Its YOUR responsibility to expect and be able to deal with real requirements change - stop whining.
And this is why projects fail. Imagine building a house for a customer that comes out to the job site and asks the builders to make DAILY or HOURLY changes. Suppose he wanted to resize the basement after it had been poured. This would change the entire structure of the house, not to mention make the foundation weaker. The point is that it is RISKY, INEFFICIENT, and COSTLY to change a design in progress.
At some point you have to build what was designed and then plan a phase II to the project.
Specifically, a modular, or phased development process with short development phases and scope to grow is a much better bet than 'Big Bang'
This is why corporations fail and the dinosaurs died off. Sometimes change is very disruptive to an organization but completely necessary. I agree that a modularized world would be great, but sometimes change requires a quantum leap. Slipping slowly into the future by changing a module here or there just isn't always practical. For example: Imagine trying to keep a 1970's era Gremlin running by trying to substitute new modules. Sure upgrading the radio to an MP3 player would be easy, but adding the airbags, anti-lock brakes, and fuel injection system would be extremely difficult and costly. Sometimes you just have to take the 'Big Bang' approach and go buy a new car, even though the old one still runs great.
As for whining. I will happily build and re-build anything a customer wants to pay for. I just don't want to hear any whining about how long it takes or how much it costs. All things are possible, it is simply a matter of TIME and MONEY.
I have studied the CMM and it's implementation, and have determined through experience that having USERS feed REQUIREMENTS to IT results in "It's just what we asked for, but not what we wanted" results. I believe that IT must maintain an intellectual arrogance and lead with technology to drive more efficiency and better processes. IT has to be the one to stand up and ask, "Why are we doing it this way? Wouldn't it be better to consider this approach? Couldn't we combine these two processes or functions from multiple departments?" Users often end up in the land of "learned helplessness" can't see beyond their department or job. IT can look at corporate processes from as a whole and really make an positive impact.
On a side note, the other evil I see is commoditization of IT service. For example: if every company uses the same package e.g. (Peoplesoft, Oracle, SaaS) where is the competitive advantage? I am not against core foundational technologies, but they must be a scaffold on which software and systems can be developed to help the company compete.
I believe this submitter is talking about catastrophic project failure, as in "the project failed miserably". QA in my experience is not usually the cause of projects failing, unless you consider the classic Lorane 5 Rocket disaster. or the iPhone Launch and AT&T melting down on activations.
I am assuming this project has good DBAs and good programmers. Most shops have these, but these poor folks find themselves drowning in nebulous requirements and SCOPE CREEP.
Personally, I operate on the "It compiles, therefore I should slam it into production and go home, because I am that good."
If you aren't part of the solution, there is much money to be made in prolonging the problem. (My second favorite de-motivator)
Seriously, though the classic problem with IT projects are two-fold: 1) Unclear Requ2irements and, 2) Scope Creep. Unfortunately, while IT is bemoaned as incompetent, the truth is that most of the users are even more incompetent, yet the IT departments ask the users for INFORMATION.
IMHO, You have to assign someone from IT to LEARN THE BUSINESS before trying to create solutions. For example, if you are creating an application for a Shipping Department, send people from IT to go work in shipping for a week and UNDERSTAND how the department operates and how it can be improved. Asking the users what they need without true understanding leads to disaster and inefficiency. If you gain understanding and insight into how to create a solution, you can make real improvements and possibly even eliminate inefficient/useless tasks and save labor.
Scope Creep.... The old, hey while you are at it, could you just add one more feature to the program? You have to respond NO, but we will add that to the feature list for version 2.0 of the application. Imagine if Henry Ford tried to add all the features we have on the modern automobile to the Model-T. The Model-T wouldn't have ever been delivered. Creating software is an iterative process and just like car models you have to stop adding features at some point.
Good Luck! Just remember, the problem is rarely technical.
I apologize if you thought I was picking on Joe Six Pack. My point is that the hardware is up to the task, but the bloated, slow, and inefficient software grinds down the performance of the machine. I base this on personal experience and run a MythDora (MythTV + Fedora Linux) media center on a Pentium III without any performance issues. It happily plays and records TV, burns DVDs, shows pictures, plays games, plays/rips DVDs, transcodes video, surfs RSS feeds, streams video and audio without any performance problems.
The modern hardware we have is very powerful in terms of computing power. It is the bloated software like Vista/Java/.NET which make your shiny new machine feel slooooow. If we could get the DirectX guys and the Linux kernel guys together, we could have a killer O/S.
Ask yourself this question, "Is High Performance Computing Really the Goal?" or is herding the consumer to newer shinier hardware the goal? The amount of computing power found in a typical Pentium III computer sitting out and someones curb far exceeds the needs of most users.
Wow! It sounds like the Dark Matter guys and String Theory guys should get together. Soon we will have theories for everything and with no experimental validation required. I am going to try this excuse on my Quantum Physics Professor, "The reason I didn't turn in my last lab report is that it wandered into an alternate dimension." LOL! See my previous posts for what really happens in the future.
From my understanding, most of the problems that Geek Squad resolves can be solved by selling the consumer MORE stuff. e.g. (New Computer, Memory, Harddrive, Software). Geek Squad was probably a good concept when it started, but it appears economic pressures have pushed Best Buy into the GREED ZONE. If only Walmart wouldn't have started selling those nice new high-margin LCD panels at cut-throat prices.
Oddly, I quit shopping at Best Buy for two reasons, 1) Lack of Product Knowledge in Salespeople, 2) The Loss Prevention Guy that stands at the door and makes you feel like a criminal when you enter and exit.
1. You can't break even.
2. You can't win.
3. You can't quit.
While I will agree that "Nature hides in plain sight", any perpetual motion device violates the rules. About as close we could ever get to perpetual energy here on earth would be geothermal energy, but this is dependent on the Sun continuing to shine and the temperature on Earth not dropping to +3 degrees Kelvin.
I expected it too, but I think Libby was getting ready to roll over on Cheney. Cheney is the true power broker in the administration and he probably ordered Bush to pardon Libby.
In case you haven't been following the news, George Bush has been pushing amnesty for 12-20 million people in the US illegally and for blowing the top off of the H1-B quotas. To make a long story short, two border patrol agents shot a cocaine drug smuggler (in the rear) and have been sent to prison for doing their job and protecting our country.
Bush has been asked to pardon and/or commute the sentences of these border agents but has made excuse after excuse. Bush has said the process to pardon someone is complicated and takes many years. However, when a real criminal is sent to prison, but potentially threatens the Vice President, the pardons come easy.
In my opinion, Bush is a disgrace not only himself but to our Nation and Democracy. The world press will run this story and it will further erode the credibility of US Democracy and show once again how corrupt our leaders truly are. I am angry, sickened, and amazed. I just wanted to scream today when I saw this news story. It's a very sad day for America, but it has been a very sad 8 years and undoing the incompetence and damage of the Bush/Cheney era is going to take another 20-years as we are still stuck in Iraq and the national treasure has been given to Haliburton. All we have left is debt and shame. Thank you Mr. President, now please resign and go live in Mexico!
Something else I forgot to expound on. The new batteries hold their charge (almost) indefinately and do not discharge like capacitors. Technically, I think they bleed of charge at.3% per day, but from what I hear, it is amazing technology which even works at temperature extrememes making it suitable for mass transportation and automobiles. The future is truly amazing.
What motivation would the scientific community have to want to espouse and stubbornly defend weak theory? I'd like an answer.
How about ego? It works something like this. 1) Get a Phd. 2) Join a faction 3) Defend whatever your faction believes so you can keep the spotlight and research money flowing your way, 4) ostracize and dismiss out of hand anyone who disagrees with you, because they are clearly misguided morons.
The classic case happened between some infallible dude named Pope Urban VIII and a bible scholar named Galileo. As it turns out, heavy objects do not fall faster than lighter objects and the earth isn't the center of our solar system. The jury is still out on whether the earth is the center of the Universe:)
Typically, before a well entrenched scientific theory dies, the people that hold those beliefs need to die as well. It's sad, but "CHANGE" and admitting to error isn't one of mankinds strengths. A good contemporary case study would be the George W. Bush presidency.
According to my friend from the near-distant future, this is how it all works:
1. Space in the universe must be conserved and can not be expanded or contracted, i.e. the universe is not a ballon, but the way we percieve it changes, just like in Einstein's Relativity.
2. Space is a field which is created by matter/energy.
3. The space field has multiple properties included time, gravity, electromagnetism, and magnetism.
4. The equation which unifies what we percieve as space-time, gravity, and electromagnetism is called the McMinnis equation and looks very similar to Maxwell's equations and has six pieces.
5. The amount of energy in the universe is not constant as we currently believe and points to a source outside the universe. Some existentialists have theorized this is the evidence of a creator influencing outcomes.
We also discover that the graviton and virtual massless photons (which we believe make up magnetic fields) do not exist and are merely properties of the space field which surrounds energy.
As far as future energy sources go, ethanol dies a horrific death after totally screwing up the food supply. The nanotech guys develop new batteries which can be charged as fast as capacitors and hold 5000 times the amount of energy in the same package size. The future is primarily powered by geothermal wells which generate electricity and fusion is never fully perfected but does produce about 35% of the global electricity supply. There is a debate that the geothermal wells are cooling the core of the planet which will have disastrous consequences and descendant of Al Gore makes a documentary about it. In other news: The US/China start a colony on the moon, but something about moon dust causes lung cancer (like asbestos). Even though it is attempted 10 times, iNASA is never successful in establishing a base on Mars, but dooms many astronauts. The war in Iraq lasts for nearly 20 years.
Hope that helps and please keep this information to yourself.
This analogy is flawed. The Open Source community creates code from ideas to create programs and systems. In the Biohacking world, genetic code is copied from one system into another system (with fingers crossed) in the hopes that something good happens. Programmers tend to understand the systems on which their code runs. The biohackers struggle with how their code will impact their systems in terms of "gene expression" and generational interactions.
Sure biohackers are creating new organisms, but it isn't the same as creating it from scratch and understanding both the system and how the system interact with other systems. Maybe I am too critical of the genehackers, but I fear that genehacking without deep understanding is going to end badly.
RealID wasn't even a consideration. The American people (including me) calling/emailing their Senators and overwhelming both the phone and email system caused this bill to come crashing down.
This "Grand Bargain" was great for those seeking el-cheapo workers aka (Corporations)and great for Democrats looking to purchase a new hispanic voting block. I just don't understand how so many can place greed over proper management of our country and culture. I am not opposed to immigration but opening the floodgates to 12-20 million people is insane.
We need to secure our borders and halt all immigration until we can come up with a fair system. The system needs to be fair to the immigrant and fair to the American worker. Sorry, I was ranting, I just feel badly for the poor H1-B's out there stuck in slave labor situations. I also feel badly for Americans out of work due to unfair immigration.
Either we come up with a fair system or wait for our standard of living to equalize with that of Mexico, Communist China, and India. It's a complex global problem, but Real-ID is not even a factor.
The Physics world has moved into a wierd age. Phds. are now granted to people who produce equations and theories which can not be validated with experiments. Note: I did not say proved, I said validated.
One the other said of Physics world, applied physics, you have the patent wars slowing things to a crawl. In fields like fusion and nanotechnology innovation is being stalled by patents. If you aren't writing a patent, you are figuring out how to get around someone else's patent. The amount of time wasted on patents is sad. The patent system needs to change such that the obvious and trivial can no longer be patented. Just because an invention occurred in nanotechnology or biotechnology does not mean it should be granted a patent simply because it sounds really, really technical.
In our society, we now value feeding corporations and lawyers more that we value knowledge and innovation. Meanwhile other countries like China, who do not respect our Copyright and Patent process pirate our products and will soon leap ahead of the US in physics research because they aren't encumbered by the capitalistic IP game.
These busts are nothing compared to the container loads full of pirated CD's, DVD's, cosmetics, toys, bikes, medicine, clothing, batteries, cameras, and electronics coming in from China. The goods coming in from China look identical to the legitimate item, except that sometimes the batteries explode due to defects in cloning the original and the medicine, costmetics, and food sometimes kill and/or poison. If our government fails to contain China, the US will become to China what England was to the 13 Colonies. If the RIAA really wants to stop mass piracy and copyright violations, they should start with the container ships and the Walmart supply chains.
P.S. - Take my advice, don't feed the wheat-gluten from China to your pets.
On Slide #6, "Megatrends" and how that the "old hotness" for "non-core functions" was "in-house" but now that we are in the 21st century, the new hotness is "OUTSOURCED"! I wonder if they outsourced the making of this presentation:) Also, if you note the "Work Environemnt" row, you will see the transition from "Dedicated" to "Virtual, Telecommuting" which means more DIA laptops will be floating around, getting ripped off, and exposing the DIA to even more leaks. With this DIA strategy and demonstrated incomptence, China's expanded cyberweapons programs will have the information in hand before the President/Congress get to hear it in their briefings. Security is an illusion.
As a physics student I took an interest in Tesla and if you haven't read the book titled "A Man Out of Time", consider reading it. Tesla was building a tower to transmit power between the US and Europe (across the large ocean). The reason this is important is that is not accomplished by induction, but through some other means. Tesla's other means was probably really, really, high voltage as he was producing with his Tesla coils. Making high voltage is not a mystery, but directly it safely and then dropping it to a safe and usable potential is very difficult.
In short, this is NOT the same as holding a flourescent tube under a high voltage powerline. The MIT method uses controlled power tranmission over larger distances (2m or 6ft). The technique uses resonance frequency but has 40% loss, which is very bad meaning it is only 60% efficient. Many modern PSU (Power Supply Units) are 90%+ efficient. Unless they increase the efficiency, the power industry probably won't be jumping on board anytime soon.
True, the only time you will generally notice the difference is if the track has a crowd clapping or drumkit (hi-hat) cymbals. At 128k I think cymbals sound horrible and undefined. At 192k I start not to be less annoyed.
Slashdot Mirror
Its YOUR responsibility to expect and be able to deal with real requirements change - stop whining.
And this is why projects fail. Imagine building a house for a customer that comes out to the job site and asks the builders to make DAILY or HOURLY changes. Suppose he wanted to resize the basement after it had been poured. This would change the entire structure of the house, not to mention make the foundation weaker. The point is that it is RISKY, INEFFICIENT, and COSTLY to change a design in progress.
At some point you have to build what was designed and then plan a phase II to the project.
Specifically, a modular, or phased development process with short development phases and scope to grow is a much better bet than 'Big Bang'
This is why corporations fail and the dinosaurs died off. Sometimes change is very disruptive to an organization but completely necessary. I agree that a modularized world would be great, but sometimes change requires a quantum leap. Slipping slowly into the future by changing a module here or there just isn't always practical. For example: Imagine trying to keep a 1970's era Gremlin running by trying to substitute new modules. Sure upgrading the radio to an MP3 player would be easy, but adding the airbags, anti-lock brakes, and fuel injection system would be extremely difficult and costly. Sometimes you just have to take the 'Big Bang' approach and go buy a new car, even though the old one still runs great.
As for whining. I will happily build and re-build anything a customer wants to pay for. I just don't want to hear any whining about how long it takes or how much it costs. All things are possible, it is simply a matter of TIME and MONEY.
I have studied the CMM and it's implementation, and have determined through experience that having USERS feed REQUIREMENTS to IT results in "It's just what we asked for, but not what we wanted" results. I believe that IT must maintain an intellectual arrogance and lead with technology to drive more efficiency and better processes. IT has to be the one to stand up and ask, "Why are we doing it this way? Wouldn't it be better to consider this approach? Couldn't we combine these two processes or functions from multiple departments?" Users often end up in the land of "learned helplessness" can't see beyond their department or job. IT can look at corporate processes from as a whole and really make an positive impact.
On a side note, the other evil I see is commoditization of IT service. For example: if every company uses the same package e.g. (Peoplesoft, Oracle, SaaS) where is the competitive advantage? I am not against core foundational technologies, but they must be a scaffold on which software and systems can be developed to help the company compete.
I believe this submitter is talking about catastrophic project failure, as in "the project failed miserably". QA in my experience is not usually the cause of projects failing, unless you consider the classic Lorane 5 Rocket disaster. or the iPhone Launch and AT&T melting down on activations.
I am assuming this project has good DBAs and good programmers. Most shops have these, but these poor folks find themselves drowning in nebulous requirements and SCOPE CREEP.
Personally, I operate on the "It compiles, therefore I should slam it into production and go home, because I am that good."
If you aren't part of the solution, there is much money to be made in prolonging the problem. (My second favorite de-motivator)
Seriously, though the classic problem with IT projects are two-fold: 1) Unclear Requ2irements and, 2) Scope Creep. Unfortunately, while IT is bemoaned as incompetent, the truth is that most of the users are even more incompetent, yet the IT departments ask the users for INFORMATION.
IMHO, You have to assign someone from IT to LEARN THE BUSINESS before trying to create solutions. For example, if you are creating an application for a Shipping Department, send people from IT to go work in shipping for a week and UNDERSTAND how the department operates and how it can be improved. Asking the users what they need without true understanding leads to disaster and inefficiency. If you gain understanding and insight into how to create a solution, you can make real improvements and possibly even eliminate inefficient/useless tasks and save labor.
Scope Creep.... The old, hey while you are at it, could you just add one more feature to the program? You have to respond NO, but we will add that to the feature list for version 2.0 of the application. Imagine if Henry Ford tried to add all the features we have on the modern automobile to the Model-T. The Model-T wouldn't have ever been delivered. Creating software is an iterative process and just like car models you have to stop adding features at some point.
Good Luck! Just remember, the problem is rarely technical.
I apologize if you thought I was picking on Joe Six Pack. My point is that the hardware is up to the task, but the bloated, slow, and inefficient software grinds down the performance of the machine. I base this on personal experience and run a MythDora (MythTV + Fedora Linux) media center on a Pentium III without any performance issues. It happily plays and records TV, burns DVDs, shows pictures, plays games, plays/rips DVDs, transcodes video, surfs RSS feeds, streams video and audio without any performance problems.
The modern hardware we have is very powerful in terms of computing power. It is the bloated software like Vista/Java/.NET which make your shiny new machine feel slooooow. If we could get the DirectX guys and the Linux kernel guys together, we could have a killer O/S.
Ask yourself this question, "Is High Performance Computing Really the Goal?" or is herding the consumer to newer shinier hardware the goal? The amount of computing power found in a typical Pentium III computer sitting out and someones curb far exceeds the needs of most users.
Wow! It sounds like the Dark Matter guys and String Theory guys should get together. Soon we will have theories for everything and with no experimental validation required. I am going to try this excuse on my Quantum Physics Professor, "The reason I didn't turn in my last lab report is that it wandered into an alternate dimension." LOL! See my previous posts for what really happens in the future.
From my understanding, most of the problems that Geek Squad resolves can be solved by selling the consumer MORE stuff. e.g. (New Computer, Memory, Harddrive, Software). Geek Squad was probably a good concept when it started, but it appears economic pressures have pushed Best Buy into the GREED ZONE. If only Walmart wouldn't have started selling those nice new high-margin LCD panels at cut-throat prices.
Oddly, I quit shopping at Best Buy for two reasons, 1) Lack of Product Knowledge in Salespeople, 2) The Loss Prevention Guy that stands at the door and makes you feel like a criminal when you enter and exit.
One more time, here are the rules.
1. You can't break even.
2. You can't win.
3. You can't quit.
While I will agree that "Nature hides in plain sight", any perpetual motion device violates the rules. About as close we could ever get to perpetual energy here on earth would be geothermal energy, but this is dependent on the Sun continuing to shine and the temperature on Earth not dropping to +3 degrees Kelvin.
I expected it too, but I think Libby was getting ready to roll over on Cheney. Cheney is the true power broker in the administration and he probably ordered Bush to pardon Libby.
the legislative branch goes nuts
And I pray they start impeachment proceedings against Cheney tomorrow, or maybe have a special session on the 4th of July to start the proceedings.
In case you haven't been following the news, George Bush has been pushing amnesty for 12-20 million people in the US illegally and for blowing the top off of the H1-B quotas. To make a long story short, two border patrol agents shot a cocaine drug smuggler (in the rear) and have been sent to prison for doing their job and protecting our country.
Bush has been asked to pardon and/or commute the sentences of these border agents but has made excuse after excuse. Bush has said the process to pardon someone is complicated and takes many years. However, when a real criminal is sent to prison, but potentially threatens the Vice President, the pardons come easy.
In my opinion, Bush is a disgrace not only himself but to our Nation and Democracy. The world press will run this story and it will further erode the credibility of US Democracy and show once again how corrupt our leaders truly are. I am angry, sickened, and amazed. I just wanted to scream today when I saw this news story. It's a very sad day for America, but it has been a very sad 8 years and undoing the incompetence and damage of the Bush/Cheney era is going to take another 20-years as we are still stuck in Iraq and the national treasure has been given to Haliburton. All we have left is debt and shame. Thank you Mr. President, now please resign and go live in Mexico!
Something else I forgot to expound on. The new batteries hold their charge (almost) indefinately and do not discharge like capacitors. Technically, I think they bleed of charge at .3% per day, but from what I hear, it is amazing technology which even works at temperature extrememes making it suitable for mass transportation and automobiles. The future is truly amazing.
What motivation would the scientific community have to want to espouse and stubbornly defend weak theory? I'd like an answer.
:)
How about ego? It works something like this. 1) Get a Phd. 2) Join a faction 3) Defend whatever your faction believes so you can keep the spotlight and research money flowing your way, 4) ostracize and dismiss out of hand anyone who disagrees with you, because they are clearly misguided morons.
The classic case happened between some infallible dude named Pope Urban VIII and a bible scholar named Galileo. As it turns out, heavy objects do not fall faster than lighter objects and the earth isn't the center of our solar system. The jury is still out on whether the earth is the center of the Universe
Typically, before a well entrenched scientific theory dies, the people that hold those beliefs need to die as well. It's sad, but "CHANGE" and admitting to error isn't one of mankinds strengths. A good contemporary case study would be the George W. Bush presidency.
2. Space is a field which is created by matter/energy.
3. The space field has multiple properties included time, gravity, electromagnetism, and magnetism.
4. The equation which unifies what we percieve as space-time, gravity, and electromagnetism is called the McMinnis equation and looks very similar to Maxwell's equations and has six pieces.
5. The amount of energy in the universe is not constant as we currently believe and points to a source outside the universe. Some existentialists have theorized this is the evidence of a creator influencing outcomes.
We also discover that the graviton and virtual massless photons (which we believe make up magnetic fields) do not exist and are merely properties of the space field which surrounds energy.
As far as future energy sources go, ethanol dies a horrific death after totally screwing up the food supply. The nanotech guys develop new batteries which can be charged as fast as capacitors and hold 5000 times the amount of energy in the same package size. The future is primarily powered by geothermal wells which generate electricity and fusion is never fully perfected but does produce about 35% of the global electricity supply. There is a debate that the geothermal wells are cooling the core of the planet which will have disastrous consequences and descendant of Al Gore makes a documentary about it. In other news: The US/China start a colony on the moon, but something about moon dust causes lung cancer (like asbestos). Even though it is attempted 10 times, iNASA is never successful in establishing a base on Mars, but dooms many astronauts. The war in Iraq lasts for nearly 20 years.
Hope that helps and please keep this information to yourself.
This analogy is flawed. The Open Source community creates code from ideas to create programs and systems. In the Biohacking world, genetic code is copied from one system into another system (with fingers crossed) in the hopes that something good happens. Programmers tend to understand the systems on which their code runs. The biohackers struggle with how their code will impact their systems in terms of "gene expression" and generational interactions.
Sure biohackers are creating new organisms, but it isn't the same as creating it from scratch and understanding both the system and how the system interact with other systems. Maybe I am too critical of the genehackers, but I fear that genehacking without deep understanding is going to end badly.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
RealID wasn't even a consideration. The American people (including me) calling/emailing their Senators and overwhelming both the phone and email system caused this bill to come crashing down.
This "Grand Bargain" was great for those seeking el-cheapo workers aka (Corporations)and great for Democrats looking to purchase a new hispanic voting block. I just don't understand how so many can place greed over proper management of our country and culture. I am not opposed to immigration but opening the floodgates to 12-20 million people is insane.
We need to secure our borders and halt all immigration until we can come up with a fair system. The system needs to be fair to the immigrant and fair to the American worker. Sorry, I was ranting, I just feel badly for the poor H1-B's out there stuck in slave labor situations. I also feel badly for Americans out of work due to unfair immigration.
Either we come up with a fair system or wait for our standard of living to equalize with that of Mexico, Communist China, and India. It's a complex global problem, but Real-ID is not even a factor.
Are you currently Channeling the Ghost of John Lennon? "Imagine....."
The Physics world has moved into a wierd age. Phds. are now granted to people who produce equations and theories which can not be validated with experiments. Note: I did not say proved, I said validated.
One the other said of Physics world, applied physics, you have the patent wars slowing things to a crawl. In fields like fusion and nanotechnology innovation is being stalled by patents. If you aren't writing a patent, you are figuring out how to get around someone else's patent. The amount of time wasted on patents is sad. The patent system needs to change such that the obvious and trivial can no longer be patented. Just because an invention occurred in nanotechnology or biotechnology does not mean it should be granted a patent simply because it sounds really, really technical.
In our society, we now value feeding corporations and lawyers more that we value knowledge and innovation. Meanwhile other countries like China, who do not respect our Copyright and Patent process pirate our products and will soon leap ahead of the US in physics research because they aren't encumbered by the capitalistic IP game.
These busts are nothing compared to the container loads full of pirated CD's, DVD's, cosmetics, toys, bikes, medicine, clothing, batteries, cameras, and electronics coming in from China. The goods coming in from China look identical to the legitimate item, except that sometimes the batteries explode due to defects in cloning the original and the medicine, costmetics, and food sometimes kill and/or poison. If our government fails to contain China, the US will become to China what England was to the 13 Colonies. If the RIAA really wants to stop mass piracy and copyright violations, they should start with the container ships and the Walmart supply chains.
P.S. - Take my advice, don't feed the wheat-gluten from China to your pets.
On Slide #6, "Megatrends" and how that the "old hotness" for "non-core functions" was "in-house" but now that we are in the 21st century, the new hotness is "OUTSOURCED"! I wonder if they outsourced the making of this presentation :) Also, if you note the "Work Environemnt" row, you will see the transition from "Dedicated" to "Virtual, Telecommuting" which means more DIA laptops will be floating around, getting ripped off, and exposing the DIA to even more leaks. With this DIA strategy and demonstrated incomptence, China's expanded cyberweapons programs will have the information in hand before the President/Congress get to hear it in their briefings. Security is an illusion.
Once again Slashdot editors, great JOB ON DUPE CHECKING. Makes you wonder if the editors even read their own website.
Only about 7% is lost due to heat in high voltage tranmission. Also, there is an efficiency hit taken for each transformer but it varies based on the size of the transformer.
As a physics student I took an interest in Tesla and if you haven't read the book titled "A Man Out of Time", consider reading it. Tesla was building a tower to transmit power between the US and Europe (across the large ocean). The reason this is important is that is not accomplished by induction, but through some other means. Tesla's other means was probably really, really, high voltage as he was producing with his Tesla coils. Making high voltage is not a mystery, but directly it safely and then dropping it to a safe and usable potential is very difficult.
In short, this is NOT the same as holding a flourescent tube under a high voltage powerline. The MIT method uses controlled power tranmission over larger distances (2m or 6ft). The technique uses resonance frequency but has 40% loss, which is very bad meaning it is only 60% efficient. Many modern PSU (Power Supply Units) are 90%+ efficient. Unless they increase the efficiency, the power industry probably won't be jumping on board anytime soon.
True, the only time you will generally notice the difference is if the track has a crowd clapping or drumkit (hi-hat) cymbals. At 128k I think cymbals sound horrible and undefined. At 192k I start not to be less annoyed.