The only problem with running an engine on alcohol is that you need to refine that alcohol first, that is something that takes a huge amount of energy and unless you have a "green" way of doing that you are just as screwed as when you use petrol
If you're using energy that would otherwise be wasted then it becomes quite practical (and economic).
For example, I believe that in New Zealand they're producing ethanol from dairy whey (a byproduct of some milk products).
At least some of the energy used in this production is also a byproduct of processes such as the production of milk-powder or something.
One man's waste energy is another's treasure:-)
Even without using wate energy, I don't see why it wouldn't be practical to use a solar still to perform the fractional distilation required to perform the essential separation of ethanol and water needed to get a 100+% proof fluid for fuel use.
How much gas is required to grow and harvest sugar cane --- if gas prices shoot up, wouldn't cane prices (and virtually everything else) as well?
Well duh! You'd run the harvester and other associated equipment on alcohol or other bio-fuels too!
Actually, there are quite a number of bio-sourced fuels that can be used as easily (or more easily) than ethanol.
I believe methanol can be made from celulose (as opposed to cracking it from more more complex hydrocarbons) and fuels such as rape-seed and other oils make a dandy biodiesel when processed properly.
For some light humour, check the articles that result from this search on the BBC news site where some Brits are dodging massive taxes by running their cars on cooking oil.
Hell, just think what damage Saddam could do to orbiting US spy satellites if he had a half-decent laser and some idea of where to aim it.
Hey, maybe in light (pun) of this guy's antics, the RIAA will now lobby congress to outlaw all laser diodes over a certain wattage (in the name of "homeland security" you understand). This would make CD writers illegal. Look Ma, no piracy problems!
Oh, dear, there are too many good ideas in this thread that the fringe-lunatics could grasp onto.
Yes, the flaw in MS word continues to potentially expose a huge amount of sensitive information on the web (including as many as quarter of a million US Government documents).
Check out this story I wrote back in May for the chilling details.
Surely the RIAA will simply claim that terrorists are responsible for the piracy of their wares and, in the blink of an eye, Yahoo et all will be forced to hand over the information without the need for further proof.
America -- land of the free -- although perhaps not quite so free in a post Sept 11 world:-(
You were correct about your marketing skills. I bet a lot of other dummies like myself read the whole thing only to find out it's just an advertisement
Oh yea, like I expected to get dozens of emails from fat-cat Slashdot readers eager buy up my shareholding!
Perhaps I should have put a smiley on the end for those who are irony-challenged?
I was one of those "bright entrepreneurs" who built an online business (7am.com)with great traffic and an even better future.
Unlike so many of the flash-in-the-pan wondersites that no longer exist, it wasn't built on millions of dollars in VC funding and didn't have large offices filled with geeks on scooters or a carpark filled with Porsches and BMWs.
Started in 1997, it was very much a "one-man band" for two years, during which time it grew from a good idea into one of the most widely syndicated web-based news services on the Net.
Getting it from zero to two million hits a day by 1999 meant working 18-19 hours per day, every day for two straight years and living on the smell of an oily rag.
Suffice to say that I recall quite vividly the day my eardrum burst while I was typing up a breaking news story. I'd gotten an inner ear infection but was too busy to go to the doctor.
I should also point out that 7am.com didn't have the benefit of being US-based. Instead, it was located in rural New Zealand -- half a world away from its target marketplace.
This meant that my workday started at around 11pm and finished at 6pm-7pm the next day.
It also meant that I had to use sweat-equity and innovation to replace a large workforce and lots of capital. 7am.com was a real groundbreaker in the area of syndicated news content on the Web and to this day continues to deliver content through a network of over 200,000 websites.
In 1999 I was approached by a group of local (NZ) "suits" who wanted to buy in and take 7am.com to the NASDAQ.
Remember that by this time the webserver was tracking over 2 million hits per day, the syndication network was about 125,000 third-party websites in size, I had regular advertisers, and Nielsens/NetRatings had rated 7am.com as being more popular than news.bbc.co.uk, CNNfn, Playboy.com and a raft of others.
So, at the peak of the dot-com boom, what would you pay for a site with these respectible figures?
Unfortunately I didn't have a whole lot of other suitors banging down my door and I knew that in order to maintain or improve my position in the market I had to pour more capital into the operation -- so beggars can't be choosers. (The lack of other investors was/is a sad indictment on the state of the VC industry in New Zealand).
I ended up accepting a figure that was (in US$ terms) just in the six-figure bracket.
After paying back the money I'd borrowed to start up the business, some tax, and catching up on the mortgage I was left with just over $10,000 in cash.
I was also left with 34% of the company but I was promised that that I could now slow down my own pace of work, take weekends off and maybe even enjoy a vacation.
Most importantly to me was the promise that the investors would bring skilled business management to the enterprise.
Now I'm the first person to put up my hand and admit that I'm not, and don't aspire to be, a great business manager. I'm an "ideas guy" and I'm also quite competent at marketing -- but crunching numbers and brokering multi-million dollar deals just doesn't spin my wheels I'm afraid.
So here I was -- my bills were up to date, I had a few thousand in my back pocket, I had 34% of (at the time) the world's most widely syndicated web-based news service, and the future looked rosey!
What's more, an independent valuation of the business (made in 1999/2000) suggested that it was worth at least US$40 million
Unfortunately I soon learned that the promises of the new investors were pretty hollow and that they figured they knew the online news business better than me -- despite the fact that none of them had any experience in this field whatsoever.
I was working harder than ever and while everyone else was partying, I had to do 36-hours straight during the millennium eve/day celebrations so as to provide the site with around-the-clock coverage. That promised vacation never eventuated either.
I also gave up trying to provide input and direction because what had been a dynamic, exciting, innovative operation with ultra-low overheads became just another corporate monolith.
By mid-2000 I resigned my positions as director, board-member and news director -- it was simply too frustrating.
To cut a long story short -- I still have a 34% interest in 7am.com, the company continues to trade and remains a significant player in the syndicated news-content market -- but I've never seen another penny.
This annoys the snot out of me because I have since had a number of good ideas but can't afford to fund them.
So, if anyone wants to buy my 34% of 7am.com for a song -- just drop me a line and we'll talk. I've got better things to do with the money than leave it tied up in a large, slow-moving corporate beast.
Not only do they have a totally sadistic site that insists on reloading a lame 288K flash animation every time you sneeze, but the home-page link titled "Check "Validation" page for information on the Tilley Electric Vehicle" takes you to the Nashville Speedway (Detail? Detail? We don't need no steenken attention to detail!).
Did Delorean build the site as well as the original car?
I suspect the shonky state of the website is just a small window into the attitudes and abilities that are behind the Delorean "Scammobile" they're ranting about.
Anyone with a few minutes of spare time can trawl through Google and find half a dozen or more similar scams that are supposedly based around systems that cause electric motors to also act as a generator that can recharge the battery.
Not a single one has ever been proven to work by a certified independent testing authority -- and I don't see the oil companies trembling in their boots either.
But hey, if you believe this Delorean works as advertised then you probably already have one of these stainless steel supercars in your garage -- having believed GM's claims too.
And, if you've got more money than sense, why not visit these sites for some similarly great investment "opportunities":
Promoting an indie band is no different to promoting a website or a can of soup -- one of the most important things you have to do is attract the attention of the media.
How do you do that?
Do something newsworthy!
Look at that boy-band dweeb who said he was going to be the first pop-star in space. He must have gotten at least five or six spots on prime-time news as a result.
Maybe, in the wake of his failure to secure the necessary funding, the band ought to stick a PayPal donation link on their site and claim that "with the help of the online community, *we* will be the first indie band in space"
I can see the media spin now:
"A previously obscure indie band is attempting to go where no band has gone before. Despite, the failure of.... (I can't remember his name;-) to secure the millions of dollars he needs to be flown into orbit by the Russians, this group has launched its own bid to be the first band in space by using the Internet for fundraising.... etc, etc."
What the band needs is someone good at writing spin (oops, I mean PR) to knock up a piece that will capture the attention of all the tired newshounds out there looking for a good filler that can take some column-inches or that "quirky but interesting" spot on the prime-time TV news.
Through the use of similar "well targeted PR" I've been on national TV about five times and in the national press on at least the same number of occasions -- that's more than most people:-)
Of course the fact that I have a history of working in marketing and the news-media probably makes it a little easier for me to write this type of PR, but it's not rocket science;-)
Well maybe they're not about to go bankrupt -- but given that they seem to be too cheap to buy a license to distribute the MP3 decoder element of their software you have to wonder don't you?
I noticed that they'd "temporarily suspended downloads" of the JMF when I went to download it a couple of weeks ago -- although no mention was made at that time exactly which license was the "issue" involved.
Having co-authored a book about Java, having got the tee-shirt, having collected the coffee-mug, and having the Java-cap in my closet, I have to admit that I'm disappointed with the way Sun have screwed up what could have been a beautiful thing.
Either they're going to sink enough resource into Java to fix the bugs, create a more programmer friendly GUI classlib, and compete head-on with Microsoft's offerings -- or they're going to nickle and dime the project all the way to the grave. I fear the latter is more likely based on events of the past five years or so.
It strikes me that if the management of this company are so unskilled as to allow a situation like this to develop, they're probably also so unskilled that the company's future must surely be in doubt.
I'd say that you should get out while you can -- or you may find that you'll turn up one morning (not too far from now) and find the boss gone and the doors locked.
Once things get to that stage you'll find it very difficult to extract any money owed and you'll be looking for another job.
Pre-empt this situation by starting that job-hunt now and bailing as soon as another option appears.
I've seen this scenario happen even when times are good -- and right now, times are anything but good in the tech sector.
The shopping bag analogy is a good one -- except for one thing:
Under copyright law, the IP owner is granting you a license. The terms of that license are entirely up to the IP owner to dictate.
You, of course, always have the option of saying "no thanks" and walking away -- but if you buy the product then you're bound by the license that comes with it.
This means that if the license is tied to the media then loss or damage to the media represents loss or damage to the goods and you're not entitled to any replacement (unless the loss or damage was due to a manufacturing defect).
However, just because they can dictate such stupid terms is no reason why any IP owner should do so.
If the RIAA just used some commonsense, they'd realise that by licensing the content and not the media itself they'd soothe a lot of ruffled brows and regain some moral high-ground.
Imagine how much positive PR they'd get if they announced that any original disk that was damaged would be replaced for the price of the media plus handling ($1-$2). This move would also immediately negate the common justification that copying is necessary to produce "backup" copies of valuable CDs wouldn't it?
No longer would the RIAA have to accept that copying a commercial music recording is justifiable on the grounds that it's simply to protect the original investment.
Of course the lard-asses at the RIAA are trying to protect their goose from being stolen by holding its neck as tight as they can - and in the process they're killing it.
If they had half a brain they'd regain some of the moral high-ground by adopting a licensing system similar to that used by many software developers which allows for media-replacement and makes it clear that you're buying a single-user right to use the content.
Discovery Channel covered MAVs
on
Micro Air Vehicles
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
A segment on Discovery Magazine, aired on the Discovery channel recently, covered these MAVs and showed some guy who'd fitted several of his model airplanes with cameras.
As someone who's also done this I can tell you that it's still important to have the vehicle in direct visual line of site if you want to be sure and get it back.
When looking at the world through a remote video camera without the benefit of an artificial horizon and other instrumentation, it's very easy to get a small model into a spin or spiral from which it is difficult to recover. Being able to directly see the model from the ground is the only safe way to ensure you can regain control in such situations.
The problem is one of orientation -- once you lose view of the horizon through the camera it becomes very difficult to tell what your plane is doing -- thus very difficult to feed in the proper control corrections.
If it weren't a breach of copyright I'd post the DivX video I made of that Discovery broadcast -- it was really quite interesting.
For more proof that the recording companies expect special dispensation when it comes to engaging in otherwise illegal acts check out New Zealand's copyright law and Sony's blatant flouting of them.
According to Section 37 of the NZ Copyright Act, the importation, sale, hire or in some cases mere possession of any device "specifically designed or adapted for making copies" of copyrighted works is a breach of Copyright Law.
However, in the advertising for their Mini Disk player, Sony claim purchasers can "quickly and easily connect Net MD directly to their PC in order to download music files from the Internet or their CD-Rom drive"
Now excuse me -- but since Section 30 of the NZ Copyright Act clearly states that "The copying of a [copyrighted] work is a restricted act in relation to every description of copyright work", then it is obvious that Sony are promoting a device that is designed to break the law.
However, do you think the local recording industry has lodged a complaint about Sony's law-breaking?
Hell no!
Could it be because the head of Sony Music NZ is also the guy the recording industry has given the task of heading up their anti-piracy campaign?
For more information on NZ copyright laws you can check out the article on Aardvark.
I agree -- most ads are cheap crap that are overplayed to the point where they're probably right up there with Chinese water torture in terms of their effect on the human mind.
Maybe if advertisers and the creative teams they employed got of their fat backsides and actually created some stuff worth watching then they'd find that the terms "ad break" and "change channels" weren't so intimately linked in the consumer's mind.
Most Slash-dot users are probably too young to remember the Dinah Shore show on TV when it was sponsored by "The Chevrolette Dealers of America" -- but this is a great example of how advertisers and content can be blended to the benefit of both.
Imagine for a moment -- "The Nike Seinfeld Show", or maybe "The Coca Cola That 70's show."
Of course asking a single sponsor to pay for the equivalent of all that ad-time would be a bit steep and represent poor value -- but ask yourself exactly why advertising costs so much anyway...
Why on earth is anyone (even Jerry Sienfeld) worth more than a couple of thousand bucks an episode? Isn't it about time these "stars" realized that the future of their medium might just be in jeopardy unless they're prepared to take a pay-cut that puts them back in "the real world."
Back in the 1960's, Chevrolette could afford to sponsor an entire show because Dinah Shore got paid a "fair" wage for what she did. The advertising was intrinsic to the program -- even the show's theme was a song that included the words "see the USA in your Chevrolette..."
When you have actors asking for, and getting, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode (or more) then it's no wonder the ad-funded model no longer works.
This is all too much like the music industry where someone (not always the artist) is charging far too much for the services they're providing.
If everyone starts thinking "moderation" then maybe those halcyon days when an entire program could be sponsored by a single advertiser without the need for endless ad-breaks or pop-ups could return.
It seems to me that this is very similar to the problems we're having with the recording industry and MP3s.
Their business model has broken and they're trying vainly to simply patch it up by calling in the lawyers and copy-protection gurus instead of addressing the root cause -- lack of value for money.
The same goes with the free-to-air (FTA) ad-funded TV broadcast model. They're losing advertising revenues because technology (TiVo/ReplayTV) is marginalizing their business model. Like the recording industry, they're trying to patch up this shonky model by simply ramping up the intrusiveness of the advertising -- which will have entirely predictable results.
So... here's the solution:
Just as the Net allows MP3 music files created by independent recording artists to be distributed in high quality and at low cost, the use of DivX now allows indie TV producers the chance to get their programming out there at low cost.
Just look at how widely distributed and highly praised the indie 405 movie became thanks to its release on the Net.
Just as in the music industry, there are a lot of really talented producers, directors, actors and effects people out there who might gain significiant benefit when FTA TV finally pushes their luck too hard and really piss off viewers.
I'm sure that most of us would consider a subscription or short (30-60 second) advertisement at the start of each indie movie as a small price to pay in order to enjoy more of great stuff like this -- whilst thumbing our noses at the FTA networks and their lame business model.
The secret to success is realising that an obstacle in your path is simply the chance to climb up and gain a better vantage point.
Slashdot Mirror
The only problem with running an engine on alcohol is that you need to refine that alcohol first, that is something that takes a huge amount of energy and unless you have a "green" way of doing that you are just as screwed as when you use petrol
:-)
If you're using energy that would otherwise be wasted then it becomes quite practical (and economic).
For example, I believe that in New Zealand they're producing ethanol from dairy whey (a byproduct of some milk products).
At least some of the energy used in this production is also a byproduct of processes such as the production of milk-powder or something.
One man's waste energy is another's treasure
Even without using wate energy, I don't see why it wouldn't be practical to use a solar still to perform the fractional distilation required to perform the essential separation of ethanol and water needed to get a 100+% proof fluid for fuel use.
How much gas is required to grow and harvest sugar cane --- if gas prices shoot up, wouldn't cane prices (and virtually everything else) as well?
Well duh! You'd run the harvester and other associated equipment on alcohol or other bio-fuels too!
Actually, there are quite a number of bio-sourced fuels that can be used as easily (or more easily) than ethanol.
I believe methanol can be made from celulose (as opposed to cracking it from more more complex hydrocarbons) and fuels such as rape-seed and other oils make a dandy biodiesel when processed properly.
For some light humour, check the articles that result from this search on the BBC news site where some Brits are dodging massive taxes by running their cars on cooking oil.
Hell, just think what damage Saddam could do to orbiting US spy satellites if he had a half-decent laser and some idea of where to aim it.
Hey, maybe in light (pun) of this guy's antics, the RIAA will now lobby congress to outlaw all laser diodes over a certain wattage (in the name of "homeland security" you understand). This would make CD writers illegal. Look Ma, no piracy problems!
Oh, dear, there are too many good ideas in this thread that the fringe-lunatics could grasp onto.
Warning: Do not look directly at laser with remaining good eye.
Feel free to extend this list...
Yes, the flaw in MS word continues to potentially expose a huge amount of sensitive information on the web (including as many as quarter of a million US Government documents).
Check out this story I wrote back in May for the chilling details.
I want my three dollars! [scamorama.com]
Long but funny. Make sure to read to the end.
The last email in that exchange is one of the funniest things I've read in many years.
Just about pissed my pants!
Someone mod it up please!
Surely the RIAA will simply claim that terrorists are responsible for the piracy of their wares and, in the blink of an eye, Yahoo et all will be forced to hand over the information without the need for further proof.
:-(
America -- land of the free -- although perhaps not quite so free in a post Sept 11 world
You were correct about your marketing skills. I bet a lot of other dummies like myself read the whole thing only to find out it's just an advertisement
Oh yea, like I expected to get dozens of emails from fat-cat Slashdot readers eager buy up my shareholding!
Perhaps I should have put a smiley on the end for those who are irony-challenged?
I was one of those "bright entrepreneurs" who built an online business (7am.com)with great traffic and an even better future.
Unlike so many of the flash-in-the-pan wondersites that no longer exist, it wasn't built on millions of dollars in VC funding and didn't have large offices filled with geeks on scooters or a carpark filled with Porsches and BMWs.
Started in 1997, it was very much a "one-man band" for two years, during which time it grew from a good idea into one of the most widely syndicated web-based news services on the Net.
Getting it from zero to two million hits a day by 1999 meant working 18-19 hours per day, every day for two straight years and living on the smell of an oily rag.
Suffice to say that I recall quite vividly the day my eardrum burst while I was typing up a breaking news story. I'd gotten an inner ear infection but was too busy to go to the doctor.
I should also point out that 7am.com didn't have the benefit of being US-based. Instead, it was located in rural New Zealand -- half a world away from its target marketplace.
This meant that my workday started at around 11pm and finished at 6pm-7pm the next day.
It also meant that I had to use sweat-equity and innovation to replace a large workforce and lots of capital. 7am.com was a real groundbreaker in the area of syndicated news content on the Web and to this day continues to deliver content through a network of over 200,000 websites.
In 1999 I was approached by a group of local (NZ) "suits" who wanted to buy in and take 7am.com to the NASDAQ.
Remember that by this time the webserver was tracking over 2 million hits per day, the syndication network was about 125,000 third-party websites in size, I had regular advertisers, and Nielsens/NetRatings had rated 7am.com as being more popular than news.bbc.co.uk, CNNfn, Playboy.com and a raft of others.
So, at the peak of the dot-com boom, what would you pay for a site with these respectible figures?
Unfortunately I didn't have a whole lot of other suitors banging down my door and I knew that in order to maintain or improve my position in the market I had to pour more capital into the operation -- so beggars can't be choosers. (The lack of other investors was/is a sad indictment on the state of the VC industry in New Zealand).
I ended up accepting a figure that was (in US$ terms) just in the six-figure bracket.
After paying back the money I'd borrowed to start up the business, some tax, and catching up on the mortgage I was left with just over $10,000 in cash.
I was also left with 34% of the company but I was promised that that I could now slow down my own pace of work, take weekends off and maybe even enjoy a vacation.
Most importantly to me was the promise that the investors would bring skilled business management to the enterprise.
Now I'm the first person to put up my hand and admit that I'm not, and don't aspire to be, a great business manager. I'm an "ideas guy" and I'm also quite competent at marketing -- but crunching numbers and brokering multi-million dollar deals just doesn't spin my wheels I'm afraid.
So here I was -- my bills were up to date, I had a few thousand in my back pocket, I had 34% of (at the time) the world's most widely syndicated web-based news service, and the future looked rosey!
What's more, an independent valuation of the business (made in 1999/2000) suggested that it was worth at least US$40 million
Unfortunately I soon learned that the promises of the new investors were pretty hollow and that they figured they knew the online news business better than me -- despite the fact that none of them had any experience in this field whatsoever.
I was working harder than ever and while everyone else was partying, I had to do 36-hours straight during the millennium eve/day celebrations so as to provide the site with around-the-clock coverage. That promised vacation never eventuated either.
I also gave up trying to provide input and direction because what had been a dynamic, exciting, innovative operation with ultra-low overheads became just another corporate monolith.
By mid-2000 I resigned my positions as director, board-member and news director -- it was simply too frustrating.
To cut a long story short -- I still have a 34% interest in 7am.com, the company continues to trade and remains a significant player in the syndicated news-content market -- but I've never seen another penny.
This annoys the snot out of me because I have since had a number of
good ideas but can't afford to fund them.
So, if anyone wants to buy my 34% of 7am.com for a song -- just drop me a line and we'll talk. I've got better things to do with the money than leave it tied up in a large, slow-moving corporate beast.
Excuse my French but this is just a load of crap.
Just take a look at their website for a start...
Not only do they have a totally sadistic site that insists on reloading a lame 288K flash animation every time you sneeze, but the home-page link titled "Check "Validation" page for information on the Tilley Electric Vehicle" takes you to the Nashville Speedway (Detail? Detail? We don't need no steenken attention to detail!).
Did Delorean build the site as well as the original car?
I suspect the shonky state of the website is just a small window into the attitudes and abilities that are behind the Delorean "Scammobile" they're ranting about.
Anyone with a few minutes of spare time can trawl through Google and find half a dozen or more similar scams that are supposedly based around systems that cause electric motors to also act as a generator that can recharge the battery.
Not a single one has ever been proven to work by a certified independent testing authority -- and I don't see the oil companies trembling in their boots either.
But hey, if you believe this Delorean works as advertised then you probably already have one of these stainless steel supercars in your garage -- having believed GM's claims too.
And, if you've got more money than sense, why not visit these sites for some similarly great investment "opportunities":
Free Electricity
Psitronics
Ain't it a shame that so many really clever people just never seem to get an even break eh?
ROTFL
Promoting an indie band is no different to promoting a website or a can of soup -- one of the most important things you have to do is attract the attention of the media.
.... (I can't remember his name ;-) to secure the millions of dollars he needs to be flown into orbit by the Russians, this group has launched its own bid to be the first band in space by using the Internet for fundraising.... etc, etc."
:-)
;-)
How do you do that?
Do something newsworthy!
Look at that boy-band dweeb who said he was going to be the first pop-star in space. He must have gotten at least five or six spots on prime-time news as a result.
Maybe, in the wake of his failure to secure the necessary funding, the band ought to stick a PayPal donation link on their site and claim that "with the help of the online community, *we* will be the first indie band in space"
I can see the media spin now:
"A previously obscure indie band is attempting to go where no band has gone before. Despite, the failure of
What the band needs is someone good at writing spin (oops, I mean PR) to knock up a piece that will capture the attention of all the tired newshounds out there looking for a good filler that can take some column-inches or that "quirky but interesting" spot on the prime-time TV news.
Through the use of similar "well targeted PR" I've been on national TV about five times and in the national press on at least the same number of occasions -- that's more than most people
Of course the fact that I have a history of working in marketing and the news-media probably makes it a little easier for me to write this type of PR, but it's not rocket science
Well maybe they're not about to go bankrupt -- but given that they seem to be too cheap to buy a license to distribute the MP3 decoder element of their software you have to wonder don't you?
I noticed that they'd "temporarily suspended downloads" of the JMF when I went to download it a couple of weeks ago -- although no mention was made at that time exactly which license was the "issue" involved.
Having co-authored a book about Java, having got the tee-shirt, having collected the coffee-mug, and having the Java-cap in my closet, I have to admit that I'm disappointed with the way Sun have screwed up what could have been a beautiful thing.
Either they're going to sink enough resource into Java to fix the bugs, create a more programmer friendly GUI classlib, and compete head-on with Microsoft's offerings -- or they're going to nickle and dime the project all the way to the grave. I fear the latter is more likely based on events of the past five years or so.
Sad really -- I like Java.
It strikes me that if the management of this company are so unskilled as to allow a situation like this to develop, they're probably also so unskilled that the company's future must surely be in doubt.
I'd say that you should get out while you can -- or you may find that you'll turn up one morning (not too far from now) and find the boss gone and the doors locked.
Once things get to that stage you'll find it very difficult to extract any money owed and you'll be looking for another job.
Pre-empt this situation by starting that job-hunt now and bailing as soon as another option appears.
I've seen this scenario happen even when times are good -- and right now, times are anything but good in the tech sector.
I pitty the poor fool that fires a wire-guided missile at one of these tanks eh?
However, I suspect it would create a good market for graphite-ribbon missiles similar to the type used to take out power generators and substations.
How many cats will be sacrificed to test a 1024x1024 quantum array I wonder?
The model described in the article isn't any kind of real terrorist threat due to its limited payload capacity and slow speed.
However, that doesn't mean that creating a low cost cruise missile isn't beyond the means of even the smallest terror group or nation.
Check out The Low Cost Cruise Missile for a pointer to where the real danger lies.
How high are Microsoft's ethics?
Here's a satirical insight into Bill Gate's strategies and plans:
Palladium, More Precious Than Gold
The shopping bag analogy is a good one -- except for one thing:
Under copyright law, the IP owner is granting you a license. The terms of that license are entirely up to the IP owner to dictate.
You, of course, always have the option of saying "no thanks" and walking away -- but if you buy the product then you're bound by the license that comes with it.
This means that if the license is tied to the media then loss or damage to the media represents loss or damage to the goods and you're not entitled to any replacement (unless the loss or damage was due to a manufacturing defect).
However, just because they can dictate such stupid terms is no reason why any IP owner should do so.
If the RIAA just used some commonsense, they'd realise that by licensing the content and not the media itself they'd soothe a lot of ruffled brows and regain some moral high-ground.
Imagine how much positive PR they'd get if they announced that any original disk that was damaged would be replaced for the price of the media plus handling ($1-$2). This move would also immediately negate the common justification that copying is necessary to produce "backup" copies of valuable CDs wouldn't it?
No longer would the RIAA have to accept that copying a commercial music recording is justifiable on the grounds that it's simply to protect the original investment.
Of course the lard-asses at the RIAA are trying to protect their goose from being stolen by holding its neck as tight as they can - and in the process they're killing it.
If they had half a brain they'd regain some of the moral high-ground by adopting a licensing system similar to that used by many software developers which allows for media-replacement and makes it clear that you're buying a single-user right to use the content.
A segment on Discovery Magazine, aired on the Discovery channel recently, covered these MAVs and showed some guy who'd fitted several of his model airplanes with cameras.
As someone who's also done this I can tell you that it's still important to have the vehicle in direct visual line of site if you want to be sure and get it back.
When looking at the world through a remote video camera without the benefit of an artificial horizon and other instrumentation, it's very easy to get a small model into a spin or spiral from which it is difficult to recover. Being able to directly see the model from the ground is the only safe way to ensure you can regain control in such situations.
The problem is one of orientation -- once you lose view of the horizon through the camera it becomes very difficult to tell what your plane is doing -- thus very difficult to feed in the proper control corrections.
If it weren't a breach of copyright I'd post the DivX video I made of that Discovery broadcast -- it was really quite interesting.
At least this time those clever scientist types remembered to bolt the test vehicle to the rocket engine.
Anyone remember the poor Japanese SSTV model a few weeks ago?
But seriously (did I just say that?), one of the problems with SCRAMJETs is their gobsmackingly high fuel consumption.
This is one of the reasons that scientists are also exploring pulse detonation engines as an alternative super/hypersonic propulsion engine.
It is rumored that the PDE-powered craft are responsible for those "donut on a rope" contrails seen by some high above the USA.
For more proof that the recording companies expect special dispensation when it comes to engaging in otherwise illegal acts check out New Zealand's copyright law and Sony's blatant flouting of them.
According to Section 37 of the NZ Copyright Act, the importation, sale, hire or in some cases mere possession of any device "specifically designed or adapted for making copies" of copyrighted works is a breach of Copyright Law.
However, in the advertising for their Mini Disk player, Sony claim purchasers can "quickly and easily connect Net MD directly to their PC in order to download music files from the Internet or their CD-Rom drive"
Now excuse me -- but since Section 30 of the NZ Copyright Act clearly states that "The copying of a [copyrighted] work is a restricted act in relation to every description of copyright work", then it is obvious that Sony are promoting a device that is designed to break the law.
However, do you think the local recording industry has lodged a complaint about Sony's law-breaking?
Hell no!
Could it be because the head of Sony Music NZ is also the guy the recording industry has given the task of heading up their anti-piracy campaign?
For more information on NZ copyright laws you can check out the article on Aardvark.
Quicktime's upgrade policy sucks.
I was mug enough to fork out $ for version 4 and then, shortly afterwards, they bought out version 5 and wanted more $
What's more, the lame "Check for Quicktime Updates" function never ever worked from behind my firewall.
I'll stick with DivX thanks.
I agree -- most ads are cheap crap that are overplayed to the point where they're probably right up there with Chinese water torture in terms of their effect on the human mind.
Maybe if advertisers and the creative teams they employed got of their fat backsides and actually created some stuff worth watching then they'd find that the terms "ad break" and "change channels" weren't so intimately linked in the consumer's mind.
Most Slash-dot users are probably too young to remember the Dinah Shore show on TV when it was sponsored by "The Chevrolette Dealers of America" -- but this is a great example of how advertisers and content can be blended to the benefit of both.
Imagine for a moment -- "The Nike Seinfeld Show", or maybe "The Coca Cola That 70's show."
Of course asking a single sponsor to pay for the equivalent of all that ad-time would be a bit steep and represent poor value -- but ask yourself exactly why advertising costs so much anyway...
Why on earth is anyone (even Jerry Sienfeld) worth more than a couple of thousand bucks an episode? Isn't it about time these "stars" realized that the future of their medium might just be in jeopardy unless they're prepared to take a pay-cut that puts them back in "the real world."
Back in the 1960's, Chevrolette could afford to sponsor an entire show because Dinah Shore got paid a "fair" wage for what she did. The advertising was intrinsic to the program -- even the show's theme was a song that included the words "see the USA in your Chevrolette..."
When you have actors asking for, and getting, tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode (or more) then it's no wonder the ad-funded model no longer works.
This is all too much like the music industry where someone (not always the artist) is charging far too much for the services they're providing.
If everyone starts thinking "moderation" then maybe those halcyon days when an entire program could be sponsored by a single advertiser without the need for endless ad-breaks or pop-ups could return.
It seems to me that this is very similar to the problems we're having with the recording industry and MP3s.
Their business model has broken and they're trying vainly to simply patch it up by calling in the lawyers and copy-protection gurus instead of addressing the root cause -- lack of value for money.
The same goes with the free-to-air (FTA) ad-funded TV broadcast model. They're losing advertising revenues because technology (TiVo/ReplayTV) is marginalizing their business model. Like the recording industry, they're trying to patch up this shonky model by simply ramping up the intrusiveness of the advertising -- which will have entirely predictable results.
So... here's the solution:
Just as the Net allows MP3 music files created by independent recording artists to be distributed in high quality and at low cost, the use of DivX now allows indie TV producers the chance to get their programming out there at low cost.
Just look at how widely distributed and highly praised the indie 405 movie became thanks to its release on the Net.
Just as in the music industry, there are a lot of really talented producers, directors, actors and effects people out there who might gain significiant benefit when FTA TV finally pushes their luck too hard and really piss off viewers.
I'm sure that most of us would consider a subscription or short (30-60 second) advertisement at the start of each indie movie as a small price to pay in order to enjoy more of great stuff like this -- whilst thumbing our noses at the FTA networks and their lame business model.
The secret to success is realising that an obstacle in your path is simply the chance to climb up and gain a better vantage point.