Hydrocarbons we've got. Hydrocarbons != net energy. The stuff with thousand to one energy return is long gone. Oil sands have a net energy of about 4:1. just enough to support extraction AND support some additional activity. It's the "AND" that's shrinking as we slide down the net energy cliff. Adding more oil, natural gas or brown coal with lousy net energy doesn't help that, no matter how much we find. Oil is a special case, unfortunately. The world's "just-in-time" supply chain is totally dependent on plentiful, cheap petroleum fuels. Supply chains break in a nonlinear fashion as feedback kicks in. So the recent innumerate popular press happy-talk is all very well and good. If the numbers are real and not political, it may put off the day of reckoning by 40 years, but almost certainly no longer than that.
And please, please, before you reply, please at least try using google and a calculator.
...to scare away the evil spirits. "Haven't seen any this year, have you?" he would always ask. "Must have worked," he opined further. This story was told to a Mexican cabbie who in all seriousness replied that my father was being silly, and that all you had to do was throw water out the back door to scare evil spirits away for the year. Who knew?
FYI, my father was an electronics engineer whose tongue was often so far in his cheek that it might have protruded from the vulgar aperture.
1) A browser that could keep up. If that can't be done, then one that responds to me WHILE IT'S RENDERING THE PAGE AND NOT WHEN IT'S DONE. Seriously. The browser does NOT matter. I do. If I change my mind, it can goram well stop what it's doing and say, "So sorry sir, let me drop this silly process and go do what you want done now." It's just a machine, after all.
2) A tablet that actually selects the item where my finger hit. My Samsung phone with much smaller type and links can do this wonderfully. My Acer tablet often gets it within 1/4 inch or so.
The strategies Steele is using are the same as those used by all large corporations. Only if his lawyers were stupid in setting it up will there be a problem.
I’d rather take the risk of being wrong than not be talking about that.'" OK, you're wrong. One aspect of the raw, awfulness that is anonymous internet commentary is far more important than polite reasoned discourse. It represents the true feelings of the participants, unhindered by social inhibitions and cultural conditioning. It is digital drunkenness, and like drunkenness, often reveals ugly facts about human nature, which remain facts, nonetheless.
Perhaps you prefer the sweet simpering smiles of courtesy. I do not. I would rather know who and what people really are. Reality rules. Fantasy is for fools.
Ideally, we'd all sit in a room and model our system, identify the classes, define all the member functions, embed all the unit tests, error conditions and comments first, and then as an afterthought, fill in the code.
The requirements of the real world, of course, make this impossible. The real world says, "get it out on time and good enough to make money."
And so we must construct the Death Star as a purely defensive weapon to protect the good people of the USA. Given the expense of of this operation, in the next few days, I will sent to congress a proposal, raising the debt ceiling limit to 20 gazillion dollars and that we finance the construction of our American Death Star with the sale of the new "Homeland Security Bonds." Rest assured, all contracts will go to American defense contractors that employ American workers.
With your help and support, YES WE CAN defend ourselves from this latest Alderaanian threat. Thank you, good night and God bless America.
...to run all this wonderful equipment. You can stabilize fuel, of course, but not forever. Eventually, you'll have to change it out, and dispose of the old stuff.
Quite frankly, old nuclear power plants that don't use passive safety systems and depend on grid electricity are an accident waiting to happen. A far better idea would be to design and build new plants
Of the lefty flavor, but no matter that. He's not dealing with the reality of human behavior, which is, "I'd like to get paid for writing this software." or "laying those bricks" or "baking that delicious pie." All software free for all people all the time is the pipe dream of a teenager. Capitalism flourishes for a reason.
Either their marketing and sales department is just dumb OR the software development divisions have so much internal clout that they don't have to listen. I'm betting on the latter.
You want your platform to succeed? You need apps. You want a lot of apps quickly, you'd better make it EASY EASY EASY to port existing apps from other popular platforms to your new platform. Preferably, with one click. Another solution would be a near perfect OS emulator. However you do it, you have to do it.
The Fuck You development culture of Microsoft says "No. Go recode and don't bother me with your problems. You're just an ISV after all. The only people we care about are large business customers." The other obvious characteristic that's becoming obvious is the assumption of success. MS obviously has no plan B. No backup to boost sales or make the platform desirable. It's "We're Microsoft. Here it is. Take it or leave it."
Frankly, I don't see how Microsoft is going to last another 10 years this way.
Next up: Laissez-faire capitalism vs. drug laws, gambling and prostitution. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. air and water pollution that effects everyone. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. food safety inspection. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. building safety inspection. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing the import of foreign drugs. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing insurance companies to compete across states and countries. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing banks and major financial institutions to fail. Laissez-faire capitalism vs. subsidies for the oil, gas and nuclear industries. Reducing the size and scope of government vs. abortion and gay marriage.
Good God, someone was *paid* to do a study to figure this out? Oh, by the way, sex education doesn't reduce masturbation or pre-marital sex either. And ads from the RIAA don't stop music piracy. In other news, nobody trust banks, politicians or other forms of mafia.
Whatever dimwit argued that the Surface needed that "perception of value" should be fired, after being publicly humiliated and dressed like a duck while giving an apologetic speech on national TV. As a $249 loss leader distributed through Wal-Mart, it would have succeeded and at least gotten significant share while more expensive, un-lame versions with better displays, 4G, and so on. Microsoft can't compete on quality with Apple. What's left is either price, or a significant value add (e.g. free Verizon phone service for a year or free unlimited internet via some national hotspot company). Instead, they want.... more money. It's as if the effort was *intended* to fail.
for anyone running for office. I'm sorry, but in a modern world, if you can't do arithmetic, don't have a basic comprehension of the sciences or have an IQ under 100, you are simply not fit for office. Admittedly, this would decimate our current crop of politicians, however, I rather look forward to them all getting jobs more aligned with their natural talents. My house needs cleaning and my grass needs cutting, after all.
The biggest limiter on our economy in the US these days is hydrocarbon fuel availability. More accurately, hydrocarbon ENERGY availability. Conflating hydrocarbon supply with energy supply is misleading. NET energy yields have been declining since the first wells were drilled and it doesn't take a genius to understand that Canadian bitumen as hard as a hockey puck that has to be steam heated just to be extracted is going to yield less net energy than a West Texas well less than a thousand feet deep that yields light sweet crude. This has some oddly counter-intuitive implications. We could actually increase our oil supply by a great deal and only barely increase our aggregate energy supply by pursuing very low energy yield hydrocarbons.
The MacOS UI peaked in like '86 and hasn't changed since. Because they had sense enough to leave well enough alone. At a certain point, there's not much you can do to improve a mouse-screen-keyboard interface. The easiest interface to use is THE ONE YOU ALREADY KNOW.
Slashdot Mirror
Hydrocarbons we've got. Hydrocarbons != net energy. The stuff with thousand to one energy return is long gone. Oil sands have a net energy of about 4:1. just enough to support extraction AND support some additional activity. It's the "AND" that's shrinking as we slide down the net energy cliff. Adding more oil, natural gas or brown coal with lousy net energy doesn't help that, no matter how much we find. Oil is a special case, unfortunately. The world's "just-in-time" supply chain is totally dependent on plentiful, cheap petroleum fuels. Supply chains break in a nonlinear fashion as feedback kicks in. So the recent innumerate popular press happy-talk is all very well and good. If the numbers are real and not political, it may put off the day of reckoning by 40 years, but almost certainly no longer than that.
And please, please, before you reply, please at least try using google and a calculator.
...to scare away the evil spirits. "Haven't seen any this year, have you?" he would always ask. "Must have worked," he opined further. This story was told to a Mexican cabbie who in all seriousness replied that my father was being silly, and that all you had to do was throw water out the back door to scare evil spirits away for the year. Who knew?
FYI, my father was an electronics engineer whose tongue was often so far in his cheek that it might have protruded from the vulgar aperture.
My tablet wishes are:
1) A browser that could keep up. If that can't be done, then one that responds to me WHILE IT'S RENDERING THE PAGE AND NOT WHEN IT'S DONE. Seriously. The browser does NOT matter. I do. If I change my mind, it can goram well stop what it's doing and say, "So sorry sir, let me drop this silly process and go do what you want done now." It's just a machine, after all.
2) A tablet that actually selects the item where my finger hit. My Samsung phone with much smaller type and links can do this wonderfully. My Acer tablet often gets it within 1/4 inch or so.
The strategies Steele is using are the same as those used by all large corporations. Only if his lawyers were stupid in setting it up will there be a problem.
But you too are a real phenomenon. Psychopaths exist. It's a fact that must be accepted and factored into human interactions.
I’d rather take the risk of being wrong than not be talking about that.'"
OK, you're wrong. One aspect of the raw, awfulness that is anonymous internet commentary is far more important than polite reasoned discourse. It represents the true feelings of the participants, unhindered by social inhibitions and cultural conditioning. It is digital drunkenness, and like drunkenness, often reveals ugly facts about human nature, which remain facts, nonetheless.
Perhaps you prefer the sweet simpering smiles of courtesy. I do not. I would rather know who and what people really are. Reality rules. Fantasy is for fools.
Ideally, we'd all sit in a room and model our system, identify the classes, define all the member functions, embed all the unit tests, error conditions and comments first, and then as an afterthought, fill in the code.
The requirements of the real world, of course, make this impossible. The real world says, "get it out on time and good enough to make money."
Brilliant strategy on Facebook's part. They make money on both sides.
and can work without a constant supply of gasoline (unlikely), would be desirable too.
And so we must construct the Death Star as a purely defensive weapon to protect the good people of the USA. Given the expense of of this operation, in the next few days, I will sent to congress a proposal, raising the debt ceiling limit to 20 gazillion dollars and that we finance the construction of our American Death Star with the sale of the new "Homeland Security Bonds." Rest assured, all contracts will go to American defense contractors that employ American workers.
With your help and support, YES WE CAN defend ourselves from this latest Alderaanian threat. Thank you, good night and God bless America.
Fusion is nifty, but Thorium has already been done (and is being done overseas). It's more likely to yield results in the short to medium term.
...to run all this wonderful equipment. You can stabilize fuel, of course, but not forever. Eventually, you'll have to change it out, and dispose of the old stuff.
Quite frankly, old nuclear power plants that don't use passive safety systems and depend on grid electricity are an accident waiting to happen. A far better idea would be to design and build new plants
Of the lefty flavor, but no matter that. He's not dealing with the reality of human behavior, which is, "I'd like to get paid for writing this software." or "laying those bricks" or "baking that delicious pie." All software free for all people all the time is the pipe dream of a teenager. Capitalism flourishes for a reason.
Either their marketing and sales department is just dumb OR the software development divisions have so much internal clout that they don't have to listen. I'm betting on the latter.
You want your platform to succeed? You need apps. You want a lot of apps quickly, you'd better make it EASY EASY EASY to port existing apps from other popular platforms to your new platform. Preferably, with one click. Another solution would be a near perfect OS emulator. However you do it, you have to do it.
The Fuck You development culture of Microsoft says "No. Go recode and don't bother me with your problems. You're just an ISV after all. The only people we care about are large business customers." The other obvious characteristic that's becoming obvious is the assumption of success. MS obviously has no plan B. No backup to boost sales or make the platform desirable. It's "We're Microsoft. Here it is. Take it or leave it."
Frankly, I don't see how Microsoft is going to last another 10 years this way.
The kids won't get the reference.
They'll soon have to fire *everybody.*
Next up:
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. drug laws, gambling and prostitution.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. air and water pollution that effects everyone.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. food safety inspection.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. building safety inspection.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing the import of foreign drugs.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing insurance companies to compete across states and countries.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. allowing banks and major financial institutions to fail.
Laissez-faire capitalism vs. subsidies for the oil, gas and nuclear industries.
Reducing the size and scope of government vs. abortion and gay marriage.
Cheers!
Why yes, it is. http://bit.ly/s57NL9
Actually, if other countries want an internet they can control, they can roll their own. I'm OK with not being able to see North Korea's internet.
Wouldn't you?
Good God, someone was *paid* to do a study to figure this out? Oh, by the way, sex education doesn't reduce masturbation or pre-marital sex either. And ads from the RIAA don't stop music piracy. In other news, nobody trust banks, politicians or other forms of mafia.
Whatever dimwit argued that the Surface needed that "perception of value" should be fired, after being publicly humiliated and dressed like a duck while giving an apologetic speech on national TV. As a $249 loss leader distributed through Wal-Mart, it would have succeeded and at least gotten significant share while more expensive, un-lame versions with better displays, 4G, and so on. Microsoft can't compete on quality with Apple. What's left is either price, or a significant value add (e.g. free Verizon phone service for a year or free unlimited internet via some national hotspot company). Instead, they want.... more money. It's as if the effort was *intended* to fail.
No wait. Hedge fund managers would eat their own young. Without salt.
for anyone running for office. I'm sorry, but in a modern world, if you can't do arithmetic, don't have a basic comprehension of the sciences or have an IQ under 100, you are simply not fit for office. Admittedly, this would decimate our current crop of politicians, however, I rather look forward to them all getting jobs more aligned with their natural talents. My house needs cleaning and my grass needs cutting, after all.
The biggest limiter on our economy in the US these days is hydrocarbon fuel availability. More accurately, hydrocarbon ENERGY availability. Conflating hydrocarbon supply with energy supply is misleading. NET energy yields have been declining since the first wells were drilled and it doesn't take a genius to understand that Canadian bitumen as hard as a hockey puck that has to be steam heated just to be extracted is going to yield less net energy than a West Texas well less than a thousand feet deep that yields light sweet crude. This has some oddly counter-intuitive implications. We could actually increase our oil supply by a great deal and only barely increase our aggregate energy supply by pursuing very low energy yield hydrocarbons.
The MacOS UI peaked in like '86 and hasn't changed since. Because they had sense enough to leave well enough alone. At a certain point, there's not much you can do to improve a mouse-screen-keyboard interface. The easiest interface to use is THE ONE YOU ALREADY KNOW.