Many here are strangely negative and come up with all sorts of silly reasons why this is a dumb idea and sails or traditional powered boats are more practical, but consider this..
While $500k+ is a lot of $$, in the yachting world it's not really so much.
Not so many young people have 500k to spare but how many pensioners (who are more likely to have the time and money to spend on pottering about on yachts) are in any condition to clamber up masts to fix sails? Powerboats make more sense for many people.
Even those with 500k to spare for a yacht may find the fuel costs of traditional powerboats are a bit exhorbitant for long distance cruising.
Sure at night the solar power stops - but I suspect the designers of this boat are well aware that the sun does not shine 24 hours/day. I think they are likely to have batteries to store power for a while and yes those batteries may be heavy but so are sodding big masts, sails and lead keels.
Think about where such a boat could come into its own - summer cruising around the med. Sun shine pretty much all the time, no need to hurry anywhere.. just a leisurely (daylight) cruise from port to port around the med wih none of the hassles of sails and none of the expense of traditional fuels.. such a pastime then becomes very affordable and enjoyable.
This technology could certainly become popular and as it does it will no doubt improve, this is a significant step in the right direction.
Naturally, there are many ways to heirarchically structure the same information (by topic, by geography, by time), but a forum is forced to commit to only one.
Not any more.. forums are not forced to only one these days since things like topic tagging are taking hold (even here on slashdot!), enabling forum users to build a folksonomy which can completely change the hierarchical structure to suit the user and the data and can easily co-exist with existing structures. Check out http://www.boards.ie/ and http://blog.boardtracker.com/viewtopic.php?t=131 for examples.
Forums are doing very well and certainly serve many useful purposes from the pure social aspect right through to the company customer support roll and very importantly in such fields as health support groups. Blogs and wikis are mostly a one way medium.. places you go to read info (yes I know you can post on a wiki and you can comment on a blog but that's not the same, they serve a different purpose), whereas forums are places where you go to discuss issues, post and read info, get support, be involved in the community etc.
Have a look at boardtracker.com to see how this space is developing in the 'web2.0' world.
Try a search on google trends to see how forums are actually still rising in popularity despite other 'cool' platforms like blogs and wikis getting all the hype.
At the end of the day when the hype fades away what will be left standing are the platforms which have proved themselves useful, those which serve a real need and forums have always done this through their various incarnations and will surely continue to do so.
Makes you wonder why they even bother providing internet connections on college campuses.
Maybe its for you know like to help with that thing students are supposed to do on occasion at college.. study and research? Researching hot college chicks profiles does NOT count..
Google is still mostly a general search engine at a time when verticals are rising fast..
Look at technorati for example and look at the effect (or lack of) on technorati traffic when google launched their own blogsearch.. nothing at all.. it failed to make an impression despite technorati having growing pains of its own that probably annoy many users and send them elsewhere. Google tries to apply the same methods used on their main search system to the blog search and its not really working partly because its more about people than data.
Blog search is fairly saturated already and most of the big search players have a blog search of some kind and 'independants' are still popping up daily but what about board/forum search? None of the majors do it at all!
Boards are not seen as quite so trendy as blogs and so have been mostly overlooked despite them being hugely popular and showing no signs of stagnating.. the board world is still growing fast and the only real board search engine to date is boardtracker which has many of the features that google and the rest of GYMA lack including..
Persistant search.. they all offer alerts but what use are these when they are alerting on content they just found which was created years ago? Only the specialist search engines like boardtracker offer real persistant search at the moment.
Categorized searching (helps with the problem someone mentioned above when searching for 'horn' since you can restrict search to the 'music' category or whatever you want) - again boardtracker has an effective implementation of this and a few others may also but where is Google?
Searchable rss feeds.. rss is good and google does have it on their blogsearch but what about the main search? Its very widely used these days and not having it is like having a three wheeled car.. it will still go, but corners are tricky and you'll feel a prat driving around in one.;)
Tagging systems with tag clouds etc and other 'social search' features. Yahoo leads the way with these through various aquisitions.. boardtracker offers tagging for boards, technorati for blogs.. but where is Google? They seem to prefer complex automated systems rather than letting the wisdom and power of the masses help out with organizing the worlds data.. its their loss.. yahoo knows it, the verticals know it. You can't really replace one with the other but they work well together, its smart to integrate both, its smart to enhance one with the other.
Google is certainly still the best and fastest general search engine around but they still have some learning to do and either they should get out there and do some smart aquisitions to fill the chinks in their armour or they should start building what the people want because the times they are a changing.
After decades in the making of their incredible, world shattering game, they are probably now just waiting for the only system capable of running it to be released..
It's a service mark, they have to defend it, end of story.
No they don't. End of story.
They should relinquish the damn thing since its in the public interest (which they probably don't care about) and its certainly in the interests of their business reputation (which they probably do care about).
IE will come with any new OS. Firefox and Opera will not.
My desktop runs linux.. it came with firefox which itself has google as the default search. I set the searchbox to use boardtracker most of the time instead but I also notice that when just typing in a word in firefox location bar it does a google search before redirecting to some other site.. no idea where that option is configured, presume it exists somewhere but its well hidden.
My PDA came with opera installed.. I never use it for browsing but its the only browser on the pda and I don't know what other options exist for that model since I never bothered to look.. I presume opera would do the job anyway so no need to look for something else.
No idea what browser ships with OS/X but I guess its not now nor will it be IE7.
At the end of the day.. MSFT owns the largest share of the desktop OS and Google owns the largest share of the search biz.. MSFT uses its position to push non-google products and Google uses its position to push non-msft products.. both get pissy when the other pushes into their territory which both are increasingly doing. Its going to be fun.
I *like* this show but it does seem to descend into wishy washy sentimental crap all too often, particulary in series 2, when what I really wanna see is more action and drama, more battles with cylons and lots of 'frackin' laser beams! (ok frackin machine guns but you get the point.)
Oh and whats with all the frack frackin motherfracker and other variations of frack used to distraction in series 2? Don't recall it being so overused in series 1.. its getting ridiculous.. couldn't they dream up a few more substitute expletives?
Thats interesting.. it shows a spike for 'horny' followed a few hours later by a spike for 'depressed' which I presume means all those horny people didn't get laid again..
I'd think also having the brain in the head is actually a safer place than in the chest since its a lot easier to move it out of harms way than it is to move the entire torso.. say for example a weapon is aimed or an animal takes a swipe or someone tries to punch you..
Just look how boxers duck and dive to avoid a punch.. the head can sway all over the place while the body maintains balance and the torso/chest stays relatively central and more at risk of being hit.
Lots of transatlantic first class flights and 5 star hotels for company directors (the vc's or their buddies) to attend 'important meetings' and discuss 'strategic partnerships'.
But who cares? The streets of web2.0 are paved with gold now.. start something and go raise some silly money of your own to ride the wave.. it wont last, it never does.. but maybe you will be lucky and your startup will survive.
If your startup doesn't survive its no big deal.. you got a year or two of fat vc financed salaries and perks and learned a few lessons to apply when the web3.0 bubble comes around.. which it will, sooner or later.
Slashdot Mirror
While $500k+ is a lot of $$, in the yachting world it's not really so much.
Not so many young people have 500k to spare but how many pensioners (who are more likely to have the time and money to spend on pottering about on yachts) are in any condition to clamber up masts to fix sails? Powerboats make more sense for many people.
Even those with 500k to spare for a yacht may find the fuel costs of traditional powerboats are a bit exhorbitant for long distance cruising.
Sure at night the solar power stops - but I suspect the designers of this boat are well aware that the sun does not shine 24 hours/day. I think they are likely to have batteries to store power for a while and yes those batteries may be heavy but so are sodding big masts, sails and lead keels.
Think about where such a boat could come into its own - summer cruising around the med. Sun shine pretty much all the time, no need to hurry anywhere.. just a leisurely (daylight) cruise from port to port around the med wih none of the hassles of sails and none of the expense of traditional fuels.. such a pastime then becomes very affordable and enjoyable.
This technology could certainly become popular and as it does it will no doubt improve, this is a significant step in the right direction.
Naturally, there are many ways to heirarchically structure the same information (by topic, by geography, by time), but a forum is forced to commit to only one.
Not any more.. forums are not forced to only one these days since things like topic tagging are taking hold (even here on slashdot!), enabling forum users to build a folksonomy which can completely change the hierarchical structure to suit the user and the data and can easily co-exist with existing structures. Check out http://www.boards.ie/ and http://blog.boardtracker.com/viewtopic.php?t=131 for examples.
Have a look at boardtracker.com to see how this space is developing in the 'web2.0' world.
Try a search on google trends to see how forums are actually still rising in popularity despite other 'cool' platforms like blogs and wikis getting all the hype.
At the end of the day when the hype fades away what will be left standing are the platforms which have proved themselves useful, those which serve a real need and forums have always done this through their various incarnations and will surely continue to do so.
Unless of course they decided to use the same day passport service..
From the uk passport site: "This is a guaranteed service whereby you deliver your application and collect your passport later the same day.."
Indeed be sceptical, but don't bury your head in the sand.. sometimes bad things really do happen.
"However, according to some space experts, Bigelow's venture will only succeed if others can provide the transport to get people into space."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5173388.stm
http://mozy.org/vaio/
Makes you wonder why they even bother providing internet connections on college campuses.
Maybe its for you know like to help with that thing students are supposed to do on occasion at college.. study and research? Researching hot college chicks profiles does NOT count..
Too late to stop the dolphin marriage
Look at technorati for example and look at the effect (or lack of) on technorati traffic when google launched their own blogsearch.. nothing at all.. it failed to make an impression despite technorati having growing pains of its own that probably annoy many users and send them elsewhere. Google tries to apply the same methods used on their main search system to the blog search and its not really working partly because its more about people than data.
Blog search is fairly saturated already and most of the big search players have a blog search of some kind and 'independants' are still popping up daily but what about board/forum search? None of the majors do it at all!
Boards are not seen as quite so trendy as blogs and so have been mostly overlooked despite them being hugely popular and showing no signs of stagnating.. the board world is still growing fast and the only real board search engine to date is boardtracker which has many of the features that google and the rest of GYMA lack including..
Persistant search.. they all offer alerts but what use are these when they are alerting on content they just found which was created years ago? Only the specialist search engines like boardtracker offer real persistant search at the moment.
Categorized searching (helps with the problem someone mentioned above when searching for 'horn' since you can restrict search to the 'music' category or whatever you want) - again boardtracker has an effective implementation of this and a few others may also but where is Google?
Searchable rss feeds.. rss is good and google does have it on their blogsearch but what about the main search? Its very widely used these days and not having it is like having a three wheeled car.. it will still go, but corners are tricky and you'll feel a prat driving around in one. ;)
Tagging systems with tag clouds etc and other 'social search' features. Yahoo leads the way with these through various aquisitions.. boardtracker offers tagging for boards, technorati for blogs.. but where is Google? They seem to prefer complex automated systems rather than letting the wisdom and power of the masses help out with organizing the worlds data.. its their loss.. yahoo knows it, the verticals know it. You can't really replace one with the other but they work well together, its smart to integrate both, its smart to enhance one with the other.
Google is certainly still the best and fastest general search engine around but they still have some learning to do and either they should get out there and do some smart aquisitions to fill the chinks in their armour or they should start building what the people want because the times they are a changing.
After decades in the making of their incredible, world shattering game, they are probably now just waiting for the only system capable of running it to be released..
Forums/Boards/BBS 2.0 already exists.. ;)
http://www.boardtracker.com
Soon they'll install msft flight sim running on an xbox 360 in the cockpit so the pilots can at least pretend they are flying it for real..
No they don't. End of story.
They should relinquish the damn thing since its in the public interest (which they probably don't care about) and its certainly in the interests of their business reputation (which they probably do care about).
http://web2con.com/cs/web2006/view/e_spkr/1848
"The company says the chance of its genetically engineered rice ending up in the food supply is remote.."
Oh damn..
Since rice is typically grown in said developing countries there's a fair chance that they will have access to it.
Bull, meet red rag..
You're not sure??
My desktop runs linux.. it came with firefox which itself has google as the default search. I set the searchbox to use boardtracker most of the time instead but I also notice that when just typing in a word in firefox location bar it does a google search before redirecting to some other site.. no idea where that option is configured, presume it exists somewhere but its well hidden.
My PDA came with opera installed.. I never use it for browsing but its the only browser on the pda and I don't know what other options exist for that model since I never bothered to look.. I presume opera would do the job anyway so no need to look for something else.
No idea what browser ships with OS/X but I guess its not now nor will it be IE7.
At the end of the day.. MSFT owns the largest share of the desktop OS and Google owns the largest share of the search biz.. MSFT uses its position to push non-google products and Google uses its position to push non-msft products.. both get pissy when the other pushes into their territory which both are increasingly doing. Its going to be fun.
Chuck Norris isn't chosen, he chooses. ;)
Oh and whats with all the frack frackin motherfracker and other variations of frack used to distraction in series 2? Don't recall it being so overused in series 1.. its getting ridiculous.. couldn't they dream up a few more substitute expletives?
Thats interesting.. it shows a spike for 'horny' followed a few hours later by a spike for 'depressed' which I presume means all those horny people didn't get laid again..
Just look how boxers duck and dive to avoid a punch.. the head can sway all over the place while the body maintains balance and the torso/chest stays relatively central and more at risk of being hit.
But who cares? The streets of web2.0 are paved with gold now.. start something and go raise some silly money of your own to ride the wave.. it wont last, it never does.. but maybe you will be lucky and your startup will survive.
If your startup doesn't survive its no big deal.. you got a year or two of fat vc financed salaries and perks and learned a few lessons to apply when the web3.0 bubble comes around.. which it will, sooner or later.