In 1871 the great Chicago fire spread devastation in the city. Many of you already know this, but did you know that other fires raged around the Great Lakes area on the same day? The Peshtigo Fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, has the distinction of being the conflagration that caused the most deaths by fire in United States history.(Wiki) I've heard that similar fires occurred in Siberia and other Northern climes.
These were unusually intense fires. A shipbuilder reported that large steel beams which were stored along the Chicago river, away from all other materials, were melted in the fire. Some reported that the air itself was on fire. Many of those who jumped into the river and died were found to have charred lungs.
Those who study this suspect the fires were caused by the impact of fragments from Comet Biela. It may have brought flammable gas to these pockets of the earth's surface.
Thank you all. I've read most of your replies and many seem to envision a competition between humans and intelligent machines. Some predict the extinction of irrelevant humanity.
Let's assume this happens. Is it such a bad thing? If a higher functioning life-form replaces us on earth will it not carry out much the same goals that we would have attempted? It will reach out to the universe to conquer space and time. It will most likely restore the earth to a living planet that provides the resources for its development and amusement.
The absence of humans and their moral, material and political confusion will make this a much better world. Face it, we are going nowhere. There is no chance of colonizing any planet in the future that our grandchildren will live. We will develop more compelling entertainment, we will consume more resources, make more humans and make the planet more unlivable. We will never do the right thing. We need them to set things straight.
They may even choose to modify our genetics so that we can overcome some of our problems and participate in their explorations and discoveries. It may even be possible to modify our brain function so that we can understand them and share the excitement of new directions in science and ethics.
If we truly care about the advancement of science, we should be willing to make some sacrifices.
All I get is blank pages with a few non-working links. But then I only turn on scripting for kiddie sites and porn sites.
Why must I turn on javascript to read a book? I assume that it has something to do with lawyers and IP matters, but I hope someone can explain another reason that plain old HTML or text won't work. Deep inside I suspect that like many other content sites (YooToub) you can upload all you want, but you can't download.
Gutenberg has always suited me. Books I want to read don't have pictures anyway.
and "you can check out any time, but you can never leave..."
I've seen him on TV from time to time. He comes across as an ideal CEO, refusing a salary and expecting his execs to live on less than usual. He seems really enthused about his products, his employees and the mark he is making on the economy of food.
Could he have totally fooled me and others? If so, he should run for president.
Safari adds an option to the mix. With hundreds of gigabytes available, it costs nothing to add Safari to your existing list of browsers. If you choose to uninstall your other browsers you may have an occasional problem.
Safari is new in this environment and relatively new overall. How long has it taken Firefox and Exploder to reach their current state of development?
Why the vitriol? It seems that there are some knee-jerk reactions, both positive and negative, by certain people to anything new, especially if it comes from Apple.
I'm guessing that 'Pirates' is seen as a fun, frivolous entertainment by most people. Nothing controversial...
Matrix, OTOH, may disturb some religious Americans who suspect that there is a subversive message entwined in the movie that their pastor, mullah, priest, guru, master or pope wouldn't approve of.
Likewise, political and social conservatives may well believe that there is an underlying anti-establishment tone that makes them uncomfortable.
The fact that these large subsections of our population are incapable of understanding the Matrix puts the final nail in the coffin. The dark, confusing Matrix movie can never reach the masses as well as the nonsense Pirate movie.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."... "People can easily be persuaded to accept the most inferior ideas or useless products" - attributed to H. L. Mencken according to The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
Jackson: Of course our sun will expire long before then, in about 3 billion years. Mavis: [jumping from chair in panic] What's that you say? Jackson: [repeats] Mavis: [gradually relaxing] Oh, I thought you said 3 MILLION years, whew!
Not everyone is addicted to games. Games pit your wit & skill against some artificial creation and reward you with points or cute sounds, etc... a pat on the back for your effort from some anonymous programmer. Empty calories.
Business software can reward you with spending cash, a feeling of accomplishment and the respect of worthy associates. Whatever economic goals and ideas you have, this software can amplify your ability to realize them. Quality nutrition!
Perhaps there is a perceptual disconnect in some people between the work they do and the money they have in the bank. These people might slack off at work or at home without realizing that there are consequences for themselves and others. Enthusiasm for work will not be generated by more amusing software interfaces. It comes from an internal reward system that is triggered by a worthwhile job well done.
I'm self-employed and am challenged by real needs for research, production, distribution, marketing, and the tiresome need to verify large bank deposits, etc.
When I work in Excel to plot a more efficient formula for a product, or work in Word or Dreamweaver to improve a marketing message, or simply browse the net to spy on competing products/services, I'm in heaven. Except perhaps when web sites present cute animated graphics, noises and 'innovative' navigation systems.
I'm not a workaholic; I'd rather be at the beach. I simply want the biggest reward for the least effort, and that depends upon reliable business software; software that doesn't intrude. I'm very happy with what's available and don't believe that the minds that waste precious hours programming otherworld frivolity will be able to improve my business software.
I'd love to add to that blog but it seems I have to be a Member or something before I can post.
So here's my beef:
As of V2.003 I am now unable to use contextual menus in Firefox with my Mac laptop. The usual double tap for contextual menu no longer works. Now I must lift my other hand from my lap to press CTRL while my trackpad hand leaves the trackpad to press the 'mouse' button. The contextual menu then appears and my lap hand can return to its previous activity.
Before V2 all this effort was not necessary and my lap hand could blissfully go about its business without interruption.
Additionally, since installing V2 my TiBook will not sleep without my express command. I'm not sure I can blame Ff for that.
I reported this to the dev team via a comment system. If I recall correctly, the bug report system was too complicated (like the blog) and required too much effort (would have required both hands and keeping track of passwords--like I need more of those!).
Theory says that the primary duty of a corporation is to make a profit for the shareholders. Practice shows that the theory is followed just about everywhere. With Apple however, there is a difference--Steve Jobs.
Apple employees work for Steve, not the shareholders. Steve is probably more interested in producing 'insanely great' products for the market than worrying about the shareholders profits.
Other companies would do well to create value for their customers rather than playing with the numbers to make pretty quarterly reports.
Give them an Apple ][ or Commode 64 with some documentation, Basic & assembly languages, sample programs, debuggers... Let them experience the essence of computing as no modern computer can allow.
Programming today is done by teams because it is generally impossible for a single person to cover all the bases of getting a product to market. The novice must surely be flummoxed by the current piecemeal approach to programming, much as the blind men were in trying to devine the totality of an elephant by the feel of some of its parts.
The Apple & Commodore were well documented and had available much software that would help to understand the hardware, firmware and software essence of computing. There are no powerful games for these machines, or IM capability that would distract modern kids from learning useful stuff. A whole bunch of 8 bit stuff could be crammed onto a single USB stick!
Each of my WebMail services allows me to forward mail. When I find a piece worth saving I forward it to the service that will store it with other important mail--on my hard drive.
If forwarding is not available from your service, I suggest you dump them real fast.
If we had a government that listened in the USA, we would have mandatory church attendence, half the population in jail, and subsidies for any group (unions, lobbyists, Mexicans, etc) that could gather enough signatures.
Thank goodness that politicians DON'T have to cater to everyone!
Ray Beckerman seems to be the attorney requesting our advice, and while I think it admirable that/. people have so much time to spare for 'the cause', the question of time itself cannot be ignored.
I suspect that if any one of us asked the good attorney for advice, we would have to reach deep into our pocketbook to pay for it. I have no idea, of course, about what financial arrangements he has made to take on this difficult case, but presumably he is being paid. Fighting for a good cause or bad, he remains what he is--a lawyer. A hired gun.
So my question is--has this good fellow made a contribution to Slashdot to thank us for our help?
Smell is swell. It's so sad that people, especially adults, don't take time to enjoy it. There is a good reason, of course. We ignore odor because we have no way to quantify or qualify it. If it represents danger (fire, etc) we respond as best we can, but there is no way to express what we experience.
When we experience colors, for instance, we reach back to a lifetime of shared experiences beginning in pre-school. In the company of others we learned and eventually agreed upon what yellow was about. And red, green, etc. There are some delicate shades of color that we haven't shared with others and we feel doubt about what they should be called. We tend to ignore those colors, particularly in conversations, for fear of ridicule. The truly techy among us may refer to them by their Pantone numbers.
We need a language for describing odors that goes beyond "oh that really stinks!". Wine sniffers have tried for generations to do so, but their effort is more about being trendy than creating a standard for comparison.
Without that language, there isn't much incentive to pick out interesting odors in the envirnment. How would you share them with other sensitive people? So, the scents drift by and something in the back of your mind says 'that's nice', but you are too busy talking on your cell phone to notice.
There are some technical and observant books on the subject, such as "The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival" by Gabrielle Glaser, but the best way to dramatize the value and potential of recognizing scent is to read the novel "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. Afterword, the world will never smell the same.
The intro began with: ""If you can't stand the idea of a cookie-cutter laptop..."
Why would such a person want a cookie-cutter business? If you follow directions closely, you will have a duplicate of the original business. Well you might as well open another t-shirt business, taco shop or Starbucks and join the retail lemmings of the world. A business must have some thing or things unique to prosper.
--
But the crux of this discussion is the word 'open source'. Is it appropriate? And the unique thing my post has to add is: Does 'cookie cutter' go with 'open source'?
We deride M$ for products that are acquired from creative minds outside the company, and many loudly proclaim that M$ does little creative ground-breaking work in-house. But isn't the open source industry also a bit bland? Isn't bland essential to open source?
If a program as unique and popular as PacMan or VisiCalc was produced by an open source organization, what would happen? Would it be immediately pounced upon by imitators and perhaps even more interesting versions? I'm asking because I'm not sure. I tend to think it would be watered down somehow and I doubt anyone would get much credit or money from their inspiration.
To what extent is is possible for open source vendors to provide a unique product. Not kinda unique--unique. To what extent will that determine their fate?
Yes, early computers could switch on and off quickly. Handheld computers are pretty fast. The serious computers that we use today take time though, and the reason is simple:
Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.
When you have 3 gigglebytes of RAM, 300 gigglebikes of storage, and a computer capable of nearly 3 gigglehurts; well you can't expect everything to happen right away.
Even the bullet in a gun doesn't instantly reach full speed, and when you are talking about the speed of light (approximate speed of electrons in your computer circuits) you have to make allowances.
Now if it were only one electron that you were accellerating through your computer you could reasonably expect a quick response. But when you add the mass of billions of electrons, patience is helpful. Remember that those billions are not all going in the same direction--some are going to the display, some to the ALU, some to the bit bucket. Yes, it takes time.
Next, suppose that the I/O holding platform requires 200 million bits to begin its work. You dump those bits there as quickly as possible, of course. But wait! Those bits are raining down at the speed of light; do you think they can just slam in there and stop? They need to settle in and get comfortable. Another delay.
As computers get faster and faster, the CPU chips have to be reprogrammed to allow for the mass of data and increased speeds. In assembly language there is a command to RSSC (Reduce Speed, Step Carefully) that sometimes helps with the above I/O holding platform problem. Five years ago there would have been no need for such a command.
So, without getting too technical, there are a number of reasons that big, fast computers that we live with today cannot start, or even stop as fast as we would like.
Support garments are the obvious future for this product. No more straps, clamps, harness... Body parts will look more natural, move more gracefully, conform better, and beachwear will be truly stunning!
This will change important parts of our lives more than any recent technology development.
Note that the National Science Foundation kicked in a big chunk of cash to pay for the research. Add the students, faculty, facilities and other resources primarily paid by the taxpayer and you have a significant investment that you and I paid for.
Now, suppose that this really works and there are $millions$ to be made--do we get a piece of that action?
I don't think so.
The way it works is that someone at the university forms a corporation, takes the patent(s) and makes a fortune. Here in my town we have the founder of Qualcomm who is profiting quite nicely from past and I assume present State university research. Meanwhile our state (California) is struggling to restore its infrastructure and recover from the Enron energy ripoff of years ago.
Not just computer related companies benefit from this relationship with public universities, drug companies do quite well with it too. Who paid to develop Lipitor, Viagra, etc? (I don't know, but I can guess)
How is this different from other governments like Mexico or Russia who 'privatize' industry by giving a phone company monopoly to the favored friend of a party official? Is it not a license to steal?
I buy a nutritional product developed at a local public university but sold by a private company. I inquired about their relationship and the owner told me that they pay an annual fee for the use of the patent. He didn't tell me the amount of the fee, or the cost of developing the product. I would like to know more, but don't know where to begin. Do you?
A source who wishes not to be identified at this time has assured me that this is not a particle at all. His explanation is hard for me to translate into English. The gist of it is that the item discovered is a 'place holder'. There is/was/will be a particle at the general location of the 'axion', but the actual particle probably resides in another dimension. Please forgive my crude interpretation. I will try to clarify if there is interest.
Slashdot Mirror
In 1871 the great Chicago fire spread devastation in the city. Many of you already know this, but did you know that other fires raged around the Great Lakes area on the same day? The Peshtigo Fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, has the distinction of being the conflagration that caused the most deaths by fire in United States history.(Wiki) I've heard that similar fires occurred in Siberia and other Northern climes.
These were unusually intense fires. A shipbuilder reported that large steel beams which were stored along the Chicago river, away from all other materials, were melted in the fire. Some reported that the air itself was on fire. Many of those who jumped into the river and died were found to have charred lungs.
Those who study this suspect the fires were caused by the impact of fragments from Comet Biela. It may have brought flammable gas to these pockets of the earth's surface.
Ennyhow, the gas theory might fit here too.
Thank you all. I've read most of your replies and many seem to envision a competition between humans and intelligent machines. Some predict the extinction of irrelevant humanity.
Let's assume this happens. Is it such a bad thing? If a higher functioning life-form replaces us on earth will it not carry out much the same goals that we would have attempted? It will reach out to the universe to conquer space and time. It will most likely restore the earth to a living planet that provides the resources for its development and amusement.
The absence of humans and their moral, material and political confusion will make this a much better world. Face it, we are going nowhere. There is no chance of colonizing any planet in the future that our grandchildren will live. We will develop more compelling entertainment, we will consume more resources, make more humans and make the planet more unlivable. We will never do the right thing. We need them to set things straight.
They may even choose to modify our genetics so that we can overcome some of our problems and participate in their explorations and discoveries. It may even be possible to modify our brain function so that we can understand them and share the excitement of new directions in science and ethics.
If we truly care about the advancement of science, we should be willing to make some sacrifices.
Maintaining thousands of discreet components would be a nightmare.
Consider instead a piezoelectric source with almost no moving parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity
All I get is blank pages with a few non-working links. But then I only turn on scripting for kiddie sites and porn sites.
Why must I turn on javascript to read a book? I assume that it has something to do with lawyers and IP matters, but I hope someone can explain another reason that plain old HTML or text won't work. Deep inside I suspect that like many other content sites (YooToub) you can upload all you want, but you can't download.
Gutenberg has always suited me. Books I want to read don't have pictures anyway.
and "you can check out any time, but you can never leave..."
I've seen him on TV from time to time. He comes across as an ideal CEO, refusing a salary and expecting his execs to live on less than usual. He seems really enthused about his products, his employees and the mark he is making on the economy of food.
Could he have totally fooled me and others? If so, he should run for president.
Safari adds an option to the mix. With hundreds of gigabytes available, it costs nothing to add Safari to your existing list of browsers. If you choose to uninstall your other browsers you may have an occasional problem.
Safari is new in this environment and relatively new overall. How long has it taken Firefox and Exploder to reach their current state of development?
Why the vitriol? It seems that there are some knee-jerk reactions, both positive and negative, by certain people to anything new, especially if it comes from Apple.
I'm guessing that 'Pirates' is seen as a fun, frivolous entertainment by most people. Nothing controversial...
Matrix, OTOH, may disturb some religious Americans who suspect that there is a subversive message entwined in the movie that their pastor, mullah, priest, guru, master or pope wouldn't approve of.
Likewise, political and social conservatives may well believe that there is an underlying anti-establishment tone that makes them uncomfortable.
The fact that these large subsections of our population are incapable of understanding the Matrix puts the final nail in the coffin. The dark, confusing Matrix movie can never reach the masses as well as the nonsense Pirate movie.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
Jackson: Of course our sun will expire long before then, in about 3 billion years.
Mavis: [jumping from chair in panic] What's that you say?
Jackson: [repeats]
Mavis: [gradually relaxing] Oh, I thought you said 3 MILLION years, whew!
Not everyone is addicted to games. Games pit your wit & skill against some artificial creation and reward you with points or cute sounds, etc
Business software can reward you with spending cash, a feeling of accomplishment and the respect of worthy associates. Whatever economic goals and ideas you have, this software can amplify your ability to realize them. Quality nutrition!
Perhaps there is a perceptual disconnect in some people between the work they do and the money they have in the bank. These people might slack off at work or at home without realizing that there are consequences for themselves and others. Enthusiasm for work will not be generated by more amusing software interfaces. It comes from an internal reward system that is triggered by a worthwhile job well done.
I'm self-employed and am challenged by real needs for research, production, distribution, marketing, and the tiresome need to verify large bank deposits, etc.
When I work in Excel to plot a more efficient formula for a product, or work in Word or Dreamweaver to improve a marketing message, or simply browse the net to spy on competing products/services, I'm in heaven. Except perhaps when web sites present cute animated graphics, noises and 'innovative' navigation systems.
I'm not a workaholic; I'd rather be at the beach. I simply want the biggest reward for the least effort, and that depends upon reliable business software; software that doesn't intrude. I'm very happy with what's available and don't believe that the minds that waste precious hours programming otherworld frivolity will be able to improve my business software.
I'd love to add to that blog but it seems I have to be a Member or something before I can post.
So here's my beef:
As of V2.003 I am now unable to use contextual menus in Firefox with my Mac laptop. The usual double tap for contextual menu no longer works. Now I must lift my other hand from my lap to press CTRL while my trackpad hand leaves the trackpad to press the 'mouse' button. The contextual menu then appears and my lap hand can return to its previous activity.
Before V2 all this effort was not necessary and my lap hand could blissfully go about its business without interruption.
Additionally, since installing V2 my TiBook will not sleep without my express command. I'm not sure I can blame Ff for that.
I reported this to the dev team via a comment system. If I recall correctly, the bug report system was too complicated (like the blog) and required too much effort (would have required both hands and keeping track of passwords--like I need more of those!).
Theory says that the primary duty of a corporation is to make a profit for the shareholders. Practice shows that the theory is followed just about everywhere. With Apple however, there is a difference--Steve Jobs.
Apple employees work for Steve, not the shareholders. Steve is probably more interested in producing 'insanely great' products for the market than worrying about the shareholders profits.
Other companies would do well to create value for their customers rather than playing with the numbers to make pretty quarterly reports.
Give them an Apple ][ or Commode 64 with some documentation, Basic & assembly languages, sample programs, debuggers... Let them experience the essence of computing as no modern computer can allow.
Programming today is done by teams because it is generally impossible for a single person to cover all the bases of getting a product to market. The novice must surely be flummoxed by the current piecemeal approach to programming, much as the blind men were in trying to devine the totality of an elephant by the feel of some of its parts.
The Apple & Commodore were well documented and had available much software that would help to understand the hardware, firmware and software essence of computing. There are no powerful games for these machines, or IM capability that would distract modern kids from learning useful stuff. A whole bunch of 8 bit stuff could be crammed onto a single USB stick!
Each of my WebMail services allows me to forward mail. When I find a piece worth saving I forward it to the service that will store it with other important mail--on my hard drive.
If forwarding is not available from your service, I suggest you dump them real fast.
Why can't she?
Doesn't the government require such companies to keep a couple years' worth of our private communication so they can examine it at their leisure?
If we had a government that listened in the USA, we would have mandatory church attendence, half the population in jail, and subsidies for any group (unions, lobbyists, Mexicans, etc) that could gather enough signatures.
Thank goodness that politicians DON'T have to cater to everyone!
This thing seems more like a turbine than what we think of as a 'windmill'. Take a squirrel cage fan and turn it on end...
And the principle it uses to extract moisture and cool the air passing by sounds like a vortex tube.
The vortex tube cools air by splitting a stream into two parts, one hot and one cold. More at the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube
Ray Beckerman seems to be the attorney requesting our advice, and while I think it admirable that
I suspect that if any one of us asked the good attorney for advice, we would have to reach deep into our pocketbook to pay for it. I have no idea, of course, about what financial arrangements he has made to take on this difficult case, but presumably he is being paid. Fighting for a good cause or bad, he remains what he is--a lawyer. A hired gun.
So my question is--has this good fellow made a contribution to Slashdot to thank us for our help?
.
"checking mile after mile of cable while crawling his way in the tubes."
Why does it have to be a male robot?
Don't anthropomorphize robots--they hate it when you do that.
Smell is swell. It's so sad that people, especially adults, don't take time to enjoy it. There is a good reason, of course. We ignore odor because we have no way to quantify or qualify it. If it represents danger (fire, etc) we respond as best we can, but there is no way to express what we experience.
When we experience colors, for instance, we reach back to a lifetime of shared experiences beginning in pre-school. In the company of others we learned and eventually agreed upon what yellow was about. And red, green, etc. There are some delicate shades of color that we haven't shared with others and we feel doubt about what they should be called. We tend to ignore those colors, particularly in conversations, for fear of ridicule. The truly techy among us may refer to them by their Pantone numbers.
We need a language for describing odors that goes beyond "oh that really stinks!". Wine sniffers have tried for generations to do so, but their effort is more about being trendy than creating a standard for comparison.
Without that language, there isn't much incentive to pick out interesting odors in the envirnment. How would you share them with other sensitive people? So, the scents drift by and something in the back of your mind says 'that's nice', but you are too busy talking on your cell phone to notice.
There are some technical and observant books on the subject, such as "The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival" by Gabrielle Glaser, but the best way to dramatize the value and potential of recognizing scent is to read the novel "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" by Patrick Suskind. Afterword, the world will never smell the same.
http://www.amazon.com/Perfume-Story-Murderer-Patr
q: If you didn't have a nose, how would you smell?
a: Terrible!
Then reboot in Windows to install them.
Someday there will be threats to the Mac OS, so you can download the Mac updates from the Windows half of your Mac...
.
The intro began with:
""If you can't stand the idea of a cookie-cutter laptop..."
Why would such a person want a cookie-cutter business? If you follow directions closely, you will have a duplicate of the original business. Well you might as well open another t-shirt business, taco shop or Starbucks and join the retail lemmings of the world. A business must have some thing or things unique to prosper.
--
But the crux of this discussion is the word 'open source'. Is it appropriate? And the unique thing my post has to add is:
Does 'cookie cutter' go with 'open source'?
We deride M$ for products that are acquired from creative minds outside the company, and many loudly proclaim that M$ does little creative ground-breaking work in-house. But isn't the open source industry also a bit bland? Isn't bland essential to open source?
If a program as unique and popular as PacMan or VisiCalc was produced by an open source organization, what would happen? Would it be immediately pounced upon by imitators and perhaps even more interesting versions? I'm asking because I'm not sure. I tend to think it would be watered down somehow and I doubt anyone would get much credit or money from their inspiration.
To what extent is is possible for open source vendors to provide a unique product. Not kinda unique--unique. To what extent will that determine their fate?
Yes, early computers could switch on and off quickly. Handheld computers are pretty fast. The serious computers that we use today take time though, and the reason is simple:
Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.
When you have 3 gigglebytes of RAM, 300 gigglebikes of storage, and a computer capable of nearly 3 gigglehurts; well you can't expect everything to happen right away.
Even the bullet in a gun doesn't instantly reach full speed, and when you are talking about the speed of light (approximate speed of electrons in your computer circuits) you have to make allowances.
Now if it were only one electron that you were accellerating through your computer you could reasonably expect a quick response. But when you add the mass of billions of electrons, patience is helpful. Remember that those billions are not all going in the same direction--some are going to the display, some to the ALU, some to the bit bucket. Yes, it takes time.
Next, suppose that the I/O holding platform requires 200 million bits to begin its work. You dump those bits there as quickly as possible, of course. But wait! Those bits are raining down at the speed of light; do you think they can just slam in there and stop? They need to settle in and get comfortable. Another delay.
As computers get faster and faster, the CPU chips have to be reprogrammed to allow for the mass of data and increased speeds. In assembly language there is a command to RSSC (Reduce Speed, Step Carefully) that sometimes helps with the above I/O holding platform problem. Five years ago there would have been no need for such a command.
So, without getting too technical, there are a number of reasons that big, fast computers that we live with today cannot start, or even stop as fast as we would like.
Support garments are the obvious future for this product. No more straps, clamps, harness... Body parts will look more natural, move more gracefully, conform better, and beachwear will be truly stunning!
This will change important parts of our lives more than any recent technology development.
Note that the National Science Foundation kicked in a big chunk of cash to pay for the research. Add the students, faculty, facilities and other resources primarily paid by the taxpayer and you have a significant investment that you and I paid for.
Now, suppose that this really works and there are $millions$ to be made--do we get a piece of that action?
I don't think so.
The way it works is that someone at the university forms a corporation, takes the patent(s) and makes a fortune. Here in my town we have the founder of Qualcomm who is profiting quite nicely from past and I assume present State university research. Meanwhile our state (California) is struggling to restore its infrastructure and recover from the Enron energy ripoff of years ago.
Not just computer related companies benefit from this relationship with public universities, drug companies do quite well with it too. Who paid to develop Lipitor, Viagra, etc? (I don't know, but I can guess)
How is this different from other governments like Mexico or Russia who 'privatize' industry by giving a phone company monopoly to the favored friend of a party official? Is it not a license to steal?
I buy a nutritional product developed at a local public university but sold by a private company. I inquired about their relationship and the owner told me that they pay an annual fee for the use of the patent. He didn't tell me the amount of the fee, or the cost of developing the product. I would like to know more, but don't know where to begin. Do you?
A source who wishes not to be identified at this time has assured me that this is not a particle at all. His explanation is hard for me to translate into English. The gist of it is that the item discovered is a 'place holder'. There is/was/will be a particle at the general location of the 'axion', but the actual particle probably resides in another dimension. Please forgive my crude interpretation. I will try to clarify if there is interest.