Modern ice roads (as we use here) are built with water-pumping trucks. Just compression leaves large airholes in the roadbed, heat from traffic causes quick collapse.
After the initial surveying, they'll groom/compress the roadbed by whatever means is necessary for the given area. Then the pumpers will spray layer after layer of water (which quickly freeze into layers of ice). The top of the ice will then be textured to increase traction. Large-wheeled vehicles will likely be the norm; tracked vehicles tend to chew up the roadway too much.
The day equipment is moved to the Antarctic to drill for resources is the day I become an eco-activist.
I'm with you there, bud. I mean, why drill in the middle of freakin' nowhere, where the environment is so inhospitable, when you could drill in, say, St. Louis. or maybe Denver. Some nice populated area....
And once we build a highway, what is next? Hotels? Restaurants? Casinos?
Whine, whine, whine. We built roads here in Alaska, people said the same thing would happen. We have so little tourism of the Arctic, even with the one *real* road that runs there (Dalton Hwy). The Starbucks and Casinos, the McDonalds, etc., all show up where there are people. And few people go to inclimate places for fun (Ironically, most of our arctic tourism is from eco-fascists wanting to say they saw the "pristine environment")
1. Ice doesn't move around when it's frozen to the ground. Ice roads are NOT, NOT, NOT(!) NEW TECHNOLOGY! They're standard in the Arctic. The only cool thing about this one is the length of it.
2. Snowmachines are not friendly when it's -60 to -80 with 80mph winds. People tend to die from exposure longer than a few minutes.
Maybe RF towers need electricity? You can't use solar power when the night lasts all winter.I think it's more to the point that RF sucks in bad weather. We use RF and microwave on the Pipeline, did for decades. Few years ago, we installed fibre optics -- it's just more reliable.
But the lack of electricity wouldn't be a problem for repeaters. Lots of little generation systems out there for that purpose. On the Pipeline, they use little propane fired hydro-turbine generators, siebeck effect generators, etcetera.... No solar required.
Then you'd have to get resources, at which point they'd find you there and you'd go home. Or you could skip the resources (fuel, food, shelter) and die.
And Ice Roads are nothing new. We've been using them in Alaska for years.... It's a little more complicated than just "clearing a path," but it *works*. We are able to get our hauling and construction done in the winter in areas where flying in is too dangerous. In the summer, the roads melt, and environmental impact is next to nothing -- a little soil compression, a little gravel (usually locally gathered anyway).
(We could, of course, just tear up the permafrost and tundra with heavy equipment, but we take that extra effort to make environmental impact minimal. Bet Greenies don't hear about things like too often....)
...build the road on actual terra firma? Or are they just going to build it on top of ice?
They'll probably do as we do in Arctic oil development -- we build the roads *from* ice. Compress the snow and ice, polish and harden the surface, embed with gravel. Very low environmental impact. Ice roads melt in the spring here (so we do most of the hauling and construction in the winter), but at the South Pole I don't know if melting would be a problem.
Then also think that Sony had the first stand-alone home Audio CD recording system -- no rip, but there was a lot of mixing and burning promoted by Sony in a very visable TV ad campaign...
There just happens to be an entire discipline dedicated to exploring the behavior of entire societies. It's called sociology.
And you've just agreed with author. Sociology doesn't study individuals. It studies flocks and swarms. Sociology does not study large numbers of individuals, then try to predict how those individuals will react socially. Instead, it looks for trends in societal behavior without much weight being given to the individual units.
History proves over and over that single individuals can make a world-changing difference.
It wasn't the individuals who made the difference, per se. It was the society reacting to those individuals.
Basic tenet of sociology is that humans seek leaders, heros, and villains of various kinds -- people who cause a large segment of the society to engage in a common social behavior.
What Asimov was saying is that we don't have to understand Oswald's specifics to understand that under given conditions, individuals attack their leaders; and, in fact, we can better predict social behavior by ignoring Oswald's specifics and just looking for other patterns in society.
If you don't believe this premise, ask any advertiser who puts billions of dollars into researching aggregate behavior and demographics. That research always pays for itself....
For record companies, a good year comes from a big hit created that year, not the old stuff.
Aside, funny you used Snow White as an example. Another example of Disney making it rich off of public domain material...
But to the point, the new stuff vs. old stuff -- that's not how things used to be. It used to be that we'd have "standards" -- the same piece of music performed by a variety of performers.
But that's also from the days when it was the music they were selling....
We pay taxes on the medium, not the content. If we go over phone lines/DSL, we pay a tax on that phone line. If we go over cable, we pay a tax on that. All FCC media has line fees of some type. An "internet tax" is a tax on content/use of the same medium in a different way.
Scary part is, nothing gets taxed without first being regulated to death. I think that's a law of physics....
The skeptic is once again playing an increasingly important role in the TV age...
Having someone pop up and remind us that it's all fantasy, theory and unproven is healthy for our society.
Unfortunately, skeptics have been attacked and discredited by TV. Ad hominem -- just as religions demonize non-believers who might lead their flocks astray, so has television demonized the skeptical and rational. They're "geeks" and "nerds" -- Shun them. Don't listen to them. They talk in strange tongues.
The best skeptics can hope for in the TV age is to let other emerging skeptics in society understand they aren't insane.
Sorry, but it's a sale. They are selling access to the (mostly public access) documents. Their "legal fund" should be a budget line-item... it's not like this is a non-profit EFF action or something -- they're a for profit company. Imagine if GM put a link on its site for you to "donate" to their legal defense fund in order to get a free hat or something.... They are probably just trying to avoid accepting it as revenue (but I think maybe the IRS might want to see their strategy here)
If these parasites can win this case (which I can't see with anything short of judge-squicking), then Madonna and J-Lo should be able to go back and sue every reviewer or critic who ever panned their "music." This is really *that* freakin' stupid....
Partner with MS-SMU to make a game school in which each of the participants pays the management/admin costs for developing fully-functional games as school projects. Make offers for the good projects and edit/distribute them, without ever having to pay a dime for wasted R&D.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing -- no judgments there -- but it would be an advantage to game distributors....
The biggest problem will be the number of lives a school like this will ruin...
What?
Are you saying that teaching a craft is "ruining" a life if that craft doesn't lead to economic fulfillment?
Sorry, but learning never ruined anyone. And I never remembered anyone telling me on the way into college that I'd be guaranteed economic blessings from whatever field I chose to go into. If any life is ruined by being educated, it's because the student had unrealistic expectations from the start.
Why is it a ripoff? There's nothing misleading here. They bought their Macs (as I did) with the promised software on board. Later, Apple upgrades the software and charges for the upgrade. They (as I) can accept that or decline and continue to use our current version if we're satisfied with the features.
I don't remember anything in my purchase that said upgrades to all software would be free forever....
People aren't just storing documents! Music, pictures, movies, email, and so on, all need to be stored.
There are dozens of organizers for these types of files, all simple indexes. I can metatag any type of file in any OS using a simple indexing system. Simple indexing doesn't require integration of the index into the OS.
This seems more like a Nitrogen-cooled box mod -- it's clever, but it has no real practical use.
For one thing, HFS makes document security simple. By storing in directory X, you limit use of the document to those with various levels in User Group X.
For the home user/single PC, it's GIGO -- no matter the file system, whether HFS or metadata, the user has to recall it. Usually when looking for those 2-y.o. records, the user will give up and do a full content search. No great loss in productivity for the simple home user, who doesn't have that much data to organize in the first place.
For corporations with networks and immense document structures(where metadata comes in handy), there are already dozens of software/servers that allow indexing by metadata -- like Centra2000 (now Konfig), or *gag* Sharepoint Portal Server, or Documentum. The admin stores documents in an HFS (for determining security/accessibility), but the users find the docs using metadata, indexing, or links without having to worry about the OS Directory location. Very reliable, easy for users to understand.
In the end, the problem is solved for business, and for home users, the problem is the home user, not the amount of data or structure of the FS.
This is perfect. The Government can't legally supress free speech. So instead, they deregulate until all the media is in the hands of a few, and the speech is then quelled by censors/moderators and EULAs. Later, they'll make large investments in unneccessary technology that will be legally required before you can provide ISP service -- so what used to cost a few thousand to start, now would take hundreds of millions -- thus leaving everyone priced out of the game.
Slashdot Mirror
After the initial surveying, they'll groom/compress the roadbed by whatever means is necessary for the given area. Then the pumpers will spray layer after layer of water (which quickly freeze into layers of ice). The top of the ice will then be textured to increase traction. Large-wheeled vehicles will likely be the norm; tracked vehicles tend to chew up the roadway too much.
I'm with you there, bud. I mean, why drill in the middle of freakin' nowhere, where the environment is so inhospitable, when you could drill in, say, St. Louis. or maybe Denver. Some nice populated area....
Whine, whine, whine. We built roads here in Alaska, people said the same thing would happen. We have so little tourism of the Arctic, even with the one *real* road that runs there (Dalton Hwy). The Starbucks and Casinos, the McDonalds, etc., all show up where there are people. And few people go to inclimate places for fun (Ironically, most of our arctic tourism is from eco-fascists wanting to say they saw the "pristine environment")
Costs are probably higher in Antarctica, but in Alaska the average ice road costs about $40K/mile.
2. Snowmachines are not friendly when it's -60 to -80 with 80mph winds. People tend to die from exposure longer than a few minutes.
But the lack of electricity wouldn't be a problem for repeaters. Lots of little generation systems out there for that purpose. On the Pipeline, they use little propane fired hydro-turbine generators, siebeck effect generators, etcetera.... No solar required.
You'd first have to get a car to Antarctica.
Then you'd have to get resources, at which point they'd find you there and you'd go home. Or you could skip the resources (fuel, food, shelter) and die.
(We could, of course, just tear up the permafrost and tundra with heavy equipment, but we take that extra effort to make environmental impact minimal. Bet Greenies don't hear about things like too often....)
They'll probably do as we do in Arctic oil development -- we build the roads *from* ice. Compress the snow and ice, polish and harden the surface, embed with gravel. Very low environmental impact. Ice roads melt in the spring here (so we do most of the hauling and construction in the winter), but at the South Pole I don't know if melting would be a problem.
Then also think that Sony had the first stand-alone home Audio CD recording system -- no rip, but there was a lot of mixing and burning promoted by Sony in a very visable TV ad campaign...
And you've just agreed with author. Sociology doesn't study individuals. It studies flocks and swarms. Sociology does not study large numbers of individuals, then try to predict how those individuals will react socially. Instead, it looks for trends in societal behavior without much weight being given to the individual units.
It wasn't the individuals who made the difference, per se. It was the society reacting to those individuals.
Basic tenet of sociology is that humans seek leaders, heros, and villains of various kinds -- people who cause a large segment of the society to engage in a common social behavior.
What Asimov was saying is that we don't have to understand Oswald's specifics to understand that under given conditions, individuals attack their leaders; and, in fact, we can better predict social behavior by ignoring Oswald's specifics and just looking for other patterns in society.
If you don't believe this premise, ask any advertiser who puts billions of dollars into researching aggregate behavior and demographics. That research always pays for itself....
Aside, funny you used Snow White as an example. Another example of Disney making it rich off of public domain material...
But to the point, the new stuff vs. old stuff -- that's not how things used to be. It used to be that we'd have "standards" -- the same piece of music performed by a variety of performers.
But that's also from the days when it was the music they were selling....
Scary part is, nothing gets taxed without first being regulated to death. I think that's a law of physics....
Unfortunately, skeptics have been attacked and discredited by TV. Ad hominem -- just as religions demonize non-believers who might lead their flocks astray, so has television demonized the skeptical and rational. They're "geeks" and "nerds" -- Shun them. Don't listen to them. They talk in strange tongues.
The best skeptics can hope for in the TV age is to let other emerging skeptics in society understand they aren't insane.
If these parasites can win this case (which I can't see with anything short of judge-squicking), then Madonna and J-Lo should be able to go back and sue every reviewer or critic who ever panned their "music." This is really *that* freakin' stupid....
I think Drs. Hoffman and Leary had white papers about the subject....
Partner with MS-SMU to make a game school in which each of the participants pays the management/admin costs for developing fully-functional games as school projects. Make offers for the good projects and edit/distribute them, without ever having to pay a dime for wasted R&D.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing -- no judgments there -- but it would be an advantage to game distributors....
What?
Are you saying that teaching a craft is "ruining" a life if that craft doesn't lead to economic fulfillment?
Sorry, but learning never ruined anyone. And I never remembered anyone telling me on the way into college that I'd be guaranteed economic blessings from whatever field I chose to go into. If any life is ruined by being educated, it's because the student had unrealistic expectations from the start.
No, not a separate index for each file type. Doesn't matter what the file type is. It only takes a very simple db to set up a metatag index.
I don't remember anything in my purchase that said upgrades to all software would be free forever....
There are dozens of organizers for these types of files, all simple indexes. I can metatag any type of file in any OS using a simple indexing system. Simple indexing doesn't require integration of the index into the OS.
For one thing, HFS makes document security simple. By storing in directory X, you limit use of the document to those with various levels in User Group X.
For the home user/single PC, it's GIGO -- no matter the file system, whether HFS or metadata, the user has to recall it. Usually when looking for those 2-y.o. records, the user will give up and do a full content search. No great loss in productivity for the simple home user, who doesn't have that much data to organize in the first place.
For corporations with networks and immense document structures(where metadata comes in handy), there are already dozens of software/servers that allow indexing by metadata -- like Centra2000 (now Konfig), or *gag* Sharepoint Portal Server, or Documentum. The admin stores documents in an HFS (for determining security/accessibility), but the users find the docs using metadata, indexing, or links without having to worry about the OS Directory location. Very reliable, easy for users to understand.
In the end, the problem is solved for business, and for home users, the problem is the home user, not the amount of data or structure of the FS.
It's beautiful. The privatization of suppression.
Loser. BP-McClatchy-ClearChannel-Viacom RULES!
(Envisioning the "Switch" Ads to come....)