I like the idea of an embedded linux incubator. My company, which develops wifi mesh routers, uses embedded linux and weve been looking at going to an incubator to sort of help things run more smoothly. The problem with this is that's it's in silicon valley. I know I shouldn't expect Panasonic to bend to my whims, but if it were in the Boston area, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
I am dismayed by so much off-topic bullshit in the comments for this story. I'm also irritated at the BSD vs. Linux argument. I'd like to use BSD, I really would. But it just isn't ready. NetBSD is the only one that even claims to have support for the broadcom mipsel processor I am using, and yet it doesn't work and the mailing lists for it are a ghost town. No support is available for it. I even tried to see if I could buy some support from Wasabi Systems, but they don't support the processor (though they would be willing to port their tools to it if I paid..sorry i don't have that kind of money). With so little BSD activity on this processor, it would be insane for me to try to jump to bsd from linux. But, if someone experienced wanted to help, I'd be very willing to give it a shot.
Each time there's an article on BPL here on slashdot, I find it neccessary to point out that it is a destructive technology, making HF radio pretty much unusable.
While you may not think that your neighbor yammering on his CB, or another neighbor listening to broadcast from Radio Swaziland,or listening talk radio on AM broadcast are very important, there are other communications that are also disrupted: HF radio is used by emergency response agencies all over the world. The inadequacy of communications (among other failures of emergency services) was well demonstrated by the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster. BPL will make this worse.
HF radio, unlike cellular telephones and other centralized radio systems, has the ability to comunicate over long distances without any intermediate infrastructure. The is vital for disaster communications where the infrastructure is overloaded or destroyed.
Worst hit would be the poorer nations of the world, where telephone service is often unavailable or unreliable, and much of the communication has depended on HF radio. While the interference at a distance will be less, it will still be strong, very easily strong enough to make a weak signal calling for help in Afria disappear in BPL noise generated in Australia or the US.
It goes both ways: HF radio can also interfere with BPL. I think that, in an area where BPL is interfering with Amateur Radio, that the Amateurs will not hesitate to use more powerful transmitters (if they can afford the electric bill for doing so). These will disrupt BPL, quite easily to the point of being unusable. And I doubt the BPL ISP will let you out of the contract because of such interference! So don't sign up. It's not worth the headache, and the guilt, and angry hams and other angry HF radio users.
Expensive, equipment-wise. Not available in many places. With the unlicensed bands, there's not a lot of space left at 900 or 2.4 ghz.
It might be better to get some people together and do some wifi link out to a location where you can get service. But that's a lot of work. But $500 can get you a power link.
intelligence doesn't have anything to do with wealth. if everybody had an IQ of 200, guess what, there would still be poor people!
and, if everybody had an IQ of 65, there would still be rich people!
You don't seem to know what IQ means. It stands for Intelligence Quotient, i.e. a ratio, times one hundred. It's the intelligence of the subject in relation to others of the same age. Let's put aside the question of whether intelligence can be measured for a moment, and just assume that something is being measured, and for the sake of convenience we're going to call it intelligence. So, it is not possible for 'everyone' to have an IQ of 65 or 200, because it's a ratio.
It's also interesting to note the factoring of age in to IQ. I am pretty sure that those of us who run around waving IQ test results showing and IQ for 150, are probably using an old test. There's a n upper limit to the ability of the tests to measure intelligence, so while a person tested at age ten may have a result of a 150 IQ, the same person tested at 25 and coming up at 115 hasn't become dumber (well, maybe they have, but that's unlikely), but the test is taking the age change into account.
So, if you want your kids to be able to get into MENSA, have them repeatedly tested at early ages!
But in one sense I do agree with what you are saying, sort of. IQ and wealth are both relative to other people. Yet, there is a part to the idea of wealth that is absolute: A French King of the fifteenth century might look upon the posessions of the middle class American of today and feel poor by comparison, because of the tools we now have that even a King of old could not get. This type of societal wealth is often well illustrated in Science Fiction stories where a modern person goes back in time and impresses the powerful people of that era with something commonplace in our own, such as a cigarette lighter or flashlight.
Survival of the dumbest -- well, that's adaption as well. Survival of the dumbest would seem to say high brain power isn't just useless, it's counter-productive. The reasoning being that those with more brain power tend to seek out higher education at Universities, in order to make the most of their brainpower, but that college education and post-college career choices seem to make people have less children. I wonder what the replacement rate is among Harvard/MIT/Stanford PhDs: I am sure it's nowhere near parity, I wouldn't been surprised if it's below 50% (meaning that a couple on average has less than one child).
Survival of the dumbest would probably favor an stronger immune system (to deal with the filth of the breeding ghettos), and broad hips (to make popping out babies easier), and perhaps an ability to yell loud (to address the swarm of offspring).
I wonder if survival of the dumbest favors height, Consider the Wilt Chamberlain factor....
There ought to be a law that says that all government web pages are standards-compliant and do not call for users to use a specific company's product to use them.
Why people like the FSF aren't out there pursuing this instead of trying to ram political stuff into GPLV3, is what I want to know.
Thanks for one of the more interesting and informative posts on this topic. I am tired of reading posts saying "Are we there yet? Why not? You said we would have fusion by now" like some petulant infant.
Fusion reactors are difficult. It takes a lot of time and money (and of course, brains) to figure this out. Though the more money you add to the equation, the less time is required, it stops being beneficial at some point. There's a lot of bright minds working on this problem, but there's not enough, and they can only work so hard. Having the big and expensive labs to test out their ideas does help these scientists, but they can only think so fast.
This really angers me. To think that at one time I actually interviewed for a job at the FSF! Anyhow, I think that many, if not most, software patents are bogus, but the idea of a software patent is not. What we need is to fix the system, not do away with it.
The DRM stuff bothers me as well, but mostly in their method of compensation for artists. This method smacks of government-supported art and that's just not good. I hate most of the pop culture out there, why should I have to pay for it? Why should I enrich the crappy pop stars? Who decides what artist is worthy of being paid for their work, and how much they should be paid? I'd rather things continued they way they are, and have DRM, than have this Government Art shoved down my throat.
If this is actually put into play, and infects my linux machines, I will convert to a BSD system. I've played with BSDs in the past but always come back to Linux...but this could be the breaking point.
This is interesting, this in-situ processing. I have to admit that the idea of superheated shale and ice walls does sound quite energy intensive. I wonder if there's a good way to get rid of the ice walls...I mean, from what I understand, in the area of colorado they're talking about, there's no water underground to pollute anyhow.
Petroleum products are not only useful as a source of energy, but also for its storage. It would be a waste to use those valuable petro products generating heat, when it can be done more efficiently by nuclear fission. I imagine steam pipes going over colorado and into the ground from a large power plant (that's near a river as a source of water).
Someone mentioned that the rocks would stay hot for hundreds or thousands of years...uh...how do you figure that? Given that it is an enormous thermal mass, but there's a heck of a lot of heat being removed by the extraction of the hydrocarbon products and water. I think the problem woul dbe the opposite, in trying to keep the rock hot enough, especially if those ice walls are used.
Now, onto smug europeans: I am damned sick of the number of you people trating us americans like we're stupid, spoiled brats. Too many europeans make broad generalizations about Americans that just don't hold up to rigorous evaluation. Yes, too many of us drive cars/trucks that are overly large and inefficient in a quick comparison to what many europeans drive. It has been pointed out that Americans often have to drive greater distances than Europeans for work. But there's also the issue of having to drive further for groceries and supplies. This often means driving over worse roads (hence the trucks with big suspensions and increased cargo capacity). There's still a great portion of the US that is rural and agricultural. That's a good thing for you Europeans, because we export a large amount of food...feeding Europe! There's all sorts of fighting about hormones in milk and genetically engineered crops, but most US crops are still legal in Europe, and do help feed Europe.
Second fallacy of self-appointed European energy experts is this idea that "you have to put more money into public transportation". Well, it's not that simple. Where would you put it? Intercity trains? Well, who owns the tracks? Not amtrak. They run the trains. The trains are slow, so people are hesitant to use them. Why are they slow? Most often because they are old, and not in great shape. Most of these tracks are owned by railroad corporations, who use them for transporting freight, which is less about sending things quickly than it is about sending thing cheaply. Track wears out based upon number of transits, load, speed and speed change. Curved and graded portions wear out more quickly. Guess what? A large portion of the US metropolitan population lives in areas where curves and grades are necessary because they are somewhat mountainous, and have rivers and swamps as well. Speed limits are reduced to keep from wearing the track out, and also for safety reasons on worn track with a lot of curves. This only makes sense. But there's also the question of the rail bed. Rail beds are the piles of rocks and earth that supprt the rail and ties. Rail beds don't really wear out, but are built to transport a certain load. Freight tends to be heavier and slower. This requires really strong beds. Because of freight's need for such strong beds, it's very expensive to raise or lower the bed very much above or below the terrain, i.e. to build up or to cut through mounds of rock. And bridges are very expensive, when built to take such loads. These issues make it more economically efficient for freight trains to twist and climb, ascend and descend, at a crawling pace, than it would be to try to punch a straight track through mountains and over marshes. But this is the opposite of what passenger service needs, which is quick travel without so much load. Damn!
So why not be brilliant and build two rail networks, one for passenger service and one for freight? Well, that has some advant
Really...I don't understand why this is important enough to rate a slashdot article. I've noticed that lots of important news doesn't make the cut here, or comes in late, while trivia such as this pops in without reason.
When I was a kid, about 5, my mother told me that diamonds were carbon, the same as charcoal, just really, really compressed. So I took out some pliers and squeezed realllllyy hard to try to make some. It took a week before I admitted defeat.
These days, I am trying to port NetBSD to a netgear router, with the NetBSD forums for the sbmips port being completely a ghost town. It may be an similar task to that which I tried as a kid. But I have MUCH bigger pliers now!
I am a licensed no-code tech. I keep on meaning to upgrade, but I really don't like morse code. I'd upgrade in a minute if the code requirement were eliminated.
But I thought the written test for technician was too easy. General is a bit tougher, but I think there needs to be more modern questions, i.e. things about psk31 and mfsk16, etc. These are the modes that newcomers will most likely use on the HF bands.
Amateur Radio does need a shot in the arm. THe kids that used to get interested in Radio and become licensed and active hams how are more interested in the Internet. Even though there are still people getting their license at a young age, many of them are not active.
Speaking of being active, I am going to go get on the radio. I wonder how 6 meters is doing. See you on 52.525!
What's the advantage of using this over an SSL certificate? Besides, of course, the laxity with which some CAs are becoming prone? What we need is better CA policies, and public trust in better performing CAs.
I've thought that SSL Certs should be issued by the various authorities of corporate registration, i.e. State of Delaware, and for individuals, the passport office. CA info would include the legal identifiers of the entity involved, including corporate registration number, so there can be little question of who is being dealt with. Some part of the browser can then link that corporate registration number to the various corporate registration authorities online information systems and provide ownership, address, etc. for the corporation, and these database should also have a field for the official corporate web site (which may or may not be the same as the site being authenticated).
The problem with these fuels is that it takes so much to create them, that they end up being loss in an economy which is primarily dependent on petroleum. The advantages of biodiesel is that in can run in a regular diesel engine. Vegetable (and animal) oils can be used as fuels - see Grease Car -- but these oils must be heated before they can be mixed with air an ignited. It would make far more sense to have ethanol, which is very volatile, used as the initial heating fuel, and then the engine switch to much more efficient vegetable oil.
The other problem, of course, is the chicken-and-egg problem of fuel depot and consuming equipment. If there are no convenient gas stations, who is going to buy the special car? If there are no cars using the vegetable fuel, what gas station is going to carry it? This can be solved by first serving local fleet vehicles: municipal buses, school buses, postal vehicles - which are converted en masse and can be services from one or two fuel station run by the organization in question. The organization in question will also sell vegetable oil fuel to the general public, bootstapping a consumer veg. oil fuel industry.
If energy issues interst you, check out the discussion forums at The Watt
This is very clunky and expensive looking. The PV cells don't look as though they're going to provide enough power except when it's very bright out and you have them pointed directly at the sun. EV-DO also doesn't work well, in a lot of places. It's still in testing. The $1000 for the equipment seems like it could be spent better on mesh wireless gear, or ham radio equipment. But hey! It's what popular science/tech magazines do! They may you say "cool!".
DECNET is like a lot of other things made by the Digital Equipment Corporation: Solid. It's amazing how much of this heavy old equipment and opscure operating systems are still around, remembered only they fail, which is sometimes a decade after they were forgotten about. Unfortunately, With the demise of DEC shortly after it's takeover by Compaq is 1998, parts and skill are getting hard to come by. I have a friend who rebuilds certain tape controllers into disk controlles, and he gets good money for them. DEC made Industrial equipment, so far different than the disposable crap that we have nowadays. But damn, it sure was expensive...hundreds of thousands of dollars for a whole setup.
I miss the old stuff. But I don't have the room to store it or the money to pay for the electricity to power it.
If I could, though, i'd love to buy a bit of it by the ton...
Here in Boston, we have had a few rich citizens do this in the past. Isabella Stuart Gardner and John Hays Hammond come to mind. Both of their houses are now museums and are remarkable: Gardner's for the art (paintings, sculpture, etc) and Hammond's for the architecture and history (he build a castle out of the pieces of many european castles, and filled it with much medieval stuff).
It simply wouldn't be possible to do this today. Europeans hold onto their art much more than they used to (and the dollar isn't worth as much)
Also, don't forget about all the wars that Europe has had. Don't forget that what is considered notable today wasn't often though of as such at times in the past. Consider that, even today, certain documents and artifacts are even illegal to have copies of in some countries, and that most 'antiquities', when discovered in private posession, will be seized by the government. I am sure there is much privately held, and its value comprehended, that will not see by the public for many years. Just imagine what the secret vaults of the vatican must hold. Think of what might be stashed in safe-deposit boxes in Zurich. Consider what artifacts remain hidden in Israeli government offices because they contradict the established view of their history and religion.
I know what you mean. I find it disturbing too -- those who are the Orthodox MIT type. You even mention the idea of cold fusion to this type and they'll start flipping out. They think that all cold fusion people are quacks, and won't waste their time by reading papers on it or trying any experiments themselves. Anything that Pons or Fleischman have touched is soiled.
Bah...I say approach this stuff carefully but with an open mind.
This is partly true, partly false. The modern view of alchemists is that they were nothing more than frauds and schemers trying to make gold from lead, and failing miserably. The reality is that alchemy is/was much more complex. To the alchemical mind, the forces of spirit and soul are not separate from the forces of the physical world. They believed in both spiritual and physical transformation. Looking at many old alchemical recipies, they were in fact rites of transformation of the mind first, having much in common with religious and magical ceremony. The best representation of this is the idea of The Philosopher's Stone, which is symbolic much like the Holy Grail (or the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch), but nonetheless it is also thought of by many as a physical object. Both of these may in fact be true.
The alchemical tradition is really interesting to study. It has a lot of parallels to other spiritual belief systems, but like other systems became corrupted and gradually fell into disrepute but the middle of the seventeenth century.
According to C.J.S. Thompson in his book "The Lure and Romance of Alchemy" ) on page 140, he says that is was in 1414 that King Henry IV forbidding the use of the craft [alchemy] in efforts to multiply gold [Thompson says nothing about silver], and the penalty for contravening it was considerable. On the other hand, the practice of alchemy was legalized pursuant to letter patents, and various persons were granted permission or licences to carry on the art of transmuting metals."
Is it likely that someone so notable as Newton, in such a prominent and respected organization as the Royal Society, would have had any trouble obtaining such a license from the king? I hardly think so. In fact, Newton did dabble in alchemy and was in contact with noted alchemists during his life.
What is more likely is that, during the 17th century, alchemy had fallen into disrepute (especially after Ben Johnson's play "The Alchemist"), and that his alchemical interests were hidden (occulted?) by those who would hold Newton up as the achetype of the modern scientist, trying to break with the alchemical tradition.
See my other comments to this story on what I think alchemy really is.
ESR is way off base on this one. I think that the GPL is the inherent reason why Linux has received a lot of work, even while BSD existed and was for several years more 'mature' code. The Linux kernel, and the other programs that work with it, present a 'deal' to many for-profit entities in that while they may prefer to keep the changes they write to Linux closed, they want to use the changes that others have made, so they are forced to release the changes they make. This has a really amazing value in total.
For instance, look at what happens in embedded systems: There's not a lot of action in the BSD embedded systems because there is the ability to keep changes proprietary. The wheel is constantly re-invented, and therefore the development costs of BSD based embedded systems is higher. While vendors may grumble and moan and sometimes break the GPL by not releasing code, the fact that much of the work IS available because it is forced to be so, is relevant.
This sounds like I am anti-BSD, but I am not. They are both reasonable solutions to the problem of free software. Both have resulted in quality systems. But to say that Linux doesn't need the GPL is absurd.
It's refreshing to see so many people here willing to stand up to the enviro-ninnies like Greenpeace. They really are luddites and even worse. But what I had hoped to see when people came to the realization that Greenpeace was stupidly again Fusion, is that Fission isn't really as bad as the anti-nuke propaganda would have us believe. For instance, there is a great number of types of nuclear fuel, some of which can be used to make bombs and some can not. There are many new designs that are more safe than older ones. Plutonium is much less dangerous that is commonly thought. It's a good idea to learn a bit about how nuclear power plants work, I suggest the Wikipedia article on Nuclear Reactors as a good starting point.
I grew up in a "no-nukes" family and it took many years before I realized I was being fed fairy-tales.
Say what you will about big government and socialism but at least it doesn't lead to "vast garages".
Hrm, big government and socialism led to vast concrete bunkers, basically warehouses for human beings. Most often ugly, inhuman, poorly engineered and shoddily built, they reduced every person to the lowest common denominator. I've seen these buildings in person in the US and Germany, and seen pictures of Moscow which has vast areas which are nothing but these monstrosities.
And yes, very little in the way of garages - beause very few people were allowed to have cars, or could afford them. Not that they needed them - the above mentioned barracks were often, in warsaw pact states, adjacent to whatever factory or agricultural combine a worker was employed at. There was a food distribution center, which is where you lined up to get some lowest-common denominator food. There really wasn't any entertainment to go see, or vacations to take, and traveling without a valid permit was illegal anyhow. So there wasn't much need for a car, huh?
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I like the idea of an embedded linux incubator. My company, which develops wifi mesh routers, uses embedded linux and weve been looking at going to an incubator to sort of help things run more smoothly. The problem with this is that's it's in silicon valley. I know I shouldn't expect Panasonic to bend to my whims, but if it were in the Boston area, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
I am dismayed by so much off-topic bullshit in the comments for this story. I'm also irritated at the BSD vs. Linux argument. I'd like to use BSD, I really would. But it just isn't ready. NetBSD is the only one that even claims to have support for the broadcom mipsel processor I am using, and yet it doesn't work and the mailing lists for it are a ghost town. No support is available for it. I even tried to see if I could buy some support from Wasabi Systems, but they don't support the processor (though they would be willing to port their tools to it if I paid..sorry i don't have that kind of money). With so little BSD activity on this processor, it would be insane for me to try to jump to bsd from linux. But, if someone experienced wanted to help, I'd be very willing to give it a shot.
While you may not think that your neighbor yammering on his CB, or another neighbor listening to broadcast from Radio Swaziland,or listening talk radio on AM broadcast are very important, there are other communications that are also disrupted: HF radio is used by emergency response agencies all over the world. The inadequacy of communications (among other failures of emergency services) was well demonstrated by the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster. BPL will make this worse.
HF radio, unlike cellular telephones and other centralized radio systems, has the ability to comunicate over long distances without any intermediate infrastructure. The is vital for disaster communications where the infrastructure is overloaded or destroyed.
Worst hit would be the poorer nations of the world, where telephone service is often unavailable or unreliable, and much of the communication has depended on HF radio. While the interference at a distance will be less, it will still be strong, very easily strong enough to make a weak signal calling for help in Afria disappear in BPL noise generated in Australia or the US.
It goes both ways: HF radio can also interfere with BPL. I think that, in an area where BPL is interfering with Amateur Radio, that the Amateurs will not hesitate to use more powerful transmitters (if they can afford the electric bill for doing so). These will disrupt BPL, quite easily to the point of being unusable. And I doubt the BPL ISP will let you out of the contract because of such interference! So don't sign up. It's not worth the headache, and the guilt, and angry hams and other angry HF radio users.
Expensive, equipment-wise. Not available in many places. With the unlicensed bands, there's not a lot of space left at 900 or 2.4 ghz.
It might be better to get some people together and do some wifi link out to a location where you can get service. But that's a lot of work. But $500 can get you a power link.
You don't seem to know what IQ means. It stands for Intelligence Quotient, i.e. a ratio, times one hundred. It's the intelligence of the subject in relation to others of the same age. Let's put aside the question of whether intelligence can be measured for a moment, and just assume that something is being measured, and for the sake of convenience we're going to call it intelligence. So, it is not possible for 'everyone' to have an IQ of 65 or 200, because it's a ratio.
It's also interesting to note the factoring of age in to IQ. I am pretty sure that those of us who run around waving IQ test results showing and IQ for 150, are probably using an old test. There's a n upper limit to the ability of the tests to measure intelligence, so while a person tested at age ten may have a result of a 150 IQ, the same person tested at 25 and coming up at 115 hasn't become dumber (well, maybe they have, but that's unlikely), but the test is taking the age change into account.
So, if you want your kids to be able to get into MENSA, have them repeatedly tested at early ages!
But in one sense I do agree with what you are saying, sort of. IQ and wealth are both relative to other people. Yet, there is a part to the idea of wealth that is absolute: A French King of the fifteenth century might look upon the posessions of the middle class American of today and feel poor by comparison, because of the tools we now have that even a King of old could not get. This type of societal wealth is often well illustrated in Science Fiction stories where a modern person goes back in time and impresses the powerful people of that era with something commonplace in our own, such as a cigarette lighter or flashlight.
Ceci n'est pas une
Survival of the dumbest -- well, that's adaption as well. Survival of the dumbest would seem to say high brain power isn't just useless, it's counter-productive. The reasoning being that those with more brain power tend to seek out higher education at Universities, in order to make the most of their brainpower, but that college education and post-college career choices seem to make people have less children. I wonder what the replacement rate is among Harvard/MIT/Stanford PhDs: I am sure it's nowhere near parity, I wouldn't been surprised if it's below 50% (meaning that a couple on average has less than one child).
Survival of the dumbest would probably favor an stronger immune system (to deal with the filth of the breeding ghettos), and broad hips (to make popping out babies easier), and perhaps an ability to yell loud (to address the swarm of offspring).
I wonder if survival of the dumbest favors height, Consider the Wilt Chamberlain factor....
There ought to be a law that says that all government web pages are standards-compliant and do not call for users to use a specific company's product to use them.
Why people like the FSF aren't out there pursuing this instead of trying to ram political stuff into GPLV3, is what I want to know.
Thanks for one of the more interesting and informative posts on this topic. I am tired of reading posts saying "Are we there yet? Why not? You said we would have fusion by now" like some petulant infant.
Fusion reactors are difficult. It takes a lot of time and money (and of course, brains) to figure this out. Though the more money you add to the equation, the less time is required, it stops being beneficial at some point. There's a lot of bright minds working on this problem, but there's not enough, and they can only work so hard. Having the big and expensive labs to test out their ideas does help these scientists, but they can only think so fast.
This really angers me. To think that at one time I actually interviewed for a job at the FSF! Anyhow, I think that many, if not most, software patents are bogus, but the idea of a software patent is not. What we need is to fix the system, not do away with it.
The DRM stuff bothers me as well, but mostly in their method of compensation for artists. This method smacks of government-supported art and that's just not good. I hate most of the pop culture out there, why should I have to pay for it? Why should I enrich the crappy pop stars? Who decides what artist is worthy of being paid for their work, and how much they should be paid? I'd rather things continued they way they are, and have DRM, than have this Government Art shoved down my throat.
If this is actually put into play, and infects my linux machines, I will convert to a BSD system. I've played with BSDs in the past but always come back to Linux...but this could be the breaking point.
This is interesting, this in-situ processing. I have to admit that the idea of superheated shale and ice walls does sound quite energy intensive. I wonder if there's a good way to get rid of the ice walls...I mean, from what I understand, in the area of colorado they're talking about, there's no water underground to pollute anyhow.
Petroleum products are not only useful as a source of energy, but also for its storage. It would be a waste to use those valuable petro products generating heat, when it can be done more efficiently by nuclear fission. I imagine steam pipes going over colorado and into the ground from a large power plant (that's near a river as a source of water).
Someone mentioned that the rocks would stay hot for hundreds or thousands of years...uh...how do you figure that? Given that it is an enormous thermal mass, but there's a heck of a lot of heat being removed by the extraction of the hydrocarbon products and water. I think the problem woul dbe the opposite, in trying to keep the rock hot enough, especially if those ice walls are used.
Now, onto smug europeans: I am damned sick of the number of you people trating us americans like we're stupid, spoiled brats. Too many europeans make broad generalizations about Americans that just don't hold up to rigorous evaluation. Yes, too many of us drive cars/trucks that are overly large and inefficient in a quick comparison to what many europeans drive. It has been pointed out that Americans often have to drive greater distances than Europeans for work. But there's also the issue of having to drive further for groceries and supplies. This often means driving over worse roads (hence the trucks with big suspensions and increased cargo capacity). There's still a great portion of the US that is rural and agricultural. That's a good thing for you Europeans, because we export a large amount of food...feeding Europe! There's all sorts of fighting about hormones in milk and genetically engineered crops, but most US crops are still legal in Europe, and do help feed Europe.
Second fallacy of self-appointed European energy experts is this idea that "you have to put more money into public transportation". Well, it's not that simple. Where would you put it? Intercity trains? Well, who owns the tracks? Not amtrak. They run the trains. The trains are slow, so people are hesitant to use them. Why are they slow? Most often because they are old, and not in great shape. Most of these tracks are owned by railroad corporations, who use them for transporting freight, which is less about sending things quickly than it is about sending thing cheaply. Track wears out based upon number of transits, load, speed and speed change. Curved and graded portions wear out more quickly. Guess what? A large portion of the US metropolitan population lives in areas where curves and grades are necessary because they are somewhat mountainous, and have rivers and swamps as well. Speed limits are reduced to keep from wearing the track out, and also for safety reasons on worn track with a lot of curves. This only makes sense. But there's also the question of the rail bed. Rail beds are the piles of rocks and earth that supprt the rail and ties. Rail beds don't really wear out, but are built to transport a certain load. Freight tends to be heavier and slower. This requires really strong beds. Because of freight's need for such strong beds, it's very expensive to raise or lower the bed very much above or below the terrain, i.e. to build up or to cut through mounds of rock. And bridges are very expensive, when built to take such loads. These issues make it more economically efficient for freight trains to twist and climb, ascend and descend, at a crawling pace, than it would be to try to punch a straight track through mountains and over marshes. But this is the opposite of what passenger service needs, which is quick travel without so much load. Damn!
So why not be brilliant and build two rail networks, one for passenger service and one for freight? Well, that has some advant
Really...I don't understand why this is important enough to rate a slashdot article. I've noticed that lots of important news doesn't make the cut here, or comes in late, while trivia such as this pops in without reason.
When I was a kid, about 5, my mother told me that diamonds were carbon, the same as charcoal, just really, really compressed. So I took out some pliers and squeezed realllllyy hard to try to make some. It took a week before I admitted defeat.
These days, I am trying to port NetBSD to a netgear router, with the NetBSD forums for the sbmips port being completely a ghost town. It may be an similar task to that which I tried as a kid. But I have MUCH bigger pliers now!
I am a licensed no-code tech. I keep on meaning to upgrade, but I really don't like morse code. I'd upgrade in a minute if the code requirement were eliminated.
But I thought the written test for technician was too easy. General is a bit tougher, but I think there needs to be more modern questions, i.e. things about psk31 and mfsk16, etc. These are the modes that newcomers will most likely use on the HF bands.
Amateur Radio does need a shot in the arm. THe kids that used to get interested in Radio and become licensed and active hams how are more interested in the Internet. Even though there are still people getting their license at a young age, many of them are not active.
Speaking of being active, I am going to go get on the radio. I wonder how 6 meters is doing. See you on 52.525!
What's the advantage of using this over an SSL certificate? Besides, of course, the laxity with which some CAs are becoming prone? What we need is better CA policies, and public trust in better performing CAs.
I've thought that SSL Certs should be issued by the various authorities of corporate registration, i.e. State of Delaware, and for individuals, the passport office. CA info would include the legal identifiers of the entity involved, including corporate registration number, so there can be little question of who is being dealt with. Some part of the browser can then link that corporate registration number to the various corporate registration authorities online information systems and provide ownership, address, etc. for the corporation, and these database should also have a field for the official corporate web site (which may or may not be the same as the site being authenticated).
If energy issues interst you, check out the discussion forums at The Watt
This is very clunky and expensive looking. The PV cells don't look as though they're going to provide enough power except when it's very bright out and you have them pointed directly at the sun. EV-DO also doesn't work well, in a lot of places. It's still in testing. The $1000 for the equipment seems like it could be spent better on mesh wireless gear, or ham radio equipment. But hey! It's what popular science/tech magazines do! They may you say "cool!".
DECNET is like a lot of other things made by the Digital Equipment Corporation: Solid. It's amazing how much of this heavy old equipment and opscure operating systems are still around, remembered only they fail, which is sometimes a decade after they were forgotten about. Unfortunately, With the demise of DEC shortly after it's takeover by Compaq is 1998, parts and skill are getting hard to come by. I have a friend who rebuilds certain tape controllers into disk controlles, and he gets good money for them. DEC made Industrial equipment, so far different than the disposable crap that we have nowadays. But damn, it sure was expensive...hundreds of thousands of dollars for a whole setup.
I miss the old stuff. But I don't have the room to store it or the money to pay for the electricity to power it.
Here in Boston, we have had a few rich citizens do this in the past. Isabella Stuart Gardner and John Hays Hammond come to mind. Both of their houses are now museums and are remarkable: Gardner's for the art (paintings, sculpture, etc) and Hammond's for the architecture and history (he build a castle out of the pieces of many european castles, and filled it with much medieval stuff).
It simply wouldn't be possible to do this today. Europeans hold onto their art much more than they used to (and the dollar isn't worth as much)
Also, don't forget about all the wars that Europe has had. Don't forget that what is considered notable today wasn't often though of as such at times in the past. Consider that, even today, certain documents and artifacts are even illegal to have copies of in some countries, and that most 'antiquities', when discovered in private posession, will be seized by the government. I am sure there is much privately held, and its value comprehended, that will not see by the public for many years. Just imagine what the secret vaults of the vatican must hold. Think of what might be stashed in safe-deposit boxes in Zurich. Consider what artifacts remain hidden in Israeli government offices because they contradict the established view of their history and religion.
There are private histories.
I know what you mean. I find it disturbing too -- those who are the Orthodox MIT type. You even mention the idea of cold fusion to this type and they'll start flipping out. They think that all cold fusion people are quacks, and won't waste their time by reading papers on it or trying any experiments themselves. Anything that Pons or Fleischman have touched is soiled.
Bah...I say approach this stuff carefully but with an open mind.
This is partly true, partly false. The modern view of alchemists is that they were nothing more than frauds and schemers trying to make gold from lead, and failing miserably. The reality is that alchemy is /was much more complex. To the alchemical mind, the forces of spirit and soul are not separate from the forces of the physical world. They believed in both spiritual and physical transformation. Looking at many old alchemical recipies, they were in fact rites of transformation of the mind first, having much in common with religious and magical ceremony. The best representation of this is the idea of The Philosopher's Stone, which is symbolic much like the Holy Grail (or the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch), but nonetheless it is also thought of by many as a physical object. Both of these may in fact be true.
The alchemical tradition is really interesting to study. It has a lot of parallels to other spiritual belief systems, but like other systems became corrupted and gradually fell into disrepute but the middle of the seventeenth century.
According to C.J.S. Thompson in his book "The Lure and Romance of Alchemy" ) on page 140, he says that is was in 1414 that King Henry IV forbidding the use of the craft [alchemy] in efforts to multiply gold [Thompson says nothing about silver], and the penalty for contravening it was considerable. On the other hand, the practice of alchemy was legalized pursuant to letter patents, and various persons were granted permission or licences to carry on the art of transmuting metals."
Is it likely that someone so notable as Newton, in such a prominent and respected organization as the Royal Society, would have had any trouble obtaining such a license from the king? I hardly think so. In fact, Newton did dabble in alchemy and was in contact with noted alchemists during his life.
What is more likely is that, during the 17th century, alchemy had fallen into disrepute (especially after Ben Johnson's play "The Alchemist"), and that his alchemical interests were hidden (occulted?) by those who would hold Newton up as the achetype of the modern scientist, trying to break with the alchemical tradition.
See my other comments to this story on what I think alchemy really is.
ESR is way off base on this one. I think that the GPL is the inherent reason why Linux has received a lot of work, even while BSD existed and was for several years more 'mature' code. The Linux kernel, and the other programs that work with it, present a 'deal' to many for-profit entities in that while they may prefer to keep the changes they write to Linux closed, they want to use the changes that others have made, so they are forced to release the changes they make. This has a really amazing value in total.
For instance, look at what happens in embedded systems: There's not a lot of action in the BSD embedded systems because there is the ability to keep changes proprietary. The wheel is constantly re-invented, and therefore the development costs of BSD based embedded systems is higher. While vendors may grumble and moan and sometimes break the GPL by not releasing code, the fact that much of the work IS available because it is forced to be so, is relevant.
This sounds like I am anti-BSD, but I am not. They are both reasonable solutions to the problem of free software. Both have resulted in quality systems. But to say that Linux doesn't need the GPL is absurd.
It's rather odd that I was moderated down. I guess my dislike of Greenpeace upset someone.
I grew up in a "no-nukes" family and it took many years before I realized I was being fed fairy-tales.
Hrm, big government and socialism led to vast concrete bunkers, basically warehouses for human beings. Most often ugly, inhuman, poorly engineered and shoddily built, they reduced every person to the lowest common denominator. I've seen these buildings in person in the US and Germany, and seen pictures of Moscow which has vast areas which are nothing but these monstrosities.
And yes, very little in the way of garages - beause very few people were allowed to have cars, or could afford them. Not that they needed them - the above mentioned barracks were often, in warsaw pact states, adjacent to whatever factory or agricultural combine a worker was employed at. There was a food distribution center, which is where you lined up to get some lowest-common denominator food. There really wasn't any entertainment to go see, or vacations to take, and traveling without a valid permit was illegal anyhow. So there wasn't much need for a car, huh?