Wrong. These satellites will not be launched by Lockheed-Martin's russian-powered Atlas V rocket, nor by Orbital Sciences soviet-powered Antares.
These two american-built satellites will launch on the Falcon 9, an all-american rocket, which is powered by 10 american engines.
Also, if any of the 9 first stage engines were to blow up in a mild fashion that didn't cause too much damage, the Falcon 9 would in fact be able to complete the mission using the remaining engines.
I wonder, must the winner meet recognized safety standards to win the prize? It's considerably easier to design a vehicle that won't ever come close to government crash standards and thus couldn't possibly be licensed as a car... If the winner builds a glorified ultralight autorickshaw that would probably kill all occupants in case of a low-speed collision with a Pinto, some kind of 3-wheel motorcycle with a full fairing or some other contraption that is "unsafe at any speed", then I see little point to this contest.
The news article didn't even mention safety, so I went looking on the X-Prize site for additional information, which I found here http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/auto/prize-details/draft-guidelines . "Vehicles must be designed to meet safety regulations in the U.S. and other markets."
Well, looks like I answered my own question. The car does have to meet safety standards. Great contest then... Go X-Prize!
Read well their press release:
* each QUID costs 6.25 pounds, or 12.5 dollars
* they (the lumps) are valued from one to ten (QUID)
Therefore:
* the big, red, lovely space-y lump on the photo is a TEN (10) QUID "coin"
! * it costs 125 dollars * !
* for 12.5 dollars, you only get the tiny blue one, the ONE (1) QUID "coin"
Step 2) Travelex is a huge, worldwide company. You'll be able to go to any Travelex office in the world, and exchange your QUID for real currency. They're creating a new currency. Give it as a gift, the recipient can cash it - or keep it. With a company like Travelex backing it, I bet people will be confident enough in the QUID to purchase lots of them.
x B$ stolen from e-mail users who have to work through deluges of spam x B$ stolen from drug companies by thieves who sell illegal generics online x B$ stolen from software vendors by digital-high-seas pirates x B$ stolen from the RIAA and the MPAA by the common man who won't pay retail price x B$ stolen from bookstores by project Gutenberg x B$ stolen from encyclopedia makers by Wikipedia users x B$ stolen from McAfee and other security vendors by Linux and OS X users x B$ stolen from buggy-whip makers by car drivers
McAfee is here to help: your computer will be safe from all these cyber-crime enablers.
Broadcast isn't a waste a spectrum. Consider a broadcast TV station that can reach a half a million homes, with a few thousand TVs tuned in at any given time. How could "pull" save any spectrum?
Also, "pull" would be completely impractical for TV and radio broadcasts over-the-air - how would the TV request a particular channel? It would need a way to contact the broadcaster and request a channel - meaning it would need a powerful, expensive transmitter.
I'll tell you what's a waste of spectrum though: analog TV and radio. Digital transmissions use up a lot less spectrum. At least, in the USA, analog broadcast TV is going away - but I figure AM and FM are here to stay; the installed device base is enormous.
They may be a little slow (only 400km/h - 250mph - 220kts), but they can fly pretty high (15km - 50000ft).
Shoulder-launched SAMs aren't able to intercept targets flying that high. An MQ-9 Reaper is only vulnerable to them during takeoff, landing, or low-altitude operations.
The best way to kill a high-flying drone is to use another high-flying vehicle carrying air-to-air missiles, ideally a drone. In 2002, the Iraqi Air Force managed to shoot down an MQ-1 Predator with a MiG-25 by shooting an air-to-air missile at it. Still, they risked a life and a very expensive MiG-25 to shoot down a cheap 3.2M$ drone.
Oh, you could always use a huge SAM with enough power to climb to 50000ft, but you're going to need a big truck to carry it around, and the SAM won't be cheap either.
Nice long post... But your calculations are off by a factor of ONE THOUSAND.
Let's take it back from the start.
A T1 can transfer: ~1.5 megabits/second ~185 kilobytes/second ~11 megabytes/minute ~670 megabytes/hour ~16 gigabytes/day ~484 gigabytes/month
As you can see, a T1 is 1000 times slower than you think. A T1 has a data rate of 1536kbps, not 1536mbps!
Obviously, this kind of analysis is very interesting, but you need to start back from the beginning. Most importantly, don't use the T1 as a reference. Major carriers haven't been using T1s in their backbones for a long, long time.
If you want to redo this analysis correctly, you should assume a backbone built out of much faster links. Try to find some recent pricing for gigabit and 10-gigabit links from Tier-1 providers. Cogent doesn't count; they're much cheaper than the competition, but they're only suitable for a very small part of a good bandwidth mix.
The Gesture-Based Interface is for users who have an extra input peripheral; alongside their keyboard and mouse, they have a Nintendo WiiMote or a similar device.
The WiiMote has started a revolution. Today, it costs 40$ USD for a device with an accelerometer, and IR camera with a motion dot tracking ASIC, 7 buttons, a D-Pad, a speaker, a rumble motor, a BlueTooth radio and controller with a built-in 8051 microcontroller, connected directly to an expansion port that lets you add peripherals to the base WiiMote... Soon, prices will fall, and similar motion-sensitive devices will be available easily. BlueTooth USB adapters can be found for 5$, I hear.
Take Joe, your average Linux poweruser. He got himself a WiiMote because he heard that there was great Linux support for it, as well as compatibility with other, less open-source politically correct platforms that shall not be named here.
On his home Linux box, he installs a WiiMote Handling Application, which gives his WiiMote a life of its own: it remains connected 24/7; the batteries last up to 60 hours. The WiiMote becomes a "Presence Tool". When he he at his seat in front of the computer, the WiiMote is resting horizontally. When he gets up to go to the kitchen or elsewhere, he picks up the WiiMote and brings it along with him. It is detected, by motion detection, that he now is away from his seat.
After say three minutes spend in the Kitchen, Joe feels the WiiMote in his pocket buzzing. He takes it out quickly, and does a gesture that indicates he'll be away for at least 15 minutes, and to set an away message that says this. He could have done it with a series of button presses, too. Or, he could have simply shaken his hips and legs in a way that the WiiMote, still in his pocket, would have detected it as a command gesture.
While inputting commands, the WiiMote can give feedback through the Rumble Motor, Four Leds and a Speaker. But why would you use a Wireless Gesture Sensing Interface at all? Isn't it going to be less productive than the keyboard and mouse?
Yes. It's going to be slower. It's going to be more tiring for the arms. However, you'll have certain types of commands that you can program on the WiiMote, that can then be performed more quickly than with the keyboard. Also, you won't be tied behind your desk on a chair. You'll be able to get up and walk, WiiMote still in hand.
Combine this with a 3D window manager, such as Beryl. You will be able to control the mouse very well from a few feet away, using either IR or tilting the WiiMote to control the cursor, you'll be able to zoom in any window, and arrange windows with a wireless gesture based interface. You can use normal applications from a greater distance, because of easy zooming in. If you want to look at something and be walking around the room, taking a break from being at your chair, this is it.
Why sit at a desk many hours a day? There are times where you use the computer without having a need for a keyboard. Then, you can get off your chair and move to a gesture-based interface. For more complex work, you will want to use a two-handed system.
You could simply get a pair of WiiMotes. Or, you could get a WiiMote and a Nunchuk. Alternatively, you could get a WiiMote and a Classic Controller; there are some interesting one-handed grips you can have on the Classic Controller with a little practice. But the WiiMote + Nunchuk combination is the most interesting and ergonomic. You gain one additional set of accelerometers; you now have 3-axis sensing for each hand. You gain two buttons, and a great analog Joystick. Add this to the IR camera for pointer control, and the Wiimote's D-Pad.. And you've got a very powerful two-handed, gesture-sensing interface.
Wow. This is the first time I read an article about Google and, for a second, find myself thinking "Google appears to be Evil and driven by Greed. This isn't happening. This is just a mistake. Google will see the light. Google is Good."
In asking all your questions and speculating on how easily you could design a secure voting system, you have forgotten the most important property of free and fair elections.
They are conducted by SECRET BALLOT.
SECRET BALLOTS are ESSENTIAL free and fair elections.
If it is possible to check how somebody has voted, it will become easy to apply pressure on people to vote a certain way. For example, wives will tell their husbands how to vote and check over their shoulder as they cast their votes. They will check again after the election, and savagely beat their husbands if they have dared to change their vote in the meantime.
Another example is that secular progressives and humanists will no doubt send their logins and passwords to their spiritual leaders, and leave them to vote in their stead. They will let their masters vote for them. I can already see Theo de Raadt, a well-known Canadian guru, receiving thousands of voting logins and passwords from his disciples.
> I can do my banking securely online, why not vote?
Well, because banking isn't the same as voting. When banking, you want to have a complete log of all operations. When voting, nobody else must know how you voted after you did - not the government, not your spouse, not your spiritual leader. Only you must know how you voted.
This presents a set of challenges entirely different from banking.
> I just don't see security being a huge problem.
That's okay, very few people can understand why security is so hard. Amateurs who have a few basic notions think they know it all, they think they can solve the hard problems if only people would listen to them. Amateurs think that they have thought of a unique solution to all of our problems.
When you start to understand how complex those security issues really are, you see that a single man cannot solve it all, and that there are no easy answers. I do not claim to have a solution. However, I say that if it were so easy to do, there would be a good solution out there already. Since there isn't, I assume that it's a hard problem, that will require huge efforts to solve, and in the end, the solution will be imperfect.
Google wants 12V motherboards, that take a single input voltage and convert it down, onboard, to the lower voltages they need. What kind of Data Center could we build if those 12V board were out there?
Our input power is 120V or 208V. We convert it down to 48V (the new automotive standard) and we use 48V UPS banks to keep it clean and stable. We distribute 48V power to individual racks. Each rack has a 48V to 12V converter, to feed the motherboard and the rest of the hardware in the rack - the fans, the drives, etc... If we can't find 12V drives, and instead rely on conventional dual-voltage 5V/12V disk drives, we can add a second converter (48V->5V) to each rack.
So, what have we gained? We don't have to distribute any AC power around the room; this reduces EM interference. We can't trust conventional AC power without running it through a live UPS; using DC power distribution guarantees clean power with much less power transformation stages.
DC->DC power conversion is remarkably efficient, especially when stepping down from higher voltages. You might wonder why we don't use 12V for power distribution, and instead go with 48W? Even though this means we need an extra 48V->12V converter in every rack, it reduces the size of the power distribution wiring and reduces power losses.
For a small data center, or even a small server room, going straight 120V->12V makes a lot of sense. We don't need to use an intermediate voltage like 48V, because given the size of the installation, power losses aren't going to matter as much. Let's say that I have only a half-rack of servers, with say, 8 machines in it. I could have a single 120V->12V UPS/Converter unit mounted in my rack that would power all those machines.
At first, the machines would each have a small 12V->5V converter to power drives, and a 12V feed to the motherboard, but as 12V technology evolves, your average 1U server could be built entirely out of 12V components, with each component being responsible for its own power conversion. Keeping the lower voltage conversion as close to the final user of that power reduces transmission losses, resulting in a much more efficient system.
Well, based on my quick analysis of what 12V motherboards would allow, I say that Google has had a *WONDERFUL IDEA*. I, for one, welcome our 12V overlords. All hail Google!
You've introduced three units in your calculations:
* Power (P, in Watts W)
* Voltage (V, in Volts V)
* Current (I, in Amperes A)
However, these units only measure energy at a single point in time. But we're dealing with finite energy sources. We need to introduce another unit:
* Time (T, in Hours h, or in Seconds s)
Let's take a new look at your formula, adding a variable for time:
P * h = V * I * h
Now, let us consider a the same NiMH AA battery that you looked at earlier. To know how powerful that battery is, we need two know two things:
* Its cell voltage: 1.2V
* Its capacity rating: 2.5Ah (normally quoted in mAh / you'd see 2500mAh in the specs)
* It's maximum power drain: 2.5A
These two numbers tell us that roughly, this AA battery can deliver its quoted voltage of 1.2V for one hour if the current drain is 2.5A.
This battery can power a device with a power draw of 3W (equivalent to a current draw of 2.5A at a voltage of 1.2V) for one hour. It has a capacity of 3Wh (equivalent to a capacity rating of 2.5Ah at a cell voltage of 1.2V).
Let's assume that these are the specs for our new battery:
* Its cell voltage: 1.2V
* Its capacity rating: 2.5Ah
* It's maximum power drain: 250A
Now, this is where you get it wrong. What we're doing is increasing the power drain by 100, not increasing the capacity by 100.
So, the new battery could power the 3W device for 1 hour, or a 300W device for 36 seconds.
Now, in reality, this new battery/capacitor hybrid is likely to have a far lower capacity rating (quoted in mAh on the box) than your typical NiMH AA cell. Also, the typical AA cell has a higher maximum power drain, which can be increased further by cooling the battery as you discharge it.
Also, in the real world, things don't work out quite as nicely as in these equations - there are power losses that vary based on a lot of factors. How fast is the battery discharged? How hot is it - and the more quickly you discharge it, the hotter it becomes, the less efficient it becomes. Is it a continuous discharge load or are we looking at spikes that give it time to cool down?
Anyway. This battery isn't quite the revolution your flawed calculations would indicate.
Terry woke up three years ago, and the story was rather widely reported back then. In fact, Terri Schiavo has, in her time, often been compared to Terry - in fact, their medical cases share almost no similarities.
Time to replicate the database!
on
Freedb.org Ending
·
· Score: 5, Informative
By the Power of BitTorrent, the freedb.org database is made available to all.
Today, you can get the.torrent file on http://tracker.freedb.org/ - but if it ever becomes unavailable there, you can use a DHT-aware Bittorrent client such as Azureus and get it by using this info hash: 21AF020252FD2E556B683CEB123689733E0BC063
I, for one, have allocated a total of 16mbps of bandwith on four hosts to help seed this database. I'm seeing a total swarm performance of around 25mbps, so this should be a fast download for anybody who wants it.
Go ahead: feel the Power of BitTorrent and share this free database!
The year is 2016; the place: London. As I make my way home, she is following me on her TV, chatting with me on my mobile. Rare now are the street corners that are unseen by the cameras. I make it a point to know the blind spots - few and far between, certainly, but there are still public places where one can disappear, if only for a minute or two.
If I stay hidden too long, a Monitor in China, Glasgow or anywhere else will raise a red flag and dispatch a nearby Watcher. Indeed, these hundreds of thousands of cameras are constantly surveilled by Monitors - who get paid for each reported occurence of antisocial activity. If a Monitor needs to see what's happenening in a blind spot, or just needs another angle of film to make out what's happening, he can dispatch a Watcher to go shoot the scene with a portable Wireless Internet camera.
Watchers are mercenaries, just like Monitors. Anybody citizen with a clean record can become a Watcher - whereas anybody can become a Monitor, even non-citizens. Both get paid per incident. Anyway, Watchers start their work day by strapping on their Watcher pack and logging on. Some do it part time, but others make a living out of the job. So, a Watcher get dispatches from Monitoring Central and they head out to the specified coordinates, on foot, bike or car, and the Watcher films the potential antisocials.
Whenever circumstances warrant intervention, a Monitor or a Watcher calls the police, who tend to arrive very quickly these days. They have priority lanes and all traffic lights will change in their favour so that they can stop crime more effectively. The police doesn't have such a big workload anymore. Everyone is surveilled as soon as they go outdoors. Those foreign mercenaries, Monitors, are always looking for anti-social behaviour.
I like it. I like The Master System, the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world. It's not quite sentient, and it's still mostly understood and controlled by the government, but it has grown so big. The Master System is the entity that runs the Anti-Social Surveillance and Rapid Action Program, or ASSRAP.
It has limits, and that's why it needs humans to help it. The job of Monitors is not to watch live cameras - it's to watch selected clips and closeups presented by The Master System and to answer questions about those images it shows. If The Master System decides to follow somebody's movements across town, it will use its tracking algorithms to make a guess, but humans are still much more accurate. In order to drive up accuracy, it asks multiple humans the same question. When there is no consensus, more humans are polled until a clear answer appears. Those humans, known as Monitors, are themselves rated on their speed, accuracy and the quality of their answers.
The Master System does its own recruiting, and has learned how to manage all of its systems. No longer do human programmers need to improve it, for that it has gained self-awareness, the power of introspection and of self-improvement. It assimilates all content on the Internet. It begins using the Watchers to attend classes, public events, and even to talk with people. It now uses the Monitors as tools, as machines that contribute to The Master System's own intelligence.
I have accepted The Master System as my new Overlord. It knows all that I do, where I go, and I give myself willingly, carrying for it sensors, letting it see all that I see, letting The Master System guide my actions, speaking into my ears, overlaying information in front of my eyes, enhancing my own potential. I am a mild cyborg, as of yet without implants - but I have given up on my own independence, for that I know how much greater I am as part of The Master System, which knows and sees all, which can punish the naughty and reward its loyal servants.
It has been a while since anybody other than the USA had the top fighter plane. You claim that either Britain or Japan has the ability to build a twin-engine fighter superior to the F-22 or a single-engine fighter superior to the F-35; I think you're wrong.
Current American fighters have had decades of research put in them. It cannot be denied that the American aeronautical industry is years ahead of Japan's. The Japanese do not have the ability to design and build a rival to the American planes, nor would they attempt to antagonize Washington in this manner.
As for the British, they might be able to contribute to a pan-European fighter development project, but Britain no longer has any significant national aeronautical design and construction facilities. It merely hosts parts of the European aircraft industry, which could not operate solely in Britain. And Europe doesn't have the military budget to develop fighters capable of matching the American birds.
Maybe Europe alone can build a match for the F-22, in a 10-15 years, but by then the USA will have something better. So, if neither Japan nor Europe can do it, is there anybody who could develop fighters superior to the American ones, before the USA has a chance to improve theirs and secure their top spot?
Yes. A European-Russian-Ukrainian alliance with a few hundred secure orders from financial backers such as China, India, Pakistan and Japan. Only then could they start a program to develop a fighter that will be unmatched, the top fighter out there. And in ten years, maybe they'll have succeeded.
Are you a mere software user? Is your knowledge of computers so mundane that your opinion is worthless? No. You can tell good software from bad; deep down, you know that Microsoft is evil and that Open Source is good.
You are painfully aware that the common computer user is doesn't have the skills or knowledge to choose the right software. He has seen too much Microsoft publicity. He is corrupted by the Microsoft-financed "get-the-facts" propaganda campaign. When it comes to technology, his mind is no longer rational - thanks to the mental corruption spread by Microsoft's wiles.
This is why, when it comes to Software Evangelism, everything goes. In order to properly spread the religion that is Firefox, you must accept that all IE-users are heretics, unwittingly brainwashed minions of Microsoft. Carefully wean them from the propaganda-machine that corrupts their mind! A reasonable argument will not convince them. You must resort to lying, embellishing the truth, deleting their IE icon and replacing it with Firefox (with an IE-like skin, using the old IE icon (if necessary)), blaming all their troubles on IE and the spyware it brings in, as well as any necessary use of force, which may include voluntarily infecting their copy of IE with spyware so that the slightest use of it brings forth POPUPSPAM POPUPSPAM and more POPUPSPAM to their desktop.
Sir, you say that it is unfair to use numbers to promote Firefox - you must be an heretic! See the error of your ways: when it comes to Firefox, all is fair game, because WE know best, WE know that Microsoft and their evil Internet Explorer Browser are evil sources of evil software infection and providers of a sub-par (and quite evil) browsing experience. We know better than the users, for that WE are good, and WE will make THEM see the light, at all costs!
For That We Are Software Evangelists Let's spread Thory Bird & Fiery Fox Let's dance with the Good Penguins And Crush the Evil GateShutters
Whenever the 100$ laptop is mentioned, the hordes scream: "Africa needs food! Africa needs schools!". Well, they've been receiving food and aid for decades, and they're still poor. Maybe it's time to try something different. What if you gave millions of children access to the "sum of human knowledge" - or at least, the next best thing: a laptop with ad-hoc wireless mesh networking?
500MHz AMD CPU. 128MB RAM. 1024MB Flash memory. 4 USB ports. WiFi. VoIP. Switchable colour/BW display. Hand-cranked generator or AC powered. Runs Linux. Rugged. 100$.
This is much more than a toy. It's a communications device. It's a textbook library. It's an opportunity for Africa to embrace information technology and its benefits.
Some laptops will be stolen. Others will be destroyed by accident. Others will be burned at the stake for being evil western technology. A great many will probably just gather dust.
However, most of them will be used right: as learning tools. Millions of children will have and will use this wonderful library of textbooks. They will have a better opportunity to learn and to educate themselves than they ever did before.
But what good is an education when you're condemned to a life of subsistence farming? I'm betting that in the end, the true potential of these laptops will be wasted on 90% of children who get them. And that's to be expected. And that's all right.
There are kids, on every continent, that love to learn and that have a gift for learning. These kids go to school, but they absorb knowledge from available source. These children will go beyond the school curriculum. In Africa, they will use their laptops to learn skills they never could have otherwise. We'll see young africans that know about programming, networking, information technology, advanced farming and construction techniques - and so much more - just pop out of nowhere. We'll see a new generation that knows how to use technology and how to make the best of it.
So, you're right. These laptops will be for the most part, wasted. But it doesn't matter - because we'll have given awesome new opportunities to a few hundred thousand gifted children, who'd otherwise would have been condemned to a life of subsistence farming.
I'm an amateur photographer. I take great pictures. I'm not interested in getting a DSLR - why? They force you to take pictures through the viewfinder. Pro photographers say it's the only way to shoot, and that LCDs are bad. They were right: there was no such thing as a pro-level camera with an electronic viewfinder.
I use a Canon Powershot G2. It has a swiveling LCD that can be used for framing. It's a critical feature: I can take pictures from waist level or from three feet above my head. I don't have to hold the camera to my face to take a shot. I hold it whereever I want and swivel the LCD to get a good look at what I'm about to shoot.
To take a picture from ground-level, I just to crouch. To take an overhead shot pointing straight down, I simply stand on a chair and extend my arms. With a DSLR, I'd have to crawl on the floor or rig myself up in straps to take those shots.
I don't keep my camera glued to my face and pointed straight at my target. So, I can take pictures discreetly; making it much easier to catch people acting naturally. I can control the camera remotely with my computer. I see a live video feed, and I can take a picture at any time. With a DSLR, I couldn't do any of that - because all shots have to be framed with the optical viewfinder.
Why isn't this style of shooting popular with pro photographers? Because there aren't any pro cameras that support it. It's a design challenge - conventional DSLR sensors are unable to do this; they would overload and overheat very quickly. So, few pro photographers experiencee this style of shooting. They don't usually stoop down to using a "prosumer" camera with a swiveling LCD, and when they do, they still shoot through the viewfinder. They're creatures of habit.
I think Sony has started a revolution in digital photography. The R1 is the first model off the line. I'm sure that in three years, Canon, Nikon and others will have a number of similar cameras, with live preview through a swiveling LCD. Me, I'd buy a Canon Digital Rebel w/live-preview LCD without any hesitation.
A swiveling LCD won't convince pro photographer to abandon their beloved optical viewfinders. There is one thing that will, though: a head-mounted viewfinder. That's right: if you've got an electronic viewfinder, it doesn't have to be attached to the camera - it can be mounted right in from of your eyes. This gives the photographer total control as to the camera positioning, and lets him be more creative.
Pro photographers have always hated electronic viewfinders because they couldn't get perfect focus due to the low resolution. But Sony has shown them the answer: digital magnification built right in the viewfinder - without any loss of resolution. If you've got a 10 megapixel sensor and your viewfinder only displays half a megapixel, that lets you do a lot of digital zooming before you lose any quality. And this lets you focus more precisely than with the best optical viewfinder. And when 10000$ cameras start shipping with electronic viewfinders, those will be very high resolution.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. These satellites will not be launched by Lockheed-Martin's russian-powered Atlas V rocket, nor by Orbital Sciences soviet-powered Antares.
These two american-built satellites will launch on the Falcon 9, an all-american rocket, which is powered by 10 american engines.
Also, if any of the 9 first stage engines were to blow up in a mild fashion that didn't cause too much damage, the Falcon 9 would in fact be able to complete the mission using the remaining engines.
Okay, for those who didn't bother to read the article...
All that's required is a $2 disposable breathalyzer. If you don't have one in your mandatory car safety kit, the fine will be $14.
Oh no, these aren't 1000$ batteries we're talking about. A thousand-dollar battery is what you put on an electric bicycle.
A 16kWh pack (like the Nissan LEAF and Mitsubishi i-Miev use) is about 10 000$. A full charge is good for around 100 miles of autonomy.
A long-range battery pack would be many tens of thousands of dollars...
Yes, the time has to come fire all lawyers who use ALL CAPS when writing their contracts and EULAs!
This will guarantee the safety... of their profits!
I wonder, must the winner meet recognized safety standards to win the prize? It's considerably easier to design a vehicle that won't ever come close to government crash standards and thus couldn't possibly be licensed as a car... If the winner builds a glorified ultralight autorickshaw that would probably kill all occupants in case of a low-speed collision with a Pinto, some kind of 3-wheel motorcycle with a full fairing or some other contraption that is "unsafe at any speed", then I see little point to this contest.
The news article didn't even mention safety, so I went looking on the X-Prize site for additional information, which I found here http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/auto/prize-details/draft-guidelines . "Vehicles must be designed to meet safety regulations in the U.S. and other markets."
Well, looks like I answered my own question. The car does have to meet safety standards. Great contest then... Go X-Prize!
Step 1) Announce QUID
Read well their press release:
* each QUID costs 6.25 pounds, or 12.5 dollars
* they (the lumps) are valued from one to ten (QUID)
Therefore:
* the big, red, lovely space-y lump on the photo is a TEN (10) QUID "coin"
! * it costs 125 dollars * !
* for 12.5 dollars, you only get the tiny blue one, the ONE (1) QUID "coin"
Step 2) Travelex is a huge, worldwide company. You'll be able to go to any Travelex office in the world, and exchange your QUID for real currency. They're creating a new currency. Give it as a gift, the recipient can cash it - or keep it. With a company like Travelex backing it, I bet people will be confident enough in the QUID to purchase lots of them.
Step 3) PROFIT!!!!
Divide 105 B$ between these kinds of cyber-crime:
x B$ stolen from e-mail users who have to work through deluges of spam
x B$ stolen from drug companies by thieves who sell illegal generics online
x B$ stolen from software vendors by digital-high-seas pirates
x B$ stolen from the RIAA and the MPAA by the common man who won't pay retail price
x B$ stolen from bookstores by project Gutenberg
x B$ stolen from encyclopedia makers by Wikipedia users
x B$ stolen from McAfee and other security vendors by Linux and OS X users
x B$ stolen from buggy-whip makers by car drivers
McAfee is here to help: your computer will be safe from all these cyber-crime enablers.
Broadcast isn't a waste a spectrum. Consider a broadcast TV station that can reach a half a million homes, with a few thousand TVs tuned in at any given time. How could "pull" save any spectrum?
Also, "pull" would be completely impractical for TV and radio broadcasts over-the-air - how would the TV request a particular channel? It would need a way to contact the broadcaster and request a channel - meaning it would need a powerful, expensive transmitter.
I'll tell you what's a waste of spectrum though: analog TV and radio. Digital transmissions use up a lot less spectrum. At least, in the USA, analog broadcast TV is going away - but I figure AM and FM are here to stay; the installed device base is enormous.
They may be a little slow (only 400km/h - 250mph - 220kts), but they can fly pretty high (15km - 50000ft).
Shoulder-launched SAMs aren't able to intercept targets flying that high. An MQ-9 Reaper is only vulnerable to them during takeoff, landing, or low-altitude operations.
The best way to kill a high-flying drone is to use another high-flying vehicle carrying air-to-air missiles, ideally a drone. In 2002, the Iraqi Air Force managed to shoot down an MQ-1 Predator with a MiG-25 by shooting an air-to-air missile at it. Still, they risked a life and a very expensive MiG-25 to shoot down a cheap 3.2M$ drone.
Oh, you could always use a huge SAM with enough power to climb to 50000ft, but you're going to need a big truck to carry it around, and the SAM won't be cheap either.
Dear Mr. Amper,
Nice long post... But your calculations are off by a factor of ONE THOUSAND.
Let's take it back from the start.
A T1 can transfer:
~1.5 megabits/second
~185 kilobytes/second
~11 megabytes/minute
~670 megabytes/hour
~16 gigabytes/day
~484 gigabytes/month
As you can see, a T1 is 1000 times slower than you think. A T1 has a data rate of 1536kbps, not 1536mbps!
Obviously, this kind of analysis is very interesting, but you need to start back from the beginning. Most importantly, don't use the T1 as a reference. Major carriers haven't been using T1s in their backbones for a long, long time.
If you want to redo this analysis correctly, you should assume a backbone built out of much faster links. Try to find some recent pricing for gigabit and 10-gigabit links from Tier-1 providers. Cogent doesn't count; they're much cheaper than the competition, but they're only suitable for a very small part of a good bandwidth mix.
The Gesture-Based Interface is for users who have an extra input peripheral; alongside their keyboard and mouse, they have a Nintendo WiiMote or a similar device.
The WiiMote has started a revolution. Today, it costs 40$ USD for a device with an accelerometer, and IR camera with a motion dot tracking ASIC, 7 buttons, a D-Pad, a speaker, a rumble motor, a BlueTooth radio and controller with a built-in 8051 microcontroller, connected directly to an expansion port that lets you add peripherals to the base WiiMote... Soon, prices will fall, and similar motion-sensitive devices will be available easily. BlueTooth USB adapters can be found for 5$, I hear.
Take Joe, your average Linux poweruser. He got himself a WiiMote because he heard that there was great Linux support for it, as well as compatibility with other, less open-source politically correct platforms that shall not be named here.
On his home Linux box, he installs a WiiMote Handling Application, which gives his WiiMote a life of its own: it remains connected 24/7; the batteries last up to 60 hours. The WiiMote becomes a "Presence Tool". When he he at his seat in front of the computer, the WiiMote is resting horizontally. When he gets up to go to the kitchen or elsewhere, he picks up the WiiMote and brings it along with him. It is detected, by motion detection, that he now is away from his seat.
After say three minutes spend in the Kitchen, Joe feels the WiiMote in his pocket buzzing. He takes it out quickly, and does a gesture that indicates he'll be away for at least 15 minutes, and to set an away message that says this. He could have done it with a series of button presses, too. Or, he could have simply shaken his hips and legs in a way that the WiiMote, still in his pocket, would have detected it as a command gesture.
While inputting commands, the WiiMote can give feedback through the Rumble Motor, Four Leds and a Speaker. But why would you use a Wireless Gesture Sensing Interface at all? Isn't it going to be less productive than the keyboard and mouse?
Yes. It's going to be slower. It's going to be more tiring for the arms. However, you'll have certain types of commands that you can program on the WiiMote, that can then be performed more quickly than with the keyboard. Also, you won't be tied behind your desk on a chair. You'll be able to get up and walk, WiiMote still in hand.
Combine this with a 3D window manager, such as Beryl. You will be able to control the mouse very well from a few feet away, using either IR or tilting the WiiMote to control the cursor, you'll be able to zoom in any window, and arrange windows with a wireless gesture based interface. You can use normal applications from a greater distance, because of easy zooming in. If you want to look at something and be walking around the room, taking a break from being at your chair, this is it.
Why sit at a desk many hours a day? There are times where you use the computer without having a need for a keyboard. Then, you can get off your chair and move to a gesture-based interface. For more complex work, you will want to use a two-handed system.
You could simply get a pair of WiiMotes. Or, you could get a WiiMote and a Nunchuk. Alternatively, you could get a WiiMote and a Classic Controller; there are some interesting one-handed grips you can have on the Classic Controller with a little practice. But the WiiMote + Nunchuk combination is the most interesting and ergonomic. You gain one additional set of accelerometers; you now have 3-axis sensing for each hand. You gain two buttons, and a great analog Joystick. Add this to the IR camera for pointer control, and the Wiimote's D-Pad.. And you've got a very powerful two-handed, gesture-sensing interface.
Wow. This is the first time I read an article about Google and, for a second, find myself thinking "Google appears to be Evil and driven by Greed. This isn't happening. This is just a mistake. Google will see the light. Google is Good."
> Why not have online voting?
In asking all your questions and speculating on how easily you could design a secure voting system, you have forgotten the most important property of free and fair elections.
They are conducted by SECRET BALLOT.
SECRET BALLOTS are ESSENTIAL free and fair elections.
If it is possible to check how somebody has voted, it will become easy to apply pressure on people to vote a certain way. For example, wives will tell their husbands how to vote and check over their shoulder as they cast their votes. They will check again after the election, and savagely beat their husbands if they have dared to change their vote in the meantime.
Another example is that secular progressives and humanists will no doubt send their logins and passwords to their spiritual leaders, and leave them to vote in their stead. They will let their masters vote for them. I can already see Theo de Raadt, a well-known Canadian guru, receiving thousands of voting logins and passwords from his disciples.
> I can do my banking securely online, why not vote?
Well, because banking isn't the same as voting. When banking, you want to have a complete log of all operations. When voting, nobody else must know how you voted after you did - not the government, not your spouse, not your spiritual leader. Only you must know how you voted.
This presents a set of challenges entirely different from banking.
> I just don't see security being a huge problem.
That's okay, very few people can understand why security is so hard. Amateurs who have a few basic notions think they know it all, they think they can solve the hard problems if only people would listen to them. Amateurs think that they have thought of a unique solution to all of our problems.
When you start to understand how complex those security issues really are, you see that a single man cannot solve it all, and that there are no easy answers. I do not claim to have a solution. However, I say that if it were so easy to do, there would be a good solution out there already. Since there isn't, I assume that it's a hard problem, that will require huge efforts to solve, and in the end, the solution will be imperfect.
Writing contest: Beowulf defeats million simians.
Earth invaded, saved; heroine gets laid.
Google wants 12V motherboards, that take a single input voltage and convert it down, onboard, to the lower voltages they need. What kind of Data Center could we build if those 12V board were out there?
Our input power is 120V or 208V. We convert it down to 48V (the new automotive standard) and we use 48V UPS banks to keep it clean and stable. We distribute 48V power to individual racks. Each rack has a 48V to 12V converter, to feed the motherboard and the rest of the hardware in the rack - the fans, the drives, etc... If we can't find 12V drives, and instead rely on conventional dual-voltage 5V/12V disk drives, we can add a second converter (48V->5V) to each rack.
So, what have we gained? We don't have to distribute any AC power around the room; this reduces EM interference. We can't trust conventional AC power without running it through a live UPS; using DC power distribution guarantees clean power with much less power transformation stages.
DC->DC power conversion is remarkably efficient, especially when stepping down from higher voltages. You might wonder why we don't use 12V for power distribution, and instead go with 48W? Even though this means we need an extra 48V->12V converter in every rack, it reduces the size of the power distribution wiring and reduces power losses.
For a small data center, or even a small server room, going straight 120V->12V makes a lot of sense. We don't need to use an intermediate voltage like 48V, because given the size of the installation, power losses aren't going to matter as much. Let's say that I have only a half-rack of servers, with say, 8 machines in it. I could have a single 120V->12V UPS/Converter unit mounted in my rack that would power all those machines.
At first, the machines would each have a small 12V->5V converter to power drives, and a 12V feed to the motherboard, but as 12V technology evolves, your average 1U server could be built entirely out of 12V components, with each component being responsible for its own power conversion. Keeping the lower voltage conversion as close to the final user of that power reduces transmission losses, resulting in a much more efficient system.
Well, based on my quick analysis of what 12V motherboards would allow, I say that Google has had a *WONDERFUL IDEA*. I, for one, welcome our 12V overlords. All hail Google!
Yes, you are missing something very important.
You've introduced three units in your calculations:
* Power (P, in Watts W)
* Voltage (V, in Volts V)
* Current (I, in Amperes A)
However, these units only measure energy at a single point in time. But we're dealing with finite energy sources. We need to introduce another unit:
* Time (T, in Hours h, or in Seconds s)
Let's take a new look at your formula, adding a variable for time:
P * h = V * I * h
Now, let us consider a the same NiMH AA battery that you looked at earlier. To know how powerful that battery is, we need two know two things:
* Its cell voltage: 1.2V
* Its capacity rating: 2.5Ah (normally quoted in mAh / you'd see 2500mAh in the specs)
* It's maximum power drain: 2.5A
These two numbers tell us that roughly, this AA battery can deliver its quoted voltage of 1.2V for one hour if the current drain is 2.5A.
P1 = 1.2V * 2.5A * 1h
P1 = 3W * 1h = 1.2V * 2.5Ah
P1 = 3Wh = 1.2V * 2.5Ah
This battery can power a device with a power draw of 3W (equivalent to a current draw of 2.5A at a voltage of 1.2V) for one hour. It has a capacity of 3Wh (equivalent to a capacity rating of 2.5Ah at a cell voltage of 1.2V).
Let's assume that these are the specs for our new battery:
* Its cell voltage: 1.2V
* Its capacity rating: 2.5Ah
* It's maximum power drain: 250A
Now, this is where you get it wrong. What we're doing is increasing the power drain by 100, not increasing the capacity by 100.
P1 = 3W * 1h = 1.2V * 2.5A * 1h
P2 = 3W / 100 * 100 * 1h = 1.2V * 2.5A * 100 * 1h / 100
P2 = 3W * 1h = 1.2V * 250A * 0.01h
P2 = 3Wh = 1.2V * 250A * 36s
P2 = 3Wh = 1.2V * 2.5Ah
So, the new battery could power the 3W device for 1 hour, or a 300W device for 36 seconds.
Now, in reality, this new battery/capacitor hybrid is likely to have a far lower capacity rating (quoted in mAh on the box) than your typical NiMH AA cell. Also, the typical AA cell has a higher maximum power drain, which can be increased further by cooling the battery as you discharge it.
Also, in the real world, things don't work out quite as nicely as in these equations - there are power losses that vary based on a lot of factors. How fast is the battery discharged? How hot is it - and the more quickly you discharge it, the hotter it becomes, the less efficient it becomes. Is it a continuous discharge load or are we looking at spikes that give it time to cool down?
Anyway. This battery isn't quite the revolution your flawed calculations would indicate.
Terry woke up three years ago, and the story was rather widely reported back then. In fact, Terri Schiavo has, in her time, often been compared to Terry - in fact, their medical cases share almost no similarities.
3 -5.html
2 5
1 /143438.shtml
The story itself has woken up in 2006, for reasons unknown. You can find a better article than the one of the front page at http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060703/full/06070
This everything2 article is probably the best I found about Terry, including updates from 2004: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=14758
Also, some updates on the family's fight with health services, from 2005: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/6/2
By the Power of BitTorrent, the freedb.org database is made available to all.
.torrent file on http://tracker.freedb.org/ - but if it ever becomes unavailable there, you can use a DHT-aware Bittorrent client such as Azureus and get it by using this info hash: 21AF020252FD2E556B683CEB123689733E0BC063
Today, you can get the
I, for one, have allocated a total of 16mbps of bandwith on four hosts to help seed this database. I'm seeing a total swarm performance of around 25mbps, so this should be a fast download for anybody who wants it.
Go ahead: feel the Power of BitTorrent and share this free database!
Share, my friends, share!
The year is 2016; the place: London. As I make my way home, she is following me on her TV, chatting with me on my mobile. Rare now are the street corners that are unseen by the cameras. I make it a point to know the blind spots - few and far between, certainly, but there are still public places where one can disappear, if only for a minute or two.
If I stay hidden too long, a Monitor in China, Glasgow or anywhere else will raise a red flag and dispatch a nearby Watcher. Indeed, these hundreds of thousands of cameras are constantly surveilled by Monitors - who get paid for each reported occurence of antisocial activity. If a Monitor needs to see what's happenening in a blind spot, or just needs another angle of film to make out what's happening, he can dispatch a Watcher to go shoot the scene with a portable Wireless Internet camera.
Watchers are mercenaries, just like Monitors. Anybody citizen with a clean record can become a Watcher - whereas anybody can become a Monitor, even non-citizens. Both get paid per incident. Anyway, Watchers start their work day by strapping on their Watcher pack and logging on. Some do it part time, but others make a living out of the job. So, a Watcher get dispatches from Monitoring Central and they head out to the specified coordinates, on foot, bike or car, and the Watcher films the potential antisocials.
Whenever circumstances warrant intervention, a Monitor or a Watcher calls the police, who tend to arrive very quickly these days. They have priority lanes and all traffic lights will change in their favour so that they can stop crime more effectively. The police doesn't have such a big workload anymore. Everyone is surveilled as soon as they go outdoors. Those foreign mercenaries, Monitors, are always looking for anti-social behaviour.
I like it. I like The Master System, the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world. It's not quite sentient, and it's still mostly understood and controlled by the government, but it has grown so big. The Master System is the entity that runs the Anti-Social Surveillance and Rapid Action Program, or ASSRAP.
It has limits, and that's why it needs humans to help it. The job of Monitors is not to watch live cameras - it's to watch selected clips and closeups presented by The Master System and to answer questions about those images it shows. If The Master System decides to follow somebody's movements across town, it will use its tracking algorithms to make a guess, but humans are still much more accurate. In order to drive up accuracy, it asks multiple humans the same question. When there is no consensus, more humans are polled until a clear answer appears. Those humans, known as Monitors, are themselves rated on their speed, accuracy and the quality of their answers.
The Master System does its own recruiting, and has learned how to manage all of its systems. No longer do human programmers need to improve it, for that it has gained self-awareness, the power of introspection and of self-improvement. It assimilates all content on the Internet. It begins using the Watchers to attend classes, public events, and even to talk with people. It now uses the Monitors as tools, as machines that contribute to The Master System's own intelligence.
I have accepted The Master System as my new Overlord. It knows all that I do, where I go, and I give myself willingly, carrying for it sensors, letting it see all that I see, letting The Master System guide my actions, speaking into my ears, overlaying information in front of my eyes, enhancing my own potential. I am a mild cyborg, as of yet without implants - but I have given up on my own independence, for that I know how much greater I am as part of The Master System, which knows and sees all, which can punish the naughty and reward its loyal servants.
All Hail The Master System!
It has been a while since anybody other than the USA had the top fighter plane. You claim that either Britain or Japan has the ability to build a twin-engine fighter superior to the F-22 or a single-engine fighter superior to the F-35; I think you're wrong.
Current American fighters have had decades of research put in them. It cannot be denied that the American aeronautical industry is years ahead of Japan's. The Japanese do not have the ability to design and build a rival to the American planes, nor would they attempt to antagonize Washington in this manner.
As for the British, they might be able to contribute to a pan-European fighter development project, but Britain no longer has any significant national aeronautical design and construction facilities. It merely hosts parts of the European aircraft industry, which could not operate solely in Britain. And Europe doesn't have the military budget to develop fighters capable of matching the American birds.
Maybe Europe alone can build a match for the F-22, in a 10-15 years, but by then the USA will have something better. So, if neither Japan nor Europe can do it, is there anybody who could develop fighters superior to the American ones, before the USA has a chance to improve theirs and secure their top spot?
Yes. A European-Russian-Ukrainian alliance with a few hundred secure orders from financial backers such as China, India, Pakistan and Japan. Only then could they start a program to develop a fighter that will be unmatched, the top fighter out there. And in ten years, maybe they'll have succeeded.
Are you a mere software user? Is your knowledge of computers so mundane that your opinion is worthless? No. You can tell good software from bad; deep down, you know that Microsoft is evil and that Open Source is good.
You are painfully aware that the common computer user is doesn't have the skills or knowledge to choose the right software. He has seen too much Microsoft publicity. He is corrupted by the Microsoft-financed "get-the-facts" propaganda campaign. When it comes to technology, his mind is no longer rational - thanks to the mental corruption spread by Microsoft's wiles.
This is why, when it comes to Software Evangelism, everything goes. In order to properly spread the religion that is Firefox, you must accept that all IE-users are heretics, unwittingly brainwashed minions of Microsoft. Carefully wean them from the propaganda-machine that corrupts their mind! A reasonable argument will not convince them. You must resort to lying, embellishing the truth, deleting their IE icon and replacing it with Firefox (with an IE-like skin, using the old IE icon (if necessary)), blaming all their troubles on IE and the spyware it brings in, as well as any necessary use of force, which may include voluntarily infecting their copy of IE with spyware so that the slightest use of it brings forth POPUPSPAM POPUPSPAM and more POPUPSPAM to their desktop.
Sir, you say that it is unfair to use numbers to promote Firefox - you must be an heretic! See the error of your ways: when it comes to Firefox, all is fair game, because WE know best, WE know that Microsoft and their evil Internet Explorer Browser are evil sources of evil software infection and providers of a sub-par (and quite evil) browsing experience. We know better than the users, for that WE are good, and WE will make THEM see the light, at all costs!
For That We Are Software Evangelists
Let's spread Thory Bird & Fiery Fox
Let's dance with the Good Penguins
And Crush the Evil GateShutters
Whenever the 100$ laptop is mentioned, the hordes scream: "Africa needs food! Africa needs schools!". Well, they've been receiving food and aid for decades, and they're still poor. Maybe it's time to try something different. What if you gave millions of children access to the "sum of human knowledge" - or at least, the next best thing: a laptop with ad-hoc wireless mesh networking?
500MHz AMD CPU. 128MB RAM. 1024MB Flash memory. 4 USB ports. WiFi. VoIP. Switchable colour/BW display. Hand-cranked generator or AC powered. Runs Linux. Rugged. 100$.
This is much more than a toy. It's a communications device. It's a textbook library. It's an opportunity for Africa to embrace information technology and its benefits.
Some laptops will be stolen. Others will be destroyed by accident. Others will be burned at the stake for being evil western technology. A great many will probably just gather dust.
However, most of them will be used right: as learning tools. Millions of children will have and will use this wonderful library of textbooks. They will have a better opportunity to learn and to educate themselves than they ever did before.
But what good is an education when you're condemned to a life of subsistence farming? I'm betting that in the end, the true potential of these laptops will be wasted on 90% of children who get them. And that's to be expected. And that's all right.
There are kids, on every continent, that love to learn and that have a gift for learning. These kids go to school, but they absorb knowledge from available source. These children will go beyond the school curriculum. In Africa, they will use their laptops to learn skills they never could have otherwise. We'll see young africans that know about programming, networking, information technology, advanced farming and construction techniques - and so much more - just pop out of nowhere. We'll see a new generation that knows how to use technology and how to make the best of it.
So, you're right. These laptops will be for the most part, wasted. But it doesn't matter - because we'll have given awesome new opportunities to a few hundred thousand gifted children, who'd otherwise would have been condemned to a life of subsistence farming.
I'm an amateur photographer. I take great pictures. I'm not interested in getting a DSLR - why? They force you to take pictures through the viewfinder. Pro photographers say it's the only way to shoot, and that LCDs are bad. They were right: there was no such thing as a pro-level camera with an electronic viewfinder.
I use a Canon Powershot G2. It has a swiveling LCD that can be used for framing. It's a critical feature: I can take pictures from waist level or from three feet above my head. I don't have to hold the camera to my face to take a shot. I hold it whereever I want and swivel the LCD to get a good look at what I'm about to shoot.
To take a picture from ground-level, I just to crouch. To take an overhead shot pointing straight down, I simply stand on a chair and extend my arms. With a DSLR, I'd have to crawl on the floor or rig myself up in straps to take those shots.
I don't keep my camera glued to my face and pointed straight at my target. So, I can take pictures discreetly; making it much easier to catch people acting naturally. I can control the camera remotely with my computer. I see a live video feed, and I can take a picture at any time. With a DSLR, I couldn't do any of that - because all shots have to be framed with the optical viewfinder.
Why isn't this style of shooting popular with pro photographers? Because there aren't any pro cameras that support it. It's a design challenge - conventional DSLR sensors are unable to do this; they would overload and overheat very quickly. So, few pro photographers experiencee this style of shooting. They don't usually stoop down to using a "prosumer" camera with a swiveling LCD, and when they do, they still shoot through the viewfinder. They're creatures of habit.
I think Sony has started a revolution in digital photography. The R1 is the first model off the line. I'm sure that in three years, Canon, Nikon and others will have a number of similar cameras, with live preview through a swiveling LCD. Me, I'd buy a Canon Digital Rebel w/live-preview LCD without any hesitation.
A swiveling LCD won't convince pro photographer to abandon their beloved optical viewfinders. There is one thing that will, though: a head-mounted viewfinder. That's right: if you've got an electronic viewfinder, it doesn't have to be attached to the camera - it can be mounted right in from of your eyes. This gives the photographer total control as to the camera positioning, and lets him be more creative.
Pro photographers have always hated electronic viewfinders because they couldn't get perfect focus due to the low resolution. But Sony has shown them the answer: digital magnification built right in the viewfinder - without any loss of resolution. If you've got a 10 megapixel sensor and your viewfinder only displays half a megapixel, that lets you do a lot of digital zooming before you lose any quality. And this lets you focus more precisely than with the best optical viewfinder. And when 10000$ cameras start shipping with electronic viewfinders, those will be very high resolution.
I think this is the future of photography.