The fastest way to board is to have the seating area at the airport be a removable replica of the seating area inside the airplane. Then, when the plane arrives, the entire airplane opens up, the seating area (with passengers) is removed with a gigantic crane-like machine, and the new seating area (formerly known as the airport waiting area) is loaded in. The area formerly known as the airplane seating area is then put into place inside the airport, and becomes the new airport waiting area. Voila, the entire boarding process in 2 minutes.
That's probably the fastest way without resorting to powerful vacuums, but probably not terribly practical. The most practical way would be to build the plane with sufficient space in the aisle to avoid the "fat guy with the large carry-on that clearly doesn't fit into the overhead bin holding everyone up" problem, but they'd never go for that.
So, maybe a giant vacuum (for disembarking) combined with a giant cannon (for boarding) is the best way. We couldn't guarantee seat assignment this way, of course, but if we encased everyone in foam like the stuff in that car in Demolition Man, it should work with a minimum of injuries.
The problem with these researchers is they aren't thinking outside the box enough.
I was disappointed when he decided to run because his show was the only thing worth listening to on Air America. I could almost tolerate the 15 minutes of ads for every 5 minutes of actual content for his show, but all the rest of it was just people trying too hard to be the Rush Limbaugh (or even Ann Coulter) of the left.
AOL was only able to buy them because they weren't doing well. The only part of Netscape that was worth anything by that point was the netscape.com portal site, which is generally cited as the reason AOL bought them at all. The browser wars were over by that point, and the source code had already been opened up. AOL made a half-assed effort to keep Netscape the browser alive, but I believe even at that point IE was the default browser for AOL clients.
Ah, but the Higgs boson would not exist without Alan W. Livingston (The Alan Livingst-on particle?), who was responsible for the creation of all Bozons
I agree. At that age, her dealings with computers (particularly computers with Internet access) should be closely monitored by her parents. She should set up a password and be instructed not to tell other people what it is in order to get her into the habit of good security practices, but her parents should nevertheless know the password (or some other way to access the computer).
Of course, my son is 8 and he's only allowed to use the computer in the living room, and we can easily see what he's doing on it at all times. Kids are already going to obsess about keeping things from their parents when they're teenagers, there's no reason to start building that barrier when they're only 7.
I would have thought the emergency Air Supply would be provided via a recording of "All Out of Love", but I guess that might make it more desirable just to stay stranded by the side of the road rather than trying to use it.
The problem is that Y2K was handled so well, and as a result the consequences of it were so ridiculously minor, that most people in the general public feel that it was all overblown hype. Yes, there was a lot of hype, but the fact is a lot of programmers worked a long time to make sure things that needed to be fixed got fixed.
However, since most people feel that Y2K was overblown and the money spent on it was wasted, they're unlikely to take seriously any new "crisis" in IT, and will simply refuse to spend any money on it.
Have you ever installed a computer game? I've had those fail in interesting ways because my GPU's firmware was not the version they wanted it to be, even though the card itself was "supported". You could come up with 10,000 combinations easily if you take into account different products from each manufacturer (and any given manufacturer will have multiple products out at any given time, most of which will not be 100% compatible with each other), and the different firmware versions available for each of those products. Motherboards and GPUs especially are notorious for this sort of thing.
Well duh, if you don't like that idea, we can make it so the foot pedal actually sets off a small explosive charge, rocketing the weights up to the top. Exhaust could be a problem, and we'd have to make sure it could handle the stress of an explosion, but it would look wicked cool.
A pulley would probably be the most efficient way, but I suggested a foot pedal because I was concerned a pulley system would interfere with the overall aesthetics of the device. Either way, though, as long as you can make it easy to lift the weights without making the lamp look terrible, I think the idea is a good one.
I would imagine that just like CFLs before them, LEDs will eventually be capable of producing more natural light, even if it's only by way of a coating on the glass (or in this case acrylic) of the lamp. It does seem silly to wait 15 years for natural light, maybe he should look at tinting the acrylic and see what he can get from that.
Either way, it seems like maybe you wouldn't want to buy one of these things in their current state, but the idea has a lot of promise.
I really like the idea, and would probably buy one if the price is right.
However, one thing concerns me. The weights are moved up to the top by human power, which is fine, but according to the picture on the designer's website, the weights are 5 10 pound weights in each lamp, so either I'm having to lift 10 pounds 5 times every time I want to light the lamp, or I'm lifting 50 pounds. Perhaps he could incorporate some sort of foot pedal mechanism or something to more easily lift the weights. If he could figure out how to do that, and also maybe improve the efficiency a little more to get more than the 40-watt equivalent it gets now, I could see this becoming a solid replacement for traditional lamps.
Duh. You ALWAYS submit things on the last possible day, because that makes it look like you were working so hard on your well-reasoned and well-researched arguments that you were just barely able to slide in by the deadline. You can't just submit something two weeks early, because then everyone will think you just threw some crap together and ignore it.
That's a nice thought, but if I had a dime for every time someone said a particular piece of technology would be the death of Microsoft, I could buy Microsoft and kill it myself.
Maybe it's the senility, but I can't recall a time when the average Slashdotter was an expert in the mechanics involved in shooting down a wayward satellite.
Most mega-billionaires give away their money in hopes of achieving immortality. Why is this a bad thing? Many fine research and educational institutions would not exist without this desire to be remembered for something positive. I think if we look down on the idea of doing great things for society in order to achieve lasting immortality, we will lose all of the great things that can result from it.
The only "true" philanthropy is anonymous. That doesn't mean we should condemn the idea of "pseudo" philanthropy just because we find the idea of buying immortality distasteful. After all, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute would probably be just as good without Howard Hughes' name on it, but it certainly wouldn't be as good (or even exist) without his money in it.
I didn't say he would be effective in Congress, just that he could get elected to Congress. One person championing Creative Commons in a room of 434 other people in the pocket of the industry lobbyists probably won't have much effect at all unless he can build up enough seniority to get on (and chair) the right committees.
I think it would be more like taking the engineering plans for a particular car and then reproducing that car endlessly and giving it away for free. In that way, you're depriving the creator of the original work the opportunity to make money from it if everyone just gets your cars for free rather than paying him for his.
He doesn't need to be elected by the whole state, just his district. That particular district covers a big chunk of Silicon Valley, which may be the one place a candidate like that actually could get elected.
Slashdot Mirror
The fastest way to board is to have the seating area at the airport be a removable replica of the seating area inside the airplane. Then, when the plane arrives, the entire airplane opens up, the seating area (with passengers) is removed with a gigantic crane-like machine, and the new seating area (formerly known as the airport waiting area) is loaded in. The area formerly known as the airplane seating area is then put into place inside the airport, and becomes the new airport waiting area. Voila, the entire boarding process in 2 minutes.
That's probably the fastest way without resorting to powerful vacuums, but probably not terribly practical. The most practical way would be to build the plane with sufficient space in the aisle to avoid the "fat guy with the large carry-on that clearly doesn't fit into the overhead bin holding everyone up" problem, but they'd never go for that.
So, maybe a giant vacuum (for disembarking) combined with a giant cannon (for boarding) is the best way. We couldn't guarantee seat assignment this way, of course, but if we encased everyone in foam like the stuff in that car in Demolition Man, it should work with a minimum of injuries.
The problem with these researchers is they aren't thinking outside the box enough.
Signed,
Chester W. Lampworth
President and CEO
Amalgamated Manure, Inc.
Well, at least now you know your boss paid attention in MGMT 301.
My favorite part of this video is the black background. Also the black foreground.
I was disappointed when he decided to run because his show was the only thing worth listening to on Air America. I could almost tolerate the 15 minutes of ads for every 5 minutes of actual content for his show, but all the rest of it was just people trying too hard to be the Rush Limbaugh (or even Ann Coulter) of the left.
AOL was only able to buy them because they weren't doing well. The only part of Netscape that was worth anything by that point was the netscape.com portal site, which is generally cited as the reason AOL bought them at all. The browser wars were over by that point, and the source code had already been opened up. AOL made a half-assed effort to keep Netscape the browser alive, but I believe even at that point IE was the default browser for AOL clients.
Ah, but the Higgs boson would not exist without Alan W. Livingston (The Alan Livingst-on particle?), who was responsible for the creation of all Bozons
I agree. At that age, her dealings with computers (particularly computers with Internet access) should be closely monitored by her parents. She should set up a password and be instructed not to tell other people what it is in order to get her into the habit of good security practices, but her parents should nevertheless know the password (or some other way to access the computer).
Of course, my son is 8 and he's only allowed to use the computer in the living room, and we can easily see what he's doing on it at all times. Kids are already going to obsess about keeping things from their parents when they're teenagers, there's no reason to start building that barrier when they're only 7.
I would have thought the emergency Air Supply would be provided via a recording of "All Out of Love", but I guess that might make it more desirable just to stay stranded by the side of the road rather than trying to use it.
Until I got to the line about the novelty geek mug, I thought you were trying to sell us a new brand of underarm deodorant.
The problem is that Y2K was handled so well, and as a result the consequences of it were so ridiculously minor, that most people in the general public feel that it was all overblown hype. Yes, there was a lot of hype, but the fact is a lot of programmers worked a long time to make sure things that needed to be fixed got fixed.
However, since most people feel that Y2K was overblown and the money spent on it was wasted, they're unlikely to take seriously any new "crisis" in IT, and will simply refuse to spend any money on it.
Have you ever installed a computer game? I've had those fail in interesting ways because my GPU's firmware was not the version they wanted it to be, even though the card itself was "supported". You could come up with 10,000 combinations easily if you take into account different products from each manufacturer (and any given manufacturer will have multiple products out at any given time, most of which will not be 100% compatible with each other), and the different firmware versions available for each of those products. Motherboards and GPUs especially are notorious for this sort of thing.
Well duh, if you don't like that idea, we can make it so the foot pedal actually sets off a small explosive charge, rocketing the weights up to the top. Exhaust could be a problem, and we'd have to make sure it could handle the stress of an explosion, but it would look wicked cool.
A pulley would probably be the most efficient way, but I suggested a foot pedal because I was concerned a pulley system would interfere with the overall aesthetics of the device. Either way, though, as long as you can make it easy to lift the weights without making the lamp look terrible, I think the idea is a good one.
I would imagine that just like CFLs before them, LEDs will eventually be capable of producing more natural light, even if it's only by way of a coating on the glass (or in this case acrylic) of the lamp. It does seem silly to wait 15 years for natural light, maybe he should look at tinting the acrylic and see what he can get from that.
Either way, it seems like maybe you wouldn't want to buy one of these things in their current state, but the idea has a lot of promise.
I really like the idea, and would probably buy one if the price is right.
However, one thing concerns me. The weights are moved up to the top by human power, which is fine, but according to the picture on the designer's website, the weights are 5 10 pound weights in each lamp, so either I'm having to lift 10 pounds 5 times every time I want to light the lamp, or I'm lifting 50 pounds. Perhaps he could incorporate some sort of foot pedal mechanism or something to more easily lift the weights. If he could figure out how to do that, and also maybe improve the efficiency a little more to get more than the 40-watt equivalent it gets now, I could see this becoming a solid replacement for traditional lamps.
Duh. You ALWAYS submit things on the last possible day, because that makes it look like you were working so hard on your well-reasoned and well-researched arguments that you were just barely able to slide in by the deadline. You can't just submit something two weeks early, because then everyone will think you just threw some crap together and ignore it.
That's a nice thought, but if I had a dime for every time someone said a particular piece of technology would be the death of Microsoft, I could buy Microsoft and kill it myself.
Maybe it's the senility, but I can't recall a time when the average Slashdotter was an expert in the mechanics involved in shooting down a wayward satellite.
Most mega-billionaires give away their money in hopes of achieving immortality. Why is this a bad thing? Many fine research and educational institutions would not exist without this desire to be remembered for something positive. I think if we look down on the idea of doing great things for society in order to achieve lasting immortality, we will lose all of the great things that can result from it.
The only "true" philanthropy is anonymous. That doesn't mean we should condemn the idea of "pseudo" philanthropy just because we find the idea of buying immortality distasteful. After all, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute would probably be just as good without Howard Hughes' name on it, but it certainly wouldn't be as good (or even exist) without his money in it.
I didn't say he would be effective in Congress, just that he could get elected to Congress. One person championing Creative Commons in a room of 434 other people in the pocket of the industry lobbyists probably won't have much effect at all unless he can build up enough seniority to get on (and chair) the right committees.
I think it would be more like taking the engineering plans for a particular car and then reproducing that car endlessly and giving it away for free. In that way, you're depriving the creator of the original work the opportunity to make money from it if everyone just gets your cars for free rather than paying him for his.
I'd rather vote for a guy that stood up for what I believe in and failed rather than someone who stood up for something I'm against and succeeded.
He doesn't need to be elected by the whole state, just his district. That particular district covers a big chunk of Silicon Valley, which may be the one place a candidate like that actually could get elected.
Maybe they wanted to be acquired by a big evil corporation, but they were concerned that Microsoft just wasn't evil enough.