Re: perpetual motion machines do not exist

Generally the Actual Mechanical Advantage you get from the Block and Tackle is some amount less than its ideal Advantage (which should be a factor equal to the number of pulley pairs in the set). Friction generally accounts for most of the loss.

Re: 386?

Nope. Intel gets all the credit and they have the applications to prove it, dating all the way back to their 4004 (the world's first self-contained CPU chip).

Re: 8080, bloody Hell!

Don't you normally split the term in the middle? Then again, by the time I cut my teeth on a C128, most disks were being labeled DS/DD or 2S/2D. Then by the time I went with 486's you had DS/HDs, in both sizes.

Re: 8080, bloody Hell!

For me, it was the 6502 on a Commodore 128. Simple as it was, the built-in machine language Monitor actually found some use for me in the latter days as with help from a book explaining all the opcodes, I actually learned how to make my own ML programs. Being able to interpret assembler code is still finding use for me when I stumble upon the occasional snippet. Generally, all I need is a lookup of the appropriate architecture and I can follow along.

Sounds much like a cloud version of TrueCrypt's system, in that the whole filesystem is encrypted. Probably goes a step further and encrypts individual files on top of that. So it would take two keys to reach a file: a filesystem key and a file key. Still, it would have the desired results.

Re: Take the bus

Hard to take a bus from London to New York or Detroit to Nagoya. Last I checked, buses and oceans don't mix.

Re: Pseudo-random?

The thing is, mouse movement is near-analogue, timing-sensitive, and simultaneously bi-axial. What that means is that, at any given moment, a mouse can determine how far along in two different axes it has moved since the last time it checked. And since humans by nature cannot move very precisely, a mouse with nice high resolution would provide plenty of randomness simply from the slight variations of movement your hand makes on the mouse: Even if you move in one direction, you could be faster one moment, slower the next, drifting up and down, and so on.

As noted, a keyboard is not the best source of entropy, but with enough variables you can still get some use out of it, especially if you add key timing (another randomness variable) in addition to the values pressed.

Re: Movie suggestions

For once, a sensible suggestion. IMAX has a much higher detail limit (due to larger, newer film media). If 4K isn't enough to fully render the film grain of a 35mm film, then reaching the limits of IMAX will probably not come for at least a decade, probably with something like a screen with 20,000-line resolution, and maybe not even then.

Re: @AC

No, too heavy and too big for the draconian weight and size limits imposed on carry-on luggage. Ever thought we necessarily have to carry other stuff along for the trip and that the checked luggage is either expensive or already packed? Books are bulky and take up precious space. An e-reader can reduce all that to something the size of a Reader's Digest, without the need to condense the content of the books. And before you think "1984", the reader I use can and does accept unprotected ePub formats which the distributors cannot control.

Yes, PLEASE.

Why not hold off on the post-NAND articles until a point when it would actually affect us: like when one of these actually enters commercial mass-production?

Re: Prior Art

Actually, thry can't. Government already has dibs on them thanks to the law.

Re: Oh for gawds sake

It IS indeed a Trademark, as the article notes, but you are right the entire design has to be considered. But companies can do have multiple trademarks for the various brands and distinctive characters/designs they use.

That said, trademark applications HAVE been rejected in the past if they're found to be too broad. Example: Thrifty Rental Car Co. attempted to apply for a Service Mark (a type of Trademark used in service industries--the UPS logo is a Service Mark) that simply described their vehicles and places of business as "being blue". It was rejected as too broad; they appealed the decision, but the rejection was upheld.

Actually, Nissan's safe. The automotive industry was not one of the industries listed in the application, and trademarks sharing names and designs can co-exist so long as they're in different industries. Case in point: in the USA, the name "Cracker Barrel" is trademarked to at least two separate companies. Thing is, one is the name for a line of cheese products while the other is the name of a restaurant chain: different industries.

Re: Not a good idea

Didn't the voyeurs beat that rap by switching to HDTV-resolution video cameras in the shoes? Since they record audio, they CAN'T have shutter sounds or any other kind of indicator that could bleed into the scene, and the ones that don't bleed they can conceal.

Re: Only the clueless use electronic toys in flight

As for those in-flight movies, almost always (1) I've seen it before or (2) I'm not interested. The in-flight music is a bore, and I usually go through the magazine before takeoff. Books are bulky and there is a carry limit, so I'll go with my e-reader or listen to music I really like on my iPod (one of the older ones that focused on music).

Re: I agree on the "re-think"

Prior to takeoff, they want you in the seats so they can check for missing passengers (especially passengers who presented their boarding passes but are not on board--they're either lost or a safety risk, either way you have to check up). Upon landing, there's a pecking order to disembarking and they're trying to enforce it.

Re: Bwuh...

Simple. Lightning is OUTSIDE, and since the plane isn't contacting earth, at worst the bolt would go around the outer shell and onward. We haven't had lightning down a plane in nearly 50 years. The gadgets are all INSIDE and therefore inside the EM-shielding shell. Plus many planes are decades old: well before the age of rampant consumer electronics.

Re: I agree on the "re-think"

So what if you're just playing Angry Birds over headphones? No one hears you, and it can run in Airplane Mode, meaning no transmissions? And before you say, "the bright screen," why doesn't this happen with booklights?

Re: Not a good idea

Which were, in turn, probably handicapped by computational restraints present in the early 1990's.

Re: Why one data point is not evidence.

"The team says one of their units has been in operation for over a decade with no sign of dying as yet."

I'd like that statement qualified. How long does it stay on in a given day? If that strip had been operating CONTINUOUSLY, always on, for a decade, THEN I'll be impressed.

Re: Why one data point is not evidence.

Heard of that bulb. The reason it lasts so long is that it was designed for a much higher voltage. It's actually UNDERburning, so it's probably only barely wearing out. 130V incandescents (a fad trend before CFLs won center stage) had a similar idea, and while I got a few of them on the cheap, I don't think they lasted as long as they advertised. Still, they did last somewhat longer.

I don't know about that. I switched to fluorescent over a decade ago. Granted, they cost quite a bit back then, but they mostly lived up to the hype. You get used to the light they emit, and the only time you realize they're there is when they break: usually years later. Then you look up and realize, "It really DID last a long time."

Re: State intervention may well result in de-civilizatory effects

You assume a knowledgeable public. Trouble is, in this day and age, the public is mostly clueless, running on inertia and word of mouth, heedless of the benefits because discomfort is considered too serious a drawback. IOW, if you shove the benefits in their face and they ignore you, then it comes time for more drastic measures.

Re: Bloody spoilsports!

NASA probably wasn't very concerned with this one, given that something the size of a bus, while it would definitely inconvenience the immediate area on impact, would not be a world-killer. Most estimates are you need something a few miles across (the one believed to take out the dinosaurs and landed off the Yucatan peninsula is estimated at 6 miles across) or one that scores a direct hit on a supervolcano's caldera.

Re: Thoughtcrime

The big concern is One ID To Rule Them All: IOW, a Big Brother situation.

If the same ID was required for all sorts of government activity, then people can be tracked by the use of that card: first by private enterprise, then by the government. It's an inevitable function creep. Americans fight the same fight. They would rather have the chaos of messed up elections than have One ID To Rule Them All.

Re: Re. critical mass

Still doesn't solve two problems (BTW, neither does the system in the article). First, you need to be able to release excess heat, and although outer space can be extremely cold, it's also sparse in useable matter for convection or conduction, and there's a limit to the amount of energy you can release to space by radiation (the limits are physical, too, so really no way around them). Second, and more importantly, how do you convert the resultant electrical energy into the actual kinetic energy you need to get moving? Chemical rockets produce their own reaction mass, but electromagnetic propulsion still needs something to "throw" like a hydrogen supply. We're making inroads at pure-energy propulsion, but what's being produced so far is still far too inefficient for prime time.

Re: The Other Guys and esolving limits

But what about head orientation? How does the system keep out eye crossover, especially in a crowd situation?

Re: DNS servers filled with Kool-Aid?

Wasn't that stuff phased out because it was a fluorocarbon (aka an Ozone eater)?

Re: Gauranteed sales..

I don't know. I have to wonder if you REALLY wanna see an extreme close up of the action on a 4K screen. At 1080p skin detail is more apparent (this was true in mainstream media, too), creating an Uncanny Valley effect as imperfections became more apparent.

Re: The Bridge on the River Kwai

At those resolutions, the film grain's probably gonna stand out. Meaning we're approaching the detail limits of the original films (they were already pretty close with 1080p resolutions). Higher resolutions probably aren't going to do much from here out with older content.

That's the next step. Re-encode and alter any videos and images submitted through the firewall, to possibly mangle any stegos hidden within. The ones robust enough to withstand the alterations are probably more likely to be picked up with statistical analysis or image manipulation.

Re: "i said it all a million times,."

Thing is, that number gets CLOSE to zero, BUT--and this is the important part--it NEVER REACHES zero. Without that, you can't approach perfect efficiency, and without that, you're going to lose energy, full stop (as efficiency measures that loss--or rather, the preservation of that energy).

Here's another interesting thought: an overunity engine would also by default have NEGATIVE entropy: a physical impossibility.

Re: "i said it all a million times,."

How about I puncture your thoughts on electric motors right now?

Electric motors DO produce torque. In fact, ALL rotating shafts have this feature. Torque is a FORCE and fundamental to physics.

Motors CAN be overloaded. Ask yourself why a cable elevator (which is run by an electric motor) has a weight limit? Because if it's too heavy, the elevator motor can't pull the load.

How about something a little more prosaic? Try removing an old rusted stuck screw with your electric screwdriver or drill with a driver bit (the drill is also an electric motor). Guaranteed it won't go easy (if at all--sometimes you overtorque and snap the head off).

Re: "i said it all a million times,."

"If you think you can do it, build a smaller model. Even a model that produces no excess power but spins itself forever would be worth approximately all of the money in the world. You would become an overnight billionaire, worth substantially more than the oil companies who'd really not like you (but to whom you would pose little immediate threat). Maplin or RS (or even eBay!) would be able to provide you with an appropriate motor, dynamo and other components to give it a go."

Here's a helpful hint. People have already tried this technique. Lookup "Bedini motor" or "overunity engine". I guarantee you will find nothing independently verifiable except failures (because a verifiable success would draw instant international attention).

Re: Dearest El Reg

Well, to use scientific notation, the ratio of power output to that of our Sun would be around 2.0 × 10^12.

Re: SSL VPN through Port 443

Just curious, because I would think if China really REALLY wanted to see everything, they would simply block all encrypted and obfuscated traffic except from whitelisted (as in known government) addresses, which would be verified through the GFW. Then you knock out most of the possible avenues right off the top including TOR, Freenet, and VPNs. And any attempt to stego would probably stick out like a sore thumb in the age of raw binary transmissions, most of which has SOME formatting which can then allow it to be DPId, unless of course it's encrypted which would automatically make it suspect (even program code is formatted, so that's not an excuse).

Re: Google's free DNS service

And I have to use it every so often when the local DNS doesn't update often enough and some lesser-known websites I frequent "drop out" as a result.

Re: Those pesky Japanese STEALING from Iran AGAIN!

Actually, they were Photoshopped OUT. The picture with the windmills is the ORIGINAL picture, taken in Japan where they DO conduct windmill research.

Re: Reaction mass? We don't need no steenkin' reaction mass!

But terribly inefficient. 2.5kW yields .72N of force at current rates. So the ability to accelerate in vacuum an object about the mass of a fifth of liquor 1 m per second per second. Plus I have to wonder about its usefulness in atmosphere. So, looks like it's back to waiting.

Oh, and violate the Law of Conservation of Energy? Where does the energy come from?

Anyway, the DUFF doesn't answer one very important question, and one which has likely stymied all non-chemical rockets for decades: What are you gonna use for reaction mass? To date, we've yet to develop anything resembling sci-fi's pure-energy propulsion, as there remains the infamous "underpants gnomes" step (IOW, ?????). How do you convert the electrical energy into kinetic energy? The only we know how is electromagnetic propulsion, and THAT requires a reaction mass. Furthermore, if Newton has anything to say about, it's gonna either a lot of mass OR a lot of energy (probably somewhere in between) to accelerate and decelerate a manned spacecraft to and from any reasonable fraction of c.

Re: Guilty

Don't put it outside possibility they're tracking or throttling ICMP. After all, there's little legitimate use for high-bandwidth ICMP, is there?

Re: I imagine

I think most phones keep bevels on the edges so your fingers (gripping the phone on the sides) can rest on them without them curving over the edge and onto the screen itself.

Re: A river runs through your data center

IIRC it costs energy to liquefy nitrogen, making it either expensive or problematic. Plus it's a natural asphyxiant (at concentrations above 80% of atmosphere), meaning a nitrogen leak can make the server room unsafe.