OK... It was something between a flamebait and a troll, but I do have to answer, anyway.
If we leave space travel and exploration to NASA or ESA, next time a big rock fall from the sky, we will join the dinossaurs.
What we need are cost-effective ways to get to space and back. We need cost-effective general-purpose vehicles to carry probes, people and cargo around. We need simple and reliable systems that can be assembled in orbit to form larger structures. No government agency, no matter what it does, will ever want a cost-effective way to do something because it means less money for them to spend.
If you factor in all the costs involved, you will realize your nose-hair-trimmer took more than a million years in developing. First, we had to learn how to use our thumbs, next we had to learn how to make and keep fire, then learn how to work with metals...
If I remember correctly, grep can hardly be called a Linux tool.
The first time I saw it was on a Unix system - a very big box with about 50 serial terminals and the brains of a Palm Pilot (a 68020 or 030) that predated Linux by almost a decade. I am not aware of any previous incarnations of it, but I am not old enough to remember any.
And, most probably, we are talking about GNU grep, which is as much Linux as it's Hurd or Cygwin
I am not sure if reverse engineering every proprietary audio/video conferencing protocol is a wise or viable idea.
If there is a free alternative (no h.323, please - I had to configure a firewall to work with it and I will never do it again) way to pass along audio and video, it _could_ be wiser to develop plugins for MSN, ICQ, AIM and Yahoo to work with it rather than the other way around.
Remember, as long as we use their protocols, they are ahead of us. Yet, they can't change their plug-in infrastructure very fast without affecting their value to users.
I am also trying to find a good reason for an amicable fork (searching both my brain and the posts at/.). Shouldn't everybody work together? Maybe modularizing the structure a little more for the next major release could do the trick.
IIRC, Soyuz 1 had a crew of one. If there were not more russian accidents with spacecraft, their count is four dead astronauts (or cosmonauts, whatever). Again, IIRC, US lost one Apollo crew (3) and two shuttle crews (14). Apollo I may not count, as it was not flying.
There are the motorcycle days (the sunny when you are carrying almost nothing), the car days (the rainy or when you have to carry some luggage) and the truck days (when you are moving). By putting all their eggs on the shuttle, NASA lost a great deal of opportunities.
I have hopes they can get their act together and do something more. Besides developing technologies an answering the important questions about life, the universe and everything, they have the important goal of inspiring people
The cost of ownership is not only paid at the user-side: The software provider has to pay its share.
By keeping its software closed, Microsoft, just like any other proprietary software provider, has to bear the full burden of maintaining it and keeping it secure.
On the other hand, by relying on open-source software, Red Hat, SuSe, IBM, HP, SGI and others, are able to share the cost of maintaining, auditing and debugging it. The sharing of knowledge, code and work results in a very efficient cooperative model.
The years ahead may prove quite interesting.
And yes, I know I am a bit off-topic, but this deserved to be highlighted.
It's a simplistic explanation, but it may hold some water.
Even if we consider there is activity all around the brain, it may not involve all neurons.
The way neural nets work suggests that we don't use a large number of neurons because using them would be counterproductive - the correct connection paths we evolved in our lives and which we need to function as humans don't use them.
If I suddeltly decided to put all my neurons back to work (assuming that could be done - it can't), I would end-up forgetting everything I ever learned and doing a full reboot of my brain. All programs and data would be gone.
Maybe I could use the implants to make back-ups for later restoration;-)
Building things doesn't get you much money. You have to build factories, staff them, buy materials, run the factories, pack the goods, ship them and sell them. It's just too much work.
Patenting and licensing things does get you lots of money, however.
I don't make US currency for a living. In fact, I think I never scanned one or, if I did, it was so long ago I can't remember. I have a memory of doing so with a Genius grayscale hand-scanner, but I can't remember if a US dollar bill was used.
I live outside the USA and, AFAIK, it is not illegal here to scan, manipulate or do whatever you want with US currency as long as you don't sell it as counterfeit money or try to pass it for real money.
That said, and Photoshop being sold in stores here, I must state that I am uncomfortable to be subjected to foreign laws.
Can you imagine a world where you must comply with laws and regulations of every other country.
If that doesn't sound absurd enough, imagine the same thing with religion. Imagine you would go to hell (actually, be punished in EVERY form described by every religious tradition) if you fail to observe EVERY religious rule, law, commandment or whatever-you-name-it. And how could we resolve conflicts when one tradition says you go to hell and other say you may be forgiven? Would we be allowed to reincarnate?
On the bright side, imagine how many days off we could get!
Also, this looks so much like a hoax, I am not worried at all.
And you can make some money out of it too. EDO memories use to cost twice as much per byte than PC1xx or DDR.
The bad part of eBay is the shipping cost. Once I bought a Sparcstation for (I collect old interesting computers - no beige PCs - as a hobby), say, US$ 10, but shipping it to Brazil would cost more than US$ 300. Shipping whithin US cost about US$ 100, so, we gave up on the deal.
If I ever go to Denver, CO, I can drop by and see if the guy still wants to sell it;-)
More curious about the possible consequences on other planets closer to the star.
How far would an Earth-like planet have to be not to be fried every couple years by this magnetar?
Has anyone the willingness (and the numbers for the original energy release and how much energy is needed to cook all surface-dwellers of an earth-like planet - supposing mammal-like carbon-based critters)?
If the "baking distance" is too big, there may be vast areas of the galaxy that cannot possibly sustain life as we know it.
Not to mention the "baking distance" to the center of the galaxy.
Slashdot Mirror
OK... It was something between a flamebait and a troll, but I do have to answer, anyway.
If we leave space travel and exploration to NASA or ESA, next time a big rock fall from the sky, we will join the dinossaurs.
What we need are cost-effective ways to get to space and back. We need cost-effective general-purpose vehicles to carry probes, people and cargo around. We need simple and reliable systems that can be assembled in orbit to form larger structures. No government agency, no matter what it does, will ever want a cost-effective way to do something because it means less money for them to spend.
If you factor in all the costs involved, you will realize your nose-hair-trimmer took more than a million years in developing. First, we had to learn how to use our thumbs, next we had to learn how to make and keep fire, then learn how to work with metals...
Maybe they could develop (or copy) a NERVA-like design such as the one Pratt & Whitney has shown about a week ago.
If I remember correctly, the Chinese government never signed anything that forbids them putting fission reactors in orbit.
If I remember correctly, grep can hardly be called a Linux tool.
The first time I saw it was on a Unix system - a very big box with about 50 serial terminals and the brains of a Palm Pilot (a 68020 or 030) that predated Linux by almost a decade. I am not aware of any previous incarnations of it, but I am not old enough to remember any.
And, most probably, we are talking about GNU grep, which is as much Linux as it's Hurd or Cygwin
I am not sure if reverse engineering every proprietary audio/video conferencing protocol is a wise or viable idea.
/.). Shouldn't everybody work together? Maybe modularizing the structure a little more for the next major release could do the trick.
If there is a free alternative (no h.323, please - I had to configure a firewall to work with it and I will never do it again) way to pass along audio and video, it _could_ be wiser to develop plugins for MSN, ICQ, AIM and Yahoo to work with it rather than the other way around.
Remember, as long as we use their protocols, they are ahead of us. Yet, they can't change their plug-in infrastructure very fast without affecting their value to users.
I am also trying to find a good reason for an amicable fork (searching both my brain and the posts at
Apple II had long file names (longer than Macintosh, in fact) as early as the first Disk II hit the shelves.
IIRC, Soyuz 1 had a crew of one. If there were not more russian accidents with spacecraft, their count is four dead astronauts (or cosmonauts, whatever). Again, IIRC, US lost one Apollo crew (3) and two shuttle crews (14). Apollo I may not count, as it was not flying.
There are the motorcycle days (the sunny when you are carrying almost nothing), the car days (the rainy or when you have to carry some luggage) and the truck days (when you are moving). By putting all their eggs on the shuttle, NASA lost a great deal of opportunities.
I have hopes they can get their act together and do something more. Besides developing technologies an answering the important questions about life, the universe and everything, they have the important goal of inspiring people
Absolutely brilliant!
The cost of ownership is not only paid at the user-side: The software provider has to pay its share.
By keeping its software closed, Microsoft, just like any other proprietary software provider, has to bear the full burden of maintaining it and keeping it secure.
On the other hand, by relying on open-source software, Red Hat, SuSe, IBM, HP, SGI and others, are able to share the cost of maintaining, auditing and debugging it. The sharing of knowledge, code and work results in a very efficient cooperative model.
The years ahead may prove quite interesting.
And yes, I know I am a bit off-topic, but this deserved to be highlighted.
There will be time for a reward for the capture of Darl McBride. Just be patient.
One could set up a www.darlbehindbars.org site to help collect funds for that.
It's a simplistic explanation, but it may hold some water.
;-)
Even if we consider there is activity all around the brain, it may not involve all neurons.
The way neural nets work suggests that we don't use a large number of neurons because using them would be counterproductive - the correct connection paths we evolved in our lives and which we need to function as humans don't use them.
If I suddeltly decided to put all my neurons back to work (assuming that could be done - it can't), I would end-up forgetting everything I ever learned and doing a full reboot of my brain. All programs and data would be gone.
Maybe I could use the implants to make back-ups for later restoration
Building things doesn't get you much money. You have to build factories, staff them, buy materials, run the factories, pack the goods, ship them and sell them. It's just too much work.
Patenting and licensing things does get you lots of money, however.
We should make something clear here.
I don't make US currency for a living. In fact, I think I never scanned one or, if I did, it was so long ago I can't remember. I have a memory of doing so with a Genius grayscale hand-scanner, but I can't remember if a US dollar bill was used.
I live outside the USA and, AFAIK, it is not illegal here to scan, manipulate or do whatever you want with US currency as long as you don't sell it as counterfeit money or try to pass it for real money.
That said, and Photoshop being sold in stores here, I must state that I am uncomfortable to be subjected to foreign laws.
Can you imagine a world where you must comply with laws and regulations of every other country.
If that doesn't sound absurd enough, imagine the same thing with religion. Imagine you would go to hell (actually, be punished in EVERY form described by every religious tradition) if you fail to observe EVERY religious rule, law, commandment or whatever-you-name-it. And how could we resolve conflicts when one tradition says you go to hell and other say you may be forgiven? Would we be allowed to reincarnate?
On the bright side, imagine how many days off we could get!
Also, this looks so much like a hoax, I am not worried at all.
Ebay is a good solution.
;-)
And you can make some money out of it too. EDO memories use to cost twice as much per byte than PC1xx or DDR.
The bad part of eBay is the shipping cost. Once I bought a Sparcstation for (I collect old interesting computers - no beige PCs - as a hobby), say, US$ 10, but shipping it to Brazil would cost more than US$ 300. Shipping whithin US cost about US$ 100, so, we gave up on the deal.
If I ever go to Denver, CO, I can drop by and see if the guy still wants to sell it
Oops.. The willingness (...) to calculate the "baking distance" of this magnetar.
More curious about the possible consequences on other planets closer to the star. How far would an Earth-like planet have to be not to be fried every couple years by this magnetar? Has anyone the willingness (and the numbers for the original energy release and how much energy is needed to cook all surface-dwellers of an earth-like planet - supposing mammal-like carbon-based critters)? If the "baking distance" is too big, there may be vast areas of the galaxy that cannot possibly sustain life as we know it. Not to mention the "baking distance" to the center of the galaxy.