Here's a zdnet article that addresses what problems this is supposed to solve over and above ad-hoc WiFi, namely speed, security,and ease of configuration.
Over the weekend I was configuring my thermostat and sprinkler system for Fall, and wishing I could cheaply and easily use a web browser interface instead of the tiny, arcane LCD screens currently used to do this. These interfaces only have a few buttons and it's pretty hard for me to imagine configuring ad-hoc wifi on them. I think the problems solved by Wi-Fi direct, such as agreeing on a WiFi channel and encryption key, are fairly simple, but if they can make it a push-button operation that actually interoperates on a wide variety of devices, I'll be there.
Exactly! The take-home lesson from nature is that worst-case analysis of exact algorithms (i.e. most of what we traditionally studied in CS) is pretty useless. Nature doesn't optimize, it satisfices.
I suppose the exception is when competing against an intelligent adversary, who constantly strives to give you worst-case problems and where a small margin of victory is a victory nonetheless.
I have just stuck with fvwm, from slackware, to debian, gentoo, now ubuntu. It's lighting-quick, doesn't waste screen real estate, and basically gives me nothing to complain about. I've had the same config file for at least 10 years, I just copy it over to each new machine and tweak it when I start using an app enough to want it on the launch menu.
Ubuntu makes it easy to do this; fvwm is available from the default package set, then select it as your "session" at the login screen.
My point being, I share your dislike of needless changes, but I don't feel I've been forced to change.
Oh come now. Even the Sansa Clip+ for $40 plays FLAC. It also has a MicroSDHC expansion slot so you can put in plenty of storage too.
DAT was badly copy-crippled in the early years, and Sony's refusal to let you make lossless copies from CD (on consumer hardware) was a massive impediment in my book. But none of that matters any more. Flash-based portable music has no drawbacks; it's practically ideal. I guess the only thing left is getting rid of storage entirely, when/if uber-reliable wireless Internet access to every album in existence becomes feasible.
My only beef with today's fabulous and cheap options is their refusal to use good old-fashioned daylight-visible reflective grayscale LCD screens.
Maybe there's more to it, but that story does not say he invented the Walkman; it says he filed a patent upon which the Walkman later infringed. The article also implies he's a patent troll: "Pavel, extremely proud of his victory, said he now plans to approach other manufacturers of Walkman-like products, including Apple Computer. Apple's white-hot iPod is to some extent the digital successor of the Walkman."
So, it sounds like he thinks he "invented" and owns the idea of portable audio in general, which is absurd.
It'll be nice if it plays out like he hopes... then again, we're talking Steve Jobs vs. Larry Ellison here, so anything could happen. The only thing that won't happen is either side admitting defeat and sucking it up to smooth things out for users of a free product.
It's too bad; Macs really caught on at my workplace since OS-X was released. Our software targets Windows and Linux, but since we're mainly a java shop developers can run Macs on their desktops if they like, and since OS-X. almost half of them have chosen to do so; they all have 8-core power macs with 8 gigs of RAM etc. If java doesn't keep up on the Mac, OS-X won't be a viable option for us any more.
the Chinese government has no interest in protecting IP rights, especially those of American companies, since it ultimately seeks to undermine the American economy by devaluing it.
Yeah, they must be motivated by undermining us... it couldn't be that they simply want to enjoy movies and music and software without having to pay for them. Just like the millions of bittorrent users here in the US who seek to undermine the American economy by devaluing intellectual property in exactly the same way each and every day - clearly they're doing it to harm their own economic future!
You won't be happy scrolling around a big image within a VM - the graphics performance just isn't there. It will work OK, but you'll always wish you were running natively.
I use VMWare Workstation for much of each day to run MS Office Apps, and it's very useful - but no VM performs well graphically.
If we all had gigabit network, there might not be any real need to "download" anything to local storage in the first place - or even to own a PC (or game console). Just move all apps to the cloud and display them on your internet-connected TV or monitor. Even 3d games could be run that way with a gigabit to play with.
Maybe what we need is unlicensed spectrum with some established (and enforced) "rules of the road" - meaning everything in that spectrum operates over a fixed CSMA/CD protocol that does nothing but fairly negotiate access. (Maybe just mandate 802.11n or later in that spectrum?) I realize "fair" is the sticky point here, but it should be easy to come up with something more fair than "do whatever you want." You have dumb old devices like analog wireless phones and R/C cars jamming up airwaves that could carry multiple megabits for dozens of users with more modern technology.
I can see how this situation might not be realistic though, considering colleges ban torrenting. Just imagine: A 1 million K line and you can't use it for its main purpose. Disappointing.
Actually the main purpose for bittorrent vanishes with 1gbit symmetric Internet. Why bother pooling upstream when it isn't scarce any more? You'd still want lots of peer-to-peer servers (so 10,000 clients weren't all hitting the same server), but there would be no reason for a single client to connect to more than 1 server, which would eliminate most of the complexity of bittorrent. Just find any server with the file you want that isn't too heavily loaded, and download it from them.
Between google search, google news, gmail, googletv, and youtube, some people might be fairly happy with fast access to nothing but google. Throw in facebook and you'd have a reasonable Cliff Notes version of the Internet. And I'm only being about 2/3 facetious.
Oh, thank heavens, the pencil/paper button works if I click it on a page that only has one comment (or the composition page), and I can disable the dynamic/interactive stuff. I'm back in business, I'm sure you're all so relieved!
I wouldn't bother posting this but I assume others are "suffering" too. Maybe if they click "5 more messages" a few hundred times they'll see this.
Remember, income tax is only one kind of tax (and some types are actually regressive). By a more inclusive measure of total taxation, the total taxation rate varies by only a few percent among the top 60% of all taxpayers, which all pay around 30%. The bottom 20% of earners pay only about 19%. So, total taxation is somewhat progressive, but not all that much.
The paper/pencil button doesn't work for me... it just grays out my screen for about half a second and goes right back to whatever was showing before. The same is true for about 80% of the new system. So, slashdot is basically nonfunctional for me now. I'm using Firefox 3.6.10, anybody know the problem?
It's the yes-men who encourage unrealistic expectations right up until the big disappointment of the blown deadline and schedule who really cause everybody grief.
Exactly - realistically, any complex project is a process of refinement. But when people fail to recognize that and instead budget for a "hole in 1," they are setting expectations almost guaranteed to result in the project being considered a "failure," which is the normal thing to do.
People say, "why are software projects still so expensive and time-consuming" - I say, compared to what? Some imaginary utopia where software projects are much easier than they actually are?
Well, sure.. But from my extensive medical knowledge (gleaned solely from the slashdot editor's blurb) she might have avoided the allergy simply by avoiding the allergen until a short while after the transplant, when all the donor's immune cells expired. That idea sounds worth exploring.
Conversely, if there were a way to safely transplant the acquired immunity of a guy in India who drinks from the ganges every day, that would be great.
You're comparing unrelated costs.... Rental cost = operating cost + cost of qualified pilots + cost of qualified loaders/unloaders + share of annual maintenance costs + insurance + profit for the owner + several things I'm probably forgetting.
Yes, it would be hard to relate those exactly. The DoD itself produces different costs that do or do not include costs such as standing up facilities and running the pilot training schools, although any estimate would include maintenance.
Doing a quick search on hiring a private jet, they start at around $1,700 / hour, and about $3k/hr for a 9 passenger helicopter. So, at $8K / hr, the heavy lift helicopers do demand quite a premium.
It blows me away that renting a helicopter costs $8,000 / hr. Apparently you can operate some tactical fighter jets for less than that. (By this source the F16 is down to $5K/hr, while the F22 is up to $40K/hr... gulp).
"But no ban has been imposed on the export to Japan of semi-processed alloys that combine rare earths with other materials, the officials said. China has been trying to expand its alloy industry so as to create higher-paying jobs in mining areas, instead of exporting raw materials for initial processing."
In other words, they simply want more of the value added from minerals they export. I wouldn't worry about WWIII quite yet.
Continuing to quote the article: "...The design team also claim that two dozen desalination units could be transported in a single C-130 cargo airplane, providing water for more than 10,000 people."
Think about Haiti in the days after the disaster when clean water was unavailable, the airport was partially inoperable and hopelessly overwhelmed, when airlifting hundreds of thousands of gallons of water (or diesel) was infeasible.
Slashdot Mirror
No they didn't. Yet so many people think they did. It's odd.
Over the weekend I was configuring my thermostat and sprinkler system for Fall, and wishing I could cheaply and easily use a web browser interface instead of the tiny, arcane LCD screens currently used to do this. These interfaces only have a few buttons and it's pretty hard for me to imagine configuring ad-hoc wifi on them. I think the problems solved by Wi-Fi direct, such as agreeing on a WiFi channel and encryption key, are fairly simple, but if they can make it a push-button operation that actually interoperates on a wide variety of devices, I'll be there.
I suppose the exception is when competing against an intelligent adversary, who constantly strives to give you worst-case problems and where a small margin of victory is a victory nonetheless.
Ubuntu makes it easy to do this; fvwm is available from the default package set, then select it as your "session" at the login screen.
My point being, I share your dislike of needless changes, but I don't feel I've been forced to change.
DAT was badly copy-crippled in the early years, and Sony's refusal to let you make lossless copies from CD (on consumer hardware) was a massive impediment in my book. But none of that matters any more. Flash-based portable music has no drawbacks; it's practically ideal. I guess the only thing left is getting rid of storage entirely, when/if uber-reliable wireless Internet access to every album in existence becomes feasible.
My only beef with today's fabulous and cheap options is their refusal to use good old-fashioned daylight-visible reflective grayscale LCD screens.
So, it sounds like he thinks he "invented" and owns the idea of portable audio in general, which is absurd.
It'll be nice if it plays out like he hopes... then again, we're talking Steve Jobs vs. Larry Ellison here, so anything could happen. The only thing that won't happen is either side admitting defeat and sucking it up to smooth things out for users of a free product.
It's too bad; Macs really caught on at my workplace since OS-X was released. Our software targets Windows and Linux, but since we're mainly a java shop developers can run Macs on their desktops if they like, and since OS-X. almost half of them have chosen to do so; they all have 8-core power macs with 8 gigs of RAM etc. If java doesn't keep up on the Mac, OS-X won't be a viable option for us any more.
Yeah, they must be motivated by undermining us... it couldn't be that they simply want to enjoy movies and music and software without having to pay for them. Just like the millions of bittorrent users here in the US who seek to undermine the American economy by devaluing intellectual property in exactly the same way each and every day - clearly they're doing it to harm their own economic future!
I use VMWare Workstation for much of each day to run MS Office Apps, and it's very useful - but no VM performs well graphically.
If we all had gigabit network, there might not be any real need to "download" anything to local storage in the first place - or even to own a PC (or game console). Just move all apps to the cloud and display them on your internet-connected TV or monitor. Even 3d games could be run that way with a gigabit to play with.
Maybe what we need is unlicensed spectrum with some established (and enforced) "rules of the road" - meaning everything in that spectrum operates over a fixed CSMA/CD protocol that does nothing but fairly negotiate access. (Maybe just mandate 802.11n or later in that spectrum?) I realize "fair" is the sticky point here, but it should be easy to come up with something more fair than "do whatever you want." You have dumb old devices like analog wireless phones and R/C cars jamming up airwaves that could carry multiple megabits for dozens of users with more modern technology.
Actually the main purpose for bittorrent vanishes with 1gbit symmetric Internet. Why bother pooling upstream when it isn't scarce any more? You'd still want lots of peer-to-peer servers (so 10,000 clients weren't all hitting the same server), but there would be no reason for a single client to connect to more than 1 server, which would eliminate most of the complexity of bittorrent. Just find any server with the file you want that isn't too heavily loaded, and download it from them.
Between google search, google news, gmail, googletv, and youtube, some people might be fairly happy with fast access to nothing but google. Throw in facebook and you'd have a reasonable Cliff Notes version of the Internet. And I'm only being about 2/3 facetious.
I wouldn't bother posting this but I assume others are "suffering" too. Maybe if they click "5 more messages" a few hundred times they'll see this.
Remember, income tax is only one kind of tax (and some types are actually regressive). By a more inclusive measure of total taxation, the total taxation rate varies by only a few percent among the top 60% of all taxpayers, which all pay around 30%. The bottom 20% of earners pay only about 19%. So, total taxation is somewhat progressive, but not all that much.
The paper/pencil button doesn't work for me... it just grays out my screen for about half a second and goes right back to whatever was showing before. The same is true for about 80% of the new system. So, slashdot is basically nonfunctional for me now. I'm using Firefox 3.6.10, anybody know the problem?
It's the yes-men who encourage unrealistic expectations right up until the big disappointment of the blown deadline and schedule who really cause everybody grief.
People say, "why are software projects still so expensive and time-consuming" - I say, compared to what? Some imaginary utopia where software projects are much easier than they actually are?
No, simply listening to what users want will almost never work - because they don't know. Almost always, they have some vague idea, but that's it.
Conversely, if there were a way to safely transplant the acquired immunity of a guy in India who drinks from the ganges every day, that would be great.
Yes, it would be hard to relate those exactly. The DoD itself produces different costs that do or do not include costs such as standing up facilities and running the pilot training schools, although any estimate would include maintenance.
Doing a quick search on hiring a private jet, they start at around $1,700 / hour, and about $3k/hr for a 9 passenger helicopter. So, at $8K / hr, the heavy lift helicopers do demand quite a premium.
It blows me away that renting a helicopter costs $8,000 / hr. Apparently you can operate some tactical fighter jets for less than that. (By this source the F16 is down to $5K/hr, while the F22 is up to $40K/hr... gulp).
In other words, they simply want more of the value added from minerals they export. I wouldn't worry about WWIII quite yet.
Think about Haiti in the days after the disaster when clean water was unavailable, the airport was partially inoperable and hopelessly overwhelmed, when airlifting hundreds of thousands of gallons of water (or diesel) was infeasible.