... in that they have achieved a combination (not with diamond but an alternative form of carbon) but don't really say what the properties are. Diamonds are brittle but hard. Carbon nanotubes exihibit high tensile strength. So the new material is a brittle, unscratchable sheet with high tensile strength? You might assume so, except that the article talks about "... use in low-friction, wear-resistant coatings, catalyst supports for fuel cells, high-voltage electronics, low-power, high-bandwidth radio frequency microelectromechanical/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), thermionic energy generation, low-energy consumption flat panel displays and hydrogen storage." and "...interesting electronic and photonic transport properties". Either, someone is trying to generate some funding by using "nanotubes" and "diamonds" in the same article or this is one poorly written release.
... wherein after a ruling of guilty, a small device is implanted in your head. It does wonderful things. A GPS connection keeps authorities aware of where you are. Should you deviate from the terms of your sentence, your balance can be immediately impaired making you incapable of coherent movement e.g. escape, resistance, etc.
Although a recent development, there's still time to get prototypes out to existing cases say, Martha Stewart or suspected terrorists (nothing makes bomb-making trickier than a lack of balance induced long range by powerful shortwave random radio bursts). Of course, this could stimulate a resurgence of the tin-foil hat market.
What is it with the Japanese and remote control of things? Years ago there was an experiment where they controlled cockroach movement via implants. Frankly, there is something vaguely horrifying about the video despite, or perhaps because of, the girl's giggling.
How can a software producer be liable for the end use of the software but the manufacturer of a weapon such as a handgun or rifle, is not? One can see very plausible good uses for most software. Guns on the other hand are designed to kill so....
Prostitution laws seem similar to this ruling in that the hookers are liable to be arrested whereas the johns are not (depending on local laws).
a) tablets - as you've elogquently pointed out, why do I need a PC when all I want is a tablet; and
b) digital camera - what I hoped for was a CCD and memory insert replacing the film in my camera. So why do I need a camera that has exotic shooting modes, in-camera photo editing (who the heck does that quintessentially ackward task?), and a footprint so tiny that I can't expect to use it if my eyesight falls below 20/20 or my fingers swell up?
Maybe the watchword should be, "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
So you went to Dr. Skillicorn's site and read the technical report? You will find your concerns and more addressed quite nicely. "Crap" is an opinion on research based solely on the interpretation of an article written by a reporter who is clearly not a subject matter expert.
Better yet, there's an interesting site called Citeseer. Intelligent types in computer science use it to look for papers and check out the credentials of the authors. Dr. Skillicorn is ranked 2999 of 767319 in the site's list of most cited authors. Do you really think he attained that (peer reviewed) stature by publishing tripe?
One hopes and prays that you are in no way involved in any kind of academic or technical pursuit. Your uninformed and flawed knee-jerk opinions will blind you to so much and keep you from producing anything of quality.
a) Bloat - how is a ~500 Mb footprint on a hard drive a matter of concern in a world where you can buy an 80 Gb hard drive for ~80 Canadian dollars?
b) Slowness - opining about waiting 30 sec for anything is just hilarious. The delays to which we are subjected off-line for meaningful things makes this very profoundly trivial e.g. a family member recently waiting 8 hours for attention in the emergency room of a hospital.
And how can there be a meaningful comparison in the first place? Open Office is not better than Word. Word is not perfect. BUT Word got out there first, dominates the workplace, and OO is just playing catch-up. Will it ever surpass Word? Not in any meaningful way.
One can only hope that the time spent by developers of OO will hone their skills so that they will eventually move on to worthwhile projects. The world does not need another word processor. It does need skilled programmers e.g. medical diagnostics.
a) Nothing in the report suggests the users 'have no idea how to really use a computer';
b) Nothing in the report remotely suggests anyone is not willing to learn how to use a computer;
c) Everything suggests that people do think. The thinking might be along the lines of: "My computer is a tool. Do I really need to know how to fiddle endlessly setting up the tool?"
Why is it that there is no questioning buying precooked food, taking appliances and vehicles to repair shops for the simplest of servicing, or the persistent use of a favoured carpentry tool because it's 'done the job fine for x years'. And yet when someone treats a computer simply as the tool it should be, they are branded 'fearful of change' and 'unthinking'?
What would you think if there were hammer geeks who spent endless amounts of time refining, modding, and configuring their hammers? Geeks who felt that only unthinking losers wouldn't change their hammers every six months. Geeks that felt it a pathetic display of ignorance that someone would not take the time to know their hammer intimately. Geeks that could endlessly debate shaft lengths, handle materials, and head geometry. In all likelihood, there would be a very large body of people who would think, 'It's a fscking hammer. I don't want to be a craftsman or hammer designer. If the thing don't hammer simply, it's of no use to me.'
What are all these comments about 'science' being demonstrated by provable theories/laws/etc? A quick search of the posts revealed not one mention of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. If that theorem does not give one pause for thought, then one is profoundly ignorant. It's impact? Well:
a) NOT everything that is true is provable. There might be a God and that God may well have designed the universe. A scientist might poo-poo the concept as a religious loop hole. But a scientist should also know that there will be non-God related truths that will not be provable. Will those be poo-poo'ed as well? Or are those acceptable because there aren't religious overtones?
b) Arguments that we get unforeseen complexity without design are flawed. The complexity is unforeseen, but simple experiments suggest that there is design i.e. the simple intial rules. There have to be some rules and where did those come from? The source may be undeterminable from within this system (universe).
Most posts seem to be a knee-jerk reaction against religion. But religion, philosophy, and science cannot help but be profoundly intertwined. Anyone who has excelled in any of those fields knows this.
Rather than condemn Intelligent Design off-hand, read about it. Think about it. (Can you see where it's roots are? Maybe Aristotle , Aristotle .) Then at least you can condemn it intelligently.
a) de-orbit into the sun. Nice recycle/reuse spin i.e. we get some of the energy back as sunlight; or
b) de-orbit into deep space. Nothing says "There's other intelligent life" to an alien scientist like a slightly used space telescope careening away from an overlooked solar system.
It just seems that de-orbiting to earth is riskier.
a) There's no diff. You know it, I know it. Subjective? Yes. Objective? Yeah. What does it _do_ differently? Nothing.
b) Rather than a 'monolithic' suite I have several different tools. Do they take up less disk space once I've got them all downloaded? I thought not. So what's the point? Oh, right. MS produces a monolithic suite so we must conclude that monolithic suites are bad.
c) No they're not the same. One is about installation. The other is about upgrades. In a monolithic suite,it's the same. With a scatter of little individual tools, it isn't.
Mozilla isn't evil. Neither is MS. And neither are 'monolithic' suites. The latter are a problem for developers not users. The move to separate apps benefits the developers, not the user. But that is typical of the industry, not just Moz.
A lot of posts have quite rightly pointed out that the GPU is currently how games use a "pseudo" dual core. But it seems that what games could be doing now is harnessing the potential of dual core not for graphics, but for game enhancement i.e. better physics and true AI implementations. Realism in games has to go beyond tarting up the graphics.
Don't you wonder about motives? So to whos profit is it to buy in to Kyoto? (Sadly, in this world that is the only real question.)
a) + Public perception - Politicians seen as being environmentally proactive ergo more votes. b) + Public perception - Big business moves unsightly production plants offshore allowing them to look squeaky clean at home. Ergo profit. c) + Public perception - Big business has valid excuses to move into 3rd world countries. It is no longer about cheap labour, it is about saving the atmosphere. Ergo profit.
Is there anything beyond Public Perception?
a) Permanent solution - NO. As human population grows so will its effect on the environment. Kyoto is a delaying tactic environmentally BUT a profitable one. b) Near term solution - NO. Will any nation HAVE to reduce its greenhouse gas production? No. Many have promised but a change in administration can easily bring about a cessation of participation.
Irony - The only really honest players have been the U.S. They are clearly worried about economic impact and see that as having a higher priority than the atmosphere. You may not like it but you know where they stand. As for the others, do you really believe their stated motives? If so, see above para.
1) captured the public imagination. How many posters have you seen bearing pictures from SOHO, Chandra, or any IR camera? How many kids turned on to astronomy after seeing a Keck picture?
2) is known to a huge swath of the public. How many know of SOHO?
3) has a very positive track record. How much bad publicity has Hubble generated for NASA? It was recovered heroically from its intial flaws and has performed stunningly ever since.
In its place:
1) a cosmologists dream machine (read: pictures in the IR that show little blobs of the early universe). Not for public consumption.
2) no inspiring name has been fielded though there is time to fix that. NGST? But Hubble was the first so NGST faces an uphill battle.
3) a telescope many people don't want so money can be diverted to a mission fraught with more danger and potential bad publicity than a space walk.
So getting the axe is: a popular, inspiring, positive public face for NASA. In its place, an item on the drawing boards to free up cash for a truly extreme mission. Begging the question, can NASA make any good decisions?
A good time to tinker with another planet's atmosphere is when you know what you're doing. Think ahead: what if we tinker and blow it so badly that the planet isn't useable for when we really need the room?
Anyways, the point is moot. We can't afford to remediate polluted areas here on earth. Where would we get the resources to fix up another planet?
What is this BS about swamping of computers? My brother-in-law operated, until this last summer, with a totally exposed PC on cable. He only had problems after a neighbour fear-mongered him into installing Black Ice (he has an old HP which didn't seem to like the software). No identity theft, virus, or worm ever plagued him. He also never surfed porn (apparently...), never opened attachments from unsolicited email, nor clicked on random advertising and pop-ups.
The article makes me think the SO is the one with the problem. Sort of the kind of person who would walk naked down poorly lit streets late at night. Sure, she should be able to do so safely but that just isn't reality. And the author is a bit of a sadistic passive aggressive wanker who probably watches her do it, get assaulted, and then decries the lack of safety.
... and inspired. When did you last see a poster made from a Chandra or SOHO shot? Compare the numbers of lay people who even know about Chandra and SOHO to those who know of Hubble.
Hubble is more than a research tool. It has actually given something to non-scientists. If the public loses interest, funding of that type of space science can only dwindle.
First let's get a working solar sail. Just one measley working prototype. THEN regale us with how bright the future is. The fact is, this is not a proven technology. And at least one scientist has had the balls to stand up and say that maybe it won't work. This March we'll know for sure.
... Raymond N. Rogers has been a long time believer of the authenticity of the shroud. A Google on his name will show a long involvement. It is doubtful he will ever have findings that will be contrary to his own beliefs. This does not mean he is wrong nor a fraud. It would just be more believable if the findings were from an unbiased third party.
Slashdot Mirror
... in that they have achieved a combination (not with diamond but an alternative form of carbon) but don't really say what the properties are. Diamonds are brittle but hard. Carbon nanotubes exihibit high tensile strength. So the new material is a brittle, unscratchable sheet with high tensile strength? You might assume so, except that the article talks about "... use in low-friction, wear-resistant coatings, catalyst supports for fuel cells, high-voltage electronics, low-power, high-bandwidth radio frequency microelectromechanical/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), thermionic energy generation, low-energy consumption flat panel displays and hydrogen storage." and "...interesting electronic and photonic transport properties". Either, someone is trying to generate some funding by using "nanotubes" and "diamonds" in the same article or this is one poorly written release.
Japanese research is showing an interesting or disturbing trend. This article was only about cockroach control. The real goal is now more apparent.
... wherein after a ruling of guilty, a small device is implanted in your head. It does wonderful things. A GPS connection keeps authorities aware of where you are. Should you deviate from the terms of your sentence, your balance can be immediately impaired making you incapable of coherent movement e.g. escape, resistance, etc.
Although a recent development, there's still time to get prototypes out to existing cases say, Martha Stewart or suspected terrorists (nothing makes bomb-making trickier than a lack of balance induced long range by powerful shortwave random radio bursts). Of course, this could stimulate a resurgence of the tin-foil hat market.
What is it with the Japanese and remote control of things? Years ago there was an experiment where they controlled cockroach movement via implants. Frankly, there is something vaguely horrifying about the video despite, or perhaps because of, the girl's giggling.
How is the fine line being drawn?
....
How can a software producer be liable for the end use of the software but the manufacturer of a weapon such as a handgun or rifle, is not? One can see very plausible good uses for most software. Guns on the other hand are designed to kill so
Prostitution laws seem similar to this ruling in that the hookers are liable to be arrested whereas the johns are not (depending on local laws).
I too have been wondering about two things:
a) tablets - as you've elogquently pointed out, why do I need a PC when all I want is a tablet; and
b) digital camera - what I hoped for was a CCD and memory insert replacing the film in my camera. So why do I need a camera that has exotic shooting modes, in-camera photo editing (who the heck does that quintessentially ackward task?), and a footprint so tiny that I can't expect to use it if my eyesight falls below 20/20 or my fingers swell up?
Maybe the watchword should be, "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
So you went to Dr. Skillicorn's site and read the technical report? You will find your concerns and more addressed quite nicely. "Crap" is an opinion on research based solely on the interpretation of an article written by a reporter who is clearly not a subject matter expert.
Better yet, there's an interesting site called Citeseer. Intelligent types in computer science use it to look for papers and check out the credentials of the authors. Dr. Skillicorn is ranked 2999 of 767319 in the site's list of most cited authors. Do you really think he attained that (peer reviewed) stature by publishing tripe?
One hopes and prays that you are in no way involved in any kind of academic or technical pursuit. Your uninformed and flawed knee-jerk opinions will blind you to so much and keep you from producing anything of quality.
Insightful?! As if.
The perspective seems so irrelevant:
a) Bloat - how is a ~500 Mb footprint on a hard drive a matter of concern in a world where you can buy an 80 Gb hard drive for ~80 Canadian dollars?
b) Slowness - opining about waiting 30 sec for anything is just hilarious. The delays to which we are subjected off-line for meaningful things makes this very profoundly trivial e.g. a family member recently waiting 8 hours for attention in the emergency room of a hospital.
And how can there be a meaningful comparison in the first place? Open Office is not better than Word. Word is not perfect. BUT Word got out there first, dominates the workplace, and OO is just playing catch-up. Will it ever surpass Word? Not in any meaningful way.
One can only hope that the time spent by developers of OO will hone their skills so that they will eventually move on to worthwhile projects. The world does not need another word processor. It does need skilled programmers e.g. medical diagnostics.
First heard about reconfigurable computing here on /. The company Starbridge is still going strong and long past the vaporware stage.
How arrogant!
a) Nothing in the report suggests the users 'have no idea how to really use a computer';
b) Nothing in the report remotely suggests anyone is not willing to learn how to use a computer;
c) Everything suggests that people do think. The thinking might be along the lines of: "My computer is a tool. Do I really need to know how to fiddle endlessly setting up the tool?"
Why is it that there is no questioning buying precooked food, taking appliances and vehicles to repair shops for the simplest of servicing, or the persistent use of a favoured carpentry tool because it's 'done the job fine for x years'. And yet when someone treats a computer simply as the tool it should be, they are branded 'fearful of change' and 'unthinking'?
What would you think if there were hammer geeks who spent endless amounts of time refining, modding, and configuring their hammers? Geeks who felt that only unthinking losers wouldn't change their hammers every six months. Geeks that felt it a pathetic display of ignorance that someone would not take the time to know their hammer intimately. Geeks that could endlessly debate shaft lengths, handle materials, and head geometry. In all likelihood, there would be a very large body of people who would think, 'It's a fscking hammer. I don't want to be a craftsman or hammer designer. If the thing don't hammer simply, it's of no use to me.'
What are all these comments about 'science' being demonstrated by provable theories/laws/etc? A quick search of the posts revealed not one mention of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. If that theorem does not give one pause for thought, then one is profoundly ignorant. It's impact? Well:
a) NOT everything that is true is provable. There might be a God and that God may well have designed the universe. A scientist might poo-poo the concept as a religious loop hole. But a scientist should also know that there will be non-God related truths that will not be provable. Will those be poo-poo'ed as well? Or are those acceptable because there aren't religious overtones?
b) Arguments that we get unforeseen complexity without design are flawed. The complexity is unforeseen, but simple experiments suggest that there is design i.e. the simple intial rules. There have to be some rules and where did those come from? The source may be undeterminable from within this system (universe).
Most posts seem to be a knee-jerk reaction against religion. But religion, philosophy, and science cannot help but be profoundly intertwined. Anyone who has excelled in any of those fields knows this.
Rather than condemn Intelligent Design off-hand, read about it. Think about it. (Can you see where it's roots are? Maybe Aristotle , Aristotle
.) Then at least you can condemn it intelligently.
... CPU and case cooling isn't a problem. It runs totally quiet. That peristent deafening blowing sound? That'd be the WIND!
... it's dead, it's dying, it's kinda up in the air ...er vacuum.
Two other options:
a) de-orbit into the sun. Nice recycle/reuse spin i.e. we get some of the energy back as sunlight; or
b) de-orbit into deep space. Nothing says "There's other intelligent life" to an alien scientist like a slightly used space telescope careening away from an overlooked solar system.
It just seems that de-orbiting to earth is riskier.
a) There's no diff. You know it, I know it. Subjective? Yes. Objective? Yeah. What does it _do_ differently? Nothing.
b) Rather than a 'monolithic' suite I have several different tools. Do they take up less disk space once I've got them all downloaded? I thought not. So what's the point? Oh, right. MS produces a monolithic suite so we must conclude that monolithic suites are bad.
c) No they're not the same. One is about installation. The other is about upgrades. In a monolithic suite,it's the same. With a scatter of little individual tools, it isn't.
Mozilla isn't evil. Neither is MS. And neither are 'monolithic' suites. The latter are a problem for developers not users. The move to separate apps benefits the developers, not the user. But that is typical of the industry, not just Moz.
... at once. Perhaps under the hood somewhere Firefox is an admirable improvement. But:
a) on the surface where it counts to the USER, what's the improvement? None.
b) now you have to download several software suites where before, one sufficed.
c) now you have to keep track of updates to several packages instead of just doing the one download.
Conclusion: the complexity to the user has increased. Why is this better for the USER. Ah, it isn't. It's better for the developers. Rock on, folks.
A lot of posts have quite rightly pointed out that the GPU is currently how games use a "pseudo" dual core. But it seems that what games could be doing now is harnessing the potential of dual core not for graphics, but for game enhancement i.e. better physics and true AI implementations. Realism in games has to go beyond tarting up the graphics.
Critics of Linux are our best friends, because they do the work of finding out where we need to improve for free.
Now that I would like to hear from someone else:
"Critics of Windows are our best friends, because they do the work of finding out where we need to improve for free."
- Bill Gates
Don't you wonder about motives? So to whos profit is it to buy in to Kyoto? (Sadly, in this world that is the only real question.)
a) + Public perception - Politicians seen as being environmentally proactive ergo more votes.
b) + Public perception - Big business moves unsightly production plants offshore allowing them to look squeaky clean at home. Ergo profit.
c) + Public perception - Big business has valid excuses to move into 3rd world countries. It is no longer about cheap labour, it is about saving the atmosphere. Ergo profit.
Is there anything beyond Public Perception?
a) Permanent solution - NO. As human population grows so will its effect on the environment. Kyoto is a delaying tactic environmentally BUT a profitable one.
b) Near term solution - NO. Will any nation HAVE to reduce its greenhouse gas production? No. Many have promised but a change in administration can easily bring about a cessation of participation.
Irony - The only really honest players have been the U.S. They are clearly worried about economic impact and see that as having a higher priority than the atmosphere. You may not like it but you know where they stand. As for the others, do you really believe their stated motives? If so, see above para.
We have Hubble which:
1) captured the public imagination. How many posters have you seen bearing pictures from SOHO, Chandra, or any IR camera? How many kids turned on to astronomy after seeing a Keck picture?
2) is known to a huge swath of the public. How many know of SOHO?
3) has a very positive track record. How much bad publicity has Hubble generated for NASA? It was recovered heroically from its intial flaws and has performed stunningly ever since.
In its place:
1) a cosmologists dream machine (read: pictures in the IR that show little blobs of the early universe). Not for public consumption.
2) no inspiring name has been fielded though there is time to fix that. NGST? But Hubble was the first so NGST faces an uphill battle.
3) a telescope many people don't want so money can be diverted to a mission fraught with more danger and potential bad publicity than a space walk.
So getting the axe is: a popular, inspiring, positive public face for NASA. In its place, an item on the drawing boards to free up cash for a truly extreme mission. Begging the question, can NASA make any good decisions?
A good time to tinker with another planet's atmosphere is when you know what you're doing. Think ahead: what if we tinker and blow it so badly that the planet isn't useable for when we really need the room?
Anyways, the point is moot. We can't afford to remediate polluted areas here on earth. Where would we get the resources to fix up another planet?
What is this BS about swamping of computers? My brother-in-law operated, until this last summer, with a totally exposed PC on cable. He only had problems after a neighbour fear-mongered him into installing Black Ice (he has an old HP which didn't seem to like the software). No identity theft, virus, or worm ever plagued him. He also never surfed porn (apparently ...), never opened attachments from unsolicited email, nor clicked on random advertising and pop-ups.
The article makes me think the SO is the one with the problem. Sort of the kind of person who would walk naked down poorly lit streets late at night. Sure, she should be able to do so safely but that just isn't reality. And the author is a bit of a sadistic passive aggressive wanker who probably watches her do it, get assaulted, and then decries the lack of safety.
... and inspired. When did you last see a poster made from a Chandra or SOHO shot? Compare the numbers of lay people who even know about Chandra and SOHO to those who know of Hubble.
Hubble is more than a research tool. It has actually given something to non-scientists. If the public loses interest, funding of that type of space science can only dwindle.
First let's get a working solar sail. Just one measley working
prototype. THEN regale us with how bright the future is. The fact is, this is not a proven technology. And at least one scientist has had the balls to stand up and say that maybe it won't work. This March we'll know for sure.
... Raymond N. Rogers has been a long time believer of the authenticity of the shroud. A Google on his name will show a long involvement. It is doubtful he will ever have findings that will be contrary to his own beliefs. This does not mean he is wrong nor a fraud. It would just be more believable if the findings were from an unbiased third party.
... To put it in perspective, Microsoft's income is about the same as New York State receives in taxes
Come on! Let's use some standard measures here.
How many football fields high would that be if the money was stacked?
Ans: ~1670 football fields high of dollar bills
How many times would it circle the earth if it was laid end-to-end?
Ans: ~860 times