A Canadian company called TriTec Power Systems Ltd. is already marketing a device that can use compressed nitrogen to power a vehicle. However, it is not limited to nitrogen - they're actually promoting it as a modern-day steam engine. Of course, it will work with any expanding gas, so you could even use dry ice if you really wanted to (although I have a feeling you wouldn't get nearly as much power out of dry ice as you would nitrogen or steam).
Not a one. I know two entire graduating classes of Systems Design engineers, and of all of them only 1 group had a LAN in residence, and another group only had a LAN set up for Quake Deathmatch sessions. I know an MCSE who does networking on the side, and he doesn't have one yet.
Come to think of it, I DO have one friend who has a LAN in his place. But right now his main computer (the one hooked up to his cablemodem) is in pieces, and he's reworking the others. So he has it, but he doesn't.
Of course, he's a Computer Science grad. I'll be that if I polled the 3200 employees in our company worldwide, I wouldn't find a lot of LANs. And that means return on engineering an ethernet card in, which means no profit, which means no market, which means you're SOL. [shrug]
Very good reason (thus far) why all these have modems and not ethernet cards:
Not everyone has high-speed access. No point in connecting your Tivo to the 56K modem in your computer.
Not everyone is going to have more than one device in their homes. They'll buy an iOpener and get e-mail, or they'll get Tivo and waste all their time with TV instead of WWW... at most I'd see two appliances, but not much more than that.
I don't know anyone that has a LAN in their house, let alone hooked up to their DSL/cable connection. And I know some pretty hard-core geeks.
It boils down to "lowest common denominator". There isn't a market (a profitable one) for machines with ethernet. Unfortunately. And I guess the marketing yahoos don't think that it's worth the extra couple bucks to engineer in an optional ethernet adapter or expansion slot. Too bad.
Having thought about it a bit, I'd have to (cautiously) say that the English language probably did not influence the way people code to any large degree.
Look at it from the point of grammer. One example would be "if-then" or "if-else" statements. In English the structure is "If X then Y". Not being multilingual, I can't say for sure that another language is structured differently, but I'd hazard a guess that it's the same. Messing around with a logical sentence structure like that isn't the same as putting adjectives in a different place.
Overall, code (ideally) has a good, logical flow. One thing happens, so another thing happens. The result is this, so this other thing doens't happen. This could be described in any language, not just English (with the noted exception of whatever the language Bushmen talk in is called - unless you like programming with only . , - and *).
Does anyone know of a language that has a logic structure much different than English? Unless there is, I think English hasn't made much of a different.
...except for really stupid variable names like G$.:)
As much as I'd like to be, I'm not into Linux yet. - my primary computer runs NT 4.0. I'll have a fully-functioning Linux (RedHat 6.0) box soon, and have been considering a cable modem for a while, but a firewall has always been the question. But my wife has an old Mac (LC II I think), and if it's as simple as you make it out to be, I think I've got my firewall!
Do you have any more links/insights/thoughts on setting up a Mac firewall? Most appreciated.
I'll take $US1.00 bets. E-mail me the year, month, and day (zulu) that someone will announce, and show proof of, Linux running on a Gameboy. Winner gets 50% of the pot, the remainder to the person(s) who actually managed the feat.
So, for US$ 600 million, we're going to get some good, hard data on Mars. Assuming everyone's using the right units, of course.
Well, I think eveyone has got it all bass-ackwards on this. Looking for fossilized bacteria and water on Mars? Hoping for water on the Moon? Drilling through 10km of ice to see what might live in
the ocean underneath Europa's crust? If you're looking for new life and exciting, harsh environments, I'd say we look down instead of up.
Don't get me wrong - I think the space program is entirely cool. But for billions of dollars less, we could effectively conquer the ocean floor instead of trying to escape gravity and get to space.
Just think - our planet is 70% covered with water, and yet it's mostly unexplored. We still haven't explored a lot of it, and there's lots to discover. How about looking at life forms that life in 400F toxic water plumes on the ocean floor instead of looking for fosselized bacteria? How about catalogueing all the various life that we haven't yet even seen in the depths instead of searching for water on the moon?
Space is cool - it's unlimited, which gives us room for our imaginations. The oceans are at a disadvantage due to that - they're finite. But I have a feeling it would be money better spent (and less of it, at that) exploring the depths of our oceans instead of the heights of our imaginations.
Having a university review Carnivore is a Good Idea (TM).
Having a leading university review Carnivore is a Good Idea (TM).
Having a leading American university review Carnivore is a Bad Idea (TM). Why? Oh, sure, like the FBI doesn't have any research or academic interests. Puh-LEASE.
Just fire up one of them there Carnivore machines to a Canadian university (lots to choose from, and even a handy ranking tool to help). The FBI can't come snooping, us Canucks will be pretty much impartial, and with luck the machine will get hung up at Customs and the FBI will have to pay duty on the thing.
OK, so they bit the bullet and shelled out some serious cash to generate their own electricity. Hooray for them, they've Done Their Part (TM) in saving the planet.
Now, let's get down to all the other pollutants that they didn't get rid of:
lead - and lots of it, in each computer, in every monitor's glass, they'll still have lots of lead in their equipment, and I'm guessing they won't be extracting it before getting rid of their old hardware when it comes time
ozone - any time you run an electric motor (fan, power supply, dustbuster, whatever) some atmospheric oxygen gets zapped into ozone, an element of smog
VOC's - Volatile Organic Compounds, which will be emitted from their new furniture and carpet over the next few years, unless they chose to go with solid wood furniture and simply stain or oil it (which I highly doubt)
Simply put, it would be extremely expensive to start up a business (ANY business) that is 100% environmentally-friendly. While I would applaud this, what they have done is simply started yet another hosting service, and are serving up this solar powered schtick for publicity.
Their hearts are in the right place, but unfortunately it's just not enough.
1.immediate release of the source code at product launch
What, sort of like doves? Were you planning on using floppies, CD/DVD's, or paper? Either way, you're going to need a stiff wind, and you should check your local littering bylaws.
3.commit to full source code release and release piecemeal
Have you already talked to Kentucky Fried Chicken about this? AFAIK, it will be the first time one of their meals comes with a prize in it, let alone an open-source prize. You may want to consider McDonald's instead, as they have more experience with that sort of thing.
5.placing the code in a provable timed-release escrow.
I dunno... I was sold on that myself, once. But when they came and put it on my lawn, it didn't last any more than a week. Plus, there's some nasty burn marks along the side of the house now. I'd be careful with anything "timed-release". But as long as it's provable...
I was privelidged enough back in university to attend a small seminar by Mark Tilden at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. If you're not already familliar with his robots and the principles he bases them on, you can
see some of them here.
During this seminar, he was talking about using his method of robot-building and applying it to satellites. (There's an article here.) Basically what Mark was saying is that there's a fundamental problem with current satellites; they're digital. And digital components don't like the harsh radiation of space. Plus, NASA's so-called "microsatellites" weigh in at over 600 lb. Not very "micro", if you ask me.
What he was proposing is whipping up a crop of "nanosatellites", maybe as big as your head, all out of analogue components (which he usues exclusively, at least last that I saw), which don't need to be radiation-hardened for space. Plus they're dirt cheap, and you can make them by the thousand.
NASA's "faster better cheaper" may be so, but it's all relative. If they really wanted that, they'd send out a fleet of Tilden's nanosatellites. Send 100 to Europa... some with cameras, some with infrared, some with spectrometers, some that talk to the others and beam back data to earth... and I'd bet it would be a lot cheaper than the Mars rover ever was.
If anyone has more Tilden links, please post them. He's done some amazing work, but I can't seem to dig up any large cache of web sites about his work. Pity - it fascinating!
Scientific American just had an article much like this, which you can read here without a subscription. They did mention Buckytubes, but didn't focus on them specifically.
From CNN article: Attorney General Janet Reno said last week that technical specifications of the
system would be disclosed to a "group of experts." Sobel has argued that there is
no substitute for a full and open public review of the Carnivore system.
Yes, for a mere US$1,495.00 you too can own a slow, limited computer that you're likely to sit on, lose in your briefcase, or have your dog eat. Spiffy.
I do have to admit that it's a great design, with lots of potential. PDA's will never be the same - nor will beepers, cell phones, etc. Just put a small projector or LCD screen on the thing, and you've got yourself a backpack (or belt-clip) computer. WONDERFUL. I LOVE it.
But COME ON... for US$1,495.00?!? I'd rather pay an extra $200 and get the OTHER really small computer.
Robot Wars would probably fascinate any highschool computer science student... Each group must design a "robot" (program) that will attack an opposing "robot", and defend itself from its opponent's attack. Of course, you'd have to determine whether what these kids would be building could constitute a virus or other malicious program, and whether it would be ethical to do this. The student's abilities (or lack thereof) may also kill this project off.
How about a project that is true to life? I have a lot of friends who don't just do their own coding, they have to mess with the code that others long before them wrote. Why not write up (or find) the source for a program youself, and give it to your students. The task would be to add feature X, fix bug Y, and see who can rewrite the code to run fastest/be shortest/have more complete and correct comments. This might be a good way for them to learn how someone a level or two (or more) higher than they are would approach a problem, which could facilitate faster learning.
If you really want to frustrate/challenge them, give them the source code to something in a language they don't know (maybe Perl, or Java) and ask them to figure out what the program does. This would only work for really keen students, not for those who get frustrated easily.
How would you like your Palm Pilot, or other PDA (if there are any other non-Palm PDA's worth mentioning) to be half its size, display in full colour, and do it in high resolution with the equivalent of a 17" or 21" monitor? The answer, my friends is VR goggles. Just think - instead of ever having to take it out of your pocket, just slip the goggles on.
Admittedly, there would be the problem of how to in put data, how to power the goggles, and carrying around goggles that are 5x the size of a typical Palm... but it's a really cool idea!
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if they'll use Freud in their ads. "What do you want to do to your mother today?"
A Canadian company called TriTec Power Systems Ltd. is already marketing a device that can use compressed nitrogen to power a vehicle. However, it is not limited to nitrogen - they're actually promoting it as a modern-day steam engine. Of course, it will work with any expanding gas, so you could even use dry ice if you really wanted to (although I have a feeling you wouldn't get nearly as much power out of dry ice as you would nitrogen or steam).
Come to think of it, I DO have one friend who has a LAN in his place. But right now his main computer (the one hooked up to his cablemodem) is in pieces, and he's reworking the others. So he has it, but he doesn't.
Of course, he's a Computer Science grad. I'll be that if I polled the 3200 employees in our company worldwide, I wouldn't find a lot of LANs. And that means return on engineering an ethernet card in, which means no profit, which means no market, which means you're SOL. [shrug]
- Not everyone has high-speed access. No point in connecting your Tivo to the 56K modem in your computer.
- Not everyone is going to have more than one device in their homes. They'll buy an iOpener and get e-mail, or they'll get Tivo and waste all their time with TV instead of WWW... at most I'd see two appliances, but not much more than that.
- I don't know anyone that has a LAN in their house, let alone hooked up to their DSL/cable connection. And I know some pretty hard-core geeks.
It boils down to "lowest common denominator". There isn't a market (a profitable one) for machines with ethernet. Unfortunately. And I guess the marketing yahoos don't think that it's worth the extra couple bucks to engineer in an optional ethernet adapter or expansion slot. Too bad.Star Wars Episode 2: Aidan Skywalker Becomes More Evil And Shags Princess Amidala Rotten
"Phantom Menace" had at least a semi-cool mysterious ring to it.
A: See if Apple sues.
trousers defragged while U wait
suits pressed and reformatted, 1 hour
This Week's Special: upgrade the memory in your UnderWare and receive a pair of USB socks
Look at it from the point of grammer. One example would be "if-then" or "if-else" statements. In English the structure is "If X then Y". Not being multilingual, I can't say for sure that another language is structured differently, but I'd hazard a guess that it's the same. Messing around with a logical sentence structure like that isn't the same as putting adjectives in a different place.
Overall, code (ideally) has a good, logical flow. One thing happens, so another thing happens. The result is this, so this other thing doens't happen. This could be described in any language, not just English (with the noted exception of whatever the language Bushmen talk in is called - unless you like programming with only . , - and *).
Does anyone know of a language that has a logic structure much different than English? Unless there is, I think English hasn't made much of a different.
As much as I'd like to be, I'm not into Linux yet. - my primary computer runs NT 4.0. I'll have a fully-functioning Linux (RedHat 6.0) box soon, and have been considering a cable modem for a while, but a firewall has always been the question. But my wife has an old Mac (LC II I think), and if it's as simple as you make it out to be, I think I've got my firewall!
Do you have any more links/insights/thoughts on setting up a Mac firewall? Most appreciated.
I'll take $US1.00 bets. E-mail me the year, month, and day (zulu) that someone will announce, and show proof of, Linux running on a Gameboy. Winner gets 50% of the pot, the remainder to the person(s) who actually managed the feat.
Next stop, the new HP...
What if the owner isn't the person that the device is implanted in?
Well, I think eveyone has got it all bass-ackwards on this. Looking for fossilized bacteria and water on Mars? Hoping for water on the Moon? Drilling through 10km of ice to see what might live in the ocean underneath Europa's crust? If you're looking for new life and exciting, harsh environments, I'd say we look down instead of up.
Don't get me wrong - I think the space program is entirely cool. But for billions of dollars less, we could effectively conquer the ocean floor instead of trying to escape gravity and get to space.
Just think - our planet is 70% covered with water, and yet it's mostly unexplored. We still haven't explored a lot of it, and there's lots to discover. How about looking at life forms that life in 400F toxic water plumes on the ocean floor instead of looking for fosselized bacteria? How about catalogueing all the various life that we haven't yet even seen in the depths instead of searching for water on the moon?
Space is cool - it's unlimited, which gives us room for our imaginations. The oceans are at a disadvantage due to that - they're finite. But I have a feeling it would be money better spent (and less of it, at that) exploring the depths of our oceans instead of the heights of our imaginations.
Having a leading university review Carnivore is a Good Idea (TM).
Having a leading American university review Carnivore is a Bad Idea (TM). Why? Oh, sure, like the FBI doesn't have any research or academic interests. Puh-LEASE.
Just fire up one of them there Carnivore machines to a Canadian university (lots to choose from, and even a handy ranking tool to help). The FBI can't come snooping, us Canucks will be pretty much impartial, and with luck the machine will get hung up at Customs and the FBI will have to pay duty on the thing.
AOLinux 5.0 TurboPlatinum comes with 6.5536e4 free hours!!
Watch your mailbox as we back a dump truck full of DVD's up to your door and fill it dailiy! Sign up today and get a FREE copy of AOLeyes!
Now, let's get down to all the other pollutants that they didn't get rid of:
- lead - and lots of it, in each computer, in every monitor's glass, they'll still have lots of lead in their equipment, and I'm guessing they won't be extracting it before getting rid of their old hardware when it comes time
- ozone - any time you run an electric motor (fan, power supply, dustbuster, whatever) some atmospheric oxygen gets zapped into ozone, an element of smog
- VOC's - Volatile Organic Compounds, which will be emitted from their new furniture and carpet over the next few years, unless they chose to go with solid wood furniture and simply stain or oil it (which I highly doubt)
Simply put, it would be extremely expensive to start up a business (ANY business) that is 100% environmentally-friendly. While I would applaud this, what they have done is simply started yet another hosting service, and are serving up this solar powered schtick for publicity.Their hearts are in the right place, but unfortunately it's just not enough.
What, sort of like doves? Were you planning on using floppies, CD/DVD's, or paper? Either way, you're going to need a stiff wind, and you should check your local littering bylaws.
3.commit to full source code release and release piecemeal
Have you already talked to Kentucky Fried Chicken about this? AFAIK, it will be the first time one of their meals comes with a prize in it, let alone an open-source prize. You may want to consider McDonald's instead, as they have more experience with that sort of thing.
5.placing the code in a provable timed-release escrow.
I dunno... I was sold on that myself, once. But when they came and put it on my lawn, it didn't last any more than a week. Plus, there's some nasty burn marks along the side of the house now. I'd be careful with anything "timed-release". But as long as it's provable...
During this seminar, he was talking about using his method of robot-building and applying it to satellites. (There's an article here.) Basically what Mark was saying is that there's a fundamental problem with current satellites; they're digital. And digital components don't like the harsh radiation of space. Plus, NASA's so-called "microsatellites" weigh in at over 600 lb. Not very "micro", if you ask me.
What he was proposing is whipping up a crop of "nanosatellites", maybe as big as your head, all out of analogue components (which he usues exclusively, at least last that I saw), which don't need to be radiation-hardened for space. Plus they're dirt cheap, and you can make them by the thousand.
NASA's "faster better cheaper" may be so, but it's all relative. If they really wanted that, they'd send out a fleet of Tilden's nanosatellites. Send 100 to Europa... some with cameras, some with infrared, some with spectrometers, some that talk to the others and beam back data to earth... and I'd bet it would be a lot cheaper than the Mars rover ever was.
If anyone has more Tilden links, please post them. He's done some amazing work, but I can't seem to dig up any large cache of web sites about his work. Pity - it fascinating!
I think a cluster of $1000 iMacs would severely trounce a matchbox cluster. And it's been done before... Read about it here.
Scientific American just had an article much like this, which you can read here without a subscription. They did mention Buckytubes, but didn't focus on them specifically.
Why not do both? Submit it to Ask Slashdot.
Yes, for a mere US$1,495.00 you too can own a slow, limited computer that you're likely to sit on, lose in your briefcase, or have your dog eat. Spiffy.
I do have to admit that it's a great design, with lots of potential. PDA's will never be the same - nor will beepers, cell phones, etc. Just put a small projector or LCD screen on the thing, and you've got yourself a backpack (or belt-clip) computer. WONDERFUL. I LOVE it.
But COME ON... for US$1,495.00?!? I'd rather pay an extra $200 and get the OTHER really small computer.
How about a project that is true to life? I have a lot of friends who don't just do their own coding, they have to mess with the code that others long before them wrote. Why not write up (or find) the source for a program youself, and give it to your students. The task would be to add feature X, fix bug Y, and see who can rewrite the code to run fastest/be shortest/have more complete and correct comments. This might be a good way for them to learn how someone a level or two (or more) higher than they are would approach a problem, which could facilitate faster learning.
If you really want to frustrate/challenge them, give them the source code to something in a language they don't know (maybe Perl, or Java) and ask them to figure out what the program does. This would only work for really keen students, not for those who get frustrated easily.
How would you like your Palm Pilot, or other PDA (if there are any other non-Palm PDA's worth mentioning) to be half its size, display in full colour, and do it in high resolution with the equivalent of a 17" or 21" monitor? The answer, my friends is VR goggles. Just think - instead of ever having to take it out of your pocket, just slip the goggles on.
Admittedly, there would be the problem of how to in put data, how to power the goggles, and carrying around goggles that are 5x the size of a typical Palm... but it's a really cool idea!
...and get more for my money, specifically an I-Opener. Besides, I don't think I have 41499 friends to split the cost of an IBM mainframe with.