I don't buy "a desktop", but I buy parts, often from different merchants. I doubt a user-assembled desktop counts for these numbers since it's not assembled by a big name OEM. For laptops, notebooks, etc., you have to buy the package deal and buy a machine with a name on it, so buying one would surely be counted as a notebook purchase. Since my desktop wasn't purchased as a whole machine, I wonder if it was counted.
Burt Rutan is our Zephram Cochran. no, he didn't make it to warp 1 or catch the attention of the Vulcans. he didn't even pilot the ship. but the opportunity for significant change was certainly made, and that is what makes history.
SpaceShipOne of course wasn't the first spacecraft, but it's the first technology that's accessible to such a large number of people. being the first is not as significant as bringing change. Columbus wasn't the first to visit America, but he's the one that started the change. this is what makes history.
Things like this naturally conjure up images of sci-fi dystopias. Ironic that although science fiction has repeatedly shown us the horrors of the misuse of science, we nevertheless charge forward blindly and even aspire to achieve these dystopias of science fiction.
Iceland has recently had a major controversy over creating a general DNA database of the people. Maybe if we can't learn from fiction, we can from reality.
Anne Quemere was not the first woman to row across the Atlantic. The first woman (and first American) was Tori Murden in the American Pearl back in 1999:
I think she went the westward direction (Canaries to Carribean) following ocean currents. It was an interesting online event since you could monitor GPS data on the website and she periodically posted messages and photos via satellite.
She is now climbing Denali (Mt. McKinley).
i think the handheld pda as we have known it has really just been a tranistional device anyway. its purpose, as history may remember it, was to bridge the gap into more versatile devices such as what mobile phones are becoming (and have become already). the major features of newer pdas are wireless networking capabilities such as bluetooth, 802.11, etc. but what about the most well-established and well-known networking capability of them all---the telephone? now that's wireless. just use that.
of course i think it's rather sad to see such a well designed line of products come to an end (i personally have a sony clie), but surely sony is aware of the larger issues. the newest coolest thing they came out with was the UX-50, which when i first looked at it, i thought of it as a sub-sub-notebook. it just runs Palm OS and you can't upgrade any of the hardware. for the cost (US$600) you could easily get a bad-ass mobile phone that does all you'd need anyway---and it's a phone.
in c&c generals, the entire chinese campaign is basically retaliation against terrorists that have set up cells in china. before every mission, it shows where the story takes place on a globe. gameplay doesn't actually take place on maps of a global size (such as with Risk or Civilization)---they're more on the scale of a city map.
most of the missions take place in or near what may be considered extremist muslim nations, such as Afganistan. most of the recent terrorism comes from or is centered around such nations (or so we're led to believe, at least). looking at this globe, it seems that china is very close to them---almost surrounded by them. the point is that china is a huge country and has a lot borders. it must be difficult to manage so many borders with so many nations. think of all the differences in cultures and languages that must be taken into consideration, too.
this is in great contrast to the U.S., which of course only has borders with two very familiar allies and is protected on two sides by oceans. canada is basically a sister nation: both speak the same language and were products of england (and france---don't forget quebec and louisiana). the canadian border is the world's longest unprotected border. this is what i meant by the advantages of geography.
my history is obviously lacking, but i believe taiwan is another situation which has had conflicts over sovereignty and borders in the 20th century. i know it's called "Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC)", rather than "People's Republic of China (PRC)". and now, i believe, after the transfer of power from the british to the chinese, Hong Kong is called the "Special Administrative Region (SAR)". it all sounds like alphabet soup to me.
China bans games (and other things) all the time. Command & Conquer Generals was banned for how it portrayed the Chinese. When I played c&c generals, I didn't expect the screwy accents and "propaganda center" to necessarily agree with the Chinese people, much less the Chinese government. In defense of c&c, though, after playing it I did have a greater realization of the threat terrorism could have on China due to geography. The U.S. has it much easier being isolated between two great oceans.
Anyway, the annexation/aquisition/takeover/whatever of Tibet has been a controversy (for some) over recent years. So, it doesn't surprise me that "territorial integrity" is an excuse they cited. They can be picky about how you draw their borders.
A more fundamental question, though, is how serious people take this. It's just a game. Who actually believes what they see in video games?
i work at a convenience store/gas station. this provides many opportunities for microwave experimentation. when it rains outside, people tend to pay with soaking wet bills. i regularly dry them by microwaving them for about 10-20 seconds. (we have a higher-wattage industrial microwave.) i have never witnessed any burning like this before, but i usually just microwave smaller bills like 1s and 5s (which, of course, have the older design).
i have, however, seen paper napkins burn and look like this when left in the microwave for a rather long time---say, several minutes. usually this happens when drunk people heat something and forget to turn off the microwave (when not using the timer). since wood pulp napkins would mostly be cellulose, and U.S. paper currency is made from a special blend of cotton (about 90% cellulose) and linen (about 70% cellulose, i think), then i would expect any bill to burn similarly if microwaved long enough.
oh---another fun thing to microwave is halogen bulbs. just about one second and they glow brighter than when they're plugged in.
how do we know this blue is calibrated right? haven't other slashdotters questioned the color calibration on Spirit before? how do we know this "blue" hasn't been "sexed up" like the Hubble PR people are notorious for doing?
if MyDoom was, in fact, created by anti-SCO "fanatics", then i doubt the peers close to its creator would be motivated by money. the entire spirit of the free software movement is to create useful software for humanity---not for profit. this is not to say that free software can't be profitable (in some cases it is), or that money isn't useful, just that profit is secondary to the freedom and utility of the project; money is, at best, a secondary goal for free software projects.
i remember once in college when a CS professor was giving an assignment and started by shouting, "OK, let's make some money!" Everyone moaned and complained about how corny and boring the assignment must be. The professor stopped to comment on the contrast between us (computer science students) and business students: what had bored us would have surely excited them.
I've noticed that technically minded people (such as computer scientists) are often more interested and motivated by technical challenges and "higher" goals than just profit. (Computer people are more often Vulcans than Ferengis.)
so i wonder if those close to the creator of MyDoom (assuming they are supporters of free software) would turn in its author based solely on the desire for the reward money. not that a quarter of a million dollars isn't something to consider, but i'd suspect someone with the pertinent information would look beyond just the cash and consider other issues first.
the targets of new medicines are becoming increasingly more discriminating. they are able to pick and choose very specific targets with new drugs/treatments, such as a specific type of cell, tissue, etc.
this article reminded me of the bacteriophages mentioned in Wired a month or two ago.
it's another example of utilizing existing biology to do our dirty work for us, rather than inventing some new "super drug" from scratch. fight biology with biology, it's much more efficient. sometimes older tech works better.
i have heard other companies upgrading their trucks towards this type of management. i have discussed this topic with the driver of the commercial garbage/dumpster pick-up service at the store I work for. a couple months ago, they upgraded all of their trucks with a GPS tracking system and so-called "tattle-tale" ("tattler") boxes, which start beeping if you stay too long in one place. he also has to scan barcodes at every stop so the computer records when and where service is made.
my first reaction was sympathy towards the driver's Orwellian fear. he said the drivers were filing many grievances with their union, but no major decision has been made as of yet.
later I realized that these are THE COMPANY'S equipment, so it seems they should have the right to know where their eqipment is and how it's being used. if the employees have a problem with doing their job, then they should look for other employment. this is, after all, what they get paid for.
there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.
the driver i've spoken with also said that the "tattle tale" boxes are only triggered if you use the parking/emergency brake instead of just the foot pedal brake. he said he used to take quick 20-minute power naps before the tracking systems were installed, since his shift is so long. taking power naps, he said, is considered much safer than driving long hours without sleep. but now, if he engages the parking brake, the buzzer goes off and he risks punishment. he said some of his co-workers try to take these power naps with only their foot on the pedal brake to keep the buzzer from going off. obviously this isn't safe, especially when you consider that these trucks could easily be hauling over 10 tons of garbage.
my point is that the companies that install this type of equipment may not be considering all the counter-measures that their employees may take to avoid punishment, and some of these counter-measures may be unsafe. perhaps the motivation for attempting this tampering comes from ungrounded Orwellian fears or previous company-union disagreements.
since everyone would have a unique number (i assume), it could help identify corpses in a graveyard or morgue, or at the site of some horrible accident where the body is otherwise unidentifiable.
who would hold and control the databases that link these numbers to identities? this is an important question.
i wonder if the numbers would be recycled like social security numbers. i can see websites popping up now that help you locate your numerical RFID relatives. wait, i better patent that now!
one thing i've never understood about light bulbs is why there is so much empty space in there. it is, after all, a vacuum tube, right? (ok, not exactly a vacuum, but very low pressure.) it's my understanding that if there was air (oxygen) in there, then the filament would burn up almost instantly when you turn it on, which is why it's in a vacuum. a smaller tube would have even less oxygen in it (at the same pressure), which is better, right?
but why is the tube so big compared to such a small filament? if it's a heat dissipation issue, it seems like there would be other ways to deal with it. with so much miniaturization elsewhere, why is the old light bulb not any smaller?
A couple years ago I bought the book _Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal_ by Eric Schlosser (ISBN 0060938455) for my aunt for xmas. About a year later, I heard the guy on NPR. This is one of his major issues: the systematic enlargement of portion sizes. For example, I think I remember him saying that back at the very beginning of McDonald's, an order of Coke was 8oz. (but i could be wrong). He attributes many health problems like obesity to this.
He also brings up a lot of issues with meat and how it's raised. As a vegetarian (vegan), this is an important issue to me. There's a nice interview with him by PBS about meat. Here's one with the BBC.
I know it can be a problem, but like anyone else around here, i take my caffeine in 2 liter doses.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't buy "a desktop", but I buy parts, often from different merchants. I doubt a user-assembled desktop counts for these numbers since it's not assembled by a big name OEM. For laptops, notebooks, etc., you have to buy the package deal and buy a machine with a name on it, so buying one would surely be counted as a notebook purchase. Since my desktop wasn't purchased as a whole machine, I wonder if it was counted.
Burt Rutan is our Zephram Cochran. no, he didn't make it to warp 1 or catch the attention of the Vulcans. he didn't even pilot the ship. but the opportunity for significant change was certainly made, and that is what makes history.
SpaceShipOne of course wasn't the first spacecraft, but it's the first technology that's accessible to such a large number of people. being the first is not as significant as bringing change. Columbus wasn't the first to visit America, but he's the one that started the change. this is what makes history.
Iceland has recently had a major controversy over creating a general DNA database of the people. Maybe if we can't learn from fiction, we can from reality.
http://www.adept.net/AmericanPearl/
I think she went the westward direction (Canaries to Carribean) following ocean currents. It was an interesting online event since you could monitor GPS data on the website and she periodically posted messages and photos via satellite. She is now climbing Denali (Mt. McKinley).
i think the handheld pda as we have known it has really just been a tranistional device anyway. its purpose, as history may remember it, was to bridge the gap into more versatile devices such as what mobile phones are becoming (and have become already). the major features of newer pdas are wireless networking capabilities such as bluetooth, 802.11, etc. but what about the most well-established and well-known networking capability of them all---the telephone? now that's wireless. just use that.
of course i think it's rather sad to see such a well designed line of products come to an end (i personally have a sony clie), but surely sony is aware of the larger issues. the newest coolest thing they came out with was the UX-50, which when i first looked at it, i thought of it as a sub-sub-notebook. it just runs Palm OS and you can't upgrade any of the hardware. for the cost (US$600) you could easily get a bad-ass mobile phone that does all you'd need anyway---and it's a phone.
in c&c generals, the entire chinese campaign is basically retaliation against terrorists that have set up cells in china. before every mission, it shows where the story takes place on a globe. gameplay doesn't actually take place on maps of a global size (such as with Risk or Civilization)---they're more on the scale of a city map.
most of the missions take place in or near what may be considered extremist muslim nations, such as Afganistan. most of the recent terrorism comes from or is centered around such nations (or so we're led to believe, at least). looking at this globe, it seems that china is very close to them---almost surrounded by them. the point is that china is a huge country and has a lot borders. it must be difficult to manage so many borders with so many nations. think of all the differences in cultures and languages that must be taken into consideration, too.
this is in great contrast to the U.S., which of course only has borders with two very familiar allies and is protected on two sides by oceans. canada is basically a sister nation: both speak the same language and were products of england (and france---don't forget quebec and louisiana). the canadian border is the world's longest unprotected border. this is what i meant by the advantages of geography.
my history is obviously lacking, but i believe taiwan is another situation which has had conflicts over sovereignty and borders in the 20th century. i know it's called "Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC)", rather than "People's Republic of China (PRC)". and now, i believe, after the transfer of power from the british to the chinese, Hong Kong is called the "Special Administrative Region (SAR)". it all sounds like alphabet soup to me.
China bans games (and other things) all the time. Command & Conquer Generals was banned for how it portrayed the Chinese. When I played c&c generals, I didn't expect the screwy accents and "propaganda center" to necessarily agree with the Chinese people, much less the Chinese government. In defense of c&c, though, after playing it I did have a greater realization of the threat terrorism could have on China due to geography. The U.S. has it much easier being isolated between two great oceans.
Anyway, the annexation/aquisition/takeover/whatever of Tibet has been a controversy (for some) over recent years. So, it doesn't surprise me that "territorial integrity" is an excuse they cited. They can be picky about how you draw their borders.
A more fundamental question, though, is how serious people take this. It's just a game. Who actually believes what they see in video games?
i work at a convenience store/gas station. this provides many opportunities for microwave experimentation. when it rains outside, people tend to pay with soaking wet bills. i regularly dry them by microwaving them for about 10-20 seconds. (we have a higher-wattage industrial microwave.) i have never witnessed any burning like this before, but i usually just microwave smaller bills like 1s and 5s (which, of course, have the older design).
i have, however, seen paper napkins burn and look like this when left in the microwave for a rather long time---say, several minutes. usually this happens when drunk people heat something and forget to turn off the microwave (when not using the timer). since wood pulp napkins would mostly be cellulose, and U.S. paper currency is made from a special blend of cotton (about 90% cellulose) and linen (about 70% cellulose, i think), then i would expect any bill to burn similarly if microwaved long enough.
oh---another fun thing to microwave is halogen bulbs. just about one second and they glow brighter than when they're plugged in.
how do we know this blue is calibrated right? haven't other slashdotters questioned the color calibration on Spirit before? how do we know this "blue" hasn't been "sexed up" like the Hubble PR people are notorious for doing?
if MyDoom was, in fact, created by anti-SCO "fanatics", then i doubt the peers close to its creator would be motivated by money. the entire spirit of the free software movement is to create useful software for humanity---not for profit. this is not to say that free software can't be profitable (in some cases it is), or that money isn't useful, just that profit is secondary to the freedom and utility of the project; money is, at best, a secondary goal for free software projects.
i remember once in college when a CS professor was giving an assignment and started by shouting, "OK, let's make some money!" Everyone moaned and complained about how corny and boring the assignment must be. The professor stopped to comment on the contrast between us (computer science students) and business students: what had bored us would have surely excited them.
I've noticed that technically minded people (such as computer scientists) are often more interested and motivated by technical challenges and "higher" goals than just profit. (Computer people are more often Vulcans than Ferengis.)
so i wonder if those close to the creator of MyDoom (assuming they are supporters of free software) would turn in its author based solely on the desire for the reward money. not that a quarter of a million dollars isn't something to consider, but i'd suspect someone with the pertinent information would look beyond just the cash and consider other issues first.
this article reminded me of the bacteriophages mentioned in Wired a month or two ago.
it's another example of utilizing existing biology to do our dirty work for us, rather than inventing some new "super drug" from scratch. fight biology with biology, it's much more efficient. sometimes older tech works better.
i have heard other companies upgrading their trucks towards this type of management. i have discussed this topic with the driver of the commercial garbage/dumpster pick-up service at the store I work for. a couple months ago, they upgraded all of their trucks with a GPS tracking system and so-called "tattle-tale" ("tattler") boxes, which start beeping if you stay too long in one place. he also has to scan barcodes at every stop so the computer records when and where service is made.
my first reaction was sympathy towards the driver's Orwellian fear. he said the drivers were filing many grievances with their union, but no major decision has been made as of yet.
later I realized that these are THE COMPANY'S equipment, so it seems they should have the right to know where their eqipment is and how it's being used. if the employees have a problem with doing their job, then they should look for other employment. this is, after all, what they get paid for.
there are, however, things that many people overlook---on both sides of the issue. the company may benefit from a precise tracking system so they can ensure their customers are receiving satisfactory service. customer satisfaction can obviously work in favor of the company in the form of more revenue. more revenue can mean more jobs or higher wages.
the driver i've spoken with also said that the "tattle tale" boxes are only triggered if you use the parking/emergency brake instead of just the foot pedal brake. he said he used to take quick 20-minute power naps before the tracking systems were installed, since his shift is so long. taking power naps, he said, is considered much safer than driving long hours without sleep. but now, if he engages the parking brake, the buzzer goes off and he risks punishment. he said some of his co-workers try to take these power naps with only their foot on the pedal brake to keep the buzzer from going off. obviously this isn't safe, especially when you consider that these trucks could easily be hauling over 10 tons of garbage.
my point is that the companies that install this type of equipment may not be considering all the counter-measures that their employees may take to avoid punishment, and some of these counter-measures may be unsafe. perhaps the motivation for attempting this tampering comes from ungrounded Orwellian fears or previous company-union disagreements.
since everyone would have a unique number (i assume), it could help identify corpses in a graveyard or morgue, or at the site of some horrible accident where the body is otherwise unidentifiable.
who would hold and control the databases that link these numbers to identities? this is an important question.
i wonder if the numbers would be recycled like social security numbers. i can see websites popping up now that help you locate your numerical RFID relatives. wait, i better patent that now!
one thing i've never understood about light bulbs is why there is so much empty space in there. it is, after all, a vacuum tube, right? (ok, not exactly a vacuum, but very low pressure.) it's my understanding that if there was air (oxygen) in there, then the filament would burn up almost instantly when you turn it on, which is why it's in a vacuum. a smaller tube would have even less oxygen in it (at the same pressure), which is better, right?
but why is the tube so big compared to such a small filament? if it's a heat dissipation issue, it seems like there would be other ways to deal with it. with so much miniaturization elsewhere, why is the old light bulb not any smaller?
He also brings up a lot of issues with meat and how it's raised. As a vegetarian (vegan), this is an important issue to me. There's a nice interview with him by PBS about meat. Here's one with the BBC.
I know it can be a problem, but like anyone else around here, i take my caffeine in 2 liter doses.