Ah. Lighter than air. A subject I actually know something about:-)
Regardless of your pronouncements, airships are actually well suited for this purpose. In fact, there are several projects to fulfill this type of mission with unmanned airships.
At the altitudes involved, there is actually an atmospheric layer where winds are comparatively light.
The large surface area available on a lighter than air vehicle makes it a natural for collecting energy from sunlight. Gas retention is not a problem. Decades ago, comparatively small free balloons were already flown for periods of six months or more. A far cry from a few days, eh?
There is actually currently a renaissance of airships the likes of which has not been seen since World War II. Zeppelin Metallwerken in Germany has developed a unique semirigid design, which will initially be marketed for touring. CargoLifter, also in Germany, has just completed construction of a vast hangar, and is about to begin construction of a ship capable of carrying bulky indivisible items of cargo up to 160 tons for delivery from hover at minimally prepared destinations. Advanced Technologies Group in Britain is flight testing a scale model of a another cargo carrying design which uses an air cushion to make a large advance in ground handling. Lightship, in Britain, is currently conducting successful trials in Kosovo of a land-mine detecting and surveying airship.
Sheeesh. This is utter nonsense. The design is the opposite of what you say. The 820 chipset interfaces directly to RDRAM, but requires the intervention of the buggy MTH to interface to SDRAM.
That's why the 820 worked fine with RDRAM (as long as you didn't have more than 2 RIMMs), but was garbage when trying to use SDRAM.
When stereo was young (and I was fairly young:-), I thought the concept was misguided. I would rather put limited funds into one good audio channel than two mediocre ones. In due course, I came around, of course. I became a bit more well off, electronics got a lot cheaper, and I could not deny that stereo was a richer listening experience.
But I think 5.1 is a bit different. There are many of us without the room and the layout to install a decent 5.1 system at home. All that wiring, not the least! And unless you sit in the one ideal spot within the layout, you are kidding yourself about the effect. And we find ourselves in places (work, travel) where 5.1 is completely impractical. I think 5.1 is a complete waste and I wouldn't even think of investing in it.
Who knows, I may come around again, after the curve:-) But I tend to think not.
Not to take away from your other examples, but minidiscs are quite successful in Japan and in some other parts of the world. North America is a very important market, but no longer the only market that counts - not for quite a while now.
As for striking out on their own and not sticking with established standards - er - Microsoft has been rather successful in the market doing the same thing:-)
You have a valid point. Innovative is good. There are several technically-innovative market-failures for each technically-innovative market-success. Praise the innovators, for they are the ones willing to take chances, and it is through their efforts that improvements are made.
The real question is how Sony can be so economically successful when they have to write off so many of these innovations that flunk the market test.
Hey! Stop making sense! Politics, and therefore governmental policy and law, is all about feelings nowadays. It has nothing to do with logic. If a bunch of "workers" are so pathetically dumb that they vote for the "rulers" who keep in place this monumentally stupid double taxation on themselves, they get what they deserve.
That would be one thing, but unfortunately, there are so many leeches on the one hand, and high rollers on the other hand, that the actual wage earners are probably outvoted anyway.
This distinguishes it from COM/CORBA where objects must be "marshalled" and "demarshalled" (i.e. serialised and deserialised) when communicating between different languages, even on the same machine.
As far as COM goes, this is in error. Marshalling is only necessary for inter-process calls. For intra-process calls, there is no marshalling, and very little COM overhead - even if the language is mixed.
I don't know how many of these 5 MB processes are running in a single machine, but a 5 MB process is not what I would call huge, and I'll tell you why:
128 MB of RAM costs not far from $128 ($1/MB). So a 5 MB process is tying up 5 bucks of memory [-spit-]. Big deal:-)
In 1980, 5 MB of memory was a mountain. In 1990, it was a medium size mound. Today it is less than a molehill. Anthill, maybe.
"there are no 1394 DVD decks and there never will be"
Yes there are - they're called PCs:-) If no one has figured out how to stream the content from a movie inserted in a DVD-ROM drive out a PC's 1394 port, hopefully they will do so soon. Then if somebody wants to, they can make their own tabletop DVD deck as a PC appliance.
Ummm, no, actually that would mean that all WE CONSUMERS would have to spend extra money every time we buy those vehicles, and cleaner fuel for those vehicles, and products those factories produce.
Corporations don't eat added costs (or added taxes, or...) - they pass them on.
The article gives an interesting datum, but does not present much thought as to the explanation.
The sea level measured on these particular islands may have receded because the islands are rising. The sea floor, and in fact the earth's surface in general, is not an absolutely static feature.
What would be interesting would be the presentation of the change in mean sea level measured at a whole lot of locations around the world. I am quite sure such figures would show a rise in some places and a fall in others. It would not be a very simple matter even to calculate the average worldwide value - in fact, how do you even define average? Measuring all along the world's coastlines at fixed linear intervals and averaging the result does not say anything about the average per unit of surface AREA.
Excellent, and here's an even more practical choice - the VW Golf TDI! Exactly the same mileage specs (42/49), except it is a true 4 seater available in 4 door model, with great headroom in the back seat as well as the front (unlike the Beetle in the back) - and a far superior trunk. Warning - it's an EXTREMELY stodgy looking hatchback - I love the styling though.
Or for you guys who favor the traditional 3-box sedan, the VW Jetta TDI - 4 doors, and again, the same mileage specs.
You say "Is Rambus really responsible for every major DRAM implimentation [sic] over the last 5-10 years?" The answer is "Maybe and maybe not, but this is not a condition for their patents to hold up."
Let's assume RamBus' patents are valid and not fraudulent (this is a big if). Let's further assume that other companies independently arrived at some of the same innovations (this is quite likely; it happens all the time).
If Company A arrives at an innovation before Company B independently arrives at the same innovation, Company A can still get a patent, issued perhaps ex post facto to Company B's work, and the patent will still hold up! That is the way patents work. That is the way patents are supposed to work. That is why I believe patent law is immoral, unethical, and evil the way it is constituted.
Nope, actually anything like "www.somewhere.com" is sufficient for Outlook Express. No "http://" is required. That is the whole point. OE automatically makes the link, and it does it on the receiving side. You can send the "www.somewhere.com" text from any email program.
Suppose I don't link to the "objectionable" sites at all. Suppose I just list some URLs in plain text. Like this: www.somewhere.com. Anyone who is not a complete dolt would still be able to copy the text and paste it into his address bar and reach those sites nearly as easily as if I had used real links.
In fact if I type an URL in plain text into an email, and the guy who receives the email uses Outlook Express, it will render the text as a clickable link. If I type in an "objectionable" URL, am I then to be prosecuted? Is the firm who creates and markets Outlook Express (hmmm, a rather large and well-known corporation) to be prosecuted for "aiding and abetting"?
"The reason it violates the constitution is that the constitution grants a set of powers to the feds. Recognizing that this law wasn't even close to those powers, the feds did not directly implement a 55 law, but required the states to do so under threat of loss of federal highway funds. If ordering states to pass legislation in this way is within the power of the feds, there is *absolutely* no limit on federal authority."
You've got it. Duh. There IS absolutely no limit on federal authority. They can coerce the states into doing anything they want. This is because there is no limit on federal taxation. Money buys everything. But all it has to buy is one thing: power. With power, you can have anything you want (OK, maybe not happiness, and not a GUARANTEE on good health, but it sure helps paying for health care).
This puts me in mind of an exchange in the film "Goldfinger"; one of my all-time favorite scenes:
James Bond has been captured by his enemy, Auric Goldfinger. 007 has been strapped on his back to a gleaming gold slab (at least 10 million bucks' worth). A high power laser is cutting into the slab and will soon reach Bond's crotch, vaporizing a vital part of his anatomy, not to mention it will keep slicing up through his entire torso and head.
Bond: "What do you expect me to do? Talk?"
Goldfinger (laughing): "No, Mr. Bond - I expect you to DIE!"
(The above is from memory; I'm sure it's not a perfect rendition, but very close).
Or how about this. It's like Robbie the Robot in "Forbidden Planet". Walter Pidgeon is showing his pride and joy off to Leslie Nielson. He gets Nielson to give him his "blaster" (gun), hands it to Robbie, and calmly instructs the robot to fire and kill Nielson. Sparks dance over Robbie's "brain", and there is an ominous buzzing and clicking. The robot cannot obey the order because its prime directive is not to harm human life (apologies to Asimov). But it must obey a human's order! But it cannot! And so on... So it is slowly short-circuiting, destroying itself because of the insoluble dilemma it is faced with.
Napster essentially said if a user broke the rules the user would be blocked. Metallica thought about this, and sent them a bazillion names of users allegedly breaking the rules. Napster CAN'T POSSIBLY block them all. It would take eons to accomplish, one name at a time. (Still less!) - they can't even begin to think about investigating them all.
Metallica expects napster (figuratively) to DIE. I'm sure they figure the chances are fairly low the move will succeed to its ultimate logical conclusion (napster giving up - dying), but it's a fairly clever turn of the screws.
It has nothing to do with how easy it would be for a clever blocked user to keep circumventing the blockage (which you correctly point out would be easily accomplished, though armed authoritarian thugs could always break down his door in the dead of the night and take him away).
It's a case of the vulnerability of a server-oriented system. The ultimate solution? Make the whole thing a distributed system, with no central vulnerable point (gnutella or something like it).
IANAL - not in spirit, and not in fact - but I think that "not required to agree with" is not the same concept as "not required to abide by". I forget - did we used to have to sign our own draft cards? I distinctly remember, in 1968, reading wording on my draft card to the effect that "subject's consent not required":-)
I watched as EVERYONE I knew used PKZip every day, day after day, year after year, and no one ever considered paying, not personal users, and not corporate users.
As a point of honor, I finally did register, years after I should have. It felt good.
Hard drive technology has progressed at least as fast as other computer technologies. Let's compare the present day to the day of the original IBM PC XT, some 17 years ago.
Processor, 4.77 MHz -> 600 MHz: 126 times (let's say 1000 times, because the P III does a lot more with each MHz than the 8088)
RAM, 64 KB -> 64 MB: 1024 times
Modems, 9600 baud -> 56K: 6 times (even 1.5M for cable modem is only 156 times)
Hard disk drives, 10 MB -> 20 GB: 2000 times
Hmmmm, seems like the much-poo-poo'ed electro-mechanical technology has easily kept pace with the straight electronic technologies, including the breathtaking advances in chip density.
Now, when it looks like CPU speed and RAM density really ARE about to reach a plateau for a while, or at least lower its slope of advance, hard disk technology is poised to really rocket ahead. Look at the news from IBM research, foretelling VAST advances in the fairly near future.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah. Lighter than air. A subject I actually know something about :-)
Regardless of your pronouncements, airships are actually well suited for this purpose. In fact, there are several projects to fulfill this type of mission with unmanned airships.
At the altitudes involved, there is actually an atmospheric layer where winds are comparatively light.
The large surface area available on a lighter than air vehicle makes it a natural for collecting energy from sunlight. Gas retention is not a problem. Decades ago, comparatively small free balloons were already flown for periods of six months or more. A far cry from a few days, eh?
There is actually currently a renaissance of airships the likes of which has not been seen since World War II. Zeppelin Metallwerken in Germany has developed a unique semirigid design, which will initially be marketed for touring. CargoLifter, also in Germany, has just completed construction of a vast hangar, and is about to begin construction of a ship capable of carrying bulky indivisible items of cargo up to 160 tons for delivery from hover at minimally prepared destinations. Advanced Technologies Group in Britain is flight testing a scale model of a another cargo carrying design which uses an air cushion to make a large advance in ground handling. Lightship, in Britain, is currently conducting successful trials in Kosovo of a land-mine detecting and surveying airship.
References:
http://www.zeppelin-nt.com/
http://www.cargolifter.com/
http://www.airship.com/index_frames.htm
http://www.airships.com/
http://www.mineseeker.com/
http://spot.colo rad o.edu/~dziadeck/airship/htmls/introduction.htm
Sheeesh. This is utter nonsense. The design is the opposite of what you say. The 820 chipset interfaces directly to RDRAM, but requires the intervention of the buggy MTH to interface to SDRAM.
That's why the 820 worked fine with RDRAM (as long as you didn't have more than 2 RIMMs), but was garbage when trying to use SDRAM.
It may indeed be wrong, but it's what the FAQ on the Samba-TNG website says. Can you blame anyone for being confused?
Well, it's the only FAQ that seems to exist at the referenced Samba-TNG web site.
Perhaps you would be so good to cite a single controlled, blind, comparative listening test with qualified and impartial supervision.
Until then, such claims are merely unsupported opinion to which the sublimely ignorant holder is perfectly entitled.
When stereo was young (and I was fairly young :-), I thought the concept was misguided. I would rather put limited funds into one good audio channel than two mediocre ones. In due course, I came around, of course. I became a bit more well off, electronics got a lot cheaper, and I could not deny that stereo was a richer listening experience.
:-) But I tend to think not.
But I think 5.1 is a bit different. There are many of us without the room and the layout to install a decent 5.1 system at home. All that wiring, not the least! And unless you sit in the one ideal spot within the layout, you are kidding yourself about the effect. And we find ourselves in places (work, travel) where 5.1 is completely impractical. I think 5.1 is a complete waste and I wouldn't even think of investing in it.
Who knows, I may come around again, after the curve
Not to take away from your other examples, but minidiscs are quite successful in Japan and in some other parts of the world. North America is a very important market, but no longer the only market that counts - not for quite a while now.
:-)
As for striking out on their own and not sticking with established standards - er - Microsoft has been rather successful in the market doing the same thing
You have a valid point. Innovative is good. There are several technically-innovative market-failures for each technically-innovative market-success. Praise the innovators, for they are the ones willing to take chances, and it is through their efforts that improvements are made.
The real question is how Sony can be so economically successful when they have to write off so many of these innovations that flunk the market test.
Hey! Stop making sense! Politics, and therefore governmental policy and law, is all about feelings nowadays. It has nothing to do with logic. If a bunch of "workers" are so pathetically dumb that they vote for the "rulers" who keep in place this monumentally stupid double taxation on themselves, they get what they deserve.
That would be one thing, but unfortunately, there are so many leeches on the one hand, and high rollers on the other hand, that the actual wage earners are probably outvoted anyway.
This distinguishes it from COM/CORBA where objects must be "marshalled" and "demarshalled" (i.e. serialised and deserialised) when communicating between different languages, even on the same machine.
As far as COM goes, this is in error. Marshalling is only necessary for inter-process calls. For intra-process calls, there is no marshalling, and very little COM overhead - even if the language is mixed.
I don't know how many of these 5 MB processes are running in a single machine, but a 5 MB process is not what I would call huge, and I'll tell you why:
:-)
128 MB of RAM costs not far from $128 ($1/MB). So a 5 MB process is tying up 5 bucks of memory [-spit-]. Big deal
In 1980, 5 MB of memory was a mountain. In 1990, it was a medium size mound. Today it is less than a molehill. Anthill, maybe.
...but the water will not be stopped.
:-) If no one has figured out how to stream the content from a movie inserted in a DVD-ROM drive out a PC's 1394 port, hopefully they will do so soon. Then if somebody wants to, they can make their own tabletop DVD deck as a PC appliance.
"there are no 1394 DVD decks and there never will be"
Yes there are - they're called PCs
Ummm, no, actually that would mean that all WE CONSUMERS would have to spend extra money every time we buy those vehicles, and cleaner fuel for those vehicles, and products those factories produce.
...) - they pass them on.
Corporations don't eat added costs (or added taxes, or
The article gives an interesting datum, but does not present much thought as to the explanation.
The sea level measured on these particular islands may have receded because the islands are rising. The sea floor, and in fact the earth's surface in general, is not an absolutely static feature.
What would be interesting would be the presentation of the change in mean sea level measured at a whole lot of locations around the world. I am quite sure such figures would show a rise in some places and a fall in others. It would not be a very simple matter even to calculate the average worldwide value - in fact, how do you even define average? Measuring all along the world's coastlines at fixed linear intervals and averaging the result does not say anything about the average per unit of surface AREA.
Excellent, and here's an even more practical choice - the VW Golf TDI! Exactly the same mileage specs (42/49), except it is a true 4 seater available in 4 door model, with great headroom in the back seat as well as the front (unlike the Beetle in the back) - and a far superior trunk. Warning - it's an EXTREMELY stodgy looking hatchback - I love the styling though.
:-)
Or for you guys who favor the traditional 3-box sedan, the VW Jetta TDI - 4 doors, and again, the same mileage specs.
I have no stock in VW
You say "Is Rambus really responsible for every major DRAM implimentation [sic] over the last 5-10 years?" The answer is "Maybe and maybe not, but this is not a condition for their patents to hold up."
Let's assume RamBus' patents are valid and not fraudulent (this is a big if). Let's further assume that other companies independently arrived at some of the same innovations (this is quite likely; it happens all the time).
If Company A arrives at an innovation before Company B independently arrives at the same innovation, Company A can still get a patent, issued perhaps ex post facto to Company B's work, and the patent will still hold up! That is the way patents work. That is the way patents are supposed to work. That is why I believe patent law is immoral, unethical, and evil the way it is constituted.
Nope, actually anything like "www.somewhere.com" is sufficient for Outlook Express. No "http://" is required. That is the whole point. OE automatically makes the link, and it does it on the receiving side. You can send the "www.somewhere.com" text from any email program.
Suppose I don't link to the "objectionable" sites at all. Suppose I just list some URLs in plain text. Like this: www.somewhere.com. Anyone who is not a complete dolt would still be able to copy the text and paste it into his address bar and reach those sites nearly as easily as if I had used real links.
In fact if I type an URL in plain text into an email, and the guy who receives the email uses Outlook Express, it will render the text as a clickable link. If I type in an "objectionable" URL, am I then to be prosecuted? Is the firm who creates and markets Outlook Express (hmmm, a rather large and well-known corporation) to be prosecuted for "aiding and abetting"?
It's spelled "duh", not "doh".
DUH!!!
"The reason it violates the constitution is that the constitution grants a set of powers to the feds. Recognizing that this law wasn't even close to those powers, the feds did not directly implement a 55 law, but required the states to do so under threat of loss of federal highway funds. If ordering states to pass legislation in this way is within the power of the feds, there is *absolutely* no limit on federal authority."
You've got it. Duh. There IS absolutely no limit on federal authority. They can coerce the states into doing anything they want. This is because there is no limit on federal taxation. Money buys everything. But all it has to buy is one thing: power. With power, you can have anything you want (OK, maybe not happiness, and not a GUARANTEE on good health, but it sure helps paying for health care).
You ask, "what do they expect napster to do?"
This puts me in mind of an exchange in the film "Goldfinger"; one of my all-time favorite scenes:
James Bond has been captured by his enemy, Auric Goldfinger. 007 has been strapped on his back to a gleaming gold slab (at least 10 million bucks' worth). A high power laser is cutting into the slab and will soon reach Bond's crotch, vaporizing a vital part of his anatomy, not to mention it will keep slicing up through his entire torso and head.
Bond: "What do you expect me to do? Talk?"
Goldfinger (laughing): "No, Mr. Bond - I expect you to DIE!"
(The above is from memory; I'm sure it's not a perfect rendition, but very close).
Or how about this. It's like Robbie the Robot in "Forbidden Planet". Walter Pidgeon is showing his pride and joy off to Leslie Nielson. He gets Nielson to give him his "blaster" (gun), hands it to Robbie, and calmly instructs the robot to fire and kill Nielson. Sparks dance over Robbie's "brain", and there is an ominous buzzing and clicking. The robot cannot obey the order because its prime directive is not to harm human life (apologies to Asimov). But it must obey a human's order! But it cannot! And so on... So it is slowly short-circuiting, destroying itself because of the insoluble dilemma it is faced with.
Napster essentially said if a user broke the rules the user would be blocked. Metallica thought about this, and sent them a bazillion names of users allegedly breaking the rules. Napster CAN'T POSSIBLY block them all. It would take eons to accomplish, one name at a time. (Still less!) - they can't even begin to think about investigating them all.
Metallica expects napster (figuratively) to DIE. I'm sure they figure the chances are fairly low the move will succeed to its ultimate logical conclusion (napster giving up - dying), but it's a fairly clever turn of the screws.
It has nothing to do with how easy it would be for a clever blocked user to keep circumventing the blockage (which you correctly point out would be easily accomplished, though armed authoritarian thugs could always break down his door in the dead of the night and take him away).
It's a case of the vulnerability of a server-oriented system. The ultimate solution? Make the whole thing a distributed system, with no central vulnerable point (gnutella or something like it).
IANAL - not in spirit, and not in fact - but I think that "not required to agree with" is not the same concept as "not required to abide by". I forget - did we used to have to sign our own draft cards? I distinctly remember, in 1968, reading wording on my draft card to the effect that "subject's consent not required" :-)
I watched as EVERYONE I knew used PKZip every day, day after day, year after year, and no one ever considered paying, not personal users, and not corporate users.
As a point of honor, I finally did register, years after I should have. It felt good.
IKB = Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the founding father of modern civil engineering. No doubt whatsoever he was a genius.
...) is being foolish.
Anyone who says out of hand that "genius" can only apply to scientists and not engineers (or musicians, or cinema directors, or
Hard drive technology has progressed at least as fast as other computer technologies. Let's compare the present day to the day of the original IBM PC XT, some 17 years ago.
Processor, 4.77 MHz -> 600 MHz: 126 times
(let's say 1000 times, because the P III does a lot more with each MHz than the 8088)
RAM, 64 KB -> 64 MB: 1024 times
Modems, 9600 baud -> 56K: 6 times
(even 1.5M for cable modem is only 156 times)
Hard disk drives, 10 MB -> 20 GB: 2000 times
Hmmmm, seems like the much-poo-poo'ed electro-mechanical technology has easily kept pace with the straight electronic technologies, including the breathtaking advances in chip density.
Now, when it looks like CPU speed and RAM density really ARE about to reach a plateau for a while, or at least lower its slope of advance, hard disk technology is poised to really rocket ahead. Look at the news from IBM research, foretelling VAST advances in the fairly near future.