Except, to "spin" the analogy, the wealthy tend to own the casino. The house always wins. You don't have a choice as to whether or not you play. Such situations led to labour riots in the 19th century (and to May Day becoming a labour celebration: it's a Chicago-born tradition!).
I'd hesitate to confuse taxation with its ultimate dispersal. For example, our health care system in Canada costs us about 2/3 of the U.S. system, the bulk of which can be traced to administrative costs. The U.S. also has spent about >$500 per capita (?very roughly) policing a Middle Eastern state with the consequence that oil production has almost halted there, very likely further increasing living costs at home.
(BTW. The U.S. hasn't experienced this "at the pump" yet because the oil companies produced gasoline for a month longer this year than they usually do, before switching to winter heating fuel. Huge gasoline inventories have kept its price down, but heating fuel has rocketed up in price. This doesn't seem to be common knowledge, but can be had from the U.S. EIA at the DOE.)
In both cases, money have been raised and spent to questionable effect. I fail to see why more careful spending earns dismissal with the venerable U.S. political epithet "left"...
Last I checked, the U.S. Government was "for the people, by the people", which lays the work firmly back in the lap of the people.
I hope that's still the case... I understand your point, I think, but surely individual, creative engagement is at the heart of the democracy that raises and spends those taxes?
I have actually experienced politicians fixing things. It was a remarkably easy and heartening experience. It wasn't even a politician from the party in control, either... but they fixed things... The handful of politicians I've know personally were actually hard-working, good folks I was pleased to have representing me in Parliament.
Point well taken. I was not intending "social policy" simply to include a transfer of wealth to the poor. Having known a couple of repeat offenders myself, I'd say there are a few things that can be done to help them, but often it does mean intensive supervision. At some point you have to be able to build a social structure where they find some motivation for restraint, and that's expensive. I would propose it is less expensive than merely locking them up (although jail is often necessary) in a significant number of cases.
Strong community structures (including families)? I agree completely. Do we not need to be prepared for the significant number of cases where this is not feasible? I'm also unnerved by some of the social judgements that get made in the name of promoting strong families.
Restraint from committing a crime, though, surely also entails more than simply internal factors, does it not? I'd be interested in some links to the research you cite. I recall that even genuinely sociopathic individuals can be given a motivational structure (and drugs) that inhibits anti-social behaviour.
I'm enjoying engaging my southern neighbors in a bit of sensible debate. It restores my confidence that there are reasonable people down there who think, and don't just vote with infantile reasons in mind. If you watch enough U.S. TV one does get the impression you've all been lobotomized...:-(
As C.D. Howe (1950's Canadian 'minister of everything') said: "Million? What's a million?"
The gun registry was too expensive, and a lot of that was bad IT, I understand. Sponsorship program: it cost me $8, worst case. Less than I spend on coffee on an average couple of days.
They make good media fodder, and the individual sums were impressive. I've seen worse waste in industry, even in a single company. I've also had a fair bit to do with our civil service lately, and I'll admit I've been very, very pleasantly impressed.
I've lived in better run countries (Switzerland) but we do fairly well, all things considered.
Perhaps to the "hard-core" cases I should have added "youth". You have to keep them busy. Local social cohesion can go a long way on that count, as does a clear recollection of what it was like to be an idiot teenager, a good family and a good community police force.
You raise a valid point, but may I suggest we are not that far apart: I wasn't proposing a blanket solution, just a well-tried one that reduces an overall risk.
Ah, the Wilsonian or the Lesser Wilsonian candidate? Neither represents a real change, in my opinion.
Utopia - derived from Latin meaning "nowhere". I refer you to various countries in the world with better social safety nets and lower crime.
My proposed ideas are not utopian in any sense, they are the public policies of countries where I have lived and experienced their success. They are also policies which apparently led me to pay lower taxes. I find it hard to dismiss a lower taxed, peaceful society as "leftist", but rather characterise it as "successful".
Um... actually, until the social programs of the 30's (e.g. the New Deal) kicked in, yes, the Great Depression did have the highest crime rate (using murders as a proxy, which I recall is the most reliable one since the definition has remained fairly constant).
I found one quick link
Murder in America at an apparently Libertarian web site. Obviously there were other factors, including the 1920's "War on Drugs" (prohibition).
I think you are making the error of confusing a statistical risk with an individual incident, controlling risk factors versus controlling individual behaviour. I also don't think "deserves" is warranted, I'm not about talking individual cause and effect, much less moral consequences. You can always put yourself in a situation where there is a statistically higher risk of problems. I think that everyone does well to manage those risk, but that will never stop individual incidents.
The Germans have a saying "Opportunity creates a theif".
I do believe that social policies do have a direct impact on social behaviour and expectations. There is a very fuzzy "line" that otherwise law-abiding people can be pushed over by circumstances. I'm saying that if there is a investment through social policy that pushes few people over than line then it can result in a net savings for society and fewer individual incidents.
I would point to the variance in risk in different countries as evidence.
I'll admit to a little intentionally provocative language...:-)
Yes, I'm not American, I'm Canadian. No, my taxes aren't higher than yours (lower than a lot of U.S. states) when health care is reckoned in. I am also someone who has never been in debt, always worked hard and smart, kept out of trouble. It sounds like you are someone I would respect immediately. I've done a lot of volunteer work and seen how there are folks who are unlucky and folks who are leeches. The leeches are less dangerous, sometimes even productive, if you keep them (minimally, but adequately) fed and sheltered and get them professional help. Despair is a horrible motivator for ill deeds...
I think you and I are actually nearly in perfect agreement.:-) Please, don't mistake my compassion for the unlucky and the leeches as entirely wide-eyed kindness. I just think it leads to an overall cheaper solution, one with a lower stress-cost on society.
Maybe I've also just got the happy feeling that my taxes are, on the 99% whole, well spent. I try to keep an eye on that...
Recognizing that crime is often (not always, but often) a product of personal desperation I vote for candidates who will do things like:
Reduce the gap between rich and poor by progressive taxation and ensuring every working person has a living wage.
Reduce the incentive to steal to support drug habits by making programs such as doctor-prescribed methadone (or even heroin) available.
Reduce the incentive to commit crime by reducing the factors that force people into desperate poverty, like making medical care universally available.
At first, it may seem that, economically, you are better off keeping more of your dollars in your pocket (especially if you need them to pay the fees for your gated compound or personal home defense equipment). There is another equilibrium, which does mean higher taxes but on the other hand, makes the streets safe and crime less common, which is to reduce the societal risk factors that promote crime. Most wealthy Americans, for whom gated life and home defense is a minor cost, call this "rampant tax and spend looney pinko socialism". Many Europeans call it "responsible government".
Admittedly, shooting the "perp" and/or throwing him in jail does lead to a satisfied feeling that you have avenged, say, your Mum's honour. As many non-white citizens of your country can tell you, and good research has shown, your current system does actually promote, rather than prevent, the crime you wish to stop (cf. recent Cringly article as a starting point).
Want a safer society? Make sure it's one where everyone has a genuine chance, which doesn't oppress you if you're poor/black/unlucky, which is based on sound research and reasoning about policy (not 4000-year old policies promulgated in middle-eastern nomadic herding societies). Keep the police around to keep the hard-core cases under control.
It takes a little longer, and you guys nearly had it in the 60's, but it's worth it.
"Intel's leading strained silicon technology, first implemented in its 90nm process technology, is further enhanced in the 65nm technology. The second generation of Intel strained silicon increases transistor performance by 10 to 15 percent without increasing leakage. Conversely, these transistors can cut leakage by four times at constant performance compared to 90nm transistors. As a result, the transistors on Intel's 65nm process have improved performance without significant increase in leakage (greater electrical current leakage results in greater heat generation)."
If you have to present ID that matches the name on the ticket then you cannot resell the ticket. It used to be the case that people would resell tickets they couldn't use. Now, depending on the type of ticket you didn't use, your money is either gone, locked in an airline account with one year to spend it on another ticket, back in your hands less 25%, or some other such "arrangement".
The airlines fight tooth and nail to prevent the expense of new "security" measures. If one is accepted it usually means that someone, somewhere is making solid profit on the scheme.
Human -> Liposuction unit -> Biodiesel unit -> engine...
The challenge then becomes one of shrinking the intermediate
stages between human and engine. Fat is our highest energy density
but we don't have the power density in our natural fat burning processes,
hence, time for a little help from technology.
It would make the invention practical for most Americans. Maybe
fast food chains would get behind the project...:-)
Basically for many (most) HPC applications it comes down to whether or not you have to do linear algebra (solve a linear system Ax=b, compute a singular value decomposition/eigenvalue system). If you don't then you probably have an "embarrasingly parallel" application on your hand and a network of trained monkeys or room of Ph.D. students could also do the job. Signal processing (SETI@home), discrete simulations (traffic), for example, fall into this category. If you need to solve a linear system (e.g. many fluid dynamics problems, non-linear systems usually reduce to a series of linear ones) then that's where Cray's big iron comes in.
The more you break up a linear system, which is a big (as in "big as you can fit in RAM"), perfectly dependent computation, the less efficient you get. Some studies have shown that clock-on-the-wall time stops improving after about 6 processors; that while efficiency plummets. If you're really lucky, some parts of your computation don't connect too strongly with others and you can decompose the problem without losing too much efficiency, but in the end you never get rid of dependency entirely.
So, yes, Mr. Terry has a point. For "embarrasingly parallel" applications a herd of 2048 penguins can pull the proverbial plow. For linear system problems, you get a better result with the big strong ox that Cray specializes in breeding.
We all flock to Switzerland for the knives...
on
USB Swiss Army Knife
·
· Score: 1
and the Swiss all flock to our side of the ocean to buy Leathermans... (no, really, they do!)
Ah... I meant in the sense of my rights (to fair use) being violated by the copyright holding company who is imposing a cryptographically enforced restriction. They use cryptography to "lock" (however ineffective that may be) me away from fair use. The "content" company may have, depending on the definition of fair use, committed a crime against me and used encryption technology to do so.
In many states there are fairly heavy penalties for using encryption in the commission of a crime. My question is: if a portable copy is within rights to fair use (as may be eventually decided in the courts), but the "locking" mechanism restricts my fair use rights, has a crime been committed? If so, what are the penalties for encryption having been used in the commission of that crime?
A colleague suggested that one... it might be an interesting avenue to pursue.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish it were trolling... I guess I've just experienced it differently.
I've drained a few really good pints south of the border too. Even in Chicago!
Except, to "spin" the analogy, the wealthy tend to own the casino. The house always wins. You don't have a choice as to whether or not you play. Such situations led to labour riots in the 19th century (and to May Day becoming a labour celebration: it's a Chicago-born tradition!).
I'd hesitate to confuse taxation with its ultimate dispersal. For example, our health care system in Canada costs us about 2/3 of the U.S. system, the bulk of which can be traced to administrative costs. The U.S. also has spent about >$500 per capita (?very roughly) policing a Middle Eastern state with the consequence that oil production has almost halted there, very likely further increasing living costs at home.
(BTW. The U.S. hasn't experienced this "at the pump" yet because the oil companies produced gasoline for a month longer this year than they usually do, before switching to winter heating fuel. Huge gasoline inventories have kept its price down, but heating fuel has rocketed up in price. This doesn't seem to be common knowledge, but can be had from the U.S. EIA at the DOE.)
In both cases, money have been raised and spent to questionable effect. I fail to see why more careful spending earns dismissal with the venerable U.S. political epithet "left"...
Last I checked, the U.S. Government was "for the people, by the people", which lays the work firmly back in the lap of the people.
I hope that's still the case... I understand your point, I think, but surely individual, creative engagement is at the heart of the democracy that raises and spends those taxes?
I have actually experienced politicians fixing things. It was a remarkably easy and heartening experience. It wasn't even a politician from the party in control, either... but they fixed things... The handful of politicians I've know personally were actually hard-working, good folks I was pleased to have representing me in Parliament.
Point well taken. I was not intending "social policy" simply to include a transfer of wealth to the poor. Having known a couple of repeat offenders myself, I'd say there are a few things that can be done to help them, but often it does mean intensive supervision. At some point you have to be able to build a social structure where they find some motivation for restraint, and that's expensive. I would propose it is less expensive than merely locking them up (although jail is often necessary) in a significant number of cases.
Strong community structures (including families)? I agree completely. Do we not need to be prepared for the significant number of cases where this is not feasible? I'm also unnerved by some of the social judgements that get made in the name of promoting strong families.
Restraint from committing a crime, though, surely also entails more than simply internal factors, does it not? I'd be interested in some links to the research you cite. I recall that even genuinely sociopathic individuals can be given a motivational structure (and drugs) that inhibits anti-social behaviour.
Perhaps you should run for office.
I'm enjoying engaging my southern neighbors in a bit of sensible debate. It restores my confidence that there are reasonable people down there who think, and don't just vote with infantile reasons in mind. If you watch enough U.S. TV one does get the impression you've all been lobotomized... :-(
No. :-) Individual charitable organisations can be effective, but rarely match the professionalism of a well run democratically-based effort.
As C.D. Howe (1950's Canadian 'minister of everything') said: "Million? What's a million?"
The gun registry was too expensive, and a lot of that was bad IT, I understand. Sponsorship program: it cost me $8, worst case. Less than I spend on coffee on an average couple of days.
They make good media fodder, and the individual sums were impressive. I've seen worse waste in industry, even in a single company. I've also had a fair bit to do with our civil service lately, and I'll admit I've been very, very pleasantly impressed.
I've lived in better run countries (Switzerland) but we do fairly well, all things considered.
Perhaps to the "hard-core" cases I should have added "youth". You have to keep them busy. Local social cohesion can go a long way on that count, as does a clear recollection of what it was like to be an idiot teenager, a good family and a good community police force.
You raise a valid point, but may I suggest we are not that far apart: I wasn't proposing a blanket solution, just a well-tried one that reduces an overall risk.
(Yes, there are/were cops in my family.)
Ah, the Wilsonian or the Lesser Wilsonian candidate? Neither represents a real change, in my opinion.
Utopia - derived from Latin meaning "nowhere". I refer you to various countries in the world with better social safety nets and lower crime.
My proposed ideas are not utopian in any sense, they are the public policies of countries where I have lived and experienced their success. They are also policies which apparently led me to pay lower taxes. I find it hard to dismiss a lower taxed, peaceful society as "leftist", but rather characterise it as "successful".
Um... actually, until the social programs of the 30's (e.g. the New Deal) kicked in, yes, the Great Depression did have the highest crime rate (using murders as a proxy, which I recall is the most reliable one since the definition has remained fairly constant).
I found one quick link Murder in America at an apparently Libertarian web site. Obviously there were other factors, including the 1920's "War on Drugs" (prohibition).
I think you are making the error of confusing a statistical risk with an individual incident, controlling risk factors versus controlling individual behaviour. I also don't think "deserves" is warranted, I'm not about talking individual cause and effect, much less moral consequences. You can always put yourself in a situation where there is a statistically higher risk of problems. I think that everyone does well to manage those risk, but that will never stop individual incidents.
The Germans have a saying "Opportunity creates a theif".
I do believe that social policies do have a direct impact on social behaviour and expectations. There is a very fuzzy "line" that otherwise law-abiding people can be pushed over by circumstances. I'm saying that if there is a investment through social policy that pushes few people over than line then it can result in a net savings for society and fewer individual incidents.
I would point to the variance in risk in different countries as evidence.
I'll admit to a little intentionally provocative language... :-)
Yes, I'm not American, I'm Canadian. No, my taxes aren't higher than yours (lower than a lot of U.S. states) when health care is reckoned in. I am also someone who has never been in debt, always worked hard and smart, kept out of trouble. It sounds like you are someone I would respect immediately. I've done a lot of volunteer work and seen how there are folks who are unlucky and folks who are leeches. The leeches are less dangerous, sometimes even productive, if you keep them (minimally, but adequately) fed and sheltered and get them professional help. Despair is a horrible motivator for ill deeds...
I think you and I are actually nearly in perfect agreement. :-) Please, don't mistake my compassion for the unlucky and the leeches as entirely wide-eyed kindness. I just think it leads to an overall cheaper solution, one with a lower stress-cost on society.
Maybe I've also just got the happy feeling that my taxes are, on the 99% whole, well spent. I try to keep an eye on that...
Recognizing that crime is often (not always, but often) a product of personal desperation I vote for candidates who will do things like:
At first, it may seem that, economically, you are better off keeping more of your dollars in your pocket (especially if you need them to pay the fees for your gated compound or personal home defense equipment). There is another equilibrium, which does mean higher taxes but on the other hand, makes the streets safe and crime less common, which is to reduce the societal risk factors that promote crime. Most wealthy Americans, for whom gated life and home defense is a minor cost, call this "rampant tax and spend looney pinko socialism". Many Europeans call it "responsible government".
Admittedly, shooting the "perp" and/or throwing him in jail does lead to a satisfied feeling that you have avenged, say, your Mum's honour. As many non-white citizens of your country can tell you, and good research has shown, your current system does actually promote, rather than prevent, the crime you wish to stop (cf. recent Cringly article as a starting point).
Want a safer society? Make sure it's one where everyone has a genuine chance, which doesn't oppress you if you're poor/black/unlucky, which is based on sound research and reasoning about policy (not 4000-year old policies promulgated in middle-eastern nomadic herding societies). Keep the police around to keep the hard-core cases under control.
It takes a little longer, and you guys nearly had it in the 60's, but it's worth it.
The actual Intel press release claims that:
"Intel's leading strained silicon technology, first implemented in its 90nm process technology, is further enhanced in the 65nm technology. The second generation of Intel strained silicon increases transistor performance by 10 to 15 percent without increasing leakage. Conversely, these transistors can cut leakage by four times at constant performance compared to 90nm transistors. As a result, the transistors on Intel's 65nm process have improved performance without significant increase in leakage (greater electrical current leakage results in greater heat generation)."
If you have to present ID that matches the name on the ticket then you cannot resell the ticket. It used to be the case that people would resell tickets they couldn't use. Now, depending on the type of ticket you didn't use, your money is either gone, locked in an airline account with one year to spend it on another ticket, back in your hands less 25%, or some other such "arrangement".
The airlines fight tooth and nail to prevent the expense of new "security" measures. If one is accepted it usually means that someone, somewhere is making solid profit on the scheme.
Here's your fuel cycle:
Human -> Liposuction unit -> Biodiesel unit -> engine...The challenge then becomes one of shrinking the intermediate stages between human and engine. Fat is our highest energy density but we don't have the power density in our natural fat burning processes, hence, time for a little help from technology.
It would make the invention practical for most Americans. Maybe fast food chains would get behind the project... :-)
I know Slashdot posts the occasional late story, but this is over 100 years old... that must be a record.
She used to travel a lot to China and it looks just like a Chinese intersection... except they all slam on the brakes right in the middle... :-!
Comes to think of it, Egypt... they don't call the horn the "Egyptian brake" for nothing...
There's an outfit called Woosh Wireless in New Zealand that looks like it is already looking to serve the kayaking market, as demonstrated by their chief executive, Bob Smith.
Personally, I whitewater kayak so need two hands on the paddle at all times and would need some seriously waterproof, shock-resistant gear. :-)
It's all fun and games until somebody loses and I-node...
Basically for many (most) HPC applications it comes down to whether or not you have to do linear algebra (solve a linear system Ax=b, compute a singular value decomposition/eigenvalue system). If you don't then you probably have an "embarrasingly parallel" application on your hand and a network of trained monkeys or room of Ph.D. students could also do the job. Signal processing (SETI@home), discrete simulations (traffic), for example, fall into this category. If you need to solve a linear system (e.g. many fluid dynamics problems, non-linear systems usually reduce to a series of linear ones) then that's where Cray's big iron comes in.
The more you break up a linear system, which is a big (as in "big as you can fit in RAM"), perfectly dependent computation, the less efficient you get. Some studies have shown that clock-on-the-wall time stops improving after about 6 processors; that while efficiency plummets. If you're really lucky, some parts of your computation don't connect too strongly with others and you can decompose the problem without losing too much efficiency, but in the end you never get rid of dependency entirely.
So, yes, Mr. Terry has a point. For "embarrasingly parallel" applications a herd of 2048 penguins can pull the proverbial plow. For linear system problems, you get a better result with the big strong ox that Cray specializes in breeding.
and the Swiss all flock to our side of the ocean to buy Leathermans... (no, really, they do!)
The grass is always greener... :-)
Ah... I meant in the sense of my rights (to fair use) being violated by the copyright holding company who is imposing a cryptographically enforced restriction. They use cryptography to "lock" (however ineffective that may be) me away from fair use. The "content" company may have, depending on the definition of fair use, committed a crime against me and used encryption technology to do so.
In many states there are fairly heavy penalties for using encryption in the commission of a crime. My question is: if a portable copy is within rights to fair use (as may be eventually decided in the courts), but the "locking" mechanism restricts my fair use rights, has a crime been committed? If so, what are the penalties for encryption having been used in the commission of that crime?
A colleague suggested that one... it might be an interesting avenue to pursue.