Re:Who actually cares about the "good" ratings?
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Gaming the App Store
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I rarely pay attention to 4 and 5 star ratings. I look through a hundred or so ratings on the app and find the people who complained and why. Many of them are "I paid $5 and not it's $0.99" and I can ignore those, but what I look for is the "game too short, beat it in 2 hours" stuff, or "man this thing needs some improvement, how the hell can [app type] not include [key expected feature]!" or "the controlls make this unusable!"
When in doubt, I actually try the free version, though soon, if Apple doesn't clean up how iTunes stores apps, in a big way, that's going to start getting to be a real pain....
Right. Apple has also not only made quite clear statements on this, they've also pulled not only apps, but entire developers off the store for this, and under contract breach terms, they could technically also refuse to pay out the developer's remaining balance, and potentially even offer full refunds (at the dev's expense) to any customers voicing complaint.
This company, making it quite clear they're encouraging their clients to break the law, is likely to not only get a few of their clients banned from the store, but possible ALL of them, and all their apps, and have a major class action suit brought against the marketing firm.
This was a bonehead move to formally admit it. I'm sure all their clients are quickly jumping ship, and getting their lawyers together to ensure they can claim they were "not aware of the specific tactics of the marketing firm."
All NEW Os should be 64 bit, sure. unfortunately, we have to have a 32bit solution that maintains continued support for all the legacy apps we can't leave behind.
Sure, we could "restrict" the sale of 32 bit apps, and restrict all signed apps to 64 bit here forward, and most people buying new machines to work with new stuff, and common apps would not have issues, but about half my back catalog of personal software would either have to be replaced or run in a VM (and currently, many games don't like VM or don't work at all due to lack or GPU virtualization).
I run 64 bit on my "core" machine, but too many apps are not yet compatible. Apple if farther ahead in this process than microsft, but they have slightly more control over how their app programmers put out code, and more of them are 64 bit ready today (or close). With the move to Windows 7, 64 bit should be starting to become more of a norm. Windows 2008 is actually driving this by forcing devs to released signed drivers only under 64bit, which means at least the hardware vendors are thinking in 64 bit code methodology and techniques. MOST 32bit apps, that don't require underlying driver support or cross application connectivity, work under 64bit. I Microsoft pushes the industry right, Windows 2010 will be 64bit only, and Windows 8 should likely be as well...
Yea, but even if you enable 16GB of RAM under 32bit Windows, XP and Vista can only give 2GB of it to photoshop, MAX. No SINGLE application can utilize more than 4GB of virtual address space under PAE, had half the address space is reserved for the lernel. PAE however is disabl;ed under 32bit OS as it has risks, especially for lots of drivers, and letting general users have access to this, without a process for validating and supporting all their apps under it (which most companies do not have programmers who understand this type of addressing), would be a support nightmare. PAE works when lots of individual apps need to run concurrently, or when multiple instances of the same app need to run under seperated memory spaces. Both these cases are uncommon for workstation users, and the 64 bit edition solves this issue for most users who would take advantage of it, so PAE is not included in workstation OS by Microsoft. This is NOT a licencing issue, or even a "charge more for advanced features" issue, it;s about who needs it, how much it costs to support it, and whether or not the SHOULD be using it vs other options...
Its possible for an application under 32bit windows to also take advantage of AWE (Address Windowing Extension). This requires the lock Pages in Memory privilidge for the app, and some pretty extensive code level support. This can allow a 32 bit app to use more than 4GB of RAM under 32bit. It is not very efficient. It;s also one of the API's you're paying extra for under the server licnece that you do not get under the workstation license (XP can't do this, Server 2003 can). Typically this is reserved for apps with massive datasets (DBs over 2GB, large video files, massive images, etc) in situations where the code can not be easily ported to 64bit but where support for AWE can be added.
Ok, lets start with: Who hame crimes did the presence of these cameras PREVENT on these streets, which should be a relatively easy number to correlate vs exiting criminal reports.
next, lets look at some numbers: Camera cost, about $2500 (for a snazzy PTZ model with night capability and a heater to keep it running in winter). to cover a few city blocks (typical beat) be need about 20 of these. Installation and wiring is another couple grand per camera, and maintenance might be 20% a year. So, several city blocks covered for about $150 for a 5+ year term. That's a LOT less than an office gets paid over that time, let alone training and equipment... That office can prevent a FRACTION of the number of crimes a set of cameras can, as any criminal only needs to know where the cop was and what direction he was headed, and he could freely mug people a block in the other direction with little risk... Cameras, there's no escaping.
The system is FAR cheaper than people on the streets. No, we don't CATCH a lot of people on camera alone. (though I bet the camera evidence was used in a LOT more than 1 in 1000 convictions). The footage on the camera is not good enough to identify a crimanal on that alone, but it's real good at confirming someone's description, and leading to a suspect who's caught based on other evidence. But that's not the point, i want to know how many crimes has this system PREVENTED in this area, and overall for the entire city (inculding areas not survailed). Fuerther, placing cameras in highly public lower crime communities leaves the oficers we already had to better patrol seedier areas, and get to know the people who operate in those areas much better.
OK, first off, even gettign video off mass scale systems like this involves a process and documentation. It;s proprietary footage. It;s not like you can pop out a tape and put it in your VCR... or copy it to your PC with ease. Footage is not only tracked for access, but by WHO accessed it.
Next, you can't just pull up a camera at will, something has to trigger an alarm, or a crime must be reported and an access code entered for the operater to begin following an individual using the camera system. Outside of an offical purpose, all they see are a few high security areas theat roll in a rotation combined with shots from other cameras at random. They can't just "follow" someone at will and "track" their behavior, regardless of what you see on TV....and have you SEEN the footage? There's a reason people don;t get busted on camera often. The footage is only good enough to get a basic DESCRPTION of an individual, not fine grain details, unless they happen to walk past a camera an operatior is actively using tracking a crime in real time, and got the chance (and luck) to zoo in enough. Most often however, the crime happens so fast that by the time 911 hands the call over to the video guys, the suspect is long gone and hiding from cameras and all they get, if they're lucky and had good line of sight without some truck blocking the vid angle, is to be able to see how the crime played out.
If you're doing something stupid in public, and get caught on camera, that's your own fault, even if it leaks to the web, as is the case that anyone with a cell phone or camera could have just as easily caugt the same footage (likely much better quality), and posted it as well.
There is NO EXPECTATION of PRIVACY in PUBLIC you paranoid screwballs!
CCTV is only a breech of privacy if the image is correlated to a face recognition database, your motions are tracked and logged, and that information is searchable....
The fact that you're on camera in a public place is NO MORE a breech of privacy than some random person seeing you walk down the street...
Only if people have realtime access to cameras, can manipulate them at will, and have no oversight would there really be any potential abuse of privacy, and even then, the risk is minimal as there's "no expectation of privacy in public!"
There are thousands of cameras. Some of them are in fact watched continuously, but the people who watch them only watch those cameras, and they're usually highly secure or very public areas. The rest of them are only brought onto the screen either randomply by a program, or caled up manually when an alarm is triggered or when a crime is in progress.
Its not like what you see on the TV show Las Vegas where they use the cameras to snoop into everything people do. These for the most part are fixed position cameras. Overhead views pointed down streets with only good enough resolution to pick out the action of a crime and often not even clearly capture faces. It's a very simple system, used almost exclusively for confirming a description of an individual suspect who was dumb enough to be caught on film comitting a crime, but even then, they require witnesses or physical evidence as a blurry representation of a black man in a grey hoodie isn't going to get anyone convicted of a crime...
"steals their business"? What?!? Explain first how Apple profits from their included free apps. They're providing a platform, and if Google on their device as a free alternate option inticed more customers to buy it, what is Apple to care? Including google means more iPhone buyers and more money.
Next: Apple profits more than Dell, HP, Acer, and any other competitor off their hardware. Not just in terms of per unit, but Apple actually profited more than the SUM TOTAL of Dell last year of 25% of the shipped PCs (not counting iTunes store, ipods, and phones). Apple is proof positive of how profitable and successful a hardware company can be. They're a model to the industry!!! Apple has never been on the "wrong path" selling hardware.
No, the real reson I'm sure is pressure not even so much from AT&T, but T-Mobile and Verizon regarding the ability, using Google Voice, to bypass having to pay for airtime minutes, and to be able to bypass SMS charges.
OMFG? You really think the 10.4 to 10.5 upgrade was on par with a SERVICE PACK??
First off, 10.3 and 10.4 continue to be patched, and rollup patches are available as well. You can CHOOSE to upgrade or not upgrade, and paying $129 got you from 10.1 all the way to 10.5 one time if you didn't want the new applications and features that came with each release. most people only bought every other upgrade...
second, 10.5 added MANY impressive noew core features, new GUI enhancements, an entire new backup system, over 150 major new features and applications, and over 1000 "enhancements and bug fixes."
Each OS revision also improved speed, and few of them required more RAM, none required new CPU or other major hardware changes (until 10.6, but if you're not on an intel yet, you're using 5+ year old kit, and should no longer expect a nondsruptive upgrade). Even still, 10.5 will continue to receive new patches and new a-pplication enhancements through Apple Update for years yet...
10.6 being $29 is a major enhancement, but lacks the array of new core features. It's still a major improvement, and over 1,000 REWRITTEN apps, and nearly doubles the speed across the board of the OS, replaces the kernel with a full 64 bit system, gives the OS multithread centralization for optimal processor use (and saving devs the headache of doing it on an app by app basis), and still throws in several completley new tools.
XP patches have NEVER come to more than a rollup of bug fixes, throw in a new version IE and WMP which most people already got for free, but not microsoft FORCES you to take and refuses to give you new additional security fixes if you don't take it, and some minor graphic enhancements, and an occasional backport of something the new OS got. on rare occasions, they've also "added in" features with a service pack, but in MOST cases, those were features already PROMISED to have been included in the pre-release of the OS, so you;re "getting for free"what you SHOULD have had all along...
Also, you pay $129 for any new Mac OS, (now $29 for "incremental improvements" like 10.6). With Vista Ultimate (the closest comperable version from microsoft) that upgrade to Vista is 3 times the cost of going from 10.3 to 10.6, a 7.5 year OS lifespan (assuming 10.7 comes out sometime around spring 2012, which would be on par with Apple's lifecycle). Upgrading again to Windows 7 from Vista is ANOTHER $220... You had a hard enough time upgrading to Vista without replacing hardware or missing access to key features and performance, good lick going to 7 if you're still on XP, likely it's cheaper to just buy a whole new system than upgrade your existing one to keep the same performance tier. 10.6 has a HIGHER performance tier than 10.3, and only requires a small ($30) bump in ram for most systems.
For an XP user, lets say you got a fairly powerful new kit, though not a core 2 duo as those were not yet available, but still something capable of video editing and some gaming, with a 20" screen, and having slots for upgrades, something about a $1200 desktop package in Spring 2006. At the same time, you got a 20" Core Duo Intel iMac (Apple beat Widows to the punch with this chips's availability, thanks to a contract with intel for exclusivity) running 10.4 for the same $1200. Fastforward 3.5 years. Your iMac has needed NO RAM upgrade to run 10.6, and only cost you $158 (or less) to get there. Your PC rig, with a slower CPU, would not only require 4 times the RAM of it's base XP config, as well as a GPU replacement and possibly even a HDD replacement to be capable of maintaining the same performance tier it had when new just 3.5 years ago if you upgraded it to Windows 7. Even if you SKIPPED Vista, your OS upgrade is $220, plus RAM (if your board could actually HANDLE 4GB, which oh, I'm sorry, it's not a Core2, so it can only take 3GB, SO sorry!) and a vid card that supports directx 10 also not available in 2006, and you damed well better have a 200GB plus HDD which, or, again sorry, was not available in
i don;t argue RFTS is a good idea, in fact, it;s pretty much the BEST one, but why does it need to be made in proximity to the fleet?
Yea, shipping refined jetfuels across the ocean from the USA is a horrible idea, but we have active bases in nearly every coastline country on earth, or could build a few more. We can easily and much more effectively make the fuels there, and escort them a couple hundred miles to the carrier. It already holds weeks worth of usable jetfuels onboard, runs from local refineries would not be an issue. Further, the excess non-jetfuels produced would be used on base for other purposes, or sold to the local government who's country the base sits in. Plus, then we don't have to waste billions altering a good process to fit a ship, deal with the inefficincies, nor deal with the decade delays, we could build these now...
Seawater is a REALLY BAD source of CO2, it's low yield and very dirty, it would also have to be desalinated and processed before it could be put in the electrolizer. It's also going to have major waste control issues, and if they can't solve the methane outgas issues, it;s going to end up being MANY times more environmentally bad than simply burning oil. Also that CO2 is already sequestered, so it's not a carbon nuetral solution. (it's better than the million year cycle of oil, but it's still not a short term loop...)
nuclear may be CO2 free, but it's an extremely expensive system. Not to mention, the scale of that reactor doesn't exactly have a couple hundred free MW available. What are they going to do, cut propulsion in order to make gas?
Getting just jetfules from this process will have massive reprecusions in efficincy and process speed, it's a semi-random chemical process guided by catalysts. unless they abandon RFTS in favor of a bacterial or nanostructure processing, they're not going to get anywhere near 100% high alcohol from this process. People have been trying to get RFTS to do that since WWII...
I'm not calling the Navy idiots, they're on a good path. This technology CAN work, but their choice of input, design, and more, without taking the time to partner with the world leader in this type of system design, that's not exactly einstein level work. I'm glad they're persuing this, but I don't think they've got enough bugs worked out on their own to put this into process in less than 10 years.
If they're only looking to solve logistics issues with acquiring jetfuels, a secondary fleet ship to make the fuel, and pump it over to the carrier might work, but that carrier holds a SHITLOAD of jetfuel, enough to operate off shore for weeks at a time or longer, and it would never be in an operating theatre of war more than a couple hundred miles from a secure naval base where they could make the fuel far more efficiently. The issue is how to not ship fuels across open oceans from the USA, how to solve the logistics and security of getting fuel to the carrier, making it onboard is not a rewquirement as far as I can see to solve that problem. We have bases all over the world we can make fuel at... (and also use the non-jetfuel for other things at that base).
lets just say I'm in the loop. I'm not associated with Doty, nor am i compensated in any way by them, it;s simply a technology I've been introduced to, and I've got some contacts over there. They were not aware of the Navy's plans...
"steep" has many variations. If the fee was $1M per 1M gallon capacity, that's not exactly steep for a $100+M construction project... However, failing to acquire said licence, that's going to ruffle some feathers.
Most of the companies out there would not be building one or 2 of these plants, but dozens or gundreds (it would take about 4,000 of them to satisfy the US demand). People putting billions of investment into an industry should expect some figure between 10 and 50% of the initial investment in licensing. i have no idea what they're licensing it for.
Honestly, doty is likely to partner with the navy and help them enhance their design, not step in the way. Also likely they'll get funded better as consultants than patent licencers on this.
The output mix can be adjusted within some bounds based on the catalysts used, bot not much... It's still mostly a fairly random chemical process. If they could make 50% high alcohol, I'd be impressed.
Yea, sure, they could retrofit, and miniturize, but not only do they get reduced capacity, they also get dramatically reduced efficiency.
The point would not be to ship fuel, but to make it at each base around the world... making it onboard is not ideal, but making a few million gallons at 100 different locations is completely doable.
Yea, the Navy can use the patent, but they do still have a roadblock in licensing it (at a reasonable fee which can even be set by a court if Doty didn't play fair, but even a FAIR fee will likely be substantial given the number of millions of gallons they'd be making... Much more likely, Doty would get involved in this process with the navy, get paid as a contractor to develop them a better system using their patents, and then sell the design to the navy... They're not stupid, and they're not profit mongers, but I do think they'd take significant offence if the Navy didn't at least CONSULT.
Of course, Doty's patents are all aroun defficincy systems, symbiotic connections, heat exchangers, and more. RFTS can be done by itself without patent (it's an OLD technoilogy), it just can't be done WELL without some partnerships here.
Well, since Doty thinks this is a multi-billion dollar industry, (well, the oil industry is a mutli TRIllion dollar industry afterall), I'm thinking they'll have some major investments to make to get this tech.
Doty is offering it licenced to any takers (ANY takers) and not keeping the construction of facilities to themselves. They WANT this tech spread far and wide and want to ensure monopoly producers can be kept to a minimum, but there is a steep licence fee they'll have to pay...
I don't know how many of the patents Doty has might be infringed by this, clearly not all of them, but simply getting involved with them on the ground floor on this project might save them a few billion, and get Doty's other plants moving along nicely funded faster.
That's why court documents for suing the government are sealed....
Of course, the simply truth is, the process itself is NOT a national secret. It's a process that's been used since WWII. Yea, if thay actually integrated it into a carrier (which i seriously doubt is possible without buiulding a new carier around it) the specs of how that's done would be a national secret, but not the workings of the machine itself...
Likely though, I'd think Doty would be partnering with them, and selling them tech to improve the navy't process and reduce costs, not actually sue them....
This is real technoilogy, and I know the navy has not licensed it, so wither their efficincies are going to be half of what Doty achieves, the expense will be dramatically higher, or they'll be forced to license the tech (or get used for using it).
How can pointing out that our govenment is stepping on patents be considderd flamebiat?
The navy's idea sounds bad. However, DotyEnergy, likely the source of the Navy's ideas, has a system that is 60% end to end efficienct for making fules using a highly modified (with over 60 patents) RWGS/RFTS process. They've been working on refinements to it for decades and are working on a mid scale POC faciltiy to come online and finally prove this to the world.
Fuel from wind, water, and CO2 inputs ar $60-80/bbl in a 100% carbon nuetral process.
I don;t care if the energy is negative, if the energy is 100% renewable and does not contrubute to CO2 output.
RFTS's output is only about 20% jetfuel (the rest is a blend of methanol, ethanol, highher oils, and other fluid fules), and that takes a 10 story facility not including all the EXTRA equipment needed to handle the seawater, not the rediculoud retrofit, not the structural risks of having open doors under the water to the sea for intake/output...
No, the navy will be making fuel on land. The benefit is not only cheap fuel, but it can be made, instead of delivered, to bases all over the world, solving logistical and security risks of moving large amounts of fuel.
Howver, to do this, the navy's going to need some serious partnership[s and licence agreements with Doty Energy or i think might face some legal action... They've got 60+ patents on this process...
Well, it;s not as nice as DotyEnergy's nearly identical solution, backed by over 60 patents, that I think the Navy is trying to usurp... basically, the idea is this CO2 is not from FOSSIL sources, and would return to the ocean over decades, not to the ground over millions of years.
In doty's case, they're using sequestered CO2 from coal output, so they're reusing CO2 that would already be released, and therefore can be 100% CO2 nuetral, the navy's solution is not as green. it's also FAR more complicated (filtering water, dealing with sea water waste contaminants, and more).
1: this won;t fit in any existing ships, we're talking new carriers... Retrofitting is basically impossible for a facility like this. Even if they used a scaled down system, not a full 250MW RFTS chamber, it would still be rediculously expensive to build one onboard, hundreds of millions, vs building one on land (tens of millions). 2: the nuclear reactor is designed for a specific power output needed by the ship. Adding 50-100MW of additional load would be crazy. 3: only 20% of the output of RFTS is jet fuel, the majority is methanol and ethanol, and they'd have to store that until they get back to land, meaniung 3-4 times the tank storage of just filling up with jet fuel on land. 4: the seawater to CO2 chamber would be massive, so would the elcrolysis chamber, not to mention MASSIVE seawater filtering systems. The inlets and outputs would also cause major issues with ship structure vulnerabilties. 5: the smaller ytou make the RFTS plan, the more expensive the fuel is. A 250-500MW facility on land (costing a fraction of an onboard equivalent) would produce fuel at less than half the price of a 50MW facilty, and that's still millions of gallons a year. They likely don't need a fraction of that per carrier. Jetfuel is $4.50 a gallon or so from a 250MW facility. It could be $25 a gallon or more on a ship scale system, excluding the facility costs...
good luck fitting a 10 story RFTS plant inside a carrier, let alone the electrolysys chabmers, on-site temporary H2 storage, output storage containers, fuel refiners, somewhere to store dangerous byproducts (using Doty's patented RWGS/RFTS with seawater would be VERY dirty), using it with sequestered CO2 from coal and river water, not a serious problem...). Then you've got to seperate the blends, and I haven't even looked at what the design of a seawater - CO2 seperation system looks like.
No, i think the navy is looking to do this on land, not while afloat... Granted a 250MW facility produces millions of gallons of fuel, and likely a smaller plant would suffice for jet fuel, but only 20% of the output of RFTS is higher octanes and alcohols usable by jets, the rest is general fuel which a carrier really has no need for. This will be produced on land then refilled into the ships...
Per DotyEnergy, who has a nearly identical process backed by more than 60 patents, and who I am certain the navy has not licensed it from, a 250MW fuel system plant, using all of their patented efficincy improvements would produce about 5M gallons of jet fuel, and about 25m gallons of other mixed fuels over a 1 year period. a 50MW facility could make about 6M gallons total. Either of these whould have a real hard time being fit inside a carrier, and certainly would be impossible to retrofit. The facility is more than 10 stories tall, and takes acres... The electrolysis chamber alone would be massive, not to mention near-term H2 storage, fuel refinelments and more.
I don't think the navy intends to put a plant ON a carrier, likely they'll put them in their sea ports and make fule on land to refuel ships and planes with...
Either way, they've got some serious roadblocks to cut through before they can use this process without paying some heafty licensing fees, or some heafty legal settlements for patent infrincgement.
and this is why DotyEnergy, who the navy appears to be stealing this technology from, planned on using off-peak wind energy in their economic model to produce fuel theour WRGS/RFTS processing...
Read about what the navy is pirating from dotyenergy.com. Specifically, chheck oout the following articles http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm. Doty has over 60 world patents on the technology involved in this process and has been working on refinements for decades...
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I rarely pay attention to 4 and 5 star ratings. I look through a hundred or so ratings on the app and find the people who complained and why. Many of them are "I paid $5 and not it's $0.99" and I can ignore those, but what I look for is the "game too short, beat it in 2 hours" stuff, or "man this thing needs some improvement, how the hell can [app type] not include [key expected feature]!" or "the controlls make this unusable!"
When in doubt, I actually try the free version, though soon, if Apple doesn't clean up how iTunes stores apps, in a big way, that's going to start getting to be a real pain....
Right. Apple has also not only made quite clear statements on this, they've also pulled not only apps, but entire developers off the store for this, and under contract breach terms, they could technically also refuse to pay out the developer's remaining balance, and potentially even offer full refunds (at the dev's expense) to any customers voicing complaint.
This company, making it quite clear they're encouraging their clients to break the law, is likely to not only get a few of their clients banned from the store, but possible ALL of them, and all their apps, and have a major class action suit brought against the marketing firm.
This was a bonehead move to formally admit it. I'm sure all their clients are quickly jumping ship, and getting their lawyers together to ensure they can claim they were "not aware of the specific tactics of the marketing firm."
All NEW Os should be 64 bit, sure. unfortunately, we have to have a 32bit solution that maintains continued support for all the legacy apps we can't leave behind.
Sure, we could "restrict" the sale of 32 bit apps, and restrict all signed apps to 64 bit here forward, and most people buying new machines to work with new stuff, and common apps would not have issues, but about half my back catalog of personal software would either have to be replaced or run in a VM (and currently, many games don't like VM or don't work at all due to lack or GPU virtualization).
I run 64 bit on my "core" machine, but too many apps are not yet compatible. Apple if farther ahead in this process than microsft, but they have slightly more control over how their app programmers put out code, and more of them are 64 bit ready today (or close). With the move to Windows 7, 64 bit should be starting to become more of a norm. Windows 2008 is actually driving this by forcing devs to released signed drivers only under 64bit, which means at least the hardware vendors are thinking in 64 bit code methodology and techniques. MOST 32bit apps, that don't require underlying driver support or cross application connectivity, work under 64bit. I Microsoft pushes the industry right, Windows 2010 will be 64bit only, and Windows 8 should likely be as well...
Yea, but even if you enable 16GB of RAM under 32bit Windows, XP and Vista can only give 2GB of it to photoshop, MAX. No SINGLE application can utilize more than 4GB of virtual address space under PAE, had half the address space is reserved for the lernel. PAE however is disabl;ed under 32bit OS as it has risks, especially for lots of drivers, and letting general users have access to this, without a process for validating and supporting all their apps under it (which most companies do not have programmers who understand this type of addressing), would be a support nightmare. PAE works when lots of individual apps need to run concurrently, or when multiple instances of the same app need to run under seperated memory spaces. Both these cases are uncommon for workstation users, and the 64 bit edition solves this issue for most users who would take advantage of it, so PAE is not included in workstation OS by Microsoft. This is NOT a licencing issue, or even a "charge more for advanced features" issue, it;s about who needs it, how much it costs to support it, and whether or not the SHOULD be using it vs other options...
Its possible for an application under 32bit windows to also take advantage of AWE (Address Windowing Extension). This requires the lock Pages in Memory privilidge for the app, and some pretty extensive code level support. This can allow a 32 bit app to use more than 4GB of RAM under 32bit. It is not very efficient. It;s also one of the API's you're paying extra for under the server licnece that you do not get under the workstation license (XP can't do this, Server 2003 can). Typically this is reserved for apps with massive datasets (DBs over 2GB, large video files, massive images, etc) in situations where the code can not be easily ported to 64bit but where support for AWE can be added.
Ok, lets start with: Who hame crimes did the presence of these cameras PREVENT on these streets, which should be a relatively easy number to correlate vs exiting criminal reports.
next, lets look at some numbers: Camera cost, about $2500 (for a snazzy PTZ model with night capability and a heater to keep it running in winter). to cover a few city blocks (typical beat) be need about 20 of these. Installation and wiring is another couple grand per camera, and maintenance might be 20% a year. So, several city blocks covered for about $150 for a 5+ year term. That's a LOT less than an office gets paid over that time, let alone training and equipment... That office can prevent a FRACTION of the number of crimes a set of cameras can, as any criminal only needs to know where the cop was and what direction he was headed, and he could freely mug people a block in the other direction with little risk... Cameras, there's no escaping.
The system is FAR cheaper than people on the streets. No, we don't CATCH a lot of people on camera alone. (though I bet the camera evidence was used in a LOT more than 1 in 1000 convictions). The footage on the camera is not good enough to identify a crimanal on that alone, but it's real good at confirming someone's description, and leading to a suspect who's caught based on other evidence. But that's not the point, i want to know how many crimes has this system PREVENTED in this area, and overall for the entire city (inculding areas not survailed). Fuerther, placing cameras in highly public lower crime communities leaves the oficers we already had to better patrol seedier areas, and get to know the people who operate in those areas much better.
OK, first off, even gettign video off mass scale systems like this involves a process and documentation. It;s proprietary footage. It;s not like you can pop out a tape and put it in your VCR... or copy it to your PC with ease. Footage is not only tracked for access, but by WHO accessed it.
Next, you can't just pull up a camera at will, something has to trigger an alarm, or a crime must be reported and an access code entered for the operater to begin following an individual using the camera system. Outside of an offical purpose, all they see are a few high security areas theat roll in a rotation combined with shots from other cameras at random. They can't just "follow" someone at will and "track" their behavior, regardless of what you see on TV. ...and have you SEEN the footage? There's a reason people don;t get busted on camera often. The footage is only good enough to get a basic DESCRPTION of an individual, not fine grain details, unless they happen to walk past a camera an operatior is actively using tracking a crime in real time, and got the chance (and luck) to zoo in enough. Most often however, the crime happens so fast that by the time 911 hands the call over to the video guys, the suspect is long gone and hiding from cameras and all they get, if they're lucky and had good line of sight without some truck blocking the vid angle, is to be able to see how the crime played out.
If you're doing something stupid in public, and get caught on camera, that's your own fault, even if it leaks to the web, as is the case that anyone with a cell phone or camera could have just as easily caugt the same footage (likely much better quality), and posted it as well.
There is NO EXPECTATION of PRIVACY in PUBLIC you paranoid screwballs!
CCTV is only a breech of privacy if the image is correlated to a face recognition database, your motions are tracked and logged, and that information is searchable....
The fact that you're on camera in a public place is NO MORE a breech of privacy than some random person seeing you walk down the street...
Only if people have realtime access to cameras, can manipulate them at will, and have no oversight would there really be any potential abuse of privacy, and even then, the risk is minimal as there's "no expectation of privacy in public!"
There are thousands of cameras. Some of them are in fact watched continuously, but the people who watch them only watch those cameras, and they're usually highly secure or very public areas. The rest of them are only brought onto the screen either randomply by a program, or caled up manually when an alarm is triggered or when a crime is in progress.
Its not like what you see on the TV show Las Vegas where they use the cameras to snoop into everything people do. These for the most part are fixed position cameras. Overhead views pointed down streets with only good enough resolution to pick out the action of a crime and often not even clearly capture faces. It's a very simple system, used almost exclusively for confirming a description of an individual suspect who was dumb enough to be caught on film comitting a crime, but even then, they require witnesses or physical evidence as a blurry representation of a black man in a grey hoodie isn't going to get anyone convicted of a crime...
"steals their business"? What?!? Explain first how Apple profits from their included free apps. They're providing a platform, and if Google on their device as a free alternate option inticed more customers to buy it, what is Apple to care? Including google means more iPhone buyers and more money.
Next: Apple profits more than Dell, HP, Acer, and any other competitor off their hardware. Not just in terms of per unit, but Apple actually profited more than the SUM TOTAL of Dell last year of 25% of the shipped PCs (not counting iTunes store, ipods, and phones). Apple is proof positive of how profitable and successful a hardware company can be. They're a model to the industry!!! Apple has never been on the "wrong path" selling hardware.
No, the real reson I'm sure is pressure not even so much from AT&T, but T-Mobile and Verizon regarding the ability, using Google Voice, to bypass having to pay for airtime minutes, and to be able to bypass SMS charges.
OMFG? You really think the 10.4 to 10.5 upgrade was on par with a SERVICE PACK??
First off, 10.3 and 10.4 continue to be patched, and rollup patches are available as well. You can CHOOSE to upgrade or not upgrade, and paying $129 got you from 10.1 all the way to 10.5 one time if you didn't want the new applications and features that came with each release. most people only bought every other upgrade...
second, 10.5 added MANY impressive noew core features, new GUI enhancements, an entire new backup system, over 150 major new features and applications, and over 1000 "enhancements and bug fixes."
Each OS revision also improved speed, and few of them required more RAM, none required new CPU or other major hardware changes (until 10.6, but if you're not on an intel yet, you're using 5+ year old kit, and should no longer expect a nondsruptive upgrade). Even still, 10.5 will continue to receive new patches and new a-pplication enhancements through Apple Update for years yet...
10.6 being $29 is a major enhancement, but lacks the array of new core features. It's still a major improvement, and over 1,000 REWRITTEN apps, and nearly doubles the speed across the board of the OS, replaces the kernel with a full 64 bit system, gives the OS multithread centralization for optimal processor use (and saving devs the headache of doing it on an app by app basis), and still throws in several completley new tools.
XP patches have NEVER come to more than a rollup of bug fixes, throw in a new version IE and WMP which most people already got for free, but not microsoft FORCES you to take and refuses to give you new additional security fixes if you don't take it, and some minor graphic enhancements, and an occasional backport of something the new OS got. on rare occasions, they've also "added in" features with a service pack, but in MOST cases, those were features already PROMISED to have been included in the pre-release of the OS, so you;re "getting for free"what you SHOULD have had all along...
Also, you pay $129 for any new Mac OS, (now $29 for "incremental improvements" like 10.6). With Vista Ultimate (the closest comperable version from microsoft) that upgrade to Vista is 3 times the cost of going from 10.3 to 10.6, a 7.5 year OS lifespan (assuming 10.7 comes out sometime around spring 2012, which would be on par with Apple's lifecycle). Upgrading again to Windows 7 from Vista is ANOTHER $220... You had a hard enough time upgrading to Vista without replacing hardware or missing access to key features and performance, good lick going to 7 if you're still on XP, likely it's cheaper to just buy a whole new system than upgrade your existing one to keep the same performance tier. 10.6 has a HIGHER performance tier than 10.3, and only requires a small ($30) bump in ram for most systems.
For an XP user, lets say you got a fairly powerful new kit, though not a core 2 duo as those were not yet available, but still something capable of video editing and some gaming, with a 20" screen, and having slots for upgrades, something about a $1200 desktop package in Spring 2006. At the same time, you got a 20" Core Duo Intel iMac (Apple beat Widows to the punch with this chips's availability, thanks to a contract with intel for exclusivity) running 10.4 for the same $1200. Fastforward 3.5 years. Your iMac has needed NO RAM upgrade to run 10.6, and only cost you $158 (or less) to get there. Your PC rig, with a slower CPU, would not only require 4 times the RAM of it's base XP config, as well as a GPU replacement and possibly even a HDD replacement to be capable of maintaining the same performance tier it had when new just 3.5 years ago if you upgraded it to Windows 7. Even if you SKIPPED Vista, your OS upgrade is $220, plus RAM (if your board could actually HANDLE 4GB, which oh, I'm sorry, it's not a Core2, so it can only take 3GB, SO sorry!) and a vid card that supports directx 10 also not available in 2006, and you damed well better have a 200GB plus HDD which, or, again sorry, was not available in
i don;t argue RFTS is a good idea, in fact, it;s pretty much the BEST one, but why does it need to be made in proximity to the fleet?
Yea, shipping refined jetfuels across the ocean from the USA is a horrible idea, but we have active bases in nearly every coastline country on earth, or could build a few more. We can easily and much more effectively make the fuels there, and escort them a couple hundred miles to the carrier. It already holds weeks worth of usable jetfuels onboard, runs from local refineries would not be an issue. Further, the excess non-jetfuels produced would be used on base for other purposes, or sold to the local government who's country the base sits in. Plus, then we don't have to waste billions altering a good process to fit a ship, deal with the inefficincies, nor deal with the decade delays, we could build these now...
Seawater is a REALLY BAD source of CO2, it's low yield and very dirty, it would also have to be desalinated and processed before it could be put in the electrolizer. It's also going to have major waste control issues, and if they can't solve the methane outgas issues, it;s going to end up being MANY times more environmentally bad than simply burning oil. Also that CO2 is already sequestered, so it's not a carbon nuetral solution. (it's better than the million year cycle of oil, but it's still not a short term loop...)
nuclear may be CO2 free, but it's an extremely expensive system. Not to mention, the scale of that reactor doesn't exactly have a couple hundred free MW available. What are they going to do, cut propulsion in order to make gas?
Getting just jetfules from this process will have massive reprecusions in efficincy and process speed, it's a semi-random chemical process guided by catalysts. unless they abandon RFTS in favor of a bacterial or nanostructure processing, they're not going to get anywhere near 100% high alcohol from this process. People have been trying to get RFTS to do that since WWII...
I'm not calling the Navy idiots, they're on a good path. This technology CAN work, but their choice of input, design, and more, without taking the time to partner with the world leader in this type of system design, that's not exactly einstein level work. I'm glad they're persuing this, but I don't think they've got enough bugs worked out on their own to put this into process in less than 10 years.
If they're only looking to solve logistics issues with acquiring jetfuels, a secondary fleet ship to make the fuel, and pump it over to the carrier might work, but that carrier holds a SHITLOAD of jetfuel, enough to operate off shore for weeks at a time or longer, and it would never be in an operating theatre of war more than a couple hundred miles from a secure naval base where they could make the fuel far more efficiently. The issue is how to not ship fuels across open oceans from the USA, how to solve the logistics and security of getting fuel to the carrier, making it onboard is not a rewquirement as far as I can see to solve that problem. We have bases all over the world we can make fuel at... (and also use the non-jetfuel for other things at that base).
lets just say I'm in the loop. I'm not associated with Doty, nor am i compensated in any way by them, it;s simply a technology I've been introduced to, and I've got some contacts over there. They were not aware of the Navy's plans...
"steep" has many variations. If the fee was $1M per 1M gallon capacity, that's not exactly steep for a $100+M construction project... However, failing to acquire said licence, that's going to ruffle some feathers.
Most of the companies out there would not be building one or 2 of these plants, but dozens or gundreds (it would take about 4,000 of them to satisfy the US demand). People putting billions of investment into an industry should expect some figure between 10 and 50% of the initial investment in licensing. i have no idea what they're licensing it for.
Honestly, doty is likely to partner with the navy and help them enhance their design, not step in the way. Also likely they'll get funded better as consultants than patent licencers on this.
The output mix can be adjusted within some bounds based on the catalysts used, bot not much... It's still mostly a fairly random chemical process. If they could make 50% high alcohol, I'd be impressed.
Yea, sure, they could retrofit, and miniturize, but not only do they get reduced capacity, they also get dramatically reduced efficiency.
The point would not be to ship fuel, but to make it at each base around the world... making it onboard is not ideal, but making a few million gallons at 100 different locations is completely doable.
Yea, the Navy can use the patent, but they do still have a roadblock in licensing it (at a reasonable fee which can even be set by a court if Doty didn't play fair, but even a FAIR fee will likely be substantial given the number of millions of gallons they'd be making... Much more likely, Doty would get involved in this process with the navy, get paid as a contractor to develop them a better system using their patents, and then sell the design to the navy... They're not stupid, and they're not profit mongers, but I do think they'd take significant offence if the Navy didn't at least CONSULT.
Of course, Doty's patents are all aroun defficincy systems, symbiotic connections, heat exchangers, and more. RFTS can be done by itself without patent (it's an OLD technoilogy), it just can't be done WELL without some partnerships here.
Well, since Doty thinks this is a multi-billion dollar industry, (well, the oil industry is a mutli TRIllion dollar industry afterall), I'm thinking they'll have some major investments to make to get this tech.
Doty is offering it licenced to any takers (ANY takers) and not keeping the construction of facilities to themselves. They WANT this tech spread far and wide and want to ensure monopoly producers can be kept to a minimum, but there is a steep licence fee they'll have to pay...
I don't know how many of the patents Doty has might be infringed by this, clearly not all of them, but simply getting involved with them on the ground floor on this project might save them a few billion, and get Doty's other plants moving along nicely funded faster.
That's why court documents for suing the government are sealed....
Of course, the simply truth is, the process itself is NOT a national secret. It's a process that's been used since WWII. Yea, if thay actually integrated it into a carrier (which i seriously doubt is possible without buiulding a new carier around it) the specs of how that's done would be a national secret, but not the workings of the machine itself...
Likely though, I'd think Doty would be partnering with them, and selling them tech to improve the navy't process and reduce costs, not actually sue them....
Flamebait?
This is real technoilogy, and I know the navy has not licensed it, so wither their efficincies are going to be half of what Doty achieves, the expense will be dramatically higher, or they'll be forced to license the tech (or get used for using it).
How can pointing out that our govenment is stepping on patents be considderd flamebiat?
The navy's idea sounds bad. However, DotyEnergy, likely the source of the Navy's ideas, has a system that is 60% end to end efficienct for making fules using a highly modified (with over 60 patents) RWGS/RFTS process. They've been working on refinements to it for decades and are working on a mid scale POC faciltiy to come online and finally prove this to the world.
Fuel from wind, water, and CO2 inputs ar $60-80/bbl in a 100% carbon nuetral process.
I don;t care if the energy is negative, if the energy is 100% renewable and does not contrubute to CO2 output.
http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm
So, i see you;ve read or heard about DotyEnergy's plans?
http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm
Sounds like the Navy is stealing more civilian ideas to me though...
They're not making fuel onboard... trust me.
RFTS's output is only about 20% jetfuel (the rest is a blend of methanol, ethanol, highher oils, and other fluid fules), and that takes a 10 story facility not including all the EXTRA equipment needed to handle the seawater, not the rediculoud retrofit, not the structural risks of having open doors under the water to the sea for intake/output...
No, the navy will be making fuel on land. The benefit is not only cheap fuel, but it can be made, instead of delivered, to bases all over the world, solving logistical and security risks of moving large amounts of fuel.
Howver, to do this, the navy's going to need some serious partnership[s and licence agreements with Doty Energy or i think might face some legal action... They've got 60+ patents on this process...
Well, it;s not as nice as DotyEnergy's nearly identical solution, backed by over 60 patents, that I think the Navy is trying to usurp... basically, the idea is this CO2 is not from FOSSIL sources, and would return to the ocean over decades, not to the ground over millions of years.
In doty's case, they're using sequestered CO2 from coal output, so they're reusing CO2 that would already be released, and therefore can be 100% CO2 nuetral, the navy's solution is not as green. it's also FAR more complicated (filtering water, dealing with sea water waste contaminants, and more).
http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm
1: this won;t fit in any existing ships, we're talking new carriers... Retrofitting is basically impossible for a facility like this. Even if they used a scaled down system, not a full 250MW RFTS chamber, it would still be rediculously expensive to build one onboard, hundreds of millions, vs building one on land (tens of millions).
2: the nuclear reactor is designed for a specific power output needed by the ship. Adding 50-100MW of additional load would be crazy.
3: only 20% of the output of RFTS is jet fuel, the majority is methanol and ethanol, and they'd have to store that until they get back to land, meaniung 3-4 times the tank storage of just filling up with jet fuel on land.
4: the seawater to CO2 chamber would be massive, so would the elcrolysis chamber, not to mention MASSIVE seawater filtering systems. The inlets and outputs would also cause major issues with ship structure vulnerabilties.
5: the smaller ytou make the RFTS plan, the more expensive the fuel is. A 250-500MW facility on land (costing a fraction of an onboard equivalent) would produce fuel at less than half the price of a 50MW facilty, and that's still millions of gallons a year. They likely don't need a fraction of that per carrier. Jetfuel is $4.50 a gallon or so from a 250MW facility. It could be $25 a gallon or more on a ship scale system, excluding the facility costs...
good luck fitting a 10 story RFTS plant inside a carrier, let alone the electrolysys chabmers, on-site temporary H2 storage, output storage containers, fuel refiners, somewhere to store dangerous byproducts (using Doty's patented RWGS/RFTS with seawater would be VERY dirty), using it with sequestered CO2 from coal and river water, not a serious problem...). Then you've got to seperate the blends, and I haven't even looked at what the design of a seawater - CO2 seperation system looks like.
No, i think the navy is looking to do this on land, not while afloat... Granted a 250MW facility produces millions of gallons of fuel, and likely a smaller plant would suffice for jet fuel, but only 20% of the output of RFTS is higher octanes and alcohols usable by jets, the rest is general fuel which a carrier really has no need for. This will be produced on land then refilled into the ships...
Per DotyEnergy, who has a nearly identical process backed by more than 60 patents, and who I am certain the navy has not licensed it from, a 250MW fuel system plant, using all of their patented efficincy improvements would produce about 5M gallons of jet fuel, and about 25m gallons of other mixed fuels over a 1 year period. a 50MW facility could make about 6M gallons total. Either of these whould have a real hard time being fit inside a carrier, and certainly would be impossible to retrofit. The facility is more than 10 stories tall, and takes acres... The electrolysis chamber alone would be massive, not to mention near-term H2 storage, fuel refinelments and more.
I don't think the navy intends to put a plant ON a carrier, likely they'll put them in their sea ports and make fule on land to refuel ships and planes with...
Either way, they've got some serious roadblocks to cut through before they can use this process without paying some heafty licensing fees, or some heafty legal settlements for patent infrincgement.
http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm www.dotyenergy.com.
and this is why DotyEnergy, who the navy appears to be stealing this technology from, planned on using off-peak wind energy in their economic model to produce fuel theour WRGS/RFTS processing...
Read about what the navy is pirating from dotyenergy.com. Specifically, chheck oout the following articles http://dotyenergy.com/Home/WhatsNew.htm. Doty has over 60 world patents on the technology involved in this process and has been working on refinements for decades...