Okay, I have a (dumb?) question for the rocket scientists here : since we have this nice rover design that we know works well on Mars, wouldn't it be interesting to send one on Titan to take a closer look?
I mean I know it's a hell of a lot farther than Mars, but could anyone explain what are the biggest obstacles? Is it cost, accuracy, surface conditions, difficulties for reliable communication... ?
Forgive my wild enthusiasm, but this is all very interesting and I either want us to send robots there or to know why we can't:)
I think I arrive too late in this discussion for my comment to be visible, but I'd like to point out that this is just on more application of one of the most important inventions ever (along with fire, the wheel, gears...)
One more thing we owe to Babylon apparently : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw#History (anyone know wether it also appeared in other civilisations, pre-colombian americas or other?)
Let me tell you something about the free market : the more abundant and easily accessible a resource is, the lower the price will get.
If something can be obtained for free that something is not worth a dollar, or even a cent.
Regardless of moral issues.
It _is_ morally OK. Selling copies of a disk is wrong, because you're making money off someone else's work. Making a copy is sharing. Sharing is friendly and generous.
Should I be sued if I make a copy of a cd for a friend who couldn't afford to buy it anyway? Should I be sued only if he could afford it? Why don't we sue everyone who's ever taped a tv show?
If I want a friend to listen to this great song I discovered, I invite him home to listen to it. If he's currently living abroad, should I refrain from sending it by e-mail because it suddenly becomes evil?
I think what you fail to understand is that the music industry is not in the business of selling music, it is in the business of selling a media container, a physical object on which the music is stored. The artists let them sell these containers in exchange for a share of the profit.
For a long time capturing the music on a physical object was an expensive process, as was duplicating said object, wich justified the relatively high price of records. Modern technology makes recording and duplicating cheap and easy, so these people (music industry) simply have nothing to sell anymore.
As for the artists, they will be just fine. There's plenty of ways to make money off your music. You can play live shows, you can offer it for download with ads on the page, you can sell merchandise, you can sell a container that's desirable and expensive/hard to duplicate (a cd in a nice looking digipack, or with a poster or whatever)... And yes, there was music and professional musicians before the invention of the gramophone.
From TFA : "an updated version of Gmail that's supposed to be faster than the current one"
If that is the case, I'm not even sure it will be noticeable, Gmail is already one of the fastest, most responsive web app (not to say web site) I know of...
Let me be the first to say : what about a manned mission to Mars? I don't care that it's more efficient and easy to send robots, I don't care that it would have little scientific justification, I want human beings to go there just because it would be mind-blowingly awesome!
"we are stuck with technology, when all we really want is stuff that works"
That's it really. Current high-end phones and blackberries are nice technology, but the iPhone is stuff that works. That's why it'll sell very, very well.
As for me, I don't plan to upgrade my PII-400 computer, I only ever buy the least expensive cell phone and only when the one I have is broken, I don't have a TV and don't want one.
But I will buy an iPhone. A palmtop that does all I ask my computer to do, a phone that actually works properly, a good mp3 player and a wonderful UI are all potentially worth some of my money. A device that provides all of this and more definitely is.
It's baffling to me why a country that has consistently and fairly been compared with Nazi Germany, to the point of concentration camps and illegal medical experimentation, has been allowed to exist for this long.
Well, I believe that's because they don't have an expansionist policy.
Here's a question to think about : if Nazi Germany had not attempted to invade / conquer surrounding countries and had quietly gone about its slaughtering business within its boundaries, how much do you think the world would have cared? What actions do you suppose other countries would have taken?
from Kevin Savetz: Smart searches. The first intelligent agent software packages will emerge, allowing Net users to ask for a specific piece of information like "What is the population of Fiji?" or "How far is Saturn from the Sun?" An agent will go out on the Net , find the information, and return it without the user knowing the source
Not quite perfect yet, and fortunately the source is actually mentionned, but google does answer these questions.
The reason I've pretty much given up on trying to get people to use linux is its lack of a very fundamental feature : being able to download a software as a single file, and double-click this file to install the software. Depending on the distro this is either impossible or theoretically possible but always failing. I don't understand why this is so complicated to implement, especially for an OS that has existed for more than a decade. Even a certain crappy OS that I won't name handles this just fine...
The solution to that issue is not to compensate with in-game adds. The solution is to realise that the costs are rising because having shiny 3D and high definition and extremely realistic physics engine and so on is expensive.
Make a game that is just plain fun instead of making a vaguely interactive but very impressive demo, that's the solution.
(...)but you simply aren't going to be able to say, HEY YOU! stop consuming(...)
Perhaps we could just stop saying : HEY YOU! CONSUME! come on, buy buy buy buy buy! buy more! buy newer! buy bigger!
I don't know, maybe that could help...
(...)the criminals that stealing movies
or music(...)
Please, be careful when you use the word "steal". If I take a dvd in a store and leave without paying, that's theft : the dvd is gone, they can't sell it anymore, they lose money. However, if I can use some sort of sci-fi matter replicator to make a completely identical dvd magically appear in my pocket, leaving theirs untouched, I didn't steal it : I just didn't buy it.
I understand that many companies are very distressed because they're actually selling data containers and it is now possible to copy and share that data at no cost. Really, I do. But don't buy into their propaganda that tries to make you believe that duplicating something and taking it away are the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, I have a (dumb?) question for the rocket scientists here : since we have this nice rover design that we know works well on Mars, wouldn't it be interesting to send one on Titan to take a closer look?
:)
I mean I know it's a hell of a lot farther than Mars, but could anyone explain what are the biggest obstacles? Is it cost, accuracy, surface conditions, difficulties for reliable communication... ?
Forgive my wild enthusiasm, but this is all very interesting and I either want us to send robots there or to know why we can't
I think I arrive too late in this discussion for my comment to be visible, but I'd like to point out that this is just on more application of one of the most important inventions ever (along with fire, the wheel, gears...)
One more thing we owe to Babylon apparently : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw#History
(anyone know wether it also appeared in other civilisations, pre-colombian americas or other?)
Let me tell you something about the free market : the more abundant and easily accessible a resource is, the lower the price will get. If something can be obtained for free that something is not worth a dollar, or even a cent. Regardless of moral issues.
Well, how about Leela?
Here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leela_(Doctor_Who)
It _is_ morally OK. Selling copies of a disk is wrong, because you're making money off someone else's work. Making a copy is sharing. Sharing is friendly and generous.
Should I be sued if I make a copy of a cd for a friend who couldn't afford to buy it anyway? Should I be sued only if he could afford it? Why don't we sue everyone who's ever taped a tv show?
If I want a friend to listen to this great song I discovered, I invite him home to listen to it. If he's currently living abroad, should I refrain from sending it by e-mail because it suddenly becomes evil?
I think what you fail to understand is that the music industry is not in the business of selling music, it is in the business of selling a media container, a physical object on which the music is stored. The artists let them sell these containers in exchange for a share of the profit.
For a long time capturing the music on a physical object was an expensive process, as was duplicating said object, wich justified the relatively high price of records. Modern technology makes recording and duplicating cheap and easy, so these people (music industry) simply have nothing to sell anymore.
As for the artists, they will be just fine. There's plenty of ways to make money off your music. You can play live shows, you can offer it for download with ads on the page, you can sell merchandise, you can sell a container that's desirable and expensive/hard to duplicate (a cd in a nice looking digipack, or with a poster or whatever)... And yes, there was music and professional musicians before the invention of the gramophone.
From TFA : "an updated version of Gmail that's supposed to be faster than the current one"
If that is the case, I'm not even sure it will be noticeable, Gmail is already one of the fastest, most responsive web app (not to say web site) I know of...
Could you only make homemovies in a sterile white room with naked people? Might get a bit boring.
Not necessarily.
Ok, so how far exactly is this robot willing to go to keep me happy?
Let me be the first to say : what about a manned mission to Mars? I don't care that it's more efficient and easy to send robots, I don't care that it would have little scientific justification, I want human beings to go there just because it would be mind-blowingly awesome!
I don't know if it's the greatest thing anyone ever did, but it is definitely the best headline ever in 10 years of slashdot!
Next week : "XKCD sues RMS for copyright infringement" ?
Duke Nukem's comment was "what are these cars, some bottom-feeding scum-sucking algae eaters?"
... Steve Ballmer rejects suggestion to release Vista under GPL.
Who would have thought?
"we are stuck with technology, when all we really want is stuff that works"
That's it really. Current high-end phones and blackberries are nice technology, but the iPhone is stuff that works. That's why it'll sell very, very well.
As for me, I don't plan to upgrade my PII-400 computer, I only ever buy the least expensive cell phone and only when the one I have is broken, I don't have a TV and don't want one.
But I will buy an iPhone. A palmtop that does all I ask my computer to do, a phone that actually works properly, a good mp3 player and a wonderful UI are all potentially worth some of my money. A device that provides all of this and more definitely is.
Yes, of course. I'd say that the lack of expansionism is the reason nobody cares, and the lack of oil is the reason nobody even pretends to care...
It's baffling to me why a country that has consistently and fairly been compared with Nazi Germany, to the point of concentration camps and illegal medical experimentation, has been allowed to exist for this long.
Well, I believe that's because they don't have an expansionist policy.
Here's a question to think about : if Nazi Germany had not attempted to invade / conquer surrounding countries and had quietly gone about its slaughtering business within its boundaries, how much do you think the world would have cared? What actions do you suppose other countries would have taken?
from Kevin Savetz :
f rom+the+Sun? t ion+of+Fiji?
Smart searches. The first intelligent agent software packages will emerge, allowing Net users to ask for a specific piece of information like "What is the population of Fiji?" or "How far is Saturn from the Sun?" An agent will go out on the Net , find the information, and return it without the user knowing the source
Not quite perfect yet, and fortunately the source is actually mentionned, but google does answer these questions.
http://www.google.com/search?q=How+far+is+Saturn+
http://www.google.com/search?q=What+is+the+popula
10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.
Yea, never ever heard about that idea before 2006.
So here are the links :
pong : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X53eJ8AWQ9Y
fairchild : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-763921347 2647728205&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en
vcs :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU3gHAGbi0Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_XrIx2eUGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lROb1vWNiig
Magnavox Odyssey 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oG1TlryN88
Mattel Intellivision : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXet1I2TuXE
Vectrex : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1KQ4i5oRrM
ColecoVision : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GpptJusOjM
and Expansion Module for Atari 2600 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T7755ux2M
Atari 5200 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAlmxV8e7tE
Odyssey 3 Command Center (never released) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv1a9U-6rJQ
Sega Game-1000 Mk II : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iImQcL5Vs-g
NES $250 deluxe set : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cssV9F6JhbE
NES power glove : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93iDhnBcMGo
NES power pad : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzH732OFTqg
"NES rap" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuHOCyJWFDE
Sega Master System : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLEeoOaze_A
Atari 7800 Pro System : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A46SSY9q3n8
Atari 2600 Jr : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_nOWJd4H_A
NEC TurboGrafx-16 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmR1xJAho_c
Sega Genesis : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUtIWT7CLTw
Sega Genesis : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOM01F4Ihcc
Sega Genesis : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWZARgoipGw
Neo Geo : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ0aEjlTYms
SNES : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKPZNHUlSHA
SNES : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRjVXIWZfeM
Philips CD-I : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ROwwU29xCw
TTi TurboDuo : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEvzN5YcR80
Amiga CD32 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMd5lMV4uFI
3DO : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTRqsS-ftgQ
Jaguar : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQaro-yjBqI
Saturn : http://ww
The reason I've pretty much given up on trying to get people to use linux is its lack of a very fundamental feature : being able to download a software as a single file, and double-click this file to install the software. Depending on the distro this is either impossible or theoretically possible but always failing. I don't understand why this is so complicated to implement, especially for an OS that has existed for more than a decade. Even a certain crappy OS that I won't name handles this just fine...
And game production costs ARE rising.
The solution to that issue is not to compensate with in-game adds. The solution is to realise that the costs are rising because having shiny 3D and high definition and extremely realistic physics engine and so on is expensive.
Make a game that is just plain fun instead of making a vaguely interactive but very impressive demo, that's the solution.
... is not so much the police doing this as the people letting them.
(...)but you simply aren't going to be able to say, HEY YOU! stop consuming(...)
Perhaps we could just stop saying : HEY YOU! CONSUME! come on, buy buy buy buy buy! buy more! buy newer! buy bigger!
I don't know, maybe that could help...
(...)the criminals that stealing movies or music(...)
Please, be careful when you use the word "steal". If I take a dvd in a store and leave without paying, that's theft : the dvd is gone, they can't sell it anymore, they lose money. However, if I can use some sort of sci-fi matter replicator to make a completely identical dvd magically appear in my pocket, leaving theirs untouched, I didn't steal it : I just didn't buy it.
I understand that many companies are very distressed because they're actually selling data containers and it is now possible to copy and share that data at no cost. Really, I do. But don't buy into their propaganda that tries to make you believe that duplicating something and taking it away are the same thing.
Give me a robot that intones "Crush! Kill! Destroy!" anyday
;)
Good idea! We'll call it PROboPAIN
That's all I have to say really, but I had to say it. Thanks. You did the Right Thing.