First off, I am extremely doubtful about "zero emissions" part.
BUT, it would be interesting to see if they are actually doing something like using compressed air as a means of energy storage - instead of charging a battery like in a typical hybrid.
Batteries are not very good at soaking in large amounts of energy in short amounts of time - exactly what happens during regenerative breaking. But me thinks it would be significantly more efficient to absorb that energy spike as compressed air via on-board compressor.
If that gives them better fuel economy than gas-electric hybrid then this would be the thing to watch.
True but only if you don't drain the heat absorbed by the body. If e.g. we make a solar thermal power plant using this material to cover the surface of "boiler" then the boiler temp would be capped at the boiling point of working fluid. Huge bulk of any more absorbed energy would go to make more "steam" (or working fluid vapour) and not radiated away.
The biggest offender that fits the bill on this: Google. Where is a voice+video capable native google talk client for linux? Ditto for google earth, picasa,........
What do they plan to do in case a tsunami hits? By definition this would be deployed near coastal areas where the tsunami's deliver their greatest punch.
Aside from being a non-military device, how exactly is this different from hundreds of nuke power plants floating around the worlds oceans inside military vessels?
As a baby step this is a good idea to test waters. It would be most useful when it reaches the scale of 1000MWe.
This might actually work the other way than expected. With Microsoft standing behind, the "product-less" IP companies would love to sue for millions/billions of $$.
I won't be surprised if this actually ends up increasing the number of lawsuits.
Any such solar radiation blocking device would most likely be in the equatorial plane - right above the equatorial rainforests.
The rainforests getting less radiation means diminished CO2 absorbing capacity of the whole planet. If not done carefully, this could lead to dangerous levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
The argument holds only if *ALL* the companies manufacturing RAM are involved in this price fixing and therefore fined.
Even if there is just one company that has not been involved (or atleast not proven in court of law) in this price fixing, it stands to gain. That is the way the market punishes and rewards. At least that is how it is supposed to work.
Why not just provide mechanism to block java/flash for specific site? Last I checked, there are means to selectively block pop-ups for specific sites. Why not do the same for java/flash? This would put the controls back in user's hands, which is how it should be.
That is well and good for the short term. In the long run, do you seriously think plugging gaps in the microsoft-world with fruits of free labour is a good strategy?
Porting free software to windows is dangerous. Do not forget that it is this same sort of thing that killed OS2. I will leave it to you to decide whether peoples "computing experience" has been better or worse due to demise of OS2 and resulting lack of competition (defunct market).
Batteries are not used just in electronics. Just think of hybrid cars, pacemakers etc. Having a portable, high energy density power source benifits a lot more things than just "electronics".
1. No one "owns" linux. 2. No single supplier issues.
With QNX, there is always the risk that some one (may be a competitor - say Sony or Philips etc. or even M$) would buy them and leave their customers in a limbo. Anyone remember pSOS?
I guess everyone is talking about what M$ strategy should be from their (NOT M$) point of view. I think the origianl "ask/." question was about what _should_ be M$ strategy with OSS so as to
One more problem with HZ==1000 is that the jiffies would roll over in 49 days on 32 bit machines. I am not sure how someone writing a kernel level stuff would be able to successfully deal with a rollover of the jiffies.
This is really cool. I would definitely like to see RMS and all the GNU folks get their share of recognition for providing all the tools and almost all of the infrastructure for we to be where we are now. At the same time I understand the reluctance to accept the weird sounding nomenclature scheme of GNU/Linux. This "GNU inside" sounds like a really great golden mean, that should finish a long flame war, and get everybody back to what we need now - coding - to defeat M$ at the battle for scalability..
Hey hey, india is better in that regard then:-)). This is our income tax situation. Rs. 0-60,000 : 11 % Rs. 60,000 - 120,000 : 22 % Rs. 120,000 - 170,000 : 33%
Not too much err? And yes we have never invaded any country during known history.
Well, the kernel source *are* always there. They don't distribute the whole SRPM directory, it doesn't fit one CD. That I think is quite OK because as said above the y don't change any sources/packages and whatever they add as extra (they had some scripts/progs to simplify integration with netware, for creating DNS forward and reverse mapping files etc), they give the source for it - a la RedHat.. Kudos to PCQuest. If it was not for them, Linux in India would have remained confined to small groups in indian academia - like the one in electrical dept. at IIT Mumbai - and the rest of the vast indian population at the mercy of the M$ monopoly.
Linux has been a strong presence in indian academia. Way back in 1995, when I entered IIT Bombay for my masters in communications, the whole electrical engg. dept was running on Linux, complete with gateways, bridges, mailhosts, webservers virtually *everything* running on linux. The biggest problem has been the available bandwidth. The net is so *slow* that you can't share your work with anyone, even within india. Transfer rates for ftp/http are pathetic - 10-20 bytes/sec. Unless this improves its really hard for average (those not in software industry) indians to contribute effectively.
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First off, I am extremely doubtful about "zero emissions" part.
BUT, it would be interesting to see if they are actually doing something like using compressed air as a means of energy storage - instead of charging a battery like in a typical hybrid.
Batteries are not very good at soaking in large amounts of energy in short amounts of time - exactly what happens during regenerative breaking. But me thinks it would be significantly more efficient to absorb that energy spike as compressed air via on-board compressor.
If that gives them better fuel economy than gas-electric hybrid then this would be the thing to watch.
True but only if you don't drain the heat absorbed by the body. If e.g. we make a solar thermal power plant using this material to cover the surface of "boiler" then the boiler temp would be capped at the boiling point of working fluid. Huge bulk of any more absorbed energy would go to make more "steam" (or working fluid vapour) and not radiated away.
The biggest offender that fits the bill on this: Google. ........
Where is a voice+video capable native google talk client for linux?
Ditto for google earth, picasa,
What do they plan to do in case a tsunami hits? By definition this would be deployed near coastal areas where the tsunami's deliver their greatest punch.
Aside from being a non-military device, how exactly is this different from hundreds of nuke power plants floating around the worlds oceans inside military vessels?
As a baby step this is a good idea to test waters. It would be most useful when it reaches the scale of 1000MWe.
It is different from God because saying "dark matter" is not the end.
Its only a stop-gap measure until a better theory and or evidence shows up.
The two are very different. "God" is a "no further investigation/arguments" case. Dark matter is not.
This might actually work the other way than expected. With Microsoft standing behind, the "product-less" IP companies would love to sue for millions/billions of $$.
I won't be surprised if this actually ends up increasing the number of lawsuits.
Any such solar radiation blocking device would most likely be in the equatorial plane - right above the equatorial rainforests.
The rainforests getting less radiation means diminished CO2 absorbing capacity of the whole planet. If not done carefully, this could lead to dangerous levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
Indian.
The argument holds only if *ALL* the companies manufacturing RAM are involved in this price fixing and therefore fined.
Even if there is just one company that has not been involved (or atleast not proven in court of law) in this price fixing, it stands to gain. That is the way the market punishes and rewards. At least that is how it is supposed to work.
Why not just provide mechanism to block java/flash for specific site? Last I checked, there are means to selectively block pop-ups for specific sites. Why not do the same for java/flash? This would put the controls back in user's hands, which is how it should be.
That is well and good for the short term. In the long run, do you seriously think plugging gaps in the microsoft-world with fruits of free labour is a good strategy?
Porting free software to windows is dangerous. Do not forget that it is this same sort of thing that killed OS2. I will leave it to you to decide whether peoples "computing experience" has been better or worse due to demise of OS2 and resulting lack of competition (defunct market).
Indian.
Batteries are not used just in electronics. Just think of hybrid cars, pacemakers etc. Having a portable, high energy density power source benifits a lot more things than just "electronics".
Two things:
1. No one "owns" linux.
2. No single supplier issues.
With QNX, there is always the risk that some one (may be a competitor - say Sony or Philips etc. or even M$) would buy them and leave their customers in a limbo. Anyone remember pSOS?
With linux they don't have those worries.
I guess everyone is talking about what M$ strategy should be from their (NOT M$) point of view. I think the origianl "ask /." question was about what _should_ be M$ strategy with OSS so as to
1. Retain M$' profit and revenue status-quo.
2. Ensure M$' growth.
And I don't see any way M$ can craft a strategy that achieves these objectives and still manages to remain non-repungent (and fair and lawful etc).
That I think is the biggest cause of concern for M$ bean counters.
One more problem with HZ==1000 is that the jiffies would roll over in 49 days on 32 bit machines. I am not sure how someone writing a kernel level stuff would be able to successfully deal with a rollover of the jiffies.
This is really cool. I would definitely like to see RMS and all the GNU folks get their share of recognition for providing all the tools and almost all of the infrastructure for we to be where we are now. At the same time I understand the reluctance to accept the weird sounding nomenclature scheme of GNU/Linux.
This "GNU inside" sounds like a really great golden mean, that should finish a long flame war, and get everybody back to what we need now - coding - to defeat M$ at the battle for scalability..
Hey hey, india is better in that regard then :-)). This is our income tax situation.
Rs. 0-60,000 : 11 %
Rs. 60,000 - 120,000 : 22 %
Rs. 120,000 - 170,000 : 33%
Not too much err? And yes we have never invaded any country during known history.
Well, the kernel source *are* always there. They don't distribute the whole SRPM directory, it doesn't fit one CD.
That I think is quite OK because as said above the y don't change any sources/packages and whatever they add as extra (they had some scripts/progs to simplify integration with netware, for creating DNS forward and reverse mapping files etc), they give the source for it - a la RedHat.. Kudos to PCQuest. If it was not for them, Linux in India would have remained confined to small groups in indian academia - like the one in electrical dept. at IIT Mumbai - and the rest of the vast indian population at the mercy of the M$ monopoly.
Linux has been a strong presence in indian academia. Way back in 1995, when I entered IIT Bombay for my masters in communications, the whole electrical engg. dept was running on Linux, complete with gateways, bridges, mailhosts, webservers virtually *everything* running on linux. The biggest problem has been the available bandwidth. The net is so *slow* that you can't share your work with anyone, even within india. Transfer rates for ftp/http are pathetic - 10-20 bytes/sec. Unless this improves its really hard for average (those not in software industry) indians to contribute effectively.