Well, Trash Island is probably a good example of what waste plastic, including plastic bags, can cause.
In addition, PLA (corn based plastic) seems to still have a lot of issues as well..
As with all things, there is no silver bullet, but even people being aware of the issue is a big step forward.
I said this the other day, but I think it bears repeating:
Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.
If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?
You can go anywhere on the internet for your information. Why do you keep going back to Wikipedia? Becuase it fills a need. If you don't like, vote with your "feet" and go somewhwere else. Wikipedia has exactly the authority you imbue it with.
Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.
If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?
The only thing that really surprises me is the surprise displayed by others when things like this come to light.
The engine in the Prius, as an example, is also geared towards efficiency versus low end power (Atkinson cycle versus Otto cycle). Most cars have a bigger than needed engine for cruising speeds, becuase they are sized for "off the line" performance. So that means that it also has the potential to be more efficient when "running free" as well.
Or you could just land using something else, like a helicopter propeller, ala the failed Rotary Rocket Company.
It's not only my wallpaper, it's also a good idea ( http://web.archive.org/web/20000815071110/http://w ww.rotaryrocket.com/ ). Too bad they went out of business (Although I think several of their engineers work for Scaled Composites now).
You can "authorize" up to 3 computers to use the service for the monthly fee.
You can download the songs to local cache and play them in Windows Media Player, without being connected.
You can load them onto a DRM compliant device (Gigs of songs, if you want), and only synch monthly to allow for checking of the license.
The big thing in all of these use cases is, if you do not renew your subscription, the music stops working, even if it is on your local machine.
If you don't like the terms, buy it on CD, and rip it yourself. Or go make your own music. Or go change copyright law. Or go somewhere (not sure where) that doesn't care about copyright. Or choose civil disobediance. Just make sure you are willing to face the consequences.
Oh, and it is $5 a month, if you pay a year in advance. Otherwise it is $7 for a month to month subscription.
Prius doesn't have a "key" in the normal sense. It has a little fob (which you don't even have to insert if you have the smart entry system) and a "Start" button. I don't know what would happen if you hit the start button while driving down the highway (probably nothing) but I am not about to try with my Prius.
While I at least partially agree with you, I find it hard to imagine an "independent inventor" demonstrating a 60% working prototype on a new innovation in, for example, petroleum fractional distillation or geothermal energy extraction. The very fact that the capital costs are so high would mean that an idea, regardless of its validity, would have to be ransomed to a large corporation with the necessary capital in order to even apply for a patent.
It also seems that this would defeat the purpose of the patent in the first place, at least for the small and/or independent inventor. Since a "60% working" prototype is the bar at which patentibility would be set, if I need capital to complete an idea, I have no protection from potential investors stealing the idea I pitch them on. In other words, it would no longer be the inventor who would obtain the patent, but the first person with deep enough pockets to actually fund the development. The company would get the patent (via one or more of its employees) and the inventors work would just fall into the "unproven idea" bin.
I would also like to see the end of random unproven ideas automatically receiving patents, especially with the sole purpose of extracting licensing fees from others who develop the ideas independently. However, what you propose seems to be in conflict with the intent of patents, at least from a non corporate view point. Unfortuantely, the only difference between the "patent for license" and the "small inventor" case seems to be intent, and that is a very hard thing to discriminate between in law. In criminal law, we use a jury and lawyers, and look how hard that can be.
Also, ideas can be freely disseminated, for all practical purposes, but good ideas are often VERY hard to come up with. I can work for years coming up with one refinement for a product or process (whether I have a working prototype or not), but have it copied in one day. That is one of the very points of something like a patent. I agree it is broken right now, but I disagree that your modifications would do more good than harm.
I think the current system has some problems, but I think the current criteria to qualify as the inventor for the purpose of a patent is if you are the first to "conceive or reduce to practice" an invention (and file a patent app, obviously). You seem to be advocating that "conceive" is too loose of a criterion.
For software, perhaps this is true, but someone above mentioned manufacturing process refinement by the small inventor, and it seems that removing "conceive" from that definition would actually work in a big corp.'s favor, given the capital intensive nature of large manufacturing.
Perhaps there should be diffent criteria for the granting of software or business process patents than for inventions of physical items. There are already special criteria in the patent regulations for the biological sciences (with pretty specific definitions!), and for things invented in space. Perhaps software is "Different"(tm) and needs to handled differently, and given a different bar to be measured by.
I am not sure if this would really work, but there is clear evidence that the criteria for patents has been modified in the past for specific industries. Sounds much better than some of the other alternatives people have been spouting around here (emigrating or the fall of civilization as we know it).
I am sure trust chips could tag outbound request with verification (signature) information.
I am sure trust chips could verify binaries before installation or execution, and insure that they have a signature from a "known good" provider.
However, I can't imagine that means a whole lot. Look at it this way: In order to meet the needs of the market, there will still be 1000's of software vendors, all of whom will need to be certified into the scheme above. It seems highly unlikely to me that all of them will implement their apps with exactly the same concept of Trusted Computing. Do you think Apache or Mozilla, for example, would agree to limit functionality in the same way as Microsoft? And I would love to see the amazing lawsuits if either was denied certification.
In addition, it only takes one Trusted Computing certified VM that will execute unsigned code, to make it possible to run non signed code, and make the whole "signed binary" issue moot.
Given this, Trusted Computing seems primarily about creating more overhead, and adding provability (but not identity!) to internet communication.
Whether you can crack the keys or not, unless a trust chip is an entire OS burned into the chip, the trust scheme does not scale. And how do you upgrade an OS burned into a chip, in a trusted fashion?
It should also be relatviely easy to use a brute force algorithm to derive the same key given the key space and a log of a session between the the computer and the Trusted Computer gateway. I believe this would be a "Plain Text Dictionary Attack", since you would know the preencrypted values, and would compare that to the encrypted values, and do a brute force search of the signature used.
If the chip is used to exchange session keys, the value would take longer to derive, but it would still be possible.
In all likelyhood though, you would probably just do this a couple of thousand times, and reverse engineer the assignment algorithm used to generate them, since anything with this kind of distribution is going to have a hard time maintaining strict randomness.
Public Key encryption is breakable, it is solely about how much investment you are willing to throw at it. I can just imagine the open source projects, and challenges on distributed.net...
In addition, the cool thing about it being in hardware is that it isn't going to change. Imbuing some central authority with the power of maintaining a registry would just paint a giant "HACK ME" sign on whoever hosted it...
Please explain to me how increasing the cost of goods sold to America makes Americans better off? While you're at it, please explain to me how an import tariff on steel does anything but make steel more expensive here. And perhaps you could explain to me how this increase in price helps anyone involved in the production/consumption process, other than the particular group of people who work in that particular protected sector? The average American pays more money for a car made with protectionist steel. There is a disincentive for the American steel industry to become more efficient. There is a large INCENTIVE for the foreign steel industry to become more efficient (in order to sell product to the protected market). Oh, and any American good that uses steel in its manufacturing has an inflated cost compared to the rest of the world, and therefore bears an inflated price on the export market.
So your wonderful tariffs create a less competitive domestic industry, a more competitive foreign industry, a stagnant export market, and an increased cost of living for Americans in general (compared to no tariff). Wow, now that's some effective public policy.
Now substitute "IT industry" for "Steel industry".
I have a an old Fat Mac (640 K ram, no HD) with a monochrome screen that I still fire up once in a while. The floppy drive is a little dodgy, but it still works.
Think it is circa 1985(ish). (I still have the original box and manuals in the closet, too:).)
Actually it is you who misunderstands the usage of the word. Ignoring the title the office bears for a moment, a representative is one who espouses the opinions of those who elected him. A delegate, which is what you seem to be referring to, is one who is elected because he is trusted to do what is right for those who elected him and to act in their best interest, even when that disagrees with what they say.
The first is analogous to a mouthpiece, the second to a parental figure.
Unfortunately, people in America can never seem to make up their mind what they want: For the issue of the moment, they want a representative, but any issue analyzed with the benefit of hindsight, they want a delegate. Being the wrong one at the right time, might the right thing to do, but will certainly get you thrown out of office fast, even if the history books treat you well.
My 1986 Jaguar XJ6 has this as well. Trip mpg and instantaneous mpg. Kinda cool to see it pop to 50 mpg as you slide into a stop light, and then plummet to 0 as you idle at the light. This sort of thing HAS been around for a while.
Unfortunately, open source precludes this. If such limits are imposed, someone will simply up the limit, or remove it from the code. And though some might choose to play by the rules, I think a sort of "tragedy of the commons" will result with any self imposed limits. Someone will always want more.
Of course, I am not so sure that such a situation is bad, all things considered.
Yeah, becuase no one would ever use the thoughts "in [the] minds [of the framers]" as a tool to interpret the Constitution. That's why I am the only person who has ever heard of the Federalist Papers.
Of course, but let's stick to reality: Why would people support a war against a country where we have found absolutely no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or a program to develop such?
So what you're trying to say is that 83% of Americans support war with Iraq becuase we HAVEN'T found any weapons of mass destruction?
Ridiculous. The tail is wagging the dog on this one.
Though the site is cheesy in parts, the idea is sound.
Simple, fast, cheap transportation. I am a big fan, and think it would be better than a $650 million 7 mile monorail. Capacity would be a little lower per line, but lines are WAY cheaper to build.
Reading through the article, this design seems to share a lot in common with Sun's MAJC architecture. Both allow for multiple cores on a single chip. Anyone else notice the similarities?
I guess the biggest difference would be that the HP chip is actually going to be built, while the MAJC chip seems to still just be a design.
It is interesting that a number of designs lately seem to be looking to the integration of multiple CPU cores on a single chip to increase performance in server applications.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, Trash Island is probably a good example of what waste plastic, including plastic bags, can cause. In addition, PLA (corn based plastic) seems to still have a lot of issues as well.. As with all things, there is no silver bullet, but even people being aware of the issue is a big step forward.
I said this the other day, but I think it bears repeating:
Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.
If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?
You can go anywhere on the internet for your information. Why do you keep going back to Wikipedia? Becuase it fills a need. If you don't like, vote with your "feet" and go somewhwere else. Wikipedia has exactly the authority you imbue it with.
Not to be trite, but how much can you really complain about a free resource? You get what you pay for. I use Wikipedia all the time to research things and learn about new areas of interest, but I know full well both its provenance and its accuracy.
If you want accuracy, either pay for a resource you trust or do the research yourself. If you want unbiased facts, it solely depends on what you think unbiased means. Everything from the Encyclopedia Brittanica to the Oxford English dictionary has been accused of bias. Why would you think that something that is maintained by volunteers on the internet wouldn't be subject to abuse, scandal, spam, and outrage?
The only thing that really surprises me is the surprise displayed by others when things like this come to light.
The engine in the Prius, as an example, is also geared towards efficiency versus low end power (Atkinson cycle versus Otto cycle). Most cars have a bigger than needed engine for cruising speeds, becuase they are sized for "off the line" performance. So that means that it also has the potential to be more efficient when "running free" as well.
Or you could just land using something else, like a helicopter propeller, ala the failed Rotary Rocket Company. It's not only my wallpaper, it's also a good idea ( http://web.archive.org/web/20000815071110/http://w ww.rotaryrocket.com/ ). Too bad they went out of business (Although I think several of their engineers work for Scaled Composites now).
I, for one, welcome our Skynet overlords, and their lieutenants, the T1000s.
You can "authorize" up to 3 computers to use the service for the monthly fee.
You can download the songs to local cache and play them in Windows Media Player, without being connected.
You can load them onto a DRM compliant device (Gigs of songs, if you want), and only synch monthly to allow for checking of the license.
The big thing in all of these use cases is, if you do not renew your subscription, the music stops working, even if it is on your local machine.
If you don't like the terms, buy it on CD, and rip it yourself. Or go make your own music. Or go change copyright law. Or go somewhere (not sure where) that doesn't care about copyright. Or choose civil disobediance. Just make sure you are willing to face the consequences.
Oh, and it is $5 a month, if you pay a year in advance. Otherwise it is $7 for a month to month subscription.
Prius doesn't have a "key" in the normal sense. It has a little fob (which you don't even have to insert if you have the smart entry system) and a "Start" button. I don't know what would happen if you hit the start button while driving down the highway (probably nothing) but I am not about to try with my Prius.
So that doesn't really apply to all cars.
Well, if the vast majority of the supply of these materials is derived from petroleum, what would you call them?
If oil prices tripled tomorrow, the cost of these goods would rise proportion to their use in the production of crops, as would the cost of food.
This is the reality of agriculture in the US today. Or you are just arguing semantics?
While I at least partially agree with you, I find it hard to imagine an "independent inventor" demonstrating a 60% working prototype on a new innovation in, for example, petroleum fractional distillation or geothermal energy extraction. The very fact that the capital costs are so high would mean that an idea, regardless of its validity, would have to be ransomed to a large corporation with the necessary capital in order to even apply for a patent.
It also seems that this would defeat the purpose of the patent in the first place, at least for the small and/or independent inventor. Since a "60% working" prototype is the bar at which patentibility would be set, if I need capital to complete an idea, I have no protection from potential investors stealing the idea I pitch them on. In other words, it would no longer be the inventor who would obtain the patent, but the first person with deep enough pockets to actually fund the development. The company would get the patent (via one or more of its employees) and the inventors work would just fall into the "unproven idea" bin.
I would also like to see the end of random unproven ideas automatically receiving patents, especially with the sole purpose of extracting licensing fees from others who develop the ideas independently. However, what you propose seems to be in conflict with the intent of patents, at least from a non corporate view point. Unfortuantely, the only difference between the "patent for license" and the "small inventor" case seems to be intent, and that is a very hard thing to discriminate between in law. In criminal law, we use a jury and lawyers, and look how hard that can be.
Also, ideas can be freely disseminated, for all practical purposes, but good ideas are often VERY hard to come up with. I can work for years coming up with one refinement for a product or process (whether I have a working prototype or not), but have it copied in one day. That is one of the very points of something like a patent. I agree it is broken right now, but I disagree that your modifications would do more good than harm.
I think the current system has some problems, but I think the current criteria to qualify as the inventor for the purpose of a patent is if you are the first to "conceive or reduce to practice" an invention (and file a patent app, obviously). You seem to be advocating that "conceive" is too loose of a criterion.
For software, perhaps this is true, but someone above mentioned manufacturing process refinement by the small inventor, and it seems that removing "conceive" from that definition would actually work in a big corp.'s favor, given the capital intensive nature of large manufacturing.
Perhaps there should be diffent criteria for the granting of software or business process patents than for inventions of physical items. There are already special criteria in the patent regulations for the biological sciences (with pretty specific definitions!), and for things invented in space. Perhaps software is "Different"(tm) and needs to handled differently, and given a different bar to be measured by.
I am not sure if this would really work, but there is clear evidence that the criteria for patents has been modified in the past for specific industries. Sounds much better than some of the other alternatives people have been spouting around here (emigrating or the fall of civilization as we know it).
I am sure trust chips could tag outbound request with verification (signature) information.
I am sure trust chips could verify binaries before installation or execution, and insure that they have a signature from a "known good" provider.
However, I can't imagine that means a whole lot. Look at it this way: In order to meet the needs of the market, there will still be 1000's of software vendors, all of whom will need to be certified into the scheme above. It seems highly unlikely to me that all of them will implement their apps with exactly the same concept of Trusted Computing. Do you think Apache or Mozilla, for example, would agree to limit functionality in the same way as Microsoft? And I would love to see the amazing lawsuits if either was denied certification.
In addition, it only takes one Trusted Computing certified VM that will execute unsigned code, to make it possible to run non signed code, and make the whole "signed binary" issue moot.
Given this, Trusted Computing seems primarily about creating more overhead, and adding provability (but not identity!) to internet communication.
Whether you can crack the keys or not, unless a trust chip is an entire OS burned into the chip, the trust scheme does not scale. And how do you upgrade an OS burned into a chip, in a trusted fashion?
It should also be relatviely easy to use a brute force algorithm to derive the same key given the key space and a log of a session between the the computer and the Trusted Computer gateway. I believe this would be a "Plain Text Dictionary Attack", since you would know the preencrypted values, and would compare that to the encrypted values, and do a brute force search of the signature used.
...
If the chip is used to exchange session keys, the value would take longer to derive, but it would still be possible.
In all likelyhood though, you would probably just do this a couple of thousand times, and reverse engineer the assignment algorithm used to generate them, since anything with this kind of distribution is going to have a hard time maintaining strict randomness.
Public Key encryption is breakable, it is solely about how much investment you are willing to throw at it. I can just imagine the open source projects, and challenges on distributed.net
In addition, the cool thing about it being in hardware is that it isn't going to change. Imbuing some central authority with the power of maintaining a registry would just paint a giant "HACK ME" sign on whoever hosted it...
Please explain to me how increasing the cost of goods sold to America makes Americans better off? While you're at it, please explain to me how an import tariff on steel does anything but make steel more expensive here. And perhaps you could explain to me how this increase in price helps anyone involved in the production/consumption process, other than the particular group of people who work in that particular protected sector? The average American pays more money for a car made with protectionist steel. There is a disincentive for the American steel industry to become more efficient. There is a large INCENTIVE for the foreign steel industry to become more efficient (in order to sell product to the protected market). Oh, and any American good that uses steel in its manufacturing has an inflated cost compared to the rest of the world, and therefore bears an inflated price on the export market.
So your wonderful tariffs create a less competitive domestic industry, a more competitive foreign industry, a stagnant export market, and an increased cost of living for Americans in general (compared to no tariff). Wow, now that's some effective public policy.
Now substitute "IT industry" for "Steel industry".
Correction make that 512 K ram.
I have a an old Fat Mac (640 K ram, no HD) with a monochrome screen that I still fire up once in a while. The floppy drive is a little dodgy, but it still works.
:) .)
Think it is circa 1985(ish). (I still have the original box and manuals in the closet, too
Actually it is you who misunderstands the usage of the word. Ignoring the title the office bears for a moment, a representative is one who espouses the opinions of those who elected him. A delegate, which is what you seem to be referring to, is one who is elected because he is trusted to do what is right for those who elected him and to act in their best interest, even when that disagrees with what they say.
The first is analogous to a mouthpiece, the second to a parental figure.
Unfortunately, people in America can never seem to make up their mind what they want: For the issue of the moment, they want a representative, but any issue analyzed with the benefit of hindsight, they want a delegate. Being the wrong one at the right time, might the right thing to do, but will certainly get you thrown out of office fast, even if the history books treat you well.
Perhaps the code developed to refute the SCO claims can be put to good use in catching Slashdot dupes.
Just a thought. Might work better than just simple checksums.
And it's not like running this on new submissions would be that hard.
My 1986 Jaguar XJ6 has this as well. Trip mpg and instantaneous mpg. Kinda cool to see it pop to 50 mpg as you slide into a stop light, and then plummet to 0 as you idle at the light. This sort of thing HAS been around for a while.
Unfortunately, open source precludes this. If such limits are imposed, someone will simply up the limit, or remove it from the code. And though some might choose to play by the rules, I think a sort of "tragedy of the commons" will result with any self imposed limits. Someone will always want more.
Of course, I am not so sure that such a situation is bad, all things considered.
.
His fountain pen must have run out of ink.
Yeah, becuase no one would ever use the thoughts "in [the] minds [of the framers]" as a tool to interpret the Constitution. That's why I am the only person who has ever heard of the Federalist Papers.
Ridiculous.
Of course, but let's stick to reality: Why would people support a war against a country where we have found absolutely no evidence of weapons of mass destruction or a program to develop such?
So what you're trying to say is that 83% of Americans support war with Iraq becuase we HAVEN'T found any weapons of mass destruction?
Ridiculous. The tail is wagging the dog on this one.
Though the site is cheesy in parts, the idea is sound.
Simple, fast, cheap transportation. I am a big fan, and think it would be better than a $650 million 7 mile monorail. Capacity would be a little lower per line, but lines are WAY cheaper to build.
Just a thought.
Reading through the article, this design seems to share a lot in common with Sun's MAJC architecture. Both allow for multiple cores on a single chip. Anyone else notice the similarities?
I guess the biggest difference would be that the HP chip is actually going to be built, while the MAJC chip seems to still just be a design.
It is interesting that a number of designs lately seem to be looking to the integration of multiple CPU cores on a single chip to increase performance in server applications.
zor_prime