The move where storage is going 'online' will mitigate this to some extent, at the same time it will create a larger problem is something goes wrong with all that online storage.
Storage reminds me of the situation around energy generation. If you all generate your own energy and consume it on the spot then there will be lots of outages, but small ones. If you do it centralized then you get less outages, but *MUCH* larger ones.
I fully expect something similar to happen to online storage, it will seem to be more reliable because on average it will be better than storing your data locally, but when it goes it will go bigtime.
That's when the data recovery guys will have a field day.
it's to facilitate the new profession of 'data archaeologist'. People that will be sifting through the digital detritus of the pre-AI era two hundred years from now.
Looking for the rosetta's stone that will enable them to translate 'flash' into 'realmedia';)
This robot has end stops, it's not like that's something that CNC machines haven't had since the 60's or so. Probably the first time a gantry or carriage ran off it's moorings someone thought: Let's put a switch there... Genius, pure genius.
And now those savvy robot constructors have put them on a machine that is on a different planet. What were they thinking ?
If./ would have existed in the 60's or so this probably would have been news for nerds;)
Because for many quick shots a simple camera is more than enough. I don't need to lug around a reflex for quick snaps, having a very simple cam in the phone is a perfect solution for me. Think of it as the difference between a notepad and a wordprocessor, both have their applications.
When I realized it did not have a camera. While a hackable phone has immense appeal having to lug around a second phone or camera is really too much a of a hassle. Oh well, we'll just wait for release II I guess.
(sure, that's aol, and it was publicised and google will never (I hope!) do something this stupid but even anonimized data is not without risks, the fact they have to share this data with viacom does not make me happy, it sets a really bad precedent).
Google claims they use the history to be able to target ads more precisely but I really don't see why a few % extra revenue would be worth the liability.
So, your privacy policy no longer matters one bit because any group suing you to disclose that information does not have such a policy agreement with the customers of the party sued.
total nonsense. The GPL is not what writes software, programmers do. If it wouldn't be for the 'proper' license there would have been another one or public domain.
Well, I think you're missing the point entirely here.
Let me try to clear that up: For us 'geeks' there are plenty of reasons to prefer the one over the other, but for the very large number of would-be linux users it really doesn't matter one bit what license your software was produced under, what the underlying technology is and which group of programmers / advocates gets to claim they have more bragging rights.
They're confused out of their skulls when they have to navigate lots of fora with outdated information on how to get their sound card to work with their particular flavour, or why they can not play their dvd's, not to mention the instructions to find various settings that seem to apply to their setup but really apply to one of a different distro (I've fallen for that one myself once).
By making all these differences the market gets fragmented and the software becomes unstable, there are simply too many different configurations and combinations of software and environment to properly test all of them.
So, the burden of that is pushed to the end user and he/she couldn't care less about the internals and the reasons for things not working.
I don't know if it will ever come to pass but if oil and by extension transportation becomes expensive enough there just might be a halt to all of this.
Wall-mart, mcd's and so on all operate by the grace of cheap transportation, if that disappeared they'd have to rethink their businessmodels real fast or they'd be faced with some pretty stiff competition from the locals again. It'd be the 70's in reverse.
not to start a flame war here, but to get KDE and Gnome somehow merged would seem to be the biggest priority for OSS in getting linux deployed to the desktop en masse. The lack of UI standardization is really making life unnecessarily hard. Getting Gnome somehow running on top of QT would be a big step in this direction.
right, but a 'normal' solar cell will also produce quite a bit more power when you shine concentrated sunlight on it. I tried this a couple of years ago, basically the only limit I could find was how well I could cool the cells. This led to some interesting experiments where the wiring would melt from the front of the cell (it's soldered on) with the backs being immersed in water!
The amazing thing is that the crystalline structure withstood the enormous difference in temperature between the front of the cell and the back quite well. Eventually we settled on immersing the cells in distilled water (it doesn't conduct), with a very small film of water sitting between the glass front and the cell. Like that you can boost the output of regular solar cells quite impressively. You *will* have to beef up the wiring on the front of the cells (that's the weakest link by far).
A pic of the concentrator I used still lives here:
Slashdot Mirror
The move where storage is going 'online' will mitigate this to some extent, at the same time it will create a larger problem is something goes wrong with all that online storage.
Storage reminds me of the situation around energy generation. If you all generate your own energy and consume it on the spot then there will be lots of outages, but small ones. If you do it centralized then you get less outages, but *MUCH* larger ones.
I fully expect something similar to happen to online storage, it will seem to be more reliable because on average it will be better than storing your data locally, but when it goes it will go bigtime.
That's when the data recovery guys will have a field day.
touchy touchy...
Also, I didn't realize how much work has apparently already been done to facilitate just that and that they are actually planning a joint conference.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=613205&cid=24182575
said the guy that wasted the first post spot with 'frosty piss'... class act indeed. Pot, kettle, black.
according to alexa (ok, not the most reliable source) about 60% of the traffic is US.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/slashdot.org
google to the rescue:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%223+year+old+mason%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I make no warranties as to their skills though, caveat emptor.
that's the first time I've been laughing out loud at moderation... metamods please reward that mod :)
the fact that any three year old can do better is probably one of the stronger proofs that god, indeed, does not exist.
it's to facilitate the new profession of 'data archaeologist'. People that will be sifting through the digital detritus of the pre-AI era two hundred years from now.
Looking for the rosetta's stone that will enable them to translate 'flash' into 'realmedia' ;)
Stone tablets will last even longer!
This robot has end stops, it's not like that's something that CNC machines haven't had since the 60's or so. Probably the first time a gantry or carriage ran off it's moorings someone thought: Let's put a switch there... Genius, pure genius.
And now those savvy robot constructors have put them on a machine that is on a different planet. What were they thinking ?
If ./ would have existed in the 60's or so this probably would have been news for nerds ;)
I personally love the 'rarely needs to reboot' line.
The only time the machine I'm working on goes down is if the power fails :)
let me correct that for you:
"Sorry, we were using the royal 'we'".
that's a really good point, I had not thought about it from that angle.
you can speak for yourself, thank you.
Because for many quick shots a simple camera is more than enough. I don't need to lug around a reflex for quick snaps, having a very simple cam in the phone is a perfect solution for me. Think of it as the difference between a notepad and a wordprocessor, both have their applications.
When I realized it did not have a camera. While a hackable phone has immense appeal having to lug around a second phone or camera is really too much a of a hassle. Oh well, we'll just wait for release II I guess.
for some more background on how much trouble you can harvest from supposedly anonimized data:
http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2006/08/21/aol-cto-resigns-two-researchers-fired/
(sure, that's aol, and it was publicised and google will never (I hope!) do something this stupid but even anonimized data is not without risks, the fact they have to share this data with viacom does not make me happy, it sets a really bad precedent).
Google claims they use the history to be able to target ads more precisely but I really don't see why a few % extra revenue would be worth the liability.
So, your privacy policy no longer matters one bit because any group suing you to disclose that information does not have such a policy agreement with the customers of the party sued.
total nonsense. The GPL is not what writes software, programmers do. If it wouldn't be for the 'proper' license there would have been another one or public domain.
Well, I think you're missing the point entirely here.
Let me try to clear that up: For us 'geeks' there are plenty of reasons to prefer the one over the other, but for the very large number of would-be linux users it really doesn't matter one bit what license your software was produced under, what the underlying technology is and which group of programmers / advocates gets to claim they have more bragging rights.
They're confused out of their skulls when they have to navigate lots of fora with outdated information on how to get their sound card to work with their particular flavour, or why they can not play their dvd's, not to mention the instructions to find various settings that seem to apply to their setup but really apply to one of a different distro (I've fallen for that one myself once).
By making all these differences the market gets fragmented and the software becomes unstable, there are simply too many different configurations and combinations of software and environment to properly test all of them.
So, the burden of that is pushed to the end user and he/she couldn't care less about the internals and the reasons for things not working.
I don't know if it will ever come to pass but if oil and by extension transportation becomes expensive enough there just might be a halt to all of this.
Wall-mart, mcd's and so on all operate by the grace of cheap transportation, if that disappeared they'd have to rethink their businessmodels real fast or they'd be faced with some pretty stiff competition from the locals again. It'd be the 70's in reverse.
thank you, that's a pile of good information.
not to start a flame war here, but to get KDE and Gnome somehow merged would seem to be the biggest priority for OSS in getting linux deployed to the desktop en masse. The lack of UI standardization is really making life unnecessarily hard. Getting Gnome somehow running on top of QT would be a big step in this direction.
right, but a 'normal' solar cell will also produce quite a bit more power when you shine concentrated sunlight on it. I tried this a couple of years ago, basically the only limit I could find was how well I could cool the cells. This led to some interesting experiments where the wiring would melt from the front of the cell (it's soldered on) with the backs being immersed in water!
The amazing thing is that the crystalline structure withstood the enormous difference in temperature between the front of the cell and the back quite well. Eventually we settled on immersing the cells in distilled water (it doesn't conduct), with a very small film of water sitting between the glass front and the cell. Like that you can boost the output of regular solar cells quite impressively. You *will* have to beef up the wiring on the front of the cells (that's the weakest link by far).
A pic of the concentrator I used still lives here:
http://pics.ww.com/v/jacques/renewables/concentrator/
don't bring a club to a gunfight ;)
then there's also no way to collect taxes. I should move...