Actually, the microcoolers do increase the total heat. On the hot side, you get all the heat they removed from the chip plus all the energy that was used to pump the heat. Still, the CPU+cooler isn't burning as much power as gets expended in other parts of the system like power supply, hard drive, and especially the monitor. It's just that you get 10's of watts in an area a fraction of an inch across at the CPU, rather than spread across the whole hard drive, etc. So you've got to take extraordinary measures to get the heat out of the CPU chip and into a sizable heat sink. And then you might have to look at whether that heat sink is too close to other chips. With proper design it shouldn't be a problem, but if the motherboard, chip with heatsink, and enclosure are all designed independently it might be...
...because "The new microcoolers are more efficient to make and to use because they can be fabricated directly onto a chip." That is, they are plated on by the chip manufacturer rather than bolted on later. It might reduce the cost. More important, it gives a much less thermal resistance between the chip and the heat pump. And it lets the chip's designers put the cooling right on the hottest spot(s).
"Could I write some (free) software that only blocked Texas government sites, then offer it to computer resellers as their solution to this bill?" I'd agree that the Texas gov't is indecent, so the only problem is how to get me on the jury -- somehow I don't think they are going to try the case in Michigan...
They are probably using a heck of a lot of digital enhancement to get something that with creative interpretation might be the lander standing upright. Trouble is, if you look hard enough and use enough enhancement, eventually you're going to see what you're looking for -- whether or not it's there. So they want to check it out more before saying anything definite...
On the other hand, are these the folks that couldn't tell a Chinese Embassy from a weapons warehouse?
To be patentable, it has to be possible to put the idea into effect. Otherwise it isn't "useful" as required in the patent law. Clarke published at least 10 years before the first satellite launch, so he could not have got a patent at the time. And two years after publication, the unpatented idea became permanently public domain. (That was American law then -- I think it's 1 year now in the US, and in Europe the patent must be filed before any publication or commercial production.)
Incidentally, if Clarke had held off on publication, he would have simply lost priority to one George Smith, who also wrote stories about communications satellites after WWII.
Well, they were invading after the war was over... That's the trouble with communications by sailing ship, it takes weeks to get out the word.
Andy Jackson did rather exaggerate the importance of that little fight. It wasn't the "battle of New Orleans", it was just the Brits first try, and generals accustomed to war with Napoleon considered 700 casualties just a warm-up. If they hadn't learned the war was over the next day, they'd have soon attacked somewhere else, and harder.
Franklin was never securely wealthy in his life. In that era, publishing enterprises were not protected by copyright and at best they were barely profitable.
The first patent (#4,689,478) is for an intelligent portable device with a way to transfer data to and from at least one other system, and used for "transactions". If the Palm is connected to a database on a server, it seems to be infringing. However, if the patent is really that general, then there seems to be plenty of of prior art. (The patent was filed in 1984, so anything on the market in 1982 or earlier could invalidate the patent):
1. It says "portable", not hand-held, so IMO an Osborne suitcase computer could be prior art if it was used with a modem to access a database.
2. Did anyone ever use a Tandy/Radio Shack 100 with a modem?
3. How early did corporations or the military start having their repairmen, meter readers, etc., carry around portable terminals of any sort?
4. Finally, Arthur C. Clarke pretty much described the PDA in Imperial Earth, I believe it was published in the 1970's. It's been a long time, but I think that it included all the functions you get in a modern PDA and a few more that you'd like to have. I'm pretty sure it included voice and e-mail communications, downloading books from the library, and paying bills on-line.
Thanks for including the links. The second patent I find rather baffling -- it describes an array of display elements (which could be a pixel or a seven-segment display) _overlapping_ "an array of discrete switches." Excuse me, you can't build that! There are many ways of building a touch-sensitive display that does not include switches at all. You can light up symbols on a membrane switch panel, but that's not "discrete switches." You can put lights inside a discrete switch. But what they described is a set of discrete switches, that is separate parts, overlapping a set of display elements, and the only thing I can think of that comes even close is lights near each switch -- and they certainly didn't invent that in the 1980's.
"I actually prefer situations where tream members communicate via an online forum." I agree, in general, and I have done many projects involving people spread out from Michigan to Florida. Remote collaborations work much better if the people have met face to face over a period of a few days at least once. The off-work hours are probably most important in that, e.g. you should get the whole team out to a good restaurant for supper... Then after you all go back to offices in separate states, at least you have a picture of the other guys in your mind.
E-mail constitutes a written record, so people are much less likely to go off in different directions with different recollections -- some people will still misread or misremember the e-mails, but there's far less of that than there is when meetings are held without minutes. Some mis-understandings do require a conversation to clear up -- but if you can't do it over the phone after e-mailing the relevant drawings, there is some problem far more fundamental than geographic separation.
Time-zone differences are a more serious barrier. With someone in the same time zone, I have often discovered a problem at 8:00 AM and exchanged several e-mails about it by 9:00. If I have to wait on someone in California, it will take at least 4 hours. Several problems with California, and my afternoon becomes crowded with phone calls to people who often don't seem to be quite awake. But if I have to work with someone in China, best possible outcome is an e-mail sent and answered overnight. If my question gets answered with a question (and it is more often than not), then it will take two or more days...
"An analogy would be that the software is like visitors who you invite into your home." I've never had a visitor charge $500 for stepping through my door, not to mention handing me a long legal document which I apparently agreed to by opening the door...
No. Just that if the slight increase in UV that may occur from upper-atmosphere ozone depletion was a major threat to health, nearly everyone in the tropics would be dead already, along with all temperate-zone sunbathers.
And if SD, NH, or whatever manages to keep the roads in good condition (an e-tailer really needs good roads), provide police protection, and so on, without imposing equally burdensome taxes in some other form, then it seems like moving businesses and jobs there is a good thing...
Considering that I will quite often do this anyhow (shop/price on the web, then call 1-800-...) just because I don't trust my credit card # to their crappy web site, it sounds pretty good. Of course, if any Michigan tax collectors are reading this, I report all such out of state purchases and pay the 6% use tax on my MI-1040.;)
I think that legally the "sales" taxes are really use taxes, levied on the buyer. They just collect at the checkout for your "convenience." (Yeah, right.) With mail-order or telephone purchases, the states, counties, and cities can try to collect from their residents, but they can't force an out of state business to collect for them. Out in the real world, use taxes are impossible to enforce on consumers, but that's the legal theory. I don't know why in heck they don't just change to a system that can be enforced, taxing the seller...
Or maybe they locate the malls in NH because they can't find enough minimum wage workers in Massachusetts. You know, for some strange reason when you zone an area so that only rich people can afford to live there, the service businesses seem to have trouble hiring...
The split isn't so artificial. Mail order companies have traditionally collected "sales tax" only if the destination is in the same state. (Since the tax is theoretically levied according to where the item is used, not where it is sold, it's really a "use" tax, not "sales" tax.) Theoretically, mail order customers owe their states the so-called "sales" tax, while someone who drives across state lines to shop owes tax to his home state in addition to the other state's tax extracted at the cash register. But just try collecting those! The moratorium on internet taxes just put internet businesses on the same tax free condition as mail order has always been in practice.
I don't often advocate the feds interfering in state affairs, but here we do need an act of Congress: Ban any attempt to collect use taxes on items purchased from an out of state business, on the grounds that efforts to enforce such taxes are excessive interference with interstate commerce. This makes the the real status quo legal (only brick and mortar or in-state sales get taxed), until states decide to either give up sales & use taxes entirely, or re-define their sales tax to be really a tax on sales.
And if I go down to Chicago to buy something and bring it home, I am supposed to also pay Michigan sales tax. Never mind that I already paid Illinois sales tax because, unlike a mail order place, a walk-in store can't convince the local taxmen that it knows which customers are out of state. Nobody does, of course, but they are supposed to...
As someone mentioned, "sales tax" is a gross misnomer. It's a "use tax". As more retail sales cross state lines, use taxes become unenforceable. The system should be reformed so that it truly is a sales tax, always charged at the seller's location. Or get rid of it entirely -- a moderate state income tax like Michigan's is a lot more fair anyhow. But it is the right and role of the states to figure out their own finances...
At 8.5% on sales tax, maybe people will start moving out of the state. I know the utterly ridiculous tax laws in Virginia were one factor in deciding me to move back to Michigan...
There are zip codes that include both a town and the surrounding country -- and the town has it's own sales taxes. (Warrenton, VA is, or used to be, one example.) Also, in some jurisdictions the sales tax varies depending on the type of product, and each state (and maybe some cities) classifies the products differently, so it is going to be damned difficult to program all the combinations in and get it right.
Sales tax depending on the location of the seller would be a whole lot simpler to administer -- but that's not the way the laws have been written.
"the school, and not the students, is the publisher, and therefore is entitled to control the content." If the web site was hosted on the school computer, this would be apply. The article does not say if these kids hosted their private web site on the school computers, but considering that the URL apparently was something like (f-word)(school name).com, I very much doubt it.
So what this looks like to me is the school censoring off-campus speech. For a publicly-funded school, that would be a definite violation of the Constitution, not that we don't continually have to sue doltish school boards to prove it... But this is a private school, and apparently the kids' parents agreed to the "no disparagement" rule when they signed their kids up.
The real question I have is this: If a business tells you that to become their customer, you have to agree not to disparage them, doesn't this give you quite a warning about what they think of themselves?
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Actually, the microcoolers do increase the total heat. On the hot side, you get all the heat they removed from the chip plus all the energy that was used to pump the heat. Still, the CPU+cooler isn't burning as much power as gets expended in other parts of the system like power supply, hard drive, and especially the monitor. It's just that you get 10's of watts in an area a fraction of an inch across at the CPU, rather than spread across the whole hard drive, etc. So you've got to take extraordinary measures to get the heat out of the CPU chip and into a sizable heat sink. And then you might have to look at whether that heat sink is too close to other chips. With proper design it shouldn't be a problem, but if the motherboard, chip with heatsink, and enclosure are all designed independently it might be...
...because "The new microcoolers are more efficient to make and to use because they can be fabricated directly onto a chip." That is, they are plated on by the chip manufacturer rather than bolted on later. It might reduce the cost. More important, it gives a much less thermal resistance between the chip and the heat pump. And it lets the chip's designers put the cooling right on the hottest spot(s).
"Could I write some (free) software that only blocked Texas government sites, then offer it to computer resellers as their solution to this bill?" I'd agree that the Texas gov't is indecent, so the only problem is how to get me on the jury -- somehow I don't think they are going to try the case in Michigan...
Where's your homework?
The dog ate it.
BLAM BLAM BLAM
Anyone else doesn't want to do their work?
Unless being mandated by the gov't turns out to mean that they can be sued for violation of civil rights every time they block the wrong site...
By any chance, is NIMA the agency that couldn't tell a Chinese Embassy from a weapons warehouse?
They are probably using a heck of a lot of digital enhancement to get something that with creative interpretation might be the lander standing upright. Trouble is, if you look hard enough and use enough enhancement, eventually you're going to see what you're looking for -- whether or not it's there. So they want to check it out more before saying anything definite...
On the other hand, are these the folks that couldn't tell a Chinese Embassy from a weapons warehouse?
To be patentable, it has to be possible to put the idea into effect. Otherwise it isn't "useful" as required in the patent law. Clarke published at least 10 years before the first satellite launch, so he could not have got a patent at the time. And two years after publication, the unpatented idea became permanently public domain. (That was American law then -- I think it's 1 year now in the US, and in Europe the patent must be filed before any publication or commercial production.)
Incidentally, if Clarke had held off on publication, he would have simply lost priority to one George Smith, who also wrote stories about communications satellites after WWII.
Well, they were invading after the war was over... That's the trouble with communications by sailing ship, it takes weeks to get out the word.
Andy Jackson did rather exaggerate the importance of that little fight. It wasn't the "battle of New Orleans", it was just the Brits first try, and generals accustomed to war with Napoleon considered 700 casualties just a warm-up. If they hadn't learned the war was over the next day, they'd have soon attacked somewhere else, and harder.
Franklin was never securely wealthy in his life. In that era, publishing enterprises were not protected by copyright and at best they were barely profitable.
The first patent (#4,689,478) is for an intelligent portable device with a way to transfer data to and from at least one other system, and used for "transactions". If the Palm is connected to a database on a server, it seems to be infringing. However, if the patent is really that general, then there seems to be plenty of of prior art. (The patent was filed in 1984, so anything on the market in 1982 or earlier could invalidate the patent):
1. It says "portable", not hand-held, so IMO an Osborne suitcase computer could be prior art if it was used with a modem to access a database.
2. Did anyone ever use a Tandy/Radio Shack 100 with a modem?
3. How early did corporations or the military start having their repairmen, meter readers, etc., carry around portable terminals of any sort?
4. Finally, Arthur C. Clarke pretty much described the PDA in Imperial Earth, I believe it was published in the 1970's. It's been a long time, but I think that it included all the functions you get in a modern PDA and a few more that you'd like to have. I'm pretty sure it included voice and e-mail communications, downloading books from the library, and paying bills on-line.
Thanks for including the links. The second patent I find rather baffling -- it describes an array of display elements (which could be a pixel or a seven-segment display) _overlapping_ "an array of discrete switches." Excuse me, you can't build that! There are many ways of building a touch-sensitive display that does not include switches at all. You can light up symbols on a membrane switch panel, but that's not "discrete switches." You can put lights inside a discrete switch. But what they described is a set of discrete switches, that is separate parts, overlapping a set of display elements, and the only thing I can think of that comes even close is lights near each switch -- and they certainly didn't invent that in the 1980's.
"I actually prefer situations where tream members communicate via an online forum." I agree, in general, and I have done many projects involving people spread out from Michigan to Florida. Remote collaborations work much better if the people have met face to face over a period of a few days at least once. The off-work hours are probably most important in that, e.g. you should get the whole team out to a good restaurant for supper... Then after you all go back to offices in separate states, at least you have a picture of the other guys in your mind.
E-mail constitutes a written record, so people are much less likely to go off in different directions with different recollections -- some people will still misread or misremember the e-mails, but there's far less of that than there is when meetings are held without minutes. Some mis-understandings do require a conversation to clear up -- but if you can't do it over the phone after e-mailing the relevant drawings, there is some problem far more fundamental than geographic separation.
Time-zone differences are a more serious barrier. With someone in the same time zone, I have often discovered a problem at 8:00 AM and exchanged several e-mails about it by 9:00. If I have to wait on someone in California, it will take at least 4 hours. Several problems with California, and my afternoon becomes crowded with phone calls to people who often don't seem to be quite awake. But if I have to work with someone in China, best possible outcome is an e-mail sent and answered overnight. If my question gets answered with a question (and it is more often than not), then it will take two or more days...
"An analogy would be that the software is like visitors who you invite into your home." I've never had a visitor charge $500 for stepping through my door, not to mention handing me a long legal document which I apparently agreed to by opening the door...
No. Just that if the slight increase in UV that may occur from upper-atmosphere ozone depletion was a major threat to health, nearly everyone in the tropics would be dead already, along with all temperate-zone sunbathers.
And if SD, NH, or whatever manages to keep the roads in good condition (an e-tailer really needs good roads), provide police protection, and so on, without imposing equally burdensome taxes in some other form, then it seems like moving businesses and jobs there is a good thing...
Considering that I will quite often do this anyhow (shop/price on the web, then call 1-800-...) just because I don't trust my credit card # to their crappy web site, it sounds pretty good. Of course, if any Michigan tax collectors are reading this, I report all such out of state purchases and pay the 6% use tax on my MI-1040. ;)
I think that legally the "sales" taxes are really use taxes, levied on the buyer. They just collect at the checkout for your "convenience." (Yeah, right.) With mail-order or telephone purchases, the states, counties, and cities can try to collect from their residents, but they can't force an out of state business to collect for them. Out in the real world, use taxes are impossible to enforce on consumers, but that's the legal theory. I don't know why in heck they don't just change to a system that can be enforced, taxing the seller...
Or maybe they locate the malls in NH because they can't find enough minimum wage workers in Massachusetts. You know, for some strange reason when you zone an area so that only rich people can afford to live there, the service businesses seem to have trouble hiring...
The state can try to collect the tax from it's own residents. Michigan sure tries!
The split isn't so artificial. Mail order companies have traditionally collected "sales tax" only if the destination is in the same state. (Since the tax is theoretically levied according to where the item is used, not where it is sold, it's really a "use" tax, not "sales" tax.) Theoretically, mail order customers owe their states the so-called "sales" tax, while someone who drives across state lines to shop owes tax to his home state in addition to the other state's tax extracted at the cash register. But just try collecting those! The moratorium on internet taxes just put internet businesses on the same tax free condition as mail order has always been in practice.
I don't often advocate the feds interfering in state affairs, but here we do need an act of Congress: Ban any attempt to collect use taxes on items purchased from an out of state business, on the grounds that efforts to enforce such taxes are excessive interference with interstate commerce. This makes the the real status quo legal (only brick and mortar or in-state sales get taxed), until states decide to either give up sales & use taxes entirely, or re-define their sales tax to be really a tax on sales.
And if I go down to Chicago to buy something and bring it home, I am supposed to also pay Michigan sales tax. Never mind that I already paid Illinois sales tax because, unlike a mail order place, a walk-in store can't convince the local taxmen that it knows which customers are out of state. Nobody does, of course, but they are supposed to...
As someone mentioned, "sales tax" is a gross misnomer. It's a "use tax". As more retail sales cross state lines, use taxes become unenforceable. The system should be reformed so that it truly is a sales tax, always charged at the seller's location. Or get rid of it entirely -- a moderate state income tax like Michigan's is a lot more fair anyhow. But it is the right and role of the states to figure out their own finances...
At 8.5% on sales tax, maybe people will start moving out of the state. I know the utterly ridiculous tax laws in Virginia were one factor in deciding me to move back to Michigan...
Yes, that's correct. That clause of the Constitution refers just to goods crossing national boundaries.
There are zip codes that include both a town and the surrounding country -- and the town has it's own sales taxes. (Warrenton, VA is, or used to be, one example.) Also, in some jurisdictions the sales tax varies depending on the type of product, and each state (and maybe some cities) classifies the products differently, so it is going to be damned difficult to program all the combinations in and get it right.
Sales tax depending on the location of the seller would be a whole lot simpler to administer -- but that's not the way the laws have been written.
"the school, and not the students, is the publisher, and therefore is entitled to control the content." If the web site was hosted on the school computer, this would be apply. The article does not say if these kids hosted their private web site on the school computers, but considering that the URL apparently was something like (f-word)(school name).com, I very much doubt it.
So what this looks like to me is the school censoring off-campus speech. For a publicly-funded school, that would be a definite violation of the Constitution, not that we don't continually have to sue doltish school boards to prove it... But this is a private school, and apparently the kids' parents agreed to the "no disparagement" rule when they signed their kids up.
The real question I have is this: If a business tells you that to become their customer, you have to agree not to disparage them, doesn't this give you quite a warning about what they think of themselves?