Children just can't be left unsupervised on the internet until they are old enough to make proper decisions. I don't understand why parents (and governments) feel that the internet needs to be made child-proof; it just isn't and it never will be. Computers need to be left in common rooms with access restricted whenever the parents aren't home.
Every patent will point out that it consumes less energy than it theoretically could have if it had been poorly engineered. It's...greener than the alternative...I guess.
Faster algorithms will qualify. Just tabulate the total energy saved in data centers that will use your green algorithm. New, large hats might reflect more visible sunlight back to space. New oil extraction methods will more efficiently deliver fossil fuels to gas tanks (thereby lowering the price point and generating more emissions), a new method of writing patents can will green-wash them so they generate less paper work in the streamlined process. All will qualify! (Except that the meta-green patent is a methods patent and wouldn't qualify anyway.)
sorting out truly green patent applications from ones that have green-washed the terminology. I suspect it will do more to promote the, already abused, usage of the term green than actual environmentally friendly initiatives. Still, promoting less wasteful technology is by no means a bad thing, whatever the motive. Even if the initiative fails to promote green inventions (not that I'm saying it will, just that it will be ambiguous to determine), the ideal of efficiency and conservation will be promoted in the public eye.
I've been following the LHC's progress fairly closely because I find the project absolutely fascinating. On the other hand, I think/. might be overdoing it a bit regarding news on the subject. Half the summary was devoted to explaining what exactly was different from the last posting. As all of the previous posting have explained, it will be a few months before anything truly exciting happens and years after that before the first really valuable scientific discoveries start occurring. Much of the discussion has become: "Are we there yet?" "No." "How about now?" "No." "And now?" "Still no."
I'm sure the actual law has some more rigorous definitions (not necessarily any less ridiculous mind you) of what a conversation consists of.
Yes, and the recent precedent that was set determines that sexually explicit conversations with children do constitute luring and inappropriate conversations. That's perfectly reasonable. The people who said that any conversation with a child is illegal are "Beyond Borders," a "think of the children" organization. Luckily, they don't set precedent.
Wait, wait, wait. No court has ruled that talking to children online is illegal, the story summary is incorrect. They've interpreted luring to include sexual conversations with children. That's not an unreasonable step.
The article states that "Beyond Borders," a dedicated "think of the children" organization were the ones who said that any conversation with children online would be illegal. Lucky for everyone, Beyond Borders doesn't set precedent, the courts do. The precedent that was set pertains to a particular case in which someone had sexually explicit conversations with a 12 year old. I think inciting an inappropriate conversation like that is an example of luring and absolutely should be illegal.
If it's turned off I would hope it has no memory footprint. What percentage of a TB drive will it consume? Stability is relative but it's probably more stable than wobbly-windows.
Your concerns are legitimate for a six year old laptop but most users are running Windows Vista/7 capable behemoths and would like to see some flexibility. There are many choices of desktop that do try to trim out anything that is not absolutely necessary but KDE isn't one of them. Nor should it be.
(I mean seriously, wobbly-windows and the desktop cube ship with a default KDE install and you're concerned about the possible performance impact of tabbed window managing?)
If you use someone else's (copyrighted) code you must abide by the license restriction. If it would be too costly to do so then you can't use the code.
Developers should fully understand whatever license they release under. If someone wants to restrict usage of their code to only open-source projects they are free to do so. If they want to release for the benefit of everyone they are free to do so. If they want to try to make some money off their efforts they are free to do so. The key is understanding what you're doing when you choose a license.
New GPL code is not a donation to the community. It is a payment to those who have written GPL code in the past, released on the understanding that others will pay for it by contributing further code. GPL carries restrictions, learn what they are before you use or write GPL code.
It's an option. You can choose not to use it. It could be handy in some situations or appeal to particular users in which case you can use it. As long as it's stable and doesn't consume resources unduly, why wouldn't you want the option?
The article states that the goal is to produce a quantum gate out of the single atom. If such a gate could be produced reliably and operate on controllable quantum states, then particular classes of problems could be solved dramatically faster. The promise doesn't lie in pushing existing technologies to be smaller, it's to supplement them with quantum computing capability.
You pay for a 70Mbps connection. The ISP is saying that if you buy that service and then have the audacity to use the service you buy you're doing something wrong. Taking up 60Mbps and leaving 10Mbps for your roommate is one thing, but if the two of you are paying for 70Mbps you should get to use it.
The ISP should be required to provide the service paid for. If they throttle, they should be required to specify say 70Mbps instantaneous rate 10Mbps sustained, for example. That would provide a clear description of the product they offer. Anything less is false advertising.
You've mostly listed people who would be considered opinion columnists. What about people who actually just report on general current events by going to locations and interviewing the people who were witness to them. There is no such thing as balanced journalism, but the majority of journalists come very close; they honestly try to present a balanced viewpoint and usually do a good job. My frame of reference is Canadian news sources which, I think, tend to do a very good job in most situations. It may be a bit different in the U.S. (I do get American TV and, yeah, the news is brutally sensationalist but you can distill real information from it).
It's not the journalists that are the problem, it's that the distributors haven't adapted to the new media that are now available. If you think that user-content can be more fair and balanced than most journalists, I ask of you: have you read slashdot?
Journalists will still do reporting and writing for a monetary sum.
They sure will; and that's what's important to realize. I often don't like the way the news industry operates but there is a real need for talented, paid journalists to write informed articles. The model by which the revenue is generated and distributed to the journalists will need to change but the journalists themselves will remain the core of the news.
As wonderful as user-generated-content is, it isn't a replacement for years of training in journalism. Many bloggers are very talented writers, but generally lack the time and credentials to truly investigate stories. User-submitted stories are great, but only if they reference or can be verified by an independent source with some journalist credentials. The term "blogger" just isn't relevant. A "blogger" with proper journalist credentials who investigates stories is a journalist, a "blogger" who doesn't is an opinion columnist. The fact the the medium is the Internet changes nothing about the content
The other key element is the editors. I suspect that in a new news model it would be the editors who aggregate user input, assign journalists to investigate and keep the stories well-written and well-informed. To cite an example of where this is being done very effectively (from my own sphere of interest, of course) is Ars Technica. They do an excellent job of providing well-written, research and occasionally even balanced articles on issues within the scope of Tech News. I think many news sites could follow that model to provide, high quality news in niche areas (a niche may local news for a city or national politics, for example).
What Microsoft is saying, is that if a bug in Windows causes you to lose all your data they won't be held financially accountable for it. If that wasn't there, every time someone lost work due to a BSOD Microsoft would have to pay up. The fact is, there is no way they would ever agree to terms like that.
I don't think it's unreasonable for Microsoft to refuse to cover my data loss so I enter into the contract with them. If you don't like the terms, don't accept the contract; it's as simple as that. You'll have to install an operating system that will enter into a contract with you in which they agree to accept liability for that sort of thing. Until you can find that OS, save often.
Now, don't get me wrong, I hate EULAs because they're disclosed after the purchase is made. I think that the terms should be required to be disclosed, in simplified but accurate form, on the box prior to purchase, preferably requiring an actual signature, not a click-through. However, once you agree to them by purchasing and installing the software, you're bound by them. If you think they're unreasonable, you must uninstall the software and request a refund because disliking the terms gives you absolutely no moral or legal high ground if you continue to run the software.
I agree that filesystem level error correction is good idea. Having the option to specify ECC options for a given file or folder would be great functionality to have. The idea presented in this article, however, is that certain compressed formats don't need ECC for the entire file. Instead, as long as the headers are intact, a few bits here or there will result in only some distortion; not a big deal if it's just vacation photos/movies.
By only having ECC in the headers, you would save a good deal of storage space and processing time. It wouldn't need to be supported in every application either, just the codecs. Individual codecs could include it fairly easily as they release new versions, which wouldn't be backward compatible anyway so you don't introduce a new problem. I think it's a good idea, it would keep media readable with very little overhead, just a few odd pixels during playback even in a corrupted file.
It's also cheaper for Google if someone else is paying these guys. What they're saying is that they can indirectly benefit from the output of software engineers who don't necessarily work for them. If that's the case, why wouldn't they let someone else pay for them? If they specifically need the talents provided by these engineers they certainly would hire them, but they clearly feel that it may not be cost effective to try to vacuum up all available talent indiscriminately.
It depends on the machines. He started about 10 years ago and it's on educational machines. There's a possibility that many are running old processors with Windows 98, which doesn't (if memory serves me) have the HLT instruction. In fact, on older machines an idle clock cycle is not that much less power consuming than one executing an instruction. Sure they could have been switched off, but many institutions don't bother anyway.
I'd say an appropriate punishment would be community service. We could make him write GPL'd code for a distributed computing project dedicated to advancing various scientific goals. On one hand, he's clearly had experience with distributed computing. On the other hand:
Dear freind;
Warm salutations and delicious felicitations to you. I am a Nigerian proffesor trying to solve caancer. If you can help I will transfer $1M to you on complting the project. Please send me your IP aderres and open ports 11-61234 on you firewall if you want the moeny. it is very urgent tha you you do not hesitate or i may not be able to pay you the money. If are intrsted send me your bank account information and I will email you the executabel.
Heartfelt sympathies and salivating wiahes, Lance Atkinson.
If IBM did this, we'd all understand - they are in the hardware business.
And Google isn't in the data center business? Besides, the idea of point cooling may be obvious, but what they patented is the system of 'air wands' (whatever those are) to accomplish it.
Well, I suppose wave equations are wave equations;) but I'm still always a bit amazed at how general the mathematical descriptions of physical systems are.
Slashdot Mirror
Children just can't be left unsupervised on the internet until they are old enough to make proper decisions. I don't understand why parents (and governments) feel that the internet needs to be made child-proof; it just isn't and it never will be. Computers need to be left in common rooms with access restricted whenever the parents aren't home.
The Onion reports that the next Modern Warfare game will be an extremely realistic portrayal of the life of a soldier. Worth a watch!
Every patent will point out that it consumes less energy than it theoretically could have if it had been poorly engineered. It's...greener than the alternative...I guess.
Faster algorithms will qualify. Just tabulate the total energy saved in data centers that will use your green algorithm. New, large hats might reflect more visible sunlight back to space. New oil extraction methods will more efficiently deliver fossil fuels to gas tanks (thereby lowering the price point and generating more emissions), a new method of writing patents can will green-wash them so they generate less paper work in the streamlined process. All will qualify! (Except that the meta-green patent is a methods patent and wouldn't qualify anyway.)
sorting out truly green patent applications from ones that have green-washed the terminology. I suspect it will do more to promote the, already abused, usage of the term green than actual environmentally friendly initiatives. Still, promoting less wasteful technology is by no means a bad thing, whatever the motive. Even if the initiative fails to promote green inventions (not that I'm saying it will, just that it will be ambiguous to determine), the ideal of efficiency and conservation will be promoted in the public eye.
Seriously?
I've been following the LHC's progress fairly closely because I find the project absolutely fascinating. On the other hand, I think /. might be overdoing it a bit regarding news on the subject. Half the summary was devoted to explaining what exactly was different from the last posting. As all of the previous posting have explained, it will be a few months before anything truly exciting happens and years after that before the first really valuable scientific discoveries start occurring. Much of the discussion has become: "Are we there yet?" "No." "How about now?" "No." "And now?" "Still no."
I'm sure the actual law has some more rigorous definitions (not necessarily any less ridiculous mind you) of what a conversation consists of.
Yes, and the recent precedent that was set determines that sexually explicit conversations with children do constitute luring and inappropriate conversations. That's perfectly reasonable. The people who said that any conversation with a child is illegal are "Beyond Borders," a "think of the children" organization. Luckily, they don't set precedent.
Wait, wait, wait. No court has ruled that talking to children online is illegal, the story summary is incorrect. They've interpreted luring to include sexual conversations with children. That's not an unreasonable step.
The article states that "Beyond Borders," a dedicated "think of the children" organization were the ones who said that any conversation with children online would be illegal. Lucky for everyone, Beyond Borders doesn't set precedent, the courts do. The precedent that was set pertains to a particular case in which someone had sexually explicit conversations with a 12 year old. I think inciting an inappropriate conversation like that is an example of luring and absolutely should be illegal.
If it's turned off I would hope it has no memory footprint. What percentage of a TB drive will it consume? Stability is relative but it's probably more stable than wobbly-windows.
Your concerns are legitimate for a six year old laptop but most users are running Windows Vista/7 capable behemoths and would like to see some flexibility. There are many choices of desktop that do try to trim out anything that is not absolutely necessary but KDE isn't one of them. Nor should it be.
(I mean seriously, wobbly-windows and the desktop cube ship with a default KDE install and you're concerned about the possible performance impact of tabbed window managing?)
If you use someone else's (copyrighted) code you must abide by the license restriction. If it would be too costly to do so then you can't use the code.
Developers should fully understand whatever license they release under. If someone wants to restrict usage of their code to only open-source projects they are free to do so. If they want to release for the benefit of everyone they are free to do so. If they want to try to make some money off their efforts they are free to do so. The key is understanding what you're doing when you choose a license.
New GPL code is not a donation to the community. It is a payment to those who have written GPL code in the past, released on the understanding that others will pay for it by contributing further code. GPL carries restrictions, learn what they are before you use or write GPL code.
It's an option. You can choose not to use it. It could be handy in some situations or appeal to particular users in which case you can use it. As long as it's stable and doesn't consume resources unduly, why wouldn't you want the option?
The article states that the goal is to produce a quantum gate out of the single atom. If such a gate could be produced reliably and operate on controllable quantum states, then particular classes of problems could be solved dramatically faster. The promise doesn't lie in pushing existing technologies to be smaller, it's to supplement them with quantum computing capability.
You pay for a 70Mbps connection. The ISP is saying that if you buy that service and then have the audacity to use the service you buy you're doing something wrong. Taking up 60Mbps and leaving 10Mbps for your roommate is one thing, but if the two of you are paying for 70Mbps you should get to use it.
The ISP should be required to provide the service paid for. If they throttle, they should be required to specify say 70Mbps instantaneous rate 10Mbps sustained, for example. That would provide a clear description of the product they offer. Anything less is false advertising.
You've mostly listed people who would be considered opinion columnists. What about people who actually just report on general current events by going to locations and interviewing the people who were witness to them. There is no such thing as balanced journalism, but the majority of journalists come very close; they honestly try to present a balanced viewpoint and usually do a good job. My frame of reference is Canadian news sources which, I think, tend to do a very good job in most situations. It may be a bit different in the U.S. (I do get American TV and, yeah, the news is brutally sensationalist but you can distill real information from it).
It's not the journalists that are the problem, it's that the distributors haven't adapted to the new media that are now available. If you think that user-content can be more fair and balanced than most journalists, I ask of you: have you read slashdot?
Journalists will still do reporting and writing for a monetary sum.
They sure will; and that's what's important to realize. I often don't like the way the news industry operates but there is a real need for talented, paid journalists to write informed articles. The model by which the revenue is generated and distributed to the journalists will need to change but the journalists themselves will remain the core of the news.
As wonderful as user-generated-content is, it isn't a replacement for years of training in journalism. Many bloggers are very talented writers, but generally lack the time and credentials to truly investigate stories. User-submitted stories are great, but only if they reference or can be verified by an independent source with some journalist credentials. The term "blogger" just isn't relevant. A "blogger" with proper journalist credentials who investigates stories is a journalist, a "blogger" who doesn't is an opinion columnist. The fact the the medium is the Internet changes nothing about the content
The other key element is the editors. I suspect that in a new news model it would be the editors who aggregate user input, assign journalists to investigate and keep the stories well-written and well-informed. To cite an example of where this is being done very effectively (from my own sphere of interest, of course) is Ars Technica. They do an excellent job of providing well-written, research and occasionally even balanced articles on issues within the scope of Tech News. I think many news sites could follow that model to provide, high quality news in niche areas (a niche may local news for a city or national politics, for example).
What Microsoft is saying, is that if a bug in Windows causes you to lose all your data they won't be held financially accountable for it. If that wasn't there, every time someone lost work due to a BSOD Microsoft would have to pay up. The fact is, there is no way they would ever agree to terms like that.
I don't think it's unreasonable for Microsoft to refuse to cover my data loss so I enter into the contract with them. If you don't like the terms, don't accept the contract; it's as simple as that. You'll have to install an operating system that will enter into a contract with you in which they agree to accept liability for that sort of thing. Until you can find that OS, save often.
Now, don't get me wrong, I hate EULAs because they're disclosed after the purchase is made. I think that the terms should be required to be disclosed, in simplified but accurate form, on the box prior to purchase, preferably requiring an actual signature, not a click-through. However, once you agree to them by purchasing and installing the software, you're bound by them. If you think they're unreasonable, you must uninstall the software and request a refund because disliking the terms gives you absolutely no moral or legal high ground if you continue to run the software.
I agree that filesystem level error correction is good idea. Having the option to specify ECC options for a given file or folder would be great functionality to have. The idea presented in this article, however, is that certain compressed formats don't need ECC for the entire file. Instead, as long as the headers are intact, a few bits here or there will result in only some distortion; not a big deal if it's just vacation photos/movies.
By only having ECC in the headers, you would save a good deal of storage space and processing time. It wouldn't need to be supported in every application either, just the codecs. Individual codecs could include it fairly easily as they release new versions, which wouldn't be backward compatible anyway so you don't introduce a new problem. I think it's a good idea, it would keep media readable with very little overhead, just a few odd pixels during playback even in a corrupted file.
It's also cheaper for Google if someone else is paying these guys. What they're saying is that they can indirectly benefit from the output of software engineers who don't necessarily work for them. If that's the case, why wouldn't they let someone else pay for them? If they specifically need the talents provided by these engineers they certainly would hire them, but they clearly feel that it may not be cost effective to try to vacuum up all available talent indiscriminately.
It depends on the machines. He started about 10 years ago and it's on educational machines. There's a possibility that many are running old processors with Windows 98, which doesn't (if memory serves me) have the HLT instruction. In fact, on older machines an idle clock cycle is not that much less power consuming than one executing an instruction. Sure they could have been switched off, but many institutions don't bother anyway.
I'd say an appropriate punishment would be community service. We could make him write GPL'd code for a distributed computing project dedicated to advancing various scientific goals. On one hand, he's clearly had experience with distributed computing. On the other hand:
Dear freind;
Warm salutations and delicious felicitations to you. I am a Nigerian proffesor trying to solve caancer. If you can help I will transfer $1M to you on complting the project. Please send me your IP aderres and open ports 11-61234 on you firewall if you want the moeny. it is very urgent tha you you do not hesitate or i may not be able to pay you the money. If are intrsted send me your bank account information and I will email you the executabel.
Heartfelt sympathies and salivating wiahes, Lance Atkinson.
Can extraditions be requested for an offense that only carries a fine?
You mean like the rubber hose I used in a system five years ago to force incoming cool air to pass directly over the CPU
Is that what the patent is for or are you just speculating?
If IBM did this, we'd all understand - they are in the hardware business.
And Google isn't in the data center business? Besides, the idea of point cooling may be obvious, but what they patented is the system of 'air wands' (whatever those are) to accomplish it.
Well...the Natalie Portman chip is hot...
Well, I suppose wave equations are wave equations ;) but I'm still always a bit amazed at how general the mathematical descriptions of physical systems are.