Interesting that the currently available systems seem mainly aimed at high-drain short duration applications - would they be less efficient at much lighter loads (e.g. as primary power source)?
...and from 400 meters, as the Chinese seem to be implying. If their fighter couldn't avoid the (relatively) bloated pig that is the EP-3 veering toward them from nearly half a kilometer away...
And if we really want to get them spun up, let's not only sell Taiwan the Aegis cruisers they want, but throw in as a bonus a fully loaded ballistic missile submarine!
If you listen to the business leader fuckbags who reap huge profits off of trade with China, and spend vast effort lobbying our government to do anything to placate our second largest trading partner, then we need their trade more than we need to preserve any image of honor and decency. Profit trumps everything else.
I think an apology would be warranted if, and only if, the Chinese first apologize for the hostile action on the part of their pilot.
Yeah, right. Unless the girls stand very still, that is...
I can think of plenty of uses for this: temperature sensors scattered around a large space (probably wouldn't even need the modest bandwidth he's asking for here), or flowrate monitoring (or other phenomena) around a river, for example.
GEM and Geoworks were two entirely different products. GEM had the interesting distinction of running on at least two platforms that I knew of: PC-compatibles (x86) and Atari ST (68000). Programming for GEM on the latter in the mid-to-late '80s was my introduction to "event-driven programming".
There was an article in one of the computer magazines at the time when Geoworks was released talking about how it was more efficient and responsive than Windows at that time because it was all done in assembly language. Like GEM, it was an "operating environment" that needed to be running on top of an actual OS - if, that is, you can call DOS or its relatives an "operating system"...
Boy, I sure do. TDI Modula-2 on an Atari 1040ST floppy-only system. Beat the C compilers available at the time (at least until MWC came out with their ST version complete with Unix-like shell).
Even traced a nasty bug in their runtime library where the track and head parameters were popped off the stack in the wrong order (according to the docs and header file) for a disk write call (can't recall exact function name.)
And there is certainly hype, or at least inaccurate reporting: why even mention EJBs in an article discussing an application server that doesn't support them? Correct me if I'm wrong on this point, but WebSphere Standard Edition (including latest version 3.5) provides a simpler JSP/servlet engine without support for EJBs at all. The "EJB container" isn't available without paying $$$ for Advanced or Enterprise edition.
Either this was a mistake or it was a deliberate statement. If the former, it could easily have been caught with some simple fact checking. If the latter, well...
Personally, the "WebSphere Application Server ready for e-Business" message displayed in the admin console when the server starts up leaves little to the imagination as to IBM's motives.
Within the context of the application server market, this is also a smart move by their part. I'd expect at least one other "major vendor" to soon follow suit.
You assume a failure would be due to a flaw in the design. Wrong. It could just as likely happen because a specific instance of a design element (i.e. a specific part) fails, and if that element, a valve or whatever, is localized to an individual probe, then only that probe would fail. This is why redundancy can be useful in this kind of mission. Doesn't remove possibility of failure, just reduces it somewhat.
It sure would be funny if the probes both landed in the same area, though...
With one mission, you basically have a useless probe
No, you have a second probe which can explore a different region of the surface, and therefore somewhat greater chance of finding something really interesting.
I would even favor a "shotgun" of probes to explore first-hand a much larger selection of sites.
Personal taste aside (their music is simplistic boring mainstream-sounding crap), I'm not at all surprised. They've always struck me as a "corporate band".
I don't use Napster (don't have time to play around with it). A while back I downloaded or obtained from friends MP3's of some groups (and musical styles) I didn't know about, but really liked -- because of my "piracy", at least a dozen musical groups' bottom lines were improved when I subsequently bought their CDs.
As for resolving this dispute: I don't think there are any "easy answers". Artists who devote their time to their work are trying to make a living just like the rest of us, and I can certainly respect their desires to not see their income reduced or eliminated when everybody wants their stuff for free (this includes Metallica and Dr. Dre even though I don't care for their work). I'm perfectly willing to pay (and help support) artists whose work I like and respect.
I'd like to think that responding to this by "boycotting" their music would have a significant impact, but somehow I don't think so. How are they to calculate "damages" (lost revenue) in this? How many Napster users who acquired Metallica's music for free would have otherwise purchased their CDs? All of them (not!!)? A significant majority? I don't think so.
Would it be valid to consider the present case (Metallica's current sales in a world where Napster enables sharing of Metallica MP3s) compared to a hypothetical present-day world without Napster (no, sales records from 3 years ago don't count)? It'd be hilarious if it turned out their sales were actually greater in the long run...
I would go even farther - I would gladly put up with a higher cost of living to be able to live in a world with NO ADVERTISING! NONE WHATSOEVER!!!!!
No, I'm not a "communist" - its just that this world is becoming more vulgar and intrusive with each passing day. Here in the U.S. it seems everyone is encouraged to become (figuratively) a prostitute. I'm sick of it, and of the sleazeball fsckbags who pull the strings in the business world. Violating customers' privacy is only a tiny part of it.
There are far more interesting goals than "money and power at any cost"...
This review doesn't belong on Slashdot
on
Review: "Scream 3"
·
· Score: 1
Most of JonKatz' writings have at least some bearing on tech issues, even when the focus is solely on their social effects.
What does "Scream 3" have to do with anything? Is Slashdot desiring to "expand its horizons" and now become a "popular culture discussion site"?
IANAL but I think distributing leaflets slamming a suspected crooked store might get your own ass hauled into civil court for libel. I seem to recall a recent case in Britain (this isn't about a computer store, but similar idea) where a couple of folks were posting handbills slamming McDonald's, McD sued, and won.
At the very minimum, you certainly wouldn't want to get caught.
What the hell is wrong with the moderators on this site? This post raises valid questions, and I don't see the core of malicious intent which would validate a label of 'Flamebait'!
Her suicide is sad news, and we know nothing of the details and circumstances surrounding it. Just because this poster admits he doesn't like South Park and questions how her role in it influenced her life doesn't mean he's trying to start a flame war.
It was mostly about shielding a computer to reduce emissions. All the cases were "ruggedized" (heavier construction, lots of screws) with copper mesh shielding inside the case near seams and openings. The systems were "Tempest certified" to indicate EMR emissions from the cases were reduced below certain thresholds.
Wasn't proof against extreme conditions, though -- I accidentally knocked a cup of coffee into an unpowered keyboard once, was a royal pain to clean up (I counted some 50 screws just for the keyboard case.)
Their website isn't any better. Some of the stories are amusing, but describing, for example, a web columnist (with a decidedly non-technical subject matter) as a "high tech worker" does nothing to inspire any confidence they know what they're talking about.
...was IBM. Their marketing efforts were a joke. When the first release of OS/2 Warp appeared, I was a diehard OS/2 2.1 user as it gave me unparalleled (compared to Windows anyway) multitasking on my 486. I gleefully installed it, only to discover its Internet connectivity would only work by subscribing to IBM's online services (so I heard from others, and read in trade periodicals at the time; I never got it to work, but I gave up quickly. And to give IBM credit, they did release a fix shortly thereafter); that, and the overall feel of the system just started to seem too... bureaucratic. I gave up on OS/2 pretty quickly after that.
Ontopic section:
I agree with John's comments on Microsoft products. Atrocious business practices aside, *some* of their software has improved dramatically over the years; DevStudio is an excellent example. I just cannot believe the quality problems they have with many of their products are due to a lack of intelligence and experience on the part of their engineers -- perhaps more to do with ineffective (or just plain bad) management of their efforts?
Most of the replies are from "anonymous cowards", who receive by default a score of 0. Moderating them up, as worthy as they are (well, most of them) requires the attention and action of one with moderator rights, and at this writing this topic is less than 3 hours old...
[Why was this moderated down to 'flamebait'? I detect no malicious trolling here.] -- just got moderated back up. interesting...
I live in the S.F. Bay Area and make a good salary (even for this area). I also see how hard it can be for someone (many who live here) who earns substantially less than I (mainly housing costs).
I *also* see how I could have a higher standard of living elsewhere for less...
Excellent living == adaptability + knowing thyself
I have to debug stupid stinking problems in Windows code written by idiots who were trusted with a really large and complex architecture... (whine, whine)
I wish *I* could hack kewl user interfaces on a great OS and get paid for it!-)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually one of the companies mentioned above has a mobile product, using two opposed flywheels:
http://www.afstrinity.com/specs/spec_mfpm.html
Interesting that the currently available systems seem mainly aimed at high-drain short duration applications - would they be less efficient at much lighter loads (e.g. as primary power source)?
...and from 400 meters, as the Chinese seem to be implying. If their fighter couldn't avoid the (relatively) bloated pig that is the EP-3 veering toward them from nearly half a kilometer away...
And if we really want to get them spun up, let's not only sell Taiwan the Aegis cruisers they want, but throw in as a bonus a fully loaded ballistic missile submarine!
If you listen to the business leader fuckbags who reap huge profits off of trade with China, and spend vast effort lobbying our government to do anything to placate our second largest trading partner, then we need their trade more than we need to preserve any image of honor and decency. Profit trumps everything else.
I think an apology would be warranted if, and only if, the Chinese first apologize for the hostile action on the part of their pilot.
On 100 12-bit samples per second??!
Yeah, right. Unless the girls stand very still, that is...
I can think of plenty of uses for this: temperature sensors scattered around a large space (probably wouldn't even need the modest bandwidth he's asking for here), or flowrate monitoring (or other phenomena) around a river, for example.
GEM and Geoworks were two entirely different products. GEM had the interesting distinction of running on at least two platforms that I knew of: PC-compatibles (x86) and Atari ST (68000). Programming for GEM on the latter in the mid-to-late '80s was my introduction to "event-driven programming".
There was an article in one of the computer magazines at the time when Geoworks was released talking about how it was more efficient and responsive than Windows at that time because it was all done in assembly language. Like GEM, it was an "operating environment" that needed to be running on top of an actual OS - if, that is, you can call DOS or its relatives an "operating system"...
Boy, I sure do. TDI Modula-2 on an Atari 1040ST floppy-only system. Beat the C compilers available at the time (at least until MWC came out with their ST version complete with Unix-like shell).
Even traced a nasty bug in their runtime library where the track and head parameters were popped off the stack in the wrong order (according to the docs and header file) for a disk write call (can't recall exact function name.)
And there is certainly hype, or at least inaccurate reporting: why even mention EJBs in an article discussing an application server that doesn't support them? Correct me if I'm wrong on this point, but WebSphere Standard Edition (including latest version 3.5) provides a simpler JSP/servlet engine without support for EJBs at all. The "EJB container" isn't available without paying $$$ for Advanced or Enterprise edition.
Either this was a mistake or it was a deliberate statement. If the former, it could easily have been caught with some simple fact checking. If the latter, well...
Personally, the "WebSphere Application Server ready for e-Business" message displayed in the admin console when the server starts up leaves little to the imagination as to IBM's motives.
Within the context of the application server market, this is also a smart move by their part. I'd expect at least one other "major vendor" to soon follow suit.
Two craters for the price of one!
No, that second crater's gonna cost us $200 million more!
You assume a failure would be due to a flaw in the design. Wrong. It could just as likely happen because a specific instance of a design element (i.e. a specific part) fails, and if that element, a valve or whatever, is localized to an individual probe, then only that probe would fail. This is why redundancy can be useful in this kind of mission. Doesn't remove possibility of failure, just reduces it somewhat.
It sure would be funny if the probes both landed in the same area, though...
No, you have a second probe which can explore a different region of the surface, and therefore somewhat greater chance of finding something really interesting.
I would even favor a "shotgun" of probes to explore first-hand a much larger selection of sites.
The above post directly addresses a point made by its proper parent, and said point is directly connected to the discussion topic.
If you didn't agree with phliar's point, then post a response, instead of wasting moderation points.
Children. Yeesh...
Personal taste aside (their music is simplistic boring mainstream-sounding crap), I'm not at all surprised. They've always struck me as a "corporate band".
I don't use Napster (don't have time to play around with it). A while back I downloaded or obtained from friends MP3's of some groups (and musical styles) I didn't know about, but really liked -- because of my "piracy", at least a dozen musical groups' bottom lines were improved when I subsequently bought their CDs.
As for resolving this dispute: I don't think there are any "easy answers". Artists who devote their time to their work are trying to make a living just like the rest of us, and I can certainly respect their desires to not see their income reduced or eliminated when everybody wants their stuff for free (this includes Metallica and Dr. Dre even though I don't care for their work). I'm perfectly willing to pay (and help support) artists whose work I like and respect.
I'd like to think that responding to this by "boycotting" their music would have a significant impact, but somehow I don't think so. How are they to calculate "damages" (lost revenue) in this? How many Napster users who acquired Metallica's music for free would have otherwise purchased their CDs? All of them (not!!)? A significant majority? I don't think so.
Would it be valid to consider the present case (Metallica's current sales in a world where Napster enables sharing of Metallica MP3s) compared to a hypothetical present-day world without Napster (no, sales records from 3 years ago don't count)? It'd be hilarious if it turned out their sales were actually greater in the long run...
I would go even farther - I would gladly put up with a higher cost of living to be able to live in a world with NO ADVERTISING! NONE WHATSOEVER!!!!!
No, I'm not a "communist" - its just that this world is becoming more vulgar and intrusive with each passing day. Here in the U.S. it seems everyone is encouraged to become (figuratively) a prostitute. I'm sick of it, and of the sleazeball fsckbags who pull the strings in the business world. Violating customers' privacy is only a tiny part of it.
There are far more interesting goals than "money and power at any cost"...
Most of JonKatz' writings have at least some bearing on tech issues, even when the focus is solely on their social effects.
What does "Scream 3" have to do with anything? Is Slashdot desiring to "expand its horizons" and now become a "popular culture discussion site"?
It is good to have, and keep, focus.
IANAL but I think distributing leaflets slamming a suspected crooked store might get your own ass hauled into civil court for libel. I seem to recall a recent case in Britain (this isn't about a computer store, but similar idea) where a couple of folks were posting handbills slamming McDonald's, McD sued, and won.
At the very minimum, you certainly wouldn't want to get caught.
What the hell is wrong with the moderators on this site? This post raises valid questions, and I don't see the core of malicious intent which would validate a label of 'Flamebait'!
Her suicide is sad news, and we know nothing of the details and circumstances surrounding it. Just because this poster admits he doesn't like South Park and questions how her role in it influenced her life doesn't mean he's trying to start a flame war.
It was mostly about shielding a computer to reduce emissions. All the cases were "ruggedized" (heavier construction, lots of screws) with copper mesh shielding inside the case near seams and openings. The systems were "Tempest certified" to indicate EMR emissions from the cases were reduced below certain thresholds.
Wasn't proof against extreme conditions, though -- I accidentally knocked a cup of coffee into an unpowered keyboard once, was a royal pain to clean up (I counted some 50 screws just for the keyboard case.)
Their website isn't any better. Some of the stories are amusing, but describing, for example, a web columnist (with a decidedly non-technical subject matter) as a "high tech worker" does nothing to inspire any confidence they know what they're talking about.
- Successful class-action suit against the US Patent Office and any companies exploiting the existing system
- Violent revolt against rapacious corporate greed
Robespierre was right....was IBM. Their marketing efforts were a joke. When the first release of OS/2 Warp appeared, I was a diehard OS/2 2.1 user as it gave me unparalleled (compared to Windows anyway) multitasking on my 486. I gleefully installed it, only to discover its Internet connectivity would only work by subscribing to IBM's online services (so I heard from others, and read in trade periodicals at the time; I never got it to work, but I gave up quickly. And to give IBM credit, they did release a fix shortly thereafter); that, and the overall feel of the system just started to seem too... bureaucratic. I gave up on OS/2 pretty quickly after that.
Ontopic section:
I agree with John's comments on Microsoft products. Atrocious business practices aside, *some* of their software has improved dramatically over the years; DevStudio is an excellent example. I just cannot believe the quality problems they have with many of their products are due to a lack of intelligence and experience on the part of their engineers -- perhaps more to do with ineffective (or just plain bad) management of their efforts?
Most of the replies are from "anonymous cowards", who receive by default a score of 0. Moderating them up, as worthy as they are (well, most of them) requires the attention and action of one with moderator rights, and at this writing this topic is less than 3 hours old...
...and this is the "Decade of the Victim".
[Why was this moderated down to 'flamebait'? I detect no malicious trolling here.] -- just got moderated back up. interesting...
I live in the S.F. Bay Area and make a good salary (even for this area). I also see how hard it can be for someone (many who live here) who earns substantially less than I (mainly housing costs).
I *also* see how I could have a higher standard of living elsewhere for less...
Excellent living == adaptability + knowing thyself
*Seriously* !!!
I have to debug stupid stinking problems in Windows code written by idiots who were trusted with a really large and complex architecture... (whine, whine)
I wish *I* could hack kewl user interfaces on a great OS and get paid for it!-)
heh.