No, no... what we're talking about here goes even further than that. Essentially, we should be able to access data anywhere seamlessly!
Every user gets to define their own namespace, and everything happens in the background. Different views of data are handled by "translators" that present it in the way you need it.
So how long did it take, then? It took more than 300,000 people over 4 years to crack it. Ballpark an actual computing time figure for me.
Granted, it's an IEEE Spectrum article...
on
Engineer in a Box?
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· Score: 1
I do understand it was published in Spectrum, and therefore it's focus must be understandably narrow, but I think Robert Lucky is having a problem remembering that there's more to Engineering than, "transistors and wires."
I am not yet a licensed P.Eng, but I would like to think I'm qualified (it's a matter of opinion without certification, as far as I'm concerned) in my field of Mechanical Engineering.
A lot of things we deal with in the Mech. field really require scale model and real world testing. There are very few packages available outside of an NCSA facility to accurately model real world gas flow characteristics -- you can get a pretty good approximation, but beyond that, testing is the best way to make final conclusions.
The same holds true for a lot of stress modelling, and things like Finite Element Analysis. There are some really good tools, but they're still only a decent approximation.
I know that without actual testing, there's a very good chance I'm gonna have a connecting rod or an entire piston blast out through the hood of a car. It seems to me like Mr. Lucky[1] seems to be struggling with some greater issues than a decline in other engineers' math skills.
I've sat and thought for quite some time about the advances in simulation and modelling, and the quality and quantity of tools that are available in Engineering. But I deal with "real"[2] things -- cranks and pulleys, gears and levers, heat transfer and fluid flows, forces and moments -- and they're not going away any time soon.
[1]I feel really bad about it, but I laughed when I typed out his name. Man, I hope these named anchors work.
[2]I mean no disrepect to engineers in other fields (software, electrical). What I mean is they deal in far more intangible concepts than I ever come across.
In the aero engineering department on campus, there's this great airflow problem analysis that begins, "Assume a horse of spherical shape and uniform surface composition..."
Since design work began in the early '70s, the U.S. has spent about $180 billion on the Space Shuttle program. What do we have to show for it?
Oh, how about major advances in many areas of science and technology, such as materials science, aerodynamics, propulsion... or were they developed independently of that $180B?
Should anyone working on a Space Elevator work to reinvent the wheel in areas where the amassed body of knowledge has already been covered by other projects? No?
A lot has been taken away from the Space Shuttle program to be applied in other fields, significantly increasing the bang-for-your-buck factor of a lot of things we can take for granted when we start new projects.
It's a good step in the right direction -- I'd personally like to see more and better sources of renewable energy developed and deployed. I'm not, however, overly zealous about the replacement of our current technology. That's another matter.
Either way, if you really want to spend hours digging through all manner of excellent research and papers on alternate fuels, feel free to peruse the US Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Centre.
Call me crazy, but I'm not so much one for reinventing the wheel.
Why don't OpenROOT and OpenRSC work together? That would take, what? All of ten minutes to configure, and `diff db.root-openroot db.root-osrc` to audit.
I suspect I already know the answer to 'Why don't they..."
On the same note, let's actually take the quote from the article:
"[It is hard] to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month."
Now, maybe I'm still making a mistake converting between whatever Brits think a billion is and 10^9, but that still put the figures in the/. post off by anywhere from a factor of at least 6 orders of magnitude.
If you want to get a bit fancier, add a feedback system to the registry, like ebay. And throw in a blacklist feature for those that want to make or hear accusations. There are all kinds of things a motivated group could do...
This is a Peer-To-Peer network -- you need to stop and think about your network.
In the scaenario you describe, the 'registry' would have to exist in totality on each P2P device that connects to the network, allowing it to operate autonomously and share its information with whatever other members of the network with which it come in contact.
They would then have to update their 'registry'... ad infinitum. You also run into problems like concurrent updates and version control, deciding precedence, etc.
And on a handheld device with limited storage to boot.
Well if 5-10 percent of all cases of diabetes are the childhood type 1 kind, that still leaves about 1.2 million people who develop the disease through no significant fault of their own (or as the case may be, their parents)... 1.2 million people is not "nearly always".
Rephrase:
90-95% is nearly always.
Semantic? Maybe. Rhetoric? Yes. A case of personal bias colouring the language involved?
The Canadian dollar is worth less, so it stands to reason that the equipment costs more for the Canadian providers (because they take in canadian $, not us $) . . .
There's a couple of very good reasons why high-speed service is a lot cheaper in Canada, and neither of them are the relative strength of the Canadian dollar.
First and foremost, we have the CRTC. Those guys are in charge of regulating the Telecommunications industry, and they do a pretty good job (for the most part).
Secondly, the major difference between telecom in Canada and the US is that phone companies in the US are run in their respective states. In Canada, telecommunications are regulated across Canada as a whole, which allows for lower overhead so far as providing amalgamated service to the entire country.
Whew. Way too hot (25C+) in the office this evening. I hate working weekends; can't think straight. If anyone else comes up with something, feel free to, you know, discuss...
In Newfoundland, I got, for $29.95 (US$20), cable, real DHCP IP (rarely changed)...
Much as dislike the idiots that run Rogers@Home, they do manage to come through on a couple things.
In Ottawa, I pay $80CDN/month (wassat today? ~$60US?) for all the cool channels except for the Movie Network, and cable internet access: DHCP (IP has yet to change after 16 months), no ports blocked, bad-ass looking LanCity modem... decent deal, if you ask me. The internet access itself is $40CDN.
I thought about other things, but @Home is the only real choice for anyone around here that wants a higher upload cap.
As for the CRTC: Personally, I love the CRTC. They do seem to have their shit together, so to speak. They're quite well informed on this "Internet Thing" so far as I can tell.
So, we have here a definition that makes servers talking to PC's a P2P relationship. . . hmm. . . don't ftp, and http, and nfs fall into this category? Of course they do.
This does not bode well.
"Washington (AP): Earlier today, Al Gore, creator of the Internet, launched a lawsuit against the P2P working group for copyright infringement..."
NetPD didn't give the details about how they got those names because it's very likely that they did it illegally.
Oh, come on.
Do you honestly expect NetPD would undertake criminal activity in gathering information for legal action, knowing full well that it may be used as evidence during a trial?
And don't get on about the fifth amendment. Canadians always wonder why you're asking our Parliament to sit at least twice a year. *g*
Not to be redundant, but I think Mr. Ulrich[1] addressed this quite well when he talked about the difference between a centralised and decentralised method of distribution.
[1]It always bothered me, calling people I don't know by their first names.
Slashdot Mirror
Fine. I'll call Project Gutenberg and get them to purge the archives.
No, no... what we're talking about here goes even further than that. Essentially, we should be able to access data anywhere seamlessly!
Every user gets to define their own namespace, and everything happens in the background. Different views of data are handled by "translators" that present it in the way you need it.
We'll call it "Plan 9 from Bell Labs."
So how long did it take, then? It took more than 300,000 people over 4 years to crack it. Ballpark an actual computing time figure for me.
I am not yet a licensed P.Eng, but I would like to think I'm qualified (it's a matter of opinion without certification, as far as I'm concerned) in my field of Mechanical Engineering.
A lot of things we deal with in the Mech. field really require scale model and real world testing. There are very few packages available outside of an NCSA facility to accurately model real world gas flow characteristics -- you can get a pretty good approximation, but beyond that, testing is the best way to make final conclusions.
The same holds true for a lot of stress modelling, and things like Finite Element Analysis. There are some really good tools, but they're still only a decent approximation.
I know that without actual testing, there's a very good chance I'm gonna have a connecting rod or an entire piston blast out through the hood of a car. It seems to me like Mr. Lucky[1] seems to be struggling with some greater issues than a decline in other engineers' math skills.
I've sat and thought for quite some time about the advances in simulation and modelling, and the quality and quantity of tools that are available in Engineering. But I deal with "real"[2] things -- cranks and pulleys, gears and levers, heat transfer and fluid flows, forces and moments -- and they're not going away any time soon.
[1]I feel really bad about it, but I laughed when I typed out his name. Man, I hope these named anchors work.
[2]I mean no disrepect to engineers in other fields (software, electrical). What I mean is they deal in far more intangible concepts than I ever come across.
In the aero engineering department on campus, there's this great airflow problem analysis that begins, "Assume a horse of spherical shape and uniform surface composition..."
Oh, how about major advances in many areas of science and technology, such as materials science, aerodynamics, propulsion... or were they developed independently of that $180B?
Should anyone working on a Space Elevator work to reinvent the wheel in areas where the amassed body of knowledge has already been covered by other projects? No?
A lot has been taken away from the Space Shuttle program to be applied in other fields, significantly increasing the bang-for-your-buck factor of a lot of things we can take for granted when we start new projects.
Well, why don't you read up on the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative? That should answer your questions.
Either way, if you really want to spend hours digging through all manner of excellent research and papers on alternate fuels, feel free to peruse the US Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Centre.
Oil combusts in my engine, as it should.
You're half right. The problem is shipping non-free software along with a Free distribution.
This is called 'bundling' (c.f. The Problem we had with Microsoft All Along).
I'm sure the FSF would have no problems if free software and non-free software were made available seperately.
Why, that's a fantastic idea. I think I'll set a good long-term goal for myself and ratify the Kyoto Protocol at my earliest convenience.
Wait... hang on...
I think the true proof of our adaptability will be harnessing the power of the Evas to avoid a Third (or more!) impact.
Apparently, it was the Angels the first coule of times, but I think we may be leading ourselves down a dangerous path to our own destruction...
Call me crazy, but I'm not so much one for reinventing the wheel.
Why don't OpenROOT and OpenRSC work together? That would take, what? All of ten minutes to configure, and `diff db.root-openroot db.root-osrc` to audit.
I suspect I already know the answer to 'Why don't they..."
On the same note, let's actually take the quote from the article:
/. post off by anywhere from a factor of at least 6 orders of magnitude.
"[It is hard] to believe that 500 billion tonnes of ice sheet has disintegrated in less than a month."
Now, maybe I'm still making a mistake converting between whatever Brits think a billion is and 10^9, but that still put the figures in the
500 million billion tonnes? 500 billion tonnes.
!!
Man, what a small friggin' world. And yeah, I guess we are pretty cool.
I am, however, a Big Fat Jerk.
This is a Peer-To-Peer network -- you need to stop and think about your network.
In the scaenario you describe, the 'registry' would have to exist in totality on each P2P device that connects to the network, allowing it to operate autonomously and share its information with whatever other members of the network with which it come in contact.
They would then have to update their 'registry'... ad infinitum. You also run into problems like concurrent updates and version control, deciding precedence, etc.
And on a handheld device with limited storage to boot.
Rephrase:
90-95% is nearly always.
Semantic? Maybe. Rhetoric? Yes. A case of personal bias colouring the language involved?
Most definitely.
There's a couple of very good reasons why high-speed service is a lot cheaper in Canada, and neither of them are the relative strength of the Canadian dollar.
First and foremost, we have the CRTC. Those guys are in charge of regulating the Telecommunications industry, and they do a pretty good job (for the most part).
Secondly, the major difference between telecom in Canada and the US is that phone companies in the US are run in their respective states. In Canada, telecommunications are regulated across Canada as a whole, which allows for lower overhead so far as providing amalgamated service to the entire country.
Whew. Way too hot (25C+) in the office this evening. I hate working weekends; can't think straight. If anyone else comes up with something, feel free to, you know, discuss...
I'll bite... why 34601?
24601 was Jean Valjean's prioner number (as was Sideshow Bob's).
All you need now is the Water Company, and you can charge even more in rent!
Much as dislike the idiots that run Rogers@Home, they do manage to come through on a couple things.
In Ottawa, I pay $80CDN/month (wassat today? ~$60US?) for all the cool channels except for the Movie Network, and cable internet access: DHCP (IP has yet to change after 16 months), no ports blocked, bad-ass looking LanCity modem... decent deal, if you ask me. The internet access itself is $40CDN.
I thought about other things, but @Home is the only real choice for anyone around here that wants a higher upload cap.
As for the CRTC: Personally, I love the CRTC. They do seem to have their shit together, so to speak. They're quite well informed on this "Internet Thing" so far as I can tell.
This does not bode well.
"Washington (AP): Earlier today, Al Gore, creator of the Internet, launched a lawsuit against the P2P working group for copyright infringement..."
Oh, come on.
Do you honestly expect NetPD would undertake criminal activity in gathering information for legal action, knowing full well that it may be used as evidence during a trial?
And don't get on about the fifth amendment. Canadians always wonder why you're asking our Parliament to sit at least twice a year. *g*
[1]It always bothered me, calling people I don't know by their first names.