My point isn't about the maturity of the technology, it's about the short-sightedness of military expenditure on R&D.
We spent hundreds of billions expensively trying to get Stealth technology working quickly based on a cold war mentality and now that it is working we have absolutely no use for it in the "war on terror". Now however, the urgent rush is to get autonomous vehicles working, but it's a sure bet that by the time they are working, the "war on terror" will be over and autonomous vehicles will be not worth a fraction of the R&D spent dealing against whatever new threats.
Military spending needs to be more long-term based. At the moment, laser defense research is being slashed to make way for autonomous vehicles (largely due to politics of course as it's mainly overseas firms specialise in lasers and such defense tech) but I bet you in 20 years time, the lasers would have far more applications than a bunch of autonomous backup vehicles.
Of course I use that example as just an example, defense spending in general needs to be more long-term based and less politicized!...this is where China's military is really starting to take the lead over us.
Funny how everyone believes the Government has limitless disk space to record every phone call, email and conversation at your local bar, yet companies like Google, who own huge chunks of the world's recording hardware, can't afford to keep the data.
Such information is far more valuable to corporations than it is to the government (alien spec-ops aside) so if you think the government may be snooping on your private data, then it has to be a complete certainty that companies like Google are!
Although I doubt anyone will care until Will Smith does a couple of films involving being chased by "Google goons" because he has a copy of the youtube video involving Larry Page and an under-age midget!
While robot marines and autonomous machines such as the ones displayed will help the army maintain technological strength over the long-term, I can't help but wonder if they are wasting A LOT of our money. If you look at the hundreds of billions which has been spent on Stealth technology over the past couple of decades, it is pretty impossible to claim even a fraction of that amount has transferred into actual military value.
The fact of the matter is that that in most situtations (the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars being good examples) that Stealth technology is all but pointless because there is no need for it (i.e. enemy anti-air infrastructure has already been destroyed). Even the few of occasions it has been used though (e.g. the Bosnian war and exercises) the stealth technology has only worked part of the time. If you remember in the Bosnian war, stealth aircraft were still able to be shot down, and that was using cold-war era Russian equipment not even designed to combat stealth aircraft.
It isn't difficult to envisage in 10 years time the army neglecting their robotics as almost useless, in the same way most of the hundreds of billions spent on stealth technology is being disregarded as almost useless in "the war on terror".
I bet Lockhead Martin and the other defense contractors aren't complaining though, our tax dollars keep their industry a highly paid one!
Surely the privacy issue only comes about if that information is misused. Otherwise its just some security person looking at thousands of anonymous pixels moving about.
Privacy is a policy issue, not a technological one.
As someone who also plays guitar I have found the internet extremely useful for downloading sheet music (TABs).
This seems like a good thing, of course, but on the other hand before I started using the internet I would learn songs by just jamming for hours and hours with friends. Jamming sessions required organization, traveling and effort, but it was the only way we could learn new songs so we did it and we would improvise the bits no one knew and end up creating some pretty awesome music (IMO, although probably no one elses). Nowadays the need is no longer there and as a result I (and I suspect many guitarists) no longer jam nearly as much. Of course when we do show up, we now know the songs better because we will have emailed each other a link to the TAB but I definitely think we are somewhat less "creative" as a result so I think Elton Jon has a point.
It seems to me therefore that the internet is probably both a help and a hindrance to music creativity.
Fox does seems to particularly encourage this sort of sensationalist reporting though.
Pretty much all the channels are getting worse in focusing on simply on viewer ratings rather than reporting of the news-worthy stories in a factual matter but it is pretty hard not to see Fox as the leader of the pack in this degradation of serious journalism.
This is the news organization which devoted several days to live coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith court case after all!
That is pretty much what the THESEUS program is! Lots of academic and institutional research groups with centrally coordinated goals and objectives.
From the about page of the THESEUS website http://theseus-programm.de/about_theseus: "At the current time, 31 research institutions, universities, and companies have joined the THESEUS program with planned projects. The industrial and public research partners are cooperating closely."
It appears this project was mainly requested by German industry and from the website seems that it will closely involve industry. It's quite funny though how the story submitter and many commenters here have twisted the facts to make the project sound as socialist as possible!
The story should really fit the facts though rather than the facts fitting the story!
You can argue the toss about the actual code base, but if it's being sold as XP Professsional, that's all that is relevant.
As the post you replied to stated, technical implication issues are beside the point. The iPhone "says on the box" that it works with Windows XP and Vista when actually it doesn't work with 2 common versions of these products.
The XP x64 version has been out for over 2 years now so they can hardly blame the OS's immaturity either.
"And for shows which they don't own; why did they agree to such poor licensing that they can't distribute via the internet ?"
Ummm maybe you should try getting a media company to sell you there show knowing it will be broadcast unrestricted over the internet. It is the sort of thing which gives media executives nightmares!
"the BBC is effectively a government agency because if you own a device capable of receiving a terrestrial broadcast
The same could be said about cable TV companies or phone companies in most places. The BBC is no more of a government agency than any of them really. So if we are going to apply that sort of level of scrutiny to the BBC (i.e. the British Broadcasting Corporation) than all other media corporations must also be subjected to that same level of scrutiny.
While I am all for that, the BBC is currently far more open than any other major news / media corporation.
More conveniently, you can capture it in a big tank and use it for flushing toilets and watering the garden. We get most of the water for the garden from rainwater. Environmentally friendly (water wastage is in my environmentalists' opinions a much bigger problem than electricity wastage) and saves a few dollars on the water bill.
Re:It's good to see ...
on
ISS Goes Solar
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'd like to know the realistic reasons why solar power isn't far more prevalent as a source of power generation, particularly on a local/household scale. Why are solar panels still so expensive?
Well Bush's lack of geographic knowledge is pretty well known. He probably thinks Poland is an island somewhere in the pacific between North Korea and the USA.
Surrounded by his yes-men, no-one has yet worked up the courage to point out his mistake.
How has such a discussion got anything to do with science or technology and therefore why is it even on slashdot? - supposedly a site featuring "news for nerds, stuff that matters".
For nerds, such international politics are irrelevant and belong on mainstream news sites (CNN, Msnbc etc.) NOT SLASHDOT!
There are plenty of technology orientated stories out there today but instead this gets put on. It shows what Slashdot has become: "news for wannabe nerds".
"The problem is that even if a prove exists that Warhammer is bugfree, it is VERY VERY difficult to produce that prove, so testing is the only realistic option. (And then there are all the other software Warhammer depend on, such as Windows and Gfx drivers)."
Sorry, that's what I meant, even the stuff within their control can only be verified through detailed application-specific examination and then there's all the stuff they can't predict (e.g. closed-source/unreleased drivers). Looking back at my post now, I guess "to be inherently predicted" is not a very meaningful expression at all.
Good luck with your Program Verification exam, I did a similar exam last year which I only just passed; probably due to unintelligible expressions like the one I gave above:|
Although 10 people is a pathetically small sample, "finding 10 people at the corner starbucks" would imho be preferable to the current article research methodology which seems to be to give a link to a poll/vote and then use the results as "scientific evidence".
The bias of such polls is ridiculous, the fundamental problem is that in many cases people will only bother to vote if they have a strong political (for want of a better word) view on the matter. For example, an online poll asking the article's question may be responded to by thousands, but probably mostly by people wishing for 256k music (for whatever reason), people wanting DRM-free music or people objecting to paying hundreds of bucks for headphones. The people who have listened to both samples with both headphones and answering truthfully would probably only be a tiny fraction (as probably evidenced by the downloads numbering less than the votes!).
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of bugs are specific to system configuration. Developers want tens of thousands or preferably even hundreds of thousands of beta testers mainly so that (nearly) all system configurations can be tested. By beta testing software you are not "working for free", you are instead confirming that the software runs bug-free on your particular system setup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_halting_problemTh e Halting Problem proves that it is impossible for all errors to be inherently predicted and therefore bug-free operation relies on the software having been tested on every configuration to ensure it works with every configuration.
I bet your also one of those people who moans about bugs in software yet never submits bug reports, claiming "it's not your job". As a customer, you can't have it both ways, either you have to put up with bugs or help developers out. A lot of games get cancelled these days, and fear of widespread bugs causing customer dissatisfaction is one of the main reasons publishers cancel games!
Slashdot Mirror
"All it will take would be the change of a config file or two, and the government can censor whatever it pleases."
Ignoring the complete lack of technical insight behind this statement, why exactly would the Australian Government want to do this?
No paranoid delusions please.
My point isn't about the maturity of the technology, it's about the short-sightedness of military expenditure on R&D.
...this is where China's military is really starting to take the lead over us.
We spent hundreds of billions expensively trying to get Stealth technology working quickly based on a cold war mentality and now that it is working we have absolutely no use for it in the "war on terror". Now however, the urgent rush is to get autonomous vehicles working, but it's a sure bet that by the time they are working, the "war on terror" will be over and autonomous vehicles will be not worth a fraction of the R&D spent dealing against whatever new threats.
Military spending needs to be more long-term based. At the moment, laser defense research is being slashed to make way for autonomous vehicles (largely due to politics of course as it's mainly overseas firms specialise in lasers and such defense tech) but I bet you in 20 years time, the lasers would have far more applications than a bunch of autonomous backup vehicles.
Of course I use that example as just an example, defense spending in general needs to be more long-term based and less politicized!
Funny how everyone believes the Government has limitless disk space to record every phone call, email and conversation at your local bar, yet companies like Google, who own huge chunks of the world's recording hardware, can't afford to keep the data.
Such information is far more valuable to corporations than it is to the government (alien spec-ops aside) so if you think the government may be snooping on your private data, then it has to be a complete certainty that companies like Google are!
Although I doubt anyone will care until Will Smith does a couple of films involving being chased by "Google goons" because he has a copy of the youtube video involving Larry Page and an under-age midget!
While robot marines and autonomous machines such as the ones displayed will help the army maintain technological strength over the long-term, I can't help but wonder if they are wasting A LOT of our money. If you look at the hundreds of billions which has been spent on Stealth technology over the past couple of decades, it is pretty impossible to claim even a fraction of that amount has transferred into actual military value.
The fact of the matter is that that in most situtations (the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars being good examples) that Stealth technology is all but pointless because there is no need for it (i.e. enemy anti-air infrastructure has already been destroyed). Even the few of occasions it has been used though (e.g. the Bosnian war and exercises) the stealth technology has only worked part of the time. If you remember in the Bosnian war, stealth aircraft were still able to be shot down, and that was using cold-war era Russian equipment not even designed to combat stealth aircraft.
It isn't difficult to envisage in 10 years time the army neglecting their robotics as almost useless, in the same way most of the hundreds of billions spent on stealth technology is being disregarded as almost useless in "the war on terror".
I bet Lockhead Martin and the other defense contractors aren't complaining though, our tax dollars keep their industry a highly paid one!
Why?
Surely the privacy issue only comes about if that information is misused. Otherwise its just some security person looking at thousands of anonymous pixels moving about.
Privacy is a policy issue, not a technological one.
As someone who also plays guitar I have found the internet extremely useful for downloading sheet music (TABs).
This seems like a good thing, of course, but on the other hand before I started using the internet I would learn songs by just jamming for hours and hours with friends. Jamming sessions required organization, traveling and effort, but it was the only way we could learn new songs so we did it and we would improvise the bits no one knew and end up creating some pretty awesome music (IMO, although probably no one elses). Nowadays the need is no longer there and as a result I (and I suspect many guitarists) no longer jam nearly as much. Of course when we do show up, we now know the songs better because we will have emailed each other a link to the TAB but I definitely think we are somewhat less "creative" as a result so I think Elton Jon has a point.
It seems to me therefore that the internet is probably both a help and a hindrance to music creativity.
RTFA!
This has absolutely nothing to do with music piracy!
Fox does seems to particularly encourage this sort of sensationalist reporting though.
Pretty much all the channels are getting worse in focusing on simply on viewer ratings rather than reporting of the news-worthy stories in a factual matter but it is pretty hard not to see Fox as the leader of the pack in this degradation of serious journalism.
This is the news organization which devoted several days to live coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith court case after all!
That is pretty much what the THESEUS program is! Lots of academic and institutional research groups with centrally coordinated goals and objectives.
From the about page of the THESEUS website http://theseus-programm.de/about_theseus:
"At the current time, 31 research institutions, universities, and companies have joined the THESEUS program with planned projects. The industrial and public research partners are cooperating closely."
It appears this project was mainly requested by German industry and from the website seems that it will closely involve industry. It's quite funny though how the story submitter and many commenters here have twisted the facts to make the project sound as socialist as possible!
The story should really fit the facts though rather than the facts fitting the story!
L.A. would be a great city if it didn't have so much air pollution. It's Probably the main reason I stopped living there.
Abuse of Presidential position? oh well, but what exactly does it have to do with anything tech related?
As the post you replied to stated, technical implication issues are beside the point. The iPhone "says on the box" that it works with Windows XP and Vista when actually it doesn't work with 2 common versions of these products.
The XP x64 version has been out for over 2 years now so they can hardly blame the OS's immaturity either.
"And for shows which they don't own; why did they agree to such poor licensing that they can't distribute via the internet ?"
Ummm maybe you should try getting a media company to sell you there show knowing it will be broadcast unrestricted over the internet. It is the sort of thing which gives media executives nightmares!
"the BBC is effectively a government agency because if you own a device capable of receiving a terrestrial broadcast
The same could be said about cable TV companies or phone companies in most places. The BBC is no more of a government agency than any of them really. So if we are going to apply that sort of level of scrutiny to the BBC (i.e. the British Broadcasting Corporation) than all other media corporations must also be subjected to that same level of scrutiny.
While I am all for that, the BBC is currently far more open than any other major news / media corporation.
In the UK at least, they do hold their value extremely well though. This offsets their initial high price.
More conveniently, you can capture it in a big tank and use it for flushing toilets and watering the garden. We get most of the water for the garden from rainwater. Environmentally friendly (water wastage is in my environmentalists' opinions a much bigger problem than electricity wastage) and saves a few dollars on the water bill.
I'd like to know the realistic reasons why solar power isn't far more prevalent as a source of power generation, particularly on a local/household scale. Why are solar panels still so expensive?
Unfortunately voting won't do very much.
...and because the industry has contributed to the campaign funds of most congressmen"
"Will Congress let us do it?" Whitacre asks his colleagues. "You bet they will -- cuz we don't call it cashin' in. We call it 'deregulation.' "
The part he neglected to add is "
Voting do matter but unfortunatly, these days, money matters even more on Capitol Hill. 1 vote = 1 vote, campaign funds = a whole bunch load of votes.
LOL, if I had mod points you would have a definite "+1 Funny".
The sad thing is, I bet your right.
Well Bush's lack of geographic knowledge is pretty well known. He probably thinks Poland is an island somewhere in the pacific between North Korea and the USA.
Surrounded by his yes-men, no-one has yet worked up the courage to point out his mistake.
How has such a discussion got anything to do with science or technology and therefore why is it even on slashdot? - supposedly a site featuring "news for nerds, stuff that matters".
For nerds, such international politics are irrelevant and belong on mainstream news sites (CNN, Msnbc etc.) NOT SLASHDOT!
There are plenty of technology orientated stories out there today but instead this gets put on. It shows what Slashdot has become: " news for wannabe nerds ".
"If someone did it today, we'd call them terrorists."
Only if the terrorist's side lost. If their side won, they'd be called hero's.
That's just the way history works.
"The problem is that even if a prove exists that Warhammer is bugfree, it is VERY VERY difficult to produce that prove, so testing is the only
:|
realistic option. (And then there are all the other software Warhammer depend on, such as Windows and Gfx drivers)."
Sorry, that's what I meant, even the stuff within their control can only be verified through detailed application-specific examination and then there's all the stuff they can't predict (e.g. closed-source/unreleased drivers). Looking back at my post now, I guess "to be inherently predicted" is not a very meaningful expression at all.
Good luck with your Program Verification exam, I did a similar exam last year which I only just passed; probably due to unintelligible expressions like the one I gave above
"The new standard for research methodology"
Although 10 people is a pathetically small sample, "finding 10 people at the corner starbucks" would imho be preferable to the current article research methodology which seems to be to give a link to a poll/vote and then use the results as "scientific evidence".
The bias of such polls is ridiculous, the fundamental problem is that in many cases people will only bother to vote if they have a strong political (for want of a better word) view on the matter. For example, an online poll asking the article's question may be responded to by thousands, but probably mostly by people wishing for 256k music (for whatever reason), people wanting DRM-free music or people objecting to paying hundreds of bucks for headphones. The people who have listened to both samples with both headphones and answering truthfully would probably only be a tiny fraction (as probably evidenced by the downloads numbering less than the votes!).
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of bugs are specific to system configuration. Developers want tens of thousands or preferably even hundreds of thousands of beta testers mainly so that (nearly) all system configurations can be tested. By beta testing software you are not "working for free", you are instead confirming that the software runs bug-free on your particular system setup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_halting_problemTh e Halting Problem proves that it is impossible for all errors to be inherently predicted and therefore bug-free operation relies on the software having been tested on every configuration to ensure it works with every configuration.
I bet your also one of those people who moans about bugs in software yet never submits bug reports, claiming "it's not your job". As a customer, you can't have it both ways, either you have to put up with bugs or help developers out. A lot of games get cancelled these days, and fear of widespread bugs causing customer dissatisfaction is one of the main reasons publishers cancel games!