It's a bit worse than that in fact. 2KWh is actually the amount of energy discharged electrically. In fact the flywheel has quite a bit more energy than that - 150 pounds going at 700m/s are the figures they quote on the site, which equates to 16MJ or 3.5KG of TNT.
Wake me up again when a decent polarized LCD display comes along. I don't like the idea of a display that is this sensitive to where you put your head relative to it.
The other alternative which still seems more attractive to me is LCD shutter glasses - with CRT displays and video cards starting to push 120Hz refresh rates at reasonable resolution it becomes more and more feasable.
The simple fact of non-head-mounted stereo displays which do not require glasses to separate out the left and right images is that if you move your head from the correct position so that your left eye moves to where your right eye was, your left eye will be seeing the wrong image...
In the current intellectual property model, virtually all software is developed for commercial incentive. The particular areas of software you mention are ones where the commercial incentive is very very much greater for writing on the Windows platform, but the big commercial players can't keep up with Microsoft for the reasons I previously outlined. The sheer numbers of programmers that Microsoft and others playing in the Windows software market can afford to throw at their projects because the user base is so large means that they probably won't be as good.
In reality I'm sure a lot of people would still take issue with your assertion that Microsoft's products in those areas are any good anyway - I personally believe Microsoft Office in particular is one of the most catastrophic failures in usability I have ever seen, and unfortunately its ubiquity means it has spawned more imitations than it has efforts to revolutionise the genre. Office was playing catch-up with much better products on the market for years, and now the competitors have all but given up due essentially to Microsoft's operating system clout. I do believe that if Linux was now the operating system on every desktop, the vastly greater commercial developer incentive given by Linux's openness would mean we would now be using products which far exceed anything which Microsoft has the vision, skills or desire to produce.
In areas outside those you mention (e.g. databases, webservers, groupware, middleware, directory services, file servers, development environments etc.) where it is less the case that virtually everyone will dismiss everything except a Windows solution, Microsoft does less well, certainly in terms of product quality (most of their best technologies in these areas are those of companies they have bought out anyway) and in many of them in terms of market share, at least with big customers. I'm sure given enough time and enough apathy from consumers and business alike Microsoft will be able to stifle the competition in these areas too though, and then we can look forwards to the kind of featuritis, code bloat and stagnating of innovation in these areas that we've seen in the other areas which Microsoft dominates.
Personally, I think much of the above banter somewhat misses the point and also that US anti-trust legislation may well not be enough to sort it all out...
The problem with the Microsoft situation (as I see it), is that Microsoft integrates its application products into the operating system by using closed APIs, libraries, file formats, protocols etc. etc. etc.. Even if the standards are open, Microsoft has the power to change them at any time and thus break any product it sees fit to break. All it has to do is write such a product itself and it can stop anyone from ever buying the rival product (essentially by giving everyone no choice but to buy their own - once you've bought Microsoft's, what's the point of buying another one as well?) This sort of thing we've seen happen time and time again - you only have to look at the amount of stuff you're buying when you get Windows 2000 server to see what's going on (or even perhaps the existence of Windows 2000 server is the prime example - how did Microsoft ever get its foot in the door of the server market in the first place?)
Worse still, once Microsoft has great enough control over established standards (even standards like RFCs) it might find it has maneouvred itself into a position where it has enough power to pull such standards out from under our feet.
Sure, some of the Microsoft products are better. However, if it is better, it's because Microsoft has closed out the relevent Windows specs to its rivals while giving its own developer teams the benefit of priveleged access. If Microsoft's competitors had the same access to Windows' internal specs as Microsoft itself did then the software would probably be fairly pants compared to the competition.
Working the other way, Microsoft's application developers have more say than their competitors as to what libraries and APIs actually go into Windows (perhaps for performance gains they could get bits of their software stuffed into the kernel). Developer competition just doesn't have a hope of fighting this kind of thing.
In a nutshell, a closed operating system is what causes the monopoly and most of the malaise of the computer industry today. Breaking up Microsoft won't help because the operating systems division would just, over time, become the new Microsoft. Some kind of legislation might be the answer, but anti-trust isn't the one.
"I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it in some seedy space rangers' bar. I go around gratuitously shooting people and then agonizing about it to my girlfriend afterwards."
"And I write novels."
"Yeah, he writes 'em in crayon."
"But I haven't had any of them published yet, so I'd better warn you, I'm in a mean mood."
I've actually been there, and although the Hall of Hacks was good, there's also a lot of other extremely cool stuff there - it's worth a visit for any Slashdot reader.
You could equally argue that the thief who steals the physical article wouldn't have bought it, and CDs only cost a tiny amount to make. I realise of course that the shop may have paid a fair amount for the CD, but consider a single organisation which makes and retails CDs from studio to finished product - would you not agree that they have just as much right to prosecute a thief?
The crime here is that a group of people have created information content and laid down legally-binding conditions on its use - according to copyright law, it is their right to do that. You cannot agree with that and disagree with the practice of enforcing that law. If you disagree with the principal of copyright law, then we have a different argument on our hands...
By the way, I omitted the artist from the list of people who benefit as he probably gets the least... And I forgot about him. How easy it is to do that!
But just as a person stealing a CD from a shop loses the shop $12, a person copying a CD from his friend costs the record producer, publisher and the retail outlets a combined total of $11.70 (the physical object being worth maybe $0.30). Why do these organisations not have a right to go after the pirate just as much as the shop has the right to go after the thief?
Surely the whole point of arguments about intellectual property and electronic freedom is not that intellectual property shouldn't exist and that everyone has a right to rip off artist's work, but that technical systems which attempt to 'enforce' the laws hinder legitimate use of technology and make life worse for everyone (except the suits with their fingers in the pie).
Thus efforts like SDMI, shutting down Napster and restricting the user's ability to access and use the data they have in their possession in any way they see fit within the spirit of copyright law are a Bad Thing. Charging extra for SCMS audio CDs is a Bad Thing - I personally don't like the fact that if I buy a CD to do live recordings onto a budget CD recorder then I have to pay extra for the medium because it is assumed that I will put it to criminal use. These 'solutions' do nothing to solve the problem whilst creating complexity and hindering legitimate use.
But if you want any records or music or studios at all, somebody has to pay for it - copyright law itself is not a Bad Thing, and as such, I am personally in favour of zero-tolerance legislation to permit the enforcement of copyright law. I am led to wonder why record companies don't seem to be pressing this line particularly hard. I suspect the massive profits to be made from copyright 'protection' systems have something to do with it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a bit worse than that in fact. 2KWh is actually the amount of energy discharged electrically. In fact the flywheel has quite a bit more energy than that - 150 pounds going at 700m/s are the figures they quote on the site, which equates to 16MJ or 3.5KG of TNT.
Wake me up again when a decent polarized LCD display comes along. I don't like the idea of a display that is this sensitive to where you put your head relative to it.
The other alternative which still seems more attractive to me is LCD shutter glasses - with CRT displays and video cards starting to push 120Hz refresh rates at reasonable resolution it becomes more and more feasable.
The simple fact of non-head-mounted stereo displays which do not require glasses to separate out the left and right images is that if you move your head from the correct position so that your left eye moves to where your right eye was, your left eye will be seeing the wrong image...
Roll on 60Hz 3D IMAX.
In reality I'm sure a lot of people would still take issue with your assertion that Microsoft's products in those areas are any good anyway - I personally believe Microsoft Office in particular is one of the most catastrophic failures in usability I have ever seen, and unfortunately its ubiquity means it has spawned more imitations than it has efforts to revolutionise the genre. Office was playing catch-up with much better products on the market for years, and now the competitors have all but given up due essentially to Microsoft's operating system clout. I do believe that if Linux was now the operating system on every desktop, the vastly greater commercial developer incentive given by Linux's openness would mean we would now be using products which far exceed anything which Microsoft has the vision, skills or desire to produce.
In areas outside those you mention (e.g. databases, webservers, groupware, middleware, directory services, file servers, development environments etc.) where it is less the case that virtually everyone will dismiss everything except a Windows solution, Microsoft does less well, certainly in terms of product quality (most of their best technologies in these areas are those of companies they have bought out anyway) and in many of them in terms of market share, at least with big customers. I'm sure given enough time and enough apathy from consumers and business alike Microsoft will be able to stifle the competition in these areas too though, and then we can look forwards to the kind of featuritis, code bloat and stagnating of innovation in these areas that we've seen in the other areas which Microsoft dominates.
Manouevred, sorry.
The problem with the Microsoft situation (as I see it), is that Microsoft integrates its application products into the operating system by using closed APIs, libraries, file formats, protocols etc. etc. etc.. Even if the standards are open, Microsoft has the power to change them at any time and thus break any product it sees fit to break. All it has to do is write such a product itself and it can stop anyone from ever buying the rival product (essentially by giving everyone no choice but to buy their own - once you've bought Microsoft's, what's the point of buying another one as well?) This sort of thing we've seen happen time and time again - you only have to look at the amount of stuff you're buying when you get Windows 2000 server to see what's going on (or even perhaps the existence of Windows 2000 server is the prime example - how did Microsoft ever get its foot in the door of the server market in the first place?)
Worse still, once Microsoft has great enough control over established standards (even standards like RFCs) it might find it has maneouvred itself into a position where it has enough power to pull such standards out from under our feet.
Sure, some of the Microsoft products are better. However, if it is better, it's because Microsoft has closed out the relevent Windows specs to its rivals while giving its own developer teams the benefit of priveleged access. If Microsoft's competitors had the same access to Windows' internal specs as Microsoft itself did then the software would probably be fairly pants compared to the competition.
Working the other way, Microsoft's application developers have more say than their competitors as to what libraries and APIs actually go into Windows (perhaps for performance gains they could get bits of their software stuffed into the kernel). Developer competition just doesn't have a hope of fighting this kind of thing.
In a nutshell, a closed operating system is what causes the monopoly and most of the malaise of the computer industry today. Breaking up Microsoft won't help because the operating systems division would just, over time, become the new Microsoft. Some kind of legislation might be the answer, but anti-trust isn't the one.
"I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then bragging about it in some seedy space rangers' bar. I go around gratuitously shooting people and then agonizing about it to my girlfriend afterwards."
"And I write novels."
"Yeah, he writes 'em in crayon."
"But I haven't had any of them published yet, so I'd better warn you, I'm in a mean mood."
I await an e-mail from the BBC's lawyers.
I've actually been there, and although the Hall of Hacks was good, there's also a lot of other extremely cool stuff there - it's worth a visit for any Slashdot reader.
What is the difference between an NNTP server which caches newsgroup content for local download and a web proxy in this regard?
So you are saying that the principal of copyright is totally against public opinion?
I would like to see you quote a survey that shows that to be the case.
You could equally argue that the thief who steals the physical article wouldn't have bought it, and CDs only cost a tiny amount to make. I realise of course that the shop may have paid a fair amount for the CD, but consider a single organisation which makes and retails CDs from studio to finished product - would you not agree that they have just as much right to prosecute a thief?
The crime here is that a group of people have created information content and laid down legally-binding conditions on its use - according to copyright law, it is their right to do that. You cannot agree with that and disagree with the practice of enforcing that law. If you disagree with the principal of copyright law, then we have a different argument on our hands...
By the way, I omitted the artist from the list of people who benefit as he probably gets the least... And I forgot about him. How easy it is to do that!
But just as a person stealing a CD from a shop loses the shop $12, a person copying a CD from his friend costs the record producer, publisher and the retail outlets a combined total of $11.70 (the physical object being worth maybe $0.30). Why do these organisations not have a right to go after the pirate just as much as the shop has the right to go after the thief?
Surely the whole point of arguments about intellectual property and electronic freedom is not that intellectual property shouldn't exist and that everyone has a right to rip off artist's work, but that technical systems which attempt to 'enforce' the laws hinder legitimate use of technology and make life worse for everyone (except the suits with their fingers in the pie). Thus efforts like SDMI, shutting down Napster and restricting the user's ability to access and use the data they have in their possession in any way they see fit within the spirit of copyright law are a Bad Thing. Charging extra for SCMS audio CDs is a Bad Thing - I personally don't like the fact that if I buy a CD to do live recordings onto a budget CD recorder then I have to pay extra for the medium because it is assumed that I will put it to criminal use. These 'solutions' do nothing to solve the problem whilst creating complexity and hindering legitimate use. But if you want any records or music or studios at all, somebody has to pay for it - copyright law itself is not a Bad Thing, and as such, I am personally in favour of zero-tolerance legislation to permit the enforcement of copyright law. I am led to wonder why record companies don't seem to be pressing this line particularly hard. I suspect the massive profits to be made from copyright 'protection' systems have something to do with it.