When I read this, I was thinking of Fab@Home with the idea that perhaps you could use this process to help build crude home-built ICs out of simple and cheap materials.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the process is a bit more complicated, and I don't know how you can get a nozzle heated to 1100 degrees C in a reduced oxygen environment (presumably why it is in a sealed glass tube to work) that would also be something you would want on your kitchen table.
While of interest to a materials science guy, this really isn't that spectacular of a deal here. It does have the potential of improving LCD screen luminance values, reducing power requirements for laptops (the screen sucks quite a bit of power in the overall system), and helping in other ways. But it isn't something that simply can be poured out of a nozzle.
Hundreds of people died in the early days of aviation, including several rather famous individuals and more than one or two millionaires. Of course that is one of the reasons why the Federal Aviation Administration was started in the USA, to help improve the standards and to keep uninvolved individuals from getting hurt (like myself when the planes going to local airport come within 500 feet of my roof or closer).
If Bill Gates died, I'm sure his wife would carry on and become an absolutely huge celebrity on the level of Dana Reeve (wife of Christopher Reeve...aka "Superman"). Perhaps even more so among the geek or/. community. And you would start seeing all kinds of schools be built with names as "Wm. Gates High", and perhaps a major airport.
Frankly, I think it would give Bill some immortality that otherwise would allude him, except for his philanthropy work. Besides, there would not really be the congressional inquiry and all of the other BS, because the launch would have happened in Russia and would not have involved American companies. I would argue that instead of setting back commercialized space, it would encourage domestic development that could be regulated by federal agencies. Russians would of course be villified for having such shoddy equipment. RKK Energiya would certainly be blamed for all of the problems, even though I think they have done a pretty solid job of engineering with their equipment and have a much better safty record for the Soyuz than the Space Shuttle.
At this point I'm not sure if I would rather fly in a Soyuz spacecraft or a Falcon IX/Dragon spacecraft, but I would trust the safety record of the Russians a little bit more given the current launch problems of SpaceX.
What I'm really wondering about, however, is when somebody going up into space (again) is going to be old news and not make/.
I would disagree, but only from a very limited perspective. Most P2P networks are built up with the idea that all knowledge of the person supplying the data ought to be kept anonymous or nearly so. Freenet is perhaps the worst so far as it pushes packets beyond the original intended recipient and tries to "broadcast" packets to those computers who will never use them except under exceptional cases.
That is wonderful if you are trying to download some kiddy porn or sending an encrypted message to an Al-Queida operative, but there are other classes of users who could take advantage of some of the benefits of P2P without having to deal with all of that security overhead. Sure, I will admit that Gnutella protocol doesn't have nearly the same level of overhead as Freenet, and there are some even easier protocols that would reduce this complexity even further.
Also, most P2P protocols scale horribly. That is, the number of nodes connected to the network has a significant impact on the efficiency and throughput of the data. Attempts to dupilicate the entire internet under P2P protocols is IMHO going to fail for exactly this reason.
Where the real strength of P2P can be found at is in a small business situation (or even fairly large group.... about 1000 nodes more or less) or for a distributed group of volunteers that want to keep some stuff "on a server" that is consistently updated, but not have to worry about how to deal with a "central office".
There are some highly specialized applications that I also think might work very well with P2P content, such as a distributed version of Wikipedia. You would have one "trusted source" that would seed the rest of the network, and the date or version of the material wouldn't be so critical. I still think something like this could be incredibly useful, especially to help pull off some of the bandwidth needs of Wikipedia for those who are merely browsing or surfing through the pages.
The final word hasn't been written about P2P technology, but it doesn't seem like the glory road that was promised a few years ago. On that point I think you are square on the mark.
If you are talking about the ultimate energy storage technology, it would be anti-matter. You simply can't get more power produced as quickly or have any higher energy storage, although the technology to "confine" anti-matter from interacting with normal matter in an efficient manner is centuries away from any current practical solution. And that is precisely what you are talking about here is something which is "theory" as opposed to proven devices which you can use in production equipment.
As I said in my original post, ultra-caps are something that will be absolutely amazing if they prove as a reliable technology in terms of replacing battery storage. Certainly the technology to build high farad (kilofarad or even more) capacitors is rather straight forward and can be described by most freshmen EE students. And there are some applications such as for particle accelerators and nuclear fusion research where very high values for capacitance are used in a practical application. But keep in mind what capacitors do best: They store a charge temporarily that can be discharged very quickly. This is precisely why they are used in electronic devices, as they can provide short burst of power when you need it. For most devices, capacitance is rated at millifarads or even microfarads. A 1 farad capacitor is something usually only seen on something like a 10,000 watt TV transmitter, medical imaging equipment (like an X-ray machine), or basic physics research that consumes huge quantities or power. I'm sure if you have the background to understand this, you could name off several other applications but they are not things that most people would see in a consumer electronic device.
The engineering challenge is to somehow take this huge charge from a megafarad capacitor from a home power voltage source (220V AC run through some AC-DC converter to something more appropriate) and somehow be able to trickle the charge out over the course of not just a few seconds (or a few milliseconds in most applications I mentioned above) but to have that discharge happen over the course of hours, days, or even weeks. Perhaps even years. Batteries can do that, but a normal capacitor simply isn't designed to do that. And to add a further complication to the issue, that discharge must happen with a constant voltage and as near of a constant amperage as reasonably possible. You also have the problem of the Leyden Jar effect where capacitors "leak" their charge over time. Sure, you might be able to store a huge current in a large capacitor, but will it stay there? Capacitors have a strong tendency to lose their charge over time due to external ionizing radiation and other forms of E/M interference. That is not a trivial circuit to design, and goes way beyond the typical voltage regulators that are typical for battery packs, including automotive voltage regulators. I don't see how you can dismiss this engineering challenge so casually and make it seem as something any freshman EE student could come up with.
Battery technology dates back to the time of Benjamin Franklin, and if some archaeologists are correct some ideas go back to the time of the Babylonian Empire at its peak of world domination. While there certainly have been some improvements in the technology since the time of Franklin as well as an excellent understanding of the basic chemistry, the gains have only been very modest. By their nature, batteries emit only a very low voltage but can sustain that voltage for comparatively long periods of time. It is this history and capabilities that these ultra-caps are trying to replace, if you believe the P.R. of the companies who are building them.
As far as why ultra-caps are progressing rapidly, that is in part because this is an area of human knowledge that simply hasn't been explored before due to many factors. This is true about nearly every other kind of exploration of human knowledge from musical styles (like Rock 'n Roll) to basic science (aka
I will agree that there is a glimmer of hope for ultra-capacitors, but there are also some huge technical and engineering problems that will have to be overcome. They certainly don't have the energy density of batteries, and the largest problem with them is that the discharge from an ultra-capacitor is hard to deal with using normal electronics. It can be compensated for, but it isn't easy.
I also don't buy the "environmentally friendly" nature of them as well. While they may be better than NiCd batteries or the more traditional Lead-H2SO4 batteries in terms of what they will do to the environment, you can't call them a perfect solution either. The metals used in the construction of these types of capacitors have their own kind of impact on the environment just like any manufactured product.
If a "Moore's Law" were to apply to battery capacity, instead of the (presumed) 18 month half-life of procesor density and speed, it will be more like 15-20 years instead for improved energy density. While not something to ignore, you don't have to run out and buy a new battery pack every year just to keep up with changes in the battery industry. This is very hard science, using multiple meanings of that term.
Not to disparage the loss of life on 9/11, but I think Al-Queida did the USA a huge favor by tearing down the WTC. Architecturally the twin towers weren't exactly the most graceful things in the New York skyline. And a classic icon of the mid 1970's as well.
I would dare say, however, that the WTC was the best of the style that came from that period of time. There was much else that was even worse.
I lived through the 1970s (as a child) and when looking back on older photographs of myself, I still wonder what I or my mother was thinking of with some of my clothing.
Even the cars were hideous, although I do own a 1977 Datsun B-210 in my garage and I was thinking of applying for some "horseless carriage" antique auto plates for the thing mainly as a joke. Being older than 40 years officially classifies it as a vintage automobile in my state and gets special tax breaks. It still runs, but getting parts for the thing is harder and harder to do now. There is an antique car rally in my home town where some truly magnificant cars are displayed, like the 1957 T-Bird or some Model "A" Fords, and it just seems bizzare to see a Datsun B-210 right beside those as something in auto history and not a beat up tin can that a couple of college students (myself, my wife, and some of our friends) kept going with bailing twine and bubble gum.
I would have to agree here. Perhaps an example of an olde tyme log cabin would be useful as a singular example of primitive frontier construction techniques, but you don't need to preserve a whole subdivision of the things.
I will say that there is a historic district in the city where I live that has some absolutely classic homes, including a home built (in part) by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house is a masterpiece and should be saved. But a house two doors down is also protected even though it is a very ordinary middle-income house built in the late 19th century. And just a block further down is a four-plex that was clearly built in the mid 1970's. The four-plex is protected under the same historical easement, BTW. That makes no sense to me, and I wouldn't cry if the ugly orange and brown (with purple trim) paint job was changed either. Unless you really want to remember how bad some people had it for fashion taste during that period of American history.
So, why are laptops allowed (with WiFi connections) and not cellphones? I would think a good laptop would put out as much if not more RF interference than a simple cell phone, but I might be mistaken.
Sure, they ask me to turn the laptop off during takeoff and landing, but there are other safety issues involved there that go beyond just messing with the avionics.
And if the avionics are so lousy on these airplanes that they can't take a little bit of RF noise, it was crappy engineering in the first place. If an airline insists on flying those planes (with potential armies of lawyers standing by in case one crashes), they certainly could enforce a rule to prohibit cell phones on only those planes where there might be a problem. That still doesn't explain a blanket ban.
BTW, I have left my cell phone on while flying (I don't make it a habit, but I made a mistake a few times), and even picked up a text message while in flight. The phone was buried in my carry on baggage that was stowed in the above compartment (which is why I didn't hear it ring), but it seemed to work just fine at a point half-way along the flight path. And my plane certainly didn't crash.
That seems to be the point of the main article is that this should be the reason why the rule is in place: For crowd control and keeping the interior of airline cabins quiet.
Only the FAA (and FCC) is coming up with bogus technical explainations that many people with a background in physics and technology can cleanly refute as a logical answer. The only ones really fighting back here are hard-core avionic engineers, who legitimately have to send their stuff through very tough engineering tests before it is qualified for use on an airplane. And they wonder why some 2-bit cell phone company using an imported device gets a pass on doing the same sort of testing.
I just did some checking around on the price of this stuff. A 4 feet x 10 feet of stainless steel sheet metal costs about $85-$100 per sheet in low quantities. That is about 10x the price compared to gypsum sheetrock, but I'll tell you now that this is a relatively trivial cost for all things considered.
This isn't going to cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars" but it will require a good electrical engineer to help design the thing, working with a good structural engineer as well. Money spent on the engineers for something like this would be very much worth the price. You might even make an EE's day by asking them to dust off their old college textbooks to take on a challenge like this.
I don't think it would even add on a paltry $.50 per ticket even, and likely get the praise of the MPAA for finding a way to shut off things like camera phones in theaters... at least letting the "signal" to leave the building. A cell phone normally can't hold 2+ hours of video.
Are you going to be so stupid to leave your kids in the hands of an amature that doesn't care and won't have a way to find out? If you are very worried about allegies, you should at least leave the phone number of the kids' normal pediatrician as a standard thing, with phone numbers to kids close relatives like grandparents or other relatves that would more than likely know this as well.
And for the truly hazardous allergies (not all allergies are life and death... including things like penicillin), you really ought to be wearing a Medic-Alert band or necklace. Little kids would get a kick out of it and the older kids would understand that their life depends on their wearing it.
And whenever I have gone to a hospital, I have had the staff ask me that question about allergies every time, even when they have the answer staring them right in the face on the medical history charts and likely know the answer better than I do. By not asking the question about what allergies somebody has, they are committing medical malpractice and violating their hippocratic oath. Even an RN can lose their license over doing something like administering drugs without checking for allergic reactions first.
I'll also say that is why I pay my babysitters more than $1/hr like some of my neighbors do. I get a better class of babysitter that has a clue on questions like this.
How do you say this? It is hardly an "urban legend", but instead has required 3rd parties to document some of these APIs (instead of having the documentation come from Mircosoft). Whole books have been written that go into what some of these APIs do, with some very obvious holes of parameters that simply are unknown even in these 3rd party books.
Microsoft is infamous for adding stuff into their software so it will break compatability or deliberately screw with competitors, especially if those competitors use standard APIs.
This is ridiculous. Microsoft were founded in 1975 and didn't have anything close a market dominating influence until around 1990 when Windows 3.0 became a surprise success. Until about 1995, Microsoft's influence outside of the low-low-end PC market was basically zero.
I think you underestimate the impact that microcomputers had on the whole of the computer industry in the 1970's and 1980's. And Microsoft's influence from 1980 and onward was huge, especially when backed by IBM. I will openly admit that prior to 1990 it was IBM as the big bad monopolist that everybody picked on instead of Microsoft, which was all that more interesting that IBM made the big move to Linux several years ago, suddenly becoming one of the "good guys". And reinforced with the typical "geek" reaction to IBM vs. SCO. It is incredible that the conventional wisdom is hoping IBM wins.
Prior to 1980, I would have to agree that Microsoft's influence was minimal, especially in the OS arena. They were mainly a compiler/interpreter company at the time, which is precisely why IBM had scheduled an appointment with them at the same time they went to talk to Gary Kildall. IBM was hoping to license the MS-Basic interpreter with their new computer, as nearly all other micros (including Apple computer BTW) used Microsoft products with their equipment. The historical grab to do the operating system as well is legendary and where Microsoft really took off and became what they are today. That was 1980, not 1990.
As far as "low-low-end PC market", I don't think that qualifies either. We are not talking about Timex/Sinclair TS-1000's here (which really was the low-low-end PC market). The choice in the 1980s was using a Microsoft operating system on either an IBM micro (or compatible... that term is long gone now), or going with a mini-computer like a VAX and what was left of the "seven dwarves" of the computer companies in the 1960's.
I would hardly call a $5,000 computer as low-low end, and some expensive PCs were running MS-DOS back in the mid 1980's.
So are you suggesting here that CP/M was the big competitor? MS-DOS started life as CP/M-86, or the port of CP/M to the x86 architecture.
I dunno, how much do you think it would cost to install a Faraday cage in a theater of average size?
This is a good question. I would imagine that it would be something you could install directly into the wall structure itself, and if done right could even be an integral part of the structural integrity of the wall. In other words, retro-fiting an existing theater would be quite a bit more expensive than putting it into some new construction where you could make compromises on the materials to meet this goal. The real trick would be to ground all of the parts of the cage together and deal with exits and other legal requirements in a theater. And to decide if you want the projection booth to be inside/outside of the cage.
I can't imagine that the cost for a sheet of machined steel or aluminum would be that expensive, and it may even be useful for meeting earthquake codes and some other structural requirements for public buildings.
A contractor who just threw up sheets of steel but didn't connect a common ground between each of the sheets would be a major flaw. This is trivial to accomplish, but some construction workers are pig headed and cut every corner possible if they are lazy, even if the contract required them to deal with such a minor detail. Especially when it is something that goes way beyond what normal experience in typical construction is like and it is something that likely wouldn't get caught until the building is finished.
Diesel was a fad that came and went in the USA. Back in the late 1980's, nearly every gas station also provided Diesel fuel and it was the "hot" type of vehicle fuel.
There were many kinds of problems with diesel engines, and not all of them have been solved. Many having to do with vehicle maintenance and finding mechanics who were competent to work on them. And all told, the advantages of diesel engines weren't really as much as were touted, and from a financial viewpoint they turned out to be a terrible investment for those people who actually bought them in the 1980s... at least in America. They cost more from the manufacturers yet had a lower resale value in the used car market.
Diesel fuel was also a "waste" fuel in America as well, where nearly the only users were semi-trucks and farm implements like tractors. And the tax structure was to allow these users to hold receipts until the end of the year and pay fuel taxes all at the same time rather than "at the pump"... where some smaller consumers neglected to make that extra tax payment at the end of the year.
What the Diesel vehicles did in America was to raise the price of Diesel fuel all across the whole country, and raise the cost of shipping goods by ground transportation proportionally. This same thing is happening now with Corn prices in America, for exactly the same reasons. It used to be that Diesel was about 70% the price of gasoline... which was a major motivator for people to switch. Instead, it is now about 10%-20% more than gasoline, which if you include the increased energy density makes it about the same per BTU/joule/erg/KWh for either fuel.
And this has pissed off a bunch of would-be supporters of diesel vehicles in America who won't switch again to diesel now that they have been burned once before. The lack of clean fuels has nothing to do with the motivation or lack thereof for having large numbers of Diesel vehicles on the road in America. It is pure economics instead.
Keep in mind that the "plug-in" hybrid is also going to thrash the batteries if you do quite a few deep cycles on the batteries. This is something that was even mentioned on the Tesla website, pointing out that most batteries are lucky to get about 500 good cycles before something gives out and the performance is bad enough that you want to replace the batteries. @40 miles/day * 500 recharge cycles, that gives you 20,000 miles. Not terrible performance, but even for just driving around town you can easily do that in less than a year.
So that means you should plan on replacing the batteries on a hybrid conversion about every year after you have done that conversion.
The reason this isn't so big of a deal with normal internal combustion engines is that you don't normally do that kind of deep discharge except on very rare conditions. And even then I replace my battery (living in a cold climate) about every 3-5 years.
One thing that is missing from this conversation about cell phone towers is that the cell towers are explicitly designed to adjust power levels in order to improve the "Quality of Service" that you were alluding to here. When you are further from a cell tower, the power will be turned up until you get handed off to another tower. This is one of the algorithms in fact that is used to determine what cell tower that you should be using.
If instead you are cruising at 40,000 feet (not unheard of at all for passenger jet travel), that is nearly 8 miles in the air. Most cell towers are designed to hand off to another tower that is much closer, but when you are up at that altitude, there is no other tower to hand off the call. Admittedly the call handling algorithms could be adjusted to deal with changes in altitude as well as terrestrial longitude and lattitude, but for towers running on 10 year old operating systems and software this doesn't surprise me.
I would imagine that this is also a problem in areas with larger mountains, where certainly a caller on a 15,000 foot peak can cause some similar kinds of problems with contacting multiple towers and nearly all of the same kinds of problems that are being blamed on air travel. I don't see any sort of call to ban cell phone usage from mountain tops. In fact, the U.S. Forest Service highly recommends that you take a cell phone with you if you go into the back country as at least one method to contact outside help. With federally designated wilderness areas literally bordering the city limits of a U.S. Census Bureau Metro are where I live, this isn't as far fetched as it may seem at first glance.
You have a very strong argument here, and keep in mind that a Faraday Cage works both ways... the interior can't transmit outside either. A WiFi LAN would be restricted to whatever is within that cage. And this is a passive device, not an active one like a jammer that screws up communications. There might be some problems with very large Faraday cages so far as they would also create a "black hole" for FM direct line-of-sight communications, but that is a problem with nearly any large steel structured building, as many movie theaters already are. It is hard to enclose that large of a space with only wooden timbers, and often cheaper to do that with steel anyway.
I also wonder what kinds of side benefits might come from installing a Faraday cage in the passenger cabin of an airplane? If electrical interference is such a huge problem for electronic devices that many business travelers are carrying, this seems like a very plausable solution. You shield the passengers from the critical equipment, with the side benefit that cell phones not only shouldn't be turned on, but that no outside connection can be made at all, except with something specifically poked "through the Faraday cage".
As somebody who has actually sat inside a Faraday cage during a public demo of high voltage electricity, I can tell you that it is an amazing experience. And a first hand experience to trust the mathematical laws of electronics in a way that studying it in a textbook just doesn't give justice. Since I had taken some university EE and physics courses prior to the demo, I kept remembering the equations and other principles as nearly 50,000 volts arced all across my face within just one foot of where I was at. I don't know if I would do that again, but it was a tripping experience.
The physics are the same for high voltage demos as they are for blocking cell phone calls. You certainly could efficiently and cheaply build them in the same manner.
Hardly. The problem is people want to run applications. End-user applications are, by and large, constrained to a single platform. *That* is why Windows dominates because it runs the applications.
That might have been true about 10 years ago, but I don't see that today in the application market place. Certainly there are applications like MS-Office that run poorly under Wine (due to invoking undocumented APIs). And in the case of MS-Office, you also have a strong competitor like Open Office that does nearly the same thing. And application developers do take Linux seriously with even commercial ports to Linux for many applications.
Quite arguably, there hadn't been any "new operating system concepts" for some time before Microsoft even existed. You'd struggle to find much that's been revolutionary in the field of operating system design for several decades.
Since Microsoft dates to the early 1970's, that is a pretty large condemnation. And I would agree. That is exactly the point I was trying to make that it is Microsoft that is preventing any sort of serious development in terms of creating something really new. I guess "some time before Microsoft" would go back to the 1960's? Some new ideas certainly have come up since then, but Microsoft is sucking all of the oxygen out of having them become viable, particularly in a commercial area. The last OS niche that Microsoft didn't really have control over was the embedded systems market, but even there they are throwing some serious marketing mussel into "capturing" that market.
My point is that OS development has stopped. Really innovative ideas havn't come into the marketplace precisely because Microsoft is the giant elephant on the corner who is going to kill any attempt to come up with any commercially viable operating system that follows something very unique and different.
I have no problem with F/OSS attempts to try some unique ideas, but it does take some marketing and a whole lot of capital if you want to create a new operating system. Even Linux has not been immune to the need for some serious quantities of money, although the F/OSS approach has reduced the basic requirements.
Here is another idea that I've seen poorly implemented in operating systems: An operating system that is entirely made up of "objects" that can be shared between applications. Sure you have COM/Corba/Bonabo/.net and more, but I'm talking the entire operating system designed from the ground up on entirely an object based model. There have been some experimental operating systems that have gone this way, but they are usually a one-man band, or a group of students attending the same school.
If something like this was to demonstrate commercial viability, Microsoft would jump in and take over the market, just as they have with the embedded operating system market. As much as I hate Windows-CE (and I think it combines the worst features of Windows with the worst problems of embedded architecture), it is a modest commercial success. If you are in the business of making embedded devices, Windows-CE is something you can't ignore even if you would like to.
So I guess I'm pointing out that at least within the realm of operating systems, Paul Graham is flat out wrong that as a new startup you can't be worried about what Microsoft thinks of your company. And even for other kinds of applications (as I remember having this conversation on more than one occasion with employers), this at least was a major concern in the past to speculate if Microsoft would get into the same niche market as you were working toward, and knowing you couldn't compete once the big MS marketing machine was working against you. For operating system, this is considered a core business and they will write a blank check to kill your company if they can. Clearly MS has tried (and perhaps failed) to kill Linux as well.
Who is to say that these companies don't already get a huge amount of bad press, by suing grandmothers and 4-month olds. So what else here is new?
The definition of fraud for some companies this size is mainly what is allowed by the law, not what people think should or should not be legal.
And I too do not support piracy here either... my own income depends on copyright and activities related to that law. So why again should the RIAA get an exception that I don't get? Shouldn't I also get this same sort of protection to stop people copying my "intellectual property"?
Also, I would suggest that if the RIAA and MPAA were doing more to stop large scale piracy (as strangely the BSA - Business Software Alliance - does) I might support some of their activities. If they were really shutting down these major large scale duplication operations, why aren't they in the news like drug busts? Neither of these organizations really even try.
Hardly. Both are monolithic kernels and run largely the same class of software on exactly the same kind of hardware.
There are some strengths for individual applications that run mainly on Linux, and I do believe that the kernel is bit more robust, but both are 21st Century operating systems based on technology from the 1970's. What really is new here that is really new?
And if you try to google any major Microsoft software applications, with only very rare exceptions you will find a very similar software package that will run on Linux. In some cases the GUI is almost identical. And most major GPL'd software that may have started exclusive to Linux also runs on Windows. In some cases more cleanly because the "guts" had to be reworked and re-examined to a cross-platform model and by better software developers than the original team that came up with the idea in the first place.
Certainly Apache on Windows is not nearly as robust as on Linux, but it can be done.
While I will admit there are some differences, from the end user they are mainly cosmetic. And that has been an explicit goal of many of the distro developers.
Show me something that is very unique, and I mean really unique, that Linux has which Windows doesn't. Sure, Windows might have to kludge something for similar compatability, but I can't think of anything really missing. And I can name some major kludges on Linux, even if they are rather polished kludges like Wine.
I stand by what I said that there has been no significantly new developments in operating system architechture in the past 20 years, barring perhaps the establishment of the GUI interface. And that is older than 20 years old. Microsoft took those ideas and has IMHO pushed them as far as they can go, and Linux has largely copied Windows and MacOS. Apple surely showed the way with the GUI interface on the Lisa, but how long ago was that?
The problem with Mojave is that they are not equipped (nor have the proper airspace) for surface-launched rockets. Keep in mind that Spaceship One was an air launch that started as a conventional airplane take-off. Their license is strictly for air-launched spacecraft that originates at Mojave. I might be mistaken on this point, and if I am please enlighten me.
New Mexico will be different because they are going to be a ground-launch rocket spaceport. In this regard, they are similar to the effort at Virginia and perhaps even Anchorage, Alaska (who is more situated for polar orbits). Cape Canaveral certainly deserves some recognition, although whether the feds will give substantial commercial access is something that can be debated. And Blue Origin's slice of Texas may be something else to consider, but you are stuck with needing a relatively low lattitude if you want space access.
I have no doubt that Mojave will continue to be a primary civilian flight test center, and the legal standard needed to launch experimental air-launched rockets will still be in place for that particular piece of real estate for many years into the future. Its use to launch rockets from the ground, such as the SpaceX Falcon I or something from Armadillo Aerospace does seem dubious.
At the same time I will admit confusion here as Virgin Galatic, the main commercial underwriter here for New Mexico, is using an air launch vehicle that would seem perfect to Mojave. So I don't know if Mojave screwed up here or if there is a bigger issue involved.
"We take yesterday's technology one step toward tomorrow"
I think that sums up Microsoft in a nutshell for nearly their entire history. Think about this very carefully if you disagree.
My point? Microsoft due to its monopoly has asphyxiated nearly all operating system development. Sure, there are some interesting things happening with Linux, but even that is largely a rough copy under a different paradigm.
Apple does some cool stuff too, but their operating system has almost never been their best feature, nor their main focus. They are a computer equipment company that happens to sell some cool alternative operating systems. And look where Apple is successful: the iPod. The computer equipment business is still profitable, and as long as it is they will continue to make that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't rely upon Apple to come up with the next cool OS platform either.
I too agree that the "Web 2.0" philosohpy is not going to be the "next operating system", even though it may augment some current desktop applications. Even at best, Ajax and other similar ideas are mainly a rehashing of the same old tired GUI designs that are just done differently. And with emulators and cross-platform stuff done even beyond internet apps, I don't see the huge pressing need for a common platform like there was back in the days of the TRS-80 and Apple ][. That is a ship that has sailed and come back empty, only to find other similar concepts also doing nearly the same thing.
If Microsoft dies, I will be suggesting a strong "R.I.P." epitaph for the company, but I also don't think anybody will come up with any other new operating system concepts until then. Why? Microsoft. They will take nearly everything in this area and either duplicate it or kill it with no mercy. Even in their death, Microsoft can still pack a powerful punch, and any really innovative ideas that might be commercially viable will only give Microsoft a breath of fresh air to pick up the torch again.
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has been in this position.
For those who are old enough to remember this, Microsoft seemed to be at the top of their game back in 1990, where MS-DOS reigned supreme as the leading operating system. There were competing products that were out at the time, including DR-DOS and even a few fledgling open source-like projects. Keep in mind this was before even Linus Torvalds started his now infamous attempt to try a different approach as well on essentially the same hardware.
Microsoft had also made several attempts at designing a GUI file manager dubbed "Windows", and by 1990 they finally hit something that seemed as thought it might actually work: Windows 3.0. You can argue if this really was worth the effort, but earlier versions of Windows (including a visually similar shell in MS-DOS 4.0) were total flops and very nearly took down Microsoft as a company. Even the much talked about Windows NT did not really make significant sales until it was released as version 4.0
And I could go back to an even earlier time in Microsoft history, where they seemed to have a solid grip on the BASIC interpreter market and even a few compilers for several microcomputers, but had pretty much reached the peak of their game (this was about 1980). I actually owned a pre-1980 Microsoft compiler, and used some of their other products. With a little but of luck and a lot of brazen self-promotion, they eneded up PC-DOS 1.0 for the IBM-PC.
So the real question is if Microsoft can do it again. Windows certainly is dead or dying, even though it could be argued that it is the best of what it does: Provide a clean GUI interface and common low level interface for commercial drivers. Other arguments not withstanding, other operating system platforms have tried to compete with Microsoft, with the only real competitor in terms of ease of use coming from Apple Computer. And both of those companies have borrowed so many ideas from each other it is hard to tell who came up with what first. Point given to Apple for the idea first, which was in turn stolen from Xerox, but who is counting.
So the question I'm sure Microsoft execs are asking today is: "what can we do today to top our earlier accomplishments?"
As a publicly traded company, I'm sure they are feeling pressure from their stock holders, and have even perhaps suggested to themselves if they ought to invest in something perhaps even outside of the computer industry. One successful company that has nearly successfully transitioned completely out of their original core industry is the RJR Tobacco company, which took most of its money and moved it into food processing plants and buying out competitors in that industry, and has tried to gradually pull out of the tobacco market altogether. Could Microsoft do this again, but with biotech or something related? They certainly have tried in terms of internet content (like MS-NBC, MSN, Hotmail, etc.) and video games (Xbox). What sort of industry or product would work given the current Microsoft management style?
You may loathe or love Microsoft, but their managers aren't stupid, and they do have a bunch of money that can either be given as dividends or plowed into some crazy new idea. The real question is if Bill Gates and others at Microsoft will have the ability to find the next cool base tech and exploit it to its ultimate conclusion. The problem here is that operating systems seem to be the best profitable product that Microsoft has been involved with, and that may be reaching a dead end on this particular line of thinking. Regurgitation of the same old garbage but even more bloated than before may not be enough this time, and why you may legitimately conclude that Microsoft is indeed dead.
Alternative OS concepts:
*Voice recognition: MS has tried that too. *Full AI user interface: AI research itself has hit a dead end, and Microsoft isn't noted for doing "hard" research for a ground breaking product. A "natural language" interface m
The reason for mentioning Orion is because of how out of the world it has been, the number of external references including in fiction and by rocketry futurists, and the fact that Orion was discussed in the 1950's, and Medusa is from the 1990s.
On top of all of that, Orion built some actual fight hardware (using TNT and plastic explosives for a small scale test) and even tested some pieces during the Bikini Atoll H-Bomb test. This is something that Medusa never achieved (not that they particularly wanted to).
The mind bending notion of deliberately detonating nukes, in quantity, just a few hundred yards away from where you are at just sounds like something so bizzare that you don't even know where to begin to really talk about it in a realistic fashion. Even if those nukes will be in space. What else could possibly top that basic idea?
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When I read this, I was thinking of Fab@Home with the idea that perhaps you could use this process to help build crude home-built ICs out of simple and cheap materials.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the process is a bit more complicated, and I don't know how you can get a nozzle heated to 1100 degrees C in a reduced oxygen environment (presumably why it is in a sealed glass tube to work) that would also be something you would want on your kitchen table.
While of interest to a materials science guy, this really isn't that spectacular of a deal here. It does have the potential of improving LCD screen luminance values, reducing power requirements for laptops (the screen sucks quite a bit of power in the overall system), and helping in other ways. But it isn't something that simply can be poured out of a nozzle.
Hundreds of people died in the early days of aviation, including several rather famous individuals and more than one or two millionaires. Of course that is one of the reasons why the Federal Aviation Administration was started in the USA, to help improve the standards and to keep uninvolved individuals from getting hurt (like myself when the planes going to local airport come within 500 feet of my roof or closer).
/. community. And you would start seeing all kinds of schools be built with names as "Wm. Gates High", and perhaps a major airport.
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If Bill Gates died, I'm sure his wife would carry on and become an absolutely huge celebrity on the level of Dana Reeve (wife of Christopher Reeve...aka "Superman"). Perhaps even more so among the geek or
Frankly, I think it would give Bill some immortality that otherwise would allude him, except for his philanthropy work. Besides, there would not really be the congressional inquiry and all of the other BS, because the launch would have happened in Russia and would not have involved American companies. I would argue that instead of setting back commercialized space, it would encourage domestic development that could be regulated by federal agencies. Russians would of course be villified for having such shoddy equipment. RKK Energiya would certainly be blamed for all of the problems, even though I think they have done a pretty solid job of engineering with their equipment and have a much better safty record for the Soyuz than the Space Shuttle.
At this point I'm not sure if I would rather fly in a Soyuz spacecraft or a Falcon IX/Dragon spacecraft, but I would trust the safety record of the Russians a little bit more given the current launch problems of SpaceX.
What I'm really wondering about, however, is when somebody going up into space (again) is going to be old news and not make
I would disagree, but only from a very limited perspective. Most P2P networks are built up with the idea that all knowledge of the person supplying the data ought to be kept anonymous or nearly so. Freenet is perhaps the worst so far as it pushes packets beyond the original intended recipient and tries to "broadcast" packets to those computers who will never use them except under exceptional cases.
That is wonderful if you are trying to download some kiddy porn or sending an encrypted message to an Al-Queida operative, but there are other classes of users who could take advantage of some of the benefits of P2P without having to deal with all of that security overhead. Sure, I will admit that Gnutella protocol doesn't have nearly the same level of overhead as Freenet, and there are some even easier protocols that would reduce this complexity even further.
Also, most P2P protocols scale horribly. That is, the number of nodes connected to the network has a significant impact on the efficiency and throughput of the data. Attempts to dupilicate the entire internet under P2P protocols is IMHO going to fail for exactly this reason.
Where the real strength of P2P can be found at is in a small business situation (or even fairly large group.... about 1000 nodes more or less) or for a distributed group of volunteers that want to keep some stuff "on a server" that is consistently updated, but not have to worry about how to deal with a "central office".
There are some highly specialized applications that I also think might work very well with P2P content, such as a distributed version of Wikipedia. You would have one "trusted source" that would seed the rest of the network, and the date or version of the material wouldn't be so critical. I still think something like this could be incredibly useful, especially to help pull off some of the bandwidth needs of Wikipedia for those who are merely browsing or surfing through the pages.
The final word hasn't been written about P2P technology, but it doesn't seem like the glory road that was promised a few years ago. On that point I think you are square on the mark.
If you are talking about the ultimate energy storage technology, it would be anti-matter. You simply can't get more power produced as quickly or have any higher energy storage, although the technology to "confine" anti-matter from interacting with normal matter in an efficient manner is centuries away from any current practical solution. And that is precisely what you are talking about here is something which is "theory" as opposed to proven devices which you can use in production equipment.
As I said in my original post, ultra-caps are something that will be absolutely amazing if they prove as a reliable technology in terms of replacing battery storage. Certainly the technology to build high farad (kilofarad or even more) capacitors is rather straight forward and can be described by most freshmen EE students. And there are some applications such as for particle accelerators and nuclear fusion research where very high values for capacitance are used in a practical application. But keep in mind what capacitors do best: They store a charge temporarily that can be discharged very quickly. This is precisely why they are used in electronic devices, as they can provide short burst of power when you need it. For most devices, capacitance is rated at millifarads or even microfarads. A 1 farad capacitor is something usually only seen on something like a 10,000 watt TV transmitter, medical imaging equipment (like an X-ray machine), or basic physics research that consumes huge quantities or power. I'm sure if you have the background to understand this, you could name off several other applications but they are not things that most people would see in a consumer electronic device.
The engineering challenge is to somehow take this huge charge from a megafarad capacitor from a home power voltage source (220V AC run through some AC-DC converter to something more appropriate) and somehow be able to trickle the charge out over the course of not just a few seconds (or a few milliseconds in most applications I mentioned above) but to have that discharge happen over the course of hours, days, or even weeks. Perhaps even years. Batteries can do that, but a normal capacitor simply isn't designed to do that. And to add a further complication to the issue, that discharge must happen with a constant voltage and as near of a constant amperage as reasonably possible. You also have the problem of the Leyden Jar effect where capacitors "leak" their charge over time. Sure, you might be able to store a huge current in a large capacitor, but will it stay there? Capacitors have a strong tendency to lose their charge over time due to external ionizing radiation and other forms of E/M interference. That is not a trivial circuit to design, and goes way beyond the typical voltage regulators that are typical for battery packs, including automotive voltage regulators. I don't see how you can dismiss this engineering challenge so casually and make it seem as something any freshman EE student could come up with.
Battery technology dates back to the time of Benjamin Franklin, and if some archaeologists are correct some ideas go back to the time of the Babylonian Empire at its peak of world domination. While there certainly have been some improvements in the technology since the time of Franklin as well as an excellent understanding of the basic chemistry, the gains have only been very modest. By their nature, batteries emit only a very low voltage but can sustain that voltage for comparatively long periods of time. It is this history and capabilities that these ultra-caps are trying to replace, if you believe the P.R. of the companies who are building them.
As far as why ultra-caps are progressing rapidly, that is in part because this is an area of human knowledge that simply hasn't been explored before due to many factors. This is true about nearly every other kind of exploration of human knowledge from musical styles (like Rock 'n Roll) to basic science (aka
I will agree that there is a glimmer of hope for ultra-capacitors, but there are also some huge technical and engineering problems that will have to be overcome. They certainly don't have the energy density of batteries, and the largest problem with them is that the discharge from an ultra-capacitor is hard to deal with using normal electronics. It can be compensated for, but it isn't easy.
I also don't buy the "environmentally friendly" nature of them as well. While they may be better than NiCd batteries or the more traditional Lead-H2SO4 batteries in terms of what they will do to the environment, you can't call them a perfect solution either. The metals used in the construction of these types of capacitors have their own kind of impact on the environment just like any manufactured product.
If a "Moore's Law" were to apply to battery capacity, instead of the (presumed) 18 month half-life of procesor density and speed, it will be more like 15-20 years instead for improved energy density. While not something to ignore, you don't have to run out and buy a new battery pack every year just to keep up with changes in the battery industry. This is very hard science, using multiple meanings of that term.
Not to disparage the loss of life on 9/11, but I think Al-Queida did the USA a huge favor by tearing down the WTC. Architecturally the twin towers weren't exactly the most graceful things in the New York skyline. And a classic icon of the mid 1970's as well.
I would dare say, however, that the WTC was the best of the style that came from that period of time. There was much else that was even worse.
I lived through the 1970s (as a child) and when looking back on older photographs of myself, I still wonder what I or my mother was thinking of with some of my clothing.
Even the cars were hideous, although I do own a 1977 Datsun B-210 in my garage and I was thinking of applying for some "horseless carriage" antique auto plates for the thing mainly as a joke. Being older than 40 years officially classifies it as a vintage automobile in my state and gets special tax breaks. It still runs, but getting parts for the thing is harder and harder to do now. There is an antique car rally in my home town where some truly magnificant cars are displayed, like the 1957 T-Bird or some Model "A" Fords, and it just seems bizzare to see a Datsun B-210 right beside those as something in auto history and not a beat up tin can that a couple of college students (myself, my wife, and some of our friends) kept going with bailing twine and bubble gum.
I would have to agree here. Perhaps an example of an olde tyme log cabin would be useful as a singular example of primitive frontier construction techniques, but you don't need to preserve a whole subdivision of the things.
I will say that there is a historic district in the city where I live that has some absolutely classic homes, including a home built (in part) by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house is a masterpiece and should be saved. But a house two doors down is also protected even though it is a very ordinary middle-income house built in the late 19th century. And just a block further down is a four-plex that was clearly built in the mid 1970's. The four-plex is protected under the same historical easement, BTW. That makes no sense to me, and I wouldn't cry if the ugly orange and brown (with purple trim) paint job was changed either. Unless you really want to remember how bad some people had it for fashion taste during that period of American history.
So, why are laptops allowed (with WiFi connections) and not cellphones? I would think a good laptop would put out as much if not more RF interference than a simple cell phone, but I might be mistaken.
Sure, they ask me to turn the laptop off during takeoff and landing, but there are other safety issues involved there that go beyond just messing with the avionics.
And if the avionics are so lousy on these airplanes that they can't take a little bit of RF noise, it was crappy engineering in the first place. If an airline insists on flying those planes (with potential armies of lawyers standing by in case one crashes), they certainly could enforce a rule to prohibit cell phones on only those planes where there might be a problem. That still doesn't explain a blanket ban.
BTW, I have left my cell phone on while flying (I don't make it a habit, but I made a mistake a few times), and even picked up a text message while in flight. The phone was buried in my carry on baggage that was stowed in the above compartment (which is why I didn't hear it ring), but it seemed to work just fine at a point half-way along the flight path. And my plane certainly didn't crash.
That seems to be the point of the main article is that this should be the reason why the rule is in place: For crowd control and keeping the interior of airline cabins quiet.
Only the FAA (and FCC) is coming up with bogus technical explainations that many people with a background in physics and technology can cleanly refute as a logical answer. The only ones really fighting back here are hard-core avionic engineers, who legitimately have to send their stuff through very tough engineering tests before it is qualified for use on an airplane. And they wonder why some 2-bit cell phone company using an imported device gets a pass on doing the same sort of testing.
I just did some checking around on the price of this stuff. A 4 feet x 10 feet of stainless steel sheet metal costs about $85-$100 per sheet in low quantities. That is about 10x the price compared to gypsum sheetrock, but I'll tell you now that this is a relatively trivial cost for all things considered.
This isn't going to cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars" but it will require a good electrical engineer to help design the thing, working with a good structural engineer as well. Money spent on the engineers for something like this would be very much worth the price. You might even make an EE's day by asking them to dust off their old college textbooks to take on a challenge like this.
I don't think it would even add on a paltry $.50 per ticket even, and likely get the praise of the MPAA for finding a way to shut off things like camera phones in theaters... at least letting the "signal" to leave the building. A cell phone normally can't hold 2+ hours of video.
Are you going to be so stupid to leave your kids in the hands of an amature that doesn't care and won't have a way to find out? If you are very worried about allegies, you should at least leave the phone number of the kids' normal pediatrician as a standard thing, with phone numbers to kids close relatives like grandparents or other relatves that would more than likely know this as well.
And for the truly hazardous allergies (not all allergies are life and death... including things like penicillin), you really ought to be wearing a Medic-Alert band or necklace. Little kids would get a kick out of it and the older kids would understand that their life depends on their wearing it.
And whenever I have gone to a hospital, I have had the staff ask me that question about allergies every time, even when they have the answer staring them right in the face on the medical history charts and likely know the answer better than I do. By not asking the question about what allergies somebody has, they are committing medical malpractice and violating their hippocratic oath. Even an RN can lose their license over doing something like administering drugs without checking for allergic reactions first.
I'll also say that is why I pay my babysitters more than $1/hr like some of my neighbors do. I get a better class of babysitter that has a clue on questions like this.
How do you say this? It is hardly an "urban legend", but instead has required 3rd parties to document some of these APIs (instead of having the documentation come from Mircosoft). Whole books have been written that go into what some of these APIs do, with some very obvious holes of parameters that simply are unknown even in these 3rd party books.
Microsoft is infamous for adding stuff into their software so it will break compatability or deliberately screw with competitors, especially if those competitors use standard APIs.
I think you underestimate the impact that microcomputers had on the whole of the computer industry in the 1970's and 1980's. And Microsoft's influence from 1980 and onward was huge, especially when backed by IBM. I will openly admit that prior to 1990 it was IBM as the big bad monopolist that everybody picked on instead of Microsoft, which was all that more interesting that IBM made the big move to Linux several years ago, suddenly becoming one of the "good guys". And reinforced with the typical "geek" reaction to IBM vs. SCO. It is incredible that the conventional wisdom is hoping IBM wins.
Prior to 1980, I would have to agree that Microsoft's influence was minimal, especially in the OS arena. They were mainly a compiler/interpreter company at the time, which is precisely why IBM had scheduled an appointment with them at the same time they went to talk to Gary Kildall. IBM was hoping to license the MS-Basic interpreter with their new computer, as nearly all other micros (including Apple computer BTW) used Microsoft products with their equipment. The historical grab to do the operating system as well is legendary and where Microsoft really took off and became what they are today. That was 1980, not 1990.
As far as "low-low-end PC market", I don't think that qualifies either. We are not talking about Timex/Sinclair TS-1000's here (which really was the low-low-end PC market). The choice in the 1980s was using a Microsoft operating system on either an IBM micro (or compatible... that term is long gone now), or going with a mini-computer like a VAX and what was left of the "seven dwarves" of the computer companies in the 1960's.
I would hardly call a $5,000 computer as low-low end, and some expensive PCs were running MS-DOS back in the mid 1980's.
So are you suggesting here that CP/M was the big competitor? MS-DOS started life as CP/M-86, or the port of CP/M to the x86 architecture.
This is a good question. I would imagine that it would be something you could install directly into the wall structure itself, and if done right could even be an integral part of the structural integrity of the wall. In other words, retro-fiting an existing theater would be quite a bit more expensive than putting it into some new construction where you could make compromises on the materials to meet this goal. The real trick would be to ground all of the parts of the cage together and deal with exits and other legal requirements in a theater. And to decide if you want the projection booth to be inside/outside of the cage.
I can't imagine that the cost for a sheet of machined steel or aluminum would be that expensive, and it may even be useful for meeting earthquake codes and some other structural requirements for public buildings.
A contractor who just threw up sheets of steel but didn't connect a common ground between each of the sheets would be a major flaw. This is trivial to accomplish, but some construction workers are pig headed and cut every corner possible if they are lazy, even if the contract required them to deal with such a minor detail. Especially when it is something that goes way beyond what normal experience in typical construction is like and it is something that likely wouldn't get caught until the building is finished.
Diesel was a fad that came and went in the USA. Back in the late 1980's, nearly every gas station also provided Diesel fuel and it was the "hot" type of vehicle fuel.
There were many kinds of problems with diesel engines, and not all of them have been solved. Many having to do with vehicle maintenance and finding mechanics who were competent to work on them. And all told, the advantages of diesel engines weren't really as much as were touted, and from a financial viewpoint they turned out to be a terrible investment for those people who actually bought them in the 1980s... at least in America. They cost more from the manufacturers yet had a lower resale value in the used car market.
Diesel fuel was also a "waste" fuel in America as well, where nearly the only users were semi-trucks and farm implements like tractors. And the tax structure was to allow these users to hold receipts until the end of the year and pay fuel taxes all at the same time rather than "at the pump"... where some smaller consumers neglected to make that extra tax payment at the end of the year.
What the Diesel vehicles did in America was to raise the price of Diesel fuel all across the whole country, and raise the cost of shipping goods by ground transportation proportionally. This same thing is happening now with Corn prices in America, for exactly the same reasons. It used to be that Diesel was about 70% the price of gasoline... which was a major motivator for people to switch. Instead, it is now about 10%-20% more than gasoline, which if you include the increased energy density makes it about the same per BTU/joule/erg/KWh for either fuel.
And this has pissed off a bunch of would-be supporters of diesel vehicles in America who won't switch again to diesel now that they have been burned once before. The lack of clean fuels has nothing to do with the motivation or lack thereof for having large numbers of Diesel vehicles on the road in America. It is pure economics instead.
Keep in mind that the "plug-in" hybrid is also going to thrash the batteries if you do quite a few deep cycles on the batteries. This is something that was even mentioned on the Tesla website, pointing out that most batteries are lucky to get about 500 good cycles before something gives out and the performance is bad enough that you want to replace the batteries. @40 miles/day * 500 recharge cycles, that gives you 20,000 miles. Not terrible performance, but even for just driving around town you can easily do that in less than a year.
So that means you should plan on replacing the batteries on a hybrid conversion about every year after you have done that conversion.
The reason this isn't so big of a deal with normal internal combustion engines is that you don't normally do that kind of deep discharge except on very rare conditions. And even then I replace my battery (living in a cold climate) about every 3-5 years.
One thing that is missing from this conversation about cell phone towers is that the cell towers are explicitly designed to adjust power levels in order to improve the "Quality of Service" that you were alluding to here. When you are further from a cell tower, the power will be turned up until you get handed off to another tower. This is one of the algorithms in fact that is used to determine what cell tower that you should be using.
If instead you are cruising at 40,000 feet (not unheard of at all for passenger jet travel), that is nearly 8 miles in the air. Most cell towers are designed to hand off to another tower that is much closer, but when you are up at that altitude, there is no other tower to hand off the call. Admittedly the call handling algorithms could be adjusted to deal with changes in altitude as well as terrestrial longitude and lattitude, but for towers running on 10 year old operating systems and software this doesn't surprise me.
I would imagine that this is also a problem in areas with larger mountains, where certainly a caller on a 15,000 foot peak can cause some similar kinds of problems with contacting multiple towers and nearly all of the same kinds of problems that are being blamed on air travel. I don't see any sort of call to ban cell phone usage from mountain tops. In fact, the U.S. Forest Service highly recommends that you take a cell phone with you if you go into the back country as at least one method to contact outside help. With federally designated wilderness areas literally bordering the city limits of a U.S. Census Bureau Metro are where I live, this isn't as far fetched as it may seem at first glance.
You have a very strong argument here, and keep in mind that a Faraday Cage works both ways... the interior can't transmit outside either. A WiFi LAN would be restricted to whatever is within that cage. And this is a passive device, not an active one like a jammer that screws up communications. There might be some problems with very large Faraday cages so far as they would also create a "black hole" for FM direct line-of-sight communications, but that is a problem with nearly any large steel structured building, as many movie theaters already are. It is hard to enclose that large of a space with only wooden timbers, and often cheaper to do that with steel anyway.
I also wonder what kinds of side benefits might come from installing a Faraday cage in the passenger cabin of an airplane? If electrical interference is such a huge problem for electronic devices that many business travelers are carrying, this seems like a very plausable solution. You shield the passengers from the critical equipment, with the side benefit that cell phones not only shouldn't be turned on, but that no outside connection can be made at all, except with something specifically poked "through the Faraday cage".
As somebody who has actually sat inside a Faraday cage during a public demo of high voltage electricity, I can tell you that it is an amazing experience. And a first hand experience to trust the mathematical laws of electronics in a way that studying it in a textbook just doesn't give justice. Since I had taken some university EE and physics courses prior to the demo, I kept remembering the equations and other principles as nearly 50,000 volts arced all across my face within just one foot of where I was at. I don't know if I would do that again, but it was a tripping experience.
The physics are the same for high voltage demos as they are for blocking cell phone calls. You certainly could efficiently and cheaply build them in the same manner.
That might have been true about 10 years ago, but I don't see that today in the application market place. Certainly there are applications like MS-Office that run poorly under Wine (due to invoking undocumented APIs). And in the case of MS-Office, you also have a strong competitor like Open Office that does nearly the same thing. And application developers do take Linux seriously with even commercial ports to Linux for many applications.
Since Microsoft dates to the early 1970's, that is a pretty large condemnation. And I would agree. That is exactly the point I was trying to make that it is Microsoft that is preventing any sort of serious development in terms of creating something really new. I guess "some time before Microsoft" would go back to the 1960's? Some new ideas certainly have come up since then, but Microsoft is sucking all of the oxygen out of having them become viable, particularly in a commercial area. The last OS niche that Microsoft didn't really have control over was the embedded systems market, but even there they are throwing some serious marketing mussel into "capturing" that market.
My point is that OS development has stopped. Really innovative ideas havn't come into the marketplace precisely because Microsoft is the giant elephant on the corner who is going to kill any attempt to come up with any commercially viable operating system that follows something very unique and different.
I have no problem with F/OSS attempts to try some unique ideas, but it does take some marketing and a whole lot of capital if you want to create a new operating system. Even Linux has not been immune to the need for some serious quantities of money, although the F/OSS approach has reduced the basic requirements.
Here is another idea that I've seen poorly implemented in operating systems: An operating system that is entirely made up of "objects" that can be shared between applications. Sure you have COM/Corba/Bonabo/.net and more, but I'm talking the entire operating system designed from the ground up on entirely an object based model. There have been some experimental operating systems that have gone this way, but they are usually a one-man band, or a group of students attending the same school.
If something like this was to demonstrate commercial viability, Microsoft would jump in and take over the market, just as they have with the embedded operating system market. As much as I hate Windows-CE (and I think it combines the worst features of Windows with the worst problems of embedded architecture), it is a modest commercial success. If you are in the business of making embedded devices, Windows-CE is something you can't ignore even if you would like to.
So I guess I'm pointing out that at least within the realm of operating systems, Paul Graham is flat out wrong that as a new startup you can't be worried about what Microsoft thinks of your company. And even for other kinds of applications (as I remember having this conversation on more than one occasion with employers), this at least was a major concern in the past to speculate if Microsoft would get into the same niche market as you were working toward, and knowing you couldn't compete once the big MS marketing machine was working against you. For operating system, this is considered a core business and they will write a blank check to kill your company if they can. Clearly MS has tried (and perhaps failed) to kill Linux as well.
Who is to say that these companies don't already get a huge amount of bad press, by suing grandmothers and 4-month olds. So what else here is new?
The definition of fraud for some companies this size is mainly what is allowed by the law, not what people think should or should not be legal.
And I too do not support piracy here either... my own income depends on copyright and activities related to that law. So why again should the RIAA get an exception that I don't get? Shouldn't I also get this same sort of protection to stop people copying my "intellectual property"?
Also, I would suggest that if the RIAA and MPAA were doing more to stop large scale piracy (as strangely the BSA - Business Software Alliance - does) I might support some of their activities. If they were really shutting down these major large scale duplication operations, why aren't they in the news like drug busts? Neither of these organizations really even try.
Hardly. Both are monolithic kernels and run largely the same class of software on exactly the same kind of hardware.
There are some strengths for individual applications that run mainly on Linux, and I do believe that the kernel is bit more robust, but both are 21st Century operating systems based on technology from the 1970's. What really is new here that is really new?
And if you try to google any major Microsoft software applications, with only very rare exceptions you will find a very similar software package that will run on Linux. In some cases the GUI is almost identical. And most major GPL'd software that may have started exclusive to Linux also runs on Windows. In some cases more cleanly because the "guts" had to be reworked and re-examined to a cross-platform model and by better software developers than the original team that came up with the idea in the first place.
Certainly Apache on Windows is not nearly as robust as on Linux, but it can be done.
While I will admit there are some differences, from the end user they are mainly cosmetic. And that has been an explicit goal of many of the distro developers.
Show me something that is very unique, and I mean really unique, that Linux has which Windows doesn't. Sure, Windows might have to kludge something for similar compatability, but I can't think of anything really missing. And I can name some major kludges on Linux, even if they are rather polished kludges like Wine.
I stand by what I said that there has been no significantly new developments in operating system architechture in the past 20 years, barring perhaps the establishment of the GUI interface. And that is older than 20 years old. Microsoft took those ideas and has IMHO pushed them as far as they can go, and Linux has largely copied Windows and MacOS. Apple surely showed the way with the GUI interface on the Lisa, but how long ago was that?
The problem with Mojave is that they are not equipped (nor have the proper airspace) for surface-launched rockets. Keep in mind that Spaceship One was an air launch that started as a conventional airplane take-off. Their license is strictly for air-launched spacecraft that originates at Mojave. I might be mistaken on this point, and if I am please enlighten me.
New Mexico will be different because they are going to be a ground-launch rocket spaceport. In this regard, they are similar to the effort at Virginia and perhaps even Anchorage, Alaska (who is more situated for polar orbits). Cape Canaveral certainly deserves some recognition, although whether the feds will give substantial commercial access is something that can be debated. And Blue Origin's slice of Texas may be something else to consider, but you are stuck with needing a relatively low lattitude if you want space access.
I have no doubt that Mojave will continue to be a primary civilian flight test center, and the legal standard needed to launch experimental air-launched rockets will still be in place for that particular piece of real estate for many years into the future. Its use to launch rockets from the ground, such as the SpaceX Falcon I or something from Armadillo Aerospace does seem dubious.
At the same time I will admit confusion here as Virgin Galatic, the main commercial underwriter here for New Mexico, is using an air launch vehicle that would seem perfect to Mojave. So I don't know if Mojave screwed up here or if there is a bigger issue involved.
I think that sums up Microsoft in a nutshell for nearly their entire history. Think about this very carefully if you disagree.
My point? Microsoft due to its monopoly has asphyxiated nearly all operating system development. Sure, there are some interesting things happening with Linux, but even that is largely a rough copy under a different paradigm.
Apple does some cool stuff too, but their operating system has almost never been their best feature, nor their main focus. They are a computer equipment company that happens to sell some cool alternative operating systems. And look where Apple is successful: the iPod. The computer equipment business is still profitable, and as long as it is they will continue to make that kind of stuff. But I wouldn't rely upon Apple to come up with the next cool OS platform either.
I too agree that the "Web 2.0" philosohpy is not going to be the "next operating system", even though it may augment some current desktop applications. Even at best, Ajax and other similar ideas are mainly a rehashing of the same old tired GUI designs that are just done differently. And with emulators and cross-platform stuff done even beyond internet apps, I don't see the huge pressing need for a common platform like there was back in the days of the TRS-80 and Apple ][. That is a ship that has sailed and come back empty, only to find other similar concepts also doing nearly the same thing.
If Microsoft dies, I will be suggesting a strong "R.I.P." epitaph for the company, but I also don't think anybody will come up with any other new operating system concepts until then. Why? Microsoft. They will take nearly everything in this area and either duplicate it or kill it with no mercy. Even in their death, Microsoft can still pack a powerful punch, and any really innovative ideas that might be commercially viable will only give Microsoft a breath of fresh air to pick up the torch again.
This isn't the first time that Microsoft has been in this position.
For those who are old enough to remember this, Microsoft seemed to be at the top of their game back in 1990, where MS-DOS reigned supreme as the leading operating system. There were competing products that were out at the time, including DR-DOS and even a few fledgling open source-like projects. Keep in mind this was before even Linus Torvalds started his now infamous attempt to try a different approach as well on essentially the same hardware.
Microsoft had also made several attempts at designing a GUI file manager dubbed "Windows", and by 1990 they finally hit something that seemed as thought it might actually work: Windows 3.0. You can argue if this really was worth the effort, but earlier versions of Windows (including a visually similar shell in MS-DOS 4.0) were total flops and very nearly took down Microsoft as a company. Even the much talked about Windows NT did not really make significant sales until it was released as version 4.0
And I could go back to an even earlier time in Microsoft history, where they seemed to have a solid grip on the BASIC interpreter market and even a few compilers for several microcomputers, but had pretty much reached the peak of their game (this was about 1980). I actually owned a pre-1980 Microsoft compiler, and used some of their other products. With a little but of luck and a lot of brazen self-promotion, they eneded up PC-DOS 1.0 for the IBM-PC.
So the real question is if Microsoft can do it again. Windows certainly is dead or dying, even though it could be argued that it is the best of what it does: Provide a clean GUI interface and common low level interface for commercial drivers. Other arguments not withstanding, other operating system platforms have tried to compete with Microsoft, with the only real competitor in terms of ease of use coming from Apple Computer. And both of those companies have borrowed so many ideas from each other it is hard to tell who came up with what first. Point given to Apple for the idea first, which was in turn stolen from Xerox, but who is counting.
So the question I'm sure Microsoft execs are asking today is: "what can we do today to top our earlier accomplishments?"
As a publicly traded company, I'm sure they are feeling pressure from their stock holders, and have even perhaps suggested to themselves if they ought to invest in something perhaps even outside of the computer industry. One successful company that has nearly successfully transitioned completely out of their original core industry is the RJR Tobacco company, which took most of its money and moved it into food processing plants and buying out competitors in that industry, and has tried to gradually pull out of the tobacco market altogether. Could Microsoft do this again, but with biotech or something related? They certainly have tried in terms of internet content (like MS-NBC, MSN, Hotmail, etc.) and video games (Xbox). What sort of industry or product would work given the current Microsoft management style?
You may loathe or love Microsoft, but their managers aren't stupid, and they do have a bunch of money that can either be given as dividends or plowed into some crazy new idea. The real question is if Bill Gates and others at Microsoft will have the ability to find the next cool base tech and exploit it to its ultimate conclusion. The problem here is that operating systems seem to be the best profitable product that Microsoft has been involved with, and that may be reaching a dead end on this particular line of thinking. Regurgitation of the same old garbage but even more bloated than before may not be enough this time, and why you may legitimately conclude that Microsoft is indeed dead.
Alternative OS concepts:
*Voice recognition: MS has tried that too.
*Full AI user interface: AI research itself has hit a dead end, and Microsoft isn't noted for doing "hard" research for a ground breaking product. A "natural language" interface m
The reason for mentioning Orion is because of how out of the world it has been, the number of external references including in fiction and by rocketry futurists, and the fact that Orion was discussed in the 1950's, and Medusa is from the 1990s.
On top of all of that, Orion built some actual fight hardware (using TNT and plastic explosives for a small scale test) and even tested some pieces during the Bikini Atoll H-Bomb test. This is something that Medusa never achieved (not that they particularly wanted to).
The mind bending notion of deliberately detonating nukes, in quantity, just a few hundred yards away from where you are at just sounds like something so bizzare that you don't even know where to begin to really talk about it in a realistic fashion. Even if those nukes will be in space. What else could possibly top that basic idea?