You can't do that without special equipment or breaking the encryption. The CSS system (redundancy ahoy!) uses a special track which does not exist on rewritable DVDs. In fact, DVD drives have special commands for reading the track. The information on that track is encrypted with a set of "player keys". The Player Keys are contained within licensed software, and are used to decrypt the disc key track. The disc keys are used to decrypt the title keys, which are the actual keys used to watch the movie.
In addition, the DVD drive has to authenticate a CSS disc with its own encryption checks before it will allow the disc to be read.
DeCSS works by brute-force cracking the encryption. (CSS uses a 40-bit key.) So it's not really possible to create a *legal* backup of a DVD disc without a license and equipment from the DVD CCA.
My assumption is that the use of H.264 is to reduce bandwidth requirements, making YouTube on iPhone a practical proposition, without compromising too much on quality, not to actually improve the quality.
Actually, Sorenson Spark and TrueMotion VP6 are highly competitive with the H.264 codec. My guess is that the H.264 transition has less to do with bandwidth and more to do with the iPhone's design. Apple currently uses H.264 for all of its downloadable movies and videos. (Sans a few minor exceptions like the Aquaman pilot.) Thus the iPhone already has software/hardware to support high-quality playback of the H.264 codec. This allows the phone to provide more features with the video stream (e.g. live resizing, preview in place, fast-seek, etc.) than are possible with the Flash toolkit.
Even the V2 that he picks on is the start of rocketry which absolutely has changed society.
Indeed. America and Russia's first space programs consisted of nothing more than launching the V-2 rockets we had captured from Germany. (Thus why the iconic "rocket" image always looks like a V-2.)
Not only that, had it not been so late in the war, it would have turned it all around.
The V-2 would have been combined with the nuclear bomb if Germany had succeeded in their research before the end of the war. Thus giving Nazi Germany the ultimate delivery technology for nuclear strikes. If that had happened, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. In fact, I would imagine that the United Kingdom would no longer exist (let's just call it, "United Smoking Hole in the Ground") and the US would have been dissolved in favor of the United Nazi Republic.
Kaleidescape's device violated the spirit of the law by allowing unrestricted piracy, and so who cares if they get the smackdown?
Did you pay any attention to what was said above? Kaleidescape's device does NOT allow unrestricted piracy. As I just said, it copies the CSS protection intact. Since it's licensed as a DVD/CSS decoder, it can play back those backups in a 100% legal manner. It does not, however, provide an easy way to "allow unrestricted piracy".
Hmm... posting as Anonymous Coward... ignoring the prior posts as well as all sense of logic... some sort of vendetta against Kaleidescape... you wouldn't happen to work for one of the involved parties (aka MPAA member companies), would you?
Why would you need a license to make an exact bit for bit copy?
*You* don't. The company that makes the backup device needs a license to the DVD/CSS technology in order to play back the backups made on the device. So in order for the device to exist in the first place, the manufacturer has to meet the licensing requirements. Something that Kaleidescape does.
Stopping somebody from doing something legal is not actually illegal. For instance, I could license you my patent on the terms that you may only sell the product by people ordering directly via telephone.
Contracts still need consideration to be held enforceable. Changing your terms to put an existing licensee out of business does not sound like particularly strong consideration to me. A good judge would have a field day with such a contract change. (A bad judge will simply get it kicked into appeals until a good judge is found.)
There are also anti-trust issues which I addressed in a post slightly farther down this thread.
if sued under the DMCA argue that the DVD encryption isn't "effective".
That only works if you do business in Finland. If you do business in just about any other country (particularly in the US) the judge is going to look at you funny and tell you that you have a fool for a lawyer.
If you don't get to do it (DRM, DMCA etc.) you complain, they ignore you, you lose. There's nothing to sue the DVD CCA over in the fair use paragraph, it only says that some things that otherwise might be copyright infringement aren't.
Actually, there's a LOT to sue over here. According to the fair-use laws (including the DMCA), you can make a backup, but you can't break the encryption to do it. It needs to be an exact backup. Thus the only way to make a legal backup is to use a licensed device like Kaleidescape's. The device complies with both the DMCA and DVD license requirements by backing up the disc with its CSS protection intact. So copying the data out of the device won't gain you much. (At least according to TFA.)
By changing their licensing agreement, the DVD CCA would be demonstrating anti-trust behavior that is damaging to consumers and market competitors. Ergo, they could be brought up on a variety of contract disputes AND anti-trust charges.
Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once!
Sorry to reply to myself, but I have a few more thoughts on this that really didn't fit in with my other post.
From one perspective, I *do* understand where DVD producers are coming from on this. I positively know of at least one person who uses Netflix by backing up the DVDs when they come in, then immediately shipping them out for new ones. While it's a nice trick for improving one's own convenience, it's not really in the spirit of the service. So there are some legitimate arguments against DVD Backup devices.
However, the solution is NOT to ban good devices in an attempt to nail the edge cases. All you're going to do is piss off your customer base. But what should happen if a report stating that backup-piracy is NOT an edge case crosses an important desk? Should that executive then decide to make the problem go away?
NO!
What that exec is looking at is what I like to call a "Crisitunity". (Shamelessly stolen from other sources.) It's a crisis that presents new opportunities. All that's needed is an analysis of the problem to see where a workable solution might be introduced.
The first question to ask is: "Is this piracy about the money?" I think in most cases you'll find the money to be a secondary concern. Consumers like value (thus why they won't pay for an electronic copy of Pirates of the Carribean when they can get a physical copy for the same price), but they are willing to pay for the media under most circumstances. Ok, then why are they performing backup-piracy?
The obvious answer is: Convenience. Consumers are getting used to having things on their own schedule. Tivos allow them to shift television to a more convenient time. DVDs shift blockbuster movies out of the movie theater and into the convenience of the home. MP3s make jogging or travelling with your music a no-brainer. Gameboys/PSPs let consumers take their interactive entertainment on the go. Laptops let internet surfers work while they sip a latte at Starbucks.
Let's face it. We're an economy that's addicted to convenience. So much so that we will spend unnecessary money just to make something more convenient. Which should raise the flag of new opportunities. If consumers are so addicted to convenience, then why not find ways of providing it? Online movie distribution seems like the most promsing answer. Yet if you log into iTunes (analogous to DVDs in the store), Vongo (analogous to Netflix), or MovieLink (analogous to Blockbuster) you'll have a duece of a time trying to find a movie worth watching. And if you *do* find a movie worth watching, you may feel that the price is too high without a physical backup to protect your investment.
Thus the truth is that the movie industry is killing themselves through risk-adversion. The music industry already made that mistake once. One would think that the movie industry could try paying attention.
This amendment is NOT an amendment to the law. It's an amendment to the license agreement between the association responsible for the DVD standard and the companies that create DVD products. As such, its only direct impact on the consumer is that DVD Backup products will have their licenses revoked. Which would make it that much more difficult to excercise our fair-use rights to make a backup of the media and/or space-shift the media.
I think that Kaleidescape is right to worry in this situation. The change to the license agreement appears to be a direct attack on their business. Which, if successful, would represent irreparable harm to the market at large. The convenience aspect of digitally ripping the media cannot be understated. With such devices on the market, consumers are able to place their physical copies in storage while still having easy access to their media. Most of us do it with our CDs without giving it a second thought. Why should our movies be any different? (I know that I can't be the only one who has shelf-space problems with CDs, DVDs, and Video Games.)
As a party being directly harmed by an artifcial monopoly, I certainly hope that Kaleidescape takes this to court should it be approved. Consumers have a right to use their bought and paid-for media as they like. The DVD standard shouldn't be used as a bludgeon to take that away. If Kaleidescape is unsuccessful in their suit, I would hope that a class-action suit could be initiated for the harm caused to consumers.
For example, when Napolean was invading everywhere, he put up money to call for supplies innovation, particularly food storage.
He also installed the first visual telegraph system in France. Thanks to the telegraph, Napoleon was able to improve his communications turnaround with the battlefield to mere minutes instead of hours to days. That innovation paved the way for the invention of the electric telegraph; an invention that literally defined the computer and telephone communication standards we use today.
Re:Not sure it is a positive tradeoff
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· Score: 1
How much energy? More than farm equipment uses? More than it takes to transport the ripe crops to the city centers? I don't know.
It's probably break-even, but it wouldn't surprise me if it takes more energy to grow the food in a vertical farm. However, energy is not a fixed cost. Energy coming over the grid is barely a fraction of the cost of energy extracted from diesel or gasoline engines used in tractors, semis, and pickup trucks. So energy-wise, the costs will probably favor the vertical farm.
Now that I have said this, the web site hypes the idea that vertical farms could actually be net energy producers (giving electricity back to the grid). Personally I do not believe that this is likely at all. Given the lack of natural light, that would certainly qualify as a perpetual motion device.
It's not a perpetual motion device. Look closer. It's proposing a combination of solar and wind power to extract the necessary energy. The computations are based on an average wind speed of 7 m/s. That's not a perpetual motion machine, that's extracting stored energy from the earth's atmosphere.
Right. Not as if a disruption in the electrical grid from a hurricane or a large wind storm (like we saw in the North-west will harm production... [/sarcasm]
Actually, it's likely that such an outage would have negligable effect. If power is so important that the building can't go without it, then it should have backup generators. Just like in a datacenter where they are prepared for extended periods off the grid, so should these buildings be prepared. They simply have the advantage of being able to rely on their primary sources of power when the grid fails. And should the primaries not be available to produce power (e.g. still winds at nighttime), a megawatt generator should kick in and power the place on diesel until the other power sources are restored.
I suspect that it would all be quite feasible with the development of new nuclear power plants to supply the added energy requirements.
This I agree with regardless of these new vertical farms. The US has an increasing demand for power, and we've effectively created a situation where power plants can't be built. Coal is too dirty, deisel is too dirty, nuclear is too dirty, blah, blah, blah. The truth is that generating power is going to have an environmental effect. No way around that. The bright side is that Nuclear has a minimal impact when used properly. If we started deploying breeder reactors, we could burn all that "waste" fuel rather than making plans to stick it in a mountain till the end of eternity. That seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do to me, as that "waste" is highly usable, energy-dense fuel! There'e several times more energy left in those rods than they got by burning them in a regular reactor!
But we can't possibly extract all that energy. The "terrorists" might get their hands on (kinda-sorta) weapons-grade material. Because it makes so much more sense for the mythical "terrorists" to steal plutonium to make an implosion device when they could use their (obviously advanced) production capabilities to mine uranium. You don't even have to test a uranium bomb!
Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline
You said:
what is that, about three and a half days?
Answer: No. Read above.
Eight watts isn't much, but it's going to do it for longer than the average term of service for a soldier.
It also costs tens of millions of dollars. Like I said, RTG development is an ideal solution for many situations. However, the military does not currently have access to RTG technology, is not looking to devleop RTG technology, is cognizant of the fact that the public doesn't like anything nuclear, and is not going to spend upwards of 10 million dollars on the power source for each LANdroid.
That being said, the military would do well to look at developing SRGs and other more efficient radioisotope heat engines. These engines could provide nearly unlimited power to the troops in the field. Battery packs would no longer be a consumable, but rather a sustainable asset from mission to mission.
While the military is not going to install these in little dispoa-bots, I've always thought that they should have developed the technology for the Land Warrior program. The designs they had kept failing time and time again because they couldn't find a power source that was both light *and* long-lasting enough for extended missions.
The only problem with that use is that RTGs reject a LOT of heat. The soldiers would be carrying around scalding hot devices as their power sources. Which is why it's so important that more efficient heat engines be developed. If we can get a 20-30% conversion efficiency rather than 3-7%, the soldiers could carry something around that's not too much warmer than your average battery pack.
Unfortunately, there's another down-side yet again. Heat engines work on heat differentials. Which means that they're going to be at their worst in hot, desert climates. Guess where most of our problems are these days?
So getting RTGs/SRGs used is not a simple problem. I personally think that there should be a LOT more R&D going into them, but I guarantee you that they will NOT be deployed for small bots like this.
I'll grant you that those things are much lighter and more power rich than LIon batteries, but it's still huge compared to the target size of the whole package the military is looking for
The particular unit I linked to is a replacement for their current computer/radio batteries. You'd use smaller units in the "deck of cards" sized LANdroid.
180 W/h isn't enough to do the sort of thing they need
You sure about that? The LANdroid is intended to provide Wireless communications for 7-14 days. Its actual movement (which is far more power-hungry) would be not be in continuous use. Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline, I find that the unit could operate on 1.07 watts. That's really not that bad. Most basic cell phones operate on a power budget in that range. With some clever engineering, I imagine that the engineers could greatly increase the amount of power available to it.
I still think RTGs are the answer.
RTGs are a good answer for a lot of things. But until they enter mainstream development, the only ones you'll see are the massive clunkers that NASA flies.
Personally, I want one in my cell phone and laptop. Never having to recharge again would be nice.;-)
Re:Emphasis on the light, please.
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· Score: 4, Informative
They haven't really explored the vertical context at all, either in arrangement or delivery systems etc, and also very tied to fixed ideas of what exactly a farm is....
Did you actually read their website? There are a wide-variety of designs being proposed, not the least of which is this slanted building:
If I'm not mistaken, that's one of the concepts you were just accusing them of ignoring?
Re:Emphasis on the light, please.
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Vertical Farming
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· Score: 4, Interesting
But the biggest factor is energy consumption. Is it cheaper to spend the energy to move crops from 100% natural light into the city or is it cheaper to spend the energy on artificial light and grow the crops inside the city?
Spending time reading the website, I'm convinced that it could very well be economical to grow food in vertical farms rather than importing it. The light issue is solved in several ways. If you look at the website, they have a design intended for Toronto that actuallys slants the building sideways to provide the maximum possible lighting to all levels during the morning hours. (It reminds me a bit of a Nintendo Wii in its cradle.)
Beyond that, you need to keep in mind that this is a controlled environment. Most natural environments can only produce crops during a single season. A controlled environment can produce crops year round. The website claims that this would result in a 4-6x increase in production per acre of farmable land. I find this number to be perfectly believable given the incredible production of areas like Hawaii, which can grow their sugarcane year round thanks to the more even climate.
The controlled environment also removes potential issues with the crops. There will be no dry seasons, no tornadoes or hurricanes, and a far lower chance of disease or pestilence in the crops. There will also be less need to genetically engineer crops for different environments and/or as great of a need to spray for pests.
The pages go on to provide more explanations, but the take away is that there is a strong chance that this could be economically viable. In many ways, it seems like a very *good* idea. I'd love to see a test building setup just to work out the kinks and see if it really is as feasible as they're suggesting.
At your service. I saw the bat-signal and came a'running.;-)
Being military, they'll probably use RTGs to charge capacitors.
It would be nice, but I doubt it. RTGs are still incredibly expensive and wouldn't be used on something throw-away like this. In fact, the military as a whole tends to shy away from nuclear technology unless it's a bomb. The only reason why NASA still uses RTGs in the face of public protests is because nothing else will work. (Spacecraft live and die by the power available to them. Nuclear is not just an option, it's a requirement for extended space travel. People are going to need to accept that if we ever want to push out into space.)
More likely the military will look into using fuel cells or microgenerators to power these little buggers. For about the same space as it would cost to pack a couple of LIon batteries, the engineers could stick an alcohol fuel tank & (power cell | micro-gas turbine) with many time the energy density. That would allow the robots to meet or exceed the 7-14 day life expectancy.
How did you ever get a +1 bonus with posts like that?
I quoted the W3C site in my post. If you don't believe me, look again. That exact same quote appears in TFA. Neither place explicitly says it was a public event. It says that the results of the event will be public. The reporter then twisted those words to make it sound like it was a public event that wasn't public.
Personally I think that it's about a million times better than Raiders of the Lost Ark. The tsetse files were basically unavoidable - sometimes they flew past you, sometimes they hit you, didn't much matter what you did.
You got farther than I ever did. It took me a half hour just to figure out why that squiggly thing kept hurting me. I suppose I should have read the manual a bit sooner, eh?:P
I actually got stuck trying to figure out how to get past the cliffs. It didn't occur to me that I could blow up a wall to progress. And when I eventually read a walkthrough, it kind of took all the fun out of completing it myself. (Actually, I believe I watched the "How to Win at Video Games" episode on Youtube. I had a "ah hah!" moment and a "well, now why would I want to play it?" moment at the same time.:-/)
I don't believe you've played it for more than three minutes.
And I don't believe you've ever played it. There, I win the baseless speculation card.;)
I played the game long enough to beat it on easy. i.e. Right switch on B. (Finding the "call ship" zone hidden in the grass was a bit of a PITA.) On hard, i.e. the right switch to A, I kept getting caught by the FBI agent and taken to the science center for study. It didn't take too many instances of accidentally dropping into a hole while trying to evade the agent before I turned it off. The game was much more fun on easy.:P
If all you can complain about is jumping out of holes
I'm complaining about falling into holes not "jumping out"[sic] of them. Which isn't really "jumping" as much as "floating with the neck thingy".
These sites have a lot of good information on why E.T. was considered bad.
And thesesites have a lot of good information on why it wasn't bad.;)
Objectively, the biggest problem with E.T. was its tedious and confusing gameplay.
I do agree with this. While Atari had previously released Raiders of the Lost Ark to great success (one of the few Adventure games for the 2600), the majority of gamers were looking for arcade/action titles. E.T. threw them for a loop. The poor state of the manual (also rushed) didn't help.
The graphics weren't bad by the standards of the day, but then again neither were Defender's or Pac Man's (unless you were comparing them to the arcades).
I compare them to Stargate, Chopper Command, Ms. Pacman, Alien, and Jr. Pacman. Atari could have done a LOT better. They simply chose not to spend the time or energy, and drove their best programmers away as a result.
Speaking of good graphics, take just about anything Activision. Pitfall, Pitfall II (with polyphonic sound and music!), Enduro, H.E.R.O., Robot Tank, Ghostbusters, Keystone Kapers, Pressure Cooker, River Raid, and others showed that the 2600 was nowhere near as graphically limited as Atari would have had you believe. Even Activision's worst games (e.g. Barnstorming, Sky Jinks, etc.) still looked fabulous. You can't say the same about Atari's games, which often feel half-finished in comparison. (Probably because they are. Half-finished, that is.)
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You can't do that without special equipment or breaking the encryption. The CSS system (redundancy ahoy!) uses a special track which does not exist on rewritable DVDs. In fact, DVD drives have special commands for reading the track. The information on that track is encrypted with a set of "player keys". The Player Keys are contained within licensed software, and are used to decrypt the disc key track. The disc keys are used to decrypt the title keys, which are the actual keys used to watch the movie.
In addition, the DVD drive has to authenticate a CSS disc with its own encryption checks before it will allow the disc to be read.
DeCSS works by brute-force cracking the encryption. (CSS uses a 40-bit key.) So it's not really possible to create a *legal* backup of a DVD disc without a license and equipment from the DVD CCA.
Actually, Sorenson Spark and TrueMotion VP6 are highly competitive with the H.264 codec. My guess is that the H.264 transition has less to do with bandwidth and more to do with the iPhone's design. Apple currently uses H.264 for all of its downloadable movies and videos. (Sans a few minor exceptions like the Aquaman pilot.) Thus the iPhone already has software/hardware to support high-quality playback of the H.264 codec. This allows the phone to provide more features with the video stream (e.g. live resizing, preview in place, fast-seek, etc.) than are possible with the Flash toolkit.
Indeed. America and Russia's first space programs consisted of nothing more than launching the V-2 rockets we had captured from Germany. (Thus why the iconic "rocket" image always looks like a V-2.)
The V-2 would have been combined with the nuclear bomb if Germany had succeeded in their research before the end of the war. Thus giving Nazi Germany the ultimate delivery technology for nuclear strikes. If that had happened, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. In fact, I would imagine that the United Kingdom would no longer exist (let's just call it, "United Smoking Hole in the Ground") and the US would have been dissolved in favor of the United Nazi Republic.
Did you pay any attention to what was said above? Kaleidescape's device does NOT allow unrestricted piracy. As I just said, it copies the CSS protection intact. Since it's licensed as a DVD/CSS decoder, it can play back those backups in a 100% legal manner. It does not, however, provide an easy way to "allow unrestricted piracy".
Hmm... posting as Anonymous Coward... ignoring the prior posts as well as all sense of logic... some sort of vendetta against Kaleidescape... you wouldn't happen to work for one of the involved parties (aka MPAA member companies), would you?
*You* don't. The company that makes the backup device needs a license to the DVD/CSS technology in order to play back the backups made on the device. So in order for the device to exist in the first place, the manufacturer has to meet the licensing requirements. Something that Kaleidescape does.
Contracts still need consideration to be held enforceable. Changing your terms to put an existing licensee out of business does not sound like particularly strong consideration to me. A good judge would have a field day with such a contract change. (A bad judge will simply get it kicked into appeals until a good judge is found.)
There are also anti-trust issues which I addressed in a post slightly farther down this thread.
That only works if you do business in Finland. If you do business in just about any other country (particularly in the US) the judge is going to look at you funny and tell you that you have a fool for a lawyer.
Actually, there's a LOT to sue over here. According to the fair-use laws (including the DMCA), you can make a backup, but you can't break the encryption to do it. It needs to be an exact backup. Thus the only way to make a legal backup is to use a licensed device like Kaleidescape's. The device complies with both the DMCA and DVD license requirements by backing up the disc with its CSS protection intact. So copying the data out of the device won't gain you much. (At least according to TFA.)
By changing their licensing agreement, the DVD CCA would be demonstrating anti-trust behavior that is damaging to consumers and market competitors. Ergo, they could be brought up on a variety of contract disputes AND anti-trust charges.
Standard Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once!
Sorry to reply to myself, but I have a few more thoughts on this that really didn't fit in with my other post.
From one perspective, I *do* understand where DVD producers are coming from on this. I positively know of at least one person who uses Netflix by backing up the DVDs when they come in, then immediately shipping them out for new ones. While it's a nice trick for improving one's own convenience, it's not really in the spirit of the service. So there are some legitimate arguments against DVD Backup devices.
However, the solution is NOT to ban good devices in an attempt to nail the edge cases. All you're going to do is piss off your customer base. But what should happen if a report stating that backup-piracy is NOT an edge case crosses an important desk? Should that executive then decide to make the problem go away?
NO!
What that exec is looking at is what I like to call a "Crisitunity". (Shamelessly stolen from other sources.) It's a crisis that presents new opportunities. All that's needed is an analysis of the problem to see where a workable solution might be introduced.
The first question to ask is: "Is this piracy about the money?" I think in most cases you'll find the money to be a secondary concern. Consumers like value (thus why they won't pay for an electronic copy of Pirates of the Carribean when they can get a physical copy for the same price), but they are willing to pay for the media under most circumstances. Ok, then why are they performing backup-piracy?
The obvious answer is: Convenience. Consumers are getting used to having things on their own schedule. Tivos allow them to shift television to a more convenient time. DVDs shift blockbuster movies out of the movie theater and into the convenience of the home. MP3s make jogging or travelling with your music a no-brainer. Gameboys/PSPs let consumers take their interactive entertainment on the go. Laptops let internet surfers work while they sip a latte at Starbucks.
Let's face it. We're an economy that's addicted to convenience. So much so that we will spend unnecessary money just to make something more convenient. Which should raise the flag of new opportunities. If consumers are so addicted to convenience, then why not find ways of providing it? Online movie distribution seems like the most promsing answer. Yet if you log into iTunes (analogous to DVDs in the store), Vongo (analogous to Netflix), or MovieLink (analogous to Blockbuster) you'll have a duece of a time trying to find a movie worth watching. And if you *do* find a movie worth watching, you may feel that the price is too high without a physical backup to protect your investment.
Thus the truth is that the movie industry is killing themselves through risk-adversion. The music industry already made that mistake once. One would think that the movie industry could try paying attention.
This amendment is NOT an amendment to the law. It's an amendment to the license agreement between the association responsible for the DVD standard and the companies that create DVD products. As such, its only direct impact on the consumer is that DVD Backup products will have their licenses revoked. Which would make it that much more difficult to excercise our fair-use rights to make a backup of the media and/or space-shift the media.
I think that Kaleidescape is right to worry in this situation. The change to the license agreement appears to be a direct attack on their business. Which, if successful, would represent irreparable harm to the market at large. The convenience aspect of digitally ripping the media cannot be understated. With such devices on the market, consumers are able to place their physical copies in storage while still having easy access to their media. Most of us do it with our CDs without giving it a second thought. Why should our movies be any different? (I know that I can't be the only one who has shelf-space problems with CDs, DVDs, and Video Games.)
As a party being directly harmed by an artifcial monopoly, I certainly hope that Kaleidescape takes this to court should it be approved. Consumers have a right to use their bought and paid-for media as they like. The DVD standard shouldn't be used as a bludgeon to take that away. If Kaleidescape is unsuccessful in their suit, I would hope that a class-action suit could be initiated for the harm caused to consumers.
He also installed the first visual telegraph system in France. Thanks to the telegraph, Napoleon was able to improve his communications turnaround with the battlefield to mere minutes instead of hours to days. That innovation paved the way for the invention of the electric telegraph; an invention that literally defined the computer and telephone communication standards we use today.
It's probably break-even, but it wouldn't surprise me if it takes more energy to grow the food in a vertical farm. However, energy is not a fixed cost. Energy coming over the grid is barely a fraction of the cost of energy extracted from diesel or gasoline engines used in tractors, semis, and pickup trucks. So energy-wise, the costs will probably favor the vertical farm.
It's not a perpetual motion device. Look closer. It's proposing a combination of solar and wind power to extract the necessary energy. The computations are based on an average wind speed of 7 m/s. That's not a perpetual motion machine, that's extracting stored energy from the earth's atmosphere.
Actually, it's likely that such an outage would have negligable effect. If power is so important that the building can't go without it, then it should have backup generators. Just like in a datacenter where they are prepared for extended periods off the grid, so should these buildings be prepared. They simply have the advantage of being able to rely on their primary sources of power when the grid fails. And should the primaries not be available to produce power (e.g. still winds at nighttime), a megawatt generator should kick in and power the place on diesel until the other power sources are restored.
This I agree with regardless of these new vertical farms. The US has an increasing demand for power, and we've effectively created a situation where power plants can't be built. Coal is too dirty, deisel is too dirty, nuclear is too dirty, blah, blah, blah. The truth is that generating power is going to have an environmental effect. No way around that. The bright side is that Nuclear has a minimal impact when used properly. If we started deploying breeder reactors, we could burn all that "waste" fuel rather than making plans to stick it in a mountain till the end of eternity. That seems like an incredibly stupid thing to do to me, as that "waste" is highly usable, energy-dense fuel! There'e several times more energy left in those rods than they got by burning them in a regular reactor!
But we can't possibly extract all that energy. The "terrorists" might get their hands on (kinda-sorta) weapons-grade material. Because it makes so much more sense for the mythical "terrorists" to steal plutonium to make an implosion device when they could use their (obviously advanced) production capabilities to mine uranium. You don't even have to test a uranium bomb!
Meh. Government stupidity.
It also costs tens of millions of dollars. Like I said, RTG development is an ideal solution for many situations. However, the military does not currently have access to RTG technology, is not looking to devleop RTG technology, is cognizant of the fact that the public doesn't like anything nuclear, and is not going to spend upwards of 10 million dollars on the power source for each LANdroid.
That being said, the military would do well to look at developing SRGs and other more efficient radioisotope heat engines. These engines could provide nearly unlimited power to the troops in the field. Battery packs would no longer be a consumable, but rather a sustainable asset from mission to mission.
While the military is not going to install these in little dispoa-bots, I've always thought that they should have developed the technology for the Land Warrior program. The designs they had kept failing time and time again because they couldn't find a power source that was both light *and* long-lasting enough for extended missions.
The only problem with that use is that RTGs reject a LOT of heat. The soldiers would be carrying around scalding hot devices as their power sources. Which is why it's so important that more efficient heat engines be developed. If we can get a 20-30% conversion efficiency rather than 3-7%, the soldiers could carry something around that's not too much warmer than your average battery pack.
Unfortunately, there's another down-side yet again. Heat engines work on heat differentials. Which means that they're going to be at their worst in hot, desert climates. Guess where most of our problems are these days?
So getting RTGs/SRGs used is not a simple problem. I personally think that there should be a LOT more R&D going into them, but I guarantee you that they will NOT be deployed for small bots like this.
The particular unit I linked to is a replacement for their current computer/radio batteries. You'd use smaller units in the "deck of cards" sized LANdroid.
You sure about that? The LANdroid is intended to provide Wireless communications for 7-14 days. Its actual movement (which is far more power-hungry) would be not be in continuous use. Using 7 days on a 180 Wh power supply as a baseline, I find that the unit could operate on 1.07 watts. That's really not that bad. Most basic cell phones operate on a power budget in that range. With some clever engineering, I imagine that the engineers could greatly increase the amount of power available to it.
RTGs are a good answer for a lot of things. But until they enter mainstream development, the only ones you'll see are the massive clunkers that NASA flies.
Personally, I want one in my cell phone and laptop. Never having to recharge again would be nice.
Did you actually read their website? There are a wide-variety of designs being proposed, not the least of which is this slanted building:
http://www.verticalfarm.com/images/design/skyfarm
If I'm not mistaken, that's one of the concepts you were just accusing them of ignoring?
Spending time reading the website, I'm convinced that it could very well be economical to grow food in vertical farms rather than importing it. The light issue is solved in several ways. If you look at the website, they have a design intended for Toronto that actuallys slants the building sideways to provide the maximum possible lighting to all levels during the morning hours. (It reminds me a bit of a Nintendo Wii in its cradle.)
Beyond that, you need to keep in mind that this is a controlled environment. Most natural environments can only produce crops during a single season. A controlled environment can produce crops year round. The website claims that this would result in a 4-6x increase in production per acre of farmable land. I find this number to be perfectly believable given the incredible production of areas like Hawaii, which can grow their sugarcane year round thanks to the more even climate.
The controlled environment also removes potential issues with the crops. There will be no dry seasons, no tornadoes or hurricanes, and a far lower chance of disease or pestilence in the crops. There will also be less need to genetically engineer crops for different environments and/or as great of a need to spray for pests.
The pages go on to provide more explanations, but the take away is that there is a strong chance that this could be economically viable. In many ways, it seems like a very *good* idea. I'd love to see a test building setup just to work out the kinks and see if it really is as feasible as they're suggesting.
At your service. I saw the bat-signal and came a'running.
It would be nice, but I doubt it. RTGs are still incredibly expensive and wouldn't be used on something throw-away like this. In fact, the military as a whole tends to shy away from nuclear technology unless it's a bomb. The only reason why NASA still uses RTGs in the face of public protests is because nothing else will work. (Spacecraft live and die by the power available to them. Nuclear is not just an option, it's a requirement for extended space travel. People are going to need to accept that if we ever want to push out into space.)
More likely the military will look into using fuel cells or microgenerators to power these little buggers. For about the same space as it would cost to pack a couple of LIon batteries, the engineers could stick an alcohol fuel tank & (power cell | micro-gas turbine) with many time the energy density. That would allow the robots to meet or exceed the 7-14 day life expectancy.
Here's an example of just such a fuel cell: http://www.gizmag.com/go/5325/
Ok, admit it. You made that post just to show off, didn't you?
;))
(Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like to expound on my own collection every so often.
By "co-opted" I presume you mean, "Made major contributions to"?
Shhh! Be wery, wery quiet...
How did you ever get a +1 bonus with posts like that?
I quoted the W3C site in my post. If you don't believe me, look again. That exact same quote appears in TFA. Neither place explicitly says it was a public event. It says that the results of the event will be public. The reporter then twisted those words to make it sound like it was a public event that wasn't public.
I dare you to prove me wrong.
You got farther than I ever did. It took me a half hour just to figure out why that squiggly thing kept hurting me. I suppose I should have read the manual a bit sooner, eh?
I actually got stuck trying to figure out how to get past the cliffs. It didn't occur to me that I could blow up a wall to progress. And when I eventually read a walkthrough, it kind of took all the fun out of completing it myself. (Actually, I believe I watched the "How to Win at Video Games" episode on Youtube. I had a "ah hah!" moment and a "well, now why would I want to play it?" moment at the same time.
And I don't believe you've ever played it. There, I win the baseless speculation card.
I played the game long enough to beat it on easy. i.e. Right switch on B. (Finding the "call ship" zone hidden in the grass was a bit of a PITA.) On hard, i.e. the right switch to A, I kept getting caught by the FBI agent and taken to the science center for study. It didn't take too many instances of accidentally dropping into a hole while trying to evade the agent before I turned it off. The game was much more fun on easy.
I'm complaining about falling into holes not "jumping out"[sic] of them. Which isn't really "jumping" as much as "floating with the neck thingy".
And these sites have a lot of good information on why it wasn't bad.
I do agree with this. While Atari had previously released Raiders of the Lost Ark to great success (one of the few Adventure games for the 2600), the majority of gamers were looking for arcade/action titles. E.T. threw them for a loop. The poor state of the manual (also rushed) didn't help.
I compare them to Stargate, Chopper Command, Ms. Pacman, Alien, and Jr. Pacman. Atari could have done a LOT better. They simply chose not to spend the time or energy, and drove their best programmers away as a result.
Speaking of good graphics, take just about anything Activision. Pitfall, Pitfall II (with polyphonic sound and music!), Enduro, H.E.R.O., Robot Tank, Ghostbusters, Keystone Kapers, Pressure Cooker, River Raid, and others showed that the 2600 was nowhere near as graphically limited as Atari would have had you believe. Even Activision's worst games (e.g. Barnstorming, Sky Jinks, etc.) still looked fabulous. You can't say the same about Atari's games, which often feel half-finished in comparison. (Probably because they are. Half-finished, that is.)
No worries. Apology accepted. :)