Google is run by a lot of really bright people. It would be seemingly trivial for them to develop a natural language parsing engine that would "rewrite" the introduction or summary for linked stories. Perhaps even condense them so that a realistic summary will fit in the few lines provided for each story on google news. After all, copyright law is only violated when something is copied verbatim; if it is rewritten, then no actual copying takes place. You may run into some issues regarding the thumbnailed images but I think that, too, could be overcome (make them greyscale and cropped differently, for example).
Logistically speaking, it may not be possible to replace it. It may not be possible to get it shipped to a combat zone, or it may be the kind of thing that when you're out on a mission you aren't able to get into contact with HQ and order a replacement. This is why durability is a major concern, because there is a very real chance of getting completely cut off from your supply lines and you need to be able to guarantee the reliable functionality of your equipment in such a situation. Sure, yes, when you're talking about replacing consumer-grade equipment with a trip to the local CompUSA, it's a no-brainer, but a warzone is far from the local shopping center (in more ways than one).
In a warzone, would you want a shitty gun that destructively jams after 100 to 500 rounds (you'll get at least 100 firings out of it, but after that point it could fail at any time) but only costs a few dollars to produce and distribute, or do you want a gun that never jams but costs a thousand dollars apiece? It depends on how your supply infrastructure works, how heavy each of the guns (and their ammunition) are, how long you expect to be in combat, and so on. Military equipment is often engineered for use in worst-case scenarios, and in those scenarios it is reliability and durability that are of the utmost importance. That isn't to say that they are always used in worst-case scenarios, but they are engineered for use in such scenarios.
So far, the biggest impact of nanotechnology on society is that society is full of geeks who swoon at the idea of nanotechnology being the future. Why are so many nerds just dying for the nanotechnology future to get here? What's wrong with the present?
In the present, you have to make a conscious effort to exercise in order to maintain a healthy weight. In the present, you need to modify your diet in order to lower your cholesterol. In the present, cancer kills you before you even know it's there (or shortly thereafter, as happened to a friend of mine). In the nanotechnology-enabled future, nanobots patrolling your body will render these situations null and void. In this optimistic future, we will have nanobots to burn excess fat for us or maybe prevent it from being absorbed in the first place. We will have little 'bots patrolling our bloodstream that clear clots and blockages and deposit them into our stool. The future will bring us little 'bots that will try to kill the cancer for us, and if it can't, it will warn us about what is going on so that we can treat it as soon as possible. We will have monitoring systems that allow us to get a daily or even hourly or even minute-by-minute readout of our health in much the same detail that a full physical with X-rays or MRI scans would provide us. The hope of the nanotech future is good health without having to even really think about it.
Things that seem like a Harry Potter film now are going to be a reality.
I thought the inspiration for nanotechnology came from Sci-Fi books and Star Trek. Now Harry Potter is the big inspiration?
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke
One of the fairly major advances that I'm looking forward to is wireless brain-computer/brain-machine (and even brain-brain) interfaces, which is on the same level as telekinesis or telepathy. The notion of nanobots to take care of all of my cells dividing indefinitely, killing off cancer, and so forth brings about fantasies of immortality. I ask you, where is the immortality in Star Trek? Dumbledore was ~160 years old when he was killed, that is pretty far outside the "normal" lifespan for a human being in most time periods.
Nanotechnology also offers us the ability to evolve more rapidly than we ever have before. Evolution could very well cease to be a slow and seemingly random event and could become very rapid and deliberate, with each new generation exhibiting increased stamina, disease resillience, and so forth. "Genetic engineering" as that may be called was outlawed in the Star Trek universe and genetically engineered individuals were disallowed from joining Starfleet.
My favorite series may die, but I'm allowed to have new favorites, maybe even a new favorite with a favorable distribution model that I approve of explicitly, and am willing to pay for. With that said, I do watch some of the shows on ABC's website, even with the included commercials.
And there are also people in the world that recognize that some rules are made to be broken. Especially rules made by old, rich people who are set in their ways and have no grasp of technology themselves.
The purpose of playing immersive games that simulate a virtual environment is escaping reality, because reality tends to suck. (especially in a warzone)
re: #1) Google has offices all over the country, I've done contract work at their Kirkland, WA office and it has a lot of the same amenities (free gourmet lunch and dinner, free snacks, massages, etc....)
re: #2) Corporate culture is actually part of the interview process. Every interviewer asks a "culture" question, which helps them to evaluate your personality and whether or not you fit in with the company. Questions like "why do you want to work at google?" I don't know about you, but it was the first time in years that somebody asked me why I wanted to work at a specific company. They've asked me why I want to write code or build software, but it is extremely rare that I be asked why I want to work for a specific company. Maybe it's just me.
re: #3) The interview process is not convoluted but can be drawn out. For contract positions it generally consists of a phone screen, a face-to-face interview, and then a hire/no-hire message. For full-time positions it generally consists of 1-2 phone screens, a face-to-face in the local office and/or Mountain View and then a possible offer. The only downside is that it can take a month or so to land a google position, so it isn't something that the unemployed fresh-out-of-school-need-some-income types should look into, but for those who are already in a stable position and are looking to step up to the next level, it is worth looking into. In my experience, as a contractor, it took them five days from my phone screen to the time they made me an offer. Granted, the interview and approval process for contractors is much faster than full time employees, because contractors are resources to be exploited, whereas employees are personnel in which they invest, and they want to make sure they're making a good investment.
"Consume grade" machinery doesn't require maintenance because it has a tendancy to just up and break rather often, requiring repair. Toaster ovens, microwaves, blenders, all manner of home appliances will inevitably fail, possibly just outside of their warranty period. Washing machines are another great example of a "consumer grade" piece of equipment that will just mysteriously stop working, usually due to a motor shorting out or a similar electrical problem. Anything with an engine or motor is generally under-engineered, which can lead to sudden failure.
It's the tradeoff between predictable downtime and unpredictable downtime that really gets me. Especially in a power generation scenario, it seems imperative that you know when your system be unavailable for power generation as it may be relied upon for mission-critical systems such as medical equipment.
I, personally, would rather regularly maintain my blender than have it just unexpectedly die on me in the middle of a smoothie. Unless I build it myself (or get one of those absolutely insane blendtec units) though, my blender unexpectedly dying on me is inevitable.
I agree with this comment...
on
The Birth of vi
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· Score: 1
You will find a much greater selection of bulbs online than you will in a B&M store. I recommend places like TopBulb (for 65W and 85W CFLs that are huge and throw off a ton of light) and SOS Lightbulbs (for qty>4 purchases of 2700K, 4100K, 5000K and 6400K bulbs in wattages of 20W, 23W, 26W and 30W). Also worth mentioning is Specialty Optical Systems (the company that operates SOS Lightbulbs), they have no minimum order quantity and they offer a wider range of wattages (11W, 13W, 15W, 20W, 23W, 26W, 30W, 55W) but their prices are about 20 to 30 percent higher.
I swear by these bulbs. I have them in every fixture in my apartment. The 6400K color temperature is comparable to noontime daylight and they produce the equivalent light of a 120W incandescent (at 30W power consumption). They also turn on instantly. I've had lamps made by Feit Electric and the half-second delay was annoying to me. These bulbs, however, are made by a company called Longstar (a Chinese company, IIRC), and they do the job right. As a warning, I have had these bulbs fail on me when used in enclosed fixtures outdoors, but for all indoor use I have never experienced a failure.
You may have experienced bulb failures due to using the bulbs in an orientation that they were not intended to be used in. Some CFLs cannot be used base-up, some cannot be used base-down, and some cannot be used horizontally. I have used 30W Longstar bulbs in all orientations, and as mentioned I have only encountered issues when using them in outdoor applications in enclosed fixtures (base-down orientation).
Also, a brief tangent on color temperatures. Terms like "Cool white" and "Daylight" are not standardized in the lighting industry, and they can represent a range of color temperatures. Generally "warm white" is 2700K to 3000K, "Cool white" is 3500K to 4100K, "Daylight" is 5000K to 6000K and "Super Daylight" or "Noon Daylight" is 6000K+. The higher the color temperature, the greater the amount of blue light.
There's a very big difference between not wishing to spend $300 and not knowing that spending $300 is an option. For those that don't know it's an option, they won't care. There isn't any egotistical prickness in the GP's statement, it is fairly correct.
A pretty major difference is that a web server is designed to enable and disable access to selected remote clients (it's part of the HTTP specification), while a house isn't necessarily designed to prevent thermal intrusion.
A much more accurate analogy would be a house that has a system that can block thermal imaging at the flip of a switch, but the user deciding not to turn it on and instead deciding to sue anyone who thermally images them.
This isn't an arms race at all, it's a tragic case of technological stupidity being legally acceptable grounds to sue somebody--and win.
Some info from the video: "First it's analyzed to detect the beats to determine the tempo of the track. Then the whole track is split up into small notes of musically meaningful length. Quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth, and so forth. Using psychoacoustic techniques, the sound signatures of all snippets are calculated. The sound signature of each snippet is now shown, symbolized by a sound spectrum. Finally, all sound signatures are saved in the database. Now that the music videos I want to plunder are analyzed, I can start to play with it. I'll sing, scream and beatbox and make all sorts of noises--hungry poetry actually--to describe music I want to be reconstructed out of samples from the database."
I'd keep using them as long as they were the only way to get (even some) mail to my address. If I had a way to transfer mail services for the address I've been using for the past 12 years to another provider, I certainly would do so.
It's a different beast really, because there is more than one package courier that can deliver things to your postal address, but there's only one email carrier that can deliver mails to your @earthlink.net address (or in my case @jps.net, a domain acquired by OneMain, then acquired by Mindspring, and eventually acquired by Earthlink) and that carrier is Shitlink--er, Earthlink.
Slashdot Mirror
Fraud, conspiracy to commit theft (depending on the value of the property, conspiracy to commit grand theft), harassment...
I'm sure there's a huge list of charges they could be brought up on.
The highest posted speed limit in the USA is 80 MPH.p eed_limit_unveiling.JPG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Texas_80_mph_s
or light?
Arctic Silver 5 has a thermal resistance of less than 0.0045C-in2/Watt. I'm pretty sure that's better than copper. I could be wrong, though.
Google is run by a lot of really bright people. It would be seemingly trivial for them to develop a natural language parsing engine that would "rewrite" the introduction or summary for linked stories. Perhaps even condense them so that a realistic summary will fit in the few lines provided for each story on google news. After all, copyright law is only violated when something is copied verbatim; if it is rewritten, then no actual copying takes place. You may run into some issues regarding the thumbnailed images but I think that, too, could be overcome (make them greyscale and cropped differently, for example).
In terms of market share, Internet Explorer > Firefox > Opera. Opera gets the shaft because it is the least-used Windows platform browser.
Logistically speaking, it may not be possible to replace it. It may not be possible to get it shipped to a combat zone, or it may be the kind of thing that when you're out on a mission you aren't able to get into contact with HQ and order a replacement. This is why durability is a major concern, because there is a very real chance of getting completely cut off from your supply lines and you need to be able to guarantee the reliable functionality of your equipment in such a situation. Sure, yes, when you're talking about replacing consumer-grade equipment with a trip to the local CompUSA, it's a no-brainer, but a warzone is far from the local shopping center (in more ways than one).
In a warzone, would you want a shitty gun that destructively jams after 100 to 500 rounds (you'll get at least 100 firings out of it, but after that point it could fail at any time) but only costs a few dollars to produce and distribute, or do you want a gun that never jams but costs a thousand dollars apiece? It depends on how your supply infrastructure works, how heavy each of the guns (and their ammunition) are, how long you expect to be in combat, and so on. Military equipment is often engineered for use in worst-case scenarios, and in those scenarios it is reliability and durability that are of the utmost importance. That isn't to say that they are always used in worst-case scenarios, but they are engineered for use in such scenarios.
should we ban clothes?
Maybe then we'd start taking the obesity epidemic a little more seriously.
I think you may be on to something...
Do they have a weighted controller for the Wii yet? Maybe some sort of attachment for the existing controller? Nothing extreme, just 2-5 pounds or so.
One of the fairly major advances that I'm looking forward to is wireless brain-computer/brain-machine (and even brain-brain) interfaces, which is on the same level as telekinesis or telepathy. The notion of nanobots to take care of all of my cells dividing indefinitely, killing off cancer, and so forth brings about fantasies of immortality. I ask you, where is the immortality in Star Trek? Dumbledore was ~160 years old when he was killed, that is pretty far outside the "normal" lifespan for a human being in most time periods.
Nanotechnology also offers us the ability to evolve more rapidly than we ever have before. Evolution could very well cease to be a slow and seemingly random event and could become very rapid and deliberate, with each new generation exhibiting increased stamina, disease resillience, and so forth. "Genetic engineering" as that may be called was outlawed in the Star Trek universe and genetically engineered individuals were disallowed from joining Starfleet.
My favorite series may die, but I'm allowed to have new favorites, maybe even a new favorite with a favorable distribution model that I approve of explicitly, and am willing to pay for. With that said, I do watch some of the shows on ABC's website, even with the included commercials.
And there are also people in the world that recognize that some rules are made to be broken.
Especially rules made by old, rich people who are set in their ways and have no grasp of technology themselves.
I live to break those rules.
The purpose of playing immersive games that simulate a virtual environment is escaping reality, because reality tends to suck. (especially in a warzone)
re: #1) Google has offices all over the country, I've done contract work at their Kirkland, WA office and it has a lot of the same amenities (free gourmet lunch and dinner, free snacks, massages, etc....)
re: #2) Corporate culture is actually part of the interview process. Every interviewer asks a "culture" question, which helps them to evaluate your personality and whether or not you fit in with the company. Questions like "why do you want to work at google?" I don't know about you, but it was the first time in years that somebody asked me why I wanted to work at a specific company. They've asked me why I want to write code or build software, but it is extremely rare that I be asked why I want to work for a specific company. Maybe it's just me.
re: #3) The interview process is not convoluted but can be drawn out. For contract positions it generally consists of a phone screen, a face-to-face interview, and then a hire/no-hire message. For full-time positions it generally consists of 1-2 phone screens, a face-to-face in the local office and/or Mountain View and then a possible offer. The only downside is that it can take a month or so to land a google position, so it isn't something that the unemployed fresh-out-of-school-need-some-income types should look into, but for those who are already in a stable position and are looking to step up to the next level, it is worth looking into. In my experience, as a contractor, it took them five days from my phone screen to the time they made me an offer. Granted, the interview and approval process for contractors is much faster than full time employees, because contractors are resources to be exploited, whereas employees are personnel in which they invest, and they want to make sure they're making a good investment.
Stolen goods crossing state lines? The FBI might be interested if the goods are valuable enough.
"Consume grade" machinery doesn't require maintenance because it has a tendancy to just up and break rather often, requiring repair. Toaster ovens, microwaves, blenders, all manner of home appliances will inevitably fail, possibly just outside of their warranty period. Washing machines are another great example of a "consumer grade" piece of equipment that will just mysteriously stop working, usually due to a motor shorting out or a similar electrical problem. Anything with an engine or motor is generally under-engineered, which can lead to sudden failure.
It's the tradeoff between predictable downtime and unpredictable downtime that really gets me. Especially in a power generation scenario, it seems imperative that you know when your system be unavailable for power generation as it may be relied upon for mission-critical systems such as medical equipment.
I, personally, would rather regularly maintain my blender than have it just unexpectedly die on me in the middle of a smoothie. Unless I build it myself (or get one of those absolutely insane blendtec units) though, my blender unexpectedly dying on me is inevitable.
...and I work at Microsoft.
You will find a much greater selection of bulbs online than you will in a B&M store. I recommend places like TopBulb (for 65W and 85W CFLs that are huge and throw off a ton of light) and SOS Lightbulbs (for qty>4 purchases of 2700K, 4100K, 5000K and 6400K bulbs in wattages of 20W, 23W, 26W and 30W). Also worth mentioning is Specialty Optical Systems (the company that operates SOS Lightbulbs), they have no minimum order quantity and they offer a wider range of wattages (11W, 13W, 15W, 20W, 23W, 26W, 30W, 55W) but their prices are about 20 to 30 percent higher.
I swear by these bulbs. I have them in every fixture in my apartment. The 6400K color temperature is comparable to noontime daylight and they produce the equivalent light of a 120W incandescent (at 30W power consumption). They also turn on instantly. I've had lamps made by Feit Electric and the half-second delay was annoying to me. These bulbs, however, are made by a company called Longstar (a Chinese company, IIRC), and they do the job right. As a warning, I have had these bulbs fail on me when used in enclosed fixtures outdoors, but for all indoor use I have never experienced a failure.
You may have experienced bulb failures due to using the bulbs in an orientation that they were not intended to be used in. Some CFLs cannot be used base-up, some cannot be used base-down, and some cannot be used horizontally. I have used 30W Longstar bulbs in all orientations, and as mentioned I have only encountered issues when using them in outdoor applications in enclosed fixtures (base-down orientation).
Also, a brief tangent on color temperatures. Terms like "Cool white" and "Daylight" are not standardized in the lighting industry, and they can represent a range of color temperatures. Generally "warm white" is 2700K to 3000K, "Cool white" is 3500K to 4100K, "Daylight" is 5000K to 6000K and "Super Daylight" or "Noon Daylight" is 6000K+. The higher the color temperature, the greater the amount of blue light.
There's a very big difference between not wishing to spend $300 and not knowing that spending $300 is an option. For those that don't know it's an option, they won't care. There isn't any egotistical prickness in the GP's statement, it is fairly correct.
I don't suppose you'd care to disclose which player you have?
A pretty major difference is that a web server is designed to enable and disable access to selected remote clients (it's part of the HTTP specification), while a house isn't necessarily designed to prevent thermal intrusion.
A much more accurate analogy would be a house that has a system that can block thermal imaging at the flip of a switch, but the user deciding not to turn it on and instead deciding to sue anyone who thermally images them.
This isn't an arms race at all, it's a tragic case of technological stupidity being legally acceptable grounds to sue somebody--and win.
This video reminds me of sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ!
A video of s?H! in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRlhKaxcKpA
Some info from the video: "First it's analyzed to detect the beats to determine the tempo of the track. Then the whole track is split up into small notes of musically meaningful length. Quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth, and so forth. Using psychoacoustic techniques, the sound signatures of all snippets are calculated. The sound signature of each snippet is now shown, symbolized by a sound spectrum. Finally, all sound signatures are saved in the database. Now that the music videos I want to plunder are analyzed, I can start to play with it. I'll sing, scream and beatbox and make all sorts of noises--hungry poetry actually--to describe music I want to be reconstructed out of samples from the database."
I'd keep using them as long as they were the only way to get (even some) mail to my address.
If I had a way to transfer mail services for the address I've been using for the past 12 years to another provider, I certainly would do so.
It's a different beast really, because there is more than one package courier that can deliver things to your postal address, but there's only one email carrier that can deliver mails to your @earthlink.net address (or in my case @jps.net, a domain acquired by OneMain, then acquired by Mindspring, and eventually acquired by Earthlink) and that carrier is Shitlink--er, Earthlink.