So why not have the US Government buy laptops for underprivileged kids?
Because of school computer labs, libraries with internet access, etc. Even the poorest schools are able to afford textbooks for all their students (even if somewhat outdated) which is the main function of OLPC. And telephone coverage in the US is nearly total, eliminating the need for the wifi capabilities of OLPC.
Get over it, it wasn't designed for the 1st world.
I would wager that the entire cast of characters here on Slashdot contains less that 1% climatologists.
Of course that's highly important, because human beings must specialize in one topic, and can't possibly be knowledgable about any other unrelated topic.
Maybe once I see SPF 1000 we'll finally know what is the cause of Global warming.
UV radiation has extremely little, if anything, to do with global warming.
Until then we should still cut back on any emissions that would make things worse in terms of climate change, REGARDLESS OF the real cause.
No. If cutting down is going to cost billions upon billions of dollar, and if it's not going to help significantly, it's surely not worth it.
You might as well say we should go back to using leeches to treat disease we don't have a cure for, regardless of whether or not it can possibly help.
I have to dump my AA batteries in the garbage because they wont recycle that
A) Use rechargables. B) There are plenty of places to recycle used batteries. You just have to find them.
but they'll gladly polute the air and water to recycle my newspaper which can rot by itself anywhere.
Decomposition isn't without its own drawbacks. Plenty of greenhouse gasses are emitted by decomposing paper. Though, its not a bad idea to use it to heat your home, generate electricity or the like.
they choose to use the "GNU GPL v2 only" (plus Classpath exception) license, not the more common "GPL v2 or any later version".
Actually, omitting the "or any later version" is VERY common. I certainly don't have any statistics, but I know for a fact that HUNDREDS of major/popular GPL'd programs omit that clause, including the kernel itself.
It's not at all unusual. I guess developers don't have much blind faith in FSF/RMS.
Nothing will be possible without instilling discipline in American schools.
Right... It's the kids' fault their biology teacher flunked out of medical school, and can just barely work up the motivation to stand up at the beginning of the class, and tell them what pages to read, and which questions to answer... BTW, that's not a made-up senario, either.
IMHO, and I speak from my own experience, the biggest of the problems is the lowest-common-denominator education. For the first 6 years, they teach you how to read and do basic math, every year, over and over again. For the next 6, it's basic algebra, basic history, basic science, repeated ad-nauseum.
Public schools are GREAT at teaching the slowest of the slow, the most basic of the basic. They are horrendous, however, at educating those who are remotely intelligent, and learn quickly... The latter (boredom) can be just as bad as course that go too fast.
None of your excuses are part of any state/federal election law.
So, if the machines are (illegal) making up their own rules, doing any of this, it will be just as bad, if not worse, than a machine not reporting totals.
I would invest in a communications infrastructure to support them. Ground up wireless phone, computer, TV, and anything else that can be broadcast.
OLPC is the communications infrastructure. Each one acts as an alway-on WiFi relay for the next. VoIP, internet radio, IPTV, etc., all can be distributed over the dynamic mesh network.
You just need to add the server units (part of the OLPC project) at the nearest school, and fill them with content, and/or connected them to the internet.
There is no way of us knowing that he really did this.
No, but there's no reason to believe he's lying. Nor the 8 other people who claim they voted for him.
They aren't saying they were abducted by aliens, here. If they're willing to state they voted for him, under oath, what reason do you have to believe they are lying? Is there some conflit of interest I don't know about? Does he hold stock in some OTHER voting machine company?
So (and I really don't know this, please inform me) it's not true that they can disable hacked licence keys (or whatever it was)?
They can only OMIT a certain license key from future discs, which will prevent those movies from playing in a hacked player. CSS has exactly the same system... AACS just has MORE of these keys.
However, the idea that they can disable your DEVICE (from playing discs you already own) is pure myth, which appears to be based on an utter and complete misunderstanding by "The Register" writer, which then cascaded all over the internet as a (usually) uncredited "fact".
You can even look through the specs of AACS on the official web page, and note the complete lack of any such mention.
And I probably wasn't clear about this, but I wasn't talking about how tape degradation affected resolution but how it affected image quality.
"Image quality" is rather vague, so I still don't know what you specifically mean.
Yes. I'm pissing my pants from excitement as I write this. There ought to be a law against this much excitement.
You listed the reasons DVD was an improvement over VHS. Clearly, this makes Blu-ray even more of an improvement, by your metric. If not, explain why.
Thing is, there are still people using VHS and not having a DVD player.
There are indeed, and their selection of NEW content is getting smaller (and more expensive) by the day. They aren't gone yet, but MOST have been dragged along, and the rest will get there eventually.
I just bought a new TV last year.
There were plenty of HDTVs available a year ago.
If I buy a new TV, that is.
Again, this is your personal preference, and is of no consequence on the highdef standards, nor the rest (large majority) of the population.
You probably don't have and don't want a satellite radio either, but that sure as hell does not mean there is no advantage to satellite radio, or that it is going to fail in the market.
And they are not just heating elements. There is control circuitry and power supplies to drive it. Will they work on DC? Quite possibly not.
I was specifically suggesting BUYING a DC stove, not attempting to convert it yourself.
The battery capacity needs to be able to at least deliver it, and hold it for a sufficient period of time under load.
Not unless you INSIST on being completely off-grid. And then, as I said, you're going to have many problems with a load that high, such as frequent battery replacement.
As for running a stove on natural gas or propane... only if you know of a means to produce natural gas or propane directly from a renewable energy source.
Natural gas is just methane, which is produced by the decay of just about any biological material. A few landfills, like Puente Hills (Los Angeles) capture the methane escaping from the landfill, and use it to power a 30MW power plant.
Yes, natural gas is a renewable resource. As is alcohol, which is commonly used to fuel stoves on boats, in camping gear, etc. As are other solid-fuel stoves, which can operate on ANYTHING flamable, like yard clippings, wood, etc.
The Innovation of The Year Award went to 'the alpha nail that makes your home twice as tough'. Sometimes the simple ideas really are the best."
Yes, simple ideas are best... LIKE USING SCREWS INSTEAD OF NAILS.
You'd think for hundreds of thousands of dollars, construction companies would spend one second longer to actually make your house hold together... But no.
Tell all the libertarians, this is their system (no goverment forcing them to improve safety/quality), at it's best.
VHS to DVD was still "Just look at all the great things you can do with technology!!!!", while the new formats are "Oh, crap. People can do way too many things with technology."
That's unmitigated crap. The DRM on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is NO WORSE than CSS on DVDs.
But when you look at how much image corruption VHS can have (tracking problems, tape degradation...), the difference is vast.
Nobody has seen "tracking problems" in the past 15 years, and normal "tape degradation" barely affects resolution at all...
The difference from "corrupt image to good image" always outweighs the difference from "good image to 6x resolution good image".
Well then, you must be extremely excited about Blu-ray, since you can go from your "corrupt image" scratched DVD, to a "6x resolution [great] image".
Well, to me, what they're broadcasting doesn't warrant the upgrade from normal TV to HDTV.
Yes, well that puts you in a tiny minority, who's purchasing habits are utterly irrelevant. When EVERYONE ELSE buys into highdef, you'll eventually get dragged along (just like those people who find DVDs don't warrant an upgrade from VHS tapes).
Without a staggeringly efficient means of storing the power, solar power will remain useless for all serious generation.
That's utter nonsense.
First off, solar doesn't NEED to be stored. You can use it when it's being generated, and replace along the lines of 50% of fossil fuel power plants. Hydro electric handles 30% of all power needs in California, so here that would leave just 20% to be powered by wind, tidal, nuclear, or existing fossil fuels (coal/natural gas).
And besides that, there are numerous, highly effecient means of electricity storage.
Pumped storage hydroelectric is on the order of 80% effecient, and that is mostly limited by evaporation. Underground resivors would improve that greatly.
Flywheels have effeciencies around 90%, and inital investment can be done in steps/scale, as opposed to hydro.
Both can easily suppliment solar supply during high peak demand, in addition to acting as energy storage for nighttime.
That means I need on the order of 12 kW of power just for potential peak cooking. Add another 2 kW for microwave. Add some more watts for the blender, coffee maker, refrigerator, etc. It adds up.
Gee... In 2 minutes I was only able to come up with about a dozen possible solutions to your insurmountable problem...
First of all, for resistive loads, like heating coils for cooking, and incandesent lights, there's little reason to use an inverter at all... 12KW is the same ammount of power at 12 volts, as it is at 240 volts. You need much more massive cables, but that's acceptable.
Second, why do you think EVERYTHING needs to be on a single circuit? You can have EVERY outlet in your kitchen running off a different inverter, if you would like.
Third, the ammount of power your talking about makes me think you don't really understand solar... A solar panel array that can output 15KW is likely going to cost more than your house, and your roof is very likely not large enough to accomodate them all.
If you ARE planning on being entirely off-grid, you'd really better pair down your plans. A bank of batteries that can supply a constant 15KW draw is going to be massive, and both extremely expensive to initally purchase, and very expensive to continually replace, as they reach EOL.
Of course, YOU are the one who insisted on the insane notion that EVERYTHING has to be powered by electricity. There's no reason you can't have solar panels, and power your stove with natural gas / propane / alcohol / etc. That would eliminate the largest drain (by far!) in your hypothetical senario, and makes an off-grid house quite practical.
So for the time being, most people will still be dependent on letting the electric utilities gather the sunlight and convert it to full power AC for their homes.
No. Unless you're entirely off-grid, there's no reason your peak needs need to be met by solar power alone. Most installations tap into the power grid, using it as, basically a big accumulator. If you're using 12KW for an hour a day, that can pretty easily be countered with a 5KW inverter pumping excess power into the grid all day long.
Just because the solar panels on your roof (and your inverters) don't meet your peak draw, DOESN'T mean you can't use them to get your electric bill down to $0, or close to it. That's what the power grid is FOR. Just because a single power source can't eliminate all others, doesn't mean you shouldn't use it.
In fact, in your insane senario, there's no reason you couldn't establish a "private" power grid with your neighbors. With a dozen people, each with perhaps 11KW inverters, you could easily have enough excess capacity that everyone can run their homes, and several can even be cooking (at full power) at the same time.
You must be the guy who walks around in public, and just shouts his own personal prefence at the top of his lungs.
Now run along, and tell everyone how you don't like chocolate ice cream.
i'm not planning on getting a new tv any time soon,
I live on a dollar a day in South Africa... I don't have any vehicles at all. For some reason, I'm not interested in buying the new truck-bed liner.
and i don't need to pay even MORE per movie.
Thank you for correcting the hordes of people going around claiming that people WANT and NEED to pay more for things that won't benefit them at all. It's a brave stand for you to take, on such a controvercial topic.
Seriously guys, why does utterly pointless, banal, redundant crap like this get modded up?
Why do people feel the need to explain that, since they don't immediately want or need a product, it should be taken off the market?
At least TWICE as "marginal" as the 2-3X increase in resolution from VHS to DVD.
go drop $1000+ on an HD player
HD-DVD players are under $400. Blu-Ray is under $700.
that only reads certain discs?
As opposed to your car CD player, which reads DVDs, Data CD-ROMs, etc.
You get a player for the format you want. Nothing new there. You don't get a VHS player when you want Blu-ray.
Also, I've been quietly hoping inside someone would step up with a better format that isn't DRM encumbered.
So you only buy film reels? You obviously can't have any VHS tapes, with its Macrovision protections. Definately no DVDs for you, thanks to CSS. And forget about playing ANY videogames made in the past decade.
offers only minimal improvements over the old stuff
Exactly... Just a minimal 6X increase in resolution. A minimal scratch-proof disc. Minimal, far more advanced video codecs. Minimal advanced menu system.
in order to try to get the consumer to give up all the things they used to be able to do.
Right... They want us to give up our unencrypted, unprotected VHS tapes, in favor of DVDs.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah, you hardly notice the new
If you
don't
mind
reading
stories
two words
at a
time.
Center column squishing bug is alive and well after several months.
Because of school computer labs, libraries with internet access, etc. Even the poorest schools are able to afford textbooks for all their students (even if somewhat outdated) which is the main function of OLPC. And telephone coverage in the US is nearly total, eliminating the need for the wifi capabilities of OLPC.
Get over it, it wasn't designed for the 1st world.
Of course that's highly important, because human beings must specialize in one topic, and can't possibly be knowledgable about any other unrelated topic.
UV radiation has extremely little, if anything, to do with global warming.
No. If cutting down is going to cost billions upon billions of dollar, and if it's not going to help significantly, it's surely not worth it.
You might as well say we should go back to using leeches to treat disease we don't have a cure for, regardless of whether or not it can possibly help.
A) Use rechargables.
B) There are plenty of places to recycle used batteries. You just have to find them.
Decomposition isn't without its own drawbacks. Plenty of greenhouse gasses are emitted by decomposing paper. Though, its not a bad idea to use it to heat your home, generate electricity or the like.
Right. They sure hated it when everyone copied NFS and didn't give anything back...
Actually, omitting the "or any later version" is VERY common. I certainly don't have any statistics, but I know for a fact that HUNDREDS of major/popular GPL'd programs omit that clause, including the kernel itself.
It's not at all unusual. I guess developers don't have much blind faith in FSF/RMS.
Standard TV is 720x480 for NTSC, and 720x576 for PAL.
Who said it only works on Windows? That's just what they used in TFA.
The drive was properly recognised by Mac OSX, but a HD-DVD player simply wasn't known/available.
So, if anything, this just gives motivation for some people to start working on cracking the AACS DRM, so it can work under OS X/Linux/BSD.
Right... It's the kids' fault their biology teacher flunked out of medical school, and can just barely work up the motivation to stand up at the beginning of the class, and tell them what pages to read, and which questions to answer... BTW, that's not a made-up senario, either.
IMHO, and I speak from my own experience, the biggest of the problems is the lowest-common-denominator education. For the first 6 years, they teach you how to read and do basic math, every year, over and over again. For the next 6, it's basic algebra, basic history, basic science, repeated ad-nauseum.
Public schools are GREAT at teaching the slowest of the slow, the most basic of the basic. They are horrendous, however, at educating those who are remotely intelligent, and learn quickly... The latter (boredom) can be just as bad as course that go too fast.
None of your excuses are part of any state/federal election law.
So, if the machines are (illegal) making up their own rules, doing any of this, it will be just as bad, if not worse, than a machine not reporting totals.
OLPC is the communications infrastructure. Each one acts as an alway-on WiFi relay for the next. VoIP, internet radio, IPTV, etc., all can be distributed over the dynamic mesh network.
You just need to add the server units (part of the OLPC project) at the nearest school, and fill them with content, and/or connected them to the internet.
If you just drove the speed limit, and don't park in handicap spaces, or in-front of hydrants, they CAN'T give you a ticket.
Quit blaming cops for enforcing traffic laws that most others have no problem following.
No, but there's no reason to believe he's lying. Nor the 8 other people who claim they voted for him.
They aren't saying they were abducted by aliens, here. If they're willing to state they voted for him, under oath, what reason do you have to believe they are lying? Is there some conflit of interest I don't know about? Does he hold stock in some OTHER voting machine company?
They can only OMIT a certain license key from future discs, which will prevent those movies from playing in a hacked player. CSS has exactly the same system... AACS just has MORE of these keys.
However, the idea that they can disable your DEVICE (from playing discs you already own) is pure myth, which appears to be based on an utter and complete misunderstanding by "The Register" writer, which then cascaded all over the internet as a (usually) uncredited "fact".
You can even look through the specs of AACS on the official web page, and note the complete lack of any such mention.
"Image quality" is rather vague, so I still don't know what you specifically mean.
You listed the reasons DVD was an improvement over VHS. Clearly, this makes Blu-ray even more of an improvement, by your metric. If not, explain why.
There are indeed, and their selection of NEW content is getting smaller (and more expensive) by the day. They aren't gone yet, but MOST have been dragged along, and the rest will get there eventually.
There were plenty of HDTVs available a year ago.
Again, this is your personal preference, and is of no consequence on the highdef standards, nor the rest (large majority) of the population.
You probably don't have and don't want a satellite radio either, but that sure as hell does not mean there is no advantage to satellite radio, or that it is going to fail in the market.
I was specifically suggesting BUYING a DC stove, not attempting to convert it yourself.
Not unless you INSIST on being completely off-grid. And then, as I said, you're going to have many problems with a load that high, such as frequent battery replacement.
Natural gas is just methane, which is produced by the decay of just about any biological material. A few landfills, like Puente Hills (Los Angeles) capture the methane escaping from the landfill, and use it to power a 30MW power plant.
Yes, natural gas is a renewable resource. As is alcohol, which is commonly used to fuel stoves on boats, in camping gear, etc. As are other solid-fuel stoves, which can operate on ANYTHING flamable, like yard clippings, wood, etc.
Yes, simple ideas are best... LIKE USING SCREWS INSTEAD OF NAILS.
You'd think for hundreds of thousands of dollars, construction companies would spend one second longer to actually make your house hold together... But no.
Tell all the libertarians, this is their system (no goverment forcing them to improve safety/quality), at it's best.
That's unmitigated crap. The DRM on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is NO WORSE than CSS on DVDs.
Nobody has seen "tracking problems" in the past 15 years, and normal "tape degradation" barely affects resolution at all...
Well then, you must be extremely excited about Blu-ray, since you can go from your "corrupt image" scratched DVD, to a "6x resolution [great] image".
Yes, well that puts you in a tiny minority, who's purchasing habits are utterly irrelevant. When EVERYONE ELSE buys into highdef, you'll eventually get dragged along (just like those people who find DVDs don't warrant an upgrade from VHS tapes).
Exactly... Just bend space so nobody has to drive at all.
Why always with the ethanol, like we can't possibly make use of cellulose in it's current form?
I know of one case, in Hawaii, where they have long been using the cellulose (from sugar cane) to fuel a nearby electric power plant.
Even without any conversion, we could be using cellulose to eliminate a good portion of coal burning, immediately.
That's utter nonsense.
First off, solar doesn't NEED to be stored. You can use it when it's being generated, and replace along the lines of 50% of fossil fuel power plants. Hydro electric handles 30% of all power needs in California, so here that would leave just 20% to be powered by wind, tidal, nuclear, or existing fossil fuels (coal/natural gas).
And besides that, there are numerous, highly effecient means of electricity storage.
Pumped storage hydroelectric is on the order of 80% effecient, and that is mostly limited by evaporation. Underground resivors would improve that greatly.
Flywheels have effeciencies around 90%, and inital investment can be done in steps/scale, as opposed to hydro.
Both can easily suppliment solar supply during high peak demand, in addition to acting as energy storage for nighttime.
Gee... In 2 minutes I was only able to come up with about a dozen possible solutions to your insurmountable problem...
First of all, for resistive loads, like heating coils for cooking, and incandesent lights, there's little reason to use an inverter at all... 12KW is the same ammount of power at 12 volts, as it is at 240 volts. You need much more massive cables, but that's acceptable.
Second, why do you think EVERYTHING needs to be on a single circuit? You can have EVERY outlet in your kitchen running off a different inverter, if you would like.
Third, the ammount of power your talking about makes me think you don't really understand solar... A solar panel array that can output 15KW is likely going to cost more than your house, and your roof is very likely not large enough to accomodate them all.
If you ARE planning on being entirely off-grid, you'd really better pair down your plans. A bank of batteries that can supply a constant 15KW draw is going to be massive, and both extremely expensive to initally purchase, and very expensive to continually replace, as they reach EOL.
Of course, YOU are the one who insisted on the insane notion that EVERYTHING has to be powered by electricity. There's no reason you can't have solar panels, and power your stove with natural gas / propane / alcohol / etc. That would eliminate the largest drain (by far!) in your hypothetical senario, and makes an off-grid house quite practical.
No. Unless you're entirely off-grid, there's no reason your peak needs need to be met by solar power alone. Most installations tap into the power grid, using it as, basically a big accumulator. If you're using 12KW for an hour a day, that can pretty easily be countered with a 5KW inverter pumping excess power into the grid all day long.
Just because the solar panels on your roof (and your inverters) don't meet your peak draw, DOESN'T mean you can't use them to get your electric bill down to $0, or close to it. That's what the power grid is FOR. Just because a single power source can't eliminate all others, doesn't mean you shouldn't use it.
In fact, in your insane senario, there's no reason you couldn't establish a "private" power grid with your neighbors. With a dozen people, each with perhaps 11KW inverters, you could easily have enough excess capacity that everyone can run their homes, and several can even be cooking (at full power) at the same time.
EXACTLY! Boycott DVDs!
(Because that worked so well the last time)
You must be the guy who walks around in public, and just shouts his own personal prefence at the top of his lungs.
Now run along, and tell everyone how you don't like chocolate ice cream.
I live on a dollar a day in South Africa... I don't have any vehicles at all. For some reason, I'm not interested in buying the new truck-bed liner.
Thank you for correcting the hordes of people going around claiming that people WANT and NEED to pay more for things that won't benefit them at all. It's a brave stand for you to take, on such a controvercial topic.
Seriously guys, why does utterly pointless, banal, redundant crap like this get modded up?
Why do people feel the need to explain that, since they don't immediately want or need a product, it should be taken off the market?
Right, a marginal 6X increase in resolution...
At least TWICE as "marginal" as the 2-3X increase in resolution from VHS to DVD.
HD-DVD players are under $400. Blu-Ray is under $700.
As opposed to your car CD player, which reads DVDs, Data CD-ROMs, etc.
You get a player for the format you want. Nothing new there. You don't get a VHS player when you want Blu-ray.
So you only buy film reels? You obviously can't have any VHS tapes, with its Macrovision protections. Definately no DVDs for you, thanks to CSS. And forget about playing ANY videogames made in the past decade.
Exactly... Just a minimal 6X increase in resolution. A minimal scratch-proof disc. Minimal, far more advanced video codecs. Minimal advanced menu system.
Right... They want us to give up our unencrypted, unprotected VHS tapes, in favor of DVDs.