From all appearances, the actuators used on the robot on the are plenty powerful and fast to make a small jump... I'm not thinking of replacing Michael Jordan with a bot or anything.
Jumping takes great strength in the legs, but equally important is a good arm swing action... the arms play a tremendous roll in making a jump, as they direct a large portion of your weight in the vertical direction and they act as stabilizers in flight.
I honestly belive that a jumping robot will come well before a jogging or running robot as the running motion results in a) a series of small jumps, and b) the legs must maintain a much faster pace. I single jump, no matter how small, would undoubtedly be easier than the controlled mahem of a run.
On a side note... I also wonder how this new bot handles uneven terrain?
"Michael Dell could ship hardware that has free software support today if he wanted to. It might even cost more than cheap junk Windoze machines, but it should not cost more than the same hardware with Windoze. Anything less is just FUD."
The hardware would cost no more... however the bundled cost to the consumer would. Dell can afford to make less than no money on the hardware by getting kickbacks for bundling 3rd party software. At the moment, there is no market for 3rd party bundles on Linux as the average user would never subscribe or upgrade from the installed LE version.
I'd imagine that Dell makes a hundred or so dollars just on the bundles from the AntiVirus and a some of the other S#!t they install on a consumer level machine.
In fact, if you pay the premium for an optiplex business class machine, the only 3rd party application that comes preinstalled (as of a few months ago) is the Google toolbar. While the machine is arguably better engineered, it typically has older hardware and has undergone far fewer revisions... thus I'd imagine the R&D cost is lower for the optiplex line then the dimension line... yet dimensions are better than 25% cheaper for equivilent specs and don't generate nearly as many returns, support calls, or other expensive hassles. So why are optiplex machines more expensive, it's the lack of bundling.
Isn't dynamically balancing easier to do with arms? Not to mention, they allow you to move faster and they can catch you if you fall.
I'd bet it would not be too difficult, certainly not easy but compared to their work to this point it'd be trivial, to add some arms and significantly improve the robot's ability to walk... perhaps even jump and/or run... they could even have it catch itself if it falls.
Most of the previous posters are saying that certification is a waste of time or simple. It is not... the process of certification is not that simple.
Essentially certification means that the hardware will operate as expected/designed. Sure the kernel will support the network card... but will it support it when someone wants to make some off the wall settings that are supposed to work?
Not to mention, with the level of integration and customization done by Dell and their OEM suppliers, using a supported Broadcom NIC, for example, does not mean that it will operate correctly in Linux.
Besides... it gives linux credibility. I know I have purchased hardware thats on the linux HCL and run into compatibility issues or hardware that is supported but has limited functionality. Things have come a long way, but they are far from perfect.
If you read previous responses above... no, I rarely use these devices but just prior to typing this message I was having a bad experience with one... apparently my machine is misconfigured, or restricted by some policy... nothing happens when I click the Icon you mention. I must RIGHT click on it and go through the context menu.
Actually, I never claimed to be inexperienced with a windows box... in fact it's the primary source of my income.
However, I will admit, I have very little need for usb storage devices. I manage networks and, other than some bootable USB devices used for troubleshooting and imaging (booting and created in linux), I have had little use for USB devices on our networked windows machines. In fact, our group policies restrict most users from using them for security reasons.
I am sure there must be something wrong with the machine I use at work that is preventing the easy eject method described previously. I was just very frustrated today due to the complicated eject procedure, which appeared to be the only one that was working for me. I was sure there was an easier way.
Again, I am more a windows user than a Mac user... but I'm more of a Mac lover than windows lover.
Thank you for pointing out some of the limitations that I have not experienced... haven't had a 10,000+ file folder on my Mac, for example.
I disagree about some of your other differences... sure outlook's calender has more powerful capability, but it's not included with the OS either. As far as network resources are concerned, my network survives sleeping fine, though I don't use wifi as it's a desktop on a GigE connection.
By the way, I am right clicking on the system tray icon you described... clicking it does nothing... trust me I tried repeatedly. I have a feeling that its either a group policy or something related to FlyakiteOSX. But I knew that it should be easier, that's why I was so frustrated. I probably shoulda kept my mouth shut about that!
Check out http://automatorworld.com/ for some really powerful user made scripts... I take advantage of a lot of premade stuff and have created some simple bash scripts for anything that I couldn't find premade or otherwise assemble from the selection of included elements.
I apologize if I was wrong about the ejecting of external devices... I quoted it based on the way I do it... which is the right click method.
Perhaps there is an easier way, however I have tried to just click on the icon and nothing appears to happen... perhaps its an issue with my machine/XP configuration or it's the type of USB drive I am using?
Right now I right click on the icon, and click remove device (something like that) then I select the device to eject, and click on the remove (or some such) button, then I am presented with a dialog that tells me what is going to be removed (like 3 devices in total), finally I click OK(or whatever) and it removes the device. Then I have to close the remaining window.
I only added that to my comment because I was frustrated by it today at work... I have tried to find a faster method, and I think the one that you describe would be faster, however it appears that my configuration is broken?
Sorry if the above is mostly guess work, I am at home on my Mac now. And reguardless, I am at home on my Mac, far more so than I am on the windows machine I use most of the time.
Shout FUD all you want. I am a convert and I am not a person who is swayed easily. I use my machines for "real work" and I can tell you from experience, I am far more productive OSX than I was for umpteen years on a MS based OS. Sure, there was a fairly long adjustment period, however now that most of the features I need have been mastered I am substantially happier working on the Mac.
Ejecting a USB storage device in windows is a 5 click, 2 dialog box, and one context menu procedure... on a mac it's two click procedure, one to open finder one to eject.
I can customize my finder bar... to put all of my most use folders, applications, and drives where I can see them quickly.
Automator is a godsend! Think of it like writing batch scripts for GUI tasks. For example I could create an automator script that converts, and renames all the files in folder a, uploads them to my webserver, and places a thumbnail on another server, creates an HTML file with the thumbnails linking the images, and finally deletes the source files. Best of all, this could be done "on the fly" so that any file that gets placed in folder a is processed this way automatically. Think of it as full workflow automation with no need for esoteric commandline switches or repeated testing... just a simple GUI script builder.
Finally, the OS is sane. I have yet to be prompted for a password for something I didn't feel needed to be secured... and I have never felt that an option should be protected that isn't. My 7 year old can have her own account on our mini and I have no fear that she can EVER break the system through ignorance. My girlfriend has a limited account and has only once asked for my password because she has access to all the options she needs. Want to talk about a productivity booster... I no longer spend time fixing the family PC and I can get more work done!
BTW, I am a windows user... got my first Mac 6 Mos ago, and my next machine will be one as well... I will never look at windows the same way again... hell I'm typing this on my work laptop with windows XP and FlyakiteOSX installed cuz at least I get some of the Mac goodness that way.
If your a windows user, do yourself a favor, get a Mac Mini, drop a Gig+ of ram in it, and force yourself to use it day in and day out for a few months... I would be willing to bet you will feel the same as I do. A Mac is not all eye candy, in fact I turn most of that crap off where I can to further improve the responsiveness, and I still think Macs are better!
If my computer is connected to the internet, then I am making copyrighted works available... is there a level of effort required? If so, how do you quantify the level of effort necessary? So I go to court and say, I didn't know I was sharing Britney's new collection of crap, how will they determine if what I did was intentional or not. How do you differentiate intentional and unintentional release of copyrighted works. I could easily prevent others from accessing such works from the average hacker... however my mother doesn't stand a chance... so can she get away with more than I can?
I think in the world of computing, it is not reasonable to expect a user to have a certain amount of knowledge, and without such knowledge there is a great potential for copyright violations do to simple ignorance. And what counts as irresponsible behavior? Is it irresponsible to download files from a p2p network? Not if your intent is to download free works... but then what happens if your client indexes all of the media on your system and makes it available to the public without your knowledge. I know better, but most users do not.
Every time one of this spammer's messages hit my phone I was charged $0.10, and verizon is pursuing damages?... seems like Verizon is double dipping a bit.
I wonder if they aren't "evil"!
They could allow a spammer to operate for a significant period of time, increasing revenue from those of us who don't have text messaging on our accounts. Then they shut him down, and get royalties. Finally they look good in everyones eyes, when in reality they made a decent chunk of change for no real work.
You can't tell me it's that difficult to determine where the messages came from... they probably could have shut him down sooner, but it wasn't worth the effort yet... mostly because they were not getting overwhelmed with calls to have text messaging charges dropped.
Hmm... I so hate to be one of those conspiracy theorists.
"Electric lights are still the biggest single use of electricity in this country."
The problem is, most of that lighting is already pretty efficient. A large portion of this lighting is commercial/industrial/outdoor where efficient lighting is the standard. When I see incandescents sitting in every cubicle, I will be concerned about saving energy on lighting... however it will never be that way, no business wants to pay more than necessary to meet their needs, thus they use efficient lighting.
Sure I think every little bit counts... moving households to CFL, or similarly efficient technology will greatly reduce the energy demands for lighting in that sector. However I believe there are other areas where greater gains could be made.
Most notably in heating and cooling. Mandating more energy efficient home designs, and heating and cooling technologies, would surely save more than mandating efficient bulbs... though I believe doing both to be the best case.
Ok... I fail to understand what kind of antenna repair takes 65 Hours.
Not to mention, how did they arrive at that figure... surely it's not a 65 hour task... maybe a 2 hour task with 63 hours of extra time to compensate for any unexpected situations.
I'm betting they used Murphys law on this one... the guy in space say... sure I can do that in 15 minutes... the tech on the ground thinks for a second. "hmm 15 minutes + murphys law time for the unexpected = 65 hours"... ok you have 65 hours alloted for this task. If the guy in space had said 10 hours.. it would only have been 25. That's Murphy's law at work, the quicker you expect to get it done the longer it takes.
It once took me 26 hours to change a light bulb. The glass bulb pulled out of the threaded base, then someone turned on a switch while I was standing on the ladder with a pair of pliers trying to remove the rest of the bulb. A day later, once my back stopped hurting from the fall, the new bulb was in.
I do... anything to bring what's happening in the IP world to the average living room.
If the public knew the BS that's happening in our industry, they would be motivated to do something about it. The only reason the abuse continues it that there is not enough discussion about it outside of the industry!
I am pretty certain that it would be difficult to pursue a case on this one.
I am assuming that Mono is not using any of MS's code, they are simply compiling the source code to something that closely resembles the app that was written in VB.
I don't think MS can enforce a patent on a language... it's not like they can tell me what I can type into a common text file. If they can patent the VB language, then I want a patent for English, Chinese, Hindi, and a few other common languages... everyone can pay me a small royalty for every written word or recorded word... words spoken but not broadcast can still be free, as it would be too hard to track that.
Here's a question along that vein I'd love to get an answer to.
If hemp is so valuable of a crop, why hasn't a hemp derived alternative that has no THC been genetically developed.
No THC = no reason to ban it's production
I have wondered this for a long time... seems trivial to me... I have friends, who are by no means intellegent, who have successfully cross bred plants to increase THC content. I'd imagine someone smarter could do the reverse until there was no measurable amount, while still maintaining the commercial benefits of the plant.
In order to have combustion you need a way for the gas to quickly mix with oxygen. I believe the whole purpose of the briquettes is to prevent that from happening, otherwise a simple compressed gas cylinder would suffice.
"if studies hadn't shown that many government-run socialized medicine systems provide better care than the US's private system, at about half the cost per citizen, per year."
Of course they do, why, because our system of medicine promotes the innovation and research that creates the treatments the socialized medicine systems use.
I agree that socialized medicine has it's appeal, as I've been uninsured for months now, however if the US wants to continue to innovate, socialized medicine must not gain a foothold.
What I would like to see however, is a law that requires that the developers of a drug or medical technology who use any government funding or funded research to sell that product to the government at the cost of production. If the government hadn't aided them in the first place, they wouldn't have created the product.
This would save medicaid/medicare billions, and ultimately save the one bastion of socialized medicine we have here in the US.
I typed all this in response to someone else's post that I had completely misunderstood until I reread it... rather than waste it I'll just start a new thread.
Here goes my reputation.
It is perfectly natural for men, old men, to find young girls attractive. In fact, a few hundred years ago, it was typical for a man in his 30's to wed a girl in her tweens/early teens.
NATURAL? Yes natural. Men who lived to be in their 30's, were desired because they had strength and health (living to 40 was tough back in the day). It was darwin at his finest... live to 30 and then have tons of young girls to spread your healthy genes to.
So why young girls. First of all, people today think kids grow up too fast, but once a girl hits puberty she is of "child bearing age". Back in the day, large families were a requirement to work the fields and just get stuff done... so people didn't waste time, if she could have a baby, she was ready for marriage. Not to mention, it's a widely accepted belief that young women are more attractive... and this was true especially then, when women's breasts would sag from lack of support, skin would wrinkle from sun, and teeth would fall out from a lack of hygiene.
Ok, so anthropologically, it's absolutely natural for men to be attractive to young women... it's a survival instinct left over from a time, not very long ago, when it was absolutely necessary for survival of the species.
Then, along comes modern religions, which condemn sexuality, promote male dominance, promote modesty, and ultimately encourage the masses to resist any urges they feel. Why? Because a person fighting their inner demons will more willingly follow the guidance of the church.
Out go orgy's, polygamy, buggering, and of course the common practice of marrying young girls to old men. Well at least they go out of favor.
So back to today... women do everything in their power to look as young as possible... because that is what attracts men, yet men who are attracted (very likely not by choice) to young women are considered perverts.
I don't believe in pedophilia, nor do I support it, I only understand it and it's root causes. I will admit, I have been uncomfortably attracted to young women who would likely put me in hot water if I gave in to temptation. I'd imagine that most men here have had that "What, shes only 15!?!" moment. Are all of us pedophiles? NO.
So what do we do about this problem. First, I agree that exploiting young women, especially sexually, is disgusting. Not because it's wrong for a man to be attracted to them, but because it's morally wrong to take advantage of those without the sense of self to resist.
I think what the world needs is more people like myself, those who admit that it's not wrong to be attracted. If people were not so distraught by this fault of human evolution, the individuals with these issues would be free to express their problems more openly, and perhaps seek help or support from other individuals with the same issues. Like AA, NA, and every other support group. These groups could then reinforce the idea that it's disgusting to take advantage of someone in the way these young women are taken advantage of in order to obtain these images. That belief is what keeps me from ever considering approaching a young teen in that manner, and it's the reason I believe that child porn is just plain disgusting. By condemning those who suffer fro a strong attraction to young girls we only promote the spread of child pornography, these individuals have no other safe outlet.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't believe I am any different than most men. If I were, then most porn sites would advertise "get your nude 30 somethings here". Instead it;s all "shes only 18", if 15 was legal it would be "shes only 15"... trust me I am far from alone.
I agree that we must not treat child exploitation, in any form, trivially. However our society is too quick to condemn. As I have said in too many words... it's natural, not ethical, or
As long as you can voluntarily rate your game "adults only" rating without having to go through any kind of review board or paying anyone anything, yes. If not, then it will push independent small game makers out of the market.
I agree whole heartedly. I think that instead of requiring a 3rd party review, you set up a set of stiff penalties for those who miss-label their product. For example:
An independent review jury is created, from a pool of interested parties, including publishers, government officials, and censorship promoters. This jury's goal is to include individuals who will give it credibility, the ratings will mean nothing if they are overseen by a corrupt or one sided group of jurors.
This jury sets clear guidelines about what is and is not allowed in the the different ratings levels. These guidelines are revised yearly, when a product is released, it must be labeled according to that year's guidelines and clearly marked with the version by which it was rated.
This jury will also hear pleas (with evidence) from individuals that believe a product is rated too low.
If their plea is deemed valid according to the guidelines, the publisher covers the costs of the jury, recalls their mislabeled product, issues refunds to any one who demands one, and pays a stiff penalty in the form of funding after school physical activity programs (kids who game need more exercise)
If the plea is deemed frivolous or doesn't generate a simple majority in the jury, the individual pays the jury for it's time. Enough to be a deterrent for frivolous cases.
This system is entirely self regulating. If the jury is out of whack, the system breaks, and publishers stop using it. Labeling your software is free, however by using the label you agree to be bound by contract that you will label your product within the guidelines or accept the consequences. Labeling is at will, there is no law requiring it... however, retailers would be free to require it on products that it inventories. Besides, with a free and simple system like this, why wouldn't game makers want to label their product... it's far better than a government regulated plan, which is the alternative.
1. Encourage ISPs to maintain large caches and users to have reasonably high cache settings 2. Employ a sane p2p-esque standard for most media content as a web browser standard, so that youtube doesn't upload the same video to everyone in my office when a "check this out" email is circulated around the building. Let me pull it from nearby peers at faster speeds. 3. Encourage ISP's to promote "in network" file sharing. For example, my upload/download to those on my cable node should be at line speed. So when I share/download something large on bittorrent, those on my node will download it from me FAST, saving the ISP's outbound bandwidth... using QOS, that bandwidth can be reduced before being sent over heavily shared backbones.
Essentially, a system where as much data as possible is distributed and pulled from fast local sources would result in great reductions in backbone utilization, while serving to improve the perceived speeds of large downloads.
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From all appearances, the actuators used on the robot on the are plenty powerful and fast to make a small jump... I'm not thinking of replacing Michael Jordan with a bot or anything.
Jumping takes great strength in the legs, but equally important is a good arm swing action... the arms play a tremendous roll in making a jump, as they direct a large portion of your weight in the vertical direction and they act as stabilizers in flight.
I honestly belive that a jumping robot will come well before a jogging or running robot as the running motion results in a) a series of small jumps, and b) the legs must maintain a much faster pace. I single jump, no matter how small, would undoubtedly be easier than the controlled mahem of a run.
On a side note... I also wonder how this new bot handles uneven terrain?
I have had pretty good luck with the optiplex line... sure they change, but the change is gradual and rarely breaks a working configuration.
Of course they come at a cost... but for large rollouts and 3-4year lifecycle management, optiplex is the only way to do it right.
"Michael Dell could ship hardware that has free software support today if he wanted to. It might even cost more than cheap junk Windoze machines, but it should not cost more than the same hardware with Windoze. Anything less is just FUD."
The hardware would cost no more... however the bundled cost to the consumer would. Dell can afford to make less than no money on the hardware by getting kickbacks for bundling 3rd party software. At the moment, there is no market for 3rd party bundles on Linux as the average user would never subscribe or upgrade from the installed LE version.
I'd imagine that Dell makes a hundred or so dollars just on the bundles from the AntiVirus and a some of the other S#!t they install on a consumer level machine.
In fact, if you pay the premium for an optiplex business class machine, the only 3rd party application that comes preinstalled (as of a few months ago) is the Google toolbar. While the machine is arguably better engineered, it typically has older hardware and has undergone far fewer revisions... thus I'd imagine the R&D cost is lower for the optiplex line then the dimension line... yet dimensions are better than 25% cheaper for equivilent specs and don't generate nearly as many returns, support calls, or other expensive hassles. So why are optiplex machines more expensive, it's the lack of bundling.
Isn't dynamically balancing easier to do with arms? Not to mention, they allow you to move faster and they can catch you if you fall.
I'd bet it would not be too difficult, certainly not easy but compared to their work to this point it'd be trivial, to add some arms and significantly improve the robot's ability to walk... perhaps even jump and/or run... they could even have it catch itself if it falls.
Most of the previous posters are saying that certification is a waste of time or simple. It is not... the process of certification is not that simple.
Essentially certification means that the hardware will operate as expected/designed. Sure the kernel will support the network card... but will it support it when someone wants to make some off the wall settings that are supposed to work?
Not to mention, with the level of integration and customization done by Dell and their OEM suppliers, using a supported Broadcom NIC, for example, does not mean that it will operate correctly in Linux.
Besides... it gives linux credibility. I know I have purchased hardware thats on the linux HCL and run into compatibility issues or hardware that is supported but has limited functionality. Things have come a long way, but they are far from perfect.
If you read previous responses above... no, I rarely use these devices but just prior to typing this message I was having a bad experience with one... apparently my machine is misconfigured, or restricted by some policy... nothing happens when I click the Icon you mention. I must RIGHT click on it and go through the context menu.
Actually, I never claimed to be inexperienced with a windows box... in fact it's the primary source of my income.
However, I will admit, I have very little need for usb storage devices. I manage networks and, other than some bootable USB devices used for troubleshooting and imaging (booting and created in linux), I have had little use for USB devices on our networked windows machines. In fact, our group policies restrict most users from using them for security reasons.
I am sure there must be something wrong with the machine I use at work that is preventing the easy eject method described previously. I was just very frustrated today due to the complicated eject procedure, which appeared to be the only one that was working for me. I was sure there was an easier way.
Again, I am more a windows user than a Mac user... but I'm more of a Mac lover than windows lover.
Thank you for pointing out some of the limitations that I have not experienced... haven't had a 10,000+ file folder on my Mac, for example.
I disagree about some of your other differences... sure outlook's calender has more powerful capability, but it's not included with the OS either. As far as network resources are concerned, my network survives sleeping fine, though I don't use wifi as it's a desktop on a GigE connection.
By the way, I am right clicking on the system tray icon you described... clicking it does nothing... trust me I tried repeatedly. I have a feeling that its either a group policy or something related to FlyakiteOSX. But I knew that it should be easier, that's why I was so frustrated. I probably shoulda kept my mouth shut about that!
Thanks for the response!
Check out http://automatorworld.com/ for some really powerful user made scripts... I take advantage of a lot of premade stuff and have created some simple bash scripts for anything that I couldn't find premade or otherwise assemble from the selection of included elements.
I apologize if I was wrong about the ejecting of external devices... I quoted it based on the way I do it... which is the right click method.
Perhaps there is an easier way, however I have tried to just click on the icon and nothing appears to happen... perhaps its an issue with my machine/XP configuration or it's the type of USB drive I am using?
Right now I right click on the icon, and click remove device (something like that) then I select the device to eject, and click on the remove (or some such) button, then I am presented with a dialog that tells me what is going to be removed (like 3 devices in total), finally I click OK(or whatever) and it removes the device. Then I have to close the remaining window.
I only added that to my comment because I was frustrated by it today at work... I have tried to find a faster method, and I think the one that you describe would be faster, however it appears that my configuration is broken?
Sorry if the above is mostly guess work, I am at home on my Mac now. And reguardless, I am at home on my Mac, far more so than I am on the windows machine I use most of the time.
Shout FUD all you want. I am a convert and I am not a person who is swayed easily. I use my machines for "real work" and I can tell you from experience, I am far more productive OSX than I was for umpteen years on a MS based OS. Sure, there was a fairly long adjustment period, however now that most of the features I need have been mastered I am substantially happier working on the Mac.
I have to mention a few things you don't mention.
Ejecting a USB storage device in windows is a 5 click, 2 dialog box, and one context menu procedure... on a mac it's two click procedure, one to open finder one to eject.
I can customize my finder bar... to put all of my most use folders, applications, and drives where I can see them quickly.
Automator is a godsend! Think of it like writing batch scripts for GUI tasks. For example I could create an automator script that converts, and renames all the files in folder a, uploads them to my webserver, and places a thumbnail on another server, creates an HTML file with the thumbnails linking the images, and finally deletes the source files. Best of all, this could be done "on the fly" so that any file that gets placed in folder a is processed this way automatically. Think of it as full workflow automation with no need for esoteric commandline switches or repeated testing... just a simple GUI script builder.
Finally, the OS is sane. I have yet to be prompted for a password for something I didn't feel needed to be secured... and I have never felt that an option should be protected that isn't. My 7 year old can have her own account on our mini and I have no fear that she can EVER break the system through ignorance. My girlfriend has a limited account and has only once asked for my password because she has access to all the options she needs. Want to talk about a productivity booster... I no longer spend time fixing the family PC and I can get more work done!
BTW, I am a windows user... got my first Mac 6 Mos ago, and my next machine will be one as well... I will never look at windows the same way again... hell I'm typing this on my work laptop with windows XP and FlyakiteOSX installed cuz at least I get some of the Mac goodness that way.
If your a windows user, do yourself a favor, get a Mac Mini, drop a Gig+ of ram in it, and force yourself to use it day in and day out for a few months... I would be willing to bet you will feel the same as I do. A Mac is not all eye candy, in fact I turn most of that crap off where I can to further improve the responsiveness, and I still think Macs are better!
I apologize for all of the terrible typos and whatnot in the parent... I was interrupted by my boss and had to send quickly.
If my computer is connected to the internet, then I am making copyrighted works available... is there a level of effort required? If so, how do you quantify the level of effort necessary? So I go to court and say, I didn't know I was sharing Britney's new collection of crap, how will they determine if what I did was intentional or not. How do you differentiate intentional and unintentional release of copyrighted works. I could easily prevent others from accessing such works from the average hacker... however my mother doesn't stand a chance... so can she get away with more than I can?
I think in the world of computing, it is not reasonable to expect a user to have a certain amount of knowledge, and without such knowledge there is a great potential for copyright violations do to simple ignorance. And what counts as irresponsible behavior? Is it irresponsible to download files from a p2p network? Not if your intent is to download free works... but then what happens if your client indexes all of the media on your system and makes it available to the public without your knowledge. I know better, but most users do not.
Every time one of this spammer's messages hit my phone I was charged $0.10, and verizon is pursuing damages?... seems like Verizon is double dipping a bit.
I wonder if they aren't "evil"!
They could allow a spammer to operate for a significant period of time, increasing revenue from those of us who don't have text messaging on our accounts. Then they shut him down, and get royalties. Finally they look good in everyones eyes, when in reality they made a decent chunk of change for no real work.
You can't tell me it's that difficult to determine where the messages came from... they probably could have shut him down sooner, but it wasn't worth the effort yet... mostly because they were not getting overwhelmed with calls to have text messaging charges dropped.
Hmm... I so hate to be one of those conspiracy theorists.
"Electric lights are still the biggest single use of electricity in this country."
The problem is, most of that lighting is already pretty efficient. A large portion of this lighting is commercial/industrial/outdoor where efficient lighting is the standard. When I see incandescents sitting in every cubicle, I will be concerned about saving energy on lighting... however it will never be that way, no business wants to pay more than necessary to meet their needs, thus they use efficient lighting.
Sure I think every little bit counts... moving households to CFL, or similarly efficient technology will greatly reduce the energy demands for lighting in that sector. However I believe there are other areas where greater gains could be made.
Most notably in heating and cooling. Mandating more energy efficient home designs, and heating and cooling technologies, would surely save more than mandating efficient bulbs... though I believe doing both to be the best case.
Ok... I fail to understand what kind of antenna repair takes 65 Hours.
Not to mention, how did they arrive at that figure... surely it's not a 65 hour task... maybe a 2 hour task with 63 hours of extra time to compensate for any unexpected situations.
I'm betting they used Murphys law on this one... the guy in space say... sure I can do that in 15 minutes... the tech on the ground thinks for a second. "hmm 15 minutes + murphys law time for the unexpected = 65 hours"... ok you have 65 hours alloted for this task. If the guy in space had said 10 hours.. it would only have been 25. That's Murphy's law at work, the quicker you expect to get it done the longer it takes.
It once took me 26 hours to change a light bulb. The glass bulb pulled out of the threaded base, then someone turned on a switch while I was standing on the ladder with a pair of pliers trying to remove the rest of the bulb. A day later, once my back stopped hurting from the fall, the new bulb was in.
I do... anything to bring what's happening in the IP world to the average living room.
If the public knew the BS that's happening in our industry, they would be motivated to do something about it. The only reason the abuse continues it that there is not enough discussion about it outside of the industry!
I am pretty certain that it would be difficult to pursue a case on this one.
I am assuming that Mono is not using any of MS's code, they are simply compiling the source code to something that closely resembles the app that was written in VB.
I don't think MS can enforce a patent on a language... it's not like they can tell me what I can type into a common text file. If they can patent the VB language, then I want a patent for English, Chinese, Hindi, and a few other common languages... everyone can pay me a small royalty for every written word or recorded word... words spoken but not broadcast can still be free, as it would be too hard to track that.
Here's a question along that vein I'd love to get an answer to.
If hemp is so valuable of a crop, why hasn't a hemp derived alternative that has no THC been genetically developed.
No THC = no reason to ban it's production
I have wondered this for a long time... seems trivial to me... I have friends, who are by no means intellegent, who have successfully cross bred plants to increase THC content. I'd imagine someone smarter could do the reverse until there was no measurable amount, while still maintaining the commercial benefits of the plant.
In order to have combustion you need a way for the gas to quickly mix with oxygen. I believe the whole purpose of the briquettes is to prevent that from happening, otherwise a simple compressed gas cylinder would suffice.
"if studies hadn't shown that many government-run socialized medicine systems provide better care than the US's private system, at about half the cost per citizen, per year."
Of course they do, why, because our system of medicine promotes the innovation and research that creates the treatments the socialized medicine systems use.
I agree that socialized medicine has it's appeal, as I've been uninsured for months now, however if the US wants to continue to innovate, socialized medicine must not gain a foothold.
What I would like to see however, is a law that requires that the developers of a drug or medical technology who use any government funding or funded research to sell that product to the government at the cost of production. If the government hadn't aided them in the first place, they wouldn't have created the product.
This would save medicaid/medicare billions, and ultimately save the one bastion of socialized medicine we have here in the US.
I typed all this in response to someone else's post that I had completely misunderstood until I reread it... rather than waste it I'll just start a new thread.
Here goes my reputation.
It is perfectly natural for men, old men, to find young girls attractive. In fact, a few hundred years ago, it was typical for a man in his 30's to wed a girl in her tweens/early teens.
NATURAL? Yes natural. Men who lived to be in their 30's, were desired because they had strength and health (living to 40 was tough back in the day). It was darwin at his finest... live to 30 and then have tons of young girls to spread your healthy genes to.
So why young girls. First of all, people today think kids grow up too fast, but once a girl hits puberty she is of "child bearing age". Back in the day, large families were a requirement to work the fields and just get stuff done... so people didn't waste time, if she could have a baby, she was ready for marriage. Not to mention, it's a widely accepted belief that young women are more attractive... and this was true especially then, when women's breasts would sag from lack of support, skin would wrinkle from sun, and teeth would fall out from a lack of hygiene.
Ok, so anthropologically, it's absolutely natural for men to be attractive to young women... it's a survival instinct left over from a time, not very long ago, when it was absolutely necessary for survival of the species.
Then, along comes modern religions, which condemn sexuality, promote male dominance, promote modesty, and ultimately encourage the masses to resist any urges they feel. Why? Because a person fighting their inner demons will more willingly follow the guidance of the church.
Out go orgy's, polygamy, buggering, and of course the common practice of marrying young girls to old men. Well at least they go out of favor.
So back to today... women do everything in their power to look as young as possible... because that is what attracts men, yet men who are attracted (very likely not by choice) to young women are considered perverts.
I don't believe in pedophilia, nor do I support it, I only understand it and it's root causes. I will admit, I have been uncomfortably attracted to young women who would likely put me in hot water if I gave in to temptation. I'd imagine that most men here have had that "What, shes only 15!?!" moment. Are all of us pedophiles? NO.
So what do we do about this problem. First, I agree that exploiting young women, especially sexually, is disgusting. Not because it's wrong for a man to be attracted to them, but because it's morally wrong to take advantage of those without the sense of self to resist.
I think what the world needs is more people like myself, those who admit that it's not wrong to be attracted. If people were not so distraught by this fault of human evolution, the individuals with these issues would be free to express their problems more openly, and perhaps seek help or support from other individuals with the same issues. Like AA, NA, and every other support group. These groups could then reinforce the idea that it's disgusting to take advantage of someone in the way these young women are taken advantage of in order to obtain these images. That belief is what keeps me from ever considering approaching a young teen in that manner, and it's the reason I believe that child porn is just plain disgusting. By condemning those who suffer fro a strong attraction to young girls we only promote the spread of child pornography, these individuals have no other safe outlet.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't believe I am any different than most men. If I were, then most porn sites would advertise "get your nude 30 somethings here". Instead it;s all "shes only 18", if 15 was legal it would be "shes only 15"... trust me I am far from alone.
I agree that we must not treat child exploitation, in any form, trivially. However our society is too quick to condemn. As I have said in too many words... it's natural, not ethical, or
I agree whole heartedly. I think that instead of requiring a 3rd party review, you set up a set of stiff penalties for those who miss-label their product. For example:
An independent review jury is created, from a pool of interested parties, including publishers, government officials, and censorship promoters. This jury's goal is to include individuals who will give it credibility, the ratings will mean nothing if they are overseen by a corrupt or one sided group of jurors.
This jury sets clear guidelines about what is and is not allowed in the the different ratings levels. These guidelines are revised yearly, when a product is released, it must be labeled according to that year's guidelines and clearly marked with the version by which it was rated.
This jury will also hear pleas (with evidence) from individuals that believe a product is rated too low.
If their plea is deemed valid according to the guidelines, the publisher covers the costs of the jury, recalls their mislabeled product, issues refunds to any one who demands one, and pays a stiff penalty in the form of funding after school physical activity programs (kids who game need more exercise)
If the plea is deemed frivolous or doesn't generate a simple majority in the jury, the individual pays the jury for it's time. Enough to be a deterrent for frivolous cases.
This system is entirely self regulating. If the jury is out of whack, the system breaks, and publishers stop using it. Labeling your software is free, however by using the label you agree to be bound by contract that you will label your product within the guidelines or accept the consequences. Labeling is at will, there is no law requiring it... however, retailers would be free to require it on products that it inventories. Besides, with a free and simple system like this, why wouldn't game makers want to label their product... it's far better than a government regulated plan, which is the alternative.
OK... I gave that way too much thought!
If our whole planet were vibrating at a constant frequency... it seems to be that there is a lot of energy in that hum... any way to harness this?
Hmm... seems reasonable to me.
1. Encourage ISPs to maintain large caches and users to have reasonably high cache settings
2. Employ a sane p2p-esque standard for most media content as a web browser standard, so that youtube doesn't upload the same video to everyone in my office when a "check this out" email is circulated around the building. Let me pull it from nearby peers at faster speeds.
3. Encourage ISP's to promote "in network" file sharing. For example, my upload/download to those on my cable node should be at line speed. So when I share/download something large on bittorrent, those on my node will download it from me FAST, saving the ISP's outbound bandwidth... using QOS, that bandwidth can be reduced before being sent over heavily shared backbones.
Essentially, a system where as much data as possible is distributed and pulled from fast local sources would result in great reductions in backbone utilization, while serving to improve the perceived speeds of large downloads.