There is currently no technology in place to mitigate for the eventual rarity of fossil fuels and there does not appear to be anything on the horizon that can meet the demand in the time scale needed.
Consider looking at population through the prism of a world without fossil fuels and other natural resources. These fossil fuels pretty much make modern agriculture what it is today. It is hard for us to picture a world in which human beings become less capable and have less technology because it is not something we have observed in our lifetimes. However, it can happen, and currently we have no mitigating plan to deal with the dwindling availability of fossil fuels. Once fossil fuels become too expensive for agriculture, we could all be in big trouble.
I understand, but the AC that I replied to was saying 9 to 12 hours per year! Not over the course of 6 years. Thats a big difference when compared to 12 semester hours over 6 years or 180 hours of professional development activities. Most professional careers (accountants, pharmacists, engineers) require at least that level of continuing education, if not more.
Once again, An innaccurate headline fools most of the slashdot readers. Seriously folks, click on the article and just scroll down to the full McDonald's letter. It is seven sentences long and says essentially that the employees deny Dr. Mann's account but that McDonald's is still investigating. Dr. Mann has not yet responded to their queries. Nowhere is it even implied that they are denying Dr. Mann's claims.
The patent is for a way of "lighting" the fringe of the phyxical glass display and giving it a colored hue. Typically an HMD does not present a display that covers the full field of view of the physical glass that it is projected onto, so the image is projected in the center of the field of view and the periphery contains no image. The patent claims that this is uncomfortable and distracting to the user so they are patent the idea of providing a colored hue to the periphery of the physical surface so that it blends nicely with the computer driven display.
Of course, they are not patenting a specific method for accomplishing this despite the fact that each HMD would present its own issues and engineering challenges in accomplishing this. They make claims like it increases comfort and "may decrease" the occurence of motion sickness. The figures in the patent are total bullshit put in to make the patent look more impressive and complex than it really is.
The patent is basically this: If we provide color to the edges of the display surface outside of the main video area, users will find it appealing. No direction is provided on how to do this in the many variety of HMD types which can be a far more challengine engineering problem.
How would you even know that the patent existed or is enforceable? Do you expect to do a search for "black", "square corners", or "rectangle" and get meaningful results? The problem is not that the device looks similar to Apple's but that Apple chose the most straightforward and minimalist design possible. Had they chosen a unique corner design like the Nook tablet, then I might feel differently, but they chose rounded corners and metallic trim. Look around your desk and at your modern electronics. I have two laptops, two monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse. Every single item is a combination of black and metallic and they all have predominantly rounded corners. If they were squared corners and pink, nobody would buy them. Every element that Apple claims makes the IPAD 2 design unique is part of an overall design trend in all electronics.
I guess if that were written in the warranty agreement, then keeping the recovery partition intact could be a stipulation, but since it was not in writing, then I would be inclined to side with the user in saying that it is not their responsibility to use up their hard drive space to protect the vendors interest. It was afterall the manufacturers decision to go the ultracheap route of putting the recovery system on the end users hard drive rather than providing an actual disk with useable license key.
Why Pittsburgh and DC? DC is where all the bureaucrats are and as far as I know, Pittsburgh has no major military research laboratory. Why not put the lab near a major military research organization that does actual hands on research and would actually be interested in using these services?
Netflix will not be getting Game of Thrones or any other HBO series. In the future you will be lucky to see anything on Netflix that is not already being shown on TBS three times a night. The MPAA and studios essentially consider streaming video to be piracy lite.
Having gone through hundreds of pointless online corporate classes in my life, I thought like you, but I have tried one of these courses recently (Machine Learning, Standford) and I have to say that it is an incredible difference to what I have been exposed to in the past. Corporate online classes ire generally put together under some contract with minimal effort and thought put into how people actually learn material. Which is just as well, because most of the material is usually not worth learning. In contrast these academic online courses are extremely well put together. The material is presented pretty much just like a class room, with the intent of delivering meaningful knowledge in a concise and understandable forms. While I recognize that class room learning has some advantages, this training is very close, and I noticed several advantages. First, video production allows for multiple takes, so their is not time wasted in delivering content in an inefficient manner (just do a new take and edit). Secondly, When you get behind in writing down material as you would in a classroom, you do not get caught up in falling behind in the learning because you are spending all of your time copying down equations and scrambling just to keep up. This allows you to pause and if necessary, rewind, to ensure that you are comprehending and learning the content from the very first time that you start on the lectures.
These are the same rules that generally apply with all government research. Unlimited rights does not mean that they own the copyrights, patents, etc.. It just means that they can take your data to use it internally for there own purposes. One reason for this is that there are a lot of small companies that can't build up the manufacturing capability to meet the demands of the government. Just FYI, there are a few very very rich defense companies that have managed to do just fine with these same rules.
Maybe it depends on the class of car, but having just performed the cost analysis in detail recently, I believe that the Prius represents the best value in its class by a landslide. The only cars that I looked at that I found to be comparable were the Mazda 3 and Honda Civic. I assumed that gas would be an average of $4.20 per gallon over the life of the car, and right now that is looking like a very conservative guess. In another class of cars, I know that the Camry hybrid only costs a few thousand more while delivering around 40 mpg vs 30 mpg for the regular Camry. I have not done the analysis, but it looks like it would easily pay for itself with the gas savings.
I wish I had your faith in my fellow human beings, but most people do not seem to care about reliablity when they purchase their cars. Mercedes is one of the more unreliable brands on the market and they are still managing to sell plenty of cars. Even worse, look at Dodge/Chrysler, unlike Mercedes, they have always had a reputation for poor reliability and they are still managing to stay alive.
You are very correct. a lot of personal donations fund a lot of research targeted at those individuals personal priorities, but this is National Science Foundation money which usually means there is some sort of public interest being served by the research and since there are so many areas that rank high on the public interest for funding, the goal is usually to put the money towards those areas that will have the greatest impact for the public. I am just struggling to see great value in this research. Are we trying to save the squirrels? are they becoming endangered?
While this topic makes for some fun and entertaining reading, I cannot help but wonder "who pays for this crap?" I recognize that there is value in humans exploring and understanding our world as well as the general pursuit of knowledge in all forms. However, I have seen a lot of very important research that fails to receive funding because there are simply higher priorities and so I wonder how something like this managed to get above the line where someone was willing to put time and money into it. Maybe there is a lot more value in this than I realize, but I am not seeing it.
he is exaggerating to emphasize the point. Don't read to much into it. I am sure that he did not mean that there are literally zero people in the world who will be successful without being "fluent" in computers.
The only thing that makes a dollar bill worth anything is your willingness to accept it. It is just a piece of paper. What makes photocopies of dollar bills any less valuable? You are really overly analyzing the metaphor that this campaign is using. The key point is to show solidarity. Not to actually make the MPAA happy by giving them photocopied money. Nobody actually expects the MPAA to see this photocopied money as valuable.
Slashdot Mirror
There is also a common procedure in which they make a bunch of bids but do not execute in order to find out out another persons price.
There is currently no technology in place to mitigate for the eventual rarity of fossil fuels and there does not appear to be anything on the horizon that can meet the demand in the time scale needed.
Consider looking at population through the prism of a world without fossil fuels and other natural resources. These fossil fuels pretty much make modern agriculture what it is today. It is hard for us to picture a world in which human beings become less capable and have less technology because it is not something we have observed in our lifetimes. However, it can happen, and currently we have no mitigating plan to deal with the dwindling availability of fossil fuels. Once fossil fuels become too expensive for agriculture, we could all be in big trouble.
I understand, but the AC that I replied to was saying 9 to 12 hours per year! Not over the course of 6 years. Thats a big difference when compared to 12 semester hours over 6 years or 180 hours of professional development activities. Most professional careers (accountants, pharmacists, engineers) require at least that level of continuing education, if not more.
Even if it is only a two page site, now the small business/owner has the ability to add additional pages with less development cost.
Can you link to a "9" credit hour requirement in any public school system in the US? Otherwise, I find your assertion extremely difficult to swallow.
I am surrounded by people with Ph.D.s that can't adapt well to changes in technology.
In some states you can go ahead and record all of the calls that you want and you do not have to tell anyone.
Once again, An innaccurate headline fools most of the slashdot readers. Seriously folks, click on the article and just scroll down to the full McDonald's letter. It is seven sentences long and says essentially that the employees deny Dr. Mann's account but that McDonald's is still investigating. Dr. Mann has not yet responded to their queries. Nowhere is it even implied that they are denying Dr. Mann's claims.
The patent is for a way of "lighting" the fringe of the phyxical glass display and giving it a colored hue. Typically an HMD does not present a display that covers the full field of view of the physical glass that it is projected onto, so the image is projected in the center of the field of view and the periphery contains no image. The patent claims that this is uncomfortable and distracting to the user so they are patent the idea of providing a colored hue to the periphery of the physical surface so that it blends nicely with the computer driven display.
Of course, they are not patenting a specific method for accomplishing this despite the fact that each HMD would present its own issues and engineering challenges in accomplishing this. They make claims like it increases comfort and "may decrease" the occurence of motion sickness. The figures in the patent are total bullshit put in to make the patent look more impressive and complex than it really is.
I know that you are joking, but the military has been using dual eye displays for quite some time.
The patent is basically this: If we provide color to the edges of the display surface outside of the main video area, users will find it appealing. No direction is provided on how to do this in the many variety of HMD types which can be a far more challengine engineering problem.
How would you even know that the patent existed or is enforceable? Do you expect to do a search for "black", "square corners", or "rectangle" and get meaningful results? The problem is not that the device looks similar to Apple's but that Apple chose the most straightforward and minimalist design possible. Had they chosen a unique corner design like the Nook tablet, then I might feel differently, but they chose rounded corners and metallic trim. Look around your desk and at your modern electronics. I have two laptops, two monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse. Every single item is a combination of black and metallic and they all have predominantly rounded corners. If they were squared corners and pink, nobody would buy them. Every element that Apple claims makes the IPAD 2 design unique is part of an overall design trend in all electronics.
I guess if that were written in the warranty agreement, then keeping the recovery partition intact could be a stipulation, but since it was not in writing, then I would be inclined to side with the user in saying that it is not their responsibility to use up their hard drive space to protect the vendors interest. It was afterall the manufacturers decision to go the ultracheap route of putting the recovery system on the end users hard drive rather than providing an actual disk with useable license key.
Why Pittsburgh and DC? DC is where all the bureaucrats are and as far as I know, Pittsburgh has no major military research laboratory. Why not put the lab near a major military research organization that does actual hands on research and would actually be interested in using these services?
Netflix will not be getting Game of Thrones or any other HBO series. In the future you will be lucky to see anything on Netflix that is not already being shown on TBS three times a night. The MPAA and studios essentially consider streaming video to be piracy lite.
It took a while for the technology to get us there, but through much patience and perseverance we can finally make his vision a reality!
Having gone through hundreds of pointless online corporate classes in my life, I thought like you, but I have tried one of these courses recently (Machine Learning, Standford) and I have to say that it is an incredible difference to what I have been exposed to in the past. Corporate online classes ire generally put together under some contract with minimal effort and thought put into how people actually learn material. Which is just as well, because most of the material is usually not worth learning.
In contrast these academic online courses are extremely well put together. The material is presented pretty much just like a class room, with the intent of delivering meaningful knowledge in a concise and understandable forms. While I recognize that class room learning has some advantages, this training is very close, and I noticed several advantages. First, video production allows for multiple takes, so their is not time wasted in delivering content in an inefficient manner (just do a new take and edit). Secondly, When you get behind in writing down material as you would in a classroom, you do not get caught up in falling behind in the learning because you are spending all of your time copying down equations and scrambling just to keep up. This allows you to pause and if necessary, rewind, to ensure that you are comprehending and learning the content from the very first time that you start on the lectures.
These are the same rules that generally apply with all government research. Unlimited rights does not mean that they own the copyrights, patents, etc.. It just means that they can take your data to use it internally for there own purposes. One reason for this is that there are a lot of small companies that can't build up the manufacturing capability to meet the demands of the government. Just FYI, there are a few very very rich defense companies that have managed to do just fine with these same rules.
Maybe it depends on the class of car, but having just performed the cost analysis in detail recently, I believe that the Prius represents the best value in its class by a landslide. The only cars that I looked at that I found to be comparable were the Mazda 3 and Honda Civic. I assumed that gas would be an average of $4.20 per gallon over the life of the car, and right now that is looking like a very conservative guess. In another class of cars, I know that the Camry hybrid only costs a few thousand more while delivering around 40 mpg vs 30 mpg for the regular Camry. I have not done the analysis, but it looks like it would easily pay for itself with the gas savings.
I wish I had your faith in my fellow human beings, but most people do not seem to care about reliablity when they purchase their cars. Mercedes is one of the more unreliable brands on the market and they are still managing to sell plenty of cars. Even worse, look at Dodge/Chrysler, unlike Mercedes, they have always had a reputation for poor reliability and they are still managing to stay alive.
You are very correct. a lot of personal donations fund a lot of research targeted at those individuals personal priorities, but this is National Science Foundation money which usually means there is some sort of public interest being served by the research and since there are so many areas that rank high on the public interest for funding, the goal is usually to put the money towards those areas that will have the greatest impact for the public. I am just struggling to see great value in this research. Are we trying to save the squirrels? are they becoming endangered?
While this topic makes for some fun and entertaining reading, I cannot help but wonder "who pays for this crap?" I recognize that there is value in humans exploring and understanding our world as well as the general pursuit of knowledge in all forms. However, I have seen a lot of very important research that fails to receive funding because there are simply higher priorities and so I wonder how something like this managed to get above the line where someone was willing to put time and money into it. Maybe there is a lot more value in this than I realize, but I am not seeing it.
he is exaggerating to emphasize the point. Don't read to much into it. I am sure that he did not mean that there are literally zero people in the world who will be successful without being "fluent" in computers.
The only thing that makes a dollar bill worth anything is your willingness to accept it. It is just a piece of paper. What makes photocopies of dollar bills any less valuable? You are really overly analyzing the metaphor that this campaign is using. The key point is to show solidarity. Not to actually make the MPAA happy by giving them photocopied money. Nobody actually expects the MPAA to see this photocopied money as valuable.