Actually there are tone of them. Infocom games used this method extensively. Happily (for them) it was a bit of a primitive DRM as they could write to disk where the typical DOS could not natively read from. You could not simply copy the disk to your hard-drive and expect to have a file you could execute.
The BIOS reads the disk and kick-starts the app. From there the compiled code is working directly with hardware registers - not an OS level abstraction.
Early graphics were like this because early OS had no way to natively support graphics. The early Kings Quest/Space Quest was very much like this. So you were stuck reading to and writing from graphic card memory and coding registers (assembly language) separate from the normal processor you were trying to target. It was pretty messy.
Just to give an idea of how close it was to the hardware, going from a PCjr to a PC 8086 to a PC80286 could easily result in needing 3 separate binary images to work.
No - BIOS is specifically a Basic Input Output System. OS is specifically an Operating System
An OS is an abstraction written to provide an interface between applications and hardware. It is specifically designed to manage memory, disk, devices, and the loading/unloading of applications. It is typically refereed to in simple terms as the "traffic cop".
OS-less platform is relying on code to be compiled to interface directly with the hardware. There is no abstraction level. There are no C libraries that can be linked together, because there is no OS to link and load models.
You can get away with this "in the cloud" because there are no hardware interfaces that need to be directly accessed. There is simply memory management which the application will be responsible for, and some sort general IO.
You are essentially programming a virtual micro controller - which just happens to have a boat-load of memory space.
But you (consumer you) have bought Blue Ray devices, you've consumed from the Apple walled garden, you've bought into Microsoft, you've spent money on Sony Products, you gave EA a couple of bucks... you suck.
You have supported the DRM pushers - and no - you didn't have to. You could have gone without. But instead you consumers choose to bend over backwards.
So stop your f'in Bellyaching and own up to the fact that DRM is your own fault.
I use StackOverflow pretty much daily. For the developers in my company it has become the go-to-source for us. Now (for quite a while actually) StackExchange (the parent site for StackOverflow) has opened up Area51, a place where you can propose your own "stackoverflow" for your favorite topic.
For instance, I work in the Healthcare IT world, so I started this:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/51758
It's a proposal for a site that focus on things like HL7, EMR integrations, Laboratory Information Systems, Mirth, Cloverleaf, etc... I think it will be a great resource.
Great - you've fixed it at the OS level and now you're saving a 64-bit integer into a DB-table that is expecting a 32-bit integer. Your app still explodes.
Also With today's virtualization, all that *legacy* Hardware is still running at 32-Bit, even if the actual hardware is 64-Bit, 128-Bit, or what-ever. Simple matter of updating your virtual systems to 64-Bit? No, because your software is paired with databases that expect values to be a certain size.
It's much harder problem then it's getting credit for and there will be systems that don't or can't get upgraded and will cause issues at some level. A large percentage of the issue will probably be very subtle and hidden (hard to find / non-obvious).
From the MarsCuriosity Twitter account - which I assume to be targeting a more "social" audience to include scientist, space-fans, back-yard astronomers, and people who may or may not know or get "soil science".
Oct. 9: Shiny Object Update: My team continues to assess a small object on ground, likely a shred of benign plastic Oct 12: All Shook Up: Dusted off my sampling system this week & investigated a mysterious "FOD" Oct 15: Time for a third scoop... and a second look. Investigating newfound bright material on Mars Oct 18: Distinctly Martian: Just had my 1st taste of Red Planet regolith. Mineral analysis underway Nov 2: I found clues to changes in Mars' atmosphere, but no methane... yet. More observations planned Nov 21: What did I discover on Mars? That rumors spread fast online. My team considers this whole mission "one for the history books" . Nov 29: Everybody, chill. After careful analysis, there are no Martian organics in recent samples. Update Dec 3
The whole twitter account is there to make mundane rock observation sound interesting to someone (anyone) who is not a (astro-) geologist. If "Curiosity" is excited, so should be everyone who follows. 128 characters is barely enough to convey a message, much less "tone" - but readers will inject their own tone - which is dangerous for an agency that wishes not to release any data with less than 5 9s of precession.
*maybe* in key markets. $15/$20 million in a many-Muti $100 million election (about $700 million per candidate) is still not enough for a nation-wide campaign. (http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance)
And more to my point - which is that only lasts for one election and you really need 3 strong election cycles before your 3rd party starts to garner serious non-fringe momentum.
I thought the whole deal is that he WASN'T predicting the outcome... he was merely stating the odds of candidates success.
In this way, no matter what happened, his statements could not be disproved by the outcome.
For instance. If Obama had a 85% chance of winning (or 95% which I think is what he stated), had Obama lost, that alone does not disprove his calculation. Because there is still a 15% (or 5%) chance of Romney winning.
The pundits hated this, not because he was making a bold prediction, but because they interpreted his statement as "a landslide" - while also using weasel words to hedge his bets.
If you understand logic, theory, and statistics, you'd probably go along with his hypothesis. Otherwise you were probably a Republican who distrusts liberals, numbers, and science.
He garnered lots of press, and took a large percentage of the republican party and small percentage of the centrist. And then his movement got hi-jacked by Pat Buchanan and subsequently died just as it (really) got started.
If the Reform Party was able to sustain its original message (which was almost entirely fiscal in nature) (and not fall back on trying to woo the far right wing which is what happened) for 12 years (3 presidential election cycles) - it *may* have been able to be the first true 3rd party in our generation. Instead it became little more than a conservative platform for those who couldn't garner respect from the Republican party. It's really the precursor to the Tea Party movement - which has become an ultra-right wing conservative wolf in libertarian clothing - and which is on the verge of ditching the disguises all-together now that they've been called out (As long as Fox News approves or directs them to do so)...
"...My observation is that while there are third-party candidates that attract attention, rarely do their positions fall into the political spectrum somewhere that would allow them to gain a majority....."
This has been my view (and frustration). Green party is too liberal, Tea party is too conservative. The RINOs and Blue Collar Democrats are the candidate that probably fit my view the best.
Socially Liberal / Libertarian, fiscally conservative. What party is that? Leave government out of my personal affairs - including deciding on who I can marry or whether the women in my wife are able to make certain medical decisions. Don't spy on me unless you have a warrant, reform the patent system in way that protects the consumer and small businesses. At the same time, be smart with my money; don't blindly accept unions, do invest in projects that advance the state (science, infrastructure that propels business, education that can prove that it is educating) don't simply piss it away on a military project because it happens to provide jobs in a favorite senator's state, but do invest at the levels the military is requiring.
This all seems like common sense to me... but I realize that other peoples common sense may differ....
All these games share something in common. Arrange graphics to tell the computer how to achieve a goal. They require thought, problem/puzzle solving, are addictive through positive reinforcement, and teach that the computer will do exactly what you tell it to do.
They are just hard enough that 5/6 year olds, with very little coaching, will be able to figure out how to play the games. Puzzles get progressively harder at each turn. Each of them add an amount of basic physics to the learning.
My 6 year old love's Bad Piggies. I wish I had a copy of Lemmings to give him.
There is literally nothing that will unseat Windows on the PC. Yes there will be pockets of Mac users and even smaller pockets of Linux users, but Windows IS the PC. Especially in the corporate environment.
BUT...there is a way to get all your legacy apps, in the corporate environment, on an android phone. Citrix has a mobile app "viewer". And it drives the point home very quickly. For as awesome as it is (and it is awesome to be able to use RDP and PUTTY from your phone) it sucks. There are two problems here. 1. Legacy apps are not made to run on the small footprint. 2. Small footprints don't run legacy apps well.
It doesn't matter who does it better - every implementation of a legacy app on a tablet or phone will suck.
But Google, FB, Apple, Amazon are NOT about the past. They are about the future. And that's why MS best days are behind them. Yes - MS will continue to dominate the PC (much like Fox dominates cable). But just as there is a huge demographic shift away from cable that means that Fox will dominate a platform that nobody cares about, MS will continue to dominate a platform that is used "only when it has to be".
Developers aren't stupid. They develop for the people - and today's business is in a huge paradigm shift called "BYOD" (Bring your own device).... and nobody is bringing their own desktop....
Dyson assumed that all alien civilizations are stupid enough to believe in infinite growth....
I don't know anything about Dyson, but based on our "civilization" we don't "believe" in infinite growth... we just grow to point where our growth is no longer sustainable. There is no belief or consciousness involved. Sure you you may have individuals warning about the "tipping point" of the world the civilization lives in... but until the tipping point is reached there is little the civilization can do to stop its growth. That's life in general. Every population grows until it can't. When it's over populated it shrinks. When no resources can be consumed, it dies. Populations growth will always be towards equilibrium with what-ever its surrounding can support.
If a population is advanced enough to build a a dyson sphere, and a dyson sphere is the only way to survive, then a dyson sphere will be built or the population will decrease towards 0 until the population stabilizes (which very well may be at "0").
But regardless there is no belief here. There is no concerted attempt to grow infinitely. Just ask a deer or fruit-fly. They have no clue what you're asking...but their population will certainly increase when it can and decrease when it has to.
Clearly Android users are more satisfied than iOS users.
That may be a slight against the OS or it may be a slight against the user base.
The Samsung commercial pretty much sums it up. iOS users are willing to camp out for a phone that has features that other phones have had for months/years. A person who is willing to camp-out for a phone is either a person who is not satisfied with their existing phone or(and) not a person who is easily satisfied - while at the same time hold their phone as a type of idol.
You could argue (I would) that even in this example of trees (and of cancer) that evolution IS the change of populations over time. Our bodies and those of trees are made up of a population of cells. The cells genetics changes due to a number of factors, and the those changes can be replicated to new cells. Cancer is the perfect example of this in our own bodies. Now it seems that Tree's go through this as well.
It would be interesting to see if the evolution of cells in a tree keeps the tree population relatively static, Vs. if the homogeneous make up of animal cells made them more prone to rapid change at the population level.
<quote><p>or years, the U.S. has been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs to China because of the vastly cheaper labor pool. But now, several different technologies have ripened to the point where U.S. companies are bringing some operations back home.</p></quote>
<p>These two sentences don't mesh in the way I think you meant them to. The new technologies may allow companies to bring the OPERATIONS back home, but not the JOBS. If anything, they will allow many manufacturing operations still in the U.S. to cut even more jobs (though not send them overseas).</p></quote>
That's a great point. However it's not the end of civilization. Just the end of purely conservative capitalism and the solidification of social capitalism.
The model is Qatar and Kuwait (and I suppose Alaska) - governments that pay their citizens simply for being citizens. There are no income taxes - just corporate taxes (or state-owned industry). Education, health, etc is paid for by the state. Most labor is performed by immigrant labor (and hypothetically robots). The economy is capitalistic, but tied closely with the government.
In the US we try to squeeze our money out of individuals and let the corporations ride free. This model will need to flip-flop once desk-top manufacturing is the norm. Corporations will need to pay based on revenue - not net-income.
Yes we will all be on welfare. If that means we get to live the life of a Saudi Prince, maybe it won't be so bad?
He is a freak of nature on his own - possibly the best cyclist ever born.
And smart. His TDF wins were very calculated. He didn't race regularly except to prepare for the Tour. He didn't attempt to win every stage, just conserved his energy for most of the month and took the 1-3 stages (he had to - if he had to). So he would crank out great Time Trials putting him up 2-3 minutes, and then tuck into the peloton and let his team keep him safe.
However the fact that the freak of nature could ALSO use testosterone certainly raises questions for athlete who CAN'T use testosterone.
The ONION had a great faux story a couple of years ago:
I like the Stock vs Open analogy. NASCAR, Indy, Formula1, NHRA have it right.
There are rules for different classes of racers (athletes). Stock is very strictly controlled where as Open allows for major modification.
The "professional" sports are really "professional athletic entertainment". Conversely the Olympics are the best "amateurs" - at least until the 1990s when they opened the sports up to the "Dream Team" professionals.
The Olympics can pretend all day long that they are serious about drug enhanced performance, but if they want to prove it then get ride of the professionals. Take away the money and you're left with those fighting for the podium, which there will continue to be cheaters, but at least you're getting rid of those who are making a living off of cheating.
These pros have their venues - and those who want to compete in a clean environment should have the Olympics.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually there are tone of them. Infocom games used this method extensively. Happily (for them) it was a bit of a primitive DRM as they could write to disk where the typical DOS could not natively read from. You could not simply copy the disk to your hard-drive and expect to have a file you could execute.
The BIOS reads the disk and kick-starts the app. From there the compiled code is working directly with hardware registers - not an OS level abstraction.
Early graphics were like this because early OS had no way to natively support graphics. The early Kings Quest/Space Quest was very much like this. So you were stuck reading to and writing from graphic card memory and coding registers (assembly language) separate from the normal processor you were trying to target. It was pretty messy.
Just to give an idea of how close it was to the hardware, going from a PCjr to a PC 8086 to a PC80286 could easily result in needing 3 separate binary images to work.
-CF
No - BIOS is specifically a Basic Input Output System.
OS is specifically an Operating System
An OS is an abstraction written to provide an interface between applications and hardware. It is specifically designed to manage memory, disk, devices, and the loading/unloading of applications. It is typically refereed to in simple terms as the "traffic cop".
OS-less platform is relying on code to be compiled to interface directly with the hardware. There is no abstraction level. There are no C libraries that can be linked together, because there is no OS to link and load models.
You can get away with this "in the cloud" because there are no hardware interfaces that need to be directly accessed. There is simply memory management which the application will be responsible for, and some sort general IO.
You are essentially programming a virtual micro controller - which just happens to have a boat-load of memory space.
-CF
That Google choose what is pretty much the geographic center of the (continental) US to start this endeavor.
From Kansas City,
1500 miles to Google (Pacific ocean)
1000 miles to Atlantic ocean
660 miles to Canada
660 miles to Gulf of Mexico
And is uniquely situated, split between Kansas and Missouri.
Really does make for a great statement to grow the broadband infrastructure from the center out.
...consumers refuse to buy.
But you (consumer you) have bought Blue Ray devices, you've consumed from the Apple walled garden, you've bought into Microsoft, you've spent money on Sony Products, you gave EA a couple of bucks... you suck.
You have supported the DRM pushers - and no - you didn't have to. You could have gone without. But instead you consumers choose to bend over backwards.
So stop your f'in Bellyaching and own up to the fact that DRM is your own fault.
God damn you.
-CF
My home page for what seems like "forever". Not sure what I'm going to replace it with.
There are no ads on iGoogle and lots of linking to media outlets who have a hate/hate relationship with Google.
I suspect that played a role in its demise at some level.
-CF
From the docket:
" Plaintiff voluntarily dismisses, with out prejudice, all claims brought in this action"
http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MartinezVoluntaryDismissal.pdf
-CF
IMHO, PHP.net is THE reason why PHP is as successful as it is.
Very clear, excellent, thorough, concise documentation WITH user notes.
-CF
Here is how you ask questions about Stackoverflow - not about the content in stackoverflow. So yes. This is the documentation for Stackoverflow:
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/
-CF
I use StackOverflow pretty much daily. For the developers in my company it has become the go-to-source for us. Now (for quite a while actually) StackExchange (the parent site for StackOverflow) has opened up Area51, a place where you can propose your own "stackoverflow" for your favorite topic.
For instance, I work in the Healthcare IT world, so I started this:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/51758
It's a proposal for a site that focus on things like HL7, EMR integrations, Laboratory Information Systems, Mirth, Cloverleaf, etc... I think it will be a great resource.
Great - you've fixed it at the OS level and now you're saving a 64-bit integer into a DB-table that is expecting a 32-bit integer. Your app still explodes.
Also With today's virtualization, all that *legacy* Hardware is still running at 32-Bit, even if the actual hardware is 64-Bit, 128-Bit, or what-ever. Simple matter of updating your virtual systems to 64-Bit? No, because your software is paired with databases that expect values to be a certain size.
It's much harder problem then it's getting credit for and there will be systems that don't or can't get upgraded and will cause issues at some level. A large percentage of the issue will probably be very subtle and hidden (hard to find / non-obvious).
-CF
From the MarsCuriosity Twitter account - which I assume to be targeting a more "social" audience to include scientist, space-fans, back-yard astronomers, and people who may or may not know or get "soil science".
Oct. 9: Shiny Object Update: My team continues to assess a small object on ground, likely a shred of benign plastic
Oct 12: All Shook Up: Dusted off my sampling system this week & investigated a mysterious "FOD"
Oct 15: Time for a third scoop... and a second look. Investigating newfound bright material on Mars
Oct 18: Distinctly Martian: Just had my 1st taste of Red Planet regolith. Mineral analysis underway
Nov 2: I found clues to changes in Mars' atmosphere, but no methane... yet. More observations planned
Nov 21: What did I discover on Mars? That rumors spread fast online. My team considers this whole mission "one for the history books" .
Nov 29: Everybody, chill. After careful analysis, there are no Martian organics in recent samples. Update Dec 3
The whole twitter account is there to make mundane rock observation sound interesting to someone (anyone) who is not a (astro-) geologist. If "Curiosity" is excited, so should be everyone who follows. 128 characters is barely enough to convey a message, much less "tone" - but readers will inject their own tone - which is dangerous for an agency that wishes not to release any data with less than 5 9s of precession.
-CF
Sorry... after reading these posts I thought it was still 1987.....
-CF
*maybe* in key markets. $15/$20 million in a many-Muti $100 million election (about $700 million per candidate) is still not enough for a nation-wide campaign. (http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance)
And more to my point - which is that only lasts for one election and you really need 3 strong election cycles before your 3rd party starts to garner serious non-fringe momentum.
-CF
I thought the whole deal is that he WASN'T predicting the outcome... he was merely stating the odds of candidates success.
In this way, no matter what happened, his statements could not be disproved by the outcome.
For instance. If Obama had a 85% chance of winning (or 95% which I think is what he stated), had Obama lost, that alone does not disprove his calculation. Because there is still a 15% (or 5%) chance of Romney winning.
The pundits hated this, not because he was making a bold prediction, but because they interpreted his statement as "a landslide" - while also using weasel words to hedge his bets.
If you understand logic, theory, and statistics, you'd probably go along with his hypothesis. Otherwise you were probably a Republican who distrusts liberals, numbers, and science.
-CF
Yes, look what happened to Ross Perot.
He garnered lots of press, and took a large percentage of the republican party and small percentage of the centrist. And then his movement got hi-jacked by Pat Buchanan and subsequently died just as it (really) got started.
If the Reform Party was able to sustain its original message (which was almost entirely fiscal in nature) (and not fall back on trying to woo the far right wing which is what happened) for 12 years (3 presidential election cycles) - it *may* have been able to be the first true 3rd party in our generation. Instead it became little more than a conservative platform for those who couldn't garner respect from the Republican party. It's really the precursor to the Tea Party movement - which has become an ultra-right wing conservative wolf in libertarian clothing - and which is on the verge of ditching the disguises all-together now that they've been called out (As long as Fox News approves or directs them to do so)...
-CF
"...My observation is that while there are third-party candidates that attract attention, rarely do their positions fall into the political spectrum somewhere that would allow them to gain a majority....."
This has been my view (and frustration). Green party is too liberal, Tea party is too conservative. The RINOs and Blue Collar Democrats are the candidate that probably fit my view the best.
Socially Liberal / Libertarian, fiscally conservative. What party is that? Leave government out of my personal affairs - including deciding on who I can marry or whether the women in my wife are able to make certain medical decisions. Don't spy on me unless you have a warrant, reform the patent system in way that protects the consumer and small businesses. At the same time, be smart with my money; don't blindly accept unions, do invest in projects that advance the state (science, infrastructure that propels business, education that can prove that it is educating) don't simply piss it away on a military project because it happens to provide jobs in a favorite senator's state, but do invest at the levels the military is requiring.
This all seems like common sense to me... but I realize that other peoples common sense may differ....
-CF
Qu'est-il arrive' a' tous nos utilisateurs?
-CF
All these games share something in common. Arrange graphics to tell the computer how to achieve a goal. They require thought, problem/puzzle solving, are addictive through positive reinforcement, and teach that the computer will do exactly what you tell it to do.
They are just hard enough that 5/6 year olds, with very little coaching, will be able to figure out how to play the games. Puzzles get progressively harder at each turn. Each of them add an amount of basic physics to the learning.
My 6 year old love's Bad Piggies. I wish I had a copy of Lemmings to give him.
-CF
There is literally nothing that will unseat Windows on the PC. Yes there will be pockets of Mac users and even smaller pockets of Linux users, but Windows IS the PC. Especially in the corporate environment.
BUT...there is a way to get all your legacy apps, in the corporate environment, on an android phone. Citrix has a mobile app "viewer". And it drives the point home very quickly. For as awesome as it is (and it is awesome to be able to use RDP and PUTTY from your phone) it sucks. There are two problems here. 1. Legacy apps are not made to run on the small footprint. 2. Small footprints don't run legacy apps well.
It doesn't matter who does it better - every implementation of a legacy app on a tablet or phone will suck.
But Google, FB, Apple, Amazon are NOT about the past. They are about the future. And that's why MS best days are behind them. Yes - MS will continue to dominate the PC (much like Fox dominates cable). But just as there is a huge demographic shift away from cable that means that Fox will dominate a platform that nobody cares about, MS will continue to dominate a platform that is used "only when it has to be".
Developers aren't stupid. They develop for the people - and today's business is in a huge paradigm shift called "BYOD" (Bring your own device).... and nobody is bringing their own desktop....
-CF
Dyson assumed that all alien civilizations are stupid enough to believe in infinite growth....
I don't know anything about Dyson, but based on our "civilization" we don't "believe" in infinite growth... we just grow to point where our growth is no longer sustainable. There is no belief or consciousness involved. Sure you you may have individuals warning about the "tipping point" of the world the civilization lives in... but until the tipping point is reached there is little the civilization can do to stop its growth. That's life in general. Every population grows until it can't. When it's over populated it shrinks. When no resources can be consumed, it dies. Populations growth will always be towards equilibrium with what-ever its surrounding can support.
If a population is advanced enough to build a a dyson sphere, and a dyson sphere is the only way to survive, then a dyson sphere will be built or the population will decrease towards 0 until the population stabilizes (which very well may be at "0").
But regardless there is no belief here. There is no concerted attempt to grow infinitely. Just ask a deer or fruit-fly. They have no clue what you're asking...but their population will certainly increase when it can and decrease when it has to.
-CF
Clearly Android users are more satisfied than iOS users.
That may be a slight against the OS or it may be a slight against the user base.
The Samsung commercial pretty much sums it up. iOS users are willing to camp out for a phone that has features that other phones have had for months/years. A person who is willing to camp-out for a phone is either a person who is not satisfied with their existing phone or(and) not a person who is easily satisfied - while at the same time hold their phone as a type of idol.
-CF
You could argue (I would) that even in this example of trees (and of cancer) that evolution IS the change of populations over time. Our bodies and those of trees are made up of a population of cells. The cells genetics changes due to a number of factors, and the those changes can be replicated to new cells. Cancer is the perfect example of this in our own bodies. Now it seems that Tree's go through this as well.
It would be interesting to see if the evolution of cells in a tree keeps the tree population relatively static, Vs. if the homogeneous make up of animal cells made them more prone to rapid change at the population level.
-CF
<quote><p>or years, the U.S. has been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs to China because of the vastly cheaper labor pool. But now, several different technologies have ripened to the point where U.S. companies are bringing some operations back home.</p></quote>
<p>These two sentences don't mesh in the way I think you meant them to. The new technologies may allow companies to bring the OPERATIONS back home, but not the JOBS. If anything, they will allow many manufacturing operations still in the U.S. to cut even more jobs (though not send them overseas).</p></quote>
That's a great point. However it's not the end of civilization. Just the end of purely conservative capitalism and the solidification of social capitalism.
The model is Qatar and Kuwait (and I suppose Alaska) - governments that pay their citizens simply for being citizens. There are no income taxes - just corporate taxes (or state-owned industry). Education, health, etc is paid for by the state. Most labor is performed by immigrant labor (and hypothetically robots). The economy is capitalistic, but tied closely with the government.
In the US we try to squeeze our money out of individuals and let the corporations ride free. This model will need to flip-flop once desk-top manufacturing is the norm. Corporations will need to pay based on revenue - not net-income.
Yes we will all be on welfare. If that means we get to live the life of a Saudi Prince, maybe it won't be so bad?
-CF
Lance is a great example.
He is a freak of nature on his own - possibly the best cyclist ever born.
And smart. His TDF wins were very calculated. He didn't race regularly except to prepare for the Tour. He didn't attempt to win every stage, just conserved his energy for most of the month and took the 1-3 stages (he had to - if he had to). So he would crank out great Time Trials putting him up 2-3 minutes, and then tuck into the peloton and let his team keep him safe.
However the fact that the freak of nature could ALSO use testosterone certainly raises questions for athlete who CAN'T use testosterone.
The ONION had a great faux story a couple of years ago:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nondoping-cyclists-finish-tour-de-france,2268/
-CF
I like the Stock vs Open analogy. NASCAR, Indy, Formula1, NHRA have it right.
There are rules for different classes of racers (athletes). Stock is very strictly controlled where as Open allows for major modification.
The "professional" sports are really "professional athletic entertainment". Conversely the Olympics are the best "amateurs" - at least until the 1990s when they opened the sports up to the "Dream Team" professionals.
The Olympics can pretend all day long that they are serious about drug enhanced performance, but if they want to prove it then get ride of the professionals. Take away the money and you're left with those fighting for the podium, which there will continue to be cheaters, but at least you're getting rid of those who are making a living off of cheating.
These pros have their venues - and those who want to compete in a clean environment should have the Olympics.
-CF