I don't begrudge them the fun of launching a "paper" airplane in space but want to think long-term. How can we use "paper" airplanes in space?
I'd bet that foil airplanes might be an interesting way to de-orbit a stream from materials from LEO. Rather than build big expensive return vehicles (that require fuel for de-orbiting), one could build origami return vehicles that deorbit automatically due to thin atmosphere at LEO. Robotic machinery would create sheet metal (from nickel-iron asteroids), fold it, attach some minimal control package (like a micro UAV), add a payload (more nickel-iron, He3, pharmaceuticals, etc.), and kick the "plane" into space (I could imaging an efficient electromagnetic launcher that kicks the plane below the orbits of any satellites to avoid the planes become space junk). If it takes a year or two deorbit, so what. Earth gets a "free" stream of space materials that hopefully land in a recovery area.
My point is to think how we can use origami in space to get both "fun" public relations news and interesting engineering data at the same time.
I would think that a metal foil would provide a better "paper" for the plane. Not only would it resist higher temperatures, but it would conduct heat from the hot side to radiate heat on the upper side. Chemically etching the foil on the upper surface to make it black would also help radiate heat. Finally, a metal foil plane would have a higher radar cross-section so it might be possible to track the trajectory and recover the plane.
If purists insist on paper, the one could deposit a thin foil veneer on the leading edges or deposit a trace-work of metal to create a reflector of radar waves (extra credit for adding an RFID chip to the mix).
The short-term value of a bloggers union won't be about money and benefits -- the net will always have millions of nonunion bloggers to supplant the content of any union blogger strike.
Rather, the value will be in legitmizing blogging and creating a source for reputation. The Gizmondo-CES prank confirms some people's worst fears -- that bloggers are not professional journalists, may not be worthy of admission into press events (or may not enjoy to the same freedom of the press laws). A union that helps certify and regulate bloggers could boost professionalism and disavow/sanction childish misbehavior.
The challenge, though, is in making union blogs better, more readable, and more insightful than non-union blogs. Why would anyone join a blogger union (assuming that there are union dues) unless it means getting more pay, more respect, and more access? And why would a union accept a member, unless that member brings something to the table (other than dues, presumably). And why would readers pay more (or suffer more intrusive advertising) unless union blogs are better than non-union ones. All of those issues would be addressed if the union represents a professional organization with high standards for membership.
I'm wondering about the battery life with the solid state drive option. Apple states that the machine gets 5 hours on a 37 W-hr battery -- suggesting an average power draw of about 7.4W. Cursory Googling suggests that SSD draw about half the power of a normal HD -- perhaps 0.5 W less. That suggests that the SSD version might get more than 5 1/2 hours. Of course the SSD option comes with a faster processor which might taketh away that extra battery life.
But all this is just speculation and BOTEC. Has anyone got their mitts on an SSD MBA and tested battery life???
The internet, PCs, etc. permits low-cost, large-scale anyone-to-anyone communication and influence. That any-to-any influence can be (and is being) used in a decentralized fashion. Or, because any = {one, many, everyone}, it can be used as a one-to-everyone scheme for control. (As an aside one could argue that the slashdot effect, DDoS, or internet vigilante effect is a "everyone-to-one" phenomenon that overwhelms the target one)
That said, the past was dominated by one-to-many mechanisms for influence. In the past, any-to-any was very weak, very local, or very expensive (water coolers, snail mail, and travel). At least we now have the means for decentralization.
Splashtop sounds good, but TFA portrays it as requiring the user to pick between OSes at boot. That sucks if the user wants a fast boot and eventual access to all their "real" applications. Instead, I see more need for a light weight interim OS (a preOS??) that boots and lets the user do a few things while the main OS continues to boot in the background. Something like Splashtop could boot first, launch a couple of key "first-thing" apps (e.g. web with some morning news or email) and then transfer the session data to the main OS once it's up and running. After a minute (or whatever) Splashtop would crossfade to the main OS and decommission itself.
Of course, the real solution is stable instant-on low power modes (and OSes) that make the morning boot wholly obsolete.
Given how much my blood pressure skyrockets under the influence of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, I'm not sure that MS really will want this data due to liability issues. If MS collects data that shows that MS products reduce the health and wellbeing of users, that makes MS more culpable for those products. Of course, IANAL so maybe a new "not responsible for user's health" section of the the EULA will cover MS legally.
Assuming that Pirate Bay's fans include more that a few legally ept people, this 4,000 page document could be distributed for scoring, summarizing, and response. If a 1,000 people each read only 40 pages, than each page would be reviewed by 10 different sets of eyes.
I could imaging publishing the 4,000 pages as a Wiki and recruiting "editors" to analyze the document and mount a response. (Hopefully this would not attract too much Slashdot-style IANAL legal advice)
This list sounds like a perfect high-value target for every malware distributor and sicko in the net. I'd bet that most kids are worse than their parents at opening emails and clicking yes to "interesting" installs. "OOOHH! A free Pony Screen Saver!" Pwned by ponies....
This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.
I'd seriously doubt that malware distributors would focus on returned products as a vector for infection. The value of a pwned PC is simply too low to justify the labor of buying a product, infecting it, and returning it in hopes that it will infect another machine.
Rather, I suspect infection at or near the source -- slipping malware into the firmware or shipped software that goes with the device. At that point in the software delivery chain, a single act of infection can be distributed to tens or hundreds of thousands of machines. I could also imagine targeting highly promiscuous machines (e.g. WiFi routers) that have a high chance of being in contact with other promiscuous machines (i.e. other routers or laptops).
Although I'm sure some people get their grins by infecting one machine at time, the malware industry is more about collecting the largest quantity of machines at the lowest possible cost.
You may "own the data" but you don't control the version of the server software that hosts, accesses, and manipulates that data. If SocialNetworkDuJour.com decides to implement super nifty web 3.0 whizzy stuff that is not compatible with your OS or browser, then your data is no longer accessible to you. Sure, you can complain bitterly about the "upgrade" but if you use a minority OS or browser, your complaints won't get too far. The lack of client-level version control is a real problem with social networks and other web-based software concepts.
Although surfaces can harbor bacteria, studies of kitchen cutting boards find that not all surfaces behave the same. Paradoxically, wooden cutting boards (which seems like a perfect porous environment for retaining bacteria) actually do better than plastic cutting boards in terms of being bacteria free. Apparently the pore in the wood pull the bacteria fro the surface as the wood drives. The result is a bacteria-free surface. On plastic cutting boards, the bacteria remain on the surface adhered to microscratches. There's also the issue of the role of indigenous microflora on the surfaces such as human skin (studies suggest that dozens of different types of bacteria live without causing infection on human skin). Some scientists wonder if antibacterial soaps do more harm than good -- killing off benign bacteria and create strong "natural" selection pressures that favor highly virulent strains.
I hope these studies carefully document the types of surfaces (and surface treatments) to help trace the infectiousness of different types of contacts.
If RIAA knows it can only profit from the first 5 years of a song's existence, it will be even more draconian in protecting that asset for the first few years. To reap all it can before the copyright expires, RIAA will become even more aggressive at fighting unauthorized copying of music. DRM and lawsuits will increase. Moreover, shorter copyright durations will push music publishers/distributors more toward the blockbuster mentality of only signing/marketing/supporting artists that will generate high sales the instant the music comes out. Artists that take more than a few years to accumulate fans and a backlist will be worth less to publishers. With no way to monetize the long-tail, the music industry will focus on pushing stars.
As satisfying as "punishing" RIAA might be, I think the plan has unintended consequences that would worsen the usability and enjoyability of music.
It had to happen eventually. IT has become middle-aged, mass-market, everyday stuff. Everybody and his mother (and grandmother) are using computers so the majority of the industry is driven toward low-cost, lowest-common-denominator products.
Yet, that doesn't mean that there can't be excitement at the margins of technology (e.g., RFID, GPU processing, ubiquitous mesh networks, MIMO wireless, GPS-everything, or cloud computing). Fun stuff is happening even if the core of the technology has settled down into a workaday existence.
Although this coating may make something waterproof, I'd doubt that it makes the device surfactant-resistant. Soapy water (in the shower, tub, sink, or washing machine) does not have the high surface tension or tendency to be repelled by hydrophobic substances that I'd bet this coating depends on.
Of course, I could be wrong and would enjoy an informative post that proves that this coating can survive suds.
We can all agree that 52 buttons is too many for a remote control and that 95% of the features of Microsoft Word are wasted. But we can't agree on which buttons or Word features are critical.
Software makes it cheap to add features (especially if design is outsourced to India/China) and mass marketing makes added features seem valuable. Each added feature/button adds another 1% to the market because it attracts people who think they need added feature X. Selling another 10,00, 100,00, or a million players because of some feature makes adding a button very profitable. The result is a race toward complexity. Meanwhile, a select few companies buck the trend and do succeed through simplicity (usually called elegance) such as the original Palm Pilot and Apple's iPod. Unfortunately, most companies seem to be riding the complexity merry-go-round.
With a few minor changes, this "tree" could collect the rain water that runs off the solar panel and store it in its "trunk." Then, it would slowly release the water during the night to water the plants around the base of the tree. The result would save water and create a literally greener environment.
For mass-produced products, which is what we'd like rockets to become, the cost of the design the parts is relatively minor. So giving away the design does give away that much. Instead, it's the design of the manufacturing systems that determines how cheap and reliably we can make the thing. Cars are cheap because they have almost no labor (most cars take less than 40 labor-hours to build). And what make a Pentium so valuable is not the design layout of the transistors, but the $1 billion fab that can reliably etch all those transistors on a wafer of silicon.
More than a new rocket design, we need a new rocket manufacturing technology that cranks out high quality rockets for very little per each additional rocket.
Telecommunications is a critical commons and I fear what phishers/advertisers/malware distributors might be able to do it they are given too much access to the code.
The debate about chatbot appears to be part of the ever rising bar placed against AI. This chatbot has won the Turing test for a segment -- perhaps a gullible/dumb segment -- of the human population. Yet still people argue that it does not really count. This is analogous to the "computers can never beat people at chess" meme formed at the dawn of the computing age. And when the first programs did beat some people, the meme changed to "computers can never beat experts at chess." And when computers got better, the meme changed to "computers can never beat the top-ranked humans at chess." That barrier, too, has been breached.
Now we have chatbot that can fool some people some of the time, so the bar has been raised on "true AI" to say that computers can't fool expert suspicious Turing test judges. This too will fall. Human intelligence is very slowly growing (they actually reset IQ tests every decade or so) but computer intelligence is growing much much faster.
"Good" students should learn how to learn a variety of applications to accomplish a variety of goals. That way they are comfortable when Version++ appears, some future innovation spawns a new application category, or they work someplace that uses nonstandard IT. Mediocre students should learn the least number of "the magic incantations" that make the dominant vendor's application do the job.
Get whatever (including open source) for the first group and get Genuine Microsoft/Adobe stuff for the second group.
What stops MS from turning the switch back on at any future date? Although MS may have "turned off" the kill switch, it remains a feature of the system as long as MS auto-update can make changes to the OS without the user's consent.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't begrudge them the fun of launching a "paper" airplane in space but want to think long-term. How can we use "paper" airplanes in space?
I'd bet that foil airplanes might be an interesting way to de-orbit a stream from materials from LEO. Rather than build big expensive return vehicles (that require fuel for de-orbiting), one could build origami return vehicles that deorbit automatically due to thin atmosphere at LEO. Robotic machinery would create sheet metal (from nickel-iron asteroids), fold it, attach some minimal control package (like a micro UAV), add a payload (more nickel-iron, He3, pharmaceuticals, etc.), and kick the "plane" into space (I could imaging an efficient electromagnetic launcher that kicks the plane below the orbits of any satellites to avoid the planes become space junk). If it takes a year or two deorbit, so what. Earth gets a "free" stream of space materials that hopefully land in a recovery area.
My point is to think how we can use origami in space to get both "fun" public relations news and interesting engineering data at the same time.
I would think that a metal foil would provide a better "paper" for the plane. Not only would it resist higher temperatures, but it would conduct heat from the hot side to radiate heat on the upper side. Chemically etching the foil on the upper surface to make it black would also help radiate heat. Finally, a metal foil plane would have a higher radar cross-section so it might be possible to track the trajectory and recover the plane.
If purists insist on paper, the one could deposit a thin foil veneer on the leading edges or deposit a trace-work of metal to create a reflector of radar waves (extra credit for adding an RFID chip to the mix).
The short-term value of a bloggers union won't be about money and benefits -- the net will always have millions of nonunion bloggers to supplant the content of any union blogger strike.
Rather, the value will be in legitmizing blogging and creating a source for reputation. The Gizmondo-CES prank confirms some people's worst fears -- that bloggers are not professional journalists, may not be worthy of admission into press events (or may not enjoy to the same freedom of the press laws). A union that helps certify and regulate bloggers could boost professionalism and disavow/sanction childish misbehavior.
The challenge, though, is in making union blogs better, more readable, and more insightful than non-union blogs. Why would anyone join a blogger union (assuming that there are union dues) unless it means getting more pay, more respect, and more access? And why would a union accept a member, unless that member brings something to the table (other than dues, presumably). And why would readers pay more (or suffer more intrusive advertising) unless union blogs are better than non-union ones. All of those issues would be addressed if the union represents a professional organization with high standards for membership.
I'm wondering about the battery life with the solid state drive option. Apple states that the machine gets 5 hours on a 37 W-hr battery -- suggesting an average power draw of about 7.4W. Cursory Googling suggests that SSD draw about half the power of a normal HD -- perhaps 0.5 W less. That suggests that the SSD version might get more than 5 1/2 hours. Of course the SSD option comes with a faster processor which might taketh away that extra battery life.
But all this is just speculation and BOTEC. Has anyone got their mitts on an SSD MBA and tested battery life???
The internet, PCs, etc. permits low-cost, large-scale anyone-to-anyone communication and influence. That any-to-any influence can be (and is being) used in a decentralized fashion. Or, because any = {one, many, everyone}, it can be used as a one-to-everyone scheme for control. (As an aside one could argue that the slashdot effect, DDoS, or internet vigilante effect is a "everyone-to-one" phenomenon that overwhelms the target one)
That said, the past was dominated by one-to-many mechanisms for influence. In the past, any-to-any was very weak, very local, or very expensive (water coolers, snail mail, and travel). At least we now have the means for decentralization.
Splashtop sounds good, but TFA portrays it as requiring the user to pick between OSes at boot. That sucks if the user wants a fast boot and eventual access to all their "real" applications. Instead, I see more need for a light weight interim OS (a preOS??) that boots and lets the user do a few things while the main OS continues to boot in the background. Something like Splashtop could boot first, launch a couple of key "first-thing" apps (e.g. web with some morning news or email) and then transfer the session data to the main OS once it's up and running. After a minute (or whatever) Splashtop would crossfade to the main OS and decommission itself.
Of course, the real solution is stable instant-on low power modes (and OSes) that make the morning boot wholly obsolete.
Given how much my blood pressure skyrockets under the influence of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, I'm not sure that MS really will want this data due to liability issues. If MS collects data that shows that MS products reduce the health and wellbeing of users, that makes MS more culpable for those products. Of course, IANAL so maybe a new "not responsible for user's health" section of the the EULA will cover MS legally.
Assuming that Pirate Bay's fans include more that a few legally ept people, this 4,000 page document could be distributed for scoring, summarizing, and response. If a 1,000 people each read only 40 pages, than each page would be reviewed by 10 different sets of eyes.
I could imaging publishing the 4,000 pages as a Wiki and recruiting "editors" to analyze the document and mount a response. (Hopefully this would not attract too much Slashdot-style IANAL legal advice)
This list sounds like a perfect high-value target for every malware distributor and sicko in the net. I'd bet that most kids are worse than their parents at opening emails and clicking yes to "interesting" installs. "OOOHH! A free Pony Screen Saver!" Pwned by ponies....
This presents a long-term opportunity for the next phase in body modification. Who says that a "replacement" organ must be identical to the original equipment? Perhaps athletes will opt for an enlarged six-chambered heart or an abdominal booster-heart to improve endurance.
I'd seriously doubt that malware distributors would focus on returned products as a vector for infection. The value of a pwned PC is simply too low to justify the labor of buying a product, infecting it, and returning it in hopes that it will infect another machine.
Rather, I suspect infection at or near the source -- slipping malware into the firmware or shipped software that goes with the device. At that point in the software delivery chain, a single act of infection can be distributed to tens or hundreds of thousands of machines. I could also imagine targeting highly promiscuous machines (e.g. WiFi routers) that have a high chance of being in contact with other promiscuous machines (i.e. other routers or laptops).
Although I'm sure some people get their grins by infecting one machine at time, the malware industry is more about collecting the largest quantity of machines at the lowest possible cost.
Just genetically modify the cow to produce this protein in the milk and you have the perfect production process.
Afterall, it shows "hidden" files and directories. I wonder how many standard Unix file system commands this law will cover.
You may "own the data" but you don't control the version of the server software that hosts, accesses, and manipulates that data. If SocialNetworkDuJour.com decides to implement super nifty web 3.0 whizzy stuff that is not compatible with your OS or browser, then your data is no longer accessible to you. Sure, you can complain bitterly about the "upgrade" but if you use a minority OS or browser, your complaints won't get too far. The lack of client-level version control is a real problem with social networks and other web-based software concepts.
Although surfaces can harbor bacteria, studies of kitchen cutting boards find that not all surfaces behave the same. Paradoxically, wooden cutting boards (which seems like a perfect porous environment for retaining bacteria) actually do better than plastic cutting boards in terms of being bacteria free. Apparently the pore in the wood pull the bacteria fro the surface as the wood drives. The result is a bacteria-free surface. On plastic cutting boards, the bacteria remain on the surface adhered to microscratches. There's also the issue of the role of indigenous microflora on the surfaces such as human skin (studies suggest that dozens of different types of bacteria live without causing infection on human skin). Some scientists wonder if antibacterial soaps do more harm than good -- killing off benign bacteria and create strong "natural" selection pressures that favor highly virulent strains.
I hope these studies carefully document the types of surfaces (and surface treatments) to help trace the infectiousness of different types of contacts.
If RIAA knows it can only profit from the first 5 years of a song's existence, it will be even more draconian in protecting that asset for the first few years. To reap all it can before the copyright expires, RIAA will become even more aggressive at fighting unauthorized copying of music. DRM and lawsuits will increase. Moreover, shorter copyright durations will push music publishers/distributors more toward the blockbuster mentality of only signing/marketing/supporting artists that will generate high sales the instant the music comes out. Artists that take more than a few years to accumulate fans and a backlist will be worth less to publishers. With no way to monetize the long-tail, the music industry will focus on pushing stars.
As satisfying as "punishing" RIAA might be, I think the plan has unintended consequences that would worsen the usability and enjoyability of music.
It had to happen eventually. IT has become middle-aged, mass-market, everyday stuff. Everybody and his mother (and grandmother) are using computers so the majority of the industry is driven toward low-cost, lowest-common-denominator products.
Yet, that doesn't mean that there can't be excitement at the margins of technology (e.g., RFID, GPU processing, ubiquitous mesh networks, MIMO wireless, GPS-everything, or cloud computing). Fun stuff is happening even if the core of the technology has settled down into a workaday existence.
Although this coating may make something waterproof, I'd doubt that it makes the device surfactant-resistant. Soapy water (in the shower, tub, sink, or washing machine) does not have the high surface tension or tendency to be repelled by hydrophobic substances that I'd bet this coating depends on.
Of course, I could be wrong and would enjoy an informative post that proves that this coating can survive suds.
We can all agree that 52 buttons is too many for a remote control and that 95% of the features of Microsoft Word are wasted. But we can't agree on which buttons or Word features are critical.
Software makes it cheap to add features (especially if design is outsourced to India/China) and mass marketing makes added features seem valuable. Each added feature/button adds another 1% to the market because it attracts people who think they need added feature X. Selling another 10,00, 100,00, or a million players because of some feature makes adding a button very profitable. The result is a race toward complexity. Meanwhile, a select few companies buck the trend and do succeed through simplicity (usually called elegance) such as the original Palm Pilot and Apple's iPod. Unfortunately, most companies seem to be riding the complexity merry-go-round.
With a few minor changes, this "tree" could collect the rain water that runs off the solar panel and store it in its "trunk." Then, it would slowly release the water during the night to water the plants around the base of the tree. The result would save water and create a literally greener environment.
For mass-produced products, which is what we'd like rockets to become, the cost of the design the parts is relatively minor. So giving away the design does give away that much. Instead, it's the design of the manufacturing systems that determines how cheap and reliably we can make the thing. Cars are cheap because they have almost no labor (most cars take less than 40 labor-hours to build). And what make a Pentium so valuable is not the design layout of the transistors, but the $1 billion fab that can reliably etch all those transistors on a wafer of silicon.
More than a new rocket design, we need a new rocket manufacturing technology that cranks out high quality rockets for very little per each additional rocket.
How open is open, and how open should open be?
Telecommunications is a critical commons and I fear what phishers/advertisers/malware distributors might be able to do it they are given too much access to the code.
The debate about chatbot appears to be part of the ever rising bar placed against AI. This chatbot has won the Turing test for a segment -- perhaps a gullible/dumb segment -- of the human population. Yet still people argue that it does not really count. This is analogous to the "computers can never beat people at chess" meme formed at the dawn of the computing age. And when the first programs did beat some people, the meme changed to "computers can never beat experts at chess." And when computers got better, the meme changed to "computers can never beat the top-ranked humans at chess." That barrier, too, has been breached.
Now we have chatbot that can fool some people some of the time, so the bar has been raised on "true AI" to say that computers can't fool expert suspicious Turing test judges. This too will fall. Human intelligence is very slowly growing (they actually reset IQ tests every decade or so) but computer intelligence is growing much much faster.
"Good" students should learn how to learn a variety of applications to accomplish a variety of goals. That way they are comfortable when Version++ appears, some future innovation spawns a new application category, or they work someplace that uses nonstandard IT. Mediocre students should learn the least number of "the magic incantations" that make the dominant vendor's application do the job.
Get whatever (including open source) for the first group and get Genuine Microsoft/Adobe stuff for the second group.
What stops MS from turning the switch back on at any future date? Although MS may have "turned off" the kill switch, it remains a feature of the system as long as MS auto-update can make changes to the OS without the user's consent.