As the article says, they trail after a few seconds, since they can't track. So they can't take deeper images of fainter objects. Without the ability to track, they might as well point the camera straight up (or whereever) and check for meteors. Apart from getting information about how many strike the martian atmosphere, they could correlate counts with meteor showers on earth, to see how the same showers impact (or not) two planets at the same time - a unique opportunity.
Also, a lot of metoers on earth at least, are fairly bright. So they might get quite a good hit-rate with their cam. Although I don't know what effect the thinner atmosphere would have. It would be interesting to see if the thinner atmosphere made meteors burn brighter (as they'd be slowed down by "air", less) or less bright, due to the lack of gases.
We all know about price elasticity: the more something costs, the fewer people buy it.
If Microsoft strat gouging customers in various parts of the world, they really shouldn't be surprised if one of two^H^H^Hthree things happen:
People don't buy their new products - and make do with older versions
People find alternatives that are cheaper
People obtain the product from unauthorised sources - i.e. piracy
Now, operating systems development is basically a sunk cost. You pay for all the work (well, apart from the small proportion of making disks, boxes and support) up front, before you ever get to ship anything. After that, your product succeeds or fails on how much of that development cost you can recoup through sales. By screwing over customers, they're merely reducing the potential for sales - unless they're arrogant / stupid enough to assume no-one has an alternative supply.
One possibility is that europeans are being punished for the huge fines imposed on MS for their illegal (allegedly) business practices. Either they're particularly slow learners, or think they have some god-given right to do whatever the hell they like. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU courts went even further on the basis of this blatant protectionist attitude. Maybe this time they'll learn.
I presume you are also the kind of person who would stand idly by while your neighbor beats their child. Thankfully others do not suffer from the same moral cowardice
Riiiight. And you're "in-country" at the moment are you? Stirring up revolutionary fervour?
Or are you sitting comfortably in front of a computer thousands of miles away telling everyone else what you, in your safety and ignorance of the actual situation the citizens face, with all your experience of foreign affairs and dealing at inter-governmental level, think they should do?
A very easy way to get your embassy closed down and all your staff thrown out of a country ios to go messing with that country's sovereignty. While you might think they're wrong and you're right - that does not give you (or any other government) the right to interfere in their internal affairs. How would you like it if the Iranian embassy in your country decided you weren't "islamic" enough and started broadcasting religious programmes all over your radio and TV channels? What you're suggesting is the exact same thing, in principle.
The classic mistake made by newbies (and slow learners) is to assume that stuff you put on the internet years ago somehow gets lost or forgotten.
It doesn't
Sadly some people in Iran, will learn this the hard way. When their security forces finally get around to processing all the blogs, tweets, SMS, emails, usenet posts, youtube videos, facebook entries and other permanent electronic records of comments they may have thought were innocent - or got caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment.
While it may only cost people in "free" countries a job offer or a place at university - these guys could end up paying with their lives.
In this case, the internet may have done more harm than good.
the NASA budget is about 1/20th what our total military expenditures are
Hey, there's a thought. If you want to get NASA's budget increased, as well as getting "space" back into the public eye, just declare war on the moon or mars or some other damn planet. I'm sure the gummint could dredge up some astrologer, from somewhere (pity Regan isn't in the job - he, or his people would easily come up with someone), who could tell everyone what a bad influence the planet of choice was.
And if that didn't work, you could always accuse them of having WMDs.
lots of work for very little gain
on
IT and Health Care
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The NHS has showed that throwing money at the problem doesn't, in fact, help. For years they've spent billions on trying to get everyone's records on line. There's been lots of fine talk about the advantages of having the records of a patient who lives in Dorset available to a GP in Fife (for example). However, in practice, the benefits (as for most IT projects - especially government run / sponsored ones) seem to be mostly theoretical, uncostable and intangible.
However, the biggest stop to systems like this is the medical staff. Doctors seem to think they're above having to enter medical details - as it's mere clerical work (I've heard: "I didn't spend years at med. school, just to be a secretary") and they, personally, don't gain anything from a system such as this. Until somoeone gieves the profession as a whole a kick up the rear, this kind of prima-donna attitude will prevail.
In the end, it's a people problem - not a tech. problem.
Running Ubuntu on a 64 bit box. This version of OPera seems more reliable on flash / youtube videos than 64bit FF 3. FF runs a few vids, then stops - with zombied npviewer processes that prevent any more vids until the box is rebooted.
My unscientific tests of Opera 10 (i.e. about an hour, this afternoon) hasn't had any problems with vids, so far - even though FF is firmly screwed.
Recycling the same assignment from year to year doesn't say much for the prof
So wrong, my friend.
The very best lecturer I had when I was taking my physics degree always had the exact same first question in his finals paper. He also told the class what it was: verbatim before the exam.
His take was that this question (regarding the structure of the hydrogen atom) was so fundamental to the course, and the students' understanding that if they couldn't answer that question, he would fail them - no matter how well they answered any other Q.
Similarly, if a teacher wishes to compare one year's class to another, either to see if they're getting brighter or to evaluate changes in the teaching methodology, then assigning the same test or assignment is one very reliable way of doing it. Since you've been a teacher, I'm surprised you didn't know that.
Not only is the prof an idiot, he's a lazy bastard as well.
You're very quick to judge, when the story doesn't tell the teacher's side. There may be acceptable reasons why he took this decision - until those are made known you really should know better than to dive in and start criticising people.
Maybe it's best that your teaching is all in the past tense
If I was teaching, I'd want to assign some of the same problems year on year. That way I could assess how the standard of the class is changing. I could also use any variation in average marks to check the effect of different teaching practices.
Obviously, if some kid puts publishes their code (which is akin to publishing the answers of any tests / exams you take), then it makes it harder for the next year's group to come up with solutions of their own without being accused of cheating. This guy could well be hurting more people that he "helps" in his rather naive attempt to show the work the results of his efforts.
It's not always down to laziness on the part of the teaching staff, the kids in schools may not believe it, but some teachers do actually know more than they do.
Considering my local sports centre decided it's "life membership" meant 5 years[1], I'm rather skeptical if this company is willing or even able to enter into a deal that lasts 20 years. What happens if they get taken over - or goes bust (more than likely). Who owns the car and / or the commitment then. maybe when they've been in business a century or two, I'll be convinced by their stability and be willing to risk my money
[1] and had this upheld in court when some, rather miffed, lifetime members challenged it.
It doesn't matter who's first (just think: which company produced the first commercial TV set, or SLR camera - much good did it do them today). What does matter is who has the best support.
Given that Linux can't even support the vast majority of USB 1 devices that are out there, since none of the hardware manufacturers think it's worth spending the time and money to write drivers, provide a support channel and publicise the fact, just slapping a USB 3 stack into the kernel means nothing.
Let's see how many peripheral manufacturers bring out linux drivers for their kit, before they bring out Windows X drivers. That's the only thing that would make a difference.
You might as well say that if China appointed a cyber security "czar" that person should / would be the WORLD czar, too.
They could probably make a better claim to the WORLD position (after all, it's not like the WORLD series - where only americans take part), having as they do, the great population size and a lot more cyber security already in place.
But then again, I suppose Cringely is pandering to an audience, who just want to be told that they're (still) king of the world - no matter what the reality is.
Mainly backlash against the arty, trendy, luvvy types who think tweeter is such a wonderful, novel concept and how they can't imagine why everyone isn't using it.
As an example, the BBC has gone twitter mad. Half the programmes - and I don't just mean those aimed at the under 10's, seem to want you to follow them. Most beeb journalists have blogs, which they promote and mention whenever they go on air.
Basically WE DON'T CARE If they're reporters, get on with reporting. Just face the camera and tell us stuff. Don't make us navigate to a website and then scroll through endless opinions from "Mavis, Doncaster. I thinl everyone should stop using oil. It's bad" and other such well thought out views.
While it might appear as democratisation to them, or "getting in touch with the audience", or "hearing what YOU have to say", they should remember that opnions are like a$$ h***s, everyone has one, but you don't want to know about the other guy's - keep them to yourself.
And that's the problem with twitter - people don't keep their lame, selfish, opinions to themselves.
I can't help the feeling that most twitters, tweets or whatever the hell they're called, are merely written to satisfy the writer (in the same way that some people write diaries) as a cathartic experience - never expecting, nor intending them to be read.I would venture further, and say that a large number of blogs are exactly the same - but written by people who can't organise their thoughts into SMS sized bytes (or, vice-versa: tweeterers haven't got the attention span to write blog articles).
Either way, once the initial ego-trip has been satisfied, and these people realise that no-one will ever bother to read their stuff, they come to terms with the obvious conclusion that nobody else cares what they think, as they never get any followers, or blog comments.
Maybe what we need is a website called/dev/null where people can vent, in the certain knowledge that everthing is guaranteed to disappear as soon as it's written - thus removing the threat that when they grow up (if?) it won't come back to bite them in the bum.
There's nothing to stop people being able to enjoy both. Or at least have the option (which is what's lacking at present) to enjoy both.
Properly designed outdoors lighting is widely available. It directs light downwards, towards the places where the people are - not upwards, to waste energy by illuminating the sky.
So far as being only a 30 minute drive to a good sky - ha! you don't really live in a metropolis if you're that close to a dark sky. Where I live there's no possibility of seeing the milky way properly with less than a 300 mile drive in any direction (although 2 directions are bound by the sea). Now that's light pollution.
Except that most citizens consider darkness a "problem" that needs to be fixed.
They like their lights - it gives a sense of security, although in practice, a well-lit area probably just helps burglars and assorted baddies to see how to break into your house - rather than having to draw attention to themselves by carrying torches, tripping over things they couldn't see - or even being able to tell if there's a large dog waiting for them, in silence.
I don't know if it's due to a generally depressed demeanour, but most people prefer to look down, at their feet, rather than up at the sky. I've even had arguments with people who were so uncaring about their surroundings that they didn't know the moon was visible during the day.
Because it's cloudy, dull and rainy the whole time - like today, and yesterday, and the day before that, and.... for instance.
Even when this country didn't have light pollution, the milky way was a rare sight. Normally when you look up there's just clouds. On the few clear nights we do have the moon would blot out the MW, anyway. On occasion you get to see a few bright dots through the light pollution - but those are generally just an aircraft flying by.
The market will tell you what is the correct cost...
Presuming an efficient market. With all the components that go into a cost as being correctly priced, with no market distortions, such as subsidies.
As it is, we don't have a flat and fair market. Farmers get subsidies, energy users don't pay the full price for their CO2 emissions and road / rail users don't pay the going rate for infrastructure access (incl. maintenance costs).
Earth then begins to look like a habitable, unoccupied planet ripe for colonizing
You're making a huge number of assumptions about what they consider habitable. For all you know oxygen could be poisonous to them. Maybe their respiratory cycle excretes hydrocarbons as waste? Maybe they eat radioactive waste.
Who can tell, but a lack of imagination could be fatal - to us or them.
Slashdot Mirror
As the article says, they trail after a few seconds, since they can't track. So they can't take deeper images of fainter objects. Without the ability to track, they might as well point the camera straight up (or whereever) and check for meteors. Apart from getting information about how many strike the martian atmosphere, they could correlate counts with meteor showers on earth, to see how the same showers impact (or not) two planets at the same time - a unique opportunity.
Also, a lot of metoers on earth at least, are fairly bright. So they might get quite a good hit-rate with their cam. Although I don't know what effect the thinner atmosphere would have. It would be interesting to see if the thinner atmosphere made meteors burn brighter (as they'd be slowed down by "air", less) or less bright, due to the lack of gases.
If Microsoft strat gouging customers in various parts of the world, they really shouldn't be surprised if one of two^H^H^Hthree things happen:
People don't buy their new products - and make do with older versions
People find alternatives that are cheaper
People obtain the product from unauthorised sources - i.e. piracy
Now, operating systems development is basically a sunk cost. You pay for all the work (well, apart from the small proportion of making disks, boxes and support) up front, before you ever get to ship anything. After that, your product succeeds or fails on how much of that development cost you can recoup through sales. By screwing over customers, they're merely reducing the potential for sales - unless they're arrogant / stupid enough to assume no-one has an alternative supply.
One possibility is that europeans are being punished for the huge fines imposed on MS for their illegal (allegedly) business practices. Either they're particularly slow learners, or think they have some god-given right to do whatever the hell they like. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU courts went even further on the basis of this blatant protectionist attitude. Maybe this time they'll learn.
he broke into Excite@Home's system and ended up answering help desk questions from their users.
Sounds like he's still being punished for his "crimes".
I presume you are also the kind of person who would stand idly by while your neighbor beats their child. Thankfully others do not suffer from the same moral cowardice
Riiiight. And you're "in-country" at the moment are you? Stirring up revolutionary fervour?
Or are you sitting comfortably in front of a computer thousands of miles away telling everyone else what you, in your safety and ignorance of the actual situation the citizens face, with all your experience of foreign affairs and dealing at inter-governmental level, think they should do?
A very easy way to get your embassy closed down and all your staff thrown out of a country ios to go messing with that country's sovereignty. While you might think they're wrong and you're right - that does not give you (or any other government) the right to interfere in their internal affairs. How would you like it if the Iranian embassy in your country decided you weren't "islamic" enough and started broadcasting religious programmes all over your radio and TV channels? What you're suggesting is the exact same thing, in principle.
It doesn't
Sadly some people in Iran, will learn this the hard way. When their security forces finally get around to processing all the blogs, tweets, SMS, emails, usenet posts, youtube videos, facebook entries and other permanent electronic records of comments they may have thought were innocent - or got caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment.
While it may only cost people in "free" countries a job offer or a place at university - these guys could end up paying with their lives.
In this case, the internet may have done more harm than good.
the NASA budget is about 1/20th what our total military expenditures are
Hey, there's a thought. If you want to get NASA's budget increased, as well as getting "space" back into the public eye, just declare war on the moon or mars or some other damn planet. I'm sure the gummint could dredge up some astrologer, from somewhere (pity Regan isn't in the job - he, or his people would easily come up with someone), who could tell everyone what a bad influence the planet of choice was.
And if that didn't work, you could always accuse them of having WMDs.
However, the biggest stop to systems like this is the medical staff. Doctors seem to think they're above having to enter medical details - as it's mere clerical work (I've heard: "I didn't spend years at med. school, just to be a secretary") and they, personally, don't gain anything from a system such as this. Until somoeone gieves the profession as a whole a kick up the rear, this kind of prima-donna attitude will prevail.
In the end, it's a people problem - not a tech. problem.
My unscientific tests of Opera 10 (i.e. about an hour, this afternoon) hasn't had any problems with vids, so far - even though FF is firmly screwed.
we need to go back to Eisenhower-era concrete road beds
And just how much extra tax are you willing to pay to land B52s in Mitchigan?
It's all very well saying "build better roads" but are you willing to pay for them?
O/S in flash (possibly upgradable / patchable from BIOS)
Integral flat screen
no user accessible parts inside
LCD monitor form factor, not desktop box with screen on top
machine uniquely identified by MAC address, or something like it
This sounds a lot like a loptop - I wonder how many of these points would make 2019's list of greatest design mistakes?
Recycling the same assignment from year to year doesn't say much for the prof
So wrong, my friend.
The very best lecturer I had when I was taking my physics degree always had the exact same first question in his finals paper. He also told the class what it was: verbatim before the exam.
His take was that this question (regarding the structure of the hydrogen atom) was so fundamental to the course, and the students' understanding that if they couldn't answer that question, he would fail them - no matter how well they answered any other Q.
Similarly, if a teacher wishes to compare one year's class to another, either to see if they're getting brighter or to evaluate changes in the teaching methodology, then assigning the same test or assignment is one very reliable way of doing it. Since you've been a teacher, I'm surprised you didn't know that.
Not only is the prof an idiot, he's a lazy bastard as well.
You're very quick to judge, when the story doesn't tell the teacher's side. There may be acceptable reasons why he took this decision - until those are made known you really should know better than to dive in and start criticising people.
Maybe it's best that your teaching is all in the past tense
Obviously, if some kid puts publishes their code (which is akin to publishing the answers of any tests / exams you take), then it makes it harder for the next year's group to come up with solutions of their own without being accused of cheating. This guy could well be hurting more people that he "helps" in his rather naive attempt to show the work the results of his efforts.
It's not always down to laziness on the part of the teaching staff, the kids in schools may not believe it, but some teachers do actually know more than they do.
[1] and had this upheld in court when some, rather miffed, lifetime members challenged it.
Given that Linux can't even support the vast majority of USB 1 devices that are out there, since none of the hardware manufacturers think it's worth spending the time and money to write drivers, provide a support channel and publicise the fact, just slapping a USB 3 stack into the kernel means nothing.
Let's see how many peripheral manufacturers bring out linux drivers for their kit, before they bring out Windows X drivers. That's the only thing that would make a difference.
They could probably make a better claim to the WORLD position (after all, it's not like the WORLD series - where only americans take part), having as they do, the great population size and a lot more cyber security already in place.
But then again, I suppose Cringely is pandering to an audience, who just want to be told that they're (still) king of the world - no matter what the reality is.
Mainly backlash against the arty, trendy, luvvy types who think tweeter is such a wonderful, novel concept and how they can't imagine why everyone isn't using it.
As an example, the BBC has gone twitter mad. Half the programmes - and I don't just mean those aimed at the under 10's, seem to want you to follow them. Most beeb journalists have blogs, which they promote and mention whenever they go on air.
Basically WE DON'T CARE If they're reporters, get on with reporting. Just face the camera and tell us stuff. Don't make us navigate to a website and then scroll through endless opinions from "Mavis, Doncaster. I thinl everyone should stop using oil. It's bad" and other such well thought out views. While it might appear as democratisation to them, or "getting in touch with the audience", or "hearing what YOU have to say", they should remember that opnions are like a$$ h***s, everyone has one, but you don't want to know about the other guy's - keep them to yourself.
And that's the problem with twitter - people don't keep their lame, selfish, opinions to themselves.
I can't help the feeling that most twitters, tweets or whatever the hell they're called, are merely written to satisfy the writer (in the same way that some people write diaries) as a cathartic experience - never expecting, nor intending them to be read.I would venture further, and say that a large number of blogs are exactly the same - but written by people who can't organise their thoughts into SMS sized bytes (or, vice-versa: tweeterers haven't got the attention span to write blog articles).
Either way, once the initial ego-trip has been satisfied, and these people realise that no-one will ever bother to read their stuff, they come to terms with the obvious conclusion that nobody else cares what they think, as they never get any followers, or blog comments.
Maybe what we need is a website called /dev/null where people can vent, in the certain knowledge that everthing is guaranteed to disappear as soon as it's written - thus removing the threat that when they grow up (if?) it won't come back to bite them in the bum.
Plus, of course, the obvious observation for Alzheimer's sufferers - will they remember their shoes contain GPS locators?
Properly designed outdoors lighting is widely available. It directs light downwards, towards the places where the people are - not upwards, to waste energy by illuminating the sky.
So far as being only a 30 minute drive to a good sky - ha! you don't really live in a metropolis if you're that close to a dark sky. Where I live there's no possibility of seeing the milky way properly with less than a 300 mile drive in any direction (although 2 directions are bound by the sea). Now that's light pollution.
They like their lights - it gives a sense of security, although in practice, a well-lit area probably just helps burglars and assorted baddies to see how to break into your house - rather than having to draw attention to themselves by carrying torches, tripping over things they couldn't see - or even being able to tell if there's a large dog waiting for them, in silence.
I don't know if it's due to a generally depressed demeanour, but most people prefer to look down, at their feet, rather than up at the sky. I've even had arguments with people who were so uncaring about their surroundings that they didn't know the moon was visible during the day.
Even when this country didn't have light pollution, the milky way was a rare sight. Normally when you look up there's just clouds. On the few clear nights we do have the moon would blot out the MW, anyway. On occasion you get to see a few bright dots through the light pollution - but those are generally just an aircraft flying by.
The market will tell you what is the correct cost ...
Presuming an efficient market. With all the components that go into a cost as being correctly priced, with no market distortions, such as subsidies.
As it is, we don't have a flat and fair market. Farmers get subsidies, energy users don't pay the full price for their CO2 emissions and road / rail users don't pay the going rate for infrastructure access (incl. maintenance costs).
Earth then begins to look like a habitable, unoccupied planet ripe for colonizing
You're making a huge number of assumptions about what they consider habitable. For all you know oxygen could be poisonous to them. Maybe their respiratory cycle excretes hydrocarbons as waste? Maybe they eat radioactive waste.
Who can tell, but a lack of imagination could be fatal - to us or them.