a relevant and insightful first post? i'm shocked.
honestly, how can the TV network claim copyright over a TV schedule? copyright law, like patents, were created to stimulate innovation & creativity and encourage individuals to contribute to society with copyrighted works or patented ideas. so artistic/creative works are given copyright protection, just as original inventions are given patent protection.
but a simple program schedule does not contribute anything meaningful to society. it is not a cultural work. it's a list of factual information--something which no person or organization has the exclusive rights to. if this were a compilation of program synopses/reviews plagiarized from the TV network's writers, that would be a different story. but this is like saying you hold the copyright on a news event, and no one else can report on this event.
i think there was a similar case to this a few years ago involving the MLB and baseball stats. i don't know how that case turned out, but both claims are equally groundless.
i thought in a recent/. interview with the VIA open source rep he said that VIA didn't own S3 (not entirely at least):
However, S3 Graphics is an entirely independent company and not a subsidiary of VIA. That basically means that VIA is holding some stock, but that's more or less all. They also promote their products together.
The S3 Graphics discrete GPU's are developed independently from the VIA integrated graphics, and they share no common hardware core or driver.
So since VIA has taken steps to become more supportive of Open Source and particularly Linux and Xorg, we will see improvement for the VIA integrated graphics products. This has no relationship to what S3 does for their products.
personally, i don't know too much about S3 (other than the fact that they were a popular name when i was playing Quake III and Unreal Tournament). but i do have great interest in VIA's product line, especially as they relate to PVR/HTPC applications. perhaps we'll finally see those cheap Chrome 4 + EPIA low-power multimedia platforms we've been promised.
you can smell whatever you want to smell. its your groundless assumptions against multiple corroborated studies.
TV is a powerful (and insidious) cultural media, probably the most influential cultural media in modern society. that's why corporations spend so much money on TV commercials to imprint their brand on TV viewers, especially children. the data gathered from the recent study and from past research are not all that surprising. the researcher also offers a rational explanation for the data:
Even though they would have spent only a few hours a day watching TV or films, their attention and emotional engagement would have been heightened during this time, leaving a deeper imprint on their mind, Miss Murzyn told the New Scientist.
"The crucial time is between three and 10 when we all begin to have the ability to dream," she said.
"Television and films which by their very nature are interesting and emotionally engaging and even dreamlike. So when you dream you may copy what you have seen on the screen.
"I have even had a computer game player who dreams as if he is in front of a computer screen."
and if you had bothered to RTFA, you'd see that even the subjects who watched B&W television growing up dreamt in color 75% of the time. but it's not all that surprising that individuals will dream in the palette of the dominant cultural media in their childhood.
maybe corporate crimes should be prosecuted using the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.
people use corporations to protect themselves against legal liability in case they are sued or otherwise break the law. this is similar to how mafia bosses distance themselves from the criminal activities they profit from in an attempt to buffer themselves from potential legal repercussions.
the military chain of command and other hierarchical organizations also have a similar effect of absolving personal responsibility. but when people are not held accountable for their own actions (including ordering unethical actions or authorizing criminal activities) this encourages corruption and has facilitated many injustices and atrocities in human history.
as long as an optical/laser mouse is capable of functioning on conventional desktop surfaces, all that really matters is its sensitivity and resolution. i do a lot of graphic design work, and increased resolution/sensitivity was the reason i initially switched from a ball mouse to an optical mouse.
i don't need a mouse that works on carpet. but if you want to pay $50 extra to have a blue light instead of a red one then good for you. i'll take superior performance on conventional surfaces over mediocre performance on surfaces that i'll never need to use my mouse on.
the article suggests that the BlueTrack mouse only has around 800 dpi resolution/sensitivity. but considering that most laser mice have 2000-3200 dpi, BlueTrack doesn't seem more advanced than lasers. the only advantage i can see is that it works on more surfaces than laser mice can. but so do conventional optical mice, which can already go up to 1600 dpi.
the Explorer Mouse is not very impressive or groundbreaking. i'd rather get a hi-res laser or optical mouse by Logitech at a lower price.
so should we still be using Atlas or Redstone rockets? or maybe we should scrap this contest and just reuse the Apollo Lunar Module design. there's nothing wrong with trying new & potentially better technology. that's the whole purpose of technological research--to drive technology forward.
besides, the DC-X project was never completed. if McDonnell Douglas wants to complete the DC-X and submit it into the competition, then they're free to do so. of course, the prize for this contest is only $2 million, whereas the estimated cost of completing the DC-X was $50 million...
yea, it seems like using a rocket & balloon combo for space launches might be cheaper or more fuel efficient, but there are also drawbacks. it would take a long time to get up to 80km using a balloon. i think hydrogen weather balloons are only used up to 40 km, above which sounding rockets are used. also, would hydrogen be practical for large payloads? you'd need a balloon large enough to lift a rocket + lunar lander. and AFAIK high altitude hydrogen balloons (and rocket + balloon combos) are only used with relatively small payloads.
perhaps hydrogen balloons might be most efficient for applications that require little to no flight control and do not demand speed or safety. and unless you could recycle the hydrogen somehow, it'd be least wasteful to use hydrogen balloons when you need to keep something up in the air for long periods of time (such as scientific instruments for conducting atmospheric research). but i don't know what it costs to manufacture rocket fuel compared to hydrogen gas. it may very well be that for non-time-critical applications hydrogen is still cheaper than rocket fuel for launching something into space.
someone who's used KDE or Gnome since 1995 would find it easier to use KDE/Gnome than !KDE or !Gnome. what does that prove? unless you're trying to argue that people should stick with the same operating system that they've used in the past because users are too stupid to deal with change, i don't really see your point. that has nothing to do with UI uniformity or the usability of a particular OS.
there's more to software user-friendliness/usability than just resistance to change.
electric motors have fewer moving parts than ICEs, so electric vehicles are fundamentally more reliable. but there's a lot of unsubstantiated FUD floating out there because of the strong anti-environmentalist sentiments which exist in our society. but if people can be convinced to take a rational approach and actually look at the facts rather than resorting to knee-jerk reactions they'd see that their negative assumptions and associations about electric vehicles are incorrect.
but most consumer make purchase decisions based on illogical emotional associations. that's why American auto makers invest so heavily on marketing and advertising. so "big" = "safe," and "gas-powered" = "better performance," and "eco cars" = "shitty." but these false associations are quickly dispelled once one actually makes an effort to research the costs & benefits of electric vehicles. and with the internet it should be easier than ever for individuals to access a wide variety of news sources and get a balanced perspective on the issue.
i got those numbers from Wikipedia, but you're right, USB 2.0 is 480Mbps not 400. that was my mistake.
and as another poster pointed out, the current commercially available FireWire version is IEEE 1394B (FireWire 800), which is only 800Mbps. however, the S1600 and S3200 modes should be available by the end of this year. from Wikipedia:
In December 2007, the 1394 Trade Association announced that products will be available before the end of 2008 using the S1600 and S3200 modes that, for the most part, had already been defined in 1394b. The 1.6 Gbit/s and 3.2 Gbit/s devices will use the same 9-pin connectors as the existing FireWire 800 and will be fully compatible with existing S400 and S800 devices. It will compete with the forthcoming USB 3.0.
USB 3.0 is supposed to reach 4.8 Gbps, but it won't be commercially available until 2009 or 2010. and currently available USB and Firewire implementations still show a huge gap in performance in real-world benchmark tests. with less than half the average throughput of current FireWire interfaces, USB 2.0 really isn't an acceptable substitute for multimedia applications.
those are hypothetical damages. technically the recording industry didn't incur any real damages from this type of copyright infringement. making copies of electronic data doesn't cost anything.
and if you want to talk about hypothetical damages, then what about the potential losses to indie artists or labels due to the major labels' monopolistic control over music distribution/promotion? Payola is still alive and well today. the music promotion racket run by the Big Four and the Clear Channel radio network requires artists & labels to buy spin slots on top 40 playlists. this essentially prevents independent musicians from gaining any kind of public exposure. these are blatantly anti-competitive practices used to lock non-RIAA-sanctioned artists out of the industry.
and what about the ASCAP & BMI who each collect hundreds of millions in music royalties each year? any public venue that plays music--whether live, recorded, or broadcast--has to pay these RIAA-run organizations "licensing fees" regardless of who owns the rights to the music. the ASCAP even charges venues for playing foreign music that is in public domain. so they will collect licensing fees on your music whether you want them to or not. but if an artist wants to actually receive his royalty checks, he needs to pay for ASCAP/BMI membership. for most musicians, these royalties are not worth the cost of membership. it would be better to just allow public venues to play their music for free, thus promoting the band and giving them free exposure. but these extortion rings eliminate any financial incentive to play non-RIAA-licensed music since a venue is billed even for playing music by non-RIAA-affiliated artists.
file sharing is a major threat to the RIAA not because it hurts the music industry--it doesn't, it has actually boosted net profits--but because it undermines the Big Four's traditionally held control over music distribution & promotion. radio used to be the only place where consumers could sample music for free. but now consumers can explore music that actually suits their taste by circumventing traditional channels. you can sample music before you pay for it, and this gives consumers the power to only pay for music they actually like. that means no more buying $20 pop albums full of filler tracks just for one or two radio singles. file sharing actually exposes consumers to much more music than before, which has expanded people's musical tastes and increased music-related expenditures. but that spending is now distributed across a large variety of indie artists rather than concentrated in a small handful of mainstream acts. mainstream pop musicians that have traditionally been the major labels' cash cows are no longer selling because people realize that such throwaway fad music is not worth spending money on.
that's because he's a security expert, not a political pundit. people turn to him for analysis & advice about security practices, not about political issues.
i think it would weaken his credibility if he tries to overstep the bounds of his expertise.
you probably haven't seen them because you just don't use them. but that doesn't mean they're not useful or that no one uses them.
a lot of external hard drives have firewire ports. most major external storage vendors will sell two different flavors of each device, one that comes with firewire and one with USB only. but most end users usually opt for the USB models as they're cheaper.
i mean, if you're only transferring 100-200 MB of data then it probably doesn't seem like a very significant difference--what's an extra 3-4 seconds, right? but if you're transferring 50 GB of data, then firewire versus USB could be the difference between a 2 minute transfer and a 15 minute transfer. and if you have to do large data transfers like that on a regular basis, the time savings start to add up.
there are different types/degrees of regulation. you don't need a license to drink a beer, but you do need a license to dispense it in a commercial establishment.
likewise, you don't need a license to sell or produce food products, but they're still regulated by the FDA. i think the OP voices some legitimate concerns. just look at the condition of food and drug safety before the FDA was formed. and it is possible for ordinarily safe chemicals to become hazardous to one's health if manufactured in the nano scale.
it's no reason to ban all nanotechnology, but perhaps the government needs to initiate some research into the safety of nanomaterials.
it's not even the same thing. Firewire provides much faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0--3200 Mbps versus 400 Mbps. 8" floppies were phased out because of the technologically superior 5.25" floppies. and those were subsequently replaced by the 3.5" floppies.
i'm not saying that all computers need a Firewire port, because that's obviously not the case. but having used Firewire compared to USB to transfer large amounts of data, i don't think Firewire should be dismissed so easily.
i'm guessing Firewire has lost out to USB because it's more expensive to implement, whether due to licensing fees or inherent hardware costs, but i would hate to see such a useful technology be killed off just because USB 2.0 is "good enough" for the average user. Firewire makes a huge difference when you're working with audio/video editing, or working with lots of hi-def images or other large files. i would not have thought that Apple would discard a technology that is so vital to their traditional customer base.
actually fire is regulated in a lot of places. i just recently got back from Yosemite and they have strict regulations in the park about where you can or can't start fires.
you can't just start fires anywhere you want. arson is still a crime AFAIK.
potential applications of buckypaper listed on Wikipedia:
If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It could be more energy-efficient, lighter, and could allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.
Since carbon nanotubes are one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization.
Because carbon nanotubes have an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a buckypaper film could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then could flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage.
Films also could protect electronic circuits and devices within airplanes from electromagnetic interference, which can damage equipment and alter settings. Similarly, such films could allow military aircraft to shield their electromagnetic "signatures", which can be detected via radar.
Buckypaper could act as a filter membrane to trap microparticles in air or fluid. Because the nanotubes in buckypaper are insoluble and can be functionalized with a variety of functional groups, they can selectively remove compounds or can act as a sensor.
Produced in high enough quantities and at an economically viable price, buckypaper composites could serve as an effective armor plating.
Buckypaper can be used to grow biological tissue, such as nerve cells. Buckypaper can be electrified or functionalized to encourage growth of specific types of cells.
The Poisson's ratio for carbon nanotube buckypaper can be controlled and has exhibited auxetic behaviour, capable of use as artificial muscles.
seems to me it would be easier to produce buckypaper in the quantities required for use as a new type of electronic display or chemical filter than it would be to build an entire plane out of it.
my PSP has got you beat. i get out of memory errors every 10-15 minutes. and you have to restart the entire PSP to continue browsing normally. if you go to a resource intensive site it runs out of memory even faster.
i don't know if they fixed this problem on the PSP slim with the memory upgrade, but even a PSP fat ought to be able to surf the web adequately by paging memory to the memory stick. but Sony seems to care more about shutting down PSP homebrew than fixing the PSP's software or actually putting out firmware updates that add value to the PSP. ironically, if there's any chance of a decent browser being developed for the PSP fat, it'll be from the homebrew community.
it would be awesome to be able to run Fennec on the PSP, but seeing as it's being targeted at a system with 4 times the RAM that the PSP-1000 has (the Nokia N800 has 128MB of RAM), it's probably not likely to happen.
true. as i understand it, the Elise doesn't have power windows/locks or any of the amenities that the Tesla Roadster has, such as stereo sound system, mp3 playback, PMP interface, air conditioning, etc. it really is a bare bone vehicle, trading passenger comfort for supreme performance.
that's why the Elise has a curb weight of about 1900~2000 lbs (depending on which model you get). the Tesla Roadster weighs significantly more at around 2700 lbs. but the Elise's engine output is only 134 bhp versus the Tesla Roadster's 248.
so aside from the chassis they're two completely different machines. i'm sure the Elise handles much better, but the Tesla Roadster is more of a luxury sports car.
yes, because free health care is exactly like government censorship. how dare the government take away one's right to be too poor to afford medical treatment.
let's do away with public education too. after all, the Nazi government killed millions of Jews. so how can we ever trust the government with anything?
let's just abandon all notions of a civil society because a single undemocratic decision to impose government censorship on the internet. that makes much more sense than exercising your moral prerogative as a member of a democratic society and protesting such violations of fundamental civil liberties. i mean, why participate in the democratic process when you can instead sit back and be a passive observer and simply blame everything on "the government" when things go bad? it's not like it's up to the people to make sure the government serves public interest.
so why are the big 3 automakers also struggling right now and asking for $50 billion in government subsidies to continue operations? must be because they're a bunch of eco-hippy leftists and not at all due to the credit crunch, right?
and of course the Tesla Roadster is aimed at a niche market. it's a $100k car. there are lots of car companies out there that specialize in ultra high-end vehicles. this is nothing new, and there's nothing inherently unsound about this business model. it's only when the economy is failing that problems arise for companies that sell luxury commodities.
as for your unfounded claims about electric vehicles, perhaps you should do a little more research before spouting uninformed nonsense:
the Tesla Roadster's top speed is electronically limited to 125 MPH.
aside from the lack of infrastructure for plug-in electrics, there's no reason for us not to be driving them instead of ICE vehicles. and as plug-in electrics gain more acceptance, the infrastructure will follow. but even now you can charge a Tesla Roadster in your garage in under 3 hours, which coupled with its 244 mi. range should be sufficient for the majority of commuters.
its ignorant and reactionary attitudes like yours that are impeding technological progress and the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies; which is why the Tesla Roadster is so important--because it helps to dispel such false assumptions about electric cars. uninformed knee-jerk responses are typical whenever new technologies arrive, but don't use your own ignorance to criticize people who are actually driving our society forward.
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a relevant and insightful first post? i'm shocked.
honestly, how can the TV network claim copyright over a TV schedule? copyright law, like patents, were created to stimulate innovation & creativity and encourage individuals to contribute to society with copyrighted works or patented ideas. so artistic/creative works are given copyright protection, just as original inventions are given patent protection.
but a simple program schedule does not contribute anything meaningful to society. it is not a cultural work. it's a list of factual information--something which no person or organization has the exclusive rights to. if this were a compilation of program synopses/reviews plagiarized from the TV network's writers, that would be a different story. but this is like saying you hold the copyright on a news event, and no one else can report on this event.
i think there was a similar case to this a few years ago involving the MLB and baseball stats. i don't know how that case turned out, but both claims are equally groundless.
i thought in a recent /. interview with the VIA open source rep he said that VIA didn't own S3 (not entirely at least):
personally, i don't know too much about S3 (other than the fact that they were a popular name when i was playing Quake III and Unreal Tournament). but i do have great interest in VIA's product line, especially as they relate to PVR/HTPC applications. perhaps we'll finally see those cheap Chrome 4 + EPIA low-power multimedia platforms we've been promised.
you can smell whatever you want to smell. its your groundless assumptions against multiple corroborated studies.
TV is a powerful (and insidious) cultural media, probably the most influential cultural media in modern society. that's why corporations spend so much money on TV commercials to imprint their brand on TV viewers, especially children. the data gathered from the recent study and from past research are not all that surprising. the researcher also offers a rational explanation for the data:
and if you had bothered to RTFA, you'd see that even the subjects who watched B&W television growing up dreamt in color 75% of the time. but it's not all that surprising that individuals will dream in the palette of the dominant cultural media in their childhood.
i guess you could say Joe McCarthy meant well in the same sense that the church meant well during the Spanish Inquisition or Salem witch trials.
maybe corporate crimes should be prosecuted using the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act.
people use corporations to protect themselves against legal liability in case they are sued or otherwise break the law. this is similar to how mafia bosses distance themselves from the criminal activities they profit from in an attempt to buffer themselves from potential legal repercussions.
the military chain of command and other hierarchical organizations also have a similar effect of absolving personal responsibility. but when people are not held accountable for their own actions (including ordering unethical actions or authorizing criminal activities) this encourages corruption and has facilitated many injustices and atrocities in human history.
no, but i do go by benchmark results.
as long as an optical/laser mouse is capable of functioning on conventional desktop surfaces, all that really matters is its sensitivity and resolution. i do a lot of graphic design work, and increased resolution/sensitivity was the reason i initially switched from a ball mouse to an optical mouse.
i don't need a mouse that works on carpet. but if you want to pay $50 extra to have a blue light instead of a red one then good for you. i'll take superior performance on conventional surfaces over mediocre performance on surfaces that i'll never need to use my mouse on.
the article suggests that the BlueTrack mouse only has around 800 dpi resolution/sensitivity. but considering that most laser mice have 2000-3200 dpi, BlueTrack doesn't seem more advanced than lasers. the only advantage i can see is that it works on more surfaces than laser mice can. but so do conventional optical mice, which can already go up to 1600 dpi.
the Explorer Mouse is not very impressive or groundbreaking. i'd rather get a hi-res laser or optical mouse by Logitech at a lower price.
i don't know the exact details, but apparently others have given it some thought and seem to have arrived at various solutions to the problem.
so should we still be using Atlas or Redstone rockets? or maybe we should scrap this contest and just reuse the Apollo Lunar Module design. there's nothing wrong with trying new & potentially better technology. that's the whole purpose of technological research--to drive technology forward.
besides, the DC-X project was never completed. if McDonnell Douglas wants to complete the DC-X and submit it into the competition, then they're free to do so. of course, the prize for this contest is only $2 million, whereas the estimated cost of completing the DC-X was $50 million...
yea, it seems like using a rocket & balloon combo for space launches might be cheaper or more fuel efficient, but there are also drawbacks. it would take a long time to get up to 80km using a balloon. i think hydrogen weather balloons are only used up to 40 km, above which sounding rockets are used. also, would hydrogen be practical for large payloads? you'd need a balloon large enough to lift a rocket + lunar lander. and AFAIK high altitude hydrogen balloons (and rocket + balloon combos) are only used with relatively small payloads.
perhaps hydrogen balloons might be most efficient for applications that require little to no flight control and do not demand speed or safety. and unless you could recycle the hydrogen somehow, it'd be least wasteful to use hydrogen balloons when you need to keep something up in the air for long periods of time (such as scientific instruments for conducting atmospheric research). but i don't know what it costs to manufacture rocket fuel compared to hydrogen gas. it may very well be that for non-time-critical applications hydrogen is still cheaper than rocket fuel for launching something into space.
easier for the average user to do what?
someone who's used KDE or Gnome since 1995 would find it easier to use KDE/Gnome than !KDE or !Gnome. what does that prove? unless you're trying to argue that people should stick with the same operating system that they've used in the past because users are too stupid to deal with change, i don't really see your point. that has nothing to do with UI uniformity or the usability of a particular OS.
there's more to software user-friendliness/usability than just resistance to change.
electric motors have fewer moving parts than ICEs, so electric vehicles are fundamentally more reliable. but there's a lot of unsubstantiated FUD floating out there because of the strong anti-environmentalist sentiments which exist in our society. but if people can be convinced to take a rational approach and actually look at the facts rather than resorting to knee-jerk reactions they'd see that their negative assumptions and associations about electric vehicles are incorrect.
but most consumer make purchase decisions based on illogical emotional associations. that's why American auto makers invest so heavily on marketing and advertising. so "big" = "safe," and "gas-powered" = "better performance," and "eco cars" = "shitty." but these false associations are quickly dispelled once one actually makes an effort to research the costs & benefits of electric vehicles. and with the internet it should be easier than ever for individuals to access a wide variety of news sources and get a balanced perspective on the issue.
i got those numbers from Wikipedia, but you're right, USB 2.0 is 480Mbps not 400. that was my mistake.
and as another poster pointed out, the current commercially available FireWire version is IEEE 1394B (FireWire 800), which is only 800Mbps. however, the S1600 and S3200 modes should be available by the end of this year. from Wikipedia:
USB 3.0 is supposed to reach 4.8 Gbps, but it won't be commercially available until 2009 or 2010. and currently available USB and Firewire implementations still show a huge gap in performance in real-world benchmark tests. with less than half the average throughput of current FireWire interfaces, USB 2.0 really isn't an acceptable substitute for multimedia applications.
i rounded a little bit, but my math is just fine:
50GB / 480Mbps = 14.22 minutes
50GB / 3200Mbps = 2.12 minutes
12 extra minutes is 720 more seconds, not 100 more seconds.
i think you confused Megabits with Megabytes.
those are hypothetical damages. technically the recording industry didn't incur any real damages from this type of copyright infringement. making copies of electronic data doesn't cost anything.
and if you want to talk about hypothetical damages, then what about the potential losses to indie artists or labels due to the major labels' monopolistic control over music distribution/promotion? Payola is still alive and well today. the music promotion racket run by the Big Four and the Clear Channel radio network requires artists & labels to buy spin slots on top 40 playlists. this essentially prevents independent musicians from gaining any kind of public exposure. these are blatantly anti-competitive practices used to lock non-RIAA-sanctioned artists out of the industry.
and what about the ASCAP & BMI who each collect hundreds of millions in music royalties each year? any public venue that plays music--whether live, recorded, or broadcast--has to pay these RIAA-run organizations "licensing fees" regardless of who owns the rights to the music. the ASCAP even charges venues for playing foreign music that is in public domain. so they will collect licensing fees on your music whether you want them to or not. but if an artist wants to actually receive his royalty checks, he needs to pay for ASCAP/BMI membership. for most musicians, these royalties are not worth the cost of membership. it would be better to just allow public venues to play their music for free, thus promoting the band and giving them free exposure. but these extortion rings eliminate any financial incentive to play non-RIAA-licensed music since a venue is billed even for playing music by non-RIAA-affiliated artists.
file sharing is a major threat to the RIAA not because it hurts the music industry--it doesn't, it has actually boosted net profits--but because it undermines the Big Four's traditionally held control over music distribution & promotion. radio used to be the only place where consumers could sample music for free. but now consumers can explore music that actually suits their taste by circumventing traditional channels. you can sample music before you pay for it, and this gives consumers the power to only pay for music they actually like. that means no more buying $20 pop albums full of filler tracks just for one or two radio singles. file sharing actually exposes consumers to much more music than before, which has expanded people's musical tastes and increased music-related expenditures. but that spending is now distributed across a large variety of indie artists rather than concentrated in a small handful of mainstream acts. mainstream pop musicians that have traditionally been the major labels' cash cows are no longer selling because people realize that such throwaway fad music is not worth spending money on.
that's because he's a security expert, not a political pundit. people turn to him for analysis & advice about security practices, not about political issues.
i think it would weaken his credibility if he tries to overstep the bounds of his expertise.
you probably haven't seen them because you just don't use them. but that doesn't mean they're not useful or that no one uses them.
a lot of external hard drives have firewire ports. most major external storage vendors will sell two different flavors of each device, one that comes with firewire and one with USB only. but most end users usually opt for the USB models as they're cheaper.
i mean, if you're only transferring 100-200 MB of data then it probably doesn't seem like a very significant difference--what's an extra 3-4 seconds, right? but if you're transferring 50 GB of data, then firewire versus USB could be the difference between a 2 minute transfer and a 15 minute transfer. and if you have to do large data transfers like that on a regular basis, the time savings start to add up.
there are different types/degrees of regulation. you don't need a license to drink a beer, but you do need a license to dispense it in a commercial establishment.
likewise, you don't need a license to sell or produce food products, but they're still regulated by the FDA. i think the OP voices some legitimate concerns. just look at the condition of food and drug safety before the FDA was formed. and it is possible for ordinarily safe chemicals to become hazardous to one's health if manufactured in the nano scale.
it's no reason to ban all nanotechnology, but perhaps the government needs to initiate some research into the safety of nanomaterials.
it's not even the same thing. Firewire provides much faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0--3200 Mbps versus 400 Mbps. 8" floppies were phased out because of the technologically superior 5.25" floppies. and those were subsequently replaced by the 3.5" floppies.
i'm not saying that all computers need a Firewire port, because that's obviously not the case. but having used Firewire compared to USB to transfer large amounts of data, i don't think Firewire should be dismissed so easily.
i'm guessing Firewire has lost out to USB because it's more expensive to implement, whether due to licensing fees or inherent hardware costs, but i would hate to see such a useful technology be killed off just because USB 2.0 is "good enough" for the average user. Firewire makes a huge difference when you're working with audio/video editing, or working with lots of hi-def images or other large files. i would not have thought that Apple would discard a technology that is so vital to their traditional customer base.
actually fire is regulated in a lot of places. i just recently got back from Yosemite and they have strict regulations in the park about where you can or can't start fires.
you can't just start fires anywhere you want. arson is still a crime AFAIK.
potential applications of buckypaper listed on Wikipedia:
seems to me it would be easier to produce buckypaper in the quantities required for use as a new type of electronic display or chemical filter than it would be to build an entire plane out of it.
my PSP has got you beat. i get out of memory errors every 10-15 minutes. and you have to restart the entire PSP to continue browsing normally. if you go to a resource intensive site it runs out of memory even faster.
i don't know if they fixed this problem on the PSP slim with the memory upgrade, but even a PSP fat ought to be able to surf the web adequately by paging memory to the memory stick. but Sony seems to care more about shutting down PSP homebrew than fixing the PSP's software or actually putting out firmware updates that add value to the PSP. ironically, if there's any chance of a decent browser being developed for the PSP fat, it'll be from the homebrew community.
it would be awesome to be able to run Fennec on the PSP, but seeing as it's being targeted at a system with 4 times the RAM that the PSP-1000 has (the Nokia N800 has 128MB of RAM), it's probably not likely to happen.
true. as i understand it, the Elise doesn't have power windows/locks or any of the amenities that the Tesla Roadster has, such as stereo sound system, mp3 playback, PMP interface, air conditioning, etc. it really is a bare bone vehicle, trading passenger comfort for supreme performance.
that's why the Elise has a curb weight of about 1900~2000 lbs (depending on which model you get). the Tesla Roadster weighs significantly more at around 2700 lbs. but the Elise's engine output is only 134 bhp versus the Tesla Roadster's 248.
so aside from the chassis they're two completely different machines. i'm sure the Elise handles much better, but the Tesla Roadster is more of a luxury sports car.
yes, because free health care is exactly like government censorship. how dare the government take away one's right to be too poor to afford medical treatment.
let's do away with public education too. after all, the Nazi government killed millions of Jews. so how can we ever trust the government with anything?
let's just abandon all notions of a civil society because a single undemocratic decision to impose government censorship on the internet. that makes much more sense than exercising your moral prerogative as a member of a democratic society and protesting such violations of fundamental civil liberties. i mean, why participate in the democratic process when you can instead sit back and be a passive observer and simply blame everything on "the government" when things go bad? it's not like it's up to the people to make sure the government serves public interest.
so why are the big 3 automakers also struggling right now and asking for $50 billion in government subsidies to continue operations? must be because they're a bunch of eco-hippy leftists and not at all due to the credit crunch, right?
and of course the Tesla Roadster is aimed at a niche market. it's a $100k car. there are lots of car companies out there that specialize in ultra high-end vehicles. this is nothing new, and there's nothing inherently unsound about this business model. it's only when the economy is failing that problems arise for companies that sell luxury commodities.
as for your unfounded claims about electric vehicles, perhaps you should do a little more research before spouting uninformed nonsense:
aside from the lack of infrastructure for plug-in electrics, there's no reason for us not to be driving them instead of ICE vehicles. and as plug-in electrics gain more acceptance, the infrastructure will follow. but even now you can charge a Tesla Roadster in your garage in under 3 hours, which coupled with its 244 mi. range should be sufficient for the majority of commuters.
its ignorant and reactionary attitudes like yours that are impeding technological progress and the adoption of environmentally friendly technologies; which is why the Tesla Roadster is so important--because it helps to dispel such false assumptions about electric cars. uninformed knee-jerk responses are typical whenever new technologies arrive, but don't use your own ignorance to criticize people who are actually driving our society forward.