Show me a benchmark that shows a significant increase in performance due to gentoo's approach that can't be duplicated in Debian by downloading a couple of Debian source packages, editing a couple of files, and building some custom debs.
Weigh that against the inordinate amount of time it takes to compile hundreds of friggin programs, for most of which it doesn't really matter if they're 2% faster.
Distilling their competitive evaluation, I noticed the following themes:
There are 27 different ways of doing foo on Linux, whereas Microsoft offers a clear, standard solution.
This is true. Microsoft does tend to impose the One True Way (TM), which can simplify some things. However, other people regard the fact that you can choose the best technologies for your application as a positive.
Capability bar is available as part of Microsoft operating systems, but it's a seperate app in Linux.
Also often true, but: a) a lot of those capabilities are Windows tools that you probably wouldn't use in a Linux project unless you had to for compatibility reasons, b) a lot of them were open source packages that are usually packaged by the various distributions and are an apt-get away from installing, c) if they're open source, the extra licensing costs are zero anyway, and d) who says building everything into the OS is a good idea anyway?
Some bits of Linux are immature and buggy
And Windows is perfect?
It's good news that MS are changing their arguments to push their products over Linux-based solutions, because it tends to suggest that their customers (at least in this application domains) weren't listening to their old ones.
If you change to OSX, you swap one company having you by the throat (Microsoft), to two companies having you by the throat (Apple for the hardware and OS X, and, guess who, Microsoft for Mac Office). What a great deal.
At least in Australia, there are organisations that will evaluate the cost of spare parts for the various makes and models of cars as part of calculating their total running cost.
If you bother to look at this information before you buy your car, you might well end up choosing cars with lower running costs. Sooner or later the market signals will get through to the manufacturer.
If you read the article, you'd see that this system is designed to help with exactly the situation you describe - basically, throwing up possibilities that the doctor might not have originally thought of for further investigation.
After having what turned out to be a chronic illness misdiagnosed for several years (and suffering considerable amounts of pain in the process), anything that helps doctors not miss possibilities is a good thing in my book.
The maximum height in competitive diving is the 10 metre platform.
However, you're absolutely right in that it's not that hard to safely dive from much greater heights. I've personally seen people do 30 metre dives at acquatic shows.
By the time these jets actually start to enter production, 9/11, while it'll hardly have been forgotten, will be long ago enough in the memory that the impact it's had on air traffic will have disappeared. Additionally, the US economy should be out of recession by then. Heck, *Japan's* economy might come out of the toilet by then.
Oh, and as another poster has pointed out, Boeing's current toy isn't supersonic, it's just high subsonic (~Mach 0.95 rather than the standard ~0.8).
It's mentioned in passing in a couple of posts here, but if you want to know where all this stuff came from, you've really got to check out "Autobahn".
Also, if you want to explore some of the roots, you might check out Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", which is fascinating stuff even if it's a fair way from contemporary electronica.
There were two problems with X-wing. The first was the channel run sucked (jerkiness made it just too difficult to fly it as intended on most machines of the day), and the second was that your wingman sucked. You'd end up killing 95% of the enemy fighters yourself.
TIE Fighter had better wingmen (except in missions where their skill was purposely degraded), and you sure needed them flying Tie Fighters and Interceptors (which were basically dead if you were hit once - it was pretty tough).
If I understand the system correctly, there is a surcharge of several percent on CC transactions. However, because of the card companies' agreements with merchants, merchants have to charge CC users the same price as people paying by other means. Merchants have to make the money back somehow, so they raise prices generally a little to cover it. Therefore, everybody who doesn't use a credit card is subsidising the people who are, and making the credit card companies a packet in the process.
In Australia, a government body called the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, responsible for monitoring trade practices laws, is proposing a rule change to disallow "no-surcharge" clauses in card issuer-merchant contracts, so the people who actually use credit card service pay for it.
I'd imagine that the field of view of such a telescope is rather narrow, to say the least. Additionally, the site is probably well away from important air routes, and would likely have an agreement with the air traffic control people to route aircraft away from where the telescope is looking.
Sure, AIDS isn't going to wipe us out, but it's going to set Africa back on its heels for decades to come.
The thing that makes it bad, as I understand it, is that instead of killing mostly young kids and the elderly, it kills adults in the 20s and 30s - the people that do the work. It also kills much more slowly than the plague, smallpox and the like, and huge amounts of effort need to be devoted to caring for the sick and dying.
As will undoubtedly be mentioned multiple times on this discussion, that's Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan, and the concept of making the fuel there for the return trip seems to be the only vaguely sane way to do things.
The Russians can launch stuff into space much cheaper than the US can (mostly 'cause labour is cheaper over there), and the shuttle is a shitty vehicle for launching bulk stuff into orbit (you have to cart people and all their life support equipment).
Shit, for the purpose of the exercise we could build Saturn V's, or the Russians could build their 200-ton booster design they had on the drawing board.
As for the minimum mass you need to do the mission, you're probably right, but even so the transportation costs with the shuttle are horribly inflated.
On another note - could terrorist emails be easily intercepted if the volume of traffic was reduced significantly? i.e. if spam was banned?
Given that various individuals with bugger-all resources have managed to build reasonably effective spam filters, I'd imagine that the NSA, with decades of experience in filtering wheat from chaff and with huge resources to throw at the problem, are probably very good at filtering out spam from their searches.
Unless terrorists disguise their messages as spam:)
Say your local government banned an activity you participated in regularly and enjoyed greatly because it was wrongly perceived as a threat to their power. Let's call this hypothetical activity "football".
Then, when people peacefully protested about the banning of "football", they were arrested and some of them were taken to detention camps. Then the government started using propaganda to demonise "footballers" as a bizarre cult who encourage their members to kill themselves.
What do you do? You can't participate in "football", and you can't tell you fellow citizens that the government is wrong about "football" because they a) control all the media, and b) aren't afraid to arrest anyone who supports "football". In these circumstances, you might even argue that it's reasonable for you to attempt armed rebellion against this totalitarian regime.
Now, what these guys have chosen to do, by comparison, is the most non-violent thing they could do to press their case - they've temporarily hacked the TV system to tell people that they don't sacrifice newborns by the full moon and that the government is being unreasonable and paranoid.
BitchX also sends out somewhat crude messages to the IRC channels you're currently on when you/quit the application. Whilst I've no doubt you can turn that feature off, I dislike it greatly. If I choose to use rude, crude and/or lewd language on IRC that's my business (and I do so sometimes), but the mentality that it's a sensible default for a computer to mouth off publically on your behalf makes me wonder about the maturity of the developers, and thus the quality of the software itself. It's one of the major reasons I use an alternative IRC client.
This is only an issue with OSS because they are often the product of one person, unfettered by marketing departments and financial considerations. Sometimes this is good (honest disclosure of a programs bugs and limitations, and realistic schedules for new versions such as "when it's done"), and sometimes this is not so good (you get juvenalia like BitchX, which aside from its bad habits seems to be a full-featured, powerful IRC client).
Slashdot Mirror
OK, that's useful information, but who are the secured creditors?
The article mentions some pension funds that bought bonds, but no idea of how the debts are proportioned. Anyone know?
Weigh that against the inordinate amount of time it takes to compile hundreds of friggin programs, for most of which it doesn't really matter if they're 2% faster.
However, there can't have been much demand for it, because development ceased back in 2000.
This is true. Microsoft does tend to impose the One True Way (TM), which can simplify some things. However, other people regard the fact that you can choose the best technologies for your application as a positive.
Also often true, but: a) a lot of those capabilities are Windows tools that you probably wouldn't use in a Linux project unless you had to for compatibility reasons, b) a lot of them were open source packages that are usually packaged by the various distributions and are an apt-get away from installing, c) if they're open source, the extra licensing costs are zero anyway, and d) who says building everything into the OS is a good idea anyway?
And Windows is perfect?
It's good news that MS are changing their arguments to push their products over Linux-based solutions, because it tends to suggest that their customers (at least in this application domains) weren't listening to their old ones.
In Australia, the general conclusion is that wafer cans are the best, as well as having the tastiest byproducts :)
If you change to OSX, you swap one company having you by the throat (Microsoft), to two companies having you by the throat (Apple for the hardware and OS X, and, guess who, Microsoft for Mac Office). What a great deal.
If you bother to look at this information before you buy your car, you might well end up choosing cars with lower running costs. Sooner or later the market signals will get through to the manufacturer.
After having what turned out to be a chronic illness misdiagnosed for several years (and suffering considerable amounts of pain in the process), anything that helps doctors not miss possibilities is a good thing in my book.
However, you're absolutely right in that it's not that hard to safely dive from much greater heights. I've personally seen people do 30 metre dives at acquatic shows.
Oh, and as another poster has pointed out, Boeing's current toy isn't supersonic, it's just high subsonic (~Mach 0.95 rather than the standard ~0.8).
Also, if you want to explore some of the roots, you might check out Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", which is fascinating stuff even if it's a fair way from contemporary electronica.
TIE Fighter had better wingmen (except in missions where their skill was purposely degraded), and you sure needed them flying Tie Fighters and Interceptors (which were basically dead if you were hit once - it was pretty tough).
If I understand the system correctly, there is a surcharge of several percent on CC transactions. However, because of the card companies' agreements with merchants, merchants have to charge CC users the same price as people paying by other means. Merchants have to make the money back somehow, so they raise prices generally a little to cover it. Therefore, everybody who doesn't use a credit card is subsidising the people who are, and making the credit card companies a packet in the process.
In Australia, a government body called the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, responsible for monitoring trade practices laws, is proposing a rule change to disallow "no-surcharge" clauses in card issuer-merchant contracts, so the people who actually use credit card service pay for it.
There are many others, but that's a good start.
I'd imagine that the field of view of such a telescope is rather narrow, to say the least. Additionally, the site is probably well away from important air routes, and would likely have an agreement with the air traffic control people to route aircraft away from where the telescope is looking.
My theory is that he went to the special "Slashdot Moderator" screening . . . :)
The thing that makes it bad, as I understand it, is that instead of killing mostly young kids and the elderly, it kills adults in the 20s and 30s - the people that do the work. It also kills much more slowly than the plague, smallpox and the like, and huge amounts of effort need to be devoted to caring for the sick and dying.
As will undoubtedly be mentioned multiple times on this discussion, that's Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan, and the concept of making the fuel there for the return trip seems to be the only vaguely sane way to do things.
Shit, for the purpose of the exercise we could build Saturn V's, or the Russians could build their 200-ton booster design they had on the drawing board.
As for the minimum mass you need to do the mission, you're probably right, but even so the transportation costs with the shuttle are horribly inflated.
Given that various individuals with bugger-all resources have managed to build reasonably effective spam filters, I'd imagine that the NSA, with decades of experience in filtering wheat from chaff and with huge resources to throw at the problem, are probably very good at filtering out spam from their searches.
Unless terrorists disguise their messages as spam :)
MUAHAHAHAHAHA!
Then, when people peacefully protested about the banning of "football", they were arrested and some of them were taken to detention camps. Then the government started using propaganda to demonise "footballers" as a bizarre cult who encourage their members to kill themselves.
What do you do? You can't participate in "football", and you can't tell you fellow citizens that the government is wrong about "football" because they a) control all the media, and b) aren't afraid to arrest anyone who supports "football". In these circumstances, you might even argue that it's reasonable for you to attempt armed rebellion against this totalitarian regime.
Now, what these guys have chosen to do, by comparison, is the most non-violent thing they could do to press their case - they've temporarily hacked the TV system to tell people that they don't sacrifice newborns by the full moon and that the government is being unreasonable and paranoid.
What kind of militancy is that?
This is only an issue with OSS because they are often the product of one person, unfettered by marketing departments and financial considerations. Sometimes this is good (honest disclosure of a programs bugs and limitations, and realistic schedules for new versions such as "when it's done"), and sometimes this is not so good (you get juvenalia like BitchX, which aside from its bad habits seems to be a full-featured, powerful IRC client).
That was one of the major goals of Java - write once, run anywhere.