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  1. Re:Excellent on IAEA Forms Nuclear Fuel Bank · · Score: 1

    Ah yes breeder reactors. Nice theory. However, they are not working. And the test reactors in this field still produced a lot of radioactive waste. The point is, there is a lot of money in nuclear power, while there is not so much money for the big companies in renewable energy.

  2. Nonsense on Is 'Quadroid' the New 'Wintel'? · · Score: 1

    While Windows + Intel is a double vendor lock in (technical mostly from Windows, but emotional also from Intel), Andriod can run on different CPUs and Android-apps can run on different CPUs so there is no such vendor locking. The goal of using Linux as Android basis was to be flexible when it comes to CPUs. And the Dalvik/Java-platform is also a thingy to support different CPUs. So it is something completely different.

  3. This is the End of the World as we know it on Free IPv4 Pool Now Down To Seven /8s · · Score: 1

    And therefore it will be a perfect day to be celebrated in future. Lets say January the 2nd can be a nice day for IPv4-exhaustion. However, I hope it will take a little longer for that as I would prefer such day in summer so I can lie drunken under a tree without serious danger to my health (other than the alcohol) .

    Yes I know this is a little bit egoistic as it is northern hemisphere centric view, but most people life north of the Equator ...

    And yes I know the world changes on a daily basis, so the world as we know it ends every day.

  4. Re:Remaking IT to be an anti-citizen? on How the 'Tech Worker Visa' Is Remaking IT In America · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The best way to get more educated people is to educate more people. But western countries try to outsource this to other countries. But in the end the jobs go where the people are rather than the people go where the jobs are. Especially in technology and sciences.

  5. It is just a hype on Want an IT Job? Add 'Cloud' To Your Buzzword List · · Score: 1

    Cloud is a buzzword. And while it might be a good idea to add it to your resume, it will be gone in a few years. However, what will increase in the next decade or so are:
    - Application services
    - Platform services
    - Virtual systems
    All these services will be on demand. But this has different meanings in the different "cloud"-types. If you outsource your mail-service than this has to be available 24/7 the only thing which is variable is the system load. So the company providing email-services to you can do some load distribution if they have customers from different time zone (just for example).

    However, outsourcing important information is always a problem. While you might outsource a shop system or a public relations website. You might not want to outsource accounting, engineering etc.

    It can be interesting for private people. Because they want to use their data at home and when they are traveling. However, there is more a need in distributed computing and clever replication than storing all information in the net. Even though this might be a good idea for your email or music. It is still not such a good idea for your movies (that may change with more bandwidth).

  6. Re:Depressing. on World's Northernmost Town Gets Nightlights · · Score: 1

    He mounted special plant lights at the ceiling so he can sit with sunglasses in the basement.

  7. Wrong optimization on Looking To Better Engines Instead of Electric Vehicles · · Score: 1

    We will run out of oil at some point in the near future. Using less oil moves this point further into the future. But still at some point it will be gone. The alternative is using bio fuels. However, they reduce the area we use for food production. But we should not do that, as we need the food to feed people. As some fertilizer products depend on oil, the output of the agrarian areas will decrease. And even if we can compensate by using animal based fertilizers, the amount necessary to support all these cars out there with bio fuel is far bigger than the cultivatable area. Lately the corn prices in Mexico went sky high, because a lot of corn was used to produce ethanol for cars.

    Second, cars waste a lot of energy while they are considerable heavy 1-2 t and they are used to move (in most cases) one person from A to B. While a person weight is 60-120 kg. So you move approx. 8.33 to 33.33 more matter than necessary. The better solution would be
    a) To move jobs and people closer together which enables them to walk or you a bike
    b) Use public transport system (which need to be improved in capacity and service quality, at least in some areas)
    An additional benefit is, you need less space for traffic. You need less resources to build the transportation system (remember 50% or more of the energy used by a car is used to build it).

    Most likely you don't like this scenario. In the end you still have to live with it, because there are no viable alternatives. And don't tell me you want to replace the oil based energy by nuclear power plants. Try to do the math and the think about where you want to build that many power plants.
     

  8. It depends on KDE Developers Discuss Merging Libraries With Qt · · Score: 1

    It depends on which functionality they really want to move to QT. If I understand it correctly they want to move the plasma stuff, which is GUI code, to QT. That makes sense. Just like moving GUI stuff from GNOME to GTK and GDK. However, it makes no sense if they want to move other parts of the application model to QT. It would not hurt, but there would be no benefit.

  9. Re:I kinda agree with him on How Much Math Do We Really Need? · · Score: 1

    They need set theory to understand the concept of folders on their computers. They would understand tags and simple logic in queries, which they would use more often if they would know anything about it. They cannot find their stuff, because they cannot organize it, because the o not know how to handle categories. But this is all math. It is even simple. But it is not taught in school. And it is not taught properly.

    They could use simple functions to understand how certain parts of the economy work. This is important because in some countries 25% of the retirement fonds are privately organized (like Germany) or 100% like in the US. If the economy has troubles than you might loose a lot of money. So it is important to understand how it works and how you can describe it.

       

  10. Re:What World Does He Live On? on How Much Math Do We Really Need? · · Score: 1

    Since the media decided it is more important than why the government makes laws for the rich while the poor suffer. I would mind reading "Manufacturing Consent". But I guess you already did it.

  11. Re:Exponential growth on How Much Math Do We Really Need? · · Score: 1

    You do not need exponential growth. It is enough to understand that if you have a resource A which can represented in N units of a measurement. And you have P resource users which consume C_P of this resource A in a time interval t than the resource will be gone at some in future. In short: A(t) = (-\sum_i=1^P{C_i}) t + N (or if all Ps use the same amount A(t) = -(P*C) t + N

    However, knowing a formula alone (as f(x) = ax + b) is not good enough, you have to understand its meaning. And that is normally not taught in school.

  12. Its like wrinting on How Much Math Do We Really Need? · · Score: 1

    Math as much as reading and writing is learned early in life. And if you don't use these skill much, you are not becoming better in reading or math. While there are people which survive without reading skills nobody would claim that reading is not so important. Same applies to math. You don't need it. Some people can even live without calculus. But they could live better with math.

    For example, when people would understand set theory and building classes, they would understand tagging, marking elements with attributes and finally understand folders in computer systems. With simple logic they could proof that most political and media statements are plain lies. Yes most people feel that way, but they cannot act on it as they have no understanding of the concepts. Furthermore they could understand the structure of modern economics (which affects everyone) and see the problems with it.

     

  13. Education on Some Aussie High Schools Moving To Two Devices Per Child · · Score: 1

    Education will not improve with the number of gadgets. It would be wiser to use better teaching methods. But well it is for private schools (=elite persons and those who would like to see their kids in this group). So why bother.

  14. Re:I am a nonbeliever on Linux To Take Over Microsoft In Enterprises · · Score: 1

    Will they work with Outlook? And the more important thing: Can they work side by side with the old systems?

  15. I am a nonbeliever on Linux To Take Over Microsoft In Enterprises · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I do not trust such assessments as much I do not trust assessments which point in the opposite direction. As much as I would like to see OS prevail CS, I do not believe this will happen any time soon or even in the distant future (under the assumption that our economic regime will not change).

    Anyway, a major show stopper for small business to convert to Linux-based infrastructures is the SBS from Microsoft. Small companies have as a service infrastructure these SBS servers, which provide a mail directory service, calendars, address books. It provides web based access to these services as well as an Outlook integration. And it comes with share-point, which is also a requirement. And finally it works with all these smartphones, especially Blackberries and iPhones.

    Therefore a migration effort has to take into account that the same functionality has to be provided with better QoS. While better QoS ist not the problem, the same functionality is a serious problem. Especially when it comes to more detailed properties.

    But even worse, migration cannot be done in an overnight attempt. These always fail and in the end you loose a customer and they switch to MS for the rest of their lives. Therefore you need a soft migration strategy. And this is the key problem here.

    While you can provide most features with lets say egroupware (which is not such a good idea, a servlet based approach would be better) you still need IMAP (dovecot), SMTP (postfix) and LDAP to model the mail service. Egroupware can also provide these calendars. But how do you replace Sharepoint? And especially how do you integrate with Sharepoint? While you switch to webdav oder sftp etc. the client's clients will not switch (at the same time). So you still need to integrate both services.

    I have not seen any generic strategy for this problem. And honestly there are hundreds of thousands of small companies using SBS. And bigger companies use similar services.And the Blackberry-integration into a replacement infrastructure is very important as all these business guys use it.

  16. An unnecessary question on Can Large Scale NAT Save IPv4? · · Score: 1

    Why should we use large scale NAT to save a technology which is deprecated? IPv6 is better suited for P2P use for everyone. While some people NAT can be used as a security thingy and it supports your privacy, this is not so true as they assume.
    a) In NAT packages are switched between networks via special rules. The machines behind the router are therefore not directly visible via an IP address. But the router can be hacked and then a appropriate tunnel can be used to access internal machines. In IPv6 you can use firewall rules to realize the same setup. And you have the same problems with them.
    b) On the net your machine is not directly visible and therefore no one can track you. This is true to some extend. But the IP of your gateway is visible and that is sufficient in most cases. Also you can be identified by the content of you data. Governments and secret services can always infiltrate the gateway and see which machine is the origin of the communication. And "Intellectual Property" organisations can do so through the government.

    On the downside you cannot use P2P communication in its best ways. Like in Skype you need a central hub for the dispatching (at the beginning) or a set of P2P-rules which are dynamically activated on your home router. However on large NAT you would need such bridging stuff also at these large exchange hubs. These bridging technologies use ports on routers. Therefore massive use of P2P technologies in conjunction with bridging technologies relay on ports. There are only a few ports available as this is 16 bit. Therefore it can result in a port shortage in these network bridging hubs.

    Therefore a clear cut, a step away from IPv4 is in order. And please do not try to save IPv4. IPv4 might have been enough for the US, but it is not sufficient for all of us.

  17. Re:Horn? on Toyota Adds External Speakers To Warn Pedestrians · · Score: 1

    Exactly. I used to live in a town, where people heavily use bikes. And not all of them have horns or bells mounted to their apparatus. So you definitely have to look.

    It would be nice have cars which are not that noisy. You might actually be able to sit in a street and talk. This would be a step in the right direction. For the mean time, these Piruses could generate a sound depending on the ambient noise level. So they are as loud as those gas driven cars when there is heavy traffic and they a silent when there are only bikes, pedestrians and other electric cars around.

    BTW: Many people run around nowadays with headphones in their ears so they can do phone calls or listen to music. For those persons, looking is the only option to identify dangerous targets.

    And another thing. If there are so many accidents between cars and pedestrians or bikes, then just give pedestrians and bikes the advantage in ouor towns. Cars are not very well suited for cities, so leave them out.

  18. Re:no difference, I think on Look For AI, Not Aliens · · Score: 1

    1) Any sufficiently complex system, biological or otherwise, will exhibit emergent behavior.

    This is not really true. However, complex system can exhibit emergent behavior. So there are some out of many complex systems which have something which can be identified als emergent behavior.

    <quote> 2) Some of these behaviors will be sufficiently parallel to our own to appear 'sentient'.</qoute>

    An emergent behavior is not an equivalent to sentient. And sentient is not necessarily element of the class of emergent behavior. The problem is, that sentient cannot be defined. Some people assume that sentient is an emergent behavior, but this has not been validated. The problem is the missing definition of sentient.

    You need to explain the following two things:
    a) What is sentient? Or What is meant by selfawareness?
    b) How is (a) established out of a complex system?

    Then you can build a machine with the model determined in (b).

    <quote> 3) As soon as this 'sentience' becomes transferrable, time and distance cease to be limitations.</qoute>

    This is true. However, as phrase two cannot be proven, phrase three cannot be concluded.

  19. Two mistakes on Look For AI, Not Aliens · · Score: 1

    First, he assumes that we will develop sentient machines. I doubt that, because we do not really have a good description of what that is "sentient". We only know what is a not sufficient model of a thinking machine. Part of the debate is the question: What is selfawareness. We know that the recognition of ourselves on a picture is an indicator of selfawareness, but it does not mean that a computer which can identify its own photograph knows that it exists.

    Second, he assumes that every development in every ecosystem has to produce tool building entities, which are so lazy that they improve tools so far, that they build radio and then thinking machines.

    Furthermore if our atmosphere would have slightly different properties or researches would have come up with different technologies at different times, we could have used lasers for communication or think of an atmosphere with a reflection behavior for all radio waves.

    And finally: If there was a species such as humanity, which build sentient robots which have been wiped out or which died out and left a robot species behind, then these robot entities would be able to communicate with radio as well as their makers. And therefor we can send the message everywhere where we could have send the message for biological entities. The selection of planets would be the same. It has to be a planet which orbits a star which is not too big or too small with a planet in the right distance, which had or has the correct isotopes in the atmosphere.

  20. Re:Germans are confused on privacy on German Photog Wants to Shoot Buildings Excluded From Street View · · Score: 1

    This is nonsense. German data privacy rules for the state is based on the principle to avoid unnecessary data collection. Second, there are states like the UK where they use video cameras at large while in Germany the use is still restricted to a view areas. Third, we are far away from totalitarianism (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism). We a neither governed by a single person or class who have absolute power nor do we have a ideology posed on everyone. Right now it is more like, that the Neoliberalism is loosing ground (the last tow decade ideology) and our government is merely occupied by themselves and their egos.

    If you think that democracy needs more public participation then your right, but this is not the due to some sort of totalitarianism. THis is because people are too lazy to act in their own interest.

    BTW: What do you understand by the term anarchy? (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy) This will not work, because there are too many morons running around which are not bound by any social code. Read the average Internet/Web forum if you doubt that.

  21. Re:The US on 7 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Outbreak Would Fail · · Score: 1

    We have so many Leopard II tanks rotting in army garages since the cold war ended. I am absolutely sure that they can be used to roll over zombies.

  22. Selling Scotch on Scottish Scientists Develop Whisky Biofuel · · Score: 1

    Instead in using Scotch as fuel, they should use Scotch for drinking. Drunk people shouldn't drive which automatically results in more walking for the drunk (exercise is good and healthy) and less traffic (good for nature, less noise of the public, and fewer accidents).

    More cheap Scotch for everyone. You could use Bourbon as fuel it is much better suited for fuel than for drinking. ;-)

  23. WOW on How the Internet Is Changing Language · · Score: 1

    I have never thought languages can change. I thought they talk the way they do since stone age. Honestly. They found out that languages change due to a new innovation which changed the life of many people? The industrial revolution also changed the language of people. They now know what a company is and a factory and in most countries they know what a labor union is and what it is good for.

    But even more astonishing then finding out, that new things influence languages, is the fact that they came up with this result just now. The people know verbs like to google now almost since Google became so popular. And kids use abbreviations very often. So they use LOL as word or IRL or IMHO or BTW. Some of these abbreviations are used in speech and text and other are only present in text form. Almost forgot cu, me 2, and all those SMS shortcuts.

    But now I have to tend to something more important. I heard a rice sack has fallen over. In China. Can you imagine.

  24. Re:He's crazy right? on Rupert Murdoch Claims To Own the 'Sky' In 'Skype' · · Score: 1

    No he is not crazy. He is greedy. While insanity might bring you to heaven. This definitely goes in the opposite direction. ;-)

    However, he is the guy who owns Fox "News" and sky. So in general he has a massive media impact.

  25. There is no online world on The 'Net Generation' Isn't · · Score: 1

    The idea of a Matrix or a Cyberspace is very intriguing for some people, but there is no such thing. The Internet was and is a information system. It is capable of almost instant communication and it provides people with all sorts of media. Having these properties it is not a space it is the negation of space which makes it so interesting. For example, I can talk and work with people in South Africa the same way I work with people at my current location in Kiel, Germany. There is no real difference.

    In the beginning of the wide spread use of the Internet in the 1990th, young people were able to hop virtually from one machine to another. While in technical terms, they just send and received packages of data, this hopping was imagined differently. However, the journey was in our heads not in reality. We went to Australia, virtually, but we never were there in the real world, so the impression of being there was in our minds. The same concept can be applied to cyberspace or any other online space concept.

    And the youth today live in the real world, they just use this new communication thing which negates spaces. They meet new people on a summer trip and stay in touch with them via social networking sites, e-mails and chats.

    The Internet has driven globalism in the same way this was driven by the invention of sea cables for telegraphs a century ago. Furthermore it allows nowadays the communication of all online humans. And it integrated knowledge transfer concepts.

    For young people all these technologies are just there and they have been there all their life. And honestly even knowing that there was a way to do most of these things without the Internet, I do not really know anymore how research could have worked without it in the past.