Wired magazine covered something similar in their April 2004 issue. (Sadly, it's not archived on the site, and a quick Google search turned up nothing--anyone have a hard copy?) They had ostensibly independent investigators try to figure out why various electronic gadgets were banned (or needed to be turned off) during takeoff/flight/landing. Conclusion: basically no one could demonstrate that mobiles, wi-fi laptops, PDAs, media players, or anything else posed a clear danger. Since most legal toys are specifically designed not to radiate at the wavelengths dedicated to commercial airline radio channels, it begs the question: why are we still asked to turn them off?
I'm not convinced this is a bad idea for convicts (though not for suspects in holding cells, as in this case). Think of how different Abu Ghraib might have been if prisoners and jailers had been on camera the whole time.
Sailing ships have sailed "upwind" for many centuries.
Ships can sail upwind because they have rudders to push against the water beneath them. They can redirect the force of the wind, which is going in the wrong direction, using the rudder to push against the water to go in the right direction.
In space, there is nothing else to push against (except the ether, and I hear even that's come under some discussion). As far as the light/solar wind is concerned, the force diagram is in one direction: out.
Fortunately, nature foresaw this problem and made gravity. So fear not! We CAN fall into the sun.
No. Relativistic time dilation isn't based on acceleration at all, but on velocity (with respect to some "fixed" point of reference).
The formula for calculating t', the time experienced by the moving body, is: t' = t0*(1/sqrt[1-(v^2/c^2)]), where t0 = time experienced by the fixed reference point.
Acceleration isn't in the equation. You cannot "undo" time dilation simply by stopping your motion.
Remember the days when 2GB hard drives were more than you could imagine using?
The argument is that someday we'll realize how foolishly insufficient 2GB of storage on a PDA really is. Furthermore, someday a PDA with 50GB of storage will be relatively cheap--comparable to the situation we see now: if memory serves, 10GB today costs roughly what 1GB cost five years ago. Better things get more common, and therefore cheaper, as time goes by.
You're absolutely right: currently, most of us (even the most uber-nerdliest) don't honestly need this ridiculous amount of storage, and for most of us, it's silly to buy it. But the fact we've started in the right direction makes the future look bright.
In five years, when everyone has a PDA with 50GB of solid state storage space, we'll look back at this and wonder why we ever wondered about it. Yes, we WILL eventually need (or at least perceive that we need) this much space.
As things stand, it frustrates me that I can only store approximately one movie trailer on my PDA. This is just the expected step forward. There will be more to come; I anticipate it all with great anticipation.
I used to work in the reel room of a large cinema (think of the scene from 'Fight Club'). I would get offers of money in exchange for taping movies from inside the box; whenever I would, the sound quality was much better because the noise of the audience was cut out completely. By disabling the built-in microphone on the camera and running an external mic (to cut out the noise of the reels) we could get excellent sound quality, and the quality of the picture is exactly like what a person can download.
Smuggling the camera in and out of the box is no problem whatsoever; stick it in a backpack and absolutely no one gets curious, ever.
The point is: I don't think I'm the only one who has done this. The people in the theater are not the only ones you need to watch out for--the people who have free access to ALL the movies the cinema offers are likely where most of the downloadable movies come from.
if all the warning labels in existence are removed from every product that currently sports them, then eventually the idiots of the world will do us the massive favor of removing themselves from the genepool (a la The Darwin Awards). the smart ones will remain, and soon warning labels won't be necessary anymore and we won't ever again have to hear stupid stories about them.
the above reply dealing with specific heat is correct; another factor, though, is the extreme difference in density between water and air. one gram of seawater takes up about 1 cm^3; one gram of air at sea level takes up about 800 cm^3. so for some given amount of heat, we can raise the temperature of 1 cc of seawater, or we can heat 3200 cc (800 x 4, where 4 is the specific heat factor of water/air) of air the same temperature.
having huge oceans is really why we can exist without dying. they act as a massive heatsink that stabilizes the temperature of the rest of the planet, keeping the days from cooking us and the nights from freezing us.... ever wonder why desert climates vary so much from night to day? no water in the air.
that's great for people from Chicago, but I don't live there, and no one I know lives there either. it follows that not a lot of my calls involve Chicago.
if this going to be really useful (and not just a lame showy gimmick), AT&T had better generalize these results nationwide.
but that's not true.
for example, I can't go to the New York Times for information on al Qaeda, read a copyrighted article, and then use that information to write a paper on the topic without giving credit to the NYT for its content. even if I'm using the information to present a new thought in my own words, I'm using their copyrighted content and I must give credit.
Going open-source is the smart move, no matter what the software may do. Ingres is buggy just like any other first release. Open-source makes it attractive to us nerds, and the wider the user base, the greater the number of users who can manipulate the software, and the faster the bugs disappear.
Slashdot Mirror
Wired magazine covered something similar in their April 2004 issue. (Sadly, it's not archived on the site, and a quick Google search turned up nothing--anyone have a hard copy?) They had ostensibly independent investigators try to figure out why various electronic gadgets were banned (or needed to be turned off) during takeoff/flight/landing. Conclusion: basically no one could demonstrate that mobiles, wi-fi laptops, PDAs, media players, or anything else posed a clear danger. Since most legal toys are specifically designed not to radiate at the wavelengths dedicated to commercial airline radio channels, it begs the question: why are we still asked to turn them off?
Perhaps /. needs to change "your rights online" to simply "your rights." The latter would more precisely cover this type of article.
Either that, or we need a "your brick-and-mortar rights" section.
When you have cash cows like Windows and Office going for you, you don't exactly have to pinch pennies with your other services.
As the joke goes, the 900-pound gorilla sleeps wherever it damn well pleases.
Y'all is missing my point. I took "on camera" to mean "being surveilled by third-party security motion picture cameras."
Literalists.
I'm not convinced this is a bad idea for convicts (though not for suspects in holding cells, as in this case). Think of how different Abu Ghraib might have been if prisoners and jailers had been on camera the whole time.
Sailing ships have sailed "upwind" for many centuries.
Ships can sail upwind because they have rudders to push against the water beneath them. They can redirect the force of the wind, which is going in the wrong direction, using the rudder to push against the water to go in the right direction.
In space, there is nothing else to push against (except the ether, and I hear even that's come under some discussion). As far as the light/solar wind is concerned, the force diagram is in one direction: out.
Fortunately, nature foresaw this problem and made gravity. So fear not! We CAN fall into the sun.
No. Relativistic time dilation isn't based on acceleration at all, but on velocity (with respect to some "fixed" point of reference).
The formula for calculating t', the time experienced by the moving body, is: t' = t0*(1/sqrt[1-(v^2/c^2)]), where t0 = time experienced by the fixed reference point.
Acceleration isn't in the equation. You cannot "undo" time dilation simply by stopping your motion.
Remember the days when 2GB hard drives were more than you could imagine using?
The argument is that someday we'll realize how foolishly insufficient 2GB of storage on a PDA really is. Furthermore, someday a PDA with 50GB of storage will be relatively cheap--comparable to the situation we see now: if memory serves, 10GB today costs roughly what 1GB cost five years ago. Better things get more common, and therefore cheaper, as time goes by.
You're absolutely right: currently, most of us (even the most uber-nerdliest) don't honestly need this ridiculous amount of storage, and for most of us, it's silly to buy it. But the fact we've started in the right direction makes the future look bright.
In five years, when everyone has a PDA with 50GB of solid state storage space, we'll look back at this and wonder why we ever wondered about it. Yes, we WILL eventually need (or at least perceive that we need) this much space.
As things stand, it frustrates me that I can only store approximately one movie trailer on my PDA. This is just the expected step forward. There will be more to come; I anticipate it all with great anticipation.
christ on a cracker. I'm all for nerdliness, but I cannot think of a more useless non-feature.
... + (arm-excercising device)
it used to be: phone = phone.
it is becoming: phone = (verbal communication device) + (textual communication device) + (personal digital assistant) + (voice recorder) + (camera) + (internet access point) + (vibrator) + (portable game closet) + (GPS locator) + (status symbol)
and now we add:
basically it is becoming: phone != phone.
-- --
dear mobile manufacturers,
NOT ALL FEATURES ARE GOOD FEATURES.
love,
matt.
I used to work in the reel room of a large cinema (think of the scene from 'Fight Club'). I would get offers of money in exchange for taping movies from inside the box; whenever I would, the sound quality was much better because the noise of the audience was cut out completely. By disabling the built-in microphone on the camera and running an external mic (to cut out the noise of the reels) we could get excellent sound quality, and the quality of the picture is exactly like what a person can download.
Smuggling the camera in and out of the box is no problem whatsoever; stick it in a backpack and absolutely no one gets curious, ever.
The point is: I don't think I'm the only one who has done this. The people in the theater are not the only ones you need to watch out for--the people who have free access to ALL the movies the cinema offers are likely where most of the downloadable movies come from.
if all the warning labels in existence are removed from every product that currently sports them, then eventually the idiots of the world will do us the massive favor of removing themselves from the genepool (a la The Darwin Awards). the smart ones will remain, and soon warning labels won't be necessary anymore and we won't ever again have to hear stupid stories about them.
We'll slashdot your server then, too! You cannot escape us.
"I for one welcome our new nickel and iridium overlords." (circa 65 million years ago)
the above reply dealing with specific heat is correct; another factor, though, is the extreme difference in density between water and air. one gram of seawater takes up about 1 cm^3; one gram of air at sea level takes up about 800 cm^3. so for some given amount of heat, we can raise the temperature of 1 cc of seawater, or we can heat 3200 cc (800 x 4, where 4 is the specific heat factor of water/air) of air the same temperature.
... ever wonder why desert climates vary so much from night to day? no water in the air.
having huge oceans is really why we can exist without dying. they act as a massive heatsink that stabilizes the temperature of the rest of the planet, keeping the days from cooking us and the nights from freezing us.
if this going to be really useful (and not just a lame showy gimmick), AT&T had better generalize these results nationwide.
this is way cooler than my experiments with the photo-algae-lectric effect.
but that's not true. for example, I can't go to the New York Times for information on al Qaeda, read a copyrighted article, and then use that information to write a paper on the topic without giving credit to the NYT for its content. even if I'm using the information to present a new thought in my own words, I'm using their copyrighted content and I must give credit.
yeah, I found your mom's "access point" last night! YEAH! I activated her "hot spot," if you know what I mean! WOOOOH!
you and your "logic" and your "knowledge" of "computers" and "stuff."
Going open-source is the smart move, no matter what the software may do. Ingres is buggy just like any other first release. Open-source makes it attractive to us nerds, and the wider the user base, the greater the number of users who can manipulate the software, and the faster the bugs disappear.
does this scream "SENTINEL" to anyone else?