I suspect that part of Apple's restrictive software distribution strategy is to avoid malware and crapware from creeping into the iPhone ecosystem. It's something like a walled garden or customs & border protection model for software distribution. Although I'm sure that enterprising criminals will find ways to break into the iPhone, Apple's approach does raise barriers to drive-by downloads, worms, trojans, and socially-engineered installations of malware.
Time will tell whether restricting software distribution for the iPhone is a net positive or negative in either creating a stable, easy-to-use, secure environment for mobile computing or in stifling development for a subset of developers.
Yes, if he held out for more money, then he would have been replaced. But this just reinforces the game maker's position. The value of GTA is in the game franchise, not voice actor.
And this raises a further issue. If this actor gets more/better gigs because GTA IV is on his resume, then shouldn't GTA get a share of the actor's future earnings? The argument for sharing profits is symmetric. To the extent that this voice actor contributes to the success of the game, he wants a share in the gamemaker's profits. But then, to the extent that the game contributes to the success of the voice actor, the game maker might expect a share in the voice actor's profits, too.
I think people should be paid for the value they add and risks they take rather than getting paid just by the luck of being associated with something successful. If that voice actor can argue that his particular voice and talent means the difference between $500 million and $600 million in sales, then he should get a cut in the profits once the game hits $500 million and the game maker should be more than willing to pay him a good cut once the game hits $500 million.
The notion that this pulse "turns-off" the targeted segment of the brain isn't correct. The pulse does NOT remove power from the brain or suppress neuronal firing. Instead, it disrupts coordinated firing of the neurons by inducing a spurious current in the neurons. Thus it is more like randomly applying a signal to the pins of a CPU than to cutting power or clipping pins.
I can't imagine that this pulse is very good for neuronal tissue in the short-term or long-term.
This sounds like the ultimate exploit. MSFT is hardly going to close these security holes. I wonder when copies of this USB drive (and network-enabled variants of the attacks) will be employed by malware and botnet vendors.
I'd say that one "invents" a set of axioms and "discovers" the inevitable logical consequences of those axioms. For example, one might invent a negation of Euclid's 5th postulate and discover non-Euclidean geometry. In the process, one might "invent" a proof which is a path that leads from axioms to theorems.
The point is that the axioms don't exist until we create them. But once we create a set of axioms, then the results are an inevitable (if arduous) journey of discovery which might require clever inventions to reach the destination of mathematical knowledge.
What I remember from studying this technology 15 years ago was that it was possible to create a beam sharper than the diffraction limit, but the result was diffuse spill-over. That is, one could create an extremely sharp main lobe in the beam pattern, but one had to suffer higher side-lobes. That's OK for imaging and lithography applications -- the spill-over is diffuse enough not to cause too many problems. But for power applications it means both inefficiency (power lost to the side lobes) and irradiation for people who think they aren't in the beam.
Clearly if a nanosat is 5 kg, then 1 sat is a very large unit of mass. On the other hand, given the mass of a typical medium size satellite (call it 500 kg), these are clearly decisats or centisats.
Like you, I hate the corruption of engineering terminology in the hands of marketing. And that NASA, of all groups, would fall for the "nano" = "really small" meme is egregious. Clearly some people need to hand in their geek badges.
In the strictest definition of game, Linux users may have a lower % of gamers than other platform users. But by a looser definition, their platform is an enjoyable pass-time as they tweak their installs, optimize components, and explore the world of the platform. Rather than building points in a fragfest, they prefer to rebuild kernals and increase performance scores of their machines.
Although I can understand picking a modest diameter, this network will only be valuable if it minimizes the handling costs at each end. That implies picking a size that permits efficient multi-modal shipments without repacking the containers. Otherwise the labor for handling the freight would far far exceed any energy cost savings.
The "best" solution might be a 20' or 40' TEU-compatible form factor (e.g. the trailer boxes seen on ocean-going ships). This would require a tunnel with an inside diameter of at least 3.6 m, but would let goods be quickly moved from ship to tube to truck.
Although I'm not a MSFT fanboi, I can see how defining compatibility is not easy. Although a given OS certainly will not run on ancient hardware or hardware lacking key features, the required MB of RAM, GB of disk, and GHz of CPU are all subjective requirements once the hardware is above some minimum spec. I know that I've run OSes on hardware that were below the recommended spec and found them quite usable (for my purposes). Add the fact that the company must set the required hardware spec before finishing the OS and its no wonder that MSFT picked a spec that some find unbearable.
I'm not surprised by the internal squabbles or that the company would pick a spec that's lower than what some engineers argued for.
IANAL, but it looks like the PTO has some mechanism by which a patent owner can reassign ownership or a patent. If so, Microsoft need only transfer the patent to the public domain or renounce ownership to solve this. Some wishy-washy covenant won't hack it unless it is irrevocable.
Although the article claims it does not mix the hydrocarbon fuel with air, it must do so to produce the hydrogen. Oxygen is a key ingredient to converting a hydrocarbon fuel into hydrogen and carbon diOXIDE. Where's the oxygen coming from in this system?
The solution is to allow arbitrary feedback, but not allow buyers or sellers to see the other party's feedback before submitting feedback themselves. The buyer or seller would be told that they received feedback, but would not get to see it until they either submitted their own feedback or clicked a box that they will forgo the right to submit feedback (the system might also have a time-limit on submitting feedback). That way, no "revenge" feedback is possible. Ebay could also tweak the ratings so that participants that refuse to submit feedback have slightly lower ratings.
First, those look like low-bypass engines (yes, I know they are "normal" jet engines), which means very high exhaust velocities. The small wing also means high wing loading and high takeoff velocities. Those two facts seem to suggest a very loud plane which might run afoul of EU regs.
Second, I can't help but think that fuel costs will kill this idea. GIven rising energy prices (and no large-scale miracle hydrogen factories on the horizon), the fuel costs will tend to track oil and nat gas prices. Even "free" wind/solar power won't help because a hydrogen factory would need to pay a competitive price for energy, which will be tied to the rising cost of fossil fuels and the rising global demand for energy.
That said, I'd love to fly in this thing even though the artists sketch shows a lack of windows due to heat issues:(
Although I can certainly see how the physics of freezing would help concentrate biological precursors, I would expect an icy-origin to have left more evidence in the form of cryophilic biodiversity. With an icy origin, ice-tolerant organisms should have arisen quite early. Indeed they would have probably been the first life forms and ice-adapted life would have been quite common. Unless the Earth experienced a 100% ice-free period, descendants of those original cryophiles would be with us to this day. Moreover, many "normal" species would still arbor a shared genetic basis for evolving ice-tolerance or cryophilic lifestyles.
Instead, we seem to see limited scattering species that have independently evolved various forms of ice-tolerance. I could be wrong. If so, I'd love to hear if biologists have found evidence for a widely shared mechanism for ice-tolerance that speaks to a frozen beginning.
IANAP, but most "energy" variables can be thought of as the square of some other physical properties (kinetic energy is related to velocity squared, electrical energy is related to voltage or current squared, etc.) So to get "negative energy", it would seem that we need imaginary (as in the number i = sqrt(-1) ) values of velocity, voltage, current, etc. So now my brain hurts (and the real physicists on slashdot can enjoy ripping me to shreds or educating me as is their wont)
Cisco is Silicon Valley's poster child for acquired innovation -- acquiring over 100 companies in the last 10 years (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Systems_acquisitions). Letting someone else's VCs pay for your R&D is a great way to always have the best of the best technology. And don't most of the Valley's VCs and "brain-power" cater to this growth-by-acquisition model. Isn't the exit strategy of a VC or serial entrepreneur defined by getting a Cisco, Google, or Microsoft to by the company?
Looking at the market's response to this announcement, it seems that the merged YHOO+MSFT are worth at least $6.5 billion less than they were as separate entities. Yesterday MSFT lost $19.3 billion in market cap, but YHOO only gained $12.8. (If you factor in NASDAQ's overall rise, then these numbers are even worse -- suggesting perhaps a $9 billion loss of value from the merger.)
I would imagine that some clever network folk could use this research to develop interesting parallel-distributed network management algorithms. After all, a large data packet is not unlike flying bird that does not "want" to collide with other packets in large network (= transport medium = "air"). Assuming the coordination packets are much much smaller than the data packets, this scheme would cost-effectively prevent collisions and congestion by optimizing the spread of data both cross-sectionally and longitudinally in a network.
Although FCC comments are all well and good, talking to Comcast's CSR (customer service reps) will have more impact. If every balky P2P connection results in a $5-$10 in call-center time, then Comcast will think differently about it's filtering policy.
The key to solving this is to make unfettered P2P connections the least cost option for Comcast. That means increasing the costs of not providing those connections. FCC fines might do it (assuming the FCC acts), but high customer service cost certainly will.
What stops a Saudi IslamoFascist living in Canada from buying malware from the Russian mafia and redirecting attacks through servers in China? Who do we attack when the attacker is a botnet consisting of a bunch of infected PCs on some UK cablemodem network?
The extreme malleability of data, software, and networks means that anyone can make anyone look like they are a participant in an attack. It won't surprise me if a large percentage of counterattacks, reprisals, or sanctions target the wrong party because they were just the last identifiable node in a long chain of proxies and dark-net hops. If one can make one enemy look like it attacked another enemy, then one can kill two enemy for the price of on DDoSing.
I can only hope (because I doubt that I can expect) that these telecommuting workers use encrypted datafiles, well-secured "work-only" home-office PCs, multi-factor authentication, non-wireless internet connections, etc. I'm sure any number of people would love to gain access to government data or databases.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that part of Apple's restrictive software distribution strategy is to avoid malware and crapware from creeping into the iPhone ecosystem. It's something like a walled garden or customs & border protection model for software distribution. Although I'm sure that enterprising criminals will find ways to break into the iPhone, Apple's approach does raise barriers to drive-by downloads, worms, trojans, and socially-engineered installations of malware.
Time will tell whether restricting software distribution for the iPhone is a net positive or negative in either creating a stable, easy-to-use, secure environment for mobile computing or in stifling development for a subset of developers.
Yes, if he held out for more money, then he would have been replaced. But this just reinforces the game maker's position. The value of GTA is in the game franchise, not voice actor.
And this raises a further issue. If this actor gets more/better gigs because GTA IV is on his resume, then shouldn't GTA get a share of the actor's future earnings? The argument for sharing profits is symmetric. To the extent that this voice actor contributes to the success of the game, he wants a share in the gamemaker's profits. But then, to the extent that the game contributes to the success of the voice actor, the game maker might expect a share in the voice actor's profits, too.
I think people should be paid for the value they add and risks they take rather than getting paid just by the luck of being associated with something successful. If that voice actor can argue that his particular voice and talent means the difference between $500 million and $600 million in sales, then he should get a cut in the profits once the game hits $500 million and the game maker should be more than willing to pay him a good cut once the game hits $500 million.
Would this actor have been willing to return the $100K (or more) if the game had lost money?
If someone wants to share in the rewards of a blockbuster products, they need to be willing to share in the losses from flops.
The notion that this pulse "turns-off" the targeted segment of the brain isn't correct. The pulse does NOT remove power from the brain or suppress neuronal firing. Instead, it disrupts coordinated firing of the neurons by inducing a spurious current in the neurons. Thus it is more like randomly applying a signal to the pins of a CPU than to cutting power or clipping pins.
I can't imagine that this pulse is very good for neuronal tissue in the short-term or long-term.
This sounds like the ultimate exploit. MSFT is hardly going to close these security holes. I wonder when copies of this USB drive (and network-enabled variants of the attacks) will be employed by malware and botnet vendors.
I'd say that one "invents" a set of axioms and "discovers" the inevitable logical consequences of those axioms. For example, one might invent a negation of Euclid's 5th postulate and discover non-Euclidean geometry. In the process, one might "invent" a proof which is a path that leads from axioms to theorems.
The point is that the axioms don't exist until we create them. But once we create a set of axioms, then the results are an inevitable (if arduous) journey of discovery which might require clever inventions to reach the destination of mathematical knowledge.
What I remember from studying this technology 15 years ago was that it was possible to create a beam sharper than the diffraction limit, but the result was diffuse spill-over. That is, one could create an extremely sharp main lobe in the beam pattern, but one had to suffer higher side-lobes. That's OK for imaging and lithography applications -- the spill-over is diffuse enough not to cause too many problems. But for power applications it means both inefficiency (power lost to the side lobes) and irradiation for people who think they aren't in the beam.
Clearly if a nanosat is 5 kg, then 1 sat is a very large unit of mass. On the other hand, given the mass of a typical medium size satellite (call it 500 kg), these are clearly decisats or centisats.
Like you, I hate the corruption of engineering terminology in the hands of marketing. And that NASA, of all groups, would fall for the "nano" = "really small" meme is egregious. Clearly some people need to hand in their geek badges.
In the strictest definition of game, Linux users may have a lower % of gamers than other platform users. But by a looser definition, their platform is an enjoyable pass-time as they tweak their installs, optimize components, and explore the world of the platform. Rather than building points in a fragfest, they prefer to rebuild kernals and increase performance scores of their machines.
Although I can understand picking a modest diameter, this network will only be valuable if it minimizes the handling costs at each end. That implies picking a size that permits efficient multi-modal shipments without repacking the containers. Otherwise the labor for handling the freight would far far exceed any energy cost savings.
The "best" solution might be a 20' or 40' TEU-compatible form factor (e.g. the trailer boxes seen on ocean-going ships). This would require a tunnel with an inside diameter of at least 3.6 m, but would let goods be quickly moved from ship to tube to truck.
Although I'm not a MSFT fanboi, I can see how defining compatibility is not easy. Although a given OS certainly will not run on ancient hardware or hardware lacking key features, the required MB of RAM, GB of disk, and GHz of CPU are all subjective requirements once the hardware is above some minimum spec. I know that I've run OSes on hardware that were below the recommended spec and found them quite usable (for my purposes). Add the fact that the company must set the required hardware spec before finishing the OS and its no wonder that MSFT picked a spec that some find unbearable.
I'm not surprised by the internal squabbles or that the company would pick a spec that's lower than what some engineers argued for.
What stops the hydroxyl radicals produced by Ti02 from oxidizing the organic material in the cotton, silk, or hemp fibers?
Sounds like a great way to ensure no one wears last year's fashions.
With all that plasma, the A-ring looks like great habitat for superconducting electrovores.
IANAL, but it looks like the PTO has some mechanism by which a patent owner can reassign ownership or a patent. If so, Microsoft need only transfer the patent to the public domain or renounce ownership to solve this. Some wishy-washy covenant won't hack it unless it is irrevocable.
Although the article claims it does not mix the hydrocarbon fuel with air, it must do so to produce the hydrogen. Oxygen is a key ingredient to converting a hydrocarbon fuel into hydrogen and carbon diOXIDE. Where's the oxygen coming from in this system?
The solution is to allow arbitrary feedback, but not allow buyers or sellers to see the other party's feedback before submitting feedback themselves. The buyer or seller would be told that they received feedback, but would not get to see it until they either submitted their own feedback or clicked a box that they will forgo the right to submit feedback (the system might also have a time-limit on submitting feedback). That way, no "revenge" feedback is possible. Ebay could also tweak the ratings so that participants that refuse to submit feedback have slightly lower ratings.
First, those look like low-bypass engines (yes, I know they are "normal" jet engines), which means very high exhaust velocities. The small wing also means high wing loading and high takeoff velocities. Those two facts seem to suggest a very loud plane which might run afoul of EU regs.
:(
Second, I can't help but think that fuel costs will kill this idea. GIven rising energy prices (and no large-scale miracle hydrogen factories on the horizon), the fuel costs will tend to track oil and nat gas prices. Even "free" wind/solar power won't help because a hydrogen factory would need to pay a competitive price for energy, which will be tied to the rising cost of fossil fuels and the rising global demand for energy.
That said, I'd love to fly in this thing even though the artists sketch shows a lack of windows due to heat issues
Although I can certainly see how the physics of freezing would help concentrate biological precursors, I would expect an icy-origin to have left more evidence in the form of cryophilic biodiversity. With an icy origin, ice-tolerant organisms should have arisen quite early. Indeed they would have probably been the first life forms and ice-adapted life would have been quite common. Unless the Earth experienced a 100% ice-free period, descendants of those original cryophiles would be with us to this day. Moreover, many "normal" species would still arbor a shared genetic basis for evolving ice-tolerance or cryophilic lifestyles.
Instead, we seem to see limited scattering species that have independently evolved various forms of ice-tolerance. I could be wrong. If so, I'd love to hear if biologists have found evidence for a widely shared mechanism for ice-tolerance that speaks to a frozen beginning.
IANAP, but most "energy" variables can be thought of as the square of some other physical properties (kinetic energy is related to velocity squared, electrical energy is related to voltage or current squared, etc.) So to get "negative energy", it would seem that we need imaginary (as in the number i = sqrt(-1) ) values of velocity, voltage, current, etc. So now my brain hurts (and the real physicists on slashdot can enjoy ripping me to shreds or educating me as is their wont)
Cisco is Silicon Valley's poster child for acquired innovation -- acquiring over 100 companies in the last 10 years (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_Systems_acquisitions). Letting someone else's VCs pay for your R&D is a great way to always have the best of the best technology. And don't most of the Valley's VCs and "brain-power" cater to this growth-by-acquisition model. Isn't the exit strategy of a VC or serial entrepreneur defined by getting a Cisco, Google, or Microsoft to by the company?
Looking at the market's response to this announcement, it seems that the merged YHOO+MSFT are worth at least $6.5 billion less than they were as separate entities. Yesterday MSFT lost $19.3 billion in market cap, but YHOO only gained $12.8. (If you factor in NASDAQ's overall rise, then these numbers are even worse -- suggesting perhaps a $9 billion loss of value from the merger.)
I would imagine that some clever network folk could use this research to develop interesting parallel-distributed network management algorithms. After all, a large data packet is not unlike flying bird that does not "want" to collide with other packets in large network (= transport medium = "air"). Assuming the coordination packets are much much smaller than the data packets, this scheme would cost-effectively prevent collisions and congestion by optimizing the spread of data both cross-sectionally and longitudinally in a network.
Although FCC comments are all well and good, talking to Comcast's CSR (customer service reps) will have more impact. If every balky P2P connection results in a $5-$10 in call-center time, then Comcast will think differently about it's filtering policy.
The key to solving this is to make unfettered P2P connections the least cost option for Comcast. That means increasing the costs of not providing those connections. FCC fines might do it (assuming the FCC acts), but high customer service cost certainly will.
What stops a Saudi IslamoFascist living in Canada from buying malware from the Russian mafia and redirecting attacks through servers in China? Who do we attack when the attacker is a botnet consisting of a bunch of infected PCs on some UK cablemodem network?
The extreme malleability of data, software, and networks means that anyone can make anyone look like they are a participant in an attack. It won't surprise me if a large percentage of counterattacks, reprisals, or sanctions target the wrong party because they were just the last identifiable node in a long chain of proxies and dark-net hops. If one can make one enemy look like it attacked another enemy, then one can kill two enemy for the price of on DDoSing.
I can only hope (because I doubt that I can expect) that these telecommuting workers use encrypted datafiles, well-secured "work-only" home-office PCs, multi-factor authentication, non-wireless internet connections, etc. I'm sure any number of people would love to gain access to government data or databases.