It's kinda rude to expect common users to subsidize the gizomos you need (want?) by expecting them to buy stuff they don't need. A computer from ten years ago could do most of the stuff users of today want their computer to do, like writing documents, email, uploading digital camera pics, browse the web (that's only inhibited nowadays by bloated, flash-heavy websites), listening to music, etc. Their computer didn't suddenly "go stale."
While, yes, it is nice that computer hardware has gotten more powerful to support more intensive applications, the parent's point is that we could get the same performance out of the same old hardware through tighter programming, than by using programs that are built with the expectation of "the sky's the limit," and hoping hardware will catch up to it.
It sounds to me like they're modding the America's Army game to make physics simulators for students to try out, and maybe increase their interest in science or engineering. It's probably cheaper for the government to do this than to develop a whole new system that incorporates many of the same features AA already uses. Just because the programs are based off of a popular shooting game doesn't mean 15 year olds are going to be playing military shooters in school (although I'm sure many of them have no qualms over playing Halo, CoD, or Tom Clancy games). Likewise, playing a game based on the Unreal or Source engine doesn't necessarily mean you're playing a FPS.
How about a bird that can be blown to bits (feathers showering down) because it's sitting on a fence and I can do it without PETA coming after me?
I dunno about 4, but that you could shoot as many pigeons as you could see in MGS2. It's not entirely malicious, as you usually do it as revenge after they cause you to plummet to your death.
Back on topic, I agree, as do most players, that games don't have to have cutting-edge graphics to sell well, as long as they have decent game play and story, although it definitely doesn't hurt. Metal Gear Solid games, however, have always presented themselves as a more of a playable movie than as a pure game, and made no apologies about it. Concentrating on the graphics doesn't seem to be an mistake in this situation, given the type of game being made.
It seems to me this was installed so astronauts could enter data/comminucate from anywhere, but my question is, why would they have that need? The ISS is not that a dynamic environment; the labs, command center, bunks, etc. don't change that often.
Any info that would have to be quickly communicated from an arbitrary point on the station ("Oh no, a random piece of equipment is failing!") doesn't seem like the type that is complex enough to require entry into a computer. And any complex data that needed digital storage, like mentioned above, would probably occur in areas already wired for network access, or isn't time-critical enough that it couldn't be uploaded later.
Beyond allowing astronauts to blog/webconference from anywhere they wish, it seems that this "improvement" isn't exactly all that beneficial.
What would be the solution, then? Should Google block IPs originating from Europe? Should it be made a crime to tag any European citizens in your photos? I'm pretty sure many internet users in the west would be miffed if laws from China applied to their software and websites, simply because someone from China could hypothetically access it.
That clause seems like an attribution requirement to me, similar to how the BSD license allows you to do what you want with somebody's work, as long as you credit the contributors. Without the book cover/binding being attached to the book, then it is possible that whomever you give the book to would have no idea who the author or publisher of the book is. Likewise, the copyright clause you posted doesn't care what you do with the book (you can rip off the cover if you wish), as long as you don't distribute it to others without the cover.
It's far from impossible to implement, I just think that most players wouldn't be interested. I mean, mech games from over a decade ago have had individual component damage, so that a lot of hits to your unit's arm would render it unusable/destroyed, but you'd still be able to fight. However, most players don't want to worry about stuff like trying to hide their character's vulnerable side, or using specific healing items for each type of damage they incur. Metal Gear Solid 3 featured this, to a point, wherein there was a specific sequence of items used depending on the injury (bullet wound vs broken bone, etc.) but it felt more like a minigame they tacked on, than a tactically implemented system.
I'm pretty sure many players, myself included, would enjoy a damage system that mapped hits to the exact area where weapons make contact, and would inflect realistic injuries. Armor would then have to be judged based upon the areas of the body it covered, and the materials it consisted of, instead of comparing items for which one has a higher bonus to defense. Many more players, however, seem to not want to worry about micromanaging their character's physiology, and prefer the system of "Use a healing potion/spell when my health gets down to x%."
So, you'd be ok if your town decided to annually fill your house with 1000 times the normal amount of chlorine gas, and you had to wait a month for it to dissipate? I mean, it's only once a year, right?
Maybe I didn't understand the article well enough, but it just seems to me like they're using energy to compress air in caverns during the night, then using that air to make energy production during the day more efficient. Unless they're violating thermodynamics here, the amount of energy gained by using this compressed air system can't be more than the amount of energy used to compress this air into the caverns.
So, is it that only benefit here, cheaper energy costs, comes about because they're buying the energy when it's cheaper, and storing it for use when paying for this energy is more expensive?
While I have tried to use them, many widgets seem to just waste desktop space, and the ones I did find useful, are usually designed for Windows and don't work as well under Linux, despite Opera being cross-platform. I couldn't get the Pandora Radio widget working, for example, due to its reliance on Flash, which, for whatever reason, is much worse than under Windows. Many other widgets, even if they operated correctly, still didn't look right. For example, many of the clock widgets have unusually large borders around them, not integrating well with the window manager.
As much as I like Opera, it seems that the Google Gadgets would work better, simply due to developers being there to concentrate on making it work with Linux.
I really doubt such a system would stop players from loading saved games. While, yeah, obviously you would need an active internet connection to download the data from Steam, the article indicates that the data would still be stored player-side, so there's nothing preventing him or her from saving to/loading from their hard drive. Concerned players could even backup their saves, configs, etc. to a flash drive, if they were planning on playing their games on systems without a guaranteed connection to Valve's servers.
In many ways, Google is much more proprietary than Microsoft is, and they actually used open source software to get there. So unlike Microsoft, which started off proprietary and has gradually been opening its stuff up, Google starts off getting other people's open stuff, turns it proprietary and then makes money off it. It kind of redefines 'pirate.' I think Google is feeling a little bit of the heat because people are starting to focus on that a bit." While I'm pretty sure Google wouldn't be so ignorant as to violate open source licenses for the code they utilize, is there any claim to his "pirate" label, or is he just trying to be inflamitory?
I remember hearing how the US government is able to turn on and use a cellphone's microphone, even if the phone turned off, in order to listen in on the converstations being held by suspected drug trafficers. I can't imagine it being that impossible for the military's intellegence agencies to ascertain a phone's general location. Short of the user removing the battery, or securing the phone in a faraday cage, shuting down the phone towers seems the easiest way to keep everyone's location hidden at night.
I would hope government agencies would be smarter enough than to, and have plans to prevent against, installing P2P applications on their computers. Seeing the reaction of the public to government agents losing laptops containing citizens' valuable personal data, how pleased do you think they would be seeing "Joe Smith's Tax Return.pdf" on Limewire? Most government documents aren't made to be shared amongst a large enough group of people to make P2P usefull in any way. The only acceptible use of P2P in this case would be to use bittorrent to distribute large documents that are intended to be viewed by the public.
The point of Ubuntu is that the user shouldn't be expected to use the terminal or man pages (or even apt-get, for that matter), to do most of the things normal users would want to do. While I'm sure you're fine with compiling a program from source, it'd probably increase exposure of the program, and reduce headaches for users, if they could just click "Install Program x" and be done with it.
I hope they would post the notice, for their own sake. The FCC can levy hefty fines per TV they see without one of the information tags. I imagine a store manager would be more concerned about a $6,000 (if I remember correctly) fine than moving a $700 TV that's on clearance.
5.) The retail stores and TV manufacturers have done poorly in obsoleting the analog TVs they sell. In fact, they have become even more attractive because of their price reduction without any warning that they will be obsolete when the switch is made. I don't know where you've been shopping, but every time I step into an electronics store, I see a notice right next to the price tag of any analog TV. It, in my opinion, accurately and concisely describes the impacts the digital switch will have on the product, so consumers buying these TVs aren't exactly uninformed.
Furthermore, I don't think it's dishonest to be selling these TVs in spite of their obsolescence. Most of the people I know use cable or satellite receivers for their TVs, so they probably won't notice the transition at all.
I think Net10 has phased out the 150 minutes card, and at the very least, i'm sure you had to buy it every 15 days, which is why they were able to offer it at such a low rate. I get you rpoint though. Many prepaid companies have low monthly rates if you rarely use your phone. AT&T and Virgin Mobile have a minimum of about $20 every three months.
Generally, the idea is good, though. I'm honestly surprised that especially MMORPGs don't offer that kind of service, where you can either invest time to get a certain item or simply buy it. Not an MMORPG, but the Worms-esque game Gunbound is like that. It's free to play, and you use gold you earn from battles to purchase items. But if you're lazy, you could also use real-life money to buy the items. Of course, it's Korean, which is probably why it's been so succesful.
I'm frustrated, and partly embarrassed, every time a politician goes on a witch hunt just to garner votes, mostly because our country needs people in office who think of their title as more than just a popularity contest. While its unfortunate Californians are the ones that have to foot the bill for Arnold's political stunt, more and more people will realize the true cost of politicians who pass legislation just for the positive boost it gives their image, and be wiser than to vote for candidates campaigning on moral crusades.
Thanks for that, and it should work, but Gaim still insists on going with FireFox to open my Hotmail account when I get email if FF is installed, regardless of what is set as the default. I suppose it may have been fixed in Pidgin, but I'll just wait until its added to the repository.
I was interested in installing DP when I first learnt about it a couple months ago, but held back on installing it as Ubuntu insisted on installing FireFox along with it, which I assume is what DP used to browse Youtube and whatnot. Installing FF, however, interferes with the browser I normally use. Does Miro change this dependency? If so, I would install it in a snap.
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I don't think people searching on P2P networks for free music are willing to acquire the same music at a higher price.
It's kinda rude to expect common users to subsidize the gizomos you need (want?) by expecting them to buy stuff they don't need. A computer from ten years ago could do most of the stuff users of today want their computer to do, like writing documents, email, uploading digital camera pics, browse the web (that's only inhibited nowadays by bloated, flash-heavy websites), listening to music, etc. Their computer didn't suddenly "go stale." While, yes, it is nice that computer hardware has gotten more powerful to support more intensive applications, the parent's point is that we could get the same performance out of the same old hardware through tighter programming, than by using programs that are built with the expectation of "the sky's the limit," and hoping hardware will catch up to it.
It sounds to me like they're modding the America's Army game to make physics simulators for students to try out, and maybe increase their interest in science or engineering. It's probably cheaper for the government to do this than to develop a whole new system that incorporates many of the same features AA already uses. Just because the programs are based off of a popular shooting game doesn't mean 15 year olds are going to be playing military shooters in school (although I'm sure many of them have no qualms over playing Halo, CoD, or Tom Clancy games). Likewise, playing a game based on the Unreal or Source engine doesn't necessarily mean you're playing a FPS.
How about a bird that can be blown to bits (feathers showering down) because it's sitting on a fence and I can do it without PETA coming after me?
I dunno about 4, but that you could shoot as many pigeons as you could see in MGS2. It's not entirely malicious, as you usually do it as revenge after they cause you to plummet to your death. Back on topic, I agree, as do most players, that games don't have to have cutting-edge graphics to sell well, as long as they have decent game play and story, although it definitely doesn't hurt. Metal Gear Solid games, however, have always presented themselves as a more of a playable movie than as a pure game, and made no apologies about it. Concentrating on the graphics doesn't seem to be an mistake in this situation, given the type of game being made.
It seems to me this was installed so astronauts could enter data/comminucate from anywhere, but my question is, why would they have that need? The ISS is not that a dynamic environment; the labs, command center, bunks, etc. don't change that often.
Any info that would have to be quickly communicated from an arbitrary point on the station ("Oh no, a random piece of equipment is failing!") doesn't seem like the type that is complex enough to require entry into a computer. And any complex data that needed digital storage, like mentioned above, would probably occur in areas already wired for network access, or isn't time-critical enough that it couldn't be uploaded later.
Beyond allowing astronauts to blog/webconference from anywhere they wish, it seems that this "improvement" isn't exactly all that beneficial.
What would be the solution, then? Should Google block IPs originating from Europe? Should it be made a crime to tag any European citizens in your photos? I'm pretty sure many internet users in the west would be miffed if laws from China applied to their software and websites, simply because someone from China could hypothetically access it.
Opera has had Right-Click>Block Ad for quite some time. Admitidly, it doesn't have built-in support for adblocking lists, like IE8 and FF plugins do.
That clause seems like an attribution requirement to me, similar to how the BSD license allows you to do what you want with somebody's work, as long as you credit the contributors. Without the book cover/binding being attached to the book, then it is possible that whomever you give the book to would have no idea who the author or publisher of the book is. Likewise, the copyright clause you posted doesn't care what you do with the book (you can rip off the cover if you wish), as long as you don't distribute it to others without the cover.
It's far from impossible to implement, I just think that most players wouldn't be interested. I mean, mech games from over a decade ago have had individual component damage, so that a lot of hits to your unit's arm would render it unusable/destroyed, but you'd still be able to fight. However, most players don't want to worry about stuff like trying to hide their character's vulnerable side, or using specific healing items for each type of damage they incur. Metal Gear Solid 3 featured this, to a point, wherein there was a specific sequence of items used depending on the injury (bullet wound vs broken bone, etc.) but it felt more like a minigame they tacked on, than a tactically implemented system. I'm pretty sure many players, myself included, would enjoy a damage system that mapped hits to the exact area where weapons make contact, and would inflect realistic injuries. Armor would then have to be judged based upon the areas of the body it covered, and the materials it consisted of, instead of comparing items for which one has a higher bonus to defense. Many more players, however, seem to not want to worry about micromanaging their character's physiology, and prefer the system of "Use a healing potion/spell when my health gets down to x%."
So, you'd be ok if your town decided to annually fill your house with 1000 times the normal amount of chlorine gas, and you had to wait a month for it to dissipate? I mean, it's only once a year, right?
Maybe I didn't understand the article well enough, but it just seems to me like they're using energy to compress air in caverns during the night, then using that air to make energy production during the day more efficient. Unless they're violating thermodynamics here, the amount of energy gained by using this compressed air system can't be more than the amount of energy used to compress this air into the caverns.
So, is it that only benefit here, cheaper energy costs, comes about because they're buying the energy when it's cheaper, and storing it for use when paying for this energy is more expensive?
While I have tried to use them, many widgets seem to just waste desktop space, and the ones I did find useful, are usually designed for Windows and don't work as well under Linux, despite Opera being cross-platform. I couldn't get the Pandora Radio widget working, for example, due to its reliance on Flash, which, for whatever reason, is much worse than under Windows. Many other widgets, even if they operated correctly, still didn't look right. For example, many of the clock widgets have unusually large borders around them, not integrating well with the window manager. As much as I like Opera, it seems that the Google Gadgets would work better, simply due to developers being there to concentrate on making it work with Linux.
I really doubt such a system would stop players from loading saved games. While, yeah, obviously you would need an active internet connection to download the data from Steam, the article indicates that the data would still be stored player-side, so there's nothing preventing him or her from saving to/loading from their hard drive. Concerned players could even backup their saves, configs, etc. to a flash drive, if they were planning on playing their games on systems without a guaranteed connection to Valve's servers.
I remember hearing how the US government is able to turn on and use a cellphone's microphone, even if the phone turned off, in order to listen in on the converstations being held by suspected drug trafficers. I can't imagine it being that impossible for the military's intellegence agencies to ascertain a phone's general location. Short of the user removing the battery, or securing the phone in a faraday cage, shuting down the phone towers seems the easiest way to keep everyone's location hidden at night.
I would hope government agencies would be smarter enough than to, and have plans to prevent against, installing P2P applications on their computers. Seeing the reaction of the public to government agents losing laptops containing citizens' valuable personal data, how pleased do you think they would be seeing "Joe Smith's Tax Return.pdf" on Limewire? Most government documents aren't made to be shared amongst a large enough group of people to make P2P usefull in any way. The only acceptible use of P2P in this case would be to use bittorrent to distribute large documents that are intended to be viewed by the public.
The point of Ubuntu is that the user shouldn't be expected to use the terminal or man pages (or even apt-get, for that matter), to do most of the things normal users would want to do. While I'm sure you're fine with compiling a program from source, it'd probably increase exposure of the program, and reduce headaches for users, if they could just click "Install Program x" and be done with it.
I hope they would post the notice, for their own sake. The FCC can levy hefty fines per TV they see without one of the information tags. I imagine a store manager would be more concerned about a $6,000 (if I remember correctly) fine than moving a $700 TV that's on clearance.
I don't know where you've been shopping, but every time I step into an electronics store, I see a notice right next to the price tag of any analog TV. It, in my opinion, accurately and concisely describes the impacts the digital switch will have on the product, so consumers buying these TVs aren't exactly uninformed.
Furthermore, I don't think it's dishonest to be selling these TVs in spite of their obsolescence. Most of the people I know use cable or satellite receivers for their TVs, so they probably won't notice the transition at all.
I think Net10 has phased out the 150 minutes card, and at the very least, i'm sure you had to buy it every 15 days, which is why they were able to offer it at such a low rate. I get you rpoint though. Many prepaid companies have low monthly rates if you rarely use your phone. AT&T and Virgin Mobile have a minimum of about $20 every three months.
I'm frustrated, and partly embarrassed, every time a politician goes on a witch hunt just to garner votes, mostly because our country needs people in office who think of their title as more than just a popularity contest. While its unfortunate Californians are the ones that have to foot the bill for Arnold's political stunt, more and more people will realize the true cost of politicians who pass legislation just for the positive boost it gives their image, and be wiser than to vote for candidates campaigning on moral crusades.
Thanks for that, and it should work, but Gaim still insists on going with FireFox to open my Hotmail account when I get email if FF is installed, regardless of what is set as the default. I suppose it may have been fixed in Pidgin, but I'll just wait until its added to the repository.
I was interested in installing DP when I first learnt about it a couple months ago, but held back on installing it as Ubuntu insisted on installing FireFox along with it, which I assume is what DP used to browse Youtube and whatnot. Installing FF, however, interferes with the browser I normally use. Does Miro change this dependency? If so, I would install it in a snap.
What's stopping them from using "GameBoy" on their next handheld? They don't have to call it the DS 2, do they?