OK, 100 cubic feet sounds like a lot, but... v==(4*pi*r**3)/3, which gives r=((3*v)/(4*pi))**(1/3), so 100 cubic feet fits in a sphere a bit under 2.9 feet in radius. Darn, darn, darn. Even if you stretch it out in a blimp-like ellipsoid, that's still one big balloon:-(
I suppose that 4 pounds includes the structure of the balloon, to. Oh, well. Someone's just going to have to invent antigravity. --
Do you have any idea how much air pressure
we're talking about in order to sustain a relatively heavy object in a 1 gee field? Hovering? On air pressure? You'd be able to hear the fan a
mile away! The air coming out the bottom of your SonyFlyingDroid would blow a hole in the floor!
Nah, just hang it from a helium balloon. Like a little autonomous mini-blimp. It prolly wouldn't work outside (even full sized blimps head for cover in heavy weather), but indoors it would be mondo cool:-D --
<karma-whore>
Robert Cringely did a couple of articles (here and here) on using 802.11b to get broad-band to his (relatively remote) house.
</karma-whore>
On the good-for-ISP side of the equation, it sounds like this could be a very simple solution to the "last mile" problem...
--
Those who appealed to the chimney effect - hot air rising within the shower causes cool air to come in from below. This
hypothesis can be readily defeated by taking a cold shower and observing that the curtain billows nonetheless.
I've always found this particular refutation rather unconvincing. You'd be surprised how warm the water in a so-called "cold" shower is. Remember that your body heat is normally ~100F -- I'd be willing to bet that most cold showers don't go south of 90F. Which means that unless the "cold shower" experiment is performed on a very warm day, it's quite likely the water temp is still over the ambient air temp.
<wag-about-the-future>
Within the next, say, 100 years (prolly a lot sooner than that), we'll have the ability to release millions, even billions of nano-probes into the atmosphere and oceans (c.f. Stephenson's The Diamond Age). The air-borne probes can measure temperature, windspeed, and humidity. The water-borne probes can measure water temperature, currents, evaporation.
Now imagine all these probes sending their observations back (in real time, perhaps using each other as repeaters to carry the signal) to a centralized data storage and analysis facility.
Now imagine a massively parallel computer running simulations based on these observations... As another poster observed, there are bound to be limitations on any system that doesn't have perfect observations at infinitely fine granularity. Whatever those limitations are, I suspect we are not too far from finding out what they are.
</wag-about-the-future>
(for those who are wondering, "wag" is a technical term used in estimating -- it stands for Wild-@$$ Guess)
There's your mistake. You bought pre-packaged computer. Any time you do that, you get a lot of extra "free" stuff (where "free" means the cost of it is rolled into the base price).
I've bought (the parts for) my last two machines at Computer Renassance (that's compren.com for the url/spelling challenged). I put together the hardware I wanted at the price I wanted to pay, and didn't buy any software I didn't want.
I have no connection with them except as a satisfied customer.
--
It seems the only method of making money the FSF considers acceptable is requesting donations.
Well, why not? It works for pbs...
[root@localhost]# gcc my-31337-code.c
Wow, that's a really great compile! We'll be
right back for the assembler and linker, but first, wouldn't you like to make a donation to the FSF (Y/n)?
It's just an attempt by Intel for further system dependency on the processor at the expense of performance.
Why on earth would Intel want to do that? It seems to me that the best strategy for any CPU manufacturer would be to move toward autonomous peripherals, so that CPU cycles can be used for stuff like rendering triangles and bitmapped textures...
[Firewire] supports isochronous transfers
So does USB 1.1. Granted, not at the same bandwidth, but it's there.
William Evans, of Clark University's Dept. of Computer Science wrote:
Computer scientists study the branch of mathematics dealing with computation.
Yeah, just like Engineers study the branch of mathematics dealing with building stuff.
You would think a guy in an actual Computer Science department would know better. CS is more than just math with computers (at least, it was in the schools I went to...)
tenure'd professors fear of accessing their home directories and pillaging it for whatever it's worth.
Which, if it was anything like where I went to school, could be worth quite a lot. The department system was used to hold files containing such sensative material as student grades, upcoming exams, etc, etc.
Being root means (indirectly) having read (and write!) access to all that. That's a bigger conflict of interest than any student (no matter how honest and well-meaning) should be subject to.
The ballots were put up for public review before the elections. They were published in the newspapers, and mailed to every registered voter. That was the time to say "hey, this is poorly designed", or "hey, this doesn't comply with FL law".
Now, to be sure, the design of the ballots left a lot to be desired. But UI design is hard, and people who are good at it don't generally find themselves working in local government.
No matter what the ballot design is, there's going to be some voters that get it wrong. It's actually remarkable that as many voters managed to deal with it without a problem...
The Democrats have some points in their favor, but the ballot design is IMO the weakest.
This is a key point; one that often seems to be
overlooked. I'd be willing to believe we've got enough computer power to match a mouse's brain. And there seems to be no evidence that we've reached the end-point of Moore's law.
But even supposing we have the equivalent raw power of a mouse's brain, it doesn't mean a thing if we don't have a clue how a mouse's brain works.
So, we're left wondering which of [Java the Language and Java bytecode/JVM], if any, or both, Sun plans to "open source"...
The language and the bytecode are already open, in the sense that you are free to create an open source compiler and JVM (c.f. kaffe.org for an effort already well underway).
The software Sun makes available for download, OTOH, is most definitely not Open Source (at least, not yet).
Who wouldn't surf over to www.slashdot.likeItUsedToBe, www.kuro5hin.likeItUsedToBe, www.deja-news.likeItUsedToBe,
or even www.theWholeDamnWeb.likeItUsedToBe?
Back in '95, I rode a flight on Southwest Airlines. They had a small LCD screen on the back of every seat. I don't remember it's full capabilities, but you could do stuff like check stock quotes, and read news stories (about like dailynews.yahoo.com).
Of course, it wasn't the internet; you couldn't browse to a random URL, and (IIRC) there was no email facility.
Tenzing [...] is offering a "cached" or prepackaged Internet stored in an on-board server computer
Gah. This idea is hopelessly broken. How are you going to cache Google? The most interesting parts of the web (like every search engine) generate content on-demand...
The nondisclosure agreements were apparently offered with a claim that signing them would bolster Sun's commitment to resolving the problem quickly
How could anyone believe this? The overwhelming evidence is that nothing motivates big companies to action like the threat of impending negative publicity.
security can't be improved unless "gray hat" hackers stop disclosing security holes to the public and stop creating tools for so-called "script kiddies" to exploit the holes.
So CERT is a "gray hat hacker" site in the same league as people who write root kits? Not hardly.
This is FUD, pure and simple. There's nothing gray about CERT (they provide a legitimate and valuable service). And there's nothing gray about rootkits or the people who write them (there's no legitimite purpose rootkits can be put to)
Slashdot Mirror
hallo 192.168.1.1, how 'bout a nice juicy apple?
--
I have no fin
no wing no stinger
no claw no camouflage
I have no more to say...
- an airtight container to hold it
- capable of withstanding 15psi (i.e. external atmospheric pressure)
- that isn't so heavy it negates the lift of the vacuum
I'm not a materials scientist, but AFAIK, we don't have anything to fit the bill.--
--
I suppose that 4 pounds includes the structure of the balloon, to. Oh, well. Someone's just going to have to invent antigravity.
--
--
--
Robert Cringely did a couple of articles (here and here) on using 802.11b to get broad-band to his (relatively remote) house. </karma-whore>
On the good-for-ISP side of the equation, it sounds like this could be a very simple solution to the "last mile" problem...
--
--
Within the next, say, 100 years (prolly a lot sooner than that), we'll have the ability to release millions, even billions of nano-probes into the atmosphere and oceans (c.f. Stephenson's The Diamond Age). The air-borne probes can measure temperature, windspeed, and humidity. The water-borne probes can measure water temperature, currents, evaporation.
Now imagine all these probes sending their observations back (in real time, perhaps using each other as repeaters to carry the signal) to a centralized data storage and analysis facility.
Now imagine a massively parallel computer running simulations based on these observations... As another poster observed, there are bound to be limitations on any system that doesn't have perfect observations at infinitely fine granularity. Whatever those limitations are, I suspect we are not too far from finding out what they are.
</wag-about-the-future>
(for those who are wondering, "wag" is a technical term used in estimating -- it stands for Wild-@$$ Guess)
--
Notable amendments not in the first 10 are #13 (abolished slavery), #19 (allows women to vote), and #21 (repeals prohibition)
-y
--
I've bought (the parts for) my last two machines at Computer Renassance (that's compren.com for the url/spelling challenged). I put together the hardware I wanted at the price I wanted to pay, and didn't buy any software I didn't want.
I have no connection with them except as a satisfied customer.
--
--
Am I livin' in SCIENTIFIC COMFORT yet?
</zippy>
--
-y
You would think a guy in an actual Computer Science department would know better. CS is more than just math with computers (at least, it was in the schools I went to...)
-y
- I can minimize all windows, including ones running under classic
- I have a real task bar (and no, the "Dock" is not a real task bar)
- A user-customizable application menu and recent documents menu are essential
-yBeing root means (indirectly) having read (and write!) access to all that. That's a bigger conflict of interest than any student (no matter how honest and well-meaning) should be subject to.
-y
-y
- The ballots were put up for public review before the elections. They were published in the newspapers, and mailed to every registered voter. That was the time to say "hey, this is poorly designed", or "hey, this doesn't comply with FL law".
- Now, to be sure, the design of the ballots left a lot to be desired. But UI design is hard, and people who are good at it don't generally find themselves working in local government.
- No matter what the ballot design is, there's going to be some voters that get it wrong. It's actually remarkable that as many voters managed to deal with it without a problem...
The Democrats have some points in their favor, but the ballot design is IMO the weakest.-y
But even supposing we have the equivalent raw power of a mouse's brain, it doesn't mean a thing if we don't have a clue how a mouse's brain works.
-y
The language and the bytecode are already open, in the sense that you are free to create an open source compiler and JVM (c.f. kaffe.org for an effort already well underway).
The software Sun makes available for download, OTOH, is most definitely not Open Source (at least, not yet).
-y
It's a winner.
Who wouldn't surf over to www.slashdot.likeItUsedToBe, www.kuro5hin.likeItUsedToBe, www.deja-news.likeItUsedToBe, or even www.theWholeDamnWeb.likeItUsedToBe?Of course, it wasn't the internet; you couldn't browse to a random URL, and (IIRC) there was no email facility.
Gah. This idea is hopelessly broken. How are you going to cache Google? The most interesting parts of the web (like every search engine) generate content on-demand...-y
-y
This is FUD, pure and simple. There's nothing gray about CERT (they provide a legitimate and valuable service). And there's nothing gray about rootkits or the people who write them (there's no legitimite purpose rootkits can be put to)
-y