This is consistent with what I observe- people spend too much time worrying about getting the lowest gas price, when there are many other fronts on which it would make much more sense to optimize. There are people who cross the George Washington bridge from New York to New Jersey to get gas at a lower price, when the cost of the bridge toll ($5) is typically well more than the savings (30 gallons of gas at $.15/gallon cheaper = $4.50, for example, and it is practically never a 15 cent difference or more)
Some years ago, I remember a widely quoted congressman who was arguing against raising the US postage rate from $.25 to $.30 (they ended up raising it to $.29.) My belief was that it would be sensible to have $.30 postage, with $.25/additional ounce, to make the computations easy, and that it was ridiculous to have a $.29 postage rate with a $.23 marginal rate beyond the first ounce (how many people know their multiples of 23 and want to add them to 29?) The argument was the congressman made, which apparently resonated well, was that "people will drive halfway across town to save a penny on a gallon of gas (it was the late 80s or so) so we should do the same with postage." This pointed out several things vividly to a young me:
people/congresspeople do not understand the difference in discrete and continuous commodities (stamps and gas)
an argument doesn't have to make much sense for it to resonate with many people
That is a good question- what will it now be called? Normally, when something is proven by Professor X, it would then become known as "X's theorem." But for things that have a long history, it can be more complicated and people may often refer to it by its historical name, not a more accurate, revised one. The Poincare Conjecture is a complicated example because there is also Thuston's Geometrization Conjecture, which is an even stronger version of the Poincare Conjecture, and which is proven by the work of Perelman. So now that that has been proven, people may say things like "By the Poincare Conjecture,..." or "By Geometrization,..." or most properly, "by Perelman's solution of the Poincare Conjecture,..." I don't foresee lots of people saying "By Perelman's Theorem" real soon, partly because of his own failure to complete the details and publicize the work- that has been left to others. In the higher-dimensional cases (four and up), people generally say "by the higher-dimensional Poincare Conjecture" instead of referring to the solvers, Smale and Freedman, so that may be an indication of what to expect in this case.
Another example of something with so much history that the naming is nonstandard is the Axiom of Choice, equivalent to Zorn's Lemma and the Well-ordering Theorem, as well as others. In general, "axiom" means agreed upon assumption, "theorem" means something significant that is proven from the standard assumptions, "lemma" means a preliminary result, usually a stepping stone to a theorem, "corollary" means a consequence of a theorem, and a "conjecture" is a statement made without proof and is really just a question asked. Many people can make conjectures but to attract a great deal of attention and study, a conjecture must have some interesting implications or have shown itself to be resistant to obvious approaches at proof or disproof.
I don't work in three-manifolds but my research has some connections with it so from time to time I'm at a conference or two in the area. Grisha Perelman is an interesting guy, even amoung the very driven math folks who tend to be an interesting lot, and his disinterest in the political/social aspects of his work is I believe genuine.
1) I met him at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley at a workshop sometime around 1994 and he at that point had ridiculously long fingernails and was quite unkempt, even by the quite weak standards applied to research mathematicians. That was a while ago, of course and that was probably one of his first visits to the US. He gave an incomprehensible energetic talk so what most people commented on was his nails.
2) In 2003 or so, during a limited lecture tour about his proof of the Poincare Conjecture, he responded deftly and hilariously to a comment of Misha Gromov in the audience. Gromov is one of the most difficult people to have in a talk- he is a great mathematician with not much patience and has derailed or rerouted talks by many great researchers, who sometimes get quite flustered. I can't remember the exact wording of the exchange, which is too bad since it was precious, but Gromov asked something like "I don't see how that goes, I'd like to see some more details" and Grisha responded with something like "well, yes, you would" and carried on as he had intended.
Mike Brown makes some excellent points in the linked article- that this proposal is a mess. Having both Pluto and Charon be considered planets because they orbit a point (their barycenter) which is outside of either of them ("double planet") is a complete distraction, to my mind. He had an interesting summary of the issue here, handicapping possible IAU decisions but didn't predict this one:
A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.
Presumably, a satellite of a planet must have its orbit's barycenter lie within the interior of a planet to count as a satellite, which seems somewhat arbitrary. As is pointed out, Pluto and Charon would be planets, a double planet and "plutons" under these definition, though "pluton" will not have an actual formal definition. I think the committee, which had already been disbanded once for not coming up with a workable definition, decided to attempt too much and also address the double planet issue which they've muddled. So I suspect in the IAU vote either this will not pass or it will pass on the votes of the non-solar-system astronomers, who may be sick of all the attention this issue has raised.
I am somehow not attracted to this option because of the tenure and grant pressure. My ideal job would be in something like the Bell Labs of yester-years.
I read this as saying you'd like a great job without pressure. And maybe a pony as well. It may be worth noting that the people at Bell Labs of yesteryear were generally people who would cruise through tenure and get plentiful grant funding consistently. A place with opportunities to do interesting, independant research of your choosing requires a great deal of ability and drive, whether it is academic, private or governmental. If you don't want to work too hard, fine, but don't expect a dream job without fanatastic commitment and drive.
NZ superimposed on Europe
on
Earth Sandwich
·
· Score: 1
There aren't many sizable landmasses at antipodal points, but NZ has a good overlap with Spain, as shown in this map of NZ superimposed on Spain.
Remember that Gonzales was on the short list of possible Supreme Court nominees after the Miers fiasco. How wonderful a Supreme Court justice would he be with such a flawed understanding of the constitution? He would have certainly been confirmed as easily as Alito was. This boggles the mind... Bush and company have two out of three of the branches of government currently under an iron fist, and with 5 of 9 of the justices leaning their way, it is very scary.
A crank for a modern laptop would be great (I love the idea), but it isn't feasible until there is a reduction in power consumption on the laptop side. A laptop usually draws about 15-30 watts, more for high-end ones. A typical laptop powersupply brick is rated at 65 watts or so, peak. A non-athlete adult can generate 75W on a stationary bicycle without much struggle (see here for a nice graph), but to keep up 150W is more of a struggle. If you've been to a science museum with one of those light arrays powered by a stationary, you'll know what I mean. So a hand crank generates significantly less than a stationary bicycle, so don't hold your breath for a hand crank that can generate even 30 watts. There are hand crank (or squeeze) chargers for cell phones, but that is a much lower draw than laptops that Slashdotters are likely to tote.
We've had some questions for our affirmitive action office about whether or not we are permitted to Google applicants for positions at our institution (our searches are very formalized and monitored closely as to the procedures.) The replies were that as long as we were doing basically the same amount of web searching on each of the applicants, it was fine. So it has added a fair amount of possible information about many of our candidates. It is interesting to see how people present themselves in possibly quite different lights for different settings. I don't think web presence has ever had a profound difference on our hiring decisions, but it certainly helped get an idea about possibly what to expect from people before flying them to visit for an interview.
The sad thing is that many many people will keep their AOL accounts, despite the price increase, since they don't like the idea of changing their email address. It is a huge hassle to change your email address with all the various e-tailers, login-only sites, etc. and no matter how careful you are, there will be a few you forget. I lost several shareware registrations and my old 4-digit Slashdot account this way years ago when a university account expired on me, oh well. And then the idea that friends/relatives will try to email your old address and not get you- ugh, the horror! So there is a huge amount of inertia, particularly amoung people who've had only one email address their whole life (for example, many AOLers.) And AOL is milking this inertia. People aren't going to switch to another ISP, which may well raise their rates in a while, if the hassle of dealing with a new email address is high.
One thing that was troubling about that site (no idea how credible it is, BTW) is that only one physical processor is supported on all the home versions, so you may need to spring for the "Ultimate" or one of the business versions for dual-processor support. That seems like a big limitation to me.
The site said 3 windows/applications for the Starter version, not 3 processes. Three applications or windows is quite crippling, but not as crippling as just 3 processes.
In the late 80s- early 90s Stanford had a fair number of "TV classrooms" used for interactive classes, with some of the students participating via satellite link. There was outbound video and audio and inboard audio for remote students to ask questions. I don't know how things are today, but then the classrooms had little microphone handsets at the desks, so when you asked a question, you had to press the button so that people out in "TV land" could hear your question. Some faculty asked at the beginning of class, "Anyone out there in TV land today?" and there would be a pause, then a cackling "Hello from Monolithic Memory in Boise, Idaho" or more often, someone from a local valley firm. So there would occassionally be questions from those students and some genuine participation. These were mostly for low-level grad classes with big enrollments and I think it worked well for the companies- they could pay (generously) for engineers getting masters degrees without the hassle of them leaving their company office complex. So it didn't interrupt their workday much, certainly not as much as going from Idaho to Palo Alto would do!
In this interview, Carey explains why SCO has no case, predicts the open source legal fields of battle for 2006 and discusses SCO's claims against Novell. Carey chairs the Business Practice Group of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP, an intellectual property law practice in Boston, Mass. Carey's IT background includes a stint as a programmer for the city of New York.
What's the linchpin of SCO's anti-Linux legal battle?
Thomas Carey: The key to the case is that IBM specifically negotiated with SCO a clause that permitted it to use the same programmers who saw the Unix code to make competing products. This was documented as part of a transaction in which SCO was paid lots of money. SCO conveniently left that clause out of its explanation of the facts. But in the long run, it will not be able to hide from that concession.
The result is, absent literal copying of meaningful amounts of Unix into Linux, SCO has no case. None. Nada. Zilch.
Is there any significance to the timing of SCO's renewed activity in its anti-Linux lawsuits?
Carey: [It's] quite possible the renewed activity results from the recent completion of a PIPE [Private Investment in Public Equity] offering by SCO, giving it the funds to proceed more vigorously than before.
Has SCO actually shown that its UnixWare System V code exists in SuSE Linux or another distribution?
Carey: SCO has not shown that its code exists in Linux. SCO now seems to be grounding its case on 'unauthorized disclosures', which is a very different kettle of fish than copied code.
What are the implications of SCO's suit against Novell for Novell/SuSE customers?
Carey: The implications are generally the same as they are for Red Hat customers, except that Novell has some superior legal standing because of their presence in the chain of title to Unix.
But this really misses the main point, which is that SCO's lawsuit is a lost cause. The implications for Linux users are rather like the implications for passengers on an ocean liner of a seagull diving into the water nearby. A physicist might be able to measure the perturbation, but the passenger feels nothing.
SCO went after, with lawsuits, Linux customers before. Do you foresee this happening again?
Carey:This might happen again. Hitler fought World War II until the Allies had nearly overrun his bunker. As long as investors are willing to provide the cash, SCO will sue because that is their business model. They will likely go after smaller companies as a means of controlling the cost of litigation.
Last summer, it came out that an outside consultant, Bob Swartz, conducted an audit for SCO that showed that no SCO code was used in Linux. Why do you think that CEO Darl McBride still proceeded with lawsuits against IBM and Novell?
Carey: The facts concerning this analysis are not very clear. The consultant apparently did find some overlapping code, but came to the conclusion that it was not significant. You can understand how opinions on this might differ. In addition, the audit may have been inadequate to determine whether or not there were derivative works contained in Linux.
I think that the strategy behind SCO's legal actions was to generate recurring licensing revenue from thousands of Linux users who would pay up on the theory that the license fee would be cheap insurance against a lawsuit. The strategy failed.
When will SCO's suits come to a conclusion? Why are they taking so long?
Carey: A trial date has been set for February, 2007. There may be more delays. The factual investigation associated with the development of so many lines of code is very time-consuming.
What does the Novell case mean to other Linux vendors and to corporations using Linux?
Carey: It means much less than the IBM case. Novell presents an interesting, but far-fetched, reason why SCO might have little right to pursue the claims it is pursuing. The IBM case is likely to determine that the claims themselves are baseless; not because IBM didn't
Attend the press conferences and demos: Loot is dumped on people who sit through the spiel
Make appointments: A reasonable reccommendation for stuff you might be more interested in. The vendor is more likely to give stuff to people who spend more time with them and give them contact info for followup rather than random strolling people.
Attend parties/enter giveaways: Again, an investement of your time and giving them your contact info means the vendor is more likely to give stuff away.
Hang around during teardown: True vultures can score big when vendors don't want to cart stuff back home.
In my experience, the days of walking away from MacWorld/etc lugging bags full of stuff you actually want ended in about 2000 or so. Yes, there is still reasonable stuff but the scale is quite reduced from those crazy late 90s shows.
Slashdot Mirror
Some years ago, I remember a widely quoted congressman who was arguing against raising the US postage rate from $.25 to $.30 (they ended up raising it to $.29.) My belief was that it would be sensible to have $.30 postage, with $.25/additional ounce, to make the computations easy, and that it was ridiculous to have a $.29 postage rate with a $.23 marginal rate beyond the first ounce (how many people know their multiples of 23 and want to add them to 29?) The argument was the congressman made, which apparently resonated well, was that "people will drive halfway across town to save a penny on a gallon of gas (it was the late 80s or so) so we should do the same with postage." This pointed out several things vividly to a young me:
Another example of something with so much history that the naming is nonstandard is the Axiom of Choice, equivalent to Zorn's Lemma and the Well-ordering Theorem, as well as others. In general, "axiom" means agreed upon assumption, "theorem" means something significant that is proven from the standard assumptions, "lemma" means a preliminary result, usually a stepping stone to a theorem, "corollary" means a consequence of a theorem, and a "conjecture" is a statement made without proof and is really just a question asked. Many people can make conjectures but to attract a great deal of attention and study, a conjecture must have some interesting implications or have shown itself to be resistant to obvious approaches at proof or disproof.
1) I met him at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley at a workshop sometime around 1994 and he at that point had ridiculously long fingernails and was quite unkempt, even by the quite weak standards applied to research mathematicians. That was a while ago, of course and that was probably one of his first visits to the US. He gave an incomprehensible energetic talk so what most people commented on was his nails.
2) In 2003 or so, during a limited lecture tour about his proof of the Poincare Conjecture, he responded deftly and hilariously to a comment of Misha Gromov in the audience. Gromov is one of the most difficult people to have in a talk- he is a great mathematician with not much patience and has derailed or rerouted talks by many great researchers, who sometimes get quite flustered. I can't remember the exact wording of the exchange, which is too bad since it was precious, but Gromov asked something like "I don't see how that goes, I'd like to see some more details" and Grisha responded with something like "well, yes, you would" and carried on as he had intended.
A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither a star nor a satellite of a planet.
Presumably, a satellite of a planet must have its orbit's barycenter lie within the interior of a planet to count as a satellite, which seems somewhat arbitrary. As is pointed out, Pluto and Charon would be planets, a double planet and "plutons" under these definition, though "pluton" will not have an actual formal definition. I think the committee, which had already been disbanded once for not coming up with a workable definition, decided to attempt too much and also address the double planet issue which they've muddled. So I suspect in the IAU vote either this will not pass or it will pass on the votes of the non-solar-system astronomers, who may be sick of all the attention this issue has raised.
I read this as saying you'd like a great job without pressure. And maybe a pony as well. It may be worth noting that the people at Bell Labs of yesteryear were generally people who would cruise through tenure and get plentiful grant funding consistently. A place with opportunities to do interesting, independant research of your choosing requires a great deal of ability and drive, whether it is academic, private or governmental. If you don't want to work too hard, fine, but don't expect a dream job without fanatastic commitment and drive.
There aren't many sizable landmasses at antipodal points, but NZ has a good overlap with Spain, as shown in this map of NZ superimposed on Spain.
Remember that Gonzales was on the short list of possible Supreme Court nominees after the Miers fiasco. How wonderful a Supreme Court justice would he be with such a flawed understanding of the constitution? He would have certainly been confirmed as easily as Alito was. This boggles the mind... Bush and company have two out of three of the branches of government currently under an iron fist, and with 5 of 9 of the justices leaning their way, it is very scary.
A crank for a modern laptop would be great (I love the idea), but it isn't feasible until there is a reduction in power consumption on the laptop side. A laptop usually draws about 15-30 watts, more for high-end ones. A typical laptop powersupply brick is rated at 65 watts or so, peak. A non-athlete adult can generate 75W on a stationary bicycle without much struggle (see here for a nice graph), but to keep up 150W is more of a struggle. If you've been to a science museum with one of those light arrays powered by a stationary, you'll know what I mean. So a hand crank generates significantly less than a stationary bicycle, so don't hold your breath for a hand crank that can generate even 30 watts. There are hand crank (or squeeze) chargers for cell phones, but that is a much lower draw than laptops that Slashdotters are likely to tote.
This Joy of Tech comic from about a month ago seems prescient, particularly if someone really does commit suicide.
We've had some questions for our affirmitive action office about whether or not we are permitted to Google applicants for positions at our institution (our searches are very formalized and monitored closely as to the procedures.) The replies were that as long as we were doing basically the same amount of web searching on each of the applicants, it was fine. So it has added a fair amount of possible information about many of our candidates. It is interesting to see how people present themselves in possibly quite different lights for different settings. I don't think web presence has ever had a profound difference on our hiring decisions, but it certainly helped get an idea about possibly what to expect from people before flying them to visit for an interview.
The sad thing is that many many people will keep their AOL accounts, despite the price increase, since they don't like the idea of changing their email address. It is a huge hassle to change your email address with all the various e-tailers, login-only sites, etc. and no matter how careful you are, there will be a few you forget. I lost several shareware registrations and my old 4-digit Slashdot account this way years ago when a university account expired on me, oh well. And then the idea that friends/relatives will try to email your old address and not get you- ugh, the horror! So there is a huge amount of inertia, particularly amoung people who've had only one email address their whole life (for example, many AOLers.) And AOL is milking this inertia. People aren't going to switch to another ISP, which may well raise their rates in a while, if the hassle of dealing with a new email address is high.
One thing that was troubling about that site (no idea how credible it is, BTW) is that only one physical processor is supported on all the home versions, so you may need to spring for the "Ultimate" or one of the business versions for dual-processor support. That seems like a big limitation to me.
The site said 3 windows/applications for the Starter version, not 3 processes. Three applications or windows is quite crippling, but not as crippling as just 3 processes.
In the late 80s- early 90s Stanford had a fair number of "TV classrooms" used for interactive classes, with some of the students participating via satellite link. There was outbound video and audio and inboard audio for remote students to ask questions. I don't know how things are today, but then the classrooms had little microphone handsets at the desks, so when you asked a question, you had to press the button so that people out in "TV land" could hear your question. Some faculty asked at the beginning of class, "Anyone out there in TV land today?" and there would be a pause, then a cackling "Hello from Monolithic Memory in Boise, Idaho" or more often, someone from a local valley firm. So there would occassionally be questions from those students and some genuine participation. These were mostly for low-level grad classes with big enrollments and I think it worked well for the companies- they could pay (generously) for engineers getting masters degrees without the hassle of them leaving their company office complex. So it didn't interrupt their workday much, certainly not as much as going from Idaho to Palo Alto would do!
In this interview, Carey explains why SCO has no case, predicts the open source legal fields of battle for 2006 and discusses SCO's claims against Novell. Carey chairs the Business Practice Group of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP, an intellectual property law practice in Boston, Mass. Carey's IT background includes a stint as a programmer for the city of New York.
What's the linchpin of SCO's anti-Linux legal battle?
Thomas Carey: The key to the case is that IBM specifically negotiated with SCO a clause that permitted it to use the same programmers who saw the Unix code to make competing products. This was documented as part of a transaction in which SCO was paid lots of money. SCO conveniently left that clause out of its explanation of the facts. But in the long run, it will not be able to hide from that concession.
The result is, absent literal copying of meaningful amounts of Unix into Linux, SCO has no case. None. Nada. Zilch.
Is there any significance to the timing of SCO's renewed activity in its anti-Linux lawsuits?
Carey: [It's] quite possible the renewed activity results from the recent completion of a PIPE [Private Investment in Public Equity] offering by SCO, giving it the funds to proceed more vigorously than before.
Has SCO actually shown that its UnixWare System V code exists in SuSE Linux or another distribution?
Carey: SCO has not shown that its code exists in Linux. SCO now seems to be grounding its case on 'unauthorized disclosures', which is a very different kettle of fish than copied code.
What are the implications of SCO's suit against Novell for Novell/SuSE customers?
Carey: The implications are generally the same as they are for Red Hat customers, except that Novell has some superior legal standing because of their presence in the chain of title to Unix.
But this really misses the main point, which is that SCO's lawsuit is a lost cause. The implications for Linux users are rather like the implications for passengers on an ocean liner of a seagull diving into the water nearby. A physicist might be able to measure the perturbation, but the passenger feels nothing.
SCO went after, with lawsuits, Linux customers before. Do you foresee this happening again?
Carey:This might happen again. Hitler fought World War II until the Allies had nearly overrun his bunker. As long as investors are willing to provide the cash, SCO will sue because that is their business model. They will likely go after smaller companies as a means of controlling the cost of litigation.
Last summer, it came out that an outside consultant, Bob Swartz, conducted an audit for SCO that showed that no SCO code was used in Linux. Why do you think that CEO Darl McBride still proceeded with lawsuits against IBM and Novell?
Carey: The facts concerning this analysis are not very clear. The consultant apparently did find some overlapping code, but came to the conclusion that it was not significant. You can understand how opinions on this might differ. In addition, the audit may have been inadequate to determine whether or not there were derivative works contained in Linux.
I think that the strategy behind SCO's legal actions was to generate recurring licensing revenue from thousands of Linux users who would pay up on the theory that the license fee would be cheap insurance against a lawsuit. The strategy failed.
When will SCO's suits come to a conclusion? Why are they taking so long?
Carey: A trial date has been set for February, 2007. There may be more delays. The factual investigation associated with the development of so many lines of code is very time-consuming.
What does the Novell case mean to other Linux vendors and to corporations using Linux?
Carey: It means much less than the IBM case. Novell presents an interesting, but far-fetched, reason why SCO might have little right to pursue the claims it is pursuing. The IBM case is likely to determine that the claims themselves are baseless; not because IBM didn't
In my experience, the days of walking away from MacWorld/etc lugging bags full of stuff you actually want ended in about 2000 or so. Yes, there is still reasonable stuff but the scale is quite reduced from those crazy late 90s shows.