I'm embarrassed to admit that I still have a few 8-track tapes and a player in a box somewhere in my basement. Yes, I followed the latest hype when I was at an impressionable age, and I learned a valuable lesson. From my experience, here's what they would need to do to recreate the 8-track experience in digital form:
You would need to create a digital audio stream that is 45 minutes long. Filter out all frequencies below 400Hz or above 5KHz. Add -10dB of white noise. Randomly reshuffle the track order on the album, ignoring any segues between the songs.
Now split the stream into 4 equal segments. If this can't be done, pick random songs and split them in half with a 20-second silent gap. Otherwise, leave silent gaps of a minute or more to pad out the space. Disable any random access to the stream other than jumping between the 4 segments: You just have to listen 10 or more minutes at 1X speed to get to a particular song. Jumping shall be accompanied by the activation of a large mechanical solenoid and an associated EMP pulse that risks blowing out your speakers.
Next, process each segment to add in -10dB of bleed-through from corresponding position on the other segments.
Finally, the tracks need to be priced several dollars above competing formats, and protected by "Analog Rights Management". This involves stocking them in pricey strip-mall record stores in locked glass cases. The cases have holes so you can stick your hands in them and feel them, but you can't actually take it out until you track down one of the grumpy losers who works in the store to open the case.
Maybe so, but I bet that he doesn't waste all his time repeatedly poring over and cross indexing his old movies and TV episodes looking for irrelevant inconsistencies in plot continuity.
Yes, I think that the wisdom of William Shatner applies to this story (s/TV show/movie/g):
I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people? I mean, for crying out loud, it's just a TV show! I mean, look at you, look at the way you're dressed! You've turned an enjoyable little job, that I did as a lark for a few years, into a COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME!
[ a crowd of shocked and dismayed Trekkies.... ]
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves?
[ to "Ears" ] You, you must be almost 30... have you ever kissed a girl?
[ "Ears" hangs his head ]
I didn't think so! There's a whole world out there! When I was your age, I didn't watch television! I LIVED! So... move out of your parent's basements! And get your own apartments and GROW THE HELL UP! I mean, it's just a TV show dammit, IT'S JUST A TV SHOW!
I can think of several applications where having a "full-powered" computer in a car would be useful, not least of which is if you are on an automotive network (which doesn't really exist yet) and the environment requires high-grade encryption or other measures to provide the appropriate security. If the automotive network is P2P, lots of resources might be needed to make it work well.
Cars don't need a friggin P2P network. Here's what they do need: a driver who keeps his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Forget about the gadgets, toys, displays and phone. Pay attention and drive.
But that's progress. Now you can have a 3 Ghz pentium that will put out as much heat as that old vacuum tube based technology ever could.
It's hard to compete with vacuum tube computers for power consumption. Each of the 2 dozen-ish SAGE strategic command systems run by the US Air Force consumed more than a megawatt in order to provide the raw computational power of an 8086. (And they didn't unplug the last one until the 1980s.)
What struck me most about that article is how much inflation there's been in 50 years. Thats 700%! I don't know about you, but to me that's just insane.
Re:If You Want a Serious Answer... Don't Get Cute
on
Rob Pike Responds
·
· Score: 1
It's not a stupid analogy. Many software patent holders use it themselves. They argue something like "Sure these are terrible weapons, too horrible to actually use, and we don't like them, but we acquire them only for defense against others' patents. So it's ok." This argument is almost identical to that used by the various countries that have nuclear weapons.
I'm a big alloca user and I've yet to meet a c or c++ programmer who has even heard of it.
Maybe it's because the documentation for most every implementation of alloca says: "Don't use this function. It's nonstandard, nonportable, dangerous, broken, yada yada..."
No, the OP was correct. On a machine with a finite number of states, you just run the algorithm until it either halts or the machine repeats a state more than once. Since it only has a finite number of states, one of the two must happen within O(number of states). If any one state ever repeats, the machine will loop through the sequence between the repeats forever, and thus will not halt.
Since the number of states in a computer is at least 2^(number of bits in memory), this is not in general a practical approach. Nevertheless, it's not formally undecidable.
My cable box does that every couple of weeks to inform me that the next WWE smackdown is available on pay-per-view. Then I have to grab the remote and navigate through crappy UI drawn one pixel at a time by a lethargic 8-bit processor to turn off the damned blinking light.
I'd drop my cable company just because of that annoyance, but my satellite box did the same thing back when I had that. There's no way I'd pay for a computer that does that.
Come to think of it though, one square cm of electrical tape could solve the problem once and for all. I'm heading for the basement right now.
It might get interesting if the recent legislative proposals to grant copyright protection to mere accumulations of factual data get passed (or maybe they're already in force; I haven't kept track).
You could then claim that the personal information that you gave any particular company is a copyrighted database of one row. Scribble an EULA at the bottom of the form that grants them permission to use your data only for the direct purpose of the form, then, taking a cue from the RIAA, sue them for $1000 per unauthorized copy of your personal info.
I realize that it just stores the filename. That's why it's somewhat similar. Sometimes, however, just the name of a file can be sensitive information, like '2004Q4_staff_reduction.xls' for example.
Updatedb doesn't necessarily run as root. My machine defaulted with updatedb set to run as "nobody" out of the box. This automatically guarantees that it won't reveal any information that other people couldn't see anyway. My point was that a lot of systems allow rather liberal read access to users' account directories by default, and users should be aware of that.
The situation is somewhat similar with the Linux 'updatedb' and 'locate' built-in search facilities. On my box, by default, the scanner runs under the 'nobody' account. However, unless a user takes specific action to change it, their home directory is world-readable by default.
The default file permissions seem to vary by the app that created them. My.mozilla and.kde directories are not world-readable, so the web caches would not get scanned. However, plenty of other files are world-readable by default, along with most documents I create.
This general situation has been around for many years. If you do share a machine, it's probably just a good idea to learn about file permissions in general.
I seriously doubt it's "a weight, a spring and a switch". It's most likely a MEMS device like those used in airbag modules. Not NASA-designed, not even Lockheed-designed; simply purchased but used incorrectly.
They probably tried to save a few bucks by mail ordering the OEM version rather than the retail version. As a result, it's likely that the only documentation they got was a tiny slip of paper with a confusing international icon diagram and no text instructions whatsoever. It's not hard to see how that could result in a screwup.
The problem is that from the standpoint of the spacecraft, the "atmosphere up there" looks and feels like the flame of a welding torch. Creating turbulent flows with attempts to "feather" would just make it that much hotter and possibly shake the vehicle apart.
There's a reason that most every object that has been designed to survive orbital reentry has had a blunt shape and heavy shielding.
An airplane travels farther on a gallon of jet fuel than a diesel powered train does on a gallon.
That may be so, but the OP was talking about miles per gallon per ton. The largest trains have a cargo capacity hundreds of times greater than that of a 747. Large airplanes carry maximum payloads of 100 tons or more, but my Guinness Book of World Records says that the heaviest train was 47 kilotons. I guarantee that it wasn't sucking down fuel at the same rate as 400 747s.
As far as the car goes, idling has nothing to do with it. A Suburban might get 13 MPG highway. With six people on board, that's 78 MPG per person. Airliners just don't get that kind of mileage.
Flying on an airplane is more efficient in terms of gallons per ton-mile than any other form of transport.
Then why do they haul gravel on freight trains instead of airplanes? There is no way an airplane is more efficient than a train per ton-mile.
What are you suggesting, that instead of flying 300 people from LA to DC we should instead have 300 Suburbans driving all the way across the country?
If that were the only option, probably 250 of those trips would be cancelled. People would make do with phone calls or videoconferences rather than spend a week of their time driving across the country.
At any rate, IIRC an airliner gets somewhere around 25 passenger miles per gallon. Suburbans loaded with 6 passengers each would get considerably better mileage per person.
Some might say that they have been singly responsible for reeling in Inflation thru the 90's.
Maybe so. But they've also changed the marketplace so that lowest manufacturing cost is the only consideration for success. Consequently, they've created a gargantuan flood of imports that we've paid for with IOUs. Low inflation over the last 15 years has been bought on loan.
Since with current demographic trends we're never going to pay those IOUs off at current values, there's probably going to be a huge surge of inflation in the future while the government prints money to devalue our foreign debt. So really what WalMart is doing is just pushing the inevitable inflation into the future, where it's going to hit us all at once.
It's like they've handed us a credit card, and we as a nation have become lazy and quit working to earn the stuff we buy. We just keep charging more stuff on the credit card.
These RFID tags only identify you, they do not contain medical records.
But to achieve those goals, why bother with all of this newfangled high-tech? If you're just trying to get a unique id number that's conveniently attached to the person and readable from a short distance, why not just go with the simple and time-tested numeric wrist tattoo?
It's going to take some time to determine those properties. The researchers are proceeding very cautiously because they don't want to end up like Mikey, who was also working with gasses packed into a solidified form.
Slashdot Mirror
You would need to create a digital audio stream that is 45 minutes long. Filter out all frequencies below 400Hz or above 5KHz. Add -10dB of white noise. Randomly reshuffle the track order on the album, ignoring any segues between the songs.
Now split the stream into 4 equal segments. If this can't be done, pick random songs and split them in half with a 20-second silent gap. Otherwise, leave silent gaps of a minute or more to pad out the space. Disable any random access to the stream other than jumping between the 4 segments: You just have to listen 10 or more minutes at 1X speed to get to a particular song. Jumping shall be accompanied by the activation of a large mechanical solenoid and an associated EMP pulse that risks blowing out your speakers.
Next, process each segment to add in -10dB of bleed-through from corresponding position on the other segments.
Finally, the tracks need to be priced several dollars above competing formats, and protected by "Analog Rights Management". This involves stocking them in pricey strip-mall record stores in locked glass cases. The cases have holes so you can stick your hands in them and feel them, but you can't actually take it out until you track down one of the grumpy losers who works in the store to open the case.
Probably only about $3.49 higher.
Maybe so, but I bet that he doesn't waste all his time repeatedly poring over and cross indexing his old movies and TV episodes looking for irrelevant inconsistencies in plot continuity.
Yes, I think that the wisdom of William Shatner applies to this story (s/TV show/movie/g):
Cars don't need a friggin P2P network. Here's what they do need: a driver who keeps his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. Forget about the gadgets, toys, displays and phone. Pay attention and drive.
It's hard to compete with vacuum tube computers for power consumption. Each of the 2 dozen-ish SAGE strategic command systems run by the US Air Force consumed more than a megawatt in order to provide the raw computational power of an 8086. (And they didn't unplug the last one until the 1980s.)
Be thankful that you didn't live in Hungary in 1946. They had 41,900,000,000,000,000% inflation in the month of July alone.
It's not a stupid analogy. Many software patent holders use it themselves. They argue something like "Sure these are terrible weapons, too horrible to actually use, and we don't like them, but we acquire them only for defense against others' patents. So it's ok." This argument is almost identical to that used by the various countries that have nuclear weapons.
Maybe it's because the documentation for most every implementation of alloca says: "Don't use this function. It's nonstandard, nonportable, dangerous, broken, yada yada..."
No, the OP was correct. On a machine with a finite number of states, you just run the algorithm until it either halts or the machine repeats a state more than once. Since it only has a finite number of states, one of the two must happen within O(number of states). If any one state ever repeats, the machine will loop through the sequence between the repeats forever, and thus will not halt.
Since the number of states in a computer is at least 2^(number of bits in memory), this is not in general a practical approach. Nevertheless, it's not formally undecidable.
I'd drop my cable company just because of that annoyance, but my satellite box did the same thing back when I had that. There's no way I'd pay for a computer that does that.
Come to think of it though, one square cm of electrical tape could solve the problem once and for all. I'm heading for the basement right now.
You could then claim that the personal information that you gave any particular company is a copyrighted database of one row. Scribble an EULA at the bottom of the form that grants them permission to use your data only for the direct purpose of the form, then, taking a cue from the RIAA, sue them for $1000 per unauthorized copy of your personal info.
Updatedb doesn't necessarily run as root. My machine defaulted with updatedb set to run as "nobody" out of the box. This automatically guarantees that it won't reveal any information that other people couldn't see anyway. My point was that a lot of systems allow rather liberal read access to users' account directories by default, and users should be aware of that.
The default file permissions seem to vary by the app that created them. My .mozilla and .kde directories are not world-readable, so the web caches would not get scanned. However, plenty of other files are world-readable by default, along with most documents I create.
This general situation has been around for many years. If you do share a machine, it's probably just a good idea to learn about file permissions in general.
They probably tried to save a few bucks by mail ordering the OEM version rather than the retail version. As a result, it's likely that the only documentation they got was a tiny slip of paper with a confusing international icon diagram and no text instructions whatsoever. It's not hard to see how that could result in a screwup.
The problem is that from the standpoint of the spacecraft, the "atmosphere up there" looks and feels like the flame of a welding torch. Creating turbulent flows with attempts to "feather" would just make it that much hotter and possibly shake the vehicle apart.
There's a reason that most every object that has been designed to survive orbital reentry has had a blunt shape and heavy shielding.
Windows users would enjoy big a big boost in security because most of the exploits for holes in the OS wouldn't run on the new architecture.
The bad news:
None of their apps or device drivers would run either.
(OK, maybe most of the apps would run under emulation, but that's never going to be particularly fast or trouble-free.)
That may be so, but the OP was talking about miles per gallon per ton. The largest trains have a cargo capacity hundreds of times greater than that of a 747. Large airplanes carry maximum payloads of 100 tons or more, but my Guinness Book of World Records says that the heaviest train was 47 kilotons. I guarantee that it wasn't sucking down fuel at the same rate as 400 747s.
As far as the car goes, idling has nothing to do with it. A Suburban might get 13 MPG highway. With six people on board, that's 78 MPG per person. Airliners just don't get that kind of mileage.
Then why do they haul gravel on freight trains instead of airplanes? There is no way an airplane is more efficient than a train per ton-mile.
What are you suggesting, that instead of flying 300 people from LA to DC we should instead have 300 Suburbans driving all the way across the country?
If that were the only option, probably 250 of those trips would be cancelled. People would make do with phone calls or videoconferences rather than spend a week of their time driving across the country.
At any rate, IIRC an airliner gets somewhere around 25 passenger miles per gallon. Suburbans loaded with 6 passengers each would get considerably better mileage per person.
Maybe so. But they've also changed the marketplace so that lowest manufacturing cost is the only consideration for success. Consequently, they've created a gargantuan flood of imports that we've paid for with IOUs. Low inflation over the last 15 years has been bought on loan.
Since with current demographic trends we're never going to pay those IOUs off at current values, there's probably going to be a huge surge of inflation in the future while the government prints money to devalue our foreign debt. So really what WalMart is doing is just pushing the inevitable inflation into the future, where it's going to hit us all at once.
It's like they've handed us a credit card, and we as a nation have become lazy and quit working to earn the stuff we buy. We just keep charging more stuff on the credit card.
What is tat?
Where do I get it?
And how do I exchange it for the other thing?
--Dennis Miller (IIRC)
But to achieve those goals, why bother with all of this newfangled high-tech? If you're just trying to get a unique id number that's conveniently attached to the person and readable from a short distance, why not just go with the simple and time-tested numeric wrist tattoo?
(Oops... did I just lose the argument?)
Because no amount of money can buy a cure for dweebness.
It's going to take some time to determine those properties. The researchers are proceeding very cautiously because they don't want to end up like Mikey, who was also working with gasses packed into a solidified form.
Furthermore, Echelon begins with an 'E', while MLAT begins with an 'M'. Obviously, they have no similarities whatsoever.