This is a very valid point, and well taken. However, the criteria for a lunar mining colony are different. There is no need for a completely sealed, self-sustaining ecosystem. Assuming we can solve the problem of getting O2 et al out of lunar soil, then there's no problem with tweaking the gas levels as needed. One hopes that there will at least be *some* sort of bio-cycle handling much of the C02/O2 turnover, as well as providing food and helping with waste management... but there's no reason you can't add more O2 at some point as needed.
Now, when you start to talk about permanent and more distant settlement colonies (ie Mars) then you really want to close the cycle further. Besides, regardless of space exploration, we should continue to try to understand ecosystems by constructing artificial ones. What better way to learn about complex interactions (which we're affecting in poorly understood ways) then with simplified models? So Biosphere++ in any case....
Microsoft is the ultimate 'C'. They have built an empire on being just good enough. I mean, a *lot* of very useful work is done on windows the world over, it can't be classified as an abject failure.... but man, it sure is lackluster.
Yup. The very pinnacle of mediocrity. That's the microsoft way.
Yes, but the point here is that the placebo effect is more than just a subjective assessment of "feeling better," it is more than just a psychological effect (which is also biochemical in origin, but that's a meta-level that we're just not talking about here). It is associated with real, measurable, biochemical differences in the patient. What's more, these differences show therapeutic specificity.
Consider the example given in TFA, in which morphine is replaced with a placebo and pain is deadened nonetheless. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that when the placebo is not saline, but an opioid (morphine) blocker, the placebo effect does not occur. This suggests that it's not a matter of the brain saying "OK, I've received a painkiller, therefore I expect the pain to subside, therefore my subjective experience of the pain will be lessened," but rather a matter of the body somehow producing morphine-like molecules, based merely on the expectation, or perhaps the learned experience. That's a startling conclusion.
The Parkinson's example is similar, in that, not only were symptoms reduced, but the specific neurons associated with the disease showed the same sorts of positive changes associated with a genuine Parkinson's drug.
It's not just a matter of the "mind can effect the body." Why don't you continue the quote: "the mind can affect the body's biochemistry." That's a profoundly different statement.
This issue is being addressed by the use of a new coating from TDK, called "DURABIS."
From the above linked article:
In a test conducted by CNET News.com, a DVD treated with TDK's coating survived a determined attack with a screwdriver and a Sharpie permanent marker with no effect on playability
So your objection would seem to be overruled.
It's because of this coating that Blu-Ray will not require a caddy.
It's also worth noting that this same coating can be used on regular DVDs, and, one presumes, on HD-DVDs as well. Plenty more info can be found by googling DURABIS.
From the site you link to, and in turn from Netflix Customer support on the issue at hand:
"In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service. As a result, those members who receive the most movies may experience next-day shipping and receive movies lower in their Queue more often than our other members. By prioritizing in this way, we help assure a balanced experience for all our members. Those that rent a lot of movies get a great value and those with lighter viewing habits are able to count on our service to meet their limited needs."
As a netflix customer who gets a lot of DVDs, and whose DVDs have sometimes been slow in coming, this seems extremely reasonable.
Looks like EnterpriseFans.com needs to start taking up a collection for more robust web hosting.....
You don't know how big a flop....
on
Top 10 Apple Flops
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I managed one of those Apple Network Server AIX beasts for while. Not a bad machine, really, served a lab full of mac clients with aplomb...
But the serial number, I shit you not, was 008.
I am also a big TiVo fan. I'm on my second unit, having given the first away to my sister to spread the love. I agree that a lot of their recent moves have been pretty worrying. I actually started putting together a MythTV box when the banner-ad-while-fast-forwarding announcement hit.
After some thought, I've decided to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. TiVo has a lot going for it. The user interface is brilliantly executed, both simple and powerful enough for anyone. TiVoToGo, especially if they get on the ball with Mac support and DVD burning (hopefully Mac DVD burning, as well, but I'm a realist:) just sweetens the deal, and will let me do literally everything I want with my TV content.
A bit more on topic WRT TFA, I'm pretty psyched for the Netflix/TiVo thing to actually materialize. There was a great quote on that topic from a bigwig at Netflix to the effect of (paraphrasing) "we always intended to deliver movies via the internet, we didn't name the company 'DVDs By Mail'." It says something about TiVo that it is the first product out there to fit the bill as a delivery vehicle for that dream.
As far as the Cable Cards and today's announcement go, it seems pretty sane to me. The cablecos are clearly dragging their feet on opening the set top boxes. Every day they do so, their crappy, barely usable DVR units and WinMCE gain ground on TiVo. So they have to do something to differentiate themselves in the meantime, until they can compete on a level playing field. And besides, they can always hijack the signal from the cableco STB just like they do now, so what's the loss (never-ending wait for HD aside)?
So I don't know, TiVo is one of those perpetually-going-out-of-business-companies-with-a -great-product, call it Apple Syndrome; but if they can continue to provide the excellent service and interface, and find ways to deliver more and better content, I'm pretty sanguine about their chances long term....and I guess I'll just have to learn to put up with the banner ads.
demagogue: a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power
So you tell me, which candidate does that describe? The one who turned out his evangelical base by riding on the coattails of anti-gay prejudice? The one who led us into a quagmire in Iraq based on false claims and fear-mongering?
If Kerry had told the people "what they wanted to hear" he would have been giving his acceptance speech right now. Instead he told them the truth: the issues at play today are complex and nuanced, and require as much thought as resolve..... but of course, that's flip-flopping.
Obviously Kerry is the demagogue..... what was I thinking.....
-40GB+ HD, room for data, video, and music -640x480+ Screen -Cell phone -Camera -802.11 and possibly Bluetooth as well. -Full PDA functionality with handwriting recognition. -Form factor similar to the iPod or even the new Windows Mobile Media devices. -Battery life of at least 8 hours continuous use. Maybe 6 if you're doing nothing but playing movies.
I would love to see Apple make this (I'd even sacrifice the camera and maybe the cell phone) but I'll go with whoever gets there first. My money's on Sony.
Until then, I can make due with just a cell phone. I've had several Palms, from the III to the Tungsten E, and I've always stopped carrying them after a few short months. By the time you have your cell phone, your Blackberry, and your iPod crammed in your pockets, who wants to carry a PDA?
This kind of integration also makes sense in other ways: you don't need to sync your phone to your PDA, and you can take calls while listening to music. That's a device I would really use all the time.
But as I go back and look at the comments that piled up as I wrote, I realize you'll need an as-yet-announced 60GB iPod just to hold all the "get an iPod" comments
I think you'd be hard pressed to find more storage in a smaller form factor than an iPod (classic or mini). And what you don't need for your files, you can use for music.
Besides, if you're a mac user, you will soon be able to seamlessly carry your home directory around (Google for Home on iPod).
The one way that this could be akin to a "protein plasmid" would be custom designed prions that would prionize* with native regulatory proteins (either at transcription or further downstream somewhere, heck you could even prionize the final, presumably broken, gene product)....
Um.......of course that pre-assumes a lot of non-existent molecular modeling and synthesizing technologies, but hey, Protein Plasmids for Humans!!
* prionize: to exhibit an alternative protein configuration that catalyzes the reconfiguration of the native protein into the new catalyzing configuration, thus cascading in an Ice-9 like fashion.
Veritas has a similar pricing structure. Different machines are delegated to different "Tiers," with different licensing costs. So for example, a Sun Fire 280r is "Tier 1" while a 480r is "Tier 2," and the same (Veritas) software is twice as expensive. Mind you, these machines actually have the exact same processing power (in my case, anyway).
At least Oracle's system is simple enough to be contained in a price list. Even Veritas reps can't ballpark software for you, it depends on the power of your processor, the depth of your racks, the phase of the moon....
IPV9, for when being able to individually address every single particle in the entire universe just isn't enough.
At some point in the future we might need to address the particles that are currently swapped out.
It's worse than you think. With all the virtual particles fizzing in and out of existence, it seems we're swapping constantly.... and our swap partition is HUGE.
First off, the ability to use file type and other arbitrary metadata still exists in OSX (or HFS+, as the case may be). (More here.) This is above and beyond the much maligned resource fork.
The real issue both with resource forks and (to a lesser extent) filesystem level metadata is inter-system transport, ie how do you ftp the metadata along with the file. This is what made resource forks such a PITA.
Apple, it seems, has now moved away from putting the metadata in the FS, despite having the ability to do so, even as MS scrambles to stick metadata in their FS. I'm skeptical of the centralized DB approach, the FS approach seems a cleaner design, but the central DB does have the advantage of constantly pulling metadata out of the files and apps, thereby updating itself on the fly. Furthermore, in the separate DB approach, if the DB gets corrupted, you can trash and rebuild, if your FS gets corrupted.... that's a bigger headache. Time will tell which approach is better.
The author of the linked article seems to propose RDF as a solution, but I'm not convinced how well storing all that metadata as text in a "dot-file" will scale. And you still have the problem of getting that metadata from one system to another, despite having a common format.
One hopes that both Apple and MS can solve the problem of having their own systems cleanly exchange metadata.
You're certainly right on one score: no matter how you cut it, this is a major infrastructure undertaking.
Barring an all out Stephensonian revolution, where The Feed simply grows itself out to where it is needed, I suspect that the interim solution is either local "Matter Compilation" stations, rather than one per home, or some sort of home delivery of raw materials. So just like today you have to fill up your oil tank to heat your home for the winter, or in the past you would have coal delivered (still would in China) I imagine you would call your local nano-supply house and have 'em fill up the old phosphorus tank, and maybe top off the sulfer and potassium while they're at it. This would probably take the form of pre-prepared, selaed canisters, much like the CO2 cartridges used today or the proposed H2 cartridges for fuel cell powered electronics.
I'm also not convinced that the power requirements are such a huge issue. We already have quite a bit of power being delivered to the average home. Do you really think it inadequate to the task of matter compilation? This is further compounded when you consider that a lot of the individual reactions involved in assembling a widget are bound to be exothermic. I suspect in fact that the bigger problem will be heat disposal, rather than a deficit of energy. Perhaps the energy output of the exothermic reactions can be coupled to the energy required for the endothermic reactions or the general energy needed to drive the reactions uphill against entropy. With some clever engineering, the added marginal energy cost may not be that high at all.
The origin of the raw materials and power is very specifically discussed in Diamond Age. Every home has a line into the "Feed" which is described as molecular conveyor belt that delivers raw materials (elements) in a steady stream to the Matter Compiler. The Feed also contains a high voltage line (granted, Mr. Stephenson does not talk about what kind of power plant is on the other end, but really now...)
The Feed terminates in The Source, which has an above ground component like an artificial forest (many fractally branching limbs) to pull atoms from the air, as well as an underwater component described as an artificial coral reef, which pulls material from the sea water.
Neil Stephenson went to great pains to spell all this out. Methinks you need to read the book a bit more closely...
You've also got to love the fact that he's got a number on hand for the number of Iraqi lives, but the American dead are just sort of grouped under "how many?"/"who cares?"
Probably deserved it anyway, those baby-killing colonialists.
I wonder "how many Americans" have died to protect his right to vent his knee-jerk, sophomoric opinions.
"You may also use Xsan in a cross-platform environment alongside Windows-, UNIX- and Linux-based systems, using the ADIC StorNext File System, which is 100% interoperable with Xsan"..."Simply install Xsan on a supported machine to add it to your SAN as metadata controller or file system client."
Slashdot Mirror
This is a very valid point, and well taken. However, the criteria for a lunar mining colony are different. There is no need for a completely sealed, self-sustaining ecosystem. Assuming we can solve the problem of getting O2 et al out of lunar soil, then there's no problem with tweaking the gas levels as needed. One hopes that there will at least be *some* sort of bio-cycle handling much of the C02/O2 turnover, as well as providing food and helping with waste management... but there's no reason you can't add more O2 at some point as needed.
Now, when you start to talk about permanent and more distant settlement colonies (ie Mars) then you really want to close the cycle further. Besides, regardless of space exploration, we should continue to try to understand ecosystems by constructing artificial ones. What better way to learn about complex interactions (which we're affecting in poorly understood ways) then with simplified models? So Biosphere++ in any case....
I disagree (that MS is closer to an 'F').
Microsoft is the ultimate 'C'. They have built an empire on being just good enough. I mean, a *lot* of very useful work is done on windows the world over, it can't be classified as an abject failure.... but man, it sure is lackluster.
Yup. The very pinnacle of mediocrity. That's the microsoft way.
Point 4 showed that homeopathic remedies are effective in vitro, on specific human white blood cells.
No chance for the placebo effect to come into play.
Yes, but the point here is that the placebo effect is more than just a subjective assessment of "feeling better," it is more than just a psychological effect (which is also biochemical in origin, but that's a meta-level that we're just not talking about here). It is associated with real, measurable, biochemical differences in the patient. What's more, these differences show therapeutic specificity.
Consider the example given in TFA, in which morphine is replaced with a placebo and pain is deadened nonetheless. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that when the placebo is not saline, but an opioid (morphine) blocker, the placebo effect does not occur. This suggests that it's not a matter of the brain saying "OK, I've received a painkiller, therefore I expect the pain to subside, therefore my subjective experience of the pain will be lessened," but rather a matter of the body somehow producing morphine-like molecules, based merely on the expectation, or perhaps the learned experience. That's a startling conclusion.
The Parkinson's example is similar, in that, not only were symptoms reduced, but the specific neurons associated with the disease showed the same sorts of positive changes associated with a genuine Parkinson's drug.
It's not just a matter of the "mind can effect the body." Why don't you continue the quote: "the mind can affect the body's biochemistry." That's a profoundly different statement.
From the above linked article:
So your objection would seem to be overruled.
It's because of this coating that Blu-Ray will not require a caddy.
It's also worth noting that this same coating can be used on regular DVDs, and, one presumes, on HD-DVDs as well. Plenty more info can be found by googling DURABIS.
..as well as pressing its software designers to embrace "its" 64-bit architecture
As a netflix customer who gets a lot of DVDs, and whose DVDs have sometimes been slow in coming, this seems extremely reasonable.
Just my $0.02.
Looks like EnterpriseFans.com needs to start taking up a collection for more robust web hosting.....
I managed one of those Apple Network Server AIX beasts for while. Not a bad machine, really, served a lab full of mac clients with aplomb...
But the serial number, I shit you not, was 008.
TiVo Unit: $200
TiVo Service: $13/mo.
Never having to recompile a kernel module, resolve a dependency, or run Windows: priceless.
TiVo. It's everything your home PVR wants to be.
I am also a big TiVo fan. I'm on my second unit, having given the first away to my sister to spread the love. I agree that a lot of their recent moves have been pretty worrying. I actually started putting together a MythTV box when the banner-ad-while-fast-forwarding announcement hit.
:) just sweetens the deal, and will let me do literally everything I want with my TV content.
a -great-product, call it Apple Syndrome; but if they can continue to provide the excellent service and interface, and find ways to deliver more and better content, I'm pretty sanguine about their chances long term. ...and I guess I'll just have to learn to put up with the banner ads.
After some thought, I've decided to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. TiVo has a lot going for it. The user interface is brilliantly executed, both simple and powerful enough for anyone. TiVoToGo, especially if they get on the ball with Mac support and DVD burning (hopefully Mac DVD burning, as well, but I'm a realist
A bit more on topic WRT TFA, I'm pretty psyched for the Netflix/TiVo thing to actually materialize. There was a great quote on that topic from a bigwig at Netflix to the effect of (paraphrasing) "we always intended to deliver movies via the internet, we didn't name the company 'DVDs By Mail'." It says something about TiVo that it is the first product out there to fit the bill as a delivery vehicle for that dream.
As far as the Cable Cards and today's announcement go, it seems pretty sane to me. The cablecos are clearly dragging their feet on opening the set top boxes. Every day they do so, their crappy, barely usable DVR units and WinMCE gain ground on TiVo. So they have to do something to differentiate themselves in the meantime, until they can compete on a level playing field. And besides, they can always hijack the signal from the cableco STB just like they do now, so what's the loss (never-ending wait for HD aside)?
So I don't know, TiVo is one of those perpetually-going-out-of-business-companies-with-
From M-W.com:
demagogue:
a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power
So you tell me, which candidate does that describe? The one who turned out his evangelical base by riding on the coattails of anti-gay prejudice? The one who led us into a quagmire in Iraq based on false claims and fear-mongering?
If Kerry had told the people "what they wanted to hear" he would have been giving his acceptance speech right now. Instead he told them the truth: the issues at play today are complex and nuanced, and require as much thought as resolve..... but of course, that's flip-flopping.
Obviously Kerry is the demagogue..... what was I thinking.....
I'm holding out for the true all in one:
-40GB+ HD, room for data, video, and music
-640x480+ Screen
-Cell phone
-Camera
-802.11 and possibly Bluetooth as well.
-Full PDA functionality with handwriting recognition.
-Form factor similar to the iPod or even the new Windows Mobile Media devices.
-Battery life of at least 8 hours continuous use. Maybe 6 if you're doing nothing but playing movies.
I would love to see Apple make this (I'd even sacrifice the camera and maybe the cell phone) but I'll go with whoever gets there first. My money's on Sony.
Until then, I can make due with just a cell phone. I've had several Palms, from the III to the Tungsten E, and I've always stopped carrying them after a few short months. By the time you have your cell phone, your Blackberry, and your iPod crammed in your pockets, who wants to carry a PDA?
This kind of integration also makes sense in other ways: you don't need to sync your phone to your PDA, and you can take calls while listening to music. That's a device I would really use all the time.
So... pretty much all or nothing for me, thanks!
Yeah, yeah, replying to myself.
But as I go back and look at the comments that piled up as I wrote, I realize you'll need an as-yet-announced 60GB iPod just to hold all the "get an iPod" comments
Glad I could add my part to the noise.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find more storage in a smaller form factor than an iPod (classic or mini). And what you don't need for your files, you can use for music.
Besides, if you're a mac user, you will soon be able to seamlessly carry your home directory around (Google for Home on iPod).
Just my $0.02
Exactly.
....of course that pre-assumes a lot of non-existent molecular modeling and synthesizing technologies, but hey, Protein Plasmids for Humans!!
The one way that this could be akin to a "protein plasmid" would be custom designed prions that would prionize* with native regulatory proteins (either at transcription or further downstream somewhere, heck you could even prionize the final, presumably broken, gene product)....
Um...
* prionize: to exhibit an alternative protein configuration that catalyzes the reconfiguration of the native protein into the new catalyzing configuration, thus cascading in an Ice-9 like fashion.
Agreed.
It's disgusting how NetBSD leverages their monopoly position to keep Dragonfly BSD out of the market.
Veritas has a similar pricing structure. Different machines are delegated to different "Tiers," with different licensing costs. So for example, a Sun Fire 280r is "Tier 1" while a 480r is "Tier 2," and the same (Veritas) software is twice as expensive. Mind you, these machines actually have the exact same processing power (in my case, anyway).
At least Oracle's system is simple enough to be contained in a price list. Even Veritas reps can't ballpark software for you, it depends on the power of your processor, the depth of your racks, the phase of the moon....
IPV9, for when being able to individually address every single particle in the entire universe just isn't enough.
At some point in the future we might need to address the particles that are currently swapped out.
It's worse than you think. With all the virtual particles fizzing in and out of existence, it seems we're swapping constantly.... and our swap partition is HUGE.
First off, the ability to use file type and other arbitrary metadata still exists in OSX (or HFS+, as the case may be). (More here.) This is above and beyond the much maligned resource fork.
The real issue both with resource forks and (to a lesser extent) filesystem level metadata is inter-system transport, ie how do you ftp the metadata along with the file. This is what made resource forks such a PITA.
Apple, it seems, has now moved away from putting the metadata in the FS, despite having the ability to do so, even as MS scrambles to stick metadata in their FS. I'm skeptical of the centralized DB approach, the FS approach seems a cleaner design, but the central DB does have the advantage of constantly pulling metadata out of the files and apps, thereby updating itself on the fly. Furthermore, in the separate DB approach, if the DB gets corrupted, you can trash and rebuild, if your FS gets corrupted.... that's a bigger headache. Time will tell which approach is better.
The author of the linked article seems to propose RDF as a solution, but I'm not convinced how well storing all that metadata as text in a "dot-file" will scale. And you still have the problem of getting that metadata from one system to another, despite having a common format.
One hopes that both Apple and MS can solve the problem of having their own systems cleanly exchange metadata.
Just some thoughts...
You're certainly right on one score: no matter how you cut it, this is a major infrastructure undertaking.
Barring an all out Stephensonian revolution, where The Feed simply grows itself out to where it is needed, I suspect that the interim solution is either local "Matter Compilation" stations, rather than one per home, or some sort of home delivery of raw materials. So just like today you have to fill up your oil tank to heat your home for the winter, or in the past you would have coal delivered (still would in China) I imagine you would call your local nano-supply house and have 'em fill up the old phosphorus tank, and maybe top off the sulfer and potassium while they're at it. This would probably take the form of pre-prepared, selaed canisters, much like the CO2 cartridges used today or the proposed H2 cartridges for fuel cell powered electronics.
I'm also not convinced that the power requirements are such a huge issue. We already have quite a bit of power being delivered to the average home. Do you really think it inadequate to the task of matter compilation? This is further compounded when you consider that a lot of the individual reactions involved in assembling a widget are bound to be exothermic. I suspect in fact that the bigger problem will be heat disposal, rather than a deficit of energy. Perhaps the energy output of the exothermic reactions can be coupled to the energy required for the endothermic reactions or the general energy needed to drive the reactions uphill against entropy. With some clever engineering, the added marginal energy cost may not be that high at all.
Just some thoughts...
The origin of the raw materials and power is very specifically discussed in Diamond Age. Every home has a line into the "Feed" which is described as molecular conveyor belt that delivers raw materials (elements) in a steady stream to the Matter Compiler. The Feed also contains a high voltage line (granted, Mr. Stephenson does not talk about what kind of power plant is on the other end, but really now...)
The Feed terminates in The Source, which has an above ground component like an artificial forest (many fractally branching limbs) to pull atoms from the air, as well as an underwater component described as an artificial coral reef, which pulls material from the sea water.
Neil Stephenson went to great pains to spell all this out. Methinks you need to read the book a bit more closely...
You've also got to love the fact that he's got a number on hand for the number of Iraqi lives, but the American dead are just sort of grouped under "how many?"/"who cares?"
Probably deserved it anyway, those baby-killing colonialists.
I wonder "how many Americans" have died to protect his right to vent his knee-jerk, sophomoric opinions.
From the xsan page at apple:
"You may also use Xsan in a cross-platform environment alongside Windows-, UNIX- and Linux-based systems, using the ADIC StorNext File System, which is 100% interoperable with Xsan"..."Simply install Xsan on a supported machine to add it to your SAN as metadata controller or file system client."
With every rock they hurl at us, the bugs' aim improves.
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