I think that the survival thing largely comes down to "dinosaurs big, other critters small" rather than being anything very complicated. Bigger critters would assumedly be more sensitive to disruption of their ecosystem since they have a much larger biomass to support; also being ectothermic probably really sucked what with many years of blocked sunlight and all. Turtles and such, on the other hand being much smaller, would have lesser requirements for survival and thus would have a much easier time adapting to meet them. Meteor or not, it just came down to huge size not being very evolutionarily adaptive. Only reason the suckers hung on for so damn long in the first place is that life in any form is a very persistent thing.
Probably not - but how do we make sure it doesn't make it into the hands of those foreign devils without totally giving up our own privacy rights? Then again, since that's the way the wind's blowing anyway...
Sean Gorman mapped and correlated data about a whole lot more than just fiber optic lines. Data, electric, transportation and god knows what more, wrapped up in a nice little program that makes the data quite easy to get at. Incredibly useful, but quite potentially dangerous in the wrong hands.
Now what I wouldn't give to have that thing in MY hands...pretty...
According to the article, it's ready for sale early April 2004...so like any day now. Uses DVD style media - while it doesn't specify how all the sublimation layers and coatings and etc etc etc are set up, it definately doesn't use platinum disks.
Anyway, they're talking about selling this for use in MASTER recorders, which start in the 10,000s and run into the 100,000s pretty quickly. So the price difference between the circuits required to use a red laser or a UV laser, or between a UV laser and a EBR system, are probably pretty negligible on the higher end models. But you likely won't be seeing this for home use for quite a few years. ^_^
Piracy is a funny thing. Due to my local library having a rather extensive movie collection, I almost never actually buy or pay to rent any DVDs - completely legally might I add. Therefore my contribution to the MPAA is exactly zero. Same thing with music, I have several nice radio stations that I can switch between, and any number of online ones should I get bored by what's on the airwaves. So the RIAA also makes absolutely nothing from me.
Now suppose that instead of using my library card, I wanted to download a DVD instead...? I'd have to pay for a high bandwidth internet connection, I'd have to get a larger hard drive than I'd otherwise need, maybe a DVD burner for archiving. I might even invest in more expensive display equipment, cards, speakers, etc etc etc.
So if I download, I'd actually be contributing money to the economy, but "illegally". Whereas right now I'm quite legal and no one is making a dime off me.
The *AA groups should fricking focus on organized mass production of forgeries, and less on perpetrating terrorism against kids that aren't even in high school yet.
The belief that just because something is done online makes it profitable is one that many have learned the fallacy of the hard way. The internet makes a great content delivery system for a valid marketable product, but not so great for advertising and definitely not good for cash appearing from nowhere. (Note: most internet ads are for crap products, if they expressed valid product info for decent products I might bite. Same flaw with most advertising though, they appear to assume people are far too impressionable. Almost terrifying to think that they're right in many cases.)
MMV but I for one would not pay for an online newspaper subscription, while I will pay to have a traditional print copy delivered. I'm a stubborn bastard too, I dislike even "free registration required" sites *cough*NYT*cough* unless there is some definite benefit to be gained. Benefit of doubt that such a scenario exists where it would be in my interests to register to even view someone's website. Similar to people that scream bloody murder over "deep linking" and with equal (in)validity IMO.
In response to parent, paying for a Slashdot subscription is a bit of a misnomer. You're basically putting money in the tip jar; the subscriber benefits are nice but nothing ultra-significant. They're just there by way of the PTB thanking those that help out with what I would assume to be a massive bandwidth bill. This is a community site first and always.
Canopy Group == Umbrella Corp.? Woohoo, zombie dogs!
Seriously though...I fail to see anything on their feature list that stands out as terribly innovative. And the fact that they are "including an easy to use access API" actually puts me off a bit...PDAs don't have very much in the way of system resources and I'd be much more impressed if it was tiny+fast.
That or if it just turned everyone into zombies. That would be impressive. Not very fun, but impressive.
Kodak seems to target the consumer/non-professional market to a higher degree than the others named. So cheaper product and quality is more merited. Most people don't need an 8 megapixel SLR to take pics of the kids or automated image splicing, and wouldn't know what to do with it if they did have one.
This does not excuse silly products like trying to pass off useless base station for disproportionate price compared to cheap low-end digicam. IMO the only reason they made base station sales was because of it being rather unclear that the part was completely unnecessary. When I bought a Kodak a year or so ago (again, it was cheap) the box did not clearly state that it could connect using a standard USB cable and that power was up to 2xAA batteries. The labeling (and the salesperson's knowledge, though you can't blame that entirely on Kodak) made it appear that you HAD to have the base station to power the camera and to transfer files to computer without having a card reader to take the files directly off the flash media.
Not saying it was intentionally misrepresented...but if a techie can't tell for sure from the packaging/flyers/grilling the salesperson, and then opening the sealed box and consulting the manual, whether or not the base station is required then I seriously doubt that your average layperson would be on much better footing. There was however an enclosed USB cable which cleared that question up for me. Then again if I hadn't unsealed the box in the store, I would have had no way to know.
At the time the base station was priced for roughly 1/3rd the price of the camera. Might just be bad technical writing, but I'm going to keep my tin foil hat handy for now. FUD FUD and more FUD.
Oh yeah, and the image quality isn't too great either. But whee.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that the survival thing largely comes down to "dinosaurs big, other critters small" rather than being anything very complicated. Bigger critters would assumedly be more sensitive to disruption of their ecosystem since they have a much larger biomass to support; also being ectothermic probably really sucked what with many years of blocked sunlight and all. Turtles and such, on the other hand being much smaller, would have lesser requirements for survival and thus would have a much easier time adapting to meet them. Meteor or not, it just came down to huge size not being very evolutionarily adaptive. Only reason the suckers hung on for so damn long in the first place is that life in any form is a very persistent thing.
Lotsa results on Google about this topic.
Damn perverted elves.
Probably not - but how do we make sure it doesn't make it into the hands of those foreign devils without totally giving up our own privacy rights? Then again, since that's the way the wind's blowing anyway...
Sean Gorman mapped and correlated data about a whole lot more than just fiber optic lines. Data, electric, transportation and god knows what more, wrapped up in a nice little program that makes the data quite easy to get at. Incredibly useful, but quite potentially dangerous in the wrong hands. Now what I wouldn't give to have that thing in MY hands...pretty...
According to the article, it's ready for sale early April 2004...so like any day now. Uses DVD style media - while it doesn't specify how all the sublimation layers and coatings and etc etc etc are set up, it definately doesn't use platinum disks.
Anyway, they're talking about selling this for use in MASTER recorders, which start in the 10,000s and run into the 100,000s pretty quickly. So the price difference between the circuits required to use a red laser or a UV laser, or between a UV laser and a EBR system, are probably pretty negligible on the higher end models. But you likely won't be seeing this for home use for quite a few years. ^_^
Piracy is a funny thing. Due to my local library having a rather extensive movie collection, I almost never actually buy or pay to rent any DVDs - completely legally might I add. Therefore my contribution to the MPAA is exactly zero. Same thing with music, I have several nice radio stations that I can switch between, and any number of online ones should I get bored by what's on the airwaves. So the RIAA also makes absolutely nothing from me.
Now suppose that instead of using my library card, I wanted to download a DVD instead...? I'd have to pay for a high bandwidth internet connection, I'd have to get a larger hard drive than I'd otherwise need, maybe a DVD burner for archiving. I might even invest in more expensive display equipment, cards, speakers, etc etc etc.
So if I download, I'd actually be contributing money to the economy, but "illegally". Whereas right now I'm quite legal and no one is making a dime off me.
The *AA groups should fricking focus on organized mass production of forgeries, and less on perpetrating terrorism against kids that aren't even in high school yet.
The belief that just because something is done online makes it profitable is one that many have learned the fallacy of the hard way. The internet makes a great content delivery system for a valid marketable product, but not so great for advertising and definitely not good for cash appearing from nowhere. (Note: most internet ads are for crap products, if they expressed valid product info for decent products I might bite. Same flaw with most advertising though, they appear to assume people are far too impressionable. Almost terrifying to think that they're right in many cases.)
MMV but I for one would not pay for an online newspaper subscription, while I will pay to have a traditional print copy delivered. I'm a stubborn bastard too, I dislike even "free registration required" sites *cough*NYT*cough* unless there is some definite benefit to be gained. Benefit of doubt that such a scenario exists where it would be in my interests to register to even view someone's website. Similar to people that scream bloody murder over "deep linking" and with equal (in)validity IMO.
In response to parent, paying for a Slashdot subscription is a bit of a misnomer. You're basically putting money in the tip jar; the subscriber benefits are nice but nothing ultra-significant. They're just there by way of the PTB thanking those that help out with what I would assume to be a massive bandwidth bill. This is a community site first and always.
Canopy Group == Umbrella Corp.?
Woohoo, zombie dogs!
Seriously though...I fail to see anything on their feature list that stands out as terribly innovative. And the fact that they are "including an easy to use access API" actually puts me off a bit...PDAs don't have very much in the way of system resources and I'd be much more impressed if it was tiny+fast.
That or if it just turned everyone into zombies. That would be impressive. Not very fun, but impressive.
Kodak seems to target the consumer/non-professional market to a higher degree than the others named. So cheaper product and quality is more merited. Most people don't need an 8 megapixel SLR to take pics of the kids or automated image splicing, and wouldn't know what to do with it if they did have one.
This does not excuse silly products like trying to pass off useless base station for disproportionate price compared to cheap low-end digicam. IMO the only reason they made base station sales was because of it being rather unclear that the part was completely unnecessary. When I bought a Kodak a year or so ago (again, it was cheap) the box did not clearly state that it could connect using a standard USB cable and that power was up to 2xAA batteries. The labeling (and the salesperson's knowledge, though you can't blame that entirely on Kodak) made it appear that you HAD to have the base station to power the camera and to transfer files to computer without having a card reader to take the files directly off the flash media.
Not saying it was intentionally misrepresented...but if a techie can't tell for sure from the packaging/flyers/grilling the salesperson, and then opening the sealed box and consulting the manual, whether or not the base station is required then I seriously doubt that your average layperson would be on much better footing. There was however an enclosed USB cable which cleared that question up for me. Then again if I hadn't unsealed the box in the store, I would have had no way to know.
At the time the base station was priced for roughly 1/3rd the price of the camera. Might just be bad technical writing, but I'm going to keep my tin foil hat handy for now. FUD FUD and more FUD.
Oh yeah, and the image quality isn't too great either. But whee.
More Than Human eps. 3, on Oct. 17 2003.
This has to have been said already, but - why did they bother writing a virus to take out SCO's site when they could just /. it?