By the rocket equation, mass fraction is determined by velocity and exhaust velocity is driven two things; the mass of the molecules being put out and the pressure/temperature of the combustion chamber.
A rocket goes up because of the asymmetry between molecules being flung against the top of the reaction chamber while passing out the bottom. I know that the chaos in the chamber means that the best way to think about this is a pressure parameter rather than the direction of individual molecules. But I've always wanted to know whether you could make a rocket engine more efficient by using electromagnetic fields to orient the molecules in such a way that the chemical reactions are biased to have more reaction products being flung up and down rather than side to side.
Taking the H2+O2 reaction as an example:
The reaction proceeds in a complex way,
however magnetic fields are able to affect similar reactions.
You're right about the current entertainment smorgasbord.
But Sturgeon's Second Law means that with appropriate use of both professional and word-of-mouth filtering, we should be able to fill up with good stuff.
As soon as you back a mere 90 days off the leading edge, your costs drop by 50%.
The watercooler effect keeps people on the bleeding edge of entertainment. Who wants to be out of the loop with one's friends and colleagues, not to mention spoiled.
It's easier to be cheap if you have no friends and work from home.
The problem is how the showrooms get payed for? will we move instead to individual manfactures paying for showpiece storefronts (maybe Apple stores already are this? do they expect to make a profit on on-store sales, or are they just giant adverts driving their sales through other channels?)
An insightful observation.
My company offers one solution — allow full-service retailers to get paid for the help they give to people, even when they don't make the sale.
How this works: When someone claims a cashback payment after a purchase, they're given an easy way to nominate the sources of purchasing help they received. The nominated sources can receive both a portion of the rebate and a bonus payment from the maker of the product that's been bought.
This should make all sorts of free help services feasible, including "stores" which focus on demonstrations and trial loaners, services you can ring to get advice from an expert, as well as better online comparison tools.
Starting a business and making it successful is fairly easy - just boring and hard work.
Yes, the most successful people are the ones with the greatest tolerance for boredom.
But ironically it's the lazy dreamer who has the best ideas in the first place. So a successful lone-wolf needs to master both the dreamer and drone modes.
No wonder most successful start-ups have at least two founders, providing complementary skills or cross-motivation.
Marketing isn't the problem here as it is at the core of capitalism, it's unavoidable and without it, the market would be monolithic as only monopolist brands would be used. The problem is intrusive marketing. And if they can make enjoyable ads, I'm all for it.
Yes, marketing is essential for capitalism — but not advertising. Not only is advertising often interruptive (synchronous or highly diverting), often it is manipulative and delivers false information.
High-quality product-related editorial from trusted sources is a better way to find out about the market. There are ways to fund this without either paywalls or advertising (including product placement).
But like you, I applaud Google for this step. Ad-funded TV networks will be in even more trouble as more people hook-up the Net to their TVs and mobile devices.
I'd love to know the stats of how many choose to skip the ads.
Using SSL may not be a solution, because websites that think that these techniques will increase their revenue, because the ads they display will be better targeted, have an incentive to not provide an SSL service.
PhoneGap looks like it's a set of SDKs that allows apps written in JavaScript to run on a number of phone OSes; not a browser for each of these OSes that allow arbitrary websites to act like device-integrated phone apps.
Does anyone know of a browser app with PhoneGap capability? Would such an app be approved by Apple?
How are web apps not open, ever? By definition if they run you can see the source, because the browser has to have the javascript/css to work...
JavaScript can be compressed/encoded/obfuscated, which makes it much harder to modify than when there are both code comments and proper function and variable names. API documentation, both client and server-side, may also be lacking.
There needs to be a browser that exposes in JavaScript a common API for phone I/O: accelerometer, multi-touch, camera, GPS. etc.
I'd also like to see a store for apps (native or HTML+JS) that charged for apps but also (1), encouraged developers to make the source of their apps available, and (2), allowed other developers to sell altered binaries on the same store, with the original author getting a cut equal to what they originally charged, and so on down the line. This would open development, while ensuring those adding value are compensated. It'd be like a software VAT.
Yes, often the most efficient way to get a task done well is to let it percolate for some time in your mind, until the best approach pops out. For those contracting by the hour, this means that the real work is often done off the clock, which isn't really fair.
If you need a good solution right now, the best approach is usually to spend some time thinking about it first, which may look like staring off to space. Again, it's hard to keep a billing clock running while doing this, if only for the feeling of being under the gun. Conversely, in an office environment, bad bosses may assume that someone isn't working if they aren't typing.
Targon, in the hope of improvement, I always keep up with the latest stable FF release (currently 3.6.10). FF's memory management has definitely improved over the years, but is still the biggest negative of an otherwise excellent browser.
I noticed FF slowed down much more rapidly when I was using a website with a lot of popup windows. So the the memory leak may be related to window creation or destruction.
If my experience isn't universal, the leak is likely in a plug-in I use. That's why I'd like to see Mozilla make it easier for plug-in writers to test for leaks.
Thrash for several hours before benchmarking
on
How Do Browsers Scale?
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
I find that Firefox gradually slows down with use, requiring me to re-start it at least once per day to avoid second-or-more delays when scrolling or typing.
So I'd like to see benchmarks that test a browser's speed after several hours of simulated use, benchmarking while many other windows and tabs are open. This can also be done in several different memory-restricted VMs to see how the amount of memory affects the speed.
Perhaps my problem is due to one or more of the plug-ins I use. So Mozilla should make it easy for plugin developers to test their releases on a benchmark like the one described above.
Which raises the question of why the generic talents like managing an office, raising capital, keeping the stationary cabinet full, etc. commands higher wages than the people who actually build the systems.
If the actual work is commoditized, most of the reward will go to those who risk time and money — either theirs or other people's. The winners are the bold and wealthy or the bold and convincing.
Yes, I think tiny self-aware probes will be the way we'll do it. A one-gram probe would still require a Hiroshima to get it to.85c.
You'd be able to launch billions of them, both to target many stars at once, and also to allow the probes to communicate down chains.
You'd be aiming to impact a planet (make it survivable by building the probe mainly out of diamond), after which the nanotech would sprout and build something better. Rather than a simple scatter-gun approach, the probe could steer as it travels by releasing radioactive decay particles left and right.
Using this you could expand the front of exploration at.8c, and pwn the galaxy in 100k years.
Major questions: how to accelerate the probes, and can a.85c impact be survived.
But what of this "List Price" system in the terms? The formula in the leak makes no sense to me, but it looks like Amazon's aim is to prevent developers pricing their apps lower at competing app stores.
If I could charge what I like when selling my app elsewhere, I wouldn't care what margin Amazon takes. But if they sell the app for $10, and I get $7 back from them, I may want to sell the app for $8 on my own website, so my return is about the same no matter where it is bought. There would be no cross-subsidisation. But I wouldn't be happy if a condition of Amazon listing forced me to sell it for at least $10 outside Amazon.
This is speculation, because, as I said, the way the List Price mechanism is described in the leak makes no sense to me. Anyone understand it?
Smartphone apps seem to be displayed in a grid, making them easier to launch than a website. Is a launcher app available that presents an app icon, but can be configured to launch a specific address in a specific browser? If not available, would a native app that just acted as a launcher for a particular website be accepted by the various app stores?
Are browsers that expose JavaScript APIs for platform-specific features, like accelerometer data, available for the various phone OSs?
Could you explain what you mean about notifications.
Could you explain the advantages of writing a web-app in one of the mobile-specific frameworks you mention, rather than in a standard web framework that allows mobile-sized screens and touch input to be specially targeted.
you'll be surprised how much time watching an animation or interactive applet will take up while learning. You're dependent on the content creator's pace to learn when you use animations and interactive applets, whereas if you just read the thing, you're dependent on your own.
Yes! That's also why Flash websites can be so frustrating — having your brain idling while UI elements "beautifully" animate.
OK, so a high-efficiency high-capacity radiating process must be found. At the moment, lasers aren't that efficient. Perhaps antennas can do better, or some sort of luminescence. Then let a passive radiator handle the waste.
Or does thermodynamics say that if you can't connect to a colder place, you can't beat a passive radiator?
To get even closer they'd have to fluid-cool the heat shield to stop it melting. So is there a faster way to cool a fluid than by passive radiation? Say, converting the energy into a laser, or some form of luminescence?
A wiki is a good tool for accumulating and summarizing insights revealed in a discussion forum, enabling new members of the forum to quickly get up to speed, and providing a resource for decision-makers.
Such a wiki can be hierarchically structured, providing quick summaries at the top-level, but allowing people to drill down to specific points.
But a normal wiki is no good for contentious topics, because a lack of consensus causes editing wars.
That's why I made Make The Case, a wiki where an article is a case for or against a particular proposition, but which also allows people to provide and edit paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttals, which are displayed alongside.
Unlike debate spread over separate articles, or in a forum, this gives false information and spin nowhere to hide, allowing both the case and the counter-case to be iteratively improved.
Your license is not free to tinker either, as any inability to pay you, lets say you die, ends all freedom.
Good point. But there is a licence clause which states that any licence fee is waived during periods when the licensor is unable to provide a reasonable means of payment. So death of a copyright holder would be handled by normal inheritance, like any other licence, with a fee-free fallback.
That's a different open-source license the way a camel is a different horse.
It depends what freedom users care most about — the freedom to tinker, or a freedom from paying — and what user freedoms don't substantially reduce the incentive for developers to develop solutions to a particular problem.
Sell binaries offer only sources as no cost. That will compel most to pay.
I think you're suggesting that most users aren't sufficiently savvy or time-rich to build it themselves, so will pay.
However I think that most end-users will easily discover the many no-charge builds that people will make available if the software's licence permits it, as would be the case for software under any FOSS license. And what about interpreted software where the source is the binary.
That's why I think a different open-source licence is required that gives people free-reign to distribute binaries and/or source of both original and modified versions of the software, as long as they pay the original author any licence fee that the author has designated, which will require re-distributors to charge their customers at least this amount.
This is a good way to fund development, allowing more high-quality apps to be be open rather than closed. Without it, we're stuck with two different worlds.
Slashdot Mirror
By the rocket equation, mass fraction is determined by velocity and exhaust velocity is driven two things; the mass of the molecules being put out and the pressure/temperature of the combustion chamber.
A rocket goes up because of the asymmetry between molecules being flung against the top of the reaction chamber while passing out the bottom. I know that the chaos in the chamber means that the best way to think about this is a pressure parameter rather than the direction of individual molecules. But I've always wanted to know whether you could make a rocket engine more efficient by using electromagnetic fields to orient the molecules in such a way that the chemical reactions are biased to have more reaction products being flung up and down rather than side to side.
Taking the H2+O2 reaction as an example: The reaction proceeds in a complex way, however magnetic fields are able to affect similar reactions.
You're right about the current entertainment smorgasbord.
But Sturgeon's Second Law means that with appropriate use of both professional and word-of-mouth filtering, we should be able to fill up with good stuff.
As soon as you back a mere 90 days off the leading edge, your costs drop by 50%.
The watercooler effect keeps people on the bleeding edge of entertainment. Who wants to be out of the loop with one's friends and colleagues, not to mention spoiled.
It's easier to be cheap if you have no friends and work from home.
The problem is how the showrooms get payed for? will we move instead to individual manfactures paying for showpiece storefronts (maybe Apple stores already are this? do they expect to make a profit on on-store sales, or are they just giant adverts driving their sales through other channels?)
An insightful observation.
My company offers one solution — allow full-service retailers to get paid for the help they give to people, even when they don't make the sale.
How this works: When someone claims a cashback payment after a purchase, they're given an easy way to nominate the sources of purchasing help they received. The nominated sources can receive both a portion of the rebate and a bonus payment from the maker of the product that's been bought.
This should make all sorts of free help services feasible, including "stores" which focus on demonstrations and trial loaners, services you can ring to get advice from an expert, as well as better online comparison tools.
Starting a business and making it successful is fairly easy - just boring and hard work.
Yes, the most successful people are the ones with the greatest tolerance for boredom.
But ironically it's the lazy dreamer who has the best ideas in the first place. So a successful lone-wolf needs to master both the dreamer and drone modes.
No wonder most successful start-ups have at least two founders, providing complementary skills or cross-motivation.
Marketing isn't the problem here as it is at the core of capitalism, it's unavoidable and without it, the market would be monolithic as only monopolist brands would be used. The problem is intrusive marketing. And if they can make enjoyable ads, I'm all for it.
Yes, marketing is essential for capitalism — but not advertising. Not only is advertising often interruptive (synchronous or highly diverting), often it is manipulative and delivers false information.
High-quality product-related editorial from trusted sources is a better way to find out about the market. There are ways to fund this without either paywalls or advertising (including product placement).
But like you, I applaud Google for this step. Ad-funded TV networks will be in even more trouble as more people hook-up the Net to their TVs and mobile devices.
I'd love to know the stats of how many choose to skip the ads.
Using SSL may not be a solution, because websites that think that these techniques will increase their revenue, because the ads they display will be better targeted, have an incentive to not provide an SSL service.
PhoneGap looks like it's a set of SDKs that allows apps written in JavaScript to run on a number of phone OSes; not a browser for each of these OSes that allow arbitrary websites to act like device-integrated phone apps.
Does anyone know of a browser app with PhoneGap capability? Would such an app be approved by Apple?
Excellent, thanks for the link.
How are web apps not open, ever? By definition if they run you can see the source, because the browser has to have the javascript/css to work...
JavaScript can be compressed/encoded/obfuscated, which makes it much harder to modify than when there are both code comments and proper function and variable names. API documentation, both client and server-side, may also be lacking.
There needs to be a browser that exposes in JavaScript a common API for phone I/O: accelerometer, multi-touch, camera, GPS. etc.
I'd also like to see a store for apps (native or HTML+JS) that charged for apps but also (1), encouraged developers to make the source of their apps available, and (2), allowed other developers to sell altered binaries on the same store, with the original author getting a cut equal to what they originally charged, and so on down the line. This would open development, while ensuring those adding value are compensated. It'd be like a software VAT.
Yes, often the most efficient way to get a task done well is to let it percolate for some time in your mind, until the best approach pops out. For those contracting by the hour, this means that the real work is often done off the clock, which isn't really fair.
If you need a good solution right now, the best approach is usually to spend some time thinking about it first, which may look like staring off to space. Again, it's hard to keep a billing clock running while doing this, if only for the feeling of being under the gun. Conversely, in an office environment, bad bosses may assume that someone isn't working if they aren't typing.
Targon, in the hope of improvement, I always keep up with the latest stable FF release (currently 3.6.10). FF's memory management has definitely improved over the years, but is still the biggest negative of an otherwise excellent browser.
I noticed FF slowed down much more rapidly when I was using a website with a lot of popup windows. So the the memory leak may be related to window creation or destruction.
If my experience isn't universal, the leak is likely in a plug-in I use. That's why I'd like to see Mozilla make it easier for plug-in writers to test for leaks.
I find that Firefox gradually slows down with use, requiring me to re-start it at least once per day to avoid second-or-more delays when scrolling or typing.
So I'd like to see benchmarks that test a browser's speed after several hours of simulated use, benchmarking while many other windows and tabs are open. This can also be done in several different memory-restricted VMs to see how the amount of memory affects the speed.
Perhaps my problem is due to one or more of the plug-ins I use. So Mozilla should make it easy for plugin developers to test their releases on a benchmark like the one described above.
Which raises the question of why the generic talents like managing an office, raising capital, keeping the stationary cabinet full, etc. commands higher wages than the people who actually build the systems.
If the actual work is commoditized, most of the reward will go to those who risk time and money — either theirs or other people's. The winners are the bold and wealthy or the bold and convincing.
Yes, I think tiny self-aware probes will be the way we'll do it. A one-gram probe would still require a Hiroshima to get it to .85c.
You'd be able to launch billions of them, both to target many stars at once, and also to allow the probes to communicate down chains.
You'd be aiming to impact a planet (make it survivable by building the probe mainly out of diamond), after which the nanotech would sprout and build something better. Rather than a simple scatter-gun approach, the probe could steer as it travels by releasing radioactive decay particles left and right.
Using this you could expand the front of exploration at .8c, and pwn the galaxy in 100k years.
Major questions: how to accelerate the probes, and can a .85c impact be survived.
But what of this "List Price" system in the terms? The formula in the leak makes no sense to me, but it looks like Amazon's aim is to prevent developers pricing their apps lower at competing app stores.
If I could charge what I like when selling my app elsewhere, I wouldn't care what margin Amazon takes. But if they sell the app for $10, and I get $7 back from them, I may want to sell the app for $8 on my own website, so my return is about the same no matter where it is bought. There would be no cross-subsidisation. But I wouldn't be happy if a condition of Amazon listing forced me to sell it for at least $10 outside Amazon.
This is speculation, because, as I said, the way the List Price mechanism is described in the leak makes no sense to me. Anyone understand it?
Yes, why not the Web.
Some questions:
you'll be surprised how much time watching an animation or interactive applet will take up while learning. You're dependent on the content creator's pace to learn when you use animations and interactive applets, whereas if you just read the thing, you're dependent on your own.
Yes! That's also why Flash websites can be so frustrating — having your brain idling while UI elements "beautifully" animate.
OK, so a high-efficiency high-capacity radiating process must be found. At the moment, lasers aren't that efficient. Perhaps antennas can do better, or some sort of luminescence. Then let a passive radiator handle the waste.
Or does thermodynamics say that if you can't connect to a colder place, you can't beat a passive radiator?
To get even closer they'd have to fluid-cool the heat shield to stop it melting. So is there a faster way to cool a fluid than by passive radiation? Say, converting the energy into a laser, or some form of luminescence?
A wiki is a good tool for accumulating and summarizing insights revealed in a discussion forum, enabling new members of the forum to quickly get up to speed, and providing a resource for decision-makers.
Such a wiki can be hierarchically structured, providing quick summaries at the top-level, but allowing people to drill down to specific points.
But a normal wiki is no good for contentious topics, because a lack of consensus causes editing wars.
That's why I made Make The Case, a wiki where an article is a case for or against a particular proposition, but which also allows people to provide and edit paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttals, which are displayed alongside.
Unlike debate spread over separate articles, or in a forum, this gives false information and spin nowhere to hide, allowing both the case and the counter-case to be iteratively improved.
The code behind Make The Case is Open Source.
Your license is not free to tinker either, as any inability to pay you, lets say you die, ends all freedom.
Good point. But there is a licence clause which states that any licence fee is waived during periods when the licensor is unable to provide a reasonable means of payment. So death of a copyright holder would be handled by normal inheritance, like any other licence, with a fee-free fallback.
That's a different open-source license the way a camel is a different horse.
It depends what freedom users care most about — the freedom to tinker, or a freedom from paying — and what user freedoms don't substantially reduce the incentive for developers to develop solutions to a particular problem.
Sell binaries offer only sources as no cost. That will compel most to pay.
I think you're suggesting that most users aren't sufficiently savvy or time-rich to build it themselves, so will pay.
However I think that most end-users will easily discover the many no-charge builds that people will make available if the software's licence permits it, as would be the case for software under any FOSS license. And what about interpreted software where the source is the binary.
That's why I think a different open-source licence is required that gives people free-reign to distribute binaries and/or source of both original and modified versions of the software, as long as they pay the original author any licence fee that the author has designated, which will require re-distributors to charge their customers at least this amount.
This is a good way to fund development, allowing more high-quality apps to be be open rather than closed. Without it, we're stuck with two different worlds.