Problems: No food, no water, no money, no electricity. Anything not nailed down is stolen, anybody who has a claw hammer steals everything else.
If you want to help these people, you get them something from the following list:
More of the straws that filter out the guinea worm. Google the guinea worm yourself, it is a horrid way to die.
Clean drinking water
Food
A permanent shelter to live in
And if you have any of those three things, expect to have to defend it with tooth and claw because someone with a gun will shoot you for it.
This is a solution in need a problem. Until the people in impoverished countries have some other things first, a USB stick that can reboot dead computers is kind of insulting.
How about we provide (in this order):
1. Food, shelter, sleep, and sex.
2. Security, employment, health, morality.
3. Friendship and family
4. Self-Esteem
5. Self-actualization
Until all of items in group 1 and most of the items in group 2 are secured, self booting: internet USB sticks is like trying to teach dog to play banjo.
And this is assuming that the local infrastructure can support USB booted computers for internet access.
I also expect that re:publica 14 will be the last re:publica conference for a while. It is painfully obvious that the organizers did not check with their legal council when they approved this little stunt. I won't be surprised when Google:Legal shows up at the organizers door and slaps them stupid with a lawsuit.
I agree. I expect to see a news item in the next six months that reads "German activitst company goes out of business after prank goes wrong" after Google's legal team sues the company into insolvency.
And if that doesn't work, don't expect to be able to have any useful google results on that company for a long long time.
It the paint works as advertised (lots of companies are working to develop similar products) it will have a significant effect on the automotive, transport, flight, rail and other industries that move things and people around:
This coating prevents the build up of corrosive materials and as a result slows the corrosion process, extending the life of vehicles, trains, planes etc. Getting road salt off of a car in the winter is a big thing because road salt eats cars alive. If a coating can prevent it from sticking to the car in the first place vehicles are going to last a lot longer.
I can see the plane industry leaping at this the moment it is commercially viable: A coating that prevents wings from icing up? Yup, put that on every plane that comes out of the factory and retrofit it onto every plane in the fleet.
The moment a coating like this can be made crystal clear automotive manufacturers will put it on windshields and bug strikes sticking to the windshield will be a thing of the past.
That means the builder deviated from the design and has shoddy construction practices. The builder would be fired from the job and back charged for the work that has to be ripped out. The employees would not be punished by the owner/architect/engineer or CM.
In construction the design is cheap (5-10% of the building cost) and the compiling is expensive. In construction you only get to compile once. In addition anything that leaves an engineers or architect's office that has been stamped and signed is certified to provide a working structure, building or system; assuming the builder follows the plans correctly. Everything must be installed in the correct order and location. Deviations from the plan (we are assuming the plans and specs are good) involves and expensive reworking, redesign and law suits.
In programming, the expense is in the design of the system, compiling is cheap. In computer programming you compile as often as you need. One can test run sections of the code as needed to see what works and how it interacts.
The labor requirements are flipped between the two industries. Trying to compare the two can lead to some poor analogies quickly.
People can tell the difference between the $1 burger and the $15 burger. Can that person tell the difference between the $5 burger, $10 burger and $15 burger, and is the improvement in taste/texture worth the cost increase? I will bet that most people cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger.
That is the issue the music industry is facing: while a lot of people can tell the $1 burger from everything else they cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger. Because of that they are not willing to pay the difference for something they do not appreciate.
I can see this type of technology being used for foundation work first. I expect that there will be some trial and error (like the toy building being designed above). The moment someone has a working system where you can feed concrete into an auto printed an it spits out a complete foundation in less time than it takes to lay out the forms and pour concrete and strip the forms then you have a winner.
I expect some fierce competition from the pre-insulated forms companies where the form becomes the insulation for the foundation.
No, no one is forcing me onto that boat. And I have no intention of getting on it.
The environment on the ship has to be such that it is more attractive than being on shore in San Fransisco. Here are the pros and cons that I see:
Pros:
No oversight from uncle sam
Can hire anyone you want from anywhere in the world.
Cons:
Subject to a local government (ie the ship captain) that is not responsible to the people living on the ship, the local government is responsible to the ship owners.
Complex taxation issues when re-entering the country you are a citizen of.
Contract dispute is based on 1400 century law -"Lex mercatoria". This does not address criminal law or if people want to bring in the lawyers.
All physical goods will cost more aboard ship. That is because all goods have to be imported from shore to ship.
Remote access to physical goods. You can't just run out for material stock if you need something.
Corporate town issues - The company renting you space also owns the barber shop, ferry service, grocery store, and the internet service.
Going ashore means constant scrutiny by customs and immigration.
The assumption the the ship will be allowed to anchor twelve miles offshore is laughable. The US doesn't recognize the twelve mile limit. The coast guard will push them off to the 200 mile limit.
Because of the limited space on the ship you have to live within the society the ship sets up. It's not like you can go to a different cafe if you don't like the mocha-chino.
Observations:
The ship is trying to set up its own miniaturized uptopian society of happy workers while trying to ignore the reality of what people do when they aren't working: Drink, fight, get laid, have babies, make messes, casually destroy property, join clubs, explore behind locked doors, get bored, go for walks, fall in love, pay bills, litter, join crusades, paint the apartment, get sick, etc etc etc.
Start up companies have little no assets or capital. Being a start up on a ship like that is an extravagance I don't see many companies springing for. Why pay extra to be anchored off shore when you can get similar office space on shore?
I don't know about you, but I'm done with the shared dorm room atmosphere. Sharing a room with three other people gets old fast.
Blueseed gets partial ownership of each start-up. For getting the opportunity to be a start up on their ship, they get to own part of you.
All of the questions that you marked up as "Straw man" are the important questions that will arise when the rubber hits the road (or the ship leaves port as it were).
The questions were:
Dispute resolution - The disputes can be as simple as "Who gets to use the bathroom first" and "Who has to wash the dishes" to " He hacked my server" to "assault"
External threats - Who decides what is an external threat? Are there guards? Do the people on the boat have to double as militia in the time of threat?
Entry restriction - Sure you can pay to enter. Will there be health and welfare checks? What happens if someone is carrying hepatitis, smallpox or something nasty? Who is going to say that that person cannot enter?
Health and Safety rules - Yup, I want to work someplace where I can be made to work 60-80 hours a week because I can't leave the ship. Will there be a doctor onboard? How about emergency services?
Other questions:
Food production/import: I don't see any detail on food production. Will it all have to be imported?
Drinking water: Are they going to produce all of their own drinking water?
Waste control and sanitation: Are they going just dump all of their garbage overboard along with their black water? The coast guard may have word with them on that.
These items are very important. Unlike your American dream scenario, the US was self sufficient when it broke away from the UK. Any ship would be dependent upon the mainland for food, water, fuel, parts, health care and defense to maintain its standard of living. All of these things will have to be barged out to the ship.
You can bet anyone coming ashore from that boat will be subject to immigration control and the customs service.
I don't think vlm was espousing the list as his opinion, he was just summarizing.
Reality is going to work like this (assuming the boat ever leaves port):
At some point the ship needs to come into port for maintenance, repairs, you name it. DHS and Customs decides on a "Health and Welfare" inspection of a ship entering a US controlled port. At that point the cramped conditions, poor maintenance, foul sanitation, etc etc etc will be found out and the ship will not be allowed to leave port until it cleans up its act. Anybody who has been effectively shang-hai'd into working because they cannot afford to get off will be allowed to escape.
Welcome to Rapture.
I normally set my monitor higher than the picture because I have the tendency to hunch if the monitor is lower than me. Once I have hunched over I have to tip my head up to look at the screen. These days I elevate my monitor so it is level with my eye-line.
I did not intend to imply that modern mining practice uses nitro anymore. I was just using it as an example of how unstable nitro is. My fear is that the guy was making his own and had it in storage in the house. That would convert the house into a death trap very quickly.
If he had home made nitroglycerin (the article only said "home made explosives") I can understand why the cops want nothing to do with it. Nitro can be manufactured at home with a minimum of difficulty. Nitro also has the property where physical shocks can detonate it. This property is great in small quantities like flash power and bang snaps. This is also a good property for remote mining: You plant your explosive charge and then bury a string of explosives 10 feet apart apart to the staging area. When the first charge in the string is detonated the rest of the string detonates because of the vibration, which in turn detonates the main charge at the mine.
Having a house with this kind of sensitivity to vibration is asking for someone to drop/knock over a bottle of something sensitive and have it detonate. And then have that explosion trigger a sympathetic explosion, etc etc etc.
It was not my intent to imply that the Left or the Right (and their related Whacko squads) are more or less guilty than the other.
The complaint I have is that the burying groups leave a very stilted set of articles remaining to read. It's like a book with two editors. I'm surprised that there is anything left to read.
The Bury Brigade is effectively bumping anything they don't bury. As a result the entire site appears to lean in the direction that they desire. It is much more insidious than bumping because after the Bury brigade has been through, new viewers don't know that there were alternate choices/view points available.
With a wireless network I do not necessarily know which house the transmitter is in. somehow I am guessing that the investigators are going to be a little disappointed when they find out the payload data is tied to a latitude and longitude and not an address. It is hard to determine if someone's privacy has been violated when any given transmitter could be within 100 yards of the receiver's location. I realize with enough time and triangulation the approximate location of each transmitter could be determined. My understanding is that Google has not done this.
I am assuming the sensor package on the missile will be pointed toward the ship it is supposed to attack. So painting a mirrored surface on the missile may not help the missile's sensor package.
In addition the laser doesn't need to destroy the missile. It only needs to destroy enough of the missile so that it falls out of the sky.
I'm well aware that building plans need to be debugged:)
It just takes an RFI, approval of the RFI, a Change Order, Approval of the Change Order and a Big Bucket of Money.
Frank Gehry buildings made of aluminum and leak like a sieve come to mind.
The article you site discussed the drop rate for the AT&T fleet. The drop rate for the fleet is 1%, my error is stating that the drop rate is 1.4%. We do not know what the drop rate for the 3GS phone is. It could be higher or lower than the drop rate for the fleet average. Without knowing what the drop rate for the 3GS phone is it is impossible to determine if the antenna for the iphone4 has a higher drop rate than average.
I think we can agree that the antenna in the iphone4 is significantly more sensitive to how the user holds the phone in comparison to previous iphones and some Nokia and Rim phones. This makes the iphone4 prone to different levels of reception depending upon how one holds the phone. I believe the following has been shown: The iphone4 has a higher gain (than the 3GS phopne) when someone is not touching the gap on the lower left, it also has a lower gain when someone is touching the gap on the lower left.
You have not stated what criteria you use to determine if an antenna sucks. Please state your criteria.
Slashdot Mirror
Problems: No food, no water, no money, no electricity. Anything not nailed down is stolen, anybody who has a claw hammer steals everything else.
If you want to help these people, you get them something from the following list:
More of the straws that filter out the guinea worm. Google the guinea worm yourself, it is a horrid way to die.
Clean drinking water
Food
A permanent shelter to live in
And if you have any of those three things, expect to have to defend it with tooth and claw because someone with a gun will shoot you for it.
This is a solution in need a problem. Until the people in impoverished countries have some other things first, a USB stick that can reboot dead computers is kind of insulting.
How about we provide (in this order):
1. Food, shelter, sleep, and sex.
2. Security, employment, health, morality.
3. Friendship and family
4. Self-Esteem
5. Self-actualization
Until all of items in group 1 and most of the items in group 2 are secured, self booting: internet USB sticks is like trying to teach dog to play banjo.
And this is assuming that the local infrastructure can support USB booted computers for internet access.
I also expect that re:publica 14 will be the last re:publica conference for a while. It is painfully obvious that the organizers did not check with their legal council when they approved this little stunt. I won't be surprised when Google:Legal shows up at the organizers door and slaps them stupid with a lawsuit.
I agree. I expect to see a news item in the next six months that reads "German activitst company goes out of business after prank goes wrong" after Google's legal team sues the company into insolvency.
And if that doesn't work, don't expect to be able to have any useful google results on that company for a long long time.
It the paint works as advertised (lots of companies are working to develop similar products) it will have a significant effect on the automotive, transport, flight, rail and other industries that move things and people around:
This coating prevents the build up of corrosive materials and as a result slows the corrosion process, extending the life of vehicles, trains, planes etc. Getting road salt off of a car in the winter is a big thing because road salt eats cars alive. If a coating can prevent it from sticking to the car in the first place vehicles are going to last a lot longer.
I can see the plane industry leaping at this the moment it is commercially viable: A coating that prevents wings from icing up? Yup, put that on every plane that comes out of the factory and retrofit it onto every plane in the fleet.
The moment a coating like this can be made crystal clear automotive manufacturers will put it on windshields and bug strikes sticking to the windshield will be a thing of the past.
That means the builder deviated from the design and has shoddy construction practices. The builder would be fired from the job and back charged for the work that has to be ripped out. The employees would not be punished by the owner/architect/engineer or CM.
Very simple difference:
In construction the design is cheap (5-10% of the building cost) and the compiling is expensive. In construction you only get to compile once. In addition anything that leaves an engineers or architect's office that has been stamped and signed is certified to provide a working structure, building or system; assuming the builder follows the plans correctly. Everything must be installed in the correct order and location. Deviations from the plan (we are assuming the plans and specs are good) involves and expensive reworking, redesign and law suits.
In programming, the expense is in the design of the system, compiling is cheap. In computer programming you compile as often as you need. One can test run sections of the code as needed to see what works and how it interacts.
The labor requirements are flipped between the two industries. Trying to compare the two can lead to some poor analogies quickly.
People can tell the difference between the $1 burger and the $15 burger. Can that person tell the difference between the $5 burger, $10 burger and $15 burger, and is the improvement in taste/texture worth the cost increase? I will bet that most people cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger.
That is the issue the music industry is facing: while a lot of people can tell the $1 burger from everything else they cannot tell the difference between the $5 burger and the $15 burger. Because of that they are not willing to pay the difference for something they do not appreciate.
I can see this type of technology being used for foundation work first. I expect that there will be some trial and error (like the toy building being designed above). The moment someone has a working system where you can feed concrete into an auto printed an it spits out a complete foundation in less time than it takes to lay out the forms and pour concrete and strip the forms then you have a winner. I expect some fierce competition from the pre-insulated forms companies where the form becomes the insulation for the foundation.
Let me know if you need people to help chip in on the cost of that ticket. I'm sure there are people around who would help. - Like me.
No, no one is forcing me onto that boat. And I have no intention of getting on it.
The environment on the ship has to be such that it is more attractive than being on shore in San Fransisco. Here are the pros and cons that I see:
Pros:
No oversight from uncle sam
Can hire anyone you want from anywhere in the world.
Cons:
Subject to a local government (ie the ship captain) that is not responsible to the people living on the ship, the local government is responsible to the ship owners.
Complex taxation issues when re-entering the country you are a citizen of.
Contract dispute is based on 1400 century law -"Lex mercatoria". This does not address criminal law or if people want to bring in the lawyers.
All physical goods will cost more aboard ship. That is because all goods have to be imported from shore to ship.
Remote access to physical goods. You can't just run out for material stock if you need something.
Corporate town issues - The company renting you space also owns the barber shop, ferry service, grocery store, and the internet service.
Going ashore means constant scrutiny by customs and immigration.
The assumption the the ship will be allowed to anchor twelve miles offshore is laughable. The US doesn't recognize the twelve mile limit. The coast guard will push them off to the 200 mile limit.
Because of the limited space on the ship you have to live within the society the ship sets up. It's not like you can go to a different cafe if you don't like the mocha-chino.
Observations:
The ship is trying to set up its own miniaturized uptopian society of happy workers while trying to ignore the reality of what people do when they aren't working: Drink, fight, get laid, have babies, make messes, casually destroy property, join clubs, explore behind locked doors, get bored, go for walks, fall in love, pay bills, litter, join crusades, paint the apartment, get sick, etc etc etc.
Start up companies have little no assets or capital. Being a start up on a ship like that is an extravagance I don't see many companies springing for. Why pay extra to be anchored off shore when you can get similar office space on shore?
I don't know about you, but I'm done with the shared dorm room atmosphere. Sharing a room with three other people gets old fast.
Blueseed gets partial ownership of each start-up. For getting the opportunity to be a start up on their ship, they get to own part of you.
All of the questions that you marked up as "Straw man" are the important questions that will arise when the rubber hits the road (or the ship leaves port as it were).
The questions were:
Dispute resolution - The disputes can be as simple as "Who gets to use the bathroom first" and "Who has to wash the dishes" to " He hacked my server" to "assault"
External threats - Who decides what is an external threat? Are there guards? Do the people on the boat have to double as militia in the time of threat?
Entry restriction - Sure you can pay to enter. Will there be health and welfare checks? What happens if someone is carrying hepatitis, smallpox or something nasty? Who is going to say that that person cannot enter?
Health and Safety rules - Yup, I want to work someplace where I can be made to work 60-80 hours a week because I can't leave the ship. Will there be a doctor onboard? How about emergency services?
Other questions:
Food production/import: I don't see any detail on food production. Will it all have to be imported?
Drinking water: Are they going to produce all of their own drinking water?
Waste control and sanitation: Are they going just dump all of their garbage overboard along with their black water? The coast guard may have word with them on that.
These items are very important. Unlike your American dream scenario, the US was self sufficient when it broke away from the UK. Any ship would be dependent upon the mainland for food, water, fuel, parts, health care and defense to maintain its standard of living. All of these things will have to be barged out to the ship.
You can bet anyone coming ashore from that boat will be subject to immigration control and the customs service.
I don't think vlm was espousing the list as his opinion, he was just summarizing.
Reality is going to work like this (assuming the boat ever leaves port):
At some point the ship needs to come into port for maintenance, repairs, you name it. DHS and Customs decides on a "Health and Welfare" inspection of a ship entering a US controlled port. At that point the cramped conditions, poor maintenance, foul sanitation, etc etc etc will be found out and the ship will not be allowed to leave port until it cleans up its act. Anybody who has been effectively shang-hai'd into working because they cannot afford to get off will be allowed to escape.
Welcome to Rapture.
It will be interesting to see what the ship will do when it has to dock for maintenance. Or are we going to end up with "The Raft" from Snow Crash?
I normally set my monitor higher than the picture because I have the tendency to hunch if the monitor is lower than me. Once I have hunched over I have to tip my head up to look at the screen. These days I elevate my monitor so it is level with my eye-line.
I did not intend to imply that modern mining practice uses nitro anymore. I was just using it as an example of how unstable nitro is. My fear is that the guy was making his own and had it in storage in the house. That would convert the house into a death trap very quickly.
If he had home made nitroglycerin (the article only said "home made explosives") I can understand why the cops want nothing to do with it. Nitro can be manufactured at home with a minimum of difficulty. Nitro also has the property where physical shocks can detonate it. This property is great in small quantities like flash power and bang snaps. This is also a good property for remote mining: You plant your explosive charge and then bury a string of explosives 10 feet apart apart to the staging area. When the first charge in the string is detonated the rest of the string detonates because of the vibration, which in turn detonates the main charge at the mine.
Having a house with this kind of sensitivity to vibration is asking for someone to drop/knock over a bottle of something sensitive and have it detonate. And then have that explosion trigger a sympathetic explosion, etc etc etc.
Unfortunately the Hirsch report (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report) has been out for 5 years and people still ignore it.
It was not my intent to imply that the Left or the Right (and their related Whacko squads) are more or less guilty than the other.
The complaint I have is that the burying groups leave a very stilted set of articles remaining to read. It's like a book with two editors. I'm surprised that there is anything left to read.
The Bury Brigade is effectively bumping anything they don't bury. As a result the entire site appears to lean in the direction that they desire. It is much more insidious than bumping because after the Bury brigade has been through, new viewers don't know that there were alternate choices/view points available.
With a wireless network I do not necessarily know which house the transmitter is in. somehow I am guessing that the investigators are going to be a little disappointed when they find out the payload data is tied to a latitude and longitude and not an address. It is hard to determine if someone's privacy has been violated when any given transmitter could be within 100 yards of the receiver's location. I realize with enough time and triangulation the approximate location of each transmitter could be determined. My understanding is that Google has not done this.
I am assuming the sensor package on the missile will be pointed toward the ship it is supposed to attack. So painting a mirrored surface on the missile may not help the missile's sensor package.
In addition the laser doesn't need to destroy the missile. It only needs to destroy enough of the missile so that it falls out of the sky.
I'm well aware that building plans need to be debugged :)
It just takes an RFI, approval of the RFI, a Change Order, Approval of the Change Order and a Big Bucket of Money.
Frank Gehry buildings made of aluminum and leak like a sieve come to mind.
The article you site discussed the drop rate for the AT&T fleet. The drop rate for the fleet is 1%, my error is stating that the drop rate is 1.4%. We do not know what the drop rate for the 3GS phone is. It could be higher or lower than the drop rate for the fleet average. Without knowing what the drop rate for the 3GS phone is it is impossible to determine if the antenna for the iphone4 has a higher drop rate than average. I think we can agree that the antenna in the iphone4 is significantly more sensitive to how the user holds the phone in comparison to previous iphones and some Nokia and Rim phones. This makes the iphone4 prone to different levels of reception depending upon how one holds the phone. I believe the following has been shown: The iphone4 has a higher gain (than the 3GS phopne) when someone is not touching the gap on the lower left, it also has a lower gain when someone is touching the gap on the lower left. You have not stated what criteria you use to determine if an antenna sucks. Please state your criteria.
50% to 100% more dropped calls than what? What is the baseline being used to determine the increased drop rate?