@6Yankee, you beat me to it. If I had mod points I would mod you up and your parent down. I know which of you two I would want to share an crowded pattern with.
China is a very distant 4th place when it comes to spam. You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries followed very closely by Japan-Korea and the US. I don't know where that 20% for china comes from. From a study done in March of 2005:
Of course, I also see numbers like this from a slightly older article:
"Sophos, Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Lynnfield, Mass., reports that the U.S. -- sending out 42.53 percent of all spam -- sits far atop its list of the world's Top 12 Spam-Producing Countries."
So, just depends on who you ask on how it breaks down, however, either way, it isn't China.
"There are a number of limitations to the existing oxygen tank underwater breathing method. The first is the amount of time a diver can stay underwater, which is the result of the oxygen tank capacity."
I have scuba dived since 1982 and I am rarely limited by the amount of O2 I have handy. The limiting factor for any diving to any real depth (>30 feet say) is the amount of residual nitrogen in your blood stream. If that gets too high, and you surface, you get what is commonly referred to as the 'bends'; little bubbles of nitrogen bubbling out of your blood stream. Bad news. This is true for recreational diving anyway. The military, deep sea welders and others with decompression chambers might not have this problem.
The other big drawback I see is that at depth the pressure of the water on your body is very great. That is why modern scuba uses pressure delivery systems. That is, they deliver air at a pressure that is near to the surrounding pressure. This makes it so you can actually draw in a breath of air given all the pressure on your chest (and hence the 3000 psi scuba tanks). I don't see how the contraption can both be small and deliver at a high pressure while operating off of one battery. Even at ~32 feet you are at 1 atmosphere extra pressure.
Now, it may very well be great for submarines, but I don't think it will be useful for scuba.
Also, now that I think about it, I think the US navy has some pure O2 underwater low depth breathing rigs like this. The big advantage of those is that they produce no bubbles. Very stealthy.
Pure O2 is poisonous below about 32feet, if I remember correctly and if you go below about 100feet, just depending you can get high. Go google, "rapture of the deep."
What is keeping *them* from just downloading a copy? If not them, they someone they hire or pay off. It is certainly a step in the right direction I think, and it might actually help Napster in this case, but in the long run I am not so sure how much of an effect it will have. At least it will mean that they probably don't have the correct evidence to sue a lot of people they wanted to, but all the new cases in the future won't have that problem I bet. Does anyone else see why this would mean more then just some old cases not having enough evidence?
Here is a blurb from a article on the failure of prohibition by the Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University, Mark Thornton. If you read it, just substitue 'file swapping' for 'alcohol' and it seems to ring very true.
"National prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure
The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on drugs but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to alcohol and tobacco and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.
Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; crime increased and became "organized"; the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point; and corruption of public officials was rampant. No measurable gains were made in productivity or reduced absenteeism. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Prohibition--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Prohibition that much stronger."
My favorite quote from prohibition was this on by Reverent Billy Sunday:
"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."
Seems like the same kind of quote a RIAA is telling artist when they talk about their fight against file swapping.
Well, I know that I am drawing at least a couple unfounded correlations between the two, but its fun to do. Also, I should point out that I am not for or against either position. Both positions have their own problems.
I am not so sure that Canada's collectives want to "kill the download industry" as much as they are still upset about the United States failure to comply with the WTO ruling on the Byrd Amendment. In fact, on March 31st of this year Canada put this out:
"The Government of Canada announced today that it will retaliate against the United States in light of its failure to comply with the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on the Byrd Amendment. Following extensive consultations with domestic stakeholders, Canada will impose a 15 percent surtax on U.S. live swine, cigarettes, oysters and certain specialty fish, starting May 1, 2005"
Seems to me this download tariff is just another retaliation like the above. It isn't just Canada either, several countries are upset that the US has not complied.
For those that don't know, The Byrd amendment, passed by Congress four years ago, provides that when foreign manufacturers are found to be dumping goods in the U.S. market -- that is, selling at unfairly low prices -- any anti-dumping duties that are imposed can be handed over to the U.S. companies that brought the dumping case, rather than to the Treasury. It has benefited U.S. firms in industries including steel and pasta, with one of the largest beneficiaries being Timken Co., an Ohio maker of bearings, which collected about $40 million last year.
Pretty cool, but I know what you are thinking, "-30 Celsius, so what, we have wireless communications and electronics operating out in deep space where it is only 3 degrees kelvin!"
Well, it is a lot colder for sure, more difficult and expensive, but not as bad as you might think. It is actually kind of hard to get space craft electronics down to a very low temperature that is needed for items like x-ray telescopes and the like. Space craft that don't want any heat radiation at all affecting them. From a tutorial on extreme temperature electronics:
"Far from anything (in intergalactic space, for example) a passive object would
cool to a few kelvins (a few degrees above absolute zero). However, spacecraft
are not in such an environment during their useful life; most spacecraft are near
bodies such as the Earth and also receive energy from the Sun. In addition,
spacecraft usually incorporate power sources (chemical batteries, solar cells,
or nuclear generators), and the resulting heat must be dissipated. [snip]
Cooling a spacecraft down to a few kelvins passively (without refrigeration or a cryogen)
in the inner Solar System is probably impossible. However, quite low temperatures can
be attained by using well designed thermal shielding and insulation combined with
large heat radiators. For example, major parts of the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) (Formerly the Next Generation Space Telescope, NGST) are planned to be
operated as cold as about 35 K (about 240C) by these techniques."
Still 240C is pretty impressive. However, At the low end, operation of semiconductor-based devices and circuits has often been reported down to temperatures as low as a few degrees above absolute zero, in other words as low as about 270C. This includes devices based on Si, Ge, GaAs and other semiconductor materials. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that operation should not extend all the way down to absolute zero.
They, the scientists, have been able to do this for some time with heat. The link below is to an article that shows a 30 gram weight being lifted and lowered by a type of polymer know as nematic elastomers.
they also say in the above article(link) that, "..light can also induce shape changes anywhere from 10 to 400 percent [in the polymer]." However, it takes a hours for it to return to the original shape.
One of the best applications,in my opinion, for any fast-acting shape changing polymer would be as artificial muscles. Not sure how practical or easy that might be. You would have to get the temperature range, where the shape changing takes place, down pretty low and find a way to control it outside of the body's heat influence. I am sure there are other problems as well.
Notice that the first link under that article in the 'related links' section is, "BitTorrent hubs close after ISP raid". In that article is says, "The music industry's anti-piracy unit claims 50 file-sharing [BitTorrent] hubs in Australia closed....". Seems like the entertainment industry's one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. That is the biggest problem as I see it; trying to get all the content holders, content producers, content creators and talent all on one page. Until they do that none of them, nor us, will be able to benefit from what the Internet has to offer as a new channel for media distribution.
Will it be easy? No. Will it happen at all? Eventually. In the mean time it is going to be very painful indeed. Two steps forward, one back.
I also know of no volcanic activity that has taken place in the past, however, I think they *are* talking about Lunar(our moon) bases. At least what I can gather from this:
"Evolving Lunar Lava Tube Base Simulations with Integral Instructional Capabilities"
http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5lbi88.html
In part:
"The concept of lunar bases inside lunar lava tubes was suggested by F. Horz in his 1985 paper, "Lava Tubes: Potential Shelters for Habitats." Lava tubes are made by crusting over of lava channels (Greeley, 1971; Harter & Harter III, 1982; Greeley & Spudis, 1986). Lunar lava channels, or sinuous rilles, some of which appear to have uncollapsed roof segments, have measured widths of from 200m to 1.5km. Roof thickness in excess of 10m provides meteorite and radiation shielding and moderation of surface temperatures (Horz, 1985). An entrance is easily cleared into the shielded environment of a tube for the largest machinery."
I guess there must have been some in the past. Later in the document they go on to talk about Mars as well.
One proposal for a moon base I found interesting was using lava tubes as pre-built bases. It provided radiation as well as meteorite protection. They actually did a bunch of research in lave caves in Oregon some time ago.
I don't think it has nearly as much to do with the fact that the respondents have never been to a blog, but more to do with the fact that the question is worded such that they are bound to answer in a given way. Mark Blumenthal points out:
"The error is the incorrect belief that there is a "right" or "unbiased" way to ask a question about any given public issue. There is no such thing. Everyone who works within the polling field is well aware that small changes in wording can affect the ways in which respondents answer questions. This approach leads us into tortuous discussions of question wording on which reasonable people can differ. Further, as you have pointed out many times in the past, random variation in the construction of the sample or in response rates can skew the results of any single poll away from the true distribution of opinions in the population."
Given the question in the survey: "[do you] believe that bloggers should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal information about private citizens?" Of course they are going to say no. They would say so regardless if it were bloggers, firemen or priests. It's like asking if you think children should have enough to eat, everyone is going to say yes, even if it is attached to some dumb bill raising taxes on golf balls.
What should we do then? Mark Blumenthal goes on to say, "The answer is NOT to find a single poll with the "best" wording and point to its results as the final word on the subject. Instead, we should look at ALL of the polls conducted on the issue by various different polling organizations. Each scientifically fielded poll presents us with useful information. By comparing the different responses to multiple polls -- each with different wording -- we end up with a far more nuanced picture of where public opinion stands on a particular issue."
I think either shell mentioned in the book is great, I personally use bash, mostly just because of historical reasons.
Speaking of different shells in general. Here is a very handy list that can help you pick which shell is best for you. This is not meant to start a war over which shell is better but is just meant to help pick the shell that is best for you:
Truthfully, I would find it strange as well. I have not seen a $2 bill in a long long time. Same thing with all those $1 coins. However, people tend to accept strange coin amounts a lot easier then paper money amounts.
It happens more then you might think. For a funny story about trying to use a $2 bill at Taco Bell, check this out:
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2- at -Taco-Bell.html
However, I see it on the web attributed to at least 3 different authors, so I doubt it really happened.
How much of a refund would you get? I am guessing that you can not get the amount MS changes if you buy XP off the shelf. Do they try and determine just what that vendor paid for it or would they try and determine how much of the cost of the machine is represented by the OS installed on it. That is, the difference between a machine sold with XP installed and the same machine shipped with linux or no OS at all, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
None of these are available any longer. If they do have 3x the number of TV shows that they used to, they don't have the ones I want. :-(
@6Yankee, you beat me to it. If I had mod points I would mod you up and your parent down. I know which of you two I would want to share an crowded pattern with.
China is a very distant 4th place when it comes to spam. You want to know who leads the world in spam output; its the wealthy EU countries followed very closely by Japan-Korea and the US. I don't know where that 20% for china comes from. From a study done in March of 2005:
1) Europe(*) 24.70
2) Japan-Korea 24.24
3) US 22.80
4) Greater China(**) 14.45
(*) European Union countries: 21.85%; Top spam-distributors: French, Spain, Germany, UK
** Including: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong.
source: http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/email/article
Of course, I also see numbers like this from a slightly older article:
"Sophos, Inc., an anti-virus and anti-spam company based in Lynnfield, Mass., reports that the U.S. -- sending out 42.53 percent of all spam -- sits far atop its list of the world's Top 12 Spam-Producing Countries."
So, just depends on who you ask on how it breaks down, however, either way, it isn't China.
Funny, you can still get to the python script that generates the wallpapers from the cached pages of http://gmerge.2ni.net/ on Google itself:
e vinux.org/~2ni/gmerge/+google+maps+wallpaper&hl=en
:)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:lNdeCgLHUdwJ:l
Get it while its still there!
"There are a number of limitations to the existing oxygen tank underwater breathing method. The first is the amount of time a diver can stay underwater, which is the result of the oxygen tank capacity."
I have scuba dived since 1982 and I am rarely limited by the amount of O2 I have handy. The limiting factor for any diving to any real depth (>30 feet say) is the amount of residual nitrogen in your blood stream. If that gets too high, and you surface, you get what is commonly referred to as the 'bends'; little bubbles of nitrogen bubbling out of your blood stream. Bad news. This is true for recreational diving anyway. The military, deep sea welders and others with decompression chambers might not have this problem.
The other big drawback I see is that at depth the pressure of the water on your body is very great. That is why modern scuba uses pressure delivery systems. That is, they deliver air at a pressure that is near to the surrounding pressure. This makes it so you can actually draw in a breath of air given all the pressure on your chest (and hence the 3000 psi scuba tanks). I don't see how the contraption can both be small and deliver at a high pressure while operating off of one battery. Even at ~32 feet you are at 1 atmosphere extra pressure.
Now, it may very well be great for submarines, but I don't think it will be useful for scuba.
Also, now that I think about it, I think the US navy has some pure O2 underwater low depth breathing rigs like this. The big advantage of those is that they produce no bubbles. Very stealthy.
Pure O2 is poisonous below about 32feet, if I remember correctly and if you go below about 100feet, just depending you can get high. Go google, "rapture of the deep."
What is keeping *them* from just downloading a copy? If not them, they someone they hire or pay off. It is certainly a step in the right direction I think, and it might actually help Napster in this case, but in the long run I am not so sure how much of an effect it will have. At least it will mean that they probably don't have the correct evidence to sue a lot of people they wanted to, but all the new cases in the future won't have that problem I bet. Does anyone else see why this would mean more then just some old cases not having enough evidence?
...think color video!
Here is a blurb from a article on the failure of prohibition by the Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University, Mark Thornton. If you read it, just substitue 'file swapping' for 'alcohol' and it seems to ring very true.
"National prohibition of alcohol (1920-33)--the "noble experiment" -- was undertaken to reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and poorhouses, and improve health and hygiene in America. The results of that experiment clearly indicate that it was a miserable failure on all counts. The evidence affirms sound economic theory, which predicts that prohibition of mutually beneficial exchanges is doomed to failure
The lessons of Prohibition remain important today. They apply not only to the debate over the war on drugs but also to the mounting efforts to drastically reduce access to alcohol and tobacco and to such issues as censorship and bans on insider trading, abortion, and gambling.
Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; crime increased and became "organized"; the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point; and corruption of public officials was rampant. No measurable gains were made in productivity or reduced absenteeism. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition. Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Prohibition--most economists and social scientists supported it. Their findings make the case against Prohibition that
much stronger."
My favorite quote from prohibition was this on by Reverent Billy Sunday:
"The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent."
Seems like the same kind of quote a RIAA is telling artist when they talk about their fight against file swapping.
Well, I know that I am drawing at least a couple unfounded correlations between the two, but its fun to do. Also, I should point out that I am not for or against either position. Both positions have their own problems.
I am not so sure that Canada's collectives want to "kill the download
industry" as much as they are still upset about the United States
failure to comply with the WTO ruling on the Byrd Amendment. In fact,
on March 31st of this year Canada put this out:
"The Government of Canada announced today that it will retaliate
against the United States in light of its failure to comply with the
World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on the Byrd Amendment. Following
extensive consultations with domestic stakeholders, Canada will impose
a 15 percent surtax on U.S. live swine, cigarettes, oysters and
certain specialty fish, starting May 1, 2005"
Seems to me this download tariff is just another retaliation like the
above. It isn't just Canada either, several countries are upset that
the US has not complied.
For those that don't know, The Byrd amendment, passed by Congress four
years ago, provides that when foreign manufacturers are found to be
dumping goods in the U.S. market -- that is, selling at unfairly low
prices -- any anti-dumping duties that are imposed can be handed over
to the U.S. companies that brought the dumping case, rather than to
the Treasury. It has benefited U.S. firms in industries including
steel and pasta, with one of the largest beneficiaries being Timken
Co., an Ohio maker of bearings, which collected about $40 million last
year.
Pretty cool, but I know what you are thinking, "-30 Celsius, so what,
we have wireless communications and electronics operating out in deep
space where it is only 3 degrees kelvin!"
Well, it is a lot colder for sure, more difficult and expensive, but not as bad as
you might think. It is actually kind of hard to get space craft electronics down
to a very low temperature that is needed for items like x-ray telescopes and the
like. Space craft that don't want any heat radiation at all affecting them. From a
tutorial on extreme temperature electronics:
"Far from anything (in intergalactic space, for example) a passive object would
cool to a few kelvins (a few degrees above absolute zero). However, spacecraft
are not in such an environment during their useful life; most spacecraft are near
bodies such as the Earth and also receive energy from the Sun. In addition,
spacecraft usually incorporate power sources (chemical batteries, solar cells,
or nuclear generators), and the resulting heat must be dissipated. [snip]
Cooling a spacecraft down to a few kelvins passively (without refrigeration or a cryogen)
in the inner Solar System is probably impossible. However, quite low temperatures can
be attained by using well designed thermal shielding and insulation combined with
large heat radiators. For example, major parts of the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST) (Formerly the Next Generation Space Telescope, NGST) are planned to be
operated as cold as about 35 K (about 240C) by these techniques."
Still 240C is pretty impressive. However, At the low end, operation of
semiconductor-based devices and circuits has often been reported down to
temperatures as low as a few degrees above absolute zero, in other words as
low as about 270C. This includes devices based on Si, Ge, GaAs and other
semiconductor materials. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that operation
should not extend all the way down to absolute zero.
You can learn more here:
Sorry, spaces in link. Here is a good one.
5 D-FA8F-1C5F-B882809EC588ED9F>
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007C5
They, the scientists, have been able to do this for some time with
C 55 D-FA8F-1C5F-B882809EC588ED9F
heat. The link below is to an article that shows a 30 gram weight
being lifted and lowered by a type of polymer know as nematic
elastomers.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007
they also say in the above article(link) that, "..light can also induce
shape changes anywhere from 10 to 400 percent [in the polymer]."
However, it takes a hours for it to return to the original shape.
One of the best applications,in my opinion, for any fast-acting shape
changing polymer would be as artificial muscles. Not sure how
practical or easy that might be. You would have to get the temperature
range, where the shape changing takes place, down pretty low and find
a way to control it outside of the body's heat influence. I am sure
there are other problems as well.
Notice that the first link under that article in the 'related links'
section is, "BitTorrent hubs close after ISP raid". In that article is
says, "The music industry's anti-piracy unit claims 50 file-sharing
[BitTorrent] hubs in Australia closed....". Seems like the
entertainment industry's one hand doesn't know what the other is
doing. That is the biggest problem as I see it; trying to get all the
content holders, content producers, content creators and talent all on
one page. Until they do that none of them, nor us, will be able to
benefit from what the Internet has to offer as a new channel for media
distribution.
Will it be easy? No. Will it happen at all? Eventually. In the mean
time it is going to be very painful indeed. Two steps forward, one
back.
I also know of no volcanic activity that has taken place in the past,
however, I think they *are* talking about Lunar(our moon) bases. At
least what I can gather from this:
"Evolving Lunar Lava Tube Base Simulations with
Integral Instructional Capabilities"
http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5lbi88.html
In part:
"The concept of lunar bases inside lunar lava tubes was suggested by
F. Horz in his 1985 paper, "Lava Tubes: Potential Shelters for
Habitats." Lava tubes are made by crusting over of lava channels
(Greeley, 1971; Harter & Harter III, 1982; Greeley & Spudis,
1986). Lunar lava channels, or sinuous rilles, some of which appear to
have uncollapsed roof segments, have measured widths of from 200m to
1.5km. Roof thickness in excess of 10m provides meteorite and
radiation shielding and moderation of surface temperatures (Horz,
1985). An entrance is easily cleared into the shielded environment of
a tube for the largest machinery."
I guess there must have been some in the past. Later in the document
they go on to talk about Mars as well.
One proposal for a moon base I found interesting was using lava
tubes as pre-built bases. It provided radiation as well as
meteorite protection. They actually did a bunch of research in
lave caves in Oregon some time ago.
http://www.oregonl5.org/lbrt/l5ombrr1.html
I don't think it has nearly as much to do with the fact that the
respondents have never been to a blog, but more to do with the fact
that the question is worded such that they are bound to answer in a
given way. Mark Blumenthal points out:
"The error is the incorrect belief that there is a "right" or
"unbiased" way to ask a question about any given public issue. There
is no such thing. Everyone who works within the polling field is well
aware that small changes in wording can affect the ways in which
respondents answer questions. This approach leads us into tortuous
discussions of question wording on which reasonable people can
differ. Further, as you have pointed out many times in the past,
random variation in the construction of the sample or in response
rates can skew the results of any single poll away from the true
distribution of opinions in the population."
Given the question in the survey: "[do you] believe that bloggers
should be allowed to publish home addresses and other personal
information about private citizens?" Of course they are going to say
no. They would say so regardless if it were bloggers, firemen or
priests. It's like asking if you think children should have enough to
eat, everyone is going to say yes, even if it is attached to some dumb
bill raising taxes on golf balls.
What should we do then? Mark Blumenthal goes on to say, "The answer is
NOT to find a single poll with the "best" wording and point to its
results as the final word on the subject. Instead, we should look at
ALL of the polls conducted on the issue by various different polling
organizations. Each scientifically fielded poll presents us with
useful information. By comparing the different responses to multiple
polls -- each with different wording -- we end up with a far more
nuanced picture of where public opinion stands on a particular issue."
Makes sense to me.
I think either shell mentioned in the book is great, I personally use
bash, mostly just because of historical reasons.
Speaking of different shells in general. Here is a very handy list
that can help you pick which shell is best for you. This is not meant
to start a war over which shell is better but is just meant to help
pick the shell that is best for you:
http://www.unix.com/showthread.php?t=12274
Just thought it would be helpful.
Truthfully, I would find it strange as well. I have not seen a $2 bill
- at -Taco-Bell.html
in a long long time. Same thing with all those $1 coins. However,
people tend to accept strange coin amounts a lot easier then paper
money amounts.
It happens more then you might think. For a funny story about trying
to use a $2 bill at Taco Bell, check this out:
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2
However, I see it on the web attributed to at least 3 different
authors, so I doubt it really happened.
How much of a refund would you get? I am guessing that you can not get
the amount MS changes if you buy XP off the shelf. Do they try and
determine just what that vendor paid for it or would they try and
determine how much of the cost of the machine is represented by the OS
installed on it. That is, the difference between a machine sold with
XP installed and the same machine shipped with linux or no OS at all,
for example.