EG, the guy who "Gives his all"-- the much celebrated epitome of wartime valor. (You know, the guy who walks up to the bomb he placed under the enemy bridge, and manually detonates it to halt enemy advance, after the remote detonator fails.)
"belief in an afterlife" is simply a subset of the actual requirement-- Belief that the sacrifice will result in a better tomorrow. The war hero blowing up the bridge might feel that his life is inconsequential compared to the ones he will save through halting enemy advance, etc.
It is quite possible that many of the "Islamic terrorists" are in no way "religiously" motivated; Many might honestly believe that the US's continued activities on the world stage threatens lives, and will lead to a darker future; as such, they kill themselves to buy a better tomorrow, for purely secular reasons, even if they themselves will not profit from the exchange.
"religious faith in an afterlife" is simply a cheap, and effective means of evoking this "quality" in a fighting force. That quality can be instilled any number of other ways.
Hardly-- Did you pay attention to the discovery of the so called "Liberal gene"?
What would you say are the chances that the "Lack" of this gene stems from "Religious practices" in the human genome in the past? (Things like say-- Excommunication, and The inquisition?)
Considering that the XBOX proudly proclaims "offline updates and downloads", which occur when the power is "Off", that latter statement is not unfounded.
As for the former-- why do you think there are CCTV cameras installed in school buses, and in the hallways and cafeterias of public schools? "Somebody" thought they might be able to make things "More safe" if they can constantly monitor.;) Also, Lower Marion school district, and the webcam BS ring any bells? Same mindset, more or less- That surveylance is A-OK, as long as it is to protect children and prevent theft.
1) My cellphone is running a custom bios image that I cooked myself. It was required, since it was originally a japanese cellphone, now serving happily in the US. Since it is an older (pre-android era) smartphone, it is running windows mobile 6.5, with HTC's TouchFlo. I can (and have) looked at the rom under a microscope (figuratively speaking, of course.)
2) I am fairly confident my linux systems are not rooted; When not accessing data, there is no activity going through my router. If there WAS anomalous activity going on, I would whip out wireshark and peek.
3) I am forbidden via the XBOX Live! EULA and the DMCA from doing this when my XBOX360 is connected to my network, because snooping the protocol is forbidden. (Seriously, look it up.) Due to this, my 360 remains disconnected from the internet except when I feel the need to shop, or pull a console update. Since this latter activity only happens perhaps 4 times a year, any data microsoft gets in exchange is pretty damn stale.
Judging from activity lights though, it would appear that the 360 does indeed engage the internet in quite a verbose manner, even when sitting idle. Most likely it is dutifully checking all the digital signatures of all the casual games sitting on the console's hard drive, and making sure my live! profile matches what is on the microsoft server farm. However, there is no way for me to determine if microsoft is interested in the contents of my external USB media drive, which has lots of canned TV (which I recorded off-air), and format shifted movies. (more convenient to play from the console than to rummage for discs.) The light on the USB drive is not a good indicator, since it could simply be checking for the dummy container file used to house the FATX partitions used by the new "removable media" console update, in it's relentless quest to ensure my compliance with the EULA concerning downloaded content. (not that I have any of said content on the external volume, since it is formatted with a Mac HFV+ filesystem so I can have files larger than 2gb on it, which is incompatible with the new Live! storage update, but not for use as it is currently is deployed. I use my linux box to transfer data to and from the drive.)
I think that was the gist of my statement-- that I wont buy one until I know for sure--
The issue I have here, is that many people will buy one without that consideration, and that in so doing, the expectation of privacy in the home will be greatly eroded.
(sorry to reply to my own post, but I have to add--)
The REALLY sad part about the potential for use by law enforcement, is that it is practically an eventuality before some "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" types latch on to a case of domestic child abuse (Most definitely some really raunchy one) in which a Kinect motion controller was scanning the room, but DIDNT record what was going on-- and lobbying/sueing to have that functionality incorporated/activated, so that law enforcement CAN (and will) use it.
For the children.
If not child abuse, some case of domestic violence-- Protecting women is almost as good as protecting children, you see.
Trailing in at scenario #3, we have the run of the mill home-invasion-- where the 360 "sees" everything. See how much big brother loves you?
Seriously-- tear this thing apart, and tear apart Microsoft's Live data protocols too. I don't care about implementing competing products, I want transparency on how THIS product operates, to protect my already small sliver of expected privacy.
While it might smack of 1984 paranoia, we ARE talking about a motion tracking camera, attached to a closed architecture and DMCA protected computing platform, equipped with broadband internet capabilities, communicating in a DMCA protected communication protocol.
No matter how "OMFG! AWESOME!" this thing is, unless I know for sure what software is being run, I consider it an unsafe product for my privacy.
Just imagine the "Fun", should Microsoft decide to roll out an update that causes the camera to 'passively' track and analyze images of logos it sees, so they can datamine their gaming public for "enhanced products and services", such as "Value added partnerships with partner companies" to offer "Special product offers" to said people? Suddenly, your XBOX becomes the equivilent of a secret shopper in your home, suggesting more Hostess, Dolly Madison, and Pepsi products.
Doesnt matter if the resolution is really crappy, grainy, and the framerate is slow-- it only needs to focus on what the person is wearing/doing in front of the TV. Even surreptitiously snapping and sending jpegs of "logo candidates" to microsoft for bulk processing once a week would be of IMMENSE value to advertising fuckwads. (of course, microsoft would make 'every effort' to prevent personally identifiable information, like your face, and to avoid capturing images of naked users of the Kinect motion controller for privacy reasons, and then trumpet these as being 'good faith'-- but they would still happily capture the logos on your shirt and pants, on the can of pop/beer you are sipping, and what bag of deep fried somethings you are snacking on for their "advertising partners")
But why stop there? This thing has several acoustic microphones too! Just IMAGINE the fun, should this device get co-opted by law enforcement! Why, they wouldnt NEED to "Mandate" cameras be installed in your house-- Why, they stupid sheeple would BUY IT, and INSTALL IT themselves! Just imagine the fun that the security theater types in Great Britain would have with this! The "Full monitor" mode could be activated based on "excessive motion", and or "Highly variable sound input matching XX baseline", and suddenly you are on candid camera while you spank your naughty child's butt. Better have a good explanation when child protective services shows up. (etc.)
So, simply because I have had my "healthy" distrust of corporations and their use of technology turn into a pathological paranoia, I GREATLY desire to see the ENTIRE kinect data stack and software algorithm tree reverse engineered like a Diebold voting machine. The problem is that I have a hard time convincing myself that this one is paranoia.
I want to know EVERYTHING this device does, how it does it, when, and why-- before I would even consider buying one.
It would replace keyboard and mouse. I presume it offers HID class interface, so that it works with most applications? (would be pretty useless as an interface device if it didnt.)
Many people would love to offer WISP type services to compete with landlines, or even to purchase land to construct new landlines to compete with the local telecom infrastructure.
Sadly, this often results in being sued for violation of artificial monopolies granted through franchise agreements. Additionally, there is natural scarity in the EM spectrum which limits the former option in regard to the FCC, and already existant providers who purchase spectrum even if they dont intend to use it, since it prevents others from using it.
Due to these two mitigating factors, some form of artificial control must be exerted over these industries to prevent them from absuing their natural monopolistic positions, (Such as Verizon charging "mystery data fees", like it recently got wrist-slapped for.)
"Imminent Domain" is a very bittersweet pill, (though arguably less bitter for government.) indeed.
Without it, there is nothing to stop $Super_rich_Fatcat from buying up huge tracts of property, then waiting for prices to go up from scarcity, then selling dinky over-priced lots at the maximum value the market can bear, if not outright refusing to sell at all, but instead charging rent, A-La the original monopoly game.
With it, (and it being abused like is usually the case) there is nothing to prevent local corrupt government officials from confiscating your property to build their new memorial park^V^V Highway (named after themselves for their generous "donation" of the land.) so they can get more facetime in the media, and get re-elected.
It is one of the consequences of people wanting the benefits of an urban life. Sadly, these people often get carried away with what they consider necessary. That's another sad consequence of that particular situation. It starts to boil down to a situation where those rich enough to divert the imminent domain abusers with protection money get to keep their property, while everyone else gets screwed, and voila-- here we are.
The only way to make this problem go away is to either 1) stop living in cities (Good luck with that one.), or 2) Live in magical fairy land where new property can be conjured into existence to suit every need, negating the requirement for imminent domain. (HAH!)
Since neither of those "solutions" is realistic, the best one can hope for is a compromise; have imminent domain, but have it be such a hassle to go through, and have so many protections against misuse that it becomes more costly to persue than to just offer money to buy the property from private citizens. However, that too is an uphill battle, since no self-respecting politician with any ounce of self-preservation would get behind it willingly.
Legislation that regulates private enterprise (as an extention of preserving people's rights and property; Destroying the environment destroys the value of people's real estate, etc--), and which sets "requirements" in education, et al are perfectly OK in my book. Just as long as the government doesnt step in and try to take up such causes and mantles itself. EG-- "Public education" shouldnt exist, it should only be private education, where parents have intrinsic choice of which school their child will attend regardless of "district", but such private educational systems would be beholden to government regulations on quality and nature of education. (EG, no "Floating man in the sky said evolution is BAAAD" getting equal treatment to proven science, due to government regulation.)
In short, regulation is not the same thing as direct providence. The government can engage in the former as long as it isnt draconian, and follows the constitution, but must NEVER engage in the latter, like Obamacare and pals.
The problem with social security is that it has become an IOU; It was originally a trust fund that you paid in yourself over your working careers.
At a point in US history, US administrators looked and saw that the social security trust fund was overflowing with money that they couldnt touch, so they voted to change the social security structure so that they could "Borrow" money from it.
The result was that there is now almost 0 dollars stored in social security, and it must bankroll it's existing trustees by stealing the input money of it's current working generation. This is failing miserably as the boomer generation ages, and enters retirement; Too many retired people, not enough working; result: Reduction of social security benefits.
Why?
Government was greedy.
Solution: Dissolve existing social security structure, re-create it as it originally was, enact laws to prevent borrowing against it by the government (for any reason, even national emergencies), and start over with a clean slate.
Existing pensioners should continue to receive benefits that they paid for over their lifetimes, at government expense (government officials should remain culpable for their debts). As is, social security has become yet another de-facto mandatory tax to bankroll government programs, rather than its real intended purpose to care for old people.
Also, social security should not be mandatory, but voluntary, since you SHOULD be paying yourself. (You should be allowed to elect to use any number of private retirement fund providers instead.)
It is not, and should not ever be the duty of government to provide comfort. Only necessities, such as laws to protect rights and property, and to provide basic security with a standing army. Its only other duties revolve around foreign trade and relations. Those are the only duties that government has any business involving itself in. It should not be called upon to ensure that Granny O'Malley can afford new teeth and a hip replacement. (Especially if such a service comes at everyone else's mandated expense.) That is the role of private retirement fund brokerages, which Granny should have had ample choice of.
Right now, our government has decided that "It is the big, top dog around here", and so it spends an inordinate amount of money to maintain that position. It does this, because it's foreign policies are very one-sided, and need to be extended with a healthy dose of "If you refuse, we will send nukes" to get other people to accept it. That is one of the big reasons why we have terrorists, and why most of the industrial world hates us with fiery passion. What the US really needs right now is to crumble, and restructure in a more humble form-- If it is burdened under all kinds of "Comfort" obligations, it will not succeed, and will die the way Rome did.
1) Dropping out will instantly make you unqualified for a high paying job- Not explicitly true. I am a highschool drop out, but am also a college grad. Guess which one my employer looked at?
2) Having kids is a choice: Not for everyone. Rape DOES happen. Believe it or not, some people are morally compelled to not consider abortion, and think it is reprehensible.
3) Rich writing paychecks: They also are the ones colluding in secret (LCD manufacturers, movie producers, recording industry executives, pharmaceutical managers, Telecom... etc....) to fix prices, refuse to offer services, petition government to prevent competition to their industries, and a whole host of BAD things that prevent "Worker drone" from becoming "Savvy Startup CEO". History would suggest that the only reason why the rich write paychecks at all, is because they are forced to, either out of fear of the pitchfork rabble, or because the government is fearful of same, and imposes laws with force through a police force and military power.
4) Unemployed without the rich? Don't make me laugh. Perhaps for people that cannot be bothered to develop a useful skill, but such truly "Unskilled" people are actually quite rare. Somebody that installs rivets right now, might actually be a really good artist, or singer, or be a gifted engineer who lacks time and training. Such people have historically employed themselves for centuries. We call them "Entrepreneurs".
5) No, i would be unemployed if the evil company that hired me had not 1) hired me, and 2) other rich bastards had not lobbied for laws preventing the upward movement of motivated entrepreneurs. Any law that says "You must be this high to play" is such a barrier.
6) Personally, I'd rather think about how much I would rather do what I love doing, any why I am not allowed to make my own paycheck for doing it.
I think he means that it feels warm, wet, and gets sticky as it dries. (Of course, many other things beside broth do this too, but we were discussing broth here.)
No, but depending on the characteristics of this new flavor (Aparently more unstable than the 3 known flavors, due to scacity in detecting them) they might decay into more mundane neutrinos while in transit.
Now, a worthwhile experiment would be to generate neutrinos at CERN, detect a sample in the CERN collector, then have that same stream collected at FermiLab, and compare sample populations as recorded by the two detectors. That would give you some more hard data concerning rates and specificities for neutrino decay, which would be academically useful.
The optimization might come up with a solution to this problem, through exploiting resource consumption rates and build times, so that even if you started building the counter units immediately, you would not be able to resource and construct them quickly enough to avoid being overwhelmed.
EG, it calculates how quickly (maxiumum) you can develop your harvesters, evaluates the maximum rate of resource accumulation, and determines the optimum attack strategy by choosing units that are quick to produce, cheap, and require expensive countermeasures that you could never possibly create enough of, fast enough to prevent your destruction.
Read the related studies linked to in the wikipedia article; This criticism was tested with a living clown next, and the scope of the experiment was extended in other variations to include people between the ages of 20 and 70, with similar results.
Be that as it may, it doesnt address the question I asked-- Is this REALLY about protecting children, or about adults feeling "safe"?
Or is it about a bunch of people that are basically terrified over pretty much anything that might be dangerous? I don't mean for this to be partisan or inflamitory, so please bear with me.
Look at say-- Gun control. Study after study has shown that gun control measures do not positively effect the rate of violent crimes involving guns. (in fact, several studies have contraindicated this assertion.) This is because gun control laws only impact law abiding citizens, who, being law abiding to begin with, do not engage in violent crime with their guns. Why is there such an impetus against people owning guns then? Could it be because at least some demographic in the population feels unreasonable fear, if not outright terror, over the idea that somebody else "MIGHT" be carrying a gun? If so, why does this fear exist, and is it really justified to indulge it?
You can find this same apparent pattern at work in the public school system as well, as the institution more and more resembles a cross between a concentration camp goulag, and a prison complex for children- complete with guard dogs, random searches, and systemic abuses of basic rights. Have these measures actually made schools "safer" for children, or do they instead make school administrators feel more secure themselves? (From the students.) What is the REAL motivation for such a trend?
As for the primary topic of violent video games, the only possible corroberating study I can think of that might indicated that exposure to violence can induce violence in young people is the infamous "Bobo doll" study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment which showed that there was a positive correlation, but the scope of the study was with the EXTREMELY young, and not with the typically implicated target audience of teenagers and young adults that this particular ban is intended for. As such, I would tend to think that it would be more apples and oranges. Sorry, don't have any studies off the top of my head that were performed on teens, so I can't really be certain.
Still, you cannot escape the question of weather or not this is really to benefit CHILDREN, so much as it is to benefit the current administrative officials (at all levels; Government, school, religious, etc-- that would stand to 'feel' more secure in their positions should such a motion pass.)
It has been my experience that the overly paranoid in power are more apt to impose draconian measures "For our own good", than are those that already feel secure in their positions, and that they are never truly satisfied, even when they have managed to wrangle society into the equivilent of a straight jacket and face mask, a-la hannibal lecter. --they continue to try to find ever more repressive ways to further satiate their unreasonable fear of the people they govern or administer over, and as their oppressions increase, it seems their fears of that population also increases; a viscious circle rapidly ensues.
It seems reasonable to me therefor to denounce such "Unreasonable, purely emotional, and fear inspired" policies, simply out of principle. I really cannot see any positive side to allowing them to be implemented, since they do not satisfy the 'need for safety' that such people harbor, but rather seem to only inflame them. (You can find this behavior trend repeated many times by despots and dictators throughout history.)
For this reason, I would assert that the government is under no obligation to may anyone "FEEL" safe, but only to ensure that people actually ARE safe-- which is a really big distinction. The first one puts society into a straight jacket-- the latter passes laws to protect rights and property, and ensures a police force. When the two are confused, the dreaded nanny state is soon to follow.
Ultra capacitors can charge and discharge in seconds with negligible heat production.
It's their claim to fame.
They can do this because they are essentially just very large "laden jars"; the surface area being the storage layer in this technology. (In ultracapacitors, the storage surface is radically increased by using nanoscale activated charcoal ribbons as the collector surface; radically increasing the surface area exposed by the electrolyte.) They essentially store static electricity, and can discharge just as quickly as you discharge it after rubbing your feet on shag carpeting.
Compared to the complex chemical reactions that occur inside battery cells, the reduction of heat production becomes quite apparent.
Capacitors fail at releasing energy at a "Set, consistent rate" (compared to batteries) however, which is why the charging station would need a high voltage regulator built into it.
1) Convenience. Let's assume that you are going to go on a day trip to visit a friend in another city/state. Let's also assume that electric cars are now the dominant vehicle. (big assumption, I know-- bear with me here.) We assume that you do not want to spend the night at your friend's house, but instead want to drive there, spend a few hours, then drive home. The problem is that the total drive-time exceeds your battery life, and the time you would spend yakking is too short to charge the battery from raw line voltage. By incorporating it into the home charger, you allow this situation to work, because your friend's charger is charging itself while you are driving there, as well as while you are yakking, and allows rapid recharge of your battery before you drive away for your trip home. (Be that as it may, your friend is still going to get billed for half a megawatt of utility use. He just wouldnt need as beefy a supply line, since the use is intermittent, and not constant.)
2) For public pumps, the charge array can be MANY MANY times larger, where it would replace the current underground gasoline storage tanks currently found there. Since it would be continually fed with line voltage from the local utility, this would work more like a rainwater cistern; The rate of inflow would need to equal the total rate of outflow over each service interval (Day)-- It could deferr most of it's charging to WAAAAY late at night, when the number of customers is far less.
Size, for one thing. Ultra capacitors tend to be large for their storage capacity. Their main claim to fame is the "Ridiculously fast" charge/discharge rate, and long service lives. An ultra capacitor with the storage capabilities of your thin cellphone battery would likely be about the size of your fist. That's why it needs to be built into the charger, and not the vehicle. (You dont suffer drag and weight problems with big bulky hardware, when you don't drag it around with you.)
A gas station has a HUGE tank underground to service the pumps, and when it is empty, the station puts those little yellow baggies over the nozzles to let you know.
Same kind of thing could happen here, but would require some research:
What is the peak use of the "pumping" station? What is the average charge load per battery pack? (We will assume a heterogeneous battery population, as will surely exist in the future.) What are the statistical peak use times for the station? What are the statistical low times for the station?
Armed with that information, you can design the pumping station's capacitor array, and specify what the most optimal baseline power load (from the utility) should be. (Hint, it is less than direct charging from utility power, because it takes into account the interval time between users at the "pump", and the rate of recovery of the capacitor bank; deferring the rate difference over time, and avoiding wasted supply.)
Gas stations get VERY few customers after the sun goes down for some strange reason-- (Could it be that most people work day jobs maybe?) As such, being able to defer the charging station's daily load cycle to late in the evening would increase the workability of the solution. Additionally, the charger array would not be disconnected from the mainline power network while charging batteries, so it would be getting a trickle charge continually, even during peak use. (this makes the capacity of the array a more complicated figure than what you posted.)
This is mostly the result of engineering departments living in a vacuum, or at the very least, not designing things for such utility from the start.
"Innovative" designs that are game changers CAN be designed to make use of existing manufacturing processes, and such designs are often considered preferable to those that do not, and require massive investment in retooling, both by primary contract manufacturers, and any of their downstream partners.
In this case, I would say the battery is the most innovative design component (short charge time, insane energy density) which this company did not design, but instead incorporated. The rest of the vehicle has no reason not to be mass manufacturable at the prototype stage, being just a new spin on the same old technologies used in cars to date. (Gonna use the same welding equipment, the same kinds of milling machines, etc. This would be untrue if they used some exotic material instead of structural steel, but I did not see anything of that nature in the article.)
Most of the time, the need to create some new-fangled fabrication process for a new product stems from the engineer not having a very firm grasp on the requirements for manufacturability, and working within those constraints from the start. It is very much a case of "A stitch in time saves nine"
As an aerospace quality engineer, I can often just look at a part, and tell you how it will have to be manufactured, now that I have been doing it for 4+ years. Is it sheet metal? Will it require a hydropress die, or can it be formed on a simple breakpress? Etc. Can it be mechanically milled, or does it require chemical etch milling? Etc.
Many designers will create a design that is not easily manufactured, shooting purely for asthetics, and try to iron out the engineering details later, which is the source of this problem with moving from prototype to production; The sad reality is that many of these "Beautiful designs" end up getting altered radically for manufacturing reasons. Things move much more quickly, much more smoothly when the design takes into account the nitty gritty of actually making it from the start.
For that reason, I am a firm believer in engineers learning to be machine operators before they get behind the CAD workstation. It seriously cuts down on that kind of crap happening.
It might contain a very large capacitor array that allows for the boost charging speed, at the expense of the recharger itself requireing several more minutes, to even several hours to "recover" afterward. (That is to say, the charger itself is a glorified high-voltage regulator attached to a very large ultracapacitor bank. The rapid discharge rate required by the battery's charging station would neccessitate such a solution if 150kw service was unavailable/inpractical. When the battery pack is attached, the capcacitor bank discharges to fill the battery, but then the capacitor array has a required recharging period before it can be used again; a process which could occur while the driver is on the road.)
Such a "cheating" solution would pose a significant risk should a short occur inside the charger though.
No, the engineering is what they are doing now with their prototype. The fact that a tangible prototype exists suggests that the brunt of the core engineering has already been completed, barring any rework on the design that might be required for mass-manufacture.
What is required now, is getting a greenlight from investors, regulators, and safety orgs.
Like most things, the actual design and core science happens much faster than the beaurocracy can actually handle. That is where most projects end up dieing on the vine-- the beaurocratic side, not the engineering side.
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You guys are discounting "Suicide war heros."
EG, the guy who "Gives his all"-- the much celebrated epitome of wartime valor. (You know, the guy who walks up to the bomb he placed under the enemy bridge, and manually detonates it to halt enemy advance, after the remote detonator fails.)
"belief in an afterlife" is simply a subset of the actual requirement-- Belief that the sacrifice will result in a better tomorrow. The war hero blowing up the bridge might feel that his life is inconsequential compared to the ones he will save through halting enemy advance, etc.
It is quite possible that many of the "Islamic terrorists" are in no way "religiously" motivated; Many might honestly believe that the US's continued activities on the world stage threatens lives, and will lead to a darker future; as such, they kill themselves to buy a better tomorrow, for purely secular reasons, even if they themselves will not profit from the exchange.
"religious faith in an afterlife" is simply a cheap, and effective means of evoking this "quality" in a fighting force. That quality can be instilled any number of other ways.
Hardly-- Did you pay attention to the discovery of the so called "Liberal gene"?
What would you say are the chances that the "Lack" of this gene stems from "Religious practices" in the human genome in the past? (Things like say-- Excommunication, and The inquisition?)
Just a random thought.
Considering that the XBOX proudly proclaims "offline updates and downloads", which occur when the power is "Off", that latter statement is not unfounded.
As for the former-- why do you think there are CCTV cameras installed in school buses, and in the hallways and cafeterias of public schools? "Somebody" thought they might be able to make things "More safe" if they can constantly monitor. ;) Also, Lower Marion school district, and the webcam BS ring any bells? Same mindset, more or less- That surveylance is A-OK, as long as it is to protect children and prevent theft.
1) My cellphone is running a custom bios image that I cooked myself. It was required, since it was originally a japanese cellphone, now serving happily in the US. Since it is an older (pre-android era) smartphone, it is running windows mobile 6.5, with HTC's TouchFlo. I can (and have) looked at the rom under a microscope (figuratively speaking, of course.)
2) I am fairly confident my linux systems are not rooted; When not accessing data, there is no activity going through my router. If there WAS anomalous activity going on, I would whip out wireshark and peek.
3) I am forbidden via the XBOX Live! EULA and the DMCA from doing this when my XBOX360 is connected to my network, because snooping the protocol is forbidden. (Seriously, look it up.) Due to this, my 360 remains disconnected from the internet except when I feel the need to shop, or pull a console update. Since this latter activity only happens perhaps 4 times a year, any data microsoft gets in exchange is pretty damn stale.
Judging from activity lights though, it would appear that the 360 does indeed engage the internet in quite a verbose manner, even when sitting idle. Most likely it is dutifully checking all the digital signatures of all the casual games sitting on the console's hard drive, and making sure my live! profile matches what is on the microsoft server farm. However, there is no way for me to determine if microsoft is interested in the contents of my external USB media drive, which has lots of canned TV (which I recorded off-air), and format shifted movies. (more convenient to play from the console than to rummage for discs.) The light on the USB drive is not a good indicator, since it could simply be checking for the dummy container file used to house the FATX partitions used by the new "removable media" console update, in it's relentless quest to ensure my compliance with the EULA concerning downloaded content. (not that I have any of said content on the external volume, since it is formatted with a Mac HFV+ filesystem so I can have files larger than 2gb on it, which is incompatible with the new Live! storage update, but not for use as it is currently is deployed. I use my linux box to transfer data to and from the drive.)
But, Thank you for asking. :D
I think that was the gist of my statement-- that I wont buy one until I know for sure--
The issue I have here, is that many people will buy one without that consideration, and that in so doing, the expectation of privacy in the home will be greatly eroded.
(sorry to reply to my own post, but I have to add--)
The REALLY sad part about the potential for use by law enforcement, is that it is practically an eventuality before some "PROTECT THE CHILDREN!" types latch on to a case of domestic child abuse (Most definitely some really raunchy one) in which a Kinect motion controller was scanning the room, but DIDNT record what was going on-- and lobbying/sueing to have that functionality incorporated/activated, so that law enforcement CAN (and will) use it.
For the children.
If not child abuse, some case of domestic violence-- Protecting women is almost as good as protecting children, you see.
Trailing in at scenario #3, we have the run of the mill home-invasion-- where the 360 "sees" everything. See how much big brother loves you?
Seriously-- tear this thing apart, and tear apart Microsoft's Live data protocols too. I don't care about implementing competing products, I want transparency on how THIS product operates, to protect my already small sliver of expected privacy.
While it might smack of 1984 paranoia, we ARE talking about a motion tracking camera, attached to a closed architecture and DMCA protected computing platform, equipped with broadband internet capabilities, communicating in a DMCA protected communication protocol.
No matter how "OMFG! AWESOME!" this thing is, unless I know for sure what software is being run, I consider it an unsafe product for my privacy.
Just imagine the "Fun", should Microsoft decide to roll out an update that causes the camera to 'passively' track and analyze images of logos it sees, so they can datamine their gaming public for "enhanced products and services", such as "Value added partnerships with partner companies" to offer "Special product offers" to said people? Suddenly, your XBOX becomes the equivilent of a secret shopper in your home, suggesting more Hostess, Dolly Madison, and Pepsi products.
Doesnt matter if the resolution is really crappy, grainy, and the framerate is slow-- it only needs to focus on what the person is wearing/doing in front of the TV. Even surreptitiously snapping and sending jpegs of "logo candidates" to microsoft for bulk processing once a week would be of IMMENSE value to advertising fuckwads. (of course, microsoft would make 'every effort' to prevent personally identifiable information, like your face, and to avoid capturing images of naked users of the Kinect motion controller for privacy reasons, and then trumpet these as being 'good faith'-- but they would still happily capture the logos on your shirt and pants, on the can of pop/beer you are sipping, and what bag of deep fried somethings you are snacking on for their "advertising partners")
But why stop there? This thing has several acoustic microphones too! Just IMAGINE the fun, should this device get co-opted by law enforcement! Why, they wouldnt NEED to "Mandate" cameras be installed in your house-- Why, they stupid sheeple would BUY IT, and INSTALL IT themselves! Just imagine the fun that the security theater types in Great Britain would have with this! The "Full monitor" mode could be activated based on "excessive motion", and or "Highly variable sound input matching XX baseline", and suddenly you are on candid camera while you spank your naughty child's butt. Better have a good explanation when child protective services shows up. (etc.)
So, simply because I have had my "healthy" distrust of corporations and their use of technology turn into a pathological paranoia, I GREATLY desire to see the ENTIRE kinect data stack and software algorithm tree reverse engineered like a Diebold voting machine. The problem is that I have a hard time convincing myself that this one is paranoia.
I want to know EVERYTHING this device does, how it does it, when, and why-- before I would even consider buying one.
he could try something like an Emotiv headset.
http://www.emotiv.com/
It would replace keyboard and mouse. I presume it offers HID class interface, so that it works with most applications? (would be pretty useless as an interface device if it didnt.)
Might have a steep learning curve though.
Many people would love to offer WISP type services to compete with landlines, or even to purchase land to construct new landlines to compete with the local telecom infrastructure.
Sadly, this often results in being sued for violation of artificial monopolies granted through franchise agreements. Additionally, there is natural scarity in the EM spectrum which limits the former option in regard to the FCC, and already existant providers who purchase spectrum even if they dont intend to use it, since it prevents others from using it.
Due to these two mitigating factors, some form of artificial control must be exerted over these industries to prevent them from absuing their natural monopolistic positions, (Such as Verizon charging "mystery data fees", like it recently got wrist-slapped for.)
"Imminent Domain" is a very bittersweet pill, (though arguably less bitter for government.) indeed.
Without it, there is nothing to stop $Super_rich_Fatcat from buying up huge tracts of property, then waiting for prices to go up from scarcity, then selling dinky over-priced lots at the maximum value the market can bear, if not outright refusing to sell at all, but instead charging rent, A-La the original monopoly game.
With it, (and it being abused like is usually the case) there is nothing to prevent local corrupt government officials from confiscating your property to build their new memorial park^V^V Highway (named after themselves for their generous "donation" of the land.) so they can get more facetime in the media, and get re-elected.
It is one of the consequences of people wanting the benefits of an urban life. Sadly, these people often get carried away with what they consider necessary. That's another sad consequence of that particular situation. It starts to boil down to a situation where those rich enough to divert the imminent domain abusers with protection money get to keep their property, while everyone else gets screwed, and voila-- here we are.
The only way to make this problem go away is to either 1) stop living in cities (Good luck with that one.), or 2) Live in magical fairy land where new property can be conjured into existence to suit every need, negating the requirement for imminent domain. (HAH!)
Since neither of those "solutions" is realistic, the best one can hope for is a compromise; have imminent domain, but have it be such a hassle to go through, and have so many protections against misuse that it becomes more costly to persue than to just offer money to buy the property from private citizens. However, that too is an uphill battle, since no self-respecting politician with any ounce of self-preservation would get behind it willingly.
Legislation that regulates private enterprise (as an extention of preserving people's rights and property; Destroying the environment destroys the value of people's real estate, etc--), and which sets "requirements" in education, et al are perfectly OK in my book. Just as long as the government doesnt step in and try to take up such causes and mantles itself. EG-- "Public education" shouldnt exist, it should only be private education, where parents have intrinsic choice of which school their child will attend regardless of "district", but such private educational systems would be beholden to government regulations on quality and nature of education. (EG, no "Floating man in the sky said evolution is BAAAD" getting equal treatment to proven science, due to government regulation.)
In short, regulation is not the same thing as direct providence. The government can engage in the former as long as it isnt draconian, and follows the constitution, but must NEVER engage in the latter, like Obamacare and pals.
The problem with social security is that it has become an IOU; It was originally a trust fund that you paid in yourself over your working careers.
At a point in US history, US administrators looked and saw that the social security trust fund was overflowing with money that they couldnt touch, so they voted to change the social security structure so that they could "Borrow" money from it.
The result was that there is now almost 0 dollars stored in social security, and it must bankroll it's existing trustees by stealing the input money of it's current working generation. This is failing miserably as the boomer generation ages, and enters retirement; Too many retired people, not enough working; result: Reduction of social security benefits.
Why?
Government was greedy.
Solution: Dissolve existing social security structure, re-create it as it originally was, enact laws to prevent borrowing against it by the government (for any reason, even national emergencies), and start over with a clean slate.
Existing pensioners should continue to receive benefits that they paid for over their lifetimes, at government expense (government officials should remain culpable for their debts). As is, social security has become yet another de-facto mandatory tax to bankroll government programs, rather than its real intended purpose to care for old people.
Also, social security should not be mandatory, but voluntary, since you SHOULD be paying yourself. (You should be allowed to elect to use any number of private retirement fund providers instead.)
It is not, and should not ever be the duty of government to provide comfort. Only necessities, such as laws to protect rights and property, and to provide basic security with a standing army. Its only other duties revolve around foreign trade and relations. Those are the only duties that government has any business involving itself in. It should not be called upon to ensure that Granny O'Malley can afford new teeth and a hip replacement. (Especially if such a service comes at everyone else's mandated expense.) That is the role of private retirement fund brokerages, which Granny should have had ample choice of.
Right now, our government has decided that "It is the big, top dog around here", and so it spends an inordinate amount of money to maintain that position. It does this, because it's foreign policies are very one-sided, and need to be extended with a healthy dose of "If you refuse, we will send nukes" to get other people to accept it. That is one of the big reasons why we have terrorists, and why most of the industrial world hates us with fiery passion. What the US really needs right now is to crumble, and restructure in a more humble form-- If it is burdened under all kinds of "Comfort" obligations, it will not succeed, and will die the way Rome did.
Oh, the things wrong with your statement:
1) Dropping out will instantly make you unqualified for a high paying job- Not explicitly true. I am a highschool drop out, but am also a college grad. Guess which one my employer looked at?
2) Having kids is a choice: Not for everyone. Rape DOES happen. Believe it or not, some people are morally compelled to not consider abortion, and think it is reprehensible.
3) Rich writing paychecks: They also are the ones colluding in secret (LCD manufacturers, movie producers, recording industry executives, pharmaceutical managers, Telecom... etc....) to fix prices, refuse to offer services, petition government to prevent competition to their industries, and a whole host of BAD things that prevent "Worker drone" from becoming "Savvy Startup CEO". History would suggest that the only reason why the rich write paychecks at all, is because they are forced to, either out of fear of the pitchfork rabble, or because the government is fearful of same, and imposes laws with force through a police force and military power.
4) Unemployed without the rich? Don't make me laugh. Perhaps for people that cannot be bothered to develop a useful skill, but such truly "Unskilled" people are actually quite rare. Somebody that installs rivets right now, might actually be a really good artist, or singer, or be a gifted engineer who lacks time and training. Such people have historically employed themselves for centuries. We call them "Entrepreneurs".
5) No, i would be unemployed if the evil company that hired me had not 1) hired me, and 2) other rich bastards had not lobbied for laws preventing the upward movement of motivated entrepreneurs. Any law that says "You must be this high to play" is such a barrier.
6) Personally, I'd rather think about how much I would rather do what I love doing, any why I am not allowed to make my own paycheck for doing it.
I think he means that it feels warm, wet, and gets sticky as it dries. (Of course, many other things beside broth do this too, but we were discussing broth here.)
No, but depending on the characteristics of this new flavor (Aparently more unstable than the 3 known flavors, due to scacity in detecting them) they might decay into more mundane neutrinos while in transit.
Now, a worthwhile experiment would be to generate neutrinos at CERN, detect a sample in the CERN collector, then have that same stream collected at FermiLab, and compare sample populations as recorded by the two detectors. That would give you some more hard data concerning rates and specificities for neutrino decay, which would be academically useful.
The optimization might come up with a solution to this problem, through exploiting resource consumption rates and build times, so that even if you started building the counter units immediately, you would not be able to resource and construct them quickly enough to avoid being overwhelmed.
EG, it calculates how quickly (maxiumum) you can develop your harvesters, evaluates the maximum rate of resource accumulation, and determines the optimum attack strategy by choosing units that are quick to produce, cheap, and require expensive countermeasures that you could never possibly create enough of, fast enough to prevent your destruction.
Read the related studies linked to in the wikipedia article; This criticism was tested with a living clown next, and the scope of the experiment was extended in other variations to include people between the ages of 20 and 70, with similar results.
Be that as it may, it doesnt address the question I asked-- Is this REALLY about protecting children, or about adults feeling "safe"?
Or is it about a bunch of people that are basically terrified over pretty much anything that might be dangerous?
I don't mean for this to be partisan or inflamitory, so please bear with me.
Look at say-- Gun control. Study after study has shown that gun control measures do not positively effect the rate of violent crimes involving guns. (in fact, several studies have contraindicated this assertion.) This is because gun control laws only impact law abiding citizens, who, being law abiding to begin with, do not engage in violent crime with their guns. Why is there such an impetus against people owning guns then? Could it be because at least some demographic in the population feels unreasonable fear, if not outright terror, over the idea that somebody else "MIGHT" be carrying a gun? If so, why does this fear exist, and is it really justified to indulge it?
You can find this same apparent pattern at work in the public school system as well, as the institution more and more resembles a cross between a concentration camp goulag, and a prison complex for children- complete with guard dogs, random searches, and systemic abuses of basic rights. Have these measures actually made schools "safer" for children, or do they instead make school administrators feel more secure themselves? (From the students.) What is the REAL motivation for such a trend?
As for the primary topic of violent video games, the only possible corroberating study I can think of that might indicated that exposure to violence can induce violence in young people is the infamous "Bobo doll" study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobo_doll_experiment which showed that there was a positive correlation, but the scope of the study was with the EXTREMELY young, and not with the typically implicated target audience of teenagers and young adults that this particular ban is intended for. As such, I would tend to think that it would be more apples and oranges. Sorry, don't have any studies off the top of my head that were performed on teens, so I can't really be certain.
Still, you cannot escape the question of weather or not this is really to benefit CHILDREN, so much as it is to benefit the current administrative officials (at all levels; Government, school, religious, etc-- that would stand to 'feel' more secure in their positions should such a motion pass.)
It has been my experience that the overly paranoid in power are more apt to impose draconian measures "For our own good", than are those that already feel secure in their positions, and that they are never truly satisfied, even when they have managed to wrangle society into the equivilent of a straight jacket and face mask, a-la hannibal lecter. --they continue to try to find ever more repressive ways to further satiate their unreasonable fear of the people they govern or administer over, and as their oppressions increase, it seems their fears of that population also increases; a viscious circle rapidly ensues.
It seems reasonable to me therefor to denounce such "Unreasonable, purely emotional, and fear inspired" policies, simply out of principle. I really cannot see any positive side to allowing them to be implemented, since they do not satisfy the 'need for safety' that such people harbor, but rather seem to only inflame them. (You can find this behavior trend repeated many times by despots and dictators throughout history.)
For this reason, I would assert that the government is under no obligation to may anyone "FEEL" safe, but only to ensure that people actually ARE safe-- which is a really big distinction. The first one puts society into a straight jacket-- the latter passes laws to protect rights and property, and ensures a police force. When the two are confused, the dreaded nanny state is soon to follow.
No, thats a Satyr. Honest mistake, really. I can totally see how that might happen-- wait, not I cant. Nevermind.
Ultra capacitors can charge and discharge in seconds with negligible heat production.
It's their claim to fame.
They can do this because they are essentially just very large "laden jars"; the surface area being the storage layer in this technology. (In ultracapacitors, the storage surface is radically increased by using nanoscale activated charcoal ribbons as the collector surface; radically increasing the surface area exposed by the electrolyte.) They essentially store static electricity, and can discharge just as quickly as you discharge it after rubbing your feet on shag carpeting.
Compared to the complex chemical reactions that occur inside battery cells, the reduction of heat production becomes quite apparent.
Capacitors fail at releasing energy at a "Set, consistent rate" (compared to batteries) however, which is why the charging station would need a high voltage regulator built into it.
1) Convenience. Let's assume that you are going to go on a day trip to visit a friend in another city/state. Let's also assume that electric cars are now the dominant vehicle. (big assumption, I know-- bear with me here.) We assume that you do not want to spend the night at your friend's house, but instead want to drive there, spend a few hours, then drive home. The problem is that the total drive-time exceeds your battery life, and the time you would spend yakking is too short to charge the battery from raw line voltage. By incorporating it into the home charger, you allow this situation to work, because your friend's charger is charging itself while you are driving there, as well as while you are yakking, and allows rapid recharge of your battery before you drive away for your trip home. (Be that as it may, your friend is still going to get billed for half a megawatt of utility use. He just wouldnt need as beefy a supply line, since the use is intermittent, and not constant.)
2) For public pumps, the charge array can be MANY MANY times larger, where it would replace the current underground gasoline storage tanks currently found there. Since it would be continually fed with line voltage from the local utility, this would work more like a rainwater cistern; The rate of inflow would need to equal the total rate of outflow over each service interval (Day)-- It could deferr most of it's charging to WAAAAY late at night, when the number of customers is far less.
Size, for one thing. Ultra capacitors tend to be large for their storage capacity. Their main claim to fame is the "Ridiculously fast" charge/discharge rate, and long service lives. An ultra capacitor with the storage capabilities of your thin cellphone battery would likely be about the size of your fist. That's why it needs to be built into the charger, and not the vehicle. (You dont suffer drag and weight problems with big bulky hardware, when you don't drag it around with you.)
A gas station has a HUGE tank underground to service the pumps, and when it is empty, the station puts those little yellow baggies over the nozzles to let you know.
Same kind of thing could happen here, but would require some research:
What is the peak use of the "pumping" station?
What is the average charge load per battery pack? (We will assume a heterogeneous battery population, as will surely exist in the future.)
What are the statistical peak use times for the station?
What are the statistical low times for the station?
Armed with that information, you can design the pumping station's capacitor array, and specify what the most optimal baseline power load (from the utility) should be. (Hint, it is less than direct charging from utility power, because it takes into account the interval time between users at the "pump", and the rate of recovery of the capacitor bank; deferring the rate difference over time, and avoiding wasted supply.)
Gas stations get VERY few customers after the sun goes down for some strange reason-- (Could it be that most people work day jobs maybe?) As such, being able to defer the charging station's daily load cycle to late in the evening would increase the workability of the solution. Additionally, the charger array would not be disconnected from the mainline power network while charging batteries, so it would be getting a trickle charge continually, even during peak use. (this makes the capacity of the array a more complicated figure than what you posted.)
This is mostly the result of engineering departments living in a vacuum, or at the very least, not designing things for such utility from the start.
"Innovative" designs that are game changers CAN be designed to make use of existing manufacturing processes, and such designs are often considered preferable to those that do not, and require massive investment in retooling, both by primary contract manufacturers, and any of their downstream partners.
In this case, I would say the battery is the most innovative design component (short charge time, insane energy density) which this company did not design, but instead incorporated. The rest of the vehicle has no reason not to be mass manufacturable at the prototype stage, being just a new spin on the same old technologies used in cars to date. (Gonna use the same welding equipment, the same kinds of milling machines, etc. This would be untrue if they used some exotic material instead of structural steel, but I did not see anything of that nature in the article.)
Most of the time, the need to create some new-fangled fabrication process for a new product stems from the engineer not having a very firm grasp on the requirements for manufacturability, and working within those constraints from the start. It is very much a case of "A stitch in time saves nine"
As an aerospace quality engineer, I can often just look at a part, and tell you how it will have to be manufactured, now that I have been doing it for 4+ years. Is it sheet metal? Will it require a hydropress die, or can it be formed on a simple breakpress? Etc. Can it be mechanically milled, or does it require chemical etch milling? Etc.
Many designers will create a design that is not easily manufactured, shooting purely for asthetics, and try to iron out the engineering details later, which is the source of this problem with moving from prototype to production; The sad reality is that many of these "Beautiful designs" end up getting altered radically for manufacturing reasons. Things move much more quickly, much more smoothly when the design takes into account the nitty gritty of actually making it from the start.
For that reason, I am a firm believer in engineers learning to be machine operators before they get behind the CAD workstation. It seriously cuts down on that kind of crap happening.
It is possible that the charger "Cheats" too--
It might contain a very large capacitor array that allows for the boost charging speed, at the expense of the recharger itself requireing several more minutes, to even several hours to "recover" afterward. (That is to say, the charger itself is a glorified high-voltage regulator attached to a very large ultracapacitor bank. The rapid discharge rate required by the battery's charging station would neccessitate such a solution if 150kw service was unavailable/inpractical. When the battery pack is attached, the capcacitor bank discharges to fill the battery, but then the capacitor array has a required recharging period before it can be used again; a process which could occur while the driver is on the road.)
Such a "cheating" solution would pose a significant risk should a short occur inside the charger though.
No, the engineering is what they are doing now with their prototype. The fact that a tangible prototype exists suggests that the brunt of the core engineering has already been completed, barring any rework on the design that might be required for mass-manufacture.
What is required now, is getting a greenlight from investors, regulators, and safety orgs.
Like most things, the actual design and core science happens much faster than the beaurocracy can actually handle. That is where most projects end up dieing on the vine-- the beaurocratic side, not the engineering side.