The sad fact is that the truly untested initiative is that of the universities themselves. Standardized testing is just a pathetic cop-out to allow them to deal with students en masse, without committing the resources necessary to make informed decisions.
Would the DeCSS technology allow players (the hardware, not the software) to be made by companies that have not bought licenses from DVD CCA? Would there be legal issues beyond the claims that are being made against you? It seems that this also poses a threat to the DVD CCA's bottom line.
The other encouraging thing is that some people can discern the truth by comparing what they're being told to what they experience. Of course, they need to view things with an open mind.
I wonder if zealots are strident because they're insecure: they see evidence all around them that their cherished beliefs are wrong.
Re:Is Censorship/control ALWAYS bad?
on
China and the MPA
·
· Score: 3
This well-intentioned post makes the same wrong assumption that has allowed so much oppression:
It's the same assumption made by those who think voters should have to register.
It's the same assumption made by those who thought that women shouldn't vote, or that the poor shouldn't vote, or that no one should vote.
It's the same assumption made by those who apathetically allow others to make decisions for them.
The assumption is that people are not capable of running their own lives, and making their own decisions.
I would ask the poster: what measures do you recommend for stopping these examples of hysteria? It sounds to me like the best recipe is creating a society where people are encouraged to think for themselves. How exactly does a society become mature enough to respond correctly to misinformation? By being exposed to it, and simultaneously being allowed to look at all the information, and decide the facts themselves. What caused the harms that were corrected by the laws you mention? Lack of access to the truth.
Maybe people don't always act like adults. Maybe we do make horrible mistakes due to ignorance, fear, and gullibility. But the lesson of liberty is that we must be allowed to act like adults, educate ourselves, and make the important decisions. Because the alternative is tyranny.
If this were a case of say, a bomber, and the government had confiscated his chemical fertilizer, which he may have obtained legally, and may only intend to use for farming, would the government be required to return it?
If yes, then there is no reason by which Mitnick's data can be held.
If no, the government could keep it under "reasonable suspicion" or "danger to the public", then the government should have the right to withhold the data.
As we all know, the freedom in free software is the *user's* freedom: to use, to combine, to know, to debug, to extend. As such, it should be no surprise that the development progress to date meets up with the crucial needs of the system's user/developers, thus the focus on serving and networking: OS developers may prefer to play and write games, but they're getting paid to make sure the bosses' networks and apps run correctly.
As the user base extends to those with other needs: non-software industries' apps, games, personal software, PC drivers, ease-of-use, ease-of-development, etc, the quality and availability of those applications will improve.
Although this doesn't refute your point that free software is not always better right now, it does imply that someday it will at least catch up.
And, if you believe in the power of empowered users, it's easy to see that it will likely surpass proprietary software, as it has already done in the areas of greatest need. I suggest that it also will or already does serve needs that proprietary software would have taken forever to get to: child-simple programming languages (what's the prorietary advantage in that?); truly portable applications; unobtrusive, ubiquitous, standard networking; small, reusable, interactive tools.
In general, free software will be much better at creating a marketplace of commodity software: no lock-ins, no single-source, no platform-specificity, no buying the unnecessary to get the needed, no forced upgrade paths, better future-proofing, better accountability, better responsiveness, real choice.
The day when "open source is always better" is not here, but it's coming.
The whole concern of conscious versus automatic may be an imagined dichotomy.
I learned English from hearing others around me speak it, and my neurons adapted to its patterns so well that I "think" in English. But I could have easily heard Chinese as a baby, and I don't have any knowledge of the origins of the majority of words I speak. It seems to me that the symbolism by which I perceive much of the world is almost entirely a taught protocol, with no "grounding" whatsoever.
So, what about more basic perceptions, such as color, temperature, or pain? Linguists know that different cultures or groups describe such "objective" phenomena differently, and that the description colors one's perception: does a Real Man actually see mauve, taupe, or chartreuse -- or just purple, brown, and green? I'm sure I don't experience 20-odd variations of snow, but the Inuit have more names for it than that.
It seems to me that all perception is tempered by previous perceptions, which have built themselves into thoughts, recognitions, words, concepts, and dogma. So, if a machine is given the capability of interpreting perception in terms of other perception, who's to say it can't have our perceived level of experience, reality, consciousness, and "life"?
Would good guidelines help keep restraining orders based on DMCA from being approved? This matters a lot, when the real strategy of RIAA and MPAA is to club you into submission with TROs, and to scare ISPs into pulling the plug.
Well put. I think the Corel involvement is an interesting new situation for the open source community.
Some (especially ESR) have been saying "We're not hostile to commercial interests. You can sell the software. You can make money at this. There's a place for proprietary software. Non-technical users are welcome. Investors are definitely welcome. Believe in the GPL and all sin will be forgiven:-)"
But Corel comes along, making no pretense about its intentions ($$$) but trying (with some difficulty) to play by the rules of this foreign community. Further, its strategy is aimed directly at bringing more heathen into the community.
Not unexpectedly, the true believers are wary. But will they stand by their principles: teaching, inclusion, freedom?
Is there some way that expertise in particular areas could be cultivated/rewarded better on Slashdot?
Ideas:
Topic-specific karma: points granted for posts in a particular topic go to your topic-specific karma, perhaps yielding:
A posting bonus whenever posting in that topic,
Moderation and meta-moderation opportunities specific to the topic,
Due consideration to submissions on that topic,
Pre-publication editorial/review opportunities relating to that topic.
Other ideas:
Recruit more paid article posters and editors with topic expertise, now that Slashdot is awash in IPO cash:-)
"Instant karma" (I'm sure you've never heard _that_ before) to some folks credentialled in a certain topic.
Moderation guidelines or choices such as "inaccurate" for topic-expert moderators (this one's getting a little dicier, and I'd hate to see "stupid" questions cost karma)
"Article alerts" that get emailed to those wanting them for a specific topic. This would allow those of us with lives to only hit Slashdot when something cool comes along, and would let informative comments be heard before the topic gets old.
Anyway, you get the drift: is there a way to highlight/ascertain/reward expertise? If well done, it could really boost the level of discussion.
Gates does not seem to grasp the concept that WE HAVE A RIGHT, AND A NEED, TO FIGURE THINGS OUT ON OUR OWN.
He cannot grasp the concept (and the legal and ethical cleanliness) of REVERSE ENGINEERING, because he doesn't understand that someone would take the provided tool and want to use it for something else, or improve it, without going back to the original toolmaker and begging permission.
He cannot grasp the concept of DISCLOSURE, because that would not be useful to spoonfed consumers who wouldn't want to invent or extend new uses for a product. It doesn't mean we would flood Radio Shack with support calls -- those who know how to code have a need for this information.
He cannot grasp the concept of FLEXIBILITY, because that would not matter to people who have no creative ideas on how to use the tool.
Bill wants to provide us with a monolithic, closed box that only performs the functions he has decided to enable, and wants to make sure we come back to him to get more capability. And so today we have Code Generation Wizards, closed, undocumented APIs, the EULA, and Service Packs.
This paternalistic attitude can only be explained by feelings of superiority or lust for power, and probably both.
Well, good software has always been about making the machine do the work (compilers to write assemply code, interpreters to write object code, 4GL's to generate interpreted code, etc.), so I think Open Source software can move pretty safely by coming up with clever (read glamorous) ways to have the app self-document the third command button from the left, or ways to not have to document it, or whatever.
In fact, this is exactly what has been happening: need, interest, and poverty have driven people to write enough of their own software that there are surprisingly few unattended pieces of software out there.
The other good thing about just letting people's interests and needs drive development is that software lives and dies of its merits: the attention paid to improve it is there because someone needs it, not because a marketeer wants to shove it down our throats, or because Billy wants to lock up more of the market, and make us more dependent.
And companies pay you to get ad time on the programs?
Yes.
And I can buy a television from ANYONE, and watch one of these programs?
Yes.
So, let's say you have a big enough transmitting antenna to reach 100,000 viewers, and I came to you with an antenna that lets you reach 10 million viewers. Would you pay me a lot for that antenna?
You bet. And my advertisers would pay me more in turn.
And if I made a television that could pick up your signal from 1000 miles away, could I charge you?
Of course not.
But I could sell it, right?
Yes. And I would likely charge my advertisers more.
So why are you suing iCraveTV?
Oh, that's simple. Because I'd like to sue the TV makers and control that market, too, but I'd never get away with it.
Oh, well, I guess you can't catch everyone on the horns of a logical dilemma;-)
My point was that the commoditization of generation capacity would drive its costs down, and solve some problems (transmission losses, infrastructure costs) related to centralization. And that the balance of "when is it better to centralize" is driven to a more distributed model by fuel cell technology.
If you wanted to take the light bulbs, or, more likely, computer, in your house with you wherever you go, then having them independently powered is perfectly sensible, and often preferred. As long as there are convenient, cheap, commodity products to allow this, of course.
Just like the economies of scale that make Microsoft products so much worse than open source, and that have made so many companies downsize and outsource?
Economies of distribution and commoditization, my friend.
Thanks for the informative post, but a couple of nits to pick:
on #3: Perhaps not a pure fuel cell car, but their use in hybrid-electric cars is not far off, and that will just accelerate the push away from gasoline.
on #4: Although methane gives off CO2 in fuel cells, the amount per unit energy is much better than for gasoline or coal. Also, as you point out, the better air-breather cells run on hydrogen, which makes no CO2. As I posted elsewhere, fuel cells are in general great news vis-a-vis global warming.
And I believe the remote generator application of fuel cells is also already a commercial reality (although not quite camping-lantern cheap yet). Try copower.com, among others.
Forgot one fact that ties in the solar and wind power points: hydrogen is easily created from water by electrolysis, so you can use solar or wind-generated electricity to create hydrogen, then a fuel cell later on to get the electricity (and water) back out. This is a much more efficient storage and conversion technique than using batteries.
That's why hydrogen fuel cells make wind and solar energy practical, even in small quantities.
I'll leave other posters' comments on the puny effect of AA-sized fuel cells stand, but I'd like to take on the "fuel cells yet another CO2 emitter" concern in general:
Fuel cells are also being considered for use in cars and as off-grid electrical generators in homes and offices. These cells could be powered by methanol, methane (natural gas), or hydrogen.
This is unqualified GREAT NEWS for anyone concerned about CO2-driven global warming, and here's why:
1) Methane and methanol produce far less CO2 (order of magnitude?) per unit of energy produced than coal, oil, or gasoline, all of which currently power cars and homes, and are thus used to charge batteries.
1a) Burning hydrogen in a fuel cell produces NO CO2! Just WATER.
2) During production of electricity, the fuel cells are much more efficient (factor of 2?) than oil, coal, gasoline, and burning natural gas. So less fuel used, less CO2 produced.
3) When used to transport or store electricity, fuel cells are more efficient than high-voltage transmission (30% loss) or charging batteries (30%? loss at charge, more loss (up to 100%) on the shelf or not in use), so less fuel needs to be consumed to serve the actual need.
4) Because of the low cost of conversion and no storage-based loss of energy, solar and wind generation of electricity by individual homes, farms, and businesses becomes practical, thus reducing the need for fossil-fuel based generation.
So, add up all the factors and you get:
1) Immediate emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in portable and remote generators.
2) Near-term conservation gains in use of methanol fuel cells instead of batteries.
3) Mid-term emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in cars.
4) Mid-term emission and conservation gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of grid power.
5) Long-term emission elimination by use of hydrogen fuel cells in cars, homes, businesses, batteries, generators, boats, you name it.
6) Long-term emission elimination by use of distributed power-generation infrastructure instead of fossil-fuel-based power plants,
7) Long-term conservation gains by improving the practicality of electric-based transportation: electric cars and maglev trains.
So, I urge the environmentally-conscious poster to do everything they can to spread the word about the ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS of fuel cells!
This tech isn't in the "we just discovered the concept and maybe someday normal people will benefit" stage like fusion, nanotech, quantum computing, etc.
It's more like IBM's announcement of copper-based semiconductors, which are already hitting the streets.
And remember, some areas have not had fundamental changes in decades. How long have we been using internal combustion engines? Alkaline batteries? An electrical grid? Fuel cells have the real potential to replace, or radically change, our use of all of these, and this Motorola announcement is just the latest example of how the tech is becoming quite real.
Check out copower.com and ballard.com to read about real companies making real products with fuel cells.
Now, to sound a note of sanity, to power cars, fuel cells need to be improved to deliver good power without using platinum. I don't know if that's a problem with low-power apps like batteries.
I don't know anything particular about this situation, but since you posted on Slashdot...
It sounds like YOUR company could benefit from at least subsidizing GNQS, thus directing Stuart's future development towards feature enhancements/bug fixes that matter to you.
I think it's more likely that a company that uses the software will be helpful than one that hopes to sell it.
Stuart, maybe you should look over your mailing lists and download logs for potential benefactors.
Slashdot Mirror
The sad fact is that the truly untested initiative is that of the universities themselves. Standardized testing is just a pathetic cop-out to allow them to deal with students en masse, without committing the resources necessary to make informed decisions.
Would the DeCSS technology allow players (the hardware, not the software) to be made by companies that have not bought licenses from DVD CCA? Would there be legal issues beyond the claims that are being made against you? It seems that this also poses a threat to the DVD CCA's bottom line.
Best of luck.
The other encouraging thing is that some people can discern the truth by comparing what they're being told to what they experience. Of course, they need to view things with an open mind.
I wonder if zealots are strident because they're insecure: they see evidence all around them that their cherished beliefs are wrong.
This well-intentioned post makes the same wrong assumption that has allowed so much oppression:
It's the same assumption made by those who think voters should have to register.
It's the same assumption made by those who thought that women shouldn't vote, or that the poor shouldn't vote, or that no one should vote.
It's the same assumption made by those who apathetically allow others to make decisions for them.
The assumption is that people are not capable of running their own lives, and making their own decisions.
I would ask the poster: what measures do you recommend for stopping these examples of hysteria? It sounds to me like the best recipe is creating a society where people are encouraged to think for themselves. How exactly does a society become mature enough to respond correctly to misinformation? By being exposed to it, and simultaneously being allowed to look at all the information, and decide the facts themselves. What caused the harms that were corrected by the laws you mention? Lack of access to the truth.
Maybe people don't always act like adults. Maybe we do make horrible mistakes due to ignorance, fear, and gullibility. But the lesson of liberty is that we must be allowed to act like adults, educate ourselves, and make the important decisions. Because the alternative is tyranny.
If this were a case of say, a bomber, and the government had confiscated his chemical fertilizer, which he may have obtained legally, and may only intend to use for farming, would the government be required to return it?
If yes, then there is no reason by which Mitnick's data can be held.
If no, the government could keep it under "reasonable suspicion" or "danger to the public", then the government should have the right to withhold the data.
As we all know, the freedom in free software is the *user's* freedom: to use, to combine, to know, to debug, to extend. As such, it should be no surprise that the development progress to date meets up with the crucial needs of the system's user/developers, thus the focus on serving and networking: OS developers may prefer to play and write games, but they're getting paid to make sure the bosses' networks and apps run correctly.
As the user base extends to those with other needs: non-software industries' apps, games, personal software, PC drivers, ease-of-use, ease-of-development, etc, the quality and availability of those applications will improve.
Although this doesn't refute your point that free software is not always better right now, it does imply that someday it will at least catch up.
And, if you believe in the power of empowered users, it's easy to see that it will likely surpass proprietary software, as it has already done in the areas of greatest need. I suggest that it also will or already does serve needs that proprietary software would have taken forever to get to: child-simple programming languages (what's the prorietary advantage in that?); truly portable applications; unobtrusive, ubiquitous, standard networking; small, reusable, interactive tools.
In general, free software will be much better at creating a marketplace of commodity software: no lock-ins, no single-source, no platform-specificity, no buying the unnecessary to get the needed, no forced upgrade paths, better future-proofing, better accountability, better responsiveness, real choice.
The day when "open source is always better" is not here, but it's coming.
At least that's what the alien dust-mote transmitters tell me will happen.
The whole concern of conscious versus automatic may be an imagined dichotomy.
I learned English from hearing others around me speak it, and my neurons adapted to its patterns so well that I "think" in English. But I could have easily heard Chinese as a baby, and I don't have any knowledge of the origins of the majority of words I speak. It seems to me that the symbolism by which I perceive much of the world is almost entirely a taught protocol, with no "grounding" whatsoever.
So, what about more basic perceptions, such as color, temperature, or pain? Linguists know that different cultures or groups describe such "objective" phenomena differently, and that the description colors one's perception: does a Real Man actually see mauve, taupe, or chartreuse -- or just purple, brown, and green? I'm sure I don't experience 20-odd variations of snow, but the Inuit have more names for it than that.
It seems to me that all perception is tempered by previous perceptions, which have built themselves into thoughts, recognitions, words, concepts, and dogma. So, if a machine is given the capability of interpreting perception in terms of other perception, who's to say it can't have our perceived level of experience, reality, consciousness, and "life"?
Would good guidelines help keep restraining orders based on DMCA from being approved? This matters a lot, when the real strategy of RIAA and MPAA is to club you into submission with TROs, and to scare ISPs into pulling the plug.
Well put. I think the Corel involvement is an interesting new situation for the open source community.
:-)"
Some (especially ESR) have been saying "We're not hostile to commercial interests. You can sell the software. You can make money at this. There's a place for proprietary software. Non-technical users are welcome. Investors are definitely welcome. Believe in the GPL and all sin will be forgiven
But Corel comes along, making no pretense about its intentions ($$$) but trying (with some difficulty) to play by the rules of this foreign community. Further, its strategy is aimed directly at bringing more heathen into the community.
Not unexpectedly, the true believers are wary. But will they stand by their principles: teaching, inclusion, freedom?
It will be interesting to see.
Disclaimer: another owner of Corel stock.
Is there some way that expertise in particular areas could be cultivated/rewarded better on Slashdot?
:-)
Ideas:
Topic-specific karma: points granted for posts in a particular topic go to your topic-specific karma, perhaps yielding:
A posting bonus whenever posting in that topic,
Moderation and meta-moderation opportunities specific to the topic,
Due consideration to submissions on that topic,
Pre-publication editorial/review opportunities relating to that topic.
Other ideas:
Recruit more paid article posters and editors with topic expertise, now that Slashdot is awash in IPO cash
"Instant karma" (I'm sure you've never heard _that_ before) to some folks credentialled in a certain topic.
Moderation guidelines or choices such as "inaccurate" for topic-expert moderators (this one's getting a little dicier, and I'd hate to see "stupid" questions cost karma)
"Article alerts" that get emailed to those wanting them for a specific topic. This would allow those of us with lives to only hit Slashdot when something cool comes along, and would let informative comments be heard before the topic gets old.
Anyway, you get the drift: is there a way to highlight/ascertain/reward expertise? If well done, it could really boost the level of discussion.
Gates does not seem to grasp the concept that WE HAVE A RIGHT, AND A NEED, TO FIGURE THINGS OUT ON OUR OWN.
He cannot grasp the concept (and the legal and ethical cleanliness) of REVERSE ENGINEERING, because he doesn't understand that someone would take the provided tool and want to use it for something else, or improve it, without going back to the original toolmaker and begging permission.
He cannot grasp the concept of DISCLOSURE, because that would not be useful to spoonfed consumers who wouldn't want to invent or extend new uses for a product. It doesn't mean we would flood Radio Shack with support calls -- those who know how to code have a need for this information.
He cannot grasp the concept of FLEXIBILITY, because that would not matter to people who have no creative ideas on how to use the tool.
Bill wants to provide us with a monolithic, closed box that only performs the functions he has decided to enable, and wants to make sure we come back to him to get more capability. And so today we have Code Generation Wizards, closed, undocumented APIs, the EULA, and Service Packs.
This paternalistic attitude can only be explained by feelings of superiority or lust for power, and probably both.
Thanks to Slashdot for this revealing article.
Well, good software has always been about making the machine do the work (compilers to write assemply code, interpreters to write object code, 4GL's to generate interpreted code, etc.), so I think Open Source software can move pretty safely by coming up with clever (read glamorous) ways to have the app self-document the third command button from the left, or ways to not have to document it, or whatever.
In fact, this is exactly what has been happening: need, interest, and poverty have driven people to write enough of their own software that there are surprisingly few unattended pieces of software out there.
The other good thing about just letting people's interests and needs drive development is that software lives and dies of its merits: the attention paid to improve it is there because someone needs it, not because a marketeer wants to shove it down our throats, or because Billy wants to lock up more of the market, and make us more dependent.
So you own these programs?
;-)
Yes.
And you broadcast them for free?
Yes.
And companies pay you to get ad time on the programs?
Yes.
And I can buy a television from ANYONE, and watch one of these programs?
Yes.
So, let's say you have a big enough transmitting antenna to reach 100,000 viewers, and I came to you with an antenna that lets you reach 10 million viewers. Would you pay me a lot for that antenna?
You bet. And my advertisers would pay me more in turn.
And if I made a television that could pick up your signal from 1000 miles away, could I charge you?
Of course not.
But I could sell it, right?
Yes. And I would likely charge my advertisers more.
So why are you suing iCraveTV?
Oh, that's simple. Because I'd like to sue the TV makers and control that market, too, but I'd never get away with it.
Oh, well, I guess you can't catch everyone on the horns of a logical dilemma
My point was that the commoditization of generation capacity would drive its costs down, and solve some problems (transmission losses, infrastructure costs) related to centralization. And that the balance of "when is it better to centralize" is driven to a more distributed model by fuel cell technology.
If you wanted to take the light bulbs, or, more likely, computer, in your house with you wherever you go, then having them independently powered is perfectly sensible, and often preferred. As long as there are convenient, cheap, commodity products to allow this, of course.
They do not discharge in the least -- that's the "fuel" part of the name. If you don't burn it, it's still fuel.
Just like the economies of scale that make Microsoft products so much worse than open source, and that have made so many companies downsize and outsource?
Economies of distribution and commoditization, my friend.
Thanks for the informative post, but a couple of nits to pick:
on #3: Perhaps not a pure fuel cell car, but their use in hybrid-electric cars is not far off, and that will just accelerate the push away from gasoline.
on #4: Although methane gives off CO2 in fuel cells, the amount per unit energy is much better than for gasoline or coal. Also, as you point out, the better air-breather cells run on hydrogen, which makes no CO2. As I posted elsewhere, fuel cells are in general great news vis-a-vis global warming.
And I believe the remote generator application of fuel cells is also already a commercial reality (although not quite camping-lantern cheap yet). Try copower.com, among others.
Forgot one fact that ties in the solar and wind power points: hydrogen is easily created from water by electrolysis, so you can use solar or wind-generated electricity to create hydrogen, then a fuel cell later on to get the electricity (and water) back out. This is a much more efficient storage and conversion technique than using batteries.
That's why hydrogen fuel cells make wind and solar energy practical, even in small quantities.
I'll leave other posters' comments on the puny effect of AA-sized fuel cells stand, but I'd like to take on the "fuel cells yet another CO2 emitter" concern in general:
Fuel cells are also being considered for use in cars and as off-grid electrical generators in homes and offices. These cells could be powered by methanol, methane (natural gas), or hydrogen.
This is unqualified GREAT NEWS for anyone concerned about CO2-driven global warming, and here's why:
1) Methane and methanol produce far less CO2 (order of magnitude?) per unit of energy produced than coal, oil, or gasoline, all of which currently power cars and homes, and are thus used to charge batteries.
1a) Burning hydrogen in a fuel cell produces NO CO2! Just WATER.
2) During production of electricity, the fuel cells are much more efficient (factor of 2?) than oil, coal, gasoline, and burning natural gas. So less fuel used, less CO2 produced.
3) When used to transport or store electricity, fuel cells are more efficient than high-voltage transmission (30% loss) or charging batteries (30%? loss at charge, more loss (up to 100%) on the shelf or not in use), so less fuel needs to be consumed to serve the actual need.
4) Because of the low cost of conversion and no storage-based loss of energy, solar and wind generation of electricity by individual homes, farms, and businesses becomes practical, thus reducing the need for fossil-fuel based generation.
So, add up all the factors and you get:
1) Immediate emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in portable and remote generators.
2) Near-term conservation gains in use of methanol fuel cells instead of batteries.
3) Mid-term emission gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of gasoline engines in cars.
4) Mid-term emission and conservation gains in use of methane fuel cells instead of grid power.
5) Long-term emission elimination by use of hydrogen fuel cells in cars, homes, businesses, batteries, generators, boats, you name it.
6) Long-term emission elimination by use of distributed power-generation infrastructure instead of fossil-fuel-based power plants,
7) Long-term conservation gains by improving the practicality of electric-based transportation: electric cars and maglev trains.
So, I urge the environmentally-conscious poster to do everything they can to spread the word about the ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS of fuel cells!
Methanol-powered shoe phone, please -- shaken, not stirred.
This tech isn't in the "we just discovered the concept and maybe someday normal people will benefit" stage like fusion, nanotech, quantum computing, etc.
It's more like IBM's announcement of copper-based semiconductors, which are already hitting the streets.
And remember, some areas have not had fundamental changes in decades. How long have we been using internal combustion engines? Alkaline batteries? An electrical grid? Fuel cells have the real potential to replace, or radically change, our use of all of these, and this Motorola announcement is just the latest example of how the tech is becoming quite real.
Check out copower.com and ballard.com to read about real companies making real products with fuel cells.
Now, to sound a note of sanity, to power cars, fuel cells need to be improved to deliver good power without using platinum. I don't know if that's a problem with low-power apps like batteries.
They shouldn't be any more upset than everyone carrying around cigarette lighters full of butane, and the fuel cells will probably be smaller.
I don't know anything particular about this situation, but since you posted on Slashdot...
It sounds like YOUR company could benefit from at least subsidizing GNQS, thus directing Stuart's future development towards feature enhancements/bug fixes that matter to you.
I think it's more likely that a company that uses the software will be helpful than one that hopes to sell it.
Stuart, maybe you should look over your mailing lists and download logs for potential benefactors.