This is not nanotechnology. It's conventional technology. GM is still making materials that are made in reactors in batches that yield anywhere from pounds to tons of material. The only thing that is new here is that the reactions are guided by some systematic knowledge of how the molecular interactions improve the characteristics of the bulk.
Nanotechnology used to designate a field of enquiry concerned primarily with manipulating atoms and molecules. This is clearly not the case with what's reported here. The problem is that the definition of nanotechnology has been broadened so much that the term is almost meaningless. In fact, some investors have encouraged Eliot Spitzer to sue several financial corporations because the nanotechnology funds that these companies claim to manage contain no nanotechnology companies.
Nanocomposite is an accurate term because these new materials are engineered with the fundamental molecular interactions in mind. But this is not nanotechnology because the materials are not made one atom at a time!! They are still made pounds or tons at a time. Even the nanoparticles that are supposed to improve catalytic converters are made in bulk. They are incredibly small particles, but they are made in chemical reactions that involve anywhere from grams to pounds of material. The final converter is not assembled one nanoparticle at a time, either. What happens is that instead of depositing a layer of platinum either electrochemically or evaporatively, a layer of nanoparticles is deposited by passing a solution of the nanoparticles over the substrate.
To get an appreciation for what it means to manipulate molecules, try Mark Reed's or Paul McEuen's work.
The scientists measured SO2 levels, too. SO2 does NOT come from cars. In that instance, the culprit is almost definitely the power plants. Yes, other industries may emit SO2, but it's highly doubtful that they rival power plants in SO2 output.
Look into compact fluorescent bulbs and LEDs. I have a distant relative who operates a lighting store. I was surprised to find out that you can buy compact fluorescent bulbs that can be used with a dimmer. You an even buy nearly white LEDs (not worse in color than, say, the greenish standard fluorescents), albeit at ~$50 a piece.
Here in CA every single municipality that bought its power from a utility that was being ripped off by Enron (e.g., San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica) switched to LED traffic lights. They cost about $300 vs. $3 for a bulb, but they consume about 13 W, vs. 300 W of the bulb. (Please, no presidential jokes here.) So, if you use a lot of lights in your house, this is a sure way to save LOTS of energy.
Compact fluorescent bulbs are cost effective because they burn for thousands of hours longer than incandescent bulbs. This is a very good way to start reducing consumption.
After well over a decad on PC, I became a minor Windows expert. It made me a useful guy wherever I went. Then, I experienced OS X. All of a sudden all the time I spent maintaining my PC (and the cohort of PCs at work) seemed so stupid. So, I bought myself a Powerbook, and my PC has been collecting dust since.
OS X offers a vastly superior GUI, infinite tweakability, a rational design, a Unix implementation that allows me to run oodles of useful software (LaTex is great for equations). And, thanks to Fink, I don't have to do much work to install the *nix software.
iPhote, iMovie, and iSync are all great. iTunes and my iPod have essentially supplanted my Harman-Kardan stereo system. I have MySQL and PHP running flawlessly on my Powerbook, and this allows me to keep nice backups of everything I put on the web.
The list of reasons is endless. In short, in comparison with OS X (and with Linux and BSD), Windows is just primitive.
P
This is the key! Unfortunately, people are horrendously uninformed about computers. I was actually a huge MS advocate, until I tried OS X. Now, I can't think of anything else, except for Linux. When you try to explain to people the virtues of OS X, or the fact that you get just about every piece of software you need (such as OpenOffice, Gnucash, etc.) with most Linux distributions, all for free, they just don't get it.
This is where Cringely is right, as usual. The MS PR machine is so loud, so ubiquitous, so pervasive and so dominant that nobody hears anything else. So, if people were aware, they would switch. How do we make them aware?
You wonder if they are using the seemingly effective RIAA tactics to reduce their costs. Probably 59-90% of the connections are idle about 90% of the time. Even when I'm downloading 50 Mbyte OS X updates, the line is not active for more than a minute or two. 90% of the transactions take less than a second. So, if a small fraction of people are using their maximum allotted bandwidth all the time, their network should still behave.
They have statistics. They know how much usage to expect. It is quite likely that by cowing the heavy users into submission, they can delay adding infrastructure as their subscriber base gets larger.
One thing is for sure, if they were serious about cutting back on "illegal" activities, they would define it in their AUP. Why don't they say "You can't use any gnutella client" in their AUP. After all, the AUP doesn't say that you are not allowed to run an ftp server on your computer. Then, why should they cite you for a violation if you try to serve data via your broadband line as part of running your business?
It's not so much that MS is flexible. It is powerful enough to compete when it needs to and to kill its competition when it has to. The point here is that neither option may be available to it this time. So far, it has resorted to its old tricks. In Europe, it gives away its product to companies that are contemplating switching to Linux. So, it's not really a matter of flexibility.
Now, of course, it is time for it to bend a little. In fact, it might be high time for them to actually INNOVATE in order to get ahead of the curve, for once.
MS is big and powerful. I don't think anybody is saying that they are disappearing. Rather, the implication is that their dominance is waning. MS will be around for at least another 25 years. Will it be running 90% of machines then? Probably not, fortunately!
Just watched another one of the "great moments at work" commercials for Office 2003 during the football game. That's when I felt the impact of the Inquirer piece and all the points made on the board. I can't imagine anybody making a forceful enough argument for any single factor being the cause of MIcrosoft's graduate demise. The Inquirer cited most of the major reasons, though it did neglect the important points about people not needing more computing power. Why pay for Office 2003 when Office 97 does almost everything you need?
After spending a decade becoming a minor Windows expert, I enthusiastically switched to Mac OS X, only because I didn't have the time to jump in feet first into Unix. For now, I got the convenience of Mac, I got Office X for backwards compatibility (and to use Endnote), and I got fink, with which I am becoming familiar with Unix software. I imagine my next machine will be a Unix box of some sort. One thing is for sure, when you can do everything you need to do for free, why pay? Furthermore, why pay for software that doesn't comply with standards?
Since 1.4, Mozilla has been a vastly superior--faster and more compliant--browser than IE. So, why pay for Office 2003 when OOO serves as an adequate alternative? (I can't believe people are still using IE!)
The Inquirer piece ultimately gets it right, then, when it states implicitly that Microsoft is selling what people don't want. People don't want proprietary standards. People want total compatibility. (Just two years ago, the Macs in our lab were isolated. Now, it's our PCs that are the least networkable.) It's like the music industry. They want to keep selling CDs, but people don't want them. The music industry seems to finally be caving. Will MS give in as well?
I agree. I don't think this is going to work too well. The first question is whether the windows media format will be a winner or not. I can't say I've tried wma files, yet, but one must question why WalMart would want to go against the grain and use a proprietary format. The AACs I've downloaded from iTunes store sound really good. And, the iPod will play AAC and mp3. So, why is Walmart limiting its customers to small set of devices?
Slashdot Mirror
This is not nanotechnology. It's conventional technology. GM is still making materials that are made in reactors in batches that yield anywhere from pounds to tons of material. The only thing that is new here is that the reactions are guided by some systematic knowledge of how the molecular interactions improve the characteristics of the bulk.
Nanotechnology used to designate a field of enquiry concerned primarily with manipulating atoms and molecules. This is clearly not the case with what's reported here. The problem is that the definition of nanotechnology has been broadened so much that the term is almost meaningless. In fact, some investors have encouraged Eliot Spitzer to sue several financial corporations because the nanotechnology funds that these companies claim to manage contain no nanotechnology companies.
Nanocomposite is an accurate term because these new materials are engineered with the fundamental molecular interactions in mind. But this is not nanotechnology because the materials are not made one atom at a time!! They are still made pounds or tons at a time. Even the nanoparticles that are supposed to improve catalytic converters are made in bulk. They are incredibly small particles, but they are made in chemical reactions that involve anywhere from grams to pounds of material. The final converter is not assembled one nanoparticle at a time, either. What happens is that instead of depositing a layer of platinum either electrochemically or evaporatively, a layer of nanoparticles is deposited by passing a solution of the nanoparticles over the substrate.
To get an appreciation for what it means to manipulate molecules, try Mark Reed's or Paul McEuen's work.
How so? These are impossible circumstances to reproduce, mind you.
The scientists measured SO2 levels, too. SO2 does NOT come from cars. In that instance, the culprit is almost definitely the power plants. Yes, other industries may emit SO2, but it's highly doubtful that they rival power plants in SO2 output.
Look into compact fluorescent bulbs and LEDs. I have a distant relative who operates a lighting store. I was surprised to find out that you can buy compact fluorescent bulbs that can be used with a dimmer. You an even buy nearly white LEDs (not worse in color than, say, the greenish standard fluorescents), albeit at ~$50 a piece.
Here in CA every single municipality that bought its power from a utility that was being ripped off by Enron (e.g., San Francisco, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica) switched to LED traffic lights. They cost about $300 vs. $3 for a bulb, but they consume about 13 W, vs. 300 W of the bulb. (Please, no presidential jokes here.) So, if you use a lot of lights in your house, this is a sure way to save LOTS of energy.
Compact fluorescent bulbs are cost effective because they burn for thousands of hours longer than incandescent bulbs. This is a very good way to start reducing consumption.
It is indeed an expensive receipt. Mine was a better value, though. It pays to go to a state school.
Even given your humorous reasoning, though, he shouldn't have been stripped. Oh, wait, in Germany education is free.
Never mind.
After well over a decad on PC, I became a minor Windows expert. It made me a useful guy wherever I went. Then, I experienced OS X. All of a sudden all the time I spent maintaining my PC (and the cohort of PCs at work) seemed so stupid. So, I bought myself a Powerbook, and my PC has been collecting dust since. OS X offers a vastly superior GUI, infinite tweakability, a rational design, a Unix implementation that allows me to run oodles of useful software (LaTex is great for equations). And, thanks to Fink, I don't have to do much work to install the *nix software. iPhote, iMovie, and iSync are all great. iTunes and my iPod have essentially supplanted my Harman-Kardan stereo system. I have MySQL and PHP running flawlessly on my Powerbook, and this allows me to keep nice backups of everything I put on the web. The list of reasons is endless. In short, in comparison with OS X (and with Linux and BSD), Windows is just primitive. P
This is the key! Unfortunately, people are horrendously uninformed about computers. I was actually a huge MS advocate, until I tried OS X. Now, I can't think of anything else, except for Linux. When you try to explain to people the virtues of OS X, or the fact that you get just about every piece of software you need (such as OpenOffice, Gnucash, etc.) with most Linux distributions, all for free, they just don't get it. This is where Cringely is right, as usual. The MS PR machine is so loud, so ubiquitous, so pervasive and so dominant that nobody hears anything else. So, if people were aware, they would switch. How do we make them aware?
You wonder if they are using the seemingly effective RIAA tactics to reduce their costs. Probably 59-90% of the connections are idle about 90% of the time. Even when I'm downloading 50 Mbyte OS X updates, the line is not active for more than a minute or two. 90% of the transactions take less than a second. So, if a small fraction of people are using their maximum allotted bandwidth all the time, their network should still behave.
They have statistics. They know how much usage to expect. It is quite likely that by cowing the heavy users into submission, they can delay adding infrastructure as their subscriber base gets larger.
One thing is for sure, if they were serious about cutting back on "illegal" activities, they would define it in their AUP. Why don't they say "You can't use any gnutella client" in their AUP. After all, the AUP doesn't say that you are not allowed to run an ftp server on your computer. Then, why should they cite you for a violation if you try to serve data via your broadband line as part of running your business?
Yes, regulation is BADLY needed.
P
It's not so much that MS is flexible. It is powerful enough to compete when it needs to and to kill its competition when it has to. The point here is that neither option may be available to it this time. So far, it has resorted to its old tricks. In Europe, it gives away its product to companies that are contemplating switching to Linux. So, it's not really a matter of flexibility.
Now, of course, it is time for it to bend a little. In fact, it might be high time for them to actually INNOVATE in order to get ahead of the curve, for once.
MS is big and powerful. I don't think anybody is saying that they are disappearing. Rather, the implication is that their dominance is waning. MS will be around for at least another 25 years. Will it be running 90% of machines then? Probably not, fortunately!
Just watched another one of the "great moments at work" commercials for Office 2003 during the football game. That's when I felt the impact of the Inquirer piece and all the points made on the board. I can't imagine anybody making a forceful enough argument for any single factor being the cause of MIcrosoft's graduate demise. The Inquirer cited most of the major reasons, though it did neglect the important points about people not needing more computing power. Why pay for Office 2003 when Office 97 does almost everything you need? After spending a decade becoming a minor Windows expert, I enthusiastically switched to Mac OS X, only because I didn't have the time to jump in feet first into Unix. For now, I got the convenience of Mac, I got Office X for backwards compatibility (and to use Endnote), and I got fink, with which I am becoming familiar with Unix software. I imagine my next machine will be a Unix box of some sort. One thing is for sure, when you can do everything you need to do for free, why pay? Furthermore, why pay for software that doesn't comply with standards? Since 1.4, Mozilla has been a vastly superior--faster and more compliant--browser than IE. So, why pay for Office 2003 when OOO serves as an adequate alternative? (I can't believe people are still using IE!) The Inquirer piece ultimately gets it right, then, when it states implicitly that Microsoft is selling what people don't want. People don't want proprietary standards. People want total compatibility. (Just two years ago, the Macs in our lab were isolated. Now, it's our PCs that are the least networkable.) It's like the music industry. They want to keep selling CDs, but people don't want them. The music industry seems to finally be caving. Will MS give in as well?
I agree. I don't think this is going to work too well. The first question is whether the windows media format will be a winner or not. I can't say I've tried wma files, yet, but one must question why WalMart would want to go against the grain and use a proprietary format. The AACs I've downloaded from iTunes store sound really good. And, the iPod will play AAC and mp3. So, why is Walmart limiting its customers to small set of devices?