So we must be about two years away from implanting a weapon directly into people.
We are getting too close to BORG time in my opinion.
NOT entirely LEGOs! Uses Rubber Band for Power!
on
Lego Machine Gun
·
· Score: 2
This entire article is a fraud!
It's powered by a rubber band, not LEGOs. (Though I guess if you strached one of the little rubber tires on a LEGO car set, you might be able to make it work)
Since the power source is a rubber band, the premise of the story is false, in that I could make a real gun out of LEGO's as long as I am willing to use black powder as my power source. (or in the case mentioned in another thread, plutonium for a LEGO A-bomb, though it is MUCH harder to get than rubber bands)
I'm assuming this also reveals their previous strategy for securing the operating system.
"Gosh, if they want security, I'm sure they'll just solve the problems themselves. No reason we should spend any of our monopoly supported profits on fixing the problems for them."
It depends on the definition of "entire human"! If I make a clone of myself that is complete except for some specific traits I don't want to keep anyway (for example, the whole aging thing) would I still be complying with the patent agreement.
Human Cloning is a moral and ethical argument, it should NOT be left up to lawyers to work out! Anytime we let the law dictate our moral code we tend to get ourselves in trouble (for example, prohibition, abortion, euthanasia, etc.)
It wasn't really clear in the BBC story, but what I believe it says is that the original research team, along with the government agencies, would receive the proceeds that relate to cloning animals that produce human medicine in their milk, whereas Geron would get any licensing revenue resulting from using the technology for any other purpose (for example, to produce leaner beef, or pigs that can be brought to market quicker, or cows that produce more milk, etc.)
This story is about Crusoe, but if you read the ALT text tag for the logo/. uses, it says 'Transmeta', and if you click it, it takes you to their Transmeta story archive.
Since/. doesn't have seperate logos for for the K-6, K-6-2, K-6-3, and Athlon; or for the Pentium, PII, and PIII; they should be consistant and track processor stories by the manufacturer, which in this case is Transmeta.
Transmeta has at least one other product besides Crusoe that/. readers are intered in - Mobile Linux. One can assume that within a short period of time there will be a Mobile Linux story posted. Though this OS runs on Crusoe, it doesn't really make sense to use the Crusoe logo for the story, it would be a Transmeta story, and so, they should use the Transmeta logo.
Please stop using the Crusoe logo to represent Transmeta. The Transmeta logo is a downward pointing blue triangle with a wavy line crossing it.
While I have to admit that Transmeta does use the Crusoe logo on every page of its website, and only rarely uses the Transmeta logo, they only use the Crusoe logo with the Crusoe name.
Object Description: E0102-72 is a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This galaxy is 190,000 light years from Earth. E0102 -72, which is approximately a thousand years old, is believed to have resulted from the explosion of a massive star. Stretching across forty light years of space, the multi-million degree source resembles a flaming cosmic wheel. Astronomer's Notebook: ACIS detector
If their processors are fast enough, in 2 years Transmeta may be the Intel of laptops CPUs.
Not just laptops though. If the chips are as small, fast, and energy-saving as described in the ft article then you will see them in just about everything that will be performing computing and IP functions in 2 years.
Expect this to include not only cell phones and PDAs (of course), but also watches, cars, TVs, cable-boxes, home phones, MP3 players, gameboys, etc.
Try the Next Stop, South Pole store
on
Tux Dolls?
·
· Score: 2
Their website is The Penguin Place and their toll free number is 1-(877)PENG-WIN
They claim to be "the only all-penguin outlets in the world." and have been in business for 15 years.
They have at least one brick-and-mortar store called 'Next Stop, South Pole' (which I have been to) located at in the HarborPlace shoping complex in Baltimore. Curiosly, when I went in there, the day manager hadn't heard of Linux.
Anyway, you can actually choose your stuffed penguin by species. I hope they add the Fairy Penguins from Australia that were mentioned on/. recently.
I haven't been able to get through to their website. Do you think its the slashdot effect? They may get the wrong idea and suspect there is a massive DoS attack going on.
Also, the licensing would be cleaner if they don't want to fully release the source. If they use Linux and then release the source, wouldn't they in effect be providing a a very useful tool for U.S. enemies?
Another thing that kind of blows me away is just the fact that there even was a press release. The NSA used to be so secretive, that few even knew it existed. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a subtle ploy by them to recruit geeks. They've always been one of the biggest high-tech employers in the DC area, but with the high-tech boom now going on around DC, it is very dificult to hire competent tech staff at government wages (its not like you can count on the feds having an IPO in the near future.)
I got the feeling he was saying that the public won't WANT Linux for their desktop. So far, this appears to be largely true.
If that's the case, then it's clear that LA got a PhD in EE rather than an MBA in Marketing. The whole point of marketing is to educate the public that they do indeed want a product. Not that I want to see Linux rammed down our throats like some other operating systems I could name, but if you don't spend some bucks educating the public on the benefits of the OS, then why bother to raise funds through an IPO?
On a related note, Bob Young said in an NPR interview today that consumers don't select OS's, they simply get the OS that their preferred applications run on. This is an interesting argument, considering any Linux application will/should work on any Linux distribution (and most on BSD, or other Unixes as well). Based on his model, there would never be a reason to purchase a given distribution other than cost, which would have to be $0, or maybe $2 if want a pre-burned CD.
I agree. here is a diagram that compares the two character sets from a paper comparing the two.
Obviously, the goal of Graffiti was to develop a system that was learnable. It appears to me based on the simplicity of the vowels, that the primary goal of Unistrokes was to limit total pen strokes. One way Unistrokes achieves this is by relying on the vector of the stroke so the writing can ONLY be read by the input device since the characters for M & N, U & V, C & D, E & T, A & I and K & Y, are identicle pairs if the system is used on paper. Another argument, is that there is no penstroke in any Graffiti character that is the same as a pen stroke from the corresponding Unistroke character, that isn't already part of the letter it represents.
The fact that Graffiti is a "unistroke" system (ie you make contact with the writing surface just once for each character) can't in itself make it a patent infringement, otherwise the Unistrokes patent would be invalid based on cursive handwriting being prior art.
If Xerox wants to make a case, it should go after the use of pen-input (to call Unistrokes handwriting is too much of a stretch) for PDA's which they might be able to establish based on their development of the PARCtab starting in 1992.
(Full Disclosure Notice, I own a small ammount of 3COM stock)
I think this issue is a certain method of handwriting recognition, not handwriting recognition in PDA's per se. Per this article the Newton had handwriting recognition when it was first introduced in 1993, but it didn't work very well.
On the otherhand, according to this research paper on PDA's, Palm introduced Grafiti prior to April of 1995 (perhaps even prior to September '94, per the footnote to a 9/26/94 EE Times article.) So it seems Xerox is out of luck if they didn't file their patent 'til 10/95.
While we're at it, any updates on this case where Palm was suing Royal over the similarities of its DaVinci PDA to the Pilot?
Vacations are just too expensive to risk getting sick. It's not that our water is better than theirs, its just my stomach isn't used to the fauna naturally occuring in 'foreign' water.. Many travellers from abroad get sick when they first drink US water.
Though I suppose if you found fauna in the water on Europa, you'd be too excited too care.
During your Charlie Rose interview last week you seemed to discount the readiness of Linux for the desktop. Don't you think that what Corel and others have done recently has shown that Linux will be ready for the desktop by this summer (once kernel 2.4 and Xfree86 4.0 have been released and fully vetted of bugs), if not sooner?
I see a great oppotunity for Linux to establish itself as companies are deciding whether to transition to Win2K or Linux for their servers. One factor in their decision is that MS is marketing Win2k as an OS for both desktops and servers. I think the Linux community has to be prepared to argue it is just as ready for both platforms.
> Another hack was done at one point so that it would stream meta-refreshing jpegs.
Given that we just had an update on the status of the revision to the jpeg standard here on slashdot last week, and that it offered incredible quality wavelet based compression, couldn't icecast be modified to stream the new jpeg format when it is released? Wouldn't this be open source?
I just want to say that I have to agree with you. But if you want to see a total solar eclipse, you should plan on travelling to go see one.
I've seen several total lunar eclipses, and partial solars, but only one total solar eclipse (this one last summer on 8/11, from Hungary.) There is absolutely no comparison as to the profound effect seeing the sun blotted out and replaced with a glowing circle of white fire had on me, versus the mere curiosity of the lunar and partial solars. I can only describe the total eclipse in such superlatives as: a religious experience, an epiphany, or orgasmic. It literally left me trembling in awe and questioning my own place in the universe.
As for the total lunar eclipses, and partial solars, I would describe them in terms such as: Hey that's cool, the moon is red! or, Wow pretty neat, if I look at the sun's shadow there is a bite taken out of it!
If you wait for the total solar to come to you, who's to say you won't have cloud cover that day, or perhaps smog if you live in Southern Cali. Find a listing of total eclipses and choose one soon that will pass over a location you would like to trave to anyway. It may take a couple of tries, but eventually you will be treated to the experience of a lifetime.
I know piracy is a huge problem in the PRC, but for the self-claimed largest software retail chain in the country to basically admit it is selling bootlegged copies of Windows 2000 as an "Upgrade" is pretty amazing.
I hope MS is following up on this. If MS fails to ensure that their licenses are adhered to it will ultimately hurt Linux as fewer people will will bother to switch to Linux if they can upgrade to Win2k at bootleg prices.
It appears no one else has realized that there is a new Science section on/. I only found out by reading the Hemos/CmdrTaco interview.
This is an interesting story. It was on NPR last night as well. They think it is another significant step to the mass production of gentically identical farm animals. In addition to producing designer meat products, could result in pigs that grow organs for transplant into humans, or cows/goats/sheep that produce medicine in their milk.
Vegans will see this as just another way subjigate other species. Darwinists, like myself, will likely see it as another way animals can be used to benefit humans.
By the way, since four hours have past, I think it is safe to say '1st Post!'
I just visited webcertificate.com and got my free webcertificate which comes already charged with a free $5 worth of credit. If ThinkGeek could set up a SKU, I'd be glad to donate the $5 to the cute little guys.
As mentioned in another post, this would be great way for anyone who is now filthy rich due to the Linux related stock craze to ease their open source conscience.
(By the way, is conscience the opposite of science?)
Slashdot Mirror
So we must be about two years away from implanting a weapon directly into people.
We are getting too close to BORG time in my opinion.
This entire article is a fraud!
It's powered by a rubber band, not LEGOs. (Though I guess if you strached one of the little rubber tires on a LEGO car set, you might be able to make it work)
Since the power source is a rubber band, the premise of the story is false, in that I could make a real gun out of LEGO's as long as I am willing to use black powder as my power source. (or in the case mentioned in another thread, plutonium for a LEGO A-bomb, though it is MUCH harder to get than rubber bands)
I'm assuming this also reveals their previous strategy for securing the operating system.
"Gosh, if they want security, I'm sure they'll just solve the problems themselves. No reason we should spend any of our monopoly supported profits on fixing the problems for them."
It depends on the definition of "entire human"! If I make a clone of myself that is complete except for some specific traits I don't want to keep anyway (for example, the whole aging thing) would I still be complying with the patent agreement.
Human Cloning is a moral and ethical argument, it should NOT be left up to lawyers to work out! Anytime we let the law dictate our moral code we tend to get ourselves in trouble (for example, prohibition, abortion, euthanasia, etc.)
It wasn't really clear in the BBC story, but what I believe it says is that the original research team, along with the government agencies, would receive the proceeds that relate to cloning animals that produce human medicine in their milk, whereas Geron would get any licensing revenue resulting from using the technology for any other purpose (for example, to produce leaner beef, or pigs that can be brought to market quicker, or cows that produce more milk, etc.)
This story is about Crusoe, but if you read the ALT text tag for the logo /. uses, it says 'Transmeta', and if you click it, it takes you to their Transmeta story archive.
/. doesn't have seperate logos for for the K-6, K-6-2, K-6-3, and Athlon; or for the Pentium, PII, and PIII; they should be consistant and track processor stories by the manufacturer, which in this case is Transmeta.
/. readers are intered in - Mobile Linux. One can assume that within a short period of time there will be a Mobile Linux story posted. Though this OS runs on Crusoe, it doesn't really make sense to use the Crusoe logo for the story, it would be a Transmeta story, and so, they should use the Transmeta logo.
Since
Transmeta has at least one other product besides Crusoe that
Please stop using the Crusoe logo to represent Transmeta. The Transmeta logo is a downward pointing blue triangle with a wavy line crossing it.
While I have to admit that Transmeta does use the Crusoe logo on every page of its website, and only rarely uses the Transmeta logo, they only use the Crusoe logo with the Crusoe name.
Though it may be /.ed as I can't load it at the moment.
/dev/ developer's area, a press page, an about Tranmeta page, a Crusoe page, and a Going Mobile page.
Wait, I got through. The logo for Transmeta is downward pointing teal triangle with a wavy line crossing it.
they have a
Still to loaded to actually vist these paghes though.
Though it may be /.ed as I can't load it at the moment.
e0102electricbluet.jpg
Object Name: E0102-72
Object Category: Supernova Remnant
Coordinates: (J2000) Right Ascension 01h04m02s Declination -72d01m56s
Constellation: Tucana (Tuc)
Object Description: E0102-72 is a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This galaxy is 190,000 light years from Earth. E0102 -72, which is approximately a thousand years old, is believed to have resulted from the explosion of a massive star. Stretching across forty light years of space, the multi-million degree source resembles a flaming cosmic wheel. Astronomer's Notebook: ACIS detector
PHOTO CREDIT: Chandra X-ray Image
I bet you've been waiting a long time for that banner to run in your local paper.
If their processors are fast enough, in 2 years Transmeta may be the Intel of laptops CPUs.
Not just laptops though. If the chips are as small, fast, and energy-saving as described in the ft article then you will see them in just about everything that will be performing computing and IP functions in 2 years.
Expect this to include not only cell phones and PDAs (of course), but also watches, cars, TVs, cable-boxes, home phones, MP3 players, gameboys, etc.
Their website is The Penguin Place
/. recently.
and their toll free number is 1-(877)PENG-WIN
They claim to be "the only all-penguin outlets in the world." and have been in business for 15 years.
They have at least one brick-and-mortar store called 'Next Stop, South Pole' (which I have been to) located at in the HarborPlace shoping complex in Baltimore. Curiosly, when I went in there, the day manager hadn't heard of Linux.
Anyway, you can actually choose your stuffed penguin by species. I hope they add the Fairy Penguins from Australia that were mentioned on
I haven't been able to get through to their website. Do you think its the slashdot effect? They may get the wrong idea and suspect there is a massive DoS attack going on.
Also, the licensing would be cleaner if they don't want to fully release the source. If they use Linux and then release the source, wouldn't they in effect be providing a a very useful tool for U.S. enemies?
Another thing that kind of blows me away is just the fact that there even was a press release. The NSA used to be so secretive, that few even knew it existed. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a subtle ploy by them to recruit geeks. They've always been one of the biggest high-tech employers in the DC area, but with the high-tech boom now going on around DC, it is very dificult to hire competent tech staff at government wages (its not like you can count on the feds having an IPO in the near future.)
I got the feeling he was saying that the public won't WANT Linux for their desktop. So far, this appears to be largely true.
If that's the case, then it's clear that LA got a PhD in EE rather than an MBA in Marketing. The whole point of marketing is to educate the public that they do indeed want a product. Not that I want to see Linux rammed down our throats like some other operating systems I could name, but if you don't spend some bucks educating the public on the benefits of the OS, then why bother to raise funds through an IPO?
On a related note, Bob Young said in an NPR interview today that consumers don't select OS's, they simply get the OS that their preferred applications run on. This is an interesting argument, considering any Linux application will/should work on any Linux distribution (and most on BSD, or other Unixes as well). Based on his model, there would never be a reason to purchase a given distribution other than cost, which would have to be $0, or maybe $2 if want a pre-burned CD.
I agree. here is a diagram that compares the two character sets from a paper comparing the two.
Obviously, the goal of Graffiti was to develop a system that was learnable. It appears to me based on the simplicity of the vowels, that the primary goal of Unistrokes was to limit total pen strokes. One way Unistrokes achieves this is by relying on the vector of the stroke so the writing can ONLY be read by the input device since the characters for M & N, U & V, C & D, E & T, A & I and K & Y, are identicle pairs if the system is used on paper. Another argument, is that there is no penstroke in any Graffiti character that is the same as a pen stroke from the corresponding Unistroke character, that isn't already part of the letter it represents.
The fact that Graffiti is a "unistroke" system (ie you make contact with the writing surface just once for each character) can't in itself make it a patent infringement, otherwise the Unistrokes patent would be invalid based on cursive handwriting being prior art.
If Xerox wants to make a case, it should go after the use of pen-input (to call Unistrokes handwriting is too much of a stretch) for PDA's which they might be able to establish based on their development of the PARCtab starting in 1992.
(Full Disclosure Notice, I own a small ammount of 3COM stock)
I think this issue is a certain method of handwriting recognition, not handwriting recognition in PDA's per se. Per this article the Newton had handwriting recognition when it was first introduced in 1993, but it didn't work very well.
On the otherhand, according to this research paper on PDA's, Palm introduced Grafiti prior to April of 1995 (perhaps even prior to September '94, per the footnote to a 9/26/94 EE Times article.) So it seems Xerox is out of luck if they didn't file their patent 'til 10/95.
While we're at it, any updates on this case where Palm was suing Royal over the similarities of its DaVinci PDA to the Pilot?
Vacations are just too expensive to risk getting sick. It's not that our water is better than theirs, its just my stomach isn't used to the fauna naturally occuring in 'foreign' water.. Many travellers from abroad get sick when they first drink US water.
Though I suppose if you found fauna in the water on Europa, you'd be too excited too care.
During your Charlie Rose interview last week you seemed to discount the readiness of Linux for the desktop. Don't you think that what Corel and others have done recently has shown that Linux will be ready for the desktop by this summer (once kernel 2.4 and Xfree86 4.0 have been released and fully vetted of bugs), if not sooner?
I see a great oppotunity for Linux to establish itself as companies are deciding whether to transition to Win2K or Linux for their servers. One factor in their decision is that MS is marketing Win2k as an OS for both desktops and servers. I think the Linux community has to be prepared to argue it is just as ready for both platforms.
> Another hack was done at one point so that it would stream meta-refreshing jpegs.
Given that we just had an update on the status of the revision to the jpeg standard here on slashdot last week, and that it offered incredible quality wavelet based compression, couldn't icecast be modified to stream the new jpeg format when it is released? Wouldn't this be open source?
I just want to say that I have to agree with you. But if you want to see a total solar eclipse, you should plan on travelling to go see one.
I've seen several total lunar eclipses, and partial solars, but only one total solar eclipse (this one last summer on 8/11, from Hungary.) There is absolutely no comparison as to the profound effect seeing the sun blotted out and replaced with a glowing circle of white fire had on me, versus the mere curiosity of the lunar and partial solars. I can only describe the total eclipse in such superlatives as: a religious experience, an epiphany, or orgasmic. It literally left me trembling in awe and questioning my own place in the universe.
As for the total lunar eclipses, and partial solars, I would describe them in terms such as: Hey that's cool, the moon is red! or, Wow pretty neat, if I look at the sun's shadow there is a bite taken out of it!
If you wait for the total solar to come to you, who's to say you won't have cloud cover that day, or perhaps smog if you live in Southern Cali. Find a listing of total eclipses and choose one soon that will pass over a location you would like to trave to anyway. It may take a couple of tries, but eventually you will be treated to the experience of a lifetime.
Here's a link to the full TurboLinux Press Release provided by LinuxToday.
I know piracy is a huge problem in the PRC, but for the self-claimed largest software retail chain in the country to basically admit it is selling bootlegged copies of Windows 2000 as an "Upgrade" is pretty amazing.
I hope MS is following up on this. If MS fails to ensure that their licenses are adhered to it will ultimately hurt Linux as fewer people will will bother to switch to Linux if they can upgrade to Win2k at bootleg prices.
It appears no one else has realized that there is a new Science section on /. I only found out by reading the Hemos/CmdrTaco interview.
This is an interesting story. It was on NPR last night as well. They think it is another significant step to the mass production of gentically identical farm animals. In addition to producing designer meat products, could result in pigs that grow organs for transplant into humans, or cows/goats/sheep that produce medicine in their milk.
Vegans will see this as just another way subjigate other species. Darwinists, like myself, will likely see it as another way animals can be used to benefit humans.
By the way, since four hours have past, I think it is safe to say '1st Post!'
I just visited webcertificate.com and got my free webcertificate which comes already charged with a free $5 worth of credit. If ThinkGeek could set up a SKU, I'd be glad to donate the $5 to the cute little guys.
As mentioned in another post, this would be great way for anyone who is now filthy rich due to the Linux related stock craze to ease their open source conscience.
(By the way, is conscience the opposite of science?)