trilaterlization (not triangulation) can be done with just 2 towers, but it's iffy. If the 120 degree arcs of the antennas overlap roughly symmetrically and the phone isn't near the edge or either arc, it can sometimes be impossible to map the phone to a single location. If the point opposite the phone in relation to the line of symmetry also falls within the overlapped area, there's no way to know which is the actual location and which is the reflection without having a third tower present. Having a third tower eliminates all reflexive points.
I was saying tip the funding balance away from researching what we already know to be happening
How do we know that AGW is happening? Oh yeah, we've got all this data that clearly supports it...oh, wait, we don't. They won't let us see the raw data and have admitted that they'd rather delete it than reveal it.
How do you know, beyond all doubt, that you've isolated something beyond external influence?
You don't. There is always room for doubt. You do your best to isolate every variable that you can and then you critically analyze the results to look for indications of flaws. One of the purposes of the control is to detect bias in the experiment which would indicate a flaw.
Flaws can exist that don't show up in the comparison of the control and experimental sets, which is why it's so important that experiments are reproduced and the results are validated and refined by other researchers.
Quantum mechanics continuously reveals examples of counter-intuitive and unbelievable behavior. What seems irrational now may later be proven true. All I'm saying is that it's foolish to be so sure of "the way things are" that one mocks and disregards ideas that seem to go against one's understanding of reality.
There's a difference between something that "seems irrational" and something that is "demonstrably irrational". "Seems irrational" is merely a synonym for "misunderstood" or "counter-intuitive". "Demonstrably irrational" means that unless the premise set is changed, the conclusion does not follow. Even if the conclusion happens to be true, if it was incorrectly arrived at, then the line of reasoning should still be criticized.
when science ignores the unknown variables in any given situation, science becomes a religion
Good science never ignores "unknown variables". The whole point of having a control set in an experiment is to isolate the variable being tested from all other variables, known or unknown.
Carl Jung was hardly a crackpot, but believed in the existence of a collective unconscious as well as in synchronicity.
I'm not certain what you're trying to argue here. Beliefs that are clearly irrational given what we know now might not have been clearly irrational before. Besides that, intelligent people often hold both rational and irrational beliefs.
Truly admirable people are willing to reevaluate their beliefs (rational or no) when exposed to new evidence.
Add to this the power of faith / placebo, and it suddenly becomes ignorant to mock nearly any belief.
The placebo effect is well understood, even if we don't know the exact mechanism.
What is this "power of faith" which you so casually conflate with the placebo effect?
Any demonstrably irrational belief should be mocked. Loudly. And often. Especially if it's trying to claim special privilege as a "religious belief" (whatever that means).
Does research continue on OTEC? It seems like it's been years since I read about any active OTEC projects.
In regards to your concern about wind power, a mindbogglingly large amount of energy passes through the atmosphere daily (absorbed and released). I can't imagine that wind farms could possibly have a significant impact. Whether or not it amounts to anything, it is good to think about such things.
So really then, how is this different than traditional closed source software? Developers not listening to their users, wanting to wall themselves off from the morons running the very code they created.
How does that follow?
Just because there is a developer's forum doesn't mean the developers don't also monitor the user forums. Different forums exist for different purposes, and nothing prevents a developer from participating in multiple forums.
All non-trivial bugs do eventually get discussed on a developer's forum/mailinglist/whatever but it is not appropriate to go there for support. If you don't understand the difference between the kind of discussion that goes on in a developer's forum and the kind of discussion that does on in a user or support forum, then you should NEVER post to the developer forum unless the project and its surrounding community is so small that it is the only possible venue.
Oh, and I agree that there's no excuse for asshole behavior, but try as I might, I can't seem to make them all change their ways...(it doesn't help that one person's assholery is another person's insightful, if a bit facetious, remark)
No matter what kind of software you're having troubles with, the helpfulness of your support is almost solely dependent on you choosing the right support venue.
Post an issue on a user forum (free software or otherwise) and you get some useless responses from jerks, some useful responses from advanced users or developers who actually help you, and a bunch of posts from other users who confirm that you're not the only one with that issue.
Post that same issue on a developer forum and you're likely to get a hostile response since that's not what the forum is for.
Don't blame the community when it's your fault for not learning how to engage the community appropriately.
I think the real issue is that if the ribbon is made of a conductor, then the currents created in the ribbon as it sways though Earth's magnetic field will damage the system (the ribbon, climber, and/or anchors).
As the elevator gets further from Earth, the pull of gravity decreases. Therefore, the energy required to move 5m/s close to Earth might allow the elevator to go much faster than 5m/s as the elevator's altitude increases.
But even if it doesn't, 83 days might not be unreasonable if we're talking about cargo rather than astronauts.
I read the first article (second won't load...probably hosed by the/. effect) and it's still not clear to me why this is a big deal. Can someone explain how injecting prefixes compromises my secure datastream?
My fuel gauge shows empty and turns on the warning light when I've still got 3 gallons in a 13.2 gallon tank. That translates to over 100 miles of city driving left in the tank when it claims it's empty.
My gripe list against my Honda isn't long, but this is near the top of the list.
The bug is fixed in the RC, but it's not exploitable in older kernels except when vm.mmap_min_addr = 0. I'm running the vanilla 2.6.30.3 kernel on Gentoo and it's not vulnerable, so it seems likely that you're only vulnerable if your distro (or you, if building a custom kernel) decided to change the default value.
If something is patented, then how can an NDA apply to it since it's already, by definition, public?
The article was woefully lacking in details, but I'm guessing the most likely thing going on here is that Spring thought they had an implied contract with B&N.
I have trouble believing that any patent in this area that is less than 3 years old will stand up to scrutiny. Prior art and obviousness are too big a hurdle for anything less than 10 years old or so.
If the trade secrets and patents revolve around using some particular flavor of Linux on this kind of device, then there's nothing here. Being the first to use Linux on a particular kind of device isn't patentable. If you solved novel problems to get Linux on your device, then maybe the solutions to those problems might be patentable, but only if the solutions aren't obvious.
Hmm...maybe they're very similar because they're attempting to solve the same problem. If there is only one good way to do something given the constraints of the problem, why wouldn't you expect the products to be very similar even if independently developed?
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent +1 informative.
How come I never have mod points for a truly deserving post?
If you're willing to consider a wireless webcam an internet appliance, then we're already there.
That was my initial thought, too.
Hopefully, more details will be released.
trilaterlization (not triangulation) can be done with just 2 towers, but it's iffy. If the 120 degree arcs of the antennas overlap roughly symmetrically and the phone isn't near the edge or either arc, it can sometimes be impossible to map the phone to a single location. If the point opposite the phone in relation to the line of symmetry also falls within the overlapped area, there's no way to know which is the actual location and which is the reflection without having a third tower present. Having a third tower eliminates all reflexive points.
There's a BIOS update that fixes the issue?
If so, then they've already provided a fix. What else do you want from them?
That sounds like an interesting approach. Is there a site that explains how to do this to those of us who don't know anything about a user CSS file?
I was saying tip the funding balance away from researching what we already know to be happening
How do we know that AGW is happening? Oh yeah, we've got all this data that clearly supports it...oh, wait, we don't. They won't let us see the raw data and have admitted that they'd rather delete it than reveal it.
Why do you think that is?
How do you know, beyond all doubt, that you've isolated something beyond external influence?
You don't. There is always room for doubt. You do your best to isolate every variable that you can and then you critically analyze the results to look for indications of flaws. One of the purposes of the control is to detect bias in the experiment which would indicate a flaw.
Flaws can exist that don't show up in the comparison of the control and experimental sets, which is why it's so important that experiments are reproduced and the results are validated and refined by other researchers.
Quantum mechanics continuously reveals examples of counter-intuitive and unbelievable behavior. What seems irrational now may later be proven true. All I'm saying is that it's foolish to be so sure of "the way things are" that one mocks and disregards ideas that seem to go against one's understanding of reality.
There's a difference between something that "seems irrational" and something that is "demonstrably irrational". "Seems irrational" is merely a synonym for "misunderstood" or "counter-intuitive". "Demonstrably irrational" means that unless the premise set is changed, the conclusion does not follow. Even if the conclusion happens to be true, if it was incorrectly arrived at, then the line of reasoning should still be criticized.
when science ignores the unknown variables in any given situation, science becomes a religion
Good science never ignores "unknown variables". The whole point of having a control set in an experiment is to isolate the variable being tested from all other variables, known or unknown.
Carl Jung was hardly a crackpot, but believed in the existence of a collective unconscious as well as in synchronicity.
I'm not certain what you're trying to argue here. Beliefs that are clearly irrational given what we know now might not have been clearly irrational before. Besides that, intelligent people often hold both rational and irrational beliefs.
Truly admirable people are willing to reevaluate their beliefs (rational or no) when exposed to new evidence.
Add to this the power of faith / placebo, and it suddenly becomes ignorant to mock nearly any belief.
The placebo effect is well understood, even if we don't know the exact mechanism.
What is this "power of faith" which you so casually conflate with the placebo effect?
Any demonstrably irrational belief should be mocked. Loudly. And often. Especially if it's trying to claim special privilege as a "religious belief" (whatever that means).
Does research continue on OTEC? It seems like it's been years since I read about any active OTEC projects.
In regards to your concern about wind power, a mindbogglingly large amount of energy passes through the atmosphere daily (absorbed and released). I can't imagine that wind farms could possibly have a significant impact. Whether or not it amounts to anything, it is good to think about such things.
Perhaps you are too educated for your own good.
What does it mean to be too educated?
Are you implying that there is merit to remaining ignorant?
So really then, how is this different than traditional closed source software? Developers not listening to their users, wanting to wall themselves off from the morons running the very code they created.
How does that follow?
Just because there is a developer's forum doesn't mean the developers don't also monitor the user forums. Different forums exist for different purposes, and nothing prevents a developer from participating in multiple forums.
Even when there is equality, there will always be people who claim there isn't so that they can gain leverage or get special treatment.
Conclusion: people suck.
All non-trivial bugs do eventually get discussed on a developer's forum/mailinglist/whatever but it is not appropriate to go there for support. If you don't understand the difference between the kind of discussion that goes on in a developer's forum and the kind of discussion that does on in a user or support forum, then you should NEVER post to the developer forum unless the project and its surrounding community is so small that it is the only possible venue.
Oh, and I agree that there's no excuse for asshole behavior, but try as I might, I can't seem to make them all change their ways...(it doesn't help that one person's assholery is another person's insightful, if a bit facetious, remark)
No matter what kind of software you're having troubles with, the helpfulness of your support is almost solely dependent on you choosing the right support venue.
Post an issue on a user forum (free software or otherwise) and you get some useless responses from jerks, some useful responses from advanced users or developers who actually help you, and a bunch of posts from other users who confirm that you're not the only one with that issue.
Post that same issue on a developer forum and you're likely to get a hostile response since that's not what the forum is for.
Don't blame the community when it's your fault for not learning how to engage the community appropriately.
I think the real issue is that if the ribbon is made of a conductor, then the currents created in the ribbon as it sways though Earth's magnetic field will damage the system (the ribbon, climber, and/or anchors).
As the elevator gets further from Earth, the pull of gravity decreases. Therefore, the energy required to move 5m/s close to Earth might allow the elevator to go much faster than 5m/s as the elevator's altitude increases.
But even if it doesn't, 83 days might not be unreasonable if we're talking about cargo rather than astronauts.
I read the first article (second won't load...probably hosed by the /. effect) and it's still not clear to me why this is a big deal. Can someone explain how injecting prefixes compromises my secure datastream?
My fuel gauge shows empty and turns on the warning light when I've still got 3 gallons in a 13.2 gallon tank. That translates to over 100 miles of city driving left in the tank when it claims it's empty.
My gripe list against my Honda isn't long, but this is near the top of the list.
The bug is fixed in the RC, but it's not exploitable in older kernels except when vm.mmap_min_addr = 0. I'm running the vanilla 2.6.30.3 kernel on Gentoo and it's not vulnerable, so it seems likely that you're only vulnerable if your distro (or you, if building a custom kernel) decided to change the default value.
If something is patented, then how can an NDA apply to it since it's already, by definition, public?
The article was woefully lacking in details, but I'm guessing the most likely thing going on here is that Spring thought they had an implied contract with B&N.
I have trouble believing that any patent in this area that is less than 3 years old will stand up to scrutiny. Prior art and obviousness are too big a hurdle for anything less than 10 years old or so.
If the trade secrets and patents revolve around using some particular flavor of Linux on this kind of device, then there's nothing here. Being the first to use Linux on a particular kind of device isn't patentable. If you solved novel problems to get Linux on your device, then maybe the solutions to those problems might be patentable, but only if the solutions aren't obvious.
Hmm...maybe they're very similar because they're attempting to solve the same problem. If there is only one good way to do something given the constraints of the problem, why wouldn't you expect the products to be very similar even if independently developed?
I don't think copyright infringement is typically a criminal offense.
Can you lose your driver's license without due process?
Seems like internet access is almost as important as being able to drive.