Re-equilibrate, sure, but it happens through additional precipitation and may be a result of the formation of more clouds than without the additional water vapor output. From other articles, nobody knows exactly what more clouds will do to our global temperatures. It could lower temperatures because more sunlight is reflected, it could raise them because clouds are good at trapping radiated heat and keeping it from escaping harmlessly into outer space.
Also, interestingly, there's no provision for a huge O2 supply when the world gets toxic. It'd be better to have a microfiltration system to remove viruses and dust from air, but I've no clue if such a thing exists in a compact package. Viri are pretty darned small and tough to filter out... In addition, deciding whether the air is dirty is probably a $160,000 task.
Seems like a 1/10 baked idea, and that's being generous.
It seems like there should be some way to produce fuel out of the waste water that the astronauts produce. All that would be needed would be some extra power (solar panels) and engines that could burn H2/02. (IIRC, the engines up there are of the hypergolic variety.)
There are other downsides to changing orbits though. It would disrupt any science that's going on up there because of the accelleration. The political and material support from Russia shouldn't be so easily pushed aside either. The launches of materials and crew by Russia are not inconsequential, nor trivial amounts of money. Each soviet launch costs in excess of $30 Million, and there have been at least 30 flights if not 50 or 100. While not any where near a majority of the cost, 3% of the cost of the station has been born by Russia, if you take the high end of my figures.
Overall I think that the USA is suffering from the "Lottery Winner Syndrome." Where everybody looks at the riches and says, "Oh, come on, you've got the money, you can afford it!" Never mind that all the riches are spoken for and that there's a non-negligable risk that the riches are on the decline unless we can find other jobs with associated exports to replace the high tech jobs whose results we buy, supporting over seas economies. That said, there is still no shame is doing highly technical things for the technology's sake, not that we're actually doing that anyways. Our dream for the ISS is still possible, it'll just take some time.
All these people concerned about the return in science from the ISS forget that our own congress has passed rules that prevent us from buying craft from Russia to increase the population of the space station to 3 while the shuttle is improved, so we have been on a skeleton crew since 2003. Our own congress has cancelled the 6 person life boat that would allow 6 astronauts to live in the space station. This is a long term project, it's disheartening to me that people declare it useless even before it's full potential is realized. Europe and Russia have plans to contribute a spacecraft that can send up half a ton of supplies and 6 crew. This would probably suffice as a lifeboat that will allow for increased population. There is the question of supplies needed for 6 people, but that's really only a question of money. With 6 people at the ISS, it would be possible to do significant science while maintaining the station. That's the ultimate goal, and I think it's still possible with modest additional expenditures. Many of the parts are ready and in storage waiting for launch, we just have to get up there and do it. I'm certainly not ready to give up yet!
I do question how much of the stuff included on the UBCD is actually freely distributable, though. It seems like a lot of the software is actually commercial software...
Sounds like a really winner of a conference, yep. Wonder how bad all the other papers are.
Here's an interesting question: Is there anyone even attending their sessions? Or is it like in Real Genius: Tape recorders recording a recorded lecture?
Have any of you slashdotters accidentially or purposefully gone to a known resume buffing conference?
There's a flaw to your argument. It was the MIX of solid and liquid fueled rockets that caused the Challenger accident. The solid fuel didn't blow up, but the inside combustion did leak out because they flew the rocket in colder weather than it was designed to fly. The liquid fuel actually blew up because it was heated too much.
So, which is safer? Probably the solid fuels. But any way you slice it it's dangerous stuff because you have to pack so much energy into a small volume to get stuff into outer space. If you have a problem that releases all that energy at one time, that's an explosion of epic proportions. I think it's something like the equivalent of 50 or 100 kilotons of TNT sitting on the launch pad when the shuttle is fueled and ready to go.
Spim will make IM worthless if not controlled. Can you imagine getting 3 random IMs a minute? I'd quickly turn off non-contact IM messages, and that would be a shame.
Huh, it's discussions like this that make me wonder if the internet's going to break down into a chaotic, useless cacaphony of spam/bot noise empowered by cheap global labor, the porn surfers who jump through whatever hoops and porn providers who cater to those wanting porn and anyone who wants to throw money at these groups of people.
And what's worse? Our walking away from the ABM treaty could well create a new arms race or resumption of the cold war. I suppose that assumes that Russia has the money for a new race, which it doesn't, but there's a slight chance that they'll take to being adversaries again and we have to play the chess game of will they or won't they launch an all out strike out of desporation. Even pravada telegraphs their worry about our ABM system. http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/88/354/14513_nucl ear.html To me there's not much question that our ABM systems won't be able to handle a full scale launch for a long time to come. http://www.canadiancontent.net/commtr/article_722. html supports this thought. Our officials even say it's not about the Russian missles, yet Russia's not convinced.
In response or perhaps just confirmation of Russia's fears, there's the 'new weapons system' http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id= 99166®ion=3 the Russians talk about. Only talk? What if it's not? Russia sure thinks we're trying to nullify their nuclear position...
So the nasty times this station comes from could return... Not a nice thought..
No, see... The problem is our *goal* for Yucca mountain. The party line is that we're planning on sealing the waste away in Yucca mountain forever after we've watched it for 150 years or so. I dunno how you seal it away so it's not retreivable, but that's their plan. So, the only way we're going to know there's a problem in this sealed system is to notice radioactivity in our ground water, and by that point it's too late, more radioactivity is on it's way down to the ground water, and there wouldn't be anything we could do to intercept it.
If there were a way to use carbon sources that we currently release into the atmosphere as a waste gas (CO2 or other carbon gasses) to build our methane we'd be no worse off than before, since the carbon our new methane releases would have gone to the atmosphere anyways.
I think there's a good chance that our CO2 emissions are effecting the environment, it's good to think hard about our choices.
Alternately, if there were some way to turn the carbon output of the methane reformer into carbon nanotubes (preferably long, on spools:D) then we'd be ahead of the game, getting both usable nanotubes and keep the carbon out of the atmosphere...
Unfortunately sunshine is also hard to come by for those four months, so this truck will be stuck in the driveway because of an empty hydrogen tank, since this assumes there is no hydrogen infrastructure.
Ah, but if they vouch for the validity of Domains they own (could be one in use only temporarily, but oh well) we can quickly have a registry and say, 'This domain has sent spam messages' and know that either it's an open relay, or compromised or even worse overtly friendly to spam. If they spoof the validity of the sender of email coming from domains they don't own, that would a failure of the system.
Anyone know how SPF accounts for intentional relays like forwarding mail from one account to another?
Ok, assuming you're not trolling, here's the fallacy to your thinking:
UCITA would allow a software company to put ANY restriction they wanted in the EULA or Click through agreement. There would be no controls on it. There's nothing uniform about it. The only uniformity is that the consumer has no right to expect anything from the software vendor. It fails to run? Too bad, you agreed to the EULA by installing the software and it said there were no waranties, you're out of luck! Perhaps that's extreme, but perhaps not. Users would have to suddenly pay attention to the inane legalease and understand it to avoid running afoul of the law.
What we need is a policy that spells out the consumer's and Vendor's rights so that it licensing terms are indeed uniform and clear. Currently most users just ignore any terms in the EULA that seem rediculous. For instance, even the reasonable assumption of "I can install it on multiple computers if I use it on one at a time." is ruled out by many EULAs. I think that's fair to the vendor to have it work that way, but now days, it's an infringement that the vendor can prosecute for. We're somewhat protected by the fact that the vendor would have to go to court to fight for the EULA and that clause might get thrown out anyways. UTICA would make it much easier to put piles and piles of tecnicalites in EULAs with no clear way to rule on their fairness to the consumer. Fun eh? If there were limits to what the consumer and vendor could expect, there would be good reason to enforce terms of a license. UCITA would simply declare all terms in a EULA legal and binding. This would be bad. A license agreement should be simple and fair to both parties.
For those of you that think that owning a software would be better than licensing it, think about what that means. What DOES it mean to own a CD full of bits? The whole concept doesn't make sence. The vendor or author still has the right to sell other coppies even if you "OWN" your copy. That means that at the least, you're restricted from selling coppies, something that would be allowed if you owned the bits on the disk. When you buy software, the only thing that you can assume right now is that you have at least the right to install and use for yourself on at least one computer for the "term of the license."
The user interface is the key. So long as you tie computing to a keyboard, it will feel a lot like a PC. Handwriting recognition is a step forward, sure, but it's still not ideal. I can type 60 words a minute, but I can't write that fast, so my input is hampered. Speach isn't the answer either. I can't quite picture the whole world running around talking to their computers. Too disruptive and public. Do you want the people around you to know what you're making your assistant remember? I think the leap we want to make is to that of a Personal computer assitant, the term PDA is too scope limiting. The term Data is just not descriptive enough.
What interesting UI ideas are there out there? Heads up display is also neat but not ideal. There have been very few changes in history that have added new things to our outward appearance. Clothes have changed, yes, but they've been around for AGES. The things that are new we stick in a pocket or on a wrist. New things have been fairly unobtrusive. Do you think that will change?
I treat my Palm as a second brain, something to remember the things I can't, do things that I couldn't do on the run before, something that is a less obtrusive alternative to the lower tech solutions. I suspect I'm not alone in that. Help me find a better assistant!
I'm not an expert on planetary re-entry or anything, but wouldn't the decreased density just change the parameters of a traditional air brake approach? Does the thin air make it so that you don't need much of a heat sheild? Instead of going straight in, maybe we go in on a trajectory that enters the "thick" part of the atmosphere at a tangent. Then you might get away with a sheild only big enough to bleed off speed to pop a chute and land...
Dunno if the sheild is smaller this way or not, but it seems like the thinner air is freeing in some ways..
Technology is changing! That's why it can happen now. Jukeboxes ran off of the desire to hear 'MY' song, but they have died. Maybe it's the advent of good quality tape so you can record it from a friend or the radio. Maybe it's that we live in a prosperous society that buys what it wants. Whatever the case, there is currently no popular pay to play buisness model, but Jukeboxes suggest that such a desire exists. While I'm not going to pay significant money for an MP3 because its quality is not as good as a CD, I would pay 5 or 10 cents for something very high quality that I can download quickly, listen to once and then decide if I want to buy. I think that with the right technology, we could get that lost revenue to the artists and reward the good ones, not just the ones who stick with it past all the trash.
I'm with the pundits who say that Electronic distribuiton is the wave of the future, but you've got to have security for that to work. You can't count on the lack of quality to make someone buy something if they can just get a pirated copy that is the exact thing that they'd buy. How much shareware actually gets paid for?
There's nothing special, or soon there will be nothing special about a physical CD you hold in your hand. It's just something to hold bits after all. Once you have made the quantum leap to electronic distribution of music, (It'll take more bandwith of course...) you have the capability to agressively compete with any buisness that insists on Brick and Mortar delivery of any product that doesn't have to be physical. Right now, if the story posted here about the music industry is right, the record companies are little better than Pimps. Tell the artists what they want to hear, then work them to death for just a drip of money. When we have the tools, we should support anyone who gets rid of that insidious buisness model. It that benefits everyone BUT the artist, and good bands aren't rewarded!
Just my opinion, but I think we should be smart revolutionaries, not attacking a dinosuar without any hope of success. The fact that MP3 is being used for piracy makes it an easy target for the existing industry who doesn't want to lose it's cash cow. Maybe they are stretching the case by leaning on MP3.com and anyone who enables MP3.com to do business, but I think there's a case there. If I have CDRs that I pass around as "keys" to get access to MP3s of those CDs, piracy via MP3 has just gotten effortless. RIAA has a right to be upset at that. Don't support the pirates, support the artists that make the cool music. Be careful about what you advocate. Agreeing with napster, even though it has a large potential for piracy, though not advocating crime, opens the concept of MP3s up to unneccessary attacks.
Well, no, I wouldn't pay much for a limited version, however, neither would most people. It's interesting that there's a company with a website that isn't half bad promoting the idea though.
I wouldn't rule out the fact that someone has come up with a breakthrough. I'll believe it when I smell it!
Wow, good points. The Music business is really messed up, and there has got to be a better way.
But, unfortunately, there's a dark side of MP3. People who have no care in the world but free stuff are using MP3 to distribute WAREZ. People ripping copyrighted CDs and distributing them as if they were in the public domain. Even if they're extorting money from bands, it's legal. Labels have a right to be upset about their property being given away for free, and unfortunately the independent stuff gets cought in the cross fire. If you did away with pirated MP3's, the Labels wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on, and all would be good!
If it were independents on MP3 versus major label signed bands on traditional media, I think that bands might even be able to make some money! Then add a secure format where you could get good music for 50 cents a song, and you'd be really cooking with Gas. At 50 cents, there would be very few people who would begrudge them their money. Maybe you couldn't be a millionare, but maybe there'd be more people who made money at it.
Just some ramblings from some guy would love to see a perfect world.
I agree with Millinium about the bandwidth constraints. We are coming up with ideas to consume bandwidth faster than bandwidth is increasing. Maybe we will see a quantum leap in the near future, but for now, we're stuck. This issue is closely related, but not entirely the same issue as whether or not an employer has the right to limit net usage. He who pays the bills makes the rules. It's slightly interesting because at final analysis, it's the same students who want the bandwidth who pay the bill payer. On the other hand do we really want tuition to increase just to provide unlimited bandwidth?
On the RIAA front, they are trying to figure out a way to prevent piracy without taking every person with an illegal copy to court. Now, what RIAA should do, is get a court order that allows them to audit the music that is contained on Napster. If all the pirated music were marked "private" and accessable to the owner only, the piracy problem might be reduced. It is piracy. No if ands and buts about it. If you posess a song that you have not bought rights to, the recording studios have legal remedies, unfortunately these copyrights are somewhat unenforceable because the cost to enforce is greater than the asset they are protecting or the penalties attached to them. Don't give me guff about trial ware and all that. It's the exception for a software author to get his fair return out of shareware, so trial ware music would be just as unfair.
What we need is a way to reliably categorize web pages that doesn't involve roving the whole net. If the author assigns a category, it's a starting point. Then you can search just a category. These are a start:
Current events
Emagizine
Forum
Personal intrests page
Commercial vendor
Ecommerce
There are more major categories of course and there would obviously be sub categories to hone the topic down. Essentially what we need is the web equivalent of the dewey decimal system where a page or group of pages can be categorized and subcategorized. With categorization, self reporting is less prone to misdirection becuase they have to choose one. Then you create a slashdot like moderation culture to rate and correct the categories as search results are returned.
Maybe you do still have to crawl the web to provide finer granularity than just categories, but perhaps crawling over provided links will help reduce the work load. After all, the whole internet isn't new every night. You could potentially prioritize crawling in some way as well.
Maybe I should have pattented that before I revealed it...
Ok, so he didn't quite have the right analogy, I think he's right. He also latched onto the fact that there are other things besides the UI that is holding Linux back. There are certain things that are keeping MS Windows alive. If there were an alternate that met these conditions there would be flocks going to it, even average consumers. This is our goal as the Linux community: "Beat Microsoft by being better than Microsoft." These are the things I see:
Software support - The average consumer wants lots of software. This is one of the bigest things holding challengers back. Even Macintosh is held back by this by a large extent.
Hardware Support - If an OS isn't up with the new hardware that comes out at a sometimes frenzied pace, MS will sell big becuase it has the hardware support. People like new toys.
Good instalation and update - Only give users choices they can understand. There are definite classes of users; newbie, partially seasoned, seasoned and power users. They are typically willing to identify what class they feel they're in. Capitalize on their assessment, give them help, give them more online help when they ask, and correct their assessment if you see they're asking for too much un-offered help.
Pretty User Interface - The Companies who build software with nice interfaces spend many hours studying the average user. I think this is the only way to understand them. They don't think like programmers, and they're not neccessarily going to gripe to the people who can change the the interface.
So where does Linux stand? Argue as much as you want, but I think we're behind the curve on all these areas, but we'll catch up. Take off your evangelist hat and ask yourself, "what would my parents or grandparents do with this?"
Make no mistake, those are big tasks, some of the tasks (like guiding a user at the proper level, polishing a UI.) aren't typically the ones that we as programmers flock to, we'd rather get something done rather than make sure that everyone else can do it too. At some point we'll get more help from the hardware and software industry at large. After all, even MS doesn't write all the software and drivers for its OS. Maybe it takes some money to get Linux to a place so we can get up some more steam. Red Hat is simply the first company with enough money to start working on these things.
Why do you insist on not having a client for formatting? Anybody who was serious about BBSes had a terminal program that they had to download. (Or wrote for fun!) When there was a new one out, you tried it to see if it was any better...
The concept of a mud (Multi User {dimension|dungeon|delusion}) is probably reaonably close, but it's also been eclipsed in popularity by the internet chat sites. You should start with a mud like moo and morph it into a community. Heck, make a new client that does html formatting. (should be able to steal the engine from mozzila 5.0) Who said that you couldn't type in a html formatted window?
Whatever you do, don't depend on M$ telnet. It's so bad. Sure, it mostly works, but that's the worst.
Slashdot Mirror
Re-equilibrate, sure, but it happens through additional precipitation and may be a result of the formation of more clouds than without the additional water vapor output. From other articles, nobody knows exactly what more clouds will do to our global temperatures. It could lower temperatures because more sunlight is reflected, it could raise them because clouds are good at trapping radiated heat and keeping it from escaping harmlessly into outer space.
Also, interestingly, there's no provision for a huge O2 supply when the world gets toxic. It'd be better to have a microfiltration system to remove viruses and dust from air, but I've no clue if such a thing exists in a compact package. Viri are pretty darned small and tough to filter out... In addition, deciding whether the air is dirty is probably a $160,000 task.
Seems like a 1/10 baked idea, and that's being generous.
It seems like there should be some way to produce fuel out of the waste water that the astronauts produce. All that would be needed would be some extra power (solar panels) and engines that could burn H2/02. (IIRC, the engines up there are of the hypergolic variety.)
There are other downsides to changing orbits though. It would disrupt any science that's going on up there because of the accelleration. The political and material support from Russia shouldn't be so easily pushed aside either. The launches of materials and crew by Russia are not inconsequential, nor trivial amounts of money. Each soviet launch costs in excess of $30 Million, and there have been at least 30 flights if not 50 or 100. While not any where near a majority of the cost, 3% of the cost of the station has been born by Russia, if you take the high end of my figures.
Overall I think that the USA is suffering from the "Lottery Winner Syndrome." Where everybody looks at the riches and says, "Oh, come on, you've got the money, you can afford it!" Never mind that all the riches are spoken for and that there's a non-negligable risk that the riches are on the decline unless we can find other jobs with associated exports to replace the high tech jobs whose results we buy, supporting over seas economies. That said, there is still no shame is doing highly technical things for the technology's sake, not that we're actually doing that anyways. Our dream for the ISS is still possible, it'll just take some time.
All these people concerned about the return in science from the ISS forget that our own congress has passed rules that prevent us from buying craft from Russia to increase the population of the space station to 3 while the shuttle is improved, so we have been on a skeleton crew since 2003. Our own congress has cancelled the 6 person life boat that would allow 6 astronauts to live in the space station. This is a long term project, it's disheartening to me that people declare it useless even before it's full potential is realized. Europe and Russia have plans to contribute a spacecraft that can send up half a ton of supplies and 6 crew. This would probably suffice as a lifeboat that will allow for increased population. There is the question of supplies needed for 6 people, but that's really only a question of money. With 6 people at the ISS, it would be possible to do significant science while maintaining the station. That's the ultimate goal, and I think it's still possible with modest additional expenditures. Many of the parts are ready and in storage waiting for launch, we just have to get up there and do it. I'm certainly not ready to give up yet!
I do question how much of the stuff included on the UBCD is actually freely distributable, though. It seems like a lot of the software is actually commercial software...
Sounds like a really winner of a conference, yep. Wonder how bad all the other papers are.
Here's an interesting question:
Is there anyone even attending their sessions? Or is it like in Real Genius: Tape recorders recording a recorded lecture?
Have any of you slashdotters accidentially or purposefully gone to a known resume buffing conference?
There's a flaw to your argument. It was the MIX of solid and liquid fueled rockets that caused the Challenger accident. The solid fuel didn't blow up, but the inside combustion did leak out because they flew the rocket in colder weather than it was designed to fly. The liquid fuel actually blew up because it was heated too much.
So, which is safer? Probably the solid fuels. But any way you slice it it's dangerous stuff because you have to pack so much energy into a small volume to get stuff into outer space. If you have a problem that releases all that energy at one time, that's an explosion of epic proportions. I think it's something like the equivalent of 50 or 100 kilotons of TNT sitting on the launch pad when the shuttle is fueled and ready to go.
Spim will make IM worthless if not controlled. Can you imagine getting 3 random IMs a minute? I'd quickly turn off non-contact IM messages, and that would be a shame.
Huh, it's discussions like this that make me wonder if the internet's going to break down into a chaotic, useless cacaphony of spam/bot noise empowered by cheap global labor, the porn surfers who jump through whatever hoops and porn providers who cater to those wanting porn and anyone who wants to throw money at these groups of people.
How depressing.
In response or perhaps just confirmation of Russia's fears, there's the 'new weapons system' http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id= 99166®ion=3 the Russians talk about. Only talk? What if it's not? Russia sure thinks we're trying to nullify their nuclear position...
So the nasty times this station comes from could return... Not a nice thought..
No, see... The problem is our *goal* for Yucca mountain. The party line is that we're planning on sealing the waste away in Yucca mountain forever after we've watched it for 150 years or so. I dunno how you seal it away so it's not retreivable, but that's their plan. So, the only way we're going to know there's a problem in this sealed system is to notice radioactivity in our ground water, and by that point it's too late, more radioactivity is on it's way down to the ground water, and there wouldn't be anything we could do to intercept it.
If there were a way to use carbon sources that we currently release into the atmosphere as a waste gas (CO2 or other carbon gasses) to build our methane we'd be no worse off than before, since the carbon our new methane releases would have gone to the atmosphere anyways.
:D) then we'd be ahead of the game, getting both usable nanotubes and keep the carbon out of the atmosphere...
I think there's a good chance that our CO2 emissions are effecting the environment, it's good to think hard about our choices.
Alternately, if there were some way to turn the carbon output of the methane reformer into carbon nanotubes (preferably long, on spools
Unfortunately sunshine is also hard to come by for those four months, so this truck will be stuck in the driveway because of an empty hydrogen tank, since this assumes there is no hydrogen infrastructure.
Ah, but if they vouch for the validity of Domains they own (could be one in use only temporarily, but oh well) we can quickly have a registry and say, 'This domain has sent spam messages' and know that either it's an open relay, or compromised or even worse overtly friendly to spam. If they spoof the validity of the sender of email coming from domains they don't own, that would a failure of the system.
Anyone know how SPF accounts for intentional relays like forwarding mail from one account to another?
Ok, assuming you're not trolling, here's the fallacy to your thinking:
UCITA would allow a software company to put ANY restriction they wanted in the EULA or Click through agreement. There would be no controls on it. There's nothing uniform about it. The only uniformity is that the consumer has no right to expect anything from the software vendor. It fails to run? Too bad, you agreed to the EULA by installing the software and it said there were no waranties, you're out of luck! Perhaps that's extreme, but perhaps not. Users would have to suddenly pay attention to the inane legalease and understand it to avoid running afoul of the law.
What we need is a policy that spells out the consumer's and Vendor's rights so that it licensing terms are indeed uniform and clear. Currently most users just ignore any terms in the EULA that seem rediculous. For instance, even the reasonable assumption of "I can install it on multiple computers if I use it on one at a time." is ruled out by many EULAs. I think that's fair to the vendor to have it work that way, but now days, it's an infringement that the vendor can prosecute for. We're somewhat protected by the fact that the vendor would have to go to court to fight for the EULA and that clause might get thrown out anyways. UTICA would make it much easier to put piles and piles of tecnicalites in EULAs with no clear way to rule on their fairness to the consumer. Fun eh? If there were limits to what the consumer and vendor could expect, there would be good reason to enforce terms of a license. UCITA would simply declare all terms in a EULA legal and binding. This would be bad. A license agreement should be simple and fair to both parties.
For those of you that think that owning a software would be better than licensing it, think about what that means. What DOES it mean to own a CD full of bits? The whole concept doesn't make sence. The vendor or author still has the right to sell other coppies even if you "OWN" your copy. That means that at the least, you're restricted from selling coppies, something that would be allowed if you owned the bits on the disk. When you buy software, the only thing that you can assume right now is that you have at least the right to install and use for yourself on at least one computer for the "term of the license."
-TermiThe user interface is the key. So long as you tie computing to a keyboard, it will feel a lot like a PC. Handwriting recognition is a step forward, sure, but it's still not ideal. I can type 60 words a minute, but I can't write that fast, so my input is hampered. Speach isn't the answer either. I can't quite picture the whole world running around talking to their computers. Too disruptive and public. Do you want the people around you to know what you're making your assistant remember? I think the leap we want to make is to that of a Personal computer assitant, the term PDA is too scope limiting. The term Data is just not descriptive enough.
What interesting UI ideas are there out there? Heads up display is also neat but not ideal. There have been very few changes in history that have added new things to our outward appearance. Clothes have changed, yes, but they've been around for AGES. The things that are new we stick in a pocket or on a wrist. New things have been fairly unobtrusive. Do you think that will change?
I treat my Palm as a second brain, something to remember the things I can't, do things that I couldn't do on the run before, something that is a less obtrusive alternative to the lower tech solutions. I suspect I'm not alone in that. Help me find a better assistant!
Cheers!
-Termi
I'm not an expert on planetary re-entry or anything, but wouldn't the decreased density just change the parameters of a traditional air brake approach? Does the thin air make it so that you don't need much of a heat sheild? Instead of going straight in, maybe we go in on a trajectory that enters the "thick" part of the atmosphere at a tangent. Then you might get away with a sheild only big enough to bleed off speed to pop a chute and land...
Dunno if the sheild is smaller this way or not, but it seems like the thinner air is freeing in some ways..
Cheers!
Termi
Technology is changing! That's why it can happen now. Jukeboxes ran off of the desire to hear 'MY' song, but they have died. Maybe it's the advent of good quality tape so you can record it from a friend or the radio. Maybe it's that we live in a prosperous society that buys what it wants. Whatever the case, there is currently no popular pay to play buisness model, but Jukeboxes suggest that such a desire exists. While I'm not going to pay significant money for an MP3 because its quality is not as good as a CD, I would pay 5 or 10 cents for something very high quality that I can download quickly, listen to once and then decide if I want to buy. I think that with the right technology, we could get that lost revenue to the artists and reward the good ones, not just the ones who stick with it past all the trash.
I'm with the pundits who say that Electronic distribuiton is the wave of the future, but you've got to have security for that to work. You can't count on the lack of quality to make someone buy something if they can just get a pirated copy that is the exact thing that they'd buy. How much shareware actually gets paid for?
There's nothing special, or soon there will be nothing special about a physical CD you hold in your hand. It's just something to hold bits after all. Once you have made the quantum leap to electronic distribution of music, (It'll take more bandwith of course...) you have the capability to agressively compete with any buisness that insists on Brick and Mortar delivery of any product that doesn't have to be physical. Right now, if the story posted here about the music industry is right, the record companies are little better than Pimps. Tell the artists what they want to hear, then work them to death for just a drip of money. When we have the tools, we should support anyone who gets rid of that insidious buisness model. It that benefits everyone BUT the artist, and good bands aren't rewarded!
Just my opinion, but I think we should be smart revolutionaries, not attacking a dinosuar without any hope of success. The fact that MP3 is being used for piracy makes it an easy target for the existing industry who doesn't want to lose it's cash cow. Maybe they are stretching the case by leaning on MP3.com and anyone who enables MP3.com to do business, but I think there's a case there. If I have CDRs that I pass around as "keys" to get access to MP3s of those CDs, piracy via MP3 has just gotten effortless. RIAA has a right to be upset at that. Don't support the pirates, support the artists that make the cool music. Be careful about what you advocate. Agreeing with napster, even though it has a large potential for piracy, though not advocating crime, opens the concept of MP3s up to unneccessary attacks.
Termi
Well, no, I wouldn't pay much for a limited version, however, neither would most people. It's interesting that there's a company with a website that isn't half bad promoting the idea though.
I wouldn't rule out the fact that someone has come up with a breakthrough. I'll believe it when I smell it!
Termi
Wow, good points. The Music business is really messed up, and there has got to be a better way.
But, unfortunately, there's a dark side of MP3. People who have no care in the world but free stuff are using MP3 to distribute WAREZ. People ripping copyrighted CDs and distributing them as if they were in the public domain. Even if they're extorting money from bands, it's legal. Labels have a right to be upset about their property being given away for free, and unfortunately the independent stuff gets cought in the cross fire. If you did away with pirated MP3's, the Labels wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on, and all would be good!
If it were independents on MP3 versus major label signed bands on traditional media, I think that bands might even be able to make some money! Then add a secure format where you could get good music for 50 cents a song, and you'd be really cooking with Gas. At 50 cents, there would be very few people who would begrudge them their money. Maybe you couldn't be a millionare, but maybe there'd be more people who made money at it.
Just some ramblings from some guy would love to see a perfect world.
Termi
I agree with Millinium about the bandwidth constraints. We are coming up with ideas to consume bandwidth faster than bandwidth is increasing. Maybe we will see a quantum leap in the near future, but for now, we're stuck. This issue is closely related, but not entirely the same issue as whether or not an employer has the right to limit net usage. He who pays the bills makes the rules. It's slightly interesting because at final analysis, it's the same students who want the bandwidth who pay the bill payer. On the other hand do we really want tuition to increase just to provide unlimited bandwidth?
On the RIAA front, they are trying to figure out a way to prevent piracy without taking every person with an illegal copy to court. Now, what RIAA should do, is get a court order that allows them to audit the music that is contained on Napster. If all the pirated music were marked "private" and accessable to the owner only, the piracy problem might be reduced. It is piracy. No if ands and buts about it. If you posess a song that you have not bought rights to, the recording studios have legal remedies, unfortunately these copyrights are somewhat unenforceable because the cost to enforce is greater than the asset they are protecting or the penalties attached to them. Don't give me guff about trial ware and all that. It's the exception for a software author to get his fair return out of shareware, so trial ware music would be just as unfair.
Termigan
What we need is a way to reliably categorize web pages that doesn't involve roving the whole net. If the author assigns a category, it's a starting point. Then you can search just a category. These are a start:
There are more major categories of course and there would obviously be sub categories to hone the topic down. Essentially what we need is the web equivalent of the dewey decimal system where a page or group of pages can be categorized and subcategorized. With categorization, self reporting is less prone to misdirection becuase they have to choose one. Then you create a slashdot like moderation culture to rate and correct the categories as search results are returned.
Maybe you do still have to crawl the web to provide finer granularity than just categories, but perhaps crawling over provided links will help reduce the work load. After all, the whole internet isn't new every night. You could potentially prioritize crawling in some way as well.
Maybe I should have pattented that before I revealed it...
So where does Linux stand? Argue as much as you want, but I think we're behind the curve on all these areas, but we'll catch up. Take off your evangelist hat and ask yourself, "what would my parents or grandparents do with this?"
Make no mistake, those are big tasks, some of the tasks (like guiding a user at the proper level, polishing a UI.) aren't typically the ones that we as programmers flock to, we'd rather get something done rather than make sure that everyone else can do it too. At some point we'll get more help from the hardware and software industry at large. After all, even MS doesn't write all the software and drivers for its OS. Maybe it takes some money to get Linux to a place so we can get up some more steam. Red Hat is simply the first company with enough money to start working on these things.
Why do you insist on not having a client for formatting? Anybody who was serious about BBSes had a terminal program that they had to download. (Or wrote for fun!) When there was a new one out, you tried it to see if it was any better...
The concept of a mud (Multi User {dimension|dungeon|delusion}) is probably reaonably close, but it's also been eclipsed in popularity by the internet chat sites. You should start with a mud like moo and morph it into a community. Heck, make a new client that does html formatting. (should be able to steal the engine from mozzila 5.0) Who said that you couldn't type in a html formatted window?
Whatever you do, don't depend on M$ telnet. It's so bad. Sure, it mostly works, but that's the worst.