"In reality, noisy diesels have sold well in Europe " Speaking as an Englishman and part time car nut: noisy diesels would sell rubbish, My GF's diesel Ford is quieter above 30mph than my petrol Honda, once you get above about 2000rpm when the turbo starts to kick in the diesel has more torque and the difference in noise is impossible to tell, but the extra torque means that you can rev the diesel lower. At idle my petrol Honda is slightly quieter but the idea of noisy/dirty diesels is old. Now at peak revs the petrol produces more power and I don't see me putting a diesel engine in my motorbike anytime soon, but for me the competition in none race cars has already been won by the diesel. Except of course that the last Monte Carlo 24 hour race was won by a diesel...
I think the important thing with SS2 isn't about the technology itself it's about creating the market. Assume that they are successful as a small market - they'll soon enough get competitors who try and compete by building something better/cheaper. If they can't create the market then no harm done, if they can then the only way I can see it go is driving prices down and altitude/speed up.
Are you kidding? Have you read the DaVinci code? Right at the beginning it states that it's based on fact and that all the organisations and technology are real; then goes on into the largest bunch of conspiracy tripe that I have ever had to suffer reading. No he definitely sells it as real.
Not true, your eye doesn't look at the whole picture the whole time. And what someone else looks at at in a particular scene (the hero's face) might be very different from what i am looking at (the heroines breasts). So you'd be bound to reconstruct the image incorrectly
I have an expectation of privacy that what I put in my rubbish bins goes directly to landfill/anonymous recycling. Were the collection company or any other agent for that matter sifting through my rubbish looking for evidence of illegal activity then I think I'd have a case against them for invasion of privacy; as far as I know in most of the western world such activity is considered very dodgy on the part of the investigator if not outright illegal without a warrant.
Yet you would seem to argue I am putting my rubbish into the public domain by putting the wheelie bin on the kerb for collection and later scattering on a public landfill...
I think that carriers and vendors in general see phone features as content. i.e. the Ipod is capable of playing any MP3, however that does not give you the right to play any MP3 without paying for it, consumers are used to paying for content and if they can be persuaded to see GPS functionality as content then that makes it easier to milk the cow that is the consumer. It is in many corporations interests to see applications and indeed all features viewed by the consumer in a similar way i.e. everything of value is paid for individually. Trying not to sound like an opensource zealot, this is where things like android could really save us - by keeping applications on phones free in the same way that opensource has allowed modern software to be free. True there may be a greater effort required for the user to do this, but that then becomes the price paid.
Now if only there was a decent android phone available in the UK....
You raise an interesting point! 1) take photograph 2) photoshop it 3) print it 4) take photo of this printout 5) Publish unphotoshopped photograph of the printout - the photograph being published has not been manipulated!
Got it! 1) become eminent public figure 2) Do shady things behind closed doors 3) Wait for someone to find out about this 4) Sue them for liable - and win because what they said was very defamatory even though it was true 5) Profit!
If this is actually the case then the legal system is in even more trouble than I thought.
not really. The AC clearly likes the idea of good grammar, he just doesn't know how to do it himself. Kind of like how we like the idea of space travel...
We had already solved the problem of achieving orbit
No we haven't, well no more then the Stephenson rocket solved the problem of rail travel for the masses. A lot of technology and infrastructure investment was needed to get the railway to be useful rather than a curiosity, that's what NASA should have been doing in my book, investing in developing new launch technology, and while it was working on that then it should have been developing LEO infrastructure. Why can't we have our orbital construction yard? Why not have a space tug? Get the processing facilities for mining asteroids and NEO objects. That to me is far more interesting and rewarding than another flags and footprints mission.
>While we're at it, shouldn't we be spending this money on feeding the starving
No, because there'll always be starving. I wish humanity/life was otherwise I really do, but I don't see a long term solution where resources are finite and the exponential function is applicable.
2 predictions: * Lots of slashdot users trying to post something witty about why this is a new story * trolls saying how this is everything we should expect and therefore should ignore.
to all those who disengaged their brain I ask, what would you do in their position? Hope your instruments work as designed without testing them? Either way, please devise a better test for life as we know it than life as we know it.
You're not paying for a piece of plastic. You're paying for the contents on it. Those contents cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to produce an put on that piece of plastic.
What music costs millions to make? Seriously, there is something very wrong if composer + band + recording studio costs that much. The cost of production has gone down, the Beatles first album was famously recorded in a single day because of the cost of the recording studio. now almost anyone can produce and distribute CDs, my flatmate for a few thousand quid has equipment sound engineers in the 60s would have killed for. Now if you say you're paying for marketing + brand, then yes I understand how those costs could have increased, but they aren't the contents of the CD. If you're saying that the most popular musicians should be disproportionately rewarded for their work by charging a premium for their work relative to others then I'm fine with that too, but don't complain that you're selling fewer CDs because you're intentionally charging over the odds for it.
Insightful perhaps but I don't think you will find an Engineering company (actual engineering not software engineering) that doesn't have this requirement. Every company I've ever worked at or with (so a few of dozen) has this requirement. As the OP says, it's a legal requirement and actually surprisingly useful to be forced to keep a journal of sorts - especially at review time;-)
FWIW I believe early plans for SSTS have the boosters with flyback engines on them so that they would return to the runway. Unfortunatly this bit of easy reusability was dumped.
Why do you require SSTO in order to bring launch costs down? Saying it will be simpler and therefore cheaper is like saying a canoe is a better way to cross the Atlantic than a cruise ship, because it is simpler. SSTO requires pretty much everything in the system to be working at the theoretical limits. That will never be cheap. EVER! Even with unobtanium materials you could do a better cheaper job by staging using these new materials. Staging is a tried, trusted and reliable technology - what is wrong with it that hasn't been fixed over the decades?
You never go to the Pub? I know a lot of chain pubs work with cards and will set up a tab, but none of the decent pubs around here can handle cards (£3000 a year to have one of those machines)
I'm also from the UK and: * You don't need photo ID to open a bank account - current utility bill will do - no photo on that. If that fails in the past i have opened a bank account with just cash, no ID needed at all. They did of course there post the bank book to the address I supplied... * Well, yes, I'd be worried though if entering/leaving a country they didn't want to check my identity. * That's not proof of identity, that's proof of age - there are plenty of ways to achieve that without all the other rubbish this card has. They already exist and work fine without privicy converns. Those are really only needed if you are near the age anyway, I haven't been carded in about a decade...
Get her to have google latitude installed on her phone and running at all times so you can track her movements at all times. Now give access to that to any crazy friends she has. is she still saying "so what?"
The problem is the one sided nature of the relationship, individual bureaucrats have access to information(=power) that the average citizen doesn't. Not just a few of them either- as is the case with normal national security level things - just about bureaucrat will have power over anyone under their particular jurisdiction. The reverse is not true. We're always told the average citizen cannot do things like take photos of policemen for the protection of the policemen, but no opposing right/protection the other way. Now I would have no problem with surveillance/databasing if the information was truly available to all except for a constrained elite; without the average joe being able to monitor those elite to the same level they monitor us then we've got problems. This is where the problem for abuse comes in.
If I read my history correctly when policemen were first introduced they were very much viewed as a servant of the people - right down to the uniform being chosen to be a meld of the upper and lower class fashions at the time - with no extra powers the average citizen at the time did not possess, they simply were employed to do what the average gentleman was expected to do (arrests, detaining scoundrels etc). Over time the culture has changed to where many policemen and citizens believe the police are masters to the point where the average bobby has powers far in excess of what the any civilian does and therefore there are countless examples of these powers being abused and the public having nothing they can do about it. The same will happen here with ID cards if we don't carry on fighting them.
Which of course raises the question of, is the reason we have seen such advancement in computer science, but such little advancement in other fields because Computer Science is safe?
Slashdot Mirror
"In reality, noisy diesels have sold well in Europe "
Speaking as an Englishman and part time car nut: noisy diesels would sell rubbish,
My GF's diesel Ford is quieter above 30mph than my petrol Honda, once you get above about 2000rpm when the turbo starts to kick in the diesel has more torque and the difference in noise is impossible to tell, but the extra torque means that you can rev the diesel lower. At idle my petrol Honda is slightly quieter but the idea of noisy/dirty diesels is old.
Now at peak revs the petrol produces more power and I don't see me putting a diesel engine in my motorbike anytime soon, but for me the competition in none race cars has already been won by the diesel.
Except of course that the last Monte Carlo 24 hour race was won by a diesel...
Two things
Air breathing rocket engine wise can I introduce you to:
http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre.html
I think the important thing with SS2 isn't about the technology itself it's about creating the market. Assume that they are successful as a small market - they'll soon enough get competitors who try and compete by building something better/cheaper. If they can't create the market then no harm done, if they can then the only way I can see it go is driving prices down and altitude/speed up.
Are you kidding? Have you read the DaVinci code? Right at the beginning it states that it's based on fact and that all the organisations and technology are real; then goes on into the largest bunch of conspiracy tripe that I have ever had to suffer reading.
No he definitely sells it as real.
So you want to rid the world of all patents? Have you any idea of what the world was like before patents?
Not true, your eye doesn't look at the whole picture the whole time. And what someone else looks at at in a particular scene (the hero's face) might be very different from what i am looking at (the heroines breasts). So you'd be bound to reconstruct the image incorrectly
So you're telling me if you found someone routing through your bins you wouldn't call the police?
I have an expectation of privacy that what I put in my rubbish bins goes directly to landfill/anonymous recycling. Were the collection company or any other agent for that matter sifting through my rubbish looking for evidence of illegal activity then I think I'd have a case against them for invasion of privacy; as far as I know in most of the western world such activity is considered very dodgy on the part of the investigator if not outright illegal without a warrant.
Yet you would seem to argue I am putting my rubbish into the public domain by putting the wheelie bin on the kerb for collection and later scattering on a public landfill...
I think that carriers and vendors in general see phone features as content. i.e. the Ipod is capable of playing any MP3, however that does not give you the right to play any MP3 without paying for it, consumers are used to paying for content and if they can be persuaded to see GPS functionality as content then that makes it easier to milk the cow that is the consumer. It is in many corporations interests to see applications and indeed all features viewed by the consumer in a similar way i.e. everything of value is paid for individually.
Trying not to sound like an opensource zealot, this is where things like android could really save us - by keeping applications on phones free in the same way that opensource has allowed modern software to be free. True there may be a greater effort required for the user to do this, but that then becomes the price paid.
Now if only there was a decent android phone available in the UK....
You raise an interesting point!
1) take photograph
2) photoshop it
3) print it
4) take photo of this printout
5) Publish unphotoshopped photograph of the printout - the photograph being published has not been manipulated!
Got it!
1) become eminent public figure
2) Do shady things behind closed doors
3) Wait for someone to find out about this
4) Sue them for liable - and win because what they said was very defamatory even though it was true
5) Profit!
If this is actually the case then the legal system is in even more trouble than I thought.
not really.
The AC clearly likes the idea of good grammar, he just doesn't know how to do it himself. Kind of like how we like the idea of space travel...
We had already solved the problem of achieving orbit
No we haven't, well no more then the Stephenson rocket solved the problem of rail travel for the masses. A lot of technology and infrastructure investment was needed to get the railway to be useful rather than a curiosity, that's what NASA should have been doing in my book, investing in developing new launch technology, and while it was working on that then it should have been developing LEO infrastructure. Why can't we have our orbital construction yard? Why not have a space tug? Get the processing facilities for mining asteroids and NEO objects. That to me is far more interesting and rewarding than another flags and footprints mission.
You mean they moved onto Z80s?
>While we're at it, shouldn't we be spending this money on feeding the starving
No, because there'll always be starving. I wish humanity/life was otherwise I really do, but I don't see a long term solution where resources are finite and the exponential function is applicable.
2 predictions:
* Lots of slashdot users trying to post something witty about why this is a new story
* trolls saying how this is everything we should expect and therefore should ignore.
to all those who disengaged their brain I ask, what would you do in their position? Hope your instruments work as designed without testing them? Either way, please devise a better test for life as we know it than life as we know it.
You're not paying for a piece of plastic. You're paying for the contents on it. Those contents cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to produce an put on that piece of plastic.
What music costs millions to make? Seriously, there is something very wrong if composer + band + recording studio costs that much. The cost of production has gone down, the Beatles first album was famously recorded in a single day because of the cost of the recording studio. now almost anyone can produce and distribute CDs, my flatmate for a few thousand quid has equipment sound engineers in the 60s would have killed for.
Now if you say you're paying for marketing + brand, then yes I understand how those costs could have increased, but they aren't the contents of the CD.
If you're saying that the most popular musicians should be disproportionately rewarded for their work by charging a premium for their work relative to others then I'm fine with that too, but don't complain that you're selling fewer CDs because you're intentionally charging over the odds for it.
Insightful perhaps but I don't think you will find an Engineering company (actual engineering not software engineering) that doesn't have this requirement. Every company I've ever worked at or with (so a few of dozen) has this requirement. ;-)
As the OP says, it's a legal requirement and actually surprisingly useful to be forced to keep a journal of sorts - especially at review time
FWIW I believe early plans for SSTS have the boosters with flyback engines on them so that they would return to the runway. Unfortunatly this bit of easy reusability was dumped.
Why do you require SSTO in order to bring launch costs down? Saying it will be simpler and therefore cheaper is like saying a canoe is a better way to cross the Atlantic than a cruise ship, because it is simpler.
SSTO requires pretty much everything in the system to be working at the theoretical limits. That will never be cheap. EVER! Even with unobtanium materials you could do a better cheaper job by staging using these new materials.
Staging is a tried, trusted and reliable technology - what is wrong with it that hasn't been fixed over the decades?
You've seen a motorcycle with seatbelts? I assume you don't mean in a side car.
You never go to the Pub? I know a lot of chain pubs work with cards and will set up a tab, but none of the decent pubs around here can handle cards (£3000 a year to have one of those machines)
I'm also from the UK and:
* You don't need photo ID to open a bank account - current utility bill will do - no photo on that. If that fails in the past i have opened a bank account with just cash, no ID needed at all. They did of course there post the bank book to the address I supplied...
* Well, yes, I'd be worried though if entering/leaving a country they didn't want to check my identity.
* That's not proof of identity, that's proof of age - there are plenty of ways to achieve that without all the other rubbish this card has. They already exist and work fine without privicy converns. Those are really only needed if you are near the age anyway, I haven't been carded in about a decade...
Get her to have google latitude installed on her phone and running at all times so you can track her movements at all times.
Now give access to that to any crazy friends she has.
is she still saying "so what?"
The problem is the one sided nature of the relationship, individual bureaucrats have access to information(=power) that the average citizen doesn't. Not just a few of them either- as is the case with normal national security level things - just about bureaucrat will have power over anyone under their particular jurisdiction. The reverse is not true. We're always told the average citizen cannot do things like take photos of policemen for the protection of the policemen, but no opposing right/protection the other way. Now I would have no problem with surveillance/databasing if the information was truly available to all except for a constrained elite; without the average joe being able to monitor those elite to the same level they monitor us then we've got problems.
This is where the problem for abuse comes in.
If I read my history correctly when policemen were first introduced they were very much viewed as a servant of the people - right down to the uniform being chosen to be a meld of the upper and lower class fashions at the time - with no extra powers the average citizen at the time did not possess, they simply were employed to do what the average gentleman was expected to do (arrests, detaining scoundrels etc). Over time the culture has changed to where many policemen and citizens believe the police are masters to the point where the average bobby has powers far in excess of what the any civilian does and therefore there are countless examples of these powers being abused and the public having nothing they can do about it.
The same will happen here with ID cards if we don't carry on fighting them.
Which of course raises the question of, is the reason we have seen such advancement in computer science, but such little advancement in other fields because Computer Science is safe?