But they can get royalties/a settlement from all the money made by software that included Jpeg support from the day the patent was awarded. e.g. photoshop, paintshop, printshop, etc., etc., etc. Getting rid of jpg now doesn't absolve entities that have made money on the compression scheme in the past.
Most of the world is still on dialup (at least in the home for those lucky enough to have internet access at home).
53/56K is faster than 300 baud, but still not very fast at a very graphics intensive site.
That is predicated on the assumption that nuclear weapons proliferation issues will be resolved. With the current state of affairs in the world, it will be difficult to convince the US that plutonium producing (breeder) reactors would be a reasonable and safe energy source. I can't imagine the US not trying to block breeder reactor technology from reaching semi-stable, totalitarian governments. And breeder reactors are already illegal in the US.
HUH? This is exactly the kind of problem where economic pressure completely fails to drive solutions to the problem.
I will agree that these problems are difficult, but they are indeed solvable, I submit CFC's and their damage to the ozone as a problem that was global and impossible to compartmentalize or to use your word partition but that we have made significant progress on.
The economic effect in healthcare cost and damage to individuals was part of the equation that prompted the world to take action.
I can't resist . . . I feel like I got trolled, but this is just too easy . . . where to begin:
"[T]he campaign of fear now being waged against genetic modification is based largely on fantasy
and a complete lack of respect for science and logic."
Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.
I hardly think that the co-founder of Greenpeace is someone to take advice from on Genetic modification. I would trust the Union of concerned Scientists ,
The Union of Concerned Scientists today released a groundbreaking pilot study that found genetically engineered DNA is contaminating traditional seeds of three major U.S. crops. Seed contamination, if left unchecked, could disrupt agricultural trade, unfairly burden the organic industry, and allow hazardous materials into the food supply.
I think that the Union of Concerned Scientists are much better informed on genetic modification than the head of Greenpeace.
On the subject of nuclear energy, there are less nuclear reserves available on the planet than fossil fuels. If the planet relied on Nuclear Energy for all electricity, estimates are that we would run out in about 80 years. See Energy at the Crossroads : Global Perspectives and Uncertainties"
"In truth, what the environmental community has become is a money machine"
What is the relevence of this quote? Does money somehow make enviromental action less important, less relevant or less beneficial? This quote has nothing to do with enviromental progress . . . it is a comment that may be true, but it does not in any way comment on the value of enviromental activism on the environment.
DDT is toxic and malaria is bad . . . but malaria is preventable by other means. DDT gets into the ecosystem and is nearly impossible to remove. Should you like to spray your backyard with DDT, I refer you to a less politically charged and more factual reference. An MSDS for DDT which I quote:
A serious environmental hazard due to bioaccumulation and transport up the food chain. Concentrations in animals near the top of the food chain (such as predatory birds) may become high enough in areas in which DDT has been heavily used, to have devastating effects upon reproductive ability. Degrades extremely slowly in the environment and is removed very slowly from animal tissue.
The most humorous part of your post is that you cite a doxilogically open set of quotes which undermines your argument . . . you use quotes from former and current activists/activist groups to support you postulate (in particular the cofounder of Greenpeace), then you attack activists with other quotes (The Alfred Runte quote). This appears to be a mishmash of quotes pulled out of the net through the "misuse" of internet tools like Google. Either activists have credibility or not, but you can't have it both ways and expect to make a credible point.
I was talking to a lawyer about patent applications once . . . his comment was that they are always rejected on the first round, so it was best to actually not submit all documentation in the first round so that there would be additional documentation to submit during the second round. His claim was that patent employees are overworked and often underskilled (because they are required to have such a broad breadth of knowledge) and if they don't know a lot about the particular technology, they would reject the application based on some general ground rules . . . if you gave a lot of extra data, etc. in the resubmittal it would often go through. I don't know if this is a common practice and IANAL, but I think its more than a bit sad that a lawyer would have such a cynical view . . . and perhaps even more sad if the system is actually deserving of this cynical view.
I had a friend in Clear Lake TX whose Cable bill went up by ~$10 a couple of years ago and he called to complain . . . they said that the price hike was approved because he was now getting 4 "Great new channels" . . . Golf, something like a soap opera network and 2 shopping networks.
Because he was locked into a cable plan, he couldn't easily "vote" for the channels that he liked with his dollars . . . so he was stuck paying the extra for four lousy (in his opinion) channels that he would never watch.
I agree with the economists that say that we will pay the same for TV, but if can vote with our dollars, we establish more competitition and a more efficient marketplace. If no one likes the channel, it will be dropped in favor of something else . . .
When I move to Richmond VA in 1995, they didn't have comedy central and didn't get it for another 2 years or so . . . if people could pick and choose . . . we might have gotten it a lot sooner through an efficient marketplace that reflects true customer demand.
The higher the frequency, the worse the performance for going through walls and other barriers for a given transmission power . . . Allowing transmission at higher power might help compensate for the higher frequency . . . Hopefully this won't be like 4.X Ghz which doesn't seem to go through walls very well
So soon I will be able to have a 2.4 Ghz wireless network, and a 3.6 Ghz wireless phone and they shouldn't interfere with each other right?
Though a lot of the green crowd have been big proponents of solar cells, solar cells are pretty nasty beasts containing gallium, tellurium, and other heavy metals and nasty components . . . manufactuering them also produces a significant amount of nasty byproducts and waste.
One things that I've never seen is the lifetime and disposal costs of solar cells . . . that never seems to be factored into the so called "solar renewable energy" equation.
Are there any site that give advice on how to react to a situation like this? Most that I have seen basically say IANAL and to consult a professional . . . it seems if you don't have money, its hard to get good advice . . .
They were never built . . . a modified version was built smaller than the orignal idea, but the core rocket is very nearly the same . . . most of the difference is the 8 boosters that would surround the core rocket. I would think that building this on existing technology would be loads easier than starting from scratch . . .
I remember a professor in university that said that one of the easiest way to increase lifespan was to consume about 20% less . . . it would slow down the metabolism and extend one's life if practiced over a lifetime. This was theorized as the reason why some Tibetan monks typically live much longer than other people living in the same area . . .
I wonder if this mouse is doing something similar, but its been genetically engineered to be well . . . about 33% less . . .
The original linked article isn't very informative. There will probably be a period of no significant magnetic field while the field is reversing . . . Here's an article about a simulation that to everyone's surprise, actually predicted the reversal.
Does anyone else get the impression that bad patents in the US are causing other countries to amend their patent laws to allow their companies to participate in what they see as a "land grab" for patentable technology. Patents are useful, but unfortunately bad patents in the US are spoiling the game for everyone . . . and I'm afraid that the the EU is just trying to sink lower than the US because their afraid that if they don't, then they're going to miss out on the "land grab" for software, business processes and other non-tangible idea patents.
Has anyone else noticed that Microsoft prefers to pay a lump sum for an unlimited license (with respect to users or copies of a product sold) rather than a royalty on the number of products sold/licensed? With as big a war chest as they have, I guess they don't want to owe anyone royalties on future products/development. And then they can continue using the technology in their OS'es forever . . .
Large scale desal. is almost always a reverse osmosis process. . . the energy required to increase the water pressure above osmotic pressure is well below the evaporation energy required . . . financially its a no brainer. The osmotic membranes don't tend to plug up provided that the water is properly filtered before reaching the membranes. Additionally, the objective is not to separate out all the water or even most of the water . . . because as one separates water from the salt, the salinity increases which increases the osmotic pressure which increases the energy requirement. It easier to just get more lower concentration salt water from the ocean . . . a virtually "infinite" source.
If one were to use an evaporative method, cogen would be a large capital investment for low return. Consider a preheat exchanger instead . . . hot steam preheats feed water so that you don't have to heat the feed water from ambient temperature and the cool feed water condenses the steam into fresh water . . . thus the heat is transfered without losses associated with a cogen unit. Additionally with a well designed series of cross current exchangers, it is possible to get more heat out of the system than a conventional cogen could deliver.
Vapor compression . . . I'm not sure that there would be a compressor big enough on the market today (especially that wouldn't be prohibitively expensive). Also, vapor compression extracts heat that is imparted by the compression process . . . there is a loss of energy from compression energy to heat energy. If one does not need the pressure or the temperature or one can get the same effect from a different source (like a heater powered from the same power source that the compressor would have been powered from) this would be more efficient than compressing only to extract heat. There isn't an air separation plant or ethylene production plant in the world that wouldn't throw away their compressors in a heartbeat if they only needed them for heat generation.
Doesn't the market already regulate this . . . to a certain extent creating standards by embracing ideas that are well accepted by the customer base?
For example the Apple Newton's terrible handwriting recognition system vs Palm Pilot's . . . and Palm's system of handwriting recognition is becoming more ubiquitous as others license the operating system (handspring (now part of palm), Sony, etc.)
Or a simple example, how many software products for sound recording or CD audio playing do not have the familiar play, rewind, FF and stop that look like a right arrowhead, double left arrowheads, double right arrowheads, and a square? If someone tried to write a player/recorder without this interface, would a significant number of people actually buy it even if in all other respects it was a great program?
What about a trash can in the GUI for deleting files? . . . or even the concept of a mouse? All these became "standards" in their own right because they were well accepted by the consumer.
A standards body may save some knock down drag out fights over "standards" in the marketplace and may speed things up a bit, but the ultimate challenge is the marketplace . . . if people think that the interactive experience from a product sucks, then they're not going to buy it . . .
A ship with its own garden? 3 years? I assume that they want to create a somewhat sustainable ecosystem . . . We couldn't even get that right on Earth . . . see biosphere 2
This sounds more than a little idealistic . . .
I remember seeing a documentary when I was a child that said that the Soviet (this was coldwar times) Energia-Vulkan rocket could power a mission all the way to mars and back. Apparently Energia Vulkan was scrapped for Energia Buran (the launch rocket for the now defunct Russian shuttle), but Energia Vulkan's design is an Energia Buran with a total of 8 boosters . . . Apparently its not that different from from the Energia Buran (built to launch the now defunct Russian shuttle). A few details here
It is important to distinguish between reflectivity and emmissivity. The white color of an object that doesn't absorb radiation is a measurement of reflectivity. An object that doesn't absorb any radiation will have a reflectivity or albedo of 1, however, it's emissivity depends on how it disipates heat energy which has aboslutely nothing to do with reflectivity. Even if the object is white with a reflectivity of 1, if it produces its own heat, then it is emitting blackbody radiation even though it is not absorbing electromagnetic radiation.
Also, assuming that your postulate is true, the argument is also flawed as it assumes that the negative of a true statement is necessarily true . . . which is incorrect. The contrapositive is also true, but not the negative.
Assume your postulate An object that doesn't absorb any radiation will appear white is true.
Then the contrapositive must also be true: An object that appears white might not be absorbing any radiation. Or in terms more closely associated with your postulate, A white object may approach an emissivity of 0. Note that this is not a necessary condition.
However, the negative of the original statement which you postulate as true "hence white approaches an emissivity of 0" is proposed as a necessary condition. However we all know of white objects that radiate heat (blackbody radiation). So this statement is incorrect as it may or may not be true. The first statement does not prove the second statement (the negation of the first).
The same is true of the other statement. If a statement is true, the negative might or might not be true, the contrapositive is always true.
If your relying strictly on the flow of the water (no gravitational potential energy due to elecation changes) you can measure the speed of the river flow get some idea how much head pressure the river can deliver. If it's a slow moving river (as you said in the header of the post) there may not be a lot of pressure head to deal with (which would imply a large volume of water to generate significant current).
Actually, there is no heatsink . . . space may be cold, but it also has no heat capacity. Heatsinks rely on conduction (which requires heat capacity). Stefan's law states that radiating heat in the form of electromagnetic radiation has nothing to do with the ambient temperature, only the temperature of the radiant object.
Slashdot Mirror
But they can get royalties/a settlement from all the money made by software that included Jpeg support from the day the patent was awarded. e.g. photoshop, paintshop, printshop, etc., etc., etc. Getting rid of jpg now doesn't absolve entities that have made money on the compression scheme in the past.
Most of the world is still on dialup (at least in the home for those lucky enough to have internet access at home). 53/56K is faster than 300 baud, but still not very fast at a very graphics intensive site.
That is predicated on the assumption that nuclear weapons proliferation issues will be resolved. With the current state of affairs in the world, it will be difficult to convince the US that plutonium producing (breeder) reactors would be a reasonable and safe energy source. I can't imagine the US not trying to block breeder reactor technology from reaching semi-stable, totalitarian governments. And breeder reactors are already illegal in the US.
I will agree that these problems are difficult, but they are indeed solvable, I submit CFC's and their damage to the ozone as a problem that was global and impossible to compartmentalize or to use your word partition but that we have made significant progress on. The economic effect in healthcare cost and damage to individuals was part of the equation that prompted the world to take action.
"[T]he campaign of fear now being waged against genetic modification is based largely on fantasy and a complete lack of respect for science and logic." Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore.
I hardly think that the co-founder of Greenpeace is someone to take advice from on Genetic modification. I would trust the Union of concerned Scientists ,
The Union of Concerned Scientists today released a groundbreaking pilot study that found genetically engineered DNA is contaminating traditional seeds of three major U.S. crops. Seed contamination, if left unchecked, could disrupt agricultural trade, unfairly burden the organic industry, and allow hazardous materials into the food supply.
I think that the Union of Concerned Scientists are much better informed on genetic modification than the head of Greenpeace.
On the subject of nuclear energy, there are less nuclear reserves available on the planet than fossil fuels. If the planet relied on Nuclear Energy for all electricity, estimates are that we would run out in about 80 years. See Energy at the Crossroads : Global Perspectives and Uncertainties"
"In truth, what the environmental community has become is a money machine"
What is the relevence of this quote? Does money somehow make enviromental action less important, less relevant or less beneficial? This quote has nothing to do with enviromental progress . . . it is a comment that may be true, but it does not in any way comment on the value of enviromental activism on the environment.
DDT is toxic and malaria is bad . . . but malaria is preventable by other means. DDT gets into the ecosystem and is nearly impossible to remove. Should you like to spray your backyard with DDT, I refer you to a less politically charged and more factual reference. An MSDS for DDT which I quote:
A serious environmental hazard due to bioaccumulation and transport up the food chain. Concentrations in animals near the top of the food chain (such as predatory birds) may become high enough in areas in which DDT has been heavily used, to have devastating effects upon reproductive ability. Degrades extremely slowly in the environment and is removed very slowly from animal tissue.
The most humorous part of your post is that you cite a doxilogically open set of quotes which undermines your argument . . . you use quotes from former and current activists/activist groups to support you postulate (in particular the cofounder of Greenpeace), then you attack activists with other quotes (The Alfred Runte quote). This appears to be a mishmash of quotes pulled out of the net through the "misuse" of internet tools like Google. Either activists have credibility or not, but you can't have it both ways and expect to make a credible point.
I was talking to a lawyer about patent applications once . . . his comment was that they are always rejected on the first round, so it was best to actually not submit all documentation in the first round so that there would be additional documentation to submit during the second round. His claim was that patent employees are overworked and often underskilled (because they are required to have such a broad breadth of knowledge) and if they don't know a lot about the particular technology, they would reject the application based on some general ground rules . . . if you gave a lot of extra data, etc. in the resubmittal it would often go through. I don't know if this is a common practice and IANAL, but I think its more than a bit sad that a lawyer would have such a cynical view . . . and perhaps even more sad if the system is actually deserving of this cynical view.
Because he was locked into a cable plan, he couldn't easily "vote" for the channels that he liked with his dollars . . . so he was stuck paying the extra for four lousy (in his opinion) channels that he would never watch.
I agree with the economists that say that we will pay the same for TV, but if can vote with our dollars, we establish more competitition and a more efficient marketplace. If no one likes the channel, it will be dropped in favor of something else . . .
When I move to Richmond VA in 1995, they didn't have comedy central and didn't get it for another 2 years or so . . . if people could pick and choose . . . we might have gotten it a lot sooner through an efficient marketplace that reflects true customer demand.
So soon I will be able to have a 2.4 Ghz wireless network, and a 3.6 Ghz wireless phone and they shouldn't interfere with each other right?
One things that I've never seen is the lifetime and disposal costs of solar cells . . . that never seems to be factored into the so called "solar renewable energy" equation.
They did everything but call the judge a blathering idiot . . .
Are there any site that give advice on how to react to a situation like this? Most that I have seen basically say IANAL and to consult a professional . . . it seems if you don't have money, its hard to get good advice . . .
They were never built . . . a modified version was built smaller than the orignal idea, but the core rocket is very nearly the same . . . most of the difference is the 8 boosters that would surround the core rocket. I would think that building this on existing technology would be loads easier than starting from scratch . . .
I wonder if this mouse is doing something similar, but its been genetically engineered to be well . . . about 33% less . . .
Goodbye Van Allan Belt, Hello Cosmic Rays . . .
Does anyone else get the impression that bad patents in the US are causing other countries to amend their patent laws to allow their companies to participate in what they see as a "land grab" for patentable technology. Patents are useful, but unfortunately bad patents in the US are spoiling the game for everyone . . . and I'm afraid that the the EU is just trying to sink lower than the US because their afraid that if they don't, then they're going to miss out on the "land grab" for software, business processes and other non-tangible idea patents.
Has anyone else noticed that Microsoft prefers to pay a lump sum for an unlimited license (with respect to users or copies of a product sold) rather than a royalty on the number of products sold/licensed? With as big a war chest as they have, I guess they don't want to owe anyone royalties on future products/development. And then they can continue using the technology in their OS'es forever . . .
If one were to use an evaporative method, cogen would be a large capital investment for low return. Consider a preheat exchanger instead . . . hot steam preheats feed water so that you don't have to heat the feed water from ambient temperature and the cool feed water condenses the steam into fresh water . . . thus the heat is transfered without losses associated with a cogen unit. Additionally with a well designed series of cross current exchangers, it is possible to get more heat out of the system than a conventional cogen could deliver.
Vapor compression . . . I'm not sure that there would be a compressor big enough on the market today (especially that wouldn't be prohibitively expensive). Also, vapor compression extracts heat that is imparted by the compression process . . . there is a loss of energy from compression energy to heat energy. If one does not need the pressure or the temperature or one can get the same effect from a different source (like a heater powered from the same power source that the compressor would have been powered from) this would be more efficient than compressing only to extract heat. There isn't an air separation plant or ethylene production plant in the world that wouldn't throw away their compressors in a heartbeat if they only needed them for heat generation.
For example the Apple Newton's terrible handwriting recognition system vs Palm Pilot's . . . and Palm's system of handwriting recognition is becoming more ubiquitous as others license the operating system (handspring (now part of palm), Sony, etc.)
Or a simple example, how many software products for sound recording or CD audio playing do not have the familiar play, rewind, FF and stop that look like a right arrowhead, double left arrowheads, double right arrowheads, and a square? If someone tried to write a player/recorder without this interface, would a significant number of people actually buy it even if in all other respects it was a great program?
What about a trash can in the GUI for deleting files? . . . or even the concept of a mouse? All these became "standards" in their own right because they were well accepted by the consumer.
A standards body may save some knock down drag out fights over "standards" in the marketplace and may speed things up a bit, but the ultimate challenge is the marketplace . . . if people think that the interactive experience from a product sucks, then they're not going to buy it . . .
A ship with its own garden? 3 years? I assume that they want to create a somewhat sustainable ecosystem . . . We couldn't even get that right on Earth . . . see biosphere 2 This sounds more than a little idealistic . . .
Just what we need . . . A 21st century cybervigilante working for the RIAA . . .
I remember seeing a documentary when I was a child that said that the Soviet (this was coldwar times) Energia-Vulkan rocket could power a mission all the way to mars and back. Apparently Energia Vulkan was scrapped for Energia Buran (the launch rocket for the now defunct Russian shuttle), but Energia Vulkan's design is an Energia Buran with a total of 8 boosters . . . Apparently its not that different from from the Energia Buran (built to launch the now defunct Russian shuttle). A few details here
It is important to distinguish between reflectivity and emmissivity. The white color of an object that doesn't absorb radiation is a measurement of reflectivity. An object that doesn't absorb any radiation will have a reflectivity or albedo of 1, however, it's emissivity depends on how it disipates heat energy which has aboslutely nothing to do with reflectivity. Even if the object is white with a reflectivity of 1, if it produces its own heat, then it is emitting blackbody radiation even though it is not absorbing electromagnetic radiation.
Also, assuming that your postulate is true, the argument is also flawed as it assumes that the negative of a true statement is necessarily true . . . which is incorrect. The contrapositive is also true, but not the negative.
Assume your postulate An object that doesn't absorb any radiation will appear white is true. Then the contrapositive must also be true: An object that appears white might not be absorbing any radiation. Or in terms more closely associated with your postulate, A white object may approach an emissivity of 0. Note that this is not a necessary condition.
However, the negative of the original statement which you postulate as true "hence white approaches an emissivity of 0" is proposed as a necessary condition. However we all know of white objects that radiate heat (blackbody radiation). So this statement is incorrect as it may or may not be true. The first statement does not prove the second statement (the negation of the first).
The same is true of the other statement. If a statement is true, the negative might or might not be true, the contrapositive is always true.
I especially like the perhaps aptly named but technically uninformitive designation of "sun sensors" on the picture.
Actually, there is no heatsink . . . space may be cold, but it also has no heat capacity. Heatsinks rely on conduction (which requires heat capacity). Stefan's law states that radiating heat in the form of electromagnetic radiation has nothing to do with the ambient temperature, only the temperature of the radiant object.