It's not necessarily the same guy. I too think, contrary to Kaa's unique viewpoint, that most people here would agree the concept of IP is not natural in the same way as ownership of material objects. For the simple reason that there can be only one instance of a particular material object whereas information can be distributed without depriving the original owner of it. Kaa's post was just a troll and insults people's intelligence. It's no wonder that someone got angry about it.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Re:the future of Linux appliances
on
Linux Appliances
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· Score: 2
Or dumping the log. And don't forget to flush - but PLEASE don't use the sync!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
This particular set-top is *not* specialized at all. That is its advantage. No longer do you need a four-foot high stack of single-function black boxes under the telly for your AV entertainment needs; one box will do.
MIDI might not be as popular as Super Mario, but since it comes "free" with good sound cards, with the right software it'd be a plus for anyone who likes making their own music. Widening the appeal of the thing still further.
QNX is a capable system for a narrow range of applications. Multimedia is not one of them AFAIK. You said:
"QNX can do everything that Linux can do yet fits in like 1/50th the space. Mainly because QNX is optimized to do these, and leaves out a lot of cruft Linux keeps in."
Eh? First you say that QNX has all the features of Linux, then in the same breath you state that it's a fiftieth the size because it's had most of the features taken out! Make up your bleeding mind!
AGP 8X engineering samples are already available. Past experience with earlier incarnations indicates that within 6 months products ought to be available.
Do you have any hard figures on transfer speed to go with your claims for VRAM? If it goes significantly faster then 2GB/sec I have my doubts that any other part of the system would be able to keep up with it. And VRAM is expensive; DDR-SDRAM will be priced like SDRAM is now.
I never mentioned a 2GHz CPU, by the way. The CPU isn't even that important, with hardware MPEG decoding and video acceleration.
What it all boils down to is this: the standard PC spec by next Christmas when this Idrema is due to come out will be substantially better than what we have now. I think it'll be something like this: 1GHz processor (133MHz FSB), 256MB PC266 DDR-SDRAM. UDMA66 20GB HDD, 128bit 8xAGP graphics card 64MB (or possibly 128MB). The Idrema will be lower specced in order to keep the price down. They seem to have pegged on a 600MHx processor for example, and I expect to see most components integrated on the motherboard making their cost negligible. If they can fit what they want into 64MB core memory then the most expensive part by far will be the graphics subsystem. But with even this integrated, it's quite possible the whole thing could be manufactured for under $300.
I still think you're arguing with your emotions rather than your reason. We'll see who's right by next Christmas:o)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Nobody is contending that the PC's on store shelves *right now* could compete with PS2.
The PC's of next fall are precisely what the argument is about.
Remember, the specs put out by Indrema are purposefully vague, eg. "GPU TBA". They will surely take advantage of the price/performance available at the point when they finally have to order parts to begin manufacture. That will be in the fall.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Linux in a game console is viable if you keep the kernel and core system stuff in ROM, and mount only the DVD drive and a RAM disk for scratch stuff by default. The hard disk can be mounted when the user wants to save a file, and unmounted afterwards. <p> Good point. I wonder if they have the wits to realize this? Fsck can be run automatically to avoid having to bother the average console punter, but even with the legendary recoverability of extfs (and the upcoming journalled filesystems) it'd surely fsck up sooner or later even so. <p> Another method might be to include a mini-UPS attached to the power supply so that removal of mains power would cause the system to shut down gracefully, but this is unlikely because of the component cost.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
What a rant! But like most rants, it tends to ignore the facts in favour of the writer's inbuilt prejudices.
people can just buy the PS2 to get set-top capabilities PLUS awesome gaming.
A general purpose machine running a general purpose OS (even if tweaked for multimedia performance) will always be capable of more things than a hardwired console which doesn't have the capacity for a fully fledged OS.
1) Power, power power. The proc in this machine sounds something like an Athlon or PIII 600. That is ridiculously low powered compared to the 300 MHz emotion engine. You hear all those mac heads preaching MHz!=power. Well this is a case in point. The fp power of the Emotion Engine (herefoth refered to as the EE in amiga tradition) is much higher than a PIII. It is designed to do one thing well, 3D graphics calculations.
Exactly. In other words, you are comparing apples with oranges. You went on to say that Indrema would need a 1.5GHz PIII. But The Emotion engine cannot be compared with a CPU, it's only a graphics processor. To see how the Indrema box compared to a PS2 you'll have to wait to see what kind of graphics card it ships with. And by Q3, allowing plenty of time for a last-minute redesign and tooling up for manufacture before Christmas, the AGP graphics cards out there will be two generations on from where we are now. Nvidia have themselves already said that the X-box GPU will be several times more powerful than the PS2. So while the PS2 is doomed always to run the Emotion Engine, by the time the L600 appears it will have a GPU between four to ten times as powerful as the PS2's in terms of sheer triangle output and fill rate, and with a few new tricks as well. At HDTV resolutions and frame rates, this will mean 3D game animations that look even more like live video than the PS2's.
This being so, the PS2 in its current form can't possibly compete. Even if Sony introduces an uprated GPU, the only way they'd be able to overtake the L600 in graphics quality terms would be to put in more hardwired features rather than just upping the clock rate. Then it's a PS3, effectively, and software compatibility issues come into play.
Then there is the 4 meg of EMBEDDED VRAM with a 150MHz bus and a ridiculous bus width (DDR eat your heart out.) I don't think I have to elaborate.
But by Q3 this year, a standard PC motherboard will probably be running PC266 DDR-SDRAM with a memory bandwidth on the main system bus of 2.128GB/sec. Support for 8xAGP may well be widespread on motherboards and high-end 3D graphics cards by then too, giving us 2GB/sec to the graphics card as well. Thus, any high-end PC by this fall might be able to give the PS2 a run for its money. And all without even having to resort to some ugly proprietary local video bus scheme...
2) Selvteness. When will people learn that using the right tool for the right job is best. Why the hell did they decide to use Linux? Sure it is a great server or workstation OS, but is seriously too big for a gamestation.
But this is not just a "gamestation". It will play MP3's and CD's, and DVD's like Playstation II. It will also surf the web and handle email. Unlike the Playstation though, it will also probably be able to record broadcast video (and perhaps delay broadcasts like Tivo and Replay). Since it'll be running a general purpose OS which just happens to have a huge available application code base, and since it'll be festooned with USB ports, I guarantee that nobody can foresee right now what else people will be doing with it.
It's all down to what software gets written for it I suppose. I can easily imagine that we'll be doing Karaoke on it, hooking up MIDI keyboards to it, ordering the shopping from the local supermarket, checking the bank balance and so on. All the things you could do from your sofa with a TV if that TV also happened to be a powerful internet-connected computer.
You can cut it down, but it even then it is still too big, and by the looks of the spec sheet, they seem to be using full blown Linux/X. This poses many problems. A) Linux is too fat for a console. A console has no need of many things that are in the kernel that can't be taken out. There is no need for all the security and multi-userness inherent in UNIX, no need for console support, no need for any process management (or memory protection for that matter) no need for a VM, no need swap management, etc.
Really? Remember this is not just a games console. All that multitasking power could be put to good use I dare say. Like recording a movie off the TV while you're playing Quake. Can a Playstation 2 do that? Perhaps the L600 can't either, but you can bet that the next version will be able to.
Again, these could probably be coded out, but that would be an assload of work, and most Linux progs wouldn't work afterwords. The PS/2 OS will be simple. Some libraries for setting of graphics, OpenGL, etc, talking to the hardware, taking to devices, and a TCP/IP stack. Most of all, it gets our of your way real fast.
So can Linux if you don't have a whole bunch of demons running and you've compiled out all the unnecessary device and networking support.
Don't be surprised if many game developers forgo OpenGL or whatever and access hardware directly.
I doubt it. The OpenGL API means that PC games houses, who've been using OpenGL for years, can feasibly port their games to this platform and Linux in general, in short order. It's already happening.
They've been doing it for years and on a platform that stays as constant as a console, they can tweek to give a massive speed boost. The best example is this. One the same hardware, current N64 games whoop what was available at its introduction. What PCs can do that?
The PC's of next fall.
B) They're using X. (They say they use Mesa and DRI.) What kind of ridiculous interface is that? Am I to assume they'll write their own WM. Then who will re-write the apps to take advantage of it? Shoehorning a big UI into the wrong place has been seen before. Its called WindowsCE. And why the hell use DRI? What else is using the graphics hardware?
I'd expect them to use a lightweight X-based WM for applications, something like ICE or Blackbox. But the games will bypass that mostly, so no overhead there. The X code will be completely swapped out while the game is running.
C) Wheres the RAM? Sure it has 64 meg, but after Linux/X plus the WM, only like 16 or less will be left. You're telling me the console is going to hit the SWAP?
This is typical console-player arrogance. It may surprise you to know that there are many people who play 3D video games on operating systems much worse than Linux. Swapfiles are used appropriately. If the game is written to run within available physical memory, swapping will only take place at startup and between scenes. It doesn't impinge on game play. It's simply irrelevant.
3) They're way out of their league in terms of customer slickness. First, Linux isn't that slick to begin with. I'll give them the benifit of the doubt and assume they can make Linux/X as easy to use as the playstation.
Yes, it'll have to look a lot more "appliance-like". But that can be done.
(No boot sequence, no logging in, no actually even starting the app.
Oh, come ON! Even console users have to switch on, plug in, and navigate past the opening screens!
Want to play a CD? Stick it in the drive and re-boot. The CD player app comes up.)
Do PS2 users have to reboot to play a CD? Linux users and Windows users don't.
Are people actually going to SHUTDOWN their console? Linux is way too unstable and buggy for consoles. Sure 100 days without a crash may seem stable to PC users, but console users would be up in arms if their console crashed three times a year! More like once every three years is about right. (My N64 has crashed once in 5 years, and my PC hasn't crashed in the 3 years I've owned it.)
This *might* be a danger (though not so much as with the MS X-box). It depends how much stuff is running, and whether there are any memory leaks in the window manager or the browser etc. If the "off" button does a soft shutdown (something like a properly working ACPI suspend-to-disk), then the slate is regularly wiped clean and this risk will be minimal.
Second, I can't see people accepting the fact that their kernel needs to be updated. No, sorry, no dice.
I don't see why the kernel should ever need updating if people don't want to (or if the manufacturers don't want them to). There are Linux-based web servers out there still running kernel 1.0.9, you know.
And the hardrive. The guy who decided to put in a harddrive ought to be shot.
I am rather glad of the hard disk actually. Especially since it means video recording capability, on-system storage of MP3's etc.
I say this because console software is released as good as it will ever get. It has to be, it can never be patched. People aren't going to accept, "please wait... Downloading latest patches for Mario 64."
Why not? Fully automatic software updates sounds like quite a neat feature. Not having to put up with permanent bugs like console software has sounds like a good idea. Of course, if such a feature is implemented it will be optional and upgrade downloads won't happen without the user's consent.
These people need to get a clue.
Personally I think the clue they already have is better than yours...
This is a machine that everyone from age 6 to age 60 will be using. It can't be difficult, it can't be unstable (reletivly), it can't take energy to maintain. It has to be transparent to use, and be easy to use as your toaster. Literraly.
That's the only thing you've said that I can actually agree with. The basic functions *must* be easy to learn. I hope it's better than my Thomson VCR, which was designed by a complete idiot.
Its nice to get Linux on yet another devices, but ask yourself people, how stupid of an idea is it?
I rather think that this device isn't about getting Linux out there, it's about delivering a flexible, fast and reliable set-top computer and entertainment device. That requires a general purpose OS. Of such operating systems, many people believe Linux to be the best choice for this kind of embedded work - for a whole raft of reasons. But this post is quite long enough already.
I just want to add in closing that I believe this machine is the right thing for the simple reason that I've been waiting for three years for one to appear. For all that time I've wanted a single box to go under my TV which would do off-air video recording, 3D games, music, web surfing and general LAN access. Up to now, the hardware hasn't been up to it; all the graphics cards I've seen so far have really crap TV-out displays. But this one is supposed to support HDTV so I'm hopeful of home cinema quality output at last. And it'll surely cost me far less to buy it from them than it'd cost me to design and build it myself from scratch.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
(i) Except in the case of trademarks, like "Lego". (ii) Language is "defined" by usage when and only when that usage is officially recorded by the pertinent authority. In your case, Webster's. Trademark usage is determined by the holder of that trademark.
You and the other three people on this planet who think the plural of "LEGO" is "LEGO" are wrong.
Where did you get the idea that it's only three people? In fact it's only certain people in the US who think it's "Legos". The rest of the world is more than three people. In any case, even if it were only three people and one of those people owned the trademark, it would still be "Lego".
Live with it.
I am content to live with the facts. You can live with your fantasy if you like. So fuck you and your attitude.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Wait a minute. Are you saying that in your opinion the language is defined by six year olds? If so I beg to differ, I believe on your side of the pond it's in the hands of the Webster' dictionary people. I don't believe they employ any six-year-olds.
Oh. Earth humour. I see.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
I intend to boycott Mattel products (I have two small children aged 4 and 6, who use a LOT of Mattel products). I want to write to Mattel to explain this but I can't find any useful email address on their web site. Does anybody know such an email address?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Was it hell. This statement makes me wonder if you've really seen the film. It was a brilliant and imaginative movie, but even for the time it was made it was hardly terrifying, more like comedic (except perhaps for the rape scene).
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
It galls me to say it..but despite your apparently crappy unmathematical reasoning, you're quite right.
In special relativity there is a mathematical factor referred to as gamma, equal to sqrt(1-(v/c)**2). It tends toward a value of 1 at low v and toward infinity at v~c. Gamma is the value with which you:
(i) multiply elapsed time in the moving reference frame, to obtain elapsed time in the original "stationary" reference frame (I use the term advisedly for brevity's sake, so DON'T beat me up about it!);
(ii) divide the length (parallel to the direction of travel) of the moving object, to obtain its Lorentz contraction apparent to stationary observers;
(iii) multiply the mass of the moving system to obtain its relativistic mass.
The only objects which can travel at the speed of light are those with a rest mass of zero (because only then does ( rest mass * gamma ) < infinity. The photon is the particle character of the wave packet of electromagnetic radiation. It has a rest mass of zero and has a constant velocity equal to c. (NB I'm not sure but I think it can be said that its lack of any mass necessitates it having this velocity).
Anyway, since the photon has a velocity of c, its gamma=infinity and its subjective elapsed time during the entire journey from creation to destruction is precisely zero. Thus, as you said, light does not travel through time. From the light's point of view, anyway. If a photon born at the instant of the big bang escaped absorption all the way to the big crunch, from the photon's point of view the entire lifetime of the universe would pass by in an instant.
In general relativity, a similar situation prevails for any object which reaches the event horizon of a black hole.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Sorry Accipiter, but that's just plain wrong. The far end of the pole does *not* move instantaneously.
The physical explanation is this: the volume of any solid matter is filled with, indeed entirely composed of, the electromagnetic fields of the electrons within it (the positive atomic nuclei themselves are relatively small and being sheilded from one another don't tend to interact with each other very much). These fields might be hybrid electron orbitals - though in the case of metals the electronic structure is rather more complicated than that.
In any case, when you apply a force to one end of a solid, you deform the electromagnetic field of the atoms therein, which then pushes back and in doing so alters the spatial position of those atoms in relation to their immediate neighbours.
The atoms now exert an altered electromagnetic force upon their neighbours with a similar result: said neighbours change their spatial arrangement in response to the force applied. Those neighbours, having moved in relation to their other neighbours, now exert an altered force upon them, so that they in turn change position. And so on all the way through the solid.
There is a strictly temporal causal sequence. Nothing happens instantaneously, because it takes *time* for the force felt by the electromagnetic field on one side of an atom to transmit around to the other side. And that in turn is because information propagation through an electromagnetic field is not instantaneous but always occurs at the velocity c. That is what c *is* by the way; the velocity of a wave moving through the electromagnetic field.
Conclusion: there is _no_such_thing_ as truly *rigid* (except in childish jokes about male genitalia). This is in fact necessary since spacetime itself has variable geometry.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Another thing that could benefit if these things were more widespread is prostitution.
His interests: chicks that like money. Her interests: guys with money that like chicks.
It might reduce the number of tarts hanging around on the street and kerb-crawlers from harrassing innocent girls who are only waiting for their ride to come and pick them up.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Let's remind ourselves that people saved themselves from starvation (or at least major food shortages) by improving agricultural techniques. Irrigation, crop rotation, fertalizer all allow us to sustain more people from a single portion of land then animals that require the same caloric intake.
We can wear sunscreen to protect ourselves from increased UV rays. We can build shelter to keep us warm when it's cold. We build computers so that our time could be used more effectively.
None of this argues against the assertion I made which was that Our present level of technology hardly makes us any less vulnerable to extinction-level events such as major climatic change. The scenarios or technologies you mentioned deal only with minor climatic fluctuations. Not quite an extinction level event!
Agriculture has so far only dealt with enabling a higher number of people to live off the same-sized piece of fertile land. There have been experiments in irrigation and genetic crop modification intended to enable previously unusable areas of land to be sown (eg tomatoes which excrete salt so that seawater can be used to irrigate a tomato plantation in the desert), but so far both scope and success have been limited. If, for example, CO2 and CH4 emissions caused the climate to "flip" over into a different mode (think: runaway greenhouse effect transforming this planet into Venus) then assuming our present level of technology, by the time we got our act together to do something it would probably be far too late for us to be able to stop it. The atmosphere is pretty big you know.
And sunscreen can only protect us against irradiation up to a point.
You ought ponder more carefully the survivability of those unknown events which caused major species die-back in the remote past. Millions of species around the world don't get wiped out by a spot of dry weather!
I don't subscribe to any New-Age notions about the primacy of nature over Man. But when you consider the sheer quantities of energy locked up even in our own biosphere and held in check only by "local" equilibria, all the life on this planet is really no more than a thin, fragile organic scum. We really won't be safe as a species until we've spread out to other star systems (and even then you have to go pretty far to avoid getting fried by local supernovae).
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
My credentials in Molecular Biology are pretty worthless since I finished my study in that field back in about 1987, and at least half of what's now known seems to have happened after that! But there has at least been some speculation that viruses - particularly retroviruses - may pick up genes from a host cell. Consider that inside the host cell, all the enzymes for splicing, insertion, deletion etc are present together with short sections of expressed mRNA, and the viral RNA is floating freely in the middle of all that. It hardly stretches credibility to suggest that occasionally a piece of host mRNA might attach itself to the viral plasmid.
In any event, most of the furore about genetically engineered species being let loose in the wild is for a similar reason. In particular, it's thought that plants do sometimes cross-fertilize other species - and since pollen is airborne and can travel quite long distances on a modest breeze or stuck to a bee's leg, we may not be able to control the spread of artificial plant genes to other unintended species.
I also understand that early cancer research was dogged with false results because of airborne human DNA infecting in vitro lab cultures.
Finally there is the question of where viruses might have come from in the first place. There are two theories: (i) that viruses are devolved cells which lost the machinery for life and became completely parasitic; and (ii) that they are just pieces of genetic material that "escaped" their original genome. Of course it's possible that both theories are true, for different viruses.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Just one thing, if I may. You strongly disagree with North American optimisim you say? Well, then answer me this: Has it ever been wrong? Has there ever been some man made event that has lead to catastrophic loss of life?
Er...every war ever fought; every plague that depended upon crowded living conditions for its infection rate; every "dustbowl" by poorly managed agriculture which led to famine. Shall I go on?
The author has a very good point. There are many, many perdictions of doom (take a look at the receant 2000 thing) and they have all been wrong. All of them (the proof is in that we are still here). Either the problem never existed to begin with (global cooling) or we realised there was a problem and fixed it (2000).
What kind of ludicrous reasoning is that? Just because we've survived up to now doesn't guarantee we'll continue to do so. The vast majority of species that ever lived on this planet have been extinct for millions of years. Why don't you tell it to them! Our present level of technology hardly makes us any less vulnerable to extinction-level events such as major climatic change.
As to your Ebola thing. First, viruses do not combine traits. It is true one could evolve that has the traits of both current strains, but it's not like they will just combine.
Do you know this for a fact? Suppose once cell in a gven individual gets infected with both strains at the same time? Inside the cell there are enzymes present which are capable of chopping up and combining the RNA strands of the two strains. It's really only a matter of time unless we can manage to eliminate the virus completely, and we've no hope of doing so at present.
Besides, here again you are guilty of looking only at the negative and assuming the worst will continue to happen. What you fail to remember is that medical science is working on finding a cure/immunazation to the ebola virus, and will probably succeed eventually.
This is nothing more than groundless optimism. We can't eliminate Ebola as we don't know where it lives when it's not infecting humans. We're not likely to find out either unless there are widespread epidemics. If it ever *does* get combined with an airborne vector it may well decimate us before we can figure out how to stop it.
And you've conveniently ignored the probable fact that various biological warfare institutes around the world are desperately trying to combine Ebola with such a vector - just in case the country concerned finds itself losing a war...
And don't say it will never happen, we've conqured polio, small pox, and a host of other plauges that killed millions, we'll conquer AIDS, et al as well.
Really? We've eliminated smallpox and polio (until the next outbreak anyway:o/) but AFAIK there are no other infectious diseases that we can claim to have completely eliminated. With regard to AIDS...well, maybe, but retroviruses are hard to deal with because they mutate so fast. And HIV has a few tricks of its own.
I won't take the time to respond on an individual basis to the rest of your points since they are nothing but more of the same.
That's *really* lame. To translate: you don't have any response to the rest of his points that would seem reasonable even to an idiot.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
The prion which leads to scrapie in sheep, BSE in cows and CJD in humans indeed has nothing to so with gene transferral, but that's not the point. The real point is that humans doing stupid things for the sake of profit (in this case feeding sheep offal to cows and making meat pies out of those cows' brain tissue) can quite easily lead to disaster.
In any case there is *plenty* of evidence that genes can be transferred between species. To take the most mundane case - what do you think viruses are doing?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Would Thomas Edison have existed if it weren't for patent protection? I doubt it. Or he would of but he would not have become the almost legend he is today.
Bad example! Edison was a fraud who profited by ripping off other people's work and using misinformation to destroy his competition. In attempting to sell to the media his Direct Current method of electrical distribution, he invented the electric chair and used to electrocute animals in order to "prove" that Nikola Tesla's Alternating Current was too dangerous to use - even though Direct Current can also kill.
Though Tesla's AC was eventually proved superior, and was ultimately chosen as the standard method - Edison is regarded by the establishment as the father of electricity.
Oh and BTW, even the DC method he was pushing was invented and developed by others before his time. Like so many others today, Edison used patents to garner for himself that which never really belonged to him.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
I agree that the way BR was privatised was a criminal waste of public assets for just the reasons you say. Mind you, if it had been handled better (if the public hadn't been robbed) separating rail infrastructure from train operations might have worked out. It might still work out, in the long term. Similar moves within the power industry (gas and electricity) have already brought benefits in terms of reduced prices to customers through competition.
I look forward to seeing the British telco industry sliced up in a similar way (I doubt we'll see any significant reduction in call costs until that happens, notwithstanding recent announcements from BT, Altavista etc).
I sympathise with your extreme dislike of Thatcherism; I was just as outspoken as you on that particular subject back when it still mattered. But since then I've become just as unimpressed with New Labour. We'll never see a sensible, moderate government in this country until (and if!) proportional representation is introduced. I want no more damn ideologues! Give me government by consensus - and I mean pluralism, *not* the tyranny of the majority that we have now.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
So, it is quite safe to say that this oldfangled flying "train" will certainly not fly very far, because the theorical speed limit of ground travel, the speed of sound, is within reach of conventionnal steel-wheel-on-steel-rail technology <br><br> Absolute rubbish. Perhaps wheel-on-rail *can* reach that speed but the power dissipation due to friction would be substantial. The difference with both WIG and induction motor designs is that they promise to achieve such speeds with relatively little energy expenditure. <br><br> It's inevitable that energy expenditure will become a major driving force in transportation technology in the century ahead. Because of diminishing fossil fuels. Because of restrictions on air pollution. And also because of noise levels (steel wheels on tracks are pretty loud) and the need to limit the production of waste heat in densely populated areas. <br><br> In the UK most train cancellations and delays are caused by track problems and mechanical failures. These technologies are also attractive to train operators because removing the train's wheels( thus eliminating complexity and decreasing mechanical stresses on the track) would increase reliability and decrease ongoing maintenance costs.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is Thought exists only as an abstraction
Slashdot Mirror
It's not necessarily the same guy. I too think, contrary to Kaa's unique viewpoint, that most people here would agree the concept of IP is not natural in the same way as ownership of material objects. For the simple reason that there can be only one instance of a particular material object whereas information can be distributed without depriving the original owner of it. Kaa's post was just a troll and insults people's intelligence. It's no wonder that someone got angry about it.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Or dumping the log.
And don't forget to flush - but PLEASE don't use the sync!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
You exaggerated first! :o)
:o)
This particular set-top is *not* specialized at all. That is its advantage. No longer do you need a four-foot high stack of single-function black boxes under the telly for your AV entertainment needs; one box will do.
MIDI might not be as popular as Super Mario, but since it comes "free" with good sound cards, with the right software it'd be a plus for anyone who likes making their own music. Widening the appeal of the thing still further.
QNX is a capable system for a narrow range of applications. Multimedia is not one of them AFAIK. You said:
"QNX can do everything that Linux can do yet fits in like 1/50th the space. Mainly because QNX is optimized to do these, and leaves out a lot of cruft Linux keeps in."
Eh? First you say that QNX has all the features of Linux, then in the same breath you state that it's a fiftieth the size because it's had most of the features taken out! Make up your bleeding mind!
AGP 8X engineering samples are already available. Past experience with earlier incarnations indicates that within 6 months products ought to be available.
Do you have any hard figures on transfer speed to go with your claims for VRAM? If it goes significantly faster then 2GB/sec I have my doubts that any other part of the system would be able to keep up with it. And VRAM is expensive; DDR-SDRAM will be priced like SDRAM is now.
I never mentioned a 2GHz CPU, by the way. The CPU isn't even that important, with hardware MPEG decoding and video acceleration.
What it all boils down to is this: the standard PC spec by next Christmas when this Idrema is due to come out will be substantially better than what we have now. I think it'll be something like this: 1GHz processor (133MHz FSB), 256MB PC266 DDR-SDRAM. UDMA66 20GB HDD, 128bit 8xAGP graphics card 64MB (or possibly 128MB). The Idrema will be lower specced in order to keep the price down. They seem to have pegged on a 600MHx processor for example, and I expect to see most components integrated on the motherboard making their cost negligible. If they can fit what they want into 64MB core memory then the most expensive part by far will be the graphics subsystem. But with even this integrated, it's quite possible the whole thing could be manufactured for under $300.
I still think you're arguing with your emotions rather than your reason. We'll see who's right by next Christmas
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Nobody is contending that the PC's on store shelves *right now* could compete with PS2.
The PC's of next fall are precisely what the argument is about.
Remember, the specs put out by Indrema are purposefully vague, eg. "GPU TBA". They will surely take advantage of the price/performance available at the point when they finally have to order parts to begin manufacture. That will be in the fall.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Linux in a game console is viable if you keep the kernel and core system stuff in ROM, and mount only the DVD drive and a RAM disk for scratch stuff by default. The hard disk can be mounted when the user wants to save a file, and unmounted afterwards.
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Good point. I wonder if they have the wits to realize this? Fsck can be run automatically to avoid having to bother the average console punter, but even with the legendary recoverability of extfs (and the upcoming journalled filesystems) it'd surely fsck up sooner or later even so.
<p>
Another method might be to include a mini-UPS attached to the power supply so that removal of mains power would cause the system to shut down gracefully, but this is unlikely because of the component cost.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
people can just buy the PS2 to get set-top capabilities PLUS awesome gaming.
A general purpose machine running a general purpose OS (even if tweaked for multimedia performance) will always be capable of more things than a hardwired console which doesn't have the capacity for a fully fledged OS.
1) Power, power power. The proc in this machine sounds something like an Athlon or PIII 600. That is ridiculously low powered compared to the 300 MHz emotion engine. You hear all those mac heads preaching MHz!=power. Well this is a case in point. The fp power of the Emotion Engine (herefoth refered to as the EE in amiga tradition) is much higher than a PIII. It is designed to do one thing well, 3D graphics calculations.
Exactly. In other words, you are comparing apples with oranges. You went on to say that Indrema would need a 1.5GHz PIII. But The Emotion engine cannot be compared with a CPU, it's only a graphics processor. To see how the Indrema box compared to a PS2 you'll have to wait to see what kind of graphics card it ships with. And by Q3, allowing plenty of time for a last-minute redesign and tooling up for manufacture before Christmas, the AGP graphics cards out there will be two generations on from where we are now. Nvidia have themselves already said that the X-box GPU will be several times more powerful than the PS2. So while the PS2 is doomed always to run the Emotion Engine, by the time the L600 appears it will have a GPU between four to ten times as powerful as the PS2's in terms of sheer triangle output and fill rate, and with a few new tricks as well. At HDTV resolutions and frame rates, this will mean 3D game animations that look even more like live video than the PS2's.
This being so, the PS2 in its current form can't possibly compete. Even if Sony introduces an uprated GPU, the only way they'd be able to overtake the L600 in graphics quality terms would be to put in more hardwired features rather than just upping the clock rate. Then it's a PS3, effectively, and software compatibility issues come into play.
Then there is the 4 meg of EMBEDDED VRAM with a 150MHz bus and a ridiculous bus width (DDR eat your heart out.) I don't think I have to elaborate.
But by Q3 this year, a standard PC motherboard will probably be running PC266 DDR-SDRAM with a memory bandwidth on the main system bus of 2.128GB/sec. Support for 8xAGP may well be widespread on motherboards and high-end 3D graphics cards by then too, giving us 2GB/sec to the graphics card as well. Thus, any high-end PC by this fall might be able to give the PS2 a run for its money. And all without even having to resort to some ugly proprietary local video bus scheme...
2) Selvteness. When will people learn that using the right tool for the right job is best. Why the hell did they decide to use Linux? Sure it is a great server or workstation OS, but is seriously too big for a gamestation.
But this is not just a "gamestation". It will play MP3's and CD's, and DVD's like Playstation II. It will also surf the web and handle email. Unlike the Playstation though, it will also probably be able to record broadcast video (and perhaps delay broadcasts like Tivo and Replay). Since it'll be running a general purpose OS which just happens to have a huge available application code base, and since it'll be festooned with USB ports, I guarantee that nobody can foresee right now what else people will be doing with it.
It's all down to what software gets written for it I suppose. I can easily imagine that we'll be doing Karaoke on it, hooking up MIDI keyboards to it, ordering the shopping from the local supermarket, checking the bank balance and so on. All the things you could do from your sofa with a TV if that TV also happened to be a powerful internet-connected computer.
You can cut it down, but it even then it is still too big, and by the looks of the spec sheet, they seem to be using full blown Linux/X. This poses many problems.
A) Linux is too fat for a console. A console has no need of many things that are in the kernel that can't be taken out. There is no need for all the security and multi-userness inherent in UNIX, no need for console support, no need for any process management (or memory protection for that matter) no need for a VM, no need swap management, etc.
Really? Remember this is not just a games console. All that multitasking power could be put to good use I dare say. Like recording a movie off the TV while you're playing Quake. Can a Playstation 2 do that? Perhaps the L600 can't either, but you can bet that the next version will be able to.
Again, these could probably be coded out, but that would be an assload of work, and most Linux progs wouldn't work afterwords. The PS/2 OS will be simple. Some libraries for setting of graphics, OpenGL, etc, talking to the hardware, taking to devices, and a TCP/IP stack. Most of all, it gets our of your way real fast.
So can Linux if you don't have a whole bunch of demons running and you've compiled out all the unnecessary device and networking support.
Don't be surprised if many game developers forgo OpenGL or whatever and access hardware directly.
I doubt it. The OpenGL API means that PC games houses, who've been using OpenGL for years, can feasibly port their games to this platform and Linux in general, in short order. It's already happening.
They've been doing it for years and on a platform that stays as constant as a console, they can tweek to give a massive speed boost. The best example is this. One the same hardware, current N64 games whoop what was available at its introduction. What PCs can do that?
The PC's of next fall.
B) They're using X. (They say they use Mesa and DRI.) What kind of ridiculous interface is that? Am I to assume they'll write their own WM. Then who will re-write the apps to take advantage of it? Shoehorning a big UI into the wrong place has been seen before. Its called WindowsCE. And why the hell use DRI? What else is using the graphics hardware?
I'd expect them to use a lightweight X-based WM for applications, something like ICE or Blackbox. But the games will bypass that mostly, so no overhead there. The X code will be completely swapped out while the game is running.
C) Wheres the RAM? Sure it has 64 meg, but after Linux/X plus the WM, only like 16 or less will be left. You're telling me the console is going to hit the SWAP?
This is typical console-player arrogance. It may surprise you to know that there are many people who play 3D video games on operating systems much worse than Linux. Swapfiles are used appropriately. If the game is written to run within available physical memory, swapping will only take place at startup and between scenes. It doesn't impinge on game play. It's simply irrelevant.
3) They're way out of their league in terms of customer slickness. First, Linux isn't that slick to begin with. I'll give them the benifit of the doubt and assume they can make Linux/X as easy to use as the playstation.
Yes, it'll have to look a lot more "appliance-like". But that can be done.
(No boot sequence, no logging in, no actually even starting the app.
Oh, come ON! Even console users have to switch on, plug in, and navigate past the opening screens!
Want to play a CD? Stick it in the drive and re-boot. The CD player app comes up.)
Do PS2 users have to reboot to play a CD? Linux users and Windows users don't.
Are people actually going to SHUTDOWN their console? Linux is way too unstable and buggy for consoles. Sure 100 days without a crash may seem stable to PC users, but console users would be up in arms if their console crashed three times a year! More like once every three years is about right. (My N64 has crashed once in 5 years, and my PC hasn't crashed in the 3 years I've owned it.)
This *might* be a danger (though not so much as with the MS X-box). It depends how much stuff is running, and whether there are any memory leaks in the window manager or the browser etc. If the "off" button does a soft shutdown (something like a properly working ACPI suspend-to-disk), then the slate is regularly wiped clean and this risk will be minimal.
Second, I can't see people accepting the fact that their kernel needs to be updated. No, sorry, no dice.
I don't see why the kernel should ever need updating if people don't want to (or if the manufacturers don't want them to). There are Linux-based web servers out there still running kernel 1.0.9, you know.
And the hardrive. The guy who decided to put in a harddrive ought to be shot.
I am rather glad of the hard disk actually. Especially since it means video recording capability, on-system storage of MP3's etc.
I say this because console software is released as good as it will ever get. It has to be, it can never be patched. People aren't going to accept, "please wait... Downloading latest patches for Mario 64."
Why not? Fully automatic software updates sounds like quite a neat feature. Not having to put up with permanent bugs like console software has sounds like a good idea. Of course, if such a feature is implemented it will be optional and upgrade downloads won't happen without the user's consent.
These people need to get a clue.
Personally I think the clue they already have is better than yours...
This is a machine that everyone from age 6 to age 60 will be using. It can't be difficult, it can't be unstable (reletivly), it can't take energy to maintain. It has to be transparent to use, and be easy to use as your toaster. Literraly.
That's the only thing you've said that I can actually agree with. The basic functions *must* be easy to learn. I hope it's better than my Thomson VCR, which was designed by a complete idiot.
Its nice to get Linux on yet another devices, but ask yourself people, how stupid of an idea is it?
I rather think that this device isn't about getting Linux out there, it's about delivering a flexible, fast and reliable set-top computer and entertainment device. That requires a general purpose OS. Of such operating systems, many people believe Linux to be the best choice for this kind of embedded work - for a whole raft of reasons. But this post is quite long enough already.
I just want to add in closing that I believe this machine is the right thing for the simple reason that I've been waiting for three years for one to appear. For all that time I've wanted a single box to go under my TV which would do off-air video recording, 3D games, music, web surfing and general LAN access. Up to now, the hardware hasn't been up to it; all the graphics cards I've seen so far have really crap TV-out displays. But this one is supposed to support HDTV so I'm hopeful of home cinema quality output at last. And it'll surely cost me far less to buy it from them than it'd cost me to design and build it myself from scratch.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
SCREW the FAQ.
No, screw you.
And it's "Hemos".
I know that. And it's "Lego".
Language is defined by usage, not fiat.
(i) Except in the case of trademarks, like "Lego". (ii) Language is "defined" by usage when and only when that usage is officially recorded by the pertinent authority. In your case, Webster's. Trademark usage is determined by the holder of that trademark.
You and the other three people on this planet who think the plural of "LEGO" is "LEGO" are wrong.
Where did you get the idea that it's only three people? In fact it's only certain people in the US who think it's "Legos". The rest of the world is more than three people. In any case, even if it were only three people and one of those people owned the trademark, it would still be "Lego".
Live with it.
I am content to live with the facts. You can live with your fantasy if you like. So fuck you and your attitude.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Wait a minute. Are you saying that in your opinion the language is defined by six year olds? If so I beg to differ, I believe on your side of the pond it's in the hands of the Webster' dictionary people. I don't believe they employ any six-year-olds.
Oh. Earth humour. I see.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
AAARGH! For the umpteenth time, It's LEGO!!! NOT LEGOS!!! And that's according to the manufacturer's own FAQ by the way, Hemo.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I intend to boycott Mattel products (I have two small children aged 4 and 6, who use a LOT of Mattel products).
I want to write to Mattel to explain this but I can't find any useful email address on their web site. Does anybody know such an email address?
I posted the above question elsewhere, I know, I only wanted to maximise my chances of getting a reply.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
I intend to boycott Mattel products (I have two small children aged 4 and 6, who use a LOT of Mattel products). I want to write to Mattel to explain this but I can't find any useful email address on their web site. Does anybody know such an email address?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Clockwork Orange was terrifying
Was it hell. This statement makes me wonder if you've really seen the film. It was a brilliant and imaginative movie, but even for the time it was made it was hardly terrifying, more like comedic (except perhaps for the rape scene).
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
If necessary I will.
:o)
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
It galls me to say it..but despite your apparently crappy unmathematical reasoning, you're quite right.
In special relativity there is a mathematical factor referred to as gamma, equal to sqrt(1-(v/c)**2). It tends toward a value of 1 at low v and toward infinity at v~c. Gamma is the value with which you:
(i) multiply elapsed time in the moving reference frame, to obtain elapsed time in the original "stationary" reference frame (I use the term advisedly for brevity's sake, so DON'T beat me up about it!);
(ii) divide the length (parallel to the direction of travel) of the moving object, to obtain its Lorentz contraction apparent to stationary observers;
(iii) multiply the mass of the moving system to obtain its relativistic mass.
The only objects which can travel at the speed of light are those with a rest mass of zero (because only then does ( rest mass * gamma ) < infinity.
The photon is the particle character of the wave packet of electromagnetic radiation. It has a rest mass of zero and has a constant velocity equal to c. (NB I'm not sure but I think it can be said that its lack of any mass necessitates it having this velocity).
Anyway, since the photon has a velocity of c, its gamma=infinity and its subjective elapsed time during the entire journey from creation to destruction is precisely zero. Thus, as you said, light does not travel through time. From the light's point of view, anyway. If a photon born at the instant of the big bang escaped absorption all the way to the big crunch, from the photon's point of view the entire lifetime of the universe would pass by in an instant.
In general relativity, a similar situation prevails for any object which reaches the event horizon of a black hole.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Sorry Accipiter, but that's just plain wrong. The far end of the pole does *not* move instantaneously.
The physical explanation is this: the volume of any solid matter is filled with, indeed entirely composed of, the electromagnetic fields of the electrons within it (the positive atomic nuclei themselves are relatively small and being sheilded from one another don't tend to interact with each other very much). These fields might be hybrid electron orbitals - though in the case of metals the electronic structure is rather more complicated than that.
In any case, when you apply a force to one end of a solid, you deform the electromagnetic field of the atoms therein, which then pushes back and in doing so alters the spatial position of those atoms in relation to their immediate neighbours.
The atoms now exert an altered electromagnetic force upon their neighbours with a similar result: said neighbours change their spatial arrangement in response to the force applied. Those neighbours, having moved in relation to their other neighbours, now exert an altered force upon them, so that they in turn change position. And so on all the way through the solid.
There is a strictly temporal causal sequence. Nothing happens instantaneously, because it takes *time* for the force felt by the electromagnetic field on one side of an atom to transmit around to the other side. And that in turn is because information propagation through an electromagnetic field is not instantaneous but always occurs at the velocity c. That is what c *is* by the way; the velocity of a wave moving through the electromagnetic field.
Conclusion: there is _no_such_thing_ as truly *rigid* (except in childish jokes about male genitalia). This is in fact necessary since spacetime itself has variable geometry.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Another thing that could benefit if these things were more widespread is prostitution.
His interests: chicks that like money.
Her interests: guys with money that like chicks.
It might reduce the number of tarts hanging around on the street and kerb-crawlers from harrassing innocent girls who are only waiting for their ride to come and pick them up.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Let's remind ourselves that people saved themselves from starvation (or at least major food shortages) by improving agricultural techniques. Irrigation, crop rotation, fertalizer all allow us to sustain more people from a single portion of land then animals that require the same caloric intake.
We can wear sunscreen to protect ourselves from increased UV rays. We can build shelter to keep us warm when it's cold. We build computers so that our time could be used more effectively.
None of this argues against the assertion I made which was that Our present level of technology hardly makes us any less vulnerable to extinction-level events such as major climatic change. The scenarios or technologies you mentioned deal only with minor climatic fluctuations. Not quite an extinction level event!
Agriculture has so far only dealt with enabling a higher number of people to live off the same-sized piece of fertile land. There have been experiments in irrigation and genetic crop modification intended to enable previously unusable areas of land to be sown (eg tomatoes which excrete salt so that seawater can be used to irrigate a tomato plantation in the desert), but so far both scope and success have been limited. If, for example, CO2 and CH4 emissions caused the climate to "flip" over into a different mode (think: runaway greenhouse effect transforming this planet into Venus) then assuming our present level of technology, by the time we got our act together to do something it would probably be far too late for us to be able to stop it. The atmosphere is pretty big you know.
And sunscreen can only protect us against irradiation up to a point.
You ought ponder more carefully the survivability of those unknown events which caused major species die-back in the remote past. Millions of species around the world don't get wiped out by a spot of dry weather!
I don't subscribe to any New-Age notions about the primacy of nature over Man. But when you consider the sheer quantities of energy locked up even in our own biosphere and held in check only by "local" equilibria, all the life on this planet is really no more than a thin, fragile organic scum. We really won't be safe as a species until we've spread out to other star systems (and even then you have to go pretty far to avoid getting fried by local supernovae).
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
My credentials in Molecular Biology are pretty worthless since I finished my study in that field back in about 1987, and at least half of what's now known seems to have happened after that! But there has at least been some speculation that viruses - particularly retroviruses - may pick up genes from a host cell. Consider that inside the host cell, all the enzymes for splicing, insertion, deletion etc are present together with short sections of expressed mRNA, and the viral RNA is floating freely in the middle of all that. It hardly stretches credibility to suggest that occasionally a piece of host mRNA might attach itself to the viral plasmid.
In any event, most of the furore about genetically engineered species being let loose in the wild is for a similar reason. In particular, it's thought that plants do sometimes cross-fertilize other species - and since pollen is airborne and can travel quite long distances on a modest breeze or stuck to a bee's leg, we may not be able to control the spread of artificial plant genes to other unintended species.
I also understand that early cancer research was dogged with false results because of airborne human DNA infecting in vitro lab cultures.
Finally there is the question of where viruses might have come from in the first place. There are two theories: (i) that viruses are devolved cells which lost the machinery for life and became completely parasitic; and (ii) that they are just pieces of genetic material that "escaped" their original genome. Of course it's possible that both theories are true, for different viruses.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
You're going to kick yourself...
:o/) but AFAIK there are no other infectious diseases that we can claim to have completely eliminated. With regard to AIDS...well, maybe, but retroviruses are hard to deal with because they mutate so fast. And HIV has a few tricks of its own.
Just one thing, if I may. You strongly disagree with North American optimisim you say? Well, then answer me this: Has it ever been wrong? Has there ever been some man made event that has lead to catastrophic loss of life?
Er...every war ever fought; every plague that depended upon crowded living conditions for its infection rate; every "dustbowl" by poorly managed agriculture which led to famine. Shall I go on?
The author has a very good point. There are many, many perdictions of doom (take a look at the receant 2000 thing) and they have all been wrong. All of them (the proof is in that we are still here). Either the problem never existed to begin with (global cooling) or we realised there was a problem and fixed it (2000).
What kind of ludicrous reasoning is that? Just because we've survived up to now doesn't guarantee we'll continue to do so. The vast majority of species that ever lived on this planet have been extinct for millions of years. Why don't you tell it to them! Our present level of technology hardly makes us any less vulnerable to extinction-level events such as major climatic change.
As to your Ebola thing. First, viruses do not combine traits. It is true one could evolve that has the traits of both current strains, but it's not like they will just combine.
Do you know this for a fact? Suppose once cell in a gven individual gets infected with both strains at the same time? Inside the cell there are enzymes present which are capable of chopping up and combining the RNA strands of the two strains. It's really only a matter of time unless we can manage to eliminate the virus completely, and we've no hope of doing so at present.
Besides, here again you are guilty of looking only at the negative and assuming the worst will continue to happen. What you fail to remember is that medical science is working on finding a cure/immunazation to the ebola virus, and will probably succeed eventually.
This is nothing more than groundless optimism. We can't eliminate Ebola as we don't know where it lives when it's not infecting humans. We're not likely to find out either unless there are widespread epidemics. If it ever *does* get combined with an airborne vector it may well decimate us before we can figure out how to stop it.
And you've conveniently ignored the probable fact that various biological warfare institutes around the world are desperately trying to combine Ebola with such a vector - just in case the country concerned finds itself losing a war...
And don't say it will never happen, we've conqured polio, small pox, and a host of other plauges that killed millions, we'll conquer AIDS, et al as well.
Really? We've eliminated smallpox and polio (until the next outbreak anyway
I won't take the time to respond on an individual basis to the rest of your points since they are nothing but more of the same.
That's *really* lame. To translate: you don't have any response to the rest of his points that would seem reasonable even to an idiot.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Beep Blue [sic] was a giant calculator running a single equation
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According to quantum physics, so is the entire universe as a whole...
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The prion which leads to scrapie in sheep, BSE in cows and CJD in humans indeed has nothing to so with gene transferral, but that's not the point. The real point is that humans doing stupid things for the sake of profit (in this case feeding sheep offal to cows and making meat pies out of those cows' brain tissue) can quite easily lead to disaster.
In any case there is *plenty* of evidence that genes can be transferred between species. To take the most mundane case - what do you think viruses are doing?
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Would Thomas Edison have existed if it weren't for patent protection? I doubt it. Or he would of but he would not have become the almost legend he is today.
Bad example! Edison was a fraud who profited by ripping off other people's work and using misinformation to destroy his competition. In attempting to sell to the media his Direct Current method of electrical distribution, he invented the electric chair and used to electrocute animals in order to "prove" that Nikola Tesla's Alternating Current was too dangerous to use - even though Direct Current can also kill.
Though Tesla's AC was eventually proved superior, and was ultimately chosen as the standard method - Edison is regarded by the establishment as the father of electricity.
Oh and BTW, even the DC method he was pushing was invented and developed by others before his time. Like so many others today, Edison used patents to garner for himself that which never really belonged to him.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
That should be (Score:5, Funny)!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
Erm, I didn't know this was about politics!
I agree that the way BR was privatised was a criminal waste of public assets for just the reasons you say. Mind you, if it had been handled better (if the public hadn't been robbed) separating rail infrastructure from train operations might have worked out. It might still work out, in the long term. Similar moves within the power industry (gas and electricity) have already brought benefits in terms of reduced prices to customers through competition.
I look forward to seeing the British telco industry sliced up in a similar way (I doubt we'll see any significant reduction in call costs until that happens, notwithstanding recent announcements from BT, Altavista etc).
I sympathise with your extreme dislike of Thatcherism; I was just as outspoken as you on that particular subject back when it still mattered. But since then I've become just as unimpressed with New Labour. We'll never see a sensible, moderate government in this country until (and if!) proportional representation is introduced. I want no more damn ideologues! Give me government by consensus - and I mean pluralism, *not* the tyranny of the majority that we have now.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
So, it is quite safe to say that this oldfangled flying "train" will certainly not fly very far, because the theorical speed limit of ground travel, the speed of sound, is within reach of conventionnal steel-wheel-on-steel-rail technology
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Absolute rubbish. Perhaps wheel-on-rail *can* reach that speed but the power dissipation due to friction would be substantial. The difference with both WIG and induction motor designs is that they promise to achieve such speeds with relatively little energy expenditure.
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It's inevitable that energy expenditure will become a major driving force in transportation technology in the century ahead. Because of diminishing fossil fuels. Because of restrictions on air pollution. And also because of noise levels (steel wheels on tracks are pretty loud) and the need to limit the production of waste heat in densely populated areas.
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In the UK most train cancellations and delays are caused by track problems and mechanical failures.
These technologies are also attractive to train operators because removing the train's wheels( thus eliminating complexity and decreasing mechanical stresses on the track) would increase reliability and decrease ongoing maintenance costs.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction