The bloated workforce of more than 60,000 could be slashed, to the point where the huge resulting increase in cash flow would at last permit the company to borrow mega-billions
I think cutting anything more than 10% of the workforce would have a serious negative effect on the company's ability to do business. So, let's say 6,000 people. That's $360 million, if you assume they're paid $60k a year (probably generous as an average.) Let's say on average you save half a year's salary firing them.
Microsoft's annual revenue a year or two ago was $10BN.
So a 10% cut in workforce would be 1.8% of one year's revenue, assuming zero loss in productivity from the terminations. Except you have to train people to take over the jobs of the 10% fired and those left behind have 10% more work to do, you have to track down information only the fired people knew...fire 10% of your sales staff and you'll invariably piss off 10% of your customers which will result in some lost sales...fire 10% of your engineers or QA people and not as many bugs get fixed or found...the reprecussions go on and on.
I really wish that management would realize that trimming the books isn't as simple as "fire (budget hole)/(average salary) people".
Concern over the machines led the Alaska Legislature in 2005 to pass a law requiring a mandatory hand count of ballots in one randomly selected precinct in every election district.
Be interesting to hear about how those random hand counts compare to the machine tabulations.
By the way, it'd be nice if slashdotters took notice that a number of the failures were related to phone lines (probably people plugging them into the wrong jacks, digital lines, or lines requiring special dial-out numbers, etc.)
Last but not least:
The Diebold electronic voting machines nationwide have been criticized by voter groups and computer scientists who say they are vulnerable to fraud. Diebold has defended the machines, saying they are secure when elections officials follow proper procedures.
That's the whole point, Diebold: you shouldn't have to "follow proper procedures." The machines should make it impossible to do so, just like I punch a ballot, place it in a box, which is locked and sealed, and taken by police to the counting facility, etc. The current system requires a fair amount of work to interfere with; the Diebold machines seem to require a fair amount of work to NOT interfere with!
I wonder if your fear #3 is grounds for challenging current patent law.
Patent law doesn't need changing, as it already bars 'obvious to someone in the field' ideas, which is what the parent poster was complaining about. We need more people to take a stand against patents that clearly aren't valid. If more people/companies challenged the 'fork and knife' patents, fewer companies would abuse them.
Patent fees should also be based off the assets of the applicant; ie, if I want to patent something, it should cost me enough to make me not just do it willy-nilly, and if Apple, Creative, etc wants to- well, then they should have to pay a bill that makes THEM think twice, too. The challenge, of course, will be figuring out how to keep shell companies (already used for patent holding) from getting around it.
The former (challenging more patents) is unlikely to happen, given that these days the only people who can afford to do so are often publicly held companies, and are under shareholder pressure to go for the absolute cheapest route, or the "known expense" versus the "unknown." Someone at Apple most likely decided that the (fairly small) risk of Creative getting a percentage off all iPod sales past and future, was not worth a known cost of $100M.
I still have an account on there. I really like their birthday reminders
I get a kick out of Friendster because I get emails saying I haven't logged in "in a while" and how great it would be if I logged in. Friends get the same emails, and we all ignore them, because friendster had/has nothing to offer beyond a popularity contest. I grew out of worrying how MANY friends I had years ago.
We agreed it was like a desperate ex...popping up every once in a while, telling you how nice it'd be to hear from you...
Since when is MS Word the definitive guide to the english language?
When you're an arrogant academic? He got a nice bit of Humble Pie Smackdown, and I can't think of anyone more deserving at the moment. Not to mention, both groups and a lot of other scientists will learn lessons from this....
"fighting for democracy"? Are you joking?
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iPods at War
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Our troops aren't just fighting for Democracy, they're also fighting for stable economies & developed infrastructures.
Have you picked up a newspaper lately? Half a million Iraqi citizens dead, infrastructure (that we destroyed) still massively broken despite billions upon billions of dollars being forked over to government contractors, and currently the country is essentially in the midst of civil war; you've got your warlords, and now there are Iraqi police departments turning into gangs. The country is in complete, total, utter chaos.
The party line is "fighting for freedom", by the way.
There are some things that just should be done, and damn the cost.
That's an emotional argument, not a logical one. It's little better than "the end justifies the means", and it is very cliche; all the time, the answer to "why are we doing this" is "because it's there!" That's great if you're spending your own bucks to go climb Everest- I wish you the best of luck. But if you're going to spend trillions of dollars, I need something much more concrete. Go google "waggonauts" some time, and read for an INSIDER's view of how stupid human space exploration is. Seriously- it was written by NASA people...
You need to stop and realize that most space exploration hasn't been for research or the betterment of mankind. It's all a bragging rights/land grab game between nations, while lining the pockets of defense contractors. Why do you think Kennedy put people on the moon? Because the Russians were the first to put people in space- dozens of them- before the US put Glen up. The race to put a man in space also helped quite a bit with refining nuclear missile technology. Why do you think Bush got interested in the Moon and Mars? Only because China got interested in the moon, and "the world's greatest superpower" can't be outdone...
Did you ever notice that countries that were not involved in the space and weapons races have remarkably better socities and infrastructure, because they devoted resources to taking care of their people?
To drag out a tired example, it's a modern Columbus. It is a cost that is most likely going to return nothing, but if it does, the potential rewards will make it all worth it.
Spain financed Columbus because he was in search of conquest; gold, shorter trade routes, etc. It was a bit of a crapshoot, but they figured that if he came back at all, they stood a great chance of making a killing, and they were right. The difference here is that we have nothing to gain from exploration of Mars or the Moon; it's a childish pipe-dream to think we'll find anything practical in terms of natural resources on either planets. Putting a couple hundred people on 3 ships for a few months PALES in comparison to the challenges involved in a manned trip to Mars. There is no giant cache of gold on the moon or mars, and even if there was- the economics just don't add up, and they don't get better as you throw more money at the problem. People with a space exploration fetish concoct the most amazing chains of "if we..." arguments to justify exploration...
It's also a common fallacy that space exploration brought us wonders like zero-g pens, velcro, orange tang, and remote medical monitoring. All existed before the manned space program. I know slashdot readers hate to think it, but we've gotten very little out of space "exploration", especially the manned kind.
The press coverage has been woefully bad with respect to explaining that these are not your average run-of-the-mill viruses, but rather are bacteriophages that can only infect bacteria. Expect some mild hysteria over this and some nuts demanding labelling.
I was expecting more of a "We can't label this, consumers would freak out if they knew!" reaction from businesses.
Exactly that argument was used to strike down requirements that "GM" (genetically modified) food be labelled. Businesses, with a straight face, told the government regulators that if they required labelling, consumers wouldn't buy their products. God forbid consumers be allowed to make a choice as to whether they want genetically modified foods or not...and if you're afraid they won't choose genetically modified foods- maybe you shouldn't make them.
Most people's fears come from the business world constantly (and consistently) putting profits ahead of public health. Industries whine about reglation, but they brought it upon themselves, as almost every piece of regulation on the books were brought about by someone doing something they shouldn't have- all because it made more profit.
2,000 lbs is not a pressure; there's no area. It's weight. This is basic high school physics...
Computerworld tested that claim by repeatedly driving a Volkswagen Beetle over the ruggedized thumb drive. While the drive's body came away with a few scratches, there were no dents, and not a single lost file."
A Neu VW beetle weighs about 3000lb. If the entire force applied against the road by one tire was applied to the device (for example, by putting a piece of thick metal on either side of the device and then running the car over the plate of metal), that's only 750LB. This is basic grade school math (3000/4.)
I'd guess your average thumb drive has perhaps 1-2 square inches of surface area. The amount of pressure between tire and road is exactly equal to the inflation pressure of the tire, which is often around 30-35 PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch.) So the thumb drive never had more than 60-70lb put on it...
I am being intentionally vague in this post, but three men with drink containers full of certain substances starting three fires at three different parts of the plane would be extremely difficult to control, especially considering the lack of fire surpression systems in the passenger cabin.
How amusing that you were modded 5,Informative- for essentially doing what our "homeland security" officials have been doing. SPECULATING WITH NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. That was the entire point of the article- that the scenarios provided by "unnamed security officials" are absurd, and bear closer resemblence to a Hollywood movie than reality.
If they are issuing "real" threats or abusing services, they should face the consequences of those abuses
Threats don't seem to be the main issue; slander does. People going hog-wild and spreading rumors, out of some combination of ignorance and malice. From the article:
Since last year, dozens of people have been indicted on charges of criminal contempt or slander for writing or spreading malicious online insults about victims like Kim Myong Jae. They face fines of as much as 2 million won, or $2,067.
Sounds like they need to step up efforts to cut slander, that's all. If you knowingly perpetuate a rumor and destroy someone's professional or personal life, you should suffer consequences greater than "as much as" $2k out of your pocket.
Publishing your name, photo, address, telephone number, and all known BB account names on a government website for "known internet slanderers" would be a GREAT first start. Methinks you'd be a LOT less likely to engage in slander if you knew that if you were caught, you'd be unhireable (what company will hire someone known to be a malicious liar?), undateable, etc. Best case for 'eye for an eye' if I ever saw it.
How about support for installing XP on an external drive so that you can use it on more than one Intel Mac or even other PCs?
XP doesn't support booting off USB, because swap can't be on USB. There are some hacks to do it, but it isn't pretty. Firewire is better, but still not ideal. Also, XP is liable to be extremely unhappy (licensing-wise) with switching to completely new hardware all the time, unless it is the 'corporate' version...so your bit about switching between different intel macs is mostly pointless. As for switching between intel macs and other PCs, not going to happen- drivers are almost all different.
The closest solution, most likely, is a eSATA adapter card and external drive; there's at least one Expresscard for MB/MBPs now. Other options include waiting for the next beta of Parallels (which reportedly will feature full 3D hardware use/acceleration, supposedly good enough for gaming- I'm highly skeptical and will believe it when I see it) or using a small C: partition on the internal drive, and a larger external firewire/USB drive (or a file server!) for all your programs and data.
Couldn't there be a very low power engine of some kind, just enough to provide a minimal thrust for, lets say, a decade. You don't need a lot of thrust in vacuum. Even small but constant acceleration should be sufficient to eventually achieve very high speed and perhaps even outrun the older spacecraft.
If getting from A to B as fast as possible is your goal, you want to get as much of your acceleration done as fast as possible. For example, at the race track, it's better to be going 1MPH faster exiting a turn onto a straight section, than to end up 1MPH faster at the END of the straightaway.
It'd be much beter to do a big burst, then trickle- than to trickle all the way.
Among other things, the complaint asks AOL to notify all users affected by the data disclosure via certified mail and provide free credit monitoring for a year."
AOL probably -CAN'T- notify the users, because they probably didn't keep the username->ID# mapping.
As someone who was involved in evaluating this technology for a major US manufacturer of power tools, there are a number of issues which prevented early adoption. First and foremost was the inventor's demands for unreasonable royalties (including a percentage of the gross sales of table saws from preceding years!). I heard the director of the power tools group say that if the royalty had been reduced by 50%, it would have been a no-brainer. As it was, the proposed royalty structure was just unsupportable for a saw that sold for $500.
So, you were involved in evaluating it- but have absolutely no specifics about "the inventor's" demands? How much was the percentage? How many years back? What was the royalty "demand" on products sold with his technology? Do you have any evidence to back up your claims?
The second issue was that the product had great difficulty distinguishing the change in capacitance due to human flesh from that due to very wet lumber. This has undoubtedly been improved over the past few years, but people would have been somewhat unhappy to have false triggers
People don't cut wet lumber. Firstly, you shouldn't use it, unless it is dry, or you'll get problems when it dries out (and/or mold when it gets covered up.) Second, because the blade binds in wet wood.
Using a float to represent monetary amounts and expecting them to be free of rounding errors is as stupid as using integers to store zip codes and wondering where the leading zeros went from all the addresses in New England
For those of us who aren't programming geniuses- what would you use to store a monetary amount, besides a floating-point format?
The promise of such dynamically stable robots is that they can be much taller without having to have a wide base, making them much more suitable for working with humans
Huh? How does thinner = autmatically "much more suitable"? I just don't get it. We're used to working with people, and that extends to their personal space, which is substantially larger than the person. Who says that human/robot 'synergy' has anything to do with how fat the robot is?
Nevermind that all that active movement to keep standing upright means lots of battery drain, and irritating/distracting movement to said humans. We find coworkers that tap pens on their desks annoying, but they think this will 'fly'?
Oh, when the battery runs out of juice, or a motor (or its controller) goes dead- hilarity ensues...
As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have occomplished one of their goals: we are all living in fear.
Speak for yourself, please; I haven't lived a single day in fear of terrorism, because anyone who is sane and rational realizes the chances of being affected by a terrorist attack are extremely remote. I took the train to Baltimore a few months ago for a wedding. I took the train not because of the 'ter-rsts'; I did it because of how invasive and annoying it is to travel by airplane these days. Let me tell you, travelling by train is about the easiest, least-invasive, most relaxing way to travel right now.
The terrorists just threaten us and we end up having to have more of our civil liberties taken away.
You speak as if some genie in a bottle waved a wand and "took away" our civil liberties. Bzzt, no. They were "taken away" by ELECTED OFFICIALS, and in most cases, "we" the public have had multiple oppertunities to vote them out of office. The US public no longer understands what it means to be "free" and has willfully kept in office those who cashed in freedom for an illusion of safety. It will eventually correct itself, but sadly, the public is unlikely to rebuke enough. Case and point, you can't really travel anywhere without a driver's license or some form of ID; train/plane/bus tickets all require 'em, practically...for "security reasons." Just 20 years ago, that was unthinkable- almost "communist" or "gestapo."
The fix is simple: write your congresscritter and tell them that you, as a US citizen and voter, believe the price of "liberty" is the risk someone will use that liberty against you, and you're willing to take that risk. Tell them that you'd rather be "at risk" and free, than living in a police state.
If they don't listen, vote for someone else, provided they're not a raving lunatic (ie an oppertunist). If you can't find a suitable candidate, RUN FOR OFFICE YOURSELF (apologies to Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. Hint: stick around for the credits.)
I'm a private pilot. Haven't run into any Blackhawks or fighter jets, but haven't busted any restricted airspace, either. If you're flying, you damn well better know where you are.And before you fly, you should sit down and figure out where you're going to fly and be aware of anything of interest in your proximity. If that's too much to ask of you, please don't take off.
You missed part of my post- just like many pilots miss restricted areas.
AOPA has routinely found that pilots check for restricted areas in their flightpath, file their flightplan, take off, and en-route to their destination, a restricted area is thrown up because of some VIP, event, or what have you. The FAA can't be bothered to check already filed flightplans, and controllers, if they're even aware themselves, can't be bothered to tell pilots. End result, pilot flies through restricted area, lands, and gets "interviewed" or arrested, and he's done everything "by the book."
If you've been paying attention the past few years, the FAA and the major airlines seem hellbent on removing general aviation from the US altogether (closing non-airline airports, insisting on implementing per request fees for ATC, trying to ground all aircraft built before the last few decades. And don't get me started on the stupidity of every major city wanting a Washington D.C. style Air Defense Identificaton Zone). I suspect having nothing flying anywhere near the ground except governemnt controled drones would suit them just fine.
You clearly aren't aware of AOPA's extensive, successful lobbying efforts. They've been a constant voice against GA (General Aviation) paranoia (ie "someone's going to steal a Cessna and smash it into a Nu-cle-ar power plant!") in the Federal and local government. When the FAA abritrarily revoked the license of the widely loved Bob Hoover because he hit the maximum age, AOPA fought his case. They made a HUGE ruckus when Mayor Daley bulldozed Meigs Field illegally for a park (Daley literally had bulldozers come in during the middle of the night and start tearing up asphalt, when several groups challenged the plans in court.) They've been a powerful, strong voice to Congress (and the press) regarding the incredibly frightening "standard operating procedures" for when pilots stray into restricted airspace.
Most of the time, controllers don't actually TELL pilots they've done so- or the pilot has switched over to the next control jurisdiction (and when you do so, you tell the controller you were with that you're leaving the frequency- so they SHOULD be able to 'know' 'where' you are.) Most of the time, either nobody notices or cares, or the pilot gets an "interview" with a friendly local FAA or Homeland InSecurity rep when he lands.
However, all too often, the first sign a pilot has strayed into restricted airspace is when a blackhawk helicopter pops down next to them, or they get buzzed by a fighter jet. Radio problems are a recurring theme in the encounters- military aircraft with semi-working civilian-band radios, or military pilots not knowing what frequencies the pilot is on/should be on.) You can't really lean out the window and say "hey, officer, what's the problem?", and GA pilots are faced with a terrible conundrum- clearly someone is pissed, but what to do? Change flightpath, possibly becoming more of a threat? Keep going straight, inadvertently continuing towards whatever everyone is hot and bothered about, and get shot down once they cross some 'line in the sand'? Nevermind that when you've got a guy with a very big machinegun trained on you, flying the plane suddenly becomes the least of your worries, and that's VERY dangerous...
Then there's the media frenzy and news helicopters covering you getting taken down on the tarmac by a SWAT team, getting "interviewed" by half a dozen government agencies over a simple human error, possible criminal charges, your pilot's license suspended, your plane (or someone else's plane- many times they are rentals) getting impounded, etc.
If you're sitting there saying "stupid pilots should know not to fly into restricted airspace", keep in mind that the number of restricted spaces EXPLODED in the last few years because of You Know When...and these spaces are frequently around insignificant things like, say, a major grain processing plant that Homeland Insecurity classified as "critical infrastructure". Things that are NOT marked on charts. They're also frequently date/time specific (ie, some big concert is going on somewhere, and DoHiS issues a restriction just for the event. There are a half dozen KINDS of restricted airspaces, with all sorts of varying altitude limits and such.
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No, actually, to use the full power of the God Box requires something with fewer root exploits and journaling file systems...
Last time I checked, it was called NTFS, and it predates ext3 by almost a decade (1993 versus 2001.)
The bloated workforce of more than 60,000 could be slashed, to the point where the huge resulting increase in cash flow would at last permit the company to borrow mega-billions
I think cutting anything more than 10% of the workforce would have a serious negative effect on the company's ability to do business. So, let's say 6,000 people. That's $360 million, if you assume they're paid $60k a year (probably generous as an average.) Let's say on average you save half a year's salary firing them.
Microsoft's annual revenue a year or two ago was $10BN.
So a 10% cut in workforce would be 1.8% of one year's revenue, assuming zero loss in productivity from the terminations. Except you have to train people to take over the jobs of the 10% fired and those left behind have 10% more work to do, you have to track down information only the fired people knew...fire 10% of your sales staff and you'll invariably piss off 10% of your customers which will result in some lost sales...fire 10% of your engineers or QA people and not as many bugs get fixed or found...the reprecussions go on and on.
I really wish that management would realize that trimming the books isn't as simple as "fire (budget hole)/(average salary) people".
Concern over the machines led the Alaska Legislature in 2005 to pass a law requiring a mandatory hand count of ballots in one randomly selected precinct in every election district.
Be interesting to hear about how those random hand counts compare to the machine tabulations.
By the way, it'd be nice if slashdotters took notice that a number of the failures were related to phone lines (probably people plugging them into the wrong jacks, digital lines, or lines requiring special dial-out numbers, etc.)
Last but not least:
The Diebold electronic voting machines nationwide have been criticized by voter groups and computer scientists who say they are vulnerable to fraud. Diebold has defended the machines, saying they are secure when elections officials follow proper procedures.
That's the whole point, Diebold: you shouldn't have to "follow proper procedures." The machines should make it impossible to do so, just like I punch a ballot, place it in a box, which is locked and sealed, and taken by police to the counting facility, etc. The current system requires a fair amount of work to interfere with; the Diebold machines seem to require a fair amount of work to NOT interfere with!
I wonder if your fear #3 is grounds for challenging current patent law.
Patent law doesn't need changing, as it already bars 'obvious to someone in the field' ideas, which is what the parent poster was complaining about. We need more people to take a stand against patents that clearly aren't valid. If more people/companies challenged the 'fork and knife' patents, fewer companies would abuse them.
Patent fees should also be based off the assets of the applicant; ie, if I want to patent something, it should cost me enough to make me not just do it willy-nilly, and if Apple, Creative, etc wants to- well, then they should have to pay a bill that makes THEM think twice, too. The challenge, of course, will be figuring out how to keep shell companies (already used for patent holding) from getting around it.
The former (challenging more patents) is unlikely to happen, given that these days the only people who can afford to do so are often publicly held companies, and are under shareholder pressure to go for the absolute cheapest route, or the "known expense" versus the "unknown." Someone at Apple most likely decided that the (fairly small) risk of Creative getting a percentage off all iPod sales past and future, was not worth a known cost of $100M.
I still have an account on there. I really like their birthday reminders
I get a kick out of Friendster because I get emails saying I haven't logged in "in a while" and how great it would be if I logged in. Friends get the same emails, and we all ignore them, because friendster had/has nothing to offer beyond a popularity contest. I grew out of worrying how MANY friends I had years ago.
We agreed it was like a desperate ex...popping up every once in a while, telling you how nice it'd be to hear from you...
Since when is MS Word the definitive guide to the english language?
When you're an arrogant academic? He got a nice bit of Humble Pie Smackdown, and I can't think of anyone more deserving at the moment. Not to mention, both groups and a lot of other scientists will learn lessons from this....
Our troops aren't just fighting for Democracy, they're also fighting for stable economies & developed infrastructures.
Have you picked up a newspaper lately? Half a million Iraqi citizens dead, infrastructure (that we destroyed) still massively broken despite billions upon billions of dollars being forked over to government contractors, and currently the country is essentially in the midst of civil war; you've got your warlords, and now there are Iraqi police departments turning into gangs. The country is in complete, total, utter chaos.
The party line is "fighting for freedom", by the way.
There are some things that just should be done, and damn the cost.
That's an emotional argument, not a logical one. It's little better than "the end justifies the means", and it is very cliche; all the time, the answer to "why are we doing this" is "because it's there!" That's great if you're spending your own bucks to go climb Everest- I wish you the best of luck. But if you're going to spend trillions of dollars, I need something much more concrete. Go google "waggonauts" some time, and read for an INSIDER's view of how stupid human space exploration is. Seriously- it was written by NASA people...
You need to stop and realize that most space exploration hasn't been for research or the betterment of mankind. It's all a bragging rights/land grab game between nations, while lining the pockets of defense contractors. Why do you think Kennedy put people on the moon? Because the Russians were the first to put people in space- dozens of them- before the US put Glen up. The race to put a man in space also helped quite a bit with refining nuclear missile technology. Why do you think Bush got interested in the Moon and Mars? Only because China got interested in the moon, and "the world's greatest superpower" can't be outdone...
Did you ever notice that countries that were not involved in the space and weapons races have remarkably better socities and infrastructure, because they devoted resources to taking care of their people?
To drag out a tired example, it's a modern Columbus. It is a cost that is most likely going to return nothing, but if it does, the potential rewards will make it all worth it.
Spain financed Columbus because he was in search of conquest; gold, shorter trade routes, etc. It was a bit of a crapshoot, but they figured that if he came back at all, they stood a great chance of making a killing, and they were right. The difference here is that we have nothing to gain from exploration of Mars or the Moon; it's a childish pipe-dream to think we'll find anything practical in terms of natural resources on either planets. Putting a couple hundred people on 3 ships for a few months PALES in comparison to the challenges involved in a manned trip to Mars. There is no giant cache of gold on the moon or mars, and even if there was- the economics just don't add up, and they don't get better as you throw more money at the problem. People with a space exploration fetish concoct the most amazing chains of "if we..." arguments to justify exploration...
It's also a common fallacy that space exploration brought us wonders like zero-g pens, velcro, orange tang, and remote medical monitoring. All existed before the manned space program. I know slashdot readers hate to think it, but we've gotten very little out of space "exploration", especially the manned kind.
The press coverage has been woefully bad with respect to explaining that these are not your average run-of-the-mill viruses, but rather are bacteriophages that can only infect bacteria. Expect some mild hysteria over this and some nuts demanding labelling.
I was expecting more of a "We can't label this, consumers would freak out if they knew!" reaction from businesses.
Exactly that argument was used to strike down requirements that "GM" (genetically modified) food be labelled. Businesses, with a straight face, told the government regulators that if they required labelling, consumers wouldn't buy their products. God forbid consumers be allowed to make a choice as to whether they want genetically modified foods or not...and if you're afraid they won't choose genetically modified foods- maybe you shouldn't make them.
Most people's fears come from the business world constantly (and consistently) putting profits ahead of public health. Industries whine about reglation, but they brought it upon themselves, as almost every piece of regulation on the books were brought about by someone doing something they shouldn't have- all because it made more profit.
2,000 lbs. of pressure
2,000 lbs is not a pressure; there's no area. It's weight. This is basic high school physics...
Computerworld tested that claim by repeatedly driving a Volkswagen Beetle over the ruggedized thumb drive. While the drive's body came away with a few scratches, there were no dents, and not a single lost file."
A Neu VW beetle weighs about 3000lb. If the entire force applied against the road by one tire was applied to the device (for example, by putting a piece of thick metal on either side of the device and then running the car over the plate of metal), that's only 750LB. This is basic grade school math (3000/4.)
I'd guess your average thumb drive has perhaps 1-2 square inches of surface area. The amount of pressure between tire and road is exactly equal to the inflation pressure of the tire, which is often around 30-35 PSI (Pounds Per Square Inch.) So the thumb drive never had more than 60-70lb put on it...
I am being intentionally vague in this post, but three men with drink containers full of certain substances starting three fires at three different parts of the plane would be extremely difficult to control, especially considering the lack of fire surpression systems in the passenger cabin.
How amusing that you were modded 5,Informative- for essentially doing what our "homeland security" officials have been doing. SPECULATING WITH NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. That was the entire point of the article- that the scenarios provided by "unnamed security officials" are absurd, and bear closer resemblence to a Hollywood movie than reality.
Threats don't seem to be the main issue; slander does. People going hog-wild and spreading rumors, out of some combination of ignorance and malice. From the article:
Since last year, dozens of people have been indicted on charges of criminal contempt or slander for writing or spreading malicious online insults about victims like Kim Myong Jae. They face fines of as much as 2 million won, or $2,067.
Sounds like they need to step up efforts to cut slander, that's all. If you knowingly perpetuate a rumor and destroy someone's professional or personal life, you should suffer consequences greater than "as much as" $2k out of your pocket.
Publishing your name, photo, address, telephone number, and all known BB account names on a government website for "known internet slanderers" would be a GREAT first start. Methinks you'd be a LOT less likely to engage in slander if you knew that if you were caught, you'd be unhireable (what company will hire someone known to be a malicious liar?), undateable, etc. Best case for 'eye for an eye' if I ever saw it.
How about support for installing XP on an external drive so that you can use it on more than one Intel Mac or even other PCs?
XP doesn't support booting off USB, because swap can't be on USB. There are some hacks to do it, but it isn't pretty. Firewire is better, but still not ideal. Also, XP is liable to be extremely unhappy (licensing-wise) with switching to completely new hardware all the time, unless it is the 'corporate' version...so your bit about switching between different intel macs is mostly pointless. As for switching between intel macs and other PCs, not going to happen- drivers are almost all different.
The closest solution, most likely, is a eSATA adapter card and external drive; there's at least one Expresscard for MB/MBPs now. Other options include waiting for the next beta of Parallels (which reportedly will feature full 3D hardware use/acceleration, supposedly good enough for gaming- I'm highly skeptical and will believe it when I see it) or using a small C: partition on the internal drive, and a larger external firewire/USB drive (or a file server!) for all your programs and data.
Couldn't there be a very low power engine of some kind, just enough to provide a minimal thrust for, lets say, a decade. You don't need a lot of thrust in vacuum. Even small but constant acceleration should be sufficient to eventually achieve very high speed and perhaps even outrun the older spacecraft.
If getting from A to B as fast as possible is your goal, you want to get as much of your acceleration done as fast as possible. For example, at the race track, it's better to be going 1MPH faster exiting a turn onto a straight section, than to end up 1MPH faster at the END of the straightaway.
It'd be much beter to do a big burst, then trickle- than to trickle all the way.
Why? Nearly everything thrown up into space is built by "defense" companies, and republicans LOVE to give money to "defense" companies.
Among other things, the complaint asks AOL to notify all users affected by the data disclosure via certified mail and provide free credit monitoring for a year."
AOL probably -CAN'T- notify the users, because they probably didn't keep the username->ID# mapping.
I was thinking more along the lines of "LOS GTG!!1"
(Lawyers Over Shoulder.)
Just don't use google as a verb. Pretty please?
Okeedokey, smokey. (Seriously, "google" as a verb annoyed the bejezus out of me).
BUT! I hereby nominate "Don't Do Evil" as the new way to mockingly refer to ANY corporate misdoings. Let's see how they like that!
As someone who was involved in evaluating this technology for a major US manufacturer of power tools, there are a number of issues which prevented early adoption. First and foremost was the inventor's demands for unreasonable royalties (including a percentage of the gross sales of table saws from preceding years!). I heard the director of the power tools group say that if the royalty had been reduced by 50%, it would have been a no-brainer. As it was, the proposed royalty structure was just unsupportable for a saw that sold for $500.
So, you were involved in evaluating it- but have absolutely no specifics about "the inventor's" demands? How much was the percentage? How many years back? What was the royalty "demand" on products sold with his technology? Do you have any evidence to back up your claims?
The second issue was that the product had great difficulty distinguishing the change in capacitance due to human flesh from that due to very wet lumber. This has undoubtedly been improved over the past few years, but people would have been somewhat unhappy to have false triggers
People don't cut wet lumber. Firstly, you shouldn't use it, unless it is dry, or you'll get problems when it dries out (and/or mold when it gets covered up.) Second, because the blade binds in wet wood.
I DON'T WRITE CODE. That's why I asked the fucking question.
Using a float to represent monetary amounts and expecting them to be free of rounding errors is as stupid as using integers to store zip codes and wondering where the leading zeros went from all the addresses in New England
For those of us who aren't programming geniuses- what would you use to store a monetary amount, besides a floating-point format?
The promise of such dynamically stable robots is that they can be much taller without having to have a wide base, making them much more suitable for working with humans
Huh? How does thinner = autmatically "much more suitable"? I just don't get it. We're used to working with people, and that extends to their personal space, which is substantially larger than the person. Who says that human/robot 'synergy' has anything to do with how fat the robot is?
Nevermind that all that active movement to keep standing upright means lots of battery drain, and irritating/distracting movement to said humans. We find coworkers that tap pens on their desks annoying, but they think this will 'fly'?
Oh, when the battery runs out of juice, or a motor (or its controller) goes dead- hilarity ensues...
As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have occomplished one of their goals: we are all living in fear.
Speak for yourself, please; I haven't lived a single day in fear of terrorism, because anyone who is sane and rational realizes the chances of being affected by a terrorist attack are extremely remote. I took the train to Baltimore a few months ago for a wedding. I took the train not because of the 'ter-rsts'; I did it because of how invasive and annoying it is to travel by airplane these days. Let me tell you, travelling by train is about the easiest, least-invasive, most relaxing way to travel right now.
The terrorists just threaten us and we end up having to have more of our civil liberties taken away.
You speak as if some genie in a bottle waved a wand and "took away" our civil liberties. Bzzt, no. They were "taken away" by ELECTED OFFICIALS, and in most cases, "we" the public have had multiple oppertunities to vote them out of office. The US public no longer understands what it means to be "free" and has willfully kept in office those who cashed in freedom for an illusion of safety. It will eventually correct itself, but sadly, the public is unlikely to rebuke enough. Case and point, you can't really travel anywhere without a driver's license or some form of ID; train/plane/bus tickets all require 'em, practically...for "security reasons." Just 20 years ago, that was unthinkable- almost "communist" or "gestapo."
The fix is simple: write your congresscritter and tell them that you, as a US citizen and voter, believe the price of "liberty" is the risk someone will use that liberty against you, and you're willing to take that risk. Tell them that you'd rather be "at risk" and free, than living in a police state.
If they don't listen, vote for someone else, provided they're not a raving lunatic (ie an oppertunist). If you can't find a suitable candidate, RUN FOR OFFICE YOURSELF (apologies to Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. Hint: stick around for the credits.)
You missed part of my post- just like many pilots miss restricted areas.
AOPA has routinely found that pilots check for restricted areas in their flightpath, file their flightplan, take off, and en-route to their destination, a restricted area is thrown up because of some VIP, event, or what have you. The FAA can't be bothered to check already filed flightplans, and controllers, if they're even aware themselves, can't be bothered to tell pilots. End result, pilot flies through restricted area, lands, and gets "interviewed" or arrested, and he's done everything "by the book."
If you've been paying attention the past few years, the FAA and the major airlines seem hellbent on removing general aviation from the US altogether (closing non-airline airports, insisting on implementing per request fees for ATC, trying to ground all aircraft built before the last few decades. And don't get me started on the stupidity of every major city wanting a Washington D.C. style Air Defense Identificaton Zone). I suspect having nothing flying anywhere near the ground except governemnt controled drones would suit them just fine.
You clearly aren't aware of AOPA's extensive, successful lobbying efforts. They've been a constant voice against GA (General Aviation) paranoia (ie "someone's going to steal a Cessna and smash it into a Nu-cle-ar power plant!") in the Federal and local government. When the FAA abritrarily revoked the license of the widely loved Bob Hoover because he hit the maximum age, AOPA fought his case. They made a HUGE ruckus when Mayor Daley bulldozed Meigs Field illegally for a park (Daley literally had bulldozers come in during the middle of the night and start tearing up asphalt, when several groups challenged the plans in court.) They've been a powerful, strong voice to Congress (and the press) regarding the incredibly frightening "standard operating procedures" for when pilots stray into restricted airspace.
Most of the time, controllers don't actually TELL pilots they've done so- or the pilot has switched over to the next control jurisdiction (and when you do so, you tell the controller you were with that you're leaving the frequency- so they SHOULD be able to 'know' 'where' you are.) Most of the time, either nobody notices or cares, or the pilot gets an "interview" with a friendly local FAA or Homeland InSecurity rep when he lands.
However, all too often, the first sign a pilot has strayed into restricted airspace is when a blackhawk helicopter pops down next to them, or they get buzzed by a fighter jet. Radio problems are a recurring theme in the encounters- military aircraft with semi-working civilian-band radios, or military pilots not knowing what frequencies the pilot is on/should be on.) You can't really lean out the window and say "hey, officer, what's the problem?", and GA pilots are faced with a terrible conundrum- clearly someone is pissed, but what to do? Change flightpath, possibly becoming more of a threat? Keep going straight, inadvertently continuing towards whatever everyone is hot and bothered about, and get shot down once they cross some 'line in the sand'? Nevermind that when you've got a guy with a very big machinegun trained on you, flying the plane suddenly becomes the least of your worries, and that's VERY dangerous...
Then there's the media frenzy and news helicopters covering you getting taken down on the tarmac by a SWAT team, getting "interviewed" by half a dozen government agencies over a simple human error, possible criminal charges, your pilot's license suspended, your plane (or someone else's plane- many times they are rentals) getting impounded, etc.
If you're sitting there saying "stupid pilots should know not to fly into restricted airspace", keep in mind that the number of restricted spaces EXPLODED in the last few years because of You Know When...and these spaces are frequently around insignificant things like, say, a major grain processing plant that Homeland Insecurity classified as "critical infrastructure". Things that are NOT marked on charts. They're also frequently date/time specific (ie, some big concert is going on somewhere, and DoHiS issues a restriction just for the event. There are a half dozen KINDS of restricted airspaces, with all sorts of varying altitude limits and such.