Seriously, why not get the data? It's an exploration drone, with no solid destination or timetable. If something is interesting, point every sensor you've got at it until it's boring. If some loudmouth thinks something is interesting that you don't, it's really not like you're in a hurry, spend a day getting data and then go on your way again.
They basically already have done this and determined it was a rock. No matter how many times they send the rover back to the same spot, since the instruments on the rover haven't changed, what exactly do you expect to find different?
True, assuming there aren't any malfunctions or (solar) radiation bursts. OTOH, to return to a site already investigated would surely seem a waste of resources, would it not?
Why are those procedures in place? It's public data, why can't the public see it as soon as NASA gets it?
The data is public data and anybody is free to intercept the 1s and 0s streaming back from Mars. OTOH, converting those 1s and 0s to images is costly and time consuming. Expediting the process is even more costly and time consuming and means either additional staff will be needed or people will be pulled off of other tasks.
So the question is whether or not the access to this information is more important than whatever information will be delayed by diverting resources to obtain it more quickly? The answer depends on whether you want this piece of information or you are still in the queue.
Dr. Squyres and his team have already chosen to spend lots of time and effort investigating this object.
How would releasing this data to the public, through existing channels that have already conveyed thousands of photos to the public, be a waste of NASA's time?
NASA has already acknowledged that this is "a very special rock, with rare properties." Therefore, shouldn't it, at a matter of course, release more data about this rock than it releases about the average Mars rock?
NASA should comply, thus saving the legal fees, right after he pays the share of the cost to obtain the information he is requesting. The Freedom of Information Act doesn't mean the government foots the bill for the requested info.
The flaw in that argument is in thinking that freedom of speech trumps everything.
Freedom of speech is supposed to trump everything else, when it comes to restrictions on or punishment for speech as such. Yes, that does mean that copyright law is probably unconstitutional—the courts actually came very close to throwing it out on First Amendment grounds at one point, but settled for a compromise between principles and short-sighted pragmatism which imposed some restrictions on copyright but still fell short of full compliance with the Constitution. "Information that has been deemed protected" is an even more obvious conflict.
Since the founding fathers hung traitors, those who exercised their freedom of speech in ways harmful to the cause, it is pretty evident that even the framers of the constitution recognized that it doesn't trump everything else. All of the freedoms in the constitution have an implied "with the exception of..." clause. For instance, the right to bear arms is not violated by not allowing convicted criminals to own firearms while on probation. The world has changed a lot since the constitution but the basic principle of these rights are for the betterment of society still stand and any freedoms must be viewed in that context.
If MOOC believes that offering education from the world's top university benefits all of humanity, there is a simple solution. Move the company offshore, or obtain a foreign partner.
The irony with treating this as banned with regards to certain countries that we are not on good terms with is that educational opportunities are very limited in those countries. Having access to education and the exposure to new ideas it brings is an opportunity to change those societies from within. Other than the industrial-military complex, who doesn't benefit from that?
They can certainly prevent US based universities from sharing that information with Coursera if they do not follow US export regulations.
Actually, no. If US based universities legally share information with universities or companies in other countries, they cannot be held accountable for what those entities do with it unless it is shown that the whole arrangement was intended to circumvent US laws.
The first step to making real change would be campaign finance reform. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress is to keen on doing that?
"Campaign finance reform" — First Amendment be damned — is just means to an end. An end to electing different sort of politicians.
But, face it, a person father to the Left and with a greater contempt for what America used to be (and still remains in some places despite his efforts to "fundementally transform" it) than the current President will not soon be elected... And for several years he even had his party's majority in the legislature.
If you aren't happy with this presidency, then you never will be happy with any — even if you manage to "reform" campaign finance...
It has nothing to do with who the president is. The system is set up that those with money get heard and those without do not. Only when there is enough groundswell of public opinion that it outweighs the money side of the equation does the public get heard. Modern politics is no longer about doing what's best for the country or even the constituent. It has become doing what is best for those bankrolling the decision maker.
For example, take the tea party movement. They are still a minority in the Republican party, however, they have the support of a few very wealthy individuals that will spend shit loads of money to campaign against those who don't fall in line with them. (This isn't unique to the tea party, it's just an example of these types of groups).
The government of the US is no longer a representative democracy, but has become a plutocracy.
I've got an even easier solution. The US government should obey the First Amendment. Education is speech, and the US government is prohibited from restricting it.
The flaw in that argument is in thinking that freedom of speech trumps everything. For instance, revealing secrets that impact national security could be viewed as an exercise of free speech, but that doesn't mean you can't be charged with treason and shot (at least during times of war). Free speech only protects the individual (and in some cases the corporation) in expressing their opinions. It does not mean one is free to disseminate information that is not theirs in the first place (otherwise there would be no copyright laws) or information that has been deemed protected.
If MOOC believes that offering education from the world's top university benefits all of humanity, there is a simple solution. Move the company offshore, or obtain a foreign partner.
The irony with treating this as banned with regards to certain countries that we are not on good terms with is that educational opportunities are very limited in those countries. Having access to education and the exposure to new ideas it brings is an opportunity to change those societies from within. Other than the industrial-military complex, who doesn't benefit from that?
The 1% again, eh? Still blaming them for what the government does or does not do? When are you ever going to start blaming your leadership instead? Even if they are enforcing 1%-friendly policies they're still the enablers.
If government is able to be bought it's only because government is for sale.
But no... let's keep acting like the policy makers and policy enforcers are powerless to stop it. Let's keep our heads in the sand about the facts of the matter. Let's yet again vote for the status quo and blame big business for the failures of big government. The obvious solution is more regulation. Oh, wait... this is happening because of government regulations. Maybe we can throw tax money at that problem too.
SSDD.
The main policy makers and enforcers are part of the 1%. It's not that they are powerless to stop it, they just don't want it stopped. The first step to making real change would be campaign finance reform. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress is to keen on doing that?
I don't doubt that laser printing, b&w or color is cheaper than ink-jet printing. I only question the shortage of a cartridge from limited use. My preference would be to have a color laser at home, but the amount of color printing I do doesn't offset the additional upfront costs, at least for a good quality one. What I really miss, although not that it was inexpensive, is the Alps printer. Why do I miss it? Because it actually printed white! It wasn't cheap, but it was unique in its ability to do that (and far cheaper than printers that do it today).
If that were the case, you would not get such a vast difference in number of pages printable with a cartridge the faster you use it after opening it. If you are printing only very occasionally, you will be printing noticeably fewer pages with it overall than if you had printed everything over a much shorter period. If your printer has been idle for even a week, you will probably need to clean the print heads just to get respectable quality... an action which all by itself uses between 10 and 20 typical pages worth of ink, and is simply wasted.
All I can say is that what you describe has not been my experience, whether at home or at work. We often exceed the number of pages cartridges are rated for. Of course, it all depends on what one prints. Maybe it depends on the type of cartridge and manufacturer.
Except cheap laser printers are roughly the same cost as cheap ink-jet printers at about $50.
"Cheap" color laser printers are a bit more than $50.
And for both, they pretty much give you the printer, knowing that they will make it up on the cartridges. After all, for most "cheap" printers, whether inkjet or laser, the replacement cartridges (full set on inkjet) are about 50% or more of the cost of the printer. Since the printer comes with a cartridge set, it is unlikely there is any profit in the printer itself. It is only a means to selling more cartridges.
Inkjet cartridges expire so quickly after being opened because they contain ink... which is wet, and evaporates, leaving dry residue in the compartment which cannot be used.
While that may be true, it is not why inkjet cartridges expire so quickly (after all most printers park the head, effectively minimizing exposure to air). No, the real reason they don't last long is because manufacturers don't put much ink in them. Most cartridges could hold two to three times the stated ink levels.
But what will the cartridges cost? And will they 'expire' each time I unwrap and insert one?
("Nudge nudge, wink wink HP?")
More importantly, how fine a line can it lay down. One could probably build one for even less if you don't mind low resolution. However, just like an dot-matrix printer is cheaper than a laser printer, very few would tolerate the low resolution.
OTOH, if they can produce a $495 3D printer that is comparable to what is already on the market, that would be fantastic.
I'm sure those 9 people suing have actual grounds to enter into the suit, right? For instance, each of them had a problem with a teacher that was wrongly kept on. Afterall, the courts only need to say that those policies are set by the school board and you have a right to elect whomever you want to the school board.
There's lots of laws and regulations people don't like, but tying up the courts isn't the answer. I would hope that if the suit is found to be frivolous that the CA Bar sanctions the attorneys involved.
True. Which doesn't mean that ones used in both "studies" are valid for Facebook and invalid for Princeton. They might as well invalid for both. Or, which would be even more funny, applicable to universities, but not to internet portals.
That might be true, but FB didn't attempt to show the study was invalid. Instead they tried to discredit it with a straw man argument.
Funny how quick they replied to this study, feeling a bit nervous facebook?
Probably less nervous about Princeton's analysis than Wallstreet's, which shows the same thing. It's hard for any business to lose 20% of it's main demographic. When your main revenue stream is online ads and young people are the primary target of those ads, and studies show that once they leave, they are unlikely to return, it doesn't speak well for the future.
Does that mean FB will go out of business? That's up to them. Tech companies have to keep re-inventing themselves to stay relevant.
This is a brilliant way to respond to the Princeton study - the correct way - rather than issue a press release denouncing it, or whine about it some other way.
Instead, use the study's own methodology against them to show other ridiculous conclusions. What are the academics at Princeton going to do, say "oh wait the original methods are bullshit". Anything they say against just weakens their original paper/study.
Maybe if Zuckerberg had finished his studies at Harvard, he would realize that an internet company and a university have two totally different business models and the analysis methods for one do not translate to the other.
The difference is that Princeton hasn't seen major declines (in the millions) of its primary demographic group. FB is funded both directly and indirectly by advertising/marketers. If the demographic for FB shifts elsewhere, so will the revenue stream. Princeton's funding is more diverse coming from tuition/fees, grants and contributions/bequests. Unless there is a scandal, it is unlikely that those sources will change.
In addition, the competition of universities is pretty fixed. It is extremely expensive to start a new one (and get accredited). FB, on the other hand, well, it wasn't too long ago that Myspace was the king of the hill and FB was the challenger.
Yes, these Indymedia commie's will go in the history book as modern day flat-earthers. What an idiots, targeting one of the brightest engineers working on cutting-edge technology.
If they were born in the 1900s, they would have targeted Nikola Tesla.
Didn't Thomas Edison target Nikola Tesla? Sometimes people target others, not because they are opposed to the concept,but because they want people to buy their version of it.
Sounds like the Tech companies need to get the hell out of Commie-Fornia.
They are no longer welcome, and that state HATES businesses with a passion.
More likely the city of San Fransisco hates having to provide the infrastructure for all of the tech businesses but not reap the benefits of tax revenues to pay for it because they built outside the city. States have this issue all the time, where the populace lives predominately in one state but work in the next state. It's not about being anti-business, it's about having to pay for the services provided.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously, why not get the data? It's an exploration drone, with no solid destination or timetable. If something is interesting, point every sensor you've got at it until it's boring.
If some loudmouth thinks something is interesting that you don't, it's really not like you're in a hurry, spend a day getting data and then go on your way again.
They basically already have done this and determined it was a rock. No matter how many times they send the rover back to the same spot, since the instruments on the rover haven't changed, what exactly do you expect to find different?
Power is not a problem. Curiosity is nuke powered, not solar, so it can run for about 14 years.
http://www.about-robots.com/cu...
True, assuming there aren't any malfunctions or (solar) radiation bursts. OTOH, to return to a site already investigated would surely seem a waste of resources, would it not?
Why are those procedures in place? It's public data, why can't the public see it as soon as NASA gets it?
The data is public data and anybody is free to intercept the 1s and 0s streaming back from Mars. OTOH, converting those 1s and 0s to images is costly and time consuming. Expediting the process is even more costly and time consuming and means either additional staff will be needed or people will be pulled off of other tasks.
So the question is whether or not the access to this information is more important than whatever information will be delayed by diverting resources to obtain it more quickly? The answer depends on whether you want this piece of information or you are still in the queue.
Dr. Squyres and his team have already chosen to spend lots of time and effort investigating this object.
How would releasing this data to the public, through existing channels that have already conveyed thousands of photos to the public, be a waste of NASA's time?
NASA has already acknowledged that this is "a very special rock, with rare properties." Therefore, shouldn't it, at a matter of course, release more data about this rock than it releases about the average Mars rock?
NASA should comply, thus saving the legal fees, right after he pays the share of the cost to obtain the information he is requesting. The Freedom of Information Act doesn't mean the government foots the bill for the requested info.
The flaw in that argument is in thinking that freedom of speech trumps everything.
Freedom of speech is supposed to trump everything else, when it comes to restrictions on or punishment for speech as such. Yes, that does mean that copyright law is probably unconstitutional—the courts actually came very close to throwing it out on First Amendment grounds at one point, but settled for a compromise between principles and short-sighted pragmatism which imposed some restrictions on copyright but still fell short of full compliance with the Constitution. "Information that has been deemed protected" is an even more obvious conflict.
Since the founding fathers hung traitors, those who exercised their freedom of speech in ways harmful to the cause, it is pretty evident that even the framers of the constitution recognized that it doesn't trump everything else. All of the freedoms in the constitution have an implied "with the exception of..." clause. For instance, the right to bear arms is not violated by not allowing convicted criminals to own firearms while on probation. The world has changed a lot since the constitution but the basic principle of these rights are for the betterment of society still stand and any freedoms must be viewed in that context.
If MOOC believes that offering education from the world's top university benefits all of humanity, there is a simple solution. Move the company offshore, or obtain a foreign partner.
The irony with treating this as banned with regards to certain countries that we are not on good terms with is that educational opportunities are very limited in those countries. Having access to education and the exposure to new ideas it brings is an opportunity to change those societies from within. Other than the industrial-military complex, who doesn't benefit from that?
They can certainly prevent US based universities from sharing that information with Coursera if they do not follow US export regulations.
Actually, no. If US based universities legally share information with universities or companies in other countries, they cannot be held accountable for what those entities do with it unless it is shown that the whole arrangement was intended to circumvent US laws.
"Campaign finance reform" — First Amendment be damned — is just means to an end. An end to electing different sort of politicians.
But, face it, a person father to the Left and with a greater contempt for what America used to be (and still remains in some places despite his efforts to "fundementally transform" it) than the current President will not soon be elected... And for several years he even had his party's majority in the legislature.
If you aren't happy with this presidency, then you never will be happy with any — even if you manage to "reform" campaign finance...
It has nothing to do with who the president is. The system is set up that those with money get heard and those without do not. Only when there is enough groundswell of public opinion that it outweighs the money side of the equation does the public get heard. Modern politics is no longer about doing what's best for the country or even the constituent. It has become doing what is best for those bankrolling the decision maker.
For example, take the tea party movement. They are still a minority in the Republican party, however, they have the support of a few very wealthy individuals that will spend shit loads of money to campaign against those who don't fall in line with them. (This isn't unique to the tea party, it's just an example of these types of groups).
The government of the US is no longer a representative democracy, but has become a plutocracy.
Even in a somewhat broken democratic republic, it takes more than the 1% to vote in the 1%...
In terms of votes, that is true. In terms of spending money on misinformation to influence those votes, no, the 1%ers are quite capable of doing that.
I've got an even easier solution. The US government should obey the First Amendment. Education is speech, and the US government is prohibited from restricting it.
The flaw in that argument is in thinking that freedom of speech trumps everything. For instance, revealing secrets that impact national security could be viewed as an exercise of free speech, but that doesn't mean you can't be charged with treason and shot (at least during times of war). Free speech only protects the individual (and in some cases the corporation) in expressing their opinions. It does not mean one is free to disseminate information that is not theirs in the first place (otherwise there would be no copyright laws) or information that has been deemed protected.
If MOOC believes that offering education from the world's top university benefits all of humanity, there is a simple solution. Move the company offshore, or obtain a foreign partner.
The irony with treating this as banned with regards to certain countries that we are not on good terms with is that educational opportunities are very limited in those countries. Having access to education and the exposure to new ideas it brings is an opportunity to change those societies from within. Other than the industrial-military complex, who doesn't benefit from that?
The 1% again, eh? Still blaming them for what the government does or does not do? When are you ever going to start blaming your leadership instead? Even if they are enforcing 1%-friendly policies they're still the enablers.
If government is able to be bought it's only because government is for sale.
But no... let's keep acting like the policy makers and policy enforcers are powerless to stop it. Let's keep our heads in the sand about the facts of the matter. Let's yet again vote for the status quo and blame big business for the failures of big government. The obvious solution is more regulation. Oh, wait... this is happening because of government regulations. Maybe we can throw tax money at that problem too.
SSDD.
The main policy makers and enforcers are part of the 1%. It's not that they are powerless to stop it, they just don't want it stopped. The first step to making real change would be campaign finance reform. Hmmm, I wonder why Congress is to keen on doing that?
The human body evolved in Africa.
Why do we expect it to function normally, say, in North America?
Why do we even expect the laws of physics to be the same in two different places?
Because for all practical purpose, Africa and North America are equivalent.
As for the laws of physics, I was always taught that they are the same everywhere, even in space.
"The human body did not evolve to live in space,..."
Why would we expect it to function normally, there?
I don't doubt that laser printing, b&w or color is cheaper than ink-jet printing. I only question the shortage of a cartridge from limited use. My preference would be to have a color laser at home, but the amount of color printing I do doesn't offset the additional upfront costs, at least for a good quality one. What I really miss, although not that it was inexpensive, is the Alps printer. Why do I miss it? Because it actually printed white! It wasn't cheap, but it was unique in its ability to do that (and far cheaper than printers that do it today).
If that were the case, you would not get such a vast difference in number of pages printable with a cartridge the faster you use it after opening it. If you are printing only very occasionally, you will be printing noticeably fewer pages with it overall than if you had printed everything over a much shorter period. If your printer has been idle for even a week, you will probably need to clean the print heads just to get respectable quality... an action which all by itself uses between 10 and 20 typical pages worth of ink, and is simply wasted.
All I can say is that what you describe has not been my experience, whether at home or at work. We often exceed the number of pages cartridges are rated for. Of course, it all depends on what one prints. Maybe it depends on the type of cartridge and manufacturer.
Except cheap laser printers are roughly the same cost as cheap ink-jet printers at about $50.
"Cheap" color laser printers are a bit more than $50.
And for both, they pretty much give you the printer, knowing that they will make it up on the cartridges. After all, for most "cheap" printers, whether inkjet or laser, the replacement cartridges (full set on inkjet) are about 50% or more of the cost of the printer. Since the printer comes with a cartridge set, it is unlikely there is any profit in the printer itself. It is only a means to selling more cartridges.
Inkjet cartridges expire so quickly after being opened because they contain ink... which is wet, and evaporates, leaving dry residue in the compartment which cannot be used.
While that may be true, it is not why inkjet cartridges expire so quickly (after all most printers park the head, effectively minimizing exposure to air). No, the real reason they don't last long is because manufacturers don't put much ink in them. Most cartridges could hold two to three times the stated ink levels.
But what will the cartridges cost? And will they 'expire' each time I unwrap and insert one?
("Nudge nudge, wink wink HP?")
More importantly, how fine a line can it lay down. One could probably build one for even less if you don't mind low resolution. However, just like an dot-matrix printer is cheaper than a laser printer, very few would tolerate the low resolution.
OTOH, if they can produce a $495 3D printer that is comparable to what is already on the market, that would be fantastic.
I'm sure those 9 people suing have actual grounds to enter into the suit, right? For instance, each of them had a problem with a teacher that was wrongly kept on. Afterall, the courts only need to say that those policies are set by the school board and you have a right to elect whomever you want to the school board.
There's lots of laws and regulations people don't like, but tying up the courts isn't the answer. I would hope that if the suit is found to be frivolous that the CA Bar sanctions the attorneys involved.
True. Which doesn't mean that ones used in both "studies" are valid for Facebook and invalid for Princeton. They might as well invalid for both. Or, which would be even more funny, applicable to universities, but not to internet portals.
That might be true, but FB didn't attempt to show the study was invalid. Instead they tried to discredit it with a straw man argument.
Funny how quick they replied to this study, feeling a bit nervous facebook?
Probably less nervous about Princeton's analysis than Wallstreet's, which shows the same thing. It's hard for any business to lose 20% of it's main demographic. When your main revenue stream is online ads and young people are the primary target of those ads, and studies show that once they leave, they are unlikely to return, it doesn't speak well for the future.
Does that mean FB will go out of business? That's up to them. Tech companies have to keep re-inventing themselves to stay relevant.
This is a brilliant way to respond to the Princeton study - the correct way - rather than issue a press release denouncing it, or whine about it some other way.
Instead, use the study's own methodology against them to show other ridiculous conclusions. What are the academics at Princeton going to do, say "oh wait the original methods are bullshit". Anything they say against just weakens their original paper/study.
Maybe if Zuckerberg had finished his studies at Harvard, he would realize that an internet company and a university have two totally different business models and the analysis methods for one do not translate to the other.
The difference is that Princeton hasn't seen major declines (in the millions) of its primary demographic group. FB is funded both directly and indirectly by advertising/marketers. If the demographic for FB shifts elsewhere, so will the revenue stream. Princeton's funding is more diverse coming from tuition/fees, grants and contributions/bequests. Unless there is a scandal, it is unlikely that those sources will change.
In addition, the competition of universities is pretty fixed. It is extremely expensive to start a new one (and get accredited). FB, on the other hand, well, it wasn't too long ago that Myspace was the king of the hill and FB was the challenger.
Yes, these Indymedia commie's will go in the history book as modern day flat-earthers. What an idiots, targeting one of the brightest engineers working on cutting-edge technology.
If they were born in the 1900s, they would have targeted Nikola Tesla.
Didn't Thomas Edison target Nikola Tesla? Sometimes people target others, not because they are opposed to the concept,but because they want people to buy their version of it.
Sounds like the Tech companies need to get the hell out of Commie-Fornia.
They are no longer welcome, and that state HATES businesses with a passion.
More likely the city of San Fransisco hates having to provide the infrastructure for all of the tech businesses but not reap the benefits of tax revenues to pay for it because they built outside the city. States have this issue all the time, where the populace lives predominately in one state but work in the next state. It's not about being anti-business, it's about having to pay for the services provided.