> I can't wait for my self-driving car. Go to sleep in the car Friday night, wake up in Vegas/SanFran/Wherever in the morning. Visting mom would be a lot less of a chore.
> A normal PC, even fairly heavily loaded up with apps, just can't use the extra power.
Mine can, no problem. I only have a dual core but can easily be: re-coding a video file, converting FLAC to mp3, burning a DVD, listening to an MP3 and surfing the web at the same time. Some processes are IO bound, but I can still get very high CPU utilization.
And as a Gentoo user building is much faster using make -j3 to create up to 3 compilation threads that easily maxes out both cores !! (But credit to recent Linux kernels that the burning buffer is always fed >90%, and the MP3 playback never skips a beat !)
First guess: because it would add to the atmospheric drag that lowers the ISS and/or more fuel would be required for the regular need to push the ISS back up to it's nominal orbit. And it would block a docking port.
America has a mad dictator who is stomping on personal freedoms, and the rest of the world hopes that the country will learn from that about how democracy and freedom should work.They hope that the country will pledge never to let that crap happen again.
It is my understanding that the Trojan snooping software would only run on MS Windows, but since we all know that terrorists, anti-capitalists and all other enemies of the state run deviant operating systems, like GNU/Linux, the state would not find anything useful anyway:-)
> The problem is, the majority of the "ruling class" in management, government and all other areas are generally not scientifically inclined nor are they actively promoting science.
I would suggest another theory: even if the "ruling class" *did* understand science (and I am think many/most do) why would they want to encourage their underlings to think for themselves / demand verifiable proofs for their political / managerial theories / policy decisions etc. ? Bread and circuses works much better for them.
> It is extraordinary how little clarity there is about procedures.
There are no procedures yet to be clear about !! The current document is a *strategy* paper: it now gets talked about, green papers published, white papers published, goes to the Commons, the Lords and finally gets signed by the Queen. It all gets bounced around industry, government, lawyers etc and in the end you do have procedures, hopefully then clear ones.
> Here in the UK, we are forced to pay a tax to the BBC if we watch any TV.
No: the licence fee (not a tax) is for ownership of the TV receiving *equipment* it does not matter if you never tun it on, or only hook it up to a computer, or Sky etc, you still have to pay the fee.
> Will we be disconnected for downloading content we've already paid for?
See above. And even if that were not true you would only have paid the right to view the program, not save it !!
> (Yes, the BBC is doing fairly well at introducing content online, but AFAIK that's still got DRM, only available for a certain period etc, and it's a hassle to install new software.)
Yes: DRM'ed Windows only client (Mac version just released), time limited, and restricted to UK IP addresses.
> It's cliche, but armchair moping about it on Slashdot isn't going to affect the outcome of any vote in this legislation.
The point you make is true, but to clarify this is only a *leak draft* of a *consultation* paper. It has to be published as a White Paper before anyone gets to vote on it.
Just to clarify what I understand the situation to be (esp. for non-UK readers) as steps removed from legal reality;
- this is a leaked document - the document in question is a "Green Paper", ie it is a *consultation* document. - the proposals contained within *may* result in a "White Paper" being published - the White Paper *may* get approved by Parliament and the House of Lords - then it is the law
However, yes, this is the time for UK voters to write to their MPs !!
> (someone may then connect both using a Channel, SSH perhaps)
Trains-on-rails, tunneled, would be the most secure: less chance of someone seeing your bytes ferried across, and a man-in-the-middle attack would be much more difficult !!
> The proof-of-concept code only supports x86 and x86_64. Does that mean other architectures are immune?
I heard that the Debian Architecture group are working through the night to ensure it will work on *all* of their supported platforms. Should be on your favourite mirror by Monday lunchtime !!
> Just the ability to sync your mobile phone with a Linux platform (which I assume it will provide)...
An observation from recent history: the Sharp Zaurus PDA range all ran Linux, but Sharp did not provide any Linux syncing software: only Windows based.
(Of course, as the Zaurus ran Linux you could lash-up something yourself, but that is not the same thing !!)
> Hydrazine powers rocket engines/orbital thrusters. RTGs power spacecraft electrical systems. Use of hydrazine in fuel cells is very rare. Nothing prevents a spacecraft from having both on board.
When I was a lad cassette radios were the latest music technology, along with "hi-fi" centres with built in cassette recorders. The music industry was horrified that people could record their friends LPs onto cassettes instead of buying more LPs. They tried (and failed) to sue the manufactures for selling equipment that specifically designed to allow easy copyright infringement (LP->cassette or cassette->cassette) (OK, the quality went down a little, but most people did not care). They blasted us with "Home Taping is Killing Music". I, and all my friends, taped and taped, off radio, off friends LPs, off library LPs and: guess what ? Home Taping did not Kill Music. There are *still* some artists making a fortune in the music industry, many are still struggling, Pink Floyd are *still* making money off their back catalogue. The sky has not fallen !!
> Everyone knows, the LISA was a commerical disaster.
I am not sure what you mean by a *commercial* disaster: as a scientific research project no-one expects it to make a profit. If you mean it is late and over budget then this maybe so. But LISA Pathfinder is still going ahead. I guess the future of LISA depends on the Pathfinders performance.
Other threads suggest a 20 second boot time for SplashTop: my understanding is that it is around 5 seconds from switch on. Also, IIRC, you *can* be booting your main OS in the background as you use SplashTop (taking advantage of hardware virualisation).
(Note to manufactures: I would buy a SplashTop motherboard *tomorrow* if a) it real was 5 seconds, and b) it was on a basic, cheap motherboard (SplashTop is starting out only high end motherboards).)
> Microsoft has a bit of a juggling act to do. On one hand, they're bound to make the maximum possible profit for their investors as a corporation. On the other side, they have to do so in a way that keeps various governments off their backs...
Spot the anti-government bias in that statement !! I would describe it as maximizing profit whilst *keeping within the law*. Break the law and you can not be surprised when the legal arm of government comes down on you.
Slashdot Mirror
> I can't wait for my self-driving car. Go to sleep in the car Friday night, wake up in Vegas/SanFran/Wherever in the morning. Visting mom would be a lot less of a chore.
:-)
It's called train
> A normal PC, even fairly heavily loaded up with apps, just can't use the extra power.
Mine can, no problem. I only have a dual core but can easily be: re-coding a video file, converting FLAC to mp3, burning a DVD, listening to an MP3 and surfing the web at the same time. Some processes are IO bound, but I can still get very high CPU utilization.
And as a Gentoo user building is much faster using make -j3 to create up to 3 compilation threads that easily maxes out both cores !! (But credit to recent Linux kernels that the burning buffer is always fed >90%, and the MP3 playback never skips a beat !)
> But why not just leave it in orbit?
First guess: because it would add to the atmospheric drag that lowers the ISS and/or more fuel would be required for the regular need to push the ISS back up to it's nominal orbit. And it would block a docking port.
> With out it, many of us would be screwed for drivers.
> Who really cares if its bla bla bla compliant?
My personal opinion is that if you do not care about GPL, then you do not deserve it !!
America has a mad dictator who is stomping on personal freedoms, and the rest of the world hopes that the country will learn from that about how democracy and freedom should work.They hope that the country will pledge never to let that crap happen again.
There, fixed that for you.
It is my understanding that the Trojan snooping software would only run on MS Windows, but since we all know that terrorists, anti-capitalists and all other enemies of the state run deviant operating systems, like GNU/Linux, the state would not find anything useful anyway :-)
> The problem is, the majority of the "ruling class" in management, government and all other areas are generally not scientifically inclined nor are they actively promoting science.
I would suggest another theory: even if the "ruling class" *did* understand science (and I am think many/most do) why would they want to encourage their underlings to think for themselves / demand verifiable proofs for their political / managerial theories / policy decisions etc. ? Bread and circuses works much better for them.
> It is extraordinary how little clarity there is about procedures.
There are no procedures yet to be clear about !! The current document is a *strategy* paper: it now gets talked about, green papers published, white papers published, goes to the Commons, the Lords and finally gets signed by the Queen. It all gets bounced around industry, government, lawyers etc and in the end you do have procedures, hopefully then clear ones.
OK: I feel like being Peter Pedant !
> Here in the UK, we are forced to pay a tax to the BBC if we watch any TV.
No: the licence fee (not a tax) is for ownership of the TV receiving *equipment* it does not matter if you never tun it on, or only hook it up to a computer, or Sky etc, you still have to pay the fee.
> Will we be disconnected for downloading content we've already paid for?
See above. And even if that were not true you would only have paid the right to view the program, not save it !!
> (Yes, the BBC is doing fairly well at introducing content online, but AFAIK that's still got DRM, only available for a certain period etc, and it's a hassle to install new software.)
Yes: DRM'ed Windows only client (Mac version just released), time limited, and restricted to UK IP addresses.
> It's cliche, but armchair moping about it on Slashdot isn't going to affect the outcome of any vote in this legislation.
The point you make is true, but to clarify this is only a *leak draft* of a *consultation* paper. It has to be published as a White Paper before anyone gets to vote on it.
Just to clarify what I understand the situation to be (esp. for non-UK readers) as steps removed from legal reality;
- this is a leaked document
- the document in question is a "Green Paper", ie it is a *consultation* document.
- the proposals contained within *may* result in a "White Paper" being published
- the White Paper *may* get approved by Parliament and the House of Lords
- then it is the law
However, yes, this is the time for UK voters to write to their MPs !!
> (someone may then connect both using a Channel, SSH perhaps)
Trains-on-rails, tunneled, would be the most secure: less chance of someone seeing your bytes ferried across, and a man-in-the-middle attack would be much more difficult !!
> The proof-of-concept code only supports x86 and x86_64. Does that mean other architectures are immune?
I heard that the Debian Architecture group are working through the night to ensure it will work on *all* of their supported platforms. Should be on your favourite mirror by Monday lunchtime !!
Phew, lucky I run MS Windows then !!
> Just the ability to sync your mobile phone with a Linux platform (which I assume it will provide) ...
An observation from recent history: the Sharp Zaurus PDA range all ran Linux, but Sharp did not provide any Linux syncing software: only Windows based.
(Of course, as the Zaurus ran Linux you could lash-up something yourself, but that is not the same thing !!)
> Hydrazine powers rocket engines/orbital thrusters. RTGs power spacecraft electrical systems. Use of hydrazine in fuel cells is very rare. Nothing prevents a spacecraft from having both on board.
Yep: you are right. My mistake !!
> I would hope that it does not contain an RTG or other nuclear components.
This was the first thing I thought of when I read the same story at BBC News. But that article says the fuel is hydrazine.
(But as the source was anonymous, and the satellite is US Military, that leak could just be a PR move !!)
When I was a lad cassette radios were the latest music technology, along with "hi-fi" centres with built in cassette recorders.
The music industry was horrified that people could record their friends LPs onto cassettes instead of buying more LPs. They tried (and failed) to sue the manufactures for selling equipment that specifically designed to allow easy copyright infringement (LP->cassette or cassette->cassette) (OK, the quality went down a little, but most people did not care).
They blasted us with "Home Taping is Killing Music". I, and all my friends, taped and taped, off radio, off friends LPs, off library LPs and: guess what ? Home Taping did not Kill Music. There are *still* some artists making a fortune in the music industry, many are still struggling, Pink Floyd are *still* making money off their back catalogue. The sky has not fallen !!
> It was a stupid joke about the Apple Lisa.
:-)
Thanks for the clarification - I missed that one. I guess my Apple-cool license will be revoked !!
> If it makes you feel any better, the joke wasn't funny anyway.
Thanks: it does
> Everyone knows, the LISA was a commerical disaster.
I am not sure what you mean by a *commercial* disaster: as a scientific research project no-one expects it to make a profit. If you mean it is late and over budget then this maybe so. But LISA Pathfinder is still going ahead. I guess the future of LISA depends on the Pathfinders performance.
Perhaps the LISA (NASA/ESA) project will have more luck (2015+).
> You just called Americans smarter than Europeans and got marked +5 Insightful. Are you God?
Probably not: just shows there are more Americans with mod points than Europeans !!
Other threads suggest a 20 second boot time for SplashTop: my understanding is that it is around 5 seconds from switch on. Also, IIRC, you *can* be booting your main OS in the background as you use SplashTop (taking advantage of hardware virualisation).
(Note to manufactures: I would buy a SplashTop motherboard *tomorrow* if a) it real was 5 seconds, and b) it was on a basic, cheap motherboard (SplashTop is starting out only high end motherboards).)
> I'll say, I've used to website in the past. It's a great website. But, let's not kid ourselves, it is breaking real legitimate laws.
Reference ? Link ? (assuming you mean Swedish law ?)
> Microsoft has a bit of a juggling act to do. On one hand, they're bound to make the maximum possible profit for their investors as a corporation. On the other side, they have to do so in a way that keeps various governments off their backs...
Spot the anti-government bias in that statement !! I would describe it as maximizing profit whilst *keeping within the law*. Break the law and you can not be surprised when the legal arm of government comes down on you.