For all kinds of cars the energy efficiency is measured in ideal conditions and quite often is very far from what you get in real life.
Wrong, for all kinds of cars, the energy efficiency is calculated. The numbers on the sticker (in the US, at least) are *not* measured numbers.
And those number are inaccurate to a degree. On a road trip I've seen a german designed car achieve 34-35 mpg highway versus its rated 29. The driver didn't trust the dashboard indicator regarding mpg so he did a manual check using two fills and miles traveled. 34-35 was confirmed. We guessed that the german engine was designed for peak efficiency somewhere above 55 mph (what US gov't tests use?). We were driving 65-70 mph when achieving the higher mileage.
Bzzt, wrong, thanks for playing. Customs/Border Patrol has asserted that policing the border includes the ability to search any building, vehicle or person within 100 miles of the land or water border of the country. That covers 70% of the population. It has been upheld in court.
You might be a little premature with that buzzer. Searching for people who have crossed the border illegally is one thing, searching the computer files of an American citizen or a legal resident is something quite different. I suspect you might be confusing the former with the later.
FWIW it is not uncommon to have US history cover two classes. The Civil War is often the point that separates the two classes, there is nothing strange about it being the starting point for the second class.
In Washington, DC, you can refuse to allow inspection of your bags when entering the subway, but then you will be turned away need to find alternative transportation, and *may* be followed. (I don't recall if they *always* follow or not.)
Keep in mind that inspecting your bag means looking at what is inside, in "plain sight" so to speak. They aren't going to be intrusively poking around at the files on your laptop or smartphone.
There seems to be a misunderstanding and exaggeration due to what can happen when entering the US and undergoing a customs inspection. Customs can look at the files, they have the authority to search for contraband, just as they do when they open packages and other sealed/closed items. However this is a very special circumstance involving crossing the US border. These intrusive type of searches can not happen once inside the US without a warrant.
People reading these posts are online. They are already drowned in irrelevant data. The content being described probably wouldn't amount to a noticeable increase. On the other hand it might, perhaps we could quantify the increase and publish a paper.;-)
Isn't this what the web is for? Put it on the web, let google index it, and it will be far more accessible that anything else... "national firewalls" permitting of course.
In the U.S. terms of a contract may not be enforceable. This destruction requirement may run afoul of the concept of unconscionability. IANAL.
"Unconscionability (also known as unconscientious dealings) is a term used in contract law to describe a defense against the enforcement of a contract based on the presence of terms that are excessively unfair to one party. Typically, such a contract is held to be unenforceable because the consideration offered is lacking or is so obviously inadequate that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.
In and of itself, inadequate consideration is likely not enough to make a contract unenforceable. However, a court of law will consider evidence that one party to the contract took advantage of its superior bargaining power to insert provisions that make the agreement overwhelmingly favor the interests of that party." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability
I've had some professors provide their standard lectures on video to watch at our convenience before a class. However what made this a vast improvement is that we still had classes, the class time was used for interaction between the professor and the students. The professor would discuss the lecture, call on students to offer comments, solve some problem, etc. The professor also fostered, directed and refereed discussion and debate between the students. This was so much better than listening to stock lectures that the professor had given many times before. The professors even preferred spending the time interacting, it wasn't just the students.
This interaction between professor and student and between students is what makes the university experience more valuable than just watching videos of lectures. I think it may also be getting back to a more classical university experience, more education, less factory.
It may be old PCs not cheap PCs. Old PCs run perfectly well when they are running old software, the software whose suggested hardware requirements match the hardware. Of course software that connects to the internet complicates this due to security concerns and the necessity of patches.
No, the actual crux is the rule of law. If a law is broken there should be a punishment. What should that be in the case of software piracy?
Being forced to pay for a $2400 software license that you would have never paid for in the first place? The company is $2400 richer than if the piracy had never taken place, and the defendant is $2400 poorer. Lawyer's fees excepted, where the individual always loses to the corporation.
If you do not want to enrich the corporation do not use the corporation's software, licensed or pirated.
The Navy doesn't use F-15s, those are Air Force jets. The Naval equivalent is the F-18.
Last I heard the USAF has fully fueled and stocked (ammo, spare parts) air bases in Saudi Arabia ready for the arrival of USAF F-15s in the event of regional conflict. The preceding was setup because of similar Iranian threats in the 1980s. This scenario is something the USAF and USN have been preparing for for decades.
Do you have any evidence that any of those pirates would have paid for a license? And that's the crux of the matter.
No, the actual crux is the rule of law. If a law is broken there should be a punishment. What should that be in the case of software piracy? The cost of the software is a reasonable attempt at proportionality. Plus fines often have two components, the actual damages and the punitive damages. The later being purely to discourage such behavior. Perhaps the cost of a license should be considered punitive not actual, it matters only to accountants not the person whose pocket it comes out of.
None of the above should be interpreted to mean that our laws in this area are not antiquated, or flawed, and in need of an update. I'm just arguing that fining the infringer the cost of a license seems far more reasonable than some other methods of coming up with a number.
How quickly we forget that the iPhone initially did not allow locally installed apps.
Even so they were designed to handle a wide variety of applications and games. That original iPhone has the same CPU, GPU and RAM as the iPhone 3G, the later being the phone that was launched at the same time as the store. The original hardware didn't preclude any type of application, it was the 1.0 operating system. The App Store was an iPhone OS 2.0 feature. However the SDK and the future ability to write 3rd party apps was announced during 1.0's heyday.
But that really doesn't matters to the less nerdy. They are going to want to run contemporary commercial software and games. Recall that the less nerdy are the subject of this discussion, not us techies.
I guess you don't look under the hood much. You may or may not remember 12 years or so ago when we thought our 1GHz PIII w/ a GB of RAM was a powerhouse, that would depend on your age. The new tablets out there kick the PIII's ass without breaking a sweat. Some of the phone appliances out there today do as well.
Bad guess. My DIY PIII was 500 MHz and I was quite thrilled with it back in the day. However the comparison in the above discussion is against contemporaneous appliances and PCs. Unless, as I said in a much earlier post in this thread, your definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
Doctorow brings up the Sony rootkit. Or a DRM locking system on audio CDs that installed automatically and went into hiding via tricks not that different from what Malware of various kinds use.
Note that those examples come from the general purpose computer world. On an appliance where the software is locked down and signed there is no need to do the above. Rootkit type DRM is for systems where you don't already control what is installed or running.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.
And easily disproven. Appliance computers will usually not have the RAM, GPU, permanent storage, etc that a general purpose computer will have. Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
My *Kindle* has 64 times the RAM and 40000 times the mass storage capacity of my first general purpose computer. Not to mention a faster CPU and a way better operating system. Yes, it's not as awesome as a current rig, but it's definitely general-purpose.
iOS/Android smartphones/tablets are not appliances. They are general purpose handheld computers designed to handle everything from email to office productivity apps to video games. Appliances would be something like Apple TV, a device that downloads movies from the net, downloads videos from your phone, downloads photos from your phone or camera and displays them all on your TV. A general purpose computer could do all of this. The hardware in the Apple TV probably resembles a general purpose computer in many respects, but designers will probably leave off various unneeded things to reduce costs.
Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have.
Way back in the way back, I had a computer upon which I had a development system and a web browser. It had a 16 MHz SPARC processor and 24 MB of RAM, a luxury back then. When the average cellphone of today is more powerful than the most powerful computers of then, this argument is beyond ridiculous.
"Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app."
Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous.
No, it really is not. Most network-connected devices will, at minimum, connect for update checks. Any television appliance that depends on remote servers for information is by definition tattling on you.
Well then by your definition my Linux system contains spyware since it also checks for updates.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take. But more importantly, it signifies a perspective that's out of touch with mainstream people; i.e., non-techies.
it doesn't make him wrong about that point, though. he is, in fact, entirely correct.
Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have. Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous. Locked down and digitally signed perhaps, but that is something different than spyware.
It's a problem that we the techies should be going out of our way to apprise the less nerdly of so that they can make intelligent decisions.
You are proving the GP's point. The less nerdy are making rational intelligent decisions. Locked down helps avoid malware and other maintenance issues. They just want to turn it on and read email and browse the web, they don't want to be a weekend system administrator. What is rational and intelligent for we techies is not necessarily so for the less nerdy, its all relative based upon what we want out of our devices. Until we techies realize this we are not likely to convince the less nerdy of anything.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.
And easily disproven. Appliance computers will usually not have the RAM, GPU, permanent storage, etc that a general purpose computer will have. Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
I thought I saw them at an REI store for less than that, $10 - $25 depending on the model, still made in the USA too. Judging from the model names these may now be used by the military not just NASA. http://www.rei.com/search?query=space+pen
There have been no space station fatalities at all so far, let alone any that were the result of pencil shavings. In fact the only (human) fatalities "in space" were the crew of Soyuz 11.
Yeah. That last little bit in the second quote does not match what NASA says. That the US has been using "space pens" since 1967 and that the Russians have been using them since 1969, pre Salyut, Mir and International space stations. http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html
That said the hazards of broken pencil tips, graphite dust and wood shavings was a real concern with respect to electrical shorts, fires and physical hazards (ex: broken tip vs. eyes).
"Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians... Pencils may not have been the best choice anyway. The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire." http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen
Slashdot Mirror
For all kinds of cars the energy efficiency is measured in ideal conditions and quite often is very far from what you get in real life.
Wrong, for all kinds of cars, the energy efficiency is calculated. The numbers on the sticker (in the US, at least) are *not* measured numbers.
And those number are inaccurate to a degree. On a road trip I've seen a german designed car achieve 34-35 mpg highway versus its rated 29. The driver didn't trust the dashboard indicator regarding mpg so he did a manual check using two fills and miles traveled. 34-35 was confirmed. We guessed that the german engine was designed for peak efficiency somewhere above 55 mph (what US gov't tests use?). We were driving 65-70 mph when achieving the higher mileage.
Bzzt, wrong, thanks for playing. Customs/Border Patrol has asserted that policing the border includes the ability to search any building, vehicle or person within 100 miles of the land or water border of the country. That covers 70% of the population. It has been upheld in court.
You might be a little premature with that buzzer. Searching for people who have crossed the border illegally is one thing, searching the computer files of an American citizen or a legal resident is something quite different. I suspect you might be confusing the former with the later.
FWIW it is not uncommon to have US history cover two classes. The Civil War is often the point that separates the two classes, there is nothing strange about it being the starting point for the second class.
In Washington, DC, you can refuse to allow inspection of your bags when entering the subway, but then you will be turned away need to find alternative transportation, and *may* be followed. (I don't recall if they *always* follow or not.)
Keep in mind that inspecting your bag means looking at what is inside, in "plain sight" so to speak. They aren't going to be intrusively poking around at the files on your laptop or smartphone.
There seems to be a misunderstanding and exaggeration due to what can happen when entering the US and undergoing a customs inspection. Customs can look at the files, they have the authority to search for contraband, just as they do when they open packages and other sealed/closed items. However this is a very special circumstance involving crossing the US border. These intrusive type of searches can not happen once inside the US without a warrant.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) but 'That's funny...'
Unless that scientist is your physician and looking at your test results. :-)
Prepare to be drowned in irrelevant data.
People reading these posts are online. They are already drowned in irrelevant data. The content being described probably wouldn't amount to a noticeable increase. On the other hand it might, perhaps we could quantify the increase and publish a paper. ;-)
Isn't this what the web is for? Put it on the web, let google index it, and it will be far more accessible that anything else ... "national firewalls" permitting of course.
In the U.S. terms of a contract may not be enforceable. This destruction requirement may run afoul of the concept of unconscionability. IANAL.
"Unconscionability (also known as unconscientious dealings) is a term used in contract law to describe a defense against the enforcement of a contract based on the presence of terms that are excessively unfair to one party. Typically, such a contract is held to be unenforceable because the consideration offered is lacking or is so obviously inadequate that to enforce the contract would be unfair to the party seeking to escape the contract.
In and of itself, inadequate consideration is likely not enough to make a contract unenforceable. However, a court of law will consider evidence that one party to the contract took advantage of its superior bargaining power to insert provisions that make the agreement overwhelmingly favor the interests of that party."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability
I've had some professors provide their standard lectures on video to watch at our convenience before a class. However what made this a vast improvement is that we still had classes, the class time was used for interaction between the professor and the students. The professor would discuss the lecture, call on students to offer comments, solve some problem, etc. The professor also fostered, directed and refereed discussion and debate between the students. This was so much better than listening to stock lectures that the professor had given many times before. The professors even preferred spending the time interacting, it wasn't just the students.
This interaction between professor and student and between students is what makes the university experience more valuable than just watching videos of lectures. I think it may also be getting back to a more classical university experience, more education, less factory.
It may be old PCs not cheap PCs. Old PCs run perfectly well when they are running old software, the software whose suggested hardware requirements match the hardware. Of course software that connects to the internet complicates this due to security concerns and the necessity of patches.
No, the actual crux is the rule of law. If a law is broken there should be a punishment. What should that be in the case of software piracy?
Being forced to pay for a $2400 software license that you would have never paid for in the first place? The company is $2400 richer than if the piracy had never taken place, and the defendant is $2400 poorer. Lawyer's fees excepted, where the individual always loses to the corporation.
If you do not want to enrich the corporation do not use the corporation's software, licensed or pirated.
The Navy doesn't use F-15s, those are Air Force jets. The Naval equivalent is the F-18.
Last I heard the USAF has fully fueled and stocked (ammo, spare parts) air bases in Saudi Arabia ready for the arrival of USAF F-15s in the event of regional conflict. The preceding was setup because of similar Iranian threats in the 1980s. This scenario is something the USAF and USN have been preparing for for decades.
Do you have any evidence that any of those pirates would have paid for a license? And that's the crux of the matter.
No, the actual crux is the rule of law. If a law is broken there should be a punishment. What should that be in the case of software piracy? The cost of the software is a reasonable attempt at proportionality. Plus fines often have two components, the actual damages and the punitive damages. The later being purely to discourage such behavior. Perhaps the cost of a license should be considered punitive not actual, it matters only to accountants not the person whose pocket it comes out of.
None of the above should be interpreted to mean that our laws in this area are not antiquated, or flawed, and in need of an update. I'm just arguing that fining the infringer the cost of a license seems far more reasonable than some other methods of coming up with a number.
How quickly we forget that the iPhone initially did not allow locally installed apps.
Even so they were designed to handle a wide variety of applications and games. That original iPhone has the same CPU, GPU and RAM as the iPhone 3G, the later being the phone that was launched at the same time as the store. The original hardware didn't preclude any type of application, it was the 1.0 operating system. The App Store was an iPhone OS 2.0 feature. However the SDK and the future ability to write 3rd party apps was announced during 1.0's heyday.
But that really doesn't matters to the less nerdy. They are going to want to run contemporary commercial software and games. Recall that the less nerdy are the subject of this discussion, not us techies.
I guess you don't look under the hood much. You may or may not remember 12 years or so ago when we thought our 1GHz PIII w/ a GB of RAM was a powerhouse, that would depend on your age. The new tablets out there kick the PIII's ass without breaking a sweat. Some of the phone appliances out there today do as well.
Bad guess. My DIY PIII was 500 MHz and I was quite thrilled with it back in the day. However the comparison in the above discussion is against contemporaneous appliances and PCs. Unless, as I said in a much earlier post in this thread, your definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
Smartphones and tablets are not appliances, they are general purpose handheld computers. To avoid redundancy see an earlier post in this thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2598068&cid=38543572.
Doctorow brings up the Sony rootkit. Or a DRM locking system on audio CDs that installed automatically and went into hiding via tricks not that different from what Malware of various kinds use.
Note that those examples come from the general purpose computer world. On an appliance where the software is locked down and signed there is no need to do the above. Rootkit type DRM is for systems where you don't already control what is installed or running.
The iPad has enough power to run Windows XP no problem (although it's not on the right architecture to do so).
The iPad is not an appliance. It is a general purpose handheld computer. To avoid redundancy this is elaborated upon in a different comment in this thread: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2598068&cid=38543572.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.
And easily disproven. Appliance computers will usually not have the RAM, GPU, permanent storage, etc that a general purpose computer will have. Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
My *Kindle* has 64 times the RAM and 40000 times the mass storage capacity of my first general purpose computer. Not to mention a faster CPU and a way better operating system. Yes, it's not as awesome as a current rig, but it's definitely general-purpose.
iOS/Android smartphones/tablets are not appliances. They are general purpose handheld computers designed to handle everything from email to office productivity apps to video games. Appliances would be something like Apple TV, a device that downloads movies from the net, downloads videos from your phone, downloads photos from your phone or camera and displays them all on your TV. A general purpose computer could do all of this. The hardware in the Apple TV probably resembles a general purpose computer in many respects, but designers will probably leave off various unneeded things to reduce costs.
Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have.
Way back in the way back, I had a computer upon which I had a development system and a web browser. It had a 16 MHz SPARC processor and 24 MB of RAM, a luxury back then. When the average cellphone of today is more powerful than the most powerful computers of then, this argument is beyond ridiculous.
As I said in my other post at a higher level, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2598068&cid=38543276:
"Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app."
Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous.
No, it really is not. Most network-connected devices will, at minimum, connect for update checks. Any television appliance that depends on remote servers for information is by definition tattling on you.
Well then by your definition my Linux system contains spyware since it also checks for updates.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take. But more importantly, it signifies a perspective that's out of touch with mainstream people; i.e., non-techies.
it doesn't make him wrong about that point, though. he is, in fact, entirely correct.
Not really. Appliances usually won't have the RAM, GPU, storage, etc that a general purpose will have. Furthermore the "spyware" characterization is erroneous. Locked down and digitally signed perhaps, but that is something different than spyware.
It's a problem that we the techies should be going out of our way to apprise the less nerdly of so that they can make intelligent decisions.
You are proving the GP's point. The less nerdy are making rational intelligent decisions. Locked down helps avoid malware and other maintenance issues. They just want to turn it on and read email and browse the web, they don't want to be a weekend system administrator. What is rational and intelligent for we techies is not necessarily so for the less nerdy, its all relative based upon what we want out of our devices. Until we techies realize this we are not likely to convince the less nerdy of anything.
Doctorow argues that an appliance computer isn't a specialized computing device but a general-purpose computer running "spyware." This is a highly politicized perspective to take.
And easily disproven. Appliance computers will usually not have the RAM, GPU, permanent storage, etc that a general purpose computer will have. Unless of course the definition of general purpose is bringing up a terminal app.
so how do we protect unsuspecting users from QR codes, where you can't see the destination at all
The QR code app that I use on my phone shows the URL and asks me if I want to go there. Isn't this display and prompt common for QR code apps?
If your app does not do so, get a different one. Seems like a non issue, par for slashdot these days.
34.17 (at the momment) at amazon ASIN: B0015ZP2AC
I thought I saw them at an REI store for less than that, $10 - $25 depending on the model, still made in the USA too. Judging from the model names these may now be used by the military not just NASA.
http://www.rei.com/search?query=space+pen
There have been no space station fatalities at all so far, let alone any that were the result of pencil shavings. In fact the only (human) fatalities "in space" were the crew of Soyuz 11.
Yeah. That last little bit in the second quote does not match what NASA says. That the US has been using "space pens" since 1967 and that the Russians have been using them since 1969, pre Salyut, Mir and International space stations.
... Pencils may not have been the best choice anyway. The tips flaked and broke off, drifting in microgravity where they could potentially harm an astronaut or equipment. And pencils are flammable--a quality NASA wanted to avoid in onboard objects after the Apollo 1 fire."
http://history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html
That said the hazards of broken pencil tips, graphite dust and wood shavings was a real concern with respect to electrical shorts, fires and physical hazards (ex: broken tip vs. eyes).
"Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen