But this method *doesn't* provide constant tracking. The scanners are only installed in a limited number of locations rather than all over the area. I suspect the kids will be out of range most of the time.
But it can't. RFID has such limited range that you have to have a pretty good idea of where the child is before you can use the RFID to locate it.
A kidnapper can easily defeat this. From what I've read, the RFID is used to alert people when the kids stray near known dangerous places.
quote: The project requires tag readers to be installed at the school and attached to any such undesirable locale outside.
I worked at an EMC research lab once, and they had a device made from a piezoelectric lighter and a big coil (originally used to measure current). The contraption would fry just about any electronic device held near the coil. Something like this should work with RFID tags, too.
I suspect Hubble's CCD's can't really be compared to the ones in a digital camera.
From that same page: "They can see objects that are 1,000 million times fainter than the naked eye can see. "
For one thing, Hubble's cameras are cooled (can't find their temperature, but IIRC it's far below zero) to reduce noise. Also, the CCD design is bound to be different. This gives an idea of what's involved.
According to this, Questar is just a reseller, not a partner. From the article:
Questar is simply buying Optiplex 170L desktops from Dell as might any other business or individual customer. Is there any thing more to their "agreement" than that? No, Dell told The Register today: "Questar is a direct Dell customer and that is the extent of the relationship."
Nah, when USRobotics released the Pilot (later to become the Palm Pilot) they knew that the handwriting recognition wouldn't work well, so they required you to learn the device's alphabet rather than allowing you to use your own.
And it's not just the handwriting. On the Newton, you could enter 'lunch with Mariah' and the Newton would connect the name with that person's entry in the address book. 10 years later, my Palm still can't do that. Nor can my PC.
But he does have a point. Most of the effort that's gone into hardware and software development, has been aimed at doing the same things faster. Real innovation is very rare. Our desktops still are essentially the same as the 1984 Macintosh. PDAs still haven't caught up with the Newton. Computers are still dumb.
My comment "there's very little the FSF/OS community can do about that" still holds. All the licenses in the world aren't going to stop $Regime from using it.
You could try adding code "IF domain=$Regime THEN Crash" but oh wait, the whole point of OSS is that the source is published...
So 'being ethical' about it won't accomplish anything.
What is there to question? There is no way a totalitarian state can force such a license to be included with the original source. And a totalitarian state probably won't care about the license, anyway. After all, who's going to enforce it?
You could question the morality of free software being used by totalitarian governments, but there's very little the FSF/OS community can do about that.
--
In Soviet Russia, a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods hates YOU!
More features? Like popup blocking, tabbed browsing, PNG support etc.? Or did you mean 'features' like standards-noncompliance?
IE is years behind in terms of functionality.
Bad example. If ever there was a product that needed improvement during its life cycle, it was the Beetle. How VW managed to avoid doing that, still baffles me.
Let's see, either I carry around my entire music collection on one HD, or I limit myself by selecting one Minidisc when I leave the house, or I lug around stacks of MDs.
Regardless of the computer's 'motive' for moving the items, the items *aren't* where they used to be. So any 'muscle memory' effect you used to have goes out the window.
The article said that to increase spindle speed, they had to decrease platter diameter (=capacity). I guess that goes for SCSI drives as well as these new ATA ones.
No, your energy is already up there. AFAI understand, you still need to bring something that can be ionized, then accellerated to provide the actual thrust. Advantage of the ion drive is that the exhaust speed can be higher than with a chemical rocket, so you need less fuel to produce the same thrust.
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No, he's right. The throttle (in atmospheric petrol engines) increases the air resistance in the intake, increasing the puming losses in the engine.
But this method *doesn't* provide constant tracking. The scanners are only installed in a limited number of locations rather than all over the area. I suspect the kids will be out of range most of the time.
But it can't. RFID has such limited range that you have to have a pretty good idea of where the child is before you can use the RFID to locate it. A kidnapper can easily defeat this. From what I've read, the RFID is used to alert people when the kids stray near known dangerous places.
quote: The project requires tag readers to be installed at the school and attached to any such undesirable locale outside.
I worked at an EMC research lab once, and they had a device made from a piezoelectric lighter and a big coil (originally used to measure current). The contraption would fry just about any electronic device held near the coil. Something like this should work with RFID tags, too.
I suspect Hubble's CCD's can't really be compared to the ones in a digital camera.
From that same page: "They can see objects that are 1,000 million times fainter than the naked eye can see. "
For one thing, Hubble's cameras are cooled (can't find their temperature, but IIRC it's far below zero) to reduce noise. Also, the CCD design is bound to be different. This gives an idea of what's involved.
According to this, Questar is just a reseller, not a partner. From the article:
Questar is simply buying Optiplex 170L desktops from Dell as might any other business or individual customer. Is there any thing more to their "agreement" than that? No, Dell told The Register today: "Questar is a direct Dell customer and that is the extent of the relationship."
Nah, when USRobotics released the Pilot (later to become the Palm Pilot) they knew that the handwriting recognition wouldn't work well, so they required you to learn the device's alphabet rather than allowing you to use your own.
And it's not just the handwriting. On the Newton, you could enter 'lunch with Mariah' and the Newton would connect the name with that person's entry in the address book. 10 years later, my Palm still can't do that. Nor can my PC.
But he does have a point. Most of the effort that's gone into hardware and software development, has been aimed at doing the same things faster. Real innovation is very rare. Our desktops still are essentially the same as the 1984 Macintosh. PDAs still haven't caught up with the Newton. Computers are still dumb.
My comment "there's very little the FSF/OS community can do about that" still holds. All the licenses in the world aren't going to stop $Regime from using it.
You could try adding code "IF domain=$Regime THEN Crash" but oh wait, the whole point of OSS is that the source is published...
So 'being ethical' about it won't accomplish anything.
What is there to question? There is no way a totalitarian state can force such a license to be included with the original source. And a totalitarian state probably won't care about the license, anyway. After all, who's going to enforce it?
You could question the morality of free software being used by totalitarian governments, but there's very little the FSF/OS community can do about that.
--
In Soviet Russia, a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods hates YOU!
1. Get 501(c)(3) approved 2. ??? 3. Profit!
More features? Like popup blocking, tabbed browsing, PNG support etc.? Or did you mean 'features' like standards-noncompliance? IE is years behind in terms of functionality.
Sadly, most of the world (read, every country except the USA, UK, Japan and Germany) still doesn't have anything like TiVo.
Duh, that's what a VCR is for.
Bad example. If ever there was a product that needed improvement during its life cycle, it was the Beetle. How VW managed to avoid doing that, still baffles me.
But that doesn't run OS X.
Rubbish. Every Mac user I know (including myself) uses Macs because they like the OS and/or the Macintosh concept in general better than Windows.
The first-generation G4 was introduced on Sept 15, 1999. Wow, Intel is only 5 years late to the game...
Remember all the "in 2001 AD, war was beginning" spoofs?
Let's see, either I carry around my entire music collection on one HD, or I limit myself by selecting one Minidisc when I leave the house, or I lug around stacks of MDs.
If they can fly at FTL speeds, not missing a single episode is trivial. Just fly to the point to where the broadcast you want has traveled.
Regardless of the computer's 'motive' for moving the items, the items *aren't* where they used to be. So any 'muscle memory' effect you used to have goes out the window.
The article said that to increase spindle speed, they had to decrease platter diameter (=capacity). I guess that goes for SCSI drives as well as these new ATA ones.
Both the Xserve and Xserve RAID use ATA drives. Why wouldn't they benefit from faster ATA?
No, your energy is already up there. AFAI understand, you still need to bring something that can be ionized, then accellerated to provide the actual thrust. Advantage of the ion drive is that the exhaust speed can be higher than with a chemical rocket, so you need less fuel to produce the same thrust.