I find it interesting that this material has such a high energy density...I wonder how much research has been done into making this material the trigger for a nuclear weapon? If you have read anything about fission-fusion weapons, you know that it takes a "primary" fission weapon to compress the fuel capsule of the "secondary"...which makes the big bang. The Tsar Bomba used a three-stage design...wherin a primary ignited a secondary which ignited a tertiary. Normally, high-explosives are used to start the fission reaction. If these could be eliminated, we could have a single-stage fusion weapon, which would be much smaller, and, due to the fact that fusion is usually a complete process irrespective of ignition velocity, just as powerful. There is the potential for multi-megaton weapons that would be vastly more compact...and not necessarily used for war, but perhaps asteroid defense.
Okay...since you obviously have a beef AGAINST anything but Macs, I will tell you why I think this is good for my school district...and other ones in my region. Let me look at a few places I've worked, and where others from my school might work. First one on my list was an automotive shop...they had a PC doing their shop manuals...they had a PC doing their inventory tracking...they had a PC doing their accounting. So in that job, it's PC:1, Mac:0.
Second place...Signmaking shop that used CNC machines to mill them...the design was done on a PC, the CNC machine was run by a PC, and their accounting, inventory, and typesetting was done on a PC. I will admit that their order tracking was done on some old grimy IBM machine, though...still, PC:2, Mac:0.
Third place...Architectural Firm. They did AutoCAD on a PC...specificaitons were done on a PC...accounting was done on a PC...correspondence and such was done on a PC. Score: PC:3, Mac:0. Next place would be some freelance work I did for a grocery store chain...everything, from accounting to payroll to e-mail, was done on a PC. I have stopped keeping score because I am done trying to get anyone to see my point with this method.
Every place I have ever worked at had PC's exclusively. I am preparing these kids for the future in this region of the country, and it looks to me that they're all PC. This is not even mentioning some other local "big" employers that are PC-only...Heck, even Wal-Mart's cash registers are PC's now. Where are the Mac's? In advertising and design perhaps...but those are all in much larger cities. So am I wrong in supplying them with the types of computers they will go out into the workplace and use? I think not. Do I have a beef against Macs? Not in the least. But I have a beef against people trying to get kids to use what they see as a superior computer simply because it's there. As for "gunning for" a job...I do my job and enjoy it...and I feel I do the best job anyone can. If that is "gunning for" it, then I am doing so. I believe their mismanagment lies in the fact that they are giving grade-school kids $1000 eMacs (which, I might add, have had a near 50% failure rate in video cards) when a low-end PC would work fine. The mismanagment lies in picking a machine simply because of its name and its aura, and not because of its list of specifications or commonality in the local economy. Now, if you would kindly refrain from insulting me ("If you weren't trolling",) perhaps we could have a nice conversation on why you think I should buy Macs when no business in the area is?
I'm one of those "IT Directors" that they talk about...and I can tell you that there's no real complaining. But I will tell you who is talking...the administrators and superintendents that don't have a Mac at home and don't see why we should buy overpriced ones at school either. Yes, I said overpriced. I recently bought a boatload of those cheap Microtel computers from Walmart...for $199 each. I didn't need to buy a new monitor for each one...unlike the iMacs that litter the districts. They are 1200 MHz Durons, have 128 megabytes of RAM, and do their job admirably...and wads faster than the iMacs or eMacs...and right on par with the smattering of dual-processor G4's that we have. They completely blow away the older tower-style G3's and G4's...FOR TASKS THAT WE USE THEM FOR. I noticed how the article talked about "video editing" in school projects...basically we have an art teacher that does it...and that's it. So the biggest advantage (as far as people think) of a Mac is hardly used. Easier to use? Hmmm...Try converting a lifetime OS7-8-9 user to OSX. I can tell you they are lost. Where's my chooser? They ask. More reliable? Double HA! I have seen more iMacs eat network boards and hard drives than a whole fleet of chincey old Compaq's and HP's from 1992. OS9 network protocols are laughably slow at talking to my Linux servers...and printing? No. I'm not trolling here...and not flamebating. I'm just stating what I see in my school district. There IS one neighboring district that is buying Macs like there's no tomorrow...and that's because their IT Director is a former Mac salesman. When he retires (or is fired for mismanagement) they, too, will switch over to PC-only. I look forward to the day when I can rid my own district of them, personally. Mod this what you want, but this is what is going on in the world of education.
The PDWE has been rumored for years to be the propulsion for the fabled Aurora...this type of engine leaves "donuts on a rope" contrails behind the aircraft. The PDWE is so much different from any other engine that it's silly...First, there are few, if any, moving parts. Fuel is injected, and causes a traveling wave of combustion to move down a tube...which is reflected inside the engine, and comes back up the tube. This wave compresses fuel and air still being injected and inhaled, enough so that it detonates, instead of combusting...think of it as the "pinging" in your car engine when you have crappy fuel. But harnesses correctly (as in a diesel engine,) it's actually more efficient. So this fuel detonates, which creates a pulse which partially blows out the back, but also partially reflects back up the tube to compress more fuel. Since there are no moving parts, this can take place at a very high rate of speed...The biggest problems I've read of are starting the thing...which was supposed to be the source of low-frequency rumbles at the Groom Lake site. The tube is "tuned" to a certain speed of waves inside it, and it doesn't want to run at other speeds. And...of course...noise. The thing is capable of producing lots of power...but its operation is much like that of the German pulse-jets, which sounded like flying jackhammers. But it definately could be propulsion for the future...but not to the extent that people would dream of...
As we have found out from the RIAA/MPAA episodes, idiots are the ones in charge. If they produce headlines like "Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo"...the idiots will run with it and hear only "Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid" and think we're about to be overrun by Rahumans or Huabbits...and the only sensible solution is LEGISLATION and CONTROL. I have no objection to the science at hand...but a little tact is in order here. Most people in the world...like most Slashdotters, don't get past the headline.
This is just the sort of thing that will catch the attention of do-gooder congressmen and get things like cloning research completely banned...If they do things like this, they should keep it quiet, not get it out into the mainstream of public opinion where people can jump (or maybe hop-hop-hop) to conclusions and phone their congressman.
Well that if:then series may be simple and may have been around awhile...but that didn't stop them from getting a $500,000 "license" payment from half a dozen companies, and pursuing it with two-dozen more. I'm not saying I agree...just that it happened.
Yes...it is. But it's a flowchart applied to custom specification and construction of something. If you're buying a Gateway computer, you might have four choices...server, low-end server, high-end desktop, low-end desktop. You pick server, and get different choices than the low-end desktop. If you pick something, it limits your subsequent choices. It was originally applied to construction specifications, where you could pick a school, for instance, and it would automatically limit choices for interior materials that were approved for use in schools...or if you were building a prison (kind of like a school, but sometimes longer-term) it would automatically limit your lock selection to those approved for use in prisons. They (and their lawyers) stretched its application to things like computers and cars.
I once worked for a company that held a patent on "hierarchal" custom construction in software applications, as in Dell and Gateway online configurators (or cars, or houses, or widgets, etc...)...where your subsequent choices are limited by your previous ones...Don't know if they ever collected, but at one time they had lots of hope they would get millions...
I know it won't...but this was in reply to a previous poster that questioned what would happen to the GPL if it was somehow killed in court. I just posted my thoughts on what MS and the rest of the tech harpies would think...
I think Microsoft would LOVE for the GPL license to "revert" to a BSD-style license...because then they could raid the code and sell it themselves as closed-source. If the GPL collapses in court, protections on the individual bits of code would get more stringent, not less.
Although the security violations continue, the local police establishment, the city government, and the schools are all in close partnership. I attended a meeting once where they (police and school officials) were discussing exactly how to sweep under the rug the fact that a student had a list of everyone's password (generated by l0phtcrack,) and had been reading highly sensitive e-mails by highly agitated administrators. The FBI was involved, and their "computer crimes" division had their inept hands in the thing. Lo and behold, it was all swept under the rug, with little but superficial changes in security policy (now takes 5 minutes to crack the passwords, as opposed to 5 seconds.) I just did not and do not feel like fighting the system when I have little to gain and LOTS to lose...after all, they are the ones getting $80,000 a year to sit on their duffs.
If you would have read any of the original posting, you would have seen that I was referring to the passwords to the grade software that we use. Additionally, if you had used some amount of discernment, you would have realized that I was also referring to the fact that many students knew the passwords. Obviously if nobody knew the passwords there would be a problem...of course I was referring to the fact that the STUDENTS don't know the passwords. But of course you knew that.
The salary was very widely known and published in the local paper. I didn't have any reason to change my grade...I had been graduated from high school for, oh, 8 years or so.
My morals ARE strong...which is why I quit that den of dirty-dealing, back-dooring, and slush-funding. I run another school district now, and do things MY way. Nobody knows the passwords...and I actually pay attention to what is going on. I have support from my Superintendent and the Board to ban anybody that tries anything like that...
I used to work for a school district that had major security problems with its grading system. They would tape passwords to the bottom of their keyboards...and put files with lists of teacher passwords in a publically-accessible folder on the network. I attempted to tell my boss (who was getting paid $80,000 per year) about all of this, and was basically told it was not a big deal. I watched a student change his grade from D to B...and nobody ever knew. I told a few more people and was basically told to shut up...and I could feel their eyes turning to me as the problem. So I shut up...and it continues to this day. Just remember that with ultra-conservative computer administrative nazis, the nail that sticks up gets beat down.
I just got done switching my school (I'm the head of what you might call IT) from Netware 6 to RedHat Linux. Changed the mail from Groupwise to Openwebmail (we were using all webmail anyway) and the files all over to the Linux server. Linux makes our Macs happy, Linux makes our PC's happy, Linux makes everybody happy...and it doesn't cost us $7000 a year in licensing fees. I didn't think it would work out this well, but here we are, totally open-source...and it works just as well or better. I DID NOT make the Novell salesman happy.
Many states give their officers down to the individual department level access to all sorts of information...types of information on people that have committed absolutely no crime that would make the hardest-line reactionary cringe. They give them mobile data terminals and allow them to view this whenever they want, and for whatever reason they want. Even though there are "laws" against using it against innocent people, it is a minute-by-minute occurence. I know people in the police force that check people just because they don't like them, or think it's funny to spread dirt around on them.
Did someone purchase the assets of the company? If so obviously they own it...if it was a fire-sale type of thing and nothing really changed hands, I don't see how a non-existant owner could sue you for making it public-domain or even using it yourself.
I'm sure that Darl gets a nice Gates pat on the back every once and awhile...good job, keep that uncertainty and doubt coming...Windows Server 2003 is selling like hotcakes. I won't be intimidated by some CEO's threats.
Having first-hand experience with Netware 3, 4, 5, and 6, I can say that their products are pretty neat...but way too overcomplicated for anything short of a multinational company. In my position in schools, I can tell you that all of this eDirectory and Application Launcher and ZEN are pretty un-necessary....much less costly, and yet equally effective, solutions exist in the Linux world. Oh, and we still used the keyboard to do most of our stuff...Novell and GUI just don't look right in the same sentence...
DNS is nice, but how do you "name" all of the trillions of IP adresses? ConnectediToaster000034433003482774464 is just as bad as 3ffe:ffff:0100:f101:0210:a4ff:fee3:9566...
I will agree with fragments. Lots of CNC routines are like that...many of them are pulled from textbooks and the Machinist's Handbook. There's only so many ways to come up with a G-Code peck drilling routine, anyway. But I'm talking about entire swaths of code that will suffice to create an item, such as, for instance, the CNC program for some NASCAR heads, which I'm sure are pretty heavily guarded secrets.
I would agree that, currently, "Rapid Prototyping" is not a cost-effective way to produce a saleable object. But eventually I can see the technology, as in laser-solidification of polymers, being used in general manufacturing. But we're 50 years from being able to have anything beyond a monolithic product manufacturable, as in, say a VCR. It's just not possible to lay in wires and belts and things, nor things that need bearings. At least not yet.
Coming from a CNC background, I can tell you that a company would get seriously PO'ed if their CNC programs (instructions for machining parts) got posted on the web or P2P. I mean, some of the programs are rarely used, or used only once, but any company would defend those as "trade secrets." I can imagine that any sort of "desktop manufacturing" data that would allow you to duplicate something would be treated similarly.
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I find it interesting that this material has such a high energy density...I wonder how much research has been done into making this material the trigger for a nuclear weapon? If you have read anything about fission-fusion weapons, you know that it takes a "primary" fission weapon to compress the fuel capsule of the "secondary"...which makes the big bang. The Tsar Bomba used a three-stage design...wherin a primary ignited a secondary which ignited a tertiary. Normally, high-explosives are used to start the fission reaction. If these could be eliminated, we could have a single-stage fusion weapon, which would be much smaller, and, due to the fact that fusion is usually a complete process irrespective of ignition velocity, just as powerful. There is the potential for multi-megaton weapons that would be vastly more compact...and not necessarily used for war, but perhaps asteroid defense.
Okay...since you obviously have a beef AGAINST anything but Macs, I will tell you why I think this is good for my school district...and other ones in my region. Let me look at a few places I've worked, and where others from my school might work. First one on my list was an automotive shop...they had a PC doing their shop manuals...they had a PC doing their inventory tracking...they had a PC doing their accounting. So in that job, it's PC:1, Mac:0. Second place...Signmaking shop that used CNC machines to mill them...the design was done on a PC, the CNC machine was run by a PC, and their accounting, inventory, and typesetting was done on a PC. I will admit that their order tracking was done on some old grimy IBM machine, though...still, PC:2, Mac:0. Third place...Architectural Firm. They did AutoCAD on a PC...specificaitons were done on a PC...accounting was done on a PC...correspondence and such was done on a PC. Score: PC:3, Mac:0. Next place would be some freelance work I did for a grocery store chain...everything, from accounting to payroll to e-mail, was done on a PC. I have stopped keeping score because I am done trying to get anyone to see my point with this method. Every place I have ever worked at had PC's exclusively. I am preparing these kids for the future in this region of the country, and it looks to me that they're all PC. This is not even mentioning some other local "big" employers that are PC-only...Heck, even Wal-Mart's cash registers are PC's now. Where are the Mac's? In advertising and design perhaps...but those are all in much larger cities. So am I wrong in supplying them with the types of computers they will go out into the workplace and use? I think not. Do I have a beef against Macs? Not in the least. But I have a beef against people trying to get kids to use what they see as a superior computer simply because it's there. As for "gunning for" a job...I do my job and enjoy it...and I feel I do the best job anyone can. If that is "gunning for" it, then I am doing so. I believe their mismanagment lies in the fact that they are giving grade-school kids $1000 eMacs (which, I might add, have had a near 50% failure rate in video cards) when a low-end PC would work fine. The mismanagment lies in picking a machine simply because of its name and its aura, and not because of its list of specifications or commonality in the local economy. Now, if you would kindly refrain from insulting me ("If you weren't trolling",) perhaps we could have a nice conversation on why you think I should buy Macs when no business in the area is?
I'm one of those "IT Directors" that they talk about...and I can tell you that there's no real complaining. But I will tell you who is talking...the administrators and superintendents that don't have a Mac at home and don't see why we should buy overpriced ones at school either. Yes, I said overpriced. I recently bought a boatload of those cheap Microtel computers from Walmart...for $199 each. I didn't need to buy a new monitor for each one...unlike the iMacs that litter the districts. They are 1200 MHz Durons, have 128 megabytes of RAM, and do their job admirably...and wads faster than the iMacs or eMacs...and right on par with the smattering of dual-processor G4's that we have. They completely blow away the older tower-style G3's and G4's...FOR TASKS THAT WE USE THEM FOR. I noticed how the article talked about "video editing" in school projects...basically we have an art teacher that does it...and that's it. So the biggest advantage (as far as people think) of a Mac is hardly used. Easier to use? Hmmm...Try converting a lifetime OS7-8-9 user to OSX. I can tell you they are lost. Where's my chooser? They ask. More reliable? Double HA! I have seen more iMacs eat network boards and hard drives than a whole fleet of chincey old Compaq's and HP's from 1992. OS9 network protocols are laughably slow at talking to my Linux servers...and printing? No. I'm not trolling here...and not flamebating. I'm just stating what I see in my school district. There IS one neighboring district that is buying Macs like there's no tomorrow...and that's because their IT Director is a former Mac salesman. When he retires (or is fired for mismanagement) they, too, will switch over to PC-only. I look forward to the day when I can rid my own district of them, personally. Mod this what you want, but this is what is going on in the world of education.
The PDWE has been rumored for years to be the propulsion for the fabled Aurora...this type of engine leaves "donuts on a rope" contrails behind the aircraft. The PDWE is so much different from any other engine that it's silly...First, there are few, if any, moving parts. Fuel is injected, and causes a traveling wave of combustion to move down a tube...which is reflected inside the engine, and comes back up the tube. This wave compresses fuel and air still being injected and inhaled, enough so that it detonates, instead of combusting...think of it as the "pinging" in your car engine when you have crappy fuel. But harnesses correctly (as in a diesel engine,) it's actually more efficient. So this fuel detonates, which creates a pulse which partially blows out the back, but also partially reflects back up the tube to compress more fuel. Since there are no moving parts, this can take place at a very high rate of speed...The biggest problems I've read of are starting the thing...which was supposed to be the source of low-frequency rumbles at the Groom Lake site. The tube is "tuned" to a certain speed of waves inside it, and it doesn't want to run at other speeds. And...of course...noise. The thing is capable of producing lots of power...but its operation is much like that of the German pulse-jets, which sounded like flying jackhammers. But it definately could be propulsion for the future...but not to the extent that people would dream of...
As we have found out from the RIAA/MPAA episodes, idiots are the ones in charge. If they produce headlines like "Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid Embryo"...the idiots will run with it and hear only "Cloning Yields Human-Rabbit Hybrid" and think we're about to be overrun by Rahumans or Huabbits...and the only sensible solution is LEGISLATION and CONTROL. I have no objection to the science at hand...but a little tact is in order here. Most people in the world...like most Slashdotters, don't get past the headline.
This is just the sort of thing that will catch the attention of do-gooder congressmen and get things like cloning research completely banned...If they do things like this, they should keep it quiet, not get it out into the mainstream of public opinion where people can jump (or maybe hop-hop-hop) to conclusions and phone their congressman.
Well that if:then series may be simple and may have been around awhile...but that didn't stop them from getting a $500,000 "license" payment from half a dozen companies, and pursuing it with two-dozen more. I'm not saying I agree...just that it happened.
Yes...it is. But it's a flowchart applied to custom specification and construction of something. If you're buying a Gateway computer, you might have four choices...server, low-end server, high-end desktop, low-end desktop. You pick server, and get different choices than the low-end desktop. If you pick something, it limits your subsequent choices. It was originally applied to construction specifications, where you could pick a school, for instance, and it would automatically limit choices for interior materials that were approved for use in schools...or if you were building a prison (kind of like a school, but sometimes longer-term) it would automatically limit your lock selection to those approved for use in prisons. They (and their lawyers) stretched its application to things like computers and cars.
I once worked for a company that held a patent on "hierarchal" custom construction in software applications, as in Dell and Gateway online configurators (or cars, or houses, or widgets, etc...)...where your subsequent choices are limited by your previous ones...Don't know if they ever collected, but at one time they had lots of hope they would get millions...
I'm glad to see that the United States doesn't have a monopoly on half-baked, industry-sponsored, wacked-out legislation...
I know it won't...but this was in reply to a previous poster that questioned what would happen to the GPL if it was somehow killed in court. I just posted my thoughts on what MS and the rest of the tech harpies would think...
I think Microsoft would LOVE for the GPL license to "revert" to a BSD-style license...because then they could raid the code and sell it themselves as closed-source. If the GPL collapses in court, protections on the individual bits of code would get more stringent, not less.
Although the security violations continue, the local police establishment, the city government, and the schools are all in close partnership. I attended a meeting once where they (police and school officials) were discussing exactly how to sweep under the rug the fact that a student had a list of everyone's password (generated by l0phtcrack,) and had been reading highly sensitive e-mails by highly agitated administrators. The FBI was involved, and their "computer crimes" division had their inept hands in the thing. Lo and behold, it was all swept under the rug, with little but superficial changes in security policy (now takes 5 minutes to crack the passwords, as opposed to 5 seconds.) I just did not and do not feel like fighting the system when I have little to gain and LOTS to lose...after all, they are the ones getting $80,000 a year to sit on their duffs.
If you would have read any of the original posting, you would have seen that I was referring to the passwords to the grade software that we use. Additionally, if you had used some amount of discernment, you would have realized that I was also referring to the fact that many students knew the passwords. Obviously if nobody knew the passwords there would be a problem...of course I was referring to the fact that the STUDENTS don't know the passwords. But of course you knew that.
The salary was very widely known and published in the local paper. I didn't have any reason to change my grade...I had been graduated from high school for, oh, 8 years or so. My morals ARE strong...which is why I quit that den of dirty-dealing, back-dooring, and slush-funding. I run another school district now, and do things MY way. Nobody knows the passwords...and I actually pay attention to what is going on. I have support from my Superintendent and the Board to ban anybody that tries anything like that...
I used to work for a school district that had major security problems with its grading system. They would tape passwords to the bottom of their keyboards...and put files with lists of teacher passwords in a publically-accessible folder on the network. I attempted to tell my boss (who was getting paid $80,000 per year) about all of this, and was basically told it was not a big deal. I watched a student change his grade from D to B...and nobody ever knew. I told a few more people and was basically told to shut up...and I could feel their eyes turning to me as the problem. So I shut up...and it continues to this day. Just remember that with ultra-conservative computer administrative nazis, the nail that sticks up gets beat down.
I just got done switching my school (I'm the head of what you might call IT) from Netware 6 to RedHat Linux. Changed the mail from Groupwise to Openwebmail (we were using all webmail anyway) and the files all over to the Linux server. Linux makes our Macs happy, Linux makes our PC's happy, Linux makes everybody happy...and it doesn't cost us $7000 a year in licensing fees. I didn't think it would work out this well, but here we are, totally open-source...and it works just as well or better. I DID NOT make the Novell salesman happy.
Many states give their officers down to the individual department level access to all sorts of information...types of information on people that have committed absolutely no crime that would make the hardest-line reactionary cringe. They give them mobile data terminals and allow them to view this whenever they want, and for whatever reason they want. Even though there are "laws" against using it against innocent people, it is a minute-by-minute occurence. I know people in the police force that check people just because they don't like them, or think it's funny to spread dirt around on them.
Did someone purchase the assets of the company? If so obviously they own it...if it was a fire-sale type of thing and nothing really changed hands, I don't see how a non-existant owner could sue you for making it public-domain or even using it yourself.
I'm sure that Darl gets a nice Gates pat on the back every once and awhile...good job, keep that uncertainty and doubt coming...Windows Server 2003 is selling like hotcakes. I won't be intimidated by some CEO's threats.
Having first-hand experience with Netware 3, 4, 5, and 6, I can say that their products are pretty neat...but way too overcomplicated for anything short of a multinational company. In my position in schools, I can tell you that all of this eDirectory and Application Launcher and ZEN are pretty un-necessary....much less costly, and yet equally effective, solutions exist in the Linux world. Oh, and we still used the keyboard to do most of our stuff...Novell and GUI just don't look right in the same sentence...
DNS is nice, but how do you "name" all of the trillions of IP adresses? ConnectediToaster000034433003482774464 is just as bad as 3ffe:ffff:0100:f101:0210:a4ff:fee3:9566...
I will agree with fragments. Lots of CNC routines are like that...many of them are pulled from textbooks and the Machinist's Handbook. There's only so many ways to come up with a G-Code peck drilling routine, anyway. But I'm talking about entire swaths of code that will suffice to create an item, such as, for instance, the CNC program for some NASCAR heads, which I'm sure are pretty heavily guarded secrets.
I would agree that, currently, "Rapid Prototyping" is not a cost-effective way to produce a saleable object. But eventually I can see the technology, as in laser-solidification of polymers, being used in general manufacturing. But we're 50 years from being able to have anything beyond a monolithic product manufacturable, as in, say a VCR. It's just not possible to lay in wires and belts and things, nor things that need bearings. At least not yet.
Coming from a CNC background, I can tell you that a company would get seriously PO'ed if their CNC programs (instructions for machining parts) got posted on the web or P2P. I mean, some of the programs are rarely used, or used only once, but any company would defend those as "trade secrets." I can imagine that any sort of "desktop manufacturing" data that would allow you to duplicate something would be treated similarly.