Yes, I know - made-up technobabble straight out of the sixties - but the FX were killer for the day, and I wants one. This looks like a fairly portable source of high energy plasma to me, a necessary first step. Not much of it, but we can work on that later.
Sorry, friend - we haven't had the so called "free enterprise" system here since the middle of the last century. We went off the gold standard a long time ago.
Battery costs almost certainly will go down over time - but the vehicle which is sold today will use (and require) a battery designed and built for today. You'll need to upgrade or replace your vehicle to take advantage of the advances in battery technology (you don't think even the noble and munificent Tesla will miss an opportunity and just let you swap out the batteries, do you?)
...but we did have that marvelous opportunity to (briefly, yet powerfully) shape their thinking. Perhaps not as effective as that "insoluble geometric shape" thingie . . .
It's okay. Yes, they've made some fairly incredible contributions to the LINUX ecosystem (LVM comes screaming to mind), but as recent as that was it was still a very different IBM from the one that's doing this now. I have seen the GDF and IBM's current business model up close and personal; I'm just saying I don't trust 'em anymore and I don't perceive that this is going to be nearly as important an event as people here seem to think.
So are matter and energy. They're just properties of the (two-dimensional) surface of the Universe. They only look like they're particles/wavicles/waves (from in here) - they're really just dents in the surface of existence (from "out there", whatever that is).
So . . . let me be among the first to say: STFU!!!
Aside from the obvious benefit of collateral technologies (computers, jet aircraft, orbital satellites, GPS, etc., etc.), I wonder what the "followers" of the "Old World" are afraid of? Surely if they were as eager as we to create new technologies, they wouldn't sit around whining how we shouldn't do things just because they can't. They want America to go "Hey, never mind that we got here way ahead of you. Let us just sit around so you guys can get a few pages in the history books.
Well, I'm not into that. The United States of America is indeed terrifying at this point, just as I'm sure a muzzle-loaded musket would've been terrifying to a tribesman of the Serengeti. But that's not going to make Americans think "ooh, we'd better not do anything which might frighten the citizens of the emerging (third-world) countries" - we're more likely to think "okay, now that we've figured out how to do xxx we should start thinking about ways to use xxx to let us do more stuff" - you know, like weather prediction, air traffic control, and the internet. All based on technologies which must look like magic to the uneducated.
Which, come to think of it, is exactly what we want: a government which creates and develops technologies that the free enterprise system (despite it's tremendous abilities) will not do. I don't want to drop tons of explosives on hostile personnel at a range of over two thousand miles, but I sure love riding in modern jumbo jets. I may never ride in space with a spy satellite, but I get the benefits of improved weather predication and GPS on my phone. Don't even get me started on antibiotics, surgical techniques, submersible vehicles . . .
Sure - because we all know what safe, courteous, careful drivers virtually all cabbies are - and all thanks to Government oversight and monitoring.
But never mind - anything which could allow the riff-raff from the gutters to save a little dough, maybe climb out of the gutter, we need to put a stop to that. Can't have 'em catching up to me (now that I'm no longer giving plasma to get food).
Agreed. If quantum foam imparts mass more quickly than Hawking radiation removes it, so much for the "Big Rip" . . . but no "Big Crunch" either. How 'bout "Universe go down the hole..."?
Frighteningly similar to Commander Crichton's wormhole weapon (save considerably slower).
Yeah - because all of the new tech just sprang into existence via parthenogenesis, right? None of it has its roots in old school tech, after all. Then again, I can see where you wouldn't be impressed with a heavier-than-air flying machine that can transport a person significant distances at reasonably high speeds, or the kind of man who could invent one. I think, however, you will be in something of a minority around here.
Best concise explanation I've seen in a while. Nice job.
So we're basically talking about the modern version of WIMPS, tweaked to account for the WIMPS we haven't found yet.
While we're on the subject... Higgs particles, Higgs field - sounds a lot like what they used to say gravitons were like (cue the bad Futurama jokes here...).
Y'know, Einstein himself once made the same mistake - called it the "cosmological constant" or some such. Needed a way to fudge his equations to jive with observed reality. I hear he was thrilled to hear 'bout Hubble's observations - made his equations work without nobtanium, unobtanium, adamantium, fudge factors, warp fudge factors or any other cheap cheats.
Mind you, I can't forward a better theory to explain why things have mass - but dark matter has always struck me as the modern equivalent of Russel's Teapot. Let me know when they find supporting evidence (which they may soon - or they may end up in the same place as Michelson and Morley).
Please remember - when new tools give cryptographers the ability to exploit weaknesses in existing cryptosystems it also gives them the ability to device cryptosystems immune to those exploits.
(if you can get a trusted version with no 'escrow' technology built in, that is)
As I recall, the guys who wrote PGP back in the day almost went to prison for publishing the source code - despite the fact that the RSA algorithm in use was already publicly documented (in Scientific American IIRC). "The Powers that Be" learned from that debacle and have far more reliable mechanisms for gaining access to everything you do in the clear if they want it (for example, the TCM in my new HP PC is turned on and enforcing - I can turn it off, but what other little goodies have manufacturers hidden in the firmware for me to discover?).
Moral of the story - IPv4 is exhausted, go to IPv6. BIND4 is obsolete, go to BIND8. NFS is dated and insecure, go to NFSv4. RSA is at risk of being compromised by advances in mathematics, go to [something better]. Really - is cryptography supposed to be carved in stone? I know that worked for the Egyptians, but anything related to the technology field...
No more than they tried to kill off MySQL or OpenOffice. Okay, so they're not actively trying to make any of these things go (please spare me the flames to the contrary - I'd rather believe my own eyes TYVM), but let's remember two things: 1) Oracle OWNS Solaris and the SPARC architecture - they were never free to begin with, they have always been owned, and 2) Oracle is a DATABASE company. OS/free/end-user software was never their core and center.
Now, is this a wise move on their part? Unfortunately, yes. Evil on a par with MicroSoft, International Business Machines and Hewlett-Packard, but not unwise. You don't like it? Neither do I - which I why I stopped actively marketing my Solaris 2.4/2.5/2.6/8/10 skills some time ago. Nowadays when I look for work I look for an incredibly popular flavor of Linux which has a two-word name starting with "R". Still can't argue with their logic - they spend money and time to create software which they intend to sell at a profit. They can't very well make money while letting someone else undercut them with their own product now, can they?
Just a final point - Oracle (and Sun before them) are in business. Their business model is the proprietary software sales/support model. It has worked, it is working and as far as they can tell it will continue to work.
Now, their absolutely worthless technical support combined with their arrogance - these are likely to kill Solaris and SPARC. Not their business model (which is actually pretty much par for the course for the large IT software providers in the game), but their widely perceived inability to provide quick, accurate correct support for their existing (non-database) products.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I know - made-up technobabble straight out of the sixties - but the FX were killer for the day, and I wants one. This looks like a fairly portable source of high energy plasma to me, a necessary first step. Not much of it, but we can work on that later.
The phrase you're looking for is "planned obsolescence".
My truck has tires, not tyres. *Sheesh*
Sorry, friend - we haven't had the so called "free enterprise" system here since the middle of the last century. We went off the gold standard a long time ago.
Battery costs almost certainly will go down over time - but the vehicle which is sold today will use (and require) a battery designed and built for today. You'll need to upgrade or replace your vehicle to take advantage of the advances in battery technology (you don't think even the noble and munificent Tesla will miss an opportunity and just let you swap out the batteries, do you?)
(*smiles innocently*)
It's okay. Yes, they've made some fairly incredible contributions to the LINUX ecosystem (LVM comes screaming to mind), but as recent as that was it was still a very different IBM from the one that's doing this now. I have seen the GDF and IBM's current business model up close and personal; I'm just saying I don't trust 'em anymore and I don't perceive that this is going to be nearly as important an event as people here seem to think.
Zelazny must be loving this!
So are matter and energy. They're just properties of the (two-dimensional) surface of the Universe. They only look like they're particles/wavicles/waves (from in here) - they're really just dents in the surface of existence (from "out there", whatever that is).
...from everywhere on the globe where labor is cheap. Of course, you gets what you pays for, but that won't stop Big Blue, no sir!
Aside from the obvious benefit of collateral technologies (computers, jet aircraft, orbital satellites, GPS, etc., etc.), I wonder what the "followers" of the "Old World" are afraid of? Surely if they were as eager as we to create new technologies, they wouldn't sit around whining how we shouldn't do things just because they can't. They want America to go "Hey, never mind that we got here way ahead of you. Let us just sit around so you guys can get a few pages in the history books.
Well, I'm not into that. The United States of America is indeed terrifying at this point, just as I'm sure a muzzle-loaded musket would've been terrifying to a tribesman of the Serengeti. But that's not going to make Americans think "ooh, we'd better not do anything which might frighten the citizens of the emerging (third-world) countries" - we're more likely to think "okay, now that we've figured out how to do xxx we should start thinking about ways to use xxx to let us do more stuff" - you know, like weather prediction, air traffic control, and the internet. All based on technologies which must look like magic to the uneducated.
Which, come to think of it, is exactly what we want: a government which creates and develops technologies that the free enterprise system (despite it's tremendous abilities) will not do. I don't want to drop tons of explosives on hostile personnel at a range of over two thousand miles, but I sure love riding in modern jumbo jets. I may never ride in space with a spy satellite, but I get the benefits of improved weather predication and GPS on my phone. Don't even get me started on antibiotics, surgical techniques, submersible vehicles . . .
But never mind - anything which could allow the riff-raff from the gutters to save a little dough, maybe climb out of the gutter, we need to put a stop to that. Can't have 'em catching up to me (now that I'm no longer giving plasma to get food).
At least Google tried to keep it on the down-low. *Sheesh*
Frighteningly similar to Commander Crichton's wormhole weapon (save considerably slower).
Trolls just aren't what they used to be. Sad, really...
Yeah - because all of the new tech just sprang into existence via parthenogenesis, right? None of it has its roots in old school tech, after all. Then again, I can see where you wouldn't be impressed with a heavier-than-air flying machine that can transport a person significant distances at reasonably high speeds, or the kind of man who could invent one. I think, however, you will be in something of a minority around here.
Luddite.
So we're basically talking about the modern version of WIMPS, tweaked to account for the WIMPS we haven't found yet.
While we're on the subject ... Higgs particles, Higgs field - sounds a lot like what they used to say gravitons were like (cue the bad Futurama jokes here...).
Y'know, Einstein himself once made the same mistake - called it the "cosmological constant" or some such. Needed a way to fudge his equations to jive with observed reality. I hear he was thrilled to hear 'bout Hubble's observations - made his equations work without nobtanium, unobtanium, adamantium, fudge factors, warp fudge factors or any other cheap cheats.
Mind you, I can't forward a better theory to explain why things have mass - but dark matter has always struck me as the modern equivalent of Russel's Teapot. Let me know when they find supporting evidence (which they may soon - or they may end up in the same place as Michelson and Morley).
You seem as nervous as a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.
(if you can get a trusted version with no 'escrow' technology built in, that is)
As I recall, the guys who wrote PGP back in the day almost went to prison for publishing the source code - despite the fact that the RSA algorithm in use was already publicly documented (in Scientific American IIRC). "The Powers that Be" learned from that debacle and have far more reliable mechanisms for gaining access to everything you do in the clear if they want it (for example, the TCM in my new HP PC is turned on and enforcing - I can turn it off, but what other little goodies have manufacturers hidden in the firmware for me to discover?).
Moral of the story - IPv4 is exhausted, go to IPv6. BIND4 is obsolete, go to BIND8. NFS is dated and insecure, go to NFSv4. RSA is at risk of being compromised by advances in mathematics, go to [something better]. Really - is cryptography supposed to be carved in stone? I know that worked for the Egyptians, but anything related to the technology field...
Now, he's your boss. For teh win!
Now, is this a wise move on their part? Unfortunately, yes. Evil on a par with MicroSoft, International Business Machines and Hewlett-Packard, but not unwise. You don't like it? Neither do I - which I why I stopped actively marketing my Solaris 2.4/2.5/2.6/8/10 skills some time ago. Nowadays when I look for work I look for an incredibly popular flavor of Linux which has a two-word name starting with "R". Still can't argue with their logic - they spend money and time to create software which they intend to sell at a profit. They can't very well make money while letting someone else undercut them with their own product now, can they?
Just a final point - Oracle (and Sun before them) are in business. Their business model is the proprietary software sales/support model. It has worked, it is working and as far as they can tell it will continue to work.
Now, their absolutely worthless technical support combined with their arrogance - these are likely to kill Solaris and SPARC. Not their business model (which is actually pretty much par for the course for the large IT software providers in the game), but their widely perceived inability to provide quick, accurate correct support for their existing (non-database) products.
Anything like this? (IBDB).
These findings were confirmed long ago by Scoop 7 .