Those O-rings had a safety factor of three!

I remember seeing, hearing or reading something, a long time ago, from one of the effects guys on the Buck Rogers TV series (the Gil Gerrard one.) He was describing an effect in which they needed a 3-D wireframe model of a spaceship rotating on a computer monitor (much like you see here.)

He said that he spent a fair bit of time trying to program a computer to do it, but couldn't get it to work (not really a math or computer guy at all). In the end, he fell back on what he knew best: mechanical effects. He whipped up a wireframe model using actual wire, painted it day-glo orange, mounted it on a gimbal, and stuck the whole thing inside a hollowed-out computer monitor with the insides painted black.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways...

Not a week goes by that you don't hear about yet another breakthrough in cheap and efficient solar cells. Every week, without fail, since 1979, I swear to God. Any more grains of salt, and I'll have a heart attack.

Sounds like they should be giving the bees Brawndo, The Thirst Mutilator. If it works as well for the bees as it does for crop irrigation, then they'll be swimming in honey in no time.

Isaac Asimov wrote a short story along those lines. I can't remember the title. Massive spoilers here, though you can probably guess what they are just from the context of this reply...

It's set in a space capsule on the way to the moon (it was written before the Apollo landings.) One of the men starts going kinda loopy during the long isolation, gets crazy ideas about Man's place in the universe, maybe it's all a big trick. When they finally reach the moon and start coming around to the dark side, which had never before been seen by human eyes, they see that the entire moon is just a gigantic stage prop with wooden struts and fabric stretched over it. The guy goes insane and tries to kill the others to keep the secret.

Turns out the entire trip was actually a simulation, conducted in a research facility on Earth, though the crew didn't know it. The image of the moon they saw from their viewport was actually generated using a scale model of the moon and a tracking camera. The simulation was supposed to end before the camera came around to the far side of the moon, but the mission controllers forgot or were asleep or something.

It's a cool story. Probably would have been cooler if you hadn't read this...

I don't find that form of argument particularly compelling.

All physical inventions are composed of atoms. Atoms are not patentable, therefore any physical invention isn't patentable.

Same for copyright. You can't copyright the letter 'A', or any other letter. All written works are really just collections of uncopyrightable letters, and hence not copyrightable.

It makes a nice mathematical proof, but you're trying to apply mathematical rigor to a question that is not suited to that kind of analysis. It's like trying to prove mathematically that murder is wrong.

I'm not entirely comfortable with Bilski. I think the Bilski test has thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

Not, in the case at hand... this patent sounds like 100% pure unadulterated bathwater. But nevertheless...

I'm not sure why so many Slashdotters are so opposed to software patents as a concept. To my mind, the problem has been that the "non-obvious" requirement has been ignored or interpretted in such a way as to render it meaningless.

There are some really clever algorithms out there, though. Algorithms that are not at all obvious, and really advance the state of the art. If Quicksort was invented today, wouldn't it deserve a patent?

But if the bath water is going to include such notorious crap patents as 1-Click, Desire2Learn, NTP, and many others, then I would have to say that the bathwater is so rank and disgusting that it's not too high a price to pay to lose a handful of babies, as Bilski does.

But can't we do better? Can't we find an "obviousness" test that works?

This will revolutionize the Japanese Adult Video industry! They won't need to hire 50 guys to make a bukkake video.

Ideas like that should be encouraged, as they could be very helpful in ridding the world of the religious right.

So do I.

The technology sounds very similar to the aluminum-air batteries that have been around for years, though not commonly used. They work by oxidizing the aluminum, and the process is not reversible (at least not within the cell.)

You "recharge" aluminum-air batteries by dumping out all the aluminum oxide (which maybe can be recycled back into aluminum in a smelter), and installing fresh aluminum plates.

I wouldn't want to try that trick with plates of pure lithium...

Unfortunately, Panasonic becomes a party in it when they get sued by somebody who was injured by an exploding battery. They will get sued, regardless of who made the battery. It was in their camera at the time it exploded.

Having done your level best to stop the 3rd-party batteries from working at all is a pretty good defense to come to court with. From a legal standpoint, it might be seen as recklessly irresponsible to _not_ do this.

To the guy who pointed out that even OEM batteries explode: if they (Sony in this case) have such a hard time keeping their own batteries from exploding, imagine how much harder it must be when you have no idea what kind of crap people are putting in there.

I'm just sayin', is all...

The justification they offer for this is not necessarily illegitimate.

If the camera has a built-in charger, then there is a very real possibility of battery fires or explosions if a 3rd-party battery doesn't match the characteristics that the charger was designed for. If you don't believe that can happen, then I suggest you review all the stories of exploding laptop batteries. It can and does happen.

On the other hand, if there is no built-in charger (my Canon cameras don't have built-in chargers), then they are definitely first-rate ass-pirates and players of the pink oboe.

... it just smells funny.

If we treat ISP as utilities (no caps), then don't be surprised if they treat us like utilities treat their customers: billed by usage.

For some reason I've never quite understood, the idea of being billed by the megabyte seems to draw a very negative reaction around here. People seem to think unlimited internet at a flat rate is a basic human right. But nobody could reasonably expect unlimited killowatt-hours for $20/month.

An ISP advertised as "unlimited" certainly should be unlimited, I wouldn't argue with that. They should either make it truly unlimited, or stop calling it "unlimited". One way or the other. That's just simple honesty. Unstated secret caps on an "unlimited" internet package are fraudulent. But realistically, you just have to know that truly unlimited internet is not going to happen. It's just not practical, any more than unlimited electricity or unlimited natural gas.

The other problem with "unlimited" internet or even flat-fee-with-a-cap internet is that it really means that the light users end up subsidizing the heavy users. And that doesn't seem fair.

Isn't it just easier and more natural all around to just pay by the megabyte, the same way you pay for your killowatt-hours? I think they could work out some kind of sliding scale, so that heavy use or running a popular web-site doesn't become economically infeasible.

And then, once that's in place, maybe we can convince (or force) the ISPs to stop thinking they're anything other than a pipe. A dumb pipe. A dumb pipe that doesn't and shouldn't know or care what goes through it. A pipe whose entire job is to carry bits from one place to another, and not #$#$ with them. Just like the electric company doesn't know or care what you do with your killowatt-hours. It's none of their damn business.

Yeah, from what I've heard, it has had its problems. Mechanical reliability problems with SwitchLinc switches, which I gather have been resolved. Firmware problems with some components, which I gather have been resolved.

And it's apparently quite difficult to configure complicated switching arrangements. But I figure an computer scientist/electrical engineer should be able to figure it out.

I admit, I've never actually bought any INSTEON yet, only X-10. But I looked at the other technologies, and just couldn't find anything even remotely as cool as the KeyPadLinc switch. It just does everything.