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| 2005/4/10-12 [Uncategorized] UID:37133 Activity:nil |
4/10 Time for a rerun: Bushisms, Update April 4:
http://www.dubyaspeak.com/policymaker.shtml |
| 2005/4/10-12 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Politics/Foreign/Asia/Japan] UID:37134 Activity:high |
4/10 So, I'm hearing all this crap about social security becoming insolvent
because we won't have enough taxpayers to support the baby boomers.
What I haven't heard anything about is, why not allow more *skilled*
immigrants into the country? Why not allow people educated here to
stay in the country? We spend all this money on educating these
foreign nationals, and then make them leave, even if they'd like to
stay. Allowing them to stay would obviously make for more taxpayers,
more consumer demand, etc. And it's not really like we don't have
the land; Japan can cram well over half the population of the US into
a space smaller than California. The drawback is of course national
security "concerns", and the notion that foreigners will be competing
for our jobs. What do you people think?
\_ The US's prosperity was built largely on brain drain from
foreign countries with poorer conditions than here. Hindering
the brain drain in the name of national security is going to
bite us in the ass bigtime. Having poor schools in this country
is going to bite us in the ass bigtime too. It's a pity we
have to suffer through cowardly leaders who only care about
short term gain.
\_ Nice sentiment, but where did the obsession with ass-biting
get mixed into this?
\_ The US's ability to brain drain will probably be more
impacted by effective competition from foreign schools.
We'll probably still have the top schools, but the top 100
schools won't be 90% in the US.
\_ The U.S. taxpayer just finished spending a quarter of a million
dollars to pay for my Mainland Chinese friend's phd in solid state
physics. Due
to laws that almost redefine the phrase "government idiocy" she
may be unable to work in this country where we can benefit from
her education because all of "nanotechnology" has been declared
sensitive, and everyone in solid state physics wants to call their
work nanotech to get on the funding gravy train. Dumb dumb dumb.
I don't know the details of the ban, but it extends to the private
sector. "Sorry, you can't contribute to our economy. We're just
going to spend a quarter of a million dollars training you, then
force you to go back home and compete with us economically."
\_ you should consult a mental health professional
\_ Well, thanks for that ad hominem attack. BTW, I'm actually
born in the states, and this is not a troll. It is
practically a certainty at this point that our population will
not grow fast enough to support the boomers. It seems like the
obvious way to grow the population is to bring in other people,
very preferably ones who can contribute to our economy instead
of ending up on welfare.
\_ I have an idea that will help: ban abortion.
\_ See the welfare argument.
\_ It is my opinion that lots of skilled immigrants are already
ending up here. They are indeed taking jobs from Americans,
because they are willing to work for less. I fail to see how
this benefits the country. Do you really want to import doctors
from former Soviet Republics, like Spain is doing?
\_ Well, it is not clear if their presence here creates more jobs
than they take. Do dumb hicks contribute much to our economy?
In one sense, yes, since they fuel consumer demand by living
beyond their means. In another sense, no, because they're stupid
and don't increase our competitiveness. I'm not saying it should
be a free-for-all, or that foreign nationals should be allowed
in all fields, especially when we are not sure what their
education is relative to the standards in this country. But
especially for foreigners who got college or graduate degrees
in this country, not allowing them to stay seems rather silly.
After all, you can say that they deprived some US citizen of a
spot at whatever school they went to, so what's the big deal now?
\_ Is there evidence that lots of people who earned graduate
degrees here are not able to stay? Observationally, I
don't see that problem in the fields I am familiar with
(aerospace engineering, software engineering, hard
science, and entertainment).
\_ Yes. Please read my post about Chinese physicists in the
U.S. above. Admittedly, my evidence is also anecdotal, but
since most of the people I know are physics grad students,
and since about half of them are foreign, I think my
anecdotal evidence is relevant. What I see is unthinking
visa policy directly harming American science. It's not
that the *numbers* of foreign scientists wanting to be
in the U.S. will go down any time soon, it's that the
*quality* is going to start going down as the top people
pass up U.S. offers. -!pp
\_ Why does quality matter in terms of Social Security?
The reality is that there are more PhDs being graduated
than there are jobs to employ them.
\_ Fuck social security. The republicans are going
to destroy it anyway. I was just talking about
issues affecting American science in general.
\_ It might not per se, but the point is we would
probably rather have immigrants quality enough to
stay off welfare, and better yet, contribute to
innovation.
\_ It's difficult to stay these days. You need a H-1B to
work in the US, and these get used up in less than
a day everytime new quotas become available (in April
and October). From a company's standpoint, that's
a lot of uncertainty and cost for hiring a foreign
student graduate from US universities. The whole
PR process is also a huge pain and takes forever.
\_ It's difficult to hire foreign nationals. On the
other hand, plenty of them seem to be getting jobs.
Some of them marry Americans, but I have seen no
shortage of PhDs from India, China, and Europe working
here in the US. In fact, I see more than ever before.
Some real statistics and less anecdotal evidence would
be nice.
\_ It's not just difficult to hire, it's also a
pain to stay, so might as well go home,
especially given the opportunities abroad.
\_ There are no opportunities abroad. Maybe in
China. Definitely not in Europe, for
instance. I'd like to see some statistics.
\_ actually there are lots of opportunities
abroad. china, india, hongkong, singapore,
taiwan, korea, japan, ...
\_ Japan is okay, but are there really
that many opportunities for, say,
physicists in India or Singapore?
\_ I grow tired of seeing these posts about how we, as a US
economy keep getting hurt by offshore jobs, brain drain, etc.
All the posts seem very Nationalistic and people fail to take into
account the big picture, we are a global economy. That person
who leaves with a Physics degree eventually may invent
something in China that benefits someone in the US and
globally. You can always go micro and say "Contra Costa is losing
jobs to San Fran", but eventually we all benefit from knowledgeable
people no matter what tax bucket their income falls in.
\_ Are you the "Little Chinese"? |
| 2005/4/10-14 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:37135 Activity:nil |
4/10 My iPod prefetches a few songs from the HD, buffers them into memory,
and then shuts down the HD to save power. If possible, how do I do the
same thing on my iTunes where I pre-declare non OS swapped mem so that
I can save power on my notebook? -ok thx
\_ <crickets chirping>
\_ This might work for you on OS X:
1. In System Preferences->Energy Saver, click 'Put HD to sleep
when possible'
2. Create and mount a ramdisk:
$ hdid -nomount ram://[2 * 1024 * disk size in mb]
/dev/disk5 [Note this may be different]
$ diskutil eraseDisk HFS+ RAMDISK disk5 [Use the dev hdid made]
Started erase on disk disk5
Creating Partition Map
5% ..Formatting Disk 100% ..
Finished erase on disk disk5
Finished partitioning on disk disk5
3. Copy your MP3s into the disk called RAMDISK on your desktop
(you can use the finder or cp mp3 /Volumes/RAMDISK)
4. To eject the disk either drag it to the trash or
$ hdiutil detach /dev/disk5
\_ That's a total hack and will only work for small numbers of
files. I think what the OP wants is iTunes to do some disk
caching so it spins up the disk, reads the next X-MB of music,
and then the disk can auto-sleep for 5-10 minutes. BTW I mean
hack as 'horribly inelegant', not 'bad idea'.
\_ I agree this is a total hack and OP probably can't get
more than 256 MB or so worth of MP3s into memory at any
given time (assuming that OP has something like 768MB or
1GB of RAM). However, 256 MB is probably enough space to
fit 2 hrs of mp3s (at 2 mb/min). Parking the hd for 2 hrs
might yeild some battery savings.
If OP wanted to really go nuts he could write himself a
little caching daemon that talked to iTunes every 30 mins
or 1 hrs and determined which mp3s had been heard and
removed them in favor of those mp3s that were likely to
be heard in the future (same album, remaining songs in
play list, &c.).
Personally I think all this is just crazy. What might
save more power is to get a 1GB Kool-Aid Shuffle or USB
thumb drive and stick your mp3s on that. The battery
usage for USB might be less than for running the hd. |
| 2005/4/10-12 [Consumer/Camera] UID:37136 Activity:moderate |
4/10 My wife is taking a vacation and needs a portable digital photo
storage device. She's not a technophile, so something easy-to-use
would be great. Any recommendations? Thx enlightened MOTD-sters!
\_ If you don't mind getting an iPod, check out the Apple iPod
camera connector and the Belkin iPod media reader.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05032401ipod_cameraconnector.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0310/03101701belkinipodadapt.asp
\_ I don't understand why extra 256MB CF cards for $20 each can't
satisfy her ... like you can, that is. -Hans
\_ Seconded. I've tried lugging around a laptop to store photos,
and it's not worth it for a two- or three-week trip. 1G memory
cards are $60 to $80 -- they're small, light, easy to use, and
nearly indestructible.
\_ If her camera uses CF get her 1 GB CF card or a 2 GB Micro
drive. Unless she is shooting RAW w/ a 20D, this should be
more than enough for a vacation.
\_ [ follow-ups below reformatted - formatd ]
I have an X-Drive II, it's small, and easy to use, it accepts all
types of memory cards and you can upgrade the HD at any time. If you\
don't want to bother buying more and more memory cards I would suggest\
something simmilar. -scottyg
types of memory cards and you can upgrade the HD at any time. If
you don't want to bother buying more and more memory cards I would
suggest something simmilar. -scottyg
\_ Thx for the suggestion, scottyg.
FYI, she has a Nikon D70 and will shoot in RAW format (big files).
She already has a 1GB flash card (plenty for 1 day of shooting), but
may need more storage for a 6+ week trip. I'll check out the X-
Drive. Thx.
\-if you are serious about photography, get a 50-100gig portable
She already has a 1GB flash card (plenty for 1 day of shooting),
but may need more storage for a 6+ week trip. I'll check out the
X-Drive. Thx.
\- if you are serious about photography, get a 50-100gig
\- actually even
20g may be ok.
storage device. the "store everything on CF" is not reasonable
for +1week. if you are very serious [meaning professional and
if you lose the pictures, there will be serious problems, i.e.
you need to backup or upload on the road], then you might
consider the portable burners. it sounds like you are in the
middle category. details like whether you are on the power grid
or not, how much stuff you are carrying, theft probability also
affect decisions on the margins. road trip through the southwest
!= high himalaya. if you are looking at something hardcore,
go to like an REI and browse this:
http://www.bookpool.com/sm/1592003885 [worth a browse. unclear
necessity to buy]. --psb, link:csua.org/u/bmr
portable storage device. the "store everything on CF" is
not reasonable for +1week. if you are very serious [meaning
professional and if you lose the pictures, there will be
serious problems, i.e. you need to backup or upload on the
road], then you might consider the portable burners. it
sounds like you are in the middle category. details like
whether you are on the power grid or not, how much stuff
you are carrying, theft probability also affect decisions
on the margins. road trip through the southwest != high
himalaya. if you are looking at something hardcore, go to
like an REI and browse this:
http://www.bookpool.com/sm/1592003885 [worth a browse.
unclear necessity to buy]. --psb, link:csua.org/u/bmr
\_ 50-100gb?!!! It's sad to see digital cameras promoting
"shotgun" photography.
\- ok henri. the marginal cost of extra gb is really small.
if you need 20gb for a 2 week trip and next year you
might go on a 3 week trip with 2 cameras and by then
you have bought an 8mp camera, you might as well spend
the extra $1/gb upfront. on a recent photo trip i took
maybe 10 pictures of sunrise over the ganges. in the
evening i was shooting a religious festival on the
banks ... since people are moving i shot 70 or 80 pix
in maybe 15min. that's because everything is motion, so
you are sort of doing "compositional bracketing" rather
than exposure braketing. i still think there is some
difference with latency on digitals and more shots of
people seem to be mistimed. BTW: i took 500-600 digital
pix in ~4 days and 6 film shots. 4 or 5 of the film
shots are keepers while maybe 20 of the digitals. but
if i was shooting all film, i wouldnt have gotten maybe
\- ok henri. the marginal cost of extra gb is really
small. if you need 20gb for a 2 week trip and next
year you might go on a 3 week trip with 2 cameras and
by then you have bought an 8mp camera, you might as
well spend the extra $1/gb upfront. on a recent photo
trip i took maybe 10 pictures of sunrise over the
ganges. in the evening i was shooting a religious
festival on the banks ... since people are moving i
shot 70 or 80 pix in maybe 15min. that's because
everything is motion, so you are sort of doing
"compositional bracketing" rather than exposure
bracketing. i still think there is some difference
with latency on digitals and more shots of people
seem to be mistimed. BTW: i took 500-600 digital pix
in ~4 days and 6 film shots. 4 or 5 of the film shots
are keepers while maybe 20 of the digitals. but if i
was shooting all film, i wouldnt have gotten maybe
half the shots i did with the "digital shotgun". --psb
\- btw, i also use digital cameras as what you might
call a documentary device in addition to photography.
i might take a picture of a menu or a sign or a food
item just for informational value. --psb
\_ Isn't there a Compact Flash -> ipod interface doohicky
you can get? Also, shotgun photography is a major
technique of National Geographic. There is a reason
why their photographs are sooo good.
\_ I watched a NG special a fews ago and which gave
me the impression that most NG photographers are
still film. The ones that shoot digital probably
use something like a 1DS Mk2 w/ an L series IS
lens.
\_ you can do shotgun photography with film. Most
good, serious photographers take a lot of photos.
-tom
\- it depends on what you are shooting. there
are a couple of schools of thought on this.
HCB is famous for deriding peopel for shooting
like crazy instead of looking for the "decisive
moment". but shooting in paris != shooting on
the african savannah. shotgun != bracketing.
\_ check out Flashtrax products: http://www.smartdisk.com
Or Wolverine products (can buy at Fry's, $150 for 40GB). |
| 2005/4/10-5/25 [Academia/Berkeley/CSUA, Finance/Investment] UID:37137 Activity:nil |
4/10 Thank you to everyone who cleaned up their stuff in /csua/tmp. This
is just to remind people, going forward, that this volume is not
intended as long-term storage and we reserve the right to delete
files at-will and without warning. We're reasonable people and
care about you, our dear users, but this is just a "heads up". =) |