Last year I posted this:
"I'm willing to give this lady R10,000 CASH if she passes a double blind test in telling me when a tower is on or off. South Africa needs a James Randi, Penn n Teller, aka BS debunker."
10,000 in South Africa rand is about $1350 as of writing. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=3360119#post3360119
I don't really mind how many often the Sun's field flips. The Suns own field per se has little to do with my question in this case, it is the solar wind that is constantly bombarding us that is the matter, regardless of it's intensity. They are saying that the Earths field is getting weaker and weaker till a point where it is almost gone, added to that they say there is the chance it might flip. During this flip, if the fields pole is facing the Sun it offers us little to no protection.
How does all this relate to the Earths field saving us from being turned into toast from the Sun's and other harmful effects. Do we go into a stage of danger and then end up being safe again once the field is reversed? They do not make mention of this. I know that a few solar flares and computers and power grids can go down when Earth can't deflect it. With it growing weaker are we now at great risk?
One method I personally think happens is that most slashdotters click a link, see that it has no pictures and realise that some reading is needed so then close that tab/window. As they have short attention spans, those same few might click again or might be hoping for some pictures to appear. Thus you have the slashdot effect.
Re:Great! When will it be out of beta?
on
Email Turns 34
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yes they are gathering great social data.
As for being BETA, who gives a toss honestly? It's just a name given to something. Google's BETA for their Gmail services outshines many other companies stable products. Keyboard shortcuts, nice spell checker, auto completion of address, massive storage, conversation view, etc etc. How may other companies had or even have anything that is is close to that?
If you worry so much about something being called BETA/ALPHA and so forth, you need re-evaluate your views, are you looking at the functionality of the product or just its name-status, clearly two totally different things. The logic you are showing is like saying a cars performance is bad because it is pink or bright orange.
Video is an improvement, the end result is something that YOU have the CHOICE to use or not.
Your argument is as valid as saying we should not have TV or Telephones because they are not improvements in communications. These advances happen till they reach that level of human perception acceptance, such as what we have for TV/CDs/Telephones/photography these days. Internet video has some way to go still then will reach a stable state, then we will move onto hi-definition video or even holigraphic video.
As I said, you're argument is totally invalid. Please get off the net and go play away from technology.
Given that the system uses RCA or Eth. I would assume one would have speakers to a TV system hooked up directly using RCA if one was worried about delays.
The idea of having a Eth sound-system is great because you need just switch/hub/cables to wire a house. You need not worried about running long lengths of audio cables which is where the noise comes in. Even with all the speakers in all the rooms playing the same song at the same time, the delays you would percieve are that of the sounding bouncing around a room then coming out to the next room. These systems though are normally used for many rooms each playing different music from one central control point, or in the case of it being Eth, it could have any device attached to the network as a player.
They take the rate of current indexing of data, then take the rate at which data is being added to the pile by looking at current trends and possible future trends of people hooking up to the net and adding to that pile, then take the rate at which their systems advance to do the indexing of that pile. They then pass those variables through a custom magic google app and wait a bit and then, tada, the answer 300 is spat out.
You need remember that they could be way off, if some major breakthrough in storage technolgy happens tomorrow all those figure would need be recalculated. At best it is a very very rough idea of how long it is going to take them to catch up to the worlds information and keep it in a current index.
The Audio in this system is going one way, streaming-device -> amp-speaker-rig, it is not a two way stream. Even if it had 10000ms delay, once playing it would be constant audio. You are thinking of audio delay in terms of a two way real time communications system or live peformance where delay can not be tolerated. This a a high end system for listening pleasure.
You also state that more ADCs and DACs reduce resolution, that is indeed true, however this system only has one stage. If one has a WAV or MP3 and it is steaming down the Ethernet cable, it is digital all the way till it reaches that ONE DAC in the amp-speaker-rig.
I would assume this system would be for people that like having music in all the rooms of their house and only want one central control station.
Climb out from whatever rock it is that you are living under and snap back to reality.
Technolgy becomes cheaper over time, fact. Look at satelitte navigation, non-stick pans, mobile phones, memoflex glasses, broadband communications, it has to all start somewhere though. From value-tubes to the computer that you have now posted your post from, which I know has at least a million or more transistors in a chip.
As for Titanium, it is costly due to not being widely available, the same reason gold and platinum is costly. Titanium is also not the easiest of materials to work with. It is unbeleively strong that is it's biggest pro factor. Now look at things such as Kevlar and other types of fiberglass and nano-tubing, easy to work with, easier to produce. Amazing affordable things through technology. Nano-fibers put together can create things stonger than anything anyone could have dreamt of even just five years ago.
They are not just worried about milage, they want cars that have other features too, like saftey.
Look at current cars on the market. The amount of technology that has gone into designing them is asstounding. Lighter and stronger materials, special crumple zones, engines that are becoming more efficient(running cooler, even new synthetic oils are helping) through new materials with each passing year. Tires that can handle high speeds under all conditions. All these things and you have doubt.
Please turn off your computer, throw it in the bin and go live in a hut away from technology.
Signed. Jupiter909 Advocate for technology and disliker of short sighted ignortant fools
On a serious note here, if they can't even get the damn rocket to put a satellite in space, imagine if they actually used that rocket to carry nuclear weapons. This worrys me.
Many people here are on about 'what if it fails'. The simple solution, it would have a MANUAL KEY OVERIDE.
Do none of you people have automatic gates on your houses? My gate has a motor to open it. I push a button and WOW it opens, it has so happened that the power and backup power was out due to lightning strike once. I opened the little gate in the big gate, stepped inside, unlocked the motor housing, then pulled the gate open. This has only ever happened once, so given that I use it everyday, getting wet to open a gate manually once every 10 years due to power failure is not a big price to pay.
Now as I said this is for big gate with two keys. For a front door it would be one normal key if anything went wrong. Added to that surely a family friend of neighbor would have a spare copy incase you did not have any on you.
First off, English is not the most widspread language in the world, more like Chinese or Spanish, or even some Indian language.
Secondly, you can not make the analogy of English or any other spoken langauge other than a language something akin to Klingon that was lab created. The reason is because they are creations that have evolved to were they are over time by many people, people do not own langauges, langauges evolve as needed. They were not created for a distinct purpose by a small team of people with a set goal.
Your counter argument is flawed in that you are not comparing apples to apples at all, or even fruit to fruit for that matter.
Flase, any abuse of the root DNS servers would be noticed really fast and alternative solutions would be put in place, routers are rather easy to set up, and the BGP propigates the updates really fast.
The USA's actions in the middle east and any one of their many wars past and present, which I am very anti myself, have NO place in this argument what so ever.
How can you call someone that is playing with THEIR toy a bully for notletting others play with it?
Most the world runs Microsoft products, should the EU/UN take control over those too? I think not.
You are correct in saying that it consists of cables laid by the worlds telecoms co's. Private/Gov's all over the world currently contribute to the Internet being global as it is. You miss the fact that the foundation of the Internet, therefor the Internet as we know it was and is their creation of the USA. Your money and my money have paid for OUR cables/ISP's/systems, not for the design of TCP/IP and the suite of protcols that fall within that, we have the Americans and their DoD to thank for that.
You seem to have also not read the rest of my post where I state that the other nations CAN create their own systems to run alongside the current system. If you know anything about computer networking, you would know that one can place routers that contain traffic at ANY level. The EU/UN can create in a matter of minutes DNS servers that can overide all requests to the root DNS servers in the USA. Segmenting control of the Internet is not wise in terms of managment ease, but it can be done if needed.
The Internet can be seen as America's party. The world has gone to the USA's party and therefor needs respect the house rules. Even china with all it's might has leart this and plays along with the USA, and even tthey have done what I have said above, they have implimented controls within China.
I reiterate that gobal demand does not consitute right of control. If this was a case of controlling the rights of life saving cure for aids/cancer then one could overide the company or countries control rights. One needs learn that the Internet and Internet access is a priviledge not a right.
I posted these same words last week and I'll post them again.
I am anti-US on many things, but let back them by saying this.
The USA created the Internet as we know it today, it is their creation, from their tax payers money. As much as I dislike many things that the USA is doing and has done in the past. I'm going to have to say that I'm behind them on keeping control of what is theirs, which happens to be the foundation of the Internet as we know it.
Just due to the fact that it is now a globally used system that effects everyone in the modern world does not give any body/group the right to demand rights of control over that system. Just as new protocols are created over time and are layered ontop of the old to keep the system running regardless of 'obsolete' hardware/software that might be in some remote corner of the web, so to should the U.N create a system that runs along side the current one if it so desperatly wants control. That is the most logical solution to the problem at hand. Countries and corporations can create 'internal' networks that overide the current systems of the Internet.
The fact that the developing world does not see that as the most logical first step attempt at a solution at hand is evidence that they are not ready to have control over a system such as complex as the Internet.
I whole heartly back the US on their choice to not hand it over.
You seem to be missing something here. Using a fingerprint instead of a bankcard, one would still need to have the PIN or some other form of information that would be given.
I can create as many valid bank cards, credit cards as I want right now. The goods to do it are cheap, less than £50. The algoritms used to create bank-card/cc numbers are well known. So just as there are zillions of fingerprints out there, so too can there be millions of card numbers.
The combination of verification and account are needed to do any sort of transactions.
If you happen to own a credit-card, and if you have ever done large purchases using it, you would have most likely had to type in your PIN. Then gotten a call from the CC company asking you to answer a question from some information that ONLY they have on record, such as previous adress, favorite color, first primary school, last known adress, favorite song etc etc.
I agree with you, a PIN makes things more secure, it's the next logical step in security. I was thinking of something in the lines of tracking users as extra security. If a persons finger/PIN combination was used in a area, and then all of a sudden used in some other part of the country, it would mean that the finger-print had been lifted and scammed. AFAIK Credit Cards do some tracking like that and also monitor the amounts used, they build a database pattern for that user, sudden changes to the pattern are flagged.
Another idea is that one could have all fingers scanned, and when doing a transaction, the system would ask for which finger it wanted scanned. All in all, I like this technology.
Hacking websites is not stupid. It's proof of concept. It is often good when people hack/crack things, it forces for tighter control and security. If not for people hacking and cracking things we would not have things such as online shopping and ssh encrpytion etc. It is all part of a never ended life cycle. More often than not it is poor management/admin than the software/systems themselves. Human error.
Yay, I thought I was the only one who never had a clue wtf that is. Actually, I'm still clueless. $180 of a pdf, he's got to be kidding us. Perhaps it holds the key to this mystical RTG.
I think that you are greatly mis informed Mr Coward.
The USA's DoD(Department of Defense) created a system of interconnecting networks named the internet. It was at first connected to a few select companies and Universities. Over time it connected to Universisties and some test sites abroad. All that we know as the Internet was created and funded by the American peoples tax money. Everything you see now is an extention of that by people from all around the world.
You can have your say for YOUR part of the net, as for the core that the USA made, you have NO say.
Eg, you can wear what YOU want to the party, but you can't chose the venue or the music.
I am anti-US on many things, but let back them by saying this.
The USA created the Internet as we know it today, it is their creation, from their tax payers money. As much as I dislike many things that the USA is doing and has done in the past. I'm going to have to say that I'm behind them on keeping control of what is theirs, which happens to be the foundation of the Internet as we know it.
Just due to the fact that it is now a globally used system that effects everyone in the modern world does not give any body/group the right to demand rights of control over that system. Just as new protocols are created over time and are layered ontop of the old to keep the system running regardless of 'obsolete' hardware/software that might be in some remote corner of the web, so to should the U.N create a system that runs along side the current one if it so desperatly wants control. That is the most logical solution to the problem at hand. Countries and corporations can create 'internal' networks that overide the current systems of the Internet.
The fact that the developing world does not see that as the most logical first step attempt at a solution at hand is evidence that they are not ready to have control over a system such as complex as the Internet.
I whole heartly back the US on their choice to not hand it over.
Slashdot Mirror
Last year I posted this:
"I'm willing to give this lady R10,000 CASH if she passes a double blind test in telling me when a tower is on or off. South Africa needs a James Randi, Penn n Teller, aka BS debunker."
10,000 in South Africa rand is about $1350 as of writing.
http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=3360119#post3360119
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imaginepaolo/2691795861/in/pool-badtranslations/ This is all so funny. :D
I don't really mind how many often the Sun's field flips. The Suns own field per se has little to do with my question in this case, it is the solar wind that is constantly bombarding us that is the matter, regardless of it's intensity. They are saying that the Earths field is getting weaker and weaker till a point where it is almost gone, added to that they say there is the chance it might flip. During this flip, if the fields pole is facing the Sun it offers us little to no protection.
How does all this relate to the Earths field saving us from being turned into toast from the Sun's and other harmful effects. Do we go into a stage of danger and then end up being safe again once the field is reversed? They do not make mention of this. I know that a few solar flares and computers and power grids can go down when Earth can't deflect it. With it growing weaker are we now at great risk?
Lots of questions, I need answers.
One method I personally think happens is that most slashdotters click a link, see that it has no pictures and realise that some reading is needed so then close that tab/window. As they have short attention spans, those same few might click again or might be hoping for some pictures to appear. Thus you have the slashdot effect.
Yes they are gathering great social data.
As for being BETA, who gives a toss honestly? It's just a name given to something. Google's BETA for their Gmail services outshines many other companies stable products. Keyboard shortcuts, nice spell checker, auto completion of address, massive storage, conversation view, etc etc. How may other companies had or even have anything that is is close to that?
If you worry so much about something being called BETA/ALPHA and so forth, you need re-evaluate your views, are you looking at the functionality of the product or just its name-status, clearly two totally different things. The logic you are showing is like saying a cars performance is bad because it is pink or bright orange.
Video is an improvement, the end result is something that YOU have the CHOICE to use or not.
Your argument is as valid as saying we should not have TV or Telephones because they are not improvements in communications. These advances happen till they reach that level of human perception acceptance, such as what we have for TV/CDs/Telephones/photography these days. Internet video has some way to go still then will reach a stable state, then we will move onto hi-definition video or even holigraphic video.
As I said, you're argument is totally invalid. Please get off the net and go play away from technology.
Given that the system uses RCA or Eth. I would assume one would have speakers to a TV system hooked up directly using RCA if one was worried about delays.
The idea of having a Eth sound-system is great because you need just switch/hub/cables to wire a house. You need not worried about running long lengths of audio cables which is where the noise comes in. Even with all the speakers in all the rooms playing the same song at the same time, the delays you would percieve are that of the sounding bouncing around a room then coming out to the next room. These systems though are normally used for many rooms each playing different music from one central control point, or in the case of it being Eth, it could have any device attached to the network as a player.
They take the rate of current indexing of data, then take the rate at which data is being added to the pile by looking at current trends and possible future trends of people hooking up to the net and adding to that pile, then take the rate at which their systems advance to do the indexing of that pile. They then pass those variables through a custom magic google app and wait a bit and then, tada, the answer 300 is spat out.
You need remember that they could be way off, if some major breakthrough in storage technolgy happens tomorrow all those figure would need be recalculated. At best it is a very very rough idea of how long it is going to take them to catch up to the worlds information and keep it in a current index.
Some points.
The Audio in this system is going one way, streaming-device -> amp-speaker-rig, it is not a two way stream. Even if it had 10000ms delay, once playing it would be constant audio. You are thinking of audio delay in terms of a two way real time communications system or live peformance where delay can not be tolerated. This a a high end system for listening pleasure.
You also state that more ADCs and DACs reduce resolution, that is indeed true, however this system only has one stage. If one has a WAV or MP3 and it is steaming down the Ethernet cable, it is digital all the way till it reaches that ONE DAC in the amp-speaker-rig.
I would assume this system would be for people that like having music in all the rooms of their house and only want one central control station.
Dear AnonC.
Climb out from whatever rock it is that you are living under and snap back to reality.
Technolgy becomes cheaper over time, fact. Look at satelitte navigation, non-stick pans, mobile phones, memoflex glasses, broadband communications, it has to all start somewhere though. From value-tubes to the computer that you have now posted your post from, which I know has at least a million or more transistors in a chip.
As for Titanium, it is costly due to not being widely available, the same reason gold and platinum is costly. Titanium is also not the easiest of materials to work with. It is unbeleively strong that is it's biggest pro factor. Now look at things such as Kevlar and other types of fiberglass and nano-tubing, easy to work with, easier to produce. Amazing affordable things through technology. Nano-fibers put together can create things stonger than anything anyone could have dreamt of even just five years ago.
They are not just worried about milage, they want cars that have other features too, like saftey.
Look at current cars on the market. The amount of technology that has gone into designing them is asstounding. Lighter and stronger materials, special crumple zones, engines that are becoming more efficient(running cooler, even new synthetic oils are helping) through new materials with each passing year. Tires that can handle high speeds under all conditions. All these things and you have doubt.
Please turn off your computer, throw it in the bin and go live in a hut away from technology.
Signed.
Jupiter909
Advocate for technology and disliker of short sighted ignortant fools
On a serious note here, if they can't even get the damn rocket to put a satellite in space, imagine if they actually used that rocket to carry nuclear weapons. This worrys me.
Many people here are on about 'what if it fails'. The simple solution, it would have a MANUAL KEY OVERIDE.
Do none of you people have automatic gates on your houses? My gate has a motor to open it. I push a button and WOW it opens, it has so happened that the power and backup power was out due to lightning strike once. I opened the little gate in the big gate, stepped inside, unlocked the motor housing, then pulled the gate open. This has only ever happened once, so given that I use it everyday, getting wet to open a gate manually once every 10 years due to power failure is not a big price to pay.
Now as I said this is for big gate with two keys. For a front door it would be one normal key if anything went wrong. Added to that surely a family friend of neighbor would have a spare copy incase you did not have any on you.
First off, English is not the most widspread language in the world, more like Chinese or Spanish, or even some Indian language.
Secondly, you can not make the analogy of English or any other spoken langauge other than a language something akin to Klingon that was lab created. The reason is because they are creations that have evolved to were they are over time by many people, people do not own langauges, langauges evolve as needed. They were not created for a distinct purpose by a small team of people with a set goal.
Your counter argument is flawed in that you are not comparing apples to apples at all, or even fruit to fruit for that matter.
Flase, any abuse of the root DNS servers would be noticed really fast and alternative solutions would be put in place, routers are rather easy to set up, and the BGP propigates the updates really fast.
The USA's actions in the middle east and any one of their many wars past and present, which I am very anti myself, have NO place in this argument what so ever.
How can you call someone that is playing with THEIR toy a bully for notletting others play with it?
Most the world runs Microsoft products, should the EU/UN take control over those too? I think not.
You are correct in saying that it consists of cables laid by the worlds telecoms co's. Private/Gov's all over the world currently contribute to the Internet being global as it is. You miss the fact that the foundation of the Internet, therefor the Internet as we know it was and is their creation of the USA.
Your money and my money have paid for OUR cables/ISP's/systems, not for the design of TCP/IP and the suite of protcols that fall within that, we have the Americans and their DoD to thank for that.
You seem to have also not read the rest of my post where I state that the other nations CAN create their own systems to run alongside the current system. If you know anything about computer networking, you would know that one can place routers that contain traffic at ANY level. The EU/UN can create in a matter of minutes DNS servers that can overide all requests to the root DNS servers in the USA. Segmenting control of the Internet is not wise in terms of managment ease, but it can be done if needed.
The Internet can be seen as America's party. The world has gone to the USA's party and therefor needs respect the house rules. Even china with all it's might has leart this and plays along with the USA, and even tthey have done what I have said above, they have implimented controls within China.
I reiterate that gobal demand does not consitute right of control. If this was a case of controlling the rights of life saving cure for aids/cancer then one could overide the company or countries control rights. One needs learn that the Internet and Internet access is a priviledge not a right.
I posted these same words last week and I'll post them again.
I am anti-US on many things, but let back them by saying this.
The USA created the Internet as we know it today, it is their creation, from their tax payers money. As much as I dislike many things that the USA is doing and has done in the past. I'm going to have to say that I'm behind them on keeping control of what is theirs, which happens to be the foundation of the Internet as we know it.
Just due to the fact that it is now a globally used system that effects everyone in the modern world does not give any body/group the right to demand rights of control over that system. Just as new protocols are created over time and are layered ontop of the old to keep the system running regardless of 'obsolete' hardware/software that might be in some remote corner of the web, so to should the U.N create a system that runs along side the current one if it so desperatly wants control. That is the most logical solution to the problem at hand. Countries and corporations can create 'internal' networks that overide the current systems of the Internet.
The fact that the developing world does not see that as the most logical first step attempt at a solution at hand is evidence that they are not ready to have control over a system such as complex as the Internet.
I whole heartly back the US on their choice to not hand it over.
You seem to be missing something here. Using a fingerprint instead of a bankcard, one would still need to have the PIN or some other form of information that would be given.
I can create as many valid bank cards, credit cards as I want right now. The goods to do it are cheap, less than £50. The algoritms used to create bank-card/cc numbers are well known. So just as there are zillions of fingerprints out there, so too can there be millions of card numbers.
The combination of verification and account are needed to do any sort of transactions.
If you happen to own a credit-card, and if you have ever done large purchases using it, you would have most likely had to type in your PIN. Then gotten a call from the CC company asking you to answer a question from some information that ONLY they have on record, such as previous adress, favorite color, first primary school, last known adress, favorite song etc etc.
I agree with you, a PIN makes things more secure, it's the next logical step in security. I was thinking of something in the lines of tracking users as extra security. If a persons finger/PIN combination was used in a area, and then all of a sudden used in some other part of the country, it would mean that the finger-print had been lifted and scammed. AFAIK Credit Cards do some tracking like that and also monitor the amounts used, they build a database pattern for that user, sudden changes to the pattern are flagged.
Another idea is that one could have all fingers scanned, and when doing a transaction, the system would ask for which finger it wanted scanned. All in all, I like this technology.
What venders need do is roll out some useful applications with new PC's, not options for more of the same sort of applications.
/. and like the idea of dups. O.o
*cough cough*Perhaps these venders read
Hacking websites is not stupid. It's proof of concept. It is often good when people hack/crack things, it forces for tighter control and security. If not for people hacking and cracking things we would not have things such as online shopping and ssh encrpytion etc. It is all part of a never ended life cycle. More often than not it is poor management/admin than the software/systems themselves. Human error.
Yay, I thought I was the only one who never had a clue wtf that is. Actually, I'm still clueless. $180 of a pdf, he's got to be kidding us. Perhaps it holds the key to this mystical RTG.
You'd still have the same problem of light scatter preventing one from seeing beyond that object even if they telescopes were in space.
I think that you are greatly mis informed Mr Coward.
The USA's DoD(Department of Defense) created a system of interconnecting networks named the internet. It was at first connected to a few select companies and Universities. Over time it connected to Universisties and some test sites abroad. All that we know as the Internet was created and funded by the American peoples tax money. Everything you see now is an extention of that by people from all around the world.
You can have your say for YOUR part of the net, as for the core that the USA made, you have NO say.
Eg, you can wear what YOU want to the party, but you can't chose the venue or the music.
I am anti-US on many things, but let back them by saying this.
The USA created the Internet as we know it today, it is their creation, from their tax payers money. As much as I dislike many things that the USA is doing and has done in the past. I'm going to have to say that I'm behind them on keeping control of what is theirs, which happens to be the foundation of the Internet as we know it.
Just due to the fact that it is now a globally used system that effects everyone in the modern world does not give any body/group the right to demand rights of control over that system. Just as new protocols are created over time and are layered ontop of the old to keep the system running regardless of 'obsolete' hardware/software that might be in some remote corner of the web, so to should the U.N create a system that runs along side the current one if it so desperatly wants control. That is the most logical solution to the problem at hand. Countries and corporations can create 'internal' networks that overide the current systems of the Internet.
The fact that the developing world does not see that as the most logical first step attempt at a solution at hand is evidence that they are not ready to have control over a system such as complex as the Internet.
I whole heartly back the US on their choice to not hand it over.