Everytime this has come up on Slashdot I've posted how foolish an idea this is (especially after 9/11), but nobody seems to listen to me.
Absolutely right. We shouldn't ever build any more tall buildings, or bridges, either. Yes, security is an issue, but it is for conventional rocketry as well--and we haven't stopped launching shuttles loaded with thousands of pounds of highly explosive material.
What does this mean? It means that, as the bottom comes down, the top will be yanked down faster than it would be by gravity alone.
Except that as soon as the force of the falling cable below starts to really pull hard on the cable above, the cable will snap. Repeat as necessary to get lots of little cable bits, each a wide, thin, lightweight sheet--it's no worse than being hit by a sheet of falling newsprint.
In order to keep the bottom of the beanstalk from whipping around the circumference of the earth every 90 minutes, you must be talking about putting the center of gravity into geostationary orbit. I've done the math. If you want to put the center of gravity of a cable with uniform density into geostationary orbit, it puts the top of your beanstalk well beyond lunar orbit (inverse square againt). And when the moon snaps off that top guess what happens.
Well sure, but if you read the article, you would know that the cable will not be of uniform density. In principle, the cable can be very thin near the bottm end, and thicker in the middle. Using a counterweight just beyond geostationary orbit (as proposed, again in the article FAQ) will balance the weight of the cable below geostationary orbit. Indeed, the plan proposes using cable construction equipment (which will already be at the end of the cable anyway) as part of the counterweight.
If they'd put in the ToS "You can max out the connection 24/7 without fear of being disconnected or having ports blocked.", it may be worth $80 a month.
Sure, and any ISP that did that would be dead in the water. You want T1 performance 24/7? Pay for a T1. They can only offer those speeds at those prices because there is an (inherently reasonable) assumption that normal users (the ones not running a server or perpetually streaming movies to their entire group of friends) will not be using the full bandwidth full time. Though bandwidth is cheap, cheap is not zero.
You get what you pay for, and so forth.
On the other hand, my ISP (Bell, in Ontario) seems to be fairly generous so far--I can move a few hundred megs a day and not hear a peep out of them. No threats about local networks, P2P, etc. either. YMMV.
"A service has failed to start - BLT300." What is BLT300? Nobody knows.
Obviously, BLT300 is part of a new strategic alliance between Microsoft and Subway. In addition to having that wretched "Connect to the Internet" shortcut, Microsoft is now trying to influence the user's choice of submarine sandwich.
Fight back. Install new open source RedHot Club Sandwich Service instead.
Absolutely true. I work as an assistant to a senator (hence the anon. post), and stuff like this just gets discarded before any "important" people even read it. Grammar and spelling count almost as much as the ideas presented in the letter.
This is an incredibly elitist attitude. In effect you and the Senater you work for are saying, spelling and grammar are more important than the idea being expressed or even the person who is expressing it. Just because someone does not express themselves well, does not invalidate them as a human being.
I'm sorry, but that has a strong sense of "If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read!"
Quite frankly, poor spelling and (particularly) poor grammar at best are distracting. At worst, they completely obscure the point an author wishes to make. Would/. readers put up with dense code full of poorly chosen variable names and devoid of comments? Technical people in general prize elegance--conciseness, clarity, and efficiency--in the work that they do. Why should we settle for less in our paper communication?
Elected officials have a finite amount of time to work with, just like everyone else. It shouldn't be spent parsing badly-written letters and flame mail.
Actually, there is a principle similar to that which you describe. Go Googling for 'laches' or 'law of laches' and you'll find the relevant material.
If a patent holder is aware of infringing activity and doesn't do anything about it for a period of time (six years in the United States) then the infringer is not liable for damages.
However, unlike a trademark, a patent does not lapse without enforcement. As soon as the patent holder does get around to notifying the infringing party, then they can start claiming damages from that point on.
In other words, they can't sue every instance of 'infringement' that took place over the last fifteen years--they have forfeited that right. They may, however, demand royalties for further uses of JPEG compression. Assuming, of course, that their patent does cover the method in question, and that it holds up in court, and no prior art is found, and so forth...
Blame the puffy, middle aged guys named Chuck who think that the right to own firearms is the only civil libery that matters, since it's the only civil liberty you can use to make an exciting loud noise and put holes in cans.
Blame the old people who don't understand the modern world, and as such believe all of the knee-jerk blame laying that demagogues spew out on cable news channels 24 hours a day.
Blame people who see the whole world in moronic stereotypes.
Although I may agree with many of the sentiments of the parent post, I must ask--does anyone else see the rich irony of opening the message with the first two statements above, only to follow with the third...?
The data presented in the referenced paper are for accident rates at level crossings. In practice, this has very little to do with the presence or absence of high-speed rail service. Fatalities at level crossings are higher in regions where there isn't sufficient infrastructure funding to provide grade separations between high-traffic roads and rails, or automated barriers and lights.
Getting hit by a freight train at 60 km/h gets you just as dead as getting hit by a bullet train at 300 km/h.
Some useful statistics might relate PASSENGER-miles (or km) to PASSENGER fatalities, not level-crossing fatalities to train-miles.
Slashdot Mirror
Everytime this has come up on Slashdot I've posted how foolish an idea this is (especially after 9/11), but nobody seems to listen to me.
Absolutely right. We shouldn't ever build any more tall buildings, or bridges, either. Yes, security is an issue, but it is for conventional rocketry as well--and we haven't stopped launching shuttles loaded with thousands of pounds of highly explosive material.
What does this mean? It means that, as the bottom comes down, the top will be yanked down faster than it would be by gravity alone.
Except that as soon as the force of the falling cable below starts to really pull hard on the cable above, the cable will snap. Repeat as necessary to get lots of little cable bits, each a wide, thin, lightweight sheet--it's no worse than being hit by a sheet of falling newsprint.
In order to keep the bottom of the beanstalk from whipping around the circumference of the earth every 90 minutes, you must be talking about putting the center of gravity into geostationary orbit. I've done the math. If you want to put the center of gravity of a cable with uniform density into geostationary orbit, it puts the top of your beanstalk well beyond lunar orbit (inverse square againt). And when the moon snaps off that top guess what happens.
Well sure, but if you read the article, you would know that the cable will not be of uniform density. In principle, the cable can be very thin near the bottm end, and thicker in the middle. Using a counterweight just beyond geostationary orbit (as proposed, again in the article FAQ) will balance the weight of the cable below geostationary orbit. Indeed, the plan proposes using cable construction equipment (which will already be at the end of the cable anyway) as part of the counterweight.
But it's bad luck to break a mirror...
Seagull shit?
No, really. I've seen what nesting rodents (squirrels, etc.) can do to a machine in a rural environment--aren't there similar concerns while afloat?
I didn't realize that Krispy Kreme was a tech company.
But then, I eat at Tim Horton's.
Sure, and any ISP that did that would be dead in the water. You want T1 performance 24/7? Pay for a T1. They can only offer those speeds at those prices because there is an (inherently reasonable) assumption that normal users (the ones not running a server or perpetually streaming movies to their entire group of friends) will not be using the full bandwidth full time. Though bandwidth is cheap, cheap is not zero.
You get what you pay for, and so forth.
On the other hand, my ISP (Bell, in Ontario) seems to be fairly generous so far--I can move a few hundred megs a day and not hear a peep out of them. No threats about local networks, P2P, etc. either. YMMV.
Obviously, BLT300 is part of a new strategic alliance between Microsoft and Subway. In addition to having that wretched "Connect to the Internet" shortcut, Microsoft is now trying to influence the user's choice of submarine sandwich.
Fight back. Install new open source RedHot Club Sandwich Service instead.
This is an incredibly elitist attitude. In effect you and the Senater you work for are saying, spelling and grammar are more important than the idea being expressed or even the person who is expressing it. Just because someone does not express themselves well, does not invalidate them as a human being.
I'm sorry, but that has a strong sense of "If it was hard to write, it should be hard to read!"
Quite frankly, poor spelling and (particularly) poor grammar at best are distracting. At worst, they completely obscure the point an author wishes to make. Would /. readers put up with dense code full of poorly chosen variable names and devoid of comments? Technical people in general prize elegance--conciseness, clarity, and efficiency--in the work that they do. Why should we settle for less in our paper communication?
Elected officials have a finite amount of time to work with, just like everyone else. It shouldn't be spent parsing badly-written letters and flame mail.
Actually, since this story is Canadian, the One True Doughnut would have to be from Tim Horton's.
Actually, there is a principle similar to that which you describe. Go Googling for 'laches' or 'law of laches' and you'll find the relevant material.
If a patent holder is aware of infringing activity and doesn't do anything about it for a period of time (six years in the United States) then the infringer is not liable for damages.
However, unlike a trademark, a patent does not lapse without enforcement. As soon as the patent holder does get around to notifying the infringing party, then they can start claiming damages from that point on.
In other words, they can't sue every instance of 'infringement' that took place over the last fifteen years--they have forfeited that right. They may, however, demand royalties for further uses of JPEG compression. Assuming, of course, that their patent does cover the method in question, and that it holds up in court, and no prior art is found, and so forth...
IANAL, YMMV.
Blame the old people who don't understand the modern world, and as such believe all of the knee-jerk blame laying that demagogues spew out on cable news channels 24 hours a day.
Blame people who see the whole world in moronic stereotypes.
Although I may agree with many of the sentiments of the parent post, I must ask--does anyone else see the rich irony of opening the message with the first two statements above, only to follow with the third...?
Correct. Rather, saying that Rednecks shop at Wal-Mart is--if such a thing is possible--and insult to Wal-Mart.
The data presented in the referenced paper are for accident rates at level crossings. In practice, this has very little to do with the presence or absence of high-speed rail service. Fatalities at level crossings are higher in regions where there isn't sufficient infrastructure funding to provide grade separations between high-traffic roads and rails, or automated barriers and lights.
Getting hit by a freight train at 60 km/h gets you just as dead as getting hit by a bullet train at 300 km/h.
Some useful statistics might relate PASSENGER-miles (or km) to PASSENGER fatalities, not level-crossing fatalities to train-miles.