You can't generate electricity without expending energy. In this case, the energy comes from the cars that are passing. Each car will be taxed a portion of its gasoline-generated (in most cases) energy. Even if it were to draw enough to cause a noticable decrease in the car's range, I think this is more palatable than toll booths or road taxes. Of course, it would never save as much money as can be generated by tolls or taxes, so in the end it will likely fail. Sigh.
Apple has made several bad moves, such as the Lisa and Apple III. Apple survived, mainly because of their culture to innovate. As others have said better than I can, the Video iPod is probably not a bad move. It isn't the first pocket video machine, and isn't the best. And who needs a pocket video machine anyway? But it is too early to label it a "bad move". The recent history of the iPod makes me think this thing will be wildly successful.
Well, in addition to the obvious issue about compatibility with.DOC format, it's kind of like the difference between BASIC and C++. Word Processors are less capable but more immediate, especially in the WYSIWYG area. Sure, there's LyX, and probably other semi-WYSIWYG editors for LaTeX, but it's not the same.
When it comes to typesetting power, LaTeX wins hands down. It's like having a compiler with a full set of support libraries, compared to a simple interpreter with only the functions that came built in.
Personally, I have never learned LaTeX, although I used to use LyX quite a bit before OpenOffice. It was in many ways better than OpenOffice, but it took me quite a while to learn how to do new things. Also, of course, I could never share documents with others at work.
CP/M was the first operating system to be commercially available on a wide variety of computers made by various manufacturers. Any software used standard BDOS or BIOS calls exclusively, and was compiled with 8080 instruction codes ran on any 8080, 8085, or Z80-based CP/M computer. CP/M was a killer app because it gave birth to the personal computer industry we know today, by enabling software vendors to target a huge set of computers. It was highly successful for its time. Don't compare it with things we have today, but for its time, it was revolutionary.
Without CP/M, Visicalc would have been limited to one kind of computer. Although the Apple II was pretty popular, it probably wasn't popular enough for Visicalc to have helped spawn an industry. Instead, it was CP/M that enabled software vendors to target Apple II (with an add-on card), TRS-80, Osborne, and the hundreds of CP/M computer brands on the market. That, in turn, enabled Visicalc, WordStar, and Microsoft Basic to get the attention of the likes of IBM, starting the PC revolution and signaling the death of CP/M.
What companies are or will be working on this? Where and how can I join the development team? I'm sure they'll need to do some testing before releasing the process to the wealthy. The developers always get first access to new technology.
Sure, it's easy to install the latest firefox on Linux. Unfortunately, the newly installed version tends to lose some functionality. Plugins get lost, desktop integration tends to get neutered, and I've even seen crashes creep in. I have one Mandrake 10.1 system running a pre-1.0 firefox because that's the latest THEY support, and I don't want to support the system by tracing down and fixing those things noted above. Luckily, that system is only used by a little old lady to drive to and from her gmail account.
My home's Linux server is too loud, so I put it in a closet, with monitor/keyboard/mouse/USB lines coming through a the wall into the main room. The main room is nice and quiet (and cool), but the closet is still loud and quite warm. Plus, the computer definitely uses lots of power, costing money each month. I want a server that approaches the heat problem by running with low power. I want big disks and fast I/O on my server, but the CPU doesn't have to breathe fire. My gaming and/or development computer, on the other hand, needs to breathe fire, but doesn't need to be available 24/7. That computer wants to be low-noise, but can be high-power.
If enough of the API specifications and functional description for WinFS are published, some young folks with lots of time on their hands could probably write a WinFS work-alike and have it ready before Microsoft. Wouldn't it be insane if Linux supported WinFS before Longhorn or XP?
When I heard the plans for the series, I was quite excited. A return to the less politically-correct wild-west attitude of the original series, as we see how the federation was formed, how the history that preceeded the original series occurred, etc.
I was not looking for a series that basically forked and shattered the timeline, in a way that says "never mind" to the series's of the past. Perhaps that's the plan... to have "The original series, rehashed" and "The next generation, rehashed", etc, to fill our Trek-lust for another 40 years.
Maybe that's the plan, but it's not the series I was looking for.
I was working with networking in the '80s, and there were many networking protocols out there. Some, like DECNET, had significant advantages over TCP/IP. Back then, we thought that eventually the ISO stack would win, when it got finished. But TCP/IP was an open set of standards, and BSD provided an open source implementation very early in the game. The result was that EVERYBODY provided TCP/IP support in addition to their proprietary stacks. Microsoft came to the table pretty late compared with others. TCP/IP didn't become "the Internet" because it was the best protocol for the job, but because it was an open standard with a free reference implementation.
This happened back in the days of ANSI terminals, during development of a large FORTRAN program. I once wrote a particularly obscure section of code, and put a bland "Not for the faint of heart" comment above it.
A Co-worker (thanks, Jerry!) checked out the file and changed the comment to use ANSI escape sequences. It was double-height bold blinking "KLUDGE ALERT".
I remember him lamenting that printers didn't understand ANSI codes. I remember answering that he'd have to use blinking ink.
IANAL and I didn't RTFP (read the fine patent) but I did RTFA. I was once taught that a patent covers a method for achieving an outcome. In the McAfee case, the method involves using logs collected on a firewall, then analyzing the origin based on the logs. I would guess that a competing product that directly sniffed the packets and analyzed the origin then produced a map wouldn't be infringing, because it would use a different method to achieve the same outcome.
Stay away from BREW, which is pushed by Qualcomm and Verizon. Go with Cingular or T-Mobile, or any other GSM/GPRS carrier, and a Java (J2ME) phone. Do some research ahead of time: not all J2ME phones are useful. MIDP-1.0 is okay, but MIDP-2.0 is better. The development kit is free from Sun or from the phone manufacturer. Be aware that although J2ME has APIs for everything (TCP/IP, video, blueteeth, etc) your phone will only run what it supports. So shop carefully for the phone, and you'll be quite happy with Java.
Evolution is, indeed, a theory. It happens to be widely supported, but it is still a theory rather than a fact. It seems bizarre that the judge would consider the sticker an endorsement of religion, when a proper understanding of science is all it takes to know that Evolution is a theory. Geesh!
Sci-if? A typographical error, or perhaps the genesis of a new term describing possibilities introduced by science fiction? Oh, the possibilities of sci-if!
The concept strikes me as ingenious. Certainly worthy of patent protection (unlike software patents, of course).
I just wonder how good the lens can be, and whether such technology can ever compete with traditional lenses in the high-end market.
Would it last? The liquids are encased, so I expect that leakage and chemical reaction would not be problems. It would probably have a more limited temperature range than traditional lenses.
Does the droplet naturally form the right shape for a lens? Can it be further shaped by applying different voltages at various places around the diameter?
Could an electric contact lens be made with this technology? (Ignoring issues like how would it be powered, wouldn't it look ugly, or perhaps be too thick, etc.. I assume those answers will come, if the technology would otherwise work.)
If enough of these questions can be answered "YES", this could be revolutionary. Even if all answers are "NO", it's quite interesting.
I myself wrote software to do exactly what the patent describes, as early as 1982. Due to slower computers and graphics interfaces available at the time, I wasn't able to manipulate complex views such as video games have, but the principle was the same. My software displayed a perspective view of a 3 dimensional function, allowing panning, etc. It was unbearably slow if over 100 points were used. I don't think any evidence of my old program still exists today, but surely somebody did and documented something similar in the early '80s, when we were first getting excited about computer graphics.
I think the Star Trek franchise should go down in a blaze of glory. Imagine the possibilities!
After several years of surfing the galaxy with the Traveler, Wesley returns and graduates from the Academy. He spends several more years working his way up to where he's finally captain of a starship.
Anyway, give him a character VERY MUCH like Captain Kirk, and give us a ONE YEAR series of We don't need no steenking political correctness! Captain Crusher hits on every female of every species he encounters. This, of course, constantly gets him in trouble with the PC folks in the Federation, but it helps him make great friends among the Klingons and Ferengi. Whatever mission the Federation assigns him, he blatantly ignores the red tape, and uses bottom-feeding-scumbag tactics to Get the Job Done.
Make the series just barely tame enough for American Television. Make the spin-off movie very R-rated. The whole thing should be raw, over the top, and generally offensive. I don't know if that approach would revive the franchise or seal its demise. It would certainly be fun while it lasts!
They do everything possible to keep people from downloading apps, tones, etc directly to the phone. No J2ME on any Verizon phone, as far as I can tell. Better to use T-Mobile or Cingular in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't generate electricity without expending energy. In this case, the energy comes from the cars that are passing. Each car will be taxed a portion of its gasoline-generated (in most cases) energy. Even if it were to draw enough to cause a noticable decrease in the car's range, I think this is more palatable than toll booths or road taxes. Of course, it would never save as much money as can be generated by tolls or taxes, so in the end it will likely fail. Sigh.
Apple has made several bad moves, such as the Lisa and Apple III.
Apple survived, mainly because of their culture to innovate.
As others have said better than I can, the Video iPod is probably not a bad move.
It isn't the first pocket video machine, and isn't the best.
And who needs a pocket video machine anyway?
But it is too early to label it a "bad move". The recent history of the iPod makes me think this thing will be wildly successful.
Well, in addition to the obvious issue about compatibility with .DOC format, it's kind of like the difference between BASIC and C++.
Word Processors are less capable but more immediate, especially in the WYSIWYG area.
Sure, there's LyX, and probably other semi-WYSIWYG editors for LaTeX, but it's not the same.
When it comes to typesetting power, LaTeX wins hands down. It's like having a compiler with a full set of support libraries, compared to a simple interpreter with only the functions that came built in.
Personally, I have never learned LaTeX, although I used to use LyX quite a bit before OpenOffice. It was in many ways better than OpenOffice, but it took me quite a while to learn how to do new things. Also, of course, I could never share documents with others at work.
CP/M was the first operating system to be commercially available on a wide variety of computers made by various manufacturers. Any software used standard BDOS or BIOS calls exclusively, and was compiled with 8080 instruction codes ran on any 8080, 8085, or Z80-based CP/M computer. CP/M was a killer app because it gave birth to the personal computer industry we know today, by enabling software vendors to target a huge set of computers. It was highly successful for its time. Don't compare it with things we have today, but for its time, it was revolutionary.
Without CP/M, Visicalc would have been limited to one kind of computer. Although the Apple II was pretty popular, it probably wasn't popular enough for Visicalc to have helped spawn an industry. Instead, it was CP/M that enabled software vendors to target Apple II (with an add-on card), TRS-80, Osborne, and the hundreds of CP/M computer brands on the market. That, in turn, enabled Visicalc, WordStar, and Microsoft Basic to get the attention of the likes of IBM, starting the PC revolution and signaling the death of CP/M.
What companies are or will be working on this?
Where and how can I join the development team?
I'm sure they'll need to do some testing before releasing the process to the wealthy.
The developers always get first access to new technology.
Sure, it's easy to install the latest firefox on Linux. Unfortunately, the newly installed version tends to lose some functionality. Plugins get lost, desktop integration tends to get neutered, and I've even seen crashes creep in. I have one Mandrake 10.1 system running a pre-1.0 firefox because that's the latest THEY support, and I don't want to support the system by tracing down and fixing those things noted above. Luckily, that system is only used by a little old lady to drive to and from her gmail account.
We've all heard this stuff before. Nothing to see here.
HA THINKGEEK FOOLS POST
Wish I were there!
My home's Linux server is too loud, so I put it in a closet, with monitor/keyboard/mouse/USB lines coming through a the wall into the main room.
The main room is nice and quiet (and cool), but the closet is still loud and quite warm. Plus, the computer definitely uses lots of power, costing money each month.
I want a server that approaches the heat problem by running with low power. I want big disks and fast I/O on my server, but the CPU doesn't have to breathe fire.
My gaming and/or development computer, on the other hand, needs to breathe fire, but doesn't need to be available 24/7. That computer wants to be low-noise, but can be high-power.
If enough of the API specifications and functional description for WinFS are published, some young folks with lots of time on their hands could probably write a WinFS work-alike and have it ready before Microsoft.
Wouldn't it be insane if Linux supported WinFS before Longhorn or XP?
When I heard the plans for the series, I was quite excited. A return to the less politically-correct wild-west attitude of the original series, as we see how the federation was formed, how the history that preceeded the original series occurred, etc.
... to have "The original series, rehashed" and "The next generation, rehashed", etc, to fill our Trek-lust for another 40 years.
I was not looking for a series that basically forked and shattered the timeline, in a way that says "never mind" to the series's of the past. Perhaps that's the plan
Maybe that's the plan, but it's not the series I was looking for.
I was working with networking in the '80s, and there were many networking protocols out there. Some, like DECNET, had significant advantages over TCP/IP. Back then, we thought that eventually the ISO stack would win, when it got finished.
But TCP/IP was an open set of standards, and BSD provided an open source implementation very early in the game.
The result was that EVERYBODY provided TCP/IP support in addition to their proprietary stacks. Microsoft came to the table pretty late compared with others.
TCP/IP didn't become "the Internet" because it was the best protocol for the job, but because it was an open standard with a free reference implementation.
This happened back in the days of ANSI terminals, during development of a large FORTRAN program.
I once wrote a particularly obscure section of code, and put a bland "Not for the faint of heart" comment above it.
A Co-worker (thanks, Jerry!) checked out the file and changed the comment to use ANSI escape sequences. It was double-height bold blinking "KLUDGE ALERT".
I remember him lamenting that printers didn't understand ANSI codes. I remember answering that he'd have to use blinking ink.
IANAL and I didn't RTFP (read the fine patent) but I did RTFA. I was once taught that a patent covers a method for achieving an outcome. In the McAfee case, the method involves using logs collected on a firewall, then analyzing the origin based on the logs. I would guess that a competing product that directly sniffed the packets and analyzed the origin then produced a map wouldn't be infringing, because it would use a different method to achieve the same outcome.
Stay away from BREW, which is pushed by Qualcomm and Verizon. Go with Cingular or T-Mobile, or any other GSM/GPRS carrier, and a Java (J2ME) phone. Do some research ahead of time: not all J2ME phones are useful. MIDP-1.0 is okay, but MIDP-2.0 is better. The development kit is free from Sun or from the phone manufacturer. Be aware that although J2ME has APIs for everything (TCP/IP, video, blueteeth, etc) your phone will only run what it supports. So shop carefully for the phone, and you'll be quite happy with Java.
Evolution is, indeed, a theory.
It happens to be widely supported, but it is still a theory rather than a fact.
It seems bizarre that the judge would consider the sticker an endorsement of religion, when a proper understanding of science is all it takes to know that Evolution is a theory. Geesh!
Sci-if?
A typographical error, or perhaps
the genesis of a new term describing possibilities introduced by science fiction?
Oh, the possibilities of sci-if!
The concept strikes me as ingenious.
.. I assume those answers will come, if the technology would otherwise work.)
Certainly worthy of patent protection (unlike software patents, of course).
I just wonder how good the lens can be, and whether such technology can ever compete with traditional lenses in the high-end market.
Would it last? The liquids are encased, so I expect that leakage and chemical reaction would not be problems. It would probably have a more limited temperature range than traditional lenses.
Does the droplet naturally form the right shape for a lens? Can it be further shaped by applying different voltages at various places around the diameter?
Could an electric contact lens be made with this technology? (Ignoring issues like how would it be powered, wouldn't it look ugly, or perhaps be too thick, etc
If enough of these questions can be answered "YES", this could be revolutionary.
Even if all answers are "NO", it's quite interesting.
One could perhaps hide the dots by printing on the proper color of yellow paper.
But then again, yellow money might be suspicious.
D'oh!
I myself wrote software to do exactly what the patent describes, as early as 1982. Due to slower computers and graphics interfaces available at the time, I wasn't able to manipulate complex views such as video games have, but the principle was the same. My software displayed a perspective view of a 3 dimensional function, allowing panning, etc. It was unbearably slow if over 100 points were used.
I don't think any evidence of my old program still exists today, but surely somebody did and documented something similar in the early '80s, when we were first getting excited about computer graphics.
I think the Star Trek franchise should go down in a blaze of glory. Imagine the possibilities!
After several years of surfing the galaxy with the Traveler, Wesley returns and graduates from the Academy. He spends several more years working his way up to where he's finally captain of a starship.
Anyway, give him a character VERY MUCH like Captain Kirk, and give us a ONE YEAR series of We don't need no steenking political correctness!
Captain Crusher hits on every female of every species he encounters. This, of course, constantly gets him in trouble with the PC folks in the Federation, but it helps him make great friends among the Klingons and Ferengi. Whatever mission the Federation assigns him, he blatantly ignores the red tape, and uses bottom-feeding-scumbag tactics to Get the Job Done.
Make the series just barely tame enough for American Television. Make the spin-off movie very R-rated. The whole thing should be raw, over the top, and generally offensive. I don't know if that approach would revive the franchise or seal its demise. It would certainly be fun while it lasts!
Long Live Captain Crusher!
They do everything possible to keep people from downloading apps, tones, etc directly to the phone. No J2ME on any Verizon phone, as far as I can tell.
Better to use T-Mobile or Cingular in the US.
Viral changes to the language should indeed be avoided. I always cringed in the '80s when I heard "Vaxen". Blar!