So that means that $51 billion dollars could be, theoretically, pumped into open source development per year?
If linooks is chalked up to $1 billlion dollars, does that mean if there was a seismic shift in software, and peoples said "hey lets put our money into a renewable resource", would the world produce 51 whole new linookss per year??
Or...
How about one _complete_ new operating system ($1 billion)
one _complete_ new "database system" ($1 billion?)
one _complete_ new "office system" ($1 billion?)
one _complete_ new Guttenberg/Library ($1 billion?)
and (just for shizngiggs) one space elevator ($5 billion)
p e r
y e a r . . .
and that still leave $42 billion!!! (of "real sales" for the "industry" to, ummm, what _would_ they do if there was this pace of improvement -- oh yeah, create spyware! lol!)
What I'm obviously trying to say is the possibilities are endless; if Open Source was funded ANYWHERE near what Suckers^h^H^h^H^h^H^h^H consumers are willing to pay (even the legitmate licensees!), the world would be a much better place...
_every year_
shame the boomers have wrecked everything so badly...
B^)
p.s. my list of "foo" systems is poor, what am I obviously forgetting, and how much would you estimate it'd cost to _complete_ such a new "foo" system... in just one year? (and, what if, it weren't and mother earth were to disappear?!)
SIGLET: open source works because the programmers aren't paid to sit around on the job, filling time...
Am I the only one who wonders wtf a near-supercomputer is doing to this film to make it so wonderful?
I mean compared to this other G5 cluster (see below), wouldn't this thing qualify as up there (yeah yeah, it doesn't have anything more than Gethernet for backplane communication, but still, thats a whole lot of processing going on!
If someone more gungho on a monday morning wants to flesh out the Tflops this thing could crunch, as well as potential requirements for so much juice? Perhaps it loads the ENTIRE film into the cluster's memory and does some wacky matrix transforms across the entire bolus of data? Remember that's 24fps*seconds which is generally around 8 million frames * 4000x3000 pixels * 24 bit resolution == 288000000000000 bytes == 288TBytes of data... that's some kind of matrix! (btw I didn't dbl check the math!:^)
I hope someone can dig up some more stuff on this, as using all this horsepower is either doing something very cool that is not obvious, or else it sounds like more sizzle than steak...
*
http://www.top500.org/dlist/2003/11/
3 Virginia Tech
United States/2003 X
1100 Dual 2.0 GHz Apple G5/Mellanox Infiniband 4X/Cisco GigE / 2200
Self-made NOW - PowerPC
G5 Cluster Academic
10280
17600 520000
152000
Technology creates industries (and concomitant slaveries)... but technology changes and industries disappear (sometimes through emancipation)...
In researching an extended rant I didn't end up posting yesterday on the Simpson's actors striking for a fair percentage of the 'turnstile' take, this very interesting article popped out of google with insights into the future of advertising. One quote seems to sum it nicely:
"Let me suggest to you that an incandescent light bulb burns brightest just before it goes out. And a business model can sometimes be at its most profitable before a plunge."*
Advertising has no god-given right to 'be an industry' (nor for that matter, the movie, music, or game industries) and if that industry abuses its resources or its customers (it would seem we, the consumers, are both?) changes may come about.
When I found out that in essence 'FREE' TV shows DO HAVE A PRICE, but that price has been hidden, it really struck me as a damning revelation. If you and I PAID for our Friends, Fraiser, and Futurama, it'd be about 20 CENTS per episode... and for 'lesser' shows, how about 4 CENTS??** Whatever way you cut it, the consumers have been trapped into an economic model that is NEITHER a 'level playing field' NOR a 'fair market' -- quite frankly its would seem to be more like the much-hated-by-free-marketers-OPEC...
So, if people wanted to work their own job to make money at (hopefully) above the TV-MINIMUM-WAGE of $0.40/hr, and PAY the 40 CENTS themselves they'd save themselves 15 minutes/hour... hmm for a person that watches 4 hours of tv per day (egads!), that gives them an EXTRA HOUR PER DAY to do as they please -- which incidentally is 15 DAYS OR TWO WEEKS EXTRA over a year!
Another way to look at this economic algebra is confirmed in 2002 news where the chairman of Turner Broadcasting admitted*** (though he was essentially scare-mongering his audience at the Television Critics Association and CableWorld magazine) that the cost of 'programming' to the consumer is ONLY $250/year -- jeez, that's "Less than a dollar a day"(tm)...
Where is this all heading? Cable and Satellite seem to be the key to advertising change... given the fact that cable and satellite subscribers ALREADY pay $500-$1000 PER YEAR for 'access' to the programming, it would seem that a little encouragement from the Federal Trade Commission (read anti-trust-busters) could open up THE CHOICE FOR THE CONSUMER to pay their own way for ANY show that goes across their already PVR-/PPV-/VOD-ed systems, again, allowing YOU to pay the $250 yourself and (if you felt like it) take an AN EXTRA TWO WEEKS VACATION! (perhaps to a country still undemocratically forcing people to watch commercials!;^])
Giving people that choice to pay for themselves rather than 'getting-into-the-club-for-free-because the-greasy-guy-in-the-raincoat-at-the-door-selling -soap-bought-my-ticket' IS A GOOD THING...
I want to pay my own way, not be forced to accept the 'brokers' broken product...
** "Selling direct completes the television industry's long drift away from its original incarnation: a limited menu of shows, served on a fixed schedule and funded by a healthy dose of commercials. From the start that model was built on a rickety economic foundation, requiring customers to pay for programming with a horribly inefficient currency: their leisure time. Sponsors spend $43,000 to air a 30-secon
Be careful what you test for ...
on
Testing Relativity
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· Score: 2, Informative
--
Greg Egan's latest novel, Schild's Ladder is highly recommended for anyone interested in seeing what might go wrong if you test the fermament of reality a little too much. Seismic-shocks-in-the-aether is a pretty impressive feat for the author! A lot more is packed into the 327 pages than is taken in at first reading, and, frankly, it is not for anyone who didn't enjoy True Names by Vernor Vinge. Though the testing of physical theories to their theoretical limits is the very basis of Schild's Ladder, for a proper build up to this novel, his other novels and short story collections are an excellent preparation - probably best read in order, except with Teranesia set aside for the 'come down period' after everything else has been read (perhaps a few times). Schild's ladder is very much a synthesis of all the journey's Egan's stories have taken, and an exploration of the ultimate perils and pitfalls of unit testing the universe!
p.s. if you only read one Greg Egan, try Axiomatic; reading all 18 short stories in one sitting is like eating an entire box of chocolates at once -- your mind feels sickly sweet and luciously overloaded with Egan's amazing ideas. Here's the list of titles to whet the appetite:
THE INFINITE ASSASSIN THE HUNDRED LIGHT-YEAR DIARY EUGENE THE CARESS BLOOD SISTERS AXIOMATIC THE SAFE-DEPOSIT BOX SEEING A KIDNAPPING LEARNING TO BE ME THE MOAT THE WALK THE CUTIE INTO DARKNESS APPROPRIATE LOVE THE MORAL VIROLOGIST CLOSER UNSTABLE ORBITS IN THE SPACE OF LIES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One thing I'd like to mention is Microsoft's purchase of Connectix, the maker of the Virtual PC for Mac and, well, PC.
For a long time its seemed that virtualizing machines for even a single process is inevitable. Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix makes me think they see the virtual machine as important to their future.
Apps and coding platforms are as much their core business as the Desktop/GUI they are presented in. With fairly ubiqitous [and somewhat standardized;^)] VMs running an MS core, a person's program really wouldn't care where it started and where it ends up (e.g. from your widnows desktop to you linux pda to your java watch to your PlanIX:2-ElectricBoogaloo toaster to... etc.).
Essentially the 'battle for the desktop' becomes moot as the program people run which don't really get that much more complex (i.e. user software typically increase their complexity along with human needs) are able to 'keep up with your busy life' on hardware that advances at a more exponential pace (e.g. "You only have 50GB in you George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling/SETI@Home Machine? Jeez!").
For me it always comes back to what people -- real people -- the nx100 millions of users not reading/. -- want or need to do with their information processing machines. Today's level of need can pretty much be handled at the Pentium II (or even 486!) level for web/email/office if it's lean and mean (like many linux-top boxen), and yet today we have Intel today pushing a non-product ("Centrino" == ??) with their annual marketing/advertising budget of $US ~200-400 Million.
I'd like to think that Linux (especially when you separate the meat of GNU) is a concept that is not at odds with MS (which itself is a group of concepts that happen to manifest as software and blue screens these days;^}). Perhaps the trouble with all software is actually in discovering what, if any, information processing acutally requires the power and complexity that the Open Source movement and linux affords.
It's fine and jim dandy to lead a horse to water, but if its not thirsty, it just might not be interested.
I'd even say the notion of 'Battle' is a bit of a distraction. Certainly its a solidifying point programmers rally around, and yet if the energy focused by those programmers are simply to fight microsoft, maybe that's really like letting the Redmondists win...
Five or ten years out would seem a little much, when you consider that we're at just over a decade of Windows (3.1 shipped in 92, and this November we'll see the decade anniversary since WFW3.11!), that's pretty awesome considering that in that decade not only has there been the incredible changes in personal OSes, server OSes, peripherals, programming languages, and the information superhighway. jeez I still remember 300 bits per second, and now my modem is 1000 times faster at 3Mbs.
With that kind of increase what will the growth curve give us? 5 more versions of Windows in the coming decade (and who knows how many forks in the linux kernel;^)); a trillion dollars of marketing money flowing to promote the latest thing that really isn't...
The future is always brighter than expected, and dimmer too. My biggest bet is on the children. Given the opportunity to look up answers to absolutely any question that pop's into their developming minds, and not being daunted by parent's can't conceive of 3 billion pages of information being accesible through a single google search, the kids may just turn out to find something more exciting to do with One Terahertz processors than anything the people who are fighting for the title of 'King of the WIMPs' might conceive...
... anyhoo heironymouscoward, it always nice to hear someone pointing to the past to help see the future:^) Our predictions are only as good as people's belief in the
p.s. people don't seem to realize that this is the first version of a new technology... the first version is always very expensive, and evolves (usually) pretty quickly. I find it so ingenuine of people to discount the future of this based on its present (as if computers haven't "improved"!).
And they could do it too. Right now MS has about $40B in their back pocket just-in-case (in a time when the Nronz have misplaced $Bs!)... So they're not hurting for sales. Even as a goodness-to-humanity gesture (yes, its like giving away free antrax to some *nixers), giving everyone of us 6B humans a copy of WinXP to run (tabletPC! haha) could be a reasonable move on their part.
But the US DOJ (via the rest of the computer industry) would go nuts with calls of AntiTrust-evil. So MS is not allowed to give it away.
Again, they'd sure wish they could.
If they do end up giving it away, there will always be other ways they can figure out to charge the public. And maybe its actually worth it in the long run.
If the demand for new automobiles were redirected by a measly 10%, it would free up 150 BILLION dollars that could pay workers to make something other than cars... something like moonbases!
from the perspective of how often people buy a new car, supposedly the average is somewhere around 4 to 6 years... so if, on average, people waited one more year, there's the needed 10%.
Of course, if the average is shorter, each year's wait becomes more and more than just 10%.
And to put $150 BILLION in perspective, supposedly a manned mars mission could be done for $20 billion , a moonbase around $30 billion, and a space elevator $5 billion... ergo, we (the world) could endeavor on:
FIVE missions to mars, build a moonbase and throw in 2 space elevators
EVERY YEAR
just 10% less new cars... and no lost jobs (net)
http://www.smartcarguide.com/neworused/Page1.htm
Re:Learn you some Haiku
on
Haiku vs Spam
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· Score: 1
A) Thank you for not being part of the 99.9% of/.!
B) You're cool dude!
c) Where did the ACOUSTIK KOMPUTER OFFICIAL WEB PAGE go?!
Wouldn't it be nice if this kind of rich database tool were available to you when dealing with the complexities of the financial system or even government.
These other systems can be similarily as complex as the human body, and the kind of solution searching they use surely could be used in other applications.
Finance especially could benefit. Each individual is balancing their future whenever they make a financial decision, and yet the possibilities, options and permutations seem countless. To have a nice question based system that finds out about your real situation (what you have saved, where it's saved, where you live, what programs are applicable, what _could_ be applicable, etc.) could really improve one's ability to build a stronger financial future for themselves.
How about other applications like education directions/paths, job/career moves, which/. post to reply to;^)
And finally, it's always been a dream of mine that one day I'll be able to walk into a government office and actually be treated as a unique citizen with my own unique set of problems.
Life has many complex systems that one day will bow to our newest tools, thankfully.
To me, Bararella is best-of-breed along with Zardoz (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070948) for respresentations a radical, very exuberant, future. A future so far beyond our notions that what old is new again and what is impossible to us is improbably easy for them. You know what I mean?
Advertising pays for "content". We all know this. But when you look at it from a slightly different way you can see that the deal between You, the Producer/Broadcaster, and The Advertiser, is something similar to You standing in line to get into a club, and a (ahem) SlimyGuy stepping up to you and saying "It's okay, I'll pay your way in". How many of You would say "sure" without thinking that the SlimyGuy must want something from you...
I think in this "modern era", with the ability to have more and more targetted advertising, we will soon get to the point where we could Pay Our Own Way if we wanted to.
That is, wouldn't it be peachy, if we as Consumers, could have the right to pay the Broadcaster/Producer the same amount they would have gotten from the Advertiser? The rates are publicly published, so there's no real question as to the Value of your eyeballs during a given TV or radio show, or even web-page.
Frankly, I'd like to choose when I want to displace ads, and when I'm happy to let the SlimyGuy pay my way.
Good shows could get even better when "the Circle is Now Complete", and the person consuming can pay the person(s) producing more directly, rather than the producer being influenced by the SlimyGuy giving them money so that people will watch some stuff in between their Soap ads.
And don't even get me started on Magazines, which TOTALLY could be printed without ads for those people who choose to pay. Heck, it'd be almost as easy to have as many or as few ads as you liked.
The question is could such a Right for consumers actually be pushed through? I know if there were we'd all at least not really be able to complain that TV is a vast wasteland.
Put the power back in the REAL purchasers hands, and maybe we can actually wipe off some of that slime.
Flash is pretty, but my eyes are really bad and sometimes I'd really like to be able to just see the meat and pass on the sizzle.
Everyone should have the opportunity to experience as pretty a web page as they would like, but at the same time, it really shouldn't stop people from being able to "boil it down" to whatever they want.
Case in point, I've got a big monitor (21") at high-res (1600+) and when a web page has a fixed font height, that I can't even change (smallest to largest in IE), it forces me to switch "ignore font size" on, causing so much of the rest of the page content to break. But at least I can read the text then easily.
But not in Macromedia Flash. This really bugs me, and if it weren't for the PixelTouch Zoom my video card does to allow me to jump in to see the 5pt font someone forced into their tiny flash thing, I'd be locked out of much of the information superhighway -- and I'm not even really blind! Talk about a lock-out!
So having access to the textual content in flash would really make me happy (FWIW, sometimes I'll surf around with my own CSS style sheet which sets all text to one font, lime green, black background, and all the images are grey-scaled and inversed! I like it like that, makes it easy for me to read a lot 10h+!). And forget about the minor fact that the Flash format is inherently Vector-based and so can scale even to my 2048x1536 screen nicely, but how many flash, ahem, "presentations", take advantage of this?
Now, especially with the recent talk about making Flash a "web-standard" alongside HTML (X-html, yeah, I know), this all leads to the final question which comes down to whether Flash is really only suited to emphermal, non-important, content most of which is, or is no better, than advertising crap?
Maybe by opening it up they will transcend the "clicking on pretty pictures" phenomenon known as the web?
KISS: Most cars have a catalytic converter as part of their exhaust stream, right?
Add this kind of contraption to cars and even slight reabsorbtion of CO2 would become very significant.
As well, as a technology slated for mass distribution, the price would drop fast, rather than a humungus plant in the desert, like they mention.
In summary, there could be a _good_ use for all these things called cars. FWIW I hate the love affair with cars we Americans++ have... Very simplistic calculations show me that with 15-20% less _new cars_ each year, there would be, as predicted in the late 60's by '2001:The Movie', moon bases and all that. Why? E.G.: Ford with about 15-20% of the total car market takes in about $US160B / year... if you and me spent that $160B/year on 'other things', we could launch 4 missions to Mars!, even at a whopping $40B each -- and still pay lots of people to work their jobz (just for M2M rather than FixOrRepairDaily). And that does not include efficiencies that come from scaling... And, oh yeah, that was _every year_! Well enough OT ranting:)
So lets hope for new cars that consume CO2 rather than produce it! And if we buy a new car every 4 years rather than every 3, maybe someday in "just 30 years" we'll be able to take a Pan AM space elevator up to orbit to board the Mars Express. Any takers?
(btw my math is simplistic but if you want more details, just ask; I could use more eyes on the bugs)
Anyone who gets stuck on the "scooter" aspect of SEGWAY/GINGER/IT is missing out.
To be most succinct:
SEGWAY IS NOT ABOUT A SCOOTER
SEGWAY IS ABOUT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES!
Here's how I see things, take a nice light RECLINING LOVESEAT, stick a couple of wheels on the sides, a kind of cowling to protect your feet (ala those amusement rides that go round and round and round), maybe a weather-bubble, and you have THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION.
Of course a self-stabilizing, self-propelled, semi-/fully-autonomous navigation vehicle can take any number of form factors. With that kind of melange of technologies, the practicality of a 3000 pound chunk of metal (which is that heavy as it must carry a heavy motor to pull all that mass -- _and_ to act as armor against all the other 3000 pound chunks of metal) vs. a
+ LIGHT & CHEAP (not 3klbs of complicated parts -- how light could you build a loveseat?)
+ SELF-DRIVING (the segway really is just about fully autonomous -- its substantionally not much more than a notebook computer with a BIG battery AND wheels!)
+ SUPER-COMFI (three words: SEGWAY BY LA-Z-BOY)
+ V E H I C L E (not *just* a scooter)
... can actually change the face of human transportation.
Wistfully, nowadays whenever I see a 'car' on the road, my mind's eye overlays a segway loveseat, and boy oh boy, is that a much nicer picture...
Now about B2.0's take. For my money, the whole hype/anti-hype cycle of this invention illustrates that news typically doesn't matter (though a nod to our kindly hosts here @/.), but what does matter (to 'them') is inciting people's _prejudice_ (pre-judgement; lack of measured judgement) which gets their attention, which allows them to notice the advertising, which is perhaps the more honest 'matter' for the news.
p.s. the XFL (though a travesty of sport, to be sure) sadly got lynched by the news the same way -- in a horrible twist of fate I ended up defending the probable success of the XFL in showing a friend that, in fact, the will of the public has little effect on the SHIT that is slung our way as "entertainment". FWIW IANAFOPS! (I Am Not A Fan Of Professional Sports) ... http://thefanforce.com/gm/archives/00000003.htm ( "H.L. Mencken once said no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. ")... http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/11/0511topnews.html
Do you think True Names is bad writing?
on
True Names
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· Score: 1
A friend of mine, non-technologist but a writer, was very interested in reading True Names, but later told me he couldn't get through more than the first quarter and that the writing was _bad_.
I myself think True Names is one of the most breathtaking fictions I've read. But then again I am a futurist in training;)
Now the reason I'm so interested in True Names suckage is to find out how to bridge the aspects I find awesome and worth propagating, and avoiding aspects of writing that are, um, contentious.
And I really want to know because once I'm done my futurist training, I'd really like to write scifi, or better yet, fictions that illustrate the changing nature of mankind and the technology we create.
It is obvious that in 20 years (1979 to 1999) of 'progress', just about anything can be accomplished, so if we didn't have moonbase(s) in 20 years, why not?
I'll give you a hint? What has been the most distracting element in our Y.T.S.A. society in the past 30 years since landing on the moon? What could have stolen the dream of space exploration that was so hot when those guys stepped out in July '69?
BG and B5 though cute and clever, repsectiviely, don't hold a candle to Space: 1999 which is/so/ close to reality (in some ways) to be frightening.
I only know that I used to think "weird, they always have those communicators, imagine us having communicators?", back in the olden dayez.
And now everyone (at least here in YTSA) has the communicator!
So the question is, when will our communicators have video too? 2002, 2003, 2004? Anyone into placing bets? I'll setup a pool.cgi if there is _any_ response:>
Re:The risks of explosions aren�t quite so bad
on
Antimatter Propulsion
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· Score: 1
The thrust generated will be uprecedented in the use of fuel efficiently. As an example, the space shuttle main engines have a specific impulse (effectively a measure of "bang for your buck", substituting "weight of fuel" for "buck") of 452s while the test engine for an antimatter system would have a specific impulse of over 5000s!
Sorry, math and physiks is not my strong suit> , but are you saying that Antimatter is only eleven times more powerful/efficient than rocket engines?(5000/452=11.06)?
11X is not so many:/ -- even my cdromz is now up to 56X!! Maybe we can use CDROMZ drives for omni-planet exploration one day (when they get to 1,000,000X!!:>)
IP has not always existed, so it stands to reason that it will not always exist. No more than 100 years of IP and not more than 30-50
years of stronger and stronger economic importance.
Even the phrase "Intellectual Property" itself is somewhat an oxymoron since property is 'real' (as in real estate) and anything "intellectual" is not real. Like
"military intelligence", there is something fishy going on (:>).
The basis of Property is that only one person can possess it at any one time (think of 1 square foot of land that you can stand on, if it helps) whereas the premise of
Intellect (ideas) is, like software, it is comparatively costless to replicate as many times as desired.
IP is a useful invention in many regards but just like other constructs that exist outside of natural laws, its time will end as "people" say something like they did about
Monarchical rule back a couple hundred years ago (they
said, this monarchy thing isn't good for the people, and in 1776 they closed that deal).
Though IP has a very strong value in many business contexts, one way to examine its potential longevity is looking at its "Insurability". IP is not something that is easy to take out insurance on, since it can disappear very quickly and has a strong probability of disappearing. If you take a look at our modern (read 1st) world from the perspective of insurance, you'll see the difference between 1st world and 2nd/3rd is insurance. The notion of the safety that insurance brings is a cornerstone of our economy. Without that safety blanket, IP is sure to be eroded away as open source starts to catch on in all
endeavors of the "Intellect", like biology, genomic computation and the of DNA based nanotechnology that can be grown in a
bread maker or window box (or even a Windoze Box!:>).
Advertising is another such construct that has not always been around, and one day too will meet its end.;^>
X
As "Nerds", Is there something we can do?
on
"Traffic"
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· Score: 1
[rambling rant warning!:> ]
Traffic (which I saw) tells it like it is -- the problem is not the drugs -- its the fact that, given the opportunity, people want to feel different. It just so happens that a million generations of plant evolution plopped certain molecules into their 'operating system' that just so happen interact with molecules in our bodies that make us feel different. Random code essentially. Looking at it this way it sure ain't the codes fault, and how can you blame the person who wants to run that code? When someone runs M$ windoze, do we lock them up? No, we try to help them with their problem;^) . That's what we geeks try a lot -- help people with their problems... so, I
Ask Slashdot:
Is there something intrinsically 'nerdlike' that we as a community can start that attacks the problem we can see from this thread, in a unique way?
This is 2001 already and it is high time (pardon the pun) that we as geeks (technology-savants) try do more to make changes in our world.
Is that not our history and perhaps even destiny?
Computer 'jobs' like programming are all about creation, making something new that makes a difference (if only to the bottom line of that corporation you work for), using that 'secret-knowledge' to make the bits fly to make the world a better place.
Katz is always hinting at a "hidden power" that we as a community have because of the ability to look at things differently and generally be pretty open to ideas.
Obviously there has been a lot done to help the cause of 'The Truth' -- the very internet, web, browsers, servers, irc, etc. and all that have created a medium to disemenate the truth, but I have this feeling in the back of my mind that there are things that can be done that can be more pro-active. Something that would spawn bunches of OS projects.
Any ideas of 'something' that goes beyond regular activism, something only the geeks can even try.
A computer/technological approach to helping our society deal with the truth without fear. People are afraid of computers and we help them break down that fear... How can we help people not fear change?
Slashdot Mirror
I love being the news! :)
LOL
So that means that $51 billion dollars could be, theoretically, pumped into open source development per year?
If linooks is chalked up to $1 billlion dollars, does that mean if there was a seismic shift in software, and peoples said "hey lets put our money into a renewable resource", would the world produce 51 whole new linookss per year??
Or...
How about one _complete_ new operating system ($1 billion)
one _complete_ new "database system" ($1 billion?)
one _complete_ new "office system" ($1 billion?)
one _complete_ new Guttenberg/Library ($1 billion?)
and (just for shizngiggs) one space elevator ($5 billion) What I'm obviously trying to say is the possibilities are endless; if Open Source was funded ANYWHERE near what Suckers^h^H^h^H^h^H^h^H consumers are willing to pay (even the legitmate licensees!), the world would be a much better place
_every year_
shame the boomers have wrecked everything so badly...
B^)
p.s. my list of "foo" systems is poor, what am I obviously forgetting, and how much would you estimate it'd cost to _complete_ such a new "foo" system
SIGLET: open source works because the programmers aren't paid to sit around on the job, filling time...
I mean compared to this other G5 cluster (see below), wouldn't this thing qualify as up there (yeah yeah, it doesn't have anything more than Gethernet for backplane communication, but still, thats a whole lot of processing going on!
If someone more gungho on a monday morning wants to flesh out the Tflops this thing could crunch, as well as potential requirements for so much juice? Perhaps it loads the ENTIRE film into the cluster's memory and does some wacky matrix transforms across the entire bolus of data? Remember that's 24fps*seconds which is generally around 8 million frames * 4000x3000 pixels * 24 bit resolution == 288000000000000 bytes == 288TBytes of data ... that's some kind of matrix! (btw I didn't dbl check the math!:^)
I hope someone can dig up some more stuff on this, as using all this horsepower is either doing something very cool that is not obvious, or else it sounds like more sizzle than steak...
Technology creates industries (and concomitant slaveries)
In researching an extended rant I didn't end up posting yesterday on the Simpson's actors striking for a fair percentage of the 'turnstile' take, this very interesting article popped out of google with insights into the future of advertising. One quote seems to sum it nicely:
Advertising has no god-given right to 'be an industry' (nor for that matter, the movie, music, or game industries) and if that industry abuses its resources or its customers (it would seem we, the consumers, are both?) changes may come about.
When I found out that in essence 'FREE' TV shows DO HAVE A PRICE, but that price has been hidden, it really struck me as a damning revelation. If you and I PAID for our Friends, Fraiser, and Futurama, it'd be about 20 CENTS per episode ... and for 'lesser' shows, how about 4 CENTS??** Whatever way you cut it, the consumers have been trapped into an economic model that is NEITHER a 'level playing field' NOR a 'fair market' -- quite frankly its would seem to be more like the much-hated-by-free-marketers-OPEC...
So, if people wanted to work their own job to make money at (hopefully) above the TV-MINIMUM-WAGE of $0.40/hr, and PAY the 40 CENTS themselves they'd save themselves 15 minutes/hour ... hmm for a person that watches 4 hours of tv per day (egads!), that gives them an EXTRA HOUR PER DAY to do as they please -- which incidentally is 15 DAYS OR TWO WEEKS EXTRA over a year!
Another way to look at this economic algebra is confirmed in 2002 news where the chairman of Turner Broadcasting admitted*** (though he was essentially scare-mongering his audience at the Television Critics Association and CableWorld magazine) that the cost of 'programming' to the consumer is ONLY $250/year -- jeez, that's "Less than a dollar a day"(tm) ...
Where is this all heading? Cable and Satellite seem to be the key to advertising change ... given the fact that cable and satellite subscribers ALREADY pay $500-$1000 PER YEAR for 'access' to the programming, it would seem that a little encouragement from the Federal Trade Commission (read anti-trust-busters) could open up THE CHOICE FOR THE CONSUMER to pay their own way for ANY show that goes across their already PVR-/PPV-/VOD-ed systems, again, allowing YOU to pay the $250 yourself and (if you felt like it) take an AN EXTRA TWO WEEKS VACATION! (perhaps to a country still undemocratically forcing people to watch commercials! ;^])
Giving people that choice to pay for themselves rather than 'getting-into-the-club-for-free-because the-greasy-guy-in-the-raincoat-at-the-door-selling -soap-bought-my-ticket' IS A GOOD THING...
I want to pay my own way, not be forced to accept the 'brokers' broken product...
Do You?
O:>
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* http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:http://www.fo rbes.com/forbes/2003/0929/076_print.html+"an%20inc andescent%20light%20bulb"+"burns%20brightest%20"+" just%20before%20it%20goes%20out"
** "Selling direct completes the television industry's long drift away from its original incarnation: a limited menu of shows, served on a fixed schedule and funded by a healthy dose of commercials. From the start that model was built on a rickety economic foundation, requiring customers to pay for programming with a horribly inefficient currency: their leisure time. Sponsors spend $43,000 to air a 30-secon
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Greg Egan's latest novel, Schild's Ladder is highly recommended for anyone interested in seeing what might go wrong if you test the fermament of reality a little too much. Seismic-shocks-in-the-aether is a pretty impressive feat for the author! A lot more is packed into the 327 pages than is taken in at first reading, and, frankly, it is not for anyone who didn't enjoy True Names by Vernor Vinge. Though the testing of physical theories to their theoretical limits is the very basis of Schild's Ladder, for a proper build up to this novel, his other novels and short story collections are an excellent preparation - probably best read in order, except with Teranesia set aside for the 'come down period' after everything else has been read (perhaps a few times). Schild's ladder is very much a synthesis of all the journey's Egan's stories have taken, and an exploration of the ultimate perils and pitfalls of unit testing the universe!
p.s. if you only read one Greg Egan, try Axiomatic; reading all 18 short stories in one sitting is like eating an entire box of chocolates at once -- your mind feels sickly sweet and luciously overloaded with Egan's amazing ideas. Here's the list of titles to whet the appetite:
One thing I'd like to mention is Microsoft's purchase of Connectix, the maker of the Virtual PC for Mac and, well, PC.
For a long time its seemed that virtualizing machines for even a single process is inevitable. Microsoft's acquisition of Connectix makes me think they see the virtual machine as important to their future.
Apps and coding platforms are as much their core business as the Desktop/GUI they are presented in. With fairly ubiqitous [and somewhat standardized ;^)] VMs running an MS core, a person's program really wouldn't care where it started and where it ends up (e.g. from your widnows desktop to you linux pda to your java watch to your PlanIX:2-ElectricBoogaloo toaster to ... etc.).
Essentially the 'battle for the desktop' becomes moot as the program people run which don't really get that much more complex (i.e. user software typically increase their complexity along with human needs) are able to 'keep up with your busy life' on hardware that advances at a more exponential pace (e.g. "You only have 50GB in you George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling/SETI@Home Machine? Jeez!").
For me it always comes back to what people -- real people -- the nx100 millions of users not reading /. -- want or need to do with their information processing machines. Today's level of need can pretty much be handled at the Pentium II (or even 486!) level for web/email/office if it's lean and mean (like many linux-top boxen), and yet today we have Intel today pushing a non-product ("Centrino" == ??) with their annual marketing/advertising budget of $US ~200-400 Million.
I'd like to think that Linux (especially when you separate the meat of GNU) is a concept that is not at odds with MS (which itself is a group of concepts that happen to manifest as software and blue screens these days ;^}). Perhaps the trouble with all software is actually in discovering what, if any, information processing acutally requires the power and complexity that the Open Source movement and linux affords.
It's fine and jim dandy to lead a horse to water, but if its not thirsty, it just might not be interested.
I'd even say the notion of 'Battle' is a bit of a distraction. Certainly its a solidifying point programmers rally around, and yet if the energy focused by those programmers are simply to fight microsoft, maybe that's really like letting the Redmondists win...
Five or ten years out would seem a little much, when you consider that we're at just over a decade of Windows (3.1 shipped in 92, and this November we'll see the decade anniversary since WFW3.11!), that's pretty awesome considering that in that decade not only has there been the incredible changes in personal OSes, server OSes, peripherals, programming languages, and the information superhighway. jeez I still remember 300 bits per second, and now my modem is 1000 times faster at 3Mbs.
With that kind of increase what will the growth curve give us? 5 more versions of Windows in the coming decade (and who knows how many forks in the linux kernel ;^)); a trillion dollars of marketing money flowing to promote the latest thing that really isn't...
The future is always brighter than expected, and dimmer too. My biggest bet is on the children. Given the opportunity to look up answers to absolutely any question that pop's into their developming minds, and not being daunted by parent's can't conceive of 3 billion pages of information being accesible through a single google search, the kids may just turn out to find something more exciting to do with One Terahertz processors than anything the people who are fighting for the title of 'King of the WIMPs' might conceive...
one day it'll make a _very_ cool movie ;^)
and to balance things out, Macroscope will make a very cool film...
Snow tires video:
... the first version is always very expensive, and evolves (usually) pretty quickly. I find it so ingenuine of people to discount the future of this based on its present (as if computers haven't "improved"!).
http://www.segway.com/video/snow.html
super cool!
I await mine with 'bated breath.
p.s. people don't seem to realize that this is the first version of a new technology
Yay.
MS would _love_ to give away their present OS!
And they could do it too. Right now MS has about $40B in their back pocket just-in-case (in a time when the Nronz have misplaced $Bs!)... So they're not hurting for sales. Even as a goodness-to-humanity gesture (yes, its like giving away free antrax to some *nixers), giving everyone of us 6B humans a copy of WinXP to run (tabletPC! haha) could be a reasonable move on their part.
But the US DOJ (via the rest of the computer industry) would go nuts with calls of AntiTrust-evil. So MS is not allowed to give it away.
Again, they'd sure wish they could.
If they do end up giving it away, there will always be other ways they can figure out to charge the public. And maybe its actually worth it in the long run.
from the perspective of how often people buy a new car, supposedly the average is somewhere around 4 to 6 years ... so if, on average, people waited one more year, there's the needed 10%.
Of course, if the average is shorter, each year's wait becomes more and more than just 10%.
And to put $150 BILLION in perspective, supposedly a manned mars mission could be done for $20 billion , a moonbase around $30 billion, and a space elevator $5 billion ... ergo, we (the world) could endeavor on:
FIVE missions to mars, build a moonbase and throw in 2 space elevators
EVERY YEAR
just 10% less new cars ... and no lost jobs (net)
http://www.smartcarguide.com/neworused/Page1.htm
A) Thank you for not being part of the 99.9% of /.!
B) You're cool dude!
c) Where did the ACOUSTIK KOMPUTER OFFICIAL WEB PAGE go?!
D) Are four lines aloud?
B^)
Wouldn't it be nice if this kind of rich database tool were available to you when dealing with the complexities of the financial system or even government.
/. post to reply to ;^)
These other systems can be similarily as complex as the human body, and the kind of solution searching they use surely could be used in other applications.
Finance especially could benefit. Each individual is balancing their future whenever they make a financial decision, and yet the possibilities, options and permutations seem countless. To have a nice question based system that finds out about your real situation (what you have saved, where it's saved, where you live, what programs are applicable, what _could_ be applicable, etc.) could really improve one's ability to build a stronger financial future for themselves.
How about other applications like education directions/paths, job/career moves, which
And finally, it's always been a dream of mine that one day I'll be able to walk into a government office and actually be treated as a unique citizen with my own unique set of problems.
Life has many complex systems that one day will bow to our newest tools, thankfully.
Line of thinking:
... have the skill of writing: highly recognizable and obviously not something everybody can do...
... have the skill of making music: highly recognizable and obviously not something everybody can do...
... MS!
Book Authors
Musicians
So what else can be very popular (and useful even!) that huge scads of people can be excited about?
In the absence of other rock stars, just maybe you and I might be the next Heroes of the people!
...
Oh jeez! I just realized that computer geeks already have an Evil Industry Controller
Nice dream there for a minute.
To me, Bararella is best-of-breed along with Zardoz (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070948) for respresentations a radical, very exuberant, future. A future so far beyond our notions that what old is new again and what is impossible to us is improbably easy for them. You know what I mean?
Advertising pays for "content". We all know this. But when you look at it from a slightly different way you can see that the deal between You, the Producer/Broadcaster, and The Advertiser, is something similar to You standing in line to get into a club, and a (ahem) SlimyGuy stepping up to you and saying "It's okay, I'll pay your way in". How many of You would say "sure" without thinking that the SlimyGuy must want something from you...
I think in this "modern era", with the ability to have more and more targetted advertising, we will soon get to the point where we could Pay Our Own Way if we wanted to.
That is, wouldn't it be peachy, if we as Consumers, could have the right to pay the Broadcaster/Producer the same amount they would have gotten from the Advertiser? The rates are publicly published, so there's no real question as to the Value of your eyeballs during a given TV or radio show, or even web-page.
Frankly, I'd like to choose when I want to displace ads, and when I'm happy to let the SlimyGuy pay my way.
Good shows could get even better when "the Circle is Now Complete", and the person consuming can pay the person(s) producing more directly, rather than the producer being influenced by the SlimyGuy giving them money so that people will watch some stuff in between their Soap ads.
And don't even get me started on Magazines, which TOTALLY could be printed without ads for those people who choose to pay. Heck, it'd be almost as easy to have as many or as few ads as you liked.
The question is could such a Right for consumers actually be pushed through? I know if there were we'd all at least not really be able to complain that TV is a vast wasteland.
Put the power back in the REAL purchasers hands, and maybe we can actually wipe off some of that slime.
Everyone should have the opportunity to experience as pretty a web page as they would like, but at the same time, it really shouldn't stop people from being able to "boil it down" to whatever they want.
Case in point, I've got a big monitor (21") at high-res (1600+) and when a web page has a fixed font height, that I can't even change (smallest to largest in IE), it forces me to switch "ignore font size" on, causing so much of the rest of the page content to break. But at least I can read the text then easily.
But not in Macromedia Flash. This really bugs me, and if it weren't for the PixelTouch Zoom my video card does to allow me to jump in to see the 5pt font someone forced into their tiny flash thing, I'd be locked out of much of the information superhighway -- and I'm not even really blind! Talk about a lock-out!
So having access to the textual content in flash would really make me happy (FWIW, sometimes I'll surf around with my own CSS style sheet which sets all text to one font, lime green, black background, and all the images are grey-scaled and inversed! I like it like that, makes it easy for me to read a lot 10h+!). And forget about the minor fact that the Flash format is inherently Vector-based and so can scale even to my 2048x1536 screen nicely, but how many flash, ahem, "presentations", take advantage of this?
Now, especially with the recent talk about making Flash a "web-standard" alongside HTML (X-html, yeah, I know), this all leads to the final question which comes down to whether Flash is really only suited to emphermal, non-important, content most of which is, or is no better, than advertising crap?
Maybe by opening it up they will transcend the "clicking on pretty pictures" phenomenon known as the web?
reading with your palm eh?
:)
you read about pham nuwen? He could read with his palm too
He had some localizers to help of course.
B^)
KISS:
... if you and me spent that $160B/year on 'other things', we could launch 4 missions to Mars!, even at a whopping $40B each -- and still pay lots of people to work their jobz (just for M2M rather than FixOrRepairDaily). And that does not include efficiencies that come from scaling... And, oh yeah, that was _every year_! Well enough OT ranting :)
Most cars have a catalytic converter as part of their exhaust stream, right?
Add this kind of contraption to cars and even slight reabsorbtion of CO2 would become very significant.
As well, as a technology slated for mass distribution, the price would drop fast, rather than a humungus plant in the desert, like they mention.
In summary, there could be a _good_ use for all these things called cars. FWIW I hate the love affair with cars we Americans++ have... Very simplistic calculations show me that with 15-20% less _new cars_ each year, there would be, as predicted in the late 60's by '2001:The Movie', moon bases and all that. Why? E.G.: Ford with about 15-20% of the total car market takes in about $US160B / year
So lets hope for new cars that consume CO2 rather than produce it! And if we buy a new car every 4 years rather than every 3, maybe someday in "just 30 years" we'll be able to take a Pan AM space elevator up to orbit to board the Mars Express. Any takers?
(btw my math is simplistic but if you want more details, just ask; I could use more eyes on the bugs)
Anyone who gets stuck on the "scooter" aspect of SEGWAY/GINGER/IT is missing out.
( "H.L. Mencken once said no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. ") ... http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/11/0511topnews.html
To be most succinct:
SEGWAY IS NOT ABOUT A SCOOTER
SEGWAY IS ABOUT AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES!
Here's how I see things, take a nice light RECLINING LOVESEAT, stick a couple of wheels on the sides, a kind of cowling to protect your feet (ala those amusement rides that go round and round and round), maybe a weather-bubble, and you have THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORTATION.
Of course a self-stabilizing, self-propelled, semi-/fully-autonomous navigation vehicle can take any number of form factors. With that kind of melange of technologies, the practicality of a 3000 pound chunk of metal (which is that heavy as it must carry a heavy motor to pull all that mass -- _and_ to act as armor against all the other 3000 pound chunks of metal) vs. a
+ LIGHT & CHEAP (not 3klbs of complicated parts -- how light could you build a loveseat?)
+ SELF-DRIVING (the segway really is just about fully autonomous -- its substantionally not much more than a notebook computer with a BIG battery AND wheels!)
+ SUPER-COMFI (three words: SEGWAY BY LA-Z-BOY)
+ V E H I C L E (not *just* a scooter)
... can actually change the face of human transportation.
Wistfully, nowadays whenever I see a 'car' on the road, my mind's eye overlays a segway loveseat, and boy oh boy, is that a much nicer picture...
Now about B2.0's take. For my money, the whole hype/anti-hype cycle of this invention illustrates that news typically doesn't matter (though a nod to our kindly hosts here @/.), but what does matter (to 'them') is inciting people's _prejudice_ (pre-judgement; lack of measured judgement) which gets their attention, which allows them to notice the advertising, which is perhaps the more honest 'matter' for the news.
p.s. the XFL (though a travesty of sport, to be sure) sadly got lynched by the news the same way -- in a horrible twist of fate I ended up defending the probable success of the XFL in showing a friend that, in fact, the will of the public has little effect on the SHIT that is slung our way as "entertainment". FWIW IANAFOPS! (I Am Not A Fan Of Professional Sports)
... http://thefanforce.com/gm/archives/00000003.htm
I myself think True Names is one of the most breathtaking fictions I've read. But then again I am a futurist in training ;)
Now the reason I'm so interested in True Names suckage is to find out how to bridge the aspects I find awesome and worth propagating, and avoiding aspects of writing that are, um, contentious.
And I really want to know because once I'm done my futurist training, I'd really like to write scifi, or better yet, fictions that illustrate the changing nature of mankind and the technology we create.
Who hates True Names!?! Let me know.
The Big O
You bring up a really excellent point AC.
The (leading question) is:
It is obvious that in 20 years (1979 to 1999) of 'progress', just about anything can be accomplished, so if we didn't have moonbase(s) in 20 years, why not?
I'll give you a hint? What has been the most distracting element in our Y.T.S.A. society in the past 30 years since landing on the moon? What could have stolen the dream of space exploration that was so hot when those guys stepped out in July '69?
The answer is not pretty for certain.
.
BG and B5 though cute and clever, repsectiviely, don't hold a candle to Space: 1999 which is /so/ close to reality (in some ways) to be frightening.
:>
/rich/ and the Cyber Museum is a beauty .
I only know that I used to think "weird, they always have those communicators, imagine us having communicators?", back in the olden dayez.
And now everyone (at least here in YTSA) has the communicator!
So the question is, when will our communicators have video too? 2002, 2003, 2004? Anyone into placing bets? I'll setup a pool.cgi if there is _any_ response
Long live Space: 1999!
Google Category is
Sorry, math and physiks is not my strong suit> , but are you saying that Antimatter is only eleven times more powerful/efficient than rocket engines?(5000/452=11.06)?
11X is not so many :/ -- even my cdromz is now up to 56X!! Maybe we can use CDROMZ drives for omni-planet exploration one day (when they get to 1,000,000X!! :>)
one day... :>
Even the phrase "Intellectual Property" itself is somewhat an oxymoron since property is 'real' (as in real estate) and anything "intellectual" is not real. Like "military intelligence", there is something fishy going on (:>).
The basis of Property is that only one person can possess it at any one time (think of 1 square foot of land that you can stand on, if it helps) whereas the premise of Intellect (ideas) is, like software, it is comparatively costless to replicate as many times as desired.
IP is a useful invention in many regards but just like other constructs that exist outside of natural laws, its time will end as "people" say something like they did about Monarchical rule back a couple hundred years ago (they said, this monarchy thing isn't good for the people, and in 1776 they closed that deal).
Though IP has a very strong value in many business contexts, one way to examine its potential longevity is looking at its "Insurability". IP is not something that is easy to take out insurance on, since it can disappear very quickly and has a strong probability of disappearing. If you take a look at our modern (read 1st) world from the perspective of insurance, you'll see the difference between 1st world and 2nd/3rd is insurance. The notion of the safety that insurance brings is a cornerstone of our economy. Without that safety blanket, IP is sure to be eroded away as open source starts to catch on in all endeavors of the "Intellect", like biology, genomic computation and the of DNA based nanotechnology that can be grown in a bread maker or window box (or even a Windoze Box! :>).
Advertising is another such construct that has not always been around, and one day too will meet its end. ;^>
X
[rambling rant warning! :> ]
;^) . That's what we geeks try a lot -- help people with their problems... so, I
Traffic (which I saw) tells it like it is -- the problem is not the drugs -- its the fact that, given the opportunity, people want to feel different. It just so happens that a million generations of plant evolution plopped certain molecules into their 'operating system' that just so happen interact with molecules in our bodies that make us feel different. Random code essentially. Looking at it this way it sure ain't the codes fault, and how can you blame the person who wants to run that code? When someone runs M$ windoze, do we lock them up? No, we try to help them with their problem
Ask Slashdot:
Is there something intrinsically 'nerdlike' that we as a community can start that attacks the problem we can see from this thread, in a unique way?
This is 2001 already and it is high time (pardon the pun) that we as geeks (technology-savants) try do more to make changes in our world.
Is that not our history and perhaps even destiny?
Computer 'jobs' like programming are all about creation, making something new that makes a difference (if only to the bottom line of that corporation you work for), using that 'secret-knowledge' to make the bits fly to make the world a better place.
Katz is always hinting at a "hidden power" that we as a community have because of the ability to look at things differently and generally be pretty open to ideas.
Obviously there has been a lot done to help the cause of 'The Truth' -- the very internet, web, browsers, servers, irc, etc. and all that have created a medium to disemenate the truth, but I have this feeling in the back of my mind that there are things that can be done that can be more pro-active. Something that would spawn bunches of OS projects.
Any ideas of 'something' that goes beyond regular activism, something only the geeks can even try.
A computer/technological approach to helping our society deal with the truth without fear. People are afraid of computers and we help them break down that fear... How can we help people not fear change?
p.s. I guess this all might just be a pipe dream!