Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?
As someone who started developing applications for Windows in 1991 and stopped around 1999, I doubt it. Better let legacy applications (and the whole x86 mess too, BTW) fade away, they have gone far beyond their useful life.
'Scuse me, but insightful? Perhaps you're only thinking about commercial software, but do you have any idea how much money has been invested in internal Windows applications in companies and organizations all over the world? No, and neither do I -- but billions and billions ain't even close.
My prediction: Windows apps are going to fade away right along the time we see mainframe apps fade away -- which should be roughly at the time the CMB becomes undetectable!
First of all: what, exactly, do I owe to "the species"? Can the species enjoy a sunset, laugh at a joke, feel love or weep? Only individuals have those capacities, no matter whether we label them Homo Sap. I care whether what is good for me is also good for my neighbour, but I don't give a rodent's posterior whether it is bad for "Americans", "Europeans", "males", "females" or indeed "humans". I care a great deal about what is good for any individuals in there, though, even Americans!:-). Thus, I'm cautiously enthusiastic(!) about greater lifespans.
Second, the genetic variation we have today would remain in place given universal immortality (given that immortality treatments also reverse somatic DNA mutations). However, with environments changing, we'd have to introduce new variations ourselves, sure. Which we will.
Which brings me to my third point: whatever we do, Homo Sap as it is today will not be around indefinitely. We will die (of violence or accidents if not of disease or old age) eventually; our descendants will die; but nearly no species stay the same over megayear timespans. What is more: unless technological civilization is wiped out (and remains wiped out), our descendants are likely to diverge very quickly from the current Homo Sap norm. Mind children, anyone? Increased lifespans may be the only way of extending the existence of Homo Sapiens for at least a little while, if you're into that particular variety of primate.
Finally, minor quibbles aside (yeah, right, mercury may accumulate, and memories get full, but those are physical problems with potential remedies), longer lifespans will likely have effects on our outlook. Increased conservatism might be one effect -- but is that all bad? Do you consider environmentalism inherently evil? Sometimes, people even seem to acquire something eerily similar to wisdom as they age, overcoming the prejudices of their youth and middle years -- what if that trait became not the exception but the norm? I'd like to find out! What about you?
Yep, that's the answer. Swedish cities have been completely razed to the ground... let's see, we were last combatants in the Napoleonic wars, and last faced enemy action on our own soil when we lost Finland to Russia back in 1790. After which most of the contested ground moved outside our current borders, anyway. Clearly, that's the reason the US is lagging behind us!
OK, to be fair, I'm not happy about broadband penetration here (some mostly local government sponsored fiber, some cable, mostly ADSL2+), but at least it's not as bad as in the US. And, what the heck, we had a lot of Modernism-inspired razings of city cores during the 50's and 60's, to the extent that visitors to Stockholm frequently look at the concrete substitutions and commiserate on our war damages! But major effect on broadband penetration? Not really.
Have you guys even managed to get cellphone operators to agree on roaming, yet? My cellphone works fine all across Western Europe. Might regulations possibly be part of the problem?
Plus, considering that it's natural, with none of the weird side effects that come with most pharmaceuticals
Plant derived spices and general goodies (not least caffeine!) have evolved mostly to protect the plants themselves from a major threat by poisoning insects. Generally, naturally occurring substances tend to have more rather than fewer side effects. However, we and our animal forebears have also evolved some tolerance to all these yummy substances.
Jag tycker att du måste läser mer om Svenska och Norska.
Offtopic nitpick: "läsa", not "läser" ("att" marks infinitives); and the names of languages are not capitalized. But otherwise, good show! Another nitpick: the distance between the languages is more like between German and Dutch, unfortunately for the Nordic consensus...
"Ärans och hjältarnas språk, hur ädelt och manligt du rör dig!"
Recently there have been a number of finds of surprisingly large mammals that are much older than had previously been expected. They include a beaver like (pre)-mammal from the Jurassic that was almost half a metre long, discovered in 2004,/.../
Well, the inverse square law plus the low albedo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo/) of http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2002/39/aah3 638/aah3638.right.html/ most asteroids would necessitate an incredibly bright "light". Anyone feel like whipping out a napkin to do some calculations? I doubt if the visible spectrum would be better than radio wavelengths (after all, we're mainly after large objects, right?). I wonder what the design restrictions would be for a radar which has to wait several hours for an echo would be: I'd guess a fluorescent screen wouldn't be optimal!:-)
To improve results, you'd like to have at least two or preferably more observation points. Looking at NEO asteroid orbits http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits// projected onto the ecliptic is a scary sight. Looking at them in three dimensions is rather more reassuring.
Right now, I'd guess that Earth-based telescopes are the more economical alternative: easier to service, no pesky problem with energy supply or orbital station keeping. One drawback is that we need longer series of observations in order to resolve asteroidal orbits: hence the recurring "alarm bells" when a newly discovered asteroid rates high on the Palermo or Torino scales, only to be downgraded once more observations are matched to it.
It's not a theory but a collection of theories. The original five different-but-possibly-dual theories and handwaved 'M-theory', plus different flavours with added restrictions or extensions?
It's not by any means finished: for instance, finiteness hasn't been proven, and there is no explicit background independent formulation which yields GR spacetime?
The basic idea may seem simple, but is overlaid by a lot of kludges such as supersymmetry to eliminate tachyons and fluxes to get a positive cosmological constant?
In fact, it has only one constant, which is certaintly definable: it is the string tension.
But on the other hand, the topological variations on extra dimensions and fluxes add up to 10^500 different theories with different predictions. How does that make an improvement over the twenty variables of the standard model? Granted, string theory attempts to explain more, but...
/.../ all of the string theories are part of the same theory/.../
Really? Which? Does the mythical 'M-theory' exist other than as a big 'Maybe'? What does it look like? What predictions does it make? Substitute 'might be' for 'are' and add a 'conjectured' in front of 'theory'...
In short, string theory is not a totally contrived fudge/.../
Perhaps. But there seems to be a lot of contrivance in there.
Energy is proportional to mass times the square of your velocity -- an average car at 70 MPH/110 kph has a lot of momentum.
Which is a valid point except for two things, 1)Kinetic Energy isn't conserved 2)Momentum is proportional to the velocity not the square of the velocity(K.E. is). Oh the irony of "bad maths"
Um. To counter-pick another nit, that might qualify as bad physics, not maths. Kinetic energy has to be converted into quite a lot of heat energy (and, yes, broken chemical bonds as you leave the better part of your tires behind you) at the pitifully small interface with the road -- otherwise it stays quite conserved, thank you very much, right up to the point it starts to be used to deform the front, the engine, and your knees. And frankly, when you hit the car/tree/pedestrian/moose (hey, I'm a Swede!), the distinction between momentum and kinetic energy kinda loses its difference...
Any, y'know, um, kinda' relevant objections to my main point of respecting velocity and the inadequacy of monkey genes on a highway? Otherwise, I'll just pull over here at the next stop and let you brave gentlemen drive on to your indubitable glory...
Let's see: apart from the bad math [my theory, probably courtesy of US measures -- when are you guys going metric?:-)], have you actually ever looked into just how slowly even someone attentive reacts, let alone a commuter in a car? You know, Human 1.0 is implemented on meat, not fibre optics! Simplifying horrendously, it takes 200 ms even to become *aware* of something which is clearly distinguishable such as a brake light. Added to that you have deciding to act, the time to transmit the motor signal to hands and/or feet, apart from any extra time it takes to resolve an ambiguous situation (hmmm, this new shape... car... that appeared... behind the one which switched lanes... seems to be... going slower... standing still... oh NO!). And then it's physics time, where you'd better hope the road is dry and clean, your brakes fresh and your tyres in top condition, since you've got something like four palms' worth of control surface -- at best! Energy is proportional to mass times the square of your velocity -- an average car at 70 MPH/110 kph has a lot of momentum.
The Slashdot audience is supposed to be at least moderately technically minded. What engineer thinks that a 25 % (if that calculation had actually been correct!) safety margin suffices when lives are at stake?! Safety is 'stupid'? Don't get me wrong: you're very welcome to risk your own neck, but there happen to be other people on the road.
I'm curious, do people in the US actually aim for a mere two second interval? In the Nordic countries, we recommend at least a three second margin. Which is really far too little when the roads are icy and the sun is in your eyes during the long twilight. Nevertheless, even here, there always seems to be some optimist with a poor sense of maths, physics and psychology, who compensates with an inflated sense of his driving ability, sniffing at your tailpipe, just waiting for a chance to slam into you... which kinda makes you reluctant to slam on the brakes yourself, increasing the safety distance even more.
But of course I'm being silly: packing the highways solid to maximize road utilization is far more important than saving lives -- nor would such packing ever have any adverse effects such as complete highway gridlocks! Waves of compression and rarefaction...
Yeah, right. And heavier-than-air flying machines won't work, and if they did, they'd be much too expensive and dangerous for anyone.
You're dead on when considering the current state and economics of technology -- going to the Moon may be (and going Mars is certainly) too expensive for a sustained effort. Right now. However, with the parallel progress in any number of fields, such as materials science, computer aided design and simulation, energy related technologies (let's get some really efficient nukes into space!), what was impossible 80 years ago became possible as stunts for major governments 50 years ago, commercial propositions 25 years ago, and the playground of billionaires and even mere dirt-poor multi-millionaires today. If we were to dump our technical know-how back in time onto the Victorians, they still wouldn't have been able to afford building and operating commercial airplanes -- they just weren't rich enough for the infrastructure. That took a number of decades to roll out.
However, while I think you're wrong in specifics, I agree that automated solutions (despite all the shortcomings of IT) will be cost effective much sooner than all the infrastructure necessary to support huge protoplasmic bags of water and impurities such as yours truly. But nature abhors a vacuum (and we kinda like it!) -- where it's possible to go, someone will, eventually, if only through Brownian motion!
Really? A cloud of substellar mass can coalesce and overcome frictional heating counteracting the collapse through radiation pressure? I'd guess it would depend on its composition, which might be the surprise here.
As I recall (simplifying a lot from memory), the very first stars after the Big Bang were supermassive (100 solar masses or larger, like Eta Carinae today) since the primordial hydrogen/helium 75/25 (or thereabouts) mixture could not absorbe or radiate the heat away, unlike modern star formation, where there are not only heavier elements but also interstellar dust grains from earlier generations.
Gravity ain't that strong a force, cosmically speaking...
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who started developing applications for Windows in 1991 and stopped around 1999, I doubt it. Better let legacy applications (and the whole x86 mess too, BTW) fade away, they have gone far beyond their useful life.
'Scuse me, but insightful? Perhaps you're only thinking about commercial software, but do you have any idea how much money has been invested in internal Windows applications in companies and organizations all over the world? No, and neither do I -- but billions and billions ain't even close.
My prediction: Windows apps are going to fade away right along the time we see mainframe apps fade away -- which should be roughly at the time the CMB becomes undetectable!
First of all: what, exactly, do I owe to "the species"? Can the species enjoy a sunset, laugh at a joke, feel love or weep? Only individuals have those capacities, no matter whether we label them Homo Sap. I care whether what is good for me is also good for my neighbour, but I don't give a rodent's posterior whether it is bad for "Americans", "Europeans", "males", "females" or indeed "humans". I care a great deal about what is good for any individuals in there, though, even Americans! :-). Thus, I'm cautiously enthusiastic(!) about greater lifespans.
Second, the genetic variation we have today would remain in place given universal immortality (given that immortality treatments also reverse somatic DNA mutations). However, with environments changing, we'd have to introduce new variations ourselves, sure. Which we will.
Which brings me to my third point: whatever we do, Homo Sap as it is today will not be around indefinitely. We will die (of violence or accidents if not of disease or old age) eventually; our descendants will die; but nearly no species stay the same over megayear timespans. What is more: unless technological civilization is wiped out (and remains wiped out), our descendants are likely to diverge very quickly from the current Homo Sap norm. Mind children, anyone? Increased lifespans may be the only way of extending the existence of Homo Sapiens for at least a little while, if you're into that particular variety of primate.
Finally, minor quibbles aside (yeah, right, mercury may accumulate, and memories get full, but those are physical problems with potential remedies), longer lifespans will likely have effects on our outlook. Increased conservatism might be one effect -- but is that all bad? Do you consider environmentalism inherently evil? Sometimes, people even seem to acquire something eerily similar to wisdom as they age, overcoming the prejudices of their youth and middle years -- what if that trait became not the exception but the norm? I'd like to find out! What about you?
OK, to be fair, I'm not happy about broadband penetration here (some mostly local government sponsored fiber, some cable, mostly ADSL2+), but at least it's not as bad as in the US. And, what the heck, we had a lot of Modernism-inspired razings of city cores during the 50's and 60's, to the extent that visitors to Stockholm frequently look at the concrete substitutions and commiserate on our war damages! But major effect on broadband penetration? Not really.
Have you guys even managed to get cellphone operators to agree on roaming, yet? My cellphone works fine all across Western Europe. Might regulations possibly be part of the problem?
Plant derived spices and general goodies (not least caffeine!) have evolved mostly to protect the plants themselves from a major threat by poisoning insects. Generally, naturally occurring substances tend to have more rather than fewer side effects. However, we and our animal forebears have also evolved some tolerance to all these yummy substances.
Wow, I never realized Uhmerkins were starving that badly! One hesitates to contemplate what you'd look like well-fed...
Offtopic nitpick: "läsa", not "läser" ("att" marks infinitives); and the names of languages are not capitalized. But otherwise, good show! Another nitpick: the distance between the languages is more like between German and Dutch, unfortunately for the Nordic consensus...
"Ärans och hjältarnas språk, hur ädelt och manligt du rör dig!"
"Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093779/quotes
It seems we haven't quite reached the goal http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22563 2&cid=18270346 yet...
Well, the inverse square law plus the low albedo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo/) of http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full/2002/39/aah3 638/aah3638.right.html/ most asteroids would necessitate an incredibly bright "light". Anyone feel like whipping out a napkin to do some calculations? I doubt if the visible spectrum would be better than radio wavelengths (after all, we're mainly after large objects, right?). I wonder what the design restrictions would be for a radar which has to wait several hours for an echo would be: I'd guess a fluorescent screen wouldn't be optimal! :-)
To improve results, you'd like to have at least two or preferably more observation points. Looking at NEO asteroid orbits http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits// projected onto the ecliptic is a scary sight. Looking at them in three dimensions is rather more reassuring.
Right now, I'd guess that Earth-based telescopes are the more economical alternative: easier to service, no pesky problem with energy supply or orbital station keeping. One drawback is that we need longer series of observations in order to resolve asteroidal orbits: hence the recurring "alarm bells" when a newly discovered asteroid rates high on the Palermo or Torino scales, only to be downgraded once more observations are matched to it.
- It's not a theory but a collection of theories. The original five different-but-possibly-dual theories and handwaved 'M-theory', plus different flavours with added restrictions or extensions?
- It's not by any means finished: for instance, finiteness hasn't been proven, and there is no explicit background independent formulation which yields GR spacetime?
- The basic idea may seem simple, but is overlaid by a lot of kludges such as supersymmetry to eliminate tachyons and fluxes to get a positive cosmological constant?
But on the other hand, the topological variations on extra dimensions and fluxes add up to 10^500 different theories with different predictions. How does that make an improvement over the twenty variables of the standard model? Granted, string theory attempts to explain more, but... Really? Which? Does the mythical 'M-theory' exist other than as a big 'Maybe'? What does it look like? What predictions does it make? Substitute 'might be' for 'are' and add a 'conjectured' in front of 'theory'... Perhaps. But there seems to be a lot of contrivance in there.Any, y'know, um, kinda' relevant objections to my main point of respecting velocity and the inadequacy of monkey genes on a highway? Otherwise, I'll just pull over here at the next stop and let you brave gentlemen drive on to your indubitable glory...
The Slashdot audience is supposed to be at least moderately technically minded. What engineer thinks that a 25 % (if that calculation had actually been correct!) safety margin suffices when lives are at stake?! Safety is 'stupid'? Don't get me wrong: you're very welcome to risk your own neck, but there happen to be other people on the road.
I'm curious, do people in the US actually aim for a mere two second interval? In the Nordic countries, we recommend at least a three second margin. Which is really far too little when the roads are icy and the sun is in your eyes during the long twilight. Nevertheless, even here, there always seems to be some optimist with a poor sense of maths, physics and psychology, who compensates with an inflated sense of his driving ability, sniffing at your tailpipe, just waiting for a chance to slam into you... which kinda makes you reluctant to slam on the brakes yourself, increasing the safety distance even more.
But of course I'm being silly: packing the highways solid to maximize road utilization is far more important than saving lives -- nor would such packing ever have any adverse effects such as complete highway gridlocks! Waves of compression and rarefaction...
Yeah, right. And heavier-than-air flying machines won't work, and if they did, they'd be much too expensive and dangerous for anyone.
You're dead on when considering the current state and economics of technology -- going to the Moon may be (and going Mars is certainly) too expensive for a sustained effort. Right now. However, with the parallel progress in any number of fields, such as materials science, computer aided design and simulation, energy related technologies (let's get some really efficient nukes into space!), what was impossible 80 years ago became possible as stunts for major governments 50 years ago, commercial propositions 25 years ago, and the playground of billionaires and even mere dirt-poor multi-millionaires today. If we were to dump our technical know-how back in time onto the Victorians, they still wouldn't have been able to afford building and operating commercial airplanes -- they just weren't rich enough for the infrastructure. That took a number of decades to roll out.
However, while I think you're wrong in specifics, I agree that automated solutions (despite all the shortcomings of IT) will be cost effective much sooner than all the infrastructure necessary to support huge protoplasmic bags of water and impurities such as yours truly. But nature abhors a vacuum (and we kinda like it!) -- where it's possible to go, someone will, eventually, if only through Brownian motion!
Nope. With insufficient mass, the gas cloud won't collapse due to thermal heat radiation. Gas clouds aren't really sticky, and gravity is ridiculously weak. But I repeat myself: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193144 &threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=1584757 7#15849243
Really? A cloud of substellar mass can coalesce and overcome frictional heating counteracting the collapse through radiation pressure? I'd guess it would depend on its composition, which might be the surprise here.
As I recall (simplifying a lot from memory), the very first stars after the Big Bang were supermassive (100 solar masses or larger, like Eta Carinae today) since the primordial hydrogen/helium 75/25 (or thereabouts) mixture could not absorbe or radiate the heat away, unlike modern star formation, where there are not only heavier elements but also interstellar dust grains from earlier generations.
Gravity ain't that strong a force, cosmically speaking...