Posts by Ashton Black 332 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Dec 2010
It is not feasible to beam energy through the atmosphere. That said, the energy could be used to power space factories, alternatively, a carbon nano-tube "cable" leading back to earth with a geo-stationary "top" could solve this.
See this study on the effects of the atmosphere on lasers...
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a518829.pdf
Just a skim through the sci-fi trope, a number of ways of overcoming (rather than breaking) the lightspeed barrier, have been thought of.
Generation Ships or AI controlled with us monkeys sound asleep and the most fascinating would be some sort of cloning ship which "grows" the humans when the ship is within the sphere of influence of the target planet.
I don't think we'll become interstellar for perhaps 3 or 4 hundred years. We'll keep plodding towards it if we don't kill ourselves.
Not exactly.
First of all Apple didn't really have any competition before Android, so didn't have to "claw" all that much. Yes, other slabs existed. but none with the same marketing and support ecosystem. Therefore I suspect the "market" will find a balance, in a similar way to the MAC/PC balance. People, of a certain type, will always buy Apple products.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet that the profit margin per device is much higher, for Apple, so they can sustain a loss in market share, especially since the market is growing, without effecting their bottom line.
To use the network/internet, it must have an route-able IP address. Most home/small business networks, set this by DHCP for devices. In other words, it would "show up" pretty quickly and any tech worth his salt would investigate... 3G however, is much more "black box" until it gets to the carrier.
BT have been doing this for a few years with BT-FON. Yes, it does impact ADSL2+ performance, (after a number of experiments with a HomeHub3). It is a "secure" web page and if you "opt-out" and turn it off, you are not allowed to use anyone else's BT-FON hotspot, but to be honest, I've never had call to use it.
As much as I find this current 'attempt' at behavioural change a joke, I don't think you've thought this through. There are many laws which require a third party to change/restrict something to prevent you from breaking a law. For example, gun control. Restrictions on the sales of certain chemicals, seeds and animals. Your argument could apply to all of these, but should it?
For small to medium businesses, I'd suggest this a great way to expand without the capital out lay of your own data centre. If you understand and mitigate the risks, as best you can, then it can be treated it like any other layer of storage, with associated pros and cons. Anyone who uses it without that understanding the risks is foolish, in my humble etc.
Isn't it Apples contention that the 'copying' of their IP is already occurring?
Additionally, IIRC they are 'design' patents rather than invention / technological. IMHO, they should never have been granted. Some trademarked, perhaps, not patented though.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-versus-samsung-2012-8?op=1
Can you imagine if Xerox had patented the WIMP system? Or someone else, the double-click?
I think the author confusing data values. That is the value to the corporation rather than an individual. A twitter feed, or facebook status is unlikely to have any value. Whereas a visio network diagram, simple access db of a client list or even just a doc with a business procedure written down, has inherent value. IMHO, Office as a distinct application layer, is here to stay.
There are some public bodies, here in the UK, that are not just locked into IE, but to IE6, because the bespoke apps written in the "naughties", won't be updated. The firm responsible, knowing they have said body over a barrel, are pushing for an outrageous fee to update.
(As an aside, it appears, finally, that the management are going to 'do something' not because of the MASSIVE security flaws, us in IT have been pounding into their skulls over the last few years, but various sites 'don't look right'.... *sigh*)
@AC
If you read my post again, you'll notice I specifically mentioned, "as far as kidnapping was concerned". I was rocketed and mortared in various places in theatre, the same as everyone else. I travelled all around the country having the same chance of being shot at, as everyone else. Our civvie team of 100 did the same task Royal Signals troops. Saving the taxpayer money and letting them come home or deploy elsewhere.
Evidence: http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/1CE52AFE-0EFB-4EBF-92D1-CB3598285A32/0/dcsa_ara_04_05.pdf
(Page 6, Project Synergy)
Yes, I got the Iraq medal. :-)
I spent 3.5 years working IT in Iraq, for the MoD. At no point did I feel unsafe, as far as kidnapping was concerned. The difference was, this chap relied on third party 'civilian' security. Mine was done by the Army and I lived on the various military compounds. I was offered this bloke's sort of contact when I was due to leave, I told them to shove it. As an aside, I got approx triple my UK base wage and I didn't pay tax on it for the time I was there.
Apparently, in the US, there's not much you can't patent.
It used to be the states's way of granting an inventor a monopoly for a limited time, on genuinely innovative products.
Now it's a just corporation tool to hit other corporations, because they've been granted a patents for processes, event if there's no product.
To gain security clearance to a fairly high level the responsible org in the UK asks applicants for the last 6 months of bank statements, as well as investigations into background, family, friends and so on. I didn't have paper copies so I had to log into my online bank account and let them view it. If they'd have asked for my FB account or login for them, I would have. (They didn't, but this was a couple of years ago)
But to ask at a job interview BEFORE getting security cleared? Nope, none of their business.
Depends on the user set. For example, I supported a migration to 2010 from 2003. There had to be several days of internal classes for most of the users, before they could "do" what they did before.
Without MS's data, I'd say, it's impossible to say who finds more intuitive.
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