...and I'm a Canadian who has lived in both the US and Canada for long periods of time (i.e. years). The two things different are the huge damage awards and the fact that defendants can more easily recover their legal costs from baseless claims. Lots of lawsuits still do happen both in Canada and in the US.
Remember how every Jew going to concentration camps in WWII had a number tattooed to them? I've seen these folks at a local supermarket near a Jewish community here in Edmonton. It isn't pretty, and the way these people speak they wouldn't speak in too flattering a manner. I'm sure the processing at concentration camps would've been much more "efficient" if the Nazis had RFID tags. I'm also certain that there are other examples throught history where mass murders and the tracking of individuals for control purposes would've been better facilitiated by RFID (e.g. Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung).
There are a lot of people who wouldn't want any tag like this attached to them even if it is "anonymous" (famous last words...). What it more sounds like is that yet another anti-Christian want to take another cheap swipe at Christians for no good reason. There are real reasons not to have RFID that have everything to do with privacy, security and even history.
Reliability = GOOD MEDIA + GOOD TREATMENT
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DVD-Rs go 8x
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You know, I've heard the DVD-RAM argument before. Since I do this for a living right now, let me mention that most people have no idea what they're buying as far as blanks go, nor as to how they treat them.
All media, including +R, -R and -RAM, need to be stored and treated properly. This means: being handled along the edges, using water-based ink pens and not labels with glue or solvent-based inks (and IMO writing along the clear spindle portion of the writeable and instead labeling on the case and making a head title in the DVD itself), storing in a covered case away from dust and mold, sunlight or any high source of EM radiation, temperature/humidity extremes, cycles of wide temperature/humidity change. This is where most people screw up, and where most people need to be educated.
Beyond that, you need to choose a blank that has good quality and the right format. Now, since the DVD Forum that makes all standard DVD players and, therefore, gives the user the best chance to play these discs 20 or 30 years down the road recommends DVD-R, use DVD-R. +R has known compatibility problems with older players though it has technical advantages. +RW and -RW are designed to be rewritten and for that reason the dyes used have less stability IMO. -RAM has inline error correction, but so do +R and -R (something like Reed-Solomon or Viterbi), and very few commercial players can use -RAM. You shouldn't need the error correction if you treat the disc properly anyway, because it's only meant as an in-line protection against small scratches. But as I mentioned, dye stability is of critical importance. Most formulations out there are crap, but there are two I have basically centered on for my customers: Mitsui Gold/Silver, and Verbatim Datalife Plus. They are expensive blanks, around $3 a piece in a spindle. However, if your goal is to retain your data, then who cares what it costs now relative to being unable to retrieve your data. Both of those specific brands of Mitsui and Verbatim guarantee data life to a minimum 100 years with temperature stabilized dyes and sealed CD surfaces. If you're a complete hard-ass, then I suggest at least going to the next tier down, which is something like Fuji, TDK, Taiyo Yuden, and possibly Maxell.
Finally, you need to use a good writer and writing methods. I trust Pioneer and Plextor, with my preference being to Pioneer primarily because they have bells and whistles related to some pretty severe error checking. That error checking takes a huge amount of time, but if you're paranoid about your data it may be worth it. Cheaper drives may do roughly the same job, but I've read some stories about people having problems with cheaper drives and compatibility. And keep your write speeds low! I wouldn't go any faster than 4x. I'm not so hard up with my time that I can't be bothered to wait an extra 8 minutes for 4x and 8x. Just like CD players, some DVD players have problems when you write faster media. Heck, I've suggested writing 2x just to be damned sure if you have the time. Paranoid? Maybe just a bit, but IMO it's not worth the risk if you really want to retain your data over the long term.
So, in short, DVD-RAM may be good, but you need to be able to read and use it in as many players in the end as you can. It has the lowest compatibility, though I think it would've made an excellent format choice in the end. Sometimes the standard isn't dictated by what's the best (i.e. -RAM vs. +R and -R), but you have to look at all the variables in the equation too.
I will modify vehicles such that the on-board microphones and the GPS antenna are tied to two devices - a switch, and an airbag deployment system. Unless I hit the switch, the microphones and on-board GPS are disabled. The switch is superceded only when the airbag deployment is detected, and at that time the microphones and GPS are effectively reactivated.
is that they're rarely inspected and maintained the way they're supposed to be. If you actually look at the design of these reactors, it's pretty rare that they have inherent design flaws that would hurt their longevity. Like all mechanical devices, a nuclear reactor requires regular intervention in order to continue running optimally.
Why, then, do they fall into disrepair? Ironically, both privately-run (e.g. Three Mile Island) and government-run reactors (e.g. Chernobyl) both seem to have problems. The privately-run reactors end up having cost pressures put on by management whereby they cut corners and push the design. The government-run reactors oftentimes are victims of the indifference of government employees. Either way, the result is the same.
The disposal of nuclear material notwithstanding, reactors with many design philosophies can be safe. But any time you have human intervention, you are guaranteed an unreliable system. The more human intervention, the more unreliable the system. That's why this new design of reactor may actually be the best even if it can't push out as much power as its larger brethren.
A company in its death throes will resort to any legal tactics available to it, regardless of basis or validity, to continue to survive.
On another note, the press really has to start ignoring these wild claims. Part of SCO's strategy is that they know that they will be covered by the press and potentially bump their stock price. The only thing missing here is a law such that the plaintiff pay the legal fees of the winner if the claim has little to no basis. If that was the case, Boies wouldn't touch this turkey with a ten foot baster.
Whether or not you agree with the law, a child should never be taught or share experience for something that may lead to incarceration. For the average person, being caught with drugs will lead to a criminal record, which will lead to difficulty getting jobs, housing, cars, loans, etc.. You glanced over that risk as if it was an afterthought. It is hardly an afterthought.
I did not imply LSD makes you automatically psychotic. I said it CAN make you psychotic. Some people have no apparent trouble with it. But I have a friend who gets continuous flashbacks, and there have been documented cases of people going psychotic because LSD triggered that psychosis. Search Google for it if you doubt me. There is no reliable way to predict how individuals will react to it, so why bother with the risk, especially with a child?
I also said nothing about the good or bad effects of marijuana. I don't agree with its use as I believe, as with other drugs, it impedes productivity within society as a whole. This is particularly true among younger people who haven't matured enough to make proper decisions and for those with little parental guidance. With the possible exception of palliative care and chronic diseases, I don't see a good reason to use marijuana. It's not acutely dangerous, however. I acknowledge that. It's just that if someone needs it to relax, they need to find other ways to relax before they choose it.
I never said that one should put off the decision. You're putting words in my mouth at this point. What I said was that a parent needs to inform their child of the full consequences of certain decisions. Drugs, sex, driving, living in the real world, bad grades, and so many other things need to be discussed. They need to be discussed with the full implications of making certain decisions whether or not you like or agree with those implications.
It's one thing to have a contrary opinion of the law, but another entirely to accept it. It doesn't need to be done cheerfully, but it needs to be done both for your sake and your child's sake.
Teaching your children to use marijuana is utterly irresponsible and completely hypocritical. Let me tell you why...
Marijuana should, at best, be a choice. It should also be an informed choice. I get along fine without it as do most people. My first drink was a glass of wine at around 7 or 8, but I asked for it. My parents didn't stop me, but they told me what the consequences were in a gentle way, both health and legal, and now I don't have any inclination of abusing it. Currently, marijuana possession is illegal, even in Canada (you just get fined heavily for it now supposedly but that's a whole other topic). Why would you willingly expose your child to an illegal activity? Your responsibility is to get your child to be a productive and responsible adult. Exposing them to a substance which is illegal in most of the world exposes them to potential criminal charges. How would you like your kid to have a criminal record and be unable to find a job because you smoked a joint with them early on? Just buying it automatically exposes you to criminals who are less inclined to stay on the right side of the law for other activities which, in itself, is no good example. I'm not claiming that you should have no choice, but you should fully flush out the consequences of possession - not possessing it means never worrying, possessing it means feeling good once in a while but possibly getting caught by the police, expensive lawyer bills, permanent criminal record, long term consequences of chronic marijuana use, etc.. Note that this has nothing to do with your personal opinions on marijuana and whether you feel it is right or wrong for it to be used and its legality. Just don't mix the two for your child.
I also read one of your responses saying how all drugs should be treated the same. You obviously have no idea of the physiological effects of some drugs. Illegal drugs like heroin and meth, and legal drugs like oxycontin and xanax, all eventually remove your will to stop. Drugs like LSD can make you permanently psychotic on the first hit or with extended repeated use. It's possible that everyone is as strong as you to be able to choose to take it once or occasionally, and you can't assume that your child or anyone else will be able to. Fortunately this usually isn't the case with marijuana and a few other drugs, but I'm not talking about marijuana in this second paragraph either.
Please don't misinform your child, and don't discount this information because I'm not trying to prove you wrong. Let your choices be yours, and inform your child about the consequences of making certain choices with the right information. That's the best anyone can or should do regardless of personal opinion.
For those of you who have read Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, you will know that Tom goes into detail not only about what certain individuals will do to bioengineer fatal viruses. Obviously this particular virus isn't much, but what about the radical elements in humanity? There are individuals willing to kill everything on earth in order to advance their political or religious ideology. If someone can engineer viruses this easily, what will happen when someone disgruntled and who doesn't care about himself, much less others, decide to design and manufacture a virus like this?
Thinking about it in slightly different terms, all societies attempt to limit the proliferation of highly destructive weapons among their populace because the arbitrary nature of people would guarantee their arbitrary misuse. Imagine a world where people could obtain nuclear weapons as easily as a box of ammunition. We'd already all be dead.
This is what makes this particular story quite fear-inducing. When we arrive at the point where we can easily contruct very deadly weapons, particularly with the subtlety of viruses, there should be very strict regulation and government supervision. I can only hope there will be a worldwide treaty to that effect. After all, would you want someone engineering a virulent strain of airborne type 4 Ebola because he or she has a beef with a government's ideology?
Remember when the prince (aka Sony) stuck in the tower with those two guards (aka consumers) wants to send the message out, and though he's being watched by the two smiling guards still sort of scrambles a note together, puts it on an arrow, and shoots it while sort of looking happy.
Message for you sir: this is just another diversion to try to sneak DRM onto discs slowly, before we realize that copy-protected content is all we have left. The music companies don't trust consumers at all. It's just a diversion until we find an arrow of copy protection in our respective chests.
I don't dispute that this is a great discovery, but there's a difference between the chemistry of the process and the chemical engineering for the process. One can reproduce conditions in a lab environment, whereas the other is designed to take the process into mass production. I've seen so many unique technologies in the last few years that are great ideas but don't necessarily translate to something that can be mass-produced. Materials and process costs, materials handling, integration into production lines, packaging, built-in self-repair strategies and off-device drive are all pretty important factors, yet I really didn't see a whole lot on this in the article.
The other factor is reliability, both in the short term and the long term. Yes, the device seems to retain memory for a week without power at room temperature, but what about other factors? Alpha particle and EM sensitivity, thermal cycles and other long-term reliability issues all have to be investigated. Before I get jumped on, let me give a concrete example of a new technology: low-k dielectric. Low-k dielectrics (SiLK, Coral, Black Diamond) are materials on silicon devices used as insulation between layers of wires that connect circuits and were hailed as miracles a few years ago. However, many manufacturers (most notably TSMC with Nvidia) were having major problems where they would have void formation failures at the vias or inter-layer connections. The scariest part is that these were forming in simulated long-term accelerated tests, implying failures in the field after several years! Now, these failures have supposedly been addressed, but that's a concrete example of reliability issues with a conventional technology.
We need to tread lightly towards radical new technologies if only so that we don't get burnt down the road. I definitely believe there's room for these types of technologies, but the most essential parts of these reports are so often missing because the focus is on getting this to work in a lab, not on making money. And, as someone who worked in the field of technology commercialization in the past, it's sadly more often the case than not.
Add at least 10 to previous score for Nvidia. Add a big fat goose egg for ATI. That brings the scores to within reasonable distance again.
Not as great a difference as you might have us believe. To this day, when I build a system, I can't in good conscience build one with an ATI card because of its continued driver instability with WinXP. When my video editing clients are trying to run a production environment, either a high-end GeForce or Quadro will go in because of the simplicity and universality of the drivers. Add that to the fact that Nvidia still supports in their drivers cards as old as the Riva TNT2, as opposed to ATI's famous abandonment of older products in newer OSes (and shoddy Linux support either), and you may not even be able to keep that card as long as you might want to.
At least you predicted their final move after they are found to be frauds in the United States...move to Russia. I mean,
Step 1: Lose Linux patent infringement case
Step 2: Move to Russia where you pay SCO not to use Linux
Step 3: Profit!
And the development costs are nil!
Maybe next you're going to tell folks that the CBC is an unbiased organization. I haven't heard of CBC broadcasting or publishing any contrary evidence with regards to global warming. David Suzuki and his ilk are the rah-rah people within that organization, and it's amazing how people who disagree with typical left-leaning points of view are regarded as second-class in Canada. Openly disagreeing with things like legalizing gay marriage or marijuana often gets you dirty looks from "average" people based on their false intellectual stoicism and superior enlightenment in Canada. That is precisely what you are doing in this case as well.
Bear in mind the following, however. I don't know if you live in Alberta or not, but you better be sure that a great amount of Canada's wealth lies in Alberta. All those federal transfer payments and taxes on oil and gas up here are basically holding the country afloat. If Canada loses those, then one of two things will happen: either Canada will go deeply into debt and mash the economy, or the already half-rate social programs like medical coverage and eduaction will go the way of the dodo.
Just because people are starting to speak out on Kyoto and human-induced global warming seems to make you incredibly uncomfortable. The onus is on the accuser to prove their case, and the social climate in most countries makes that difficult if not impossible due to the fear of losing government funding for their research (i.e. Canada and Europe). Couple that with an overall left-wing media, and it's easy to see that the only "climate cooling" is the one in which people are willing to challenge the scientific establishment.
You skirt around the issue of the human impact of global warming and don't even give us an alternative explanation. No, I don't think all these "evil companies" should be dumping nuclear waste into the ocean, but the onus is on an accuser (that is to say YOU) to make the case. Your appeal to emotion and invocation of FUD is precisely the type of fear mongering that is getting individuals in trouble in the first place.
But that's ok. When these companies have to reduce their CO2 emissions on the basis of useless environmentalism, I'm sure the only people who will pay for it are millions of lowly employees, creating further social problems. Are you going to be there screaming at how so many people are out of work and the government needs to take care of it?
I'm sure you will be. But the government will have created that problem as well. Rest assured, the only person that stands to profit from that sequence of events are people like you.
Linux's biggest problem is its lack of standardization and collaboration and the numerous distributions that exist. There is, on a relative scale, excessive duplication of effort while at the same time Linux continues to lack basic things like truly standardized automated installs that work on every distribution and the equivalent of the Windows system registry.
Can someone finally standardize the/etc files and hierarchy to act somewhat like the Windows system registry? Can KDE and Gnome quit competing and pool resources? Can cut and paste truly work across every application as it does in Windows? Can people agree on an intuitive easy-to-use Window manager for the average person as a default? Can people be isolated from the installer so that they don't have to assess the relative merits of ReiserFS versus ext3 versus FAT32? They can and will get to that point when the efforts finally unify. You may say that this idea goes against the spirit of open source development or even the pride of project contributors. I will guarantee you that Windows would never have been the juggernaut it is now if it wasn't a focused and unified effort. Ultimately, a standard becomes a standard because disparate parties agree to work together on the same issue. If Linux does this, then it will finally be able to challenge the dominance of Windows and draw hardware and application developers to think of Linux as a revenue opportunity instead of an also ran.
This rant isn't meant as flamebait. I really do want Linux to succeed because it is so close to doing so.
First off, China has pegged its currency to the US currency and still subsidizes housing. I don't see that happening in the United States. They can't have their cake and eat it too. China's a threat right now.
As for India, you can be sure that the overall poor services rendered and lack of accountability will start stinging companies hard. Go look on www.theinquirer.net and search for HP on the quality of customer service outsourced to India. You can't save a sinking ship when so many people live in poverty like India. In fact, by your implied logic it will only increase the differences between the haves and the have-nots.
I will clear the conscience of anyone who wants to mod the parent down: you are not accepting the viewpoint of the parent, you are simply removing a weakly-worded argument from the view of most.
Although I lived almost three years in Northern California and disliked the place as a whole, the one thing that did stand out is the outstanding traffic control system with optical and pavement vehicle sensors. The volume of traffic notwithstanding, it was the fairest traffic systems I've ever seen.
For example, if there are left turn lanes on opposing lanes at an intersection, and one of those lanes is empty but the other is full, when the lights turn green the left turn lane for the empty lane stays red and simultaneously turn the signal green for opposing straight-through traffic. Not only that, but the left turn signal would only stay green until the last car had cleared or until a maximum time interval elapsed, at which point it would turn red again and allow opposing straight-through traffic to flow. In fact, if there was no waiting straight-through traffic in the one direction, some lights would just stay green for the lanes that had it until a car attempting to cross the intersection would trigger a timer.
Contrast this with, say, Edmonton, Alberta's dreadful traffic system, where nearly everything is on straight timers save for buses with road sensors and emergency vehicles, and there are no timing lights for freeway on-ramps. There are some sensors at some intersections, but by and large nearly everything is timed and it creates frustration and accidents. It's doubly ironic considering that Edmonton has the highest density of traffic lights in North America and traffic circles on major roadways!
In other words, if you design your traffic system the right way the first time, devices like this become unnecessary. An economist once commented that traffic lights are a nearly perfect unbiased system for resolving conflict. Why create bias in favor of certain selfish individuals? It doesn't work in economies, and it doesn't work on roadways.
Find the control module, open up, determine the type of Flash module and clip the write enable line (or tie to high rail if negative logic). Won't work in the rare case that the Flash is integrated into the same IC package, but it's highly unlikely given cost considerations.
You can also carry a stun gun in your car. Upon accident, go to EDR and hit with stun gun until battery is empty. IC has high probability of dying but reliability of this method is unknown.
I agree with the parent comment fully that oil has been a key factor in the progression of modern man. Despite the negatives of cartel control, without oil the exchange of goods and services would be next to impossible on the scale that it occurs today.
Really michael, you need to get more active on K5. This article involves so little technology discussion and the posting so laden with ideological innuendo that you should be headed in the same direction as Jon Katz for the good of all Slashdotters.
Just wait until this thing gets a bit wider publicity. You can be sure that holding individuals for ransom from the developing country for a developed product will get more and more common due to the copycat factor. I have a funny feeling that this is only the beginning of a large landslide.
Even worse, wait until outsourced hardware design starts showing how faulty it can be. Where engineers can be held responsible for products that overheat and kill over here, imagine if someone in a third-world country decides to be lazy and not put overcurrent protection on a device in a certain mode that UL safety guidelines happen to not specifically cover. People could end up having their houses burn down. Now, while the company can be held liable, what about the engineer? He can just disappear into the background noise, never be held responsible, and never become an example to others in his community of what happens when a product is shoddily engineered to meet a raw cost objective.
I think there is some optimism that comes from this story, however. It may yet prove that outsourcing is an enormous mistake for many companies. Particularly when the spectre of massive lawsuits is involved, I think that insurance companies will get increasingly involved in these situations. The cost advantages of outsourcing never factored in the increased liability risks presented to the company from the antics and poor quality of work of their outsourced workers in the first place. I don't like insurance companies any more than the next person, but neither do I think insurance companies have discovered to what degree their insured could be subjected to precisely these types of scenarios. Maybe what the geek community could do is start a campaign to inform insurance companies and their actuaries of these situations in order to raise the rates of companies who outsource. Maybe - just maybe - they could once again swing the balance of favor towards workers here.
Named after King Harald of Denmark aka Bluetooth
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Is Bluetooth Dead?
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The reason it's called Bluetooth is that King Harald united Denmark and Norway during his rule circa 10th century. In similar fashion, Bluetooth wireless united dissimilar devices.
The marketing seems a bit off for those not familiar with European history, but I don't think that was the main problem. I mean, heck, what's USB really mean to the average consumer?
Here is Microsoft's official statement on the issue:
We can certainly understand how people would respond with some shock to this apparent issue. We did too when it first came up nine years ago and we investigated it thoroughly in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. The conclusion was that the sequence in the Wingdings character set is coincidental and that there was no malicious intent. In fact, it impacted several software companies at the time and continues to do so. Unfortunately, there was not an easy way to fix the problem. We understand that this requires explanation.
At the simplest level, wingdings and webdings are much like an alphabet of characters and provide thousands of potential combinations from which a person could choose. Changing the character set would create an impact of unknown scale on existing data and code using the affected font. Again, using the example of the alphabet, what would happen to existing documents and applications if we switched around a handful of letters? The likely result is that we would create significant issues for people, cause some unintended humorous moments and several offensive ones. For that reason Wingdings has been left unaltered since its inception.
So, while it fails your tin-foil hat test, it doesn't look like it's really connected. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.
Slashdot Mirror
...and I'm a Canadian who has lived in both the US and Canada for long periods of time (i.e. years). The two things different are the huge damage awards and the fact that defendants can more easily recover their legal costs from baseless claims. Lots of lawsuits still do happen both in Canada and in the US.
Remember how every Jew going to concentration camps in WWII had a number tattooed to them? I've seen these folks at a local supermarket near a Jewish community here in Edmonton. It isn't pretty, and the way these people speak they wouldn't speak in too flattering a manner. I'm sure the processing at concentration camps would've been much more "efficient" if the Nazis had RFID tags. I'm also certain that there are other examples throught history where mass murders and the tracking of individuals for control purposes would've been better facilitiated by RFID (e.g. Josef Stalin, Mao Tse Tung).
There are a lot of people who wouldn't want any tag like this attached to them even if it is "anonymous" (famous last words...). What it more sounds like is that yet another anti-Christian want to take another cheap swipe at Christians for no good reason. There are real reasons not to have RFID that have everything to do with privacy, security and even history.
You know, I've heard the DVD-RAM argument before. Since I do this for a living right now, let me mention that most people have no idea what they're buying as far as blanks go, nor as to how they treat them.
All media, including +R, -R and -RAM, need to be stored and treated properly. This means: being handled along the edges, using water-based ink pens and not labels with glue or solvent-based inks (and IMO writing along the clear spindle portion of the writeable and instead labeling on the case and making a head title in the DVD itself), storing in a covered case away from dust and mold, sunlight or any high source of EM radiation, temperature/humidity extremes, cycles of wide temperature/humidity change. This is where most people screw up, and where most people need to be educated.
Beyond that, you need to choose a blank that has good quality and the right format. Now, since the DVD Forum that makes all standard DVD players and, therefore, gives the user the best chance to play these discs 20 or 30 years down the road recommends DVD-R, use DVD-R. +R has known compatibility problems with older players though it has technical advantages. +RW and -RW are designed to be rewritten and for that reason the dyes used have less stability IMO. -RAM has inline error correction, but so do +R and -R (something like Reed-Solomon or Viterbi), and very few commercial players can use -RAM. You shouldn't need the error correction if you treat the disc properly anyway, because it's only meant as an in-line protection against small scratches. But as I mentioned, dye stability is of critical importance. Most formulations out there are crap, but there are two I have basically centered on for my customers: Mitsui Gold/Silver, and Verbatim Datalife Plus. They are expensive blanks, around $3 a piece in a spindle. However, if your goal is to retain your data, then who cares what it costs now relative to being unable to retrieve your data. Both of those specific brands of Mitsui and Verbatim guarantee data life to a minimum 100 years with temperature stabilized dyes and sealed CD surfaces. If you're a complete hard-ass, then I suggest at least going to the next tier down, which is something like Fuji, TDK, Taiyo Yuden, and possibly Maxell.
Finally, you need to use a good writer and writing methods. I trust Pioneer and Plextor, with my preference being to Pioneer primarily because they have bells and whistles related to some pretty severe error checking. That error checking takes a huge amount of time, but if you're paranoid about your data it may be worth it. Cheaper drives may do roughly the same job, but I've read some stories about people having problems with cheaper drives and compatibility. And keep your write speeds low! I wouldn't go any faster than 4x. I'm not so hard up with my time that I can't be bothered to wait an extra 8 minutes for 4x and 8x. Just like CD players, some DVD players have problems when you write faster media. Heck, I've suggested writing 2x just to be damned sure if you have the time. Paranoid? Maybe just a bit, but IMO it's not worth the risk if you really want to retain your data over the long term.
So, in short, DVD-RAM may be good, but you need to be able to read and use it in as many players in the end as you can. It has the lowest compatibility, though I think it would've made an excellent format choice in the end. Sometimes the standard isn't dictated by what's the best (i.e. -RAM vs. +R and -R), but you have to look at all the variables in the equation too.
I will modify vehicles such that the on-board microphones and the GPS antenna are tied to two devices - a switch, and an airbag deployment system. Unless I hit the switch, the microphones and on-board GPS are disabled. The switch is superceded only when the airbag deployment is detected, and at that time the microphones and GPS are effectively reactivated.
Considering that GM was planning to put OnStar on every vehicle eventually I think my business could only grow in the future.
is that they're rarely inspected and maintained the way they're supposed to be. If you actually look at the design of these reactors, it's pretty rare that they have inherent design flaws that would hurt their longevity. Like all mechanical devices, a nuclear reactor requires regular intervention in order to continue running optimally.
Why, then, do they fall into disrepair? Ironically, both privately-run (e.g. Three Mile Island) and government-run reactors (e.g. Chernobyl) both seem to have problems. The privately-run reactors end up having cost pressures put on by management whereby they cut corners and push the design. The government-run reactors oftentimes are victims of the indifference of government employees. Either way, the result is the same.
The disposal of nuclear material notwithstanding, reactors with many design philosophies can be safe. But any time you have human intervention, you are guaranteed an unreliable system. The more human intervention, the more unreliable the system. That's why this new design of reactor may actually be the best even if it can't push out as much power as its larger brethren.
(from the USA Today article) "...new episodes could end up going directly to Cartoon Network."
That would solve the controversy problem since Cartoon Network is a cable channel.
A company in its death throes will resort to any legal tactics available to it, regardless of basis or validity, to continue to survive.
On another note, the press really has to start ignoring these wild claims. Part of SCO's strategy is that they know that they will be covered by the press and potentially bump their stock price. The only thing missing here is a law such that the plaintiff pay the legal fees of the winner if the claim has little to no basis. If that was the case, Boies wouldn't touch this turkey with a ten foot baster.
Whether or not you agree with the law, a child should never be taught or share experience for something that may lead to incarceration. For the average person, being caught with drugs will lead to a criminal record, which will lead to difficulty getting jobs, housing, cars, loans, etc.. You glanced over that risk as if it was an afterthought. It is hardly an afterthought.
I did not imply LSD makes you automatically psychotic. I said it CAN make you psychotic. Some people have no apparent trouble with it. But I have a friend who gets continuous flashbacks, and there have been documented cases of people going psychotic because LSD triggered that psychosis. Search Google for it if you doubt me. There is no reliable way to predict how individuals will react to it, so why bother with the risk, especially with a child?
I also said nothing about the good or bad effects of marijuana. I don't agree with its use as I believe, as with other drugs, it impedes productivity within society as a whole. This is particularly true among younger people who haven't matured enough to make proper decisions and for those with little parental guidance. With the possible exception of palliative care and chronic diseases, I don't see a good reason to use marijuana. It's not acutely dangerous, however. I acknowledge that. It's just that if someone needs it to relax, they need to find other ways to relax before they choose it.
I never said that one should put off the decision. You're putting words in my mouth at this point. What I said was that a parent needs to inform their child of the full consequences of certain decisions. Drugs, sex, driving, living in the real world, bad grades, and so many other things need to be discussed. They need to be discussed with the full implications of making certain decisions whether or not you like or agree with those implications.
It's one thing to have a contrary opinion of the law, but another entirely to accept it. It doesn't need to be done cheerfully, but it needs to be done both for your sake and your child's sake.
Teaching your children to use marijuana is utterly irresponsible and completely hypocritical. Let me tell you why...
Marijuana should, at best, be a choice. It should also be an informed choice. I get along fine without it as do most people. My first drink was a glass of wine at around 7 or 8, but I asked for it. My parents didn't stop me, but they told me what the consequences were in a gentle way, both health and legal, and now I don't have any inclination of abusing it. Currently, marijuana possession is illegal, even in Canada (you just get fined heavily for it now supposedly but that's a whole other topic). Why would you willingly expose your child to an illegal activity? Your responsibility is to get your child to be a productive and responsible adult. Exposing them to a substance which is illegal in most of the world exposes them to potential criminal charges. How would you like your kid to have a criminal record and be unable to find a job because you smoked a joint with them early on? Just buying it automatically exposes you to criminals who are less inclined to stay on the right side of the law for other activities which, in itself, is no good example. I'm not claiming that you should have no choice, but you should fully flush out the consequences of possession - not possessing it means never worrying, possessing it means feeling good once in a while but possibly getting caught by the police, expensive lawyer bills, permanent criminal record, long term consequences of chronic marijuana use, etc.. Note that this has nothing to do with your personal opinions on marijuana and whether you feel it is right or wrong for it to be used and its legality. Just don't mix the two for your child.
I also read one of your responses saying how all drugs should be treated the same. You obviously have no idea of the physiological effects of some drugs. Illegal drugs like heroin and meth, and legal drugs like oxycontin and xanax, all eventually remove your will to stop. Drugs like LSD can make you permanently psychotic on the first hit or with extended repeated use. It's possible that everyone is as strong as you to be able to choose to take it once or occasionally, and you can't assume that your child or anyone else will be able to. Fortunately this usually isn't the case with marijuana and a few other drugs, but I'm not talking about marijuana in this second paragraph either.
Please don't misinform your child, and don't discount this information because I'm not trying to prove you wrong. Let your choices be yours, and inform your child about the consequences of making certain choices with the right information. That's the best anyone can or should do regardless of personal opinion.
For those of you who have read Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, you will know that Tom goes into detail not only about what certain individuals will do to bioengineer fatal viruses. Obviously this particular virus isn't much, but what about the radical elements in humanity? There are individuals willing to kill everything on earth in order to advance their political or religious ideology. If someone can engineer viruses this easily, what will happen when someone disgruntled and who doesn't care about himself, much less others, decide to design and manufacture a virus like this?
Thinking about it in slightly different terms, all societies attempt to limit the proliferation of highly destructive weapons among their populace because the arbitrary nature of people would guarantee their arbitrary misuse. Imagine a world where people could obtain nuclear weapons as easily as a box of ammunition. We'd already all be dead.
This is what makes this particular story quite fear-inducing. When we arrive at the point where we can easily contruct very deadly weapons, particularly with the subtlety of viruses, there should be very strict regulation and government supervision. I can only hope there will be a worldwide treaty to that effect. After all, would you want someone engineering a virulent strain of airborne type 4 Ebola because he or she has a beef with a government's ideology?
Remember when the prince (aka Sony) stuck in the tower with those two guards (aka consumers) wants to send the message out, and though he's being watched by the two smiling guards still sort of scrambles a note together, puts it on an arrow, and shoots it while sort of looking happy.
Message for you sir: this is just another diversion to try to sneak DRM onto discs slowly, before we realize that copy-protected content is all we have left. The music companies don't trust consumers at all. It's just a diversion until we find an arrow of copy protection in our respective chests.
I don't dispute that this is a great discovery, but there's a difference between the chemistry of the process and the chemical engineering for the process. One can reproduce conditions in a lab environment, whereas the other is designed to take the process into mass production. I've seen so many unique technologies in the last few years that are great ideas but don't necessarily translate to something that can be mass-produced. Materials and process costs, materials handling, integration into production lines, packaging, built-in self-repair strategies and off-device drive are all pretty important factors, yet I really didn't see a whole lot on this in the article.
The other factor is reliability, both in the short term and the long term. Yes, the device seems to retain memory for a week without power at room temperature, but what about other factors? Alpha particle and EM sensitivity, thermal cycles and other long-term reliability issues all have to be investigated. Before I get jumped on, let me give a concrete example of a new technology: low-k dielectric. Low-k dielectrics (SiLK, Coral, Black Diamond) are materials on silicon devices used as insulation between layers of wires that connect circuits and were hailed as miracles a few years ago. However, many manufacturers (most notably TSMC with Nvidia) were having major problems where they would have void formation failures at the vias or inter-layer connections. The scariest part is that these were forming in simulated long-term accelerated tests, implying failures in the field after several years! Now, these failures have supposedly been addressed, but that's a concrete example of reliability issues with a conventional technology.
We need to tread lightly towards radical new technologies if only so that we don't get burnt down the road. I definitely believe there's room for these types of technologies, but the most essential parts of these reports are so often missing because the focus is on getting this to work in a lab, not on making money. And, as someone who worked in the field of technology commercialization in the past, it's sadly more often the case than not.
Drivers.
Add at least 10 to previous score for Nvidia. Add a big fat goose egg for ATI. That brings the scores to within reasonable distance again.
Not as great a difference as you might have us believe. To this day, when I build a system, I can't in good conscience build one with an ATI card because of its continued driver instability with WinXP. When my video editing clients are trying to run a production environment, either a high-end GeForce or Quadro will go in because of the simplicity and universality of the drivers. Add that to the fact that Nvidia still supports in their drivers cards as old as the Riva TNT2, as opposed to ATI's famous abandonment of older products in newer OSes (and shoddy Linux support either), and you may not even be able to keep that card as long as you might want to.
At least you predicted their final move after they are found to be frauds in the United States...move to Russia. I mean, Step 1: Lose Linux patent infringement case Step 2: Move to Russia where you pay SCO not to use Linux Step 3: Profit! And the development costs are nil!
Maybe next you're going to tell folks that the CBC is an unbiased organization. I haven't heard of CBC broadcasting or publishing any contrary evidence with regards to global warming. David Suzuki and his ilk are the rah-rah people within that organization, and it's amazing how people who disagree with typical left-leaning points of view are regarded as second-class in Canada. Openly disagreeing with things like legalizing gay marriage or marijuana often gets you dirty looks from "average" people based on their false intellectual stoicism and superior enlightenment in Canada. That is precisely what you are doing in this case as well.
Bear in mind the following, however. I don't know if you live in Alberta or not, but you better be sure that a great amount of Canada's wealth lies in Alberta. All those federal transfer payments and taxes on oil and gas up here are basically holding the country afloat. If Canada loses those, then one of two things will happen: either Canada will go deeply into debt and mash the economy, or the already half-rate social programs like medical coverage and eduaction will go the way of the dodo.
Just because people are starting to speak out on Kyoto and human-induced global warming seems to make you incredibly uncomfortable. The onus is on the accuser to prove their case, and the social climate in most countries makes that difficult if not impossible due to the fear of losing government funding for their research (i.e. Canada and Europe). Couple that with an overall left-wing media, and it's easy to see that the only "climate cooling" is the one in which people are willing to challenge the scientific establishment.
You skirt around the issue of the human impact of global warming and don't even give us an alternative explanation. No, I don't think all these "evil companies" should be dumping nuclear waste into the ocean, but the onus is on an accuser (that is to say YOU) to make the case. Your appeal to emotion and invocation of FUD is precisely the type of fear mongering that is getting individuals in trouble in the first place.
But that's ok. When these companies have to reduce their CO2 emissions on the basis of useless environmentalism, I'm sure the only people who will pay for it are millions of lowly employees, creating further social problems. Are you going to be there screaming at how so many people are out of work and the government needs to take care of it?
I'm sure you will be. But the government will have created that problem as well. Rest assured, the only person that stands to profit from that sequence of events are people like you.
Linux's biggest problem is its lack of standardization and collaboration and the numerous distributions that exist. There is, on a relative scale, excessive duplication of effort while at the same time Linux continues to lack basic things like truly standardized automated installs that work on every distribution and the equivalent of the Windows system registry.
/etc files and hierarchy to act somewhat like the Windows system registry? Can KDE and Gnome quit competing and pool resources? Can cut and paste truly work across every application as it does in Windows? Can people agree on an intuitive easy-to-use Window manager for the average person as a default? Can people be isolated from the installer so that they don't have to assess the relative merits of ReiserFS versus ext3 versus FAT32? They can and will get to that point when the efforts finally unify. You may say that this idea goes against the spirit of open source development or even the pride of project contributors. I will guarantee you that Windows would never have been the juggernaut it is now if it wasn't a focused and unified effort. Ultimately, a standard becomes a standard because disparate parties agree to work together on the same issue. If Linux does this, then it will finally be able to challenge the dominance of Windows and draw hardware and application developers to think of Linux as a revenue opportunity instead of an also ran.
Can someone finally standardize the
This rant isn't meant as flamebait. I really do want Linux to succeed because it is so close to doing so.
First off, China has pegged its currency to the US currency and still subsidizes housing. I don't see that happening in the United States. They can't have their cake and eat it too. China's a threat right now.
As for India, you can be sure that the overall poor services rendered and lack of accountability will start stinging companies hard. Go look on www.theinquirer.net and search for HP on the quality of customer service outsourced to India. You can't save a sinking ship when so many people live in poverty like India. In fact, by your implied logic it will only increase the differences between the haves and the have-nots.
I will clear the conscience of anyone who wants to mod the parent down: you are not accepting the viewpoint of the parent, you are simply removing a weakly-worded argument from the view of most.
Although I lived almost three years in Northern California and disliked the place as a whole, the one thing that did stand out is the outstanding traffic control system with optical and pavement vehicle sensors. The volume of traffic notwithstanding, it was the fairest traffic systems I've ever seen.
For example, if there are left turn lanes on opposing lanes at an intersection, and one of those lanes is empty but the other is full, when the lights turn green the left turn lane for the empty lane stays red and simultaneously turn the signal green for opposing straight-through traffic. Not only that, but the left turn signal would only stay green until the last car had cleared or until a maximum time interval elapsed, at which point it would turn red again and allow opposing straight-through traffic to flow. In fact, if there was no waiting straight-through traffic in the one direction, some lights would just stay green for the lanes that had it until a car attempting to cross the intersection would trigger a timer.
Contrast this with, say, Edmonton, Alberta's dreadful traffic system, where nearly everything is on straight timers save for buses with road sensors and emergency vehicles, and there are no timing lights for freeway on-ramps. There are some sensors at some intersections, but by and large nearly everything is timed and it creates frustration and accidents. It's doubly ironic considering that Edmonton has the highest density of traffic lights in North America and traffic circles on major roadways!
In other words, if you design your traffic system the right way the first time, devices like this become unnecessary. An economist once commented that traffic lights are a nearly perfect unbiased system for resolving conflict. Why create bias in favor of certain selfish individuals? It doesn't work in economies, and it doesn't work on roadways.
Find the control module, open up, determine the type of Flash module and clip the write enable line (or tie to high rail if negative logic). Won't work in the rare case that the Flash is integrated into the same IC package, but it's highly unlikely given cost considerations.
You can also carry a stun gun in your car. Upon accident, go to EDR and hit with stun gun until battery is empty. IC has high probability of dying but reliability of this method is unknown.
I agree with the parent comment fully that oil has been a key factor in the progression of modern man. Despite the negatives of cartel control, without oil the exchange of goods and services would be next to impossible on the scale that it occurs today.
Really michael, you need to get more active on K5. This article involves so little technology discussion and the posting so laden with ideological innuendo that you should be headed in the same direction as Jon Katz for the good of all Slashdotters.
Just wait until this thing gets a bit wider publicity. You can be sure that holding individuals for ransom from the developing country for a developed product will get more and more common due to the copycat factor. I have a funny feeling that this is only the beginning of a large landslide.
Even worse, wait until outsourced hardware design starts showing how faulty it can be. Where engineers can be held responsible for products that overheat and kill over here, imagine if someone in a third-world country decides to be lazy and not put overcurrent protection on a device in a certain mode that UL safety guidelines happen to not specifically cover. People could end up having their houses burn down. Now, while the company can be held liable, what about the engineer? He can just disappear into the background noise, never be held responsible, and never become an example to others in his community of what happens when a product is shoddily engineered to meet a raw cost objective.
I think there is some optimism that comes from this story, however. It may yet prove that outsourcing is an enormous mistake for many companies. Particularly when the spectre of massive lawsuits is involved, I think that insurance companies will get increasingly involved in these situations. The cost advantages of outsourcing never factored in the increased liability risks presented to the company from the antics and poor quality of work of their outsourced workers in the first place. I don't like insurance companies any more than the next person, but neither do I think insurance companies have discovered to what degree their insured could be subjected to precisely these types of scenarios. Maybe what the geek community could do is start a campaign to inform insurance companies and their actuaries of these situations in order to raise the rates of companies who outsource. Maybe - just maybe - they could once again swing the balance of favor towards workers here.
The reason it's called Bluetooth is that King Harald united Denmark and Norway during his rule circa 10th century. In similar fashion, Bluetooth wireless united dissimilar devices.
The marketing seems a bit off for those not familiar with European history, but I don't think that was the main problem. I mean, heck, what's USB really mean to the average consumer?
Here is Microsoft's official statement on the issue:
So, while it fails your tin-foil hat test, it doesn't look like it's really connected. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.