Did anyone else notice that the MS Excel chart images in the story have a digital watermark saying, "This version of MS Excel is licensed to Michael Hodges.".
I guess that this would make our friend and article author Stephen Granade a bit of a hippocrit since MS Excel is not abandonware!
The article defines nanotubes to be "...These cylinders can be a few microns or even millimeters long, with a diameter of the order of a nanometer..."
What gives? How is a 10 um diameter tube a nanotube? Maybe I misread something. Please clarify! I've seen carbon fibers that were on the order of 10 um across.
You hit the nail on the head, sheckard, about how Microsoft might distribute a version of Linux. I don't think, however, that it ever will.
Many of the people posting to this story seem to be implying that MS is just plain evil and they will do anything in their power to close up open-source. That is plain and simply not true. MS in a large corporation that is in the business of making $$$$. Nothing more, nothing less. If MS begins to lose significiant market share to Linux, then the situation in the story may come true.
Personally, I feel that the amount of market share lost to Linux in the desktop/server OS market will not be significant compared to the amount of potential market share to be gained in the areas of portable devices.
Face it, the desktop OS has peaked in usefullness. Finally, computing is cheap enough to start putting the computers into stereos, phones, refridgerators... This will be the new market that MS tries to get a piece of. I would not be surprised if Linux does gain a significant portion of the desktop market. By then, MS would have their OS and apps running on everything else. The.net strategy isn't intended with only desktop systems in mind. They are going to use it to sync up your car,home, and portable stereos, or to sync up your refrigerator, bank account, and grocery store order....things like that.
aesthetic 1: of, relating to, or dealing with aesthetics or the beautiful 2 : appreciative of, responsive to, or zealous about the beautiful; also : responsive to
or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses
How in the heck is this an aesthetic move for AOL?
As you probably know, MathML isn't meant to be written manually. If you could get a good MathML generator, then using a MathML enabled browser such as Mozilla (Linux, Windows, or whatever) or a Amaya (Linux) might provide a good solution. However, you will lose the 'ease of creating' that PowerPoint provides.
If you are fluent in LaTeX, than using ttm (TeX to MathML) is a nice way to generate pages.
tth (TeX to HTML) is a nice program, but I wouldn't recommend it since it uses HTML tables to render complicated equation. Doing such can make for ugly equations.
On a side note, if you do use Mozilla, make sure that you download a MathML enabled binary, or that you enable it from the source. I don't think that MathML comes on the default download.
Here's my reasoning why all universities will develop online verisions of their degrees: From a marketing standpoint, now universities can make money off of poeple who they never could before. If you live in another part of the country or in another country, you can now take courses and pay university tuition. Expanding markets is a basic business strategy and I've never seen a clearer example of it than online universities.
At Michigan State University, there is a 'virtual university' which seems more like marketing hoopla than an actual university. I think that most univeristies' programs will be this way because the administrators realize it's a good money maker, but the faculty are slow to implement it.
To stray back on-topic... If possible, I'd recommend going part time to a real university. Don't take things like interactions with professors or other students for granted. Faculty are all wizards in their own realms of whatever and are valuable resources if you ever need to know about whatever. Students will share many common interests with you, more importantly, they will share homework answers with you.
After thinking about it for a while today, tie_guy_matt, I realized that the my reply made me sound like a jerk. I got excited that this story was about titanium and your comments was about sapphire. I was hunting for somewhere to step in and state my knowledge.
I hate when someone replies to one of my own comments trying to discredit it with other facts. I realize now that I was doing this to you and for that I am sorry. In the future I will try to think of nicer ways to reply to other people's comments. Instead of 'as a matter of fact...' I could say 'in addition to...' or something.
What you say about the sapphire missile lens is truly interesting and even amazing (because sapphire is so hard to make).
Finally, your grammar was up to snuff in your first comment, but in your second you should have said, "With all due respect...". Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Dear 1010011010, Please back up your comments in the future. You say that titanium is as strong as steel, but the fact is that steel is stronger in a tensile tests with the same cross sectional area. Indeed titanium is lighter than steel, but you claim that it is twice as strong as aluminum. If you compare tensile strength-to-weight ratios, than aluminum comes out the winner.
The way that I think of it is this from heaviest to lightest Steel-titanium-aluminum. From designed strength highest to lowest, Steel-titanium-aluminum. However, the strength-to-weight ratio from highest to lowest goes like this: aluminum-titanium-steel.
I did enjoy the nice selection of links which you provided with your comment. Thank you indeed.
I'm not exactly sure why my above post got moderated as a troll. Come on, even a troll couldn't come up with stuff that sounded so good. I assure you that it's all true.
Normally mis-moderations don't bother me, but in this case it affects the credibility of what I am saying... ...there I'm done whining now.
Titanium isn't a superstrong superlight alloy- On the periodic table, as you move up and to the left, the solid elements have an increasing strength-to-weight ratio. This means that Beryllium is the lightest/strongest metal for practical use. Aluminum even has a higher tensile strength-to-weight ratio than titanium. Why isn't aluminum considered a ubermetal, similar to titanium? I think it is. One problem with aluminum is that it fatigues when it flexes. This is why aluminum bicycles have thick thin-walled tubes, so they can't flex. When properly designed, aluminum will provide a better strength-to-weight ratio than titanium.
Titanium will always be harder to work with than aluminum- Aluminum is lightweight and easy to work with. The industry has over 50 years of experience working with aluminum, whereas they have 30 years of good experience with titanium. Commercial products (golf clubs, bicycles) didn't start using titanium until the '80s and the decline of the Cold War, when the military-fed companies had to start selling to the civilian industry. Even after titanium knowledge gets closer to what we know about aluminum, we will continue to push aluminum, since it is cheaper and softer (i.e. cheaper to work with).
Titanium does have great properties- Did you ever wonder why many titanium bicycles don't have any paint? There's no paint because they don't need any, titanium is one of the least reactive metals there is (ironically, this is what makes it hard to process, too). So, where other metals have to be painted to reacted to prevent corrosion, titanium is fine as it is. This property also makes titanium nice for biological applications (bones, valves, etc.). Another nice property of titanium is its resilience. Titanium has a relatively large linear elastic strain region, i.e. it's very springy. This is what makes titanium great for bicycle seat rails, but not neccessarily bicycle frames (unless you like the wet-noodle feeling on a bike). Before you flame me, realize that good design prevents this.
Titanium may become cheaper than steel- I wish someone else would have pointed this out. Now that they can process titanium in one step, it may have a chance to compete with steel. Since we have been forming steel since the middle ages, it has a long way to go, but due to its strength-to-weight properties, corrosion resistance, and resiliance it could easily surpase Steel as the cheap standard metal. Perhaps the lack of painting on titanium can make up for its higher temperature (higher temp->more energy->more $$$) of processing. Since it would have a higher working temperature I could easily see it being used in engines and buildings. Ti's resilience may create for very Earthquake proof/fire proof buildings. If you talk to someone who works with Ti, they will say that it is too funky to machine and work with, it's resilience fights back against the machinist. I think that the machinists need to get used to the metal and that is all.
If you read all the way to the end of this, now you'll see the good part- Titanium has many applications in the area of nanotechnology. TiNi has shape-memory properties which means that you can do cool stuff with it. For example, I've stretched TiNi Super-elastic wire. Basically, it was a wire that stretched similar to a rubber band. Also, by alternating thin layers of TiNi on the surfaces of other metals you can create various thermal strains and stresses due to thermal expansion anisotropy. A practical application of this are new forceps used in brain surgery. A human hair is ~100-300 microns in diameter, while these forceps are ~0.6-1 microns in diameter. Brain surgens use these to hold brain neurons while performing surgery.
I think that is amazing. Just in case you were wondering what a grammar nazi knows about Materials Science, don't.
Sapphire is the only material that
passes the IR used for such missiles and is strong enough to survive on the end of a missile that is going much faster than
the speed of sound.
I may be the grammar nazi, but I my Master's degree is in ceramic engineering and I'm afraid I'm going to have to correct that statement. The government must have two materials in use at the missile tips, the other being MgF (called IRTrans). My thesis was about IRTrans, and although it is not transparent to visible light, it is nearly transparent to IR light and it is also very strong. Since it exists in a glassy state (as opposed to Sapphire), it's cheaper to produce than Al2O3. To be honest I have never even heard of Sapphire IR lenses. My research was funded by the dept. of Defence and the only IR lenses we worked with were MgF (IRTrans).
toofast, I agree with your categorizations in theory/philosphy, but not practically.
Merging RedHat and Corel would be difficult. It would be about the same difficulty as merging Debian and Slackware. Although the philosophies behind you categories seem to make sense, in reality Corel is based upon Debian and Redhat was the basis for TurboLinux and Mandrake. Ideally a categorization would divide between RedHat and Debian distributions, but again this would be difficult due to the differing philosphies amongst Debian and Corel users as well as differing philosphies in the 'RedHat group'.
Furthermore, I think that there should be a basic distribution added to the list. Such a distribution would include a basic kernel as well as the libraries to recompile the kernel, a shell and a set of shell commands. Currently, a basic distribution goes against the philosophies of many companies (more is better), but I'm sure that such a distro already exists or would be easy to create.
I know that I left Slackware off of this list, but in all honesty, I don't know anything about the Slackware distribution. Could someone enlighten me as to where Slackware fits into my line of thought?
Although you are correct Anonymous Coward, please consider this:
If any one distro gains too much market share, what's to keep it from adding more 'features' and breaking the compatibility. When a distribution's revinue model is service oriented (as recent RedHat models are), then slight incompatibilities = higher revenue. Due to better service plans and more service calls.
I use Redhat and I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying that when it comes to business everything is driven by the 'al ighty ollar' (Simpson's reference for the Simpson's-impaired folk).
If you, Ravagin, are going to ask the question, "Should Linux ever be ported to the Palm?" Then you should also ask
Why Should I put a bigger engine in my car when the speed limit isn't more than 70mph?
Why do I need an SUV, when a station wagon would suffice?
Why would you put an expensive sound system in your car, when it would clearly sound better in a home theater?
The first inventor of an Assembler got into trouble for waisting computer processing time by converting assembly language into machine code instead of having a programmer do it. His boss probably asked the question "Why should the computer generate it's own machine code?"
Things change. Portable devices will become both powerful and mainstream. Voice recognition will do away with the need slowly scribble on your palm.
Personally, I hope that we get a version of Linux working on the Palm soon, before WindowsCE becomes the only mainstream
interface. In the mean time, getting something such as Linux up and running on different devices is fun. I don't get out much, but soldering and rewiring my Iopener was fun. I'm looking forward to declawing my:cue:cat:, even though I will never use it for anything practical.
Overall, I think that this whole thing is rather poopy. I like Corel and I even like Microsoft a little bit, but I feel that competition is very important.
It's nice to hear about your background. I already new that all of the Slashdot editors were biased. The reason that I read Slashdot is because we all have, pretty much, the same biases.
Let this be a warning for you to WATCH YOUR GRAMMAR! There is no faster way to lose people's respect or sound unintelligent than to form bad sentences and misspell words.
Now, about that New York beer invitation, thanks but I'm not living there yet. Do you have any ideas where a mid-westerner such as myself can find gainful employment in NYC? I'm already working Monster.com and Hotjobs.com. Any other suggestions? What about living? Where is the techiest place to live in or near New York City?
Although the iBooks are nice looking computers that do have a good purpose. The do not have as much utility as a Powerbook. For example, there is no Svideo or SVGA outputs on a iBook, but there are on a Powerbook.
I agree with clare-ents. I have an Iopener that with a 2GB laptop drive. I had to literally squeeze the harddrive as I pushed and screwed the case closed. I carry the Iopener back and forth all of the time to class, to the office, and home and nothing has ever happened to the drive.
Slashdot Mirror
them: You are very good at chess. Therefore, you must be cheating.
us: What proof do you have that I'm cheating?
them: You are very good, therefore you MUST be cheating.
I guess that this would make our friend and article author Stephen Granade a bit of a hippocrit since MS Excel is not abandonware!
What gives? How is a 10 um diameter tube a nanotube? Maybe I misread something. Please clarify! I've seen carbon fibers that were on the order of 10 um across.
Many of the people posting to this story seem to be implying that MS is just plain evil and they will do anything in their power to close up open-source. That is plain and simply not true. MS in a large corporation that is in the business of making $$$$. Nothing more, nothing less. If MS begins to lose significiant market share to Linux, then the situation in the story may come true.
Personally, I feel that the amount of market share lost to Linux in the desktop/server OS market will not be significant compared to the amount of potential market share to be gained in the areas of portable devices.
Face it, the desktop OS has peaked in usefullness. Finally, computing is cheap enough to start putting the computers into stereos, phones, refridgerators... This will be the new market that MS tries to get a piece of. I would not be surprised if Linux does gain a significant portion of the desktop market. By then, MS would have their OS and apps running on everything else. The .net strategy isn't intended with only desktop systems in mind. They are going to use it to sync up your car,home, and portable stereos, or to sync up your refrigerator, bank account, and grocery store order....things like that.
Although, eventually the URI will be too long to enter into a browser's address box.
I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you bazxissimo.
1: of, relating to, or dealing with aesthetics or the beautiful
2 : appreciative of, responsive to, or zealous about the beautiful; also : responsive to or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses
How in the heck is this an aesthetic move for AOL?
If you are fluent in LaTeX, than using ttm (TeX to MathML) is a nice way to generate pages.
tth (TeX to HTML) is a nice program, but I wouldn't recommend it since it uses HTML tables to render complicated equation. Doing such can make for ugly equations.
On a side note, if you do use Mozilla, make sure that you download a MathML enabled binary, or that you enable it from the source. I don't think that MathML comes on the default download.
Alright, I'm going to get some facts from books and then I'll put them here. Tonight, I promise.
From a marketing standpoint, now universities can make money off of poeple who they never could before. If you live in another part of the country or in another country, you can now take courses and pay university tuition. Expanding markets is a basic business strategy and I've never seen a clearer example of it than online universities.
At Michigan State University, there is a 'virtual university' which seems more like marketing hoopla than an actual university. I think that most univeristies' programs will be this way because the administrators realize it's a good money maker, but the faculty are slow to implement it.
To stray back on-topic... If possible, I'd recommend going part time to a real university. Don't take things like interactions with professors or other students for granted. Faculty are all wizards in their own realms of whatever and are valuable resources if you ever need to know about whatever. Students will share many common interests with you, more importantly, they will share homework answers with you.
I hate when someone replies to one of my own comments trying to discredit it with other facts. I realize now that I was doing this to you and for that I am sorry. In the future I will try to think of nicer ways to reply to other people's comments. Instead of 'as a matter of fact...' I could say 'in addition to...' or something.
What you say about the sapphire missile lens is truly interesting and even amazing (because sapphire is so hard to make).
Finally, your grammar was up to snuff in your first comment, but in your second you should have said, "With all due respect...". Sorry, I couldn't resist.
The way that I think of it is this from heaviest to lightest Steel-titanium-aluminum. From designed strength highest to lowest, Steel-titanium-aluminum. However, the strength-to-weight ratio from highest to lowest goes like this: aluminum-titanium-steel.
I did enjoy the nice selection of links which you provided with your comment. Thank you indeed.
Normally mis-moderations don't bother me, but in this case it affects the credibility of what I am saying...
...there I'm done whining now.
Here are a few more facts about Titanium:
Titanium isn't a superstrong superlight alloy- On the periodic table, as you move up and to the left, the solid elements have an increasing strength-to-weight ratio. This means that Beryllium is the lightest/strongest metal for practical use. Aluminum even has a higher tensile strength-to-weight ratio than titanium. Why isn't aluminum considered a ubermetal, similar to titanium? I think it is. One problem with aluminum is that it fatigues when it flexes. This is why aluminum bicycles have thick thin-walled tubes, so they can't flex. When properly designed, aluminum will provide a better strength-to-weight ratio than titanium.
Titanium will always be harder to work with than aluminum- Aluminum is lightweight and easy to work with. The industry has over 50 years of experience working with aluminum, whereas they have 30 years of good experience with titanium. Commercial products (golf clubs, bicycles) didn't start using titanium until the '80s and the decline of the Cold War, when the military-fed companies had to start selling to the civilian industry. Even after titanium knowledge gets closer to what we know about aluminum, we will continue to push aluminum, since it is cheaper and softer (i.e. cheaper to work with).
Titanium does have great properties- Did you ever wonder why many titanium bicycles don't have any paint? There's no paint because they don't need any, titanium is one of the least reactive metals there is (ironically, this is what makes it hard to process, too). So, where other metals have to be painted to reacted to prevent corrosion, titanium is fine as it is. This property also makes titanium nice for biological applications (bones, valves, etc.).
Another nice property of titanium is its resilience. Titanium has a relatively large linear elastic strain region, i.e. it's very springy. This is what makes titanium great for bicycle seat rails, but not neccessarily bicycle frames (unless you like the wet-noodle feeling on a bike). Before you flame me, realize that good design prevents this.
Titanium may become cheaper than steel- I wish someone else would have pointed this out. Now that they can process titanium in one step, it may have a chance to compete with steel. Since we have been forming steel since the middle ages, it has a long way to go, but due to its strength-to-weight properties, corrosion resistance, and resiliance it could easily surpase Steel as the cheap standard metal. Perhaps the lack of painting on titanium can make up for its higher temperature (higher temp->more energy->more $$$) of processing. Since it would have a higher working temperature I could easily see it being used in engines and buildings. Ti's resilience may create for very Earthquake proof/fire proof buildings. If you talk to someone who works with Ti, they will say that it is too funky to machine and work with, it's resilience fights back against the machinist. I think that the machinists need to get used to the metal and that is all.
If you read all the way to the end of this, now you'll see the good part- Titanium has many applications in the area of nanotechnology. TiNi has shape-memory properties which means that you can do cool stuff with it. For example, I've stretched TiNi Super-elastic wire. Basically, it was a wire that stretched similar to a rubber band. Also, by alternating thin layers of TiNi on the surfaces of other metals you can create various thermal strains and stresses due to thermal expansion anisotropy. A practical application of this are new forceps used in brain surgery. A human hair is ~100-300 microns in diameter, while these forceps are ~0.6-1 microns in diameter. Brain surgens use these to hold brain neurons while performing surgery.
I think that is amazing. Just in case you were wondering what a grammar nazi knows about Materials Science, don't.
Merging RedHat and Corel would be difficult. It would be about the same difficulty as merging Debian and Slackware. Although the philosophies behind you categories seem to make sense, in reality Corel is based upon Debian and Redhat was the basis for TurboLinux and Mandrake. Ideally a categorization would divide between RedHat and Debian distributions, but again this would be difficult due to the differing philosphies amongst Debian and Corel users as well as differing philosphies in the 'RedHat group'.
Furthermore, I think that there should be a basic distribution added to the list. Such a distribution would include a basic kernel as well as the libraries to recompile the kernel, a shell and a set of shell commands. Currently, a basic distribution goes against the philosophies of many companies (more is better), but I'm sure that such a distro already exists or would be easy to create.
I know that I left Slackware off of this list, but in all honesty, I don't know anything about the Slackware distribution. Could someone enlighten me as to where Slackware fits into my line of thought?
If any one distro gains too much market share, what's to keep it from adding more 'features' and breaking the compatibility. When a distribution's revinue model is service oriented (as recent RedHat models are), then slight incompatibilities = higher revenue. Due to better service plans and more service calls.
I use Redhat and I'm not bashing them. I'm just saying that when it comes to business everything is driven by the 'al ighty ollar' (Simpson's reference for the Simpson's-impaired folk).
yeap. I meant Linus. Sorry, I didn't preview due to the possibility of first post.
Isn't the Reiser File System the most advanced of the journaling file systems? Linux already stated that it would NOT make it into the 2.4 kernel.
Why Should I put a bigger engine in my car when the speed limit isn't more than 70mph?
Why do I need an SUV, when a station wagon would suffice?
Why would you put an expensive sound system in your car, when it would clearly sound better in a home theater?
The first inventor of an Assembler got into trouble for waisting computer processing time by converting assembly language into machine code instead of having a programmer do it. His boss probably asked the question "Why should the computer generate it's own machine code?"
Things change. Portable devices will become both powerful and mainstream. Voice recognition will do away with the need slowly scribble on your palm.
Personally, I hope that we get a version of Linux working on the Palm soon, before WindowsCE becomes the only mainstream interface. In the mean time, getting something such as Linux up and running on different devices is fun. I don't get out much, but soldering and rewiring my Iopener was fun. I'm looking forward to declawing my :cue:cat:, even though I will never use it for anything practical.
Let this be a warning for you to WATCH YOUR GRAMMAR! There is no faster way to lose people's respect or sound unintelligent than to form bad sentences and misspell words.
Now, about that New York beer invitation, thanks but I'm not living there yet. Do you have any ideas where a mid-westerner such as myself can find gainful employment in NYC? I'm already working Monster.com and Hotjobs.com. Any other suggestions? What about living? Where is the techiest place to live in or near New York City?
Although the iBooks are nice looking computers that do have a good purpose. The do not have as much utility as a Powerbook. For example, there is no Svideo or SVGA outputs on a iBook, but there are on a Powerbook.
Am I missing a pun or is Halloween very badly spelled? Please correct it.
I agree with clare-ents. I have an Iopener that with a 2GB laptop drive. I had to literally squeeze the harddrive as I pushed and screwed the case closed. I carry the Iopener back and forth all of the time to class, to the office, and home and nothing has ever happened to the drive.