From the article: "The researchers filed their patent claim on the artificial organism and on its genome."
These guys have created a brand new form of life from the ground up and are patenting their particular genome. It's hard work, and certainly not obvious or trivial. Given that other biological systems are patentable (e.g., the Harvard mouse, new strains of wheat), this certainly seems to clear the bar for patentability.
I just attended a (non-classified) talk from a department of the Canadian government about the role of FOSS in our military. A few interesting points:
* On average, commercial, off the shelf software (COTS) tended to be slightly cheaper for life cycles in the mid-term range, which seemed to be 5-12 years or so. Shorter than that FOSS was best because of the low up-front costs, while on the longer term the lack of vendor support for COTS was a concern. The number that was thrown out was COTS being about 15% cheaper for the mid-term, although there were cases where FOSS was still better.
* To avoid finger pointing between the OS and application manufacturers during bug hunts, it was desirable for a single company/consultant group to take responsibility for all software. They weren't inclined to wait in a war zone while tech guys played telephone tag while repairing a bug. The ideal would be to purchase hardware from a given supplier, and having one contact point for all software.
* Long-term software support was a concern for both COTS and FOSS, but the ability to either maintain the software yourself (least desirable) or form a consortium with other like-minded entities was an advantage for FOSS.
* Licensing was identified as a major hassle. The speaker identified that computer types are very highly trained from a technical perspective, but not trained from a legal standpoint, so navigating through licensing conditions was a problem. They were hoping our Treasury Board could handle government-wide licensing issues.
* There was definite interest in shifting the computer systems on-board our latest warships from HP-UNIX to Linux-based systems to avoid the vendor end-of-lifing the systems.
The talk continued on to discuss issues related to hardening systems from attacks, but I didn't stay for the whole thing. Just before I left, the speaker was bemoaning that while FOSS gave great tools for the good guys, they also empowered the foreign script-kiddies as well, so it was a two-edged sword.
Lobbyin is the weakest part of US democracy. I am really not a US basher (a colleague says I am a disguised CIA operative), but I don't understand what place lobbying has in a democracy. I don't care how transparent it is, it's still a bribe.
Curiously enough, lobbying is one of the three constitutionally protected professions in the United States. The First Amendment ensures that all citizens have the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".
For those who are interested, the other two protected professions are ministers/priests (the right to freedom of religion), and lawyers (the right to counsel).
If GNU/Linux was the only operating system that had applications like Firefox, OpenOffice, VLC, and so on, I think it would be a much more attractive option than Windows is. Yet, we've ported some of our best applications to the proprietary Windows platform, and as a consequence of this there is less incentive for Windows users to become users of Free Software operating systems.
I'm not necessarily saying that these ports shouldn't take place, but I think we should be aware of the fact that porting a great application to Windows does lessen the incentive for Windows users to make the switch.
There is the flip side to the coin. If everyone's favourite applications are on both Windows and Linux, there is much less of a barrier to changing operating systems. The OS becomes just another tool, providing file and network access, and can be changed on a whim. Porting the great applications to Windows reduces the incentive to switch, but it also reduces Microsoft's ability to throw its weight around and dramatically reduces its pricing pressure.
It seems to be the business model of large media companies... restrict access to content, refuse to make it available to the users who want it, then start suing when it escapes your control.
Like it or not, this is the point of copyright. From the US Constitution, which of course has no relevance anywhere but the US: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Copyright allows the holder exclusive rights to the content, pure and simple. They can do anything they want with it, including locking it in a vault and refusing to allow redistribution. Copyright isn't voided by the actions (or lack thereof) of the copyright holder, and it isn't changed because someone really, really wants the content or can't afford to license it.
Don't like the law? Get organized and start lobbying your congress critter.
Is it me or does a $15 cartridge sounds expensive. I mean, like you go to a copying a store, and copies are like.03 each. $15 = like 450 pages. One of their ink cartridges can't even print that.
The $15 cartridge is for colour. It's $10 for b/w, but it's still more than you'll pay at a copy shop. The copy shop will be using toner-based laser printers, which have a cheaper per-page cost to run. If you're planning to print a lot, get a home laser rather than an inkjet.
Anyone got a non-quantum theory that explains the photoelectric effect or the experiments mentioned in the parent post?
Mandel and Wolf (Optical coherence and quantum optics), "Semiclassical theory of photoelectric detection of light." There are a number of other photoelectric effects (multiphoton emission, ARPES, XPS,...) that do require a quantum theory, but the "crude" photoelectric effect first treated by Einstein actually doesn't.
Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death. It doesn't matter what the customer wants; Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, wants more money, and will drag everyone through his neurosis.
I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I do think this line is unfair. It's easier (and probably more correct) to attribute Microsoft missteps to incompetence rather than malice on the part of Bill Gates.
Through the Gates foundation, Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to worthy charities around the world. It provides 17% of the world's polio eradication budget, as well as other monies for vaccines and HIV research. On the education front, the foundation has donated over a billion dollars to various scholarship programs to help needy students. The Wikipedia has a list of its other activities.
With its current assets, the Gates foundation will be donating at least $1.5 billion per year for the forseeable future. The doesn't mesh with the greed so often ascribed to Gates.
What do nine old farts (gender neutral term to keep up with the times) know about climate science? Apparently as much as Leonarda Dicaprio and John Travolta. Enough to be dangerous.
This case wasn't about climate science, it was about whether the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide as an environmental pollutant. The EPA asserted it didn't have the authority, other people asserted it did, and the courts got to settle the issue. Recognizing its lack of expertise in climate science, the court did not force the EPA to follow a particular policy. Rather it is said (from the decision and the article), "We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute."
The court's action was to force the EPA to make a decision and justify it, rather than ignoring the problem by claiming jurisdictional issues.
How can the US be slammed for protectionism when we don't let anyone in the US to do online gambling?
This also touches on broader "moral issues". If a country doesn't want something to come in because it objects on moral grounds, who is another country to sue about it? It's like Columbia complaining to the WTO that we ban cocaine.
(Some may argue that regular gambling is legal in parts of the US, but I think online gambling falls into a different realm. Because of the ease of access, it could lead to an major increase in gambling.)
All of these arguments were tried already, and failed. There's a very good article on Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/2153352/?nav=tap3) which discusses this. If the U.S. did ban all online gambling, it would be in the clear, but it doesn't. From the article, it seems that the Wire Act of 1961 is the main piece of legislation that is used to attack online gambling. Unfortunately, it doesn't ban all online gambling, in particular bets placed within a single state. The act also excludes horse racing, which is covered by the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act; apparently it's legal to bet on horse races from out of state. The US made the argument that it does ban internet gambling in its WTO case, but because not all forms are banned, the current laws constitute unfair protectionism for its domestic industries
With regards to the "morals" idea, the WTO does allow exceptions that would permit the US to ban "immoral" activities. It made this case too, but again since some forms of gambling are permitted but not others, it didn't fly. I guess it is a tough argument that poker is immoral but betting on the horses isn't.
The bottom line is that the US must enforce its WTO treaty obligations: either ban all online gambling, or else stop discriminating against Antigua. If not, it faces retaliatory sanctions.
This is a contract dispute between competing corporate interests, pure and simple. The broadcasters are complaining their costs are too high (like they'd complain the opposite), while the labels complain their profits are too low (ditto). The broadcasters have two choices: pay and play, or stop entirely. If they stop, the music labels will notice their profits dropping and will rebalance their royalty rates to something more reasonable. While it may take a little time, this will work itself out in the end.
You still can't get reliable, quality cell service in many populated areas in the U.S.A. yet the government is providing service so soldiers can chat on their RAZRs in Garblockistan?
Should this be a "Good to see where our priorities are" rant, or a "Yaay, the private sector sure solves all problems!" rant?
Sure. But another reason, I suspect, is that Halliburton will be able to hire non-US citizens who can work there and not have to pay US income tax (depending on the laws of their home country); this allows them to recruit some of the best talent around. US citizens employed by Halliburton working in Dubai will still need to pay US income tax.
This is true regardless of where Haliburton is based. US citizens pay US taxes regardless of where they work. Non-US citizens pay US taxes only if they are working in the US. The "nationality" of the employing corporation makes no difference. I think your point about friendly property laws and a better banking system are probably more accurate, along with the fact that Dubai is actually closer to the oil and gas wells that is Haliburton's business.
I'm curious, what exactly are the math qualifications to teach the subject at a grade 1-8 level? Its pretty much add, subtract and some basic algrebra right?
You'd be surprised. Here's a problem that my friend's kids got when they were in Grade 5. What number (note the singular) leaves a remainder of 5 when divided by 7 and a remainder of 6 when divided by 11? As a matter of curiousity, I wonder how many Slashdot readers can solve the problem without resorting to trial and error? (cue barrage of responses)
Despite the wording of the problem there are actually an infinity of solutions, not just one, and to fully solve the problem requires application of something called the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Speaking personally, I didn't learn about that until I took number theory in first year of university, and I'd be very surprised to find it taught in any elementary schools and even a handful of high schools.
A bright elementary school student might pick up on the fact that there is more than one solution (my neighbour's kids did, and the neighbour asked me about it), but I wonder what kind of response that would get from an unqualified math teacher? Perhaps manual verification that a second solution exists, perhaps a shrug of the shoulders, but I'd wager against recognizing the opportunity for a bit of math enrichment.
I'm sure I had a point when I started this...oh right...it's always good to have qualified math people around, at any level. Surprisingly complex math can be found in surprisingly simple problems.
This is really a case of two businesses negotiating a contract. The Internet broadcasters have two choices: play and pay, or stop. The broadcasters, who are businesses trying to maximise their own profits, are whining about costs being too high (duh). The music types, also trying to maximise their profits, will charge whatever rates the market will allow. If the rates are set too high, broadcasters go bankrupt, the music industry loses a cash cow, and rates come down. Eventually, they'll all come to an arrangement.
The article talks largely about the power consumption of a computer, but simply making the silicon chips is a major undertaking as well. In the small research facility I work in, we have:
* Several thousand square feet of cleanroom, stabilized at 40% humidity and controlled at 20 C, with the full air volume being changed every two minutes. The air conditioners run all day, every day. * Deionized water cascade system, which run at 4 litres per minute (think flushing your toilet every minute). The DI loop uses several litres of city water to make one litre of DI water. * Oxidation furnaces, which typically run at 1000 C * Photoresists and solvents of all kinds, ranging from the generic acetone (nail polish remover) to the really nasty stuff. I just replaced 20 L of solvents today to replace what we used over the last week. We trap the used stuff, but it all has to be disposed of safely later (incineration in some cases). * A variety of chloro- and fluorocarbons, including C4F8, used for silicon etching. It's not really possible to trap the stuff, so it goes up the stack and depletes the ozone layer. * A large number of deposition and etching systems, each with very large vacuum pumps running continuously. We shut these off at Christmas, but that's it.
This is just for a small-scale research lab. For an industrial fab, this would be multiplied many times over. Just making the silicon chips has a nontrivial environmental impact.
I mean, the article's about a completely flat sheet of atoms joined in a structure with four edges from eac node.
So, why are they showing a ripply surface made from a hexagonal structure, with three edges from each node?
As you note in your follow-up post, the hexagonal bonding structure is correct for graphene. The rippling motion is a result of thermal fluctuations. Normally you don't see it much because the graphene is bonded to a substrate, but as the second link in the main article explains, free standing membranes do actually ripple.
The Intel work you reference is just bonding an indium phosphide laser chip onto a silicon wafer, not actually creating a silicon laser by itself. While a Raman laser has been produced in silicon, the real device of interest, an electrically pumped diode laser is still the stuff of dreams.
Every time I see a story like this, it just upsets me. It's going against our culture, which values sharing and building upon others' work, and making use of what we already have to create new things. What's the point of this? It's just tilting at windmills -- those values are so ingrained in us that they're not going to go away.
I agree with you, but if you log on to YouTube many uploads there are nothing more than TV broadcasts stripped of commercials. Uploaders aren't creating anything, they're just engaging in copyright infringement. I think copyright laws need to be a little more relaxed about "clip-and-snip", where people genuinely create something new by piecing together other (copyrighted) stuff, but I have no patience with people whose idea of "sharing" is just wholesale redistribution of copyrighted material.
I've never understood why tech companies listened to the music industry in the first place. Perhaps I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the tech companies are far bigger in monetary value and hence far more powerful than the music industry in the first place so don't understand why these companies supported, rather than fought DRM from day one.
The tech companies listened because the music companies hold copyright over the content of interest. Whether they like DRM or not, the tech companies can still make money by selling DRM'ed music, so they'll play ball until it stops being economical. It's fine and good for the tech companies to be against DRM, but it doesn't matter a bit until the guys who actually own the content get with the program too.
Slashdot Mirror
From the article: "The researchers filed their patent claim on the artificial organism and on its genome."
These guys have created a brand new form of life from the ground up and are patenting their particular genome. It's hard work, and certainly not obvious or trivial. Given that other biological systems are patentable (e.g., the Harvard mouse, new strains of wheat), this certainly seems to clear the bar for patentability.
I just attended a (non-classified) talk from a department of the Canadian government about the role of FOSS in our military. A few interesting points:
* On average, commercial, off the shelf software (COTS) tended to be slightly cheaper for life cycles in the mid-term range, which seemed to be 5-12 years or so. Shorter than that FOSS was best because of the low up-front costs, while on the longer term the lack of vendor support for COTS was a concern. The number that was thrown out was COTS being about 15% cheaper for the mid-term, although there were cases where FOSS was still better.
* To avoid finger pointing between the OS and application manufacturers during bug hunts, it was desirable for a single company/consultant group to take responsibility for all software. They weren't inclined to wait in a war zone while tech guys played telephone tag while repairing a bug. The ideal would be to purchase hardware from a given supplier, and having one contact point for all software.
* Long-term software support was a concern for both COTS and FOSS, but the ability to either maintain the software yourself (least desirable) or form a consortium with other like-minded entities was an advantage for FOSS.
* Licensing was identified as a major hassle. The speaker identified that computer types are very highly trained from a technical perspective, but not trained from a legal standpoint, so navigating through licensing conditions was a problem. They were hoping our Treasury Board could handle government-wide licensing issues.
* There was definite interest in shifting the computer systems on-board our latest warships from HP-UNIX to Linux-based systems to avoid the vendor end-of-lifing the systems.
The talk continued on to discuss issues related to hardening systems from attacks, but I didn't stay for the whole thing. Just before I left, the speaker was bemoaning that while FOSS gave great tools for the good guys, they also empowered the foreign script-kiddies as well, so it was a two-edged sword.
Lobbyin is the weakest part of US democracy. I am really not a US basher (a colleague says I am a disguised CIA operative), but I don't understand what place lobbying has in a democracy. I don't care how transparent it is, it's still a bribe.
Curiously enough, lobbying is one of the three constitutionally protected professions in the United States. The First Amendment ensures that all citizens have the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".
For those who are interested, the other two protected professions are ministers/priests (the right to freedom of religion), and lawyers (the right to counsel).
I'm curious whether all this back-and-forth went on when the GPL v2 was written. Is there anyone here who remembers that process?
If GNU/Linux was the only operating system that had applications like Firefox, OpenOffice, VLC, and so on, I think it would be a much more attractive option than Windows is. Yet, we've ported some of our best applications to the proprietary Windows platform, and as a consequence of this there is less incentive for Windows users to become users of Free Software operating systems.
I'm not necessarily saying that these ports shouldn't take place, but I think we should be aware of the fact that porting a great application to Windows does lessen the incentive for Windows users to make the switch.
There is the flip side to the coin. If everyone's favourite applications are on both Windows and Linux, there is much less of a barrier to changing operating systems. The OS becomes just another tool, providing file and network access, and can be changed on a whim. Porting the great applications to Windows reduces the incentive to switch, but it also reduces Microsoft's ability to throw its weight around and dramatically reduces its pricing pressure.
ADSL modem + private network + set-top box. Must have taken them months to independantly discover this combination.
And coming soon to a patent office near you.
We'll have the new release, then a remastered release in which the Terminator doesn't fire first.
It seems to be the business model of large media companies... restrict access to content, refuse to make it available to the users who want it, then start suing when it escapes your control.
Like it or not, this is the point of copyright. From the US Constitution, which of course has no relevance anywhere but the US: To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
Copyright allows the holder exclusive rights to the content, pure and simple. They can do anything they want with it, including locking it in a vault and refusing to allow redistribution. Copyright isn't voided by the actions (or lack thereof) of the copyright holder, and it isn't changed because someone really, really wants the content or can't afford to license it.
Don't like the law? Get organized and start lobbying your congress critter.
Is it me or does a $15 cartridge sounds expensive. I mean, like you go to a copying a store, and copies are like .03 each. $15 = like 450 pages. One of their ink cartridges can't even print that.
The $15 cartridge is for colour. It's $10 for b/w, but it's still more than you'll pay at a copy shop. The copy shop will be using toner-based laser printers, which have a cheaper per-page cost to run. If you're planning to print a lot, get a home laser rather than an inkjet.
Anyone got a non-quantum theory that explains the photoelectric effect or the experiments mentioned in the parent post?
Mandel and Wolf (Optical coherence and quantum optics), "Semiclassical theory of photoelectric detection of light." There are a number of other photoelectric effects (multiphoton emission, ARPES, XPS, ...) that do require a quantum theory, but the "crude" photoelectric effect first treated by Einstein actually doesn't.
Ctrl + Alt + Del always worked for me.
Bill Gates is software's Dr. Death. It doesn't matter what the customer wants; Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, wants more money, and will drag everyone through his neurosis.
I agree with most of the rest of your post, but I do think this line is unfair. It's easier (and probably more correct) to attribute Microsoft missteps to incompetence rather than malice on the part of Bill Gates.
Through the Gates foundation, Bill Gates has donated billions of dollars to worthy charities around the world. It provides 17% of the world's polio eradication budget, as well as other monies for vaccines and HIV research. On the education front, the foundation has donated over a billion dollars to various scholarship programs to help needy students. The Wikipedia has a list of its other activities.
With its current assets, the Gates foundation will be donating at least $1.5 billion per year for the forseeable future. The doesn't mesh with the greed so often ascribed to Gates.
What do nine old farts (gender neutral term to keep up with the times) know about climate science? Apparently as much as Leonarda Dicaprio and John Travolta. Enough to be dangerous.
This case wasn't about climate science, it was about whether the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide as an environmental pollutant. The EPA asserted it didn't have the authority, other people asserted it did, and the courts got to settle the issue. Recognizing its lack of expertise in climate science, the court did not force the EPA to follow a particular policy. Rather it is said (from the decision and the article), "We hold only that EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute."
The court's action was to force the EPA to make a decision and justify it, rather than ignoring the problem by claiming jurisdictional issues.
How can the US be slammed for protectionism when we don't let anyone in the US to do online gambling?
This also touches on broader "moral issues". If a country doesn't want something to come in because it objects on moral grounds, who is another country to sue about it? It's like Columbia complaining to the WTO that we ban cocaine.
(Some may argue that regular gambling is legal in parts of the US, but I think online gambling falls into a different realm. Because of the ease of access, it could lead to an major increase in gambling.)
All of these arguments were tried already, and failed. There's a very good article on Slate.com (http://www.slate.com/id/2153352/?nav=tap3) which discusses this. If the U.S. did ban all online gambling, it would be in the clear, but it doesn't. From the article, it seems that the Wire Act of 1961 is the main piece of legislation that is used to attack online gambling. Unfortunately, it doesn't ban all online gambling, in particular bets placed within a single state. The act also excludes horse racing, which is covered by the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act; apparently it's legal to bet on horse races from out of state. The US made the argument that it does ban internet gambling in its WTO case, but because not all forms are banned, the current laws constitute unfair protectionism for its domestic industries
With regards to the "morals" idea, the WTO does allow exceptions that would permit the US to ban "immoral" activities. It made this case too, but again since some forms of gambling are permitted but not others, it didn't fly. I guess it is a tough argument that poker is immoral but betting on the horses isn't.
The bottom line is that the US must enforce its WTO treaty obligations: either ban all online gambling, or else stop discriminating against Antigua. If not, it faces retaliatory sanctions.
This is a contract dispute between competing corporate interests, pure and simple. The broadcasters are complaining their costs are too high (like they'd complain the opposite), while the labels complain their profits are too low (ditto). The broadcasters have two choices: pay and play, or stop entirely. If they stop, the music labels will notice their profits dropping and will rebalance their royalty rates to something more reasonable. While it may take a little time, this will work itself out in the end.
You still can't get reliable, quality cell service in many populated areas in the U.S.A. yet the government is providing service so soldiers can chat on their RAZRs in Garblockistan?
Should this be a "Good to see where our priorities are" rant, or a "Yaay, the private sector sure solves all problems!" rant?
Feel free to do both.
Sure. But another reason, I suspect, is that Halliburton will be able to hire non-US citizens who can work there and not have to pay US income tax (depending on the laws of their home country); this allows them to recruit some of the best talent around. US citizens employed by Halliburton working in Dubai will still need to pay US income tax.
This is true regardless of where Haliburton is based. US citizens pay US taxes regardless of where they work. Non-US citizens pay US taxes only if they are working in the US. The "nationality" of the employing corporation makes no difference. I think your point about friendly property laws and a better banking system are probably more accurate, along with the fact that Dubai is actually closer to the oil and gas wells that is Haliburton's business.
I'm curious, what exactly are the math qualifications to teach the subject at a grade 1-8 level? Its pretty much add, subtract and some basic algrebra right?
You'd be surprised. Here's a problem that my friend's kids got when they were in Grade 5. What number (note the singular) leaves a remainder of 5 when divided by 7 and a remainder of 6 when divided by 11? As a matter of curiousity, I wonder how many Slashdot readers can solve the problem without resorting to trial and error? (cue barrage of responses)
Despite the wording of the problem there are actually an infinity of solutions, not just one, and to fully solve the problem requires application of something called the Chinese Remainder Theorem. Speaking personally, I didn't learn about that until I took number theory in first year of university, and I'd be very surprised to find it taught in any elementary schools and even a handful of high schools.
A bright elementary school student might pick up on the fact that there is more than one solution (my neighbour's kids did, and the neighbour asked me about it), but I wonder what kind of response that would get from an unqualified math teacher? Perhaps manual verification that a second solution exists, perhaps a shrug of the shoulders, but I'd wager against recognizing the opportunity for a bit of math enrichment.
I'm sure I had a point when I started this...oh right...it's always good to have qualified math people around, at any level. Surprisingly complex math can be found in surprisingly simple problems.
What is microsoft doing? Are they trying to get into the Linux market or are they just playing patent games?
Can't they do both?
This is really a case of two businesses negotiating a contract. The Internet broadcasters have two choices: play and pay, or stop. The broadcasters, who are businesses trying to maximise their own profits, are whining about costs being too high (duh). The music types, also trying to maximise their profits, will charge whatever rates the market will allow. If the rates are set too high, broadcasters go bankrupt, the music industry loses a cash cow, and rates come down. Eventually, they'll all come to an arrangement.
The article talks largely about the power consumption of a computer, but simply making the silicon chips is a major undertaking as well. In the small research facility I work in, we have:
* Several thousand square feet of cleanroom, stabilized at 40% humidity and controlled at 20 C, with the full air volume being changed every two minutes. The air conditioners run all day, every day.
* Deionized water cascade system, which run at 4 litres per minute (think flushing your toilet every minute). The DI loop uses several litres of city water to make one litre of DI water.
* Oxidation furnaces, which typically run at 1000 C
* Photoresists and solvents of all kinds, ranging from the generic acetone (nail polish remover) to the really nasty stuff. I just replaced 20 L of solvents today to replace what we used over the last week. We trap the used stuff, but it all has to be disposed of safely later (incineration in some cases).
* A variety of chloro- and fluorocarbons, including C4F8, used for silicon etching. It's not really possible to trap the stuff, so it goes up the stack and depletes the ozone layer.
* A large number of deposition and etching systems, each with very large vacuum pumps running continuously. We shut these off at Christmas, but that's it.
This is just for a small-scale research lab. For an industrial fab, this would be multiplied many times over. Just making the silicon chips has a nontrivial environmental impact.
I mean, the article's about a completely flat sheet of atoms joined in a structure with four edges from eac node. So, why are they showing a ripply surface made from a hexagonal structure, with three edges from each node?
As you note in your follow-up post, the hexagonal bonding structure is correct for graphene. The rippling motion is a result of thermal fluctuations. Normally you don't see it much because the graphene is bonded to a substrate, but as the second link in the main article explains, free standing membranes do actually ripple.
The Intel work you reference is just bonding an indium phosphide laser chip onto a silicon wafer, not actually creating a silicon laser by itself. While a Raman laser has been produced in silicon, the real device of interest, an electrically pumped diode laser is still the stuff of dreams.
Every time I see a story like this, it just upsets me. It's going against our culture, which values sharing and building upon others' work, and making use of what we already have to create new things. What's the point of this? It's just tilting at windmills -- those values are so ingrained in us that they're not going to go away.
I agree with you, but if you log on to YouTube many uploads there are nothing more than TV broadcasts stripped of commercials. Uploaders aren't creating anything, they're just engaging in copyright infringement. I think copyright laws need to be a little more relaxed about "clip-and-snip", where people genuinely create something new by piecing together other (copyrighted) stuff, but I have no patience with people whose idea of "sharing" is just wholesale redistribution of copyrighted material.
I've never understood why tech companies listened to the music industry in the first place. Perhaps I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the tech companies are far bigger in monetary value and hence far more powerful than the music industry in the first place so don't understand why these companies supported, rather than fought DRM from day one.
The tech companies listened because the music companies hold copyright over the content of interest. Whether they like DRM or not, the tech companies can still make money by selling DRM'ed music, so they'll play ball until it stops being economical. It's fine and good for the tech companies to be against DRM, but it doesn't matter a bit until the guys who actually own the content get with the program too.