Each individual feature is just too big. You're looking at individual transistors 20x or more larger than what we have today on silicon. Faster and lower power, maybe, until you try and build a working CPU from them and discover you need a die 3cm x 3cm. Niche products only.
Here is the clincher:
The nanodiamond circuits are a hybrid of old fashioned vacuum tubes and modern solid-state microelectronics and combine some of the best qualities of both technologies
Just as soon as the audiophile industry hears about this they'll go batshit insane. Something that is 1) new 2) expensive 3) combines tubes and anything else will be simply irresistible to them. Bonus points for diamond covered wooden knobs.
They didn't find antimatter, they found anti-protons. Matter is what happens when particles arrange themselves a certain way. A few stray protons doesn't constitute matter: neither do some stray anti-protons.
Furthermore, they've found a whopping 28 of them in two years' research. Even if they'd found 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which would require that each anti-proton also have a positron), the amount is utterly irrelevant in terms of power generation. 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which I point out again that this is not) wouldn't produce a reaction capable of running a AA-battery flashlight.
I believe that the BBC has fallen victim to sensationalism and/or ignorance. It's pretty much what I've come to expect from the world press.
I think he means this sort of thing. Yes, you can get a quality Android device (although I seem to recall Xoom's getting panned for being glitchy) but you don't necessarily GET a quality Android device.
Yes, freedom of choice and all that. Wonderful thing. But at least some of us are talking about how the iPad is the tablet for that enormous (and apparently profitable) swath of Appliance People that wander blankly through malls and upscale stores through this great country of ours.
Of course, YMMV. I'd like to see a Slashdot poll on what level of sophistication and openness can be found in everyone's coffee machine. How many coffee makers have been hacked to run FreeBSD? Who raises their own coffee plants? Is there an app for that?
If encryption gets banned, there is an ally that the bought-and-paid-for Congresscritters *will* listen to.
Go to the NRA. Seriously. Strong crypto was classified as a munition, making crypto a Second Amendment issue. Congress doesn't give a shit about the ACLU or the EFF or any of those types, but they will listen to the NRA.
Somehow the thought of Sarah Palin encrypting a moose just doesn't work for me.
According to what i read in the local newspapers here in Germany, the systems raised an alarm at 7 out of 10 people passing through them.
Sounds about right. They're probably American machines. Most of the people in a German airport would be Germans. Thus foreigners to the machine's inbuilt intelligence and worthy of a beep or two.
Hmmm... No replies? A verifiable Real Girl (TM) turns up and posts a flirty comment and you guys all run and hide! It must be true what they say about this place...
Sorry. But when I see "webmistressracheal" the first thing that pops into mind is an bumper sticker that I saw in a traffic jam that said "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But Whips and Chains Excite Me". The license plate read 'N2LTHR'.
That was a number of years ago but it is still fresh in my mind.
I'm not sure anyone else has had this sort of an experience, but when you have an evocative nic like yours, well, you just have to take the consequences.
Reload Snow Leopard. Don't upgrade again until 10.7.3. NEVER pick up the first iteration of ANYTHING Apple. Let everyone else be the beta testers unless you enjoy that sort of thing.
Let's do a test, I'll go to CBS news (a typical news site with unmoderated comments) and click the first story I see. Yup, sure enough, the comments are completely fucking retarded. [cbsnews.com]
Those weren't the comments, they were the stories.
They really should do proper science and wait for something more concrete, such as spectroscopic data, before making such announcements.
What exactly do you think they did? Re read Kim Stanley Robinson? Yes, their is spectroscopic data that supports the ideas, yes they need to do more it.
Proper science isn't waiting until you know everything. That never happens anyway.
Yes, it's a very geocentric view because it's the one data point that we know of. It's possible that life forms in the clouds of methane and ammonia on Jupiter or anywhere else for that matter. We just know how it works in a water based environment. Everything else is up in the air, so to speak.
If you're starting out this kind of research (and we are obviously in the very early phases) and you have a very limited budget, you go for the most likely scenarios first. You leave the gas giants to the science fiction writers for now.
However, water on mars is nearly impossible because they said that the current atmospheric pressure will literally boil water on the surface, even at those low subzero temperatures.
My take was that salty water could indeed be on the surface, at least briefly. Pools and ponds, not so much. But pools of salt water could indeed be available subsurface, perhaps in the first couple of meters of soil.
Given a few minutes' worth of thought, I'm sure nearly anyone on Slashdot could come up with some very good ideas on optimizing not only empty direction and idle placement for a single car, but multiple cars as well.
Shit, we can do it better. We can always do it better. That's why we're here.
The troubling part is that western Nebraska is over the Ogallala aquifer that supplies water to much of the plains states. I shudder to think what would happen if it got contaminated with rare-earths.
I doubt you mean the rare earth materials themselves. It's the purification process that creates most of the nasties.
Interesting short piece about mining and purification of rare earths. Summary: Mining and primary concentration need to happen on site for economic reasons. However, it's the secondary purification steps that have most of the nasties. After it's been refined to a level of around 50% purity then it's economically viable to transport that material reasonably long distances for final smelting.
Thus, one could have a single rare earth refining plant, closely monitored and supported by numerous mines. If done correctly, that might mitigate a significant part of the environmental concerns. (If I'm reading the article correctly).
No mention of Apple, so those fail. How about 'Oracle's Java bug delays OpenJDK 7 port for iOS and prevents users from bitcoin mining on their iPads'.
Google supports Oracle's Java bug which delays OpenJDK 7 ports for iOS which prevents users from mining bitcoins on their iPad and notes that Honycomb won't have this problem (if it ever ships).
That's an interesting take on the 'Prosumer' market. From Apple's point of view one might argue that yes, you can do it cheaper, but it's harder (often too many choices) and Apple 'just works'. Before anyone raises their fins and flippers about that, I point out that this is a marketing statement, not necessarily related to anything real.
Actually, I think that the market you described - people doing content creation on a freelance / part time / SOHO type of basis who are fairly cost constrained, isn't the "Prosumer' market that Apple is pushing for. For every content creator there are going to be MORE content consumers. Many more consumers.
Those consumers that want something other than the Windows / Android / etc. experience for whatever reason will gravitate to Apple. I think this is fundamentally the wrong approach - that they need to look at it more like Nikon and Canon do for their professional DSLR offerings. That is the high end cameras give the sizzle to the brand even if they're sold at comparatively low volumes. But what do I know? Apple is doing pretty well at the moment whatever the hell their long term strategy is. I'm sure it won't last a decade - nothing in tech does, but right now Apple is riding high.
Hopefully by the time Apple fucks up it's high end stuff, Microsoft will have gone to something based on UNIX and all will be well in the world.
Huh? My A/C system uses a 40 amp 240 volt dedicated circuit. They are showing these cars as having a 15 amp 120 volt plug. How much do these cars really need during recharge?
More than that if you want to charge it faster than overnight. Once you get into the fine print the recommended way is a 240V charging station. The Volt, for example, takes 10-12 hours to charge on a 120V 15A outlet. But it will charge in 3-4 hours with 240V. This 240V charging station wants a 40A circuit. Same as your A/C system.
Well, there we have it. He just has to plug his Volt into his existing 40 Amp circuit, turn on the car's AC, pump it back into the house and he's golden.
You really did drink the Kool-Aid didn't you? Too much by far. "A better product"? By what metric? So you can get the MRI that you don't need faster? So you live longer (oopsie), so you have better prenatal outcomes (oopsie again), so you have better mental health coverage (damn, lots of oopsies).
The US health care system is an incredible, expensive, inefficient mess. Yes, part of this is the government's fault. Quite a bit of government intervention has come directly from attempting to reign in illegal (and extraordinarily immoral) practices by the 'capitalists' attempting to game the system.
But I suppose I'm just doing this to practice typing. You're so far over the deep edge on this, so completely off base that I think it would be best if you just switched channels and communed with Ms. Bachman or just went out target shooting with your Sarah Palin blow up doll.
Now, compare this to the number of government's anywhere offering any of this. Draw your own conclusions.
The conclusion I draw is that your insane libertarian fantasy is just that. For all of these wonderful little demonstrations you've quoted, I don't see EHRs rolled out in a standardized fashion anywhere. If you are correct, there should be some evidence of interoperable EHR adoption by now. Got any takers?
The VA (standards based) doesn't talk to Kiaser nor Giesinger nor Mayo nor even the military system. In your wonderful fantasy land I would expect the VA (US Veteran's Administration, government run) to interoperate with the US Military medical system at the very least. Currently, if you are the local US Coast Guard Clinic and you ask the local VA hospital for a patient's medical record you do get them in a more or less electronic fashion - they're faxed over. Not even plain text computer to computer capture like secure e-mail. Faxed. A presumably dead technology.
There are small demonstration projects. There are NOT large scale build outs. EHRs are (relatively) easy to create for individual hospital / clinic systems. They are very hard to do nation wide. It should not be as hard as it is, but that mostly has to do with the inefficiency of the government in dealing with complex problems. However, your solution of letting the market sort it out has led to no attempt at a solution because there isn't any money in it. And no, claiming to offer an interoperable EHR as an additional 'service' won't cut it - certainly hasn't yet.
Leave the magic wand waving to Harry Potter films.
I think you've pretty much nailed it (in fact I repeated much of what you said a bit above). Apple is very focused on a specific part of the market that has been ignored by the Geeks that run the other computer companies: The enormous slice of people with credit cards and no ability or desire to understand the technical underpinnings of what they are using. The Appliance People.
Hopefully, they won't drink too much of this heady Kool-Aid and will leave OS X fundamentally alone. Time will tell....
Apple clearly has screwed professional video editors with FCPX. This is just one more example of Apple moving aggressively towards the Money. It apparently feels that there is a larger market for iMovie + (which is what FCPX really is) than a true, professional video editing suite. Look at other Apple software - Aperture - not as powerful as Photoshop / Bridge and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. Not nearly as expensive. Good enough for some, but certainly not all professional photographers and not used much in bigger shops where Adobe is king (or queen depending on what you think of those maroons). Pages - not professional at all but more than adequate for most people.
Apple dropped X-serve, hasn't aggressively upgrade the MacPros, has aggressively upgraded it's laptops and whatever you consider the iMac to be. Lion server certainly isn't pitched at the Enterprise.
Apple is looking for a specific set of markets that they can grow in. Interestingly, it doesn't appear to be at the performance end of either hardware or software. I think Apple believes that there are many more sales to be made in this space (Prosumer? Pseudo professional? I'm not sure what you would call it) than either at the bottom, where the don't compete at all, or at the top where they haven't been a dominant player in some years.
They're doing what is good for Apple's bottom line, not necessarily what is good for your wallet or sanity. If you're on the bus, well it's a sweet ride. If you don't like the route, well, off you go. The Microsoft / Adobe / Sony / Avid / etc. bus will be here shortly.
Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.
And this is the most coherent statement so far. Looking at the video in TFA (would that be TFV?) you could do a better job chartering a small high wing plane and using a half decent camera. While cool (I want one), the video quality is pretty shaky, it doesn't go very high and it's not all that interesting as a news story.
I guess the big deal for the journalists is that you can keep one in a box in your trunk, pop it up when you see something reportable and there you are. Not that it's all that hard to charter a small plane...
Slashdot Mirror
One of my compact fluorescents let the magic smoke out last night... That's something... Possibly not related.
That's nothing. I had to reboot my MacPro! It's either Solar Flares or the End of the World is Nigh Upon Us!
Each individual feature is just too big. You're looking at individual transistors 20x or more larger than what we have today on silicon. Faster and lower power, maybe, until you try and build a working CPU from them and discover you need a die 3cm x 3cm. Niche products only.
Here is the clincher:
The nanodiamond circuits are a hybrid of old fashioned vacuum tubes and modern solid-state microelectronics and combine some of the best qualities of both technologies
Just as soon as the audiophile industry hears about this they'll go batshit insane. Something that is 1) new 2) expensive 3) combines tubes and anything else will be simply irresistible to them. Bonus points for diamond covered wooden knobs.
They didn't find antimatter, they found anti-protons. Matter is what happens when particles arrange themselves a certain way. A few stray protons doesn't constitute matter: neither do some stray anti-protons.
Furthermore, they've found a whopping 28 of them in two years' research. Even if they'd found 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which would require that each anti-proton also have a positron), the amount is utterly irrelevant in terms of power generation. 28 atoms of anti-hydrogen (which I point out again that this is not) wouldn't produce a reaction capable of running a AA-battery flashlight.
I believe that the BBC has fallen victim to sensationalism and/or ignorance. It's pretty much what I've come to expect from the world press.
And I bet nobody invites you to parties anymore.
Killjoy.
Quality control....
I think he means this sort of thing. Yes, you can get a quality Android device (although I seem to recall Xoom's getting panned for being glitchy) but you don't necessarily GET a quality Android device.
Yes, freedom of choice and all that. Wonderful thing. But at least some of us are talking about how the iPad is the tablet for that enormous (and apparently profitable) swath of Appliance People that wander blankly through malls and upscale stores through this great country of ours.
Of course, YMMV. I'd like to see a Slashdot poll on what level of sophistication and openness can be found in everyone's coffee machine. How many coffee makers have been hacked to run FreeBSD? Who raises their own coffee plants? Is there an app for that?
If encryption gets banned, there is an ally that the bought-and-paid-for Congresscritters *will* listen to.
Go to the NRA. Seriously. Strong crypto was classified as a munition, making crypto a Second Amendment issue. Congress doesn't give a shit about the ACLU or the EFF or any of those types, but they will listen to the NRA.
Somehow the thought of Sarah Palin encrypting a moose just doesn't work for me.
According to what i read in the local newspapers here in Germany, the systems raised an alarm at 7 out of 10 people passing through them.
Sounds about right. They're probably American machines. Most of the people in a German airport would be Germans. Thus foreigners to the machine's inbuilt intelligence and worthy of a beep or two.
GO USA!
Hmmm... No replies? A verifiable Real Girl (TM) turns up and posts a flirty comment and you guys all run and hide! It must be true what they say about this place...
Sorry. But when I see "webmistressracheal" the first thing that pops into mind is an bumper sticker that I saw in a traffic jam that said "Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones But Whips and Chains Excite Me". The license plate read 'N2LTHR'.
That was a number of years ago but it is still fresh in my mind.
I'm not sure anyone else has had this sort of an experience, but when you have an evocative nic like yours, well, you just have to take the consequences.
you say this now, but wait until the smartcar you're in gets caught in an infinite loop!
So you get lost around the Apple campus. What's the big deal?
Ah yes, the epiphany of epitome.
ProTip:
Reload Snow Leopard. Don't upgrade again until 10.7.3. NEVER pick up the first iteration of ANYTHING Apple. Let everyone else be the beta testers unless you enjoy that sort of thing.
Let's do a test, I'll go to CBS news (a typical news site with unmoderated comments) and click the first story I see. Yup, sure enough, the comments are completely fucking retarded. [cbsnews.com]
Those weren't the comments, they were the stories.
It might even be more complicated that you think.
They really should do proper science and wait for something more concrete, such as spectroscopic data, before making such announcements.
What exactly do you think they did? Re read Kim Stanley Robinson? Yes, their is spectroscopic data that supports the ideas, yes they need to do more it.
Proper science isn't waiting until you know everything. That never happens anyway.
Yes, it's a very geocentric view because it's the one data point that we know of. It's possible that life forms in the clouds of methane and ammonia on Jupiter or anywhere else for that matter. We just know how it works in a water based environment. Everything else is up in the air, so to speak.
If you're starting out this kind of research (and we are obviously in the very early phases) and you have a very limited budget, you go for the most likely scenarios first. You leave the gas giants to the science fiction writers for now.
However, water on mars is nearly impossible because they said that the current atmospheric pressure will literally boil water on the surface, even at those low subzero temperatures.
My take was that salty water could indeed be on the surface, at least briefly. Pools and ponds, not so much. But pools of salt water could indeed be available subsurface, perhaps in the first couple of meters of soil.
Given a few minutes' worth of thought, I'm sure nearly anyone on Slashdot could come up with some very good ideas on optimizing not only empty direction and idle placement for a single car, but multiple cars as well.
Shit, we can do it better. We can always do it better. That's why we're here.
The troubling part is that western Nebraska is over the Ogallala aquifer that supplies water to much of the plains states. I shudder to think what would happen if it got contaminated with rare-earths.
I doubt you mean the rare earth materials themselves. It's the purification process that creates most of the nasties.
Interesting short piece about mining and purification of rare earths. Summary: Mining and primary concentration need to happen on site for economic reasons. However, it's the secondary purification steps that have most of the nasties. After it's been refined to a level of around 50% purity then it's economically viable to transport that material reasonably long distances for final smelting.
Thus, one could have a single rare earth refining plant, closely monitored and supported by numerous mines. If done correctly, that might mitigate a significant part of the environmental concerns. (If I'm reading the article correctly).
No mention of Apple, so those fail. How about 'Oracle's Java bug delays OpenJDK 7 port for iOS and prevents users from bitcoin mining on their iPads'.
Google supports Oracle's Java bug which delays OpenJDK 7 ports for iOS which prevents users from mining bitcoins on their iPad and notes that Honycomb won't have this problem (if it ever ships).
That's an interesting take on the 'Prosumer' market. From Apple's point of view one might argue that yes, you can do it cheaper, but it's harder (often too many choices) and Apple 'just works'. Before anyone raises their fins and flippers about that, I point out that this is a marketing statement, not necessarily related to anything real.
Actually, I think that the market you described - people doing content creation on a freelance / part time / SOHO type of basis who are fairly cost constrained, isn't the "Prosumer' market that Apple is pushing for. For every content creator there are going to be MORE content consumers. Many more consumers.
Those consumers that want something other than the Windows / Android / etc. experience for whatever reason will gravitate to Apple. I think this is fundamentally the wrong approach - that they need to look at it more like Nikon and Canon do for their professional DSLR offerings. That is the high end cameras give the sizzle to the brand even if they're sold at comparatively low volumes. But what do I know? Apple is doing pretty well at the moment whatever the hell their long term strategy is. I'm sure it won't last a decade - nothing in tech does, but right now Apple is riding high.
Hopefully by the time Apple fucks up it's high end stuff, Microsoft will have gone to something based on UNIX and all will be well in the world.
Huh? My A/C system uses a 40 amp 240 volt dedicated circuit. They are showing these cars as having a 15 amp 120 volt plug. How much do these cars really need during recharge?
More than that if you want to charge it faster than overnight. Once you get into the fine print the recommended way is a 240V charging station. The Volt, for example, takes 10-12 hours to charge on a 120V 15A outlet. But it will charge in 3-4 hours with 240V. This 240V charging station wants a 40A circuit. Same as your A/C system.
Well, there we have it. He just has to plug his Volt into his existing 40 Amp circuit, turn on the car's AC, pump it back into the house and he's golden.
Sheesh. You'd think this was hard or something.
we spend more money and get a better product.
You really did drink the Kool-Aid didn't you? Too much by far. "A better product"? By what metric? So you can get the MRI that you don't need faster? So you live longer (oopsie), so you have better prenatal outcomes (oopsie again), so you have better mental health coverage (damn, lots of oopsies).
The US health care system is an incredible, expensive, inefficient mess. Yes, part of this is the government's fault. Quite a bit of government intervention has come directly from attempting to reign in illegal (and extraordinarily immoral) practices by the 'capitalists' attempting to game the system.
But I suppose I'm just doing this to practice typing. You're so far over the deep edge on this, so completely off base that I think it would be best if you just switched channels and communed with Ms. Bachman or just went out target shooting with your Sarah Palin blow up doll.
Now, compare this to the number of government's anywhere offering any of this. Draw your own conclusions.
The conclusion I draw is that your insane libertarian fantasy is just that. For all of these wonderful little demonstrations you've quoted, I don't see EHRs rolled out in a standardized fashion anywhere. If you are correct, there should be some evidence of interoperable EHR adoption by now. Got any takers?
The VA (standards based) doesn't talk to Kiaser nor Giesinger nor Mayo nor even the military system. In your wonderful fantasy land I would expect the VA (US Veteran's Administration, government run) to interoperate with the US Military medical system at the very least. Currently, if you are the local US Coast Guard Clinic and you ask the local VA hospital for a patient's medical record you do get them in a more or less electronic fashion - they're faxed over. Not even plain text computer to computer capture like secure e-mail. Faxed. A presumably dead technology.
There are small demonstration projects. There are NOT large scale build outs. EHRs are (relatively) easy to create for individual hospital / clinic systems. They are very hard to do nation wide. It should not be as hard as it is, but that mostly has to do with the inefficiency of the government in dealing with complex problems. However, your solution of letting the market sort it out has led to no attempt at a solution because there isn't any money in it. And no, claiming to offer an interoperable EHR as an additional 'service' won't cut it - certainly hasn't yet.
Leave the magic wand waving to Harry Potter films.
I think you've pretty much nailed it (in fact I repeated much of what you said a bit above). Apple is very focused on a specific part of the market that has been ignored by the Geeks that run the other computer companies: The enormous slice of people with credit cards and no ability or desire to understand the technical underpinnings of what they are using. The Appliance People.
Hopefully, they won't drink too much of this heady Kool-Aid and will leave OS X fundamentally alone. Time will tell....
Apple clearly has screwed professional video editors with FCPX. This is just one more example of Apple moving aggressively towards the Money. It apparently feels that there is a larger market for iMovie + (which is what FCPX really is) than a true, professional video editing suite. Look at other Apple software - Aperture - not as powerful as Photoshop / Bridge and the rest of the Adobe Creative Suite. Not nearly as expensive. Good enough for some, but certainly not all professional photographers and not used much in bigger shops where Adobe is king (or queen depending on what you think of those maroons). Pages - not professional at all but more than adequate for most people.
Apple dropped X-serve, hasn't aggressively upgrade the MacPros, has aggressively upgraded it's laptops and whatever you consider the iMac to be. Lion server certainly isn't pitched at the Enterprise.
Apple is looking for a specific set of markets that they can grow in. Interestingly, it doesn't appear to be at the performance end of either hardware or software. I think Apple believes that there are many more sales to be made in this space (Prosumer? Pseudo professional? I'm not sure what you would call it) than either at the bottom, where the don't compete at all, or at the top where they haven't been a dominant player in some years.
They're doing what is good for Apple's bottom line, not necessarily what is good for your wallet or sanity. If you're on the bus, well it's a sweet ride. If you don't like the route, well, off you go. The Microsoft / Adobe / Sony / Avid / etc. bus will be here shortly.
Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.
And this is the most coherent statement so far. Looking at the video in TFA (would that be TFV?) you could do a better job chartering a small high wing plane and using a half decent camera. While cool (I want one), the video quality is pretty shaky, it doesn't go very high and it's not all that interesting as a news story.
I guess the big deal for the journalists is that you can keep one in a box in your trunk, pop it up when you see something reportable and there you are. Not that it's all that hard to charter a small plane ...