An html/css/javascript frontend could be written for it... POSSIBLY The core code can support hundreds of users accessing it via a web interface... NOT LIKELY
I think it would be safe to say that this is far from a simple GUI replacement.
I like the idea of web based apps... but don't so much care for storing my data on a 3rd party's servers. I wish Google would create an apps appliance (I'm sure they will someday)... or even release their code so that I could freely install it on my own servers. 99% of my necessary tasks could be done entirely from within my browser!
Entire businesses could be run on dirt cheap webclient terminals connecting to a series of web servers hosted internally. A true network administrator's dream, assuming it worked more often than not.
Your the dumb one. Where can the rest of us get our very own "the dumb one"? Damn I hate ruining a perfectly good argument with a damn grammatical error!
Obsolete and dated to whom... software is ONLY obsolete when it can no longer support the mission... and it's only dated when the user craves something new.
I haven't met anyone who has even remotely suggested that Vista was something to crave... especially in the business realm.
Sure if your a gamer, and can foresee that all the new games will be DX10... Vista is a better bet. If your a business and have a hundred XP machines, putting your new secretary on a Vista box is just a pain to manage . And updating the entire network is out cuz the hardware won't support it.
Right now... Vista is a LOSING proposition for businesses... and not really that appealing for general purpose users. The only market I can say would be stupid for not going with Vista is the gamer market, and only for the reasons you hinted at... eventually it may be needed.
Dell sells to a metric assload of businesses. Most businesses are not migrating to Vista any time soon.
Additionally, many users REQUIRE software that does not operate properly in Vista... thus they REQUIRE windows XP instead of Vista to have a computer of any value.
Sure they could choose not to buy new computers... but for a company on a strict 3-4 year lease rotation on their dell machines, or a business that is adding employees, or any number of other situations where waiting is not an option, Windows XP is a must in order to maintain uniformity.
For example, I have managed networks with several hundred machines broken in 3 groups... each group was on a 36 month lease, so over the course of 3 years, every machine would be replaced with a new machine. A software upgrade would never be done until 100% of our hardware was capable of running the new software... even if that meant waiting to rotate the oldest hardware out. With the new hardware demands of Vista, I have a feeling it will be at least 2 years before organizations that operate the way ours did has the hardware in place to perform a complete migration.
The article was indeed light on details... but it suggested that once they had gained access to ONE machine via this document they were able to access data on the US Government network (I am assuming global network here). This tells me that whatever this document allowed granted the cracker access to more than what was on this user's computer, or even what this user was allowed to access.
I cannot claim for certain that a similar exploit couldn't be done in a more secure, by design, operating system. However I suspect that it would be unlikely that you would find an operating system like Linux, OSX, Solaris, or AIX running a word processor application (or any productivity application) that can install a rootkit or other package allowing access to the local system (beyond the current user's rights), let alone the network. Such a design would be "insecure" and not tolerated by the community.
It's a different mindset. Windows tries to cater to everyone, unfortunately "everyone" includes the crackers of the world. To make a secure system, you must be willing to limit the capabilities of your developers and users. All security comes at a cost. Most software is willing to accept that cost, and limit or inconvenience the user to some degree, in exchange for added security. It's a balancing act, too much security and the user cannot achieve their goals... not enough and it doesn't matter 'cuz the system is pwned!
I feel that in many ways, the Windows OS developers have leaned a bit too far toward user freedom... now users expect it, and are not satisfied when their OS limits them. Until recently, most users were annoyed if they needed to enter a password to use their machine.
I still remember my girlfriends words when I installed our new Mac. "Do I have to have a password? It's annoying to have to type it in all the time.". I simply said "no, you don't need one. But I will need to restrict your account from doing much of anything on the computer, and you won't be able to access any music or photos I share on the server." She relented... and know what, once I explained why, she actually appreciated the need for a secure user account and I haven't heard one complaint since. In fact, I finally got her to stop using the same password for every site, and she doesn't let the browser save her passwords anymore either.
I understand that any electronic voting machine, if hacked, can completely invalidate an election. Therefore the only way to make a voting system credible is to encourage the public to develop, and crack it.
I personally think the OSTG, FSF, or some other open source advocacy group needs to start an open source, high profile, project to create an "uncrackable" solution for electronic voting. I know uncrackable is unobtainable, but there is a level where physical access to internal components is required to crack the system; and a system can be made with intrusion detection and prevention in place that when combined with proper physical security practices, a successful crack can only be done via significant corruption or some amazing social engineering.
I believe that ONLY the open source community could successfully develop such a voting system. Not because of the technical expertise, but because any proprietary alternative will be suspect in the eyes of the voter.
Anytime that applications are allowed to access files or capabilities beyond what is absolutely necessary to perform their function, there is a risk.
Microsoft has created some of the most powerful office tools by leveraging tons of existing code that wasn't exactly designed for the intended purpose.
For example, I love VBA (visual basic for applications)... it can make it very easy to turn a basic spreadsheet into a pseudo application. The problem is, VBA has too many ties to the OS.
That's where "sane" operating systems differ. User space and the OS are heavily separated, in fact, user space for each user is separated from other users, and almost all services run as a unique user. This intentional separation provides very robust security, and is absolutely necessary to creating a secure system.
I cannot blame anyone but MS for this... and not the MS Word or Office team. If the OS were properly designed so that user space applications were properly separated, issues such as this would not exist.
The best part is how long in coming the patch for this is... if these systems were running anything open source, a preliminary patch would be made in a matter of hours (assuming that it was posted immediately to an appropriate mailing list or IRC channel).
I can't wait until the saying is changed to "Everybody is getting fired for buying Microsoft"... because, IMO, any IT manager who gives a shit about the "INFORMATION" portion of their title should be fired for trusting it to MS's proprietary bullshit!
If the government were to consider my income generated by gaming as taxable income... then I must be allowed to consider the monthly fees as a business expense as it was an expense incurred in pursuit of that income.
Of course, that would mean that I must start a business in order to game online... and of course my computer then becomes business equipment... oh and I'm a horrible gamer, so I'll never be profitable... so eventually my gaming business will file bankruptcy... they will take my old gaming rig in the settlement, pay off my overdue internet bills, and I'll do it all over again!
The problem with this is that the cost of the heads would probably be prohibitively expensive. You are talking about a shitload of heads to cover every track, on both sides of ever platter.
This is essentially what a drum storage unit did... it had a cylinder that rotated very quickly it's outer surface was coated with magnetic material that was manipulated by a bar of read/write heads. The only reason these are not still in use today is that the number of tracks have become so high that a head/track is far more expensive than just purchasing a solid state drive... and the solid state drive is more reliable.
The drum unit I maintained was a 4MB unit that had a drum about 6 inches in diameter and 16 inches long. The entire unit was about the size of a large 2 drawer file cabinet.
On a related note, our jets (the system I maintained was on an USAF surveillance plane) were upgraded to bubble memory while I was in the service... still not efficient, but we could replace the large drum cabinet with a series of cards that fit in the computer rack (a 6 foot by 6 foot by 1.5 foot cabinet). Thank god they had ditched the core memory before I started... that would have just been an nightmare.
I miss that system... it was all of 12MHz, but it was hardened against EMP, had enough power to do some absolutely amazing stuff.
That is one thing that people seem to not understand... when your too small to compete, combine your forces with other's who are in the same position.
The IRAA the "Independent Recording Artists Association" could develop a basic copyright license that it's members could use to facilitate the transmission of funds and music between artist and consumer.
The one catch that I see however, is how would the artists that get played be separated from those that don't when it comes time to dispense the royalties. The only solution I can see is that their music must be free to broadcast in a reduced quality format. This would prevent the IRAA from needing to dispense royalties at all. They simply collect them and use them to lobby for favorable laws and for prosecuting copyright violations, just like the RIAA.
So essentially the IRAA charges broadcasters (radio, satellite, internet, HD, jukebox) a small monthly/yearly fee which entitles that broadcaster to play any music covered by an IRAA copyright provision. This fee is banked and used, under the guidance of the artists who elected the management, to support the interests of the members. It's essentially a membership that the artist doesn't need to pay for.
The internal clock that dictates your sleep and wake cycle is called your circadian (not sure about the spelling) rhythm. Many of us, teens especially, have a circadian rhythm that puts bead time after midnight and wake time in mid morning, about 10am. This is the exact reason a lot of school systems have looked a later start times for high school students.
The circadian rhythm runs on a ~25 hour cycle without any external stimulus. However exposure to sunlight will cause this cycle to resync on our typical 24 hour day. Place a person in an artificially lit cell without exposure to time stimulus (such as meal times) and they will likely fall into a 25 hour cycle.
Some of us, myself included, suffer from a circadian rhythm disorder. Usually by your late teens (18-20) your rhythm falls back in sync with the sun, causing us to get sleepy after dark and be more alert during daylight. Those of us with a disorder may find the opposite to be true.
I for one, cannot handle driving long distances during daylight hours. I will drive all night long without hesitation or fear of becoming drowsy, but during daylight I cannot seem to stay awake to drive. I believe that for me it has to do with the increase in stimuli, I do well when I have few distractions... but during daylight hours there is more to see, colors are more vivid, and I am quickly exhausted by all of the activity around me.
By the way, I was diagnosed with the disorder by the US Air Force Sleep Clinic. I worked on swing shift (3pm-11pm) for most of my career and I was spoken of highly by my superiors so my unit decided to let me take a special duty position, but it was a day shift (7am - 3pm) job and almost immediately negatives started being added to my service record. I was eventually given two Article 15's lost one rank, and paid thousands in lost pay.
I kept telling my superiors that I couldn't seem to get up in the morning, and like most people they said "go to bed earlier" or "get a better alarm" or "put the alarm across the room". In the end, I had 4 alarms (2 were gifts from my superiors) scattered throughout my room set to go off at different times. I would get up most mornings and make it to the shower, but some days I would turn off all the alarms and get back in bed without even realizing what I was doing, waking up only for a phone call from my boss an hour or so later.
During all of this, I visited the base hospital repeatedly arguing that I something must be wrong... only after my second article 15 was I able to convince someone to send me for a sleep study. After a couple of nights in the sleep clinic a diagnosis was made, and I was sent back to my unit. Unfortunately, the doctor who wrote the report on my condition suggested that with enough "will power" I could manage my condition and he didn't recommend any special treatment for my condition, so my administrative action stood and I was denied reenlistment. I did get a honorable discharge however.
Since then, I haven't accepted a position that required a regular start time before 9:00am... it just isn't worth the risk. I am an excellent employee, but I am worthless until about 11:00am.... which is right now... time to get to work!
I used to maintain an IBM Pi2 Mini Computer that had drum storage up until the late 90's. I really like the idea, a read/write head per track eliminated all seeking and made for very predictable response times for our real time processing requirements. I would love to see the hard drive industry start incorporating more read heads in to drives.
Imagine a single drive with two armatures, servo's and read/write heads. You could effectively double the throughput, reduce seek times, and improve latency. It would be like having RAID 1 read speeds, and write speeds faster than a single conventional disk.
If they could change the form factor and make the enclosure square, they could shove 4 read/write mechinisms in a single drive increasing it to 4x throughput.
The only reason I can imagine for why this hasn't been done is that there are alignment issues with multiple heads on the same surface, or it's prohibitively more expensive than a good raid controller and multiple drives (which I doubt).
I am willing to bet that the June developer release, with it's "top secret" new features will give users something to lust over for a few months while Steve Jobs talks it up in the media. Possibly giving users pause over buying their new Vista machine in favor of waiting for a new Mac.
Have you ever noticed how well this works for movies, and music for that matter? Release a movie/song to a small segment of the market (critics, private screenings, etc) in order to create some buzz... then talk about it for a few months... finally releasing it to the consumer and watch it sell like hotcakes on the day it's released. Then they will use the skewed release figures to further market it, saying it was the fastest selling OS of all time, or some bullshit like that, making everyone think that they need to have it since everyone else is getting it too.
You will constantly be thinking about how great it will be to finally get your grubby hands on this OS for months... salivating over reviews and screen shots on any number of review sites until finally you see a rack full of it at your local computer store. Where you will buy it up, take it home, and do nothing more than your doing today with your computer, but it will look prettier.
This all hinges on the idea that Leopard is truly the huge improvement that it's claimed to be... but even if it's not, Apple is a marketing machine and the average user will buy into the hype.
To summarize, Apple could release in June, and probably release a damn fine piece of software. But they want to make us wait, make us want it more, have it consume us... then we will actually think we are getting something so much better than we have today!
writers/directors/actors focus on creating good movies; movie distribution/marketing companies focus on wasting money on copy protecting their media. Yes, but if you took the resources wasted by the distribution/marketing companies to DRM their content, the writers/directors/actors would have more resources to create better (arguably) movies. Or at least profits could be better which would help offset the losses from illegal distribution.
That's kinda my point... there is still ton's of money to be made without need for this DRM BS. They will never just pack it in and stop making movies.
However they do love to make it sound like DRM is essential for there to be any money in producing movies.
It seems that the/. crowd, and the tech industry in general, knew well before AACS was ever released that it would be a flop. We knew it would do nothing to prevent disks from being copied, we knew it would do nothing but hurt the consumer, and we knew it was an utter waste of money.
Yet the movie industry pushed forward, and look where it got them... exactly where we said it would, nowhere.
I can't wait until they realize that it's not worth it, and just stop concerning themselves with copy-protecting their media and instead focus on creating good movies.
I don't see Microsoft on the list of those pushing for it. Any chance that HTML5 is compatible with IE7... or should I say, is IE7 compatible with HTML5... Hell, is IE7 compatible with any web standard?
I don't know what it is, or how it will be different from x86, but progress can't keep continuing if we don't look for better methods of doing things.
It cannot be argued that x86 is best architecture ever made, we all know it's not... but it is the one with the most research. We need the top companies in the industry, Intel, AMD, MS, etc. to sit down and design an entirely new specification going forward.
New processor architecture, a new form factor, a new power supply, etc...
Google has demonstrated that a single voltage PSU is more efficient, and completely do able. There is little reason that we still use internal cards to add functionality to our systems, couldn't these be more like cartridges so you don't need to open the case?
Why not do away with most of the legacy technology in one swoop and update the entire industry to a new standard.
PS, I know why, money, too much investment in the old to be worth creating the new. But I can dream can't I?
I didn't read the article, but from the summary I can conclude that this idiot is trying to say that we need not be constantly looking to improve our security... instead stop when it's good enough. I call bullshit on that idea. It doesn't take a so-called super hacker to take advantage of an exploit discovered by on of hundreds of weekend hackers. That's the problem here, not a one man super-hacker, but a bunch of individual minor hackers with their attention focused at a particular weakness.
So yes, we must protect our systems as though a "super hacker" is going to come at us with all of his "super hacker" leetness.
Considering that "... it was Shockley who first brought silicon to the Santa Clara Valley..." [wikipedia], he is indeed what started Silicon Valley. However, if he had never started his lab, with the number of high-tech companies already in the area, and the likely switch from germanium to silicon by the industry, Silicon Valley would probably still have earned its name.
Sure HP was the first startup to open in the area as the result of Terman's efforts to encourage local college graduates to start companies locally instead of moving to LA. However they were not into silicon until after Shockley came. I would argue that the valley should be renamed to honor Terman, as it was his ideas that led to the valley becoming the high-tech center that it is.
I would hesitate to suggest that 'we' are eager to "burry and/or tear down our history". In fact, if you were to actually look into it, I would bet that the US has a great record for preservation in comparison to most countries.
Sure there are countries with many amazing artifacts, however, most of these were not preserved by their respective governments... they were preserved by the church, private collectors, business owners, or passed on through generations.
The government actually stepping in to preserve history, other than a few cases in fewer countries, only became common relatively recently. I would bet that if you compared our track record to many other countries since then, you would find our record is better than most.
Historical significance is always hard to gage... however I don't think that any of our modern stadiums will ever hold the significance to earth's future inhabitants as the Colosseum does for us. For the Romans, the Colosseum was a tremendous feat of architecture and engineering... for us, Mellon arena was, perhaps, simply better than average. Beautiful to be sure, but certainly not a great indicator of what our society is capable of creating. To that I look toward skyscrapers, bridges, and space travel.
Another difference is that our history has a far greater chance of being preserved through alternate methods. For example, photography, videography, architectural drawings, newspaper archives, books, and so on. Why save a building when you can record it's history more vividly than what the building itself can portray.
I am not suggesting that it is not worthwhile to preserve some structures, but there are very few truly worth preserving... none will ever have the historical significance of the Colosseum or Pyramids, as they are simply too easy to create with modern building technologies.
Save the statue of liberty, a couple of presidential memorials, maybe the Empire State building or Sears Tower, the Golden Gate bridge, and the White House. Beyond that there is not much of historical significance that cannot be passed through the ages digitally.
If I had to choose between preserving a rundown building because something important happened there, or preserving some undeveloped land, I say let the developer destroy the building.
Hovercraft's that use the technique you describe would be required to move a lot more air, and do not do so well at higher altitudes where the air is thinner. This is due to their lift being generated entirely by creating a low pressure zone above the craft by moving huge quantities of air from one side of the craft to the other.
This craft moves a smaller amount of air across it's surface, like the wing of an airplane, the way the air flows across it's surface creates the low pressure zone necessary to create lift.
The method you discuss, works well in situations where the rotors are very large in relation to the body of the craft, while this method works even when the rotors are much smaller in relation.
I am sure someone with a little more understanding of the physics involved could improve upon what I just said, but I'm pretty sure this is the way it works.
Slashdot Mirror
Err... no... not really.
An html/css/javascript frontend could be written for it... POSSIBLY
The core code can support hundreds of users accessing it via a web interface... NOT LIKELY
I think it would be safe to say that this is far from a simple GUI replacement.
I like the idea of web based apps... but don't so much care for storing my data on a 3rd party's servers. I wish Google would create an apps appliance (I'm sure they will someday)... or even release their code so that I could freely install it on my own servers. 99% of my necessary tasks could be done entirely from within my browser!
Entire businesses could be run on dirt cheap webclient terminals connecting to a series of web servers hosted internally. A true network administrator's dream, assuming it worked more often than not.
You can supply personal information (uploads) to telemarketers who will then call you on your phone!
Maybe, the government could even use it to spy on your calls!
That's what we really need broadband for anyway right? Our own protection from terrorists?
Obsolete and dated to whom... software is ONLY obsolete when it can no longer support the mission... and it's only dated when the user craves something new.
I haven't met anyone who has even remotely suggested that Vista was something to crave... especially in the business realm.
Sure if your a gamer, and can foresee that all the new games will be DX10... Vista is a better bet. If your a business and have a hundred XP machines, putting your new secretary on a Vista box is just a pain to manage . And updating the entire network is out cuz the hardware won't support it.
Right now... Vista is a LOSING proposition for businesses... and not really that appealing for general purpose users. The only market I can say would be stupid for not going with Vista is the gamer market, and only for the reasons you hinted at... eventually it may be needed.
Your the dumb one.
Dell sells to a metric assload of businesses. Most businesses are not migrating to Vista any time soon.
Additionally, many users REQUIRE software that does not operate properly in Vista... thus they REQUIRE windows XP instead of Vista to have a computer of any value.
Sure they could choose not to buy new computers... but for a company on a strict 3-4 year lease rotation on their dell machines, or a business that is adding employees, or any number of other situations where waiting is not an option, Windows XP is a must in order to maintain uniformity.
For example, I have managed networks with several hundred machines broken in 3 groups... each group was on a 36 month lease, so over the course of 3 years, every machine would be replaced with a new machine. A software upgrade would never be done until 100% of our hardware was capable of running the new software... even if that meant waiting to rotate the oldest hardware out. With the new hardware demands of Vista, I have a feeling it will be at least 2 years before organizations that operate the way ours did has the hardware in place to perform a complete migration.
The article was indeed light on details... but it suggested that once they had gained access to ONE machine via this document they were able to access data on the US Government network (I am assuming global network here). This tells me that whatever this document allowed granted the cracker access to more than what was on this user's computer, or even what this user was allowed to access.
I cannot claim for certain that a similar exploit couldn't be done in a more secure, by design, operating system. However I suspect that it would be unlikely that you would find an operating system like Linux, OSX, Solaris, or AIX running a word processor application (or any productivity application) that can install a rootkit or other package allowing access to the local system (beyond the current user's rights), let alone the network. Such a design would be "insecure" and not tolerated by the community.
It's a different mindset. Windows tries to cater to everyone, unfortunately "everyone" includes the crackers of the world. To make a secure system, you must be willing to limit the capabilities of your developers and users. All security comes at a cost. Most software is willing to accept that cost, and limit or inconvenience the user to some degree, in exchange for added security. It's a balancing act, too much security and the user cannot achieve their goals... not enough and it doesn't matter 'cuz the system is pwned!
I feel that in many ways, the Windows OS developers have leaned a bit too far toward user freedom... now users expect it, and are not satisfied when their OS limits them. Until recently, most users were annoyed if they needed to enter a password to use their machine.
I still remember my girlfriends words when I installed our new Mac. "Do I have to have a password? It's annoying to have to type it in all the time.". I simply said "no, you don't need one. But I will need to restrict your account from doing much of anything on the computer, and you won't be able to access any music or photos I share on the server." She relented... and know what, once I explained why, she actually appreciated the need for a secure user account and I haven't heard one complaint since. In fact, I finally got her to stop using the same password for every site, and she doesn't let the browser save her passwords anymore either.
I understand that any electronic voting machine, if hacked, can completely invalidate an election. Therefore the only way to make a voting system credible is to encourage the public to develop, and crack it.
I personally think the OSTG, FSF, or some other open source advocacy group needs to start an open source, high profile, project to create an "uncrackable" solution for electronic voting. I know uncrackable is unobtainable, but there is a level where physical access to internal components is required to crack the system; and a system can be made with intrusion detection and prevention in place that when combined with proper physical security practices, a successful crack can only be done via significant corruption or some amazing social engineering.
I believe that ONLY the open source community could successfully develop such a voting system. Not because of the technical expertise, but because any proprietary alternative will be suspect in the eyes of the voter.
Anytime that applications are allowed to access files or capabilities beyond what is absolutely necessary to perform their function, there is a risk.
Microsoft has created some of the most powerful office tools by leveraging tons of existing code that wasn't exactly designed for the intended purpose.
For example, I love VBA (visual basic for applications)... it can make it very easy to turn a basic spreadsheet into a pseudo application. The problem is, VBA has too many ties to the OS.
That's where "sane" operating systems differ. User space and the OS are heavily separated, in fact, user space for each user is separated from other users, and almost all services run as a unique user. This intentional separation provides very robust security, and is absolutely necessary to creating a secure system.
I cannot blame anyone but MS for this... and not the MS Word or Office team. If the OS were properly designed so that user space applications were properly separated, issues such as this would not exist.
The best part is how long in coming the patch for this is... if these systems were running anything open source, a preliminary patch would be made in a matter of hours (assuming that it was posted immediately to an appropriate mailing list or IRC channel).
I can't wait until the saying is changed to "Everybody is getting fired for buying Microsoft"... because, IMO, any IT manager who gives a shit about the "INFORMATION" portion of their title should be fired for trusting it to MS's proprietary bullshit!
If the government were to consider my income generated by gaming as taxable income... then I must be allowed to consider the monthly fees as a business expense as it was an expense incurred in pursuit of that income.
Of course, that would mean that I must start a business in order to game online... and of course my computer then becomes business equipment... oh and I'm a horrible gamer, so I'll never be profitable... so eventually my gaming business will file bankruptcy... they will take my old gaming rig in the settlement, pay off my overdue internet bills, and I'll do it all over again!
The problem with this is that the cost of the heads would probably be prohibitively expensive. You are talking about a shitload of heads to cover every track, on both sides of ever platter.
This is essentially what a drum storage unit did... it had a cylinder that rotated very quickly it's outer surface was coated with magnetic material that was manipulated by a bar of read/write heads. The only reason these are not still in use today is that the number of tracks have become so high that a head/track is far more expensive than just purchasing a solid state drive... and the solid state drive is more reliable.
The drum unit I maintained was a 4MB unit that had a drum about 6 inches in diameter and 16 inches long. The entire unit was about the size of a large 2 drawer file cabinet.
On a related note, our jets (the system I maintained was on an USAF surveillance plane) were upgraded to bubble memory while I was in the service... still not efficient, but we could replace the large drum cabinet with a series of cards that fit in the computer rack (a 6 foot by 6 foot by 1.5 foot cabinet). Thank god they had ditched the core memory before I started... that would have just been an nightmare.
I miss that system... it was all of 12MHz, but it was hardened against EMP, had enough power to do some absolutely amazing stuff.
Excellent idea!
That is one thing that people seem to not understand... when your too small to compete, combine your forces with other's who are in the same position.
The IRAA the "Independent Recording Artists Association" could develop a basic copyright license that it's members could use to facilitate the transmission of funds and music between artist and consumer.
The one catch that I see however, is how would the artists that get played be separated from those that don't when it comes time to dispense the royalties. The only solution I can see is that their music must be free to broadcast in a reduced quality format. This would prevent the IRAA from needing to dispense royalties at all. They simply collect them and use them to lobby for favorable laws and for prosecuting copyright violations, just like the RIAA.
So essentially the IRAA charges broadcasters (radio, satellite, internet, HD, jukebox) a small monthly/yearly fee which entitles that broadcaster to play any music covered by an IRAA copyright provision. This fee is banked and used, under the guidance of the artists who elected the management, to support the interests of the members. It's essentially a membership that the artist doesn't need to pay for.
I really really like your idea!
The internal clock that dictates your sleep and wake cycle is called your circadian (not sure about the spelling) rhythm. Many of us, teens especially, have a circadian rhythm that puts bead time after midnight and wake time in mid morning, about 10am. This is the exact reason a lot of school systems have looked a later start times for high school students.
The circadian rhythm runs on a ~25 hour cycle without any external stimulus. However exposure to sunlight will cause this cycle to resync on our typical 24 hour day. Place a person in an artificially lit cell without exposure to time stimulus (such as meal times) and they will likely fall into a 25 hour cycle.
Some of us, myself included, suffer from a circadian rhythm disorder. Usually by your late teens (18-20) your rhythm falls back in sync with the sun, causing us to get sleepy after dark and be more alert during daylight. Those of us with a disorder may find the opposite to be true.
I for one, cannot handle driving long distances during daylight hours. I will drive all night long without hesitation or fear of becoming drowsy, but during daylight I cannot seem to stay awake to drive. I believe that for me it has to do with the increase in stimuli, I do well when I have few distractions... but during daylight hours there is more to see, colors are more vivid, and I am quickly exhausted by all of the activity around me.
By the way, I was diagnosed with the disorder by the US Air Force Sleep Clinic. I worked on swing shift (3pm-11pm) for most of my career and I was spoken of highly by my superiors so my unit decided to let me take a special duty position, but it was a day shift (7am - 3pm) job and almost immediately negatives started being added to my service record. I was eventually given two Article 15's lost one rank, and paid thousands in lost pay.
I kept telling my superiors that I couldn't seem to get up in the morning, and like most people they said "go to bed earlier" or "get a better alarm" or "put the alarm across the room". In the end, I had 4 alarms (2 were gifts from my superiors) scattered throughout my room set to go off at different times. I would get up most mornings and make it to the shower, but some days I would turn off all the alarms and get back in bed without even realizing what I was doing, waking up only for a phone call from my boss an hour or so later.
During all of this, I visited the base hospital repeatedly arguing that I something must be wrong... only after my second article 15 was I able to convince someone to send me for a sleep study. After a couple of nights in the sleep clinic a diagnosis was made, and I was sent back to my unit. Unfortunately, the doctor who wrote the report on my condition suggested that with enough "will power" I could manage my condition and he didn't recommend any special treatment for my condition, so my administrative action stood and I was denied reenlistment. I did get a honorable discharge however.
Since then, I haven't accepted a position that required a regular start time before 9:00am... it just isn't worth the risk. I am an excellent employee, but I am worthless until about 11:00am.... which is right now... time to get to work!
I used to maintain an IBM Pi2 Mini Computer that had drum storage up until the late 90's. I really like the idea, a read/write head per track eliminated all seeking and made for very predictable response times for our real time processing requirements.
I would love to see the hard drive industry start incorporating more read heads in to drives.
Imagine a single drive with two armatures, servo's and read/write heads. You could effectively double the throughput, reduce seek times, and improve latency. It would be like having RAID 1 read speeds, and write speeds faster than a single conventional disk.
If they could change the form factor and make the enclosure square, they could shove 4 read/write mechinisms in a single drive increasing it to 4x throughput.
The only reason I can imagine for why this hasn't been done is that there are alignment issues with multiple heads on the same surface, or it's prohibitively more expensive than a good raid controller and multiple drives (which I doubt).
I am willing to bet that the June developer release, with it's "top secret" new features will give users something to lust over for a few months while Steve Jobs talks it up in the media. Possibly giving users pause over buying their new Vista machine in favor of waiting for a new Mac.
Have you ever noticed how well this works for movies, and music for that matter? Release a movie/song to a small segment of the market (critics, private screenings, etc) in order to create some buzz... then talk about it for a few months... finally releasing it to the consumer and watch it sell like hotcakes on the day it's released. Then they will use the skewed release figures to further market it, saying it was the fastest selling OS of all time, or some bullshit like that, making everyone think that they need to have it since everyone else is getting it too.
You will constantly be thinking about how great it will be to finally get your grubby hands on this OS for months... salivating over reviews and screen shots on any number of review sites until finally you see a rack full of it at your local computer store. Where you will buy it up, take it home, and do nothing more than your doing today with your computer, but it will look prettier.
This all hinges on the idea that Leopard is truly the huge improvement that it's claimed to be... but even if it's not, Apple is a marketing machine and the average user will buy into the hype.
To summarize, Apple could release in June, and probably release a damn fine piece of software. But they want to make us wait, make us want it more, have it consume us... then we will actually think we are getting something so much better than we have today!
movie distribution/marketing companies focus on wasting money on copy protecting their media. Yes, but if you took the resources wasted by the distribution/marketing companies to DRM their content, the writers/directors/actors would have more resources to create better (arguably) movies. Or at least profits could be better which would help offset the losses from illegal distribution.
That's kinda my point... there is still ton's of money to be made without need for this DRM BS. They will never just pack it in and stop making movies.
However they do love to make it sound like DRM is essential for there to be any money in producing movies.
It seems that the /. crowd, and the tech industry in general, knew well before AACS was ever released that it would be a flop. We knew it would do nothing to prevent disks from being copied, we knew it would do nothing but hurt the consumer, and we knew it was an utter waste of money.
Yet the movie industry pushed forward, and look where it got them... exactly where we said it would, nowhere.
I can't wait until they realize that it's not worth it, and just stop concerning themselves with copy-protecting their media and instead focus on creating good movies.
No more movies! Ever! We quit!
The movie industry.
I don't see Microsoft on the list of those pushing for it. Any chance that HTML5 is compatible with IE7... or should I say, is IE7 compatible with HTML5... Hell, is IE7 compatible with any web standard?
I don't know what it is, or how it will be different from x86, but progress can't keep continuing if we don't look for better methods of doing things.
It cannot be argued that x86 is best architecture ever made, we all know it's not... but it is the one with the most research. We need the top companies in the industry, Intel, AMD, MS, etc. to sit down and design an entirely new specification going forward.
New processor architecture, a new form factor, a new power supply, etc...
Google has demonstrated that a single voltage PSU is more efficient, and completely do able. There is little reason that we still use internal cards to add functionality to our systems, couldn't these be more like cartridges so you don't need to open the case?
Why not do away with most of the legacy technology in one swoop and update the entire industry to a new standard.
PS, I know why, money, too much investment in the old to be worth creating the new. But I can dream can't I?
I didn't read the article, but from the summary I can conclude that this idiot is trying to say that we need not be constantly looking to improve our security... instead stop when it's good enough. I call bullshit on that idea. It doesn't take a so-called super hacker to take advantage of an exploit discovered by on of hundreds of weekend hackers. That's the problem here, not a one man super-hacker, but a bunch of individual minor hackers with their attention focused at a particular weakness.
So yes, we must protect our systems as though a "super hacker" is going to come at us with all of his "super hacker" leetness.
After reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley I wouldn't really give the HP garage that honor.
Considering that "... it was Shockley who first brought silicon to the Santa Clara Valley..." [wikipedia], he is indeed what started Silicon Valley. However, if he had never started his lab, with the number of high-tech companies already in the area, and the likely switch from germanium to silicon by the industry, Silicon Valley would probably still have earned its name.
Sure HP was the first startup to open in the area as the result of Terman's efforts to encourage local college graduates to start companies locally instead of moving to LA. However they were not into silicon until after Shockley came. I would argue that the valley should be renamed to honor Terman, as it was his ideas that led to the valley becoming the high-tech center that it is.
I would hesitate to suggest that 'we' are eager to "burry and/or tear down our history". In fact, if you were to actually look into it, I would bet that the US has a great record for preservation in comparison to most countries.
Sure there are countries with many amazing artifacts, however, most of these were not preserved by their respective governments... they were preserved by the church, private collectors, business owners, or passed on through generations.
The government actually stepping in to preserve history, other than a few cases in fewer countries, only became common relatively recently. I would bet that if you compared our track record to many other countries since then, you would find our record is better than most.
Historical significance is always hard to gage... however I don't think that any of our modern stadiums will ever hold the significance to earth's future inhabitants as the Colosseum does for us. For the Romans, the Colosseum was a tremendous feat of architecture and engineering... for us, Mellon arena was, perhaps, simply better than average. Beautiful to be sure, but certainly not a great indicator of what our society is capable of creating. To that I look toward skyscrapers, bridges, and space travel.
Another difference is that our history has a far greater chance of being preserved through alternate methods. For example, photography, videography, architectural drawings, newspaper archives, books, and so on. Why save a building when you can record it's history more vividly than what the building itself can portray.
I am not suggesting that it is not worthwhile to preserve some structures, but there are very few truly worth preserving... none will ever have the historical significance of the Colosseum or Pyramids, as they are simply too easy to create with modern building technologies.
Save the statue of liberty, a couple of presidential memorials, maybe the Empire State building or Sears Tower, the Golden Gate bridge, and the White House. Beyond that there is not much of historical significance that cannot be passed through the ages digitally.
If I had to choose between preserving a rundown building because something important happened there, or preserving some undeveloped land, I say let the developer destroy the building.
LOL... you're right, your was not correct, I humbly ask your forgiveness.
Hovercraft's that use the technique you describe would be required to move a lot more air, and do not do so well at higher altitudes where the air is thinner. This is due to their lift being generated entirely by creating a low pressure zone above the craft by moving huge quantities of air from one side of the craft to the other.
This craft moves a smaller amount of air across it's surface, like the wing of an airplane, the way the air flows across it's surface creates the low pressure zone necessary to create lift.
The method you discuss, works well in situations where the rotors are very large in relation to the body of the craft, while this method works even when the rotors are much smaller in relation.
I am sure someone with a little more understanding of the physics involved could improve upon what I just said, but I'm pretty sure this is the way it works.