If a company can be sued for these quantities of money, effectively bankrupting any company on Earth, shouldn't the companies have people that make absolutely sure that all of this patent stuff is correct?
If the risks are that high, why not mitigate that risk by having a few people keep and maintain this is check? If you could get sued for $2Billion, having 10 people in a company, even at $1Million each is a big cost savings measure for the company.
Companies spend lots of time and money to make sure they won't get sued into oblivion for stupid shit, yet they didn't CYA?
Ok, there's alot of sentiment that EM radiation has no effect on DNA, etc etc. But I had read somewhere that people that live near power lines out in the country seem to develop extremely rare forms of cancer at a higher percentage than people living in the city. Of course, coincidence is not causation.
With that in mind, do I exclusively use a cell phone? Yes. I just don't know if I'd want to live next to a tower that might focus EM radiation right at my room while I sleep 8 hours a day.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I know that a car is not a robot. But the same rules should apply for ANY computer system that, in case of a serious bug, could result in any of those 3 laws being broken.
This computer literally controls a rather large piece of metal that can travel at speeds sufficient to kill someone. So why is there no subroutine that ensure that brake pedal input will ALWAYS override the gas pedal input? It seems that even on the absolute most basic of level, adding this extremely basic concept could seriously mitigate these issues. Not to mention all of the legal responsibilities, public outcry, and other consequences of not having software or hardware with these "basic" concepts built in.
Even when making a car and using this system on a test site somewhere. Wouldn't you want to have LOADS of extra code in there to make sure a bug in the software doesn't kill the driver at the test site? It seems to me Toyota's definition of "safety" is practically non-existent.
Honestly, when seeing something like this, I have to question what kind of work ethic Toyota has and how much they value me as a customer.
Anyone else agree that SSD speeds are plenty fast for the tasks given to it? When I shop for SSD drives I look for a reputable company that doesn't stutter like crazy with reads and writes for the lowest price. I've owned Intel X25Ms as well as other brands and I can't tell the difference in performance. Of course, the benchmarks do paint different numbers.
But who is REALLY gonna notice that 0.03ms difference in "seek time" for one SSD over another and 150MB/sec over 220MB/sec sequential? SSDs these days are so fast I don't see a reason to "upgrade" to a faster SSD if I already have one.
What do I want to see improved on SSD? Reliability and price. This "Limited Edition" seems like a waste, and I'd bet that less than 1% of users here at slashdot would really and truely notice this. I'd bet most of us would be unable to tell the difference if tested blindly.
I'm sure this will hurt my karma, but I can't believe that I'm alone in thinking this.
I know. I was simply stating that it doesn't matter what kind of performance I think i'm getting from my phone to the tower, there is clearly insufficient bandwidth for the towers and the AT&T network.
I don't care who has 2G/3G/10G. Just because I might have gigabit pipe to my phone does not mean I will ever attain those speeds. I'll be limited to what AT&T's network can handle.
My example that AT&T sucks in my area..
I tried to download a 240k text file from a website. I downloaded it on my friend's 56k dial-up (I know.. friends don't let friends use 56k) faster than my iphone. In fact, the iphone timed out on me (twice!) and I had 3G coverage with all bars. The third attempt did download, but was almost 3 times the speed of 56k dialup.
I have been unable to watch youtube videos on a regular basis because they time out, cannot download anywhere near fast enough.
I'd rather be on Verizon's slower 3G and have a solid internet connection than AT&T's 3G.
I do not consider my data plan on AT&T to be worth paying for when I can't do the simplest task, regardless of the size of the pipe from the tower to my phone.
No. We completely replaced the entire electrical box. We had the old fashioned circular fuses. It was replaced with a new breaker box and breakers. The fuses we had couldn't even be purchased anymore. Since the house was about to have an electric dryer and electric stove we had to upgrade. The circuits in the house have the same amperage protection as before. The only difference is now our breaker box and the wiring going to the street is a much higher rating... And let me tell you, 200A cabling is a PITA to try to handle through conduit!
For a battery of this capacity what kinds of charging time are we talking here? I know that the standard electric cars are something around 6-8 hours. To maintain an 8 hour charge time for something like that the current draw is going to have to be pretty darn high. I don't know if charging a car like this is realistic. Of course, you wouldn't need to give it a full charge every night for most people.
When I was in the U.S. Navy I was lucky to be at a command that was a test platform for an SAP implementation for the Navy(ERP was the Navy name for it). When I was there, if you were a "power user", even if not a computer junkie, it was very easy to get a grip on the program and use it very effectively. Of course, we had alot of complaining by alot of older people that didn't like change (every group will have these people). The actual rolling out of the platform was painful, but once it was in and operating it was great.
Our only issue was that we needed to be able to store classified "Confidential" information. This was information that was simply above public release, but below "Secret". Our procedures required certain safegards that were not easily implemented into SAP at the time. We had a plan to get it to work, but at a pretty significant cost.
Googling I just found www.erp.navy.mil, so it looks like the Navy has started using it more broadly. As much money as the gov't dumps into crazy stuff, I would be the first to say SAP/ERP was money well spent! Just don't mention NMCI(Navy and Marine Corp Intranet).
I understand that the brain see's the 2 signals and puts them together to give the impression that an object is 3D.
I'm curious to know what long term use of this would have on the brain. Will a brain try to rewire itself to see the 2 distinct images without the 3D "error"? Is this something that over generations will genetically change so that people can no longer use 3D televisions.
I know that 3D televisions will probably be long obsolete before the genes could change to prevent the 3D effect.
Actually, I think what they are saying is that the company lost 410 dollars per license on about 610000 licenses because of Microsoft so that is how much they are entitled to.
I do not know the whole situation, so I cannot comment in whether these charges are appropriate, I am only explaining how I think the number was calculated.
... And that's part of the problem with society today. If they had actual bad intentions of taping the movie, they should be punished. If they were trying to have a little fun and it got a little out of hand, then let it be.
Why do we have to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law?
Why not just ask them kindly not to do that again?
Why did it have to explode and get so out of control that people all over the world will read the story of the birthday celebration in a movie theatre and someone was such a dickwad they had to arrest them for it.
Now, there may be more to this story than what is on the news. I hope for the sake of humanity that we aren't so low that the story on the news is completely factual. I'd like to have higher hopes for the future.
Ok, so regardless of the whole argument over whether any short portion of the video would be "Fair Use" and all of the other reasons we'd argue that this was completely legal...
1. What manager of a movie theater would be stupid enough to push this through? Do they not realize how much VERY bad publicity this is making for his theater. 2. What manager of a movie theater would be so unreasonable to not just ask them to leave and be done with it? If it was obviously for a birthday, then kindly tell your customer (you know, the one that just paid to get a ticket for the theater) that what they are doing is not permitted and to please leave. 3. What entity is going to be stupid enough to press charges for this knowing all of the bad publicity this is going to cause?
Sure, I'd be upset if I was sitting in the row behind them and suddenly a mob came running in and started singing "Happy Birthday" during a movie I paid for, but WTF?
The nuclear industry does have liability insurance. We have something that is the equivalent to the FDIC. All the banks pitch into the FDIC to maintain the FDIC full. When alot of banks close one year and the money gets spent the banks pay more the following year to top off the FDIC account. The nuclear industry has the same thing. In the event of a catastrophic accident all the other plants will pitch in to cover the costs.
I fully understand the fear of a "core meltdown" scenario. But I am completely comfortable living just 10 minutes from work. I also feel that the consequences can be siginficant from mistakes. It's all about risk control. How much risk do you take getting up and driving to work? What if you fly regularly? There are risks in everything we do, and we try to mitigate those risks as best as we can. Just as you wear a seatbelt, but still drive 70mph in the fast lane on the highway, we operate a nuclear power plant with multiple redundant systems that can protect the core from damage. They have never been used in the United States, and hopefully never will.
So think about this...
Taxpayers are bailing out banks left and right this year, but when was the last time a nuclear power plant had to be bailed out? You want nuclear power to be shut down and replaced because you see it as "too big to fail". Yet I'm 100% sure you are still using a bank, aren't you? I'm also sure I won't see you arguing that all banks should be put out of business.
I'll agree with your comments, except that your arguement doesn't reflect reality. Solar may be an emerging market, but the need for energy is now. We do not have years to wait for solar to mature. We keep getting info that solar panels are getting more efficient and cheaper, but how cheap and how efficient? Nobody really knows the limits.
Nanosolar has made claims that their production costs make it cheaper, but do the maintenance costs and longevity make it cheaper? Nobody really knows. Nuclear is a well established technology, so yes, it does have an appreciable advantage.
Grunt workers do need months of training and are fairly well paid. But here we also have wind turbines going up. And those technicians make more money than I do. Granted, they may need a different quantity of technicians per kWh(I do not know if they need more/less/same) but they are paid about 25% more than I make. That job is also about as technical as nuclear power, but you have the added disadvantage of heights. Alot of people will not be too keen on climbing up to the top of one of those. I know I could never have a job as a wind turbine technician.
Nuclear is here and works. Solar may become a viable alternative in my lifetime, maybe even in the next decade. But right now it is not a viable cost alternative to nuclear. I do not understand the reasoning for putting in solar plants instead of nuclear when nuclear is viable NOW and solar might be down the road.
I have no idea where you get your facts, but I look at tables that compare various energy sources and the cost of electricity associated with them. If you build plants of all available types nuclear is the cheapest, by a large margin. The most expensive being solar. Solar was something around 3x the price as nuclear.
There are may reasons why studies show skewed results when comparing numbers. Alot of nuclear power plants were built and then never produced a single kWh of electricity. Those costs are included with many estimates because they were part of the "nuclear envelope". When you look at the 50 year costs, nuclear wins hands down.
As an example, look at the costs of electricity in California. They have a program where you can "opt" to pay your electricity using a green source (they use wind). Guess what happens when you "opt" to pay for green electricity? Your bill goes up by like 40%. I tried to find a site that would show the values, but I couldn't find one to provide.
For solar and wind, make sure you are looking at numbers that show the "actual" generation. Remember solar does not make 100% power 100% of the time. You pay for the time that the solar plant sits there doing nothing at night. A 50kW solar plant does not make 50kW of electricity all day and night. In fact, I had read somewhere that optimally you'll typically only get about 80% of your "estimated" capacity from a solar plant. Nuclear, Coal, etc do have the capability to run at full load continuously (nuclear does need time to refuel, but is otherwise 100% power 100% of the time.
Solar and wind are great for those that want a low "investment" cost. You don't have to spend nearly as much money to build a wind farm as a nuclear power plant. But you will pay for that savings over the 50 years that you operate solar.
The truth, nuclear does provide a cost effective green energy source. We may have issues with fuel, but the same is true for anything we pull out of the ground.
I do have some (very small) sympathy for a company that has seen a 5000% growth in data traffic. Who can realistically plan for that kind of growth?
But, this is not the customer's fault either. Plan better. And how about you stop laying more people off? If you are growing at these record levels why are there lots of articles about layoffs in the last 3 years? I don't understand this. I'll admit that data growth != customer growth but why the huge layoffs?
Apparently AT&T has 12000 unemployed former employees from just this year. Sounds like bad planning across the board. Maybe this is a good indicator that the top executives are totally clueless to the actual situation of their company.
Slashdot Mirror
So when was the concentration of methane in the atmosphere so high it caused this?
and the next generation will find that Classical music is stimulating because there isn't the riff-raff at those locations...
If a company can be sued for these quantities of money, effectively bankrupting any company on Earth, shouldn't the companies have people that make absolutely sure that all of this patent stuff is correct?
If the risks are that high, why not mitigate that risk by having a few people keep and maintain this is check? If you could get sued for $2Billion, having 10 people in a company, even at $1Million each is a big cost savings measure for the company.
Companies spend lots of time and money to make sure they won't get sued into oblivion for stupid shit, yet they didn't CYA?
Ok, there's alot of sentiment that EM radiation has no effect on DNA, etc etc. But I had read somewhere that people that live near power lines out in the country seem to develop extremely rare forms of cancer at a higher percentage than people living in the city. Of course, coincidence is not causation.
With that in mind, do I exclusively use a cell phone? Yes. I just don't know if I'd want to live next to a tower that might focus EM radiation right at my room while I sleep 8 hours a day.
Bear with me for a second here...
The three laws of robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I know that a car is not a robot. But the same rules should apply for ANY computer system that, in case of a serious bug, could result in any of those 3 laws being broken.
This computer literally controls a rather large piece of metal that can travel at speeds sufficient to kill someone. So why is there no subroutine that ensure that brake pedal input will ALWAYS override the gas pedal input? It seems that even on the absolute most basic of level, adding this extremely basic concept could seriously mitigate these issues. Not to mention all of the legal responsibilities, public outcry, and other consequences of not having software or hardware with these "basic" concepts built in.
Even when making a car and using this system on a test site somewhere. Wouldn't you want to have LOADS of extra code in there to make sure a bug in the software doesn't kill the driver at the test site? It seems to me Toyota's definition of "safety" is practically non-existent.
Honestly, when seeing something like this, I have to question what kind of work ethic Toyota has and how much they value me as a customer.
Anyone else agree that SSD speeds are plenty fast for the tasks given to it? When I shop for SSD drives I look for a reputable company that doesn't stutter like crazy with reads and writes for the lowest price. I've owned Intel X25Ms as well as other brands and I can't tell the difference in performance. Of course, the benchmarks do paint different numbers.
But who is REALLY gonna notice that 0.03ms difference in "seek time" for one SSD over another and 150MB/sec over 220MB/sec sequential? SSDs these days are so fast I don't see a reason to "upgrade" to a faster SSD if I already have one.
What do I want to see improved on SSD? Reliability and price. This "Limited Edition" seems like a waste, and I'd bet that less than 1% of users here at slashdot would really and truely notice this. I'd bet most of us would be unable to tell the difference if tested blindly.
I'm sure this will hurt my karma, but I can't believe that I'm alone in thinking this.
This is slashdot. You think any of us have women in our lives that can break our hearts? Pfft!
No, Mom doesn't count.. and if she did... eeewww!
I know. I was simply stating that it doesn't matter what kind of performance I think i'm getting from my phone to the tower, there is clearly insufficient bandwidth for the towers and the AT&T network.
You are joking, right? If AT&T came out and their Y-Axis shows that AT&T's target speed was 128k, everyone on this forum would go apeshit.
AT&T was smart in not letting anyone know how low they are going to go and call it "acceptable" performance.
I don't care who has 2G/3G/10G. Just because I might have gigabit pipe to my phone does not mean I will ever attain those speeds. I'll be limited to what AT&T's network can handle.
My example that AT&T sucks in my area..
I tried to download a 240k text file from a website. I downloaded it on my friend's 56k dial-up (I know.. friends don't let friends use 56k) faster than my iphone. In fact, the iphone timed out on me (twice!) and I had 3G coverage with all bars. The third attempt did download, but was almost 3 times the speed of 56k dialup.
I have been unable to watch youtube videos on a regular basis because they time out, cannot download anywhere near fast enough.
I'd rather be on Verizon's slower 3G and have a solid internet connection than AT&T's 3G.
I do not consider my data plan on AT&T to be worth paying for when I can't do the simplest task, regardless of the size of the pipe from the tower to my phone.
No. We completely replaced the entire electrical box. We had the old fashioned circular fuses. It was replaced with a new breaker box and breakers. The fuses we had couldn't even be purchased anymore. Since the house was about to have an electric dryer and electric stove we had to upgrade. The circuits in the house have the same amperage protection as before. The only difference is now our breaker box and the wiring going to the street is a much higher rating... And let me tell you, 200A cabling is a PITA to try to handle through conduit!
The house I just moved into had a 60A fuse.... Needless to say the owner and I took a saturday and upgraded it to 200A with breakers!
For a battery of this capacity what kinds of charging time are we talking here? I know that the standard electric cars are something around 6-8 hours. To maintain an 8 hour charge time for something like that the current draw is going to have to be pretty darn high. I don't know if charging a car like this is realistic. Of course, you wouldn't need to give it a full charge every night for most people.
When I was in the U.S. Navy I was lucky to be at a command that was a test platform for an SAP implementation for the Navy(ERP was the Navy name for it). When I was there, if you were a "power user", even if not a computer junkie, it was very easy to get a grip on the program and use it very effectively. Of course, we had alot of complaining by alot of older people that didn't like change (every group will have these people). The actual rolling out of the platform was painful, but once it was in and operating it was great.
Our only issue was that we needed to be able to store classified "Confidential" information. This was information that was simply above public release, but below "Secret". Our procedures required certain safegards that were not easily implemented into SAP at the time. We had a plan to get it to work, but at a pretty significant cost.
Googling I just found www.erp.navy.mil, so it looks like the Navy has started using it more broadly. As much money as the gov't dumps into crazy stuff, I would be the first to say SAP/ERP was money well spent! Just don't mention NMCI(Navy and Marine Corp Intranet).
So is a user better off using a Linux box as a router? How about Windows Server 2008 R2? Anyone know?
I understand that the brain see's the 2 signals and puts them together to give the impression that an object is 3D.
I'm curious to know what long term use of this would have on the brain. Will a brain try to rewire itself to see the 2 distinct images without the 3D "error"? Is this something that over generations will genetically change so that people can no longer use 3D televisions.
I know that 3D televisions will probably be long obsolete before the genes could change to prevent the 3D effect.
The article linked is dated January 31, 2009. At least the article is dated this year...
The licenses i4i might be claiming they did not sell because Microsoft infringed on their patent.
Actually, I think what they are saying is that the company lost 410 dollars per license on about 610000 licenses because of Microsoft so that is how much they are entitled to.
I do not know the whole situation, so I cannot comment in whether these charges are appropriate, I am only explaining how I think the number was calculated.
... And that's part of the problem with society today. If they had actual bad intentions of taping the movie, they should be punished. If they were trying to have a little fun and it got a little out of hand, then let it be.
Why do we have to follow the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law?
Why not just ask them kindly not to do that again?
Why did it have to explode and get so out of control that people all over the world will read the story of the birthday celebration in a movie theatre and someone was such a dickwad they had to arrest them for it.
Now, there may be more to this story than what is on the news. I hope for the sake of humanity that we aren't so low that the story on the news is completely factual. I'd like to have higher hopes for the future.
Ok, so regardless of the whole argument over whether any short portion of the video would be "Fair Use" and all of the other reasons we'd argue that this was completely legal...
1. What manager of a movie theater would be stupid enough to push this through? Do they not realize how much VERY bad publicity this is making for his theater.
2. What manager of a movie theater would be so unreasonable to not just ask them to leave and be done with it? If it was obviously for a birthday, then kindly tell your customer (you know, the one that just paid to get a ticket for the theater) that what they are doing is not permitted and to please leave.
3. What entity is going to be stupid enough to press charges for this knowing all of the bad publicity this is going to cause?
Sure, I'd be upset if I was sitting in the row behind them and suddenly a mob came running in and started singing "Happy Birthday" during a movie I paid for, but WTF?
The nuclear industry does have liability insurance. We have something that is the equivalent to the FDIC. All the banks pitch into the FDIC to maintain the FDIC full. When alot of banks close one year and the money gets spent the banks pay more the following year to top off the FDIC account. The nuclear industry has the same thing. In the event of a catastrophic accident all the other plants will pitch in to cover the costs.
I fully understand the fear of a "core meltdown" scenario. But I am completely comfortable living just 10 minutes from work. I also feel that the consequences can be siginficant from mistakes. It's all about risk control. How much risk do you take getting up and driving to work? What if you fly regularly? There are risks in everything we do, and we try to mitigate those risks as best as we can. Just as you wear a seatbelt, but still drive 70mph in the fast lane on the highway, we operate a nuclear power plant with multiple redundant systems that can protect the core from damage. They have never been used in the United States, and hopefully never will.
So think about this...
Taxpayers are bailing out banks left and right this year, but when was the last time a nuclear power plant had to be bailed out? You want nuclear power to be shut down and replaced because you see it as "too big to fail". Yet I'm 100% sure you are still using a bank, aren't you? I'm also sure I won't see you arguing that all banks should be put out of business.
I'll agree with your comments, except that your arguement doesn't reflect reality. Solar may be an emerging market, but the need for energy is now. We do not have years to wait for solar to mature. We keep getting info that solar panels are getting more efficient and cheaper, but how cheap and how efficient? Nobody really knows the limits.
Nanosolar has made claims that their production costs make it cheaper, but do the maintenance costs and longevity make it cheaper? Nobody really knows. Nuclear is a well established technology, so yes, it does have an appreciable advantage.
Grunt workers do need months of training and are fairly well paid. But here we also have wind turbines going up. And those technicians make more money than I do. Granted, they may need a different quantity of technicians per kWh(I do not know if they need more/less/same) but they are paid about 25% more than I make. That job is also about as technical as nuclear power, but you have the added disadvantage of heights. Alot of people will not be too keen on climbing up to the top of one of those. I know I could never have a job as a wind turbine technician.
Nuclear is here and works. Solar may become a viable alternative in my lifetime, maybe even in the next decade. But right now it is not a viable cost alternative to nuclear. I do not understand the reasoning for putting in solar plants instead of nuclear when nuclear is viable NOW and solar might be down the road.
I have no idea where you get your facts, but I look at tables that compare various energy sources and the cost of electricity associated with them. If you build plants of all available types nuclear is the cheapest, by a large margin. The most expensive being solar. Solar was something around 3x the price as nuclear.
There are may reasons why studies show skewed results when comparing numbers. Alot of nuclear power plants were built and then never produced a single kWh of electricity. Those costs are included with many estimates because they were part of the "nuclear envelope". When you look at the 50 year costs, nuclear wins hands down.
As an example, look at the costs of electricity in California. They have a program where you can "opt" to pay your electricity using a green source (they use wind). Guess what happens when you "opt" to pay for green electricity? Your bill goes up by like 40%. I tried to find a site that would show the values, but I couldn't find one to provide.
For solar and wind, make sure you are looking at numbers that show the "actual" generation. Remember solar does not make 100% power 100% of the time. You pay for the time that the solar plant sits there doing nothing at night. A 50kW solar plant does not make 50kW of electricity all day and night. In fact, I had read somewhere that optimally you'll typically only get about 80% of your "estimated" capacity from a solar plant. Nuclear, Coal, etc do have the capability to run at full load continuously (nuclear does need time to refuel, but is otherwise 100% power 100% of the time.
Solar and wind are great for those that want a low "investment" cost. You don't have to spend nearly as much money to build a wind farm as a nuclear power plant. But you will pay for that savings over the 50 years that you operate solar.
The truth, nuclear does provide a cost effective green energy source. We may have issues with fuel, but the same is true for anything we pull out of the ground.
Disclaimer: Yes, I do work in the nuclear field.
I do have some (very small) sympathy for a company that has seen a 5000% growth in data traffic. Who can realistically plan for that kind of growth?
But, this is not the customer's fault either. Plan better. And how about you stop laying more people off? If you are growing at these record levels why are there lots of articles about layoffs in the last 3 years? I don't understand this. I'll admit that data growth != customer growth but why the huge layoffs?
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/269777/t_cut_12_000_employees_through_2009
Apparently AT&T has 12000 unemployed former employees from just this year. Sounds like bad planning across the board. Maybe this is a good indicator that the top executives are totally clueless to the actual situation of their company.