Engineers can't design for the present, lest their products be obsolete-on-arrival. It's not unreasonable to think that storage and bus speeds will get faster, as will the speed of hard drives (SSDs are already increasing disk storage performance, though, granted, not many people have those, *yet*). If we are using optical externally to increase data transfer, there's no reason to think this tech won't be applied *internally* to allow the Mobo to send data to your SSD (or whatever other storage device tech comes out which replaces current HDD and SSD tech).
So, if this will support 10Gb/s on arrival (and one can suppose, based upon past experience with technology, that if the 'first generation' of this tech is 10Gbit/s, through refinement, they can scale that up faster over time - just like IDE and SCSI got much faster over the course of their lifespans), then this is probably a good candidate to push us forward for another 10 years, or maybe longer.
Yes, infrared is, in a way, the same thing, but the main difference, is speed. IrDA has been around for, what, a decade or longer? But, it's not 10 Gb/s.
I suppose I should add that I wasn't being serious about the Afghanistan thing. You are correct - while destroying their poppies with this weed would 'solve' the Opium problem, it would make things much worse, I'm pretty sure. It just seemed like too good a line to pass up.
Perhaps what they meant is that it's not easy to burn, because you need to maintain a very high heat to get it to burn at all? Not sure, just guessing here.
Anyhow, even if it does burn well, as you posit, it still wouldn't make a great biofuel . . . if it's such an ecological threat that it'll spread from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, eradicating pretty much all other plant life, how do you contain it where you *want* it to grow (as a biofuel crop) without wiping everything else out, causing mass starvation, possible extinctions of lots of types of plants, and then the animals that depend upon those other plants as fuel?
This sounds more like a biological weapon - drop this stuff in the Opium Poppy fields in Afghanistan lol.
Ok, the articles linked to by the summary are already slashdotted, and, even by slashdot standards (or lack), the/. article summary is highly confusing. . . Is Intel planning to use Moblin, VxWorks, or both? I mean, the article non-quoted text talks about Moblin, but the quote talks about VxWorks, so which is it?
Can someone who understands statistics and FDA trial phases explain something to me. . . Is a sample size of 12 really big enough to be a reasonable 'safety' trial? Or do they start with a small trial, just to find out if there's any problems so severe that they would affect almost *anyone*, then in future phases, increase the sample sizes to more and more test subjects, looking for those problems that only affect 1/1000 or 1/100000 patients?
screw their customers, because that allows for natural selection of successful businesses/management. What do I mean? I have this theory which I've yet to see fully dis-confirmed, that company's create their own competition. What do I mean by that? If you are a company, and you are providing good quality products or services, with good customer service, at reasonable rates, then (as long as you are of a large enough size to not just be clobbered by outspending by the competition), you could be a 'monopoly' and nobody would care. Put another way, if you are large enough, and your customers are happy, there is no opportunity for competitors to grow - you 'consume' that market.
But, when a business like an ISP does something like restricting people's internet access, it creates a vacuum of customer satisfaction, an opportunity for a competitor to step in, and grow.
Of course, when it comes to internet access, the problem is that, while it's not a true monopoly, the extremely limited number of cables that can be run to people's homes/businesses, and the limits of available spectrum for wireless services, means that there can never be more than maybe 10 ISPs in any area, and more importantly, it means there are high barriers to entry. Even though the market opportunity would otherwise be there for a new competitor in the ISP space, new competitors can't arise because it's impossible (or prohibitively expensive because of the extreme scarcity of spectrum or rights-of-way to run cable) for them to run cable or use spectrum.
Which is what this comes down to. While, as I stated above, in the general case of an open market where there are no artificial barriers to entry, I'd be very libertarian, but the capitalist/libertarian "model" simply fails when it comes to something like telecommunications, so there is a very reasonable argument for government regulation - because it is only by the power of the government that companies can run cable or use spectrum, so this IS NOT capitalism/a free market).
So, I have no problem telling people who panic about a 'socialist takeover of the Internet' that the Internet is not capitalistic to begin with. As long as the government isn't saying *what* data you are allowed to send over the Internet, or *who* you can send it to (as in the China/Iran model), I don't see government regulation as a threat to freedoms.
I don't understand why we even bother with signatures, anymore? Apparently, the only thing standing between me, and someone doing crap in my name, is them scrawling a signature which nobody is ever going to bother to check to see that it's legitimate, until it's far too late. The other problem is, I'm not even terribly consistent with how my signature looks. I've just never had the fine muscle control to get a very consistent signature, so I'd have a terrible time proving in court that any signature which looks remotely similar to mine, *isn't* mine.
Add to that the fact that, nowadays, most signatures are 'collected' on electronic signature pads, which I always find awkward to use (usually they are angled up at a funny angle to write on, and often times the calibration on them is so bad that the actual pixels which 'light up' are 1/4 inch away from where they stylus is actually touching the screen), and my signature comes out looking like *trash* on those signature pads. So, how am I supposed to prove that *this* sample of trash *isn't* my signature, but that sample of trash *is*?
There's also the problem that even if the signature comes out decently on the digital signature pad, someone could potentially snag a copy of the digital signature from the database, and use it somewhere else.
"Children's Watch Allows Perverts To Track Your Kids"
I'm sure the watch's makers will swear up and down it's impossible for anyone but the parent to track the kid. But, ultimately, there is at least the possibility any technology could be subverted. In this case, I'd be worried that some pervert would be able to find a way to track some kids, watch for patterns in their movements, and figure out the best time/place to snatch kids.
I disagree that scarcity was solved in The Next Generation and later series (I assume that's what you mean by "spinoffs"?) - here's why: replicators may have made *material* scarcity a 'solved' problem, but it seems like, from the series, not all things could be replicated - ships, for example, where manufactured in a semi-traditional manner, (that is, for example, I remember at least one episode of Deep Space 9 where we see a ship yard, and ships that are partly constructed - they didn't just 'replicate' entire star ships) where only so many ships could be created per week/month/year. Also, human labor - not everything was automated - humans were still necessary to do certain things. Since a human doesn't have infinite time in which to labor, there is still a scarcity of human labor per unit time.
Part of me has to wonder if someone else might have logged into the facebook account and left it for the victim to find, to implicate this other fellow?
Granted, there's probably more evidence to tie this guy to the burglary, but, I dunno, this seems *too* convenient.
But, if you want to be serious, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability" would pretty well describe the Earth and UFP of the Star Trek Universe. I don't remember the exact phrasing used, but I remember one (probably several, but it's a little fuzzy now) descriptions of the UFP "economy" in Star Trek which pretty much boiled down to that. Don't get me wrong - as an ideal, I don't see anything wrong with it, to inspire people to less greed. But, that quote, I started out with, is, of course, a famous Marxist maxim. Basically, the economic system described in Star Trek is communism. I'm not trying to red bait here, that's just what it is.
Also, right now that "artifact" (the Mac Computer, that is) belongs to Rodenberry's heirs (it's not entirely clear to me, right now, who the current owner of the computer is, or who the proceeds of the auction will go to, but it sounds like maybe it's Roddenberry's son?). Do you believe all property should revert to the State upon death? If so, that's communism. That's just what it is. If you don't think that, then isn't it up to the "owner" of the computer to decide what to do with it? Whoever owns the computer right now, decided they wished to sell it instead of donate it to a museum.
I mean, Indiana Jones was dealing with 'found' antiquities. I can see the argument that such antiquities really have no "proper" owner, and ownership shouldn't just go to the first person to touch it (i.e. the person that found it), so I have no problem with the notion that such antiquities should go to a public museum for all to see. But for people's belongings, if you think after their death, they revert to the public/state, then your philosophy is very close to some sort of communism or socialism, at least.
My guess would be that these compounds which repel the insects probably decay after a few hours or days? At which point,the other roaches come back and chow down?
"You've been able to download IPv6 support for XP from Microsoft for several years"
Furthermore, isn't IPv6 included with XP SP2 and later? So you don't even need a seperate download anymore - if you are running a patched version of XP, you *have* IPv6, I think? That is, it's not active, but if you go to the Network Connection properties for your network adapter, I think you can just 'add protocol' and select IPv6, and a few seconds later, it's all setup?
I've never heard of anyone work being done on IPv10. What are you talking about? Why would IPv6 be insufficient? Are you worried it doesn't have sufficient address space? There should be enough addresses in IPv6 for every person on the planet to have millions of addresses: the addressing scheme allows for 2^128 which is large enough that we'd only ever need to increase the address space if we intended to deploy billions of swarms of billions of individually addressed nano-bots.
Or is there some other technical deficiency of IPv6? Or are you just trolling?
There are plenty of online patent databases which 'mirror' the USPTO patent DB. Google even has one, and I doubt even slashdot could slashdot-effect google.
I suspect volume is exactly the problem. Although there is lots of plastic trash out there, I have a hard time believing we produce anywhere *near* enough plastic waste per day to supply enough fuel to even make a detectable impact on fuel prices. Granted, I might be wrong - I'm no expert. To try to get my head around this problem, I googled info on how many barrels of oil the US consumes per day, and how many gallons of gas are produced per barrel. The answers I found were that the US consumes about 20.68 Million bbl/day, and each barrel produces about 19.5 gallons of gas. So, that means we consumes roughly 400M gallons of gas per day.
Lets say that to affect the price of gas, you have to increase the amount of gas available by one percent (I think I'm being generous there - I suspect you'd need to increase supply something on the order of 3-5 percent to move gas prices, but I'll use 1 percent as a very conservative example). That means you have to produce about 4M gallons of gas. 3 percent would be 12M, 5 percent would be 20M. *EVERY DAY*.
That sounds like a *lot* of plastic.
Still, this sounds like a great opportunity for someone to make a small fortune. Since they probably won't be producing in enough volume to actually cause prices to change, it means they might be able to produce fuel at 1/8 or 1/10 the cost of other sources, but sell it for full price. That's really all this is about.
The other problem with a scheme like this, if you try to scale it up, is that as you consume more 'waste' as input, that waste will get more expensive to acquire. That is, I'm sure it's easy/cheap to get a few tons of plastic waste per day. Now, try getting 1000 tons of plastic waste every day, or 100,000 tons.
Still, nice little business, I'm sure, if you can get into it.
Based on one of the linked articles, I believe the risk posed by shower heads is not only that the bacteria grow there, but that when you are running the shower, some of the water becomes a fine mist which is easily inhaled. I've never had my sink faucet create a mist, though. But, you are right, I think, about the possibility of bacteria growing in the faucet. Apparently, inhalation is a bigger risk factor for these bacteria than ingestion.
The thing I'm wondering is, why would you *replace* the shower head, when most likely, can you deal with this problem as simply as soaking the shower head in a bleach-water solution once a month or something (might not even need to do it that often)?
While I generally agree with the point about immune systems, even a perfectly healthy person with a fine immune system could succumb if exposed to a sufficient concentration of these bacteria. Wouldn't an occasional cleaning of the shower head be more than enough to prevent such a dangerous buildup? Wouldn't that be simple, common sense ( I've always been taught that cleanliness is important to remain healthy, and that includes keeping kitchen, bathroom, etc clean)?
On further reflection, since this is a study on babies, I guess such distinctions can maybe be entirely excluded, as one would have no idea how the babies might eventually develop.
No, this isn't meant to be flaimbait. I just always wonder, do such studies include as subjects, men who might be considered 'effiminate', or women who might be considered 'masculine'?
The reason I ask is because, if they don't, it seems to me like the researchers are self-selecting for a particular outcome? How do these studies/hypothesis account for such . . . "non-typical"(?) individuals?
"After several months of looking, I was unable to find any science job, and switched to the tech industry."
Err, what's wrong with that? Don't get me wrong - I think there is absolutely a place/need for 'pure' science research, but right now, the economy is pretty hosed. There's not a lot of extra money out there for that type of research, I suppose? Applied Science - in this case, taking our current scientific knowledge and putting it to good economic uses, in the form of developing new technologies could help get the economy moving along better again, at which point there may be more available funds for further 'pure' research?
Slashdot Mirror
Engineers can't design for the present, lest their products be obsolete-on-arrival. It's not unreasonable to think that storage and bus speeds will get faster, as will the speed of hard drives (SSDs are already increasing disk storage performance, though, granted, not many people have those, *yet*). If we are using optical externally to increase data transfer, there's no reason to think this tech won't be applied *internally* to allow the Mobo to send data to your SSD (or whatever other storage device tech comes out which replaces current HDD and SSD tech).
So, if this will support 10Gb/s on arrival (and one can suppose, based upon past experience with technology, that if the 'first generation' of this tech is 10Gbit/s, through refinement, they can scale that up faster over time - just like IDE and SCSI got much faster over the course of their lifespans), then this is probably a good candidate to push us forward for another 10 years, or maybe longer.
Yes, infrared is, in a way, the same thing, but the main difference, is speed. IrDA has been around for, what, a decade or longer? But, it's not 10 Gb/s.
I suppose I should add that I wasn't being serious about the Afghanistan thing. You are correct - while destroying their poppies with this weed would 'solve' the Opium problem, it would make things much worse, I'm pretty sure. It just seemed like too good a line to pass up.
Perhaps what they meant is that it's not easy to burn, because you need to maintain a very high heat to get it to burn at all? Not sure, just guessing here.
Anyhow, even if it does burn well, as you posit, it still wouldn't make a great biofuel . . . if it's such an ecological threat that it'll spread from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, eradicating pretty much all other plant life, how do you contain it where you *want* it to grow (as a biofuel crop) without wiping everything else out, causing mass starvation, possible extinctions of lots of types of plants, and then the animals that depend upon those other plants as fuel?
This sounds more like a biological weapon - drop this stuff in the Opium Poppy fields in Afghanistan lol.
Ok, the articles linked to by the summary are already slashdotted, and, even by slashdot standards (or lack), the /. article summary is highly confusing. . . Is Intel planning to use Moblin, VxWorks, or both? I mean, the article non-quoted text talks about Moblin, but the quote talks about VxWorks, so which is it?
Can someone who understands statistics and FDA trial phases explain something to me. . . Is a sample size of 12 really big enough to be a reasonable 'safety' trial? Or do they start with a small trial, just to find out if there's any problems so severe that they would affect almost *anyone*, then in future phases, increase the sample sizes to more and more test subjects, looking for those problems that only affect 1/1000 or 1/100000 patients?
screw their customers, because that allows for natural selection of successful businesses/management. What do I mean? I have this theory which I've yet to see fully dis-confirmed, that company's create their own competition. What do I mean by that? If you are a company, and you are providing good quality products or services, with good customer service, at reasonable rates, then (as long as you are of a large enough size to not just be clobbered by outspending by the competition), you could be a 'monopoly' and nobody would care. Put another way, if you are large enough, and your customers are happy, there is no opportunity for competitors to grow - you 'consume' that market.
But, when a business like an ISP does something like restricting people's internet access, it creates a vacuum of customer satisfaction, an opportunity for a competitor to step in, and grow.
Of course, when it comes to internet access, the problem is that, while it's not a true monopoly, the extremely limited number of cables that can be run to people's homes/businesses, and the limits of available spectrum for wireless services, means that there can never be more than maybe 10 ISPs in any area, and more importantly, it means there are high barriers to entry. Even though the market opportunity would otherwise be there for a new competitor in the ISP space, new competitors can't arise because it's impossible (or prohibitively expensive because of the extreme scarcity of spectrum or rights-of-way to run cable) for them to run cable or use spectrum.
Which is what this comes down to. While, as I stated above, in the general case of an open market where there are no artificial barriers to entry, I'd be very libertarian, but the capitalist/libertarian "model" simply fails when it comes to something like telecommunications, so there is a very reasonable argument for government regulation - because it is only by the power of the government that companies can run cable or use spectrum, so this IS NOT capitalism/a free market).
So, I have no problem telling people who panic about a 'socialist takeover of the Internet' that the Internet is not capitalistic to begin with. As long as the government isn't saying *what* data you are allowed to send over the Internet, or *who* you can send it to (as in the China/Iran model), I don't see government regulation as a threat to freedoms.
What if you're missing one ear?
I don't understand why we even bother with signatures, anymore? Apparently, the only thing standing between me, and someone doing crap in my name, is them scrawling a signature which nobody is ever going to bother to check to see that it's legitimate, until it's far too late. The other problem is, I'm not even terribly consistent with how my signature looks. I've just never had the fine muscle control to get a very consistent signature, so I'd have a terrible time proving in court that any signature which looks remotely similar to mine, *isn't* mine.
Add to that the fact that, nowadays, most signatures are 'collected' on electronic signature pads, which I always find awkward to use (usually they are angled up at a funny angle to write on, and often times the calibration on them is so bad that the actual pixels which 'light up' are 1/4 inch away from where they stylus is actually touching the screen), and my signature comes out looking like *trash* on those signature pads. So, how am I supposed to prove that *this* sample of trash *isn't* my signature, but that sample of trash *is*?
There's also the problem that even if the signature comes out decently on the digital signature pad, someone could potentially snag a copy of the digital signature from the database, and use it somewhere else.
Signatures just strike me as completely useless.
"Children's Watch Allows Perverts To Track Your Kids"
I'm sure the watch's makers will swear up and down it's impossible for anyone but the parent to track the kid. But, ultimately, there is at least the possibility any technology could be subverted. In this case, I'd be worried that some pervert would be able to find a way to track some kids, watch for patterns in their movements, and figure out the best time/place to snatch kids.
So, will his status for the next 3-5 years be updated to:
JOHN PARKER is serving a sentence in the State Penn.
I disagree that scarcity was solved in The Next Generation and later series (I assume that's what you mean by "spinoffs"?) - here's why: replicators may have made *material* scarcity a 'solved' problem, but it seems like, from the series, not all things could be replicated - ships, for example, where manufactured in a semi-traditional manner, (that is, for example, I remember at least one episode of Deep Space 9 where we see a ship yard, and ships that are partly constructed - they didn't just 'replicate' entire star ships) where only so many ships could be created per week/month/year. Also, human labor - not everything was automated - humans were still necessary to do certain things. Since a human doesn't have infinite time in which to labor, there is still a scarcity of human labor per unit time.
Part of me has to wonder if someone else might have logged into the facebook account and left it for the victim to find, to implicate this other fellow?
Granted, there's probably more evidence to tie this guy to the burglary, but, I dunno, this seems *too* convenient.
First, I was mostly just going for laughs.
But, if you want to be serious, "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability" would pretty well describe the Earth and UFP of the Star Trek Universe. I don't remember the exact phrasing used, but I remember one (probably several, but it's a little fuzzy now) descriptions of the UFP "economy" in Star Trek which pretty much boiled down to that. Don't get me wrong - as an ideal, I don't see anything wrong with it, to inspire people to less greed. But, that quote, I started out with, is, of course, a famous Marxist maxim. Basically, the economic system described in Star Trek is communism. I'm not trying to red bait here, that's just what it is.
Also, right now that "artifact" (the Mac Computer, that is) belongs to Rodenberry's heirs (it's not entirely clear to me, right now, who the current owner of the computer is, or who the proceeds of the auction will go to, but it sounds like maybe it's Roddenberry's son?). Do you believe all property should revert to the State upon death? If so, that's communism. That's just what it is. If you don't think that, then isn't it up to the "owner" of the computer to decide what to do with it? Whoever owns the computer right now, decided they wished to sell it instead of donate it to a museum.
I mean, Indiana Jones was dealing with 'found' antiquities. I can see the argument that such antiquities really have no "proper" owner, and ownership shouldn't just go to the first person to touch it (i.e. the person that found it), so I have no problem with the notion that such antiquities should go to a public museum for all to see. But for people's belongings, if you think after their death, they revert to the public/state, then your philosophy is very close to some sort of communism or socialism, at least.
My guess would be that these compounds which repel the insects probably decay after a few hours or days? At which point,the other roaches come back and chow down?
"You've been able to download IPv6 support for XP from Microsoft for several years"
Furthermore, isn't IPv6 included with XP SP2 and later? So you don't even need a seperate download anymore - if you are running a patched version of XP, you *have* IPv6, I think? That is, it's not active, but if you go to the Network Connection properties for your network adapter, I think you can just 'add protocol' and select IPv6, and a few seconds later, it's all setup?
I've never heard of anyone work being done on IPv10. What are you talking about? Why would IPv6 be insufficient? Are you worried it doesn't have sufficient address space? There should be enough addresses in IPv6 for every person on the planet to have millions of addresses: the addressing scheme allows for 2^128 which is large enough that we'd only ever need to increase the address space if we intended to deploy billions of swarms of billions of individually addressed nano-bots.
Or is there some other technical deficiency of IPv6? Or are you just trolling?
In Gene's ideal world, all notion of money is gone. It's a communist utopia. It's time to evolve, people. Just give it to me. See, wasn't that simple?
There are plenty of online patent databases which 'mirror' the USPTO patent DB. Google even has one, and I doubt even slashdot could slashdot-effect google.
I suspect volume is exactly the problem. Although there is lots of plastic trash out there, I have a hard time believing we produce anywhere *near* enough plastic waste per day to supply enough fuel to even make a detectable impact on fuel prices. Granted, I might be wrong - I'm no expert. To try to get my head around this problem, I googled info on how many barrels of oil the US consumes per day, and how many gallons of gas are produced per barrel. The answers I found were that the US consumes about 20.68 Million bbl/day, and each barrel produces about 19.5 gallons of gas. So, that means we consumes roughly 400M gallons of gas per day.
Lets say that to affect the price of gas, you have to increase the amount of gas available by one percent (I think I'm being generous there - I suspect you'd need to increase supply something on the order of 3-5 percent to move gas prices, but I'll use 1 percent as a very conservative example). That means you have to produce about 4M gallons of gas. 3 percent would be 12M, 5 percent would be 20M. *EVERY DAY*.
That sounds like a *lot* of plastic.
Still, this sounds like a great opportunity for someone to make a small fortune. Since they probably won't be producing in enough volume to actually cause prices to change, it means they might be able to produce fuel at 1/8 or 1/10 the cost of other sources, but sell it for full price. That's really all this is about.
The other problem with a scheme like this, if you try to scale it up, is that as you consume more 'waste' as input, that waste will get more expensive to acquire. That is, I'm sure it's easy/cheap to get a few tons of plastic waste per day. Now, try getting 1000 tons of plastic waste every day, or 100,000 tons.
Still, nice little business, I'm sure, if you can get into it.
Based on one of the linked articles, I believe the risk posed by shower heads is not only that the bacteria grow there, but that when you are running the shower, some of the water becomes a fine mist which is easily inhaled. I've never had my sink faucet create a mist, though. But, you are right, I think, about the possibility of bacteria growing in the faucet. Apparently, inhalation is a bigger risk factor for these bacteria than ingestion.
The thing I'm wondering is, why would you *replace* the shower head, when most likely, can you deal with this problem as simply as soaking the shower head in a bleach-water solution once a month or something (might not even need to do it that often)?
While I generally agree with the point about immune systems, even a perfectly healthy person with a fine immune system could succumb if exposed to a sufficient concentration of these bacteria. Wouldn't an occasional cleaning of the shower head be more than enough to prevent such a dangerous buildup? Wouldn't that be simple, common sense ( I've always been taught that cleanliness is important to remain healthy, and that includes keeping kitchen, bathroom, etc clean)?
On further reflection, since this is a study on babies, I guess such distinctions can maybe be entirely excluded, as one would have no idea how the babies might eventually develop.
No, this isn't meant to be flaimbait. I just always wonder, do such studies include as subjects, men who might be considered 'effiminate', or women who might be considered 'masculine'?
The reason I ask is because, if they don't, it seems to me like the researchers are self-selecting for a particular outcome? How do these studies/hypothesis account for such . . . "non-typical"(?) individuals?
"After several months of looking, I was unable to find any science job, and switched to the tech industry."
Err, what's wrong with that? Don't get me wrong - I think there is absolutely a place/need for 'pure' science research, but right now, the economy is pretty hosed. There's not a lot of extra money out there for that type of research, I suppose? Applied Science - in this case, taking our current scientific knowledge and putting it to good economic uses, in the form of developing new technologies could help get the economy moving along better again, at which point there may be more available funds for further 'pure' research?