I don't think flying cars will ever make much sense. Barring some absolutely physics-defying discovery, it takes a relatively huge amount of energy to keep a vehicle off the ground, and it's not clear to me what the advantage is (other than being terrifically cool). When you're traveling point-to-point on the surface of a ball it's just not worth it most of the time.
Actually that's not the case. A relatively simple plane like the Rotax Falke, with just 100hp, will cruise at 100mph with a 460lbs payload, burning just 3 gallons of avgas an hour.
the file format is fragile -- you can not expect to be able to reliably read a 10-year old document
I use Office XP and it opens any of my (up to 15 years old) Word for Windows 2.0 or Excel 3.0 files from my school days transparently, and they include a lot of OLE, embedded bitmaps etc. Not sure how you're managing to hit problems - one of Office's strengths is its ability to read old documents.
Administrators are less concerned about content than they are about the "quality" of that content.
We're not all bad. I'm an admin and I remove those stupid "contains a trivia section" templates on-sight, and I restore trivia sections if people delete them (whenever you visit an entry on a film or book, check the edit history).
The F-22's radar is a "low probability of intercept" set - that is, it is very hard to detect, and even harder to get a meaningful range and bearing on. However the F-22 doesn't actually use it's radar that much - at the very least, F-22s operate in pairs or fours. Only one will operate it's radar (and even then only in brief bursts), and will then distribute the information to the other F-22s in the flight via a datalink. F-22s also use an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) device, which can pick up large Russian fighters at about 100 km, and is entirely passive. Finally, they'll normally operate with an AWACs aircraft behind them, and will be fed situation information from it, so the F-22s don't need to turn their radars on at all.
It's interesting, actually. Pro-Linux posts get modded troll and flamebait with some regularity now. I haven't been a very Slashdotter for a long time, but the Microsoft fanboys (shills/astroturfers?) definitely have a much larger influence on moderation than they used to.
Maybe the site is just getting more balanced, and fanboy trolls/shills/astroturfers of any "side" are getting modded down.
This is the reason I use GNU software: the "life" of that software is as long as somebody wants to use it.
I used to run Wordpress 1.5, but had to upgrade as support was ended and I didn't want my blog pwned. Then I had to go from 2.1 to 2.2 in less than a month, for the exact same reason.
Software getting EOL'd is as common in Free Software as it is in proprietary - it's the way of the world. You can't expect old software to be supported forever.
Given the vast alternative resources available to the US, why do this before building large scale solar and wind plants?
Because to generate the same power from solar, you'd have to cover 18 million square meters of desert with panels. And they would only produce power during the day.
Because to generate the same power from wind, you'd need to build 1,000 130m high wind turbines. And they would only produce power during the 30% of the time when the wind speed is actually high enough to generate full power.
I think the environmental impact of one nuclear plant, which will produce enough high-level nuclear waste to fill no more than a pickup in it's lifetime and will produce not one gram of CO2, is somewhat less.
And before anyone cries "it's not safe!!", remember that France has produced 75% of its electricity from nuclear for decades. Heard of any accidents where *anyone* has been even *slightly* hurt? No, neither have I. But last year - one year alone - 47 coal miners were killed in the United States.
"Drop-down menus have been around so long because they work!"
Umm, no, they don't. I forget the statistic but it's something like 80% of users use only 20% of the features - they'd use the rest but they don't know they're there.
I use Office 2007 daily and it's a revelation. Producing complex cross-suite documents is now much quicker and more intuitive.
You forget to mention the role of the regulator, Ofcom. They have already made it clear that they will not let the current success of Freeview be undermined by alternative technologies - they have effectively told Sky that their MPEG4 plans will be blocked.
The BBC and ITV recently announced Freesat, beginning next year, that will deliver their channels in HD via satellite. Looks like a good solution for those happy to pay a premium for HD.
Personally I believe the government will have to rething their plans to sell the analogue spectrum to mobile phone companies - they over-bid for the 3G licenses and are struggling to turn a profit with that technology; I do not see them keen to buy more bandwidth. But the government will hang on to the dream to the last - they want the money, bad.
As an aside, one downside of the UK's early lead in digital broadcasting is that we got saddled with MPEG2, as MPEG4 wasn't mature at the time the spec was developed.
It's a mixed bag. MS brought us IE 5.x with HttpXmlRequest, but Firefox gave developers a decent javascript IDE to properly utilise it. The end result is AJAX, which I personally like a lot - Google Maps, Gmail, 30Boxes, Flickr etc.
This was the case when analog networks were the norm, but at least in Europe they have all been turned off (are there any left in the US?).
Modern GSM networks use time-division multiplexing to fit dozens of calls into one "channel". The same software that enables this also handles calls which are going to many towers at once with no network issues (e.g. if you're on high ground, in a skyscraper etc.).
To be clear, there are no network issues involved with using a mobile phone at altitude, whether in or on a fixed structure or in an aircraft.
I wonder if this kind of technology could possibly locate Jim Gray's boat. As no wreckage was ever found, Gray was likely incapacitated in some way and the boat sailed under the autohelm far out into the deep ocean until the fuel tank ran dry. Technology like this could maybe scan satellite imagery looking for the Tenacious.
Did you RTFA at all? It states that the children who do not play sports at school expend energy elsewhere, with the net result that having sport in school or not makes no difference to child obesity.
The article does NOT state that playing sport does not use energy.
Wrong. Under Office Actions the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the right to delete edits at the database level - wiping them from existence, not just from public view.
Four days late with this post but there's a lot that needs correcting...
First, how forecasts are generated. All forecasts are a result of numerical weather prediction. There are around a dozen different models in operation around the world, and most of that data is retained by the operators of the models (usually the national forecasting office). However, all data from the US GFS model, operated by the NWS, released as works of the government are public domain.
What all the sites in this sample (bar the BBC) do is take the data files the GFS produces and reprocess them into a webpage. No human is involved at any stage. (The BBC get their data feed from the UK Met Office).
As the models only produce data points for every 40km or so spatially and every three hours temporally all the sites interpolate to some extent to produce a point forecast. The GFS also runs four times a day but these sites might take all four runs or just one a day. Combined, that's why differences between sites exist in these results. Nothing else.
REAL performance statistics are available here and here.
Yes, of course. Microsoft have no understanding that the success of Windows was based upon the fact that it was an open software platform running on an open hardware platform, and do everything they can to make sure third party apps don't work.
Seriously, do you believe that? Microsoft are not fools and do not try to destroy what makes Windows great. The fact there's a lawsuit also proves nothing. If the litigants win, then it does.
I have two PVRs, one a couple of years old and a second bought just before Christmas. Neither produce a noticeable drop in quality compared to OTA viewing. Furthermore, the older one has a 40 hour capacity and the newer one over 100 - seeing as I use these boxes for timeshifting *not* archiving (I have a DVD-R for that), capacity is not a limitation.
On the matter of direct broadband streaming - maybe one day. It's been a dream for years - I have a New Scientist article discussing a trial of VoD from nearly ten years ago. The simple fact is that to stream HD-quality material in real-time to every house where people are watching TV at the same time would demand servers and bandwidth with many, many times the capacity available today. But who knows, maybe that's what Google will use its new data centres and dark fibre for...
Until yesterday I was also an "old skool" member (and I'm also a Pro account owner). When I got the mail announcing the change, I thought a bit about for a while then said "sod it" and merged my account.
Was there any difference in my Flickr experience after the switch? No.
Slashdot Mirror
According to TFA, the camera weighed only a rather less impressive 46 lbs.
Kew Gardens news story, with lots more images and information.
to the research. Even better, the ASU press release went out seven months ago.
I use Office XP and it opens any of my (up to 15 years old) Word for Windows 2.0 or Excel 3.0 files from my school days transparently, and they include a lot of OLE, embedded bitmaps etc. Not sure how you're managing to hit problems - one of Office's strengths is its ability to read old documents.
We're not all bad. I'm an admin and I remove those stupid "contains a trivia section" templates on-sight, and I restore trivia sections if people delete them (whenever you visit an entry on a film or book, check the edit history).
Nowhere do Interpol suggest that they were using "secret techniques".
The F-22's radar is a "low probability of intercept" set - that is, it is very hard to detect, and even harder to get a meaningful range and bearing on. However the F-22 doesn't actually use it's radar that much - at the very least, F-22s operate in pairs or fours. Only one will operate it's radar (and even then only in brief bursts), and will then distribute the information to the other F-22s in the flight via a datalink. F-22s also use an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) device, which can pick up large Russian fighters at about 100 km, and is entirely passive. Finally, they'll normally operate with an AWACs aircraft behind them, and will be fed situation information from it, so the F-22s don't need to turn their radars on at all.
Maybe the site is just getting more balanced, and fanboy trolls/shills/astroturfers of any "side" are getting modded down.
I used to run Wordpress 1.5, but had to upgrade as support was ended and I didn't want my blog pwned. Then I had to go from 2.1 to 2.2 in less than a month, for the exact same reason.
Software getting EOL'd is as common in Free Software as it is in proprietary - it's the way of the world. You can't expect old software to be supported forever.
Because to generate the same power from solar, you'd have to cover 18 million square meters of desert with panels. And they would only produce power during the day.
Because to generate the same power from wind, you'd need to build 1,000 130m high wind turbines. And they would only produce power during the 30% of the time when the wind speed is actually high enough to generate full power.
I think the environmental impact of one nuclear plant, which will produce enough high-level nuclear waste to fill no more than a pickup in it's lifetime and will produce not one gram of CO2, is somewhat less.
And before anyone cries "it's not safe!!", remember that France has produced 75% of its electricity from nuclear for decades. Heard of any accidents where *anyone* has been even *slightly* hurt? No, neither have I. But last year - one year alone - 47 coal miners were killed in the United States.
And I'd like to see them try. The performances of Sony Connect and Virgin Digital show that either you distribute through iTunes, or you fail.
Umm, no, they don't. I forget the statistic but it's something like 80% of users use only 20% of the features - they'd use the rest but they don't know they're there.
I use Office 2007 daily and it's a revelation. Producing complex cross-suite documents is now much quicker and more intuitive.
The BBC and ITV recently announced Freesat, beginning next year, that will deliver their channels in HD via satellite. Looks like a good solution for those happy to pay a premium for HD.
Personally I believe the government will have to rething their plans to sell the analogue spectrum to mobile phone companies - they over-bid for the 3G licenses and are struggling to turn a profit with that technology; I do not see them keen to buy more bandwidth. But the government will hang on to the dream to the last - they want the money, bad.
As an aside, one downside of the UK's early lead in digital broadcasting is that we got saddled with MPEG2, as MPEG4 wasn't mature at the time the spec was developed.
It's a mixed bag. MS brought us IE 5.x with HttpXmlRequest, but Firefox gave developers a decent javascript IDE to properly utilise it. The end result is AJAX, which I personally like a lot - Google Maps, Gmail, 30Boxes, Flickr etc.
Modern GSM networks use time-division multiplexing to fit dozens of calls into one "channel". The same software that enables this also handles calls which are going to many towers at once with no network issues (e.g. if you're on high ground, in a skyscraper etc.).
To be clear, there are no network issues involved with using a mobile phone at altitude, whether in or on a fixed structure or in an aircraft.
I believe she's out there, somewhere.
Digital material is the easiest to back-up and keep secure.
Did you RTFA at all? It states that the children who do not play sports at school expend energy elsewhere, with the net result that having sport in school or not makes no difference to child obesity. The article does NOT state that playing sport does not use energy.
Wrong. Under Office Actions the Wikimedia Foundation reserves the right to delete edits at the database level - wiping them from existence, not just from public view.
First, how forecasts are generated. All forecasts are a result of numerical weather prediction. There are around a dozen different models in operation around the world, and most of that data is retained by the operators of the models (usually the national forecasting office). However, all data from the US GFS model, operated by the NWS, released as works of the government are public domain.
What all the sites in this sample (bar the BBC) do is take the data files the GFS produces and reprocess them into a webpage. No human is involved at any stage. (The BBC get their data feed from the UK Met Office).
As the models only produce data points for every 40km or so spatially and every three hours temporally all the sites interpolate to some extent to produce a point forecast. The GFS also runs four times a day but these sites might take all four runs or just one a day. Combined, that's why differences between sites exist in these results. Nothing else.
REAL performance statistics are available here and here.
Seriously, do you believe that? Microsoft are not fools and do not try to destroy what makes Windows great. The fact there's a lawsuit also proves nothing. If the litigants win, then it does.
I have two PVRs, one a couple of years old and a second bought just before Christmas. Neither produce a noticeable drop in quality compared to OTA viewing. Furthermore, the older one has a 40 hour capacity and the newer one over 100 - seeing as I use these boxes for timeshifting *not* archiving (I have a DVD-R for that), capacity is not a limitation.
On the matter of direct broadband streaming - maybe one day. It's been a dream for years - I have a New Scientist article discussing a trial of VoD from nearly ten years ago. The simple fact is that to stream HD-quality material in real-time to every house where people are watching TV at the same time would demand servers and bandwidth with many, many times the capacity available today. But who knows, maybe that's what Google will use its new data centres and dark fibre for...
Was there any difference in my Flickr experience after the switch? No.
Vista doesn't allow drive formatting by voice instruction.