The problem with having only a few sources of information is that us folks are humans, not ants, bees, or any other form of social creature that needs only a minimal amount of information (ant:location->picnic, bees:location->flowers).
The voice of the majority is not the voice of the all, and when our information comes from only a few sources, those sources quickly take on the vanilla flavor of the majority and are also the most easily subverted to what is acceptable to the movers and shakers AKA power-mongering types of folks, while the Internet is inherently free BECAUSE of the number of social websites.
So how many social websites are needed? As many as there are quality "voices" who want to speak, methinks.
Why not encourage IBM (a company who is an aruguably better supporter of Open Source than M$, ya think?) to open up the Lotus SmartSuite of applications for development on the Linux platform. Not that the SmartSuite was a perfect M$ Office replacement, but that code had been continually refined for a number of years before it was shelved.
It seems like something like this could at least get a number of eyes looking at the differences between the SS and OpenOffice and maybe sort of "fertilize" the project's mindspace a bit, if you know what I mean. Something along the lines of "gee, the paid Lotus guys used technique X and over here in Open Office , they used bloated technique Y" type of thing.
With the idea that cold is good (for storage of critical things like medicines, vaccines, etc.) without requiring a power grid, the question isn't availability it's scalability.
The "HOW TO" bas been around longer than our modern refrigerators, and is based on ammonia-based thermodynamic processes, adsorption or absorption (which are different, BTW). Both are magnitudinally more energy efficient than vortex tubes.
Problem is, the absorption systems are usually petro-chemical fueled (so why not use an internal combustion engine and gain the even more efficient method of electrical refrigeration), or (including the ad-sorption processes)solar, which requires large collectors and a higher level of system complexity to accumulate the necessary energy to drive the cooling process.
Bottom line is that there just ain't no such thing as a free lunch in the thermodynamic world.
if someone wants to help you out for free, why would you stop them?
Answer #1: the GPL.
Now then, before the flames start -- please keep in mind that I am a staunch Open Source advocate, okay?
Let's say that the interested, free developer writes the hottest Linux driver imaginable for the manufacturer's wonderful version of gadget A. The open GPL code base for the driver is also an open book to the implementation of the hardware & chips inside the gadget, whether for cracking, hacking, writing twisty benchmarks, or reverse engineering, etc.
Answer #2, related in part to #1: DMCA and/or liability concerns.
What if an outside party writing the device driver opens platform specific implementation details to the outside world that would not otherwise have been visible?
How many bosses right off the bat are going to risk those types of problems just to save the cost of a coder for a couple days. It costs ten times that much to get the compliance and legal issues worked out.
So usually the answer to getting a driver written for a specific device is getting enough market interest in front of the PHB and bean counter types to make it worth their interest in risking the relatively small investment required for the coding itself and do it within the constraints of their own trade secret agreements, NDAs, legal reviews, etc.
or even better. Put in "tulip gardening tips Massachusetts" (or wherever). You're likely to end up with the exact information you want on one a relatively low number of web sites....
The article is at Slate on MSN, and points out not that Google is weak, but that there is so much data online that in essense the index needs more indexing, aka more keywords with which to eliminate pages you don't really want to see.
Think about it folks. If you walked into something like a WalMart supercenter, went to the service desk, and said "tell me where I can find some nuts", the answr would be different if you are looking for peanuts, automotive hardware, home hardware, or ??.
For example, instead of using Apple, or even Apple Newton, searching with "Apple Newton PBS" still comes up with a couple paid links back to Apple Computer but most links point to the right place, referring to the PBS series.
And in terms of only indexing PDF articles well, I have news for the folks at Slate... there aren't that many complete books out there on PDF that would be as useful to researchers as the PDFS of the articles that make up the scholarly journals themselves. So again, this perceived weakness in Google is a problem in the broad-brush arena, not in reality.
The bigger problem for most small websites and Google is building up crediblility among a wider network of links in the first place, which is where the quality of the information and it's presentation are key. Repeat after me -- there is no shortcut to success on the WWW. Build something worthless, remain in obscurity. Build something good that has value, and we -- via Google, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you like -- will eventually come.
If all the competitors are moving millions of units of software, supplies, etc. based on titles that Office Depot refuses to carry, then what do you think will happen if someone comes up with a hot-selling retail title that
isn't Microsoft certified,
requires little support, and/or encourages customers to go shopping at Office Depot's competitors for their consumer grade apps and hardware.
Note to self... I was getting ready to dump what little Office Depot stock I was holding anyway -- might as well do it now.
In short, there is absolutely nothing about an RV design that wouuld make those principles suitable for a "black box"
That is true. However, there are known areodynamic design and construction techniques that basically cause an object to assume the most drag-efficient position relative to an airstream within a short period of time, usually by causing it to spin. So in theory the black box would require sufficient shielding in all directions to allow the object to assume it's best position: where a great deal of heat shielding would then be used to deflect the heat around the contents of the box.
The final design problem would be to figure out how to transmit all of the data into the black box via a very limited number of connectors without introducing a burn through point.
By the way, the reason this doesn't work for manned craft is that a certain spin rate for more than a brief amount of time is fatal to humans anyway, because the heart can't supply enough blood to the brain against the force of the spin. Not to mention the g-forces encountered while the object is getting to the optimal position.
I respecfully disagree. AMI is engaged in a business venture to sell BIOS chips for (I assume) x86 platforms, and their main consideration has to be those who have the most influence on the sales of x86 chip sets -- namely Microsoft and Intel, followed by a few of the others.
The FBI, et. al are much more concerned with privacy related issues, not what you can see on your own computer system.
My first thought was that it's kind of hard to sue anyone for a Linux distro, because the sheer number of contributors would make it hard to target the "patent violator".
However, at second blush it seems like SCO could have a case for going after folks like Redhat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc. who are actively selling and thereby theoretically profiting from a "patent violation".
Even then, I wonder, because Linux has been around for several years now and unless these particular patents cover things only put into Linux very recently, then my understanding is that if SCO didn't defend their patents early on, they might have lost the right to defend them late in the game. Even then, SCO ought to tread very carefully, because Linux proponents like myself will readily go on the offensive and try to find substantive examples "prior art" to invalidate claims against the Linux kernel code. It would be sweet justice if SCO had a seemingly valid patent claim, only to get have prior art thrown in their face and lose that particular patent altogether.
Has anyone looked at what SCO has patented that is part of the suit and where it is alleged to be in the Linux code?
How would AMI respond to pressures from companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Sun, or to the combined companies in the MPAA or RIAA if those companies insisted that AMI only release "DRM compliant" BIOS chips, etc.
Would AMI disclose that such pressures were being placed on them, or would this type of fact be kept hidden from consumer groups or individuals, etc. until it was too late for us to effectively respond?
Best example I have is as follows: I use MySQL for alot of smaller customers that used to be candidates for xBase or MS-Access size database installations, and because I pre-wrote a transaction logging piece (semaphore based), they can even do a moderate amount of transaction-like processing for finances, etc.
Assume that I had a lot of these installations, and the businesses grow and become 7x24 businesses via the Internet, etc. At that point it makes sense for the businesses themselves to buy support so that if I am not available for any reason and they start throwing database errors, etc., they can get the type of support they need.
Now then, multiply the fact that I am one small consultancy business owner by a large number of similar consultants across the company and around the world (if there are any that use mySQL in a similar manner). Taking it to the extreme, assume that we so good that suddenly mySQL becomes the predominant DBMS platform for all businesses with less thatn 100 employees...(I don't think that that this is realistically going to happen by the way)
So how big are the limits to servicing Open Source software? As big as the business and professional market grows it to be.
Re:Importance of Rights
on
Real DRM
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This is the $1,000,000 question right on the head.
US Copyright law in effect is a restriction on "consumer" and/or "competitor" unlimited usage rights, on the one hand. At the same time, however, the "fair use" restrictions in the copyright laws are supposed to balance the public (i.e. consumer) interest by allowing usage of part of the copyrighted materials without the copyright owners permission.
The problem with the DMCA and most of the planned DRM implementations is that insuring the availability of "fair use" via reverse engineered technology became a federal offense.
So in effect a content producer can say "you have no rights to any of my digitally protected content which I do not explicitly grant, otherwise I sick the government prosecutors on you...", as opposed to "you only have the right to fair use, and I as a copyright holder have legal recourse if I believe you have gone beyond a reasonable level."
This is one aspect of the DMCA that should cause the US Congress to through the whole thing out and start over -- the DMCA has public attorneys (prosecutors) treating a potential copyright infringement as a crime, rather than a civil matter where the MPAA, RIAA, etc. company laywers have to do the work and charge their own industry for their services.
The state should only step in where the copyright violations extend to "fraud" and other large scale enterprises that most of us would agree have criminal intent.
You are correct that larger format digital cameras exist-- at uber high prices. I should have added one more phrase to the conclusion of my post: "affordable for a mid-income professional photographer"
On its way, perhaps, but not here yet, at least until there are "medium" and "large" format digital camera(s).
I have a professional medium format SLR (6x45 format) as my main working camera and a high end 35mm that is more for fun but which could be used for a lot of professional applications if I started shooting sports, low end fashion, etc. again. I also have a 4x5 view camera that I can rent when I need it.
For anything requiring significant enlargement or extremely fine grain in the finished product, I can't afford to risk using the 35mm, even with very slow speed film [Kodachrome or Ektar or their Fuji equivalents for color, similar speed films for B&W] Why? because at 128X (the practical maximum for negs), a 35mm negative gives roughly an 11x17, a 645 neg gives you around a 18x28, and a 4x5 roughly 32x40 inches. I'm willing to go roughly double those sizes for prints from transparencies.
Plus, high end medium format and all large format cameras have useful things like tilt and swing front/back panels, weird lensing combinations, etc. that are sometimes the only way to get a particular class of pictures right, and a few tricks where being able to physically alter a bigger negative (retouching if need be, or a whole host of darkroom tricks...
Add all these up and my conclusion is that until digital makes its way up to the bigger and more "super-capable" cameras, film isn't dead yet.
Hmmm. I've never read that H&R has been sued by the IRS. Most of the suits I am familiar with have to do with the Rapid Refund type programs where a bank does loans against the tax returns -- and since Block is part of the program, they've got sued because if you look at it, spending $40 or so to get a loan for a few days or weeks ends up being a terribly high APR. So Block had to revise how they represented those loans so that folks new that they got a $2 fee or something like that for helping to originate the loans.
As far as the employee scams, Block fired those individuals a long time ago, I think. 3 out of something like 80,000 tax preparers turn out to be corrupt, not a bad average. It would have been the same if those three individuals were servers at a restaurant and copied the credit card numbers, yes?
A couple of choices come to mind: I did my taxes using Taxcut for two years in a row now, including using Schedule C, depreciation schedules, partial home use as a business, etc. You can also file online with H&R Block and there are probably other online filing options that I'm not as familiar with as well.
Wish they had Taxcut under Linux in fact -- I haven't been brave enough to try VM Ware yet or attempted it with Wine -- any others out there know much on if it will work?
Just typists you say? Bulls---, especially for small business owners and others who don't want to tangle with all of the forms, etc. but want to keep as much of their hard earned $ in their own pockets and out of Uncle Sam's.
[slight disclosure here: I have worked with one of their folks for a couple years now and have invested a bit in their stock]. That said, I know because I asked that the preparers have to go through a several week course, and pass a final test with at least 80-85% competency or they wash out of the program.
Some are also trained as Financial Advisors or Loan Advisors for Block subsidiaries, so they can sometimes point out methods of saving additional tax $ based on good investments, mortgage refinancing, etc..
Main thing for me as a small consulting company owner is that you know you're not dealing with an Enron-esque company -- their ethics and credibility are top notch.
Okay, I'm ready to be serious now.
on
Droning On
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· Score: 1
Am I against pilotless aircraft? No. But as an admittedly low hour private pilot with a lot of robotic/computer system experience (day job), I don't see how to take the man out of the machine in the near future, because even the Predator Drones, etc. require a remote pilot, and IIRC these things are extremely expensive.
For freight, better to invest the same amount of money in updating alot of the systems that make the man-machine interface for the railroads a week link, where unions have stifled a lot of innovation, and where drug use (primarily marijuana) has caused a faily significant number of fatalities and/or environmental hazards or disasters nationwide. How about deploying a network of sensors at crossings which signal a train to slow down well in advance of a stuck vehicle, etc. Or in developing a national freight controlling system a'la the ATC to open up the rails almost like highways, and made sure that the freights, etc. run on time and interface well timing wise with mass transit trains, like Japan has been doing for 30 or more years?
I'd love to see fire-fighting drones, but the huge updrafts caused by the fires would seem to make the reflexes of an in the craft pilot absolutely necessary, because in some ways the planes are in the air to only suppress the fires and save the ground "troops" lives. Missing by 30-40 meters (100-125 feet or so) in some of these cases isn't good enough -- and at 300-400 KmPH (200-300 MPH), that's what -- a third of a second?
Start with a more agile fire-tanker fleet more capable of performing the needed missions with more flexible mission profiles, faster turn times and a higher safety margin. Then add the remote piloting technology when everything else is exactly right -- and the technology isn't simply a drive, circle, and land proposition.
...and in a related story...
on
Droning On
·
· Score: 2, Funny
--old joke mode on--
Now that we've reached cruising altitude, we again welcome to the first fully automated Transatlantic flight on Fantastic Future Airlines.
Our systems have been fully tested and developed to insure you the smoothest, safest flight you will ever experience. Sit back, enjoy the flight with our assurances that nothing will go wrong... go wrong...go wrong... go wrong....
...that it was something else that made my sweet lady's perfume seem better after the *cough* "olfactory neuron connecting activity".
As opposed to something truly satisfying -- like the gentle smile on her face, the close physical space (snuggling), the tenderness in the touching -- and of course the huge release of endorphins we experience together. Plus the knowledge that at if we try at certain tims we might even add an interesting addition to our small family -- you know -- participating in the creation of a new life.
*sigh* Where's the study that shows how much more these important things make new neuronal connections grow...
That has been mentioned a thousand times, but is still pertinent here: fair use should mean that I can play the DVD I paid for on the device of my choice, so long as the decoder does not directly faciitate copying (which would violate copyright laws). I should even be able to back up an encoded disk (once), but not within the constraints of fair use, within the constraints of the fact that the video stream on the DVD is sort of like a computer program and data, which I have a right to back up.
Unfortunately, even if I have a non-supported device that I can program a decoder for, the DMCA reverse engineering clauses make it a federal crime to do so, which is why the DMCA is a very poorly written piece of legislation --unless of course you happen to support the MPAA movie cartel.
Fair use, etc. and the prohibition against reverse engineering as a federal crime are both areas I would like to see the DMCA struck down as well. However, the scope of this case won't touch on much of your questions, except in the matter of "jurisdiction", which is still a huge one and I am glad that the court has taken it up because at it's core it is critical to the freedom of the Internet.
Where this case holds my interest is that the DMCA is a Federal law with country wide jurisdiction, but the CCA (and MPAA) are suing under California law and (if my non-lawyerly reading of the text is accurate) essentially applying it across state lines in a way that if allowed would essentially put a chilling effect on freedom of speech, i.e., you can say what you want as long as a corporate interest in another state can use the laws of that state to threaten you.
For my part, I really don't think that the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) will disagree with the circuit court, but this case could also act as a precedent setting case for other related issues outside the realm of the Internet that bear some deeper legal analysis.
That said, I think that a win for the sites that posted the DeCSS source code is not only a victory for free speech but a nail in the coffin of CSS. Until the MPAA comes up with their next form of encryption and we start the whole ball game over again.
Slashdot Mirror
The voice of the majority is not the voice of the all, and when our information comes from only a few sources, those sources quickly take on the vanilla flavor of the majority and are also the most easily subverted to what is acceptable to the movers and shakers AKA power-mongering types of folks, while the Internet is inherently free BECAUSE of the number of social websites.
So how many social websites are needed? As many as there are quality "voices" who want to speak, methinks.
It seems like something like this could at least get a number of eyes looking at the differences between the SS and OpenOffice and maybe sort of "fertilize" the project's mindspace a bit, if you know what I mean. Something along the lines of "gee, the paid Lotus guys used technique X and over here in Open Office , they used bloated technique Y" type of thing.
What do you think?
The "HOW TO" bas been around longer than our modern refrigerators, and is based on ammonia-based thermodynamic processes, adsorption or absorption (which are different, BTW). Both are magnitudinally more energy efficient than vortex tubes.
Problem is, the absorption systems are usually petro-chemical fueled (so why not use an internal combustion engine and gain the even more efficient method of electrical refrigeration), or (including the ad-sorption processes)solar, which requires large collectors and a higher level of system complexity to accumulate the necessary energy to drive the cooling process.
Bottom line is that there just ain't no such thing as a free lunch in the thermodynamic world.
Answer #1: the GPL.
Now then, before the flames start -- please keep in mind that I am a staunch Open Source advocate, okay?
Let's say that the interested, free developer writes the hottest Linux driver imaginable for the manufacturer's wonderful version of gadget A. The open GPL code base for the driver is also an open book to the implementation of the hardware & chips inside the gadget, whether for cracking, hacking, writing twisty benchmarks, or reverse engineering, etc.
Answer #2, related in part to #1: DMCA and/or liability concerns.
What if an outside party writing the device driver opens platform specific implementation details to the outside world that would not otherwise have been visible?
How many bosses right off the bat are going to risk those types of problems just to save the cost of a coder for a couple days. It costs ten times that much to get the compliance and legal issues worked out.
So usually the answer to getting a driver written for a specific device is getting enough market interest in front of the PHB and bean counter types to make it worth their interest in risking the relatively small investment required for the coding itself and do it within the constraints of their own trade secret agreements, NDAs, legal reviews, etc.
or even better. Put in "tulip gardening tips Massachusetts" (or wherever). You're likely to end up with the exact information you want on one a relatively low number of web sites....
Think about it folks. If you walked into something like a WalMart supercenter, went to the service desk, and said "tell me where I can find some nuts", the answr would be different if you are looking for peanuts, automotive hardware, home hardware, or ??.
For example, instead of using Apple, or even Apple Newton, searching with "Apple Newton PBS" still comes up with a couple paid links back to Apple Computer but most links point to the right place, referring to the PBS series.
And in terms of only indexing PDF articles well, I have news for the folks at Slate... there aren't that many complete books out there on PDF that would be as useful to researchers as the PDFS of the articles that make up the scholarly journals themselves. So again, this perceived weakness in Google is a problem in the broad-brush arena, not in reality.
The bigger problem for most small websites and Google is building up crediblility among a wider network of links in the first place, which is where the quality of the information and it's presentation are key. Repeat after me -- there is no shortcut to success on the WWW. Build something worthless, remain in obscurity. Build something good that has value, and we -- via Google, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you like -- will eventually come.
Wrong. I am ADD and have been successfully using the generic version (made by Barr Pharmaceuticals, I believe) for more than two years now.
- isn't Microsoft certified,
- requires little support, and/or encourages customers to go shopping at Office Depot's competitors for their consumer grade apps and hardware.
Note to self... I was getting ready to dump what little Office Depot stock I was holding anyway -- might as well do it now.That is true. However, there are known areodynamic design and construction techniques that basically cause an object to assume the most drag-efficient position relative to an airstream within a short period of time, usually by causing it to spin. So in theory the black box would require sufficient shielding in all directions to allow the object to assume it's best position: where a great deal of heat shielding would then be used to deflect the heat around the contents of the box.
The final design problem would be to figure out how to transmit all of the data into the black box via a very limited number of connectors without introducing a burn through point.
By the way, the reason this doesn't work for manned craft is that a certain spin rate for more than a brief amount of time is fatal to humans anyway, because the heart can't supply enough blood to the brain against the force of the spin. Not to mention the g-forces encountered while the object is getting to the optimal position.
Thoughts anyone?
The FBI, et. al are much more concerned with privacy related issues, not what you can see on your own computer system.
However, at second blush it seems like SCO could have a case for going after folks like Redhat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc. who are actively selling and thereby theoretically profiting from a "patent violation".
Even then, I wonder, because Linux has been around for several years now and unless these particular patents cover things only put into Linux very recently, then my understanding is that if SCO didn't defend their patents early on, they might have lost the right to defend them late in the game. Even then, SCO ought to tread very carefully, because Linux proponents like myself will readily go on the offensive and try to find substantive examples "prior art" to invalidate claims against the Linux kernel code. It would be sweet justice if SCO had a seemingly valid patent claim, only to get have prior art thrown in their face and lose that particular patent altogether.
Has anyone looked at what SCO has patented that is part of the suit and where it is alleged to be in the Linux code?
Would AMI disclose that such pressures were being placed on them, or would this type of fact be kept hidden from consumer groups or individuals, etc. until it was too late for us to effectively respond?
Assume that I had a lot of these installations, and the businesses grow and become 7x24 businesses via the Internet, etc. At that point it makes sense for the businesses themselves to buy support so that if I am not available for any reason and they start throwing database errors, etc., they can get the type of support they need.
Now then, multiply the fact that I am one small consultancy business owner by a large number of similar consultants across the company and around the world (if there are any that use mySQL in a similar manner). Taking it to the extreme, assume that we so good that suddenly mySQL becomes the predominant DBMS platform for all businesses with less thatn 100 employees...(I don't think that that this is realistically going to happen by the way)
So how big are the limits to servicing Open Source software? As big as the business and professional market grows it to be.
US Copyright law in effect is a restriction on "consumer" and/or "competitor" unlimited usage rights, on the one hand. At the same time, however, the "fair use" restrictions in the copyright laws are supposed to balance the public (i.e. consumer) interest by allowing usage of part of the copyrighted materials without the copyright owners permission.
The problem with the DMCA and most of the planned DRM implementations is that insuring the availability of "fair use" via reverse engineered technology became a federal offense.
So in effect a content producer can say "you have no rights to any of my digitally protected content which I do not explicitly grant, otherwise I sick the government prosecutors on you...", as opposed to "you only have the right to fair use, and I as a copyright holder have legal recourse if I believe you have gone beyond a reasonable level."
This is one aspect of the DMCA that should cause the US Congress to through the whole thing out and start over -- the DMCA has public attorneys (prosecutors) treating a potential copyright infringement as a crime, rather than a civil matter where the MPAA, RIAA, etc. company laywers have to do the work and charge their own industry for their services.
The state should only step in where the copyright violations extend to "fraud" and other large scale enterprises that most of us would agree have criminal intent.
You are correct that larger format digital cameras exist-- at uber high prices. I should have added one more phrase to the conclusion of my post: "affordable for a mid-income professional photographer"
I have a professional medium format SLR (6x45 format) as my main working camera and a high end 35mm that is more for fun but which could be used for a lot of professional applications if I started shooting sports, low end fashion, etc. again. I also have a 4x5 view camera that I can rent when I need it.
For anything requiring significant enlargement or extremely fine grain in the finished product, I can't afford to risk using the 35mm, even with very slow speed film [Kodachrome or Ektar or their Fuji equivalents for color, similar speed films for B&W] Why? because at 128X (the practical maximum for negs), a 35mm negative gives roughly an 11x17, a 645 neg gives you around a 18x28, and a 4x5 roughly 32x40 inches. I'm willing to go roughly double those sizes for prints from transparencies.
Plus, high end medium format and all large format cameras have useful things like tilt and swing front/back panels, weird lensing combinations, etc. that are sometimes the only way to get a particular class of pictures right, and a few tricks where being able to physically alter a bigger negative (retouching if need be, or a whole host of darkroom tricks...
Add all these up and my conclusion is that until digital makes its way up to the bigger and more "super-capable" cameras, film isn't dead yet.
As far as the employee scams, Block fired those individuals a long time ago, I think. 3 out of something like 80,000 tax preparers turn out to be corrupt, not a bad average. It would have been the same if those three individuals were servers at a restaurant and copied the credit card numbers, yes?
Wish they had Taxcut under Linux in fact -- I haven't been brave enough to try VM Ware yet or attempted it with Wine -- any others out there know much on if it will work?
[slight disclosure here: I have worked with one of their folks for a couple years now and have invested a bit in their stock]. That said, I know because I asked that the preparers have to go through a several week course, and pass a final test with at least 80-85% competency or they wash out of the program.
Some are also trained as Financial Advisors or Loan Advisors for Block subsidiaries, so they can sometimes point out methods of saving additional tax $ based on good investments, mortgage refinancing, etc..
Main thing for me as a small consulting company owner is that you know you're not dealing with an Enron-esque company -- their ethics and credibility are top notch.
For freight, better to invest the same amount of money in updating alot of the systems that make the man-machine interface for the railroads a week link, where unions have stifled a lot of innovation, and where drug use (primarily marijuana) has caused a faily significant number of fatalities and/or environmental hazards or disasters nationwide. How about deploying a network of sensors at crossings which signal a train to slow down well in advance of a stuck vehicle, etc. Or in developing a national freight controlling system a'la the ATC to open up the rails almost like highways, and made sure that the freights, etc. run on time and interface well timing wise with mass transit trains, like Japan has been doing for 30 or more years?
I'd love to see fire-fighting drones, but the huge updrafts caused by the fires would seem to make the reflexes of an in the craft pilot absolutely necessary, because in some ways the planes are in the air to only suppress the fires and save the ground "troops" lives. Missing by 30-40 meters (100-125 feet or so) in some of these cases isn't good enough -- and at 300-400 KmPH (200-300 MPH), that's what -- a third of a second?
Start with a more agile fire-tanker fleet more capable of performing the needed missions with more flexible mission profiles, faster turn times and a higher safety margin. Then add the remote piloting technology when everything else is exactly right -- and the technology isn't simply a drive, circle, and land proposition.
Now that we've reached cruising altitude, we again welcome to the first fully automated Transatlantic flight on Fantastic Future Airlines.
Our systems have been fully tested and developed to insure you the smoothest, safest flight you will ever experience. Sit back, enjoy the flight with our assurances that nothing will go wrong... go wrong...go wrong... go wrong....
--old joke mode off--
As opposed to something truly satisfying -- like the gentle smile on her face, the close physical space (snuggling), the tenderness in the touching -- and of course the huge release of endorphins we experience together. Plus the knowledge that at if we try at certain tims we might even add an interesting addition to our small family -- you know -- participating in the creation of a new life.
*sigh* Where's the study that shows how much more these important things make new neuronal connections grow...
Unfortunately, even if I have a non-supported device that I can program a decoder for, the DMCA reverse engineering clauses make it a federal crime to do so, which is why the DMCA is a very poorly written piece of legislation --unless of course you happen to support the MPAA movie cartel.
Hence the controversy over DeCSS.
Where this case holds my interest is that the DMCA is a Federal law with country wide jurisdiction, but the CCA (and MPAA) are suing under California law and (if my non-lawyerly reading of the text is accurate) essentially applying it across state lines in a way that if allowed would essentially put a chilling effect on freedom of speech, i.e., you can say what you want as long as a corporate interest in another state can use the laws of that state to threaten you.
For my part, I really don't think that the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) will disagree with the circuit court, but this case could also act as a precedent setting case for other related issues outside the realm of the Internet that bear some deeper legal analysis.
That said, I think that a win for the sites that posted the DeCSS source code is not only a victory for free speech but a nail in the coffin of CSS. Until the MPAA comes up with their next form of encryption and we start the whole ball game over again.
Apologies. Even after rereading your first post, I didn't catch the reference at first.
Retract mode on... the CORBA references are spot on.