Presumably using the Magento-Optic Kerr effect; light reflected from the surface of a magnetic material is circularly polarised. It sounds like they're recording using this effect in reverse, so read and write speed should be comparable.
However, TFA says 'managed to transfer data at intervals of about 40 femtoseconds' which is surely very misleading - it implies they wrote data at 25GHz. Given their spot size of 5um, that would require the medium to be moving at 125,000 m/s.
Of course, the actual paper says something quite different; their key achievement is being able to change the magnetisation of a domain in just 40 femtoseconds.
Just another reason for the US to move to a first to file patent system, under which a continuation application is more of an anomly, and would certainly be harder to get.
A first to file system generally reduces uncertainty, especially for licencees and consumers. It encourages companies to file promptly, and doesn't introduce unnecessary delays in the grant of a patent. For example, the delay of 7 years in granting the RSA patent wouldn't happen under first-to-file; instead it would have been granted to the first filer back in 1777, and left to the courts to decide who received the benefit of the patent. (Of course, first-to-file doesn't affect the principles used to determine whether an invention is patentable in the first place.)
According to TFA, they've thought of that - electrons are mixed with the ions just before they leave the motor to ensure the exhaust is neutral.
If they didn't, it would quickly stop working as the spacecraft acquired a negative charge.
Although it wasn't made clear, presumably it's the use of an Ion drive that allows them to orbit more than one target in a single mission?
Not quite correct.
The navy (and foreign policy) comes under the royal prerogative (aka executive branch in modern parlance.) Although political union didn't occur until 1707, executive union happened on 24th March 1603 when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. He was keen on political union of his countries, but was limited by the parliaments to a few unilateral measures. So he proclaimed himself King of Great Britain on October 1604 (a title also assumed by Charles I) and in 1606 decreed that all ships of England and Scotland fly a common, Union flag.
Hence a war fleet of 1694 probably wouldn't have been described as British at the time, but might have included Scottish ships (if any were left after the Civil war), so 'English fleet' could be misleading.
But what I'd really like to know is what are these $500m colonial coins mentioned in the TFA? Were the colonies issuing coins in 1694? And were they just like the real British (ok, Anglo-Scottish) coins - but when you find one in your change and try to spend it, you discover it's not legal tender?
Exactly. And as Work done = force moved x distance moved in direction of force,
or power = force x velocity, then you only need to get one of these moving at
more than 1kW/16mN = 60,000 m/s to give you an unlimited energy source.
i.e. set it moving towards you, and get it to do work. For example, bounce tennis balls off it; they'll come back faster than you sent them (because it's moving towards you). Ordinarily, the machine would slow down when hit by the tennis balls - but the free momentum drive pushing it towards you stops that happenning. Above 60km/s, the energy supplied is more than that required to power the machine.
Depressing that NS doesn't vet its articles to the level of basic school physics.
Can anyone name a notable OSS project released under the BSD licence that was subsequently 'stolen' for a commercial product?
In fact, the reverse is true. Commercial versions of OSS software are more likely under GPL than BSD licences. The reason? A BSD licence provides a free market for commercialisation of the software, and simply copying some OSS code does not make a viable business plan. Whereas, the copyright holder of software released under GPL has a monoply on closed-source commercialisation of his code.
There's an obvious example - OSS databases. PostgreSQL, released under the BSD licence has suffered no commercial exploitation. By comparison, MySQL is a commercial product that is actively sold for closed-source applications.
The problem here is bad drafting by incompentent lawyers - the idea is sound enough.
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article-
(a) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3; or
(b) believing that it is likely to be so used.
(3) In this section 'article' includes any program or data held in electronic form. [my emphasis]
This would be completely sensible were it refering to any physical object. For example, when Stanley makes one more knife, that particular knife is unlikely to be used by a criminal. Conversely, it sounds like a good idea for a hardware store not to sell a knife to Bill Sykes kitted out in his black mask and swag bag.
Unfortunately, lawyers don't understand that you only 'make' a program once, and supply it many times over. Replace 'makes' by 'designs' above, and it becomes nonsense when applied to knives.
I think that this clause, with 'makes, adapts' removed for the puposes of (b), would be quite a reasonable law.
Slashdot Mirror
However, TFA says 'managed to transfer data at intervals of about 40 femtoseconds' which is surely very misleading - it implies they wrote data at 25GHz. Given their spot size of 5um, that would require the medium to be moving at 125,000 m/s.
Of course, the actual paper says something quite different; their key achievement is being able to change the magnetisation of a domain in just 40 femtoseconds.
A first to file system generally reduces uncertainty, especially for licencees and consumers. It encourages companies to file promptly, and doesn't introduce unnecessary delays in the grant of a patent. For example, the delay of 7 years in granting the RSA patent wouldn't happen under first-to-file; instead it would have been granted to the first filer back in 1777, and left to the courts to decide who received the benefit of the patent. (Of course, first-to-file doesn't affect the principles used to determine whether an invention is patentable in the first place.)
According to TFA, they've thought of that - electrons are mixed with the ions just before they leave the motor to ensure the exhaust is neutral. If they didn't, it would quickly stop working as the spacecraft acquired a negative charge. Although it wasn't made clear, presumably it's the use of an Ion drive that allows them to orbit more than one target in a single mission?
The navy (and foreign policy) comes under the royal prerogative (aka executive branch in modern parlance.) Although political union didn't occur until 1707, executive union happened on 24th March 1603 when King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England. He was keen on political union of his countries, but was limited by the parliaments to a few unilateral measures. So he proclaimed himself King of Great Britain on October 1604 (a title also assumed by Charles I) and in 1606 decreed that all ships of England and Scotland fly a common, Union flag.
Hence a war fleet of 1694 probably wouldn't have been described as British at the time, but might have included Scottish ships (if any were left after the Civil war), so 'English fleet' could be misleading.
But what I'd really like to know is what are these $500m colonial coins mentioned in the TFA? Were the colonies issuing coins in 1694? And were they just like the real British (ok, Anglo-Scottish) coins - but when you find one in your change and try to spend it, you discover it's not legal tender?
i.e. set it moving towards you, and get it to do work. For example, bounce tennis balls off it; they'll come back faster than you sent them (because it's moving towards you). Ordinarily, the machine would slow down when hit by the tennis balls - but the free momentum drive pushing it towards you stops that happenning. Above 60km/s, the energy supplied is more than that required to power the machine.
Depressing that NS doesn't vet its articles to the level of basic school physics.
In fact, the reverse is true. Commercial versions of OSS software are more likely under GPL than BSD licences. The reason? A BSD licence provides a free market for commercialisation of the software, and simply copying some OSS code does not make a viable business plan. Whereas, the copyright holder of software released under GPL has a monoply on closed-source commercialisation of his code.
There's an obvious example - OSS databases. PostgreSQL, released under the BSD licence has suffered no commercial exploitation. By comparison, MySQL is a commercial product that is actively sold for closed-source applications.
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he makes, adapts, supplies or offers to supply any article-
(a) intending it to be used to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3; or
(b) believing that it is likely to be so used.
(3) In this section 'article' includes any program or data held in electronic form. [my emphasis]
This would be completely sensible were it refering to any physical object. For example, when Stanley makes one more knife, that particular knife is unlikely to be used by a criminal. Conversely, it sounds like a good idea for a hardware store not to sell a knife to Bill Sykes kitted out in his black mask and swag bag.
Unfortunately, lawyers don't understand that you only 'make' a program once, and supply it many times over. Replace 'makes' by 'designs' above, and it becomes nonsense when applied to knives.
I think that this clause, with 'makes, adapts' removed for the puposes of (b), would be quite a reasonable law.