Yes, there is always the political argument. While I'm not sure if this is what you meant one might argue that sending machines into space simply doesn't excite the imagination of the voters or politicians. Hence human spaceflight is not truly competing for resources with our types of spaceflight or scientific research but is rather just a huge PR expendature that brings in more money than it costs.
I have some sympathy for this point and perhaps even may be convinced by it. I still stand by my claim that if we had a fixed amount of dollars to invest in space research and development we should be spending none of it on human spaceflight and instead be more efficently using it to do robotic flight and research which would ultimately accelerate human's in space. So while this political point is compelling it isn't really an argument *for* devoting resources to human space exploration. Rather it is an argument for devoting resources to space and science in general with human spaceflight as a clever PR campaign to get more money.
The question is whether we are at a point in our knowledge of materials science, energy production etc.. that we can make a reasonable start on the unique problems to human spaceflight.
I mean imagine that the people in the 1800s had somehow managed to by chance discover a high density propellant and where able to launch things into space. It would just be a massive waste of resources for them to try and build special fabric spacesuits and spaceships built out of rivets and welds. Before it makes sense to spend the money on the specific problems with spaceflight we need to make sure we first have developed the tools and materials we need.
Besides, I don't think we should completely abandon space flights. I just think we should abandon HUMAN space flight. We need to first master the general problems of being in space before it is time to concentrate on human accomadations.
Because one might be more effective than the other.
If the technological return on investment in non-manned flight is higher than that for manned flight than we should invest money in the first not the second. If we cut the money from the DOD the exact same argument applies to all this extra money.
In short having more money availible for NASA in no way justifies wasting it on less efficent projects.
Ohh, I didn't mean to suggest we shouldn't be putting anything up in space. I agree we are already doing alot of that and we already seem to be at a point where it is very reasonable and good to spend money sending probes, satellites and other things into space.
The question I was addressing was whether as the article seemed to suggest we should be spending that money on sending humans into space now. My position is that we can ultimately colonize space faster by spending the money on cheaper more cost effective robotic missions, and ground based research.
I agree that argument also asks why we should be spending money sending anything into deep space (as opposed to just launching satellites). However, I think it is practically infeasable to somehow transfer this NASA budget to ground based reserach so the question is just what sort of space research makes sense.
This article entierly misses the point. No one argues that humans should not eventually go to space for these reasons and many more. The question is whether it makes sense to send people into space now.
In particular the question boils down to whether the money spend on human space flight now would be better spent on general technological advancement and not wasted on giant solid rocket boosters. This general technilogical advancement would then reduce the cost and increase the utility of going to space. This would be a plan to ultimately colonize space faster in the long run and in no way contradicts the arguments in the article.
In short the question is whether we are ready for human space flight or if we should spend more of our resources laying groundwork. I mean I think we all agree that in the 1950's it would have been a mistake to just try and build a really big v2 and do space exploration in that fasion. Instead we needed to do lots more research and build tools. Perhaps we need to build better launch systems, robotic support systems, life support systems and the like before it really makes sense for humans to be in space.
In particular at the moment it is not economically effective to send humans to space for raw materials. Thus at the moment argument 1 doesn't really apply yet. Also we don't have the technology to establish independent colonies. If the earth was hit with a disaster any space colonies we had now would die without support. This means argument 3 doesn't really apply yet. Finally argument 2 is a good general goal but it has no time component. Sure lets put life in space but lets spend our money now on technology and later use that to more effectively put life in space.
(Yes I admit that human space flight has some spin offs. However, my claim is that these spin offs are not really worth the large price compared to other research opportunities like robots or ground based research)
This article entierly misses the point. No one argues that humans should not eventually go to space for these reasons and many more. The question is whether it makes sense to send people into space now.
In particular the question boils down to whether the money spend on human space flight now would be better spent on general technological advancement and not wasted on giant solid rocket boosters. This general technilogical advancement would then reduce the cost and increase the utility of going to space. This would be a plan to ultimately colonize space faster <I>in the long run</I> and in no way contradicts the arguments in the article.
In short the question is whether we are ready for human space flight or if we should spend more of our resources laying groundwork. I mean I think we all agree that in the 1950's it would have been a mistake to just try and build a really big v2 and do space exploration in that fasion. Instead we needed to do lots more research and build tools. Perhaps we need to build better launch systems, robotic support systems, life support systems and the like before it really makes sense for humans to be in space.
In particular at the moment it is not economically effective to send humans to space for raw materials. Thus at the moment argument 1 doesn't really apply yet. Also we don't have the technology to establish independent colonies. If the earth was hit with a disaster any space colonies we had now would die without support. This means argument 3 doesn't really apply yet. Finally argument 2 is a good general goal but it has no time component. Sure lets put life in space but lets spend our money now on technology and later use that to more effectively put life in space.
(Yes I admit that human space flight has some spin offs. However, my claim is that these spin offs are not really worth the large price <I>compared to other research opportunities</I> like robots or ground based research)
I wasn't going to post but this is just so wrong I had to respond.
First of all opinions can perfectly well be statements about the external world. One can certainly have the opinion that GW Bush will visit china despite clearly being about the external world. In fact in a strict sense all beliefs are opinions even very sure ones like 'President Lincoln is dead.'
Also in a strict sense facts are actually those things out in the world which make our beliefs true or false. Of course nothing prevents there from being facts about state of mind. The fact that John Nash had skizophrenia or The fact that some burn victim is in severe pain are perfectly good facts.
Colloquially of course fact is used in contrast with mere opinion. Fact in this sense is just used to emphasis factual backing or strong evidence which supports the position in question while opinion represents something which is just believed on a whim or without evidentiary support. Once again this has nothing to do with a dichotomy between states of the world and states of mind.
In this case calling him a moron was a mere opinion because he had very little evidence to support the idea that this man is a moron. On the other hand if he had administered him an extensive battery of tests and determined be had extremely low IQ the same belief might have been 'factual'.
Also if anyone had bothered to read the damn article you would have seen that google only takes definitions from a few trusted sites. Though if some of those are still wikipedia this could cause some problems.
This article mentions a few ancedotal accounts and scary potentialities. Hardly enough to get worked up about yet or cast blame on the enviornmentalists. If we want to castigate the enviornmental movement there are plenty of other places to start, for instance their refusal to prioritize issues which makes it very difficult to achieve victories on global warming (for instance here in the bay area the enviornmentalists want to tear down a dam to rescue the scenic landscape before offering another renewable energy replacement for the hydroelectric power). I think there are plenty of instances happening right now where enviornmentalists are putting emotion before reason to the ultimate detriment of the enviornment and we should worry about these far before this tenous concern about regulating nanotech.
However, I think the article is right to challenge the reflexive call for social discussion and debate about these issues. This isn't restricted just to nanotech but to virtually all scientific and even complex policy questions. It appears that somewhere along the line the fact that the voters have the right to vote on whatever opinion they have was confused with the idea that its okay for the voters to have whatever opinion they want and that it is somehow discussion amoungst the general populance which should decide issues of public policy.
Quite simply the average voter just doesn't have the training or expertise to understand these issues. Thus it is NOT societal debate which should decide the question but scientific debate. Just as it is a bad idea to let public discussion drive the debate about how much arscenic we should have in our water rather than scientific experimentation (the public will probably come up with the unrealistic standard of 0).
Of course at the end of the day the public needs to decide which experts to trust but it should be emphasized that this is the role the general voter should aspire towards. The voter should not aspire to making up their own mind based on emotions and intuitions they have about nanotech (or GMOs or whatever) but based on the degree of trust and credibility they have in the various experts.
So my understanding is that it is far too complicated to have the content only accesible by hardware (isolated HD or sectors directly controlled by the hardware which would need to convert to output without going through main memory).
I believe instead these systems work by only giving access to certain content areas if the booting software has the right key or matches the right checksum. However, once that access has been granted the software is in control and a software flaw in the software could allow for copying.
How long do you think it will be till they find a bug in longhorn?
Alright I know alot of people are going to be suggesting hokey solutions where no real person pays (or at least no one they know). Yet someone needs to pay for these journals and while editors and reviewers are likely to work very cheaply if not for free many of these journals need some staff and some money to encourage reviewers and boards. Unfortunatly, if we keep using the current system alot of people don't get any access (they aren't subscribers) yet no one benefits. The authors would like to reach a larger audience and it doesn't cost ieee anything for them to read the magazine either (at least not more than banner ads bring in).
This is essentially a tragedy of the commons problem. Imagine what would happen if we tried to pay for national parks and forests entierly via usage fees and if you didn't pay for your camp permit or wilderness pass you couldn't use the area. Now perhaps a few tourist destinations might be accesible because of volume but probably the high prices would mean only the wealthy and dedicated could afford to use the forests and everyone loses. In short the private property model is really great at distributing goods which aren't duplicable (marginal cost is a large fraction of total cost per item) but goods which can be shared like parks and information is better supported by the people as a whole.
How could such a system work? Simple, an internet version of the library tax used in uk and canada. Basically the government or sub contracted companies (this could be competitive and you could probably download from amazon and have just as much privacy protection as now) would record how frequent journals/books/whatever are used (and perhaps an estimation of how useful it was by the reader) and then compensate the author proportionatly.
I know the standard reaction is to think this couldn't possible hand out money in the 'right' amounts. Yet this is just because you are stuck in the mindset that this is really property. There are no right amounts, or if there are we are far from them. When the most valuable and time consuming works (technical works, textbooks, high art) are generally the least profitable while novels make tons of money. In short we don't need to be very accurate to make sure books and journals get written just so long as we are in the ballpark of more readers=more money.
Yes, but how often are you really connecting to a server within a couple hundred feet of where you are sitting. While correct I think your response isn't quite relevant.
However, I think the initial assumption, that a mesh network is necessarily broadcast, is simple incorrect. One can use broadcast packets to collect routing information and then implement a point-point network. Well as point to point as one can get using wireless networks, i.e., your packet needs only be replicated by one host amoung your neighbors. After all to some extent any wireless network is broadcast.
Social engineering is effective quite simply because we have alot of annoying mostly pointless security measures and then real security measures with no good way to tell them apart.
Look, if the same security policy that tells you not to let *anyone* into the building without a key card tells you not to tell anyone your password you are likely to ignore both. In most buildings there is no good reason not to hold the door for the person behind you but a very good reason not to share your password.
People aren't computer programs they need not only to be told what policies to follow but which ones are the important ones and which ones are just meant to keep bums from sleeping in the lobby.
Clearly this isn't really going to pass. It is a PR ploy plain and simple. He probably made some campaign contributions to state legislators and they are paying him back by introducing a bill they will then let die in committee. In the meantime he gets all this free ad space.
I actually think the speeding ticket example is a compelling argument for the above position. Our traffic laws are set up in such a way that nearly everyone feels the need to violate them at some point, e.g., speeding. As a result no one really expects traffic laws.
This works fine since we really have a two-tier system of laws. Most americans look at traffic laws as something very differnt than laws which aren't fines/misdemenors and they don't actually think violating traffic laws is a bad thing. You violate a traffic law and if caught you pay the fine unlike the way we feel about say theft.
Unfortunatly, the other laws we have here in consideration cannot nicely be segmented off into the misdemenor realm. Things like drug laws or other laws which have real teeth can't simply be put in this other category of laws.
Well since this law doesn't apply to actual individuals but presumably mandates airlines do something the issues you raise don't really come up. I would imagine the people who are directly subject to the law know what it says. This isn't really stasi-like since it merely mandates that the airlines do what they had the right to do anyway (refuse to serve you unless you do certain things).
However, I agree with your general concern. Just because the public is not directly subject to a law does not mean they are not affected by it (imagine a law that secretly funded the catholic church violating the 1st ammendment).
A standard retail store is private in most senses and they are allowed to impose pretty arbitrary rules on those who would shop in their store. For instance they can impose dress codes (no shoes, no shirt, no service) and they could even impose content based restrictions on shoppers speech (you can't enter this store with a coed naked t-shirt).
Of course their only recourse is to throw you out of their store. Once you have bought your item and on your way out they don't have any right to search you. Since you don't have a membership this doesn't really cost you anything if you are tossed out (they can't easily stop you from coming back)
And so is your point since overstaying a visa is hardly compelling evidence for terrorist activity.
It is silly to think these rules happen in a vacuum. The terrorists are quite well aware of them and if they had a rule which stopped people who had overstayed their visas the terrorists would have known this and only used agents who hadn't overstayed their visa.
The point is there is yet to be a compelling argument that these ID restrictions really give us much security. The burden of proof should be on those who want to impose such measures not on us to show that such measures aren't useful.
Yes, you are clearly right that we could define mass in terms of 1 litre of water at its triple point (though ATP wouldn't work well). The question simply comes down to the question of whether this will be as useful and give us as accurate results.
First of all I don't think this would be as useful a definition. One of the benefits of fixing things like Avagadro's constant of Plank's constant is that they allow us to eliminate sources of error in other important physical measurements. I simply don't think we have any important measurements about water or pressure which need anywhere near as much precision as quantum measurements which rely on plank's constant or the mass of an atom (which is fixed by fixing av's constant).
The second issue is whether this definition which have the desired accuracy. Quite frankly I think it will be *very* difficult to measure 1 liter of water at its triple point. For instance where exactly is its triple point, how can you be sure you aren't.01 degrees above the triple point? I suspect that while we can measure length quite accurately between free floating objects measuring the volume in some kind of container would be very difficult. In particular getting an accurate volume measurement would require creating a perfect geometric box and even the slightest imperfections in the containers walls would deystroy the volume measurement.
Besides, in general I doubt if the statistical behavior of molecules as guaranteed by thermodynamics is exact enough to serve future needs. Ultimately where the triple point of water happens is a statistically property of many atoms and it probably doesn't happen at a perfectly sharp point but over some vague range. The definition of the other two quantities alows much greater preciscion.
You didn't read the article or know what you are talking about do you?
Right now Avogadro's number is an experimentally determined quantity. It is defined as the number of a certain kind of atoms (carbon 12 perhaps?) needed to make some specific amount of weight. So long as Avogadro's number is so defined it doesn't make sense to define mass on this number.
However, had you read the article you would realize one of the options they are suggesting is to redefine Avagadro's number as a particular amount which will implicitly of course define mass.
Of course since mass is equivalent to energy which is defined through c which is also a fixed constant we can define mass just as easily as fixing the value of a J/s constant.
As oppossed to say....our wonderful volounteer army we pay to defend us?
Wait we are *still* paying people to defend our interests. The only difference between merceneries and a modern paid army (or the roman army or any paid force) is that merceneries work for more than one country.
So are we to have no problem with corporate lawyers who only work for one company?
In any case this is hardly worthwhile. Your analogy is based primarily on the fact that you dislike both groups not anything of content. I just can't believe some post claiming lawyers rape and starve countries got a +4 insightful.
I bet most IP lawyers would very much like the cases to be open so they can learn what is going on in the field and keep up with develepments. Most IP lawyers are probably perfectly reasonable people with a job and many of them protect defendents.
Perhaps the comments wasn't meant this way but that was how it sounded.
No, No it is the WHAT-WG who feels that forms are just particulars of webpages that already exist and the XFORM faction that believes forms are timeless ideal webpages.
Microsoft, never one to give much weight to intersubjective agreement, doesn't believe in forms. At least insofar as forms are taken as objective browser independent phenomenon. They feel our perception of the form is a culturally dependent phenomenon.
We've been hearing about electronic paper for years now hopefully this is actually the one that works. The technology does seem quite promising, and that they seem to be near shipping even more so but I have some concerns about the durability.
In particular my understanding of how the material works is by depositing an electrochromatic material (i.e. a material which undergoes a chemical reaction changing its coloring or transparancy when an electric current is applied) on a very bumpy surface. This is apparently how they solved the problems of weak coloration they mention on their product page.
One way you might think of this (but don't trust me I just rely on my basic physics and math background) is that previously these electrochemicals used a clear plastic sheet with color changing molecules deposited on it. This meant light only passed through one layer of the color changing molecules. The company instead figured out how to crumple up the plastic sheet on top of itself so the light would have to pass through multiple layers of the color changing molecules attached to the sheet.
This seems great and all and it may work perfectly and ship easily. However, even taking on faith that it is easy to make I am somewhat concerned that this 'crumpled sheet' could lose its shape.
Probably I am just being silly and someone with more chemical expertise will tell me why this can't happen.
First of all let me say that the question is somewhat silly and very vague. What do we mean 'should' there be a per CPU charge. Does this mean do you like this idea, well of course anyone who has to pay more will say no and anyone who gets money will say yes. Does this mean is it morally correct to charge this amount? Well thats alot like asking is it morally correct to promote a green DVD player rather than a blue one, perhaps there is some little moral overtone (if you do bad your company goes under and your employees get fired) but not much. So we are left with the question of whether this is a good buisness practice.
Personally, i don't see this as much differnt than making people pay for using the product based on processor speed. While it is a little weird I tend to think it is a good buisness practice. Just like with airlines by charging based on processor performance the company can charge those users who have the most resources the most for the product. Just like the crazy expensive last minute fairs target as buisness travel allow the airlines to sell tourists cheap tickets for vacation soo too does a performance based pricing plan allow a company like oracle to sell their product to normal consumers at a reasonable rate while still profiting overall.
This is a general problem for buisnesses that sell a product where the fixed cost overwhelms the marginal cost. It is in everyone's interest for the company to sell cheap units to those who can't afford anything more so long as the cheap units still cost more than the marginal cost (which is near 0 for software). However, if everyone can buy cheap units no one will buy expensive units to offset the large fixed cost (the cost of writting all that code).
So instead of just charging everyone alot and denying the small guy any chance to use the product a smart buisness figures out some way to divide the market. Airlines use weekend stays and when you order your ticket. Software companies use number and type of processors. This is just a refinement of that methodology which benefits both consumers and the producer.
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Yes, there is always the political argument. While I'm not sure if this is what you meant one might argue that sending machines into space simply doesn't excite the imagination of the voters or politicians. Hence human spaceflight is not truly competing for resources with our types of spaceflight or scientific research but is rather just a huge PR expendature that brings in more money than it costs.
I have some sympathy for this point and perhaps even may be convinced by it. I still stand by my claim that if we had a fixed amount of dollars to invest in space research and development we should be spending none of it on human spaceflight and instead be more efficently using it to do robotic flight and research which would ultimately accelerate human's in space. So while this political point is compelling it isn't really an argument *for* devoting resources to human space exploration. Rather it is an argument for devoting resources to space and science in general with human spaceflight as a clever PR campaign to get more money.
The question is whether we are at a point in our knowledge of materials science, energy production etc.. that we can make a reasonable start on the unique problems to human spaceflight.
I mean imagine that the people in the 1800s had somehow managed to by chance discover a high density propellant and where able to launch things into space. It would just be a massive waste of resources for them to try and build special fabric spacesuits and spaceships built out of rivets and welds. Before it makes sense to spend the money on the specific problems with spaceflight we need to make sure we first have developed the tools and materials we need.
Besides, I don't think we should completely abandon space flights. I just think we should abandon HUMAN space flight. We need to first master the general problems of being in space before it is time to concentrate on human accomadations.
Because one might be more effective than the other.
If the technological return on investment in non-manned flight is higher than that for manned flight than we should invest money in the first not the second. If we cut the money from the DOD the exact same argument applies to all this extra money.
In short having more money availible for NASA in no way justifies wasting it on less efficent projects.
Ohh, I didn't mean to suggest we shouldn't be putting anything up in space. I agree we are already doing alot of that and we already seem to be at a point where it is very reasonable and good to spend money sending probes, satellites and other things into space.
The question I was addressing was whether as the article seemed to suggest we should be spending that money on sending humans into space now. My position is that we can ultimately colonize space faster by spending the money on cheaper more cost effective robotic missions, and ground based research.
I agree that argument also asks why we should be spending money sending anything into deep space (as opposed to just launching satellites). However, I think it is practically infeasable to somehow transfer this NASA budget to ground based reserach so the question is just what sort of space research makes sense.
This article entierly misses the point. No one argues that humans should not eventually go to space for these reasons and many more. The question is whether it makes sense to send people into space now.
In particular the question boils down to whether the money spend on human space flight now would be better spent on general technological advancement and not wasted on giant solid rocket boosters. This general technilogical advancement would then reduce the cost and increase the utility of going to space. This would be a plan to ultimately colonize space faster in the long run and in no way contradicts the arguments in the article.
In short the question is whether we are ready for human space flight or if we should spend more of our resources laying groundwork. I mean I think we all agree that in the 1950's it would have been a mistake to just try and build a really big v2 and do space exploration in that fasion. Instead we needed to do lots more research and build tools. Perhaps we need to build better launch systems, robotic support systems, life support systems and the like before it really makes sense for humans to be in space.
In particular at the moment it is not economically effective to send humans to space for raw materials. Thus at the moment argument 1 doesn't really apply yet. Also we don't have the technology to establish independent colonies. If the earth was hit with a disaster any space colonies we had now would die without support. This means argument 3 doesn't really apply yet. Finally argument 2 is a good general goal but it has no time component. Sure lets put life in space but lets spend our money now on technology and later use that to more effectively put life in space.
(Yes I admit that human space flight has some spin offs. However, my claim is that these spin offs are not really worth the large price compared to other research opportunities like robots or ground based research)
This article entierly misses the point. No one argues that humans should not eventually go to space for these reasons and many more. The question is whether it makes sense to send people into space now.
In particular the question boils down to whether the money spend on human space flight now would be better spent on general technological advancement and not wasted on giant solid rocket boosters. This general technilogical advancement would then reduce the cost and increase the utility of going to space. This would be a plan to ultimately colonize space faster <I>in the long run</I> and in no way contradicts the arguments in the article.
In short the question is whether we are ready for human space flight or if we should spend more of our resources laying groundwork. I mean I think we all agree that in the 1950's it would have been a mistake to just try and build a really big v2 and do space exploration in that fasion. Instead we needed to do lots more research and build tools. Perhaps we need to build better launch systems, robotic support systems, life support systems and the like before it really makes sense for humans to be in space.
In particular at the moment it is not economically effective to send humans to space for raw materials. Thus at the moment argument 1 doesn't really apply yet. Also we don't have the technology to establish independent colonies. If the earth was hit with a disaster any space colonies we had now would die without support. This means argument 3 doesn't really apply yet. Finally argument 2 is a good general goal but it has no time component. Sure lets put life in space but lets spend our money now on technology and later use that to more effectively put life in space.
(Yes I admit that human space flight has some spin offs. However, my claim is that these spin offs are not really worth the large price <I>compared to other research opportunities</I> like robots or ground based research)
I wasn't going to post but this is just so wrong I had to respond.
First of all opinions can perfectly well be statements about the external world. One can certainly have the opinion that GW Bush will visit china despite clearly being about the external world. In fact in a strict sense all beliefs are opinions even very sure ones like 'President Lincoln is dead.'
Also in a strict sense facts are actually those things out in the world which make our beliefs true or false. Of course nothing prevents there from being facts about state of mind. The fact that John Nash had skizophrenia or The fact that some burn victim is in severe pain are perfectly good facts.
Colloquially of course fact is used in contrast with mere opinion. Fact in this sense is just used to emphasis factual backing or strong evidence which supports the position in question while opinion represents something which is just believed on a whim or without evidentiary support. Once again this has nothing to do with a dichotomy between states of the world and states of mind.
In this case calling him a moron was a mere opinion because he had very little evidence to support the idea that this man is a moron. On the other hand if he had administered him an extensive battery of tests and determined be had extremely low IQ the same belief might have been 'factual'.
Also if anyone had bothered to read the damn article you would have seen that google only takes definitions from a few trusted sites. Though if some of those are still wikipedia this could cause some problems.
This article mentions a few ancedotal accounts and scary potentialities. Hardly enough to get worked up about yet or cast blame on the enviornmentalists. If we want to castigate the enviornmental movement there are plenty of other places to start, for instance their refusal to prioritize issues which makes it very difficult to achieve victories on global warming (for instance here in the bay area the enviornmentalists want to tear down a dam to rescue the scenic landscape before offering another renewable energy replacement for the hydroelectric power). I think there are plenty of instances happening right now where enviornmentalists are putting emotion before reason to the ultimate detriment of the enviornment and we should worry about these far before this tenous concern about regulating nanotech.
However, I think the article is right to challenge the reflexive call for social discussion and debate about these issues. This isn't restricted just to nanotech but to virtually all scientific and even complex policy questions. It appears that somewhere along the line the fact that the voters have the right to vote on whatever opinion they have was confused with the idea that its okay for the voters to have whatever opinion they want and that it is somehow discussion amoungst the general populance which should decide issues of public policy.
Quite simply the average voter just doesn't have the training or expertise to understand these issues. Thus it is NOT societal debate which should decide the question but scientific debate. Just as it is a bad idea to let public discussion drive the debate about how much arscenic we should have in our water rather than scientific experimentation (the public will probably come up with the unrealistic standard of 0).
Of course at the end of the day the public needs to decide which experts to trust but it should be emphasized that this is the role the general voter should aspire towards. The voter should not aspire to making up their own mind based on emotions and intuitions they have about nanotech (or GMOs or whatever) but based on the degree of trust and credibility they have in the various experts.
So my understanding is that it is far too complicated to have the content only accesible by hardware (isolated HD or sectors directly controlled by the hardware which would need to convert to output without going through main memory).
I believe instead these systems work by only giving access to certain content areas if the booting software has the right key or matches the right checksum. However, once that access has been granted the software is in control and a software flaw in the software could allow for copying.
How long do you think it will be till they find a bug in longhorn?
Alright I know alot of people are going to be suggesting hokey solutions where no real person pays (or at least no one they know). Yet someone needs to pay for these journals and while editors and reviewers are likely to work very cheaply if not for free many of these journals need some staff and some money to encourage reviewers and boards. Unfortunatly, if we keep using the current system alot of people don't get any access (they aren't subscribers) yet no one benefits. The authors would like to reach a larger audience and it doesn't cost ieee anything for them to read the magazine either (at least not more than banner ads bring in).
This is essentially a tragedy of the commons problem. Imagine what would happen if we tried to pay for national parks and forests entierly via usage fees and if you didn't pay for your camp permit or wilderness pass you couldn't use the area. Now perhaps a few tourist destinations might be accesible because of volume but probably the high prices would mean only the wealthy and dedicated could afford to use the forests and everyone loses. In short the private property model is really great at distributing goods which aren't duplicable (marginal cost is a large fraction of total cost per item) but goods which can be shared like parks and information is better supported by the people as a whole.
How could such a system work? Simple, an internet version of the library tax used in uk and canada. Basically the government or sub contracted companies (this could be competitive and you could probably download from amazon and have just as much privacy protection as now) would record how frequent journals/books/whatever are used (and perhaps an estimation of how useful it was by the reader) and then compensate the author proportionatly.
I know the standard reaction is to think this couldn't possible hand out money in the 'right' amounts. Yet this is just because you are stuck in the mindset that this is really property. There are no right amounts, or if there are we are far from them. When the most valuable and time consuming works (technical works, textbooks, high art) are generally the least profitable while novels make tons of money. In short we don't need to be very accurate to make sure books and journals get written just so long as we are in the ballpark of more readers=more money.
Yes, but how often are you really connecting to a server within a couple hundred feet of where you are sitting. While correct I think your response isn't quite relevant.
However, I think the initial assumption, that a mesh network is necessarily broadcast, is simple incorrect. One can use broadcast packets to collect routing information and then implement a point-point network. Well as point to point as one can get using wireless networks, i.e., your packet needs only be replicated by one host amoung your neighbors. After all to some extent any wireless network is broadcast.
Social engineering is effective quite simply because we have alot of annoying mostly pointless security measures and then real security measures with no good way to tell them apart.
Look, if the same security policy that tells you not to let *anyone* into the building without a key card tells you not to tell anyone your password you are likely to ignore both. In most buildings there is no good reason not to hold the door for the person behind you but a very good reason not to share your password.
People aren't computer programs they need not only to be told what policies to follow but which ones are the important ones and which ones are just meant to keep bums from sleeping in the lobby.
Clearly this isn't really going to pass. It is a PR ploy plain and simple. He probably made some campaign contributions to state legislators and they are paying him back by introducing a bill they will then let die in committee. In the meantime he gets all this free ad space.
I actually think the speeding ticket example is a compelling argument for the above position. Our traffic laws are set up in such a way that nearly everyone feels the need to violate them at some point, e.g., speeding. As a result no one really expects traffic laws.
This works fine since we really have a two-tier system of laws. Most americans look at traffic laws as something very differnt than laws which aren't fines/misdemenors and they don't actually think violating traffic laws is a bad thing. You violate a traffic law and if caught you pay the fine unlike the way we feel about say theft.
Unfortunatly, the other laws we have here in consideration cannot nicely be segmented off into the misdemenor realm. Things like drug laws or other laws which have real teeth can't simply be put in this other category of laws.
Well since this law doesn't apply to actual individuals but presumably mandates airlines do something the issues you raise don't really come up. I would imagine the people who are directly subject to the law know what it says. This isn't really stasi-like since it merely mandates that the airlines do what they had the right to do anyway (refuse to serve you unless you do certain things).
However, I agree with your general concern. Just because the public is not directly subject to a law does not mean they are not affected by it (imagine a law that secretly funded the catholic church violating the 1st ammendment).
A standard retail store is private in most senses and they are allowed to impose pretty arbitrary rules on those who would shop in their store. For instance they can impose dress codes (no shoes, no shirt, no service) and they could even impose content based restrictions on shoppers speech (you can't enter this store with a coed naked t-shirt).
Of course their only recourse is to throw you out of their store. Once you have bought your item and on your way out they don't have any right to search you. Since you don't have a membership this doesn't really cost you anything if you are tossed out (they can't easily stop you from coming back)
And so is your point since overstaying a visa is hardly compelling evidence for terrorist activity.
It is silly to think these rules happen in a vacuum. The terrorists are quite well aware of them and if they had a rule which stopped people who had overstayed their visas the terrorists would have known this and only used agents who hadn't overstayed their visa.
The point is there is yet to be a compelling argument that these ID restrictions really give us much security. The burden of proof should be on those who want to impose such measures not on us to show that such measures aren't useful.
No, he doesn't. The triple point is a purely observational phenomenon (do all three states coexist) and does not rely on a definition of pressure.
I still don't think it is a good definition and I posted a long reply to this effect.
Yes, you are clearly right that we could define mass in terms of 1 litre of water at its triple point (though ATP wouldn't work well). The question simply comes down to the question of whether this will be as useful and give us as accurate results.
.01 degrees above the triple point? I suspect that while we can measure length quite accurately between free floating objects measuring the volume in some kind of container would be very difficult. In particular getting an accurate volume measurement would require creating a perfect geometric box and even the slightest imperfections in the containers walls would deystroy the volume measurement.
First of all I don't think this would be as useful a definition. One of the benefits of fixing things like Avagadro's constant of Plank's constant is that they allow us to eliminate sources of error in other important physical measurements. I simply don't think we have any important measurements about water or pressure which need anywhere near as much precision as quantum measurements which rely on plank's constant or the mass of an atom (which is fixed by fixing av's constant).
The second issue is whether this definition which have the desired accuracy. Quite frankly I think it will be *very* difficult to measure 1 liter of water at its triple point. For instance where exactly is its triple point, how can you be sure you aren't
Besides, in general I doubt if the statistical behavior of molecules as guaranteed by thermodynamics is exact enough to serve future needs. Ultimately where the triple point of water happens is a statistically property of many atoms and it probably doesn't happen at a perfectly sharp point but over some vague range. The definition of the other two quantities alows much greater preciscion.
You didn't read the article or know what you are talking about do you?
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Right now Avogadro's number is an experimentally determined quantity. It is defined as the number of a certain kind of atoms (carbon 12 perhaps?) needed to make some specific amount of weight. So long as Avogadro's number is so defined it doesn't make sense to define mass on this number.
However, had you read the article you would realize one of the options they are suggesting is to redefine Avagadro's number as a particular amount which will implicitly of course define mass
Of course since mass is equivalent to energy which is defined through c which is also a fixed constant we can define mass just as easily as fixing the value of a J/s constant.
As oppossed to say....our wonderful volounteer army we pay to defend us?
Wait we are *still* paying people to defend our interests. The only difference between merceneries and a modern paid army (or the roman army or any paid force) is that merceneries work for more than one country.
So are we to have no problem with corporate lawyers who only work for one company?
In any case this is hardly worthwhile. Your analogy is based primarily on the fact that you dislike both groups not anything of content. I just can't believe some post claiming lawyers rape and starve countries got a +4 insightful.
I bet most IP lawyers would very much like the cases to be open so they can learn what is going on in the field and keep up with develepments. Most IP lawyers are probably perfectly reasonable people with a job and many of them protect defendents.
Perhaps the comments wasn't meant this way but that was how it sounded.
No, No it is the WHAT-WG who feels that forms are just particulars of webpages that already exist and the XFORM faction that believes forms are timeless ideal webpages.
Microsoft, never one to give much weight to intersubjective agreement, doesn't believe in forms. At least insofar as forms are taken as objective browser independent phenomenon. They feel our perception of the form is a culturally dependent phenomenon.
We've been hearing about electronic paper for years now hopefully this is actually the one that works. The technology does seem quite promising, and that they seem to be near shipping even more so but I have some concerns about the durability.
In particular my understanding of how the material works is by depositing an electrochromatic material (i.e. a material which undergoes a chemical reaction changing its coloring or transparancy when an electric current is applied) on a very bumpy surface. This is apparently how they solved the problems of weak coloration they mention on their product page.
One way you might think of this (but don't trust me I just rely on my basic physics and math background) is that previously these electrochemicals used a clear plastic sheet with color changing molecules deposited on it. This meant light only passed through one layer of the color changing molecules. The company instead figured out how to crumple up the plastic sheet on top of itself so the light would have to pass through multiple layers of the color changing molecules attached to the sheet.
This seems great and all and it may work perfectly and ship easily. However, even taking on faith that it is easy to make I am somewhat concerned that this 'crumpled sheet' could lose its shape.
Probably I am just being silly and someone with more chemical expertise will tell me why this can't happen.
First of all let me say that the question is somewhat silly and very vague. What do we mean 'should' there be a per CPU charge. Does this mean do you like this idea, well of course anyone who has to pay more will say no and anyone who gets money will say yes. Does this mean is it morally correct to charge this amount? Well thats alot like asking is it morally correct to promote a green DVD player rather than a blue one, perhaps there is some little moral overtone (if you do bad your company goes under and your employees get fired) but not much. So we are left with the question of whether this is a good buisness practice.
Personally, i don't see this as much differnt than making people pay for using the product based on processor speed. While it is a little weird I tend to think it is a good buisness practice. Just like with airlines by charging based on processor performance the company can charge those users who have the most resources the most for the product. Just like the crazy expensive last minute fairs target as buisness travel allow the airlines to sell tourists cheap tickets for vacation soo too does a performance based pricing plan allow a company like oracle to sell their product to normal consumers at a reasonable rate while still profiting overall.
This is a general problem for buisnesses that sell a product where the fixed cost overwhelms the marginal cost. It is in everyone's interest for the company to sell cheap units to those who can't afford anything more so long as the cheap units still cost more than the marginal cost (which is near 0 for software). However, if everyone can buy cheap units no one will buy expensive units to offset the large fixed cost (the cost of writting all that code).
So instead of just charging everyone alot and denying the small guy any chance to use the product a smart buisness figures out some way to divide the market. Airlines use weekend stays and when you order your ticket. Software companies use number and type of processors. This is just a refinement of that methodology which benefits both consumers and the producer.