To blind a CCD or other imaging device, infrared beams won't cut it. You need high enough energy photons that guarantee virtually every photon entering will produce an electron-hole pair in each type of detector. That means at the very least, inside the visible range. Preferably just beyond into the ultraviolet. If I swamp out the reds, a smart technician could just look at the other colors to determine what's going on.
So, you really want ultraviolet. Just barely into that range will work. That would ensure all the detectors were swamped and thus nothing could be done to get an image out. Now, someone please let me know when ultraviolet lasers and high-powered LEDs are avaiable on the market. Well, maybe I'll let you all know when it's done since that's something I'm doing for my PhD work;)
Are you suggesting that the US has the right or responsibility of regulating space research? What goes on in another country shouldn't be up to the US, unless it directly affects them.
And, although India is less developed than, for example, the US, why should they be forced to stay that way?
Personally, I don't think the US needs to bully India over this. But with respect to your thoughts, the US could say that they are threatened by another nation being capable of delivering nuclear weapons to our doorstep. I don't think the US has any intention of worrying about this now.
That said, if India becomes more advanced than the US, then the US is going to have a lot to say about that. That's just the nature of the beast. Americans have an elitist complex when it comes to other nations (yes, I'm an American and yup, I've got the complex, too). Most all Americans believes that the US is the greatest nation in the world and those same individuals are willing to prove it over and over again. If India starts to compete with the US, we will be directly affected and the US won't be happy. The US will likely force India to remain comfortably beneath; or another cold war will begin.
Anyways, you're right that the US shouldn't worry about what other countries do, unless it directly affects us. The problem is that everything directly affects us. Well, at least so we always seem to think. That's just the way it goes. I can't say I'm always proud of that.
Re:Call me an alarmist, but...
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Judging by how people used the laundry facilites at my apartment complex back when I was an undergrad, there isn't any time when just one machine is running. Most people would wait until all machines were empty, then blitz the washers. Come back in 20 minutes and blitz the dryers. Return in another 40 minutes, take clothes home. I very rarely ever saw a single person actually in the laundry room as it was often too hot and humid for comfort--plus it's boring. I had never heard of any woman being stalked or attacked, but some womens' panties did disappear from the dryer now and then (ick).
Now, the laundromats around Ohio State always had people hanging out in them. Always. But, campus area laundromats typically have a bar on-site, pool tables, or other neat ammenities to get you to do your wash there. They're nice, clean, and there's almost always customers around plus a staff member monitoring (or tending bar).
Here in Ohio, I've dealt some with our local monopoly Ameritech (or SBC). The marketing and sales guys all lie. Same with some of the technicians (at least the ones on the phones, not ones that actually do real work). And the management is the worst. They're all liars.
But, what I said just above isn't quite true at all. The truth is that they all misrepresent the truth. Small difference? Not quite. I honestly believe that Ameritech (SBC) and many of the other local exchange carriers hire people who are clueless, and who care more about making money for the company than laws and truth. The technicians who service homes and businesses know their stuff because they've been around a while. The managers get turned over constantly, and it's the same for support staff and sales. The turnover is so high that by the time someone actually learns the laws and how to apply them, he or she leaves, is fired, or moves up the chain.
I still bet the farm that it's mostly pure incompetence, not necessarily intentional greed or malice. Sure, managers way up at the top may have a clue, but very, very few customers ever get to share words with these individuals. When was the last time you complained to your local carrier and got to speak with a VP or other senior manager? The closest most of us get is the attorney general's office, the PUC, or the FCC. At least here the PUC of Ohio slapped the wrist of Ameritech really hard for having terrible service and quoting repairs times of 6-8 weeks (no joke), among other things.
A previous poster correctly stated that if you can't do it easily in a spreadsheet, you're probably needing another tool altogether. I would suggest using Matlab. Mathematica is nice, and so is Maple. And fortran's great if you want to push around bits, although C is used more by the engineering community.
Matlab's greatest strength is that it works magic with matricies. By using a spreadsheet, you aren't terribly far off from Matlab's strength, as I'm guessing that you've got several arrays. The matlab engine is also very robust and has nearly as many options available as fortran or C would. Can't beat that.
This seems a little hypocritical, sure, but I don't think it is unacceptable. Yeah, it's perhaps somewhat unethical. And yeah, I wish they wouldn't do things like this.
But let's consider this from another stance: HP is a large corporation and they do have a duty to their shareholders. Letting Bruce (or any other employee) clearly violate any federal law (whether constitutional or otherwise) isn't something the shareholders would want. I hate the DMCA, too, and I'm sure that HP doesn't much want it, either. But they can't just violate the law without expectation of legal suit--and the owners aren't gonna like that.
That said, why can't HP use the DMCA against itself? This type of thing is exactly why most of us think the DMCA is so terrible. In a way, I think this is a good thing. If HP uses this stupid law to brow-beat enough people "because they can" and "because it's good for shareholders", then the sooner we can get stupid laws repealed. I'm not against that.
I realize that this isn't a popular opinion here on/., but it's only karma. I just wish people would stop believing that any company exists for any reason other than to increase the wealth of its shareholders. Sorry folks, this is just the American way.
I find your comments interesting. TV has been around over fifty years now (though popular for less time than that), and its popularity has really crippled newspapers. There used to be multiple newspapers per town, and extra editions available in the evenings when conditions warranted it.
Nowadays, if you want news, you flip on CNN. Or maybe one of their competitors. The newspaper tends to merely repeat information one could have gotten from the TV. But the newspapers found a nich--they could go much more in depth in detail because it doesn't matter how long it will take to read. Sure, there are space requirements, but information can be condensed.
So what I find most interesting is that some newspapers still believe that TV is a fad. And you know what? They are sorta right. And so are the people who believe that the internet is a fad. My opinion is that very soon, people will refer to the internet before flipping on a TV to get news. To prove this point, look at what happened on 9/11--people at work just slammed cnn.com and the other news sites. Most businesses don't have TV access--and if they do, they don't make it available to all.
Newspapers are ideal for internet publications. They are used to written forms of media. They know how to place ads on a page in such ways that they will draw attention. TV's only option is to actually break the content up and force you to watch an advertisement (or change channels). I believe that newspapers should be much better capable of handling this new media.
But, like you say, many newspapers aren't committed to the internet. They don't see how their current business can easily integrate into a viable online presence. It's sad that the authoritative news site on the internet is cnn.com, which actually has to work outside its own niche to produce. This is hardly efficient.
Anyways, like I said before--TV is sorta a fad. It has reached its peak in terms of news content (and I would venture that entertainment content has been piss-poor for years now). And at some point, the internet will peak, too. Probably with some media advancement like virtual reality to the consumer. That would allow TV companies to re-take the lead. Just imagine not merely seeing the news, but actually getting to "be" on location and watching the events occur. It's all just a long, drawn out competition and it's hard to say who will eventually win out.
Okay, I'm all for other clients being able to instant message around to one another. I like competition. And I love free software (as in speech).
But I like AIM as it is. Well, rather I like it as it was--before there were alternatives that were allowed to get onto AOL's network. I used to be able to find new buddies easily enough, and when I got a message from someone new it typically was genuine.
But now, some f*tards as using the AIM system to send out spam-like messages. Is it coming from the rival clients? I don't know. But the one way to identify these bots running is that their profile always states "No Information Provided". This is the type of thing that really puts a strain on AOL's servers, and I can't quite blame them for not wanting to declare a lifetime of open season on their servers.
Sure, it would be nice if there was a completely interoperable messaging system. But to get this, we might force ourselfs to deal with getting slammed several times a minute by bots running around messaging everyone they can find. I'm just so tired of that, I am more willing to give up the competition. AIM's clients (even the java one) aren't really that bad. They work and do their jobs pretty good. Maybe this is one case where the majority of people would rather have a very closed, controlled community. Better ask mom and gramdpa about this before we go stating that this is completely a bad thing.
Molecular self-assembly isn't terribly expensive in terms of money (well, indirectly--but I'll get to that). The R&D required can be huge in terms of time and money. Companies prefer to apply techniques already developed and that are proven. Also, self-assembly is extremely expensive in terms of processing time and technician's expertise. You can't do them in batch steps in my experience--instead it's one at a time and there's lots of inspecting to ensure things turn out as desired. Didn't work? Throw it out and start over (or try and recover what you can if possible). So much for a high yield.
Irregardless, another huge problem will be adding particles (or molecules) to a substrate in a particular orientation. If I pattern the substrate, I will know exactly where every single bit will be relative to the others. I can write my HD controller with this in mind (including timing between bit reads and writes, etc). If I throw a bunch of particles on top, I can't be sure of their spacing. I might also get regions with different densities than others (even good printers suffer from this). I seriously doubt that this could be made such that these problems can be alleviated.
Neither of these problems can be easily dealt with. Not that they won't ever be overcome, though. Maybe you'll be the first one to prove me wrong:)
You would think that a pyramid would be a neat advance, but it's probably not feasable. The costs associated currently are too high for consideration.
The problem with pyramids is the formation. Hard drive manufacturers like to use Si, polymers, metals, and the like. Doing a photolithography step on them isn't difficult--but finding an etchant that will prefer to etch in a pyramidal shape is rather tough. If you can find one, it usually will etch down such that you end up with pyramids facing into the substrate.
Not that it can't be done. I recall some work done creating pyramids on GaAs substrates. It may be extendable to other material systems as well. But GaAs is a zincblend crystal structure--not a diamond structure like Si is. The zincblend readily makes itself agreeable to off-axis etching (especially if you get the proper offcut wafer).
Maybe if the polymer could be self-assembling and would itself produce the desired pyramidal shapes, then everyone would be happy. Doing a metalization step over top of that would not be difficult at all. But I'm not terribly great at dealing with polymers--I don't know where the limits of self-assembly are. I'm sure someone else does, though--and I know of several journal papers you might consider. Anyways--your idea is good, but it's an ideal. At this moment, there doesn't really exist a practical way to make metalized pyramids without steps that would either be prohibitively expensive (I'm talking processing time here), or steps that would require too large of feature size.
Seriously. Manuals are great--you can't do without them. And training classes are wonderful, too. But most everyone has come across a problem he/she hasn't a clue where to even begin. That's where friends come in.
Actually, I really mean "friend" as in "that guy who knows a bunch about this particular thingy and he might be able to help me out". Sometimes that's customer support (though rare). Most times it's a guy I've met at a conference or whatnot and I find myself covered in sweat and worried about my job as I go digging around my files for his business card. Then, almost histerically, I call, e-mail, fax, and drive around to catch this person. Okay, maybe not to that extent--but it sure is great to know someone (on a first name basis, whom you've really met and gone out to dinner with) who is much more knowledgable that yourself in some areas.
Personally, for me to be comfortable, I need to have these kinds of people available. They could be co-workers, bosses, past co-workers, customer support, mistresses, disgruntled housewives. A manual or training session can't ever come close to those types of relationships.
Fiber typically has a pretty high tensile strength on its own. The jacketting can also add to the strength. It can be run across telephone poles without much problem.
The only reason fiber gets buried is because most places are starting to bury everything. My neighborhood doesn't have a single pole within a half mile. The only poles around are the main transmission lines for the electric company to our local substations as well as the poles up and down our two "main" streets. Those poles are going to be removed soon, though, as the utilities are being forced to bury everything.
Out in the country, where my folks live, the cable and telephone companies all string up fiber from pole to pole--no problems. They also have their various break-out boxes installed up high on the poles. Poles are cheaper, and country folk don't mind them as much.
I personally don't have a problem with this, but my neighbors would. I think it's wonderful that your school can do this, but understand that it may only be temporary. Parents can threaten everything inside a school, no matter how good the intent or results.
The current political climate doesn't bode well for schools (no, I don't mean vote for Reps/Dems/Greens/etc). Schools are constantly being told what they can't do by parents, by the board, by courts, and by state and federal governments. It sucks. Much more time gets spent on what is wrong with our current education system than what's right and what will work in the long-term. Those are big political issues.
You are likely going to soon face some disgruntled parent who wants your gaming (with his/her tax dollars being used) to end. This person could be quiet about that, but likely the principle will get a phone call. And then if it doesn't end, the board of education will consider the matter. And they will kill it because by this point the initial parent got 100 other parents upset because the games being played are "evil and detrimental" to kid's development.
Mind you, the initial parent upset won't have ever let his/her child go to one of your gaming nights. Actually, this person is a terrible parent but likes to believe that he/she is a wonderful parent and thus has the right to tell every other parent how they should raise their own kids. That's just how these things work.
Really, though, I'm supportive of you. I wish we could do something like that here in my hometown with the HS kids. I think this could even be a neat way to get kids to interact with college students in CIS, engineering, etc as well as others in the tech industry. But it won't ever happen here--not on public grounds.
Oh--and you might want to find a few other games that are considered "non-violent". All the ones you listed involve some type of guns/missiles/bombs and the destruction of other's in the game. Obviously, first-person shooters are out--but maybe Civilization or Starcraft? Yeah, I know these have war as part of the game--but the goal could be considered as more constructive than simply shooting others. Heck, even silly computer card games could be "options" but not played--so at least students would be given a choice (might help when that parent complains).
At first it might seem that building your own dish is the cheapest solution--but I really question that. I considered building two antennas for my shot that's about a mile. If you really want something to work, consider getting a real (professional) antenna. They aren't that much more expensive when you factor in your cost in time plus they are almost guaranteed to work.
I just ordered a couple of PacWireless parabolic dishes (21 dBi) and pigtails. Sure, I'm paying roughly $175 all said and done--but that's much cheaper than my time right now. If you want to buy, look at NetNimble and Electro-Comm Wireless.
Obviously, it's much more "cool" to have put together your own antenna with a pringles can, a primestar dish, or aluminum foil. I can't doubt that one bit. But my neighbor's aren't going to complain about a (relatively) tasteful dish up on my roof compared to a hacked-up job that's rusting away. Add to that this guy's story, and I was sold: 300-400Kbps for the homemade deal compared to 3.5Mbps with a dish. I can feel comfortable knowing that my link will need to experience a huge amount of interference before it goes down.
I've got a newborn on the way here soon. Will I ensure this child is supervised every second? Yup. If I'm not right there, my wife will be. Or if neither of us, then maybe grandma and grandpa or aunts and uncles. But 24/7 supervision will be there regardless.
Skip ahead a few years--4 or 5 years old. Am I really worried about pornography in the library affecting my kid? No--I've got a house full of electrical outlets that are far more dangerous. Besides, little kids wouldn't understand or desire sexual material anyways. Is supervision required every second? Maybe--maybe not. Depends on the kid. But supervision is still needed.
Alright, skip ahead some more--now I've got a 10 or 11 year-old. Do I start to worry about sexual material at the library? Sure. But--get this--I'm not letting my kid run around the library yelling and screaming and generally annoying people. That's the time to teach kids how to PROPERLY use the library facilities, and let them know what is and isn't acceptable. I will probably not leave this child unsupervised for too long.
Alright, now moving along till I've got a 15-year-old. That's scary. Now, I don't have to worry about supervising nearly as much because my kid likely will understand how to properly use the library--after all I've spent the last few years making sure of that. Plus, a 15-year-old will know that if he or she starts looking at naughty pictures, others will see it. Our library has the computers placed so that the public could see what you are looking at. If it's for a project on breat cancer, no one will care because typically those pictures aren't terribly provocative. If my kid is looking at the recent Playboy centerfold, people will take notice. So my kid's still being supervised (indirectly), but I don't have to hold junior's hand every step through life.
To be honest, though, I don't particularly trust anyone else to watch or take care of my child. I don't feel that there is any "kid safe" environment, be it in my house, church, library, school, or gang-war zone. Sure, some places are much safer, but I wouldn't count the library as one of the most safe places. It's a great place for kidnappers, pedophiles, etc. to explicitly target children. Take two hours of some day and go sit near the children's areas--you'll see lots of young kids running about without any parents around to supervise. I don't call that "kid safe" by any stretch, and I can't say that my biggest worry there is pornography.
I work in research at a university, and my PhD project is going to help solve this problem (and others) long before 2012. I can't get into specifics because of disclosure issues. But, understand that already a HUGE amount of work has been done behind the scenes and most other researchers don't yet know of what's to come.
CMOS isn't going to die. Turns out that we're not limited in the horizontal direction like everyone predicted years ago (remember how lithography was always the big problem?). Instead, it's the vertical direction. Our gates are having to get too thin. SiO2 just doesn't work well with 10A thick layers because of trapped charge and whatnot. Also we can't properly control doping at very shallow levels.
But all that doesn't matter. Strained-Si technology is where it's going. If you're interested, check out AmberWave. It turns out that we can increase the mobility of holes and electrons--so even older.18um fabs could easily be refitted with strained Si material and compete with the.13um fabs. Actually, it's even better than that--the increases in mobility have been up to 8 times over that of Si.
No, CMOS isn't going to die. It's going to change and morph. Just like it has in the past. We don't need a revolution like many engineers are claiming--we simply need evolution. Strained Si is an evolution that will make for revolutions later. Current fabs can just swap out their current Si wafers and get strained Si ones--most everything else in the fab stays the same. Talk about a huge cost savings to boot (no need to rebuild a new fab for billions).
There should be one great TLD for them all. Having hate sites in with.prn seems silly. If it would be bad to break apart all these evil, nasty sites based on exactly what they are (porn, hate, terrorist, drugs, etc), let's just find a TLD that incompasses them all:
.sin (It's even three letters like half the world thinks is a requirement)
Granted, some people aren't going to like being in the "sin" area... but cigarrettes, alcohol, and others all get charged "sin taxes". Seems quite reasonable to me.
Seems to me that kids don't need to be chatting on-line with anyone the parents don't know about. The family computer should be in the family room in the open, so parents can interact with their kids. Buddy lists can be set up for family and (approved) friends only. None of these things seem outragious to most kids or parents.
Then again, I suppose it's just fine for some people to allow the computer to babysit kids--just like the TV or whatever. Lord knows people having kids aren't at all interested in being parents. God forbid they take an interest.
This just makes me feel ill--but I can hardly blame the companies for doing this. It's our own dumb fault for not loving and caring for our children.
"But if you consistently go over the limit, you're going to have to pay."
This to me sounds very reasonable. It doesn't sound like you're just automagically going to receive a bill for twice the regular service. They plan to warn you about just how much bandwidth you are using. Sounds reasonable.
My school does this with e-mail. Some people would bang away at the POP3 server every minute or less just so they could get the e-mail almost instantly. If you checked your e-mail over something like 500 times a day, you got a friendly warning that such practices are not good for the community. If you didn't stop, they would block your e-mail until you started to understand.
I guess I don't see a problem with this--at least not at face value. Sounds like TW is just trying to do their best to serve all their customers at some minimum level.
Some cities regulate just about everything you could possibly do. That includes permits for decks, patios, sidewalks, trees, etc. It gets rather insane and annoying at times--but this typically is only done in those subdivisions were they want everything to look "similar".
Most cities, though, don't care much. I have a 15' easement from the road--I cannot build any permanent structures there. After that 15', though, I can build right up to the property line on either side towards my neighbors or all the way back to my fenceline. In the country, things get even more relaxed--you can build just about anything and it's not a problem. Sometimes you are limited to the size you can build a barn without a special permit--but that's generally the worst of it.
Of course, if I were to do something like this 3m in the air, it would look rather odd around here. Folks don't even have plush gardens. Nope, around here it's mostly just folks who have a deck, a tree or two, a fence, and grass. A monorail in my backyard would the the talk of the city for years.
you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world, and even without devices like this no other country can seriously challenge the United States in a conventional war
Maybe no other country can challenge the US. At least, not right now. China, for example, has the goal of improving their tech enough that they may become a more equal competitor. And many other nations have interests in targetting the US for any type of war (conventional or otherwise).
Why is it that people say "hey--we've got the best in the business (in this case the business of war). Why should we keep developing?" It's like people really, truely believe that we don't have any competition (or people who want to be competitors). Microsoft hasn't given us much in way of innovation since Win95. And some would say that they are the "best in the business" for desktop OS's. But that's no excuse for them to be sitting around waiting for others to finally catch up. Instead, they should be trying to improve even more. That would only give them a larger lead.
It is a poor rationalization in my opinion to say that we should ever pretend that some amount of military tech is "good enough". There will always be advances. The country who can aquire and use these advances first has an enormous advantage. The US doesn't merely want to have the most powerful military in the world--the intent is to have a military always so advanced and powerful that no other nation would ever question a war. Simply having the technology can prevent war altogether and save many lives.
In my opinion, I would much rather fund military research than many other projects. People like to say that disease, world hunger, and other interests should come first. My only response is: What would it matter if I had cancer if I am dodging bullets? What good does sending food to poor countries do when the food never reaches those people in need do to gangs?
I think people misunderstand the role of the military and its necessity for the US. This world isn't a fairy-tale place. Bad people exist, and they intend to hurt us. It is only by military power that this world is as safe as it is now. Simply look to WWII for inspiration--as well as the Cold War and how two superpowers used their militaries to ensure (mostly) peace stayed in place to prevent WWIII. I don't see any problems with sending my tax dollars in for military research. I'm also quite happy to feed starving kids in Afganistan, too. And education. And... etc.
The regulation has to do with advertising. If a small, local company advertises on your local NBC affiliate during the news, that company only has to pay the local affiliate for the airtime. If a big company wants to target an advertisement to a local population, they do the same thing--for about the same price (politics and all that aside).
If everyone can watch, say, the DC NBC news and it seems that many people outside of the DC area actually prefer that station over, say, the Baltimore NBC station, then the problem becomes how much to charge for ad slots. The local companies are paying per TV that is turned on during their commerical (ratings, etc) regardless of location. If half of these TVs aren't even anywhere close to you--like on the other side of the country--then the company is paying too much for little benefit. The DC NBC station then charges huge amounts for the ad slots and then only big corporations can afford the time. This isn't fair for small business.
In a perfect technological world, the solution would be that you could watch any affiliate you like of NBC, CBS, ABC, etc, and since they all have the same national feed you would always get the same national ads. When the remote affiliate inserts their own commercial, though, you would be forced instead to watch a commercial that is inserted at your local level. In other words, I could still watch Enterprise via UPN in Detroit (because ours always sucks) but when the Detroit station cuts to a local commercial, I would instead watch a Columbus commercial. That seems reasonable to me--but technologically its not quite there yet.
Sure, criminals use everything most everyone else does. Apparently you missed the question of the original poster. What is the point of a disposable phone?
I'm not saying that only criminals will use these phones. I'm saying that criminal will likely only use these phones instead of the more typical mobile phones. They are cheaper, allow for more anonymity at time of purchase, and you can change phones every day if desired. One could say simliar traits are seen in some bomb-making materials. Now, there are a lot of legitimate, legal, and harmless ways to use many bomb-making materials. But criminals tend to lock-on to something that's good for their trade, just like everyone else. It's more efficient that way. High crime isn't run much differently than a company--and more death/drugs/profit per dollar invested is the major desire.
In my opinion, I feel that a disposable phone makes a criminal's life easier. And that's not something I have an issue with. But, here in the US at least, some people are really going to get unhappy when they find out that the next bin Laden (or whoever) attack is coordinated via disposable phones (instead of the regular ones that the 9/11 attacks were coordinated with).
Hell, I'm not saying that disposable phones are going to cause terrorism or crime. I'm merely answering the question as to who would most benefit from these types of phones. Clearly, in my opinion, criminals have the most to gain from this. That's not going to stop me from buying one if "real" ones ever make it to market, though.
Disposable phones are perfect for a terrorist, drug dealer, or other criminal. Simply go to Wal-Mart ot Target, pay cash for the phone and the minutes, and leave. Or have one of your "associates" do the purchase so that you're not on the store cameras. Currently, someone has to use a credit card and pay some money to sign of for service--that's not difficult to do but does present some barrier.
I'm not trying to troll here--it's just that a disposable phone is ideal for someone trying to remain anonymous and under the radar of the authorities. That's a huge advantage.
Myself, I have thought that I would like a mobile phone--but I'm not willing to pay upwards of $150 for a phone plus the monthly contract. And I'm all about pre-paying because I don't plan to use the phone much anyways. A disposable phone with 60 minutes would likely last me a year. At that point, I think I should be allowed to toss the thing since I know many people who get new phones every year at the $300 price tag. I doubt much of this will ever see the light of day, though, since the possibilities for criminals are huge.
It shouldn't take IBM, et al, long to start running ads that show an MS-only shop having all the boxes go down simultaneously. Then, the CIO goes looking for who can get things fixed, he can only find clowns in the IT department saying "maybe we should just hit all the reset buttons." Maybe dressing the fools up like clowns would make the point that much better.
*sigh* Everyone knows you get what you pay for. Expensive employees generally pull their weight. A clown that only knows MS products isn't much better than a trained monkey.
Of course, I think MS has a place in businesses--just like *nix. Companies really should diversify their operationing systems so that they can take full advantages of each. MS Win2K just isn't as good of a webserver, for example, as many of the *nixes. And a Win2K Server is nice for tying together a bunch of Windows workstations. Exploit the advantages of each.
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To blind a CCD or other imaging device, infrared beams won't cut it. You need high enough energy photons that guarantee virtually every photon entering will produce an electron-hole pair in each type of detector. That means at the very least, inside the visible range. Preferably just beyond into the ultraviolet. If I swamp out the reds, a smart technician could just look at the other colors to determine what's going on.
So, you really want ultraviolet. Just barely into that range will work. That would ensure all the detectors were swamped and thus nothing could be done to get an image out. Now, someone please let me know when ultraviolet lasers and high-powered LEDs are avaiable on the market. Well, maybe I'll let you all know when it's done since that's something I'm doing for my PhD work ;)
Are you suggesting that the US has the right or responsibility of regulating space research? What goes on in another country shouldn't be up to the US, unless it directly affects them.
And, although India is less developed than, for example, the US, why should they be forced to stay that way?
Personally, I don't think the US needs to bully India over this. But with respect to your thoughts, the US could say that they are threatened by another nation being capable of delivering nuclear weapons to our doorstep. I don't think the US has any intention of worrying about this now.
That said, if India becomes more advanced than the US, then the US is going to have a lot to say about that. That's just the nature of the beast. Americans have an elitist complex when it comes to other nations (yes, I'm an American and yup, I've got the complex, too). Most all Americans believes that the US is the greatest nation in the world and those same individuals are willing to prove it over and over again. If India starts to compete with the US, we will be directly affected and the US won't be happy. The US will likely force India to remain comfortably beneath; or another cold war will begin.
Anyways, you're right that the US shouldn't worry about what other countries do, unless it directly affects us. The problem is that everything directly affects us. Well, at least so we always seem to think. That's just the way it goes. I can't say I'm always proud of that.
Judging by how people used the laundry facilites at my apartment complex back when I was an undergrad, there isn't any time when just one machine is running. Most people would wait until all machines were empty, then blitz the washers. Come back in 20 minutes and blitz the dryers. Return in another 40 minutes, take clothes home. I very rarely ever saw a single person actually in the laundry room as it was often too hot and humid for comfort--plus it's boring. I had never heard of any woman being stalked or attacked, but some womens' panties did disappear from the dryer now and then (ick).
Now, the laundromats around Ohio State always had people hanging out in them. Always. But, campus area laundromats typically have a bar on-site, pool tables, or other neat ammenities to get you to do your wash there. They're nice, clean, and there's almost always customers around plus a staff member monitoring (or tending bar).
Here in Ohio, I've dealt some with our local monopoly Ameritech (or SBC). The marketing and sales guys all lie. Same with some of the technicians (at least the ones on the phones, not ones that actually do real work). And the management is the worst. They're all liars.
But, what I said just above isn't quite true at all. The truth is that they all misrepresent the truth. Small difference? Not quite. I honestly believe that Ameritech (SBC) and many of the other local exchange carriers hire people who are clueless, and who care more about making money for the company than laws and truth. The technicians who service homes and businesses know their stuff because they've been around a while. The managers get turned over constantly, and it's the same for support staff and sales. The turnover is so high that by the time someone actually learns the laws and how to apply them, he or she leaves, is fired, or moves up the chain.
I still bet the farm that it's mostly pure incompetence, not necessarily intentional greed or malice. Sure, managers way up at the top may have a clue, but very, very few customers ever get to share words with these individuals. When was the last time you complained to your local carrier and got to speak with a VP or other senior manager? The closest most of us get is the attorney general's office, the PUC, or the FCC. At least here the PUC of Ohio slapped the wrist of Ameritech really hard for having terrible service and quoting repairs times of 6-8 weeks (no joke), among other things.
A previous poster correctly stated that if you can't do it easily in a spreadsheet, you're probably needing another tool altogether. I would suggest using Matlab. Mathematica is nice, and so is Maple. And fortran's great if you want to push around bits, although C is used more by the engineering community.
Matlab's greatest strength is that it works magic with matricies. By using a spreadsheet, you aren't terribly far off from Matlab's strength, as I'm guessing that you've got several arrays. The matlab engine is also very robust and has nearly as many options available as fortran or C would. Can't beat that.
This seems a little hypocritical, sure, but I don't think it is unacceptable. Yeah, it's perhaps somewhat unethical. And yeah, I wish they wouldn't do things like this.
But let's consider this from another stance: HP is a large corporation and they do have a duty to their shareholders. Letting Bruce (or any other employee) clearly violate any federal law (whether constitutional or otherwise) isn't something the shareholders would want. I hate the DMCA, too, and I'm sure that HP doesn't much want it, either. But they can't just violate the law without expectation of legal suit--and the owners aren't gonna like that.
That said, why can't HP use the DMCA against itself? This type of thing is exactly why most of us think the DMCA is so terrible. In a way, I think this is a good thing. If HP uses this stupid law to brow-beat enough people "because they can" and "because it's good for shareholders", then the sooner we can get stupid laws repealed. I'm not against that.
I realize that this isn't a popular opinion here on /., but it's only karma. I just wish people would stop believing that any company exists for any reason other than to increase the wealth of its shareholders. Sorry folks, this is just the American way.
I find your comments interesting. TV has been around over fifty years now (though popular for less time than that), and its popularity has really crippled newspapers. There used to be multiple newspapers per town, and extra editions available in the evenings when conditions warranted it.
Nowadays, if you want news, you flip on CNN. Or maybe one of their competitors. The newspaper tends to merely repeat information one could have gotten from the TV. But the newspapers found a nich--they could go much more in depth in detail because it doesn't matter how long it will take to read. Sure, there are space requirements, but information can be condensed.
So what I find most interesting is that some newspapers still believe that TV is a fad. And you know what? They are sorta right. And so are the people who believe that the internet is a fad. My opinion is that very soon, people will refer to the internet before flipping on a TV to get news. To prove this point, look at what happened on 9/11--people at work just slammed cnn.com and the other news sites. Most businesses don't have TV access--and if they do, they don't make it available to all.
Newspapers are ideal for internet publications. They are used to written forms of media. They know how to place ads on a page in such ways that they will draw attention. TV's only option is to actually break the content up and force you to watch an advertisement (or change channels). I believe that newspapers should be much better capable of handling this new media.
But, like you say, many newspapers aren't committed to the internet. They don't see how their current business can easily integrate into a viable online presence. It's sad that the authoritative news site on the internet is cnn.com, which actually has to work outside its own niche to produce. This is hardly efficient.
Anyways, like I said before--TV is sorta a fad. It has reached its peak in terms of news content (and I would venture that entertainment content has been piss-poor for years now). And at some point, the internet will peak, too. Probably with some media advancement like virtual reality to the consumer. That would allow TV companies to re-take the lead. Just imagine not merely seeing the news, but actually getting to "be" on location and watching the events occur. It's all just a long, drawn out competition and it's hard to say who will eventually win out.
Okay, I'm all for other clients being able to instant message around to one another. I like competition. And I love free software (as in speech).
But I like AIM as it is. Well, rather I like it as it was--before there were alternatives that were allowed to get onto AOL's network. I used to be able to find new buddies easily enough, and when I got a message from someone new it typically was genuine.
But now, some f*tards as using the AIM system to send out spam-like messages. Is it coming from the rival clients? I don't know. But the one way to identify these bots running is that their profile always states "No Information Provided". This is the type of thing that really puts a strain on AOL's servers, and I can't quite blame them for not wanting to declare a lifetime of open season on their servers.
Sure, it would be nice if there was a completely interoperable messaging system. But to get this, we might force ourselfs to deal with getting slammed several times a minute by bots running around messaging everyone they can find. I'm just so tired of that, I am more willing to give up the competition. AIM's clients (even the java one) aren't really that bad. They work and do their jobs pretty good. Maybe this is one case where the majority of people would rather have a very closed, controlled community. Better ask mom and gramdpa about this before we go stating that this is completely a bad thing.
Molecular self-assembly isn't terribly expensive in terms of money (well, indirectly--but I'll get to that). The R&D required can be huge in terms of time and money. Companies prefer to apply techniques already developed and that are proven. Also, self-assembly is extremely expensive in terms of processing time and technician's expertise. You can't do them in batch steps in my experience--instead it's one at a time and there's lots of inspecting to ensure things turn out as desired. Didn't work? Throw it out and start over (or try and recover what you can if possible). So much for a high yield.
:)
Irregardless, another huge problem will be adding particles (or molecules) to a substrate in a particular orientation. If I pattern the substrate, I will know exactly where every single bit will be relative to the others. I can write my HD controller with this in mind (including timing between bit reads and writes, etc). If I throw a bunch of particles on top, I can't be sure of their spacing. I might also get regions with different densities than others (even good printers suffer from this). I seriously doubt that this could be made such that these problems can be alleviated.
Neither of these problems can be easily dealt with. Not that they won't ever be overcome, though. Maybe you'll be the first one to prove me wrong
You would think that a pyramid would be a neat advance, but it's probably not feasable. The costs associated currently are too high for consideration.
The problem with pyramids is the formation. Hard drive manufacturers like to use Si, polymers, metals, and the like. Doing a photolithography step on them isn't difficult--but finding an etchant that will prefer to etch in a pyramidal shape is rather tough. If you can find one, it usually will etch down such that you end up with pyramids facing into the substrate.
Not that it can't be done. I recall some work done creating pyramids on GaAs substrates. It may be extendable to other material systems as well. But GaAs is a zincblend crystal structure--not a diamond structure like Si is. The zincblend readily makes itself agreeable to off-axis etching (especially if you get the proper offcut wafer).
Maybe if the polymer could be self-assembling and would itself produce the desired pyramidal shapes, then everyone would be happy. Doing a metalization step over top of that would not be difficult at all. But I'm not terribly great at dealing with polymers--I don't know where the limits of self-assembly are. I'm sure someone else does, though--and I know of several journal papers you might consider.
Anyways--your idea is good, but it's an ideal. At this moment, there doesn't really exist a practical way to make metalized pyramids without steps that would either be prohibitively expensive (I'm talking processing time here), or steps that would require too large of feature size.
Seriously. Manuals are great--you can't do without them. And training classes are wonderful, too. But most everyone has come across a problem he/she hasn't a clue where to even begin. That's where friends come in.
Actually, I really mean "friend" as in "that guy who knows a bunch about this particular thingy and he might be able to help me out". Sometimes that's customer support (though rare). Most times it's a guy I've met at a conference or whatnot and I find myself covered in sweat and worried about my job as I go digging around my files for his business card. Then, almost histerically, I call, e-mail, fax, and drive around to catch this person. Okay, maybe not to that extent--but it sure is great to know someone (on a first name basis, whom you've really met and gone out to dinner with) who is much more knowledgable that yourself in some areas.
Personally, for me to be comfortable, I need to have these kinds of people available. They could be co-workers, bosses, past co-workers, customer support, mistresses, disgruntled housewives. A manual or training session can't ever come close to those types of relationships.
Fiber typically has a pretty high tensile strength on its own. The jacketting can also add to the strength. It can be run across telephone poles without much problem.
The only reason fiber gets buried is because most places are starting to bury everything. My neighborhood doesn't have a single pole within a half mile. The only poles around are the main transmission lines for the electric company to our local substations as well as the poles up and down our two "main" streets. Those poles are going to be removed soon, though, as the utilities are being forced to bury everything.
Out in the country, where my folks live, the cable and telephone companies all string up fiber from pole to pole--no problems. They also have their various break-out boxes installed up high on the poles. Poles are cheaper, and country folk don't mind them as much.
I personally don't have a problem with this, but my neighbors would. I think it's wonderful that your school can do this, but understand that it may only be temporary. Parents can threaten everything inside a school, no matter how good the intent or results.
The current political climate doesn't bode well for schools (no, I don't mean vote for Reps/Dems/Greens/etc). Schools are constantly being told what they can't do by parents, by the board, by courts, and by state and federal governments. It sucks. Much more time gets spent on what is wrong with our current education system than what's right and what will work in the long-term. Those are big political issues.
You are likely going to soon face some disgruntled parent who wants your gaming (with his/her tax dollars being used) to end. This person could be quiet about that, but likely the principle will get a phone call. And then if it doesn't end, the board of education will consider the matter. And they will kill it because by this point the initial parent got 100 other parents upset because the games being played are "evil and detrimental" to kid's development.
Mind you, the initial parent upset won't have ever let his/her child go to one of your gaming nights. Actually, this person is a terrible parent but likes to believe that he/she is a wonderful parent and thus has the right to tell every other parent how they should raise their own kids. That's just how these things work.
Really, though, I'm supportive of you. I wish we could do something like that here in my hometown with the HS kids. I think this could even be a neat way to get kids to interact with college students in CIS, engineering, etc as well as others in the tech industry. But it won't ever happen here--not on public grounds.
Oh--and you might want to find a few other games that are considered "non-violent". All the ones you listed involve some type of guns/missiles/bombs and the destruction of other's in the game. Obviously, first-person shooters are out--but maybe Civilization or Starcraft? Yeah, I know these have war as part of the game--but the goal could be considered as more constructive than simply shooting others. Heck, even silly computer card games could be "options" but not played--so at least students would be given a choice (might help when that parent complains).
At first it might seem that building your own dish is the cheapest solution--but I really question that. I considered building two antennas for my shot that's about a mile. If you really want something to work, consider getting a real (professional) antenna. They aren't that much more expensive when you factor in your cost in time plus they are almost guaranteed to work.
I just ordered a couple of PacWireless parabolic dishes (21 dBi) and pigtails. Sure, I'm paying roughly $175 all said and done--but that's much cheaper than my time right now. If you want to buy, look at NetNimble and Electro-Comm Wireless.
Obviously, it's much more "cool" to have put together your own antenna with a pringles can, a primestar dish, or aluminum foil. I can't doubt that one bit. But my neighbor's aren't going to complain about a (relatively) tasteful dish up on my roof compared to a hacked-up job that's rusting away. Add to that this guy's story, and I was sold: 300-400Kbps for the homemade deal compared to 3.5Mbps with a dish. I can feel comfortable knowing that my link will need to experience a huge amount of interference before it goes down.
I've got a newborn on the way here soon. Will I ensure this child is supervised every second? Yup. If I'm not right there, my wife will be. Or if neither of us, then maybe grandma and grandpa or aunts and uncles. But 24/7 supervision will be there regardless.
Skip ahead a few years--4 or 5 years old. Am I really worried about pornography in the library affecting my kid? No--I've got a house full of electrical outlets that are far more dangerous. Besides, little kids wouldn't understand or desire sexual material anyways. Is supervision required every second? Maybe--maybe not. Depends on the kid. But supervision is still needed.
Alright, skip ahead some more--now I've got a 10 or 11 year-old. Do I start to worry about sexual material at the library? Sure. But--get this--I'm not letting my kid run around the library yelling and screaming and generally annoying people. That's the time to teach kids how to PROPERLY use the library facilities, and let them know what is and isn't acceptable. I will probably not leave this child unsupervised for too long.
Alright, now moving along till I've got a 15-year-old. That's scary. Now, I don't have to worry about supervising nearly as much because my kid likely will understand how to properly use the library--after all I've spent the last few years making sure of that. Plus, a 15-year-old will know that if he or she starts looking at naughty pictures, others will see it. Our library has the computers placed so that the public could see what you are looking at. If it's for a project on breat cancer, no one will care because typically those pictures aren't terribly provocative. If my kid is looking at the recent Playboy centerfold, people will take notice. So my kid's still being supervised (indirectly), but I don't have to hold junior's hand every step through life.
To be honest, though, I don't particularly trust anyone else to watch or take care of my child. I don't feel that there is any "kid safe" environment, be it in my house, church, library, school, or gang-war zone. Sure, some places are much safer, but I wouldn't count the library as one of the most safe places. It's a great place for kidnappers, pedophiles, etc. to explicitly target children. Take two hours of some day and go sit near the children's areas--you'll see lots of young kids running about without any parents around to supervise. I don't call that "kid safe" by any stretch, and I can't say that my biggest worry there is pornography.
I work in research at a university, and my PhD project is going to help solve this problem (and others) long before 2012. I can't get into specifics because of disclosure issues. But, understand that already a HUGE amount of work has been done behind the scenes and most other researchers don't yet know of what's to come.
.18um fabs could easily be refitted with strained Si material and compete with the .13um fabs. Actually, it's even better than that--the increases in mobility have been up to 8 times over that of Si.
CMOS isn't going to die. Turns out that we're not limited in the horizontal direction like everyone predicted years ago (remember how lithography was always the big problem?). Instead, it's the vertical direction. Our gates are having to get too thin. SiO2 just doesn't work well with 10A thick layers because of trapped charge and whatnot. Also we can't properly control doping at very shallow levels.
But all that doesn't matter. Strained-Si technology is where it's going. If you're interested, check out AmberWave. It turns out that we can increase the mobility of holes and electrons--so even older
No, CMOS isn't going to die. It's going to change and morph. Just like it has in the past. We don't need a revolution like many engineers are claiming--we simply need evolution. Strained Si is an evolution that will make for revolutions later. Current fabs can just swap out their current Si wafers and get strained Si ones--most everything else in the fab stays the same. Talk about a huge cost savings to boot (no need to rebuild a new fab for billions).
There should be one great TLD for them all. Having hate sites in with .prn seems silly. If it would be bad to break apart all these evil, nasty sites based on exactly what they are (porn, hate, terrorist, drugs, etc), let's just find a TLD that incompasses them all:
.sin (It's even three letters like half the world thinks is a requirement)
Granted, some people aren't going to like being in the "sin" area... but cigarrettes, alcohol, and others all get charged "sin taxes". Seems quite reasonable to me.
Seems to me that kids don't need to be chatting on-line with anyone the parents don't know about. The family computer should be in the family room in the open, so parents can interact with their kids. Buddy lists can be set up for family and (approved) friends only. None of these things seem outragious to most kids or parents.
Then again, I suppose it's just fine for some people to allow the computer to babysit kids--just like the TV or whatever. Lord knows people having kids aren't at all interested in being parents. God forbid they take an interest.
This just makes me feel ill--but I can hardly blame the companies for doing this. It's our own dumb fault for not loving and caring for our children.
"But if you consistently go over the limit, you're going to have to pay."
This to me sounds very reasonable. It doesn't sound like you're just automagically going to receive a bill for twice the regular service. They plan to warn you about just how much bandwidth you are using. Sounds reasonable.
My school does this with e-mail. Some people would bang away at the POP3 server every minute or less just so they could get the e-mail almost instantly. If you checked your e-mail over something like 500 times a day, you got a friendly warning that such practices are not good for the community. If you didn't stop, they would block your e-mail until you started to understand.
I guess I don't see a problem with this--at least not at face value. Sounds like TW is just trying to do their best to serve all their customers at some minimum level.
Some cities regulate just about everything you could possibly do. That includes permits for decks, patios, sidewalks, trees, etc. It gets rather insane and annoying at times--but this typically is only done in those subdivisions were they want everything to look "similar".
Most cities, though, don't care much. I have a 15' easement from the road--I cannot build any permanent structures there. After that 15', though, I can build right up to the property line on either side towards my neighbors or all the way back to my fenceline. In the country, things get even more relaxed--you can build just about anything and it's not a problem. Sometimes you are limited to the size you can build a barn without a special permit--but that's generally the worst of it.
Of course, if I were to do something like this 3m in the air, it would look rather odd around here. Folks don't even have plush gardens. Nope, around here it's mostly just folks who have a deck, a tree or two, a fence, and grass. A monorail in my backyard would the the talk of the city for years.
you must concede that the United States already has by far the most technologically advanced military in the world, and even without devices like this no other country can seriously challenge the United States in a conventional war
Maybe no other country can challenge the US. At least, not right now. China, for example, has the goal of improving their tech enough that they may become a more equal competitor. And many other nations have interests in targetting the US for any type of war (conventional or otherwise).
Why is it that people say "hey--we've got the best in the business (in this case the business of war). Why should we keep developing?" It's like people really, truely believe that we don't have any competition (or people who want to be competitors). Microsoft hasn't given us much in way of innovation since Win95. And some would say that they are the "best in the business" for desktop OS's. But that's no excuse for them to be sitting around waiting for others to finally catch up. Instead, they should be trying to improve even more. That would only give them a larger lead.
It is a poor rationalization in my opinion to say that we should ever pretend that some amount of military tech is "good enough". There will always be advances. The country who can aquire and use these advances first has an enormous advantage. The US doesn't merely want to have the most powerful military in the world--the intent is to have a military always so advanced and powerful that no other nation would ever question a war. Simply having the technology can prevent war altogether and save many lives.
In my opinion, I would much rather fund military research than many other projects. People like to say that disease, world hunger, and other interests should come first. My only response is: What would it matter if I had cancer if I am dodging bullets? What good does sending food to poor countries do when the food never reaches those people in need do to gangs?
I think people misunderstand the role of the military and its necessity for the US. This world isn't a fairy-tale place. Bad people exist, and they intend to hurt us. It is only by military power that this world is as safe as it is now. Simply look to WWII for inspiration--as well as the Cold War and how two superpowers used their militaries to ensure (mostly) peace stayed in place to prevent WWIII. I don't see any problems with sending my tax dollars in for military research. I'm also quite happy to feed starving kids in Afganistan, too. And education. And... etc.
The regulation has to do with advertising. If a small, local company advertises on your local NBC affiliate during the news, that company only has to pay the local affiliate for the airtime. If a big company wants to target an advertisement to a local population, they do the same thing--for about the same price (politics and all that aside).
If everyone can watch, say, the DC NBC news and it seems that many people outside of the DC area actually prefer that station over, say, the Baltimore NBC station, then the problem becomes how much to charge for ad slots. The local companies are paying per TV that is turned on during their commerical (ratings, etc) regardless of location. If half of these TVs aren't even anywhere close to you--like on the other side of the country--then the company is paying too much for little benefit. The DC NBC station then charges huge amounts for the ad slots and then only big corporations can afford the time. This isn't fair for small business.
In a perfect technological world, the solution would be that you could watch any affiliate you like of NBC, CBS, ABC, etc, and since they all have the same national feed you would always get the same national ads. When the remote affiliate inserts their own commercial, though, you would be forced instead to watch a commercial that is inserted at your local level. In other words, I could still watch Enterprise via UPN in Detroit (because ours always sucks) but when the Detroit station cuts to a local commercial, I would instead watch a Columbus commercial. That seems reasonable to me--but technologically its not quite there yet.
Sure, criminals use everything most everyone else does. Apparently you missed the question of the original poster. What is the point of a disposable phone?
I'm not saying that only criminals will use these phones. I'm saying that criminal will likely only use these phones instead of the more typical mobile phones. They are cheaper, allow for more anonymity at time of purchase, and you can change phones every day if desired. One could say simliar traits are seen in some bomb-making materials. Now, there are a lot of legitimate, legal, and harmless ways to use many bomb-making materials. But criminals tend to lock-on to something that's good for their trade, just like everyone else. It's more efficient that way. High crime isn't run much differently than a company--and more death/drugs/profit per dollar invested is the major desire.
In my opinion, I feel that a disposable phone makes a criminal's life easier. And that's not something I have an issue with. But, here in the US at least, some people are really going to get unhappy when they find out that the next bin Laden (or whoever) attack is coordinated via disposable phones (instead of the regular ones that the 9/11 attacks were coordinated with).
Hell, I'm not saying that disposable phones are going to cause terrorism or crime. I'm merely answering the question as to who would most benefit from these types of phones. Clearly, in my opinion, criminals have the most to gain from this. That's not going to stop me from buying one if "real" ones ever make it to market, though.
Disposable phones are perfect for a terrorist, drug dealer, or other criminal. Simply go to Wal-Mart ot Target, pay cash for the phone and the minutes, and leave. Or have one of your "associates" do the purchase so that you're not on the store cameras. Currently, someone has to use a credit card and pay some money to sign of for service--that's not difficult to do but does present some barrier.
I'm not trying to troll here--it's just that a disposable phone is ideal for someone trying to remain anonymous and under the radar of the authorities. That's a huge advantage.
Myself, I have thought that I would like a mobile phone--but I'm not willing to pay upwards of $150 for a phone plus the monthly contract. And I'm all about pre-paying because I don't plan to use the phone much anyways. A disposable phone with 60 minutes would likely last me a year. At that point, I think I should be allowed to toss the thing since I know many people who get new phones every year at the $300 price tag. I doubt much of this will ever see the light of day, though, since the possibilities for criminals are huge.
It shouldn't take IBM, et al, long to start running ads that show an MS-only shop having all the boxes go down simultaneously. Then, the CIO goes looking for who can get things fixed, he can only find clowns in the IT department saying "maybe we should just hit all the reset buttons." Maybe dressing the fools up like clowns would make the point that much better.
*sigh* Everyone knows you get what you pay for. Expensive employees generally pull their weight. A clown that only knows MS products isn't much better than a trained monkey.
Of course, I think MS has a place in businesses--just like *nix. Companies really should diversify their operationing systems so that they can take full advantages of each. MS Win2K just isn't as good of a webserver, for example, as many of the *nixes. And a Win2K Server is nice for tying together a bunch of Windows workstations. Exploit the advantages of each.