I am a windows user (let the stoning begin...) and the windows key is one of my most used. In fact I think I use it as much as the Ctrl or Shift keys. Windows has numerous functions that can be easily accessed using Windows key combinations (win+f=search, win+e=explorer, win+r=run, win+l=lock computer, etc). So thanks, but no thanks...I'll keep my windows key!
The legal concerns are right now what's holding back a lot of manufacturers.
Mercedes's Distronic-Plus active cruise control system was introduced in 2006 and has the ability to maintain a set distance on the highway from a car ahead and can even brake to a full halt in an emergency stop situation without any driver intervention. However, as I recall they did not make the driverless emergency stop feature available because of liability concerns. Their basic argument to the EU was "We can save lives with this technology, but without laws that protect us in some form from product liability suits, we are not going to take the risk of launching it".
Eventually what was released to the public (and I am not sure if it is available in the US), was a slightly pared down version of Distronic-plus where the driver was warned of an impending collision and as soon as touched the brakes, full power (or at least enough to avoid the collion as calculated by the computers) was applied.
The other thing that I recall was an article explaining how manufacturers are slowly trying to make consumers more comfortable with the thought of a driverless car. With systems such as active cruise control (Mercedes, BMW), lane departure warning systems (Honda), traffic sign recognition (Nissan), consumers get to experience some form of a driverless car, while ultimately being in control. As more consumers use this, more of them are comfortable with them and the word of mouth gets around. Eventually the intent is that when driverless cars do come along (2015, 2028 or whenever), there will be less public opposition to it then currently because people will be used to the idea.
I know good post ethic would involve giving links to support all of this, but I am sitting at work and can't do all the googling required. Sorry! Oh and before anyone points it out, I should mention that per my understanding Distronic-Plus seems to only work in recognising emergency situations involving other cars (cars braking, pulling out in front of you, etc). It cannot steer, and don't think it can avoid children on streets, or other similar hazards. However, I believe it works in all weather (rain, fog, snow,) and night time.
I've known for years that "Goodbye" is a cruel word. That's why I use friendlier terms like "Cheerio", "Adios", "Ciao", and my personal favourite, "Fuck off ya sodding prick".
I know this is Slashdot and nobody RTFA (especially not editors!), but TFA says nothing about Microsoft being involved. The only connection is Bill Gates and as far as is clear, he is funding this from his own pockets (not Microsoft coffers).
I think it's a bit harsh to say all we are only working off 40-year old ideas and nothing revolutionary is being invented. 50 years back when jet engines were born, I doubt anyone outside the group working on them had really heard anything about it or realized how revolutionary it could be. However, today we consider them commonplace and fairly mature technology. I think it is the fact that we are looking back in hindsight and seeing that despite being radically different seeing how much it has changed the world that we can say it was revolutionary.
I would like to believe that even today potentially revolutionary research is being done and designs are being made. Some guy out there has probably already had an idea that will change the world, but the fact of the matter is we won't know this guy's name or hear of this technology until we realize 50 years from now how revolutionary that idea and initial research was. It will take time for that to make it out of the research labs and Skunkworks of the world and in to an average aircraft I can fly in. As someone else pointed out, people are already considering new paradigms - airships, anti-gravity, giant dragon powered crafts, what-have-you - and the truth is that half of that will probably be horrible ideas, but the ones that do survive and become commonplace in 2050 will be looked back as revolutionary. As the article points out, it took 40 years to go from concept to a usable jet engine. So I don't doubt that 20 years from now we will be looking at a new kind of propulsion system for aircraft that is even better than a jet.
That "Mickey Mouse tattoo in a porn flick" sounds like an interesting idea. Quick, find out which one of us geeks does the IT for Hustler magazine. That way we might be able to get in touch with Larry Flynt and see if he wants to take on another fight! I do have a suggestions to make though - the tattoo should be Donald Duck and the man can get a blowjob while we have that audio clip of DD getting a bj actually being the soundtrack. I wonder how many copyright laws that would violate?
I would disagree with your statement that Vista "works well". I bought a Dell XPS 1210 laptop back in June pre-loaded with Vista. I would not call myself an absolute poweruser, but I am definitely well above average. Anyway, I figured I would give Vista a shot since everyone on Slashdot was bitching about it.
I installed all the my required programs in the first week and saw an ungodly number of UAC pop-ups, but let's just let that slide since I was changing system settings. In the following 3 weeks, I am not kidding you when I say Vista would give me a BSOD at least 2-3 times a week. I'm sorry but in my books that is not acceptable. I know this is not a popular sentiment here, but I thought XP actually worked well enough for everyday work. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw a BSOD or had to do a hard reboot to get over a application crash in XP. So compared to that Vista was absolute trash.
Just my 2cents.
I can't find the post, so I am going to paraphrase, but someone on slashdot once commented: "Harvard is a breeding ground for lawyers and if they ever got sued, every law student would be up in arms to find the best way to kill the RIAA's case. The profs could possibly assign it as a homework assignment, and you can bet that the kid that cracks it will have once heck of a line item on his resume."
My car analogy to this would be everyone looking for the secret code that unlocks James Bond's car safe, and the one that gets it gets to use the Walther P99 stored to shoot the MAFIAA square between the eyes.
As I write this message, this story has been posted for only about an hour. However, a google search for the hash already throws up this article as the second link. Damn they index the web fast!
Purdue has no restrictions besides a daily bandwidth limit (3GB incoming+outgoing daily IIRC). Additionally, that only counts for traffic into/leaving the university network. Any traffic within the network is not counted. So all the students use DC++ and get quite mad amounts of data (practically any piece of software, movie, song etc you could want) and speeds (as much as 60mbps!). Oh yeah and the MAFIAA can't really see within the network, now can they? Eat that!
You would think a website as large as Cnet would have the bandwidth to hold up to the Slashdot crowd. So, I am a bit surprised by this. Anybody got any explanations?
in an open letter to François Bancilhon, MS announced that while it had already spent the $500M on Windows licenses, the Nigerian guy in the Purchasing Dept had decided to ditch that idea. They mentioned that they would now be running a Beowulf cluster of Classmate PCs preinstalled with Mandriva Linux instead.
*managed to take fit in two favored topics....now if only there was a way to somehow get Natalie Portman, hot grits and CowboyNeal in on this*
Slashdot Mirror
RTFA?...you must be new around here!
I am a windows user (let the stoning begin...) and the windows key is one of my most used. In fact I think I use it as much as the Ctrl or Shift keys. Windows has numerous functions that can be easily accessed using Windows key combinations (win+f=search, win+e=explorer, win+r=run, win+l=lock computer, etc). So thanks, but no thanks...I'll keep my windows key!
Mercedes's Distronic-Plus active cruise control system was introduced in 2006 and has the ability to maintain a set distance on the highway from a car ahead and can even brake to a full halt in an emergency stop situation without any driver intervention. However, as I recall they did not make the driverless emergency stop feature available because of liability concerns. Their basic argument to the EU was "We can save lives with this technology, but without laws that protect us in some form from product liability suits, we are not going to take the risk of launching it".
Eventually what was released to the public (and I am not sure if it is available in the US), was a slightly pared down version of Distronic-plus where the driver was warned of an impending collision and as soon as touched the brakes, full power (or at least enough to avoid the collion as calculated by the computers) was applied.
The other thing that I recall was an article explaining how manufacturers are slowly trying to make consumers more comfortable with the thought of a driverless car. With systems such as active cruise control (Mercedes, BMW), lane departure warning systems (Honda), traffic sign recognition (Nissan), consumers get to experience some form of a driverless car, while ultimately being in control. As more consumers use this, more of them are comfortable with them and the word of mouth gets around. Eventually the intent is that when driverless cars do come along (2015, 2028 or whenever), there will be less public opposition to it then currently because people will be used to the idea.
I know good post ethic would involve giving links to support all of this, but I am sitting at work and can't do all the googling required. Sorry! Oh and before anyone points it out, I should mention that per my understanding Distronic-Plus seems to only work in recognising emergency situations involving other cars (cars braking, pulling out in front of you, etc). It cannot steer, and don't think it can avoid children on streets, or other similar hazards. However, I believe it works in all weather (rain, fog, snow,) and night time.
I've known for years that "Goodbye" is a cruel word. That's why I use friendlier terms like "Cheerio", "Adios", "Ciao", and my personal favourite, "Fuck off ya sodding prick".
I know this is Slashdot and nobody RTFA (especially not editors!), but TFA says nothing about Microsoft being involved. The only connection is Bill Gates and as far as is clear, he is funding this from his own pockets (not Microsoft coffers).
I think it's a bit harsh to say all we are only working off 40-year old ideas and nothing revolutionary is being invented. 50 years back when jet engines were born, I doubt anyone outside the group working on them had really heard anything about it or realized how revolutionary it could be. However, today we consider them commonplace and fairly mature technology. I think it is the fact that we are looking back in hindsight and seeing that despite being radically different seeing how much it has changed the world that we can say it was revolutionary.
I would like to believe that even today potentially revolutionary research is being done and designs are being made. Some guy out there has probably already had an idea that will change the world, but the fact of the matter is we won't know this guy's name or hear of this technology until we realize 50 years from now how revolutionary that idea and initial research was. It will take time for that to make it out of the research labs and Skunkworks of the world and in to an average aircraft I can fly in. As someone else pointed out, people are already considering new paradigms - airships, anti-gravity, giant dragon powered crafts, what-have-you - and the truth is that half of that will probably be horrible ideas, but the ones that do survive and become commonplace in 2050 will be looked back as revolutionary. As the article points out, it took 40 years to go from concept to a usable jet engine. So I don't doubt that 20 years from now we will be looking at a new kind of propulsion system for aircraft that is even better than a jet.
I finish reading the summary and the ad below it was for Blu-Ray!
That "Mickey Mouse tattoo in a porn flick" sounds like an interesting idea. Quick, find out which one of us geeks does the IT for Hustler magazine. That way we might be able to get in touch with Larry Flynt and see if he wants to take on another fight! I do have a suggestions to make though - the tattoo should be Donald Duck and the man can get a blowjob while we have that audio clip of DD getting a bj actually being the soundtrack. I wonder how many copyright laws that would violate?
I would disagree with your statement that Vista "works well". I bought a Dell XPS 1210 laptop back in June pre-loaded with Vista. I would not call myself an absolute poweruser, but I am definitely well above average. Anyway, I figured I would give Vista a shot since everyone on Slashdot was bitching about it. I installed all the my required programs in the first week and saw an ungodly number of UAC pop-ups, but let's just let that slide since I was changing system settings. In the following 3 weeks, I am not kidding you when I say Vista would give me a BSOD at least 2-3 times a week. I'm sorry but in my books that is not acceptable. I know this is not a popular sentiment here, but I thought XP actually worked well enough for everyday work. I honestly cannot remember the last time I saw a BSOD or had to do a hard reboot to get over a application crash in XP. So compared to that Vista was absolute trash. Just my 2cents.
I can't find the post, so I am going to paraphrase, but someone on slashdot once commented: "Harvard is a breeding ground for lawyers and if they ever got sued, every law student would be up in arms to find the best way to kill the RIAA's case. The profs could possibly assign it as a homework assignment, and you can bet that the kid that cracks it will have once heck of a line item on his resume." My car analogy to this would be everyone looking for the secret code that unlocks James Bond's car safe, and the one that gets it gets to use the Walther P99 stored to shoot the MAFIAA square between the eyes.
As I write this message, this story has been posted for only about an hour. However, a google search for the hash already throws up this article as the second link. Damn they index the web fast!
Purdue has no restrictions besides a daily bandwidth limit (3GB incoming+outgoing daily IIRC). Additionally, that only counts for traffic into/leaving the university network. Any traffic within the network is not counted. So all the students use DC++ and get quite mad amounts of data (practically any piece of software, movie, song etc you could want) and speeds (as much as 60mbps!). Oh yeah and the MAFIAA can't really see within the network, now can they? Eat that!
You would think a website as large as Cnet would have the bandwidth to hold up to the Slashdot crowd. So, I am a bit surprised by this. Anybody got any explanations?
We leprechauns are a peace loving race, you insensitive clod! You must be one of those elves that is running a smear campaign against us.
....at someone. Obviously Ballmer was not happy that it wasn't a chair. *I know I am going to get burned for this one!*
in an open letter to François Bancilhon, MS announced that while it had already spent the $500M on Windows licenses, the Nigerian guy in the Purchasing Dept had decided to ditch that idea. They mentioned that they would now be running a Beowulf cluster of Classmate PCs preinstalled with Mandriva Linux instead. *managed to take fit in two favored topics....now if only there was a way to somehow get Natalie Portman, hot grits and CowboyNeal in on this*
I can't wait for the next Mission Impossible movie where Tom Cruise has to dodge the chairs as he breaks in to this data centre.