Thanks for the insight ont this subject. I found the link mentioned in this piece a bit dramatic. The author of glibc flatdown claims that RMS is attempting to take over his software in a most maffioso' kinda way... via a change in license version. I hardly think RMS would want to do something like this to my project, should I opt to go with the gnu. However.... a license taht is left wide open to a future version of the license is kinda scary, and the autor of glibc points this out in no uncertain terms. His view points seem so clear on this subject that we developeers should listen to what RMS has to say in reply, but we might nto ever get to have that pleasure... Anyways... I'm still considering the gnu for certain parts of my project, and other licenses for the link lib's, and such.
I'm currently standing on the sidelines watching this debate, and at the same time attempting to choose a license for my first "open source" project. Making the decission is very hard for me, because once I had a friend who got burned by RMS and co for violating the gpl (linking to gnu libs). Anyways, I've narrowed down my choices to lgpl, or bsd. The bsd is too cold, the gpl is too hot, but nothing seems to be "just right". Is it possible to createa new license to replace the gnu as a drop-in replacment? Or is the fsf involvment/control really that deeply entenched into the gnu? I mean.... teh damn thing is so lengthy... who has time to read it anyways? Come to think of it, most of what I hear about the gnu is all rehtoric spread by a zelot troll. The author mentions that We should read the GNU, and yank out the parts that we don't like.... such as the parts that refer to any future versions of the gnu taking over the current versions of the license. Well, what if the gnu decided that a future version of the license were to force authors to append "gnu/" to the beggining of your code? Seems like a valid point, but then how far will the FSF support, and protect you for having editted their license in your favor? In fact it really wouldnt' be their license anymore would it? Besides, how ever elected RMS dictator of his own projecct. I mean look at the way he is inserting himself into the glibc project. Isn't it not time that we insert somebody else in place of stalman in his own gnu regime? Is this possible. I kown the regents in California don't seem to impose themselves as dictator of any given open source project under their license.
Funny how DARPA also recently sent a some cash to the OpenBSD camp. With all the buzz of finux recently getting NSA developers to do some Trusted code, It seems interesting to take note of the goverment push to open source alternatives.
Think of it this way, The US goverment might pay Microsoft, Novel, Sun, and IBM (amongst others) some huge contracts for way more than a measly 1.2 Million Dollars (US).
I can recall an artical on/. a few years ago where reasearchers at Los Alimos national lab (www.lanl.gov) used the Linux Kernel to create a distributedd parrell-processing computer named Avilon. This thing is used to model atomic reactions (very high computations.)
The researchers noted in their press releasse that if they had used Compaqs Tru64 Unix, it would have cost them several million dollarts, where the hardware for that project was just under a measly 200K.
To me, this singnifies a shift in goverment policy.
-J
Re:anti-bsd posts up 75% on slashdot!!!!!
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I tend to agree, as a former linux user... I had great fun with linux kernel and slack. I say sorry for being so overly broad in generalizing the linux community. However, every group has its weirdo's, and I've noticed an increase of anti-xBSD rehtoric on/. recently. REally, I just think its interesting to see it plastered on Oreilly.
Sun Micro forced to make native jave for FreeBSD
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Another neat note on the site.... since MS wants to put C# on to BSD nativly, it thretense Sun... interesting stance... IBM already has a darn fine java environment for FreeBSD, and other platforms.. I wonder if this comes true...
anti-bsd posts up 75% on slashdot!!!!!
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I think that was the best statistic.... shows the insecurity of the Linux folks..... and ofcource, what else do they have to compare thems selves to? Yeah.... In their minds they be competeing with bsd folks, yet the bsd folks tends to ignor them and simply do code. But serriously BSD folks dont' hate anything,nor compete, we just love unix.... WE don't hate windows... hate is such a negative things to do.... dwell on possitive stuff.;-)
Albeit a very nice demonstrtatioon of parrall distributed processing, th ssi is just a missuse of a rare comodity, parrelle computing environments. Most folks cannotg afford a cluster before any type of big iron, but still an expensive club to join.
This type of system sounds more usefull as an example to demonstraigh a system like echelon, or a futur cousin, that can take random snap shots of folks walking down the street, and use optical recognition software to id your facial characteristics, aka biometric recognition.
I belive a few conspiracy theorist have talked about this before, the ability to do somehting like say in England, where the goverment has abundant cameras in public places and, for example, use an AI to track you every move in public places where the ccd camera's connect to the central system.
This computer is nothign more than a primitive example of the same type of myth, at least until now.
My point is that We BSD folks have been doing, and will continue to do, what we think is cool. Things happen slower, and more correctly in the BSD world. Here is a quote I stole from somebody:
windows is for the novic opperator,
Linux is for the person who hates windows,
And BSD is for folks who love Unix. Its all about the love baby!
This is the typical mindset of the average BSD user. We don't hate anything, we simply preffer Unix. I think that says allot about the development model. The competition isn't starting, it isn't there, we are not competing. Yet at the same time, it is deeply insulting for a Linux person to imply that we just appeared one day and are competing with linux. More likely this is a person new to the linux scean, and BSD just appeared on his radar. Folk like that shouldn't get front page on./
How can you say the competition is just starting? WE BSD folks have been around for ever, and we watch you Linux folks grow from a nothing-kernel, to a something-kernal, and even watch you folks as you come rape our user-land code, and then this.... The ball's this guy has... must have a brain inversly proportunate to the weight of his balls. Big balls, tiny brain....... typical.
PHP is what I use strickly because it was designed from the ground up to work on the web, and to be extreamly fast. The Zend engine, for those that dont' know, it's the component that watches the behavior of the php scripts and then optimises the apache server accordingly. I liken the functionality to the code-morphing tech in the Transmeta chips in that Zend looks for more efficient ways to run your scripts. This is unlike other technologies such as mod_perl, for example, that dont' use any realtime optimization. I cannot comment on CFM, JSP, or ASP cuz I dont' know enough about them, but I do know that most folks say PHP is faster than them, but again it might be the jaded remarks of PHP enthusist. I think that C/C++ would be fast, but please, its not a fast process to develop in, and will take more time than a scripting language to implement. If you think c/c++ will take a long to to implement, the Assembally with take twice as long. These compiled solutions are not RAD (rapid application development). Unfourtunatly I hear ASP is good for RAD, but do you really want to support a proprietary system that doesn't work so good on Unix w/Apache?
Most modern OS's would be, in my definition, a very compact kernel surrounded by a system of very optimised server processes. Not unlike BeOS, AtheOS, or any other moder ground-up operating system.
Most OS's dont' seem to take full advantage of all the very nice programming techniques like object oriented core environments, amongst others. However, Unix is my current best friend. I can't deny Unix its long heritige, and proven powers. But, and just but, its very old. And a new breath of freash air awaits when people get their heads out their arse, and make some ground-up new OS.
--Blah
end rant
The typical form of Nitrogen extration, to my knowledge, it to simply ectract it from natural sources. Sources like the air you breath. Remember that most of the Earths atmosphere is actually nitrogen. Unlike the part of atmosphere we humans breath, the nitrogen tends to stay up in the upper heavens of atmosphere. However, nitrogen can, and is, cheaply extracted from the air. Other methods exist to convert different elements to nitrogen, but they are more expensive in the end.
That being said, The question about what would happen to the Earth with all us humans releasing rouge nitrogen molecules into the environment is kinda null/void at this point. We would release only that we have already extracted, thus we never actually polute the environment.
One bad idea is to start haveing Nitrogen around public places. I mean Damn! What a really Stupid idea. Haveing stuff that is supper cold, and that can flow like water in bad. However, you have to decide for yourself what is the more evil of the two evils: Hydro-carbon based fuels(Explosive, and responsible for Ozone depletion) or Nitro based fuels(freeze you before your brain can actually feel your freeze its so cold). I'm certain nobody can disagree on the fact that the vehicle will have to be refuel at some point, and that is the most likely time an accident with liquid nitrogen can occure. Gasoline is safe to to fuel ones vehicle with, unless smoking a cigaret or holding a lit match. You would not be injured by the mear droplet of gas falling upon your skin, unlike liquid nitrogen.
These might seem like two contradicting points, but they both very elegantly lead into my humble opinions that I would like to mention down here. I think that Alternative fuel systems are very cool, but they need to meet certain criteria. The ideal system would be friendly to the environment. It would need to be practical and cheap as well as being safe for society. Does anybody remeber the system used in our space shutle program? We use a method to produce electrical power from hydrogen, and oxygen, thus producing energy, and water as byproducts of the reaction. That is an example of cheap, and bio safe energy. However, there are issues of it being practical to produce in large volumes hydrogen plus oxygen, and not to mention the same drawbacks on the two fuels being cryo cold. (Note: Hydrogen, and Oxygen are very simple to extract from water using electricity and a catalyst, however. That reaction cost more electricity that the end product produces, thus it isn't efficient, unless your electricity is draw from nuclear power plants. Irrelevent since we're talking about something compact enough to fit in a car.)
There are plenty of great ideas already avaiable, and this one is no different. The same arguments keep comeing back in these circles of discusion. Most forms of alternative fuel do not meet the cheap to produce and safe to handle attributes of the above criteria, and thus never really get considered in the first place. But they are still neat ideas, and deserve recognition. However, since this one come much closer to the ideal solution I guess it gets my mark of approval. Anything is better that a battery that will eventually contaminate the environment for thousands of years like todays acid batteries.
I think this is silly, and can't wait to get my hands on the actually system. If what they say is true, its only a matter of time before censorship is enforced in evil ways. For instance, the author of the article states that, and I quote:
"Mechanisms are in place to detect if the content has been tampered with. The publishing process produces a special URL that is used to recover the data and the shares. The published content is cryptographically tied to the URL, so that any modification to the content or the URL results in the retriever being unable to find the information, or a failed verification. "
The Key words were "any modification to the content or the URL results in the retriever being unable to find the information". This tells me that if I wanted to hack into their system that I should focus on modifing the content, or rather the text file that is stored on the server.
The smallest deviation in the encrypted content will break the encryption as it is being decyphered by the respective keys.
Also, what about linking? I saw no mention of the effects of "deep linking" in the article anywhere. What I mean to say is that a site, say slashdot, might decide to link to an article on the Publius system. Do they intend to block all headers comeing from IP's that are non-Publius? They simply state that "content is cryptographically tied to the URL". What does that mean? Are they saying the url is dynamically generated by the Publius system with a changing key, or static but the keys are somehow encoded into the URL all the time, in a static way? Who knows.
That being said, would you want to even attempt to decypher the URL? Not me! Considering todays high-power cyrphtographic technologies, hacking the cypher is crazy(with todays best technology). However, methods to cause a system to grant root access by means of are available online the instant they are discovered. Typically the discovery is caused by a honey-pot system being hacked, and watching how they script-kiddies did it. Too late, your content is now being displayed as a bunch of garbage, and the root kit is being passed around the circles of wanna'be crackers. By the time packet storm shows how to proctect the system, hundreds of sites could be comprimised.
Now that might be a relitively short time frame from from hacked, to protected from. But still, the system could be hacked, and thats the bottom line.
I'm waitting for the formal anouncment. This is vaporware until then, just remember that! =)
I duno, sounds like the anonymous poster hasn't been around too long. I'm only 24 years of age, But I have been hearing about this for years now. To me its like common knowledge: the fact that ISP discontinue service to those who pose a threat to their service as a whole. I hardly think there is anything wrong with the conduct of the ISP. True, they could have managed their customer service better. However, we consumers tend to take our network providers a bit for granted. Ip providers have to put up with this type of activity all the time. Think about it from their perspective. It would cost more money to pursue the script kiddies than by terminating the destination account. That end user could always get another account as another alias, or go to a different IP provider all together. Internet service has never been found to be a Monopoly, nor something that forces you to use only one ISP, don't cry, just go find another place to give internet service to you.
It is theft of Service. The same thing that happened to me years ago for sneaking into a theam park called Six Flags. The U provided the internet service, and the kids stole that service. We cannot say that it was the students service, it is always the U's service. The student body does pay for the school, yet the school retains control of its facilities. If the students feel that they are free to do what they wish without permission then its serves them right. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD KIDS!
One thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that I had the same problem once. Actually a couple of students had the same issue. Our poor-ass school didn't even bother to include Ethernet cables in the dorms. We had the plesure of 33.6 modems! I can remember the day that a buddy on mine got a 1.3Ghz radio kit to transmit his data to and frow to a ethernet jack at the computer center back on the main campus. Hehehhe, that just about takes the cake I think! The only way he could have been caught is to trianngulate the radio signal. Hehehe yeah right, as-if thats gonna happen!! Our poor-ass University (UNT) didn't have a clue. I wonder if the radio is still there in the computer sciences building. It ran on batteries so I figure it must have died a week or two later. I lost track eventually, and then transfered to another school.
Morons! I guess that is why people in Oklahoma are, well, are from Oklahoma.... They be dumb fools!!! I heard AOL technical support is based out of Oklanhoma city?
Flame me, I know this is bait, but think about it....... They want Slashdot readers to cry and say that is wrong of the U. But I thik we should consider them to be fools, and marginal, petty criminals. The end. -Jon
Unix is going to die eventually! After all, it's only a name given for a type of OS. The style of Kernel unix uses or the good ideas people can steal from the unix kernel is going to live forever. For instance, The BeOS is an Opperating system built from the ground up. The Developers were all home-grow on Unix. They made an all new Kernel based on ideas that are derived from Unix. However, the Kernel is so diferent that I wouldn't dare call it a Unix kernel, but a kernel it is non-the-less. Another example is Linux. now Linux is not unix, as we all know, but also uses a Kernel. So in a strange way Unix will live on through its kernel design. What won't live, thank god, is the 20+ year old unix architecture. What I mean by this is that all the baggage, or rather legacy, of Unix will have to change. It will have to change or die. This doesn't mean that Unix doesn't have a few good years left. in fact it won't be going away for like another 10 years in my best my estamite. The fact is that the market is probably going toward small Internet appliances. I wonder if this is what the author meant by distributed computing. These things will need to have an Embeded OS. A kernel is perfect for this. Unix is not! Enough said!
The Article did not seem very objective. I mean as if....
1. Linus made it very clear way back when he joined Transmeta that he was not Going to Polorize the development of Linux, open source, or anything like that by working for a Linux company. He did say that he would be able to continue with Linux related Activites from work, but that wasn't his job. He made it clear that he wanted a kinda normal job(normal being relative).
2. Transmeta is not OS centric. This seems to be a hard thing for people to get into their heads including Metcalf. The desktop verion of the Crusoe processor is Fully Intell x86 compatible, and runs Windows95/98/NT. I could be wrong, but doesn't it run on some big list of 27(?) other OS's that work on the Intell x86 platform. This is fact, and on the Transmeta marketing Mumbo-jumbo, but I would have to hunt for the link. I'm too lazy, but I assure everyone who is not as lazy as myself that they can see for themslef that this isn't just me ranting here. So please don't argue that Transmeta has some big thing with being windows comatible. They don't.
3. Code Morphing is not the same type of code that is typical of the word "software". The code itself would have to be burned into a chip of some kind to get the speed needed for 200+Mhz opperations. This is cutting edge stuff! Only a non-programmer like Metcalf would argue that only GOOD would come to Transmeta from giving away Code Morphing. I see only harm befalling all of Linus's hard work on the Code Morphing if it was open source. Releasing the instructions to build the CodeMorphing software would probably reveal various secrets on the 128 bit VLIM architecture of Crusoe. Bad.... very bad!!
4. Linus made Linux open source with the GNU style licence for many reasons. I belive one of his primary motivations was to prevent people from taking his hard work, then forking, and making Linux something he couldn't control. One of the side effects of open source is the Code can improve over time with people adding to the main body of code. That is not the primary motivation for his patents on the certain parts of the Kernel that he retains control of. No, in fact the open source part of the whole thing takes a huge Burden off his shoulders while letting him play God with the general progression of Linux development. Kinda like a CEO of a huge corporate entity.
5. I always laugh at people who run around and open source everything. Enough already! What is the point? I mean, aside from the huge amount of totally valid reasons to have open source software: Furtherence of human understanding of programing, and the ease of distribution of code, etc... Non of those apply here! This isn't a project intended to exist in an open source environment.
6. Linus is just one of the many Smart guys at Transmeta. To be Blunt, he doesn't even control the company. The guy how practically invented RISC school of thought way back when...... is the head of the company!! But don't stop there, they got a dream team of smart guys from a cross section of the entire software/hardware industry. Now here comes the Clincher, knock-down blow to Metcalf's whole theory in my mind: With all the smart people involved with transmeta why have they not made the Code Morphing open source? Don't answer, its a rehtorical question. The reason they haven't is because they have a good reason or two. Their good reason is in their best intreast. Their best intreast is developing their new revolutionary architecture and protecting their labor investment.
I think this is a good boost to the IT/IS rellated fields. Certifications have always given IT/IS pro's the ability to prove they know their stuff. VUE has always been very acomidating for a professional testing center. They are quite the seven-eleven of testing centers. I even got my mcse at one, or at least took the test there. But really folks, how much would you pay for a Linux Certification? Whould you be willing to pay as much for a Linux certification as you would for a Microsoft certification? Thats about $100 bucks per test(pass or fail). Other Certs' cost more or less depending on how complicated they claim their test to be, or valuable they feel it is. How valuable do you feel a Linux cert is?
My personal feelings are that A linux test shouldn't cost any more than about a hundred bucks, just like the MS test's. I mean there is also a financial burden that they need to think about. All them tests adding up cost a bunch of cash. What if this linux orginization decided to draft more tests? Man, it would really suck if the job market totally adopeted Linux, and everyone felt compeled to get a certification for every stupid Linux thingy. What if everyone felt compeled to get a cert from each various distro of Linux? I duno. Just ranting!:-)
As we all know the current verision of IP simply sucks, and is being replaced by IPv6. Some of the more intresting configuration concepts of IPv6 are totally automatic, and have non of the attributes the/. posting indicates. Light switches, microwaves, airconditioners, etc. can exist without administration!! We are talking about things that are the ultimate replacement for ARP and BOOTP in one swift blow. Simply prefix the hardware MAC address in the 128bit IPv6 address. This reduces the overe all protocal stack, allows for device auto-config, and enhanced security. I think somebody posted on/. about the IETF draft proposals being a potetial privacy threat. I think what they mean to say is the people who intend to spoof packets to gain access to your local LAN will not be anonymous. This is a clear distinction i should point out before going on. Hackers will not be able to send packets that are routable over the internet to any sort of home appliance that participate on an IP network. IPv4 is old. I can't say that enough. I also say that many people seem to be locked into a old term of thinking when it comes to networking. The potential for networks to scale seems to be beyond many people current scope of thought. The IETF realize that in the future there WILL be IPv6 with its:(aheim.....I'll spare you the actual number)2^128 hosts address space. This is a HUGE increase of space, I mean its serrious!! This yields several billion host adress's avalible per square foot of space avalible on the planet Earth, and this includes the ocean(not just land)!! So this will allow every person born on the planet have their own IP. Every device ever made can participate on a network because the address space will be bigger while the bandwidth is getting faster, and cheaper. We have already seen other postings on/. about network cards with the IPv4 stack burned onto a chip on the ethernet card. Another recent article had to do with putting a TCP/IP stack, and web server on a tiny chip smaller than a coin. These type of things tell the IETF that we will need a way to manage vast amounts of devices that could potentially have "micro-networking circutry". These decives will simply turn on and instantly be able to to participate on a network. This will be possible with auto-configuration protocals being added on top of IPv6. After all, this level of home-network with micro-networking devices that will participat on the network are not projected to be at a consumer level until way after IPv4 in depleted. This means that IPv6 will be the protocal for this next generation of home appliances. I for one, don't think the current hardware, and protocal designers have missed anything. I think there are many more things that I can argue against the concept of hackers being able to break-into your home via the connected network. However, it is an iteresting concept. You could pull some funnny pranks on friends. Turn off their alarm clocks, change the chanel on their television, and whatever else that person would have wired to this imaginary network. For now I don't thik we will have to worry about people being able to overcome the future home networks. Sure there is always that unknown futur hack nobody knows about until it gets discovered, but hey...... what can I say to that. Only time will tell so for now lets just let the security get stronger, and the protocals get more eficient, and the hardware cheapper first.
Lets face it, Men are more involved because we do not indicate to women that we would give them praise for being a Linux Kernel hacker. This issue is not subject to Linux alone. In universities all over the planet, men are the majority in the CS departments. Of the men in the CS departments you can figure that at least a handfull have used Linux, and of the handfull at least one of them may get involved at looking in some code from the distro. For a women to be the one person who decided to look at the sources seems to be unthinkable. I have a girlfriend who loves to work on computers and even works doing tech support for M$ windows98. However, she is rare in her field. She tells me that there are about 5 or 10 other women out of about 100 or so people in her deppartmnet. In general, women don't seem to be encouraged to pursue computer rellated things. I remember one time I was tottaly enfactuated with a chick who was wearing a Linux T-shirt. She wasn't tooo extremly pretty or anything, but I remeber myself thinking "I wonder if she has a boyfriend". It was the fact that I had actually found a Linux chick that made me attracted to her. Most girls don't figure that if they get involved with Linux that there is a whole sub culture of nerdy type guys ready to welcome them to the scean. Obviously if a chick gets involved with linux it is not to get guys, it is to use an awsome opperating system. They are probably just as nerdy as the rest of us. Historically this is the type of attention women have been subjected to. Women seem to be found in places that men accept them. Physically accept them. It almost seems like it might be human nature but I know its not. Women are becomeing much more liberated these days, and it is only a matter of time. However, we must condition women from a young age to pursue their natural ablity to solve complex problems. A good example is the fact that women literally use both parts of their brain when speaking aloud. Men use their left side of the brain. So women are natural born kernel hackers, they just don't know it yet. We have to make them feel welcome in our world of men. This is not the "good'ol boys club" anymore. -Diz
I think Bill Cosby bought the rights to the "Dukes of hazard" tv series because he found the show to be racist. When I think about it I can see his point of view. it doesn't contain any minority charaters, and the "general lee" car they drive has a big dixie flag on it. I haven't seen the show for a long time now, and don't know if it plays anywhere? I guess when you have the kind of money to purchase the rights of television media, and/or domain names you can sort of make a diference in an indirect way. Isn't capatalism great!! -Diz
I haven't read the article yet. Don't too inorder to comment on Teller, the Easst europian mad scientist who builts toys of destruction for the USA. He's a mad man, and should have been locked up fo ryears now if you ask me. However, the one kewl thing he was involved with in his life would have to be the StarWars program president Regan started or the alternative power stuff he was working on at Los ALimos. There is a great documentary on Teller that airs on PBS. YOu guys should check it out.
I hope the bulk of the bandwidth doesn't go away now that it has been Slashdot'd. That seems to always make i spike in downloads, and that inversly affects my download time. Errrrr.
I'd be happy to answer.... NO JOKE!! We humans do not enjoy a level of technology to directly observe gravity. Newton can watch, and feel the apple hit his head. But Newton could never, and we can never look at gravity in a microscope. WE cann't touch gravity, weigh gravity, or look at gravity. Have you ever seen gravity?? Scientist get around this problem by observing the effects of gravity on its environment. The apple falling, or the stars expanding away, or the turning of a spiral galaxie. One of the things the Super conducting super collider would have given us humans is the advanded way of observing an ever smaller arena of sub atomic particles. The people responsible for thinking up those type of devices decided that they would make a particle accelerator big enough to send two nutrinos in opposite directions at the speed of light, and actually force them to collide on a closed loop, and then (hopefully) observe very small particles breakdown into smaller particles. The Big thinkers are trying to show the existence of particles like gravitons, but that won't happen in an underwater observatory type deal. IT might take several hundred years to get that one chance collision. AND at that, they might not find what they think they will find.
Gravatons!?!?!?! Who's been watching too much Startrek? Startrek has a bad policy of inventing particles that do not exist. I hope you don't belive in Dilithium crystals either?? But really, there seems to be this strange perception in society that some of these fictonal particles really do occure in nature. THEY DON'T, and if they do it would change its form of energy very quickly, and thus decompose into another type of particle. In this example, gravity is a force of nature that is thought of in two ways: Strong nuclear force, and Weak nuclear force. These two forces combine to be what we call gravity. If memory serves correctly The Strong nuclear force is what provideds the attraction of all sub-atomic particle, and the weak force is the type of Newtonian gravity that causes an apple to fall on your head.:) What I'm getting at here is that gravity is the most mysterious of all the things in modern physics. IT is not a particle, but can be observed to act like a particle. IT is not a wave either, yet it also has been observed acting like a wave. Does that sound like a bunch of B.S. to you too??? I'm not supprised by that. Yet the fact is that we cannot directly measure or observe gravity. We may never be able to do this. So intreasting debates up in the higher academic circles argure if or not gravity is a particle or a wave. Conventional logic dictated that gravity might exist as a particle rather than a wave. However, there have been alot of kookoo's(academic deviants) who argue that gravity is a wave. At this point I'm not too totally convinced that the core gravity is a particle anymore. IT is starting to make sence that it is a wave. It was simply hard for me to except the notion of particle-less energy. Anyways, what I'm getting at is that we may never be able to observe decaying atoms, and sub atom particles enought to find the low-level bindings of our universe called gravity. On that subject I would just like to say that if the americans had finished their Supper Conducting Supper collider we might have had an answer to this question already. These underwater observatories are great ways to observe heavy nutrinos as they virtually pass thru space able to be "out of phase" with the other space around them. In case you don't know, heavy nutrinos are not heavy at all. In fact they were once thought to not exist at all. They have no measurable mass to account for, and can pass though an atom with out being attracted to the nearby neutrons, protons that are densly packed in the core of an atom. It is a rare event to actually stop a nutrino, and the chances are slim that you can force it to happen in a lab. So some smart scientist decided one day to use an old abandoned mine under mount fuji in Japan. There is several giga-tons of mountain for nutrinos to go thru untill the poor particle finds itself in a big nutrino trap. hehehehe The equipment is so sensitive that nothing must ever move in its presence, and people are advised to not go near them. That being said I would prefer to have a telescope surrounded by mountain rather than unstable water. Water being a liquid is not as dence as solid matter(or some peoples head) so it would need to be under ALLOT of water. I think them under water ones would be cheaper to build than a sub-terrainian, but the data could get funky from underwater. Just my two cents on the subject. -diz
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Thanks for the insight ont this subject. I found the link mentioned in this piece a bit dramatic. The author of glibc flatdown claims that RMS is attempting to take over his software in a most maffioso' kinda way... via a change in license version. I hardly think RMS would want to do something like this to my project, should I opt to go with the gnu. However.... a license taht is left wide open to a future version of the license is kinda scary, and the autor of glibc points this out in no uncertain terms. His view points seem so clear on this subject that we developeers should listen to what RMS has to say in reply, but we might nto ever get to have that pleasure... Anyways... I'm still considering the gnu for certain parts of my project, and other licenses for the link lib's, and such.
I'm currently standing on the sidelines watching this debate, and at the same time attempting to choose a license for my first "open source" project. Making the decission is very hard for me, because once I had a friend who got burned by RMS and co for violating the gpl (linking to gnu libs). Anyways, I've narrowed down my choices to lgpl, or bsd. The bsd is too cold, the gpl is too hot, but nothing seems to be "just right". Is it possible to createa new license to replace the gnu as a drop-in replacment? Or is the fsf involvment/control really that deeply entenched into the gnu? I mean.... teh damn thing is so lengthy... who has time to read it anyways? Come to think of it, most of what I hear about the gnu is all rehtoric spread by a zelot troll. The author mentions that We should read the GNU, and yank out the parts that we don't like.... such as the parts that refer to any future versions of the gnu taking over the current versions of the license. Well, what if the gnu decided that a future version of the license were to force authors to append "gnu/" to the beggining of your code? Seems like a valid point, but then how far will the FSF support, and protect you for having editted their license in your favor? In fact it really wouldnt' be their license anymore would it? Besides, how ever elected RMS dictator of his own projecct. I mean look at the way he is inserting himself into the glibc project. Isn't it not time that we insert somebody else in place of stalman in his own gnu regime? Is this possible. I kown the regents in California don't seem to impose themselves as dictator of any given open source project under their license.
Funny how DARPA also recently sent a some cash to the OpenBSD camp. With all the buzz of finux recently getting NSA developers to do some Trusted code, It seems interesting to take note of the goverment push to open source alternatives.
/. a few years ago where reasearchers at Los Alimos national lab (www.lanl.gov) used the Linux Kernel to create a distributedd parrell-processing computer named Avilon. This thing is used to model atomic reactions (very high computations.)
Think of it this way, The US goverment might pay Microsoft, Novel, Sun, and IBM (amongst others) some huge contracts for way more than a measly 1.2 Million Dollars (US).
I can recall an artical on
The researchers noted in their press releasse that if they had used Compaqs Tru64 Unix, it would have cost them several million dollarts, where the hardware for that project was just under a measly 200K.
To me, this singnifies a shift in goverment policy. -J
I tend to agree, as a former linux user... I had great fun with linux kernel and slack. I say sorry for being so overly broad in generalizing the linux community. However, every group has its weirdo's, and I've noticed an increase of anti-xBSD rehtoric on /. recently. REally, I just think its interesting to see it plastered on Oreilly.
Another neat note on the site.... since MS wants to put C# on to BSD nativly, it thretense Sun... interesting stance... IBM already has a darn fine java environment for FreeBSD, and other platforms.. I wonder if this comes true...
I think that was the best statistic.... shows the insecurity of the Linux folks..... and ofcource, what else do they have to compare thems selves to? Yeah.... In their minds they be competeing with bsd folks, yet the bsd folks tends to ignor them and simply do code. But serriously BSD folks dont' hate anything,nor compete, we just love unix.... WE don't hate windows... hate is such a negative things to do.... dwell on possitive stuff. ;-)
Albeit a very nice demonstrtatioon of parrall distributed processing, th ssi is just a missuse of a rare comodity, parrelle computing environments. Most folks cannotg afford a cluster before any type of big iron, but still an expensive club to join.
This type of system sounds more usefull as an example to demonstraigh a system like echelon, or a futur cousin, that can take random snap shots of folks walking down the street, and use optical recognition software to id your facial characteristics, aka biometric recognition.
I belive a few conspiracy theorist have talked about this before, the ability to do somehting like say in England, where the goverment has abundant cameras in public places and, for example, use an AI to track you every move in public places where the ccd camera's connect to the central system.
This computer is nothign more than a primitive example of the same type of myth, at least until now.
My point is that We BSD folks have been doing, and will continue to do, what we think is cool. Things happen slower, and more correctly in the BSD world. Here is a quote I stole from somebody:
./
windows is for the novic opperator, Linux is for the person who hates windows, And BSD is for folks who love Unix. Its all about the love baby!
This is the typical mindset of the average BSD user. We don't hate anything, we simply preffer Unix. I think that says allot about the development model. The competition isn't starting, it isn't there, we are not competing. Yet at the same time, it is deeply insulting for a Linux person to imply that we just appeared one day and are competing with linux. More likely this is a person new to the linux scean, and BSD just appeared on his radar. Folk like that shouldn't get front page on
may the force flow thru you....
Like yeah right......
How can you say the competition is just starting? WE BSD folks have been around for ever, and we watch you Linux folks grow from a nothing-kernel, to a something-kernal, and even watch you folks as you come rape our user-land code, and then this.... The ball's this guy has... must have a brain inversly proportunate to the weight of his balls. Big balls, tiny brain....... typical.
Humf....
PHP is what I use strickly because it was designed from the ground up to work on the web, and to be extreamly fast. The Zend engine, for those that dont' know, it's the component that watches the behavior of the php scripts and then optimises the apache server accordingly. I liken the functionality to the code-morphing tech in the Transmeta chips in that Zend looks for more efficient ways to run your scripts. This is unlike other technologies such as mod_perl, for example, that dont' use any realtime optimization. I cannot comment on CFM, JSP, or ASP cuz I dont' know enough about them, but I do know that most folks say PHP is faster than them, but again it might be the jaded remarks of PHP enthusist. I think that C/C++ would be fast, but please, its not a fast process to develop in, and will take more time than a scripting language to implement. If you think c/c++ will take a long to to implement, the Assembally with take twice as long. These compiled solutions are not RAD (rapid application development). Unfourtunatly I hear ASP is good for RAD, but do you really want to support a proprietary system that doesn't work so good on Unix w/Apache?
Most modern OS's would be, in my definition, a very compact kernel surrounded by a system of very optimised server processes. Not unlike BeOS, AtheOS, or any other moder ground-up operating system.
Most OS's dont' seem to take full advantage of all the very nice programming techniques like object oriented core environments, amongst others. However, Unix is my current best friend. I can't deny Unix its long heritige, and proven powers. But, and just but, its very old. And a new breath of freash air awaits when people get their heads out their arse, and make some ground-up new OS. --Blah end rant
From the air.
The typical form of Nitrogen extration, to my knowledge, it to simply ectract it from natural sources. Sources like the air you breath. Remember that most of the Earths atmosphere is actually nitrogen. Unlike the part of atmosphere we humans breath, the nitrogen tends to stay up in the upper heavens of atmosphere. However, nitrogen can, and is, cheaply extracted from the air. Other methods exist to convert different elements to nitrogen, but they are more expensive in the end.
That being said, The question about what would happen to the Earth with all us humans releasing rouge nitrogen molecules into the environment is kinda null/void at this point. We would release only that we have already extracted, thus we never actually polute the environment.
One bad idea is to start haveing Nitrogen around public places. I mean Damn! What a really Stupid idea. Haveing stuff that is supper cold, and that can flow like water in bad. However, you have to decide for yourself what is the more evil of the two evils: Hydro-carbon based fuels(Explosive, and responsible for Ozone depletion) or Nitro based fuels(freeze you before your brain can actually feel your freeze its so cold). I'm certain nobody can disagree on the fact that the vehicle will have to be refuel at some point, and that is the most likely time an accident with liquid nitrogen can occure. Gasoline is safe to to fuel ones vehicle with, unless smoking a cigaret or holding a lit match. You would not be injured by the mear droplet of gas falling upon your skin, unlike liquid nitrogen.
These might seem like two contradicting points, but they both very elegantly lead into my humble opinions that I would like to mention down here. I think that Alternative fuel systems are very cool, but they need to meet certain criteria. The ideal system would be friendly to the environment. It would need to be practical and cheap as well as being safe for society. Does anybody remeber the system used in our space shutle program? We use a method to produce electrical power from hydrogen, and oxygen, thus producing energy, and water as byproducts of the reaction. That is an example of cheap, and bio safe energy. However, there are issues of it being practical to produce in large volumes hydrogen plus oxygen, and not to mention the same drawbacks on the two fuels being cryo cold. (Note: Hydrogen, and Oxygen are very simple to extract from water using electricity and a catalyst, however. That reaction cost more electricity that the end product produces, thus it isn't efficient, unless your electricity is draw from nuclear power plants. Irrelevent since we're talking about something compact enough to fit in a car.)
There are plenty of great ideas already avaiable, and this one is no different. The same arguments keep comeing back in these circles of discusion. Most forms of alternative fuel do not meet the cheap to produce and safe to handle attributes of the above criteria, and thus never really get considered in the first place. But they are still neat ideas, and deserve recognition. However, since this one come much closer to the ideal solution I guess it gets my mark of approval. Anything is better that a battery that will eventually contaminate the environment for thousands of years like todays acid batteries.
I think this is silly, and can't wait to get my hands on the actually system. If what they say is true, its only a matter of time before censorship is enforced in evil ways. For instance, the author of the article states that, and I quote:
"Mechanisms are in place to detect if the content has been tampered with. The publishing process produces a special URL that is used to recover the data and the shares. The published content is cryptographically tied to the URL, so that any modification to the content or the URL results in the retriever being unable to find the information, or a failed verification. "
The Key words were "any modification to the content or the URL results in the retriever being unable to find the information". This tells me that if I wanted to hack into their system that I should focus on modifing the content, or rather the text file that is stored on the server.
The smallest deviation in the encrypted content will break the encryption as it is being decyphered by the respective keys.
Also, what about linking? I saw no mention of the effects of "deep linking" in the article anywhere. What I mean to say is that a site, say slashdot, might decide to link to an article on the Publius system. Do they intend to block all headers comeing from IP's that are non-Publius? They simply state that "content is cryptographically tied to the URL". What does that mean? Are they saying the url is dynamically generated by the Publius system with a changing key, or static but the keys are somehow encoded into the URL all the time, in a static way? Who knows.
That being said, would you want to even attempt to decypher the URL? Not me! Considering todays high-power cyrphtographic technologies, hacking the cypher is crazy(with todays best technology). However, methods to cause a system to grant root access by means of are available online the instant they are discovered. Typically the discovery is caused by a honey-pot system being hacked, and watching how they script-kiddies did it. Too late, your content is now being displayed as a bunch of garbage, and the root kit is being passed around the circles of wanna'be crackers. By the time packet storm shows how to proctect the system, hundreds of sites could be comprimised.
Now that might be a relitively short time frame from from hacked, to protected from. But still, the system could be hacked, and thats the bottom line.
I'm waitting for the formal anouncment. This is vaporware until then, just remember that! =)
I duno, sounds like the anonymous poster hasn't been around too long. I'm only 24 years of age, But I have been hearing about this for years now. To me its like common knowledge: the fact that ISP discontinue service to those who pose a threat to their service as a whole. I hardly think there is anything wrong with the conduct of the ISP. True, they could have managed their customer service better. However, we consumers tend to take our network providers a bit for granted. Ip providers have to put up with this type of activity all the time. Think about it from their perspective. It would cost more money to pursue the script kiddies than by terminating the destination account. That end user could always get another account as another alias, or go to a different IP provider all together. Internet service has never been found to be a Monopoly, nor something that forces you to use only one ISP, don't cry, just go find another place to give internet service to you.
It is theft of Service. The same thing that happened to me years ago for sneaking into a theam park called Six Flags. The U provided the internet service, and the kids stole that service. We cannot say that it was the students service, it is always the U's service. The student body does pay for the school, yet the school retains control of its facilities. If the students feel that they are free to do what they wish without permission then its serves them right. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD KIDS!
One thing that sticks in my mind is the fact that I had the same problem once. Actually a couple of students had the same issue. Our poor-ass school didn't even bother to include Ethernet cables in the dorms. We had the plesure of 33.6 modems! I can remember the day that a buddy on mine got a 1.3Ghz radio kit to transmit his data to and frow to a ethernet jack at the computer center back on the main campus. Hehehhe, that just about takes the cake I think! The only way he could have been caught is to trianngulate the radio signal. Hehehe yeah right, as-if thats gonna happen!! Our poor-ass University (UNT) didn't have a clue. I wonder if the radio is still there in the computer sciences building. It ran on batteries so I figure it must have died a week or two later. I lost track eventually, and then transfered to another school.
Morons! I guess that is why people in Oklahoma are, well, are from Oklahoma.... They be dumb fools!!! I heard AOL technical support is based out of Oklanhoma city?
Flame me, I know this is bait, but think about it....... They want Slashdot readers to cry and say that is wrong of the U. But I thik we should consider them to be fools, and marginal, petty criminals. The end. -Jon
Unix is going to die eventually! After all, it's only a name given for a type of OS. The style of Kernel unix uses or the good ideas people can steal from the unix kernel is going to live forever. For instance, The BeOS is an Opperating system built from the ground up. The Developers were all home-grow on Unix. They made an all new Kernel based on ideas that are derived from Unix. However, the Kernel is so diferent that I wouldn't dare call it a Unix kernel, but a kernel it is non-the-less. Another example is Linux. now Linux is not unix, as we all know, but also uses a Kernel. So in a strange way Unix will live on through its kernel design. What won't live, thank god, is the 20+ year old unix architecture. What I mean by this is that all the baggage, or rather legacy, of Unix will have to change. It will have to change or die. This doesn't mean that Unix doesn't have a few good years left. in fact it won't be going away for like another 10 years in my best my estamite. The fact is that the market is probably going toward small Internet appliances. I wonder if this is what the author meant by distributed computing. These things will need to have an Embeded OS. A kernel is perfect for this. Unix is not! Enough said!
The Article did not seem very objective. I mean as if....
1. Linus made it very clear way back when he joined Transmeta that he was not Going to Polorize the development of Linux, open source, or anything like that by working for a Linux company. He did say that he would be able to continue with Linux related Activites from work, but that wasn't his job. He made it clear that he wanted a kinda normal job(normal being relative).
2. Transmeta is not OS centric. This seems to be a hard thing for people to get into their heads including Metcalf. The desktop verion of the Crusoe processor is Fully Intell x86 compatible, and runs Windows95/98/NT. I could be wrong, but doesn't it run on some big list of 27(?) other OS's that work on the Intell x86 platform. This is fact, and on the Transmeta marketing Mumbo-jumbo, but I would have to hunt for the link. I'm too lazy, but I assure everyone who is not as lazy as myself that they can see for themslef that this isn't just me ranting here. So please don't argue that Transmeta has some big thing with being windows comatible. They don't.
3. Code Morphing is not the same type of code that is typical of the word "software". The code itself would have to be burned into a chip of some kind to get the speed needed for 200+Mhz opperations. This is cutting edge stuff! Only a non-programmer like Metcalf would argue that only GOOD would come to Transmeta from giving away Code Morphing. I see only harm befalling all of Linus's hard work on the Code Morphing if it was open source. Releasing the instructions to build the CodeMorphing software would probably reveal various secrets on the 128 bit VLIM architecture of Crusoe. Bad.... very bad!!
4. Linus made Linux open source with the GNU style licence for many reasons. I belive one of his primary motivations was to prevent people from taking his hard work, then forking, and making Linux something he couldn't control. One of the side effects of open source is the Code can improve over time with people adding to the main body of code. That is not the primary motivation for his patents on the certain parts of the Kernel that he retains control of. No, in fact the open source part of the whole thing takes a huge Burden off his shoulders while letting him play God with the general progression of Linux development. Kinda like a CEO of a huge corporate entity.
5. I always laugh at people who run around and open source everything. Enough already! What is the point? I mean, aside from the huge amount of totally valid reasons to have open source software: Furtherence of human understanding of programing, and the ease of distribution of code, etc... Non of those apply here! This isn't a project intended to exist in an open source environment.
6. Linus is just one of the many Smart guys at Transmeta. To be Blunt, he doesn't even control the company. The guy how practically invented RISC school of thought way back when...... is the head of the company!! But don't stop there, they got a dream team of smart guys from a cross section of the entire software/hardware industry. Now here comes the Clincher, knock-down blow to Metcalf's whole theory in my mind: With all the smart people involved with transmeta why have they not made the Code Morphing open source? Don't answer, its a rehtorical question. The reason they haven't is because they have a good reason or two. Their good reason is in their best intreast. Their best intreast is developing their new revolutionary architecture and protecting their labor investment.
Enough said??
I think this is a good boost to the IT/IS rellated fields. Certifications have always given IT/IS pro's the ability to prove they know their stuff. VUE has always been very acomidating for a professional testing center. They are quite the seven-eleven of testing centers. I even got my mcse at one, or at least took the test there. But really folks, how much would you pay for a Linux Certification? Whould you be willing to pay as much for a Linux certification as you would for a Microsoft certification? Thats about $100 bucks per test(pass or fail). Other Certs' cost more or less depending on how complicated they claim their test to be, or valuable they feel it is. How valuable do you feel a Linux cert is?
:-)
My personal feelings are that A linux test shouldn't cost any more than about a hundred bucks, just like the MS test's. I mean there is also a financial burden that they need to think about. All them tests adding up cost a bunch of cash. What if this linux orginization decided to draft more tests? Man, it would really suck if the job market totally adopeted Linux, and everyone felt compeled to get a certification for every stupid Linux thingy. What if everyone felt compeled to get a cert from each various distro of Linux? I duno. Just ranting!
As we all know the current verision of IP simply sucks, and is being replaced by IPv6. Some of the more intresting configuration concepts of IPv6 are totally automatic, and have non of the attributes the /. posting indicates. Light switches, microwaves, airconditioners, etc. can exist without administration!! We are talking about things that are the ultimate replacement for ARP and BOOTP in one swift blow. Simply prefix the hardware MAC address in the 128bit IPv6 address. This reduces the overe all protocal stack, allows for device auto-config, and enhanced security. I think somebody posted on /. about the IETF draft proposals being a potetial privacy threat. I think what they mean to say is the people who intend to spoof packets to gain access to your local LAN will not be anonymous. This is a clear distinction i should point out before going on. Hackers will not be able to send packets that are routable over the internet to any sort of home appliance that participate on an IP network. IPv4 is old. I can't say that enough. I also say that many people seem to be locked into a old term of thinking when it comes to networking. The potential for networks to scale seems to be beyond many people current scope of thought. The IETF realize that in the future there WILL be IPv6 with its:(aheim.....I'll spare you the actual number)2^128 hosts address space. This is a HUGE increase of space, I mean its serrious!! This yields several billion host adress's avalible per square foot of space avalible on the planet Earth, and this includes the ocean(not just land)!! So this will allow every person born on the planet have their own IP. Every device ever made can participate on a network because the address space will be bigger while the bandwidth is getting faster, and cheaper. We have already seen other postings on /. about network cards with the IPv4 stack burned onto a chip on the ethernet card. Another recent article had to do with putting a TCP/IP stack, and web server on a tiny chip smaller than a coin. These type of things tell the IETF that we will need a way to manage vast amounts of devices that could potentially have "micro-networking circutry". These decives will simply turn on and instantly be able to to participate on a network. This will be possible with auto-configuration protocals being added on top of IPv6. After all, this level of home-network with micro-networking devices that will participat on the network are not projected to be at a consumer level until way after IPv4 in depleted. This means that IPv6 will be the protocal for this next generation of home appliances. I for one, don't think the current hardware, and protocal designers have missed anything. I think there are many more things that I can argue against the concept of hackers being able to break-into your home via the connected network. However, it is an iteresting concept. You could pull some funnny pranks on friends. Turn off their alarm clocks, change the chanel on their television, and whatever else that person would have wired to this imaginary network. For now I don't thik we will have to worry about people being able to overcome the future home networks. Sure there is always that unknown futur hack nobody knows about until it gets discovered, but hey...... what can I say to that. Only time will tell so for now lets just let the security get stronger, and the protocals get more eficient, and the hardware cheapper first.
Lets face it, Men are more involved because we do not indicate to women that we would give them praise for being a Linux Kernel hacker. This issue is not subject to Linux alone. In universities all over the planet, men are the majority in the CS departments. Of the men in the CS departments you can figure that at least a handfull have used Linux, and of the handfull at least one of them may get involved at looking in some code from the distro. For a women to be the one person who decided to look at the sources seems to be unthinkable. I have a girlfriend who loves to work on computers and even works doing tech support for M$ windows98. However, she is rare in her field. She tells me that there are about 5 or 10 other women out of about 100 or so people in her deppartmnet. In general, women don't seem to be encouraged to pursue computer rellated things. I remember one time I was tottaly enfactuated with a chick who was wearing a Linux T-shirt. She wasn't tooo extremly pretty or anything, but I remeber myself thinking "I wonder if she has a boyfriend". It was the fact that I had actually found a Linux chick that made me attracted to her. Most girls don't figure that if they get involved with Linux that there is a whole sub culture of nerdy type guys ready to welcome them to the scean. Obviously if a chick gets involved with linux it is not to get guys, it is to use an awsome opperating system. They are probably just as nerdy as the rest of us. Historically this is the type of attention women have been subjected to. Women seem to be found in places that men accept them. Physically accept them. It almost seems like it might be human nature but I know its not. Women are becomeing much more liberated these days, and it is only a matter of time. However, we must condition women from a young age to pursue their natural ablity to solve complex problems. A good example is the fact that women literally use both parts of their brain when speaking aloud. Men use their left side of the brain. So women are natural born kernel hackers, they just don't know it yet. We have to make them feel welcome in our world of men. This is not the "good'ol boys club" anymore. -Diz
I think Bill Cosby bought the rights to the "Dukes of hazard" tv series because he found the show to be racist. When I think about it I can see his point of view. it doesn't contain any minority charaters, and the "general lee" car they drive has a big dixie flag on it. I haven't seen the show for a long time now, and don't know if it plays anywhere? I guess when you have the kind of money to purchase the rights of television media, and/or domain names you can sort of make a diference in an indirect way. Isn't capatalism great!! -Diz
I haven't read the article yet. Don't too inorder to comment on Teller, the Easst europian mad scientist who builts toys of destruction for the USA. He's a mad man, and should have been locked up fo ryears now if you ask me. However, the one kewl thing he was involved with in his life would have to be the StarWars program president Regan started or the alternative power stuff he was working on at Los ALimos. There is a great documentary on Teller that airs on PBS. YOu guys should check it out.
I hope the bulk of the bandwidth doesn't go away now that it has been Slashdot'd. That seems to always make i spike in downloads, and that inversly affects my download time. Errrrr.
I'd be happy to answer.... NO JOKE!! We humans do not enjoy a level of technology to directly observe gravity. Newton can watch, and feel the apple hit his head. But Newton could never, and we can never look at gravity in a microscope. WE cann't touch gravity, weigh gravity, or look at gravity. Have you ever seen gravity?? Scientist get around this problem by observing the effects of gravity on its environment. The apple falling, or the stars expanding away, or the turning of a spiral galaxie. One of the things the Super conducting super collider would have given us humans is the advanded way of observing an ever smaller arena of sub atomic particles. The people responsible for thinking up those type of devices decided that they would make a particle accelerator big enough to send two nutrinos in opposite directions at the speed of light, and actually force them to collide on a closed loop, and then (hopefully) observe very small particles breakdown into smaller particles. The Big thinkers are trying to show the existence of particles like gravitons, but that won't happen in an underwater observatory type deal. IT might take several hundred years to get that one chance collision. AND at that, they might not find what they think they will find.
Gravatons!?!?!?! Who's been watching too much Startrek? Startrek has a bad policy of inventing particles that do not exist. I hope you don't belive in Dilithium crystals either?? But really, there seems to be this strange perception in society that some of these fictonal particles really do occure in nature. THEY DON'T, and if they do it would change its form of energy very quickly, and thus decompose into another type of particle. In this example, gravity is a force of nature that is thought of in two ways: Strong nuclear force, and Weak nuclear force. These two forces combine to be what we call gravity. If memory serves correctly The Strong nuclear force is what provideds the attraction of all sub-atomic particle, and the weak force is the type of Newtonian gravity that causes an apple to fall on your head. :) What I'm getting at here is that gravity is the most mysterious of all the things in modern physics. IT is not a particle, but can be observed to act like a particle. IT is not a wave either, yet it also has been observed acting like a wave. Does that sound like a bunch of B.S. to you too??? I'm not supprised by that. Yet the fact is that we cannot directly measure or observe gravity. We may never be able to do this. So intreasting debates up in the higher academic circles argure if or not gravity is a particle or a wave. Conventional logic dictated that gravity might exist as a particle rather than a wave. However, there have been alot of kookoo's(academic deviants) who argue that gravity is a wave. At this point I'm not too totally convinced that the core gravity is a particle anymore. IT is starting to make sence that it is a wave. It was simply hard for me to except the notion of particle-less energy. Anyways, what I'm getting at is that we may never be able to observe decaying atoms, and sub atom particles enought to find the low-level bindings of our universe called gravity. On that subject I would just like to say that if the americans had finished their Supper Conducting Supper collider we might have had an answer to this question already. These underwater observatories are great ways to observe heavy nutrinos as they virtually pass thru space able to be "out of phase" with the other space around them. In case you don't know, heavy nutrinos are not heavy at all. In fact they were once thought to not exist at all. They have no measurable mass to account for, and can pass though an atom with out being attracted to the nearby neutrons, protons that are densly packed in the core of an atom. It is a rare event to actually stop a nutrino, and the chances are slim that you can force it to happen in a lab. So some smart scientist decided one day to use an old abandoned mine under mount fuji in Japan. There is several giga-tons of mountain for nutrinos to go thru untill the poor particle finds itself in a big nutrino trap. hehehehe The equipment is so sensitive that nothing must ever move in its presence, and people are advised to not go near them. That being said I would prefer to have a telescope surrounded by mountain rather than unstable water. Water being a liquid is not as dence as solid matter(or some peoples head) so it would need to be under ALLOT of water. I think them under water ones would be cheaper to build than a sub-terrainian, but the data could get funky from underwater. Just my two cents on the subject. -diz