I don't think customs is what keeps things slow - it was slowing people down so traffic at the pier isn't impossible.
Customs for me, (after a Caribbean cruise), was walking by a drug dog without slowing down, grabbing "checked" luggage from a holding area, (they picked up luggage outside your room the night before), and handing a form to the customs agent. The agent didn't even look at the form - they just grabbed them as people walked by. Total time at "customs" was less than 5 seconds.
Time to wait for the shuttle to the long-term parking - 5 minutes since we caught it just right - it took about 30 minutes for it to do a round trip for another group. Time to wait for a cab after another cruise was 30-40 minutes.
$500k seems a little low for an entire load of Apple products.
Even at a single level deep, (no stacking), you could get about 300 iMacs on a trailer. Call it 15 wide and about 20 deep. If it was laptops, this would be higher - call it 20 wide and 25 deep, for 500 total. Call it a mix of both and we get about 400 units. If we call it an average of $1k each, this is already $400k. Since the lowest retail on these products is about $1k, I figure calling the average value $1k is close enough.
Now, if we start stacking systems 2 or 3 high, and throwing in iPods and accessories with a higher cost/volume ratio, you were probably rolling with well over $1 million in Apple products. Now, that's just a guess, but probably a reasonable estimate.
I would encourage you to read up on nuclear power - while a lot of what you are saying is true, it really doesn't capture the reality of the situation.
1. No, nuclear, by itself, is not carbon neutral. However, neither is any other alternative energy. However, when you have the extra electrical power, you can construct "factories" that will scrub the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Now, we might not have the political will to carry it out, but nuclear alone is still way better than what we have now.
2. Fast breeder reactors can run on our current nuclear waste and the waste from those reactors doesn't last nearly as long. So we get to reduce the amount of waste and what's left doesn't last as long. The reason we don't use them is that reprocessing can create weapons-grade plutonium. Again, this is a political issue instead of a technological one.
3. With today's "wasteful" reactors using Uranium-235 it is estimated between 80 and 300 years. If we use breeder reactors so we can use U-238 and Thorium, it can be billions of years at current energy levels.
4. If necessary, fuel can be extracted from sea water making it a moot point.
5. There is also a peak in the evening when everyone turns on lights and TVs. Also, winter means a lot less sunlight in many populated areas so more demand for lighting and heating.
6. Moving power around might help, but there are just too many hours when power is needed and solar isn't available. Also, cloudy days affect production and can't be planned around. Limiting solar farms to areas with minimal cloud cover means increased losses from transport.
7. Nuclear doesn't have to be renewable if we have a few billion years, (or even a few million), years available. If we can assume a technology level that can protect us from extinction due to an asteroid or comet in that time period, we can assume a technology level that can mine the moon, mars or asteroids for more nuclear material.
While nuclear has its problems, they are really political instead of technological. I really hope we get past our fears of nuclear power so we have a chance of keeping our planet habitable for humans.
Well... they might see your address or account number or whatever, but most password fields are masked with asterisks.
Yes, but if the website had you type it in, your keylogger got the keystrokes. If they had you click on a virtual keyboard, then the screen capture would show your mouse over that letter. In these cases, the asterisks don't help you.
What about using something like VMWare? Fire it up with your favorite OS. Do your important browsing. Shut it down.
Unfortunately, if you don't reset your VM image each time, then you have the same problem as running your LiveCD for an extended period of time. If your VM is compromised, then it remains compromised the next time you use it.
Unfortunately, there are also key loggers that will do screen captures as well. If the attackers find they are unable to capture your password after you type "www.mybank.com", they can activate the screen capture capability the next time you visit that site. Sure, it takes more storage, and longer to transmit to the attacker, but if you haven't discovered you have a key logger, you won't notice the image files.
Once your system has been compromised, you can't assume anything. That's why Knoppix, or any other LiveCD, is a good idea when you want the added security. Since the media is fixed, even if you get compromised, it goes away when you reboot. However, if you are using a LiveCD, don't leave your machine running for days on end, or you could get compromised. Boot up, do what you have to do, and shut down. Sure, that's a bit paranoid, but it isn't paranoia if someone is actually out to get you.
Maglev proponents argue that it is easier to maintain--most designs do not include wheels, transmissions, brakes or axles, thus reducing the need for repairs. "Engineers joke that the only moving parts are the doors," says Richard Thornton, MagneMotion's CEO.
From the article on the wind turbine...
It would also increase generation capacity by 20% over conventional wind turbines and decrease operational costs by 50%.
Bearings have to be inspected, maintained and eventually replaced which gets to be fairly expensive. Consider how long does it would take for someone to climb the tower, inspect every moving part, and then request/perform maintenance and repairs.
If you don't know every gory detail then how can you make intelligent decisions on where to spend your budget? Sure, you can learn the basics of quantum mechanics, but that doesn't make you qualified to determine how money should be spent for experiments. The same holds true here. You might have an idea that you should have firewalls, IDSes, updated systems, anti-everything, physical security, an employee training program, etc. However, you can't have it all - it would be too expensive in terms of time and money. So, how do you decide? If you don't know the gory details, you can't. OK - you can; but you'll probably spend your money on the wrong things.
I suppose someone who has a Ph.D. in physics would say that quantum mechanics is pretty elementary stuff. The problem here is that you are assuming everyone who is in charge of a network has the knowledge, background and experience to understand security. Most don't. Many who think they do - don't. There is so much to keep track of that it's a full-time job just to keep up with the attackers. If you have a lot of other work to do, you probably aren't keeping current in every area you need to. That's why there are security experts who get paid a lot of money to help secure systems and networks.
Actually, not only is the "generally accepted" U.S. debt higher than that, there is a second set of "books" that shows the debt to be much, much higher.
I have saved games from Baldur's Gate (I and II) and Neverwinter Nights I. I would have them for NWN 2, but they dramatically increased the size of the save file - around 100MB if I remember right.
I like having saves for multiple points throughout the game so I can replay certain sections or quests if I really enjoyed them and I like to have the option to skip the annoyance of being a low level wizard with almost no hit points.
I don't know how much of a value I would put on the saved games - probably $20 or something. I see it more as a fun thing to have when I want it and not a real need or desire.
If you really want tortured logic, you should see the Unified Theory of Existence - it proves that creationism, intelligent design and evolution are only pieces of the puzzle. The truth is much bigger.
I have to disagree. If I am spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a building, I expect it to work. At the very least, I would want my $15 million back from the architects. The architects were hired to design a building - the design doesn't work - so they shouldn't be paid. If you hired someone to landscape your yard, and it turned into a river of mud after the first rain, wouldn't you want your money back?
Sure, to MIT $1.5 million isn't that bad. However, to say they should be relieved they only have to spend that much, (so far), is a little extreme.
I believe most tracking software creates a separate partition that would survive a standard reinstall, but not a complete reformatting of the disk.
What I think would be very effective would be a laptop, created explicitly for businesses, that would implement the tracking system in hardware. If you added it to the integrated wireless networking, you wouldn't be able to shut it off, and you could track it whenever you needed to. If you are concerned about battery life, you could allow someone to shut it off, but have it wake-up every few hours just to check in. When it checks in, if it's labeled as stolen, the networking stays on, allowing for constant tracking.
There are some privacy concerns with a tracking device that can't be turned off, but that's why I said it would be explicitly for businesses, (or people who want that feature explicitly). For many businesses, the loss of privacy is less important that the ability to track their assets.
Well, if you consider a guillotine in context, it is actually a good thing. Prior to the guillotine, executions were done by hanging, or by using an axe - and a guillotine is a much more humane approach.
In hanging, if the drop was too short, you would slowly suffocate to death instead of getting a broken neck. When using a headsman and an axe, it wasn't that uncommon for the headsman to "miss" and require multiple blows to actually remove the head. With a guillotine, you guarantee a fast, relatively painless death.
So, in that context, a guillotine is a good invention. Now, it gets a bad name for "speeding up the execution process", which allows for more executions to take place, but it is still probably better than hiring 20 peasants with axes to help out. I doubt those condemned to die would be let go just because they didn't have enough rope, or enough people to swing an axe.
Actually, the biggest difference is that the entire state didn't lose all of its infrastructure like Louisiana did. This meant that emergency workers could still communicate, emergency supplies could be delivered and plans could be put in place and executed.
People have been predicting that we'd run out of item X by time Y for hundreds of years. The reason we don't is because (as you said) when supply dwindles, there is incentive to find news supplies and substitutes.
However, just because there have always been enough incentive, ingenuity and advancements to solve our problems, or replace item X, doesn't mean that this will always be the case. That's like saying: "I've always been able to swim across any body of water I've come across, so I'll always be able to do it in the future." It might be fine - until you reach the ocean. There are always limits to how far you can push your luck, or how many lucky breaks you can get.
When oil becomes expensive enough, alternative fuel use will become so desirable that an efficient solution will present itself.
First, we can't know this. Second, even if there is an efficient solution, that doesn't mean we will be able to deploy it in a timely fashion. If most people assume something will come along before it's too late - they won't worry about it and won't dedicate the resources required to avoid the situation - and it will become too late. As an example, look at NASA. They don't want to continue with the Shuttle program, but they don't have an alternative space vehicle yet because they weren't given the resources early enough. Now there will be years between the Shuttle retirement and deployment of its succesor - Project Constellation. How do we know we can avoid this same situation when it comes to oil. Short answer - We can't.
I'm guessing it could be made into a larger fiber, but I don't think it would make any sense to do so.
Since this is solar power, any of the nano-fibers that are inside the larger fiber wouldn't generate any power since they wouldn't receive any light. Also, I'm guessing that there would be problems "lining up" the different layers of the nano-fibers resulting in some sort of short in the system. Another question I have is, dealing with this small scale, does the internal resistance in the wire cause scalability issues? Would a 1m long wire burn itself out instantly?
You can look up weather data from the NOAA National Severe Storms Lab. They maintain the data from 1933 - present. You look up the station name, select a date range and you get the information.
The data is available here - just select "Online Data Access" from the menu.
I was wondering how the court would rule if your password contained information that would incriminate you in a different crime.
For example, if your password was: "my_murder_victim_is_buried_under_my_patio" or "I_embezzeled_20million_into_account_123456789", wouldn't revealing the password violate your right against self-incrimination (at least in the US)?
I doubt this service will last since the majority of customers are going to be too busy downloading music to spend time clicking ads.
Ads work well when people viewing those pages are interested in the topic, and might want more information, or details on how to buy the items, (or similar items), discussed on the page. With this scheme, they are interested in downloading music, which they are already doing. So how are the ads going to appeal to them? Especially considering that they are interested in free music.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think customs is what keeps things slow - it was slowing people down so traffic at the pier isn't impossible.
Customs for me, (after a Caribbean cruise), was walking by a drug dog without slowing down, grabbing "checked" luggage from a holding area, (they picked up luggage outside your room the night before), and handing a form to the customs agent. The agent didn't even look at the form - they just grabbed them as people walked by. Total time at "customs" was less than 5 seconds.
Time to wait for the shuttle to the long-term parking - 5 minutes since we caught it just right - it took about 30 minutes for it to do a round trip for another group. Time to wait for a cab after another cruise was 30-40 minutes.
$500k seems a little low for an entire load of Apple products.
Even at a single level deep, (no stacking), you could get about 300 iMacs on a trailer. Call it 15 wide and about 20 deep. If it was laptops, this would be higher - call it 20 wide and 25 deep, for 500 total. Call it a mix of both and we get about 400 units. If we call it an average of $1k each, this is already $400k. Since the lowest retail on these products is about $1k, I figure calling the average value $1k is close enough.
Now, if we start stacking systems 2 or 3 high, and throwing in iPods and accessories with a higher cost/volume ratio, you were probably rolling with well over $1 million in Apple products. Now, that's just a guess, but probably a reasonable estimate.
I would encourage you to read up on nuclear power - while a lot of what you are saying is true, it really doesn't capture the reality of the situation.
1. No, nuclear, by itself, is not carbon neutral. However, neither is any other alternative energy. However, when you have the extra electrical power, you can construct "factories" that will scrub the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Now, we might not have the political will to carry it out, but nuclear alone is still way better than what we have now.
2. Fast breeder reactors can run on our current nuclear waste and the waste from those reactors doesn't last nearly as long. So we get to reduce the amount of waste and what's left doesn't last as long. The reason we don't use them is that reprocessing can create weapons-grade plutonium. Again, this is a political issue instead of a technological one.
3. With today's "wasteful" reactors using Uranium-235 it is estimated between 80 and 300 years. If we use breeder reactors so we can use U-238 and Thorium, it can be billions of years at current energy levels.
4. If necessary, fuel can be extracted from sea water making it a moot point.
5. There is also a peak in the evening when everyone turns on lights and TVs. Also, winter means a lot less sunlight in many populated areas so more demand for lighting and heating.
6. Moving power around might help, but there are just too many hours when power is needed and solar isn't available. Also, cloudy days affect production and can't be planned around. Limiting solar farms to areas with minimal cloud cover means increased losses from transport.
7. Nuclear doesn't have to be renewable if we have a few billion years, (or even a few million), years available. If we can assume a technology level that can protect us from extinction due to an asteroid or comet in that time period, we can assume a technology level that can mine the moon, mars or asteroids for more nuclear material.
While nuclear has its problems, they are really political instead of technological. I really hope we get past our fears of nuclear power so we have a chance of keeping our planet habitable for humans.
Well... they might see your address or account number or whatever, but most password fields are masked with asterisks.
Yes, but if the website had you type it in, your keylogger got the keystrokes. If they had you click on a virtual keyboard, then the screen capture would show your mouse over that letter. In these cases, the asterisks don't help you.
What about using something like VMWare? Fire it up with your favorite OS. Do your important browsing. Shut it down.
Unfortunately, if you don't reset your VM image each time, then you have the same problem as running your LiveCD for an extended period of time. If your VM is compromised, then it remains compromised the next time you use it.
Unfortunately, there are also key loggers that will do screen captures as well. If the attackers find they are unable to capture your password after you type "www.mybank.com", they can activate the screen capture capability the next time you visit that site. Sure, it takes more storage, and longer to transmit to the attacker, but if you haven't discovered you have a key logger, you won't notice the image files.
Once your system has been compromised, you can't assume anything. That's why Knoppix, or any other LiveCD, is a good idea when you want the added security. Since the media is fixed, even if you get compromised, it goes away when you reboot. However, if you are using a LiveCD, don't leave your machine running for days on end, or you could get compromised. Boot up, do what you have to do, and shut down. Sure, that's a bit paranoid, but it isn't paranoia if someone is actually out to get you.
Well, it may be a typo, but the keys are like right next to each other.
From the article on maglev trains...
Maglev proponents argue that it is easier to maintain--most designs do not include wheels, transmissions, brakes or axles, thus reducing the need for repairs. "Engineers joke that the only moving parts are the doors," says Richard Thornton, MagneMotion's CEO.
From the article on the wind turbine...
It would also increase generation capacity by 20% over conventional wind turbines and decrease operational costs by 50%.
Bearings have to be inspected, maintained and eventually replaced which gets to be fairly expensive. Consider how long does it would take for someone to climb the tower, inspect every moving part, and then request/perform maintenance and repairs.
See xkcd for your answer.
If you don't know every gory detail then how can you make intelligent decisions on where to spend your budget? Sure, you can learn the basics of quantum mechanics, but that doesn't make you qualified to determine how money should be spent for experiments. The same holds true here. You might have an idea that you should have firewalls, IDSes, updated systems, anti-everything, physical security, an employee training program, etc. However, you can't have it all - it would be too expensive in terms of time and money. So, how do you decide? If you don't know the gory details, you can't. OK - you can; but you'll probably spend your money on the wrong things.
This is, is it not, pretty elementary stuff?
It really depends on who you are...
I suppose someone who has a Ph.D. in physics would say that quantum mechanics is pretty elementary stuff. The problem here is that you are assuming everyone who is in charge of a network has the knowledge, background and experience to understand security. Most don't. Many who think they do - don't. There is so much to keep track of that it's a full-time job just to keep up with the attackers. If you have a lot of other work to do, you probably aren't keeping current in every area you need to. That's why there are security experts who get paid a lot of money to help secure systems and networks.
Actually, not only is the "generally accepted" U.S. debt higher than that, there is a second set of "books" that shows the debt to be much, much higher.
I have saved games from Baldur's Gate (I and II) and Neverwinter Nights I. I would have them for NWN 2, but they dramatically increased the size of the save file - around 100MB if I remember right.
I like having saves for multiple points throughout the game so I can replay certain sections or quests if I really enjoyed them and I like to have the option to skip the annoyance of being a low level wizard with almost no hit points.
I don't know how much of a value I would put on the saved games - probably $20 or something. I see it more as a fun thing to have when I want it and not a real need or desire.
If you really want tortured logic, you should see the Unified Theory of Existence - it proves that creationism, intelligent design and evolution are only pieces of the puzzle. The truth is much bigger.
They should be relieved it was so cheap to fix.
I have to disagree. If I am spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a building, I expect it to work. At the very least, I would want my $15 million back from the architects. The architects were hired to design a building - the design doesn't work - so they shouldn't be paid. If you hired someone to landscape your yard, and it turned into a river of mud after the first rain, wouldn't you want your money back?
Sure, to MIT $1.5 million isn't that bad. However, to say they should be relieved they only have to spend that much, (so far), is a little extreme.
I believe most tracking software creates a separate partition that would survive a standard reinstall, but not a complete reformatting of the disk.
What I think would be very effective would be a laptop, created explicitly for businesses, that would implement the tracking system in hardware. If you added it to the integrated wireless networking, you wouldn't be able to shut it off, and you could track it whenever you needed to. If you are concerned about battery life, you could allow someone to shut it off, but have it wake-up every few hours just to check in. When it checks in, if it's labeled as stolen, the networking stays on, allowing for constant tracking.
There are some privacy concerns with a tracking device that can't be turned off, but that's why I said it would be explicitly for businesses, (or people who want that feature explicitly). For many businesses, the loss of privacy is less important that the ability to track their assets.
Well, if you consider a guillotine in context, it is actually a good thing. Prior to the guillotine, executions were done by hanging, or by using an axe - and a guillotine is a much more humane approach.
In hanging, if the drop was too short, you would slowly suffocate to death instead of getting a broken neck. When using a headsman and an axe, it wasn't that uncommon for the headsman to "miss" and require multiple blows to actually remove the head. With a guillotine, you guarantee a fast, relatively painless death.
So, in that context, a guillotine is a good invention. Now, it gets a bad name for "speeding up the execution process", which allows for more executions to take place, but it is still probably better than hiring 20 peasants with axes to help out. I doubt those condemned to die would be let go just because they didn't have enough rope, or enough people to swing an axe.
Actually, the biggest difference is that the entire state didn't lose all of its infrastructure like Louisiana did. This meant that emergency workers could still communicate, emergency supplies could be delivered and plans could be put in place and executed.
People have been predicting that we'd run out of item X by time Y for hundreds of years. The reason we don't is because (as you said) when supply dwindles, there is incentive to find news supplies and substitutes.
However, just because there have always been enough incentive, ingenuity and advancements to solve our problems, or replace item X, doesn't mean that this will always be the case. That's like saying: "I've always been able to swim across any body of water I've come across, so I'll always be able to do it in the future." It might be fine - until you reach the ocean. There are always limits to how far you can push your luck, or how many lucky breaks you can get.
When oil becomes expensive enough, alternative fuel use will become so desirable that an efficient solution will present itself.
First, we can't know this. Second, even if there is an efficient solution, that doesn't mean we will be able to deploy it in a timely fashion. If most people assume something will come along before it's too late - they won't worry about it and won't dedicate the resources required to avoid the situation - and it will become too late. As an example, look at NASA. They don't want to continue with the Shuttle program, but they don't have an alternative space vehicle yet because they weren't given the resources early enough. Now there will be years between the Shuttle retirement and deployment of its succesor - Project Constellation. How do we know we can avoid this same situation when it comes to oil. Short answer - We can't.
I'm guessing it could be made into a larger fiber, but I don't think it would make any sense to do so.
Since this is solar power, any of the nano-fibers that are inside the larger fiber wouldn't generate any power since they wouldn't receive any light. Also, I'm guessing that there would be problems "lining up" the different layers of the nano-fibers resulting in some sort of short in the system. Another question I have is, dealing with this small scale, does the internal resistance in the wire cause scalability issues? Would a 1m long wire burn itself out instantly?
While Mario may lose to Santa, he easily beats Rudolph, who is also credited with saving Christmas.
You can look up weather data from the NOAA National Severe Storms Lab. They maintain the data from 1933 - present. You look up the station name, select a date range and you get the information.
The data is available here - just select "Online Data Access" from the menu.
From the Dictionary widget on my MacBook...
cent: ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [a hundred]):from French cent , Italian cento , or Latin centum 'hundred.'
I was wondering how the court would rule if your password contained information that would incriminate you in a different crime.
For example, if your password was: "my_murder_victim_is_buried_under_my_patio" or "I_embezzeled_20million_into_account_123456789", wouldn't revealing the password violate your right against self-incrimination (at least in the US)?
What if someone is looking for information on spam?
Which spam would that be:
I doubt this service will last since the majority of customers are going to be too busy downloading music to spend time clicking ads.
Ads work well when people viewing those pages are interested in the topic, and might want more information, or details on how to buy the items, (or similar items), discussed on the page. With this scheme, they are interested in downloading music, which they are already doing. So how are the ads going to appeal to them? Especially considering that they are interested in free music.