There would be two ways to do that: 1)have a program that can parse a standard formatting language, and have a server push a description of the interface out to you or 2)push out a custom program that does the user interface work. It is also possible to have a combination with a standard program that can imbed the custom program.
Wait... Isn't that how the web already functions? A standards compliant web browser parses the language (HTML) and presents a user interface (web page.) Programs can be specially installed on your computer for specific tasks (such as Google Earth) for interfacing with the data, or they can be imbedded into a standard web page via Flash, Java or other techniques.
We are at the point where you basically have that networkable GUI. Any changes made will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Unless you can think of another way for IO to work. It really doesn't matter if the processing is done on the server or on the desktop, as long as you can get the data from the server out to the user (or user data sent to the server to be later processed by requests from that user or another user.)
I suppose the only advance you could put on is the ability to transfer the current state of your running GUI to a different computer. I imagine this would be best accomplished through some crafty hacks of virtualization, as long as there is adequate bandwith between the devices and a common enough language to be able to pause the program and transfer all related information and states. I know this is being worked on at the server end so a running process can be transferred between servers if one shows signs of impending hardware failure or otherwise needs servicing or upgrades. From there it would seem to be next to trivial to transfer the running states of the user end, say between a desktop and laptop. I suppose this would also allow for saving of the entire running state to another computer. Cloning of a running program's state would also be theoretically possible, although you may run into race conditions and problems with data access locks. This would also open up a very large avenue for malware attacks of all kinds.
But you would still be basically dealing with a user needing information from a server being pushed to their display. Bandwith and security concerns aside, it really doesn't matter whether the whole database gets sent to the user's computer, whether the server just pulls out the necessary information and sends it raw for a program on the user's computer to process, or whether all processing is done server side and the desktop acts pretty much as a dumb x-term.
Exactly. I believe that Google is at least ATTEMPTING to minimize any evil that may come from storing that data. They have shown some backbone in dealing with warrantless requests for that information from the DHS, unlike just about any other organization.
If you believe that storing the information is in and of itself evil, then you are free to attempt to set up competing services. If you aren't using the information garnered about users to deliver targetted advertising, you are likely going to have to charge a fee as internet search (and the other goodies that Google delivers) are fairly expensive to do. Very few people would be actually willing to pay for internet search when they can get it free (or advertising supported, to be more accurate) from many other places online, so your costs would be distributed among just a few people, meaning the per user fee will be quite high. Or you can simply not use Google, MSN search, Yahoo, etc. Good luck competing in today's society that way.
I haven't seen Google do anything major to break the trust that they have earned (besides going public, which does mean that choices are in some way no longer strictly under their control.) Untill such time as they show otherwise, my experience is that they are more concerned about my privacy than any other data amalgamating corporation out there. I have decided that for me, the benefit gained from using Google is worth the risk that the data gleaned from my use presents. There are going to be people in other fields with other... shall we say interests for whom this does not hold true. I this is the case, be careful what you search for, and assume that anything you search or allow Google to search on your computer if you use Google Desktop or similar can be used against you. Anonymizing proxies and others may help to some extent as long as you are careful not to give any link to yourself through the proxy. And remember, sometimes being TOO paranoid mades you stick out and "THEY" will start watching you simply because "THEY" think you have something to hide... then you have to go VERY deep under cover, which means you no longer have a personal life, only a cause.
If you want to argue that the only species we have an obligation to preserve are the ones that our own actions have endangered, then that's fine - you're entitled to your own point of view. However, I don't agree with that line of thinking. The fact that we're probably blameless in the fate of the tasmanian devil doesn't mean we have no cause to preserve them.
And even if you take it a step further and argue that humanity is the only species we have an obligation to preserve, it can still be argued that it is in our best interest to attempt to preserve the tasmanian devil. 1)It is only logical that allowing all other organisms to die out will eventually mean that some organism we rely on for survival (if not as a species, then at least as a society) will die out. 2)Studying the plight of the Tasmanian Devil may give us insights into biology that will aid the medical field as applied to humans if such a phenomenon were to cross over or spontaneously arise in humans.
I suppose the real question would be how much of our resources should we expend in attempting to save the Tasmanian Devil (or any other species in a similar situation.) I can't picture any person saying that every person on the earth should devote all their time, money and property to ensuring the survival of the Tasmanian Devil, even if it is found that humanity was indeed responsible for their plight (population bottleneck due to territory loss to human development leading to a lack of population resistance to transmissable cancers? The cancer was originally sparked by man-made pathogens? Escape of a laboratory research project into the wild? All plausable, off the cuff possibilities.) On the other hand, their plight does merit at the very least basic research, at least standard tracking of population dynamics so we can build finer models of disease transmission and resistance (assuming that this is not extremely resource intense) so it can at least be said that the species did not die out in vain.
They probably modded you as troll because of the link to your blog. There are ads at the bottom and the mod assumed that the primary reason you posted the ad was to generate traffic, not necesarilly contribute to the thread. Now, I have no idea what your intentions were, or whether the mod actually followed that line of reasoning, or whether the mod itself is a random troll or even a mistake (misclicked, intended to click another type of mod or even carelessly modded to wrong poast.) I'm just giving a possible reason for the mod.
The hardware device would probably be similar in form factor to a small USB thumb drive. Just keep it on your keychain. If the device is lost or stolen, you report it to the institute that you need to log in with and they cancel your old device and issue a new one. Hopefully this will be used in conjunction with a password, and possibly some biometric ID such as thumbprint for extremely sensitive information acess. Basically the device would encrypt any password given to the machine, probably in conjunction with username info and some other token given by the server. It will feel like using a physical key to a lock, but in all reality be less succeptible to a duplication attack. Again, if you lose the key, you would have to report it missing to whoever you log into, similar to how you have to cnacel credit cards/etc if you wallet is lost or stolen. And if you think you are the type of person who would be likely to forget or lose the key? Then it's not for you. If this key is necessary for security for a job that you want, then inability to keep track of the key would in all likelihood signify that you are not qualified for that sort of security clearance. And you are still free to carry around a standard credit card, check book, cash, gold dubloons or even poultry to barter if you don't want your financial information secured in this manner. For a lot of people, however, this level of security just makes sense.
And having the encryption as software, while helpfull to a small extent (makes extremely basic main in the middle attacks and basic line snooping a little more difficult, etc) it would not be any more secure than standard browser embedded encryption or whatnot... current state of the art, but the encryption would be easilly duplicated. If done in a hardware gadget, you could essentially utilize one-time pads which are decisively non-trivial to break.
Can you imagine the bad PR if customers drove up to the McDs and the sign on the screen said "not accepting orders at this time" for a day or two before someone realized that the hamburger conveyor belt was jammed?
If the screen can put out a "not accepting orders now" message, it can phone home and get a tech out to fix it. Eventually some of the more common problems with the machinery will be repaired by... a robot. But then you'll need a technician to repair THAT robot and so on. There will be occasional glitches that simply screw up an order without actually backing up the line, but those will eventually be ironed out: first with the one or two onsite operators, then eventually with direct customer input.
Yes, Dell does offer other brands for monitors. For TVs, they are all Dells. They may be rebadged, but they don't advertise them as any other brand. And a Dell TV or Monitor is not exactly rebadged... Dell might liscense a lot of the technology from the original manufacturer, and in fact order some parts from them, but other parts are manufactured by Dell, the firmware and other parts are custom rolled and built by Dell or contracted out through other manufacturers, and of course the shell and controls will be relatively different. And besides... if you change the badges on a product, even without changing any of the technology, you have just changed that product's brand.
I'd love to see Dell selling big screen TVs and surround sound setups with Media PCs: "Buy now, and get $100 off that 70" Mitsubishi DLP today!
Why would Dell sell Mitsubishi TVs when they have their own brand?
Case -> something stylish. Common failing here
I agree, a standard beige case or even fancy brushed aluminum job with standard mods of flashing LED fans etc would be horribly out of place. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Mac Mini form factor would be about right. Different enough looking to distinguish it from other components, but not incredibly garish so as to steal visual focus. Oh, and the computer should be extremely quiet. Granted, you'd really want to step up the hardware inside, and add space for a few more inputs (Cable/sattelite, various video game consoles... Digital Camera/camcorder input would probably be best done through USB, etc.) Would make the most sense to have the audio amplifier as a seperate unit to allow for better heat dissipation, upgrade path and of course budgets and taste... But I still think the form factor and industrial design of the case is appropriate. It could even go a bit wider to mimic other standard components. But overall it really wouldn't make sense to have a media center computer without at the very minimum having the ability to act as a master switch box. Although I suppose an external switch box controlled by the media center PC via USB/Firewire via drivers or a standard interface shouldn't be TOO kludgy.
But the big problem in my mind with a large scale media box is more political than technical. Getting media companies to approve any new format that would be designed to pass through essentially a commodity PC would involve locking the whole thing down with a lot of DRM to prevent unauthorized recording and subsequent sharing They would probably demand some encrypted codec that is only unscrambled by a trusted (by the media companies) device built into the monitor itself (regardless of where you stand on the moral issues, most people should be able to agree that it would be difficult to get the large media companies to agree to just let this happen.)
Sorry if I rambled a bit... it's late and I'm waiting for my laundry to finish.
And probably more importantly than just reaching people, the marketers can find what interests the people they reach have. Looking into it a bit can show that some unexpected demographic might be into the movie/band/whatever. Or they might find larger interest in certain geographic regions than expected... in theory this could allow companies to bring products (including movies and art) to people that actually want them. This is probably more important for something like a band planning out a tour schedule, but larger companies can use it to concentrate their marketing as well.
Whether LimeWire encourages people to break copyright laws will be left up to the courts, and you can bet that this will reach all the way to the supreme court. LimeWire's main defense here is the little "I might use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement." and "I will not use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement" radio buttons on the download page. Whether this counts as a binding agreement between LimeWire and the users in such a way that it relieves LimeWire of the responsibility to monitor for and stop copyright infringement is still quite up in the air. I think what's going to kill LimeWire is the offer of LimeWire pro... charging for and profitting from this is going to put a lot more responsibility in their hands.
And to everyone saying "The RIAA/MPAA is just trying to stop people from watching their stuff without paying" in this case is a strawman argument... this case is about stopping a corporation from directly profiting on the copyright infringement of their legally held intellectual property. Whether or not you believe that Copyright is morally repugnant, it is still protected by law. And it is really hard to claim civil disobedience when you are making a profit.
My guess would be that there are some good recipies for this in Japan. I know that there are various algae that are extremely popular (Nori, the green stuff that sushi is often rolled in (among other uses) is a type of seaweed, of which pretty much all are algae.) Spirulina is what people would more identify as algae, and is often used as a food additive. Soylent blue-green anybody? I think algae would just about win the crown for efficient nutrient production out of any foodstuff... can be grown in fresh, brackish or salt water. VERY efficient at photosynthesis and also conversion of that energy into foodstuff rather than expended on life processes. Wide range of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, healthy oils... just that western society would take some acclimitization to enjoy algae in any form as a primary vegetable. Also I believe algae is also pretty effecient at absorbing heavy metals and other toxins from the water, so this would prove some difficulty in converting our waste stream into fertilizer for the algae... although a lot of the higher seafoods ultimately eat organisms which ate organisms which ate... down the line untill something ate algae. This long chain leaves a lot of space for bioaccumulation to occur which means many of the more harmful toxins (Organic Mercuric compounds, Lead, DDT, etc) would be far less concentrated in the algae than say any fish we pull out of the same water.
After doing a little research, it appears that jellyfish is a common enough food in Japan and Australia. The general verdict seems to be that... it tastes like seaweed. It seems to me that jellyfish really wouldn't have a whole lot of nutritional value, as it is mostly salt water. Then again I've never really done a nutritional analysis on jellyfish. I suppose a large amount of the water could be removed in cooking, but for some reason jellyfish just don't seem like they could be commercially harvested and processed into food on a large enough scale to feed the entire world.
I assume you would be able to find a recipe for jellyfish-seaweed soup with very minimal googling.
And here I was thinking the hubris was related to one of the more popular images of the phoenix.
(Hint... it has to do with burning to ashes. Sure, a baby phoenix traditionally rose from the ashes, but somehow I don't think NASA has put that capability in place yet.)
There is something from keeping us from doing this... on a human scale the terrestrial environment is HUGE. That leaves a lot of room for error and changes. If one type of plant that makes a necessary nutrient dies out, chances are there is another way to get that nutrient. If we happen to have a bad year for plant growth due to decreased insolation, there is enough oxygen left over that animals don't die from asphyxiation. If a baterial or fungal bloom grows out of control killing all advanced life in an area, chances are there are surviving organisms that can recolinize the area once the bloom dies out. It would be quite difficult to design, build and launch an ecosystem into space with enough tolerance to last any decent amount of time.
It would be like those novelty fish and an aquatic plant in a closed container things. The fish supposedly eats new growth of the plant, and the plant is able to regrow due to the wastes of the fish. The whole thing is powered by sunlight. Seems like a nifty idea. Problem is, the fish and the plant live a life far shorter than the natural potential. Something on the order of a couple months rather than 5-10 years. It's just that it doesn't seem like all that short of a time because most people are extremely poor aquariasts that their fish don't last much longer than a couple months in an open ended system (food added, oxygen bubbled in, wastes drained out.)
I suppose it is theoretically possible, I just don't believe that a spacefaring "Biosphere II" will be feasable anytime in the near future considering the state of the art of all the different engineering disciplines involved.
If only it was possible to attach a device to the axle of a car to estimate the miles driven based on the number of revolutions. I'd probably be a hundredaire if I could patent that!
You can grow corn in the continental United States, but it is not naturally economically efficient. The Southern US is not an ideal climate, so it takes a bit more work to grow. There is a fairly stiff tariff on imported sugar to make domestically grown sugar able to compete economically. Hawaii has a much better climate for sugar cane, but does not have the landmass to support the large scale production that would be needed for energy.
That being said, sugarcane still could prove to be one of the most efficient crops to grow for ethanol in the region, as not only can the sugar be directly fermented, but the leftover bagasse (basically the rest of the corn plant) can be direcly burned for producing heat or electricity, or digested via industrial processes to various energy bearing compounds, including more ethanol. Bagasse can also be used to feed livestock or... a whole host of other uses.
And corn probably would not actually take up 95% of the landmass as many critics claim... IIRC that number came from assuming that only the starch and sugar of the kernels was converted to ethanol, leaving behind a large amount of fiber and other compounds in the stalk, leaves, cob, etc which can also be used for energy, much like the bagasse of sugar cane. At the time the 95% evaluation came around, the kernel was the only part that could economically be converted to ethanol, but technological advances have arisen which makes that number quite obsolete. Although we would have to be careful just how much of the stems/etc are used for energy production, as they make ezcellent silage and help maintin the health of the soil in which the corn is grown. Corn does require fairly fertile soil with moderate fertilization needs, and some claim that the fertilizer needed negates the environmental benefit gained by using corn as a fuel, but this in itself ignores the fact that sewage derived fertilizers would not pose as much of a health risk or perception of health concern that using sewage derived fertilizers would on food crops.
But there are indeed many different crops that could be used as biomass feedstock for making ethanol or biodiesel, while the monocot grasslike plants (corn, cane, sawgrass, bamboo...) are usually the first considered, there are several other plants that could be used including of course the favorite of a large portion of the population who is into biofuels: hemp. Ugg... sorry about the ugly run-on sentence.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: biofuels represent a major part of the key to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, but I doubt they will be able to do it alone. Solar, Geothermal, and even (OH NOES!) Nuclear power will all have to be used where appropriate to reduce the need for fossil fuels. Some energy needs will be best filled with fossil fuels for the time being, but reducing the consumption so there is some petroleum left for the most suited uses only makes sense.
My guess is the system will basically have one main core, with the other cores being powered on as needed. There would be some level of lag as the needed data is pulled into the core, but I don't see how this would be much different than, say, sending a new thread to an existing core. So, one core to handle the GUI, IPC related tasks, and of course thread delegation. Then a variable number of cores to handle whatever threads need to be thrown at them. An intelligent enough design could reduce power consumption when not in use, but offer great performance for whatever task is thrown at it.
I'm not even sure that the individual applications running would have to be multithreading aware, as the OS would be doing the bulk of the allocation, the apps would only really know how to do IPC with the main OS, which then sends the data to other apps wherever they are, be it on another core on the same chip, another chip on the same motherboard or even some processor on another computer if the system is set up properly.
Agreed... keep the cash on hand or at least in a relatively liquid investment. The worst thing you can assume when college is that you will step off the graduation podium and land your dream job. Often recent grads won't get a career job in the first summer after they graduate. Or they'll land themselves in a job that they find out really quickly that they don't like, but simply can't afford to quit it. And if you do happen to land yourself that dream job, whether through luck or hard work (internships help a lot here) then you have available money for the ultimate investment... a downpayment on a house. Even a tiny little one you would never dream of living in forever. Why pay rent when your morgtage and tax money are close to the same amount, except in the end you own the house and can sell it for at least a decent down payment on a better one. The downside is that if something goes wrong, the repairs come out of your own wallet, but remember that landlords are making a profit by renting to you, and they have mortgage, taxes, insurance and repairs to worry about as well.
Oh... there's a reason for it. They want to piss someone off enough that they go ballistic. When they do get pissed off and attempt some act of revolt, then the watchers can say "See, there are revolutionaries. We need more funding to stop them."
More like someone predicted that mass producing penicillin is possible before a company started doing it. Which is of course, an indirect tautology, since the person/people who started the company down the path of mass producing penicillin predicted that it was possible before they actually built all the factories. And I could easilly see it taking five years or more to design, secure funding for, engineer and then implement any massively new business idea.
Slashdot Mirror
Networkable GUIs?
There would be two ways to do that: 1)have a program that can parse a standard formatting language, and have a server push a description of the interface out to you or 2)push out a custom program that does the user interface work. It is also possible to have a combination with a standard program that can imbed the custom program.
Wait... Isn't that how the web already functions? A standards compliant web browser parses the language (HTML) and presents a user interface (web page.) Programs can be specially installed on your computer for specific tasks (such as Google Earth) for interfacing with the data, or they can be imbedded into a standard web page via Flash, Java or other techniques.
We are at the point where you basically have that networkable GUI. Any changes made will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Unless you can think of another way for IO to work. It really doesn't matter if the processing is done on the server or on the desktop, as long as you can get the data from the server out to the user (or user data sent to the server to be later processed by requests from that user or another user.)
I suppose the only advance you could put on is the ability to transfer the current state of your running GUI to a different computer. I imagine this would be best accomplished through some crafty hacks of virtualization, as long as there is adequate bandwith between the devices and a common enough language to be able to pause the program and transfer all related information and states. I know this is being worked on at the server end so a running process can be transferred between servers if one shows signs of impending hardware failure or otherwise needs servicing or upgrades. From there it would seem to be next to trivial to transfer the running states of the user end, say between a desktop and laptop. I suppose this would also allow for saving of the entire running state to another computer. Cloning of a running program's state would also be theoretically possible, although you may run into race conditions and problems with data access locks. This would also open up a very large avenue for malware attacks of all kinds.
But you would still be basically dealing with a user needing information from a server being pushed to their display. Bandwith and security concerns aside, it really doesn't matter whether the whole database gets sent to the user's computer, whether the server just pulls out the necessary information and sends it raw for a program on the user's computer to process, or whether all processing is done server side and the desktop acts pretty much as a dumb x-term.
What if the proxy is a honeypot that is monitoring you?
Exactly. I believe that Google is at least ATTEMPTING to minimize any evil that may come from storing that data. They have shown some backbone in dealing with warrantless requests for that information from the DHS, unlike just about any other organization.
If you believe that storing the information is in and of itself evil, then you are free to attempt to set up competing services. If you aren't using the information garnered about users to deliver targetted advertising, you are likely going to have to charge a fee as internet search (and the other goodies that Google delivers) are fairly expensive to do. Very few people would be actually willing to pay for internet search when they can get it free (or advertising supported, to be more accurate) from many other places online, so your costs would be distributed among just a few people, meaning the per user fee will be quite high. Or you can simply not use Google, MSN search, Yahoo, etc. Good luck competing in today's society that way.
I haven't seen Google do anything major to break the trust that they have earned (besides going public, which does mean that choices are in some way no longer strictly under their control.) Untill such time as they show otherwise, my experience is that they are more concerned about my privacy than any other data amalgamating corporation out there. I have decided that for me, the benefit gained from using Google is worth the risk that the data gleaned from my use presents. There are going to be people in other fields with other... shall we say interests for whom this does not hold true. I this is the case, be careful what you search for, and assume that anything you search or allow Google to search on your computer if you use Google Desktop or similar can be used against you. Anonymizing proxies and others may help to some extent as long as you are careful not to give any link to yourself through the proxy. And remember, sometimes being TOO paranoid mades you stick out and "THEY" will start watching you simply because "THEY" think you have something to hide... then you have to go VERY deep under cover, which means you no longer have a personal life, only a cause.
If you want to argue that the only species we have an obligation to preserve are the ones that our own actions have endangered, then that's fine - you're entitled to your own point of view. However, I don't agree with that line of thinking. The fact that we're probably blameless in the fate of the tasmanian devil doesn't mean we have no cause to preserve them.
And even if you take it a step further and argue that humanity is the only species we have an obligation to preserve, it can still be argued that it is in our best interest to attempt to preserve the tasmanian devil. 1)It is only logical that allowing all other organisms to die out will eventually mean that some organism we rely on for survival (if not as a species, then at least as a society) will die out. 2)Studying the plight of the Tasmanian Devil may give us insights into biology that will aid the medical field as applied to humans if such a phenomenon were to cross over or spontaneously arise in humans.
I suppose the real question would be how much of our resources should we expend in attempting to save the Tasmanian Devil (or any other species in a similar situation.) I can't picture any person saying that every person on the earth should devote all their time, money and property to ensuring the survival of the Tasmanian Devil, even if it is found that humanity was indeed responsible for their plight (population bottleneck due to territory loss to human development leading to a lack of population resistance to transmissable cancers? The cancer was originally sparked by man-made pathogens? Escape of a laboratory research project into the wild? All plausable, off the cuff possibilities.) On the other hand, their plight does merit at the very least basic research, at least standard tracking of population dynamics so we can build finer models of disease transmission and resistance (assuming that this is not extremely resource intense) so it can at least be said that the species did not die out in vain.
They probably modded you as troll because of the link to your blog. There are ads at the bottom and the mod assumed that the primary reason you posted the ad was to generate traffic, not necesarilly contribute to the thread. Now, I have no idea what your intentions were, or whether the mod actually followed that line of reasoning, or whether the mod itself is a random troll or even a mistake (misclicked, intended to click another type of mod or even carelessly modded to wrong poast.) I'm just giving a possible reason for the mod.
Your post frightens me. I don't know what it is, but for some reason faint images of a fan with a black and white spiral come to mind.
The hardware device would probably be similar in form factor to a small USB thumb drive. Just keep it on your keychain. If the device is lost or stolen, you report it to the institute that you need to log in with and they cancel your old device and issue a new one. Hopefully this will be used in conjunction with a password, and possibly some biometric ID such as thumbprint for extremely sensitive information acess. Basically the device would encrypt any password given to the machine, probably in conjunction with username info and some other token given by the server. It will feel like using a physical key to a lock, but in all reality be less succeptible to a duplication attack. Again, if you lose the key, you would have to report it missing to whoever you log into, similar to how you have to cnacel credit cards/etc if you wallet is lost or stolen. And if you think you are the type of person who would be likely to forget or lose the key? Then it's not for you. If this key is necessary for security for a job that you want, then inability to keep track of the key would in all likelihood signify that you are not qualified for that sort of security clearance. And you are still free to carry around a standard credit card, check book, cash, gold dubloons or even poultry to barter if you don't want your financial information secured in this manner. For a lot of people, however, this level of security just makes sense.
And having the encryption as software, while helpfull to a small extent (makes extremely basic main in the middle attacks and basic line snooping a little more difficult, etc) it would not be any more secure than standard browser embedded encryption or whatnot... current state of the art, but the encryption would be easilly duplicated. If done in a hardware gadget, you could essentially utilize one-time pads which are decisively non-trivial to break.
I think the NSA has a lot of number crunching capability.
Can you imagine the bad PR if customers drove up to the McDs and the sign on the screen said "not accepting orders at this time" for a day or two before someone realized that the hamburger conveyor belt was jammed?
If the screen can put out a "not accepting orders now" message, it can phone home and get a tech out to fix it. Eventually some of the more common problems with the machinery will be repaired by... a robot. But then you'll need a technician to repair THAT robot and so on. There will be occasional glitches that simply screw up an order without actually backing up the line, but those will eventually be ironed out: first with the one or two onsite operators, then eventually with direct customer input.
Yes, Dell does offer other brands for monitors. For TVs, they are all Dells. They may be rebadged, but they don't advertise them as any other brand. And a Dell TV or Monitor is not exactly rebadged... Dell might liscense a lot of the technology from the original manufacturer, and in fact order some parts from them, but other parts are manufactured by Dell, the firmware and other parts are custom rolled and built by Dell or contracted out through other manufacturers, and of course the shell and controls will be relatively different. And besides... if you change the badges on a product, even without changing any of the technology, you have just changed that product's brand.
I'd love to see Dell selling big screen TVs and surround sound setups with Media PCs: "Buy now, and get $100 off that 70" Mitsubishi DLP today!
Why would Dell sell Mitsubishi TVs when they have their own brand?
Case -> something stylish. Common failing here
I agree, a standard beige case or even fancy brushed aluminum job with standard mods of flashing LED fans etc would be horribly out of place. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Mac Mini form factor would be about right. Different enough looking to distinguish it from other components, but not incredibly garish so as to steal visual focus. Oh, and the computer should be extremely quiet. Granted, you'd really want to step up the hardware inside, and add space for a few more inputs (Cable/sattelite, various video game consoles... Digital Camera/camcorder input would probably be best done through USB, etc.) Would make the most sense to have the audio amplifier as a seperate unit to allow for better heat dissipation, upgrade path and of course budgets and taste... But I still think the form factor and industrial design of the case is appropriate. It could even go a bit wider to mimic other standard components. But overall it really wouldn't make sense to have a media center computer without at the very minimum having the ability to act as a master switch box. Although I suppose an external switch box controlled by the media center PC via USB/Firewire via drivers or a standard interface shouldn't be TOO kludgy.
But the big problem in my mind with a large scale media box is more political than technical. Getting media companies to approve any new format that would be designed to pass through essentially a commodity PC would involve locking the whole thing down with a lot of DRM to prevent unauthorized recording and subsequent sharing They would probably demand some encrypted codec that is only unscrambled by a trusted (by the media companies) device built into the monitor itself (regardless of where you stand on the moral issues, most people should be able to agree that it would be difficult to get the large media companies to agree to just let this happen.)
Sorry if I rambled a bit... it's late and I'm waiting for my laundry to finish.
And probably more importantly than just reaching people, the marketers can find what interests the people they reach have. Looking into it a bit can show that some unexpected demographic might be into the movie/band/whatever. Or they might find larger interest in certain geographic regions than expected... in theory this could allow companies to bring products (including movies and art) to people that actually want them. This is probably more important for something like a band planning out a tour schedule, but larger companies can use it to concentrate their marketing as well.
Whether LimeWire encourages people to break copyright laws will be left up to the courts, and you can bet that this will reach all the way to the supreme court. LimeWire's main defense here is the little "I might use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement." and "I will not use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement" radio buttons on the download page. Whether this counts as a binding agreement between LimeWire and the users in such a way that it relieves LimeWire of the responsibility to monitor for and stop copyright infringement is still quite up in the air. I think what's going to kill LimeWire is the offer of LimeWire pro... charging for and profitting from this is going to put a lot more responsibility in their hands.
And to everyone saying "The RIAA/MPAA is just trying to stop people from watching their stuff without paying" in this case is a strawman argument... this case is about stopping a corporation from directly profiting on the copyright infringement of their legally held intellectual property. Whether or not you believe that Copyright is morally repugnant, it is still protected by law. And it is really hard to claim civil disobedience when you are making a profit.
My guess would be that there are some good recipies for this in Japan. I know that there are various algae that are extremely popular (Nori, the green stuff that sushi is often rolled in (among other uses) is a type of seaweed, of which pretty much all are algae.) Spirulina is what people would more identify as algae, and is often used as a food additive. Soylent blue-green anybody? I think algae would just about win the crown for efficient nutrient production out of any foodstuff... can be grown in fresh, brackish or salt water. VERY efficient at photosynthesis and also conversion of that energy into foodstuff rather than expended on life processes. Wide range of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, healthy oils... just that western society would take some acclimitization to enjoy algae in any form as a primary vegetable. Also I believe algae is also pretty effecient at absorbing heavy metals and other toxins from the water, so this would prove some difficulty in converting our waste stream into fertilizer for the algae... although a lot of the higher seafoods ultimately eat organisms which ate organisms which ate... down the line untill something ate algae. This long chain leaves a lot of space for bioaccumulation to occur which means many of the more harmful toxins (Organic Mercuric compounds, Lead, DDT, etc) would be far less concentrated in the algae than say any fish we pull out of the same water.
After doing a little research, it appears that jellyfish is a common enough food in Japan and Australia. The general verdict seems to be that... it tastes like seaweed. It seems to me that jellyfish really wouldn't have a whole lot of nutritional value, as it is mostly salt water. Then again I've never really done a nutritional analysis on jellyfish. I suppose a large amount of the water could be removed in cooking, but for some reason jellyfish just don't seem like they could be commercially harvested and processed into food on a large enough scale to feed the entire world.
I assume you would be able to find a recipe for jellyfish-seaweed soup with very minimal googling.
And here I was thinking the hubris was related to one of the more popular images of the phoenix.
(Hint... it has to do with burning to ashes. Sure, a baby phoenix traditionally rose from the ashes, but somehow I don't think NASA has put that capability in place yet.)
Then you'd better get to work on the article celebrated here.
There is something from keeping us from doing this... on a human scale the terrestrial environment is HUGE. That leaves a lot of room for error and changes. If one type of plant that makes a necessary nutrient dies out, chances are there is another way to get that nutrient. If we happen to have a bad year for plant growth due to decreased insolation, there is enough oxygen left over that animals don't die from asphyxiation. If a baterial or fungal bloom grows out of control killing all advanced life in an area, chances are there are surviving organisms that can recolinize the area once the bloom dies out. It would be quite difficult to design, build and launch an ecosystem into space with enough tolerance to last any decent amount of time.
It would be like those novelty fish and an aquatic plant in a closed container things. The fish supposedly eats new growth of the plant, and the plant is able to regrow due to the wastes of the fish. The whole thing is powered by sunlight. Seems like a nifty idea. Problem is, the fish and the plant live a life far shorter than the natural potential. Something on the order of a couple months rather than 5-10 years. It's just that it doesn't seem like all that short of a time because most people are extremely poor aquariasts that their fish don't last much longer than a couple months in an open ended system (food added, oxygen bubbled in, wastes drained out.)
I suppose it is theoretically possible, I just don't believe that a spacefaring "Biosphere II" will be feasable anytime in the near future considering the state of the art of all the different engineering disciplines involved.
If only it was possible to attach a device to the axle of a car to estimate the miles driven based on the number of revolutions. I'd probably be a hundredaire if I could patent that!
You can grow corn in the continental United States, but it is not naturally economically efficient. The Southern US is not an ideal climate, so it takes a bit more work to grow. There is a fairly stiff tariff on imported sugar to make domestically grown sugar able to compete economically. Hawaii has a much better climate for sugar cane, but does not have the landmass to support the large scale production that would be needed for energy.
That being said, sugarcane still could prove to be one of the most efficient crops to grow for ethanol in the region, as not only can the sugar be directly fermented, but the leftover bagasse (basically the rest of the corn plant) can be direcly burned for producing heat or electricity, or digested via industrial processes to various energy bearing compounds, including more ethanol. Bagasse can also be used to feed livestock or... a whole host of other uses.
And corn probably would not actually take up 95% of the landmass as many critics claim... IIRC that number came from assuming that only the starch and sugar of the kernels was converted to ethanol, leaving behind a large amount of fiber and other compounds in the stalk, leaves, cob, etc which can also be used for energy, much like the bagasse of sugar cane. At the time the 95% evaluation came around, the kernel was the only part that could economically be converted to ethanol, but technological advances have arisen which makes that number quite obsolete. Although we would have to be careful just how much of the stems/etc are used for energy production, as they make ezcellent silage and help maintin the health of the soil in which the corn is grown. Corn does require fairly fertile soil with moderate fertilization needs, and some claim that the fertilizer needed negates the environmental benefit gained by using corn as a fuel, but this in itself ignores the fact that sewage derived fertilizers would not pose as much of a health risk or perception of health concern that using sewage derived fertilizers would on food crops.
But there are indeed many different crops that could be used as biomass feedstock for making ethanol or biodiesel, while the monocot grasslike plants (corn, cane, sawgrass, bamboo...) are usually the first considered, there are several other plants that could be used including of course the favorite of a large portion of the population who is into biofuels: hemp. Ugg... sorry about the ugly run-on sentence.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: biofuels represent a major part of the key to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, but I doubt they will be able to do it alone. Solar, Geothermal, and even (OH NOES!) Nuclear power will all have to be used where appropriate to reduce the need for fossil fuels. Some energy needs will be best filled with fossil fuels for the time being, but reducing the consumption so there is some petroleum left for the most suited uses only makes sense.
My guess is the system will basically have one main core, with the other cores being powered on as needed. There would be some level of lag as the needed data is pulled into the core, but I don't see how this would be much different than, say, sending a new thread to an existing core. So, one core to handle the GUI, IPC related tasks, and of course thread delegation. Then a variable number of cores to handle whatever threads need to be thrown at them. An intelligent enough design could reduce power consumption when not in use, but offer great performance for whatever task is thrown at it.
I'm not even sure that the individual applications running would have to be multithreading aware, as the OS would be doing the bulk of the allocation, the apps would only really know how to do IPC with the main OS, which then sends the data to other apps wherever they are, be it on another core on the same chip, another chip on the same motherboard or even some processor on another computer if the system is set up properly.
Agreed... keep the cash on hand or at least in a relatively liquid investment. The worst thing you can assume when college is that you will step off the graduation podium and land your dream job. Often recent grads won't get a career job in the first summer after they graduate. Or they'll land themselves in a job that they find out really quickly that they don't like, but simply can't afford to quit it. And if you do happen to land yourself that dream job, whether through luck or hard work (internships help a lot here) then you have available money for the ultimate investment... a downpayment on a house. Even a tiny little one you would never dream of living in forever. Why pay rent when your morgtage and tax money are close to the same amount, except in the end you own the house and can sell it for at least a decent down payment on a better one. The downside is that if something goes wrong, the repairs come out of your own wallet, but remember that landlords are making a profit by renting to you, and they have mortgage, taxes, insurance and repairs to worry about as well.
Oh... there's a reason for it. They want to piss someone off enough that they go ballistic. When they do get pissed off and attempt some act of revolt, then the watchers can say "See, there are revolutionaries. We need more funding to stop them."
More like someone predicted that mass producing penicillin is possible before a company started doing it. Which is of course, an indirect tautology, since the person/people who started the company down the path of mass producing penicillin predicted that it was possible before they actually built all the factories. And I could easilly see it taking five years or more to design, secure funding for, engineer and then implement any massively new business idea.
Then your AC rating is calculated, and you get the chance to play again as another faction.
Oh sweet mod points, where are you now?