I have a bachelor's degree in math, so I have trouble imagining what it's like for people who are no good at it...which is probably a good indication that you shouldn't be an instructor at the elementary or high-school levels. Not everything that's obvious is obvious to everyone.
I have a thorough understanding of a number of specialized fields within computer science, but there are quite capable programmers I know who just can't follow an explanation of some of them. It's just not their thing.
Apple held an event in it's 'Cafeteria(*)' fer chrissakes!
Exactly. All that Apple said about it was an invitation to see some "fun new products". They didn't promise any of the devices that the rumor mill is all hot and bothered about. The hype wasn't from Apple.
Yeah, it's funny they didn't choose a Latitude, which is Dell's major laptop.
I don't believe the reviewer had a choice. The anonymous person who was using OS X in violation of Apple's licensing terms probably doesn't have a Latitude.
What a shame that people think oppressive government is the solution to greed and arrogance.
More to the point: what a shame that people think that legislation as the first tool to reach for when something looks like it might become a problem in the future.
Extracting platinum from a solid block of nickel amalgam is really energy intensive,
Sure, but there's also quite a lot of energy available at an orbit of 1 AU. Half of a silvered-mylar balloon supported by a very light framework can concentrate enough sunlight to melt the asteroid. If you want to smelt metals out of the asteroid with lower temperatures, you can just bag it and pump in carbon monoxide, which will pull the oxygen off the metal ores.
If you want to get the metals to the earth at a low cost, you form it into shapes that have a great deal of surface area, and use the pressure of sunlight to slow their orbital velocity to a very low speed before they hit the atmosphere. If you dropped a 100 meter diameter disc of.1mm-thick gold foil into the atmosphere, it probably wouldn't even melt on the way down. The fiery re-entry we're used to seeing when spacecraft enter the atmosphere is mostly due to their tiny surface area to the energy they have to shed.
At any rate, I agree that the greatest value of metals in asteroids isn't the potential for getting them back to earth, it's for using them in space.
Pretty much the same way as happened with homesteading or mining claims. If you get to the asteroid first, and are capable of killing anyone who tries to take it away from you, I for one would say "it's yours".
Eventually though, the pioneers give way to the settlers, and the settlers, practicing the social division of labor, will establish an organization with more weaponry than anyone else in the area, which will enforce property ownership.
We may have a period of space colonization that generates a lot of entertainment and literature, just like the American West of the late 1800's.
It's been 36 years since we first went to the moon. Clearly the technology exists to get us there and back.
To be precise: the technology existed. The experience of the men who built and operated the Saturn rockets has been lost in large part, and while a new system for getting to the moon can be built again, I wouldn't quite say that the technology exists now.
Not exactly. What's getting farmed out is the routine work: maintenance, ports from one OS to another, drivers for new devices that have to implement a well-known API, etc. This isn't necessarily low-end work. It's the work which one can readily specify well enough to farm out.
Apple has the one shop (iTMS), one application (iTunes), one player (iPod), (one Reich?) methodology.
Which is why they're beating the competition. Leaving the user experience for one's product up to an outside vendor is a sure way to delivery mediocrity (which, when faced with a very good competitor, is a recipe for failure).
Every kid in the world probably knows that "plays for sure" means "won't work with your iPod". The ironic thing here is that if the RIAA wants to have some leverage over Apple, they'll have to make it possible for the Napsters of the world to offer songs that play on the iPod, which means they have to let them sell songs that don't have DRM!
None of the hardware makers ever wanted DRM in the first place. It's expensive to implement, and it's the #1 driver of support issues.
The rational solution is to let anyone sell unprotected music, and charge a uniform royalty to any online music store, just like with radio station airplay.
Any music download service that uses Windows Media is going to have precisely the same problem: Microsoft sets the limit on how good their user experience can possibly be, and that limit is far short of the expectations that Apple has set with the iTMS. Since the service simply can't be as good as the iTMS, the only way to compete is on price, and that's not sustainable unless you have volume.
Really, the only hope for Napster, Rhapsody, and Real is to create a new DRM standard and try to convince the music companies and the hardware makers to adopt it. Microsoft's attempt to do so has already failed.
The iMac core duo is --just a tiny bit faster than real-time when ripping from DVD with Handbrake.
Ripping a DVD is a rather different problem than H.264 encoding. When Handbrake rips a DVD to another format, it's doing an MPEG decode, resizing the image, and doing another encode.
I love how on the one hand many Slashdotters have been saying that MS is just a marketing company and has always had crappy software, but then say that MS is in trouble because all those talented developers who used to come to MS to write the crappy code are now going to Apple and Google (to write crappy code there, one can only conclude).
MS has always had crappy software. The skills of individual developers can't save a product when too many people are assigned to the same task. See Fred Brooks for the details.
I don't. There is a difference between deserving to die, and actually doing so. MS can keep DirectX alive for a LOOOOONG time, for no good reason at all.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a bachelor's degree in math, so I have trouble imagining what it's like for people who are no good at it. ..which is probably a good indication that you shouldn't be an instructor at the elementary or high-school levels. Not everything that's obvious is obvious to everyone.
I have a thorough understanding of a number of specialized fields within computer science, but there are quite capable programmers I know who just can't follow an explanation of some of them. It's just not their thing.
-jcr
Apple held an event in it's 'Cafeteria(*)' fer chrissakes!
Exactly. All that Apple said about it was an invitation to see some "fun new products". They didn't promise any of the devices that the rumor mill is all hot and bothered about. The hype wasn't from Apple.
-jcr
After listening to it,
Yeah, yeah.. You listened to it for three seconds, so you're an authority on the subject.
-jcr
One question: have you heard one yet, or are you just guessing?
-jcr
Yes, god forbid people try to nip something in the bud before it gets out of control...
Legislation is a very blunt instrument. Need I remind you of what the DMCA was supposed to accomplish, and what it's been applied to since?
-jcr
Slashdot exposure during the quiet period is all OK then right?
Sure. We can talk about them, they just can't talk about themselves.
Shankland watches this particular market segment pretty closely. I wonder if he has any options?
It only matters if he's a company insider.
-jcr
Yeah, it's funny they didn't choose a Latitude, which is Dell's major laptop.
I don't believe the reviewer had a choice. The anonymous person who was using OS X in violation of Apple's licensing terms probably doesn't have a Latitude.
-jcr
What a shame that people think oppressive government is the solution to greed and arrogance.
More to the point: what a shame that people think that legislation as the first tool to reach for when something looks like it might become a problem in the future.
-jcr
You'll thank him later
Want to bet?
-jcr
Once more, we have a legislator rushing to pass a law to fight something that hasn't even become a problem yet.
-jcr
Extracting platinum from a solid block of nickel amalgam is really energy intensive,
.1mm-thick gold foil into the atmosphere, it probably wouldn't even melt on the way down. The fiery re-entry we're used to seeing when spacecraft enter the atmosphere is mostly due to their tiny surface area to the energy they have to shed.
Sure, but there's also quite a lot of energy available at an orbit of 1 AU. Half of a silvered-mylar balloon supported by a very light framework can concentrate enough sunlight to melt the asteroid. If you want to smelt metals out of the asteroid with lower temperatures, you can just bag it and pump in carbon monoxide, which will pull the oxygen off the metal ores.
If you want to get the metals to the earth at a low cost, you form it into shapes that have a great deal of surface area, and use the pressure of sunlight to slow their orbital velocity to a very low speed before they hit the atmosphere. If you dropped a 100 meter diameter disc of
At any rate, I agree that the greatest value of metals in asteroids isn't the potential for getting them back to earth, it's for using them in space.
-jcr
And exactly does one come to own an asteroid?
Pretty much the same way as happened with homesteading or mining claims. If you get to the asteroid first, and are capable of killing anyone who tries to take it away from you, I for one would say "it's yours".
Eventually though, the pioneers give way to the settlers, and the settlers, practicing the social division of labor, will establish an organization with more weaponry than anyone else in the area, which will enforce property ownership.
We may have a period of space colonization that generates a lot of entertainment and literature, just like the American West of the late 1800's.
-jcr
It's been 36 years since we first went to the moon. Clearly the technology exists to get us there and back.
To be precise: the technology existed. The experience of the men who built and operated the Saturn rockets has been lost in large part, and while a new system for getting to the moon can be built again, I wouldn't quite say that the technology exists now.
-jcr
I don't care what qualifications a person has, if they are the best and know their stuff,
Those are qualifications. Perhaps you meant credentials?
-jcr
They're farming out the lower end jobs overseas.
Not exactly. What's getting farmed out is the routine work: maintenance, ports from one OS to another, drivers for new devices that have to implement a well-known API, etc. This isn't necessarily low-end work. It's the work which one can readily specify well enough to farm out.
-jcr
Apple has the one shop (iTMS), one application (iTunes), one player (iPod), (one Reich?) methodology.
Which is why they're beating the competition. Leaving the user experience for one's product up to an outside vendor is a sure way to delivery mediocrity (which, when faced with a very good competitor, is a recipe for failure).
-jcr
How do you think they could stay in business and not use Microsoft's DRM?
Apple did it. QED.
-jcr
Every kid in the world probably knows that "plays for sure" means "won't work with your iPod". The ironic thing here is that if the RIAA wants to have some leverage over Apple, they'll have to make it possible for the Napsters of the world to offer songs that play on the iPod, which means they have to let them sell songs that don't have DRM!
None of the hardware makers ever wanted DRM in the first place. It's expensive to implement, and it's the #1 driver of support issues.
The rational solution is to let anyone sell unprotected music, and charge a uniform royalty to any online music store, just like with radio station airplay.
-jcr
Any music download service that uses Windows Media is going to have precisely the same problem: Microsoft sets the limit on how good their user experience can possibly be, and that limit is far short of the expectations that Apple has set with the iTMS. Since the service simply can't be as good as the iTMS, the only way to compete is on price, and that's not sustainable unless you have volume.
Really, the only hope for Napster, Rhapsody, and Real is to create a new DRM standard and try to convince the music companies and the hardware makers to adopt it. Microsoft's attempt to do so has already failed.
-jcr
Napster has to write software that works with Micrsoft DRM software
No, they do not. They have always had the option of implementing their own scheme.
Apple has it much easier, in comparison: they do it all in-house.
Exactly.
-jcr
Is the mini a big seller?
To date, it's probably the single most successful model of the Mac of all time, in terms of units sold.
-jcr
The iMac core duo is --just a tiny bit faster than real-time when ripping from DVD with Handbrake.
Ripping a DVD is a rather different problem than H.264 encoding. When Handbrake rips a DVD to another format, it's doing an MPEG decode, resizing the image, and doing another encode.
-jcr
I love how on the one hand many Slashdotters have been saying that MS is just a marketing company and has always had crappy software, but then say that MS is in trouble because all those talented developers who used to come to MS to write the crappy code are now going to Apple and Google (to write crappy code there, one can only conclude).
MS has always had crappy software. The skills of individual developers can't save a product when too many people are assigned to the same task. See Fred Brooks for the details.
-jcr
But maybe I'm wrong, I haven't heard one.
Exactly.
-jcr
I believe Direct X will die in lieu of OpenGL.
I don't. There is a difference between deserving to die, and actually doing so. MS can keep DirectX alive for a LOOOOONG time, for no good reason at all.
-jcr