M$ have decided that it is in the 'best interests' of their clients to upgrade and will shortly discontinue support for Win2K. Luckily, those of us using open source operating systems need never fear such chicanery.
The last time I tried this stuff out was in 2002. I had a minimal setup with two frontend and backend servers. The frontend machines shared a virtual IP address and kept track of oneanother using a heartbeat. However, the main limitation, as far as I was concerned, was the algorithm used to distribute the requests among the backend machines. It was just that, an algorithm: not anything intelligent.
The problem is that some client requests are 'bigger' than others. If one of my machines got swamped by one or more 'big' requests, then that algorithm would keep sending every other request to that machine even though the other machine was asleep. What I would like to see is a way for the LVS to monitor the loading on the backend machines and always send the client requests on to ones that currently have the least to do. This would, of course, mean that monitoring software would have to be installed on the backend machines so that they could constantly relay their status (CPU load, disk activity, available memory) to the LVS. Too complicated? I wouldn't know. However, it's an idea that just makes more sense to me.
A while back, I gave away a bunch of Knoppix CDs to my buddies at the local sports club. At first, they all wanted one, but later it turned out that none of them had taken the trouble to start one up. Apparently, the idea of actually running Linux on their PC just doesn't inspire the imagination. Apparently, the problem for them seems to consist of three things, not necessarily in the following order:
1.) Linux is usually not a platform on which they can play their favorite games.
2.) It's easy for them to get pirated versions of M$' OS and applications anyway.
3.) Complacency. Why bother?
It looks to me as though it may be many years before this situation changes. Something has to make Linux look like more of an attractive alternative to the average Windows user. Actually, I'm hoping that M$ itself will lend a hand here. When LongTime is finally released, perhaps it'll prove to be such a tough nut that it'll be impossible for anyone to install commercial applications on it illegally. Then everyone will be forced to pay M$' extortionist prices, which they'll hate.
But, as I was saying, this will take years. We're first going to have to arrive at a point at which the software for Windows XP is seen as outdated, the software for LongTime is seen as too expensive, and the software for Linux is seen as just (or almost) as good. Oh, and it'll also help if, by that time, more games are available for Linux.
Does that make it lighter or heavier than existing oxygen tanks?
Genrally speaking, lighter when you're above water, the same when you're underwater (because then the object is always to be neutrally buoyant). However, if the device is smaller in volume overall, then you'll be more streamlined and will be able to move more easily underwater.
the reason that "the bends" are an issue is that it is difficult to carry enough O2 to decompress on the way up. If you had essentially unlimited O2, then you could stay deeper for longer, and do proper decompression on the way up.
This is why many technical divers like to use a closed-circuit electronic rebreather (CCR). A CCR is a so-called 'constant ppO2' device that allows you to breath gas with a constant ppO2 (partial pressure of oxygen) throughout an entire dive, independent of depth. CCRs are also very efficient with gas as well as silent (no bubbles!).
But that doesn't mean diving with a CCR gets you off the hook where decompression is concerned. The reason SCUBA diving will always contain an element of danger is that, no matter what equipment you use, the fact that the pressure differences are so great, coupled with the fact that, below 6 m depth, the use of a mixed breathing gas is unavoidable. By this I mean that, below 6 m, part of your breathing gas must consist of oxygen (max. 1.4 to 1.6 bar) plus another gas, such as nitrogen or helium (or a combination of those two) to make up for the rest. The problem is that you can't metabolize these other gases on the way up like you do with oxygen: these have to be outgassed slowly though the lungs (while breathing normally). If you don't take the time for this, these gasses will come out of solution in your bloodstream and soft tissues instead, which causes the bends.
Well, I don't think the US is that far gone just yet, even though it is moving in that direction. After all:
police state
n : a country that maintains repressive control over the
people by means of police (especially secret police).
In this case, the people refers to citizens withing its own borders. A good example is North Korea. The problem with the United States is that it's the world's only remaining superpower:
superpower
n : a state powerful enough to influence events
throughout the world.
In principle, if the US were always so benevolent, this wouldn't be a problem. However, for a long time now, the rest of the world has got the distinct impression that America really has no problem 'influencing events throughout the world' in order to further its own agenda. If this was ever apparent during the Clinton presidency, it would seem as though Bush has so far been doing his damnedest to make this blatantly obvious to everyone today.
Will they ever quit? In my view, this is unlikely, as America's foreign agenda has always consisted of both its own policies (int'l law, world health, foreign aid, etc.), as well as the interests of the many powerful organizations that influence Washington's lawmakers with their lobbyists. The latter often give rise to the former. Basically, America will always be trying to do business with the rest of the world on its own terms (just like any other country, or like M$ for that matter) and for now there's not much in their way.
"... without having to maintain scuba gear would be rather cool..."
Oh, and you don't think this thing would need any maintenance? Think again. It's got batteries, it's electrical equipment that has got to work underwater and not short out, it's got moving parts, it'll have a fair number of O-rings to check and replace. It's also got to suck in a lot of water, so you'd better hope that it's got an adequate filter so it doesn't get clogged up too quickly. If that happens, all you'll have to get you to the surface is that teensy little bail-out bottle that looks like you'll get about two breaths out of it. Oh, and that bail-out bottle means you'll also be carrying all the normal SCUBA equipment: first and second stage regulators along with a tank, even if the latter is small. So, it's definitely not that simple, even for shallow dives.
The maximum recommended depth for a pure-O2 rebreather is 6 meters (less than 20 feet), since the maximum recommended partial pressure of oxygen for a diver is 1.6 bar. However, 1.4 to 1.6 bar is a gray area, so unless you're feeling lucky, you don't even want to go below 4 meters depth with this device. To take an oxygen rebreather down to 32 feet (10 meters) is very risky indeed. At this depth, the ambient pressure is 2 bars and oxygen toxicity symptoms would be a virtual certainty. The worst of these is if you go into convulsions, loose your mouthpiece and drown. Many divers have died this way.
If it really would be possible to create a SCUBA system based on this invention, would it really be so much better than the technology currently available? I'm not so sure.
** Complexity **
If this thing ever does hit the market, it'll be for technical divers only. After all, we'd be dealing with electrical life-support equipment underwater, which is always problematic. Not so much that you might electrocute yourself with it, but simply that it can short out. That would leave you without your main gas supply. Also, it sounds like this thing it going to be processing quite a bit of water for every liter of air it produces. That means that you're going to want to use a pretty big filter, or else the water flow through the centrifuge could quickly become significantly reduced or even be blocked (I don't like this already). Not exactly a recipe for a simple and worry-free system.
** Bulk **
Selling this thing as a way to reduce bulk not going to work. To begin with, you won't be able to use those li-io batteries in place of your lead weights: they're far too light. Hell, if they float, you'll need to take even more lead with you. Lead-acid gel-cell batteries might be a better idea.
Second, technical divers usually like to dive for much longer periods than recreational divers, usually much deeper as well. That means they're always going to take bail-out systems with them as back-up, like spare tanks or even a rebreather. This bulks up things anyway. By the way, the bail-out tank in the picture is way too small.
Third, how many liters of air will this thing actually be able to produce per minute? Enough for anybody to breathe from it directly? You would hope so. If not, well then to get your batteries to last longer, you might want to make this thing part of a semi closed-circuit rebreather system. This is a good way to stretch any limited air supply, but in this case it would add more bulk. Remember, every semi closed-circuit rebreather requires hoses, breathing bags (lungs) and a CO2 scrubber cannister.
** Performance **
Only one hour per kilo of li-io battery? An AP Valves Inspiration rebreather (electronic, fully closed-circuit) will get you at least three hours under water -- even more, depending on how far you care to push the CO2 scrubber. To compete, somebody flying mr. Bodner's underwater wonder would need at least three kilos of those (expensive) li-io batteries. These will be quite bulky too, especially in their sealed cannisters.
Diving really deep (70m and beyond) with this thing is not going to be possible either. Deep diving with SCUBA equipment always requires the use of Heliox or Tri-mix -- gas mixtures that include helium. But, since this centrifuge thing is only going to extract normal air (oxygen and nitrogen) from the water, and adding helium to the mix as you go is out of the question, this will pretty much limit its use to recreational depths.
The worst, however, will be the noise. With normal, open-circuit SCUBA, the noise made by a group of divers exhaling can almost be deafening (scares many fish away). As far as I can tell, this new device is going to be open-circuit as well, so that will be bad enough. However, with this thing, it sounds like you're also going to have to put up with a whining centrifuge on your back as well. Unless they can do something to muffle this sound, it's bound to get on your nerves (or someone else's) sooner or later.
** Price **
Finally, you know this kit will never be cheap. It will come with a lot of parts: electrical parts, moving parts. For a manufacturer to get anything like a CE certification for a diving apparatus like this will cost a small fortune. This could easily end up doubling the price, which would place it firmly out of reach for most of us.
** Conclusion **
I'm not so sure this thing is going to create any big stir in the diving community any time soon. It'll probably remain be a novelty at best, kind of like a pure-oxygen rebreathe
Occasionally, large collections of dinosaur bones are found at a single location, all of the same species, indicating that a group of these animals died in a single catastrophe. Sometimes these look like nesting sites. It will now be interesting to see if any of these groups can now be sexed.
Of course, this method can only be used to determine if an individual was female if it was an ovulating female at the time of death; apparently, those that were not ovulating look just like males. Still, if we were to sex all of the individuals at a nesting site in this manner, we might, for example, find that all of them were ovulating females except for one large specimen, quite possibly a male.
However, it sounds like this technique may only apply to members of the theropod group -- those that we believe to be more closely related to birds. In that case, we may never be able to use this method to determine the sexual makeup of, say, a group of brontosaurs, which are sauropods.
But of course they're no different from any public company in this respect.
It's not fair to say that -- not every publicly owned company has the luxury of being able to exploit a monopoly position. Everybody is so used to hearing M$ be called a monopoly that they seem forget what this entails. Having a monopoly means that you can abuse your customers (i.e. with high prices and low quality) without any fear of loosing them to your competitors -- you don't have any competitors! That's what I mean when I say M$ listens only to its stockholders: they do so more that others because they can afford to. They can let their customers struggle with sub-standard products and still count on raking in astronomical profits. A lot of stockholders got filthy rich off of M$.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other publicly owned companies out there that do not have a monopoly of any kind. I'd say that they constitute the majority. These companies have no choice but to strike a balance of some sort. Sure, they can't be too nice to their customers, or else their stockholders won't be happy. However, they must also offer their customers value for money, or else they will loose market share.
I'll have to see it to believe it. There is bound to be a catch to this strategy -- probably something to do with patents. M$ is shiftier than a 10 speed clutch. After all, it would be totally irresponsible of them to just give away some of their valuable monopoly power for nothing. A new version of Office with a truly open file format would allow customers to get off of the infamous M$ treadmill: they'd feel free to move to an alternative office suite and still be able to make use of the new, open M$ document format. As a result, sales and profits would decline noticeably. The stockholders wouldn't like that. And since M$ has always put the interests of their stockholders before those of their customers, you (and the stockholders) can bank on reality turning out differently from the hype.
If a computer store sells software, it only sells software that most people want. Sure, today this practice only helps to perpetuate demand for Windows, but with the nice profit margins involved, the dealers don't care. The computer retail business is cut-throat with little room for idealism. Offering support for products for which there is little demand and no profit makes no business sense. It might if the number of systems being sold is large enough, but then we wouldn't be talking about a local dealer.
No, as an OSS advocate myself, I don't believe we can expect our local PC retailers to help up us break the Windows monopoly any time soon. Right now, I think the only way we can hope to do that is by influencing demand first... such as by making more OSS solutions like Firefox that seem cool to the average user. If, for instance, at some point enough of these solutions were to exist, and they'd available on both Windows and Linux platforms, then maybe more people wouldn't find it as intimidating to abandon Windows. As a result, eventually even Linux itself would start to look cool. That's the point at which our friendly retailers would start acting diffently.
The MPAA and the RIAA hate anything that might be hurting their profits, regardless of the fact that they're earning more today than ever before. That means they hate the Internet and the consumer electronics industry, but seeing as they can't do anything about that (although they keep trying), they take out their frustrations on their own customers... as if that'll improve anything. Introducing measures like the broadcast flag and suing consumers can only serve to make them more unpopular; it won't change anything and may eventually hurt their profits more than if they did nothing. What they need to do is to offer their customers some satisfactory and affordable legal alternatives to use via the Internet.
If a spam-bot appears that blocks the local POP and IMAP ports and notifies users with a message saying "You cannot recieve email because your ISP is blocking port 25 -- call and request that they unblock it", chances are that the helpdesk will soon be asking the right questions to figure out whether the user is infected with a common virus or not. Sure, helpdesk people may not always be that experienced themselves, but they can usually follow procedures.
Even if this is a unique service and sounds like it's a good idea, I'd rather wait until a competitor comes along with a similar product. Why? Because of what M$ is all about... their reputation proceeds them. For even if the data formats involved are open at first, once they become a success I do not believe that M$ will be able to resist either adding functionality that only works with Windows, or switching to a proprietary format altogether (No, wait! We're giving away the browser for free!).
Well, I suppose this is good news for all us lifers in the IT business, since this means we'll probably do better over the next five years or so, but I think that in the longer term we'll come to see this phenomenon as part of a regular economic cycle, just as in every other profession. However, as opposed to, say, dentists, I think it's safe to say that our profession will always be more dependent upon, or in sync with, the general economic cycle.
What are we going to have to do to convince "ordinary users" to visit WindowsUpdate once in a while?"
Not much. In my experience, ordinary folks just ain't interested in this issue -- they couldn't be bothered. I always mention it, but invariably get nothing more than a blank look in return. At best they'll show me the way to their PC so that I can do it for them. The problem with Windows is, those updates need to be done regularly.
Will M$ come to the rescue? Maybe, but only if they decide to prioritize security before profit for a while, and I don't see that happening as long as they have no other incentives, such as real competition in the marketplace. And even if some new OS of theirs were to be secure enough to make a difference, that still wouldn't mean that all those "ordinary users" out there would actually go out and buy the upgrade (they wouldn't, because chances are that much of their old software would suddenly stop working).
The other solution would be for us to enter into a period in which most ordinary users would start to get the feeling that FOSS solutions are the way to go. That will be difficult, however, as we will always be up against the marketing might of M$. Ordinary users always end up in stores asking for complete solutions, which is exactly where M$'s marketing muscle reins supreme. Not much we can do about that. Apple might help, but at the moment ordinary users see them as being either too weird or too expensive or both. Personally, I don't think Apple will every be able to make a real dent in M$'s lead unless they decide to port their OS to the PC. But, for Apple, that would be opening a whole new can of worms, and maybe they know better.
Another way for light to appear at the end of the tunnel, would be a combination of the above. On the one hand, this would involve M$, always greedy for higher profits, making itself ever more unpopular by introducing things like Palladium, which they hope will make it virtually impossible for anyone to run anything but software that is properly licensed and paid for. On the other hand, while M$'s software would remain as insecure and unstable as ever, the FOSS alternatives would just keep looking better and better. Eventually, this "carrot and stick" situation would cause increasingly large numbers of long-time Windows users to defect to the other side. It almost sounds inevitble, but at best this will take time (for starters, it looks like Palladium won't be out until after LongTime is launched in late 2006).
Therefore, my feeling is that, since nothing is going to change any time soon anyway, we're just going to have to accommodate the situation (OK, the spammers in this case) for now by adding more and more bandwidth and other resources in order to stay afloat.
In the mean time, our best option is to keep improving and pushing FOSS alternatives. My one "ordinary user" success story was with a family that I had sold a PC with Windows XP to in early 2003. I set up a virus/adware scanners for them at the time, but within a short time their box was riddled with malware anyway. Finally, in October last year the system had become so useless that they came to me again for a solution. Sure, I could re-install for them, but then the chances would be that the problem would quickly repeat itself. My solution was to switch them to Debian sarge and use Win4Lin for those last few Windows programs they couldn't do without. It worked and they've been happy ever since, so I'd like to think that, in general, there is hope for "ordinary users".
Ha! That's beyond them! And even if they had the technology to build something like that, their corrupt corporate ethos would spoil things anyway -- few would trust the results of their search engine. Generally, they're just not a company that inspires trust.
Similarly, I think it will only become increasingly apparent that the technology used in Linux and other leading OSS projects is beyond M$'s technical capabilities. As I see it, it's the underlying philosophy and architecture of Windows, which shuns modularity, that will always hold them back. This will become obvious once again when their much-hyped 'Long Time' OS is launched and it turns out to be just as disappointing as everything else they've produced.
Whoever posted this question could just as easily be an OSS opponent -- someone in the employ of Microsoft, for instance. At any rate, this kind of question is basically FUD. After all, patents are blind and affect commercial software products just the same as they do their OSS counterparts. Remember that Microsoft itself is constantly in court fighting off patent infringement lawsuits. Lucky for them that they have lots of lawyers, but so do governments... especially the US government.
Indeed. I can just imagine how much longer it
would take me to install the regular updates for my Debian systems if it required me to reboot for every other package.
... and although Microsoft says that about Windows these days as well, they'll never be able to back that up with statistics (unless they pay the Yankee Group to do the study).
On the other hand, give a nicely configured
Linux workstation to an average user and as
long as their hardware stays healthy they
will never have any major problems.
Give a Linux server to a knowlegable sysadmin
and he'll be able to run a seemingly endless
number of concurrent processes on a single system without any problems... and they'll
all be able to interoperate... and he won't have to beg for more money every time a problem appears (no matter how small) and a new solution is required... and he'll be able to sleep at night.
These things I know from years of first-hand experience. If Open Source were considered mainstream, we'd all be able to do a lot more with a lot less.
As an individual user, using Linux can solve
many problems for me, but it's an uphill battle
when market forces conspire to make certain
information and services only available for
Windows users. In many cases this is completely unnecessary.
Therefore, if Open Source were considered mainstream, it's much more likely that I'd be able to have my cake and eat it. And so would Joe Average, even though right now
he wouldn't know what I'm talking about. Which is why I see his ignorance as part of the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
M$ have decided that it is in the 'best interests' of their clients to upgrade and will shortly discontinue support for Win2K. Luckily, those of us using open source operating systems need never fear such chicanery.
The last time I tried this stuff out was in 2002. I had a minimal setup with two frontend and backend servers. The frontend machines shared a virtual IP address and kept track of oneanother using a heartbeat. However, the main limitation, as far as I was concerned, was the algorithm used to distribute the requests among the backend machines. It was just that, an algorithm: not anything intelligent.
The problem is that some client requests are 'bigger' than others. If one of my machines got swamped by one or more 'big' requests, then that algorithm would keep sending every other request to that machine even though the other machine was asleep. What I would like to see is a way for the LVS to monitor the loading on the backend machines and always send the client requests on to ones that currently have the least to do. This would, of course, mean that monitoring software would have to be installed on the backend machines so that they could constantly relay their status (CPU load, disk activity, available memory) to the LVS. Too complicated? I wouldn't know. However, it's an idea that just makes more sense to me.
A while back, I gave away a bunch of Knoppix CDs to my buddies at the local sports club. At first, they all wanted one, but later it turned out that none of them had taken the trouble to start one up. Apparently, the idea of actually running Linux on their PC just doesn't inspire the imagination. Apparently, the problem for them seems to consist of three things, not necessarily in the following order:
1.) Linux is usually not a platform on which they can play their favorite games.
2.) It's easy for them to get pirated versions of M$' OS and applications anyway.
3.) Complacency. Why bother?
It looks to me as though it may be many years before this situation changes. Something has to make Linux look like more of an attractive alternative to the average Windows user. Actually, I'm hoping that M$ itself will lend a hand here. When LongTime is finally released, perhaps it'll prove to be such a tough nut that it'll be impossible for anyone to install commercial applications on it illegally. Then everyone will be forced to pay M$' extortionist prices, which they'll hate.
But, as I was saying, this will take years. We're first going to have to arrive at a point at which the software for Windows XP is seen as outdated, the software for LongTime is seen as too expensive, and the software for Linux is seen as just (or almost) as good. Oh, and it'll also help if, by that time, more games are available for Linux.
Thaannk you. Welcome to the treadmill, asshole!
Does that make it lighter or heavier than existing oxygen tanks?
Genrally speaking, lighter when you're above water, the same when you're underwater (because then the object is always to be neutrally buoyant). However, if the device is smaller in volume overall, then you'll be more streamlined and will be able to move more easily underwater.
the reason that "the bends" are an issue is that it is difficult to carry enough O2 to decompress on the way up. If you had essentially unlimited O2, then you could stay deeper for longer, and do proper decompression on the way up.
This is why many technical divers like to use a closed-circuit electronic rebreather (CCR). A CCR is a so-called 'constant ppO2' device that allows you to breath gas with a constant ppO2 (partial pressure of oxygen) throughout an entire dive, independent of depth. CCRs are also very efficient with gas as well as silent (no bubbles!).
But that doesn't mean diving with a CCR gets you off the hook where decompression is concerned. The reason SCUBA diving will always contain an element of danger is that, no matter what equipment you use, the fact that the pressure differences are so great, coupled with the fact that, below 6 m depth, the use of a mixed breathing gas is unavoidable. By this I mean that, below 6 m, part of your breathing gas must consist of oxygen (max. 1.4 to 1.6 bar) plus another gas, such as nitrogen or helium (or a combination of those two) to make up for the rest. The problem is that you can't metabolize these other gases on the way up like you do with oxygen: these have to be outgassed slowly though the lungs (while breathing normally). If you don't take the time for this, these gasses will come out of solution in your bloodstream and soft tissues instead, which causes the bends.
Well, I don't think the US is that far gone just yet, even though it is moving in that direction. After all:
police state
n : a country that maintains repressive control over the
people by means of police (especially secret police).
In this case, the people refers to citizens withing its own borders. A good example is North Korea. The problem with the United States is that it's the world's only remaining superpower:
superpower
n : a state powerful enough to influence events
throughout the world.
In principle, if the US were always so benevolent, this wouldn't be a problem. However, for a long time now, the rest of the world has got the distinct impression that America really has no problem 'influencing events throughout the world' in order to further its own agenda. If this was ever apparent during the Clinton presidency, it would seem as though Bush has so far been doing his damnedest to make this blatantly obvious to everyone today.
Will they ever quit? In my view, this is unlikely, as America's foreign agenda has always consisted of both its own policies (int'l law, world health, foreign aid, etc.), as well as the interests of the many powerful organizations that influence Washington's lawmakers with their lobbyists. The latter often give rise to the former. Basically, America will always be trying to do business with the rest of the world on its own terms (just like any other country, or like M$ for that matter) and for now there's not much in their way.
"... without having to maintain scuba gear would be rather cool ..."
Oh, and you don't think this thing would need any maintenance? Think again. It's got batteries, it's electrical equipment that has got to work underwater and not short out, it's got moving parts, it'll have a fair number of O-rings to check and replace. It's also got to suck in a lot of water, so you'd better hope that it's got an adequate filter so it doesn't get clogged up too quickly. If that happens, all you'll have to get you to the surface is that teensy little bail-out bottle that looks like you'll get about two breaths out of it. Oh, and that bail-out bottle means you'll also be carrying all the normal SCUBA equipment: first and second stage regulators along with a tank, even if the latter is small. So, it's definitely not that simple, even for shallow dives.
The maximum recommended depth for a pure-O2 rebreather is 6 meters (less than 20 feet), since the maximum recommended partial pressure of oxygen for a diver is 1.6 bar. However, 1.4 to 1.6 bar is a gray area, so unless you're feeling lucky, you don't even want to go below 4 meters depth with this device. To take an oxygen rebreather down to 32 feet (10 meters) is very risky indeed. At this depth, the ambient pressure is 2 bars and oxygen toxicity symptoms would be a virtual certainty. The worst of these is if you go into convulsions, loose your mouthpiece and drown. Many divers have died this way.
If it really would be possible to create a SCUBA system based on this invention, would it really be so much better than the technology currently available? I'm not so sure.
** Complexity **
If this thing ever does hit the market, it'll be for technical divers only. After all, we'd be dealing with electrical life-support equipment underwater, which is always problematic. Not so much that you might electrocute yourself with it, but simply that it can short out. That would leave you without your main gas supply. Also, it sounds like this thing it going to be processing quite a bit of water for every liter of air it produces. That means that you're going to want to use a pretty big filter, or else the water flow through the centrifuge could quickly become significantly reduced or even be blocked (I don't like this already). Not exactly a recipe for a simple and worry-free system.
** Bulk **
Selling this thing as a way to reduce bulk not going to work. To begin with, you won't be able to use those li-io batteries in place of your lead weights: they're far too light. Hell, if they float, you'll need to take even more lead with you. Lead-acid gel-cell batteries might be a better idea.
Second, technical divers usually like to dive for much longer periods than recreational divers, usually much deeper as well. That means they're always going to take bail-out systems with them as back-up, like spare tanks or even a rebreather. This bulks up things anyway. By the way, the bail-out tank in the picture is way too small.
Third, how many liters of air will this thing actually be able to produce per minute? Enough for anybody to breathe from it directly? You would hope so. If not, well then to get your batteries to last longer, you might want to make this thing part of a semi closed-circuit rebreather system. This is a good way to stretch any limited air supply, but in this case it would add more bulk. Remember, every semi closed-circuit rebreather requires hoses, breathing bags (lungs) and a CO2 scrubber cannister.
** Performance **
Only one hour per kilo of li-io battery? An AP Valves Inspiration rebreather (electronic, fully closed-circuit) will get you at least three hours under water -- even more, depending on how far you care to push the CO2 scrubber. To compete, somebody flying mr. Bodner's underwater wonder would need at least three kilos of those (expensive) li-io batteries. These will be quite bulky too, especially in their sealed cannisters.
Diving really deep (70m and beyond) with this thing is not going to be possible either. Deep diving with SCUBA equipment always requires the use of Heliox or Tri-mix -- gas mixtures that include helium. But, since this centrifuge thing is only going to extract normal air (oxygen and nitrogen) from the water, and adding helium to the mix as you go is out of the question, this will pretty much limit its use to recreational depths.
The worst, however, will be the noise. With normal, open-circuit SCUBA, the noise made by a group of divers exhaling can almost be deafening (scares many fish away). As far as I can tell, this new device is going to be open-circuit as well, so that will be bad enough. However, with this thing, it sounds like you're also going to have to put up with a whining centrifuge on your back as well. Unless they can do something to muffle this sound, it's bound to get on your nerves (or someone else's) sooner or later.
** Price **
Finally, you know this kit will never be cheap. It will come with a lot of parts: electrical parts, moving parts. For a manufacturer to get anything like a CE certification for a diving apparatus like this will cost a small fortune. This could easily end up doubling the price, which would place it firmly out of reach for most of us.
** Conclusion **
I'm not so sure this thing is going to create any big stir in the diving community any time soon. It'll probably remain be a novelty at best, kind of like a pure-oxygen rebreathe
Occasionally, large collections of dinosaur bones are found at a single location, all of the same species, indicating that a group of these animals died in a single catastrophe. Sometimes these look like nesting sites. It will now be interesting to see if any of these groups can now be sexed.
Of course, this method can only be used to determine if an individual was female if it was an ovulating female at the time of death; apparently, those that were not ovulating look just like males. Still, if we were to sex all of the individuals at a nesting site in this manner, we might, for example, find that all of them were ovulating females except for one large specimen, quite possibly a male.
However, it sounds like this technique may only apply to members of the theropod group -- those that we believe to be more closely related to birds. In that case, we may never be able to use this method to determine the sexual makeup of, say, a group of brontosaurs, which are sauropods.
But of course they're no different from any public company in this respect.
It's not fair to say that -- not every publicly owned company has the luxury of being able to exploit a monopoly position. Everybody is so used to hearing M$ be called a monopoly that they seem forget what this entails. Having a monopoly means that you can abuse your customers (i.e. with high prices and low quality) without any fear of loosing them to your competitors -- you don't have any competitors! That's what I mean when I say M$ listens only to its stockholders: they do so more that others because they can afford to. They can let their customers struggle with sub-standard products and still count on raking in astronomical profits. A lot of stockholders got filthy rich off of M$.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other publicly owned companies out there that do not have a monopoly of any kind. I'd say that they constitute the majority. These companies have no choice but to strike a balance of some sort. Sure, they can't be too nice to their customers, or else their stockholders won't be happy. However, they must also offer their customers value for money, or else they will loose market share.
I'll have to see it to believe it. There is bound to be a catch to this strategy -- probably something to do with patents. M$ is shiftier than a 10 speed clutch. After all, it would be totally irresponsible of them to just give away some of their valuable monopoly power for nothing. A new version of Office with a truly open file format would allow customers to get off of the infamous M$ treadmill: they'd feel free to move to an alternative office suite and still be able to make use of the new, open M$ document format. As a result, sales and profits would decline noticeably. The stockholders wouldn't like that. And since M$ has always put the interests of their stockholders before those of their customers, you (and the stockholders) can bank on reality turning out differently from the hype.
If a computer store sells software, it only sells software that most people want. Sure, today this practice only helps to perpetuate demand for Windows, but with the nice profit margins involved, the dealers don't care. The computer retail business is cut-throat with little room for idealism. Offering support for products for which there is little demand and no profit makes no business sense. It might if the number of systems being sold is large enough, but then we wouldn't be talking about a local dealer.
No, as an OSS advocate myself, I don't believe we can expect our local PC retailers to help up us break the Windows monopoly any time soon. Right now, I think the only way we can hope to do that is by influencing demand first... such as by making more OSS solutions like Firefox that seem cool to the average user. If, for instance, at some point enough of these solutions were to exist, and they'd available on both Windows and Linux platforms, then maybe more people wouldn't find it as intimidating to abandon Windows. As a result, eventually even Linux itself would start to look cool. That's the point at which our friendly retailers would start acting diffently.
The MPAA and the RIAA hate anything that might be hurting their profits, regardless of the fact that they're earning more today than ever before. That means they hate the Internet and the consumer electronics industry, but seeing as they can't do anything about that (although they keep trying), they take out their frustrations on their own customers... as if that'll improve anything. Introducing measures like the broadcast flag and suing consumers can only serve to make them more unpopular; it won't change anything and may eventually hurt their profits more than if they did nothing. What they need to do is to offer their customers some satisfactory and affordable legal alternatives to use via the Internet.
If a spam-bot appears that blocks the local POP and IMAP ports and notifies users with a message saying "You cannot recieve email because your ISP is blocking port 25 -- call and request that they unblock it", chances are that the helpdesk will soon be asking the right questions to figure out whether the user is infected with a common virus or not. Sure, helpdesk people may not always be that experienced themselves, but they can usually follow procedures.
Even if this is a unique service and sounds like it's a good idea, I'd rather wait until a competitor comes along with a similar product. Why? Because of what M$ is all about... their reputation proceeds them. For even if the data formats involved are open at first, once they become a success I do not believe that M$ will be able to resist either adding functionality that only works with Windows, or switching to a proprietary format altogether (No, wait! We're giving away the browser for free!).
Well, I suppose this is good news for all us lifers in the IT business, since this means we'll probably do better over the next five years or so, but I think that in the longer term we'll come to see this phenomenon as part of a regular economic cycle, just as in every other profession. However, as opposed to, say, dentists, I think it's safe to say that our profession will always be more dependent upon, or in sync with, the general economic cycle.
I don't think I'd want to buy any secondhand parts off of this guy.
What are we going to have to do to convince "ordinary users" to visit WindowsUpdate once in a while?"
Not much. In my experience, ordinary folks just ain't interested in this issue -- they couldn't be bothered. I always mention it, but invariably get nothing more than a blank look in return. At best they'll show me the way to their PC so that I can do it for them. The problem with Windows is, those updates need to be done regularly.
Will M$ come to the rescue? Maybe, but only if they decide to prioritize security before profit for a while, and I don't see that happening as long as they have no other incentives, such as real competition in the marketplace. And even if some new OS of theirs were to be secure enough to make a difference, that still wouldn't mean that all those "ordinary users" out there would actually go out and buy the upgrade (they wouldn't, because chances are that much of their old software would suddenly stop working).
The other solution would be for us to enter into a period in which most ordinary users would start to get the feeling that FOSS solutions are the way to go. That will be difficult, however, as we will always be up against the marketing might of M$. Ordinary users always end up in stores asking for complete solutions, which is exactly where M$'s marketing muscle reins supreme. Not much we can do about that. Apple might help, but at the moment ordinary users see them as being either too weird or too expensive or both. Personally, I don't think Apple will every be able to make a real dent in M$'s lead unless they decide to port their OS to the PC. But, for Apple, that would be opening a whole new can of worms, and maybe they know better.
Another way for light to appear at the end of the tunnel, would be a combination of the above. On the one hand, this would involve M$, always greedy for higher profits, making itself ever more unpopular by introducing things like Palladium, which they hope will make it virtually impossible for anyone to run anything but software that is properly licensed and paid for. On the other hand, while M$'s software would remain as insecure and unstable as ever, the FOSS alternatives would just keep looking better and better. Eventually, this "carrot and stick" situation would cause increasingly large numbers of long-time Windows users to defect to the other side. It almost sounds inevitble, but at best this will take time (for starters, it looks like Palladium won't be out until after LongTime is launched in late 2006).
Therefore, my feeling is that, since nothing is going to change any time soon anyway, we're just going to have to accommodate the situation (OK, the spammers in this case) for now by adding more and more bandwidth and other resources in order to stay afloat.
In the mean time, our best option is to keep improving and pushing FOSS alternatives. My one "ordinary user" success story was with a family that I had sold a PC with Windows XP to in early 2003. I set up a virus/adware scanners for them at the time, but within a short time their box was riddled with malware anyway. Finally, in October last year the system had become so useless that they came to me again for a solution. Sure, I could re-install for them, but then the chances would be that the problem would quickly repeat itself. My solution was to switch them to Debian sarge and use Win4Lin for those last few Windows programs they couldn't do without. It worked and they've been happy ever since, so I'd like to think that, in general, there is hope for "ordinary users".
Ha! That's beyond them! And even if they had the technology to build something like that, their corrupt corporate ethos would spoil things anyway -- few would trust the results of their search engine. Generally, they're just not a company that inspires trust.
Similarly, I think it will only become increasingly apparent that the technology used in Linux and other leading OSS projects is beyond M$'s technical capabilities. As I see it, it's the underlying philosophy and architecture of Windows, which shuns modularity, that will always hold them back. This will become obvious once again when their much-hyped 'Long Time' OS is launched and it turns out to be just as disappointing as everything else they've produced.
Whoever posted this question could just as easily be an OSS opponent -- someone in the employ of Microsoft, for instance. At any rate, this kind of question is basically FUD. After all, patents are blind and affect commercial software products just the same as they do their OSS counterparts. Remember that Microsoft itself is constantly in court fighting off patent infringement lawsuits. Lucky for them that they have lots of lawyers, but so do governments... especially the US government.
That only means that they wanted to influence the process. Whether or not
they plan to adopt the new format(s) is a completely different issue.
Indeed. I can just imagine how much longer it
would take me to install the regular updates
for my Debian systems if it required me to
reboot for every other package.
... and although Microsoft says that about
Windows these days as well, they'll never be
able to back that up with statistics (unless
they pay the Yankee Group to do the study).
On the other hand, give a nicely configured
Linux workstation to an average user and as
long as their hardware stays healthy they
will never have any major problems.
Give a Linux server to a knowlegable sysadmin
and he'll be able to run a seemingly endless
number of concurrent processes on a single
system without any problems... and they'll
all be able to interoperate... and he won't
have to beg for more money every time a
problem appears (no matter how small) and a
new solution is required... and he'll be
able to sleep at night.
These things I know from years of first-hand
experience. If Open Source were considered
mainstream, we'd all be able to do a lot more
with a lot less.
As an individual user, using Linux can solve
many problems for me, but it's an uphill battle
when market forces conspire to make certain
information and services only available for
Windows users. In many cases this is
completely unnecessary.
Therefore, if Open Source were considered
mainstream, it's much more likely that I'd
be able to have my cake and eat it. And so
would Joe Average, even though right now
he wouldn't know what I'm talking about.
Which is why I see his ignorance as part of
the problem.