I'm sure that when someone says that Third World countries are being raped of their resources, it has a lot to do with HOW those resources are extracted. A frequent accusation is that certain other countries foster conflict between warring factions to get things below market value. Diamonds aren't really a good example because they are available from a number of countries and aren't really a critical resource. A better example, especially since you used Africa as an example, is Coltan( columbite-tantalite). Without Coltan, you can pretty much kiss all your fancy electronics goodbye.
Read here for more info: http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Art icles/TheStandardColtan.asp
After all, they stand to gain the most. If they can convince the software world to port to Mac OS which has a true Unix backend, and the ubiquitous MS Office is natively available, then this is a complete slam dunk for them.
Perhaps, but the big issue most people have with nuclear plants is that the waste they produce is difficult to get rid of. Probably the best solution would be to chuck it into the sun. Also, in the post 9/11 world, there are security implications of having more nuclear power in one's backyard. And they seem to be quite difficult to manage and maintain.The provincial government of Ontario learned that lesson the hard way when they tried to bring several reactors back online after they'd been shut down for several years. They've already blown the entire budget for all 6 reactors getting only the first one up and running. I'm not a fan of coal power either - considering that estimates state we have nearly 1000 years worth of coal - far more than any other fossil fuel, my attitude is that we should exhaust all the cleaner fuels first and turn to coal if and when we have no other choice. Perhaps by then, we'll have figured out how to truly consume coal cleanly.
I wouldn't put it past those who most want software patents to use this as leverage against free licenses : They shouldn't be allowed because there is no one to sue. It sounded ridiculous to me when I first thought of it but in light of some of the IP lawsuits that have made it to court over the last few years, it may not be as improbable as I first thought.
Either you're very new to this subject or you're trolling. Have you considered that they've strong-armed OEMs for years to include nothing but Windows? In fact, it was a stipulation of those contracts that they had to pay the M$ tax even if an operating systems other than Windows was installed and that selling a PC without an OS was a violation of the contract. If you want to have a look at truly decent consumer x86 OS ( well, at the time) compare OS/2 Warp to Windows 95/98 or NT 4. In my opinion, the first truly decent consumer OS released by M$ was Windows 2000.
Well, I'm sure that is because we don't know enough about DNA. While there is a great amount of variance within a given "race", there are still a number of physical characteristics, which are genetically determined , that is extremely unlikely to be found in that particular set of human beings. If we know what is/are the genes for red hair, I'm pretty certain that, based on that criterium alone, you can eliminate all the non-caucasians. While some cultures are highly mixed, there are enough traits that appear in certain groups of people that one can reasonable distinctions based on their genetic profile
It's an all *nix environment presently totalling around 4200 CPUs of which 96 ( in a single cluster) is AIX 5.2, 3128 (WOW!!) is on Tru64 (in 2 clusters) and the rest, distributed in 5 clusters are some form of Linux. Two of the clusters have a second phase which together will add 316 CPUs on Linux.
As of October 1 of this year, 5 clusters at 3 sites will be added with the OS / CPU breakdown as follows: Linux : 1800 CPUs in 3 clusters AIX 5.1 : 320 in 1 cluster Solaris 9 : 256 in 1 cluster
That's an awful lot of Unix and a buttload of Tru64 and Linux
I'm sure that is a big part of their strategy. After all, Novell was making solid directory services long before M$. In fact, I think that, were it not for NDS and eDirectory, Novell might have died off years ago.
I remember when Bio-Pace was big news. I think it turned out that it worked well for sprinters but that it didn't make any difference ( or may have hindered performance ) for the long-distance riders.
I'm not surprised that it may have caused physical problems for athletes. We're not machines and attempts to squeeze out "inefficiencies" never seems to work.
For many years, swimming coaches tried - and sometimes succeeded - to break the "S" curve from the stroke of some freestyle swimmers. But, a number of athletes who stuck with it kept winning races. It was later discovered that the stroke - where the hand moves inward towards the upper chest before sweeping outward at the abdomen - was more efficient that pulling straight back from the entry point because of the flow of water around the body.
The per minute charges are not so bad if you travel a lot. You should see what Bell Mobility charges you if you roam to the United States or the Caribbean.
But the $1000 for the phone itself is a major bummer. On the other hand, I remember the bad old days of cellphones - I'm talking 1988 here. You needed a battery pack the size of a small handbag, the phone weighed a pound and a half and your signal would suffer from interference if you passed under a row of trees. We've come a long way, baby.
Please check your facts. Not only is Iridium not bankrupt, they are looking to add a small number of personnel. There is a posting for a Solaris/Linux admin and their latest press release was a month ago.
If he wanted to give an easy-to-use Linux to clients, can someone explain what are the main advantages of Linspire over Xandros? I found Xandros to be quite simple ( although I'm sticking with Mandrake) and Lin[dows|spire] wants your first-born and bank account.
If Linspire were the only choice for desktop Linux on x86, I'd stick with Windows XP.
"And while Windows Server 2k3 can run on the same cheap hardware"
Depends on the hardware - Win2K Server is picky about its P-2's. I have a dual Proc box that I built some years back and it's faithfully run Win NT/2K, Linux 2.2/2.4/2.6, BeOS and FreeBSD 4 using both processors. Win2K Server, on the other hand, doesn't like the CPU steppings and will only recognize one CPU. Major bummer since this box has been rock solid. It was the first time I'd ever used an MSI motherboard and I must say it was money well spent, especially since I got it for unused at half price.
Population doesn't tell the whole story. Canada has far more sway than any number of countries in Africa or Asia that have an equal or greater population. Canada is HUGE in area but relatively sparsely populated.
Javascript, PDF and Flash all work like a charm in Firefox. About the only reason I or any of my friends revert back to IE is to run Windows Update. Also, IE and Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox usually detect when a plugin is needed and tell you to click to install it. And, in most cases, the plugin functionality is immediately available, without restarting the browser. What more do you need than that?
See here for patent numbers, descriptions and abstracts: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11 3350&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=155&mode=thread&cid=9602755
Space efficient housing for a disk drive? Wraparound shock absorber? What engineer couldn't come up with this?
I didn't include 6,455,845 - Ion packet generation for mass spectrometer because it made no sense as to why this was included.
5,452,159: Magnetic parking device for disk drive ( Sep, '95) A magnetic parking device for a disk drive includes a magnet and a member for containing the magnetic field produced by the magnet. The magnetic field containing member has an air gap which is substantially parallel to the magnet flux lines of the magnetic field so that there is no fringing of the magnetic field outside of the gap. The device magnetically captures a magnetically permeable capture member provided on the actuator of a disk drive without contacting the capture member and only when the actuator enters the gap in the magnetic field containing member
5,600,506 - Feb, '97 Apparatus and method for determining the position of a transducer relative to a disk surface in a disk drive system
Abstract
A method and system for generating a position signal indicative of the position of a transducer with reference to a fixed reference point on the surface of a disk within a disk drive system. The system is comprised of two major elements. The first element is a disk divided into sectors and has Z data tracks where each sector includes a preamble area that includes a servo band comprised of 0.75*Z consecutive overlapping quadrature servo patterns and gray scale band comprised of 1.5*Z consecutively addressed gray scale areas that have been recorded across all data tracks. The second element is a position generator that generates the position signal from the relative magnitude of each of the four servo bursts of a quadrature servo pattern of the servo band and the gray scale address of the gray scale area of the gray scale band that is read by a transducer when the transducer reads the preamble of a sector.
6,146,754 - Nov, 2000 Substantially isotropic magnetic recording medium comprising a seedlayer
Abstract
A high areal density magnetic recording medium exhibiting high Hc, high SNR, high S* and substantially isotropic magnetic properties is achieved by depositing a thin seedlayer before depositing the underlayer. Embodiments include heating the seedlayer under vacuum in the presence of residual oxygen to induce appropriate crystalline orientation and surface morphology for nucleation and growth of the underlayer and magnetic layer having substantially isotropic magnetic properties.
6,324,054 - Nov, 2001
Wrap around shock absorber for disc drives
Abstract
The shock absorber apparatus for a disc drive is a molded polymeric enclosure adapted to receive and retain a disc drive. One preferred embodiment of the present invention has a shock absorbing material of a first thickness adjacent a critical region of the drive and a second thickness of shock absorbing material adjacent a non-critical region of the disc drive. The first thickness is greater than the second thickness in order to absorb a greater shock load to protect the critical region of the disc drive.
5,596,461 - Jan, '97 Space efficient housing configuration for a disk drive #7
Abstract
A space efficient disk drive housing is described. The disk drive housing comprises a base member having a top, a bottom, and an outer perimeter having length and end portions of preselected dimensions and a cover element comprising a top surface and side walls depending downwardly from the top surface. The cover element has length and width dimensions corresponding to the dimensions of the length and end portions of the base member so that the cover element can be secured to the base member to form the housing. The cover element is provided with a first raised portion to provide a height dimension within the housing sufficient for topmost portions of a spindle motor and head stack assembly of a disk stack assembly of a disk drive. Remaining portions of the top surface of the cover element providing a continuous, single PCB support surface. A set of support posts is provid
Seagate filed a claim with 6 infringements, Western Digital claims seven. So that a total of thirteen alleged patent violations but not even ONE has been specified. Since the 2 companies are patent holders, what could they possibly be afraid of by giving details? I smell a pre-emptive strike - Seagate will not have a 1-inch product for release until late this year and Western Digital isn't yet in this market. Let's all reserve judgment until the details are revealed.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Since the courts are not usually tech-savvy, they can easily be bamboozled by fast-talking lawyers. The SCO lawsuit against IBM is founded on very thin "evidence" and many of their accusations have been ripped to shreds publicly yet they're forging ahead with the suit.
The post to which you're replying knocks the diesel engine for its EMISSIONS, not its performance or fuel economy. Biodiesel blends address all the concerns about diesel emissions but unless passenger diesels start to reach the level of popularity they have in Europe, we'll be in for a lot higher fuel prices and smoggy skies.
All of the common concerns about the emissions of diesel engines are addressed by either blending with biodiesel or adjusting the fuel injection timing ( without impacting the other reductions in emissions). Also, because of the bound oxygen in biodiesel ( about 10%), engine power is significantly enhanced by either switching to, or blending with, biodiesel. Read more here: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_nox.html
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure that when someone says that Third World countries are being raped of their resources, it has a lot to do with HOW those resources are extracted.
t icles/TheStandardColtan.asp
A frequent accusation is that certain other countries foster conflict between warring factions to get things below market value.
Diamonds aren't really a good example because they are available from a number of countries and aren't really a critical resource.
A better example, especially since you used Africa as an example, is Coltan( columbite-tantalite).
Without Coltan, you can pretty much kiss all your fancy electronics goodbye.
Read here for more info: http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Ar
After all, they stand to gain the most. If they can convince the software world to port to Mac OS which has a true Unix backend, and the ubiquitous MS Office is natively available, then this is a complete slam dunk for them.
Perhaps, but the big issue most people have with nuclear plants is that the waste they produce is difficult to get rid of.
Probably the best solution would be to chuck it into the sun. Also, in the post 9/11 world, there are security implications of having more nuclear power in one's backyard.
And they seem to be quite difficult to manage and maintain.The provincial government of Ontario learned that lesson the hard way when they tried to bring several reactors back online after they'd been shut down for several years.
They've already blown the entire budget for all 6 reactors getting only the first one up and running.
I'm not a fan of coal power either - considering that estimates state we have nearly 1000 years worth of coal - far more than any other fossil fuel, my attitude is that we should exhaust all the cleaner fuels first and turn to coal if and when we have no other choice.
Perhaps by then, we'll have figured out how to truly consume coal cleanly.
If the action figure comes with the pooper-scooper, I'll buy one.
I wouldn't put it past those who most want software patents to use this as leverage against free licenses : They shouldn't be allowed because there is no one to sue.
It sounded ridiculous to me when I first thought of it but in light of some of the IP lawsuits that have made it to court over the last few years, it may not be as improbable as I first thought.
Either you're very new to this subject or you're trolling. Have you considered that they've strong-armed OEMs for years to include nothing but Windows? In fact, it was a stipulation of those contracts that they had to pay the M$ tax even if an operating systems other than Windows was installed and that selling a PC without an OS was a violation of the contract.
If you want to have a look at truly decent consumer x86 OS ( well, at the time) compare OS/2 Warp to Windows 95/98 or NT 4.
In my opinion, the first truly decent consumer OS released by M$ was Windows 2000.
Well, I'm sure that is because we don't know enough about DNA. While there is a great amount of variance within a given "race", there are still a number of physical characteristics, which are genetically determined , that is extremely unlikely to be found in that particular set of human beings. If we know what is/are the genes for red hair, I'm pretty certain that, based on that criterium alone, you can eliminate all the non-caucasians.
While some cultures are highly mixed, there are enough traits that appear in certain groups of people that one can reasonable distinctions based on their genetic profile
It's an all *nix environment presently totalling around 4200 CPUs of which 96 ( in a single cluster)
is AIX 5.2, 3128 (WOW!!) is on Tru64 (in 2 clusters) and the rest, distributed in 5 clusters
are some form of Linux.
Two of the clusters have a second phase which together will add 316 CPUs on Linux.
As of October 1 of this year, 5 clusters at 3 sites will be added with the OS / CPU breakdown as follows:
Linux : 1800 CPUs in 3 clusters
AIX 5.1 : 320 in 1 cluster
Solaris 9 : 256 in 1 cluster
That's an awful lot of Unix and a buttload of Tru64 and Linux
Except that LA is more expensive, has serious power, water and pollution problems and -
the top 2 reasons not to move to LA
it's in the United States
it has Arnold the Hummer-lover ( yes, both kinds)for Governor
I'm sure that is a big part of their strategy. After all, Novell was making solid directory services long
before M$.
In fact, I think that, were it not for NDS and eDirectory, Novell might have died off years ago.
I remember when Bio-Pace was big news. I think it turned out that it worked well for sprinters but that it didn't make any difference ( or may have hindered performance ) for the long-distance riders.
I'm not surprised that it may have caused physical problems for athletes. We're not machines and attempts to squeeze out "inefficiencies" never seems to work.
For many years, swimming coaches tried - and sometimes succeeded - to break the "S" curve from
the stroke of some freestyle swimmers. But, a number of athletes who stuck with it kept winning races.
It was later discovered that the stroke - where the hand moves inward towards the upper chest before sweeping outward at the abdomen - was more efficient that pulling straight back from the entry point because of the flow of water around the body.
The per minute charges are not so bad if you travel a lot. You should see what Bell Mobility charges you
if you roam to the United States or the Caribbean.
But the $1000 for the phone itself is a major bummer. On the other hand, I remember the bad old days of cellphones - I'm talking 1988 here.
You needed a battery pack the size of a small handbag, the phone weighed a pound and a half and your signal would suffer from interference if you passed under a row of trees.
We've come a long way, baby.
Please check your facts. Not only is Iridium not bankrupt, they are looking to add a small number of
personnel. There is a posting for a Solaris/Linux admin and their latest press release was a month ago.
http://www.iridium.com/corp/iri_corp-news.asp
If he wanted to give an easy-to-use Linux to clients, can someone explain what are the main advantages of Linspire over Xandros?
I found Xandros to be quite simple ( although I'm sticking with Mandrake) and Lin[dows|spire] wants your first-born and bank account.
If Linspire were the only choice for desktop Linux on x86, I'd stick with Windows XP.
No, you have too many outsourced research jobs.
"And while Windows Server 2k3 can run on the same cheap hardware"
Depends on the hardware - Win2K Server is picky about its P-2's. I have a dual Proc box that I built
some years back and it's faithfully run Win NT/2K, Linux 2.2/2.4/2.6, BeOS and FreeBSD 4 using both processors.
Win2K Server, on the other hand, doesn't like the CPU steppings and will only recognize one CPU.
Major bummer since this box has been rock solid.
It was the first time I'd ever used an MSI motherboard and I must say it was money well spent, especially since I got it for unused at half price.
Population doesn't tell the whole story. Canada has far more sway than any number of countries in Africa or Asia that have an equal or greater population.
Canada is HUGE in area but relatively sparsely populated.
Javascript, PDF and Flash all work like a charm in Firefox. About the only reason I or any of my friends revert back to IE is to run Windows Update.
Also, IE and Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox usually detect when a plugin is needed and tell you to click to install it. And, in most cases, the plugin functionality is immediately available, without restarting the browser. What more do you need than that?
See here for patent numbers, descriptions and abstracts:1 3350&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&tid=155&mode=thread&cid=9602755
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1
Space efficient housing for a disk drive?
Wraparound shock absorber? What engineer couldn't come up with this?
I didn't include 6,455,845 - Ion packet generation for mass spectrometer because it made no sense as to why this was included.
5,452,159: Magnetic parking device for disk drive
( Sep, '95)
A magnetic parking device for a disk drive includes a magnet and a member for containing the magnetic field produced by the magnet. The magnetic field containing member has an air gap which is substantially parallel to the magnet flux lines of the magnetic field so that there is no fringing of the magnetic field outside of the gap. The device magnetically captures a magnetically permeable capture member provided on the actuator of a disk drive without contacting the capture member and only when the actuator enters the gap in the magnetic field containing member
5,600,506 - Feb, '97
Apparatus and method for determining the position of a transducer relative to a disk surface in a disk drive system
Abstract
A method and system for generating a position signal indicative of the position of a transducer with reference to a fixed reference point on the surface of a disk within a disk drive system. The system is comprised of two major elements. The first element is a disk divided into sectors and has Z data tracks where each sector includes a preamble area that includes a servo band comprised of 0.75*Z consecutive overlapping quadrature servo patterns and gray scale band comprised of 1.5*Z consecutively addressed gray scale areas that have been recorded across all data tracks. The second element is a position generator that generates the position signal from the relative magnitude of each of the four servo bursts of a quadrature servo pattern of the servo band and the gray scale address of the gray scale area of the gray scale band that is read by a transducer when the transducer reads the preamble of a sector.
6,146,754 - Nov, 2000
Substantially isotropic magnetic recording medium comprising a seedlayer
Abstract
A high areal density magnetic recording medium exhibiting high Hc, high SNR, high S* and substantially isotropic magnetic properties is achieved by depositing a thin seedlayer before depositing the underlayer. Embodiments include heating the seedlayer under vacuum in the presence of residual oxygen to induce appropriate crystalline orientation and surface morphology for nucleation and growth of the underlayer and magnetic layer having substantially isotropic magnetic properties.
6,324,054 - Nov, 2001
Wrap around shock absorber for disc drives
Abstract
The shock absorber apparatus for a disc drive is a molded polymeric enclosure adapted to receive and retain a disc drive. One preferred embodiment of the present invention has a shock absorbing material of a first thickness adjacent a critical region of the drive and a second thickness of shock absorbing material adjacent a non-critical region of the disc drive. The first thickness is greater than the second thickness in order to absorb a greater shock load to protect the critical region of the disc drive.
5,596,461 - Jan, '97
Space efficient housing configuration for a disk drive #7
Abstract
A space efficient disk drive housing is described. The disk drive housing comprises a base member having a top, a bottom, and an outer perimeter having length and end portions of preselected dimensions and a cover element comprising a top surface and side walls depending downwardly from the top surface. The cover element has length and width dimensions corresponding to the dimensions of the length and end portions of the base member so that the cover element can be secured to the base member to form the housing. The cover element is provided with a first raised portion to provide a height dimension within the housing sufficient for topmost portions of a spindle motor and head stack assembly of a disk stack assembly of a disk drive. Remaining portions of the top surface of the cover element providing a continuous, single PCB support surface. A set of support posts is provid
5,452,159;, 455,845 B1;
c ourt=ded&dk_num=1%3A2004cv00418
5,600,506;
6,146,754;
6,324,054;
6
5,596,461
From http://corporate.findlaw.com/scripts/full_dkt.pl?
Seagate filed a claim with 6 infringements, Western Digital claims seven. So that a total of thirteen alleged patent violations but not even ONE has been specified.
Since the 2 companies are patent holders, what could they possibly be afraid of by giving details? I smell a pre-emptive strike - Seagate will not have a 1-inch product for release until late this year and Western Digital isn't yet in this market.
Let's all reserve judgment until the details are revealed.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Since the courts are not usually tech-savvy, they can easily be bamboozled
by fast-talking lawyers.
The SCO lawsuit against IBM is founded on very thin "evidence" and many of their accusations have been ripped to shreds publicly yet they're forging ahead with the suit.
The post to which you're replying knocks the diesel engine for its EMISSIONS, not its performance or fuel economy.
Biodiesel blends address all the concerns about diesel emissions but unless passenger diesels start to reach the level of popularity they have in Europe, we'll be in for a lot higher fuel prices and
smoggy skies.
All of the common concerns about the emissions of diesel engines are addressed by either blending with
biodiesel or adjusting the fuel injection timing ( without impacting the other reductions in emissions).
Also, because of the bound oxygen in biodiesel ( about 10%), engine power is significantly enhanced by either switching to, or blending with, biodiesel.
Read more here: http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_nox.html