I really wish that political discourse in the USA would calm down and grow up. It would help people to find the middle ground and actually understand the issues if we had fewer Rush Limbaughs and Al Frankens shouting abuse at each other.
Excellent point. And a perfect place to push integral politics which tries to synthesize the best of left and right.
Any discoveries on the MSRP of the Telly unit? I do know the MR4000 was expected to be in the USD 400 price range.
You can buy the Telly MC 800 for about $750 but that's with 256MB of memory. Actually, you can configure everything directly on their website. I'm holding off until they include a DVD +RW because I have a small kid and would like to archive his videos in a convenient form.
Aaah, finally something about which I may actually know something.
I speak and write Tamil. Characters are almost never merged in Tamil and at least to me, the script looks totally different from Devanagari scripts. This statement should hold for other South Indian languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and a Pakistani Dravidian language Brahui (unless it uses a Devanagiri or other imported script).
Perhaps the parent poster meant something else by character-merger which I didn't understand. Obviously there could be similarities due to proximate evolution which could be leveraged.
Re:Reminds me of the Cartoon...
on
SCO's Plan Examined
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Since I'm in academia, this post is totally unbiased since, er..., academics are supposed to be unbiased.
I think it makes sense especially for American IT workers to start getting higher degrees like a Ph.D. in order to better differentiate themselves from Indian/Chinese/Filipino IT workers. While it is true that there may be lesser number of job opportunities in IT for Ph.Ds due to being very highly qualified, there ought to be less of a chance of getting fired (or worse - having to train a foreign worker to take over your job!) However, I haven't seen a study backing up this conjecture.
Also, if more Americans start doing Ph.Ds in CS, the competition among grad students will increase. Surely, this is good overall (and coincidentally for us in academia as well).
It's barely possible that his opinion is also carefully considered, in which case you'll look like an egotistical fool.
Agreed. And when this occurs, the person is not classified as a moron. I may still have trouble getting my point across, but at least there's some good information emanating from the other end.
It's very likely that his opinion really is goofy. Don't tell him that. Instead, ask him some questions, and draw him out.
And this is sound advice too. Works most of the time except when the ego inflation is so great and the opinions expressed ultra moronic. This is a lethal combination and usually leads me to fantasize reaching for a gun to put him, me or both out of our misery.
I hear this a lot from nerds, and the answer often surprises them. Ask questions.
As a confirmed introvert (I'm 40), I've been doing this for about 15 years and let me tell you, it is really painful. I'll give you this much---asking questions helps get the conversation off the ground. However, listening to some moron pontificate on and on and on and on makes me want to reach for a gun, and fortunately for me, I do not possess one (yet). The worst of it is, and this constantly happens to me nowadays, is that the aforementioned moron will start talking about a topic on which I have some amount of knowledge or experience. When I attempt to interject with my more carefully considered opinion, it doesn't work, because I've given him (and usually it is a him rather than a her) too much control over the conversation. The conversation usually ends at this point with me yelling at the moron or walking away in the middle of a sentence.
Perhaps you are right in that Rush was trying to achieve a certain sound. The question is: Could they have screwed up big time in their attempt?
It has happened before. Go back and listen to Rush's Signals album (1983). The sound is completely butchered (IMNSHO). The first song "Subdivisions" sounds like it is emanating from deep within a subterranean cavern or something.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not such a diehard fan of Rush's 80s sound that I would automatically hate Vapor Trails. However, I feel that the article is onto something because I had and still have the same frustration when I listen to Vapor Trails. The usual sophistication inherent in most of Rush's music and which emerges upon multiple listenings is much harder to discern here because of all the distortion.
I think this is a good idea overall. It helps to level the playing field for poorer universities. Also, since there's fairly blatant Napster-like copyright violations done by every researcher and by article repositories (Citeseer), this would pave the way for truly open research content.
Take a look at this email to get an idea of the various battling forces in the academic world.
If SCO had this amendment (which Novell apparently doesn't atm) then WHY WERE THEY ASKING NOVELL FOR COPYRIGHT RECENTLY?
They might have been asking for the patents as well and for ALL the copyrights to be transfered. The story (from news.com.com.com) has a comment from Novell to the effect that some (but not ALL) the copyrights were to be transfered in October 1996. We'll know more at high noon EST at the SCOK corral.
For great insights into the mind of a world class mathematician, please read A mathematician's apology by G. H. Hardy. Hardy was one of the top mathematician's of his era (1877-1947). Hardy is perhaps most famous for his discovery of Ramanujan and "A mathematician's apology" has a great Foreword by C. P. Snow documenting some of the details of the Hardy-Ramanujan collaboration.
Here are some nuggets from "A mathematician's apology". (Hope the copyright police are busy elsewhere.)
"No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game." [Section 1.4, page 70]
"Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty."[Section 1.4, page 71]. Also see Men of Mathematics for more on Galois.
"I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty." [Section 1.4, page 71].
And later in the book,
"There are then two mathematics. There is the real mathematics of the real mathematicians, and there is what I will call the 'trivial' mathematics, for want of a better word" [Section 1.28, page 139].
>Yes. The windows API hasn't been ported to Linux, GDI hasn't been ported to Linux.
Actually, it depends on what you mean by ported. I thought that both Wind/U and Mainwin were commercial ports of the Win32 API to Unix. Also, there's Winelib which of course Microsoft would never use.
Since I'm Indian, I'll take the liberty of saying that there are cultural factors at work here as well. Indians LOVE free stuff. We'll waste gobs and gobs of time with useless junk trying to make it work as long as it's free. And linux is certainly far from being useless junk. Hopefully, this cultural factor will help in creating a balance between Microsoft and open source wares.
Without necessarily getting into either advocating it or deriding it, Helix claims to be an end-to-end media delivery platform with plenty of space for open source as well purely proprietary plays. Take a look at this conversation between Rob Glaser (of Real) and Doc Searls (of Linux Journal) for more information.
Do you (or anyone else for that matter) know if the NVIDIA source RPMs for the kernel module and the GLX libraries can be compiled using gcc 3.2 or do we have to use the older gcc 2.96 (RedHat's version) for compilation? Would any instability result from using binary modules compiled with an older gcc? I will hold off on upgrading until there's a clear consensus on this issue.
Let's keep this civil OK? There's no need to get nasty. Also, it may help to continue the conversation offline since it is getting offtopic.
1. You said that "India lacks a middle class". I'm saying that it does and that it is increasing. We disagree on this I think. I've offered some statistics to make my case here.
2. I'm not trying to skirt the issue on Kashmir. I'm just saying that India and Pakistan have to share the blame on what has happened to Kashmir. Of course, India has committed human rights violations in Kashmir. However, terrorism was being sponsored by Pakistan. Mebbe we disagree on that also? Is it your position that India has to take full blame for Kashmir? You'll have to prove it.
3. I agree that wife abuse and murder happens. I don't think it is the norm. If you think it is the norm, you'll have to prove it.
That's my position. I don't think it is an extreme one. You'll have to prove your case.
I cannot believe you do not understand this, so I'll try to be clear.
There are truths, falsehoods and half truths. Your post contained a whole bunch of half truths which conveniently ignored hundreds of millions of Indians.
1. Poverty is unimaginably high in most of India. It has largely been the clever propoganda by the Indian government to show that they are better than their neighbors (mainly Pakistan) in terms of hunger and disease. Sure, GDP may be higher but their society lacks a middle class. The rich are extreme rich but very small in number and the poor amount to most of the population.
This is false as India has a burgeoning middle class. We can quibble all we want about numbers but India would not have a fledgling IT services sector without this middle class. And it is this middle class and foreign investment which will decide whether or not India can combat the crushing poverty, improve the infrastructure etc.
2. The class system in India has held the country down for a long time. Hindu religious and Indian cultural teaching have authorized the top classes to, for example, beat those of the lowest cast if even their two shadows two each other. Furthermore, India has been waging a war and occupying Kashmir for many decades. When the British left in the middle part of 20th century, they purposely left a Hindu Raj in charge of Kashmir which is predominantly a Muslim area. The Raj was a tyranical ruler that did the bidding of India and the population has been fighting against the oppression for many years now. Again, its clever Indian propoganda to paint the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists. India has repeatedly blocked the right of the Kashmiri people to decide their "nation's" fate by not allowing a referendum to occur. India also has almost half a million troops in Kashmir through its occupation.
This is a half truth since it ignores Pakistan's role in Kashmir. The Kargil war in 1999 (which took place in Kashmor) was conducted by Musharraf. Both India and Pakistan have to take the blame for screwing up Kashmir which by any rights ought to be allowed to flourish along the lines of Colorado.
3. I could go on and on about what International humanitarian orgs have said about human rights abuses in India and Kashmir. Women in Hindu/Indian society have no rights. If a woman tries to have a relationship with a man, she is burned alive. If a woman decides not to marry the man her parents have picked for her, then she is burned alive. Parents will often times pick men for marriage based upon how much money the man is willing to give for their daughter. Marriages can happen between middle-aged men (40 y/o) with under-18 girls. The examples are endless.
This is a mixture of outright falsehoods and half truths. It is simply not true to say that Hindu women have no rights since they have equal rights under Hindu law. This would be like saying, "The US is a racist country and African Americans have no rights there." As for women being burned alive, gimme a break. This is hardly the norm and against the law.
4. Now please, tell me something, why is it that they want to send someone to the moon? They need to work on their nation and their political system to bring it up to 21st century standards. The money they spend should go to benefit their popuation not a stupid "my-weewee-is-bigger-than-yours" contest. Until they do that, they will always be a third world nation attempting to hang with the big boys but in the end it is the largely poor masses who suffer.
I am not interested in refuting every point you make. I am only interested in pointing out your enormous bias in this issue. India is a very complex place with an almost unbelievable spectrum of humanity. Your post didn't reflect that complexity. It seemed too one sided and biased.
India has a burgeoning IT services sector which is creating an expanding middle class and will hopefully lead to lessening of poverty in the future. I don't see any other area where India can fill an expanding niche and bootstrap itself up.
I am actually against India sending an unmanned space flight to the moon because the money could be well spent elsewhere. On that we are in agreement. However, your first post was too biased and almost a troll.
I don't think posting statistics in India's case is foolish. It serves to make my point that there is a very wide spectrum of humanity in India and that your post was too one sided and biased.
I don't understand your comment "claimed 300 million by an indian site". Does the fact that it is an Indian website make it automatically suspicious in your eyes? Regardless of how you count numbers of India's middle class, I don't think you can dispute the fact that India's IT services sector is doing very well (growing by 6.5% last year) and contributing nicely to the growth of the middle class.
Slashdot Mirror
I really wish that political discourse in the USA would calm down and grow up. It would help people to find the middle ground and actually understand the issues if we had fewer Rush Limbaughs and Al Frankens shouting abuse at each other.
Excellent point. And a perfect place to push integral politics which tries to synthesize the best of left and right.
Any discoveries on the MSRP of the Telly unit? I do know the MR4000 was expected to be in the USD 400 price range.
You can buy the Telly MC 800 for about $750 but that's with 256MB of memory. Actually, you can configure everything directly on their website. I'm holding off until they include a DVD +RW because I have a small kid and would like to archive his videos in a convenient form.
Thanks for the link to MediaReady 4000. Very useful.
Do you know how it compares to Interact-TV's MC1000?
There is no "East" and "West" really. Matter of fact, it's all headed south.
With apologies to Roger Waters.
Here's a link that could clear up things. On the other hand, it may not.
Aaah, finally something about which I may actually know something.
I speak and write Tamil. Characters are almost never merged in Tamil and at least to me, the script looks totally different from Devanagari scripts. This statement should hold for other South Indian languages such as Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and a Pakistani Dravidian language Brahui (unless it uses a Devanagiri or other imported script).
Perhaps the parent poster meant something else by character-merger which I didn't understand. Obviously there could be similarities due to proximate evolution which could be leveraged.
I think you mean the famous cartoon by Sidney Harris.
Since I'm in academia, this post is totally unbiased since, er..., academics are supposed to be unbiased.
I think it makes sense especially for American IT workers to start getting higher degrees like a Ph.D. in order to better differentiate themselves from Indian/Chinese/Filipino IT workers. While it is true that there may be lesser number of job opportunities in IT for Ph.Ds due to being very highly qualified, there ought to be less of a chance of getting fired (or worse - having to train a foreign worker to take over your job!) However, I haven't seen a study backing up this conjecture.
Also, if more Americans start doing Ph.Ds in CS, the competition among grad students will increase. Surely, this is good overall (and coincidentally for us in academia as well).
It's barely possible that his opinion is also carefully considered, in which case you'll look like an egotistical fool.
Agreed. And when this occurs, the person is not classified as a moron. I may still have trouble getting my point across, but at least there's some good information emanating from the other end.
It's very likely that his opinion really is goofy. Don't tell him that. Instead, ask him some questions, and draw him out.
And this is sound advice too. Works most of the time except when the ego inflation is so great and the opinions expressed ultra moronic. This is a lethal combination and usually leads me to fantasize reaching for a gun to put him, me or both out of our misery.
I hear this a lot from nerds, and the answer often surprises them. Ask questions.
As a confirmed introvert (I'm 40), I've been doing this for about 15 years and let me tell you, it is really painful. I'll give you this much---asking questions helps get the conversation off the ground. However, listening to some moron pontificate on and on and on and on makes me want to reach for a gun, and fortunately for me, I do not possess one (yet). The worst of it is, and this constantly happens to me nowadays, is that the aforementioned moron will start talking about a topic on which I have some amount of knowledge or experience. When I attempt to interject with my more carefully considered opinion, it doesn't work, because I've given him (and usually it is a him rather than a her) too much control over the conversation. The conversation usually ends at this point with me yelling at the moron or walking away in the middle of a sentence.
Perhaps you are right in that Rush was trying to achieve a certain sound. The question is: Could they have screwed up big time in their attempt?
It has happened before. Go back and listen to Rush's Signals album (1983). The sound is completely butchered (IMNSHO). The first song "Subdivisions" sounds like it is emanating from deep within a subterranean cavern or something.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not such a diehard fan of Rush's 80s sound that I would automatically hate Vapor Trails. However, I feel that the article is onto something because I had and still have the same frustration when I listen to Vapor Trails. The usual sophistication inherent in most of Rush's music and which emerges upon multiple listenings is much harder to discern here because of all the distortion.
I think this is a good idea overall. It helps to level the playing field for poorer universities. Also, since there's fairly blatant Napster-like copyright violations done by every researcher and by article repositories (Citeseer), this would pave the way for truly open research content.
Take a look at this email to get an idea of the various battling forces in the academic world.
And perhaps Microsoft will bet on a 3DUI with Longhorn and linux/XFree will clone it.
Linux commandment: Do unto Microsoft what Microsoft does unto <insert-fucked-company-name>
1. SUN would find it easier to compete with Intel on chip development with Opteron under its belt and AMD's proven development teams.
2. SUN could switch over to Solaris/Opteron and Linux/Opteron and mature both product lines while slowly unifying driver development.
3. Insert advantage here.
Is this nuts? Why?
They might have been asking for the patents as well and for ALL the copyrights to be transfered. The story (from news.com.com.com) has a comment from Novell to the effect that some (but not ALL) the copyrights were to be transfered in October 1996. We'll know more at high noon EST at the SCOK corral.
For great insights into the mind of a world class mathematician, please read A mathematician's apology by G. H. Hardy. Hardy was one of the top mathematician's of his era (1877-1947). Hardy is perhaps most famous for his discovery of Ramanujan and "A mathematician's apology" has a great Foreword by C. P. Snow documenting some of the details of the Hardy-Ramanujan collaboration.
Here are some nuggets from "A mathematician's apology". (Hope the copyright police are busy elsewhere.)
"No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game." [Section 1.4, page 70]
"Galois died at twenty-one, Abel at twenty-seven, Ramanujan at thirty-three, Riemann at forty."[Section 1.4, page 71]. Also see Men of Mathematics for more on Galois.
"I do not know an instance of a major mathematical advance initiated by a man past fifty." [Section 1.4, page 71].
And later in the book,
"There are then two mathematics. There is the real mathematics of the real mathematicians, and there is what I will call the 'trivial' mathematics, for want of a better word" [Section 1.28, page 139].
>Yes. The windows API hasn't been ported to Linux, GDI hasn't been ported to Linux.
Actually, it depends on what you mean by ported. I thought that both Wind/U and Mainwin were commercial ports of the Win32 API to Unix. Also, there's Winelib which of course Microsoft would never use.
Since I'm Indian, I'll take the liberty of saying that there are cultural factors at work here as well. Indians LOVE free stuff. We'll waste gobs and gobs of time with useless junk trying to make it work as long as it's free. And linux is certainly far from being useless junk. Hopefully, this cultural factor will help in creating a balance between Microsoft and open source wares.
Some of the players in loop quantum gravity (LQG) before Kalamara are Abhay Ashtekar, Lee Smolin, Carlo Rovelli, John Baez and Chris Isham. Also, Julian Barbour has written a cute semi-popular book called The End of Time on the subject as has Lee Smolin---Three Roads to Quantum Gravity
Without necessarily getting into either advocating it or deriding it, Helix claims to be an end-to-end media delivery platform with plenty of space for open source as well purely proprietary plays. Take a look at this conversation between Rob Glaser (of Real) and Doc Searls (of Linux Journal) for more information.
Do you (or anyone else for that matter) know if the NVIDIA source RPMs for the kernel module and the GLX libraries can be compiled using gcc 3.2 or do we have to use the older gcc 2.96 (RedHat's version) for compilation? Would any instability result from using binary modules compiled with an older gcc? I will hold off on upgrading until there's a clear consensus on this issue.
Yes, we can continue this conversation by email if you want. Keep it civil though.
Let's keep this civil OK? There's no need to get nasty. Also, it may help to continue the conversation offline since it is getting offtopic.
1. You said that "India lacks a middle class". I'm saying that it does and that it is increasing. We disagree on this I think. I've offered some statistics to make my case here.
2. I'm not trying to skirt the issue on Kashmir. I'm just saying that India and Pakistan have to share the blame on what has happened to Kashmir. Of course, India has committed human rights violations in Kashmir. However, terrorism was being sponsored by Pakistan. Mebbe we disagree on that also? Is it your position that India has to take full blame for Kashmir? You'll have to prove it.
3. I agree that wife abuse and murder happens. I don't think it is the norm. If you think it is the norm, you'll have to prove it.
That's my position. I don't think it is an extreme one. You'll have to prove your case.
I cannot believe you do not understand this, so I'll try to be clear.
There are truths, falsehoods and half truths. Your post contained a whole bunch of half truths which conveniently ignored hundreds of millions of Indians.
1. Poverty is unimaginably high in most of India. It has largely been the clever
propoganda by the Indian government to show that they are better than their
neighbors (mainly Pakistan) in terms of hunger and disease. Sure, GDP may be
higher but their society lacks a middle class. The rich are extreme rich but
very small in number and the poor amount to most of the population.
This is false as India has a burgeoning middle class. We can quibble all we want
about numbers but India would not have a fledgling IT services sector without
this middle class. And it is this middle class and foreign investment which will
decide whether or not India can combat the crushing poverty, improve the
infrastructure etc.
2. The class system in India has held the country down for a long time. Hindu
religious and Indian cultural teaching have authorized the top classes to, for
example, beat those of the lowest cast if even their two shadows two each other.
Furthermore, India has been waging a war and occupying Kashmir for many decades.
When the British left in the middle part of 20th century, they purposely left a
Hindu Raj in charge of Kashmir which is predominantly a Muslim area. The Raj was
a tyranical ruler that did the bidding of India and the population has been
fighting against the oppression for many years now. Again, its clever Indian
propoganda to paint the Kashmiri freedom fighters as terrorists. India has
repeatedly blocked the right of the Kashmiri people to decide their "nation's"
fate by not allowing a referendum to occur. India also has almost half a million
troops in Kashmir through its occupation.
This is a half truth since it ignores Pakistan's role in Kashmir. The Kargil war
in 1999 (which took place in Kashmor) was conducted by Musharraf. Both India and
Pakistan have to take the blame for screwing up Kashmir which by any rights
ought to be allowed to flourish along the lines of Colorado.
3. I could go on and on about what International humanitarian orgs have said
about human rights abuses in India and Kashmir. Women in Hindu/Indian society
have no rights. If a woman tries to have a relationship with a man, she is
burned alive. If a woman decides not to marry the man her parents have picked
for her, then she is burned alive. Parents will often times pick men for
marriage based upon how much money the man is willing to give for their
daughter. Marriages can happen between middle-aged men (40 y/o) with under-18
girls. The examples are endless.
This is a mixture of outright falsehoods and half truths. It is simply not true
to say that Hindu women have no rights since they have equal rights under Hindu
law. This would be like saying, "The US is a racist country and African
Americans have no rights there." As for women being burned alive, gimme a break.
This is hardly the norm and against the law.
4. Now please, tell me something, why is it that they want to send someone to
the moon? They need to work on their nation and their political system to bring
it up to 21st century standards. The money they spend should go to benefit their
popuation not a stupid "my-weewee-is-bigger-than-yours" contest. Until they do
that, they will always be a third world nation attempting to hang with the big
boys but in the end it is the largely poor masses who suffer.
On this point, we are in full agreement.
I am not interested in refuting every point you make. I am only interested in pointing out your enormous bias in this issue. India is a very complex place with an almost unbelievable spectrum of humanity. Your post didn't reflect that complexity. It seemed too one sided and biased.
India has a burgeoning IT services sector which is creating an expanding middle class and will hopefully lead to lessening of poverty in the future. I don't see any other area where India can fill an expanding niche and bootstrap itself up.
I am actually against India sending an unmanned space flight to the moon because the money could be well spent elsewhere. On that we are in agreement. However, your first post was too biased and almost a troll.
I don't think posting statistics in India's case is foolish. It serves to make my point that there is a very wide spectrum of humanity in India and that your post was too one sided and biased.
I don't understand your comment "claimed 300 million by an indian site". Does the fact that it is an Indian website make it automatically suspicious in your eyes? Regardless of how you count numbers of India's middle class, I don't think you can dispute the fact that India's IT services sector is doing very well (growing by 6.5% last year) and contributing nicely to the growth of the middle class.