I would think that the people designing the bots would test them first. Or did the bots beat all of the designers in arm wrestling? If they did, I wouldn't be too suprised.
I don't think there is any implication in the leaked information that Apple was doing something the least bit wrong with the mini. I'm guessing that fact that the leaked information revealed good things that Apple was doing (and that others can copy for profit) had a large part to play in the decision. If Apple was using young children to build the products, then the blogger might have a case.
Given the speed at which the industry moves, I'm guessing yes. Intel quickly created a Mac Mini clone so having extra time to figure out how to copy Apple could result in a nice chunk of sales. This is also more important for Apple since a lot of their high profile innovations (nothing high tech about a 10GB MP3 player by itself) aren't based on strange tech which makes it easy to replicate once you know what's happening. Ideas are worth big money in the design market.
Pretty much. It's the same reasoning protecting trade secrets that protects copyrights for private companies. Unless the public is at risk (E.g. company dumping toxic wastes in a daycare center), there is no constitutional reason to allow people to disclose trade secrets like that. Journalistic protection against governments is because the people have the right to know what their leaders are doing. Customers and other companies don't have those rights.
Also, good to see Google isn't doing an eternal beta on this product like its Google News offering (the whole beta thing gets annoying after 2 continuous years!)
That's a legal issue. If Google starts making money from other news sites without actually paying them, then they risk legal action for use of copyrighted material. Right now, they have no ads because this (in theory) puts them in the fair use section
Maybe they could jump ship and try for one of the proposed manned space programs in other countries. The pilots and engineers shouldn't have a problem finding jobs in the private sector as it begins to take off (no pun intended) since there will be a need for people who know how to get a hunk of metal moving at 7km/s on the ground in once piece. The scientists and other mission personal would have trouble finding spots in the private sector unless it becomes profitable. This would require something like feasible zero-gee engineering that NASA has always been looking at. Maybe one of the big biotech or chemical companies would pay for a science team to spend some time in orbit to do some material engineering research. However, it would be harder to get private science crews into space who can't show short term profits. This would probably require a government for funding.
Alternative placement on a normal mouse.
on
Is Horse the New Mouse?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
When you use a mouse, do you have your forearm at an angle to the mouse with your index finger on the left button (assuming right-handedness), your middle finger on the right button, and your ring finger on the "forward" button on 5-button mice? I've found that having my forearm parallel to the mouse with my middle finger on the scroll, my ring finger on the right mouse button, and my pinky on the forward button reduces the stress on my wrist since my wrist is no longer twisted at an odd angle. I was wondering if anyone else did this too.
The last time the FCC tried to do this, they were struck down by the SCotUS who agreed with a lower court which ruled that the FCC can't censor cable broadcasts the way they wanted to. This is seperate from the airwaves since cable TV isn't a public right like access to the EM spectrum. This ruling pretty much said that cable operators can do whatever they want with regards to content since the customer always has the option of not subscribing to the cable network. Most channels still self-censor, but they are under no legal requirement to do so. In fact, MTV sometimes airs uncensored videos at odd hours of the night and there is nothing the right wing can do about it but complain to the advertisers.
I also believe that cable TV will pretty much die out once we have enough bandwith that the majority of people can legally order shows in real time over their Internet connection. It's just going to take a while for the big dinosaurs to realize that they have to adapt or die.
BTW, the original case of US v. Playboy: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2000/98- 1682.html
The last time the FCC tried to do this, they were struck down by the SCotUS who agreed with a lower court which ruled that the FCC can't censor cable broadcasts the way they wanted to. This is seperate from the airwaves since cable TV isn't a public right like access to the EM spectrum. This ruling pretty much said that cable operators can do whatever they want with regards to content since the customer always has the option of not subscribing to the cable network. Most channels still self-censor, but they are under no legal requirement to do so. In fact, MTV sometimes airs uncensored videos at odd hours of the night and there is nothing the right wing can do about it but complain to the advertisers.
I also believe that cable TV will pretty much die out once we have enough bandwith that the majority of people can legally order shows in real time over their Internet connection. It's just going to take a while for the big dinosaurs to realize that they have to adapt or die.
BTW, the original case of US v. Playboy: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2000/98- 1682.html
Wake me onces TV companies begin to distribute shows (either paid or free w/ commercials) over something like BitTorrent. If they release an "offical" video file onto the web and then attack anyone who distributes a version without commercials, then there won't be that big of a problem with P2P sites since everyone who watches the show will also see the commercials. The only people who would object would be cable TV providers since they no longer have a purpose. This would also get around any FCC problems.
To make sure people watch the commercials, you can use a custom player/P2P app that disable fast forwarding during commercials the first time it is downloaded or some other method to make sure they watch X seconds commercials for every Y minutes of the show. -- Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini Or a free Nintendo DS Wired article as proof
Other than the different managers setting the prices for their groups, does Dell use an automated pricing system that sets the final price based on past sales of an item at a given price and a customer group's willingness to pay a certain price? I'm sure they spend a lot of money researching the price points that result in maximum profits for a given customer and I wouldn't be suprised if their website set an "optimally profitable" price point based on the latest market data. -- Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini Or a free Nintendo DS Wired article as proof
Even on systems with limited resources, the lack of proper thread priorities makes the system seem slower than it should be. When MS Word does it's automatic spell check, there shouldn't be a noticeable drop in UI performance (lag between hitting a key and a seeing letter appear) if the CPU intensive tasks ran in the background. The same applies to how FF lags badly when I open a PDF inline or how Explorer's interface locks and doesn't refresh properly when it's previewing a video file or reading from a slow CD drive. The same should apply to background tasks like virus scanners, but they tend to have the added overhead of using IO which is harder to multitask smoothly.
If the program was designed so that the functional part of the application had the highest priority and the eye candy and fluff ran in the background, the user wouldn't be as annoyed with the high peak performance requirements of certain programs. -- Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini Or a free Nintendo DS Wired article as proof
Aycock acknowledges there is a potential for viruses and other malicious software to spread outside the classroom.
He says that's why there are precautions, such as security cameras and a ban on all outside electronic equipment in the classroom.
Each student signs a legal form that says a breach of the security means an automatic "F" and a potential criminal investigation.
I guess they think that there is a high risk that a person will intentionally wreak havoc with the knowledge he learns in that class. Then again, this might just be a publicity thing for the class. I doubt that it's more dangerous than a class on computer security and virus/malware prevention in terms of the risk of damage being done.
If their customers don't get any spam because they have good filtering, then they have nothing to lose (as long as outgoing bandwidth is properly paid for) from hosting spam. As long as MCI can tell their customers that they're fighting spam, they'll keep their customers. At least, until some other ISPs block them out completely.
The counterargument is probably that because google is ubiquitous in search, they have an unfair position in the market from which to do things like this. However, they are anything but a monopoly, so that argument really doesn't wash - especially since it's not illegal to sell LV and a competing product in the same store (unless the competing product is illegal anyway) so it makes no sense to make it illegal to mention them together on the same web page. For reasons intentional or otherwise, MSN Search doesn't show competitor's ads when Searching for LV or GEICO. If it's intentional, then the customer is getting screwed since restricting information like that castrates the power of the search engine.
Here, I have to disagree. Putting up billboards across the street is not the same thing. This is more like putting a phone tap on the line, and setting it up so that each time someone calls Geico, they get an intercept telling them how wonderful State Farm is.
Except that a phone intercept prevents the person from talking to Geico. This would be more like the Time magazine have an ad in Newsweek or cable providers carries ads for satellite TV. Neither interferes with the customer's ability to achieve their original goal.
You probably won't get any magic behavior such as your house suddenly turing sentient while you take a nap, but you will definitely see tons of bugs due to the interconnections. Imagine all the problems that occur in companies because software A won't work with software B and extend that to include your room sensors, thermostat, and lights when your sensor system decides to download an upgrade to its firmware but the other systems don't notice.
Hmm...since Cairo is out and Avalon isn't, the Penguin now has a step up on Redmond in terms of graphics. Granted, Avalon includes some other spiffy 3d eye candy, but this is a first where the Linux GUI beats out the Windows one.
Most teachers (5 years ago when I was in HS) don't have any idea what the parts of a computer do. Unless they know what the ports do, they would never care if they saw a little extra adapter between the keyboard and the computer's PS2 port. This is why they need to be educated on what their machines do. There is also the chance that the keyboard port was well hidden in the desk so the teacher wouldn't have noticed unless she took the time to explicitly check. This is bad physical security on the part of the school's IT dept.
She said the scheme was uncovered after authorities learned that the boy had attempted to sell the answers.He seems to have gotten caught because he was greedy. This brings up the question of how many kids have done this (use physical keystroke loggers) and have managed to get away with it. Do IT companies have any scheme to check for this sort of thing other than just locking up the physical case in the desk so the ports aren't reachable?
It's nice that there might be a unidirectional market for this, but what about a shared system where you trade your idle time for the right to use someone else's computer during your peak time?
End users tend to want a lot of peak power but little average power. Grid computing would let you spread the peak out like a capacitor. If the average user needs N times their CPU to run an application at realtime speeds and they only use this peak for 1/N parts of the day and are idle the rest of the time, you can have N users from around the world distribute their load onto each other's machine.
This would work for applications that don't have low latency (e.g. FPS games would be out) and applications that don't have high bandwith (e.g. compressing movie files) but it would work for things like semi-professional graphic artists who can't afford renderfarms. By letting other people use their machine for 1-1/N of the day, they get a near N increase in computing power at peak times.
You could have every machine in a company run a VM at the lowest priority and share the cycles for this VM with other companies around the world. You would get some use out of all that idle time on modern machines. You could also have a company's engineering department run their simulation on the company's accounting department's machines since those machines are probably idle all the time and the simulation machines have a high peak CPU requirement.
This would even work well locally if IBM's Cell technology delivers. Your TiVo can offload the processing for digital compression into the chips in your PC, DVD, and other high end processing systems as needed or vice-versa the next time your PC needs to compress a bunch of files.
Given all the idle time on home machines, this might be a bigger market than supercomputer grid clusters.
As I've previously discussed on slashdot, you do not need to be moving outward from your energy source in a solar sail, you can achieve thrust vectors in any direction from full away to orthogonal (perpendicular for the 2D vector peeps)
And orbital mechanics isn't of the form of "thrust straight at where you want to go" it's more like "thrust in the direction of orbit to move away from primary, thrust against the direction of orbit to move towards primary"
Good point.
People don't realize orbital mechanics is an arcane science completely unlike the common perception of strapping a rocket booster to yourself and pointing yourself in the right direction. For example, look at the "Interplanetary Superhighway" for normal spacecraft. It's the path of least resistence for spacecraft and it looks nothing like a straight line since it's based on Lagrange points and other strange artifacts of three+ body orbital systems. I'm guessing there is another similar path possible for this solar sail system that invovles it flying in a curve where it's never directly between us an Mars. I.e. it's thrust vector isn't the same as its position vector with respect to Earth. Thus it would be quite possible to steer and stop with this system if you know the right math.
Slashdot Mirror
I would think that the people designing the bots would test them first. Or did the bots beat all of the designers in arm wrestling? If they did, I wouldn't be too suprised.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
I don't think there is any implication in the leaked information that Apple was doing something the least bit wrong with the mini. I'm guessing that fact that the leaked information revealed good things that Apple was doing (and that others can copy for profit) had a large part to play in the decision. If Apple was using young children to build the products, then the blogger might have a case.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Given the speed at which the industry moves, I'm guessing yes. Intel quickly created a Mac Mini clone so having extra time to figure out how to copy Apple could result in a nice chunk of sales. This is also more important for Apple since a lot of their high profile innovations (nothing high tech about a 10GB MP3 player by itself) aren't based on strange tech which makes it easy to replicate once you know what's happening. Ideas are worth big money in the design market.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Pretty much. It's the same reasoning protecting trade secrets that protects copyrights for private companies. Unless the public is at risk (E.g. company dumping toxic wastes in a daycare center), there is no constitutional reason to allow people to disclose trade secrets like that. Journalistic protection against governments is because the people have the right to know what their leaders are doing. Customers and other companies don't have those rights.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Look at their privacy policy.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
The Google Toolbar now has a spell check built it. Now if it only had a feature that would electricute the user everytime he wrote something in 1337.
Also, good to see Google isn't doing an eternal beta on this product like its Google News offering (the whole beta thing gets annoying after 2 continuous years!)
That's a legal issue. If Google starts making money from other news sites without actually paying them, then they risk legal action for use of copyrighted material. Right now, they have no ads because this (in theory) puts them in the fair use section
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
Maybe they could jump ship and try for one of the proposed manned space programs in other countries. The pilots and engineers shouldn't have a problem finding jobs in the private sector as it begins to take off (no pun intended) since there will be a need for people who know how to get a hunk of metal moving at 7km/s on the ground in once piece. The scientists and other mission personal would have trouble finding spots in the private sector unless it becomes profitable. This would require something like feasible zero-gee engineering that NASA has always been looking at. Maybe one of the big biotech or chemical companies would pay for a science team to spend some time in orbit to do some material engineering research. However, it would be harder to get private science crews into space who can't show short term profits. This would probably require a government for funding.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox
Wired article as proof
When you use a mouse, do you have your forearm at an angle to the mouse with your index finger on the left button (assuming right-handedness), your middle finger on the right button, and your ring finger on the "forward" button on 5-button mice? I've found that having my forearm parallel to the mouse with my middle finger on the scroll, my ring finger on the right mouse button, and my pinky on the forward button reduces the stress on my wrist since my wrist is no longer twisted at an odd angle. I was wondering if anyone else did this too.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
The editors should just link to mirrordot in each story. Story Picture
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
The last time the FCC tried to do this, they were struck down by the SCotUS who agreed with a lower court which ruled that the FCC can't censor cable broadcasts the way they wanted to. This is seperate from the airwaves since cable TV isn't a public right like access to the EM spectrum. This ruling pretty much said that cable operators can do whatever they want with regards to content since the customer always has the option of not subscribing to the cable network. Most channels still self-censor, but they are under no legal requirement to do so. In fact, MTV sometimes airs uncensored videos at odd hours of the night and there is nothing the right wing can do about it but complain to the advertisers.
- 1682.html
I also believe that cable TV will pretty much die out once we have enough bandwith that the majority of people can legally order shows in real time over their Internet connection. It's just going to take a while for the big dinosaurs to realize that they have to adapt or die.
BTW, the original case of US v. Playboy: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2000/98
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
The last time the FCC tried to do this, they were struck down by the SCotUS who agreed with a lower court which ruled that the FCC can't censor cable broadcasts the way they wanted to. This is seperate from the airwaves since cable TV isn't a public right like access to the EM spectrum. This ruling pretty much said that cable operators can do whatever they want with regards to content since the customer always has the option of not subscribing to the cable network. Most channels still self-censor, but they are under no legal requirement to do so. In fact, MTV sometimes airs uncensored videos at odd hours of the night and there is nothing the right wing can do about it but complain to the advertisers.
- 1682.html
I also believe that cable TV will pretty much die out once we have enough bandwith that the majority of people can legally order shows in real time over their Internet connection. It's just going to take a while for the big dinosaurs to realize that they have to adapt or die.
BTW, the original case of US v. Playboy: http://www.fcc.gov/ogc/documents/opinions/2000/98
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
Wake me onces TV companies begin to distribute shows (either paid or free w/ commercials) over something like BitTorrent. If they release an "offical" video file onto the web and then attack anyone who distributes a version without commercials, then there won't be that big of a problem with P2P sites since everyone who watches the show will also see the commercials. The only people who would object would be cable TV providers since they no longer have a purpose. This would also get around any FCC problems.
To make sure people watch the commercials, you can use a custom player/P2P app that disable fast forwarding during commercials the first time it is downloaded or some other method to make sure they watch X seconds commercials for every Y minutes of the show.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
Other than the different managers setting the prices for their groups, does Dell use an automated pricing system that sets the final price based on past sales of an item at a given price and a customer group's willingness to pay a certain price? I'm sure they spend a lot of money researching the price points that result in maximum profits for a given customer and I wouldn't be suprised if their website set an "optimally profitable" price point based on the latest market data.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
Even on systems with limited resources, the lack of proper thread priorities makes the system seem slower than it should be. When MS Word does it's automatic spell check, there shouldn't be a noticeable drop in UI performance (lag between hitting a key and a seeing letter appear) if the CPU intensive tasks ran in the background. The same applies to how FF lags badly when I open a PDF inline or how Explorer's interface locks and doesn't refresh properly when it's previewing a video file or reading from a slow CD drive. The same should apply to background tasks like virus scanners, but they tend to have the added overhead of using IO which is harder to multitask smoothly.
If the program was designed so that the functional part of the application had the highest priority and the eye candy and fluff ran in the background, the user wouldn't be as annoyed with the high peak performance requirements of certain programs.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
Aycock acknowledges there is a potential for viruses and other malicious software to spread outside the classroom.
He says that's why there are precautions, such as security cameras and a ban on all outside electronic equipment in the classroom.
Each student signs a legal form that says a breach of the security means an automatic "F" and a potential criminal investigation.
I guess they think that there is a high risk that a person will intentionally wreak havoc with the knowledge he learns in that class. Then again, this might just be a publicity thing for the class. I doubt that it's more dangerous than a class on computer security and virus/malware prevention in terms of the risk of damage being done.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
If their customers don't get any spam because they have good filtering, then they have nothing to lose (as long as outgoing bandwidth is properly paid for) from hosting spam. As long as MCI can tell their customers that they're fighting spam, they'll keep their customers. At least, until some other ISPs block them out completely.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Or a free Nintendo DS
Wired article as proof
The counterargument is probably that because google is ubiquitous in search, they have an unfair position in the market from which to do things like this. However, they are anything but a monopoly, so that argument really doesn't wash - especially since it's not illegal to sell LV and a competing product in the same store (unless the competing product is illegal anyway) so it makes no sense to make it illegal to mention them together on the same web page. For reasons intentional or otherwise, MSN Search doesn't show competitor's ads when Searching for LV or GEICO. If it's intentional, then the customer is getting screwed since restricting information like that castrates the power of the search engine.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
Here, I have to disagree. Putting up billboards across the street is not the same thing. This is more like putting a phone tap on the line, and setting it up so that each time someone calls Geico, they get an intercept telling them how wonderful State Farm is.
Except that a phone intercept prevents the person from talking to Geico. This would be more like the Time magazine have an ad in Newsweek or cable providers carries ads for satellite TV. Neither interferes with the customer's ability to achieve their original goal.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
You probably won't get any magic behavior such as your house suddenly turing sentient while you take a nap, but you will definitely see tons of bugs due to the interconnections. Imagine all the problems that occur in companies because software A won't work with software B and extend that to include your room sensors, thermostat, and lights when your sensor system decides to download an upgrade to its firmware but the other systems don't notice.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
Hmm...since Cairo is out and Avalon isn't, the Penguin now has a step up on Redmond in terms of graphics. Granted, Avalon includes some other spiffy 3d eye candy, but this is a first where the Linux GUI beats out the Windows one.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
Most teachers (5 years ago when I was in HS) don't have any idea what the parts of a computer do. Unless they know what the ports do, they would never care if they saw a little extra adapter between the keyboard and the computer's PS2 port. This is why they need to be educated on what their machines do. There is also the chance that the keyboard port was well hidden in the desk so the teacher wouldn't have noticed unless she took the time to explicitly check. This is bad physical security on the part of the school's IT dept.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
She said the scheme was uncovered after authorities learned that the boy had attempted to sell the answers.He seems to have gotten caught because he was greedy. This brings up the question of how many kids have done this (use physical keystroke loggers) and have managed to get away with it. Do IT companies have any scheme to check for this sort of thing other than just locking up the physical case in the desk so the ports aren't reachable?
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
It's nice that there might be a unidirectional market for this, but what about a shared system where you trade your idle time for the right to use someone else's computer during your peak time? End users tend to want a lot of peak power but little average power. Grid computing would let you spread the peak out like a capacitor. If the average user needs N times their CPU to run an application at realtime speeds and they only use this peak for 1/N parts of the day and are idle the rest of the time, you can have N users from around the world distribute their load onto each other's machine.
This would work for applications that don't have low latency (e.g. FPS games would be out) and applications that don't have high bandwith (e.g. compressing movie files) but it would work for things like semi-professional graphic artists who can't afford renderfarms. By letting other people use their machine for 1-1/N of the day, they get a near N increase in computing power at peak times.
You could have every machine in a company run a VM at the lowest priority and share the cycles for this VM with other companies around the world. You would get some use out of all that idle time on modern machines. You could also have a company's engineering department run their simulation on the company's accounting department's machines since those machines are probably idle all the time and the simulation machines have a high peak CPU requirement.
This would even work well locally if IBM's Cell technology delivers. Your TiVo can offload the processing for digital compression into the chips in your PC, DVD, and other high end processing systems as needed or vice-versa the next time your PC needs to compress a bunch of files.
Given all the idle time on home machines, this might be a bigger market than supercomputer grid clusters.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
As I've previously discussed on slashdot, you do not need to be moving outward from your energy source in a solar sail, you can achieve thrust vectors in any direction from full away to orthogonal (perpendicular for the 2D vector peeps) And orbital mechanics isn't of the form of "thrust straight at where you want to go" it's more like "thrust in the direction of orbit to move away from primary, thrust against the direction of orbit to move towards primary"
Good point.
People don't realize orbital mechanics is an arcane science completely unlike the common perception of strapping a rocket booster to yourself and pointing yourself in the right direction. For example, look at the "Interplanetary Superhighway" for normal spacecraft. It's the path of least resistence for spacecraft and it looks nothing like a straight line since it's based on Lagrange points and other strange artifacts of three+ body orbital systems. I'm guessing there is another similar path possible for this solar sail system that invovles it flying in a curve where it's never directly between us an Mars. I.e. it's thrust vector isn't the same as its position vector with respect to Earth. Thus it would be quite possible to steer and stop with this system if you know the right math.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof