I'm not sure that the UN works fairly well for anything other than funneling Iraqi oil contracts to political cronies of Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, etc. "No war" for oil, indeed.
The UN does work fairly well for its intended purposes (diplomacy, aid, peacekeeping), but like pretty much any other political body, especially as one that relies heavily on consensus, it has become bloated, inefficient, corrupt and incompetent. Like any bored civil servant or zealous do-gooder, they are also taking on more and more extraneous tasks... such as this Internet thingy. If they want control of it, they can build their own (and I'm saying that as a European, I might add). If the US starts doing a bad job or is misusing its control, then we can bring it up in the UN. But lets not mess with something that appears to be working out well enough.
Add to this fact that it's not so much space making you explode it's the air in your lungs pushing out and nothing pushing in. This makes breathing very very hard. You would have to have the air mask at enough pressure to inflate the lungs, but not too much to have them tear the lungs as nothign outside is pushing back.
A modified regulator would take care of the pressure nicely, so that the lungs will fill but not explode. The problem I see is that at such a low pressure, there might not be enough oxygen supplied even when breathing 100% O2.
you're out in blazing sunlight, no fans or ac (would be using too much extra power, which you can't afford). You start as soon as your car will start (a few minutes after the crack of dawn) and keep going until your car's battery runs down. You don't stop at a hotel because, most probably, there isn't one where you stop. These guys are really building the future.
If that is the future, I'll stick with my SUV, thank you.
People keep saying if it fell it would burn up, but it would seem to me that something strong enough to support all the weight needed would be strong enough to withstand any heat generated by falling.
Diamond is one of the hardest substances around... but see what you are left with when you throw one into a fire.
The space elevator seems to be still hovering at that point where it certainly looks to be theoretically feasible, but where no one really has a clear path towards bringing this construct about in reality. (Or is it that there are still a few people laughing at the idea, if you know what I mean?). It seems to me that it would be foolish for NASA to abandon its current plans in favour of this unproven idea, yet it might be wise to throw some money and effort at it.
It would cost about $6 billion in today's dollars just to complete the structure itself, according to my study
I've heard a similar figure before, and it's amazingly cheap if you think about it. We, as a silly small country, have blown close to this amount on a couple of utterly useless railroad lines. If we could have had a working space elevator instead...
[quote]You'd be better off finding a way to generate the energy where you use it.[/quote]...Perhaps by using many small nuclear reactors (some of them even floating)? Not the first time this has been proposed either; one group suggested small reactors (pebble bed ones I believe), sitting next to the boiler in the basement, enough to power a single city block. Even then you'd still want the lot connected to the grid, as a backup for when your reactor fails (or is serviced), or to cope with peak demand elsewhere.
Sticking power back into the grid is very common here; most glass houses are heated by a gas driven heat/power generator, which also supplies energy for the lights in the glasshouse. The (considerable) surplus is fed back into the grid (the farmer gets paid for this). Similar designs exist for solar cells for home use; if they generate more than you use, the surplus goes back into the grid.
Given the plethora of 419 e-mails that evade my spam filter, how about Nigeria?
Already happening. A few companies that have offices there have in fact shifted call centres to Nigeria to reduce costs. One advantage that Nigeria has over India, is that the Nigerians' English is very easy to understand.
Is this the beginning of the end of the dominance of India in the tech offshoring market?"
Probably yes. The multinational I do work for recently awarded large outsourcing contracts to two Indian firms, to do helpdesk and IT work. The main reason these two firms got the contract? Because these firms were already setting up shop in China. When the China branches become operational, my client will pay even less for the outsourced work.
However they will be on the family computer; they will not have one of their own until they have worked and can afford one of their own
That makes sense. I feel the same about giving kids their own tv or even VCR in their own room... I am against that. A TV, vcr, and computer in the kids' hobby room makes it somewhat easier for you to keep an eye on what they do, and at the same time teaches them to share with each other. I don't think a kid should have his or her own computer until they need it on a regular basis for school work, which probably won't be until halfway through high school.
Yeah, that's what they really want. Mr. and Mrs. Jones vacation page to be shut down under the guise of anti-terrorism. Damn, people, grow the fsck up!
Not the holiday snaps I suppose, but perhaps Mrs. Jones weekly blog column, if it's slightly critical of the government? After all, "we can't afford criticism of the gov't in these times, or people fomenting discord.". Or do you trust your government so much that you don't think they'll abuse an overly broad restriction on free speech? I sure don't... I still remember that a decade or 2 ago, a Dutch member of parliament was jailed on a charge of racism, for advocating something the cultural elite deemed not politically correct at the time. (Most of parliament is now voicing the same ideas that this guy had, and more besides)
So, my recommendation is to read the first 50 pages or so, which is their general perspective on programming. After that, it's just details about the patterns they have encountered in their careers.
No, keep reading!. The patterns are useful, and may give you insight into a better way for solving certain common problems. But far more importantly, it gives you a common language to use with fellow software engineers. I find that in the corporation I work for, more and more people are familiar with these patterns, which makes both design discussions and analysing code a lot easier. (The book is now given to students at our "OO Programming" course).
Racism is a *very* touchy subject, and I may get flamed just for bringing it up, but doesn't this sound like butterfly racism? If this were, in fact, a provable, natural, biological mechanism, then, wouldn't we, as biological organisms, be falling prety to much the same effect? Isn't racism a social form of speciation?
Yes and no. The problem lies in the definition of racism. Many people have taken it so far as to say that all people are equal... obvious stuff as skin color aside, and referring to skin color has unsurprisingly become a social faux pas. But stating that different human races may differ in other qualities as well is really bad, according to some. Even serious research into questions whether or not races will have differently working brains, intelligence, etc. is likely to earn you a nice flame war, from laymen and respected scientists alike. The ACLU and civil rights movements should not find fault with the idea that the different races may not be equal, but I'm not holding my breath.
Personally, I believe that all of mankind is not created equal, but that we all have the same rights.
Sure this might annoy the spammers, but it's also going to cause problems for anyone unfortunate enough to be sharing a network/webhost/isp with a spammer.
Not so, this scheme is not intended to be a network DoS attack, but simply something to flood the spammers' inboxes with crap. Before spamfilters worked as well as they do today, you had to sort through tons of crap to find a few legitimate emails in your inbox. Now the spammers will have to burrow through ten of thousands of bogus orders and complaints to find the few legitimate orders they may have gotten. Fair turnabout I say. But perhaps they'll be able to adapt spam filters to weed out the good orders from the bad ones.
And what happens when someone sends spam appearing to be from a competitors site, in order for them to be attacked?
A valid concern, however how often does this happen in practice?
If I were really in an emergency, I would probably use whatever communication method is closest, even if it were a tin can with a string hanging out the end of it.
That's why I like GSM, and why kept my old GSM phone... On all GSM phones (well, at least in Europe, not sure about the rest of the world), you can dial the emergency number 112, without a subscription or even without a simcard inserted into the phone. Try it... even if a phone is locked by a PIN code, you should be able to enter a PIN of 112 and hit the dial button to call out. As long as the battery is juiced up, you can dial 112.
I don't want one until they can make 'em a bit smaller. This unit hardly looks portable... come on, what kind of friggin' shark is able to swim around with that thing strapped to its head?!
Well, if they have developed a peltier system that rivals an electric-powered vapor-phase system in efficency, their technology could very well find its way into future hybrid vehicles.
They've simply used regular Peltier elements hooked up to a second alternator in a car. Given the efficiency of these Peltier elements compared to a compressor-driven alternator, I'd say this system will require more power from the engine to put out the same nr. of BTU's as a regular car airco. As someone else said; this airco doesn't use less power than regular units because it is more efficient, it uses less because it cools a lot less.
Another thing is that (for me) the most important thing about airco is not that it cools the air, but that it removes moisture from it. Will this Peltier airco do that as well?
Aren't in most situations robots designed specifically for one task (or a small group of tasks) better?
They might be better at the specific task but they will be less versatile. Also, a humanoid robot is better adapted to the general environment in which we live. Your Roomba will not go up the stairs. (On the other hand, I do appreciate the fact that it can vacuuum under the bed and couch).
Come to think of it though, I'd definetly spend serious money on a robot that vacuums the floor, washes clothes, does the dishes and cooks... and does not demand attention, new clothes, a wedding...
You have just answered your own question. A humanoid robot can maniplate pretty much everything that we can ourselves, so if it is able to understand a variety of commands and not just programmed to do a bunch of pre-set tasks, it will be a great help around the house. It can clean the house, not just vacuum it. You can send it on errands. It can help you if you're building stuff around the house, using the same tools that you use. Or it can simply help you lift heavy things. Lots of stuff that would never, on its own, justify the expense of a specialised robot for the task. A humanoid shape will permit it to do all those things and more (driving your car for example).
With a secure copy-protection mechanism, far more companies will be willing to offer content.
It is not secure! It may deter the casual copier, but it will certainly not deter warez guys who have defied all sorts of encryption, cinema ushers with night scopes, and FBI raids to bring you the latest pirated warez. Just get a computer that doesn't have Longhorn installed, and rip away.
Remember those old TRS80 and Amiga games that required you to enter "Page x, Line y, Word z" from the manual every time you started the game, or software with dongles that didn't work half the time? Because of these nuisances, I got pirated versions of software I bought and paid for earlier!. I doubt that DRM will work flawlessly, without the user noticing that it's there. The issue with older monitors being denied access is just one example. If you are punishing legitimate customers like this, you will be practically driving them into the hands of the warez sites.
Since when did the consumer of a service have the right to dictate how the company in question provides the service?
We have that right if a company is abusing its monopoly. If Microsoft had perhaps a 30-50% market share, they would not dream of striking a deal with content providers that does not benefit the customer any way you slice it. But because they practically own the market, they can. And if you think of simply not buying Longhorn and sticking with XP, think again. Microsoft can, as they have proven in the past, force consumers and corporations alike to upgrade, if you want support or access to the latest software and security patches.
And so on... there needs to be a point where you can't be expected to have control.
IIRC, this is the distinction that Dutch judges have made: knowlingly linking to pirated stuff (or a site hosting or linking such stuff) constitutes an offense. Linking to Billy's Blog in a webring or on your "interesting blogs" page is not an offense, should Billy or his friends happen to post a few links to pirated MP3s. But linking to a warez site under the header "Get ur mp3s here", is.
Seems to fit the defintion put forth in the article. In what way do you disagree?
1) Spread-spectrum transmits the signal over a very wide bandwidth (hence the name), as opposed to frequency hopping, which (in her case) used narrow-band transmission, albeit on a changing frequency.
2) Spread-spectrum is particularly useful for multiple local, short distance transmissions that do not interfere with each other. Think of DECT phones and all the other stuff in the 2.4GHz band (it has other uses as well). This frequency hopping scheme wasn't invented for this purpose, but to foil jamming or eavesdropping attempts.
This is pretty much off topic, but the inventor of spred-spectrum [wikipedia.org] was hot.
Not to slight her achievement in any way, but frequency hopping is not spread spectrum, not even a primitive form of spread spectrum. They're different from a signal processing point of view, and they are each used for very different purposes.
I know many large foreign (to Russia) companies do not want to work in Russia as they fear frivilous lawsuits losing them money as Russian courts hand it to the locals simply because they enjoy profiting.
Huh? In Soviet US of A, the kettle calls YOU black! Or something. But seriously, isn't this something that the USA is more widely known for? By the way, in Russia they don't "try to collect", they send Dmitri round to break your legs:)
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[quote]You'd be better off finding a way to generate the energy where you use it.[/quote] ...Perhaps by using many small nuclear reactors (some of them even floating)? Not the first time this has been proposed either; one group suggested small reactors (pebble bed ones I believe), sitting next to the boiler in the basement, enough to power a single city block. Even then you'd still want the lot connected to the grid, as a backup for when your reactor fails (or is serviced), or to cope with peak demand elsewhere.
Sticking power back into the grid is very common here; most glass houses are heated by a gas driven heat/power generator, which also supplies energy for the lights in the glasshouse. The (considerable) surplus is fed back into the grid (the farmer gets paid for this). Similar designs exist for solar cells for home use; if they generate more than you use, the surplus goes back into the grid.
No. It's the wrong material, besides, the length of 3 nm falls a little bit short of the mark to reach orbit.
Personally, I believe that all of mankind is not created equal, but that we all have the same rights.
I don't want one until they can make 'em a bit smaller. This unit hardly looks portable... come on, what kind of friggin' shark is able to swim around with that thing strapped to its head?!
Another thing is that (for me) the most important thing about airco is not that it cools the air, but that it removes moisture from it. Will this Peltier airco do that as well?
Remember those old TRS80 and Amiga games that required you to enter "Page x, Line y, Word z" from the manual every time you started the game, or software with dongles that didn't work half the time? Because of these nuisances, I got pirated versions of software I bought and paid for earlier!. I doubt that DRM will work flawlessly, without the user noticing that it's there. The issue with older monitors being denied access is just one example. If you are punishing legitimate customers like this, you will be practically driving them into the hands of the warez sites. We have that right if a company is abusing its monopoly. If Microsoft had perhaps a 30-50% market share, they would not dream of striking a deal with content providers that does not benefit the customer any way you slice it. But because they practically own the market, they can. And if you think of simply not buying Longhorn and sticking with XP, think again. Microsoft can, as they have proven in the past, force consumers and corporations alike to upgrade, if you want support or access to the latest software and security patches.
2) Spread-spectrum is particularly useful for multiple local, short distance transmissions that do not interfere with each other. Think of DECT phones and all the other stuff in the 2.4GHz band (it has other uses as well). This frequency hopping scheme wasn't invented for this purpose, but to foil jamming or eavesdropping attempts.