On the other hand, There's a law against Breaking and Entering my house. Now, in a sense, my house has poor protection - the brick walls are only a foot thick, the windows have easily breakable glass... in short, any fool with a bulldozer or a bit of semtex (hello echelon!!) could break in if they really wanted to. But there's still a law against their doing so. Without which I'd have no legal recourse if they chose to do so. It's my responsibility to take some reasonable precautions, and if I do, then an Insurance company (not the state) will mitigate my losses. But it's not my responsibility to make sure my house is a castle with a moat, portcullis, 12 foot thick granite walls and an army ready with the boiling tar.
You cannot copmare tangible goods to IP. They are not the same. If someone takes your stereo, you are deprived of a stereo and must spend money to get a new one. If someone copies your prize essay, you still have your essay. You do not need to rewrite it. The only thing is you have lost a potenital revenue stream. This is what everyone is trying to protect.
The end result of this is that many banner ad services will switch to Microsoft, rather than just getting angry.
Does this mean that they will stop using Java? That's great, because unless I download the MS plugin then I won't be able to see their ads. The ignorant masses will then receive all the ads while the rest of us blissfully enjoy a web experience free of commercial harassment. Or is this too pie-in-the-sky?
The Bill of Rights applies to all people that the US government interacts with. The Border Patrol cannot abuse Mexican immagrants any more than LAPD can abuse US citizens. Manuel Noriega was afforded all of the rights in the constitution, even though he was not a citizen. The Bill protects ALL people, not just those born here or who those who passed a test.
I believe it stands at twenty years (used to be seventeen, then the law was updated to twenty). I could be wrong, but it is around there somewhere. In any event, the patent is only good for a few more years. One bright point is that as long as this is tied up in court, the clock is ticking. I never thought I'd actually like to see a case drag on.
Yeah, but photovoltaic efficencies are about 10-15% if I recall. Steam turbines are much more efficient, around 60-80% if I recall correctly through half a decade to my power systems class. But it would be cool if they could capture the energy without the big iron that steam trubines require.
Water (steam) has ideal properties for use in energy transfer systems. It is plentiful, non-toxic, and has a very high specific temperature (absorbs/releases a lot of energy per volume). These features make it reliable, clean, and easy to work around. All we need is to make a clean source of heat...oh wait, that is what the article is about.
The problem is that the financial input does not exceed the financial output. It is a money loser. Sure we get some very interesting knowledge about our origins and future, but how the hell do you package that and sell it to the mass market. Only so many people are going to read about the origins of the universe or the effects of the solar wind on the martian atmosphere. Do you honestly think that if you start charging people to read those documents (read Intellectual Property) that you are going to be able to recover the 200+ million dollars it took to get a spacecraft to make those measurements?
For profit science degrades the scientist because all they will end up pusuing are new products. If something cannot be incorporated, repackaged and distributed then it will not be investigated. Do you think that the income from selling teflon and Tang would pay for the Apollo missions? Would the royalties from pretty pictures of Saturn pay for the Cassini mission? I doubt it.
Some science is a money loser. You do it for the warm fuzzy feeling of expanding human knowledge. It may not be practical ("In three billion years...") but it allows us to grow as a culture. I agree that some of NASA should be privately funded. The aerospace companies have much to gain in the R&D for advanced spaceplanes. Earth sciences is also an area for potential profit (mining, farming, etc). But planetary exploration will not have a payoff and if left to business, would not happen.
So we can have some relativly untainted science at taxpayer expense or we can look forward to seeing the Microsoft logo superimposed on those pictures of Neptune from the "Texaco Planetary Explorer... improving life through exploration".
I'd have to say that, of course more than one prototype should be built, but it's rather insensitive to snidely say that "if you don't lose one during testing, you're not pushing hard enough".
That's why you use unmanned prototypes for the questionable stuff. Not an option in the 50's and 60's, but quite do-able now.
Weapons-grade fissionable materials in themselves are relatively easy to make. Any nation that has the know-how to build a nuclear reactor can build a breeder reactor to make weapons-grade uranium. The technology required to make the actual bomb, though, is pretty difficult to figure out.
Getting the material is actually not as straightforward as you imply. Breeder reactors do not output weapons grade material. The stuff needs to be processed so that it contains the same fissionable isotope at a very high purity. Separating a substance which is chemically the same and differs only by weight is tricky. The weight difference is not that much (several neutrons in a nucleus with over 200 particles). It is very energy intensive and the machinery needed to do it needs to be very precise.
Also, as you state, making the bomb is not just two hemispheres of matter surrounded by a soccerball of explosives. Yet another case of the movies putting irrational fears into the public consciousness.
In conclusion, no part of making a nuclear weapon is "easy". It is an incredibly complex operation that would be difficult to hide.
Similarly, what the hell kind of services does the County of Los Angeles provide in outer space? There sure ain't no curb-side (satellite-side?) recycling...
I am not an accountant, but here goes...
I suppose that the argument can be made that the satellite is a component of a communications system. If a part of the system is in LA county, then the satellite could be considered a component of the system and is therefore able to be taxed.
This is similar to the taxation of the airplanes of the airlines. The planes are moving around every day, but they have a designated base. I assume that that base is used, in part, for taxation purposes.
But what happens for communications satellites that can be accessed from multiple locations? Which location gets to tax the satellite? In other words, if Hughes has an uplink in LA and a downlink in NY, can both LA and NY tax the satellite. Do they split it?
Wouldn't a zero-force keyboard result in random input to stdin?
Another problem would be that almost anything could trigger a keypress. If you thought the cat on the keyboard was bad, how about that annoying fly trying to get at the spilled Coke stain on your keyboard.
A keyboard that senses the heat from your finger may help, but these keyboards are annoying because they can sense any heat, not just your fingertips. So when you go to hit keys at the top of the keyboard (numbers, F-keys etc,) your palm can trigger the lower keys. Perhaps a minimal force/thermal combo-keyboard could address the issue.
I don't see what the big deal is. I don't mind the clickitty-clack of current keyboards. It gives me feedback when I am touch typing and not looking at the screen. If I had one of these keyboards, then I would have to set my computer up to beep at every keypress like those annoying computers in the movies.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over wrongability. This is not a service and this is not a software lease. If I pay for a copy of XP, I pay the guy at CompUSA one time for the software and the transaction is over. Microsoft has no right to invade my privacy and force me to get their permission to use software that I have already paid for.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over wrongability. Think of your purchase as a "connection charge" and then you have a perfectly good model of software "service".
Silly you to think that you are purchasing anything. You are paying for the priviledge to connect to and use the greatest, most fabulous software ever written, until the next version is released and it becomes crap and you absolutely MUST upgrade because of various security issues. After all you don't want anyone to erase all that porn you downloaded over the last few weeks, do you?
Wireless has much lower installation costs. The bandwidth is always increasing and hopefully these guys will be able to offer competitive services.
I've often thought that municipalities should install and own the last mile and lease space in the cental office to everyone (Bells, cable, data, etc). Kinda like the city owns the road and all of your delivery services use it to get to you. This would put companies in their place because nobody would have an advantage. They would actually have to listen to the customers and deliver a service. But until politicians get a clue, we're stuck with the current system.
Law enforcement uses a diffused laser to dazzle suspects. They basically shine them in your eyes and pulse the signal. Since your eyes are trying to constantly adjust to the varying light levels, it becomes very difficult to see and as a bonus you get a sort of vertigo feeling.
Another tactic that some of the local (Florida) agencies use is to set up a radar display on the side of the road. They aim a radar gun down the road and display the speed to the oncoming traffic. Most people slow down and I rarely see officers pulling people over on these roads. It's like the cops are saying "Don't make me come over there..." I think it is great because it keeps everyone happy. The cops don't have to pull people over (#1 danger for a patrol officer), the people don't get tickets and they can still speed when the conditions permit it.
I'm sure they are aware of this problem and use a running average to smooth out the signal. This certianly would have shown up in testing.
What I want to know is if you get a chance to contest the charges. Even when accused by the police, you (in most states here in the US) go to a court where the officer has to prove to a judge you acted illegally. This system of just fining people based on some sensory data without any interpretation by an impartial party is a bit unsettling.
There are other sources for world and national events than Slashdot. Also, reading those statements (or at least calling the bank for an explanation) would help. Stop being a slashdot puppet, turn on your brain, and think for yourself. Ignorant, lazy people like you are the reason that laws like this are allowed to pass. I'll bet you never even write your congressman.
From what I understand, it's the same guy. I forget his name but I see him on the TV shows pushing his seismic theory on everything. IIRC, he's a geologist, and so sees the world through a geologist's eyes.
My take would be that seismic events caused some of the sightings. Logs and other debris caused some other sightings. Pranks are the root for yet more sightings. There is no one explanation.
However given two or more geosynchonous systems, one could mathematically obtain higher resolution images at geosynchronous altitudes. Of course this would entail quite a bit of post processing and could not occur in real time given present technology eh?
I remember my Digital Signal Processing instructor telling us that interferometry was relatively straightforward. He said it was basically linear algebra, which is a job particularly well suited to CPUs. He did not mention real-time, but this was also 6 years ago. Therefore I do not think it is unreasonable for that to happen. However, I could have been shoveled a load of crap in an effort to increase his enrollment in EEL-6212!
The gold standard cannot be used becuase money is an numerical representation of wealth. It represents the work that people have done to create the world in which we live. It is the assignment of value to human labor and creativity.
If the world on a gold standard wants to pay its people to work, then there must be as much gold refined every day to pay for the people's wages.
However, if you base currency on other assets (buildings, land, warships) then you are basing the value of human labor and creativity on the products of that labor and creativity. Your paycheck is basically a numerical assessment of your contribution to the nation's assets. That is the concept of wealth.
The money supply must be allowed to expand and contract without any physical limits. Otherwise you will run into a situation where it is physically impossible to compensate the workforce. Managing a money supply that is not physically tied to any one asset is the tricky part and is what separates the good economies from the bad.
I could easily be wrong, but I was under the impression that the stealth aircraft stayed above 5000m to prevent a "golden BB" from hitting it's mark. Most antiaircraft artillery does not have the energy to rise above this altitude.
But again, I have not picked up a Jane's in a while, so Milosovic may very well have some "super AAA".
I see TimeWarner Cable ads on DishNetwork all the time. All the companies have to do is get their advertising from the local stations and not TWC. Occasionally, the cable company will advertise over the local broadcast channel, but this seems to be limited. So instead of getting time on the Weather Channel or CNN, they can go to Channel 2 and get some time on the six o'clock news. Since the cable company carries the local broadcasting, the ad gets seen.
Another alternative is to advertise with a partner. Get the local computer store to run a promotion with your service as the feature and get a mention in the computer store's advertisements.
Now IANAL, but I have been invited to several class action lawsuits. In all cases I was not even aware of the alleged impropriety.
A class action lawsuit will notify all purchasers of the v1.3 or less TiVo that their hardware has been tampered with by the company and they are invited to participate in the lawsuit. If they choose to participate, then they are put in a very long plantiff list. So even if you are the Joe Blow consumer who knows nothing about the inner workings of the system, you will be informed that it has been crippled. You can bet that some of the consumers will be pissed, even if they didn't use the features, because they will fear future crippling. Thus it is possible to attract people to the lawsuit who normally would not have noticed and/or complained.
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand, There's a law against Breaking and Entering my house. Now, in a sense, my house has poor protection - the brick walls are only a foot thick, the windows have easily breakable glass... in short, any fool with a bulldozer or a bit of semtex (hello echelon!!) could break in if they really wanted to. But there's still a law against their doing so. Without which I'd have no legal recourse if they chose to do so. It's my responsibility to take some reasonable precautions, and if I do, then an Insurance company (not the state) will mitigate my losses. But it's not my responsibility to make sure my house is a castle with a moat, portcullis, 12 foot thick granite walls and an army ready with the boiling tar.
You cannot copmare tangible goods to IP. They are not the same. If someone takes your stereo, you are deprived of a stereo and must spend money to get a new one. If someone copies your prize essay, you still have your essay. You do not need to rewrite it. The only thing is you have lost a potenital revenue stream. This is what everyone is trying to protect.
The end result of this is that many banner ad services will switch to Microsoft, rather than just getting angry.
Does this mean that they will stop using Java? That's great, because unless I download the MS plugin then I won't be able to see their ads. The ignorant masses will then receive all the ads while the rest of us blissfully enjoy a web experience free of commercial harassment. Or is this too pie-in-the-sky?
The Bill of Rights applies to all people that the US government interacts with. The Border Patrol cannot abuse Mexican immagrants any more than LAPD can abuse US citizens. Manuel Noriega was afforded all of the rights in the constitution, even though he was not a citizen. The Bill protects ALL people, not just those born here or who those who passed a test.
I believe it stands at twenty years (used to be seventeen, then the law was updated to twenty). I could be wrong, but it is around there somewhere. In any event, the patent is only good for a few more years. One bright point is that as long as this is tied up in court, the clock is ticking. I never thought I'd actually like to see a case drag on.
Yeah, but photovoltaic efficencies are about 10-15% if I recall. Steam turbines are much more efficient, around 60-80% if I recall correctly through half a decade to my power systems class. But it would be cool if they could capture the energy without the big iron that steam trubines require.
Water (steam) has ideal properties for use in energy transfer systems. It is plentiful, non-toxic, and has a very high specific temperature (absorbs/releases a lot of energy per volume). These features make it reliable, clean, and easy to work around. All we need is to make a clean source of heat...oh wait, that is what the article is about.
The problem is that the financial input does not exceed the financial output. It is a money loser. Sure we get some very interesting knowledge about our origins and future, but how the hell do you package that and sell it to the mass market. Only so many people are going to read about the origins of the universe or the effects of the solar wind on the martian atmosphere. Do you honestly think that if you start charging people to read those documents (read Intellectual Property) that you are going to be able to recover the 200+ million dollars it took to get a spacecraft to make those measurements?
For profit science degrades the scientist because all they will end up pusuing are new products. If something cannot be incorporated, repackaged and distributed then it will not be investigated. Do you think that the income from selling teflon and Tang would pay for the Apollo missions? Would the royalties from pretty pictures of Saturn pay for the Cassini mission? I doubt it.
Some science is a money loser. You do it for the warm fuzzy feeling of expanding human knowledge. It may not be practical ("In three billion years...") but it allows us to grow as a culture. I agree that some of NASA should be privately funded. The aerospace companies have much to gain in the R&D for advanced spaceplanes. Earth sciences is also an area for potential profit (mining, farming, etc). But planetary exploration will not have a payoff and if left to business, would not happen.
So we can have some relativly untainted science at taxpayer expense or we can look forward to seeing the Microsoft logo superimposed on those pictures of Neptune from the "Texaco Planetary Explorer... improving life through exploration".
I'd have to say that, of course more than one prototype should be built, but it's rather insensitive to snidely say that "if you don't lose one during testing, you're not pushing hard enough".
That's why you use unmanned prototypes for the questionable stuff. Not an option in the 50's and 60's, but quite do-able now.
Weapons-grade fissionable materials in themselves are relatively easy to make. Any nation that has the know-how to build a nuclear reactor can build a breeder reactor to make weapons-grade uranium. The technology required to make the actual bomb, though, is pretty difficult to figure out.
Getting the material is actually not as straightforward as you imply. Breeder reactors do not output weapons grade material. The stuff needs to be processed so that it contains the same fissionable isotope at a very high purity. Separating a substance which is chemically the same and differs only by weight is tricky. The weight difference is not that much (several neutrons in a nucleus with over 200 particles). It is very energy intensive and the machinery needed to do it needs to be very precise.
Also, as you state, making the bomb is not just two hemispheres of matter surrounded by a soccerball of explosives. Yet another case of the movies putting irrational fears into the public consciousness.
In conclusion, no part of making a nuclear weapon is "easy". It is an incredibly complex operation that would be difficult to hide.
Similarly, what the hell kind of services does the County of Los Angeles provide in outer space? There sure ain't no curb-side (satellite-side?) recycling...
I am not an accountant, but here goes...
I suppose that the argument can be made that the satellite is a component of a communications system. If a part of the system is in LA county, then the satellite could be considered a component of the system and is therefore able to be taxed.
This is similar to the taxation of the airplanes of the airlines. The planes are moving around every day, but they have a designated base. I assume that that base is used, in part, for taxation purposes.
But what happens for communications satellites that can be accessed from multiple locations? Which location gets to tax the satellite? In other words, if Hughes has an uplink in LA and a downlink in NY, can both LA and NY tax the satellite. Do they split it?
Wouldn't a zero-force keyboard result in random input to stdin?
Another problem would be that almost anything could trigger a keypress. If you thought the cat on the keyboard was bad, how about that annoying fly trying to get at the spilled Coke stain on your keyboard.
A keyboard that senses the heat from your finger may help, but these keyboards are annoying because they can sense any heat, not just your fingertips. So when you go to hit keys at the top of the keyboard (numbers, F-keys etc,) your palm can trigger the lower keys. Perhaps a minimal force/thermal combo-keyboard could address the issue.
I don't see what the big deal is. I don't mind the clickitty-clack of current keyboards. It gives me feedback when I am touch typing and not looking at the screen. If I had one of these keyboards, then I would have to set my computer up to beep at every keypress like those annoying computers in the movies.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over wrongability. This is not a service and this is not a software lease. If I pay for a copy of XP, I pay the guy at CompUSA one time for the software and the transaction is over. Microsoft has no right to invade my privacy and force me to get their permission to use software that I have already paid for.
Wrong, wrong, absolutely brimming over wrongability. Think of your purchase as a "connection charge" and then you have a perfectly good model of software "service".
Silly you to think that you are purchasing anything. You are paying for the priviledge to connect to and use the greatest, most fabulous software ever written, until the next version is released and it becomes crap and you absolutely MUST upgrade because of various security issues. After all you don't want anyone to erase all that porn you downloaded over the last few weeks, do you?
Wireless has much lower installation costs. The bandwidth is always increasing and hopefully these guys will be able to offer competitive services.
I've often thought that municipalities should install and own the last mile and lease space in the cental office to everyone (Bells, cable, data, etc). Kinda like the city owns the road and all of your delivery services use it to get to you. This would put companies in their place because nobody would have an advantage. They would actually have to listen to the customers and deliver a service. But until politicians get a clue, we're stuck with the current system.
Law enforcement uses a diffused laser to dazzle suspects. They basically shine them in your eyes and pulse the signal. Since your eyes are trying to constantly adjust to the varying light levels, it becomes very difficult to see and as a bonus you get a sort of vertigo feeling.
Another tactic that some of the local (Florida) agencies use is to set up a radar display on the side of the road. They aim a radar gun down the road and display the speed to the oncoming traffic. Most people slow down and I rarely see officers pulling people over on these roads. It's like the cops are saying "Don't make me come over there..." I think it is great because it keeps everyone happy. The cops don't have to pull people over (#1 danger for a patrol officer), the people don't get tickets and they can still speed when the conditions permit it.
I'm sure they are aware of this problem and use a running average to smooth out the signal. This certianly would have shown up in testing.
What I want to know is if you get a chance to contest the charges. Even when accused by the police, you (in most states here in the US) go to a court where the officer has to prove to a judge you acted illegally. This system of just fining people based on some sensory data without any interpretation by an impartial party is a bit unsettling.
There are other sources for world and national events than Slashdot. Also, reading those statements (or at least calling the bank for an explanation) would help. Stop being a slashdot puppet, turn on your brain, and think for yourself. Ignorant, lazy people like you are the reason that laws like this are allowed to pass. I'll bet you never even write your congressman.
always some guy that says its seismic
From what I understand, it's the same guy. I forget his name but I see him on the TV shows pushing his seismic theory on everything. IIRC, he's a geologist, and so sees the world through a geologist's eyes.
My take would be that seismic events caused some of the sightings. Logs and other debris caused some other sightings. Pranks are the root for yet more sightings. There is no one explanation.
Looks like Microsoft is trying to "Embrace and Extend" the concept of Open Source.
According to the paper which I originally got the figure from, it was $13,000.
According to an inflation calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/...
What cost $13000 in 1943 would cost $132688.99 in 2000.
Equivalently, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2000 and 1943, they would cost you $13000 and $1273.66 respectively.
$132,000 seems about right for a sub-orbital rocket with minimal guidance built with slave labor.
However given two or more geosynchonous systems, one could mathematically obtain higher resolution images at geosynchronous altitudes. Of course this would entail quite a bit of post processing and could not occur in real time given present technology eh?
I remember my Digital Signal Processing instructor telling us that interferometry was relatively straightforward. He said it was basically linear algebra, which is a job particularly well suited to CPUs. He did not mention real-time, but this was also 6 years ago. Therefore I do not think it is unreasonable for that to happen. However, I could have been shoveled a load of crap in an effort to increase his enrollment in EEL-6212!
From gowen's previous posts...
Oh, f*ck it. I must stop trying to post when drunk.
GMT+1, so the sun is over the yard-arm, even if I am at work.
Drunk at work, eh?
The gold standard cannot be used becuase money is an numerical representation of wealth. It represents the work that people have done to create the world in which we live. It is the assignment of value to human labor and creativity.
If the world on a gold standard wants to pay its people to work, then there must be as much gold refined every day to pay for the people's wages.
However, if you base currency on other assets (buildings, land, warships) then you are basing the value of human labor and creativity on the products of that labor and creativity. Your paycheck is basically a numerical assessment of your contribution to the nation's assets. That is the concept of wealth.
The money supply must be allowed to expand and contract without any physical limits. Otherwise you will run into a situation where it is physically impossible to compensate the workforce. Managing a money supply that is not physically tied to any one asset is the tricky part and is what separates the good economies from the bad.
I could easily be wrong, but I was under the impression that the stealth aircraft stayed above 5000m to prevent a "golden BB" from hitting it's mark. Most antiaircraft artillery does not have the energy to rise above this altitude.
But again, I have not picked up a Jane's in a while, so Milosovic may very well have some "super AAA".
Businesses don't advertise for their competition.
I see TimeWarner Cable ads on DishNetwork all the time. All the companies have to do is get their advertising from the local stations and not TWC. Occasionally, the cable company will advertise over the local broadcast channel, but this seems to be limited. So instead of getting time on the Weather Channel or CNN, they can go to Channel 2 and get some time on the six o'clock news. Since the cable company carries the local broadcasting, the ad gets seen.
Another alternative is to advertise with a partner. Get the local computer store to run a promotion with your service as the feature and get a mention in the computer store's advertisements.
Now IANAL, but I have been invited to several class action lawsuits. In all cases I was not even aware of the alleged impropriety.
A class action lawsuit will notify all purchasers of the v1.3 or less TiVo that their hardware has been tampered with by the company and they are invited to participate in the lawsuit. If they choose to participate, then they are put in a very long plantiff list. So even if you are the Joe Blow consumer who knows nothing about the inner workings of the system, you will be informed that it has been crippled. You can bet that some of the consumers will be pissed, even if they didn't use the features, because they will fear future crippling. Thus it is possible to attract people to the lawsuit who normally would not have noticed and/or complained.