you're assuming quite a bit from what little I wrote.
for one I don't spend much time on my ass, rather the opposite, I wished there was more time in a day so I could get more work done. This post was actually made between cutting a bunch of grooves in brickwork, the dust needs to settle...
Second, a house building robot is one of my pet ideas and I've been mulling over the more complicated parts (raw materials delivery, on the spot mixing and curing of concrete, avoiding the fouling of the mechanisms and such).
Also I doubt I could do the job described above better (and I did not claim that I could), I'd just like to see less 'cool' stuff done with robotics. Vehicle control is where the sexy stuff is (camera input, navigation) and it's also where the funding is (see the various darpa challenges), but the benefits of something that can provide durable housing at extremely little cost are much more concrete (pun not intended) than the ability to *sail* a boat from one end of the planet to another by robot control.
Some of the more interesting ideas I've seen involved fusing sand using solar power, the energies involved are pretty scary though. The nice thing is that in those parts of the world where this kind of tech is needed most solar power and sand are pretty abundant.
Like a robot that builds a house or so. A bit more useful too...
Robotics challenges are usually somehow tied to military objectives such as navigating a certain terrain, rarely do they focus on something constructive and creative.
prisoners of what war ? I wasn't aware war had been declared. And since the prisoners are in fact beaten and tortured does that mean it's only time before they'll have their heads ripped off by a small saw ? I feel justified in thinking that the Guantanamo inmates are doing just awful. And that's not even talking about the legal issues. Check out Abu Graib while you're at it.
the sooner we can get rid of patents the better, even if it is ms on the receiving end of the big patent stick it still brings me no joy.
The patent system long ago stopped serving its original purpose and it needs to be abolished or overhauled asap. Software patents ought to be done away with completely.
so, how about 20 cts per digital download from the artist direct or through some content delivery network. Or variable price, but still artist direct -> consumer.
And 30 second samples ready to download from a huge catalog. And an open format please. And all the back catalog stuff as well.
Who really needs a physical medium ? It's not as if you can actually listen to a CD, you listen to the music stored on it... (unless, of course you drop the CD or break it, then you can actually listen to it).
It's interesting that this should even need to be spelled out. Normally you'd expect companies and the people who run them to have enough of a moral backbone that they don't need external input on things like this.
Because quarterly profits are the only yardstick by which management is rewarded / demoted all other considerations have gone out the window. As long as there is not direct link between ethics and profits I highly doubt any of this will make a difference.
see, that's the nice thing about the whole scheme. You'll just be labelled a terrorist and be used as the reason to instill even more draconian measures...
Slashdot Mirror
touche, although this particular 'drew' seems to be married to somebody named 'kim' and looks quite male in his pictures :)
if you need your oil changed every three months I think you should have a better look at your car...
that's newspeak, not corporate culture.
unless 'drew' is some new female name that I have not previously been aware of I think you'll have to forget that first hand experience...
because you'd need to ship the house, shipping a robot is a one time affair, it should be able to build as many houses as possible until it fails.
Usually raw materials of some form or other are already present at the prospective building site.
you're assuming quite a bit from what little I wrote.
for one I don't spend much time on my ass, rather the opposite, I wished there was more time in a day so I could get more work done. This post was actually made between cutting a bunch of grooves in brickwork, the dust needs to settle...
Second, a house building robot is one of my pet ideas and I've been mulling over the more complicated parts (raw materials delivery, on the spot mixing and curing of concrete, avoiding the fouling of the mechanisms and such).
Also I doubt I could do the job described above better (and I did not claim that I could), I'd just like to see less 'cool' stuff done with robotics. Vehicle control is where the sexy stuff is (camera input, navigation) and it's also where the funding is (see the various darpa challenges), but the benefits of something that can provide durable housing at extremely little cost are much more concrete (pun not intended) than the ability to *sail* a boat from one end of the planet to another by robot control.
Some of the more interesting ideas I've seen involved fusing sand using solar power, the energies involved are pretty scary though. The nice thing is that in those parts of the world where this kind of tech is needed most solar power and sand are pretty abundant.
Like a robot that builds a house or so. A bit more useful too...
Robotics challenges are usually somehow tied to military objectives such as navigating a certain terrain, rarely do they focus on something constructive and creative.
Oh wait, another RP post...
prisoners of what war ? I wasn't aware war had been declared. And since the prisoners are in fact beaten and tortured does that mean it's only time before they'll have their heads ripped off by a small saw ? I feel justified in thinking that the Guantanamo inmates are doing just awful. And that's not even talking about the legal issues. Check out Abu Graib while you're at it.
sending genes to my friends is limited to a select number of females in my case ;)
and here I was thinking lupus was a species, not a clan...
if you feel like experimenting with literate programming try finding the 'leo' editor (written in python)
proper modularization and the 'static' keyword are a feature of C and C++
it wasn't a product per-se, more of an improvement on shadow mask technology for colour tvs using CRTs.
the first rule of project MAYHEM...
the sooner we can get rid of patents the better, even if it is ms on the receiving end of the big patent stick it still brings me no joy.
The patent system long ago stopped serving its original purpose and it needs to be abolished or overhauled asap. Software patents ought to be done away with completely.
so, how about 20 cts per digital download from the artist direct or through some content delivery network. Or variable price, but still artist direct -> consumer.
And 30 second samples ready to download from a huge catalog. And an open format please. And all the back catalog stuff as well.
Who really needs a physical medium ? It's not as if you can actually listen to a CD, you listen to the music stored on it... (unless, of course you drop the CD or break it, then you can actually listen to it).
the pirate bay says they're free ;)
I'm so sorry I already posted in this thread... beautifully said.
if you like Pohl try to find 'the space merchants'.
It's interesting that this should even need to be spelled out. Normally you'd expect companies and the people who run them to have enough of a moral backbone that they don't need external input on things like this.
Because quarterly profits are the only yardstick by which management is rewarded / demoted all other considerations have gone out the window. As long as there is not direct link between ethics and profits I highly doubt any of this will make a difference.
actually, no that's a troll that has cut & pasted stuff from my post.
/. admins all have access to their particulars anyway and that they are far from anonymous.
But from the looks of it some 13 year old with a grudge is trying hard to make me look bad.
The myminicity plague seems to have been neutralized.
I often wonder if these trolls are aware that the
not to belittle the guys achievements, but isn't it so that any sequence of bits can be represented by any arbitrary higher dimensional space ?
The difficulty usually comes when trying to describe a higher dimensional space in a system with *less* dimensions, the other way around is trivial.
see, that's the nice thing about the whole scheme. You'll just be labelled a terrorist and be used as the reason to instill even more draconian measures...
they use laser to pump the optical amplifiers for some forms:
http://www.electronics-manufacturers.com/Optoelectronics/Fiber_optics/Fiber_optic_amplifiers/
not sure if that still works for these multiplexed fibres, the optical amplification is narrow band.
addendum: I'm in Europe, not in the US.