Slashdot Mirror

Finally there is a large part of the population that research shows find themselves attracted to angry conservative type opinions and actually become MORE attracted to the opinion when evidence of its incorrectness is presented.

It's not just "angry conservative type opinions" but ALL opinions are potentially affected by this form of confirmation bias. Left wing, right wing, social conventions, even food preferences. Here's an excellent book on the subject.

...and, the one-star comment from your link:

By stop hiring guns to artificially boost up your phone ratings at Amazon. Lumia 900 was a show case of robot reviews. When I am writing this, Lumia 920 has already received five reviews, all of them 5-star. All but one has written a review of another product other than Lumia 920.

DBLA (1 review in total) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1S7GEDIIDVLKG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
jthom (2 reviews) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2A941MKMDREPG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Sup Karma (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A4SUJVO0D8DM9/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Ramiro Watson (4 reviews, ALL on different colors of Lumia 920 with different titles) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GU6PSZG155ND/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
joseasilvestre (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RR13YM1XGXNU/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

...the nokia/ms adulation in those reviews makes the apple/droid camps here appear subdued.

cheers,

...and, the one-star comment from your link:

By stop hiring guns to artificially boost up your phone ratings at Amazon. Lumia 900 was a show case of robot reviews. When I am writing this, Lumia 920 has already received five reviews, all of them 5-star. All but one has written a review of another product other than Lumia 920.

DBLA (1 review in total) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1S7GEDIIDVLKG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
jthom (2 reviews) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2A941MKMDREPG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Sup Karma (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A4SUJVO0D8DM9/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Ramiro Watson (4 reviews, ALL on different colors of Lumia 920 with different titles) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GU6PSZG155ND/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
joseasilvestre (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RR13YM1XGXNU/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

...the nokia/ms adulation in those reviews makes the apple/droid camps here appear subdued.

cheers,

...and, the one-star comment from your link:

By stop hiring guns to artificially boost up your phone ratings at Amazon. Lumia 900 was a show case of robot reviews. When I am writing this, Lumia 920 has already received five reviews, all of them 5-star. All but one has written a review of another product other than Lumia 920.

DBLA (1 review in total) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1S7GEDIIDVLKG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
jthom (2 reviews) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2A941MKMDREPG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Sup Karma (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A4SUJVO0D8DM9/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Ramiro Watson (4 reviews, ALL on different colors of Lumia 920 with different titles) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GU6PSZG155ND/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
joseasilvestre (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RR13YM1XGXNU/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

...the nokia/ms adulation in those reviews makes the apple/droid camps here appear subdued.

cheers,

...and, the one-star comment from your link:

By stop hiring guns to artificially boost up your phone ratings at Amazon. Lumia 900 was a show case of robot reviews. When I am writing this, Lumia 920 has already received five reviews, all of them 5-star. All but one has written a review of another product other than Lumia 920.

DBLA (1 review in total) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1S7GEDIIDVLKG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
jthom (2 reviews) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2A941MKMDREPG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Sup Karma (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A4SUJVO0D8DM9/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Ramiro Watson (4 reviews, ALL on different colors of Lumia 920 with different titles) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GU6PSZG155ND/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
joseasilvestre (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RR13YM1XGXNU/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

...the nokia/ms adulation in those reviews makes the apple/droid camps here appear subdued.

cheers,

...and, the one-star comment from your link:

By stop hiring guns to artificially boost up your phone ratings at Amazon. Lumia 900 was a show case of robot reviews. When I am writing this, Lumia 920 has already received five reviews, all of them 5-star. All but one has written a review of another product other than Lumia 920.

DBLA (1 review in total) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1S7GEDIIDVLKG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
jthom (2 reviews) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2A941MKMDREPG/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Sup Karma (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A4SUJVO0D8DM9/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp
Ramiro Watson (4 reviews, ALL on different colors of Lumia 920 with different titles) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GU6PSZG155ND/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp
joseasilvestre (1 review) http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A3RR13YM1XGXNU/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

...the nokia/ms adulation in those reviews makes the apple/droid camps here appear subdued.

cheers,

Heh, somebody really likes his Lumia.

I like it how his 710 reviews are copy-pasted, but 920 are different for different SKUs.

Or this guy, who "upgraded from 810 to 920", but it didn't stop him from reviewing two models of 900 too.

All those reviewers who registered just to leave a single 500 word buzzword filled review also aren't suspicious at all.

Amazon reviews are as helpful as ever.

Heh, somebody really likes his Lumia.

I like it how his 710 reviews are copy-pasted, but 920 are different for different SKUs.

Or this guy, who "upgraded from 810 to 920", but it didn't stop him from reviewing two models of 900 too.

All those reviewers who registered just to leave a single 500 word buzzword filled review also aren't suspicious at all.

Amazon reviews are as helpful as ever.

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-920-Windows-Phone/dp/B00A2V7BA4/ref=zg_bs_2407747011_2

also posting to undo moderation.

Gee, I've had two friends in the last week also report their iphone 5s locking up and freezing. Guess this is âoenewsâ as well. And oh, here's an Apple forum with ooo a whole 25 replies on it about the iphone 5 freezing.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4396519?start=0&tstart=0

So how bout some real comparisons here instead of cherrypicking? How bout a satisfaction survey of 920 owners? Maybe some real journalistic work perhaps? How bout numerically compare the satisfaction of 920 owners to the rest of the field? Too defensible? Too much work?

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-920-Windows-Phone/product-reviews/B00A2V7FCS/ref=sr_1_2_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Btw, one SKU of the Lumia is currently #3 across all carriers on Amazon and moving up every day despite limited production. Whereâ(TM)s the story on that?

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-Service-Plans/zgbs/wireless/2407747011/ref=zg_bs_nav_cps_1_cps

Gee, I've had two friends in the last week also report their iphone 5s locking up and freezing. Guess this is âoenewsâ as well. And oh, here's an Apple forum with ooo a whole 25 replies on it about the iphone 5 freezing.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4396519?start=0&tstart=0

So how bout some real comparisons here instead of cherrypicking? How bout a satisfaction survey of 920 owners? Maybe some real journalistic work perhaps? How bout numerically compare the satisfaction of 920 owners to the rest of the field? Too defensible? Too much work?

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-920-Windows-Phone/product-reviews/B00A2V7FCS/ref=sr_1_2_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Btw, one SKU of the Lumia is currently #3 across all carriers on Amazon and moving up every day despite limited production. Whereâ(TM)s the story on that?

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-Service-Plans/zgbs/wireless/2407747011/ref=zg_bs_nav_cps_1_cps

Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus, by Dinesh D'Souza, discussed this issue almost 15 years ago. It's nothing new—it's perhaps just that others are beginning to catch on.

Citizens United will make political corruption just worse. We really need to go back to public financing of politics in order to remove corporate money, and the resulting crony capitalism. The GOP are cheerleading the way for this type of corruption, as senior long-time GOP insider Lofgren describes in his new book.

Yup, been going on for some time. Probably 40 years!

The University of Toronto used to use Kraft, p., Programmers and Managers: The Routinization of Computer Programming in the United States (Heidelberg Science Library, 1984) as a textbook in their programming and software engineering curricula.

I still recommend it, as managers still try to get rid of the good people, hire cheap ones, and then promote from within.It's a dumb move, but common.

One of my customers noticed that dumbness, and has been preferentially hiring the semi-retired.

--dave

• Kettle: http://www.philips.com.ph/c/tea-and-boiling/viva-collection-1.0l-2400w-1-cup-ind.-white-lavender-hd4676_40/prd/
• Hairdryer: http://www.amazon.com/Turbo-5000-Professional-Dryer-Watts/dp/B008DI7WBQ

According to energy.gov, clothes dryers use 1800-5000W, although the latter are surely industrial as they would need to sit on a three phase socket This still raises the question as to how long you really need to boil water for 2400W for a minute or two is not going to significantly shorten the life of the battery pack in the article.

But if the pizza man really loves that woman, why is he spanking her?

D/s / BDSM is a complex subject, and porn is a really poor model for that. I suggest Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission for a fairly well rounded look into that particular subculture.

Now my Twinkies Cookbook is going to be useless... :(

(basically preventing a normal consumer from every suing you for fault since they could never recover enough to make it worth while

You've never actually read one of these arbitration clauses, have you?

Here's PayPal's
https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/upcoming_policies_full

We will pay the initial filing fee to commence arbitration and any arbitration hearing that you attend shall take place in the federal judicial district of your residence.

Here's Amazon's
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=508088

We will reimburse those fees for claims totaling less than $10,000 unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. Likewise, Amazon will not seek attorneys' fees and costs in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. You may choose to have the arbitration conducted by telephone, based on written submissions, or in person in the county where you live or at another mutually agreed location.

In business contracts, the arbitration clause has been standard for years (decade+)... and it usually says something equivalent to: loser pays all arbitration costs and attorney's fees.

So if you have a legitimate claim, then you can file for arbitration, and the corporation will not only have to pay your claim, but all of the money you spent to bring the suit. This is more than you would get in court (where there is no "loser pays" clause).

The CO2 per capita is a completely specious argument. The only question is your net CO2 consumption, but all the figures thrown about are the gross production. According to this book: http://www.amazon.com/Bottomless-Well-Twilight-Virtue-Energy/dp/046503117X , North America is the only continent which consumes more CO2 than it produces. It can do this largely because it is sparsely populated, and has a large amount of forests and vegetation compared to its population. It should be self evident that a given land mass can only support so many people given a particular level of technology. My suspicion is that Europe and China are over that limit, and the USA is under. As others have mentioned, much of the world outsources their agriculture to us, and we outsource much of our manufacturing to others, so we can't just say everyone gets so much CO2 per square foot of land. But we also can't just say every person gets so much CO2. It is a complicated global problem, and the best we can do globally, is to make sure that the cost to maintain our CO2 at healthy levels is incorporated into the price of the goods and services produced. The problem is that, while the task can be stated simply, it is quite complicated to implement.

75K seems a good amount for taking something that could be done in Open Source and making it safe, reliable, and repeatably measurable for use in a hospital.

Sure, we can get these things to cost $5000 like a good hearing aid. But I'm not sure that version is going to be used to make the final assessment of whether there is a living person in a locked-in patient or not.

Developmental costs of 75,000 seem unlikely to suffice. Factor of 10, maybe, but most likely to get such a device
certified you are talking 7.5 million.

After that, per unit cost depends solely on the parts involved, and these are pretty cheap. Knocking them
out for 5grand seems entirely possible.

You can buy a Defibrillator on Amazon.com for a thousand bucks, with no license, training, or certification for use. And it is designed to generate potentially life ending voltages.

There is nothing unsafe about EEG electrodes, some of which can be totally passive, that could not be solved with an optical signal linkage (air gap). Even Active electrodes can be battery powered.
Such would preclude even the most dunderhead-ed wiring job from turning an inert pickup into a shock inducing short circuit.
Five volts and tiny amperage's are routinely popped into our ears every time we put in ear buds, without a thought.

I'm not sure why such a cheap device couldn't be used to make such an assessment, at least as a preliminary diagnostic tool.
We make life and death assessments with Sub $100 stethoscopes every day.

Until that time when it is trusted enough to justify pulling the plug on a warn body, it can be used bedside to communicate at some level
with the patient on an ongoing basis. 5K is not all that expensive compared to what is already wheeled into hospital rooms
every day in any modern country.

I might be in the minority here but I think that low airfares are actually part of the problem. Look what it has given us...baggage and other fees, fewer routes, lower salaries for the people that work at the airlines. Airlines, in an attempt to keep fares low and continuing to squeeze every cent they can get. Air travel used to be a pleasurable experience back in the day.

I can see someone will write a book sometime in future when airlines are really bad, "Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Airfares" modeled after the book "Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion" http://www.amazon.com/Overdressed-Shockingly-High-Cheap-Fashion/dp/1591844614 where it talks about how such low cost obiterated quality clothing, industries, and craftsmanship.

Look at my other posts on this thread, you'll find a nice new Phenom quad kit for just $150 after MIR and the Phenom X6 for just $106 with NO rebates.

If it were me I'd slap that Phenom X6 in a nice board that will hold plenty of RAM and has at least one if not two PCIe X16 slots and enjoy. That's what i did, grabbed the 1035T at just $100 and paired that with a nice Asrock gamer board they had on sale for $45. Since software development hasn't kept up with hardware in quite awhile i figure i have several years to enjoy this X6, hell even as i type this I'm listening to music AND have the songs volume leveling AND transcoding a couple of hours worth of videos AND have nearly a dozen tabs open in dragon, not only does not have any lag but frankly it feels no different than when i'm just surfing, everything is instant and smooth.

So grab one while the getting is good friend, prices are dirt cheap and a good quad or hexacore will last you for quite a long while. Hell I handed down my 3 year old Deneb quad to my youngest when i got the hexacore, he plays his games pretty much constantly and even on those big MMOs that Deneb with 8Gb of RAM just keeps coming back for more.

a little bit of advice for those buying AMD or...well pretty much ANY CPU, and it is this: the stock coolers SUCK ASS so get this N520 instead as no matter how many hours I slam my Thuban it never gets above a max 128f, and that is with a case where I don't even have an exhaust fan as i wanted the system quiet. It has 5 heatpipes and fits just fine in any mATX case, rare for heatpipe coolers, and at $40 with a tube of Arctic Silver well worth the money. I have slapped one of these in every PC in my family, 5 in all, and even in my dad's shop that just sucks dirt like mad the N520 just keeps right on cooling, great for any chip, be it AMD or Intel.

Dude buy one of the E350 units, they are cheap, low power, and a hell of a lot nicer than the Atom. i have built several of these for use as office units and they are happy as clams, its completely silent. it makes a hell of a low power file server or HTPC as well, hell i'm even quite happy with the Asus EEE E350 i replaced my full size with, so much lighter while playing 1080p over HDMI when I'm visiting friends.

Check out something like this model for $120 just add RAM (up to 8Gb) and any drives you like. its quiet, cheap to buy and own, hell it even supports a PCIe card if you want more performance but since I already play 1080p I don't know what you'd really need the card for, maybe an eSATA card?

From Publishers Weekly:
"Oreskes and Conway tell an important story about the misuse of science to mislead the public on matters ranging from the risks of smoking to the reality of global warming. The people the authors accuse in this carefully documented book are themselves scientists—mostly physicists, former cold warriors who now serve a conservative agenda, and vested interests like the tobacco industry. The authors name these scientists—all with powerful connections in government and the media—including Robert Jastrow, Frederick Seitz, and S. Fred Singer. Seven compelling chapters detail seven issues (acid rain, the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke, the ozone hole, global warming, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the banning of DDT) in which this group aimed to sow seeds of public doubt on matters of settled science. They did so by casting aspersions on the science and the scientists who produce it. Oreskes, a professor of history and science studies at UC–San Diego, and science writer Conway also emphasize how journalists and Internet bloggers uncritically repeat these charges. This book deserves serious attention for the lessons it provides about the misuse of science for political and commercial ends. "

I hope so, kinda useless otherwise. Of course, only one place to buy that content from.

The are hundreds of thousands of free e-books available for the Kindle.

Free Book Collections

Baen Free Library

Munseys

The chances are quite good that you can borrow e-books formatted for the Kindle through the online services of your local public library:

Nioga Digital Home [Western New York]

Exactly which Republican ideas do you consider as right wing and bonkers as those of Hitler.

Well, it isn't like genocide was an official part of the party platform this year, but it was pretty close. There was plenty of islamophobia on display during the republican primary, which I was inclined to chalk up to the just plain extremist nature of many primary voters. But, it seems that even during his "tack to the center" Romney maintained way too much of that in the form of his foreiign policy advisors. One foreign policy advisor was John Bolton who is so friendly with the two most high profile islamaphobes in the USA that he wrote the forward for one of their books.

I imagine that the many science fiction fans in this nerd community will remember the opening of Larry Niven's The Ringworld Engineers . The protagonist Louis Wu has given up his friends, appetite for food and water and basically his whole life, content to sit still with an electrode delivering current straight to the pleasure centre of his brain. It's the ultimate addiction. Sure, this technology will probably bring myriad benefits, but doesn't it seem like there's some disquieting potential for misuse?

They did a re-release of the totally awesome HP 15C.

I have two on my desk, the original version.

This is the perfect RPN calculation tool.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-NW250AA-15C-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B005EIG3MW

HP still offers RPN on a few of their calculators. In the graphing-calculator department, there's the HP 50g, which can switch between RPN and non-RPN modes.

They have a list of the six RPN calculators they still sell here (bottom of the page).

What, pray tell, is the purpose of education if each person has to find out everything by themselves, and no one can take advantage of the collective wisdom of society, and the accumulated learning built up over history?

They don't have to find out everything by themselves. Chances are people have done what this guy is trying to do and have written about their experiences. If only there was some way to find this information, perhaps someone has asked the question before?

This is about as non-sensical as the Australian "president" who is a Christian and supports what he says ;)

Also, AWS already has a lot of their services avaialble in Singapore: http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/globalinfrastructure/regional-product-services/

You didn't look very hard, did you?

I found this book to be invaluable.
It gives a simple plan to create presentations where you can get your point across in 7 minutes leaving 8 for Q and A.
If your presentation is more complicated than that, you will lose your audience.
http://www.amazon.com/15-Minutes-Including-World-Presentations/dp/0978577620

I didn't use to be aware of what the studio space bring to a recording under I started collecting releases from the jazz and classical label ECM, whose uncanny founder Manfred Eicher produces nearly every recording himself in the best venue he can find. I've heard jazz recordings on ECM that might be banal under any other producer, but the studio ambience curiously becomes a sort of musical substance, endowing weight and beauty to otherwise unworthy music. For music that is great already, the production just pushes it to even more sublime heights (I'd point to the ECM recording of Arvo Part's Kanon Pokajanen as an example of that).

Anyone else know of a label where the studio ambience plays a large role?

Related links for this article:
DTN Research Group: http://www.dtnrg.org/wiki
lots of docs: http://www.dtnrg.org/wiki/Docs
overview presentation: http://jeroen.massar.ch/presentations/files/CCC2007-DTN-Upgrading-Martian-Carrier-Pigeons.ppt

The book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596930632
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking

Source code: http://dtn.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/sft/ltplib/

Oh and yes, theoretically this extends the Internet in the same way that various other protocols do, eg 6lowpan etc.
And yes, as it is store-and-forward it looks an awful lot like SMTP.

Enjoy ;)

Where the iPhone's stylus pen?

I got yer iPhone stylus pen right 'ere, baby! Right 'ere!

(Honest! It's not smut! It's a link to a pen on Amazon!)

If you have games for several different emulated platforms, each emulator will need it set up once. In addition, each native PC game supporting gamepads will need it set up once.

I summed this up in my previous post, you can pick convenience or choice. You seem to be against the choice of using your desired input method, why? If people want convenience they have it (why not simply use an original system, best of both worlds, authentic control and convenience of things just working!) I think options are a good thing and the emulation scene is bigger than ever with more games, more emulators, more people interested.

I own an Xbox 360 Controller and have found its directional pad imprecise compared to Nintendo 64 and PlayStation controllers run through adapters, and I seem to remember other reviewers agreeing with me.

It's a valid observation and I've encountered this as well. At least there is an option of using the N64 controller on a PC unlike the Wii.

Did the defendants in Sony v. Tenenbaum and Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset like free?

Must be why The Pirate Bay is not a popular site any longer?

XInput works only with the Xbox 360 Controller on Windows operating systems

Windows is what 90% of people run, especially if you're a gamer, and the Xbox 360 controller is one of the most popular PC gaming input methods. Your argument is about convenience, Xinput makes things pretty convenient. Here is a nice list of emulators including pictures of getting them to work with Xbox 360 controller.

I was under the impression that building a business around providing "an old modded XBOX" to customers would get one arrested under anti-circumvention statutes.

Who said anything about building a business? I thought we were discussing playing games many people may have already purchased (especially if you're 30+) and I'm recommending using things most people already have or can acquire cheaply. Not everyone wants or needs to buy a Wii just to play old games when they've got something around the house which'll do the job.

Sauron was named after dinosaurs, so why not?

No, he wasn't. "Sauron" has a meaning in Tolkien's invented language Quenya, namely "foul". Tolkien was likely inspired in this by Old Norse saur "urine, filth". See Tolkien's etymologies in The Lost Road . In a letter to one Mr. Rang, Tolkien explicity disavowed any connection to the Greek word for "lizard" (and in fact the Proto-Elvish form didn't even have an initial s-).

Strictly speaking, communication is just the transfer of information, and language is whichever means of communication you are capable of using.

That's not "strictly speaking" at all, because when linguists use the term "language", it refers to human language, which is distinct from e.g. animal codes of communication. Only human language is capable of things like the ambiguity and contradiction in Chomsky's famous example "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously." Human language did not exist before large brains because it is deeply bound up in the functioning (warts and all) of large brains.

For anyone interested in the topic of how human language arose and how it differs from other means of communication, I'd highly recommend Guy Deutscher's The Unfolding of Language , probably the best popular introduction to this topic.

Main problem is simulating time dilation. Single-player, you could do it, I suppose. But you can't give multiple players their own individual time rates.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, you can some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds."
          Poker According to Maverick
http://www.amazon.com/Poker-According-Maverick-Bret/dp/B000BHSG62

On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.

That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges and unlock what you've already purchased.

A 20-year library would include DOS games and Windows 3.1 games, and 64-bit Windows can't run those without an emulator.

Neither can Nintendo, without an emulator.

On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii Shop Channel has the Virtual Console categories with officially emulated games dating back to the fourth quarter of 1985 when the NES was released.

That's pretty amazing, especially if you aren't aware of emulation. Now, if you include emulators which run on the PC (there are titles that come bundled with dosbox so it's point and click, ready to go, available on Steam or GOG.com like Space Quest) you have pretty much all of the systems covered since gaming began. Use a USB controller adapter to enhance the experience with your actual contollers. Bummer you have to rebuy your titles, it would be very cool if you could easily uniquely identify cartridges and unlock what you've already purchased.

A 20-year library would include DOS games and Windows 3.1 games, and 64-bit Windows can't run those without an emulator.

Neither can Nintendo, without an emulator.

I'm not sure that science stars are all that helpful. Something they can be self-aggrandising publicity whores that, instead of really educating the public, obfuscate the sciences by offering vacuous factoids on fields they have only a passing acquaintance with. At the same time, science popularizing takes time away with their own research.

Michio Kaku's a good example: once a fine research physicist, he has now become the media's go-to man whenever they want to look deep, even if it is on something outside his field like climate change or UFOs. (The signs of losing rigor were showing already in the early '90s with his first popular science book Hyperspace, which seemed curiously obsessed with -- and optimistic about -- humanity gaining "god-like powers").

Some might counter that these folks do good in attracting young people to the sciences, but I would like to see some hard figures on that. I suspect the bureaucrats that quietly set educational policy, not media go-to scientists, can have a much, much greater effect.

I originally found them at Office Max. Later Home Depot started carrying them. Other stores may carry them now. They're $5-$6 for fifty 8" long strips. That's 10-12 cents apiece, and being velcro they're much more versatile than traditional plastic cable ties. You just tear one off, wrap it around the cable bundle, and the velcro sticks to itself - takes just a couple seconds. If you mess up, it's velcro so you just lift it up and try again. No need to cut them or fiddle with a knife to release them like you do with plastic cable ties. They come with a little hole at one end if you want to affix it around a single cable for a more permanent (but reusable) installation.

I use em for network cables, video cables, audio cables, wrapping cables around ducting, hanging a picture frame on a fence, everything. I've used one to hold down a broken switch on a kitchen faucet. Heck, I've used them to create a hanging cradle to isolate HDD vibrations and noise from a computer case. They're very handy.

Actually, it sort of was.

You are proposing a $1,300 solution. The average solution so far seems to be hovering around $20, with some as low as $3. There are some cost efficiency problems with your solution.

Wrong. iMac G3 was the all-in-one manufactured in 1998, and you can buy a used one on Amazon right now for $169: http://www.amazon.com/Certified-Pre-Owned-internal-keyboard-installed/dp/B000PQJPPU

Just to add to this, the shipping and handling is actually the source of profit for many companies on Amazon. I personally knew the owner of a company that sells $0.99 computer games on Amazon, but charges $5.99 shipping on them, which turns into a $5-plus profit on each game sold. I recently fell for this tactic when I bought a copy of the Hulk Video Game for $3.96 and got charged $4.59 in shipping. This is also the case with many used-book sellers on Amazon, who sell the book for a dollar, charge you five in shipping, and then send it using the library book rate, which only costs them pennies.

While I agree with your sentiment, your facts are... inaccurate.

It depends on the category the item is being offered under. Amazon has defined different categories for items, and for most of those categories, Amazon has set the shipping fee that the seller is paid (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=537734&#rates). There are categories where Amazon allows a seller to specify their own fees, but your example of used books (Amazon category: media) is one that Amazon regulates. The shipping fee is set to $3.99 for domestic sales. As for using Library Mail for shipping -unless the item is going to/from an approved (by the USPS) library/museum/school that is postal fraud (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1115292). What is typically used to ship used books is Media Mail (see http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm#1113509).

Not necessarily. The Panasonic system I have uses power from the handsets to power the base station in the event of a power outage. The system has 5 handsets, each of which will provide about 2-3 hours of talk time to the system. That should cover you for emergency calls during most power outages (and even some non-emergency ones).

Interesting as their FAQ says that all 4 must be at the same address (although maybe not if it is a corporate account) http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=13819201