I agree that Governments don't GIVE rights, they however MUST limit them for the best good for all. It's not going to please everyone either.I'm for limited Government, a balance between rule of law and anarchy. Do you prefer anarchy?. As for nowhere are they "protecting the nation", I think you are WAY out to lunch on that one. Iraq and Afghanistan are both places where the military is protecting us against another 9/11, Or have you forgotten that date? I'm all for the military getting out of Iraq (soon) when things get stable but it will take a while as those people haven't had any sort of representative Government in several generations and there are people who want to keep it that way. The US cannot afford to be isolationist and let world affairs take whatever course. Leaving things half done in Iraq/Afganistan can be worse than doing nothing! I think you really don't have any expectation of privacy when on public property. Oh, and next time you are stopped and refuse ID to the officer when asked, have a pleasent trip to jail. Law officers have the right to verify you are not someone wanted. That issue has been held up many times by the courts the when someone wanted was stopped for a traffic ticket and then arrested it was legal.
If you don't like camera's in your school, then homeschool your children. We do. It works very well, but you have to give up some things like that second income.
Unconstiutional capital? When was it against the Constitution to raise money for a business? That's what capital is ya know. That 300M a year defense budget protects and defends your right to post here, so you are saying you'd rather fight off the terrs and other bad guys on your own?. Of course in anything that size there will be some waste, but the DOD is much better at finding it these days. Oh, and by the way there is no such thing as a "right to privacy", that concept is strictly a judicial extension of a right which can be taken away just as easy. You should expect that in public places you are going to have less privacy than in your home. The overall good of the public has to be protected in some manner with a balance to protecting privacy. Was it an invasion of my privacy last night when I had to stop at a Drunk Driving Checkpoint even though I had consumed no alcoholic drinks? No, it was to try to protect the public from drunken (idiots) drivers. The cameras are along the same lines of thought (but they don't work well). I would not put them IN the schools (where strangers are given a wary eye) but in places close to the school like parks, parking lots and video game places where the predators hang out. The idea of catching the predators before they act has merit but the implementation is flawed. I don't see this as any sort of issue for my privacy unless I have something to hide.
Yes, saving the bunnies from cataracts in Argentina was a contributing factor. NASA actually had a waiver from the EPA to continue to use the old foam (see the CAIB) but chose to move to the newer version.
I work for a NASA contractor and I too often wonder if its time for something new agency wise. I think the Sr. Leaders in the Agency know this too, and understand the agency is on the knife edge, on slip and it's over. NASA can recover, its just going to take some SERIOUS changes, and frankly I'm not sure that can happen. I'll try and remain open-minded and give it some time, it's too early to say right now.
All I can say is anyone who support Wesley Clark is off in la-la land. You want facts all you got to do is look around. Clarke can't even keep his positions straight and was "retired" because when he was in charge of NATO he tried to disobey a Presidental directive, which is why he was removed and then retired. When at NATO he badly wanted to get rid of Milosevic in Yugoslavia but was "against" the war in Iraq to get rid of a similar bad guy Saddam? Clarke was a registered Republican but changed to be a Democrat (and changed previous views on everything) for some reason. Anyone who offers the VP job to Hillary Clinton is seriously off his rocker, she is a horrible Senator, and was already "Vice President" for 8 yrs. Clarke is a joke, Dean is a somewhat better, at least he was a Governor [even if it was in VT], but the rest of the Democratic field are wimps. The Donkeys really don't stand a chance at the White House until 2008 with Hillary and that's assuming she can even win the nomination as fragmented as the party is now.
If anything one media bias offsets another and the complete truth is that the American public has no knowledge of who gives what[And the poltical parties LIKE it that way]. IIRC, the law says that donors over $1000 have to be listed, but if Joe Schmoe gave $25 to Party X at his local meeting he isn't listed. Union members who donate $2 a paycheck to thier PAC and the PAC gives the money out aren't listed individually. And I doubt the FEC audits those numbers anyway except for big money. The suspect the REAL truth is NOBODY is telling the REAL truth!! Lies, damned lies and statistics;)
Saddam WAS an "imminent" threat. He had WMDs, and was trying to restart his nuke program, plus he was funding and training Al-Queda. Didn't you see the interview with some of his captured field commanders that said they had bio-weapons ready to deploy to them on 15 minutes notice? I hope Saddam is an imminent threat to nothing but earthworms now. The region is much more stable now, and NO it was NOT about OIL. There is plenty of oil on the market, in fact OPEC is cutting back production to keep the price high which is good for the Iraqi people. The US is not importing the Iraqi oil either, most of our imported oil comes from Mexico and Venezula. If people [of all politic groups] would think for themselves instead of letting the media think for them, they would be better off.
A December 18, 2002 Washington Times editorial reports that donors giving "small and medium amounts" in 2002 overwhelmingly supported the GOP, while "rich or deep-pocketed givers" hugely backed the Democrats!
Those giving $200 to $999: GOP $68 million; Democrats $44 million. Those giving $1,000 to $9,999: GOP $317 million; Democrats $307 million. The "fabulously wealthy" donors of $10,000+ gave $111 million to the GOP - a whopping $29 million less than the $140 million they lavished on the Democrats! Among those who gave $100,000+, the Democrats raised $72 million - more than double the $34 million the GOP took.
The fact is that in the 2002 election cycle, those who gave a million dollars or more poured $36 million into the Democrat coffers, and a paltry $3 million into the pockets of the GOP. Again: millionaire donations went Democrat by a 12:1 margin! The two parties took in about the same amount overall - GOP: $384 million; Democrats: $350 million. Just look at the Hollywood left, and you see where the big money goes.
In addition, the GOP attracted 40% more individual donors! (George W. Bush set an all-time fund-raising record by collecting the most money from one-thousand-dollar donors in the history of presidential politics.) Far more people giving small amounts exist as contributors to the Republican Party - while Democrats skunked the GOP among the super-rich. That's no surprise, since nine of the twelve richest members of the United States Senate are Democrats.
Actually the Democrats have more money from large organizations such as unions and PACs than any other party. Truth be known the Republicans have more small donations. The really out there parties such as Greens and Libertarians are close to 100% small donors. I don't see the Internet INFLUENCING voters much at all. Sure they have another medium to get information, but web presentations have technology issues. If you don't have broadband then streaming video is difficult, and why get if off the 'Net when you can see it on CNN or Fox 17 times a day? TV and Radio are by far the more influencial medium with the majority of the population. The Internet is popular with younger age groups, but not older people. Income levels affect Internet usage. I wonder how active in the local/regional/national level those who are recruited or who donated thru the Internet are versus those who were recruited in person. The Internet offers a fair degree of anonynimity just in case your candidate has views that are all of a sudden no longer popular, thus you can easily disavow your support. I think way too much is being made of this concept, and IIRC the AlGore campaign in 2000 also was big on using the Internet and that didn't work out [no BS about Republicans stealing the election..it's a fact of life now that GWB won..BushHaters win get a chance in 2004].
Some modern day sci-fi authors are at least as good as RAH (and even as radical). Greg Bear, David Brin, Larry Niven, C.J. Cheryh come to mind. Others who are not golden age but not modern, but were great writers would be Ursula LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, Fredick Pohl, and Robinson. As far as sci-fi goes it really all started with Jules Verne, then the golden age authors of the 30's-50's took it to another level.
Pure BS. Read the CAIB. They tested the foam for absorbing water and breaking off as ice, I didn't. They are not 100% sure of why the foam came off, the area it broke away from was laid up by hand not machine and has a complex geometry, both of which were contributing factors. A hairline crack would be an issue but not disaster, again read the CAIB, and earlier shuttle flight had many tiles knocked off and some small amount of damage but not on the RCC leading edge. There is still considerable debate as to how much "punishment" the RCC can take. The foam and RCC are both issues that must be solved before RTF. The CAIB report is VERY detailed, and very complete and removes from the discussion issues such as "fozen foam", but also introduces other new risks such as the underspecification bolt catchers.
There is a system like this at the DFW Airport. You can use your EZ-Pass to pass thru for Free if you are picking someone up and stay 12-24 minutes. Longer than 24 is like 50 cents each 1/2 hour. But if you stay LESS than that they assume you are cutting across the airport as a shortcut from North Dallas to the Mid-Cities and charge you something like $5. I used to use the shortcut and made sure I was driving exactly the airport speed limit which means it took exactly 12.5 minutes to cross the airport so I got by free. It was an overall time saver even driving slower while in the airport.
Data Recorders are NOT On-Star units and they are NOT GPS units. They simply continuously take a snapshot of certain data every few seconds and if there is ever a crash they write it to storage so it can be accessed. The same concept is used on the Flight Data Recorders on airliners. No one ever said black boxes were not on cars, they are. The investigators (Cops, Insurance) can see what was going on but not WHERE you doing it. Sheesh, I thought/. readers could discriminate various technologies from each other....
Funny! Except...possession of any amount of non-prescribed prescription drugs in the USA is a crime (Yes, I know it's silly if they are for your use only). I would not be surprised to see a lot of USA folks close to the border all of a sudden having Canadian doctors who they can pay in US dollars and then buy the drugs cheaper in Canada with a dollar that is worth more. What a deal for the patient! Canada's economy should boom! You'll have almost as many rich doctors as the US does;) And the Mexican "coyotes" who now run the wetbacks in from Mexico can branch out with a Northern Operation smuggling patients into and out of Canada. The USA, Mexico and Canada all win!! Isn't this whole NAFTA thing great!!;)
Probably not, things tend to burn up on re-entry at high velocities even heavy stuff. The Russians have re-entered several nuclear powered satellies without a problem. I'm sure this risk is well managed. NASA JPL is good! An electric ion drive would work as well but it takes a while to build thrust. In fact the nuke may actually just create the energy needed to heat up the gas needed to run the ion drive.
Of course they should notify management first, I said using it with the KNOWLEDGE of management. I have seen situations where management thinks it is OK to use unlicensed software (I'm not talking about freeware or shareware) since it saves money.
Yes, but I'm quoting from the US Supreme Court decision! Seems THEY can't quite nail down the issue either, kind of like what "porn" is. They know it when they see it (and I wouldn't doubt some of them see a lot of it!!).
The parent post about illegal software may be satire, but all satire has a point. This stuff happens, employees often do run unlicensed software with the KNOWLEDGE of the employer. That situation will be prosecuted by the copyright owners. Microsoft and others large software mfgs have been known to come in and pull inspections based on "tips", and often with the help of local law agencies. Several firms have been fined large amounts. So if an employee wants the firm they work for to not get hammered with a fine (which could be the difference between staying solvent and going under)then they should report unlicensed software. At firms that have a strong corporate Code of Ethics/Code of Conduct you may be the one in trouble if you know it and don't say something. So, it can be your ass either way if you let it slide. I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA starts looking at companies too, if the employees are downloading or sharing and the firm does not block it they become a nice target. Doing "illegal" things on your Home PC is one thing but letting it go on at a firm is quite another more serious situation.
It's a well know standard of US Law that free speech is NOT 100% Free. You can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, you can't publish materials that might reasonably defame or slander someone, you can't publish an "unlawful threat," which the Supreme Court has ruled is "explicit language likely to cause imminent lawless action,". This standard has been tested many times and has always been upheld. Free speech has limits in THIS country, in other places it's worse!.
As far as I can tell Director Buckles wasn't a)director when the Waco fiasco took place
b) was not the looney on-site who directed the attack. Atty Gen Janet Reno authorized the attack, not the head of the ATF
c) I don't think it will get as bad as Japan where they actually arrested two people today for violating copyright.
d) How much worse can RIAA get? They can't break down your doors like the ATF can. And I don't see the ATF enforcing the RIAA position, nor do I see RIAA "goon squads".
IMNSHO, Buckles was hired for his ability to lead an organization and as well as his knowledge of the politics in Washington and his contacts in the DOJ. Hell, who knows he actually may be a reasonable man. He is retiring from DOJ and I guess he needed a job!
How did we go from 8051s to 68030s? That is one huge jump. IIRC, 030's were in the Apples but never made it into being much more than that. The orginal idea of this thread was something to compete on the desktop with the Intel/AMD douopoly. Modern CPUs have as many as 55 million transistors (Pentium 4). PowerPC processors are a bit more efficient on gates than their x86 counterparts. Older G3 chips only had 6.35 million gates. Current G3s have 29 million gates (most of which are used for on die cache) and the current G4 processor (PPC7455) has approximately 33 million gates. The older G4 (7400/7410) had 10.5 million gates. I don't dispute you need LESS CPU to run Linux vs Windoze [can you still buy '030s?], I was talking about the issues of being able to design/build a GPP of contemporary complexity. As someone else has stated you can get a good 16 bit uC onto an ASIC these days, and that uC can do a lot.
I know the diff between an FPGA and an ASIC. You are talking apples and oranges here, an ASIC is a powerful tool for certain things, but it is NOT a GPP to challenge the Intel/AMD on the desktop which is the whole point of the idea. Since when does a AMD Athlon, PowerPC, SPARC, or P6 have less power than an 8 bit micro-controller? While LINUX certainly does not NEED that kind of power to work, it can take advantage of the features like cache controllers, memory management, etc. A micro-kernal which does not implement the whole kernel would work, there are several avaiable but I don't know the limits of these micro-kernels.
I'm done 8051 work in C and PL/M and I know it is a good chip (been around a LONG time too), but last I recall it only addressed 64K of RAM which is not much these days. What you are talking about is (OpenRISC) was making a RISC CPU core wby using cell logic in an FPGA, then moving to silicon. I have no doubt that can be done, its all just NAND/AND/NOR/OR gates at the lowest logic level. IIRC, the OpenRISC project has acheived a 160Mhz uC in silicon. It's good to see they have gone from FPGA to silicon but do they have any Sales? My point is that it takes a lot of time & expertise to design a real high powered CPU chip and thus a lot of money. I'm not sure even a set of amateurs could do it with the quality needed to get a product that challenges the status quo of Intel/AMD on the desktop. OpenRISC is a big step in the right direction but there is a long way to go from a middle of the road embedded chip to challenge the big boys.
It's one hell of a LONG way from making an 300K gate FPGA work at 150Mhz to making a 32/64 bit CPU at 2GHz! A modern CPU core may have as many as a few million gates. Add in on-chip cache and other things and that number gets higher. Now if you want to talk micro-controller then 300K gates might get you a decent 8/16 bit one like the old 8051s (which you can do a LOT with but I don't think it would run Linux). Your idea sounds like a good Sr. Project for a CSE class in Computer Architecture.
If my phone was out for days like my Cable and Cable Modem I'd be very pissed and would change providers. As I see it this gives the customer a choice to use one of several options for POTS. In the end what goes over the networks is IP data anyway. X.25 and circuit switches are about gone. How the telco/cable/reseller handles it may affect QOS but for POTS all you really need is a solid 8K bandwidth for the voice. Cable companies who have pulled fiber to the homes have loads of bandwidth to spare and the costs are subsidized by the fees we pay for our cable TV, so prices should be low! I see no reason why my local phone bill should be $35 plus L/D. The phone companies no longer have a monopoly but still want to charge monopoly prices, the entry of the cable companies might put an end to that! I'd still hate to have an AOL phone, even if all my bills came from one company such as Time Warner.
Hadn't heard the outcome there. I doubt he'll do any hard time, probably appeal too. I heard he used some sort of medical defense (fainting spells??). Having traveled in the West where off the main highway traffic signs are rarely obeyed I can see how the accident happened, but it doesn't make it OK. He should have looked.
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I agree that Governments don't GIVE rights, they however MUST limit them for the best good for all. It's not going to please everyone either.I'm for limited Government, a balance between rule of law and anarchy. Do you prefer anarchy?. As for nowhere are they "protecting the nation", I think you are WAY out to lunch on that one. Iraq and Afghanistan are both places where the military is protecting us against another 9/11, Or have you forgotten that date? I'm all for the military getting out of Iraq (soon) when things get stable but it will take a while as those people haven't had any sort of representative Government in several generations and there are people who want to keep it that way. The US cannot afford to be isolationist and let world affairs take whatever course. Leaving things half done in Iraq/Afganistan can be worse than doing nothing! I think you really don't have any expectation of privacy when on public property. Oh, and next time you are stopped and refuse ID to the officer when asked, have a pleasent trip to jail. Law officers have the right to verify you are not someone wanted. That issue has been held up many times by the courts the when someone wanted was stopped for a traffic ticket and then arrested it was legal. If you don't like camera's in your school, then homeschool your children. We do. It works very well, but you have to give up some things like that second income.
Unconstiutional capital? When was it against the Constitution to raise money for a business? That's what capital is ya know. That 300M a year defense budget protects and defends your right to post here, so you are saying you'd rather fight off the terrs and other bad guys on your own?. Of course in anything that size there will be some waste, but the DOD is much better at finding it these days. Oh, and by the way there is no such thing as a "right to privacy", that concept is strictly a judicial extension of a right which can be taken away just as easy. You should expect that in public places you are going to have less privacy than in your home. The overall good of the public has to be protected in some manner with a balance to protecting privacy. Was it an invasion of my privacy last night when I had to stop at a Drunk Driving Checkpoint even though I had consumed no alcoholic drinks? No, it was to try to protect the public from drunken (idiots) drivers. The cameras are along the same lines of thought (but they don't work well). I would not put them IN the schools (where strangers are given a wary eye) but in places close to the school like parks, parking lots and video game places where the predators hang out. The idea of catching the predators before they act has merit but the implementation is flawed. I don't see this as any sort of issue for my privacy unless I have something to hide.
Yes, saving the bunnies from cataracts in Argentina was a contributing factor. NASA actually had a waiver from the EPA to continue to use the old foam (see the CAIB) but chose to move to the newer version. I work for a NASA contractor and I too often wonder if its time for something new agency wise. I think the Sr. Leaders in the Agency know this too, and understand the agency is on the knife edge, on slip and it's over. NASA can recover, its just going to take some SERIOUS changes, and frankly I'm not sure that can happen. I'll try and remain open-minded and give it some time, it's too early to say right now.
All I can say is anyone who support Wesley Clark is off in la-la land. You want facts all you got to do is look around. Clarke can't even keep his positions straight and was "retired" because when he was in charge of NATO he tried to disobey a Presidental directive, which is why he was removed and then retired. When at NATO he badly wanted to get rid of Milosevic in Yugoslavia but was "against" the war in Iraq to get rid of a similar bad guy Saddam? Clarke was a registered Republican but changed to be a Democrat (and changed previous views on everything) for some reason. Anyone who offers the VP job to Hillary Clinton is seriously off his rocker, she is a horrible Senator, and was already "Vice President" for 8 yrs. Clarke is a joke, Dean is a somewhat better, at least he was a Governor [even if it was in VT], but the rest of the Democratic field are wimps. The Donkeys really don't stand a chance at the White House until 2008 with Hillary and that's assuming she can even win the nomination as fragmented as the party is now.
If anything one media bias offsets another and the complete truth is that the American public has no knowledge of who gives what[And the poltical parties LIKE it that way]. IIRC, the law says that donors over $1000 have to be listed, but if Joe Schmoe gave $25 to Party X at his local meeting he isn't listed. Union members who donate $2 a paycheck to thier PAC and the PAC gives the money out aren't listed individually. And I doubt the FEC audits those numbers anyway except for big money. The suspect the REAL truth is NOBODY is telling the REAL truth!! Lies, damned lies and statistics ;)
Saddam WAS an "imminent" threat. He had WMDs, and was trying to restart his nuke program, plus he was funding and training Al-Queda. Didn't you see the interview with some of his captured field commanders that said they had bio-weapons ready to deploy to them on 15 minutes notice? I hope Saddam is an imminent threat to nothing but earthworms now. The region is much more stable now, and NO it was NOT about OIL. There is plenty of oil on the market, in fact OPEC is cutting back production to keep the price high which is good for the Iraqi people. The US is not importing the Iraqi oil either, most of our imported oil comes from Mexico and Venezula. If people [of all politic groups] would think for themselves instead of letting the media think for them, they would be better off.
A December 18, 2002 Washington Times editorial reports that donors giving "small and medium amounts" in 2002 overwhelmingly supported the GOP, while "rich or deep-pocketed givers" hugely backed the Democrats! Those giving $200 to $999: GOP $68 million; Democrats $44 million. Those giving $1,000 to $9,999: GOP $317 million; Democrats $307 million. The "fabulously wealthy" donors of $10,000+ gave $111 million to the GOP - a whopping $29 million less than the $140 million they lavished on the Democrats! Among those who gave $100,000+, the Democrats raised $72 million - more than double the $34 million the GOP took. The fact is that in the 2002 election cycle, those who gave a million dollars or more poured $36 million into the Democrat coffers, and a paltry $3 million into the pockets of the GOP. Again: millionaire donations went Democrat by a 12:1 margin! The two parties took in about the same amount overall - GOP: $384 million; Democrats: $350 million. Just look at the Hollywood left, and you see where the big money goes. In addition, the GOP attracted 40% more individual donors! (George W. Bush set an all-time fund-raising record by collecting the most money from one-thousand-dollar donors in the history of presidential politics.) Far more people giving small amounts exist as contributors to the Republican Party - while Democrats skunked the GOP among the super-rich. That's no surprise, since nine of the twelve richest members of the United States Senate are Democrats.
Actually the Democrats have more money from large organizations such as unions and PACs than any other party. Truth be known the Republicans have more small donations. The really out there parties such as Greens and Libertarians are close to 100% small donors. I don't see the Internet INFLUENCING voters much at all. Sure they have another medium to get information, but web presentations have technology issues. If you don't have broadband then streaming video is difficult, and why get if off the 'Net when you can see it on CNN or Fox 17 times a day? TV and Radio are by far the more influencial medium with the majority of the population. The Internet is popular with younger age groups, but not older people. Income levels affect Internet usage. I wonder how active in the local/regional/national level those who are recruited or who donated thru the Internet are versus those who were recruited in person. The Internet offers a fair degree of anonynimity just in case your candidate has views that are all of a sudden no longer popular, thus you can easily disavow your support. I think way too much is being made of this concept, and IIRC the AlGore campaign in 2000 also was big on using the Internet and that didn't work out [no BS about Republicans stealing the election..it's a fact of life now that GWB won..BushHaters win get a chance in 2004].
Some modern day sci-fi authors are at least as good as RAH (and even as radical). Greg Bear, David Brin, Larry Niven, C.J. Cheryh come to mind. Others who are not golden age but not modern, but were great writers would be Ursula LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, Fredick Pohl, and Robinson. As far as sci-fi goes it really all started with Jules Verne, then the golden age authors of the 30's-50's took it to another level.
Pure BS. Read the CAIB. They tested the foam for absorbing water and breaking off as ice, I didn't. They are not 100% sure of why the foam came off, the area it broke away from was laid up by hand not machine and has a complex geometry, both of which were contributing factors. A hairline crack would be an issue but not disaster, again read the CAIB, and earlier shuttle flight had many tiles knocked off and some small amount of damage but not on the RCC leading edge. There is still considerable debate as to how much "punishment" the RCC can take. The foam and RCC are both issues that must be solved before RTF. The CAIB report is VERY detailed, and very complete and removes from the discussion issues such as "fozen foam", but also introduces other new risks such as the underspecification bolt catchers.
There is a system like this at the DFW Airport. You can use your EZ-Pass to pass thru for Free if you are picking someone up and stay 12-24 minutes. Longer than 24 is like 50 cents each 1/2 hour. But if you stay LESS than that they assume you are cutting across the airport as a shortcut from North Dallas to the Mid-Cities and charge you something like $5. I used to use the shortcut and made sure I was driving exactly the airport speed limit which means it took exactly 12.5 minutes to cross the airport so I got by free. It was an overall time saver even driving slower while in the airport.
Data Recorders are NOT On-Star units and they are NOT GPS units. They simply continuously take a snapshot of certain data every few seconds and if there is ever a crash they write it to storage so it can be accessed. The same concept is used on the Flight Data Recorders on airliners. No one ever said black boxes were not on cars, they are. The investigators (Cops, Insurance) can see what was going on but not WHERE you doing it. Sheesh, I thought /. readers could discriminate various technologies from each other....
Funny! Except...possession of any amount of non-prescribed prescription drugs in the USA is a crime (Yes, I know it's silly if they are for your use only). I would not be surprised to see a lot of USA folks close to the border all of a sudden having Canadian doctors who they can pay in US dollars and then buy the drugs cheaper in Canada with a dollar that is worth more. What a deal for the patient! Canada's economy should boom! You'll have almost as many rich doctors as the US does ;) And the Mexican "coyotes" who now run the wetbacks in from Mexico can branch out with a Northern Operation smuggling patients into and out of Canada. The USA, Mexico and Canada all win!! Isn't this whole NAFTA thing great!! ;)
Probably not, things tend to burn up on re-entry at high velocities even heavy stuff. The Russians have re-entered several nuclear powered satellies without a problem. I'm sure this risk is well managed. NASA JPL is good! An electric ion drive would work as well but it takes a while to build thrust. In fact the nuke may actually just create the energy needed to heat up the gas needed to run the ion drive.
With the speedy and powerful new computers he has already computed the forecast so now has time to post to /.
Of course they should notify management first, I said using it with the KNOWLEDGE of management. I have seen situations where management thinks it is OK to use unlicensed software (I'm not talking about freeware or shareware) since it saves money.
Yes, but I'm quoting from the US Supreme Court decision! Seems THEY can't quite nail down the issue either, kind of like what "porn" is. They know it when they see it (and I wouldn't doubt some of them see a lot of it!!).
The parent post about illegal software may be satire, but all satire has a point. This stuff happens, employees often do run unlicensed software with the KNOWLEDGE of the employer. That situation will be prosecuted by the copyright owners. Microsoft and others large software mfgs have been known to come in and pull inspections based on "tips", and often with the help of local law agencies. Several firms have been fined large amounts. So if an employee wants the firm they work for to not get hammered with a fine (which could be the difference between staying solvent and going under)then they should report unlicensed software. At firms that have a strong corporate Code of Ethics/Code of Conduct you may be the one in trouble if you know it and don't say something. So, it can be your ass either way if you let it slide. I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA starts looking at companies too, if the employees are downloading or sharing and the firm does not block it they become a nice target. Doing "illegal" things on your Home PC is one thing but letting it go on at a firm is quite another more serious situation.
It's a well know standard of US Law that free speech is NOT 100% Free. You can't yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, you can't publish materials that might reasonably defame or slander someone, you can't publish an "unlawful threat," which the Supreme Court has ruled is "explicit language likely to cause imminent lawless action,". This standard has been tested many times and has always been upheld. Free speech has limits in THIS country, in other places it's worse!.
As far as I can tell Director Buckles wasn't a)director when the Waco fiasco took place b) was not the looney on-site who directed the attack. Atty Gen Janet Reno authorized the attack, not the head of the ATF c) I don't think it will get as bad as Japan where they actually arrested two people today for violating copyright. d) How much worse can RIAA get? They can't break down your doors like the ATF can. And I don't see the ATF enforcing the RIAA position, nor do I see RIAA "goon squads". IMNSHO, Buckles was hired for his ability to lead an organization and as well as his knowledge of the politics in Washington and his contacts in the DOJ. Hell, who knows he actually may be a reasonable man. He is retiring from DOJ and I guess he needed a job!
How did we go from 8051s to 68030s? That is one huge jump. IIRC, 030's were in the Apples but never made it into being much more than that. The orginal idea of this thread was something to compete on the desktop with the Intel/AMD douopoly. Modern CPUs have as many as 55 million transistors (Pentium 4). PowerPC processors are a bit more efficient on gates than their x86 counterparts. Older G3 chips only had 6.35 million gates. Current G3s have 29 million gates (most of which are used for on die cache) and the current G4 processor (PPC7455) has approximately 33 million gates. The older G4 (7400/7410) had 10.5 million gates. I don't dispute you need LESS CPU to run Linux vs Windoze [can you still buy '030s?], I was talking about the issues of being able to design/build a GPP of contemporary complexity. As someone else has stated you can get a good 16 bit uC onto an ASIC these days, and that uC can do a lot.
I know the diff between an FPGA and an ASIC. You are talking apples and oranges here, an ASIC is a powerful tool for certain things, but it is NOT a GPP to challenge the Intel/AMD on the desktop which is the whole point of the idea. Since when does a AMD Athlon, PowerPC, SPARC, or P6 have less power than an 8 bit micro-controller? While LINUX certainly does not NEED that kind of power to work, it can take advantage of the features like cache controllers, memory management, etc. A micro-kernal which does not implement the whole kernel would work, there are several avaiable but I don't know the limits of these micro-kernels. I'm done 8051 work in C and PL/M and I know it is a good chip (been around a LONG time too), but last I recall it only addressed 64K of RAM which is not much these days. What you are talking about is (OpenRISC) was making a RISC CPU core wby using cell logic in an FPGA, then moving to silicon. I have no doubt that can be done, its all just NAND/AND/NOR/OR gates at the lowest logic level. IIRC, the OpenRISC project has acheived a 160Mhz uC in silicon. It's good to see they have gone from FPGA to silicon but do they have any Sales? My point is that it takes a lot of time & expertise to design a real high powered CPU chip and thus a lot of money. I'm not sure even a set of amateurs could do it with the quality needed to get a product that challenges the status quo of Intel/AMD on the desktop. OpenRISC is a big step in the right direction but there is a long way to go from a middle of the road embedded chip to challenge the big boys.
It's one hell of a LONG way from making an 300K gate FPGA work at 150Mhz to making a 32/64 bit CPU at 2GHz! A modern CPU core may have as many as a few million gates. Add in on-chip cache and other things and that number gets higher. Now if you want to talk micro-controller then 300K gates might get you a decent 8/16 bit one like the old 8051s (which you can do a LOT with but I don't think it would run Linux). Your idea sounds like a good Sr. Project for a CSE class in Computer Architecture.
If my phone was out for days like my Cable and Cable Modem I'd be very pissed and would change providers. As I see it this gives the customer a choice to use one of several options for POTS. In the end what goes over the networks is IP data anyway. X.25 and circuit switches are about gone. How the telco/cable /reseller handles it may affect QOS but for POTS all you really need is a solid 8K bandwidth for the voice. Cable companies who have pulled fiber to the homes have loads of bandwidth to spare and the costs are subsidized by the fees we pay for our cable TV, so prices should be low! I see no reason why my local phone bill should be $35 plus L/D. The phone companies no longer have a monopoly but still want to charge monopoly prices, the entry of the cable companies might put an end to that! I'd still hate to have an AOL phone, even if all my bills came from one company such as Time Warner.
Hadn't heard the outcome there. I doubt he'll do any hard time, probably appeal too. I heard he used some sort of medical defense (fainting spells??). Having traveled in the West where off the main highway traffic signs are rarely obeyed I can see how the accident happened, but it doesn't make it OK. He should have looked.