Actually, the original article says nothing about matter transmission:
Because the size and positioning of the holes can be specified, the fibre can be designed to confine the light it is sending to a small central region of, say, a micron square, or a "big" region of several thousand square microns. If this central region is small, it is possible to operate an optical switch using very low light intensities, which is important for the future development of optical computers. (Indeed, optical switching has recently been demonstrated in a holey fibre by researchers at Southampton University.) In a "large mode" holey fibre, the cable can send lots of power, which makes these fibres useful for applications such as laser welding and machining, as well as the development of high-power fibre lasers. Being able to tailor the way light is guided by a holey fibre could revolutionise the way data is transmitted and there are likely to be many other exciting applications which have yet to be discovered
The optical computing aspects are exciting, however.
Is it just me, or does anyone understand this legaleeze? At what point did lawyers stop using the English language?
Actually, as far as I can tell, all that it is needed is to read it slowly and carefully. But to be brief, the essential point seems to be as follows (from near the beginning).
As the Studios' brief makes clear, the First Amendment problems at issue here arise from an underlying question: whether 1201 is to be limited to its goal of shielding copyright holders from infringement or whether, as the Studios claim, it is a sword that empowers them to wield unprecedented control over the private viewing of copyrighted works. The Studios claim that 1201 grants them control over the players for their works. This admission demonstrates that, despite their protestations, the Studios' concerns here transcend copyright infringement. For them, 1201 is the key to gain over digital content what they have unsuccessfully attempted to gain over past formats--control over the means of viewing their works.
Which is the argument that has been made all along. the rest of the doument is quite readable, although you may need an extra cup of coffee to wake up an extra brain cell or two.;-)
Somehow this brings up all of those memories of bad robot movies where the robot goes beserk because of a glitch in the program or a hacker, or some other thing.
The positive side to this is that this is a necessary prerequisite for things like the robots from the Jetsons.
Image for the future: the Microsoft OS for Robots. Now why does this produce the reaction I an sure it produces? and why does it make me nervous?
Look's like microsoft is doing the right thing as far as this particular issue is concerned. Note this passge from the KB article:
Microsoft tested the following products to assess whether they are affected by this vulnerability. We will waive normal support guidelines to provide remediation for all operating systems that are still in widespread use, regardless of whether they are normally supported or not.
Although the usual disclaimers apply, they obviously to not want this to get very far.
The whole point of the post to which this message is a reply, is that this Brave New Word, this New Jerusalem, is threatened by the predomince of the things that we do not want to look at, the predominance of trolls, the spammers, the lusers, etc.
It is the classic unmentioned assumption of most Utopias, that all would be well if we do not have to deal with these folks, or if there are no undesirables around.
Look at the world around you, and see how many fall into the category of "undesirables". Take an inventory. If it crawls much above single diget percentage points, then there is a problem.
When you include these "folks" (spammers, lusers, etc), it certainly meets illustrates the problem of the commons as seen in classic games theory.
Now saying this will upset some folks. It will upset those well in touch with "their inner troll".
It will hold up a mirror that we each have to look into long and hard. If you do not like what you see in the mirror, is the solution to break it?
Well, with all of this hoopla, people tend to overlook things. I do not believe that things are going to be as rosy as some people make out.
Check Out this tibdit. The music industry has developed tools to track down music server/sharers on an IP by IP basis, going after the individuals themselves. (screenshoots at the article). This type of thing is going top bring about more of a loss of freedom that many people have realized.
Abusing the system only leads to a tightening of the screws, or to chaos. This olde editorial about the Tragedy of the Commons is useful to look at. The comment posted the other day in regard to spam is a great follow up.
The point being that everyone with a political agenda to twist someone's nose contributes to a weakening of the system.
In a different area I made the following rambling classification of trolls:
Some trolls are the under the bridge types, that are only interested in goats.
Others are more interested in hoarding their shiny objects and collect their favorite gadgets, and try to prove how their collection is
better. This relates to the article in New Scientist some months back about guys flaunting cell phones in bars as a display to attract women.
You also get the trolls whose main purpose is to smash (Hulk SMASH!), break and destroy. Depending on the topic, gets into a
repeating cycle, since to only way to break the cycle is to take an honest look at the thing involved. Some destructive trolls have too
much invested in this. Tradition has it that there are Microsoft trolls who seek to destroy Linux. And Linux Trolls too.
Too many people are in touch with their inner Troll, and think that is the only way to be.
This does not help things in the long run, and threatens the very goals we seek to achieve.
Come to that, if these employees are so valuable, why are you letting them leave in the first place?
What you miss is the proverbial pointy haired boss/corporation.
In other words, "since you have a noncompete, we can now treat you like dirt. If fact we will treat you so badly that the days we treated you like dirt will be fondly remembered as the golden years. And you can't ever leave without ruining your life."
The next step in the process is to make the employee liable for the compensation, so that if they leave they pay their former employer a severance package.
It's just a shame that trolls seem find the Slashdot environment so habitable...;)
Some trolls are the under the bridge types, that are only interested in goats.
Others are more interested in hoarding their shiny objects and collect their favorite gadgets, and try to prove how their collection is better. This relates to the article in New Scientist some months back about guys flaunting cell phones in bars as a display to attract women.
You also get the trolls whose main purpose is to smash (Hulk SMASH!), break and destroy. Depending on the topic, gets into a repeating cycle, since to only way to break the cycle is to take an honest look at the thing involved. Some destructive trolls have too much invested in this. Tradition has it that there are Microsoft trolls who seek to destroy Linux. And Linux Trolls too.
An awful lot of good companies and good people are having hard times, while the big boys fall back and wait to see what happens.
The FUD from Washington is really starting to mess with people and mess with lives. It is a self fullfilling prophecy that is starting to take people down.
I see no reason for this lack of confidence except politics, and people pulling a PR Caper for their own greedy ends.
It will be a real shame if places like Indrema cannot make a go of it, because of the fear factor in the money folks.
Time to start sending snail mail, and fixing blame where it belongs.
OT:Re:It goes against reason, check your bible !
on
New Human Ancestor?
·
· Score: 1
Trolled or had your leg pulled? I thought the scientologists reference and the "astronomers predicting the future" made the author's intent fairly obvious...:)"
Yeh it was a good troll, although the troll author is fairly clueless about the religions not his own.
For example, it is only the "mass market" version of Buddhism that talks about worshipping gods. The original versions get fairly sophisticated, talking about the sense of self as the equivalent of what we would call an "optical illusion". This compares nicely with some schools of modern nuerology and some aspects of AI research into emergant behaviors, etc.
I suspect that this is going to be better science than the folks who look for extra-terrestrial mingling of alien DNA with the human species.
(Actually, I do not take them all that seriously, although such sites are an interesting read from time to time.)
With that much time for evolution, I doubt that there were only one or two varieties of humaniods. I imagine that there were many. and some just didn't make it.
Good to keep things in perspective, because good science is getting scarce in the public eye.
The Nature article was good, but over the head of someone not a specialist. The Nature Science Update posted above is a better read for those who do not want a headache trying to decipher the highly technical original
Audrey's quick demise--the $499 device debuted in October--is the latest evidence of a growing
trend. Namely, consumers don't want simplified computing devices for surfing the Web, or at
least they don't want them yet. To date, almost all of these devices have failed to take off in the marketplace.
Look's like the convergence of the internet and various devices is not going according to plan. Most of these things seem to be mostly ways to enhance marketing content, which tends to turn most people off pretty fast.
I don't know about you, but until they get to be priced like answering machines, they do not provide enough value for the money. Otherwise, the regular desktop computer unit seems to be a much better value. Although this depends on the software load, etc.
Personally, I am tempted by the idea of "use it or loose it" as applied to patents. this would make patents more similar to trade marks in some way.
I am not sure this would work. but the idea is that if someone had a patent for the hyperlink system that they discover they had owned since 1979, that if they sat on it and did not develop it or otherwise did not choose to enforce it early and often, that it was a donation to the public domain in fact, if not in practice.
Another angle on this is the idea of different time lengths for patents. The problem is that there is a conflict between individuals and large corporations. Since we are horrified by the prospect of the actions of Large Corporations.
What would happen if MS patented their.NET or their HailStorm technology? (see description here in a spicy article in the Register) - or a large segment of it in many smaller pieces?
One thought is to have patents held by corporations be far more limited in time than patents by individuals. 5 years for corporate p[atents from the time of original filing, not renewable, vs the traditional 15 -20 years for individuals.
This is something we need to think about because the current answers are not Good Enough (tm) to do the job.
I am very happy to see this sort od solution for education. It solves a lot of issues with kids messing up configs, and allows for stable setups without teachers having to be experts.
rumors to the contrary, it is simply not possible to be an expert in *everything*. so this is very worthwhile
You know, a Federal Proxy Server is not a bad idea at all. You could have a system for requesting that badly-censored pages be re-enabled, and one for requesting that non-censored [but unsuitable] pages be censored again. It could be run by librarians.
There! Everyone's happy again, except the kids who want to jack off in libraries. They have the consitutional right to go on a killing spree in support of their feelings - let them do that instead.
Agreed. But as I said, I wouldn't want to run the place.
I know! We could get Malda to write a version of the server implementing the slash moderation system for recommended vs censored links. And schools could set the read levels to always be at +2 or higher for recommended links. You could add other bells and whistles, like ratings by scholl systems, cultures, etc.
It would be ironic if schools said that due to the impossibility of being able to comply with the legal requirements, that they were going to discontinue their use of the internet, and only keep things mirrored on a server locally.
The only other way to do it would be to have a fedral level proxy server charged with being a proper legal portal for use by the schools, since obviously the schools do not have the ability to meet the legal requirements.
I, for one, would not want to have that thankless job. I can see the headaches now: a parent out of Woodchuck, Arkansas decides to complain about the people on the other side of the planet being so un-something or other. (you fill in the blank)
Oh the horror of it. I can see it all so clearly now.
Why are people content to have their inputs so restricted? In part, because free speech online has nearly buckled under the onslaught of flamers, fanatics, spammers, and other e-vandals. The Digital Citizen, driven underground, has taken to lurking.
Some of this is "merely" the result of the leveling of the discussion to include people of all levels of education and cluelessness. We do not have the discussion dominated by large numbers of learned elders. We have a lot of people who participate on a casual basis, and we have teenagers who love their mischief in all of it's forms. You can add to the list for a long time.
The problems is that these varieties of human culture are not completely compatible with each other. And when you have this mixed all together, one crowd is turned off by another. Republicans vs Democrats, for a nice safe example.
Looking over the past few weeks, we see this institutionalized even here at Slash. Let's face it, on some topics, the Faithful of Slash are as intense and dogmatic as any religion or political operative.
Unfortunately the primary technique becomes one of Slash and Burn political discussion. The technology for interfacing different human cultures needs to be upgraded. If your technique and primary protocol for dealing with a culture alien to you is the Slash and Burn protocol, You will find that when there are too many people using it, you wind up with a desert.
Philosophiocally, I have no hassle with someone wanting to port software X to platform Z. I just do not know how practical it would be.
Geeks devoted to linux, *BSD, etc have traditionally not be intimidated by ease of use issues, at least when it comes to their choice of tools. They may like ease of use, but they want the tools to be solid, flexible, with minimim strings attached, etc. I would say that aside from any technical reasons to prefer ASP over other solutions, the Microsoft connection is going to be troubling to a lot of folks. Too many strings attached, philosophically and otherwise. That may be a killer on its own.
I do not know what the advantadges or disadvantadges are to ASP. The arguments of "ease of use" may be true, but I am skeptical of this on the basis of hidden costs, the gotchas that MS typically embeds as features into their products and protocols, but which look suspiciously like bugs. Anyone who has looked at their OSes can get a taste of that, and knows what that means.
I can't imagine how it managed to land on it's legs. the wildest streak of luck imaginable.
I thought that it got flipped over and everything. but I guess not:
NIMA is a combat support agency of the Department of Defense. The agency has a global mission and unique responsibilities to manage and provide imagery and geo-spatial information to national policymakers and military forces. A world-class leader in imagery intelligence, NIMA routinely supports the operations of top-secret U.S. national security spacecraft. They employ specialists in maximizing information that can be gleaned from surveillance photography.
"Shortly after the loss of Mars Polar Lander, NIMA and NASA began working together analyzing images of the intended landing site and to try to locate the spacecraft," said Jennifer Lafley, a NIMA spokeswoman. "At this point, the results of this study are not conclusive, and the agencies are working together on resolving a number of technical questions," Lafley said.
NIMA experts believe they have identified the Mars Polar Lander. Furthermore, the source said that the lander appears intact on the surface, sitting atop its trio of landing legs. If so, that finding calls to question a failure review board that cited a software glitch and inadequate testing procedures as a likely cause for the probe to smack into Mars' surface at high speed.
Looks like that mapping geeks took to using the Nasa photos as a training exercise, or something. I think NIMA was featured in a couple of Slash stories a few months back, again featuring mapping stuff. but I can't find the links right off.
Given all of the investigations that have gone on over the past few years, it is probably wise not to leave open any more doors than is needed.
This is just another symptom of the lack of tolerance that has developed in our society. In this case, it is merely a man coming into the hell hole that is Washington DC, and seeing what garbage goes on, decided to handle it appropriately. Now you may not like it, but it makes sence, given a town full of lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
Because the size and positioning of the holes can be specified, the fibre can be designed to confine the light it is sending to a small central region of, say, a micron square, or a "big" region of several thousand square microns. If this central region is small, it is possible to operate an optical switch using very low light intensities, which is important for the future development of optical computers. (Indeed, optical switching has recently been demonstrated in a holey fibre by researchers at Southampton University.) In a "large mode" holey fibre, the cable can send lots of power, which makes these fibres useful for applications such as laser welding and machining, as well as the development of high-power fibre lasers. Being able to tailor the way light is guided by a holey fibre could revolutionise the way data is transmitted and there are likely to be many other exciting applications which have yet to be discovered
The optical computing aspects are exciting, however.
Actually, as far as I can tell, all that it is needed is to read it slowly and carefully. But to be brief, the essential point seems to be as follows (from near the beginning).
Which is the argument that has been made all along. the rest of the doument is quite readable, although you may need an extra cup of coffee to wake up an extra brain cell or two.maybe I am dumb, but aren't the customer accounts counted as assets? so wouldn't the customers become AT&T customers?
But that is not what I get from their website.
Looks like they are mostly hardware, at least according to the AT&T press release.
Some business managers can be so dumb.
The positive side to this is that this is a necessary prerequisite for things like the robots from the Jetsons.
Image for the future: the Microsoft OS for Robots. Now why does this produce the reaction I an sure it produces? and why does it make me nervous?
Microsoft tested the following products to assess whether they are affected by this vulnerability. We will waive normal support guidelines to provide remediation for all operating systems that are still in widespread use, regardless of whether they are normally supported or not.
Although the usual disclaimers apply, they obviously to not want this to get very far.
It is the classic unmentioned assumption of most Utopias, that all would be well if we do not have to deal with these folks, or if there are no undesirables around.
Look at the world around you, and see how many fall into the category of "undesirables". Take an inventory. If it crawls much above single diget percentage points, then there is a problem.
When you include these "folks" (spammers, lusers, etc), it certainly meets illustrates the problem of the commons as seen in classic games theory.
Now saying this will upset some folks. It will upset those well in touch with "their inner troll".
It will hold up a mirror that we each have to look into long and hard. If you do not like what you see in the mirror, is the solution to break it?
Check Out this tibdit. The music industry has developed tools to track down music server/sharers on an IP by IP basis, going after the individuals themselves. (screenshoots at the article). This type of thing is going top bring about more of a loss of freedom that many people have realized.
Abusing the system only leads to a tightening of the screws, or to chaos. This olde editorial about the Tragedy of the Commons is useful to look at. The comment posted the other day in regard to spam is a great follow up.
The point being that everyone with a political agenda to twist someone's nose contributes to a weakening of the system.
In a different area I made the following rambling classification of trolls:
Some trolls are the under the bridge types, that are only interested in goats.
Others are more interested in hoarding their shiny objects and collect their favorite gadgets, and try to prove how their collection is better. This relates to the article in New Scientist some months back about guys flaunting cell phones in bars as a display to attract women.
You also get the trolls whose main purpose is to smash (Hulk SMASH!), break and destroy. Depending on the topic, gets into a repeating cycle, since to only way to break the cycle is to take an honest look at the thing involved. Some destructive trolls have too much invested in this. Tradition has it that there are Microsoft trolls who seek to destroy Linux. And Linux Trolls too.
Too many people are in touch with their inner Troll, and think that is the only way to be.
This does not help things in the long run, and threatens the very goals we seek to achieve.
What you miss is the proverbial pointy haired boss/corporation.
In other words, "since you have a noncompete, we can now treat you like dirt. If fact we will treat you so badly that the days we treated you like dirt will be fondly remembered as the golden years. And you can't ever leave without ruining your life."
The next step in the process is to make the employee liable for the compensation, so that if they leave they pay their former employer a severance package.
This would not be good for military operations.
I think that there was a discussion on this sort of technology a while back. Searching EETimes gives these nuggets though:
- Mobile devices: Universal radio is on the horizon
- Mobile connectivity in a terahertz comms universe
- Startup's processors support multiple wireless protocols
- Wireless Infrastructure: Ultrawideband radios set to play
- Ultrawideband radios set to play
All of which may shed some light on the tech issues. The articles are well worth looking into.Some trolls are the under the bridge types, that are only interested in goats.
Others are more interested in hoarding their shiny objects and collect their favorite gadgets, and try to prove how their collection is better. This relates to the article in New Scientist some months back about guys flaunting cell phones in bars as a display to attract women.
You also get the trolls whose main purpose is to smash (Hulk SMASH!), break and destroy. Depending on the topic, gets into a repeating cycle, since to only way to break the cycle is to take an honest look at the thing involved. Some destructive trolls have too much invested in this. Tradition has it that there are Microsoft trolls who seek to destroy Linux. And Linux Trolls too.
The FUD from Washington is really starting to mess with people and mess with lives. It is a self fullfilling prophecy that is starting to take people down.
I see no reason for this lack of confidence except politics, and people pulling a PR Caper for their own greedy ends.
It will be a real shame if places like Indrema cannot make a go of it, because of the fear factor in the money folks.
Time to start sending snail mail, and fixing blame where it belongs.
Yeh it was a good troll, although the troll author is fairly clueless about the religions not his own.
For example, it is only the "mass market" version of Buddhism that talks about worshipping gods. The original versions get fairly sophisticated, talking about the sense of self as the equivalent of what we would call an "optical illusion". This compares nicely with some schools of modern nuerology and some aspects of AI research into emergant behaviors, etc.
(Actually, I do not take them all that seriously, although such sites are an interesting read from time to time.)
With that much time for evolution, I doubt that there were only one or two varieties of humaniods. I imagine that there were many. and some just didn't make it.
Good to keep things in perspective, because good science is getting scarce in the public eye.
The Nature article was good, but over the head of someone not a specialist. The Nature Science Update posted above is a better read for those who do not want a headache trying to decipher the highly technical original
Look's like the convergence of the internet and various devices is not going according to plan. Most of these things seem to be mostly ways to enhance marketing content, which tends to turn most people off pretty fast.
I don't know about you, but until they get to be priced like answering machines, they do not provide enough value for the money. Otherwise, the regular desktop computer unit seems to be a much better value. Although this depends on the software load, etc.
A collection of marketing tools and world wide hype sites, with spam filling the spaces in between.
If we are not careful, that is all that will be left.
Actually, there was a whole story on this thing, I think, here:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/01/23/1350208_F.sh tml.
Originally New Scientist had a story on it (here), and now it looks like it made it into Nature.
I guess it must be officially "cool" now.
but we will not likely see it next year... it will take a while.
As long as they don't wind up like that story in Satirewire. It is enough to make me go on a virtual shooting spree
I am not sure this would work. but the idea is that if someone had a patent for the hyperlink system that they discover they had owned since 1979, that if they sat on it and did not develop it or otherwise did not choose to enforce it early and often, that it was a donation to the public domain in fact, if not in practice.
Another angle on this is the idea of different time lengths for patents. The problem is that there is a conflict between individuals and large corporations. Since we are horrified by the prospect of the actions of Large Corporations.
What would happen if MS patented their .NET or their HailStorm technology? (see description here in a spicy article in the Register) - or a large segment of it in many smaller pieces?
One thought is to have patents held by corporations be far more limited in time than patents by individuals. 5 years for corporate p[atents from the time of original filing, not renewable, vs the traditional 15 -20 years for individuals.
This is something we need to think about because the current answers are not Good Enough (tm) to do the job.
rumors to the contrary, it is simply not possible to be an expert in *everything*. so this is very worthwhile
Agreed. But as I said, I wouldn't want to run the place.
I know! We could get Malda to write a version of the server implementing the slash moderation system for recommended vs censored links. And schools could set the read levels to always be at +2 or higher for recommended links. You could add other bells and whistles, like ratings by scholl systems, cultures, etc.
The only other way to do it would be to have a fedral level proxy server charged with being a proper legal portal for use by the schools, since obviously the schools do not have the ability to meet the legal requirements.
I, for one, would not want to have that thankless job. I can see the headaches now: a parent out of Woodchuck, Arkansas decides to complain about the people on the other side of the planet being so un-something or other. (you fill in the blank)
Oh the horror of it. I can see it all so clearly now.
Run away, now.
Some of this is "merely" the result of the leveling of the discussion to include people of all levels of education and cluelessness. We do not have the discussion dominated by large numbers of learned elders. We have a lot of people who participate on a casual basis, and we have teenagers who love their mischief in all of it's forms. You can add to the list for a long time.
The problems is that these varieties of human culture are not completely compatible with each other. And when you have this mixed all together, one crowd is turned off by another. Republicans vs Democrats, for a nice safe example.
Looking over the past few weeks, we see this institutionalized even here at Slash. Let's face it, on some topics, the Faithful of Slash are as intense and dogmatic as any religion or political operative.
Unfortunately the primary technique becomes one of Slash and Burn political discussion. The technology for interfacing different human cultures needs to be upgraded. If your technique and primary protocol for dealing with a culture alien to you is the Slash and Burn protocol, You will find that when there are too many people using it, you wind up with a desert.
Geeks devoted to linux, *BSD, etc have traditionally not be intimidated by ease of use issues, at least when it comes to their choice of tools. They may like ease of use, but they want the tools to be solid, flexible, with minimim strings attached, etc. I would say that aside from any technical reasons to prefer ASP over other solutions, the Microsoft connection is going to be troubling to a lot of folks. Too many strings attached, philosophically and otherwise. That may be a killer on its own.
I do not know what the advantadges or disadvantadges are to ASP. The arguments of "ease of use" may be true, but I am skeptical of this on the basis of hidden costs, the gotchas that MS typically embeds as features into their products and protocols, but which look suspiciously like bugs. Anyone who has looked at their OSes can get a taste of that, and knows what that means.
I thought that it got flipped over and everything. but I guess not:
NIMA is a combat support agency of the Department of Defense. The agency has a global mission and unique responsibilities to manage and provide imagery and geo-spatial information to national policymakers and military forces. A world-class leader in imagery intelligence, NIMA routinely supports the operations of top-secret U.S. national security spacecraft. They employ specialists in maximizing information that can be gleaned from surveillance photography.
"Shortly after the loss of Mars Polar Lander, NIMA and NASA began working together analyzing images of the intended landing site and to try to locate the spacecraft," said Jennifer Lafley, a NIMA spokeswoman. "At this point, the results of this study are not conclusive, and the agencies are working together on resolving a number of technical questions," Lafley said.
NIMA experts believe they have identified the Mars Polar Lander. Furthermore, the source said that the lander appears intact on the surface, sitting atop its trio of landing legs. If so, that finding calls to question a failure review board that cited a software glitch and inadequate testing procedures as a likely cause for the probe to smack into Mars' surface at high speed.
Looks like that mapping geeks took to using the Nasa photos as a training exercise, or something. I think NIMA was featured in a couple of Slash stories a few months back, again featuring mapping stuff. but I can't find the links right off.
This is just another symptom of the lack of tolerance that has developed in our society. In this case, it is merely a man coming into the hell hole that is Washington DC, and seeing what garbage goes on, decided to handle it appropriately. Now you may not like it, but it makes sence, given a town full of lawyers.