I am assuming that one of the reasons that HP intends to market these in developing countries is that the prices they will ask will be lower than what they could expect to get in developed countries. So, even with a discount from the purchase price after a year of use, there is a possibility that the computers could be resold to purchasers in developed countries (hobbyists, user groups, etc.) at a price point close to what was originally paid for the machines or sold at a point below the purchase price to neighboring countries even less well off. The money earned from the sale of the "old" computers goes to buying newer computers (perhaps from HP if they do their marketing right and don't stifle the resale market). In the meantime, the computers help to establish an educated populace (possibly with world access via the Internet) and the business processes involved in the export work in a small way to help establish a middle class. It has been argued that both of these factors, an educated populace and a middle class, are instrumental in the development and preservation of constitutional liberal democracy.
Well, as a former pilot, I would be a bit concerned about the unreported, open source sonde collecting upper air data.
As for the public not sitting on a metric buttload of weather measuring gear, they weren't sitting on a metric buttload of WiFi gear at first either. If local measurement ever went open source, I suspect you'd see a lot of measuring equipment show up on the market.
...if there was a proven increase in the level of accuracy of the forecasts.
If the Private Weather Service is just repackaging NWS information, then I would prefer an open source app that downloads and collates the NWS XML feed.
But, if I pay for a premium service, and then you ask me what the weather is going to be like, do I violate the EULA when I tell you to take an umbrella?
From the NYT article: "Flying through the dust around Wild 2, the spacecraft gathered thousands of particles that are now being returned to Earth for closer investigation. A capsule holding the exotic cargo is to make a soft landing in the Utah desert in January 2006."
Time to start "Andromeda Strain" midnight showings in local theaters!
They should print the source code on rolls of paper about six inches wide and four in diameter. It'll make reusing the paper after the trial much easier...
Of course, software can be used to kill. What do you think guides cruise missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, HARMs, Stingers, Hellfires, etc. Any type of guided weapon is steered by software.
There is even software at use in the cell phones Iraqi insurgents use to trigger roadside bombs.
Haven't heard of anyone dying by ingesting software yet, but those tests are probably still in the stage where they are being conducted on mice first.
Last July there was an article here on/. about Japanese publishers' concerns that people were using their phones' digital cameras to photograph magazine pages. I'd bet they are really worried now.
SCO is adding Microsoft to its suit, claiming portions of Windows NT are software to which SCO holds the license and which were used without its permission. SCO declined, however, to say what specific lines of code were involved in its claim.
There is a great temptation to see the uptake of chemicals into the body from the environment as a relatively new thing, and the article's mention of Rachel Carsons' 1962 book reinforces that perception. Isn't it safe to assume, though, that ever since Man mastered fire, we have been breathing in chemicals of one sort or another released by combustion? What did ancient man breathe in sitting around the yurt after a long day's mastadon hunting? There are also plants in our food chain that produce their own insecticides. In what quantity would those be found in the tissues of great-great-great-great-grandad? I think it would be more interesting if they funded a comparison of chemicals found in mummies, etc. with the chemicals found in humans now and then showed the change over time.
I thought sooner or later someone would suggest this.
Of course, you are right. Gyros are used in inertial navigation systems in aircraft. The US Army's AH-1 Cobra anti-tank helicopter was/is one such aircraft. The system had some problems, however, that had to do with gyroscopic precession and the frequency of hard banking maneuvers when flying close to the ground in nap-of-the-earth flight. Similar problems are likely to crop up using a gyro for inertial navigation in a small hand-held device.
I was an aeroscout back in the '80s flying tactical helicopter training missions in Germany. It was our job to find attack positions for the Cobras to shoot from and then lead them up to their firing points. Due to differences in loiter times, the aeroscout and the Cobras would leave the assembly area separately to fly forward to a pre-arranged meeting point. It often happened that the Cobra pilots would rely on their inertial navigation units to navigate to the point, but flying nap-of-the-earth and making many sharp turns and changes in altitude would cause the gyros to precess. The Cobra pilots would not notice the precession and would end up lost, kilometers away from the pre-arranged meeting points.
The Cobra pilots called it the inertial navigation system. The aeroscouts called it the "inert navigation system."
Got 'em right here. Well, they're not actually 3D though. They are solar eclipse glasses I still had laying around from a couple of years ago. We'll be going into production just as soon as we figure out how to can keep the really bright light you need to hold behind the page from burning its way through what you're reading.
There is clearly a requirement here for some sort of DRM for printed materials. What about something like those 3D glasses they used to hand out in theaters. Make it so you can only read the magazine with those glasses on.
Might have some interesting side effects for Playboy magazine.
(This is a joke - unless you want to patent this idea. Then it is prior art.)
Be that as it may, what makes this interesting to me is not only China's response, but the fact that 120 million people were using SMS to discuss and act on a single issue. And, there are other examples of this as well, such as the toppling of the Philipine president, tactical organization of WTO protestors, and the organization of protesters against the war in Iraq.
Thinking on a broader scope, these all seem to me to be examples of self-organization in the complexity theory sense of the term, and it has the potential to be more important than email because:
- it can be done on a relatively inexpensive devise I can slip into a pocket. - the user does not have to be "logged in" in the same way that one does in order to get email on a computer. (Yes, I am aware of the Blackberry, but it doesn't have the market share SMS-capable phones have.) - it is nearly instantaneous. The user is told that a message has arrived, and does not have to periodically check an account. - it doesn't have the language issues the web has because if people send SMS's to recipients in other countries, they will share a common language with the person to whom they have sent the message. The recipient is an intelligent translator who can retransmit the message in another language as necessary.
It would not surprise me to see global movements applying nearly instantaneous pressure on local governments in the not-too-distant future using SMS. With the increasing popularity of MMS and phones with built in cameras, we will even get pictures.
It is really interesting to me that neither the Sony product page nor the CNet article mention these device's power requirements or how long you can expect to use them before needing to recharge. When PDAs first hit the market, one of the selling points was how long you could go without changing the batteries. Then they became rechargeable, and for a little while the time between charges got some mention. Now, at least for these PDAs, it isn't mentioned at all.
What brought me in mind of this was a Steward Alsop article in Fortune magazine in which he notes that one of the hurdles to becoming truly wireless is the development of better mobile power sources. He neglects to mention the movement towards more efficient devices that is converging with efforts to find better power sources, but still he has a point.
...hardly anyone has a valid reason to run a mail server off a dialup; home users should go through the ISP's mail server.
Who define[sd] valid? You? Me? The government (yours, mine his)? ICANN? Spamcop? An acknowledged group of experts on new.admin.net-abuse.sightings? CowboyNeal? Point me to the appropriate RFC, ISO or international treaty.
Why should home users be forced to use their ISP's mail server? To make it easier on carnivore? To exert more control for control's sake? Because people doing something because they can is anarchic and generally not to be permitted?
"The organisation that you are in contract with that specifies what mail you have the right to receive or send."
Following that logic, if you slashed the tires of my leased car, I should expect the leasing company, and not you, to reimburse me for wages lost by my inability to get to work.
I am not in a contract with an organization that specifies what mail I have the right to receive or send. I am in a contract with an organization to provide me access. Period. That access is being infringed on by a third party that is not a party to my access contract.
Slashdot Mirror
I am assuming that one of the reasons that HP intends to market these in developing countries is that the prices they will ask will be lower than what they could expect to get in developed countries. So, even with a discount from the purchase price after a year of use, there is a possibility that the computers could be resold to purchasers in developed countries (hobbyists, user groups, etc.) at a price point close to what was originally paid for the machines or sold at a point below the purchase price to neighboring countries even less well off. The money earned from the sale of the "old" computers goes to buying newer computers (perhaps from HP if they do their marketing right and don't stifle the resale market). In the meantime, the computers help to establish an educated populace (possibly with world access via the Internet) and the business processes involved in the export work in a small way to help establish a middle class. It has been argued that both of these factors, an educated populace and a middle class, are instrumental in the development and preservation of constitutional liberal democracy.
Well, as a former pilot, I would be a bit concerned about the unreported, open source sonde collecting upper air data.
As for the public not sitting on a metric buttload of weather measuring gear, they weren't sitting on a metric buttload of WiFi gear at first either. If local measurement ever went open source, I suspect you'd see a lot of measuring equipment show up on the market.
...if there was a proven increase in the level of accuracy of the forecasts.
If the Private Weather Service is just repackaging NWS information, then I would prefer an open source app that downloads and collates the NWS XML feed.
But, if I pay for a premium service, and then you ask me what the weather is going to be like, do I violate the EULA when I tell you to take an umbrella?
From the NYT article: "Flying through the dust around Wild 2, the spacecraft gathered thousands of particles that are now being returned to Earth for closer investigation. A capsule holding the exotic cargo is to make a soft landing in the Utah desert in January 2006."
Time to start "Andromeda Strain" midnight showings in local theaters!
(Give me back my Sterno, you crybaby!)
They should print the source code on rolls of paper about six inches wide and four in diameter. It'll make reusing the paper after the trial much easier...
Hmmm...squeeze-ably soft source code!
This article seems to just confirm that Linus did what he said he was thinking of doing.
/. posting is here.
The original
We put it right next to the stereo speakers, and it harvested a lot of heavy metal too.
...you live in Area 51?
...you'd be pissing your life away.
Of course, software can be used to kill. What do you think guides cruise missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, HARMs, Stingers, Hellfires, etc. Any type of guided weapon is steered by software.
There is even software at use in the cell phones Iraqi insurgents use to trigger roadside bombs.
Haven't heard of anyone dying by ingesting software yet, but those tests are probably still in the stage where they are being conducted on mice first.
Last July there was an article here on /. about Japanese publishers' concerns that people were using their phones' digital cameras to photograph magazine pages. I'd bet they are really worried now.
...of what to do with a flash mob cluster after you've finished running Linpack on it.
SCO is adding Microsoft to its suit, claiming portions of Windows NT are software to which SCO holds the license and which were used without its permission. SCO declined, however, to say what specific lines of code were involved in its claim.
There is a great temptation to see the uptake of chemicals into the body from the environment as a relatively new thing, and the article's mention of Rachel Carsons' 1962 book reinforces that perception. Isn't it safe to assume, though, that ever since Man mastered fire, we have been breathing in chemicals of one sort or another released by combustion? What did ancient man breathe in sitting around the yurt after a long day's mastadon hunting? There are also plants in our food chain that produce their own insecticides. In what quantity would those be found in the tissues of great-great-great-great-grandad? I think it would be more interesting if they funded a comparison of chemicals found in mummies, etc. with the chemicals found in humans now and then showed the change over time.
Anyone else find it ironic that if you want to download the source from the OutGuess website, you can't because of a Michigan Super DMCA law?
If he lives in Michigan, maybe he should move his computer to Canada and distribute from there.
I thought sooner or later someone would suggest this.
Of course, you are right. Gyros are used in inertial navigation systems in aircraft. The US Army's AH-1 Cobra anti-tank helicopter was/is one such aircraft. The system had some problems, however, that had to do with gyroscopic precession and the frequency of hard banking maneuvers when flying close to the ground in nap-of-the-earth flight. Similar problems are likely to crop up using a gyro for inertial navigation in a small hand-held device.
I was an aeroscout back in the '80s flying tactical helicopter training missions in Germany. It was our job to find attack positions for the Cobras to shoot from and then lead them up to their firing points. Due to differences in loiter times, the aeroscout and the Cobras would leave the assembly area separately to fly forward to a pre-arranged meeting point. It often happened that the Cobra pilots would rely on their inertial navigation units to navigate to the point, but flying nap-of-the-earth and making many sharp turns and changes in altitude would cause the gyros to precess. The Cobra pilots would not notice the precession and would end up lost, kilometers away from the pre-arranged meeting points.
The Cobra pilots called it the inertial navigation system. The aeroscouts called it the "inert navigation system."
The supplement is also notorious for creating an unpleasant odour in the vicinity of the taker.
I heard that they had to give the control group garlic pills to keep the study "double blind".
Where can I get them 3D glasses ?
Got 'em right here. Well, they're not actually 3D though. They are solar eclipse glasses I still had laying around from a couple of years ago. We'll be going into production just as soon as we figure out how to can keep the really bright light you need to hold behind the page from burning its way through what you're reading.
There is clearly a requirement here for some sort of DRM for printed materials. What about something like those 3D glasses they used to hand out in theaters. Make it so you can only read the magazine with those glasses on.
Might have some interesting side effects for Playboy magazine.
(This is a joke - unless you want to patent this idea. Then it is prior art.)
Granted, having recently read Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Here is the /. review), I am probably somewhat oversensitive to stories like this.
Be that as it may, what makes this interesting to me is not only China's response, but the fact that 120 million people were using SMS to discuss and act on a single issue. And, there are other examples of this as well, such as the toppling of the Philipine president, tactical organization of WTO protestors, and the organization of protesters against the war in Iraq.
Thinking on a broader scope, these all seem to me to be examples of self-organization in the complexity theory sense of the term, and it has the potential to be more important than email because:
- it can be done on a relatively inexpensive devise I can slip into a pocket.
- the user does not have to be "logged in" in the same way that one does in order to get email on a computer. (Yes, I am aware of the Blackberry, but it doesn't have the market share SMS-capable phones have.)
- it is nearly instantaneous. The user is told that a message has arrived, and does not have to periodically check an account.
- it doesn't have the language issues the web has because if people send SMS's to recipients in other countries, they will share a common language with the person to whom they have sent the message. The recipient is an intelligent translator who can retransmit the message in another language as necessary.
It would not surprise me to see global movements applying nearly instantaneous pressure on local governments in the not-too-distant future using SMS. With the increasing popularity of MMS and phones with built in cameras, we will even get pictures.
It is really interesting to me that neither the Sony product page nor the CNet article mention these device's power requirements or how long you can expect to use them before needing to recharge. When PDAs first hit the market, one of the selling points was how long you could go without changing the batteries. Then they became rechargeable, and for a little while the time between charges got some mention. Now, at least for these PDAs, it isn't mentioned at all.
What brought me in mind of this was a Steward Alsop article in Fortune magazine in which he notes that one of the hurdles to becoming truly wireless is the development of better mobile power sources. He neglects to mention the movement towards more efficient devices that is converging with efforts to find better power sources, but still he has a point.
Who define[sd] valid? You? Me? The government (yours, mine his)? ICANN? Spamcop? An acknowledged group of experts on new.admin.net-abuse.sightings? CowboyNeal? Point me to the appropriate RFC, ISO or international treaty.
Why should home users be forced to use their ISP's mail server? To make it easier on carnivore? To exert more control for control's sake? Because people doing something because they can is anarchic and generally not to be permitted?
Well, no, that is not an accurate analogy, because XE.com, does not try to effect the dollar's exchange rate.
Spamcop does actively engage to try to effect the ratio of spam to non-spam email.
I run my own server. Tell me again how I am infringing on someone's right to free speech by electing to not receive their message?
I simply can't follow your logic.
It's my bandwidth, my server, my software, my electricity, and my choice to decide who I will talk to or not, right?
OK, let's say a spammer fakes an email to make it look like it came from your server, and you get put an the RBL.
It's your bandwidth, your server, your software, your electricity...and someone else has chosen to whom you can and cannot send email.
Would you support RBLs if you were an innocent victim? How would you feel being "collateral damage"?
"The organisation that you are in contract with that specifies what mail you have the right to receive or send."
Following that logic, if you slashed the tires of my leased car, I should expect the leasing company, and not you, to reimburse me for wages lost by my inability to get to work.
I am not in a contract with an organization that specifies what mail I have the right to receive or send. I am in a contract with an organization to provide me access. Period. That access is being infringed on by a third party that is not a party to my access contract.