I'm still waiting for Fox Force Five to become a reality. "Fox because we're a bunch of foxes, Five because there's five of us, and Force because we're a force to be reckoned with!"
I admit this is a nifty approach to cramming a usable browser onto a tiny device. Using one screen as a selector and the other as a magnifier is really clever, but it reminds me of accessibility tools for the visually impaired. There's a reason why paperback books are the size they are, instead of the size of postage stamps. You could print books that small, but people would need a compelling reason to read them, such as being forced to live in a coffin. Tiny devices are fine for looking at tiny blocks of information, like buddy lists, but not for web pages that are increasingly aimed at 1024x768 and larger monitors. The web is just too damn big for this thing.
If you are forced to have a houseguest you aren't too keen on, don't tell them about it. Just let them encounter the talking face in the mirror when they get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom!
The original Orion engine design specified detonating ONE BOMB PER SECOND. Making it feasible to manufacture tiny atomic bombs in the quantities required would be an industrial feat to rival anything ever done by mankind. For two weeks of acceleration the engine would consume over a million bombs. As others have pointed out, the ship itself would be enormous, and the bombs would have to be ferried up to it with numerous orbital flights. Every single mission would be a stupendous undertaking. I can't believe anybody still takes this concept seriously.
A much more practical way to build a nuclear engine would be to use a gaseous core reactor to vaporize a nonradioactive propellant. For example, here is an article about a hypothetical design for a fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that would take off from the ground and haul 1000 tons of cargo into orbit, and could return an equal size cargo to a powered landing. A rocket with such carrying capacity could make interplanetary flights directly from Earth, with no need to manufacture, store and transport millions of atomic bombs.
If Congress hadn't turned copyright into never-ending ownership, if we instead had a sensible expiration date, say 10 years, then all this content would become public domain in a reasonable time and there wouldn't be a market for most of these old clips. Yeah, the media producers paid to produce the material and they deserve to make money off it. But during the copyright period the public also makes an investment in the form of paying taxes to enforce the copyright laws. The end of the copyright period used to be the payoff for doing that, but not anymore. Not only do content companies get to sell material forever, they also get to withhold or destroy whatever isn't profitable enough. With all the fabulous technology we have to record and preserve our history, it's sad that the fate of all that material depends entirely on the whim of a few people.
To the others replying to this post... of course it would be more sensible for companies simply to forbid their own employees to use this feature rather than demanding it be ripped out. But that would go against the modern dogma that you aren't responsible for your own mistakes; the company that sold you the product you were using when you screwed up is responsible. Everybody knows that!
Personally I think her motion for dismissal should have been ruled on first. Having gone as far as they had, the RIAA shouldn't have been allowed to bail out just because they realized they were going to lose. They were the ones who attacked her with the lawsuit. She should have been allowed to force a dismissal on her terms. At the very least she should get damages for being put through the trauma of the lawsuit. Otherwise it's kind of like a mugger walking away scot free because he decides to hand your wallet back.
There's something strangely endearing about people who doggedly refuse to accept reality. "Despite the loss, KinderStart also saw the ruling as a victory." Right, and they also probably see their lame, whiny court case as a noble crusade for justice. I would see it as a comedy if it weren't for my tax dollars getting churned up. If there's any real justice in the world they will run out of lawyer money and blow away.
I've heard that the EpiPen is sort of like getting snapped by a rubber band. It's a matter of individual preference. Some people swear by it while others swear AT it.
My bank used to allow unlimited online xfers between accounts. Now they only allow 6 transfers per month for free, then there is a fee for additional xfers. They claim this rule was imposed on them by Homeland Security to discourage terrorist money laundering. But that has to be a load of crap. I can imagine making it illegal for the bank to allow excessive online xfers, because that would actually stop them happening. I can also imagine requiring the bank to report excessive transfers, like they are required to report large cash withdrawals. That could possibly help track down illegal activity. What I can't believe is that the government would require the bank to charge a fee for a service that used to be free, or that this is going to benefit anybody but the bank.
I agree this is a good step, not to be seen as a great solution to everybody's problems but as an evolutionary step toward some system where creators can get reimbursed for their work without the consequences of imposing DRM on the whole world. Content distributors have traditionally received the vast majority of profit from created material, as well as completely controlling the distribution. As the distribution mechanics become trivial, there's no reason the same entities should continue to rake off that money or exert that control. But we need a path to migrate to something else that will still make it worthwhile for people to do the hard work of creating the material. It has to be a long, slow path or it will fail.
The defeating feature of this type of vehicle is that it must carry its entire fuel load for landing as well as lifting off. The space shuttle works around the issue by dropping much of its physical structure on ascent, and gliding back with virtually no fuel. Nuclear rocket engines would completely eliminate this issue because of their much higher Specific Impulse, which is basically a measurement of thrust combined with how long that thrust can be maintained by consuming a given amount of fuel. Take a look at this article (part of a longer series) about a design for a non-polluting, fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could lift 1000 tons of payload into orbit and return an equal payload to a powered landing (compare vs the shuttle's 32-ton capacity). Just like the Delta-X rockets, only practical because of the enormous power of the nuclear engines.
Excellent point. The truth is that old music is competition for new music. Every new act the recording industry introduces is competing with everything else that already exists. But since they own the competition, record companies can control it to a great extent by shutting off the supply line for old acts.
What people can't control, they try to pretend isn't there. As the web exposes more and more of what real life is really like, people who don't like what they see are trying harder and harder to cover everybody else's eyes.
Big shake-up going on at Microsoft. I wonder if this is related to Limbo Longhorn, or if something else is in the works. Change in direction, maybe?
It's not even a small shakeup. Microsoft's upper management people are simply getting to the age where they want to retire. Techies tend to retire at a lot younger age, as soon as they make their first $million. People who go into management tend to be looking for a bigger fortune and stick around longer, but even they quit eventually. There are likely to be a number of high-tech big-shots retiring in this decade. It's a non-event.
Nuclear powered rockets would make all this consternation over supplies irrelevant. A decent nuclear rocket could haul hundreds of tons of supplies in a single mission. Here is a great article about a hypothetical design for a 100% reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could not only lift 1000 tons of payload into Earth orbit (for comparison, the Space Shuttle can handle 32-tons), but also return an equal size cargo to a powered landing. Such a ship could haul enough food, water, air and equipment to the moon in one flight to keep a lunar colony going for several years, not to mention returning with an unprecedented quantity of lunar samples. No disposable fuel tank, no retrieving boosters from the ocean, no tiles falling off, just a big single-stage rocket doing an old fashioned Buck Rogers takeoff and tail-down landing.
Now let's talk Mars. Because of their enormous load-carrying capacity, nuclear rockets would be able to haul double-hulled interplanetary ships jacketed with a full foot of water, and get there in less than 3 months. The short transit time would decrease the crew's radiation exposure. The water would provide radiation shielding as well as self-sealing micrometeorite protection. (The outer few inches would freeze, and if a micrometeorite punctured the hull the leak would instantly refreeze and seal the hole.) The water/ice jacket would also function as a passive cooling system, eliminating one more major system. If only NASA would put serious money into building nuclear engines instead of into workarounds for the problems that they would solve.
Unfortunately, that good old fashioned, no-nonsense philosophy is based on a fairy tale. Big business is very good at taking government handouts and then turning around and decrying government interference. This has been true since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Eighteenth Century railroad tycoons didn't pull money out of their ass to build the railroads, they did it with government money, little of which they paid back. Modern technological innovation tends to be built on the tax-funded work done by universities and other research institutions, which companies often get for free or by paying a very small share of the cost. The vision of American Industry as a self-reliant entity that could work miracles if politicians would just leave it alone is a myth.
From the article - could soon be used to stop movie piracy
The article's authors and editorial staff should damn well know by now that only about 20% of "pirated" movies come from camcorders in theaters. The other 80% come from much higher quality copies leaked by industry insiders. But the anti-terrorist mentality is more and more becoming our standard way of solving problems. What this technology will do is create new opportunities to force people to buy commercially made photos of public attractions, by preventing them using their own cameras. And of course we'll have to spend more public money preventing various miscreants from using the same technology to defeat security cams (here come those terrorists again). The "everything must be mine" industry is waging war on itself at our expense.
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Dude, that's the funniest thing I've heard all day! You owe me a keyboard.
I'm still waiting for Fox Force Five to become a reality. "Fox because we're a bunch of foxes, Five because there's five of us, and Force because we're a force to be reckoned with!"
I admit this is a nifty approach to cramming a usable browser onto a tiny device. Using one screen as a selector and the other as a magnifier is really clever, but it reminds me of accessibility tools for the visually impaired. There's a reason why paperback books are the size they are, instead of the size of postage stamps. You could print books that small, but people would need a compelling reason to read them, such as being forced to live in a coffin. Tiny devices are fine for looking at tiny blocks of information, like buddy lists, but not for web pages that are increasingly aimed at 1024x768 and larger monitors. The web is just too damn big for this thing.
It's also about the 1000th anniversary of the Vikings landing in Nova Scotia!
If you are forced to have a houseguest you aren't too keen on, don't tell them about it. Just let them encounter the talking face in the mirror when they get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom!
No kidding??? You've got to be kidding!
The original Orion engine design specified detonating ONE BOMB PER SECOND. Making it feasible to manufacture tiny atomic bombs in the quantities required would be an industrial feat to rival anything ever done by mankind. For two weeks of acceleration the engine would consume over a million bombs. As others have pointed out, the ship itself would be enormous, and the bombs would have to be ferried up to it with numerous orbital flights. Every single mission would be a stupendous undertaking. I can't believe anybody still takes this concept seriously.
A much more practical way to build a nuclear engine would be to use a gaseous core reactor to vaporize a nonradioactive propellant. For example, here is an article about a hypothetical design for a fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that would take off from the ground and haul 1000 tons of cargo into orbit, and could return an equal size cargo to a powered landing. A rocket with such carrying capacity could make interplanetary flights directly from Earth, with no need to manufacture, store and transport millions of atomic bombs.
If Congress hadn't turned copyright into never-ending ownership, if we instead had a sensible expiration date, say 10 years, then all this content would become public domain in a reasonable time and there wouldn't be a market for most of these old clips. Yeah, the media producers paid to produce the material and they deserve to make money off it. But during the copyright period the public also makes an investment in the form of paying taxes to enforce the copyright laws. The end of the copyright period used to be the payoff for doing that, but not anymore. Not only do content companies get to sell material forever, they also get to withhold or destroy whatever isn't profitable enough. With all the fabulous technology we have to record and preserve our history, it's sad that the fate of all that material depends entirely on the whim of a few people.
To the others replying to this post ... of course it would be more sensible for companies simply to forbid their own employees to use this feature rather than demanding it be ripped out. But that would go against the modern dogma that you aren't responsible for your own mistakes; the company that sold you the product you were using when you screwed up is responsible. Everybody knows that!
Personally I think her motion for dismissal should have been ruled on first. Having gone as far as they had, the RIAA shouldn't have been allowed to bail out just because they realized they were going to lose. They were the ones who attacked her with the lawsuit. She should have been allowed to force a dismissal on her terms. At the very least she should get damages for being put through the trauma of the lawsuit. Otherwise it's kind of like a mugger walking away scot free because he decides to hand your wallet back.
There's something strangely endearing about people who doggedly refuse to accept reality. "Despite the loss, KinderStart also saw the ruling as a victory." Right, and they also probably see their lame, whiny court case as a noble crusade for justice. I would see it as a comedy if it weren't for my tax dollars getting churned up. If there's any real justice in the world they will run out of lawyer money and blow away.
I've heard that the EpiPen is sort of like getting snapped by a rubber band. It's a matter of individual preference. Some people swear by it while others swear AT it.
Next thing you'll tell me the Soviet Union is going to break itself up.
My bank used to allow unlimited online xfers between accounts. Now they only allow 6 transfers per month for free, then there is a fee for additional xfers. They claim this rule was imposed on them by Homeland Security to discourage terrorist money laundering. But that has to be a load of crap. I can imagine making it illegal for the bank to allow excessive online xfers, because that would actually stop them happening. I can also imagine requiring the bank to report excessive transfers, like they are required to report large cash withdrawals. That could possibly help track down illegal activity. What I can't believe is that the government would require the bank to charge a fee for a service that used to be free, or that this is going to benefit anybody but the bank.
Does NBC have to advertise CBS programs or risk an antitrust lawsuit?
I agree this is a good step, not to be seen as a great solution to everybody's problems but as an evolutionary step toward some system where creators can get reimbursed for their work without the consequences of imposing DRM on the whole world. Content distributors have traditionally received the vast majority of profit from created material, as well as completely controlling the distribution. As the distribution mechanics become trivial, there's no reason the same entities should continue to rake off that money or exert that control. But we need a path to migrate to something else that will still make it worthwhile for people to do the hard work of creating the material. It has to be a long, slow path or it will fail.
The defeating feature of this type of vehicle is that it must carry its entire fuel load for landing as well as lifting off. The space shuttle works around the issue by dropping much of its physical structure on ascent, and gliding back with virtually no fuel. Nuclear rocket engines would completely eliminate this issue because of their much higher Specific Impulse, which is basically a measurement of thrust combined with how long that thrust can be maintained by consuming a given amount of fuel. Take a look at this article (part of a longer series) about a design for a non-polluting, fully reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could lift 1000 tons of payload into orbit and return an equal payload to a powered landing (compare vs the shuttle's 32-ton capacity). Just like the Delta-X rockets, only practical because of the enormous power of the nuclear engines.
Excellent point. The truth is that old music is competition for new music. Every new act the recording industry introduces is competing with everything else that already exists. But since they own the competition, record companies can control it to a great extent by shutting off the supply line for old acts.
What people can't control, they try to pretend isn't there. As the web exposes more and more of what real life is really like, people who don't like what they see are trying harder and harder to cover everybody else's eyes.
I thought maybe this was something my 12th level Paladin could use against a Basilisk.
Big shake-up going on at Microsoft. I wonder if this is related to Limbo Longhorn, or if something else is in the works. Change in direction, maybe?
It's not even a small shakeup. Microsoft's upper management people are simply getting to the age where they want to retire. Techies tend to retire at a lot younger age, as soon as they make their first $million. People who go into management tend to be looking for a bigger fortune and stick around longer, but even they quit eventually. There are likely to be a number of high-tech big-shots retiring in this decade. It's a non-event.
Nuclear powered rockets would make all this consternation over supplies irrelevant. A decent nuclear rocket could haul hundreds of tons of supplies in a single mission. Here is a great article about a hypothetical design for a 100% reusable nuclear rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, that could not only lift 1000 tons of payload into Earth orbit (for comparison, the Space Shuttle can handle 32-tons), but also return an equal size cargo to a powered landing. Such a ship could haul enough food, water, air and equipment to the moon in one flight to keep a lunar colony going for several years, not to mention returning with an unprecedented quantity of lunar samples. No disposable fuel tank, no retrieving boosters from the ocean, no tiles falling off, just a big single-stage rocket doing an old fashioned Buck Rogers takeoff and tail-down landing.
Now let's talk Mars. Because of their enormous load-carrying capacity, nuclear rockets would be able to haul double-hulled interplanetary ships jacketed with a full foot of water, and get there in less than 3 months. The short transit time would decrease the crew's radiation exposure. The water would provide radiation shielding as well as self-sealing micrometeorite protection. (The outer few inches would freeze, and if a micrometeorite punctured the hull the leak would instantly refreeze and seal the hole.) The water/ice jacket would also function as a passive cooling system, eliminating one more major system. If only NASA would put serious money into building nuclear engines instead of into workarounds for the problems that they would solve.
Unfortunately, that good old fashioned, no-nonsense philosophy is based on a fairy tale. Big business is very good at taking government handouts and then turning around and decrying government interference. This has been true since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Eighteenth Century railroad tycoons didn't pull money out of their ass to build the railroads, they did it with government money, little of which they paid back. Modern technological innovation tends to be built on the tax-funded work done by universities and other research institutions, which companies often get for free or by paying a very small share of the cost. The vision of American Industry as a self-reliant entity that could work miracles if politicians would just leave it alone is a myth.
From the article - could soon be used to stop movie piracy
The article's authors and editorial staff should damn well know by now that only about 20% of "pirated" movies come from camcorders in theaters. The other 80% come from much higher quality copies leaked by industry insiders. But the anti-terrorist mentality is more and more becoming our standard way of solving problems. What this technology will do is create new opportunities to force people to buy commercially made photos of public attractions, by preventing them using their own cameras. And of course we'll have to spend more public money preventing various miscreants from using the same technology to defeat security cams (here come those terrorists again). The "everything must be mine" industry is waging war on itself at our expense.
Queen to queen's level three.
Because as everybody knows, it's not the itching it's the swelling.