There might be some uwave leakage around the edges if the rectennas were in industrial areas (couldn't we just fence them off like with electical substations?). I even think planes could fly thru the beams as they are shielded.
The big point is who knows how much leakage and IF it is even an issue. We can't throw out the concept based on an potential health issue. Let's build a small scale engineering model someplace that is less sensitive (Russia? China?) and lets see if anyone suffers from microwave leakage. If they do then we have to come up with a solution.
No one is going to live within the beam! So it won't matter about leakage, just erect the rectennas in the middle of the desert or somewhere else there are very few inhabitants (a LOT of the Western USA), put the power into the electric grid and anyone can use it. In fact you could put them in some of the huge areas reserved for military test and since no one is allowed in or to fly over that area it would not inconvenience anyone. The beam intensity is not a big deal, I wonder if this is really cost effective compared with a few sq. miles of solar cells in a desert. The cost to put something into LEO is currently $1500/kg and up. I see this having to be Gov't subsidized like the WPA projects in the 1930's the built all the dams on the Colorado for hydro power. I'm not sure it would be very cost effective after the Gov't got things up and running, but I'm not sure who in the private sector would want to risk a few billions on this, perhaps Bill Gates?
Under your system the process of making something that itself is patented would not be protected, or any industrial process in general. The idea of a patent is to cover all the knowledge, not just the end results. Try selling "no process patents" idea to the chemical and drug companies, who get patents all the time on how to make novel drugs or chemicals that fill a demand in the market. Patents on things that are common knowledge or basic industry principles shouldn't be allowed. I agree that algorithms (mathematical or logic) should not be patentable, which leads to software not being patentable because they can be deduced by anyone with the right education. They may be novel and new but not patentable. What if someone had patented the Fast Fourier Transform, every cell phone in the world would be a source of revenue! Software is protected by copyright, and it can also be protected as a "trade secret" whether copyrighted or patented. I see no need for software patents, thats going too far. Plus it opens the door for a lot of litigation on "your software infringes on my patented software". Hmmm..come to think of it maybe IP lawyers are behind all the push for software patents, it gives them several lifetimes of work.
What do you want to bet the GOOD songs are not 99 cents? Just like they buy X get 3 Free CD/DVD ads,in the tiny tiny tiny print is the catch which says "selection is limited"!
Yep, the brute force attack works well quite often. Just hope the owner isn't around and isn't armed! Maybe we should have someone ride "shotgun" on HAZMAT like they had in the West with the stagecoach carrying the gold..Heck why not a modern day "War Wagon"?
Actually they have the Florida Supreme Court to blame (if anyone..Bush won..get over it). All the US Supreme Court did was uphold the claim that the Florida Supreme Court violated Florida Election Laws which could only be changed by the Legislature. The USSC DID NOT decide who would be President!!
There is no such thing as perfect security based on the "creativity" of those who wish to do harm. All we can so is try to minimize the risk without making it economically unrealistic or having no utility. I suppose we could lock the driver into the truck, make it a totally sealed system, and arm it to the teeth. Then we have a tank not a truck. I'm all for security but it has to be a balance. We can't hide under rocks and change the way we do everything to have perfect security, then the terrorists have won!
Yes, no system is 100% secure. But there are ways to increase the security even more, but of course that adds to the cost. I bet it never occured to GM that OnStar might be hacked. I wonder if there are any insurance companies out there going...Hmm...a new way to increase your premiums!
No, the earth's atmosphere would protect us, high latitudes would experience disruptions in the radio frequncies (radio, VHF Nav Aids), maybe some blown out power lines and bad cell connections. The most populated areas of the earth would be safe. We might lose DISH network though, and of course that would be a shame;)
GPS takes a VERY small antenna, about 5=6" long which could be hidden anywhere in the truck. The "Black box" would be about the size of a deck of cards and would look just like any other control box on the car truck. Go look at how small GPS units for Hunters are these days. The screen is the largest component. GPS signals can be encrypted, and are for military use. YOu do lose the connection in tunnels, but thats just for a few seconds. This is NOT such a bad thing for HazMat trucks, esp. Nuke waste. I don't want it on my car for instance, but if you have the GM OnStar system you already have it! They can start/stop/unlock your GM car via sattelite. Never heard of it being hacked. To hack it you would have to be INSIDE the control center as (I hope) they don't allow the systems on the Internet, the beam things up directly from a sat. dish on sire. So, this is NOT new, just an application of existing technology and is NOT readly hackable. I sure get tired of all the "sky is falling" wacky posts on/. from the teenagers.
The author was interviewed by the CAIB. He stated a lot of the information presented that lead the NASA managers to the "we can't do anything" approach was poorly designed and did NOT get information across, or was slanted. He pointed out several PowerPoint slides that had 10-12 errors on them that led to incorrect interpretations by the audience. This is a GREAT book, and should be on every engineer's shelf if they present data to an audience (including peers). MBA's study some of this in their classes, but (most) Engineers and Scientists and Doctors don't. It's a shame when you have great information that is hidden by poor presentation.
Model most of the "user nodes" on the Internet in software on a Beowolf Cluster or zSeries mainframe. Buy a couple 100 server boxes, put them here and there in places on campus, network them with fiber, add routers and you got most of what you need. $5M seems a bit high but remember there has to be a nice profit for the University (at least $1M), and lots of grad students to pay a stiped and tuition for, plus equipment costs. Content is free, they can host a few Blogs, some p0rn, and some chat rooms to get traffic moving.
This is just like hacking the filters on your Cable TV box that keeps out the dirty movies unless you pay for them;) For many years tampering with broadcast reception equipment has been illegal. Even TVs have an FCC license. The airwaves belong to the FCC, not YOU, they just let you borrow them for entertainment and information purposes. I'm sure some enterprising person will figure out a way around this problem, then they'll legislate against the fix. Face it, NOTHING is FREE, all content will be owned by someone who wants to make a buck off of it. You will never see the same "free" with TV/movies you see with software "TANSTAAFL".
Rutan has a pool of private investors, but he has put a lot of his own money in to it as well. I have not heard a cost estimate but its not cheap even though there are not a lot of folks on the payroll. There are some very good retired aero engineers from industry who help out for very little or nothing. Rutan has a track record of success which is why he gets enough funding to actually make progress towards the prize.
Modded as funny, but I wouldn't doubt it. SUSE and Novell didn't hurt SCO's stock, it is up $1.41 right now. I guess that is based on the #4 ranking in this (FUD) report http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031103/lam090_1.html
I didn't realize SCO has a staff of 8,000 developers! I wonder if those are counted in the 11,000 installs they claim?
Well, have worked with DARPA I know they are actually LOOKING for things that push the edge of the envelope. So, the same ol, same ol isn't going to get funded. Taking the same ol, same ol and putting lipstick on it and a twist might work if you got a track record of success. I've played the research funding game and your track record counts a LOT because it lowers the overal risk of the project. If you have wild crazy idea that looks like it might just work and you have pulled it off in the past, you can take that to the bank.
They are cutting over 100 to the top 20ish by visiting each competitor and assessing their designs. Sounds fair to me. How how much it does versus how much it can do should be considered after the competition. If they can't winnow it down to 20ish (that would be GOOD news!!), then run 20 per day until done and then invite the best N back for Round 2 at a future data. Of course there is not an unlimited budget for this so some cuts have to be made.
Calls they *think* were from AT&T? Was someone misusing AT&T's "good name"? We all know it was just an AT&T subcontractor (call center in India;)) who broke the rules. Please don't fine us FCC we'll make sure it never happens again;)
I'm not certain but I think that goods produced within the EU and sold to other EU nations are not consider in these import/export figures. The EU counts things in some interesting ways. The two largest trade partners of the US are Mexico and Canada. I think US consumers are more price sensitive preferring the cheaper import to the US made product. Europeans consumers support their own manufacturers well, in part because import bans and quotas protect the locals. Also, the US has a much larger population and a more consumerist life style, all of which contribute to the trade imbalance. I'm not saying a trade imbalance is a bad thing, just that there is more to it than just numbers.
An Armed Society is a Polite Society!
The big issue even if you wanted to send a spammer to his/her reward is most of them are outside the US. Try to extradite a spammer from Eastern Europe/China/Malaysia and they will laugh at you, give the spammer protection and you have just wasted a lot of time/money. There has to be a crackdown on these spam houses by Governments as if they were crack houses. Hmm...I wonder which one makes more money, Spam or crack..Spam is for sure less risky. I haven't heard of anyone killed over a bad spam deal.
As many as it takes to meet Wall Street's earning expectations. Sam is know as a "slash and burn" guy. One way or another he'll make the numbers. I was one of those slashed and burned right after Lou retired. Lou had a plan for the future that involved spending money to hire/train people. Sam sees them as individual cost centers he can remove at will to make numbers.
I read something else recently that indicates the hiring in the IT biz is mostly going to be in India. But I also hear that India is now scared of losing jobs to Malaysia, China and Eastern Europeans. The increase here (USA) is going to be slow, and I suspect that wages will remain low as well, so much for my new Porsche;)
Thanks David, I will write you from my work address tomorrow (Monday). I'm interested in the details. It might be applicable to some things we are doing, or maybe would help with some of the processing we do on data at the Agency I work for, instead of scientists for each misson getting their own groundsystems maybe there can be a certain amount of sharing. I figured the available cyles would be "peaky" but of course in the long run it tends to the average. And yes, security is ALWAYS an issue, even more so at a University (and a top notch school like Purdue may be worse!) However, since the work is so distributed, I wonder if anyone can get the big picture?
Just a curious economics question (my MBA is acting up). Is there any market for those cycles outside the University? If so, would it not have made more sense financially to sell the extra cycles to company X and use the extra cash to buy a full time computer(s) for the research that needs extra cycles? I'm sure United Devices didn't work for free so someone is paying for that (research funds?). How much time do your researchers have to spend getting the software apps to work in a distributed ("grid") mode, which takes away time/money from basic research. As someone who teams with a certain large University to do Gov't software research we often see money in the University budget for special hardware or software. We don't always approve it, but if it is well justified it goes thru. If at all possible I want my researchers to have what they need, not be sharing unpredictable spare cycles. Of course some is better than none, and I don't know how you allocate your costs of the spare cycles to research. It may be that having their own systems is cheaper in the long run. I'm assuming someone did the Math on that and also did a prototype of the grid model to see if it works for the researchers at Purdue. Any info you can give as to the cost/benefits and how it works out would be appreciated, as if it works there I may ask some of my researchers to use it!
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There might be some uwave leakage around the edges if the rectennas were in industrial areas (couldn't we just fence them off like with electical substations?). I even think planes could fly thru the beams as they are shielded. The big point is who knows how much leakage and IF it is even an issue. We can't throw out the concept based on an potential health issue. Let's build a small scale engineering model someplace that is less sensitive (Russia? China?) and lets see if anyone suffers from microwave leakage. If they do then we have to come up with a solution.
No one is going to live within the beam! So it won't matter about leakage, just erect the rectennas in the middle of the desert or somewhere else there are very few inhabitants (a LOT of the Western USA), put the power into the electric grid and anyone can use it. In fact you could put them in some of the huge areas reserved for military test and since no one is allowed in or to fly over that area it would not inconvenience anyone. The beam intensity is not a big deal, I wonder if this is really cost effective compared with a few sq. miles of solar cells in a desert. The cost to put something into LEO is currently $1500/kg and up. I see this having to be Gov't subsidized like the WPA projects in the 1930's the built all the dams on the Colorado for hydro power. I'm not sure it would be very cost effective after the Gov't got things up and running, but I'm not sure who in the private sector would want to risk a few billions on this, perhaps Bill Gates?
Under your system the process of making something that itself is patented would not be protected, or any industrial process in general. The idea of a patent is to cover all the knowledge, not just the end results. Try selling "no process patents" idea to the chemical and drug companies, who get patents all the time on how to make novel drugs or chemicals that fill a demand in the market. Patents on things that are common knowledge or basic industry principles shouldn't be allowed. I agree that algorithms (mathematical or logic) should not be patentable, which leads to software not being patentable because they can be deduced by anyone with the right education. They may be novel and new but not patentable. What if someone had patented the Fast Fourier Transform, every cell phone in the world would be a source of revenue! Software is protected by copyright, and it can also be protected as a "trade secret" whether copyrighted or patented. I see no need for software patents, thats going too far. Plus it opens the door for a lot of litigation on "your software infringes on my patented software". Hmmm..come to think of it maybe IP lawyers are behind all the push for software patents, it gives them several lifetimes of work.
Who else? Our favorite legal system abuser... SCO!!!
We already do! Bender from Futurama! :)
What do you want to bet the GOOD songs are not 99 cents? Just like they buy X get 3 Free CD/DVD ads,in the tiny tiny tiny print is the catch which says "selection is limited"!
Yep, the brute force attack works well quite often. Just hope the owner isn't around and isn't armed! Maybe we should have someone ride "shotgun" on HAZMAT like they had in the West with the stagecoach carrying the gold..Heck why not a modern day "War Wagon"?
Actually they have the Florida Supreme Court to blame (if anyone..Bush won..get over it). All the US Supreme Court did was uphold the claim that the Florida Supreme Court violated Florida Election Laws which could only be changed by the Legislature. The USSC DID NOT decide who would be President!!
There is no such thing as perfect security based on the "creativity" of those who wish to do harm. All we can so is try to minimize the risk without making it economically unrealistic or having no utility. I suppose we could lock the driver into the truck, make it a totally sealed system, and arm it to the teeth. Then we have a tank not a truck. I'm all for security but it has to be a balance. We can't hide under rocks and change the way we do everything to have perfect security, then the terrorists have won!
Yes, no system is 100% secure. But there are ways to increase the security even more, but of course that adds to the cost. I bet it never occured to GM that OnStar might be hacked. I wonder if there are any insurance companies out there going...Hmm...a new way to increase your premiums!
No, the earth's atmosphere would protect us, high latitudes would experience disruptions in the radio frequncies (radio, VHF Nav Aids), maybe some blown out power lines and bad cell connections. The most populated areas of the earth would be safe. We might lose DISH network though, and of course that would be a shame ;)
GPS takes a VERY small antenna, about 5=6" long which could be hidden anywhere in the truck. The "Black box" would be about the size of a deck of cards and would look just like any other control box on the car truck. Go look at how small GPS units for Hunters are these days. The screen is the largest component. GPS signals can be encrypted, and are for military use. YOu do lose the connection in tunnels, but thats just for a few seconds. This is NOT such a bad thing for HazMat trucks, esp. Nuke waste. I don't want it on my car for instance, but if you have the GM OnStar system you already have it! They can start/stop/unlock your GM car via sattelite. Never heard of it being hacked. To hack it you would have to be INSIDE the control center as (I hope) they don't allow the systems on the Internet, the beam things up directly from a sat. dish on sire. So, this is NOT new, just an application of existing technology and is NOT readly hackable. I sure get tired of all the "sky is falling" wacky posts on /. from the teenagers.
The author was interviewed by the CAIB. He stated a lot of the information presented that lead the NASA managers to the "we can't do anything" approach was poorly designed and did NOT get information across, or was slanted. He pointed out several PowerPoint slides that had 10-12 errors on them that led to incorrect interpretations by the audience. This is a GREAT book, and should be on every engineer's shelf if they present data to an audience (including peers). MBA's study some of this in their classes, but (most) Engineers and Scientists and Doctors don't. It's a shame when you have great information that is hidden by poor presentation.
Model most of the "user nodes" on the Internet in software on a Beowolf Cluster or zSeries mainframe. Buy a couple 100 server boxes, put them here and there in places on campus, network them with fiber, add routers and you got most of what you need. $5M seems a bit high but remember there has to be a nice profit for the University (at least $1M), and lots of grad students to pay a stiped and tuition for, plus equipment costs. Content is free, they can host a few Blogs, some p0rn, and some chat rooms to get traffic moving.
This is just like hacking the filters on your Cable TV box that keeps out the dirty movies unless you pay for them ;) For many years tampering with broadcast reception equipment has been illegal. Even TVs have an FCC license. The airwaves belong to the FCC, not YOU, they just let you borrow them for entertainment and information purposes. I'm sure some enterprising person will figure out a way around this problem, then they'll legislate against the fix. Face it, NOTHING is FREE, all content will be owned by someone who wants to make a buck off of it. You will never see the same "free" with TV/movies you see with software "TANSTAAFL".
Rutan has a pool of private investors, but he has put a lot of his own money in to it as well. I have not heard a cost estimate but its not cheap even though there are not a lot of folks on the payroll. There are some very good retired aero engineers from industry who help out for very little or nothing. Rutan has a track record of success which is why he gets enough funding to actually make progress towards the prize.
Modded as funny, but I wouldn't doubt it. SUSE and Novell didn't hurt SCO's stock, it is up $1.41 right now. I guess that is based on the #4 ranking in this (FUD) report http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031103/lam090_1.html I didn't realize SCO has a staff of 8,000 developers! I wonder if those are counted in the 11,000 installs they claim?
Well, have worked with DARPA I know they are actually LOOKING for things that push the edge of the envelope. So, the same ol, same ol isn't going to get funded. Taking the same ol, same ol and putting lipstick on it and a twist might work if you got a track record of success. I've played the research funding game and your track record counts a LOT because it lowers the overal risk of the project. If you have wild crazy idea that looks like it might just work and you have pulled it off in the past, you can take that to the bank.
They are cutting over 100 to the top 20ish by visiting each competitor and assessing their designs. Sounds fair to me. How how much it does versus how much it can do should be considered after the competition. If they can't winnow it down to 20ish (that would be GOOD news!!), then run 20 per day until done and then invite the best N back for Round 2 at a future data. Of course there is not an unlimited budget for this so some cuts have to be made.
Calls they *think* were from AT&T? Was someone misusing AT&T's "good name"? We all know it was just an AT&T subcontractor (call center in India ;)) who broke the rules. Please don't fine us FCC we'll make sure it never happens again ;)
I'm not certain but I think that goods produced within the EU and sold to other EU nations are not consider in these import/export figures. The EU counts things in some interesting ways. The two largest trade partners of the US are Mexico and Canada. I think US consumers are more price sensitive preferring the cheaper import to the US made product. Europeans consumers support their own manufacturers well, in part because import bans and quotas protect the locals. Also, the US has a much larger population and a more consumerist life style, all of which contribute to the trade imbalance. I'm not saying a trade imbalance is a bad thing, just that there is more to it than just numbers.
An Armed Society is a Polite Society! The big issue even if you wanted to send a spammer to his/her reward is most of them are outside the US. Try to extradite a spammer from Eastern Europe/China/Malaysia and they will laugh at you, give the spammer protection and you have just wasted a lot of time/money. There has to be a crackdown on these spam houses by Governments as if they were crack houses. Hmm...I wonder which one makes more money, Spam or crack..Spam is for sure less risky. I haven't heard of anyone killed over a bad spam deal.
As many as it takes to meet Wall Street's earning expectations. Sam is know as a "slash and burn" guy. One way or another he'll make the numbers. I was one of those slashed and burned right after Lou retired. Lou had a plan for the future that involved spending money to hire/train people. Sam sees them as individual cost centers he can remove at will to make numbers. I read something else recently that indicates the hiring in the IT biz is mostly going to be in India. But I also hear that India is now scared of losing jobs to Malaysia, China and Eastern Europeans. The increase here (USA) is going to be slow, and I suspect that wages will remain low as well, so much for my new Porsche ;)
Thanks David, I will write you from my work address tomorrow (Monday). I'm interested in the details. It might be applicable to some things we are doing, or maybe would help with some of the processing we do on data at the Agency I work for, instead of scientists for each misson getting their own groundsystems maybe there can be a certain amount of sharing. I figured the available cyles would be "peaky" but of course in the long run it tends to the average. And yes, security is ALWAYS an issue, even more so at a University (and a top notch school like Purdue may be worse!) However, since the work is so distributed, I wonder if anyone can get the big picture?
Just a curious economics question (my MBA is acting up). Is there any market for those cycles outside the University? If so, would it not have made more sense financially to sell the extra cycles to company X and use the extra cash to buy a full time computer(s) for the research that needs extra cycles? I'm sure United Devices didn't work for free so someone is paying for that (research funds?). How much time do your researchers have to spend getting the software apps to work in a distributed ("grid") mode, which takes away time/money from basic research. As someone who teams with a certain large University to do Gov't software research we often see money in the University budget for special hardware or software. We don't always approve it, but if it is well justified it goes thru. If at all possible I want my researchers to have what they need, not be sharing unpredictable spare cycles. Of course some is better than none, and I don't know how you allocate your costs of the spare cycles to research. It may be that having their own systems is cheaper in the long run. I'm assuming someone did the Math on that and also did a prototype of the grid model to see if it works for the researchers at Purdue. Any info you can give as to the cost/benefits and how it works out would be appreciated, as if it works there I may ask some of my researchers to use it!