In 2015 the European Space Agency is planning to launch Darwin. 4 spacecraft. 3 light collectors (based on the Herschel design) and one hub where the light is collected.
If it works out (the telescopes and the hub must stay in formation with millimetre precision), we'll have a space telescope with an effective mirror size of several hundred meters.
The objective is the study of extrasolar planets, and the telescope will record in IR for purposes of recording signs of life.
Multiple mirror telescopes in space are probably the only way we will get to the point where we'll have close up pictures of extrasolar planets the size of earth. And we're getting there.
I really do wonder if it's within the scope of today's technology to take one of these asteroids and guide it into earth orbit. For instance using small nuclear devices to prod it carefully to where it should be.
Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit.
Yes, there's a plugin for Firefox.
There's also Moonlight, the Open Source Silverlight implementation working with M$ support.
No, I don't like Microsoft either, but after working a little with Flash, and seeing their license fees for doing anything interesting with it, I heartily welcome the competition. (Something like 98% of Web users have Flash installed... According to Adobe).
Although I've haven't had *nix installed on any of my home computers yet, I'm very happy indeed that Windows XP looks to be the last MS OS I will ever use. Changing to Linux is now something I'm thinking about on at least a weekly basis, and the upcoming version Ubuntu seems very likely to make me leave Windows. (Except for a small gaming partition).
The file isn't deleted until you press the "OK" button, so when you see that awful message you still have time to open explorer and copy/move the file. I'll leave the subject of how unbelievably retarded the whole thing is to others.
Personally, I'm just glad I did most of my (major) online screwups back in '95, on MUDs.
The sad thing about our lovely new commercialised net is that as long as it could be valuable to keep, it will be kept (drive space is cheap).
Add to this the various governmental ideas that as long as it could potentially at some time be construed as possibly being scary or linked to terrorist activity, ISPs should be forced to keep it... Well. I had my reasons to screw up, I'm sure plenty of the current generation have got their good reasons to screw up, but they likely won't be getting away from it as easily as I did.
On another note, Google has ordered all Open Source programmers in their employ to issue weekly "patches" that include disabling grep from all linux/BSD distros.
"Grep is an evil command, and as a company that will do no evil, we must have evil commands removed." said a Google spokesman, before returning to his weekend pasttime of clubbing baby seals.
It's interesting, really. Both the US and the EU patent offices are more than happy to give out patents that are *way* overbroad.
Presumably, this is a part of the transition to an "IP economy", and they've been instructed to keep lower standards as to make sure most of the IP cake has been divided before the international competition becomes too rough.
And then they use heavy-handed tactics to force other countries to submit, misusing the Berne convention and the WTO, forcing the world to implement patent and copyright law that doesn't reflect the original intentions behind patents and copyright at all.
Patents and copyright as they have become does no longer serve the interests of society, nor even the long-term interests of the companies that gain them. It's been said before, but I can't seem to find the original quote, that the emergence of the Internet wouldn't have been possible if patents had been used then as it is today. What other emerging markets are we closing down with these overbroad patents? What does this madness really cost us? There's no way we can know.
Of course, the harder they tighten their grip, the more nations will start slipping through their fingers:-) I wonder when the first real copyright/patent/data havens show up. Imagine the advantages companies located within such a nation would get. Of course, they would be unlikely to be allowed to sell their wares on the open market, but the citizens within this country could possibly rise to a much higher standard of living, and of course smuggling would be extremely lucrative...
Yeah. Summary of the article: A test group using a special "privacy finder" search engine to shop for sex toys and batteries will pay extra for privacy.
This clearly leads to the conclusion that all online shoppers care deeply about privacy and will happily pay web shops with good privacy policies much more for the same products.
Anyone got some statistics from a web shop with a privacy policy? I'd sure like to see how many % of visitors and buyers actually read this policy.
This should give some indication as to how many think or care about privacy when shopping. My guess would be that this is a depressingly low number, but I'd really like to see some statistics if anyone can supply them.
Unfortunately, the political will to make real changes seem to be lacking, not only in the US.
Ultimately, everyone's in favor of doing something to help our environment, but there's nearly always something they care more about, and very few people vote on the basis of a politician's stand on the environment.
And, perhaps more importantly. With democracy the way it is, politicians profit (get reelected) by looking no more than 4 years into the future. Any good they do which doesn't show significant results before the next election simply doesn't matter to the professional politician. Politics is a job, and securing your job is one of the greatest motivations for most people.
Making the drastic changes required to slow global warming significantly has a very high political cost - more unemployment as polluting businesses go out of business, and a great deal of money taken from other posts that will be obvious much earlier, and influence the next election a great deal.
We're all environmentalists, but when the interest rates start increasing, when your house falls in value, and you're in danger of losing your job... You don't vote for environmentalism, you vote for your own short term best interests.
And I fear that by the time the global climate becomes the immidiate problem for a majority of the population, it will be far too late to do anything effective to change it.
Short answer: No. Norway hasn't accepted immigrants since early in the 70ies.
However, there is a quota of 5000 specialists per year. I'd guess most of the Slashdot readership would fall under this category, and the Norwegian IT market is in desperate need of more people (the hiring bonuses for IT people are getting ridiculous). This quota has to date never been filled. Apx. 1000 people come to Norway per year under it.
Google is among the companies looking for more employees in their norwegian department, and Trondheim is a rather nice city:-)
Norway has been ranked as the world's best place to live by the UN's Human Development report for the last 6 years running. Pretty much every Norwegian you'll ever meet will speak English, as it's taught in school from the 4th to 11th grade and most of our TV shows are imported from the US and UK.
If you start working in Norway, you'll have at least 5 weeks paid vacation/year - it's the law. This is in addition to the 12 official holidays. If you get ill, you have 100% coverage (full pay) from day 1 until day 365 of your illness, after that other rules apply and you may have to tighten your belt a little.
Other than that? Well. Our natural scenery will take your breath away, our taxes and prices will drive you a little bit crazy, and our beautiful girls will make sure you never want to leave again:-)
Want to work here? Send me your CV and I'll see what I can do.
Are there any good systems out there for P2P radio? If not, anybody want to set up a project?
I mean, is there any way whatsoever we can let them get away with this? A small, sleek P2P app that can be run off a CD or even a floppy that gives a nice selection of anonymously created radio stations paying no royalties whatsoever would be a proper response to their vain attempts to shut down internet radio.
To a large majority of the market, IPV6 support is not a required feature. Thus, any hardware manufacturer that does not include IPV6 support now can count on repeat business when it becomes a highly wanted/required feature.
Something like 95% of the income of copyrighted works happen in the first two years, as far as I can remember. (A quick google search doesn't give me a good source for this, I'd be very grateful if someone could reply with a source).
Anyhow. Copyright is supposed to be for the benefit of society, and honestly, when the creator has gotten 95% of the income the work will generate, wouldn't it be good it society could benefit?
Copyright lasted for a long time in the beginning, probably mainly due to the fact that it took a long while to propagate the materials to the intended audience. Today we have the internet. If it's good, it's available.
Copyright should be 2 years. And fair use should be expanded.
The copyright battle is as much a generational battle as it is anything else, the "old" are sitting on massive amounts of copyrights, most of them corporations. They bought out the copyrights very cheaply from the actual creator at an early stage.
So of course the elected officials are getting in line, most of them are "old" too, and the copyright holders are paying their pensions. The young people of today are the ones infringing.
Boicotts generally don't work, since too few people join them. But we do have one weapon. Piracy.
It's time we made up our minds that sharing is civil disobedience. We're fighting copyright holders with a goal to have copyright reduced to two years and fair use expanded. Piracy is a weapon the copyright holders actually fear.
Don't be a leecher, you're not fighting the good fight. Share.
You have a right to obey causality. You have a right to obey gravity. You have a right to keep your velocity under the speed of light at all times. You have a right to conserve energy/mass.
That's what it must be like to be arrested by the Physics Police:p
Slashdot Mirror
In 2015 the European Space Agency is planning to launch Darwin. 4 spacecraft. 3 light collectors (based on the Herschel design) and one hub where the light is collected. If it works out (the telescopes and the hub must stay in formation with millimetre precision), we'll have a space telescope with an effective mirror size of several hundred meters.
The objective is the study of extrasolar planets, and the telescope will record in IR for purposes of recording signs of life.
Multiple mirror telescopes in space are probably the only way we will get to the point where we'll have close up pictures of extrasolar planets the size of earth.
And we're getting there.
I really do wonder if it's within the scope of today's technology to take one of these asteroids and guide it into earth orbit. For instance using small nuclear devices to prod it carefully to where it should be.
Because an easy source of raw materials in orbit would certainly make a lot of things a *lot* more interesting, considering the price of lifting such materials to orbit.
Yes, there's a plugin for Firefox.
There's also Moonlight, the Open Source Silverlight implementation working with M$ support.
No, I don't like Microsoft either, but after working a little with Flash, and seeing their license fees for doing anything interesting with it, I heartily welcome the competition. (Something like 98% of Web users have Flash installed... According to Adobe).
Ran out of mod points myself, but this post deserves some attention.
Although I've haven't had *nix installed on any of my home computers yet, I'm very happy indeed that Windows XP looks to be the last MS OS I will ever use.
Changing to Linux is now something I'm thinking about on at least a weekly basis, and the upcoming version Ubuntu seems very likely to make me leave Windows. (Except for a small gaming partition).
The file isn't deleted until you press the "OK" button, so when you see that awful message you still have time to open explorer and copy/move the file.
I'll leave the subject of how unbelievably retarded the whole thing is to others.
I'm in
Personally, I'm just glad I did most of my (major) online screwups back in '95, on MUDs.
The sad thing about our lovely new commercialised net is that as long as it could be valuable to keep, it will be kept (drive space is cheap).
Add to this the various governmental ideas that as long as it could potentially at some time be construed as possibly being scary or linked to terrorist activity, ISPs should be forced to keep it... Well. I had my reasons to screw up, I'm sure plenty of the current generation have got their good reasons to screw up, but they likely won't be getting away from it as easily as I did.
This looks like one of those times the Sony boycott will be easy to uphold :-)
On another note, Google has ordered all Open Source programmers in their employ to issue weekly "patches" that include disabling grep from all linux/BSD distros.
"Grep is an evil command, and as a company that will do no evil, we must have evil commands removed." said a Google spokesman, before returning to his weekend pasttime of clubbing baby seals.
Presumably, this is a part of the transition to an "IP economy", and they've been instructed to keep lower standards as to make sure most of the IP cake has been divided before the international competition becomes too rough.
And then they use heavy-handed tactics to force other countries to submit, misusing the Berne convention and the WTO, forcing the world to implement patent and copyright law that doesn't reflect the original intentions behind patents and copyright at all.
Patents and copyright as they have become does no longer serve the interests of society, nor even the long-term interests of the companies that gain them.
It's been said before, but I can't seem to find the original quote, that the emergence of the Internet wouldn't have been possible if patents had been used then as it is today. What other emerging markets are we closing down with these overbroad patents? What does this madness really cost us? There's no way we can know.
Of course, the harder they tighten their grip, the more nations will start slipping through their fingers
I wonder when the first real copyright/patent/data havens show up. Imagine the advantages companies located within such a nation would get. Of course, they would be unlikely to be allowed to sell their wares on the open market, but the citizens within this country could possibly rise to a much higher standard of living, and of course smuggling would be extremely lucrative...
Yeah. Summary of the article: A test group using a special "privacy finder" search engine to shop for sex toys and batteries will pay extra for privacy.
This clearly leads to the conclusion that all online shoppers care deeply about privacy and will happily pay web shops with good privacy policies much more for the same products.
Anyone got some statistics from a web shop with a privacy policy? I'd sure like to see how many % of visitors and buyers actually read this policy.
This should give some indication as to how many think or care about privacy when shopping. My guess would be that this is a depressingly low number, but I'd really like to see some statistics if anyone can supply them.
Unfortunately, the political will to make real changes seem to be lacking, not only in the US.
Ultimately, everyone's in favor of doing something to help our environment, but there's nearly always something they care more about, and very few people vote on the basis of a politician's stand on the environment.
And, perhaps more importantly. With democracy the way it is, politicians profit (get reelected) by looking no more than 4 years into the future. Any good they do which doesn't show significant results before the next election simply doesn't matter to the professional politician. Politics is a job, and securing your job is one of the greatest motivations for most people.
Making the drastic changes required to slow global warming significantly has a very high political cost - more unemployment as polluting businesses go out of business, and a great deal of money taken from other posts that will be obvious much earlier, and influence the next election a great deal.
We're all environmentalists, but when the interest rates start increasing, when your house falls in value, and you're in danger of losing your job... You don't vote for environmentalism, you vote for your own short term best interests.
And I fear that by the time the global climate becomes the immidiate problem for a majority of the population, it will be far too late to do anything effective to change it.
Oh, and CV = Curriculum Vitae = Résumé. I hear some of you USians don't know what CV means. :-)
Short answer: No.
:-)
:-)
Norway hasn't accepted immigrants since early in the 70ies.
However, there is a quota of 5000 specialists per year. I'd guess most of the Slashdot readership would fall under this category, and the Norwegian IT market is in desperate need of more people (the hiring bonuses for IT people are getting ridiculous). This quota has to date never been filled. Apx. 1000 people come to Norway per year under it.
Google is among the companies looking for more employees in their norwegian department, and Trondheim is a rather nice city
Norway has been ranked as the world's best place to live by the UN's Human Development report for the last 6 years running.
Pretty much every Norwegian you'll ever meet will speak English, as it's taught in school from the 4th to 11th grade and most of our TV shows are imported from the US and UK.
If you start working in Norway, you'll have at least 5 weeks paid vacation/year - it's the law. This is in addition to the 12 official holidays.
If you get ill, you have 100% coverage (full pay) from day 1 until day 365 of your illness, after that other rules apply and you may have to tighten your belt a little.
Other than that? Well. Our natural scenery will take your breath away, our taxes and prices will drive you a little bit crazy, and our beautiful girls will make sure you never want to leave again
Want to work here? Send me your CV and I'll see what I can do.
I can't say I envy the poor newborn kid whose Slashdot-reading father is just now getting inspired as to what the baby's name should be.
Are there any good systems out there for P2P radio? If not, anybody want to set up a project?
I mean, is there any way whatsoever we can let them get away with this? A small, sleek P2P app that can be run off a CD or even a floppy that gives a nice selection of anonymously created radio stations paying no royalties whatsoever would be a proper response to their vain attempts to shut down internet radio.
I'm actually not sure, I thought it was from time of release but you may be right.
If you are, let's make it 2yrs from release.
To a large majority of the market, IPV6 support is not a required feature.
Thus, any hardware manufacturer that does not include IPV6 support now can count on repeat business when it becomes a highly wanted/required feature.
Score: 3, Insightful.
The groupthink is having trouble deciding wether or not to agree it is groupthink.
Something like 95% of the income of copyrighted works happen in the first two years, as far as I can remember. (A quick google search doesn't give me a good source for this, I'd be very grateful if someone could reply with a source).
Anyhow. Copyright is supposed to be for the benefit of society, and honestly, when the creator has gotten 95% of the income the work will generate, wouldn't it be good it society could benefit?
Copyright lasted for a long time in the beginning, probably mainly due to the fact that it took a long while to propagate the materials to the intended audience. Today we have the internet. If it's good, it's available.
Copyright should be 2 years. And fair use should be expanded.
The copyright battle is as much a generational battle as it is anything else, the "old" are sitting on massive amounts of copyrights, most of them corporations. They bought out the copyrights very cheaply from the actual creator at an early stage.
So of course the elected officials are getting in line, most of them are "old" too, and the copyright holders are paying their pensions.
The young people of today are the ones infringing.
Boicotts generally don't work, since too few people join them. But we do have one weapon. Piracy.
It's time we made up our minds that sharing is civil disobedience.
We're fighting copyright holders with a goal to have copyright reduced to two years and fair use expanded. Piracy is a weapon the copyright holders actually fear.
Don't be a leecher, you're not fighting the good fight. Share.
His blog should shed some light on the issues you and others have been asking.
That's what it must be like to be arrested by the Physics Police
.su domains cost $100/yr. http://nic.ru/en/
I just realized... I spend more time reading about new, nonfunctional ways to block spam on Slashdot than I do actally handling any of it.