I think part of this is that they are trying to create engaging stories, not solve every problem with a clever technical solution. I've been watching Stargate SG-1 on Hulu lately (I wasn't watching much TV during the early years of SG1, and have a hard time getting into a show that's already 3-4 Seasons into it's story, so I'm catching up now).
One thing I've noticed about SG1 is they have a lot of episodes where they do something once, and then they never do it again, or even think to, even though it might be appropriate. Now, plausibly, some of that could be attributed to the Go'auld and Jaffa (I have no idea if I spelled those correctly) learning from previously used tactics, and not falling for the same thing twice, but still. There was one episode where they used missles launched from a UAV, and we basically never see those again (there's one other episode where it sort of comes into play - one of the missle bearing UAV's gets shot down, and Carter MacGuyver's the thing to fire manually.
But, I can respect that somewhat from a story-writing standpoint, because if there were a simple, easy answer for everything, the show would get pretty boring pretty fast, no?
As for your argument about using warp to crash into another ship with a runabout - what does kinetic energy have to do with Warp? We know that Warp violates both Relativity/Newtonian physics, which is where we get the concept of kinetic energy from. For all we know, inside of the sub-space warp bubble, the thing is only travelling a few hundred or thousand kilometers per hour. That is to say, we have no reason to believe you have *more* kinetic energy when warping, than you would with good old-fashion sub-light impulse engines.
I mean, if you are going to play "why didn't they" with Star Trek, one has to wonder why they bother firing photon torpedoes after an enemy's shields have been disabled. I mean, once they are disabled, you can use transporters, right? Just transport a photon torpedo into whatever part of the ship you want to attack, instead of 'firing' it at the ship, right? Why not use transporters as weapons, systematically? But, some answers, maybe, are just 'too easy' for good plot?
"but even the smallest similarity and a few dumb customers and Woolworth's has bad press."
There, fixed it for you. Seriously, how is it bad press for Apple if *someone else's* products are inferior, or if *someone else* is confusing their customers? If there is a possibility for confusion (which I don't really think there, is, but for the sake of argument), then it should be in Woolworth's financial interest not to get a reputation for 'shady' business practices.
Trademarks belong to categories (at least in U.S. - I think it's the same in most countries?). So, that is why you can have an "Apple" in the sound recording category, and an "Apple" in the computer and consumer electronics category.
So, Woolworth should be, I think, fine using that logo for retailing groceries. Even for selling computers, I think there's enough difference that it's *probably* protected. But at least for selling food, I should think this would be an open and shut case in favor of Wooworth, since it's a completely different category of goods & services?
"The Windows API has 95% of what you would need the C runtime to do."
Unless what you need the C runtime to do is to be cross-platform compatible. Then it has 0% of what I need the C runtime to do. The reason to have a standard c library, at all, was to make applications significantly more portable. That's why it's, I believe, part of the ANSI and ISO specifications of C, is it not? Sure, any vendor can create their own proprietary, non-portable, runtime library. I'm sure Microsoft would be delighted for you to use CreateFile, WriteFile, et al., because you've now tightly bound your C application to Windows. Of course, sometimes that's fine. Sometimes your app will be tightly bound by other things like DirectX, anyhow, so, might as well go native API's all the way.
But, if I'm using the C runtime library, it's because I'm trying to write portable code.
Wasn't one of the original goals of DLLs was to avoid lots of duplicate copies of the same runtime libraries littering up the hard drive, and RAM? It's my understanding that one of the 'advantages' of a DLL is that you could have 5, or 10, or 20 programs running, and they could all 'share' one copy of the DLL loaded in RAM? That if the DLL was already loaded in RAM by another program, it would also save a little bit of time that otherwise would have been required to load the DLL from disk, etc? I suppose, however, that since both hard drive space and RAM have gotten orders of magnitudes larger, faster, and cheaper than in the past, perhaps, for the sake of reliability, it does make sense to just go ahead and sacrifice some efficiency, as you suggest, by either having every program install their own directory-local copy, or even statically link.
"And there's simply no way the Bupkisville Free Chronicler can compete with the NY Times, WaPo, and The Times of London on that front."
Excellent point. Something which the original article's author skirts around, but never seems to quite get is one of his points "Know your competition". He talked a great deal about the two 'local' regional papers being in a 'war' to 'own' the local market. In the Internet age, I can get news from anywhere, instantly, usually for free (although, honestly, I'm not against paying for *some* content, if it actually is in-depth and original). The truth is, every newspaper is now in competition with *every other online newspaper*.
What we are going to see is industry consolidation. Not all newspapers will die. I don't expect the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, LaTimes or a few other large papers will all fold (though, even some of the 'majors' may die too). The best run, most innovative papers will continue to exist.
In a local/regional perspective, there will still, I think, be a need for regional and local reporting, and a demand for it. However, such local and regional reporting will probably be from small organizations which don't have a large staff, large building, or large expenses, so can be profitable with maybe 10 or 20 employees. Perhaps such 'organizations' will be small parts of larger news organizations, so that you go to a large regional newspaper (like, the Cincinnati Enquirer in my area), and they have a small, semi-independent organization/section inside which has one full-time staff reporter for each of the suburbs and communities in the greater Cinci area, and maybe 2-3 'at-large' reporters to help out all the dedicated reporters when they need extra staff to cover additional stories the one or two full-timers don't have time to cover.
When there is a cheaper, more efficient way to provide the products and services people want, smaller/cheaper wins. The past of newspapers was lots of large and medium-sized organizations with hundreds or maybe even thousands of employees, the future, I think, will be fewer, and smaller. There will still be large news organizations, but they will, I think, be smaller than they were in the past, and the smaller news organizations of the past will be very small in the future.
I never said all the food had to be local. Yes, I suppose, 'fortifying' some foods with minerals might be a good idea. Heck, in some cases, couldn't you add the deficient minerals to the topsoil as part of a fertilizer or something, and then it would start being in the local food? I'm just saying, a 'mineral implant' requires a medical professional of some sort (not necessarily a doctor - maybe it's something nurses could learn to do), which means that it wouldn't work for a lot of people, because they never go to a clinic or hospital.
But, everybody eats (assuming they have food available, except, of course, for anorexics, but that's a different problem). Getting people proper nutrition through food is the most practical way to get them proper nutrition.
"or distribute them to poor areas of the world with mineral deficiencies"
Wouldn't it make more sense to just, I dunno, help them to get a good supply of mineral-rich foods to eat, then they would have enough calories *and* enough vitamins and minerals? Everything we need in terms of vitamins and minerals is adequately supplied with a good diet. Those people need food, not implants.
. . . everyone seems to misunderstand the patent system. Now, I'm no patent lawyer, but I have at least some basic understanding.
I believe that Apple doesn't have a grand, generic patent on any possible scheme to cripple cellphones. It's close to impossible to get a universal patent covering an abstract idea, unless the nature of the idea is such that there is only one possible way to accomplish it (which is very rare). Patent's are required to included a list of claims, which is a fairly specific, technical listing of how the 'invention' is implemented. If you can come up with a way to accomplish the same goal using different techniques, then I believe you don't infringe the patent. In fact, I think you need only differ by one claim, and the rest of the patent could be the same, and it would still be considered non-infringing (again, I am not a patent lawyer, but that seems to be what all the patent lawyers I've seen write articles about these sort of patents indicate).
When discussing patents, the first thing anyone should do is *read the patent*, which, this being/., no one does, apparently.
They have a patent on a particular scheme. One that involves a signed blacklist file which specifies resources/apps which *are not* allowed, while, one presumes, everything else is allowed.
So, one way to avoid the Apple patent, it would appear, is to switch to a whitelist model where everything is disallowed unless specifically allowed by the provisioning profile. That actually sounds much more like the way the control freaks at the mobile carriers would probably prefer to screw their customers, so if they wanted to do that, I don't *think* this patent would stop them. I'm sure someone could come up with other schemes, even, which would not infringe the particular scheme Apple is using.
I might be wrong, but wasn't JT disbarred and not allowed to practice law anymore? Wouldn't that mean that his lawsuits would have to be 'prosecuted' by another attorney?
Integration only wins when the integrated chip is "good enough". Intel has had "integrated, accelerated" graphics chips on their mobos for ages, but they've been so monumentally inferior, that anyone who wanted to play even 'older' 3D games like Q3-engine based games, far cry, unreal , most MMOGs released in the last 6 years, etc, needed to add-on a GPU.
From the reviews I've seen, unless you want to muck around with real-time ray tracing (which Intel still hasn't gotten up to very good performance, from what I understand, but they are still working on it), Larabee will still be inferior to nVidia and AMD/ATI GPUs. If they prove me wrong, and Larabee really is "good enough", then you might be right.
What it comes down to is, for nVidia to survive, they either have to a) come out with some tech breakthroughs that keep their chips much superior to Intel/AMD, then convince developers to forget about compatibility with such "inferior" chips (unlikely, but, hey, maybe possible?), b) start releasing their own CPU/Mobo/Integrated chip stacks (they are already working on this some, particularly in the ultra-mobile/netbook and htpc/media center device space), c) work with third-party Mobo manufacturers to integrate their chips into the mobos instead of Intel or AMD (I think they've been doing this for a couple years now?), d) get some big console 'win' - like convincing Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo to use nVidia chips as the basis of their next generation console offering, e) All of the above.
I'm not ready to count nVidia out just yet, because they've been laying the groundwork for 4 or 5 years to have their own tech integrated into motherboards and devices.
Unless this compound does something like absorbing the RF, and in the process, attain a slightly higher temperature/thermal energy state. If that's the case, it would be like shining your flashlight on a black surface (most 'black' paint still reflects some light, but I hope you get the idea).
1) You only have access to public defenders when accused of a criminal violation, not a civil violationi
2) Most public defender offices are understaffed and underpaid. Subsequently, there's lots of horror stories about how people can't get the time of day from their public defender, and at least some innocent people 'defended' by public defenders who didn't get adequate legal defense, so end up going to jail for crimes they didn't commit.
So, maybe it's a great idea to bring the same approach of overworking and underfunding healthcare providers to health care, as we do with legal representation.
So, in both cases, if you depend on the government, I guess, you'll probably end up bending over and kissing your ass goodbye, courtesy of the government.
Well, if we are proposing new power technologies, how about something *slightly* more practical, like small scale fuel cells? Or, if you want to go really pie-in-the-sky, how about small scale atomic batteries or radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Change your batteries every 15-20 years.
"DUnno how long polished rock retains it's polished look."
I suppose that depends upon how the rock is treated/stored. Store it outside in the weather, and I bet it starts to become pretty beat up inside of 100 years (go to any graveyard for good examples). Store it in a nice stone box, in a drive cave or stone temple in the desert or other relatively dry place, and I bet it lasts many thousands of years.
Maybe instead of chiselling 1's and 0's onto the slab, he could use something like bar-code encoding when he chisels. That way, to 'read' the data, all one has to do is fill the depressions with some suitable bright-colored paint or pigmentation, then use a laser to scan it.
Parent is absolutely correct. People, apparently even people who work with digital for a living, seem to miss one of the most important inherent attributes of digital technology: as long as the original copy has not become corrupt, it is possible to create *perfect* copies. This means that the most important part of preserving any digital work, is to *copy* it to another medium, before the previous medium/copy becomes unreadable.
The only other issue, as another poster mentioned, is making sure that the data is in a format that current software knows how to read/decode, so you must also give them the right to transcode or otherwise export the work to other digital formats. (For example, transforming 3D model, texture, animation, and scene data from one format to another
As long as you give the museum the right to make backup copies and export/transform, there's NOTHING else you have to do to make sure the work will be preserved for the generations - at that point, it is the responsibility of the curators to preserve it.
We're not talking about an oil-on-canvas, or some sort of plaster fresco here, we're talking about digital. With digital, the storage medium is not inherently important (if it were, then you'd have to sell them your hard drive).
This article is a classic example of why you shouldn't take legal advice from slashdot posts.
Note, I am not a lawyer, but that doesn't mean I can't find credible sources/links which show this guys doesn't know jack nor shit about what he's talking about.
First, yes, as someone pointed out, copyright laws vary somewhat from country to country. However, thanks to treaties, like the Berne Convention, which has been signed by most of the world's countries (although, not all the countries necessarily enforce it vigorously) they have become fairly standardized.
For the following statements, I've referenced wikipedia articles (which, I suppose might be wrong, but I have a fair amount of confidence in the accuracy), as well as the US Copyright Office website:
1) Copyright is longer than 10 years in most countries, and particularly, in the US, Europe and Japan (50 years for Japan, 70 years for US and Europe). So there is no way this is public domain (note: I am, personally of the opinion that copyright on software *should* be about 10 years, maybe renewable for another 10, but want you or I want, and what is law, are two separate things, and you'd do well to remember that).
2) You don't have to bother to copyright something. In all Berne Convention copyright regimes, copyright is *automatic* at the moment a work is put in a fixed form. So,
"But technically, is it even copyrighted if he didn't submit it to the Copyright Office, or is it just a banner he put there to scare people?"
Yes, to the extent that something he claims copyright on is actually his original work, it *is* copyrighted. Whether he'll enforce the copyright or not, is a different question, which I cannot answer.
Yes, but my point was, the 'old' laptops which people have which don't have USB 3.0 *built in*, will have ExpressCard. The laptop with the ExpressCard 2.0 built-in will *almost certainly* have USB 3.0 built in. So, to get the full benefits of USB 3.0, you'll have to upgrade to a new laptop, which will have USB 3.0 built-in, so why use an ExpressCard adapter?
Like I said, I guess jumping from 480Mbit/s to 2.5Gbit/s would still be a good improvement, though, for people with ExpressCard laptops who don't want to get a whole new laptop.
Will the USB standard be able to handle 'intermediate' data rates, faster than 480Mbit/s, but slower than the full USB 3.0 max speed? Or will the adapters just drop down to USB 2.0 compatibility mode on an ExpressCard v1 Bus?
"If they're not open sourcing them, I fail to see why they would allow this kind of thing without giving specific exceptions."
Well, because, they are, I believe, basically distributed 'by default' with Android, so users expect them to be present. The underlying OS is Open Source. So, now, as an Open Source developer, Cyanogen can mod the operating system (as is his right, per the license for Android), but because he can't distribute the proprietary parts from Google, if any users try to get the "benefits" of Open Source by downloading the modified Android, they lose the Google Apps.
I suppose another way Google could address this satisfactorily would be to allow the end-users to download the Google Apps to their phone again after installing the modified version of Android.
But, an "Open Source" platform, which you can't redistribute core parts of, really fails to be usefully "Open". Yes, I'd think it'd be great if Google went the next step and Open Sourced the apps, but if they're not going to do that, at least let Open Source devs redistribute the unmodified binaries to their end users (or, as I said, let them download them again).
Seems to me that the most reasonable compromise, for all involved, is for Google to allow redistribution without modification of their closed source software. Yes, Google has the legal right to make cyanogen stop distributing, but how does that benefit Google? Lots of 'proprietary' software are distributed as.zip or.exe files which the license allows you to make verbatim copies of. This is slightly different, because the software is incorporated as part of a ROM image, but as long as the software inside the ROM image isn't modified, Google should just let him distribute. He's not hurting them in any real way.
They just take the laptop and return it to you six months later after a thourough search through all your personal files.
I still just don't understand how this isn't in clear violation of the constitutional protections against unreasonable search and siezure. Someone tried to explain it last time this topic came up in one form or another, but I cannot possibly believe the founding fathers intended that, no, the government cannot search your private papers/informmation. Unless, you know, it really *wants to*.
How is it that I, as a U.S. citizen, who has commited no crime, and there is no evidence to indicate I might have committed a crime, lose my right to privacy simply because I choose to visit another country? B.S.
I was intrigued by the statement in the article about connecting to a laptop via PC Card. From the linked article:
"USB 3.0 boosts the theoretical data throughput of USB storage devices to 4.8Gbit/s from USB 2.0's now rather tardy-sounding 480Mbit/s."
Unfortunately, according to WikiPedia, the ExpressCard standard (which is the latest version of PC Card) tops out at 2.5Gbit/s, which, granted, is a lot better than 480Mbit/s, but still only about 1/2 the max speed defined by the USB 3.0 standard. Sounds to me like the PC Card/ExpressCard bus needs to evolve to keep up (although, honestly, I suppose you can say that, largely, the PC Card slot has become redundant because of USB3/FirewireS3200/eSata; anything faster than those will require you to upgrade your laptop, anyhow, to get a faster PC Card slot, so just upgrade to get a faster USB/Firewire/eSata, and forget about PC Card altogether).
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I think part of this is that they are trying to create engaging stories, not solve every problem with a clever technical solution. I've been watching Stargate SG-1 on Hulu lately (I wasn't watching much TV during the early years of SG1, and have a hard time getting into a show that's already 3-4 Seasons into it's story, so I'm catching up now).
One thing I've noticed about SG1 is they have a lot of episodes where they do something once, and then they never do it again, or even think to, even though it might be appropriate. Now, plausibly, some of that could be attributed to the Go'auld and Jaffa (I have no idea if I spelled those correctly) learning from previously used tactics, and not falling for the same thing twice, but still. There was one episode where they used missles launched from a UAV, and we basically never see those again (there's one other episode where it sort of comes into play - one of the missle bearing UAV's gets shot down, and Carter MacGuyver's the thing to fire manually.
But, I can respect that somewhat from a story-writing standpoint, because if there were a simple, easy answer for everything, the show would get pretty boring pretty fast, no?
As for your argument about using warp to crash into another ship with a runabout - what does kinetic energy have to do with Warp? We know that Warp violates both Relativity/Newtonian physics, which is where we get the concept of kinetic energy from. For all we know, inside of the sub-space warp bubble, the thing is only travelling a few hundred or thousand kilometers per hour. That is to say, we have no reason to believe you have *more* kinetic energy when warping, than you would with good old-fashion sub-light impulse engines.
I mean, if you are going to play "why didn't they" with Star Trek, one has to wonder why they bother firing photon torpedoes after an enemy's shields have been disabled. I mean, once they are disabled, you can use transporters, right? Just transport a photon torpedo into whatever part of the ship you want to attack, instead of 'firing' it at the ship, right? Why not use transporters as weapons, systematically? But, some answers, maybe, are just 'too easy' for good plot?
"Doesn't God have prior art?"
Yes, yes, that's why he's suing Woolworth's.
"but even the smallest similarity and a few dumb customers and Woolworth's has bad press."
There, fixed it for you. Seriously, how is it bad press for Apple if *someone else's* products are inferior, or if *someone else* is confusing their customers? If there is a possibility for confusion (which I don't really think there, is, but for the sake of argument), then it should be in Woolworth's financial interest not to get a reputation for 'shady' business practices.
Trademarks belong to categories (at least in U.S. - I think it's the same in most countries?). So, that is why you can have an "Apple" in the sound recording category, and an "Apple" in the computer and consumer electronics category.
So, Woolworth should be, I think, fine using that logo for retailing groceries. Even for selling computers, I think there's enough difference that it's *probably* protected. But at least for selling food, I should think this would be an open and shut case in favor of Wooworth, since it's a completely different category of goods & services?
"The Windows API has 95% of what you would need the C runtime to do."
Unless what you need the C runtime to do is to be cross-platform compatible. Then it has 0% of what I need the C runtime to do. The reason to have a standard c library, at all, was to make applications significantly more portable. That's why it's, I believe, part of the ANSI and ISO specifications of C, is it not? Sure, any vendor can create their own proprietary, non-portable, runtime library. I'm sure Microsoft would be delighted for you to use CreateFile, WriteFile, et al., because you've now tightly bound your C application to Windows. Of course, sometimes that's fine. Sometimes your app will be tightly bound by other things like DirectX, anyhow, so, might as well go native API's all the way.
But, if I'm using the C runtime library, it's because I'm trying to write portable code.
Wasn't one of the original goals of DLLs was to avoid lots of duplicate copies of the same runtime libraries littering up the hard drive, and RAM? It's my understanding that one of the 'advantages' of a DLL is that you could have 5, or 10, or 20 programs running, and they could all 'share' one copy of the DLL loaded in RAM? That if the DLL was already loaded in RAM by another program, it would also save a little bit of time that otherwise would have been required to load the DLL from disk, etc? I suppose, however, that since both hard drive space and RAM have gotten orders of magnitudes larger, faster, and cheaper than in the past, perhaps, for the sake of reliability, it does make sense to just go ahead and sacrifice some efficiency, as you suggest, by either having every program install their own directory-local copy, or even statically link.
"And there's simply no way the Bupkisville Free Chronicler can compete with the NY Times, WaPo, and The Times of London on that front."
Excellent point. Something which the original article's author skirts around, but never seems to quite get is one of his points "Know your competition". He talked a great deal about the two 'local' regional papers being in a 'war' to 'own' the local market. In the Internet age, I can get news from anywhere, instantly, usually for free (although, honestly, I'm not against paying for *some* content, if it actually is in-depth and original). The truth is, every newspaper is now in competition with *every other online newspaper*.
What we are going to see is industry consolidation. Not all newspapers will die. I don't expect the NYT, WSJ, WaPo, LaTimes or a few other large papers will all fold (though, even some of the 'majors' may die too). The best run, most innovative papers will continue to exist.
In a local/regional perspective, there will still, I think, be a need for regional and local reporting, and a demand for it. However, such local and regional reporting will probably be from small organizations which don't have a large staff, large building, or large expenses, so can be profitable with maybe 10 or 20 employees. Perhaps such 'organizations' will be small parts of larger news organizations, so that you go to a large regional newspaper (like, the Cincinnati Enquirer in my area), and they have a small, semi-independent organization/section inside which has one full-time staff reporter for each of the suburbs and communities in the greater Cinci area, and maybe 2-3 'at-large' reporters to help out all the dedicated reporters when they need extra staff to cover additional stories the one or two full-timers don't have time to cover.
When there is a cheaper, more efficient way to provide the products and services people want, smaller/cheaper wins. The past of newspapers was lots of large and medium-sized organizations with hundreds or maybe even thousands of employees, the future, I think, will be fewer, and smaller. There will still be large news organizations, but they will, I think, be smaller than they were in the past, and the smaller news organizations of the past will be very small in the future.
I never said all the food had to be local. Yes, I suppose, 'fortifying' some foods with minerals might be a good idea. Heck, in some cases, couldn't you add the deficient minerals to the topsoil as part of a fertilizer or something, and then it would start being in the local food? I'm just saying, a 'mineral implant' requires a medical professional of some sort (not necessarily a doctor - maybe it's something nurses could learn to do), which means that it wouldn't work for a lot of people, because they never go to a clinic or hospital.
But, everybody eats (assuming they have food available, except, of course, for anorexics, but that's a different problem). Getting people proper nutrition through food is the most practical way to get them proper nutrition.
"or distribute them to poor areas of the world with mineral deficiencies"
Wouldn't it make more sense to just, I dunno, help them to get a good supply of mineral-rich foods to eat, then they would have enough calories *and* enough vitamins and minerals? Everything we need in terms of vitamins and minerals is adequately supplied with a good diet. Those people need food, not implants.
. . . everyone seems to misunderstand the patent system. Now, I'm no patent lawyer, but I have at least some basic understanding.
I believe that Apple doesn't have a grand, generic patent on any possible scheme to cripple cellphones. It's close to impossible to get a universal patent covering an abstract idea, unless the nature of the idea is such that there is only one possible way to accomplish it (which is very rare). Patent's are required to included a list of claims, which is a fairly specific, technical listing of how the 'invention' is implemented. If you can come up with a way to accomplish the same goal using different techniques, then I believe you don't infringe the patent. In fact, I think you need only differ by one claim, and the rest of the patent could be the same, and it would still be considered non-infringing (again, I am not a patent lawyer, but that seems to be what all the patent lawyers I've seen write articles about these sort of patents indicate).
When discussing patents, the first thing anyone should do is *read the patent*, which, this being /., no one does, apparently.
They have a patent on a particular scheme. One that involves a signed blacklist file which specifies resources/apps which *are not* allowed, while, one presumes, everything else is allowed.
So, one way to avoid the Apple patent, it would appear, is to switch to a whitelist model where everything is disallowed unless specifically allowed by the provisioning profile. That actually sounds much more like the way the control freaks at the mobile carriers would probably prefer to screw their customers, so if they wanted to do that, I don't *think* this patent would stop them. I'm sure someone could come up with other schemes, even, which would not infringe the particular scheme Apple is using.
I might be wrong, but wasn't JT disbarred and not allowed to practice law anymore? Wouldn't that mean that his lawsuits would have to be 'prosecuted' by another attorney?
Integration only wins when the integrated chip is "good enough". Intel has had "integrated, accelerated" graphics chips on their mobos for ages, but they've been so monumentally inferior, that anyone who wanted to play even 'older' 3D games like Q3-engine based games, far cry, unreal , most MMOGs released in the last 6 years, etc, needed to add-on a GPU.
From the reviews I've seen, unless you want to muck around with real-time ray tracing (which Intel still hasn't gotten up to very good performance, from what I understand, but they are still working on it), Larabee will still be inferior to nVidia and AMD/ATI GPUs. If they prove me wrong, and Larabee really is "good enough", then you might be right.
What it comes down to is, for nVidia to survive, they either have to a) come out with some tech breakthroughs that keep their chips much superior to Intel/AMD, then convince developers to forget about compatibility with such "inferior" chips (unlikely, but, hey, maybe possible?), b) start releasing their own CPU/Mobo/Integrated chip stacks (they are already working on this some, particularly in the ultra-mobile/netbook and htpc/media center device space), c) work with third-party Mobo manufacturers to integrate their chips into the mobos instead of Intel or AMD (I think they've been doing this for a couple years now?), d) get some big console 'win' - like convincing Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo to use nVidia chips as the basis of their next generation console offering, e) All of the above.
I'm not ready to count nVidia out just yet, because they've been laying the groundwork for 4 or 5 years to have their own tech integrated into motherboards and devices.
Unless this compound does something like absorbing the RF, and in the process, attain a slightly higher temperature/thermal energy state. If that's the case, it would be like shining your flashlight on a black surface (most 'black' paint still reflects some light, but I hope you get the idea).
You know, I thought this sounded awefully darn familiar.
Maybe you can use an isotope other than plutonium? Something which requires less shielding?
Anyhow, my real point was the fuel cells. Those are supposed to become a reality "sometime real soon" (maybe).
They are called public defenders.
1) You only have access to public defenders when accused of a criminal violation, not a civil violationi
2) Most public defender offices are understaffed and underpaid. Subsequently, there's lots of horror stories about how people can't get the time of day from their public defender, and at least some innocent people 'defended' by public defenders who didn't get adequate legal defense, so end up going to jail for crimes they didn't commit.
So, maybe it's a great idea to bring the same approach of overworking and underfunding healthcare providers to health care, as we do with legal representation.
So, in both cases, if you depend on the government, I guess, you'll probably end up bending over and kissing your ass goodbye, courtesy of the government.
Well, if we are proposing new power technologies, how about something *slightly* more practical, like small scale fuel cells? Or, if you want to go really pie-in-the-sky, how about small scale atomic batteries or radioisotope thermoelectric generators. Change your batteries every 15-20 years.
"DUnno how long polished rock retains it's polished look."
I suppose that depends upon how the rock is treated/stored. Store it outside in the weather, and I bet it starts to become pretty beat up inside of 100 years (go to any graveyard for good examples). Store it in a nice stone box, in a drive cave or stone temple in the desert or other relatively dry place, and I bet it lasts many thousands of years.
Maybe instead of chiselling 1's and 0's onto the slab, he could use something like bar-code encoding when he chisels. That way, to 'read' the data, all one has to do is fill the depressions with some suitable bright-colored paint or pigmentation, then use a laser to scan it.
Parent is absolutely correct. People, apparently even people who work with digital for a living, seem to miss one of the most important inherent attributes of digital technology: as long as the original copy has not become corrupt, it is possible to create *perfect* copies. This means that the most important part of preserving any digital work, is to *copy* it to another medium, before the previous medium/copy becomes unreadable.
The only other issue, as another poster mentioned, is making sure that the data is in a format that current software knows how to read/decode, so you must also give them the right to transcode or otherwise export the work to other digital formats. (For example, transforming 3D model, texture, animation, and scene data from one format to another
As long as you give the museum the right to make backup copies and export/transform, there's NOTHING else you have to do to make sure the work will be preserved for the generations - at that point, it is the responsibility of the curators to preserve it.
We're not talking about an oil-on-canvas, or some sort of plaster fresco here, we're talking about digital. With digital, the storage medium is not inherently important (if it were, then you'd have to sell them your hard drive).
This article is a classic example of why you shouldn't take legal advice from slashdot posts.
Note, I am not a lawyer, but that doesn't mean I can't find credible sources/links which show this guys doesn't know jack nor shit about what he's talking about.
First, yes, as someone pointed out, copyright laws vary somewhat from country to country. However, thanks to treaties, like the Berne Convention, which has been signed by most of the world's countries (although, not all the countries necessarily enforce it vigorously) they have become fairly standardized.
For the following statements, I've referenced wikipedia articles (which, I suppose might be wrong, but I have a fair amount of confidence in the accuracy), as well as the US Copyright Office website:
1) Copyright is longer than 10 years in most countries, and particularly, in the US, Europe and Japan (50 years for Japan, 70 years for US and Europe). So there is no way this is public domain (note: I am, personally of the opinion that copyright on software *should* be about 10 years, maybe renewable for another 10, but want you or I want, and what is law, are two separate things, and you'd do well to remember that).
2) You don't have to bother to copyright something. In all Berne Convention copyright regimes, copyright is *automatic* at the moment a work is put in a fixed form. So,
"But technically, is it even copyrighted if he didn't submit it to the Copyright Office, or is it just a banner he put there to scare people?"
Yes, to the extent that something he claims copyright on is actually his original work, it *is* copyrighted. Whether he'll enforce the copyright or not, is a different question, which I cannot answer.
Yes, but my point was, the 'old' laptops which people have which don't have USB 3.0 *built in*, will have ExpressCard. The laptop with the ExpressCard 2.0 built-in will *almost certainly* have USB 3.0 built in. So, to get the full benefits of USB 3.0, you'll have to upgrade to a new laptop, which will have USB 3.0 built-in, so why use an ExpressCard adapter?
Like I said, I guess jumping from 480Mbit/s to 2.5Gbit/s would still be a good improvement, though, for people with ExpressCard laptops who don't want to get a whole new laptop.
Will the USB standard be able to handle 'intermediate' data rates, faster than 480Mbit/s, but slower than the full USB 3.0 max speed? Or will the adapters just drop down to USB 2.0 compatibility mode on an ExpressCard v1 Bus?
"If they're not open sourcing them, I fail to see why they would allow this kind of thing without giving specific exceptions."
Well, because, they are, I believe, basically distributed 'by default' with Android, so users expect them to be present. The underlying OS is Open Source. So, now, as an Open Source developer, Cyanogen can mod the operating system (as is his right, per the license for Android), but because he can't distribute the proprietary parts from Google, if any users try to get the "benefits" of Open Source by downloading the modified Android, they lose the Google Apps.
I suppose another way Google could address this satisfactorily would be to allow the end-users to download the Google Apps to their phone again after installing the modified version of Android.
But, an "Open Source" platform, which you can't redistribute core parts of, really fails to be usefully "Open". Yes, I'd think it'd be great if Google went the next step and Open Sourced the apps, but if they're not going to do that, at least let Open Source devs redistribute the unmodified binaries to their end users (or, as I said, let them download them again).
Seems to me that the most reasonable compromise, for all involved, is for Google to allow redistribution without modification of their closed source software. Yes, Google has the legal right to make cyanogen stop distributing, but how does that benefit Google? Lots of 'proprietary' software are distributed as .zip or .exe files which the license allows you to make verbatim copies of. This is slightly different, because the software is incorporated as part of a ROM image, but as long as the software inside the ROM image isn't modified, Google should just let him distribute. He's not hurting them in any real way.
They just take the laptop and return it to you six months later after a thourough search through all your personal files.
I still just don't understand how this isn't in clear violation of the constitutional protections against unreasonable search and siezure. Someone tried to explain it last time this topic came up in one form or another, but I cannot possibly believe the founding fathers intended that, no, the government cannot search your private papers/informmation. Unless, you know, it really *wants to*.
How is it that I, as a U.S. citizen, who has commited no crime, and there is no evidence to indicate I might have committed a crime, lose my right to privacy simply because I choose to visit another country? B.S.
I was intrigued by the statement in the article about connecting to a laptop via PC Card. From the linked article:
"USB 3.0 boosts the theoretical data throughput of USB storage devices to 4.8Gbit/s from USB 2.0's now rather tardy-sounding 480Mbit/s."
Unfortunately, according to WikiPedia, the ExpressCard standard (which is the latest version of PC Card) tops out at 2.5Gbit/s, which, granted, is a lot better than 480Mbit/s, but still only about 1/2 the max speed defined by the USB 3.0 standard. Sounds to me like the PC Card/ExpressCard bus needs to evolve to keep up (although, honestly, I suppose you can say that, largely, the PC Card slot has become redundant because of USB3/FirewireS3200/eSata; anything faster than those will require you to upgrade your laptop, anyhow, to get a faster PC Card slot, so just upgrade to get a faster USB/Firewire/eSata, and forget about PC Card altogether).