Slashdot does this every once in a while - announce some tremendous new solar energy technology. Folks, it's not easy to get 30%. And even if you do, you haven't won the war. The best, most expensive cells can make those ranges, but they are not something you can put on the assembly line.
I did some research into Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se) thin film solar cells, which have long been a promising material for this type of application. I don't claim to know all about the various options out there (there are a lot of them) but I feel I can safely say there just aren't any magic bullets to this problem. Let me give you some idea of what has to happen.
a) You need a cell with a high enough efficiency to make the power it can produce worth the hassle of installing it. This is hard and the focus of most solar cell research.
b) Even if you GET that cell, you have to be able to make a LOT of them. Cheaply. Very cheaplly if you want to compete with grid power.
c) These materials have to stand up to long term punishment, intense thermal cycling over the course of day and night temperature shifts for twenty years, etc.
d) You have to install the supporting systems - either connect it to grid, get a large energy storage array (i.e. batteries) or both. If you want a battery based local storage system that gets expensive, all by itself.
e) You need to build the industrial support required to make large scale deployment both possible and cost effective. Si, the current dominant material, has a lot going for it because a lot got learned over the course of decades of semiconductor technology. Those tools are somewhat applicable to Si. If you want to use something totally different (i.e. a thin film) you have to make all the gear more or less from the ground up. That's a big initial capital investment for a dubious return.
f) If you want flexible solar cells, you have a whole new set of problems to handle/test, like how the cell performs while being folded repeatedly in different temperature conditions, creased, beat up generally, etc. And flexible cells are a bit of a specialty market - the military likes the idea, sports folks like it, but for large scale fixed installation use (i.e. where bulk production would happen) flexible isn't all that critical. (Although it is nice when it comes to things like roofs withstanding hail storms, but apparently regular ones don't do so hot there anyway.)
g) THEN, after you solved the problems of cost effective production, storage, retrofitting of housing, etc. etc. etc. you have to convince people it's worth the trouble to install it. And I remind you this is the land of the SUV, so I wish you luck with any marketing effort that can't say "We're cheaper than grid power!". Grid power is CHEAP. VERY cheap. It's a really really hard target to hit, and the solar cell technology available today just isn't there yet. There are lots of "potential" 30% configurations - all you need to do, in theory, is have a multijunction device with the right bandgaps. But let me tell you, it ain't easy.
Now, somebody might make a sudden miracle discovery of a cheap 30% cell material. Such things do happen. But I'll want to see a lot of (reproducable) proof, and peer review, before I'll buy it. It's good advertising to claim high performance, but I'll be impressed when someone goes through the nitty gritty and comes out with a viable product.
One of the complaints I hear most often about open source is the lack of powerful, free CAD software, and it's one of the few where the complaint is completely justified.
BRL-CAD is not your typical college student weekend project - this thing is INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH and used in the REAL WORLD for years and years. This news just made my day, and I hope to put an ebuild up soon, given how clean the make process has been thus far:-).
This is a great way for open source to get high powered applications - older products that have the power but not necessarily the modern interfaces. Maxima and Axiom are two other examples of projects far beyond the scope of ordinary open source, that were originally developed in government/industry and then released to the world. Blender is still another.
So thanks to people giving some of the great but older applications new life again - it tremendously enriches the open source world and saves decades of coding by brilliant people!
That's going to sound really strange, but it's true. So far as I know, the universe doesn't distinguish between us and any other random bit of matter floating around. We're the only ones that make that distinction. WE believe we matter, but that is unsupported outside of our own conviction that we are somehow special in the universe. I guess I believe we are important simply because coming to the opposite conclusion is about the most non-functional state a human being can ever be in. If you believe the human race has no purpose and is thus ultimately a waste of time, you are likely to do little to further its cause. So I make the assumption that there is something going on here that is "worthwhile" and hope the ultimate purpose isn't something I get nominated to figure out;-).
Almost certainly reuse it, IMHO. Sending finished goods to Mars is EXPENSIVE, and I see no reason the people there wouldn't do their best to make use of available resources. A Mars colony would be remote and resource poor (at least in the beginning) like no colony in human history, and I suspect every gram of refined metal, and every tool that can be coaxed into working again, will be invaluable.
That makes it sound like people want computers to be able to mechanically fix themselves when they break.
Wouldn't a "self-healing" system just be good at a) reporting what hardware is actually broken on the machine b) automating well defined responses to well defined programs and c) building parallel, fault tolerant hardware at all levels of the system?
As far as I know, even the best AI research hasn't come up with software that can diagnose and fix unknown, first time, bizarre problems. Ultimately, it all seems to be about providing better error reporting and automation of traditional technology, not some magical PC that can fix itself and reprogram itself with no human intervention. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but why the term "self-healing?" Does someone know the rational for that?
Only a few parts would be changing, and I was thinking of just updating those elements of the svg, or even switching it to some kind of strictly "changes only" display. Most of the display graphics are static, after all.
Yes, rendering would be a trick, but it would be professional looking and possibly even useful. Maybe different kinds of things could be displayed, but the more I think about it the more I like it.
This might make a neat boot up screen - rather than by default flashing you with all the system messages, put up this sucker and update it dynamically. Dunno if that's technically possible in the framebuffer boot screen scene, but it would sure be awesome - and rather than just reading the init log to try and figure out why something wasn't working, you could pull up something like this to help too. Maybe you could also have the previous boot record in the background faintly, so you can compare your previous boot to the current one and SEE any differences.
Sigh. Something else to add to my "do when I become a genius with lots of time" list.:-/
1. The difference is, people who use Microsoft (or companies) were told - here, pay and use this product. If you use it and don't pay, look out. Firefox, in contrast, can say "look, we say use it and you don't have to pay, but despite that 10,000 people volunteered to pay use EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO." How many people would donate $$ to Internet Explorer when they didn't have to?
2. Fact of life on the internet: $0.00001 vs $0 - $0 wins by a landslide. Not to mention the assurance that Firefox can be developed so long as there is interest and will remain free. Isn't that a feature? To me at least it is a killer feature.
What I would like to see is a check on the correlation between students per classroom and math skills. Math is difficult, both as a subject and to teach it, and it does take a lot of effort all around. Also, in many cases kids won't know WHY they are learning it - many of them think (correctly) that doing an integral is something they will never need again. Learning for its own sake is not an attitude that you find much in the US - it should be no surprise that subjects without immediate practical appeal are not adsorbed.
This won't change (in the US at least) until it matters in some practical, impacts daily quality of life way. Given high standards of living, there is much less incentive to be explorative and imaginative. It is probably quite true, at least in the US, that a self-maintaining holodeck will be the last invention we ever create. Here, intelligence is only needed as a way to improve our state of luxury, or wealth, or otherwise get tangible gains. Intangibles are of no interest, and in such an environment guess how well math will do.
I saw a show on something similar where an MIT student was proposing the same thing - robots for elderly companionship. It's so insensitive it makes you wince.
People require interaction with other people. The elderly are in a difficult position because they are no longer part of the day to day hustle and bustle and the interaction that entails. They need to know they are cared about, and trying to substitute a robot in for human companionship will tell them exactly the opposite. Even most geeks don't live in an environment as isolated as that.
Robot companionship is basically something you might expect from the geek community - people are annoying and unreliable as a solution to isolation, so build your own solution. That just doesn't work. Geeks are an unusual subset of the total population in that they get by with much less human interaction than average (at least direct interaction). The current generation of elderly weren't geeks in the modern sense, for the most part, and have usually learned to value people over things in any case. Playing video games or working on a computer just isn't a viable solution to this problem.
Ironically, someday we might actually achieve a level of sophistication which allows us to build robots indistinguishable from humans. That's when things will get interesting. (Or maybe scary, depending on how you view such things.) But right now, the only solution to human companionship is human companionship, however little American society might like to concede that point. Most people aren't like geeks, remember - they view human socialization as worth the potential annoyance. Or maybe one if the reasons it's worthwhile IS the potential annoyance, I don't know. But we're stuck with the fact (from our perspective anyway) that the human animal is a social animal, and until we start really messing with genetics or building near-human robots that equation isn't going to change. So let's stop insulting the intelligence of the elderly with stuff like this - they've already got enough problems.
(Ironically, even in the MIT student's case it was clear the folks she was showing the robot to appreciated it more as an activity and interesting toy than as a potential companion. I suspect the MIT student was probably the only one not to see that.)
Most of the comments I've see so far are essentially "No." I disagree, but before I do so I'll make the following assumptions:
a) Sun uses a real open source license - meaning GPL compatible. This is unlikely, and if they don't Linux isn't going anywhere.
b) Sun doesn't reserve major high end components of the system. If they do, they are essentially another Linux with different and unfamiliar source code. Solaris can do some things well that Linux isn't good at, but if Sun cuts it down, game over. Open source Solaris is a non-starter.
NOW, let's assume they do it the Right Way. Several things immediately happen. Solaris has a good track record in high end servers that has been earned through experience. That gives it a lot of interest right there. Now, with real open source, drivers from Linux start arriving in droves. Intel performance is improved. GNU tools become standard parts of the system at almost all levels. Solaris becomes a more robust Linux, with a proven commercial track record.
Now, remember - to everyone above kernel level, KDE on Linux vs. KDE on Open Solaris is going to look VERY similar. Ditto for any other user (and even most developer) tools. Parts of Solaris that annoy users suddenly are fixable, and get fixed. Open Solaris can now go head to head with Linux, as a tier one platform for virtually all open source applications.
The parts of Linux that are not available in Solaris will be adsorbed in. Things like Dtrace are already available on Solaris, and not available on Linux. As people rapidly add in the goodies, Solaris adsorbs Linux's strengths (drivers, file systems, etc.) while leveraging Solaris's robust, tested, industry strength core. As far as I know, there is very little about Linux to fundamentally recommend it over Solaris, except for it's ability to function well on many platforms. If Solaris proves able to do this (impossible to say right now, but I'm assuming well done code will be able to do this, given enough eyes and hours) Linux will essentially dissolve into Solaris, and the end product will be Open Solaris with the best parts of Linux preserved. Does that constitute killing Linux? I wouldn't say so. If you mean will Linus stop being the prime mover, maybe, but the effort put into Linux will survive.
So I, for one, would welcome our GPL Solaris overlords, because the only thing that will happen is net gains all around, regardless of whether the end product is called Solaris or Linux.
Now, do I believe Sun will Do It Right? Nope. But I sure hope they do.
I'm a (minor) member of the Maxima team, and I can tell you a) we intend to do a much better GUI in the future and b) it's going to be a while. Our priority is to fix mathematical bugs in the core system, and modernize the system internally.
Which is not to say you need to wait for the "official" Maxima project to do a GUI. There are several third party programs which do a decent job of being a Maxima GUI. TeXmacs is probably the best place to start, and wxmaxima is coming along nicely.
You can output TeX from maxima, by the way, although if by "pretty-print" you mean line breaking that's a different (and very difficult) problem. The Maxima project will most likely eventually look into doing line breaking the "right way" but non-trivial is a mild description of the issues involved.
Mathematica/Maple compatibility is not really practical, unless you want to reimpliment their subsystems in Maxima. There are too many subtle notational and assumption issues to be worked out for this to be worthwhile, IMHO. Eventually, we might look at a partial "autotranslator" to assist in porting Mathematica/Maple code to Maxima, but it will never be as simple as loading a Mathematica notebook in Maxima. For all but trivial cases, this is too difficult a problem.
I think the #1 priority Adobe should have is to get together with all the other pdf viewer developers out there and create a free, open, kick butt pdf viewer that can run anywhere and read all pdf files well. (And fix the doggone 100% CPU bug with mozilla while they're at it.) Acroread is already free, and there are other free viewers available. I think it would make a LOT of sense for Adobe to create a free, open source high quality pdf viewer. It makes Acrobat itself more desirable (if that's possible) and cements the pdf standard even further into the public mind as THE document reader standard. I'm actually a little surprised they didn't do this earlier, but I guess they felt they didn't need to.
Warmer offices make people more productive? This is news?
I'll bet next week there is a counter study that offices that are too warm exhibit a decrease in productivity too. Sheesh
Anybody get the feeling that most research into working conditions is going to eventually rediscover common sense? Respect your employees, don't treat them like productivity units or morons, and don't subject them to unfavorable working conditions like poor equipment or temperature control. Guess what - they'll appreciate it and be more productive!
Of course, maybe this type of report is the only way to compel certain types of management to cough up the cash and up the thermostat to sane levels, but if you're working in a place like that I'll wager the management is more of a problem than the temperature.
That's why I wish iRate would take off - it IS legit, and the only really promising solution I have seen to this issue. Of course, that leaves all the commercial music producers out of the loop, but they shouldn't care since anyone going to iRate radio rather than their superior commercial products can be presumed to be no loss.
I say let's give the RIAA exactly what they want - no use of their music without paying. However, that means that if they are put of of business by iRate and friends, they have absolutely no right to complain. Frankly I think doing what the RIAA wants in a broad, effective way is the surest way to get rid of the RIAA, since a lot of music purchases come from a "group" mentality (e.g. "popular" music.) Pirated songs maintain the community, just as pirated Windows copies keep Asia hooked on Microsoft. I say stop all the piracy cold, and let people look around for stuff they don't need to pirate. Abandon the commercial stuff unless it really is worth the money. I'm guessing the ability to easily share music among one's social group will be more important than having the highest quality music, since for most people music is a social thing. I could be wrong though.
Some people like to make music and give it away free, just like some people like to make software and give it away free. Except for a few extreme people who say this should be illegal because it undermines the commercial sector, I think this is the ideal solution. Sure quality may suck to start, but over time that will sort itself out. People get what they want (free music) and artists get to get their names out. Presumably if they build fans up that way, they can rake in profits from non-free music themselves. If a band doesn't want to release free music, that's fine too. But they will probably find they will have a hard time grabbing people's ear time unless they are really extraordinary.
I don't find anything bad about this particular incident, but it cannot be considered in isolation.
Profit is NOT a dirty word. What I dislike (dunno about the rest of slashdot - we're hardly one voice) is when pursuit of those profits results in behavior which is detrimental to the community as a while. Big businesses seldom have any regard for things like a sense of community, and will cheerfully crush anything or anyone if it benefits their bottom line. I do NOT find this behavior either acceptable or commendable, and if others dismiss it by saying "that's the way it is, its how capitalism works" then I say capitalism has got some major problems and they should be fixed. I do not think that's how it should work. Things CAN change, you know. Just because that's the way things are now doesn't mean it's the right thing.
Making a profit, fine. No problem there. Making absurd profits via disregard for others, BIG problem. Greed in moderation is fine, but it MUST be countered by a regard for the larger community. Extremes are seldom healthy, and pursuit of profit is certainly no exception.
Nothing like having to take it as well as dish it out.
Ironically, if they give in and sell cheaper it will probably result in MORE money for all involved, since people will be able to buy more CDs without feeling quite so ill at the prices.
Can't say I'm real happy about Walmart having so much power though. Frankly I don't trust any business with so much power. But I will say I'm inclined to worry about Clear Channel more than Walmart, since for most of Walmart's products the barrior to entry in the market isn't unthinkably high.
Answering a question directly allows people to form an agree/disagree opinion, and that's how you lose voters. In the end, it's the candidate who pisses off the least percentage of voters who wins. Why do you think both major parties are so moderate? Their core support doesn't like it, but will vote for them none the less. They have to get as many voters as possible from the middle to dislike the other guy, and not be offended by them.
If I had to sum up our political situation in one word, it would be wishy-washy. And with good stastical reasons - it's quite deliberate.
Patents in the software world today are like nuclear weapons. You want a powerful arsenal in order to ensure that no one attacks you. By the same token, you are wary of attacking anyone else because neither of you will come out well.
So if Novell is positioning their patents to defend open source, it's morally the same as if open source just went nuclear. Or more accurately, made a defense pact with a nuclear power - open source can help Novell compete, and Novell can protect open source. Indeed, in IBM's countersuit to SCO they drew their patent sword, IIRC. Granted SCO attacked IBM specifically, but if IBM decides to say "be nice to the open source community or we might decide to check you out for patent violations" that would go a long way toward keeping things quite. Open source would be given, in effect, honary membership in the patent superpower standoff. People who might consider trying to use patents to crush open source *cough*Microsoft*cough* might be forced to think twice. Legal costs for any fight of this type are really quite scary, to say nothing of the time lost. Considering how fast the software business moves, it wouldn't be surprising to me if most lawsuits are technologically irrelevant by the time they get finished.
This is a solution I hadn't considered to the patent problem, and one I'm not wild about because a) the fundamental problem doesn't get fixed and b) it depends on the good will of companies. By the same token, however, of those companies ARE making $$ from open source it is most definitely in their self interest to keep the vultures off the open source community as a whole, and I suppose in today's society there really isn't much we can count on except self interest.
Oh, I know they aren't the same, but I thought the contrast was quite funny.
As to the net being a good sample of voters... I suppose not. Even so though, I was rather surprised to see such a heavy slant towards carry with so many people responding. That would indicate a VERY large bias on the internet, if the even up polls are right.
Clearly the goal for Badnarik and Cobb was to get headlines, but here's an interesting exercise.
Go to cnn.com, and look at the coverage of the presidental debates. See any mention of this incident? Thought not.
Now, try a "Search cnn.com" for Michael Badnarik. When I tried it I didn't get a SINGLE HIT for his name. Not one. Not even a "here's a full list of candidates including the minor ones" page. Can someone confirm this isn't just some local quirk on my browser?
(Side note - headline at cnn says debates were an even match. CNN's own poll gives it to Kerry by something like 75% to 25%. It was funny enough to warrant a screenshot of the poll results and the headline together. Apparantly CNN's viewers must be more Democratic than they would like:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot does this every once in a while - announce some tremendous new solar energy technology. Folks, it's not easy to get 30%. And even if you do, you haven't won the war. The best, most expensive cells can make those ranges, but they are not something you can put on the assembly line.
I did some research into Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se) thin film solar cells, which have long been a promising material for this type of application. I don't claim to know all about the various options out there (there are a lot of them) but I feel I can safely say there just aren't any magic bullets to this problem. Let me give you some idea of what has to happen.
a) You need a cell with a high enough efficiency to make the power it can produce worth the hassle of installing it. This is hard and the focus of most solar cell research.
b) Even if you GET that cell, you have to be able to make a LOT of them. Cheaply. Very cheaplly if you want to compete with grid power.
c) These materials have to stand up to long term punishment, intense thermal cycling over the course of day and night temperature shifts for twenty years, etc.
d) You have to install the supporting systems - either connect it to grid, get a large energy storage array (i.e. batteries) or both. If you want a battery based local storage system that gets expensive, all by itself.
e) You need to build the industrial support required to make large scale deployment both possible and cost effective. Si, the current dominant material, has a lot going for it because a lot got learned over the course of decades of semiconductor technology. Those tools are somewhat applicable to Si. If you want to use something totally different (i.e. a thin film) you have to make all the gear more or less from the ground up. That's a big initial capital investment for a dubious return.
f) If you want flexible solar cells, you have a whole new set of problems to handle/test, like how the cell performs while being folded repeatedly in different temperature conditions, creased, beat up generally, etc. And flexible cells are a bit of a specialty market - the military likes the idea, sports folks like it, but for large scale fixed installation use (i.e. where bulk production would happen) flexible isn't all that critical. (Although it is nice when it comes to things like roofs withstanding hail storms, but apparently regular ones don't do so hot there anyway.)
g) THEN, after you solved the problems of cost effective production, storage, retrofitting of housing, etc. etc. etc. you have to convince people it's worth the trouble to install it. And I remind you this is the land of the SUV, so I wish you luck with any marketing effort that can't say "We're cheaper than grid power!". Grid power is CHEAP. VERY cheap. It's a really really hard target to hit, and the solar cell technology available today just isn't there yet. There are lots of "potential" 30% configurations - all you need to do, in theory, is have a multijunction device with the right bandgaps. But let me tell you, it ain't easy.
Now, somebody might make a sudden miracle discovery of a cheap 30% cell material. Such things do happen. But I'll want to see a lot of (reproducable) proof, and peer review, before I'll buy it. It's good advertising to claim high performance, but I'll be impressed when someone goes through the nitty gritty and comes out with a viable product.
One of the complaints I hear most often about open source is the lack of powerful, free CAD software, and it's one of the few where the complaint is completely justified.
:-).
BRL-CAD is not your typical college student weekend project - this thing is INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH and used in the REAL WORLD for years and years. This news just made my day, and I hope to put an ebuild up soon, given how clean the make process has been thus far
This is a great way for open source to get high powered applications - older products that have the power but not necessarily the modern interfaces. Maxima and Axiom are two other examples of projects far beyond the scope of ordinary open source, that were originally developed in government/industry and then released to the world. Blender is still another.
So thanks to people giving some of the great but older applications new life again - it tremendously enriches the open source world and saves decades of coding by brilliant people!
That's going to sound really strange, but it's true. So far as I know, the universe doesn't distinguish between us and any other random bit of matter floating around. We're the only ones that make that distinction. WE believe we matter, but that is unsupported outside of our own conviction that we are somehow special in the universe. I guess I believe we are important simply because coming to the opposite conclusion is about the most non-functional state a human being can ever be in. If you believe the human race has no purpose and is thus ultimately a waste of time, you are likely to do little to further its cause. So I make the assumption that there is something going on here that is "worthwhile" and hope the ultimate purpose isn't something I get nominated to figure out ;-).
Three to one we could get Bush to use it in a speech before noticing the problem with it.
Almost certainly reuse it, IMHO. Sending finished goods to Mars is EXPENSIVE, and I see no reason the people there wouldn't do their best to make use of available resources. A Mars colony would be remote and resource poor (at least in the beginning) like no colony in human history, and I suspect every gram of refined metal, and every tool that can be coaxed into working again, will be invaluable.
That makes it sound like people want computers to be able to mechanically fix themselves when they break.
Wouldn't a "self-healing" system just be good at a) reporting what hardware is actually broken on the machine b) automating well defined responses to well defined programs and c) building parallel, fault tolerant hardware at all levels of the system?
As far as I know, even the best AI research hasn't come up with software that can diagnose and fix unknown, first time, bizarre problems. Ultimately, it all seems to be about providing better error reporting and automation of traditional technology, not some magical PC that can fix itself and reprogram itself with no human intervention. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but why the term "self-healing?" Does someone know the rational for that?
Only a few parts would be changing, and I was thinking of just updating those elements of the svg, or even switching it to some kind of strictly "changes only" display. Most of the display graphics are static, after all.
Yes, rendering would be a trick, but it would be professional looking and possibly even useful. Maybe different kinds of things could be displayed, but the more I think about it the more I like it.
This might make a neat boot up screen - rather than by default flashing you with all the system messages, put up this sucker and update it dynamically. Dunno if that's technically possible in the framebuffer boot screen scene, but it would sure be awesome - and rather than just reading the init log to try and figure out why something wasn't working, you could pull up something like this to help too. Maybe you could also have the previous boot record in the background faintly, so you can compare your previous boot to the current one and SEE any differences.
:-/
Sigh. Something else to add to my "do when I become a genius with lots of time" list.
1. The difference is, people who use Microsoft (or companies) were told - here, pay and use this product. If you use it and don't pay, look out. Firefox, in contrast, can say "look, we say use it and you don't have to pay, but despite that 10,000 people volunteered to pay use EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T HAVE TO." How many people would donate $$ to Internet Explorer when they didn't have to?
2. Fact of life on the internet: $0.00001 vs $0 - $0 wins by a landslide. Not to mention the assurance that Firefox can be developed so long as there is interest and will remain free. Isn't that a feature? To me at least it is a killer feature.
What I would like to see is a check on the correlation between students per classroom and math skills. Math is difficult, both as a subject and to teach it, and it does take a lot of effort all around. Also, in many cases kids won't know WHY they are learning it - many of them think (correctly) that doing an integral is something they will never need again. Learning for its own sake is not an attitude that you find much in the US - it should be no surprise that subjects without immediate practical appeal are not adsorbed.
This won't change (in the US at least) until it matters in some practical, impacts daily quality of life way. Given high standards of living, there is much less incentive to be explorative and imaginative. It is probably quite true, at least in the US, that a self-maintaining holodeck will be the last invention we ever create. Here, intelligence is only needed as a way to improve our state of luxury, or wealth, or otherwise get tangible gains. Intangibles are of no interest, and in such an environment guess how well math will do.
I saw a show on something similar where an MIT student was proposing the same thing - robots for elderly companionship. It's so insensitive it makes you wince.
People require interaction with other people. The elderly are in a difficult position because they are no longer part of the day to day hustle and bustle and the interaction that entails. They need to know they are cared about, and trying to substitute a robot in for human companionship will tell them exactly the opposite. Even most geeks don't live in an environment as isolated as that.
Robot companionship is basically something you might expect from the geek community - people are annoying and unreliable as a solution to isolation, so build your own solution. That just doesn't work. Geeks are an unusual subset of the total population in that they get by with much less human interaction than average (at least direct interaction). The current generation of elderly weren't geeks in the modern sense, for the most part, and have usually learned to value people over things in any case. Playing video games or working on a computer just isn't a viable solution to this problem.
Ironically, someday we might actually achieve a level of sophistication which allows us to build robots indistinguishable from humans. That's when things will get interesting. (Or maybe scary, depending on how you view such things.) But right now, the only solution to human companionship is human companionship, however little American society might like to concede that point. Most people aren't like geeks, remember - they view human socialization as worth the potential annoyance. Or maybe one if the reasons it's worthwhile IS the potential annoyance, I don't know. But we're stuck with the fact (from our perspective anyway) that the human animal is a social animal, and until we start really messing with genetics or building near-human robots that equation isn't going to change. So let's stop insulting the intelligence of the elderly with stuff like this - they've already got enough problems.
(Ironically, even in the MIT student's case it was clear the folks she was showing the robot to appreciated it more as an activity and interesting toy than as a potential companion. I suspect the MIT student was probably the only one not to see that.)
What's your longest run of posts that all got modded +5, and has anyone ever beaten it? ;-)
Most of the comments I've see so far are essentially "No." I disagree, but before I do so I'll make the following assumptions:
a) Sun uses a real open source license - meaning GPL compatible. This is unlikely, and if they don't Linux isn't going anywhere.
b) Sun doesn't reserve major high end components of the system. If they do, they are essentially another Linux with different and unfamiliar source code. Solaris can do some things well that Linux isn't good at, but if Sun cuts it down, game over. Open source Solaris is a non-starter.
NOW, let's assume they do it the Right Way. Several things immediately happen. Solaris has a good track record in high end servers that has been earned through experience. That gives it a lot of interest right there. Now, with real open source, drivers from Linux start arriving in droves. Intel performance is improved. GNU tools become standard parts of the system at almost all levels. Solaris becomes a more robust Linux, with a proven commercial track record.
Now, remember - to everyone above kernel level, KDE on Linux vs. KDE on Open Solaris is going to look VERY similar. Ditto for any other user (and even most developer) tools. Parts of Solaris that annoy users suddenly are fixable, and get fixed. Open Solaris can now go head to head with Linux, as a tier one platform for virtually all open source applications.
The parts of Linux that are not available in Solaris will be adsorbed in. Things like Dtrace are already available on Solaris, and not available on Linux. As people rapidly add in the goodies, Solaris adsorbs Linux's strengths (drivers, file systems, etc.) while leveraging Solaris's robust, tested, industry strength core. As far as I know, there is very little about Linux to fundamentally recommend it over Solaris, except for it's ability to function well on many platforms. If Solaris proves able to do this (impossible to say right now, but I'm assuming well done code will be able to do this, given enough eyes and hours) Linux will essentially dissolve into Solaris, and the end product will be Open Solaris with the best parts of Linux preserved. Does that constitute killing Linux? I wouldn't say so. If you mean will Linus stop being the prime mover, maybe, but the effort put into Linux will survive.
So I, for one, would welcome our GPL Solaris overlords, because the only thing that will happen is net gains all around, regardless of whether the end product is called Solaris or Linux.
Now, do I believe Sun will Do It Right? Nope. But I sure hope they do.
I'm a (minor) member of the Maxima team, and I can tell you a) we intend to do a much better GUI in the future and b) it's going to be a while. Our priority is to fix mathematical bugs in the core system, and modernize the system internally.
Which is not to say you need to wait for the "official" Maxima project to do a GUI. There are several third party programs which do a decent job of being a Maxima GUI. TeXmacs is probably the best place to start, and wxmaxima is coming along nicely.
You can output TeX from maxima, by the way, although if by "pretty-print" you mean line breaking that's a different (and very difficult) problem. The Maxima project will most likely eventually look into doing line breaking the "right way" but non-trivial is a mild description of the issues involved.
Mathematica/Maple compatibility is not really practical, unless you want to reimpliment their subsystems in Maxima. There are too many subtle notational and assumption issues to be worked out for this to be worthwhile, IMHO. Eventually, we might look at a partial "autotranslator" to assist in porting Mathematica/Maple code to Maxima, but it will never be as simple as loading a Mathematica notebook in Maxima. For all but trivial cases, this is too difficult a problem.
I think the #1 priority Adobe should have is to get together with all the other pdf viewer developers out there and create a free, open, kick butt pdf viewer that can run anywhere and read all pdf files well. (And fix the doggone 100% CPU bug with mozilla while they're at it.) Acroread is already free, and there are other free viewers available. I think it would make a LOT of sense for Adobe to create a free, open source high quality pdf viewer. It makes Acrobat itself more desirable (if that's possible) and cements the pdf standard even further into the public mind as THE document reader standard. I'm actually a little surprised they didn't do this earlier, but I guess they felt they didn't need to.
I think it would be more fun to pick a Star Trek race for each user to assume at a convention.
Mandrake - Humans. Like it simple and straightforward, but can be badass at need and gets things done.
Redhat - Vulcans. People may not like them, but they do a lot of things right and everyone owes them.
Debian - Romulans. Tough, but strangely elegant. Deserve more respect than they get.
Gentoo - Klingons. Never do it the easy way if there is a hard way - it makes one stronger!
If any MacOSX guys wander in, they get to be the tribbles. Soft, cuddly, and relatively harmless.
Windows users unlucky enough to stray in - the Borg, of course. The one common enemy of everybody else in the room.
Warmer offices make people more productive? This is news?
I'll bet next week there is a counter study that offices that are too warm exhibit a decrease in productivity too. Sheesh
Anybody get the feeling that most research into working conditions is going to eventually rediscover common sense? Respect your employees, don't treat them like productivity units or morons, and don't subject them to unfavorable working conditions like poor equipment or temperature control. Guess what - they'll appreciate it and be more productive!
Of course, maybe this type of report is the only way to compel certain types of management to cough up the cash and up the thermostat to sane levels, but if you're working in a place like that I'll wager the management is more of a problem than the temperature.
That's why I wish iRate would take off - it IS legit, and the only really promising solution I have seen to this issue. Of course, that leaves all the commercial music producers out of the loop, but they shouldn't care since anyone going to iRate radio rather than their superior commercial products can be presumed to be no loss.
I say let's give the RIAA exactly what they want - no use of their music without paying. However, that means that if they are put of of business by iRate and friends, they have absolutely no right to complain. Frankly I think doing what the RIAA wants in a broad, effective way is the surest way to get rid of the RIAA, since a lot of music purchases come from a "group" mentality (e.g. "popular" music.) Pirated songs maintain the community, just as pirated Windows copies keep Asia hooked on Microsoft. I say stop all the piracy cold, and let people look around for stuff they don't need to pirate. Abandon the commercial stuff unless it really is worth the money. I'm guessing the ability to easily share music among one's social group will be more important than having the highest quality music, since for most people music is a social thing. I could be wrong though.
Some people like to make music and give it away free, just like some people like to make software and give it away free. Except for a few extreme people who say this should be illegal because it undermines the commercial sector, I think this is the ideal solution. Sure quality may suck to start, but over time that will sort itself out. People get what they want (free music) and artists get to get their names out. Presumably if they build fans up that way, they can rake in profits from non-free music themselves. If a band doesn't want to release free music, that's fine too. But they will probably find they will have a hard time grabbing people's ear time unless they are really extraordinary.
I don't find anything bad about this particular incident, but it cannot be considered in isolation.
Profit is NOT a dirty word. What I dislike (dunno about the rest of slashdot - we're hardly one voice) is when pursuit of those profits results in behavior which is detrimental to the community as a while. Big businesses seldom have any regard for things like a sense of community, and will cheerfully crush anything or anyone if it benefits their bottom line. I do NOT find this behavior either acceptable or commendable, and if others dismiss it by saying "that's the way it is, its how capitalism works" then I say capitalism has got some major problems and they should be fixed. I do not think that's how it should work. Things CAN change, you know. Just because that's the way things are now doesn't mean it's the right thing.
Making a profit, fine. No problem there. Making absurd profits via disregard for others, BIG problem. Greed in moderation is fine, but it MUST be countered by a regard for the larger community. Extremes are seldom healthy, and pursuit of profit is certainly no exception.
Nothing like having to take it as well as dish it out.
Ironically, if they give in and sell cheaper it will probably result in MORE money for all involved, since people will be able to buy more CDs without feeling quite so ill at the prices.
Can't say I'm real happy about Walmart having so much power though. Frankly I don't trust any business with so much power. But I will say I'm inclined to worry about Clear Channel more than Walmart, since for most of Walmart's products the barrior to entry in the market isn't unthinkably high.
Answering a question directly allows people to form an agree/disagree opinion, and that's how you lose voters. In the end, it's the candidate who pisses off the least percentage of voters who wins. Why do you think both major parties are so moderate? Their core support doesn't like it, but will vote for them none the less. They have to get as many voters as possible from the middle to dislike the other guy, and not be offended by them.
If I had to sum up our political situation in one word, it would be wishy-washy. And with good stastical reasons - it's quite deliberate.
Patents in the software world today are like nuclear weapons. You want a powerful arsenal in order to ensure that no one attacks you. By the same token, you are wary of attacking anyone else because neither of you will come out well.
So if Novell is positioning their patents to defend open source, it's morally the same as if open source just went nuclear. Or more accurately, made a defense pact with a nuclear power - open source can help Novell compete, and Novell can protect open source. Indeed, in IBM's countersuit to SCO they drew their patent sword, IIRC. Granted SCO attacked IBM specifically, but if IBM decides to say "be nice to the open source community or we might decide to check you out for patent violations" that would go a long way toward keeping things quite. Open source would be given, in effect, honary membership in the patent superpower standoff. People who might consider trying to use patents to crush open source *cough*Microsoft*cough* might be forced to think twice. Legal costs for any fight of this type are really quite scary, to say nothing of the time lost. Considering how fast the software business moves, it wouldn't be surprising to me if most lawsuits are technologically irrelevant by the time they get finished.
This is a solution I hadn't considered to the patent problem, and one I'm not wild about because a) the fundamental problem doesn't get fixed and b) it depends on the good will of companies. By the same token, however, of those companies ARE making $$ from open source it is most definitely in their self interest to keep the vultures off the open source community as a whole, and I suppose in today's society there really isn't much we can count on except self interest.
Oh, I know they aren't the same, but I thought the contrast was quite funny.
As to the net being a good sample of voters... I suppose not. Even so though, I was rather surprised to see such a heavy slant towards carry with so many people responding. That would indicate a VERY large bias on the internet, if the even up polls are right.
"Is it right that badnarik and cobb have to get ARRESTED before someone will hear anything about them from the mainstream media?"
Even that won't do it - check out cnn.
Clearly the goal for Badnarik and Cobb was to get headlines, but here's an interesting exercise.
:-)
Go to cnn.com, and look at the coverage of the presidental debates. See any mention of this incident? Thought not.
Now, try a "Search cnn.com" for Michael Badnarik. When I tried it I didn't get a SINGLE HIT for his name. Not one. Not even a "here's a full list of candidates including the minor ones" page. Can someone confirm this isn't just some local quirk on my browser?
(Side note - headline at cnn says debates were an even match. CNN's own poll gives it to Kerry by something like 75% to 25%. It was funny enough to warrant a screenshot of the poll results and the headline together. Apparantly CNN's viewers must be more Democratic than they would like