>3: A rackable desktop/server. The only reason MS is existing is because of their presence in the enterprise. If Apple can get into this market, even a bit, it is a stable income base.
Apple discontinued them 4 years ago, after a 10-year effort, presumably because they weren't making much headway. I was disappointed, because I agree they should be pushing into the enterprise market as well. But their revenue overwhelmingly comes from consumer devices, primarily the iPhone & iPad. The entire Mac business now makes up a small portion of their income.
They're paying $800 per watt, when a company is now shipping solar panels that cost under $1/watt, AND have a single, expensive point of failure? What is the point of beaming solar energy down from space, to a tropical island?
Ground-based solar including panels and batteries could be built local to each home or village, at a fraction of the cost of this over-engineered idea.
Honourable Ministers and Member Jim Prentice, Josée Verner, and Hedy Fry:
I am writing as a resident of Vancouver and citizen of Canada.
I would like to express my strong opposition to the changes to Canadian copyright law being proposed.
Canadian laws must work for the benefit of all Canadians. Not for specific industries at the expense of everyday citizens, and especially not foreign-owned corporations.
Artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers have a right to profit from their creations. But digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the production and distribution of media, rendering obsolete the physical products around which copyrighted works have been based in the past.
The burden is on publishers and creators to innovate and find ways to profit from their works that are acceptable to consumers and consistent with a world in which sharing media is free of cost and effort. It should not be the Government of Canada's role to prop up antiquated business models or forcibly subsidize industries that are unable to adapt to 21st Century realities. Crippling technology and placing onerous and chilling restrictions on the ability of citizens to communicate does not serve the public interest.
I am concerned that this new bill to change copyright law will favour industry and lacks any meaningful input from consumer groups or experts on modern copyright law such as Dr. Michael Geist (U of O). Any bill should consider first the rights and interests of the Canadian public and consumers, before US lobby groups or international bodies.
In the words of Canadian science-fiction author and writer Cory Doctorow, "The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane."
I am an very environmentally-conscious person: walking, biking or transit, no car. Vegan. Local, preferably organic produce. Buy used goods where-ever possible, make do or repair rather than buying. I give that as background, so that it's clear I'm not a typical consumer that thinks my personal desires outweigh impact to the environment.
That that said, I must ask: what environment? The moon is a lifeless, barren hunk of rock. All that has ever occurred in its history, is being pummeled by countless meteors to create a scarred and pulverized surface. There is no environment to protect, only dust and rocks. And as pristine and spartan beauty that may be, there's simply no one to admire it.
Right now, the universe appears devoid of life, except on our tiny blue rock, and it's always in danger of being snuffed out by one stray asteroid. Getting humanity up into space is the best thing we can do, for us, and for the Earth. Where we go, we will bring life with us. We will create new environments on any planets we settle. We are the seed by which Earth's life can spread throughout the galaxy.
Seeing lights glittering back at us from human settlements during a new moon shouldn't be viewed as a desecration of something worth saving, but the growth of new life where there was none before.
I'm not sure how much you expect cellphone service to cost; but $20-30/month (note each plan has a system access fee of about $8) is pretty reasonable, and many offer free or cheap phones.
While Egan tends to cover a lot of speculative technology or concepts, novels generally will be more about plot & character rather than science. If this is for a science class, I'd recommend picking up a good pop-sci book. A few that come to mind:
Art. 6. Every citizen shall be protected in his relations with the public institutions against any physical violation also in cases other than cases under Articles 4 and 5. He shall likewise be protected against body searches, house searches and other such invasions of privacy, against examination of mail or other confidential correspondence, and against eavesdropping and the recording of telephone conversations or other confidential communications.
Solar sail craft are already in orbit, around the Earth or Sun. They don't fly directly toward or away from the sun; instead, the sail can be angled to push the craft's orbit higher or lower, or shift from a terrestrial orbit to a solar one.
It's not too far removed in principle from how sailing ships can sail into the wind.
The linked screenshot is plainly edited to show multiple copies of the same item: the texturing behind each Krol Blade item line is identical and there is a cut line horizontally between each one, whereas normally the item line is transparent and the auction window texture should be seamless & varied behind the items.
This doesn't confirm the existence of the bug either way.
Earlier this year we were inspired by Spite Your Face's brilliant stop-motion LEGO epic Spiderman: The Legend of Doc, The art direction of Batman: New Times is also based on a popular toy line. Keeping with the "TOY" theme The DAVE School Students have built a vibrant 3D world out of
computer generated Lego blocks. Every set, every prop and every character has been precisely modeled according to strict scale specifications. Almost every location, vehicle and character has been, or could be, built out of Legos. To research this project and aid in set design The DAVE School purchased over 100 pounds of Lego Blocks from dealers on E-Bay!
Yes, some of them are human problems, but its very clear that people are unlikely to change their behavior any time soon.
That's the thing. These aren't so much problems that need money thrown at them; they need the political will, of both politicians and the public, to really deal with them.
It's no mystery what causes overpopulation, habitat destruction, deforestation, water & soil depletion, AIDS, and the many other dire problems that face humanity & the planet. The problem is, as you said, changing human behavior. Once the political will is there to really address the problem, the money follows naturally. There's hundreds of billions going into Space Defense, and as RWerp mentioned, Iraq. I definitely agree that money could be better spent strengthing the UN and and international peacekeeping force, to prevent genocide such as that in Sudan, to funding family planning agencies to help women voluntarily reduce the birthrate, and increase the survivability of children that are born, to preserve natural habitats, to help prevent desertification and aquifer depletion, to promote healthy living, etc. etc.
I agree that there's a huge problem with governmental financial priorities not only in the US, but the world over... but a few billion for particle physicists, to my mind, is a better choice than most of the ways money is being spent.
Good response. A point I'd like to add is that science doesn't take place in a vacuum; 3 billion put into a particle accelerator trickles down into tens of scientists, hundreds of grad students, and thousands of technicians, engineers, and support staff. It helps contribute to the development of a scientifically and technologically advanced workforce, and the educational and economic infrastructure needed to support that workforce, that pays off by making those skills available in other areas & industries. That's one reason nations that DO spend money on basic research, often pull ahead technologically.
In recent years many people have become concerned that the US is spending too little on research, and consequently Europe & Asia are becoming more advanced.
Another thing to consider is that Einstein came up with E=MC^2 in 1905. The atomic bomb was developed by 1944. In the 50s, we had nuclear fission power. We're still working on fusion a century later, and it may take another generation or more.
The benefits of scientific research don't occur overnight; but understanding how biology, chemistry, and physics work at a fundamental level, certainly leads to new technologies based on those discoveries.
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/63/7 1943.htm Researchers say cancer rates have traditionally been higher in developed countries due to greater exposure to tobacco, occupational carcinogens, and an unhealthy Western diet and lifestyle. As less-developed countries become industrialized and more prosperous, they tend to adopt the high-fat diet and low physical activity levels typically seen in the West, which increase cancer rates.
I agree cancer is not necessarily preventable in each case; but it is something that can be statistically reduced by changes in lifestyle: primarily diet, environment exposure (smoke & other known carcinogens), and exercise.
There are many other diseases in developing nations that aren't so much an issue in industrialized nations, including AIDS and malaria.
I believe my point stands: we don't so much need a "miracle cure" for cancer costing billions; but education and incentive for the majority of people to quit smoking, eat a healthy diet rather than junk food, and get off the couch, which likely would cost a trivial amount if done properly, and save billions in health costs.
I agree. One really exciting conceptual propulsion system is the idea of being able to push against the quantum vacuum that underlies all of reality.
A simplistic metaphor would be to imagine someone in zero-G trying to move around; then putting them in water and letting them swim. Chemical propulsion means you have to carry all the mass with you that you push against in order to propel yourself. With "Space Drive", you would still need to expend energy; but presumably much less than with current methods.
You're absolutely right: humanity is facing some immediate, pressing problems: the environment, overpopulation, soil & water depletion, and disease as you mentioned.
For the most part however, these are human problems, with human solutions. We know what causes overpopulation, and that in turn results in environmental damage, starvation etc. We also know what causes AIDs; and its spread is more a result of governmental unwillingness to educate their populations and promote safe sexual practices, than lack of medical technology. Likewise, cancer is largely a Western disease, and diet & lifestyle plays a large part in the likelihood one gets it: it's for the most part preventable.
But here we are, in a Universe. While we've made significant progress, we still don't really know what the hell it is. What are the rules? What makes everything happen? How did it come to be? Pursuing the answers to these fundamental questions is natural human curiosity, and the same drive that has led to many of our other scientific and technological advancements.
Knowing the answers may not be of use to the average person, other than possibly having another neat formula to put on T-shirts. But having a complete model of how the universe works, may result in many spin-off technologies. I'm speculating, but they may include things like quantum propulsion, true nanoscale engineering, new materials development... who knows.
Politicians are going to be idiots and let people die of preventable diseases, breed until they wipe out the natural world, etc. But should particle physicists simple twiddle their thumbs while humanity consumes itself; or busy themselves seeking a better understanding of the cosmos we inhabit, and perhaps giving us better tools to improve our world and ourselves?
This is how a market economy SHOULD work. Competition between insurance companies means that they will try to reduce their costs associated with each customer. They already have a good statistical model for which customers cost them how much money; as I understand it, red sportscars cost more to insure than a hatchback.
A system like this gives the company a much more accurate gauge of the risks associated with each customer: they can directly relate driving behaviors with claim pay-outs. A Volvo parked in the garage, and used once a week to do the shopping, should carry much lower premiums than the neighbour's luxury sedan that's in traffic 4 hours a day for commuting.
A flat rate insurance system means that safe drivers, or those who drive rarely, are subsidizing frequent drivers, and incompetent or risky drivers. While in the current system, good driving often gets you premium reduction, and a crash drives your premiums up, watching actual driver behavior lets the company directly correlate the premiums with the statistical risk of an accident.
If you want to drive around at 2AM within a few blocks of the local bars/nightclubs, and risk an accident with a drunk driver, you're free to do so... but the insurance company would rightfully bill you for taking that kind of chance.
And as for privacy, driving takes place in the public sphere: there really isn't any to begin with. But if you don't want your driving monitored, opt-out of the system. But don't expect everyone else to subsidize that decision.
So this system not only distributes the costs of insurance more accurately, it acts as economic incentive to drive safely.
There is the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean... there are several oceans, which are proper names and thus capitalized when referred to.
There is one Earth, but many earthquakes.
There is one Internet; it is the "network of networks". One doesn't have "an internet", "some internets", but "the Internet". One might, however, have "an internet appliance", or "my internet training".
Proper nouns are capitalized. Taj Mahal. America. Roman Empire. Common Era.
You young whippersnapper! Why, I remember, back in the day, when the sysop of a BBS I was on was collecting donations to get a 1GB drive... it cost $1000.
And we liked it! Uphill, in the snow, both ways! And at 2400 baud!
Slashdot Mirror
>3: A rackable desktop/server. The only reason MS is existing is because of their presence in the enterprise. If Apple can get into this market, even a bit, it is a stable income base.
Did you forget about these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X...
Apple discontinued them 4 years ago, after a 10-year effort, presumably because they weren't making much headway. I was disappointed, because I agree they should be pushing into the enterprise market as well. But their revenue overwhelmingly comes from consumer devices, primarily the iPhone & iPad. The entire Mac business now makes up a small portion of their income.
A USB optical drive like Apple's USB Superdrive, or a 3rd party DVD-RW.
Or buy your games through Steam and the App Store.
They're paying $800 per watt, when a company is now shipping solar panels that cost under $1/watt, AND have a single, expensive point of failure? What is the point of beaming solar energy down from space, to a tropical island?
Ground-based solar including panels and batteries could be built local to each home or village, at a fraction of the cost of this over-engineered idea.
You mean like Apple, Microsoft, Digg, Yahoo, Mozilla, Adobe, and Download.com? Even AOL.com has a tableless layout.
It's not necessarily easy, especially when dealing with IE quirks. But many complex sites have switch to tableless presentation.
http://web2.0flow.com/top-30-popular-websites-are-not-using-tables-as-main-layout-structure/
Honourable Ministers and Member Jim Prentice, Josée Verner, and Hedy Fry:
I am writing as a resident of Vancouver and citizen of Canada.
I would like to express my strong opposition to the changes to Canadian copyright law being proposed.
Canadian laws must work for the benefit of all Canadians. Not for specific industries at the expense of everyday citizens, and especially not foreign-owned corporations.
Artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers have a right to profit from their creations. But digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the production and distribution of media, rendering obsolete the physical products around which copyrighted works have been based in the past.
The burden is on publishers and creators to innovate and find ways to profit from their works that are acceptable to consumers and consistent with a world in which sharing media is free of cost and effort. It should not be the Government of Canada's role to prop up antiquated business models or forcibly subsidize industries that are unable to adapt to 21st Century realities. Crippling technology and placing onerous and chilling restrictions on the ability of citizens to communicate does not serve the public interest.
I am concerned that this new bill to change copyright law will favour industry and lacks any meaningful input from consumer groups or experts on modern copyright law such as Dr. Michael Geist (U of O). Any bill should consider first the rights and interests of the Canadian public and consumers, before US lobby groups or international bodies.
In the words of Canadian science-fiction author and writer Cory Doctorow, "The US's approach to enforcing copyright in the digital age has resulted in 20,000 lawsuits against music fans, technology companies being sued out of existence for making new multi-purpose tools, and has not put one penny into the pocket of an artist or reduced downloading one bit. The USA stepped into uncharted territory in 1998 with the DMCA and fell off a cliff -- that was reckless, but following them off the cliff is insane."
Thank-you.
I am an very environmentally-conscious person: walking, biking or transit, no car. Vegan. Local, preferably organic produce. Buy used goods where-ever possible, make do or repair rather than buying. I give that as background, so that it's clear I'm not a typical consumer that thinks my personal desires outweigh impact to the environment.
That that said, I must ask: what environment? The moon is a lifeless, barren hunk of rock. All that has ever occurred in its history, is being pummeled by countless meteors to create a scarred and pulverized surface. There is no environment to protect, only dust and rocks. And as pristine and spartan beauty that may be, there's simply no one to admire it.
Right now, the universe appears devoid of life, except on our tiny blue rock, and it's always in danger of being snuffed out by one stray asteroid. Getting humanity up into space is the best thing we can do, for us, and for the Earth. Where we go, we will bring life with us. We will create new environments on any planets we settle. We are the seed by which Earth's life can spread throughout the galaxy.
Seeing lights glittering back at us from human settlements during a new moon shouldn't be viewed as a desecration of something worth saving, but the growth of new life where there was none before.
Suck.com was publishing almost-daily since 1995.
http://www.suck.com/daily/archive/1995.html
Fido http://www.fido.ca/portal/en/packages/monthly.shtm l
h tmli ndex.shtml
/ plans_and_options.asp
Unlimited incoming: $25
Any time: $20
Fido to Fido: $25
Telus http://www.telusmobility.com/bc/plans/pcs/index.s
Talk a lot 20: $20
Urban Talk 30: $30
Or there's their prepaid plans which can be cheaper if you don't call much: http://www.telusmobility.com/bc/plans/payandtalk/
Rogers/Cantel http://www.shoprogers.com/store/wireless/services
MegaTime from $20
I'm not sure how much you expect cellphone service to cost; but $20-30/month (note each plan has a system access fee of about $8) is pretty reasonable, and many offer free or cheap phones.
Some hard SF:
_ Steel
Greg Egan - Diaspora, Permutation City, Schild's Ladder, or his short story collections such as Axiomatic or Luminous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Egan
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series
Here's a good source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction
Stephen Baxter & David Brin are also popular authors.
While Egan tends to cover a lot of speculative technology or concepts, novels generally will be more about plot & character rather than science. If this is for a science class, I'd recommend picking up a good pop-sci book. A few that come to mind:
Richard Dawkins: Climbing Mount Improbable, River Out of Eden, Unweaving the Rainbow, The Blind Watchmaker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
Jared Diamond: Guns Germs & Steel - great book combining history, anthropology, biology to explain how humanity diverged into such technologically disparate cultures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns%2C_Germs%2C_and
2. Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
This Wiki Entry has a good explanation.
Solar sail craft are already in orbit, around the Earth or Sun. They don't fly directly toward or away from the sun; instead, the sail can be angled to push the craft's orbit higher or lower, or shift from a terrestrial orbit to a solar one.
It's not too far removed in principle from how sailing ships can sail into the wind.
I worked as a Macintosh technician.
I saw many dead harddrives. On at least two occasions I left a dead drive, that wouldn't spin up or mount, in a zip-loc bag in the freezer overnight.
That was sufficient to get them to mount and rescue some data.
The linked screenshot is plainly edited to show multiple copies of the same item: the texturing behind each Krol Blade item line is identical and there is a cut line horizontally between each one, whereas normally the item line is transparent and the auction window texture should be seamless & varied behind the items.
This doesn't confirm the existence of the bug either way.
Additionally, Blizzard has extended their normal Tuesday maintenance to investigate the duping claims.
This thread made Michael Moore's Must Read page for Wednesday August 25.
Yes, some of them are human problems, but its very clear that people are unlikely to change their behavior any time soon.
That's the thing. These aren't so much problems that need money thrown at them; they need the political will, of both politicians and the public, to really deal with them.
It's no mystery what causes overpopulation, habitat destruction, deforestation, water & soil depletion, AIDS, and the many other dire problems that face humanity & the planet. The problem is, as you said, changing human behavior. Once the political will is there to really address the problem, the money follows naturally. There's hundreds of billions going into Space Defense, and as RWerp mentioned, Iraq. I definitely agree that money could be better spent strengthing the UN and and international peacekeeping force, to prevent genocide such as that in Sudan, to funding family planning agencies to help women voluntarily reduce the birthrate, and increase the survivability of children that are born, to preserve natural habitats, to help prevent desertification and aquifer depletion, to promote healthy living, etc. etc.
I agree that there's a huge problem with governmental financial priorities not only in the US, but the world over... but a few billion for particle physicists, to my mind, is a better choice than most of the ways money is being spent.
Good response. A point I'd like to add is that science doesn't take place in a vacuum; 3 billion put into a particle accelerator trickles down into tens of scientists, hundreds of grad students, and thousands of technicians, engineers, and support staff. It helps contribute to the development of a scientifically and technologically advanced workforce, and the educational and economic infrastructure needed to support that workforce, that pays off by making those skills available in other areas & industries. That's one reason nations that DO spend money on basic research, often pull ahead technologically.
In recent years many people have become concerned that the US is spending too little on research, and consequently Europe & Asia are becoming more advanced.
Another thing to consider is that Einstein came up with E=MC^2 in 1905. The atomic bomb was developed by 1944. In the 50s, we had nuclear fission power. We're still working on fusion a century later, and it may take another generation or more.
The benefits of scientific research don't occur overnight; but understanding how biology, chemistry, and physics work at a fundamental level, certainly leads to new technologies based on those discoveries.
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/63/7 1943.htm
Researchers say cancer rates have traditionally been higher in developed countries due to greater exposure to tobacco, occupational carcinogens, and an unhealthy Western diet and lifestyle. As less-developed countries become industrialized and more prosperous, they tend to adopt the high-fat diet and low physical activity levels typically seen in the West, which increase cancer rates.
I agree cancer is not necessarily preventable in each case; but it is something that can be statistically reduced by changes in lifestyle: primarily diet, environment exposure (smoke & other known carcinogens), and exercise.
There are many other diseases in developing nations that aren't so much an issue in industrialized nations, including AIDS and malaria.
I believe my point stands: we don't so much need a "miracle cure" for cancer costing billions; but education and incentive for the majority of people to quit smoking, eat a healthy diet rather than junk food, and get off the couch, which likely would cost a trivial amount if done properly, and save billions in health costs.
I agree. One really exciting conceptual propulsion system is the idea of being able to push against the quantum vacuum that underlies all of reality.
A simplistic metaphor would be to imagine someone in zero-G trying to move around; then putting them in water and letting them swim. Chemical propulsion means you have to carry all the mass with you that you push against in order to propel yourself. With "Space Drive", you would still need to expend energy; but presumably much less than with current methods.
Nasa: Ideas Based On What We'd Like To Achieve
Nasa: Some Emerging Possibilities
You're absolutely right: humanity is facing some immediate, pressing problems: the environment, overpopulation, soil & water depletion, and disease as you mentioned.
For the most part however, these are human problems, with human solutions. We know what causes overpopulation, and that in turn results in environmental damage, starvation etc. We also know what causes AIDs; and its spread is more a result of governmental unwillingness to educate their populations and promote safe sexual practices, than lack of medical technology. Likewise, cancer is largely a Western disease, and diet & lifestyle plays a large part in the likelihood one gets it: it's for the most part preventable.
But here we are, in a Universe. While we've made significant progress, we still don't really know what the hell it is. What are the rules? What makes everything happen? How did it come to be? Pursuing the answers to these fundamental questions is natural human curiosity, and the same drive that has led to many of our other scientific and technological advancements.
Knowing the answers may not be of use to the average person, other than possibly having another neat formula to put on T-shirts. But having a complete model of how the universe works, may result in many spin-off technologies. I'm speculating, but they may include things like quantum propulsion, true nanoscale engineering, new materials development... who knows.
Politicians are going to be idiots and let people die of preventable diseases, breed until they wipe out the natural world, etc. But should particle physicists simple twiddle their thumbs while humanity consumes itself; or busy themselves seeking a better understanding of the cosmos we inhabit, and perhaps giving us better tools to improve our world and ourselves?
This is how a market economy SHOULD work. Competition between insurance companies means that they will try to reduce their costs associated with each customer. They already have a good statistical model for which customers cost them how much money; as I understand it, red sportscars cost more to insure than a hatchback.
A system like this gives the company a much more accurate gauge of the risks associated with each customer: they can directly relate driving behaviors with claim pay-outs. A Volvo parked in the garage, and used once a week to do the shopping, should carry much lower premiums than the neighbour's luxury sedan that's in traffic 4 hours a day for commuting.
A flat rate insurance system means that safe drivers, or those who drive rarely, are subsidizing frequent drivers, and incompetent or risky drivers. While in the current system, good driving often gets you premium reduction, and a crash drives your premiums up, watching actual driver behavior lets the company directly correlate the premiums with the statistical risk of an accident.
If you want to drive around at 2AM within a few blocks of the local bars/nightclubs, and risk an accident with a drunk driver, you're free to do so... but the insurance company would rightfully bill you for taking that kind of chance.
And as for privacy, driving takes place in the public sphere: there really isn't any to begin with. But if you don't want your driving monitored, opt-out of the system. But don't expect everyone else to subsidize that decision.
So this system not only distributes the costs of insurance more accurately, it acts as economic incentive to drive safely.
There is the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean... there are several oceans, which are proper names and thus capitalized when referred to.
There is one Earth, but many earthquakes.
There is one Internet; it is the "network of networks". One doesn't have "an internet", "some internets", but "the Internet". One might, however, have "an internet appliance", or "my internet training".
Proper nouns are capitalized. Taj Mahal. America. Roman Empire. Common Era.
Exactly what I was thinking of... thanks for the link!
You young whippersnapper! Why, I remember, back in the day, when the sysop of a BBS I was on was collecting donations to get a 1GB drive... it cost $1000.
And we liked it! Uphill, in the snow, both ways! And at 2400 baud!
Real Life was released ages ago.
Check out GameSpot's review of the RealLife(TM) MMORPG.