In this case, since the bill 'belongs' to both of you and the resources used to pay the bill 'belongs' to both of you then the passwords and other critical information should also 'belong' to both of you.
However, legally all she has to do is take control of the account the bill pay is coming from and deny payment. If the account is in her name, an easy way to do that is simply to close it. If the account is only in your name then she'll have to go through the legal process of claiming it, which can take some time during which the automatic payments will still be paid.
It's in your best interest to share virtually what is shared physically, and not share what is not communal property.
I wonder how long it'll be until the first divorce which includes video game items as part of the settlement.
I have been attempting contact to you for many months now. I'm sorry to inform you of the passing of Prince Nanawobob Jones, who was my own dear father.
Please understand he had no desire to cause you inconvenienced grief.
He has left me with all information pertaining to the large sum of money just before his death. I would like to engage a business transaction with you to retrieve these large sums of cash, and assure you that this time you will not leave empty handed.
To show my good nature, I propose increase your share of the fortune to a %20 handling fee to be deposited to your account. Please contact me most urgently soon so we can finish this business.
My father will surely rest in peace when this sum is freed.
Apply copiously to a stream of traffic to find the few cars that automatically brake.
Watch the cars behind them plow into them.
Profit! (If you're a body shop or tow truck)
Of course, the signalling is going to be sufficiently difficult that you have to aim it at the car you intend to fool and send a special signal specifically designed to affect just the one car. If the system sees a car 50 feet ahead, then one a few inches ahead it'll probably ignore it is a spurious signal if the changre happens 'instantaneously'. If it sees a car move into its lane from the side the signal would be different, and if the car in front slowed quickly the signal would also be different.
Still, I can't wait for people to start complaining about accidents that happened because they thought the car would stop, or rear end collision because the car did stop. There's so much liability that car makers are about 15 years behind where we could be.
If he would have been more careful with the names / icq numbers / people he trusted online, it's very unlikely that he would have gotten caught.
I find it unlikely that T-Mobile didn't know who was doing the work in a very short matter of time. It's likely that they knew within a few months and were simply gathering enough information to present a compelling case against him. If they wanted to use the patriot act against him they have to turn it over to the FBI, who also takes a long time.
I find it disturbing that they are offering him a light sentence though. It's like broadcasting a job ad "Break into a major cell network - get a job with the Gov't!"
Oh well. So much for "We don't negotiate with <fill in the blank>"
No, no, no. You need to think 'efficiency' and 'best utilization of available resources'.
Install a computer that connects to many open access points, and get more than 10Mbps overall. Hopefully you can find enough (up to six non-overrlapping) to get 18Mbps or more.
Of course, the reality is that everyone in the apartment installed their own, but since they all conflict they are all using the one that doesn't conflict, and boy is that guy mad. His connections been 80% slower since he got wireless!
RDS wouldn't work here because every radio station transmits something different. A few stations broadcas on several frequencies in several areas (such as WUOM in Michigan, it has three stations around the state transmitting exactly the same thing)
But you can't, say, drive across the country and expect to listen to the same station through a single state, nevermind across the country. The closest would be satellite radio, which doesn't really need to 'switch' stations.
I still run Novell Netware 3.11 with Dos 6.22 workstations on the latest PIV and Athlon systems.
Good lord! Why?
I'd like to say it's because I can't use FreeBSD and Windows has too many security issues for a retail operation, but the bigger factor is the boss simply doesn't want the associated cost of upgrading the software and the additional TCO of administering Windows systems. I field 4-5 calls per week from 15 retail stores due to minor problems. Go to windows and I'll bet my call volume and the priority of the calls would go up significantly. It took me awhile to lock the PCs down in the main office, and train the users not to mess things up. It's a different story with clerks who aren't paid to think.
I have a bunch of Pentium I Dell Optiplexes out in the garage I should clue you into.
They would cost more to ship than to simply buy locally. Plus Dell's quality dropped significantly for their cheap machines. But if you want to crate them up and pay for shipping...
So are you talking about some all new architecture that doesn't currently exist?
Yes.
What PowerPC, MIPS, etc don't have that the x86 has is a huge market. The only reason x86 is still alive is due to backwards compatability. I still run Novell Netware 3.11 with Dos 6.22 workstations on the latest PIV and Athlon systems.
AMD64 is simply an extension of the x86, though each extension is becoming somewhat more risc like.
A major problem with the x86 ISA and risc core is that millions of transisters are dedicated to converting x86 instructions into native risc instructions. Power and perfromance could be saved by dealing with the risc code directly. Let the compiler do the hard work once (as the IA64 was designed) and then the processor can run blindingly fast each time the program is run.
The problem is that we've outpaced ourselves. In order to approach and then surpass the performance of other RISC machines we've built in so many tweaks and techniques that to go straight to a regular RISC ISA would actually decrease performance. However, if all the applicable tweaks and techniques were applied to a new RISC ISA, and it had the momentum of the x86 architecture, then we could easily surpass our current performance without all the heat generated.
But no one wants to really get rid of x86. Mostly for IP reasons. AMD doesn't want to try and get around the bevy of patents intel has and will get when they release a newer chip. MS and others don't want intel to be a monopoly. etc, etc, etc.
As an example, the reason AMD no longer makes chips that are pin compatible with Intel is that Intel patented the memory access patterns for critical word first memory accesses. Suddenly AMD had to make their own northbridge and southbridge. In the end I think that it was a good move to shove them out in the cold like that, now they are not only competing in terms of processor speed, but memory bandwidth/latency, FSB speeds, etc. It led eventually to AMD's Hyper Transport.
There's more politics and marketting in this race than one might imagine.
So we are at close to where we should be. Just because you didn't get the fastest this year, doesn't mean that it's not available.
Secondly, Intel was the one to create the MHz monster and myth. Now they are dealing with the problems. The true problem is that people need to have a single metric that tells them the performance of a given object, whether it's HP, BTU, Square feet in a home, and clock speed in a computer.
Now they are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new metric. MIPS is not adequate, even SPECInt isn't good enough.
Dual core and other processing tricks are going to be needed.
The 80186 flopped partially because it was not fully backwards compatible. Intel learned that lesson long ago, and was about to break through with the IA64, but came too late to the table with the goods. For now we still have to emulate this old CISC architecture and there are only so many ways to improve the performance before hitting yet another barrier, such as heat, cost, etc.
Dual core chips is the next iteration. However, we aren't really going to see any huge performance improvements again until we ditch x86 architecture.
Remember, the only reason Intel and others have kept pace with "Moore's Law" applied to MHz is that they've set that as a goal each iteration. If a given performance enhancement didn't fit within the time/performance ratio of Moore, it was not pursued. This means that a 5% improvement in performance must be fully implemented in 3 months. At the complexity of current processors, this is getting significantly harder to do.
In this case the decryption will be done on a custome fab chip.
Push the data into the chip, and decrypted data comes out.
The only two options to break it are brute force attack, or chip analysis. They will undoubtedly make the chip as 'odd' as possible so you couldn't understand the logic without some serious investment in time and equipment.
This chip will reside in the drive, and will likely decode as the data flies off the laser head, rather than at some later stage. Thus it will enter the computer decrypted so there will be no software decryption needed. However, it will only activate once the computer, through some trusted computing software, proves that it is unable to copy the unencrypted stream.
But the reality is that you must give both the data and the key to the end user, so this must fail at some point. The main problem with such a system is complexity. The weakest link will be identified and attacked, and with a large system you can't make certian every link is strong.
You can't do that *now* with Spirit, but there is no reason you can't do that now with current robotic technology. There are numerous robots that function semi-autonomously with complex behaviours that could be modified for Mars.
And the additional complexity required makes these too expensive to debug, and significantly more likely to fail. Further, more time is wasted when the stupid robot gets stuck, or starts drilling an unimportant item and mission control doesn't find out until transmission time.
Lastly, the main point is that they simply can't move as well as a human. They may be able to do most of the work in not a lot more time but only in a significantly smaller area. Theser rovers haven't moved more than a mile from their starting spot. Can you tell much about the earth from a single square mile of land? Pick any spot on the earth, and it simply won't give you want you can get from 10 or 100 square miles.
But for government tax dollars the goal should be the most most valuable science for the least most safe dollars.
That, as an opinion, has no value in this discussion. Even if that were the 'mission' of government money, the measure is at best subjective. Many people feel the best science can only be gathererd from a human presence. Your arguments are not compelling enough to make me believe differently.
Robots are great for certian things, but they cannot, nor should they, replace human exploration. Humans are great for certian things but they cannot, nor should they, replace robot exploration. To state that we should only do one and not the other is to limit your ability to learn.
Sorry, off by a factor of 2 in the second calculation.
Even if the tax rate was exactly the same for every individual in the US, you would owe less than 820M$/220Mpeople, or under $4. Chances are, following the previous calculation, your contribution is much less.
This being a quick observation, and not a rigorous analysis it is going to be slightly off, but it's certianly less then $4 for you.
The government spent about 3 trillion dollars last year overall.
So the mars rovers were about 0.02% of the US budget. How much did you pay in taxes last year? Take that number, multiply by 0.0002 and that's approximately how much you personally paid for the mars rovors.
Even if the tax rate was exactly the same for every individual in the US, you would owe less than 820M$/220Mpeople, or about $2. Chances are, following the previous calculation, your contribution is much less.
This being a quick observation, and not a rigorous analysis it is going to be slightly off, but it's certianly less then $2 for you.
"A public poll carried out a week after the Columbia disaster finds widespread backing in America for the NASA program. Support for NASA shuttle flight remains firm, the poll indicates, with three in four citizens wanting the space agency's funding level to be maintained or increased.
Support for NASA funding was found to be somewhat higher than what was measured 3 years ago. A slim majority of Americans favor a continued focus on human rather than robotic missions.
The poll also shows that about three in ten Americans would themselves like to take a space shuttle flight sometime in the future, slightly fewer than wanted to be a shuttle passenger 12 years ago.
The Gallup Organization of Princeton, New Jersey carried out the poll in concert with CNN and USA Today, with the results released February 17. "
This was a very basic attempt at a robot. If we redirected the money spent on manned space flight, the space station, and other human-based space flight projects into the robotic missions, you'd see some damn fine robots.
True. But they would be nowhere near the ability of a few humans on the surface of the planet.
Take the best robots we have today. Combine all their best features. They still cannot traverse a simple earth desert both quickly and without constant guidance and supervision. The radio transmission time is far too long for real remote control, navigation systems are too simple for robots to go fast without making the proverbial million dollar mistake. Therefore no matter how advanced the robot is, it still has to travel slowly, and get frequent (slow) commands from earth for direction.
Further, you cannot simply tell a robot to 'explore that rock over there' like you could a skilled human. You have to tell the robot
Move to each of the following ten waypoints
Look at the rock and report on features so we can decide how exactly to explore the rock
Move into a good position
Position drill
Drill
Position sensors
Sense
Report
etc.
Even if we sent a team of 5 robots, more advanced than currently possible, they would still require about 30-50 people micromanaging the robots. Given one week they would still, as a group, complete less science than one astronaut would complete in a day.
If the only goal is to get information over a long period of time, then robots are fine. If the goal is to get ready to put humans on other worlds for long periods of time (for whatever reason) then robots simply aren't going to give us the information we need. Send a few scouts ahead (the rovors) to get the basics, then forge ahaed and put people on there and then see what happens.
Lastly, we can do it, there are people who want to do it, and there are those who want to finance it. Why should they be stopped? Who are you to tell them the best way to do what they want to do?
If the spirit rover can last for a year on Mars, why do we need to send astronauts (naughts?)? Wouldn't the money be better spent on more robots?
The robots cannot make decisions on the fly, other than extremely simple obstacle avoidance. When a decision is to be made, the robot talks to us, we think about it, and then command the robot. This takes a huge amount of time.
An astronaut can walk faster than these robots can move. Put a moon rovor type vehicle up there with a few astronauts and you can do as much exploration in a day as the Spirit and Opportunity have done their entire existance.
Plus, we can, there are those who want to, and there are those willing to pay for it. Who are you to tell them to stop? So far this mission has cost you less than $10 of your taxes. I fully support the government using taxes to perform such missions, and apparently a majority of Americans feel similarily.
What exactly was his due? What's wrong with the current system that allows a company or society to cheat a man of his due?
He was paid for his work. Just because his invention (and in particular only this one) made it big doesn't necessarily mean that he is 'due' any more than an inventor who's invention made it 'small', if it made it at all.
I don't understand this mentality. Should we revere the person who came up with QWERTY just because 99% of the keyboards in the US use his layout? Is Edison due more than what he got because there are literally billions of his lightbulb in use?
I don't understand why one might think that a person who contracts with another person or company should be given more compensation after the work is done and the contract completed. I know it's done all the time, especially in Hollywood, but I see it as a sign of selfish, self centered individuals. This is one of the reasons a handshake simply isn't good enough these days.
Of the set of problems in the world that can be solved using software only, hardware only, or a mix of the two, problems are generally moving toward the software solving side.
In other words, radio can be completely received, down converted, and demodulated in hardware and by and large this is how it is done.
However, if you instead receive and downconvert the radio signal, then you can let software take over for the demodulation, and in the case of HDTV further digital decoding.
Further, this device can work on about 32MHz of the signal spectrum at a time. This doesn't mean much until you realize that the entire FM radio band (88.1MHz - 107.9MHz) fits within that slice of bandwidth. You can use this radio to decode the entire audio of all the radio statiosn in the area simultaneously. Live in detroit? Listen to and record every single radio station with one device. Not so terribly useful for the consumer, but nice for the re-streamer, radio fanatic, FCC, NSA, etc.
Bandwidth of an NTSC TV signal is about 6MHz. Watch/record 4-5 consecutive channels simultaneously.
HDTV is about 8MHz. Watch and record 3-4 consecutive channels simultaneously.
In short, it's a move from less hardware to more softare. The biggest advantage is not less hardware, but more flexibility. This one tuner can be used to tune your HDTV, TV, radio, 802.11, bluetooth, etc.
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In this case, since the bill 'belongs' to both of you and the resources used to pay the bill 'belongs' to both of you then the passwords and other critical information should also 'belong' to both of you.
However, legally all she has to do is take control of the account the bill pay is coming from and deny payment. If the account is in her name, an easy way to do that is simply to close it. If the account is only in your name then she'll have to go through the legal process of claiming it, which can take some time during which the automatic payments will still be paid.
It's in your best interest to share virtually what is shared physically, and not share what is not communal property.
I wonder how long it'll be until the first divorce which includes video game items as part of the settlement.
-Adam
Remember kids - share body fluids all you want, but never share your password.
-Adam
There are a lot of ways to screw up a car.
But only a few that can be done from a distance with no witnesses and absolutely no trace of the crime after you turn off your transmitter.
-Adam
Dear most honorable and just drivinghighway61,
I have been attempting contact to you for many months now. I'm sorry to inform you of the passing of Prince Nanawobob Jones, who was my own dear father.
Please understand he had no desire to cause you inconvenienced grief.
He has left me with all information pertaining to the large sum of money just before his death. I would like to engage a business transaction with you to retrieve these large sums of cash, and assure you that this time you will not leave empty handed.
To show my good nature, I propose increase your share of the fortune to a %20 handling fee to be deposited to your account. Please contact me most urgently soon so we can finish this business.
My father will surely rest in peace when this sum is freed.
-Prince Jr.
Think of the cheap availability of radar jammers.
Apply copiously to a stream of traffic to find the few cars that automatically brake.
Watch the cars behind them plow into them.
Profit! (If you're a body shop or tow truck)
Of course, the signalling is going to be sufficiently difficult that you have to aim it at the car you intend to fool and send a special signal specifically designed to affect just the one car. If the system sees a car 50 feet ahead, then one a few inches ahead it'll probably ignore it is a spurious signal if the changre happens 'instantaneously'. If it sees a car move into its lane from the side the signal would be different, and if the car in front slowed quickly the signal would also be different.
Still, I can't wait for people to start complaining about accidents that happened because they thought the car would stop, or rear end collision because the car did stop. There's so much liability that car makers are about 15 years behind where we could be.
-Adam
I just want to get my hands on some transparant aluminum!
-Adam
"What is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women."
Conan would be proud.
-Adam
EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st
So that means the programmers have been in crunch time for, what, the last 8 months?
-Adam
If he would have been more careful with the names / icq numbers / people he trusted online, it's very unlikely that he would have gotten caught.
I find it unlikely that T-Mobile didn't know who was doing the work in a very short matter of time. It's likely that they knew within a few months and were simply gathering enough information to present a compelling case against him. If they wanted to use the patriot act against him they have to turn it over to the FBI, who also takes a long time.
I find it disturbing that they are offering him a light sentence though. It's like broadcasting a job ad "Break into a major cell network - get a job with the Gov't!"
Oh well. So much for "We don't negotiate with <fill in the blank>"
-Adam
No, no, no. You need to think 'efficiency' and 'best utilization of available resources'.
Install a computer that connects to many open access points, and get more than 10Mbps overall. Hopefully you can find enough (up to six non-overrlapping) to get 18Mbps or more.
Of course, the reality is that everyone in the apartment installed their own, but since they all conflict they are all using the one that doesn't conflict, and boy is that guy mad. His connections been 80% slower since he got wireless!
-Adam
RDS wouldn't work here because every radio station transmits something different. A few stations broadcas on several frequencies in several areas (such as WUOM in Michigan, it has three stations around the state transmitting exactly the same thing)
But you can't, say, drive across the country and expect to listen to the same station through a single state, nevermind across the country. The closest would be satellite radio, which doesn't really need to 'switch' stations.
-Adam
I still run Novell Netware 3.11 with Dos 6.22 workstations on the latest PIV and Athlon systems. Good lord! Why?
I'd like to say it's because I can't use FreeBSD and Windows has too many security issues for a retail operation, but the bigger factor is the boss simply doesn't want the associated cost of upgrading the software and the additional TCO of administering Windows systems. I field 4-5 calls per week from 15 retail stores due to minor problems. Go to windows and I'll bet my call volume and the priority of the calls would go up significantly. It took me awhile to lock the PCs down in the main office, and train the users not to mess things up. It's a different story with clerks who aren't paid to think.
I have a bunch of Pentium I Dell Optiplexes out in the garage I should clue you into.
They would cost more to ship than to simply buy locally. Plus Dell's quality dropped significantly for their cheap machines. But if you want to crate them up and pay for shipping...
-Adam
So are you talking about some all new architecture that doesn't currently exist?
Yes.
What PowerPC, MIPS, etc don't have that the x86 has is a huge market. The only reason x86 is still alive is due to backwards compatability. I still run Novell Netware 3.11 with Dos 6.22 workstations on the latest PIV and Athlon systems.
AMD64 is simply an extension of the x86, though each extension is becoming somewhat more risc like.
A major problem with the x86 ISA and risc core is that millions of transisters are dedicated to converting x86 instructions into native risc instructions. Power and perfromance could be saved by dealing with the risc code directly. Let the compiler do the hard work once (as the IA64 was designed) and then the processor can run blindingly fast each time the program is run.
The problem is that we've outpaced ourselves. In order to approach and then surpass the performance of other RISC machines we've built in so many tweaks and techniques that to go straight to a regular RISC ISA would actually decrease performance. However, if all the applicable tweaks and techniques were applied to a new RISC ISA, and it had the momentum of the x86 architecture, then we could easily surpass our current performance without all the heat generated.
But no one wants to really get rid of x86. Mostly for IP reasons. AMD doesn't want to try and get around the bevy of patents intel has and will get when they release a newer chip. MS and others don't want intel to be a monopoly. etc, etc, etc.
As an example, the reason AMD no longer makes chips that are pin compatible with Intel is that Intel patented the memory access patterns for critical word first memory accesses. Suddenly AMD had to make their own northbridge and southbridge. In the end I think that it was a good move to shove them out in the cold like that, now they are not only competing in terms of processor speed, but memory bandwidth/latency, FSB speeds, etc. It led eventually to AMD's Hyper Transport.
There's more politics and marketting in this race than one might imagine.
-Adam
Based on decades of growth in CPU speeds, Santa was supposed to drop off my 10 Ghz PC a few weeks back
Using the highest available clock speed at each of Intel's (and if faster, AMDs) launches, we should be reaching 4GHz now, not 10GHz.
So we are at close to where we should be. Just because you didn't get the fastest this year, doesn't mean that it's not available.
Secondly, Intel was the one to create the MHz monster and myth. Now they are dealing with the problems. The true problem is that people need to have a single metric that tells them the performance of a given object, whether it's HP, BTU, Square feet in a home, and clock speed in a computer.
Now they are going to have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new metric. MIPS is not adequate, even SPECInt isn't good enough.
Dual core and other processing tricks are going to be needed.
The 80186 flopped partially because it was not fully backwards compatible. Intel learned that lesson long ago, and was about to break through with the IA64, but came too late to the table with the goods. For now we still have to emulate this old CISC architecture and there are only so many ways to improve the performance before hitting yet another barrier, such as heat, cost, etc.
Dual core chips is the next iteration. However, we aren't really going to see any huge performance improvements again until we ditch x86 architecture.
Remember, the only reason Intel and others have kept pace with "Moore's Law" applied to MHz is that they've set that as a goal each iteration. If a given performance enhancement didn't fit within the time/performance ratio of Moore, it was not pursued. This means that a 5% improvement in performance must be fully implemented in 3 months. At the complexity of current processors, this is getting significantly harder to do.
-Adam
Left handers must be loving these things because they can use the pen in their left hand and push the buttons and hold the unit with the right hand.
Message from the manufacturers:
We don't care about your 10% of the population until we've saturated the market and need your money.
That goes double for you color blind people.
Nevermind people with disabilities.
-Adam
In this case the decryption will be done on a custome fab chip.
Push the data into the chip, and decrypted data comes out.
The only two options to break it are brute force attack, or chip analysis. They will undoubtedly make the chip as 'odd' as possible so you couldn't understand the logic without some serious investment in time and equipment.
This chip will reside in the drive, and will likely decode as the data flies off the laser head, rather than at some later stage. Thus it will enter the computer decrypted so there will be no software decryption needed. However, it will only activate once the computer, through some trusted computing software, proves that it is unable to copy the unencrypted stream.
But the reality is that you must give both the data and the key to the end user, so this must fail at some point. The main problem with such a system is complexity. The weakest link will be identified and attacked, and with a large system you can't make certian every link is strong.
-Adam
You can't do that *now* with Spirit, but there is no reason you can't do that now with current robotic technology. There are numerous robots that function semi-autonomously with complex behaviours that could be modified for Mars.
And the additional complexity required makes these too expensive to debug, and significantly more likely to fail. Further, more time is wasted when the stupid robot gets stuck, or starts drilling an unimportant item and mission control doesn't find out until transmission time.
Lastly, the main point is that they simply can't move as well as a human. They may be able to do most of the work in not a lot more time but only in a significantly smaller area. Theser rovers haven't moved more than a mile from their starting spot. Can you tell much about the earth from a single square mile of land? Pick any spot on the earth, and it simply won't give you want you can get from 10 or 100 square miles.
But for government tax dollars the goal should be the most most valuable science for the least most safe dollars.
That, as an opinion, has no value in this discussion. Even if that were the 'mission' of government money, the measure is at best subjective. Many people feel the best science can only be gathererd from a human presence. Your arguments are not compelling enough to make me believe differently.
Robots are great for certian things, but they cannot, nor should they, replace human exploration. Humans are great for certian things but they cannot, nor should they, replace robot exploration. To state that we should only do one and not the other is to limit your ability to learn.
-Adam
Sorry, off by a factor of 2 in the second calculation.
Even if the tax rate was exactly the same for every individual in the US, you would owe less than 820M$/220Mpeople, or under $4. Chances are, following the previous calculation, your contribution is much less.
This being a quick observation, and not a rigorous analysis it is going to be slightly off, but it's certianly less then $4 for you.
-Adam
The rovers cost about 820 million.
The government spent about 3 trillion dollars last year overall.
So the mars rovers were about 0.02% of the US budget. How much did you pay in taxes last year? Take that number, multiply by 0.0002 and that's approximately how much you personally paid for the mars rovors.
Even if the tax rate was exactly the same for every individual in the US, you would owe less than 820M$/220Mpeople, or about $2. Chances are, following the previous calculation, your contribution is much less.
This being a quick observation, and not a rigorous analysis it is going to be slightly off, but it's certianly less then $2 for you.
I'd guess that the "majority" feels the same way.
You guess wrong. This article says: -Adam
This was a very basic attempt at a robot. If we redirected the money spent on manned space flight, the space station, and other human-based space flight projects into the robotic missions, you'd see some damn fine robots.
True. But they would be nowhere near the ability of a few humans on the surface of the planet.
Take the best robots we have today. Combine all their best features. They still cannot traverse a simple earth desert both quickly and without constant guidance and supervision. The radio transmission time is far too long for real remote control, navigation systems are too simple for robots to go fast without making the proverbial million dollar mistake. Therefore no matter how advanced the robot is, it still has to travel slowly, and get frequent (slow) commands from earth for direction.
Further, you cannot simply tell a robot to 'explore that rock over there' like you could a skilled human. You have to tell the robot
Move to each of the following ten waypoints
Look at the rock and report on features so we can decide how exactly to explore the rock
Move into a good position
Position drill
Drill
Position sensors
Sense
Report
etc.
Even if we sent a team of 5 robots, more advanced than currently possible, they would still require about 30-50 people micromanaging the robots. Given one week they would still, as a group, complete less science than one astronaut would complete in a day.
If the only goal is to get information over a long period of time, then robots are fine. If the goal is to get ready to put humans on other worlds for long periods of time (for whatever reason) then robots simply aren't going to give us the information we need. Send a few scouts ahead (the rovors) to get the basics, then forge ahaed and put people on there and then see what happens.
Lastly, we can do it, there are people who want to do it, and there are those who want to finance it. Why should they be stopped? Who are you to tell them the best way to do what they want to do?
-Adam
If the spirit rover can last for a year on Mars, why do we need to send astronauts (naughts?)? Wouldn't the money be better spent on more robots?
The robots cannot make decisions on the fly, other than extremely simple obstacle avoidance. When a decision is to be made, the robot talks to us, we think about it, and then command the robot. This takes a huge amount of time.
An astronaut can walk faster than these robots can move. Put a moon rovor type vehicle up there with a few astronauts and you can do as much exploration in a day as the Spirit and Opportunity have done their entire existance.
Plus, we can, there are those who want to, and there are those willing to pay for it. Who are you to tell them to stop? So far this mission has cost you less than $10 of your taxes. I fully support the government using taxes to perform such missions, and apparently a majority of Americans feel similarily.
-Adam
Another case of ... cheating a man of his due.
What exactly was his due? What's wrong with the current system that allows a company or society to cheat a man of his due?
He was paid for his work. Just because his invention (and in particular only this one) made it big doesn't necessarily mean that he is 'due' any more than an inventor who's invention made it 'small', if it made it at all.
I don't understand this mentality. Should we revere the person who came up with QWERTY just because 99% of the keyboards in the US use his layout? Is Edison due more than what he got because there are literally billions of his lightbulb in use?
I don't understand why one might think that a person who contracts with another person or company should be given more compensation after the work is done and the contract completed. I know it's done all the time, especially in Hollywood, but I see it as a sign of selfish, self centered individuals. This is one of the reasons a handshake simply isn't good enough these days.
-Adam
Of the set of problems in the world that can be solved using software only, hardware only, or a mix of the two, problems are generally moving toward the software solving side.
In other words, radio can be completely received, down converted, and demodulated in hardware and by and large this is how it is done.
However, if you instead receive and downconvert the radio signal, then you can let software take over for the demodulation, and in the case of HDTV further digital decoding.
Further, this device can work on about 32MHz of the signal spectrum at a time. This doesn't mean much until you realize that the entire FM radio band (88.1MHz - 107.9MHz) fits within that slice of bandwidth. You can use this radio to decode the entire audio of all the radio statiosn in the area simultaneously. Live in detroit? Listen to and record every single radio station with one device. Not so terribly useful for the consumer, but nice for the re-streamer, radio fanatic, FCC, NSA, etc.
Bandwidth of an NTSC TV signal is about 6MHz. Watch/record 4-5 consecutive channels simultaneously.
HDTV is about 8MHz. Watch and record 3-4 consecutive channels simultaneously.
In short, it's a move from less hardware to more softare. The biggest advantage is not less hardware, but more flexibility. This one tuner can be used to tune your HDTV, TV, radio, 802.11, bluetooth, etc.
-Adam
They won't even have to remove the interior, raise the voltage, or lower it 5 inches.
Darn straight. Add 1 "R-Type" sticker to the trunk (or hatchback, if you lean that way) lid and you're all set, bucky.
-Adam
(Lava stream usually are kind of lethal....)
Lava is more dense (higher mass per volume) than Gollum. He should have floated only partially submerged in a tortured agony.
Oh, and HIPAA doesn't cover any creatures other than humans, so Gollum is unprotected by this act anyway.
-Adam