This could be used to determine distances very precisely. If we know when that light was emitted and we know the speed of light, then we can calculate with great precision the distance from the star to the reflecting dust cloud.
You also have to account for any differences between the earth-star distance and the earth-cloud distance, but it's still the largest ever radar system.
If they can make superconducting FETs that can be manufactured on ICs, I could see there being a very big difference that will last until they can reach liquid nitrogen temperatures (at which point it goes mainstream and cryogenics turns into a boom industry for a while).
At the very least, the amount of swap should be easily configurable like it is in Linux. I haven't actually used a swap partition in Linux for years, preferring instead to have 6 or 8gb of RAM, which is now cheap.
It is, (Right-click "My Computer")->Properties, "Advanced" tab, "Settings" under Performance, "Advanced" tab, "Change" under "Virtual memory". Almost as easy as "dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1G count=1; swapon swapfile", spclly if u cant spel cuz u txt 2 much.
Isn't that the point, so we can skip the flamebait stories without having to even read the summary, or know that the summary isn't very good? They're no good for finding stories about something (that's what full-text search is for), but they're fairly decent for filtering stories.
Okay, let's get a little perspective here. It's a common meme in the business that Microsoft makes more money selling software to Mac users than Apple makes selling Macs to Mac users. I'm not positive whether that's still true, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was. MS-Office for Mac still costs a king's ransom and still sells like hotcakes at Apple Stores everywhere.
Maybe I'm being naive here, but how could this possibly be true? Even if every single Mac owner bought a copy of Office for every single Mac they owned, wouldn't Microsoft still be making less money by virtue of the fact that Office is (hopefully? I haven't checked) cheaper than the Mac itself?
Assume a mac costs $1000 and has a 5% profit margin.
Assume MS-Office costs $100 and has a 51% profit margin.
Apple gets $50 (net) for each mac sold, while MS gets $51 (net). So MS makes $1 more with 1/10 as much in sales, due to the absurd profit margin having a copyright gives them.
(note that I don't know what the real numbers are, the ones here are made up to show how this could be possible)
It can't, because ease of copying and carrying wasn't the principle in the first place. The principle is that the author and publisher are in control of their works.
How about contacting the copyright holder and getting permission to create/publish the e-book ethically?
Copyright is an entirely unnatural "right" to restrict others' freedom. I say it has no basis in rationality (it could have, except that it doesn't seem to have actually helped to promote any sort of useful progress), so the only link from copyright to ethics is the rather tenuous link between legality and ethics.
This error message is there to show that you can continue as soon as you plug a (USB) keyboard in.
That error message is far older than USB, and I've heard that older keyboards weren't supposed to be hotplugged (even though it never caused any problems for me).
The rules ARE enforceable if you keep most stuff server side, but at the expense of increased latency, higher server load and very poor user experience.
Some of the rules. I'd guess you could make a decent bot with a good camera and something that could pretend to be a USB keyboard.
And the "poor user experience" is what a lot of people are complaining about with webapps, and that's why they are shifting stuff client side.
This is only an issue if read permissions are time-sensitive and changing in real time, which I think is pretty much limited to games. In other cases, client-side prefetching is perfectly OK. Write caching is also OK, either write-back with a save/commit button (which will give an error if the client has been hacked and gotten out of sync with the server) or write-through (where you can asynchronously get an error and have your change locally revert one round-trip after you make it).
The constraints can become more difficult to verify on the server once more of the model moves to the client; compare cheating in online multiplayer games.
I thought there were two main issues with cheating, that the client is given data it isn't permitted to use (because you can't have a round-trip just to find out what suddenly popped out from behind that wall), and that alternate input methods aren't considered fair (you have to use mouse/keyboard/joystick, no scripts or bots). It has nothing to do with data integrity, it has to do with unenforceable rules that could be violated with a network sniffer and camera driving a fake mouse and keyboard.
If you do most of the stuff client side that could mean the server has to figure out what are valid _end_ states from tons of possible intermediate states. Sometimes that might not be possible.
Why? I'd think the server would just need to know "is this client permitted to view/modify that data", which really has nothing to do with any intermediate states. All it has to care about is who the client has authenticated as, and what the (entirely server-side) permission database says.
The thing that causes monopolies in a free market is
Lobbying for government protection of the current (competitively successful) leaders, so that they can rest on their laurels instead of remaining competitive.
But with a great amount US GDP currently being derived from services and intellectual properties which include such processes, is there no benefit from awarding inventors if the only aspect of their invention is algorithmic in nature?
Will that actually increase the number/quality of such inventions? Will it perhaps actually reduce innovation by turning it into a legal minefield? I've run across a book Against Intellectual Monopoly (free PDF) that I'm currently reading, one of the points is that historically patents (and apparently copyright) have in fact pretty much never increased innovation and often appear to hurt it a bit.
I only ask because I'm a computer engineer and entrepreneur by trade and see the investment I make (time and money) developing systems which do not have current peers, and without some mechanism for allowing early market development I would probably never be able to recoup that cost.
You understand what you're making, so you should have a higher quality product. You also have a bit of a head start, since reverse engineering takes time.
Better still, a separate report issued yesterday by Ofcom revealed that the majority of broadband users had no idea about the speed of their connection anyway.
In other words, nobody cares.
My bet is that these are closely related. If consumers knew about their comparatively low speed connection (i.e., knew enough to know they should care and how to figure it out) then they'd be pushing for faster speeds. They'd leave providers who are providing "slow broadband" and move to better ones, and the screwups would have to get right or get out of the broadband business.
To what purpose? Are high internet speeds really that good for winning dicksize contests among "normal" people?
But your average Peter Pint doesn't know enough to know better. (Hey, I'm not putting down you folks over the pond--the average Joe Sixpack thinks broadband is a woman's belt)
Just my two cents
Unfortunately, you're probably right. If they did know better they'd go for faster speeds (or not) based on noticing that the slower speeds weren't good enough, rather than marketing hype and your "bigger (faster) is better".
This costs $22/GB, and has a write speed of 170 MB/s. A 2GB stick of DDR2-800 costs $12-$20/GB, and has a speed of 6400MB/s. So we have a case where slow storage actually costs more than much faster (but less permanent) storage. I wonder how much a couple extra batteries would cost...
Still countries, in general, make the silliest things illegal. Child porn is one thing, and that is reprehensible, but simply criticizing the state?
Isn't anything that looks vaguely like CP illegal? Even if it's entirely computer generated ("No children were harmed in the making of this film.")? Seems kinda silly to me to "protect children" by banning certain uses of graphics software (especially if the GC videos are substitute goods for things that do involve harm to real children, which seems reasonably likely)...
Slashdot Mirror
This could be used to determine distances very precisely. If we know when that light was emitted and we know the speed of light, then we can calculate with great precision the distance from the star to the reflecting dust cloud.
You also have to account for any differences between the earth-star distance and the earth-cloud distance, but it's still the largest ever radar system.
If they can make superconducting FETs that can be manufactured on ICs, I could see there being a very big difference that will last until they can reach liquid nitrogen temperatures (at which point it goes mainstream and cryogenics turns into a boom industry for a while).
At the very least, the amount of swap should be easily configurable like it is in Linux. I haven't actually used a swap partition in Linux for years, preferring instead to have 6 or 8gb of RAM, which is now cheap.
It is, (Right-click "My Computer")->Properties, "Advanced" tab, "Settings" under Performance, "Advanced" tab, "Change" under "Virtual memory". Almost as easy as "dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1G count=1; swapon swapfile", spclly if u cant spel cuz u txt 2 much.
Isn't that the point, so we can skip the flamebait stories without having to even read the summary, or know that the summary isn't very good? They're no good for finding stories about something (that's what full-text search is for), but they're fairly decent for filtering stories.
Windows sucks and there's your proof.
Only from a certain point of view.
Many corporate IT departments apparently have a different point of view, which I've heard is based on things related to Active Directory.
Okay, let's get a little perspective here. It's a common meme in the business that Microsoft makes more money selling software to Mac users than Apple makes selling Macs to Mac users. I'm not positive whether that's still true, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was. MS-Office for Mac still costs a king's ransom and still sells like hotcakes at Apple Stores everywhere.
Maybe I'm being naive here, but how could this possibly be true? Even if every single Mac owner bought a copy of Office for every single Mac they owned, wouldn't Microsoft still be making less money by virtue of the fact that Office is (hopefully? I haven't checked) cheaper than the Mac itself?
Assume a mac costs $1000 and has a 5% profit margin.
Assume MS-Office costs $100 and has a 51% profit margin.
Apple gets $50 (net) for each mac sold, while MS gets $51 (net). So MS makes $1 more with 1/10 as much in sales, due to the absurd profit margin having a copyright gives them.
(note that I don't know what the real numbers are, the ones here are made up to show how this could be possible)
/offtopic:
What exactly does that code in your sig do? I can tell it's an infinite loop, but of what? My computer doesn't seem to like it very much ;)
A Linux system call table might help.
It is our duty as citizens to follow the laws, to follow the moral contract made by our ancestors who founded the country
which of course they took care to do in a manner which was entirely within the law.
Piracy is stealing. Stealing is unethical. End of Debate.
Piracy is more "armed robbery" than "stealing", but has nothing to do with copyright violation which is an entirely different set of laws.
It can't, because ease of copying and carrying wasn't the principle in the first place. The principle is that the author and publisher are in control of their works.
I thought the original principle was censorship ("An Act for preventing the frequent Abuses in printing seditious treasonable and unlicensed Bookes and Pamphlets and for regulating of Printing and Printing Presses").
"If there is no God, then all is permitted." - Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov.
Some things are clearly not permitted. To obtain a demonstration, go rob a bank or kill your neighbor or something.
So what's your take on God's existence?
It would appear that law (and more generally, collective self-preservation) cause God to exist.
How about contacting the copyright holder and getting permission to create/publish the e-book ethically?
Copyright is an entirely unnatural "right" to restrict others' freedom. I say it has no basis in rationality (it could have, except that it doesn't seem to have actually helped to promote any sort of useful progress), so the only link from copyright to ethics is the rather tenuous link between legality and ethics.
You do realize in both ways, the creator gets nothing. So where exactly is the problem?
Our (counterproductive) intellectual monopoly laws make one way illegal, which has apparently been confused with making it unethical/immoral.
Fix the stupid laws that make this kind of thing ever come up. But this is rather impractical and takes forever, so in the meantime just do whatever.
This error message is there to show that you can continue as soon as you plug a (USB) keyboard in.
That error message is far older than USB, and I've heard that older keyboards weren't supposed to be hotplugged (even though it never caused any problems for me).
Ars Technica points out that Greenpeace's research isn't quite up-to-snuff, and it's also worth noting that Greenpeace admitted to targeting Apple for the publicity in the past.
Why was this posted, then?
The rules ARE enforceable if you keep most stuff server side, but at the expense of increased latency, higher server load and very poor user experience.
Some of the rules. I'd guess you could make a decent bot with a good camera and something that could pretend to be a USB keyboard.
And the "poor user experience" is what a lot of people are complaining about with webapps, and that's why they are shifting stuff client side.
This is only an issue if read permissions are time-sensitive and changing in real time, which I think is pretty much limited to games. In other cases, client-side prefetching is perfectly OK. Write caching is also OK, either write-back with a save/commit button (which will give an error if the client has been hacked and gotten out of sync with the server) or write-through (where you can asynchronously get an error and have your change locally revert one round-trip after you make it).
The constraints can become more difficult to verify on the server once more of the model moves to the client; compare cheating in online multiplayer games.
I thought there were two main issues with cheating, that the client is given data it isn't permitted to use (because you can't have a round-trip just to find out what suddenly popped out from behind that wall), and that alternate input methods aren't considered fair (you have to use mouse/keyboard/joystick, no scripts or bots). It has nothing to do with data integrity, it has to do with unenforceable rules that could be violated with a network sniffer and camera driving a fake mouse and keyboard.
If you do most of the stuff client side that could mean the server has to figure out what are valid _end_ states from tons of possible intermediate states. Sometimes that might not be possible.
Why? I'd think the server would just need to know "is this client permitted to view/modify that data", which really has nothing to do with any intermediate states. All it has to care about is who the client has authenticated as, and what the (entirely server-side) permission database says.
The thing that causes monopolies in a free market is
Lobbying for government protection of the current (competitively successful) leaders, so that they can rest on their laurels instead of remaining competitive.
But with a great amount US GDP currently being derived from services and intellectual properties which include such processes, is there no benefit from awarding inventors if the only aspect of their invention is algorithmic in nature?
Will that actually increase the number/quality of such inventions? Will it perhaps actually reduce innovation by turning it into a legal minefield? I've run across a book Against Intellectual Monopoly (free PDF) that I'm currently reading, one of the points is that historically patents (and apparently copyright) have in fact pretty much never increased innovation and often appear to hurt it a bit.
I only ask because I'm a computer engineer and entrepreneur by trade and see the investment I make (time and money) developing systems which do not have current peers, and without some mechanism for allowing early market development I would probably never be able to recoup that cost.
You understand what you're making, so you should have a higher quality product. You also have a bit of a head start, since reverse engineering takes time.
In other words, nobody cares.
My bet is that these are closely related. If consumers knew about their comparatively low speed connection (i.e., knew enough to know they should care and how to figure it out) then they'd be pushing for faster speeds. They'd leave providers who are providing "slow broadband" and move to better ones, and the screwups would have to get right or get out of the broadband business.
To what purpose? Are high internet speeds really that good for winning dicksize contests among "normal" people?
But your average Peter Pint doesn't know enough to know better. (Hey, I'm not putting down you folks over the pond--the average Joe Sixpack thinks broadband is a woman's belt)
Just my two cents
Unfortunately, you're probably right. If they did know better they'd go for faster speeds (or not) based on noticing that the slower speeds weren't good enough, rather than marketing hype and your "bigger (faster) is better".
This costs $22/GB, and has a write speed of 170 MB/s. A 2GB stick of DDR2-800 costs $12-$20/GB, and has a speed of 6400MB/s. So we have a case where slow storage actually costs more than much faster (but less permanent) storage. I wonder how much a couple extra batteries would cost...
Still countries, in general, make the silliest things illegal. Child porn is one thing, and that is reprehensible, but simply criticizing the state?
Isn't anything that looks vaguely like CP illegal? Even if it's entirely computer generated ("No children were harmed in the making of this film.")? Seems kinda silly to me to "protect children" by banning certain uses of graphics software (especially if the GC videos are substitute goods for things that do involve harm to real children, which seems reasonably likely)...
Wasn't there also an issue of running out of people to make bad loans to (ie, a pyramid collapse)?