If video instant messaging is so important, why hasn't video email gone anywhere
Ummmm, because it's not interactive, and video with IM is. The IM program allows for the integration of the contact-list feature and possible NAT traversal.
As mentioned, the usefulness of video is boosting the interaction capablities of the users, video email is not very interactive in comparison to IM. Asking why it hasn't caught on in comparison to video-conferencing is akin to asking why people don't just email instead of IM period.
There's nothing wrong with us people, we just don't think that features should be excluded because a certain minority find them less-than-useful.
Also an example of the stupidity of knocking some chick up when you know you're not going to be around. But I'll save that karma burning for another day.
Yes, burn away, because everyone knows that unexpected situations never arise, and every potential father knows exactly where he will be for the next 5 years...
The primary function of most IM clients is the ability to see those you know online when they are available, and initiate contact on-an-instant. Most videoconfering-without-IM clients do this by IP (or in some cases by gatekeeper). To add the contact availablity function when it is available through another program is no smarter than adding it to the existing client.
As a compromise though, I see no reason that (at least in 'nix) the video functionality could be optional within the IM client as a module, or pass the proper parameters to a secondary client from the IM in order to establish connectivity (although the second option might be limited by NAT traversal issues).
Seriously, this is where I could see the slashdot "not having a girlfriend" comments come up. While you may have or have had a girlfriend, somehow I doubt you've had any type of long distance relationship in the modern age. Speaking as somebody who has, I would say that video is definately an improvement. Just seeing somebody you love or care about, their facial expressions, their hairstyle, etc, adds to the experience.
I'm fairly sure the same applies to those with family members a distance away, or long lost friends, etc. How about the father whose infant son is growing up without him because he's off fighting in Iraq... do you think that he considers seeing his kid a stupid addition that has no benefit over a text message? How about having his kid see and hear him, even if the best at that time is over the screen?
Just because a feature has no use for you and seems stupid doesn't in any way mean it isn't a very important thing to others... and as you can still have your text-only chat just fine I don't see why you would have such a negetive attitude. If you don't want the overhead, don't use video-chat.
Is why we have big, ugly, bloated programs that require overpowered CPUs. First of all, it depends on what the application is being coded for. Perhaps it's actually intended for slower machines as well as faster... not everything is made to run on a P4-4Ghz machine you know.
Secondly, these operations can add up. If, for example, this scenario is used throughout the code and called several times per second, on an operation perhaps requiring ready output, the output might even be visible delayed on a faster machine.
Pointers can be a pain in the ass and I definately agree that I find them annoying at times, but they also have their place and you don't always have the option of sacrificing beauty for functionality. If the code is a bit confusing, well that's what comments are for.
I haven't had any problem both receiving and sending files with my friends, most of whom use the official MSN client. No problems with file transfers using both the 'nix and windows version of GAIM for quite awhile now. I don't really use Yahoo or the rest, so I can't comment on transfers to/from them.
If the video thing catches on, I wonder if the next step for iPod might be to go to something PDA-like. Having IR in iPods would be useful for syncing and iPod-TV (wasn't there something on here about really fast IR awhile ago?)... the ability to add programs would be another cool step, although a keyboard would mess-up the design so perhaps they'd have to be simpler, shuffle-button programs.
I wonder about the issues with global data though. If a wiretap financial intercepts confidential data from a Canadian going to a European client, what are the rules on holding it (and safeguarding it)? It's not quite the same as tapping phones because digital data can contain a lot more information, and you generally don't transfer a couple hundred-thousand financial records out loud on the phone (moreover you can cut recording of the phone conversation if somebody were using such data).
How about if the connection was to somebody in say, the British government, on top-secret matters. What happens then?
I really don't know much about the locations of the root DNS servers, but I do know that control on them is a large part of controlling the internet. Are they all US-based, or spread-out across various contries?
Personally, I see absolutely no reason why a system wherein each continent or group controls it's own root servers (perhaps primary and secondary) could not be achieved. I'm in Canada here. Why not have a North American (or if you want, a Canadian and US) DNS server for domains from each country here, and one for Europe, etc.
An initial connection to an unknown offcontinent site would take longer, yes... as the local server would have to determine which master-server contains the DNS entry... but once it's cached you're good. And if something manages to kill, say, either the connection to Europe or both it's master servers, well chances are you have a bigger problem than just invalid DNS queries.
It's one thing to argue about the issue of control, but what are the proposals for replacing the existing system before we argue about who controls it?
It's not the only one: I watched with great sadness as people whom I know to have given very generously to things like the tsunami appeal openly refused to donate anything in the aftermath of Katrina, such was their loathing for the current state of affairs across the pond.
What I saw from here was the US (government) not accepting help and trying to look tough. I saw doctors from other countries being turned out (because they weren't licensed to work in the USA, even Canadian doctors, etc), as well as various other aid. I saw a US government saying "we will take care of our people" and yet doing jack shit.
Personally, in such a scenario, I would be tempted to say "well screw them then." Not the people in distress, but the lawyers, politicians, and others who have created a policital monster pupeteered by so many fucking strings that above it all is just a tangled mess that nobody can get through to those US citizens who both need and want them.
The isolationism and egotism of the american beaurocracy is killing the country. Eventually they will cut off ties to all friendly nations, either by alienating them or just plain ignoring them.
As a Canadian I find a lot of people around here look down on Americans... but really it's because many of the most vocal groups cloud out the real people. Thankfully, sites like slashdot allow me communication with many of the intelligent and thoughtful people in the USA, reaffirming my believe that there are a lot of good people down there who just aren't being heard for some reason...
What happens when said clueless parent sues the game store anyways, because he/she bought the game for junior? How does one prove a video game store sold the game to a minor, and not a clueless parent. Is it guilt until proven innocent, or does the store have to prove they didn't sell the game to a minor? How about it the parent was present and consented to the sale (as tends to happen now).
Perhaps game stores will start requiring a signature from adults buying mature-rated games? Not only is the definition of the games a little violent, but a lot of the particulars in how they will track such things are as well. Perhaps kids will get bootleggers to buy games for them. I couldn't see a kid confessing to getting "Jamie 18" from bootlegging the game for him, but rather just saying "I got it from EB." Of course it could just be that they will institute spot-checks with kid-agents?
I can see a whole lot of ways this law isn't going to work...
Actually, a lot of stores I know, most in-fact will not sell to minors without an adult present. EB Games is one I've seen this happen recently.
However, most times (and I've also seen this happen) the kid will just go grab their clueless parent, who will listen to the spiel about ratings with dull eyes whilst junior says "gimme gimme gimme" and perhaps a few other kids are nagging on the other ear... and the game is bought. Since it's a sale to an adult it's not against store policy, and unless I'm reading it wrong still not against the law.
And then little Billy will come over to Johnny's place and play GTA, because Billy's dad won't let him buy GTA, but Johnny's dad was clueless and happily forked over the little disc'o'sex'n'violence
Last time I checked squashing some bugs or other sucks things wasn't comparable to killing people either. At the same time, it's how the violence is portrayed... it's perfectly alright to masticate on a piece of deer steak after going out and shooting it blammo, dead... but if you were running around thumping wild animals with a sledgehammer it might be considered less so.
Violence in mario also has a degree of seperation from reality. While the GTA variety may imply negetive consequences if you beat the crap out of somebody with a bat, it still involves a level of violence closer to reality than mario. Those 'in charge' seem to draw correlation between those who pump their enemies full of pixels and those who commit real violence. Of course, it is often enough that those who commit real violence play violent video games, but I highly doubt the axe-murderer type would play powerpuff-girls now would he?
I'd like to add to this, loud. Some flash ads drive me nuts. I'll be here, computing late at night while my roomate is dozing, or perhaps from my cubicle at lunch, and suddenly this ad will pop up in flash with jets wooshing by or perhaps some woman in a sexy voice trying to get my to subscribe to 'retarded gamer's monthly.' They also put the volume as high as it can bloody go... so inevitable it ends up blasting my eardrums and/or disturbing those around me.
On the other hand, smaller in-page ads (such as those in google), particularly ones that are related to what I'm looking for, are sometimes not bad. Actually, the good ads etc I don't find obtrusive at all, and if I'm looking to purchase sometimes they're even helpful.
You know, I've seen some pretty darn good cam shots come out of the theatres, and that's with the given limitations of finding a place to hide the camera, fixed-light, obstructions, etc
Point a decent digital camera at a decent screen... yes the quality will be less but how much will people who download from the 'net care about that? At the least it would probably be better than the theatre cams.
I notice that the use of terminology etc reflects and general focus indicates that HBO is doing a bad thing. Really, though, they're getting smarter about fighting those who would distribute their content, to which there will probably eventually be a retaliatory solution (perhaps triple-chunking of some non-corrupt bits, if two people send a correct chunk and one sends a different chunk, person #3 can be banned). Still, we use terms such as 'poisoning' to describe such a method, and call it an attack on bittorrent (which it isn't, just against the unauthorized episodes).
Kettle, meet pot. Personally I'm glad that HBO is finding more intellectual ways of dealing with this scenario as opposed to suing downloaders.
Most online banking sites I know specifically tell you on a regular basis to *DELETE* any emails in regards to banking and passwords, etc etc. We aren't talking about making banks responsible for hacked, accounts, etc, but for the stupidity of customers who disregard both common sense and warning to endanger themselves.
Personally, I see a greater risk in spyware than phishing. It requires a certain degree more stupidity to enter your personal details in myb@nk.com than it does to login into your banking site as normal than to get your password snarfed by a keylogger, etc.
What I would like to see is banks held more responsible in keeping the safety of debit accounts of responsible users. There are instances where fake banking machines are setup to capture PINS and magcard signatures, as well as situations where cameras and cardreaders placed over the slot on legitimate machines snag customer's numbers. When it comes to actual bank equipment, or when people are able to impersonal legitimate physical equipment, the bank still often says 'tough luck' where they should be held responsible.
I wonder if the lack of contribution is due to lack of enthusiam, or lack of experience. If the Nessus code (I haven't looked at it myself, nor used the tool) is hard to understand, then it might be hard for others to make contributions. Alternately, perhaps people just lack experience in the areas of security required to help develop Nessus. The skills required to contribute to say, Firefox or perhaps other projects would be very different. I myself haven't contributed that much to existing GPL projects, though I have submitted a few bugfixes to projects such as GnuGK and a few GPL codelets of my own in various other areas. Much as I'd like to help elsewhere, I simply lack the time, or, in having the time, the experience (and time to learn) required to make a significant contribution.
Quite a few of the cheaper DVD players I've seen happily ignore the region encoding. I've heard it's because implementing such is just another cost to the producer, who is trying to shave as much as they can.
If region-encoding because illegal (or anti-region-chipping legal, at any rate), wouldn't it save money to just not include any region-locking crud?
From both visiting Aus and hearing from my friends there since, I can say that quite often movies etc are *extremely* behind (showing in theatres there, out on DVD here). So an Aussie could probably import a bunch of DVD's and selling them whilst the show is still in theatres. Now they wouldn't play for those with regionalized DVD players, but would said enterprising businessperson be legally culpible if he/she included a reburned disc without the encoding (along with the original)? As the original item is being included with the burn, technically the 'license' for the DVD could be considered to be purchased
As for other countries, what is the legal situation on deregionalized players? Are chipped PS2's legal in Canada, how about software to play a disc despite region encoding, or copy it without (as a Canadian I wonder).
Thanks greatly, I've been looking for a Reiser IFS component for windows now for quite awhile. Looks like that project isn't quite in the stable arena yet, but it's definately one I'll keep a watch on!
This could be bad for old cameras, but not necessarily for new ones. While XP does tend to autodetect flash-based USB-storage devices (and cameras with such, etc), earlier versions still required a software install. Not a big deal to ship the camera shipped with a card formatted in a different FS, and stick a windows driver for the FileSystem with the rest of the camera software on CD. I don't know about the filesystem mentioned, but you can even use EXT2 in windows as a standard filesystem, as there are projects online that have DLL's to support EXT2 partitions read as standard drives.
While the clamshell design itself has possible issues with breakage, I've seen many devices with good clamshells that have lasted a nice long time. The nice thing about the clamshell design is that it protects the inner screen when it is closed.
I usually put/var/log in a seperate partition anyhow. The easy solution would be to put this FS just on the areas that you want to be "lossless" and leave the rest with standard filesystems.
I could only see this being useful in a line of filters. OK, so potential passenger #213 turns up positive for nitrates... focus or pay close attention to the next scan on passenger #213. A positive might not mean immediately detaining somebody or even much slowing their progress, but rather discreetly adding some checks as they go through the proces.
Not that I really thing this won't be used stupidly, but hey one could hope.
Really, what I tend to see clustering for more often is load-balancing. If you have a streaming video server that, say, gets slashdotted (and assuming it's not your bandwidth that is the bottleneck), then you could dump some of the load to a secondary machine. Of course, the usage that you describe - dumping to one machine in the event of a primary machine failing completely in some fashion - can also be used.
However, this isn't to say that clustering should eliminate a need for fault-tolerance. After the price of good servers, adding a redundant PSU and a good UPS, as well as some other basic hardware necessities (RAID perhaps?), shouldn't make a huge dent in your budget in comparison to the overall cost of the machine(s), and it'll probably save you in the longtime.
What we really need is a new form of energy and/or propulsion, period. With the way fossil-fuels are going, we need something akin to an X-prize for a vehicle than can match today's cars, but with a method of power that is long-term available/renewable. I'm sure there are lots of eggheads out there that might be able to come up with something amazing and wonderful, for the right incentive. It's hard enough getting by nowadays, but if there were the incentive of a massive cash prize based on various criteria... perhaps we could come up with some a vehicle that would be either road/sky friendly, or both.
Slashdot Mirror
If video instant messaging is so important, why hasn't video email gone anywhere
Ummmm, because it's not interactive, and video with IM is. The IM program allows for the integration of the contact-list feature and possible NAT traversal.
As mentioned, the usefulness of video is boosting the interaction capablities of the users, video email is not very interactive in comparison to IM. Asking why it hasn't caught on in comparison to video-conferencing is akin to asking why people don't just email instead of IM period.
There's nothing wrong with us people, we just don't think that features should be excluded because a certain minority find them less-than-useful.
Also an example of the stupidity of knocking some chick up when you know you're not going to be around. But I'll save that karma burning for another day.
Yes, burn away, because everyone knows that unexpected situations never arise, and every potential father knows exactly where he will be for the next 5 years...
The primary function of most IM clients is the ability to see those you know online when they are available, and initiate contact on-an-instant. Most videoconfering-without-IM clients do this by IP (or in some cases by gatekeeper). To add the contact availablity function when it is available through another program is no smarter than adding it to the existing client.
As a compromise though, I see no reason that (at least in 'nix) the video functionality could be optional within the IM client as a module, or pass the proper parameters to a secondary client from the IM in order to establish connectivity (although the second option might be limited by NAT traversal issues).
Seriously, this is where I could see the slashdot "not having a girlfriend" comments come up. While you may have or have had a girlfriend, somehow I doubt you've had any type of long distance relationship in the modern age. Speaking as somebody who has, I would say that video is definately an improvement. Just seeing somebody you love or care about, their facial expressions, their hairstyle, etc, adds to the experience.
I'm fairly sure the same applies to those with family members a distance away, or long lost friends, etc. How about the father whose infant son is growing up without him because he's off fighting in Iraq... do you think that he considers seeing his kid a stupid addition that has no benefit over a text message? How about having his kid see and hear him, even if the best at that time is over the screen?
Just because a feature has no use for you and seems stupid doesn't in any way mean it isn't a very important thing to others... and as you can still have your text-only chat just fine I don't see why you would have such a negetive attitude. If you don't want the overhead, don't use video-chat.
Is why we have big, ugly, bloated programs that require overpowered CPUs. First of all, it depends on what the application is being coded for. Perhaps it's actually intended for slower machines as well as faster... not everything is made to run on a P4-4Ghz machine you know.
Secondly, these operations can add up. If, for example, this scenario is used throughout the code and called several times per second, on an operation perhaps requiring ready output, the output might even be visible delayed on a faster machine.
Pointers can be a pain in the ass and I definately agree that I find them annoying at times, but they also have their place and you don't always have the option of sacrificing beauty for functionality. If the code is a bit confusing, well that's what comments are for.
I haven't had any problem both receiving and sending files with my friends, most of whom use the official MSN client. No problems with file transfers using both the 'nix and windows version of GAIM for quite awhile now. I don't really use Yahoo or the rest, so I can't comment on transfers to/from them.
If the video thing catches on, I wonder if the next step for iPod might be to go to something PDA-like. Having IR in iPods would be useful for syncing and iPod-TV (wasn't there something on here about really fast IR awhile ago?)... the ability to add programs would be another cool step, although a keyboard would mess-up the design so perhaps they'd have to be simpler, shuffle-button programs.
I wonder about the issues with global data though. If a wiretap financial intercepts confidential data from a Canadian going to a European client, what are the rules on holding it (and safeguarding it)? It's not quite the same as tapping phones because digital data can contain a lot more information, and you generally don't transfer a couple hundred-thousand financial records out loud on the phone (moreover you can cut recording of the phone conversation if somebody were using such data).
How about if the connection was to somebody in say, the British government, on top-secret matters. What happens then?
I really don't know much about the locations of the root DNS servers, but I do know that control on them is a large part of controlling the internet. Are they all US-based, or spread-out across various contries?
Personally, I see absolutely no reason why a system wherein each continent or group controls it's own root servers (perhaps primary and secondary) could not be achieved. I'm in Canada here. Why not have a North American (or if you want, a Canadian and US) DNS server for domains from each country here, and one for Europe, etc.
An initial connection to an unknown offcontinent site would take longer, yes... as the local server would have to determine which master-server contains the DNS entry... but once it's cached you're good. And if something manages to kill, say, either the connection to Europe or both it's master servers, well chances are you have a bigger problem than just invalid DNS queries.
It's one thing to argue about the issue of control, but what are the proposals for replacing the existing system before we argue about who controls it?
It's not the only one: I watched with great sadness as people whom I know to have given very generously to things like the tsunami appeal openly refused to donate anything in the aftermath of Katrina, such was their loathing for the current state of affairs across the pond.
What I saw from here was the US (government) not accepting help and trying to look tough. I saw doctors from other countries being turned out (because they weren't licensed to work in the USA, even Canadian doctors, etc), as well as various other aid. I saw a US government saying "we will take care of our people" and yet doing jack shit.
Personally, in such a scenario, I would be tempted to say "well screw them then." Not the people in distress, but the lawyers, politicians, and others who have created a policital monster pupeteered by so many fucking strings that above it all is just a tangled mess that nobody can get through to those US citizens who both need and want them.
The isolationism and egotism of the american beaurocracy is killing the country. Eventually they will cut off ties to all friendly nations, either by alienating them or just plain ignoring them.
As a Canadian I find a lot of people around here look down on Americans... but really it's because many of the most vocal groups cloud out the real people. Thankfully, sites like slashdot allow me communication with many of the intelligent and thoughtful people in the USA, reaffirming my believe that there are a lot of good people down there who just aren't being heard for some reason...
What happens when said clueless parent sues the game store anyways, because he/she bought the game for junior? How does one prove a video game store sold the game to a minor, and not a clueless parent. Is it guilt until proven innocent, or does the store have to prove they didn't sell the game to a minor? How about it the parent was present and consented to the sale (as tends to happen now).
Perhaps game stores will start requiring a signature from adults buying mature-rated games? Not only is the definition of the games a little violent, but a lot of the particulars in how they will track such things are as well. Perhaps kids will get bootleggers to buy games for them. I couldn't see a kid confessing to getting "Jamie 18" from bootlegging the game for him, but rather just saying "I got it from EB." Of course it could just be that they will institute spot-checks with kid-agents?
I can see a whole lot of ways this law isn't going to work...
Actually, a lot of stores I know, most in-fact will not sell to minors without an adult present. EB Games is one I've seen this happen recently.
However, most times (and I've also seen this happen) the kid will just go grab their clueless parent, who will listen to the spiel about ratings with dull eyes whilst junior says "gimme gimme gimme" and perhaps a few other kids are nagging on the other ear... and the game is bought. Since it's a sale to an adult it's not against store policy, and unless I'm reading it wrong still not against the law.
And then little Billy will come over to Johnny's place and play GTA, because Billy's dad won't let him buy GTA, but Johnny's dad was clueless and happily forked over the little disc'o'sex'n'violence
Last time I checked squashing some bugs or other sucks things wasn't comparable to killing people either. At the same time, it's how the violence is portrayed... it's perfectly alright to masticate on a piece of deer steak after going out and shooting it blammo, dead... but if you were running around thumping wild animals with a sledgehammer it might be considered less so.
Violence in mario also has a degree of seperation from reality. While the GTA variety may imply negetive consequences if you beat the crap out of somebody with a bat, it still involves a level of violence closer to reality than mario. Those 'in charge' seem to draw correlation between those who pump their enemies full of pixels and those who commit real violence. Of course, it is often enough that those who commit real violence play violent video games, but I highly doubt the axe-murderer type would play powerpuff-girls now would he?
2. Most ads are too big and intrusive.
I'd like to add to this, loud. Some flash ads drive me nuts. I'll be here, computing late at night while my roomate is dozing, or perhaps from my cubicle at lunch, and suddenly this ad will pop up in flash with jets wooshing by or perhaps some woman in a sexy voice trying to get my to subscribe to 'retarded gamer's monthly.' They also put the volume as high as it can bloody go... so inevitable it ends up blasting my eardrums and/or disturbing those around me.
On the other hand, smaller in-page ads (such as those in google), particularly ones that are related to what I'm looking for, are sometimes not bad. Actually, the good ads etc I don't find obtrusive at all, and if I'm looking to purchase sometimes they're even helpful.
You know, I've seen some pretty darn good cam shots come out of the theatres, and that's with the given limitations of finding a place to hide the camera, fixed-light, obstructions, etc
Point a decent digital camera at a decent screen... yes the quality will be less but how much will people who download from the 'net care about that? At the least it would probably be better than the theatre cams.
I notice that the use of terminology etc reflects and general focus indicates that HBO is doing a bad thing. Really, though, they're getting smarter about fighting those who would distribute their content, to which there will probably eventually be a retaliatory solution (perhaps triple-chunking of some non-corrupt bits, if two people send a correct chunk and one sends a different chunk, person #3 can be banned). Still, we use terms such as 'poisoning' to describe such a method, and call it an attack on bittorrent (which it isn't, just against the unauthorized episodes).
Kettle, meet pot. Personally I'm glad that HBO is finding more intellectual ways of dealing with this scenario as opposed to suing downloaders.
Most online banking sites I know specifically tell you on a regular basis to *DELETE* any emails in regards to banking and passwords, etc etc. We aren't talking about making banks responsible for hacked, accounts, etc, but for the stupidity of customers who disregard both common sense and warning to endanger themselves.
Personally, I see a greater risk in spyware than phishing. It requires a certain degree more stupidity to enter your personal details in myb@nk.com than it does to login into your banking site as normal than to get your password snarfed by a keylogger, etc.
What I would like to see is banks held more responsible in keeping the safety of debit accounts of responsible users. There are instances where fake banking machines are setup to capture PINS and magcard signatures, as well as situations where cameras and cardreaders placed over the slot on legitimate machines snag customer's numbers. When it comes to actual bank equipment, or when people are able to impersonal legitimate physical equipment, the bank still often says 'tough luck' where they should be held responsible.
I wonder if the lack of contribution is due to lack of enthusiam, or lack of experience. If the Nessus code (I haven't looked at it myself, nor used the tool) is hard to understand, then it might be hard for others to make contributions. Alternately, perhaps people just lack experience in the areas of security required to help develop Nessus. The skills required to contribute to say, Firefox or perhaps other projects would be very different. I myself haven't contributed that much to existing GPL projects, though I have submitted a few bugfixes to projects such as GnuGK and a few GPL codelets of my own in various other areas. Much as I'd like to help elsewhere, I simply lack the time, or, in having the time, the experience (and time to learn) required to make a significant contribution.
Quite a few of the cheaper DVD players I've seen happily ignore the region encoding. I've heard it's because implementing such is just another cost to the producer, who is trying to shave as much as they can.
If region-encoding because illegal (or anti-region-chipping legal, at any rate), wouldn't it save money to just not include any region-locking crud?
From both visiting Aus and hearing from my friends there since, I can say that quite often movies etc are *extremely* behind (showing in theatres there, out on DVD here). So an Aussie could probably import a bunch of DVD's and selling them whilst the show is still in theatres. Now they wouldn't play for those with regionalized DVD players, but would said enterprising businessperson be legally culpible if he/she included a reburned disc without the encoding (along with the original)? As the original item is being included with the burn, technically the 'license' for the DVD could be considered to be purchased
As for other countries, what is the legal situation on deregionalized players? Are chipped PS2's legal in Canada, how about software to play a disc despite region encoding, or copy it without (as a Canadian I wonder).
Thanks greatly, I've been looking for a Reiser IFS component for windows now for quite awhile. Looks like that project isn't quite in the stable arena yet, but it's definately one I'll keep a watch on!
This could be bad for old cameras, but not necessarily for new ones. While XP does tend to autodetect flash-based USB-storage devices (and cameras with such, etc), earlier versions still required a software install. Not a big deal to ship the camera shipped with a card formatted in a different FS, and stick a windows driver for the FileSystem with the rest of the camera software on CD. I don't know about the filesystem mentioned, but you can even use EXT2 in windows as a standard filesystem, as there are projects online that have DLL's to support EXT2 partitions read as standard drives.
While the clamshell design itself has possible issues with breakage, I've seen many devices with good clamshells that have lasted a nice long time. The nice thing about the clamshell design is that it protects the inner screen when it is closed.
I usually put /var/log in a seperate partition anyhow. The easy solution would be to put this FS just on the areas that you want to be "lossless" and leave the rest with standard filesystems.
I could only see this being useful in a line of filters. OK, so potential passenger #213 turns up positive for nitrates... focus or pay close attention to the next scan on passenger #213. A positive might not mean immediately detaining somebody or even much slowing their progress, but rather discreetly adding some checks as they go through the proces.
Not that I really thing this won't be used stupidly, but hey one could hope.
Really, what I tend to see clustering for more often is load-balancing. If you have a streaming video server that, say, gets slashdotted (and assuming it's not your bandwidth that is the bottleneck), then you could dump some of the load to a secondary machine. Of course, the usage that you describe - dumping to one machine in the event of a primary machine failing completely in some fashion - can also be used.
However, this isn't to say that clustering should eliminate a need for fault-tolerance. After the price of good servers, adding a redundant PSU and a good UPS, as well as some other basic hardware necessities (RAID perhaps?), shouldn't make a huge dent in your budget in comparison to the overall cost of the machine(s), and it'll probably save you in the longtime.
What we really need is a new form of energy and/or propulsion, period. With the way fossil-fuels are going, we need something akin to an X-prize for a vehicle than can match today's cars, but with a method of power that is long-term available/renewable. I'm sure there are lots of eggheads out there that might be able to come up with something amazing and wonderful, for the right incentive. It's hard enough getting by nowadays, but if there were the incentive of a massive cash prize based on various criteria... perhaps we could come up with some a vehicle that would be either road/sky friendly, or both.