The best thing would be to make the keyboard seamless (no cracks between the keys) and hence WATERPROOF. They're already made to be drop-tolerant (4 feet - but if you do it the warrenty becomes invalid). I'd hate to own one and have to run with it through the rain.
As an aside, a waterproof cell phone would make a nice accessory.
I heard the Aricebo Radio Telescope should be able to detect a cell phone transmission from Mars. I haven't done the math, but it's a safe guess that it would not be able to pick up the leakage signals from the alien equivalent of an I Love Lucy broadcast. So without sounding redundant, we do need this Hectar Array. Who knows how big it could grow, if it's cheap enough maybe it will be several hectars!
Flight of the Navigator? Wow, wasn't that a Disney movie from like 1986? Huh. That was my kind chick, the one who helped him escape from NASA. My first crush.
... things travelling under the ocean at impossible speeds. Although I do believe in UFOs, I think this may explain those "sightings" as top secret black-projects by the Navy and such.
The pro-Mac principles target the wretched masses who are so technically challenged, no? It seems to be a matter of defining what proportion of the market will favor utility vs easy-of-use. So the question becomes, how much is the average person willing to educate themselves (ie how much patience and brains do they have) to use an interface at a certain level? I don't think there is an average, it's too segmented to be useful here. Carve the market up, that's my solution.
Laws that are "too vague" stand a good chance to get thrown out. You simply can't challenge any given game as violent or not violent, it's totally subjective. Anyways nobody has ever been hurt by a videogame (except having a sore thumb in the Atari 2600 days). If I were a game author or an arcade owner, I would sue anyone who told me that kids can't play my game.
Not to drag this out, but I can see things like transmutation coming true as soon as we find an unlimited power source - I dunno, like you zap one metal into another if you had enough energy. Voila, you have uranium! Simply a matter of changing the number of protons (and associated particles), no? OK I'll stick to biology and leave physics to others.
My own college chemistry books describe exactly how to make some drugs - will these books be banned? Certain drugs, legal or not, take on different forms as conjugates, esters, prodrugs (drugs that don't become active until some sort of biochemistry kicks in). At this level, they'd be hampering my education to make and research actual therapeutic drugs! Of course there are lists of controlled chemicals and "watched" chemicals that they check and see who's buying them, but to ban KNOWLEDGE of how to make them?? Only the worst secrets that could be used as weapons should be banned (like how to make nuclear bombs).
How are they alike? They are a 3rd party in the middle of the artist and the fans, like the HMOs in the middle of a doctor and a patient, telling them what to do because they know oh-so-much about how to manage you, little man.
Somebody wrote yesterday that recording costs money, equipment costs money, promotion etc... With the money the upcoming bands save by NOT BUYING CDs at $15 a pop, I sure they can save enough to get a good start without Sony, Geffen, Atlantic, et al. signing their lives away.
Another analogy, when the new-fangled automobile came out and replaced the horse-and-buggy, don't you think the breeders and the carriage houses got upset? "Hey stop driving on our roads, we built them and you're supposed to use OUR HORSES to ride on them!"
I admit, I got a C in economics, but I remember one lesson that said in the absence of new technology, a company or industry can be mathematically doomed to failure. That technology has arrived, most visibly in the form of MP3. It is a market force as valid as any other. The record industry (investors, managers, and goddamn CEOs) should pull their money out of entertainment and put it into, oh I don't know, chemicals or agriculture... or maybe they should try working for shit pay like the rest of us (get a real job).
What, exactly, are the chances that Napster or anyone is going to turn agressively against their users and say... drag thousands of people to trial who illegally copied some music? I don't mean just a few tolken cases, I'm wondering if they could spend their whole war chest to prosecute people just to be spiteful, even if they lose money doing it.
"being flown up to the crater by the US Marine corp"
If it's the marines, I think they mean "blown" up to the crater!
Anyways I have a hunch that the Japanese (private companies) are going to beat us to mars. Who Dares Wins (to quote the SAS) and NASA's lack-of-balls (L.O.B.) is making us look like a second-rate nation.
Maybe this project is comissioned by Pink Floyd? I remember the Publius Enigma, the only advise that some guy gave is "keep talking", and I think someone hinted that it had something to do with the internet. Did anyone ever track down that guy who was giving advise to people who claimed he knew the secret?
I'm glad how Slashdot is informed and up-to-the hour on these issues, but I feel like moron when all I can do is say yeah, "I agree with you guys!" It would be great if someone gave some leadership with these issues, like tell us who to write to and protest and stuff. I'm too busy and too lazy to sound off without some help, and I'm one of the few jerks who actually cares enough about these issues to read about them...
If methylation occurs as genes are turned on or off (over development, or whenever), how do we decide if a non-methylated cytosine could potentially become methylated? I'm thinking maybe if we observe it long enough it will tell us if there's really a useful gene at that site. Or maybe we should identify a gene first and then look to see if methylation occurs within it.
Given a sequence of aminoacids (which is exactly what this allows us to do), you can theortically predict what a protein or an enzyme will look like and how it will behave. We have only had slight success in modelling this on computers. My analogy is that it's as difficult as rolling 2 dice and predicting how they're going to land. Sure, if you know their starting position, and account for every physical force that is exerted on them until they come to rest on the table, then yes you can predict their behavior every time! That's a bad analogy, but it's a good way to describe how the slightest error in measuring the forces and location of stuff can throw the predicted results way off. Remember every electron counts at that scale! So if you build these models well enough, you can for example synthesise a new protein to be used as a drug, based on the knowledge that such-and-such a disease is caused by this or that problem within a cell.
Given a sequence of aminoacids (which is exactly what this allows us to do), you can theortically predict what a protein or an enzyme will look like and how it will behave. We have only had slight success in modelling this on computers. My analogy is that it's as difficult as rolling 2 dice and predicting how they're going to land. Sure, if you know their starting position, and account for every physical force that is exerted on them until they come to rest on the table, then yes you can predict their behavior every time! That's a bad analogy, but it's a good way to describe how the slightest error in measuring the forces and location of stuff can throw the predicted results way off. Remember every electron counts at that scale! So if you build these models well enough, you can for example synthesise a new protein to be used as a drug, based on the knowledge that such-and-such a disease is caused by this or that problem within a cell. ie if you know what the problem is, you can mathematically crunch with brute force until you find a model to fix it.
Soon there will be glasses that use a computer program so you can see what a person looks like without their clothes. Ironically, this will make clothing obsolete since the same technology can be used to digitally put clothes onto a naked person.
The clothing companies are going to get upset about this, and you'll see the Gap et al. suing this and that company to try and stop our liberation from the opressive fasion police state that we're now stuck in.
You might be required to wear a blue suit so that the sensors on other people's glasses can image you well as a template for whatever settings the people around you choose (street clothes, colonial period, Renaissance, or just naked).
This same concept will cure the problem of ugliness, giving you new measurements and a new face. You will set user preferences in two categories - 1. how you want to see other people 2. how you want other people to see you.
It's still the processor of choice for many satellites and even the International Space Station, specifically because of its dinosaur nature. Apparently space radiation makes the lastest (smallest) transistors prone to error, whereas the older chips can absorb it better and hence avoid a catastrophic error.
Why was my very first thought that aliens had stolen the files? They simply opened up a doorway in time-space to access the vault. There was an army camera guy who reported a UFO had flown next to one of our missles, opened it up, took out the warhead and destroyed it in mid-flight!
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents .html
Isn't Vorbis using wavelets for audio compression? I hope they don't start claiming that there are patent-issues here.
Ralph: "Me fail english? That's unpossible!"
The best thing would be to make the keyboard seamless (no cracks between the keys) and hence WATERPROOF. They're already made to be drop-tolerant (4 feet - but if you do it the warrenty becomes invalid). I'd hate to own one and have to run with it through the rain.
As an aside, a waterproof cell phone would make a nice accessory.
I heard the Aricebo Radio Telescope should be able to detect a cell phone transmission from Mars. I haven't done the math, but it's a safe guess that it would not be able to pick up the leakage signals from the alien equivalent of an I Love Lucy broadcast. So without sounding redundant, we do need this Hectar Array. Who knows how big it could grow, if it's cheap enough maybe it will be several hectars!
Flight of the Navigator? Wow, wasn't that a Disney movie from like 1986? Huh. That was my kind chick, the one who helped him escape from NASA. My first crush.
... things travelling under the ocean at impossible speeds. Although I do believe in UFOs, I think this may explain those "sightings" as top secret black-projects by the Navy and such.
The pro-Mac principles target the wretched masses who are so technically challenged, no? It seems to be a matter of defining what proportion of the market will favor utility vs easy-of-use. So the question becomes, how much is the average person willing to educate themselves (ie how much patience and brains do they have) to use an interface at a certain level? I don't think there is an average, it's too segmented to be useful here. Carve the market up, that's my solution.
Assuming Napster loses or sells out, what's the next best thing and when will it come?
VORBIS rules!
Ah the first post by someone with a brain!
Laws that are "too vague" stand a good chance to get thrown out. You simply can't challenge any given game as violent or not violent, it's totally subjective. Anyways nobody has ever been hurt by a videogame (except having a sore thumb in the Atari 2600 days). If I were a game author or an arcade owner, I would sue anyone who told me that kids can't play my game.
I didn't want to sound mean, but yes, I hurt. Sorry.
Not to drag this out, but I can see things like transmutation coming true as soon as we find an unlimited power source - I dunno, like you zap one metal into another if you had enough energy. Voila, you have uranium! Simply a matter of changing the number of protons (and associated particles), no? OK I'll stick to biology and leave physics to others.
My own college chemistry books describe exactly how to make some drugs - will these books be banned? Certain drugs, legal or not, take on different forms as conjugates, esters, prodrugs (drugs that don't become active until some sort of biochemistry kicks in). At this level, they'd be hampering my education to make and research actual therapeutic drugs! Of course there are lists of controlled chemicals and "watched" chemicals that they check and see who's buying them, but to ban KNOWLEDGE of how to make them?? Only the worst secrets that could be used as weapons should be banned (like how to make nuclear bombs).
How are they alike? They are a 3rd party in the middle of the artist and the fans, like the HMOs in the middle of a doctor and a patient, telling them what to do because they know oh-so-much about how to manage you, little man.
Somebody wrote yesterday that recording costs money, equipment costs money, promotion etc... With the money the upcoming bands save by NOT BUYING CDs at $15 a pop, I sure they can save enough to get a good start without Sony, Geffen, Atlantic, et al. signing their lives away.
Another analogy, when the new-fangled automobile came out and replaced the horse-and-buggy, don't you think the breeders and the carriage houses got upset? "Hey stop driving on our roads, we built them and you're supposed to use OUR HORSES to ride on them!"
I admit, I got a C in economics, but I remember one lesson that said in the absence of new technology, a company or industry can be mathematically doomed to failure. That technology has arrived, most visibly in the form of MP3. It is a market force as valid as any other. The record industry (investors, managers, and goddamn CEOs) should pull their money out of entertainment and put it into, oh I don't know, chemicals or agriculture... or maybe they should try working for shit pay like the rest of us (get a real job).
Boy, I feel like a broken record. (pun intended)
What, exactly, are the chances that Napster or anyone is going to turn agressively against their users and say... drag thousands of people to trial who illegally copied some music? I don't mean just a few tolken cases, I'm wondering if they could spend their whole war chest to prosecute people just to be spiteful, even if they lose money doing it.
"...12.2 minutes at a girl-on-girl fetish page..."
:]
More like "12.2 seconds" is some cases. Hope that's not offtopic.
"being flown up to the crater by the US Marine corp"
If it's the marines, I think they mean "blown" up to the crater!
Anyways I have a hunch that the Japanese (private companies) are going to beat us to mars. Who Dares Wins (to quote the SAS) and NASA's lack-of-balls (L.O.B.) is making us look like a second-rate nation.
Maybe this project is comissioned by Pink Floyd? I remember the Publius Enigma, the only advise that some guy gave is "keep talking", and I think someone hinted that it had something to do with the internet. Did anyone ever track down that guy who was giving advise to people who claimed he knew the secret?
I'm glad how Slashdot is informed and up-to-the hour on these issues, but I feel like moron when all I can do is say yeah, "I agree with you guys!" It would be great if someone gave some leadership with these issues, like tell us who to write to and protest and stuff. I'm too busy and too lazy to sound off without some help, and I'm one of the few jerks who actually cares enough about these issues to read about them...
If methylation occurs as genes are turned on or off (over development, or whenever), how do we decide if a non-methylated cytosine could potentially become methylated? I'm thinking maybe if we observe it long enough it will tell us if there's really a useful gene at that site. Or maybe we should identify a gene first and then look to see if methylation occurs within it.
Given a sequence of aminoacids (which is exactly what this allows us to do), you can theortically predict what a protein or an enzyme will look like and how it will behave. We have only had slight success in modelling this on computers. My analogy is that it's as difficult as rolling 2 dice and predicting how they're going to land. Sure, if you know their starting position, and account for every physical force that is exerted on them until they come to rest on the table, then yes you can predict their behavior every time! That's a bad analogy, but it's a good way to describe how the slightest error in measuring the forces and location of stuff can throw the predicted results way off. Remember every electron counts at that scale! So if you build these models well enough, you can for example synthesise a new protein to be used as a drug, based on the knowledge that such-and-such a disease is caused by this or that problem within a cell.
Given a sequence of aminoacids (which is exactly what this allows us to do), you can theortically predict what a protein or an enzyme will look like and how it will behave. We have only had slight success in modelling this on computers. My analogy is that it's as difficult as rolling 2 dice and predicting how they're going to land. Sure, if you know their starting position, and account for every physical force that is exerted on them until they come to rest on the table, then yes you can predict their behavior every time! That's a bad analogy, but it's a good way to describe how the slightest error in measuring the forces and location of stuff can throw the predicted results way off. Remember every electron counts at that scale! So if you build these models well enough, you can for example synthesise a new protein to be used as a drug, based on the knowledge that such-and-such a disease is caused by this or that problem within a cell. ie if you know what the problem is, you can mathematically crunch with brute force until you find a model to fix it.
Soon there will be glasses that use a computer program so you can see what a person looks like without their clothes. Ironically, this will make clothing obsolete since the same technology can be used to digitally put clothes onto a naked person.
The clothing companies are going to get upset about this, and you'll see the Gap et al. suing this and that company to try and stop our liberation from the opressive fasion police state that we're now stuck in.
You might be required to wear a blue suit so that the sensors on other people's glasses can image you well as a template for whatever settings the people around you choose (street clothes, colonial period, Renaissance, or just naked).
This same concept will cure the problem of ugliness, giving you new measurements and a new face. You will set user preferences in two categories - 1. how you want to see other people 2. how you want other people to see you.
That's as frank as I can be about the issue.
It's still the processor of choice for many satellites and even the International Space Station, specifically because of its dinosaur nature. Apparently space radiation makes the lastest (smallest) transistors prone to error, whereas the older chips can absorb it better and hence avoid a catastrophic error.
Why was my very first thought that aliens had stolen the files? They simply opened up a doorway in time-space to access the vault. There was an army camera guy who reported a UFO had flown next to one of our missles, opened it up, took out the warhead and destroyed it in mid-flight!