Natural gas has NO ODOR which is why it is DANGEROUS. The smell is added when the gas is processed to alert us to a leak or a burner not lit. Other articles correctly site this.
Did you know that Edison assigned many of his patents to his assistants? I had a dear friend whose family had benefited from the assignment of several of them. Edison took care of his own.
Its sad. When an industrial designer of this reputation has a member of their firm attempt to pass off such an obvious knock-off as their own "Signature" design.
Can you imagine how their reputation would suffer if they were a fashion designer and this happened? The buzz in the trade alone could cost them the firm.
Some would say the designer was maybe just getting old and maybe had lost their artistic edge or the creative control of their firm.
The only way to recover would be to explain it's appearance as the work of a junior designer (which this probably is) that had slipped past review and authorization - and, with appology and much other PR damage control, the designer's "signature" would be removed from the design and the fashion item would be withdrawn from the collection.
If I headed this firm, I would ask that my name be removed from this design. After all, who wants to pay top dollar to a firm that just does knock-offs of last years Paris Originals?
I believe that this is not quite what it seems. If Apple were that opposed to a move to Boston, they would have communicated that to IDG quite a while ago and the move would not have occured.
Something financial/political is behind this. I believe that the amount of good publicity that will be generated by a return to their roots in Boston (The City of Boston is even spending money to publicize the return) far outweighs their leaving NYC.
The Macintosh debuted here in Boston, as did all of Apple's cutting edge technologies - Hypercard, the Newton, etc. While the temporary relocation to NY was important to help strengthen Apple's credibility amongst their media (broadcast and print) customers a return to Boston is equally important.
Remember the rumors that Apple was contemplating moving their West coast outing to LA for that reason.
Apple still has strong educational and bio-tech/research links here as well as a mature media industry that resides here - Boston has long had the reputation of being the place where you get your start in print/ film/video production and the place where people come to after they've established themselves to set up their own independant companies.
So, I say, wait a bit. Let the politics unfold. If you want Macworld to return to Boston with Apple's support - let your voice be heard. Compose a well reasoned letter as to why they should return to Boston. Snail mail may be best way to get your message heard, maybe not. But remember that Steve Job's baby had its coming out party here and that Boston knows how to put on a damn good show!
McHummer Actor/Macintosh Specialist
I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
Fascinating - Bombardier has unearthed the Turbo Train. Back in the late 60's - early 70's United Aircraft built and maintained a number of Pratt and Whitney turbine powered train sets. These operated between Boston and New York - Where you could connect with the high speed Metroliner Electric MU cars running New York to Washington.
They were kind of cool. The trainset was semi-permanently arranged with 1 wheelseet between cars. They employed the same tilt-technology pioneered by Talgo years before in Europe (and still used today) that allowed their operation at higher speeds through curves superelevated for lower speeds. If you were riding in one of the dome seating areas in the propulsion unit you had a good view. If you were riding at night and had a smart conductor that knew enough to turn off the station stop lighting in the dome you had a spectacular view ahead - if you had one that was lazy and left the lights on you couldn't see out and the lighting was too bright to sleep.
BTW - Regular riders knew the seat pads unsnapped (a design for easy maintenance/cleaning) and could be repositioned for greater comfort during the long trip.
Ah, technology - the more it changes the more it stays the same.
I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
There was a proposal, only a few years back, that Latin be used as the Lingua Franca for the developing EEC. This received a fairly moderate amount of press in academia and the popular news magazines and was seen by some as an answer to the Community's resistance to the Americanization of European culture.
I've done some quick searching on the net to see if I could find any references to this, but they seem to passed beyond the pail and into the classification of nothing more than a historical footnote at this point.
If Paladium ever ships, what will prevent knowledgeable hardware hackers from 'clean room' engineering a 'Paladium Emulator' that will run under a non Paladium OS & hardware that will mearly pass the appropriate handshakes to so called 'protected' programs and media content.
I mean, really, its only a matter of time - no matter how well encrypted the low level OS and boot code. Too much knowledge of the logic of hardware / OS structure is available. - - - Supress that knowledge and the US will rapidly head to 3rd world status in the current technological revolution.
Given the ability to create and digitally edit photographs at a resolution greater than film emulsion and then transfer that image to film we will loose the ability to authenticate a photographic image as original and-or unmodified.
As this digital editing capability spreads across our technological society we can expect legal chalenges that will result in banning the use of photographs as evidence until new standards for image authentication can be established.
[ Imagine - A world in which in which a doctored composite photograph or motion picture film can have the shadows and lighting match in direction and density. What will the conspiracy theorists do? ]
The only thing delays this day should printed as a disclaimer on the box of any shrinkwraped image editing product - "Talent is Not Included".
Given the ability to create and digitally edit photographs at a resolution greater than film emulsion and then transfer that image to film we will loose the ability to authenticate a photographic image as original and-or unmodified.
As this digital editing capability spreads across our technological society we can expect legal chalenges that will result in banning the use of photographs as evidence until new standards for image authentication can be established.
[ Imagine - A world in which in which a doctored composite photograph or motion picture film can have the shadows and lighting match in direction and density. What will the conspiracy theorists do? ]
The only thing delays this day should printed as a disclaimer on the box of any shrinkwraped image editing product - "Talent is Not Included".
Power for transportation provided by a central plant is better for the environment than decentralized power generation in a vehicle. Pollution is easier to control in a central plant than in thousands of vehicles and a higher generating efficiency can be maintained.
Also, as the politics or economics of fuel supplies change you only have to modify the central power generation facilities to use a particular fuel. - Oil, gas, coal, alcohol, hydrogen, solid waste, hydro, etc. - its all the same. Strategically, it's a good security move for the US or any other nation.
Pure electric vehicles are great, although hybrid vehicles are good start to promote and develop the economics of the technology. I'm sorry Ford pulled out of the front-runners in the race, but since they hold many patents (many going back 30 years or more) in this field you can bet they're not yet out of the race
I vaguely remember this being done on the Montreal Metro at the time of Expo 67. As the train reached its programmed speed strobe lights illuminated ads in boxes on the subway walls producing a rotoscoping or animation of the ads.
The use of flywheels and/or regenerative braking will do much to improve the energy efficiency of subway trains, but will do little to improve subway comfort.
The heat generated during a trains accelleration was nearly eliminated when the resistive motor controls formerly used were replaced with energy efficient solid-state chopper controls. The heat generated from the use of the motors in the braking cycle is considerably less - most of the braking being mechanical.
The problem is subway discomfort is another modern technology - air conditioning.
Air heated by the hot, sweaty, sardine packed passengers, from the doors opening and closing and thermal (exterior heat and sun) load on the train is passed through the cold coils of a heat pump and then over electric heating coils to raise its temperature (dehumidifying it) and then passed back into the train.
All this heat and humidity has to go somewhere.
Humidity removed from the air is dumped (drip drip drip...) into the outside envronment as is heat from the hot coils of the heat pump. This is what makes the enclosed environment of the subway intolerable.
When the Subways were being built in the early 1900's extensive studies, testing and engineering changes were done to ensure passenger comfort. I can remember the pleasure of riding the subways at the open front gratings on the trains - soaking up the COOL breaze as the train rushed through the subway.
When air conditioning was introduced the trains became cooler but the stations became intolerable. The answer then was to increase the ventilation of the subway to allow all this additional heat to escape. However, opening up the subways to vent the heat resulted in the subways being COLD in the winter and even Hotter in the summer.
Technology, go figure. Like the Victorians - we're Throughly Modern (tm) ! But have we advanced ?
But what happens to all these wonderfully secure Palladium machines when the software/hardware encryption scheme that authenticates the digital signatures used by "MS Approved" software is cracked - as it will be - thereby giving a programmer the ability to "signature" the odd drivers or specialized applications they end up needing ?
Will all those that jumped on the bandwagon to buy what were pitched as "secure" machines have wasted their money? I suppose that the hardware's "black box" chipset could be designed to accept encryption upgrades via a service pack - but wouldn't that would just open another hole to be hacked?
It is a given that any encryption protection scheme has a limited life span. Computing power and mathematics just continues to advance too quickly.
Think tanks do not work the way most people expect them to. They are not 'neutral' to a discussion. They receive a premise to discuss and assemble a team to do the research the question(s), discuss the result of the research and distill the results. They DO NOT try to consider all aspects of an arguement - that's not their business - ONLY WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN ASKED.
Commisioning a study by a think tank is like asking for a wish from a genie - You get what you you asked for ! - But what you get is not necessarily for what you wanted !
To understand this white paper you would have to have to review the original material presented to them for discussion. Their answer only reflects the bias of the original question. ( Garbage In - Garbage Out)
So as you look at the 'expert white paper' remember the genie and ask yourself what was the original question - and re-read with that enlightenment.
I've had to deal with the political problems created by studies by think tanks and 'experts' like this for years.
I distinctly remember...
You'ld really have to dig through the EARLY interviews with Lucas on the Star Wars series but he ORIGINALY announced in press interviews that he would do 4 trilogies, not 3 ! However, this was downsized to 3 trilogies very quickly and the 4th forgotten.
Hey - I just report the facts. I was really hooked reading any news article on Star Wars I could get my hands on.
One of the ways to gain sponsorship in a film or television show during productgion is product placement. As an extra in a film a while back I was the dozing subway rider that held the coffee cup with the name of the company that supplied the coffee to the production company. - Advertising ! You see it all the time - The signs on buildings and trucks driving through a scene.. In a DVR world wouldn't they try and carry it further and place the key comercials in the scenes as they did in the movie "The Truman Show"? Just strenghten the appearanceof the product placement and like its presence plot.
Will it happen? Time will tell...
A long time ago I had a sig line - __________ Microsoft - The Number One Manufacturer of 'Tools for Terrorism (tm)'. __________ This was inspired by the then almost weekly anouncements about security problems with the design of and use of Active-X, macro-viruses, IIS, etc. Now their lawyers have concurred. Guess I was right all along !
- Mchummer __________ ... I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2 __________
Slashdot Mirror
Natural gas has NO ODOR which is why it is DANGEROUS. The smell is added when the gas is processed to alert us to a leak or a burner not lit. Other articles correctly site this.
Did you know that Edison assigned many of his patents to his assistants? I had a dear friend whose family had benefited from the assignment of several of them. Edison took care of his own.
Its sad. When an industrial designer of this reputation has a member of their firm attempt to pass off such an obvious knock-off as their own "Signature" design.
Can you imagine how their reputation would suffer if they were a fashion designer and this happened? The buzz in the trade alone could cost them the firm.
Some would say the designer was maybe just getting old and maybe had lost their artistic edge or the creative control of their firm.
The only way to recover would be to explain it's appearance as the work of a junior designer (which this probably is) that had slipped past review and authorization - and, with appology and much other PR damage control, the designer's "signature" would be removed from the design and the fashion item would be withdrawn from the collection.
If I headed this firm, I would ask that my name be removed from this design. After all, who wants to pay top dollar to a firm that just does knock-offs of last years Paris Originals?
How Piercefully Grows the Hazy Yon !
How Myrtle Detailed Tho.
For Spring Hath Sprung the Cyclotron !
How High Browse Tho, Brown Cow ?
Churchy La Femme, 1950
(Thank you Walt Kelly)
I believe that this is not quite what it seems. If Apple were that opposed to a move to Boston, they would have communicated that to IDG quite a while ago and the move would not have occured.
Something financial/political is behind this. I believe that the amount of good publicity that will be generated by a return to their roots in Boston (The City of Boston is even spending money to publicize the return) far outweighs their leaving NYC.
The Macintosh debuted here in Boston, as did all of Apple's cutting edge technologies - Hypercard, the Newton, etc. While the temporary relocation to NY was important to help strengthen Apple's credibility amongst their media (broadcast and print) customers a return to Boston is equally important.
Remember the rumors that Apple was contemplating moving their West coast outing to LA for that reason.
Apple still has strong educational and bio-tech/research links here as well as a mature media industry that resides here - Boston has long had the reputation of being the place where you get your start in print/ film/video production and the place where people come to after they've established themselves to set up their own independant companies.
So, I say, wait a bit. Let the politics unfold. If you want Macworld to return to Boston with Apple's support - let your voice be heard. Compose a well reasoned letter as to why they should return to Boston. Snail mail may be best way to get your message heard, maybe not. But remember that Steve Job's baby had its coming out party here and that Boston knows how to put on a damn good show!
McHummer
Actor/Macintosh Specialist
I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
Hit your lines and say your marks. - Lee Marvin
Fascinating - Bombardier has unearthed the Turbo Train. Back in the late 60's - early 70's United Aircraft built and maintained a number of Pratt and Whitney turbine powered train sets. These operated between Boston and New York - Where you could connect with the high speed Metroliner Electric MU cars running New York to Washington.
They were kind of cool. The trainset was semi-permanently arranged with 1 wheelseet between cars. They employed the same tilt-technology pioneered by Talgo years before in Europe (and still used today) that allowed their operation at higher speeds through curves superelevated for lower speeds. If you were riding in one of the dome seating areas in the propulsion unit you had a good view. If you were riding at night and had a smart conductor that knew enough to turn off the station stop lighting in the dome you had a spectacular view ahead - if you had one that was lazy and left the lights on you couldn't see out and the lighting was too bright to sleep.
BTW - Regular riders knew the seat pads unsnapped (a design for easy maintenance/cleaning) and could be repositioned for greater comfort during the long trip.
Ah, technology - the more it changes the more it stays the same.
I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
There was a proposal, only a few years back, that Latin be used as the Lingua Franca for the developing EEC. This received a fairly moderate amount of press in academia and the popular news magazines and was seen by some as an answer to the Community's resistance to the Americanization of European culture.
I've done some quick searching on the net to see if I could find any references to this, but they seem to passed beyond the pail and into the classification of nothing more than a historical footnote at this point.
If Paladium ever ships, what will prevent knowledgeable hardware hackers from 'clean room' engineering a 'Paladium Emulator' that will run under a non Paladium OS & hardware that will mearly pass the appropriate handshakes to so called 'protected' programs and media content. I mean, really, its only a matter of time - no matter how well encrypted the low level OS and boot code. Too much knowledge of the logic of hardware / OS structure is available. - - - Supress that knowledge and the US will rapidly head to 3rd world status in the current technological revolution.
Given the ability to create and digitally edit photographs at a resolution greater than film emulsion and then transfer that image to film we will loose the ability to authenticate a photographic image as original and-or unmodified.
As this digital editing capability spreads across our technological society we can expect legal chalenges that will result in banning the use of photographs as evidence until new standards for image authentication can be established.
[ Imagine - A world in which in which a doctored composite photograph or motion picture film can have the shadows and lighting match in direction and density. What will the conspiracy theorists do? ]
The only thing delays this day should printed as a disclaimer on the box of any shrinkwraped image editing product - "Talent is Not Included".
Given the ability to create and digitally edit photographs at a resolution greater than film emulsion and then transfer that image to film we will loose the ability to authenticate a photographic image as original and-or unmodified.
As this digital editing capability spreads across our technological society we can expect legal chalenges that will result in banning the use of photographs as evidence until new standards for image authentication can be established.
[ Imagine - A world in which in which a doctored composite photograph or motion picture film can have the shadows and lighting match in direction and density. What will the conspiracy theorists do? ]
The only thing delays this day should printed as a disclaimer on the box of any shrinkwraped image editing product - "Talent is Not Included".
Hp and Microsoft announced today that they're updating an old idea for the 21st century.
...... "The PC Jr. - Media Center Edition"....
Following the IBM lead of many years ago they've created:
Power for transportation provided by a central plant is better for the environment than decentralized power generation in a vehicle. Pollution is easier to control in a central plant than in thousands of vehicles and a higher generating efficiency can be maintained.
Also, as the politics or economics of fuel supplies change you only have to modify the central power generation facilities to use a particular fuel. - Oil, gas, coal, alcohol, hydrogen, solid waste, hydro, etc. - its all the same. Strategically, it's a good security move for the US or any other nation.
Pure electric vehicles are great, although hybrid vehicles are good start to promote and develop the economics of the technology. I'm sorry Ford pulled out of the front-runners in the race, but since they hold many patents (many going back 30 years or more) in this field you can bet they're not yet out of the race
I vaguely remember this being done on the Montreal Metro at the time of Expo 67. As the train reached its programmed speed strobe lights illuminated ads in boxes on the subway walls producing a rotoscoping or animation of the ads.
Does anyone else remember this ?
McHummer
The use of flywheels and/or regenerative braking will do much to improve the energy efficiency of subway trains, but will do little to improve subway comfort.
...) into the outside envronment as is heat from the hot coils of the heat pump. This is what makes the enclosed environment of the subway intolerable.
The heat generated during a trains accelleration was nearly eliminated when the resistive motor controls formerly used were replaced with energy efficient solid-state chopper controls. The heat generated from the use of the motors in the braking cycle is considerably less - most of the braking being mechanical.
The problem is subway discomfort is another modern technology - air conditioning.
Air heated by the hot, sweaty, sardine packed passengers, from the doors opening and closing and thermal (exterior heat and sun) load on the train is passed through the cold coils of a heat pump and then over electric heating coils to raise its temperature (dehumidifying it) and then passed back into the train.
All this heat and humidity has to go somewhere.
Humidity removed from the air is dumped (drip drip drip
When the Subways were being built in the early 1900's extensive studies, testing and engineering changes were done to ensure passenger comfort. I can remember the pleasure of riding the subways at the open front gratings on the trains - soaking up the COOL breaze as the train rushed through the subway.
When air conditioning was introduced the trains became cooler but the stations became intolerable. The answer then was to increase the ventilation of the subway to allow all this additional heat to escape. However, opening up the subways to vent the heat resulted in the subways being COLD in the winter and even Hotter in the summer.
Technology, go figure. Like the Victorians - we're Throughly Modern (tm) ! But have we advanced ?
Anyone out there have an answer to this?
Pardon my possible naiveté.
But what happens to all these wonderfully secure Palladium machines when the software/hardware encryption scheme that authenticates the digital signatures used by "MS Approved" software is cracked - as it will be - thereby giving a programmer the ability to "signature" the odd drivers or specialized applications they end up needing ?
Will all those that jumped on the bandwagon to buy what were pitched as "secure" machines have wasted their money? I suppose that the hardware's "black box" chipset could be designed to accept encryption upgrades via a service pack - but wouldn't that would just open another hole to be hacked?
It is a given that any encryption protection scheme has a limited life span. Computing power and mathematics just continues to advance too quickly.
mchummer
Think tanks do not work the way most people expect them to. They are not 'neutral' to a discussion. They receive a premise to discuss and assemble a team to do the research the question(s), discuss the result of the research and distill the results. They DO NOT try to consider all aspects of an arguement - that's not their business - ONLY WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN ASKED.
Commisioning a study by a think tank is like asking for a wish from a genie - You get what you you asked for ! - But what you get is not necessarily for what you wanted !
To understand this white paper you would have to have to review the original material presented to them for discussion. Their answer only reflects the bias of the original question. ( Garbage In - Garbage Out)
So as you look at the 'expert white paper' remember the genie and ask yourself what was the original question - and re-read with that enlightenment.
I've had to deal with the political problems created by studies by think tanks and 'experts' like this for years.
McHummer
I distinctly remember...
You'ld really have to dig through the EARLY interviews with Lucas on the Star Wars series but he ORIGINALY announced in press interviews that he would do 4 trilogies, not 3 ! However, this was downsized to 3 trilogies very quickly and the 4th forgotten.
Hey - I just report the facts. I was really hooked reading any news article on Star Wars I could get my hands on.
McHummer
One of the ways to gain sponsorship in a film or television show during productgion is product placement. As an extra in a film a while back I was the dozing subway rider that held the coffee cup with the name of the company that supplied the coffee to the production company. - Advertising ! You see it all the time - The signs on buildings and trucks driving through a scene.. In a DVR world wouldn't they try and carry it further and place the key comercials in the scenes as they did in the movie "The Truman Show"? Just strenghten the appearanceof the product placement and like its presence plot. Will it happen? Time will tell...
A long time ago I had a sig line -
... I'll have grounds
__________
Microsoft - The Number One Manufacturer of 'Tools for Terrorism (tm)'.
__________
This was inspired by the then almost weekly anouncements about security problems with the design of and use of Active-X, macro-viruses, IIS, etc.
Now their lawyers have concurred.
Guess I was right all along !
- Mchummer
__________
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet. Act ii. Scene 2
__________