Take a look at the pictures. Each little chip has an associated larger translucent square, which is surely a fresnel lens. The lens focuses the light onto the chip. I suppose you could say that the chip really does provide shade, but it can do so only because the light is first focussed by the lens.
Because reducing the amount of direct sunlight entering the building is a desireable quality. If you can provide more shade from direct sunlight, you don't have to provide air conditioning. If instead of just absorbing or reflecting that sunlight you can use it to generate electricity, you get a second benefit.
They think "Oh! How nice it will be to put my desk right in front of the window and not burn up in the noontime sun!"
Re:A useful general power solution too
on
Solar Window Panes
·
· Score: 1
Direct sunlight entering through windows heats up the room, and doesn't really provide a lot of light to see by. These devices block a lot of direct sunlight, thereby keeping the room cool, and at the same time allow ambient light (i.e. light coming from directions other than the sun), thereby allowing plenty of light to see by.
Ah, but these windows provide shade from direct sunlight at the same time they generate power. So you get two beneficial effects: you're removing sunlight from a place that you don't want it, and at the same time you're using that power for use elsewhere.
Both. Take a look at the pictures that go with the article. It looks like each 'solar chip' has a largish fresnel lens that focuses sunlight onto the chip. The lens/chip assemblies appear to track the sun, and you can look past these and still have a relatively clear view as long as you're not looking in the general direction of the sun (which you're not supposed to do anyway). The lenses provide shade by focusing sunlight onto the chips, but they also allow ambient light to enter, so a room fitted with these solar windows would still get plenty of light.
So, according to you God doesn't mind us stinking up the planet with fossil fuels, but he objects to us using our God-given brains to figure out how to get energy directly from the Sun which He created? Funny, then, that He created trees, which employ a bunch of fancy chemistry in order to derive 100% of their required power from solar energy.
No, wait. This is Apple, not Microsoft. Bugs like this are acknowledged, with workarounds and/or patches supplied quickly, and this gives the company character and credibility.
You're confusing "getting your voice heard" with "getting your way."
Smoking pot may not be legal, but most people have probably at least heard of NORML and know that there are some groups out there that support legalization. Pot is legal in some states for some purposes (though posession is still a federal offense), and there are a number of well-known politicians who support broader legalization. By the way, when was the last time you bothered to write to your state and federal representatives to tell them how you feel on this matter?
The ERA hasn't been in the news in a while, but it was a huge political issue in the 70's and early 80's. It doesn't take all that long to change a law or even to amend the Constitution, but it can take a very long time to change society to the point that it's ready for the legal change. It'll happen, but slowly.
It really isn't that difficult to be heard, and even to get others to speak along with you. Start by mobilizing yourself. Vote. Find out who your representatives are, and tell them what you think. Talk to your friends and show them how to write to their reps, or just get them to sign a petition. Write to the editors of your local newspapers. Build a web site explaining your views and providing some resources. These things really do count, and your voice will be heard. The more you do, the louder your voice and the more people you'll influence. If what you express makes sense and other people agree with you, they'll start coming to you for opinions, leadership, etc. But you have to start by doing something.
You may not get your way, but you'll get your point across.
I'm fine with the artist being paid for their work. But what work is the artist doing when I copy a CD or a file and give to a friend? I'm doing all the work, I pay for the CD-R or bandwidth.
The artist did the work when she created the track(s) you're copying. By copying the work, you're depriving the artist of some amount of money, however small. You're also depriving the record company of some amount of money, and the fact that you (and I) don't like the record companies doesn't make a difference. (Try this: steal a car from someone you don't like. When the police stop you, tell them that it's okay because the owner is a real jerk. See how far that gets you.)
The fact that you're paying for either the bandwidth or the CD-R doesn't mean anything to the injured parties given that you're not paying for the music.
Yes, it's true that the amount of money in question is so small that probably nobody will notice or care much when a person gives a copy of a track to a friend. When a thousand or a million people give many tracks to many friends, or to many people that they don't even know, the numbers obviously become large quickly. This is why P2P networks are a huge problem for the music industry.
I should get paid for promoting the artist. Especially if this is an artist who's music will never be played on the radio or MTV...
Aside from payola, which is illegal, the artists and record companies don't pay radio stations to promote them. Indeed, part of the financial reward of writing and producing a song comes from the fact that radio stations pay for each and every song they play, each and every time they play it.
If you're not gaining anything by "promoting" the artist, then why do you do it?
Right, and I'm sure that the RIAA isn't going to get up your ass about sharing some hard to find Elvis Presley b-side with your girlfriend's brother.
The cops leave me alone when I do 75 with all the other traffic, but I'm glad to see them nail a squid on a sportbike (or in a SUV) weaving in and out of heavy traffic going 30 mph faster than the rest of us. I don't want to see them shoot the squid, but I don't want the squid to endanger me either.
Same thing with the all this IP nonsense. Sharing music is against the law, plain and simple. If you're egregious about breaking the law, then you're both depriving someone else of some income and endangering my own ability to be protected by copyright. If you just share a track or two, you're still breaking the law and should be willing to own up to that and pay a *reasonable* fine, but if you're responsible about it probably nobody will notice or care.
Wasn't vigilanteism and anarchy how the American Rrevolution started? Americans said "laws be damned, no more taxes to the British"?
Not really (except, perhaps, from a contemporary British perspective). The American Revolution started when the Second Continental Congress declared itself independant from Britain following a dozen years of wrangling between the colonial governments and King George III. There may have been some vigilantes in the mix (e.g. the Sons of Liberty), but they were not the cause of the war and they did not start the war. I don't think you can make any case for anarchy in the colonies: one of the things that the colonists were upset about was that they weren't represented in the British government. They wanted government, but they wanted a fair and representative government.
Those aren't necessarily bad things. In fact, they're usually the only way of getting your voice heard once the government is corrupted (in this case by the RIAA's bribes... I mean, campaign contributions;) ).
Back to your sig... I'd suggest that one way of getting your voice heard is to vote and encourage others to do the same. Assuming that your sig is in fact correct, you should have no problem mobilizing an enormous number of Kazaa users. It's not hard to get your voice heard if you just bother to speak up.
SIG: More Americans run Kazaa than vote. It's time we all accepted the free exchange of art.
Uh, I think you've got something backward.
In an active democracy, lots of people vote and obey laws. When large portions of the populace decide to take what they like and not pay for it, laws be damned, we're looking at something between vigilanteism and anarchy.
So what are you saying? That we should just ditch copyright and have a literal free-for-all? Personally, I think that creative people deserve to be paid for their work, which is exactly why downloading copyrighted music is unethical. Free IP is fine and dandy, so long as it's given voluntarily by the copyright owner.
The speed limit is mostly unenforceable and "contrary to the norms of human psychology" too. But as someone who travels daily in very heavy, fast-moving traffic, I can assure you that repealing the speed limit laws (at least in populated areas) would be a very bad idea. On a highway where the limit is 65mph, many people drive 75 and a few do 85.
You don't have to prosecute every instance, or even most instances, of an infraction to moderate the general public's behavior. Evidence of this is that almost nobody does 100 or 120, and I get home each night in one piece.
The RIAA does indeed suck, but it's mainly because they're greedy bastards trying to hand out punishments that don't fit the crime. Their fundamental point is legitimate, and I'd support them more if they were looking for $50/violation instead of $50,000 or $150,000.
If the average length of a track is 3 minutes, 32,000 tracks gives you 96,000 minutes, or 1,600 hours, of tunes. If you play your tunes 8 hours/day, you can go for 200 days without hearing any tune twice.
How likely is it that anyone actually wants or needs to do this? Probably not very.
If the 32,000 song limit actually affects anyone, it's probably because they're ripping a lot of tracks that they'll never listen to even once. Even if you do own 1,000 CD's, how many of those have you actually listened to in the past 12 months, and do you really need to rip every single track of every CD you own?
I fully understand and agree with the point that it's nice to have random access to your music. But it makes sense to use a little discretion and not waste both time and disk space ripping a lot of tracks that you'll never listen to.
It's easy to set up a play list in iTunes that lists all the tracks which, say, were added more than a year ago and never played. Use that to chuck your dead wood.
Your intentions are good, but the proposed solution is a real hack. The "Subject:" header should be used as the fathers of the Internet intended, a short description of the message topic. Data describing the [un]commercial/[un]solicited/etc nature of the message should be placed in another header field, such as "Priority:".
I think the best legislation in this area would simply say that intentionally putting false or misleading information in any e-mail header constitutes fraud.
Sadistic Yoda: Go ahead and do the work with whatever compiler and whatever environment you like. Then, when you're done, go and test it with CodeWarrior for Windows. You alone are responsible for your assignment, and no amount of "but some guys on the Internet *said* it would work" will persuade a reasonable instructor if it doesn't work. I'm sure the TA doesn't give a rat's ass what development environment you use, as long as the code you turn in works on the chosen compiler, and it's entirely up to you to see that that happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Take a look at the pictures. Each little chip has an associated larger translucent square, which is surely a fresnel lens. The lens focuses the light onto the chip. I suppose you could say that the chip really does provide shade, but it can do so only because the light is first focussed by the lens.
Because reducing the amount of direct sunlight entering the building is a desireable quality. If you can provide more shade from direct sunlight, you don't have to provide air conditioning. If instead of just absorbing or reflecting that sunlight you can use it to generate electricity, you get a second benefit.
They think "Oh! How nice it will be to put my desk right in front of the window and not burn up in the noontime sun!"
Direct sunlight entering through windows heats up the room, and doesn't really provide a lot of light to see by. These devices block a lot of direct sunlight, thereby keeping the room cool, and at the same time allow ambient light (i.e. light coming from directions other than the sun), thereby allowing plenty of light to see by.
Ah, but these windows provide shade from direct sunlight at the same time they generate power. So you get two beneficial effects: you're removing sunlight from a place that you don't want it, and at the same time you're using that power for use elsewhere.
Both. Take a look at the pictures that go with the article. It looks like each 'solar chip' has a largish fresnel lens that focuses sunlight onto the chip. The lens/chip assemblies appear to track the sun, and you can look past these and still have a relatively clear view as long as you're not looking in the general direction of the sun (which you're not supposed to do anyway). The lenses provide shade by focusing sunlight onto the chips, but they also allow ambient light to enter, so a room fitted with these solar windows would still get plenty of light.
Cool.
So, according to you God doesn't mind us stinking up the planet with fossil fuels, but he objects to us using our God-given brains to figure out how to get energy directly from the Sun which He created? Funny, then, that He created trees, which employ a bunch of fancy chemistry in order to derive 100% of their required power from solar energy.
No, wait. This is Apple, not Microsoft. Bugs like this are acknowledged, with workarounds and/or patches supplied quickly, and this gives the company character and credibility.
You're confusing "getting your voice heard" with "getting your way."
Smoking pot may not be legal, but most people have probably at least heard of NORML and know that there are some groups out there that support legalization. Pot is legal in some states for some purposes (though posession is still a federal offense), and there are a number of well-known politicians who support broader legalization. By the way, when was the last time you bothered to write to your state and federal representatives to tell them how you feel on this matter?
The ERA hasn't been in the news in a while, but it was a huge political issue in the 70's and early 80's. It doesn't take all that long to change a law or even to amend the Constitution, but it can take a very long time to change society to the point that it's ready for the legal change. It'll happen, but slowly.
It really isn't that difficult to be heard, and even to get others to speak along with you. Start by mobilizing yourself. Vote. Find out who your representatives are, and tell them what you think. Talk to your friends and show them how to write to their reps, or just get them to sign a petition. Write to the editors of your local newspapers. Build a web site explaining your views and providing some resources. These things really do count, and your voice will be heard. The more you do, the louder your voice and the more people you'll influence. If what you express makes sense and other people agree with you, they'll start coming to you for opinions, leadership, etc. But you have to start by doing something.
You may not get your way, but you'll get your point across.
I'm fine with the artist being paid for their work. But what work is the artist doing when I copy a CD or a file and give to a friend? I'm doing all the work, I pay for the CD-R or bandwidth.
The artist did the work when she created the track(s) you're copying. By copying the work, you're depriving the artist of some amount of money, however small. You're also depriving the record company of some amount of money, and the fact that you (and I) don't like the record companies doesn't make a difference. (Try this: steal a car from someone you don't like. When the police stop you, tell them that it's okay because the owner is a real jerk. See how far that gets you.)
The fact that you're paying for either the bandwidth or the CD-R doesn't mean anything to the injured parties given that you're not paying for the music.
Yes, it's true that the amount of money in question is so small that probably nobody will notice or care much when a person gives a copy of a track to a friend. When a thousand or a million people give many tracks to many friends, or to many people that they don't even know, the numbers obviously become large quickly. This is why P2P networks are a huge problem for the music industry.
I should get paid for promoting the artist. Especially if this is an artist who's music will never be played on the radio or MTV...
Aside from payola, which is illegal, the artists and record companies don't pay radio stations to promote them. Indeed, part of the financial reward of writing and producing a song comes from the fact that radio stations pay for each and every song they play, each and every time they play it.
If you're not gaining anything by "promoting" the artist, then why do you do it?
Right, and I'm sure that the RIAA isn't going to get up your ass about sharing some hard to find Elvis Presley b-side with your girlfriend's brother.
The cops leave me alone when I do 75 with all the other traffic, but I'm glad to see them nail a squid on a sportbike (or in a SUV) weaving in and out of heavy traffic going 30 mph faster than the rest of us. I don't want to see them shoot the squid, but I don't want the squid to endanger me either.
Same thing with the all this IP nonsense. Sharing music is against the law, plain and simple. If you're egregious about breaking the law, then you're both depriving someone else of some income and endangering my own ability to be protected by copyright. If you just share a track or two, you're still breaking the law and should be willing to own up to that and pay a *reasonable* fine, but if you're responsible about it probably nobody will notice or care.
Wasn't vigilanteism and anarchy how the American Rrevolution started? Americans said "laws be damned, no more taxes to the British"?
;) ).
Not really (except, perhaps, from a contemporary British perspective). The American Revolution started when the Second Continental Congress declared itself independant from Britain following a dozen years of wrangling between the colonial governments and King George III. There may have been some vigilantes in the mix (e.g. the Sons of Liberty), but they were not the cause of the war and they did not start the war. I don't think you can make any case for anarchy in the colonies: one of the things that the colonists were upset about was that they weren't represented in the British government. They wanted government, but they wanted a fair and representative government.
Those aren't necessarily bad things. In fact, they're usually the only way of getting your voice heard once the government is corrupted (in this case by the RIAA's bribes... I mean, campaign contributions
Back to your sig... I'd suggest that one way of getting your voice heard is to vote and encourage others to do the same. Assuming that your sig is in fact correct, you should have no problem mobilizing an enormous number of Kazaa users. It's not hard to get your voice heard if you just bother to speak up.
Democracy in action. Read the sig, baby.
SIG: More Americans run Kazaa than vote. It's time we all accepted the free exchange of art.
Uh, I think you've got something backward.
In an active democracy, lots of people vote and obey laws. When large portions of the populace decide to take what they like and not pay for it, laws be damned, we're looking at something between vigilanteism and anarchy.
So what are you saying? That we should just ditch copyright and have a literal free-for-all? Personally, I think that creative people deserve to be paid for their work, which is exactly why downloading copyrighted music is unethical. Free IP is fine and dandy, so long as it's given voluntarily by the copyright owner.
The speed limit is mostly unenforceable and "contrary to the norms of human psychology" too. But as someone who travels daily in very heavy, fast-moving traffic, I can assure you that repealing the speed limit laws (at least in populated areas) would be a very bad idea. On a highway where the limit is 65mph, many people drive 75 and a few do 85.
You don't have to prosecute every instance, or even most instances, of an infraction to moderate the general public's behavior. Evidence of this is that almost nobody does 100 or 120, and I get home each night in one piece.
The RIAA does indeed suck, but it's mainly because they're greedy bastards trying to hand out punishments that don't fit the crime. Their fundamental point is legitimate, and I'd support them more if they were looking for $50/violation instead of $50,000 or $150,000.
If the average length of a track is 3 minutes, 32,000 tracks gives you 96,000 minutes, or 1,600 hours, of tunes. If you play your tunes 8 hours/day, you can go for 200 days without hearing any tune twice.
How likely is it that anyone actually wants or needs to do this? Probably not very.
If the 32,000 song limit actually affects anyone, it's probably because they're ripping a lot of tracks that they'll never listen to even once. Even if you do own 1,000 CD's, how many of those have you actually listened to in the past 12 months, and do you really need to rip every single track of every CD you own?
I fully understand and agree with the point that it's nice to have random access to your music. But it makes sense to use a little discretion and not waste both time and disk space ripping a lot of tracks that you'll never listen to.
It's easy to set up a play list in iTunes that lists all the tracks which, say, were added more than a year ago and never played. Use that to chuck your dead wood.
"iBrowse" is taken. It's a web browser for Amiga.
Your intentions are good, but the proposed solution is a real hack. The "Subject:" header should be used as the fathers of the Internet intended, a short description of the message topic. Data describing the [un]commercial/[un]solicited/etc nature of the message should be placed in another header field, such as "Priority:".
I think the best legislation in this area would simply say that intentionally putting false or misleading information in any e-mail header constitutes fraud.
Sadistic Yoda: Go ahead and do the work with whatever compiler and whatever environment you like. Then, when you're done, go and test it with CodeWarrior for Windows. You alone are responsible for your assignment, and no amount of "but some guys on the Internet *said* it would work" will persuade a reasonable instructor if it doesn't work. I'm sure the TA doesn't give a rat's ass what development environment you use, as long as the code you turn in works on the chosen compiler, and it's entirely up to you to see that that happens.
Here's a good one: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf