Actually, the Gamma rays DO damage DNA, of course it's not at the 6.4 MHz range or anything close. Water absorbs certain frequencies, like microwaves, but is less affected by other frequencies.
Of course studies will be made to show if 6.4 MHz is safe. It's VERY LIKELY that there are many safe frequencies that will not cause damage to living tissue.
Remember it says clearly that the system creates energy beams that do not carry much energy until something resonates at the same frequency, which means that anything that couples to the device must be at a resonating frequency, otherwise there will not be any radiated energy as it will be reabsorbed into the transmitting antenna.
Which means that most likely a cell phone produces a LOT more radation since it uses an omni-directional radiating antenna. And a cell phone does not cause enough damage to living tissue, at least no one has proved so, and boy they have tried.
By the way, desktop search IS available on Linux, and quite mature, it's being included on GNOME 2.14, to be released next month, much earlier than Windows Vista. Just another reason to use Linux instead of Windows Vista.
Linux is a much better operating system. And has a boatload of applications available. Maybe there are not as many commercial applications as for Windows. but as peole switch more, there will be more applications available.
Some of the top ten reasons are already good reasons to switch to GNU/Linux instead of Windows Vista. Here I go:
1. Security, user account protection (asking for administrator privileges only when necessary), integrated firewalls, preventing background processess from hijacking your computer. It's all already there in all mainstream Linux distributions.
2. Internet Explorer 7, it says it provides many different firefox-inspired enhancements, like tabbed browsing and a mode to not run third party code. All mainstream desktop Linux distributions come with Firefox and all this stuff, only new to Windows.
3. Eye candy: allright, you got me here, most Linux desktop are somewhat plain. Hopefuly Xgl and similar projects will start to implement a graphical interface that can make full use of OpenGL hardware acceleration. In the meantime though, it's not as important because what you miss in eye candy, you gain in compatibility with old hardware. So you save some bucks if you don't go for the extra candy. It can be thought as a good thing for new hardware but a bad thing for most users that don't want or need to change their computers.
4. Desktop search: Granted, Windows Vista apparently got there first. There have been many efforts going on to make it work on Linux, but apparently they're still not mature enough since they haven't been included on most mainstream desktop distributions.
5. Better updates: they say Windows doesn't need to access Windows Update through Internet Explorer anymore, and it has a new dedicated application for that. Linux has that already, and not only upgrades the OS, but all packaged applications. This is already there and more mature in Linux.
6. Media and games: we have good games and multimedia applications and frameworks on Linux. It's very good and can compete with Windows Vista. I say we might have a tie here. There are many things that are more polished in Linux while there are other things that work better on Windows.
7. Parental controls: Microsoft got this one. We still don't have anything friendlier than "Dans Guardian". Good but not easy to setup. And not really secure for only one computer. I don't see this as very useful though. But some other parents may find it more useful (maybe fascist ones).
8. Backups: OK, it seems Microsoft got here first too. There are still no user-friendly backup solutions available for Linux that I know of. See that I wrote 'user-friendly', not 'geek-friendly'.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: I won't say my opinion here, I don't know what this does, but apparently Linux doesn't do this in a way that's user-friendly. It's probably a point for Windows Vista.
10. Quick setup. no chance they can beat Linux here. Linux install a complete working environment in about half an hour, while Windows just has the base Operating System in 15 minutes, and then users need to manually add a whole bunch of applications. It normally takes 4 hours easily on XP. Maybe now it will take only 3. Still doesn't beat Linux.
Some other reasons to get Linux instead:
1. Free: it's free because you can download it for free, and it's free because you can do whatever you want with it. Even sell copies and get all the cash for yourself, and modify it without risk of going to jail. Just free in every sense. Windows Vista is expensive and restrictive.
2. Complete working environment: you can start doing productive work right away on Linux, you don't have just the Operating System and need to buy extra applicaitons to get the computer to do something useful.
3. Community support: you get free technical support from online communities all around the World.
4. Free upgrades: don't need to pay for upgrades.
So far I've put 9 reasons to use Linux, and 10 to use Windows, 5 of the 9 reasons to use Linux are also reasons to use Windows Vista.
Linux has many other things useful to advanced users. Some of the reasons to use Linux have much more weight, like the $0 price tag.
I think I will not pay the price for Vista, and stick to my Linux desktop.
Here in Venezuela such a debate is unthinkable. We're a Third World country, more than half our population is really poor. It's a mostly christian country. But still no one dares to question evolution. There seems to be a natural understading among Venezuelans that science is objective and religion is subjective. Perhaps there are not many religious zealots here, only political ones.
There are many comments that talk about how the US created the Internet and shared it with other countries. There are a few things to say here:
The US is a big country, so who is the US that "owned" the Internet?. Well, in the beggining it was the US government (DARPA). But then control of the Internet went to universities and private companies. There are different powers in the US, the private businesses, the universities, the government, and many other institutions and groups, some of them bigger than others, but no smart person can put them all on the same can and say "the US", that's just not wise now that the Industrial Age is ending and variety-rich Information Age is taking over.
Governments in the World were given first-level domains with the two-letter code of that country. Some governments started government-based institutions to assign subdomains and some other governments just handed control over their countries two-letter domain to private companies.
The Internet infrastructure is mostly privately owned, and belongs to many companies, mostly US and Europe based. Understandably the US companies own most of the Internet infrastructure, because they were the ones who invented the Internet and know about it more than others.
But watching the big picture, the Internet belongs to everyone, and the only parts of the Internet that are more or less centrally controlled are the root domain and the IP address ranges. And those are not controled by governments, but by private business.
Many comments say why not we foreigners (I'm venezuelan) do not create our own Internet and kick America's ass. It's not about that. The Internet is a big network now owned by many many entities around the planet. The basic technology was created by the US, but the infrastructure is everyone's. The goal of the Internet is to keep everyone connected. If I decide to create my own Internet, it becomes isolated, unconnected. If we are to create other DNS infrastrucutre with other DNS root servers then we're effectively defeating the purpose of the Internet, because certainly we would get two different Internets, unless everyone agrees to use the new DNS infrastructure.
So let's keep ONE Internet for the whole World, leave it as it is in the hands of people (mostly privately owned), so it can evolve without government bureaucracy or politics getting in the way. Governments are welcome to help adding funds and infrastructure to the net, but to the existing infrastructure, not taking over.
I'm venezuelan, and I agree with you entirely. This decree will hopefully bring most governmental institutions back to legality, since most software I've seen on ministries and other governmental organizations is illegally installed.
Hopefully this will empower local support companies and bring some employment to computer professionals, some of them are currently driving taxis (not me fortunately).:-P
Most electronics devices have an internal power supply that converts whatever AC high voltage (100 V to 250 V) to 12 VDC or 5 VDC or a combination.
I guess if you only need to power a few devices that you can hire an electronic technitian to modify the power supplies so that they can be fed with 12 VDC from a car or truck battery directly.
12 VDC to 110/220 VAC converters are not difficult to find. They can give you 400 W for about 8 hours depending on the battery array you're using. The only problem here is that the conversion consumes part of the energy itself.
So, it's best to modify the appliances to feed from 12 VDC directly.
If you'd like to see a picture of a 12 VDC to 120 VAC converter you can take a look at this. This links to a spanish site (Venezuela).
Something to think is that this may not be so infrequent as many think. Some unresolved crashes might be related to this kind of incident.
Just something to think, if it's a threat, even if it's infrequent and there might be no reason to upgrade the whole fleet of airplanes out there, it might be useful to think of a solution for future airplanes.
I know about computer generated graphics of the terrain so the pilots can navigate through it with zero visibility. This just requires a computer display in the cockpit. This has other uses of course like helping the pilots see what they can't see because of the position of windows in the cockpit. It's definitely a good technology and would probably serve to address this issue too.
Normal solar light can prevent a pilot to see clearly while he has sunlight coming from the front. Photocromatic technology, maybe electronic like LCD can help not only filter too much light but can also work as heads up display too.
I bet if these two technologies find their way on modern aircraft, this laser problem among many others will find their solution.
Overpopulation and pollution will not an issue in the next century since the human species are starting to balance it's relationship with the rest of the planet again.
Pollution will end through the creation of better and environmentally friendly technology. Current cars produce less emisions than cars two decades ago did. And that's just one example of less pollution through better technology.
Pollution is also a problem in the third world, where companies don't care about the environment because most of them are always in the brink of bankruptcy. Internet and computers are going to help people in the third world to become smarter and more informed and enter the global economy, leveling the playing field. Free Software will play an important role to bring the information age to these countries.
Overpopulation is only important among the poorest, because there is where the high birth rates are. Most middle-class and higher families don't have more than two children. Only poor families tend to reproduce at higher rates. As poor people become lees poor with the advent of the information age, birth rates are going to get lower.
Contrary to what many people think, this planet is becoming a better place. Never this planet has been a better place to live like it is now, and surely tomorrow it's going to be even better.
History can prove that what I'm saying is not nonsense, since we can carefully look at how our society has evolved from the past to what we are today.
GIVE UP!!!!. Trying to teach your mother how to program a VCR can lead to extreme household violence!!!, imagine just what could happen if you try QBASIC. THIS IS DANGEROUS!.
Historically, Chinese have always looked to the past for an ideal society. The Golden Past, with the Golden Emperor and the time of perfect order. The underlying message is that the idealized perfection that once was can be attained again.
Of course, I understand now, let's go back to the values of the grandfathers. Good thing the war is not getting China from the outside, from Bush. But instead is coming from the inside, from their own youngsters.
Let's just hope this young chinese help make it impossible for the government to impose stupid rules on them. Let's wish they beat the crap out of anyone who dares to tell them how to live their lifes. And let's hope these communists get what they deserve!.
Oh, and, by the way, for those who say I'm just another stupid american, I'm not, I'm venezuelan, I actually know what is living under a democratic government (until 1998) and under a dictatorial-communist regime dressed like a democracy for outside appearance's sake (actually), believe me, democracy is a far more evolved way of government. It helps have happier citizens.
"no matter what company you buy a CPU from, it will work as long as you don't overclock it"
I don't know if I have been (very) lucky but I have an AMD Athlon 1600+ (1400MHz) with a Duron (1100MHz) heatsink overclocked to 1813MHz for almost a year now.
No overheating, no problems at all.
I challenge people to do this with a P3 or P4.
Yes, geeks like AMDs, so they sell AMDs, remember the people in contact with the clients in many computer shops are geeks or just repeat what the geeks tell them. So maybe AMD marketing strategy is to please geeks so geeks do the marketing for them.
This was very good, definitely, I have never had this much fun reading the funnies. Well, most of the times I read slashdot I only scroll down to the funnies:P
Sometimes we get caught in our everyday lives and forget to get on the roof and watch things from there; they look a lot different, don't they?. That's what happens when we think in terms of laws. We are so accustomed to them, that we don't realise when they become obsolete and need a change, or we try to deny the very truth that law is artificial, just like any other system we create, like the educational system, economy and others. Remeber also that we live in a democracy, a government from the people for the people where the majority is supposed to rule. In this whole RIAA thing, democracy and law is failing, and should be corrected. Obviously to protect the majority who shares data over the internet freely and wishes to continue to do so. The property laws we have been applying to intellectual work is not working as it should in this case, and is harming the majority while delaying innovation, and with innovation I don't mean P2P software, which is still constantly innovating, I mean business models. The business model of the giant RIAA is obsolete and needs a revision, I can enumerate the reasons for this but I think most readers with a little bit of thinking can enumerate the facts themselves, that bad is their business model, it's not my fault, not Meagan's fault, they are trying to run a business out of emotions, that same emotion that makes some men think they own their girlfriends, they think they own the artist's work, well, maybe the law tells them so, but in this case, that ownership is becoming illegitimate, and we should fight back the estabilished order if we want to go for a fair settlements of matters.
Isn't that a feature of Internet Explorer?
I haven't been able to enable it in Mozilla under Linux, can you tell me how?
No!, please, don't do it, I'm just kidding
Hey AV experts, just wait till the 17th to post a fix, please?, in the meantime, have fun, enjoy the beach, watch windowsupdate.com as it goes DoSed, what a wonderful life!.
At last a virus that goes to the source of the problem.
hehehe
I think I'll get some Karma for saying this, well, some Karma is not too bad!.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget everything, now you can smoke this cigar-shaped planet and fly much higherl.
Maybe the neighbors ARE Borg after all
Did I just say comunism?, of course not Mr Officer, I said consumism, those westeners...
Come on, we Iranians are just trying the software before buying it.
Actually, the Gamma rays DO damage DNA, of course it's not at the 6.4 MHz range or anything close. Water absorbs certain frequencies, like microwaves, but is less affected by other frequencies.
Of course studies will be made to show if 6.4 MHz is safe. It's VERY LIKELY that there are many safe frequencies that will not cause damage to living tissue.
Remember it says clearly that the system creates energy beams that do not carry much energy until something resonates at the same frequency, which means that anything that couples to the device must be at a resonating frequency, otherwise there will not be any radiated energy as it will be reabsorbed into the transmitting antenna.
Which means that most likely a cell phone produces a LOT more radation since it uses an omni-directional radiating antenna. And a cell phone does not cause enough damage to living tissue, at least no one has proved so, and boy they have tried.
By the way, desktop search IS available on Linux, and quite mature, it's being included on GNOME 2.14, to be released next month, much earlier than Windows Vista. Just another reason to use Linux instead of Windows Vista. Linux is a much better operating system. And has a boatload of applications available. Maybe there are not as many commercial applications as for Windows. but as peole switch more, there will be more applications available.
Some of the top ten reasons are already good reasons to switch to GNU/Linux instead of Windows Vista. Here I go:
1. Security, user account protection (asking for administrator privileges only when necessary), integrated firewalls, preventing background processess from hijacking your computer. It's all already there in all mainstream Linux distributions.
2. Internet Explorer 7, it says it provides many different firefox-inspired enhancements, like tabbed browsing and a mode to not run third party code. All mainstream desktop Linux distributions come with Firefox and all this stuff, only new to Windows.
3. Eye candy: allright, you got me here, most Linux desktop are somewhat plain. Hopefuly Xgl and similar projects will start to implement a graphical interface that can make full use of OpenGL hardware acceleration. In the meantime though, it's not as important because what you miss in eye candy, you gain in compatibility with old hardware. So you save some bucks if you don't go for the extra candy. It can be thought as a good thing for new hardware but a bad thing for most users that don't want or need to change their computers.
4. Desktop search: Granted, Windows Vista apparently got there first. There have been many efforts going on to make it work on Linux, but apparently they're still not mature enough since they haven't been included on most mainstream desktop distributions.
5. Better updates: they say Windows doesn't need to access Windows Update through Internet Explorer anymore, and it has a new dedicated application for that. Linux has that already, and not only upgrades the OS, but all packaged applications. This is already there and more mature in Linux.
6. Media and games: we have good games and multimedia applications and frameworks on Linux. It's very good and can compete with Windows Vista. I say we might have a tie here. There are many things that are more polished in Linux while there are other things that work better on Windows.
7. Parental controls: Microsoft got this one. We still don't have anything friendlier than "Dans Guardian". Good but not easy to setup. And not really secure for only one computer. I don't see this as very useful though. But some other parents may find it more useful (maybe fascist ones).
8. Backups: OK, it seems Microsoft got here first too. There are still no user-friendly backup solutions available for Linux that I know of. See that I wrote 'user-friendly', not 'geek-friendly'.
9. Peer-to-peer collaboration: I won't say my opinion here, I don't know what this does, but apparently Linux doesn't do this in a way that's user-friendly. It's probably a point for Windows Vista.
10. Quick setup. no chance they can beat Linux here. Linux install a complete working environment in about half an hour, while Windows just has the base Operating System in 15 minutes, and then users need to manually add a whole bunch of applications. It normally takes 4 hours easily on XP. Maybe now it will take only 3. Still doesn't beat Linux.
Some other reasons to get Linux instead:
1. Free: it's free because you can download it for free, and it's free because you can do whatever you want with it. Even sell copies and get all the cash for yourself, and modify it without risk of going to jail. Just free in every sense. Windows Vista is expensive and restrictive.
2. Complete working environment: you can start doing productive work right away on Linux, you don't have just the Operating System and need to buy extra applicaitons to get the computer to do something useful.
3. Community support: you get free technical support from online communities all around the World.
4. Free upgrades: don't need to pay for upgrades.
So far I've put 9 reasons to use Linux, and 10 to use Windows, 5 of the 9 reasons to use Linux are also reasons to use Windows Vista.
Linux has many other things useful to advanced users. Some of the reasons to use Linux have much more weight, like the $0 price tag.
I think I will not pay the price for Vista, and stick to my Linux desktop.
Here in Venezuela such a debate is unthinkable. We're a Third World country, more than half our population is really poor. It's a mostly christian country. But still no one dares to question evolution. There seems to be a natural understading among Venezuelans that science is objective and religion is subjective. Perhaps there are not many religious zealots here, only political ones.
There are many comments that talk about how the US created the Internet and shared it with other countries. There are a few things to say here:
The US is a big country, so who is the US that "owned" the Internet?. Well, in the beggining it was the US government (DARPA). But then control of the Internet went to universities and private companies. There are different powers in the US, the private businesses, the universities, the government, and many other institutions and groups, some of them bigger than others, but no smart person can put them all on the same can and say "the US", that's just not wise now that the Industrial Age is ending and variety-rich Information Age is taking over.
Governments in the World were given first-level domains with the two-letter code of that country. Some governments started government-based institutions to assign subdomains and some other governments just handed control over their countries two-letter domain to private companies.
The Internet infrastructure is mostly privately owned, and belongs to many companies, mostly US and Europe based. Understandably the US companies own most of the Internet infrastructure, because they were the ones who invented the Internet and know about it more than others.
But watching the big picture, the Internet belongs to everyone, and the only parts of the Internet that are more or less centrally controlled are the root domain and the IP address ranges. And those are not controled by governments, but by private business.
Many comments say why not we foreigners (I'm venezuelan) do not create our own Internet and kick America's ass. It's not about that. The Internet is a big network now owned by many many entities around the planet. The basic technology was created by the US, but the infrastructure is everyone's. The goal of the Internet is to keep everyone connected. If I decide to create my own Internet, it becomes isolated, unconnected. If we are to create other DNS infrastrucutre with other DNS root servers then we're effectively defeating the purpose of the Internet, because certainly we would get two different Internets, unless everyone agrees to use the new DNS infrastructure.
So let's keep ONE Internet for the whole World, leave it as it is in the hands of people (mostly privately owned), so it can evolve without government bureaucracy or politics getting in the way. Governments are welcome to help adding funds and infrastructure to the net, but to the existing infrastructure, not taking over.
Latin America is a good market
I'm venezuelan, and I agree with you entirely. This decree will hopefully bring most governmental institutions back to legality, since most software I've seen on ministries and other governmental organizations is illegally installed.
Hopefully this will empower local support companies and bring some employment to computer professionals, some of them are currently driving taxis (not me fortunately). :-P
Most electronics devices have an internal power supply that converts whatever AC high voltage (100 V to 250 V) to 12 VDC or 5 VDC or a combination.
I guess if you only need to power a few devices that you can hire an electronic technitian to modify the power supplies so that they can be fed with 12 VDC from a car or truck battery directly.
12 VDC to 110/220 VAC converters are not difficult to find. They can give you 400 W for about 8 hours depending on the battery array you're using. The only problem here is that the conversion consumes part of the energy itself.
So, it's best to modify the appliances to feed from 12 VDC directly.
If you'd like to see a picture of a 12 VDC to 120 VAC converter you can take a look at this. This links to a spanish site (Venezuela).
Something to think is that this may not be so infrequent as many think. Some unresolved crashes might be related to this kind of incident.
Just something to think, if it's a threat, even if it's infrequent and there might be no reason to upgrade the whole fleet of airplanes out there, it might be useful to think of a solution for future airplanes.
I know about computer generated graphics of the terrain so the pilots can navigate through it with zero visibility. This just requires a computer display in the cockpit. This has other uses of course like helping the pilots see what they can't see because of the position of windows in the cockpit. It's definitely a good technology and would probably serve to address this issue too.
Normal solar light can prevent a pilot to see clearly while he has sunlight coming from the front. Photocromatic technology, maybe electronic like LCD can help not only filter too much light but can also work as heads up display too.
I bet if these two technologies find their way on modern aircraft, this laser problem among many others will find their solution.
Overpopulation and pollution will not an issue in the next century since the human species are starting to balance it's relationship with the rest of the planet again.
Pollution will end through the creation of better and environmentally friendly technology. Current cars produce less emisions than cars two decades ago did. And that's just one example of less pollution through better technology.
Pollution is also a problem in the third world, where companies don't care about the environment because most of them are always in the brink of bankruptcy. Internet and computers are going to help people in the third world to become smarter and more informed and enter the global economy, leveling the playing field. Free Software will play an important role to bring the information age to these countries.
Overpopulation is only important among the poorest, because there is where the high birth rates are. Most middle-class and higher families don't have more than two children. Only poor families tend to reproduce at higher rates. As poor people become lees poor with the advent of the information age, birth rates are going to get lower.
Contrary to what many people think, this planet is becoming a better place. Never this planet has been a better place to live like it is now, and surely tomorrow it's going to be even better.
History can prove that what I'm saying is not nonsense, since we can carefully look at how our society has evolved from the past to what we are today.
My recommendation:
GIVE UP!!!!. Trying to teach your mother how to program a VCR can lead to extreme household violence!!!, imagine just what could happen if you try QBASIC. THIS IS DANGEROUS!.
Historically, Chinese have always looked to the past for an ideal society. The Golden Past, with the Golden Emperor and the time of perfect order. The underlying message is that the idealized perfection that once was can be attained again.
Of course, I understand now, let's go back to the values of the grandfathers. Good thing the war is not getting China from the outside, from Bush. But instead is coming from the inside, from their own youngsters.
Let's just hope this young chinese help make it impossible for the government to impose stupid rules on them. Let's wish they beat the crap out of anyone who dares to tell them how to live their lifes. And let's hope these communists get what they deserve!.
Oh, and, by the way, for those who say I'm just another stupid american, I'm not, I'm venezuelan, I actually know what is living under a democratic government (until 1998) and under a dictatorial-communist regime dressed like a democracy for outside appearance's sake (actually), believe me, democracy is a far more evolved way of government. It helps have happier citizens.
"no matter what company you buy a CPU from, it will work as long as you don't overclock it"
I don't know if I have been (very) lucky but I have an AMD Athlon 1600+ (1400MHz) with a Duron (1100MHz) heatsink overclocked to 1813MHz for almost a year now.
No overheating, no problems at all.
I challenge people to do this with a P3 or P4.
Yes, geeks like AMDs, so they sell AMDs, remember the people in contact with the clients in many computer shops are geeks or just repeat what the geeks tell them. So maybe AMD marketing strategy is to please geeks so geeks do the marketing for them.
This was very good, definitely, I have never had this much fun reading the funnies. Well, most of the times I read slashdot I only scroll down to the funnies :P
Sometimes we get caught in our everyday lives and forget to get on the roof and watch things from there; they look a lot different, don't they?.
That's what happens when we think in terms of laws. We are so accustomed to them, that we don't realise when they become obsolete and need a change, or we try to deny the very truth that law is artificial, just like any other system we create, like the educational system, economy and others.
Remeber also that we live in a democracy, a government from the people for the people where the majority is supposed to rule.
In this whole RIAA thing, democracy and law is failing, and should be corrected. Obviously to protect the majority who shares data over the internet freely and wishes to continue to do so. The property laws we have been applying to intellectual work is not working as it should in this case, and is harming the majority while delaying innovation, and with innovation I don't mean P2P software, which is still constantly innovating, I mean business models. The business model of the giant RIAA is obsolete and needs a revision, I can enumerate the reasons for this but I think most readers with a little bit of thinking can enumerate the facts themselves, that bad is their business model, it's not my fault, not Meagan's fault, they are trying to run a business out of emotions, that same emotion that makes some men think they own their girlfriends, they think they own the artist's work, well, maybe the law tells them so, but in this case, that ownership is becoming illegitimate, and we should fight back the estabilished order if we want to go for a fair settlements of matters.
Isn't that a feature of Internet Explorer? I haven't been able to enable it in Mozilla under Linux, can you tell me how? No!, please, don't do it, I'm just kidding
Hey AV experts, just wait till the 17th to post a fix, please?, in the meantime, have fun, enjoy the beach, watch windowsupdate.com as it goes DoSed, what a wonderful life!. At last a virus that goes to the source of the problem. hehehe I think I'll get some Karma for saying this, well, some Karma is not too bad!.