> Volkerding should be able to find his way to proper medical care.
He is finding his way to proper medical care, but it takes a lot of time. You can't just walk in to a specialist's office and say "diagnose me." You need to make an appointment with your regular physician, who might order some tests, and when those get back, he might refer you to another facility for more tests, and if they're negative, you need still more tests from somewhere/someone else. Each round can take a couple days or a couple weeks, and has the potential for problems like the missed delivery he related in his narrative. When you've got what you perceive as a potentially life-threatening illness, waiting for days and weeks between tests and appointments is beyond frustrating, and using whatever resources you can seems like a no-brainer. He's using family, friends, self research, and a general call for help on the Internet. It's not like he's avoiding medical help to use the internet instead, he's in limbo waiting for his next appointment, and is using the internet to try and get any added information or help that might be useful.
You really seem to lack an understanding of the patient/consumer side of having a serious illness. Even supposing it is a psychologicial issue (which sounds unlikely to me but not impossible), it doesn't make the patient's desperation any less real. It makes sense (to me, as a layperson) to address the issue as a physical problem until it's more sufficiently ruled out. If it does turn out to be a psychological problem, it probably won't kill him in the meantime, so that can be addressed later down the road.
While you've given your opinion on the story being odd or suspect, do you have any constructive suggestions on what you think he should do differently at this point? (Putting aside suggestions of what he might have done differently in the past).
After that B1-B crashed in the Indian Ocean last Tuesday, due to "multiple malfunctions," it makes me wonder why we're even using B1-B's in the Afghanistan conflict, after having achieved extreme air superiority. As this article points out, the annual budget to maintain all 94 of our B-52's is about $250 million, while the cost of a new B1-B is $280 million. B1-Bs are faster, can fly lower, avoid radar better, and have better electronic counter-measures, but the biggest cause of loss to our bombers crashing isn't speed, altitude, radar detection, or anti-aircraft missiles, it's that they break!
It's hard to say what the cost would be to build new B-52s, since the last active B-52 was built in 1962, but it would sure be cheaper than the $280 million each for B1-Bs.
While Sony's letter did invoke the DMCA in regards to instructions on circumventing copy protection, most of the files that were requested to be removed were due to standard copyright law. If the author performed edits on Sony's binaries, and redistributed them, then that is a pretty blatent copyright violation. (Not positive that's what he did, but it sounds that way from the letter.) If he published only binary patches, I think he'd be in the clear on copyright law, and probably be safe from the DMCA if he didn't say how to install the patches.
On the other hand, I don't blame him for saying "screw it." Sony ought to lighten up and figure out how to support fans like this while maintaining their intellectual property rights.
Definitely room for nasties in a functioning laptop. I've got a Panasonic industrial laptop, with a decently thick metal exterior...I've always wondered if you couldn't just stick a loaded handgun in the swappable FD/CD-ROM slot. But I gather law enforcement takes a dim view of "I was just testing to see whether it would get through or not.":-)
Thanks...guess I should have inferred that from the aluminum heat sinks! Overclockersonline seems down for the count right now. I found a list of thermal conductivity in W/cm-K, which listed silver at 4.2, copper at 3.9, aluminum at 2.2, and low-carbon steel at 0.7.
I was wondering the same thing. If you made it out of steel or something that conducts heat better, then it would conduct some of the heat from inside the case to the outside. Or looked at another way, it would conduct some of the coolness from outside the case to the inside. Any thermo gurus care to elucidate?
The DOE site points to the ttcorp.com site, also mentioned in another 5-modded post. Ttcorp.com has changed its URL for that directory ("nha") to point to hydrogenus.com, the official site of the National Hydrogen Association. The NHA promoted the study and produced an "informative video", Correction History: Hydrogen and the Hindenburg, with an introduction by U.S. Senator Harkin. This so-called "exoneration of hydrogen" was done by a single "retired scientist" and "hydrogen advocate", without peer review.
It seems to at least raise questions of credibility when the primary evidence comes via an industry trade group with an overriding interest in promoting hydrogen, which has gained the favor of a US Senator (lobbying money perhaps?), promoting the research of an unaffiliated researcher's study (could the NHA have been funding him?), which they report without citing any other substantiating studies, scientific journals, or scientists.
The lone researcher's findings were introduced into the Congressional Record, as US Senator Harkin (same guy from the video) presented them to the President of the United States, citing as apparent substantiation that the findings had recently been reported on the cover of Popular Science(!). (For those not familiar with Popular Science, it's a pop newsstand magazine, not a peer reviewed journal). The article itself was also included in the Record, and you'll note that there's a fair amount of discension even within the article.
As others have pointed out, the coating was certainly a factor. As was the weather, and bad luck. But by any conventional accounts, so was the hydrogen. And if you read what the lone scientist writes and listen to what he says carefully, you'll note that he never denies the role of hydrogen in the disaster, he merely promotes the role of the fabric covering. The National Hydrogen Association takes it a step further, with press releases and lobbying efforts about hydrogen being "exonerated," and the coating being "to blame."
I don't know, I'm not expert, but it looks to me like the NHA has done an effective job of rewriting history (or "Correcting History" as their video is called). Type in "hindenburg" and "hydrogen" into Google, and the first hit is to the NHA's site (redirected via ttcorp.com), and most of Google's other first-page hits are unquestioning coverage of the same single researcher's theory. Given the impact it had on this thread, it's disturbing how effective such a simple tactic can be in swaying public opinion.
"The kind of people who manage to cram three syllables into the word 'Athlon' are, most likely, not going to buy one."
The author could use a grammar checker for subject/verb agreement, but he does have an amusing writing style, considering this was a motherboard review.
> International law and patents are important yes, but human lives are infinitely more important. Does anyone here get that?
There are lives at stake, and that is of great importance. But it's inaccurate frame Brazil's choice as between saving lives or letting people die. It was an issue of budget prioritization. They were spending close to $82 million annually on AIDS drugs, and felt that was too much. By comparison, they spend $12.3 billion (7.9% of their operating budget) annually on their military. So they could have rearranged their budget and still paid for the drugs. Of course many of their other budget items (and military expenses) involve live-and-death tradeoffs as well...they're in a tough position. But I believe you've oversimplified a very complex issue.
"The media for the new drive, which HP also plans to sell, will cost $15.99 per disc."
Amazon's best-selling movie DVDs seem to average around $21-$22 each. That price relative to $16 for blank media sounds like it could be a factor in the success of their DVD+RW's. The movie industry can't be happy about this, although they must realize cheap, writable DVDs are inevitable.
I think Runix, the Linux for the Sony Playstation 2, was released recently. The X Box should be out before Christmas, and I'd think Linux will be ported to that soon as well.
There are also dozens of VGA-to-NTSC converters, some of them listed here.
I'm not particularly interested in the military function, but the article pointed out that "more than 160 military and intelligence systems will use the digital terrain-elevation data." Personally, I'm more apt to use it to chart elevation maps for trail marathons, but I doubt that's why the government shelled out the moola for this project.:-) I'm sure it will aid scientific research, as well as see some entertianment uses, but I doubt it would have been undertaken without a military purpose.
Is there a rule for Slashdot editors that their comments about good news have to be counter-balancingly negative?
Considering that pilots and guided missiles may make life-and-death decisions based on this data, taking time to make sure it's accurate and properly processed seems like a good idea. If you have an urgent need, I suppose you could ask for 15,000 CDs of raw data, but all the crunched data should be available by the end of 2002.
"Because hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming, banks and shops are evaluating its potential for catching criminals."
Oh c'mon, if this works as well as he says, you know the main application will be advertising. Beer cans will be chusshh-chuusshh-chusshing from the aisles before a bank robber is ever caught looking at a chussh-chuush-chuushing security camera.
I got a letter from Network Solutions a few months ago sternly warning me that "Your domain name is about to expire!" In the letter they included a link to renew the name with them. It took me several minutes of web-browsing and head-scratching to realize that the name wasn't registered with NSI in the first place - it was registered with Register.com! They weren't literally slamming, because if you read things carefully, they said they were going to transfer the name to NSI and renew it for two years. But still, it was a rather deceptive tactic - it looked very much like their normal, legitimate renewal notices. I wish I'd saved the letter, so I could post it to back me up. It seems too bizarre that they'd be accusing others of slamming now.
One other unrelated NSI gripe that doesn't seem to have been mentioned above is the cost of transferring ownership of a domain with Network Solutions. When you transfer ownership from one party to another within the same registrar, it's up to the registrar what to charge. Network Solutions charges their normal (though irritating) $35 annual fee, and adds a year to the expiration date. However, the transfer takes up to two months to complete!!!! If you want "expedited service," where they'll change ownership within about two business days, there's an additional $199 service charge!! See this for details. Other registrars I've used let you change ownership in a couple minutes with password and e-mail confirmations, and while the security there is arguably too lax, a 2 month wait for a domain already protected with Crypt-PW or PGP protection is absurd.
> Bullshit! Taurin does nothing besides tasting strange. The rumours are wrong.
Even according to Red Bull, you're wrong. From their FAQ:
"What exactly is taurine?
Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid, which naturally occurs in the body. At times of extreme physical exertion, the body no longer produces the required amounts of taurine, and a relative deficiency results. Taurine acts as a metabolic transmitter and additionally has a detoxifying effect and strengthens cardiac contractility."
"It really requires an education of the public," he says. "If there's an enhancement of understanding about what nuclear is about, we can benefit from that." [George Schmidt, deputy manager of the Propulsion Research Center at Marshall]
I really wonder what NASA thinks the public needs to learn to think this is a good idea. "Radiation is good for you?" "Rockets don't explode?" Maybe he's referring to the immense environmental damage caused by existing launches, which depending on your death model, may in the long run be worse than a few nuclear reactors exploding over the ocean. But I doubt that's what he means by "what nuclear is about."
> Think about how piss-poor spelling completely screws up the ability to search for anything, anywhere.
Ah, but think about how piss-poor spelling will fuel ever-more-powerful search algorithms that can take into account mis-spellings! Goto.com already does a lot of this; try searching for "britteny spiers" or any reasonable variant. Their pay-per-search business model gives them a direct financial incentive to correct such errors.
Heck, if everyone were as careless as Taco, spelling wouldn't even matter, because browsers would have Autocorrect(tm) built in to the rendering engines!
Search the USPTO database and you'll see that illustrator is trademarked on its own. I didn't look up kiss specifically, but I assume it's the same. There can be different mark holders, like the rock group Kiss vs. the Hershey's candy Kiss. But the rock group can't start producing little chocolate candies, and the chocolate maker can't start producing hideous albums with silly-looking musicians.
> Linux is a word that has no other meaning what-so-ever outside the realm of computers. Like the original posteter said, "Illustrator" is a generic word which describes the purpose of the program.
Or how about Adobe's GNU/Illustrator (gnu = African wildebeest), with all profits given to the K-Free Software Foundation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe...free, software, and foundation are generic terms!). Do you think those are alright?
I just read through some of Visionics' press releases. They had gross revenues of $7 million last quarter, though that includes their more established business of fingerprint and other identification products.
In addition to Tampa's installation and the oft-cited London setup, Mexico is using the FaceIt software to prevent duplicate voter registrations (wonder how they handle identical twins), and Iceland's Keflavik Airport is installing it to nab crooks and false asylum seekers. A number of law enforcement agencies are also using the software to analyze/compare still images rather than live video.
Analyzing still images of known and suspected criminals sounds less controversial. But once agencies start comparing victim-description sketches to government photo databases of non-criminals (drivers licenses, passport photos, university IDs, etc.), many of the same issues will arise.
My guess is that the American public will ultimately value the benefits of real-time public face analysis more than the costs and risks. It will always have detractors, and there will be false arrests and discrimination cases. (E.g., higher rates of false IDs of certain minority groups seem likely if the groups have higher-than-average proportions of convicts. Or some poor criminal-look-alike will be questioned by police every time he tries to fill his gas tank, buy a Big Mac, or get money from the ATM.). But after a couple fugitive child molestors are picked up scouting the local mall or subway, I bet supporters will outnumber opponents.
Slashdot Mirror
> Volkerding should be able to find his way to proper medical care.
He is finding his way to proper medical care, but it takes a lot of time. You can't just walk in to a specialist's office and say "diagnose me." You need to make an appointment with your regular physician, who might order some tests, and when those get back, he might refer you to another facility for more tests, and if they're negative, you need still more tests from somewhere/someone else. Each round can take a couple days or a couple weeks, and has the potential for problems like the missed delivery he related in his narrative. When you've got what you perceive as a potentially life-threatening illness, waiting for days and weeks between tests and appointments is beyond frustrating, and using whatever resources you can seems like a no-brainer. He's using family, friends, self research, and a general call for help on the Internet. It's not like he's avoiding medical help to use the internet instead, he's in limbo waiting for his next appointment, and is using the internet to try and get any added information or help that might be useful.
You really seem to lack an understanding of the patient/consumer side of having a serious illness. Even supposing it is a psychologicial issue (which sounds unlikely to me but not impossible), it doesn't make the patient's desperation any less real. It makes sense (to me, as a layperson) to address the issue as a physical problem until it's more sufficiently ruled out. If it does turn out to be a psychological problem, it probably won't kill him in the meantime, so that can be addressed later down the road.
While you've given your opinion on the story being odd or suspect, do you have any constructive suggestions on what you think he should do differently at this point? (Putting aside suggestions of what he might have done differently in the past).
After that B1-B crashed in the Indian Ocean last Tuesday, due to "multiple malfunctions," it makes me wonder why we're even using B1-B's in the Afghanistan conflict, after having achieved extreme air superiority. As this article points out, the annual budget to maintain all 94 of our B-52's is about $250 million, while the cost of a new B1-B is $280 million. B1-Bs are faster, can fly lower, avoid radar better, and have better electronic counter-measures, but the biggest cause of loss to our bombers crashing isn't speed, altitude, radar detection, or anti-aircraft missiles, it's that they break! It's hard to say what the cost would be to build new B-52s, since the last active B-52 was built in 1962, but it would sure be cheaper than the $280 million each for B1-Bs.
While Sony's letter did invoke the DMCA in regards to instructions on circumventing copy protection, most of the files that were requested to be removed were due to standard copyright law. If the author performed edits on Sony's binaries, and redistributed them, then that is a pretty blatent copyright violation. (Not positive that's what he did, but it sounds that way from the letter.) If he published only binary patches, I think he'd be in the clear on copyright law, and probably be safe from the DMCA if he didn't say how to install the patches.
On the other hand, I don't blame him for saying "screw it." Sony ought to lighten up and figure out how to support fans like this while maintaining their intellectual property rights.
Definitely room for nasties in a functioning laptop. I've got a Panasonic industrial laptop, with a decently thick metal exterior...I've always wondered if you couldn't just stick a loaded handgun in the swappable FD/CD-ROM slot. But I gather law enforcement takes a dim view of "I was just testing to see whether it would get through or not." :-)
Thanks...guess I should have inferred that from the aluminum heat sinks! Overclockersonline seems down for the count right now. I found a list of thermal conductivity in W/cm-K, which listed silver at 4.2, copper at 3.9, aluminum at 2.2, and low-carbon steel at 0.7.
I was wondering the same thing. If you made it out of steel or something that conducts heat better, then it would conduct some of the heat from inside the case to the outside. Or looked at another way, it would conduct some of the coolness from outside the case to the inside. Any thermo gurus care to elucidate?
Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean that line in particular needed a grammar checker. The article as a whole, however, had a number of errors.
The DOE site points to the ttcorp.com site, also mentioned in another 5-modded post. Ttcorp.com has changed its URL for that directory ("nha") to point to hydrogenus.com, the official site of the National Hydrogen Association. The NHA promoted the study and produced an "informative video", Correction History: Hydrogen and the Hindenburg, with an introduction by U.S. Senator Harkin. This so-called "exoneration of hydrogen" was done by a single "retired scientist" and "hydrogen advocate", without peer review.
It seems to at least raise questions of credibility when the primary evidence comes via an industry trade group with an overriding interest in promoting hydrogen, which has gained the favor of a US Senator (lobbying money perhaps?), promoting the research of an unaffiliated researcher's study (could the NHA have been funding him?), which they report without citing any other substantiating studies, scientific journals, or scientists.
The lone researcher's findings were introduced into the Congressional Record, as US Senator Harkin (same guy from the video) presented them to the President of the United States, citing as apparent substantiation that the findings had recently been reported on the cover of Popular Science(!). (For those not familiar with Popular Science, it's a pop newsstand magazine, not a peer reviewed journal). The article itself was also included in the Record, and you'll note that there's a fair amount of discension even within the article.
As others have pointed out, the coating was certainly a factor. As was the weather, and bad luck. But by any conventional accounts, so was the hydrogen. And if you read what the lone scientist writes and listen to what he says carefully, you'll note that he never denies the role of hydrogen in the disaster, he merely promotes the role of the fabric covering. The National Hydrogen Association takes it a step further, with press releases and lobbying efforts about hydrogen being "exonerated," and the coating being "to blame."
I don't know, I'm not expert, but it looks to me like the NHA has done an effective job of rewriting history (or "Correcting History" as their video is called). Type in "hindenburg" and "hydrogen" into Google, and the first hit is to the NHA's site (redirected via ttcorp.com), and most of Google's other first-page hits are unquestioning coverage of the same single researcher's theory. Given the impact it had on this thread, it's disturbing how effective such a simple tactic can be in swaying public opinion.
"The kind of people who manage to cram three syllables into the word 'Athlon' are, most likely, not going to buy one."
The author could use a grammar checker for subject/verb agreement, but he does have an amusing writing style, considering this was a motherboard review.
I'm glad to see that the promise of transmeta is finally beginning to start being fulfilled.
:-)
Yep, I'm glad to see they commenced the outset of initiating the maiden launch of that debut myself!
> International law and patents are important yes, but human lives are infinitely more important. Does anyone here get that?
There are lives at stake, and that is of great importance. But it's inaccurate frame Brazil's choice as between saving lives or letting people die. It was an issue of budget prioritization. They were spending close to $82 million annually on AIDS drugs, and felt that was too much. By comparison, they spend $12.3 billion (7.9% of their operating budget) annually on their military. So they could have rearranged their budget and still paid for the drugs. Of course many of their other budget items (and military expenses) involve live-and-death tradeoffs as well...they're in a tough position. But I believe you've oversimplified a very complex issue.
"The media for the new drive, which HP also plans to sell, will cost $15.99 per disc."
Amazon's best-selling movie DVDs seem to average around $21-$22 each. That price relative to $16 for blank media sounds like it could be a factor in the success of their DVD+RW's. The movie industry can't be happy about this, although they must realize cheap, writable DVDs are inevitable.
I think Runix, the Linux for the Sony Playstation 2, was released recently. The X Box should be out before Christmas, and I'd think Linux will be ported to that soon as well.
There are also dozens of VGA-to-NTSC converters, some of them listed here.
I'm not particularly interested in the military function, but the article pointed out that "more than 160 military and intelligence systems will use the digital terrain-elevation data." Personally, I'm more apt to use it to chart elevation maps for trail marathons, but I doubt that's why the government shelled out the moola for this project. :-) I'm sure it will aid scientific research, as well as see some entertianment uses, but I doubt it would have been undertaken without a military purpose.
> Too bad most of the data isn't available yet.
Is there a rule for Slashdot editors that their comments about good news have to be counter-balancingly negative?
Considering that pilots and guided missiles may make life-and-death decisions based on this data, taking time to make sure it's accurate and properly processed seems like a good idea. If you have an urgent need, I suppose you could ask for 15,000 CDs of raw data, but all the crunched data should be available by the end of 2002.
"Because hearers of the new noise are virtually unable to resist turning to face the direction from which it is coming, banks and shops are evaluating its potential for catching criminals."
Oh c'mon, if this works as well as he says, you know the main application will be advertising. Beer cans will be chusshh-chuusshh-chusshing from the aisles before a bank robber is ever caught looking at a chussh-chuush-chuushing security camera.
The invisible hand of the Alpha Centaurians is trying to tell you something!
I got a letter from Network Solutions a few months ago sternly warning me that "Your domain name is about to expire!" In the letter they included a link to renew the name with them. It took me several minutes of web-browsing and head-scratching to realize that the name wasn't registered with NSI in the first place - it was registered with Register.com! They weren't literally slamming, because if you read things carefully, they said they were going to transfer the name to NSI and renew it for two years. But still, it was a rather deceptive tactic - it looked very much like their normal, legitimate renewal notices. I wish I'd saved the letter, so I could post it to back me up. It seems too bizarre that they'd be accusing others of slamming now.
One other unrelated NSI gripe that doesn't seem to have been mentioned above is the cost of transferring ownership of a domain with Network Solutions. When you transfer ownership from one party to another within the same registrar, it's up to the registrar what to charge. Network Solutions charges their normal (though irritating) $35 annual fee, and adds a year to the expiration date. However, the transfer takes up to two months to complete!!!! If you want "expedited service," where they'll change ownership within about two business days, there's an additional $199 service charge!! See this for details. Other registrars I've used let you change ownership in a couple minutes with password and e-mail confirmations, and while the security there is arguably too lax, a 2 month wait for a domain already protected with Crypt-PW or PGP protection is absurd.
> I use the WHOIS database to find out who's responsible when I get spammed or when I detect a hacking attempt.
:-)
Kind of ironic; spammers use the WHOIS database to find out who to spam!
> Bullshit! Taurin does nothing besides tasting strange. The rumours are wrong.
Even according to Red Bull, you're wrong. From their FAQ:
"What exactly is taurine?
Taurine is a conditionally essential amino acid, which naturally occurs in the body. At times of extreme physical exertion, the body no longer produces the required amounts of taurine, and a relative deficiency results. Taurine acts as a metabolic transmitter and additionally has a detoxifying effect and strengthens cardiac contractility."
"It really requires an education of the public," he says. "If there's an enhancement of understanding about what nuclear is about, we can benefit from that." [George Schmidt, deputy manager of the Propulsion Research Center at Marshall]
I really wonder what NASA thinks the public needs to learn to think this is a good idea. "Radiation is good for you?" "Rockets don't explode?" Maybe he's referring to the immense environmental damage caused by existing launches, which depending on your death model, may in the long run be worse than a few nuclear reactors exploding over the ocean. But I doubt that's what he means by "what nuclear is about."
> Think about how piss-poor spelling completely screws up the ability to search for anything, anywhere.
Ah, but think about how piss-poor spelling will fuel ever-more-powerful search algorithms that can take into account mis-spellings! Goto.com already does a lot of this; try searching for "britteny spiers" or any reasonable variant. Their pay-per-search business model gives them a direct financial incentive to correct such errors.
Heck, if everyone were as careless as Taco, spelling wouldn't even matter, because browsers would have Autocorrect(tm) built in to the rendering engines!
All hale Cmrd Tacko! Hes not a looser!
Search the USPTO database and you'll see that illustrator is trademarked on its own. I didn't look up kiss specifically, but I assume it's the same. There can be different mark holders, like the rock group Kiss vs. the Hershey's candy Kiss. But the rock group can't start producing little chocolate candies, and the chocolate maker can't start producing hideous albums with silly-looking musicians.
> Linux is a word that has no other meaning what-so-ever outside the realm of computers. Like the original posteter said, "Illustrator" is a generic word which describes the purpose of the program.
Okay then, Adobe's new operating system, Kaldera (caldera = vocanic crater).
Or how about Adobe's GNU/Illustrator (gnu = African wildebeest), with all profits given to the K-Free Software Foundation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Adobe...free, software, and foundation are generic terms!). Do you think those are alright?
I just read through some of Visionics' press releases. They had gross revenues of $7 million last quarter, though that includes their more established business of fingerprint and other identification products.
In addition to Tampa's installation and the oft-cited London setup, Mexico is using the FaceIt software to prevent duplicate voter registrations (wonder how they handle identical twins), and Iceland's Keflavik Airport is installing it to nab crooks and false asylum seekers. A number of law enforcement agencies are also using the software to analyze/compare still images rather than live video.
Analyzing still images of known and suspected criminals sounds less controversial. But once agencies start comparing victim-description sketches to government photo databases of non-criminals (drivers licenses, passport photos, university IDs, etc.), many of the same issues will arise.
My guess is that the American public will ultimately value the benefits of real-time public face analysis more than the costs and risks. It will always have detractors, and there will be false arrests and discrimination cases. (E.g., higher rates of false IDs of certain minority groups seem likely if the groups have higher-than-average proportions of convicts. Or some poor criminal-look-alike will be questioned by police every time he tries to fill his gas tank, buy a Big Mac, or get money from the ATM.). But after a couple fugitive child molestors are picked up scouting the local mall or subway, I bet supporters will outnumber opponents.