Posts by Charles 9 16605 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
2:1 the prediction goes awry because the biggest impetus for population has a vicious cycle attached to it. More people diffuses the wealth, making people poorer, spurring them to have more kids so they have a better chance of someone to care for their twilight years and so on...
But we're talking triremes. Those are still some pretty big things, and the amount of sun you'd need to concentrate on them to get them seriously alight (especially if they're MOVING in three dimensions--think waves) would take a serious level of coordination: a level they might not have available. Plus one has to calculate the current angle of the sun in the sky and figure out how to reflect everything just so. Plus the angle could be wrong to allow for a good reflection (say the sun's coming from the north and the fleet's to the south, in which case you want to refract, not reflect). Or it could be raining: a double-whammy for such a plan. And what about the state of mirror art in Archimedes' day? Can you get enough reflectivity? Finally, something that big would essentially become a big fat target for invading forces: they would likely find a way to neutralize it first before engaging in force. The Greeks had plenty of other tech at their disposal which would be both more familiar and more reliable.
No, Archimedes as the myth goes (the MythBusters tried this out...TWICE). Supposedly, he designed a solar anti-ship weapon using an array of mirror similar to what is used today in solar thermal plants. Thing is, it's rather cumbersome to fit on a mobile frame, which you would need to make it an anti-ship sun-tracking weapon.
"When an article says "power for 'x' homes", it means it makes 'x' times 3kW or so. (in this case, 2.8kW) This power will not power the heating system, so the house's heating needs to be 'powered' some other way."
For a place like LA County, it's the cooling, and for LA County that's saying something since they have pretty intense cooling needs: torrid climate, frequent heat waves, on the coast so it's moist heat that can't be sweated off easily, AND it's in a thermal inversion zone that traps the heat at ground level, keeping it from rising out of the way and allowing sea breezes from the Pacific to cool things down.
Sure, 100,000 homes sounds dandy...until you realize that according to the 2010 Census, Los Angeles County has 12 million homes...by itself. And California is the largest state in the union population-wise AND has another major metropolis further north in San Francisco, where conditions for renewable power generation are less ideal (at least Los Angeles is close to a desert).
"We should be aiming at making hardware and software more lean, tailored, efficient and secure not bloated, mostly dormant and one size fits all."
Not gonna happen. Tailoring shrinks your audience which shrinks your revenues which shrinks your viability. Plus tailoring means lots of versions which means lots of versions to track (and each combination is a different version due to many exploits being the result of gestalts of different pieces that only occur when they're together). So it's basically all or nothing, unless you're proposing we abandon the Internet.
"Alas, HTML is entirely the wrong starting point for making rich, interactive web sites,"
So how do you propose where we begin with something that doesn't necessarily rely on a permanent connection (which in today's age will quickly chew up the port limit) and can accommodate different resolutions and all the other necessary bells and whistles?
"You see, that's exactly the problem. We (aka the civilised world) need to know when someone LEAVES there, for illegal rendition, spying, installing some taps for the NSA; you know, the usual."
Then check them as they come into YOUR country, if you're so anti-American. The sovereignty ball will be in YOUR court at that point.
I'm inclined to withhold judgment about this until some of the more salient claims are thoroughly sorted out, as the article only seems to cover things in broad. How about we look over those points in particular. For example, I think one concern was cross-pollination, either among non-modified crops or among weeds. Another concern I recall was long-term effects the food may have on the bodies of the eaters (a concern shared with long-term radiation exposure). Can someone name a few others and/or cover those issues?
It's the ICANN bods themselves. They don't want to cede power, and since many of them have connections, they know how to game the system. They also have most of the Internet (such as the critical DNS root zone) by the wossnames. They can make any forced transition away form ICANN a very inconvenient affair.
Well, due to the ARM architecture and the fact the bootstrap needs to know what's there, I suspect modular memory and baseline hardware like the screen are a bridge too far since each new module would change the bootstrap, and ARM hardware isn't (at this time) well-geared for dynamic internal hardware.
Well, that's life. Order and stability vs. chaos and evolution. Choose one. They're mutually exclusive with no middle ground. The former means you can get pwned, the latter means you can end up breaking yourself. Either way, you risk destruction, meaning the risk is unavoidable.
IOW, Pick your Poison.
"This is a big change in the supplier/customer contract - and it's no surprise where it comes from. It is the offspring of a mentality where those up the ladder can throw s**t at those below without consequences."
And they can, because you don't matter that much anymore. You disappear, someone else will take your place. And if all else fails, they can saw off the ladder or close off the walled garden and finish the war amongst themselves.
You forget the Million Monkeys principle. ANY random bitstream can be altered (say an XOR) with just the right bitstream to return intelligible information. That's one reason why the One-Time Pad is considered the only cryptographically strong system: because it relies on the principle that the end result depends completely on the key: another key can result in another cleartext of equal probability.
I was actually dabbling in 6510 assembler using the C-128's ML Monitor. It was perhaps my first real trip into machine language and assembler and I actually did some pretty decent things with it. It was something I didn't think I would use again when I then went to Intel 80486 assembler in the mid 90's and actually got the hang of it pretty quickly after skimming an x86 assembler guide.
Once a consumer buys a pair of the jeans, that's considered exhausted since it's normally kept and used. But since Tesco is a retailer, a "middle man" (which is significant since things like VAT come into play when you're a "middle man"), they're under trade restrictions. In this case, they can't "second source" brand-name products to resell without the say-so of Levi Strauss. That's part of the protection of trademark under EU law and the law has to be changed to alter those protections.
"Oh, the irony - India and Japan studied and implemented current research into public education that US researchers developed but never successfully applied in American schools."
Because most Americans DON'T WANT to implement tough national standards. Indeed, many school districts feel each should do their own thing, not realizing this inevitably causes uneven education. Come on! You can't have it both ways! Either you're going to have uneven education or your kid could be left behind (and note, extreme social pressure is one reason Japan has such a high suicide rate; South Korea's even worse).
Most unselective migration is the result of desperation. Take a look at what's happening not just in the US but in Australia and throughout Europe. Millions of people are basically fleeing a death sentence for just a chance elsewhere. With the Grim Reaper at their heels, they have the most powerful motivations to persevere. Put a wall up and they'll just find a way to get past it. In the US, they use tunnels or hit the boonies. In Europe, they cut fences. In Australia, they make mad dashes in overloaded boats. AND the UN's getting on everyone's cases to stop being so cruel to the disadvantaged.
Not only that, like I said, a cop in such a situation has to deal with incomplete information. Meaning a perfect judgment is nigh impossible. Meanwhile, the first impression of a "safe" situation and an "imminent danger" situation may come out identical, and the cop has to think not just of himself but anyone else in the vicinity (including other officers that might appear). Plus you have to realize these police are not crack shots (that that show the talent end up tapped as specialists: sharpshooters and snipers), so they're given the most basic training with their guns, and rule number one is you shoot until the threat is down, and that means go for the body. Targeting limbs or the head raises the risk of a miss (or worse, a mishit) which can be fatal since, like I said, a determined crook can close distance in just a second or two. There are actual training courses about how an unarmed individual can equalize a fight with a gunman.
"Is it appropriate to draw a gun, if they have a taser or baton at their disposal?"
The problem with your idea is that a policeman has to work with incomplete information. Sure the suspect may have a less-lethal weapon, but if the suspect is skilled with it (or is simply a highly-skilled brawler who can operate unarmed), you find that a gun is not always effective even then as skilled assailants know how to dart and weave to throw off an aim, all the while closing distance quite quickly and taking the fight hand to hand where the gun is less effective. And if the suspect is better than the cop at close quarters, the gun can be turned against the cop, as has happened so many times, usually with fatal consequences not just for the original owner but anyone else who comes along since the suspect can always ambush. Plus there is a pervasive gang presence in America, probably worse than anywhere else in the Western world. We're talking a world where some people's reactions to a cop is to shoot first and forget about the questions. If you were a cop in such a "Sword of Damocles" environment, wouldn't you be at least a little overprotective since you don't want your fellow cops to be the one to tell your widow in the morning.
PS. In some parts of Latin America, there are less gangs and more paramilitary outfits, and these kinds of organizations DO take the fight to the cops. Police stations HAVE been bombed in the past. The US probably doesn't want things to escalate to that level.
"Though the question is where should you end the recording of people."
Simple. Any person in a position of elevated trust in regards to society. That is, anyone whose job necessarily gives them power over their part of society. Police have this power because they enforce laws. Medicos have this power because of their knowledge of the human body and their necessary power to act in an emergency. Similar with firefighters who may need to damage property in the performance of their duties.
Frankly, all government facilities (or at least all official chambers) need to be taped while in session. And I also have to question whether a government really absolutely MUST have some degree of secrecy. I suspect there is for the fact that the mere existence of public knowledge of something could instantly jeopardize its very existence. Still, it should be absolutely minimized since, while so important, it's also so easy to abuse.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
