Thank you for your breath of sanity in this otherwise insane topic.
Couldn't they have just dealt with Specht before this turned towards lawsuit territory?
Absolutely correct, and not just my humble opinion.
I was in charge of trademarking our company's trademarks (software products). Trademark law is very interesting - and so simple that any software guy with a decent trademark attorney can learn the ropes, pronto.
Strictly with regard to trademarks, in the USA, you perfect your rights - in other countries, you obtain your rights.
When there's a potential problem - or actual problem, as reported by the trademark office in question - you have your attorney contact the other party for resolution.
In Europe, we had someone with a similarly-named product (not to us, but the spelling was close, both companies using acronyms). Their product was nothing to do with ours (let's fictionally say it was a washing machine, so as not to disclose specifics inappropriately) - so we signed an agreement with them to never market a similar product provided that they not produce commercial software, and neither side to cross the line in the name spelling, submitted it to the governing body and all was well.
In the USA, your marks are yours by right the day that you begin using them - provided that you don't infringe on others. Going through the USPTO ensures that you've done a search to ensure that you're not infringing.
In the USA, we have laws that apply to this case, specifically - dilution and sales & licensing. Google couldn't use the mark as "close but no cigar" - that would have diluted Android Data's strength. That Android Data wasn't active didn't mean that it couldn't be again. And, FWIW, TFA states that the owner insists that the company and use of the mark is active. And by law, Google couldn't buy the copyright alone - another path suggested by TFA- it would have had to have bought some portion of the owner's business to go along with the trademark.
But, it could have licensed the trademark. Or, it could have bitten the bullet and chosen another.
They were either idiots or evil to not contact Specht first.
That they did neither is making everyone rant that the
There appears to me to be a whole lot of "Validity by Association" going on here.
I looked up Global Information Freedom, Inc. - and I'm having trouble finding this close association so noted in TFSummary. Clearly, GIFInc, is very concerned about the Great Firewall - but here's the only Falun Gong reference that I could find - http://www.internetfreedom.org/The-High-Tech-Persecution-of-Falun-Gong-in-China (which seems to cover a helluva lot more than the Falun Gong).
The Falun Gong has become the darling political football around here - note House Resolution 794, June 12, 2006, called for the PRC to square away human rights abuses and cited the Falun Gong. Note also, FWIW, my first awareness of the Falun Gong was from the Wall Street Journal - at a time when I was spending most all of my time in Asia. Interestingly, or may I say not-surprisingly, the WSJ's quotes are reference material for Congress - note the following study: http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf
So - Iranians are behind a firewall and there's software to help.
I'm not pleased with the summary - unless there's some actual evidence linking Global Information Freedom, Inc with the Falun Gong - real linking, i.e., GIFInc is funded by Falun Gong or is the Falun Gong's internet mouthpiece, then I call not only shenanigans but also shame:
Don't Iranians have enough fucking trouble without being linked to the Falun Gong? Was there a need for this sensationalism and association?
Is the issue that Iranians suffer censorship? Or that the censorship can be broken - the Great Firewall experience applies here?
Or, is the issue that we need to mention an entirely different and completely controversial belief system to sell mindshares?
I apologize in advance if I'm wrong about the Global Information Freedom, Inc crowd - but that apology is provisional upon proof of the linking claim, which I have yet to find.
Many of today's operating systems afford the user with the ability to invoke a screensaver when you're not using your computer. In addition, many of those allow for an optional password entry, dissuading passersby from using your account to post drivel in your name.
If you're a beginner or student in a public computer lab, and therefore don't have access to this feature, talk to your instructor - you'll find them sympathetic and helpful.
Finally, if this wasn't how the above post was made, let me assure you that you don't have to worry about loss of face here. In this forum, they're called Anonymous Cowards. We pay about as much attention to these posts as we do to graffiti when driving down the road- not much.
You ask a very good question - actually, questions within questions.
With your permission, allow me to digress a bit, and ask you to envision a cork or bobber on water. The waves roll by, but the cork just bobs up and down, and only a little to front/back.
Sound waves are mechanically a chain of an over-pressure followed by an under-pressure, and so forth. Typical speaker - your basic woofer that you've probably seen operate with the speaker grills off - are pistons, suspended by a visible front surround and a concealed (in the cabinet, but it's at the back of the cone) suspension.
Those types of drivers produce sound by what audio engineers refer to as pressure displacement - you want it louder, or a lower frequency, the piston is going to do more back and forth travel to create that over/under-pressure chain. Think of putting your hand in a sink full of water and pushing back and forth along a surface with your hand - you'll make waves - pressure displacement, aka, amplitude displacement.
Now, take the same sink, and just put in a finger at the surface of the water and push up and down - now your finger is like that bobbing cork - only now, instead of the waves making the cork rise and fall, the rising and falling cork creates the waves.
With sound waves, that's analogous to molecular displacement. Here's why it's important. Given the speed of sound is roughly 1100 feet/second, and frequency is measured in Hz (cycles/second, or just as accurately, 1/second) then what is the wavelength of an 1100 Hz signal? One foot. A 110 Hz signal? Ten feet. 32 Hz? (That's the low C on a pipe organ, BTW.) - 34.375 foot wavelength.
All in all, as it turns out, a 120dB (yeah, I know, it's a relative measure....) 32 Hz signal is going to be a long, powerful wave, isn't it? Going to require a hell of a lot of anything piston-like to belt that out. And it can be done and has been done - the Rolling Stones once held the record for response and sound pressure levels (range and volume) in concert. Very little short of the Rolling Stone's stagecraft can get you there.
On the other hand, the air molecules themselves are only moving about a half millimeter, back and forth - molecular displacement.
Magneplanars, electrostatics and plasma-driver speakers (originally the "Corona Wind" models by B&W, later Hill Plasmatronics) ALL work by molecular displacement to create sound. That's how they're able to produce sound without the diaphragm being piston-like - the diaphragm speakers are very, very taught - as is the plasma field in the others I'd mentioned. The slightest molecular movement (the up and down cork model) can result in very impressive waves. Larger diaphragms are used - like having a larger cork.
So - that's the background.
Now you see what's so intriguing about your expansion/contraction surface idea. If I imagine the surface as coarse - uniformly crater-like, in the ideal - the expansion/contraction could cause molecular displacement - but that movement would be orthogonal to the direction outward, where you want to transmit sound. On the other hand, we could look at the surface as corpuscular - a matrix of little accordions - and that would, logically and theoretically, produce some displacement in the correct direction - perpendicular to the surface itself.
I'm not sure of the engineering, but what you propose seems like it **could** at first glance, solve the back wave problem.
I'm going to need to mull that over for a while. I hope that others mulling it over are assisted by my little pedantic rant, above.
Actually, that sort of discharge isn't a problem - long before you electrically attach to the diaphragm, the diaphragm electrically attaches to the front or rear plates - arcing. That tends to put pinholes (or worse) in the diaphragm - a known failure mode if you let it go too far. I live where it's very dry, so it's easy for dust to accumulate on the diaphragms, shortening the air gap and - as you can imagine - allowing for more arcing (capacitive discharge).
If your local IMAX theatre's sound is crackley, then suggest to management that if they have electrostatic panels (quite common to IMAXes, from what little I know) then they might strongly consider cleaning them with a vacuum cleaner - just takes the usual soft-bristle couch-like attachment. A few IMAX operators were very grateful for this tip, as in both cases, they had already spent a lot of money to solve the problem to no avail. Vacuuming really is part of the normal care of open-air electrostatics. So - pass it along.
(Some very exotic electrostatics, like the old Dayton-Wright's, had the entire electrostatic assembly in a sealed container with inert gases, and front and rear passive diaphragms mechanically attaching to the air in the listening space. Rare, but very cool - no arcing from dust or changes in humidity.)
Magnaplanars were a diaphragm with an embedded serpentine wire conducting the AC audio signal. The diaphragm was sandwiched between permanent magnets that ran vertically, floor to ceiling. Looking at the diaphragm was not unlike looking at a long continuous paper clip. The permanent magnets were long and thin (about a 1/2" cross-section).
Many people mistook them for electrostatics.
With an electrostatic (the first speaker designed by AT&T, ever, using a pig's diaphragm and gold plating), the diaphragm is coated with a conductive material, then stretched between two metal plates. In the set I have, a 75 kV bias is applied to the diaphragm and the AC audio signal is routed to the front/rear metal plates.
Then, there's the ESS Heil HF driver. That used metalized paper, with the metalization stripped away in a serpentine pattern, then given an accordion fold, then immersed in a high magnetic field (big permanent magnets!) and the AC audio went through the fold, and sound was produced in accordion fashion.
Then, there was the Ohm-F HF driver - a metal-foil cone attached to a normal moving coil transducer.
Because of their exotic designs and shapes, many people confused these others with electrostatics - but electrostatic refers to one and only one technology.
The tech in the article seems to be something altogether new, and I'm looking forward to its advance.
That being said, remember - you cannot cheat the laws of physics. When the diaphragm moves forward, creating an over-pressure, the rear side is creating a canceling under-pressure. (Every action having an equal and opposite reaction sort of thing.) With conventional speakers, the "opposite" wave is trapped or mitigated inside an enclosure and does not enter the room to cause cancellation.
With a large diaphragm, you almost need an enclosure in back the size of the room. Impractical in the extreme, these are simply made and marketed as flat panel diaphragms and the rest of the speaker-room response is left to the owner.
But every Magnaplanar and electrostatic speaker owner will tell you - the worst sounding rig you can get are bi-directional planar speakers crammed up against a wall. Why? Action- reaction: that rear wave's cancellation is a function of distance to rear reflective surface and rear reflective surface acoustic properties.
So, no, until they re-write some physical laws, a paper poster on a wall producing hi-fi is not in the near future.
That said - I guarantee if it's viable in a marketing study, some idiot will make them and people will buy them to put along-side their wall-mounted TVs.
The author of TFA said he used all three OSes and preferred this Ubuntu by far. You say you prefer another to the author.
Other posters in this thread point out Gnome and KDE deficiencies, while remaining fans of the two - and were modded up. You only said what others have said about Gnome and KDE weaknesses.
And, yes, you waxed ecstatic about OS X.
How the hell is that modded flamebait is beyond me. I applaud all sigs that remind: -1, Flamebait is not a substitute for -1, Disagree.
Javacowboy's language was muted and his points are well-considered and expressed, using such phrasing as, "until Ubuntu" and "I know I'm a little biased."
PS - Apple screwed pointer/click focus in Leopard. Now if you click on a non-active window's potentially active widget, it brings up the window and clicks thru the widget - not OK, not the way it used to be. And for my money, Spotlight using a Finder window for Show All in Leopard is also not ok. And FWIW, I think that the last UI built from the ground up w.r.t. anything was done at Xerox PARC, but that's just me. There. I've responded to something marked Flamebait. Bye, bye, karma!
TFA states that Motorola has built the set top box for the Japanese. No further details that I care about are given or linked to.
Intriguing and fine and good, but not being an Android guy, maybe somebuddy here can help me out: play DVDs and CDs - how?
I'm in the US and use VLC on my Mac mini (pulls duty as a set top box, among other things), and damn the consequences - who's going to stop me?
But what would a commercial, Android-based set top box use without violating whatever license(s) seem to the problem? It couldn't be VLC, could it? Or could it if the mfgr paid someone some sort of licensing fee?
I am very confused. Maybe Linux guys are using other things for media playback. I use Linux - quite a lot - but haven't gone near media with it, ever, having had no real need before.
Just because it falls nicely out of the maths, doesn't mean it corresponds to a physical reality.
I don't think you really know that, one way or another.
I remember my theoretical calculus prof threatening to fail me if I didn't give up the idea that when Reimann was referring to dimensions greater than 3, he really did mean, dimensions. For me, it all fell out of the math and had to be reality.
Our search for the subatomic has opened the door for understanding our universe in many dimensions - latest M theory, anyone?
While I accept quantum mechanics and its power to describe the sub atomic universe, I still have no idea where this claim about QM being used in the development of the transistor comes from. I learned about transistors using a theory of electrons and "holes" and in fact this viewpoint comes from no lesser source than Shockley himself.
I've never seen a theoretical description of any transistor device that required any form of quantum mechanics for its explanation. Given the fact that transistors are to this day, macroscopic devices, I still fail to see how QM comes into their theoretical explanation. It's a subatomic theory.
Typical semiconductor QA testing of transistors includes not only hot carrier testing (small channel length in mosfets lead to high electric fields localized close to drain terminals, high electric fields cause energetic carriers that cause interface states or become trapped in oxide) for electron traps and holes, but the principle subtest of hot carrier testing is a gate voltage sweep to establish the gate switching threshold and subthreshold levels. And that voltage threshold test can be used to evaluate semiconductor integrity - as indicated by tunneling.
So, not only are quantum effects a theoretical part of how a transistor works, today's semiconductor manufacturers regularly design their semiconductor geometry taking those effects into account, and can test for design success.
You are aware that modern semiconductor QA testers can measure down to the femto-amp and atto-amp levels?
As we squeeze more and more transistors into a given space - smaller and smaller devices - tunneling is more and more critical.
I assume it would be quite tricky to generate even a few gigabytes of plausible-looking 'data related to design and electronics systems' even if you had a whole day to prepare, and we are talking about multiple terabytes here...
Clearly, you've never worked for a defense contractor.
I once had a PHB that could do that and more before lunch just to write a sample sub-task statement to win business. Nothing would fly, nothing would work, but he'd lay it on staff to get it done.
In the early 80s, he actually submitted a proposal to the Air Force, that they accepted, for us to build an AI system to evaluate an air vehicle, autonomously place the air vehicle within the test volume, configure the test hardware, autonomously place probes and sensors on and within the air vehicle, conduct a simulated EMP test, automatically configure and control all data acquisition systems, perform sensor data fusion, relay said data to a VAX network, relay said data to a Cray network, use a corresponding AI on the Cray to evaluate the data against known threats, reasonable potential future threats, and the air vehicle design, generate new test parameters for evaluation and implementation by the first AI, automatically transmitting said data to same, and iterating the process, without human intervention, until the output was a checklist of required upgrades to the air vehicle in question.
Wait for it.....
We were to do this in 90 days, for a cool 1/2 million bucks, because his plan - wait for it - was to get the follow-on work he envisioned for where the real work and real money was.
In the 80s.
He had managed to come up with the idea while reading Time or OMNI or Penthouse or something while on the phone to his boss, saw the term Artificial Intelligence for the first time in his life, and saw the opportunity to replace all other contractors' warm bodies in several states with this dream system. He got off of the phone at about 9:30AM, and had generated all contract material, and about 50 pages of system description, and INCHES of reprints and copies on anything and everything AI that he could make minion staff produce immediately under threat of being fired, had it printed, delivered and approved by the Air Force before lunch. I know, because while busting blood vessels in my temples, he bragged about this achievement to me.
And I know because the Air Force contracting officer called me (I could barely hear him over the background laughter) to explain to me that they knew what he had done, and that they had already exercised their option to cancel the contract - they were just giving him time to make the fool of himself that he was in front of staff.
That idiot went on to become the CE-freaking-O of that contractor.
If he's still around - and if he's not, others like him are - then generation of that kind of data - and I admittedly say this tongue in cheek but admit fear that I may be right - could generate terrabytes of bullshit while you wait.
I asked him what the words autonomous and AI meant. His answer? "You can't fool me - I heard you and your buddy using those words last week by the Coke machine, talking about some of your code. So I smartened up! Who's the bright boy, now?!?!?"
I wish to hell, even thinking back over 20 years on it, that I am making this up. I am not. Did I mention that the VAX and Cray networks were to have one machine each?
~~~~~~~~~~
I do, however, agree with the spirit and conclusions of your post, 100%.
I'm simply saying that there's no telling what damage a PHB could inflict if only we could harness their energy for our good, against our enemies.:)
Garth Algar: OK... First I'll access the secret military spy satelite that is in geosynchronous orbit over the midwest. Then I'll ID the limo by the vanity plate "MR. BIGGG" and get his approximate position. Then I'll reposition the transmission dish on the remote truck to 17.32 degrees east, hit WESTAR 4 over the Atlantic, bounce the signal back into the aerosphere up to COMSAT 6, beam it back to SATCOM 2 transmitter number 137 and down on the dish on the back of Mr. Big's limo... It's almost too easy.
PG&E's ambitious deal with upstart Solaren to... Did nobody else lol at this as hard as me? *UPSTART*... dontcha mean start-up ? FYI: upstart - Noun : an arrogant or presumptuous person
Your definition is correct - and the summary is strictly correct. Solaren, looking to control hurricanes with directed energy beams, is an upstart.
BTW - the word is grammar - am I the only spelling Nazi here?
Watching the Low quality youtube on my 42" is a painful experience.
I hear you - but...
I watch music videos that way. FWIW, the Clash' Rockin' The Casbah does have a high-def version on youtube - and isn't painful. Moby's Porcelain looks fantastic in full-screen mode - and I can't say if that one is a std or high-def youtube feed.
Dr. Crow's Medicine Show Wagon Wheel has a boatload of ugly artifacts. But I enjoy it anyway - once upon a time, I survived even vinyl for my music.
High Def Content Protection (hdcp) is a content protocol (read: software). I convert hdmi and dvi to each other in four different places in the house - they all work fine. If a dvi source (computer) doesn't conform to hdcp, the hdmi input tv doesn't care and it works. If an hdmi box with hdcp outputs to a tv with a dvi input conforming with hdcp, the box does care and it works.
If a box outputs requiring hdcp, using anything, and a dvi-only monitor with no hdcp support is the target, it will not work.
After all, Microsoft was the company that turned the software industry on its head by...
by offering MS-DOS for a retail price of US$45 in the 80s.
And in light of free linux distributions, $129 for OS X ($199 for 5-license family pack), free Open Office distributions (avoid the download scams!!!) - how much are they charging for shrink-wrapped copies of their operating systems and Office?
Microsoft once rolled with the market. Now, they poke the open sores they created.
Sorry, that's just how I feel about them and their market strategies.
I've watched the movies and even a few episodes of the TV show. Here are the known advantages for being Q:
1. Apparently unlimited R&D budget. 2. No ES&H looking over your shoulder while minions shoot themselves and blow themselves up. 3. You're free to just work things out without some PHB running about and micromanaging you. 4. You get to leave your sub sandwich wherever it's convenient at the time and no one even thinks of touching it. 5. You get to spend a great deal of time critiquing toys that explode. 6. You get to know what tailors across Europe are up to - and combined with #1, above, implies a LOT. 7. Main staff are assigned to check in with you before working - and they do. N.B., you do not write memos and status reports about what they'll find - people have to ask - once. 8. Your day isn't filled just with minions shooting themselves and blowing themselves up - you get to talk to people, including staff, that experiences the outside world. 9. Overall main staff is hip and intelligent. 10. You can get exasperated with James Bond and talk to him like he's a child and instead of shooting you (remember - license to kill), and instead of politically backstabbing you within the organization, he likes you for it and makes jokes.
Honestly, Slashdotters really think *way* too highly of themselves... or way too little of the average scientist.
I believe the question was about whether this plan takes into account that there's a speed limit. Realistically, the best idea within our present technological imagination is either solar wind sails or ion drive. With either of those, the further you go, the faster you'll go. But at the halfway point of either of those technologies so far, you reverse the craft (drive) because it takes as long to decelerate that accelerate. Now, doing an rough order of magnitude calculation where you achieve half of the speed of light, it will take you more than 4 years to get to the halfway point of our nearest star, more than 8 years to get there, more than 12 years to get your first signals back. So - rough order of magnitude - take the distance to target in light years, multiply by 3, to get time to receipt of first signal - minimum. (Yes, the approach falls apart the further you go out - I beg the reader's patience - note well that a target 60 light years away will take (way) well over 120 years, anyway.)
So - I do not see how your response to the question in any whatsoever responds to the question.
I don't know who these Slashdotters are that too highly of themselves of which you speak. I have worked space systems - to iterate in clear text: platforms I've performed significant (at the very in least, in time and level of effort) work on are in deep space flight as we speak. I have worked under the auspices of the US DoD, DOE and NASA.
Some people might think that I think pretty highly of myself. In fact, it's a common common occurrence in my real life to meet that prejudice. But I do not think too highly of myself because at the aforementioned agencies, I've met a lot of people who are really smart, and I wouldn't dare to lump myself in with them.
In other words - the validity of a question in the world of science has absolutely nothing to do with who thinks what of themselves and who has what credentials. In the world of science and engineering, good questions and good points stand on their own merits.
That said - it is a VERY good question as to whether or not extreme distance has been taken into account. As far as I recall, the neighborhood doesn't get interesting until you get out some 20 light years, at least. The parent's question is VERY good because it raises at least one really interesting engineering question - who here believes that the envisioned ground-based tech will survive for 50 or more years? Probably no one. Who here believes that this will just all work out with equivalent or presumed-superior future technologies? Who want to raise their hand without a brief overview of the many case histories where that was NOT the case?
Here's another good question: what does it mean that these proxy explorers can be very small? So far as I recall, the only tech to get data back will be on some kind of EM wave. So far as I know, the viable viable EM tech - due to maturity, reliability, power consumption and xceiver size - is radio. I repeat the question - what are the assumptions of equipment size, weight and power consumption when we say we can do this - transmit from, say, 20 light years away? In other words, what is this "small" of which SETI speaks? (Another reference to the parent's unaddressed concern about comm problems, but from a different perspective.)
Permit me to reign back from interstellar to interplanetary - and continue my criticism of the quotes attributed to Dr. Shostak (kindly note my important choice of those words) - at what point would I want to experience the smells of the deadly airs predominant in our solar system? Ridiculous!
Dr. Shostak is well published and credentialed. However - the summary and article suggests that either the NYT is lame or Dr. Shostak is.
Therefore, your criticisms of TheLink are neither insightful nor well-founded. You did not addres
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for your breath of sanity in this otherwise insane topic.
Couldn't they have just dealt with Specht before this turned towards lawsuit territory?
Absolutely correct, and not just my humble opinion.
I was in charge of trademarking our company's trademarks (software products). Trademark law is very interesting - and so simple that any software guy with a decent trademark attorney can learn the ropes, pronto.
Strictly with regard to trademarks, in the USA, you perfect your rights - in other countries, you obtain your rights.
When there's a potential problem - or actual problem, as reported by the trademark office in question - you have your attorney contact the other party for resolution.
In Europe, we had someone with a similarly-named product (not to us, but the spelling was close, both companies using acronyms). Their product was nothing to do with ours (let's fictionally say it was a washing machine, so as not to disclose specifics inappropriately) - so we signed an agreement with them to never market a similar product provided that they not produce commercial software, and neither side to cross the line in the name spelling, submitted it to the governing body and all was well.
In the USA, your marks are yours by right the day that you begin using them - provided that you don't infringe on others. Going through the USPTO ensures that you've done a search to ensure that you're not infringing.
In the USA, we have laws that apply to this case, specifically - dilution and sales & licensing. Google couldn't use the mark as "close but no cigar" - that would have diluted Android Data's strength. That Android Data wasn't active didn't mean that it couldn't be again. And, FWIW, TFA states that the owner insists that the company and use of the mark is active. And by law, Google couldn't buy the copyright alone - another path suggested by TFA- it would have had to have bought some portion of the owner's business to go along with the trademark.
But, it could have licensed the trademark. Or, it could have bitten the bullet and chosen another.
They were either idiots or evil to not contact Specht first.
That they did neither is making everyone rant that the
I can only think back to Dr. Tongue and Bruno, weaving forward and back, to enhance the 3-D effect.
Count Floyd gets steamed up and screams for more, more and even more clips.
There appears to me to be a whole lot of "Validity by Association" going on here.
I looked up Global Information Freedom, Inc. - and I'm having trouble finding this close association so noted in TFSummary. Clearly, GIFInc, is very concerned about the Great Firewall - but here's the only Falun Gong reference that I could find - http://www.internetfreedom.org/The-High-Tech-Persecution-of-Falun-Gong-in-China (which seems to cover a helluva lot more than the Falun Gong).
The Falun Gong has become the darling political football around here - note House Resolution 794, June 12, 2006, called for the PRC to square away human rights abuses and cited the Falun Gong. Note also, FWIW, my first awareness of the Falun Gong was from the Wall Street Journal - at a time when I was spending most all of my time in Asia. Interestingly, or may I say not-surprisingly, the WSJ's quotes are reference material for Congress - note the following study: http://www.usembassy.it/pdf/other/RL33437.pdf
So - Iranians are behind a firewall and there's software to help.
I'm not pleased with the summary - unless there's some actual evidence linking Global Information Freedom, Inc with the Falun Gong - real linking, i.e., GIFInc is funded by Falun Gong or is the Falun Gong's internet mouthpiece, then I call not only shenanigans but also shame:
Don't Iranians have enough fucking trouble without being linked to the Falun Gong? Was there a need for this sensationalism and association?
Is the issue that Iranians suffer censorship? Or that the censorship can be broken - the Great Firewall experience applies here?
Or, is the issue that we need to mention an entirely different and completely controversial belief system to sell mindshares?
I apologize in advance if I'm wrong about the Global Information Freedom, Inc crowd - but that apology is provisional upon proof of the linking claim, which I have yet to find.
Dear Gary McKinnon,
Many of today's operating systems afford the user with the ability to invoke a screensaver when you're not using your computer. In addition, many of those allow for an optional password entry, dissuading passersby from using your account to post drivel in your name.
If you're a beginner or student in a public computer lab, and therefore don't have access to this feature, talk to your instructor - you'll find them sympathetic and helpful.
Finally, if this wasn't how the above post was made, let me assure you that you don't have to worry about loss of face here. In this forum, they're called Anonymous Cowards. We pay about as much attention to these posts as we do to graffiti when driving down the road- not much.
Study hard, have a nice day,
The EarlyMon
You ask a very good question - actually, questions within questions.
With your permission, allow me to digress a bit, and ask you to envision a cork or bobber on water. The waves roll by, but the cork just bobs up and down, and only a little to front/back.
Sound waves are mechanically a chain of an over-pressure followed by an under-pressure, and so forth. Typical speaker - your basic woofer that you've probably seen operate with the speaker grills off - are pistons, suspended by a visible front surround and a concealed (in the cabinet, but it's at the back of the cone) suspension.
Those types of drivers produce sound by what audio engineers refer to as pressure displacement - you want it louder, or a lower frequency, the piston is going to do more back and forth travel to create that over/under-pressure chain. Think of putting your hand in a sink full of water and pushing back and forth along a surface with your hand - you'll make waves - pressure displacement, aka, amplitude displacement.
Now, take the same sink, and just put in a finger at the surface of the water and push up and down - now your finger is like that bobbing cork - only now, instead of the waves making the cork rise and fall, the rising and falling cork creates the waves.
With sound waves, that's analogous to molecular displacement. Here's why it's important. Given the speed of sound is roughly 1100 feet/second, and frequency is measured in Hz (cycles/second, or just as accurately, 1/second) then what is the wavelength of an 1100 Hz signal? One foot. A 110 Hz signal? Ten feet. 32 Hz? (That's the low C on a pipe organ, BTW.) - 34.375 foot wavelength.
All in all, as it turns out, a 120dB (yeah, I know, it's a relative measure....) 32 Hz signal is going to be a long, powerful wave, isn't it? Going to require a hell of a lot of anything piston-like to belt that out. And it can be done and has been done - the Rolling Stones once held the record for response and sound pressure levels (range and volume) in concert. Very little short of the Rolling Stone's stagecraft can get you there.
On the other hand, the air molecules themselves are only moving about a half millimeter, back and forth - molecular displacement.
Magneplanars, electrostatics and plasma-driver speakers (originally the "Corona Wind" models by B&W, later Hill Plasmatronics) ALL work by molecular displacement to create sound. That's how they're able to produce sound without the diaphragm being piston-like - the diaphragm speakers are very, very taught - as is the plasma field in the others I'd mentioned. The slightest molecular movement (the up and down cork model) can result in very impressive waves. Larger diaphragms are used - like having a larger cork.
So - that's the background.
Now you see what's so intriguing about your expansion/contraction surface idea. If I imagine the surface as coarse - uniformly crater-like, in the ideal - the expansion/contraction could cause molecular displacement - but that movement would be orthogonal to the direction outward, where you want to transmit sound. On the other hand, we could look at the surface as corpuscular - a matrix of little accordions - and that would, logically and theoretically, produce some displacement in the correct direction - perpendicular to the surface itself.
I'm not sure of the engineering, but what you propose seems like it **could** at first glance, solve the back wave problem.
I'm going to need to mull that over for a while. I hope that others mulling it over are assisted by my little pedantic rant, above.
Actually, that sort of discharge isn't a problem - long before you electrically attach to the diaphragm, the diaphragm electrically attaches to the front or rear plates - arcing. That tends to put pinholes (or worse) in the diaphragm - a known failure mode if you let it go too far. I live where it's very dry, so it's easy for dust to accumulate on the diaphragms, shortening the air gap and - as you can imagine - allowing for more arcing (capacitive discharge).
If your local IMAX theatre's sound is crackley, then suggest to management that if they have electrostatic panels (quite common to IMAXes, from what little I know) then they might strongly consider cleaning them with a vacuum cleaner - just takes the usual soft-bristle couch-like attachment. A few IMAX operators were very grateful for this tip, as in both cases, they had already spent a lot of money to solve the problem to no avail. Vacuuming really is part of the normal care of open-air electrostatics. So - pass it along.
(Some very exotic electrostatics, like the old Dayton-Wright's, had the entire electrostatic assembly in a sealed container with inert gases, and front and rear passive diaphragms mechanically attaching to the air in the listening space. Rare, but very cool - no arcing from dust or changes in humidity.)
Magnaplanars were a diaphragm with an embedded serpentine wire conducting the AC audio signal. The diaphragm was sandwiched between permanent magnets that ran vertically, floor to ceiling. Looking at the diaphragm was not unlike looking at a long continuous paper clip. The permanent magnets were long and thin (about a 1/2" cross-section).
Many people mistook them for electrostatics.
With an electrostatic (the first speaker designed by AT&T, ever, using a pig's diaphragm and gold plating), the diaphragm is coated with a conductive material, then stretched between two metal plates. In the set I have, a 75 kV bias is applied to the diaphragm and the AC audio signal is routed to the front/rear metal plates.
Then, there's the ESS Heil HF driver. That used metalized paper, with the metalization stripped away in a serpentine pattern, then given an accordion fold, then immersed in a high magnetic field (big permanent magnets!) and the AC audio went through the fold, and sound was produced in accordion fashion.
Then, there was the Ohm-F HF driver - a metal-foil cone attached to a normal moving coil transducer.
Because of their exotic designs and shapes, many people confused these others with electrostatics - but electrostatic refers to one and only one technology.
The tech in the article seems to be something altogether new, and I'm looking forward to its advance.
That being said, remember - you cannot cheat the laws of physics. When the diaphragm moves forward, creating an over-pressure, the rear side is creating a canceling under-pressure. (Every action having an equal and opposite reaction sort of thing.) With conventional speakers, the "opposite" wave is trapped or mitigated inside an enclosure and does not enter the room to cause cancellation.
With a large diaphragm, you almost need an enclosure in back the size of the room. Impractical in the extreme, these are simply made and marketed as flat panel diaphragms and the rest of the speaker-room response is left to the owner.
But every Magnaplanar and electrostatic speaker owner will tell you - the worst sounding rig you can get are bi-directional planar speakers crammed up against a wall. Why? Action- reaction: that rear wave's cancellation is a function of distance to rear reflective surface and rear reflective surface acoustic properties.
So, no, until they re-write some physical laws, a paper poster on a wall producing hi-fi is not in the near future.
That said - I guarantee if it's viable in a marketing study, some idiot will make them and people will buy them to put along-side their wall-mounted TVs.
The author of TFA said he used all three OSes and preferred this Ubuntu by far. You say you prefer another to the author.
Other posters in this thread point out Gnome and KDE deficiencies, while remaining fans of the two - and were modded up. You only said what others have said about Gnome and KDE weaknesses.
And, yes, you waxed ecstatic about OS X.
How the hell is that modded flamebait is beyond me. I applaud all sigs that remind: -1, Flamebait is not a substitute for -1, Disagree.
Javacowboy's language was muted and his points are well-considered and expressed, using such phrasing as, "until Ubuntu" and "I know I'm a little biased."
PS - Apple screwed pointer/click focus in Leopard. Now if you click on a non-active window's potentially active widget, it brings up the window and clicks thru the widget - not OK, not the way it used to be. And for my money, Spotlight using a Finder window for Show All in Leopard is also not ok. And FWIW, I think that the last UI built from the ground up w.r.t. anything was done at Xerox PARC, but that's just me. There. I've responded to something marked Flamebait. Bye, bye, karma!
Barring someone from MRC or EG&G, I'd have to go with the Royal Crown Review.
Course - third line seems to have changed some from the original.
TFA states that Motorola has built the set top box for the Japanese. No further details that I care about are given or linked to.
Intriguing and fine and good, but not being an Android guy, maybe somebuddy here can help me out: play DVDs and CDs - how?
I'm in the US and use VLC on my Mac mini (pulls duty as a set top box, among other things), and damn the consequences - who's going to stop me?
But what would a commercial, Android-based set top box use without violating whatever license(s) seem to the problem? It couldn't be VLC, could it? Or could it if the mfgr paid someone some sort of licensing fee?
I am very confused. Maybe Linux guys are using other things for media playback. I use Linux - quite a lot - but haven't gone near media with it, ever, having had no real need before.
Just because it falls nicely out of the maths, doesn't mean it corresponds to a physical reality.
I don't think you really know that, one way or another.
I remember my theoretical calculus prof threatening to fail me if I didn't give up the idea that when Reimann was referring to dimensions greater than 3, he really did mean, dimensions. For me, it all fell out of the math and had to be reality.
Our search for the subatomic has opened the door for understanding our universe in many dimensions - latest M theory, anyone?
So, I'm just saying - maybe you're on a roll...
While I accept quantum mechanics and its power to describe the sub atomic universe, I still have no idea where this claim about QM being used in the development of the transistor comes from. I learned about transistors using a theory of electrons and "holes" and in fact this viewpoint comes from no lesser source than Shockley himself.
I've never seen a theoretical description of any transistor device that required any form of quantum mechanics for its explanation. Given the fact that transistors are to this day, macroscopic devices, I still fail to see how QM comes into their theoretical explanation. It's a subatomic theory.
Your education was sufficient but incomplete. Note that the Fowler-Nordheim effect was first identified in 1928: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_emission
Typical semiconductor QA testing of transistors includes not only hot carrier testing (small channel length in mosfets lead to high electric fields localized close to drain terminals, high electric fields cause energetic carriers that cause interface states or become trapped in oxide) for electron traps and holes, but the principle subtest of hot carrier testing is a gate voltage sweep to establish the gate switching threshold and subthreshold levels. And that voltage threshold test can be used to evaluate semiconductor integrity - as indicated by tunneling.
Here's a sample of an older testing specification: http://www.jedec.org/download/search/jesd28a.pdf
Please note Annex C of this JEDEC testing document: http://www.jedec.org/download/search/jesd35a.pdf
So, not only are quantum effects a theoretical part of how a transistor works, today's semiconductor manufacturers regularly design their semiconductor geometry taking those effects into account, and can test for design success.
You are aware that modern semiconductor QA testers can measure down to the femto-amp and atto-amp levels?
As we squeeze more and more transistors into a given space - smaller and smaller devices - tunneling is more and more critical.
I assume it would be quite tricky to generate even a few gigabytes of plausible-looking 'data related to design and electronics systems' even if you had a whole day to prepare, and we are talking about multiple terabytes here...
Clearly, you've never worked for a defense contractor.
I once had a PHB that could do that and more before lunch just to write a sample sub-task statement to win business. Nothing would fly, nothing would work, but he'd lay it on staff to get it done.
In the early 80s, he actually submitted a proposal to the Air Force, that they accepted, for us to build an AI system to evaluate an air vehicle, autonomously place the air vehicle within the test volume, configure the test hardware, autonomously place probes and sensors on and within the air vehicle, conduct a simulated EMP test, automatically configure and control all data acquisition systems, perform sensor data fusion, relay said data to a VAX network, relay said data to a Cray network, use a corresponding AI on the Cray to evaluate the data against known threats, reasonable potential future threats, and the air vehicle design, generate new test parameters for evaluation and implementation by the first AI, automatically transmitting said data to same, and iterating the process, without human intervention, until the output was a checklist of required upgrades to the air vehicle in question.
Wait for it.....
We were to do this in 90 days, for a cool 1/2 million bucks, because his plan - wait for it - was to get the follow-on work he envisioned for where the real work and real money was.
In the 80s.
He had managed to come up with the idea while reading Time or OMNI or Penthouse or something while on the phone to his boss, saw the term Artificial Intelligence for the first time in his life, and saw the opportunity to replace all other contractors' warm bodies in several states with this dream system. He got off of the phone at about 9:30AM, and had generated all contract material, and about 50 pages of system description, and INCHES of reprints and copies on anything and everything AI that he could make minion staff produce immediately under threat of being fired, had it printed, delivered and approved by the Air Force before lunch. I know, because while busting blood vessels in my temples, he bragged about this achievement to me.
And I know because the Air Force contracting officer called me (I could barely hear him over the background laughter) to explain to me that they knew what he had done, and that they had already exercised their option to cancel the contract - they were just giving him time to make the fool of himself that he was in front of staff.
That idiot went on to become the CE-freaking-O of that contractor.
If he's still around - and if he's not, others like him are - then generation of that kind of data - and I admittedly say this tongue in cheek but admit fear that I may be right - could generate terrabytes of bullshit while you wait.
I asked him what the words autonomous and AI meant. His answer? "You can't fool me - I heard you and your buddy using those words last week by the Coke machine, talking about some of your code. So I smartened up! Who's the bright boy, now?!?!?"
I wish to hell, even thinking back over 20 years on it, that I am making this up. I am not. Did I mention that the VAX and Cray networks were to have one machine each?
~~~~~~~~~~
I do, however, agree with the spirit and conclusions of your post, 100%.
I'm simply saying that there's no telling what damage a PHB could inflict if only we could harness their energy for our good, against our enemies. :)
Garth Algar: OK... First I'll access the secret military spy satelite that is in geosynchronous orbit over the midwest. Then I'll ID the limo by the vanity plate "MR. BIGGG" and get his approximate position. Then I'll reposition the transmission dish on the remote truck to 17.32 degrees east, hit WESTAR 4 over the Atlantic, bounce the signal back into the aerosphere up to COMSAT 6, beam it back to SATCOM 2 transmitter number 137 and down on the dish on the back of Mr. Big's limo... It's almost too easy.
+6: Hilarious, with a bullet!
Concur!
PG&E's ambitious deal with upstart Solaren to... ... dontcha mean start-up ? FYI:
Did nobody else lol at this as hard as me? *UPSTART*
upstart - Noun : an arrogant or presumptuous person
Your definition is correct - and the summary is strictly correct. Solaren, looking to control hurricanes with directed energy beams, is an upstart.
BTW - the word is grammar - am I the only spelling Nazi here?
Watching the Low quality youtube on my 42" is a painful experience.
I hear you - but...
I watch music videos that way. FWIW, the Clash' Rockin' The Casbah does have a high-def version on youtube - and isn't painful. Moby's Porcelain looks fantastic in full-screen mode - and I can't say if that one is a std or high-def youtube feed.
Dr. Crow's Medicine Show Wagon Wheel has a boatload of ugly artifacts. But I enjoy it anyway - once upon a time, I survived even vinyl for my music.
Wrong.
electrically, dvi+separate_audio == hdmi
High Def Content Protection (hdcp) is a content protocol (read: software). I convert hdmi and dvi to each other in four different places in the house - they all work fine. If a dvi source (computer) doesn't conform to hdcp, the hdmi input tv doesn't care and it works. If an hdmi box with hdcp outputs to a tv with a dvi input conforming with hdcp, the box does care and it works.
If a box outputs requiring hdcp, using anything, and a dvi-only monitor with no hdcp support is the target, it will not work.
After all, Microsoft was the company that turned the software industry on its head by...
by offering MS-DOS for a retail price of US$45 in the 80s.
And in light of free linux distributions, $129 for OS X ($199 for 5-license family pack), free Open Office distributions (avoid the download scams!!!) - how much are they charging for shrink-wrapped copies of their operating systems and Office?
Microsoft once rolled with the market. Now, they poke the open sores they created.
Sorry, that's just how I feel about them and their market strategies.
Wow- I think you're reading too much into both his and the OP's messages.
Possibly.
I hear you about the many science and law opinions posted hereabouts.
Even with that, I still think his sarcasm was uncalled for. As you say, perhaps I read too much.
I've watched the movies and even a few episodes of the TV show. Here are the known advantages for being Q:
1. Apparently unlimited R&D budget.
2. No ES&H looking over your shoulder while minions shoot themselves and blow themselves up.
3. You're free to just work things out without some PHB running about and micromanaging you.
4. You get to leave your sub sandwich wherever it's convenient at the time and no one even thinks of touching it.
5. You get to spend a great deal of time critiquing toys that explode.
6. You get to know what tailors across Europe are up to - and combined with #1, above, implies a LOT.
7. Main staff are assigned to check in with you before working - and they do. N.B., you do not write memos and status reports about what they'll find - people have to ask - once.
8. Your day isn't filled just with minions shooting themselves and blowing themselves up - you get to talk to people, including staff, that experiences the outside world.
9. Overall main staff is hip and intelligent.
10. You can get exasperated with James Bond and talk to him like he's a child and instead of shooting you (remember - license to kill), and instead of politically backstabbing you within the organization, he likes you for it and makes jokes.
(caution - obligatory response follows)
Fact-checking? In TFA? In comments?
This is /. - you must be new here.
Build that big assed Roman Candle, give me some room and some food, and light that bastard off!!
Wow - you really know how to party for your birthday!
I'm hoping we can use this upcoming SETI tech so you can invite me to the next one!
Honestly, Slashdotters really think *way* too highly of themselves... or way too little of the average scientist.
I believe the question was about whether this plan takes into account that there's a speed limit. Realistically, the best idea within our present technological imagination is either solar wind sails or ion drive. With either of those, the further you go, the faster you'll go. But at the halfway point of either of those technologies so far, you reverse the craft (drive) because it takes as long to decelerate that accelerate. Now, doing an rough order of magnitude calculation where you achieve half of the speed of light, it will take you more than 4 years to get to the halfway point of our nearest star, more than 8 years to get there, more than 12 years to get your first signals back. So - rough order of magnitude - take the distance to target in light years, multiply by 3, to get time to receipt of first signal - minimum. (Yes, the approach falls apart the further you go out - I beg the reader's patience - note well that a target 60 light years away will take (way) well over 120 years, anyway.)
So - I do not see how your response to the question in any whatsoever responds to the question.
I don't know who these Slashdotters are that too highly of themselves of which you speak. I have worked space systems - to iterate in clear text: platforms I've performed significant (at the very in least, in time and level of effort) work on are in deep space flight as we speak. I have worked under the auspices of the US DoD, DOE and NASA.
Some people might think that I think pretty highly of myself. In fact, it's a common common occurrence in my real life to meet that prejudice. But I do not think too highly of myself because at the aforementioned agencies, I've met a lot of people who are really smart, and I wouldn't dare to lump myself in with them.
In other words - the validity of a question in the world of science has absolutely nothing to do with who thinks what of themselves and who has what credentials. In the world of science and engineering, good questions and good points stand on their own merits.
That said - it is a VERY good question as to whether or not extreme distance has been taken into account. As far as I recall, the neighborhood doesn't get interesting until you get out some 20 light years, at least. The parent's question is VERY good because it raises at least one really interesting engineering question - who here believes that the envisioned ground-based tech will survive for 50 or more years? Probably no one. Who here believes that this will just all work out with equivalent or presumed-superior future technologies? Who want to raise their hand without a brief overview of the many case histories where that was NOT the case?
Here's another good question: what does it mean that these proxy explorers can be very small? So far as I recall, the only tech to get data back will be on some kind of EM wave. So far as I know, the viable viable EM tech - due to maturity, reliability, power consumption and xceiver size - is radio. I repeat the question - what are the assumptions of equipment size, weight and power consumption when we say we can do this - transmit from, say, 20 light years away? In other words, what is this "small" of which SETI speaks? (Another reference to the parent's unaddressed concern about comm problems, but from a different perspective.)
Permit me to reign back from interstellar to interplanetary - and continue my criticism of the quotes attributed to Dr. Shostak (kindly note my important choice of those words) - at what point would I want to experience the smells of the deadly airs predominant in our solar system? Ridiculous!
Dr. Shostak is well published and credentialed. However - the summary and article suggests that either the NYT is lame or Dr. Shostak is.
Therefore, your criticisms of TheLink are neither insightful nor well-founded. You did not addres