I always find it amazing how many of the top 10 downloads are sci fi shows - BG, the two Stargate's, Enterprise... generally such shows have a hard time getting ratings (and getting renewed), but this shows they are among the most popular. If only TV execs would see the potential market behind this genre and develop it further.
Or finally take advantage of online distribution and supply high-quality downloads themselves (of course containing commercials so they still have a revenue stream).
After flipping through the list, it seems like the vast majority of the products are from recent years (or at least the past few decades). While I can understand this - they are the gadgets that are now part of our everyday life and of course they are extremely useful... but where are the technologies/inventions from the past that helped us develop all the fancy electronic gadgets that we have today?
I would have thought the abacus (ranked on the list, but lost in the middle) would have been more important in the overall list than a Tivo... the transistor or vacuum tube before computers and digital cameras...
I've got a similar story from my bank - the Bank of Nova Scotia up here in Canada. This past year for the first time, I was able to pay my tuition by credit card (and therefore get a whole wack of Air Miles in the process). Unfortunatly, tuition would be more than my credit limit, so I decided I would pay half the tuition by credit card, use online banking to pay that off the same day, then pay the remainder with my now cleared credit card.
Since I had never done online banking before, I set everything up and tied my MasterCard in as one place where I could transfer funds directly from my bank account. After doing the transfers as described above, I recieved a call from the Bank the next day asking me if this was a transaction I had indeed authorized - apparently due to the many of thousands of dollars it involved, and the fact it was out of my ordinary pattern, the system had flagged it as suspicious and the Bank called to follow up.
My hat's off to them - makes me feel a bit better that my money is being protected.
The article says he tried stepping on the brakes, but that had no effect on the cruise control... that's usually enough to break the cruise and return acceleration control to the driver, but it sounds as though there was a problem with whatever the electronic link was between the brakes and the cruise. The article doesn't say so, but did he simply try turning OFF the cruise control manually to get the car back under his control?
I also seem to remember years and years ago reading (i think it was in readers digest) about a woman who had the same problem with her car - she had to 'drive' it until the car ran out of gas and then stopped on its own. No cruise control there, so problems can occur with or without all the new technology out there.
From reading the article, it seems like this will only work if the car stopped next to you at the light is blaring music from the radio... honestly now, they are not going to have the volume cranked for the *radio* - they'll be listening to CD's, so an ipod broadcast won't help you there.
Re:It's Gone Beyond Science Fiction into Mainstrea
on
Open Source Life?
·
· Score: 1
In the real world, the article mentions the Monsanto Case [shroomery.org] against Percy Schmeiser. Their seed ended up on his land through no fault of his, yet they claim they have a right to be paid license fees or to force him to spend his time and money removing corn derived from their migrating seed.
I'm sure that by now the article is so old no Mods will notice this, but I wanted to comment anyways. If you actually read the court decisions in the Schmeiser case, he isn't nearly as innocent as he makes himself out to be. One day while spraying Round-Up herbacide along a power poll right away (why this self-proclaimed 'organic farmer' was using herbacide is beyond me), he noticed that some of the canola plants did not die. He collected the seeds from these surviving plants, had them processed for planting, and planted them. So it's not like *suddenly* Round-up resistant canola *happened* to blow into his field - he planted what he NEW to be the Round-up Ready canola.
I glanced through the article quickly and I see that it doesn't mention what use the computer will be put to. For some reason, I doubt it will be used to model climate change... bets they want to use the cycles to crunch some nuclear weapons simulations?
After quickly reading through the article, I'm rather impressed with the experiment and how they propose to go about measuring the sun's bending. The one thing I'm not clear on is cost. How much would it cost to build and launch these two satellites (using existing technology thanfully) and outfit the ISS with the required equipment? With the exception of the Chinese and their quest for a man on the moon, there doesn't seem to be too much investment in space projects these days. As much as I'd like to see this get off the ground, I'm wondering if they can justify the cost to the bean counters higher up. I mean - to us science geeks the whole 'Knowledge' and 'science for the sake of science' thing is justification enough... I'm not sure there would be enough practical returns for the bureaucracy though.
The patch model for Internet security has failed spectacularly. To remedy this, there have been a number of suggestions for ways to try to shoehorn end users into becoming security experts, including making them financially liable for the consequences of their computers being hijacked by malware or miscreants.
While I agree that the success of most internet worms does indicate that the patching model is no good, come on now - there is no way that that end users would be financially liable for their computers. No matter how good an idea it might sound at first, such a concept just isn't workable.
I mean - there are a lot of things that I *think* about some of my coworkers, especially during meetings, but I always am able to catch myself right before I say anything. You'd *really* have to watch yourself plugged into that thing!
So are there any plans for Google to use a similar service in Canada? I'd love to try a search linked to my postal code, but it looks like it's only accepting Zip numbers...
Take a look at the money you're saving in not hosting a two-gigabyte file for tens of thousands to download and cut a percentage over to Bram Cohen, the creator of bit torrent...
Kudos to Blizzard for that statement. Bram really does deserve a lot of support from the community for creating BitTorrent - hopefully people really will send a few of the bucks they save his way.
Re:The multi million dollar question...
on
In Google We Trust
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Makes you wonder why such a profitable company wants to expose itself to the vultures at wall street?
I had always figured that it was the venture capitalists that were pushing the IPO: they've invested a lot of money in google, seen it grow and become very valuable, and now they want to cash out.
I'm more and more impressed with Fido as time goes on. For those of you who aren't on the West Coast of Canada, Fido's cell plan is something like $45 per month, unlimited local calls. I'm not sure what other cell plans are like in the US, but for Canada, Fido's the first to try anything like that... makes it easy to simply replace your landline with a cell for not much more $$.
I can see how this would repel the female elephants, but wouldn't male sent, especially that during mating season, attract the other males? I'd think that they would come looking for a fight and protect 'their' females... and wouldn't large ornary male elephants be the ones you're specifically trying to avoid?
Will this helicoptor have the same problems as some of the current UAV's out there - poor operation at high altitudes. I know in places like Afghanistan where the altitude is high and the air is very thin, the UAV planes have problems which result in a much higher incidence of crashes/malfunctions. I can only assume that a helicoptor would have the same problems - perhaps even moreso.
What about two pigeons carrying it together? I suppose they could have it on a line... they'd just have to use a strand of tree bark and hold it under the dorsal guiding feathers.
Slashdot Mirror
Or finally take advantage of online distribution and supply high-quality downloads themselves (of course containing commercials so they still have a revenue stream).
I would have thought the abacus (ranked on the list, but lost in the middle) would have been more important in the overall list than a Tivo... the transistor or vacuum tube before computers and digital cameras...
Prof Geist also has a blog where you can read his articles and find out more information about his projects:
http://www.lawbytes.com/
Since I had never done online banking before, I set everything up and tied my MasterCard in as one place where I could transfer funds directly from my bank account. After doing the transfers as described above, I recieved a call from the Bank the next day asking me if this was a transaction I had indeed authorized - apparently due to the many of thousands of dollars it involved, and the fact it was out of my ordinary pattern, the system had flagged it as suspicious and the Bank called to follow up.
My hat's off to them - makes me feel a bit better that my money is being protected.
We also have no plan whatsoever on how we're actually going to IMPLIMENT the treaty either...
I also seem to remember years and years ago reading (i think it was in readers digest) about a woman who had the same problem with her car - she had to 'drive' it until the car ran out of gas and then stopped on its own. No cruise control there, so problems can occur with or without all the new technology out there.
From reading the article, it seems like this will only work if the car stopped next to you at the light is blaring music from the radio... honestly now, they are not going to have the volume cranked for the *radio* - they'll be listening to CD's, so an ipod broadcast won't help you there.
On another note, I didn't know that Velvet Revolver is made of alumni from Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N' Roses. I guess it does pay to RTFA :P
Well, we won't know until we look...
Does he want steak? (any fark.com readers out there?)
I glanced through the article quickly and I see that it doesn't mention what use the computer will be put to. For some reason, I doubt it will be used to model climate change... bets they want to use the cycles to crunch some nuclear weapons simulations?
After quickly reading through the article, I'm rather impressed with the experiment and how they propose to go about measuring the sun's bending. The one thing I'm not clear on is cost. How much would it cost to build and launch these two satellites (using existing technology thanfully) and outfit the ISS with the required equipment? With the exception of the Chinese and their quest for a man on the moon, there doesn't seem to be too much investment in space projects these days. As much as I'd like to see this get off the ground, I'm wondering if they can justify the cost to the bean counters higher up. I mean - to us science geeks the whole 'Knowledge' and 'science for the sake of science' thing is justification enough... I'm not sure there would be enough practical returns for the bureaucracy though.
I mean - there are a lot of things that I *think* about some of my coworkers, especially during meetings, but I always am able to catch myself right before I say anything. You'd *really* have to watch yourself plugged into that thing!
So are there any plans for Google to use a similar service in Canada? I'd love to try a search linked to my postal code, but it looks like it's only accepting Zip numbers...
I'm more and more impressed with Fido as time goes on. For those of you who aren't on the West Coast of Canada, Fido's cell plan is something like $45 per month, unlimited local calls. I'm not sure what other cell plans are like in the US, but for Canada, Fido's the first to try anything like that... makes it easy to simply replace your landline with a cell for not much more $$.
I can see how this would repel the female elephants, but wouldn't male sent, especially that during mating season, attract the other males? I'd think that they would come looking for a fight and protect 'their' females... and wouldn't large ornary male elephants be the ones you're specifically trying to avoid?
Will this helicoptor have the same problems as some of the current UAV's out there - poor operation at high altitudes. I know in places like Afghanistan where the altitude is high and the air is very thin, the UAV planes have problems which result in a much higher incidence of crashes/malfunctions. I can only assume that a helicoptor would have the same problems - perhaps even moreso.
What about two pigeons carrying it together? I suppose they could have it on a line... they'd just have to use a strand of tree bark and hold it under the dorsal guiding feathers.
Well why not?
Immediatly have the image of a large green frog floating around in the weightlessness?