There was some battery technology that used liquids. When the battery ran flat, you'd just pump out the old and pump in fresh and you'd be recharged and going again. The proposed technology would be supported by "gas station"-like refill services where you'd dump the old stuff and pick up recharged new stuff. The proposed usage madel was very much like a regular gas car. Unfortunately the technology never got commercialised.
Perhaps the same could be used here. Pull into a "gas station". Dump & replace the whole battery pack (or the old powders or whatever) and pick up fresh. That would make a lot of sense from various angles. You won't have to fit a 10kA feed into every house. Just one hefty feed into the recharge station.
Of course, for any such technology to work, there is going to have to be some sort of regulatory standard for batteries (just like there are for fuels and oils) to ensure interoperability.
They can stop you from modifying the project. Freedom to take and modify the code is not the same as freedom to modify the project.
In most of the best run projects you are free to take the code and fiddle ith it. You are not necessarily allowed to modify the project (ie. commit the changes).
Fork all you want, but most good projects are a result of staying focused.
If you disagree, try submitting a patch that Linus does not want and insist that he includes it "because you have the freedom".
Open Source need not mean that the project is open to allcomers. The projects that work tend to be managed by dictators (eg Linus). I currently work on 2 major open source projects and have done some minor work on others. Those that are run as democratic communal projects tend to lose their fiocus and crash onto rocks.
No different from any other software development really.
When you announce a product too early you you're telling the customer that anything they buy between now and then is not as cool as the iphone. You're buying something obsolete and uncool (until in 10 years it's retro). Since a significant part of the iphone/ipod story is coolness, overhanging an out of date/obsolete product is a bad idea.
Then there's the fact that people get bored quickly. Announce a product and, even if it is not available, people still start to get used to the idea. When you finally release it, it is no longer "edgy".
Sure, the FCC rumour mill would have released product details, but that just builds hype and anticipation.
Still, bottom line though is that Apple tends to know their customers well and has a (recent and far) history [we'll ignore the middle bit] of making good calls. No doubt they have weighed these and other factors and have still gone on to make the announcement.
Given that squirting only allows limited playing, and thus surely is good at promoting sales, you just have to wonder whether there's some strong-arming going on behind the scenes. Just like MS strong-arms computer vendors with Windows, you have to wonder if there is something going on between iTunes store and Sony et al to help bring Zune down (not that Zune needed any help, and will crash and burn anyway).
I saw some neural nets achieving this sort of result about 20 years ago. Do some spectral analysis, stuff the values through a trained NN and you could determine all kinds of thing. Type of car driving past, type of plane flying past/overhead, shape & material that sonar pings were coming from, type of gunfire.
The technology to achieve this has been there for a long time. It is just that now military spending is growing again.
Using *our* current knowledge of physics etc to make predictions as to the performance of *other* beings technology is both arrogant and small minded.
Let us roll back the clock, say, 200 years: A person up to date with the technology of the time would have no knowledge of airplanes, cars etc would make the some silly statement that it would be impossible for a person to ever cross USA in one day. They'd also say that it is very unlikely to find a particular quote in some random book within three months of searching, Google etc changes that. Change the technology and understanding of physics and we'd laugh at anyone saying something as stupid as that now.
But won't people 200 years from know laugh at our pathetic understanding of technology and physics? If there is intelligent life (I don't think so personally), it might just be a couple hundred or thousand or whatever years ahead of us and would thus not be bound by the limiting assumptions we make today.
I telecommute, as well as doing contract work - often for people I have never seen, which is extreme telecommuting. I have been offered management positions but I have turned them down, opartly because I don';t want to be a manager and also partly because I believe you can't manage effectively if you are remote from most workers. If you consider management as progress, then yes it should be a problem. I think you need to be in the office every day to be an effective manager (management by walking around and all that).
If you're a pure-play techie, then it does not matter. What does "progress" mean to a techie? It means being taken more seriously and doing more technical leadership stuff (architectural etc). In these positions I don't see that telecommuting poses any problems.
If it is not patented, then it can be copied and sold by the non-developing company without royalties. Developing company would rather develop drugs that they can patent and make a stinking profit with.
More than a suck, this has been a black hole for MS to throw money in.
There was a brief flurry of interest in Zune when it was released, but now we seem to be getting steady-state numbers.Only one model rates in amazon's top 25 MP3 players list (Apple takes out the first 5 or so entries).
Using "lemon" to describe Zune is an insult to citrus!
Quite. I have two sons who have both had access to a wide spectrum of toys (gender neutral). They are both homeschooled so have been exposed to very little social bias. The second had an interest in dolls etc for a while but now is seriously into robotics etc.
Instead of seeing this diversity to be a problem, we should see it as an asset. Next we'll see an attempt to make nursing "more blokey" so that we have more men in nursing. I doubt though that patient care will improve.
Thankfully embedded Linux will soon find its way into washing machines, microwave ovens etc. When that happens most Linux users will probably be female!
Sarbanes-Oxley is primarily there to protect the shareholders from companies not disclosing that they still owe their customers something (which is a debt against the payment you have received).
Apple are trying to cover their tracks. If some shareholders want to hound Apple at some point for some less-than-stellar performance on Wall St, they could easily bring up the fact that Apple recognised this revenue too early and thus brough the profits forward a few quarters (meaning that profit that should have happened a few quarters later did not show up). If you had just bought Apple's shares you might have reason to be pissed.
While the accounting is a drag, it is not that huge a deal. It only takes a few minutes to figure out a revenue realisation policy that you will use for a particular product. The real issue though is that many companies sell unfinished products and want to recognise revenue immediately. This makes for poor products and engineering: "Just ship it to get revenue this quarter. We'll fix it next quarter". Sarbanes-Oxley counters this which is good for product development.
Quite. As a generalisation, boys and girls are wired differently and when we're talking % of populations then it is the generalisations that matter. Modifying engineering to appeal to a bigger % of girls will completely change what engineering is. Some of the best engineers I have met are female.
How is it that nobody bitches when there are so few female trash collectors?
If they promised a future feature then it depends on the wording. ie was it promised as a defered feature or as an optional future upgrade. If you never promise an upgrade, and the product - as sold - was "feature complete" with no promises of future support etc, then the act probably does not come into play.
The law is pretty dumb, wrt firmware, but the law is still the law.
It really looks like Apple stuffed up by recognising the revenue too early and are now trying to make wiggle room or alternatively they're trying to poke sticks at the act. They should have held back a token amount ($5, $10 or whatever).
Remeber that such laws are often crafted for lawyers (and accountants) for their own benefit. Keep it confusing and you can keep the hourly rates up.
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This is what I was talking about... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Battery http://www.refueltec.com/
Perhaps the same could be used here. Pull into a "gas station". Dump & replace the whole battery pack (or the old powders or whatever) and pick up fresh. That would make a lot of sense from various angles. You won't have to fit a 10kA feed into every house. Just one hefty feed into the recharge station.
Of course, for any such technology to work, there is going to have to be some sort of regulatory standard for batteries (just like there are for fuels and oils) to ensure interoperability.
Perhaps this is a way of hanging out an "I can be bought" shingle.
In most of the best run projects you are free to take the code and fiddle ith it. You are not necessarily allowed to modify the project (ie. commit the changes).
Fork all you want, but most good projects are a result of staying focused.
If you disagree, try submitting a patch that Linus does not want and insist that he includes it "because you have the freedom".
No different from any other software development really.
keep on thread!
Then there's the fact that people get bored quickly. Announce a product and, even if it is not available, people still start to get used to the idea. When you finally release it, it is no longer "edgy".
Sure, the FCC rumour mill would have released product details, but that just builds hype and anticipation.
Still, bottom line though is that Apple tends to know their customers well and has a (recent and far) history [we'll ignore the middle bit] of making good calls. No doubt they have weighed these and other factors and have still gone on to make the announcement.
Please tell me you were given it and didn't actually buy it.
Given that squirting only allows limited playing, and thus surely is good at promoting sales, you just have to wonder whether there's some strong-arming going on behind the scenes. Just like MS strong-arms computer vendors with Windows, you have to wonder if there is something going on between iTunes store and Sony et al to help bring Zune down (not that Zune needed any help, and will crash and burn anyway).
probably is to retarded to be able to say fuck.
The technology to achieve this has been there for a long time. It is just that now military spending is growing again.
Let us roll back the clock, say, 200 years: A person up to date with the technology of the time would have no knowledge of airplanes, cars etc would make the some silly statement that it would be impossible for a person to ever cross USA in one day. They'd also say that it is very unlikely to find a particular quote in some random book within three months of searching, Google etc changes that. Change the technology and understanding of physics and we'd laugh at anyone saying something as stupid as that now.
But won't people 200 years from know laugh at our pathetic understanding of technology and physics? If there is intelligent life (I don't think so personally), it might just be a couple hundred or thousand or whatever years ahead of us and would thus not be bound by the limiting assumptions we make today.
Fishmeal is often used as chicken food.
... than an innocent man hang. Is a doctrine that seems to have been trampled in the War on Terror fear mongering campaign.
If you're a pure-play techie, then it does not matter. What does "progress" mean to a techie? It means being taken more seriously and doing more technical leadership stuff (architectural etc). In these positions I don't see that telecommuting poses any problems.
We need one of those MS-style TCO reports.
If it is not patented, then it can be copied and sold by the non-developing company without royalties. Developing company would rather develop drugs that they can patent and make a stinking profit with.
His interests are in real robotics: Lego Mindstorms, microcomtrollers etc. Not humanoid toys.
... Metric...
There was a brief flurry of interest in Zune when it was released, but now we seem to be getting steady-state numbers.Only one model rates in amazon's top 25 MP3 players list (Apple takes out the first 5 or so entries).
Using "lemon" to describe Zune is an insult to citrus!
Instead of seeing this diversity to be a problem, we should see it as an asset. Next we'll see an attempt to make nursing "more blokey" so that we have more men in nursing. I doubt though that patient care will improve.
Thankfully embedded Linux will soon find its way into washing machines, microwave ovens etc. When that happens most Linux users will probably be female!
Apple are trying to cover their tracks. If some shareholders want to hound Apple at some point for some less-than-stellar performance on Wall St, they could easily bring up the fact that Apple recognised this revenue too early and thus brough the profits forward a few quarters (meaning that profit that should have happened a few quarters later did not show up). If you had just bought Apple's shares you might have reason to be pissed.
While the accounting is a drag, it is not that huge a deal. It only takes a few minutes to figure out a revenue realisation policy that you will use for a particular product. The real issue though is that many companies sell unfinished products and want to recognise revenue immediately. This makes for poor products and engineering: "Just ship it to get revenue this quarter. We'll fix it next quarter". Sarbanes-Oxley counters this which is good for product development.
How is it that nobody bitches when there are so few female trash collectors?
The law is pretty dumb, wrt firmware, but the law is still the law.
It really looks like Apple stuffed up by recognising the revenue too early and are now trying to make wiggle room or alternatively they're trying to poke sticks at the act. They should have held back a token amount ($5, $10 or whatever).
Remeber that such laws are often crafted for lawyers (and accountants) for their own benefit. Keep it confusing and you can keep the hourly rates up.