What about the idea of a stripped down, super cheap rack box?
Personally, I would use/buy several really cheap networked processor boxes for distributed rendering (3d, After Effects, FCP, etc.). It seems that it would work to make a box with a basic mobo, processor, tons of RAM and a nic (maybe a HD or firewire if necessary) - it would boot off the network and be remotely administered (both Apple strengths). If Apple can sell a G4 iMac for us$1300 with a screen and extra bells and whistles, they should be able to sell a box like I'm describing for us$800.
If they were simple enough that you could plug one into your network and have After Effects or FCP recognize it immediately, then I think that there would be a market for people who need more rendering power NOW! Imagine that on Tuesday they realize that in order to finish a project by Friday, they could justify us$1600 for two extra rendering units and have them FedExed for the final rendering run starting Wednesday night.
Maybe I'm wierd, but I would buy these 'processor boxes' just to be able to have work move along faster. (while my work doesn't justify the situation I outlined above, I would pop us$800 for an extra G4 processor for distributed rendering).
:especially if thier low profile this puts Mac at the fore front of 3D rendering. I'm sure that Steve Jobs recognizes the demand for a setup such as this - as he is the CEO of PIXAR.
Hmmm. I think that there is a chance that because Steve has experience with PIXAR, he may have looked at what a rackmount Mac could be and said, "well, PIXAR wouldn't buy them, so why release them?"
It is possible that Apple hasn't figured out how to make rackmounts compelling.
When you paid for the law, you get to say when it should be enforced. Thus the RIAA can hire minors to 'steal' music and declare that the law won't apply.
Quick! Patent the house cat! Nevermind that they're everywhere and have been around for a long time and that you had nothing to do with developing them, after all, Monsanto didn't develop many traditional strains of grain, but they own them anyway! The Patent Office doesn't care - just patent the cat before someone else does!
In theory you can get a PVR without a subscription, but the average consumer probably doesn't know that. As I see it, it's the subscription issue that is a big barrier to adoption. If you don't need a subscription for your VCR, why should you pay TiVo every month?
It's not that simple. You comment that "there are plenty of conservatives on the Supreme Court." That's certainly true, to say the least. While Bork's involvement and actions in Nixon's White House is an important reflection on his character, it is also important to recognize his truly extreme positions. For anyone who isn't an extremist on one side or another, it is important to keep extremists off the Supreme Court.
Sadly, American popular political discourse is so limited that politicians fear that if they simply stand up and say "The apointee is a wacko, so I'm voting against her!" that the voters will react badly to them. The result is that in order for reasonable politicians to resist extremist apointees they need to engage in a variety of personal and tangential attacks to justify their opposition to the apointee. Thus, the opposition to Bork wasn't based on a discussion of his actual extremist positions, but rather a bizzare, convoluted psuedo-discourse of anciliary issues.
Of course, the fact that he was Nixon's "Running Dog" in that subversion of our government didn't help, but I don't think it was the central issue.
"Economic Issues" are absolutely the limitation. I worked on the urban planning and station design (I'm an architect) for a Raytheon system implementation for Rosemont, IL (near O'Hare Intl. Airport). The system would have tied together a zillion hotels, the Rosemont Theater, the conference center and the "L" station (Chicago's 'Metro' or U-Bahn system) in the first phase. Later phases would have been tied into the Metra system (commuter rail/S-Bahn), the airport's people mover system and the stadium.
Remember that these systems have been 'almost built' countles times over the last 25 years. Thus, any system that is to be built will be a prototype. The Chicago-area system was to be funded by several sources, primarily the Regional Transportation Authority (with Federal and State funding) and Raytheon as a business deal with the idea to sell systems all over the world. Raytheon went so far as to build a working test loop with two vehicles out in MA. The deal fell apart when it came time to cough up the cash. How surprising!
As for the Cardiff system, it doesn't seem like the ideal implementation and the prices they quote are, as one would expect, way low and/or are leaving out a lot of development costs. PRT systems make the most sense in semi-dense suburaban areas where distances are a bit too far to walk (and there are no sidewalks, anyway) auto traffic is problematic and the desitnations are somewhat scattered around a few square mile area. For example, an older suburb with a downtown and a commuter rail station with a mall just outside of town and an office complex nearby. A series of loops would interconnect the various destinations with off-line ("layby" in the article) stations spaced 1/4 to 1/2 miles apart. At least in the US, fares would be paid per vehicle, rather than per person. You tell the system your destination, a vehicle pulls up, you get in and are taken non-stop to your destination station. Thus, you don't ride with strangers. (public transit for suburbanites)
As for the photo with the bike, that doesn't make sense becauase these systems cover distances that are easily biked! Also, in the photo of the guideway spanning over the roadway, the guideway looks far too thin - in reality it would be deeper and thus more visually obtrusive. Also, the quoted fare (1 pound/1.5 E or us$) would require massive subsidy
Movies don't just happen. It's one thing to shoot a screwy movie - you may not really understand just how bad a film is if you don't see dailies - and I'm sure they didn't have dailies on Manos.
The true horror of the situation comes when you imagine someone in front of an editing setup actually trying to put that piece of crap together. That's when you have to realize that you're making an astoundingly bad movie. I must give credit to who ever it was who actually finished it - I never could have spent days and days on that crap. For some reason I'm imagining someone in Redmond coding away at some awful jumble of MS code. Dicipline and stick-to-it-iveness!
I'm really skeptical about the possibility of really effective tele-surgery. I'm not a surgeon, I'm an architect. I have a fair amount of experience building models, and I can't imagine building even a so-so cardboard and balsa model with telemedicine equipment. You would think that it's easier to cut and assemble cardboard than to suture an artery. Haptics are critical in getting there, but even in basic modelbuilding there's an astounding amount of very subtle feedback and knife control involved. I have to say, though, that the 'stop and the yolk' work makes a lot of sense as a test for this system.
Re:Contrast: The Economist
on
Globalization
·
· Score: 1
Two things to clarify:
1. The Economist does have some axes to grind - look closely and figure it out yourself.
2. The Economist is technically a NEWSPAPER - don't make the mistake of calling it a magazine if you're ever in their offices (at least in London) I'll save you the greif now. (By the way, their bookshop right off Picadilly is pretty spiffy, if you're into econ and business books)
I think that there are issues about the interface that a lot of people dont' get. From Apple's point of view, they have done a lot of work to design a really good UI and they simply don't want you screwing around with it. There are many things to not like about that approach, but that's how they see it.
The designers at BMW do not really want you painting their cars in hippie rainbow colors, adding neon underneath and gluing crap to the hood. They design beautiful cars (in their opinion) and having non-designers tacking crap onto the cars probably irritates them. Apple sees it the same way - they carefully designed the UI and they don't want you changing the colors to who-knows-what.
You can't begin to know the pain of being a designer who has to put their design in the hands of 'the public' only to have them screw it up, rather than worship your genius!
If it helps anyone, I suspect that the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings were a combination of the initial damage from the impacts followed by fire. The structures initially survived, but the fires from the crashes would then have heated the steel in the structures (wether steel columns/beams or reinforcing in concrete). These buildings are designed to withstand fire, but with the inital damage from the impacts, the resulting weakening of the steel from fire overwhelmed the ability of the remaining structure to hold up what was above it. I've just heard speculative reports on commercial television about secondary explosive devices causing the colapses - regardless of wether there were secondary bombs, they would not be necessary to cause these failures in this situation.
For what it's worth, it would likely be prohibitively expensive to design tall buildings to withstand the impact of a large passenger jet.
You know it's bad when the main posting is trolling
To the whiners who grumble about Firewire being the basis for an Emmy (in engineering), I say shut up and mod Linux so that it's the freaking best video editing environment ever, and you'll get yerself an Emmy too!
And that's how the Cheney/Bush administration wants it. The administration's 'compromise' prevents them from looking like the Talaban, and drives research into the 'closed source' labs of private companies (who make bigger campaign contributions than publicly funded academic researchers). It's win/win for them, and loose/loose for all of us in the long run.
As an alum of U of IL @ Urbana-Champaign, I can comment on how this whole thing is typically implemented, at least before any lawers are involved.
Esentially, anyting the school wants out of your work, it keeps. I was there for architecture, so any cool drawing you drew or model you built for a class that the professor wanted to keep at the end of the class (usually because you kicked ass and the prof wants to show to next year's class) they kept. At us$20 per hour, the School of Architecture has millions of dollars worth of student work in the archives.
Now, the big difference between student architecure projects and software is that, really, the school isn't going to make any real money off the student work, whereas with software, they could make millions. If I remember, my Hopkins Residence Hall buddy Marc Andressen re-wrote all his Mosaic code when he split for Netscape. (I still remember sophmore year asking my friend Dave, "What's that guy Marc up to?" Dave said, "he's working for NCSA with some program connecting pictures and text over the internet." I replyed, "They're paying him to do that?!?" Little did I know....)
While one question is: what does the 'shrink wrap agreement' that we agree to when attending the school say, a more important question is: have there been court cases to test this. I suspect that there are precedents where medical and engineering students have come up with valuable ideas. Have they been able to give these ideas away?
I just heard it on WBEZ (public radio in Chicago). It started at 2:00pm Central time. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty light. Terry (sp?) Gross is one of the best interviewers I know of, but the technical nature of LINUX really got in the way of an in-depth discussion. He (Linus) did have some interesting personal comments on what it was like to ride the rise and fall of an IPO.
Check the website of your local public radio station (you are a contributor aren't you? It is 'open source news' in a way, after all)
Actually, this is slightly more complicated...
on
Is Law Copyrighted?
·
· Score: 1
I just read a summary of the case that makes things a bit more complicated. The town in question adopted the model code without modification, thus, what Mr. Veeck posted was the verbatim model code. One of the arguments in the thread that this post started is that SBCCI expressly composed their work to be adopted as law, and as such shouldn't expect to be able to hold copyright.
One practical issue is that very few little hick towns are going to fork over cash for the real work that goes into writing and updating a building code, thus, if SBCCInc. doesn't get some sort of compensation, then people all over the south are going to have out of date builidng codes. Pure Capitalism allows the stupid to shoot themselves in the foot, which is great, unless you are transfered by your company to the Hicksville office and your house is a fire trap and your kids school doesn't have enough bathrooms. (Makes me think that a euro-style National Building Code would be a good idea, but then again, I think that a national high school curriculum could be a good idea too.)
I wonder what's going on with the International Building Code?
I'm in the process of becomming an architect (I'm in the equivalent of a Medical Residency, working 'full time' *cough*Yawn* at an architecture firm, but I can't call myself an architect until I file a tall stack of paperwork and pass the national exam, the grading algoritms for which are proprietary, by the way)
Lack of access to building codes for architects is a royal pain in the ass. Most of my work is in the City of Chicago, which has it's own building code. The code is only really available in print from one publisher (trust me, you are not going to slog down to city hall and stand around looking over the code when you need an answer) Obviously, that printed version is difficult to search - issues related to fire ratings or egress stairs crop up in several different areas of the code, and it's hard to know that you've found all the relevant sections. Being able to search the text for 'stair' would make things much faster. It's also hard to know if you have the latest 'release'. In it's defense, the city has posted the zoning ordinance on their site, which is quite helpful.
It's really only the BIG cities who have the resources and staff to develop their own building codes (e.g. Chicago and New York being infamously idiosyncratic) Most towns base their municipal codes on BOCA or the SBC (in question here). They primarily adopt the 'model code' with a few minor changes. (I must say here that the idea of a "southern building code" has always kind of scared me - but that's probably just my northern bias)
I wonder if the SBC Inc. hassles towns who tweak the model code alot - at some point, it would no longer fall under their copyright because it had been so altered. Also, do towns pay a licensing fee for the use of these model codes? If a town falls on hard times, could their building code be revoked because they can't pay the fees?
This is bad for your saftey - if I have a hard time getting the details of your code, then I have a hard time designing a compliant building. Also, this is bad for your wallet, because when I can't find all the relevant sections of code, I'm going to get hung up in the permit department correcting my initial design, which leads to construction delays, which always means $!
Nanofuzz vs. Gore-Tex:a (not so) breif explanation
on
Nano-pants
·
· Score: 1
This stuff is not like Gore-Tex (which is a waterproof-breathable system) but it could be used with GT or other WPB fabric systems.
The technology discussed in the article would be an alternative to a DWR coating.
Huh? DWR? wha?
Here's the explanation. Why do mountianeers care about Gore-Tex and why to the residents of Washington state seem to have mixed feelings about it? Mountaineers care because in the mountains: wet=bad insulation, bad insulation=cold, and cold=dead, thus wet=dead. Mountaineers want to stay dry, even though they are sweating buckets hiking up hill with a heavy pack on in a storm. Why do people in Washington state complain that GT doesn't work - temperature and humidity differentials (or lack thereof).
WPB systems work by creating a layer of otherwise impermiable material with tiny holes (nano-holes, if you will) These holes are so small that liquid water, with its property of surface tension, can't make it through the holes (without a ton of pressure) but water vapor can move through. In the case of Gore-Tex the layer is a film of teflon based material that has been heated and stretched just the right about to create the right size holes. The film is then glued to a woven fabric (usually nylon based). Lots of people make the teflon film, but Gore is good at the gluing, not so much that it clogs the holes, not so little that you get delamination. There are some membrane based competitors, but many use a coating process. These are coatings that are unlikely to come off the fabric (in contrast to Durable Water Repellent coatings, but mor on that in a minute) Lowe Alpine's Triple Point Ceramic spreads a coating on the fabric that has tiny ceramic beads in it, as it hardens, the beads are removed, leaving the right proportion of the right sized holes. Others use a foamy goo that is spread on the fabric. Too thick and it blocks your sweat vapor. Too thin and it isn't waterproof. The cost is in quality control. Really good versons of this like H2NO Storm from Patagonia requires the kind of quality obsession that they are known for. The mid range stuff like Columbia's Omni-Tech is a compromise between control and cost. And there's some cheap crap out there.
So what's the difference. Well, Gore-Tex is really the best (and most expensive) Why? It is the most breathable (puts up the least resistance to vapor movement), most waterproof (it takes about 60psi to force water through it) and most durable (you can abuse it with out the laminate comming offf the fabric, wearing out the fabric is another issue, though) Runners up are Lowe's TPC, Patagucci's H2No Storm, Sympatex, Membrain, and a few others. This second teir is slightly less breathable, slightly less waterproof (to about 30 psi) and slightly less durable. These are the real value fabrics for casual skiing, back packing and running around town. The next rung down is dominated by Columbia's Omni-Tech. It's even less breathable, less waterproof (to about 10 or 15 psi) and less durable. It's a good bet for the ocasional skiier and totally does the trick for slogging to the mall and walking the dog, but doesn't cut it for backpacking or real backcountry use.
So where does the nanofuzz come in? It sounds like a great replacement for the Durable Water Repellent coating that all these jackets have. You see, once your sweat vapor gets through the little holes, it has to pass through the woven fabric. The synthetic fibres used in the coats don't like to soak up water like cotton, but the spaces between the fibres can get filled with liquid water, which blocks your sweat from escaping. DWRs cause water to bead up on the surface of the fabric, and not soak in. All the jackets you see at the outdoor shop have a fresh coat of DWR and will work great for a while. But as the DWR wears off (and it will) and as dirt and oils coat the threads, your jacket will start to absorb liquid water, and thus block your sweat from escaping. The jacket is still waterproof, but the water you feel on the inside is your sweat condensing on the inside of the jacket. By carefully washing and drying your jacket, you can revive the DWR to some degree, but eventually you will have to use a spray or wash-in treatment to re-coat the threads. It doesn't matter how high end it is, the DWR will wear out. From Mountain Hardwear to Columbia to Patagonia to REI to Sears to Marmot, they all wear out (cheaper faster) its just like changing the oil in a car - Mercedes are not exempt. It's as a replacement for the DWR that the nanofuzz could be great. By itself, though, the nanofuzz can't prevent liquid water from being pushed through the fibres by wind or a pack shoulder strap, so it won't replace Gore-Tex.
So why do Washingtonians gripe? It has to do with temperature and humidity. Gore-Tex works great in the cold, dry mountains. You huff up hill, and the inside of your jacket is 96 degrees and 100percent humidity. Outside it's 10 degrees and 10 percent humidity. Your sweat vapor really wants to move outside your jacket. But if you reverse things by, say, putting on your jacket inside an airconditioned trailer in a rain forrest, then walking out side, the warm damp air outside will drive water vapor into your cool, dry jacket. Not liquid water, but water vapor, driven by the difference between relative humidity across the jacket's layer. So what happens when you are hiking and it's really humid (like raining) and not so cold (like 70 degrees) like in Washington state? Not much. Your sweat isn't being drawn out of your jacket very fast because of the minimal difference between inside and outside. Instead it condenses on your skin and jacket and you feel gross and clamy. Hey, it's not majic, it's just priced like it is.
It's worth noting what you're paying for with Gore-Tex. First you are getting the best stuff out there. Additionally, you are paying for a fairly big ad campaign. But most importantly you are paying for some good engineering and quality control. When you want to make a GT jacket, you work with Gore to select a fabric that will work in the jacket and that the laminate will adhere to well (it is teflon after all). Then Gore inspects your production facilities (big whoop) Finally, Gore takes samples of your finished jackets and puts them on dummies in wind and rain simulators to make sure that your design doesn't let (much) water leak in around the neck or the zipper flaps. After all that, they let you use the "for extreme wet weather" diamond hang tag. If you are forking out the big bucks, look for the tag. Gore will sell you fabric and send you on your way, but without their quality assurance process you don't get the hang tag. (There are lower grades of tag to watch out for)
Just as an aside, it's worth ranting about The North Face. They started as a small company, founded by climbers who wanted really good gear, so they made it themselves (sound familiar) As the company grew the founders cashed out and went on to do things like by 10% of the land area of Chile. That left the 'managers' in charge of the company. For a while that wasn't so bad, the went on making some of the best gear in the world. As a result of that quality, the brand earned a great reputation. Several years ago, the management realized that they could cash in on the reputation. The core designers (think coders here) wern't down for becomming the next Nike, so they split and founded Mountain Hardwear. TNF got a hatchet job CEO, did an IPO, cut quality and tried to market the hell out of the crap they were churning out. (they recently got new management, so this might change) So if you are looking at North Face stuff, thinking that it's the best out there - it's not. What ever you imagine TNF stuff to be, Mountain Hardwear is what you are thinking of.
Note: I don't work for any of these companies, but I did work in a shop selling this stuff for two years (part time) and I use it as often as I can get away from my CAD station.
Re:Another alternative to Gore-Tex?
on
Nano-pants
·
· Score: 1
It's not like Gore-Tex(tm). It's more like a form of DWR. It will have very low pressure resistance, but probably high breathability. Part of the issuse will be what type of fabric the threads are woven into. If it's a micro-fiber type of fabric (ultra fine threads woven very tightly) it could be wind proof and have Activent (a discontinued form of Gore-Tex-lite) like water resistance (which is to say, so-so in wind driven rain)
If you read the article, they point out the issue that these faster chips may not be available for a while....
On the other hand, if Mot really can cough up a 733 G4, I would much rather be running Photoshop on that than a 1Ghz Athalon (or After Effects, or...)
The real down side to the story is the comment about how most of the systems are likely to be single processor. This is going in the wrong direction. Alot of potential buyers are going to be quite disappointed. Frankly, I was hoping for a base single processor system, a mid-range dual processor, and a high-end quad processor system. If you've had to sit for an hour while AE renders 3 freaking seconds of footage, you'll know why I was hoping for quad processor towers....
But for what most of the Hertz whiners out there do with their systems, no, quad processors won't quadruple the frame rate of Doom.
Yes, the situation we're in now sucks, but not voting this time out is a cop out. Don't forget that you have local elections wherever you are. Educate yourself about those candidates also. Some may be worth voting for, some may be worth voting against.
Candidates aren't going to believe you if you say "I never vote, but if you do so_and_so, then I'll vote for you." Within the current system, you are only going to have an influence on candidate selection and action if you are perceived to be a voter that they want. Imagine developping a product for potential consumers who have no money. "If I invent a better product, then they'll get jobs in order to buy it!" Yeah, right. Your vote is your money in the political market. You have to prove you've got something to spend.
Yes, there are other systems. Yes, I love watching the Prime Minister's Question Time from the Brittish Parliment. (Just imagine Regan getting horribly grilled and confused. He would have been forced into retirement within a year) But look at Italy. They have anyting but a two-party system. If I remeber correctly, they have a mix of direct local and proportional representation, and the result seems to be the constant inability to form stabe governments and general chaos. Be carefuly what you wish for, you just might get it.
Slashdot Mirror
What about the idea of a stripped down, super cheap rack box?
Personally, I would use/buy several really cheap networked processor boxes for distributed rendering (3d, After Effects, FCP, etc.). It seems that it would work to make a box with a basic mobo, processor, tons of RAM and a nic (maybe a HD or firewire if necessary) - it would boot off the network and be remotely administered (both Apple strengths). If Apple can sell a G4 iMac for us$1300 with a screen and extra bells and whistles, they should be able to sell a box like I'm describing for us$800.
If they were simple enough that you could plug one into your network and have After Effects or FCP recognize it immediately, then I think that there would be a market for people who need more rendering power NOW! Imagine that on Tuesday they realize that in order to finish a project by Friday, they could justify us$1600 for two extra rendering units and have them FedExed for the final rendering run starting Wednesday night.
Maybe I'm wierd, but I would buy these 'processor boxes' just to be able to have work move along faster. (while my work doesn't justify the situation I outlined above, I would pop us$800 for an extra G4 processor for distributed rendering).
:especially if thier low profile this puts Mac at the fore front of 3D rendering. I'm sure that Steve Jobs recognizes the demand for a setup such as this - as he is the CEO of PIXAR.
Hmmm. I think that there is a chance that because Steve has experience with PIXAR, he may have looked at what a rackmount Mac could be and said, "well, PIXAR wouldn't buy them, so why release them?"
It is possible that Apple hasn't figured out how to make rackmounts compelling.
When you paid for the law, you get to say when it should be enforced. Thus the RIAA can hire minors to 'steal' music and declare that the law won't apply.
Quick! Patent the house cat! Nevermind that they're everywhere and have been around for a long time and that you had nothing to do with developing them, after all, Monsanto didn't develop many traditional strains of grain, but they own them anyway! The Patent Office doesn't care - just patent the cat before someone else does!
In theory you can get a PVR without a subscription, but the average consumer probably doesn't know that. As I see it, it's the subscription issue that is a big barrier to adoption. If you don't need a subscription for your VCR, why should you pay TiVo every month?
It's not that simple. You comment that "there are plenty of conservatives on the Supreme Court." That's certainly true, to say the least. While Bork's involvement and actions in Nixon's White House is an important reflection on his character, it is also important to recognize his truly extreme positions. For anyone who isn't an extremist on one side or another, it is important to keep extremists off the Supreme Court.
Sadly, American popular political discourse is so limited that politicians fear that if they simply stand up and say "The apointee is a wacko, so I'm voting against her!" that the voters will react badly to them. The result is that in order for reasonable politicians to resist extremist apointees they need to engage in a variety of personal and tangential attacks to justify their opposition to the apointee. Thus, the opposition to Bork wasn't based on a discussion of his actual extremist positions, but rather a bizzare, convoluted psuedo-discourse of anciliary issues.
Of course, the fact that he was Nixon's "Running Dog" in that subversion of our government didn't help, but I don't think it was the central issue.
"Economic Issues" are absolutely the limitation. I worked on the urban planning and station design (I'm an architect) for a Raytheon system implementation for Rosemont, IL (near O'Hare Intl. Airport). The system would have tied together a zillion hotels, the Rosemont Theater, the conference center and the "L" station (Chicago's 'Metro' or U-Bahn system) in the first phase. Later phases would have been tied into the Metra system (commuter rail/S-Bahn), the airport's people mover system and the stadium.
Remember that these systems have been 'almost built' countles times over the last 25 years. Thus, any system that is to be built will be a prototype. The Chicago-area system was to be funded by several sources, primarily the Regional Transportation Authority (with Federal and State funding) and Raytheon as a business deal with the idea to sell systems all over the world. Raytheon went so far as to build a working test loop with two vehicles out in MA. The deal fell apart when it came time to cough up the cash. How surprising!
As for the Cardiff system, it doesn't seem like the ideal implementation and the prices they quote are, as one would expect, way low and/or are leaving out a lot of development costs. PRT systems make the most sense in semi-dense suburaban areas where distances are a bit too far to walk (and there are no sidewalks, anyway) auto traffic is problematic and the desitnations are somewhat scattered around a few square mile area. For example, an older suburb with a downtown and a commuter rail station with a mall just outside of town and an office complex nearby. A series of loops would interconnect the various destinations with off-line ("layby" in the article) stations spaced 1/4 to 1/2 miles apart. At least in the US, fares would be paid per vehicle, rather than per person. You tell the system your destination, a vehicle pulls up, you get in and are taken non-stop to your destination station. Thus, you don't ride with strangers. (public transit for suburbanites)
As for the photo with the bike, that doesn't make sense becauase these systems cover distances that are easily biked! Also, in the photo of the guideway spanning over the roadway, the guideway looks far too thin - in reality it would be deeper and thus more visually obtrusive. Also, the quoted fare (1 pound/1.5 E or us$) would require massive subsidy
Just think - someone actually edited Manos
Movies don't just happen. It's one thing to shoot a screwy movie - you may not really understand just how bad a film is if you don't see dailies - and I'm sure they didn't have dailies on Manos.
The true horror of the situation comes when you imagine someone in front of an editing setup actually trying to put that piece of crap together. That's when you have to realize that you're making an astoundingly bad movie. I must give credit to who ever it was who actually finished it - I never could have spent days and days on that crap. For some reason I'm imagining someone in Redmond coding away at some awful jumble of MS code. Dicipline and stick-to-it-iveness!
I'm really skeptical about the possibility of really effective tele-surgery. I'm not a surgeon, I'm an architect. I have a fair amount of experience building models, and I can't imagine building even a so-so cardboard and balsa model with telemedicine equipment. You would think that it's easier to cut and assemble cardboard than to suture an artery. Haptics are critical in getting there, but even in basic modelbuilding there's an astounding amount of very subtle feedback and knife control involved. I have to say, though, that the 'stop and the yolk' work makes a lot of sense as a test for this system.
Two things to clarify:
1. The Economist does have some axes to grind - look closely and figure it out yourself.
2. The Economist is technically a NEWSPAPER - don't make the mistake of calling it a magazine if you're ever in their offices (at least in London) I'll save you the greif now. (By the way, their bookshop right off Picadilly is pretty spiffy, if you're into econ and business books)
I think that there are issues about the interface that a lot of people dont' get. From Apple's point of view, they have done a lot of work to design a really good UI and they simply don't want you screwing around with it. There are many things to not like about that approach, but that's how they see it.
The designers at BMW do not really want you painting their cars in hippie rainbow colors, adding neon underneath and gluing crap to the hood. They design beautiful cars (in their opinion) and having non-designers tacking crap onto the cars probably irritates them. Apple sees it the same way - they carefully designed the UI and they don't want you changing the colors to who-knows-what.
You can't begin to know the pain of being a designer who has to put their design in the hands of 'the public' only to have them screw it up, rather than worship your genius!
For what it's worth, it would likely be prohibitively expensive to design tall buildings to withstand the impact of a large passenger jet.
You know it's bad when the main posting is trolling
To the whiners who grumble about Firewire being the basis for an Emmy (in engineering), I say shut up and mod Linux so that it's the freaking best video editing environment ever, and you'll get yerself an Emmy too!
And that's how the Cheney/Bush administration wants it. The administration's 'compromise' prevents them from looking like the Talaban, and drives research into the 'closed source' labs of private companies (who make bigger campaign contributions than publicly funded academic researchers). It's win/win for them, and loose/loose for all of us in the long run.
As an alum of U of IL @ Urbana-Champaign, I can comment on how this whole thing is typically implemented, at least before any lawers are involved. Esentially, anyting the school wants out of your work, it keeps. I was there for architecture, so any cool drawing you drew or model you built for a class that the professor wanted to keep at the end of the class (usually because you kicked ass and the prof wants to show to next year's class) they kept. At us$20 per hour, the School of Architecture has millions of dollars worth of student work in the archives. Now, the big difference between student architecure projects and software is that, really, the school isn't going to make any real money off the student work, whereas with software, they could make millions. If I remember, my Hopkins Residence Hall buddy Marc Andressen re-wrote all his Mosaic code when he split for Netscape. (I still remember sophmore year asking my friend Dave, "What's that guy Marc up to?" Dave said, "he's working for NCSA with some program connecting pictures and text over the internet." I replyed, "They're paying him to do that?!?" Little did I know....) While one question is: what does the 'shrink wrap agreement' that we agree to when attending the school say, a more important question is: have there been court cases to test this. I suspect that there are precedents where medical and engineering students have come up with valuable ideas. Have they been able to give these ideas away?
I just heard it on WBEZ (public radio in Chicago). It started at 2:00pm Central time. It wasn't bad, but it was pretty light. Terry (sp?) Gross is one of the best interviewers I know of, but the technical nature of LINUX really got in the way of an in-depth discussion. He (Linus) did have some interesting personal comments on what it was like to ride the rise and fall of an IPO. Check the website of your local public radio station (you are a contributor aren't you? It is 'open source news' in a way, after all)
One practical issue is that very few little hick towns are going to fork over cash for the real work that goes into writing and updating a building code, thus, if SBCCInc. doesn't get some sort of compensation, then people all over the south are going to have out of date builidng codes. Pure Capitalism allows the stupid to shoot themselves in the foot, which is great, unless you are transfered by your company to the Hicksville office and your house is a fire trap and your kids school doesn't have enough bathrooms. (Makes me think that a euro-style National Building Code would be a good idea, but then again, I think that a national high school curriculum could be a good idea too.)
I wonder what's going on with the International Building Code?
Lack of access to building codes for architects is a royal pain in the ass. Most of my work is in the City of Chicago, which has it's own building code. The code is only really available in print from one publisher (trust me, you are not going to slog down to city hall and stand around looking over the code when you need an answer) Obviously, that printed version is difficult to search - issues related to fire ratings or egress stairs crop up in several different areas of the code, and it's hard to know that you've found all the relevant sections. Being able to search the text for 'stair' would make things much faster. It's also hard to know if you have the latest 'release'. In it's defense, the city has posted the zoning ordinance on their site, which is quite helpful.
It's really only the BIG cities who have the resources and staff to develop their own building codes (e.g. Chicago and New York being infamously idiosyncratic) Most towns base their municipal codes on BOCA or the SBC (in question here). They primarily adopt the 'model code' with a few minor changes. (I must say here that the idea of a "southern building code" has always kind of scared me - but that's probably just my northern bias)
I wonder if the SBC Inc. hassles towns who tweak the model code alot - at some point, it would no longer fall under their copyright because it had been so altered. Also, do towns pay a licensing fee for the use of these model codes? If a town falls on hard times, could their building code be revoked because they can't pay the fees?
This is bad for your saftey - if I have a hard time getting the details of your code, then I have a hard time designing a compliant building. Also, this is bad for your wallet, because when I can't find all the relevant sections of code, I'm going to get hung up in the permit department correcting my initial design, which leads to construction delays, which always means $!
This stuff is not like Gore-Tex (which is a waterproof-breathable system) but it could be used with GT or other WPB fabric systems.
The technology discussed in the article would be an alternative to a DWR coating.
Huh? DWR? wha?
Here's the explanation. Why do mountianeers care about Gore-Tex and why to the residents of Washington state seem to have mixed feelings about it? Mountaineers care because in the mountains: wet=bad insulation, bad insulation=cold, and cold=dead, thus wet=dead. Mountaineers want to stay dry, even though they are sweating buckets hiking up hill with a heavy pack on in a storm. Why do people in Washington state complain that GT doesn't work - temperature and humidity differentials (or lack thereof).
WPB systems work by creating a layer of otherwise impermiable material with tiny holes (nano-holes, if you will) These holes are so small that liquid water, with its property of surface tension, can't make it through the holes (without a ton of pressure) but water vapor can move through. In the case of Gore-Tex the layer is a film of teflon based material that has been heated and stretched just the right about to create the right size holes. The film is then glued to a woven fabric (usually nylon based). Lots of people make the teflon film, but Gore is good at the gluing, not so much that it clogs the holes, not so little that you get delamination. There are some membrane based competitors, but many use a coating process. These are coatings that are unlikely to come off the fabric (in contrast to Durable Water Repellent coatings, but mor on that in a minute) Lowe Alpine's Triple Point Ceramic spreads a coating on the fabric that has tiny ceramic beads in it, as it hardens, the beads are removed, leaving the right proportion of the right sized holes. Others use a foamy goo that is spread on the fabric. Too thick and it blocks your sweat vapor. Too thin and it isn't waterproof. The cost is in quality control. Really good versons of this like H2NO Storm from Patagonia requires the kind of quality obsession that they are known for. The mid range stuff like Columbia's Omni-Tech is a compromise between control and cost. And there's some cheap crap out there.
So what's the difference. Well, Gore-Tex is really the best (and most expensive) Why? It is the most breathable (puts up the least resistance to vapor movement), most waterproof (it takes about 60psi to force water through it) and most durable (you can abuse it with out the laminate comming offf the fabric, wearing out the fabric is another issue, though) Runners up are Lowe's TPC, Patagucci's H2No Storm, Sympatex, Membrain, and a few others. This second teir is slightly less breathable, slightly less waterproof (to about 30 psi) and slightly less durable. These are the real value fabrics for casual skiing, back packing and running around town. The next rung down is dominated by Columbia's Omni-Tech. It's even less breathable, less waterproof (to about 10 or 15 psi) and less durable. It's a good bet for the ocasional skiier and totally does the trick for slogging to the mall and walking the dog, but doesn't cut it for backpacking or real backcountry use.
So where does the nanofuzz come in? It sounds like a great replacement for the Durable Water Repellent coating that all these jackets have. You see, once your sweat vapor gets through the little holes, it has to pass through the woven fabric. The synthetic fibres used in the coats don't like to soak up water like cotton, but the spaces between the fibres can get filled with liquid water, which blocks your sweat from escaping. DWRs cause water to bead up on the surface of the fabric, and not soak in. All the jackets you see at the outdoor shop have a fresh coat of DWR and will work great for a while. But as the DWR wears off (and it will) and as dirt and oils coat the threads, your jacket will start to absorb liquid water, and thus block your sweat from escaping. The jacket is still waterproof, but the water you feel on the inside is your sweat condensing on the inside of the jacket. By carefully washing and drying your jacket, you can revive the DWR to some degree, but eventually you will have to use a spray or wash-in treatment to re-coat the threads. It doesn't matter how high end it is, the DWR will wear out. From Mountain Hardwear to Columbia to Patagonia to REI to Sears to Marmot, they all wear out (cheaper faster) its just like changing the oil in a car - Mercedes are not exempt. It's as a replacement for the DWR that the nanofuzz could be great. By itself, though, the nanofuzz can't prevent liquid water from being pushed through the fibres by wind or a pack shoulder strap, so it won't replace Gore-Tex.
So why do Washingtonians gripe? It has to do with temperature and humidity. Gore-Tex works great in the cold, dry mountains. You huff up hill, and the inside of your jacket is 96 degrees and 100percent humidity. Outside it's 10 degrees and 10 percent humidity. Your sweat vapor really wants to move outside your jacket. But if you reverse things by, say, putting on your jacket inside an airconditioned trailer in a rain forrest, then walking out side, the warm damp air outside will drive water vapor into your cool, dry jacket. Not liquid water, but water vapor, driven by the difference between relative humidity across the jacket's layer. So what happens when you are hiking and it's really humid (like raining) and not so cold (like 70 degrees) like in Washington state? Not much. Your sweat isn't being drawn out of your jacket very fast because of the minimal difference between inside and outside. Instead it condenses on your skin and jacket and you feel gross and clamy. Hey, it's not majic, it's just priced like it is.
It's worth noting what you're paying for with Gore-Tex. First you are getting the best stuff out there. Additionally, you are paying for a fairly big ad campaign. But most importantly you are paying for some good engineering and quality control. When you want to make a GT jacket, you work with Gore to select a fabric that will work in the jacket and that the laminate will adhere to well (it is teflon after all). Then Gore inspects your production facilities (big whoop) Finally, Gore takes samples of your finished jackets and puts them on dummies in wind and rain simulators to make sure that your design doesn't let (much) water leak in around the neck or the zipper flaps. After all that, they let you use the "for extreme wet weather" diamond hang tag. If you are forking out the big bucks, look for the tag. Gore will sell you fabric and send you on your way, but without their quality assurance process you don't get the hang tag. (There are lower grades of tag to watch out for)
Just as an aside, it's worth ranting about The North Face. They started as a small company, founded by climbers who wanted really good gear, so they made it themselves (sound familiar) As the company grew the founders cashed out and went on to do things like by 10% of the land area of Chile. That left the 'managers' in charge of the company. For a while that wasn't so bad, the went on making some of the best gear in the world. As a result of that quality, the brand earned a great reputation. Several years ago, the management realized that they could cash in on the reputation. The core designers (think coders here) wern't down for becomming the next Nike, so they split and founded Mountain Hardwear. TNF got a hatchet job CEO, did an IPO, cut quality and tried to market the hell out of the crap they were churning out. (they recently got new management, so this might change) So if you are looking at North Face stuff, thinking that it's the best out there - it's not. What ever you imagine TNF stuff to be, Mountain Hardwear is what you are thinking of.
Note: I don't work for any of these companies, but I did work in a shop selling this stuff for two years (part time) and I use it as often as I can get away from my CAD station.
It's not like Gore-Tex(tm). It's more like a form of DWR. It will have very low pressure resistance, but probably high breathability. Part of the issuse will be what type of fabric the threads are woven into. If it's a micro-fiber type of fabric (ultra fine threads woven very tightly) it could be wind proof and have Activent (a discontinued form of Gore-Tex-lite) like water resistance (which is to say, so-so in wind driven rain)
If you read the article, they point out the issue that these faster chips may not be available for a while....
On the other hand, if Mot really can cough up a 733 G4, I would much rather be running Photoshop on that than a 1Ghz Athalon (or After Effects, or ...)
The real down side to the story is the comment about how most of the systems are likely to be single processor. This is going in the wrong direction. Alot of potential buyers are going to be quite disappointed. Frankly, I was hoping for a base single processor system, a mid-range dual processor, and a high-end quad processor system. If you've had to sit for an hour while AE renders 3 freaking seconds of footage, you'll know why I was hoping for quad processor towers....
But for what most of the Hertz whiners out there do with their systems, no, quad processors won't quadruple the frame rate of Doom.
I believe that Austrailia fines people for not voting. How's about that!?!
Yes, the situation we're in now sucks, but not voting this time out is a cop out. Don't forget that you have local elections wherever you are. Educate yourself about those candidates also. Some may be worth voting for, some may be worth voting against.
Candidates aren't going to believe you if you say "I never vote, but if you do so_and_so, then I'll vote for you." Within the current system, you are only going to have an influence on candidate selection and action if you are perceived to be a voter that they want. Imagine developping a product for potential consumers who have no money. "If I invent a better product, then they'll get jobs in order to buy it!" Yeah, right. Your vote is your money in the political market. You have to prove you've got something to spend.
Yes, there are other systems. Yes, I love watching the Prime Minister's Question Time from the Brittish Parliment. (Just imagine Regan getting horribly grilled and confused. He would have been forced into retirement within a year) But look at Italy. They have anyting but a two-party system. If I remeber correctly, they have a mix of direct local and proportional representation, and the result seems to be the constant inability to form stabe governments and general chaos. Be carefuly what you wish for, you just might get it.