Yes, the Man Will Never Fly society is even easier to disprove than the Flat-Earthers' contentions, but consider that their mission statement boasts the following:
The Society's members believe that balloons fly, but we do not believe in flying machines. Indeed, members of the Society have proposed a variety of apparati for movement through the ozone. One of our members is even cultivating an enormous jumping bean which, when saddled and heated by a laser, will propel a human for great distances.
I think it's pretty clear that this no-flying "society" is a parody.
Sufficiently powerful visible to near infrared laser radiation (400-1400 nm) will penetrate the eyeball and may cause heating of the retina, whereas exposure to laser radiation with wavelengths less than 400 nm and greater than 1400 nm are largely absorbed by the cornea and lens, leading to the development of cataracts or burn injuries.
Just because you can't see the laser doesn't mean it isn't permanently destroying parts of your body. If fact, IR lasers can be more dangerous than visible lasers, because IR lasers don't cause any blink response, so it has more time to do it's damage.
You are right that robots are built to serve a specific purpose, but keep in mind that most robotic functions are ones that were previously done by us humans. So it's quite possible that one day we will want a robot that performs some human task that requires human proportions, such as carrying our bags while at the same time navigating stairs and fitting through doorways or even into cars.
Of course, we could also want robots for companionship, in the same way people find comfort in pets. But in that case, we'd design the robot to look like Robin Williams.
It doesn't need to be ground-breaking, just unique and original. If it's not remarkable, then any half-decent engineer should be able to engineer around the patent, thus demonstrating that an unremarkable patent generally has little commercial value.
I agree that stereoscopic vision is not going to hit the mainstream big time. It's more of a gimmick than anything else, for all the reasons you name. Television programming isn't nearly as accessible when you have to plunk on some headgear every time you want to see what's on the channel.
True 3D means holographic video, which is existing technology (albeit not in the "help me obiwan kenobi, you're my only hope" sense). What's annoying is that any standard based on stereoscopic vision will be incompatible with holographic needs, assuming we switch to holographic video once the bandwidth reaches the necessary capacity. I would much rather see plain old high definition 2-dimensional TV remain the sole medium for broadcasting until holography is ready to take it's place.
The one advantage stereoscopic vision has for commercial programming is that every viewer sitting in any (reasonable) position will see the exact same picture, from the exact same perspective. That's desirable to directors for framing a shot. However, stereoscopic vision is very limited, and if it doesn't succeed even modestly (which I don't believe it will), pushing it forward now will sour the opinion that both broadcasters and viewers have of 3D media generally. That will retard interest and investment in true 3D technology, which is something that could really reshape our media experience.
In short, holographic video is to current television as the television was to radio. Stereoscopic vision, in contrast, is more like smell-o-vision. Unfortunately, funding for holography is usually split among all other "simulated 3D" technology, and will suffer from the deflected focus.
Still, stereoscopic vision might be a boon for the porn industry, if it doesn't end up making your eyes water.
Another point to make is that the Wii Remote is (with the exception of the accelerometers) functionally identical to a computer mouse with the optical eye reading many images per second to detect motion. The method by which the receiving end translates the data into x/y coordinate data is certainly different, though.
Technically, that's not correct. Laser mice use optical reflections to capture 2D motion while the Wiimote uses optical imaging to capture position and orientation. If you cover the optical receiver on a mouse and moved it before uncovering it, no position would be updated; but the same is not true of the Wiimote.
I've run into a number of people who's enjoyment of Wall-E is immediately overshadowed by their dislike for the message.
1. There's more than one message in the movie. Yes, the prominent theme is taking care of the planet, but the movie also advocates (*Warning: spoilers*): active awareness and participation; improving the world; disobeying a stagnant and narrow-minded regime; and of course, love, compassion, and teamwork. Not to mention the initial concept of being less wasteful generally.
2. Yes, there is some irony in using mass-culture happy-meals and sedate audiences to convey a message of active participation and environmental conscientiousness. However, there is nothing stopping you from enjoying that happy-meal and then doing your part to contribute to your community. We don't have to be paragons of excellence in order to live up to whatever message you read into the movie, just make an effort toward making a difference.
3. The movie has a lot of unique qualities that make it worth seeing, such as the remarkable characterizations and emotions created without so much as a word; or the fairly unique (or at least rare) storyline that engages our imagination (which is not something I can say about Pixar's Cars' "big-city chum gets stuck in backwater village" scenario). Wall-E is full of invention and creativity, and offers a lot to the audience besides morals.
4. I don't think you are simply tired of hearing the message, but rather you are explicitly offended by the particular message you read into the movie. It seems like what really turned you off from the movie was the suggestion that our current lifestyle is the cause of world's destruction. I'm not sure why you are unable to look past that one nerve that the movie struck and enjoy the film for all the reasons that make it a charming romantic-adventure story, but take solace in the fact that no matter what you do with your life, you won't actually turn into a mindless blimp in a hover-chair.
As a side note, the movie does not claim that mega marts are the root of all evil. Rather, they are simply a little jab at current culture as Pixar illustrates the dystopia. The causal force behind the destruction was humanity's lack of care.
It's a good movie with lots of charm. Go see it for its entertainment value.
But that wasn't the case on release. For the first 6 months to a year, there were only 2 faction auction houses, and one goblin auction house that was rarely used (besides trading between a player's characters)
Apart from the auction house, what makes one location any better than another? The "capital" cities that did not have auction houses were basically ghost towns at WoW's release. So they had quest givers and trainers, those could be found elsewhere.
Just because Warhammer lost some "big" cities doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other cities to explore.
But put that in further perspective. WoW only had 2 cities that operated as major capitals - the 2 with auction houses. The rest were just bigger versions of any quest-and-merchant camp.
Furthermore, Warhammer was designed with a full 12 classes per faction (24 total), if I understand the game correctly. Removing 4 is not a huge loss. That is similar to the missing Hero Classes you mentioned.
Of course, most pirated software does keep the attribution. Everyone who got an illegal copy of Photoshop or Warcraft 3 knows EXACTLY who the true creator is. In fact, people like the product precisely because they know who the creator is - they just don't want to pay for it. Same thing with counterfeit knockoffs for brand-name clothing/accessories.
Also, while the existential value of IP is its characteristic of being an intangible idea that can be infinitely duplicated, the economic value is in how many copies the IP-holder can sell. The ability to create new works is only economically valuable insofar as it lets you offer more copies for sale. If customers didn't actually need a new copy to enjoy the product (for example, because one only needs to use it temporarily to appreciate the benefits), then independent trading would satisfy the demand for the product while never sharing a cent with the creator. It is the copy, not the ability to copy, that holds the economic value.
You make good points, but I think you are generalizing. Perhaps I should have posted my previous message here instead... You claim lack of features is the cause of a game's failure, and then you prove it by describing how gameplay was one game's downfall, and admitting the other was actually released "mostly feature complete."
At this point, WoW has been around for a long time. When it was first released, it was a very different game. Many classes were incomplete, and many zones and dungeons were absent. What it did have was enjoyable single-player and multi-player gameplay and a captivating story line, at least for the first 30 levels or so. The rest was patched in months or years later.
Content isn't what makes a game succeed. The fun-factor does that. Content just keeps the subscribers to keep coming back.
Of course, no one faults Blizzard for not having Outlands available at release, nor even most of its mid- and upper-level dungeons in Azeroth. In fact, at least a third of the character classes were completely gimpy when WoW 1.0 was first released.
I agree that gutting a video game just to meet a deadline is probably a stupid move, but if a game developer can ensure timely patching of new content (especially if that content is already mostly complete), then the earlier release means more revenue. Not to mention that there will be less of the inevitable bugs that slip through beta testing.
I agree, infringing on copyright is not stealing. However, it does deprive the owner of something: the IP's value. For every person that owns an non-permitted copy of a particular IP, there is less demand for the original work, all other things being equal. The owner would not have chosen to make the trade with "pirate" for free if he/she had any control over access.
A better analogy than the concept of theft is where someone watches a sports event from over the fence, or reads entire novels while in the bookstore.
From the article:
"The huge capacity of these discs means that the new technology will be best suited for applications such large volume data archiving, rather than consumer use."
The tech they are using to read so many layers of information is impressive. However as the article states, this format is in no way intended for consumers.
Your BluRay hardware is probably safe for another five years or so.
The non-consumer, archival focus was the same thing they were saying about the CD (or was it DVD?) when the technology hadn't been perfected yet and when 3.5" floppies were considered more than sufficient for consumer storage. Eventually, consumer media will demand larger-capacity formats then even a 100Gb Blueray can provide. Besides, anything that a library can afford to spend money on will have to be cheap enough that it could also feasibly be marketed to some portion of consumers - archiving isn't an industry that's rolling in venture capital...
More importantly, it's highly likely that a significant market share of home entertainment will be provided via downloads and HD-quality streaming media services within the next several years, which could devastate the physical data storage medium industry, including Blueray.
IANAC, but TFA seems to overstate the find and contains several misleading statements.
First, they cannot "quickly produce a catalyst of a particular shape," but rather they are able to take one molecule and make it twist into either of two orientations. This isn't the holy grail of catalyst molecular engineering (to "give scientists a quick and easy way to get the catalyst that they want"); rather, it gives scientists a couple 'bonus' molecular shapes for each catalyst they synthesize. There is no indication that the ability to twist synthetic molecules means that scientists will have a significantly easier time discovering new catalysts that conform to the necessary shape. As TFA says, "[d]espite decades of research, scientists aren't sure exactly how this kind of propagation works." Why should searching for "a catalyst of a particular shape or function," involve any less trial and error than before?
Moreover, the scientists claim that "as long as there is even a slight chemical preference for one of the hands. . . . [t]he 'flexible glove' will find a way to make a better fit, and so it will assist in specifically making one of the mirror image forms." Yet there is no proof that this "chemical preference" necessarily results in the ideal molecular arrangement of the catalyst. In fact, trying to synthesize a molecule that is capable of folding into multiple useful shapes in response to specific chemical environments seems more difficult than synthesizing individual catalysts to each handle one function independently.
Again, I could be wrong, but I think this is only a very preliminary step in making more advanced synthetic catalysts, and not necessarily a way to design them faster.
TFA talked mostly about controlling the sale and advertisement of counterfeit goods, and vicarious liability aside, that's not inappropriate by American standards. It appears that only for perfume that a complaint was filed for the sale of legitimate goods, and it's possible that your average consumer isn't behind the resale of perfume, but rather reseller organizations. To an extent, a manufacturer should have some control over the distribution of its product outside of personal sales (but probably not as much as provided in this case).
As for vicarious liability, the French are clearly showing an ugly bias. Someone should sue the French government for being vicariously liable every time a French citizen commits an crime outside of France.
However, what's more shocking to me is the previous French case mentioned in TFA: In an earlier instance of LVMH trying to protect its brands online, a Paris court in 2005 ordered Google to pay 200,000 euros (about $260,000 at the time) to Louis Vuitton for breach of trademark. In that case, Google had to stop displaying advertisements for Louis Vuitton's rivals when Web users typed Vuitton's name into the search engine.
Are French courts saying that IP owners can control what information consumers see when the do a public search? Can they forbid reference books from including information about their competitors in the same volume? I must be missing something here...
Speaking of the conversion between larger and smaller sizes of the same SI unit, wouldn't it make more sense to make the universal definition of mass be in the gram to picogram range rather than the kilogram?
A kilogram of mass ought to be much more susceptible to slight variations than a smaller amount. It seems the margin of error when manufacturing a physical model would be much smaller when you are being asked to count, for example, 5,000 silicon atoms in a picogram rather than make sure you have exactly 5x10^18 atoms in a kilogram.
That works fairly well, thank you 0xygen. It's a shame removing flash and java apps are not as direct as removing html objects: the selection process can be a little finicky. I suppose wishing for a kill command for flash objects would be a design feature for Adobe to implement, and not something the browser or an addon could cover. I doubt Adobe would ever bother with such a feature though.
Maybe this already exists as a firefox addon (and if so, please direct me to it!), but I would love to have the power to selectively close or kill any graphic, java applet, flash, shockwave, or dynamic html floating division.
Generally I like to allow those things as the enrich my browsing experience, but when the advertisers think it's fun to position their floating add right over the text of an article, or to incorporate repeating background music or sound effects, or when the off-site banner takes a minute to load, it really bothers me. Typical pop-up blockers don't seem to catch a lot of the in-page elements and sometimes block pages that I want to show up. I wish there was a "force close" right-click command for page elements like there is for Linux programs.
You are correct, the sun's gravity could be used to draw the interplanetary craft back towards Earth's orbit. But, based on very little information, I doubt the sun's gravity alone would allow for an expedient return trip, assuming the flight away the sun under power of solar sails was of any useful speed to begin with.
If solar sails could provide faster-than-rocket travel between Earth and the outer planets, I believe the only way to utilize that propulsion (and it's higher speed) to return home would be to slingshot around a farther planet and then to collapse the sails.
Because insightfulness has nothing at all to do with what information you know (i.e., informative posts), it has to do with what new perspective you bring to the article's subject matter.
I still don't understand why there isn't more research on developing a surface for the out-of-bounds area that temporarily registers the exact impression of any impact on it.
I envision something that looks like a big LCD touch screen (but more durable). Every time something made contact with the active surface, a record of the ball's "footprint" could be recorded (and even temporarily displayed wherever it touched the surface). That would allow for highly precise measurement of the ball's landing position, and it wouldn't need to incorporate any new materials into the ball itself. The active surface would only need to be in the out of bounds area, and even then, it would only need to be half a foot wide in order to cover the important zone where the ball's landing position is questionable.
I hope my grandkids can one day go outside to take a spin around Mars with their solar sails.
Still, the idea of a science-fiction object being realized in the real world is mighty interesting.
Maybe tomorrow they will think about warp drives.
I think the source of momentum in spaceships powered by solar sails means that it can only use that momentum to travel directly away from the photon source (i.e., the sun). So no round trips.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the Man Will Never Fly society is even easier to disprove than the Flat-Earthers' contentions, but consider that their mission statement boasts the following:
The Society's members believe that balloons fly, but we do not believe in flying machines. Indeed, members of the Society have proposed a variety of apparati for movement through the ozone. One of our members is even cultivating an enormous jumping bean which, when saddled and heated by a laser, will propel a human for great distances.
I think it's pretty clear that this no-flying "society" is a parody.
Sufficiently powerful visible to near infrared laser radiation (400-1400 nm) will penetrate the eyeball and may cause heating of the retina, whereas exposure to laser radiation with wavelengths less than 400 nm and greater than 1400 nm are largely absorbed by the cornea and lens, leading to the development of cataracts or burn injuries.
Just because you can't see the laser doesn't mean it isn't permanently destroying parts of your body. If fact, IR lasers can be more dangerous than visible lasers, because IR lasers don't cause any blink response, so it has more time to do it's damage.
You are right that robots are built to serve a specific purpose, but keep in mind that most robotic functions are ones that were previously done by us humans. So it's quite possible that one day we will want a robot that performs some human task that requires human proportions, such as carrying our bags while at the same time navigating stairs and fitting through doorways or even into cars.
Of course, we could also want robots for companionship, in the same way people find comfort in pets. But in that case, we'd design the robot to look like Robin Williams.
It doesn't need to be ground-breaking, just unique and original. If it's not remarkable, then any half-decent engineer should be able to engineer around the patent, thus demonstrating that an unremarkable patent generally has little commercial value.
I agree that stereoscopic vision is not going to hit the mainstream big time. It's more of a gimmick than anything else, for all the reasons you name. Television programming isn't nearly as accessible when you have to plunk on some headgear every time you want to see what's on the channel.
True 3D means holographic video, which is existing technology (albeit not in the "help me obiwan kenobi, you're my only hope" sense). What's annoying is that any standard based on stereoscopic vision will be incompatible with holographic needs, assuming we switch to holographic video once the bandwidth reaches the necessary capacity. I would much rather see plain old high definition 2-dimensional TV remain the sole medium for broadcasting until holography is ready to take it's place.
The one advantage stereoscopic vision has for commercial programming is that every viewer sitting in any (reasonable) position will see the exact same picture, from the exact same perspective. That's desirable to directors for framing a shot. However, stereoscopic vision is very limited, and if it doesn't succeed even modestly (which I don't believe it will), pushing it forward now will sour the opinion that both broadcasters and viewers have of 3D media generally. That will retard interest and investment in true 3D technology, which is something that could really reshape our media experience.
In short, holographic video is to current television as the television was to radio. Stereoscopic vision, in contrast, is more like smell-o-vision. Unfortunately, funding for holography is usually split among all other "simulated 3D" technology, and will suffer from the deflected focus.
Still, stereoscopic vision might be a boon for the porn industry, if it doesn't end up making your eyes water.
Another point to make is that the Wii Remote is (with the exception of the accelerometers) functionally identical to a computer mouse with the optical eye reading many images per second to detect motion. The method by which the receiving end translates the data into x/y coordinate data is certainly different, though.
Technically, that's not correct. Laser mice use optical reflections to capture 2D motion while the Wiimote uses optical imaging to capture position and orientation. If you cover the optical receiver on a mouse and moved it before uncovering it, no position would be updated; but the same is not true of the Wiimote.
I've run into a number of people who's enjoyment of Wall-E is immediately overshadowed by their dislike for the message.
1. There's more than one message in the movie. Yes, the prominent theme is taking care of the planet, but the movie also advocates (*Warning: spoilers*): active awareness and participation; improving the world; disobeying a stagnant and narrow-minded regime; and of course, love, compassion, and teamwork. Not to mention the initial concept of being less wasteful generally.
2. Yes, there is some irony in using mass-culture happy-meals and sedate audiences to convey a message of active participation and environmental conscientiousness. However, there is nothing stopping you from enjoying that happy-meal and then doing your part to contribute to your community. We don't have to be paragons of excellence in order to live up to whatever message you read into the movie, just make an effort toward making a difference.
3. The movie has a lot of unique qualities that make it worth seeing, such as the remarkable characterizations and emotions created without so much as a word; or the fairly unique (or at least rare) storyline that engages our imagination (which is not something I can say about Pixar's Cars' "big-city chum gets stuck in backwater village" scenario). Wall-E is full of invention and creativity, and offers a lot to the audience besides morals.
4. I don't think you are simply tired of hearing the message, but rather you are explicitly offended by the particular message you read into the movie. It seems like what really turned you off from the movie was the suggestion that our current lifestyle is the cause of world's destruction. I'm not sure why you are unable to look past that one nerve that the movie struck and enjoy the film for all the reasons that make it a charming romantic-adventure story, but take solace in the fact that no matter what you do with your life, you won't actually turn into a mindless blimp in a hover-chair.
As a side note, the movie does not claim that mega marts are the root of all evil. Rather, they are simply a little jab at current culture as Pixar illustrates the dystopia. The causal force behind the destruction was humanity's lack of care.
It's a good movie with lots of charm. Go see it for its entertainment value.
But that wasn't the case on release. For the first 6 months to a year, there were only 2 faction auction houses, and one goblin auction house that was rarely used (besides trading between a player's characters) Apart from the auction house, what makes one location any better than another? The "capital" cities that did not have auction houses were basically ghost towns at WoW's release. So they had quest givers and trainers, those could be found elsewhere. Just because Warhammer lost some "big" cities doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other cities to explore.
But put that in further perspective. WoW only had 2 cities that operated as major capitals - the 2 with auction houses. The rest were just bigger versions of any quest-and-merchant camp.
Furthermore, Warhammer was designed with a full 12 classes per faction (24 total), if I understand the game correctly. Removing 4 is not a huge loss. That is similar to the missing Hero Classes you mentioned.
Of course, most pirated software does keep the attribution. Everyone who got an illegal copy of Photoshop or Warcraft 3 knows EXACTLY who the true creator is. In fact, people like the product precisely because they know who the creator is - they just don't want to pay for it. Same thing with counterfeit knockoffs for brand-name clothing/accessories.
Also, while the existential value of IP is its characteristic of being an intangible idea that can be infinitely duplicated, the economic value is in how many copies the IP-holder can sell. The ability to create new works is only economically valuable insofar as it lets you offer more copies for sale. If customers didn't actually need a new copy to enjoy the product (for example, because one only needs to use it temporarily to appreciate the benefits), then independent trading would satisfy the demand for the product while never sharing a cent with the creator. It is the copy, not the ability to copy, that holds the economic value.
You make good points, but I think you are generalizing. Perhaps I should have posted my previous message here instead... You claim lack of features is the cause of a game's failure, and then you prove it by describing how gameplay was one game's downfall, and admitting the other was actually released "mostly feature complete."
At this point, WoW has been around for a long time. When it was first released, it was a very different game. Many classes were incomplete, and many zones and dungeons were absent. What it did have was enjoyable single-player and multi-player gameplay and a captivating story line, at least for the first 30 levels or so. The rest was patched in months or years later.
Content isn't what makes a game succeed. The fun-factor does that. Content just keeps the subscribers to keep coming back.
Of course, no one faults Blizzard for not having Outlands available at release, nor even most of its mid- and upper-level dungeons in Azeroth. In fact, at least a third of the character classes were completely gimpy when WoW 1.0 was first released.
I agree that gutting a video game just to meet a deadline is probably a stupid move, but if a game developer can ensure timely patching of new content (especially if that content is already mostly complete), then the earlier release means more revenue. Not to mention that there will be less of the inevitable bugs that slip through beta testing.
Still, MMOs are a waste of time anyway.
I agree, infringing on copyright is not stealing. However, it does deprive the owner of something: the IP's value. For every person that owns an non-permitted copy of a particular IP, there is less demand for the original work, all other things being equal. The owner would not have chosen to make the trade with "pirate" for free if he/she had any control over access.
A better analogy than the concept of theft is where someone watches a sports event from over the fence, or reads entire novels while in the bookstore.
From the article: "The huge capacity of these discs means that the new technology will be best suited for applications such large volume data archiving, rather than consumer use."
The tech they are using to read so many layers of information is impressive. However as the article states, this format is in no way intended for consumers.
Your BluRay hardware is probably safe for another five years or so.
The non-consumer, archival focus was the same thing they were saying about the CD (or was it DVD?) when the technology hadn't been perfected yet and when 3.5" floppies were considered more than sufficient for consumer storage. Eventually, consumer media will demand larger-capacity formats then even a 100Gb Blueray can provide. Besides, anything that a library can afford to spend money on will have to be cheap enough that it could also feasibly be marketed to some portion of consumers - archiving isn't an industry that's rolling in venture capital...
More importantly, it's highly likely that a significant market share of home entertainment will be provided via downloads and HD-quality streaming media services within the next several years, which could devastate the physical data storage medium industry, including Blueray.
Anyway, I'm still holding out for consumer holographic storage devices.
...for that new movie with Brendan Fraser and the dinosaurs?
IANAC, but TFA seems to overstate the find and contains several misleading statements.
First, they cannot "quickly produce a catalyst of a particular shape," but rather they are able to take one molecule and make it twist into either of two orientations. This isn't the holy grail of catalyst molecular engineering (to "give scientists a quick and easy way to get the catalyst that they want"); rather, it gives scientists a couple 'bonus' molecular shapes for each catalyst they synthesize. There is no indication that the ability to twist synthetic molecules means that scientists will have a significantly easier time discovering new catalysts that conform to the necessary shape. As TFA says, "[d]espite decades of research, scientists aren't sure exactly how this kind of propagation works." Why should searching for "a catalyst of a particular shape or function," involve any less trial and error than before?
Moreover, the scientists claim that "as long as there is even a slight chemical preference for one of the hands. . . . [t]he 'flexible glove' will find a way to make a better fit, and so it will assist in specifically making one of the mirror image forms." Yet there is no proof that this "chemical preference" necessarily results in the ideal molecular arrangement of the catalyst. In fact, trying to synthesize a molecule that is capable of folding into multiple useful shapes in response to specific chemical environments seems more difficult than synthesizing individual catalysts to each handle one function independently.
Again, I could be wrong, but I think this is only a very preliminary step in making more advanced synthetic catalysts, and not necessarily a way to design them faster.
Because the average consumer just considers the overall cost of the monthly plan and never believes they will use up their allotted free minutes.
Hold on, hold on.
TFA talked mostly about controlling the sale and advertisement of counterfeit goods, and vicarious liability aside, that's not inappropriate by American standards. It appears that only for perfume that a complaint was filed for the sale of legitimate goods, and it's possible that your average consumer isn't behind the resale of perfume, but rather reseller organizations. To an extent, a manufacturer should have some control over the distribution of its product outside of personal sales (but probably not as much as provided in this case).
As for vicarious liability, the French are clearly showing an ugly bias. Someone should sue the French government for being vicariously liable every time a French citizen commits an crime outside of France.
However, what's more shocking to me is the previous French case mentioned in TFA:
In an earlier instance of LVMH trying to protect its brands online, a Paris court in 2005 ordered Google to pay 200,000 euros (about $260,000 at the time) to Louis Vuitton for breach of trademark. In that case, Google had to stop displaying advertisements for Louis Vuitton's rivals when Web users typed Vuitton's name into the search engine.
Are French courts saying that IP owners can control what information consumers see when the do a public search? Can they forbid reference books from including information about their competitors in the same volume? I must be missing something here...
Speaking of the conversion between larger and smaller sizes of the same SI unit, wouldn't it make more sense to make the universal definition of mass be in the gram to picogram range rather than the kilogram?
A kilogram of mass ought to be much more susceptible to slight variations than a smaller amount. It seems the margin of error when manufacturing a physical model would be much smaller when you are being asked to count, for example, 5,000 silicon atoms in a picogram rather than make sure you have exactly 5x10^18 atoms in a kilogram.
That works fairly well, thank you 0xygen. It's a shame removing flash and java apps are not as direct as removing html objects: the selection process can be a little finicky. I suppose wishing for a kill command for flash objects would be a design feature for Adobe to implement, and not something the browser or an addon could cover. I doubt Adobe would ever bother with such a feature though.
Generally I like to allow those things as the enrich my browsing experience, but when the advertisers think it's fun to position their floating add right over the text of an article, or to incorporate repeating background music or sound effects, or when the off-site banner takes a minute to load, it really bothers me. Typical pop-up blockers don't seem to catch a lot of the in-page elements and sometimes block pages that I want to show up. I wish there was a "force close" right-click command for page elements like there is for Linux programs.
If solar sails could provide faster-than-rocket travel between Earth and the outer planets, I believe the only way to utilize that propulsion (and it's higher speed) to return home would be to slingshot around a farther planet and then to collapse the sails.
Because insightfulness has nothing at all to do with what information you know (i.e., informative posts), it has to do with what new perspective you bring to the article's subject matter.
I still don't understand why there isn't more research on developing a surface for the out-of-bounds area that temporarily registers the exact impression of any impact on it.
I envision something that looks like a big LCD touch screen (but more durable). Every time something made contact with the active surface, a record of the ball's "footprint" could be recorded (and even temporarily displayed wherever it touched the surface). That would allow for highly precise measurement of the ball's landing position, and it wouldn't need to incorporate any new materials into the ball itself. The active surface would only need to be in the out of bounds area, and even then, it would only need to be half a foot wide in order to cover the important zone where the ball's landing position is questionable.
I hope my grandkids can one day go outside to take a spin around Mars with their solar sails. Still, the idea of a science-fiction object being realized in the real world is mighty interesting. Maybe tomorrow they will think about warp drives.
I think the source of momentum in spaceships powered by solar sails means that it can only use that momentum to travel directly away from the photon source (i.e., the sun). So no round trips.