It's like going to the White House to meet the President, and then you make up a tale about how you went to the bathroom, opened the wrong door, and stumbled into the Situation Room.
Dude! That like totally happened to me! And then I told them how they really needed to handle the aliens, and they gave me a medal but some spies stole it when I was touring the secret warehouse.
Much of the area around Chernobyl was evacuated immediately; see the photos here of schools, businesses, equipment and homes abandoned on short notice and never reclaimed. A succession of workers continued at the power plant, both to reinforce the rapidly deteriorating "tomb" which had been hastily assembled around Reactor #4 and to keep other reactors operating as you've noted. While animals and even some people have returned to the area, it has not become "safe" nor will it be for many years to come. The Chernobyl reactors used an inherently unsafe design chosen primarily because it was cheap; the bills eventually do come due; it can be argued that Chernobyl contributed significantly to the collapse of the Soviet Union, due both to the enormous direct cost of the disaster and a desire by the government to divest itself of the very long term responsibility. Chernobyl is now Ukraine's problem; Russia simply walked away and moved on.
Agreed. The iPod is hardware with an associated (and optional) service; TiVo is a service with required hardware. It's like comparing apples and door-hinges.
Mostly agreed, especially on the issue of subscription fees. However, Sony's U-Matic was far from the original consumer-grade video recorder. Ampex had a consumer video recorder, the VR-1500, on the market in 1963, and in 1966 introduced the VR-6275 with built-in TV tuner, audio amplifier and speaker, all in "an attractive walnut cabinet." JVC didn't copy the Betamax -- they were a licensed second-source for the U-Matic design but saw it as too costly for home use and adapted the concept for the VHS home-video standard, much as AMD and Compaq built on their second-source status with Intel and IBM respectively.
Yes, those old recordings become obsolete more quickly than we'd expect. That was the point I tried (but failed) to make in suggesting "caretakers" for each recording; my intent was that these "caretakers" would not simply store the media but keep the content accessible.
Had someone been in that role with your Grandfather's recordings, they might have had those transferred to a more current format when it became apparent the older format was becoming inaccessible (while saving the old media, of course). If this had been done and carried on, today you might have the original recordings, 45RPM transcriptions, cassettes, and perhaps a set of mp3 files. When those appear to be on the way out you might transfer the oldest accessible form to crystalline media or whatever else may be down the road, preserving the recordings for the next generation.
Don't give up on your Grandfather's recordings, by the way. Any competent recording Engineer can extract the audio; maybe someone on/. is close enough to you to give you a hand if you ask.
Well said. Recordings of any sort will be available independently if they have merit -- we can watch "Casablanca" or listen to Caruso though the media on which they were generated, and even the media on which our parents experienced them, are gone. Far better to recommend a performance and let the recipient search it out than to include a recording likely to become unusable. The exception is personal recordings such as home movies or spoken greetings; if these are to be part of the "bequest" then for each item include in the time capsule a promise from a family member who will keep a currently playable version; it will be far more meaningful for the recipient to seek out Uncle Alex to hear Great-Grandma's greeting, Aunt Mary for the home movie of the First Birthday party, etc. This keeps the family actively involved as well as at least promoting, though not ensuring, a reunion of sorts when the Time Capsule comes due and becomes not just a box of old stuff but a *living* inheritance.
The market allows for an OpenOffice even in a world dominated by MSWord. Ruths Chris still sells meat even though McDonalds sells more. Ford isn't expected to roll over and die in the face of Toyota's market share. Corn flakes and shredded wheat, Java and Ruby, PC and Mac, Hertz and Avis -- competition is not about destroying the second tier, it's about compelling both it and the market leader to keep getting better. Would Google work so hard if it didn't have Yahoo on its heels?
Absurdity has a place in fiction and humor, but the suggestion that the catch-as-catch-can, unexpected-side-effects commercial drug industry is somehow "scientific" while medicine based on years - often thousands of years - of painstaking observation is inherently unscientific is a bad joke at best. Even the least seasoned of the so-called alternatives, homeopathy, was built on a rigid application of the scientific method, called "provings" in that discipline, which shames the patent drug industry that suppressed it not by better results but by legal maneuvering.
Most interestingly, thousands of "modern" drugs are nothing more than packaged (and patented) versions of well established natural medicines, while many others are synthetic forms of long-used naturalopathic substances.
Meanwhile, patent drug companies frequently find new uses for products which didn't perform as anticipated, clear evidence they were working not from hypothesis to solution but from product to application, the "let's see what this does" form of pseudoscience.
Shilling for drug companies does not serve the public, nor does defending the shills just because they or their benefactors work in shiny laboratories and control large budgets. Both patent and alternative medicine has its place.
Slashdot Mirror
Red Light Linux -- shakes your booty.
It's like going to the White House to meet the President, and then you make up a tale about how you went to the bathroom, opened the wrong door, and stumbled into the Situation Room.
Dude! That like totally happened to me! And then I told them how they really needed to handle the aliens, and they gave me a medal but some spies stole it when I was touring the secret warehouse.
Much of the area around Chernobyl was evacuated immediately; see the photos here of schools, businesses, equipment and homes abandoned on short notice and never reclaimed. A succession of workers continued at the power plant, both to reinforce the rapidly deteriorating "tomb" which had been hastily assembled around Reactor #4 and to keep other reactors operating as you've noted. While animals and even some people have returned to the area, it has not become "safe" nor will it be for many years to come. The Chernobyl reactors used an inherently unsafe design chosen primarily because it was cheap; the bills eventually do come due; it can be argued that Chernobyl contributed significantly to the collapse of the Soviet Union, due both to the enormous direct cost of the disaster and a desire by the government to divest itself of the very long term responsibility. Chernobyl is now Ukraine's problem; Russia simply walked away and moved on.
...really? Does a disaster have to be an accident to be classed as a disaster?
No, any kind of disaster is still a disaster. However, a disaster has to be an accident to be classed as an accidental disaster.
That's because of the long boot times; it's sort of an umbrella concept.
Agreed. The iPod is hardware with an associated (and optional) service; TiVo is a service with required hardware. It's like comparing apples and door-hinges.
Mostly agreed, especially on the issue of subscription fees. However, Sony's U-Matic was far from the original consumer-grade video recorder. Ampex had a consumer video recorder, the VR-1500, on the market in 1963, and in 1966 introduced the VR-6275 with built-in TV tuner, audio amplifier and speaker, all in "an attractive walnut cabinet." JVC didn't copy the Betamax -- they were a licensed second-source for the U-Matic design but saw it as too costly for home use and adapted the concept for the VHS home-video standard, much as AMD and Compaq built on their second-source status with Intel and IBM respectively.
Sony stopped development on the Betamax and ... home video took off like a rocket. OLED or something better will be developed with or without Sony.
Sorry, Windows-only. Linux users will have to plant a tree every few years to achieve the same environmental benefits.
Mea culpa. Electricity /still/ moves faster than the cited "15-20cm/sec," but but so does sound. Thanks for the correction.
Thanks for the clarification. Please revise my "much, MUCH" to merely "much, much." ;-)
I admire your EMPathy.
This doesn't diminish the THX standards; just THX's commitment to maintaining them.
The speed of sound in air is about 35cm/sec. Electrical signal speed in copper is much, MUCH higher, about 95% of the speed of light.
Like a slow, silent sarabande of Elton Johns.
... never saw it coming.
"All we need is lava,
lava's all we need."
Where's the United Nations when we need them?
It's not dead yet.
Yes, those old recordings become obsolete more quickly than we'd expect. That was the point I tried (but failed) to make in suggesting "caretakers" for each recording; my intent was that these "caretakers" would not simply store the media but keep the content accessible.
/. is close enough to you to give you a hand if you ask.
Had someone been in that role with your Grandfather's recordings, they might have had those transferred to a more current format when it became apparent the older format was becoming inaccessible (while saving the old media, of course). If this had been done and carried on, today you might have the original recordings, 45RPM transcriptions, cassettes, and perhaps a set of mp3 files. When those appear to be on the way out you might transfer the oldest accessible form to crystalline media or whatever else may be down the road, preserving the recordings for the next generation.
Don't give up on your Grandfather's recordings, by the way. Any competent recording Engineer can extract the audio; maybe someone on
Well said. Recordings of any sort will be available independently if they have merit -- we can watch "Casablanca" or listen to Caruso though the media on which they were generated, and even the media on which our parents experienced them, are gone. Far better to recommend a performance and let the recipient search it out than to include a recording likely to become unusable. The exception is personal recordings such as home movies or spoken greetings; if these are to be part of the "bequest" then for each item include in the time capsule a promise from a family member who will keep a currently playable version; it will be far more meaningful for the recipient to seek out Uncle Alex to hear Great-Grandma's greeting, Aunt Mary for the home movie of the First Birthday party, etc. This keeps the family actively involved as well as at least promoting, though not ensuring, a reunion of sorts when the Time Capsule comes due and becomes not just a box of old stuff but a *living* inheritance.
Requiescat in Pace, CompuServe. AOL was a cruel suitor and an abusive partner. You deserved better. 76702,2040
The market allows for an OpenOffice even in a world dominated by MSWord. Ruths Chris still sells meat even though McDonalds sells more. Ford isn't expected to roll over and die in the face of Toyota's market share. Corn flakes and shredded wheat, Java and Ruby, PC and Mac, Hertz and Avis -- competition is not about destroying the second tier, it's about compelling both it and the market leader to keep getting better. Would Google work so hard if it didn't have Yahoo on its heels?
If we'd begun using only proven medical treatments a hundred years ago we'd have saved billions. That's dollars, not lives, of course ...
Absurdity has a place in fiction and humor, but the suggestion that the catch-as-catch-can, unexpected-side-effects commercial drug industry is somehow "scientific" while medicine based on years - often thousands of years - of painstaking observation is inherently unscientific is a bad joke at best. Even the least seasoned of the so-called alternatives, homeopathy, was built on a rigid application of the scientific method, called "provings" in that discipline, which shames the patent drug industry that suppressed it not by better results but by legal maneuvering. Most interestingly, thousands of "modern" drugs are nothing more than packaged (and patented) versions of well established natural medicines, while many others are synthetic forms of long-used naturalopathic substances. Meanwhile, patent drug companies frequently find new uses for products which didn't perform as anticipated, clear evidence they were working not from hypothesis to solution but from product to application, the "let's see what this does" form of pseudoscience. Shilling for drug companies does not serve the public, nor does defending the shills just because they or their benefactors work in shiny laboratories and control large budgets. Both patent and alternative medicine has its place.