While it's impressive that the Japanese have reached an incredible 581 km/h on their maglev trains, it's not a practical design for one reason: their maglev requires cryogenic cooling for the magnets to run in superconducting mode so the train can move. Installing cryrogenic cooling systems drastically increases the cost of the train, not to mention adding a good hunk of deadweight that could otherwise be used for carrying passengers and/or cargo.
A better solution is to use the permanent magnet system that was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory a few years ago. Since the LLNL system doesn't need cryrogenically-cooled magnets, that allows for lower train weight, which means more passengers and/or cargo carried. Also, the construction cost per kilometer is quite a bit lower, too. Sure, the LLNL system limits the train to around 500 km/h (310 mph) but that's still way faster than any steel-wheel train in revenue service (that 320 mph test run on the French TGV system some years ago is totally impractical in everyday service).
Actually, Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave predicted this 24 years ago. Back then, VCR's were starting to become popular and one of what his predictions was that as VCR's become more popular they would effectively make the whole idea of prime time useless, since people now can record their favorite shows to watch at a much later time. Why do you think David Letterman became well-known as the popularity of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC coincided with the fast rise in the popularity of VCR's?
I think that TV advertisers started getting scared when VCR's got the ability to do visual fast forward/reverse, which allows VCR users to skip through commercial breaks very quickly anyway. It got worse when VCR's in recent years got the ability to skip through tape in one minute or 30-second increments (my Mitsubishi HS-U595 VCR can fast-forward through the tape in 30-second increments from 30 seconds to three minutes).
Using this ability, you notice how much shorter the actual shows are nowadays, to say the least.
New Zealand has all the right to be very proud of Peter Jackson's magnum opus.
After all, we are talking perhaps the most expensive and complex project in the history of motion pictures, one that would have cost 70 to 100 percent more if it had been done in the USA or the UK. The fact just the box office revenues from The Fellowship of the Ring more than covered the cost of the entire project (and then some! =) ) means New Zealand should be proud to be the place where one of the most profitable movie projects in history was made.
We don't need to worry about cashiers checking if a person is 18 because there is already a system in place to check for age requirements, namely the minimum age in the USA to buy cigarettes (18) and alcoholic beverages (21). If convenience stores and liquor stores can implement this they can sure implement this in stores selling video games.
I believe that the first application Intel will use on the 90nm process is the Prescott-core CPU, the replacement for the Pentium 4. My guess is that Intel will call this new chip the Pentium 5 when it is officially unveiled early in 2004.
Maybe this is the reason why haven't seen Service Pack 2 for Windows XP or Service Pack 5 for Windows 2000--they will incorporate new code that will take full advantage of the additional multimedia instructions offered by the Prescott-core processor.
Re:Here's a way better solution.
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
Let me answer your concerns.
First, when writer Bill Sweetman mentioned in his Popular Science article from 2002 about Gulfstream seriously studying a quieter SST, Sweetman mentioned specifically that one of the possible engine choices for this new SST is an engine that uses the Rolls-Royce Trent engine core but with a completely new front fan and possibly an afterburner in the rear. Given Rolls-Royce's success in quieting down the Trent 895 engine on the Boeing 777-200ER using a very carefully-shaped engine nacelle design, they could apply that same research into a pretty quiet SST engine. Besides, by limiting the plane's top speed to Mach 1.7 the level of afterburning needed to keep up this speed is smaller than what you need for Mach 2.0 operation, and that also reduces noise emissions, too.
Secondly, if the plane is unusually shaped (in order to handle the sonic boom problem) the use of modern fly-by-wire systems will make handling of such a plane safe for today's pilots. After all, if Lockheed can make the not-very aerodynamic F-117A Nighthawk fly in a stable fashion with FBW, a sonic boom-reducing SST with FBW is easily designed.
Re:Remember the Sonic Cruiser?
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
I think Boeing shelved the Sonic Cruiser because the plane's radical design (which meant the plane's structural components were going to be expensive to build) and the need for high-bypass jet engines much more powerful than the General Electric GE90-115B conspired against the project. Besides, the relatively marginal increase in cruising speed would not have been worth it.
That's why my suggestion for a Mach 1.7 SST (as I mentioned in another message here) makes way more sense.
Re:Failure Reborn
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I'd like to mod down the people who modded you to flamebait status in the first place.
You are right in many of your assessments, especially when you consider the issues about operating the Concorde in the first place. Between the very high fuel burn rate which limits its range, jet engines that are very noisy and spew out lots of unwanted exhaust emissions (especially oxides of nitrogen at altitude), the sonic boom problem and limited carrying capacity, small wonder why Concorde in the end was probably not the way to go in terms of supersonic travel.
I hope you read my post about my suggestion for a future SST design, a plane that will fly at Mach 1.7 and use the latest aerospace technologies to reduce fuel burn for much longer range, reduce jet engine exhaust emissions, drastically reduce or eliminate the sonic boom problem, and carry a reasonable load.
Here's a way better solution.
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I think the aerospace industry should forget about hypersonic transports for now. Given the fierce heat dissipation problems that plagued the A-12/YF-12A/SR71 program, going beyond Mach 3.0 will require some pretty major breakthroughs in materials to fly even at over 200,000 feet altitude for near-space hypersonic flight.
Here is what I would prefer they do:
1. Forget about Mach 2.0 flight. Limiting the top cruise speed to around Mach 1.7 would drastically reduce materials cost, and would allow for extensive use of composite materials which will dramatically reduce the weight of the plane.
2. By limiting the top speed to around Mach 1.7, it also means there is less need for exotic jet engine designs, which also reduces development costs. We could, for example, develop an engine for this new SST as a derivative of the Rolls-Royce Trent engine now found on many of today's widebody airliners. That could also mean the engine will meet today's strict rules for exhaust emissions, especially oxides of nitrogen emissions.
3. Design the shape of the plane so it reduces the pressure wave buildup that causes the sonic boom and/or direct the energy of the sonic boom away from the ground.
4. Design the plane so it seats at least 200 passengers in two class seating (34" seating pitch for Economy and 43-45" seating for premium class).
I think with 2003 aerospace technology such a plane is well within technological reach. And unlike the Concorde, the new plane could probably fly at least the range of the Airbus A330-200 (about 6,600 nautical miles), and will likely meet the very strict ICAO Stage IV regulations for jet engine noise emissions. That will allow the plane to fly most of the world's major routes non-stop, won't be subject to noise restrictions at most of the world's airports, and (if they can eliminate the sonic boom problem) even allow for over-land flying that could mean cutting flight times as much as 40%.
Second the linux desktop has to surpass Windows XP in usability.
That is going to be the ONLY way that Linux will finally get the critical mass supports it needs for wide-scale desktop/laptop adoption.
Really, Linux in the near future needs the following:
1. True Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support for automated hardware detection and configuration. Hopefully, the final 2.6 kernel will incorporate this fully.
2. Driver support for all hardware (motherboard drivers, peripheral cards, devices plugged in through the USB 1.1/2.0 and IEEE-1394 ports) at full functionality of the hardware itself.
3. The equivalent of DirectX in Linux for easier programming of multimedia peripherals in Linux.
4. Improvements in OpenOffice so it can truly read and write in Microsoft Office 97/2000 formats fully.
5. Development of easy-to-use software to play back multimedia files, create new multimedia files (especially VCD, DiVX and DVD-compatible discs), and definitely easy-to-use programs to manipulate JPEG, RAW and TIFF files from digital still cameras.
Re:Modern mail needed fast transportation.
on
Snail Mail Tech
·
· Score: 1
My bad. =) I forgot that FedEx has the current US Postal Service First Class airmail contract.
That does explain why I haven't heard FedEx retiring any of their large fleet of planes (except for planes that were scrapped due to accidents). FedEx's Oakland, CA air cargo center is probably the busiest air cargo center on the US West Coast.
Modern mail needed fast transportation.
on
Snail Mail Tech
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
An interesting tidbit about mail: in the old days, it took so long to send a piece of mail that it was often just as fast going there yourself to communicate a message. It wasn't until the advent of railroads by the middle of the 19th Century that made it possible for reasonably fast mail deliveries. That's why until the 1960's one of the biggest customers of US railroads was the US Post Office.
Today, US Mail sent under 300 miles is usually done by truck, with distances beyond that sent by airplane (the cargo holds of many airliners flying in the USA often carry large sacks of First Class letters and small packages). Interestingly enough, the private United Parcel Service uses railroads extensively for their UPS Ground package shipping service for longer-distance shipments.
When the Three Mile Island reactor had its partial core meltdown, note that there was still enough safety margins active that its radioactive release was very small indeed. It definitely helped that the reactor was inside a strongly-built containment building, which essentially confined the radioactive release.
Since Chernobyl had NO containment structure, when that reactor's fissile material pile exploded there was NOTHING to stop its release into the atmosphere.
I think they'll keep HST running until the Next-Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is up and running. I can forsee that NGST could be designed so it could be deployed from either the Space Shuttle or the ESA Ariane V launch vehicle.
Given the design of NGST, it might even have less mass than HST because improvements in optics technology will eliminate the need for the long and heavy structure that the HST needed. I wouldn't be surprised that NGST will use adaptive optics for improved focus.
In all the arguements about the viability of various voting methods, there is only one that really does work: optical mark-sense sense similiar to a Scantron sheet.
Similar to the forms you use to fill out the answers on an SAT/ACT test or fill out a paper lottery ticket, optical mark-sense scan sheets are easily read by both machine and hand counts, and the potential for fraud is by far the lowest on this method, according to the November 2003 issue of Popular Science.
Here's how I would implement it:
1. The sheet would be standard letter size (8.5" x 11"). Most paper-handling machines are already designed for this paper size.
2. As each blank spot is filled, it'll be filled by a very small black ink stamp set up on a special mount so it precisely marks each blank spot at the correct location. I prefer ink stamps because they produce marks that are easier to read by machine and hand counts.
By the way, they can use recycled paper for the ballot sheet, since what it needs to do is read the black markings in the blank filled areas.
It's a method I'm sure even Mr. Vidal would approve of.:-)
I want to thank you for all the insightful comments in regards to my posting about my suggestions for making desktop Linux more user friendly. =)
The reason why I want ACPI as standard on Linux desktop variants is the fact when you hot dock any storage device to the USB or IEEE-1394 port Linux should automatically recognize it like a disk drive and "mount" the drive so it can be read by the OS. This is where Windows 2000/XP works great because it recognizes the storage device connected through these ports like a disk drive and you can read it using standard Windows file copy processes.
I know everyone is kind of throwing virtual brickbats at me for my suggesting a limited install of programs in a default Linux install but I think it's a good idea because it saves on IT manager support issues and users only need to learn one set of programs.
Do I think Linux as a desktop OS is viable? Definitely. But I do think there is much room for improvements so it becomes less intimidating to use for less-experienced users.
In my opinion, the current state of Linux is still not going to match what Windows 2000/XP now supports.
For Linux to succeed in the desktop/laptop market on a large scale, they need to do the following:
1. Standardize on the programs installed. That means no more KDE-vs-Gnome wars, Mozilla Thunderbird/Firebird Internet access programs as standard, and most likely OpenOffice as standard. I hope the Linux Standards Base project will aim for such a standard for "base install" of Linux.
2. It MUST have widespread hardware support. That means it supports the latest graphics cards, sound cards, network cards and I/O cards at full functionality of the device.
3. We need the equivalent of Microsoft DirectX on Linux to make it easier to program and access multimedia devices. Hopefully, the SDL project will fulfill this need.
4. It really needs support for the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) for truly automated system configuration and the ability to easily hot-dock devices through the USB and IEEE-1394 ports.
If Linux succeeds in these four goals, then I can see its adoption by everyone become much more widespread.
Here's the big issue with so-called free software: you still need to hire someone to install, configure and maintain the software. That type of maintenence ain't cheap, to say the least, especially for large organizations.
EarthLink users have this for some time.
on
IE To Block Pop-Ups
·
· Score: 1
Gee, Microsoft is a bit late getting into the game of blocking pop-up ads.
EarthLink since the advent of their TotalAccess 2003 software has offered an add-on for IE 5.01 SP1 and later that blocks pop-up ads automatically; the latest TotalAccess 2004 software includes an improved pop-up blocker that also blocks Macromedia Flash ads, too! =)
Matrox Mystique wasn't that great, though.
on
Video Card History
·
· Score: 1
While the Matrox Mystique did offer 3-D acceleration, the board sacrified just WAY too much graphics quality to pull off that acceleration. It had a short burst of popularity but once nVidia rolled out the Riva 128ZX and Riva TNT chipsets that could handle 3-D acceleration of more complex graphics, it was all over for the Mystique.
Matrox did fight back with the much-improved G400/G450 series of cards, but unfortunately Matrox never really advanced beyond that, being quickly overtaken by nVidia's GeForce 256 and ATI's Radeon series of chipsets. I'm disapppointed that the Parhelia from Matrox didn't come out that great, because Matrox could have produced a card that could have made them a major competitor against ATI and nVidia again.:-(
I do agree that ATI's Rage 128 was a major improvement over what ATI had previously for 3-D acceleration. The problem with the Rage II chipset was that it really wasn't designed for large-scale 3-D acceleration, so many games didn't work that great under this card.
Of course, the Rage 128 couldn't equal what the nVidia Riva TNT could do, but the ATI solution was less expensive to implement (and Rage 128 boards became very popular for OEM applications). ATI fell WAY behind nVidia once nVidia introduced the GeForce 256 up to the GeForce4 chipsets, but made a major comeback with the ground-breaking Radeon 9700 board, which literally blew away nVidia's GeForce4 Ti4xxx boards.
I think what finally brought 3-D graphics acceleration into the mainstream was the introduction of graphics card chipsets that could combine decent 3-D acceleration with fast 2-D graphics all at once.
nVidia's pioneering RIVA 128 chipset was the first chipset that could compare itself in 3-D mode against the vaunted Voodoo cards of that period; once nVidia unveiled the groundbreaking TNT chipset it was pretty much over for Voodoo's separate board approach. This is what spurred ATI into developing the Rage Pro and later Rage 128 chipsets in the late 1990's, starting the competition between ATI and nVidia that has lasted to this day.
I think Disney is heading towards doing animated features that look like traditional hand-drawn animation but is completely computer-generated.
The reason is simple: this allows for much more sophisticated character movements, lighting effects, and cinematic effects. Anyway, both Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet were almost there in terms of computer animation, anyway, with only the main characters being hand-drawn (and that's debateable at best). If you look at Lilo & Stitch, while the hand-painted watercolor backgrounds look great it is also a LOT of work to paint such backgrounds; with today's computer illustration technology, we can do backgrounds completely by computer that has that watercolor painted look.
This change is actually not new; in Japan, anime TV series and movies are mostly done by computer anyway due to the fact that Fujifilm stopped producing in the late 1990's the clear plastic sheets that is used to paint animation cel drawings on.
Actually, the thing that is saving nVidia nowadays is the release of the Detonator 52.16 driver for Windows 2000/XP.
Not only did they fix a lot of weird bugs that plagued earlier releases, but also the new driver has actually made nVidia's latest cards run quite fast with excellent 3-D graphics quality.
I think nVidia will probably within six months introduce a whole new line of graphics chipsets that will probably beat ATI's, mostly because nVidia is aware of the known weaknesses of their current chipsets and will redesign them for faster performance everywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
While it's impressive that the Japanese have reached an incredible 581 km/h on their maglev trains, it's not a practical design for one reason: their maglev requires cryogenic cooling for the magnets to run in superconducting mode so the train can move. Installing cryrogenic cooling systems drastically increases the cost of the train, not to mention adding a good hunk of deadweight that could otherwise be used for carrying passengers and/or cargo.
A better solution is to use the permanent magnet system that was developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory a few years ago. Since the LLNL system doesn't need cryrogenically-cooled magnets, that allows for lower train weight, which means more passengers and/or cargo carried. Also, the construction cost per kilometer is quite a bit lower, too. Sure, the LLNL system limits the train to around 500 km/h (310 mph) but that's still way faster than any steel-wheel train in revenue service (that 320 mph test run on the French TGV system some years ago is totally impractical in everyday service).
Actually, Alvin Toffler in his book The Third Wave predicted this 24 years ago. Back then, VCR's were starting to become popular and one of what his predictions was that as VCR's become more popular they would effectively make the whole idea of prime time useless, since people now can record their favorite shows to watch at a much later time. Why do you think David Letterman became well-known as the popularity of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC coincided with the fast rise in the popularity of VCR's?
I think that TV advertisers started getting scared when VCR's got the ability to do visual fast forward/reverse, which allows VCR users to skip through commercial breaks very quickly anyway. It got worse when VCR's in recent years got the ability to skip through tape in one minute or 30-second increments (my Mitsubishi HS-U595 VCR can fast-forward through the tape in 30-second increments from 30 seconds to three minutes).
Using this ability, you notice how much shorter the actual shows are nowadays, to say the least.
New Zealand has all the right to be very proud of Peter Jackson's magnum opus.
After all, we are talking perhaps the most expensive and complex project in the history of motion pictures, one that would have cost 70 to 100 percent more if it had been done in the USA or the UK. The fact just the box office revenues from The Fellowship of the Ring more than covered the cost of the entire project (and then some! =) ) means New Zealand should be proud to be the place where one of the most profitable movie projects in history was made.
Hold it right there.
We don't need to worry about cashiers checking if a person is 18 because there is already a system in place to check for age requirements, namely the minimum age in the USA to buy cigarettes (18) and alcoholic beverages (21). If convenience stores and liquor stores can implement this they can sure implement this in stores selling video games.
I believe that the first application Intel will use on the 90nm process is the Prescott-core CPU, the replacement for the Pentium 4. My guess is that Intel will call this new chip the Pentium 5 when it is officially unveiled early in 2004.
Maybe this is the reason why haven't seen Service Pack 2 for Windows XP or Service Pack 5 for Windows 2000--they will incorporate new code that will take full advantage of the additional multimedia instructions offered by the Prescott-core processor.
Let me answer your concerns.
First, when writer Bill Sweetman mentioned in his Popular Science article from 2002 about Gulfstream seriously studying a quieter SST, Sweetman mentioned specifically that one of the possible engine choices for this new SST is an engine that uses the Rolls-Royce Trent engine core but with a completely new front fan and possibly an afterburner in the rear. Given Rolls-Royce's success in quieting down the Trent 895 engine on the Boeing 777-200ER using a very carefully-shaped engine nacelle design, they could apply that same research into a pretty quiet SST engine. Besides, by limiting the plane's top speed to Mach 1.7 the level of afterburning needed to keep up this speed is smaller than what you need for Mach 2.0 operation, and that also reduces noise emissions, too.
Secondly, if the plane is unusually shaped (in order to handle the sonic boom problem) the use of modern fly-by-wire systems will make handling of such a plane safe for today's pilots. After all, if Lockheed can make the not-very aerodynamic F-117A Nighthawk fly in a stable fashion with FBW, a sonic boom-reducing SST with FBW is easily designed.
I think Boeing shelved the Sonic Cruiser because the plane's radical design (which meant the plane's structural components were going to be expensive to build) and the need for high-bypass jet engines much more powerful than the General Electric GE90-115B conspired against the project. Besides, the relatively marginal increase in cruising speed would not have been worth it.
That's why my suggestion for a Mach 1.7 SST (as I mentioned in another message here) makes way more sense.
I'd like to mod down the people who modded you to flamebait status in the first place.
You are right in many of your assessments, especially when you consider the issues about operating the Concorde in the first place. Between the very high fuel burn rate which limits its range, jet engines that are very noisy and spew out lots of unwanted exhaust emissions (especially oxides of nitrogen at altitude), the sonic boom problem and limited carrying capacity, small wonder why Concorde in the end was probably not the way to go in terms of supersonic travel.
I hope you read my post about my suggestion for a future SST design, a plane that will fly at Mach 1.7 and use the latest aerospace technologies to reduce fuel burn for much longer range, reduce jet engine exhaust emissions, drastically reduce or eliminate the sonic boom problem, and carry a reasonable load.
I think the aerospace industry should forget about hypersonic transports for now. Given the fierce heat dissipation problems that plagued the A-12/YF-12A/SR71 program, going beyond Mach 3.0 will require some pretty major breakthroughs in materials to fly even at over 200,000 feet altitude for near-space hypersonic flight.
Here is what I would prefer they do:
1. Forget about Mach 2.0 flight. Limiting the top cruise speed to around Mach 1.7 would drastically reduce materials cost, and would allow for extensive use of composite materials which will dramatically reduce the weight of the plane.
2. By limiting the top speed to around Mach 1.7, it also means there is less need for exotic jet engine designs, which also reduces development costs. We could, for example, develop an engine for this new SST as a derivative of the Rolls-Royce Trent engine now found on many of today's widebody airliners. That could also mean the engine will meet today's strict rules for exhaust emissions, especially oxides of nitrogen emissions.
3. Design the shape of the plane so it reduces the pressure wave buildup that causes the sonic boom and/or direct the energy of the sonic boom away from the ground.
4. Design the plane so it seats at least 200 passengers in two class seating (34" seating pitch for Economy and 43-45" seating for premium class).
I think with 2003 aerospace technology such a plane is well within technological reach. And unlike the Concorde, the new plane could probably fly at least the range of the Airbus A330-200 (about 6,600 nautical miles), and will likely meet the very strict ICAO Stage IV regulations for jet engine noise emissions. That will allow the plane to fly most of the world's major routes non-stop, won't be subject to noise restrictions at most of the world's airports, and (if they can eliminate the sonic boom problem) even allow for over-land flying that could mean cutting flight times as much as 40%.
Second the linux desktop has to surpass Windows XP in usability.
That is going to be the ONLY way that Linux will finally get the critical mass supports it needs for wide-scale desktop/laptop adoption.
Really, Linux in the near future needs the following:
1. True Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) support for automated hardware detection and configuration. Hopefully, the final 2.6 kernel will incorporate this fully.
2. Driver support for all hardware (motherboard drivers, peripheral cards, devices plugged in through the USB 1.1/2.0 and IEEE-1394 ports) at full functionality of the hardware itself.
3. The equivalent of DirectX in Linux for easier programming of multimedia peripherals in Linux.
4. Improvements in OpenOffice so it can truly read and write in Microsoft Office 97/2000 formats fully.
5. Development of easy-to-use software to play back multimedia files, create new multimedia files (especially VCD, DiVX and DVD-compatible discs), and definitely easy-to-use programs to manipulate JPEG, RAW and TIFF files from digital still cameras.
My bad. =) I forgot that FedEx has the current US Postal Service First Class airmail contract.
That does explain why I haven't heard FedEx retiring any of their large fleet of planes (except for planes that were scrapped due to accidents). FedEx's Oakland, CA air cargo center is probably the busiest air cargo center on the US West Coast.
An interesting tidbit about mail: in the old days, it took so long to send a piece of mail that it was often just as fast going there yourself to communicate a message. It wasn't until the advent of railroads by the middle of the 19th Century that made it possible for reasonably fast mail deliveries. That's why until the 1960's one of the biggest customers of US railroads was the US Post Office.
Today, US Mail sent under 300 miles is usually done by truck, with distances beyond that sent by airplane (the cargo holds of many airliners flying in the USA often carry large sacks of First Class letters and small packages). Interestingly enough, the private United Parcel Service uses railroads extensively for their UPS Ground package shipping service for longer-distance shipments.
When the Three Mile Island reactor had its partial core meltdown, note that there was still enough safety margins active that its radioactive release was very small indeed. It definitely helped that the reactor was inside a strongly-built containment building, which essentially confined the radioactive release.
Since Chernobyl had NO containment structure, when that reactor's fissile material pile exploded there was NOTHING to stop its release into the atmosphere.
I think they'll keep HST running until the Next-Generation Space Telescope (NGST) is up and running. I can forsee that NGST could be designed so it could be deployed from either the Space Shuttle or the ESA Ariane V launch vehicle.
Given the design of NGST, it might even have less mass than HST because improvements in optics technology will eliminate the need for the long and heavy structure that the HST needed. I wouldn't be surprised that NGST will use adaptive optics for improved focus.
In all the arguements about the viability of various voting methods, there is only one that really does work: optical mark-sense sense similiar to a Scantron sheet.
:-)
Similar to the forms you use to fill out the answers on an SAT/ACT test or fill out a paper lottery ticket, optical mark-sense scan sheets are easily read by both machine and hand counts, and the potential for fraud is by far the lowest on this method, according to the November 2003 issue of Popular Science.
Here's how I would implement it:
1. The sheet would be standard letter size (8.5" x 11"). Most paper-handling machines are already designed for this paper size.
2. As each blank spot is filled, it'll be filled by a very small black ink stamp set up on a special mount so it precisely marks each blank spot at the correct location. I prefer ink stamps because they produce marks that are easier to read by machine and hand counts.
By the way, they can use recycled paper for the ballot sheet, since what it needs to do is read the black markings in the blank filled areas.
It's a method I'm sure even Mr. Vidal would approve of.
I want to thank you for all the insightful comments in regards to my posting about my suggestions for making desktop Linux more user friendly. =)
The reason why I want ACPI as standard on Linux desktop variants is the fact when you hot dock any storage device to the USB or IEEE-1394 port Linux should automatically recognize it like a disk drive and "mount" the drive so it can be read by the OS. This is where Windows 2000/XP works great because it recognizes the storage device connected through these ports like a disk drive and you can read it using standard Windows file copy processes.
I know everyone is kind of throwing virtual brickbats at me for my suggesting a limited install of programs in a default Linux install but I think it's a good idea because it saves on IT manager support issues and users only need to learn one set of programs.
Do I think Linux as a desktop OS is viable? Definitely. But I do think there is much room for improvements so it becomes less intimidating to use for less-experienced users.
In my opinion, the current state of Linux is still not going to match what Windows 2000/XP now supports.
For Linux to succeed in the desktop/laptop market on a large scale, they need to do the following:
1. Standardize on the programs installed. That means no more KDE-vs-Gnome wars, Mozilla Thunderbird/Firebird Internet access programs as standard, and most likely OpenOffice as standard. I hope the Linux Standards Base project will aim for such a standard for "base install" of Linux.
2. It MUST have widespread hardware support. That means it supports the latest graphics cards, sound cards, network cards and I/O cards at full functionality of the device.
3. We need the equivalent of Microsoft DirectX on Linux to make it easier to program and access multimedia devices. Hopefully, the SDL project will fulfill this need.
4. It really needs support for the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) for truly automated system configuration and the ability to easily hot-dock devices through the USB and IEEE-1394 ports.
If Linux succeeds in these four goals, then I can see its adoption by everyone become much more widespread.
Here's the big issue with so-called free software: you still need to hire someone to install, configure and maintain the software. That type of maintenence ain't cheap, to say the least, especially for large organizations.
Gee, Microsoft is a bit late getting into the game of blocking pop-up ads.
EarthLink since the advent of their TotalAccess 2003 software has offered an add-on for IE 5.01 SP1 and later that blocks pop-up ads automatically; the latest TotalAccess 2004 software includes an improved pop-up blocker that also blocks Macromedia Flash ads, too! =)
While the Matrox Mystique did offer 3-D acceleration, the board sacrified just WAY too much graphics quality to pull off that acceleration. It had a short burst of popularity but once nVidia rolled out the Riva 128ZX and Riva TNT chipsets that could handle 3-D acceleration of more complex graphics, it was all over for the Mystique.
:-(
Matrox did fight back with the much-improved G400/G450 series of cards, but unfortunately Matrox never really advanced beyond that, being quickly overtaken by nVidia's GeForce 256 and ATI's Radeon series of chipsets. I'm disapppointed that the Parhelia from Matrox didn't come out that great, because Matrox could have produced a card that could have made them a major competitor against ATI and nVidia again.
I do agree that ATI's Rage 128 was a major improvement over what ATI had previously for 3-D acceleration. The problem with the Rage II chipset was that it really wasn't designed for large-scale 3-D acceleration, so many games didn't work that great under this card.
Of course, the Rage 128 couldn't equal what the nVidia Riva TNT could do, but the ATI solution was less expensive to implement (and Rage 128 boards became very popular for OEM applications). ATI fell WAY behind nVidia once nVidia introduced the GeForce 256 up to the GeForce4 chipsets, but made a major comeback with the ground-breaking Radeon 9700 board, which literally blew away nVidia's GeForce4 Ti4xxx boards.
I think what finally brought 3-D graphics acceleration into the mainstream was the introduction of graphics card chipsets that could combine decent 3-D acceleration with fast 2-D graphics all at once.
nVidia's pioneering RIVA 128 chipset was the first chipset that could compare itself in 3-D mode against the vaunted Voodoo cards of that period; once nVidia unveiled the groundbreaking TNT chipset it was pretty much over for Voodoo's separate board approach. This is what spurred ATI into developing the Rage Pro and later Rage 128 chipsets in the late 1990's, starting the competition between ATI and nVidia that has lasted to this day.
I think Disney is heading towards doing animated features that look like traditional hand-drawn animation but is completely computer-generated.
The reason is simple: this allows for much more sophisticated character movements, lighting effects, and cinematic effects. Anyway, both Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet were almost there in terms of computer animation, anyway, with only the main characters being hand-drawn (and that's debateable at best). If you look at Lilo & Stitch, while the hand-painted watercolor backgrounds look great it is also a LOT of work to paint such backgrounds; with today's computer illustration technology, we can do backgrounds completely by computer that has that watercolor painted look.
This change is actually not new; in Japan, anime TV series and movies are mostly done by computer anyway due to the fact that Fujifilm stopped producing in the late 1990's the clear plastic sheets that is used to paint animation cel drawings on.
Actually, the thing that is saving nVidia nowadays is the release of the Detonator 52.16 driver for Windows 2000/XP.
Not only did they fix a lot of weird bugs that plagued earlier releases, but also the new driver has actually made nVidia's latest cards run quite fast with excellent 3-D graphics quality.
I think nVidia will probably within six months introduce a whole new line of graphics chipsets that will probably beat ATI's, mostly because nVidia is aware of the known weaknesses of their current chipsets and will redesign them for faster performance everywhere.