AMD planning 45nm 12-Core 'Istanbul' Processor ?

[Robert Myers]

Oh, using set of agreed on road sign icons is dangerous! LOL!

No, but building all the bridges to the same design might not be the
best idea. I'll admit that the French have gotten away with it with
their nuclear reactors, but the risk is that if you discover a
vulnerability in one, you have the same vulnerability in all.

Nonsense. x86 is just a set of instructions. It does not matter unless they
could no be implemented effectively (they can & are, of course) or they
would disallow translating higher level languages to them (x86 is the
instruction set with widest complier & interpreter support).

Same privilege model. For all that, Microsoft's SP3 had problems
peculiar to AMD x86 realization of SP3.

Robert.

 

[Robert Myers]

Robert Myers wrote:

But for many of those people what they have was the only option. They simply
could not afford 8 Richter quake resistant buildings (And there are 9
Richter quakes as well). So what is your proposition for them? Live on the
trees? Or perofrom mass suicide and ease population growth problems of
their country?

China is becoming a fairly wealthy country. The difference between
knowing about and allowing for the possibility of unexpected lateral
loads on building is more a matter than knowledge than of money.
Sure, people living in mud huts will always be killed in earthquakes.
But a large number of students were killed in a high school that
collapsed. Earthquake resistance adds about 20% to the cost of
buildings in California. If I were you, I'd accuse you of black and
white thinking, but, of course, I'm not you.

As to planning for a 9 on the Richter scale, I suppose that anything
can happen. We live on semi-rigid plates that slide around because
the material beneath them has lower strength in shear. We don't at
the moment have the option of living any other way. As it is, I can't
think of an example of an earthquake greater than 8 on the Richter
scale. Perhaps someone knows better.

Floated plans is a bit too little. And we watch to little as well. But given
10 years time from observation to actual disaster were probably able to
tackle the problem. But there are Earth based disater scenarios as well.
Yet millions of people live close to active (or recently active) vulcanoes,
under the sea level, etc...

I don't know what the politics are like where you live, but the fact
that the taxpayers often wind up with the bill is making people think
twice about land use planning. There have already been substantive
changes about building on flood plains (in many places you can't do
it). So, here's a big money-making scenario. Buy up land that can't
currently be built because of those regulations. Hire some lobbyists
to get the law changed. Explain to prospective buyers that the law
was unnecessary, because such floods almost never happen (50-100 year
flood). Sell property at a huge profit. Get out of town.

I think the asteroid thing is a little over the top compared to other
risks, but it's in human nature to identify and to attempt to mitigate
risk.

Robert.

 

[Robert Myers]

My apologies, I ought to have known you were a bit slow. I must
be too, for the good Sebastian has been pointing you out repeatedly.

A $2 million value on human life is numerically equivalent to
playing standard Russian Roulette in a revolver with one bullet
that will blow your brains out and 5 empty chambers that would
win you a $400k house. Since you deny being "an east coast
elitist" and you use this value for others, I presume you apply
it to your own life as well. I take you at your word.


Not everyone involved was criminal. Who do you think was?

"All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does
not steal?"--Ralph Emerson, "Experience"

"Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed all and to employ
them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back,
merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily
employed now. For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning, I
noticed one of my neighbors walking beside his team, which was slowly
drawing a heavy hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by an
atmosphere of industry, his day's work begun--his brow commenced to
sweat,--a reproach to all sluggards and idlers--pausing a breast the
shoulders of his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his
merciful whip, while they gained their length on him. And I thought,
Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to protect--
honest manly toil--honest as the day is long--that makes his bread
taste sweet, and keeps society sweet--which all men respect and have
consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful, but irksome
drudgery. Indeed, I felt a slight reproach, because I observed this
from the window, and was not abroad and stirring about a similar
business. The day went by and at evening I passed the yard of another
neighbor, who keeps many servants, and spends much money foolishly,
while he adds nothing to the common stock, and there I saw the stone
of the morning lying beside a whimsical structure intended to adorn
this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the dignity forthwith
departed from the teamsters labor, in my eyes. In my opinion, the sun
was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add, that his
employer has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, and,
after passing through Chancery, has settled somewhere else, there to
become once more a patron of the arts."--Henry Thoreau, "Life Without
Principle."

Whom do you admire?

If you wave your arms any faster, you're going to take off.

If that impresses you, you must be apoplectic when people
really go out on a limb. Wait ...

For one thing, the actual ability of borrowers to repay isn't
the biggest, baddest issue. The biggest, baddest issue is
that, at any given instant of time, the paper is worth no
more or less than what people think it's worth. The mistake
at Moody's compounded a central problem: no one could evaluate
each other's assets reliably, so lending based on those assets
as collateral stopped. The house of cards collapsed, and it
could have collapsed completely independently of any underlying
economic activity (whether borrowers actually repay or not).

... uhm, err ... and you were complaining of handwaving???
This is an ineluctible example. The old "perception versus
reality" false dichotomy.

A quick scan of the document you offer gives nothing
like the specifics you claim.

You scan too quickly -- try page 3: "He [recently retired
senior executive of a large rating agency] told me the group
covering the investment banks is 3 or 4 people, and they have
to cover all of the banks. ... they don't even try to look at
the actual portfolio. ... [they] don't have a [risk] model."

What I see is a broad claim about how ratings agencies do business,
nothing specifically about the screw-up in question. I'd want to see
the e-mails before I believed that someone just threw a dart.

Robert.

 

[Robert Myers]

Robert Myers wrote: ..

You talk here about internal management problem of the institution. The guy
has broken the rules, exploiting poor internal controll. His risk was
similar to a risk taken by a thief. IOW he abused his company. Such stuff
does happen.

The nature of the business is that it is no different from sports
betting. If you know how to handicap better than your competitors,
you win, on the average.

There's a big but, and the but is that you must have the capital to
absorb losses. If you have the assets of an investment bank or the US
treasury, you can afford to take larger losses. The nature of the
business is such that players are taking larger risks because there is
more money to be made. That was true of Jerome Kerviel and it was
true of Bear, Stearns. I claim that computer models have changed how
people think about risk. You disagree.

The risk of getting out of business is accepted risk for any business to
begin with. For examply in my local part of the world risk is a part of
legal definition (which has tax consequences -- making business is taxed
differently that working for someone other).

Bear, Stearns survived the market crash of 1929, but not the computer-
generated risk addiction of the third millenium.

Besides, management is well paid till the collapse. So their risk is ...
loss of job (typically temporary) and maybe reputation.

It's the investors and taxpayers who get screwed.

But here they have support by experience as well. If the design methodology
is right then most errors have well understood costs. Those which are not
well understood have probability lower than many more important events
which would be even more deadly anyway.

Only gradually has the business of systematically estimating risk
gotten solid analytical foundations. The business is actually quite
young. If you don't *really* understand the structure, you have to
build in huge safety factors. If you understand the structure better,
you can start shaving the safety factor and along with it weight and
costs. Most of this enterprise, whether in financial engineering or
other kinds of engineering depends on computers and the depth of
experience is not nearly what you seem to think. This is not a mature
field.

Software erasing all the data due to error (not due to malice) could
theoretically happen, but it's much more probable that admin erroneously
does rm -rf in wrong directory ("Oh, I just wanted to delete old logs...").

In the past, in order to lose or to destroy huge amounts of data, you
had to cart away or destroy huge amounts of paper, or even magnetic
tapes. That's no longer true. The rules have changed in a way that
increases, not decreases risk.

Arianespace soft was made according to all the stuff you want to be employed
to make all the soft. It failed. It failed because of changed external
conditions (long after is was made).

That's true. The source of the error in the case of Arianespace was
exogenous, but you've got to start somewhere.

Whatever. They run that buiness for long time, and this business makes
money. And it makes money because they rightly estimate loads of different
risks. Stuff like isnurance companies is based on estimating risk. It's
their job.

It's *supposed* to be their job. The document Robert Redelmeier
offered suggests that perhaps some in the business are just running a
huge con game.

So what? There is allways a risk of actual and very serious problems.

Some risks we have to accept (tectonic plates as a result of living on
earth). Others, we do not (buggy software that isn't even formally
correct).

The main risk is that simply model (or metamodel) is wrong. Stuff like
technical analysis based trading is known for long time. It was done by
hand. It fails quite frequently? So be it. More complex models work better,
are verified on past data, etc. But there is no proof they are correct, as
correctess is impossible when dealing with Schroedinger Cat on steroids.

That the risk estimation could be faulty is a distant second (or even not
second) here.

Improper use and/or design of random number generators may be ahead of
both.

As to Keith's shot in the dark about Schroedinger's Cat (as Hawking
said, "When I hear of Schroedinger's cat, I reach for my gun."), the
entire enterprise is based on the assumption that risk is
predictable. If it isn't, then you needn't bother with processors, or
software, or models, or *you*.

People are becoming more aggresive with risk due to apropriately big gains
possible. You don't want to appreciate things like human nature, but stuff
like lotteries does work despite it's on average a loosing proposition to
everybody but the lottery holder. Yet people play, counting for very, very
small chance of winning. In business simply going out of business is
accepted risk. And allways has been.

There are a number of bits at play here:

1. Hubris about risk resulting from Monte Carlo methods and cheap
processors.

2. An increasingly lax regulatory environment. "Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it"--Santayana.

3. Complex securities that no one really understands. Computers don't
create that risk, but they make them possible.

Your "what the hell" attitude toward software may be little more than
icing on the cake, and, you are absolutely right, there's a lot of
cake out there to ice.

Its not done by computers but by use of computers. Models (or at least
metamodels) are still human creation.

I've talked elsewhere and recently about the use of computer models as
oracles. It's a separate kind of risk. "The model did it."

That software is a closed system with limited & controlled interface to the
world. Software products are probably the most complex constructs humans
ever made, but it was possible to make them because software has many
unique features. It is not material so no material problems apply directly
to it (and indirect effects can be and are abstracted away into relatively
small number of classes of problems), it has no material cost, etc. It's
environment is under full controll.

For those circumstances where you really do have full control, why
would you accept anything less than provable properties of your
software?

You've made my argument for me. You're creating systems that are more
complex than anything else known to man (except perhaps the processors
themselves). Why would you assume that something otherwise beyond
human experience can be checked by hand (or by limited exploration of
a test space)?

Older software is already made and sold. So all we should care about is new
software. And only if execution speed of that software is important at
all.If the softwarehas to wait for disk or network then until single core
is not capable of dealing with disk or network fast enough, program could
stay on one core.

Then the capabilities of computers are more or less fixed, barring
some unforeseen technological breakthrough. The only thing the
industry knows how to do is to add more parallel capacity.

The enormous mass of existing software makes earthquake impossible. More and
more programs which would benefit from multiple cores will be made to make
use of that. Those who needed such stuff 10, 20 and more years ago already
paved the road. So people will realize that C with system threading is a
poor tool for that? Good, it's high time to realize that. Stuff like
Erlang, CSP and Occam (based on it) is not new.

It's seems that we are in violent agreement, except for our estimation
of how change will take place. No, the potential tools are not at all
new. Uptake has been slow to non-existent for just the reason you
say. There's all that c code out there (or Fortran or Java, depending
on the application).

Nope. Even Java has (poor as they are, but they are there) semantics for
concurency. Erlang was already used industrially many years ago (and that
one has concurrency in its heart, allmost everything is concurrent in it).
Stuff like MPI is widely used in HPC allowing non-cocnurrent languages to
do concurrent work. Etc, etc, etc.

Ad hoc'ery is not the same as built-in semantics. MPI is a good
solution only for those who are making a good living because using it
correctly is difficult to impossible for ordinary mortals.

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I don't think you took my meaning.
That was a take it or leave it proposition.

I accept your concession.

Who ever said anything about rationally? You can bet that
I never have. "Human nature," whatever you take it to be,
is just as illusory as the "rational actors" of economics.
The human brain can do very strange things, singly, in
groups, and especially in Usenet threads.

You denied the existence of human nature. If it isn't that,
what else describes how humans behave? Please note, I make
no attempt to describe how simple or complex human nature is.

I think you are agreeing with me that our economy is a
Ponzi scheme.

No. There is an occasion whiff of Ponzi in some parts,
but the US economy is not predominantly a Ponzi scheme.
The US probably succeeds by tolerating more Ponzi and
stifling fewer innovations with regulation than Europe.

I don't think a monoculture of any kind is a good idea.

Oh? You deny the economies of scale and the Metcalfe Effect?
Like everything else, there are both costs and benefits
to monoculture. Like everything else, something to optimize.

HIV is a special case. For one thing, it demonstrates
how active consumer involvement can make a difference.
It's not particularly a gold star for the FDA.

Is anything? Why do you then advocate more regulation? I am
actually somewhat sympathetic to the plight of regulators --
they are in a "NO WIN" situation. Whatever they do can be
justifiably criticised. But not too sympathetic, since they
ought to know this already yet still chose the profession.

That's so funny. Slashdot just had an article about TJ
Maxx firing an employee for revealing that the company had
done nothing to change its security practices after one of
the most massive data breaches ever.

As they most certainly should have. There is no general
"whistleblower" protection, nor should there be lest companies work
harder to exclude anyone who might become disloyal [innovative].

What company doesn't take short cuts, legally or otherwise?

Everyone. One mans "short cut" is anothers "productivity
improvement". It all boils down to risk, compounded
by Monday-morning quaterback whining.

That's exactly how a Ponzi scheme works: as money is
pouring in, it's a positive sum game.

WRONG! You really ought to try to learn. A positive sum game
is something like BillG hiring programmers and selling MS-Win95.
Or less controversially, Brittany Speers singing and selling a
song. Or if you are truly humor-challenged, a farmer planting.
In each case, the output (sales measured in $) is more than in
input (costs also measured in $).

A Ponzi scheme (or indeed the secondary securities market) is
a zero-sum game: for every gain, there is an equal loss.

For completeness, there are also negative sum games: failed
investments like Intel's 432, 860 and most recently IA64 (All RISC).
Look up Bastiat's "Broken Window" if you treasure silver linings.
Disease, famine, war, pestilence are also -ve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Lamport

"A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you
didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."

Cute. An inverse Metcalfe effect. Sure to strike those who
do insufficient failure analysis and mitigation. But you
cannot stop everything. A bigger issue is how you recover.

http://www.usingcsp.com/

What does a protocol [monoculture!] have to do with this?
Maybe it is less unreliable in some aspect. Point solutions
(magic bullets) are insulting -- they assume some massive
failure has gone unnoticed and unremedied.

They don't scare me because the only thing I use bittorrent
for is free software.

And you trust the RIAA can tell one compressed datastream from
another??? Not using BT might help, but they are basically a
loose cannon. They can still sue you and you'll have to defend.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

I accept your concession.

I didn't concede a thing. I quoted a comment and told you that the
person who made the comment was the one to explain it, not me. If you
think my citing an actual player is irrelevant to the discussion or an
action I need to defend, there wasn't anything to discuss to begin
with. Were you on the high school debate team or something?

You denied the existence of human nature. If it isn't that,
what else describes how humans behave? Please note, I make
no attempt to describe how simple or complex human nature is.

Then the term is meaningless. When people refer to "human nature"
they are presumptively referring to some set of attributes that can be
expected from the entire class of human beings. If there are such
attributes, I wouldn't know what they are, unless you want to include
the functioning of the autonomic nervous system.

No. There is an occasion whiff of Ponzi in some parts,
but the US economy is not predominantly a Ponzi scheme.
The US probably succeeds by tolerating more Ponzi and
stifling fewer innovations with regulation than Europe.

Whatever the US is doing so wonderfully, it isn't reflected in the
value of the dollar.

Oh? You deny the economies of scale and the Metcalfe Effect?
Like everything else, there are both costs and benefits
to monoculture. Like everything else, something to optimize.


Is anything? Why do you then advocate more regulation?

You talk as if regulation were a commodity. It's not. One of *many*
reasons the FDA is so broken is that it is underfunded.

If you're of the political persuasion I think you are, there's no
reason to talk about how or why regulation might work, because you
don't like it, whatever it is. There's not a whole lot of room for
discussion, and it's way off topic.

The argument for regulating software on systems connected to the
internet would be similar to the argument for airplanes that use US
airspace.

I am
actually somewhat sympathetic to the plight of regulators --
they are in a "NO WIN" situation. Whatever they do can be
justifiably criticised. But not too sympathetic, since they
ought to know this already yet still chose the profession.

You have time to worry about such things? That's odd, given your
indifference to so many other issues.

That's so funny. Slashdot just had an article about TJ
Maxx firing an employee for revealing that the company had
done nothing to change its security practices after one of
the most massive data breaches ever.

As they most certainly should have. There is no general
"whistleblower" protection, nor should there be lest companies work
harder to exclude anyone who might become disloyal [innovative].

The firing was beside the point. The point was that, after negatively
affecting the lives of so many, the company did nothing.

Everyone. One mans "short cut" is anothers "productivity
improvement". It all boils down to risk, compounded
by Monday-morning quaterback whining.

But a society can say: you aren't free to take arbitrary risks with
the environment or with the health of your workers or consumers, and
many similar things, and it does.

WRONG! You really ought to try to learn.

Look. I'll tolerate your limitations, one of which is that you
imagine that what seems obvious to you (often because it's what you've
been taught) is perforce correct. You only make yourself sound
pretentious (the way that Rush Limbaugh sounds pretentious) with these
pompous put-downs.

By appropriately drawing the boundary, you can turn a system into a
win, no win, or all lose proposition. Economics that are so arbitrary
are meaningless, no matter at the altar of which economic god you
worship. I've made an observation about capitalism that may or may
not be supercilious overstatement. Whatever it was, it contained an
idea that you've chosen to ignore. Instead, you've taken it as an
opportunity to show off. Did you get beaten up a lot as a kid?

One *possible* view of capitalism is that, as a whole, someone wins
because someone else loses. If it can't be defended as the literal,
global truth of capitalism, consider the ways in which it is true, and
the *real* reason that the industrialized West is so wealthy. The
world as a whole is coming to grips with those realities just now.

In the short haul, it was good business for everyone to see African
farmers displaced by cheap American grain. Now, with a global food
shortage, the Ponzi scheme bills are coming due.

A positive sum game
is something like BillG hiring programmers and selling MS-Win95.

Wunderbar. You've already bought into Bill Gates' effort to turn
catastrophe into triumph. He won. Most of the rest of us lost, and
it's not obvious that the damage will ever be undone.

http://www.usingcsp.com/

What does a protocol [monoculture!] have to do with this?
Maybe it is less unreliable in some aspect. Point solutions
(magic bullets) are insulting -- they assume some massive
failure has gone unnoticed and unremedied.

The term of art is silver bullet. The existence or non-existence of
silver bullets has been much discussed. What's insulting is for you
to speak as if I were unaware of the emotional and intellectual energy
that has gone into this subject.

In this case, there is a massive failure, it has been widely noticed,
and no one has been able to propose a remedy. Last I was aware, Tony
Hoare and Leslie Lamport both worked for Microsoft.

And you trust the RIAA can tell one compressed datastream from
another??? Not using BT might help, but they are basically a
loose cannon. They can still sue you and you'll have to defend.

Anyone can sue anyone any time.

Robert.

 

[Nate Edel]

the moment have the option of living any other way. As it is, I can't
think of an example of an earthquake greater than 8 on the Richter
scale. Perhaps someone knows better.

The one that hit off the coast of Indonesia in 2004, and caused the big
Tsunami was between 9.1 and 9.1:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake

While that's the only one I recall significantly exceeding 8, there are a
few others above 9 in recorded history, and surprisingly many above 8:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitude

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

"All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes,
pray who does not steal?"--Ralph Emerson, "Experience"

Contract is not theft. I'd also check context.
Like Shakespeare's "First, kill all the lawyers",
it might have been said by a villain.

[Yawningly long quote snipped]
the stone of the morning lying beside a whimsical structure
intended to adorn this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and
the dignity forthwith departed from the teamsters labor,
--Henry Thoreau, "Life Without Principle."

Didn't you say "Criminals get to spend their money, too"?
If this passage is what Thoreau thought, then at least in
this respect he was elitist. Dignity was only granted to
things he thought worthwhile.

Whom do you admire?

Neither. But you did not answer the question:
Who involved in subprime was criminal?

http://www.tilsonfunds.com/Einhorn-4-08.pdf

A quick scan of the document you offer gives nothing
like the specifics you claim.

You scan too quickly -- try page 3: "He [recently retired
senior executive of a large rating agency] told me the group
covering the investment banks is 3 or 4 people, and they have
to cover all of the banks. ... they don't even try to look at
the actual portfolio. ... [they] don't have a [risk] model."

What I see is a broad claim about how ratings agencies
do business, nothing specifically about the screw-up in
question. I'd want to see the e-mails before I believed
that someone just threw a dart.

No claim they did. What is claimed is they did not audit in
reasonable and expected depth. Particularly by uncritially
accepting the issuers models and risk assessment.

Or is it that you want to be spoon-fed information and are
unwilling [unable?] to do you own research? Such lazyness will
make you the dupe of whomever you "trust" to get information from.
A parrot in direct proportion to that "trust".

You really ought to learn that HTTP resources (sometimes also
called World-Wide Web pages) are routinely searched and indexed
by automated "search engines". A moments work with Google.com
(a current favorite) revealed:

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/200...e-moodys-error-gavetopratings-todebtproducts/

here it seems Moody is not merely wrong for a coding
[algorithmic?] error, but much worse, for knowing about
it for a full year before doing anything.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I didn't concede a thing.

Certainly you did: You conceded you were incapable of
discussing the point further. A "take it or leave it"
proposition has consequences you ought to consider.

Then the term is meaningless. When people refer to "human nature"
they are presumptively referring to some set of attributes that can be
expected from the entire class of human beings. If there are such
attributes, I wouldn't know what they are, unless you want to include
the functioning of the autonomic nervous system.

Abstract and complex concepts like the zero and infinity
still are very useful. Human nature is of that order.

Whatever the US is doing so wonderfully, it isn't reflected
in the value of the dollar.

You reveal your myopia. 300 years ago there was little
north of the Rio Grande but dependant hardship settlements.
Europe was ahead in every way. In 200 years America catches
up and passes in 50 more. That is a remarkable achievement.
Sometimes attributed to "resources", but that is simplistic:
extra resources [gold+] killed Spain, and many other places
with resources (Africa, S.Am) have not had the same development.

You talk as if regulation were a commodity. It's not.

Then what is it? Some sort of holy grail?

One of *many* reasons the FDA is so broken is that it
is underfunded.

It has been proportionately higher funded in the past without
better results. Other countries have funded regulatory
bodies much higher without demonstrably better results.
And spectacularly worse results in some cases.

If you're of the political persuasion I think you are,
there's no reason to talk about how or why regulation might
work, because you don't like it, whatever it is.

You do not know my politics, and I suspect you expect simplistic
sloganeering rather than flexibility combined with principle.
I have said upthread that regulation has a place.
But stupidity has none.

The argument for regulating software on systems connected
to the internet would be similar to the argument for
airplanes that use US airspace.

What? That software crashes will kill people? Even Moody's
did not do that. The FAA also has different levels of
regulation. Sometimes remarkably lax.

The firing was beside the point. The point was that, after
negatively affecting the lives of so many, the company
did nothing.

I am not aware that the TJ Maxx incident negatively affected
the lives of so many. And what should they have done?
The only reasonable thing I could think would be offer
their affected customers some coupons.

But a society can say: you aren't free to take arbitrary
risks with the environment or with the health of your
workers or consumers, and many similar things, and it does.

Every society does this. The question is around what
is a reasonable risk vs the costs of prior restraint.

By appropriately drawing the boundary, you can turn a
system into a win, no win, or all lose proposition.

No. You have to look at the system as a whole and
correctly weigh all side-effects. One thing becomes
apparent -- the second and higher order consequences
have lower weights so decay into insignficance.

One *possible* view of capitalism is that, as a whole,
someone wins because someone else loses.

This is more mercantilism than capitalism. I would not
describe our current economy as "capitalism" since ~1980
unless that definition includes Intellectual Capital, much
of which is resident in workers minds.

If it can't be defended as the literal, global truth of
capitalism, consider the ways in which it is true, and the
*real* reason that the industrialized West is so wealthy.

Again, you do not seem to understand positive sum games.
One characteristic is they are heavily transformational: things
of one type are processed into things of a more valuable type.

Wunderbar. You've already bought into Bill Gates' effort to turn
catastrophe into triumph. He won. Most of the rest of us lost,
and it's not obvious that the damage will ever be undone.

Again, you are extremely myopic. MS-Windows esp 95 is the best
thing that ever happened to Linux and *BSD. It attracted many
neophyte PC users which drove hardware costs down. MS-Win is also
so horribly inefficient that it drives a silly performance race
that again drove hardware costs to rediculously low levels.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

Certainly you did: You conceded you were incapable of
discussing the point further. A "take it or leave it"
proposition has consequences you ought to consider.

Consequences for what, Robert? What *you* think of me? Have you
considered what I think of you? And if others are too foolish to get
it, I should probably stop posting here.

You're like a little dog with its teeth clamped on to my ankle about
an issue that you insist is important. The AMD architect used the
phrase "cubic dollars." You interpret that to mean billions of
dollars and announce that it cannot be. Maybe the AMD architect meant
it the way I took it, which is that AMD and Intel (notice that and and
the inclusion of Intel for nit-pickers) spent enormous resources on
the problem. You want to conclude that he meant a specific value of
money and then go on to argue at tedious length that your
interpretation is impossible. You want *me* to explain the
discrepancy? Go into the bathroom and look at the mirror or track the
architect down and ask him. You've been annoying at times, but I'd
never thought you were a wingnut.

Abstract and complex concepts like the zero and infinity
still are very useful. Human nature is of that order.

And what of those humans who have no concept of zero and infinity? Or
those who have an intuitive idea of infinity but no way to make it
precise (the vast majority of human beings for all of human history)?
What about the cultures that count "1, 2, 3, many?"

Whatever the US is doing so wonderfully, it isn't reflected
in the value of the dollar.

You reveal your myopia. 300 years ago there was little
north of the Rio Grande but dependant hardship settlements.
Europe was ahead in every way. In 200 years America catches
up and passes in 50 more. That is a remarkable achievement.
Sometimes attributed to "resources", but that is simplistic:
extra resources [gold+] killed Spain, and many other places
with resources (Africa, S.Am) have not had the same development.

The US systematically exploited the natural resources of an
underexploited continent, used cheap imported labor that was enslaved
working at starvation wages or worse, and created a new consumer class
at the expense of the remaining resources on the continent and the
grotesque exploitation of other human beings.

Then what is it? Some sort of holy grail?

One presumes that there is intelligent regulation and not-so-
intelligent regulation. Speaking of regulation as if it were all of
a type and all had similar characteristics sets the discussion up for
a conclusion that regulation in and of itself is bad.

It has been proportionately higher funded in the past without
better results. Other countries have funded regulatory
bodies much higher without demonstrably better results.
And spectacularly worse results in some cases.

I don't have a global picture of the FDA. I do have knowledge of
spectacular failures of heavily marketed drugs. Simple mandatory
reporting of drug problems after approval, mandatory reporting of off-
label uses, and mandatory disclosure of unfavorable or null test
results would be a big improvement.

What? That software crashes will kill people? Even Moody's
did not do that. The FAA also has different levels of
regulation. Sometimes remarkably lax.

Anything that costs money kills people. You didn't like the way I did
the calculation. Whether you like the numbers or not, financial loss
has negative psychological and physical costs, some of which translate
into premature deaths.

Airplane accidents get so much attention only because so many are
killed so spectacularly and all at once, not because they are a
significant risk to human life.

I am not aware that the TJ Maxx incident negatively affected
the lives of so many. And what should they have done?
The only reasonable thing I could think would be offer
their affected customers some coupons.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? You expect them to take steps to
protect their customers' private information better than they had
before. They didn't.

No. You have to look at the system as a whole and
correctly weigh all side-effects. One thing becomes
apparent -- the second and higher order consequences
have lower weights so decay into insignficance.


This is more mercantilism than capitalism. I would not
describe our current economy as "capitalism" since ~1980
unless that definition includes Intellectual Capital, much
of which is resident in workers minds.


Again, you do not seem to understand positive sum games.
One characteristic is they are heavily transformational: things
of one type are processed into things of a more valuable type.

There is this inconvenient fact of physics called the second law of
entropy. It's actually a statement about the behavior of random
dynamic systems in phase space. Human activity by way of producing
things of a more "valuable" type invariably increases entropy. This
computer, which was made out of various geological deposits large
enough to exploit, will mostly end in a landfill, where the
constituents will no longer be exploitable. "Recycling" only delays
the process at the cost of even more energy and pollution. Humans can
temporarily catch bits of systems on their way to chaos and turn them
to their own purposes in the same way that they can catch salmon in
the Columbia River. Given the future that mankind is facing, it's
hard to make the argument that our system of one-time use, temporary
profit, and creation of "valuable things" is even defensible, never
mind good.

You brought up the issue of antibiotics. We've squandered that one
time biological niche. We weren't creating anything valuable; we were
discovering opportunities and exploiting them, and the window of
exploitation appears to be closing, as high school students can't go
to the gym without fear of MRSA.

By taking a narrow view, you can imagine that you're making things
better. By taking a longer and broader view, you discover that you
are invariably trying to violate the second law. By creating
antibiotics, we have simply sped up the exploration of vulnerabilities
and defenses for bacteria. Contrary to previous conceptions, being
possessed of human intelligence by no means guarantees victory of any
kind.

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Consequences for what, Robert?

Consequences for the argument. You cannot learn further
once you abandon an argument.

What *you* think of me? Have you considered what I think of you?

No. There are people whose opinions I value.
You have not earned a place among them.

Maybe the AMD architect meant it the way I took it, which is
that AMD and Intel (notice that and and the inclusion of Intel
for nit-pickers) spent enormous resources on the problem.

This is repetitious. AMD never had enormous resources on the
scale of the IT industry. Intel is closer, but wouldn't have
needed that much more than AMD.

And what of those humans who have no concept of zero and
infinity? Or those who have an intuitive idea of infinity
but no way to make it precise (the vast majority of human
beings for all of human history)? What about the cultures
that count "1, 2, 3, many?"

Like individuals, obviously they cannot be valued for insights
they do not possess or exhibit.

The US systematically exploited the natural resources of an
underexploited continent, used cheap imported labor that was
enslaved working at starvation wages or worse, and created a new
consumer class at the expense of the remaining resources on the
continent and the grotesque exploitation of other human beings.

Oh my, such self-loathing. If exploitation were so beneficial,
why didn't the Soviet Union succeed since it applied these items
far more pervasively?

One presumes that there is intelligent regulation and not-so-
intelligent regulation. Speaking of regulation as if it were all
of a type and all had similar characteristics sets the discussion
up for a conclusion that regulation in and of itself is bad.

Again, I have never maintained that. Merely that less-stupid
regulation is remarkably difficult to achieve because humans
react. That people persist at quick fixes then passes from
ignorance into culpable manipulation.

I do have knowledge of spectacular failures of heavily
marketed drugs.

So does everyone. They are spectacular. But you
should not be so horrified by the specatle that you
fail to consider less obvious failures.

Simple mandatory reporting of drug problems after approval,
mandatory reporting of off- label uses,

Have you thought through how to do this? It would involve
some violation of doctor-patient confidentiality.

and mandatory disclosure of unfavorable or null test results
would be a big improvement.

This is already a requirement.

Anything that costs money kills people.

Buying food costs money.

financial loss has negative psychological and physical
costs, some of which translate into premature deaths.

Perhaps. But the reliability and rate matter enormously.
How much stupidity should we subsidize?

Airplane accidents get so much attention only because
so many are killed so spectacularly and all at once, not
because they are a significant risk to human life.

You were arguing the FDA deserved as much attention as
the FAA. Now are you saying the FAA gets too much?

You expect [TJMaxx] to take steps to protect their customers'
private information better than they had before. They didn't.

And you believe one disgruntled employee? I'd rather
believe the CC issuers. They're the ones with the most
to lose. Have they pulled TJMaxx merchant numbers?

There is this inconvenient fact of physics called the
second law of entropy. It's actually a statement about
the behavior of random dynamic systems in phase space.

The second law of _thermodynamics_ applies to all systems.
And life from single-cells upwards is a local contradiction
made possible only by greater entropy in the surroundings.

You brought up the issue of antibiotics. We've
squandered that one time biological niche.

Like oil and everything one-time, it was going to get used sooner
or later. Conservation may be a canard if it also stifles the
development of human knowledge. Squandering may be desireable
if it increases development. What has Europe developed since it
became very conservation minded? Mere subsistance is a waste.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

Consequences for the argument. You cannot learn further
once you abandon an argument.

I get to decide what argument is worth my attention and what argument
isn't. If this discussion were taking place in a book written by
Lewis Carroll it would be much more sharply written and much funnier.
As it is, it is just a dull exchange between two people with no
interest in understanding one another. You're interested in scoring
points. I don't know what I'm interested in, but it isn't this
conversation.

No. There are people whose opinions I value.
You have not earned a place among them.

So why would I waste my time talking to you? Go find someone else to
satisfy your emotional needs.

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

I get to decide what argument is worth
my attention and what argument isn't.

Of course you do. Indisputably. As do I.

If this discussion were taking place in a book written by Lewis
Carroll it would be much more sharply written and much funnier.

Didn't you disapprove the use of hallucinogens upthread?

As it is, it is just a dull exchange between two people
with no interest in understanding one another.

Speak for yourself. Although occasionally repetitive, I do
not find the exchange dull and I have a strong interest in
understanding different points of view. How else can I learn?

You're interested in scoring points

How can you possibly know with any confidence my interests
and motivations? Do you not recognize the narrow bandwidth
of USENET posts? A reader is very likely to see her own
emotions reflected. A mirror.

I don't know what I'm interested in,

I will take you at your word.

So why would I waste my time talking to you?

I have no idea, but you have talked quite a while.
I do not consider talking to you a waste,
nor am I talking primarily to you.

Go find someone else to satisfy your emotional needs.

I look to USENET to partially satisfy my intellectual development.
A foolish place to look for any sort of emotional satisfaction.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

Speak for yourself. Although occasionally repetitive, I do
not find the exchange dull and I have a strong interest in
understanding different points of view. How else can I learn?

I had a sixth grade teacher whom I will call Mrs. M. Mrs. M. was not
a particularly bright lady, but neither was she particularly stupid.
She fit into the great mass of humans who teach most of the schools
and run most of the bureaucracies.

One of Mrs. M's. goals was to convince me that there was nothing
special about me. I had grown quite accustomed to being treated as if
I were special. My fifth grade teacher effused years later that I had
been her best student ever.

Whatever fit into Mrs. M's. conception of the world would be praised.
Whatever didn't was devalued. It was a pointless, demeaning waste of
time. I don't think she came out of it any the wiser, but I did.

You won't learn anything from me, and I won't learn anything from you,
because I already learned the lesson once. I'm sorry to have taken so
much of your time.

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Whatever fit into Mrs. M's. conception of the world would be praised.
Whatever didn't was devalued. It was a pointless, demeaning waste of
time. I don't think she came out of it any the wiser, but I did.

You won't learn anything from me,

But I already have learned things discussing with you.

and I won't learn anything from you,

Speak for yourself -- are you that closed?

because I already learned the lesson once.

What lesson? I am demonstrably not Mrs M. I do not have
her authority over you, nor her interest in teaching you.

Nor do I have any particular worldview to use as a measure.
You seem to assume I do merely because I disagree with you.
I am quite capable of questioning or supporting just about
any viewpoint. I certainly to not privilige any particular
preference I might have because that would interfere with
learning. You seem to respond more to critical questioning
than to support, so naturally the discussion migrates there.

I'm sorry to have taken so much of your time.

Do not worry about it. I choose how I spend my time.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

But I already have learned things discussing with you.


Speak for yourself -- are you that closed?


What lesson? I am demonstrably not Mrs M. I do not have
her authority over you, nor her interest in teaching you.

Nor do I have any particular worldview to use as a measure.
You seem to assume I do merely because I disagree with you.
I am quite capable of questioning or supporting just about
any viewpoint. I certainly to not privilige any particular
preference I might have because that would interfere with
learning. You seem to respond more to critical questioning
than to support, so naturally the discussion migrates there.

I did not mean to imply that you were Mrs. M. It was from Mrs. M.
that I learned about the pointlessness of battling over world views.
Everyone has one. Else the information we get from our senses would
be as chaotic as the sensory information an infant receives.

"Tout ce qu'on nous enseigne est farce," frequently mistranslated from
Rimbaud's French as, "Everything we are taught is false." False is
too kind. "Everything we are taught is a joke (farce)."

As to my being closed, perhaps I am. I'm closed around a corrosive
skepticism of the kind that Rimbaud adopted. I'm as corrosively
skeptical of Marxism as I am of the reigning idolatry of capitalism.
I have a nearly religious certainty that they are all wrong, because,
like most things human, they are built around acts of faith. The
faith that people exhibit in presenting the ideas in which they have
faith would be touching if it weren't so transparently foolish and
dangerous. Or, rather, acting on faith when you think you are acting
on demonstrable fact is foolish and dangerous.

Up to a point, I enjoy kicking ideas around. When someone becomes too
persistent and too serious, though, I tire of the game. With Mrs. M,
I had no choice. Here, I do. I'm not interested in a University of
Chicago-style struggle over debating points. The people who are
really good at that have all got television or radio gigs pushing the
exact opposite of Rimbaud's conclusion: "Everything I was taught is
true."

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

"Tout ce qu'on nous enseigne est farce,"

[all we are taught is a farce]

.... y compris cette citation! [including this quote]

As to my being closed, perhaps I am. I'm closed around
a corrosive skepticism of the kind that Rimbaud adopted.

Please do not misunderstand the French. What appears
on the surface caustic is most often irony [humor].

Or, rather, acting on faith when you think you are
acting on demonstrable fact is foolish and dangerous.

Always. Extrapolations are risky. Faith by definition
is boundless, while data are always bounded.

Up to a point, I enjoy kicking ideas around. When someone becomes
too persistent and too serious, though, I tire of the game.

I try to separate content from expression[style]. To learn valuable
content, one must frequently tolerate uncomfortable expression.


-- Robert

 

[Robert Myers]

[all we are taught is a farce]

... y compris cette citation! [including this quote]

As to my being closed, perhaps I am. I'm closed around
a corrosive skepticism of the kind that Rimbaud adopted.

Please do not misunderstand the French. What appears
on the surface caustic is most often irony [humor].

I have more than a superficial acquaintance with the symbolists,
including Rimbaud. Rimbaud taught mostly by negative example. He
defied all expectations. If anyone ever took his own perverse advice
seriously, Rimbaud would be a good candidate as an examplar.

That is to say, it is unlikely that his intent was ironic, and it's
not a statement of the form "This statement is false." Rimbaud may
not have been the first to say such a thing, but it is not something
that "we" (those educated in the traditions of western civilization,
say) are taught.

Up to a point, I enjoy kicking ideas around. When someone becomes
too persistent and too serious, though, I tire of the game.

I try to separate content from expression[style]. To learn valuable
content, one must frequently tolerate uncomfortable expression.

I've perhaps been overly sensitized to certain kinds of rhetorical
styles. Here are some giveaways that make me lose interest in a
conversation:

Obsession with definitions and how words are commonly used.
Over-exactness about generalizations (falsification by a single
counter-example)
Falsification by way of contradiction (as if human communication were
the same as mathematics).

Who the hell cares about how you interpret "cubic dollars" or what the
AMD architect meant? Only someone who is obsessed with debating
points.

Who the hell cares if I say "Second law of entropy" instead of "second
law of thermodynamics?"

"Second law of entropy" gets 70 page hits on google, so I'm not the
first to use the phrase and, in fact, I was not thinking about
thermodynamics, which is about thermal systems in equilibrium or at
least quasi-equilibrium. I was thinking about entropy in its general
definition in statistical mechanics, as the logarithm of a volume in
phase space, and how it behaves, quasi-equilibrium or no.

Life is too short to get tangled up in things like that. It's not
merely a matter of pleasant or unpleasant. Once someone tries to drag
me off in one of those directions, I'm pretty sure that I'm not going
to get any more out of the conversation. I don't mean to be insulting
or even unpleasant. I have a style and I can't adjust it to suit
everyone.

Robert.

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

Rimbaud taught mostly by negative example.

Angry young man. He stopped writing at 20. Context matters.

Rimbaud may not have been the first to say such a thing,
but it is not something that "we" (those educated in the
traditions of western civilization, say) are taught.

Oh? What about Socrates: "One thing I know, is that I
know nothing."? Or the 4 million Google hits on Rimbaud?
Rather remarkable since poetry translates poorly.

Here are some giveaways that make me lose interest
in a conversation:
Over-exactness about generalizations
(falsification by a single counter-example)

This is called logic. A universal "truth" is
completely falsified by a single counterexample.

Falsification by way of contradiction (as if human
communication were the same as mathematics).

Math doesn't accept contradiction without proof.

Who the hell cares about how you interpret "cubic dollars"
or what the AMD architect meant? Only someone who is
obsessed with debating points.

When you make an argument dependant on quantity,
that quantity need to be proven.

Who the hell cares if I say "Second law of entropy"
instead of "second law of thermodynamics?"

Well, I won't repeat your "unconventional" terminology.

"Second law of entropy" gets 70 page hits on google, so
I'm not the first to use the phrase and, in fact, I was
not thinking about thermodynamics, which is about thermal
systems in equilibrium or at least quasi-equilibrium.
I was thinking about entropy in its general definition
in statistical mechanics, as the logarithm of a volume in
phase space, and how it behaves, quasi-equilibrium or no.

Well, don't use "second law" if you don't want people to infer
thermodynamics. It is very unclear how the statistical mechanics
definition advances your argument. Order there is imposed by
"microstates" whose anisentropic cost is excluded. Fine if
those microstates are covered by something else like quantum
mechanics, incomplete [open-system] otherwise (most IT).


-- Robert

 

[Del Cecchi]

You're piece of the work. They *can* & *do* estimate risk in their main
line
of business. Otherwise they would be dead long time ago.

much snippage.

Let me just remind folks of the Long Term Capital Management debacle, and
the more recent ones involving Swaps and Mortgage Backed Securities in
which there was demonstrably a failure to correctly model the risk. In
particular, things happened which had been assumed to be impossible like
house prices actually going down or currency fluctuations in the wrong
direction, or similar things, leading to the total inability to trade
because of the inability to calculate value of certain instruments.