Actually, I'd say it's more like a catalyst than a seed. As I understand it, prions trigger the conversion of normal proteins to an aberrant type, but are not themselves consumed.
Hell yes... a couple of human explorers could have been all over the area that those two rovers have been travelling and a lot more, collected thousands of samples and run hundreds of tests on them. Maybe carried along a core drill and gotten some deeper samples. Yes, it would have cost a lot more but we'd for sure know a lot more by now. Then, of course, there's the inspirational aspect of manned space travel. For most of us, the science being done by the rovers is something we don't even understand: the smarter ones among us perceive it to be valuable but that's about it. But an astronaut planting a flag on the Martian surface? That gets people on board like nothing else. And being able to hear and read the first-hand impressions of a live person exploring a new world for the first time... well. No robot is likely to be doing that in the near future.
The way I figure it, Congress is going to blow the money on something really stupid anyway, so we might as well spend it on something important.
Besides, what kind of historical oration can you expect from a robot upon landing? "One small step for a bot, one giant leap for botkind"?
No kidding. My first modem was a 300 BPS Bell System leased-line modem that I modified to work on regular lines, to which I added an auto-answer circuit. Seemed fast enough at the time (1979) but...
More to the point, comparisons between Starbucks and Wal-Mart (and Target and...) fail when you look at the relative consumer cost of their products. Starbucks isn't cheap, and if they are putting local shops out of business it probably isn't because they're undercutting them. If the reason for Starbuck's success is that they are putting out a quality product and people are willing to pay for that, I have to say... more power to 'em. I wish more Americans (consumers and manufacturers alike) would focus on product quality and less on the absolute rock-bottom price. A lot of things in this country might improve if we did.
Well, propeganda is just as valid a non-word as your "amalgum", I'm afraid.
And your mauling of the word "giberish" is just charming in this context (ah, the bittersweet flavor of pure irony.) However, I'll give you a free pass on "technicaly", because the GP screwed that one up first.
Modern storage systems either forget what they're supposed to remember, just when you need it the most... or they remember it long after it is best forgotten.
I was just commenting on the fact that, from the manufacturer's POV, they shouldn't need to distribute critical hardware specs... just an API into the firmware so that others can come up with a high-level interface from the operating system. I'm just trying to see things from their perspective here, and I'm having trouble grasping the rationale. Then again, MBA-based thought processes are often a mystery to me.
Your right sure it is and they balk. But CNN did a survey and asked if they was worried about their privacy and a good majority said no. The "no's won.
CNN. Survey. 'Nuff said. If you have some reputable studies performed by a major U.S. University please feel free to share a link or two.
Plus their crude lifestyles, and dictatorship is all over the Internet for you to read up on in case your one of the few that has no clue.
I guess that ignorance really is bliss, after all. Spent much time here, have you? Amazing how you can quantify an entire nation of some 250 million people from a few Internet articles. You are truly a man of few words (and even less content.) I salute your research skills, sir.
As I said you have no privacy anymore in the USA.
Privacy is relative, my friend, and there are different kinds of privacy. I'm a lot less worried about the cops busting down my door to looking for dirt on me at the behest of some local party member or politician that some people are.
I agree with you about the radioactive retribution, but can you really call the other half of the Cold War "third world", a nation which is still the second greatest nuclear power?
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? We balk at privacy invasions all the time. It's in the news. It's in the courts. It's a major goddamn problem. But you're right... power grants you many things, including the ability to ride roughshod over people that balk at you.
That doesn't mean that we don't care about what's happening, or that we don't recognize it. The truth is we're just not sure what to do about it, since our elected leaders have largely abandoned us, and the only power we've ever wielded over our Federal Government was the vote, and that doesn't seem to be working so well anymore.
Besides, there are plenty of countries that do far worse things to their own citizens than the U.S. ever has done, or ever will. Yet we take all the heat. Enough with the hypocrisy. Let's hear some bitching about North Korea, or China, or some of the other real totalitarians with delusions of grandeur out there... oh wait. They're not American so it's no fun.
Well, here's the thing. We are talking about firmware executed by a processor on the device. The primary operating system doesn't need to know anything about that firmware (as it wouldn't if it were truly firmware and burnt to a ROM.) It seems that we are actually concerned about the interface between the host system driver and the "firmware" on the wireless device. The vendors needn't tell anyone how the firmware operates, or about any proprietary hardware features: just tell the Linux/BSD/Solaris/whatever guys "here's the API you use to talk to our firmware load after you've dumped it into the wireless card."
This really shouldn't be all that much different that writing a host driver for a regular Ethernet LAN card. The vendors of those chipsets don't seem to care about releasing their specifications. Frankly I don't see what the big deal is all about.
True enough... but when you carry that policy of self-protection to the point where it starts to become self-defeating other options should be brought to the table.
Wireless tech is becoming ubiquitous and commoditized. That's what happens when a market reaches this stage. Margins are dropping, unit sales are going up, and it is becoming more and more difficult for a particular vendor to achieve any significant degree of product differentiation. Worse, all of these guys are having to play the interoperability game, because the chief selling point of wireless technology is that it just works. They're all having to work to the same spec, they all have to talk to each other. It's hard to believe that a WAP or wireless LAN card has so much proprietary sophistication in it that it would break the company if it got out. They should just get treated for their very obvious paranoia and either support the major non-Windows operating systems or help out those that will do all the work for free.
In general, Asian hardware manufacturers were far more responsive and liberal about firmware than U.S. manufacturers (Intel included). Look for more firmware issues in the future, as not only wireless hardware, but regular wired Ethernet cards, take the driver-loaded firmware approach.
Let's take this from a slightly different perspective:
In general American hardware manufacturers were far more pigheaded and close-mouthed about firmware than Asian manufacturers (Intel especially.) Look for more firmware issues in the future, as Asian corporations continue to take over the remnants of the U.S. manufacturing sector, with U.S. companies stubbornly trying to hang on to their "intellectual property".
Maybe if these idiots stopped listening their legal teams (and Microsoft!) so much, started worrying less about developers using their oh-so-precious "intellectual property" to make their own products useful to even more customers we wouldn't be in this fix. American tech companies are shooting themselves in the foot, having forgotten that continuous innovation and fresh ideas, not hordes of attorneys, are what drive a tech sector to competitiveness. Meanwhile, China is walking off with the the entire candy store.
There are only two ways to beat your competition in the modern world: out-lawyer them or out-think them. We used to be in the latter camp (Yankee ingenuity, and all that) but not any more.
Indeed. I've noticed, over the years, that individuals who feel that they are intrinsically "better" than those around them usually aren't. Granted, "better" is a relative term, but arrogance is absolute.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I'd say it's more like a catalyst than a seed. As I understand it, prions trigger the conversion of normal proteins to an aberrant type, but are not themselves consumed.
How about Jerry O'Connell from Sliders?
Only in people years. In movie studio years, anything is possible.
Hell yes ... a couple of human explorers could have been all over the area that those two rovers have been travelling and a lot more, collected thousands of samples and run hundreds of tests on them. Maybe carried along a core drill and gotten some deeper samples. Yes, it would have cost a lot more but we'd for sure know a lot more by now. Then, of course, there's the inspirational aspect of manned space travel. For most of us, the science being done by the rovers is something we don't even understand: the smarter ones among us perceive it to be valuable but that's about it. But an astronaut planting a flag on the Martian surface? That gets people on board like nothing else. And being able to hear and read the first-hand impressions of a live person exploring a new world for the first time ... well. No robot is likely to be doing that in the near future.
The way I figure it, Congress is going to blow the money on something really stupid anyway, so we might as well spend it on something important.
Besides, what kind of historical oration can you expect from a robot upon landing? "One small step for a bot, one giant leap for botkind"?
No kidding. My first modem was a 300 BPS Bell System leased-line modem that I modified to work on regular lines, to which I added an auto-answer circuit. Seemed fast enough at the time (1979) but ...
More to the point, comparisons between Starbucks and Wal-Mart (and Target and ...) fail when you look at the relative consumer cost of their products. Starbucks isn't cheap, and if they are putting local shops out of business it probably isn't because they're undercutting them. If the reason for Starbuck's success is that they are putting out a quality product and people are willing to pay for that, I have to say... more power to 'em. I wish more Americans (consumers and manufacturers alike) would focus on product quality and less on the absolute rock-bottom price. A lot of things in this country might improve if we did.
Well, propeganda is just as valid a non-word as your "amalgum", I'm afraid.
And your mauling of the word "giberish" is just charming in this context (ah, the bittersweet flavor of pure irony.) However, I'll give you a free pass on "technicaly", because the GP screwed that one up first.
Modern storage systems either forget what they're supposed to remember, just when you need it the most ... or they remember it long after it is best forgotten.
I was just commenting on the fact that, from the manufacturer's POV, they shouldn't need to distribute critical hardware specs ... just an API into the firmware so that others can come up with a high-level interface from the operating system. I'm just trying to see things from their perspective here, and I'm having trouble grasping the rationale. Then again, MBA-based thought processes are often a mystery to me.
Your right sure it is and they balk. But CNN did a survey and asked if they was worried about their privacy and a good majority said no. The "no's won.
CNN. Survey. 'Nuff said. If you have some reputable studies performed by a major U.S. University please feel free to share a link or two.
Plus their crude lifestyles, and dictatorship is all over the Internet for you to read up on in case your one of the few that has no clue.
I guess that ignorance really is bliss, after all. Spent much time here, have you? Amazing how you can quantify an entire nation of some 250 million people from a few Internet articles. You are truly a man of few words (and even less content.) I salute your research skills, sir.
As I said you have no privacy anymore in the USA.
Privacy is relative, my friend, and there are different kinds of privacy. I'm a lot less worried about the cops busting down my door to looking for dirt on me at the behest of some local party member or politician that some people are.
It might if that Slashdotter were, say, an IBM attorney specializing in IP law.
I agree with you about the radioactive retribution, but can you really call the other half of the Cold War "third world", a nation which is still the second greatest nuclear power?
That is arguably the silliest thing I have ever heard on Slashdot. I ... for once I find myself without anything to say. You win.
Yeah, but they can play "Home on the Range" in Dolby 7.1 now.
That may be true ... but I'm still waiting for the first Lunar tour group.
If they screw something up I'm sure they'll just do a rollback to the previous Restore Point ..
I looked at the linked picture ... what the hell is that thing? It looks like the interstellar transportation device from the movie "Contact".
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? We balk at privacy invasions all the time. It's in the news. It's in the courts. It's a major goddamn problem. But you're right ... power grants you many things, including the ability to ride roughshod over people that balk at you.
... oh wait. They're not American so it's no fun.
That doesn't mean that we don't care about what's happening, or that we don't recognize it. The truth is we're just not sure what to do about it, since our elected leaders have largely abandoned us, and the only power we've ever wielded over our Federal Government was the vote, and that doesn't seem to be working so well anymore.
Besides, there are plenty of countries that do far worse things to their own citizens than the U.S. ever has done, or ever will. Yet we take all the heat. Enough with the hypocrisy. Let's hear some bitching about North Korea, or China, or some of the other real totalitarians with delusions of grandeur out there
It's a presumption that dissing Linux on Slashdot will automatically invoke a Karma drain.
Not all that far from the truth, when you get right down to it.
Well, here's the thing. We are talking about firmware executed by a processor on the device. The primary operating system doesn't need to know anything about that firmware (as it wouldn't if it were truly firmware and burnt to a ROM.) It seems that we are actually concerned about the interface between the host system driver and the "firmware" on the wireless device. The vendors needn't tell anyone how the firmware operates, or about any proprietary hardware features: just tell the Linux/BSD/Solaris/whatever guys "here's the API you use to talk to our firmware load after you've dumped it into the wireless card."
This really shouldn't be all that much different that writing a host driver for a regular Ethernet LAN card. The vendors of those chipsets don't seem to care about releasing their specifications. Frankly I don't see what the big deal is all about.
True enough ... but when you carry that policy of self-protection to the point where it starts to become self-defeating other options should be brought to the table.
Wireless tech is becoming ubiquitous and commoditized. That's what happens when a market reaches this stage. Margins are dropping, unit sales are going up, and it is becoming more and more difficult for a particular vendor to achieve any significant degree of product differentiation. Worse, all of these guys are having to play the interoperability game, because the chief selling point of wireless technology is that it just works. They're all having to work to the same spec, they all have to talk to each other. It's hard to believe that a WAP or wireless LAN card has so much proprietary sophistication in it that it would break the company if it got out. They should just get treated for their very obvious paranoia and either support the major non-Windows operating systems or help out those that will do all the work for free.
Yes. It was Microsoft Bob.
Hey! That's just as reasonable as most of the other "theories" that have been propounded in the decades since.
In general, Asian hardware manufacturers were far more responsive and liberal about firmware than U.S. manufacturers (Intel included). Look for more firmware issues in the future, as not only wireless hardware, but regular wired Ethernet cards, take the driver-loaded firmware approach.
Let's take this from a slightly different perspective:
In general American hardware manufacturers were far more pigheaded and close-mouthed about firmware than Asian manufacturers (Intel especially.) Look for more firmware issues in the future, as Asian corporations continue to take over the remnants of the U.S. manufacturing sector, with U.S. companies stubbornly trying to hang on to their "intellectual property".
Maybe if these idiots stopped listening their legal teams (and Microsoft!) so much, started worrying less about developers using their oh-so-precious "intellectual property" to make their own products useful to even more customers we wouldn't be in this fix. American tech companies are shooting themselves in the foot, having forgotten that continuous innovation and fresh ideas, not hordes of attorneys, are what drive a tech sector to competitiveness. Meanwhile, China is walking off with the the entire candy store.
There are only two ways to beat your competition in the modern world: out-lawyer them or out-think them. We used to be in the latter camp (Yankee ingenuity, and all that) but not any more.
Rather depressing, really.
Indeed. I've noticed, over the years, that individuals who feel that they are intrinsically "better" than those around them usually aren't. Granted, "better" is a relative term, but arrogance is absolute.
that yacht didn't try to pass through that "brown stain" and discover that they had just run aground.