By doing this, are other nations indeed not trying to attack the freedom of speech, religion, and press granted by the very founding charter of the US Government? Is that not in itself a form of agression on another countries Government? Do we then get to hear the UN say "Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that" and vanish in puff of logic?
I just love these people who declare were almost done with things. Rutherford told the Physics community "stop training students...all we have to figure out is this electron thing and were done" (to paraphrase). Then along came Quantum Mechanics and Relitivity and suddenly there was a job to do and nearly 100 years later were still working on those two next big things. Astronomy did simillarly with cosmology ("if we can just get omega up to 1.0 then we understand it all"). Now its Computer Science's turn to be just about finished....
The point is the next big thing is not something you ever plan for. It happens. Did ARPA know their net was going to change the way we do business? No. Will something else come along and change the way we work, live, and exist? Yes, because it always does.
Now go turn your crystal balls into magic 8 balls. They are more reliable that way.
OK so someone else wants to give.xxx or.zzyyz addresses and ICANN won't let them. So whats to stop them from forming their OWN root level DNS and letting the people vote for what they want?
Lets face it. Today you are.com or.gone (my inlaws cannot understand that web sites addresses do not have to end in.com). That is partially the fact that.com was what most people were introduced to first (and second and third and the hundredth time). So if someone can come up with a BETTER scheme so keep both the squatters and IP lawyers out of the DNS that is also clear to the AVERAGE users, let them. Put it out there and have some easy way of switching to THAT DNS. File with the USPO and watch ICANN go out of business and then harvest the proffit.
But what about bored wednesday night channel surfing? Thats how many people find things they like to watch. I doubt seriously if I would ever pay anything to watch MXC on Spike but I do know how many nights I stopped surfing and watched it with some vested interest, and that is how many people get their alloted advertizing hours in to pay for tv.
what do you do to allow people to discover new programs? I think many popular shows start off in bad time slots and are either upgraded or dropped but are given a chanse. I know many shows I loved I stumbled on and would not do so at $2 a pop. Do execs offer some new shows for free until the catch on and then tack on the extra cost onto future episodes? As there is no garuntee of advertising time sales for the inital run of some new shows, which get some viewers out of the novelty, will we see less risks being taken with the 12th season of what sells today or would a show like Firefly be more popular as its profitability could be directly estimated (all the/. Nielson families please stand up)?
Re:How about packaging a version with some extensi
on
Firefox Momentum Slows
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Making users install stuff is a recipe for failure. The whole reason people are using IE is its there and it works. They know about all the bad stuff but they fear installing stuff on their computer enough that they are willing to risk it.
No I would say what FireFox should do is, rather than make a single installer and then all the extensions is to make an installer builder web application. This could ask the user questions (not "Do you want firefoxy which sounds like a great pR0n extension") and then make up an installer that will install firefox, and bundle it with the extensions (all tested and approved by the FireFox quality assurance folks).
And how about having an option for auto updates that just happen. No little icon trying to guilt you into doing the right thing....do the right thing and then tell them about it (with a pref to turn this off for the rest of us).
No the reason IE is doing so well is user lethargy and no amount of virus infection or media hype is going to cure millions of years of lethargic evolution. So take an example from Bill and improve on it (e.g. make it work without forcing a full restart;) ).
No unfolding mirror has ever been deployed. The web telescope is going to be one of these. It is not cheep.
HOP is a very specialized telescope. It is not a Hubble replacement. It also does not have the supporting infrastructure behind it that Hubble or Web will have to make it a general purpous telescope.
Yes there are cheeper projects to do specific things. But there are no telescopes or combination of telescopes that can do what Hubble can do today (or even in 3 years) for the price or replacing it, mostly due to the fact that the system to operate Hubble exists.
You do not want a telescope near IIS. IIS has its own gravity and hence atmosphere. Also its bright and shiny and would be yet another thing to avoid looking near in addition to the sun, moon, and earth (making pointing the thing even more difficult to schedule than it is now).
First, its not 70s tech. Thats why we go up there. About the only thing original on the telescope now is the telescope itself. The rest of it has been replaced with modern equipment. And the telescope and its supporting mechanics is the same level of tech we would put up today were we to launch a new one.
The cost of launching anything new will be at least the cost of a servicing mission. It will last 5+ years, which is how long Hubble will last with a servicing mission.
The telescope is there. A new one will work no better. This one has been well characterized and is well understood.
So its as expensive, is well understood, already has the infrastructure behind it for making it function, and all the parts are built and ready to go. Given that...which option seems best now?
Isn't this a cart before the horse solution though? If you wanted to make an efficient type writer wouldn't you have placed the hammers in positions so they would jam less often given the most efficient keyboard possible?
If you need more than three, the obvious solution is to launch twice.
No the big deal is we need more than 2 on the ISS. This delvieres more people and provides for 6 to reenter in one craft (after NASA canceled its lifeboat lifting body project due to cost overruns).
Models of the environement are complex. I doubt anyone would argue that. The point this study really makes is that wind power gathering will most likly have a non-zero effect on the environment. Until some other models confirm the amount of this effect, take it with as much of a grain of salt as the models for Nuclear Winter and for the current ever changing global warming models. They all make predictions and the order of magnitude results are probably OK but arguing factors of N is probably beyond the real uncertanties in the models. So lets not go around saying which is worse. The fact is we do not know.
I'm not picking on these models specifically. Just pointing out that this is a very tough thing to model and that past work on similar projects got the effect rigth but the scale wrong due to the extreemly non-linear nature of environemental science.
If I hadn't been through all of this election I probably wouldn't have believed my eyes. This report from last February from people in Wisconson finding Caller ID signatures from Canada for the Kerry Election Call Center? Makes you wonder if there will be political loopholes in any laws similar to those for the National No Call list.
What is the FAA/FCC ruling about using one of these receivers on an plane? I assume it is only good for domestic flights but it sure would beat the selection offered by the current in flight music providers.
This had better come on the 30 day schedule for Apples sake. Christmas is just around the corner and a late Novermber release will not have the splash that a mid to late October one will. Especially if they keep it under wraps as Steve is prone to do.
Carpool lanes not the stunning sucesses many would believe. Why in San Diego they have converted the HOV lanes on I-15 into toll lanes where the toll you pay to drive in it is proportional to the amount of congestion there is. This has relieved some of the stress on the highway and raised revenue for a (failing?) bus service and for the Highway patrol customer support office.
People aren't always smart enough to know what's good for them, and yet that doesn't in fact mean that we shouldn't try it.
And people don't like being told they are dumb which is exactly what Balmer was doing. You don't tell people "do this for your own good". You have to sell it to them which is nothing more than making them want it. But they have to want it.
Let's look at carpool lanes. It's very rare to find a place where carpool lanes are approved of by half or more of the populace. But when you actually install them, not only do they let people who carpool get to work faster, they also actually cut down on other people's commute times too, because there are fewer cars on the road. And yet, because people see other people driving by faster than they are, they still don't like them.
So you didn't give them what they want. Most people would use HOV if they could. But there is the extra cost (a time cost...the most expensive cost out there) of having to find someone who works where you work who lives near by and keeps the same hours. So San Diego has solved all the problems by giving people what they want...more lanes of trafic. If you have two people you ride for free but if your alone you have to pay up to $8 a trip.
Here is the difference between a success and a failure. Its the same one as thinking raising cigartte taxes will make people stop smoking and installing light rail will make people stop driving. When you are working in a free society, success comes from giving people what they want, not telling them what they want.
Look at MS. People wanted web browsers. They made IE. People wanted a media player, they got one bundled that did a good job of streaming video. They wanted a mailer, the got one. Yes now that there are problems with them people are moving to Mozilla based products, but this is a failure of Microsoft. They didn't give the people what they wanted (they don't want to have to be security experts to be able to browse the web).
People want to be able to have digital media with as few strings attached as can be so they don't have to become DRM gurus to listen to their jams in the car. This is where Windows Media player fails and the iPod/iTunes succeeds. Jobs thought about what the customers wanted and then did all he could to give it to them, putting in just enough DRM to keep the RIAA happy.
So the Windows folks can think they will win by putting in as much monopolistic protection as possible for MS and the RIAA/MPAA but it will fail. It will fail for the same reasons that all the other media stores and players have to date. They didn't give peole what they wanted.
Didn't film it. Not going to happen unfortunately. No I think most notibly what is put back in is confronting Saruman at Isengard but there will be no Scouring.
This is exactly how we got into the problem we are in now. Research does not begin with the phrase " I would think that" or "I find it difficult to believe". Yes the power of Ivan is enormous and if we could bottle it it would be lots. But were not talking Ivan. Were talking wind blowing at 10 to 20 mph over a hill. Researchers are finding that taking that energy out can change the environment. Can in the same way that greenhouse gasses can be causing global warming.
The point being we should look to see that by not equating "change" or "impact" with "bad, we are not just changing the problems we have.
The changes are not macroscopic. Its the microscopic problem. If I take all that energy out of Colorado to power New York City, the heat is moved. Climates change. Suddenly we have problems with growing crops in Kansas because it doesn't rain here anymore.
Yes summed over the closed solar system you are correct. On a local level that can be quite different. Its this sort of research that has to be done before we dive into another "nuclear energy is the fix we are looking for" solution.
As I think I first read here on/., wind power (and tide power) both have been shown to have significant impact on global weather. While its not a temperature impact, it does take energy out of the atmosphere (or water) which will change weather.
Slashdot Mirror
By doing this, are other nations indeed not trying to attack the freedom of speech, religion, and press granted by the very founding charter of the US Government? Is that not in itself a form of agression on another countries Government? Do we then get to hear the UN say "Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that" and vanish in puff of logic?
I just love these people who declare were almost done with things. Rutherford told the Physics community "stop training students...all we have to figure out is this electron thing and were done" (to paraphrase). Then along came Quantum Mechanics and Relitivity and suddenly there was a job to do and nearly 100 years later were still working on those two next big things. Astronomy did simillarly with cosmology ("if we can just get omega up to 1.0 then we understand it all"). Now its Computer Science's turn to be just about finished....
The point is the next big thing is not something you ever plan for. It happens. Did ARPA know their net was going to change the way we do business? No. Will something else come along and change the way we work, live, and exist? Yes, because it always does.
Now go turn your crystal balls into magic 8 balls. They are more reliable that way.
Its a fair cop, but society is to blame.
Um.... StarWars was originally a PG movie.
OK so someone else wants to give .xxx or .zzyyz addresses and ICANN won't let them. So whats to stop them from forming their OWN root level DNS and letting the people vote for what they want?
.com or .gone (my inlaws cannot understand that web sites addresses do not have to end in .com). That is partially the fact that .com was what most people were introduced to first (and second and third and the hundredth time). So if someone can come up with a BETTER scheme so keep both the squatters and IP lawyers out of the DNS that is also clear to the AVERAGE users, let them. Put it out there and have some easy way of switching to THAT DNS. File with the USPO and watch ICANN go out of business and then harvest the proffit.
Lets face it. Today you are
But what about bored wednesday night channel surfing? Thats how many people find things they like to watch. I doubt seriously if I would ever pay anything to watch MXC on Spike but I do know how many nights I stopped surfing and watched it with some vested interest, and that is how many people get their alloted advertizing hours in to pay for tv.
what do you do to allow people to discover new programs? I think many popular shows start off in bad time slots and are either upgraded or dropped but are given a chanse. I know many shows I loved I stumbled on and would not do so at $2 a pop. Do execs offer some new shows for free until the catch on and then tack on the extra cost onto future episodes? As there is no garuntee of advertising time sales for the inital run of some new shows, which get some viewers out of the novelty, will we see less risks being taken with the 12th season of what sells today or would a show like Firefly be more popular as its profitability could be directly estimated (all the /. Nielson families please stand up)?
Making users install stuff is a recipe for failure. The whole reason people are using IE is its there and it works. They know about all the bad stuff but they fear installing stuff on their computer enough that they are willing to risk it.
;) ).
No I would say what FireFox should do is, rather than make a single installer and then all the extensions is to make an installer builder web application. This could ask the user questions (not "Do you want firefoxy which sounds like a great pR0n extension") and then make up an installer that will install firefox, and bundle it with the extensions (all tested and approved by the FireFox quality assurance folks).
And how about having an option for auto updates that just happen. No little icon trying to guilt you into doing the right thing....do the right thing and then tell them about it (with a pref to turn this off for the rest of us).
No the reason IE is doing so well is user lethargy and no amount of virus infection or media hype is going to cure millions of years of lethargic evolution. So take an example from Bill and improve on it (e.g. make it work without forcing a full restart
No unfolding mirror has ever been deployed. The web telescope is going to be one of these. It is not cheep.
HOP is a very specialized telescope. It is not a Hubble replacement. It also does not have the supporting infrastructure behind it that Hubble or Web will have to make it a general purpous telescope.
Yes there are cheeper projects to do specific things. But there are no telescopes or combination of telescopes that can do what Hubble can do today (or even in 3 years) for the price or replacing it, mostly due to the fact that the system to operate Hubble exists.
You do not want a telescope near IIS. IIS has its own gravity and hence atmosphere. Also its bright and shiny and would be yet another thing to avoid looking near in addition to the sun, moon, and earth (making pointing the thing even more difficult to schedule than it is now).
Heres why we go fix hubble.
First, its not 70s tech. Thats why we go up there. About the only thing original on the telescope now is the telescope itself. The rest of it has been replaced with modern equipment. And the telescope and its supporting mechanics is the same level of tech we would put up today were we to launch a new one.
The cost of launching anything new will be at least the cost of a servicing mission. It will last 5+ years, which is how long Hubble will last with a servicing mission.
The telescope is there. A new one will work no better. This one has been well characterized and is well understood.
So its as expensive, is well understood, already has the infrastructure behind it for making it function, and all the parts are built and ready to go. Given that...which option seems best now?
Isn't this a cart before the horse solution though? If you wanted to make an efficient type writer wouldn't you have placed the hammers in positions so they would jam less often given the most efficient keyboard possible?
When does it become Talkie Toaster?
No the big deal is we need more than 2 on the ISS. This delvieres more people and provides for 6 to reenter in one craft (after NASA canceled its lifeboat lifting body project due to cost overruns).
Models of the environement are complex. I doubt anyone would argue that. The point this study really makes is that wind power gathering will most likly have a non-zero effect on the environment. Until some other models confirm the amount of this effect, take it with as much of a grain of salt as the models for Nuclear Winter and for the current ever changing global warming models. They all make predictions and the order of magnitude results are probably OK but arguing factors of N is probably beyond the real uncertanties in the models. So lets not go around saying which is worse. The fact is we do not know.
I'm not picking on these models specifically. Just pointing out that this is a very tough thing to model and that past work on similar projects got the effect rigth but the scale wrong due to the extreemly non-linear nature of environemental science.
Ah yes I remember fondly seeing my first ATM BSOD in the SEATAC Airport. Nothing says welcome to Redmond quite like the BSOD.
If I hadn't been through all of this election I probably wouldn't have believed my eyes. This report from last February from people in Wisconson finding Caller ID signatures from Canada for the Kerry Election Call Center? Makes you wonder if there will be political loopholes in any laws similar to those for the National No Call list.
What is the FAA/FCC ruling about using one of these receivers on an plane? I assume it is only good for domestic flights but it sure would beat the selection offered by the current in flight music providers.
This had better come on the 30 day schedule for Apples sake. Christmas is just around the corner and a late Novermber release will not have the splash that a mid to late October one will. Especially if they keep it under wraps as Steve is prone to do.
Here is the difference between a success and a failure. Its the same one as thinking raising cigartte taxes will make people stop smoking and installing light rail will make people stop driving. When you are working in a free society, success comes from giving people what they want, not telling them what they want.
Look at MS. People wanted web browsers. They made IE. People wanted a media player, they got one bundled that did a good job of streaming video. They wanted a mailer, the got one. Yes now that there are problems with them people are moving to Mozilla based products, but this is a failure of Microsoft. They didn't give the people what they wanted (they don't want to have to be security experts to be able to browse the web).
People want to be able to have digital media with as few strings attached as can be so they don't have to become DRM gurus to listen to their jams in the car. This is where Windows Media player fails and the iPod/iTunes succeeds. Jobs thought about what the customers wanted and then did all he could to give it to them, putting in just enough DRM to keep the RIAA happy.
So the Windows folks can think they will win by putting in as much monopolistic protection as possible for MS and the RIAA/MPAA but it will fail. It will fail for the same reasons that all the other media stores and players have to date. They didn't give peole what they wanted.
Didn't film it. Not going to happen unfortunately. No I think most notibly what is put back in is confronting Saruman at Isengard but there will be no Scouring.
This is exactly how we got into the problem we are in now. Research does not begin with the phrase " I would think that" or "I find it difficult to believe". Yes the power of Ivan is enormous and if we could bottle it it would be lots. But were not talking Ivan. Were talking wind blowing at 10 to 20 mph over a hill. Researchers are finding that taking that energy out can change the environment. Can in the same way that greenhouse gasses can be causing global warming.
The point being we should look to see that by not equating "change" or "impact" with "bad, we are not just changing the problems we have.
The changes are not macroscopic. Its the microscopic problem. If I take all that energy out of Colorado to power New York City, the heat is moved. Climates change. Suddenly we have problems with growing crops in Kansas because it doesn't rain here anymore.
Yes summed over the closed solar system you are correct. On a local level that can be quite different. Its this sort of research that has to be done before we dive into another "nuclear energy is the fix we are looking for" solution.
As I think I first read here on /., wind power (and tide power) both have been shown to have significant impact on global weather. While its not a temperature impact, it does take energy out of the atmosphere (or water) which will change weather.