It is very true that we can measure the "quality" of software with many different dimensions. The parent posts' suggestions of assessing design, error type, and parsimony (lack of dilution of errors with verbose code) are good.
But the existence of alternative scales does not detract from the original assessment of defects/line unless we have separate knowledge that OSS is unfavorably biased. Do we have reason to believe that OSS is more poorly designed than commericial software, or that OSS has more serious bugs, or that OSS is especially verbose? Without that additional information, it is just as likely that commerical software has a worse design, more serious bugs, and bloated code in addition to a higher defect density (I know I can think of at least one dominant vendor that is guilty of all three sins). In fact, a higher defect density is probably a good indicator for both worse design and the presense of more serious bugs.
Yes, the race still goes on. It would be nice to benchmark MySQL on these other dimensions of quality and benchmark other OSS projects. But without an a priori reason to suspect that OSS is worse on these other dimensions, I think we can conclude that the report is a victorious validation for MySQL and its team.
The good news is that some new network devices (like VoIP handsets) may avoid the wall-wart syndrome of most modern telephones. IEEE P802.3af is a backward-compatible standard that delivers device power over standard CAT5 ethernet lines. A quick search shows that network gear makers are already selling switches that provide power to connected devices.
It will be nice to return to the days when desktop telephones were powered by their network connections.
Project Oxygen is much closer to achieving the article's goals, at least in terms of cutsy demos(see the video clips at the preceding link). The Oxygen project's goals are a bit different from the article author's goals. Oxygen is more concerned with consumer/business office environments than the article's emphasis on an automotive designer's needs.
Based on the two replies so far, it appears that my original idea is worse than I possibly imagined. If/. had an editing feature, I would remove the post myself. Perhaps a -1 mod will keep others from reading it.
I want to sincerely thank igrp and John Meecham for pointing out the error of my ways. (And I am not being facetious)
Since ID thieves make the most loot by opening new accounts in your name, one solution is to max your credit rating by opening as many credit cards as possible. This high level of open, available credit will make you look like a bad risk to the card company that the ID thief applies to. If the ID thief gets an "application denied" for your name then they will move onto the next victim. And if you ever do need to get credit (e.g., to refinance a mortgage, you talk to your mortgage broker/loan officer about cancelling a bunch of cards and then reapply after the loan is approved). It's not perfect (e.g., it might be too tempting to spend all that credit), but it is one more tactic for controlling access to credit in your name.
This type of ironic "look who is polluting" statement brings up the issue of how to allocate scare resources on a global basis . In this case we are assuming that the scientists' right to emit greenhouse gases (primarily C02 from all the airplane flights and maybe methane from the cows that went into the steak dinners) is a scarce resource. Personally, I argue for a market solution, such asgreenhousegas emissions credits, that let people or organizations with the most economically valuable applications of CO2/methane production to prevail.
The notion of any government agency ajudicating this allocation decision is appalling to me because the history of goverment is the history of undue influence by special interests. Whether that influence is the oil industry in the current U.S. government, the tyranny of the majority in all democracies, the king's cousin in an aristocracy, trade unions in communist countries, friends in high places, or Japanese farmers, I would argue that every government is subject to unfair, subjective, corruptible political influences.
By contrast I would argue that money, as evil as it seems, is purest way of "keeping score" of what a society values. Perhaps it is the fact that money is so much harder to create than the usual social-network forms of political influence that makes so many people abhor it so much.
With regard to scientists polluting to get to a conference, the price of getting to that conference should reflect the value of all the other activities that must be forgone on CO2 emissions limits. Thus, the scientists should "buy" the right to pollute from people who would sell their right to pollute. If too many other people have more valuable applications that emit CO2, then the scientists would give up their right to meet (more likely their right to fly in an airplane).
Publically traded greenhouse gas emissions credits may not be a perfect way to allocate this scarce resource, but it is better than all the other ways.
There is an entire field of research on this approach to color and photonic manipulation in biology (I first heard of this around 1980). Structural colors refer to coloration created not by dyes or pigments, but by microstructural features of the physical surface. The best example of this is the morpho butterfly . Many iridescent creatures get their colors from structural colors. Some of the darkest blacks are also structural.
The transparency of jelly-fish is also structural -- the surface of the jellyfish has nanoscopic fingers (much smaller than a wavelength of light) that create a smooth transition between the high-index-refraction of the jellyfish and the low index of refraction of the water. The result is the ultimate in anti-reflection coatings and a much more transparent jelly fish.
The science behind contrails
on
Global Dimming
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm no climate scientist, or climate engineer, but it seems to me that dark |= cold. A greenhouse can be dark but hot. The gasses keep in the heat, yet keep out the light. Venus springs to mind.
Scientists have been debating this one quite a bit -- whether cloud's reflection of the sun light creates more cooling than the cloud's night-time heat-trapping abilities. The suspension of airtravel around 9-11 gave scientists a chance to study this. They found that the absence of contrails created pronounced higher daytime highs and slightly lower nighttime lows. At least for contrails, the net effect seems to be a reduction in average temperture.
Admittedly, this is only a single study. The point is that intuitions about clouds reflecting energy vs. greenhouses retaining energy only provide insight into potential qualititive outcomes. The real quantitative answer may be different depending on the numerical balance of all the effects.
The unintended benefits of pollution
on
Global Dimming
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I suspect that some of this global dimming is due to pollution from sulfates (coal), jet contrails, and dust from wind-borne erosion. Sulfate and particulate pollution provides nice nucleation sites for cloud formation. These pollution-created artificial clouds probably reduce global warming (the article mentions this effect and a correlated decrease in cloudiness and increase in temperatures in the 1990s).
The scary part comes if we reduce these forms of pollution, reduce cloudiness, and thus accelerate global warming. Whether we like it or not, humanity is changing the climate -- as attractive as it seems, preservation is impossible. At this point, it might be better to think about climate engineering -- deciding how we want to change the climate rather than holding on to the false hope that we can avoid changing the climate.
A couple of posts (#1 and #2 ) rightly point out that ion engines are low-thrust devices. They suggest that because debris capture requires lots of manueverability, that more conventional engines might be better. But this is where I disagree and argue that in the long run, an ion engine's greater specific impulse actually provides more total manueverability than any chemical rocket.
Yes, a chemical rocket lets you change orbits very quickly -- zipping from orbit to orbit to catch debris. Yet the total number of orbit changes would be very limited if you use a chemical thruster-- an ion engine would provide at least 10-20 times the total delta-V. That difference translates into 10-20 times the number of orbit changes and debris particles captured by a single garbage collecting satellite.
Yes, a chemical rocket would let you get to the debris quickly, but is this really needed? Most of the dangerous debris is in higher LEO, stable orbits in which the junk is likely to stay in orbit for years, if not millenia. Small particles in low orbits tend to decay quickly and fall harmlessly into the atmosphere. Concerns about falling larger satellites are known years in advance -- orbit decays are not unpredictable (although space weather can shift the timing of the end). With the high predictability of orbits, it does not matter if it takes months (or a years) for the debris collector to eventually visit all the debris it is supposed to collect.
My point is that an ion engine on a debris collector would be superior. Ion engines may not thrust as powerfully as chemical rockets, but they can thrust for much longer periods of time. In many space applications, all that matters is delta-V. Whether it takes a 10-second burn of a chemical rocket or a 1 million second burn of an ion engine is irrelevant in most cases. Slow and steady wins the race.
This is where fuel cells will really come in handy. All jokes aside, a robot that can down a jug of methanol (and dump its waste water) and be refuelled in 30 seconds would be vastly superior to a robot that must be tethered for an hour or more to recharge its batteries. The superior energy density and speed of "recharging" make fuel cells the way to go.
Sounds like an insurance nightmare waiting to happen... Instead of just 'I thought it was clear!' you get 'I thought it was clear and it didn't say I couldn't go!'
The sad part is that you are right. An invention like this will probably save 3 lives, but kill 1 other person (just a guess, YMMV). The 1 person who gets killed/injured sues the city over the "faulty" warning system and the city takes a big hit. With the system, the city becomes liable.
Without the system, the city is not liable for all the people killed in these right-turn accidents. The 3 people whose lives were saved never notice that their lives were saved.
In the case of 3 steps forward and 1 step back, everyone complains/sues over the one step back and fails to see the net benefit.
This technology could help save lives during right-turn-on-red accidents that happen at obscured intersections. Sensors on the cross-street detect triffic on the greenlighted street, relay a signal to the stop light, and warn the right-turners if it is unsafe to turn.
Ion engines would be well suited to this application. Their high specific impulse means they could have the fuel reserves needed to change orbits multiple times to catch debris. Solar power, instead of a nuclear power source, could provide the electricity to run the engine.
Hmmm... figuring out the optimal set of manuveurs to catch a set of debris objects that are all in different orbits would be very tricky. I guess that would have to be called the Traveling Spaceman Problem.
Although geared toward architectural sketching, SketchUp might serve some of these needs. (Disclosure: I've not used the software, but I do walk past their office on a near-daily basis).
The formation of water worlds would seem to hinge on the relative abundances of H, O, and C as well as the ability of other heavier elements to bind these crucial light elements. The inner system of a forming star seems like a hostile place for hydrogen. Between the hot accreting planets, their low gravitiation pull, and stellar winds, I'd bet that its too easy for a small rocky inner world to lose all its hydrogen and other volatiles.
Assuming that hydrogen is retained (locked up in the rocks), it then becomes a matter of the C-O balance. If carbon is too prevalent, it will scavenge all the oxygen from the atmosphere and lead to a CO2/hydrocarbon atmosphere (other things, like FE also scavenge oxygen). Only if there is enough oxygen will you get water.
I wonder how accurately the sim modelled the balance of elements and chemical reaction cycles.
Interesting ideas, chia_monkey. I do agree that sports will evolve, I just wonder if they will evolve to be dominated by non-physical electronic game-oriented "sports."
I especially like your rich-poor dichotomy. It makes me wonder about two issues, though. First , I wonder about the penetration of game machines in low-income neighborhoods -- if the machines are cheap and popular, then will poor kids shift to gaming. Second, it seems more likely that rich kids will stop watching sports (the article alluded to declining veiwership in key demographic segments). This will cause players' salaries to drop. Poor kids won't be as attracted to professional sports by the money and fame (because there won't be any fae or money if nobody is buying seasons tickets and watching TV ads).
Sports will evolve. Perhaps, in the next generation, father and son will be more likely to play an electronic game together than to play catch in the backyard ( a generation of fathers who never played physical sports in their youth is unlikely to raise a generation of sons who play physical sports). Children will still grow up with fond memories of learning to play a new game, getting a high score, beating friends and family, etc. but it will all be in an electronic sports context, not a physical sports context.
But then, what do I know about this area? I never really was into either physical sports or electronic games when I was growing up.
It would seem that this might be a last generation to play or watch football (to take one example) of both the real and virtual kind. If the kids of today do not go to football games or watch them on TV, then financial interest in the game will plummet (empty stadiums and low TV ratings are the death knell of a sport). Football, and other sports, won't be shown on TV (except maybe on some obscure low-budget cable channels). Eventually this leads to even less public interest in the sport.
Ultimately, there will be little reason for next generation video gameboxes to even have football as a game because, by then, few people will even know what football is.
What has always impressed me about the Wright brothers is that they were true engineers. Rather than tinker with bird-like models and pursue a try-it-and-crash-it development approach, they really decomposed the problem and systematically solved the major issues like power, lift, and control. They did not just build the first airplane, they designed it.
Re:Spidering and exceeding ISP bandwidth limits
on
Spidering Hacks
·
· Score: 1
If it's a full spider where you're considering competing with google or reimplementing google with extra features, then yes, you'd obviously need an industrial-strength account.
More likely though, you leave the big jobs to the big boys, and you want to do very specific things, maybe even building on top of google.
Very good point. You are right that many people will use spiders in a naturally limited way -- a one-shot or infrequently repeated project to gather information on a very limited domain or limited set of sites.
What I suspect, however, is that widespread use of spiders will lead more people to use them in more ways. For example, I often Google for obscure information that Google's search tools don't do a good job of finding (too many false positives). I'd love a feature that lets me spider the sites associated with the first 200 pages of a Google search and filter or sort the results according to my own filters/pagerank algorithms. This could be a batch process or a progressive build process (it continues to download, filter, and rank pages while showing me the interrim results). This is a more bandwidth intensive process. Perhaps I am, as you say, reimplementing Google (or augmenting it), but if the spider is easy to use, then I and others will use it.
My point is that spidering is a tool that can expand to fill all available bandwidth.
Is the Optima Technology patent the ONLY way to write to CDs? If not, then somebody else can innovate around the patent. The nice thing about patents is that they fully disclose the invention so that others might create even better inventions.
Aside from the stealthy nature of the patent application process, I would think that most technologists would think patents irrelevant. After all, a patent assumes fairly slow moving rates of innovation -- that the patent wil be valuable for tens of years. Yet I would think that the rapid pace of innovation would make any patent useless after a few years.
Its time for innovation.
Spidering and exceeding ISP bandwidth limits
on
Spidering Hacks
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I suspect that more than a few people are going to hit their ISP's bandwidth limits if they start playing with spiders. A spider running on a simple 768 kbps DSL line can probably schlep down more than 4 GB per day or 129 GB/month (assuming the CPU can keep up analyzing with the flow).
When I RTFA, I noted a related story on the new Compact Flash 4GB Microdrive and found a randomly chosen supplier with more specs and claims that these are in stock now. Just think, a DVD worth of data on a single CF card. Now I can start taking all my digital pictures in RAW format.
You are misunderstanding how interference works. Signal doesn't have to be on the exact frequency to interfere. There are always various harmonics, sidebands, and so on that get in the way. Furthermore, there's quite a bit of spill-over. You generally cannot filter this very well with filters because filters are good only up to a point. Any signal that leaks through the filter will cause enough interference to be a problem, and that's not even taking into effect all the harmonics and crap.
Very true, it is not easy, especially when you have a sensitive radio receiver trying to pull in a nV/m signal from miles away while sitting next to a powerline carrying a multivolt broadband interference source. A simple single-stage notch filter won't cut it;) .
But I do wonder if software radio technologies can provide sufficient control over the broadband signal to supress interference to FEMA-acceptable levels. For example, I suspect that one could kill the spillover of harmonics by creating an antisignal at the harmonic frequency (a sort of frequency-shifted noise cancelation concept).
Alas, all of these solutions do add cost and may not address FEMA's fears if faulty equipment leaks RF into the wrong bands.
Slashdot Mirror
It is very true that we can measure the "quality" of software with many different dimensions. The parent posts' suggestions of assessing design, error type, and parsimony (lack of dilution of errors with verbose code) are good.
But the existence of alternative scales does not detract from the original assessment of defects/line unless we have separate knowledge that OSS is unfavorably biased. Do we have reason to believe that OSS is more poorly designed than commericial software, or that OSS has more serious bugs, or that OSS is especially verbose? Without that additional information, it is just as likely that commerical software has a worse design, more serious bugs, and bloated code in addition to a higher defect density (I know I can think of at least one dominant vendor that is guilty of all three sins). In fact, a higher defect density is probably a good indicator for both worse design and the presense of more serious bugs.
Yes, the race still goes on. It would be nice to benchmark MySQL on these other dimensions of quality and benchmark other OSS projects. But without an a priori reason to suspect that OSS is worse on these other dimensions, I think we can conclude that the report is a victorious validation for MySQL and its team.
The good news is that some new network devices (like VoIP handsets) may avoid the wall-wart syndrome of most modern telephones. IEEE P802.3af is a backward-compatible standard that delivers device power over standard CAT5 ethernet lines. A quick search shows that network gear makers are already selling switches that provide power to connected devices.
It will be nice to return to the days when desktop telephones were powered by their network connections.
This robotic duck dates back to the 1700s.
Project Oxygen is much closer to achieving the article's goals, at least in terms of cutsy demos(see the video clips at the preceding link). The Oxygen project's goals are a bit different from the article author's goals. Oxygen is more concerned with consumer/business office environments than the article's emphasis on an automotive designer's needs.
Based on the two replies so far, it appears that my original idea is worse than I possibly imagined. If /. had an editing feature, I would remove the post myself. Perhaps a -1 mod will keep others from reading it.
I want to sincerely thank igrp and John Meecham for pointing out the error of my ways. (And I am not being facetious)
Since ID thieves make the most loot by opening new accounts in your name, one solution is to max your credit rating by opening as many credit cards as possible. This high level of open, available credit will make you look like a bad risk to the card company that the ID thief applies to. If the ID thief gets an "application denied" for your name then they will move onto the next victim. And if you ever do need to get credit (e.g., to refinance a mortgage, you talk to your mortgage broker/loan officer about cancelling a bunch of cards and then reapply after the loan is approved). It's not perfect (e.g., it might be too tempting to spend all that credit), but it is one more tactic for controlling access to credit in your name.
This type of ironic "look who is polluting" statement brings up the issue of how to allocate scare resources on a global basis . In this case we are assuming that the scientists' right to emit greenhouse gases (primarily C02 from all the airplane flights and maybe methane from the cows that went into the steak dinners) is a scarce resource. Personally, I argue for a market solution, such asgreenhousegas emissions credits, that let people or organizations with the most economically valuable applications of CO2/methane production to prevail.
The notion of any government agency ajudicating this allocation decision is appalling to me because the history of goverment is the history of undue influence by special interests. Whether that influence is the oil industry in the current U.S. government, the tyranny of the majority in all democracies, the king's cousin in an aristocracy, trade unions in communist countries, friends in high places, or Japanese farmers, I would argue that every government is subject to unfair, subjective, corruptible political influences.
By contrast I would argue that money, as evil as it seems, is purest way of "keeping score" of what a society values. Perhaps it is the fact that money is so much harder to create than the usual social-network forms of political influence that makes so many people abhor it so much.
With regard to scientists polluting to get to a conference, the price of getting to that conference should reflect the value of all the other activities that must be forgone on CO2 emissions limits. Thus, the scientists should "buy" the right to pollute from people who would sell their right to pollute. If too many other people have more valuable applications that emit CO2, then the scientists would give up their right to meet (more likely their right to fly in an airplane).
Publically traded greenhouse gas emissions credits may not be a perfect way to allocate this scarce resource, but it is better than all the other ways.
There is an entire field of research on this approach to color and photonic manipulation in biology (I first heard of this around 1980). Structural colors refer to coloration created not by dyes or pigments, but by microstructural features of the physical surface. The best example of this is the morpho butterfly . Many iridescent creatures get their colors from structural colors. Some of the darkest blacks are also structural.
The transparency of jelly-fish is also structural -- the surface of the jellyfish has nanoscopic fingers (much smaller than a wavelength of light) that create a smooth transition between the high-index-refraction of the jellyfish and the low index of refraction of the water. The result is the ultimate in anti-reflection coatings and a much more transparent jelly fish.
I'm no climate scientist, or climate engineer, but it seems to me that dark |= cold. A greenhouse can be dark but hot. The gasses keep in the heat, yet keep out the light. Venus springs to mind.
Scientists have been debating this one quite a bit -- whether cloud's reflection of the sun light creates more cooling than the cloud's night-time heat-trapping abilities. The suspension of airtravel around 9-11 gave scientists a chance to study this. They found that the absence of contrails created pronounced higher daytime highs and slightly lower nighttime lows. At least for contrails, the net effect seems to be a reduction in average temperture.
Admittedly, this is only a single study. The point is that intuitions about clouds reflecting energy vs. greenhouses retaining energy only provide insight into potential qualititive outcomes. The real quantitative answer may be different depending on the numerical balance of all the effects.
I suspect that some of this global dimming is due to pollution from sulfates (coal), jet contrails, and dust from wind-borne erosion. Sulfate and particulate pollution provides nice nucleation sites for cloud formation. These pollution-created artificial clouds probably reduce global warming (the article mentions this effect and a correlated decrease in cloudiness and increase in temperatures in the 1990s).
The scary part comes if we reduce these forms of pollution, reduce cloudiness, and thus accelerate global warming. Whether we like it or not, humanity is changing the climate -- as attractive as it seems, preservation is impossible. At this point, it might be better to think about climate engineering -- deciding how we want to change the climate rather than holding on to the false hope that we can avoid changing the climate.
A couple of posts (#1 and #2 ) rightly point out that ion engines are low-thrust devices. They suggest that because debris capture requires lots of manueverability, that more conventional engines might be better. But this is where I disagree and argue that in the long run, an ion engine's greater specific impulse actually provides more total manueverability than any chemical rocket.
Yes, a chemical rocket lets you change orbits very quickly -- zipping from orbit to orbit to catch debris. Yet the total number of orbit changes would be very limited if you use a chemical thruster-- an ion engine would provide at least 10-20 times the total delta-V. That difference translates into 10-20 times the number of orbit changes and debris particles captured by a single garbage collecting satellite.
Yes, a chemical rocket would let you get to the debris quickly, but is this really needed? Most of the dangerous debris is in higher LEO, stable orbits in which the junk is likely to stay in orbit for years, if not millenia. Small particles in low orbits tend to decay quickly and fall harmlessly into the atmosphere. Concerns about falling larger satellites are known years in advance -- orbit decays are not unpredictable (although space weather can shift the timing of the end). With the high predictability of orbits, it does not matter if it takes months (or a years) for the debris collector to eventually visit all the debris it is supposed to collect.
My point is that an ion engine on a debris collector would be superior. Ion engines may not thrust as powerfully as chemical rockets, but they can thrust for much longer periods of time. In many space applications, all that matters is delta-V. Whether it takes a 10-second burn of a chemical rocket or a 1 million second burn of an ion engine is irrelevant in most cases. Slow and steady wins the race.
This is where fuel cells will really come in handy. All jokes aside, a robot that can down a jug of methanol (and dump its waste water) and be refuelled in 30 seconds would be vastly superior to a robot that must be tethered for an hour or more to recharge its batteries. The superior energy density and speed of "recharging" make fuel cells the way to go.
Sounds like an insurance nightmare waiting to happen... Instead of just 'I thought it was clear!' you get 'I thought it was clear and it didn't say I couldn't go!'
The sad part is that you are right. An invention like this will probably save 3 lives, but kill 1 other person (just a guess, YMMV). The 1 person who gets killed/injured sues the city over the "faulty" warning system and the city takes a big hit. With the system, the city becomes liable.
Without the system, the city is not liable for all the people killed in these right-turn accidents. The 3 people whose lives were saved never notice that their lives were saved.
In the case of 3 steps forward and 1 step back, everyone complains/sues over the one step back and fails to see the net benefit.
This technology could help save lives during right-turn-on-red accidents that happen at obscured intersections. Sensors on the cross-street detect triffic on the greenlighted street, relay a signal to the stop light, and warn the right-turners if it is unsafe to turn.
Ion engines would be well suited to this application. Their high specific impulse means they could have the fuel reserves needed to change orbits multiple times to catch debris. Solar power, instead of a nuclear power source, could provide the electricity to run the engine.
Hmmm... figuring out the optimal set of manuveurs to catch a set of debris objects that are all in different orbits would be very tricky. I guess that would have to be called the Traveling Spaceman Problem.
Although geared toward architectural sketching, SketchUp might serve some of these needs. (Disclosure: I've not used the software, but I do walk past their office on a near-daily basis).
The formation of water worlds would seem to hinge on the relative abundances of H, O, and C as well as the ability of other heavier elements to bind these crucial light elements. The inner system of a forming star seems like a hostile place for hydrogen. Between the hot accreting planets, their low gravitiation pull, and stellar winds, I'd bet that its too easy for a small rocky inner world to lose all its hydrogen and other volatiles.
Assuming that hydrogen is retained (locked up in the rocks), it then becomes a matter of the C-O balance. If carbon is too prevalent, it will scavenge all the oxygen from the atmosphere and lead to a CO2/hydrocarbon atmosphere (other things, like FE also scavenge oxygen). Only if there is enough oxygen will you get water.
I wonder how accurately the sim modelled the balance of elements and chemical reaction cycles.
Interesting ideas, chia_monkey. I do agree that sports will evolve, I just wonder if they will evolve to be dominated by non-physical electronic game-oriented "sports."
I especially like your rich-poor dichotomy. It makes me wonder about two issues, though. First , I wonder about the penetration of game machines in low-income neighborhoods -- if the machines are cheap and popular, then will poor kids shift to gaming. Second, it seems more likely that rich kids will stop watching sports (the article alluded to declining veiwership in key demographic segments). This will cause players' salaries to drop. Poor kids won't be as attracted to professional sports by the money and fame (because there won't be any fae or money if nobody is buying seasons tickets and watching TV ads).
Sports will evolve. Perhaps, in the next generation, father and son will be more likely to play an electronic game together than to play catch in the backyard ( a generation of fathers who never played physical sports in their youth is unlikely to raise a generation of sons who play physical sports). Children will still grow up with fond memories of learning to play a new game, getting a high score, beating friends and family, etc. but it will all be in an electronic sports context, not a physical sports context.
But then, what do I know about this area? I never really was into either physical sports or electronic games when I was growing up.
It would seem that this might be a last generation to play or watch football (to take one example) of both the real and virtual kind. If the kids of today do not go to football games or watch them on TV, then financial interest in the game will plummet (empty stadiums and low TV ratings are the death knell of a sport). Football, and other sports, won't be shown on TV (except maybe on some obscure low-budget cable channels). Eventually this leads to even less public interest in the sport.
Ultimately, there will be little reason for next generation video gameboxes to even have football as a game because, by then, few people will even know what football is.
What has always impressed me about the Wright brothers is that they were true engineers. Rather than tinker with bird-like models and pursue a try-it-and-crash-it development approach, they really decomposed the problem and systematically solved the major issues like power, lift, and control. They did not just build the first airplane, they designed it.
If it's a full spider where you're considering competing with google or reimplementing google with extra features, then yes, you'd obviously need an industrial-strength account.
More likely though, you leave the big jobs to the big boys, and you want to do very specific things, maybe even building on top of google.
Very good point. You are right that many people will use spiders in a naturally limited way -- a one-shot or infrequently repeated project to gather information on a very limited domain or limited set of sites.
What I suspect, however, is that widespread use of spiders will lead more people to use them in more ways. For example, I often Google for obscure information that Google's search tools don't do a good job of finding (too many false positives). I'd love a feature that lets me spider the sites associated with the first 200 pages of a Google search and filter or sort the results according to my own filters/pagerank algorithms. This could be a batch process or a progressive build process (it continues to download, filter, and rank pages while showing me the interrim results). This is a more bandwidth intensive process. Perhaps I am, as you say, reimplementing Google (or augmenting it), but if the spider is easy to use, then I and others will use it.
My point is that spidering is a tool that can expand to fill all available bandwidth.
Is the Optima Technology patent the ONLY way to write to CDs? If not, then somebody else can innovate around the patent. The nice thing about patents is that they fully disclose the invention so that others might create even better inventions.
Aside from the stealthy nature of the patent application process, I would think that most technologists would think patents irrelevant. After all, a patent assumes fairly slow moving rates of innovation -- that the patent wil be valuable for tens of years. Yet I would think that the rapid pace of innovation would make any patent useless after a few years.
Its time for innovation.
I suspect that more than a few people are going to hit their ISP's bandwidth limits if they start playing with spiders. A spider running on a simple 768 kbps DSL line can probably schlep down more than 4 GB per day or 129 GB/month (assuming the CPU can keep up analyzing with the flow).
When I RTFA, I noted a related story on the new Compact Flash 4GB Microdrive and found a randomly chosen supplier with more specs and claims that these are in stock now. Just think, a DVD worth of data on a single CF card. Now I can start taking all my digital pictures in RAW format.
You are misunderstanding how interference works. Signal doesn't have to be on the exact frequency to interfere. There are always various harmonics, sidebands, and so on that get in the way. Furthermore, there's quite a bit of spill-over. You generally cannot filter this very well with filters because filters are good only up to a point. Any signal that leaks through the filter will cause enough interference to be a problem, and that's not even taking into effect all the harmonics and crap.
;) .
Very true, it is not easy, especially when you have a sensitive radio receiver trying to pull in a nV/m signal from miles away while sitting next to a powerline carrying a multivolt broadband interference source. A simple single-stage notch filter won't cut it
But I do wonder if software radio technologies can provide sufficient control over the broadband signal to supress interference to FEMA-acceptable levels. For example, I suspect that one could kill the spillover of harmonics by creating an antisignal at the harmonic frequency (a sort of frequency-shifted noise cancelation concept).
Alas, all of these solutions do add cost and may not address FEMA's fears if faulty equipment leaks RF into the wrong bands.