How long did it take MS to fix the last IE hole? And the one before that? And......
The fact that the source is available doesn't make a program more vulnerable. You need to do some research on insecurity through obscurity before you start spouting -- it's a well-known fact that crypto algorithms are made available for peer review for exactly this purpose. A thoroughly reviewed code-base is much more secure than a closed-source one, and can be fixed much more quickly if a vulnerability is found.
The consumer is being tricked into buying it -- it looks like a cd, comes in a package like a cd, is sold with cd's, therefore, in the consumer's mind, it is a cd.
Fair Use:
You're probably correct that publishers don't have to facilitate copying for fair use. However, for them to intentionally make fair use impossible -- for instance by copy-protecting a cd and then buying a law that makes it illegal to defeat that copy-protection, defeats your ability to use your music the way the fair-use doctrine intended.
I believe in personal responsibility, but that's not what this is about -- it's about money-grubbing corporations who are using every tactic that exists to remove my rights to use material I bought -- including buying congress (the DMCA, in case you're not following me) and trying to break consumer's machines. You do realize the goal of this, right? The goal is to make it so I have to buy my music for every single piece of electronic equipment I have that can play music. In my case, I'd have to buy four copies of the same music in different forms: one for my mp3 player, one for my cd player, one for my computer, and one for my hand-held -- oh, and one for my car, I'm sure they can come up with another proprietary format for that if they put their minds to it. That's a pretty fat profit margin for an industry that's already selling something that costs them less than two dollars to make for almost twenty dollars. Not only that, it's an insult to me to assume that I'm stupid enough to fall for it.
How is it my fault? I buy a disk that "looks" like a CD, plays like a cd in my discman, and then locks up my computer to a point where I have to reboot it! That's not "my fault." That's the record companies' fault for selling something that is not compatible with established standards. I was going to respond to your comment on fair use, but I decided to read your comment history, and it looks like you're just trolling. So nevermind.
Battery technology has almost nothing to do with getting your car to work every day -- the only thing it does is get it started so the alternator can run your car's electrical system. You won't get far without an alternator -- but you can actually run your car with no battery installed, or with a completely shorted battery that won't turn it over... Just push and go for those of us lucky enough to be driving stick-shifts...
I've been touch-typing since I was 8 -- that's 19 years, and I've had no problems whatsoever. That's typing on everything from the old VT-100 terminals, to MS natural keyboards, to military terminals... The keyboard I use now is just an old gateway I've been using for about 7 years now. But I also swim up to a mile every day and work out regularly besides that -- so I suppose it could have something to do with that. I've noticed swimming strengthens my wrists -- if I have to stop for a few days, when I go back to it I notice the difference. I've always thought that as long as we take care of our bodies and try to keep from doing things to excess, our bodies will take care of us.
Impossible. The captain doesn't just say "all ahead full" from being moored -- anybody in the Navy knows there's a LOT more to getting a ship or sub underway.
You can be taught to use a set of lock picks in about 10 minutes. Maybe not to a point where you can open any lock, but most locks that are in common use are easy pickings once you understand the principles. In fact, I'm self-taught, and I can open most common door locks without any trouble if need be. Before anyone asks -- I was a rental manager... You'd be amazed how many people changed their locks and didn't give us a key when they moved out.
IANAL, but maybe someone here who is can answer this. How does the state of VA compel the journalists to answer the charge? It's a civil suit, so there's no extradition or anything like that -- it seems to me all they would have to do is ignore it and it would have no real effect. Do they even have a legal obligation to answer the charge? I live in Virginia -- if someone sues me in Connecticut, do I have any legal obligation to show up for the trial? Maybe I'm missing something here -- but this just doesn't seem to me like a sound legal strategy.
You're absolutely right that coal travels by train! Do you know what fuels the trains? DIESEL! And where do we get our diesel? My automobile barely uses in a year a fraction of what one of those trains uses in five minutes to move your precious coal!
You're absolutely correct when you say that the technology isn't innately evil. Technology is never evil -- it's neutral. It's how we use it that determines it's value. The main reason I don't like facial scanning is quite simple. I view it as a slippery slope -- we start scanning for a few "bad guys" now, and what happens a few years down the road when it becomes feasible to scan everyone to make sure they're not doing something "wrong"? If we give our government the power to watch us all the time, we've given up the ability that was guaranteed to us in the Constitution to think, and speak freely. If you've never read 1984 you really need to. The descriptions of the lengths that the man in the book went to avoid being observed will drive you nuts -- and make you really think about where this is going. Orwell was off by a few years -- but it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out he was only wrong by about 20-25 years.
When you have major population centers, such as, let's say, NY city, How much food do you think is grown there? Very little -- in case you're not familiar with "the way things work" over here. The only way to get food into a place like NY is by transporting it from where it's grown. You may be surprised to learn that the whole world doesn't live within a day's walk of the farm. You might still be able to purchase some things until the supplies run out, but the disruption of transportation would probably kill a lot of people -- we don't have very many horse drawn carts over here anymore.
I don't doubt that you've lived places that grow their own food and transport it by "electrified train" -- but you say your electricity comes from coal! Do you have any idea how the coal gets to the power plant? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't walk... Now as to your statement that most of the population of the world is not dependent on gasoline -- you're actually quite wrong. Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia , and Germany (look towards the middle of the page under industry) all have petroleum or petroleum refining as one of their major industries. I'm sure there are many more -- these are just the ones I came up with links for in about five minutes of googling. I listed some smaller countries to show that just about everyone is dependant to some extent -- obviously the entire middle eastern region, as well as many south american countries and other African countries would be included as well. In fact, According to Stuard Baird, M.Eng.,M.A., writing for the Energy Educators of Ontario in 1993:
"At the present time, oil provides the energy for over 95% of the world's transportation needs."
Now, what was that you said about the world not being dependant on gasoline outside the US? And then you talk about hundreds of millions of people dying as though it's no big deal!
I find your lack of knowledge about the world you live in disturbing!
Fine, then pretend you're paying $170 for a sweet-looking 733 MHZ Celeron/64MB RAM box that comes with a mid-range GeForce, hi-quality sound and video outputs, A DVD player, and an 8GB HDD.
I was referring to the operating system -- that's what the original poster was talking about. I HATE console game systems. Ever tried to play quake or UT on a console? It's just not the same as on a real pc with a really nice monitor -- and it never will be. So... 199 bucks just isn't what I want to pay for a system like that. If it were a real computer, ran real dx8 games(pc versions, I mean), and hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and SVGA monitor.... Maybe.
I'd buy a stripped version of windows too -- if I could get it at a price that's less that 100 bucks... I just can't justify paying that much money for something I use once or twice a week to play games.
Call me crazy, but I don't buy it. Post a link or some more info if you want, but prosecuted for having faucet washers in your tool drawer??? Yes, I know they could possibly be used to make a silencer... From what I've seen though, in cases like this it would probably be very similar to the "burglary tools" law -- if you have a crowbar, it's not a burglary tool. OTOH -- if you're caught breaking into someone's home with a crowbar, then it's a burglary tool and you'll be prosecuted for its possession -- in addition to breaking & entering. I'm guessing that if something like your faucet washer story ever did occur, that's how it happened. Joe Schmoe gets caught with a bunch of silencers made of faucet washers, then he's prosecuted for making silencers and for having the materials to make them with.
500k isn't much cash?????? exactly WHICH planet are you on?? I know it ain't the good old' planet earth... I make about 40k, spend as little as possible, and I'll NEVER see 500k in cash in my bank account no matter what I do! Middle class is usually someone who owns a 100-150k house, maybe a nice car, and has a small retirement fund. probably not even 500k of assets -- certainly nothing like 500k of spendable cash!
Re:Technical vs. legal measures, some thoughts
on
More on Intel v. Hamidi
·
· Score: 2, Informative
;) They'd have a hard time emailing anybody on the America... I think their servers have been down for about 6 years (the ship was decommissioned in 1996 or so)....
Seriously, though, email in the military is most definitely NOT a free, unregulated contact to the outside world. It is highly regulated, monitored, and can be cut off at the slightest sign of any problem. I would think a situation such as you discuss would qualify for these kinds of measures. And one other thing -- snail mail in the military is not necessarily free either. Any communications leaving or coming to a military unit can be monitored.
Money won't run under Wine... I tried... then I RTFM'ed... It has something to do with a crypto API that MS uses in it that won't run under Wine. Too bad, because that's pretty much the only reason I still have windows on my machine. I just couldn't get GNUcash to do the things I needed that Money does (cash flow projection, automatic statement downloading and reconciliation, etc). I know it's probably because I'm lazy -- but I really think Money is the best program MS has come up with. Just wish it would run under linux.
Re:This is utterly ridiculous.
on
Zeppelins on Patrol?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
These are supposed to replace the NATO planes that have been flying AWACS missions over the US since september 11th. They are obviously not going to stop a truck bomb -- but they do give us "eyes and ears" in the sky to look for those jetliners that are off course and heading towards a tall building. Fighters can't see very far -- they need an "eye in the sky" to direct them, and that's what these things would be doing. My guess is that they're a whole lot cheaper to operate than the NATO AWACS aircraft that have been up since September 11th -- also they're much more sustainable -- they can stay up a lot longer without refueling...
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE. html
registration required -- Gore didn't win Florida. And Jeb Bush didn't stop them from recounting -- several recounts were done following the supreme court decision, and every one that I saw said Bush won. I understand the democrats are upset that their man didn't manage to cheat his way to a victory in florida, but come on! It's pretty much open and shut. Another point: You say we have separation of church and state. Why? did you know that does not appear anywhere in the constitution? Those were things that Jefferson, who was really the only one of the founding fathers who was not a churchgoer, penned in a private letter to a friend. The only restriction placed on the government in the constitution is that it is not to establish a state religion, as england had done. The founding fathers wanted people to be able to worship as they chose, without the government telling them what church they had to attend. I don't think you can make a case that our government has EVER tried to pass such a law. In fact, I think we currently have the most godless government we ever have -- at least with regard to the legislative branch. So you really don't have a case there.
Oh well... I went looking for the link but can't find it right now. It was on slashdot a few months back -- Linus does enforce the trademark, but not in such a way as to keep people from using it. IIRC, he basically says as long as you're using it to promote linux he's not going to sue you. But I believe there have been a couple of instances where his lawyer or someone has actually filed suit against companies that use it incorrectly. I think if MS used it in a name like that they'd find themselves on the losing end of a lawsuit very quickly. Somebody post that link if you know where it is -- I spent the last 10 minutes on google looking for it.
I think you mean to be funny, but you illustrate a common misconception. If terrorists could "recalibrate the ILS beam", opening up the source code isn't necessarily going to make it easier for them to do it. It's going to make it more likely that someone else will see how they might do it and fix the problem. What you describe is the oft-debated security-through-obscurity. Never works. On the other hand, Open sourcing air-traffic-control isn't necessarily going to help this situation any. You've got to have a reason to work on an OSS project -- most people aren't going to have any reason to devote the time that's necessary to make something like this work perfectly.
COOL CHIPS DISCLOSES APPLICATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IN HIGH-EFFICIENCY NANOTECH COOLING DEVICES Refers to COLCF and BOREF
Cool Chips plc Gibraltar 14 May 2002
Cool Chips plc (COLCF) said that its Cool Chips(tm), wafer-thin discs designed to produce cooling or refrigeration more efficiently than any competing technology, use quantum mechanical electron tunneling as the primary cooling mechanism. The Cool Chip is one of the first transformative technologies to emerge from the nanotechnology revolution.
The Cool Chip technology could eventually replace nearly every existing form of cooling, air conditioning, and thermal management. Prototype devices are being shown publicly for the first time at the Nanotech Planet Conference in San Jose, California, that begins today. The company has not previously disclosed the full scientific basis for its technology.
Because of the inherent advantages in cooling across a gap using electron tunneling, Cool Chips are projected to attain efficiencies much higher than those previously available in cooling systems, and they are much less than 10% of the size and weight of compressors. Cool Chips are modular, and can be packaged in arrays to cool virtually any size heat load.
The company expects its Cool Chip(tm) technology, which has been in development since 1994, to replace all thermoelectrics and compressors for cooling, in applications ranging from electronics and infrared sensors, to computer components, refrigeration, and air conditioning. Cool Chips are on target to have an overwhelming cost advantage.
Cool Chips will enable many new and improved consumer products. They will enable laptops to run cooler, for example, and make possible in-car soda and grocery coolers. A panel of Cool Chips one inch square will provide enough cooling for a refrigerator; a panel about two inches square will have the capacity to provide the air conditioning for a living room; and a panel about five inches square will supply enough cooling power to cool an entire house.
Most existing cooling systems use compressors and environment-damaging fluids and are 40-50% efficient. Smaller thermoelectric cooling devices, despite more than $1 billion spent on research, are only 8% efficient. Cool Chips are projected to operate at 70-80% of the maximum theoretical efficiency (Carnot) for cooling.
Cool Chips prototypes are small electronic devices similar in appearance to computer chips. When an electric current is applied, one side of the chip will become cold and the other side hot, as electrons "tunnel" across a 1-to-10 nanometre gap separating the two sides, carrying heat with them. Innate device advantages include high efficiency, solid-state design, silent operation, environmentally friendly materials and operation, and compact size for easy integration.
"We have demonstrated the capability to make multiple prototypes that show a tunneling current in excess of 10 amps, using a wafer area approximately 9 square cm in area," said Isaiah Cox, Cool Chips' president. "This is, by far, the largest tunneling current that has ever been reported across a gap, and we expect Cool Chips to make the first use of this quantum tunneling effect in a primary commercial application."
The tunneling current can be harnessed to provide cooling of very high density. The theoretical heat flux for flat electrodes suspended 50 Angstroms from each other is on the order of 5000 watts per square centimetre. Cool Chips(tm) will be more than adequate for cooling the next generation of microprocessors, which will produce upwards of 100 watts of heat per square centimetre.
Cool Chips are currently in development, and it is expected to take over a year to complete prototypes which demonstrate high output and efficiency. Current prototypes are being used to increase the quantum tunneling, and cooling has not been directly measured to date. Once the tunneling output has been increased to a certain level, our scientists intend to begin increasing cooling output.
An IV curve and other information is now available on the Cool Chips website at http://www.coolchips.gi.
The Cool Chips technology is protected by an extensive patent portfolio. This coverage extends to include a broad array of techniques related to this unique thermal management system, which offers solutions for nearly any thermal management application.
Cool Chips plc, based in Gibraltar, is a majority-owned subsidiary of Borealis Exploration Limited (BOREF) and has 7,281,785 shares outstanding. Borealis' business is reinventing the core technologies used by basic industries, including electric motors, steelmaking, electrical power generation, and cooling and thermal management.
For further information contact:
Chris Bourne Director of Public Relations Cool Chips plc +44 20 8571 5216 pr@coolchips.gi
Forward Looking Statement at http://www.coolchips.gi/fwdlook.shtml
No -- Read the article. The 25K check was for DAVIS's reelection campaign. That changes things a bit -- the bribe was for the governor, not the IT guy.
Slashdot Mirror
The fact that the source is available doesn't make a program more vulnerable. You need to do some research on insecurity through obscurity before you start spouting -- it's a well-known fact that crypto algorithms are made available for peer review for exactly this purpose. A thoroughly reviewed code-base is much more secure than a closed-source one, and can be fixed much more quickly if a vulnerability is found.
Fair Use: You're probably correct that publishers don't have to facilitate copying for fair use. However, for them to intentionally make fair use impossible -- for instance by copy-protecting a cd and then buying a law that makes it illegal to defeat that copy-protection, defeats your ability to use your music the way the fair-use doctrine intended.
I believe in personal responsibility, but that's not what this is about -- it's about money-grubbing corporations who are using every tactic that exists to remove my rights to use material I bought -- including buying congress (the DMCA, in case you're not following me) and trying to break consumer's machines. You do realize the goal of this, right? The goal is to make it so I have to buy my music for every single piece of electronic equipment I have that can play music. In my case, I'd have to buy four copies of the same music in different forms: one for my mp3 player, one for my cd player, one for my computer, and one for my hand-held -- oh, and one for my car, I'm sure they can come up with another proprietary format for that if they put their minds to it. That's a pretty fat profit margin for an industry that's already selling something that costs them less than two dollars to make for almost twenty dollars. Not only that, it's an insult to me to assume that I'm stupid enough to fall for it.
How is it my fault? I buy a disk that "looks" like a CD, plays like a cd in my discman, and then locks up my computer to a point where I have to reboot it! That's not "my fault." That's the record companies' fault for selling something that is not compatible with established standards.
I was going to respond to your comment on fair use, but I decided to read your comment history, and it looks like you're just trolling. So nevermind.
Battery technology has almost nothing to do with getting your car to work every day -- the only thing it does is get it started so the alternator can run your car's electrical system. You won't get far without an alternator -- but you can actually run your car with no battery installed, or with a completely shorted battery that won't turn it over... Just push and go for those of us lucky enough to be driving stick-shifts...
I've been touch-typing since I was 8 -- that's 19 years, and I've had no problems whatsoever. That's typing on everything from the old VT-100 terminals, to MS natural keyboards, to military terminals... The keyboard I use now is just an old gateway I've been using for about 7 years now. But I also swim up to a mile every day and work out regularly besides that -- so I suppose it could have something to do with that. I've noticed swimming strengthens my wrists -- if I have to stop for a few days, when I go back to it I notice the difference. I've always thought that as long as we take care of our bodies and try to keep from doing things to excess, our bodies will take care of us.
Impossible. The captain doesn't just say "all ahead full" from being moored -- anybody in the Navy knows there's a LOT more to getting a ship or sub underway.
Or Gentoo....
You can be taught to use a set of lock picks in about 10 minutes. Maybe not to a point where you can open any lock, but most locks that are in common use are easy pickings once you understand the principles. In fact, I'm self-taught, and I can open most common door locks without any trouble if need be. Before anyone asks -- I was a rental manager... You'd be amazed how many people changed their locks and didn't give us a key when they moved out.
IANAL, but maybe someone here who is can answer this. How does the state of VA compel the journalists to answer the charge? It's a civil suit, so there's no extradition or anything like that -- it seems to me all they would have to do is ignore it and it would have no real effect. Do they even have a legal obligation to answer the charge? I live in Virginia -- if someone sues me in Connecticut, do I have any legal obligation to show up for the trial? Maybe I'm missing something here -- but this just doesn't seem to me like a sound legal strategy.
You're absolutely right that coal travels by train! Do you know what fuels the trains? DIESEL! And where do we get our diesel? My automobile barely uses in a year a fraction of what one of those trains uses in five minutes to move your precious coal!
You're absolutely correct when you say that the technology isn't innately evil. Technology is never evil -- it's neutral. It's how we use it that determines it's value.
The main reason I don't like facial scanning is quite simple. I view it as a slippery slope -- we start scanning for a few "bad guys" now, and what happens a few years down the road when it becomes feasible to scan everyone to make sure they're not doing something "wrong"? If we give our government the power to watch us all the time, we've given up the ability that was guaranteed to us in the Constitution to think, and speak freely. If you've never read 1984 you really need to. The descriptions of the lengths that the man in the book went to avoid being observed will drive you nuts -- and make you really think about where this is going. Orwell was off by a few years -- but it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out he was only wrong by about 20-25 years.
I don't doubt that you've lived places that grow their own food and transport it by "electrified train" -- but you say your electricity comes from coal! Do you have any idea how the coal gets to the power plant? I'll give you a hint: it doesn't walk...
Now as to your statement that most of the population of the world is not dependent on gasoline -- you're actually quite wrong. Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia , and Germany (look towards the middle of the page under industry) all have petroleum or petroleum refining as one of their major industries. I'm sure there are many more -- these are just the ones I came up with links for in about five minutes of googling. I listed some smaller countries to show that just about everyone is dependant to some extent -- obviously the entire middle eastern region, as well as many south american countries and other African countries would be included as well.
In fact, According to Stuard Baird, M.Eng.,M.A., writing for the Energy Educators of Ontario in 1993:
Now, what was that you said about the world not being dependant on gasoline outside the US? And then you talk about hundreds of millions of people dying as though it's no big deal!
I find your lack of knowledge about the world you live in disturbing!
Fine, then pretend you're paying $170 for a sweet-looking 733 MHZ Celeron
I was referring to the operating system -- that's what the original poster was talking about. I HATE console game systems. Ever tried to play quake or UT on a console? It's just not the same as on a real pc with a really nice monitor -- and it never will be. So... 199 bucks just isn't what I want to pay for a system like that. If it were a real computer, ran real dx8 games(pc versions, I mean), and hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, and SVGA monitor.... Maybe.
Oh yeah... except for the PRICE!!!
What is it now -- 199?
not quite equal to 30 bucks, is it?
I'd buy a stripped version of windows too -- if I could get it at a price that's less that 100 bucks... I just can't justify paying that much money for something I use once or twice a week to play games.
Call me crazy, but I don't buy it. Post a link or some more info if you want, but prosecuted for having faucet washers in your tool drawer??? Yes, I know they could possibly be used to make a silencer... From what I've seen though, in cases like this it would probably be very similar to the "burglary tools" law -- if you have a crowbar, it's not a burglary tool. OTOH -- if you're caught breaking into someone's home with a crowbar, then it's a burglary tool and you'll be prosecuted for its possession -- in addition to breaking & entering. I'm guessing that if something like your faucet washer story ever did occur, that's how it happened. Joe Schmoe gets caught with a bunch of silencers made of faucet washers, then he's prosecuted for making silencers and for having the materials to make them with.
They're coming for you........
;)
500k isn't much cash?????? exactly WHICH planet are you on?? I know it ain't the good old' planet earth... I make about 40k, spend as little as possible, and I'll NEVER see 500k in cash in my bank account no matter what I do! Middle class is usually someone who owns a 100-150k house, maybe a nice car, and has a small retirement fund. probably not even 500k of assets -- certainly nothing like 500k of spendable cash!
;) They'd have a hard time emailing anybody on the America... I think their servers have been down for about 6 years (the ship was decommissioned in 1996 or so)....
Seriously, though, email in the military is most definitely NOT a free, unregulated contact to the outside world. It is highly regulated, monitored, and can be cut off at the slightest sign of any problem. I would think a situation such as you discuss would qualify for these kinds of measures. And one other thing -- snail mail in the military is not necessarily free either. Any communications leaving or coming to a military unit can be monitored.
Money won't run under Wine... I tried... then I RTFM'ed... It has something to do with a crypto API that MS uses in it that won't run under Wine. Too bad, because that's pretty much the only reason I still have windows on my machine. I just couldn't get GNUcash to do the things I needed that Money does (cash flow projection, automatic statement downloading and reconciliation, etc). I know it's probably because I'm lazy -- but I really think Money is the best program MS has come up with. Just wish it would run under linux.
These are supposed to replace the NATO planes that have been flying AWACS missions over the US since september 11th. They are obviously not going to stop a truck bomb -- but they do give us "eyes and ears" in the sky to look for those jetliners that are off course and heading towards a tall building. Fighters can't see very far -- they need an "eye in the sky" to direct them, and that's what these things would be doing. My guess is that they're a whole lot cheaper to operate than the NATO AWACS aircraft that have been up since September 11th -- also they're much more sustainable -- they can stay up a lot longer without refueling...
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE. html
registration required -- Gore didn't win Florida. And Jeb Bush didn't stop them from recounting -- several recounts were done following the supreme court decision, and every one that I saw said Bush won. I understand the democrats are upset that their man didn't manage to cheat his way to a victory in florida, but come on! It's pretty much open and shut.
Another point: You say we have separation of church and state. Why? did you know that does not appear anywhere in the constitution? Those were things that Jefferson, who was really the only one of the founding fathers who was not a churchgoer, penned in a private letter to a friend. The only restriction placed on the government in the constitution is that it is not to establish a state religion, as england had done. The founding fathers wanted people to be able to worship as they chose, without the government telling them what church they had to attend. I don't think you can make a case that our government has EVER tried to pass such a law. In fact, I think we currently have the most godless government we ever have -- at least with regard to the legislative branch. So you really don't have a case there.
Oh well... I went looking for the link but can't find it right now. It was on slashdot a few months back -- Linus does enforce the trademark, but not in such a way as to keep people from using it. IIRC, he basically says as long as you're using it to promote linux he's not going to sue you. But I believe there have been a couple of instances where his lawyer or someone has actually filed suit against companies that use it incorrectly. I think if MS used it in a name like that they'd find themselves on the losing end of a lawsuit very quickly.
Somebody post that link if you know where it is -- I spent the last 10 minutes on google looking for it.
I think you mean to be funny, but you illustrate a common misconception. If terrorists could "recalibrate the ILS beam", opening up the source code isn't necessarily going to make it easier for them to do it. It's going to make it more likely that someone else will see how they might do it and fix the problem. What you describe is the oft-debated security-through-obscurity. Never works.
On the other hand, Open sourcing air-traffic-control isn't necessarily going to help this situation any. You've got to have a reason to work on an OSS project -- most people aren't going to have any reason to devote the time that's necessary to make something like this work perfectly.
COOL CHIPS DISCLOSES APPLICATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS IN HIGH-EFFICIENCY NANOTECH COOLING DEVICES
Refers to COLCF and BOREF
Cool Chips plc
Gibraltar
14 May 2002
Cool Chips plc (COLCF) said that its Cool Chips(tm), wafer-thin discs designed to produce cooling or refrigeration more efficiently than any competing technology, use quantum mechanical electron tunneling as the primary cooling mechanism. The Cool Chip is one of the first transformative technologies to emerge from the nanotechnology revolution.
The Cool Chip technology could eventually replace nearly every existing form of cooling, air conditioning, and thermal management. Prototype devices are being shown publicly for the first time at the Nanotech Planet Conference in San Jose, California, that begins today. The company has not previously disclosed the full scientific basis for its technology.
Because of the inherent advantages in cooling across a gap using electron tunneling, Cool Chips are projected to attain efficiencies much higher than those previously available in cooling systems, and they are much less than 10% of the size and weight of compressors. Cool Chips are modular, and can be packaged in arrays to cool virtually any size heat load.
The company expects its Cool Chip(tm) technology, which has been in development since 1994, to replace all thermoelectrics and compressors for cooling, in applications ranging from electronics and infrared sensors, to computer components, refrigeration, and air conditioning. Cool Chips are on target to have an overwhelming cost advantage.
Cool Chips will enable many new and improved consumer products. They will enable laptops to run cooler, for example, and make possible in-car soda and grocery coolers. A panel of Cool Chips one inch square will provide enough cooling for a refrigerator; a panel about two inches square will have the capacity to provide the air conditioning for a living room; and a panel about five inches square will supply enough cooling power to cool an entire house.
Most existing cooling systems use compressors and environment-damaging fluids and are 40-50% efficient. Smaller thermoelectric cooling devices, despite more than $1 billion spent on research, are only 8% efficient. Cool Chips are projected to operate at 70-80% of the maximum theoretical efficiency (Carnot) for cooling.
Cool Chips prototypes are small electronic devices similar in appearance to computer chips. When an electric current is applied, one side of the chip will become cold and the other side hot, as electrons "tunnel" across a 1-to-10 nanometre gap separating the two sides, carrying heat with them. Innate device advantages include high efficiency, solid-state design, silent operation, environmentally friendly materials and operation, and compact size for easy integration.
"We have demonstrated the capability to make multiple prototypes that show a tunneling current in excess of 10 amps, using a wafer area approximately 9 square cm in area," said Isaiah Cox, Cool Chips' president. "This is, by far, the largest tunneling current that has ever been reported across a gap, and we expect Cool Chips to make the first use of this quantum tunneling effect in a primary commercial application."
The tunneling current can be harnessed to provide cooling of very high density. The theoretical heat flux for flat electrodes suspended 50 Angstroms from each other is on the order of 5000 watts per square centimetre. Cool Chips(tm) will be more than adequate for cooling the next generation of microprocessors, which will produce upwards of 100 watts of heat per square centimetre.
Cool Chips are currently in development, and it is expected to take over a year to complete prototypes which demonstrate high output and efficiency. Current prototypes are being used to increase the quantum tunneling, and cooling has not been directly measured to date. Once the tunneling output has been increased to a certain level, our scientists intend to begin increasing cooling output.
An IV curve and other information is now available on the Cool Chips website at http://www.coolchips.gi.
The Cool Chips technology is protected by an extensive patent portfolio. This coverage extends to include a broad array of techniques related to this unique thermal management system, which offers solutions for nearly any thermal management application.
Cool Chips plc, based in Gibraltar, is a majority-owned subsidiary of Borealis Exploration Limited (BOREF) and has 7,281,785 shares outstanding. Borealis' business is reinventing the core technologies used by basic industries, including electric motors, steelmaking, electrical power generation, and cooling and thermal management.
For further information contact:
Chris Bourne
Director of Public Relations
Cool Chips plc
+44 20 8571 5216
pr@coolchips.gi
Forward Looking Statement at http://www.coolchips.gi/fwdlook.shtml
No -- Read the article. The 25K check was for DAVIS's reelection campaign. That changes things a bit -- the bribe was for the governor, not the IT guy.