With good farming practices like what are seen in the US... We don't want more land to go to farming...
What about all the incentives, subsidies and wasted crops we always hear about artificially prop up the farming industry in the US? Doesn't that somehow imply at least some excess capacity for fuel crops?
Everything done at NASA (or any funded laboratory) is subject to political pressure. The agency is funded by tax dollars, which are controlled by political, not market, forces.
Not to nitpick, but this is technically not true. The fireball was not causally related to the breakup of the shuttle and the crew deaths. The two events did arise from the same cause, a component failure, and hence are completely related.
Nitpicking again, but your Katrina analogy is a bad one. The cat-5 storm CAUSED the surge which CAUSED the levies to damage which CAUSED flooding and destruction. Just because another random event could be potentially be capable of starting off the same chain of events, under different circumstances does not change causation. Kind of a "guns don't kill people, blood lose and organ damage from bullet holes do" arguement.
Thats funny you mention that, because my brother just got one of those FW/USB2 DV cams and guess what: we couldn't successfully transfer video at full resolution under USB2. He bought a FW card for $20 and it works great.
The FW exclusion from iPods is a different matter in that Apple is trying to appeal to the masses, who happen to be windows users and don't have FW.
FW800 is not compatible with FW400 and simply never really caught on. FW400 is however quite popular, although not as popular as USB(1 or 2). So the exclusion of FW800 in a notebook, where space is at such a premium, is not really a surprise. I wouldn't expect USB2 to take a hold in DV camera space, especially as we migrate to HD resolutions. FW400 might get pushed out in favor of HDMI or another high bandwidth standard, but not in 2006.
It's clear Apple is downplaying Firewire, quite possibly planning to drop it as a standard feature some time in the next few years, but they haven't gone the whole way yet.
I don't think FW400 is going away any time soon, at least as long as FW400 is THE interface for DV cameras.
The problem with the OPs complaint is that "Ambient" is not a Genre of music. It is a sub-genre. I agree that CDDB (or equivalent) queries often turn up odd or out of place genre.
The classification of music into a particular "genre" depends on the individuals perception as well as the size and nature of his collection. Solutions to this problem have mostly been one-size-fits-all compromises with limited choices for categories. I think iTMS uses like 10-15 categories, stores like Best Buy use a very broad system in their stores (Rock, Rap, Jazz, Soundtracks) and smaller specialty stores take a much narrower approach. All are trying to suit their specific audiences. The point of sorting your personal music collection by genre is to make it easy for you and your friends to find what you are looking for by browsing.
The casual electronica fan with maybe 5 such albums, is satisfied with a general "electronica" label for that music, while the die-hard fan with a large collection needs further differentiation into sub-genre and styles. The same goes for any die-hard indie-rock-, hip-hop-, or jazz fans. I think the AMG system offers a good attempt by providing a lot of information about the musical style of an album. They provide a broad "genre", several "styles" and several "moods". This information should all be stuffed into the ID3 tags of the tracks. Think multiple "lables" ala gmail. An artist, album, and track could have many different labels describing the music. A better solution would be wiki-based service which uses tiered descriptive labels (genre, sub-genre, styles, moods...) (similar to AMG) for the artist, album and track.
All this information might be overkill, but good software should be able to sort it through the junk and present the user with his music in a way that is useful to him. If all the music in my collection is represented by 1 or 2 broad genre, then it is not useful to display 2 choices say "rock" or "electronica". It is more useful for the software to present me with about 10 choices, sub-dividing my collection into distinct sub-genre or styles where appropriate. The software should be able to make choices about which sub-genre to use based on the labels in the ID3 tag. If a particular label is very common in the collection, say "emo" or "dark ambient" it should make the cut as a sub-genre for navigation purposes. Less common labels can be ignored until the collection grows and it becomes common enough to be useful. This way both broad and narrow groupings can be used to present a user's music collection in a useful, easy to browse, manner. Furthermore, there is no reason an album can't be listed in multiple categories in a directory.
You had me until......the BSOD is virtually gone...
It's a big job making Windows stable, compatible and secure, and it has gotten progressively better, but the BSOD is far from extinct, its not even endangered.
Labels make money on *STARS* and their fans
on
The Odds at Macworld
·
· Score: 1
The music industry is looking INSANELY greedy with this move. I hope Apple holds out and holds their feet to the fire.
The problem (from the music label perspective) with the iTMS (or any a-la-carte) distribution system is that it forces them to re-write their business model. Labels make money on *stars* and their fans through CDs, merch, concerts...
Under the tried-and-true model (pre-1996) the Bob pays $15-20 (album price) for 1-3 hit songs, and the label gives Bob the rest of the album for free, hoping to make Bob a fan, and the artist a star. Repeat, Profit! Under a-la-carte (iTMS), the Bob pays $2 for 2 hits, no fans, no stars. The labels are hoping to get back to the way things were, by charging Bob a premium for the hits, a discount for the other songs and the same price for the album. They still want to make Bob a fan and the artist a star.
Maybe its time to adapt strategies? Diversify, volume, profit!
Firstly, the fibers and lasers here have nothing to do with LASIK. Since your cornea is on the outside of your body, a fiber is not used.
Secondly, the these hollow fibers are designed for use in the mid-IR (CO2 laser @10.6m typically) for minimally invasive procedures where the fiber is inserted into the body through a small incision. The fiber is guided through and around obstacles, often times through arteries and into the heart, so the laser can ablate some tissue. Fiber failure is a very real concern in such procedures. Bear in mind, these fibers are not at all similar to the kind used in telecom or shorter wavelength procedures. They have a hollow core and use non-oxide films containing toxic elements (like As, Se, Te, Ge) to confine the laser light. So in addition to ablating the wrong tissue, toxic elements are released into the body should one of these fibers fail in use.
Thirdly, this particular type of fiber (at least the version without the wires in it) made by MIT/omni-guide has been used in I think 3 human trials. The technology is advancing but is in its infancy. This version of the fiber offers pre-failure detection at the fiber (not cable) level. This is really a huge advantage.
Public education is so crucial to our society that it should be set by the people or their duly elected representatives, not some unelected technocracy
Healthcare is important too, so I guess the people or their elected representatives should decide details of medical procedures, not doctors (unelected experts).
Even in a democracy, some things are best left to experts.
Comcast will offer the show from after it first airs until the next episode airs, ie typically one week. Your $0.99 only buys you a 24hr viewing window for that program. During that time you may watch it multiple times if you wish.
"...Each episode will cost 99 cents, and customers will be able to view the episodes anytime they want for up to 24 hours from the time they order them..."
This process produces solid waste in the form of metal oxides, not making any oxygen.
So when you fill-er-up, you would actually be exchanging the spent fuel (metal oxide) for new fuel (metal wire). Water from exhaust gases would be probably recycled in the car.
I think for users (like myself) who work on multiple machines and OSs (XP, linux, OS X), in multiple locations (home, work, library, friend or relative's house...) web apps are a very good idea. To work on your data, you only need a browser and internet connection. You don't need to carry a memory stick with data on it, or cd's with software to install, or your own laptop etc. The collaboration aspects are interesting as well.
As consumer broadband becomes more popular, I think things like this will begin to make even more sense. The requirements to get stuff done (browser and net connection) are almost standard equipment already.
They *could* get into making cell phones or PDAs, which is what most of the Apple faithful would instantly lust for. But consider Apple's moves with PCs, iPods and iTMS. Each of these represent seperate markets but also a convergence market. Now consider the introduction of iTunes mobile, on a single phone, on a single carrier, limited to 100 songs and bound to iTunes on a PC. The functionality of this thing is a bit stale, but it is the convergence through branding that they are testing.
What happens if the demand for ROKR exceeds all expectations? Handset companies will want to license iTunes mobile from Apple which earns them a few $$ but more importantly further extends the reach of iTunes and (via tie-ins) the other Apple markets (PCs and iTMS and possibly iPods). The iTunes mobile software then gets a bump in song capacity while lower capacity versions trickle down market to cheaper phones. Apple gains some strength in the mobile world and gets some more say in the design of phones (or maybe designs some higher end models in-house). Sooner or later iTunes mobile gets access to a subset of iTMS which sells ringtones (also available on the main iTMS) and eventually full-blown iTMS (through possible loss agreements with wireless carriers)
Could the ROKR and future iTunes mobile phones succeed? Consider your average iPod user. He has a PC (XP or mac), uses iTunes to manage his entire music collection, and occasionally purchases songs from iTMS. He carries his iPod almost everywhere, but he also has a cell phone, which he carries everywhere, and typically replaces every 2 years as it gets stale and the batteries no longer hold a charge. (Given contract discounts and the physical abuse they tend to see, cell phones are pretty disposable these days, and replacements/upgrades are frequent) Now is Mr iPod user going to be interested in replacing his phone with one which has or lacks iTunes mobile? What is iTunes mobile worth to him? That is the edge on which the success of this thing pivots.
If the ROKR flops? Apple might listen to critics and try to innovate with their own iPhone designs. But will wireless carriers gamble on that? Or will they even permit such a thing? Why didn't Apple introduce their own drool-worthy iPhone device already? I suspect it would be a huge gamble that it wouldn't be warmly welcomed by the wireless carriers or consumers (it would be pretty expensive even by mac standards). With a ROKR flop, the damage is contained as the big label on top says motorola and the sticker says cingular, but an iPhone flop could end up hurting Apple's image and core businesses.
The iPhone I want is nothing more than a CDMA radio and antenna jammed inside the iPod (mini, nano or regular). OK Bluetooth would be nice too;)
Why the hell is/. linking to articles on CoolTechZone anyway? Everything there seems like it was written by seventh graders. Haven't we learned anything from the is-it-wrong-to-love-microsoft "story"?
Um, Intelligent Design and Creationism are two completely different ideas.
Only if by completely different you mean one exists solely to lend credence to the other. ID is one scheme for justifying life and the universe, which *allows* (but does not require) Creationism to be the mechanism by which things came to be, while specifically denying possibility of evolution by natural selection.
ID only exists because, through its requirement of an interested god, it permits creationism, without preference to which brand of creator or god. However, through very careful ommission of the G* word, modern day religous crusaders argue that ID is science not religion and thus belongs in public schools, as a subversive way to advance teaching of religion in schools.
wrong. the touch sensitive bit is not binary. it is a capacitance sensor which reacts to the amount of surface and force you use. simply resting both fingers on the mouse won't confuse it. you need to apply uneven force to the sensor while activating the microswitch (clicking).
Is it more complicated engineering than a standard multi-button mouse? Yes. Does it react in the same way? Pretty much Yes. Is it different? Yes.
In typical apple fashion, it is over-engineered, for UI and appearance reasons. It also just works.
It is not clear on the main page, but on the tech specs page, it is referred to as a "full-body button" which is exactly what they call the system in the current zero-button mouse (rocking microswitch).
The microswitch registers the click, like the current mouse. The touch sensitive bit is to determine which of the 3 buttons you click (L, R, ball). QED
Fourth button is a squeezing action registered by pressure sensitive tabs on the sides, so you can still click-and-hold like before, without registering a button-4 click.
"Up to four programmable buttons: full-body button with touch-sensitive technology beneath for left-, right- and Scroll Ball clicking. Force-sensing side buttons."
That "full-body button" bit is the same thing as in the current zero-button mouse. The "capacitive sensors" determine "where your fingers are" ie which finger does the clicking, but the clicking is done via a full-body microswitch for the same tactile feel apple users are used to.
Slashdot Mirror
With good farming practices like what are seen in the US... We don't want more land to go to farming...
What about all the incentives, subsidies and wasted crops we always hear about artificially prop up the farming industry in the US? Doesn't that somehow imply at least some excess capacity for fuel crops?
why is this not modded up yet?
Everything done at NASA (or any funded laboratory) is subject to political pressure. The agency is funded by tax dollars, which are controlled by political, not market, forces.
Re: ...It was completely unrelated...
Not to nitpick, but this is technically not true. The fireball was not causally related to the breakup of the shuttle and the crew deaths. The two events did arise from the same cause, a component failure, and hence are completely related.
Nitpicking again, but your Katrina analogy is a bad one. The cat-5 storm CAUSED the surge which CAUSED the levies to damage which CAUSED flooding and destruction. Just because another random event could be potentially be capable of starting off the same chain of events, under different circumstances does not change causation. Kind of a "guns don't kill people, blood lose and organ damage from bullet holes do" arguement.
DV cameras are migrating to USB.
Thats funny you mention that, because my brother just got one of those FW/USB2 DV cams and guess what: we couldn't successfully transfer video at full resolution under USB2. He bought a FW card for $20 and it works great.
The FW exclusion from iPods is a different matter in that Apple is trying to appeal to the masses, who happen to be windows users and don't have FW.
FW800 is not compatible with FW400 and simply never really caught on. FW400 is however quite popular, although not as popular as USB(1 or 2). So the exclusion of FW800 in a notebook, where space is at such a premium, is not really a surprise. I wouldn't expect USB2 to take a hold in DV camera space, especially as we migrate to HD resolutions. FW400 might get pushed out in favor of HDMI or another high bandwidth standard, but not in 2006.
It's clear Apple is downplaying Firewire, quite possibly planning to drop it as a standard feature some time in the next few years, but they haven't gone the whole way yet.
I don't think FW400 is going away any time soon, at least as long as FW400 is THE interface for DV cameras.
Agreed.
The problem with the OPs complaint is that "Ambient" is not a Genre of music. It is a sub-genre. I agree that CDDB (or equivalent) queries often turn up odd or out of place genre.
The classification of music into a particular "genre" depends on the individuals perception as well as the size and nature of his collection. Solutions to this problem have mostly been one-size-fits-all compromises with limited choices for categories. I think iTMS uses like 10-15 categories, stores like Best Buy use a very broad system in their stores (Rock, Rap, Jazz, Soundtracks) and smaller specialty stores take a much narrower approach. All are trying to suit their specific audiences. The point of sorting your personal music collection by genre is to make it easy for you and your friends to find what you are looking for by browsing.
The casual electronica fan with maybe 5 such albums, is satisfied with a general "electronica" label for that music, while the die-hard fan with a large collection needs further differentiation into sub-genre and styles. The same goes for any die-hard indie-rock-, hip-hop-, or jazz fans. I think the AMG system offers a good attempt by providing a lot of information about the musical style of an album. They provide a broad "genre", several "styles" and several "moods". This information should all be stuffed into the ID3 tags of the tracks. Think multiple "lables" ala gmail. An artist, album, and track could have many different labels describing the music. A better solution would be wiki-based service which uses tiered descriptive labels (genre, sub-genre, styles, moods...) (similar to AMG) for the artist, album and track.
All this information might be overkill, but good software should be able to sort it through the junk and present the user with his music in a way that is useful to him. If all the music in my collection is represented by 1 or 2 broad genre, then it is not useful to display 2 choices say "rock" or "electronica". It is more useful for the software to present me with about 10 choices, sub-dividing my collection into distinct sub-genre or styles where appropriate. The software should be able to make choices about which sub-genre to use based on the labels in the ID3 tag. If a particular label is very common in the collection, say "emo" or "dark ambient" it should make the cut as a sub-genre for navigation purposes. Less common labels can be ignored until the collection grows and it becomes common enough to be useful. This way both broad and narrow groupings can be used to present a user's music collection in a useful, easy to browse, manner. Furthermore, there is no reason an album can't be listed in multiple categories in a directory.
It should all be done in software.
You had me until... ...the BSOD is virtually gone...
It's a big job making Windows stable, compatible and secure, and it has gotten progressively better, but the BSOD is far from extinct, its not even endangered.
The music industry is looking INSANELY greedy with this move. I hope Apple holds out and holds their feet to the fire.
The problem (from the music label perspective) with the iTMS (or any a-la-carte) distribution system is that it forces them to re-write their business model. Labels make money on *stars* and their fans through CDs, merch, concerts...
Under the tried-and-true model (pre-1996) the Bob pays $15-20 (album price) for 1-3 hit songs, and the label gives Bob the rest of the album for free, hoping to make Bob a fan, and the artist a star. Repeat, Profit! Under a-la-carte (iTMS), the Bob pays $2 for 2 hits, no fans, no stars. The labels are hoping to get back to the way things were, by charging Bob a premium for the hits, a discount for the other songs and the same price for the album. They still want to make Bob a fan and the artist a star.
Maybe its time to adapt strategies?
Diversify, volume, profit!
Firstly, the fibers and lasers here have nothing to do with LASIK. Since your cornea is on the outside of your body, a fiber is not used.
Secondly, the these hollow fibers are designed for use in the mid-IR (CO2 laser @10.6m typically) for minimally invasive procedures where the fiber is inserted into the body through a small incision. The fiber is guided through and around obstacles, often times through arteries and into the heart, so the laser can ablate some tissue. Fiber failure is a very real concern in such procedures. Bear in mind, these fibers are not at all similar to the kind used in telecom or shorter wavelength procedures. They have a hollow core and use non-oxide films containing toxic elements (like As, Se, Te, Ge) to confine the laser light. So in addition to ablating the wrong tissue, toxic elements are released into the body should one of these fibers fail in use.
Thirdly, this particular type of fiber (at least the version without the wires in it) made by MIT/omni-guide has been used in I think 3 human trials. The technology is advancing but is in its infancy. This version of the fiber offers pre-failure detection at the fiber (not cable) level. This is really a huge advantage.
Public education is so crucial to our society that it should be set by the people or their duly elected representatives, not some unelected technocracy
Healthcare is important too, so I guess the people or their elected representatives should decide details of medical procedures, not doctors (unelected experts).
Even in a democracy, some things are best left to experts.
Rental schemes in the music industry have yet to take off
I guess the whole video rental thing (VHS/DVD/VoD) hasn't a chance then...
Not quite.
= 19
Comcast will offer the show from after it first airs until the next episode airs, ie typically one week.
Your $0.99 only buys you a 24hr viewing window for that program. During that time you may watch it multiple times if you wish.
"...Each episode will cost 99 cents, and customers will be able to view the episodes anytime they want for up to 24 hours from the time they order them..."
from the much more informative article here: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051107/phm046.html?.v
...presumably with the oxygen you make...
Mg + H2O = MgO + H2
Al + 3/2 H2O = 1/2 Al2O3 + 3/2 H2
This process produces solid waste in the form of metal oxides, not making any oxygen.
So when you fill-er-up, you would actually be exchanging the spent fuel (metal oxide) for new fuel (metal wire). Water from exhaust gases would be probably recycled in the car.
Right.
/= transparent Al /= transparent Si /= liquid H2
Anyone who's taken 8th grade chemistry should understand the difference between elements and compounds.
Al2O3, AlON
SiO2
H2O
This, like every transparent Al story on here should be under the "laugh its funny" category, not science.
sure it is, in the same way water is liquid hydrogen
I think for users (like myself) who work on multiple machines and OSs (XP, linux, OS X), in multiple locations (home, work, library, friend or relative's house...) web apps are a very good idea. To work on your data, you only need a browser and internet connection. You don't need to carry a memory stick with data on it, or cd's with software to install, or your own laptop etc. The collaboration aspects are interesting as well.
As consumer broadband becomes more popular, I think things like this will begin to make even more sense. The requirements to get stuff done (browser and net connection) are almost standard equipment already.
"Do you want one device that cooks your meals, washes the dishes AND entertains you while you eat?"
You must'nt be married.
They *could* get into making cell phones or PDAs, which is what most of the Apple faithful would instantly lust for. But consider Apple's moves with PCs, iPods and iTMS. Each of these represent seperate markets but also a convergence market. Now consider the introduction of iTunes mobile, on a single phone, on a single carrier, limited to 100 songs and bound to iTunes on a PC. The functionality of this thing is a bit stale, but it is the convergence through branding that they are testing.
;)
What happens if the demand for ROKR exceeds all expectations? Handset companies will want to license iTunes mobile from Apple which earns them a few $$ but more importantly further extends the reach of iTunes and (via tie-ins) the other Apple markets (PCs and iTMS and possibly iPods). The iTunes mobile software then gets a bump in song capacity while lower capacity versions trickle down market to cheaper phones. Apple gains some strength in the mobile world and gets some more say in the design of phones (or maybe designs some higher end models in-house). Sooner or later iTunes mobile gets access to a subset of iTMS which sells ringtones (also available on the main iTMS) and eventually full-blown iTMS (through possible loss agreements with wireless carriers)
Could the ROKR and future iTunes mobile phones succeed? Consider your average iPod user. He has a PC (XP or mac), uses iTunes to manage his entire music collection, and occasionally purchases songs from iTMS. He carries his iPod almost everywhere, but he also has a cell phone, which he carries everywhere, and typically replaces every 2 years as it gets stale and the batteries no longer hold a charge. (Given contract discounts and the physical abuse they tend to see, cell phones are pretty disposable these days, and replacements/upgrades are frequent) Now is Mr iPod user going to be interested in replacing his phone with one which has or lacks iTunes mobile? What is iTunes mobile worth to him? That is the edge on which the success of this thing pivots.
If the ROKR flops? Apple might listen to critics and try to innovate with their own iPhone designs. But will wireless carriers gamble on that? Or will they even permit such a thing? Why didn't Apple introduce their own drool-worthy iPhone device already? I suspect it would be a huge gamble that it wouldn't be warmly welcomed by the wireless carriers or consumers (it would be pretty expensive even by mac standards). With a ROKR flop, the damage is contained as the big label on top says motorola and the sticker says cingular, but an iPhone flop could end up hurting Apple's image and core businesses.
The iPhone I want is nothing more than a CDMA radio and antenna jammed inside the iPod (mini, nano or regular). OK Bluetooth would be nice too
Why the hell is /. linking to articles on CoolTechZone anyway? Everything there seems like it was written by seventh graders. Haven't we learned anything from the is-it-wrong-to-love-microsoft "story"?
Maybe the universe is just recursive?
Seriously though, God does have an intelligent designer: MAN.
Um, Intelligent Design and Creationism are two completely different ideas.
Only if by completely different you mean one exists solely to lend credence to the other. ID is one scheme for justifying life and the universe, which *allows* (but does not require) Creationism to be the mechanism by which things came to be, while specifically denying possibility of evolution by natural selection.
ID only exists because, through its requirement of an interested god, it permits creationism, without preference to which brand of creator or god. However, through very careful ommission of the G* word, modern day religous crusaders argue that ID is science not religion and thus belongs in public schools, as a subversive way to advance teaching of religion in schools.
wrong. the touch sensitive bit is not binary. it is a capacitance sensor which reacts to the amount of surface and force you use. simply resting both fingers on the mouse won't confuse it. you need to apply uneven force to the sensor while activating the microswitch (clicking).
Is it more complicated engineering than a standard multi-button mouse? Yes. Does it react in the same way? Pretty much Yes. Is it different? Yes.
In typical apple fashion, it is over-engineered, for UI and appearance reasons. It also just works.
It is not clear on the main page, but on the tech specs page, it is referred to as a "full-body button" which is exactly what they call the system in the current zero-button mouse (rocking microswitch).
The microswitch registers the click, like the current mouse. The touch sensitive bit is to determine which of the 3 buttons you click (L, R, ball). QED
Fourth button is a squeezing action registered by pressure sensitive tabs on the sides, so you can still click-and-hold like before, without registering a button-4 click.
Sorry but you are miss-reading that...
from here
"Up to four programmable buttons: full-body button with touch-sensitive technology beneath for left-, right- and Scroll Ball clicking. Force-sensing side buttons."
That "full-body button" bit is the same thing as in the current zero-button mouse. The "capacitive sensors" determine "where your fingers are" ie which finger does the clicking, but the clicking is done via a full-body microswitch for the same tactile feel apple users are used to.