what you could do is embed the actual cable in something hollow, like some flexible conduit or pvc pipe.
You mean like this?:
Or it could be threaded through an outer cladding (think 'garden hose') so it can slide back and forth under slight tension between 1km "reservoir" loops.
Instead of laying the cable in a straight line, you lay it in S-shapes. Big S-shapes. That way, there's LOTS of slack, say 500% slack, for the ice sheet movement.
You're assuming a smooth frictionless surface.
Rather the Antartic terrain is a chaotic one full of swells and dales, cliffs and chasms. It may look "smooth" from far away but up close it's as rich a terrain as any more temperate one. There are wide smoothish plains but they're not the rule any more then North America is all prarie, and the same as other places there are innumerable small features even in the great expanses.
Furthermore any object on the surface will soon sink due to solar warming leaving it tightly locked in for much of it's length. What doesn't slide downhill or with the wind will soon be set in place as if it had been encased in concrete; unfortunately parts of this concrete are moving at different slow rates. Sure long sections will be regularly exposed due to local conditions, winds, etc. but I'm guessing at the end of 12 month at least 50% of any cable would be embedded and 75%+ after the second summer.
the stretching issue can be solved by laying the fiber in an S-curve.
You're assuming a smooth frictionless surface.
Rather the Antartic terrain is a chaotic one full of swells and dales, cliffs and chasms. It may look "smooth" from far away but up close it's as rich a terrain as any more temperate one. There are wide smoothish plains but they're not the rule any more then North America is all prarie, and the same as other places there are innumerable small features even in the great expanses.
Furthermore any object on the surface will soon sink due to solar warming leaving it tightly locked in for much of it's length. What doesn't slide downhill or with the wind will soon be set in place as if it had been encased in concrete; unfortunately parts of this concrete are moving at different slow rates. Sure long sections will be regularly exposed due to local conditions, winds, etc. but I'm guessing at the end of 12 month at least 50% of any cable would be embedded and 75%+ after the second summer.
Or, I could be completely off-base and you've just won yourself a contract.
Lovely solution, just one problem: They don't stay put.
Sure over the equator they can orbit at the same rate the planet rotates and so appear "fixed" but that only works over that narrow ecliptic. Instead to cover extreme N. & S. latitudes one needs sats on a much more inclined orbit and then they're out of sight much of the time, a dozen or so would be required to provide continuous coverage. That means a couple of expensive launches, a serious of expensive sats, and of course their own-going management (course-corrections, problem resolution, etc.)
Radio Repeaters
Why not build a series of microwave repeaters or such, bring the cable to the shore then broadcast the rest of the way? A couple of reasons:
Putting in place that many repeater stations across the Antarctic would be difficult. They'd need to be tall, durable (in super-cold weather), well-anchored, and able to compensate for slowly moving stations.
Getting back to them to fix any problems would be well nigh impossible much of the year so lots of redundancy, increased complexity, etc.
Where's the power to come from? There isn't any local grid to plug in to and as the Canadians & Siberians will attest running long power lines across extreme latitudes is difficult (no grounding, lots of electromagnetic effects from aural storms, etc.) Solar won't work for a few months a year plus there's the buildup problem, burning hydrocarbons wouldn't be allowed plus would require regular refueling, and radiothermal seems very unlikely.
Fiberoptic Cable
Yes fiber isn't the most robust material on its own. On the other hand it can be clad in all sorts of super-durable materials to protect it.
To protect from stretching the fiber might be coiled inside an outer cladding so it's 2x or 3x as long as required. Or it could be threaded through an outer cladding (think 'garden hose') so it can slide back and forth under slight tension between 1km "reservoir" loops.
Of course there's still the problem of powering the repeaters, but then that's why this contract is out there: To get folks interested in solving the problem.
Years ago I lived with a sweetheart and a room-mate. We all worked in tech and none of us in positions that ever saw anything "produced". In my case the job was basic drudgery, in their's they were Engineers at Wang who had every project they worked on cancelled in it's last month (and folks were suprised when Wang foundered!)
Thus we used to all enjoy making dinner and actually enjoyed doing dishes, were happy to see at least one visible accomplishment in our day. Pile of dirty dishes - 20 minutes later a nice shiny stack of clean ones. It was sad but it was the only thing we could do and point at and say "I did that!" and feel good about.
I've any number of friends who have/had resturaunts, or guest houses, and all of those other "I'd chuck it all to..." business. In my case they're in Vermont and Provincetown and Ogunquit and al of them agree: It looked better from the outside. They too work unreasonable hours and can't take vacations and work always comes home with them...
Tech isn't the be-all/end-all but if you're a go-getter you'll be gotten in any kinda job. If you're looking to stop and smell the flowers you can do that anytime - there's nothing magic about working in anything/anywhere. Heck my landscaper makes the exact same complaints and he's out in the sun all day, planting flowers, charging buckets to run a crew of leafblowers (yes, I've said "no" to that particular horror.)
Running off to find one's self in a new career, a new place, and new life, always seems to involve one problem: It's still you. Go ahead and go for the change if you think it's gonna make you happy but don't think it's gonna change you. That stuff comes from inside and doesn't directly relate to the outside.
If cooking crepes and serving them on heavy plates all day really does give you a kick, if you really want the lovely cottage and the endless loads of laundry your guests will generate, if spending all day leaning over the potters wheel to make the 1000'th identical syrup pourer is really your kick then go for it.
But remember, half of those folks would chuck it in for a cushy job in an office park with a keyboard and juice vending machine down the hall.
"
I've wanted to make an IMAX movie for the last 10 or 12 years, I'm thrilled with what I'm seeing in the transposition."
"Howard says he will be involved in all creative aspects of the conversion, including reframing images to fit screens as large as eight stories high and 120 feet wide."
For those concerned about image quality a few thoughts:
Many of the digital images in Apollo 13 are being re-rendered for this new release. Likely the true is same for the CGI in Lion King.
Where the source material isn't digital and isn't photographic but animation cels it may be reasonable to go back and re-scan them. Or it is likely that companies like Disney had some foresight and did super-high resolution scans early in their production process and those can now be transferred to the IMAX stock.
Finally, and this was explained to me at a party several months ago in Toronto, IMAX was apparently looking into creating composite images from multiple film frames to enhance the detail on each. Thus even though each 35mm frame only has 1/10th the resolution of an IMAX frame the series of these in a scene can be digitally massaged up to comparable quality.
Lastly note that these are IMAX-releases, not the same cuts as have been released before. The same as Cinemascope and other like large formats don't translate well to the small-screen or often even other projection-process screens it is doubtful material intended for today's conventionial screens would be visually appropriate on the super-size IMAX ones without rework.
"
Howard says he will be involved in all creative aspects of the conversion, including reframing images to fit screens as large as eight stories high and 120 feet wide."
"If heads are eight stories big, an actor could have a pimple and it will be the size of a Volkswagen," says Tom Hanks, who plays astronaut Jim Lovell in
the movie."
Frankly few if any Wintel apps do version-checking as part of the install. They install then check if there are any newer components, updates, whatever.
This makes sense from a managing-customer-expectations view: They likely want a working copy now and they (and you!) don't want to be involved in getting online, finding out it's stale software, long downloads, corrupted downloads, etc. Let the installer install, that's nasty enough.
Many apps offer a menu option that fires off a URL event for update-checking. The web-browser opens up the page and there you are. Some applications are clever and fire off a URL event with the version number already encoded so you get your version-check right away, automatigically answer is there more or not. Others make you look up your own version number and then figure out what your choices are. And some take the opportunity to include the serial number and such "for the record."
An alternative is a polite version checker that (with permission!) automatically checks for updates every so often, say two weeks, or on demand. If there's no new version it quietly shuts down and nobody was disturbed. Or if it was a manual check it gives a nothing-new response. If there is something new it gives a response and supplies a link to the appropriate web-page/download/whatever.
Of course any such transaction should be well documented and easily interpreted so folks know exactly what is being 'phoned home' and don't start getting the willies. This may mean a larger transaction then strictly neccessary but keeping it human-interpretable is likely valuable in a suspicious world.
So with all of that said I'd like to point folks to one existing implementation: Simple Internet Version Control Protocol. I've no connection whatsoever with it beyond having a product or two on my machine that use it but it's always seemed to me to be a well-thought-out bit of code and after 7 years of in-production-use likely well-tested. Oh, and I may have met the author years ago (Chris, were you @neu.edu?)
It does version-control, also does anonymous user counts, it's free in all senses, there's code examples, etc. Here's their summary:
The Simple Internet Version Control protocol (SIVC - pronounced "civic") is a system intended to help people on the Internet keep their software up-to-date, while providing software developers with good estimations of their products' Internet user bases. While interesting to all developers, these estimations are particularly useful to developers of public domain, freeware and shareware products since the size of a product's user base is often a major factor in justifying continued development. In addition, SIVC can reduce product support demands, and improve user experiences, by helping to ensure that users have current versions of their SIVC-equipped software.
MacWorld was a Boston event from the start. Every August it would roll into town as the biggest thing in that deadest month. But Boston's three convention centers (Hynes, Bayside, WTC-Boston) were small, and far apart, and MacWorld didn't like that (neither did DECWorld years ago but they rented ships to supplement services - that was style!)
So MacWorld pulled out of Boston and went to NYC. This was a blow as not only was MacWorld a big thing in Boston but NYC is the perennial rival. The MacWorld move was one of the big kicks in getting Boston's new mega-convention center built.
Now Boston's new mega-convention center is 1/2 way built and it's got a dozen shows booked. For the next decade! They're even talking about shutting down the one of the old convention centers to drive business to the new one (this is possible in Boston - reality has nothing to do with this it's patronage and appearance, the fellow in charge has the job for life anyway.)
So getting MacWorld back would be a coup for Boston. Not only would it come back from the evil NYC but it would return to the new convention center to show that at last the facilities weren't too small, Boston could hold a biiig convention. Boston would likely be willing to cut all kinds of deal for that industry news as well as to quell the local critics.
The MacWorld folks would likely be happy too. Javits is usuriously expensive and nasty nasty nasty to work with. I used to work trade shows years ago and nothing was worse then Javits. Extortion, unbelievably bad service, wrecked displays, fees and costs and hassles for everything
Apple would likely be OK with going back to Boston. There's more educational and high-tech customers in Boston, more media and advertising in NYC, both cities have hard-to-crack finance & insurance. It's probably a six-of-one/half-dozen-of-the-other as far as Apple is concerned.
The attendees would likely be as happy to go back to Boston. While it's still expensive it's a far sight cheaper then NYC. The couple-hundred miles further north also help too - Boston in August is less awful then NYC.
Finally, this would be 2004. Aside from Boston's opening date arrangements have doubtless already started being made for NYC. The move from Boston po'd many of the folks involved with it's relatively short notice so I doubt that happening again in reverse - the lesson has likely been learned. I can see this being used as a bargaining tool with Javits and unless they really cut a schu-weet deal I bet Boston will scoop this. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the interested parties on Boston find a way to pay MacWorld to come to Boston just to prove their point.
Apple's windowing API -- and redesigning the user interface such that it conforms to the Apple Aqua guidlines. (That's a tall order, especially considering that much of the Aqua guidlines are incomplete and still being formed.) Currently, StarOffice uses its own interface toolkit, built from the ground up.
I don't think supporting an aqua Look'nFeel would be too hard. OOo already is themable to MacOs9 look (and Windows, OS/2 and XWindows). Look at Tools->Options->OpenOffice.org->View.
Probably all it would take would be a new "theme" for the Toolkit OOo uses. Maybe they would have to extend the theming
Making something look like Aqua doesn't make it work like Aqua, or work with Quartz.
One of the beauties of the Mac OS is that there's a unform, consistant, and universal interface and scratchpad model. IBM pioneered the idea of a standard interface and Apple brought it to the GUI and applications with a vengance.
Not only do the MacOS and applications follow the same behaviors they also allow universal cut-and-paste. Anything you see that's editable on a Mac can be cut-and-pasted anywhere else that is editable and supports the medium (eg no sound-for-text.) Styled text, QuickTime multimedia, everything. This is more thoroughly plumbed then on Windows and certainly more extensive then on X and traditionial Unix applications.
It has always frustrated me when someone puts together a Theme and presents it as being the same as another OS. No. There's more to an interface then window-dressing. Another misbegotten kinda-sorta-looks-like-Aqua (but doesn't use the System Services or Quartz engine etc.) is exactly the sort of half-assed implementation Apple is selling the alternative to. Without a doubt if Apple ships an Apple/Open Office it'll be as high-gloss and thoroughly native as any of the iApps. That they've chosen Java as the platform to work from rather then Cocoa is a "Good Thing" for everyone else.
Yes Java is a completely peer layer in MacOS but it is portable and so anything Apple & Sun produce is instantly applicable to all of the other Open Office platforms (if not as nicely as the Apple implementation - think of this as payback for Apple having really committed to making Java a native portion of their OS.) This will also allow all of those other wonderful Java libraries to be leveraged in a consistant manner and become directly usable by Open Office.
Is this worthwhile for Apple? Yes. They get the only robust MS Office alternative to run suh-weet on their OS, now the best-selling Unix out there. Sun gets a partner in melding Open Office and Java, pusing their jewels out into the marketplace. The Users gets a better GUI on Open Office, one that can build on lots of other work rather then being another home-grown roll-your-own deal. They also get an infusion of all of those new MacOS X (Unix) desktops all using and supporting and developing further Open Office.
Folks - the problem is NOT getting 3rd party clients to talk to proprietary servers. The issue is getting proprietary clients to talk to proprietary servers that then pass messages on to other service's own proprietary servers.
AOL wants you to use AOL's client. That means you see AOL's advertising, get hit up with AOL's promotions, AOL's URL inserted onto your desktop, have AOL's logo burned into your retina, get enticed to use more AOL services, etc. Nowhere is AOL saying these clients are hard to write, just that they want you to use their specific client.
As far as AOL is concerned GAIM & Trillian & Proteuset al are poachers on their territory. Are they hard or easy to write? AOL would like to see that they're as hard as possible as every one of them is adding users to AOL's servers & networks who aren't getting a steady diet of AOL-marketing in return. But, they're not the issue here.
Rather AOL's issue is getting AOL's servers to talk to MSN's & Yahoo's and all of the other's servers. It's about setting up peering access and interoperability standards. Server to server stuff, never client to 3rd-party server, thus keeping the clients safely locked into AOL's own service.
Is that hard? Probably yes. You've got to write something that extracts out material intended for the other services from your own servers, translate it to a standardized format, that format really should include as much common functionality as possible (both for today's features and those anticipated near-term,) transfer this 'universal material' to the appropriate 3rd party services, then do all the same in return and reinsert it locally into a format your own servers & clients find palatable. Along the way you've got to handle all sorts of failure modes, translation issues, directory services, security issues, etc. all on a potentially massive scale with software that was never really architected for outside access.
What's the payback for AOL? More users? AOL's already got the #1 & #2 clients. Every 3rd-party client they enable to reach their customers is another load on their system without much benefit to them (AOLians aren't clamoring nearly as hard to get to MSNers or Yahoolites etc. as those are to connect to AOL!) So yeah, with value down and a dubious payback AOL is unenthused at this project - not surprising.
AOL has had a deal with Novell for their DigitalMe service for a few years now. After announcing a "partnership" years ago AOL has now finally released something with Apple, their new iChat. Word is that AOL is, like all of the other folks in the once booming chat field, looking to go after corporate customers in a bid to make their market penetration pay off now that the whole banner-ad market has imploded. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to sell 10,000 licenses to Colgate-Palmolive then it is to push 1,000,000 ads at jaded chatters.
The various Mac models play a distinctive chord when they start up and a missing note indicates what isn't working. A tech with a good ear can name the model and identify the problem part from listening to the startup blindfolded.
How are we so certain that Macworld won't bring new towers? Use common sense!
Er, howzabout economic sense?
Apple is looking to bump their numbers.
While Apple has weathered this downtown better then almost any other PC manufacturer they did just have a 5%+ layoff in Cupertino, their numbers are down, and things likely won't heat up until late August/September when back-to-school starts (traditionially a strong season for Apple.) So they're trying to push what appears to be their slowest moving boxes - the top-of-the-line ones with the lovely Apple LCD displays. This doesn't require any great insight but just a quick course in modern make-the-books-look-good-for-The-Street management.
Will there be a 17" flat-panel iMac (remember they're still selling the old all-in-1-CRT iMac as well as the 17" eMac)? I hope so - I just advised a buddy to buy an eMac for the extra screen-space & faster processor for only $100 more. On the other hand that arm is a complicated device, there have been complaints about it, and scaling it up to 17" may be a jump Apple's not ready to make so soon.
My own guess? With the announced new graphics pipeline through OpenGL and it's requirement of 32 MB of video RAM I'm betting we'll see that met across the board. But Towers? If they're ready in time; otherwise they may wait 'till late summer. It depends on what other marvels Steve has to trot out and if new towers would get much attention next to those (really they're more-of-the-same-but-faster.)
Hurd is not just a microkernel implementation but also a set of servers running on top of that microkernel providing all sorts of clever services through a unique architectural model. Darwin is also running on a Mach-derived microkernel but it is running a single server in a traditionial model.
Trust me - go invest the 5 minutes to read up on hurd, it's goals and how it is going about meeting them. VERY different from the rest of the field and potentially a revolution if it succeeds.
Oh, and the assumption that there are more drivers for Linux then IOKit? That's changing quickly as MacOS X becomes the dominant consumer Unix.
The older 2nnn series and the new 4nnn series of the Siemens Gigasets all come with 3 AA NiCad batteries. These can be switched out for other batteries if you prefer. This was a big sales feature to us after years of dealing with non-standard battery packs.
I bought 3 4200 handsets and a 4215 basestation/answering machine a few months ago (first US shipment) and have loved them. We did replace the shipped batteries with Lithium ones but friends with the same phone didn't and they've never had problems either.
We constantly leave our phones floating around the house and they last for a few days before running down. In conversation I've never had one run down except once when it really was on it's last mAmps - it beeped to warn & I just walked over to another extension and switched to it.
Other nice features are a great shape for the hand (the older series was flat like old TV remotes and uncomfortable to hold after awhile), reasonable controls & menus, the ability synch phone books from handset to handset, can PA from room to room and also PA incoming messages being left on the answering machine.
One big win in our case was individual handsets can be set to dial a specified extension or outside number if the sound volume exceeds some number. We use that if we have guests coming in to visit when we're out of town. Their voices trigger the call to us and we can welcome them, give them a rundown of the house.
Oh, and the phones can be set to dial in response to a spoken name. Really it's the same as speed dial but is useful for the non-techie members of the household. It'll also announce out the name of a caller who is set up this way and recognized via Caller ID. We've 4 or 5 numbers set up for that and it's worked out well.
Only thing I could still wish for would be a USB link for doing that first entry of phone numbers.
Once contracted for a company that was EOLing a bunch of legacy financial systems. They just had to live through the current cycle, get the books for a bought-out company closed, and then mercifully die. This was the last one of the lot and was to do the final set of books for the year, the company, and that would be it.
Of course there was no documentation, weird non-standard obsolete hardware, and precious little filespace left (everything that wasn't absolutely crucial to closing the books was deleted to make room.)
Then the damn thing dies for lack of disk space. After Christmas. Before New Years. And there I am stuck with the Accounting folks positively freaking (SEC requirements or something.) Luckly I do recall having seen some old scrap parts for what was apparently from another site's old install of this POS stuffed away in the back of a storage room at HQ.
So I get our hapless Admin Asst. to go in the storage room with a Polaroid and take a few pictures, have her fax those to me, and then extricate what I want her to send me. So she does - ships it overnight top priority. And it doesn't arrive. We do it again. Again goes who knows where. Everything is filled out right, shipper's just have no clue where it is.
OK, last chance. Nobody is in the office but I get through to Security who gets through to the AA who is home while the hubby and kids are off at the movies. Explain our plight, give her directions, and make many promises.
An hour later she's left a note on the kitchen table and is on her way to the airport with the last of the damn hardware packed in her bag, wrapped in a trash bag and padded with a few old blankets. That afternoon they flew cross-country 1st class and had a limo meet them and bring them to my site.
Her husband and kids came home, find the note, follow the directions and were treated to 3 days of resturaunts and a suite at a nearby hotel with unlimited room service. The AA stayed at a luxery spa out where she was on their best plan and got every wrap, scrub & rub on the menu. Plus lots of good champagne on tab for New Years.
I billed it all to hardware support and told the Accounting folks if they didn't like it I'd unplug the damn thing & go home myself. Never heard a peep except after it was all done my boss's boss wanted the weird drive for her desk as a reminder why systems should be standard and retired in a timely manner.
Codicil: Later they hired me for some more work and never blinked an eye when I told them my rates doubled for them, it was worth it to be sure the stuff got DONE.
[...]
there is a striking resembalance between the sequence of events and the claims made about stacker disk compression software/Company
Actually Stacker was one of the few cases MS got nabbed doing things like that.
MS is notorious for expressing interest in a company selling a product in a market they want then opening negotations for some sort of deal. They then perform a very extensive "Due Diligannce" getting lots (!) of information about the business, it's staff, technology, market, etc. and then drop negotiations on a pretense. A month later they hire away the key folks, contact the principal customers, and announce a competing product. This technique is called "raping" and is something MS is often accused of.
Stacker was able to respond because they could show that MS's resultant code was based on their code. Others without this sort of "smoking gun" have simply succumbed and seen their market taken away from them.
Indeed the only company that I know of that has succesfully worked closely with MS in a market MS clearly wanted was Real. There's never been any love lost between the two but they've needed eachother and so had to make it work. It is to Real's credit they are one of the few MS "partners" that didn't obviously come out on the short end of the deal.
However in this case this "raping" is not what seems to have happened. To my knowlege (and I only know of any of this from one dinner party conversation and several cocktail party chitchats.) it was simply a licensing deal gone awry and mishandled. There was no direct move into the aggrieved's market, no competing product intoduced, no "muscling out" by a dominant business. One company simply claimed that the other was using their code libraries without permission after a failed licensing discussion, the court agreed, the code was already dropped from new products and what replaced it wasn't a derivitive. The fines were paid and the matter seems to be closed, no errant IP lingering in the
Nonsense. Those links are completely appropriate. My Perl books weren't originally imprinted with hyperlinks...
Your Perl books weren't presented as quoting somone. Furthermore your links doubtless delved futher into the topic at hand; the IMDB entries for these films aren't salient to the point Packard was trying to make.
I strongly doubt these were posted on a lobby card with URLS embedded; nor does reposting the message with them gratuitously inserted add anything to the material.
This is particularly inappropriate considering the other current thread on news editing & munging.
Aside from that I'm glad to see Mr. Packard sharing his feelings. Did he need to use another means? No, this one was apparently quite effective.
There seems to be this assumption that what I read in "Mytown Daily Tattler" is the same as you do - it isn't.
Many papers (larger ones) have a series of runs that are printed at varying times. There are also often local editions. Thus I may get the early-am run and you might get the late morning one. Or I may get the downtown edition and you the suburban.
Any of these papers might vary from the others. The story "Sun Rises" might become "Sun Rises Brightly". Or it might be replaced with "Grass Grows" or something else completely different.
No, what you've read or clipped out doesn't magically go back and erase or rewrite itself but it is also quite possibly not the same as everyone else in the classroom / office / nursing home read.
I agree a versioning system would be great for newpspers. Heck, many (incl. large ones like the Boston Globe) lack stable URLS for daily stories for the move from current to archived.
I also respect that this additionial material would be likely disturb readers who prefer their news solid and immutable and would be unhappy to see the changes a story they're reading has gone through. Seeing how the facts evolve and the wroters tone changes, perhaps dramatically.
And yes there is the problem of links pointing to stale versions of a story, the extra material to be stored, indexed, & archived, etc.
Versioning is a good idea and one I've heard brought up many times but to date the practice seems to follow the print style. Declare the last edition of a run the definitive one, the final version of a story the actual story.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean like this?:
Well that's a clever idea!
grin
You're assuming a smooth frictionless surface.
Rather the Antartic terrain is a chaotic one full of swells and dales, cliffs and chasms. It may look "smooth" from far away but up close it's as rich a terrain as any more temperate one. There are wide smoothish plains but they're not the rule any more then North America is all prarie, and the same as other places there are innumerable small features even in the great expanses.
Furthermore any object on the surface will soon sink due to solar warming leaving it tightly locked in for much of it's length. What doesn't slide downhill or with the wind will soon be set in place as if it had been encased in concrete; unfortunately parts of this concrete are moving at different slow rates. Sure long sections will be regularly exposed due to local conditions, winds, etc. but I'm guessing at the end of 12 month at least 50% of any cable would be embedded and 75%+ after the second summer.
Antarctica is primarily solid land with ice-shelves hanging off portions.
You're assuming a smooth frictionless surface.
Rather the Antartic terrain is a chaotic one full of swells and dales, cliffs and chasms. It may look "smooth" from far away but up close it's as rich a terrain as any more temperate one. There are wide smoothish plains but they're not the rule any more then North America is all prarie, and the same as other places there are innumerable small features even in the great expanses.
Furthermore any object on the surface will soon sink due to solar warming leaving it tightly locked in for much of it's length. What doesn't slide downhill or with the wind will soon be set in place as if it had been encased in concrete; unfortunately parts of this concrete are moving at different slow rates. Sure long sections will be regularly exposed due to local conditions, winds, etc. but I'm guessing at the end of 12 month at least 50% of any cable would be embedded and 75%+ after the second summer.
Or, I could be completely off-base and you've just won yourself a contract.
Lovely solution, just one problem: They don't stay put.
Sure over the equator they can orbit at the same rate the planet rotates and so appear "fixed" but that only works over that narrow ecliptic. Instead to cover extreme N. & S. latitudes one needs sats on a much more inclined orbit and then they're out of sight much of the time, a dozen or so would be required to provide continuous coverage. That means a couple of expensive launches, a serious of expensive sats, and of course their own-going management (course-corrections, problem resolution, etc.)
Why not build a series of microwave repeaters or such, bring the cable to the shore then broadcast the rest of the way? A couple of reasons:
Yes fiber isn't the most robust material on its own. On the other hand it can be clad in all sorts of super-durable materials to protect it.
To protect from stretching the fiber might be coiled inside an outer cladding so it's 2x or 3x as long as required. Or it could be threaded through an outer cladding (think 'garden hose') so it can slide back and forth under slight tension between 1km "reservoir" loops.
Of course there's still the problem of powering the repeaters, but then that's why this contract is out there: To get folks interested in solving the problem.
Hmm, what would the Thunderbirds have done?
Thus we used to all enjoy making dinner and actually enjoyed doing dishes, were happy to see at least one visible accomplishment in our day. Pile of dirty dishes - 20 minutes later a nice shiny stack of clean ones. It was sad but it was the only thing we could do and point at and say "I did that!" and feel good about.
I've any number of friends who have/had resturaunts, or guest houses, and all of those other "I'd chuck it all to..." business. In my case they're in Vermont and Provincetown and Ogunquit and al of them agree: It looked better from the outside. They too work unreasonable hours and can't take vacations and work always comes home with them...
Tech isn't the be-all/end-all but if you're a go-getter you'll be gotten in any kinda job. If you're looking to stop and smell the flowers you can do that anytime - there's nothing magic about working in anything/anywhere. Heck my landscaper makes the exact same complaints and he's out in the sun all day, planting flowers, charging buckets to run a crew of leafblowers (yes, I've said "no" to that particular horror.)
Running off to find one's self in a new career, a new place, and new life, always seems to involve one problem: It's still you. Go ahead and go for the change if you think it's gonna make you happy but don't think it's gonna change you. That stuff comes from inside and doesn't directly relate to the outside.
If cooking crepes and serving them on heavy plates all day really does give you a kick, if you really want the lovely cottage and the endless loads of laundry your guests will generate, if spending all day leaning over the potters wheel to make the 1000'th identical syrup pourer is really your kick then go for it.
But remember, half of those folks would chuck it in for a cushy job in an office park with a keyboard and juice vending machine down the hall.
Apollo 13 - The IMAX Experience is the first due out. In a fluff piece released this past spring Ron Howard enthused:
Also listed as under production are:For those concerned about image quality a few thoughts:
- Many of the digital images in Apollo 13 are being re-rendered for this new release. Likely the true is same for the CGI in Lion King.
- Where the source material isn't digital and isn't photographic but animation cels it may be reasonable to go back and re-scan them. Or it is likely that companies like Disney had some foresight and did super-high resolution scans early in their production process and those can now be transferred to the IMAX stock.
- Finally, and this was explained to me at a party several months ago in Toronto, IMAX was apparently looking into creating composite images from multiple film frames to enhance the detail on each. Thus even though each 35mm frame only has 1/10th the resolution of an IMAX frame the series of these in a scene can be digitally massaged up to comparable quality.
Lastly note that these are IMAX-releases, not the same cuts as have been released before. The same as Cinemascope and other like large formats don't translate well to the small-screen or often even other projection-process screens it is doubtful material intended for today's conventionial screens would be visually appropriate on the super-size IMAX ones without rework.This makes sense from a managing-customer-expectations view: They likely want a working copy now and they (and you!) don't want to be involved in getting online, finding out it's stale software, long downloads, corrupted downloads, etc. Let the installer install, that's nasty enough.
Many apps offer a menu option that fires off a URL event for update-checking. The web-browser opens up the page and there you are. Some applications are clever and fire off a URL event with the version number already encoded so you get your version-check right away, automatigically answer is there more or not. Others make you look up your own version number and then figure out what your choices are. And some take the opportunity to include the serial number and such "for the record."
An alternative is a polite version checker that (with permission!) automatically checks for updates every so often, say two weeks, or on demand. If there's no new version it quietly shuts down and nobody was disturbed. Or if it was a manual check it gives a nothing-new response. If there is something new it gives a response and supplies a link to the appropriate web-page/download/whatever.
Of course any such transaction should be well documented and easily interpreted so folks know exactly what is being 'phoned home' and don't start getting the willies. This may mean a larger transaction then strictly neccessary but keeping it human-interpretable is likely valuable in a suspicious world.
So with all of that said I'd like to point folks to one existing implementation: Simple Internet Version Control Protocol. I've no connection whatsoever with it beyond having a product or two on my machine that use it but it's always seemed to me to be a well-thought-out bit of code and after 7 years of in-production-use likely well-tested. Oh, and I may have met the author years ago (Chris, were you @neu.edu?)
It does version-control, also does anonymous user counts, it's free in all senses, there's code examples, etc. Here's their summary:
One of the beauties of the Mac OS is that there's a unform, consistant, and universal interface and scratchpad model. IBM pioneered the idea of a standard interface and Apple brought it to the GUI and applications with a vengance.
Not only do the MacOS and applications follow the same behaviors they also allow universal cut-and-paste. Anything you see that's editable on a Mac can be cut-and-pasted anywhere else that is editable and supports the medium (eg no sound-for-text.) Styled text, QuickTime multimedia, everything. This is more thoroughly plumbed then on Windows and certainly more extensive then on X and traditionial Unix applications.
It has always frustrated me when someone puts together a Theme and presents it as being the same as another OS. No. There's more to an interface then window-dressing. Another misbegotten kinda-sorta-looks-like-Aqua (but doesn't use the System Services or Quartz engine etc.) is exactly the sort of half-assed implementation Apple is selling the alternative to. Without a doubt if Apple ships an Apple/Open Office it'll be as high-gloss and thoroughly native as any of the iApps. That they've chosen Java as the platform to work from rather then Cocoa is a "Good Thing" for everyone else.
Yes Java is a completely peer layer in MacOS but it is portable and so anything Apple & Sun produce is instantly applicable to all of the other Open Office platforms (if not as nicely as the Apple implementation - think of this as payback for Apple having really committed to making Java a native portion of their OS.) This will also allow all of those other wonderful Java libraries to be leveraged in a consistant manner and become directly usable by Open Office.
Is this worthwhile for Apple? Yes. They get the only robust MS Office alternative to run suh-weet on their OS, now the best-selling Unix out there. Sun gets a partner in melding Open Office and Java, pusing their jewels out into the marketplace. The Users gets a better GUI on Open Office, one that can build on lots of other work rather then being another home-grown roll-your-own deal. They also get an infusion of all of those new MacOS X (Unix) desktops all using and supporting and developing further Open Office.
Win-Win-Win.
AOL wants you to use AOL's client. That means you see AOL's advertising, get hit up with AOL's promotions, AOL's URL inserted onto your desktop, have AOL's logo burned into your retina, get enticed to use more AOL services, etc. Nowhere is AOL saying these clients are hard to write, just that they want you to use their specific client.
As far as AOL is concerned GAIM & Trillian & Proteus et al are poachers on their territory. Are they hard or easy to write? AOL would like to see that they're as hard as possible as every one of them is adding users to AOL's servers & networks who aren't getting a steady diet of AOL-marketing in return. But, they're not the issue here.
Rather AOL's issue is getting AOL's servers to talk to MSN's & Yahoo's and all of the other's servers. It's about setting up peering access and interoperability standards. Server to server stuff, never client to 3rd-party server, thus keeping the clients safely locked into AOL's own service.
Is that hard? Probably yes. You've got to write something that extracts out material intended for the other services from your own servers, translate it to a standardized format, that format really should include as much common functionality as possible (both for today's features and those anticipated near-term,) transfer this 'universal material' to the appropriate 3rd party services, then do all the same in return and reinsert it locally into a format your own servers & clients find palatable. Along the way you've got to handle all sorts of failure modes, translation issues, directory services, security issues, etc. all on a potentially massive scale with software that was never really architected for outside access.
What's the payback for AOL? More users? AOL's already got the #1 & #2 clients. Every 3rd-party client they enable to reach their customers is another load on their system without much benefit to them (AOLians aren't clamoring nearly as hard to get to MSNers or Yahoolites etc. as those are to connect to AOL!) So yeah, with value down and a dubious payback AOL is unenthused at this project - not surprising.
AOL has had a deal with Novell for their DigitalMe service for a few years now. After announcing a "partnership" years ago AOL has now finally released something with Apple, their new iChat. Word is that AOL is, like all of the other folks in the once booming chat field, looking to go after corporate customers in a bid to make their market penetration pay off now that the whole banner-ad market has imploded. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to sell 10,000 licenses to Colgate-Palmolive then it is to push 1,000,000 ads at jaded chatters.
The various Mac models play a distinctive chord when they start up and a missing note indicates what isn't working. A tech with a good ear can name the model and identify the problem part from listening to the startup blindfolded.
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Right, I said "Required", Apple sez "Recommended". Whatever the case to take full advantage 32+ MB VRAM remains the number to look for.
Documented where?
Er, howzabout economic sense?
Apple is looking to bump their numbers.
While Apple has weathered this downtown better then almost any other PC manufacturer they did just have a 5%+ layoff in Cupertino, their numbers are down, and things likely won't heat up until late August/September when back-to-school starts (traditionially a strong season for Apple.) So they're trying to push what appears to be their slowest moving boxes - the top-of-the-line ones with the lovely Apple LCD displays. This doesn't require any great insight but just a quick course in modern make-the-books-look-good-for-The-Street management.
Will there be a 17" flat-panel iMac (remember they're still selling the old all-in-1-CRT iMac as well as the 17" eMac)? I hope so - I just advised a buddy to buy an eMac for the extra screen-space & faster processor for only $100 more. On the other hand that arm is a complicated device, there have been complaints about it, and scaling it up to 17" may be a jump Apple's not ready to make so soon.
My own guess? With the announced new graphics pipeline through OpenGL and it's requirement of 32 MB of video RAM I'm betting we'll see that met across the board. But Towers? If they're ready in time; otherwise they may wait 'till late summer. It depends on what other marvels Steve has to trot out and if new towers would get much attention next to those (really they're more-of-the-same-but-faster.)
Then The Washington Post reminds me: Sometimes even professionial editors let humdingers through.
Hurd is not just a microkernel implementation but also a set of servers running on top of that microkernel providing all sorts of clever services through a unique architectural model. Darwin is also running on a Mach-derived microkernel but it is running a single server in a traditionial model.
Trust me - go invest the 5 minutes to read up on hurd, it's goals and how it is going about meeting them. VERY different from the rest of the field and potentially a revolution if it succeeds.
Oh, and the assumption that there are more drivers for Linux then IOKit? That's changing quickly as MacOS X becomes the dominant consumer Unix.
I bought 3 4200 handsets and a 4215 basestation/answering machine a few months ago (first US shipment) and have loved them. We did replace the shipped batteries with Lithium ones but friends with the same phone didn't and they've never had problems either.
We constantly leave our phones floating around the house and they last for a few days before running down. In conversation I've never had one run down except once when it really was on it's last mAmps - it beeped to warn & I just walked over to another extension and switched to it.
Other nice features are a great shape for the hand (the older series was flat like old TV remotes and uncomfortable to hold after awhile), reasonable controls & menus, the ability synch phone books from handset to handset, can PA from room to room and also PA incoming messages being left on the answering machine.
One big win in our case was individual handsets can be set to dial a specified extension or outside number if the sound volume exceeds some number. We use that if we have guests coming in to visit when we're out of town. Their voices trigger the call to us and we can welcome them, give them a rundown of the house.
Oh, and the phones can be set to dial in response to a spoken name. Really it's the same as speed dial but is useful for the non-techie members of the household. It'll also announce out the name of a caller who is set up this way and recognized via Caller ID. We've 4 or 5 numbers set up for that and it's worked out well.
Only thing I could still wish for would be a USB link for doing that first entry of phone numbers.
Of course there was no documentation, weird non-standard obsolete hardware, and precious little filespace left (everything that wasn't absolutely crucial to closing the books was deleted to make room.)
Then the damn thing dies for lack of disk space. After Christmas. Before New Years. And there I am stuck with the Accounting folks positively freaking (SEC requirements or something.) Luckly I do recall having seen some old scrap parts for what was apparently from another site's old install of this POS stuffed away in the back of a storage room at HQ.
So I get our hapless Admin Asst. to go in the storage room with a Polaroid and take a few pictures, have her fax those to me, and then extricate what I want her to send me. So she does - ships it overnight top priority. And it doesn't arrive. We do it again. Again goes who knows where. Everything is filled out right, shipper's just have no clue where it is.
OK, last chance. Nobody is in the office but I get through to Security who gets through to the AA who is home while the hubby and kids are off at the movies. Explain our plight, give her directions, and make many promises.
An hour later she's left a note on the kitchen table and is on her way to the airport with the last of the damn hardware packed in her bag, wrapped in a trash bag and padded with a few old blankets. That afternoon they flew cross-country 1st class and had a limo meet them and bring them to my site.
Her husband and kids came home, find the note, follow the directions and were treated to 3 days of resturaunts and a suite at a nearby hotel with unlimited room service. The AA stayed at a luxery spa out where she was on their best plan and got every wrap, scrub & rub on the menu. Plus lots of good champagne on tab for New Years.
I billed it all to hardware support and told the Accounting folks if they didn't like it I'd unplug the damn thing & go home myself. Never heard a peep except after it was all done my boss's boss wanted the weird drive for her desk as a reminder why systems should be standard and retired in a timely manner.
Codicil: Later they hired me for some more work and never blinked an eye when I told them my rates doubled for them, it was worth it to be sure the stuff got DONE.
MS is notorious for expressing interest in a company selling a product in a market they want then opening negotations for some sort of deal. They then perform a very extensive "Due Diligannce" getting lots (!) of information about the business, it's staff, technology, market, etc. and then drop negotiations on a pretense. A month later they hire away the key folks, contact the principal customers, and announce a competing product. This technique is called "raping" and is something MS is often accused of.
Stacker was able to respond because they could show that MS's resultant code was based on their code. Others without this sort of "smoking gun" have simply succumbed and seen their market taken away from them.
Indeed the only company that I know of that has succesfully worked closely with MS in a market MS clearly wanted was Real. There's never been any love lost between the two but they've needed eachother and so had to make it work. It is to Real's credit they are one of the few MS "partners" that didn't obviously come out on the short end of the deal.
However in this case this "raping" is not what seems to have happened. To my knowlege (and I only know of any of this from one dinner party conversation and several cocktail party chitchats.) it was simply a licensing deal gone awry and mishandled. There was no direct move into the aggrieved's market, no competing product intoduced, no "muscling out" by a dominant business. One company simply claimed that the other was using their code libraries without permission after a failed licensing discussion, the court agreed, the code was already dropped from new products and what replaced it wasn't a derivitive. The fines were paid and the matter seems to be closed, no errant IP lingering in the
Or I could simply be ill-informed.
Furthermore the material was presented as a quote. As such it should have been left unmunged.
This is particularly inappropriate considering the other current thread on news editing & munging.
Aside from that I'm glad to see Mr. Packard sharing his feelings. Did he need to use another means? No, this one was apparently quite effective.
Many papers (larger ones) have a series of runs that are printed at varying times. There are also often local editions. Thus I may get the early-am run and you might get the late morning one. Or I may get the downtown edition and you the suburban.
Any of these papers might vary from the others. The story "Sun Rises" might become "Sun Rises Brightly". Or it might be replaced with "Grass Grows" or something else completely different.
No, what you've read or clipped out doesn't magically go back and erase or rewrite itself but it is also quite possibly not the same as everyone else in the classroom / office / nursing home read.
I agree a versioning system would be great for newpspers. Heck, many (incl. large ones like the Boston Globe) lack stable URLS for daily stories for the move from current to archived.
I also respect that this additionial material would be likely disturb readers who prefer their news solid and immutable and would be unhappy to see the changes a story they're reading has gone through. Seeing how the facts evolve and the wroters tone changes, perhaps dramatically.
And yes there is the problem of links pointing to stale versions of a story, the extra material to be stored, indexed, & archived, etc.
Versioning is a good idea and one I've heard brought up many times but to date the practice seems to follow the print style. Declare the last edition of a run the definitive one, the final version of a story the actual story.