the last line in the article got me thinking..
on
Google Expanding To IRC?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
How IRC users would react to a bot from microsoft.com is an exercise left to the reader.
If the IRC is anything like was it was when I last brushed thru, not many will even notice - or attemt to engage the 'bots in "virtual intimate acts".
Off course, there would always be someone - likely a Mac or Linux user - who will notice and scream up about how MicroSoft is 'spying' on the IRC-network, which in turn would lead to several more or less wellinformed blogs writting about it, which in turn will lead to a/. headline close to "Micro$oft trying to take over IRC, will shut out 3rd part clients"...
Yeah, yeah, so he killed people and all that... but the important thing to the RIAA and their croonies is that he didn't break the laws on copyright* doing it - allthought it can be argued that he caused them to loose some sales.
*)Unless off course the RIAA and their croonies decides to copyright murder...
If they take the cue from how the first radioseries turned into books, they probaly chop things up, rewrite the plot, rewrite dialoge, have people act the same way for different reasons (which saves rewriting the dialog) and genraly simply tell the same story ina different way.
Will it do the books justice? Maybe not, but I think it still might be good. The movies don't do much justice to The Lord of the Rings (I found LotR:TT to do more injustice than justice to the book) but they are still worth seeing, ain't they?
I am strongly suspecting that what we see here is the all to tempting "I don't agree with you so I'll mod you down" syndrome. I must admit that I have fallen for it's evil spell in the past myself - but at least I modded down as 'overrated' and not as 'troll'. It is one of the weak points int he moderatorsystem I think...
It isn't really a question of which piece of software that is best - it is a question of having the ability to make a choice in the first place. Or would you say the same if any other bits of hardware or software you got disabled other programs on your computer, say if installing Opera meant that NetScape no longer was able to talk to your modem? Or if your modem wouldn't talk to any other browser than Mozilla?
It's a question of beeing able to decide yourself whats most suited for your needs. In this cause, reading this has put me off investing in an iPod, no matter how sexy it is otherwise.
I don't see why I would want anything else? Maybe you woudn't want to use anything else, but that don't mean that everyone else agrees with you. Again, this is not about what piece of software that is best, but about beeing able to make a choice yourself.
Now that iTunes is out, why would you want to keep using Music Match? Lets change a few words and see if you still agree, shall we? Now that Internet Explorer 6.0 is out, why would you want to keep using Mozilla (or any other way to look at webpages)?
No, I suspect he does mean the 'bug writers' (ie those who codes for MS). After all, we are on Slashdot, and the prevailing opinion here is that whatever is wrong with anything on a wintel-boxen, it has to be the fault of Bill Gates and his evil empire. Newest game wont run on your four year old machine? Blame DirectX, and hence MS. Lost your files in a harddisk crash? Off course that has to be because of the FAT32... which is a product of MS. PSU blew up? Must be because of buggy code in NOSMOKE.EXE...
Blaming MS for the fact that people write viruses for wintelboxes is like blaming those who make doorlocks for burglary. People write viruses that attack wintel-boxen because wintel-boxen is what there is most of, as well as the fact that most of them are run by Joe Avrage who knows zip about security. Had *nix been the most prevailing system, then people would have written more viruses for 'nix.
Blaming MS for making an OS thats easy to break into is another matter - that would be simular to blaming locksmiths for making doorlocks that are easy to pick.
Off course, I may not be in the markedsegment a pda/phone/portable console is aimed at, but as I'm in the markedsegment that will end up paying for it, I feel that I got a right to say a few words...
A phone is for comunicating. Anythign beyond that is a 'bonus' feature. To comunicate, you don't need much in the way of screen nor sound - and I'm more than happy to keep my old Nokia 5110 until it dies, as it gives me both voice and SMS coupled with a longlasting batterylife. In short, it is a good phone even if its a tad large to hold in one hand and cradle against my cheek.
On the other hand, both gaming and a PDA simply screams for large screens, and gaming in particular needs a decent soundsystem. My Palm130 has a screen thats about 5cm square, while my GBA has a screen thats about 6cm by 4cm. The ergometricks of the PDA and the GBA is also radicaly different (the PDA is held in the palm of one hand whiel the other manipulate the stylus, while the GBA is held with both hands, letting ones thumbs do the playing).
Then there is the power of the processors and the batterylife to consider. You may or may not be right that a 'modern' phone is more powerfull than a GBA, but I has a hard time beliving it can outrun a PDA. So you'll have to build the phone around the processor requirering the most powerfull CPU, in other words the PDA-prosessor (unless you make a design with mutiple CPU's). This in turn means that you'll eat up your battery faster than fast - my old phone lasts five to six days between recharging, while I must rechage my PDA about every day (I do use it a lot). If my phone was powered by a PDA-prosessor, I fear I would have to recharge it several times a day (the phone is on all the time when all is said and done).
The point of this rant? The 'intergrtaded device' is a pipedream. The requirements for the portable console, the PDA and the phone are mutualy incompatible - the ergonomics alone means that compromises must be made. Better to keep them seperate I say - that way one of them can break wihtout leaving you completly without mobile computingpower as well.
ps: I've also noticed that while the mobile phone is banned on all flights, and most cabincrew asks you to turn your PDA off if it contains transmitters, no one has yet told me I need to shut my GBA off on long flights... not to mention that keeping them seperate allows me to pick and choose what to have along.
My impression is that every time person X buys anything person Y doesn't have (console, PC, graphics card, game) person Y insists that it's silly...
And it's certainly true if the item that person X has bought outpermforms and costs less than the item person Y has.
However, this 'wisdom' that is refered to in the ingress is what I like to call 'beancounters wisdom'. While it may appear ecomomicaly reasonable to "save" around 800$ by buying a dedicated gamingconsole instead of a multipurpose computingplatform (ie, a personal computer), I find that it isn't. A PC (or a Mac for that matter) is seldom used solely for gaming - it can be used as a typewriter, to help you organise your life (and remaning money =) ), get you online and so on. That, and a PC will often be superior at certain sorts of games, as well as often arriving with its own display device, which means that mum and dad can watch the news without junior having to break of his game...
That aside, I own myself two PCs (three if you count the old 486), one PSX, one PS2, one Plam and a GBA... so perhaps the wise thing to do is to get them all and use the one best suited at any one task?
There is also this marvelous idea to make hardcopies of e-mail and physicaly transport the hardcopy to the recipient, thus allowing you to communicate with people who don't have access to the internet, or even a computer. The lag is a little worse thought, but I'm sure they are working on that.
claria (TM) is a registered trademark of Claria Headsets
I smell a courtaction comming up... the 'new' Claria (ex Gator, but still a bunch of evil, stinky bastards) will sue the 'old' Claria (Claria Headsets) for using their IP. ie the name Claria...
You may link to a site in good intent - but the (insert favorite explisive here) RIAA can afford good lawers, and a good lawer can probaly twist your own words to make it appear that you not only linked with intent to do something nasty, but are the worst persong on god green earth since original sin came into the big picture.
Lawer: "..but you did now that the site you linked to served MP3s as well as the content you linked to?"
You: "Uhm.. I guess I did see that once, yes.."
Lawer: "So, not only did you link to MP3s, but the site you linked to also links to another site which has links to a page on how to make bombs!"
Archeologists work there entire careers for the opportunity to get a scrap of 1/3 a sheet of paper.
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book.
Funny thet, but over here most archeologist would give their right hand for finding something like this, but then my ansestors wasn't very keen on books...
However, it was the second part of you statement I balked at. Even the the guys making CDs are only claiming a lifetime of 75 to 200 years, and that is probaly not achivable in real life. Others suggest a lifespan of 100 years, while people report that certain kinds of CD-Rs ain't readable after just 1 year. That aside, some of the riches sources of information archeologist has about life in the past is their rubbishtips - do you really want the archologists of the future to find several billion AOL-CDs?
As for taking up space in a landfill... you're right. Other things do take up more room, but a lot of what you give as examples are biodegrable anyway (espesially papar - it's just dead tree anyway), and every bit count, right? We don't have to leave the entire planet filled with waste for our children.
Still, unless these new, bidegradable CDs can be produced for the same or less cost than ordindary CDs, I can't see they catch on.
Reminds me of the large poster we have hanging in the workshop (I work with pneumatic, hydraulic and mechanical components for military jets, as well as other related items (ECS, EPU and so on)):
If it jams - force it! If it breaks, it needed repair anyway!
Seriously thought, there is a reason why the users manuals for comsuber electronics has page up and down with warnings how not to use the product - my new 30" widescreen television (a big thing weighting so much you need two ordinary people or four geeks to lift it) shall not - according to the manual - be used in the shower or bathtub... Obvioulsy some people lack any trace of common sence, and need to be told every little thing.
According to this page, the avrage red bloodcell is about 9um in diameter, so pouring blood down a channel just 10um wide is asking for trouble. The downside is that - as far as I can understand the article - that the size of the channel is vital for the functioning of the generator.
*ponders* Hmm... urine is mostly water, isn't it... ?
There is a major difference between makeing something (in this case, a keylock for your PC) as a one off, DIY project and starting a produtionrun of them to use on all the PCs at your workplace.
The first you do not primarely because you need whatever you're making, but becase making it is at least half the point. You draw up plans, fool around, modifies things, tries out new ideas and so on... and by the end of it all you have learnt something new, had the pleasure of making somethign with your hands as well as gotten yourself a new piece of (hopefully usefell) equipment.
But judging from your post, you've never had the pleasure of achiving anything on your own, have you?
Well, excuse me, but it's a long way from a V2 rocket to a Mercury capsule.
Is it really? In one way you're right - just as there is a long way from the engine of your car to the seat you sit in while you drive. On the other hand... the first american in space rode in a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone missile - slighty modified to manrate it.
I qoute from the website I linked to above: "Redstone was the first large liquid rocket developed in the US using German V-2 technology". In most respect, Redstone was naught but a A4 MkII - but mostly by the same people who built the A4 in the first place. In fact, those people, and the ideas behind the A4 and its derivatives, is behind almost every major american designed and built up to and including Saturn V.
And as other people on the tread has said; it makes good sence to learn of what others has done before. The soyus is pretty much the optimum shape for a spacevehicle - combining good aerodynamics with hich volumetric efficency - so it makes perfect sence in using that as a startingpoint for an enlarged capsule. Or would you rather that the chinese went for the cramped'spam in can' approach that the US Mercury programe was before they moved on to bigger and more efficiant designs?
This is/. - we don't need to read no article to dream up a plausible reply.
I think it is due to the little known Male Answer Syndrome - the genetic disorder that lets makes guys who flunked high-school physics and haven't had a date in six months able to explain what went wrong at NASA and know what women really want.
Okay.. it may just be me, but this guy seems to be more than a little paranoid about this. Lets look at his asumptions and projected serie of events:
- MS.net becomes successfull
- Mono starts gaining momentom
- MS, discovering this, starts secretly patenting key parts of.net
- MS, being greedy, doublescheming bastards who talks with forked tounges, conviniently forgets to tell anyone about their new patents, but instead makes it easy for Mono
- Mono, because of this, becomes successfull, and 'infest' (couldn't find a better word, sorry) the entire codebase of GNU/Linux
- MS, being greedy, doublescheming bastards who talks with forked tounges, suddenly remembers it's patents - and sues whoever is behind Mono
- GNU/Linux collapses, letting MS laught all the way to the bank.
Now, IANAL, but I've always been told that if you don't take steps to defend your patents as soon as you discover that someone is violating them, you effectively looses it. And considering MS earlier ways of dealing with people thye think may have violated one of their patents (strike early and hard), they would have struck allready me thinks.
Besides, it is usefull for MS to have GNU/Linux around - it gives them something to point to when peopel claim that they have a desktop monopoly.
Interesting, but not surpricing. Humans have been building machines for several thousand years and gotten very good at it. We have dabbled in AI for less than a century, and hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. The AI has so far always been the stumbling block as far as robots and autonoms go.
The principle behind how things move are well known - the wheel and the lever is inventions which origins are lost in the mist of time. Lifelike movements are nothing new either - in 1769 Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen produced a chess-playing Turkish gentleman. The life-sized automaton sat at a large cabinet with a long pipe in one hand, consistently beating its living opponents at chess with the other (the automation was controlled by a midget hidden under the chessboard - so you could call the midget the robots 'AI'). The same Baron invented a 'speaking machine', so he clearly had some mechanical insights and skills.
To qoute from the official guidelines:
The second flight must demonstrate economical vehicle reusability. It is the X PRIZE Rules Committee's intent that the winning flight vehicle should exhibit sufficiently low per-flight costs such that the flight vehicle will support low-cost space access. Toward this end, no more than 10% of the flight vehicle's first-flight non-propellant mass may be replaced between the two flights.
So, unless the nosecone contribuetes more than 10% of the dry weight of their vehicle, they could replace it without penalty.
I suppose such a system can be designed, at least in theory. However, there are some major hurdles in getting people to use it...
- It means all devices used to read e-books must either have an inbuilt cellphone, or some means of connecting to one. So you could have a more expencive devise, or you can carry around two gadgets.
- The user is forced to pay not just for a book, but also hand his/her/its money over to a telcom.
- In Europe - and most contries of the world - there is one standard for cellphones, and thus one way of sending an SMS (which I assume is the easiest way of sending a key). In the US there are several different, incompatible networks - some of which hasn't even impleneted a way of sending messages.
-- Using SMS generates a new problem; keys must be relativly short.
- Traveling may turn interesting; purchase a new book, and find that since your phone don't support the local network - or that your telcom dont have a service agreement with any telcom in the area - you can't get to read it...
In short, it is possible to design a 'perfectly secure' system for encryption of e-books (and just about anything). That system has been found and is called 'one time pads'.
However, it is not possible to implemement such a system on a large scale. Just the key-distrebution and synching of the keys (and you can't reuse the one time keys without compremising security) is durn near impossible.
Man, that brings back memories... about 1/3rd of the guys in my class back then (early eighties) had micros - and just one had an Atari 400. Boy, we (ie; the other protogeeks) used to give him hell... we all had a 'real computer', the allmighty Commodore 64. Back then I used to rule them all, beeing the only one with a 1541 floppy (single side, single density 51/4" disks, connected to the motherboard via a serial cable), meaning I just had to wait five to ten minutes to load the games...
Good times, good times... I think I shall go connect it all up again - been a couple of months since I had a good game of Defender of the Crown.
Slashdot Mirror
How IRC users would react to a bot from microsoft.com is an exercise left to the reader.
If the IRC is anything like was it was when I last brushed thru, not many will even notice - or attemt to engage the 'bots in "virtual intimate acts".
Off course, there would always be someone - likely a Mac or Linux user - who will notice and scream up about how MicroSoft is 'spying' on the IRC-network, which in turn would lead to several more or less wellinformed blogs writting about it, which in turn will lead to a /. headline close to "Micro$oft trying to take over IRC, will shut out 3rd part clients"...
Yeah, yeah, so he killed people and all that... but the important thing to the RIAA and their croonies is that he didn't break the laws on copyright* doing it - allthought it can be argued that he caused them to loose some sales.
*)Unless off course the RIAA and their croonies decides to copyright murder...
..to solve it included a screwdriver to pry the tiles of. Apperantly, I didn't have much patience back then.
Forget about the bad guys - what happens when a geek hacks this, reverse engeniers it and put it out as a open source project =) ?
If they take the cue from how the first radioseries turned into books, they probaly chop things up, rewrite the plot, rewrite dialoge, have people act the same way for different reasons (which saves rewriting the dialog) and genraly simply tell the same story ina different way.
Will it do the books justice? Maybe not, but I think it still might be good. The movies don't do much justice to The Lord of the Rings (I found LotR:TT to do more injustice than justice to the book) but they are still worth seeing, ain't they?
I am strongly suspecting that what we see here is the all to tempting "I don't agree with you so I'll mod you down" syndrome. I must admit that I have fallen for it's evil spell in the past myself - but at least I modded down as 'overrated' and not as 'troll'. It is one of the weak points int he moderatorsystem I think...
It isn't really a question of which piece of software that is best - it is a question of having the ability to make a choice in the first place. Or would you say the same if any other bits of hardware or software you got disabled other programs on your computer, say if installing Opera meant that NetScape no longer was able to talk to your modem? Or if your modem wouldn't talk to any other browser than Mozilla?
It's a question of beeing able to decide yourself whats most suited for your needs. In this cause, reading this has put me off investing in an iPod, no matter how sexy it is otherwise.
I don't see why I would want anything else? Maybe you woudn't want to use anything else, but that don't mean that everyone else agrees with you. Again, this is not about what piece of software that is best, but about beeing able to make a choice yourself.
Now that iTunes is out, why would you want to keep using Music Match? Lets change a few words and see if you still agree, shall we? Now that Internet Explorer 6.0 is out, why would you want to keep using Mozilla (or any other way to look at webpages)?
No, I suspect he does mean the 'bug writers' (ie those who codes for MS). After all, we are on Slashdot, and the prevailing opinion here is that whatever is wrong with anything on a wintel-boxen, it has to be the fault of Bill Gates and his evil empire. Newest game wont run on your four year old machine? Blame DirectX, and hence MS. Lost your files in a harddisk crash? Off course that has to be because of the FAT32... which is a product of MS. PSU blew up? Must be because of buggy code in NOSMOKE.EXE ...
Blaming MS for the fact that people write viruses for wintelboxes is like blaming those who make doorlocks for burglary. People write viruses that attack wintel-boxen because wintel-boxen is what there is most of, as well as the fact that most of them are run by Joe Avrage who knows zip about security. Had *nix been the most prevailing system, then people would have written more viruses for 'nix.
Blaming MS for making an OS thats easy to break into is another matter - that would be simular to blaming locksmiths for making doorlocks that are easy to pick.
Off course, I may not be in the markedsegment a pda/phone/portable console is aimed at, but as I'm in the markedsegment that will end up paying for it, I feel that I got a right to say a few words...
A phone is for comunicating. Anythign beyond that is a 'bonus' feature. To comunicate, you don't need much in the way of screen nor sound - and I'm more than happy to keep my old Nokia 5110 until it dies, as it gives me both voice and SMS coupled with a longlasting batterylife. In short, it is a good phone even if its a tad large to hold in one hand and cradle against my cheek.
On the other hand, both gaming and a PDA simply screams for large screens, and gaming in particular needs a decent soundsystem. My Palm130 has a screen thats about 5cm square, while my GBA has a screen thats about 6cm by 4cm. The ergometricks of the PDA and the GBA is also radicaly different (the PDA is held in the palm of one hand whiel the other manipulate the stylus, while the GBA is held with both hands, letting ones thumbs do the playing).
Then there is the power of the processors and the batterylife to consider. You may or may not be right that a 'modern' phone is more powerfull than a GBA, but I has a hard time beliving it can outrun a PDA. So you'll have to build the phone around the processor requirering the most powerfull CPU, in other words the PDA-prosessor (unless you make a design with mutiple CPU's). This in turn means that you'll eat up your battery faster than fast - my old phone lasts five to six days between recharging, while I must rechage my PDA about every day (I do use it a lot). If my phone was powered by a PDA-prosessor, I fear I would have to recharge it several times a day (the phone is on all the time when all is said and done).
The point of this rant? The 'intergrtaded device' is a pipedream. The requirements for the portable console, the PDA and the phone are mutualy incompatible - the ergonomics alone means that compromises must be made. Better to keep them seperate I say - that way one of them can break wihtout leaving you completly without mobile computingpower as well.
ps: I've also noticed that while the mobile phone is banned on all flights, and most cabincrew asks you to turn your PDA off if it contains transmitters, no one has yet told me I need to shut my GBA off on long flights... not to mention that keeping them seperate allows me to pick and choose what to have along.
My impression is that every time person X buys anything person Y doesn't have (console, PC, graphics card, game) person Y insists that it's silly...
And it's certainly true if the item that person X has bought outpermforms and costs less than the item person Y has.
However, this 'wisdom' that is refered to in the ingress is what I like to call 'beancounters wisdom'. While it may appear ecomomicaly reasonable to "save" around 800$ by buying a dedicated gamingconsole instead of a multipurpose computingplatform (ie, a personal computer), I find that it isn't. A PC (or a Mac for that matter) is seldom used solely for gaming - it can be used as a typewriter, to help you organise your life (and remaning money =) ), get you online and so on. That, and a PC will often be superior at certain sorts of games, as well as often arriving with its own display device, which means that mum and dad can watch the news without junior having to break of his game...
That aside, I own myself two PCs (three if you count the old 486), one PSX, one PS2, one Plam and a GBA... so perhaps the wise thing to do is to get them all and use the one best suited at any one task?
These guys are massive nerds.
This is Slashdot. The fact that they are nerds are just a pro around here.
There is also this marvelous idea to make hardcopies of e-mail and physicaly transport the hardcopy to the recipient, thus allowing you to communicate with people who don't have access to the internet, or even a computer. The lag is a little worse thought, but I'm sure they are working on that.
claria (TM) is a registered trademark of Claria Headsets
I smell a courtaction comming up... the 'new' Claria (ex Gator, but still a bunch of evil, stinky bastards) will sue the 'old' Claria (Claria Headsets) for using their IP. ie the name Claria...
You may link to a site in good intent - but the (insert favorite explisive here) RIAA can afford good lawers, and a good lawer can probaly twist your own words to make it appear that you not only linked with intent to do something nasty, but are the worst persong on god green earth since original sin came into the big picture.
Lawer: "..but you did now that the site you linked to served MP3s as well as the content you linked to?"
You: "Uhm.. I guess I did see that once, yes.."
Lawer: "So, not only did you link to MP3s, but the site you linked to also links to another site which has links to a page on how to make bombs!"
Etc, etc, etc.
Archeologists work there entire careers for the opportunity to get a scrap of 1/3 a sheet of paper.
Say what you want, but in 3000 years those CD's will be in much better shape then a book.
Funny thet, but over here most archeologist would give their right hand for finding something like this, but then my ansestors wasn't very keen on books...
However, it was the second part of you statement I balked at. Even the the guys making CDs are only claiming a lifetime of 75 to 200 years, and that is probaly not achivable in real life. Others suggest a lifespan of 100 years, while people report that certain kinds of CD-Rs ain't readable after just 1 year. That aside, some of the riches sources of information archeologist has about life in the past is their rubbishtips - do you really want the archologists of the future to find several billion AOL-CDs?
As for taking up space in a landfill... you're right. Other things do take up more room, but a lot of what you give as examples are biodegrable anyway (espesially papar - it's just dead tree anyway), and every bit count, right? We don't have to leave the entire planet filled with waste for our children.
Still, unless these new, bidegradable CDs can be produced for the same or less cost than ordindary CDs, I can't see they catch on.
Reminds me of the large poster we have hanging in the workshop (I work with pneumatic, hydraulic and mechanical components for military jets, as well as other related items (ECS, EPU and so on)):
If it jams - force it! If it breaks, it needed repair anyway!
Seriously thought, there is a reason why the users manuals for comsuber electronics has page up and down with warnings how not to use the product - my new 30" widescreen television (a big thing weighting so much you need two ordinary people or four geeks to lift it) shall not - according to the manual - be used in the shower or bathtub... Obvioulsy some people lack any trace of common sence, and need to be told every little thing.
According to this page, the avrage red bloodcell is about 9um in diameter, so pouring blood down a channel just 10um wide is asking for trouble. The downside is that - as far as I can understand the article - that the size of the channel is vital for the functioning of the generator.
*ponders* Hmm... urine is mostly water, isn't it... ?
There is a major difference between makeing something (in this case, a keylock for your PC) as a one off, DIY project and starting a produtionrun of them to use on all the PCs at your workplace.
The first you do not primarely because you need whatever you're making, but becase making it is at least half the point. You draw up plans, fool around, modifies things, tries out new ideas and so on... and by the end of it all you have learnt something new, had the pleasure of making somethign with your hands as well as gotten yourself a new piece of (hopefully usefell) equipment.
But judging from your post, you've never had the pleasure of achiving anything on your own, have you?
Well, excuse me, but it's a long way from a V2 rocket to a Mercury capsule.
Is it really? In one way you're right - just as there is a long way from the engine of your car to the seat you sit in while you drive. On the other hand... the first american in space rode in a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone missile - slighty modified to manrate it.
I qoute from the website I linked to above: "Redstone was the first large liquid rocket developed in the US using German V-2 technology". In most respect, Redstone was naught but a A4 MkII - but mostly by the same people who built the A4 in the first place. In fact, those people, and the ideas behind the A4 and its derivatives, is behind almost every major american designed and built up to and including Saturn V.
And as other people on the tread has said; it makes good sence to learn of what others has done before. The soyus is pretty much the optimum shape for a spacevehicle - combining good aerodynamics with hich volumetric efficency - so it makes perfect sence in using that as a startingpoint for an enlarged capsule. Or would you rather that the chinese went for the cramped 'spam in can' approach that the US Mercury programe was before they moved on to bigger and more efficiant designs?
This is /. - we don't need to read no article to dream up a plausible reply.
I think it is due to the little known Male Answer Syndrome - the genetic disorder that lets makes guys who flunked high-school physics and haven't had a date in six months able to explain what went wrong at NASA and know what women really want.
Okay.. it may just be me, but this guy seems to be more than a little paranoid about this. Lets look at his asumptions and projected serie of events: .net becomes successfull .net
- MS
- Mono starts gaining momentom
- MS, discovering this, starts secretly patenting key parts of
- MS, being greedy, doublescheming bastards who talks with forked tounges, conviniently forgets to tell anyone about their new patents, but instead makes it easy for Mono
- Mono, because of this, becomes successfull, and 'infest' (couldn't find a better word, sorry) the entire codebase of GNU/Linux
- MS, being greedy, doublescheming bastards who talks with forked tounges, suddenly remembers it's patents - and sues whoever is behind Mono
- GNU/Linux collapses, letting MS laught all the way to the bank.
Now, IANAL, but I've always been told that if you don't take steps to defend your patents as soon as you discover that someone is violating them, you effectively looses it. And considering MS earlier ways of dealing with people thye think may have violated one of their patents (strike early and hard), they would have struck allready me thinks.
Besides, it is usefull for MS to have GNU/Linux around - it gives them something to point to when peopel claim that they have a desktop monopoly.
Interesting, but not surpricing. Humans have been building machines for several thousand years and gotten very good at it. We have dabbled in AI for less than a century, and hasn't really gotten anywhere yet. The AI has so far always been the stumbling block as far as robots and autonoms go.
The principle behind how things move are well known - the wheel and the lever is inventions which origins are lost in the mist of time. Lifelike movements are nothing new either - in 1769 Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen produced a chess-playing Turkish gentleman. The life-sized automaton sat at a large cabinet with a long pipe in one hand, consistently beating its living opponents at chess with the other (the automation was controlled by a midget hidden under the chessboard - so you could call the midget the robots 'AI'). The same Baron invented a 'speaking machine', so he clearly had some mechanical insights and skills.
To qoute from the official guidelines:
The second flight must demonstrate economical vehicle reusability. It is the X PRIZE Rules Committee's intent that the winning flight vehicle should exhibit sufficiently low per-flight costs such that the flight vehicle will support low-cost space access. Toward this end, no more than 10% of the flight vehicle's first-flight non-propellant mass may be replaced between the two flights.
So, unless the nosecone contribuetes more than 10% of the dry weight of their vehicle, they could replace it without penalty.
I suppose such a system can be designed, at least in theory. However, there are some major hurdles in getting people to use it...
- It means all devices used to read e-books must either have an inbuilt cellphone, or some means of connecting to one. So you could have a more expencive devise, or you can carry around two gadgets.
- The user is forced to pay not just for a book, but also hand his/her/its money over to a telcom.
- In Europe - and most contries of the world - there is one standard for cellphones, and thus one way of sending an SMS (which I assume is the easiest way of sending a key). In the US there are several different, incompatible networks - some of which hasn't even impleneted a way of sending messages.
-- Using SMS generates a new problem; keys must be relativly short.
- Traveling may turn interesting; purchase a new book, and find that since your phone don't support the local network - or that your telcom dont have a service agreement with any telcom in the area - you can't get to read it...
In short, it is possible to design a 'perfectly secure' system for encryption of e-books (and just about anything). That system has been found and is called 'one time pads'.
However, it is not possible to implemement such a system on a large scale. Just the key-distrebution and synching of the keys (and you can't reuse the one time keys without compremising security) is durn near impossible.
Man, that brings back memories... about 1/3rd of the guys in my class back then (early eighties) had micros - and just one had an Atari 400. Boy, we (ie; the other protogeeks) used to give him hell... we all had a 'real computer', the allmighty Commodore 64. Back then I used to rule them all, beeing the only one with a 1541 floppy (single side, single density 51/4" disks, connected to the motherboard via a serial cable), meaning I just had to wait five to ten minutes to load the games...
Good times, good times... I think I shall go connect it all up again - been a couple of months since I had a good game of Defender of the Crown.