So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend...
Where did you get that idea? Ever heard of 'fair use'. Even if you decide that giving a copy to a friend would not fall under fair use then all hell breaks loose if you tell your friend to go download it from the same (free, openly available) site that you downloaded it from?
This isn't the free as in "land of the free" that I grew up learning about... seems like a trap to me. "How did you know that without ever buying our book or downloading our PDF? You must be a sea faring rapist and murderous theif!"
Who pooped on your doughnut today? What kind of trap can you make up over a freely downloadable, not DRM'd or locked PDF (other than it's a PDF, this being Slashdot and all).
You've been snorting too much of that Stalhlman stuff. Go buy an iPad for penance.
Except they never said six months. They said three months, insisted the solar panels would be too covered by dust to get enough power after that, and refused to consider any sort of cleaning system. Even when NASA gets something right, they get it completely wrong.
I see that you've been to Mars and understand the physics of dust in an alien atmosphere.... Oh, right. Anyhow, that isn't the issue at all. It's funding. Every NASA project is money constrained, so managers and boosters have all manner of strategems to make the most out of the system. Funding ground operations for 90 days is easier than funding ground observations for several years. Having a scientific package that meets it's goals in 90 days (and then goes ever onward) is much better than coming up with a 5 year plan and have some critical widget fail in three.
I really don't understand why everyone here is making such an issue of this. It's rocket science - it's an experiment. Sometimes experiments work, sometime they don't. Yes the lay press is all gaga about it but that's because the lay press has all of the intellect and introspective capabilities of a paramecium. It's working. It's making incredible scientific progress on the cheap. We should really be harping this aspect of the mission, not the warranty.
Slightly off topic. The Atlantic has a slide show on 11 things that Americans bizarrely get wrong about America. It doesn't mention NASA but does mention that a significant number of Americans think that PBS funding and foreign aid constitute a significant amount of the US budget (actual values are less than 1% in both cases). There is this meme that the American government does nothing good and spends too much doing it. While there is some truth to that, a more important lesson is that the US government does lots of good things for not very much money. And this is one of those times.
M$ is acquiring / making deals with companies which are key to Linux -- related to Gnome (Novell), KDE & Qt (Nokia), Skype (ok, it was weak but could become important) and Nvidia (the _only_ hardware recognized as allowing video h/w in Linux) -- I don't whether they want to suffocate ("cut the oxygen of") Linux (actually, they probl think "Ubuntu") or they plan to get cozy to pinguins as a last resort against Apple.
It's getting me nervous.
If that's the way you think about things, you should be getting nervous. And it doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
The problem with IR cutoffs is they block visible light as well. You have to compensate by opening the lens aperture (not typically possible on a cheap camera phone), increasing the ISO (and noise) or decreasing the shutter speed (typically not desirable). So as long as you left your iPhone on a tripod, it would be OK. Otherwise not so much.
And OT, what the hell is wrong with Slashdot today? Are they running on Malda's Kaypro II or something?
It's for Apple iDevices - iPads, iPhones, iPods - with cameras. You can't take anything with a camera into courts, various government facilities, some concert venues or events etc. which means leaving your phone or tablet behind... but if businesses/governments recognize this system as "good enough" security against unauthorized photos, Apple mobiles will be the one kind that are allowed through the metal detector, ticket queue or other security checkpoint.
As has been mentioned, it's too easy to covertly bypass this sort of thing. I'm not sure why Apple is bothering with this idea, but I doubt allowing iWhatevers into censored environments is the real reason.
Orange, the European mobile provider, offered Wildfire as an extra-cost service from 2000 to 2005, then discontinued it over customer objections.
Seems like it didn't work all that well in the field. And that seems to be The Problem. Microsoft aside, it demos pretty well, but ends up being a very niche sort of thing.
I think Voice Recognition should be kept (and improved) especially for disabled persons and those niche applications, but I don't see it being a general method. Besides, as someone has previously pointed out, the current texting generation will probably fuse their fingers to a keyboard in the next decade or so, so they won't have to talk at all.
Hmm. I still think that's not a currently accepted theory. You certainly see archea in wells and in oil tanks, but you see them everywhere. The quick Google search didn't enlighten me much. My reply was assuming that the OP did mean essentially abiogenic oil production, could be wrong.
This. The funny thing is how wrong most of that information is. My Experian file is page after page of some true stuff, some blatantly untrue stuff, some stuff mixed up with my father's file (apparently I started working at Boeing when I was 10 years old - would be nice, I'd just love that pension). Spokeo.com (suggested by another poster) has most of my 'personal profile' almost, but not entirely, wrong.
Of course, that could even be more of a problem if I suddenly became 'famous' which fortunately, seems unlikely.
Very interesting. So far, I was only aware of the archaia that seem to be responsible for oil production and other mineral deposits.
Nice troll. Abiogenic production of oil has been completed refuted as a valid hypothesis.
Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by many geologists in the former Soviet Union, it allegedly fell out of favor because it never made any useful prediction for the discovery of oil deposits.
But (unless I missed a memo) we actually don't know what conditions the first life formed in. Although we tend to focus on the ocean environment, it's entirely possible that the first cells formed in some more exotic deep crevise and only later migrated to the surface. In many ways, walking around in the open air makes *us* one of the most exotic extremophiles of the world.
Here is one of the later memos. Yes, the conditions on earth at the beginning of biogenesis (as opposed to the other Genesis) were very, very different that the current environment. We wouldn't like it at all. Many theories of biogenesis use solid phase chemicals (like various clays) as early catalysts and / or structural parts of the earliest life forms.
I wonder if life could actually start in an environment like that, as opposed to starting in the oceans like it did on earth and then migrating downwards over millions of years. If life needs relatively hospitable conditions to start then we should not expect to find life on planets with only harsh environments.
This answers a different question - essentially "what are the (current) parameters for environmental conditions that allow life (as we know it)". We just kicked that can down the road a bit. Obviously, if lifeforms cannot survive in a particular environment it makes it unlikely that the started out in that environment but the converse isn't necessarily true. The planetary environment was markedly different when life started - warmer temperatures, little oxygen and just the fact that there weren't any other critters to eat made things very, very different.
So, this just expands the biosphere a bit and suggests that life doesn't necessarily need air conditioning. They just don't make primordial ooze like they used to.
I also see that Fisher-Price got the color selection contract again. It is an absolute headache to behold. The entire interface looks like a badly designed website.
Fischer-Price? The XP color scheming is sedate compared to the demo stuff. This is Fischer-Price-mates-with-Marvel-Comics-and-drops-bad-acid level color scheming.
Slashdot Mirror
How (and why) do you file a helicopter?
So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend...
Where did you get that idea? Ever heard of 'fair use'. Even if you decide that giving a copy to a friend would not fall under fair use then all hell breaks loose if you tell your friend to go download it from the same (free, openly available) site that you downloaded it from?
This isn't the free as in "land of the free" that I grew up learning about... seems like a trap to me. "How did you know that without ever buying our book or downloading our PDF? You must be a sea faring rapist and murderous theif!"
Who pooped on your doughnut today? What kind of trap can you make up over a freely downloadable, not DRM'd or locked PDF (other than it's a PDF, this being Slashdot and all).
You've been snorting too much of that Stalhlman stuff. Go buy an iPad for penance.
Except they never said six months. They said three months, insisted the solar panels would be too covered by dust to get enough power after that, and refused to consider any sort of cleaning system. Even when NASA gets something right, they get it completely wrong.
I see that you've been to Mars and understand the physics of dust in an alien atmosphere .... Oh, right. Anyhow, that isn't the issue at all. It's funding. Every NASA project is money constrained, so managers and boosters have all manner of strategems to make the most out of the system. Funding ground operations for 90 days is easier than funding ground observations for several years. Having a scientific package that meets it's goals in 90 days (and then goes ever onward) is much better than coming up with a 5 year plan and have some critical widget fail in three.
I really don't understand why everyone here is making such an issue of this. It's rocket science - it's an experiment. Sometimes experiments work, sometime they don't. Yes the lay press is all gaga about it but that's because the lay press has all of the intellect and introspective capabilities of a paramecium. It's working. It's making incredible scientific progress on the cheap. We should really be harping this aspect of the mission, not the warranty.
Slightly off topic. The Atlantic has a slide show on 11 things that Americans bizarrely get wrong about America. It doesn't mention NASA but does mention that a significant number of Americans think that PBS funding and foreign aid constitute a significant amount of the US budget (actual values are less than 1% in both cases). There is this meme that the American government does nothing good and spends too much doing it. While there is some truth to that, a more important lesson is that the US government does lots of good things for not very much money. And this is one of those times.
M$ is acquiring / making deals with companies which are key to Linux -- related to Gnome (Novell), KDE & Qt (Nokia), Skype (ok, it was weak but could become important) and Nvidia (the _only_ hardware recognized as allowing video h/w in Linux) -- I don't whether they want to suffocate ("cut the oxygen of") Linux (actually, they probl think "Ubuntu") or they plan to get cozy to pinguins as a last resort against Apple.
It's getting me nervous.
If that's the way you think about things, you should be getting nervous. And it doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
Don't they have geographically disperse redundant data centers to avoid an issue like a tornado taking them completely down?
What? Backups? Are you serious?
Or better yet... bacon-wrapped alcoholic cupcakes. With nuts...
We've previously discussed how using British food is prohibited by the Geneva convention.
Really easy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_cut-off_filter
The problem with IR cutoffs is they block visible light as well. You have to compensate by opening the lens aperture (not typically possible on a cheap camera phone), increasing the ISO (and noise) or decreasing the shutter speed (typically not desirable). So as long as you left your iPhone on a tripod, it would be OK. Otherwise not so much.
And OT, what the hell is wrong with Slashdot today? Are they running on Malda's Kaypro II or something?
It's for Apple iDevices - iPads, iPhones, iPods - with cameras. You can't take anything with a camera into courts, various government facilities, some concert venues or events etc. which means leaving your phone or tablet behind... but if businesses/governments recognize this system as "good enough" security against unauthorized photos, Apple mobiles will be the one kind that are allowed through the metal detector, ticket queue or other security checkpoint.
As has been mentioned, it's too easy to covertly bypass this sort of thing. I'm not sure why Apple is bothering with this idea, but I doubt allowing iWhatevers into censored environments is the real reason.
Just don't forget to put a tasteful and elegant "iCensored" logo at the bottom, in a pleasant Apple Garamond font.
I think they would have to step out of their comfort zone and call it "uCensored" to make sense in this situation.
You can pry my LaserJet 4M from my cold, dead biceps (to heavy to pick up with my hands).
Orange, the European mobile provider, offered Wildfire as an extra-cost service from 2000 to 2005, then discontinued it over customer objections.
Seems like it didn't work all that well in the field. And that seems to be The Problem. Microsoft aside, it demos pretty well, but ends up being a very niche sort of thing.
I think Voice Recognition should be kept (and improved) especially for disabled persons and those niche applications, but I don't see it being a general method. Besides, as someone has previously pointed out, the current texting generation will probably fuse their fingers to a keyboard in the next decade or so, so they won't have to talk at all.
Apparently we are much better off than we thought....
Hmm. I still think that's not a currently accepted theory. You certainly see archea in wells and in oil tanks, but you see them everywhere. The quick Google search didn't enlighten me much. My reply was assuming that the OP did mean essentially abiogenic oil production, could be wrong.
I live in Vegas. Will running sharks up on the strip work as Celine Dion repellent?
Leave them there long enough and probably, yes they would.
We need to get a bunch of nerds to move to East Texas and try to get on as many patent infringement juries as possible.
Why the hate? What have nerds done to you that makes you want to punish them in that way?
I don't see how this is practical, but maybe I'm missing something.
It may be useful for getting more research grants. If you could somehow hook it up with sharks and lasers, you might get some funding from DARPA.
I would think the effect itself would dissipate quickly after the magnetic field is turned off or removed from the subject.
Yeah, like 30 minutes or so, just like it says in TFA.
From reading the comments that follow, I think satire is beyond the understanding of mos technical professionals.
Kinda like typing.
This. The funny thing is how wrong most of that information is. My Experian file is page after page of some true stuff, some blatantly untrue stuff, some stuff mixed up with my father's file (apparently I started working at Boeing when I was 10 years old - would be nice, I'd just love that pension). Spokeo.com (suggested by another poster) has most of my 'personal profile' almost, but not entirely, wrong.
Of course, that could even be more of a problem if I suddenly became 'famous' which fortunately, seems unlikely.
Very interesting. So far, I was only aware of the archaia that seem to be responsible for oil production and other mineral deposits.
Nice troll. Abiogenic production of oil has been completed refuted as a valid hypothesis.
Although the abiogenic hypothesis was accepted by many geologists in the former Soviet Union, it allegedly fell out of favor because it never made any useful prediction for the discovery of oil deposits.
But (unless I missed a memo) we actually don't know what conditions the first life formed in. Although we tend to focus on the ocean environment, it's entirely possible that the first cells formed in some more exotic deep crevise and only later migrated to the surface. In many ways, walking around in the open air makes *us* one of the most exotic extremophiles of the world.
Here is one of the later memos. Yes, the conditions on earth at the beginning of biogenesis (as opposed to the other Genesis) were very, very different that the current environment. We wouldn't like it at all. Many theories of biogenesis use solid phase chemicals (like various clays) as early catalysts and / or structural parts of the earliest life forms.
I wonder if life could actually start in an environment like that, as opposed to starting in the oceans like it did on earth and then migrating downwards over millions of years. If life needs relatively hospitable conditions to start then we should not expect to find life on planets with only harsh environments.
This answers a different question - essentially "what are the (current) parameters for environmental conditions that allow life (as we know it)". We just kicked that can down the road a bit. Obviously, if lifeforms cannot survive in a particular environment it makes it unlikely that the started out in that environment but the converse isn't necessarily true. The planetary environment was markedly different when life started - warmer temperatures, little oxygen and just the fact that there weren't any other critters to eat made things very, very different.
So, this just expands the biosphere a bit and suggests that life doesn't necessarily need air conditioning. They just don't make primordial ooze like they used to.
I also see that Fisher-Price got the color selection contract again. It is an absolute headache to behold. The entire interface looks like a badly designed website.
Fischer-Price? The XP color scheming is sedate compared to the demo stuff. This is Fischer-Price-mates-with-Marvel-Comics-and-drops-bad-acid level color scheming.
The goggles! They do nothing!
OK where is D9? I know when I was at high school that was the maths room (in places outside the USA mathematics is plural)
Here.
I really did like the piloting interface on the alien ship. I'd boot up into that in a flash.
I don't see this as very good for novices. I'd hate to have to give phone support for people using this UI.
"Just reboot your computer. If that doesn't work, reinstall the operating system(s)."
Same as it ever was.