Point well taken, but you know, somebody has to have one.;-)
Like my grandparents for example. Except that they call it a breezeway. It's kind of like a floored room (with a roof) that extends from their house to their garage.
Brilliant really. The walls are mostly windowed (and nearly always open), but there's real doors and indoor furniture and such (with awnings keeping the occasional shower from blowing through the screens. For entertaining, they rarely have the guests inside the "real" house.
But they'd better be targeting a different market, as I can't see my grandma buying one of these.
I'll bet that a plant like this would still have a protected status, even a few years after it's cloning assures it's continual (for now) existence.
Which reminds me of a interesting friend of mine.
He was having some difficulty with his neighberhood association, so he planted protected wild flowers, rare cacti, and other various legally protected plants on his property. Then he let nature do as nature does.
Some one from the homeowner's association decided to take matters in their own hands and "trimmed" up a rare cactus (after he informed that his yard was off limits due to the protected nature of the plants). I had never seen an association hit with so many government backed lawsuits before, very amusing.
And yes, we were both Biologists (at least back then)
Nearly all the plants we see around us today are species which were not around during the Jurassic age.
Remember Biologists (by virue or vice of studying this stuff) have very different ideas about what a descendant is.
This is the same species which implies that it could (if we ever figure out that pesky time travel machine) cross breed with the plants growing in the Jurassic age. Modern plants (also descendants, but certainly not of the same species) would not be expected to have this ability.
Or you could look at it like this: These are the real McCoy, but the modern plants are just cheap knock-offs (and probably Japanese imports to boot too!);-)
Perhaps you don't need alternatives, but alternatives need to exist.
I on the other hand, need alternatives; because, your platform of choice doesn't provide the features I need.
Science is a religion based around these simple principles:
1. Phenomenon may be measured. 2. If phenomenon is observerd to repeat at least 19 times out of 20, then it will be considered repeating. 3. Theories should be based on evidence, and when evidence is contrary to the theory, the theory should be suspect.
I don't see any measurement of the phenomenon in any labs that I feel are credible (ie most of the world), and I don't see repeatability (either in the one lab that claims creation, or the other lab that "mysteriously" involved the discoverer) So I can't even start building a theory as to how cold fusion works.
MILLIONS lost to reproduction of this experiment, the "discoverer" a known shennagin when it comes to doctoring results, and you want me to reconsider the theory without evidence because of polictical reasons? Blech.
This is the decade of the balm of technology. Technology will be the salve that cures all wounds. When any problem arises which could be solved by any means, technology must be at the core of the solution. Lack of technology indicates a weakness in any planned defense.
Help us all, I shudder at popularized magazines running aricles (thinly disguised ads?) touting how technological navigation systems which lie about the topology could have kept 9/11 from happening. My instant insight: what about a plane without this system installed or working?
Where technology fails us, we think law will fill in the holes. ie. Make it a legal requirement for all planes to be equipped with a system like this one.
As anyone with any inkling of how legal systems work knows, by the time you involve a court, the thing you're suing/fighing about has already happened.
Read the research documentation that came out in the 80's, the pinnacle of SCADA system research.
Oh, and then that pesky TCP/IP became available, so people moved from tons of serial cables to cheaper CAT3/5. If you didn't migrate your system, you went out of business. Problem is, who could afford to re-design their software from the ground up to use a non-realtime network in a manner resembling realtime?
So SCADA has long moved from "real-time" to "really fast". Or they isolate the real-time requirements to parts of the system where it can still be achived.
Wish I had some mod points to add an insightful your way, because you're right.
I've seen some of these "isolated" power-grid lans compromised because it was "critical" that the data be fed into the marketing department or server appliations which determined optimal generation schedules based on the ability to sell "excess" power when it's most profitable.
The days of assuming you can secure via isolation are gone in the power market, but the debugging and testing cycles are so complete that it takes at least a year to implement a new anything. So despite CNN making this the "story of the year", a solution won't be available until well after the media decides that a particularly brutal murder is much much more newsworthy (or something to that efect).
Meanwhile thousands of developers that have always assumed their code was safe from attack because of physical (ie isolation) security are now scratching their heads on how to refactor these systems while trying not to be sidetracked by the security rabble-rousers who are asking if the system will withstand the latest exotic attack X (which requires someone to duplicate almost valid messages via a morris code trainer attached to an ethernet cable).
Unfortunately the most dangerous of these rabble-rousers come in two forms, lobbists and consultants. Although they complain the loudest about the problem, secretly they are in favor of keeping the problem around as long as possible because they only make money while it is still a problem. These people are rarely die-hard techs, but they know how to play the media like a violin.
So you're going to let me install a coal burning electric facility just down the block?... I don't think so.
How about nuclear? There's no nasty smoke!... Still no dice
Hydro-electric? We can dam up a nearby water way and half you're neighborhood will be gone!
Oh you want Solar? Well we will just level part of your subdivision and install solar concentrators.
Wind doesn't work everywhere.
And now to my point. Power plants are usually built in proximity to the best place where they can generate power. Millions (if not Billions) of dollars go into the planning, design, construction , maintenance, and operation of these facilities because they are expected to perform flawlessly for a minimum of 30 years (and some still operate beautifully which are much older) They are not placed willy-nilly over our country in big clusters to maximize their ability to take out the grid.
Thank you, I do realize (now) that it is the posters username. And they can say whatever they want (even if they aren't from one of the many UHs) but it still implies a statement made in bad taste.
It would take approximately 2 hours after this passes for an entrapenuer to board and airplane and set up shop in Mexico.
This shop would produce circumvention kits, which would be banned from import, yet be strangely available via flea markets, and some "grey-area" mail order catalogs.
It would eventually require the continual inspection of automobiles to verify that the devices haven't been circumvented. And in the US, a car has become so much part of the identity of "being American", that people would consider even inspecting the system an attack on their civil liberties.
But then again, should the US Gov. indicate that it is necessary because suspected terrorists could be using vechiles (aka cars) to plan their next grocery store outing, I'd fully expect it to pass with full approval.
Well, if that's the University of Houston, you can expect:
The best non-linear physics department in the US (and perhaps the world) The home of high temperature superconductivity (above 30K) The best Spanish language program in the United States. A law school in the top 25% An impressive English department. And many other tit-for-tat claims to fame.
If that's the University of Hawaii, then I would expect it to be closely related to the birth of computer networking (as we recogonize it now). After all, Aloha Net is (or should be) required study for anyone who wants to understand the orgins (and assumptions made along the way) of networking. I'm sure that there are many other "claims to fame" over in Hawaii, but I've never been over there to hear them:)
Considering the subject matter, the above statement is very condescending. Should we state "What do you expect from a University like Harvard?" when we talk about Gates's latest threats to Linux, or it's latest defiance of the US Justice System?
The assumption that you can preferentially expand one repeating series one digit by multiplying it with 10, without expanding the same repeating series one digit in the non-multiplied context is mathematically incorrect.
If it were not then the value of 0.3333... - 0.3333... would not equal zero. But it is a basic tenet of mathematics that for all x, x-x = 0 If I can expand the precision of one series preferentially, then I could claim that x-x = 0.000033333..... which would mean that x is not equal to x (an impossiblity unless you change all of the rules, in which case, you don't need to prove it using math:P )
Which is why it simply boils down to this: you cannot treat infintely repeating series of digits like you can fractions, since fractions do not suffer from errors of percision whereas infinitely repeating digits do.
3(1/3) = 1 but 3 (0.3333...) = 0.9999... because 1/3 is not equal to 0.3333... but is only capabable of being represented as 0.3333... due to the percision of the base 10 (decimal) number system.
The whole problem lies between 1 and 0.999... The first number is definatly a unit, whereas the last number is constantly being defined. To understand the last number would take an infinite number of expansions of "the next digit" so if you multiply 10 * 0.99999..., you would have to first consider 10 * 0.9 + 10 * 0.09 + 10 * 0.009 +... which you could perceive as 9.999...
However for you to make that perception, you infer that your result is correct based on induction.
When you subtract 0.999... from 9.999... you can only imply that the result is 9 if you expand one of your infinite series of 9's one repetition more than the other, so in fact you are arguing that one of the numbers is artificially inflated "just a bit more".
The correct way to subtract the two and maintain the same degree of percision (if such a thing really made sense at all) would be similar to 9 - 0.9 + 0.9 - 0.09 + 0.09 - 0.009 +... or 8.1 + 0.81 + 0.081 +... which would compact down to 8.999999.....1 assuming that you could carry on the expansion forever, then the result could be considered 8.99999.... but not 9. To achieve a result of 9, you have to opt to expand one of the infinite series preferentially (instead of in lockstep).
Preferential expansion is not permitted, otherwise I could argue that 9.999999 - 0.9999... equals 9.000000999999 simply because I opted to expand one side just a bit more than the other.
Most systems I have seen (on the web and at work) generally follow the same formula.
Use a bunch of car batteries, charge them with one system from the main power feed to your house, and drain them with voltage regulating equipment on the other.
For safety's sake, these are usually stored in another building, (lead-acid batteries have known to leak, explode, and degrade in various ways) and the only reason car batteries are used is because they are easily available in quantity. Unfortunatly they are bulky, require a bit of maintenance, and prone to failure.
For cost's sake, usually a subset of equipment runs on a "UPS" line within the building, rather than the whole building being fed.
I see that a regular old light bulb converts 80% of it's electricity to heat. A fluorescent converts less electiricty to head. A LED converts even less to heat. My math says the LED wins.
Your math says that a regular old light bulb can be manufatured for less than a fluorescent or LED, your math says the old standard wins.
The real question is "What are we trying to conserve here?" If you want to conserve electricity, the LED and fluorescent prove to be better than the regular old light bulb, especially after you take into account the extra electricity used to air-condition that heat away. If you want to conserve constrution costs, the LED plants will cost a lot more to build and refine, and it will take decades before light fixtures are built with the LEDs in mind (instead of the old standby lightbulb). Considering that we may reclaim 80% of all the lost electricity sent to light, I think we should start building/funding these plants now.
Unfortunately, it seems that these people are determined to cash in on anything that may come from this market. So it looks like their patents will actually retard the "innovation" that could save a huge amount on our light bills.
How does a mathematically incorrect assumption become insightful here on Slashdot?
Infinitely repeating digits (aka 0.9...) don't share the same meaning as those that terminate (aka 0.9) treating them the same is inappropriate, and only useful in demonstrating the flaw in logic that they can be treated the same.
All we need now is for some people to design better man-machine interfaces, like a direct connect into the spinal cord. And let's have those AI programmers show their metal by making some wickedly smart bots.
Certainly it would become boring killing people ad-infinitum, so I imagine it's just a matter of time before someone plugs in non-death oriented action into the Doom engines (and their kin). I myself would like to see a Half-Live/StockExchange!
I didn't bother to patch my office machine against MSBLASTER, and why should I?
I've been stripped of most of the permissions to admin my own machine because the internal IT support has been centralized. That means a few people service the rest of us in a way that generally has the good of the company in mind.
That said, if they take away my permission to do it, and they get caught with their pants down, why do they expect us all to run software locally on our own machines to fix the latest problem X? It's because oboviously these people do not have enough resouces support a network of our size.
If it wasn't the veil of "computers" clouding the issue, I bet someone upstairs would have corrected the logic of, "If they can't do their own job, we can get the whole company to waste a bit of time to help them out."
Certain systems require certain amounts of support, but this is not an OS issue. It's just more pronounced in systems that require more man hours to keep on the bleeding edge of security.
Actually, it seems that an automatic pactch installer could totally render EULA updates null and void. This could have the unexpected effect of the owner bound to the original EULA which may not be available except via original media.
I can see Microsoft arguing to a court that the use of the software implys that they automatically accept a new EULA with each patch; however, I would be very shocked and dismayed if any court in the US would uphold that you could automatically agree to licensing changes without being at least notified that a change had taken place.
Microsoft could worm their way around the last part with a pop up window asking you to accept the latest EULA; however, that would be a public relations nightmare, and even though Microsoft is keen to kill off any professional competition, they are not in business to openly defy their users.
The only way an EULA holds up as legal when not read (if my memory serves me correctly) is that you implicitly agreed to it by opening the box. Automatic EULA updates lack even this token agreement. If the automatic update is turned off by default, you might be seen as "implicitly" agreeing to all future EULAs by turning it on. If it is on by default there's no action to bind you to any sort of agreement.
Mabye they'll put in a clause, "By agreeing to use this software you agree to all future licensing agreements with respect to this software which will invalidate this agreement", ie viral EULA.
Of course I'm not a lawyer, but if you believe this is sound legal advice, let me write your will.
A good installation time for something as mundane as a new remote transmitting unit at a power substation is around a year. As the equipment gets more exotic, the install times just seem to get longer and longer.
Remember, that there's a need to perform planning, documentation, building of equipment, factory testing (if possible), updating of electrical load flow databases, delivery of equipment, waiting for appropriate load and weather conditions, installation of equipment, onsite testing, and finally the acceptance of the equipment.
Each step has meetings, planning, deadlines, work, and it's own problems which may increase the delay of the equipment to the field. Buying a cable off the shelf at Radio Shack just won't do it, Power Engineering has the most conservative bunch of the lot. They want it to work, and they want to know it will work before they put at risk the entire company's revenue stream.
What's your fall back plan if you next step dosen't work? If you don't have one, you won't be allowed to do it. Welcome to your nation's power grid.
The power generation facilities are not exactly delicate; however, the are prone to destruction when electrical voltages get way out of range.
To protect the generation facility, they have sensors which automatically disconnect should a surge come along with "that generator's name on it". If big surges like this had to go through a portion of the circut which increase resistance, thus "leveling out" the spike, the generator may not need to disconnect to protect it's equipment.
It wouldn't have helped the Niagra Mowhawk situation much, as it's just in the beginning stages, and these things can take years to be built, test, installed, and fully operational.
I too agree with the parent poster in spirit, but he chose all the wrong examples to back up his statements.
You're dead on about the Netscape debacle, but I'm proud to announce that I'm now using Gentoo-MAXINT. So there! Wait, they just released Redhat-MAXINT+1.
Slashdot Mirror
Point well taken, but you know, somebody has to have one. ;-)
Like my grandparents for example. Except that they call it a breezeway. It's kind of like a floored room (with a roof) that extends from their house to their garage.
Brilliant really. The walls are mostly windowed (and nearly always open), but there's real doors and indoor furniture and such (with awnings keeping the occasional shower from blowing through the screens. For entertaining, they rarely have the guests inside the "real" house.
But they'd better be targeting a different market, as I can't see my grandma buying one of these.
( Can't resist! )
Just goes to show you why they called it the stone age.
I'll bet that a plant like this would still have a protected status, even a few years after it's cloning assures it's continual (for now) existence.
Which reminds me of a interesting friend of mine.
He was having some difficulty with his neighberhood association, so he planted protected wild flowers, rare cacti, and other various legally protected plants on his property. Then he let nature do as nature does.
Some one from the homeowner's association decided to take matters in their own hands and "trimmed" up a rare cactus (after he informed that his yard was off limits due to the protected nature of the plants). I had never seen an association hit with so many government backed lawsuits before, very amusing.
And yes, we were both Biologists (at least back then)
And I for one welcome our carbon-based posting bots!
Nearly all the plants we see around us today are species which were not around during the Jurassic age.
;-)
Remember Biologists (by virue or vice of studying this stuff) have very different ideas about what a descendant is.
This is the same species which implies that it could (if we ever figure out that pesky time travel machine) cross breed with the plants growing in the Jurassic age. Modern plants (also descendants, but certainly not of the same species) would not be expected to have this ability.
Or you could look at it like this:
These are the real McCoy, but the modern plants are just cheap knock-offs (and probably Japanese imports to boot too!)
Perhaps you don't need alternatives, but alternatives need to exist. I on the other hand, need alternatives; because, your platform of choice doesn't provide the features I need.
Science is a religion based around these simple principles:
1. Phenomenon may be measured.
2. If phenomenon is observerd to repeat at least 19 times out of 20, then it will be considered repeating.
3. Theories should be based on evidence, and when evidence is contrary to the theory, the theory should be suspect.
I don't see any measurement of the phenomenon in any labs that I feel are credible (ie most of the world), and I don't see repeatability (either in the one lab that claims creation, or the other lab that "mysteriously" involved the discoverer) So I can't even start building a theory as to how cold fusion works.
MILLIONS lost to reproduction of this experiment, the "discoverer" a known shennagin when it comes to doctoring results, and you want me to reconsider the theory without evidence because of polictical reasons? Blech.
Voting systems solve the lack of technology.
This is the decade of the balm of technology. Technology will be the salve that cures all wounds. When any problem arises which could be solved by any means, technology must be at the core of the solution. Lack of technology indicates a weakness in any planned defense.
Help us all, I shudder at popularized magazines running aricles (thinly disguised ads?) touting how technological navigation systems which lie about the topology could have kept 9/11 from happening. My instant insight: what about a plane without this system installed or working?
Where technology fails us, we think law will fill in the holes. ie. Make it a legal requirement for all planes to be equipped with a system like this one.
As anyone with any inkling of how legal systems work knows, by the time you involve a court, the thing you're suing/fighing about has already happened.
Actually, they were wonderfully designed.
Read the research documentation that came out in the 80's, the pinnacle of SCADA system research.
Oh, and then that pesky TCP/IP became available, so people moved from tons of serial cables to cheaper CAT3/5. If you didn't migrate your system, you went out of business. Problem is, who could afford to re-design their software from the ground up to use a non-realtime network in a manner resembling realtime?
So SCADA has long moved from "real-time" to "really fast". Or they isolate the real-time requirements to parts of the system where it can still be achived.
Wish I had some mod points to add an insightful your way, because you're right.
I've seen some of these "isolated" power-grid lans compromised because it was "critical" that the data be fed into the marketing department or server appliations which determined optimal generation schedules based on the ability to sell "excess" power when it's most profitable.
The days of assuming you can secure via isolation are gone in the power market, but the debugging and testing cycles are so complete that it takes at least a year to implement a new anything. So despite CNN making this the "story of the year", a solution won't be available until well after the media decides that a particularly brutal murder is much much more newsworthy (or something to that efect).
Meanwhile thousands of developers that have always assumed their code was safe from attack because of physical (ie isolation) security are now scratching their heads on how to refactor these systems while trying not to be sidetracked by the security rabble-rousers who are asking if the system will withstand the latest exotic attack X (which requires someone to duplicate almost valid messages via a morris code trainer attached to an ethernet cable).
Unfortunately the most dangerous of these rabble-rousers come in two forms, lobbists and consultants. Although they complain the loudest about the problem, secretly they are in favor of keeping the problem around as long as possible because they only make money while it is still a problem. These people are rarely die-hard techs, but they know how to play the media like a violin.
So you're going to let me install a coal burning electric facility just down the block? ... I don't think so.
... Still no dice
How about nuclear? There's no nasty smoke!
Hydro-electric? We can dam up a nearby water way and half you're neighborhood will be gone!
Oh you want Solar? Well we will just level part of your subdivision and install solar concentrators.
Wind doesn't work everywhere.
And now to my point. Power plants are usually built in proximity to the best place where they can generate power. Millions (if not Billions) of dollars go into the planning, design, construction , maintenance, and operation of these facilities because they are expected to perform flawlessly for a minimum of 30 years (and some still operate beautifully which are much older) They are not placed willy-nilly over our country in big clusters to maximize their ability to take out the grid.
Thank you, I do realize (now) that it is the posters username. And they can say whatever they want (even if they aren't from one of the many UHs) but it still implies a statement made in bad taste.
It's an opinion thing.
It would take approximately 2 hours after this passes for an entrapenuer to board and airplane and set up shop in Mexico.
This shop would produce circumvention kits, which would be banned from import, yet be strangely available via flea markets, and some "grey-area" mail order catalogs.
It would eventually require the continual inspection of automobiles to verify that the devices haven't been circumvented. And in the US, a car has become so much part of the identity of "being American", that people would consider even inspecting the system an attack on their civil liberties.
But then again, should the US Gov. indicate that it is necessary because suspected terrorists could be using vechiles (aka cars) to plan their next grocery store outing, I'd fully expect it to pass with full approval.
Cynical? No! Not me! hahahahaha....
Well, if that's the University of Houston, you can expect:
:)
The best non-linear physics department in the US (and perhaps the world)
The home of high temperature superconductivity (above 30K)
The best Spanish language program in the United States.
A law school in the top 25%
An impressive English department.
And many other tit-for-tat claims to fame.
If that's the University of Hawaii, then I would expect it to be closely related to the birth of computer networking (as we recogonize it now). After all, Aloha Net is (or should be) required study for anyone who wants to understand the orgins (and assumptions made along the way) of networking. I'm sure that there are many other "claims to fame" over in Hawaii, but I've never been over there to hear them
Considering the subject matter, the above statement is very condescending. Should we state "What do you expect from a University like Harvard?" when we talk about Gates's latest threats to Linux, or it's latest defiance of the US Justice System?
The assumption that you can preferentially expand one repeating series one digit by multiplying it with 10, without expanding the same repeating series one digit in the non-multiplied context is mathematically incorrect.
:P )
If it were not then the value of 0.3333... - 0.3333... would not equal zero. But it is a basic tenet of mathematics that for all x, x-x = 0 If I can expand the precision of one series preferentially, then I could claim that x-x = 0.000033333..... which would mean that x is not equal to x (an impossiblity unless you change all of the rules, in which case, you don't need to prove it using math
Which is why it simply boils down to this: you cannot treat infintely repeating series of digits like you can fractions, since fractions do not suffer from errors of percision whereas infinitely repeating digits do.
3(1/3) = 1 but 3 (0.3333...) = 0.9999...
because 1/3 is not equal to 0.3333... but is only
capabable of being represented as 0.3333... due to the percision of the base 10 (decimal) number system.
No I do not agree that 10x would be 9.9999...
... which you could perceive as 9.999...
... ...
The whole problem lies between 1 and 0.999...
The first number is definatly a unit, whereas the last number is constantly being defined. To understand the last number would take an infinite number of expansions of "the next digit"
so if you multiply 10 * 0.99999..., you would have to first consider 10 * 0.9 + 10 * 0.09 + 10 * 0.009 +
However for you to make that perception, you infer that your result is correct based on induction.
When you subtract 0.999... from 9.999... you can only imply that the result is 9 if you expand one of your infinite series of 9's one repetition more than the other, so in fact you are arguing that one of the numbers is artificially inflated "just a bit more".
The correct way to subtract the two and maintain the same degree of percision (if such a thing really made sense at all) would be similar to
9 - 0.9 + 0.9 - 0.09 + 0.09 - 0.009 +
or
8.1 + 0.81 + 0.081 +
which would compact down to
8.999999.....1
assuming that you could carry on the expansion forever, then the result could be considered
8.99999....
but not 9. To achieve a result of 9, you have to opt to expand one of the infinite series preferentially (instead of in lockstep).
Preferential expansion is not permitted, otherwise I could argue that 9.999999 - 0.9999... equals 9.000000999999 simply because I opted to expand one side just a bit more than the other.
Happy expanding. Cheers!
Most systems I have seen (on the web and at work) generally follow the same formula.
Use a bunch of car batteries, charge them with one system from the main power feed to your house, and drain them with voltage regulating equipment on the other.
For safety's sake, these are usually stored in another building, (lead-acid batteries have known to leak, explode, and degrade in various ways) and the only reason car batteries are used is because they are easily available in quantity. Unfortunatly they are bulky, require a bit of maintenance, and prone to failure.
For cost's sake, usually a subset of equipment runs on a "UPS" line within the building, rather than the whole building being fed.
I see that a regular old light bulb converts 80% of it's electricity to heat. A fluorescent converts less electiricty to head. A LED converts even less to heat. My math says the LED wins.
Your math says that a regular old light bulb can be manufatured for less than a fluorescent or LED, your math says the old standard wins.
The real question is "What are we trying to conserve here?" If you want to conserve electricity, the LED and fluorescent prove to be better than the regular old light bulb, especially after you take into account the extra electricity used to air-condition that heat away. If you want to conserve constrution costs, the LED plants will cost a lot more to build and refine, and it will take decades before light fixtures are built with the LEDs in mind (instead of the old standby lightbulb). Considering that we may reclaim 80% of all the lost electricity sent to light, I think we should start building/funding these plants now.
Unfortunately, it seems that these people are determined to cash in on anything that may come from this market. So it looks like their patents will actually retard the "innovation" that could save a huge amount on our light bills.
How does a mathematically incorrect assumption become insightful here on Slashdot?
Infinitely repeating digits (aka 0.9...) don't share the same meaning as those that terminate (aka 0.9) treating them the same is inappropriate, and only useful in demonstrating the flaw in logic that they can be treated the same.
x = 0.9999...
10 = 10 * 0.9999...
10x - x = 10 * 0.9999... - 0.9999
10x + (-1)x = 10 * 0.9999... + (-1) * 0.9999...
(10 - 1)x = (10 - 1) * 0.9999...
9x = 9 * 0.9999...
Unless somewhere along the line you make the error of assuming that 0.9999... = 1, you cannot arrive at 9x = 9.
All we need now is for some people to design better man-machine interfaces, like a direct connect into the spinal cord. And let's have those AI programmers show their metal by making some wickedly smart bots.
Certainly it would become boring killing people ad-infinitum, so I imagine it's just a matter of time before someone plugs in non-death oriented action into the Doom engines (and their kin). I myself would like to see a Half-Live/StockExchange!
I didn't bother to patch my office machine against MSBLASTER, and why should I?
I've been stripped of most of the permissions to admin my own machine because the internal IT support has been centralized. That means a few people service the rest of us in a way that generally has the good of the company in mind.
That said, if they take away my permission to do it, and they get caught with their pants down, why do they expect us all to run software locally on our own machines to fix the latest problem X? It's because oboviously these people do not have enough resouces support a network of our size.
If it wasn't the veil of "computers" clouding the issue, I bet someone upstairs would have corrected the logic of, "If they can't do their own job, we can get the whole company to waste a bit of time to help them out."
Certain systems require certain amounts of support, but this is not an OS issue. It's just more pronounced in systems that require more man hours to keep on the bleeding edge of security.
Actually, it seems that an automatic pactch installer could totally render EULA updates null and void. This could have the unexpected effect of the owner bound to the original EULA which may not be available except via original media.
I can see Microsoft arguing to a court that the use of the software implys that they automatically accept a new EULA with each patch; however, I would be very shocked and dismayed if any court in the US would uphold that you could automatically agree to licensing changes without being at least notified that a change had taken place.
Microsoft could worm their way around the last part with a pop up window asking you to accept the latest EULA; however, that would be a public relations nightmare, and even though Microsoft is keen to kill off any professional competition, they are not in business to openly defy their users.
The only way an EULA holds up as legal when not read (if my memory serves me correctly) is that you implicitly agreed to it by opening the box. Automatic EULA updates lack even this token agreement. If the automatic update is turned off by default, you might be seen as "implicitly" agreeing to all future EULAs by turning it on. If it is on by default there's no action to bind you to any sort of agreement.
Mabye they'll put in a clause, "By agreeing to use this software you agree to all future licensing agreements with respect to this software which will invalidate this agreement", ie viral EULA.
Of course I'm not a lawyer, but if you believe this is sound legal advice, let me write your will.
A good installation time for something as mundane as a new remote transmitting unit at a power substation is around a year. As the equipment gets more exotic, the install times just seem to get longer and longer.
Remember, that there's a need to perform planning, documentation, building of equipment, factory testing (if possible), updating of electrical load flow databases, delivery of equipment, waiting for appropriate load and weather conditions, installation of equipment, onsite testing, and finally the acceptance of the equipment.
Each step has meetings, planning, deadlines, work, and it's own problems which may increase the delay of the equipment to the field. Buying a cable off the shelf at Radio Shack just won't do it, Power Engineering has the most conservative bunch of the lot. They want it to work, and they want to know it will work before they put at risk the entire company's revenue stream.
What's your fall back plan if you next step dosen't work? If you don't have one, you won't be allowed to do it. Welcome to your nation's power grid.
The power generation facilities are not exactly delicate; however, the are prone to destruction when electrical voltages get way out of range.
To protect the generation facility, they have sensors which automatically disconnect should a surge come along with "that generator's name on it". If big surges like this had to go through a portion of the circut which increase resistance, thus "leveling out" the spike, the generator may not need to disconnect to protect it's equipment.
It wouldn't have helped the Niagra Mowhawk situation much, as it's just in the beginning stages, and these things can take years to be built, test, installed, and fully operational.
I too agree with the parent poster in spirit, but he chose all the wrong examples to back up his statements.
You're dead on about the Netscape debacle, but I'm proud to announce that I'm now using Gentoo-MAXINT. So there! Wait, they just released Redhat-MAXINT+1.
Arrrggghhh....