Actually, it doesn't eliminate any of the intended utility of the skycar, because it's intended to be landed someplace convenient, and then driven on public roads to a parking space.
Having a jaundiced view of the willingness of the average person's willingness to exchange effort for practicality (as evidenced by people who will drive their SUV two blocks to drop an envelope in a mailbox), I expect that 'someplace convenient' is going to be interpreted as 'wherever my destination is' unless there are laws restricting where you can land and take off -- and given that for all practical purposes, enforcing a law like that on every VTOL vehicle is going to be about as easy as enforcing the speed limit on every car.
Never mind Homeland Security. What about the people whose houses these things are going to fall on when people without the skills required for a current private pilots license decide that "whenever they please" means during thunderstorms or when the clouds are generating ice or when the wind is gusting to 90 knots?
Even ignoring the problem that crashing one will cause, think about the normal day-to-day use, like taking off and landing. How much do you think insurance companies are going to charge to insure a Skycar when something as simple as taking off from a spot that isn't hard and clean is going to blast whatever bits are on the ground out into everything around you? Both the military and commercial airlines consider FOD (Foreign Object Damage) to be a serious problem; having to pay off on damage from the gravel and other trash blown into everything for thirty feet around you every time you take off or land is going to skyrocket your insurance rate -- and if you can only take off or land on paved, swept landing sites, that eliminates much of the intended utility of the Skycar.
Mr. Moller's been building flying cars since forever ago. I saw his cameo on "Invent This!", and he had relatively working prototypes of various models of flying cars in the 60s and 70s.
Really, it's quite amazing what he's accomplished, and has to be the first to market on these things. I can only wonder why it's never "taken off" (pun only slightly intended.)
Well, if you look at the basic design, it is going to have to get the vast majority of its lift from direct thrust, not from an airfoil as ordinary aircraft do, so you need a responsive computer control to manage the thrust from the separate engines so the Skycar doesn't flip over or depart controlled flight some other way, a safety issue that requires inexpensive, reliable redundant systems to be practical. And while it may not be as heavy as an AV-8 Harrier, I expect that the characteristics for VTOL will be similar -- and the Harrier burns a big chunk of its fuel making a vertical takeoff at full load; the Skycar is going to essentially be in VTOL mode for its entire time in the air, which means that the vehicle is going to need to be a big gas tank -- and that creates more safety issues.
Finally, I use Firefox and block most of the annoying ads. However, I don't feel particularly angry at the advertisers. The reason is because I think of it in the following way: Some rich corporate bastard is going to pay for me to browse this site, and all I have to do is put up with the annoying monkey for a while.
If the owner of the website is getting paid on the basis of ad views, then there would be some expectation that the ads would be loaded and displayed with the page. However, virtually all online advertising is paid on the basis of click-throughs, not page views, because the advertiser can collect their own data from their site showing that the click-throughs actually occurred. With webpage advertising being paid on a click-through basis, I fail to see any fundamental difference in the business model between someone who views the whole page and doesn't click on any of the ads, and someone who views the page with the ads blocked, and doesn't click on any of the ads; the only difference is that, when you block the ads, you don't have the ads distracting you.
I'm reminded of a limerick that appeared in Playboy magazine many years ago (and yes, I know the grammar in the last line bites horribly):
There once was a girl from Madrid
Who claimed to've had sex with a squid. She said, "I've had eels, And disported with seals, But once you've been squid, you've been did!"
Unless Smuckers came up with a really unique way of 'crimping the edges' to seal the sandwich, then I'd have to argue against it on the basis of prior art going back to a tool that I first saw back when I was a Boy Scout;
From doing a search online, they're called 'pie irons', producing what are called 'hobo pies', and can be found from various dealers, including the Fire Pie Trail Store; scroll down to the 'Round Pudgy Pie Iron'. It's moderately amusing that the Patent Office said the "crimped edges are similar to a ravioli or pie crust", though, given that one of the sites selling the pie irons describes their action as "forcing the bread to a round shape, crimping the bread and forming a nice seal around the edge of your sandwich or pie (like ravioli)" -- apparently, not only is there prior art to the actual method of making the sandwiches, but there's prior art to describing the method...
For those that don't RTFA, Smucker actually allready had a patent from 1995, but this rejection "involved two additional patents that Smucker was seeking to expand its original patent by protecting its method." I.e. they still have the original patent for their method of making a P&J sandwich, but "the company's original patent is being re-examined by the patent office."
Unless Smuckers came up with a really unique way of 'crimping the edges' to seal the sandwich, then I'd have to argue against it on the basis of prior art going back to a tool that I first saw back when I was a Boy Scout; it was two metal rods hinged together at one end with handles at the other, sort of like a nutcracker, but the arms were about two feet long. Near the hinge on each rod was a circular dished metal plate. You buttered two slices of bread, put one on one of the plates, added some filling (jam, meat, PB&J, etc), put the other slice on top, and closed the arms; this clamped the two plates together, cutting off the crust and sealing the 'sandwich' inside; you then stuck it into a fire to brown the bread, giving you a sort of pasty or fruit pie (depending on the filling. And this was back in the late '60s, so 'prior art' has been around for a while.
I believe most of the modern proposed RFID solutions have protection against induced voltages - even after putting them in a microwave.
Nothing that a mallet and a nail punch wouldn't solve though.
Or the practice, as a deterrent to peeling off the tag to put on another car and avoid registration costs, of affixing the tag, then taking a knife and cutting it on the diagonals, so that any attempt to peel it off gets you only part of the tag. I suspect that an RFID tag wouldn't work particularly well after being cut into pieces.
However, the $1,500 base price doesn't include the optional iBathrooms, iBedrooms, iKitchen, iLivingroom, and iDen, or that it will be available only with varying configurations of these 'optional' components preinstalled, which is expected to drive the price up to a range of between $40,000 and $500,000, depending on configuration and delivery location. While there are currently no plans to offer an iGarage, the iHouse will come standard with a docking adapter, the iCarport.
I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who spends anything close to $140 for accessories. These types of numbers are just about worthless because they clump the console-centric with the PC gamer with the gizmo nut.
Actually, PC gamers can go significantly past that for accessories, particularly for flight simulators and air-combat games, without going to the 'gizmo nut' range. The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar stick/throttle package runs about $300, to which can be added a number of different aftermarket modifications, such as replacing the gimbals and potentiometers with strain sensors so the stick works like the real F-16 stick (my upgrade was a custom-machined set of gimbal replacements and Hall sensors replacing the potentiometers, which ran about $500 total). A set of good rudder pedals alone can list for $150 (and for the truly gonzo flight-sim addict, you can get rudder pedals that duplicate F-16 rudder pedals -- at ten times the cost). If you want to get a more accurate simulation with multiengine aircraft, you can get throttle quadrants that let you control all four engines on a simulated 747 or B-17 individually, with a list price of $200. So you can easily run over $500 with just a stick, throttle, and rudder setup, without going into any of the various MFD-like button pads. And this doesn't even touch on the people who build cockpits for their flight simulator or air-combat software. The 'gizmo nuts' are the ones who go off and build complete jetliner cockpits for their flight sims, and their investment can run into tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and time.
In reality, when normal, honest people have the guns, the criminals are more afraid to use theirs
Now, I would love to see a study of that - let's look at comparative crime rates in, oh, I dunno, say, The U.S. vs the UK?
Except that you're working across a cultural difference there -- Britain has a historical tradition of limited gun ownership, while America has a historical tradition of widespread gun ownership. Why don't you look at American cities, where you'll find that the rate of gun crime parallels the restrictiveness of the gun-control laws?
If you want to make comparisons just on the availability of firearms, without considering any other factor, then let's trot out the fact that in Switzerland, virtually every household has a select-fire military assault rifle, but their gun-crime rate is even lower. You can't focus on just the availability of firearms between different countries and derive useful conclusions about crime rates.
Obviously. In a stable society they wouldn't need to be. An efficient police force is a deterrent in itself - though of course it must be adequately funded and must have adequate controls.
Knowing that the police are efficient and deter 90% or more of all murders and assaults is so comforting to the woman being dragged into an alley and knifed or shot for her purse, I'm sure.
I myself live in a country where I don't feel the need to buy a gun. And I'm very happy about it.
It's your life; you are entitled to turn over the responsibility for protecting yourself to anyone you choose. By the same token, however, if and when you find that that protection isn't there, remember that it was your decision, and take responsibility for the consequences.
Re:While we wait for the flames to go out...
on
A History of Icons
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· Score: 1
Fantastic... the world no. 1 sw. corp. do NOT have their own icon editing tool...
No, what's incredible is that, with the tool that they use being an outside product, they haven't followed established practice by buying out the company, integrating the icon-editing tool into their own product line, creating a 'standard' icon format that is an industry-standard file format with 'extensions' specific to their product, and either doubled the price or bundled it with their OS, claiming that it's an 'integral part of the system and can't be removed' when companies making competing icon-editing tools complain.
However, on Friday, a Yahoo representative from the US admitted that the original statement was 'factually incorrect' because, although Yahoo realises that Firefox-compatibility is important, it is not in a position to promise all future products would be both Internet Explorer and Firefox compatible.
Additionally, having discovered this weekend that Yahoo Music only supports IE and Netscape 7.x, and filed feedback with them asking why their service checked for IE and Netscape 7.x, but failed to check for either Mozilla or Firefox when the latest Netscape browser is based on Firefox. The response I got back stated that they had no plans to make Yahoo Music work with either Firefox or Mozilla. So not only can't they say whether future products will be compatible with Firefox, they're not planning to make existing products compatible, either.
(a) A person whose DNA profile has been included in the data bank pursuant to this chapter shall have his or her DNA specimen and sample destroyed and searchable database profile expunged from the data bank program pursuant to the procedures set forth in subdivision (b) if the person has no past or present offense or pending charge which qualifies that person for inclusion within the state's DNA and Forensic Identification Database and Data Bank Program and there otherwise is no legal basis for retaining the specimen or sample or searchable profile. (emphasis mine)
And now that they have the right to take the sample, all it takes is a simple addition to the Penal Code stating something like "All forensic evidence collected pursuant to a felony investigation shall be maintained in storage for a period of not less than twenty-five years." Voila. Instant "legal basis for retaining the specimen".
... I signed an IP agreement that states anything I think while working for them is theirs, as well as anything I've ever thought in the past if it enters their building;... About a year and a half ago, I brought in some source code that I had worked on prior to working here; after receiving verbal OKs that the code would remain mine.
When doing something that can be affected by a contract you've already signed, you have to remember a fundamental truth: A verbal agreement is only as binding as the tape it's recorded on. If you don't have anything in writing stating that the code you brought in was being excluded from the provisions of the IP agreement you signed, then you're pretty much SOL on your rights to the code you brought in. With regard to the code being under the GPL, you need to advise your management (and their legal staff) that the code they're claiming rights to has a prior license attached to it, and let them decide how much liability they want to open themselves up to.
On the other hand, depending on how seriously a company views infringement of the GPL, it could provide an effective method of keeping your work free of a binding IP agreement for you to make sure that all your work is derived from code covered under the GPL. On the other hand, doing this could also result in your being rapidly shown the door with a pink slip in your hand. IANAL, though, and I don't think that any significant IP cases involving the GPL have been heard, so there isn't anything upon which to base a preduction as to which way a company would jump.
Re:This stuff has been available for 15 YEARS
on
Sunlight in a Tube
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· Score: 1
You're missing the critical point. Feeding light down into a building is not innovative. Collecting the light, feeding the visible light down into the building, and using the infrared energy from the light to produce power, is the new development. As the site states, " Independent cost and performance models suggest the overall affordability of solar energy could be doubled or tripled using this new hybrid approach." That kind of improvement in cost-effectiveness could make solar energy a lot more viable as an alternative to conventional power sources.
The problem with doing this is that, for any given camera, there will be a band of RGB color combinations that produce the same luminosity, so a single camera does not provide enough information to produce a full-color image. It requires several cameras, each filtered to a different spectral range, to be able to produce a full-color image, unless you know in advance that your image is monochrome.
The Military runs with the rules set in opposition. And they do encourage the seizing of initiative, so long as the person is demonstratibly correct. "If you're not doing it better, you better be doing it 'right'."
That's not entirely true, either. Failing miserably while adhering strictly to established doctrine while a readily-identifiable but unorthodox solution existed is as unacceptable as getting too fast and loose with the rules. A lack of initiative will get you dumped on as hard as having too much.
Somewhere down the line, government stopped being about the people, and became about capital.
The usefull arts and sciences are those that increase profits. The economic health of the nation obviously is directly linked to the economic health of the owners of the nation's infrastructures.
And another indicator of this is the case, now before the US Supreme Court, where homeowners in New London, CN are challenging the government's exercise of eminent domain when the taking of property "for public use" consists of taking their homes to turn over to a private developer because an office complex will bring in more tax revenues than private homes do. And this is merely the latest in a long string of similar actions by governments for years.
Microsoft does not guarantee that stairs installed by third-party vendors will be compatible with Microsoft Teddy; only Microsoft Stairs(tm) are supported natively. If you are experiencing compatibility issues with your vendor-installed stairs, please contact Microsoft tech support to walk you through the procedure to remove your stairs and pre-order your own Microsoft Stair. Please note that the release of Microsoft Stair has been delayed due to difficulties in making each step wheelchair-accesible; after removal of your third-party stairs, your home's second floor will unfortunately be inaccessible until the release of Microsoft Stair. We appreciate your patience.
If someone were really serious, they would as other posters have mentioned, modify their kernel to use a cryptographic randomization of their skew. However, this is only useful if many people were to do it. Otherwise, you are identified as the guy with the random skew.
If you read the paper, what they are describing is a statistical analysis of packet traffic to be able to identify distinct skew rates, and this rate being the identifying characteristic, applying a random -- or pseudo-random -- offset to the TSopt clock for each packet would fuzz the data but not change the overall skew rate (look at Figure 1 in the paper). What you would want to do in order to hide your computer is to periodically generate a small random value that you increment the TSopt value with for each packet, thereby making your computer's skew rate change from time to time; this would make your computer appear to be many different computers under the analytical process defined in the paper.
If n = m, the whole thing becomes O(n log n), which is the provably lowest bound on sorting any ordered sequence.
For sorting on a computer, yes. However, it's easy to construct a gedanken-experiment demonstrating an O(n) sort algorithm. Take a number of thin rods (the demonstration used dry spaghetti) equal to the number of values to be sorted, and cut the rods in lengths proportional to the values. Sweep all the rods together into a single bundle, and whack one end on a tabletop to align that end. As long as there is more than one rod in the bundle, take the rod that's sticking up the furthest and remove it, putting it down sequentially next to all the other removed rods. This works in O(n) time because you can compare all the lengths(values) at once looking at the bundle; that kind of comparison is impossible to do computationally. It's also functionally useless as a real-world tool because, while the sort time is linear, the scaling factor is so incredibly huge that even an O(n^2) sort on a Commodore PET with all the values typed in by hand would be faster -- the algorithm may be more efficient, but it can only be implemented on incredibly slow hardware, making a less efficient algorithm on a faster machine more useful.
Slashdot Mirror
And even if they ever add the appropriate TLD, I don't think you're ever going to find a site at http://lawyer.pro.bono/ -- unless it's a pr0n site.
Having a jaundiced view of the willingness of the average person's willingness to exchange effort for practicality (as evidenced by people who will drive their SUV two blocks to drop an envelope in a mailbox), I expect that 'someplace convenient' is going to be interpreted as 'wherever my destination is' unless there are laws restricting where you can land and take off -- and given that for all practical purposes, enforcing a law like that on every VTOL vehicle is going to be about as easy as enforcing the speed limit on every car.
Even ignoring the problem that crashing one will cause, think about the normal day-to-day use, like taking off and landing. How much do you think insurance companies are going to charge to insure a Skycar when something as simple as taking off from a spot that isn't hard and clean is going to blast whatever bits are on the ground out into everything around you? Both the military and commercial airlines consider FOD (Foreign Object Damage) to be a serious problem; having to pay off on damage from the gravel and other trash blown into everything for thirty feet around you every time you take off or land is going to skyrocket your insurance rate -- and if you can only take off or land on paved, swept landing sites, that eliminates much of the intended utility of the Skycar.
Well, if you look at the basic design, it is going to have to get the vast majority of its lift from direct thrust, not from an airfoil as ordinary aircraft do, so you need a responsive computer control to manage the thrust from the separate engines so the Skycar doesn't flip over or depart controlled flight some other way, a safety issue that requires inexpensive, reliable redundant systems to be practical. And while it may not be as heavy as an AV-8 Harrier, I expect that the characteristics for VTOL will be similar -- and the Harrier burns a big chunk of its fuel making a vertical takeoff at full load; the Skycar is going to essentially be in VTOL mode for its entire time in the air, which means that the vehicle is going to need to be a big gas tank -- and that creates more safety issues.
If the owner of the website is getting paid on the basis of ad views, then there would be some expectation that the ads would be loaded and displayed with the page. However, virtually all online advertising is paid on the basis of click-throughs, not page views, because the advertiser can collect their own data from their site showing that the click-throughs actually occurred. With webpage advertising being paid on a click-through basis, I fail to see any fundamental difference in the business model between someone who views the whole page and doesn't click on any of the ads, and someone who views the page with the ads blocked, and doesn't click on any of the ads; the only difference is that, when you block the ads, you don't have the ads distracting you.
Unless Smuckers came up with a really unique way of 'crimping the edges' to seal the sandwich, then I'd have to argue against it on the basis of prior art going back to a tool that I first saw back when I was a Boy Scout; it was two metal rods hinged together at one end with handles at the other, sort of like a nutcracker, but the arms were about two feet long. Near the hinge on each rod was a circular dished metal plate. You buttered two slices of bread, put one on one of the plates, added some filling (jam, meat, PB&J, etc), put the other slice on top, and closed the arms; this clamped the two plates together, cutting off the crust and sealing the 'sandwich' inside; you then stuck it into a fire to brown the bread, giving you a sort of pasty or fruit pie (depending on the filling. And this was back in the late '60s, so 'prior art' has been around for a while.
Or the practice, as a deterrent to peeling off the tag to put on another car and avoid registration costs, of affixing the tag, then taking a knife and cutting it on the diagonals, so that any attempt to peel it off gets you only part of the tag. I suspect that an RFID tag wouldn't work particularly well after being cut into pieces.
However, the $1,500 base price doesn't include the optional iBathrooms, iBedrooms, iKitchen, iLivingroom, and iDen, or that it will be available only with varying configurations of these 'optional' components preinstalled, which is expected to drive the price up to a range of between $40,000 and $500,000, depending on configuration and delivery location. While there are currently no plans to offer an iGarage, the iHouse will come standard with a docking adapter, the iCarport.
With gamers, there is no 'standard' deviation; they're all different.
Actually, PC gamers can go significantly past that for accessories, particularly for flight simulators and air-combat games, without going to the 'gizmo nut' range. The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar stick/throttle package runs about $300, to which can be added a number of different aftermarket modifications, such as replacing the gimbals and potentiometers with strain sensors so the stick works like the real F-16 stick (my upgrade was a custom-machined set of gimbal replacements and Hall sensors replacing the potentiometers, which ran about $500 total). A set of good rudder pedals alone can list for $150 (and for the truly gonzo flight-sim addict, you can get rudder pedals that duplicate F-16 rudder pedals -- at ten times the cost). If you want to get a more accurate simulation with multiengine aircraft, you can get throttle quadrants that let you control all four engines on a simulated 747 or B-17 individually, with a list price of $200. So you can easily run over $500 with just a stick, throttle, and rudder setup, without going into any of the various MFD-like button pads. And this doesn't even touch on the people who build cockpits for their flight simulator or air-combat software. The 'gizmo nuts' are the ones who go off and build complete jetliner cockpits for their flight sims, and their investment can run into tens of thousands of dollars in hardware and time.
Except that you're working across a cultural difference there -- Britain has a historical tradition of limited gun ownership, while America has a historical tradition of widespread gun ownership. Why don't you look at American cities, where you'll find that the rate of gun crime parallels the restrictiveness of the gun-control laws?
If you want to make comparisons just on the availability of firearms, without considering any other factor, then let's trot out the fact that in Switzerland, virtually every household has a select-fire military assault rifle, but their gun-crime rate is even lower. You can't focus on just the availability of firearms between different countries and derive useful conclusions about crime rates.
Knowing that the police are efficient and deter 90% or more of all murders and assaults is so comforting to the woman being dragged into an alley and knifed or shot for her purse, I'm sure.
It's your life; you are entitled to turn over the responsibility for protecting yourself to anyone you choose. By the same token, however, if and when you find that that protection isn't there, remember that it was your decision, and take responsibility for the consequences.
No, what's incredible is that, with the tool that they use being an outside product, they haven't followed established practice by buying out the company, integrating the icon-editing tool into their own product line, creating a 'standard' icon format that is an industry-standard file format with 'extensions' specific to their product, and either doubled the price or bundled it with their OS, claiming that it's an 'integral part of the system and can't be removed' when companies making competing icon-editing tools complain.
Additionally, having discovered this weekend that Yahoo Music only supports IE and Netscape 7.x, and filed feedback with them asking why their service checked for IE and Netscape 7.x, but failed to check for either Mozilla or Firefox when the latest Netscape browser is based on Firefox. The response I got back stated that they had no plans to make Yahoo Music work with either Firefox or Mozilla. So not only can't they say whether future products will be compatible with Firefox, they're not planning to make existing products compatible, either.
And now that they have the right to take the sample, all it takes is a simple addition to the Penal Code stating something like "All forensic evidence collected pursuant to a felony investigation shall be maintained in storage for a period of not less than twenty-five years." Voila. Instant "legal basis for retaining the specimen".
When doing something that can be affected by a contract you've already signed, you have to remember a fundamental truth: A verbal agreement is only as binding as the tape it's recorded on. If you don't have anything in writing stating that the code you brought in was being excluded from the provisions of the IP agreement you signed, then you're pretty much SOL on your rights to the code you brought in. With regard to the code being under the GPL, you need to advise your management (and their legal staff) that the code they're claiming rights to has a prior license attached to it, and let them decide how much liability they want to open themselves up to.
On the other hand, depending on how seriously a company views infringement of the GPL, it could provide an effective method of keeping your work free of a binding IP agreement for you to make sure that all your work is derived from code covered under the GPL. On the other hand, doing this could also result in your being rapidly shown the door with a pink slip in your hand. IANAL, though, and I don't think that any significant IP cases involving the GPL have been heard, so there isn't anything upon which to base a preduction as to which way a company would jump.
You're missing the critical point. Feeding light down into a building is not innovative. Collecting the light, feeding the visible light down into the building, and using the infrared energy from the light to produce power, is the new development. As the site states, " Independent cost and performance models suggest the overall affordability of solar energy could be doubled or tripled using this new hybrid approach." That kind of improvement in cost-effectiveness could make solar energy a lot more viable as an alternative to conventional power sources.
The problem with doing this is that, for any given camera, there will be a band of RGB color combinations that produce the same luminosity, so a single camera does not provide enough information to produce a full-color image. It requires several cameras, each filtered to a different spectral range, to be able to produce a full-color image, unless you know in advance that your image is monochrome.
That's not entirely true, either. Failing miserably while adhering strictly to established doctrine while a readily-identifiable but unorthodox solution existed is as unacceptable as getting too fast and loose with the rules. A lack of initiative will get you dumped on as hard as having too much.
And another indicator of this is the case, now before the US Supreme Court, where homeowners in New London, CN are challenging the government's exercise of eminent domain when the taking of property "for public use" consists of taking their homes to turn over to a private developer because an office complex will bring in more tax revenues than private homes do. And this is merely the latest in a long string of similar actions by governments for years.
Microsoft does not guarantee that stairs installed by third-party vendors will be compatible with Microsoft Teddy; only Microsoft Stairs(tm) are supported natively. If you are experiencing compatibility issues with your vendor-installed stairs, please contact Microsoft tech support to walk you through the procedure to remove your stairs and pre-order your own Microsoft Stair. Please note that the release of Microsoft Stair has been delayed due to difficulties in making each step wheelchair-accesible; after removal of your third-party stairs, your home's second floor will unfortunately be inaccessible until the release of Microsoft Stair. We appreciate your patience.
If you read the paper, what they are describing is a statistical analysis of packet traffic to be able to identify distinct skew rates, and this rate being the identifying characteristic, applying a random -- or pseudo-random -- offset to the TSopt clock for each packet would fuzz the data but not change the overall skew rate (look at Figure 1 in the paper). What you would want to do in order to hide your computer is to periodically generate a small random value that you increment the TSopt value with for each packet, thereby making your computer's skew rate change from time to time; this would make your computer appear to be many different computers under the analytical process defined in the paper.
For sorting on a computer, yes. However, it's easy to construct a gedanken-experiment demonstrating an O(n) sort algorithm. Take a number of thin rods (the demonstration used dry spaghetti) equal to the number of values to be sorted, and cut the rods in lengths proportional to the values. Sweep all the rods together into a single bundle, and whack one end on a tabletop to align that end. As long as there is more than one rod in the bundle, take the rod that's sticking up the furthest and remove it, putting it down sequentially next to all the other removed rods. This works in O(n) time because you can compare all the lengths(values) at once looking at the bundle; that kind of comparison is impossible to do computationally. It's also functionally useless as a real-world tool because, while the sort time is linear, the scaling factor is so incredibly huge that even an O(n^2) sort on a Commodore PET with all the values typed in by hand would be faster -- the algorithm may be more efficient, but it can only be implemented on incredibly slow hardware, making a less efficient algorithm on a faster machine more useful.
How much processing power do you get with a 150-node Beowulf cluster of digital cinemas? Wouldn't the movie projection eat too many cycles?