If one is "high all the time," then that state becomes the normal state, and anytime they aren't "high" means they are in a "low state." Both psychologically and physiologically, one can become tolerant or adjusted to certain states.

If something is special, doing it all the time detracts from its appeal.

You're probably right that they won't make the hardware -- at most they'll probably contract HTC to do it...

The real question is if Google is going to find a way into the cell phone service-provider business... be it on the physical infrastructure side (unlikely), or on the communications service side

There's been some past /. discussion on this, and what I gathered from it was that Google will put themselves at odds with the infrastructure owners (e.g. AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, etc) by forcing them into a data-provider role rather their current communications-provider role (which is much more lucrative -- e.g. charging $0.10 for a 160-byte text message).

The speculation stems from the Google Voice service, but I think they can get away with that because they're still making use of the cell providers' telephone network, and not turning everything into "just data". I can't see the current monopolies being particularly happy if Google takes any further steps in this direction, though. Then again, the cell phone service-providers sorely need a competitor to force them to provide better service (e.g. AT&T no longer investing in their oversold 3G network because they're focusing on 4G planning).

I assume you mean 'those new programmers'... lower-level programmers would be working with ASM, or even C in this context, not perl.
I disagree anyways -- there have always been bad programmers, and there always will be. The lower level languages have even more potential areas for insecure programming, and that fact will not stop people from writing bad code, nor will it make them understand the underworkings of the computer. Just because a good programmer must know more about the computer architecture, doesn't stop bad programmers from not caring and writing code anyways. In fact, the steeper learning curve of lower-level languages may even provide more of an incentive to copy-and-paste, rather than spending more effort to learn the underworkings than it would to learn the essentials for proper coding in higher-level languages.

CPAN is not the perl interpreter. You object to perl as a language or higher-level languages as a concept, because there are people who write poor code, there are people who decide to use prewritten poor code, and there are websites that provide easy access to all this prewritten poor code? I hope you realize that this has nothing to do with perl, and that a parallel exists with every language at every level of abstraction from the machine level. There are certainly many, many pieces of assembly and C/C++ which are poorly written and yet are copied-and-pasted by others... if anything, it's harder to become a good lower-level programmer since there are more issues and technicalities to consider. Those that don't become good lower-level programmers will not necessarily stop programming, they'll just continue writing bad code.

So then we shouldn't use nail guns, because they don't require the carpenter to repetitively practice the skill of hammering in a nail like a hammer would? Yes, it's a lot easier to hurt yourself with a nail gun... but it also makes building many houses a much more feasible task, and allows the carpenter to concentrate on the fact that they're building a house, rather than the fact that each nail must be driven properly. Under the pressures of common job timetables and the monotony of hammering each nail, they may even accidentally screw up the overall design without realizing it -- accidentally not seeing the whole picture as they are too concentrated on the tedious and repetitive details. There are invariably construction workers who will use the nail gun improperly and hurt themselves or others -- so you get out of the way and refuse to work with them or hire them, rather than not permitting anyone to use the nail guns.

If they can't, won't, or haven't learned efficient/safe coding practices in perl, what makes you think they'll learn them in C, which requires far more details and studying?

It sounds to me like you shouldn't have been using amateurs' code, regardless of language, for essential or business purposes... you can hardly blame the language for that. If anything, you or whoever made the decision to use the poor code are to blame.

mod_perl is an integration of perl into a different environment, which is not a trivial task. I don't really use it personally, so I can't comment much. I regularly use perl in professional programming tasks outside of the realm of web scripts, and it performs quite well. It can be very fast, albeit with twice the memory footprint of similar C code; however the efficiency of writing many things more than makes up for this, and as I mentioned you can selectively optimize the important parts with language features, embedded C/C++/ASM, or even interfacing with external C/C++/etc libraries. Many parts of a generic C project do not have code that requires hand-optimized performance.

So? A higher level language makes the job easier for experienced programmers who understand how the interpreter works at the machine-level.

If you really do have a good understand of how it works, you can avoid most security and performance issues; you can dictate efficiency boosts like specific typing, precompiled regular expressions, etc; and you can still embed C and/or assembly when appropriate. You also gain all the advantages and lack of other common low-level security flaws, like buffer overflows. Basically, you're trusting the language designers to write a robust interpreter to avoid the common C security issues so you don't have to -- sounds a lot like using C/C++ instead of assembly, just replace 'interpreter' with 'compiler'.

Why should we resist new tools that help good programmers create good code more efficiently, just because bad programmers can also use them to create bad code more efficiently?

It's much easier to replicate manufacturing base than it is to replicate the bleeding edge research and development for microprocessors, new materials, etc...

There are many countries with cheap labor and resources that would love the ability to get a huge influx in technology -- because obviously any technology that is manufactured there is essentially transferred there (at very least, there's easy access for local reverse engineers; at very most, they directly gain the formula for implementing a particular technology). Additionally, easy access to local high-tech manufacturing would definitely catalyze local R&D efforts.

I doubt too many countries would be put off by the US defaulting on debt if China called it all in at once. The answer is to not call in the debt, but rather to continue to benefit from each other for as long as possible -- that's where the real gain is. In fact, China's electronics and manufacturing sector has exploded in large part due to the excessive demand from the US, and they are definitely better off because of it even if they don't get any of their US$ loans back. Many other countries would like the same situation for themselves.

Say what you want about the US... though we don't manufacture many products anymore, we certainly still manufacture a whole lot of technology design, code, etc... all of which falls under the category of IP. It's just that it's a lot harder to quantify those exports, since they're much more subjective than "X quantity of materials valued at $Y each." I'm not so stupid as to think the US is special -- any country could do the same given the resources and conditions we have. The US just happened to do the "right" things at the right time, and that is still the case when it comes to technology R&D (though this could change if our education system continues to deteriorate).

That's not to say that the rest of the world can't do the same, but the US certainly is still a leader in technology research and development.

Anyways, I never said I'm in favor of The Way Things Are(tm)... but that doesn't change the facts.

Even in a highly-globalized environment, I think you'll find that most citizens of any given country still focus on their local lives, their profession, their hobbies, etc, and have very little say in their country's economic strategies. I don't think any of the letters I've ever written to my government representatives have ever made a significant impact. All we can really do is observe, focus on our interests, try to alter our behavior to reflect how we think the world should be, and not get that involved unless things start to go really, really wrong.

Not quite... They own $1 trillion of our virtual currency

In exchange we got a lot of their material goods

If they abruptly ended the relationship one day and called in our debt, we would just default and they'd be left with nothing.
What option would they be left with? Go to war? Fat chance -- wars nowadays are fought with technology, not numbers of soldiers... and we spend almost as much as the rest of the world *combined* on defense (we spend $600 billion a year on military, whereas China is the 2nd highest with under $90 billion a year)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute_figures

In the meantime, we would still have their manufactured items, and we'd just take our IP (read: engineering designs) to Malaysia or some other place (e.g. Mexico) for our manufacturing needs.

They don't "own us" -- it's a mutually beneficial relationship that requires both parties to take part.
Every country that plays the "globalization" game gets the benefits from and the dependency on every other player. As it stands now, they depend on us just like we depend on them. That could change, but it'd likely be a gradual change, or else a painful change for *both* sides.

A quick google search turned up the following for Starcraft. You probably want to do a bit of in-depth research before running these binaries... they may be buggy, fake, etc

One way might be to play Starcraft in windowed mode:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=72621

Or use a "high resolution" mod. There seem to be a lot of defunct mods like this that probably never worked too well, but the first link might be worth a shot:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=97122
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16643
http://freenet-homepage.de/ToiletGame/download.html
http://www.gamethreat.net/forums/user-downloads/38147-resolution-hack-release-4-0-a.html

It seems like future rovers should have instrumentation to sense the composition of the ground they are about to tread over, as well as extra limbs that can be used to repair the rover (even just a brush to clean the solar panels) or assist its movement (grappling hook?)

Say what you will about NASA's large budgets or sometimes questionable research efforts... when put to the task, they can produce some remarkable feats of engineering

The longevity of the Mars rovers never ceases to amaze me. Just the fact that we are controlling robots we landed on Mars is cool enough, but that they lasted 22 times longer than their intended 90-day lifetime in the harsh Mars environment, is truly an example of quality engineering.

Of course, their over-engineering of human risk-related matters leaves something to be desired. Anyone exploring uncharted territories has to accept the risks involved, including the possibility of a one way trip. Is that really such a bad thing though? There are plenty of risk-takers who thrive on this, and plenty of them would love to make history as part of the first colonization team on the moon (for example).

Instead of focusing resources on ensuring safe return, we should spend those resources on setting up permanent, sustainable facilities on the moon, so that we can slowly reduce our need to continually send materials. Is shipping miniature mining and production robot/facility to the moon that unimaginable? Once you can harvest and produce key materials on the moon, the task of setting up long-term human habitats becomes at least slightly easier.

I really hope the commercialization of space travel is the catalyst needed to accelerate the development of space colonization, and I hope that the excessive human-risk aversion policies that arguably held NASA back are not forced upon the participating private companies of the new space era.

On yet another mildly-unrelated note:
I'd love to see more development on the Launch Loop concept, which seems WAY more feasible than the space elevators... no science/technology breakthroughs are required, just a lot of energy and money ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Launch_loop

Does anyone have reliable info about when the GSM version of the Motorola Droid will be release?

And what will it be called? Sholes? Milestone? etc?

The Motorola Milestone is supposedly launching in Germany... can we import that and use it with T-Mobile or AT&T in the US?

Here are some more details from the abstract of a relevent paper:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121401991/abstract
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/121401991/PDFSTART

This topic was also covered a few months ago -- with better results, but using actual lenses instead of just the bare CCD sensor:
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/07/24/1440227/Use-Your-Cell-Phone-To-Diagnose-Blood-Diseases

Long runs of RCA will definitely act as giant antennas, and the noise picked-up will be amplified (as opposed to sending an already-amplified, powerful signal that's much larger than the received noise).

Unfortunately coaxial cable is sometimes not enough... the shield conductor in the coaxial wire is part of the signal transmitting system; any power that is sent on the signal wire will be returned through the shield. Therefore, noise that is received by the shield will end up affecting the signal.

The best simple solution is to use differential signalling (balanced audio), wherein you add a second signal wire that carries the inverse of the first signal wire. The two signal wires are coupled tightly (e.g. twisted), so any noise will be picked up on both. At the receiver, the balun subtracts the two signal wires, resulting in just the original signal remaining and the noise cancelling out. The twisted pair of signal wires should also be shielded with ground, so there is still some possibility for noise, but it's much better than just coaxial.

Balanced audio is standard for professional grade audio, microphones, etc... particularly for long runs

If you compare the percentage of poorly-written perl code (versus well-written code) to the percentage of poorly-written C/C++ code, I bet you won't find a statistically significant difference.

Perl just makes it really easy to publish a module in a centralized location (CPAN), whereas C/C++ code is spread all over the place.
Just because it's in CPAN, doesn't mean it's quality, nor that it's been tested and is production-worthy.

Please don't judge perl based on some bad code you've read. It takes a good programmer to write good code -- perl just is less strict about how you must write code, and so the programmers must keep themselves to a proper set of standards. A good programmer can utilize perl's flexibility to produce some very simple and powerful code, without sacrificing quality or maintainability.

It's pretty pathetic and negligent that software that controls explosive missles was not tested for over 100 hours of operation. That's a standard Quality Assurance procedure for even the simplest low-budget hardware...

It's also pretty pathetic that the system designers implemented a broken design and did not foresee this problem. High-resolution timekeeping has been accomplished pretty successfully already...

I wonder how much time and money was spent in research and development for this thing
It doesn't seem like we're getting a quality product for the likely huge sum that was paid for it...

Actually there will be a net gain in the plant population.

Plants are already at the bottom of the food chain and the higher up your OWN meal is on the food chain, the more plant mass is required to grow your food. Those plants are going to get eaten no matter what.

Skip the trophic levels and go straight to the bottom, and you save on calorie taxes that are imposed on carnivores.

Eat a pound of beef, and you use up the 12 pounds of grain that were needed to grow the beef. Eat a pound of grain, and you preserve 11 pounds of grain that would otherwise have gone into ranching.

Besides, you can't get rid of cows by eating them. That's called demand, and demand increases price, and price increases boost supply. So the long and short of it is that attempting to exterminate methane farting cows by eating them will only encourage farmers to breed more of them. The only way to make someone stop selling a good is to stop buying it.

Why must we beam the power to a space elevator?

Wouldn't it be reasonable to use wire conductors? If we will be able to build the support lines that can span from the earth to orbit, why couldn't we also make a couple of smaller ones inside the main one for carrying power? Or why not just use the support lines themselves to provide power (assuming there are multiple support lines for redundancy)?

Can anyone provide some more insight into this? I haven't been able to find a decent explanation