One of the big problems I encountered when I tried writing software for Linux, is that the kernel is common between all versions, but only allows a very low level of hardware abstraction, beyond that you're tied to certain desktop environments, with wildly varying APIs and feature support.
My particular problem at the time was modem support. In Windows you can tell Modem 02 to dial a number. And how to do it will be stored in the driver and registry entries. In Linux there is no sure way to even know if there is a modem connected to the PC, let alone on which port, what driver it needs and what it's commands are. You might get lucky by sending AT to any serial interfaces you find and hope for an OK response.
The same is true for drover of other stuff. The hardware abstraction level is just too low, forcing people to make a choice between KDE, Gnome, Java, and giving all kinds of overhead and compatibility problems.
This is why I strongly agree with the CEO of Red Hat that questioned Linux on the desktop although I think he was trying to gloss over the real problem with it. The problem with Linux is all the big corps spending good money on Linux are spending it for SERVER and not desktop roles. And all the major Linux developers are highly intelligent hackers to whom CLI is like home. To these groups and these developers GUI is simply a waster of resources and time. They can get more done faster and with less resources by simply opening bash and typing what they want the machine to do. And that is just fine, and why I say Linux will probably completely slaughter everyone else(including MSFT) in the server market.
The big problem why CLI is not a good option for the masses, is because it's only efficient if you know what commands you want to use. It's very poor at discovering how to solve your problem on the go if you don't know what the names of your commands are. Most GUI solutions on the other hand will have some kind of tree like organisation in what commands they support, usually a menu.
And there you have the real problem. You have a two party system because of district voting and winner takes all mechanics. District voting also ties the representatives closely to local interests instead of national concerns.
Next to that, people need to have access to large sums of money to run for office in the USA, creating a bias towards the wealthy.
I prefer multi party proportional representation over the US/UK style democracy as it's easier for a new political movement to gain a foothold and be relevant at the political stage. And in general voters have much more choice.
The disadvantage is that often coalition negotiations are needed to get a majority. The advantage of that on the other hand, is that most policies are compromises, filtering out the more extreme viewpoints.
I think that exactly your example, is where philosophy starts to become science. When you try to prove or disprove someone else's theory.
They didn't get very far, mostly because mathematics/algebra wasn't yet well developed enough, at least as far as physics goes, but they did I do think they started the transition from philosophy to science.
Also things like Eratosthenes calculating the size of the earth is starting to link observation and theory.
He basically argues that how well free markets work, depends on the speed of the information feedback.
My opinion is that free markets only work if the feedback mechanisms are relatively quick.
Given that the speed with markets can change is getting faster and faster, more and more markets have feedback mechanisms that are too slow to maintain equilibrium, and will go into a cycle of boom and bust.
The kind of actions that need to be taken to correct such situations, might not be the interest and bail-out instruments that see much use today.
My argument is that it's becoming easier to create bubbles the faster markets can react, because feedback times are fundamentally inherent in the markets it concerns.
It takes time to grow pigs, build houses, develop new technology, etc. Due to that, there is a latency in the feedback mechanisms, that's why equilibrium is never reached, and swings become faster and bigger, the if the market can react faster.
Not the looks, not the tech, not the numbers features or anything else.
Usability.
Their stuff is the easiest to use.
That's the core of the Apple magic. It's a combination of targeting the right market, ergonomics and interface design.
Their goal is to make devices that you never struggle with to get them to do what you want. They often succeed.
After having used Windows and Linux for decades, I'm since a year an Apple convert. And being a software developer myself, I am amazed again and again how well designed it is and how well it works and how good it is at not annoying me.
I think you're right, that in some sense Apple is more a fashion company than a tech company.
But I also think they're something else. Fashion usually wants to do it different and is often not very usable.
In contrast, what makes Apple good is the focus on usability over anything else. Yes it usually looks nice, but I feel that's often a by product of trying to make the most useful appliance not the goal.
I don't really know what to compare them to, I don't think there is a company in the world that focusses so much on usability as Apple does.
Philosophy, the Olympics, Mathematics, Democracy, the Republic, the Calendar, the Roman languages, Churches, Science, History, bricks, concrete, the astrolabe, the anchor, the pulley, catapults, dry dock, dice, the alphabet (well at least the writing of vowels), parchment, screw, the piston, the shock absorber, C-section, literature and theatre, census, daily newspapers, socks, scissors, candles, cranes, glass blowing, arches and domes, spiral staircases.
Most of it was "rediscovered" in the west during the Renaissance, in which renewed contacts with Islamic scientists and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire were a large contributing factor.
Very well said. Free markets stop working properly at some point: - If there are too few players. - If there is a large inertia in the investments.
You easily get Pork Cycles, which tend to oscillate out of control.
Too much unsecured credit in the system, has compounded the problem, because it has brought the banks themselves in trouble, and without banks there is no economy.
Usually economic problems are less severe, but this time it's the banks that are in trouble, and they supply the life-blood of the economy: Money.
That's why this crisis is developing so quickly and so severely.
At the heart of most economic crashes in the US over the past 2 centuries, there has been a supply of not properly secured credit though and the easy and cultural acceptance with which americans borrow large amounts of money. In this case the Us government has been a big contributing factor in borrowing huge sums to finance it's wars.
Because of the flaws in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act for fuel economy standards, and the Clean Air Act for emissions standards regulating them as light trucks, and the insanely cheap prices you pay in the US for oil.
The government let it happen by promoting the whole light truck thing. They are the cause that gas-guzzlers were in such high demand in the USA. Current and past administrations are to blame for promoting it, instead of acting to change it.
I haven't read all of the website you're linking too, but I don't really agree with a lot of the assumptions it makes.
I'll pick one, in that it says that according to Keynesian Economics and Karl Marx the boom and bust cycle is inherent in the system, is contradicting the assumption that the free market always tries to maintain equilibrium between supply and demand.
I think that the free market only works if the market is fully transparent and all players on it are known. Next to that, is assumes there is no inertia in investment.
This is why often recessions and depressions happen after a change in technology and subsequent over investment in it. For an emerging technology it's fundamentally hard to get a good idea of what the limit is on it's demand, and investment and supply of it keep growing until the real limit on demand is met. Due to the inertia of investment there will be an overshoot, creating the "bubbles".
We've had other crises when one party controlled supply, oil for example.
My country is known for one of the earliest boom-bust cycles, the Tulip Mania of 1637.
What I've seen if you look back in history is that most bubbles work like pyramid schemes, but not just with people spending their own money, but also borrowed money, in the hope that their profits in the scheme will have them repay the borrowed sum and have a profit.
As lending is culturally accepted and popular in the USA, most of the bubbles have been created in the USA, at least since the early 1800's. The credit crisis is a perfect example of this American tradition.
The mechanisms of the Tulip Mania is still alive today, but what happened in 1637 is one of the least complicated examples to study. It's closely linked to the mechanisms of the Pyramid scheme.
It's one danger of the stock market system, that it easily creates positive and negative feedback loops, instead of the equilibrium that market economy laws of supply and demand would suggest.
Not all crises are caused by such mechanisms, as I said, someone creating a monopoly and using it, can also create a crisis.
I think you underestimate how much effort and attention to detail goes into the Russian spaceship/parts/program.
Spaceflight is very complicated, mainly because of the need to keep things as lightweight as possible, while still able to withstand very high temperatures and forces.
As far as the shuttle goes. It's design is deeply flawed due to the extreme requirements that were put on it, but as far as execution goes, it's still a marvel of engineering, almost 30 years later.
I've did a master in material science, and the shuttle tiles still are taught as one of the most advanced materials ever developed by man. I currently work somewhere were we also develop technology to be used in unmanned space (space telescopes), and the amount of engineering that goes into it, due to all kinds of factors is huge.
You could say that the USA is the crime capital of the world, certainly the developed world. I think it's somewhat related to the high availability of firearms, but that can't be the entire story.
High punishment (including the death penalty!) doesn't seem to help.
I think to lower crime you have to work on three things: - Chance to get caught. - Opportunity. - Motivation.
I think the opportunity doesn't differ much from country to country, the other two do (availability of firearms might have an influence). I think that in the USA especially the motivation is an important factor, because compared to most western countries, there is a large number of people who have nothing to lose.
Uhuh, and that's why the USA has the most people in prison per capita in the entire world, but still very high crime rates. Severe punishment really helps.
The things is, any criminal will assume he's not going to get caught, or he would not do the crime, so the severity of the penalty is relatively unimportant, the chance of getting caught and the potential profit that can be made is where you can get at them.
My country pays about $2900 for healthcare per capita and provides universal coverage with that, while the US spends $5700 and still has a large part of it's citizens not covered.
And what I already said in another post, averages are tricky. ten people spending 11 vs nine spending 1 and one spending 101 gives the same average of spending 11, but the statistics are very different.
I think one of the problems facing the US is it's high and increasing differences in incomes and spending. How can you pay the most in the world for healthcare per capita, and still have a large part of the population unprovided for? Same thing for education.
I don't know if it's the average that counts here. My guess is that it could be that a part of the USA population gets very expensive education and a part gets very cheap/poor education.
I think your "average" might be misleading, in that it consist of a large group above it, and a large group below with, with few on the actual average.
I know that for healthcare in the US, there is a part that can afford it, but pays though the nose, and a part of the population that basically can't, this leads to healthcare that on average is twice as expensive per capita compared to most developed countries.
I don't know the details for the USA education, but I do know that for healthcare the USA spends the most in the world per capita, and still has a lot of citizens who don't even have basic healthcare coverage. http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm In contrast, here in the Netherlands we have "Basic healthcare", for which each citizen pays about 1000 euros, and which covers basically all illness, but not things like plastic surgery, rehab and such.
Very interesting numbers. I live in the Netherlands, and was always under the impression that the USA spending on education was low, given it's results.
I'm no expert on the Us educational system, but I have an alternative explanation. First you're talking averages. It could be that the spread between well and poorly funded schools is large.
I don't know the numbers in comparison with my country, I do know that for health care, the average US citizen spends about twice as much as the average Dutch citizen, and that gets the Dutch full nationwide healthcare for everybody, while still a large percentage of the Us is without health care coverage.
What I mean to say, is that the average numbers for the US on health care are a combination of a part of the citizens spending a lot more than the average Dutchman, and a part spending nearly nothing.
You can call it Socialist (why is that a bad word in the USA?), but all Dutch citizens pay about 1000 euro a year for their healthcare (So called "Basic insurance", not covering plastic surgery and such) Everyone is fully insured with that for any illness you have or might get.
For what I know about those Healthcare numbers, my guess is that the USA's higher average spending on education, could be a combination of a group of very well funded and a group of underfunded schools, not all schools being near the average.
"Lies, damn lies and statistics" is the quote that springs to mind.
It means you slap the disk in, run the installer, and go.
This is where you run into problems installing Linux software. There is no easy universal way to do "installer" on Linux. I've used Redhat, SuSE and Ubuntu a lot, and the devil is in the details. Simple things like/lib32 vs/lib vs/lib64, to things like how to get superuser/root permissions.
The Foundation movies need to be a bit like 2001 to be a success, they'd be very poor as action movies, but great as mind-game situations similar to 2001.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the big problems I encountered when I tried writing software for Linux, is that the kernel is common between all versions, but only allows a very low level of hardware abstraction, beyond that you're tied to certain desktop environments, with wildly varying APIs and feature support.
My particular problem at the time was modem support.
In Windows you can tell Modem 02 to dial a number. And how to do it will be stored in the driver and registry entries.
In Linux there is no sure way to even know if there is a modem connected to the PC, let alone on which port, what driver it needs and what it's commands are. You might get lucky by sending AT to any serial interfaces you find and hope for an OK response.
The same is true for drover of other stuff. The hardware abstraction level is just too low, forcing people to make a choice between KDE, Gnome, Java, and giving all kinds of overhead and compatibility problems.
This is why I strongly agree with the CEO of Red Hat that questioned Linux on the desktop although I think he was trying to gloss over the real problem with it. The problem with Linux is all the big corps spending good money on Linux are spending it for SERVER and not desktop roles. And all the major Linux developers are highly intelligent hackers to whom CLI is like home. To these groups and these developers GUI is simply a waster of resources and time. They can get more done faster and with less resources by simply opening bash and typing what they want the machine to do. And that is just fine, and why I say Linux will probably completely slaughter everyone else(including MSFT) in the server market.
The big problem why CLI is not a good option for the masses, is because it's only efficient if you know what commands you want to use. It's very poor at discovering how to solve your problem on the go if you don't know what the names of your commands are. Most GUI solutions on the other hand will have some kind of tree like organisation in what commands they support, usually a menu.
Both.
And there you have the real problem. You have a two party system because of district voting and winner takes all mechanics. District voting also ties the representatives closely to local interests instead of national concerns.
Next to that, people need to have access to large sums of money to run for office in the USA, creating a bias towards the wealthy.
I prefer multi party proportional representation over the US/UK style democracy as it's easier for a new political movement to gain a foothold and be relevant at the political stage. And in general voters have much more choice.
The disadvantage is that often coalition negotiations are needed to get a majority. The advantage of that on the other hand, is that most policies are compromises, filtering out the more extreme viewpoints.
I think that exactly your example, is where philosophy starts to become science. When you try to prove or disprove someone else's theory.
They didn't get very far, mostly because mathematics/algebra wasn't yet well developed enough, at least as far as physics goes, but they did I do think they started the transition from philosophy to science.
Also things like Eratosthenes calculating the size of the earth is starting to link observation and theory.
I don't agree. I basically agree with what AJWM writes here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1062295&cid=26123309
He basically argues that how well free markets work, depends on the speed of the information feedback.
My opinion is that free markets only work if the feedback mechanisms are relatively quick.
Given that the speed with markets can change is getting faster and faster, more and more markets have feedback mechanisms that are too slow to maintain equilibrium, and will go into a cycle of boom and bust.
The kind of actions that need to be taken to correct such situations, might not be the interest and bail-out instruments that see much use today.
My argument is that it's becoming easier to create bubbles the faster markets can react, because feedback times are fundamentally inherent in the markets it concerns.
It takes time to grow pigs, build houses, develop new technology, etc.
Due to that, there is a latency in the feedback mechanisms, that's why equilibrium is never reached, and swings become faster and bigger, the if the market can react faster.
Very well said. The site I was referencing claims it is a contradiction. I agree with you and consider the site the OP links to incorrect.
Apples key selling feature is usability.
Not the looks, not the tech, not the numbers features or anything else.
Usability.
Their stuff is the easiest to use.
That's the core of the Apple magic. It's a combination of targeting the right market, ergonomics and interface design.
Their goal is to make devices that you never struggle with to get them to do what you want. They often succeed.
After having used Windows and Linux for decades, I'm since a year an Apple convert. And being a software developer myself, I am amazed again and again how well designed it is and how well it works and how good it is at not annoying me.
I think you're right, that in some sense Apple is more a fashion company than a tech company.
But I also think they're something else. Fashion usually wants to do it different and is often not very usable.
In contrast, what makes Apple good is the focus on usability over anything else. Yes it usually looks nice, but I feel that's often a by product of trying to make the most useful appliance not the goal.
I don't really know what to compare them to, I don't think there is a company in the world that focusses so much on usability as Apple does.
Philosophy, the Olympics, Mathematics, Democracy, the Republic, the Calendar, the Roman languages, Churches, Science, History, bricks, concrete, the astrolabe, the anchor, the pulley, catapults, dry dock, dice, the alphabet (well at least the writing of vowels), parchment, screw, the piston, the shock absorber, C-section, literature and theatre, census, daily newspapers, socks, scissors, candles, cranes, glass blowing, arches and domes, spiral staircases.
Most of it was "rediscovered" in the west during the Renaissance, in which renewed contacts with Islamic scientists and the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire were a large contributing factor.
Very well said. Free markets stop working properly at some point:
- If there are too few players.
- If there is a large inertia in the investments.
You easily get Pork Cycles, which tend to oscillate out of control.
Too much unsecured credit in the system, has compounded the problem, because it has brought the banks themselves in trouble, and without banks there is no economy.
Usually economic problems are less severe, but this time it's the banks that are in trouble, and they supply the life-blood of the economy: Money.
That's why this crisis is developing so quickly and so severely.
At the heart of most economic crashes in the US over the past 2 centuries, there has been a supply of not properly secured credit though and the easy and cultural acceptance with which americans borrow large amounts of money. In this case the Us government has been a big contributing factor in borrowing huge sums to finance it's wars.
Because of the flaws in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act for fuel economy standards, and the Clean Air Act for emissions standards regulating them as light trucks, and the insanely cheap prices you pay in the US for oil.
The government let it happen by promoting the whole light truck thing. They are the cause that gas-guzzlers were in such high demand in the USA.
Current and past administrations are to blame for promoting it, instead of acting to change it.
I haven't read all of the website you're linking too, but I don't really agree with a lot of the assumptions it makes.
I'll pick one, in that it says that according to Keynesian Economics and Karl Marx the boom and bust cycle is inherent in the system, is contradicting the assumption that the free market always tries to maintain equilibrium between supply and demand.
I think that the free market only works if the market is fully transparent and all players on it are known. Next to that, is assumes there is no inertia in investment.
This is why often recessions and depressions happen after a change in technology and subsequent over investment in it. For an emerging technology it's fundamentally hard to get a good idea of what the limit is on it's demand, and investment and supply of it keep growing until the real limit on demand is met. Due to the inertia of investment there will be an overshoot, creating the "bubbles".
We've had other crises when one party controlled supply, oil for example.
My country is known for one of the earliest boom-bust cycles, the Tulip Mania of 1637.
What I've seen if you look back in history is that most bubbles work like pyramid schemes, but not just with people spending their own money, but also borrowed money, in the hope that their profits in the scheme will have them repay the borrowed sum and have a profit.
As lending is culturally accepted and popular in the USA, most of the bubbles have been created in the USA, at least since the early 1800's. The credit crisis is a perfect example of this American tradition.
The mechanisms of the Tulip Mania is still alive today, but what happened in 1637 is one of the least complicated examples to study.
It's closely linked to the mechanisms of the Pyramid scheme.
It's one danger of the stock market system, that it easily creates positive and negative feedback loops, instead of the equilibrium that market economy laws of supply and demand would suggest.
Not all crises are caused by such mechanisms, as I said, someone creating a monopoly and using it, can also create a crisis.
I think you underestimate how much effort and attention to detail goes into the Russian spaceship/parts/program.
Spaceflight is very complicated, mainly because of the need to keep things as lightweight as possible, while still able to withstand very high temperatures and forces.
As far as the shuttle goes. It's design is deeply flawed due to the extreme requirements that were put on it, but as far as execution goes, it's still a marvel of engineering, almost 30 years later.
I've did a master in material science, and the shuttle tiles still are taught as one of the most advanced materials ever developed by man.
I currently work somewhere were we also develop technology to be used in unmanned space (space telescopes), and the amount of engineering that goes into it, due to all kinds of factors is huge.
No, the problem is that
a) most bad guys don't get caught until they have done it a lot of times
I agree on this, but not on the other things. Everything else is irrelevant for the criminal as he assumes he will not get caught.
The second thing is opportunity. The easier it is to perform the crime, the more likely it is to happen.
The third one is motivation. People who don't have anything, and thus have nothing to lose, will be more likely to take the risks.
Most statistics show no relation between the severity of the punishments and crime rate. The USA has the most severe punishments in the western world and also the highest crime rate.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_adu_pro_percap-crime-adults-prosecuted-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_gun_vio_hom_fir_hom_rat_per_100_pop-rate-per-100-000-pop
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita
You could say that the USA is the crime capital of the world, certainly the developed world. I think it's somewhat related to the high availability of firearms, but that can't be the entire story.
High punishment (including the death penalty!) doesn't seem to help.
I think to lower crime you have to work on three things:
- Chance to get caught.
- Opportunity.
- Motivation.
I think the opportunity doesn't differ much from country to country, the other two do (availability of firearms might have an influence). I think that in the USA especially the motivation is an important factor, because compared to most western countries, there is a large number of people who have nothing to lose.
Uhuh, and that's why the USA has the most people in prison per capita in the entire world, but still very high crime rates. Severe punishment really helps.
The things is, any criminal will assume he's not going to get caught, or he would not do the crime, so the severity of the penalty is relatively unimportant, the chance of getting caught and the potential profit that can be made is where you can get at them.
They would just send it abroad of find someone who is willing to ingore the rules for a cut of the profits.
These kinds of crimes are very hard to stop. I don't know a good way to do it.
Why is Socialism such a bad word in the US?
My country pays about $2900 for healthcare per capita and provides universal coverage with that, while the US spends $5700 and still has a large part of it's citizens not covered.
Just some numbers: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm
Interesting research, could I point out that it can be interesting to compare with other countries, for example:
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm
http://education-portal.com/articles/Public_Education_Spending_Has_Doubled_in_the_Last_15_Years.html
And what I already said in another post, averages are tricky. ten people spending 11 vs nine spending 1 and one spending 101 gives the same average of spending 11, but the statistics are very different.
I think one of the problems facing the US is it's high and increasing differences in incomes and spending. How can you pay the most in the world for healthcare per capita, and still have a large part of the population unprovided for? Same thing for education.
Comparing with other countries is valid though. The USA usually performs very poor for being the highest spender on education in the world.
I don't know if it's the average that counts here. My guess is that it could be that a part of the USA population gets very expensive education and a part gets very cheap/poor education.
I think your "average" might be misleading, in that it consist of a large group above it, and a large group below with, with few on the actual average.
I know that for healthcare in the US, there is a part that can afford it, but pays though the nose, and a part of the population that basically can't, this leads to healthcare that on average is twice as expensive per capita compared to most developed countries.
I don't know the details for the USA education, but I do know that for healthcare the USA spends the most in the world per capita, and still has a lot of citizens who don't even have basic healthcare coverage.
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm
In contrast, here in the Netherlands we have "Basic healthcare", for which each citizen pays about 1000 euros, and which covers basically all illness, but not things like plastic surgery, rehab and such.
I think your average might not mean much.
Very interesting numbers. I live in the Netherlands, and was always under the impression that the USA spending on education was low, given it's results.
I'm no expert on the Us educational system, but I have an alternative explanation. First you're talking averages. It could be that the spread between well and poorly funded schools is large.
I don't know the numbers in comparison with my country, I do know that for health care, the average US citizen spends about twice as much as the average Dutch citizen, and that gets the Dutch full nationwide healthcare for everybody, while still a large percentage of the Us is without health care coverage.
What I mean to say, is that the average numbers for the US on health care are a combination of a part of the citizens spending a lot more than the average Dutchman, and a part spending nearly nothing.
You can call it Socialist (why is that a bad word in the USA?), but all Dutch citizens pay about 1000 euro a year for their healthcare (So called "Basic insurance", not covering plastic surgery and such)
Everyone is fully insured with that for any illness you have or might get.
For what I know about those Healthcare numbers, my guess is that the USA's higher average spending on education, could be a combination of a group of very well funded and a group of underfunded schools, not all schools being near the average.
"Lies, damn lies and statistics" is the quote that springs to mind.
It means you slap the disk in, run the installer, and go.
This is where you run into problems installing Linux software. There is no easy universal way to do "installer" on Linux. I've used Redhat, SuSE and Ubuntu a lot, and the devil is in the details. Simple things like /lib32 vs /lib vs /lib64, to things like how to get superuser/root permissions.
I agree that the robot series would probably be easier to adapt to the screen. They're basically detective stories.
The Foundation movies need to be a bit like 2001 to be a success, they'd be very poor as action movies, but great as mind-game situations similar to 2001.