Actually, while I agree that everybody is missing the point, so are you. The whole Green thing is just a little tidbit they threw in there to get everybody all hot and bothered. However, it's fairly irrelevent when you're talking about methods to power gadgets. For one, nobody powers gadgets off oil. Second, they are such a small amount of energy relative to cars that it's not worth worrying about. Fuel cells in cameras is simply about getting more time between recharges. Nobody is doing this because fuel cells are better for the environment than batteries. They just mentioned it because there is a certain segment of the population that will practically jump off a bridge if it's painted green.
Except for your ludicrous assertion that it is pedantic to correct a major misstatement, yes, you have it right. So, for the record, why is it pedantic to point out that an energy source takes more energy to produce or find than it contains? Seems like a pretty important fact. It's certainly a more useful observation to the uninformed than yet another post predicting how dismal a discussion is going to be.
Heat from absorption of an optical signal (at the levels used in communications) is negligable. First, the signals are very low, measured in mW, and the absorption per meter in fiber is incredibly small. (I can't remember the actual number, but you need to go tens of miles before you even lose half your light.) As you can imagine, dissipating a few mW over a hundred miles doesn't generate any heat.
When sending signals electronically, you're not really moving electrons. More like shaking them. Electrons don't actually travel through the wire in a net current. The way signals are propagated in an electrical transmission line is actually light, with some motion of electrons in local currents. It's just a difference in frequency, that's all. I think RF waves (the electrical signals you're talking about) generally travel around half the speed of light in vacuum. On the other hand, that's not all that much slower than the speed of light in a fiber. The whole point of transmitting information optically has nothing to do with the whole "speed of light" deal. It simply has to do with how much information can be encoded in an optical waveform, and perhaps more importantly, how much more bandwidth is available in optical media as opposed to RF media. That's really the big difference: the bandwidth of an optical fiber is huge, on the order of hundreds of THz as opposed to tens of GHz for the best RF transmission lines.
Your points all seem valid, except for the polarization one. I think most modulators are polarization sensitive. You just polarize the input and accept the losses. In the case of the modulator attached to the laser (the usual case) the laser output is polarized.
Boy, do I agree with you on that. It's odd that the left and the Christians should be at such odds these days. That they aren't shows, I think, some inconsistencies and hypocracys on both sides, but also some unfortunate political fallout of the elections that has really divided people more than is warranted by their differences.
I miss the days when we all hated the Russians, and liked each other.
I see what you're saying, and I know it's hard to say with certainty what is ok for society to force on individual members, but I think there is a fundamental difference to me being forced to pay for the roads we all drive on, and me being forced to pay for somebody else's personal health care, or me being forced against my will to participate in the government retirement system (which is actually a pyramid scheme, but that's another discussion).
All are democratically decided (sort of) but that doesn't make it right. As Bastiat figured out a long time ago, democracy only lasts until the majority realize that they can legally steal from the minority, and everybody jockys for position to get a piece of the legal plunder. I think that pretty aptly describes the situation we've got now, given that (the Democrats' rhetoric nothwithstanding) we have the top 20% paying for the majority of our government, with the top 50% paying for virtually everything (over 90% of the budget). That's not progressive, that's irresponsible.
So, socialism involves voluntary cooperation? Sort of a "well, it would be NICE if you would give half your income to the poor, but seriously, only if you're up for it?" Shit, I'm a socialist, then.
Do I have this wrong? If so, maybe you could tell me where I'm wrong instead of just saying it.
Ok, I'm with you in disagreement with the parent. As I said in another post, equating Wiki to socialism is a strawman for both sides.
But by the same measure, people freak out about socialism not because they think collective control of shared resources, cooperation, etc. never work, but that it's dangerous when such things are implemented by a central government with a great deal of power and money. So, it's unfair for the parent to suggest Wiki will fail because socialism has failed (at least in pure forms) but it's also unfair for you to say that Wiki's success is, in any way, vindication of the ideals of socialism. To the extent the ideals of socialism are taken out of the context of a government, it's not socialism. If anything, it's Judeo-Christianity. But that line of thinking would really freak the lefists out...:-)
Really? None of them? Things like sharing and collaboration don't work? Wikipedia is a failure? Are you perhaps confusing the word "socialism" with some right-wing scare tactic?
Perhaps you're confusing "things that good people do" with an intelligent philosophy of government. Are you really so caught up in your own self-righteousness that you think those of us on the "right" think people SHOULDN'T help others? Or that doing volunteer work for no pay is somehow a bad thing? Do you think we don't contribute to Wikipedia or give of our time and money for charity?
The problem (one of them, at least) we have with socialism is that it's coersive. What makes good behavior for people doesn't neccesarily translate to governments. In a socialist system, if you fail to contribute to wealth redistribution, eventually you will be physically forced to by the government at gun point. Is it right to force people to help others, to force them to give up some of their money for the good of a few? Maybe it is. I don't honestly know, though I suspect it's wrong. But don't allow yourself the cheap and easy conceit that your politics is about being nice and ours is about being mean.
(Just to head off the obvious cheap comeback I'm sure you've formulated already: pointing out that our current government engages in corporate socialism, etc. is a valid criticism of the current government, but not a valid counterargument to what I've said.)
What a crock, both on your part and on the part of the parent. Comparing Wiki to socialism is a complete straw man for either side. Nobody debates the notion that people should help other people, or that a group of people working towards a common goal without need for compensation is a noble thing, indeed. The central debate around socialism, as is all too often missed, is about the coercive aspects of it. Wikipedia is nothing like socialism in that sense. If everybody who used the internet were suddenly forced, at gunpoint in extreme cases, to pay for Wikipedia according not to how much they used it, but to how much they make in a year, THEN you'd have a fair comparison to socialism.
That some people here even think that the Wiki phenomenon somehow resembles socialism just goes to the serious discredit of their politics. You need more than smug self-righteousness to make a coherent politcal view, folks. We all (or most of us, Republican and Democrat alike) want to be good people and help others. Politics is about what the government does, however. Try to remember those aren't neccesarily the same thing. ALso, try to remember not every discussion about technology has to be diverted in service of a political agenda.
Maybe the GP is right that there is a socialist bias on Wikipedia. But let's not be fooled into thinking that it's because Wikipedia is, itself, a remotely socialist idea. It's just a good idea. Don't try to coopt it in furtherance of politics.
Safer? Debatable. Even with our recent crashes, I'm pretty sure we've still killed fewer astronauts then them. Cheaper is really the main point. They haven't advanced much, and the same criticisms applied to the US program not gaining ground can be applied to them in spades, with the sole exception of cost. The Russians aren't sending stuff outside orbit like the US mars probes, and they really have no future as a space program except as cargo movers to low orbit.
You could probably argue they had more engineering talent. I'm just arguing they really didn't have a philosophy so much as constraints and less ambitious goals. Chiding the US for doing something that was, in retrospect, biting off too much is unfair. Nobody should be too smug about the failure of somebody who bit off too much. We are where we are because of such people (and their occasional failures).
How many companies do you think exist in America that can make large rocket engines? All the aerospace companies have consolidated so much, that my guess is that we've only got two: Boeing and Lockheed. And I imagine they will both be well represented in the final project.
Ummmmm... I guess I don't make the connection between being a libertarian and my comments about America's first human inhabitants.
I'm a libertarian, and I've NEVER met a fellow libertarian who was politically correct or sanctimoneous, so I would've interpreted you differently had I known.
As far as your education goes, one of the project managers I work for graduated from MIT in the mid-1970's. He said it was the most fun he ever had in school. I guess my comment was more just my passing along his advice to not take life too seriously while in school.
That's always good advice. I try not to. As "Just Some Guy" has pointed out, one of the problems with the recent polarization of/. (and everything else in America) is that people who are normally pretty laid back have gotten very reactionary and serious in their posting. I think he's right, at least for me.
But for the record, MIT is nowhere near as fun a place as it was in the 70s. The lawyers and liberals have really changed the place in the past decade or so. The unique culture that used to be MIT has been pretty much beaten out of the place by political correctness and fear of lawsuits. Now it's just like every other university for the most part: the administration spends most of its time making sure everybody feels good about themselves and is completely unoffended. Education is sort of a distant concern. Now, you get fined if you're found hacking on the roof of a building (though the PR people will still use the hack) and you've got classes where 98% of the class gets an 'A' if they show effort. I can only hope that the now bullshit MIT reputation lives long enough for me to get a good job...
I don't think you need to bring my school into this. It's more that it's hard to know when people are joking in text. If I'd been observant enough to notice the cato.org URL, I would've known you couldn't possibly have been serious. So, it was just me being dense.
Easy on the PC rhetoric, there. The GP was just joking around.
But, just to prod: your argument about the Indians and the first American settlers is pretty counterproductive. If anything, it suggests we SHOULD be worried about immigrants instead of welcoming them.
In the old days, I'd agree with you. But these days... Could you remind me again exactly what the difference is between the Republicans and the Democrats? We've got a Republican president and congress and government spending has never been higher. This same group of "Republicans" has presidided over one of the largest increases in government authority and power. My point was I'm not sure who the heck is the lesser evil anymore. So I might as well start voting for who I really want.
How many of us voted for third parties? These assholes are the assholes we all elected. Libertarians wouldn't do this. Green party would probably be too busy outlawing internal combustion to bother with this. Constitution party sure as hell wouldn't. Given that the Republicrats are pretty much becoming just one big evil, let's consider dropping the whole lesser of two evils bullshit and vote these fools out. I know, I know, it will never happen... But unless you vote your conscience, you have no right to complain when your stupid mainstream party shills fuck you over for their corporate masters.
I can't argue with anything you said. The people who use PDAs for deluded self-important reasons know who they are, and I wasn't trying to make a blanket statement (note the final parenthetical remark in my post) and I wasn't directing my post at anybody in particular except maybe the guy who submitted the original story. You can take my statement about people's priorities for what it's worth. I think the use of PDAs is an indicator of unhealthy work attitudes that Americans tend towards, but I certainly can't say that all PDA use fits as such. I was mostly trying to take a stab at people who think too highly of themselves. You had no reason to take it personally, and as far as I can tell, you shouldn't.
As a complete aside: if you really are a Marxist, you're the first entrepreneurial Marxist I've ever met.
It's also a massive implementation of cultural relativism. America typically is extremely arrogant in international affairs, applying its standards and judgements to the rest of the world.
Actually, the word for that is cultural objectivism, and everybody in the world would do the same if they had the power to do so. You're damn lucky it's America that does. We're the nicest fucking hegemon the world has ever seen. If Russia, Germany and/or Japan had succeeded in their imperialism instead of us, the world would be an infinitely scarier place than it already is.
Exactly what the fuck do you know about people in India? Do you know how stupid and arrogant your statement was, to presume to know that they are happy to be poor? That they wouldn't trade spaces with us in a second despite our boorish preoccupation with material goods? You're the worst kind of American. Too stupid to appreciate what you've got and caught up in so much ironic self loathing that you actually think this country is a bad place to live. Materialism is a luxury. Your life is so easy you're actually able to think such amazingly stupid thoughts as poor people in India are happier than well fed, warm Americans. That kind of stupidity is a luxury, too. Enjoy it, you fool. I would guess that most people in poor countries in the world don't give a shit about our cultural excesses. They just want warmth and food. It's not a question of culture and standards. For them it's a question of basic needs, things which are so amazingly far from your mind that you can actually denigrate the country which provided you with so much. People as soft as you and I wouldn't last a second in anything other than a rich, materialistic country like ours. We'd be eaten alive in a hardscrabble place like your average 3rd world country. I think you know that on some level, which is probably why you've got such self loathing. You've got survivor's guilt. You don't deserve to be here and as lucky as we are. It's ok. We all do. Just appreciate what you've got and shut the hell up.
I'm not sure I remember the first time somebody used the phrase "tool" in the colloquial way I just used it, but I am quite certain I was able to ascertain its meaning from context and entirely without calling the person an idiot. For a Marxist, you're kind of a dick to people.
Anyway, to answer your rhetorical question: it implies the person is a fool to other's designs. The implication is that they are a feableminded pawn of sorts. I used it because I can't imagine a more appropriate word for somebody who pays large sums of money for the "ability" to do their work for free when they are not at work. I understand some people are of such importance (i.e. doctors, CEOs) that this is reasonable, but I highly doubt most PDA users fit this bill. Most are self important twits who delude themselves into thinking the world will be worse off if their skills as a middle manager are unavailable to the world for even a minute. These people are generally not heart surgeons, who, ironically, tend to take every effort to be unreachable. That's how you know you're really important: When you don't have a ten pound gadget on your belt and people still manage to find you when they need you. Barring that kind of utility to the world, the rest of us can just aim for not being total tools and being fooled into thinking what we do is really that fucking important. There. I've used it in a sentence twice, now.
(Note: for the record I'm talking about the "mobile office" type PDA user with the wireless everything and the portable keyboard, etc who works on spreadsheets on the bus because god forbid somebody doesn't get their order of #2 pencils posthaste. I know lots of people use them to just keep addresses and appointments, and I certainly don't think it's self-important to want to be on time to things.)
Dude, you're my idol. You just took a single post and got effectively modded +9 (Insightfully arrogant then obsequiously self-effacing). Brilliant. That's better than the guy last month who posted an incorrect statement, got modded +5 interesting, then posted a correction and got THAT modded +5, too. I'm waiting with bated breath for the first guy to hit the trifecta: post, recant, rerecant and get all modded up.
Wrong you are! Some people have nice things. Some people sue other people for nice things. We all have our ways. Who are you to imperiously inflict your phalocentric notions of "competence" and "personal responsibility" on the rest of us? Fascist...
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Actually, while I agree that everybody is missing the point, so are you. The whole Green thing is just a little tidbit they threw in there to get everybody all hot and bothered. However, it's fairly irrelevent when you're talking about methods to power gadgets. For one, nobody powers gadgets off oil. Second, they are such a small amount of energy relative to cars that it's not worth worrying about. Fuel cells in cameras is simply about getting more time between recharges. Nobody is doing this because fuel cells are better for the environment than batteries. They just mentioned it because there is a certain segment of the population that will practically jump off a bridge if it's painted green.
Except for your ludicrous assertion that it is pedantic to correct a major misstatement, yes, you have it right. So, for the record, why is it pedantic to point out that an energy source takes more energy to produce or find than it contains? Seems like a pretty important fact. It's certainly a more useful observation to the uninformed than yet another post predicting how dismal a discussion is going to be.
Heat from absorption of an optical signal (at the levels used in communications) is negligable. First, the signals are very low, measured in mW, and the absorption per meter in fiber is incredibly small. (I can't remember the actual number, but you need to go tens of miles before you even lose half your light.) As you can imagine, dissipating a few mW over a hundred miles doesn't generate any heat.
When sending signals electronically, you're not really moving electrons. More like shaking them. Electrons don't actually travel through the wire in a net current. The way signals are propagated in an electrical transmission line is actually light, with some motion of electrons in local currents. It's just a difference in frequency, that's all. I think RF waves (the electrical signals you're talking about) generally travel around half the speed of light in vacuum. On the other hand, that's not all that much slower than the speed of light in a fiber. The whole point of transmitting information optically has nothing to do with the whole "speed of light" deal. It simply has to do with how much information can be encoded in an optical waveform, and perhaps more importantly, how much more bandwidth is available in optical media as opposed to RF media. That's really the big difference: the bandwidth of an optical fiber is huge, on the order of hundreds of THz as opposed to tens of GHz for the best RF transmission lines.
Your points all seem valid, except for the polarization one. I think most modulators are polarization sensitive. You just polarize the input and accept the losses. In the case of the modulator attached to the laser (the usual case) the laser output is polarized.
I miss the days when we all hated the Russians, and liked each other.
All are democratically decided (sort of) but that doesn't make it right. As Bastiat figured out a long time ago, democracy only lasts until the majority realize that they can legally steal from the minority, and everybody jockys for position to get a piece of the legal plunder. I think that pretty aptly describes the situation we've got now, given that (the Democrats' rhetoric nothwithstanding) we have the top 20% paying for the majority of our government, with the top 50% paying for virtually everything (over 90% of the budget). That's not progressive, that's irresponsible.
Do I have this wrong? If so, maybe you could tell me where I'm wrong instead of just saying it.
But by the same measure, people freak out about socialism not because they think collective control of shared resources, cooperation, etc. never work, but that it's dangerous when such things are implemented by a central government with a great deal of power and money. So, it's unfair for the parent to suggest Wiki will fail because socialism has failed (at least in pure forms) but it's also unfair for you to say that Wiki's success is, in any way, vindication of the ideals of socialism. To the extent the ideals of socialism are taken out of the context of a government, it's not socialism. If anything, it's Judeo-Christianity. But that line of thinking would really freak the lefists out... :-)
Perhaps you're confusing "things that good people do" with an intelligent philosophy of government. Are you really so caught up in your own self-righteousness that you think those of us on the "right" think people SHOULDN'T help others? Or that doing volunteer work for no pay is somehow a bad thing? Do you think we don't contribute to Wikipedia or give of our time and money for charity?
The problem (one of them, at least) we have with socialism is that it's coersive. What makes good behavior for people doesn't neccesarily translate to governments. In a socialist system, if you fail to contribute to wealth redistribution, eventually you will be physically forced to by the government at gun point. Is it right to force people to help others, to force them to give up some of their money for the good of a few? Maybe it is. I don't honestly know, though I suspect it's wrong. But don't allow yourself the cheap and easy conceit that your politics is about being nice and ours is about being mean.
(Just to head off the obvious cheap comeback I'm sure you've formulated already: pointing out that our current government engages in corporate socialism, etc. is a valid criticism of the current government, but not a valid counterargument to what I've said.)
That some people here even think that the Wiki phenomenon somehow resembles socialism just goes to the serious discredit of their politics. You need more than smug self-righteousness to make a coherent politcal view, folks. We all (or most of us, Republican and Democrat alike) want to be good people and help others. Politics is about what the government does, however. Try to remember those aren't neccesarily the same thing. ALso, try to remember not every discussion about technology has to be diverted in service of a political agenda.
Maybe the GP is right that there is a socialist bias on Wikipedia. But let's not be fooled into thinking that it's because Wikipedia is, itself, a remotely socialist idea. It's just a good idea. Don't try to coopt it in furtherance of politics.
You could probably argue they had more engineering talent. I'm just arguing they really didn't have a philosophy so much as constraints and less ambitious goals. Chiding the US for doing something that was, in retrospect, biting off too much is unfair. Nobody should be too smug about the failure of somebody who bit off too much. We are where we are because of such people (and their occasional failures).
May have had something to do with the fact that the Russians had no money. Also, where is their space program, now?
How many companies do you think exist in America that can make large rocket engines? All the aerospace companies have consolidated so much, that my guess is that we've only got two: Boeing and Lockheed. And I imagine they will both be well represented in the final project.
I'm a libertarian, and I've NEVER met a fellow libertarian who was politically correct or sanctimoneous, so I would've interpreted you differently had I known.
As far as your education goes, one of the project managers I work for graduated from MIT in the mid-1970's. He said it was the most fun he ever had in school. I guess my comment was more just my passing along his advice to not take life too seriously while in school.
That's always good advice. I try not to. As "Just Some Guy" has pointed out, one of the problems with the recent polarization of /. (and everything else in America) is that people who are normally pretty laid back have gotten very reactionary and serious in their posting. I think he's right, at least for me.
But for the record, MIT is nowhere near as fun a place as it was in the 70s. The lawyers and liberals have really changed the place in the past decade or so. The unique culture that used to be MIT has been pretty much beaten out of the place by political correctness and fear of lawsuits. Now it's just like every other university for the most part: the administration spends most of its time making sure everybody feels good about themselves and is completely unoffended. Education is sort of a distant concern. Now, you get fined if you're found hacking on the roof of a building (though the PR people will still use the hack) and you've got classes where 98% of the class gets an 'A' if they show effort. I can only hope that the now bullshit MIT reputation lives long enough for me to get a good job...
I don't think you need to bring my school into this. It's more that it's hard to know when people are joking in text. If I'd been observant enough to notice the cato.org URL, I would've known you couldn't possibly have been serious. So, it was just me being dense.
The fact that I didn't laugh. But that may very well be my problem, not yours...
But, just to prod: your argument about the Indians and the first American settlers is pretty counterproductive. If anything, it suggests we SHOULD be worried about immigrants instead of welcoming them.
In the old days, I'd agree with you. But these days... Could you remind me again exactly what the difference is between the Republicans and the Democrats? We've got a Republican president and congress and government spending has never been higher. This same group of "Republicans" has presidided over one of the largest increases in government authority and power. My point was I'm not sure who the heck is the lesser evil anymore. So I might as well start voting for who I really want.
How many of us voted for third parties? These assholes are the assholes we all elected. Libertarians wouldn't do this. Green party would probably be too busy outlawing internal combustion to bother with this. Constitution party sure as hell wouldn't. Given that the Republicrats are pretty much becoming just one big evil, let's consider dropping the whole lesser of two evils bullshit and vote these fools out. I know, I know, it will never happen... But unless you vote your conscience, you have no right to complain when your stupid mainstream party shills fuck you over for their corporate masters.
As a complete aside: if you really are a Marxist, you're the first entrepreneurial Marxist I've ever met.
Actually, the word for that is cultural objectivism, and everybody in the world would do the same if they had the power to do so. You're damn lucky it's America that does. We're the nicest fucking hegemon the world has ever seen. If Russia, Germany and/or Japan had succeeded in their imperialism instead of us, the world would be an infinitely scarier place than it already is.
Exactly what the fuck do you know about people in India? Do you know how stupid and arrogant your statement was, to presume to know that they are happy to be poor? That they wouldn't trade spaces with us in a second despite our boorish preoccupation with material goods? You're the worst kind of American. Too stupid to appreciate what you've got and caught up in so much ironic self loathing that you actually think this country is a bad place to live. Materialism is a luxury. Your life is so easy you're actually able to think such amazingly stupid thoughts as poor people in India are happier than well fed, warm Americans. That kind of stupidity is a luxury, too. Enjoy it, you fool. I would guess that most people in poor countries in the world don't give a shit about our cultural excesses. They just want warmth and food. It's not a question of culture and standards. For them it's a question of basic needs, things which are so amazingly far from your mind that you can actually denigrate the country which provided you with so much. People as soft as you and I wouldn't last a second in anything other than a rich, materialistic country like ours. We'd be eaten alive in a hardscrabble place like your average 3rd world country. I think you know that on some level, which is probably why you've got such self loathing. You've got survivor's guilt. You don't deserve to be here and as lucky as we are. It's ok. We all do. Just appreciate what you've got and shut the hell up.
Anyway, to answer your rhetorical question: it implies the person is a fool to other's designs. The implication is that they are a feableminded pawn of sorts. I used it because I can't imagine a more appropriate word for somebody who pays large sums of money for the "ability" to do their work for free when they are not at work. I understand some people are of such importance (i.e. doctors, CEOs) that this is reasonable, but I highly doubt most PDA users fit this bill. Most are self important twits who delude themselves into thinking the world will be worse off if their skills as a middle manager are unavailable to the world for even a minute. These people are generally not heart surgeons, who, ironically, tend to take every effort to be unreachable. That's how you know you're really important: When you don't have a ten pound gadget on your belt and people still manage to find you when they need you. Barring that kind of utility to the world, the rest of us can just aim for not being total tools and being fooled into thinking what we do is really that fucking important. There. I've used it in a sentence twice, now.
(Note: for the record I'm talking about the "mobile office" type PDA user with the wireless everything and the portable keyboard, etc who works on spreadsheets on the bus because god forbid somebody doesn't get their order of #2 pencils posthaste. I know lots of people use them to just keep addresses and appointments, and I certainly don't think it's self-important to want to be on time to things.)
Dude, you're my idol. You just took a single post and got effectively modded +9 (Insightfully arrogant then obsequiously self-effacing). Brilliant. That's better than the guy last month who posted an incorrect statement, got modded +5 interesting, then posted a correction and got THAT modded +5, too. I'm waiting with bated breath for the first guy to hit the trifecta: post, recant, rerecant and get all modded up.
Wrong you are! Some people have nice things. Some people sue other people for nice things. We all have our ways. Who are you to imperiously inflict your phalocentric notions of "competence" and "personal responsibility" on the rest of us? Fascist...