This would fit nicely with the puntative damages model that are currently used for financial, anti-trust, and counterfeit fraud called "Treble damages".
Since Itunes can show that the market value of a single MP3 is approximately $1, then a fraud penalty of $3 per song does not seem unreasonable, providing that the prosecution can show that the song was actually downloaded that is...
You say Google will come crashing down, yet you also say no one will "ever" be as good in search. So I ask again, what mechanism or event do you foresee in your crystal ball to bring about such an unlikely crash?
Microsoft wears down Yahoo's board, purchases Yahoo, and more importantly, all of its search engine advertisement revenue patents
Microsoft, upon examining Yahoo's internal documents, reveals that Google had grossly underpaid Yahoo for use of US patent 6269361, the core of the Google PageRank system. Although news reports indicate that $330 million in stock was exchanged, both Yahoo and Google's financial reports only record $30 million because of how the stock was recorded. Only Yahoo and Google have the text of their agreements... and whoever buys Yahoo will know.
Any kind of financial shinanigans on Google's point will pop the stock bubble (which is already down 2% today to Oct 2006 price levels), and adding the very slow growth in advertisement revenue over the last few quarters, combined with added patent payments, this would be the catalyst for investors to pull out.
The other path is that owning the patent allows Microsoft to freely develop their Live search, which has been crippled because of Yahoo's resistance to licence the ad-revenue patent to Microsoft. This would finally allow Microsoft to develop its search engine to compete on-par with Google's main source of revenue. Microsoft surely will only do an adequate job, but since the market share is out of balance in Google's favor, any additional player in the search revenue market can only hurt their bottom line.
With the collapse of Google's stock, employees disperse for other companies (like the Cuil engineers), draining their talent pool, and they are done.
When I was in college in the '90s, our EE lab had just start experimenting with combining FPGAs with a genetic algorithm to model a non-linear function. Setup: pass in hundreds of random control streams of 0's and 1's that set up the logic of the FPGA, feed inputs and measure output pins, compare against a desired, then use the genetic algorithm to pick the "winners" that correctly modeled the function. The algorithm would randomly combine winners, then feed that back into the control stream, rinse and repeat until you have the "best" stream.
After that, the researchers took the control stream, mapped it back to find out which logic gates were activated / deactivated / multiplexed to route to one another. What they found was that there was no direct data path from the input to the output ! so how on earth were the output pins being generated?
What we were then told was that, somehow, the FPGA control pattern had created loops in certain parts of the circuit that was inducing current in the neighboring bus lines, like little radios and receivers. Totally non-intuitive, but mathematically it worked.
That is what I expect to see when we finally decode the human brain -- an immensely complex network of nodes whose linkages to one another were created in real-time using whatever resources were available to the "trainer" proteins at the time. No two individuals will encode the same event the exact same way: not the same locations in the brain, not the same method of linkages, or the number of linkages.
This is why I see the "singularity" not as a machine that we can walk into, have our brains scanned, and bam our consciousness can be copied to a computer. I think that every individual that "transcends" will have to do it incrementally, gradually replacing and extending the nodal functions that make up the brain. The brain needs to replace its neural network mesh with electronic blocks, and do it in such a way that the mesh's functionality is maintained while the material that makes up the mesh is replaced.
Over a period of time, there will be no more "meat mesh" and your conciousness would be transcended into a medium that we know can be copied, backed up and restored. And when that happens, well, our whole concept of what makes up a "person" would need to be redefined.
Is there an equivalent memristor for the mechanical world, e.g. mass, spring, dashpot, xxx?
Maybe a Thixotropic object like the viscocity of ketchup? It is an object that changes its resistance to flow over time with repect to the force of the flow that was previously applied.
The more force you apply to ketchup, the easier it is to pour. A memristor would be like the more electric flux you apply through the area of the device, the more/less resistance current will flow through the device.
Unfortunately, everything about this device seems like higher math. If you bring in the Laplace representation, then Ohm's law becomes:
V = (R) i + (1/(s C)) i + (s L) i
This "memristor" is actually a function of the history of the electric flux going through the circuit:
V = M(q(t)) i, where M is the memristance
M(q(t)) = d Phi(t) / d q, where q is the electric charge particle
Phi = electric flux = integral of electric field E over an area A
E = electric force F / q
In physical terms, the resistance in the device changes over time with respect to the strength of the electric field and amount of charge that was flowing through it. I would think that you wire this up like a transistor, put a charge across it until the steady state resistance acts like an open circuit (infinite resistance) or short (zero resistance). Since the memristance is a also function of Area, the device can be minimized like any other electric component, which is why they say it could eventually replace memory storage devices.
That's why they say it's a new "fourth term" to Ohm's law,
"Base Load" is a term for generation that runs at a constant output all day, like a nuclear plant, it is so cheap that it runs at full output all the time. These units are the backbone of affordable modern power generation as we know it. The term "load following" is a better match for Solar -- the generator produces nothing at night, which is semi-ok since the majority of the population does not use electricity while they sleep, then as the sun comes up in the morning, the generator begins outputting more energy, matching the load profile of energy demand during the day.
Right now, there is not an economic method for storing surplus energy generated by solar; like wind generators, they are far more unpredictable than a fuel consuming plant, thus you have to keep greater reserves online in case the solar/wind isn't there when you need it (see Texas's blackout in March 08). What you do instead today is back down (and raise up) another unit (called regulation), attempting to smooth out the output chaos caused by solar/wind minute by minute.
The problem with building a large distributed solar array (the 92 square mile figure) is that it is a strawman argument; there is no transmission system today that can handle that much energy sourced at a single point, distributed nationally. Building it is prohibitably expensive, a $1 million / mile is the current ballpark rate. Plus you have that single point of failure when your storm sweeps through your one area in the middle of nowhere. A better solution to me is distributed solar throughout the continent utilizing commercial building rooftops -- there are more than enough Box Stores, Malls, etc with huge flat roofs doing nothing all day, just put your favorite shopping district into google maps and see all that empty upwards-facing real estate.
If you jettison anyone fighting for your side (i.e. science) as soon as they are attacked, you will very soon run out of smart people like Gore and Dawkins.
Escuse me? Isn't the core of this conversation about how politics + science = bad times for science? The problem with "global warming" is that Gore, a politician, is speaking a story that climatologists, meteorologists, scientists are denying is occurring. I'm more concerned that he is profiting from involvement in venture capitalists tied to "green" alternatives, while driving the national conversation to enable "carbon credits" managed by his firms.
This guy's not a "smart person", he's an "opportunist"... I'd even go as far as a textbook "special interest", which is doing nothing but driving a weakly supported climatology theory into our nation's science classrooms, and through his political history drives it into our nightly news. Newsflash: The Polar Bear population is notdecreasing, and the earth is not getting warmer over the last decade despite predictions, and there's good evidence that the rush to follow the Kyoto treaty is now damaging the ozone layer again. I'd prefer to stick to the measured facts instead of politically jumping the gun just because it's a good "story".
-- Scott
Re:Micro-Transactions and game balance
on
The Future of MMOs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's interesting that you put it that way, since I think it kind of exposes the difference in values between our two cultures.
In the USA, there is a strong belief that, with all things being equal at the beginning, the amount of labor that an individual is willing to perform should determine the advancement of the individual. This is especially prevelent in the modern racial/sexual/*-equality work ethic, and is a common conservative/libertarian political plank that the only thing that holds people back is themselves.
Overseas, in South Korea, they have embraced capitalism to a level beyond the USA; it should come as no surprise then that the amount of money that an invidual is willing to invest should determine the advancement of the individual.
Yeah, a carbon tax would do a good job of stopping power companies from ever building more power plants, limiting supply, thus since our demand is not increasing, the rates are going to go up, making all of our electricity more expensive.
My understanding, in addition to the information above, was that he was a junior trader (newb), and because of that had an artificial limit on his portfolio, which he then circumvented that limit by obfuscating his trades into hidden accounts.
He would then use any profit from the hidden account to make his "official" portfolio look like it was performing well, and he would get bonuses from his employer. However, since Dec 07, the markets have been in a down slide, and the value of the hidden account went negative (more money went in than the value of the shares).
When the losses ware discovered by an auditor (Wed Jan 16), I had read it was valued at a US$1.5-2 billion loss. However, in the haste to clear the loss, the bank began selling (Fri Jan 18) the stocks in very large blocks as they discovered them. This induced a "herd-effect" in the market, where traders looked at X and said, "If Big Bank is selling such big blocks of X, they must know something I don't, so I'll sell too". Suddenly, everyone was selling everything, and the markets slid hard. However, the original bank was still unwinding the hidden accounts over the weekend, and by then time they were ready to sell the last batch, the value of the shares had dropped even lower. Rinse and repeat, and you have the reported $7 billion loss.
This is why the trader scorned the bank for unwinding it so fast, which induced a much greater loss than the original value. The Register author was trying to offer an uneducated guess as to how the trader was able to obfuscate such losses.
Utilities are required to keep a capacity reserve to meet the 3-year ahead projected demand for electricity. The electric car resource (like a windfarm) is considered energy-only -- because of its unpredictability, it cannot be considered capacity.
What's even better is that all of this capacity is built for that 3 hour period in the summer when it's 99F out and everyone is running their air conditioners at full tilt.
The difference that this technology makes is price. Would you rather be paying a utility to run a combustion turbine generator at $900/MWh, or have the electric cars push their energy back into the system for those couple of peak hours at $120/MWh ? Even if it only offsets 100 MWh (approx usage of a medium sized town), I'd take it to save money.
The first two sentences are blatantly ripped directly from the first paragraph of the article, with minor pronoun changes. The article itself is poorly structured, and does a bad job in conveying the intent of the author. So I guess the article itself does a poor job of making the point.
Microsoft has a lot invested in HD-DVD right now, and it's going to be many years until there's enough fibre direct to the home to support that level of bandwidth to transfer HD-DVD-quality movies. Yes, MS is also positioning itself to be the provider of choice when the consumer wants download-only content; they lost a *lot* of ground to Google with YouTube. For now, Google doesn't seem to be going after Hollywood-quality movie content, so MS needs to lock that market before it is lost too.
Some of us look at a veto of this bill -- federalizing healthcare payments to every resident of the United States of America up to the age of 25 including families who make up to $80,000 income -- as a good thing. The bill is (1) not addressing low income families, (2) not addressing children, and (3) not controlling the costs of healthcare. It's socialism with a literal "think of the children" label.
Nuclear is currently under $0.015/kWh, so I would say that there's quite a ways to go for Photovoltaic to become competative. As soon as it is, PV should start appearing in the bulk energy markets around the country. The fact that it's not even in long range planning queue (going out 8 years) of the largest market in the country, that means that the utilities themselves don't believe the technology is evolving fast enough to be competative any time soon.
New die technologies have a higher waste ratio than more established production lines. Sure, you can pack more per square inch, but think of the dimensions involved and how small a margin of error you must achieve... 1/3rd less area per chip = 50% more chips per same diameter plate, but your new fab. machines have to be that much more accurate. Some error is recoverable (sold to us with different "official" clock speeds) but sometimes the chip is a loss.
If they can't be accurate you have to slow the process down. If you slow down, your "older" more refined process can beat you in the net revenue. Chips/Hour x Revenue/Chip, where RevNew >> RevOld, but right now VelocityNew VelocityOld. Somewhere inbetween is the break even point.
Ok, so we've all watched the demo, and went "ooh, I'd love that game". The problem I see is that Will tipped his hand a bit too early -- the ideas were there in creating a SimEverything to model the development of an entire species.
Given that, what kind of legal recourse now exists if an independent programming firm were to take some of the ideas of Spore - trading card objects, automatic content sharing, point-based evolution - and code their own Evolution game? Since Spore hasn't been released, what kind of copyrights currently exist given that it's not a salable product? Hollywood loves that tactic of producing a movie similar to another already in production (Penguin movies the last couple of years)... Couldn't someone beat Will to the punch and complete his vision before he gets to complete his vision?
It really has more to do with representation between the states, but the national parties have their self-interest as the driving force for keeping the primaries spread out.
Once a larger state like Florida decides (which may represent a total of 27 seats in the electoral college) it pretty much forces a decision for the national party to pick that candidate. This is pretty much the reason why New Hampshire (with its 4 seats) always wants to go first, because if they didn't, their state's opinion on the candidate choice would never matter, and their opinions on issues would never have a national stage. At least with an early primary, all the national news focuses on that one state's opinions for the day.
If all the big states went first, what will happen is that the candidates will swing in and in a matter of days we will know who the public will be voting on in November for parties A and B. That would leave basically leave 9 or so months between knowing the candidate and voting for the candidate, which is more than enough time for the public to become bored with both of them (yes, two, sorry). The national parties rely on keeping their candidate interesting so that in the final days they can pick up the few fabled swing voters... but those same people become disgusted the more negative campaigning they witness.
The national party is more worried about keeping the interest up, because if the public gets tired of A vs B, then candidate C gets to creep in as the spoiler (see Ross Perot in 1992). The way that US politics is currently split between the two major parties (49%-49% at the moment) means that neither party can afford any variable that may cut in and tilt the balance towards the other... hense the national party is more than willing to suspend the state's democractic choice in favor of a national victory.
Good analysis. Normally, you have two types of generators that are built on a landfill: a landfill gas (LFG) powered generator, or a municipal solid waste (MSW)(aka incinerator) generator. The LFG extracts vapor from the decomposition of organic waste and uses it to power an on-site generator, however, most LFG generators are built with the ability to also burn natural gas, since that can be a more reliable source. An MSW generator will incinerate the waste as fuel to power the boiler, which is then used to generate electricity, and then they just bury the ash again. This process can actually create an income stream for the landfill, as they will buy waste from other sites, burn the fuel, and sell the energy on the wholesale electricity spot market.
This product sounds like the best of all worlds: Start with waste biomatter, force decomposition using power from fuel oil, incinerate the rest, and eventually use the synthetic oil to power the generator. Would be extremely beneficial in a disaster area, such as after a huricaine, where you have plenty of building waste (wood) and an immediate need for local generation.
Here's another wrinkle for you... one of my banks (ING Direct) has become so adamant about these security features that it seems like every 3 months they're implementing another personal identification system.... It's hard to keep up with what the current system is.
I'm a more tech savvy user, but even I get very annoyed by the layers I have to go through:
Account Number / Password: Ok, I get this, pretty standard.
Can't type the password anymore, you have to use a little graphical PIN Pad to click your code to log in. Goodbye actually typing it in on the keyboard, add another 2 seconds to log in as I hunt and click.
Random Questions about account information: What's the last 4 digits of your SSN? Street number of your house? Random, and pain in the ass. Add a few more seconds due to failing memory. Oh, and so many people complained that now you have the option to "register" your computer, download a cookie, and bypass it.
Special Picture: Chosen by the user. On wait, that's not enough...
Special Passcode: Random text entered by the user, if you don't see it it's not your account.
What's to stop a phisher from pretending to be your bank, claiming that said bank is installing a new "security feature", and the person enters all their account information? I think it would be an interesting study to see how many people would probably enter their info blindly while thinking that they are actually protecting themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
This would fit nicely with the puntative damages model that are currently used for financial, anti-trust, and counterfeit fraud called "Treble damages".
Since Itunes can show that the market value of a single MP3 is approximately $1, then a fraud penalty of $3 per song does not seem unreasonable, providing that the prosecution can show that the song was actually downloaded that is...
-- Scott
You say Google will come crashing down, yet you also say no one will "ever" be as good in search. So I ask again, what mechanism or event do you foresee in your crystal ball to bring about such an unlikely crash?
It's called the "Optimus Maximus", and it ain't cheap.
The problem is they've been playing the Final Fantasies when they should have been coding!
When I was in college in the '90s, our EE lab had just start experimenting with combining FPGAs with a genetic algorithm to model a non-linear function. Setup: pass in hundreds of random control streams of 0's and 1's that set up the logic of the FPGA, feed inputs and measure output pins, compare against a desired, then use the genetic algorithm to pick the "winners" that correctly modeled the function. The algorithm would randomly combine winners, then feed that back into the control stream, rinse and repeat until you have the "best" stream.
After that, the researchers took the control stream, mapped it back to find out which logic gates were activated / deactivated / multiplexed to route to one another. What they found was that there was no direct data path from the input to the output ! so how on earth were the output pins being generated?
What we were then told was that, somehow, the FPGA control pattern had created loops in certain parts of the circuit that was inducing current in the neighboring bus lines, like little radios and receivers. Totally non-intuitive, but mathematically it worked.
That is what I expect to see when we finally decode the human brain -- an immensely complex network of nodes whose linkages to one another were created in real-time using whatever resources were available to the "trainer" proteins at the time. No two individuals will encode the same event the exact same way: not the same locations in the brain, not the same method of linkages, or the number of linkages.
This is why I see the "singularity" not as a machine that we can walk into, have our brains scanned, and bam our consciousness can be copied to a computer. I think that every individual that "transcends" will have to do it incrementally, gradually replacing and extending the nodal functions that make up the brain. The brain needs to replace its neural network mesh with electronic blocks, and do it in such a way that the mesh's functionality is maintained while the material that makes up the mesh is replaced.
Over a period of time, there will be no more "meat mesh" and your conciousness would be transcended into a medium that we know can be copied, backed up and restored. And when that happens, well, our whole concept of what makes up a "person" would need to be redefined.
-- Scott
Is there an equivalent memristor for the mechanical world, e.g. mass, spring, dashpot, xxx?
Maybe a Thixotropic object like the viscocity of ketchup? It is an object that changes its resistance to flow over time with repect to the force of the flow that was previously applied.
The more force you apply to ketchup, the easier it is to pour. A memristor would be like the more electric flux you apply through the area of the device, the more/less resistance current will flow through the device.
-- Scott
Unfortunately, everything about this device seems like higher math. If you bring in the Laplace representation, then Ohm's law becomes:
V = (R) i + (1/(s C)) i + (s L) i
This "memristor" is actually a function of the history of the electric flux going through the circuit:
V = M(q(t)) i, where M is the memristance
M(q(t)) = d Phi(t) / d q, where q is the electric charge particle
Phi = electric flux = integral of electric field E over an area A
E = electric force F / q
In physical terms, the resistance in the device changes over time with respect to the strength of the electric field and amount of charge that was flowing through it. I would think that you wire this up like a transistor, put a charge across it until the steady state resistance acts like an open circuit (infinite resistance) or short (zero resistance). Since the memristance is a also function of Area, the device can be minimized like any other electric component, which is why they say it could eventually replace memory storage devices.
That's why they say it's a new "fourth term" to Ohm's law,
V = (R) i + (1/(s C)) i + (s L) i + (M(q(t))) i
-- Scott
"Base Load" is a term for generation that runs at a constant output all day, like a nuclear plant, it is so cheap that it runs at full output all the time. These units are the backbone of affordable modern power generation as we know it. The term "load following" is a better match for Solar -- the generator produces nothing at night, which is semi-ok since the majority of the population does not use electricity while they sleep, then as the sun comes up in the morning, the generator begins outputting more energy, matching the load profile of energy demand during the day.
Right now, there is not an economic method for storing surplus energy generated by solar; like wind generators, they are far more unpredictable than a fuel consuming plant, thus you have to keep greater reserves online in case the solar/wind isn't there when you need it (see Texas's blackout in March 08). What you do instead today is back down (and raise up) another unit (called regulation), attempting to smooth out the output chaos caused by solar/wind minute by minute.
The problem with building a large distributed solar array (the 92 square mile figure) is that it is a strawman argument; there is no transmission system today that can handle that much energy sourced at a single point, distributed nationally. Building it is prohibitably expensive, a $1 million / mile is the current ballpark rate. Plus you have that single point of failure when your storm sweeps through your one area in the middle of nowhere. A better solution to me is distributed solar throughout the continent utilizing commercial building rooftops -- there are more than enough Box Stores, Malls, etc with huge flat roofs doing nothing all day, just put your favorite shopping district into google maps and see all that empty upwards-facing real estate.
-- Scott
Sure, but even Mozart died penniless in an unmarked grave.
If you jettison anyone fighting for your side (i.e. science) as soon as they are attacked, you will very soon run out of smart people like Gore and Dawkins.
Escuse me? Isn't the core of this conversation about how politics + science = bad times for science? The problem with "global warming" is that Gore, a politician, is speaking a story that climatologists, meteorologists, scientists are denying is occurring. I'm more concerned that he is profiting from involvement in venture capitalists tied to "green" alternatives, while driving the national conversation to enable "carbon credits" managed by his firms.
This guy's not a "smart person", he's an "opportunist"... I'd even go as far as a textbook "special interest", which is doing nothing but driving a weakly supported climatology theory into our nation's science classrooms, and through his political history drives it into our nightly news. Newsflash: The Polar Bear population is not decreasing, and the earth is not getting warmer over the last decade despite predictions, and there's good evidence that the rush to follow the Kyoto treaty is now damaging the ozone layer again. I'd prefer to stick to the measured facts instead of politically jumping the gun just because it's a good "story".
-- Scott
It's interesting that you put it that way, since I think it kind of exposes the difference in values between our two cultures.
In the USA, there is a strong belief that, with all things being equal at the beginning, the amount of labor that an individual is willing to perform should determine the advancement of the individual. This is especially prevelent in the modern racial/sexual/*-equality work ethic, and is a common conservative/libertarian political plank that the only thing that holds people back is themselves.
Overseas, in South Korea, they have embraced capitalism to a level beyond the USA; it should come as no surprise then that the amount of money that an invidual is willing to invest should determine the advancement of the individual.
-- Scott
Yeah, a carbon tax would do a good job of stopping power companies from ever building more power plants, limiting supply, thus since our demand is not increasing, the rates are going to go up, making all of our electricity more expensive.
Good job
Apparently during his interrogation he admitted that he was using the bank's internal messaging system to forge messages.
My understanding, in addition to the information above, was that he was a junior trader (newb), and because of that had an artificial limit on his portfolio, which he then circumvented that limit by obfuscating his trades into hidden accounts.
He would then use any profit from the hidden account to make his "official" portfolio look like it was performing well, and he would get bonuses from his employer. However, since Dec 07, the markets have been in a down slide, and the value of the hidden account went negative (more money went in than the value of the shares).
When the losses ware discovered by an auditor (Wed Jan 16), I had read it was valued at a US$1.5-2 billion loss. However, in the haste to clear the loss, the bank began selling (Fri Jan 18) the stocks in very large blocks as they discovered them. This induced a "herd-effect" in the market, where traders looked at X and said, "If Big Bank is selling such big blocks of X, they must know something I don't, so I'll sell too". Suddenly, everyone was selling everything, and the markets slid hard. However, the original bank was still unwinding the hidden accounts over the weekend, and by then time they were ready to sell the last batch, the value of the shares had dropped even lower. Rinse and repeat, and you have the reported $7 billion loss.
This is why the trader scorned the bank for unwinding it so fast, which induced a much greater loss than the original value. The Register author was trying to offer an uneducated guess as to how the trader was able to obfuscate such losses.
-- Scott
More importantly, are there enough people here on slashdot that know swedish?
Utilities are required to keep a capacity reserve to meet the 3-year ahead projected demand for electricity. The electric car resource (like a windfarm) is considered energy-only -- because of its unpredictability, it cannot be considered capacity.
What's even better is that all of this capacity is built for that 3 hour period in the summer when it's 99F out and everyone is running their air conditioners at full tilt.
The difference that this technology makes is price. Would you rather be paying a utility to run a combustion turbine generator at $900/MWh, or have the electric cars push their energy back into the system for those couple of peak hours at $120/MWh ? Even if it only offsets 100 MWh (approx usage of a medium sized town), I'd take it to save money.
The first two sentences are blatantly ripped directly from the first paragraph of the article, with minor pronoun changes. The article itself is poorly structured, and does a bad job in conveying the intent of the author. So I guess the article itself does a poor job of making the point.
Microsoft has a lot invested in HD-DVD right now, and it's going to be many years until there's enough fibre direct to the home to support that level of bandwidth to transfer HD-DVD-quality movies. Yes, MS is also positioning itself to be the provider of choice when the consumer wants download-only content; they lost a *lot* of ground to Google with YouTube. For now, Google doesn't seem to be going after Hollywood-quality movie content, so MS needs to lock that market before it is lost too.
Spent fuel -> breeder reactor -> fissionable fuel, and it's already cheaper than coal.
Oh wait, we don't like that kind of renewable resource...
"and Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill to(o)"
Some of us look at a veto of this bill -- federalizing healthcare payments to every resident of the United States of America up to the age of 25 including families who make up to $80,000 income -- as a good thing. The bill is (1) not addressing low income families, (2) not addressing children, and (3) not controlling the costs of healthcare. It's socialism with a literal "think of the children" label.
-- Scott
Nuclear is currently under $0.015/kWh, so I would say that there's quite a ways to go for Photovoltaic to become competative. As soon as it is, PV should start appearing in the bulk energy markets around the country. The fact that it's not even in long range planning queue (going out 8 years) of the largest market in the country, that means that the utilities themselves don't believe the technology is evolving fast enough to be competative any time soon.
New die technologies have a higher waste ratio than more established production lines. Sure, you can pack more per square inch, but think of the dimensions involved and how small a margin of error you must achieve... 1/3rd less area per chip = 50% more chips per same diameter plate, but your new fab. machines have to be that much more accurate. Some error is recoverable (sold to us with different "official" clock speeds) but sometimes the chip is a loss.
If they can't be accurate you have to slow the process down. If you slow down, your "older" more refined process can beat you in the net revenue. Chips/Hour x Revenue/Chip, where RevNew >> RevOld, but right now VelocityNew VelocityOld. Somewhere inbetween is the break even point.
Ok, so we've all watched the demo, and went "ooh, I'd love that game". The problem I see is that Will tipped his hand a bit too early -- the ideas were there in creating a SimEverything to model the development of an entire species.
Given that, what kind of legal recourse now exists if an independent programming firm were to take some of the ideas of Spore - trading card objects, automatic content sharing, point-based evolution - and code their own Evolution game? Since Spore hasn't been released, what kind of copyrights currently exist given that it's not a salable product? Hollywood loves that tactic of producing a movie similar to another already in production (Penguin movies the last couple of years)... Couldn't someone beat Will to the punch and complete his vision before he gets to complete his vision?
It really has more to do with representation between the states, but the national parties have their self-interest as the driving force for keeping the primaries spread out.
Once a larger state like Florida decides (which may represent a total of 27 seats in the electoral college) it pretty much forces a decision for the national party to pick that candidate. This is pretty much the reason why New Hampshire (with its 4 seats) always wants to go first, because if they didn't, their state's opinion on the candidate choice would never matter, and their opinions on issues would never have a national stage. At least with an early primary, all the national news focuses on that one state's opinions for the day.
If all the big states went first, what will happen is that the candidates will swing in and in a matter of days we will know who the public will be voting on in November for parties A and B. That would leave basically leave 9 or so months between knowing the candidate and voting for the candidate, which is more than enough time for the public to become bored with both of them (yes, two, sorry). The national parties rely on keeping their candidate interesting so that in the final days they can pick up the few fabled swing voters... but those same people become disgusted the more negative campaigning they witness.
The national party is more worried about keeping the interest up, because if the public gets tired of A vs B, then candidate C gets to creep in as the spoiler (see Ross Perot in 1992). The way that US politics is currently split between the two major parties (49%-49% at the moment) means that neither party can afford any variable that may cut in and tilt the balance towards the other... hense the national party is more than willing to suspend the state's democractic choice in favor of a national victory.
This product sounds like the best of all worlds: Start with waste biomatter, force decomposition using power from fuel oil, incinerate the rest, and eventually use the synthetic oil to power the generator. Would be extremely beneficial in a disaster area, such as after a huricaine, where you have plenty of building waste (wood) and an immediate need for local generation.
I'm a more tech savvy user, but even I get very annoyed by the layers I have to go through:
What's to stop a phisher from pretending to be your bank, claiming that said bank is installing a new "security feature", and the person enters all their account information? I think it would be an interesting study to see how many people would probably enter their info blindly while thinking that they are actually protecting themselves.