..the difficulty with radio transmissions. The article mentions networking to transmit the data. If underwater networking was easy, the US Navy wouldn't have used ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) systems to control their submarines.
I don't want my damn weather information in XML format. I want it in Microsoft Word format.
That is an open format with lots of documentation, and it will never go out of style...
This is just another means to get the data. A lot of colleges have weather sites with a lot of data as well. (FSU is a good one, for example.)
Weather data from NOAA/NWS is supported by the taxpayers, data from the Weather Channel is obtained or derived from the NOAA/NWS data and is supported by advertisements.
Weather balloons are only inflated enough to lift a given weight. (A 1000 gram balloon is inflated enough to lift 1000 grams, for instance.) The balloon is about a couple of meters in diameter (for a 1000 gram balloon,) at that point at sea level. Once released, the balloon expands as pressure drops with altitude. 1000 gram balloons often get to altitudes where the pressure is less than 1% of the lauch pressure, so the volume would be more than 100 times lauch volume.
They want someone else to pay for it so they can keep the difference.
Agreed. The difference is called Net Profit, which is the goal of the corporation.
Capitalism is supposed to be about making a better product, not manipulating wages to artificially inflate earnings.
Capitalism is an economic system where a free market determines prices, and everyone competes for their own economic gain. The Better Product for a corporation is the one which nets more profit for the corporation. If the corporation needs skilled workers (or workers in short supply) to make that better product, wages will be higher.
The Market Rate is determined by the Market, hence the name. If enough people are willing and able to do the job at minimum wage to fill all of the open positions, then minimum wage is the market rate for that job. If the worker wants more than that, the worker is desiring more than the market rate. He/She may have been paid more for the same job, and may feel that it isn't worth it to do the job at minimum wage, but that wouldn't change the market rate in this instance.
Of course, corporations do not want to pay more than necessary for a worker. Excess wages decrease profit, and lead to lower stock values.
If it is given away for free, doesn't it then undermine our profesion?
Yes, but that is free as in beer, not as in speech. It could be given away closed source, and still have the same effect.
Also, if it is open source, doesn't it then allow others to use or alter it as they see fit, therefore giving programmers no financial incentives whatsoever?
Not sure about that one. I would think that companies would tend to hire programmers who could modify the source to fit their business needs, regardless of what they originally paid for the software.
As far as I can see, most open source software is exclusively free. The two seem to go hand in hand.
True, but it isn't the Open Source (free as in speech) aspect that hurts economically as much as the free as in beer aspect, at least from what I can see. And that only affects those who would otherwise have been paid to write that code or other code with the same functionality that is no longer needed.
I just can't help thinking that we're undermining ourselves.
Linux servers would still need support, although possibly not as much as some other options. I believe the stability of non-Windows solutions will cost more jobs than the Open Source nature of Linux.
For hardware related issues, press 1. For software related issues, press 2. If you are unsure, press 3. (1 is pressed.) If the computer will not power up, press 1. If the computer powers up but does not boot past the Power On Self Test screen, press 2. If the computer does pass the Power On Self Test but does not make it to the operating system screen, press 3. If you are unsure, press 4. (etc.)
The number of support personnel needed can be reduced with automation. The process probably cannot be totally automated, but as helpdesk software advances and the customers' software and hardware become more stable and dependable, the demand for support from the helpdesk will likely drop.
He says that setting aside some areas for conservation would free up the rest of the planet for settlement.
And not setting aside any areas for conservation would free up the whole planet for settlement. Might as well let the folks living there decide what is worth preserving, otherwise it would be like the US deciding where Canada should have its national parks or vice versa.
If anything happens, say a leak of the helium that caused an explosion, how powerful would the explosion be? Would it be high enough in the atmosphere to not worry about? Would it wipe out a state or three?
Helium is chemically stable - that is why it is used in balloons instead of hydrogen.
I am not a physicist or rocket scientist, but a few questions pop out:
The cable would be 58,000 km long. This is the distance from the Moon to the L1 point, which is the balance point of gravity between the Earth and Moon.
Wouldn't the cables center of mass need to be at L1 or slightly above (relative to the Moon), rather than the end of the cable? If one end of the cable were at L1 and the other end on the moon, the moon's gravity would have a greater effect than the Earth's gravity, so the cable would be pulled back down to the moon, correct? Or am I missing something?
A company led by competent leaders will always attempt to choose the path leading to the greatest efficiency at generating profit, within their means. If we reduce the efficiency of the company, it may not be as profitable, or maybe not profitable at all.
If a company is operating at a net profit margin of $400K per year, and new requirements require a $500K/yr additional cost, with no net-profit return, the sensible thing for the company to do is to liquidate assets as soon as possible and dissolve. Thus, jobs are lost, not created.
If the new requirement adds a cost of $300K/yr with no addtional return, that reduces capital available for investment and development by that amount. Thus, jobs resulting from investment (such as research and construction) are lost.
Both cases above result in a net loss of jobs.
If energy costs increase overall, that increases the costs for all customers without adding anything positive to the output, probably resulting in more lost jobs by the energy customers than the energy provider will add.
By the way - Outsourcing is when a company hires someone else to do the work. Offshoring is when a company moves an operation or function overseas. Offshoring is more likely to result in net domestic job losses than outsourcing.
The loyalty card accomplishes a few things for the store besides tracking what and when you purchase certain items.
Most importantly, it allows a two-tiered pricing system. If you are the type of person to try to get every item at its very cheapest price, and won't buy it otherwise, a loyalty card will designate you as a price-conscious(sp?) shopper, and allow you to purchase items at the lowest price, while still enabling the store to make high-margins on those folks who don't have the cards.
Not quite as important is the actual loyalty factor. Having a Ralph's card doesn't prevent you from shopping at Albertson's or Food Lion, but it will (hopefully, in their eyes,) encourage you to check out the Ralph's ads, and allow Ralph's to run promotions based on a cumulative total purchase amount. Of course, if you have both a Ralph's and Albertson's card, that puts Food Lion at a disadvantage, and then the price-conscious shopper will go with the better deal between Albertson's and Ralph's.
Competent Marketing professionals in the grocery industry could probably come up with even more uses that don't require individual purchase tracking.
It's a good idea in theory, but there's the small problem of someone has to go to the top of the building/object to anchor the ribbon in the first place. So once they work around that, it should be fine.
And the fact that a rope and pully would do the same job faster just occured to me.
I don't know if it is even a good idea in theory. Velocity differences and rotations between the two anchoring points would need to be considered. Even if one was going to try to use a geostationary satellite as one end-point, the mass of the object (rope or ribbon,) connecting the satellite to the earth would be significant, and would drag the satellite crashing back down to the earth. If the satellite was on station further out than the geostationary orbit, and the combined center of mass and the rope/ribbon were at the altitude for a geostationary orbit, the stresses involved would be tremendous, especially when the location of the space elevator would vary, causing the center of mass to vary.
Of course, I'm sure those guys at MIT have already done the calculus to figure those things out, and know how much stress would be present.
Slashdot Mirror
..the difficulty with radio transmissions. The article mentions networking to transmit the data. If underwater networking was easy, the US Navy wouldn't have used ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) systems to control their submarines.
...SCO sues the operators of GPL Dictionary for using words that were originally included in source code allegedly developed by SCO...
I don't know.
Who's on first, and What's the name of the guy on second?
(Sorry, couldn't help the Abbot and Costello reference.)
...IBM will keep an 18.9 percent stake in Levono. Lenovo will pay...
I was going to make a smart alec remark, but the first return on a Google search of Levono leads to a site for a Lenovo product.
I don't want my damn weather information in XML format. I want it in Microsoft Word format.
That is an open format with lots of documentation, and it will never go out of style...
Plain text is a lot better than Word as far as simplicity and portability, and METARs are currently available in Text format on the NOAA Server.
...are listed in text files on the NOAA server for Stations idenfied by a 4-letter ICAO and Stations identified by a five letter synoptic code. If your city has a major airport, it should be in one of those files. Elevations are in meters.
This is just another means to get the data. A lot of colleges have weather sites with a lot of data as well. (FSU is a good one, for example.)
Weather data from NOAA/NWS is supported by the taxpayers, data from the Weather Channel is obtained or derived from the NOAA/NWS data and is supported by advertisements.
Weather balloons are only inflated enough to lift a given weight. (A 1000 gram balloon is inflated enough to lift 1000 grams, for instance.) The balloon is about a couple of meters in diameter (for a 1000 gram balloon,) at that point at sea level. Once released, the balloon expands as pressure drops with altitude. 1000 gram balloons often get to altitudes where the pressure is less than 1% of the lauch pressure, so the volume would be more than 100 times lauch volume.
It's a bit big for a robot, but it is automatic.
They want someone else to pay for it so they can keep the difference.
Agreed. The difference is called Net Profit, which is the goal of the corporation.
Capitalism is supposed to be about making a better product, not manipulating wages to artificially inflate earnings.
Capitalism is an economic system where a free market determines prices, and everyone competes for their own economic gain. The Better Product for a corporation is the one which nets more profit for the corporation. If the corporation needs skilled workers (or workers in short supply) to make that better product, wages will be higher.
The Market Rate is determined by the Market, hence the name. If enough people are willing and able to do the job at minimum wage to fill all of the open positions, then minimum wage is the market rate for that job. If the worker wants more than that, the worker is desiring more than the market rate. He/She may have been paid more for the same job, and may feel that it isn't worth it to do the job at minimum wage, but that wouldn't change the market rate in this instance.
Of course, corporations do not want to pay more than necessary for a worker. Excess wages decrease profit, and lead to lower stock values.
If it is given away for free, doesn't it then undermine our profesion?
Yes, but that is free as in beer, not as in speech. It could be given away closed source, and still have the same effect.
Also, if it is open source, doesn't it then allow others to use or alter it as they see fit, therefore giving programmers no financial incentives whatsoever?
Not sure about that one. I would think that companies would tend to hire programmers who could modify the source to fit their business needs, regardless of what they originally paid for the software.
As far as I can see, most open source software is exclusively free. The two seem to go hand in hand.
True, but it isn't the Open Source (free as in speech) aspect that hurts economically as much as the free as in beer aspect, at least from what I can see. And that only affects those who would otherwise have been paid to write that code or other code with the same functionality that is no longer needed.
I just can't help thinking that we're undermining ourselves.
Linux servers would still need support, although possibly not as much as some other options. I believe the stability of non-Windows solutions will cost more jobs than the Open Source nature of Linux.
Or, I could possibly be way off.
Open source means that you can view the source code. (Free as in speech.) It does not mean that you have to give it away for free. (Free as in Beer).
Much Open Source software is both, but being Open Source in itself does not lessen your ability to charge for it.
I'm sure others will correct me if I am wrong about the above.
I can see automation increasing:
For hardware related issues, press 1. For software related issues, press 2. If you are unsure, press 3. (1 is pressed.) If the computer will not power up, press 1. If the computer powers up but does not boot past the Power On Self Test screen, press 2. If the computer does pass the Power On Self Test but does not make it to the operating system screen, press 3. If you are unsure, press 4. (etc.)
The number of support personnel needed can be reduced with automation. The process probably cannot be totally automated, but as helpdesk software advances and the customers' software and hardware become more stable and dependable, the demand for support from the helpdesk will likely drop.
He says that setting aside some areas for conservation would free up the rest of the planet for settlement.
And not setting aside any areas for conservation would free up the whole planet for settlement. Might as well let the folks living there decide what is worth preserving, otherwise it would be like the US deciding where Canada should have its national parks or vice versa.
If anything happens, say a leak of the helium that caused an explosion, how powerful would the explosion be? Would it be high enough in the atmosphere to not worry about? Would it wipe out a state or three?
Helium is chemically stable - that is why it is used in balloons instead of hydrogen.
I am not a physicist or rocket scientist, but a few questions pop out:
The cable would be 58,000 km long. This is the distance from the Moon to the L1 point, which is the balance point of gravity between the Earth and Moon.
Wouldn't the cables center of mass need to be at L1 or slightly above (relative to the Moon), rather than the end of the cable? If one end of the cable were at L1 and the other end on the moon, the moon's gravity would have a greater effect than the Earth's gravity, so the cable would be pulled back down to the moon, correct? Or am I missing something?
A company led by competent leaders will always attempt to choose the path leading to the greatest efficiency at generating profit, within their means. If we reduce the efficiency of the company, it may not be as profitable, or maybe not profitable at all.
If a company is operating at a net profit margin of $400K per year, and new requirements require a $500K/yr additional cost, with no net-profit return, the sensible thing for the company to do is to liquidate assets as soon as possible and dissolve. Thus, jobs are lost, not created.
If the new requirement adds a cost of $300K/yr with no addtional return, that reduces capital available for investment and development by that amount. Thus, jobs resulting from investment (such as research and construction) are lost.
Both cases above result in a net loss of jobs.
If energy costs increase overall, that increases the costs for all customers without adding anything positive to the output, probably resulting in more lost jobs by the energy customers than the energy provider will add.
By the way - Outsourcing is when a company hires someone else to do the work. Offshoring is when a company moves an operation or function overseas. Offshoring is more likely to result in net domestic job losses than outsourcing.
The loyalty card accomplishes a few things for the store besides tracking what and when you purchase certain items.
Most importantly, it allows a two-tiered pricing system. If you are the type of person to try to get every item at its very cheapest price, and won't buy it otherwise, a loyalty card will designate you as a price-conscious(sp?) shopper, and allow you to purchase items at the lowest price, while still enabling the store to make high-margins on those folks who don't have the cards.
Not quite as important is the actual loyalty factor. Having a Ralph's card doesn't prevent you from shopping at Albertson's or Food Lion, but it will (hopefully, in their eyes,) encourage you to check out the Ralph's ads, and allow Ralph's to run promotions based on a cumulative total purchase amount. Of course, if you have both a Ralph's and Albertson's card, that puts Food Lion at a disadvantage, and then the price-conscious shopper will go with the better deal between Albertson's and Ralph's.
Competent Marketing professionals in the grocery industry could probably come up with even more uses that don't require individual purchase tracking.
...for the case to even begin, and destroy the evidence first.
60000 miles = 316,800,000 feet.
316,800,000 feet / 29 feet per minute = 20.77 years
It's a good idea in theory, but there's the small problem of someone has to go to the top of the building/object to anchor the ribbon in the first place. So once they work around that, it should be fine.
And the fact that a rope and pully would do the same job faster just occured to me.
I don't know if it is even a good idea in theory. Velocity differences and rotations between the two anchoring points would need to be considered. Even if one was going to try to use a geostationary satellite as one end-point, the mass of the object (rope or ribbon,) connecting the satellite to the earth would be significant, and would drag the satellite crashing back down to the earth. If the satellite was on station further out than the geostationary orbit, and the combined center of mass and the rope/ribbon were at the altitude for a geostationary orbit, the stresses involved would be tremendous, especially when the location of the space elevator would vary, causing the center of mass to vary.
Of course, I'm sure those guys at MIT have already done the calculus to figure those things out, and know how much stress would be present.
Its a pilotless plane
So in true slashdot-reader fashion, nobody gets laid as a result
There is nothing preventing the US from reducing pollutants on its own without signing the treaty.
Energy would be better spent worrying about pollutants themselves rather than the treaty.
Were the words they remebered Games, Daisy, Chains, and Laughs?
I guess the long, dull current was the second experiment. When they tried short, sharp, shocks, the subjects wouldn't do the experiment again. Dig it?