This is exactly why Star Trek ships had "deflector shields". As a bonus, they look much nicer than big blocks of ice when you're doing a camera shot of the outside of the spacecraft.
If you don't need to carry propellant, not only can you get to Pluto in 18 months, you could probably decelerate and get into orbit. This could make for some exciting exploration of our solar system. And maybe we can catch/pass Voyager with a new interstellar probe?
It doesn't mean that at all, not necessarily. This drive still needs electrical power to operate, so it needs an energy source. Theoretically, assuming they can make a version that actually produces a decent amount of thrust, you could have solar-powered probes exploring the inner solar system using this drive. However, Pluto is too far away, and there simply isn't enough available energy there from sunlight. There's a reason deep-space probes use RTGs instead of solar panels: once you get past Mars or Jupiter, there just isn't enough light for them to be worthwhile.
If linear momentum is not conserved, the laws of physics are not the same throughout the universe and vice-versa.
Not necessarily; it could be like Newton's Laws vis-à-vis relativity. Newton's Laws model behavior just fine at low speeds (like an apple falling from a tree), but don't hold up at velocities closer to lightspeed (like space probes traveling to Pluto).
This thing could just be taking advantage of some unknown branch of physics, something we just don't normally see. Before space travel, humans never made anything which moved faster than a bullet (a little over the speed of sound), so we never had much of an opportunity to see that Newton's Laws were incomplete.
Sounds like they need to make a much bigger version of this thing to make sure they aren't just running into experimental error. 700W is tiny; my home microwave oven is 1200W! They should get a microwave emitter like that used for airport radar systems.
As for Germany, while they do have some great engineering over there, don't forget that homeopathy is also popular there and I believe was started there.
Of course, we Americans aren't any better, and quite a bit worse in many ways: not only do we use a lot of homeopathy, we also believe vaccines cause autism, and we buy into a lot of other pseudoscientific BS like crystal healing. We also started not one, but two wacko religions within the last 200 years (Scientology--Xenu of the Galactic Confederation brought people here in DC9s and killed them with an a-bomb and their disembodied souls are the cause of all our mental problems; and Mormonism--an angel showed Joseph Smith where to find some golden plates and a "seer stone" to read them with, which document Jesus coming to ancient Mesoamerica in contradiction of all archeological evidence, so he could start a new religion that allowed him to have multiple wives. And oh yeah, if you're a good Mormon, after you die, you'll become god over another planet).
Quantum Mechanics is like the scientology of physics. Clearly disprovable with simple thought experiments
So you don't believe that LEDs and semiconductors actually work? How exactly are you posting to this forum if you don't believe that microprocessors actually work?
Hint: these devices are only currently explainable using quantum mechanics.
When are you disciples of the religion of atheism going to admit you and the fundies are looking at opposite sides of the same coin? You're both passionate, and you're both intolerant and outspoken. Only difference is you both believe you're correct in different ways.
That depends on your definition of "atheism". The word literally means "without religion" (a + theism), so it can both be applied to people who passionately don't believe in theology, and people who simply don't know and don't adhere to any religion.
Of course, we tend to call the latter "agnostics" these days, but many of them also call themselves "atheists".
perhaps you could also lock down the picture capability too by interfering with interlacing and/or refresh rates somehow.
Interlacing? Refresh rates? This is 2015, those things don't apply any more: everyone has LCD now. Software has no real control over the display.
We have some standards documents which must be purchased. In order to prevent copyright theft, the distributor of the PDF files requires software on your computer which will actively disable the native clipboard and screenshot capabilities while the PDF is open. In addition, the software will look for common screenshot software like snagit and greenshot and force them to close before you can launch the PDF.
Are you sure about the "Free speech" zone thing? I don't remember those coming about until George W Bush's term; I sure as hell don't remember anything like that between 1989 and 1992.
If he's that bad, then why is he allowed to walk free? And why is there an arrest warrant out that's only valid in one place? Nationwide arrest warrants are not uncommon.
I'm sure he wouldn't have been stupid enough to show up just because a permit was issued for him to perform in person. (Or if he was that stupid, his handlers wouldn't have been that stupid.) A performance permit does not overrule an arrest warrant; who would ever think that?
Sounds like a missed opportunity for open-source: the hardware companies making Cell should have invested in compiler engineers to make really good compilers for It (or just add onto gcc), and open-source all the work. Then lots of people would have wanted to use Cell processors because of the performance.
Making a nice product, and then making closed, proprietary tools that are needed to best use that product, isn't a winning business strategy. Give away the tools free so people are interested in trying out and using your product, and then it gets designed into high-volume parts.
Aftermarket paint jobs, on the other hand, I have never seen a good looking aftermarket paintjob on a Honda.
That probably has to do with the owners of those cars. If you did see a good-looking aftermarket paintjob, would you even know? Would you be able to tell it wasn't a factory job?
I had an Integra years ago that got hit in the door, and so insurance paid for a new door skin and repainting (which covered the door and the surrounding portions). That paint looked great until I sold the car. But this wasn't an obvious paint job since it was a factory color.
Did they direct the Engineers to design faulty suspension?
Management is *always* at fault, any time there's a problem. That's why they're called "management"; if they can't properly manage, they should get another job, like janitorial work. Engineers are employees, and just do what they're told, under threat of losing their job. So yes, management did direct the engineers to design a faulty suspension, one way or another, either by demanding that it be cheap, that it be done too quickly, that important analysis steps be skipped in the interest of time and cost, that safety testing not be done because of time and cost, etc.
The final quality of the product is up to management, whether it's suspension safety or wireless security. It's their job to make sure the engineering is done properly, and if they're not competent to judge that (and their employees aren't either), it's their job to hire consultants to help them with it.
All this stupid thing is, is a system where the recipient gets a link to click on, which lets them go view the "email" (message) on some server somewhere, subject to a bunch of restrictions. I think there's also a browser plugin that basically does the same thing, but making it appear more like you're reading an email instead of just being redirected to some server.
This isn't email in the traditional SMTP sense.
Of course, it still is impossible for them to prevent you copying it somehow, even if you have to resort to screen capture.
This isn't the same KDE that runs on your desktop, this is a different version made for mobile platforms. Some of the underlying code (the "framework") is the same, but the UI is different. KDE is the only group out there, it seems, that thinks we should have different interfaces on different devices.
Android - Huge app ecosystem, but a non-starter for anyone who doesn't consider it acceptable for mass scale harvesting of personal data by an advertising company. It's a "half open" platform, but the app ecosystem is a clusterfuck of crapware.
The crapware really isn't a problem. No one is forcing you to install crapware on your phone from the app store (undeletable crapware pre-loaded by the carrier and mfgr is another matter). If you're picky about what apps you install, you shouldn't have a problem. It's really no different from Windows that way: there's all kinds of crapware out there, but no one is forcing you to install, say, McAfee or PeopleSoft or some random toolbar on your Windows PC. Just stick to Firefox and MS or LibreOffice and you'll be fine. Now the danger of platforms like this is that you can easily install crapware, and you have to be a bit savvy and not completely naive and trusting that everything out there is OK. With (relative) freedom comes responsibility. So if you're a gullible fool, then you better stick with iOS and Apple iDevices, so that Apple can hold your hand and make sure you don't do anything you're not supposed to.
Unfortunately, you're right about the mass harvesting of personal data part. This (and Apple's approach too) is a consequence of having a non-open platform, where you don't have access to the source code, nor can you easily change the software. Whoever controls the platform can do whatever they want with it. With Google, they mass-harvest personal data. With Apple, they control everything you do. With MS, they give you a shitty, broken UI.
Lots of people like Flash: lots of websites still use it for various reasons (*cough* tracking *cough*), so obviously those people like it. And lots of Slashdotters like it too: just look at all the comments above: there's a ton of people here defending it. So it's definitely false that *nobody* likes Flash.
As for the Confederate flag, you may be correct about "most people" not liking it, but there's still a very large number of Americans who do, and have taken to flying this flag lately because of all the controversy. Lots of these people are likely blatant racists too. But that's how Americans are. Just look at the cops; most of them are blatant racists too. How many cops are there in America? Probably in the millions.
or for a competitor to show up and provide the service that Comcast refuses to.
Where are you getting that idea? Competitors can't just roll into town and set up shop and compete with Comcast. In most places it's plainly illegal: cable companies are granted monopolies by the local government.
See the above but, nice to see you condoning the corporate "Fuck the consumer" mindset.
How am I condoning anything? I'm just pointing out Comcast's point of view. Why should they care about the consumer? They have a monopoly. Thinking they're somehow going to grow a moral backbone is ridiculously wishful thinking.
My country has good quality prisons and reasonable rehabilitation rates.
Then your country is a very rare exception. For most of the world's population, prison is nothing more than miserable torture. You can't just say "well make the prisons nice like the ones in my country!"; that's like telling a dumb person who failed his algebra test to just get smart and ace it like you did. Or telling a country with severe economic problems to just become a utopian society where there's no money, like on Star Trek.
But we know from historical contexts that prison is better than the alternative of wholesale punitive murder.
We know that how? You still haven't proven that it's better to be tortured in a squalid prison cell and be subject to constant rape, for decades, than it is to be quickly (and presumably not too painfully) executed.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly why Star Trek ships had "deflector shields". As a bonus, they look much nicer than big blocks of ice when you're doing a camera shot of the outside of the spacecraft.
You'd have to use magnetic confinement. Of course, that itself would require a constant power source, or else BOOM.
If you don't need to carry propellant, not only can you get to Pluto in 18 months, you could probably decelerate and get into orbit. This could make for some exciting exploration of our solar system. And maybe we can catch/pass Voyager with a new interstellar probe?
It doesn't mean that at all, not necessarily. This drive still needs electrical power to operate, so it needs an energy source. Theoretically, assuming they can make a version that actually produces a decent amount of thrust, you could have solar-powered probes exploring the inner solar system using this drive. However, Pluto is too far away, and there simply isn't enough available energy there from sunlight. There's a reason deep-space probes use RTGs instead of solar panels: once you get past Mars or Jupiter, there just isn't enough light for them to be worthwhile.
If linear momentum is not conserved, the laws of physics are not the same throughout the universe and vice-versa.
Not necessarily; it could be like Newton's Laws vis-à-vis relativity. Newton's Laws model behavior just fine at low speeds (like an apple falling from a tree), but don't hold up at velocities closer to lightspeed (like space probes traveling to Pluto).
This thing could just be taking advantage of some unknown branch of physics, something we just don't normally see. Before space travel, humans never made anything which moved faster than a bullet (a little over the speed of sound), so we never had much of an opportunity to see that Newton's Laws were incomplete.
Sounds like they need to make a much bigger version of this thing to make sure they aren't just running into experimental error. 700W is tiny; my home microwave oven is 1200W! They should get a microwave emitter like that used for airport radar systems.
As for Germany, while they do have some great engineering over there, don't forget that homeopathy is also popular there and I believe was started there.
Of course, we Americans aren't any better, and quite a bit worse in many ways: not only do we use a lot of homeopathy, we also believe vaccines cause autism, and we buy into a lot of other pseudoscientific BS like crystal healing. We also started not one, but two wacko religions within the last 200 years (Scientology--Xenu of the Galactic Confederation brought people here in DC9s and killed them with an a-bomb and their disembodied souls are the cause of all our mental problems; and Mormonism--an angel showed Joseph Smith where to find some golden plates and a "seer stone" to read them with, which document Jesus coming to ancient Mesoamerica in contradiction of all archeological evidence, so he could start a new religion that allowed him to have multiple wives. And oh yeah, if you're a good Mormon, after you die, you'll become god over another planet).
Quantum Mechanics is like the scientology of physics. Clearly disprovable with simple thought experiments
So you don't believe that LEDs and semiconductors actually work? How exactly are you posting to this forum if you don't believe that microprocessors actually work?
Hint: these devices are only currently explainable using quantum mechanics.
When are you disciples of the religion of atheism going to admit you and the fundies are looking at opposite sides of the same coin? You're both passionate, and you're both intolerant and outspoken. Only difference is you both believe you're correct in different ways.
That depends on your definition of "atheism". The word literally means "without religion" (a + theism), so it can both be applied to people who passionately don't believe in theology, and people who simply don't know and don't adhere to any religion.
Of course, we tend to call the latter "agnostics" these days, but many of them also call themselves "atheists".
How would the Democrats use it in the 80s? Reagan was President then (and then Bush I in 89). Unless it was at the state level.
perhaps you could also lock down the picture capability too by interfering with interlacing and/or refresh rates somehow.
Interlacing? Refresh rates? This is 2015, those things don't apply any more: everyone has LCD now. Software has no real control over the display.
We have some standards documents which must be purchased. In order to prevent copyright theft, the distributor of the PDF files requires software on your computer which will actively disable the native clipboard and screenshot capabilities while the PDF is open. In addition, the software will look for common screenshot software like snagit and greenshot and force them to close before you can launch the PDF.
This sounds like malware to me.
Are you sure about the "Free speech" zone thing? I don't remember those coming about until George W Bush's term; I sure as hell don't remember anything like that between 1989 and 1992.
If he's that bad, then why is he allowed to walk free? And why is there an arrest warrant out that's only valid in one place? Nationwide arrest warrants are not uncommon.
I'm sure he wouldn't have been stupid enough to show up just because a permit was issued for him to perform in person. (Or if he was that stupid, his handlers wouldn't have been that stupid.) A performance permit does not overrule an arrest warrant; who would ever think that?
Sounds like a missed opportunity for open-source: the hardware companies making Cell should have invested in compiler engineers to make really good compilers for It (or just add onto gcc), and open-source all the work. Then lots of people would have wanted to use Cell processors because of the performance.
Making a nice product, and then making closed, proprietary tools that are needed to best use that product, isn't a winning business strategy. Give away the tools free so people are interested in trying out and using your product, and then it gets designed into high-volume parts.
Aftermarket paint jobs, on the other hand, I have never seen a good looking aftermarket paintjob on a Honda.
That probably has to do with the owners of those cars. If you did see a good-looking aftermarket paintjob, would you even know? Would you be able to tell it wasn't a factory job?
I had an Integra years ago that got hit in the door, and so insurance paid for a new door skin and repainting (which covered the door and the surrounding portions). That paint looked great until I sold the car. But this wasn't an obvious paint job since it was a factory color.
Did they direct the Engineers to design faulty suspension?
Management is *always* at fault, any time there's a problem. That's why they're called "management"; if they can't properly manage, they should get another job, like janitorial work. Engineers are employees, and just do what they're told, under threat of losing their job. So yes, management did direct the engineers to design a faulty suspension, one way or another, either by demanding that it be cheap, that it be done too quickly, that important analysis steps be skipped in the interest of time and cost, that safety testing not be done because of time and cost, etc.
The final quality of the product is up to management, whether it's suspension safety or wireless security. It's their job to make sure the engineering is done properly, and if they're not competent to judge that (and their employees aren't either), it's their job to hire consultants to help them with it.
It has nothing to do with Gmail really, it's just a link to let someone view a message on some website. It isn't actually email.
It's only enforceable because it isn't email.
All this stupid thing is, is a system where the recipient gets a link to click on, which lets them go view the "email" (message) on some server somewhere, subject to a bunch of restrictions. I think there's also a browser plugin that basically does the same thing, but making it appear more like you're reading an email instead of just being redirected to some server.
This isn't email in the traditional SMTP sense.
Of course, it still is impossible for them to prevent you copying it somehow, even if you have to resort to screen capture.
This isn't the same KDE that runs on your desktop, this is a different version made for mobile platforms. Some of the underlying code (the "framework") is the same, but the UI is different. KDE is the only group out there, it seems, that thinks we should have different interfaces on different devices.
I haven't read TFA, but as this is for mobile devices, most likely it's a framebuffer.
Android - Huge app ecosystem, but a non-starter for anyone who doesn't consider it acceptable for mass scale harvesting of personal data by an advertising company. It's a "half open" platform, but the app ecosystem is a clusterfuck of crapware.
The crapware really isn't a problem. No one is forcing you to install crapware on your phone from the app store (undeletable crapware pre-loaded by the carrier and mfgr is another matter). If you're picky about what apps you install, you shouldn't have a problem. It's really no different from Windows that way: there's all kinds of crapware out there, but no one is forcing you to install, say, McAfee or PeopleSoft or some random toolbar on your Windows PC. Just stick to Firefox and MS or LibreOffice and you'll be fine. Now the danger of platforms like this is that you can easily install crapware, and you have to be a bit savvy and not completely naive and trusting that everything out there is OK. With (relative) freedom comes responsibility. So if you're a gullible fool, then you better stick with iOS and Apple iDevices, so that Apple can hold your hand and make sure you don't do anything you're not supposed to.
Unfortunately, you're right about the mass harvesting of personal data part. This (and Apple's approach too) is a consequence of having a non-open platform, where you don't have access to the source code, nor can you easily change the software. Whoever controls the platform can do whatever they want with it. With Google, they mass-harvest personal data. With Apple, they control everything you do. With MS, they give you a shitty, broken UI.
Let's use car insurance as an example; something you are required by law to buy.
Millions of New Yorkers and other urban dwellers disagree with you. No one is required to own a car.
I disagree on both counts.
Lots of people like Flash: lots of websites still use it for various reasons (*cough* tracking *cough*), so obviously those people like it. And lots of Slashdotters like it too: just look at all the comments above: there's a ton of people here defending it. So it's definitely false that *nobody* likes Flash.
As for the Confederate flag, you may be correct about "most people" not liking it, but there's still a very large number of Americans who do, and have taken to flying this flag lately because of all the controversy. Lots of these people are likely blatant racists too. But that's how Americans are. Just look at the cops; most of them are blatant racists too. How many cops are there in America? Probably in the millions.
or for a competitor to show up and provide the service that Comcast refuses to.
Where are you getting that idea? Competitors can't just roll into town and set up shop and compete with Comcast. In most places it's plainly illegal: cable companies are granted monopolies by the local government.
See the above but, nice to see you condoning the corporate "Fuck the consumer" mindset.
How am I condoning anything? I'm just pointing out Comcast's point of view. Why should they care about the consumer? They have a monopoly. Thinking they're somehow going to grow a moral backbone is ridiculously wishful thinking.
My country has good quality prisons and reasonable rehabilitation rates.
Then your country is a very rare exception. For most of the world's population, prison is nothing more than miserable torture. You can't just say "well make the prisons nice like the ones in my country!"; that's like telling a dumb person who failed his algebra test to just get smart and ace it like you did. Or telling a country with severe economic problems to just become a utopian society where there's no money, like on Star Trek.
But we know from historical contexts that prison is better than the alternative of wholesale punitive murder.
We know that how? You still haven't proven that it's better to be tortured in a squalid prison cell and be subject to constant rape, for decades, than it is to be quickly (and presumably not too painfully) executed.