these things have to be deducted from salary (of course; the money doesn't fall from the sky!), so in effect the employer has a hard time. It's f***ing tough to have your own business here, while being an employed worker is simply awesome: you get almost anything you could ask for (like in utopian socialism!), for free. With the result that nobody is employing people anymore, because it's unaffordable.
I can't really prove it, but under real capitalism, many "capitalist" things we see today wouldn't likely exist, including huge corporations (based on limited liability, patents/monopolies, subsidies..., all of which a result of aggressive government intervention). I also don't think we'd have quality of life like in the 19th/20th century, because productivity in general is incredibly higher. Back then life *was* hard, with the exception of the elite.
Well, you sound like a moderate left-libertarian maybe, so I think mises.org will shock you a bit at first in their anti-welfare attitude. It shocked me at first, but by now I think it would actually work well.
Regarding the extremes of communism and capitalism: capitalism (or rather free trade) is about free exchange of things and labor. An exchange will only be made if it profits both parties, while a forced intervention (say, taxes + welfare) doesn't create anything; it's only theft that moves money. So that's the simple theory in one sentence. Because capitalism will always be based on voluntary agreements, it will always improve everyone's situation. Well, in reality sometimes things look different, but I think that's because we only have a very small perspective, or myopic view of things. Sure, wealth for everybody sounds cool, but it conflicts with market realities.
I don't think it's bad at all if someone else is super-rich. The point is that I can still do anything to improve my situation, and capitalism - based on exchange - has many incentives for everybody to do good work, create good products, lower prices, and so forth. So in the end even poorer people can buy better products and services than they could 30 years ago.
In the short term wealth redistribution sounds cool, because it makes people less poor, but in the medium term something like forced welfare makes people addicted to it. In Germany (where I live) we certainly have many unemployeds that totally lost touch with life; they're almost unemployable as a result. Without minimum wage laws these people would at least have jobs to feed themselves. (I'd still advocate something like "added" welfare, so these people can have a decent basic income (I think basic income for everybody would be much better than the current welfare state; an awesome compromise), but I prefer private charity to do that, because it's less wasteful (no planned economy, not as much corruption and bureaucracy); basically the modern welfare-state abolished the need for charity, which is why we see so little of it now).
Well, the Mises posts are mostly related to current events. The more foundational part are their online books (by Mises and Rothbard for instance). I also can remember that I once took their test "are you Austrian?", which points to articles on points where you differ (which would be a lot I guess).
Secondly: nobody claims that libertarian policy would reduce the divide between rich and poor; we only claim that everybody would be better off (absolutely) under capitalism, while more socialist programs might reduce the (relative) divide, but everybody would be off worse. Also, economic theory in that area says that most left-wing interventions (by government) will actually backfire, because they are guided by ideology, not by reality and economic theory. Would you think it's great if a surgeon operates without *knowing* what will happen? Most left-wing (but also neo-con and neo-lib) interventionism seems very superstitional to me. (so I left my left-wing view)
And let me add that while the USA might be more libertarian economically (and especially culturally, which is great) than Europe, in many ways they are much more statist I think, or at least more conservative. They wage many more wars, they have a more problematic legal system (or at least implementation of it), and maybe worse legislation influenced by lobbies. Europe might be more socialist and intolerant/unopen, but it's also slower in adopting bad things;)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you can bet your ass that Windows's native NTFS is much faster than the Linux one, because they wrote the FS, and they have years of time to optimize the working driver.
Sure, user-mode will be a performance issue, but I think the context-switch + work is only necessary, when the kernel decides to either read data (on a cache miss) or write out its file buffers to disk. So if you don't use NTFS as your native disk (not sure how that'll work with permissions and stuff), you should really by fine. Maybe there's an option somewhere to turn on big read-write chunks (so that the kernel will always read/write huge blocks from the user daemon, which would make context-switch time negligible).
Not just money, there are many many people involved, that like Poker, betting, and what not.
Why prohibit what ordinary citizens might actually *want* and like? Smells awfully like fascism.
Probably not, but I think it's much more interesting for authorities to not block traffic, but simply wiretap it.
Since China controls the Chinese routers, it's easy to be the listening man in the middle.
Wait for the message from your nice centrally planning representative.
They're bound to be experts in anything that involves cellphones, or servers, because they're, well, universal geniuses (or they wouldn't have gone into politics, right?)!
"to install up to four (4) copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device."
Whow there, BFD!
But to quote The Matrix:
"Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about I give you the finger, and you give me my phone call."
With other operating systems, the customer has the "ability" (and license) to do *anything* he wants (except redistribution, which might be limited under the GPL).
We have alternatives? Well, Safari for the Mac, and Konqueror for Unix. Then there's Camino (basically Firefox) for the Mac.
What else? When I'm on a Unix system, my only useable option (IMHO) is Firefox... (it's cross-platform; I'm too lazy to get used to KDE, even if it's installed)
Most profound, serious shit, it is.
(in a positive way; I'm curious what interesting conclusions will be drawn from this, if it's true)
Well, since most libs likely don't need more than 4GB, I'd simply only install libs compiled in 32-bit mode, i.e. they might use all 16 registers on the AMD64, but only use instructions with 32bit width.
If the user needs the whole address space for huge mmap()ed files, databases or other stuff, he's free to use it (just like on PPC), but all pointers / program parts that interact with the libs directly should reside in the lower 4GB (which is enough space, really). Also, there's no reason why there can't be 64-bit libs and 32-bit libs in the same program. There only has to be an understanding (this concept is also known as a 'type system') what functions accept 32-bit values and which accept 64-bit ones. Since a value that *has* to be 64bit is rather rare, there shouldn't be a problem making it explicit for the programmer.
Well, but if the app (and its plugins) don't really need more than 4GB address space, there's no reason to not simply let it stay 32 bit. The OS simply loads it in 32-bit mode.
:D)).
Your comment about the REX prefix: is that like the 16-bit-prefix when in normal 32-bit more, i.e. does that mean I can run in "64bit mode" and use all registers, but still use 32-bit instructions/addressing, i.e. simply have a 32-bit mode with more registers?
That'd be great (a bit like PPC which has been 64bit from the beginning, but allows you to simply only use the lower half of a register if you like (or if your CPU, like mine, doesn't have 64 bits per register
Why? Can't your 64-bit kernel run applications in 32bit mode? Why not? (Can't all decent operating systems?)
And why would you even *notice* if an application uses 32bit- or 64bit-instructions? Exactly.
My Mac has a 32bit CPU, but my friend has a 64bit one. I don't see any difference. Does Safari use 64-bit instructions if the CPU has 64 bit? Does the kernel? Maybe, but none of us care, and there's no reason at all why we should.
It's a web browser, nothing more.
And read Edward Yourdon, Death March, which already covers this topic.
I'm not sure why I should read the above linked article, so maybe I won't.
Long answer is: we've had it in Germany. The reform was led by an arbitrary government committee (group of ministers for educational affairs) and led to changes that were simply wrong etymologically, or grammatically.
Basically: if you don't really really know what you're doing (and with a grown language that's hundreds/thousands of years old, almost nobody really knows everything), don't change a language.
After a while in Germany, most newspapers reverted to either the old writing, or their own writing (mixture of "official" new writing style, and the old one), while most authors simply continued to use the old style. Design by committee doesn't work.
Good question. It shouldn't be too hard to isolate extensions and have them under control through a monitored API. If they even have their own memory allocator, great. If it gets out of control, just kill the thread and remove the memory area. If the extension has to use something like C++, you can still overload the memory portion to use a different memory area and free it all at once, basically doing something like cheap garbage collection.
Of course a real, separate process communicating over sockets is the best solution. Sad that nowadays people always equate the need for extensions with the need to integrate everything into a huge, binary, blob, instead of separating it into processes.
Oh, XHTML, cool. So it'll look like ... Lynx?
The question is: what CSS level, support for image formats...? Well, if all else fails, you can still print to PDF.
And just like slashdot the "moderators" are usually equally as clueless.
Yes... I can see that. Modding you up for insulting them. But that means your post was pretty insightful after all. Hmm...
I think it's the other way round: because IT is new terrain for them, most insurances make IT insurance too expensive.
Now if any insurance company were to make IT insurance for certain systems with certain properties cheap, maybe people would try to implement those properties (say, Unix, separation of privileges, managed code or alternatively strongly checked code with powerful type/effect systems) to be able to get the cheap insurance (or to offer that cheap insurance to their clients/users).
will it support the Hurd?
Well, if roads were private, new houses would be built along with roads leading to them, and with cables in them. Then you could choose a road maintainer or a cable maintainer of your choice, and buy service from whoever wants to give it to you.
With existing roads things are different. Not sure about the regulations, but of course opening up the street to lay cable is expensive too (but might well be worth it in the long term; maybe sometime someone will found a service company after Cringely's model; charging mostly for maintenance on a flat monthly fee, but allowing you to buy actual service elsewhere).
And agreed: interchange points, where networks are routed together, will lower costs tremendously too (so everybody need only pay the short length of their road). The key is that ownership of the connection isn't delegated to one telco/ISP, but to the road owner. Every service and maintenance can cheaply be "outsourced".
True, but still I'd love to see more insurance by The People, i.e. basic risk pooling.
In Germany the whole health insurance/money redistribution system (yes, just the bureaucracy) costs more money than is in the end given to the doctors!! That's just so sicko.
Also, not you, but government chooses what you will get insurance for, and what won't be covered (because of lack of money) by the otherwise-insure-all public health insurance. My dad recently had to pay 2000 himself to not go blind, because the insurance said "hey, it's not life-threatening!", and that though he pays many hundred every single month (which would be much cheaper under private insurance, I'm sure).
Oops, sorry, make that "19th" century life was hard, of course.
Germany was more unregulated in the 50s-70s, I'd say. Then the federal budget and regulations started ballooning.
Yes, 10th century life was hard. That includes ultra-capitalism. I think today's political system applied back then would have resulted in *real* misery, much worse than things were (yes I know, there was much poverty; but as I said those were the times).
And I wouldn't look at today's USA problems like poverty and healthcare, because those are the result of decades under a corporatist system. Take a look at http://libertariannation.org/a/f12l3.html for how healthcare was in places, and could be (roughly the idea at least).
Today's capitalist countries aren't *anything* like a libertarian society would work. There are just so many interventions, regulations, and other laws that prevent society from being any different. In that regard you could say, your society/economy *is* totally planned.
Hm, that's waay to much for me to answer ... ;)
I don't think we'd see anythnig like 1000% drop in wages, honestly. But the companies you see around, that are "already making a profit", that would only profit more under lower wages are the companies *that are still alive*. There could be many more companies + jobs, at lesser wages. And if everybody has those wages, it's again rather ok, I'd say.
Concerning the argument that libertarian countries should do better: don't they? When Germany was still rather unregulated (compared to today) it did excellent. The USA also did much better a few decades ago than now, and upward mobility for lower social classes was good (which it isn't at all right now!). When the USA were *really* libertarian, long time ago, AFAIK they quickly rose in living standards and even overtook many European countries, to become the world's richest country...
While I think only liberty is truly moral, because it's non-coercive (unlike any state), I'd be very happy with a low-tax regime like unregulated Germany, or the United States in its better times. That's already a sharp departure from current desastrous politics.
Communism: no, it doesn't sound great in theory. The supposed outcome sounds great in theory: everybody has enough of everything, but that's clearly utopic, and against all economic theory. Now the theory of communism involves violence (fight/kill all but the proletarian class; take all their stuff), and then create a classless society, which is supposed to be done by some supervising organ: again violence. Capitalism is based merely on the non-aggression principle. We don't say that poverty can exist, but usually everybody who works hard will be able to either earn money, or receive charity. As long as everybody agrees, there could eben be general welfare; it only has to be paid (but hey, you like welfare, even I like the concept; so in the end, almost everybody would join such a cooperative, as long as the money isn't being wasted, like it is by today's welfare governments).
The outsourcing or "I can't live off my work" problem: well, under a dynamic economic system wages would rise and fall according to supply and demand (in Germany for instance this isn't possible, so businesses move offshore, or simply fire their workers instead, when they can). People would be employed, at their maximum "value" to anyone.
I don't think your one employee would be the only one, that is to say, wages in general would fall, with the beautiful result that the cost of (any) business drops, so prices drop, competition becomes easier. When productivity rises, this basically *frees* people to do other work instead.
Now one reason why the USA and EU don't have many companies eager to employ people is that government has actively intervened to fight business: there are so many regulations and requirements on businesses, while workers get mandatory healthcare (here), 30 days paid vacations and so on... all these things have to be deducted from salary (of course; the money doesn't fall from the sky!), so in effect the employer has a hard time. It's f***ing tough to have your own business here, while being an employed worker is simply awesome: you get almost anything you could ask for (like in utopian socialism!), for free. With the result that nobody is employing people anymore, because it's unaffordable.
I can't really prove it, but under real capitalism, many "capitalist" things we see today wouldn't likely exist, including huge corporations (based on limited liability, patents/monopolies, subsidies..., all of which a result of aggressive government intervention). I also don't think we'd have quality of life like in the 19th/20th century, because productivity in general is incredibly higher. Back then life *was* hard, with the exception of the elite.
Heh, sure.
Well, you sound like a moderate left-libertarian maybe, so I think mises.org will shock you a bit at first in their anti-welfare attitude. It shocked me at first, but by now I think it would actually work well.
Regarding the extremes of communism and capitalism: capitalism (or rather free trade) is about free exchange of things and labor. An exchange will only be made if it profits both parties, while a forced intervention (say, taxes + welfare) doesn't create anything; it's only theft that moves money. So that's the simple theory in one sentence. Because capitalism will always be based on voluntary agreements, it will always improve everyone's situation. Well, in reality sometimes things look different, but I think that's because we only have a very small perspective, or myopic view of things. Sure, wealth for everybody sounds cool, but it conflicts with market realities.
I don't think it's bad at all if someone else is super-rich. The point is that I can still do anything to improve my situation, and capitalism - based on exchange - has many incentives for everybody to do good work, create good products, lower prices, and so forth. So in the end even poorer people can buy better products and services than they could 30 years ago.
In the short term wealth redistribution sounds cool, because it makes people less poor, but in the medium term something like forced welfare makes people addicted to it. In Germany (where I live) we certainly have many unemployeds that totally lost touch with life; they're almost unemployable as a result. Without minimum wage laws these people would at least have jobs to feed themselves. (I'd still advocate something like "added" welfare, so these people can have a decent basic income (I think basic income for everybody would be much better than the current welfare state; an awesome compromise), but I prefer private charity to do that, because it's less wasteful (no planned economy, not as much corruption and bureaucracy); basically the modern welfare-state abolished the need for charity, which is why we see so little of it now).
Well, the Mises posts are mostly related to current events. The more foundational part are their online books (by Mises and Rothbard for instance). I also can remember that I once took their test "are you Austrian?", which points to articles on points where you differ (which would be a lot I guess).
;)
Secondly: nobody claims that libertarian policy would reduce the divide between rich and poor; we only claim that everybody would be better off (absolutely) under capitalism, while more socialist programs might reduce the (relative) divide, but everybody would be off worse. Also, economic theory in that area says that most left-wing interventions (by government) will actually backfire, because they are guided by ideology, not by reality and economic theory. Would you think it's great if a surgeon operates without *knowing* what will happen? Most left-wing (but also neo-con and neo-lib) interventionism seems very superstitional to me. (so I left my left-wing view)
And let me add that while the USA might be more libertarian economically (and especially culturally, which is great) than Europe, in many ways they are much more statist I think, or at least more conservative. They wage many more wars, they have a more problematic legal system (or at least implementation of it), and maybe worse legislation influenced by lobbies. Europe might be more socialist and intolerant/unopen, but it's also slower in adopting bad things