Re:What IT Is And Isn't
on
What is 'IT'?
·
· Score: 2
AHA!
[...]the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
My bet says it's some sort of super-clean, super-cool transportation. And since it was "turned on", it has something electrical.
In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some cardboard boxes.
The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned on, Bezos started laughing his "loud, honking laugh".
There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro -- and the Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.
Bezos is quoted as saying that IT "...is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?"
Jobs is quoted as saying: "...If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen."
Kemper says the invention will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking."
The "core technology and its implementations" will, according to Kamen, "have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies." And the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
IT will be a mass-market consumer product "likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones," according to Kemper. The invention will also likely require "meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger."
Okay, now consider this:
The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen -- "a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character," according to the proposal -- dropped out of college in his 20s, then invented the first drug infusion pump; he later created the first portable insulin pump and dialysis machine.
I am totally blown away as to what it is, but it seems like this guy just might know what he's doing...
According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston, expects Kamen's invention to make more money in its first year than any start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years than Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has more than US$60 billion to his name. That means this company would go from $0 to >$60 billion in five years? My first reaction is that this is complete horseshit, but if Credit Suisse First Boston, an arm of a major Swiss bank, is behind it, it must certainly carry some weight.
But think about the sheer logistics behind rocketing to more than $60 billion in corporate worth in only five years... it absolutely boggles the mind!
Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant as the PC, the proposal says.
If Steve Jobs says this, he just might be on to something. But how many things have been trumpeted as "PC replacements" in the past, oh, ten years?
I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about the fact that having +w on the target install dir was a requirement to install it, AND it was listed as a bug. That's what I was referring to...
Nobody modded it up (as of when I wrote this); I posted it at +2.
lets say you want to install to/usr/mozilla - you *obviously* need permission to write there!
thats where the binaries will go, ffs!
obviously you don't need write access to use it from there....geeze.
I *know* that you need write access. Anyone with even the smallest amount of *NIX experience knows you need +w on a directory you want to write to! They were listing it as a bug, and pointing it out as an install requirement. That's what I was laughing at.:)
For Red Hat Linux 7, you must install the Standard C++ libraries for Red Hat 6.x compatibility. Get the package from the Red Hat 7 installation CD or download it from Red Hat. (Bug 59012)
If you are using an ATI Rage video card, images are correctly displayed initially, but may not be properly re-drawn when you minimize and maximize or resize the window.
The main story only touched on some of the changes such as the Personal Security Manager, which are only part of what's new for 0.7 (albeit a sorely-needed part, especially for Mac users!)
Here's the rest of what's new:
Personal Security Manager is now included in the win32, mac, and linux binaries. This marks the first Mac Mozilla Milestone with SSL support. The PSM 1.4 XPInstall from iPlanet will no longer work with the win32, linux or mac Mozilla 0.7 builds. This should on other platforms as well but isn't working everywhere yet.
Mousewheel support has greatly improved and is available for Mac for the first time with this release.
Mozilla now has upport for drag and drop attach files in mail.
Tooltips have been cleaned up significantly and now do the right thing most of the time.
The Mozilla news subscribe dialog has been cleaned up and and most people are now able to use news for some of the really large groups (the alt. hierarchy, for example) which used to cause all sorts of unpleasantness.
The problems with Microsoft Proxy Server have been resolved.
Context menus for the sidebar have been implemented.
Forced reload, not from cache (shift + reload) is new in this release.
Mozilla windows now remember their maximized state across sessions and child windows respect parent size.
Deleting of History items has been implemented.
commandline -version arguement was implemented.
Navigation back and forward in framed sites is much improved.
Frames can now be promoted in current window with a context menu item (show only this frame).
A friend of mine once did work on a Canadian military base near where I lived at the time, and lent me a copy of the Microsoft Select (purple jacket and CD) version of Windows 95 (which was new at the time).
No serial number, upgrade requirement, or anything else needed... just install and enjoy.
How long do you think it'll take for the warez groups to get their hands on a copy of one of the Microsoft Select images?
--
Re:Solar wind will kill this thing
on
Macs In Space II
·
· Score: 2
Three quick notes:
1) s/BO/DO
2) The concept of heads floating on a thin cushion of air above the platters is the cornerstone of Winchester hard disk design. This is why the surface of the heads is carefully designed with a contour that promotes the correct "ride height" or "float height" (I can't remember which term is used). IBM's technical documents state the proper float height for their drives.
If you wanted a hard-drive-like thing in a satellite, you might get away with a solid-state hard drive (rad-hardened, of course... if such a version exists at all).
--
Re:Solar wind will kill this thing
on
Macs In Space II
·
· Score: 2
The air trapped in the hardrive will exert a constant pressure on the seals holding it in, increasing the chance of hard drive failure.
Have you ever noticed a little hole on the top cover of your hard drive with a BO NOT COVER label next to it? That's a vent hole. Air goes in and out through it (heavily filtered, of course). It's the air that allows the heads to float a teensy-weensy distance above the platters while they're spinning (and dragging air around with them). Remember the Landing Zone parameter on old MFM hard drives? That's where the heads would go before the drive stopped spinning so that once they did stop, the heads would stop floating and slide to a halt on the surface.
Where the hell am I going with all this, you ask? Vacuum of space == no air in drive == heads can't float == hard drive doesn't work. Period. That's why satellites don't have hard drives (they also don't need them).
I thought 2.4GHz was S-band, though? I remember they used to use 2.somethingGHz as radar for catching speeders in the 60's or 70's, and it was S-band. Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, though; I can't remember the article exactly. (I think it was in Car & Driver a while back.)
They will avoid 2.4 GHz, not because of the resonant frequency of water (Which it is NOT, check this link). When the frequency was chosen for microwave ovens, they chose 2.45 GHz because they knew that it would interfere with other forms of communication, and they wanted to keep the interferers all in one (relatively unused at the time) place. Enough RF at virtually any frequency will heat things.
Man, I'm a moderator right now, and I was sooo tempted to mod you down for being so far off base. However, I figured replying instead, to straighten things out, would be the more mature thing to do. So here goes:
When 2450MHz was selected in the 70's for microwave ovens, it was because it was a frequency that made water molecules vibrate really well. It's this vibration that causes them to heat up, which heats up the whole product. This is precisely why microwave ovens take a LONG time to heat items with very little water (puff pastry by itself, for example). It had nothing to do with interfering with things. True, early microwave ovens leaked quite a bit of RF, but nothing else transmitted at or immediately around 2450MHz, so it didn't matter whether or not they spewed RF because there was nothing else being broadcast at that frequency for them to interfere with.
For example, here's a choice snippet from the very link you quote:
Waves of that frequency penetrate well into foods of reasonable size so that the heating is relatively uniform throughout the foods. Since leakage from these ovens makes the radio spectrum near 2.45 GHz unusable for communications, the frequency was chosen in part because it would not interfere with existing communication systems.
2450MHz wasn't in use, and it worked well, so they chose it. Period.
It's $60 thousand million in England (a billion there is 10^12)
Oh, bullshit. I used to live in England. Everywhere on Earth, the following are the official definitions:
Thousand million == 000 000 000 == billion
Million million == 000 000 000 000 == trillion
Thousand million million == 000 000 000 000 000 == quadrillion
... etc. If you don't believe me, listen to the BBC News anchors (on BBC World outside Europe) referring to, say, $5,000,000,000 as "five billion dollars" -- and the same goes for pounds.
And 99% of the people out there buying DVD players are going down to Best Buy and picking up their encryption keys for $129.99. It's still Cosmos coming out of the back of your Macrovision-scrambled player, and you've still lost another home to the CSS-adoption war.
My DVD player has no region protection and no macrovision generation, and it came from the factory with those abilities waiting to be enabled. Must be some unknown Chinese brand, you say? No, it's a Sony DVP-S7000. The MPAA can shove its Orwellian shit right back up its ass from whence it came. (Sorry, that just slipped out.)
Remember, this is a society that is into tentacle sex and schoolgirl urine (which you can purchase from some vending machines -- seriously). Get your kicks from holding the phone in front of you (which part of you is up to you) to let the other person see how much your looks have changed since you talked with them an hour ago? They can keep it. It's all theirs.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it just me, or does the image bear a shockingly uncanny resemblance to Space Invaders?
--
Whoa! Look out, Amazon!
--
AHA!
[...]the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
My bet says it's some sort of super-clean, super-cool transportation. And since it was "turned on", it has something electrical.
--
- IT is not a medical invention.
- In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen assembled two Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and hex wrenches from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags and some cardboard boxes.
- The invention has a fun element to it, because once a Ginger was turned on, Bezos started laughing his "loud, honking laugh".
- There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and Pro -- and the Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000.
- Bezos is quoted as saying that IT "...is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?"
- Jobs is quoted as saying: "...If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it. It'll just happen."
- Kemper says the invention will "sweep over the world and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking."
- The "core technology and its implementations" will, according to Kamen, "have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions but some billion-dollar old-line companies." And the invention will "profoundly affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities."
- IT will be a mass-market consumer product "likely to run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones," according to Kemper. The invention will also likely require "meeting with city planners, regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger."
Okay, now consider this:The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor. Kamen -- "a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character," according to the proposal -- dropped out of college in his 20s, then invented the first drug infusion pump; he later created the first portable insulin pump and dialysis machine.
I am totally blown away as to what it is, but it seems like this guy just might know what he's doing...
--
From the article:
According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston, expects Kamen's invention to make more money in its first year than any start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years than Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has more than US$60 billion to his name. That means this company would go from $0 to >$60 billion in five years? My first reaction is that this is complete horseshit, but if Credit Suisse First Boston, an arm of a major Swiss bank, is behind it, it must certainly carry some weight.
But think about the sheer logistics behind rocketing to more than $60 billion in corporate worth in only five years... it absolutely boggles the mind!
Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant as the PC, the proposal says.
If Steve Jobs says this, he just might be on to something. But how many things have been trumpeted as "PC replacements" in the past, oh, ten years?
--
ARGH! This WASN'T modded up! I posted it at +2!
I was making a tongue-in-cheek comment about the fact that having +w on the target install dir was a requirement to install it, AND it was listed as a bug. That's what I was referring to...
*sigh*...
--
what idiot modded this up? eh?
/usr/mozilla - you *obviously* need permission to write there!
:)
Nobody modded it up (as of when I wrote this); I posted it at +2.
lets say you want to install to
thats where the binaries will go, ffs!
obviously you don't need write access to use it from there....geeze.
I *know* that you need write access. Anyone with even the smallest amount of *NIX experience knows you need +w on a directory you want to write to! They were listing it as a bug, and pointing it out as an install requirement. That's what I was laughing at.
--
Um...You need this with any install. su to root first.
:)
I know that! They were listing it as a bug, and pointing it out as an install requirement. That's what I was laughing at.
--
From the Installation Notes:
Before installing on Linux, you must have write permission for the target installation directory. (Bug 46588)
So it's saying that I need +w in the install directory when I install Mozilla? No way!
--
From the Compatibility Information:
For Red Hat Linux 7, you must install the Standard C++ libraries for Red Hat 6.x compatibility. Get the package from the Red Hat 7 installation CD or download it from Red Hat. (Bug 59012)
--
From the Compatibility Information:
If you are using an ATI Rage video card, images are correctly displayed initially, but may not be properly re-drawn when you minimize and maximize or resize the window.
--
Here's the rest of what's new:
--
Awesome. So I pay $500 (or whatever) for Whistler, tie it to my NIC, then my NIC dies.
I might as well have flushed my $500 right down the shitter. Thanks, Microsoft.
--
A friend of mine once did work on a Canadian military base near where I lived at the time, and lent me a copy of the Microsoft Select (purple jacket and CD) version of Windows 95 (which was new at the time).
No serial number, upgrade requirement, or anything else needed... just install and enjoy.
How long do you think it'll take for the warez groups to get their hands on a copy of one of the Microsoft Select images?
--
Three quick notes:
1) s/BO/DO
2) The concept of heads floating on a thin cushion of air above the platters is the cornerstone of Winchester hard disk design. This is why the surface of the heads is carefully designed with a contour that promotes the correct "ride height" or "float height" (I can't remember which term is used). IBM's technical documents state the proper float height for their drives.
If you wanted a hard-drive-like thing in a satellite, you might get away with a solid-state hard drive (rad-hardened, of course... if such a version exists at all).
--
The air trapped in the hardrive will exert a constant pressure on the seals holding it in, increasing the chance of hard drive failure.
Have you ever noticed a little hole on the top cover of your hard drive with a BO NOT COVER label next to it? That's a vent hole. Air goes in and out through it (heavily filtered, of course). It's the air that allows the heads to float a teensy-weensy distance above the platters while they're spinning (and dragging air around with them). Remember the Landing Zone parameter on old MFM hard drives? That's where the heads would go before the drive stopped spinning so that once they did stop, the heads would stop floating and slide to a halt on the surface.
Where the hell am I going with all this, you ask? Vacuum of space == no air in drive == heads can't float == hard drive doesn't work. Period. That's why satellites don't have hard drives (they also don't need them).
--
Okay! :)
I thought 2.4GHz was S-band, though? I remember they used to use 2.somethingGHz as radar for catching speeders in the 60's or 70's, and it was S-band. Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, though; I can't remember the article exactly. (I think it was in Car & Driver a while back.)
--
I've taken the liberty of posting a mirror HERE. Go easy on me. (Hah, wishful thinking!)
--
They will avoid 2.4 GHz, not because of the resonant frequency of water (Which it is NOT, check this link). When the frequency was chosen for microwave ovens, they chose 2.45 GHz because they knew that it would interfere with other forms of communication, and they wanted to keep the interferers all in one (relatively unused at the time) place. Enough RF at virtually any frequency will heat things.
Man, I'm a moderator right now, and I was sooo tempted to mod you down for being so far off base. However, I figured replying instead, to straighten things out, would be the more mature thing to do. So here goes:
When 2450MHz was selected in the 70's for microwave ovens, it was because it was a frequency that made water molecules vibrate really well. It's this vibration that causes them to heat up, which heats up the whole product. This is precisely why microwave ovens take a LONG time to heat items with very little water (puff pastry by itself, for example). It had nothing to do with interfering with things. True, early microwave ovens leaked quite a bit of RF, but nothing else transmitted at or immediately around 2450MHz, so it didn't matter whether or not they spewed RF because there was nothing else being broadcast at that frequency for them to interfere with.
For example, here's a choice snippet from the very link you quote:
Waves of that frequency penetrate well into foods of reasonable size so that the heating is relatively uniform throughout the foods. Since leakage from these ovens makes the radio spectrum near 2.45 GHz unusable for communications, the frequency was chosen in part because it would not interfere with existing communication systems.
2450MHz wasn't in use, and it worked well, so they chose it. Period.
End of lecture, class.
--
It's $60 thousand million in England (a billion there is 10^12)
Oh, bullshit. I used to live in England. Everywhere on Earth, the following are the official definitions:
Thousand million == 000 000 000 == billion
Million million == 000 000 000 000 == trillion
Thousand million million == 000 000 000 000 000 == quadrillion
... etc. If you don't believe me, listen to the BBC News anchors (on BBC World outside Europe) referring to, say, $5,000,000,000 as "five billion dollars" -- and the same goes for pounds.
--
Taco's account would be toast, too, so he'd break out the backup tapes and all 50K people would get their accounts back.
Right, Rob?
There are backup tapes, r-r-right?
--
(Sorry, I couldn't resist. I drive an Accord myself.)
:)
Oh, and YES, I know it was a Civic. Emphasize was. Now it's an Accordion, no matter what the badge says.
--
Just to clear something up, Jason's car was a Honda Accordion.
--
And 99% of the people out there buying DVD players are going down to Best Buy and picking up their encryption keys for $129.99. It's still Cosmos coming out of the back of your Macrovision-scrambled player, and you've still lost another home to the CSS-adoption war.
My DVD player has no region protection and no macrovision generation, and it came from the factory with those abilities waiting to be enabled. Must be some unknown Chinese brand, you say? No, it's a Sony DVP-S7000. The MPAA can shove its Orwellian shit right back up its ass from whence it came. (Sorry, that just slipped out.)
--
Remember, this is a society that is into tentacle sex and schoolgirl urine (which you can purchase from some vending machines -- seriously). Get your kicks from holding the phone in front of you (which part of you is up to you) to let the other person see how much your looks have changed since you talked with them an hour ago? They can keep it. It's all theirs.
*shudder*
--