One of the great advantages of moving to a hydrogen economy is that cars *would* be able to do this. Specifically, GM's AUTOnomy vehicle contains fuel cells which are capable of generating electrical power for general purpose use, as GM even states on their page:
"With its robust 42-volt electrical system, the car is configured to run any number of devices in the passenger compartment, from homes to entire farms."
After moving to a hydrogen economy, and at 95% efficiency, you'd certainly be getting a lot more "bang" for your buck out of fuel cells than you would out of an ICE...
would be the nationalization of the power grid. That is, the government would take control of all properties owned by current energy companies for the purpose of electrical production and distribution (which would most likely involve financial compensation for the property) and would work to make the power grid as robust as possible.
This sounds somewhat crazy, but the necessity is beginning to show itself. The blackouts in California... the collapse of Enron... the East Cost blackouts... the recent collapse of NRG Energy... is the power grid really safe in the hands of private enterprise?
The power grid is a resource upon which we are all vitally dependant. Therefore, shouldn't we work to make it robust as possible?
Does it really make sense to have 300 little monopolies controlling the power grid instead of one big monopoly, the government itself?
Who says that the government can do better that private enterprise? Well, in the wake of deregulation, we've all seen what too much motivation from profit can do to the power grid. The sweeping general move towards deregulation have had terrible effects on all aspects of our life. Following the deregulation of radio, the majority of radio stations in the US were purchased by an enormous media conglomorate called Clear Channel, which is essentially a monopoly (with the exception of Cumulus Broadcasting and others) and all stations were given playlists. Call in contests were nationalized, so now you have to be a certain numbered nationwide caller. It's everything Rush sang about in the Spirit of Radio all over again...
So, give nationalizing the power grid a try! When you've hit rock bottom, all you can do is go up...
of SiteFinder is the fact that non-English speakers no longer receive an error message in their own language, but are confounded with some bizarre English language site which certainly wasn't where they were trying to get to.
I think it's time for ICANN to look for someone else to run the NET and COM TLDs. Not only are they unwilling to suspend SiteFinder after an enormous public outcry and a direct request from ICANN, but they didn't even bother telling anyone they were going to do this in the first place ahead of time. This is absolutely terrible, and I hope ICANN finds someone else to manage these TLDs
Someone who is paid for the purposes of developing an application.
"Do you count sysadmins write shells scripts?"
No, they are paid to maintain systems, not develop applications. Very little of what they write will ever see the light of day.
"Can you really lump in all C and C++ developers together (is someone using Visual C++.NET (i.e. using all the.NET libraries and pretty much ignoring the "standard" C++ libraries) the same as someone using gnu C++ on Solaris?"
I don't think the number of people using C++ with managed extensions is statistically significant.
What they're trying to say is that the number of developers producing native code applications using C and C++ outnumbers those using some sort of runtime environment in conjunction with a language like C# or Java...
As an employee of an atmospheric modelling group I am very surprised to hear this. Our atmospheric modelling program, the Regional Atmospheric Modelling System, is not I/O bound in the slightest and is instead very much CPU bound. We currently use 100bT for the interconnect on our cluster, and have tried moving to Gigabit with negligable performance gains.
Every cluster in the department is assembled from commodity x86 components. Groups here have been moving from proprietary Unix architectures to Linux/x86 systems and clusters. Our group started out on RS/6000s, then moved to SPARC, and is now moving to x86. In terms of price/performance there really is no comparison.
As for TCO, the lifetimes of clusters here are relatively short, one or two years at the most. Thus a high initial outlay cannot be set by lower cost of operation.
"After running our RenderMan benchmarks, we can now say that the G5 is the fastest desktop in the world"
This according to Pixar president Ed Catmull, who is an early booster of the Power Mac G5. An introduction video for the Power Mac G5 posted to Apple's own Web site features Catmull explaining that the G5 allows Pixar animators to show frames at full resolution.
This comes amid speculation of a Rendezvous-enabled (G5) Xserve rendering cluster, which would allow 3D shops to set up a plug-and-play rendering cluster which works in conjunction with RenderMan. Couple this with the availability of other 3D applications like Maya, and of course the sheer number of other production and DV applications like Photoshop, AfterEffects, Final Cut Pro, and Shake and the Mac seems to become an ideal platform for 3D production.
Go jogging around your neighborhood when you get home. Be sure to do it for at least 20 minutes to see any benefit.
Buy some weights. Use them at least every other day. Keep increasing the weight you are using as much and as often as possible to build muscle (as opposed to toning)
At the office, take a computer break every once in awhile. Stand up, stretch, and give your eyes a break. If you are a frequent computer user, be sure to adjust your posture both during breaks and while working on the computer. Don't allow yourself to settle into a round-shouldered posture; keep your shoulders and head back as much as possible.
The number, 2^128, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6, can be read as:
Three hundred forty undecillion, two hundred eighty-two decillion, three hundred sixty-six nonillion, nine hundred twenty octillion, nine hundred thirty-eight septillion, four hundred sixty-three sextillion, four hundred sixty-three quintillion, three hundred seventy-four quadrillion, six hundred seven trillion, four hundred thirty-one billion, seven hundred sixty-eight million, two hundred eleven thousand, four hundred fifty-six.
In Outlook 2003, Microsoft is also abandoning the current Outlook interface in favor of a "panes" driven interface.
Looking at these screen shots, Ximian has opted for a toolbar-driven approach. This seems like a reasonable way to go, considering that it's a methodology familiar to the majority of computer users.
I think any frequent user of Outlook learned to despise the side navbar. I'm glad that both Evolution and Outlook 2003 will be abandoning it.
MozillaQuest Magazine: C++ appears to be one of the properties that SCO acquired through Novell's acquisition of AT&T's UNIX Systems Laboratories and subsequent purchase of Novell's UNIX interests by SCO. At this time most Linux and/or GNU/Linux distributions include C++ compilers and editors. Is this something for which SCO currently charges? If so, just what are the current arrangements? If not, will C++ licensing and enforcement be added to SCO's licensing and enforcement program?
Blake Stowell: C++ is one of the properties that SCO owns today and we frequently are approached by customers who wish to license C++ from us and we do charge for that. Those arrangements are done on a case-by-case basis with each customer and are not disclosed publicly. C++ licensing is currently part of SCO's SCOsource licensing program.
MozillaQuest Magazine: How about GNU C++? Does GNU C++ use SCO IP? If so, could SCO license and/or charge for use of its IP in GNU C++?
The primary drawback of electronic voting systems is that they aren't automatically self-documenting. Hardcopies of all electronic votes could be produced, however the act of punching a card is much harder to do surropticiously than printing a modified or forged vote to a printer.
The only solution I can suggest for an all-electronic voting system would require extensive use of cryptography. Every voter would have to register a public key and every vote would be cryptographically signed. This would require a database of public keys outside of any political influence and it would also require that voters keep their private keys secure, both of which are enormous problems.
Given these drawbacks, an antequated punchcard system doesn't seem quite so bad...
Huh, you don't need mouse gestures? And your solution is to... add more mouse buttons? Sounds to me like you're trying to solve a software problem with hardware...
Besides, what about things like reloading a page, closing a window, opening a new window, opening a link in a new menu, etc?
I think this only further proves the need for something like a Java Card
(btw, I don't work for Sun)
A Java Card would allow you to store information (in this case biometric data) in a way that the data could be used in some sort of transformation but the original data is protected.
Were biometric data to be included on Passports, I see no better way to store it than in a Java Card. Portions of the biometric data analysis could be offloaded onto the Java Card itself, until an acceptable and mutual balance of trust and distrust can be achieved between the biometric processing algorithms and the data on the Java Card. In this way the biometric data is never exposed directly to the outside world, so one need not worry about it getting leaked to the "bad guys" even if your passport were stolen.
By including an outdated and broken version of Java with Windows by default, Microsoft has effectively doomed Java on the desktop. This build has lead to a degree of fragmentation of the Java standard, has caused Java application developers to code their applications to support the lowest common denominator, the JRE bundled with Windows.
It's very exciting to see OEMs bundling a recent Java runtime with their new systems, especially Dell who is the largest OEM. Perhaps with this application developers can have a bit more freedom to code their applications in a manner which utilizes more recent features. There's no reason why everyone shouldn't be using the 1.4 JRE at this point in time.
What the article and poster are both missing is that cellular phones and WiFi networks have entirely different scopes of operation.
WiFi is intended for short-range use and provides large amounts of bandwidth (54Mbps) completely unmetered.
Cellular is intended for long-range use and provides small amounts of bandwidth which are typically (although not always) metered by the phone company.
It's the old adage: bandwidth, distance, cost. Pick any two.
Furthermore, while I don't see cellular overlapping in scope with WiFi, I see WiFi overlapping cellular in many areas. WiFi *can* be made long range with the proper equipment, and can replace some of the functionality of cellular.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these new systems will be seeing how AltiVec performs now that the processor has a bus with sufficient bandwidth to keep the AltiVec unit supplied with instructions and data. On the older G4s the AltiVec unit could execute instructions faster than the bus could supply it with instructions and data to process.
British university researchers, after studying hundreds of children in Beijing, Tokyo and other big cities, say today's youngsters have become the 'thumb generation'.
By regularly using mobile phones, especially to send text messages and by playing hand-held computer games, a physical mutation had developed in the under-25s, the researchers have found.
The thumbs of today's electronic-gadget generation of children have become more muscled, more dextrous and often more used than fingers.
This is because modern youngsters grow up using hand-held gadgets where the devices are cupped in the hand and held firm by fingers, giving thumbs the pivotal role of pushing buttons.
This has caused a significant physical alteration in the way the digits of the hand are used - with thumbs being given the thumbs-up and an increasingly important role in youngsters' lives.
The researchers found that gadget-age children were now using their thumbs for tasks such as pointing at things and ringing doorbells - traditionally the job of the forefinger.
Whereas the forefinger was also previously used to clean an ear opening, mobile-phone using, text-messaging children will instinctively use their thumbs.
Even when they want to pick their noses, more and more boys and girls are tending to use a thumb, instead of a finger.
Whereas mothers and fathers would push the buttons on a telephone with their forefinger, many children would use their thumbs instead.
And when they type a message on the keyboard of a desktop computer, children hit more keys with their thumbs than adults.
Though most older people use their forefingers to operate remote controls for television sets and video recorders, many children tend to use their thumbs.
The findings have been revealed by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit of Warwick University, one of Britain's top research institutions.
Experts spent six months studying the habits of thousands of children in countries around the world.
The researchers included youngsters in Beijing and Tokyo in their survey, in order to ensure that their findings were globally relevant, and did not apply to just a couple of countries.
The experts found that in fact, the trend of children using their thumbs more and more was particularly marked in Japan.
Print houses and others in the preprint industry dependent on QuarkXPress for business (and therefore currently on OS 8/9) are unlikely to convert to OS X in the near term.
This will be a threefold issue:
Those wary of change will be unwilling to switch to the new operating system
Similarly, there are those who are wary of changing to a new application following a release, because they are scared of bugs which won't be found through regression testing and won't see the light of day until the product sees widespread public use
And last but certainly not least, the problem which will hold back those who actually want to change: plugins
The process of Carbonizing QuarkXPress plugins will certainly be a lengthy one. While certainly some plugin manufacturers will be on the ball and have been working on Carbonizing their plugins for some time using prerelease versions of QuarkXPress 6, there are many others who will be lax to support OS X and consequently have not begun any development effort towards an OS X port and probably won't until a large enough contingent of their userbase is complaining about lack of an OS X version to force them to port.
So, bottom line, don't expect all the world's print houses to go OS X overnight.
Re:PHP Security
on
PHP Cookbook
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm working on a project that aims to solve the matter of keeping database access passwords secure when using PHP as an Apache module (and consequently all PHP scripts must be readable by a single user)
It's called phpkeychain and it's modelled after the keychain mechanism in OS X.
Larry Ellison has been preaching for nearly a decade that the PC is on the verge of death, and that it would soon be replaced by a number of small devices tailor made for certain tasks.
The NIC was part of this push... why use an expensive, power hungry computer system to accomplish what can be done with a much simpler system tailor made to the task?
Unfortunately, the flaw of this ideology is that resource consolidation that is provided by a computer is perhaps one of its biggest advantages. Not only does it let you browse the web, it lets you watch movies, listen to music, watch TV, play games, etc.
I don't see the PC losing out to single purpose devices any time in the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds somewhat crazy, but the necessity is beginning to show itself. The blackouts in California... the collapse of Enron... the East Cost blackouts... the recent collapse of NRG Energy... is the power grid really safe in the hands of private enterprise?
The power grid is a resource upon which we are all vitally dependant. Therefore, shouldn't we work to make it robust as possible?
Does it really make sense to have 300 little monopolies controlling the power grid instead of one big monopoly, the government itself?
Who says that the government can do better that private enterprise? Well, in the wake of deregulation, we've all seen what too much motivation from profit can do to the power grid. The sweeping general move towards deregulation have had terrible effects on all aspects of our life. Following the deregulation of radio, the majority of radio stations in the US were purchased by an enormous media conglomorate called Clear Channel, which is essentially a monopoly (with the exception of Cumulus Broadcasting and others) and all stations were given playlists. Call in contests were nationalized, so now you have to be a certain numbered nationwide caller. It's everything Rush sang about in the Spirit of Radio all over again...
So, give nationalizing the power grid a try! When you've hit rock bottom, all you can do is go up...
http://www.google.com/search?q=trouble+ticket+syst em returns a number of tools suitable for this purpose, such as this open source application.
Yes, through Mac-on-Linux
of SiteFinder is the fact that non-English speakers no longer receive an error message in their own language, but are confounded with some bizarre English language site which certainly wasn't where they were trying to get to.
I think it's time for ICANN to look for someone else to run the NET and COM TLDs. Not only are they unwilling to suspend SiteFinder after an enormous public outcry and a direct request from ICANN, but they didn't even bother telling anyone they were going to do this in the first place ahead of time. This is absolutely terrible, and I hope ICANN finds someone else to manage these TLDs
Someone who is paid for the purposes of developing an application.
"Do you count sysadmins write shells scripts?"
No, they are paid to maintain systems, not develop applications. Very little of what they write will ever see the light of day.
"Can you really lump in all C and C++ developers together (is someone using Visual C++.NET (i.e. using all the .NET libraries and pretty much ignoring the "standard" C++ libraries) the same as someone using gnu C++ on Solaris?"
I don't think the number of people using C++ with managed extensions is statistically significant.
What they're trying to say is that the number of developers producing native code applications using C and C++ outnumbers those using some sort of runtime environment in conjunction with a language like C# or Java...
The main area in which we saw benefit was switching from the Portland Group Fortran Compiler to the Intel Fortran Compiler, which cut the timestep (simulation time/real time) nearly in half.
Every cluster in the department is assembled from commodity x86 components. Groups here have been moving from proprietary Unix architectures to Linux/x86 systems and clusters. Our group started out on RS/6000s, then moved to SPARC, and is now moving to x86. In terms of price/performance there really is no comparison.
As for TCO, the lifetimes of clusters here are relatively short, one or two years at the most. Thus a high initial outlay cannot be set by lower cost of operation.
"After running our RenderMan benchmarks, we can now say that the G5 is the fastest desktop in the world"
This according to Pixar president Ed Catmull, who is an early booster of the Power Mac G5. An introduction video for the Power Mac G5 posted to Apple's own Web site features Catmull explaining that the G5 allows Pixar animators to show frames at full resolution.
This comes amid speculation of a Rendezvous-enabled (G5) Xserve rendering cluster, which would allow 3D shops to set up a plug-and-play rendering cluster which works in conjunction with RenderMan. Couple this with the availability of other 3D applications like Maya, and of course the sheer number of other production and DV applications like Photoshop, AfterEffects, Final Cut Pro, and Shake and the Mac seems to become an ideal platform for 3D production.
Buy some weights. Use them at least every other day. Keep increasing the weight you are using as much and as often as possible to build muscle (as opposed to toning)
At the office, take a computer break every once in awhile. Stand up, stretch, and give your eyes a break. If you are a frequent computer user, be sure to adjust your posture both during breaks and while working on the computer. Don't allow yourself to settle into a round-shouldered posture; keep your shoulders and head back as much as possible.
The number, 2^128, or 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,45 6, can be read as:
Three hundred forty undecillion,
two hundred eighty-two decillion,
three hundred sixty-six nonillion,
nine hundred twenty octillion,
nine hundred thirty-eight septillion,
four hundred sixty-three sextillion,
four hundred sixty-three quintillion,
three hundred seventy-four quadrillion,
six hundred seven trillion,
four hundred thirty-one billion,
seven hundred sixty-eight million,
two hundred eleven thousand,
four hundred fifty-six.
That's a lot of IP addresses.
Looking at these screen shots, Ximian has opted for a toolbar-driven approach. This seems like a reasonable way to go, considering that it's a methodology familiar to the majority of computer users.
I think any frequent user of Outlook learned to despise the side navbar. I'm glad that both Evolution and Outlook 2003 will be abandoning it.
MozillaQuest Magazine: C++ appears to be one of the properties that SCO acquired through Novell's acquisition of AT&T's UNIX Systems Laboratories and subsequent purchase of Novell's UNIX interests by SCO. At this time most Linux and/or GNU/Linux distributions include C++ compilers and editors. Is this something for which SCO currently charges? If so, just what are the current arrangements? If not, will C++ licensing and enforcement be added to SCO's licensing and enforcement program?
Blake Stowell: C++ is one of the properties that SCO owns today and we frequently are approached by customers who wish to license C++ from us and we do charge for that. Those arrangements are done on a case-by-case basis with each customer and are not disclosed publicly. C++ licensing is currently part of SCO's SCOsource licensing program.
MozillaQuest Magazine: How about GNU C++? Does GNU C++ use SCO IP? If so, could SCO license and/or charge for use of its IP in GNU C++?
Blake Stowell: I honestly don't know.
The only solution I can suggest for an all-electronic voting system would require extensive use of cryptography. Every voter would have to register a public key and every vote would be cryptographically signed. This would require a database of public keys outside of any political influence and it would also require that voters keep their private keys secure, both of which are enormous problems.
Given these drawbacks, an antequated punchcard system doesn't seem quite so bad...
Huh, you don't need mouse gestures? And your solution is to... add more mouse buttons? Sounds to me like you're trying to solve a software problem with hardware... Besides, what about things like reloading a page, closing a window, opening a new window, opening a link in a new menu, etc?
(btw, I don't work for Sun)
A Java Card would allow you to store information (in this case biometric data) in a way that the data could be used in some sort of transformation but the original data is protected.
Were biometric data to be included on Passports, I see no better way to store it than in a Java Card. Portions of the biometric data analysis could be offloaded onto the Java Card itself, until an acceptable and mutual balance of trust and distrust can be achieved between the biometric processing algorithms and the data on the Java Card. In this way the biometric data is never exposed directly to the outside world, so one need not worry about it getting leaked to the "bad guys" even if your passport were stolen.
By including an outdated and broken version of Java with Windows by default, Microsoft has effectively doomed Java on the desktop. This build has lead to a degree of fragmentation of the Java standard, has caused Java application developers to code their applications to support the lowest common denominator, the JRE bundled with Windows.
It's very exciting to see OEMs bundling a recent Java runtime with their new systems, especially Dell who is the largest OEM. Perhaps with this application developers can have a bit more freedom to code their applications in a manner which utilizes more recent features. There's no reason why everyone shouldn't be using the 1.4 JRE at this point in time.
What the article and poster are both missing is that cellular phones and WiFi networks have entirely different scopes of operation.
WiFi is intended for short-range use and provides large amounts of bandwidth (54Mbps) completely unmetered.
Cellular is intended for long-range use and provides small amounts of bandwidth which are typically (although not always) metered by the phone company.
It's the old adage: bandwidth, distance, cost. Pick any two.
Furthermore, while I don't see cellular overlapping in scope with WiFi, I see WiFi overlapping cellular in many areas. WiFi *can* be made long range with the proper equipment, and can replace some of the functionality of cellular.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these new systems will be seeing how AltiVec performs now that the processor has a bus with sufficient bandwidth to keep the AltiVec unit supplied with instructions and data. On the older G4s the AltiVec unit could execute instructions faster than the bus could supply it with instructions and data to process.
As you may or may not know, IBM originally developed Silicon-on-Insulator technology and licensed it to AMD. Here is the whitepaper: http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/bluelogic/showcase/soi/ soipaper.pdf
This is the same technology that was used to make the Power4 processor, and will also be used to make the upcoming PPC970: http://www-916.ibm.com/press/prnews.nsf/jan/06C1F2 11F9B1C24B85256ADF006163AF
AMD has recently built a new state-of-the-art fabrication facility in Dresden to produce the chips, known as "Fab 30": http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1773
I hope together IBM and AMD will continue to update their manufacturing process to keep on par or perhaps once again surpass Intel.
British university researchers, after studying hundreds of children in Beijing, Tokyo and other big cities, say today's youngsters have become the 'thumb generation'.
By regularly using mobile phones, especially to send text messages and by playing hand-held computer games, a physical mutation had developed in the under-25s, the researchers have found.
The thumbs of today's electronic-gadget generation of children have become more muscled, more dextrous and often more used than fingers.
This is because modern youngsters grow up using hand-held gadgets where the devices are cupped in the hand and held firm by fingers, giving thumbs the pivotal role of pushing buttons.
This has caused a significant physical alteration in the way the digits of the hand are used - with thumbs being given the thumbs-up and an increasingly important role in youngsters' lives.
The researchers found that gadget-age children were now using their thumbs for tasks such as pointing at things and ringing doorbells - traditionally the job of the forefinger.
Whereas the forefinger was also previously used to clean an ear opening, mobile-phone using, text-messaging children will instinctively use their thumbs.
Even when they want to pick their noses, more and more boys and girls are tending to use a thumb, instead of a finger.
Whereas mothers and fathers would push the buttons on a telephone with their forefinger, many children would use their thumbs instead.
And when they type a message on the keyboard of a desktop computer, children hit more keys with their thumbs than adults.
Though most older people use their forefingers to operate remote controls for television sets and video recorders, many children tend to use their thumbs.
The findings have been revealed by the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit of Warwick University, one of Britain's top research institutions.
Experts spent six months studying the habits of thousands of children in countries around the world.
The researchers included youngsters in Beijing and Tokyo in their survey, in order to ensure that their findings were globally relevant, and did not apply to just a couple of countries.
The experts found that in fact, the trend of children using their thumbs more and more was particularly marked in Japan.
This will be a threefold issue:
The process of Carbonizing QuarkXPress plugins will certainly be a lengthy one. While certainly some plugin manufacturers will be on the ball and have been working on Carbonizing their plugins for some time using prerelease versions of QuarkXPress 6, there are many others who will be lax to support OS X and consequently have not begun any development effort towards an OS X port and probably won't until a large enough contingent of their userbase is complaining about lack of an OS X version to force them to port.
So, bottom line, don't expect all the world's print houses to go OS X overnight.
If you are interested in the respective merits of FreeBSD 5.1 over 4.x and are unsure which one to install, you might want to see the Early Adopter's Guide for FreeBSD 5.1-RELEASE
It's called phpkeychain and it's modelled after the keychain mechanism in OS X.
Larry Ellison has been preaching for nearly a decade that the PC is on the verge of death, and that it would soon be replaced by a number of small devices tailor made for certain tasks.
The NIC was part of this push... why use an expensive, power hungry computer system to accomplish what can be done with a much simpler system tailor made to the task?
Unfortunately, the flaw of this ideology is that resource consolidation that is provided by a computer is perhaps one of its biggest advantages. Not only does it let you browse the web, it lets you watch movies, listen to music, watch TV, play games, etc.
I don't see the PC losing out to single purpose devices any time in the near future.