You're right. I'm in Canada and you simply cannot purchase a netbook with Linux on it from the local retail.
This statement is entirely false. they aren't as numerous as the XP models, but they are relatively easy to find--at least where I live. This past weekend I saw an HP netbook running Linux on display and in-stock at a Future Shop store in Calgary. It was the least expensive notebook in stock in the store at that time ($50 cheaper than a nearly identically equipped XP-based netbook, except for SSD instead of traditional drive).
Just look harder. The login screen and desktop were quite obviously not XP--it was much more attractive and modern. However it wasn't immediately evident that it was Linux either--it wasn't mentioned on the product description or in the UI. Casual inspection however revealed that it was indeed Linux (things such as the options available on the login screen).
Another retailer that will often have Linux netbooks in stock are "The Source" (formerly) by Circuit City. InterTan, the parent company of The Source, was once mostly owned by Circuit City, but that stake in InterTan was sold to Bell Canada in the liquidation of C.C's assets (rumours they were being rebranded as "Bell Source" stores as there was no indication Bell bought rights to the Circuit City name).
Of course this is not helpful to American consumers--both retailers only operate in Canada. Interestingly, even though Future Shop is essentially an entirely owned subsidiary of Best Buy (USA), it seems only Future Shop stores are stocking Linux netbooks right now.
I know Apple gets flamed a lot around here by people for not being open enough and forcing developers to release apps through the app store, but I've seen it as an attempt to delay and try to prevent malware on the iPhone.
Really, I doubt that malware prevention is even on Apple's list of reasons for marshaling application development through its App Store. If it is, it's waaaay down the list. It is a marketing decision the way Nintendo exhibited tight control over who published games for the NES, or the way the iPod and iTunes service are tightly integrated and interoperability severely restricted.
Apple's App Store is about image and "synergies" and lock-in and creating a captive market. That is all. Not only does it not prevent malware, it in fact makes it a potentially far more serious problem, because it deliberately creates a monoculture ecosystem. Here are some points to consider:
* Viruses are not limited to platform/os--applications themselves can exhibit unintended vulnerabilities. An iPhone worm (or any mobile malware) isn't likely to be an application--it is more likely to be some malformed message/data packet/URL/etc that has nothing to do with qualifying for distribution via the App store, and more likely than not it will use an exploit in an app than in the iPhone OS as the quality of code in apps is more variable.
* The app store limits choice in apps, so each app is likely to have more market share, providing incentive for malware authors in the form of increased potential exposure.
* Apps in the app store are not vetted for security first and foremost--though I'm sure code quality is a factor, content is first and foremost--if it looks "cool" and is inoffensive and doesn't interfere with Apple's business strategies it can go on the app store over "less cool" alternatives that are more secure.
The app store might prevent most malicious apps from getting on the iPhone, but it won't protect against any other malware...plus, should Apple's app store ever gain some sort of dominance it presents a potentially extremely serious vulnerability to mobile network security.
Closing up the environment is NEVER the solution and almost inevitably leads to some sort of tragic failure. Why build a walled garden to keep it pretty when the vermin can dig under the wall and the seeds of weeds can blow over it with the wind? It is totally clear that the sole reason there hasn't been a major mobile virus outbreak is solely due to marketplace diversity. Even though that marketplace is full of closed players that is because it is young and fragmented. History has shown that such closed strategies promote the development of a dangerous monoculture.
It's refreshing to see that in this pre-shakeout industry that there are viable open-based alternatives like Andriod (and efforts like OpenMoko and Angstrom) fighting for presence. In the PC industry fragmentation gave way to a monoculture because consumers demanded interoperability and that demand was filled by a closed solution at a time when the modern Free software movement was in its infancy in the halls of academia. Now that inevitable demand for interoperability can be met with numerous diverse but interoperable Free solutions.
These are screenshots of the Alpha version. From my past experience Alpha releases do not change the default theme from that of the previous release. When I set up an Intrepid Alpha system it just used Hardy's desktop. When it upgraded itself to Beta the theme changed to some sort of generic polkadot wallpaper with everything else kept the same. When it went into full release the theme changed to the real Intrepid one.
Wait another month, and by then you'll certainly have your new colour scheme.
Actually, Linus was, as he sometimes is, completely clueless. He's unaware of the fact that filesystem journaling was *NEVER* intended to give better data integrity guarantees than an ext2-crash-fsck cycle
Linus is not clueless in this case. I think it is a case of you misinterpreting the issue he was discussing.
Journaling is, as you say NOT about data integrity/prevention of data loss. That is what RAID and UPSes are for. However, it IS about data CONSISTENCY. Even if a file is overwritten, truncated or otherwise corrupted in a system failure (i.e. loss of data integrity) the journal is supposed to accurately describe things like "file X is Y bytes in length and resides in blocks 1,2,3...." (data/metadata consistency). Why would you update that information before you are sure the data was actually changed? A consistent journal is the WHOLE REASON why you can "alleviate the delay caused by fscking".
Linus rightly pointed out, with a degree of tact that Theo de Raadt would be proud of, that writing meta-data before the actual data is committed to disk is a colossally stupid idea. If the journal doesn't accurately describe the actual data on the drive then what is the point of the journal? In fact, it can be LESS than useless if you implicitly trust the inconsistent journal and have borked data that is never brought to your attention.
As a matter of fact, the USA was, out of necessity due to restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research in the US, funding so-called "adult stem cell" research almost exclusively, whereas in some other parts of the world the strategy was to "go for the low-hanging fruit" and concentrate on embryonic stem-cell research, to the point that funding for developing non-embryonic sources of pluripotent cells was actually quite neglected.
It has turned out to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it takes a lot of time and effort to get to the point of merely making an "adult stem cell" that could've gone into developing the technology to use the stem cells once you have them. However, on the other hand by pouring research efforts into adult stem-cell development you can secure yourself a much more readily available source of pluripotent cells that is more immune to ethically debatable practices.
In a way, the latter strategy is more forward thinking (even taking ideology/ethics out of the equation). If stem-cell techniques become successful and widespread we'd need a readily available source of raw material. I think it goes without saying (though I'll say it anyways) that supply exceeds demand in terms of sperm availability, however it isn't so convenient for female donors to supply large numbers of viable eggs (to say the least--in fact fertility treatments to trigger ovulation, followed by the procedure to harvest the eggs, is hard enough on patients to do it when trying to conceive--they aren't going to do it just to sell their eggs).
We already have organ donor shortages--thousands die all the time who could've easily lived with a transplant but couldn't locate a donor. Science has given us an option to avoid this problem with stem cells. If we needed embryos for large quantities of stem cells, we'd either have to establish "embryo banks" and try to hire women to be in these "coops" from time to time to suply eggs, or else we'd have to venture further down the road to clone embryos on a mass scale, which is not only ethically questionable but presents problems with genetic degradation.
Sadly, science is tainted by ideology/politics on BOTH sides. Anti-abortionists manage to block valuable research because it uses embryonic tissue, but pro-abortionists and major embryonic researchers are so focused on what to do with the cells that they are neglecting promising alternatives--largely because embryonic research yields faster results and quicker and bigger grants.
Stem-cell research is not the only place this is happening either--with bio-fuel technology US mid-western agribusiness lobbies are grabbing money to use corn as a fuel source despite it being a relatively poor choice, but misguided environmentalists are trying to shut down important bio-fuel research by misstating facts and extending research made on corn-ethanol fuels to ALL biofuels. As a result, bio-fuel technology remains underdeveloped while significant renewable energy sources go unused (everything from agricultural waste like manure to algae to restaurant and retail waste inventory and landfill waste).
It's helpful to know that PGO is the reason the windows version works faster but it raises more questions than it answers:
* What *is* Profile Guided Optimisation (I might know, but for one person like me there are hundreds of others who don't)
* What build would happen to be newer than the CURRENT RELEASE for Fedora? A quick google doesn't doesn't point to an obvious location of a "firefox-pgo" or similar package. Casual users would struggle to find a PGO-built FF package as they would not be standard with their distro, or would be beta/pre-releases of FF 3.1.
* The test was only with Fedora--do any other Linux OSes package FF with PGO enabled as standard?
* How do the 64-bit editions compare? This was a 32-bit only test, and reader's posts aren't very specific. It looks like the only version of FF 3.0.x that IS PGO-built and widely distributed is the 32-bit version, because 64-bit Windows FF is even slower than the Linux version to Javascript from what little is posted.
...and THAT is why Facebook, or big "social networking" websites in general, have any relevance whatsoever.
The Internet, and especially the WWW, were supposed to enable ordinary people to publish their own information without influence and control of "big content providers". It was supposed to be the biggest revolution in publishing since Gutenberg's press--not only were books accessible to the masses, not the masses could publish THEIR OWN information!
What happened to this revolution? The technology is still there, but not only have we not progressed, we've SLID BACKWARDS! We've all abdicated our rights to and responsibilities for our own information to a small handful of very large corporate entities...and then we bitch and moan when those "big content providers" do exactly what we should have expected they'd do with your information--retain it, profit from it, and generally be careless with it.
That's NOT what the 'net was supposed to be about! We were supposed to "rent the pipes" and storage space like we do our phone lines and self-storage garages and then publish our data ourselves. I was thrilled when DSL came to the market here 12 years ago, followed quickly by broadband from the local cable companies. I was able to get internet connectivity 24/7! Now I only needed to "rent the pipe" and I could have even MORE control over how I published by info because I could RUN MY OWN SERVER!
It was looking to me like the dawn of a new era--anyone who wanted to could set up their own little server and run their own websites easier than ever before--the BBS world would be able to move forward from the domain of geeks with extra phone lines and modems to something more graphical and interconnected and "plug and play". People were taking about "internet appliances" and I assumed that as time went on that *two way* appliances would become ubiquitous.
It hasn't happened that way though. There seems to be this insistence that "internet appliances" be one-way client-only devices--merely enhanced TVs and radios where some big network can push information to us as THEY see fit. ISPs have further RESTRICTED the ability to host your own services instead of expanding that ability (primarily because the biggest ISPs are now owned by content publishers). And not only has the old school personal/small community-oriented BBS gone essentially extinct, so have REAL personal websites before they got a chance to really gain traction. We've DEVOLVED from publishing HTML documents on our local ISP's web servers to doing the same on global "web hosts" like Geocities to setting up blogs on global blogging sites to setting up groups on Facebook.
Facebook isn't an ISP, they are yet another traditional media publisher--we give our info away to them and they publish it as they see fit...just as how Old Media works. I suppose I always underestimate people's capacity for laziness or ignorance in this regard. It seems people just don't "get it", or maybe they just don't care. Whatever happened though, the 'net hasn't turned out the way I thought it would, and no amount of changes to the ToS of Facebook or similar sites will fix what is, in my view, the entirely wrong direction for the WWW.
Facebook is specifically for private/personal data.
Holy cow man...turn down the reality distortion field my friend, you'll get a tumor or something.
Facebook has NEVER EVER been intended as a repository for private information. The whole POINT of facebook from the start was to make information PUBLIC!
Do you know where the name Facebook comes from? Universities have a "student directory" like a phone book, just for campus. Often the Student's Union will put a portrait, with the consent of the faculty member or student in question, in the SU Directory. In American universities, and especially "ivy-league" colleges, the SU directory is called a "face book" because it "puts faces to names". Facebook started because a college student took it upon himself to create an on-line version of his school's face book.
Facebook.com started as a directory for one school, then for schools all over the world, then eventually became the social networking site it is today. but the WHOLE POINT of facebook is to MAKE INFORMATION PUBLIC. If you want something kept private why the hell are you not only putting it on the 'net, but storing it on someone else's computer system?
Look, I'm not saying Facebook has the right to do what it wishes with your data once you close an account, or that it has a right to claim ownership of that data and profit from it without your consent, but honestly people...it is YOUR DATA and if you don't want to share it DON'T PUT IT ON A DATA-SHARING WEBSITE!
I think that there should be the right to "undo" publication of your data and be in control of your privacy, but you have to be seriously deluded if you thing a SOCIAL NETWORKING website of any kind is "specifically for private data"! Social networking is the OPPOSITE of private!
Also, counting cards is not illegal in any shape or form.
Counting cards WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF DEVICES is legal. If you can do it in your head, signal to collaborating people what the conditions are, etc. you cannot be charged, but if you are discovered counting cards you can be escorted off the property, as is the right of the private establishment.
However, if you use ANY sort of device, be it mechanical or electronic--even so much as a pad of post-it notes and a pen, you are now not only going to be escorted off the property, you are actually breaking the law and are likely to be arrested.
sooo...you are actually quite wrong when you say counting cards IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM is legal, because it clearly is not--only UNASSISTED counting of cards is legal.
Incidentally, the rule also applies to any gambling activity on the casino, not just card games. Some video slot machines have been known to have a poor pseudo-random algorithm and there have been a couple of cases I know of where mathematically inclined people have noticed this and profited from it. In one case, the casino could not press charges because the person in question actually sat and watched the machine himself for many hours. In another case, a concealed photographic device was used to do the observing and that person was charged and convicted.
...that the worlds most repressive governments are the ones most receptive to using Free/Open Source Software.
Of course, as nice as it would be to think these regimes are adopting Linux because of their new-found interest in freedom and openness, it has more to do with sticking it to the USA. They don't want their "glorious fatherlands" to depend so heavily on a product from those evil capitalists.
I think its great to see an increased adoption of Linux and other Free software, but when it comes to adoption of such technologies by China and Cuba I have some concern. Neither regime has shown any serious concern for the preservation of freedoms and rights, so what makes anyone think they would show any healthy respect for the GPL or any other Free license?
For all the innovation and technology they will freely receive in the creation of their own Linux-based OSes will there always be willingness for them to contribute back any innovations they make themselves? If a popular feature or enhancement is developed in China or Cuba will the source be withheld by their dictatorships due to "security reasons", causing a "communist fork"?
Furthermore, what if closed source material is introduced by communist government developers in blatant disregard of the rules, and the now-tainted source is the subject of a SCO-like lawsuit? Given the track record of them ripping off proprietary western designs in the past, I wouldn't be surprised. I know that there are probably a lot of Free software developers that reside in China and maybe even Cuba and it hasn't yet been a problem...but now Linux is "Official" and the governments will be involved in developments more significant than before.
Software piracy is rampant in Communist countries, and Free software like Linux can be pirated too you know--it's just that its license and copyrights are violated in a different way than for closed software like MSFT Windows. I hope the FSF is as vigilant in keeping these new fans of Linux in line as the BSA is in trying to combat piracy of commercial software like Windows.
Don't listen. Read a real economist instead Here http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Krugman, as in Paul Krugman, author of "Conscience of a Liberal" and unabashed supported of the welfare state?
Apparently, one isn't a "real economist" unless he holds neo-liberal/social democratic POLITICAL views? I call bovine manure! You're no better than a Fox News commentator spitting "Krugman is parroting Left Wing talking points".
Political, social and economic opinion influence each other but do not dictate each other. Krugman might be in your good books because he is Liberal, but you might not like all his economic stances. He is against rent, wage and price controls, and he considers opposition to global free trade/protectionism as the economic equivalent of opposition to evolutionary theory/support of "creation theory".
Look into Krugman's views on telecom policy in the US. The WSJ article in fact agrees exactly with Krugman. WSJ says the single biggest problem in the US is that there is an effective "Duopoly" and that in many places only one of the two "duopolists" serves the area. Krugman has for years blamed lack of broadband penetration on the botching of the telecom act for protecting incumbent monopolists from competition by treating internet service as a separate service from "telecommunications" in the traditional sense (phone and cable). Krugman himself said the same thing as the WSJ YEARS ago--the root of the problem is that the feds enabled a monopoly to form!
Krugman would absolutely agree with the WSJ that these billions would be pissed away. He advocated one of two solutions:
* regulation whereby telecom companies could not participate in "cross ownership" (owning content like newspapers/tv stations and multiple delivery mechanisms like internet and cable), and ordering the incumbents to provide access to their cable and phone networks at sustainable wholesale rates to ISPs, OR
* breaking up the monopolists, but not like how the RBOCs were formed that just produces a bunch of smaller monopolies. Instead, force companies to sell off some assets where they hold regional monopolies and regulate where needed to preserve at least limited competition in all markets.
Krugman's advocacy of regulation won't win over the "right-wing" but though they might not agree on the solution, I'm willing to bet that Krugman would agree that simply spending billions to build onto a system that is already flawed wouldn't be effective use of money without giving much more thought to the problem.
In Canada, it is pretty much standard operating procedure for for the "government in waiting" to be slagged at all opportunity in some way or another. Most recently a proposed left-wing coalition cooked up to bring down the Tories and take over government was so universally panned that the leader of the coalition had to step down and a replacement hastily appointed by party executives...and that replacement pretty quickly abandoned that party's commitment to the coalition.
Previously, the Tories were outright called "enemies of Canada" (those were exact words used by some campaigners for the at-the-time governing Liberals). At every turn, by political opponents, various editorials, lobby groups, political "institutes" and so on, the Tory campaign platform was picked apart for it faults.
Perhaps its a characteristic of the Westminster system, but it happens quite often, especially leading up to and during election campaigns, where the governing party acts spends more time acting like the opposition rather than government.
That said, I wish that the Canadian version of the Tories had some kind of formal commitment to "open technologies", flawed or otherwise. Right now, only quite socialist NDP members have made any meaningfully supportive statements in that regard, and unfortunately their very unsustainable/unrealistic policies on almost all other (politically "more important") issues means they are not seriously considered by the majority of voters.
Anyways, I don't give much credence to the Fortify study. This firm is a study of vulnerability of source code to security flaws--by a company that produces costly source code analysis and version control tools sold to big closed source development concerns. Reading between the lines it basically suggests that "open source people don't pay us a whole bunch of money to use our stuff, thus their product, like the closed source stuff that is made without our tools, must be dangerously inferior".
My guess is that Fortify is pursuing business leads, directly or indirectly, with the UK government on some big-budget, large scale super IT system based upon proprietary software developed with the use of Fortify's tools, and that the language of the Tories' platform suggests that much of that business is in jeopardy if there is a change in government.
In other news, General Motors says public transit is inflexible and provides inferior service to commuters, and that the governments policy on transportation should shift monies away from mass transit to building wider roads and lowering vehicle taxes.
Are you sure? Have you compared a 33Mhz ARM to a 33Mhz x86 chip? Is the performance that different? There is no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison here, because I don't think anyone makes x86 chips that are as slow as ARM chips.
Well, you can if you have old Intel hardware to compare with. If you do, then you can make at least a "spartan to red-delicious" comparison.
I still have an operational 500MHz Celeron equipped with 256MB of RAM and integrated Intel graphics and sound, manufactured about 10 years ago. The BeagleBoard has awfully similar specs (similar clock speed, rev C will have the same amount of RAM, integrated graphics...). I can already tell you the graphics on the BeagleBoard wins hands down based on demo videos I've seen playing 720p MPEG video and doing decent 3D acceleration. I plan to order a BeagleBoard when Rev C is released for general sale. If I am curious enough I could run Ubuntu on each and perform the same exact tasks on each to gauge performance...
Apart from that, a more proper comparison is difficult, as I don't think the closest X86 equivalent to the CortexA8 (Intel Atom) is available in a system running at the same lower clock rates.
If the CortexA8 platform gains traction, perhaps there is the possibility of TI or other licensees to clock it up into the GHz+ range of the Atom. Also, perhaps it could be implemented in multi-core packages or you could make a cluster (can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beagle...oh, nevermind...). TI's OMAP3530 is not only power efficient but it is inexpensive too. Variants of this OMAP platform could really be a compelling general, low-end computing platform answer to the Atom.
A bus would use the same amount of energy to stop and let 10 people off, as it would to stop and let 1 off.
You refuted your own argument here. This is exactly why buses and trains are inefficient. During peak hours they are great--a full bus has dozens of people being carried by a single vehicle, but half the time buses are LESS than half full. Buses are very large and consume a lot of diesel, so if you can't run them full ALL the time they approach the efficiency of a car.
The "peak load" problem can be solved by either closing or merging routes during non-peak hours (at the expense of customer service/utility of the system), or by running smaller buses and vans when demand is lower (reducing efficiency, increasing capital costs and lowering equipment utilisation)
Also, public transit vehicles have to stop much more often than PRTs--there are a lot more energy savings in a non-stop route. There is no idling, no stopping and no acceleration to waste energy.
Keep in mind that these new PRTs would be automated, which means there is more opportunity to employ energy-saving ideas that cannot be safely done with personal cars driven by humans. For example, pods can follow very close or even join into trains on-the-fly, and can separate on-the-fly as well. If pods are joined into trains, some or most of them could reduce or even shut down power and coast as they cruise--then you get similar or equal efficiency to a bus or train and better flexibility.
but do they really do anything that trains and buses don't?
Yes they have much more utility than trains and buses. Any given train or bus carries a large number of people and there is NEVER a case where every rider on a given train or bus has the same pick-up or drop-off location. Thus, users must wait for a train/bus to arrive at their stop, and then when on-board have to wait at stops at regular intervals throughout their journey.
The "PRT" consists of autonomous "pods" that hods a small number of people, so they have the flexibility of a car. There can be a pod ready to go at a station at the exact time you need it and it can navigate itself to the "collector route", possibly joining up to a train of pods, then disengage from the train to a siding/turnout at the destination, and so the journey is non-stop without disrupting the journey of other commuters.
Part of this flexibility also means that public transit can be designed more efficiently, as right now bus and train routes have to be designed to handle "peak load". You cannot easily shrink or grow a train or a bus, so for a lot of the time you see big vehicles and trains carrying few or no passengers. If you had a PRT consisting of "pods" that could "connect" and/or operate as a train then you could have pods available for public service 24/7, even in relatively low-traffic areas, at a much lower expense and environmental impact.
Transit authorities tend to be closed-shops, so union guys don't like to hear this, but an automated PRT would save a lot of costs of hiring drivers, and eliminate human error factors. Vancouver, BC's "skytrain" is not a PRT but is automated (no drivers) and has the best on-time and reliability of all public transit systems on the whole continent. The skytrain is much safer than most LRTs not only because it is largely not at-grade, but because there are no drivers and the computer system is not able to bypass interlocks (ie. they are not able to speed or run through signals like human drivers have done at times to maintain schedule).
After seeing the video of the proposed Heathrow system's test-run in Cardiff there is another benefit--with today's technology you could modify existing road infrastructures much cheaper than building tracks or monorails. The Heathrow system looks like it operates on what is basically a narrow road with high kerbs. Extending trains can be complex, especially when you have to route tracks underground, above-ground or parallel to roads where existing buildings may need to be demolished.
Also, both at-grade trains and buses must contend with regular traffic. Buses are at the mercy of congestion and traffic lights, and at-grade trains must wait at intersections with the cars at times. Likewise, these systems disrupt regular road traffic.
The future of "PRT" systems might be in "transit lane upgrades". Many cities have transit-only lanes, and implementing an effective PRT might be simply a matter of upgrading physical barriers, over/underpasses at selected intersections and signal wiring/sensors/wireless comms to facilitate automated operation.
It's a silicon atom. How many particles in that? I guess the author was talking about subatomic particles, right?
Yes. Specifically electrons. The semiconductor is the container part of the quantum dot--silicon atoms are not the particles being contained. The U of A team has achieved the ability to make a quantum dot that is so small it can possibly trap one single atom in a potential well. If you put electrons in their own little "jail cells" one at a time you can control their behavior one at a time without bringing temperatures down to near absolute zero (which is what technology required to this point, as we could only manage to direct or trap dozens to thousands of electrons at a time, and at room temperature they whiz around and bounce off each other--it'd be like dropping a pebble in a pot of boiling water and trying to perceive a ripple).
The summary link isn't totally crap, it does describe in layman's terms what was achieved--they constructed a semiconductor consisting of a tiny potential well locking a single electron PARTICLE within it. This allows for the potential to construct an array of such dots that you could control at room temperature--they can give the trapped electrons a "bump" on one end and the wave of energy could propagate to the other--it would be enough energy to make the electrons "bounce around" in their wells but not enough to make them escape.
Of course, this description is yet more technically inaccurate "crap", because we are talking about quantum mechanics and the quantum dot isn't exactly a physical "vessel" and electrons don't really "bounce" and so on...but that is the gist of what they are talking about. Physically we aren't talking about waves in a pool vs. a fire hose, but it's an analogy for cryin' out loud. Doesn't make it "crap".
For example, with E2007, it is almost a no brainer to set up archiving and retention so incoming and outgoing E-mail is retained as per laws... laws that are a bad thing to break.
Using exchange does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make it easier to be SOX compliant. The default setup of Exchange is NOT SOX compliant--it must be configured that way--and an auditor must examine the set up and approve it as such, just as is the case with Lotus or any of the Free email-and-groupware solutions. As for meeting data retention requirements--well, it is a no-brainer for Lotus admins too. I can even make Citadel meet that particular SOX requirement LITERALLY within minutes.
An OSS product is going to have to not just grok the Exchange 2007 protocol, but be able to support features that Exchange offers
At this point in time, matching MSFT's feature list is a secondary challenge--that can easily be done as has been demonstrated by a number of successful Free software projects. Interoperability is the challenge here, as that is what is REALLY MSFT's "secret sauce". To achieve interoperability either requires governments to lay a smack-down on MSFT such as they cry "uncle" and submit specs, or else a great deal of reverse engineering.
The goal is laudable but strategically speaking: do we really want to focus more OSS efforts to replicate MS protocols and methods?
Yes, insofar as it makes it easier to migrate AWAY from MSFT platforms. Lack of interoperability is what makes Exchange lock-in so effective. If you can inter-operate, you can also migrate. Perhaps success lies in beating MSFT at the embrace, extend and extinguish game.
You have to start somewhere. We'll probably have to wrestle with the intricacies of MSFT's bastardised LDAP/Kerberos/CIFS mashup and the corresponding "impedance mismatch" for awhile but without effort we won't achieve something close enough to perfection.
OpenOffice.org, though far from a market leader yet, is enjoying relative success in very large part because it is sufficiently compatible with legacy MSFT file formats.
Whilst a million enterprises out there shrug their shoulders and think 'why would I want to wrestle with this when I could just go along with the AD stack that I know, trust and my MSCE admins love'
Well, except when that enterprise is compelled to upgrade to the next major release of Windows Server and they have to re-learn how to do various tasks, or they have to deal with changes to policies that the upgrades take upon themselves to make from time to time.
Anyways, that won't be an issue for awhile, as enterprises try to avoid implementing half-baked systems. Developer communities, hobbyists and small businesses will be involved first--in that order. Also, don't underestimate the IT department personnel. Some of them actually WANT to know HOW stuff that they are responsible for actually works, not just how MSFT want s them to point-and-click their way through it. If you can "out cool" MSFT they will embrace change over EXchange.
Similar but not the same - the combination of color/shapes seems to make the pattern recognition for this very reliable and quick.
It seems to me that colour would make the pattern recognition LESS reliable, and using triangles vs. squares wouldn't have noticeable effects either way on reliability. Colour would provide for greater information density, but if you were in certain environments where the ambient light was not white there could be issues unless complementary colours were used---but then if that limitation is in place, why not stick to black and white and use shades of grey (luminance only) to increase density? I think the colour is more of a gimmick.
Another key difference - a QR code stores the data in the code itself, limiting what you can do with it. These Tags are just a GUID or something like it.
That is not particularly innovative--that is what UPC is that supermarkets have used for decades. UPC actually has been used to carry both a key and information--the 1st half of the code carries a product ID and the second half the weight to 5 sig. digits in the case of random-weight products like deli items. Storing actual data vs. lookup REMOVES limits on what you can do with the data, not the opposite. The tradeoff is the limitation in quantity. QR code is just an encoding method--the same concept can be applied using this open standard instead of locked-in systems like MSFT's doomed-to-failure system.
I can see a bunch of useful applications for stuff like this:
- Flight Arrival/Departure Info: tags can be posted at easily visible locations around the airport with a sign "scan here for arrival/departure info".
- Business Cards: You could print a tag (with your vCard associated with it) on your business card. Now for a business contact to get your contact info, all they have to do is scan the tag. No fiddling with data entry on a tiny-ass qwerty to enter a name, phone number, etc.
Neither is a new application. I can already do paperless boarding at the airport where I live. Bar-code and matrix-code readers are widely available that read right off of cellphone screens that are used when staff need to read the boarding pass. Standard cellphones with integrated cameras could be capable of processing bar-codes and matrix-codes with the right software. PCs with webcams can do this with already available software (it is Free software too). As this technology is already deployed throughout many major airports all they'd have to do is put a bar-code or matrix-code in more places.
The business card idea is not new either. Where I worked after finishing at university we were in the industry (data collection integration and automation--bar-code scanning and printing and so forth), and in 1998 we all put bar-codes on the back of our cards that decoded into a URL. It was less useful 10 years ago than it would be today, but if you opened your web browser and used a scanner attached to your PC it would take you to our company web page with our profiles.
In Japan, many smart phones can interpret bar-codes already, and such codes are starting to appear in public places as well. Of course, US and Canada are 3rd world nations from a telecommunications services standpoint, so it is less forthcoming.
Anyways, I think codes on business cards are of limited utility, why bother with a piece of paper when you can beam v-card data between cellphones directly? The future is more like the airport scenario:
* put a code on the bus stop sign to bring up the schedule and ETA of next bus at that stop (where I live there are already 4-digit number codes you can text to the transit authority to get the info, but snapping a picture might be easier, especially when it's cold and hard to type with gloves on)
* put a code on realtor signs so if you are house hunting and see a house for sale, you can pull over and click a picture of the sign and g
If you can smell something outside the cabin of a pressurized airplane
When you are boarding the plane, or have boarded the plane and it is waiting for takeoff (when the cabin isn't pressurised, you CAN smell the exhaust. Especially when you are on regional flights on small aircraft, when you board from the tarmac instead of the skybridge and you are downwind from the exhaust of a running engine.
Thus far, I have yet to see an "iPhone killer" do anything of the sort.
Personally, I can't understand why the iPhone is considered "immortal" and the one to beat. I've had a chance to use it and I'm sorry--the ONLY thing it is the best at is looking pretty. Otherwise there are numerous things about the iPhone that totally turn me off
* The total control-freakishness of Apple since its release was a bad first impression for me. It was locked to one US-only provider, and wouldn't work here in Canada unless you hacked it or waited for the 3G version that would be locked onto Rogers (AT&T doesn't operate here so you have to use it on Rogers network). Then API docs weren't forthcoming upon its release and even now that there are some docs out there Apple continues to exert dictatorial control over the apps store. The "walled garden" is distasteful to me. I want to be able to connect to other devices and run apps that *I* want to use, not what someone else LETS me use.
* The stupid thing is so glossy and slippery and poorly shaped to use as an actual phone that you can drop it far more easily than most other phones. It looks to be amongst the most easily scratched too. Those characteristics are totally useless apart from making it look pretty--and for all the shiny effort most people put some kind of gaudy cover on it anyways.
* It's too hard to type on the touchscreen. Ladies with longer fingernails almost can't use it at all, and men with large fingers can have quite a hard time with typos. It has all the tactile feedback of typing on an old Sinclair ZX81. I've seen nothing yet that can replace actual keys, thought RIM's Blackberry Storm at least has a touchscreen keyboard with tactile feedback (still I prefer their keyboard models). I know multi-touch is "sexy", but I'm not entirely sure it is worth the tradeoff of not being able to use a stylus or fingernails as a pointer option. If you can't do it without a capacitive screen then maybe you should wait until you can before using it on such a small display.
* More from-over-function gripes: In its efforts to make the iPhone "slim and sexy" it lacks a user-serviceable battery. I HATE that! My phones have ALWAYS outlived the useful life of their batteries. It is planned obsolescence at its most annoying.
Anyways, enough slagging the iPhone--it IS pretty, and it does have the best web browser, a HUGELY superior interface to Windows Moile and is a decent phone overall. But "hard to kill"? Hardly. I think even an unassuming mobile device in a clamshell or slider design that provides a decent alphanumeric keypad and with sufficient processing power could wipe the floor with the iPhone. I think this new Palm has a good shot, if its GUI lives up to Palm's hype, because it is that OP with the slick UI that is the sole reason for iPhones SUSTAINED success (The Jobsian hype machine can only take credit for the insanely-great launch).
Once you deforest an area, or cut it down to grow crops, you've permanently released that carbon to the atmosphere - You're taking an existing carbon sink and destroying it.
This is actually in most cases quite false. Old growth forests are generally "carbon neutral" and commonly can even be net carbon PRODUCERS. This is because there is a very large volume of biomass in these forests that is decomposing or otherwise not involved in photosynthesis, relative to new growth that acts as a carbon sink.
Though clearing an old rain forest is a bad idea, doing so would NOT "destroy a carbon sink".
net neutral except for the energy put into growing the crops (unless you chopped down a forest to create the farm land in the first place).
Depending on what is done with the biomass removed with the deforestation, and on the nature of the forest being removed, farmed crops can actually be BETTER carbon sinks than the forests they replaced.
The fact that most ethanol comes from low-yield sources like corn today, competing with food crops, is worrying.
Scientifically speaking, it is indeed a problem. The reason corn is given so much attention:
1. In the US corn has long been made into a substance that is already very nearly a viable fuel (whiskey of course;-). As inefficient as it is, the process to make corn ethanol for biofuel is thus old, proven and relatively simple compared to other biofuels (simply a matter of more distillation and purification when you think about it).
2. The US produces FAR more corn than it needs for food, so much so that they can't even use it up on frivolous agri-food applications (such as breading chicken nuggets and fish sticks and making corn dogs). Starving children in Africa could eat it I suppose, but they can't pay for it and there are political and practical hurdles getting it to them. So, to make demand match or slightly surpass supply some "tall foreheads" got together and came up with the idea of promoting it for biofuel use. That way, new demand will keep corn prices high enough so that corn farmers can make a living.
3. So, why not just tell the corn farmers to grow something else or even find another line of work if they are growing too much corn? POLITICS. The US heartland is "corn country". It's human nature to not want to change...plus change can bring hardship, at least for the short term. Just try to tell a politician to cut loose powerful lobbyists and huge numbers of voting farming communities from corn subsidies and tell them they just have to find something else to do and care about. Obama might be your next great hope, but he's still a politician and don't be so deluded as to think that he will not pander to some of his core supporters. Furthermore, though corn-derived biofuel in particular is NOT "green" (which I take to mean more energy efficient), biofuel technology IS a "green technology" with promise. Because of that, subsidies to farmers can be buried in "green legislation" as a way to hide them from those like the boards of WTO and NAFTA who fight over unfair subsidies and other trade practices. Corn Fuel is still Good Politics, even if it is of limited environmental (or even economic) benefit.
and to JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile.
Not really a PILE--probably a nice thick coat of algae, but not a PILE. Besides, why would you bother covering New Jersey in it when you could grow it in the ocean or in lakes? Comparatively speaking the area of NJ is microscopic when you consider how much surface of the earth is covered in water. Not only that, you can grow it in "3D", so you can grow thousands of percent more Algae per acre of SURFACE than you could, say, CORN--that "darling" of the biofuel industry.
Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value.
I've heard, in fact, that Algae biofuel is MORE THAN 3000 PERCENT MORE ENERGY DENSE THAN CORN ETHANOL. Even myths about corn ethanol taking more energy to produce than it provides has been dispelled (though corn ethanol IS only a fraction as efficient as petroleum fuel and thus not a good alternative). As a matter of fact, if you set aside an area of ocean near the shore about the size of NJ, not only would it produce enough jet fuel to feed EWR/JFK traffic--it would be enough to fuel ALL FLIGHTS AND AUTOMOTIVE TRAFFIC IN THE UNITED STATES.
The problem with algae fuel isn't growing the stuff (supply far exceed demand--it is often the byproduct of water pollution), or how much energy it provides (quite a lot in fact). The problem is that until now almost nothing has been invested in refining the stuff--virtually all the fuel refineries in the world are designed to refine "dead dinosaur residue". he refining infrastructure investment requirement to process that much algae is MASSIVE, which is the single biggest reason we don't all run our cars on algae today.
I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.
Thanks for the advice, Chicken Little, I'll take it under advisement.
Of course, our society is extremely wasteful and energy inefficient right now when compared to potential, so ignoring efforts in reducing energy use overall perhaps the sky will indeed fall. However, nothing of the sort will happen as we learn to do everything more efficiently.
Eew. Algae. What's next, a flight powered by athlete's foot?
You don't EAT the damn stuff dude, you burn it! Who the hell CARES what it's made of? Sure seems like a lot less trouble and easier on the earth than digging deep into the earth and dredging up old dead dinosaurs to burn.
I'm also hoping it shuts up the idiots who jump up and down yelling "but how will we feed the children?!?!" whenever someone advocates biofuels. BIO in biofuels does NOT equal FOOD. If I recall, algal blooms are in OVERabundance due to human activity (our detergents ending up in water and supplying phosphates to grow the stuff in excess--tainting our water and killing fish, etc). Seems like an elegant solution to me.
Athletes foot wouldn't be next, but I can thing of another abundant biofuel source that we have a hard time eliminating and that nobody would eat: fecal waste. Everything from poultry litter and cow manure to even human sewerage. How is THAT for gross?
Also, with biofuels, the PROCESSED end product is chemically similar or even identical to conventional hydrocarbon fuels. If you run straight corn oil in your car of COURSE it'll smell like the fryer at the local burger joint, but you don't run straight algae in a jet engine!
Incidentally, have you ever smelled NORMAL jet fuel, or better yet, the EXHAUST from an engine running on it? Jets typically run on a naptha/kerosene blend, which besides being a carcinogen will give you a real bad headache afer a few minutes (unless you're into doing things like snorting tremclad or shoving jiffy markers up your nose or other "fun with fumes" I guess). The exhaust smells similarly unpleasant--almost, but not quite as nice, as deeply inhaling the cloud of black sooty smoke that comes out of the tailpipe of an old diesel truck with fouled injectors.
SO, I'm guessing that it'll perhaps make the airports smell BETTER if algae-derived biofuels become more commonplace. It's also much better than using exotic and/or edible sources, such as coconuts.
Terrorists have persistent habit of breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.
Well, they only do that until the time comes when Allah instructs them to strap on their Jihad vests, step onto crowded buses and blow themselves to smithereens.
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You're right. I'm in Canada and you simply cannot purchase a netbook with Linux on it from the local retail.
This statement is entirely false. they aren't as numerous as the XP models, but they are relatively easy to find--at least where I live. This past weekend I saw an HP netbook running Linux on display and in-stock at a Future Shop store in Calgary. It was the least expensive notebook in stock in the store at that time ($50 cheaper than a nearly identically equipped XP-based netbook, except for SSD instead of traditional drive).
Just look harder. The login screen and desktop were quite obviously not XP--it was much more attractive and modern. However it wasn't immediately evident that it was Linux either--it wasn't mentioned on the product description or in the UI. Casual inspection however revealed that it was indeed Linux (things such as the options available on the login screen).
Another retailer that will often have Linux netbooks in stock are "The Source" (formerly) by Circuit City. InterTan, the parent company of The Source, was once mostly owned by Circuit City, but that stake in InterTan was sold to Bell Canada in the liquidation of C.C's assets (rumours they were being rebranded as "Bell Source" stores as there was no indication Bell bought rights to the Circuit City name).
Of course this is not helpful to American consumers--both retailers only operate in Canada. Interestingly, even though Future Shop is essentially an entirely owned subsidiary of Best Buy (USA), it seems only Future Shop stores are stocking Linux netbooks right now.
I know Apple gets flamed a lot around here by people for not being open enough and forcing developers to release apps through the app store, but I've seen it as an attempt to delay and try to prevent malware on the iPhone.
Really, I doubt that malware prevention is even on Apple's list of reasons for marshaling application development through its App Store. If it is, it's waaaay down the list. It is a marketing decision the way Nintendo exhibited tight control over who published games for the NES, or the way the iPod and iTunes service are tightly integrated and interoperability severely restricted.
Apple's App Store is about image and "synergies" and lock-in and creating a captive market. That is all. Not only does it not prevent malware, it in fact makes it a potentially far more serious problem, because it deliberately creates a monoculture ecosystem. Here are some points to consider:
* Viruses are not limited to platform/os--applications themselves can exhibit unintended vulnerabilities. An iPhone worm (or any mobile malware) isn't likely to be an application--it is more likely to be some malformed message/data packet/URL/etc that has nothing to do with qualifying for distribution via the App store, and more likely than not it will use an exploit in an app than in the iPhone OS as the quality of code in apps is more variable.
* The app store limits choice in apps, so each app is likely to have more market share, providing incentive for malware authors in the form of increased potential exposure.
* Apps in the app store are not vetted for security first and foremost--though I'm sure code quality is a factor, content is first and foremost--if it looks "cool" and is inoffensive and doesn't interfere with Apple's business strategies it can go on the app store over "less cool" alternatives that are more secure.
The app store might prevent most malicious apps from getting on the iPhone, but it won't protect against any other malware...plus, should Apple's app store ever gain some sort of dominance it presents a potentially extremely serious vulnerability to mobile network security.
Closing up the environment is NEVER the solution and almost inevitably leads to some sort of tragic failure. Why build a walled garden to keep it pretty when the vermin can dig under the wall and the seeds of weeds can blow over it with the wind? It is totally clear that the sole reason there hasn't been a major mobile virus outbreak is solely due to marketplace diversity. Even though that marketplace is full of closed players that is because it is young and fragmented. History has shown that such closed strategies promote the development of a dangerous monoculture.
It's refreshing to see that in this pre-shakeout industry that there are viable open-based alternatives like Andriod (and efforts like OpenMoko and Angstrom) fighting for presence. In the PC industry fragmentation gave way to a monoculture because consumers demanded interoperability and that demand was filled by a closed solution at a time when the modern Free software movement was in its infancy in the halls of academia. Now that inevitable demand for interoperability can be met with numerous diverse but interoperable Free solutions.
I thought they "fixed" the brown desktop theme?
These are screenshots of the Alpha version. From my past experience Alpha releases do not change the default theme from that of the previous release. When I set up an Intrepid Alpha system it just used Hardy's desktop. When it upgraded itself to Beta the theme changed to some sort of generic polkadot wallpaper with everything else kept the same. When it went into full release the theme changed to the real Intrepid one.
Wait another month, and by then you'll certainly have your new colour scheme.
Actually, Linus was, as he sometimes is, completely clueless. He's unaware of the fact that filesystem journaling was *NEVER* intended to give better data integrity guarantees than an ext2-crash-fsck cycle
Linus is not clueless in this case. I think it is a case of you misinterpreting the issue he was discussing.
Journaling is, as you say NOT about data integrity/prevention of data loss. That is what RAID and UPSes are for. However, it IS about data CONSISTENCY. Even if a file is overwritten, truncated or otherwise corrupted in a system failure (i.e. loss of data integrity) the journal is supposed to accurately describe things like "file X is Y bytes in length and resides in blocks 1,2,3...." (data/metadata consistency). Why would you update that information before you are sure the data was actually changed? A consistent journal is the WHOLE REASON why you can "alleviate the delay caused by fscking".
Linus rightly pointed out, with a degree of tact that Theo de Raadt would be proud of, that writing meta-data before the actual data is committed to disk is a colossally stupid idea. If the journal doesn't accurately describe the actual data on the drive then what is the point of the journal? In fact, it can be LESS than useless if you implicitly trust the inconsistent journal and have borked data that is never brought to your attention.
Why aren't we Funding this?!
As a matter of fact, the USA was, out of necessity due to restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research in the US, funding so-called "adult stem cell" research almost exclusively, whereas in some other parts of the world the strategy was to "go for the low-hanging fruit" and concentrate on embryonic stem-cell research, to the point that funding for developing non-embryonic sources of pluripotent cells was actually quite neglected.
It has turned out to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it takes a lot of time and effort to get to the point of merely making an "adult stem cell" that could've gone into developing the technology to use the stem cells once you have them. However, on the other hand by pouring research efforts into adult stem-cell development you can secure yourself a much more readily available source of pluripotent cells that is more immune to ethically debatable practices.
In a way, the latter strategy is more forward thinking (even taking ideology/ethics out of the equation). If stem-cell techniques become successful and widespread we'd need a readily available source of raw material. I think it goes without saying (though I'll say it anyways) that supply exceeds demand in terms of sperm availability, however it isn't so convenient for female donors to supply large numbers of viable eggs (to say the least--in fact fertility treatments to trigger ovulation, followed by the procedure to harvest the eggs, is hard enough on patients to do it when trying to conceive--they aren't going to do it just to sell their eggs).
We already have organ donor shortages--thousands die all the time who could've easily lived with a transplant but couldn't locate a donor. Science has given us an option to avoid this problem with stem cells. If we needed embryos for large quantities of stem cells, we'd either have to establish "embryo banks" and try to hire women to be in these "coops" from time to time to suply eggs, or else we'd have to venture further down the road to clone embryos on a mass scale, which is not only ethically questionable but presents problems with genetic degradation.
Sadly, science is tainted by ideology/politics on BOTH sides. Anti-abortionists manage to block valuable research because it uses embryonic tissue, but pro-abortionists and major embryonic researchers are so focused on what to do with the cells that they are neglecting promising alternatives--largely because embryonic research yields faster results and quicker and bigger grants.
Stem-cell research is not the only place this is happening either--with bio-fuel technology US mid-western agribusiness lobbies are grabbing money to use corn as a fuel source despite it being a relatively poor choice, but misguided environmentalists are trying to shut down important bio-fuel research by misstating facts and extending research made on corn-ethanol fuels to ALL biofuels. As a result, bio-fuel technology remains underdeveloped while significant renewable energy sources go unused (everything from agricultural waste like manure to algae to restaurant and retail waste inventory and landfill waste).
It's helpful to know that PGO is the reason the windows version works faster but it raises more questions than it answers:
* What *is* Profile Guided Optimisation (I might know, but for one person like me there are hundreds of others who don't)
* What build would happen to be newer than the CURRENT RELEASE for Fedora? A quick google doesn't doesn't point to an obvious location of a "firefox-pgo" or similar package. Casual users would struggle to find a PGO-built FF package as they would not be standard with their distro, or would be beta/pre-releases of FF 3.1.
* The test was only with Fedora--do any other Linux OSes package FF with PGO enabled as standard?
* How do the 64-bit editions compare? This was a 32-bit only test, and reader's posts aren't very specific. It looks like the only version of FF 3.0.x that IS PGO-built and widely distributed is the 32-bit version, because 64-bit Windows FF is even slower than the Linux version to Javascript from what little is posted.
...and THAT is why Facebook, or big "social networking" websites in general, have any relevance whatsoever.
The Internet, and especially the WWW, were supposed to enable ordinary people to publish their own information without influence and control of "big content providers". It was supposed to be the biggest revolution in publishing since Gutenberg's press--not only were books accessible to the masses, not the masses could publish THEIR OWN information!
What happened to this revolution? The technology is still there, but not only have we not progressed, we've SLID BACKWARDS! We've all abdicated our rights to and responsibilities for our own information to a small handful of very large corporate entities...and then we bitch and moan when those "big content providers" do exactly what we should have expected they'd do with your information--retain it, profit from it, and generally be careless with it.
That's NOT what the 'net was supposed to be about! We were supposed to "rent the pipes" and storage space like we do our phone lines and self-storage garages and then publish our data ourselves. I was thrilled when DSL came to the market here 12 years ago, followed quickly by broadband from the local cable companies. I was able to get internet connectivity 24/7! Now I only needed to "rent the pipe" and I could have even MORE control over how I published by info because I could RUN MY OWN SERVER!
It was looking to me like the dawn of a new era--anyone who wanted to could set up their own little server and run their own websites easier than ever before--the BBS world would be able to move forward from the domain of geeks with extra phone lines and modems to something more graphical and interconnected and "plug and play". People were taking about "internet appliances" and I assumed that as time went on that *two way* appliances would become ubiquitous.
It hasn't happened that way though. There seems to be this insistence that "internet appliances" be one-way client-only devices--merely enhanced TVs and radios where some big network can push information to us as THEY see fit. ISPs have further RESTRICTED the ability to host your own services instead of expanding that ability (primarily because the biggest ISPs are now owned by content publishers). And not only has the old school personal/small community-oriented BBS gone essentially extinct, so have REAL personal websites before they got a chance to really gain traction. We've DEVOLVED from publishing HTML documents on our local ISP's web servers to doing the same on global "web hosts" like Geocities to setting up blogs on global blogging sites to setting up groups on Facebook.
Facebook isn't an ISP, they are yet another traditional media publisher--we give our info away to them and they publish it as they see fit...just as how Old Media works. I suppose I always underestimate people's capacity for laziness or ignorance in this regard. It seems people just don't "get it", or maybe they just don't care. Whatever happened though, the 'net hasn't turned out the way I thought it would, and no amount of changes to the ToS of Facebook or similar sites will fix what is, in my view, the entirely wrong direction for the WWW.
Facebook is specifically for private/personal data.
Holy cow man...turn down the reality distortion field my friend, you'll get a tumor or something.
Facebook has NEVER EVER been intended as a repository for private information. The whole POINT of facebook from the start was to make information PUBLIC!
Do you know where the name Facebook comes from? Universities have a "student directory" like a phone book, just for campus. Often the Student's Union will put a portrait, with the consent of the faculty member or student in question, in the SU Directory. In American universities, and especially "ivy-league" colleges, the SU directory is called a "face book" because it "puts faces to names". Facebook started because a college student took it upon himself to create an on-line version of his school's face book.
Facebook.com started as a directory for one school, then for schools all over the world, then eventually became the social networking site it is today. but the WHOLE POINT of facebook is to MAKE INFORMATION PUBLIC. If you want something kept private why the hell are you not only putting it on the 'net, but storing it on someone else's computer system?
Look, I'm not saying Facebook has the right to do what it wishes with your data once you close an account, or that it has a right to claim ownership of that data and profit from it without your consent, but honestly people...it is YOUR DATA and if you don't want to share it DON'T PUT IT ON A DATA-SHARING WEBSITE!
I think that there should be the right to "undo" publication of your data and be in control of your privacy, but you have to be seriously deluded if you thing a SOCIAL NETWORKING website of any kind is "specifically for private data"! Social networking is the OPPOSITE of private!
Also, counting cards is not illegal in any shape or form.
Counting cards WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF DEVICES is legal. If you can do it in your head, signal to collaborating people what the conditions are, etc. you cannot be charged, but if you are discovered counting cards you can be escorted off the property, as is the right of the private establishment.
However, if you use ANY sort of device, be it mechanical or electronic--even so much as a pad of post-it notes and a pen, you are now not only going to be escorted off the property, you are actually breaking the law and are likely to be arrested.
sooo...you are actually quite wrong when you say counting cards IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM is legal, because it clearly is not--only UNASSISTED counting of cards is legal.
Incidentally, the rule also applies to any gambling activity on the casino, not just card games. Some video slot machines have been known to have a poor pseudo-random algorithm and there have been a couple of cases I know of where mathematically inclined people have noticed this and profited from it. In one case, the casino could not press charges because the person in question actually sat and watched the machine himself for many hours. In another case, a concealed photographic device was used to do the observing and that person was charged and convicted.
...that the worlds most repressive governments are the ones most receptive to using Free/Open Source Software.
Of course, as nice as it would be to think these regimes are adopting Linux because of their new-found interest in freedom and openness, it has more to do with sticking it to the USA. They don't want their "glorious fatherlands" to depend so heavily on a product from those evil capitalists.
I think its great to see an increased adoption of Linux and other Free software, but when it comes to adoption of such technologies by China and Cuba I have some concern. Neither regime has shown any serious concern for the preservation of freedoms and rights, so what makes anyone think they would show any healthy respect for the GPL or any other Free license?
For all the innovation and technology they will freely receive in the creation of their own Linux-based OSes will there always be willingness for them to contribute back any innovations they make themselves? If a popular feature or enhancement is developed in China or Cuba will the source be withheld by their dictatorships due to "security reasons", causing a "communist fork"?
Furthermore, what if closed source material is introduced by communist government developers in blatant disregard of the rules, and the now-tainted source is the subject of a SCO-like lawsuit? Given the track record of them ripping off proprietary western designs in the past, I wouldn't be surprised. I know that there are probably a lot of Free software developers that reside in China and maybe even Cuba and it hasn't yet been a problem...but now Linux is "Official" and the governments will be involved in developments more significant than before.
Software piracy is rampant in Communist countries, and Free software like Linux can be pirated too you know--it's just that its license and copyrights are violated in a different way than for closed software like MSFT Windows. I hope the FSF is as vigilant in keeping these new fans of Linux in line as the BSA is in trying to combat piracy of commercial software like Windows.
Don't listen. Read a real economist instead Here http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
Krugman, as in Paul Krugman, author of "Conscience of a Liberal" and unabashed supported of the welfare state?
Apparently, one isn't a "real economist" unless he holds neo-liberal/social democratic POLITICAL views? I call bovine manure! You're no better than a Fox News commentator spitting "Krugman is parroting Left Wing talking points".
Political, social and economic opinion influence each other but do not dictate each other. Krugman might be in your good books because he is Liberal, but you might not like all his economic stances. He is against rent, wage and price controls, and he considers opposition to global free trade/protectionism as the economic equivalent of opposition to evolutionary theory/support of "creation theory".
Look into Krugman's views on telecom policy in the US. The WSJ article in fact agrees exactly with Krugman. WSJ says the single biggest problem in the US is that there is an effective "Duopoly" and that in many places only one of the two "duopolists" serves the area. Krugman has for years blamed lack of broadband penetration on the botching of the telecom act for protecting incumbent monopolists from competition by treating internet service as a separate service from "telecommunications" in the traditional sense (phone and cable). Krugman himself said the same thing as the WSJ YEARS ago--the root of the problem is that the feds enabled a monopoly to form!
Krugman would absolutely agree with the WSJ that these billions would be pissed away. He advocated one of two solutions:
* regulation whereby telecom companies could not participate in "cross ownership" (owning content like newspapers/tv stations and multiple delivery mechanisms like internet and cable), and ordering the incumbents to provide access to their cable and phone networks at sustainable wholesale rates to ISPs, OR
* breaking up the monopolists, but not like how the RBOCs were formed that just produces a bunch of smaller monopolies. Instead, force companies to sell off some assets where they hold regional monopolies and regulate where needed to preserve at least limited competition in all markets.
Krugman's advocacy of regulation won't win over the "right-wing" but though they might not agree on the solution, I'm willing to bet that Krugman would agree that simply spending billions to build onto a system that is already flawed wouldn't be effective use of money without giving much more thought to the problem.
In Canada, it is pretty much standard operating procedure for for the "government in waiting" to be slagged at all opportunity in some way or another. Most recently a proposed left-wing coalition cooked up to bring down the Tories and take over government was so universally panned that the leader of the coalition had to step down and a replacement hastily appointed by party executives...and that replacement pretty quickly abandoned that party's commitment to the coalition.
Previously, the Tories were outright called "enemies of Canada" (those were exact words used by some campaigners for the at-the-time governing Liberals). At every turn, by political opponents, various editorials, lobby groups, political "institutes" and so on, the Tory campaign platform was picked apart for it faults.
Perhaps its a characteristic of the Westminster system, but it happens quite often, especially leading up to and during election campaigns, where the governing party acts spends more time acting like the opposition rather than government.
That said, I wish that the Canadian version of the Tories had some kind of formal commitment to "open technologies", flawed or otherwise. Right now, only quite socialist NDP members have made any meaningfully supportive statements in that regard, and unfortunately their very unsustainable/unrealistic policies on almost all other (politically "more important") issues means they are not seriously considered by the majority of voters.
Anyways, I don't give much credence to the Fortify study. This firm is a study of vulnerability of source code to security flaws--by a company that produces costly source code analysis and version control tools sold to big closed source development concerns. Reading between the lines it basically suggests that "open source people don't pay us a whole bunch of money to use our stuff, thus their product, like the closed source stuff that is made without our tools, must be dangerously inferior".
My guess is that Fortify is pursuing business leads, directly or indirectly, with the UK government on some big-budget, large scale super IT system based upon proprietary software developed with the use of Fortify's tools, and that the language of the Tories' platform suggests that much of that business is in jeopardy if there is a change in government.
In other news, General Motors says public transit is inflexible and provides inferior service to commuters, and that the governments policy on transportation should shift monies away from mass transit to building wider roads and lowering vehicle taxes.
Are you sure? Have you compared a 33Mhz ARM to a 33Mhz x86 chip? Is the performance that different? There is no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison here, because I don't think anyone makes x86 chips that are as slow as ARM chips.
Well, you can if you have old Intel hardware to compare with. If you do, then you can make at least a "spartan to red-delicious" comparison.
I still have an operational 500MHz Celeron equipped with 256MB of RAM and integrated Intel graphics and sound, manufactured about 10 years ago. The BeagleBoard has awfully similar specs (similar clock speed, rev C will have the same amount of RAM, integrated graphics...). I can already tell you the graphics on the BeagleBoard wins hands down based on demo videos I've seen playing 720p MPEG video and doing decent 3D acceleration. I plan to order a BeagleBoard when Rev C is released for general sale. If I am curious enough I could run Ubuntu on each and perform the same exact tasks on each to gauge performance...
Apart from that, a more proper comparison is difficult, as I don't think the closest X86 equivalent to the CortexA8 (Intel Atom) is available in a system running at the same lower clock rates.
If the CortexA8 platform gains traction, perhaps there is the possibility of TI or other licensees to clock it up into the GHz+ range of the Atom. Also, perhaps it could be implemented in multi-core packages or you could make a cluster (can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beagle...oh, nevermind...). TI's OMAP3530 is not only power efficient but it is inexpensive too. Variants of this OMAP platform could really be a compelling general, low-end computing platform answer to the Atom.
A bus would use the same amount of energy to stop and let 10 people off, as it would to stop and let 1 off.
You refuted your own argument here. This is exactly why buses and trains are inefficient. During peak hours they are great--a full bus has dozens of people being carried by a single vehicle, but half the time buses are LESS than half full. Buses are very large and consume a lot of diesel, so if you can't run them full ALL the time they approach the efficiency of a car.
The "peak load" problem can be solved by either closing or merging routes during non-peak hours (at the expense of customer service/utility of the system), or by running smaller buses and vans when demand is lower (reducing efficiency, increasing capital costs and lowering equipment utilisation)
Also, public transit vehicles have to stop much more often than PRTs--there are a lot more energy savings in a non-stop route. There is no idling, no stopping and no acceleration to waste energy.
Keep in mind that these new PRTs would be automated, which means there is more opportunity to employ energy-saving ideas that cannot be safely done with personal cars driven by humans. For example, pods can follow very close or even join into trains on-the-fly, and can separate on-the-fly as well. If pods are joined into trains, some or most of them could reduce or even shut down power and coast as they cruise--then you get similar or equal efficiency to a bus or train and better flexibility.
but do they really do anything that trains and buses don't?
Yes they have much more utility than trains and buses. Any given train or bus carries a large number of people and there is NEVER a case where every rider on a given train or bus has the same pick-up or drop-off location. Thus, users must wait for a train/bus to arrive at their stop, and then when on-board have to wait at stops at regular intervals throughout their journey.
The "PRT" consists of autonomous "pods" that hods a small number of people, so they have the flexibility of a car. There can be a pod ready to go at a station at the exact time you need it and it can navigate itself to the "collector route", possibly joining up to a train of pods, then disengage from the train to a siding/turnout at the destination, and so the journey is non-stop without disrupting the journey of other commuters.
Part of this flexibility also means that public transit can be designed more efficiently, as right now bus and train routes have to be designed to handle "peak load". You cannot easily shrink or grow a train or a bus, so for a lot of the time you see big vehicles and trains carrying few or no passengers. If you had a PRT consisting of "pods" that could "connect" and/or operate as a train then you could have pods available for public service 24/7, even in relatively low-traffic areas, at a much lower expense and environmental impact.
Transit authorities tend to be closed-shops, so union guys don't like to hear this, but an automated PRT would save a lot of costs of hiring drivers, and eliminate human error factors. Vancouver, BC's "skytrain" is not a PRT but is automated (no drivers) and has the best on-time and reliability of all public transit systems on the whole continent. The skytrain is much safer than most LRTs not only because it is largely not at-grade, but because there are no drivers and the computer system is not able to bypass interlocks (ie. they are not able to speed or run through signals like human drivers have done at times to maintain schedule).
After seeing the video of the proposed Heathrow system's test-run in Cardiff there is another benefit--with today's technology you could modify existing road infrastructures much cheaper than building tracks or monorails. The Heathrow system looks like it operates on what is basically a narrow road with high kerbs. Extending trains can be complex, especially when you have to route tracks underground, above-ground or parallel to roads where existing buildings may need to be demolished.
Also, both at-grade trains and buses must contend with regular traffic. Buses are at the mercy of congestion and traffic lights, and at-grade trains must wait at intersections with the cars at times. Likewise, these systems disrupt regular road traffic.
The future of "PRT" systems might be in "transit lane upgrades". Many cities have transit-only lanes, and implementing an effective PRT might be simply a matter of upgrading physical barriers, over/underpasses at selected intersections and signal wiring/sensors/wireless comms to facilitate automated operation.
Holds a lot of promise if you ask me...
It's a silicon atom. How many particles in that? I guess the author was talking about subatomic particles, right?
Yes. Specifically electrons. The semiconductor is the container part of the quantum dot--silicon atoms are not the particles being contained. The U of A team has achieved the ability to make a quantum dot that is so small it can possibly trap one single atom in a potential well. If you put electrons in their own little "jail cells" one at a time you can control their behavior one at a time without bringing temperatures down to near absolute zero (which is what technology required to this point, as we could only manage to direct or trap dozens to thousands of electrons at a time, and at room temperature they whiz around and bounce off each other--it'd be like dropping a pebble in a pot of boiling water and trying to perceive a ripple).
The summary link isn't totally crap, it does describe in layman's terms what was achieved--they constructed a semiconductor consisting of a tiny potential well locking a single electron PARTICLE within it. This allows for the potential to construct an array of such dots that you could control at room temperature--they can give the trapped electrons a "bump" on one end and the wave of energy could propagate to the other--it would be enough energy to make the electrons "bounce around" in their wells but not enough to make them escape.
Of course, this description is yet more technically inaccurate "crap", because we are talking about quantum mechanics and the quantum dot isn't exactly a physical "vessel" and electrons don't really "bounce" and so on...but that is the gist of what they are talking about. Physically we aren't talking about waves in a pool vs. a fire hose, but it's an analogy for cryin' out loud. Doesn't make it "crap".
For example, with E2007, it is almost a no brainer to set up archiving and retention so incoming and outgoing E-mail is retained as per laws... laws that are a bad thing to break.
Using exchange does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make it easier to be SOX compliant. The default setup of Exchange is NOT SOX compliant--it must be configured that way--and an auditor must examine the set up and approve it as such, just as is the case with Lotus or any of the Free email-and-groupware solutions. As for meeting data retention requirements--well, it is a no-brainer for Lotus admins too. I can even make Citadel meet that particular SOX requirement LITERALLY within minutes.
An OSS product is going to have to not just grok the Exchange 2007 protocol, but be able to support features that Exchange offers
At this point in time, matching MSFT's feature list is a secondary challenge--that can easily be done as has been demonstrated by a number of successful Free software projects. Interoperability is the challenge here, as that is what is REALLY MSFT's "secret sauce". To achieve interoperability either requires governments to lay a smack-down on MSFT such as they cry "uncle" and submit specs, or else a great deal of reverse engineering.
The goal is laudable but strategically speaking: do we really want to focus more OSS efforts to replicate MS protocols and methods?
Yes, insofar as it makes it easier to migrate AWAY from MSFT platforms. Lack of interoperability is what makes Exchange lock-in so effective. If you can inter-operate, you can also migrate. Perhaps success lies in beating MSFT at the embrace, extend and extinguish game.
You have to start somewhere. We'll probably have to wrestle with the intricacies of MSFT's bastardised LDAP/Kerberos/CIFS mashup and the corresponding "impedance mismatch" for awhile but without effort we won't achieve something close enough to perfection.
OpenOffice.org, though far from a market leader yet, is enjoying relative success in very large part because it is sufficiently compatible with legacy MSFT file formats.
Whilst a million enterprises out there shrug their shoulders and think 'why would I want to wrestle with this when I could just go along with the AD stack that I know, trust and my MSCE admins love'
Well, except when that enterprise is compelled to upgrade to the next major release of Windows Server and they have to re-learn how to do various tasks, or they have to deal with changes to policies that the upgrades take upon themselves to make from time to time.
Anyways, that won't be an issue for awhile, as enterprises try to avoid implementing half-baked systems. Developer communities, hobbyists and small businesses will be involved first--in that order. Also, don't underestimate the IT department personnel. Some of them actually WANT to know HOW stuff that they are responsible for actually works, not just how MSFT want s them to point-and-click their way through it. If you can "out cool" MSFT they will embrace change over EXchange.
Similar but not the same - the combination of color/shapes seems to make the pattern recognition for this very reliable and quick.
It seems to me that colour would make the pattern recognition LESS reliable, and using triangles vs. squares wouldn't have noticeable effects either way on reliability. Colour would provide for greater information density, but if you were in certain environments where the ambient light was not white there could be issues unless complementary colours were used---but then if that limitation is in place, why not stick to black and white and use shades of grey (luminance only) to increase density? I think the colour is more of a gimmick.
Another key difference - a QR code stores the data in the code itself, limiting what you can do with it. These Tags are just a GUID or something like it.
That is not particularly innovative--that is what UPC is that supermarkets have used for decades. UPC actually has been used to carry both a key and information--the 1st half of the code carries a product ID and the second half the weight to 5 sig. digits in the case of random-weight products like deli items. Storing actual data vs. lookup REMOVES limits on what you can do with the data, not the opposite. The tradeoff is the limitation in quantity. QR code is just an encoding method--the same concept can be applied using this open standard instead of locked-in systems like MSFT's doomed-to-failure system.
I can see a bunch of useful applications for stuff like this:
- Flight Arrival/Departure Info: tags can be posted at easily visible locations around the airport with a sign "scan here for arrival/departure info".
- Business Cards: You could print a tag (with your vCard associated with it) on your business card. Now for a business contact to get your contact info, all they have to do is scan the tag. No fiddling with data entry on a tiny-ass qwerty to enter a name, phone number, etc.
Neither is a new application. I can already do paperless boarding at the airport where I live. Bar-code and matrix-code readers are widely available that read right off of cellphone screens that are used when staff need to read the boarding pass. Standard cellphones with integrated cameras could be capable of processing bar-codes and matrix-codes with the right software. PCs with webcams can do this with already available software (it is Free software too). As this technology is already deployed throughout many major airports all they'd have to do is put a bar-code or matrix-code in more places.
The business card idea is not new either. Where I worked after finishing at university we were in the industry (data collection integration and automation--bar-code scanning and printing and so forth), and in 1998 we all put bar-codes on the back of our cards that decoded into a URL. It was less useful 10 years ago than it would be today, but if you opened your web browser and used a scanner attached to your PC it would take you to our company web page with our profiles.
In Japan, many smart phones can interpret bar-codes already, and such codes are starting to appear in public places as well. Of course, US and Canada are 3rd world nations from a telecommunications services standpoint, so it is less forthcoming.
Anyways, I think codes on business cards are of limited utility, why bother with a piece of paper when you can beam v-card data between cellphones directly? The future is more like the airport scenario:
* put a code on the bus stop sign to bring up the schedule and ETA of next bus at that stop (where I live there are already 4-digit number codes you can text to the transit authority to get the info, but snapping a picture might be easier, especially when it's cold and hard to type with gloves on)
* put a code on realtor signs so if you are house hunting and see a house for sale, you can pull over and click a picture of the sign and g
If you can smell something outside the cabin of a pressurized airplane
When you are boarding the plane, or have boarded the plane and it is waiting for takeoff (when the cabin isn't pressurised, you CAN smell the exhaust. Especially when you are on regional flights on small aircraft, when you board from the tarmac instead of the skybridge and you are downwind from the exhaust of a running engine.
Thus far, I have yet to see an "iPhone killer" do anything of the sort.
Personally, I can't understand why the iPhone is considered "immortal" and the one to beat. I've had a chance to use it and I'm sorry--the ONLY thing it is the best at is looking pretty. Otherwise there are numerous things about the iPhone that totally turn me off
* The total control-freakishness of Apple since its release was a bad first impression for me. It was locked to one US-only provider, and wouldn't work here in Canada unless you hacked it or waited for the 3G version that would be locked onto Rogers (AT&T doesn't operate here so you have to use it on Rogers network). Then API docs weren't forthcoming upon its release and even now that there are some docs out there Apple continues to exert dictatorial control over the apps store. The "walled garden" is distasteful to me. I want to be able to connect to other devices and run apps that *I* want to use, not what someone else LETS me use.
* The stupid thing is so glossy and slippery and poorly shaped to use as an actual phone that you can drop it far more easily than most other phones. It looks to be amongst the most easily scratched too. Those characteristics are totally useless apart from making it look pretty--and for all the shiny effort most people put some kind of gaudy cover on it anyways.
* It's too hard to type on the touchscreen. Ladies with longer fingernails almost can't use it at all, and men with large fingers can have quite a hard time with typos. It has all the tactile feedback of typing on an old Sinclair ZX81. I've seen nothing yet that can replace actual keys, thought RIM's Blackberry Storm at least has a touchscreen keyboard with tactile feedback (still I prefer their keyboard models). I know multi-touch is "sexy", but I'm not entirely sure it is worth the tradeoff of not being able to use a stylus or fingernails as a pointer option. If you can't do it without a capacitive screen then maybe you should wait until you can before using it on such a small display.
* More from-over-function gripes: In its efforts to make the iPhone "slim and sexy" it lacks a user-serviceable battery. I HATE that! My phones have ALWAYS outlived the useful life of their batteries. It is planned obsolescence at its most annoying.
Anyways, enough slagging the iPhone--it IS pretty, and it does have the best web browser, a HUGELY superior interface to Windows Moile and is a decent phone overall. But "hard to kill"? Hardly. I think even an unassuming mobile device in a clamshell or slider design that provides a decent alphanumeric keypad and with sufficient processing power could wipe the floor with the iPhone. I think this new Palm has a good shot, if its GUI lives up to Palm's hype, because it is that OP with the slick UI that is the sole reason for iPhones SUSTAINED success (The Jobsian hype machine can only take credit for the insanely-great launch).
Once you deforest an area, or cut it down to grow crops, you've permanently released that carbon to the atmosphere - You're taking an existing carbon sink and destroying it.
This is actually in most cases quite false. Old growth forests are generally "carbon neutral" and commonly can even be net carbon PRODUCERS. This is because there is a very large volume of biomass in these forests that is decomposing or otherwise not involved in photosynthesis, relative to new growth that acts as a carbon sink.
Though clearing an old rain forest is a bad idea, doing so would NOT "destroy a carbon sink".
net neutral except for the energy put into growing the crops (unless you chopped down a forest to create the farm land in the first place).
Depending on what is done with the biomass removed with the deforestation, and on the nature of the forest being removed, farmed crops can actually be BETTER carbon sinks than the forests they replaced.
The fact that most ethanol comes from low-yield sources like corn today, competing with food crops, is worrying.
Scientifically speaking, it is indeed a problem. The reason corn is given so much attention:
1. In the US corn has long been made into a substance that is already very nearly a viable fuel (whiskey of course ;-). As inefficient as it is, the process to make corn ethanol for biofuel is thus old, proven and relatively simple compared to other biofuels (simply a matter of more distillation and purification when you think about it).
2. The US produces FAR more corn than it needs for food, so much so that they can't even use it up on frivolous agri-food applications (such as breading chicken nuggets and fish sticks and making corn dogs). Starving children in Africa could eat it I suppose, but they can't pay for it and there are political and practical hurdles getting it to them. So, to make demand match or slightly surpass supply some "tall foreheads" got together and came up with the idea of promoting it for biofuel use. That way, new demand will keep corn prices high enough so that corn farmers can make a living.
3. So, why not just tell the corn farmers to grow something else or even find another line of work if they are growing too much corn? POLITICS. The US heartland is "corn country". It's human nature to not want to change...plus change can bring hardship, at least for the short term. Just try to tell a politician to cut loose powerful lobbyists and huge numbers of voting farming communities from corn subsidies and tell them they just have to find something else to do and care about. Obama might be your next great hope, but he's still a politician and don't be so deluded as to think that he will not pander to some of his core supporters. Furthermore, though corn-derived biofuel in particular is NOT "green" (which I take to mean more energy efficient), biofuel technology IS a "green technology" with promise. Because of that, subsidies to farmers can be buried in "green legislation" as a way to hide them from those like the boards of WTO and NAFTA who fight over unfair subsidies and other trade practices. Corn Fuel is still Good Politics, even if it is of limited environmental (or even economic) benefit.
and to JUST FEED the traffic from EWR/JFK you would need to convert most of northern NJ into one giant goo pile.
Not really a PILE--probably a nice thick coat of algae, but not a PILE. Besides, why would you bother covering New Jersey in it when you could grow it in the ocean or in lakes? Comparatively speaking the area of NJ is microscopic when you consider how much surface of the earth is covered in water. Not only that, you can grow it in "3D", so you can grow thousands of percent more Algae per acre of SURFACE than you could, say, CORN--that "darling" of the biofuel industry.
Due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested inherent to biofuels, you can't really make the stuff too far from its point of use, as the transport of the material would exceed its energy value.
I've heard, in fact, that Algae biofuel is MORE THAN 3000 PERCENT MORE ENERGY DENSE THAN CORN ETHANOL. Even myths about corn ethanol taking more energy to produce than it provides has been dispelled (though corn ethanol IS only a fraction as efficient as petroleum fuel and thus not a good alternative). As a matter of fact, if you set aside an area of ocean near the shore about the size of NJ, not only would it produce enough jet fuel to feed EWR/JFK traffic--it would be enough to fuel ALL FLIGHTS AND AUTOMOTIVE TRAFFIC IN THE UNITED STATES.
The problem with algae fuel isn't growing the stuff (supply far exceed demand--it is often the byproduct of water pollution), or how much energy it provides (quite a lot in fact). The problem is that until now almost nothing has been invested in refining the stuff--virtually all the fuel refineries in the world are designed to refine "dead dinosaur residue". he refining infrastructure investment requirement to process that much algae is MASSIVE, which is the single biggest reason we don't all run our cars on algae today.
I suggest you move to where you like to live, so you can plan out your future, because in a few short decades, you're not going anywhere cheaply or quickly.
Thanks for the advice, Chicken Little, I'll take it under advisement.
Of course, our society is extremely wasteful and energy inefficient right now when compared to potential, so ignoring efforts in reducing energy use overall perhaps the sky will indeed fall. However, nothing of the sort will happen as we learn to do everything more efficiently.
Eew. Algae. What's next, a flight powered by athlete's foot?
You don't EAT the damn stuff dude, you burn it! Who the hell CARES what it's made of? Sure seems like a lot less trouble and easier on the earth than digging deep into the earth and dredging up old dead dinosaurs to burn.
I'm also hoping it shuts up the idiots who jump up and down yelling "but how will we feed the children?!?!" whenever someone advocates biofuels. BIO in biofuels does NOT equal FOOD. If I recall, algal blooms are in OVERabundance due to human activity (our detergents ending up in water and supplying phosphates to grow the stuff in excess--tainting our water and killing fish, etc). Seems like an elegant solution to me.
Athletes foot wouldn't be next, but I can thing of another abundant biofuel source that we have a hard time eliminating and that nobody would eat: fecal waste. Everything from poultry litter and cow manure to even human sewerage. How is THAT for gross?
Also, with biofuels, the PROCESSED end product is chemically similar or even identical to conventional hydrocarbon fuels. If you run straight corn oil in your car of COURSE it'll smell like the fryer at the local burger joint, but you don't run straight algae in a jet engine!
Incidentally, have you ever smelled NORMAL jet fuel, or better yet, the EXHAUST from an engine running on it? Jets typically run on a naptha/kerosene blend, which besides being a carcinogen will give you a real bad headache afer a few minutes (unless you're into doing things like snorting tremclad or shoving jiffy markers up your nose or other "fun with fumes" I guess). The exhaust smells similarly unpleasant--almost, but not quite as nice, as deeply inhaling the cloud of black sooty smoke that comes out of the tailpipe of an old diesel truck with fouled injectors.
SO, I'm guessing that it'll perhaps make the airports smell BETTER if algae-derived biofuels become more commonplace. It's also much better than using exotic and/or edible sources, such as coconuts.
Terrorists have persistent habit of breathing in oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide.
Well, they only do that until the time comes when Allah instructs them to strap on their Jihad vests, step onto crowded buses and blow themselves to smithereens.