I've been doing this computer thing for a shorter time, but I think I've still got a handle on this computing power thing. Right now, my computer is streaming music over the Internet. At the same time, I'm writing you this message. In the background I've got mathematica open because I'm a grad student and spent part of the night doing math. I've also got an open document that looks better than what most professional publishers could do a decade and a half ago. E-bay just told me I had won an auction. I IMed with some friends in CA (I'm in NY) as they were going to sleep. Yesterday I sent a friend a short movie, a joke movie, but a movie none-the-less. I live in the middle of nowhere, Ithaca NY, and have ordered off of E-bay. I don't use my CD player any more and have 200 CDs in a big binder gathering dust. I've played games with friends 3500 miles away. I've video conferenced with my brother. And I have a talking paperclip on my screen that yells at me when I don't it ctrl-s to save. (I kill him when he does that) Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while incremental improvements in chip speeds don't have much of an impact. My computer system (probably worth about 2.5-3k) has changed the way I live my life. And the speed increases are part of it. I realize that a 1 GHz chip on a 133MHz bus has issues, but at the same time, I'm still wanting a faster computer. Maybe I'll be able to put a 3-D model of myself online. Maybe speech recognization will finally work. Maybe my design rule checklist for MEMS design will run in less than 3 hours. There's plenty of ways for a computer's speed to be used, and we're not even close yet. Back in the mid 80's (before my modem) I used my computer for games and word processing. Now it is central to my life.
What if every time we sent in a form, we enclose it in an envelope in which we've written a licence agreement. That way, we've put a shrinkwrap license on our personal information!
Imagine the debate about censorware. A child somewhere might see a breast, in his own home on the internet. The same debate, but this time the government would be able to control information flow into my home. The implications could be scary. The Internet is different than other public works because it contains information. And in this country, we seem to be heading towards censorship. A free service with censorship is not a free service, and you bet people would try to censor gov't sponsored internet. If the above made no sense, I'll blame it on the fever I have right now:)
It used to be that universities would hold private everything they did until publication and then they almost gave it away. Today that is not the case. In many fields it seems as if jourals are becoming less about dissemination of information and more about bragging rights. A lot of papers that I've read recently seem to provide less how-to and more useless pictures of the final engineering experiment. They look good, but don't allow you to duplicate their work. Software is certainly not traded freely among universities. Once I was working on a project involving the use nonlinear system theory to predict a certain type of heartbeat abnormality. MIT is very good at this, so I contacted the professor who was working on the subject. He told be that I'd have to got through their Technology Licencing Office. The TLO wanted to charge me $300 and make me sign a whole stack of papers. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that the TLO is set up to deal with *business*. As a researcher (at a top school), they still brushed me off. At 6 months, I gave up on the software. The problem is that MIT was set up to do business with large companies, and that was overshadowing basic research. Note: this is a corporate administrative thing, not the result of a professor's decision. Corporate relationships are making universities see each other as competitors for projects and patents. This is stiffling the openness of engineering programs, and ultimately makes us more reliant on companies for outside help. And the cycle continues ad. nausium.
I'm a strong believer that children do not look for things that they do not want to find. A study was done (I forget where) in which children were shown hand drawn sketches of both male and female genitalia. Younger children had no interest. Those at puberty asked questions. It is my belief that censoring is simply an adult's way of not dealing with subjects that *they* are not comfortable. It's interesting. A certain author wrote about an new social contract with children in Wired, about 4 years ago. It's a bit long winded, but I still remember this Jon Katz article well after reading it. Here it is.
The prof I work for is a MEMS guy. He uses Sandia's MEMS demo tape (including the nuclear warhead *safing* mechanism - it is NOT an arming mechanism... hehehe) in the class he teaches. After he shows the video he always remarks that the Sandia guys just wanted to play with microgears. It's just that if you want to get funding at Sandia, including "nuclear" and "safety" in your proposal is very helpful:)
There's already a startup with the name Zyvex that is already working on building a functioning replicator. Their time scale is over a decade and their attracting some of the better people in the field. Some people think that the impressive nanotech stuff will happen sooner rather than later.
I've been a reader of/. for about 6 months. Normally everyone is honest, direct, and polite. What is up with this "Natalie Portman" thing? Where can I find a history lesson? Thanks
Re:I hate to think I'm the first...
on
A 140GB CD-ROM?
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· Score: 1
Put it in a case with a sliding door and an opening on both sides. Easy enough.
Right now Intel has aweful margins on CPUs. They're only really making money at the high end. However a smaller percentage of the market is buying high end. Part of this is due to the changing nature of Joe, the average computer user, as well as the speed increase due to 3D cards and other smarter add ons. Intel has to find applications that will make people want to buy the high end processors. At this point in time, promising applications involve video compression (and transmission over the net), new methods of interacting with the computer, new displays, and anything other than just a core processor. All of these require DSPs. Most real time applications work better on DSP type technologies anyway. In the end, Intel is concerned about margins and keeping a reason for a high end computer to exist. To do this Intel must become a content provider, and applications provider, and, from their perspective, it's better to do it on their own terms.
The problem, as I understand it, is that just getting a patent lawyer for a stupid lawsuit costs on the order of 40-50k. In a startup company that can be a make, or break difference. And it wastes everybody's time.
The article claims that Sun wants people to go back to the days where all aplications and data are saved onto a server. It's not going to happen. Processing power and storage are just too cheap. If Microsoft doesn't stop Sun, Sega, Sony, and Nintendo will. When the Dreamcast costs $120 and has an add on hard drive, what will Sun's market be? The only market I see is managing a standardized corporate computer system.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been doing this computer thing for a shorter time, but I think I've still got a handle on this computing power thing. Right now, my computer is streaming music over the Internet. At the same time, I'm writing you this message. In the background I've got mathematica open because I'm a grad student and spent part of the night doing math. I've also got an open document that looks better than what most professional publishers could do a decade and a half ago. E-bay just told me I had won an auction. I IMed with some friends in CA (I'm in NY) as they were going to sleep. Yesterday I sent a friend a short movie, a joke movie, but a movie none-the-less. I live in the middle of nowhere, Ithaca NY, and have ordered off of E-bay. I don't use my CD player any more and have 200 CDs in a big binder gathering dust. I've played games with friends 3500 miles away. I've video conferenced with my brother. And I have a talking paperclip on my screen that yells at me when I don't it ctrl-s to save. (I kill him when he does that) Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that while incremental improvements in chip speeds don't have much of an impact. My computer system (probably worth about 2.5-3k) has changed the way I live my life. And the speed increases are part of it. I realize that a 1 GHz chip on a 133MHz bus has issues, but at the same time, I'm still wanting a faster computer. Maybe I'll be able to put a 3-D model of myself online. Maybe speech recognization will finally work. Maybe my design rule checklist for MEMS design will run in less than 3 hours. There's plenty of ways for a computer's speed to be used, and we're not even close yet. Back in the mid 80's (before my modem) I used my computer for games and word processing. Now it is central to my life.
What if every time we sent in a form, we enclose it in an envelope in which we've written a licence agreement. That way, we've put a shrinkwrap license on our personal information!
Imagine the debate about censorware. A child somewhere might see a breast, in his own home on the internet. The same debate, but this time the government would be able to control information flow into my home. The implications could be scary. The Internet is different than other public works because it contains information. And in this country, we seem to be heading towards censorship. A free service with censorship is not a free service, and you bet people would try to censor gov't sponsored internet. If the above made no sense, I'll blame it on the fever I have right now :)
It used to be that universities would hold private everything they did until publication and then they almost gave it away. Today that is not the case. In many fields it seems as if jourals are becoming less about dissemination of information and more about bragging rights. A lot of papers that I've read recently seem to provide less how-to and more useless pictures of the final engineering experiment. They look good, but don't allow you to duplicate their work. Software is certainly not traded freely among universities. Once I was working on a project involving the use nonlinear system theory to predict a certain type of heartbeat abnormality. MIT is very good at this, so I contacted the professor who was working on the subject. He told be that I'd have to got through their Technology Licencing Office. The TLO wanted to charge me $300 and make me sign a whole stack of papers. But that is not the real problem. The real problem is that the TLO is set up to deal with *business*. As a researcher (at a top school), they still brushed me off. At 6 months, I gave up on the software. The problem is that MIT was set up to do business with large companies, and that was overshadowing basic research. Note: this is a corporate administrative thing, not the result of a professor's decision. Corporate relationships are making universities see each other as competitors for projects and patents. This is stiffling the openness of engineering programs, and ultimately makes us more reliant on companies for outside help. And the cycle continues ad. nausium.
I'm a strong believer that children do not look for things that they do not want to find. A study was done (I forget where) in which children were shown hand drawn sketches of both male and female genitalia. Younger children had no interest. Those at puberty asked questions. It is my belief that censoring is simply an adult's way of not dealing with subjects that *they* are not comfortable. It's interesting. A certain author wrote about an new social contract with children in Wired, about 4 years ago. It's a bit long winded, but I still remember this Jon Katz article well after reading it. Here it is.
The prof I work for is a MEMS guy. He uses Sandia's MEMS demo tape (including the nuclear warhead *safing* mechanism - it is NOT an arming mechanism... hehehe) in the class he teaches. After he shows the video he always remarks that the Sandia guys just wanted to play with microgears. It's just that if you want to get funding at Sandia, including "nuclear" and "safety" in your proposal is very helpful :)
There's already a startup with the name Zyvex that is already working on building a functioning replicator. Their time scale is over a decade and their attracting some of the better people in the field. Some people think that the impressive nanotech stuff will happen sooner rather than later.
I've been a reader of /. for about 6 months. Normally everyone is honest, direct, and polite. What is up with this "Natalie Portman" thing? Where can I find a history lesson? Thanks
Put it in a case with a sliding door and an opening on both sides. Easy enough.
We're geeks! We're meek! And we're mildly autistic! Damn... I still can't get that article out of my head :)
Right now Intel has aweful margins on CPUs. They're only really making money at the high end. However a smaller percentage of the market is buying high end. Part of this is due to the changing nature of Joe, the average computer user, as well as the speed increase due to 3D cards and other smarter add ons. Intel has to find applications that will make people want to buy the high end processors. At this point in time, promising applications involve video compression (and transmission over the net), new methods of interacting with the computer, new displays, and anything other than just a core processor. All of these require DSPs. Most real time applications work better on DSP type technologies anyway. In the end, Intel is concerned about margins and keeping a reason for a high end computer to exist. To do this Intel must become a content provider, and applications provider, and, from their perspective, it's better to do it on their own terms.
The problem, as I understand it, is that just getting a patent lawyer for a stupid lawsuit costs on the order of 40-50k. In a startup company that can be a make, or break difference. And it wastes everybody's time.
The article claims that Sun wants people to go back to the days where all aplications and data are saved onto a server. It's not going to happen. Processing power and storage are just too cheap. If Microsoft doesn't stop Sun, Sega, Sony, and Nintendo will. When the Dreamcast costs $120 and has an add on hard drive, what will Sun's market be? The only market I see is managing a standardized corporate computer system.