"The numbers on the buttons of the phone do not line up, and seem to have been cut and pasted using an imaging program."
It's possible they were, but it still doesn't mean it's fake. The phone is made of paper, including the buttons.
I actually was reading about this 'technological' idea on some stupid free-energy website. The site was talking about creating Bifield-Brown Disks (Flying Saucers made of huge capacitors). Well building your own capacitors at home is a real pain if you are to make them according to the Biefield-Brown instructions, ergo: some-one came up with this nifty idea:
Because you are layering conductive material upon non-conductive material (thousands upon thousands of layers); it becomes a real problem to layer them accurately by hand. So, somebody thought of using a fairly conductive ink-type, and simply printing the conductor pattern on a sheet of paper, which would act as a non-conductor.
Basically, a Printed-Circuit-Board printed on standard white paper using some variation of standard printer ink. Now, other applications of this technology with better ink, and different forms of paper would allow (through layoring) the creation of basic gates, basic components (resistors, capacitors, diodes?) and easiest of all, buttons such as the ones shown on the face of the phone.
I won't disagree with you here, they do look fake to me also, but the technology is possible. You know, come to think of it; maybe I'll get to work on my own paper circuitry. 8-)
"If I want to charge you 50 bucks a night for
a hotel room."
No, but if you want to charge me $50 bucks a night to listen to your car run, I would just walk accross the street and listen to it anyways; unless of course, i felt that $50 was worth paying to listen to your car run, and I could afford it.
using a hotel room means that i may or may not be losing other business for you, and also you would have to clean the room and deal with me; which would be worth money.
"And don't even try to compare my use of the word 'kids' to racism. That's ludicrous on face value alone."
"Then, a bunch of kids decide that they want what DirectTV has, but not at their terms. So they steal the service. Yes, they stole it. Hell, they admit it in the article."
-I coulda done it too, if it wasn't for them damn kids!
Hackers aren't kids, just like teenagers aren't the scourge of the earth, and major theft as well as shoplifting isn't all done by 'renegade punks' (or by *punks* at all). You might as well be racist.
Hackers didn't steal television for free. Crackers stole television for free. The hackers might have discovered the technology, the Crackers abused it (if this was in fact abuse). Hackers are not theives, Crackers are; and if you think their is no difference, then you are insulting the very people who brought you your computer and your operating system. You might as well be racist.
"They make money from the sale of this service, and they provide the infrastructure, the broadcast, the hardware, etc."
Not everything corporate America does is legitimate. Almost everyone out there is running software they couldn't afford to pay for, (that includes shareware like Winzip and anti virus programs half you hypocrites don't even bother to register). If I formatted your Hard drive and left 1 file called, "Game Over" I could make all the same arguments; but it doesn't mean in the end that you could, or ever would have paid me for a service that costs me no extra money to provide to you.
If they can't convince us their service is worth paying for, then they'll just have to arrest us and throw us all in jail; because I really don't care about the interests of every large company and its consumers who defend it like mindless drones.
"You're composed of a number of chemical elements."
Ok, we can get in to a number of silly debates regarding my obvious point. Let me rephrase that, 'highly radioactive material is dangerous, hands down, no matter what'.
and, "Containment of Incredibly High-Powered Nuclear Explosion which Burn Hotter Than the surface of the sun are potentially dangerous".
..."The state's power system is neglected and decrepit. Californians fear power plants on principle; they loathe them so much that they don't even want to replace their old, filthy power plants with new power plants that work better and are sort of okay." - Bruce Sterling
- Even bad news sources admit there is a problem with power plants being dangerous, and in some cases decreped for whatever reason. As another person mentioned, look up "nuclear disaster" in google and my point will be very obvious. I apologize if the wording left room for elitist nitpicking; it's hard to resist I know.
Perhaps my Canadian-ness has neglected to educate me on the wonder and awe that is 'Bruce Sterling'. Should I know who this guy is?
Anyways, after reading his article I've come to the conclusion that it is in fact possible to discuss the internet in an article related to power consumption and a bad, quickly-fluctuating economy; that is, if you don't actually make any correlation between them at all.
"Canadians really love the Internet. In almost all parts of Canada, home Internet connectivity is growing as fast as yesteryears Cable television and pre-era Radio License sales. But what may surprise some Canadian Clothing Retailers, is that while clothes may sell fast; they are not the Internet bubble of bit communications. That is, the internet is made up of a slurry of routing, and computational machinery, constantly sending and receiving tiny electrical signals; Where as clothing is made up of fabric.
Fabric in Canada has nothing to do with the internet, now I will speak about fabric.... etc."
"My mother takes two 14+ hour flights (NYC to Pakistan, and back) every two months or so. (Retired).
My brother takes 2-3 hour flights every Monday and every Friday. (Consultant)."
Ok, so the 14 hour flights aren't business flights. No Internet connection is required, though it might be fun to have one.
The 2 - 3 hour flights fall into my 2 - 3 hour timeline; does he *need* an internet connection?
I'm not saying the 'net' wouldn't be interesting to have access to in any place, just the same as it would be interesting to have the net accessable in a washroom. Interesting like, "Oh wow, what kind of person has to get their email while they're in the washroom".
My point is only that we should re-evaluate how much time & money we want public transportation to invest in keeping us working round-the-clock.
If I were on a plane with a laptop right now, I'd be playing a game, or reading some saved information. The fact that I *could* one day connect to the net and get new information is boring when i consider how much time I'm actually spending on most flights.
It seems like the only practical reason to invest time and money in networking people in-flight, is to help their business interests; and what business can stand to spend so much for a flight and accomodations, but can't afford that 3 hours of luxury net-free time we would all enjoy if we weren't so hyped about the 'possibility' of connecting in the air.
I'm starting to become convinced that Hollywood producers will never produce a worthwhile technical flick.
20 Years in the making means in all like-li-hood it's 20 years out of date. I'm not trolling here, it's just the way things work. You can work on a technological movie for as long as you want, but once you reach a certain time-frame you have to do one of the following.
1) Update all your information, and waste your footage. Making 20 years about as useful as 5.
2) Make your techno-movie only work in a certain time-line, ie: its a techno movie about technology from the past (not very likely) or:
3) The most common solution to producing a techno movie that meets the demands of artistic license and the motto, "make me money because Akira Kurosawa's dead now" is to make the movie (from the beginning) focus on vague, general idealogies inherent in Technology of one type or another. Movies of this nature, in a nutshell, suck.
If this movie is just another 'Data the pale Ensign' story, then its been done. It was done in Terminator back in the 80s. It was done by Gene Roddenbury... whatever, it's just old.
If this story is about technology, and where we are realistically headed, what we have to question about our research and what we do: Then the information is outdated, sure we could predict AI 20 years ago; but if what we knew of AI 20 years ago is the basis of the plot, then I for one have already seen that story. Either way we as consumers of Spielbergs Crap for the Masses are losers. David Wong on the other hand will probably give it a full two stars
Am I the only person posting in this group who thinks this idea is a waste of money?
I mean, I'm as nerdy as the next guy; I really am. But cummon, who really takes that many flights longer than 2 - 3 hours. Isn't it enough that you can sit there and use your computer and get work done, do you have to be able to do real-time research and communicate with people for that whole three hours? Stuff like this can't wait until you land and take 4 minutes to get inside the airport,
"Our customers already have access to wireless communications in our SAS lounges through Telia HomeRun"
In the end, any modifications the airline makes to the plane are going to raise the price of airline tickets. I don't want to pay more money for my flights so joe-asshole on his $8.00/min cell-phone can also type while I'm trying to get an hour or two of sleep.
Is there such thing as a business job that requires you to travel *and* get so much work done that you can't take a 3 hour break from being connected to the outside world? Not even a break from working, just a break from being connected... it sounds like 'too much hype' to me.
It reminds me of all the "business men" I used to sell Palm Pilots too back in my hay-day as a fledgling guru. "Whoa! I can connect to the internet with that!? anywhere?!". Guess how many of them actually do that 3 weeks after they get one... I think 90% of the guys running with leading-edge technology are actually wasting their time (and often other peoples time) figuring out how to be more efficient with their new technology.
ie: Hey, this palm pilot lets me get my email anytime i want, now I can check it on my way to work instead of when I get there. They then spend 4 hours setting it up, and save 5 minutes in their work day for a month or two until something new comes out.
"This is highly unlikely to result in all sorts of people going out and buying these sorts of machines; it's just not economical unless there's a compelling need that justifies paying a couple grand for a pretty small server."
The point is that they are available. The $2500 is, in all likelihood, the introductory price based on "how many people want these things?!"... Once a few are sold, I'm sure the price will drop considerably.
In time little grass-hoppah.... in time....
Another important thing to note is these machines probably have better heat dissipation than larger machines [I'm basing this on the idea that 1) heat disipation would have to be improved to even offer them, and 2) If they are smaller, they are easier to cool; because moving air can be directed at and away from them with less energy (ie: the diff. between a cpu fan and a case-fan)].. In the least, they would be useful for applications where heat is a problem. I'm sure big bizz. will be buying into them so us little guys can reap the price drop in a year or two.
... Still interesting to know we should be waiting for it.
"According to whom? Different people have different ideas of what is and is not dangerous. "Danger" is a subjective term, and too often used as a defense for NIMBY and NIMBY's big brother, BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)."
Who are you, Rush Limbaugh? Radioactive material is dangerous, hands down, no matter what. Contained Nuclear Explosions fall in to the 'potentially dangerous' category. Take in to account that this technology is hard, and very expensive to fix when problems are found, and you have many potential disasters worldwide.
"If the design is that badly flawed, they won't be able to run the plant. That's one of the nice fringe benefits of living in a capitalist society; people get to choose who they work for."
And who they live beside, and what water they drink, Hey, if all your waters polluted, you just work a little harder and buy bottled water from farther north. WhoU! capitalism! Hey, if you think you might be absorbing radiation leaked from hundreds of miles away, just move somewhere where nobody effects the planet. simple!
"this same news media is so incompetent they can't cover major nuclear disasters?"
Correct! Welcome to the world of 24 hour OJ Estate coverage not being informative, major Gulf War cover-ups, and bad 80's nintendo looking graphics selling the entire country a billion dollar space-war program.
"Let me get this straight. If they were designing and building the controlling circuitry at the office, that'd be fine, no matter how lousy the design was."
Umm no, that's not the point at all. The point is that if you want to design circuitry to run a nuclear reactor, you don't; you get someone who knows what they're doing to do it. Circuitry gets detailed fast. Here's a small list of things you would easily overlook in that situation.
1) Failsafe Details, do circuits open or close on failure
2) Noise failsafes, what amount of noise will cause dangerous operation of the circuit
3) Home soldering & Home PCB fabrication are not trustworthy
4) Chips used are probably not military grade, as the average electronics hobbyist uses the $10.00 cheaper brand which does the same thing.
5) You can not accurately test the design at home against problems.
6) will the circuit ever be exposed to radiation, how much? What occurs in that event.
7) Soldering by hand will easily cause problems with 'wicking' and cold-solders which will break once the circuit is in place.
Please don't reply, summoning the strength to impart these small bits of common sense was enough work for 1 year.
"An intelligent reactor design (such as Candu) operated by well-trained individuals would never suffer such a catastrophe."
This really isn't an accurate statement. I am not disagreeing with you, Nuclear Energy is probably the best energy source for today; as well as Solar Power which feeds energy back into the electric grid (thereby, eliminating the need for nuclear energy by over 100% if everybody did it, and it was a government funded project). Anyways, I'm getting off topic.
The problem with complicated, dangerous (potentially dangerous?) technology is that you can look at it and say, "That was old technology, new technology won't do that". The truth is, new technology has not been tested as long as old technology; and in reality, new technology is always new, and never the technology being used everywhere; so it is not possible (in this case) to forgive the use of dangerous technology worldwide with a few examples of some new reactors running in a few small locations.
What's more is, Nuclear Technology is very expensive. A Nuclear Power plant is not something that just springs up over-night on a whim. The very nature of dependance and cost of Nuclear Technology makes it a dangerous thing. Should a problem be found in new reactor designs, or a problem occurs in the many tiny unique variables that effect nuclear power production at any facility; the technology is still going to be used for a long, long time. Until it is forcibily removed by government, or a serious disaster occurs. It is simply too expensive, and even most politicians will turn a blind-eye when they realize the risk of running a dangerous plant is less than the sure-statement that it must be replaced at a serious cost to taxpayers.
If you are looking for some examples of serious Nuclear mishaps, you will be very surprised by "Greenpeaces Guide To The Nuclear Age". Chernobyl was only one of many many disasters that have occured worldwide; many have occured in the US and Canada that nobody has even heard of, and they were very serious. The first Meltdown of a Nuclear Reactor actually occured in Canada.
On a personal note, I have a relative who used to work as an electrical engineer for a very large design and fabrication company you all know. They were contracted by a Nuclear plant, which was considered a very very small contract - for public-relations more than anything else, they did a quote on some fabrication of Printed Circuit Boards which were to control their reactor (Serious stuff). The quote was way below margin, and the plant thought it was too much!
"We really sharpened our pencils on this one! How can that be too much? These boards run the whole plant!"
The answer? Because the staff at the plant itself were actually designing, and building the controlling circuitry AT HOME, as it was needed! Very smart people, whose HOBBIES were Electronics were doing this stuff At Home. That too never made the papers.
There's a lot to Nuclear Energy that is scary besides Meltdowns, such as leaks, dumping(storage) of useless highly radioactive material, accidents which cause serious leaks (ie: the heavy water-barrier is super heated, causes an explosion or burst but manages to stop the reaction). I don't trust any industry that has to make commercials saying, "Nuclear Energy is Safe!", but they can't explain why, even in simple terms.
"Where to start? The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation."
Where to start? Decreasing density leads to better heat dissipation. Changing fabrication materials could mean less heat generation. Size doesn't mean anything so long as no space is wasted; moving outwards in the x axis, instead of adding gates upwards to the y-axis are equivilants. ie: building out instead of up.
"I'm surprised they haven't mentioned the TINI from iButton."
I've spoken to different representatives from Dallas Semiconductor in the past year, and have come to the conclusion that they are not a good company for the Unix-loving community to support.
They are not interested in the ingenuity and progress end-users often add to 'open' products such as their iButton, or TINI TCP/IP stack Chip. They are nothing more than a company of glutenous exec's, looking to sell millions of units to other large companies; They have no feel for the general publics willingness to contribute to new products.
I realize I sound like I'm describing every company out there, but hey; Even Microsoft tries to speak to its customers, game companies are switching platforms, and almost any large company looking to develop products which can be modified; want the general public to be happy and 'in-the-know' so they will feel a need to contribute to those products. This is not the case with Dallas SemiConductor.
Case in point. I was working at a small computer networking company in Ottawa a year ago, when 2600 magazine published an article on the iButton. I ordered one out of interest, and to become familiar with coding for it. Later the company I worked for mentioned it would be interesting if we could offer cryptographic ID rings to our customers that would log-them-in to their workstations. So I did some more research.
And came up with a few questions for "DS", 1 in particular: what protects computers from static when the wearer walks accross a room and plugs straight in to the serial port?
DS response, "why does it matter?",
me, "Because we may be ordering these for connecting to servers and workstations at our clients business's"
DS, "Look, we sell lots of these, there's nothing wrong with static"
me, "Ok well, do you have any information to support that? Do you have white-papers with measured voltage levels on connection?"
DS, "All the white-papers are online."
The online white-papers (at the time) contained little useful information; and this man knew there was no detailed information in their on it. (I know this because, my question before this was, "do you have more detailed white papers with data on")...
My point? I think Linux/FreeUnix has enough pull now-a-days to demand a certain, small amount of interest from companies offering new, end-user configurable products. After all, it was the OpenSource community that made SEGA stay in the market with inferior products, they've added to the success of the Palm Pilot, etc. etc. All examples of the Opensource community modifying, or changing new products are because the companies who offer them, 1) *do* take an interest in end-user opinions, 2) they are interesed in innovation, and they 3) *do* provide important technical information on their products to end users.
Opensource has done little to help Microsoft, because they have missed out on the last requirement for innovation.
"Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?)"
This ruling is obviously rediculous; who hosts a website that can't handle 1 extra connection?
But just to play devil's advocate, search engines are slightly different, since you can always specify in Robots.txt which robots, (none even) can access your site, and what they can access (effectively controlling their time on your site).
I would like to see a law against robots which do not adhere to robots.txt though...
Oh wait, this is the internet and it shouldn't be online if it's not meant to be accessed... sorry, I forget sometimes...
"Just do it on a server, a system that the user of the program doesn't have access to. Really simple."
I believe this would require the company coming in, installing it themselves and guarding the server. It would also require that the server have no other connection options or possible access hacks.
If you mean that companies provide their software through internet connections; that is far beyond today's bandwidth possibilities for all useable software, and you would either be replacing hackable main-software programs with cracked login programs, or you would be cracking simple logins.
This is beyond feasible, and is still susceptable for the same reasons; however you access it, part of the security relies on your access through software which is open for you to view and use however you wish (ultimately).
"Just admit you are a cheap bastard, I'm willing to admit it you should too."
I'm a cheap bastard.
"Good try at justification, except that if the general public complained to Valve to release Half-life on nix, you wouldn't be using windows to play it. MS doesn't keep Valve from supporting *nix."
Microsoft doesn't directly prevent all software companies from developing for a UNIX type environment; The problem is that Microsofts sheer size makes their products the default installation on almost every new home computer.
The target demographic for software companies is young people, and the majority of people buying games out their are the Nintendo, Playstation, Sega crap people who are using their parents / families computers for games, and almost exclusively for games.
You can complain to a software company to produce a UNIX friendly game all you want, but their response is simple economics and the largest factor in deciding is 'how many people are running Winblowz, is it just this one guy, this small group of people that wants it cross-platform?'. Slashdot should use its influence to pressure specific game companies, and that, I believe, would change the market over.
Almost everyone says, developing software for UNIX environments right now is a total crapshoot; nobody knows if the main initial attraction to the O/S's are free software.
If Microsoft did not keep their software the exclusive installation option on most new computer systems, then I believe games would immediately become cross-platform.
Incidentally, I'm not that cheap, i did pay $4.00 for freeBSD at H2K in new york (That's American yo); and when I came home, I paid around a $100 for a manual I can read when i'm not around my computer
Someone mentioned this might be because I am seeking the status of bragging about how I am all "Open source" and Microsoft SUX when I don't really know what I'm talking about; in reality it's because I want to become a super-powered computer user, with the capability of destroying planet earth as we know it... and making all hackers everywhere cower before my UB3R 3R33T HAx0R Sk1LLz.
This is not like saying, "Anything is possible" - or a generalization. It is the absolute truth, and anybody who understands the inner workings of computers knows this.
The reason it is possible to defeat all copy protection, is simply because with todays computers you have access to the software you are running; you must have access to it, or it could not be on your system.
To defeat copy protection, you need only analyze how the software protects itself from illegle copying and circumvent it through the use of additional software, or modifying the original software.
Software companies can make the process as complicated as they want, the US can pass laws banning all reverse-engineering (Which is the equivilant of banning simple problem solving concepts, ie: 2x4 = 8 but legally you can't find out what 8/4 = ). Or the other way around, (Few what a paradox).
The only solution to prevent illegal copying is either to have very good public relations and rely on the honesty, and ethic of the general public in relation to your product (This is the best solution);
Or to offer your product on 'closed' systems, that is, systems where installing software and working with the contents of memory yourself - are next to impossible. Systems which are not made to be configured by the general public.
To my knowledge, these systems really don't exist; as everything today is made programmable, and the concepts are understood by everybody. You can program for game consoles, PDAs and home computers. And until the price of fabricating technology comes way, way down; there is not going to be a solution to the problem of copy protection because systems are made to have multiple uses, and this in itself gives anyone the ability to modify their software to do things it was not intended to do.
People demand these options, companies provide them, and then companies get angry that people demand total control over the products they own. It's BS.
I say, take back the right to use software however you wish; it's up to the companies to convince the users that their software is worth paying for.
I have a copy of Windoze, I use it regularly, and I refuse to pay for it because I am not convinced, not in the least, that it is worth a hundred bucks; not to me, and not to most computer users. It is closed-system software, and it sucks.
If microsoft had not cornered the software market so long ago, I would not be forced into running their crappy product for compatibility issues; and therefore I feel I have the right to use it free of charge, how else am I going to play Counterstrike...
I've always wondered, these messages that we send out are supposed to be simple enough for another civilization to decode once received; but what work goes into sending an easily recognizable message?
On SETI's page, they talk about a natural area of the radio spectrum where cosmic radiation does not interfere, and therefore this would be a good area to listen for communications which are meant for us to hear.
Are the messages we send out, also sent on this frequency? Has anybody ever taken a message such as this and analyzed the probability of a software program such as the one SETI uses recognizing it?
Do we take into account signal loss, and doppler effect when analyzing our own signals - to get a feel for how an alien race would analyze them were they to receive them in another galaxy?
Sure, we are definite they would receive the signal, but would they know it? By the time it reaches them, it may be full of static, or the timing may be too slow for a clear understanding of its intelligent origin; after all, if you were to scan a particular region of space, and for an entire day all you heard on a small frequency was a single strength of signal (a single pulse), you might be inclined to ignore it; believing it is regular noise from a distant cosmic event
I would like to know more about the science which goes in to the transmission of our own signals.
People are talking about posting more complicated messages to give instructions on building devices for communication.
In the least, this would show a need for communication between ourselves and another civilization; I believe it would be possible for 1 very simple reason.
The periodic table is as self-evident to an advanced culture as the number system, elements are formed in the table one after the other, and so with a little work we could send anything so long as we use diagrams.
I think it would be a great cosmic disaster to send plans for an atomic bomb to a race which has just mastered radio communications; what's more is, it would be very very funny.
Frequency is the inverse of the Period for the wave. The period of a wave is the time between the start of the wave & the end of the wave.
This means Frequency is directly related to the propagation time of the wave. A longer wave has a lower frequency in actuality; but that's relative to the propagation time for the wave. Any wave can look long if you analyze it under the right timing conditions.
A good example of the problem with converting radio waves to sound waves:
These radio waves were detected at very low frequencies. That means they have a very long wavelength; (ie:) physically, their wave length could be measured in meters.
When you convert this to sound, you end up with base of such a low wavelength, a modern speaker probably could not produce it. If it could, it would probably be outside the range of human hearing. If you could hear it, it would be very bass-y, and not high-pitched such as in the example.
This means that in even a direct translation to audible sound, the radio waves frequency was shifted into the audible sound-wave spectrum. This also means the researchers decided exactly how much to shift it, and so it really *doesn't* sound like the radio wave would -- could your ears hear radio waves.
"if you've ever wondered what it sounds like out there, this is it."
I'm sure people are going to mention this, so I thought I'd be first;
There is *no* sound in space. None at all.
I'm not saying that these audio clips are not interesting, or that they don't necessarily contain some sort of useful data. But the fulfillment factor in listening to these should be the same as looking at a graph of x vs. y; because if you think about it, way out in the cold depths of space, your ears do not pick up sound because there is no medium to transfer sound.
What's more is, were a small event to occur which normally should be heard here on earth, ie; two small rocks colaid; you wouldn't hear that either, because these are radio waves. Larger events, you can hear, but they are a reflection of things you do not see or relate to properly, since once again, these are radio waves and not vibrational waves caused by friction.
My point is, don't believe the hype: when people tell you it's possible to get a CD of sounds from space, what you're really getting is a small selection of the huge radio-spectrum converted to screechy, unintelligible garble. For that matter, it is possible to give any radio signal a certain characteristic (ie: easy to listen to, noisy screeching) because you decide the method used to represent that wave as a sound wave; since they are wholly different.
Who's to say that these radio-waves to sound-waves you hear would even sound the same were another person to take the raw data and convert it to sound; they probably wouldn't. So really, you're hearing 1 person (or 1 small group of peoples) interpretation of data put to unintelligible garble.
The question posed in this article really doesn't make much sense. Why do we want to see neural networks in our homes if we don't have an end-goal?
I think most people live in such a way that intelligent-guessing of there habits is going to be more of a problem than simply giving them control of there environment through a 'stupid' network.
For example, as many posters have mentioned here; the lights in your home. You can't *guess* when a person wants a light in a room on based on any number of variables, just the same as you can't go in to someone else's house and control there lighting for them without getting feedback from them; ie: "I want lights to turn on in all rooms I *may* enter, a light on in the room I am in (obviously) and lights to turn off behind me, in rooms I can not enter directly from the spot I am in". Well this type of processing requires only sensors; deciding on whether the person wants bright, medium or dim lights is based completely on how they feel at the moment and no neural network has the ability to predict that with even effective accuracy.
Other examples of house-hold tasks that do not require a neural network:
Toilet Flushing
Heat (stupid networks control heat better)
Water from taps
Bathtubs filling at specific times
Windows automatically tinting for heat-retention
Dishwashing
Laundry
etc. A neural network is meant to bridge a gap between people's simple requirements, and complicated digital processing. There is no requirement for digital decisions that are literally, "on" or "off".
"Well the first half says it must not release too much EMF, while the second half says the equipment must behave relatively reasonably if, for some reason, it does recieve too much EMF.
And what is a reasonable reaction to EMF, and why should a devices reaction to EMF be governed by law in such a vague way?
It doesn't state that, "The device must operate properly under the influence of EMF"; and if it did, I suspect the law would be much more eleborate in terms of the EMF Signal Strength a device is expected to operate normally under the influence of.
It only states the device must "accept" EMF. It doesn't say that, "EMF" should or should not effect the operation of the device in a desirable way, only that the device must be able to accept it.
Slashdot Mirror
"The numbers on the buttons of the phone do not line up, and seem to have been cut and pasted using an imaging program."
It's possible they were, but it still doesn't mean it's fake. The phone is made of paper, including the buttons.
I actually was reading about this 'technological' idea on some stupid free-energy website. The site was talking about creating Bifield-Brown Disks (Flying Saucers made of huge capacitors). Well building your own capacitors at home is a real pain if you are to make them according to the Biefield-Brown instructions, ergo: some-one came up with this nifty idea:
Because you are layering conductive material upon non-conductive material (thousands upon thousands of layers); it becomes a real problem to layer them accurately by hand. So, somebody thought of using a fairly conductive ink-type, and simply printing the conductor pattern on a sheet of paper, which would act as a non-conductor.
Basically, a Printed-Circuit-Board printed on standard white paper using some variation of standard printer ink. Now, other applications of this technology with better ink, and different forms of paper would allow (through layoring) the creation of basic gates, basic components (resistors, capacitors, diodes?) and easiest of all, buttons such as the ones shown on the face of the phone.
I won't disagree with you here, they do look fake to me also, but the technology is possible. You know, come to think of it; maybe I'll get to work on my own paper circuitry. 8-)
"If I want to charge you 50 bucks a night for a hotel room."
No, but if you want to charge me $50 bucks a night to listen to your car run, I would just walk accross the street and listen to it anyways; unless of course, i felt that $50 was worth paying to listen to your car run, and I could afford it.
using a hotel room means that i may or may not be losing other business for you, and also you would have to clean the room and deal with me; which would be worth money.
"And don't even try to compare my use of the word 'kids' to racism. That's ludicrous on face value alone."
So is your use of the word kids.
"Then, a bunch of kids decide that they want what DirectTV has, but not at their terms. So they steal the service. Yes, they stole it. Hell, they admit it in the article."
-I coulda done it too, if it wasn't for them damn kids!
Hackers aren't kids, just like teenagers aren't the scourge of the earth, and major theft as well as shoplifting isn't all done by 'renegade punks' (or by *punks* at all). You might as well be racist.
Hackers didn't steal television for free. Crackers stole television for free. The hackers might have discovered the technology, the Crackers abused it (if this was in fact abuse). Hackers are not theives, Crackers are; and if you think their is no difference, then you are insulting the very people who brought you your computer and your operating system. You might as well be racist.
"They make money from the sale of this service, and they provide the infrastructure, the broadcast, the hardware, etc."
Not everything corporate America does is legitimate. Almost everyone out there is running software they couldn't afford to pay for, (that includes shareware like Winzip and anti virus programs half you hypocrites don't even bother to register). If I formatted your Hard drive and left 1 file called, "Game Over" I could make all the same arguments; but it doesn't mean in the end that you could, or ever would have paid me for a service that costs me no extra money to provide to you.
If they can't convince us their service is worth paying for, then they'll just have to arrest us and throw us all in jail; because I really don't care about the interests of every large company and its consumers who defend it like mindless drones.
"You're composed of a number of chemical elements."
..."The state's power system is neglected and decrepit. Californians fear power plants on principle; they loathe them so much that they don't even want to replace their old, filthy power plants with new power plants that work better and are sort of okay." - Bruce Sterling
Ok, we can get in to a number of silly debates regarding my obvious point. Let me rephrase that, 'highly radioactive material is dangerous, hands down, no matter what'.
and, "Containment of Incredibly High-Powered Nuclear Explosion which Burn Hotter Than the surface of the sun are potentially dangerous".
- Even bad news sources admit there is a problem with power plants being dangerous, and in some cases decreped for whatever reason. As another person mentioned, look up "nuclear disaster" in google and my point will be very obvious. I apologize if the wording left room for elitist nitpicking; it's hard to resist I know.
Perhaps my Canadian-ness has neglected to educate me on the wonder and awe that is 'Bruce Sterling'. Should I know who this guy is?
Anyways, after reading his article I've come to the conclusion that it is in fact possible to discuss the internet in an article related to power consumption and a bad, quickly-fluctuating economy; that is, if you don't actually make any correlation between them at all.
"Canadians really love the Internet. In almost all parts of Canada, home Internet connectivity is growing as fast as yesteryears Cable television and pre-era Radio License sales. But what may surprise some Canadian Clothing Retailers, is that while clothes may sell fast; they are not the Internet bubble of bit communications. That is, the internet is made up of a slurry of routing, and computational machinery, constantly sending and receiving tiny electrical signals; Where as clothing is made up of fabric.
Fabric in Canada has nothing to do with the internet, now I will speak about fabric.... etc."
Who is this guy?
"My mother takes two 14+ hour flights (NYC to Pakistan, and back) every two months or so. (Retired).
My brother takes 2-3 hour flights every Monday and every Friday. (Consultant)."
Ok, so the 14 hour flights aren't business flights. No Internet connection is required, though it might be fun to have one.
The 2 - 3 hour flights fall into my 2 - 3 hour timeline; does he *need* an internet connection?
I'm not saying the 'net' wouldn't be interesting to have access to in any place, just the same as it would be interesting to have the net accessable in a washroom. Interesting like, "Oh wow, what kind of person has to get their email while they're in the washroom".
My point is only that we should re-evaluate how much time & money we want public transportation to invest in keeping us working round-the-clock.
If I were on a plane with a laptop right now, I'd be playing a game, or reading some saved information. The fact that I *could* one day connect to the net and get new information is boring when i consider how much time I'm actually spending on most flights.
It seems like the only practical reason to invest time and money in networking people in-flight, is to help their business interests; and what business can stand to spend so much for a flight and accomodations, but can't afford that 3 hours of luxury net-free time we would all enjoy if we weren't so hyped about the 'possibility' of connecting in the air.
I'm starting to become convinced that Hollywood producers will never produce a worthwhile technical flick.
20 Years in the making means in all like-li-hood it's 20 years out of date. I'm not trolling here, it's just the way things work. You can work on a technological movie for as long as you want, but once you reach a certain time-frame you have to do one of the following.
1) Update all your information, and waste your footage. Making 20 years about as useful as 5.
2) Make your techno-movie only work in a certain time-line, ie: its a techno movie about technology from the past (not very likely) or:
3) The most common solution to producing a techno movie that meets the demands of artistic license and the motto, "make me money because Akira Kurosawa's dead now" is to make the movie (from the beginning) focus on vague, general idealogies inherent in Technology of one type or another. Movies of this nature, in a nutshell, suck.
If this movie is just another 'Data the pale Ensign' story, then its been done. It was done in Terminator back in the 80s. It was done by Gene Roddenbury... whatever, it's just old.
If this story is about technology, and where we are realistically headed, what we have to question about our research and what we do: Then the information is outdated, sure we could predict AI 20 years ago; but if what we knew of AI 20 years ago is the basis of the plot, then I for one have already seen that story. Either way we as consumers of Spielbergs Crap for the Masses are losers. David Wong on the other hand will probably give it a full two stars
Am I the only person posting in this group who thinks this idea is a waste of money?
I mean, I'm as nerdy as the next guy; I really am. But cummon, who really takes that many flights longer than 2 - 3 hours. Isn't it enough that you can sit there and use your computer and get work done, do you have to be able to do real-time research and communicate with people for that whole three hours? Stuff like this can't wait until you land and take 4 minutes to get inside the airport, "Our customers already have access to wireless communications in our SAS lounges through Telia HomeRun"
In the end, any modifications the airline makes to the plane are going to raise the price of airline tickets. I don't want to pay more money for my flights so joe-asshole on his $8.00/min cell-phone can also type while I'm trying to get an hour or two of sleep.
Is there such thing as a business job that requires you to travel *and* get so much work done that you can't take a 3 hour break from being connected to the outside world? Not even a break from working, just a break from being connected... it sounds like 'too much hype' to me.
It reminds me of all the "business men" I used to sell Palm Pilots too back in my hay-day as a fledgling guru. "Whoa! I can connect to the internet with that!? anywhere?!". Guess how many of them actually do that 3 weeks after they get one... I think 90% of the guys running with leading-edge technology are actually wasting their time (and often other peoples time) figuring out how to be more efficient with their new technology.
ie: Hey, this palm pilot lets me get my email anytime i want, now I can check it on my way to work instead of when I get there. They then spend 4 hours setting it up, and save 5 minutes in their work day for a month or two until something new comes out.
"This is highly unlikely to result in all sorts of people going out and buying these sorts of machines; it's just not economical unless there's a compelling need that justifies paying a couple grand for a pretty small server."
... Still interesting to know we should be waiting for it.
The point is that they are available. The $2500 is, in all likelihood, the introductory price based on "how many people want these things?!"... Once a few are sold, I'm sure the price will drop considerably.
In time little grass-hoppah.... in time....
Another important thing to note is these machines probably have better heat dissipation than larger machines [I'm basing this on the idea that 1) heat disipation would have to be improved to even offer them, and 2) If they are smaller, they are easier to cool; because moving air can be directed at and away from them with less energy (ie: the diff. between a cpu fan and a case-fan)].. In the least, they would be useful for applications where heat is a problem. I'm sure big bizz. will be buying into them so us little guys can reap the price drop in a year or two.
"According to whom? Different people have different ideas of what is and is not dangerous. "Danger" is a subjective term, and too often used as a defense for NIMBY and NIMBY's big brother, BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)."
Who are you, Rush Limbaugh? Radioactive material is dangerous, hands down, no matter what. Contained Nuclear Explosions fall in to the 'potentially dangerous' category. Take in to account that this technology is hard, and very expensive to fix when problems are found, and you have many potential disasters worldwide.
"If the design is that badly flawed, they won't be able to run the plant. That's one of the nice fringe benefits of living in a capitalist society; people get to choose who they work for."
And who they live beside, and what water they drink, Hey, if all your waters polluted, you just work a little harder and buy bottled water from farther north. WhoU! capitalism! Hey, if you think you might be absorbing radiation leaked from hundreds of miles away, just move somewhere where nobody effects the planet. simple!
"this same news media is so incompetent they can't cover major nuclear disasters?"
Correct! Welcome to the world of 24 hour OJ Estate coverage not being informative, major Gulf War cover-ups, and bad 80's nintendo looking graphics selling the entire country a billion dollar space-war program.
"Let me get this straight. If they were designing and building the controlling circuitry at the office, that'd be fine, no matter how lousy the design was."
Umm no, that's not the point at all. The point is that if you want to design circuitry to run a nuclear reactor, you don't; you get someone who knows what they're doing to do it. Circuitry gets detailed fast. Here's a small list of things you would easily overlook in that situation.
1) Failsafe Details, do circuits open or close on failure
2) Noise failsafes, what amount of noise will cause dangerous operation of the circuit
3) Home soldering & Home PCB fabrication are not trustworthy
4) Chips used are probably not military grade, as the average electronics hobbyist uses the $10.00 cheaper brand which does the same thing.
5) You can not accurately test the design at home against problems.
6) will the circuit ever be exposed to radiation, how much? What occurs in that event.
7) Soldering by hand will easily cause problems with 'wicking' and cold-solders which will break once the circuit is in place.
Please don't reply, summoning the strength to impart these small bits of common sense was enough work for 1 year.
"An intelligent reactor design (such as Candu) operated by well-trained individuals would never suffer such a catastrophe."
This really isn't an accurate statement. I am not disagreeing with you, Nuclear Energy is probably the best energy source for today; as well as Solar Power which feeds energy back into the electric grid (thereby, eliminating the need for nuclear energy by over 100% if everybody did it, and it was a government funded project). Anyways, I'm getting off topic.
The problem with complicated, dangerous (potentially dangerous?) technology is that you can look at it and say, "That was old technology, new technology won't do that". The truth is, new technology has not been tested as long as old technology; and in reality, new technology is always new, and never the technology being used everywhere; so it is not possible (in this case) to forgive the use of dangerous technology worldwide with a few examples of some new reactors running in a few small locations.
What's more is, Nuclear Technology is very expensive. A Nuclear Power plant is not something that just springs up over-night on a whim. The very nature of dependance and cost of Nuclear Technology makes it a dangerous thing. Should a problem be found in new reactor designs, or a problem occurs in the many tiny unique variables that effect nuclear power production at any facility; the technology is still going to be used for a long, long time. Until it is forcibily removed by government, or a serious disaster occurs. It is simply too expensive, and even most politicians will turn a blind-eye when they realize the risk of running a dangerous plant is less than the sure-statement that it must be replaced at a serious cost to taxpayers.
If you are looking for some examples of serious Nuclear mishaps, you will be very surprised by "Greenpeaces Guide To The Nuclear Age". Chernobyl was only one of many many disasters that have occured worldwide; many have occured in the US and Canada that nobody has even heard of, and they were very serious. The first Meltdown of a Nuclear Reactor actually occured in Canada.
On a personal note, I have a relative who used to work as an electrical engineer for a very large design and fabrication company you all know. They were contracted by a Nuclear plant, which was considered a very very small contract - for public-relations more than anything else, they did a quote on some fabrication of Printed Circuit Boards which were to control their reactor (Serious stuff). The quote was way below margin, and the plant thought it was too much!
"We really sharpened our pencils on this one! How can that be too much? These boards run the whole plant!"
The answer? Because the staff at the plant itself were actually designing, and building the controlling circuitry AT HOME, as it was needed! Very smart people, whose HOBBIES were Electronics were doing this stuff At Home. That too never made the papers.
There's a lot to Nuclear Energy that is scary besides Meltdowns, such as leaks, dumping(storage) of useless highly radioactive material, accidents which cause serious leaks (ie: the heavy water-barrier is super heated, causes an explosion or burst but manages to stop the reaction). I don't trust any industry that has to make commercials saying, "Nuclear Energy is Safe!", but they can't explain why, even in simple terms.
"Where to start? The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation."
Where to start? Decreasing density leads to better heat dissipation. Changing fabrication materials could mean less heat generation. Size doesn't mean anything so long as no space is wasted; moving outwards in the x axis, instead of adding gates upwards to the y-axis are equivilants. ie: building out instead of up.
"I'm surprised they haven't mentioned the TINI from iButton."
I've spoken to different representatives from Dallas Semiconductor in the past year, and have come to the conclusion that they are not a good company for the Unix-loving community to support.
They are not interested in the ingenuity and progress end-users often add to 'open' products such as their iButton, or TINI TCP/IP stack Chip. They are nothing more than a company of glutenous exec's, looking to sell millions of units to other large companies; They have no feel for the general publics willingness to contribute to new products.
I realize I sound like I'm describing every company out there, but hey; Even Microsoft tries to speak to its customers, game companies are switching platforms, and almost any large company looking to develop products which can be modified; want the general public to be happy and 'in-the-know' so they will feel a need to contribute to those products. This is not the case with Dallas SemiConductor.
Case in point. I was working at a small computer networking company in Ottawa a year ago, when 2600 magazine published an article on the iButton. I ordered one out of interest, and to become familiar with coding for it. Later the company I worked for mentioned it would be interesting if we could offer cryptographic ID rings to our customers that would log-them-in to their workstations. So I did some more research.
And came up with a few questions for "DS", 1 in particular: what protects computers from static when the wearer walks accross a room and plugs straight in to the serial port?
DS response, "why does it matter?",
me, "Because we may be ordering these for connecting to servers and workstations at our clients business's"
DS, "Look, we sell lots of these, there's nothing wrong with static"
me, "Ok well, do you have any information to support that? Do you have white-papers with measured voltage levels on connection?"
DS, "All the white-papers are online."
The online white-papers (at the time) contained little useful information; and this man knew there was no detailed information in their on it. (I know this because, my question before this was, "do you have more detailed white papers with data on")...
My point? I think Linux/FreeUnix has enough pull now-a-days to demand a certain, small amount of interest from companies offering new, end-user configurable products. After all, it was the OpenSource community that made SEGA stay in the market with inferior products, they've added to the success of the Palm Pilot, etc. etc. All examples of the Opensource community modifying, or changing new products are because the companies who offer them,
1) *do* take an interest in end-user opinions,
2) they are interesed in innovation, and they
3) *do* provide important technical information on their products to end users.
Opensource has done little to help Microsoft, because they have missed out on the last requirement for innovation.
"Question: would search engines be different, presumably because they also confer a benefit on the target by making it findable?)"
This ruling is obviously rediculous; who hosts a website that can't handle 1 extra connection?
But just to play devil's advocate, search engines are slightly different, since you can always specify in Robots.txt which robots, (none even) can access your site, and what they can access (effectively controlling their time on your site).
I would like to see a law against robots which do not adhere to robots.txt though...
Oh wait, this is the internet and it shouldn't be online if it's not meant to be accessed... sorry, I forget sometimes...
"Just do it on a server, a system that the user of the program doesn't have access to. Really simple."
I believe this would require the company coming in, installing it themselves and guarding the server. It would also require that the server have no other connection options or possible access hacks.
If you mean that companies provide their software through internet connections; that is far beyond today's bandwidth possibilities for all useable software, and you would either be replacing hackable main-software programs with cracked login programs, or you would be cracking simple logins.
This is beyond feasible, and is still susceptable for the same reasons; however you access it, part of the security relies on your access through software which is open for you to view and use however you wish (ultimately).
"Just admit you are a cheap bastard, I'm willing to admit it you should too."
I'm a cheap bastard.
"Good try at justification, except that if the general public complained to Valve to release Half-life on nix, you wouldn't be using windows to play it. MS doesn't keep Valve from supporting *nix."
Microsoft doesn't directly prevent all software companies from developing for a UNIX type environment; The problem is that Microsofts sheer size makes their products the default installation on almost every new home computer.
The target demographic for software companies is young people, and the majority of people buying games out their are the Nintendo, Playstation, Sega crap people who are using their parents / families computers for games, and almost exclusively for games.
You can complain to a software company to produce a UNIX friendly game all you want, but their response is simple economics and the largest factor in deciding is 'how many people are running Winblowz, is it just this one guy, this small group of people that wants it cross-platform?'. Slashdot should use its influence to pressure specific game companies, and that, I believe, would change the market over.
Almost everyone says, developing software for UNIX environments right now is a total crapshoot; nobody knows if the main initial attraction to the O/S's are free software.
If Microsoft did not keep their software the exclusive installation option on most new computer systems, then I believe games would immediately become cross-platform.
Incidentally, I'm not that cheap, i did pay $4.00 for freeBSD at H2K in new york (That's American yo); and when I came home, I paid around a $100 for a manual I can read when i'm not around my computer
Someone mentioned this might be because I am seeking the status of bragging about how I am all "Open source" and Microsoft SUX when I don't really know what I'm talking about; in reality it's because I want to become a super-powered computer user, with the capability of destroying planet earth as we know it... and making all hackers everywhere cower before my UB3R 3R33T HAx0R Sk1LLz.
All forms of copy protection can be defeated.
This is not like saying, "Anything is possible" - or a generalization. It is the absolute truth, and anybody who understands the inner workings of computers knows this.
The reason it is possible to defeat all copy protection, is simply because with todays computers you have access to the software you are running; you must have access to it, or it could not be on your system.
To defeat copy protection, you need only analyze how the software protects itself from illegle copying and circumvent it through the use of additional software, or modifying the original software.
Software companies can make the process as complicated as they want, the US can pass laws banning all reverse-engineering (Which is the equivilant of banning simple problem solving concepts, ie: 2x4 = 8 but legally you can't find out what 8/4 = ). Or the other way around, (Few what a paradox).
The only solution to prevent illegal copying is either to have very good public relations and rely on the honesty, and ethic of the general public in relation to your product (This is the best solution);
Or to offer your product on 'closed' systems, that is, systems where installing software and working with the contents of memory yourself - are next to impossible. Systems which are not made to be configured by the general public.
To my knowledge, these systems really don't exist; as everything today is made programmable, and the concepts are understood by everybody. You can program for game consoles, PDAs and home computers. And until the price of fabricating technology comes way, way down; there is not going to be a solution to the problem of copy protection because systems are made to have multiple uses, and this in itself gives anyone the ability to modify their software to do things it was not intended to do.
People demand these options, companies provide them, and then companies get angry that people demand total control over the products they own. It's BS.
I say, take back the right to use software however you wish; it's up to the companies to convince the users that their software is worth paying for.
I have a copy of Windoze, I use it regularly, and I refuse to pay for it because I am not convinced, not in the least, that it is worth a hundred bucks; not to me, and not to most computer users. It is closed-system software, and it sucks.
If microsoft had not cornered the software market so long ago, I would not be forced into running their crappy product for compatibility issues; and therefore I feel I have the right to use it free of charge, how else am I going to play Counterstrike...
I've always wondered, these messages that we send out are supposed to be simple enough for another civilization to decode once received; but what work goes into sending an easily recognizable message?
On SETI's page, they talk about a natural area of the radio spectrum where cosmic radiation does not interfere, and therefore this would be a good area to listen for communications which are meant for us to hear.
Are the messages we send out, also sent on this frequency? Has anybody ever taken a message such as this and analyzed the probability of a software program such as the one SETI uses recognizing it?
Do we take into account signal loss, and doppler effect when analyzing our own signals - to get a feel for how an alien race would analyze them were they to receive them in another galaxy?
Sure, we are definite they would receive the signal, but would they know it? By the time it reaches them, it may be full of static, or the timing may be too slow for a clear understanding of its intelligent origin; after all, if you were to scan a particular region of space, and for an entire day all you heard on a small frequency was a single strength of signal (a single pulse), you might be inclined to ignore it; believing it is regular noise from a distant cosmic event
I would like to know more about the science which goes in to the transmission of our own signals.
People are talking about posting more complicated messages to give instructions on building devices for communication.
In the least, this would show a need for communication between ourselves and another civilization; I believe it would be possible for 1 very simple reason.
The periodic table is as self-evident to an advanced culture as the number system, elements are formed in the table one after the other, and so with a little work we could send anything so long as we use diagrams.
I think it would be a great cosmic disaster to send plans for an atomic bomb to a race which has just mastered radio communications; what's more is, it would be very very funny.
Frequency is the inverse of the Period for the wave. The period of a wave is the time between the start of the wave & the end of the wave.
This means Frequency is directly related to the propagation time of the wave. A longer wave has a lower frequency in actuality; but that's relative to the propagation time for the wave. Any wave can look long if you analyze it under the right timing conditions.
Who in the hell moderated the message down that I'm replying to?
This guy's right.
A good example of the problem with converting radio waves to sound waves:
These radio waves were detected at very low frequencies. That means they have a very long wavelength; (ie:) physically, their wave length could be measured in meters.
When you convert this to sound, you end up with base of such a low wavelength, a modern speaker probably could not produce it. If it could, it would probably be outside the range of human hearing. If you could hear it, it would be very bass-y, and not high-pitched such as in the example.
This means that in even a direct translation to audible sound, the radio waves frequency was shifted into the audible sound-wave spectrum. This also means the researchers decided exactly how much to shift it, and so it really *doesn't* sound like the radio wave would -- could your ears hear radio waves.
"if you've ever wondered what it sounds like out there, this is it."
I'm sure people are going to mention this, so I thought I'd be first;
There is *no* sound in space. None at all.
I'm not saying that these audio clips are not interesting, or that they don't necessarily contain some sort of useful data. But the fulfillment factor in listening to these should be the same as looking at a graph of x vs. y; because if you think about it, way out in the cold depths of space, your ears do not pick up sound because there is no medium to transfer sound.
What's more is, were a small event to occur which normally should be heard here on earth, ie; two small rocks colaid; you wouldn't hear that either, because these are radio waves. Larger events, you can hear, but they are a reflection of things you do not see or relate to properly, since once again, these are radio waves and not vibrational waves caused by friction.
My point is, don't believe the hype: when people tell you it's possible to get a CD of sounds from space, what you're really getting is a small selection of the huge radio-spectrum converted to screechy, unintelligible garble. For that matter, it is possible to give any radio signal a certain characteristic (ie: easy to listen to, noisy screeching) because you decide the method used to represent that wave as a sound wave; since they are wholly different.
Who's to say that these radio-waves to sound-waves you hear would even sound the same were another person to take the raw data and convert it to sound; they probably wouldn't. So really, you're hearing 1 person (or 1 small group of peoples) interpretation of data put to unintelligible garble.
I hate fads.
The question posed in this article really doesn't make much sense. Why do we want to see neural networks in our homes if we don't have an end-goal?
I think most people live in such a way that intelligent-guessing of there habits is going to be more of a problem than simply giving them control of there environment through a 'stupid' network.
For example, as many posters have mentioned here; the lights in your home. You can't *guess* when a person wants a light in a room on based on any number of variables, just the same as you can't go in to someone else's house and control there lighting for them without getting feedback from them; ie: "I want lights to turn on in all rooms I *may* enter, a light on in the room I am in (obviously) and lights to turn off behind me, in rooms I can not enter directly from the spot I am in". Well this type of processing requires only sensors; deciding on whether the person wants bright, medium or dim lights is based completely on how they feel at the moment and no neural network has the ability to predict that with even effective accuracy.
Other examples of house-hold tasks that do not require a neural network: Toilet Flushing Heat (stupid networks control heat better) Water from taps Bathtubs filling at specific times Windows automatically tinting for heat-retention Dishwashing Laundry
etc. A neural network is meant to bridge a gap between people's simple requirements, and complicated digital processing. There is no requirement for digital decisions that are literally, "on" or "off".
"Well the first half says it must not release too much EMF, while the second half says the equipment must behave relatively reasonably if, for some reason, it does recieve too much EMF.
And what is a reasonable reaction to EMF, and why should a devices reaction to EMF be governed by law in such a vague way?
It doesn't state that, "The device must operate properly under the influence of EMF"; and if it did, I suspect the law would be much more eleborate in terms of the EMF Signal Strength a device is expected to operate normally under the influence of.
It only states the device must "accept" EMF. It doesn't say that, "EMF" should or should not effect the operation of the device in a desirable way, only that the device must be able to accept it.