The parent is an example of typical slashdot idiocy. ISPs aren't common carriers. Though my karama will end up a smoking crater for breaking with the established GroupThink, so I'm making this post anonymously.
Yet, for all your noise and handwaving - you fail to establish that an ISP isn't a common carrier.
Any reason you feel like mentioning McCain but not Hillary, or the fact that they were merely co-sponsors? Or the fact that the vote was in fact, unanimous?
It's called smear tactics and political bias when done why the Right. It's called 'oops we did that? so sorry' when done by the Left.
Why would anyone want to have a light bulb with a data connection?
So your standard $50 DVD player can dim the lights in your living room when a movie starts?
For those too lazy to get up and control their lights themselves... And what if I want the movie playing in the background while I do something else in the living room? I toss movies on when cleaning my fish tanks or hamster cages. I've also been known to toss movies on for backgrounds at parties. Etc... Etc...
The last damn thing I want to do is constantly be forced to go through a damn setup/opt-in/opt-out menu to customize the functionality to what I need then. Nor do I want to have to remember which of the preset scenarios matches (hopefully) whatever it is I am doing at the moment.
That's just one example of hundreds of little features that become trivial when everything in your house (not just bulbs) has a data connection.
"Trivial" != "desirable", also "trivial" != "useful". The last damn thing I need is every damn electrical and electronic object in my house entering the feature creep/bloat race.
Yep, there's a lot of poor unenlightened folk who'll never know they joy listening to a banjo player because their blind bias stops 'em from even trying.
Fine with me, keeps the crowds down and the company pleasant.
"Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?"
My assumption is that this is a standard Google release - something half ass that only mostly works... which someday Google may come back to and fix, or maybe not.
This could theoretically also be used in 'reverse': if there is a small, bright object of a known shape in the field of view of the telescope it could be used to model the atmospheric distortion and correct for it using adaptive objects. The world is littered with small, bright objects of known shape.
The problem being that real world reconnaissance is generally done with the sun at a fairly sharp angle - as shadows are important for analysis. High angle imagery, the most likely to produce such small bright objects, is rare. Another problem is that unlike stars, which move fairly slowly, objects in the field of view move rapidly due to the satellites motion - which means extremely sophisticated real time image analysis. (Which a) I don't think is possible for a random image, and b) doesn't gain you much as any given point on the ground is only visible for a few seconds.)
You could, I imagine, precalculate the position of a known object at a known location you'll be looking at... But you still face the problem of it being in the field of view for only a fairly brief time. High resolution orbital cameras have a very narrow field of view - this is a limit imposed by physics. Unlike a star you can't 'stare' at a given location and average over a significant period.
Using a laser would somewhat defeat the aspect of secrecy unless that laser used a bandwidth invisible to the naked eye (in which case it could still be detected using sensors).
Which really isn't as much of a problem as you might think - satellite tracks are predictable, and thus you pretty much know when it's going to be over. Detecting the laser doesn't give you any information you don't already have.
The real question is why anyone would bother using adaptive optics in a spy satellite. If you want that kind of resolution a drone aircraft is much cheaper, more flexible and less prone to weather-related blackouts...
Because a drone capable of flying completely undetectable deep into someplace like Russia or China, conducting a recce mission, and returning doesn't actually exist, yet.
Not only can the little guy not borrow money - he can't cash his paycheck. The company he works for can't even write the paychecks for that matter. Nor can the company pay it's bills, or receive payment from their creditors...
Not being able to borrow money is going to be far down the little guy's list of problems. Not being able to pay for food, or utilities, or rent/mortgage will occupy his time.
I thought it was clear that I meant that the "little guy" who has investments and a transaction account would have his piece of the bailout and the bank would then dissolve if it could no longer support itself.
What part of "if the banks fail the little guy is fucked" is so hard to understand? You can't bail out the 'little guy' without bailing out the banks. By just bailing out (in some magical and unspecified way) the little guy, you actually make things worse.
I cheered when the first bailout bill failed. I hoped that it represented an outbreak of common sense. I hoped that the bailout would save the little guy, but NOT the banks.
Hint: If the banks fail, the little guy can't cash his paycheck. He won't even get a paycheck if there are no banks to write the check against. (Assuming he still has a job that is.)
I'm going to open my mouth when I probably shouldn't, but I've been out of the intel field for enough years that no one is going to get pissed off for me talking.
I'm going to get pissed at you - not for giving up secrets, but for talking out of your ass. And for trying to make us believe that even though you've been out 'long enough' which implies you aren't familiar with current tech. (And you show you aren't even up on what's publicly known.)
Satellite imaging is really pretty good. Better than you think. The military stuff is excellent.
Satellite imaging is OK, but less impressive than you might think. Resolution is much less than fiction/Hollywood would have you believe, and coverage isn't real time. If a bird isn't available (and it rarely is) when what you want to see is going down, you are SOL.
Imagine what we're doing now with atmospheric telescopes that we couldn't have done twenty years ago and realize that the same principles apply when the direction is reversed.
Horseshit. Adaptive optics depend on seeing a guide star created by a laser, something you can't do with a satellite. There's also a technique involving taking multiple images and analyzing them - you can't do that from a satellite either as it moves too quickly.
Oh, btw - did anyone notice that Trieste's inventor was name Piccard? And that his grandson was part of the team that traveled around the world non-stop in a balloon? To boldly go where no man has gone before, indeed:-)
Whilst I agree there's something horribly wrong with such a simple crime with being punished so harshly it seems it's treated as if you walked round someones house looking through their stuff because they left the door open.
Well, given that entering someones house and looking through their stuff without permission 'because they left the door open' is illegal...
I do think realistically the punishment should be capped drastically lower if the victim did essentially leave the door open
Ah yes, blame the victim. Do you think we should let rapists do a little community service and pay a small fine because the victim was wearing short shorts and a halter top?
in the case of electronic break ins it's more down to curiosity and less to do with malice in those circumstances.
It doesn't matter if it is curiosity or malice, it doesn't matter if the location is real or virtual - you still aren't supposed to be there.
if you consider that sort of pointless uninteresting minutae of your life to be in the realm of your "privacy" then i and many other people think you are being rather precious and overly dramatic about your life. its really just not that interesting, or worth protecting.
[[Applause]].
Seriously, it sounds almost like the OP needs the services of a mental health professional, not the Slashdot Hivemind.
Can someone please cue me in on what the hype is about "Privacy?" I get the privacy of the home: gay sex, drugs, communism, ect. not wanting to be shared, but I've never seen anywhere on face book that sticks a telescreen in your house. I can not for the life of me figure out why anyone would care that there is a picture of them playing dodgeball on 7/12/99 at a company piknik. Or that they may work for Yoyodyne corp. and live in bumfuck IL. I don't get it! who cares?
It's the electronic equivalent of the hermit who lives in a decrepit house... filled with 1x10^32 empty beer cans carefully washed and sorted according to color.
As long as you don't fire all the scientists or cancel the project outright, the project will still happen and the discoveries will be made.
Right. Let's say a project is $X over budget, and requires $Y to complete - fire half the staff, and you're *still* $X over budget and *still* require $Y (or something close to it) to complete. Absent magic, you still haven't saved any money. In fact its not unlikely that your costs actually _increase_, as reduced staff means a longer time to completion - which means inflation increases your cost to complete above $Y. And that doesn't take into account any difficulties found along the way... Consider just the history of the magnets on the LHC for example.
As I said, your plan requires magic to work once you move beyond the lofty and handwaving statement of principles and into the blood and sweat of the real world.
Given how well the two MER rovers are working, why not just build a couple more of them and send them to different locations on Mars?
Because it is far from certain the next pair will do as well... Because the MER landing system can only handle smooth, low altitude sites - we've been lucky they've survived long enough to cruise into areas they couldn't have landed in.
But mostly because the engineering team that built has been disbanded and moved onto other projects long ago. It would take years to get MER V1.0.1 to the surface of Mars. Nor would you actually save much money - as you don't get any benefits from economies of scale.
"It's targeted at parents of teenagers and seems like a generally good idea, especially if you get a break on your insurance."
It's a terrible idea. Teenagers need to be practicing setting their own responsibilities and limits. The more they're "protected" the less time they have to learn to be self-reliant.
I just knew this post, and others like it, would fill the comments section of this article. As usual, the two faced kneejerk nature of Slashdot groupthink rears it's ugly head... On one hand, the hive mind insists that parents are responsible and accountable for monitoring and controlling their kids - but each time a tool to actually allow the parents to do that is discussed here, the same hive mind rears up on it's back legs and howls about how unfair it is for parents to monitor and control their kids.
Like the original poster, you seem confused on the difference between cattle on the range and cattle in a pasture. Sure are a lot of people who claim to know cattle, but who make such elementary mistakes, in this subthread.
They might also want to check with someone who knows something about submarines, even an enthusiastic amateur...
Submarines want to be dense enough to dive, yet light enough to surface. (Yes, I know the difference between density and weight, but in submarine design and operational calculations you use both depending on the angle you're viewing the problem from.) Optimizing displacement to the narrow range where weight and density are in balance is a complicated problem. (The lack of a solution to which killed many an early submarine crewman until John Holland had a flash of brilliance and separated the ballast and trim systems from each other.)
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, yours isn't so different. There's a lot of confused, poorly laid out, and poorly designed sites on the web.
Yet, for all your noise and handwaving - you fail to establish that an ISP isn't a common carrier.
It's called smear tactics and political bias when done why the Right. It's called 'oops we did that? so sorry' when done by the Left.
For those too lazy to get up and control their lights themselves... And what if I want the movie playing in the background while I do something else in the living room? I toss movies on when cleaning my fish tanks or hamster cages. I've also been known to toss movies on for backgrounds at parties. Etc... Etc...
The last damn thing I want to do is constantly be forced to go through a damn setup/opt-in/opt-out menu to customize the functionality to what I need then. Nor do I want to have to remember which of the preset scenarios matches (hopefully) whatever it is I am doing at the moment.
"Trivial" != "desirable", also "trivial" != "useful". The last damn thing I need is every damn electrical and electronic object in my house entering the feature creep/bloat race.
Yep, there's a lot of poor unenlightened folk who'll never know they joy listening to a banjo player because their blind bias stops 'em from even trying.
Fine with me, keeps the crowds down and the company pleasant.
You'd have a point if the project under discussion was a training program. It isn't.
"Assuming they wanted it to grab a significant share of the browser market, have they dropped the ball, or is this part of the plan?"
My assumption is that this is a standard Google release - something half ass that only mostly works... which someday Google may come back to and fix, or maybe not.
"I see people with earbuds in everywhere, is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"
There's an incredibly easy answer - don't live with your earbuds in.
The problem being that real world reconnaissance is generally done with the sun at a fairly sharp angle - as shadows are important for analysis. High angle imagery, the most likely to produce such small bright objects, is rare. Another problem is that unlike stars, which move fairly slowly, objects in the field of view move rapidly due to the satellites motion - which means extremely sophisticated real time image analysis. (Which a) I don't think is possible for a random image, and b) doesn't gain you much as any given point on the ground is only visible for a few seconds.)
You could, I imagine, precalculate the position of a known object at a known location you'll be looking at... But you still face the problem of it being in the field of view for only a fairly brief time. High resolution orbital cameras have a very narrow field of view - this is a limit imposed by physics. Unlike a star you can't 'stare' at a given location and average over a significant period.
Which really isn't as much of a problem as you might think - satellite tracks are predictable, and thus you pretty much know when it's going to be over. Detecting the laser doesn't give you any information you don't already have.
Because a drone capable of flying completely undetectable deep into someplace like Russia or China, conducting a recce mission, and returning doesn't actually exist, yet.
Not only can the little guy not borrow money - he can't cash his paycheck. The company he works for can't even write the paychecks for that matter. Nor can the company pay it's bills, or receive payment from their creditors...
Not being able to borrow money is going to be far down the little guy's list of problems. Not being able to pay for food, or utilities, or rent/mortgage will occupy his time.
What part of "if the banks fail the little guy is fucked" is so hard to understand? You can't bail out the 'little guy' without bailing out the banks. By just bailing out (in some magical and unspecified way) the little guy, you actually make things worse.
Hint: If the banks fail, the little guy can't cash his paycheck. He won't even get a paycheck if there are no banks to write the check against. (Assuming he still has a job that is.)
I'm going to get pissed at you - not for giving up secrets, but for talking out of your ass. And for trying to make us believe that even though you've been out 'long enough' which implies you aren't familiar with current tech. (And you show you aren't even up on what's publicly known.)
Satellite imaging is OK, but less impressive than you might think. Resolution is much less than fiction/Hollywood would have you believe, and coverage isn't real time. If a bird isn't available (and it rarely is) when what you want to see is going down, you are SOL.
Horseshit. Adaptive optics depend on seeing a guide star created by a laser, something you can't do with a satellite. There's also a technique involving taking multiple images and analyzing them - you can't do that from a satellite either as it moves too quickly.
And the son, being an adventurer himself, spent four weeks submerged drifting with the Gulf Stream. The whole family are decidedly overachievers.
Well, given that entering someones house and looking through their stuff without permission 'because they left the door open' is illegal...
Ah yes, blame the victim. Do you think we should let rapists do a little community service and pay a small fine because the victim was wearing short shorts and a halter top?
It doesn't matter if it is curiosity or malice, it doesn't matter if the location is real or virtual - you still aren't supposed to be there.
Accomplishes zip point shit - except to make you look like an asshole who makes meaningless threats.
[[Applause]].
Seriously, it sounds almost like the OP needs the services of a mental health professional, not the Slashdot Hivemind.
[[Citation needed - opinion stated as if it was fact]]
It's the electronic equivalent of the hermit who lives in a decrepit house... filled with 1x10^32 empty beer cans carefully washed and sorted according to color.
Right. Let's say a project is $X over budget, and requires $Y to complete - fire half the staff, and you're *still* $X over budget and *still* require $Y (or something close to it) to complete. Absent magic, you still haven't saved any money. In fact its not unlikely that your costs actually _increase_, as reduced staff means a longer time to completion - which means inflation increases your cost to complete above $Y. And that doesn't take into account any difficulties found along the way... Consider just the history of the magnets on the LHC for example.
As I said, your plan requires magic to work once you move beyond the lofty and handwaving statement of principles and into the blood and sweat of the real world.
I love it when a plan consists of essentially...
1) Bring in Auditors
2) Fire People
3) ????????
4) As if by magic - Science Happens!
Because it is far from certain the next pair will do as well... Because the MER landing system can only handle smooth, low altitude sites - we've been lucky they've survived long enough to cruise into areas they couldn't have landed in.
But mostly because the engineering team that built has been disbanded and moved onto other projects long ago. It would take years to get MER V1.0.1 to the surface of Mars. Nor would you actually save much money - as you don't get any benefits from economies of scale.
I just knew this post, and others like it, would fill the comments section of this article. As usual, the two faced kneejerk nature of Slashdot groupthink rears it's ugly head... On one hand, the hive mind insists that parents are responsible and accountable for monitoring and controlling their kids - but each time a tool to actually allow the parents to do that is discussed here, the same hive mind rears up on it's back legs and howls about how unfair it is for parents to monitor and control their kids.
Like the original poster, you seem confused on the difference between cattle on the range and cattle in a pasture. Sure are a lot of people who claim to know cattle, but who make such elementary mistakes, in this subthread.
They might also want to check with someone who knows something about submarines, even an enthusiastic amateur...
Submarines want to be dense enough to dive, yet light enough to surface. (Yes, I know the difference between density and weight, but in submarine design and operational calculations you use both depending on the angle you're viewing the problem from.) Optimizing displacement to the narrow range where weight and density are in balance is a complicated problem. (The lack of a solution to which killed many an early submarine crewman until John Holland had a flash of brilliance and separated the ballast and trim systems from each other.)