One of these days when the technology becomes available, computers will be able to turn on instantly like a Commodore 64.
Seriously though, it is pretty apparent why this hasn't happened on Wintel machines, but it's totally baffling why Apple has not taken advantage of designing their mobile systems to do this. Actually, I take that back. My Newton is instant-on, but that's not exactly an Apple success story now is it? Perhaps that's your answer right there. People aren't willing to pay for such systems but that's just conjecture on my part.
Yes, but you need to look at a country's per capita GDP to see where the population burden is greatest. That's why America has the most pressing population problem even if the absolute population level or even per area density numbers are not that alarming. Preventing 1 American is like preventing 45 citizens of Kiribati or about 10 citizens of India. In India and China it makes sense to focus on population. In America, the focus should be both efficiency and population.
Until they invent and standardize a 3D 'gesturing' interface (think Tom Cruise in Minority Report, for example), the 3D desktop will remain without much practical value.
Minority Report was horrid sci-fi. It simply showcased the most popular "future" technologies without spending any time to actually evaluate them. There's no way that Cruise's character could be flailing his arms about like that for hours on end. And what's up with the gloves? They can do that but not get rid of the gloves? Ridiculous. Talk about a Metropolis like sentence to serve a machine's purpose. Linear extrapolation of technology is pretty mediocre sci-fi.
Looking Glass fares just as poorly. Worst of all, these GUI elements are abstractly tied to physical perceptions without any reason. Why do the windows swing out and leave the user with taco eating syndrome reading the window titles like books on a shelf? Why can't they simply swing up to maintain the text upright? Oh wait, Apple's already done that with windowshades.
This is the wrong application of some possibly useful doodads that is the direct result of programmers who are in desperate need of a vision.
What's with this 3D fetish? Why try to cram another dimension into a 2D screen rather than work within it? The interface should facilitate first and abstract only if it increases utility and not for abstractions sake. We're not talking about art here.
Looking Glass is a cry for help or possibly a recruitment ad for visionaries. I give Sun credit if it's the latter.
As I restate, no where in the IV amendment does it say that it protects against unlawful disclosure of personal information.
You would think that when the constitution says "unreasonable" that it also means "unlawful". Why would anyone expect it to be within reason to be searched unlawfully? If that is the case, then the constitution no longer applies and it doesn't matter what it says so this argument is mute.
Oh wait, this administration has already invoked nationalism and fear. What was I thinking. Failure to report to the nearest GOP office to receive your brown shirt and shiny black boots may be held against you come 2005.
what is an 'okay' amount of information to give out?
We need personal information metadata! Parties obviously need to exchange information in order to do business but that exchange should have clear rules and any data exchanged should be tagged. The system would, for the most part, be self governing. Would you really want to do business with someone or somecorp that is handing you data tagged "not for redistribution"?
Most data transfers are unnecessary however and request for such data should raise a flag. Do you really need to give out your phone number in order to purchase some groceries? My favorite is asking for the cashier's phone number in return. That's usually the end of that even on return visits if the same cashier is working there.
Consider also having a toaster oven, or better yet a full size stove/oven.
Yeah, because there's nothing like the smell of being at Pizza Hut one hour and a movie theater the next while I work.
Integrating food areas into office space can be very challenging and the main complaint I have is that the sounds and smells can drown an entire office space in a flurry of distractions, interruptions, nausea, and what have you. Sure it's inconvenient to shlep your ass to another floor, but everyone else's productivity doesn't suffer as a result and visiting customers aren't left with impressions of your place only someone heating kimchi can create.
Robby may be famous but in as much as he contributed to expanding the possibilities of robots in sci-fi, he's completely useless. I nominate the robot from woman from Lang's Metropolis movie made in 1927. The transition from human to robot would still have made the cut in Hollywood sci-fi movies until the late 60's.
almost all US states take away felons voting rights while in prison or on parole.
In Florida, the problem was not so much that felons were purged from the rolls but that purging was encouraged without verifying people's actual identity. This resulted in a purge count much higher than actual felons to the benefit of the GOP.
The other issue of course is that while you lose your right to vote while serving a sentence, you should regain that right when your sentence expires otherwise, you are serving an eternal sentence with respect to your rights. That is the case in Florida and as I understand it, very few states actually do this.
Finally, the election was decided by the supreme court of the United States since the Florida recount was stopped prior to the date that Florida had to turn in their electoral votes. The narrow writing of the decision (that it only applies to Fla for example), pretty much gives away the partisanship behind it.
If Diebold only had their shit together back in 2000, then none of these uncomfortable facts would be out there.
My favorite argument against paper trails is how insanely expensive these machines would become. Really? I didn't know that the corner Kwik-e-Mart had one of these "expensive" machines to print a receipt for my $0.50 pack of gum. As far as I know, all ATM's have paper trails. How is it feasible to record a $20 ATM withdrawal but not a vote for supreme emperor of the earth for 4 years?
It's both. Jakob Nielsen would be rolling over in his grave if he were dead. This looks like a tool upper level managers would love and people who actually have to make sense of the information would love to hate. This product's commercial success is entirely based on the marketing and sales team's rolodex size and slickness factor.
Crosby says, "Yes. The people who run record companies now wouldn't
know a song if it flew up their nose and died. They haven't a clue, and
they don't care. You tell them that, and they go, "Yeah? So, your point
is?" Because they don't give a shit. They don't care. They're actually
sort of proud that they don't care." but why should the music
industry be any different? When you talk to the top managers in any
industry you find out that they don't understand the widgets they make or the services they provide. It's all money at that point.
It's hard to feel all sorry for musicians when all that's happened to them is that they've entered the industrial age. Welcome to how
the rest of the world's been earning a living for a century now.
Every now and then a company is founded and succeeds upon the fervor of the founders, but success insures that when these businesses become corporations, the visions, cultures and interests of the founders are all subverted. The bigger question this topic begs, is why is society rewarding the mediocre over the exceptional and how could this be reversed?
Re:State of the art?
on
Shrek 2 How-To
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Agreed, there is something artist about Pixar movies that makes them fun to watch even years after their gee-whiz CG has worn off. Watching Shrek is like sitting in front of a 90 minute video game intro. Actually, I've seen intro's with more gee-whiz than Shrek.
Never underestimate the power to milk every last dollar out of any half baked idea. Movies based on saturday night live sketches continue to drive this point home.
Wired Magazine had a nice article about this in their Aug 2002 issue.
Other than a healthy reference page for the interested, there's not much new information in Last's article.
Re:Let's not forget synthetics...and politics...
on
Out of Gas
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· Score: 1
On the subject of coproducts, it doesn't matter where you spend your energy credits for coproducts - whether it's spent on making more ethanol or spent running a widget factory, it's still energy potential that you can use.
That is incorrect. Major coproducts in the making of ethanol include carbon dioxide and distillers grain. If they could be converted to ethanol then they would not be coproducts. The problem with carbon dioxide is that it is a coproduct to many other processes. 1% of the earths atmosphere is carbon dioxide! It cannot be transformed to produce energy. Distillers grain on the other hand can, but such a transformation would only capture a small fraction of the energy it accounts for as a coproduct of ethanol. Therefore, it is more useful as distillers grain.
You can make ethanol using (for much of the process, although not all) almost any energy source. Biomass, coal, nuclear, whatever.
I would be interested in learning how ethanol can be made from renewable energy sources. Please provide such information.
Personally, I would have no problem with coal power if coal plants would just update their scrubbing systems to modern tech, which has improved drasticly in the past half century.
Even if energy generation from coal could be made to be clean, it only resolves one problem. Coal extraction is extremely polluting.
Most of the cost of nuclear is due to public safety, storage, and national security issues.
Other subsidies include the Price Anderson Act and financing subsidies. The most ignored point about nuclear is that if we applied those subsidies to other technologies, they would go much further in reducing greenhouse emissions. It is not sustainable to turn out energy for a year and then be responsible for very dangerous waste for millenia. Nuclear energy is on the way out in North America. It is just a matter of time since there has been very little new plant construction in the past 30 years!
The government can't be concerned any longer with outmoded penological theories. Soon we may be needing all of out prison space for political offenders. Common criminals like these are best dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex that's all. Full implementation in a year's time.
Perhaps the state can give those with high terrorism quotients free treatment. Come in for your monthly pill allotment for a couple months and your quotient is reduced.
Re:Let's not forget synthetics...and politics...
on
Out of Gas
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· Score: 1
Appreciate the condescension a whole bunch in
And when you make ethanol, is the source of the energy ethanol, or even oil?
but the source of all energy on earth is either the sun or gravity, yet it doesn't really help the discourse to name everything "solar" energy now does it? When the Nazi's made oil from coal, the source of energy was coal even though the sun was responsible for the vast majority of that product. When you make ethanol from biomass specifically grown to make ethanol, then you might as well consider ethanol the source. When you make ethanol out of waste biomass then that's another story, but we're talking about the next petroleum. There effectively is no such thing as the next petroleum.
The links are wonderful and all but I already did a short lecture on coproducts in a previous post. The best summary I've come across of all various studies is in http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm where it states:
We conclude that the NEV of corn ethanol is positive when fertilizers are produced by modern processing plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities, farmers achieve normal corn yields, and energy credits are allocated to coproducts.
Where did you get the whacky 250 year estime for US coal reserves? You either think the earth is made out of coal or don't understand exponential functions. Do you really want to live in a world where all coal has been extracted and consumed?
Totally agree on the true cost of oil, but have to disagree about nuclear energy. Nuclear is not really a viable energy source for a society on the brink of such a large transition. Nuclear, even though heavily subsidized, is expensive and ties up large amounts of capital. Then you're left with waste for tens of thousands of years. That's longer than the entire history of civilization on earth. Not to mention the risks associated with such centralized energy production and volatile technology.
Re:Let's not forget synthetics...and politics...
on
Out of Gas
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· Score: 1
When the Nazis made oil from coal, the source of energy was coal and not oil. So what you're really proposing is to change from oil to coal at a much lower efficiency because now you're also transforming the coal back into oil. This will deplete coal even faster than if we simply used the coal directly. This could be done by changing all electrical power plants from oil to coal leaving more oil for transportation use. But the end result is the same, both coal and oil are eventually depleted.
Please provide sources for ethanol being net energy positive.
Re:Let's not forget synthetics...and politics...
on
Out of Gas
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· Score: 1
you don't want to get me started on the "ethanol uses
more energy to create than it produces!" line - it doesn't, by a long
shot, and even if it did, that's irrelevant for a number of
reasons
But even if it did, that's irrelevant? How is using energy to make less
energy irrelevant? It is either a source of energy or it is not.
If it is net energy negative, then it is not a source of
energy!
All papers that I have reviewed show that ethanol is net energy
negative unless the energy in distillers grain and carbon
dioxide are included. But if you are producing ethanol for the
energy then those are byproducts. You can argue that distillers
grain contains energy and even argue further that through another
process some of that energy can also be captured. Fine that's great but
now this reduces the energy contribution from this byproduct. It is
pretty hard to make an argument for carbon dioxide containing energy.
The other thing to consider is that once this is put into wide scale
production, these byproducts will lose value and may eventually saturate
their demand at which point they become waste. This would return the net
energy sum below zero.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a great proponent of ethanol. It is much more
energy dense than hydrogen and as easy to store and transport as
gasoline. It is a dual use fuel that can be applied to internal
combustion as well as fuel cells (not to mention human consumption). It
requires no special infrastructure like hydrogen since existing fueling
stations are already ethanol ready and unlike hydrogen has the practical
ability to power flight.
It is just that current agricultural methods to produce ethanol are
so inadequate. There needs to be some major research going into ethanol
production that is more efficient with perhaps the potential to
sequester carbon oxides from the air.
Why wait until resources are nigh-exhausted on Earth (which they one day will be) to develop the technologies to mine asteroids and planets?
For the same reason that the extraction industry waits to get at resources which have been identified but cost more to extract. Who knows what the market for specific resources will be when you eventually do get your space mine working.
Pursuing space resources is too far sighted to the extent that things may change in the meantime. Why spend billions or more realistically trillions of dollars on such a venture only to have the earth run out of fossil fuels and the world become earth bound in the meantime?
Besides, this argument is not about the extraction industry, it is about sending people to extra terrestrial bodies. Nobody with a dime of common sense is arguing against space exploration. It's the exploration of space directly by humans that is at issue.
The presence of people in space is not value added for a very high cost compared to the presence of probes in space. REPEAT: the issue is not to space or not to space but rather whether to space with people or with probes. The latter is greatly more favorable.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously though, it is pretty apparent why this hasn't happened on Wintel machines, but it's totally baffling why Apple has not taken advantage of designing their mobile systems to do this. Actually, I take that back. My Newton is instant-on, but that's not exactly an Apple success story now is it? Perhaps that's your answer right there. People aren't willing to pay for such systems but that's just conjecture on my part.
Wrong. It clearly has eyes. The bottom two close-ups show it giving the camera an angry look.
Now you see how dismal the picture really is, don't you?
Yes, but you need to look at a country's per capita GDP to see where the population burden is greatest. That's why America has the most pressing population problem even if the absolute population level or even per area density numbers are not that alarming. Preventing 1 American is like preventing 45 citizens of Kiribati or about 10 citizens of India. In India and China it makes sense to focus on population. In America, the focus should be both efficiency and population.
Looking Glass fares just as poorly. Worst of all, these GUI elements are abstractly tied to physical perceptions without any reason. Why do the windows swing out and leave the user with taco eating syndrome reading the window titles like books on a shelf? Why can't they simply swing up to maintain the text upright? Oh wait, Apple's already done that with windowshades.
This is the wrong application of some possibly useful doodads that is the direct result of programmers who are in desperate need of a vision.
What's with this 3D fetish? Why try to cram another dimension into a 2D screen rather than work within it? The interface should facilitate first and abstract only if it increases utility and not for abstractions sake. We're not talking about art here.
Looking Glass is a cry for help or possibly a recruitment ad for visionaries. I give Sun credit if it's the latter.
You would think that when the constitution says "unreasonable" that it also means "unlawful". Why would anyone expect it to be within reason to be searched unlawfully? If that is the case, then the constitution no longer applies and it doesn't matter what it says so this argument is mute.
Oh wait, this administration has already invoked nationalism and fear. What was I thinking. Failure to report to the nearest GOP office to receive your brown shirt and shiny black boots may be held against you come 2005.
We need personal information metadata! Parties obviously need to exchange information in order to do business but that exchange should have clear rules and any data exchanged should be tagged. The system would, for the most part, be self governing. Would you really want to do business with someone or somecorp that is handing you data tagged "not for redistribution"?
Most data transfers are unnecessary however and request for such data should raise a flag. Do you really need to give out your phone number in order to purchase some groceries? My favorite is asking for the cashier's phone number in return. That's usually the end of that even on return visits if the same cashier is working there.
Integrating food areas into office space can be very challenging and the main complaint I have is that the sounds and smells can drown an entire office space in a flurry of distractions, interruptions, nausea, and what have you. Sure it's inconvenient to shlep your ass to another floor, but everyone else's productivity doesn't suffer as a result and visiting customers aren't left with impressions of your place only someone heating kimchi can create.
Robby may be famous but in as much as he contributed to expanding the possibilities of robots in sci-fi, he's completely useless. I nominate the robot from woman from Lang's Metropolis movie made in 1927. The transition from human to robot would still have made the cut in Hollywood sci-fi movies until the late 60's.
The other issue of course is that while you lose your right to vote while serving a sentence, you should regain that right when your sentence expires otherwise, you are serving an eternal sentence with respect to your rights. That is the case in Florida and as I understand it, very few states actually do this.
Finally, the election was decided by the supreme court of the United States since the Florida recount was stopped prior to the date that Florida had to turn in their electoral votes. The narrow writing of the decision (that it only applies to Fla for example), pretty much gives away the partisanship behind it.
If Diebold only had their shit together back in 2000, then none of these uncomfortable facts would be out there.
For other schemes, check out Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston. The catch? Level of wealth required is not available to 99% of Americans.
My favorite argument against paper trails is how insanely expensive these machines would become. Really? I didn't know that the corner Kwik-e-Mart had one of these "expensive" machines to print a receipt for my $0.50 pack of gum. As far as I know, all ATM's have paper trails. How is it feasible to record a $20 ATM withdrawal but not a vote for supreme emperor of the earth for 4 years?
It's both. Jakob Nielsen would be rolling over in his grave if he were dead. This looks like a tool upper level managers would love and people who actually have to make sense of the information would love to hate. This product's commercial success is entirely based on the marketing and sales team's rolodex size and slickness factor.
It's hard to feel all sorry for musicians when all that's happened to them is that they've entered the industrial age. Welcome to how the rest of the world's been earning a living for a century now.
Every now and then a company is founded and succeeds upon the fervor of the founders, but success insures that when these businesses become corporations, the visions, cultures and interests of the founders are all subverted. The bigger question this topic begs, is why is society rewarding the mediocre over the exceptional and how could this be reversed?
Never underestimate the power to milk every last dollar out of any half baked idea. Movies based on saturday night live sketches continue to drive this point home.
Other than a healthy reference page for the interested, there's not much new information in Last's article.
Will Hewpaq resist the cancerous tumor that took down Digital?
The links are wonderful and all but I already did a short lecture on coproducts in a previous post. The best summary I've come across of all various studies is in http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm where it states:
Where did you get the whacky 250 year estime for US coal reserves? You either think the earth is made out of coal or don't understand exponential functions. Do you really want to live in a world where all coal has been extracted and consumed?
Totally agree on the true cost of oil, but have to disagree about nuclear energy. Nuclear is not really a viable energy source for a society on the brink of such a large transition. Nuclear, even though heavily subsidized, is expensive and ties up large amounts of capital. Then you're left with waste for tens of thousands of years. That's longer than the entire history of civilization on earth. Not to mention the risks associated with such centralized energy production and volatile technology.
Please provide sources for ethanol being net energy positive.
All papers that I have reviewed show that ethanol is net energy negative unless the energy in distillers grain and carbon dioxide are included. But if you are producing ethanol for the energy then those are byproducts. You can argue that distillers grain contains energy and even argue further that through another process some of that energy can also be captured. Fine that's great but now this reduces the energy contribution from this byproduct. It is pretty hard to make an argument for carbon dioxide containing energy.
The other thing to consider is that once this is put into wide scale production, these byproducts will lose value and may eventually saturate their demand at which point they become waste. This would return the net energy sum below zero.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a great proponent of ethanol. It is much more energy dense than hydrogen and as easy to store and transport as gasoline. It is a dual use fuel that can be applied to internal combustion as well as fuel cells (not to mention human consumption). It requires no special infrastructure like hydrogen since existing fueling stations are already ethanol ready and unlike hydrogen has the practical ability to power flight.
It is just that current agricultural methods to produce ethanol are so inadequate. There needs to be some major research going into ethanol production that is more efficient with perhaps the potential to sequester carbon oxides from the air.
Pursuing space resources is too far sighted to the extent that things may change in the meantime. Why spend billions or more realistically trillions of dollars on such a venture only to have the earth run out of fossil fuels and the world become earth bound in the meantime?
Besides, this argument is not about the extraction industry, it is about sending people to extra terrestrial bodies. Nobody with a dime of common sense is arguing against space exploration. It's the exploration of space directly by humans that is at issue.
The presence of people in space is not value added for a very high cost compared to the presence of probes in space. REPEAT: the issue is not to space or not to space but rather whether to space with people or with probes. The latter is greatly more favorable.