The year when the Chinese economy will truly eclipse America’s is in sight

For all the rhetoric about greatness, it might be useful to look around.

86 Mac Plus Vs. 07 AMD DualCore

but, but, but .... read it for yourself.

Maybe there is an opening for fonc ?

Setting up a project using Libcoap in Eclipse CDT

For those new to Eclipse CDT (as I am), a couple of things may be very helpful.

Look at Eclipse C/C++ and Linux Libraries for a quick tutorial on configuring Eclipse CDT.
Then look at the thread Linker cannot find lib file for how to point the linker to the appropriate library file.
This is likely all pretty obvious to an experienced C programmer, but to a newbie it may be frustrating.

So in my case, under GCC C Compiler/Includes it was necessary to define the include path to where libcoap was installed (the File Browser helps here).
Then you have to go to the GCC C Linker/Libraries dialog and declare "Libraries (-l)" with "coap" and "Library search path (-L)" again to where libcoap was installed.
Refer above:

If your library is called "libmysqlclient.a" you specify -lmysqlclient 
to the linker (it automatically adds "lib" prefix and ".a" (or ".so") 
suffix.

7.77 trillion ?

Bloomberg reported yesterday that
"The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day." 
and
"Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year."

Where is "Glass-Steagall" when you need it ... oh, that's right, we're smarter now.

Dave Thomas at Splash 2011

Dave has a broad perspective on the programming landscape.

A Walk on the Dart Side: A Quick Tour of Dart

A talk given by Gilad Bracha on Dart.  Gives some of the constraints and thoughts behind the design of the language.  Worth watching if interested in Dart.

Dart

Today Google introduced Dart at the Goto; conference.  The tooling is primitive as might be expected, but under Linux runs.  There are some path errors in the example source, it looks like the directory structure was setup for client & server runtimes, but only the client code was released.  The language itself looks very promising as might be expected from Gilad Bracha.  It looks very pragmatic, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Reading posts on the Newspeak language forums, I expect someday to see a Newspeak to Dart compiler, as previously a Newspeak to Javascript compiler was proposed.  Newspeak was likely too revolutionary for Google and an unnecessary gamble, given the option to cross-compile later.

The End of the Future

An uncomfortable read when you have children

A game of catch-up

The shift in economic power from West to East is accelerating, says John O’Sullivan. The rich world will lose some of its privileges

A game of catch-up

"The shift in economic power from West to East is accelerating, says John O'Sullivan.  The rich world will lose some of its privileges".  Time to wake up from the dream.

DNA Building Blocks Can Be Made In Space

NASA Researchers: DNA Building Blocks Can Be Made in Space

.... and so if this is how & it happened here, then where else ?

Holidays in Hell

Fancy a holiday in Bali ?

Empires on the Edge of Chaos

A very sobering account of the current US financial position, in a historical context.

Empires on the Edge of Chaos

A very sobering account of the current US financial position, in a historical context.

The impact of HTML5

Interesting video on the potentials of the web, specifically around the impact of HTML5.

Running the government on 8¢

This is an old article but given the current 'difficulty' in raising the debt ceiling by a specific date, it indicates the trouble ahead for the country to deal with a slow moving train wreck.

InfoQ: Erlang Inventors Talk Language Future

InfoQ: Erlang Inventors Talk Language Future

Building Rome in a Day

The Economist has a pretty nice read:

Building Rome in a Day: The Sustainability of China's housing boom

How to Save a Trillion Dollars

How to Save a Trillion Dollars A pretty frightening read, particularly after What S&P's U.S. Outlook Downgrade Means

Corporate taxes for big and small

As a small business owner, I was stunned to read about Google's effective tax rate.  Clearly the opportunity is open to multinationals and can be completely legal.  But so much for the idea that these firms will contribute taxes to the US economy ... or that lowering the US corporate tax rate will result in a larger tax revenue.  Closing corporate loopholes may snare more revenue from small businesses, but if 12.5% is not low enough for Google, what is the floor rate to keep revenue in a country ?  Unquestionably, Google employs lots of folks in the US ... just making the point, via this article, that this is no simple issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ireland-business-blog-with-lisa-ocarroll/2011/mar/24/google-ireland-tax-reasons-bermuda