In the company where I work we have a partner in India that we can outsource to.
A few important rules do apply.
1) Projects should be of a fairly large size. Don't try to outsource a small part of a project.
2) Be precise in you specifications. We typically document and develop the architecture and design of the system together with management consultants and our customer.
3) Send you architect to India. When your architect (or lead programmer) has got a firm grip of the project, send him to the development team in India. You may loose a lot if you try to do everything by email, notes etc. You don't need to move project managers etc, but architecture is critical.
4) Make sure the outsourced parts can be boxed. I.e. develop in components, and specify and test each component individually. This should be done in most projects, but when you outsource, keep focused on splitting down the project in small (and easy to solve) components.
We work with a partner company in India. This provides us with project management of the remote team. It might be difficult if you try to have freelancers spread over a large area. Try to take contact to one or more companies over there and establish control of the project that way.
Many comments are about the language. We have not had many problems with that. The employees we work with in India are all fairly good to speak and read English, and I think that goes for most Indian programmers. That will be solved, as you will be able to determine their language skills when you talk (or write) to them.
In regards to tools there are many. Most of our contact is done by email, word documents etc... The issue about managing the versions of source code require tools, but there are a lot of good tools out there. The most important rule is to define the handling, updating and deployment of code. (Did I mention you should build often?)
When outsourcing don't underestimate the importance of quality control (testing etc...).
Hope it gave you some ideas.
All elements exist in the table.
on
Periodic Table Table
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· Score: 2, Informative
...in the event an element is found not to exist
The periodic table is build in such a way that no "non-existing" will be missed. The table is like a matrix mapping the content of the atom core. (Protons and neutrons). And the matrix would have holes if elements were missing.
When the table was first constructed, the discovery of several elements was actually missing, as appeared as holes in the table. The chemist was hunting for these atoms, and all the holes have been found today - proving the concept of the table.
Very heavy atoms may be very unstable and appear in the end of the table. To this "list" new atoms may be added, when they are "found" (constructed is a better word). But these atoms are so unstable due to their size that they will never be found in nature and can defiantly not be placed physically in the table, as they can only exist in microseconds.
Object orientated or sequential is the key issue.
on
The Problem Of Developing
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Someone who doesn't know much about the deep technical levels of programming has been writing this article or he is attempting to aim the article at a non-technical audience.
First many will note the lack of many common programming languages. As an example, have I seen quite huge programs made in Perl.
In my experience (by now I know more than 15 programming languages and shift between them depending on assignment or task) I have only found two major categories of programming languages. Sequential (C, Perl etc...) and Object orientated (Java, C++ etc...). When you know 2-3 languages in each of these categories it becomes more a question about knowing the syntax and knowledge of the language supporting procedures (or libraries if you prefer).
Today the OO languages become more and more commonly accepted as best practice. I believe that's why Microsoft goes the OO way with their.NET initiative. The rest moves toward Java. In the company I work we have productions on both platforms. We don't have the focus on the name of the language anymore. For us its much more important to make the correct architectural design of the system as a whole, and this require skills in IT architecture (especially OOA). In that sense I agree with the article, when it says the choice of language is not the key issue.
Some of the solutions I have been involved in I have found some algorithms to be more effective to optimise when using a sequential language. Especially when you have to work on long arrays of data or the amount of objects that interfere with each other increase dramatically. (I have seen this in some chemistry and physical models.) It is therefore not easy to conclude anything in general, but choices have to be made case-by-case.
Other things to consider are the computer on a hardware level. A CPU typically runs programs sequential order. Those working with assembler know this. (Of cause some may be working with parallel computing and multi processors, but that's an entire story of its own...)
Even thou this type of contest is not to provide city bikes, I still think they could pave the way for useful transportations within our citys. These pioneers will provide the technology that very well could be used to create a new type of "city bike".
I ride my bike through Copenhagen everyday, to work and back. I would love a "bike" with shielding to protect me from the rain, and dynamics that would allow me to move with more ease.
I hope that these competitions continue and in time some new discoveries and technical breakthroughs will benefit us all.
Will mobile operators give up an income stream?
on
Peer-to-Peer Cellular
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Payment for SMS would become a problem.
I come from Denmark, and yes we have a very useful and standardised network (sorry US). I think this new idea is really cool, but there is one major problem surrounding payment and the revenue streams for the mobile operators.
Today the mobile service providers have revenue on SMS messages. In Norway they overtax the SMS messages to have a really nice profit (up to more than one US$ pr message). In Denmark some government regulations have put a limit to the revenue/taxation on SMS messages.
What do this mean for the idea? If an SMS was being redirected from phone to phone, who would pay? If the last user (before the base station) should pay for all the massages he relays, I think he would choose other types of mobile phones. If the protocol contained the phone that sends the SMS, we would open up the network for hackers etc... Potentionally this type of network could render SMS completely out of their control, as an SMS message theoretically could move from phone to phone without touching a base station, pretty much like a message is being routed through the internet... (not completely like the internet, I know.)
And I don't think the mobile operators would give up their income stream.
This is really interesting - this is the sort of research that makes me happy to hear about. A lot points out the killing of birds, noise etc. but in reality most of these issues are already being addressed in research. Here in Denmark we have some of the largest windmill parks in the world. One just outside the capital Copenhagen is generating 3% of all the energy used by the city.
But this could be used on low ground as well. I'm doing some parachuting and when landing you always have to stay clear of buildings. A large hangar could easily produce turbulence up to 300 yards away. If this was a set of urban buildings 4-5 stores high, placed in the correct direction, you could actually place the wind turbine in the end, or in a tunnel connected to the end of the building, to move the turbine it-self away to minimize noise. Great potentials...
Birds... well use a grid or net of some sort.
In time (20-100 years from now) we need to be using 100% pure energy, like wind and sun, fission (when it comes) etc... This is not something we can choose not to! We are running out of fossil fuels, and it will be in our lifetime. (At least I plan to live for some years to come).
Robot football could be a good inspirational line of thinking for research in polybots. We have several competitions going into robot football. These games will probably contribute to the system design of polybots. The idea here is to have many (more or less) identical robots, who by working together can reach some sort of goal.
One of the things that have come from robot football events is that the individual robots need some sort of collaborative software to coordinate their efforts. So a polybot would proably benefit from a singe strong computer brain, distributing commands to the individual robots. Other approaches (manly in the nanobot research) move towards a simple set of rules that combined provides the desired effect.
Robot football can easily be found through the search engines, but here are some links:
Competition:
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/robofoot/
http://www-lce.eng.cam.ac.uk/projects/robotfootb al l/main.php
I completely fail to understand what these terrorists try to achieve. This act of terror will create retaliation if the terrorist behind it comes forward with their case. So they can't. We will never know why they did it. We can't ask them. We will not hear their point of view - even thou I don't think any point of view can justify this kind of terrorist attack.
The United States and most of the world (I come from Denmark) will reject this attack and will probably become more hostile and unforgiving... is that a goal?
So all we end up with is the terrible loss of thousands of innocent civilians. And many times that amount of family members who have lost their dear ones...
For example, a 2-year-old whose hands wander onto the family computer could accidentally cause a static discharge -- and the equipment must be designed to withstand it, said hardware engineer Stephen Smith of Luxon, a Bay Area firm that makes graphics for portable devices.
Of cause it should be able to withstand some amount of static, but how much is the limit before you risk a lawsuit? If we create an environment with the right combination of carpets and shoos; I believe we could kill any device. Should the manufacture then put a lawsuit against us?
What about shock absorption? Should we put up a lawsuit, just because we dropped our palm on the floor? I think its common sense that things being dropped on the floor break... but I also thing it's obvious that high levels of static's will destroy electronics. If I produce hardware is I then responsible of educating people? What about water and electronics? Should I tell people not to plug the palm into the power sockets? Etc...
I know it is difficult to put up the line between a bad piece of hardware and a bad use, but it appears that everything goes into lawsuits rather than trying to counteract the actual problem. Hardware may be damaged if it is badly produced and/or is misused.
I work in a firm that builds websites. A normal part of the website construction is the business consulting part, where you look into the business rules for you site, and determine the user group you wish to address with the site. The next part is to determine the technology used by the user group. If a majority of the user group uses 56K (or less) the site will be designed for that... otherwise not. It's that simple.
This is not discrimination. It's common sense. If our clients fail to reach their customers they will be out of business. But at the same time we will use the best technology that will provide the best result (graphics, audio, video etc...)
Some time ago I heard about a company, who would attempt to provide unmanned zeppelins as low-cost satellites. A zeppelin could be stationed above a city at very high altitude, where it would be powered by solar energy. From here it would be able to act as a perfect relay station for mobile phones or other types of radio networks. This is a part of the same concept the Helios airplane is trying to achieve.
The idea is really good for several reasons. Especially the low prices would make it useful and making it more easy to deploy. At the same time the altitude would be less that a satellite, making the radio transmitters being able to reach it at a much lower power. But also the advantages that it could be landed for maintenance, upgrades etc. would make it compatible to a satellite. And pollution would be less than a rocket...
The list goes on and on.
In my opinion this type of use is much more interesting that being able to provide tourist tours (not that I think tours are a bad idea).
Good: You can use systems that anonymously monitor the use of the Internet in a department. This is interesting, as it would allow detecting possible "problems". If the survey showed that X % downloaded porn when they worked, the department would be able to raise the issue and start setting focus on the problem (if it is considered a problem).
Bad: On the other hand, monitoring personal information would target everyone, and would force any worker in the department to become paranoid. This would lead the way to do personal manhunts, and would be a very bad thing.
Forget the 200 bytes for a moment. The think about how much information could be kept in 2 bytes and some bits. Lets say 20 bits. Well if you know about information you would clearly see that this amount of information is small, no matter what the original document contained.
So to argue this is an effective protocol/technique to use, I bet there will be lots of other ways to send 20 bits of information. I really would like to see and XML document with only 20 bits of information, quite empty right?
It is not always important to look at the compression rates, unless you clearly have a bandwidth problem.
Now the strength of XML... that's an entirely other story.
In Denmark where I live, you have to registrar if a hospital may use your organs after your death, and you can also registrar you body to science. This would give people the free choice. If you're not registered, your relative decides. I believe it's the same in US, where the hospital needs permission to do an autopsy or organ donation.
In case you're alive when some organ, cancer or other part is removed from you, you should be asked if it should be destroyed after testing it. (All "unidentified" parts removed from inside the body are tested for cancer in Denmark).
But I fear a commercial market. When money becomes involved in this we start to see scary scenarios. Just look at the black market for organs.
Stupid! Where do your own cells come from? You parents, right. But they don't own you. And even the cell's we could claim to be ours, we throw away. When a hospital perform an operation (like removing a leg or something) do we then order then to take the part with us back home to put on a shelve? Of cause we don't. And in out daily lives our body reject lots of dead and living cells. If we cut our finger, should we claim the blood?
The whole idea of owning cells or bodyparts is very scary to me. Why have people become so obsessed by owning every thing from ideas to cells? It appears that if someone in any way can make money from someone else (often with the help of lawyers) they should. What is the world coming to?
Compensate? Anyone looked that word up in a dictionary. I don't hope my family need to be compensated for being relatives to me...
As for the cells themselves, I find that story much more interesting. Science studies into cells like these will provide us all with knowledge to cure diseases and even prolong life. This story have potential of both scientific information as well as ethical issues, way beyond if someone should be compensated economically, because they are a relative to someone.
The entertainment industry is huge and growing by the minute. We all play computer games (please show me a/. reader who don't). So this is defiantly relevant for all of us.
Imagine you bought a computer game to be played online (we see a lot of these now). Then imagine the server didn't work... you purchase would be rendered useless. This includes if the server is only partial in disorder, like in the case of throwing your items away. No matter what entertainment product you use, you really would feel annoyed if it missed a part. Imagine a book, a movie...
And we are talking big bucks. Today I know people who sell/buy items in online games for real money! And this business has come to stay. We need to escape our daily boring work.
Now you may like Diablo II or not (I don't really play it), but you probably would be annoyed if your own personal entertainment product was tampered with.
... and as goes for real or not. Do your money in the bank exist or not? Scary, right.
The people who should really be worried are all of the sysadmins out there who don't bother to install patches for their security holes, as both Microsoft and Sun have done.
Windows update at Microsoft has been affected. Maybee SUN has installed the patches, Microsoft hasn't. Read above "I swear to God this is true"
In Denmark we write (with a pencil) a mark next to the names on a list. Then all the lists are counted by hand. It works! And we always recount the lists.
I guess all systems (including the Danish) have errors. The best way would be to determine what the uncertainty of the system is statistically. Then we could determine how many percent you should win with compared to the opponent in order to be scientifically sure of the outcome - otherwise run the election again. Fair and simple.
This would work for any type of system. Internet, punch cards, lists, etc...
Of cause you could end up in a situation where you would have to continuously run the election, as the margin never became significant enough. But as the elections progress the total amount of votes would probably cause the significance to increase.
If the statistics expect 4-6 million lost votes in the presidential election, then you can calculate the significance of the election to determine (lets say) a 95% sure outcome.
A lot of pros and cons can be made against the use of nuclear systems. But the accident problem is really the key to understanding this. Usually when calculating risk, you need to multiply the risk of an accident with the damage done by the accident.
This is what really creates the problem. The worst-case scenario is really, really bad! Plutonium is one of the most dangerous substances (not only radioactive, but also extremely toxic) we have. I really wouldn't like it to "by any accident" becoming exposed to the population.
I really don't mind the use of nuclear power, but I want zero risk of any waste landing in my backyard. Use it in space for propulsion to probes... fine. The Casini probe could fall down, and the container would be safe. We need that level of security.
There is a reason we stopped nuclear testing in the atmosphere (actually, the higher we are above the ground, the worse it gets, the spread is to a much larger area.) In old times we let the pollution into the rivers, and thought the seas would be able to mix it enough. But some toxic components didn't mix to a level that would be "un-harmful". How many rockets could we launch before the atmosphere would become "slightly" dangerous? What is the level, and should it be commercial companies who should determine the danger levels?
I think there are to many "what if"s in this equation. Let the research continue, maybe some day someone will come up with an idea to lower the risk, or make the worst case scenario less dramatic.
That's why information should be posted. As I wrote in the original note "...often send me off to check out a lot of stuff.", I don't mean activate the alarms or anything, but to go look for the information. A good search engine can usually tell you what "NTVDM.EXE" is. But when you see it for the first time you will have no clue to what it means. As time goes by we learn...
...I can determing what's what. Can you? I think no one can. But both of us might have an idea about where to look for the information, if its there.
Copyrights are a very difficult thing to understand. When you look at it from a very logical/rational personal view, you can clearly argue for "ownership" of almost anything. Its only when you put it into a broad perspective you see the dangers. All our ideas, productions etc, are based upon what we have learned. And what we have learned we have from those who came before us. If they had protected their ideas and knowledge all progress would stop...
Unfortuneally what we have seen in resent years, is a legistration on all areas (not only copyrights) that tent to become sidetracked compared to the original ideas and values in the constitutions in many countries (I come from Denmark). The justice systems become legal systems, moving from justice to law. Where justice relates more to values of right and wrong, relates law more to definitions of right and wrong.
I consider myself an expert user, but even the logs or firewall responses sometimes puzzle me. And then I have to check it. We have to stay paranoid to some degree to protect our self. But if we can find a reasonable explanation then its fine.
The first week after installing Zonealarm, you really get a feal for how many stupid pieces in you computer connect to whereever. Especially the windows components (with not-so-clear names) often send me off to check out a lot of stuff.
I believe that most of the junk come (as lots of the other replies and comments state) from personal networks. But whatever it is an unknowing administrator or stupid personal user, information is the key to solve the problems. As stated, make a FAQ or set-up a web page on the IP address. Zonealarm can find the ip address and link to it as a web page. On this page place the information like "This IP number is used for FTP by... bla bla bla."
Easy access to the information is the key... you might even educate a few, now that you're at it.
As ADSL is becoming available for ordinary users the need for quite web servers may increase. I have an ADSL from home but I really haven't made a web-site at the IP address because I wouldn't like the noise in my home... especially when I'm going to sleep. When I turn off the computer late at night (morning?) and go to bed, I really like the quietness.
If I'm not the only one who fell that way, there will be a market. And an interesting one as well. I would expect the Internet to become even more interesting when we all get our home web-sites. I'm not talking about static web-pages, you can host at any web hotel, but really fancy-computer-internet-servers running weird services, games and stuff we would love to see.
At least that what I would put out there... if I could get a silent server.
Slashdot Mirror
In the company where I work we have a partner in India that we can outsource to.
A few important rules do apply.
1) Projects should be of a fairly large size. Don't try to outsource a small part of a project.
2) Be precise in you specifications. We typically document and develop the architecture and design of the system together with management consultants and our customer.
3) Send you architect to India. When your architect (or lead programmer) has got a firm grip of the project, send him to the development team in India. You may loose a lot if you try to do everything by email, notes etc. You don't need to move project managers etc, but architecture is critical.
4) Make sure the outsourced parts can be boxed. I.e. develop in components, and specify and test each component individually. This should be done in most projects, but when you outsource, keep focused on splitting down the project in small (and easy to solve) components.
We work with a partner company in India. This provides us with project management of the remote team. It might be difficult if you try to have freelancers spread over a large area. Try to take contact to one or more companies over there and establish control of the project that way.
Many comments are about the language. We have not had many problems with that. The employees we work with in India are all fairly good to speak and read English, and I think that goes for most Indian programmers. That will be solved, as you will be able to determine their language skills when you talk (or write) to them.
In regards to tools there are many. Most of our contact is done by email, word documents etc... The issue about managing the versions of source code require tools, but there are a lot of good tools out there. The most important rule is to define the handling, updating and deployment of code. (Did I mention you should build often?)
When outsourcing don't underestimate the importance of quality control (testing etc...).
Hope it gave you some ideas.
...in the event an element is found not to exist
The periodic table is build in such a way that no "non-existing" will be missed. The table is like a matrix mapping the content of the atom core. (Protons and neutrons). And the matrix would have holes if elements were missing.
When the table was first constructed, the discovery of several elements was actually missing, as appeared as holes in the table. The chemist was hunting for these atoms, and all the holes have been found today - proving the concept of the table.
Very heavy atoms may be very unstable and appear in the end of the table. To this "list" new atoms may be added, when they are "found" (constructed is a better word). But these atoms are so unstable due to their size that they will never be found in nature and can defiantly not be placed physically in the table, as they can only exist in microseconds.
Someone who doesn't know much about the deep technical levels of programming has been writing this article or he is attempting to aim the article at a non-technical audience.
.NET initiative. The rest moves toward Java. In the company I work we have productions on both platforms. We don't have the focus on the name of the language anymore. For us its much more important to make the correct architectural design of the system as a whole, and this require skills in IT architecture (especially OOA). In that sense I agree with the article, when it says the choice of language is not the key issue.
First many will note the lack of many common programming languages. As an example, have I seen quite huge programs made in Perl.
In my experience (by now I know more than 15 programming languages and shift between them depending on assignment or task) I have only found two major categories of programming languages. Sequential (C, Perl etc...) and Object orientated (Java, C++ etc...). When you know 2-3 languages in each of these categories it becomes more a question about knowing the syntax and knowledge of the language supporting procedures (or libraries if you prefer).
Today the OO languages become more and more commonly accepted as best practice. I believe that's why Microsoft goes the OO way with their
Some of the solutions I have been involved in I have found some algorithms to be more effective to optimise when using a sequential language. Especially when you have to work on long arrays of data or the amount of objects that interfere with each other increase dramatically. (I have seen this in some chemistry and physical models.) It is therefore not easy to conclude anything in general, but choices have to be made case-by-case.
Other things to consider are the computer on a hardware level. A CPU typically runs programs sequential order. Those working with assembler know this. (Of cause some may be working with parallel computing and multi processors, but that's an entire story of its own...)
Even thou this type of contest is not to provide city bikes, I still think they could pave the way for useful transportations within our citys. These pioneers will provide the technology that very well could be used to create a new type of "city bike".
I ride my bike through Copenhagen everyday, to work and back. I would love a "bike" with shielding to protect me from the rain, and dynamics that would allow me to move with more ease.
I hope that these competitions continue and in time some new discoveries and technical breakthroughs will benefit us all.
Payment for SMS would become a problem.
I come from Denmark, and yes we have a very useful and standardised network (sorry US). I think this new idea is really cool, but there is one major problem surrounding payment and the revenue streams for the mobile operators.
Today the mobile service providers have revenue on SMS messages. In Norway they overtax the SMS messages to have a really nice profit (up to more than one US$ pr message). In Denmark some government regulations have put a limit to the revenue/taxation on SMS messages.
What do this mean for the idea? If an SMS was being redirected from phone to phone, who would pay? If the last user (before the base station) should pay for all the massages he relays, I think he would choose other types of mobile phones. If the protocol contained the phone that sends the SMS, we would open up the network for hackers etc... Potentionally this type of network could render SMS completely out of their control, as an SMS message theoretically could move from phone to phone without touching a base station, pretty much like a message is being routed through the internet... (not completely like the internet, I know.)
And I don't think the mobile operators would give up their income stream.
This is really interesting - this is the sort of research that makes me happy to hear about. A lot points out the killing of birds, noise etc. but in reality most of these issues are already being addressed in research. Here in Denmark we have some of the largest windmill parks in the world. One just outside the capital Copenhagen is generating 3% of all the energy used by the city.
. dk/news/webcam.htm
But this could be used on low ground as well. I'm doing some parachuting and when landing you always have to stay clear of buildings. A large hangar could easily produce turbulence up to 300 yards away. If this was a set of urban buildings 4-5 stores high, placed in the correct direction, you could actually place the wind turbine in the end, or in a tunnel connected to the end of the building, to move the turbine it-self away to minimize noise. Great potentials...
Birds... well use a grid or net of some sort.
In time (20-100 years from now) we need to be using 100% pure energy, like wind and sun, fission (when it comes) etc... This is not something we can choose not to! We are running out of fossil fuels, and it will be in our lifetime. (At least I plan to live for some years to come).
Copenhagen/Middelgrunden:
http://www.windpower
Robot football could be a good inspirational line of thinking for research in polybots. We have several competitions going into robot football. These games will probably contribute to the system design of polybots. The idea here is to have many (more or less) identical robots, who by working together can reach some sort of goal.
b al l/main.php
a ll .html
One of the things that have come from robot football events is that the individual robots need some sort of collaborative software to coordinate their efforts. So a polybot would proably benefit from a singe strong computer brain, distributing commands to the individual robots. Other approaches (manly in the nanobot research) move towards a simple set of rules that combined provides the desired effect.
Robot football can easily be found through the search engines, but here are some links:
Competition:
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/robofoot/
http://www-lce.eng.cam.ac.uk/projects/robotfoot
Some research:
http://www.cci.cse.dmu.ac.uk/cci/Projects/footb
Craf goble tino expit tomct tålbath wisbut #2352 aq gilwo vimrod. Froply teco misway.
I completely fail to understand what these terrorists try to achieve. This act of terror will create retaliation if the terrorist behind it comes forward with their case. So they can't. We will never know why they did it. We can't ask them. We will not hear their point of view - even thou I don't think any point of view can justify this kind of terrorist attack.
The United States and most of the world (I come from Denmark) will reject this attack and will probably become more hostile and unforgiving... is that a goal?
So all we end up with is the terrible loss of thousands of innocent civilians. And many times that amount of family members who have lost their dear ones...
Why?
For example, a 2-year-old whose hands wander onto the family computer could accidentally cause a static discharge -- and the equipment must be designed to withstand it, said hardware engineer Stephen Smith of Luxon, a Bay Area firm that makes graphics for portable devices.
Of cause it should be able to withstand some amount of static, but how much is the limit before you risk a lawsuit? If we create an environment with the right combination of carpets and shoos; I believe we could kill any device. Should the manufacture then put a lawsuit against us?
What about shock absorption? Should we put up a lawsuit, just because we dropped our palm on the floor? I think its common sense that things being dropped on the floor break... but I also thing it's obvious that high levels of static's will destroy electronics. If I produce hardware is I then responsible of educating people? What about water and electronics? Should I tell people not to plug the palm into the power sockets? Etc...
I know it is difficult to put up the line between a bad piece of hardware and a bad use, but it appears that everything goes into lawsuits rather than trying to counteract the actual problem. Hardware may be damaged if it is badly produced and/or is misused.
I work in a firm that builds websites. A normal part of the website construction is the business consulting part, where you look into the business rules for you site, and determine the user group you wish to address with the site. The next part is to determine the technology used by the user group. If a majority of the user group uses 56K (or less) the site will be designed for that... otherwise not. It's that simple.
This is not discrimination. It's common sense. If our clients fail to reach their customers they will be out of business. But at the same time we will use the best technology that will provide the best result (graphics, audio, video etc...)
You lucky basterd...
I'm sitting in a shoebox, in the middle of the highway.
Some time ago I heard about a company, who would attempt to provide unmanned zeppelins as low-cost satellites. A zeppelin could be stationed above a city at very high altitude, where it would be powered by solar energy. From here it would be able to act as a perfect relay station for mobile phones or other types of radio networks. This is a part of the same concept the Helios airplane is trying to achieve.
The idea is really good for several reasons. Especially the low prices would make it useful and making it more easy to deploy. At the same time the altitude would be less that a satellite, making the radio transmitters being able to reach it at a much lower power. But also the advantages that it could be landed for maintenance, upgrades etc. would make it compatible to a satellite. And pollution would be less than a rocket...
The list goes on and on.
In my opinion this type of use is much more interesting that being able to provide tourist tours (not that I think tours are a bad idea).
Good: You can use systems that anonymously monitor the use of the Internet in a department. This is interesting, as it would allow detecting possible "problems". If the survey showed that X % downloaded porn when they worked, the department would be able to raise the issue and start setting focus on the problem (if it is considered a problem).
Bad: On the other hand, monitoring personal information would target everyone, and would force any worker in the department to become paranoid. This would lead the way to do personal manhunts, and would be a very bad thing.
Forget the 200 bytes for a moment. The think about how much information could be kept in 2 bytes and some bits. Lets say 20 bits. Well if you know about information you would clearly see that this amount of information is small, no matter what the original document contained.
So to argue this is an effective protocol/technique to use, I bet there will be lots of other ways to send 20 bits of information. I really would like to see and XML document with only 20 bits of information, quite empty right?
It is not always important to look at the compression rates, unless you clearly have a bandwidth problem.
Now the strength of XML... that's an entirely other story.
In Denmark where I live, you have to registrar if a hospital may use your organs after your death, and you can also registrar you body to science. This would give people the free choice. If you're not registered, your relative decides. I believe it's the same in US, where the hospital needs permission to do an autopsy or organ donation.
In case you're alive when some organ, cancer or other part is removed from you, you should be asked if it should be destroyed after testing it. (All "unidentified" parts removed from inside the body are tested for cancer in Denmark).
But I fear a commercial market. When money becomes involved in this we start to see scary scenarios. Just look at the black market for organs.
But you clearly have a point worth noticing.
Saggi
Stupid! Where do your own cells come from? You parents, right. But they don't own you. And even the cell's we could claim to be ours, we throw away. When a hospital perform an operation (like removing a leg or something) do we then order then to take the part with us back home to put on a shelve? Of cause we don't. And in out daily lives our body reject lots of dead and living cells. If we cut our finger, should we claim the blood?
The whole idea of owning cells or bodyparts is very scary to me. Why have people become so obsessed by owning every thing from ideas to cells? It appears that if someone in any way can make money from someone else (often with the help of lawyers) they should. What is the world coming to?
Compensate? Anyone looked that word up in a dictionary. I don't hope my family need to be compensated for being relatives to me...
As for the cells themselves, I find that story much more interesting. Science studies into cells like these will provide us all with knowledge to cure diseases and even prolong life. This story have potential of both scientific information as well as ethical issues, way beyond if someone should be compensated economically, because they are a relative to someone.
Saggi
The entertainment industry is huge and growing by the minute. We all play computer games (please show me a /. reader who don't). So this is defiantly relevant for all of us.
... and as goes for real or not. Do your money in the bank exist or not? Scary, right.
Imagine you bought a computer game to be played online (we see a lot of these now). Then imagine the server didn't work... you purchase would be rendered useless. This includes if the server is only partial in disorder, like in the case of throwing your items away. No matter what entertainment product you use, you really would feel annoyed if it missed a part. Imagine a book, a movie...
And we are talking big bucks. Today I know people who sell/buy items in online games for real money! And this business has come to stay. We need to escape our daily boring work.
Now you may like Diablo II or not (I don't really play it), but you probably would be annoyed if your own personal entertainment product was tampered with.
Saggi
The people who should really be worried are all of the sysadmins out there who don't bother to install patches for their security holes, as both Microsoft and Sun have done.
Windows update at Microsoft has been affected. Maybee SUN has installed the patches, Microsoft hasn't. Read above "I swear to God this is true"
Saggi
In Denmark we write (with a pencil) a mark next to the names on a list. Then all the lists are counted by hand. It works! And we always recount the lists.
I guess all systems (including the Danish) have errors. The best way would be to determine what the uncertainty of the system is statistically. Then we could determine how many percent you should win with compared to the opponent in order to be scientifically sure of the outcome - otherwise run the election again. Fair and simple.
This would work for any type of system. Internet, punch cards, lists, etc...
Of cause you could end up in a situation where you would have to continuously run the election, as the margin never became significant enough. But as the elections progress the total amount of votes would probably cause the significance to increase.
If the statistics expect 4-6 million lost votes in the presidential election, then you can calculate the significance of the election to determine (lets say) a 95% sure outcome.
Saggi
A lot of pros and cons can be made against the use of nuclear systems. But the accident problem is really the key to understanding this. Usually when calculating risk, you need to multiply the risk of an accident with the damage done by the accident.
This is what really creates the problem. The worst-case scenario is really, really bad! Plutonium is one of the most dangerous substances (not only radioactive, but also extremely toxic) we have. I really wouldn't like it to "by any accident" becoming exposed to the population.
I really don't mind the use of nuclear power, but I want zero risk of any waste landing in my backyard. Use it in space for propulsion to probes... fine. The Casini probe could fall down, and the container would be safe. We need that level of security.
There is a reason we stopped nuclear testing in the atmosphere (actually, the higher we are above the ground, the worse it gets, the spread is to a much larger area.) In old times we let the pollution into the rivers, and thought the seas would be able to mix it enough. But some toxic components didn't mix to a level that would be "un-harmful". How many rockets could we launch before the atmosphere would become "slightly" dangerous? What is the level, and should it be commercial companies who should determine the danger levels?
I think there are to many "what if"s in this equation. Let the research continue, maybe some day someone will come up with an idea to lower the risk, or make the worst case scenario less dramatic.
Saggi
Look before you leap is the old saying.
...I can determing what's what. Can you? I think no one can. But both of us might have an idea about where to look for the information, if its there.
That's why information should be posted. As I wrote in the original note "...often send me off to check out a lot of stuff.", I don't mean activate the alarms or anything, but to go look for the information. A good search engine can usually tell you what "NTVDM.EXE" is. But when you see it for the first time you will have no clue to what it means. As time goes by we learn...
Saggi
Copyrights are a very difficult thing to understand. When you look at it from a very logical/rational personal view, you can clearly argue for "ownership" of almost anything. Its only when you put it into a broad perspective you see the dangers. All our ideas, productions etc, are based upon what we have learned. And what we have learned we have from those who came before us. If they had protected their ideas and knowledge all progress would stop...
Unfortuneally what we have seen in resent years, is a legistration on all areas (not only copyrights) that tent to become sidetracked compared to the original ideas and values in the constitutions in many countries (I come from Denmark). The justice systems become legal systems, moving from justice to law. Where justice relates more to values of right and wrong, relates law more to definitions of right and wrong.
Saggi
I consider myself an expert user, but even the logs or firewall responses sometimes puzzle me. And then I have to check it. We have to stay paranoid to some degree to protect our self. But if we can find a reasonable explanation then its fine.
The first week after installing Zonealarm, you really get a feal for how many stupid pieces in you computer connect to whereever. Especially the windows components (with not-so-clear names) often send me off to check out a lot of stuff.
I believe that most of the junk come (as lots of the other replies and comments state) from personal networks. But whatever it is an unknowing administrator or stupid personal user, information is the key to solve the problems. As stated, make a FAQ or set-up a web page on the IP address. Zonealarm can find the ip address and link to it as a web page. On this page place the information like "This IP number is used for FTP by... bla bla bla."
Easy access to the information is the key... you might even educate a few, now that you're at it.
Saggi
As ADSL is becoming available for ordinary users the need for quite web servers may increase. I have an ADSL from home but I really haven't made a web-site at the IP address because I wouldn't like the noise in my home... especially when I'm going to sleep. When I turn off the computer late at night (morning?) and go to bed, I really like the quietness.
If I'm not the only one who fell that way, there will be a market. And an interesting one as well. I would expect the Internet to become even more interesting when we all get our home web-sites. I'm not talking about static web-pages, you can host at any web hotel, but really fancy-computer-internet-servers running weird services, games and stuff we would love to see.
At least that what I would put out there... if I could get a silent server.
Saggi