I normally wouldn't respond to an AC comment. In fact, you're an outright troll, since you're obviously saying something really, REALLY stupid!! But I'm going to respond to YOUR comment, because I think it'll be a lot of fun to talk smack on you, you IDIOT!
To begin with, let's pause for just a moment and ask ourselves who the real luser is here.
Is it me, because vaguely remember a flying bee in some stupid movie, or is it you, who could immediately name the movie?
I think it's you. I watch nearly zero television. That's right. I don't like movies, or television, or big media. They SUCK! Microsoft SUCKS! Windows SUCKS! Linux rocks! And YOU are a pitiful LOSER!! I bet you drive a rice burner, don't you? Probably an Integra with a 5 foot tall spoiler on the back, a 6 inch exhaust tip, low profile tires and cut springs (for a really hard and uncomfortable ride), and a motor that produces about 1 lb. ft. of torque, for a prominent lack of anything even remotely related to power. I bet you run high 19s, on a good day, when racing downhill at a 45 degree incline (decline?), because the only thing moving your car is gravity, because your motor can't handle its own weight.
Well let me tell you something. I drive a (nearly stock) 5.0 Mustang. I run 13s. You don't. So **Y**O**U** are the LOSER!
This comment should be moderated +5 Insightful. The idiot I'm responding to should be moderated -99999999999999999999999999999 Idiot.
I am required by blood oath to tell you that MICROSOFT SUCKS and WINDOWS SUCKS.
It's all about Opera 5 for Linux. Running on FreeBSD of course. Not that I don't like Linux. I use quite a few distros. But I also use FreeBSD, and I believe the system is better designed and stuff. Besides, I don't like the SysV-style init scripts in most Linux distros--they're such a hell to maintain! FreeBSD's way of simply putting everything in several "central" scripts, and then modifiying the behavior of those scripts through/etc/rc.conf feels and works so much better than mucking around with 845,353,776,235,309 scripts in all kinds of directories. Of course, I could always make FreeBSD-style init scripts for Linux. Or maybe I should go look for some--I'm sure someone else has thought of this before me.
Well, anyway, all I was trying to say, since I am talking smack, is that Microsoft sucks, Windows sucks, Outlook sucks (I never used it but it sucks), Internet Explorer sucks (I never use that either, but it sucks too), and all their other programs suck.
Heh heh... and to think that just a week or two ago, I posted a comment telling how much I hated his character in Star Trek. Especially in that episode where they go to some planet where the penalty for any crime, no matter how small, is death, and he runs into a glass thing and then there's a whole bunch of politics going on to try and get him out of it. But if he's donating to the EFF, it's all good dog.
No, this isn't really an apology. I still think his character was a moron.
Suppose they decide to donate 1 billion dollars worth of equipment. Think of the advantages of donating computer equipment to schools:
Microsoft would choose the schools and then supply the cheapest computers available on the market. The cost of these computers would be deducted from the 1 billion dollars. Microsoft would then install their own software on these computers. This would definitely include one of their operating systems and a bunch of office productivity, educational, art applications and games. Microsoft would then deduct their suggested retail price of the software from the 1 billion dollars.
If each computer costs Microsoft $500.00, and then they deduct $2000.00 for software (the more software they install on these computers, the more they can deduct), Microsoft actually spends only one fifth of the 1 billion dollars. The rest is money they never spend. They would be giving away copies of their own software. This does not cost them anything, since software is not a tangible product, and they don't actually have to manufacture those copies (other than putting them on a CD, the cost of which is negligible at their high quantities). Microsoft ends up spending 200,000,000 instead of 1,000,000,000--a huge savings!
But wait, there's more! These computers would simply serve as an advertisement for Microsoft. Furthermore, they'll probably put a different spin on the donation, making it appear as an act of good will, instead of a punishment for an abusive monopoly. Most folks would think Microsoft is very noble, as they don't follow the lawsuits. And I haven't even gotten started yet. Here's the best part! Microsoft would write off the entire 1 billion dollars as an expense, and end up not paying taxes on that money, even though four fifths of it never left Microsoft's bank account! (Microsoft has some genius accountants. They will somehow manage to do this, and the government won't be able to do a damn thing about it.) There are probably another ten or so huge benefits to Microsoft. They would essentially turn this "punishment" into a marketing ploy, and further expand their monopoly.
My suggestion for a real punishment follows: The government should decide which schools most need free computer equipment. Then, the government will decide on an amount of money to be spent on that school. Microsoft will be required to give the school a cash grant, which the school can use to purchase anything in the realm of computer equipment. The total amount of money spent by Microsoft on grants should be not less than 2 billion dollars.
Here's where my suggestion gets interesting: The schools have 100 percent choice as to which products to buy with the grant money. This could include scanners, printers, monitors, speakers, any computer hardware, etc. They could buy a PDP-11 or an SGI Onyx, or anything in between. Furthermore, they could get any software they want, whether it is IRIX, Windows 2000, Linux, or anything else out there. But here's the catch: If the school decides to use software products from Microsoft, Microsoft may NOT charge for them. They will be required to give the school a special, 100 percent free, totally unlimited, site-wide license for that product. (The license is special in that any faculty member or student of that school would be permitted to install that piece of software at any number of computers in their home at no cost. This prevents the grant from being used as an advertisement, which would benefit Microsoft instead of punishing them.) To close another loophole, if the school wants a software product made by another company, and Microsoft would somehow profit from this (through licensing fees, by owning shares of the company, or any other method), Microsoft is not allowed to make that profit. In other words, the ruling would prevent Microsoft from IN ANY WAY profiting from their products being given to the school. And finally, this requirement lasts forever. If Microsoft is still in business 200 years from now, and that school wants to use some software of theirs, Microsoft must still follow this rule.
In other words, the school may purchase (or obtain freely, if applicable) whatever computer related products they want, including Microsoft products, if they wish, but Microsoft may in no way profit from this punishment. If these were the terms of the punishment, I would agree to it 100 percent. Otherwise, I think Microsoft is playing games again.
There was a movie at some time or other where they had an electronic bee, run by remote control. A tiny power generator could make such things possible in the not-so-distant future. Imagine how far we've come.
There was a discussion several days ago about batteries that are refilled with gas, rather than recharged. It sounds rather messy to me, while a system that uses a hydrogen generator certainly sounds cleaner and more efficient.
I wonder what kind of noise this system makes. If it is very quiet, we may very soon find that batteries in some of the higher end consumer devices are replaced by some mechanical generator such as this.
It may even be suitable for use in larger power generation scheme. Think of clustering a whole bunch of these tiny generators. Although they are currently quite expensive to manufacture, I believe that micromachines and nanotech will soon advance to such a level that it will be very possible to mass produce tiny machines.
Which brings me to the idea of tiny machines that have their own built-in hydrogen power generator. Now that's technology!
No. I have a buddy who's always stressed out. As a result, he drinks a lot of beer, and his face gets all distorted and he starts saying stupid things. Often, he just sighs and says, "Oh well."
I like that so much (both the beer and the "Oh well") that I've decided to adopt "Oh well" as my personal trademark. Therefore, I sign all my emails and letters "Oh well" instead of "Sincerely" or other unoriginal stuff like that. I don't pretend that it has any meaning. I just like the way it looks and sounds.
Besides, have you bothered to read my sig? I just got dumped. Oh well.
Great... a Linux box that contains uncompressed music. There are lossless compression formats, and they could be used to dramatically increase the number of songs stored on the system.
An interesting use for this kind of system follows: What I'd like to see is a machine that looks like a jukebox but is totally computerized. Instead of flipping pages, album covers and information would be displayed on screens. The audio would be stored in any of several supported formats on a RAID array inside the machine. Lossy and lossless compression would be supported, as well as uncompressed audio. (Leaving it uncompressed is stupid, in my opinion, as decompressing a losslessly compressed file will produce exactly the same information as no compression at all in the first place.)
Here's where my idea becomes interesting. Networking hardware would be built in, and additional screens, which would look somewhat like miniature jukeboxes, could be placed around the room, as in some restaurants. Internet connectivity would be possible, and would link the jukebox to a central resource, any of its mirrors, or any other site that supports the required protocol. You could conceivably select to play songs that aren't saved inside the jukebox at all! While other songs are being played (songs that were selected before your selection), it will download your song in the background (in a small-file format, such as MP3).
Songs that are seldom played would eventually be removed from the jukebox using a simple LRU (Least Recently Used) algorithm, unless they are marked as permanent by the jukebox owner, in which case they won't be deleted. Songs that are played often would be downloaded in a larger, lossless format during idle cycles, for better sound quality.
OF COURSE, THIS JUKEBOX WOULD RUN LINUX.
The main jukebox and smaller "consoles" that would be placed around the room would all accept money, just as "real" jukeboxes do. This would be a great product for bars and restaurants. (I often visit a nearby bar that has a jukebox, and there are plenty of songs I wish they had. This jukebox would solve that problem.)
I was impressed by the idea of Transmeta's Crusoe processor because it greatly reduces the increasingly complicated problems of heat and energy efficiency. However, I've heard rumors that their product isn't getting widespread acceptance for some reason. Perhaps speed or reliability. Who knows.
The point is that we desperately need processors that produce less heat and use less energy. If you take a moment to think about it, it's totally ridiculous that we need so many noisy fans inside a computer that someone's using to compose an email. It's even more ridiculous when you consider that some graphics processors require a fan as well, and so does the power supply.
If successful, Intel's breakthrough in transistors could solve or greatly reduce these and other problems. These solutions aren't limited to the processor! All the chips in your computer contain transistors. Reducing the size, heat and energy usage by tiny amounts in each transistor will yield enormous benefits. Suddenly, a fan won't be required on the main processor or the graphics processor. Look at how much energy you save, not only in the transistors themselves, but in removing the fans, which themselves need energy to remove the unnecessary heat! It may be possible to remove the fan altogether from the power supply, resulting in less noise and even less wasted energy.
Now if only they'd come up with a breakthrough that will make fast, long lasting, solid-state hard drives a reality. Then the computer will be silent and use much less energy yet. We're getting there. It's only a matter of time and money.
OH WELL.
Advantages of open source scientific software.
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Open Source And Genetics
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· Score: 3, Insightful
*O*H***W*E*L*L*
Software for research in genetics, biology, fluid dynamics, astronomy and any other subject that requires such colossal amounts of computations should, in my opinion, be open sourced. This way, several things can take place:
While some folks are using the software, others can optimize it for increased speed. One of the things that bothers me when I read about some great new supercomputer is wondering how many of those bajillion cycles per second goes to waste because of nonoptimal computation loops. A small change here will make a large difference in the amount of time it take to achieve results.
The software can by analysed and broken up into distributed programs which can be run on millions of computers worldwide, a la SETI@home.
Distributed programs can be analysed and combined into one monolithic program that runs on a supercomputer.
Scientists (or programmers) can add features to these programs, making them perform multiple similar purposes. Or, scientists can pick out a specific computation that they need done on huge amounts of data, and save countless hours, days, or even months that would have been spent computing unnecessary data.
Well, you get the picture. All of this becomes incredibly expensive with closed source software. Of course, nobody said it has to be free software. Obtaining the source code could very well require an NDA, if that's what will float the developer's boat.
I would say that Isaac Asimov's "robot" series of books probably had the biggest effect on both fiction AND science. Although the robots in existance today are nothing like the robots in his novels, the inspiration and the name "robot" came from him. Asimov's robots were a lot like Star Trek's character Data. They looked human, had positronic brains (dreamed up by Asimov, of course), and could think and act on their own. Most of our robots today are nothing like that. They are controlled by computers, which are programmed by humans. Robots are designed for specific purposes and carry out only that purpose. For example, a six axis robotic arm might be installed in an automotive assembly line and programmed to perform the same exact action thousands, tens of thousands (or even vastly more) times. The idea, however, stems from Asimov's dream of machines that could perform actions for humans.
Another great writer, Jules Verne, wrote science fiction novels that eventually became science fact. From the submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, to the rocket in From the Earth to the Moon, to the trip Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne came up with some truly incredible ideas that soon became very credible indeed.
There are many others. I'm too busy to list them all, or I'd take the same kind of course.OH WELL
It should have been this way right from the start. Every country should have its country code as its top level domain, and that should be subdivided as best convenient for that country. In the U.S., each state would be assigned a 2-letter name under.us, and that state would be responsible for subdividing further. A big state like California might subdivide further by counties.
It should never have been simply "something.com"--this may have actually helped lead to the.com mess of the past several years, which has screwed up the tech sector so badly. ("Hey! Here's a business idea! Better register that domain name NOW before someone gets it, write up some press releases, and we're millionaires!" It's all psychology. Make the system more organized and its users will have to be too.) From the very start, people would have gotten used to the fact that some company's domain name is something.county.state.us or something.city.state.us or whatever. (Subdividing by city actually makes more sense (to me) than by county, as your snailmail address includes your street address, city and state, not your county.)
Furthermore,.net,.com and.org should only have existed for international entities;.net being for network providers;.com for multinational commercial entities and.org for multinational nonprofit organizations. ONLY! These domains, and only these domains, would be regulated by some international mess of a bureaucracy. Their rules would include a minimum number of countries you have to do business in before getting a domain like that. For example, you must do so many millions worth of business in, say, 10 countries in order to get a.com.
When limited to the U.S., these entities would have to get a.com.state.us address, and the name must be the name of the business (or entity). Registered trademarks would get a.tm.us. Federal government sites would get a.gov.us. State governments would get a.gov.state.us. County and city governments would be further organized in a hierarchy.
In short, by using rules that make sense to KNOWLEDGEABLE computer folks, a very large mess wouldn't exist now. Huge technical problems would be reduced to nothing. Legal problems would nearly go away too--we wouldn't have people fighting over domain names and stupid stuff like that. (If there was a fight, it could only happen between people in the same city (or state in the worst case) and there would be no authority to handle it--all names are first-come-first-serve. (The protection is already in place, since you have to own the appropriate trademark or have the appropriately named business in order to have that domain name.) And if all else fails, one party could buy the name off the other, as was done in the past.)
The way the system is today causes another big HUGE chunk of bureaucracy that is totally unnecessary and costs a lot of money and headaches. OH WELL.
Next thing you know, we'll end up with a world like in Johnny Mnemonic or something... 80 gigs, right in the head. Of course, by the time people have computers in their brains, storage capacities will be much higher than that.
And then you'll get things like people getting a new sort of amnesia where the computer malfunctioned and erased data inside the person's head... or if there's built-in networking, crackers will get directly into people's brains and put memories there that never took place, or they'll record your thoughts for their personal use.
Will you need a firewall inside your brain? How about virus protection software? A computer inside your head, especially one with network connectivity, will give new meaning to the term "virus" as it applies to humans.
Maybe the government wants to install computers in every person's head for thought policing, er, convenience reasons. Then, cool hacks will appear on the net allowing you to shield your thoughts from the government, while making artificial legitimate thoughts appear on the networking interface for the government to see. Then, the government will pass all sorts of anti-terrorism laws against modifying the computer in your brain. And they'll come up with monitoring software capable of determining if you have modified the software in your brain's computer.
Of course, there will be failures of some sort or another, and people will become delusional or they'll simply lose control of themselves because of an illegal instruction fault (while upgrading their firmware, er, brainware) and start flopping around or something. This brings new meaning to debugging.
In short, whatever possibilities a computer inside your brain makes possible, it's nothing when compared to the disadvantages. OH WELL.
Isn't it amazing that so many programmers gladly give away their hard work in free software, while so few artists, musicians, and writers do? Like the article says, it's a shame that there aren't any (or enough) contributers in areas such as sound. (The programming is there--it's the actual sounds that are missing.)
Why should research be banned that could allow you to "grow" a new heart (or liver or whatever) if yours breaks somewhere down the line? If this research ONLY allowed people to get heart transplants without waiting on infinitely long waiting lists for someone to die, imagine the benefit to medicine.
If the U.S. bans this research, it will simply move to other countries. Imagine having to live in China or Russia for a while to get your heart transplant because saving your life this way in the U.S. is illegal.
In my opinion, the U.S. should ban cloning an entire human for whatever purpose, as this could be used for some very evil things. But banning research is stupid.
So there is a backlog, eh? They've run out of family licenses? I think Microsoft only had about 5 family licenses total, so they could say they're out, and cause people to run to the nearest store to pick up copies of XP in a panic that they won't be able to use their computer.
Microsoft sucks. Windows sucks. Free software r00lz!
I've got even better advice than not running virus protection programs at all: Get FreeBSD, install it, configure a good firewall, maintain the system properly, make backups of your files often, and don't run as root. You won't even need virus protection programs--the system is protected by design.
It just may be that the FBI's so-called "Magic Lantern" is a classic magician's trick. They are telling the whole world that this Magic Lantern is a technology that will seek out and destroy every dangerous criminal on the face of the planet. They're marketing it as an unbeatable technology that works on EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER IN THE WORLD (that is, every one that's running Windows). They're causing lusers to think that there really is some kind of crimefighting technology when it's really nothing more than a bug which allows crackers to compromise Windows.
Then, the criminals who are trying to avoid the FBI see this and talk to someone who understands computers. That person tells them how to patch their system to remove the vulnerability.
Here's where the classic trick takes place. The criminal thinks he's immune from the Lantern, so he goes on with business as usual. He writes down his drug trafficking records or whatever, and then the FBI goes in behind his back, using some other system that nobody knows about, and gets the information.
I'm not saying this is what's going on. On the contrary--government people are really stupid, and even more so when it comes to computers. But I'm saying this is a possibility, and I'll try not to discount the FBI's intelligence just yet.
The problem, in my opinion, is that sales of McAfee's products will NOT drop because of this. You're forgetting that 99% of the people who buy that product do so because of FUD--Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. These are people who do not understand computers, viruses, bugs, worms and all kinds of other "marketing" names. They buy McAfee because it will prevent "hackers" (who should be called "crackers") from entering their system and causing their CPU to melt. These people will say, "Well of course McAfee shouldn't detect the FBI's crimefighting behavior." They simply don't know that this is a loophole for crackers (the "hackers" they're afraid of) to take advantage of. And they'll never consider that a possibility.
THAT is the problem with things like this. Just wait a few more days and we'll probably get a Slashdot story about a press release by the FBI telling of a new "technology" (a 4KB program that plugs this loophole) that empowers criminals to rub the Magic Lantern and make a wish that the FBI will leave them alone.
The point is, these aren't loopholes for the FBI. McAfee will ignore this loophole, and that will allow CRACKERS to get into your system. This program, which is intended to prevent people from getting into your computer, will happily ignore all cracking that takes place through the same loopholes as this so-called Magic Lantern.
How about this: Make a lot of tiny cameras and put them all over the rugby ball. These cameras will film everything going on around the ball. A computer could take these images and connect their edges, the way many still photographs can be attached to produce a 360-degree photo. The computer could remove unwanted spinning motion from the film. Or something like that. Oh well.
How about allowing developers to choose whatever license they want for the software they develop? Sure, every copyrighted work is supposed to enter the public domain after a temporary time. That doesn't mean that the source code enters the public domain--only the released binaries. Think about it. Let's say a band makes some music. When that music recording enters the public domain, the band isn't required to release the sheet music. How the music was achieved has nothing to do with the fact that it enters the public domain. The same rule holds true for software, in my opinion. Most people have simply forgotten that the source code has nothing to do with the released work which is supposed to enter the public domain. Put another way, let's say someone came up with an ingenius way to play music that nobody has thought of before, and that person makes a bunch of recordings and sells an album. Some years later, that album enters the public domain, which means that people can use the music for whatever they want. The musician doesn't have to tell the world how the recording was achieved (the source code to the recording). So I'm saying Stallman's being a dumbass. If I want to release software under a license that says you are not allowed to run the software at all, then I'll release software that way. When it enters the public domain, people can use it. But that has nothing to do with the source code. You can still modify a binary. You can still learn the algorithms. True, it's more difficult. But if the program was difficult to write, it should be difficult to decypher. Oh well.
And what about...
on
Mapping Gravity
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· Score: 5, Informative
...the fact that moving at speeds approaching the speed of light will cause you to move faster through time, so that if you left Earth, travelled at near light speeds, and then came back shortly afterwards, 100 years might have elapsed on Earth in what you perceived as about 10 minutes.
I think that physical laws like this have a very significant effect on the lumpiness of the Earth, and therefore, on the variations in gravitational pull.
Imagine that you're running down a square field, from one side to the side parallel to it, and it takes you 10 minutes to run across this field. Ok, now imagine that you're running across the same field, but instead of running "straight," you're running at an angle, so that you're not perpendicular to the edges of the field that you're running from and to. It will take you a bit longer to get to the other side of the field, even though you're running at the same speed, because by going at an angle, you've increased the distance you have to go to get from one edge to the other.
Now suppose we call the field a 2-dimensional surface, like a piece of paper. You could say that the first time you ran across the field, you travelled along one axis, or dimension--let's say the X axis. But on the way back, you ran at an angle, which means that you've gone along two axes, the X and Y axes. But you went the same speed. This means that you have split the same speed across two dimensions.
We say that time is a fourth dimension. Now picture this: No matter what's happening, you're ALWAYS moving through the 4 axes (the three "space" dimensions and the one "time" dimension) at exactly the speed of light. It's just that you're splitting that speed (the speed of light) across some combination of the 4 dimensions. You're doing one of the following:
Standing perfectly still in the 3 space dimensions and moving only through time. (I know that motion is relative, but imagine for a moment that your motion is relative to the universe itself and that you can guarentee that you're really not moving through space at all but only through time). Therefore, you're moving through time at the speed of light.
You're moving through space and time, which means you're splitting your motion across at least one of the space dimensions and the fourth time dimension, which means that you're moving somewhat more slowly through time. If you're going through space really really fast, whatever speed is left over for time will be much smaller. So if you're moving through space at speeds approaching the speed of light, what might be 10 minutes for you might be a much longer time for everybody else. Because you're moving through time much more slowly, since you're using up all that speed in the other dimensions.
You're only moving through space itself and are therefore not moving through time at all. Photons, which are light particles, do this. Since they're light, they move through space at the speed of light. (Yeah, that makes sense, right?) This means that there is NO speed left over for moving through time. As a result, if a photon travels in a straight line, it is EVERYWHERE along that line at the same time. We think it takes 8 minutes for a photon leaving the sun to arrive at Earth, because we're the outside world. For the photon, the trip was instantaneous, but for us, it took 8 minutes. Just like if you're travelling through space really really fast (almost the speed of light), you'll think it was 10 minutes but for us it was 100 years.
I think all of these physical laws have a very significant effect on the lumpiness of the Earth, and therefore, on the variations in gravitational pull.
This is going to be SUCH AN AWESOME GAME! I'm going to run to the store first thing tomorrow morning (if they're actually open on Thanksgiving) and buy it. Awesome.
Too many people are saying this "computer" will make 20,000,000 mistakes per second. Rather than thinking of it as a computer, why not think of it as an artificial brain. Your brain certainly makes mistakes. Why should an artificial one be any better?
It's the same guy, the same research, but just a different application!
Given enough time and research money, this guy will figure out how to do everything with beer!
Automobiles, trucks, trains and airplanes that run on beer instead of gasoline.
A laptop computer that uses batteries that run on beer. No recharging--simply pour in a bottle of Negra Modelo (and throw in a lime for extra performance).
Power plants that run on beer.
Vacuum cleaners that run on beer.
Medicinal beer. (As opposed to medicinal marijuana.)
Beer in the Workplace, a business management strategy. (Patent pending.)
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think I mentioned this in my other post, but I am required by blood oath to hate Microsoft.
Oh well.
I normally wouldn't respond to an AC comment. In fact, you're an outright troll, since you're obviously saying something really, REALLY stupid!! But I'm going to respond to YOUR comment, because I think it'll be a lot of fun to talk smack on you, you IDIOT!
To begin with, let's pause for just a moment and ask ourselves who the real luser is here.
Is it me, because vaguely remember a flying bee in some stupid movie, or is it you, who could immediately name the movie?
I think it's you. I watch nearly zero television. That's right. I don't like movies, or television, or big media. They SUCK! Microsoft SUCKS! Windows SUCKS! Linux rocks! And YOU are a pitiful LOSER!! I bet you drive a rice burner, don't you? Probably an Integra with a 5 foot tall spoiler on the back, a 6 inch exhaust tip, low profile tires and cut springs (for a really hard and uncomfortable ride), and a motor that produces about 1 lb. ft. of torque, for a prominent lack of anything even remotely related to power. I bet you run high 19s, on a good day, when racing downhill at a 45 degree incline (decline?), because the only thing moving your car is gravity, because your motor can't handle its own weight.
Well let me tell you something. I drive a (nearly stock) 5.0 Mustang. I run 13s. You don't. So **Y**O**U** are the LOSER!
This comment should be moderated +5 Insightful. The idiot I'm responding to should be moderated -99999999999999999999999999999 Idiot.
I am required by blood oath to tell you that MICROSOFT SUCKS and WINDOWS SUCKS.
It's all about Opera 5 for Linux. Running on FreeBSD of course. Not that I don't like Linux. I use quite a few distros. But I also use FreeBSD, and I believe the system is better designed and stuff. Besides, I don't like the SysV-style init scripts in most Linux distros--they're such a hell to maintain! FreeBSD's way of simply putting everything in several "central" scripts, and then modifiying the behavior of those scripts through /etc/rc.conf feels and works so much better than mucking around with 845,353,776,235,309 scripts in all kinds of directories. Of course, I could always make FreeBSD-style init scripts for Linux. Or maybe I should go look for some--I'm sure someone else has thought of this before me.
Well, anyway, all I was trying to say, since I am talking smack, is that Microsoft sucks, Windows sucks, Outlook sucks (I never used it but it sucks), Internet Explorer sucks (I never use that either, but it sucks too), and all their other programs suck.
OH WELL.
Heh heh... and to think that just a week or two ago, I posted a comment telling how much I hated his character in Star Trek. Especially in that episode where they go to some planet where the penalty for any crime, no matter how small, is death, and he runs into a glass thing and then there's a whole bunch of politics going on to try and get him out of it. But if he's donating to the EFF, it's all good dog.
No, this isn't really an apology. I still think his character was a moron.
Oh well.
I believe Microsoft is up to no good.
Suppose they decide to donate 1 billion dollars worth of equipment. Think of the advantages of donating computer equipment to schools:
Microsoft would choose the schools and then supply the cheapest computers available on the market. The cost of these computers would be deducted from the 1 billion dollars. Microsoft would then install their own software on these computers. This would definitely include one of their operating systems and a bunch of office productivity, educational, art applications and games. Microsoft would then deduct their suggested retail price of the software from the 1 billion dollars.
If each computer costs Microsoft $500.00, and then they deduct $2000.00 for software (the more software they install on these computers, the more they can deduct), Microsoft actually spends only one fifth of the 1 billion dollars. The rest is money they never spend. They would be giving away copies of their own software. This does not cost them anything, since software is not a tangible product, and they don't actually have to manufacture those copies (other than putting them on a CD, the cost of which is negligible at their high quantities). Microsoft ends up spending 200,000,000 instead of 1,000,000,000--a huge savings!
But wait, there's more! These computers would simply serve as an advertisement for Microsoft. Furthermore, they'll probably put a different spin on the donation, making it appear as an act of good will, instead of a punishment for an abusive monopoly. Most folks would think Microsoft is very noble, as they don't follow the lawsuits. And I haven't even gotten started yet. Here's the best part! Microsoft would write off the entire 1 billion dollars as an expense, and end up not paying taxes on that money, even though four fifths of it never left Microsoft's bank account! (Microsoft has some genius accountants. They will somehow manage to do this, and the government won't be able to do a damn thing about it.) There are probably another ten or so huge benefits to Microsoft. They would essentially turn this "punishment" into a marketing ploy, and further expand their monopoly.
My suggestion for a real punishment follows: The government should decide which schools most need free computer equipment. Then, the government will decide on an amount of money to be spent on that school. Microsoft will be required to give the school a cash grant, which the school can use to purchase anything in the realm of computer equipment. The total amount of money spent by Microsoft on grants should be not less than 2 billion dollars.
Here's where my suggestion gets interesting: The schools have 100 percent choice as to which products to buy with the grant money. This could include scanners, printers, monitors, speakers, any computer hardware, etc. They could buy a PDP-11 or an SGI Onyx, or anything in between. Furthermore, they could get any software they want, whether it is IRIX, Windows 2000, Linux, or anything else out there. But here's the catch: If the school decides to use software products from Microsoft, Microsoft may NOT charge for them. They will be required to give the school a special, 100 percent free, totally unlimited, site-wide license for that product. (The license is special in that any faculty member or student of that school would be permitted to install that piece of software at any number of computers in their home at no cost. This prevents the grant from being used as an advertisement, which would benefit Microsoft instead of punishing them.) To close another loophole, if the school wants a software product made by another company, and Microsoft would somehow profit from this (through licensing fees, by owning shares of the company, or any other method), Microsoft is not allowed to make that profit. In other words, the ruling would prevent Microsoft from IN ANY WAY profiting from their products being given to the school. And finally, this requirement lasts forever. If Microsoft is still in business 200 years from now, and that school wants to use some software of theirs, Microsoft must still follow this rule.
In other words, the school may purchase (or obtain freely, if applicable) whatever computer related products they want, including Microsoft products, if they wish, but Microsoft may in no way profit from this punishment. If these were the terms of the punishment, I would agree to it 100 percent. Otherwise, I think Microsoft is playing games again.
Oh well.
There was a movie at some time or other where they had an electronic bee, run by remote control. A tiny power generator could make such things possible in the not-so-distant future. Imagine how far we've come.
There was a discussion several days ago about batteries that are refilled with gas, rather than recharged. It sounds rather messy to me, while a system that uses a hydrogen generator certainly sounds cleaner and more efficient.
I wonder what kind of noise this system makes. If it is very quiet, we may very soon find that batteries in some of the higher end consumer devices are replaced by some mechanical generator such as this.
It may even be suitable for use in larger power generation scheme. Think of clustering a whole bunch of these tiny generators. Although they are currently quite expensive to manufacture, I believe that micromachines and nanotech will soon advance to such a level that it will be very possible to mass produce tiny machines.
Which brings me to the idea of tiny machines that have their own built-in hydrogen power generator. Now that's technology!
Oh well.
No. I have a buddy who's always stressed out. As a result, he drinks a lot of beer, and his face gets all distorted and he starts saying stupid things. Often, he just sighs and says, "Oh well."
I like that so much (both the beer and the "Oh well") that I've decided to adopt "Oh well" as my personal trademark. Therefore, I sign all my emails and letters "Oh well" instead of "Sincerely" or other unoriginal stuff like that. I don't pretend that it has any meaning. I just like the way it looks and sounds.
Besides, have you bothered to read my sig? I just got dumped. Oh well.
Great... a Linux box that contains uncompressed music. There are lossless compression formats, and they could be used to dramatically increase the number of songs stored on the system.
An interesting use for this kind of system follows: What I'd like to see is a machine that looks like a jukebox but is totally computerized. Instead of flipping pages, album covers and information would be displayed on screens. The audio would be stored in any of several supported formats on a RAID array inside the machine. Lossy and lossless compression would be supported, as well as uncompressed audio. (Leaving it uncompressed is stupid, in my opinion, as decompressing a losslessly compressed file will produce exactly the same information as no compression at all in the first place.)
Here's where my idea becomes interesting. Networking hardware would be built in, and additional screens, which would look somewhat like miniature jukeboxes, could be placed around the room, as in some restaurants. Internet connectivity would be possible, and would link the jukebox to a central resource, any of its mirrors, or any other site that supports the required protocol. You could conceivably select to play songs that aren't saved inside the jukebox at all! While other songs are being played (songs that were selected before your selection), it will download your song in the background (in a small-file format, such as MP3).
Songs that are seldom played would eventually be removed from the jukebox using a simple LRU (Least Recently Used) algorithm, unless they are marked as permanent by the jukebox owner, in which case they won't be deleted. Songs that are played often would be downloaded in a larger, lossless format during idle cycles, for better sound quality.
OF COURSE, THIS JUKEBOX WOULD RUN LINUX.
The main jukebox and smaller "consoles" that would be placed around the room would all accept money, just as "real" jukeboxes do. This would be a great product for bars and restaurants. (I often visit a nearby bar that has a jukebox, and there are plenty of songs I wish they had. This jukebox would solve that problem.)
OH WELL.
OH WELL.
I was impressed by the idea of Transmeta's Crusoe processor because it greatly reduces the increasingly complicated problems of heat and energy efficiency. However, I've heard rumors that their product isn't getting widespread acceptance for some reason. Perhaps speed or reliability. Who knows.
The point is that we desperately need processors that produce less heat and use less energy. If you take a moment to think about it, it's totally ridiculous that we need so many noisy fans inside a computer that someone's using to compose an email. It's even more ridiculous when you consider that some graphics processors require a fan as well, and so does the power supply.
If successful, Intel's breakthrough in transistors could solve or greatly reduce these and other problems. These solutions aren't limited to the processor! All the chips in your computer contain transistors. Reducing the size, heat and energy usage by tiny amounts in each transistor will yield enormous benefits. Suddenly, a fan won't be required on the main processor or the graphics processor. Look at how much energy you save, not only in the transistors themselves, but in removing the fans, which themselves need energy to remove the unnecessary heat! It may be possible to remove the fan altogether from the power supply, resulting in less noise and even less wasted energy.
Now if only they'd come up with a breakthrough that will make fast, long lasting, solid-state hard drives a reality. Then the computer will be silent and use much less energy yet. We're getting there. It's only a matter of time and money.
OH WELL.
*O*H***W*E*L*L*
Software for research in genetics, biology, fluid dynamics, astronomy and any other subject that requires such colossal amounts of computations should, in my opinion, be open sourced. This way, several things can take place:
Well, you get the picture. All of this becomes incredibly expensive with closed source software. Of course, nobody said it has to be free software. Obtaining the source code could very well require an NDA, if that's what will float the developer's boat.
*O*H***W*E*L*L*
I would say that Isaac Asimov's "robot" series of books probably had the biggest effect on both fiction AND science. Although the robots in existance today are nothing like the robots in his novels, the inspiration and the name "robot" came from him. Asimov's robots were a lot like Star Trek's character Data. They looked human, had positronic brains (dreamed up by Asimov, of course), and could think and act on their own. Most of our robots today are nothing like that. They are controlled by computers, which are programmed by humans. Robots are designed for specific purposes and carry out only that purpose. For example, a six axis robotic arm might be installed in an automotive assembly line and programmed to perform the same exact action thousands, tens of thousands (or even vastly more) times. The idea, however, stems from Asimov's dream of machines that could perform actions for humans.
Another great writer, Jules Verne, wrote science fiction novels that eventually became science fact. From the submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, to the rocket in From the Earth to the Moon, to the trip Around the World in 80 Days, Jules Verne came up with some truly incredible ideas that soon became very credible indeed.
There are many others. I'm too busy to list them all, or I'd take the same kind of course. OH WELL
It should have been this way right from the start. Every country should have its country code as its top level domain, and that should be subdivided as best convenient for that country. In the U.S., each state would be assigned a 2-letter name under .us, and that state would be responsible for subdividing further. A big state like California might subdivide further by counties.
It should never have been simply "something.com"--this may have actually helped lead to the .com mess of the past several years, which has screwed up the tech sector so badly. ("Hey! Here's a business idea! Better register that domain name NOW before someone gets it, write up some press releases, and we're millionaires!" It's all psychology. Make the system more organized and its users will have to be too.) From the very start, people would have gotten used to the fact that some company's domain name is something.county.state.us or something.city.state.us or whatever. (Subdividing by city actually makes more sense (to me) than by county, as your snailmail address includes your street address, city and state, not your county.)
Furthermore, .net, .com and .org should only have existed for international entities; .net being for network providers; .com for multinational commercial entities and .org for multinational nonprofit organizations. ONLY! These domains, and only these domains, would be regulated by some international mess of a bureaucracy. Their rules would include a minimum number of countries you have to do business in before getting a domain like that. For example, you must do so many millions worth of business in, say, 10 countries in order to get a .com.
When limited to the U.S., these entities would have to get a .com.state.us address, and the name must be the name of the business (or entity). Registered trademarks would get a .tm.us. Federal government sites would get a .gov.us. State governments would get a .gov.state.us. County and city governments would be further organized in a hierarchy.
In short, by using rules that make sense to KNOWLEDGEABLE computer folks, a very large mess wouldn't exist now. Huge technical problems would be reduced to nothing. Legal problems would nearly go away too--we wouldn't have people fighting over domain names and stupid stuff like that. (If there was a fight, it could only happen between people in the same city (or state in the worst case) and there would be no authority to handle it--all names are first-come-first-serve. (The protection is already in place, since you have to own the appropriate trademark or have the appropriately named business in order to have that domain name.) And if all else fails, one party could buy the name off the other, as was done in the past.)
The way the system is today causes another big HUGE chunk of bureaucracy that is totally unnecessary and costs a lot of money and headaches. OH WELL.
Next thing you know, we'll end up with a world like in Johnny Mnemonic or something... 80 gigs, right in the head. Of course, by the time people have computers in their brains, storage capacities will be much higher than that.
And then you'll get things like people getting a new sort of amnesia where the computer malfunctioned and erased data inside the person's head... or if there's built-in networking, crackers will get directly into people's brains and put memories there that never took place, or they'll record your thoughts for their personal use.
Will you need a firewall inside your brain? How about virus protection software? A computer inside your head, especially one with network connectivity, will give new meaning to the term "virus" as it applies to humans.
Maybe the government wants to install computers in every person's head for thought policing, er, convenience reasons. Then, cool hacks will appear on the net allowing you to shield your thoughts from the government, while making artificial legitimate thoughts appear on the networking interface for the government to see. Then, the government will pass all sorts of anti-terrorism laws against modifying the computer in your brain. And they'll come up with monitoring software capable of determining if you have modified the software in your brain's computer.
Of course, there will be failures of some sort or another, and people will become delusional or they'll simply lose control of themselves because of an illegal instruction fault (while upgrading their firmware, er, brainware) and start flopping around or something. This brings new meaning to debugging.
In short, whatever possibilities a computer inside your brain makes possible, it's nothing when compared to the disadvantages. OH WELL.
Isn't it amazing that so many programmers gladly give away their hard work in free software, while so few artists, musicians, and writers do? Like the article says, it's a shame that there aren't any (or enough) contributers in areas such as sound. (The programming is there--it's the actual sounds that are missing.)
Why should research be banned that could allow you to "grow" a new heart (or liver or whatever) if yours breaks somewhere down the line? If this research ONLY allowed people to get heart transplants without waiting on infinitely long waiting lists for someone to die, imagine the benefit to medicine.
If the U.S. bans this research, it will simply move to other countries. Imagine having to live in China or Russia for a while to get your heart transplant because saving your life this way in the U.S. is illegal.
In my opinion, the U.S. should ban cloning an entire human for whatever purpose, as this could be used for some very evil things. But banning research is stupid.
So there is a backlog, eh? They've run out of family licenses? I think Microsoft only had about 5 family licenses total, so they could say they're out, and cause people to run to the nearest store to pick up copies of XP in a panic that they won't be able to use their computer.
Microsoft sucks. Windows sucks. Free software r00lz!
Oh well.
I've got even better advice than not running virus protection programs at all: Get FreeBSD, install it, configure a good firewall, maintain the system properly, make backups of your files often, and don't run as root. You won't even need virus protection programs--the system is protected by design.
OH WELL.
It just may be that the FBI's so-called "Magic Lantern" is a classic magician's trick. They are telling the whole world that this Magic Lantern is a technology that will seek out and destroy every dangerous criminal on the face of the planet. They're marketing it as an unbeatable technology that works on EVERY SINGLE COMPUTER IN THE WORLD (that is, every one that's running Windows). They're causing lusers to think that there really is some kind of crimefighting technology when it's really nothing more than a bug which allows crackers to compromise Windows.
Then, the criminals who are trying to avoid the FBI see this and talk to someone who understands computers. That person tells them how to patch their system to remove the vulnerability.
Here's where the classic trick takes place. The criminal thinks he's immune from the Lantern, so he goes on with business as usual. He writes down his drug trafficking records or whatever, and then the FBI goes in behind his back, using some other system that nobody knows about, and gets the information.
I'm not saying this is what's going on. On the contrary--government people are really stupid, and even more so when it comes to computers. But I'm saying this is a possibility, and I'll try not to discount the FBI's intelligence just yet.
Oh well.
The problem, in my opinion, is that sales of McAfee's products will NOT drop because of this. You're forgetting that 99% of the people who buy that product do so because of FUD--Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. These are people who do not understand computers, viruses, bugs, worms and all kinds of other "marketing" names. They buy McAfee because it will prevent "hackers" (who should be called "crackers") from entering their system and causing their CPU to melt. These people will say, "Well of course McAfee shouldn't detect the FBI's crimefighting behavior." They simply don't know that this is a loophole for crackers (the "hackers" they're afraid of) to take advantage of. And they'll never consider that a possibility.
THAT is the problem with things like this. Just wait a few more days and we'll probably get a Slashdot story about a press release by the FBI telling of a new "technology" (a 4KB program that plugs this loophole) that empowers criminals to rub the Magic Lantern and make a wish that the FBI will leave them alone.
The point is, these aren't loopholes for the FBI. McAfee will ignore this loophole, and that will allow CRACKERS to get into your system. This program, which is intended to prevent people from getting into your computer, will happily ignore all cracking that takes place through the same loopholes as this so-called Magic Lantern.
Oh well... Next time, use OpenBSD.
How about this: Make a lot of tiny cameras and put them all over the rugby ball. These cameras will film everything going on around the ball. A computer could take these images and connect their edges, the way many still photographs can be attached to produce a 360-degree photo. The computer could remove unwanted spinning motion from the film. Or something like that. Oh well.
How about allowing developers to choose whatever license they want for the software they develop? Sure, every copyrighted work is supposed to enter the public domain after a temporary time. That doesn't mean that the source code enters the public domain--only the released binaries. Think about it. Let's say a band makes some music. When that music recording enters the public domain, the band isn't required to release the sheet music. How the music was achieved has nothing to do with the fact that it enters the public domain. The same rule holds true for software, in my opinion. Most people have simply forgotten that the source code has nothing to do with the released work which is supposed to enter the public domain. Put another way, let's say someone came up with an ingenius way to play music that nobody has thought of before, and that person makes a bunch of recordings and sells an album. Some years later, that album enters the public domain, which means that people can use the music for whatever they want. The musician doesn't have to tell the world how the recording was achieved (the source code to the recording). So I'm saying Stallman's being a dumbass. If I want to release software under a license that says you are not allowed to run the software at all, then I'll release software that way. When it enters the public domain, people can use it. But that has nothing to do with the source code. You can still modify a binary. You can still learn the algorithms. True, it's more difficult. But if the program was difficult to write, it should be difficult to decypher. Oh well.
...the fact that moving at speeds approaching the speed of light will cause you to move faster through time, so that if you left Earth, travelled at near light speeds, and then came back shortly afterwards, 100 years might have elapsed on Earth in what you perceived as about 10 minutes.
I think that physical laws like this have a very significant effect on the lumpiness of the Earth, and therefore, on the variations in gravitational pull.
Imagine that you're running down a square field, from one side to the side parallel to it, and it takes you 10 minutes to run across this field. Ok, now imagine that you're running across the same field, but instead of running "straight," you're running at an angle, so that you're not perpendicular to the edges of the field that you're running from and to. It will take you a bit longer to get to the other side of the field, even though you're running at the same speed, because by going at an angle, you've increased the distance you have to go to get from one edge to the other.
Now suppose we call the field a 2-dimensional surface, like a piece of paper. You could say that the first time you ran across the field, you travelled along one axis, or dimension--let's say the X axis. But on the way back, you ran at an angle, which means that you've gone along two axes, the X and Y axes. But you went the same speed. This means that you have split the same speed across two dimensions.
We say that time is a fourth dimension. Now picture this: No matter what's happening, you're ALWAYS moving through the 4 axes (the three "space" dimensions and the one "time" dimension) at exactly the speed of light. It's just that you're splitting that speed (the speed of light) across some combination of the 4 dimensions. You're doing one of the following:
I think all of these physical laws have a very significant effect on the lumpiness of the Earth, and therefore, on the variations in gravitational pull.
And, of course, the obligatory OH WELL.
This is going to be SUCH AN AWESOME GAME! I'm going to run to the store first thing tomorrow morning (if they're actually open on Thanksgiving) and buy it. Awesome.
Oh well.
Too many people are saying this "computer" will make 20,000,000 mistakes per second. Rather than thinking of it as a computer, why not think of it as an artificial brain. Your brain certainly makes mistakes. Why should an artificial one be any better?
It's the same guy, the same research, but just a different application!
Given enough time and research money, this guy will figure out how to do everything with beer!
Oh well.