I agree. South Australia has a lot of roundabouts, mostly on minor roads but some at major intersections. The only time they seem to be problematic is when they are on busy roads and have more than four roads converging without a sufficient radius to handle the traffic. When two-lane roundabouts were introduced people had to get used to indicating as they leave the roundabout, and only using the right lane to turn right (i.e. across traffic in Australia).
I have seen a lot more accidents at traffic lights in Adelaide than at roundabouts (though that may be because there are still more traffic lights on major intersections). Generally however they are much less frustrating than lights and help the traffic to flow relatively well, even in busy conditions.
A friend of mine who is a former defense lawyer mentioned that he would ask his young clients what they were doing before, for example, stealing a car. In most cases they were playing GTA or some similar game. Just because the statistics aren't collected doesn't mean they aren't there. (And yes, I know, correlation doesn't prove causation).
If you consider that an enormous amount of a person's social skills and moral values are developed through 'play' from a very you age - think about (to use a stereotype) two-year-old girls learning about nurturing by playing with baby dolls - you can see that 'virtual' scenarios can have as much impact on people's development as 'real' ones.
Is there some secondary way of establishing patent royalty eligibility without resorting to an expensive legal battle? If some company claims that my product violates their patent, it appears the only options are for me to go along with it and pay their royalties, or to see them in court.
To me (an Australian) the litigiousness of US culture and business is just as broken as the patent system, and it is sad to see this trend spreading here. It is a shame that judges can't (when appropriate) just say, "Stop being a greedy bastard!" and throw people in prison for pursuing money that they clearly don't have any right to. (I know this idea is plagued with problems but I reserve my right to be idealistic on occasion:).
Following the tragic events of 2001 and subsequent bombings in the UK and Spain I remember looking on hoping that people of the 'West' (leaders and general population alike) would take the opportunity to ask themselves the hard questions:
"Why would someone do this to us?
Why do some people hate us as a nation?
Have we treated some of our global neighbours poorly, and if so, what should we change, and how can we make amends?
Is our so-called 'freedom' despised by some because it comes at the expense of others?"
I am not implying for a second that any terrorist attack is justified, but that anyone who would instigate such an act must have some reason to sacrifice their life. If that reason has any truth in it, it should be considered and amended, not to encourage terrorism (a word I loathe as much for its overuse as for its realities and consequences) but to engender peace.
Sadly, democracy has a tendency to elect leaders who sport more pride, arrogance and blind patriotism (another word I hate) than humility.
A friend of mine built a sustainable, passive-solar-design house for her family a few years ago which uses no active heating and cooling yet stays within the comfortable temperature zone year round, with the exception of a handful of days in the middle of a 45-degree-celsius heat wave (she has the graphs to prove it). Its cost was at the lower end of the scale - low enough to fit into the 'affordable' category here in temperate South Australia - even on a per-square-metre basis, in spite of the need for high retaining walls (it is on a sloping block). It is a very small house by local suburban standards (90m^2) but clever use of space means it feels spacious and has plenty of room for a young family of four. It uses standard building techniques, constructed mostly of ColorBond (coated corrugated iron - quite common here), with beautiful polished-concrete flooring (which they polished themselves) for thermal mass. As far as I know one of the main hurdles was getting approval for a grey water system, which is very difficult here.
On another note, my wife is now doing her thesis on how to encourage builders to incorporate basic sustainability principles like passive solar - which don't have to cost any more than what they currently build - into the design of the homes they build. It seems that for many it's just a matter of knowing how to do it, and seeing that it's possible - and that it doesn't need to be more difficult or expensive.
Sorry to those of you who are still stuck in the imperial measurement system:)
In my state (South Australia) people are contracted to use speed cameras. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a cop, to use one. Many people claim that the speed cameras tend to be located where many people speed, but not in the places where speeding is most dangerous - i.e., they are there purely for raising revenue for the state. Whether or not this is true, it is apparent that there is money to be made out of enforcing speed limits. The author is simply approaching this from a perspective of social entrepreneurship, which could well work if he can demonstrate that they provide a service (speeding offence detection) that the police are currently not equipped to do themselves, that can at the same time provide revenue for the police if they cooperate and subcontract out these services. As it is potentially self-funding it has more going for it than a lot of other suggestions, which tend to cost more while providing no additional revenue.
Stricter driving tests are great, but they are all but useless if there are resource issues when it comes to enforcing the laws. What's to say that people won't just drive unlicensed?
Secondly, just because you CAN drive safely doesn't mean you WILL. A driver might pass the strictest of tests, but put him in a fast car with a few mates and you can see different quality of driving altogether.
One thing that seems to be missed in the discussion (not that I have read all the research or anything) is the factor that bees forage. They don't just stay in the immediate vicinity of their hives, they go and hunt, then go and tell their workmates where to look. So if the food is rarely very close to the towers (which is likely since many towers, at least in cities, are on the top of tall buildings, not in lush gardens), they will rarely get particularly close to them. But suppose a forager happens to find a good food source with a tower nearby - but far enough that he can still find his way back? Many of the worker bees head to the area and start collecting happily, but gradually get closer and closer to the tower as they progress through the area. The initial find might be a "safe" distance, but the bulk of the hive could end up disoriented by the end of the day and never make it back to the hive.
True. But cell phone towers have much higher signal strength than mobile phones. IANAPhysicist, but might a close-range phone be used as an analogue for a longer-range tower?
A more interesting alternative experiment taking into account the inverse square law would be:
Place dozens of hives around a mobile/cell phone tower at varying distances
Ensure main food sources are not close to the tower
Ensure the site would is low in other influencing factors such as pesticides
Track the hive activity/productivity over time
Turn the tower on, and continue tracking, and check for...
Sure, get their input, but people can only speak from their experience. Maybe no-one in the team (of only four) has ever worked in a 'round table' layout. Maybe they have a preferred layout, but that layout in practice could reduce overall productivity. Just because they are intelligent doesn't mean they know all the answers to all the questions. You could just say "re-arrange the desks in x fashion and see if productivity/staff satisfaction improves" but if you read the question fully they are looking at buying new furniture and hoping for an optimal solution. And let's face it, not all developers will come through with the best answer to such a question.
I am sick of people responding with "geez, work it out for yourself" to valid questions from people seeking answers to practical questions with sometimes-unclear answers. Isn't that what "Ask Slashdot" is about? Some people seem to shoot down every article that is posted on Slashdot and complain about the ongoing lack of quality submissions... well why would you bother submitting if you're just going to get slammed? And yet some of these supposedly stupid questions end up resulting in some really interesting and informative debate.
Better still, send them a link that points to goatse, but then redirects to a Youtube clip of Cthulhu singing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". That'll show em!
Crayon Physics is a great game for playing with the basic physics properties of different types of objects in a finger-painting-simple kind of way. It's not comprehensive and it doesn't teach you the theory or equations behind what's happening, but it's great fun and encourages you to think about physics problems in different ways. Physics fun for the whole family (myself included)!
Yes, I agree an admin's role requires them to enable workers to do their jobs, but it is also to keep them from abusing (intentionally or otherwise) the tools they are given to work with, just as a factory administrator will help facilitate keeping the production line moving but also call people into line (or fire them) if they are slacking off, doing a poor quality job, or damaging equipment.
There is a difference between enabling someone to do their job and enabling someone to do whatever they like. If an everyday-user on your securely-administered company wants to install SafeComputerFastSpywareScannerz because they think it will enable them to do their job better, should they be allowed to do so (and subject your network to trojans) or should your role as admin allow you to idiot-proof and mitigate against such things?
Did you consider that US citizens are not the only audience of this paper? Did you consider that maybe encouraging other countries that are less stable than the US (e.g. Venezuela, Iran) to go nuclear could be a bad idea? Or that even stable countries are not guaranteed to remain that way?
Right now the US looks like a big ol' hypocrite, saying, "No nuclear for you (but it's ok for us cos we're the good guys)" while participating in a war (which it started) that much of the world disapproves of and keeping its own arsenal of nukes. If the US is going to be a leader in the world, it needs to lead by example and practise what it preaches. If that means taking the foot off the nuclear pedal to encourage other countries to do the same, so be it.
That's equivalent to saying "here is some electricity, but you can only use it to power your stove. If you use it for your air conditioner, you're violating our ToS and we'll cut you off"
No, it's more like saying, "Here's some electricity and some water, use it for what you like, as long as it's not illegal. If you use excessive amounts of water, we might investigate you for breaching water restrictions*. If you use excessive amounts of water and electricity, we might get suspicious that you've got a hydroponics setup and tip off the police."
If the terms of service say you can't use the service to do certain things (whether for legal reasons or otherwise), and you DO those things, you're violating the contract you signed. If you want to run a server, pay for a business plan that allows you to.
You do not have the right to do whatever you like. Read the fine print.
*There are currently water restrictions active in most states of Australia - and rightly so, considering the severity of the drought we're in.
I think the core of the problem lies not in the media companies' actions, but in the lack of a legal framework for them to pursue royalties to which they have a right. Personally, I'm one of those apparently rare people that doesn't pirate music or movies - I consider it a type of theft. I believe that artists (including corporations) have the right to make money from their works, both legally and ethically. If they didn't, the creative works we enjoy would never get made.
But how can they enforce that right? The courts allow me to sue you if you infringe my copyright or somehow deprive me materially in an unlawful way, but if you (and millions like you) circumvent my income stream illegally (and at the same time breach the terms of a license you may have bought from me), how am I to pursue justice? The police don't have the resources to chase every pirate (and most of their kids probably do it anyway). But if I pursue you in a civil trial, how do I prove your guilt, or keep you from distributing my creative works in the first place, in a fair and just way - without resorting to the RIAA's questionable legal tactics or problematic DRM? If you can answer one of those questions, the whole debate goes away.
Media companies are designed (and legally obliged, if they are a corporation) to make money, and therefore protect their income streams. If they are losing money because people are using their products without paying for the appropriate license to do so (i.e. "stealing") then they should be expected to try to take action. I don't believe that suing ISP's or single mums is the right action, but I don't know what is. A lot of people suggesting that these things are wrong, and that the media companies are somehow evil, but how many of these people are pirates, and how many have a better suggestion for how these companies (the products of which said pirates happily consume) can protect their rights? How many have canvassed their government to change the copyright law so that it is more fair and workable for producers AND consumers?
The crisis was also caused in part by banks calling good loans because the equity in the homes dropped - so people who were living within their means and keeping up with repayments ended up in the same position as those who weren't (i.e. sans house, in debt), and therefore out of the housing market. Thus housing demand is reduced, therefore lowering house value more, so more loans get called, and so on. Just like when margin calls on shares snowball when they flood the market and prices drop quickly. I find it infuriating that banks are even allowed to call loans when the repayments are being made, but apparently it's necessary.
No, that charcoal briquette would have prevented no death, since it made the same amount of smoke, except not so ugly and obvious.
Everything I've read about it says they burn more cleanly/produce less smoke. Can you back up this statement?
That lady should have invented "the stove" instead of "corn stalk charcoal".
And what will you use as fuel for these "stoves" you speak of? How will you fund all of these stoves? Will they have flues to exhaust all the smoke produced, and if so, how will these flues be incorporated into their huts and what will they cost? The briquette is not a fix-all, it is an interim solution that can save lives and reduce pollution and deforestation while more permanent solutions can be made available/affordable.
Acute respiratory infections
These are the single most important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, killing more than 3 million children under five every year and accounting for an estimated 9 per cent of the entire global disease burden. Extended exposure to high levels of biomass smoke can impair the clearing ability of the lungs and render them more susceptible to infection. The effects may be particularly severe for young children, who tend to stay indoors and are often carried on their mothers backs or laps during cooking.
those countries do not need to be helped to trade: those countries need to be allowed to trade.
Yes, they need to be allowed to trade. But they also need infrastructure. Having to travel for days on foot to sell your wares or services is no substitute for good roads and a reliable phone network if you want to trade profitably.
both US and EU use those pretexts copiously, sometimes against each other, sometimes against neighboring countries and all the time against those that can not afford retaliate
I agree that trade barriers are a major problem for developing countries and need to be addressed. However, I think that this has little to do with the validity of many of the ideas and inventions presented on TED. Many of the inventions I have seen actually encouraged the local economies by creating business opportunities in manufacturing and distribution, while providing health and sanitary benefits (which means people have time and energy to invest in economic growth rather than subsisting). Lifting trade restrictions will not automatically cure malaria, nor will it give every African villager a modern stove before millions have died from smoke-related illnesses. These ideas are not handouts, they are empowering tools and solutions to different problems that all contribute to poverty.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree. South Australia has a lot of roundabouts, mostly on minor roads but some at major intersections. The only time they seem to be problematic is when they are on busy roads and have more than four roads converging without a sufficient radius to handle the traffic. When two-lane roundabouts were introduced people had to get used to indicating as they leave the roundabout, and only using the right lane to turn right (i.e. across traffic in Australia). I have seen a lot more accidents at traffic lights in Adelaide than at roundabouts (though that may be because there are still more traffic lights on major intersections). Generally however they are much less frustrating than lights and help the traffic to flow relatively well, even in busy conditions.
A friend of mine who is a former defense lawyer mentioned that he would ask his young clients what they were doing before, for example, stealing a car. In most cases they were playing GTA or some similar game. Just because the statistics aren't collected doesn't mean they aren't there. (And yes, I know, correlation doesn't prove causation).
If you consider that an enormous amount of a person's social skills and moral values are developed through 'play' from a very you age - think about (to use a stereotype) two-year-old girls learning about nurturing by playing with baby dolls - you can see that 'virtual' scenarios can have as much impact on people's development as 'real' ones.
Is there some secondary way of establishing patent royalty eligibility without resorting to an expensive legal battle? If some company claims that my product violates their patent, it appears the only options are for me to go along with it and pay their royalties, or to see them in court.
To me (an Australian) the litigiousness of US culture and business is just as broken as the patent system, and it is sad to see this trend spreading here. It is a shame that judges can't (when appropriate) just say, "Stop being a greedy bastard!" and throw people in prison for pursuing money that they clearly don't have any right to. (I know this idea is plagued with problems but I reserve my right to be idealistic on occasion :).
Following the tragic events of 2001 and subsequent bombings in the UK and Spain I remember looking on hoping that people of the 'West' (leaders and general population alike) would take the opportunity to ask themselves the hard questions:
"Why would someone do this to us?
Why do some people hate us as a nation?
Have we treated some of our global neighbours poorly, and if so, what should we change, and how can we make amends?
Is our so-called 'freedom' despised by some because it comes at the expense of others?"
I am not implying for a second that any terrorist attack is justified, but that anyone who would instigate such an act must have some reason to sacrifice their life. If that reason has any truth in it, it should be considered and amended, not to encourage terrorism (a word I loathe as much for its overuse as for its realities and consequences) but to engender peace.
Sadly, democracy has a tendency to elect leaders who sport more pride, arrogance and blind patriotism (another word I hate) than humility.
... the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure
A friend of mine built a sustainable, passive-solar-design house for her family a few years ago which uses no active heating and cooling yet stays within the comfortable temperature zone year round, with the exception of a handful of days in the middle of a 45-degree-celsius heat wave (she has the graphs to prove it). Its cost was at the lower end of the scale - low enough to fit into the 'affordable' category here in temperate South Australia - even on a per-square-metre basis, in spite of the need for high retaining walls (it is on a sloping block). It is a very small house by local suburban standards (90m^2) but clever use of space means it feels spacious and has plenty of room for a young family of four. It uses standard building techniques, constructed mostly of ColorBond (coated corrugated iron - quite common here), with beautiful polished-concrete flooring (which they polished themselves) for thermal mass. As far as I know one of the main hurdles was getting approval for a grey water system, which is very difficult here.
On another note, my wife is now doing her thesis on how to encourage builders to incorporate basic sustainability principles like passive solar - which don't have to cost any more than what they currently build - into the design of the homes they build. It seems that for many it's just a matter of knowing how to do it, and seeing that it's possible - and that it doesn't need to be more difficult or expensive.
Sorry to those of you who are still stuck in the imperial measurement system :)
In my state (South Australia) people are contracted to use speed cameras. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a cop, to use one. Many people claim that the speed cameras tend to be located where many people speed, but not in the places where speeding is most dangerous - i.e., they are there purely for raising revenue for the state. Whether or not this is true, it is apparent that there is money to be made out of enforcing speed limits. The author is simply approaching this from a perspective of social entrepreneurship, which could well work if he can demonstrate that they provide a service (speeding offence detection) that the police are currently not equipped to do themselves, that can at the same time provide revenue for the police if they cooperate and subcontract out these services. As it is potentially self-funding it has more going for it than a lot of other suggestions, which tend to cost more while providing no additional revenue.
Stricter driving tests are great, but they are all but useless if there are resource issues when it comes to enforcing the laws. What's to say that people won't just drive unlicensed? Secondly, just because you CAN drive safely doesn't mean you WILL. A driver might pass the strictest of tests, but put him in a fast car with a few mates and you can see different quality of driving altogether.
I hear memcache is a pretty secure and efficient away of storing data on the net.
One thing that seems to be missed in the discussion (not that I have read all the research or anything) is the factor that bees forage. They don't just stay in the immediate vicinity of their hives, they go and hunt, then go and tell their workmates where to look. So if the food is rarely very close to the towers (which is likely since many towers, at least in cities, are on the top of tall buildings, not in lush gardens), they will rarely get particularly close to them. But suppose a forager happens to find a good food source with a tower nearby - but far enough that he can still find his way back? Many of the worker bees head to the area and start collecting happily, but gradually get closer and closer to the tower as they progress through the area. The initial find might be a "safe" distance, but the bulk of the hive could end up disoriented by the end of the day and never make it back to the hive.
True. But cell phone towers have much higher signal strength than mobile phones. IANAPhysicist, but might a close-range phone be used as an analogue for a longer-range tower?
A more interesting alternative experiment taking into account the inverse square law would be:
Sure, get their input, but people can only speak from their experience. Maybe no-one in the team (of only four) has ever worked in a 'round table' layout. Maybe they have a preferred layout, but that layout in practice could reduce overall productivity. Just because they are intelligent doesn't mean they know all the answers to all the questions. You could just say "re-arrange the desks in x fashion and see if productivity/staff satisfaction improves" but if you read the question fully they are looking at buying new furniture and hoping for an optimal solution. And let's face it, not all developers will come through with the best answer to such a question.
I am sick of people responding with "geez, work it out for yourself" to valid questions from people seeking answers to practical questions with sometimes-unclear answers. Isn't that what "Ask Slashdot" is about? Some people seem to shoot down every article that is posted on Slashdot and complain about the ongoing lack of quality submissions... well why would you bother submitting if you're just going to get slammed? And yet some of these supposedly stupid questions end up resulting in some really interesting and informative debate.
Sheesh.
I guess a whole bunch of corporations that have US senators on their payrolls (officially or not) will have to sign up then?
Better still, send them a link that points to goatse, but then redirects to a Youtube clip of Cthulhu singing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". That'll show em!
...and from 1972-1988 University Education was free in Australia, as it still is in some European countries (Norway is one AFAIK)
Crayon Physics is a great game for playing with the basic physics properties of different types of objects in a finger-painting-simple kind of way. It's not comprehensive and it doesn't teach you the theory or equations behind what's happening, but it's great fun and encourages you to think about physics problems in different ways. Physics fun for the whole family (myself included)!
A similar product was presented on Australian TV) in 2005.
Yes, I agree an admin's role requires them to enable workers to do their jobs, but it is also to keep them from abusing (intentionally or otherwise) the tools they are given to work with, just as a factory administrator will help facilitate keeping the production line moving but also call people into line (or fire them) if they are slacking off, doing a poor quality job, or damaging equipment.
There is a difference between enabling someone to do their job and enabling someone to do whatever they like. If an everyday-user on your securely-administered company wants to install SafeComputerFastSpywareScannerz because they think it will enable them to do their job better, should they be allowed to do so (and subject your network to trojans) or should your role as admin allow you to idiot-proof and mitigate against such things?
That's almost enough to store a picture of yo mama!
Did you consider that US citizens are not the only audience of this paper? Did you consider that maybe encouraging other countries that are less stable than the US (e.g. Venezuela, Iran) to go nuclear could be a bad idea? Or that even stable countries are not guaranteed to remain that way?
Right now the US looks like a big ol' hypocrite, saying, "No nuclear for you (but it's ok for us cos we're the good guys)" while participating in a war (which it started) that much of the world disapproves of and keeping its own arsenal of nukes. If the US is going to be a leader in the world, it needs to lead by example and practise what it preaches. If that means taking the foot off the nuclear pedal to encourage other countries to do the same, so be it.
That's equivalent to saying "here is some electricity, but you can only use it to power your stove. If you use it for your air conditioner, you're violating our ToS and we'll cut you off"
No, it's more like saying, "Here's some electricity and some water, use it for what you like, as long as it's not illegal. If you use excessive amounts of water, we might investigate you for breaching water restrictions*. If you use excessive amounts of water and electricity, we might get suspicious that you've got a hydroponics setup and tip off the police."
If the terms of service say you can't use the service to do certain things (whether for legal reasons or otherwise), and you DO those things, you're violating the contract you signed. If you want to run a server, pay for a business plan that allows you to.
You do not have the right to do whatever you like. Read the fine print.
*There are currently water restrictions active in most states of Australia - and rightly so, considering the severity of the drought we're in.
I think the core of the problem lies not in the media companies' actions, but in the lack of a legal framework for them to pursue royalties to which they have a right. Personally, I'm one of those apparently rare people that doesn't pirate music or movies - I consider it a type of theft. I believe that artists (including corporations) have the right to make money from their works, both legally and ethically. If they didn't, the creative works we enjoy would never get made.
But how can they enforce that right? The courts allow me to sue you if you infringe my copyright or somehow deprive me materially in an unlawful way, but if you (and millions like you) circumvent my income stream illegally (and at the same time breach the terms of a license you may have bought from me), how am I to pursue justice? The police don't have the resources to chase every pirate (and most of their kids probably do it anyway). But if I pursue you in a civil trial, how do I prove your guilt, or keep you from distributing my creative works in the first place, in a fair and just way - without resorting to the RIAA's questionable legal tactics or problematic DRM? If you can answer one of those questions, the whole debate goes away.
Media companies are designed (and legally obliged, if they are a corporation) to make money, and therefore protect their income streams. If they are losing money because people are using their products without paying for the appropriate license to do so (i.e. "stealing") then they should be expected to try to take action. I don't believe that suing ISP's or single mums is the right action, but I don't know what is. A lot of people suggesting that these things are wrong, and that the media companies are somehow evil, but how many of these people are pirates, and how many have a better suggestion for how these companies (the products of which said pirates happily consume) can protect their rights? How many have canvassed their government to change the copyright law so that it is more fair and workable for producers AND consumers?
The odds that anyone would find that funny are gastronomical...
Mmmm... it's food for thought, which is good because we'll have to wait at least until next month for the next lunch.
The crisis was also caused in part by banks calling good loans because the equity in the homes dropped - so people who were living within their means and keeping up with repayments ended up in the same position as those who weren't (i.e. sans house, in debt), and therefore out of the housing market. Thus housing demand is reduced, therefore lowering house value more, so more loans get called, and so on. Just like when margin calls on shares snowball when they flood the market and prices drop quickly. I find it infuriating that banks are even allowed to call loans when the repayments are being made, but apparently it's necessary.
Everything I've read about it says they burn more cleanly/produce less smoke. Can you back up this statement?
And what will you use as fuel for these "stoves" you speak of? How will you fund all of these stoves? Will they have flues to exhaust all the smoke produced, and if so, how will these flues be incorporated into their huts and what will they cost? The briquette is not a fix-all, it is an interim solution that can save lives and reduce pollution and deforestation while more permanent solutions can be made available/affordable.
Answers here and also here:
Yes, they need to be allowed to trade. But they also need infrastructure. Having to travel for days on foot to sell your wares or services is no substitute for good roads and a reliable phone network if you want to trade profitably.
I agree that trade barriers are a major problem for developing countries and need to be addressed. However, I think that this has little to do with the validity of many of the ideas and inventions presented on TED. Many of the inventions I have seen actually encouraged the local economies by creating business opportunities in manufacturing and distribution, while providing health and sanitary benefits (which means people have time and energy to invest in economic growth rather than subsisting). Lifting trade restrictions will not automatically cure malaria, nor will it give every African villager a modern stove before millions have died from smoke-related illnesses. These ideas are not handouts, they are empowering tools and solutions to different problems that all contribute to poverty.