Ghostery sounded interesting so I checked their web site. First thing I saw was a "Friend Us On Facebook" button. Perhaps just irony or maybe trusting a fox to guard chickens, but it sure curbed my enthusiasm.
...and to my original point to the OP, adding gyros will not stabilize the bike. All the wikipedia articles and cited references back this up pretty definitively. The OP is also incorrect that trail is the predominant factor in stability. PP's are incorrect that the Segway uses gyros for stability. The lightcycle thing isnt unstable, its just unrideable because the bike cant lean because of insufficient road clearance between the ground and the wheel cowls.
Yes I over-simplified a bit. There are lots of forces that come into play as you say. There was a great article in Motorcycle Week a bunch of years ago (wish I could find the link) that went into it in detail, and their conclusion was that if you started to think about how you're steering you'll end up not being able to do it. Also while some of the gyroscope precession effects are somewhat stabilizing others aren't. I've read (again sorry no link) that precession effects from shaft drive systems degrade traction in turns, although the increase in unsprung weight from the shaft is also a significant factor. Both reasons why shaft drive hasn't been adopted more despite the huge improvement in maintainability.
Anyway, the recent study by Cornell where they built a bike with counter rotating wheels to negate any gyro effect was interesting, the result being that gyroscopic effect "is neither sufficient or necessary" to stabilize a bike. (http://bicycle.tudelft.nl/stablebicycle/StableBicyclev34Revised.pdf). So I guess I disagree with you that gyroscopic forces keep the bike from falling over. Gyroscope precession in countersteering provides 12% of the roll moment which helps a lot in initiating a turn but it is neither the primary force resulting from counter-steer nor is it a contributing factor in stabilization. (Obligatory WP link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering#Gyroscopic_effects)
You cant gyro stabilize a motorcycle... it needs to lean to turn to generate the camber thrust necessary to turn. Thats also why motorcycles cant have flat wheels, and why the front tire is smaller than the rear. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_thrust). The problem with this bike is that the wheel cowls and lights dont seem to have enough road clearance to lean the bike over to steer effectively. As soon as a cowling touches pavement the wheel will lose traction, and bye bye Louise. If you watch the video, it doesnt look like he's having trouble controlling it as much as he's trying really hard not to let the bike lean when he turns. Also, probably why the video doesnt show the bike doing anything at even moderate speeds.
Point taken but OTOH the closing statement by Lamar Smith seems pretty valid: “As a practical matter, this is a special fix for one company”. And while lobbyists from both parties promoted the bill it seems like the Obama Administration was the primary recipient of lobbying largess, and the law lobby in general is one of the top contributors to the DNC. Perhaps the NYT didnt explicitly call it 'bailout' but that's the case they implicitly made. And, when a bill is passed that results in large sums of money changing hands, and is demonstrably influenced by significant lobbying money, it seems naive to cling to the argument that the provision was included solely out of concern for the public good.
BTW I only read that one judge agreed, not two as you said. The 'other judge' I think is the partner in WilmerHale referring to the single 8/10 decision.
And 'what constitutes a bailout'? Thats a real good question. Mod parent up. 'Bailout' has become a poisonous term for anything anyone dislikes, and appeals to public emotions. Maybe we should add it to the lexicon for Godwins Law. But lets assume for the sake of this one point that a law was passed for the sole purpose of saving $214M by one company. Lets assume it was a Republican president and a Republican lobby for the benefit of, say, the oil industry. What would you call it then? Maybe 'bailout' is the wrong word but it would still smack of corruption and crony-ism.
Ahh. Nice link, thanks. From the article "The Medicines Company has been pressing for years for a legislative solution, spending more than $17 million since 2005 on prominent lobbyists".
Looks like Medicines Company would make $65m in fees under the new provisions. Although I cant verify that anyone donated significantly to Obama. They run their own PAC but doesnt look like significant money. Then again, politicians can be bought for nothing these days.
According to manufacturing.net "The ruling by a Duesseldorf state court, however, only applies to direct sales from the Seoul, South Korea-based company, meaning distributors who acquire the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from abroad could resell them in Germany." So Samsung Germany cant sell it in Germany, but Samsung in Korea can sell them to German distributors who can sell them in Germany. Doesnt seem like much of a ban at all, actually.
"It was Marxism nonetheless because the wildest hippie and the sternest member of the Politburo shared the same daydream, the daydream that underlies all Marxism : That a thing might somehow be worth other than what people will give for it." -PJ Orourke
I hadnt thought of that but it beats the current system. Organized crime is in many ways better than the alternative. Why not apply the same idea to lawyers, which are worse. An Uber-Troll, or more likely a few Uber-Trolls, we pay insurance, they get a cut of royalties, their other 'clients' dont mess with you cause your family, and other families dont mess with you because it'd be all-out war. Look at Samsung/Apple and tell me that wouldnt be more civil, faster to resolve, and cheaper, and better for the industry and consumers, if two Uber-Trolls were handling it?
Im just throwing out the 20% number. But the Troll would get 20% of every patent and all future royalties and gains even if its never challenged. Thats not bad money for doing absolutely nothing except expressing a vague threat to potential infringers. But point taken it may not be much compared to litigating. Perhaps sweeten the deal so that the Troll gets 100% of damages and 50% of anything else collected? I cant believe there isnt a new business model in there somewhere for a disreputable lawyer to finesse a profit from.
But your bigger point that patents are becoming (have become?) useless is a given, I agree.
As a small business I have a few patents. Nothing earth-shaking but they're OK and make me a little coin. I dont have even the slightest whiff of the finances to fight off a challenge, or patent war, or even outright theft from any substantial company. So I figure if that ever happens my best recourse is to sell the IP to a Troll in exchange for a percentage of the winnings and let them battle it out.
Maybe thats the new paradigm, grant a Troll say 20% of future revenue of any patent in exchange for them defending it. Not much different from insurance. Such an arrangement might make someone else think harder before infringing.
And sorry for using the word 'paradigm' in an open forum.
I'm tired of Facebook, but there really is no good alternative.
I'm tired of Facebook because it needs no alternatives. Narcissists may need an outlet but they always have, but I dont need to be part of their constant need for attention. The one thing I thank Facebook for, is teaching me that my 'friends' have boring lives, and they have as little real interest in my life as I do in theirs. I find myself encouraged to go DO things that are worth posting, and having DONE something really worthwhile the reward has nothing to do with posting it on Facebook.
But PP didnt say that, he said budget. If spending is 150% of income, social programs are overspent by the same proportion, and are clearly significantly higher than defense spending. PP was refuting the higher burden of social programs; you clearly read both wiki articles, so to ignore that is a bit disingenuous, as is changing his argument and cherry-picking your data.
You also quote FY2010 estimates, and I specifically used FY2009, the last year authoritative data is available. And, while Im not going to refute the numbers, they are unsourced in the article, so clarifying the discrepancy isnt trivial (the footnote at the end does not refer to that paragraph, only the growth number)
I did apparently misread the debt/pension bit wrong though.
Not even close. For FY2009 Military is 23%; Social Security 20% and Medicaid 19%, debt service 5%. Some of the "Other Mandatory" category (17%) like food stamps and unemployment are entitlements so pretty close to half. Of the defense budget, some of that is paying off debt from previous wars, and things like pensions. So, no, "military and the wars" is certainly not half the budget. At 4% to 6% of GDP its not even historically or comparatively high.
They may supply the output for free as you say. But I would have to assume Google and other for-profit developers need to retest using a licensed copy. Or more to the point, I would assume that Coverity would assume that. Perhaps I am terminally cynical, but even if Android can be considered a free software project I dont believe Coverity is trying to help Google out of sheer altruism.
OTOH you seem to have had positive experiences with them, so perhaps they deserve the benefit (I also automatically cave to any user ID under 10000:-))
...assuming they buy Coverity licenses. Which are very expensive. Nice sales tool to announce a 'secret' list of critical flaws to force Google and AnDev's to buy their software, while getting lots of free press.
Slashdot Mirror
Ghostery sounded interesting so I checked their web site. First thing I saw was a "Friend Us On Facebook" button. Perhaps just irony or maybe trusting a fox to guard chickens, but it sure curbed my enthusiasm.
Hey now wait a minute. We still send people to space on rockets. They're *Russian* rockets but don't nitpick.
See? I found something to piss and moan about.
...and to my original point to the OP, adding gyros will not stabilize the bike. All the wikipedia articles and cited references back this up pretty definitively. The OP is also incorrect that trail is the predominant factor in stability. PP's are incorrect that the Segway uses gyros for stability. The lightcycle thing isnt unstable, its just unrideable because the bike cant lean because of insufficient road clearance between the ground and the wheel cowls.
Yes I over-simplified a bit. There are lots of forces that come into play as you say. There was a great article in Motorcycle Week a bunch of years ago (wish I could find the link) that went into it in detail, and their conclusion was that if you started to think about how you're steering you'll end up not being able to do it. Also while some of the gyroscope precession effects are somewhat stabilizing others aren't. I've read (again sorry no link) that precession effects from shaft drive systems degrade traction in turns, although the increase in unsprung weight from the shaft is also a significant factor. Both reasons why shaft drive hasn't been adopted more despite the huge improvement in maintainability.
Anyway, the recent study by Cornell where they built a bike with counter rotating wheels to negate any gyro effect was interesting, the result being that gyroscopic effect "is neither sufficient or necessary" to stabilize a bike. (http://bicycle.tudelft.nl/stablebicycle/StableBicyclev34Revised.pdf). So I guess I disagree with you that gyroscopic forces keep the bike from falling over. Gyroscope precession in countersteering provides 12% of the roll moment which helps a lot in initiating a turn but it is neither the primary force resulting from counter-steer nor is it a contributing factor in stabilization. (Obligatory WP link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering#Gyroscopic_effects)
You cant gyro stabilize a motorcycle... it needs to lean to turn to generate the camber thrust necessary to turn. Thats also why motorcycles cant have flat wheels, and why the front tire is smaller than the rear. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_thrust). The problem with this bike is that the wheel cowls and lights dont seem to have enough road clearance to lean the bike over to steer effectively. As soon as a cowling touches pavement the wheel will lose traction, and bye bye Louise. If you watch the video, it doesnt look like he's having trouble controlling it as much as he's trying really hard not to let the bike lean when he turns. Also, probably why the video doesnt show the bike doing anything at even moderate speeds.
(Actually, on second thought, it will remove the threat of APP Pharmaceutical's appeal)
Yes. Exactly. Thank you.
Point taken but OTOH the closing statement by Lamar Smith seems pretty valid: “As a practical matter, this is a special fix for one company”. And while lobbyists from both parties promoted the bill it seems like the Obama Administration was the primary recipient of lobbying largess, and the law lobby in general is one of the top contributors to the DNC. Perhaps the NYT didnt explicitly call it 'bailout' but that's the case they implicitly made. And, when a bill is passed that results in large sums of money changing hands, and is demonstrably influenced by significant lobbying money, it seems naive to cling to the argument that the provision was included solely out of concern for the public good.
BTW I only read that one judge agreed, not two as you said. The 'other judge' I think is the partner in WilmerHale referring to the single 8/10 decision.
And 'what constitutes a bailout'? Thats a real good question. Mod parent up. 'Bailout' has become a poisonous term for anything anyone dislikes, and appeals to public emotions. Maybe we should add it to the lexicon for Godwins Law. But lets assume for the sake of this one point that a law was passed for the sole purpose of saving $214M by one company. Lets assume it was a Republican president and a Republican lobby for the benefit of, say, the oil industry. What would you call it then? Maybe 'bailout' is the wrong word but it would still smack of corruption and crony-ism.
Ahh. Nice link, thanks. From the article "The Medicines Company has been pressing for years for a legislative solution, spending more than $17 million since 2005 on prominent lobbyists".
I'm shocked, shocked to find someone with ethics on slashdot. Your 'personal responsibility' nonsense has no place here, sir, begone with you.
Actually a little Google backs it up. Try HERE
Looks like Medicines Company would make $65m in fees under the new provisions. Although I cant verify that anyone donated significantly to Obama. They run their own PAC but doesnt look like significant money. Then again, politicians can be bought for nothing these days.
According to manufacturing.net "The ruling by a Duesseldorf state court, however, only applies to direct sales from the Seoul, South Korea-based company, meaning distributors who acquire the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from abroad could resell them in Germany." So Samsung Germany cant sell it in Germany, but Samsung in Korea can sell them to German distributors who can sell them in Germany. Doesnt seem like much of a ban at all, actually.
"It was Marxism nonetheless because the wildest hippie and the sternest member of the Politburo shared the same daydream, the daydream that underlies all Marxism : That a thing might somehow be worth other than what people will give for it."
-PJ Orourke
You mean like this? http://www.virginoceanic.com/vehicles/submersible/
If you navigate to the 'press releases' section of their web site, its 404'd. That cant be a bad thing...
I hadnt thought of that but it beats the current system. Organized crime is in many ways better than the alternative. Why not apply the same idea to lawyers, which are worse. An Uber-Troll, or more likely a few Uber-Trolls, we pay insurance, they get a cut of royalties, their other 'clients' dont mess with you cause your family, and other families dont mess with you because it'd be all-out war. Look at Samsung/Apple and tell me that wouldnt be more civil, faster to resolve, and cheaper, and better for the industry and consumers, if two Uber-Trolls were handling it?
Im just throwing out the 20% number. But the Troll would get 20% of every patent and all future royalties and gains even if its never challenged. Thats not bad money for doing absolutely nothing except expressing a vague threat to potential infringers. But point taken it may not be much compared to litigating. Perhaps sweeten the deal so that the Troll gets 100% of damages and 50% of anything else collected? I cant believe there isnt a new business model in there somewhere for a disreputable lawyer to finesse a profit from.
But your bigger point that patents are becoming (have become?) useless is a given, I agree.
Maybe thats the new paradigm, grant a Troll say 20% of future revenue of any patent in exchange for them defending it. Not much different from insurance. Such an arrangement might make someone else think harder before infringing.
And sorry for using the word 'paradigm' in an open forum.
They have no choice, it is Apple's platform after all.
Actually, if I paid for it, isnt it my platform?
At about a buck a good quality silicon version is already great for hackers and hobbyists.
I'm tired of Facebook, but there really is no good alternative.
I'm tired of Facebook because it needs no alternatives. Narcissists may need an outlet but they always have, but I dont need to be part of their constant need for attention. The one thing I thank Facebook for, is teaching me that my 'friends' have boring lives, and they have as little real interest in my life as I do in theirs. I find myself encouraged to go DO things that are worth posting, and having DONE something really worthwhile the reward has nothing to do with posting it on Facebook.
Thats the discretionary budget, not The Budget. As opposed to the mandatory budget which is much bigger and includes social programs.
For FY2009 Military is 23%
Military budget and total US federal spending:
"...57% of estimated tax revenues"
But PP didnt say that, he said budget. If spending is 150% of income, social programs are overspent by the same proportion, and are clearly significantly higher than defense spending. PP was refuting the higher burden of social programs; you clearly read both wiki articles, so to ignore that is a bit disingenuous, as is changing his argument and cherry-picking your data.
You also quote FY2010 estimates, and I specifically used FY2009, the last year authoritative data is available. And, while Im not going to refute the numbers, they are unsourced in the article, so clarifying the discrepancy isnt trivial (the footnote at the end does not refer to that paragraph, only the growth number)
I did apparently misread the debt/pension bit wrong though.
Not even close. For FY2009 Military is 23%; Social Security 20% and Medicaid 19%, debt service 5%. Some of the "Other Mandatory" category (17%) like food stamps and unemployment are entitlements so pretty close to half. Of the defense budget, some of that is paying off debt from previous wars, and things like pensions. So, no, "military and the wars" is certainly not half the budget. At 4% to 6% of GDP its not even historically or comparatively high.
They may supply the output for free as you say. But I would have to assume Google and other for-profit developers need to retest using a licensed copy. Or more to the point, I would assume that Coverity would assume that. Perhaps I am terminally cynical, but even if Android can be considered a free software project I dont believe Coverity is trying to help Google out of sheer altruism.
:-))
OTOH you seem to have had positive experiences with them, so perhaps they deserve the benefit (I also automatically cave to any user ID under 10000
...assuming they buy Coverity licenses. Which are very expensive. Nice sales tool to announce a 'secret' list of critical flaws to force Google and AnDev's to buy their software, while getting lots of free press.