There are cases for government to be helpful and even cases when government should intervene because only government has the power to do it.
Former are the cases where there is benefit in problem solving for the problem makers, eliminating inefficiencies that are not under their own control, latter the cases where damage to everyone (to "none") is done because a few benefit from it and this benefit is dwarfed by the damage.
This particular case is IMHO more of the former - establishing clever procedures to save money to airline companies and at the same time cut on the emissions. OTOH, Perhaps fuel suppliers will feel a little hit in sales, but they can't (err..., shouldn't have power to) force anyone to waste own money just to support suppliers' margins.
When I read the topic, it was exactly what I thought government should do - step in to give it a push forward. Well, not exactly force cross-licensing, but to cover royalties for a very useful or obstacle patent for everyone who needs it for further progress, if it is essentially important for everybody: i.e. patents that are needed to make environment-friendly mass produced products. I mean, there is similar reason behind that as it is behind spending for national defense or fundamental scientific research: common money for common good. Oh, another thing is: holding a patent without using it or licensing it to others who use it, should greatly shorten the protection period to prevent "anti-patents" (when you patent something for the sole purpose of forbidding anyone from making it).
There should be some sort of ultra long term intellectual property device that allows for the innovation to pay for the research.
There indeed is and it is called "tax": Government funds research, research brings knowledge, knowledge creates wealth, government takes the cut in wealth.
Even pressurized, one of the key problems to solve is to find a way to create energy efficient CO2 -> O2 conversion. There is no chance that we can take enough O2 on a journey, not to mention that filtering the CO2 is a problem anyway (you can't simply add O2 to the atmosphere, you gotta get rid of that CO2 too).
Water and illuminate some green plants on board, preferably edible ones?
The progress is about building more empowering tools. Once the knowledge transfer rate creates a bottleneck, our attention will focus on solving that problem too, by creating tools for faster training, or tools that alleviate the need for training.
Who knows, deep knowledge may follow (or already is following) sharpened skills to the scrap yard of history for final rest. If something goes wrong with our civilization, we would need both of them recycled, but... that is another problem, one of canned emergency fall back procedures.
Another rough description would be that a scramjet is like a turbojet with an afterburner, only without the turbojet. (Sorta like the sound of one hand clapping, I guess;) Instead of having the turbojet push air through a nozzle and add extra fuel to it, the engine _is_ the nozzle and the airplane's existing speed is what pushes air to it. So you just add the fuel and light it. It's an afterburner without a turbojet.
Does it mean that a multi-mach plane can be made that shuts down the turbo engine and closes front air intake past some speed to run on afterburner only?
...the fact that the human genome is comprised more of endogenous retroviruses than actual functional sequences.
We've got pwned in a CoreWar.
On the serious note, does it mean we are trap wired ? An error in positioning could activate viral DNA and start "insider" infection, anywhere in the tissue. If there was an chemical agent (i.e. a bacterial toxin or another virus, e.g.... ebola...?) that deterministically causes exactly such an error, we could die very quickly (and in horrible way, falling apart, fast renewing tissue first) if we were exposed to it. Perhaps disease researchers should put that hypothesis to the test.
It would be interesting to find out if we have antibodies for viruses we carry in our genome - that would be indication that such a scenario does indeed occur (on a small scale). I wouldn't be surprised if those antibodies were pre-produced in advance (without actual initial exposure).
The idea is well understood and frequently restated but it is not realistic scenario.
Like someone said up in the thread, there is no way to prevent anyone porting nice OSS app to non-free OS. Therefore, users will virtually never feel the urge to switch over to Linux because of a "killer app(s)".
When (or if) massive switchover happens, it will be only because Microsoft tried to squeeze users too much and they found they lose nothing important if they switch.
In other words, blurring the border between the two by porting Free Software on proprietary platforms, making users gradually adapt to environment they would find in Linux, makes user migration to it more probable, in fact as probable as realistically possible. Side effect would be pushing the shareware producers out of the Windows market by pressure of irresistible competition, which in turn would decrease number of developers for that platform and at the same time force Microsoft to "deal with devil" and try to play nicer with FOSS side and users.
Well, actually, you have had ability to use or link to other GPL software as part of your program prior to any software release from your side.
However, if you are distributing your new program, which you presumably finished fast and with not much hassle because you had vast pool of available GPL-ed code to reuse on your disposal, then that software of yours can only be distributed under GPL.
So basically, if you don't do anything yourself, you pay nothing back. That is kind of a problem, because there is always more users then programmers. However, given infinite time, OSS will creep upon each segment and niche of the market and commodity software as we know it will die out. Then, only way to satisfy own contemporary computing needs will be either to write it yourself or pay a competent programmer to do it.
It is a twist on "economy of piracy" in other topic here on Slashdot: once developers kill off software corporations using OSS, the users will be locked into software-as-service model a sort of lawyer, meritocratic kind of business model) and software developers will gain higher social stature and recognition. Consequently and unexpectedly, there will be more famous programmers in politics as well, which may or may not be a good thing - there will probably be a great deal of pressure from them to raise barriers to entry into business ("programming licenses") and establish monopoly of national programming associations.
So, eventually all software will be free, but people will still have to pay for it, perhaps more then today. On the plus side, there will be more legislative regulations about development process and quality norms, the software will become serious matter and big deal. However, the casual iconoclastic and experimental hacking for fun won't go away, but it will be quite an underground if not outright illegal (if leaked out on large), rebel activity.
Overall, for most of us here on/. , it would probably be a better world.
* supernovae might not be the only natural mechanism for producing heavy elements, which would introduce major doubt about some basic theories of cosmology
* there might be an explanation for galactic organization, etc, does not require esoteric dark energy or dark matter
* currently there are only 4 recognized sources of natural energy in the global ecosystem:
1. solar
2. fission
3. residual heat from planetary formation
4. tidal effects and other mechanical energy derived from lunar orbital degradation
CF introduces a possible 5th source of energy, independent of the above. This could, for instance, be involved with the heat of the earth's interior. Current theories in geology and ecology might need to be modified.
* paleontology dating techniques based on isotope decay may need to account for isotopes produced by naturally occuring CF processes
* Since CF occurs within biological parameters, it might be a player in biology itself. I haven't had to work with Kreb's Cycle for much more than a decade, but AIR there are some unexplained details in the "magical" electron transfers, etc, where a little CF might get rid of some those black magic veils
Basically, demonstrating CF would have a much bigger impact on our culture than the rail guns, decentralized non-polluting power grids, or affordable flying cars that practical CF promises. All those technologies are implied by CF, but its greater impact will be on theories, not technologies.
You are stretching it to far... fusion is fusion, cold or hot. The main problem with it is overcoming Coloumb forces between the nuclei so that strong interaction can kick in and merge them, releasing residual energy surplus of course.
Disclaimer: IANANP and what follows is gross oversimplification.
Now, basically, with "hot" fusion, we try to give so much kinetic (thermal) energy to nuclei as well as cram a lot of them into confined space (raise pressure) so that statistically they have good enough chance of colliding.
With "cold" fusion, however, we are trying to take advantage of an unique property of hydrogen - because it is the smallest of atoms, it can enter inside the crystal grid of some metals, notably palladium or copper, in small space between the atoms making the grid. When it happens, hydrogen, or preferably, deuterium is well crammed into very confined space and then the probability of it running into other fusion-fuel brethen nuclei is allegedly much higher then in the open. It is quite a cunning trick and obviously very little energy is wasted compared to "thermal" method - therefore the "cold" fusion.
So, there you go, it is not that esoteric and mystical after all.
Actually, instead of storage capacitor to catch the charge, I thought something more along lines of capturing induced current in giant, cryogenic, superconducting, toroid - shaped, shorted coil around "ground wire" of the lightning rod (see: "current transformer"), for it seemed to me like construction of capacitor meeting the requirements may be even more impractical, but I may be wrong there.
Oh, one more thing: clouds don't always have same polarity with respect to ground. That should be accounted for.
There have been theoretical weapon designs that let a laser ionize the path to the target and then send huge amounts of electricity through that path...
Crossed my mind too, as several posters mentioned ionization of air along the beam: instead of relying on conversion of stored charge into current, then into light, to deliver destructive energy on target, just create an ionized channel and pour all the stored charge down on target. The show stopper is, of course, a possible "short circuit" discharge between channel and ground anywhere along the beam path, which, due to limited minimal angle between the beam and surface limits applicability to air-to-ground use.
Vice versa, anti-sniper measure would be to keep possible target of assassination inside an isolated Faraday cage connected to powerful high voltage source - if high-power laser was deployed, assassin sniper would have been zapped through the channel his weapon created.
However, there seems to be another, to me much more interesting possibility, completely out of military and destructive applications: the whole idea could be used to construct a laser induced conductive ionized air channel "infinite hight lightning rod", a system to harvest huge atmospheric electric energy in controlled manner, for our power needs!
Or, perhaps those ionized channels could be used for very low current, very high voltage electrical power transmission without using metallic conductors at all. Perhaps we could even connect surface-to-orbit spacecrafts with ion engines to electric power grid using that technique, one "conducting channel" on each side of spacecraft, so that very little fuel mass is lifted.
My bad: I skipped a step in argument, my apologies.
The aimed point was that, if another system had no randomness of its own, but still was a source of randomness in our QM, where would have the randomness come from? If both systems were fully deterministic in nature, resulting interactions would have been peculiar and hard to explain, but not random - there would have been some sort of predictable periodicity instead.
OK, but even so it is like: "...and the turtle stands on shell of another turtle and... the turtles are all the waaay down." You just dumped randomness out of "your own backyard" into "hidden dimensions" and you think you've got rid of it. The randomness is still there, unexplained, but we have n+1 dimensions now.
Now that you mentioned that, as well as other things, apparently so do I:(.
Also, it seems none cares to read carefully anymore, except to analyze spelling, grammar and style and offer some useful advice on improving it. Oh, well, semantics is highly overrated.
Oh yes, rarely people read also to check for their favorite keywords, names of personal heroes and role models, see if there are some words around with connotation that is not appreciated and reply with insults or patronizing the original poster.
If that is what "fast reading" means, you can keep it!
I don't recall the EFF ever having the bags of money that Microsoft has. Lobbying, like so many things, is an economy of scales.
There are precedents to exceptions of that rule: trade unions and more recent, action class suits.
Trade unions rationale is: Each employee alone is weak (financially) compared to own employer, but they amass their contributions to an umbrella organization which then can hire good lawyer assistance or exercise some other forms or pressure. It is exchange of interests between union professionals (keeping for themselves the major share of their members' fees) and union members.
In action class suits, lawyers detect a certain massive violation of rights and finds interest in amassing the suits for a cut in damages.
IMHO, general public lobbying organizations would have upper hand over ANY industry lobbyists, but such massive public lobbyist organizations must offer some concrete goals, expressed in money saved by average citizen and consumer, a goal whose accomplishment can be verified of falsified. It is well said that all the money industry uses to subvert the will of people by paying people's elected representatives comes from the people. Well, if you have to pay either way, why not have it YOUR way for YOUR money?
Or, large middleman organizations could be avoided altogether with a technical solution: online payment campaign contributions associated with enumerated (for easier statistical processing) goals, or online funds for political advertising of goals itself, not politicians (thus letting politicians compete in their declarative support to popular goals, scoring easy wins, without spending their own campaign money).
There is obviously a place in service space for agencies which can provide association of funds for common goals. The same infrastructure could be used for i.e. free software projects funding, or "liberation of content" (a business model which observes reality of digital age where you release new software, music or any easily reproduced content for download only after predetermined "ransom" is collected from voluntary contributors and your work thus payed... if there is demand for it at all, that is).
- spectacular (unlike subatomic particles physics ones which are observed only indirectly, over sensor arrays and computer imagery), high energy experiments, plus - his own tendency to perform publicity stunts and make bombastic, yet sherlock-holmes-esque mysterious announcements (because... Tesla was independent, not academic researcher and was always on a hunt for venture capital) about his future work, plus, - on top of it all his failure to accomplish something he announced, which could had been very revolutionary in every sense (perhaps most notable being social sense) of that word, apparently not because it was physically impossible, but because he was pulled back by "The Man", gave him an aureole of saint-like hero in eyes of a common man (as well as kooks).
There are numerous examples that oral traditions attach mythical supernatural (or at least greater than actual) powers to beloved heroes in collective folk memory. Tesla is one of most recent of such characters and perhaps first that transcended national and ethnic barriers (after all, in his own mind his public was global). Other notable popular hero figures are, of course, Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Bruce Lee, Mother Theresa,... (apologies for anyone left out of the list)... but those of them who (apparently) didn't fulfill their full perceived potential will of course generate more legends (Bruce Lee). Well, the same goes for legend-generating potential of antiheroes (no mentions, we DON'T say their cursed, wicked names aloud:D !), more so because they tend to be stopped in their tracks more often (if they don't, as some notable dictators who died of old age, they don't make it into legends and quickly fade into oblivion).
Besides, if you pay attention, voice commands always have a short pause, silence preceding them, so it is not like you can confuse in-sentence words for commands. That, and imperative tone of voice (talking about dog-training-kind-of)...
If all that fails to discriminate, I can imagine that lift would sometimes ask for confirmation or command reentry, in marginal recognition cases, it is just that such event is too anti-climatic to put into epic video works...
Of course, for general computer UI, it is too slow and boring. "Voice Command Line"... perhaps, "Voice Text Editor" - never!
Can ASN.1 describe formats which have sub-octet fields, or fields that transverse octet boundaries? I see they mention bit strings, but this bit strings seem to be "octetized" (only one bit string per octet, the rest is padded). E.g. how ASN.1 describes simple HDLC header?
Slashdot Mirror
There are cases for government to be helpful and even cases when government should intervene because only government has the power to do it.
Former are the cases where there is benefit in problem solving for the problem makers, eliminating inefficiencies that are not under their own control, latter the cases where damage to everyone (to "none") is done because a few benefit from it and this benefit is dwarfed by the damage.
This particular case is IMHO more of the former - establishing clever procedures to save money to airline companies and at the same time cut on the emissions. OTOH, Perhaps fuel suppliers will feel a little hit in sales, but they can't (err..., shouldn't have power to) force anyone to waste own money just to support suppliers' margins.
When I read the topic, it was exactly what I thought government should do - step in to give it a push forward. Well, not exactly force cross-licensing, but to cover royalties for a very useful or obstacle patent for everyone who needs it for further progress, if it is essentially important for everybody: i.e. patents that are needed to make environment-friendly mass produced products. I mean, there is similar reason behind that as it is behind spending for national defense or fundamental scientific research: common money for common good. Oh, another thing is: holding a patent without using it or licensing it to others who use it, should greatly shorten the protection period to prevent "anti-patents" (when you patent something for the sole purpose of forbidding anyone from making it).
The progress is about building more empowering tools. Once the knowledge transfer rate creates a bottleneck, our attention will focus on solving that problem too, by creating tools for faster training, or tools that alleviate the need for training.
Who knows, deep knowledge may follow (or already is following) sharpened skills to the scrap yard of history for final rest. If something goes wrong with our civilization, we would need both of them recycled, but... that is another problem, one of canned emergency fall back procedures.
We've got pwned in a CoreWar.
On the serious note, does it mean we are trap wired ? An error in positioning could activate viral DNA and start "insider" infection, anywhere in the tissue. If there was an chemical agent (i.e. a bacterial toxin or another virus, e.g.
It would be interesting to find out if we have antibodies for viruses we carry in our genome - that would be indication that such a scenario does indeed occur (on a small scale). I wouldn't be surprised if those antibodies were pre-produced in advance (without actual initial exposure).
The idea is well understood and frequently restated but it is not realistic scenario.
Like someone said up in the thread, there is no way to prevent anyone porting nice OSS app to non-free OS. Therefore, users will virtually never feel the urge to switch over to Linux because of a "killer app(s)".
When (or if) massive switchover happens, it will be only because Microsoft tried to squeeze users too much and they found they lose nothing important if they switch.
In other words, blurring the border between the two by porting Free Software on proprietary platforms, making users gradually adapt to environment they would find in Linux, makes user migration to it more probable, in fact as probable as realistically possible. Side effect would be pushing the shareware producers out of the Windows market by pressure of irresistible competition, which in turn would decrease number of developers for that platform and at the same time force Microsoft to "deal with devil" and try to play nicer with FOSS side and users.
Well, actually, you have had ability to use or link to other GPL software as part of your program prior to any software release from your side.
/. , it would probably be a better world.
However, if you are distributing your new program, which you presumably finished fast and with not much hassle because you had vast pool of available GPL-ed code to reuse on your disposal, then that software of yours can only be distributed under GPL.
So basically, if you don't do anything yourself, you pay nothing back. That is kind of a problem, because there is always more users then programmers. However, given infinite time, OSS will creep upon each segment and niche of the market and commodity software as we know it will die out. Then, only way to satisfy own contemporary computing needs will be either to write it yourself or pay a competent programmer to do it.
It is a twist on "economy of piracy" in other topic here on Slashdot: once developers kill off software corporations using OSS, the users will be locked into software-as-service model a sort of lawyer, meritocratic kind of business model) and software developers will gain higher social stature and recognition. Consequently and unexpectedly, there will be more famous programmers in politics as well, which may or may not be a good thing - there will probably be a great deal of pressure from them to raise barriers to entry into business ("programming licenses") and establish monopoly of national programming associations.
So, eventually all software will be free, but people will still have to pay for it, perhaps more then today. On the plus side, there will be more legislative regulations about development process and quality norms, the software will become serious matter and big deal. However, the casual iconoclastic and experimental hacking for fun won't go away, but it will be quite an underground if not outright illegal (if leaked out on large), rebel activity.
Overall, for most of us here on
Lisp, not perl...
You are stretching it to far... fusion is fusion, cold or hot. The main problem with it is overcoming Coloumb forces between the nuclei so that strong interaction can kick in and merge them, releasing residual energy surplus of course.
Disclaimer: IANANP and what follows is gross oversimplification.
Now, basically, with "hot" fusion, we try to give so much kinetic (thermal) energy to nuclei as well as cram a lot of them into confined space (raise pressure) so that statistically they have good enough chance of colliding.
With "cold" fusion, however, we are trying to take advantage of an unique property of hydrogen - because it is the smallest of atoms, it can enter inside the crystal grid of some metals, notably palladium or copper, in small space between the atoms making the grid. When it happens, hydrogen, or preferably, deuterium is well crammed into very confined space and then the probability of it running into other fusion-fuel brethen nuclei is allegedly much higher then in the open. It is quite a cunning trick and obviously very little energy is wasted compared to "thermal" method - therefore the "cold" fusion.
So, there you go, it is not that esoteric and mystical after all.
Yes, generally that was the idea.
Actually, instead of storage capacitor to catch the charge, I thought something more along lines of capturing induced current in giant, cryogenic, superconducting, toroid - shaped, shorted coil around "ground wire" of the lightning rod (see: "current transformer"), for it seemed to me like construction of capacitor meeting the requirements may be even more impractical, but I may be wrong there.
Oh, one more thing: clouds don't always have same polarity with respect to ground. That should be accounted for.
Crossed my mind too, as several posters mentioned ionization of air along the beam: instead of relying on conversion of stored charge into current, then into light, to deliver destructive energy on target, just create an ionized channel and pour all the stored charge down on target. The show stopper is, of course, a possible "short circuit" discharge between channel and ground anywhere along the beam path, which, due to limited minimal angle between the beam and surface limits applicability to air-to-ground use.
Vice versa, anti-sniper measure would be to keep possible target of assassination inside an isolated Faraday cage connected to powerful high voltage source - if high-power laser was deployed, assassin sniper would have been zapped through the channel his weapon created.
However, there seems to be another, to me much more interesting possibility, completely out of military and destructive applications: the whole idea could be used to construct a laser induced conductive ionized air channel "infinite hight lightning rod", a system to harvest huge atmospheric electric energy in controlled manner, for our power needs!
Or, perhaps those ionized channels could be used for very low current, very high voltage electrical power transmission without using metallic conductors at all. Perhaps we could even connect surface-to-orbit spacecrafts with ion engines to electric power grid using that technique, one "conducting channel" on each side of spacecraft, so that very little fuel mass is lifted.
My bad: I skipped a step in argument, my apologies.
The aimed point was that, if another system had no randomness of its own, but still was a source of randomness in our QM, where would have the randomness come from? If both systems were fully deterministic in nature, resulting interactions would have been peculiar and hard to explain, but not random - there would have been some sort of predictable periodicity instead.
OK, but even so it is like: "...and the turtle stands on shell of another turtle and ... the turtles are all the waaay down." You just dumped randomness out of "your own backyard" into "hidden dimensions" and you think you've got rid of it. The randomness is still there, unexplained, but we have n+1 dimensions now.
Mod parent up!
Now that you mentioned that, as well as other things, apparently so do I
Also, it seems none cares to read carefully anymore, except to analyze spelling, grammar and style and offer some useful advice on improving it. Oh, well, semantics is highly overrated.
Oh yes, rarely people read also to check for their favorite keywords, names of personal heroes and role models, see if there are some words around with connotation that is not appreciated and reply with insults or patronizing the original poster.
If that is what "fast reading" means, you can keep it!
Guilty.
Well, the sooner you start...
There are precedents to exceptions of that rule: trade unions and more recent, action class suits.
Trade unions rationale is: Each employee alone is weak (financially) compared to own employer, but they amass their contributions to an umbrella organization which then can hire good lawyer assistance or exercise some other forms or pressure. It is exchange of interests between union professionals (keeping for themselves the major share of their members' fees) and union members.
In action class suits, lawyers detect a certain massive violation of rights and finds interest in amassing the suits for a cut in damages.
IMHO, general public lobbying organizations would have upper hand over ANY industry lobbyists, but such massive public lobbyist organizations must offer some concrete goals, expressed in money saved by average citizen and consumer, a goal whose accomplishment can be verified of falsified. It is well said that all the money industry uses to subvert the will of people by paying people's elected representatives comes from the people. Well, if you have to pay either way, why not have it YOUR way for YOUR money?
Or, large middleman organizations could be avoided altogether with a technical solution: online payment campaign contributions associated with enumerated (for easier statistical processing) goals, or online funds for political advertising of goals itself, not politicians (thus letting politicians compete in their declarative support to popular goals, scoring easy wins, without spending their own campaign money).
There is obviously a place in service space for agencies which can provide association of funds for common goals. The same infrastructure could be used for i.e. free software projects funding, or "liberation of content" (a business model which observes reality of digital age where you release new software, music or any easily reproduced content for download only after predetermined "ransom" is collected from voluntary contributors and your work thus payed... if there is demand for it at all, that is).
That's an easy one:
- spectacular (unlike subatomic particles physics ones which are observed only indirectly, over sensor arrays and computer imagery), high energy experiments, plus
- his own tendency to perform publicity stunts and make bombastic, yet sherlock-holmes-esque mysterious announcements (because... Tesla was independent, not academic researcher and was always on a hunt for venture capital) about his future work, plus,
- on top of it all his failure to accomplish something he announced, which could had been very revolutionary in every sense (perhaps most notable being social sense) of that word, apparently not because it was physically impossible, but because he was pulled back by "The Man", gave him an aureole of saint-like hero in eyes of a common man (as well as kooks).
There are numerous examples that oral traditions attach mythical supernatural (or at least greater than actual) powers to beloved heroes in collective folk memory. Tesla is one of most recent of such characters and perhaps first that transcended national and ethnic barriers (after all, in his own mind his public was global). Other notable popular hero figures are, of course, Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Bruce Lee, Mother Theresa,
But we DO.
Here, knock yourself out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_programming_l
Besides, if you pay attention, voice commands always have a short pause, silence preceding them, so it is not like you can confuse in-sentence words for commands. That, and imperative tone of voice (talking about dog-training-kind-of)...
...
... perhaps, "Voice Text Editor" - never!
If all that fails to discriminate, I can imagine that lift would sometimes ask for confirmation or command reentry, in marginal recognition cases, it is just that such event is too anti-climatic to put into epic video works
Of course, for general computer UI, it is too slow and boring. "Voice Command Line"
I (mis)understood it was a language for describing binary formats?
Can ASN.1 describe formats which have sub-octet fields, or fields that transverse octet boundaries? I see they mention bit strings, but this bit strings seem to be "octetized" (only one bit string per octet, the rest is padded). E.g. how ASN.1 describes simple HDLC header?